#the Ancient Sins tag is going to all be shit that I want to move out of more general tags like music or fanfic

[amplexadversary]

Okay more tag housekeeping. My re-organization project has fallen off but this might help me get it back on track

Critical Role: Tags standardized, record here next time I get a chance; CR [character first name], Keyleth, Mollymauk, Laudna, CR Guests, CR NPCs, CR Briarwoods, [whatever Cass and Kaylie's tags are], CR Setting, [however I did the cast members]

(ugghhhhhhhh wtf did I do for CR Specials? One post is going to have that until I FUCKIGN RECORD IT MORGAN AUGH)

Legend of Zelda: Standardized, record here next chance

Undertale: Standardized, record here next chance

Partial work done:

Ace Attorney: iconic names or ones that are unlikely to conflict are tagged [First Name] [Last name]. Names that someone could conceivably have, or are long are AA: [name]

This is just going to need a bank of examples I will not be able to come up with a consistent scheme for this work. AA: Apollo Justice,

Doctor Who: Doctors are their number spelled out (eg. Ten). Companions are "DW [name]." "non-linear" doctors get special tags (Ten2, War Dcotor, Forkteen)(get it? a fork of fourteen?). Monsters that are pretty unique are taggd with their name, and ones that could be confusing are "DW [monster]" (eg. "DW Cybermen")

Flight Rising: FR Dragons (for official site stuff), FR Familiars, FRDFA (Flight Rising Dragon Fanart), FR Wishlists (people posting about stuff they'd like), FR Lore, Fan Breeds, Fandragons, Morg's FRblogging (me stuff), Morg's Fandragons

Gundams:

-G Gundam: tags standardized, record here next chance

-IBO: We'll see.

-Turn A Gundam: TAG [character first name], TAG Diana & Kihel (they have to share sorry), TAG Harry Ord, Turn A (the machine), Turn X

-Gundam X: GX [name]

-UC Gundam: A mess. Needs help. Mostly going to be UC [specific thing], [name of mech], and occasionally the show [Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Gundam CCA, however I decide to format the original, etc]

-GWitch: GW [element]. No space because this show's search results keep leaking into G Gundam's

Pokemon: [individual pokemon names, as many as I care to do, starting with the most in-focus] [RGBY GSC RSE FRLG ColiXD DPPt HGSS BW (?) XY ORAS SMoon SwSh ScarVy] [PT [character name]] [region name] Pokemon AU,

Not Started: Ace Attorney: Assorted Ace Attorney, DGS, Assorted DGS,

Fullmetal Alchemist:

Pokemon: the biggest fustercluck of them all.

Sailor Moon:

Soul Eater:

Star Trek:

Zero Escape:

So many more.

I also need to start on my Ancient Sins tag but that is probably last priority after I figure out everything else.

[hipsterpotomu5]

WIP Folder

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips.  I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

jesus christ ok so @acewizard tagged me in this WIP thing boy hey Ren do you love the color of the sky? well here we go i guess and im even so nice im labeling them

Apex Legends Strange Addiction au where they’re all professional wrestlers??

Assassins Creed plot ideas :3 Eivor and Kass

Untitled document (space themed ttrpg campaign)

Critical Role Beau and Molly go wine shopping beau and yasha fight molly and yasha werewolf keyleth and monster hunter vex

Cyberpunk 2077 V preps to leave with aldecaldos V makes a concert scroll for Judy V develops cyberpsychosis

dnd campaigns ancient being oneshot big city Cosmic Collapse deep sea stuff Dragon Heist Escort short campaign goofy shit Gwynnyth Pirates Planescape Rod of Seven Parts Star Spawn oneshot the disco elysium inspired world Uprising

HFY Crash Landing Dropping the Bombs haha depression but in space Homesick The Goddamned Power Button watching the waves break

Horizon Zero Dawn idea HZD Where the Wild Things Are

Little Witch Academy what if Chariot didnt forgive Croix right away and it was super angsty for absolutley no reason

My original ideas Hedge and Wick pirate captain story idea overall story ideaaaaa Totally evil idea (not evil at all >:( stop lying, past me) untitled document vampire story idea Healing Running ffrom guards G and T1 G and T G and T idea The Birds

Overwatch god help  me trying to type all these out. why am i doing this to myself. ren why have you inflicted this on me pharah and mercy bonnie and clyde something about healing Sundaes/sundays the one where reaper saves pharah Within these walls zombie shit And Yes, We Can Keep Living Like This I Learned To Lie Dying to Live angsty pharmercy Sin on a Silver Platter untitled document (Couldnt) put me back Together Again Heart’s A Mess Safeties Off You Liar See the World pokemon au Shipwreck deserted island au there were like, honest to go 50 more docs that each had like a 1 sentence idea in them, jesus, i cant list them all i cant do it im moving on

Pokemon ______ region (at the beginnning of the year i got hyperfixated on making a pokemon romhack with my own custom region. yea that didnt go anywhere lol) The Last of Us college au Where the Light Is

good god, thats all of it. that doesnt count the at least 75-100 one sentence docs i have in there, and it doesnt count my “ideas” docs for some like overwatch and my non fandom writing, which probably combined have over 100 more ideas/paragraphs/chapters anyway. im not tagging anyone but if u follow me and you want to bare your soul to the world, feel free lol

[chews-erotically]

Waxing Gibbous 

Pairing: Ezra + femNurse! Reader

Rating: Hard M / 18+ ONLY

       * Warnings: Assault/violence/ mentions of masturbation/ blood/ gore/ comfort/ injury

      * Summary: In the field, you are found. Ezra reveals his duality.

      * Word Count: 1611

      * I cannot begin to thank all of you enough for reading this. It means absolutely everything in the entire universe. For the first time in so very long I feel as though I’m doing something that makes me happy. I love you!! 

 PART THREE

     “Shit!”

    Acrid steam poured from the ruined sac before you. Unsure of how you could be so adept at harvesting while practicing in the tent, yet so clumsy in the actual field, you stood and stretched your back. It was unbearably hot today; your suit was clinging to your skin like cling film. It was stifling and you were tired.

    Ezra was soon to return with replenished water bottles, you supposed, having trekked south of you to a stream you’d come across a few days prior. You estimated he’d been gone around twenty minutes.

    Since the events with the Sater had transpired the tension between you had seemed to grow exponentially. You’d found yourself idling on Ezra’s face more than you cared to admit to yourself. You’d unintentionally begun cataloguing the nuances of movement contained in his hands, the reactions on his expressive face to the things you said. More often now, you took note of that dark intensity returning to flash across his features when he thought you weren’t looking. This did not scare you; rather, it left your skin feeling too tight for your body, your core aching and burning until you had no choice but to shut yourself in the refresher and furiously bring yourself off, biting at your sleeve to muffle your guttural scream when you came seizing and shaking on your fingers. Something you’d once thought shameful now left you somehow ravenous. When you’d re-entered the common space of the tent you’d done nothing to hide the flush in your face or mussed hair. You’d shot Ezra a wide smile as he’d quirked his brow, his expression otherwise unreadable. You’d exited the tent as you felt suddenly faint- is this who you were now? Ezra made you feel wild and alive, like you had finally managed to snap out of a trance. Or wake up from an unending, uninspired dream of safe decisions and mediocrity.

    You mused on this in your suit on the Green, the suit still bearing faint tepid stains from your original sin. You were not paying attention, having almost certainly made up your mind to make Ezra aware of your feelings when you returned from the day’s work.

    Thus, you were doubly taken aback when the stone connected with the side of your helmet. With a dull cracking noise you fell to the dust. Your head ricocheted against the interior of your dome. Your ears rang; you tasted blood. How did you get here?

    A steel-toed boot connected with your ribs, forcing the air from your lungs. You gasped, you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force air in. Pain exploded once again, exquisite in its intensity. A cracking sound- bone or helmet? You curled in on yourself, stunned, trying to process what this was that was happening to you. 

    Get. Up.

    Part of you wanted this whole farce to be over. The Green, the tent, this unseen assailant. Just end it. If this is how it’s supposed to happen, who are you to challenge fate? You could only hope for quickness, the pain is too much, this life is too much, you are a fool, how could you even consider someone like Ezra could want you. You are a weak, sniveling, invisible slug. You are going to die. You will rot and fester and become toxic, like the air on this cursed moon. Unknown and forgotten.

    Get. Up.

    Another kick, this time to your kidney. This time you found your air, cried out. It was weak, pathetic. You noted the mist of blood across the window of your helmet, so similar to before, except this time it was on the inside. It was yours. It caused a switch to flip on in you, sudden panic blooming in your chest. All at once your body called back to its evolutionary directive to survive. 

    It took everything within you to move. Blinding pain behind your eyes like needles as you rolled onto your front, then onto your knees. Your stomach roiled- you swallowed bile as you craned your head upward to finally view your assailant.

    It was the Sater. Of course. The dose of sedative you’d shot into his thigh had not been enough to kill him, merely incapacitate him long enough for you to escape with the precious med kit. He had recovered and now he had found you, and he was going to kill you. This so perfectly encapsulated life on the Green that you could have laughed. It was almost poetic.

    You could not hear his words, but you could see his sneer. He cocked his leg back to land another blow to you as you squeezed your eyes shut and waited. The blow did not come.

    Instead, you heard the sound of bodies connecting, and an unearthly snarl.

    Ezra.

    You opened your eyes and Ezra was upon him, a frenzy of fists landing over and over wherever he could reach. The Sater was overcome, had no time to react. The sounds that escaped Ezra’s mouth through your connected channel were almost inhuman in their ferocity.

You watched through the pain of each shuddering breath as he yanked the air hose from the Sater’s helmet, then grasped wildly at the connecting clasps of the helmet. Finding the seal, he pried frantically, finally freeing the dome and exposing the Sater’s face to the atmosphere. His fists connected with whatever was revealed, ruining and rupturing. 

    You had known that Ezra had sometimes had to be brutal in order to survive here. You knew that you had had to do the same. But seeing him like this, the unleashed rabidity of his rage unleashed on another was almost too much. As Ezra exhausted himself upon the Sater’s demolished face you found yourself having to turn away. The blows finally slowed in frequency and intensity when it became increasingly apparent that the Sater was no longer breathing.

    Ezra stood and gazed down at the body of the Sater, his lip curled. He turned to you, to where you knelt in the dust, and his expression melted into a mask of pain. It was almost as if the Sater had been pummeling him. You blinked and then he was beside you, his hands were on you, so unbelievably gentle as he swept up your stomach, moved carefully across your shoulders and down your arms. You met his gaze, mortally exhausted, and thought that perhaps you could still die here. Your ears rang and your head throbbed. Your stomach and chest ached, and you wondered from a faraway place if you could be bleeding internally.

    Ezra was crying, his eyes were red and swollen. He must have been crying while he killed.

    Through the beating static in your brain, you heard his voice asking if you thought you could stand. 

    You had tried, but a wave of nausea and vertigo had you swooning back toward the ground almost immediately. Ezra caught you and held you close against the breast of his suit until you felt a bit steadied. His heart thrummed wildly in his chest, and it served to center you.

    “We have only to trek back to the tent, sweet Dove. I will carry you if need be, but we cannot negotiate an alternative option.” Your nod was almost imperceptible, and you began a stumbling, shambling walk back to your tent. Ezra kept his arm close around your waist and draped your own limb across his shoulders. When you finally entered the interior he assisted you onto your cot. He helped to divest you of your helmet and suit before hastily removing his own, his eyes never leaving yours. Each wince of pain was answered by his own sympathetic sounds and mumbled apologies.

    “I am so sorry, sweet girl. My Dove, my Star...I will spend the rest of my life and whatever is beyond making it up to you….”

    You were too sore and numb to be embarrassed as he undressed you, carefully inspecting every inch of your skin before covering you back up. He carefully cleaned the dried blood from your nose and mouth, pausing briefly to cradle your face in his large, warm hands. He rested his forehead against yours before placing the ghost of a kiss at your hairline.

    You knew you were concussed, and so Ezra kept you awake. Kneeling on the floor He used dulcet tones and soft inflections to keep you engaged. He told you what he knew of the ancient Greek myths and incestuous dealings between gods and men. He expounded on the constellations and how the old prospectors would time their harvests according to the position of the stars in the sky. He told you of his childhood home on Earth and growing up in a poor parish in Louisiana. He talked about his only sibling, his older brother Isaiah, who he’d worshipped and followed blindly into the realm of prospecting before drink and women left him dead in some back-planet alleyway, robbed and stabbed.

    Finally you begged in mumbling tones to sleep, your eyes weighed down and feeling full of sand. Ezra acquiesced, but not before pulling his cot to join with yours. He lay on his side next to you, grasping your hand carefully as if it were glass. He moved his thumb over your skin in circles that soothed you as your eyes closed and eased you into dreamless slumber while Ezra’s deep, even breathing anchored you to his side.

Tags: @yespolkadotkitty, @rzrcrst, @mrpascals, @cyaredindjarin, @ifimayhaveaword, @lackofhonor, @giselatropicana

[littleredwritinghoodxx]

#thirsty-and-in-denial-Zelda

Thank you @intangiblyyourswrites for the writing challenge.

Prompt:

The real reason Zelda initially shows such a abhorrence to Link is because she’s secretly heads-over-heels for him and refuses to show it. Her pride is on the line, after all.

Rules:

Must be set in the BotW timeline

When it’s set is up to you (e.g. Pre-Calamity or post, pre-Blades of the Yiga or post)

No chronology enforced, but I’m interested to see if we can get a somewhat coherent story out of this!

You may do however many posts/drabbles you’d like

Tag #thirsty-and-in-denial-Zelda so we can find your story!

This is set up pre Zelda’s Resentment, and lemme tell you, she is quite resentful.

Also... this is the most sinful thing I have ever written. Like, ye have been warned. This is rated M shit. And by shit, I mean smut. It’s low key smut.

Thank you @bhujerbanwrites for looking this over for me!

I’ve never written smut before.

Dear lord, please be merciful on me.

Alas: I’m not even sorry.

Please enjoy... The Tip of his Sword

There are rumors floating about the castle: rumors that Princess Zelda is head-over-heels for her appointed knight.

But of course she isn’t. She is the Crown Princess of Hyrule. It would be unseemly for her to think about her knight attendant in that way.

Indeed, it would be uncouth for her to think about the way his hands rest upon her hips, large and rough and hot, adjusting her stance during archery practice. It would be improper for her to think about his sharp gaze, those blue irises piercing straight through her, turning her legs to jelly and rendering her utterly useless.

It would be inappropriate for her to think about him pushing her roughly against her desk in her tower, knocking over all of her books and tomes on the Ancient Sheikah – priceless first editions, how dare he – as his hands grasp her hips, her thighs, her breasts. Absolutely unbecoming for her to imagine him trailing hot kisses from the curve of her jaw, all the way down, down, down the column of her neck, as his fingers trail across her skin like a serpent, sliding closer and closer –

Nope. She most certainly is not head-over-heels for Link.

Erhm… her appointed knight.

She turns over in bed and screams into her pillow, the sound muffled as she tries to clear her mind of him. He is always there, the insufferable thing. How dare he. She has much more important things to focus on, like unlocking her Sacred Powers – which, mind you, she is doing her very best at, thank you very much – or discovering more secrets that the Ancient Sheikah left behind in the wake of the prophecy.

She doesn’t have the time to be thinking about her knight stripping her down to her socks, pinning her to the wall – with his one hand tangled in her hair, the other touching her there, smirking against her ear as he whispers uncouth things to her, pushing into her from behind –

Nope. Definitely not head-over-heels for her knight.

She clearly isn’t going to get any sleep that night, and so she whips the covers off of her and swings her legs over the side of her bed, wincing as her warm feet hit cold, unforgiving stone. She fetches her robe from the bedpost, tying the thin, silk tie at the front and steps barefoot across her room.

A warm breeze drifts in from her open windows. Summer is in full swing, and it is no secret that it is one of Zelda’s favorite seasons. The warmer months mean freedom: it means adventures into the wild to study the fauna, expeditions with Purah and Robbie to some Ancient Sheikah excavation. Her father doesn’t approve, but he knows that mother would have said yes, and thus he doesn’t protest.

Guards patrol the courtyard beneath her balcony and bridge to her tower. Rather than being seen and causing even more rumors to float about the castle, Zelda sticks to the shadows. Summers spent with the Sheikah do wonders for her now, as she disappears in plain sight. Perhaps that had been a mistake for her father to send her away in the years following her mother’s death. Impa had been reluctant to guide her in the ways of the Sheikah, but where Impa was hesitant, Purah was awfully enthusiastic.

She makes it across the bridge, with the door to her study shutting with an inaudible click. Here, she lights a candle, her study awash with the flickering flame licking shadows up and down her body. She sits down in her worn out chair, her fingers trailing her notes from where she last left off.

Ah, yes. Academics. This was the one thing that her appointed knight absolutely could not touch – oh, how she desperately aches for his touch. She and Purah had last been studying the ancient shrines off in the Tabantha region. From their most recent research, they concluded that the shrines were meant to be accessed by the Sword’s chosen one.

And the Sword… had chosen him.

Not to be dramatic, but what in Nayru’s name was the Goddess Hylia thinking in choosing him? Everything came so naturally to him: his ability with the sword, his speed and strength, his stunning good looks… He hardly has to work for his success, and yet Zelda is stuck trying day in and day out to unlock a sacred power that she is starting to believe she didn’t inherit.

She sighs, tilting her head back on her chair. Ever since her father had appointed him as her knight, she hardly ever got a moment to herself. These days, field expeditions with the Sheikah included her, Purah, Robbie… and Link.

He really couldn’t take a hint, it seemed. Try as she might to make him feel unwelcome, there he was, always three steps behind her or standing just beyond their excavation, the tip of his sword digging into the ground as he looked coolly beyond.

Indeed, she has some better uses for the tip of his sword.

She sighs, her eyes drifting closed as her legs part just enough. She can think of some ways he might better utilize it. He might lift her so her ass is on her desk, her legs parted as he steps forward. Her legs would wrap around his hips as he presses his lips to hers, kissing her filthily, all tongue and teeth. He would slowly push into her, hissing into her shoulder while she suppresses her moan. They can’t have the castle hear them, now can they? Her pride is on the line, after all.

She might shove him down onto her bed – a place she’s told no place but her husband should lie – and straddle his hips, grinding hers in perfect, languid circles before finally – slowly – sinking down onto him, biting her lip as she watches his usually stoic facade crumble.

He might adjust the rotations of the Royal Guard – he is the Captain, after all – so that her bridge and the courtyard below are deserted in some part of the night. Then, with not a soul in sight, he would brace her against the railing of the bridge, fucking her senseless as she muffles her moans, his fingers digging crescent shape marks into her hips where only she would see –

She comes quickly – fingers moving desperately within her and practiced against her clit. She tilts back in her chair slightly, riding out the orgasm as a small moan escapes from her lips.

She tilts back in her chair too far.

She comes down from her orgasm as she comes down with a crash, a loud yelp escaping her lips as she rolls to soften the fall. She lays there, underwear tangled around her ankles as she breathes heavily, the sweet cerulean of the moon reflected on her stone bridge being replaced with the soft flicker of the candlelight.

Then: commotion.

“Princess?”

The voice is closer than she would have liked, and even more horrifying: it’s his. She stumbles to her feet, her eyes wild as she yanks her underwear up wobbling legs. Hastily, she wipes her fingers along the side of her nightgown, before running them through her hair, trying to make herself not look so… so…

Disheveled.

She hears footsteps on the bridge – running, she can tell. She hasn’t responded, and she knows that he has assumed the worst. Princesses only don’t respond when they’ve been captured or otherwise compromised.

Because apparently, just trying to work through her own frustration with her disgustingly perfect knight isn’t a good enough reason.

She is frantically replacing her chair on its legs and smoothing out her nightgown when –

The door to her study is whipped open. He stands there, his eyes dangerous and his sword unsheathed – stop thinking about his unsheathed sword.  She stands there, trying and failing to control her panting, wide-eyed and guilty as fuck – don’t think about that, you terrible, foolish girl.

It’s him, because of course it’s him, it’s always him. He now looks relieved to see her – she’s safe, there’s no threat – but then those eyes squint in suspicion. She had yelled out but she was safe. So then, why?

Then, his nose crinkles.

And Zelda wants to drown herself in the castle moat.

Zelda speaks first and it’s more of a babble, “What in Hylia’s name are you doing here? I can’t get some late night studying in without being barged in by my knight? I’m not a child.”

“I heard you yell out and then a crash. I only came to make sure you were alright,” his voice is calm and leveled and she has to fight against her instinct to get lost in it.

“I toppled out of my chair while looking over the ancient Sheikah shrines in the Tabantha region,” She does not need to explain herself and yet here she is, chattering away at something his peanut sized brain couldn’t hope to comprehend, “As you can see, I am perfectly fine.”

He seems distracted, now that there’s no immediate threat. It’s odd, considering he is never distracted. His eyes dart around the small study, looking everywhere and anywhere except at her. Slowly, he sheaths his sword, and the moment stretches out, the only sound between them the grind of his sword against his scabbard.

She tries not to think about that too hard.

“I can see that.”

Oh?

“Then why are you still here?”

That reaction was uncalled for and she knows it, but she’s strung up and panicking and sweet Nayru just take her soul now.

Link blinks and he takes a step back. She can hear the gears shifting in his head. She hates how methodical he is, hates how thoughtful and polite he is.

She wants to make it perfectly clear that she cannot stand her gorgeous appointed knight.

“I apologize, Princess,” he murmurs, his eyes finally reaching hers. His sharp, blue eyes still her and she thinks that she can scarcely breathe. How dare he, “Do you require any further assistance?”

She would be lying if she said she doesn’t.

Instead, she draws upon her wrath, “I beg your pardon?”

“I can call on your maids to draw up a bath,” Link says, quickly, and though it’s dark, she swears she can see a distinct flush upon his cheeks, “Or call upon the kitchens to send something up to help you sleep.”

Sleep. Goddesses know she is the furthest thing away from sleep.

“That won’t be necessary,” she whispers, hoping that the venom on her tongue will hold his tongue. Oh – the things that man could do with his tongue.

Hylia preserve her.

“You’re dismissed, Sir Link,” she manages to say.

She walks past him, back across the bridge, specifically averting her gaze from the railing of the bridge, facing a perfectly full moon.

“As you command, my Princess,” he whispers, and she wants to scream.

She hates him so very much.

[consumedkings-archive]

ancient names, pt. xxi

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xxi: what went we

Masterlink Post

Word Count: 15.3k

Rating: Explicit: sexual content ahead.

Warnings: mentions of self-harm, some slight gore/blood (it's very mild), the aforementioned sexually explicit content.

Notes: Hi guys. I don't really know where to begin this post, because I am incredibly emotional. It feels so very fitting and special to me that I am bringing in the last chapter of Ancient Names just as 2021 rolls in, and so yes, I AM crying, yes, this WILL be an exceptionally sappy notes section, and yes, this is going to be all about you!

There are so many people that are in part responsible for this fic actually getting finished and put out where the world can see it. @empirics, whose unending support even when she doesn't even GO here and cheerleading me through writing sprints; @lilwritingraven, who is so sweet, so supportive, so incredible and just an overall gigantic sweetheart; @faithchel, whose tags are incredible and always just give me LIFE, I love that our girls be out here really feral like that; @shallow-gravy, who not only lends me her eyeballs but also lets me complain and whine, send her memes nonstop, and participates in my very elaborate fantasies of Elliot and Diana living out their lives as dog moms on a farm (and sometimes in our unholy OT3); @baeogorath, also an eyeball-lender, also incredibly sweet, ALSO lets me send them memes, and does so good in talking me down from my adrenaline anxiety pre-posting and post-posting, was the first person to welcome me into this fandom and is also just a dear, dear friend who happens to be incredibly talented. And, of course, @starcrier. As always, this would have never ever ever been possible without you, not even a little bit, not even at all. From the bottom of my heart, to every single one of you, and the people who have left kudos, have left comments: thank you thank you thank you, from the absolute bottom of my heart. Here is ALL my love, just for you!

The emotional journey of writing this fic has been an incredible one. And a taxing one. Elliot is a character near and dear to my heart for many reasons; I pour so much of my heart into her, so when I hear people say that they love her, and love this journey, and love these things that I've created and written, I mean it when I say that it makes my whole entire day. It means so much to me. Thank you.

In the essence of time, I will not go through all of the feelings that are in my brain right now because there are SO many and I am already crying lol. Please just know you have made the experience of joining a new fandom, and writing in it, so incredible!

There is going to be an epilogue following this chapter, and then I'm going to take a short break and start in on a sequel fic, tentatively titled Witching Hour. Please feel free to hang out/chat w me/plague me with your thoughts at any time of the day; I would love to visit with all of y’all!

John was lying to her.

Or, at the very least, he was withholding information from her, which was just about as bad as lying, Elliot thought. She didn’t know what exactly he wasn’t forthcoming about—but did it matter, at this point? She could tell he was lying; he’d been all kinds of ready to leave and go and get out of Hope County, and now he was scrounging up some kind of ass-pull reason for them to stay. So did it matter? Did the distinction count?

Yes, she thought absently, as John’s fingers traced slow, lazy circles along the small of her back. Yes, I have to know what he’s lying to me about.

“Good morning,” John murmured against her neck. “How did you sleep?”

It had been three days since her baptism-gone-awry, three days of Burke occupying the bunkhouse she had been in while she had wordlessly moved into John’s space, three days of avoiding eye contact with the marshal and deferring questions about him. I don’t know, I really only knew him for a day, she’d say when John asked, or does it matter if I told him? He wouldn’t get it, the unspoken words being ‘not like you do’. She hoped, anyway.

Three days of trying to figure out what it was John wasn’t telling her.

“Like shit,” she replied tiredly as his mouth trailed along the curve of her shoulderblade. The pressure of his fingers against her sternum had her rolling onto her back to look up at him; his gaze swept over the exposed skin.

“Bruising’s clearing up,” he said, his voice low and rough from sleep. But he didn’t elaborate; he didn’t say, should we reveal your sin today, my love? the way that she thought he would try. It felt as though the gears in her head were still sluggishly turning, trying to piece together the entire picture of what was going on, a picture that she felt like John didn’t want her to see.

She knew exactly how it would go if she asked. What’s the game? she’d say, and John would look at her with those eyes, and lean in to kiss her, and he’d say, no game, hellcat, and she’d have to believe him because she didn’t have any empirical evidence that he was lying to her. Just a feeling, deep in her gut, twisting and wrenching.

It made it worse to know that John was looking at her with adoration.

Trailing a lazy circle below her collarbone with his fingertips, John asked, “Do you want to do it today?” and she stifled a sigh.

“I don’t know yet, about staying,” she replied, even though she did know: she wouldn’t. She would die before she crawled into a stupid fucking bunker at the behest of Joseph Seed. “I want to wait.”

John’s eyes flickered a little at her words, but he nodded. Elliot reached up, catching her hand with his and skimming the pads of her thumbs along his palm. The words sat there on the tip of her tongue: what aren’t you telling me? Why can’t you just tell me? Haven’t we been through enough, the two of us?

“Your heartline,” Elliot said instead, forcing her voice into playfulness because she couldn’t stop thinking about how Burke had told her to carry on as she had been. “Have you ever had your palm read?”

“No,” he answered amusedly, letting her nail skim along the curve of the line on his palm. “Are you an expert in palmistry?”

“My mama used to entertain tarot cards and palm readers with her ladies,” she replied. “So I listened in a lot. I suppose it isn’t very Godly to have your palm read.”

“It isn’t.” John’s eyes glittered. “But go ahead and tell me what mine says.”

She shifted a little against the pillows. On the floor by her side of the bed, Boomer let out a long, suffering sigh—like he was tired of listening to this flirtation already. For a small second in time, that feeling of peace swept over her, and she let herself bask in it. Elliot thought that she deserved that much at least.

“Your heartline shows your personality, and your quality of love,” she explained, skimming her finger along his heartline. “Yours comes all the way over, see? All the way across your palm.”

“Is that good?”

“Very,” Elliot said somberly. “It shows you have an abundance of love, and high expectations.”

John worked his jaw a little, clearly trying not to smile like he was proud of himself—like he had any control over the lines of his palm and how they worked. “I could have told you that.”

“And it curves upward,” she continued. “Which means you have great verbal dexterity.”

“I could have also told you that.”

“Undoubtedly,” she deadpanned. “Are you going to let me finish my reading?”

He flashed his teeth at her in a grin. “Please,” he said, “continue.”

Elliot clicked her tongue, turning her attention back to his hand. Inspecting for a moment, she said, “You have a upward split here, you see? That means you’re willing to sacrifice a lot for love.”

John rumbled his agreement at the statement and leaned down, kissing her shoulder.

“And these little forks here,” she added, pressing her thumb against them, “indicates a dispute on marriage.” Her eyes lifted to his, playful. “Are you intending on marrying, John? Palm says that’s a bad idea.”

For a second, John stared at her—his eyes fluttered, and he looked like he was collecting himself. Elliot sat up a little, frowning, but when she did it seemed to trigger whatever it was that was needed for him to come back to being present. Interlacing their fingers together, he pulled her forward and kissed her; and kissed her, and kissed her, until her lungs ached and she thought she was getting dizzy from not being able to take a full breath. His free hand slid down between her legs; when her lips parted to allow her to whimper, John’s teeth caught her lower lip with bruising force.

Already, heat was pooling in the pit of her stomach. Already, she could feel those telltale signs of desire, the way that John inspired it in her with just a few simple gestures.

“Want you,” John said against her mouth, guiding her onto him, settling her on his lap. Something was wrong, something she’d said had struck a strange nerve in him; but undeniably, it felt good, that his hands were trembling whenever his grip on her lessened a little. It felt good, because it felt like he needed her.

“Reading my palm is a cute trick, but—”

“How badly?” Elliot asked, before she could stop herself. John’s eyes, dark with want, raked over her as the sheets bunched at her hips. When she rocked her hips against his inquisitively, a low, strangled noise came out of him. “How badly do you want me?”

“You’re—in a mood,” John managed out. He opened his mouth to keep talking—something insufferable, Elliot was sure—but as he did, she adjusted and sank down against him, drawing out of him a low, vicious moan. His fingers dug into her hips and he hissed, “Wicked thing.”

She slid him out of her, and he groaned, miserable.

“How badly?” she asked again, less cloying this time. There was a strange kind of satisfaction that wound up in her, hot and humid, when John let her do this—let her take, let her sink her nails and her teeth into him wherever and however she wanted. Like he knew exactly what it was she needed and didn’t mind giving it to her.

Liar, something inside of her said, he’s a fucking liar, there’s something he isn’t telling us, but then John looked at her and said, “So badly, more than anything, Elliot,” and her chest tightened.

Her fingers found his shoulder and she tugged him up into a sitting position. Her mouth found his; she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled just as their hips slotted together and she sighed his name in a hitching breath. The delicious burn was almost enough to fizz her focus out of existence—with so little sleep on her agenda, it was hard enough, but then she canted her hips wantingly and sparks of red-hot pleasure went racing up her spine.

“So. Fucking. Tight,” John ground out, burying his face against her neck. “Can’t believe you’re mine, El—can’t—after all of this—”

Elliot’s lashes fluttered at his words, the uneasy sprint of happiness making her stomach churn. Something else, though, wrenched around the cavity of her chest—those words. Can’t believe you’re mine.

“John,” she managed out, breathless, “I—”

“—and I’m yours.” John kissed her and guided her hips down against him until she was moaning unsteadily. “Fuck, yes, I’m—all yours, baby, just take w-what you—need from me, give you anything, anything—”

I’m all yours, he said, in the same breath as can’t believe you’re mine, and it shouldn’t have but it felt different: in that moment, having John buried into her up to the hilt and digging his fingers into her skin and sighing her name, it shouldn’t have felt different, but it did. It did, because they belonged to each other.

Her fingers tightened in his hair, on his shoulder. She thought, he’s a liar, and she thought, I’m so afraid of losing him, too, and she thought, we belong to each other.

“Please,” Elliot moaned, but she didn’t know what she was asking for; to finish, to hear him say it again, to hear him say more, to tell her the complete and absolute truth? Did it matter, anymore?

It does matter. The distinction matters.

So she said, “You’re mine,” and she kissed him, and she said it again, and again, like a prayer; until John was saying it back, feverish and panting the delicious words against her skin, I’m yours, I’m yours, all yours.

Wicked, and wretched, and maybe a liar, but all hers.

Later, tangled together in bed, John pulled her flush against him and said against her skin, “Don’t you want it, too?”

“I do,” Elliot murmured, knowing that he was talking about the Wrath he was going to put into her skin. “There’s just... A lot after that, to think about. And I know you’ll want an answer right away—”

“Is it that hard?” he asked. “To make a decision about staying or leaving?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?”

John frowned. “I just—”

“You just want me to say yes to whatever it is you want,” Elliot snapped. “I’d like to remind you that you told me we’d go as soon as this was done.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “I know, Elliot. I’m just—”

And then he paused, like something wanted to come out of him that he didn’t want to say, like he’d caught himself before he’d make a fool of himself. All this time, and Elliot thought she’d never see John vulnerable, not really in the way that she wanted—he’d seen her crying and broken and grieving, and she’d seen him in intimate glimpses, but not completely.

“You’re just what?” she asked, brows pulling together.

John’s fingers traced along her sternum, spelling out WRATH, much like he had done that evening at her mother’s house.

“They’re my family,” he said after a moment. “He gave me everything.”

Something uncomfortable twisted in her chest. “I know.”

“That includes you, too.” John leaned down and kissed her shoulder. “He brought me you. I know you don’t believe, hellcat, but if nothing happens then what did we lose? Nothing. I just get to keep my family.”

Her lashes fluttered, exhaustion seeping over her bones again. It was late into the morning, but already she wanted to close her eyes.

“I told you before,” she whispered. “I told you. You can’t have both. You can’t put one foot in both worlds, John.”

His mouth pressed into a thin line. He ducked his head against her neck and kissed there, and she thought about what he’d said that night in the bar.

Outside of my loyalty to Joseph, there’s you, and I want both.

I want you too, Elliot.

We can have a place to belong.

She thought about Jerome’s voice over the radio. You don’t have to Atlas this thing, deputy.

She thought about Joey, holding her tight. I never doubted you’d be able to get me.

She thought about how, at twenty-five, she had to bury her best friend in the fucking ground.

John was lying to her about something. He wasn’t telling her everything, and maybe she had always known that it would be like this, between them: maybe, down in the marrow of her bones, she had always known they would end up at odds with each other, John trapped between two worlds that he wanted and neither side willing to budge.

Something has to be done, she thought tiredly, as John’s fingers smoothed along her hip, and I’m going to have to fucking do it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“You’ve gotta get them out of here, Rook.”

Burke’s words stayed there, lingering in the air between them. It was late in the afternoon, and John was with his brothers and Faith in the chapel, and she’d ducked into Burke’s bunkhouse between guard shifts to grab a quick word with him. As soon as she told him that John had been pushing to get her sin revealed sooner than the original week he’d told her, Burke’s frown had deepened.

“They’re planning on getting it over with and getting the fuck out,” he said, pacing the tiny bunkhouse room. “There’s no way I’m getting to that radio with them all here. They think the world’s going to end, and that they need to be in their bunkers to survive it. If they get locked in there, Elliot, then—”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to get them all out of here,” she replied irritably. “You do realize that I’m only—John’s the only—”

Burke waved his hand to stop her from elaborating. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want to discuss the nature of her relationship with John beyond what the base information: they had indulged in a physical relationship, and an emotional one, and now Elliot’s priorities included him. As best they could.

“He wants to do the… Ceremony,” Elliot continued, mouth twisting around the only word she could think to say without making it macabre, “soon. And I just think that if I push it all the way out, then it’ll stir up suspicion, after I told him I wanted to—”

“What if you didn’t?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“What if you didn’t push it out?” Burke continued, slowly, pitching his voice quieter and more urgent when he noticed movement outside. “What if you asked for it to be done sooner? But just—somewhere else? Not here? Make up something about how you don’t have good memories here, and…”

“And ask for his family to be there,” Elliot finished, “so that they have to leave you here?”

Burke nodded. His gaze darted to the window again, and she knew that they were running out of time. “You’ll still be guarded.”

“I can handle a few of these fuckers,” he replied, waving his hand. “Most of them are scattered out, getting supplies. I hear them complaining about it outside all the time. I’ll get that radio, see if I can hear any chatter, and tell them where to find you. ”

I need more time, she thought, but she knew that she wouldn’t get it. Not now. Her deadline had been set for her—by Joseph, by John, and even a little bit by Burke. She was this close to being done, to being—

Free.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, yes, I can do that. I’ll ask them to take me to the ranch, and—I can do that.”

“I know,” Burke said, and he had never sounded more confident; he planted his hands on her shoulders and looked at her, the clarity having returned from his Bliss-induced high. He hesitated, and then said, “The ceremony—”

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I want you to know,” he plunged on, “it doesn’t matter, but I want you to know that you aren’t… That isn’t all of who you are.” His hands squeezed shoulders, the pressure welcoming and comforting and nauseating all at once. How strange, that kindness sickened her, now. “Wrath.”

Elliot paused, swallowing thickly. “I should go,” she said, because Burke still didn’t know what she’d done to Kian, still didn’t know the full extent of her body count or the way she’d felt when she killed a man. How it felt good, now—satisfying, an instant hit of dopamine centered around control.

“The back window,” Burke said, gesturing. “So the guards don’t wonder.”

“It’s all very exciting,” Elliot added. She tried for lightness, pushing the window up. “Subterfuge.”

“Just try not to say that where anyone can hear you.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“We’ve nearly collected the last of the supplies,” Joseph said, pacing absently back and forth. “How long do you think, Jacob?”

“A day, at most,” the redhead replied. “They’re working quickly, without all of these interruptions.” Jacob paused, and then turned his gaze at John. His mouth twisted for a moment, and John could tell his older brother was trying not to smile when he continued, “What’s your timeline, John?”

“The same,” John replied tightly.

“A day at most?”

“No, the same as before,” he clarified, even though he knew Jacob was doing it on purpose. “You gave me a timeline and that’s what I’m working with.”

“It’s just, you sounded very confident about your ability to wrangle the deputy,” his eldest brother continued, “and you’ve always been an overachiever.”

Joseph was looking at him expectantly. John knew that they wanted him to say that Elliot had insisted on doing it sooner, that she’d fully acquiesced to staying with him, that he had fully convinced her, down to every molecule of her being, that what they were doing was right and just and undeniably truthful.

But he hadn’t. Their conversation this morning only proved that more to him. You can’t have both, she’d said, like she still thought of herself as a separate entity from him, from his family. But she wasn’t; where else would she find people who would accept her, unconditionally?

Well, mostly unconditionally. There was one condition: believing. The most difficult one for her, he thought.

“I can spend more time with her,” Faith supplied, helpfully. “Maybe she’s tired of being around you boys all the time. You can be...” Her gaze flickered, and she tilted her chin a little, smiling. “A little heavy-handed. It’s possible that a lighter touch is necessary to bring the deputy around.”

“First, you should stop calling her that,” John pointed out, and he felt a little more than petulant saying it. It hadn’t escaped his attention that Elliot was naturally inclined to open up to Faith more easily, and he shouldn’t have been surprised, but it did still bother him, sitting right in the back of his mind. Always away but never forgotten. “Continuing to refer to her as “the deputy” is only going to further cement her ties to her past life.”

“Well,” Jacob demurred, “we can’t all call her baby, can we, John?”

“If you have a problem with me enjoying the marital bed,” John bit out, “then I think perhaps you spend some time reflecting inwardly on why that’s such a—”

The door to the chapel creaked as it was pushed open. Swallowing back his words quickly, he turned and glanced over his shoulder to see Elliot, hesitating in the doorway. Boomer lingered just behind her, sat at the bottom of the stairs, ever obedient.

“I can come back,” she said, sounding uncertain.

“Not at all,” Joseph replied, before John could tell her maybe that would be best. “Please, come in.”

She did, letting the door swing shut behind her, and moved tentatively toward the front. He wondered how it felt for her—coming in here, with all of them looking at her, much the same way she had the day that set the events in motion that brought her back to them.

John wondered, too, if Joseph had known this all along; if the things that he heard and saw had shown him that Elliot would always come back here, to them. Our deputy, he’d always said, without fail.

“I want to do it,” Elliot said, as she approached. “Soon. As soon as possible.”

Silence reigned supreme for a moment, before John said, “That’s great, Elliot. We can get started with—”

“But I don’t want to do it here,” she interrupted, bringing John’s mouth to a full stop.

“More fucking demands,” Jacob muttered under his breath.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Joseph said, watching her curiously. The way they had been, he was the closest to Elliot, with a table separating her from John. His fingers itched. “If you’re worried about the safety of it, I am sure John is more than equipped to—”

“This is supposed to be cleansing, isn’t it?” Elliot asked. “Regardless of how you feel, Joey’s body was put on display here. I don’t want this to be the place where I...”

Her voice trailed off, and her gaze darted elsewhere, mouth pressing into a thin line. John said, “I don’t think going somewhere else would be a problem. Where did you have in mind?”

“The ranch,” she replied, sounding relieved. “Feels fitting.”

As John stifled a smile, Joseph said, “Well, we’ll need to clear out the bodies, but I’m sure that can be done.”

“That’s manpower,” Jacob protested.

“You were just talking about how quickly they were getting things done,” John replied. “Weren’t you? Ahead of schedule. Over-achieving, I think.”

Jacob’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click and grind of his molars, and for once, John felt a sweeping thrill of victory. It was coming together, right there, in front of him—in front of his brothers, and Faith. All of the witnessing the fruits of his labor.

“Fine,” Jacob acquiesced, at last. “But it’ll take them a few hours.”

“Perfect.” John smiled, looking at Elliot across the table, Joseph’s figure nearly eclipsing her. “Then Elliot and I will head out as soon as we hear that the bodies have been properly disposed of.”

“There’s one more thing,” Elliot began, looking uncertain, and drawing all eyes back to her again even as Joseph had moved to place his hand on Faith’s shoulder. When they had watched expectantly for long enough, she continued, “I want—everyone there.”

“Everyone?” John asked, the word souring in his mouth.

“Not—of Eden’s Gate. Just… All of you,” she elaborated.

John could feel the surprise, bubbling fresh and unexpected, between his siblings as they exchanged glances.

“Even me?” Jacob asked, and John saw the grin splitting across his face.

“Even you,” Elliot replied, dryly. “Against my better judgment, I’m sure.”

“I’m touched, honey.”

Clearing his throat, John walked around the table briskly, muttering a quick excuse us as he guided Elliot away from the front of the chapel and down the walkway a little.

“You want my family there?” he asked, keeping his voice low as his siblings chatted quietly amongst themselves. Jacob was grinning wolfishly, looking very pleased with himself, which was something John didn’t necessarily like. “Normally, it’s more of a—a private affair, and that’s how I pictured it with you—”

“This is important to me,” Elliot said, watching him. “And they’re important to you. Aren’t they?”

John swallowed. “Well, yes, but…”

“John,” she murmured, her fingers loosely tangled with his, “I’ll stay, after.”

He blinked at her. “You’ll—?”

“Yes.” Her gaze flickered over his, her voice low as she struggled through the words. “I’ll stay here, with you—and your family. After it’s done. I just… Need to close the chapter.”

I fucking did it, he thought, certain that he was going to grin like a complete maniac if he didn’t keep himself in check. I fucking got her. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe they doubted me.

“Of course,” he managed out, somehow keeping his voice steady despite the rush of butterflies banging against his rib cage. “Of course, hellcat, anything you want.”

“Okay.” She paused, and then reached up and kissed him—willingly, of her own volition, in front of his siblings, she kissed him, and then sat back on her feet. “In a day, then?”

“In a day,” John promised, their noses brushing. “We’ll really belong to each other.”

Elliot’s lashes fluttered. She looked a little more tired than before, but it was hard to tell this close; and if it bothered her at all—if it was changing her mood—it didn’t show. He felt her smile against his mouth.

“Yes,” she murmured, just the way that he liked. “Completely.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jacob stopped by the bunkhouse with Joseph that evening to let him know they’d dispatched the men to clean out the ranch of any remaining corpses; they’d do it through the night, to better assist Elliot in her revelations. It seemed that the members of Eden’s Gate were just as relieved as the siblings themselves that the deputy was no longer and adversary, but joining them.

Which still left the matter of Cameron Burke.

“I say we kill him,” Jacob announced, glancing over John’s shoulder to ensure Elliot wasn’t there—and never before had John been more grateful for the blonde’s need to go on exorbitantly long walks out of the compound. “Quick and easy.”

“Well,” John said, “that is what I had thought you intended before, yet here we are, with him still on our hands.”

“We are lucky that our brother cares so much as to run our deputy through such trials,” Joseph interceded serenely, before a spat could break out. “And that she passed. With flying colors, I think.”

“That’s a little generous.”

“At any rate, that we’ve moved up this celebration for her is good,” the blonde continued. “I hear that the Family may not all be finished. Jacob mentioned that his scouts saw movement, out close to the Whitetails.”

John frowned. No good, he thought, but then—what about all of those dead couples he and Elliot had seen? Paired, holding hands, flowers blooming from wherever they could fit them? How was it determined which ones would off themselves and which ones stuck around?

“Now that we have all of the supplies we need,” Jacob said, “we don’t have to worry about getting rid of them.” He shrugged. “Let the apocalypse finish them off.”

“Well.” John clapped his hands together. “I’ve quite a day to prepare for tomorrow, I think. And when it’s all done, we’ll be ready to settle in.”

Joseph and Jacob exchanged looks, just for a moment, before Jacob said, “Night, Johnny,” and set off, leaving Joseph alone in front of the doorway to the bunkhouse. When he looked at John, his expression unreadable, something uneasy crawled and settled down at the base of his spine.

“I have something for you,” Joseph said. “Come with me to the chapel?”

Trying not to recognize that dread, lest he give it more legs than it already had, John nodded his head. “Of course. Though, you know you never have to…”

“It’s the least I could do,” his brother interjected lightly, waiting patiently as he closed the door to his temporary base of operations and then fell into step with him to the chapel. The evening was brisk and chilly, and when Joseph said, “And where is our deputy?” John stifled a rueful smile.

“Taking a walk, with Faith,” John replied. “And the dog, of course.”

“Of course.” He saw a smile ticking the corner of his brother’s mouth, small and almost imperceptible. “It’s nice that they get along, don’t you think?”

“It is,” he agreed, “like she was always meant to be with us.”

Joseph paused outside the chapel’s doors, reaching up and giving John’s shoulder a squeeze. “Just like.”

They stepped inside. It was cool and quiet; nobody remained. The radio flickering through channels was the only noise, and they rang empty and static, not a peep out there. He wondered if the remaining members of the Family were just looking for a place to rest, or a way to get out; maybe they didn’t want anything, anymore.

He followed his brother to the front of the chapel. On the table was the map they’d been using, a few scribbled notes in Jacob’s hand-writing, and a manila envelope.

Joseph picked up the envelope and held it out to John. He took it, and then glanced inquisitively up at his brother.

“Is this—?”

“Her file,” Joseph confirmed. “What we gathered on her prior to the Collapse. Also in there are my notes from her confession, as well as what appears to be diary entries, recovered from where Kian had tried to hunt the two of you.”

Holy shit, John thought, because sitting in his hands was the exact thing that he’d wanted from the beginning. Everything that he wanted to know about Elliot was right there: waiting to be read, devoured, committed to memory. He would know every single part of her, every wretched thing she had ever done, every loss she had ever suffered, every—

“And,” Joseph continued, “your marriage certificate.”

John glanced up at his brother. Suddenly, the envelope felt—different. Like an ultimatum. If he learned all of this about Elliot, and she got suspicious because he suddenly knew so much about her, and she asked where he found out and he told her—and he would have to tell her—she’d want to see it and then. And then.

And then.

“I think it’s time, John,” his brother said. “I know that you haven’t told our deputy about this arrangement. She is your wife, after all, before the eyes of this congregation and God.”

“Right,” John murmured, swallowing. “Yeah, of course. I planned on it. After tomorrow. It feels fitting, to tell her then.”

Maybe it would be better to tell her in the bunker, he thought absently, and then shoved that immediately away. No, fuck, no, I have to tell her. Tomorrow, after we finish everything.

“Good.” Joseph smiled, and for the first time in a long time he smiled with teeth, and the expression on his brother’s face almost unnerved him. He reached up, and his fingers brushed the nape of John’s neck, tilting him forward so that their foreheads pressed together.

Relief, hot and overwhelming, washed straight through him. They had been so at odds that John thought he might have forgotten what it was like to be in his brother’s good graces, but here he was.

“I am so proud of all that you have done for me, for our family, for Eden’s Gate.” Joseph’s voice rang in the hollow of his bones, vibrating straight through him, spiking in him a delirious rush of pride. “You have done so well, John, despite all that God has done to test you.”

Oh, there it was: everything in him said, finally, finally, finally, someone sees me, and he was reminded of why it was he owed Joseph so much. Because he gave him this.

“I’m—” John felt the words choke and stutter on the way out of him. It was almost too much—the finish line was in sight. Elliot had said, you can’t have both, but he could. He could, and he was going to, and it was here right in front of him.

Waiting.

“Thank you,” he managed out. “Thank you, Joseph. I only ever wanted to make you proud.”

“I know.” Joseph smiled, hand pressed against the back of John’s head, holding him gently. “I know.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Leaving the chapel, John was cruising on cloud nine; he had everything. Everything. Nobody was going to take it from him. No stupid cult, no last-minute hail mary’s from the opposing team—

As he passed by a window into the bunkhouse that had been Elliot’s before Burke had made it his home, John stopped and leaned against the siding of the house, tapping on the window. Burke was sitting at the table, leaned back, eyes closed; when the sound of John’s finger against the glass rattled again, he opened one eye.

John waved, and grinned. “Hi, bud.”

Burke stared at him. He gestured for the Marshal to push his window up, and after a few exasperated gestures, he did—reluctantly.

“Seed,” he said, tiredly. “Particular reason you’re not fuckin’ off?”

“Just wanted to stop by,” John replied slyly. “See how you were holding up. The impending apocalypse must be weighing heavily on you.”

Burke stared at him for a moment. He worked a toothpick between his teeth. His hands and feet were both cuffed, and the guards standing outside of the bunkhouse seemed to be concerned with his tone when he said, “Can’t wait to beat that shit-eating grin off of your face.”

“That’s not very professional,” John drawled. “Won’t that look poorly, in front of all of your little friends?”

“They’ll avert their eyes to let me give you some extra special attention.” Burke lifted his chin, taking the toothpick out of his mouth and spitting out the window, nearly landing on John’s shoes. “Promise.”

Impudent, John thought. Burke really just couldn’t let him have a moment, could he? “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Marshal,” he said, straightening up from the window and taking a step away. “I like it rough.”

And then he paused, turning on his heel like a swivel and lifted a finger thoughtfully.

“If you want some pointers on what I like,” he added pleasantly, “you can always ask Elliot.”

Burke’s eyes narrowed. “Your little brainwashed cultist? I think I’ll pass.” he asked, and John’s smile plummeted, wiped off of his face.

“Watch your fucking mouth,” he hissed. “You’re the failing party here, Cameron Burke. You’re going to be the one suffering when the End comes for you.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Burke replied, “better get goin’, shouldn’t you?”

John’s teeth snapped together with a click, pain shooting up through his jaw as his molars ground. Petulant and arrogant, all the way to the very end, wasn’t he? He supposed that made it a little bit better that Jacob was going to off him.

He had everything he wanted, and not even Cameron Burke was going to take that from him.

John flashed a smile, all teeth, and held his arms out. “I suppose I should,” he replied. “Have a nice ceremony tomorrow to prepare. Though, I don’t have to tell you—you’ll be there for it, won’t you? A front row seat and all.”

Even in the dark of the growing evening, he could see Burke’s jaw clench. The Marshal pulled back from the window and slammed it shut, signaling his exit from the conversation; if John had been in a worse mood, he would have stormed right in there and shown Burke exactly what the consequences were for trying to run the show.

But there wasn’t time, because just as he was debating the logistics of doing so, he heard a dog barking in the distance and the sound of familiar voices.

“Hi, John,” Faith sing-songed at him, swinging Elliot’s hand in her own as they approached. “Isn’t it a bit late? I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” John replied with a quick smile, which was not necessarily a lie.

“Too excited,” his sister agreed playfully. 

As they approached, he could see the circles beneath Elliot’s eyes had darkened. She really wasn’t sleeping, was she? Reaching up with his free hand as soon as she was close enough, he brushed some loose strands of hair from her face and guided her close, his fingers tangling into her hair at the base of her skull and his mouth finding her temple. Faith giggled and waved her fingers at Elliot, breezing past him on her way to the chapel.

He asked, “Did you enjoy your walk?”

“It was dark,” Elliot replied, by way of explanation. Boomer sniffed around their feet and then cocked his head, listening while his eyes fixed on the dark treeline. “What’s that?”

“Hm?” John asked, distracted by Boomer’s sudden alertness. “Oh, the envelope?”

“No, John, this stupid fucking Hot Topic belt I’ve seen you wear all the time.” Elliot pulled back to look at him, eyes glimmering with amusement. “Yes, the envelope.”

He opened his mouth to respond, trying to decide if he wanted to be upfront with her about it or not; he was so caught up in his decision that he didn’t even have the time to be offended by her remark about his belt before he said, “We should go back to our house, don’t you think? The company here’s a little sour.”

Elliot’s gaze swept around curiously, and when she spotted Burke through the window, she said, “Ah.”

“You never did tell me how your talk went,” he added, taking her hand and beginning to pull her away. “Good? Bad?”

The blonde watched him for a moment, like he’d said something a little too suspicious. “It really bothers you when you don’t know what exactly is going on, doesn’t it?”

John feigned a pleased smile. “It’s my job to know what’s going on.”

“I thought it was your job to talk incessantly?”

“I am multi-faceted.”

They reached the door to their shared space—and that was a nice little thought, their space, like they had a place that belonged to the two of them—and as Elliot stepped inside, she said, “Burke wanted to know what had happened.”

John closed the door behind them, pausing and looking at her for a moment; he tried to glean any insight he could out of her expression, but he couldn’t. He could only see quiet exhaustion sitting on her face, just there, just within his reach.

“And?” he prompted, when she failed to elaborate. She walked into the bathroom and turned the water on, washing her face; quickly, John opened the envelope and thumbed through the documents until he found what he was looking for. He slid the paper beneath the nightstand beside the bed and shut the envelope, smoothing the metal pins out. There, he thought, like it was never opened.

“I told him the truth,” Elliot replied from the bathroom, shutting the water off. “About the Family. About—you. And your siblings.”

“Well, he did refer to you as my ‘little brainwashed cultist’, so I imagine that conversation didn’t go well.”

The blonde stepped out of the bathroom, crossing her arms over her chest and watching him for a moment. That was answer enough, he supposed—whatever friendliness had lingered between Elliot and Burke seemed to have been decimated by the reality of their situation.

“What’s in the envelope?”

“It’s your file,” John said, plainly. Elliot’s jaw tensed.

“My file,” she reiterated.

“Yes. All of the things Joseph had on you before, including your confession to him and some papers they found in Kian’s bag of belongings. Back in the woods.”

Her eyes flickered, and she exhaled, long and tired. He could tell that she didn’t like that he had it. She had so desperately tried to keep him from knowing what it was that haunted her, though he had mostly pieced it together by now—an ex-boyfriend gone bad, the resulting fallout, all wadded up into a tiny ball of trauma that sat right in her ribs. All of those times Elliot had tried to cling to those shreds of control—and everything about her had been handed to him in a manila envelope. He imagined that it was quite frustrating.

John offered, “I haven’t looked at it.”

“Why not?”

“I thought,” he began, carefully, “that you might want it. For yourself.”

Elliot looked at him warily. “You’re just going to give it to me?”

“Elliot,” he said as he closed the space between them, “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. I’ll give you anything you want.” John reached up, brushing his fingers against the slope of her neck, feeling the way her pulse jumped at the contact. “Besides, I have you. What do I need the file for?”

He wanted it. He wanted to read her file, learn every gritty detail about her, memorize them the same way she’d memorized his scars and tattoos with her fingers; to know her, inside and out, so that there wasn’t a single dark corner of her that he didn’t have completely.

“Throw it away,” Elliot murmured. “I don’t want it. I don’t want it anywhere. Please, just throw it away.”

“If that’s what you really want,” John agreed.

“It is.”

She leaned up and kissed him; her hands cradling his jaw and pulling him there, her mouth soft and compliant against his. He dropped the envelope in favor of getting both of his hands on her, walking her back against the nearest wall and sliding his fingers beneath the hem of her sweater. Elliot’s breath stuttered and hitched prettily, but she pulled back until her mouth was just out of his reach.

Still, though her head was tilted otherwise, her fingers tugged on the front of his shirt and crowded him against her, close. If he thought about it too hard—about the way they had begun, hissing and spitting, and how they were now—he’d have thought he was dreaming, how she wanted him in her space now.

“Let’s go,” the blonde said, her voice urgent. “Tonight. To the ranch.”

“You—” John paused, watching her. “You want to go tonight? Why not tomorrow?”

“I don’t want to be here,” she murmured, “in the compound. I want—”

Elliot stopped, then, worrying her lower lip between her teeth for a moment. “I want to have some time,” she continued, “with you, before... Everything. Just us.” Her mouth twisted in what John thought could only be a playful smile. “Like old times.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asked, narrowing his eyes amusedly. “Which times are those? The times where you told me to go fuck myself, or—”

“I think you liked it.”

“Your mouth is one of my favorite things about you, yes.”

“So,” she continued, “can we go tonight?”

John, propped up against the wall with her caged between his arms, studied her for a moment. It wouldn’t be bad to get some time away from the compound that wasn’t some kind of macabre venture out into Fall’s End, haunting her with all of the things she used to have and had once been.

“Sure,” he said finally, “I don’t see why not. Just a little time for us.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Though he had been less than thrilled about the idea of Elliot being outside of the compound, Jacob had confirmed that the ranch was cleaned out of bodies and ready for them. When they swept past Burke in the bunkhouse, watching them through the window, John’s eyes went to Elliot—trying to see if there was anything in her expression, trying to see if there was a blink of affection or recognition.

There wasn’t. Elliot walked past without looking at the U.S. Marshal and swung into the driver’s side of the truck, and when John reached across the console to drop the keys in her hand, her gaze and expression were clear of any cloudiness.

When they got to the ranch, it was quiet; the lights had been left on, and while John knew that the bodies were gone and cleaned out, he still braced himself for impact when they walked in. The bookshelf had been righted again, and the strong smell of cleaning solution lingered in the air, but for the most part, everything was exactly where he’d left it.

It was a shame, then, that soon they’d be slipping underground.

“Bleach,” Elliot said, walking up the stairs after him. “How romantic.”

“It’s your mess they were cleaning,” John replied dryly, flashing her a grin over his shoulder. “In case you forgot.”

“I didn’t.”

He pushed the door open to the master bedroom, taking in a little breath and turning to look at Elliot. She was inspecting the room, and for a second, John almost felt self-conscious—that she was here, now, with him. In his home. Touching his things. Looking at him.

It was almost unnerving to think about; that some time ago, she had been viciously looking for any way out. But of course, she had come around. She was always going to come around, one way or another. He thought about the way she’d spit Go fuck yourself, John, the way she’d tried her hardest to be as obtuse and unhelpful as possible, how she’d said in the bar you can’t have both but here he was.

Here she was.

There was only one thing left standing in the way, and it was something he had all the power in the world to change if he wanted to.

“What are you thinking about?” the blonde asked, arching a brow at him loftily.

“You,” John said, and it wasn’t a lie. Her lashes fluttered and she almost looked shy, for a moment; when he reached out and tugged her close by the belt loop of her jeans, he added, “What do you think about getting married?”

With her hands steadying herself on his chest, she barked out a laugh. “In general? Or us getting married?”

“Primarily the latter.”

“I—” Elliot blinked, and shook her head. “I don’t... What do you mean, what do I think about us getting married?”

“Do you like the idea?” John prompted. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the slope of her jaw.

“We’ve barely been together,” she murmured. “And—you still piss me off.”

“That’s amore.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Elliot groaned, and John grinned, sliding his arms around her to pull her closer still. He hoisted her up into his arms and carried her to the bed; when he’d settled her there, on her back and with her legs looped loosely around his waist, she watched him for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to get married.”

John cocked his head. “Not even once?”

“Not even once.”

“And why not?”

“Why would I?” she retorted. “The only marriage I ever saw was my dad dragging my mama’s credit through the dirt and then fucking off the second he got tired of playing house. Giving up my last name to someone? Letting someone take that away from me?”

John leaned down, pushing her sweater up and pressing his mouth to the curve of her hip cutting up and over her jeans. Her breath stuttered for a moment, and she squirmed when he let his tongue slide along one of her scars.

“I know this is going to sound crazy,” he said, “but marriage isn’t all about giving. It’s about receiving, too.”

He watched the heat crawl into her cheeks, undoing the button of her jeans and sliding them down until they pooled on the floor with a whisper. She said she’d never wanted to get married, but he thought after tomorrow—after she saw how beautiful it would be, to have her sin revealed and in the open—she would change her mind. For him, she would.

Elliot let out a sharp, stuttering breath. “Come here,” she said, tugging on him a little to guide him back up to her. He obliged, and she tangled her fingers into his hair and kissed him; long and patient, lips parting beneath his and her tongue flickering playfully against his mouth. She skimmed her fingers along his chest, down until she could undo his belt and pull it from the loops, discarding it on the floor.

“Miss Honeysett,” John murmured.

“John,” she replied, as her fingers deftly undid his jeans.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

“You did take my pants off.”

He laughed, the sound sweeping out of him just before Elliot pulled him down into another kiss. She shifted and squirmed against him, pushing and working with her fingers until they were skin on skin. There was a second, a heartbeat of time, where Elliot paused, her gaze flickering over him.

“I want—a home,” she said, her voice quiet, “with you. I don’t have one anymore, and I...”

John dragged his fingers along the exposed skin of her sternum, down and down and down, and she sucked in a sharp little breath the second he found exactly he was looking for.

“You have it,” he replied against her mouth, and a spike of heat sprinted up his spine when he beckoned his fingers against her and she whimpered. “You have it, El, I told you—”

Elliot’s nails dug into his shoulder and she said, “John,” and her voice plunged a little when she did, pitching high and sweet and just the way that he liked it; he mouthed a spot on her neck, sighing against her skin.

“Love those sounds you make,” he murmured. “So good for me.”

“Yes,” Elliot said breathlessly, turning her head so that their noses could brush, “yes, I am, for you—so, please—”

So, please, she said, so sweetly, wanting and hurting and needy as she clutched him, as her breath hitched in anticipation when John pressed up against her, slow and without urgency.

“Is this what you wanted to come here for?” John rumbled against her mouth, breathing unsteady. “So I could f—fuck you in peace and quiet?”

The blonde moaned her agreement as she kissed him. Her body arched up against his, impatient, and when he finally pressed into her all the way, she let out a sigh, her fingers twisting in his hair.

It was too good; too tight, too hot, and the way Elliot held him close, like she thought she was going to disappear if she didn’t keep her grip on him, made the trickle of heat turn into a wildfire splitting through his body. He groaned, the pace excruciating and delicious as he made sure to take each drag as slow as possible.

“F-Fucking—faster,” Elliot whimpered against his mouth, “John—”

“No,” he ground out, slotting his hips against hers tightly before drawing back out again. “You have to—I want you just like this, hellcat—”

She made a sweet keening noise and rocked her hips up, impatient; each time she did sent another sharp jolt of desire sprinting through him, and he bit out a low swear and gripped her hip with one hand.

“Brat,” he moaned. “Wants everything her way but can’t—f-fucking—behave.”

“Fuck you,” Elliot replied, but there was no real heat in her words; she said it in a broken, stuttering breath. “What if I want you faster? What if I want you to fuck me until you just can’t stand it—”

“Stop.” John gritted the words out between his teeth; if there was one thing that sent him to his undoing, it was Elliot and her filthy mouth. “God, you—fucking—”

Elliot dragged him in for a kiss, open-mouthed and slick and wanting, and she begged, “John, I want you so badly—I need—”

And her words stuttered for a moment, like she was catching herself before she could say something that she thought might be embarrassing. John’s hand came up and pressed to her jaw, tilting her face back to him so that he could see her; gazing at him through her lashes, flushed and lips kiss-reddened and eyes dreamy and dazed.

“Tell me,” he managed out, through the haze of his own pleasure. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” Elliot moaned, “I need you, John.”

“Fuck,” John ground out. He was powerless to go against her wishes when she was looking at him like that, and saying I need you, and twisting her fingers in his hair and—

And when he snapped into her, she sighed his name like a prayer, like he was holy, and he thought that it would have been a crime not to give her what she wanted. It was almost as good as taking it slow; hearing Elliot whimper yes yes yes into their liplock as he fucked her, rough and a little unforgiving, nearly sent him spiraling.

When he slipped a hand between them, dragging the pad of his thumb across the neediest part of her, he felt her tighten; closecloseclose, it said, and Elliot made a wrecked, desperate sound and kissed him just as she came unraveled, panting his name.

His followed close behind—it hit hard, a strange, empty moment just before the ricocheting pleasure rattled around in his skeleton. John buried his face into Elliot’s neck and moaned, gripping her tight to him, and she arched up a little into him and made him hiss.

“You,” he said breathlessly into her neck, “are getting too comfortable using that filthy mouth of yours to get what you want.”

She laughed, raking her fingers through his hair. “You like it.”

“I’ve said that I do.”

“How much?” Elliot idled, and he felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

“Wicked thing, aren’t you?” he asked, instead of answering her question. Her lashes fluttered, and when John leaned down and dragged his teeth against her pulse point, she made a soft, sweet sound, squirming in his arms.

“I’m going to sleep,” she announced. Having disentangled themselves and slipped under the covers, she settled back against the pillows and he was reminded, once again, of the dark circles lingering under her eyes. “Feels like I have slept a fucking wink in the compound.”

“Fine,” John agreed, kissing her temple. “You’ll need your rest for tomorrow, anyway.”

It took some time for them to fall asleep; Elliot slept more fitfully than he, and each time she shifted or sighed or rolled it woke him up, too. Eventually, the blonde settled with her face tucked against John’s chest, her fingers absently tracing over the shape of his scar until her breathing slowed and she drifted back off.

Sometime around three in the morning, she stirred, sliding out of bed and making her way to the bathroom. John reached over to the nightstand and picked up his watch to squint at it in the dark. He heard the sink running, and the door to the bathroom was slightly ajar.

“Can’t believe it’s almost the end of November,” he said, out loud and to no one in particular, though Elliot’s head peeked out of the bathroom. She’d wrapped herself in his robe, cinching it tight around her waist.

“It is?” she asked, tiredly. “What’s the date?”

“The twenty-first.”

Elliot stilled for a moment. A strange emotion swept over her face; he thought that it was almost sadness. “It’s my birthday tomorrow.”

John set the watch back down on the nightstand. “Well, perfect timing then. I just gave you an incredible birthday present. How old are you turning? And why do you look so terribly distressed?”

“Fuck off,” she muttered when he grinned at her. “Twenty-six, asshole.” And then, like an afterthought: “It’s just that normally by now, I’m—”

The blonde cut herself off, and then shook her head, rubbing her eyes tiredly and walking back into the bathroom to turn the water off.

“Elliot?” he called. “What is it?”

“Just weird,” she replied after a minute, “being... Having a birthday. Here. Like this.”

He settled back against the pillow. “Come back to bed.”

She did as he asked, obliging him as she slid back under the blankets and covers. The robe was still on, and he pulled at the hem of it playfully. Elliot somehow looked more tired than before; and her eyes didn’t quite meet his, like she was somewhere very far away from him.

“Looks good on you,” he murmured. “Blue’s your color.”

Elliot’s attention snapped to him. “Faith said the same thing.”

“Great minds.”

She rolled her eyes, shifting to the other side in bed so that John could tug her back against his chest, burying his face into her neck. When her breathing finally slowed a little, and regulated, John felt himself finally start to relax.

I can have both, he thought, as he began to drift back off. I can, and I will.

｡☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆｡

When Elliot awoke the next morning, the first thing that she thought was, I’m late.

It hit her differently in the cold light of day, to think her period was delayed. That’s probably what it was, anyway—a delay. Lots of things could fuck around with the timing of a period, right?

The second thing she thought was, today’s the day.

Things did seem oddly calm, as they went about their morning; they showered, and John kissed her smelling like expensive soap, and his hands went to the places he loved the most—her hips, her hair, her jaw. It was like they’d fallen into a routine with each other, in just this short period of time; but then, she supposed, that was very natural to have happened, considering that they spent so much time with each other now.

“We should do it downstairs,” Elliot said as John busied himself with some coffee. Boomer had sprinted outside at the first opportunity, taking off into the treeline to burn some of his energy off.

“Downstairs?” he asked, glancing at her. “In the room?”

“Seems fitting.”

He shrugged, sliding a cup of coffee her way and leaning across the counter. “Whatever you want, baby.”

The sound of car doors closing and voices outside stirred her attention away from John’s mouth—a wholly distracting thing—but when she turned to see the Seeds walking through the front door of the ranch, she felt her stomach plummet.

“Brought a plus one,” Jacob announced, shoving Burke forward. “Hope you don’t mind.” He fixed Elliot with his gaze. “Caught him snooping around the chapel. Isn’t that weird?”

“I—” Elliot’s brain fuzzed viciously, static biting through all other noise. Burke’s lip was split and he had a nasty black eye forming. Oh, no, she thought, oh, no, no, no, no. This is so fucking bad.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I couldn’t trust anyone to keep an eye on him, so unfortunately, that is now my job.”

“No,” Elliot said abruptly, drawing all eyes on her. “I’m—I don’t want him here.”

“Elliot,” John murmured.

“Then what do you propose I do with him?” Jacob demanded.

“I don’t know, that isn’t my fucking job,” she snapped. With the siblings all looking at her, Burke took a second and very gently, very resolutely, shook his head no.

Her mind went frantic. What does that mean? Does that mean stop kicking up a fuss? Does that mean he got to the radio? Or that he didn’t? What the fuck is the plan, now?

Joseph said, gentle, “I’m afraid we just can’t afford to lose track of him, Elliot.”

She felt fingers brushing hers. John had come around the kitchen island, and now their fingers were interlaced. It felt like she was on some kind of precipice, some great, plunging cliff into a void, and all she could do was stand by hopelessly as everything pushed her towards the edge.

She didn’t want Burke to watch. She didn’t want him to see her let John carve WRATH into her skin, but most of all—most of all, she didn’t want Burke to see that maybe it would feel good, for her, a catharsis.

“Fine,” she managed out after a moment, watching Burke’s eyes flutter shut in what might have been relief. Or suffering. “Fine, whatever.”

“Well,” Joseph murmured, “shall we get started? There’s a full day ahead of us.”

As they moved down the stairs, Elliot swallowed thickly and tried to clear and compose her brain. Everything did feel just a little bit like it was too much. Joseph there, his shoulder brushing hers; Faith and John, chatting like it was nothing to have her sit down in a chair in the middle of the room where she had been kept captive; Jacob, shoving Burke into the room and on his knees.

It was too much. She would just have to pray that Burke had gotten a chance with the radio before Jacob found him.

“We’re going to have to take your shirt off,” John said, moving into her vision, and didn’t sound like he regretted that in the least. A little rush of relief coursed through her when she realized she’d be able to focus on someone familiar—none of Joseph’s prying eyes or Faith’s sweet smiles to unsettle and unseat her. Just her, and John.

“How long is this going to take?” Burke asked, his voice bordering on vicious. Jacob gave him a little jostle.

“Why? You got somewhere to be, friend?”

Elliot barely heard them. Her eyes, her thoughts, were on John; when her shirt was discarded to the side, he skimmed his fingers along her sternum, eyes bright.

“It’s going to look so good,” he murmured, and she knew that he wasn’t paying attention to them, either. He’d seemed disappointed when she asked someone else to be there, but now, it didn’t seem like it mattered at all. “Ready?”

She nodded, feeling a little swoon of adrenaline kick through her body when John left the room and returned with a knife. John looked at her expectantly. The physical acquiescence wasn’t enough.

“Yes,” Elliot said, and John’s eyes fluttered closed just for a moment before he leaned forward and kissed her—hard and open-mouthed, his fingers bruising where they gripped her shoulder.

“Fucking Christ,” Burke ground out, and John pulled away with a wicked grin.

“You and me,” he murmured against her lips, and she nodded.

John sat down. Over his shoulder she could see Burke, sitting on his knees, his face resolutely turned to the side. She turned her gaze away, too, because she didn’t want to see—didn’t want to see Burke sitting there, biting his tongue and trying not to look at her, look at her scars and the one John was going to give her and—

The sting of the first cut barely registered through the fog of her brain. It didn’t quite hit, and then her eyes flickered down and she saw the first stream of red, and it really hit, immediately slicing through the fog of adrenaline to hit sharper, harder, nastier.

Elliot exhaled a stuttering breath. It felt exactly the same as she remembered; it wasn’t so soft, on her chest like this, but it wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation to her either. Something in her brain tripped at the pain, neurons firing rapidly; we know you, they said, as John meticulously carved the W into her skin, we know you, pain, we missed you, missed you missed you missed you.

“John,” she said, because there was a burst of panic going off in her brain like fireworks. The two parts of her—the one that self-preserved, and the one that craved this exact sting and bite—wrestled with the reality of her situation: that she was both doing and not doing the thing she had tried to deprogram out of herself.

“So good, hellcat,” John murmured, his eyes fixed on his work as he started on the R. He was fixated; he was somewhere far away from her, even as close as he was. “It’s going to look so good on you.”

And behind him, Jacob said, “C’mon, Burke, don’t you want to see what your little deputy asked for?”

“Fuck. You,” Burke bit out.

The sting, the bite; the push and pull. Elliot breathed her way through each excruciating moment, and they were excruciating, these moments, because John was utilizing every second that he had her here, like this.

And that was fine. She needed him to; both for her sake, and for Burke’s. 

Something sounded like thundering up ahead, distant but out of place. It gave her a little jolt of panic. If that was what she thought it was, then—

Elliot saw Jacob’s eyes flicker up to the ceiling, narrowing; she managed out, “Slow down,” just as John paused too, to draw his attention back to her. 

“Slower?” John asked, and the way he said it felt intimate, with his eyes fixed on her and his fingers red with her blood.

“Please,” Elliot breathed. Jacob looked at her for a moment, long and hard, but she didn’t meet his eyes; only looked at John, only waited patiently for him to begin.

After a moment, John said, his voice pitched low, “Anything you want.”

“I’ll be back,” Jacob said. He dropped his hand from Burke’s shoulder; John made a non-committal uh-huh sound, finishing off the unsteady cross of the T. She hissed, squirming in her seat at the pain, drawing Jacob’s attention for just a second long before he made his way out of the room.

The H followed next. As soon as he finished, John pulled back to admire his work; there was still a bit of bruising, but most of it was up on her shoulder, not her chest, which was now doused in crimson. Wiping his hands off with a towel, he beamed at her; all teeth and bright eyes.

“What a relief, don’t you think?” Joseph asked, his voice idle and distracted as he glanced up at the ceiling inquisitively. “To have it all out there.”

John flashed a smile at his brother, clearly pleased. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said to Elliot, coming to a stand. “We’ll have to let it heal for a while to see how it’s going to scar, and then we can go back in and—”

Before John could finish his sentence, Elliot heard the sound of car doors slamming outside, and Jacob’s voice, asking something in a demand, and then a volley of responses: it was hard to hear, a floor down, but she thought they were saying get down, get down.

“What is going on?” Joseph asked, his voice verging on something other than cool and calm, and the sound of it filled Elliot with a bright spark of joy: yes, she thought viciously, coming to a stand and feeling around for her shirt while her eyes stayed on the Seeds, yes, you fucking cockroach, squirm.

“I don’t know,” John said, stepping toward the door. “Stay here.”

He only took two more steps before the sound of Jacob shouting something above them, followed by a gunshot, and then a loud cacophony of footsteps above them.

“Jacob,” Faith breathed, her eyes wide and panicked. “Something’s happened, Father, we have to—”

“Stay,” John barked out, suddenly all business as he was hauling Burke up to his feet. “I think our friend the Marshal would like to take a look first, make sure nothing is dangerous.”

But Burke was grinning when his feet righted themselves on the ground. He sucked his teeth, looked directly at Joseph, and said, “Time’s up, fuckhead.”

Burke’s words send her stomach somersaulting. So he had gotten to the radio. He had, just in time, which meant he’d been caught just after, and now—

Now he was here, and so were all of the Seeds, too.

I fucking did it, she thought hazily, bracing herself on the chair. Holy shit. I fucking did it.

The sound of footsteps storming down the stairs made John’s eyes flicker to the doorway, and he let go of Burke, gripping the bloodied towel loosely in his hands.

Her heart was thundering in her chest. It was hard to think through the haze of pain, the stinging and burning of the cuts on her chest, but it was there, if she tried hard enough to look: hope.

But Joseph wasn’t looking at John. He was looking at Elliot.

“You,” the Father hissed, as Elliot pulled the shirt away from her chest, sticky-wet with blood. “You did this. I know you did, you fucking locust, I knew it the second you stepped foot in my chapel—brought us all here, rounded us up like lambs for the slaughter—”

“What do you mean?” John demanded. “Elliot has been with me since this whole—”

Things moved very quickly, then: through the fog of pain, Elliot heard one, two, three heavy thuds against the door before wood splintered and came crashing down, the instant array of green sights set on them—all of them, her included—and the sound of voices demanding their hands go up.

Elliot watched Joseph, hands at his sides.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Joseph ground out, his voice vicious, the rage splitting across his face almost as delicious as the fear. Faith was crying, and saying something through her tears, as John lifted his hands obediently.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of the SWAT members hauling Burke out of the room first. She looked at Joseph and arched a brow at him, lifting her hands obediently when the order was shouted again. 

“Oh, Father,” she sighed, her voice cloying and sweet and just between the two of them, “did God not tell you about this part?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Things were going poorly.

That is to say, Jacob had a gunshot to the shoulder that was currently being patched while he was in handcuffs—“Can’t have you bleeding out on us, can we?” the medic said, a little too gleefully, until Jacob said something along the lines of I’m gonna rip your fucking face off—and Faith was crying, and Joseph was seething, furiously whispering to himself and held in place by one of the other U.S. Marshals.

Elliot was in cuffs, too, but Burke seemed to be talking furiously with the man who had cuffed her, occasionally interrupted when Elliot would try and draw his attention back to John.

This won’t do, he thought, as panic pounded through his body, as his heart hammered against his chest. All of his siblings, in handcuffs, and Elliot too; she was, too, but she looked—

Fine.

She looked fine, and he thought about what she’d said. You can’t have both, and then she’d immediately gone back on that. Of course she had. Of course, because she was wretched and wicked and clever, and she had never truly let go of her hatred for Joseph, but they were married. They were married, and the U.S. government was going to know about it before they stuck her on a stand to testify against any of his siblings.

“I need to speak to her,” John said to the officer holding him. “The woman, there. That’s my—”

“You don’t need to do anything,” the man replied sharply, “except shut your mouth and wait patiently for us to load you and the rest of your fucking brood into the van.”

“She’s my wife,” John bit out viciously. “And she’s in cuffs, I would like to speak with my wife—”

“What did you just say?”

It was Elliot’s voice, sharp and clear and splitting through the distance between them. In the chilly Autumn afternoon, John felt the spike of pure adrenaline race through him at her tone, at the way her head snapped to him and she shouldered her way past Burke. The officer had taken her cuffs off.

Burke said, “Rookie,” in warning, but it didn’t matter, John knew; they had never been able to ignore each other, in love or in war.

“I said,” John reiterated, “you’re my wife.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Elliot demanded.

“That night,” he began urgently, “that night that you were feeling unwell after your walk with Faith, and we talked about leaving—”

Elliot started, her voice hitching, “John, what did you do—”

“—we talked about other things, too,” he plunged on. “I didn’t tell you, Elliot. I didn’t tell you because I wanted it to be the right time. I was going to tell you today, after we were done—I was going to tell you that we talked about it and I asked you if you wanted to marry me, and you told me yes—”

“Stop,” she moaned, agonized. “Stop—fucking—talking—you didn’t, John, you fucking didn’t lie to me again about this thing that you know I hate—”

“And you signed the certificate. It’s back at the compound,” John finished, trying to lean around the officer. “We’re married. You and me, hellcat, just like we say, you and—”

He saw the slap coming before it hit, but it definitely took a few seconds for the pain to actually register in his brain. And oh, then it hit; Elliot had swung her hand with the same amount of force she might have if she were close-fist punching him, but her palm connected with this side of his face and sent a sharp, red-hot shot of pain blooming and blurring behind his eyes.

Dazed, John blinked and tried to focus his attention again as the officer jostled him out of her reach. He was vaguely aware of Burke moving toward them as Elliot gritted out between her teeth, “How fucking dare you.”

“Ell,” John said, and there was blood in his mouth, his lip split from the impact of her hand. “Listen to me—”

Burke, louder and closer: “Elliot.”

“No, you listen to me, you fucking rat!” Elliot’s voice was pitching higher in volume, and higher in frequency and hysteria. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! I told you, I fucking told you what was going to happen if you lied to me again—you fucking—I’m going to fucking kill you—”

John saw Burke sling an arm around Elliot’s waist just as she lunged again, seething and furious, holding her tight against his chest as she clawed at his arms to get free. His mouth against her hair, he said, “Rookie, take a breath.”

“You take a fucking breath!”

He hauled her, all five feet and four inches of her, turning her away from John, like breaking her eyesight with him would save him the trouble of having to cuff her.

“Elliot,” John called, trying to lean past the officer, “I forgive you—”

“Fuck! You!”

“—marriage is hard work, but I know,” he continued, grinning when she finally pulled herself out of Burke’s grip, “that you’re just the woman for the job.”

She stared at him for a long moment. Every line in her expression was pulled tight with fury, and yes—John thought he should have told her sooner, maybe, but if she was going to find out, what better time to find out than in front of the very men who wanted to put her on the stand?

“Don’t you remember what you said last night? You need me,” he tried again, and he could tell the officer holding his shoulders was getting tired of him leaning around all the time. “I love you, Elliot, through sickness and in health, no matter how many—”

“Oh, John,” Elliot breathed out, like she almost couldn’t get a full lungful of air, she was so out of breath. She swayed on her feet exhaustedly, her mouth twisting around the next sentence that came out of her mouth: “I want a fucking divorce.”

The words plunged John straight into a panic, the kind that made it feel like there was a feeding frenzy going on under his skin. This was not how things were supposed to unfold. This was not how it was supposed to go. Elliot was going to be upset, sure—but he had taken great pains to make sure that she knew he was the only thing left for her, after it all. She was supposed to upset, and then see that it had been for her, it was always for her, for them. Everything he’d done, every step he’d taken, every—

She���s mine, he thought, his face still stinging, dull and hot, from her slap. Burke was saying something to her. That’s my fucking wife, whether she likes it or not.

No one was going to take her from him. Not Joseph or Jacob, not Cameron Burke, not even her. No one was going to put a serial murderer and the wife of a religious group’s lawyer on the stand. He’d make fucking sure of that.

“You think you’re gonna move on from this, El?” he demanded, managing to shoulder around the officer to make eye contact with her. His voice came out tight, sharp—slowly and purposefully careening, but he hated the strike of strange hysteria that wormed its way in there, too. “I watched you slaughter at least a hundred people in the name of “justice”—you beat a man to death with a blunt object, and you liked it—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Elliot ground out. She made to move at him, nails digging into her palms, but Burke hooked his arm around her waist and hauled her back again, much like before.

“You think you’re gonna move on and meet some nice little country boy who’s gonna love you even with all that fucking red in your ledger?” Oh, he was careening—all of the control slipping out from between his fingers, like sand. “No fucking way, baby, I’m it for you!”

“Rook,” Burke said, but there was no follow-up which made it worse; Burke said one word—one tiny little pet name—and Elliot’s attention immediately snapped to him.

John had never been made to feel like he was nothing; not like this.

“Look at me,” he snapped, and Elliot’s eyes turned to him; but he saw the fury split across her face, the absolute indignant rage. “You’re going to spend one day back in polite society and come unglued, Elliot Honeysett, and when you fucking do—you’ll be begging for me to take you back, and I guarantee you I fucking won’t.”

“That’s enough,” Burke said, but he was speaking to Elliot, looking at her.

“Maybe,” she hissed, pushing at Burke’s arm as blood seeped through the wound on her chest “you should have considered how I would react to you being a pathological liar before you fucking came inside me, you cunt.”

Her words sent a strange, uncomfortable sensation sprinting down his spine. She couldn’t be, John thought, alluding to—

But she had been surprised when he told her it was her birthday, like she hadn’t realized what day it was, and had said something like, normally by now I’m, and just hadn’t finished her thought. 

“Okay.” Burke pulled her back a few more steps, his voice strained. Pulled her away from him. “We’re taking a walk. You and me, Rookie.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” John called after her, panic rising in his voice. “Elliot? Tell me what you—”

“I mean I’m late, fuckhead,” Elliot spit at him over Burke’s shoulder.

The officer pulled him back towards the truck, dragging him by his arm as Burke took Elliot around the corner of the ranch house. His stomach was lurching nauseatingly, trying to piece it together. Had it been long enough? Of course, it had—it had been over a month, probably, maybe even more because he didn’t know how to keep track of time when he’d been drugged and kidnapped and dragged around.

If she is, he thought, frantic; if she does have my child, if she’s—

“John,” Joseph said, his voice eerily quiet as he was pushed into a sitting position across from his brother. He seemed to have recovered from his outburst earlier; there was an odd grimness about his expression. “We must remain focused.”

“She—” John blinked rapidly, trying to gather his fraying, desperate thoughts. “Joseph, she might—”

Joseph lifted a finger to his lips to signal silence. Jacob’s breathing was labored but controlled, and Faith’s gentle crying had been snuffed out. She’d only been the damsel for a few minutes before she tried to storm her way out of their grip.

“The task at hand,” Joseph cautioned him. “Then, we will figure out what to do for your son.”

My son. The words echoed hazily in his brain as the van doors slammed shut, eclipsing them.

“How do you know?” John demanded. “You know? You know that she’s—with my—”

“Of course,” his brother replied, still keeping his voice soft.

“God told me.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Take a breath.”

“No.”

“Rookie.” Burke’s voice was hard. “Look at me and take breath.”

She couldn’t. Every inch of her body was screaming—desperate for a reprieve, but there was none to be had because she was still nursing her WRATH wound, because she was heaving out great, panicked breaths between ragged cries.

“I can’t,” Elliot moaned, her hands shaking, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—”

Burke snagged her hand and pressed it to his neck, just like before, but this time it didn’t do anything; this time, she just felt the spiral hit harder, the overwhelming sensation of touching and being touched sending her brain sprinting in panic.

She yanked her hand out of his grip and clutched her knees to her chest, ignoring the warm seep of blood even against the bandages the medic had patched her with and the sting of the pressure of her bones pressed up against the wound.

Burke stayed, and she noticed. He stayed, and he didn’t have to—he was done, free, could leave and go home—but he stayed sitting there with her, against the side of the Seed ranch, wherein many ways, things for her had began.

So, she cried; she sobbed into her jeans until she thought she was going to be dizzy from gasping for air, and Burke stayed, and waited until her hand fumbled for his blindly before he touched her again. His fingers gripped hers, firm and soothing.

“Is it true?” he asked, when she had stopped her crying, when she had breathed so much there was too much oxygen in her brain. His gaze flickered over her. “That you’re… With that fucker’s…”

“I don’t know,” Elliot replied, exhausted. “I’m—fuck, I’m late, and I didn’t realize until yesterday, because it’s been so fucking—”

Burke passed his free hand over his face. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry,” and the words came out of her agonized; because she could hear the disappointment in his voice, or what she thought was disappointment. “I thought—I thought he—Burke, I—”

“I know, Rook,” Burke murmured, not unkindly. “Just focus on breathing. I know.”

A few more moments of silence passed between them, filled only with the sound of voices and out and the kick of an engine starting and pulling out from the ranch. After her breathing had evened out again, Burke said, “They’re going to be retrieving Kian’s body.”

Elliot stared at the ground, feeling numb. He didn’t have to say; she knew what that meant. Government officials were going to see what she’d done to Kian. They were going to see it, and see that she was legally married to one of them, and see that she was carrying the child of one of them, and see her history, and all of these things were going to add up.

The picture was not going to be a good one.

“I’ve gotta take you in, Rook,” Burke said quietly. “At the very least, to a therapist.”

She sniffed. I love you, John had said, after he’d lied. Lied, and lied, and lied, and used her, and lied, and if he loved her, he didn’t love her in any way that she understood.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“Yeah.”

“I know what you’ve been through, and you know I’ll vouch for you. I saw firsthand the kind of—the shit that was going on,” he insisted. “I just—want you to have a realistic picture of what it’s gonna look like, when we get back. They’re gonna autopsy Kian’s body, and—”

She took in a long, suffering breath. “I’m really tired,” Elliot said, her voice breaking a little. “Can we—are we going straight there, or?”

Burke paused, his expression softening, and shook his head. “We’ll hit a motel or two along the way.”

Elliot nodded, closing her eyes and pressing her face back into her knees. She stayed like that for a while; it was hard to tell how much time passed, but eventually, someone came around the corner and said something to Burke, and he tugged her to her feet and walked her to the car.

The sensation of Burke’s hand slipping out of hers sent another burst of panic flooding through her; her body was so tired, so very fucking tired of managing the adrenaline, but the more she tried to calm down the more tired she got.

“I want to stay with you,” she said, feeling hazy and tightening her hand around Burke’s. The Marshal looked at her for a long moment and then nodded.

“Alright, kid,” he murmured, reaching up and squeezing her shoulder. “We’ll stick together.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Time passed differently, after that. Elliot couldn’t have said how long it took them to get to the first motel; it couldn’t have been seconds, or minutes, or months for all that she knew. She was numb when they set her up in a motel room with two beds, she was numb when they checked her scar and redressed it.

“Fucking Christ,” the medic said under his breath when he saw the WRATH wound, still hot and trying its best to scab over. “You poor thing.”

It’s not me, Elliot thought miserably, opening her mouth; but no words would come. All she could think was, I asked for this, I’m not the poor thing, please don’t.

“Hey,” Burke barked out, his voice sharp as he took in Elliot’s crumpling expression. “Let’s get it cleaned and let her sleep, buddy.”

The medic nodded, thoroughly scolded, and worked quickly after that. When he’d finished and she had swallowed two Tylenol dutifully, Burke watched her climb under the covers of the bed and said, “I’ve gotta make a call. You okay in here?”

She swallowed thickly. He was looking at her like he was wary of her. The same way Whitehorse had looked at her.

“Yeah,” Elliot murmured. “I’m fine.”

He gave her a tight, tired smile and then stepped out of the motel room, closing the door behind him. Silence lingered there for a little while; Elliot tried to close her eyes and sleep, her fingers brushing through Boomer’s fur as he dozed, but the low, murmuring sound of Burke talking just outside stirred her anxiety, and each time she closed her eyes she just saw John’s face.

John, holding her face and kissing her, You and me. John, burying his face into her neck, I love you.

John, their noses brushing, We can have a place to belong, Elliot.

John, vicious and unyielding, I’m it for you.

She lurched out of the bed, pushing her way into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her just in time to lean over the toilet and throw up whatever was left in her stomach—which wasn’t much, if the amount of dry-heaving were any indication. Bile burned at the back of her throat, and she thought if she didn’t get a breath of air she was going to fucking die.

Elliot pushed the window open and tried to steady her breathing. Rinsing her mouth out in the sink, she shut the water off and paused, looking at herself in the mirror.

The person that looked back at her was unfamiliar. A stranger. She blinked rapidly, trying to steady herself, but each time she did, she felt less and less familiar with the gaunt, sharp-faced, dark-eyed stranger gazing back at her from the mirror. Some bruises along her neck and shoulders still remained.

Who are you? She thought, tiredly. The one that killed all of those peggies? The one that killed Kian? Why don’t I recognize you?

“... understand that, sir, it’s just—if you saw what was going on...”

Burke’s voice drifted in through the window. He must have been pacing, because the volume of his words drifted and moved, as though he were walking around the corner and then back again.

His footsteps paused. “No, I have not read the autopsy report yet. I didn’t think it pertinent at this time, considering we only just—”

She heard Burke’s words cut abruptly, the sound of his breath leaving him in a sharp exhale, and then he said, “Jesus Christ. No, I didn’t know.”

Oh, she thought hazily, oh, he knows. He knows what I did.

Her body moved automatically. Something inside of her kicked—we’re not done yet, it said, ferocious and furious, sinking its teeth into her and operating her body outside of her own executive function. We’re not fucking done yet.

Elliot pulled her sweater and her shoes on. The late autumn chill drifting through the open window made her mind feel sharp, and clear, and she thought, somthing has to be done, and I’ll fucking do it.

She stuffed a couple of things that felt essential into a bag—painkillers, bottles of water from the fridge, Burke’s gun he’d left on the nightstand closest to the door—and then waited until she heard his footsteps pacing around the corner again before she ducked out of the window.

When she looked back, Boomer had already leapt through the window after her. His eyes were on her, bright, ready.

And then she ran.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

She’s twenty-six, and she’s in a bar.

Or that’s how it would go, anyway, if she was asleep. If she were dreaming, or remembering. But she wasn’t. Elliot was twenty-six, and she was in a bar, and she wasn’t waiting for her best friend to come back with a different drink, and she wasn’t making eyes at a handsome blue-eyed stranger from across the bar. He wouldn’t come over and call her beautiful, and he wouldn’t make her want to be kissed by someone whose face looked a little sharp, and she wouldn’t one day think that maybe she was in love with him.

I’m just a girl, she thought tiredly, staring at the water glass on the counter in front of her. This wasn’t supposed to be my life.

But it was. It was her life. Here she was, sitting in a seedy bar halfway to Georgia, with a U.S. Marshal’s gun she’d lifted sitting in her bag. She’d hitch-hiked a ride back into Fall’s End, grabbed what remained of her things—her ID, what little cash she still had on her, a debit card she was too paranoid to use, dog food—and then she’d taken the jeep parked out behind the Keller’s old place and drove.

And drove. And drove. And drove.

Now, she was twenty-six, sitting in a bar, and there is no Joey coming to rescue her, and there is no John to be a monster that she needed rescuing from.

I’m just a girl. This wasn’t supposed to be my life.

She left the cash for her water on the bar top, hauling herself out of the stool and back out into the parking lot. It was late; the sky was speckled with stars; if she thought hard enough, if she really thought about, Elliot thought maybe, somewhere inside of her, she was going to be okay.

As she climbed into the driver’s seat of the jeep, Elliot turned the key into the ignition and reached into a grocery store bag on the passenger seat, fumbling around for the cigarettes she’d purchased. Her fingers hit hard plastic and she glanced over.

The two little tiny lines on the pregnancy test stared back at her. Her stomach lurched, nausea welling up inside of her, and she tossed the hard plastic back into the bag and left the cigarettes untouched. Boomer, dozing in the back seat, pricked his ears forward and looked at her inquisitively.

She was just a girl. This wasn’t supposed to be her life. But it was—and there was only one place left to go from here.

Home.

[miss-choco-chips]

Put a ring on it 2

Gonna drop this here super quick and then go back to cram for my finals. Who allowed me to schedule six finals in one week? I’m gonna die. Pray for me.

Tagging @jedissica ‘cause they asked me to, and @animemangasoul who I think will like this.

---.---

-Batman, here we are. It’s been a while since you last called an emergency meeting. Is everything okay?

-Were you aware that our children eloped together?

-...what.

-As in, my third kid, your first one, Diana’s second, and Barry’s… grandchild. I’m not exactly sure about who married who, but there was more than one wedding and they have a group chat called ‘hubbies and waifu’. Whatever that means.

-...

-...

-That’s my girl. I always told her, go big or go home.

-Diana, no.

----.----

Cassie’s phone went off again with her specific Diana ringtone, and she gave up, turning it off and throwing it on the pile with Kon’s, Bart’s and Tim’s (the last one had four all by himself, so it was quite a big ‘phone tower’; Hah, pun intended).

-You’re gonna freak out so badly over this when you actually wake up -she informed Tim’s fluffy hair. 

Said vigilante only released a cute little snore, face buried on her lap, legs thrown over Kon’s, one hand that had fallen from the couch resting on Bart’s head where he sat on the floor in front of them.

-Well, they were going to find out one way or another. And this was probably among the best scenarios.

-How? I’m sure this one was top five on Tim’s ‘worst case’ nightmare list.

-I was there and saw their faces. I didn’t even know Batman could express any emotion other than ‘cold’ and ‘overflowing with rage’. That image will bring me joy in future distressing times, I’m sure. My patronus memory, if you will.

-I’m soooooooo jealous, dude.

Cassie snorted, carefully not moving an inch, fingers cradling through Tim’s hair. Over her dead body would he ever cut it, now that it was finally long enough to make itty tiny braids all over it, her favorite therapeutic iddle work.

-We’ll make Tim give us footage when he wakes up. He has to provide for us, after all.

Kon let his arm, resting on the backrest of the couch, fall over Cassie’s shoulders- Be sure to include footage from after we left, too. Nightwing’s  ‘As in more than one?!’ part was solid gold.

-No kidding, I want that as my ringtone for you and Tim -chimed in Bart, carefully moving Tim’s hand back to the couch and then running to the kitchen- Ice cream?

-Do you even need to ask?

---.----

By the time Tim woke up, the hero gossip network had done it’s thing, and almost everyone with a costume was aware of the news. Even Cissie, who was officially retired, and Zachary Zatara, away on his shows and usually out of reach, had called, the first one to offer congratulations and ask if the thing was real emotionally-wise, the second to just laugh at them for full six minutes before hanging up. 

He did text them later, asking when the celebration ceremony would be.

-It’s not a bad idea -mused Cassie, showing them her phone screen with the magician’s text- a party, I mean.

Tim, from his place working a case on the Titan’s main computer, tuted- Batman might actually kill me for that. I think we’ve survived this far only because there are no written records making this official, and a part of him must think it’s all some elaborate prank.

-It’s not -insisted Bart, head poking out of the kitchen- we are family now, officially. No take backs.

Their Robin shifted in place just enough for them to see his smile, a gift on itself- I know, guys, and the sentiment is much appreciated. But from a legal standpoint, it’s not that different from what a few kids on a playground could do while playing family. Only place this could stand against judgement would be the future, some ancient Amazonian tribe, or Krypton.

-Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s true for us. And, I mean, we didn’t want to cut your options if you ever wanted to actually get married the classic way.

This time, their bird actually turned around, a warmth on his expression that he usually reserved for his team. It made them feel special like nothing else.

-Yeah, I know. Thank you for that. It was really considerated.

As if they would drag Tim into something like legal marriage without previous consent. The fact that he even felt the need to thank them for showing him basic human decency was making their blood boil with the need to punch a bat on the face.

Kon flew over, the high chair preventing him from draping himself on his best friend’s back, but not from hugging his neck and messing his hair.

-Back at my point -cleared her throat the amazonian-, your former mentor can suck my metaphorical Freudian dick. We could throw a party, and it would only be different from a normal one because marriage celebrations include gifts, which I’m totally for. I haven’t seen Zatara, Cissie, Greta and Anita in a while, and Miguel, Raven and Gar might murder us for not telling them about our plans and not making it up to them with a party. No ‘adults’ out of the ones on team, or mentors, invited, enough alcohol to re-drown Atlantis, fancy food bought with Bat’s credit card…

-You are right, it does sound kinda nice -hummed Kon, floating just out of Tim’s range when former Wonder Boy tried to slap his hands away. Silly bat, always denying affection.

-All in favor?

-I don’t know -giving up, Tim went back to his case files- I have a lot to do this days, and there’s a lead that might take me to Asia…

-Isn’t Cass there? Ask her to take over it for you, as a marriage present or something. C’mon Tim, do it for the gifts. Imagine what Zatara might get for us. So crash.

-If  it’s a magical object, I won't want it anywhere near me. We bats don’t have the best track record with that stuff, and I swear to god if I get deaged I would use my non-prosecutable age to murder someone. Probably Zatara himself.

-Adorable as that might be, it totally won’t happen.

----.----

-....can you repeat it one more time? Slower, though. I think I’m getting hearing problems.

Raven, through the video call connecting the Cave with the Tower, didn’t seem fazed by Nightwing’s slightly threatening tone.

-I said, the team had a party, everyone got drunk, and it was fine for a while. I was watching over them, but then I needed to use the restroom. When I got back, someone had gotten ahold of Zachary’s gift for Tim, Cassie, Kon and Bart, and…

-Why for those four? -asked Hood, standing right by N’s side. He had came in during Raven’s first explanation, and felt like there was something he was missing.

-It was a marriage gift. Moving on…

-A what?! Since when is Lil Red married? The fuck happened while I was in Russia?!

-...someone had gotten ahold of the gift -Raven kept going, cool as a cucumber. On the background behind her, teen heroes were running back and forth, people were screaming and something was smoking-, which happened to be some sort of magical artifact. Zachary wasn’t really aware of what it did, he just randomly choose it from among his collection of magical tools when he remembered at the last possible time a gift was mandatory for a wedding party. I returned from the bathroom and everything was a mess, the couch was turned upside down, a pipe had burst, the tv was on fire and Tim had been de aged.

There was a battle scream, in a distinctly childish voice, somewhere on the room out of view of the camera, and Raven’s eyes left the screen for a second as if looking at it.

-Was that Red Robin? -Batman, because of course he was listening in, started typing at the console, frantically trying to get a new angle to see what was going on on the Tower.

-He’s unharmed, and everything is under control.

Another scream, this time louder.

-...that didn’t sound under control -mused Dick, apparently still processing the information. Bruce typed faster. Robin gripped his sword tighter, as if readying himself for a war.

Jason still looked utterly lost.

-Marriage? She said marriage? AND YOU ASSHOLES KNEW ‘BOUT THIS?!

-He’s… throwing a tantrum -the woman ignored him, still looking only at her former leader-. Something about using his age to kill Zatara without being convicted. I’ll need to leave now, I only called to ask you to take over Tim’s cases while we solve this issue.

-Wait! Rae, if Timmy’s a kid, he needs to be with us. We are his family, it’s our jurisdiction.

A green bird suddenly landed on her shoulder, halthing whatever response she might give. Gar pecked her on the cheek lightly before turning his beak their direction.

-Husbands and Wives get priority, N, you know that. Cassie, Kon and Bart are looking after him, and keeping him from killing Zachary, while the rest of us research how to turn him back. Zach is actually trying to contact his cousin, maybe the great Zatanna will quicken this process. So, yeah, no Bats allowed on the Tower until then!

-But/!

A loud crash, followed by a wail, made Gar wince and Raven’s head to snap to the side and growl.

-Whelp, gotta go, Tower out! -a ‘Tim!’ could be heard in the background just before the screen went dark.

-...

-...

-...

-...Anyone gonna fill me in?

-Drake eloped thrice over without informing us and has been living in sinful unworthiness with his three partners since last month or so, that we know about. Probably more.

-...Partners?

-You heard her. The speedster, clone and amazonian.

-...

-...

-Dickie, how t’fuck did ya allow’is to happen?!

-IT’S NOT LIKE I WAS ASKED FOR MY BLESSING, JASON!

-B, what the utter hell, ain’t ya supposed to keep track of this kinda shit?!?

-...

-Don’t bother, Father has been broken since learning of Drake’s mistake, and will go unresponsive at the most inconvenient times.

-...

-Fuck, I need a drink. Also, ’m going there.

-You heard Gar, Jay -pointed out Dick- we can’t just walk in there, and the Tower is legally his. We have to be smart about this, plan this through, and/

-Yeah, no, he said ‘no bats’-gesturing at his gun holsters, he started to walk to where his bike was parked-. RIP ya’ll, but I’m different. See ya.

-...

-...

-Tt. Useless. I’ll go back to training. Father, Grayson, should you two, as the plebeians say, ‘snap out of it’ and come with a good plan to get Drake back under our tutelage, I’ll be by the mats waiting.

-...

-...Don’t look at me like that. I raised him for a few months tops, but he’s your kid, not mine. Same with Tim, and Jason’s entirely your fault.

---.---

Meanwhile, back at the Tower, Kon let out a screeching ‘Tim!’ before diving out and catching the baby bird in his arms, halting his fall from the ceiling rafters where he had been climbing. Behind him, Cassie let out a relieved breath.

-God’s above, you almost gave me a heart attack. Okay, new ground rules, this two little feet stay on the ground.

Tim, as proudly as a three year old toddler could, frowned at him.

-Don’t patwonize me, Kon. And lemme go, I havta cacth Zac/ Zat/… Magic-boy.

Bart materialized by their side, arms looping below Tim’s armpints to carry him to the recently put back to its correct place couch. He dropped there, tiny bird in his lap, cooing all the while.

-Aww, you’re precious.

-I could still huwt you -pointed out the toddler, resigning himself at being manhandled.

-I know -replied Bart lovingly, softly stroking his turf of hair.

Somewhere on the side, Cissie clapped her hands, as if getting rid of the dust there.

-Okay, I putted out the fire, so now I’ll be heading home. This magical bullshit is way out of my ‘retired’ comfort zone.

Cassie landed by her side and gave her a quick hug, while Greta walked up to them- I understand, thanks for coming.

-Give us a call when this is solved, we can have a coffee while you complain about your husbands. And… child, now, I guess. God, it was already weird calling Tim your husband, but now he’s a baby and it's doubly weird. Figure this out quickly.

-Will do. See you guys later.

One by one, they all left, some offering their support (appreciated, but not needed, thank you, we’ll manage), some still laughing. In the end, only the Core Four, Gar, Raven and Miguel remained. Zachary probably was there somewhere (if he dared leave without helping them fix this, he was dead meat), but out of the enraged toddler’s sight, which. Wise.

Even if said little human being was pint sized and cow eyed, he was probably still the most dangerous person in the room, unarmed or not (you know what, scratch that; if time with Tim taught them anything, was that no bat was ever unarmed. Even bare handed, their own bodies were weapons).

-...So... What should we do while we wait for Zatara’s solution?

-I vote movie night. It’s not like we can keep on drinking, with a kid in the room/ Auch! Pointy elbows, Tim!

Kon swooped in, picking Tim from Bart’s not invulnerable lap and cuddling to him on the couch by the speedster’s side. Tim knew better than to hit the Boy of Steel without proper equipment, so he let himself fall back against the broad chest. Cassie, talking to the older members of the team on the side, smiled softly at them before returning to her conversation.

As mad as his current situation made him, Tim couldn’t bring himself to pout too much. It had been a fun night, all things considered.

-----.-----

[space-blue]

A High Magic

The theme being pure dialogue, I did not bother with tags. This is my 8th competition win.

You've always known what you wanted to do then, and that's really admirable. In my case at six I wanted to be a vet, as one does, but by eight I'd caught on enough to want to be a firefighter. You know, helping people and stuff. Intervening. At eleven I had made up my mind that I would become a guru. Seemed to me if I were successful, it'd be the best way to have people take proper care of their dead. Change their habits at the root, the core of their convictions.

It wouldn't have changed the way the masses behave. The world is just too big.

Well, I had to believe, right? Plus everything is interconnected these days, word goes round, people follow trends. Could have made my cult all online and reach people everywhere, even abroad.

I suppose... How did that work out?

I never got around to even try. I don't think it would have been that great a success if people knew the origin of my abilities.

Is it so? I find that surprising! Surely it still is impressive no matter what sparks it?

Most people just pitied me. The folks at the evaluation office did too. Listened to me describe all the ghosts, and what I'd come to understand of hauntings, and why the ghosts always ended up following me around in the end, and they nodded and said how it was quite rare to have magic coming out before eight. You know that gramps, don't you? Earliest magics to manifest are the elemental ones–

Fire, air, water...

Yes, and that's 'cause they take no imagination. Anything more complex and the kid needs to have some understanding of higher concepts. It worried my parents a lot, that concept thing. How I got to see ghosts when as far as they knew I didn't know what death was and never did come home with a dead animal and questions. Least of all seen a dead person.

So they just labelled you with a higher, or spiritual magic and left it at that? Surely people saw the value in that at least? Did no one want to investigate?

Not really. Like I said, it spooked people. My assigned magic counsellor drafted a few career paths for me, spiritual re-connector, grief counsellor, Voodoo witch, whathaveyou. He didn't understand! Everyone just assumed I got to see these ghosts if I wanted to. Everybody with magics, small and big, even feral magics, they get to control when they use it. Dead people, they don't work like that. They're there, following their victim of choice, the person they latched on to, and then they notice me seeing them, and that's it! They jump wagon. Because you see, ghosts are just attention seekers! They have to have it! Talking to them is like bacon down a dog's gullet. Makes them follow you loyally. If you see them, and you react to the stuff they do, they're in attention heaven! Some will even just start reciting their entire lives at you, bitch and moan and groan, it's a nightmare.

I guess, you being dead, as everyone around just ignores you... Even the people dear to you, it's quite hard on the mind.

Gramps, do you know how ghosts are made?

Mmmh... Not really? I have my ideas, monks at my temple do too, every culture thought about what happens to the spirit after death. But I'm sure, considering you're the expert...

Right, I don't though. Nobody really does. Here's my educated guess : They're born of people's attention to begin with. People can't get over the death, they rehash it, might have trauma, dreams, they call out to their dead ones, and that makes their essence–whatever ghosts are made of–stick around. They can then coalesce into whatever makes the flavour of ghost they end up as, depending on their own regrets and emotions and drives. They're kept here by that anxious maelstrom of emotion, and form based on their own worst traits. It's a bad mix. So they'd come to me alright, scare the shit out of me and persecute me, right until the day I figured out that you could make them leave!

Hah! How did that happen?

Was at one of my favourite joints. Mikwa kitchen, run by a couple, maybe five tables–didn't matter, food was from heaven's own canteen. Always got the same damn thing, never got tired of it.

I understand. I was the same with corn dogs. Corn dogs never got old, even if I did.

You know what it's like then, long week, tired, tough time at school, girlfriend getting all in my face about my magic being unmanageable... It was a Friday and I was needing my dose of Mikwan to just–

Relax.

Damn right. Anyway. I'm right outside waiting for my take away to be done, and she drops right out of the tree I'm leaning on! Rope around her neck, face all purple, eyes... You get the idea. She starts screaming at me, and man, it was just too much! So I screamed right back at her! "Fuck you, bitch! You don't fucking get to ruin my Mikwan fucking meal. I don't care about your sad shit story, go haunt somebody who gives a shit!"

Ahaha! That's very colourful, young man, but don't yell so–here, let me top up that glass of yours. Go on–what happened?

It worked. She tried to drop out of two more trees on my way back home, walked right past her, cussing but not giving her a glance, and she gave up. Shortest haunting I had had my whole life.

How old were you?

That day? Twenty.

Mmmh, it must have felt like a long time coming. Did you not try to see a soother?

I did. Biggest shock of my life, that.

Did it not work?

That's just the thing! I went a year after the tree lady. I'd managed to find ways to cope by then, but I couldn't believe I struggled this much still with my magic. It just didn't seem worth it, to keep it. So I go to that well recommended soother. With a high cancelling magic. Could erase abilities down flat. Had to save for four months for that appointment. Dude sits me down, grills me about my reasons for being here, and at least he was agreeing with me! Asked if I had consulted with someone to help "master" my magic first. Told him I plain didn't want it. Nothing wrong with having no magic.

Quite true. Never had a shade of ability myself, hasn't stopped me from being happy.

I didn't picture you as magicless somehow, gramps! I thought you'd have a trick like curling up moustaches or something! Hah! Anyway, man puts his hands on me, frowns...

Oh?

Says I don't have a magic at all.

Whaaa–

I know! And he was adamant. Just nothing there for him to remove! He even refused to charge me. It struck me then. In the eval office, they don't touch you. I mean, not for check ups like mine. First they listen to what you can do, or look if you can show. If you fit in a category, that's all there is to it. Only those with big potentials get appointments with staff with abilities. I never saw one. Lady never touched me, she probably had no magic to be able to tell anyway. What I described to her sounded like a pesky magic that would feed a psychiatrist for years, and nothing more. So they never checked. And then you know how it goes: at school, during civic duties, in the army, they ask but unless you make a big splash, nobody sends you to a Senser, or anyone who can tell for sure...

So you spent your whole life thinking you had a higher magic, when in fact you had...

Nothing. Nothing anyone recognised, at least.

That has to have been a shock.

Tell me about it.

But then, what is it?

That soother called a senser friend of his and sent me in for a free appointment. She too said there was nothing there at all. She was fantastic. Marta Balbin, we're still in touch, she's great. Anyway, she tagged with me in search of a ghost we could squeeze for some good intel that their relatives would validate, to prove I did see stuff for real, you know?

Did you show her how cussing at ghosts makes them go away?

Aha, I wish! But no, that's not quite how it works. With tree lady I got lucky. What you need to do is press their buttons, scratch their itch, tell them what they need to hear. Making them leave requires you to interact with them somehow, and I'd spent two decades avoiding that as much as I could.

Ah, I see, each ghost needs their own special interaction in order to be able to move on?

Precisely.

And so she believed you?

Oh yes, and finally helped me meet with a person with answers for me!

How exciting! Pray tell, young lad, tell me what it is!

She introduced me to the high priest of Enmu, in the capital's temple.

The God of the Netherworld? I suppose it makes sense to ask them.

Prepare yourself to be blown away : it turns out I was dead at birth, for two whole minutes the doctors worked on me, and I eventually breathed. Apparently though as a newborn I'd had no sins to weigh and I had already been given a rank in the Great City. So when I was brought back... I was an official of the Great City.

A foot in life and a foot in the Netherworld? Is this even possible?

High priest was the same! All Enmu high priests are! Apparently outside of ceremonies they spend their time putting ghosts at rest.

That is incredible! How can such a secret be so well guarded?

There are only a dozen people like this in the country, so it's not too hard. They'd have found me sooner, if the magics office had done their job properly and not discounted me as a minor seer or medium.

So are you one of them now? A high priest of Enmu? Working for a God?

Precisely.

And you work with ghosts?

What do you think we're doing here, gramps?

I– What?

You're Jeremya Mikkels, an archaeologist deceased at the ripe old age of eighty-eight, you wrote books on ancient civilisations until the bitter end, didn't you? You loved digging up secrets.

Yes–I... I did.

And I just gave you a great secret. A truth you never knew in your living days. Exactly what you'd been craving. You've regretted not digging up more, haven't you? Well, now you can take this very rare knowledge with you to the Great City.

I can? Yes it's... Yes, I suppose I can.

Leave us with no regrets my friend. Times have changed for me too, I enjoyed our chat, a lot more than if I'd met you fifteen years ago!

I would have haunted you...

And I wouldn't have had anything to say to satisfy you. But now, you can go in peace gramps.

Thank you, lad. I can see it and... it means a lot. I'll bring good word of you.

And I'll seek you out in the next life. We shall talk again, and I will bring you more secrets of this world. Now be gone, Jeremya Mikkels. Cross under Enmu's obsidian gate without regrets.

~~ August 2020 – Theme : Pure Dialogue

[longeyelashedtragedy]

Writer ask meme

I was tagged by the flamazing @feedingmyinsomnia​ <333 and i will tag...if you want!... @perfectpiety @amethyst-fox-jv @ayerlind @sitkowski and anyone else who writes who sees this!  but you don’t have to, just feel honored that i tagged you ;)

ao3 name: catmanu!

fandoms: currently writing in the football (as in soccer) rpf fandom, but always have other things on my mind as well.

number of fics: i’ve written SO many in my lifetime and most have never been published anywhere.

fic i spent the most time on: technically “exit right” because it took me like...a year and a half to write it?  in terms of like...period of time spent actively writing it’s definitely “trophy boyfriend.”

fic i spent the least amount of time on: either “fly faster!” which i wrote in like, an hour or “jet ski još čeka” which i wrote over the course of a day.

shortest fic: my shortest standalone fic on ao3 is “the world drowned” at 370 words--my ancient shireen baratheon/rickon stark futurefic 

most hits / most kudos / most comment threads / most bookmarks / highest total word count:  ok im leaving out the drabble collections.  omg without even looking i know this is all gonna be fuckin... “captivated” because i’m The arya/jaqen person on ao3 even now.  let’s see.  most hits: “captivated,” most kudos: “captivated,” most comment threads: “trophy boyfriend,” most bookmarks: “captivated,” highest total word count: “trophy boyfriend.”  sigh

favorite fic i wrote: omg i think i made a post like this recently?   most recently my favorite fics are “trophy boyfriend,” “5.VII.,” “ça c’est ma dope,” “what we do in the élysée,” “victory rain,” “the heat of it all,” “soy loca con mi tigre,” “chief of the armed forces.”  in the past i love all my arya/jaqen stuff so much.  i really do love most of what i’ve written that i posted, but these stand out to me.  oh, and how could i forget-- “modernity towering in front of the sky.” still slaps tbqh

fic i want to rewrite/expand on: everything i’ve written is its own thing.  i don’t usually write things that require a sequel or anything, so there isn’t really anything i can think of?

share a bit of a wip or story idea you’re working on:, ok, so, ahhhh.  i post a lot from my current big ass wip “mare liberum,” but another thing i’m agonizing over is my šluka (šime & luka) longfic “we light up the world.”  i thought it was going to be a fun little jaunt but it’s killing me because there’s not much of a precedent for it and i honestly have no idea how to write the pov.  F in the chat for my pov.  but sigh, i’ll stick a bit of it below; read at your own risk...

Tonight there really is a reason for him to be available and he’s had enough rakija on an empty enough stomach (what was the last thing he ate? How come he can’t remember?) to feel like putting his hand on Luka Modrić’s strong heroic leg and leaning into his face till their noses touched just like on Zadar beach and saying…well, he’s not sure what he’d say.  But he has to pretend he’s sober because Luka is pretty sober and his whole family is here anyway.

Fuck it!  They should have just done the grapes thing!

Šime pulls out his phone and makes Deki a Happy New Year! video instead.  It feels really good to talk to Dejan, even if he can’t talk back.

He gets an idea in the middle of this.  “Hey, look,” he says to his phone.   “Look who’s here with me.  Wait for it…wait for it…HEY…CAPTAIN!”

At least Luka looks happy to see him, and that makes him feel warm all over, warmer than you get from drinking alone.  He turns away from Vanja.  “What’s up?”

“Wanna say hi to Dejan with me?  Say hi, Captain Luka.”

Luka smirks.  “Are you two live?  I don’t want to be in any of your lives.”

Šime clutches his heart.  “Did you hear that, Deki?   Our captain doesn’t like our lajjjjjjvs.  Think we should—mutiny.”

Suddenly Luka’s bony chin lands on Šime’s shoulder.  “Happy New Year!” he yells in Šime’s ear.  Šime doesn’t really mind.  “Are you back in Croatia?  How many times have you bullied Davor this—oh, you’re not live.”  He ruffles Šime’s curls.  Dejan’s not going to be too thrilled about that, but considering he and Šime are both, well, married—and not to each other—Šime figures he can’t reasonably complain about someone else touching his ljubavi’s hair.  And he’ll tell Deki that if he does.  “You should have told me.  I feel stupid.”  He winks.

“Well...you said you didn’t want to be in any of our lajjjjjjvs,” Šime sings.  “So, now you’re not.  See?”  He sticks his tongue out at his video for Deki.  “C’mon, brate, I’ll show you who else is here.”  He moves away from Luka quickly.  Just in case.

He isn’t sure how much time has passed, but he’s definitely helped himself to another drink or two or more than two, and suddenly Luka has appeared next to him.  His hair looks so soft and fluffy and beautiful and Šime just wants--really, really wants to take Luka in his arms and put his nose in his hair and just hold him for a long time.  Rest his head on top of Luka’s head, maybe.  Whisper we’re so lucky to have you.  Please don’t ever retire, play until your bones turn to dust.  Please don’t leave.  

“Hey, do you want a ride home?” Luka asks.  All of a sudden he puts his arm around Šime and Šime pinches his leg pretty hard to make sure this is real.  Luka’s arms are—tricky.  When you first see them, you don’t realize how strong they are.  But when you feel them, you know.  And when one of them is wrapping around your shoulders like a big, heavy snake, you really know.  “I don’t know how you got here, but you shouldn’t get home that way.”

Šime snorts.  “Thanks, Mom.  Since when do you care…I’ve seen you way more drunk than I am right now.”

Luka is playing with the ends of his hair.  Why is Luka playing with the ends of his hair?  He pinches his leg again and it stings a little, but, is he dreaming that he’s pinching himself?  Did someone put something in the rakija?  He stares around the room wildly for a second, wondering who in there’s trying to get him in bed.  “Yeah, but I had people to take care of me, then,” Luka says.  “Even if people was just you and Domo holding my legs.”

“Mmmmm,” Šime agrees, remembering much more about those days than just that.

“But especially you.  You always look out for me when I get like…”  Luka gives him a wet kiss on the forehead and lets go of his shoulders.  “So let us drive you back.”

“Uhhhh.”  Šime stares at Luka till his eyes cross.   Wow, he’s definitely more drunk than he thought he was.  “Okay,” he says.

Sofia is asleep by the time they leave.  Vanja carries her to the car.  Their older two’s eyes are closing as they walk, so Luka holds their hands.  Šime walks a few steps behind them, feeling kind of like the family dog.  It’s not too late to call an Uber, right?.  He really should just call an Uber.  He will, actually.  He pulls out his phone only to realize that making Dejan a video had used up all the battery.

“Go on, sit in the front.  Come on.”  Šime blinks. Vanja is smiling at him. 

“No, that’s...You should sit next to Luka. I’m totally cool with sitting with the kids! They’re all so awesome.”

“They’re all so asleep,” Vanja says. Šime peeks into the car. In the back, Ivano and Ema have already passed out. “Take the front. You’re our guest.”

Šime flops into the passenger seat. He doesn’t want to be rude to Vanja, or make anything even more awkward. But it’s just that up here Luka’s cologne smells so strong and it would be so easy to reach over and just touch him while telling him he still thinks about being a Zadar kid with him just about every week. And he’s so bad at resisting temptation when he’s drunk. Mmmmm, my sinner, Dejan would say sometimes. My beautiful sinful sinner, God, my beautiful perfect—

“Hey, got a playlist?” he asks quickly.  If he gets hard thinking about Deki this won’t get any less weird. “How about some Marice, mariceeeeee--”

“I wish,” Luka says. “But the kids…”  Šime watches how the streetlights light up all the interesting angles of his face.  “Once they’re asleep, you’ll do anything to make sure they stay asleep.  You know how that goes.”  

Šime swallows around the guilty lump that’s suddenly appeared in his throat and he nods.  He keeps his eyes fixed on Luka’s face.  Each time a car’s headlights flash across it, it changes.  Sometimes he looks much younger than he is. And sometimes he looks…older than 34.  Like an eternal captain, like he’ll somehow be Šime’s leader forever even after he retires.

“Luka, stop talking to him,” Vanja says from behind him.  “He looks about as exhausted as the kids.”

“What?  That’s like asking me to stop playing football,” Luka says. “I could never stop talking to Šime.”  And keeping his eyes on the road, he takes one hand off the wheel to rest it on Šime’s leg. “We go way back.  Zadar kids and all.”

Suddenly words are hard.  “We, uhhh—yeah.  It’s not like I knew you back in the day.  We don’t go back that f--that--we…”

“What did I say?” Vanja said.  “Your best right-back’s falling asleep.”

“No, ‘m…’m not, I…”  And Luka is gently squeezing his knee, and--

“Maybe help him get inside,” Vanja is saying.  Šime blinks.  Somehow they’re back at his place and he has no idea how it happened.

“Hey, did I snore?  Did I talk in my sleep or something?”

“Nope,” Vanja says.  “I hate to say it, Šime, but you’re pretty boring when you sleep.”

“Oh?”  He yawns.  What is he, an old man all of a sudden?  A few drinks and this is what happens to him?  “Dejan says I’m cudd--”

“Okayyyy, out,” Luka says.  He’s totally covering up a laugh.  Shit!  “That’s a good idea, Vanja.  I’ll get him inside.  Can’t lose a defender, right?”

Šime says goodnight to Vanja, who now definitely knows he and Deki are fucking, but she’s a pretty chill person, so it really could be worse.  His legs wobble underneath him, and he bumps into the warm hood of the car.

[bakudekuficlibrary]

Hi! I’m looking for multichapter bakudeku fics (>20,000 words) that are heavy on the angst but have a happy ending. Bonus points if the rating is mature or explicit! Thanks so much for all you do!!!

Hello! Here are all fics tagged with “Angst with a Happy Ending” and have a word count greater than 20,000 words that I could find! Lucky for you, two-thirds of them have a rating of mature or explicit! 

-Ellie

14 Works.

Quiet Rapture by lalazee ( E | 29,113+ | 8/? )

That ABO fic where cocky Alpha Bakugou falls in mate-love at first scent, while Midoriya is just a poor bookstore-owning Omega who got his nose punched in is a kid and can’t smell a damn thing. Also known as: That time an Alpha had to use his actual personalityto woo his mate instead of relying on his scent.

[Graphic Depictions of Violence]

Honeymoon High by Butterfree ( T | 115,021 | 18/18 )

“OI, FUCKFACE! If you think you’re just going to waltz into this fancy-ass church with your fake as shit smile and your miserable bitch of a wife while my friend is sitting on the street carrying YOUR BABY, then YOU need to step right down here SO I CAN DETONATE YOUR ASS UNTIL NO ONE CAN RECOGNIZE YOUR LYING FACE, YOU DIPSHIT EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!”

A beat of silence.

And then all hell broke loose.

It started with a ‘SLAP’ resonating from the bride who activated some quirk to maximize the pain that her ex-fiancé felt. A lady near the front fainted, knocking over the table with the wedding cake and a glass swan sculpture. The scattered remains caused the ring bearer to jump up. Her quirk accidentally activated and sent the brides’ maids into the air. A man with half white and half red hair rushed to save the statue, but ended up tripping over a power line which engulfed the room in darkness. It didn’t take long for everyone else in the building to follow.

In the midst of the glory Katsuki felt at the complete chaos, a calloused hand grabbed his sleeve. He was met with wide and curious green eyes. “Excuse me, I’m the groom. Do I know you?”

.

Fuck. He crashed the wrong wedding.

[Graphic Depictions of Violence]

[Abandoned] Listen to the Heart by milkcandie ( M | 25,682 | 5/? )

[will not be continued]

Katsuki wants to remake what he had demolished (broke, cut, destroyed), every little thing that he had singlehandedly set on fire and every moment that he had crushed under his foot. The past is irreparable, but when he sees Izuku, he feels like he can believe in the impossible again.

☆ A Koe no Katachi AU where Izuku is deaf and Katsuki dedicates his entire being to see him smile.

Beyond Sea and Storm by Celestialgunfireopera ( E | 38,734+ | 10/? )

Ancient curse, destined mates, kingdoms rise and fall, and through it all, two young men learning to love.

[Graphic Depictions of Violence]

Subject 00626: Ground Zero by LordExplodo-Angst (QueerPinoy) ( M | 43,530 | 27/27 )

In a world where Quirks are still new, it is imperative that mankind strives to understand them, a top priority, a scientific frontier like no other. At least, that’s what Dr. Midoriya thought when he chose his specification for his Human Biology degree years ago. He hadn’t questioned it until his residency at the Supernatural Ability Lab at Yuuei Institute of Research and joined the lab on Subject 00626: Ground Zero.

A most people are Quirkless, probably-unethical human experimentation AU

[Graphic Depictions of Violence | PTSD | Panic Attacks | Self-Harm]

Something Always Brings Me Back To You by odasaku (jemtessa) ( T | 32,561 | 15/15 )

It never takes too long.

Midoriya Izuku has finally transferred into the hero course at U.A. High School after he moved away. The only problem is he’s quirkless.

Inspired by the UnOrdinary WebToon

[Graphic Depictions of Violence | Bullying]

Back to Reality by menengaur ( M | 39,093+ | 8/? )

Katsuki’s childhood friend disappeared when they were both seven. While everyone else gave hope, Katsuki made a promise to become the No.1 hero. If he couldn’t find Izuku, then he would at least destroy those who took him.

How will he react when Izuku returns with powers beyond what should be possible.

[Graphic Depictions of Violence]

flower language by Agent_Fluff ( T | 21,321+ | 7/20 )

Bakugou Katsuki is in love with his best friend. As much as he will deny it, and scream that he hates Midoriya Izuku from the top of his lungs, the proof is in the petals that bloom in his lungs.

And there’s nothing he can do about it.

2,645 Miles by mynameis152 ( M | 61,709+ | 18/? )

Izuku is a good boy, Katsuki isn’t.

Izuku is trying to face his problems head on, Katsuki is running away from his.

And on a high-stakes, cross-country road trip involving four fugitives, two oblivious tag-a-longs, a police task force, and a high risk crime ring, both Izuku and Katsuki will find not what they wanted, but what they needed.

[Graphic Depictions of Violence]

Of What ifs and time machines by Maru_Chan ( T | 47,765+ | 7/? )

Because the harsh reality was, that Izuku Midoriya was getting married tomorrow afternoon, and that no matter how Katsuki felt about it, there was nothing he could do to change that fact.

Or maybe there was.(Or: in which Bakugou Katsuki gets the bad end, and later gets another shot at rewriting it.)

One More Chance by Dragonbooks249 ( T | 29,022+ | 6/7 )

The raid went bad. All for One had escaped and they didn’t know. The battlefield was chaos and at the center of it all, the hero Deku and All for One battled. Izuku was able to put the greatest evil to rest once and for all, but not without a price. His partner and lover Katsuki holds the fallen hero in his arms as he breaths his last.

In a desperate attack, Katsuki launches himself at Shigaraki in an attempt to kill him.

Moments later, he awakens in his childhood bedroom, 4 years old and with a fresh start to life. It seemed perfect. Until it ends in tragedy. Now Katsuki is faced with the task of having to live multiple lives, all alongside the love of his life Midoriya Izuku. Thre is only one common thread to the way all of the lives seem to end, a single burning desire.

One more chance. Just one more chance to protect him.

One more chance.

[Major Character Death | Implied/Referenced Suicide]

Limerence by Unicookie (Kkc0) ( M | 34,538 | 1/1 )

| ˈlimərəns | n. the state of being infatuated with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one’s feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship.

In which Katsuki follows in his mother’s footsteps and hits aggressively on Izuku.

Icarus by BrightEyesEren ( M | 32,397+ | 4/9 )

“Young man, let me tell you the story of an angel born without wings.”

What’s the difference between an angel with wings and an angel without them? Between sin and enjoyment? Between living a life of purity and a life of freedom?

Izuku summons a demon by the name of Katsuki to find out.

Bad Blood Wars by Souzoshiyou ( M | 39,489+ | 4/? )

Midoriya Izuku is the only heir to the Midoriya family. Since her father runs a hospital, she’s forced to take up medicine at an early age while learning to fight red eyed beasts for the reason her father also runs a vampire slaying organization. It was supposed to be another normal day till her friends that disappeared years ago shows up and starts stacking revelations from then on.

[Graphic Depictions of Violence]

[tisfan]

Of all the Lord’s Creations

Title: Of All the Lord’s Creations Collaborator: @27dragons & @tisfan Link: AO3 Square Filled: B2 - Wing Kink Ship: Bucky/Tony Rating: E Major Tags: sin and temptation, angels AU, demons AU, a wide variety of semi-accurate christian mythology, and also some very inaccurate stuff, the authors are going to hell, angel!Bucky, demon!Tony, oral sex, frottage, tail and wing play, Gabriel’s kinda a dick Summary: Tony's pretty sure that corrupting an angel will get him back into Lucifer's good graces, and Bucky's gorgeous enough that seducing him won't even be a hardship. Bucky's on Earth to do good, which is what he was made for, but it's a little lonely. Surely it couldn't hurt just to *talk* to the fascinating demon that he happens to meet... Word Count: 11,457 Created for @mcukinkbingo

Tony was going to be in trouble soon, if he wasn’t already. In very hot water -- and in Tony’s case, that might be literal, if the Boss was peeved enough.

He’d lost his taste for partying and booze and drugs, and that was fine -- it was getting harder and harder to really corrupt someone with those anyway, and he’d landed a cushy gig inspiring weapons makers to newer and greater heights, destroying souls by the thousands, tens of thousands.

But it was so hands-off. So distasteful. He’d fallen down on that job, too.

And worst of all, he’d actually saved that child, the other week. So he had a soft spot for children. Sue him.

But it all added up to one thing: he had to earn some points with the Boss, and soon.

Pepper, his lesser demonic cohort (she refused to accept minion as her designation, and that was only fair really) consulted a clipboard. “I have it, Tony,” she said. “There’s a kid, out in Queens, he grows up to be a superhero; Clotho is all over that… We could corrupt him, that’d be… that’d be big. I mean, just think what a new supervillain on the scene would be worth.”

Tony glared at her. “Do I even know you?”

Pepper scowled. “Um, well, there’s that scandal,” she suggested. “The one we’ve all been sitting on, those letters for the potential saint, Margaret Carter? We could release those, put a real wrench in her canonization.”

“Ehhh. I don’t think they’re going to be enough to stop it. Just slow it down a little.”

“How about this, then--” Pepper thumbed through the Infernal News and Reports. “It’s a toughie. Maybe it’s just what you need, something to really sink your teeth into.”

Tony licked at his fangs. “Maybe. What’ve you got?”

“There’s an angel, on earth,” Pepper said. “He’s in trouble, halo’s a little bent. Gabriel’s dumped him in New York City, with instructions to do some major miracle work. But you know how angels are… lotta faith, very little street smarts.”

Tony sat up straight. “You’re shitting me. Seriously, an angel?” There hadn’t been a new Fallen in centuries. Corrupting an angel would cover Tony with glory. So to speak. “New York City, hm?” He grinned. “Now that. That is a worthy job. Get the relocation paperwork going, but keep it on the down-low. I don’t want anyone else muscling in before I get my turn.”

The problem with miracles is that they required faith. Faith, not proof.

There were a lot of things that Bucky could do… the loaves and fishes trick had always been popular.

Even though there wasn’t actually a food shortage on the planet these days. More like a supply problem, and it was beyond even Bucky’s ability to miracle his way through red tape.

So far, he’d been reduced to influencing luck. Which was, honestly, shitty miracle work. A homeless guy tripping over a winning lottery ticket didn’t praise or thank the Lord. In fact -- Bucky sighed -- they usually ended up in worse trouble.

Humans could only see him at all if they had high faith, or when he was in a human vessel. So, every morning, Bucky slipped into his vessel and tried to figure a way to get back into the Lord’s good Graces. Working at the soup kitchen wasn’t glamorous, but it did let him slip in some minor miracles; increasing the amount of soup, making what soups they did have more nourishing. A little healing touch, here and there. New York City had some of the nicest fall weather in a long time, letting the homeless stay warmer, longer.

It wasn’t much, but Bucky was still waiting for some Divine Inspiration.

If nothing else, earth was at least more interesting than Heaven. He didn’t much miss it, although he sometimes missed being able to talk to someone who actually knew who he was. Humans… didn’t listen. They just sort of waited for their turn to talk.

It was dark by the time Bucky left the soup kitchen, and as he crossed the street, a dark, slender figure detached itself from the alley wall. “Hey there, angelface.”

Bucky squinted into the darkness; the shadows seemed to cling to the stranger with loving hands. “The Lord be with you, friend,” Bucky said. It was a good, solid earth greeting. Those with no faith would rapidly make their excuses to be elsewhere, and those with faith would find a few moments with a comforting ear.

“I very much doubt it,” the stranger said as he took another step closer to Bucky. The shadows spread behind him like stretching wings. “Going my way?”

(more below the cut)

There was something about the stranger that sent a shiver down Bucky’s spine. He’d obviously been associating with humans too often if one could cause such a reaction. He took a step closer, trying to see the face behind the shadow. He couldn’t, which was odd. Absently, Bucky plucked his halo out of the pocket of the coat he wore; not like he got cold, but the pockets were useful.

To human eyes, Bucky would have merely run a hand through his hair. In truth, his halo was a bit lopsided, tilted at a rakish angle over his left eye, and pretty badly dinged up. It didn’t shine as much as it used to. Bucky blamed the Internet. Heaven was just so boring, and when he got caught sneaking down to earth from time to time -- he was almost current with Game of Thrones -- he got an angelic time out.

Seen with Heavenly light, the stranger’s face--

--was not at all human, under the human vessel he wore. The demon was beautiful, despite the shattered remains of his halo that made up what humans saw as horns, and the devastation of his wings. His face was angular and long, his beard trimmed into a neat, sharp point, his eyes deceptively warm and welcoming, his smile -- what else? -- wicked. “Ah, there you are,” he purred, and eyed Bucky’s halo and wings with a hungry expression. “That poor thing’s about to Fall,” he added. “You might want to have a friend ready to catch it.”

“I’m fine, thanks for your concern,” Bucky said, a little stiffly. It wasn’t his fault that Steve had been promoted years ago, and that Bucky didn’t really have any friends left. Steve tried to visit, as often as he could, but seraphim had busy schedules. He eyed the demon, curious. “I didn’t know they let your kind out of Hell.” He took a step closer, fascinated. The wings were short, stubby things that protruded out of the creature’s back, but he’d heard rumors that they had… oh, there it was, curled around the demon’s leg. A tail, long and as swift-moving as a cat’s. Bucky had a sudden urge to touch it.

“Aw, now, don’t be like that,” the demon said. “Of course they let me out. I’m Fallen, not damned.” He smiled again, charming and surprisingly sweet.

Bucky was a relatively young angel; the War had been long over before he’d come into existence. He’d never actually seen a Fallen, before, much less spoken to one. “Did it hurt,” Bucky wondered, “when you Fell?”

The demon laughed outright, and it didn’t sound evil or condescending, just... happy. “All right, you win that round,” he said after a moment, still chuckling around the words. “It’s been a long time since someone surprised me like that.” His head tipped, just a little, showing off a long throat. “Come and have a drink with me, angel. It gets lonely here, with only humans around.”

Well, Bucky could agree with that. It’d been a while since he’d had anyone to talk to. Gabriel totally didn’t count. The archangel just showed up to sneer and scold. Bucky wasn’t supposed to socialize with demons, but… he had to admit, he was curious. And Bucky was tough; of the line of Samael, who once wrestled a human during the entire night. He absolutely wasn’t afraid. “Do you have a name that I might call you?”

“Call me Tony,” said the demon. “And who are you?”

“Tony,” Bucky said, tasting the word, sounding it out, figuring the flavor and all the meanings. Layers of power, in a name. Except this one was obscured, the meaning lost. Bucky grappled for it, and it faded. He couldn’t hold it, there was no way for him to grip the name, to have any control over the demon. He was strong, then. Ancient. He hesitated over giving his own name, but it would be rude. And Bucky wasn’t scared of a demon. The Lord was on his side. Theoretically, at least. Bucky’d never actually met Him, either. “It’s Bucky. My… my name is Bucky.”

“Bucky.” Tony smiled. “So delighted to meet you, Bucky.” He tucked his arm through Bucky’s and gently tugged, leading the way up the street, toward a bar. “This will be the first proper conversation I’ve had since I got here.” He sounded thoroughly happy about it, and his tail... his tail was curling gently around Bucky’s calf.

“Oh!” Bucky shivered again, and… with a crack like a whip, his wings stretching out to their full span, involuntarily, the feathers spreading protectively. “Oh, that’s your… I’m sorry, I… you startled me.” Bucky’s skin felt strange, tingly, from where the tail had touched him, and then his neck got too warm, and his cheeks were heated, and his tongue felt a little too large for his mouth, awkward and thick. He fanned himself with his wings, cooling his overheated skin, and then pulling them in tight, folded against his back.

“Hm? Oh, sorry, gorgeous.” Tony grabbed his tail and dragged it away from Bucky with both hands. “It has a mind of its own, sometimes. Though I must say it’s got excellent taste.” Tony watched Bucky’s wings until they were folded away again, then tore his gaze up to Bucky’s face. “Let’s get that drink, shall we?” He pushed open the door to the bar.

It was dark inside, lit with low, neon lights and the occasional strobe from the dance floor. The music was loud, the place crowded. The crowds parted for Tony like the sea before Moses, though, until they wound up in a smaller, somewhat quieter space to one side, plush and luxurious. Tony folded onto the well-padded bench seat, and patted the space beside him invitingly.

It wasn’t hard to follow, the demon’s tail wasn’t the only interesting thing about the view from behind. Bucky found himself staring, and not even knowing why, just that the demon…

...represented the ultimate temptation.

Bucky would do well to remember that. He took the seat across from Tony, instead. Not that it was much better, their legs bumping under the table, and the demon’s mobile mouth drawing Bucky’s gaze instead. “How… have you been on earth, long?”

“It seems like forever,” Tony sighed. “How about you, Bucky? I understand you’re fairly new here.”

“Well, I used to sneak down, sometimes, too,” Bucky admitted. “So… two weeks, plus an hour here and there. Usually to watch television.” He couldn’t help the shy smile that crossed his lips. The very few conversations he’d had that humans responded to favorably, had been about shows. “Some of the older angels, they have access to human entertainment, but… our guardian doesn’t allow it. It’s bad for us, keeps our thoughts away from the Lord.” Bucky puffed out a breath, absently grabbed hold of his pinion feathers and ran his fingers over them. A nervous habit.

“Oh, I knew you’d be good to talk to,” Tony said. “I love TV, and we don’t get most of it, you know, Downstairs. What shows do you like?”

“Oh, anything with old-fashioned fighting,” Bucky said, dreamily. “Swords and massive armies and honor. Humans don’t fight that way, anymore. It’s a shame, really.” Of course, that wasn’t the only reason he watched those shows; humans were so… very physical, both in love and in war.

Bucky found himself leaning across the table, as the night went on. Drinks were brought, consumed, paid for. Tony talked, and listened. He shared insights, and his sense of humor was delightfully wicked, pointedly observant, and he was quick with a clever phrase. Bucky wasn’t even sure that he noticed when Tony’s tail had stopped playfully teasing at Bucky’s calf and was, instead, laying in Bucky’s lap, letting itself be petted like a cat.

He barely noticed the passing of time at all, until the bar started to close down, and they were given the same speech as the rest of the humans that is was time to leave.

“Well,” Bucky said, as they staggered out onto the street, human vessels dizzy with alcohol, “this was… educational.”

“It was marvelous,” Tony enthused. “Thank you so much for spending the evening with me.” He hesitated. “I wonder if I could... well, it’s a silly thing, really, but it would mean a lot to me.”

“Hmm? What’s that?” The stars were spinning in the sky. Bucky could focus on an individual star, far away, and see the planets that went around it. Fascinating. “I’m listening, go on.”

Tony smiled a self-deprecating little smile. “Could I just... touch your wings? I miss mine so much.”

“What? Oh… yeah, I… sure,” Bucky stammered. No one touched wings, it just… wasn’t done. Sometimes, Bucky couldn’t help it, in a crowded area, it was hard to avoid brushing another angel’s wings, but it wasn’t a deliberate act. It was almost like touching someone’s halo, the very symbol of their relationship with the Lord.

But he’d been petting Tony’s tail all night and it seemed somehow… snobby, almost priggish, not to allow him the liberty.

Bucky spread, his wings unfolding gently. As dark as it was, now, they gave off their own, soft light. A little hop up, and the Grace took hold. Bucky hovered, a few inches over the ground, toes pointing down and all the weight of the human vessel falling away.

Tony just stared up at him for a long minute, his eyes liquid and wide. “You really are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. He stepped forward until his body was all but pressed against Bucky’s, and he looked up into Bucky’s face as he reached over Bucky’s shoulders to lightly caress the thick feathers. “Oh, that feels...”

He’d never felt anything like it; each stroke of Tony’s fingers sent spirals of sensation down his wings, into his very flesh. Bucky reared back, startled at how… good it felt, how soft and how soothing, and yet, it burned in him, like fire. His wings arched out, shuddered all over, and then, instinctively, he mantled, pulling Tony in close and covering them both with the protective shell. Inside, drenched in the holy light of Bucky’s wings, in the perfect Grace of his halo, Tony was the most beautiful thing Bucky had ever seen.

“Oh! Oh!” Bucky wasn’t sure what to do, everything seemed very… awkward.

Tony’s tail ruffled the feathers enclosing them, and that sent delicious sparks through Bucky’s body. “Bucky,” Tony murmured, “let me kiss you?” He lifted up onto his toes, his head tipped back, until his breath spilled over Bucky’s lips. Bucky wanted, wanted something that he couldn’t name, but Tony was hesitating, waiting.

“I don’t… I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Bucky whispered. But surrounded by the heat and scent of the demon, Bucky couldn’t remember why it was a bad idea. It certainly sounded interesting. His mouth tingled, and he licked his lip. He remembered watching dozens of kisses on television, each time he would pluck at his pinions and shiver with delight. They seemed to enjoy it, so much. And Bucky had rarely so much as touched another angel. Sometimes, very close friends would touch fingertips or palms and even that seemed… greatly daring. Angels didn’t have bodies, except to serve the Lord.

Well, if his body’s purpose was only to serve the Lord, maybe this would be the way, Bucky thought, suddenly. “Yes, why don’t you do that,” he suggested. “Kiss me.”

Tony’s mouth touched Bucky’s, and it wasn’t at all like he had imagined, watching humans kiss on the television. It was so much more, the gentle brush of skin on skin and the warmth of Tony’s breath and the scent of him and the taste, somehow, of the drinks they’d consumed but also something more, something indescribably sweet and maybe a little sad. Oh, and Tony’s hands were still in Bucky’s wings, deeper now, curling around the shafts and stroking them.

Bucky didn’t know what to do, he really did not, and it was so good, and so wicked, and Gabriel would be so angry, and… Bucky wrenched his mouth away, panting for breath, wings shuddering all over, and his halo was glowing. “Tony, wait, no,” Bucky said, and he tried to back up, but Tony’s hands were still on him and he didn’t want to hurt Tony, didn’t want to… didn’t really want to stop, but he should. He really, really should. Resolve wavered in him, and then solidified. “Tony, wait, I need… I need you to stop.”

Tony didn’t stop for a few seconds longer, and then he pulled away, looking hurt and confused. “What’s wrong? Did it-- did I hurt you?”

“No, no, it didn’t hurt,” Bucky reassured him, hastily, and he realized he was still holding Tony in, wings still sheltering them both. “You didn’t hurt me. I’m… you… I…” He pulled his wings back, slowly. Let himself touch the ground, and all the weight and burden that came with it, drawing up his human vessel and letting the light from his halo flicker, putting it back in his pocket. “This… this isn’t what I came to earth to do. Not… I’m an angel. This… you… I’m here to help people.” He couldn’t help it, brushed the very tip of his wing down the side of Tony’s face before he tucked it away.

“There’s no one here who needs help right now,” Tony said, swaying toward Bucky. Then his eyes widened. “It’s because I’m Fallen, isn’t it?” His tail snapped back, away from where it had been curling up the side of Bucky’s leg again. “I must be repulsive to you.”

“No, no,” Bucky protested. “You’re not. I promise. You’re so… lovely. Interesting.” Bucky found himself twisting his feathers again, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to bend the delicate vanes. He squeaked, let go of his wing and patted at it, soothingly. “It’s me, I’m… this.” It’s wrong, it’s sin, it’s… selfish. Bucky berated himself. “I need to go. This was… incredible. I’ll treasure… I have to go.”

Bucky gripped his halo and willed himself to the small sanctuary he’d claimed, holy ground. Home. An abandoned church that had never been deconsecrated. Where he could rest and hide. And pray.

Even if he didn’t know what he was praying for.    

Tony made his way back to the bar, long closed now, and made himself at home in the VIP lounge. So much sin in this place -- lust and greed and intemperance and pride. Occasional splashes of hatred and disobedience and idolatry, for flavor. It was such a delicious place.

And Tony’d had such a wonderful evening. He’d lured the angel as far as a kiss, already. The whole thing would barely take any time at all.

Bucky. Such a sweet name, such a trusting creature to give it to an old demon like Tony. It was a name that tasted of strength, and of youth. Bucky was too young to have known the War -- did it hurt, indeed!

Sweet, naive creature. He’d even let Tony touch his feathers -- bittersweet, that; he hadn’t lied about missing his own wings. Tony could almost feel bad for what he was going to do to the angel. Almost.

The next night, he made his way through the shadows to the building where Bucky worked his small miracles. Tony wondered if those miracles had stuttered, when Bucky thought about Tony’s lips on his.

Bucky was late coming out, later than before, and Tony smiled, imagining Bucky debating whether he should emerge at all. Whether he hoped to see Tony again, or dreaded it. Tony waited patiently for the inevitable.

When Bucky finally came out, Tony stepped into his path. “Angel.”

Tony had seen Bucky in all his glory and grace -- well, the human version. Some angels could become wheels within wheels, the size of buildings in their magnificence, but Bucky didn’t seem like that sort. And yet, he was utterly unprepared for the young angel to smile at him. Bucky’s whole face lit up, not a holy glow, or even the mysterious angelic phosphorus of Bucky’s wings, but just… joy. There wasn’t an ounce of deception in the celestial nature, so he couldn’t be lying, even with something as simple as a smile.

Bucky was, quite honestly, happy to see him.

“Tony,” Bucky exclaimed, and held out his hands in a greeting, inviting Tony to touch his palm.

It wasn’t a kiss, but it was fairly intimate, for angels -- a gesture for kin and close friends. Equals. Tony touched his palm to Bucky’s in the ancient greeting, then curled his fingers around Bucky’s, squeezing a little. “I’m glad to see you, Bucky.” Tony couldn’t control an angel with their name the way he could a human, but it still set up a resonance that Bucky would feel, each time Tony said it.

“I am gladdened to see you, too,” Bucky said. “It’s been a very exciting day. I might have overdone it a little. Come on, let’s go, before anyone else sees me.” He laughed, light and pleasant and actually bumped Tony’s shoulder with his own, the edges of his wing brushing against Tony’s neck and side. “There’s got to be something we can do, yes? I haven’t seen much of the city, really, and I’m just... excited. Oh!” He grabbed Tony’s hand and pulled him down a side road. “Reporter! Mustn’t get caught, you know. Faith, not proof. Can you fly?”

Tony couldn’t precisely fly, but he could be anywhere he wanted to be if he concentrated hard enough. “No,” he said, and let his lips pull into a teasing smile. “Are you going to carry me?”

“If you wish it,” Bucky said. He considered Tony for a long moment, hiding in the mouth of some filthy alley, and then, “here, turn ‘round, like… oh, these really look terribly painful, I’m so sorry.” Bucky brushed his fingers over the stumps of Tony’s wings. There was a surge of light and Tony felt an angel’s Grace touch him for the first time in centuries, millennia, since the War. “Hold on.”

To what?

Bucky slid his arms around Tony’s chest and lifted him. An angel in flight could only be seen by the purest of men, the most holy, the most faithful. Young children, sometimes. And cats. Who were entirely unimpressed with angels and demons alike.

Bucky’s Grace ached through Tony’s bones, but it was worth the pain to look down from an angel’s vantage again. To feel Bucky’s breath spilling over his head. To feel Bucky’s chest pressed against his back, even if it stretched Tony’s wing stumps unbearably. Pain was nothing new, but it had been millennia, aeons, since Tony had flown simply for the joy of it, and his eyes filled with tears at the simple beauty. It took him a moment to catch his breath. “Thank you,” he whispered, and it could be sincere and part of the seduction at the same time; it could.

Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt true gratitude, unburdened by the weight of expectation or debt.

“Oh, look, there’s a good one,” Bucky said, and he swirled through the air until he deposited Tony on a cloud, light and fluffy and full of warmth. That was decidedly an angel’s trick, and nothing that Tony could have managed, making a solid landing place above the human world where they could look down and see, and yet remain concealed. Bucky laughed, spread his wings out and laid down on them like they were a blanket, staring up into the sky. “Don’t let go, you’ll fall.” He kept one hand outstretched for Tony to take. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, that was terribly rude of me to say. Please, forgive it.”

“I’m afraid I’m not in the forgiving business,” Tony said, but he grinned and winked as he said it so Bucky would know it was a joke. Even if it was also deadly serious. He kept hold of Bucky’s hand, and curled his tail around Bucky’s leg as well, for good measure. “You’re in a good mood today. Do angelic vessels not get hangovers?”

Bucky blushed, pretty and pink. “I Healed someone, today. I was… well, I was happy, and I touched her, and she could see. She looked up in my face and she Saw me. We had to call the… the little truck that comes, and she wanted me to come with her, to see the doctor. He thinks I shocked her, like a little tiny lightning bolt, and it pushed her nerves back into working order. I don’t know, humans are silly sometimes, in their quest for Answers. And then-- then someone heard about it, and he came down to the kitchen with a big check, and that’ll just do so much good, Tony, it’s very exciting!”

Tony stared at Bucky in shock. He’d tempted an angel into sin -- not much of it, but a little! -- and the next day the angel had done more good? Inspired more faith?

That was not what Tony had planned. Damn it (literally), if word of this got back Downstairs before Tony made good on his promise to corrupt Bucky, the Boss was going to be so pissed.

Okay. Okay. No panicking. This wasn’t unrecoverable. Tony could use this.

Bucky was still holding his hand, after all.

“Maybe kissing is good for you,” Tony said, keeping it light.

“Maybe,” Bucky agreed. He eyed Tony through long lashes. “I prayed about it, you know.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you? And did you get an answer?”

“I did,” Bucky said. He rolled up onto his side, leaning on his elbow to stare lazily at Tony. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Do you want to know what He said?”

How long had it been since Tony had heard the Lord’s voice and known His Will? “Tell me.”

“He said I should always repay that which I owe,” Bucky said. He reached out, fingers trembling, and he touched Tony’s face. “You gave me a kiss. Should I give you one back?”

Tony laid back, letting Bucky lean over him. “I would like that,” he said honestly. Bucky’s kiss had been so sweet... And if the Lord was actually telling Bucky to kiss Tony back, then Tony would eat his own tail.

The first kiss Bucky gave him was not on his mouth, or his forehead, but instead, Bucky touched his lips to the palm of Tony’s hand, a sudden, searing agony of a kiss, so full of Grace that it burned Tony’s flesh. Like a Holy wafer, like blessed water, and yet, even in the middle of pain, it went right through him. It warmed every inch of him -- a demon, who’d been to Hell, who knew intimately the fires of Lucifer -- in ways that he’d never imagined. Like he’d been cold and not known it, like he’d been scared and was now protected. Like he’d been alone, and was now home.

When Bucky pulled away, Tony was gasping for breath, tears streaming from his eyes. “What... What was that?”

“Oh!” Bucky turned Tony’s palm. “I…” He ducked his chin a little, embarrased. “I told you, I’m overdoing it today.” Clear as sunlight, right in the middle of Tony’s palm, where Bucky’s lips had touched… was Bucky’s Name. Written in angelic script. It glowed, soft as starlight.

“What...” Tony touched the name with his own fingers, feeling the way it sparked and sizzled under his skin. Beelzebub’s left tit, this was getting out of hand. Tony needed to get this back on track, and fast. “Bucky,” he whispered, and watched the Name on his skin flash and glow. “How?”

“I… uh, I don’t know?” Bucky ran his fingertip over it. “I’m sorry, does it hurt? I didn’t… I won’t do it again.” He carefully, tenderly, folded Tony’s fingers closed, like a mother giving a child a kiss to save. “I certainly won’t do it to your face, I like your face just the way it is.” And he leaned in to kiss Tony’s mouth.

For a long, sweet moment, it was nothing but pressure, warm and willing, but unlearned. Bucky let out a faint breath, and then his tongue slid out, traced the crease of Tony’s mouth with timid, but eager licks. Tony had kissed more humans than he could conveniently count, and more than a  good sized number of the Fallen. And he was discovering that they were all nothing, by comparison. That a little baby peck from an angel who’d never so much as been touched before was reaching places inside Tony that he’d thought sealed and locked and gone and forgotten. Bucky hadn’t closed his eyes, as if he didn’t know he was supposed to, or if he was so fascinated by Tony that he didn’t want to, and there was a hunger in those brilliant blue eyes, the same color as storm clouds.

As if Bucky might Fall, for no other reason than to be with Tony. As if he needed something from Tony, something no one else could ever, ever give him. More precious than faith, more rare than Grace. Bucky needed him, wanted him, with a fervor that was… humbling.

Tony cupped Bucky’s face in one hand and kissed him again, slow and thorough, mapping Bucky’s mouth and giving in to the temptation to roll his body up against Bucky’s, to feel that strength, to test the depth of that desire.

Bucky made a soft, humming sound, licked at Tony’s mouth again, and then drew back to look at him. “What… what are we doing?” He didn’t seem angry, or afraid, just curious, and his fingers twitched out again, traced along Tony’s bottom lip, leaving tingles in their wake. Those fingers slid up the side of Tony’s face, and then hesitated, right over the edge of his hair, hovering near the jagged edges of Tony’s horns; the remains of his halo.

Tony tipped his head, stropping his horn against Bucky’s hand like a cat might, if a cat had horns. It ached a little; Tony’s horns were sensitive from a wound that couldn’t be healed. But it also felt good, that bright, singing sensation that was the constant presence of Bucky’s Grace. “We’re...” He paused, considering it. He didn’t want to frighten Bucky away again, or make Bucky angry. “We’re making love.” That’s what the humans called it, even when there was nothing as pure as love about it.

“We are?” The seemed to delight the angel and that soft, sweet smile grew even brighter. “I didn’t know. We’re… creating it?” Bucky quivered against him, like a bowstring pulled taut. “Will I be able to see it? Will you show it to me?” He was caressing Tony’s horns the whole time, as mindlessly and guilelessly as he’d patted Tony’s tail; the innocence of a creature that hadn’t yet learned that some things bite.

There, that was the permission Tony had wanted, the crack in the angel’s armor that would let Tony’s corruption in. That was what he had needed. He should feel triumphant, but all he could feel in the moment was a sense of awe, that Bucky would trust him so completely, chased with a hint of something like sorrow -- pity, that Bucky was going to learn such a hard lesson, so harshly.

Not enough to stop him, though. He put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and pushed gently until Bucky was laid back on those glorious wings again, and Tony was leaning over him. “I’ll show you,” he promised, and he kissed Bucky’s mouth, Bucky’s cheek and jaw, drawing on all his skill to read Bucky’s responses and react to them. If Bucky was going to Fall, then Tony would give him something worth remembering. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured into Bucky’s ear, and licked the shell of it.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Bucky said. He leaned into Tony’s kiss with eagerness. “You won’t hurt me.” When Tony pulled back to gauge Bucky’s reactions, Bucky repeated the kisses, exploring Tony’s ear, nipping at the lobe, and letting his breath warm the damp skin. “You won’t hurt me.” His hands roamed aimlessly around, Tony’s shoulders, his back, along his throat; a blind man trying to discover the face of God. Each touch, so clearly innocent and unaware of the fire he was building, was like a gift.

That trust was searing itself into Tony’s skin with each soft touch. “No,” Tony agreed. “I won’t. I’m going to do the very opposite of that.” He nuzzled in to kiss Bucky’s throat, licking and nibbling gently, and stroked his hands over Bucky’s wings, tugging softly at the primaries and secondaries, ruffling through the smaller feathers, letting himself imagine how it would have felt, when his own wings had been whole.

Bucky shimmered under Tony’s hands, his human vessel dropping away to reveal the angel, unhidden and bright. The earth-style clothing melted away until all that was under Tony’s hands were billowing, white robes. A golden belt around his waist and a golden collar around his neck held them closed, gave his wings a whole back panel to spread through. Not that it mattered, an angel’s wings could only be held down by sin. It was the nature of things. Bucky mantled again, as Tony kissed his throat, tucking Tony into that safe, white shell.

Without the human mask, Bucky was even more beautiful, his Grace mirrored on a perfect face. Soft, full lips framed a glorious, eager smile. His eyes were the blue of stormclouds at sea, dusted at the corners with laugh lines, and fringed with thick lashes. Strong chin, sharp perfect cheekbones. A thousand master painters could have struggled for a thousand years and never created anything so beautiful. And yet, that same face turned in Tony’s direction and all Tony could see was the reflection of himself, in Bucky’s eyes.

Tony knew that Bucky could see through his human disguise, had already seen Tony’s demon shape, scarred and disfigured by the Fall. But it still took an act of will to drop his vessel and reveal himself, in the face of Bucky’s perfection. He pushed aside the masks and met Bucky’s gaze with stubborn pride. He had earned his scars and his blackened stumps. Let the angel look, if he would.

But Bucky’s eyes held no pity, only curiosity and warmth and burgeoning desire. Tony took a breath, and another. He put his hand on Bucky’s chest, over that robe, whiter than the cloud they rested on, and felt Bucky’s heart racing underneath. “You’re so beautiful,” Tony said, and let the wonder of it fill him. “Are you sure?”

“Only the Lord, or fools, are ever certain,” Bucky said.”You are as distant and beautiful as the stars, and as unique as a single snowflake, ephemeral in your perfection. How many angels would dance on the head of a pin? Only one, if you will dance with me. I am not certain. I am not sure. But I am willing, and I want this. Show me love, Tony.”

Tony laughed. “As you say, angel.” He kissed Bucky’s throat, around the edge of that collar, then unfastened it and set it aside, letting Bucky’s robes fall open to reveal his chest, muscled and smooth. Tony dragged his mouth over that skin, sweet and warm, licked and kissed and nipped and sucked until Bucky was arching into each touch.

Bucky squirmed and writhed, made soft, kitten noises in his throat. His hands opened and closed on Tony’s shoulders, sometimes stroking his skin, sometimes just holding on. “I don’t… I don’t…” he gasped. “Oh, Tony… I…” If Bucky was human, Tony would have said that his legs went ‘round Tony’s hips instinctively, but angels shouldn’t have those sorts of instincts. They didn’t mate like humans, and it was only in mockery and mimicry of humans that demons learned those things.

But Bucky was as pure in love and as eager in learning as he was in everything else. When Tony did something the angel liked, he knew it. The sounds Bucky made were incredible, needy and sweet. And when Tony did something specific, Bucky would mimic it, then try his own variations, to see if what Tony liked was different.

Bucky startled, when Tony shed his own clothes in a burst of fire, the rich scent of sulphur hanging in the air, the ash of cloth wafting away on the breeze. “Oh,” Bucky gasped. “That was… impressive.”

Bucky rolled them over until Tony was supported on nothing but the clouds and Bucky’s will. Terrifying, because if Bucky let him go, Tony would fall, and while demons couldn’t really be killed -- well, not by anything as mundane as gravity -- it would still hurt. He stared at Tony as if he’d never seen a naked man before, and perhaps he hadn’t. It wasn’t like an angel needed to take a shower, even if Tony had indulged in the luxury.

His hand went down Tony’s chest and stuttered over the scarring at his heart, where his Angelic Name and Power had been stripped from him, a clawed hole that had been covered with thick ropy scar tissue. It always ached, always hurt, just a little. But Bucky’s fingers didn’t shy away from the ugliness, didn’t even seem to register that it was ugly. He kept right on touching, as if Tony were somehow precious. “Lovely.” Down more, and then--”Am I allowed?” His palm was just over Tony’s cock, scant millimeters away. “Will you like it?”

“Yes,” Tony promised. “Please. Whatever... anything you want. You can’t hurt me.” A lie, that, but Bucky wouldn’t want to hurt him, and that was nearly the same thing. Tony had never let pain come between him and pleasure before. “You learn fast, Bucky.” What a glorious demon he would make.

Bucky’s fingers explored the length, from base to head, and then he laughed, delighted. “Oh, it moves! Not quite so much as your tail, but-- does it have a mind of its own, too?” Bucky kept stroking it, petting it. At the start of each stroke, he ran his thumb over Tony’s crown, smearing precome down, sending delicious, juddering sensation through Tony’s whole body.

Tony groaned. “Something like that,” he managed. He slid his tail up under Bucky’s robes, coiling higher and higher up Bucky’s thigh. “Going to let me return the favor, gorgeous?”

“You should always pay back what you owe,” Bucky said, almost primly, despite the wicked things he was doing to Tony’s cock. He curled his hand around it, squeezed, and then twisted, making Tony cry out with sudden pleasure, before rolling them over again, the cloud obligingly moving around underneath them, perfect support and cushion, and tucking his hands behind his head, as if waiting for Tony to get on with things.

Tony laughed again and settled himself into the vee of Bucky’s thighs. “This isn’t something to owe,” he said. “This is something to give, a gift.” He plucked at Bucky’s belt and let it fall away, let the robes drop open to reveal a body that made Tony’s mouth water at the sight. “But if you like, I will repay, with interest.” He slipped down and closed his mouth over Bucky’s cock, thick and long and dark with need. He had to stretch his jaw to take Bucky down to the root, but it was worth it to hear Bucky’s gasps and soft cries, to feel that perfect body trembling under him.

One of Bucky’s hands speared into Tony’s hair, then latched on to his horn, thumb stroking along it in time to Tony’s movements, like it was a handle. The other somehow found Tony’s tail, pulled at it once, which sent shivers directly up Tony’s spine, his hand warm against the surface, before retreating to caress the spaded tip. His wings arched around them, feathery ends tickling down Tony’s back and legs, seeming to touch him everywhere at once. “Oh, that… that feels… Tony, that feels so good!”

Tony hummed in approval. His tail was sensitive, almost as sensitive as his hands and cock. And the way Bucky touched his horns -- humans couldn’t touch them at all, and demons simply didn’t, but Bucky couldn’t know that. That indescribable pleasure-pain of Grace scraping against the remnants of Tony’s halo... He shuddered, and tried to take Bucky even deeper into his mouth, because if he pulled free, he was going to do something utterly undignified, like beg for more.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Bucky cried, each repetition going higher and more frantic, his body unable to remain still under the onslaught of sensation. “Tony, something’s happening!” And he bucked up, hips moving, piston sharp, against Tony. His hand tightened, almost unbearably, on Tony’s horn, before relaxing again and then-- Tony found his tail hauled straight up and Bucky was licking it frantically, sucking the spaded end into his mouth and playing it with his tongue, swallowing around it. He hummed, a quick patter of notes that sent vibrations shimmering up Tony’s spine.

Tony’s tail twitched, and he swallowed down around Bucky’s cock, pressing his tongue flat against the vein. With a more experienced partner, he might have stopped, drawing out the moment, but he couldn’t imagine doing anything like that with Bucky, not like this. Nothing could ever be more perfect than Bucky’s frantic desperation and confusion, and Tony wanted nothing more than to lead Bucky to climax, to see the shock and pleasure on the angel’s expression.

Bucky jerked, one last time, and then his Voice rang out, multiple chords, a sound absolutely unreproducible by a human throat, a beautiful alleluia that shook the sky and earth. The clouds scattered and it started raining down from nothingness, the moon brilliant enough to send rainbows scattering for a brief moment of meteorological miracles.

“Oh! Oh, Tony.” Bucky panted for breath, overwhelmed and shivering with reaction.

“There you go,” Tony soothed. He swallowed his mouthful -- of course Bucky tasted wonderful -- and crawled up to take Bucky into his arms. He petted the angel’s hair and shoulders and the join of his wings. “That’s it, just relax.” He eyed the rainbows mistrustfully -- the last thing he needed was for the Lord to butt in now.

Bucky cracked one eye open to give Tony a Look. “Don’t think I could get any more relaxed,” he pointed out, the sarcasm loaded, and unlike the angel’s normal, sweet, too-innocent tones. He stretched, displaying all his glorious skin, and then his hand travelled down Tony’s body again. “Will… that? Happen for you? Teach me, show me how to make love with you.”

Tony suppressed a scoff -- everyone knew that demons couldn’t love. Everyone except Bucky, it seemed. Tony curled his hand -- the one with Bucky’s Name branded into the palm -- around Bucky’s, wrapped their joined hands around his cock. “Like this.” He showed Bucky how to stroke, slow and then fast, rolling over the head to spread pre-come, making things slick and easy. “Just-- oh... yeah. Just like that.” Bucky was a very fast learner.

“Hold on to me,” Bucky told him, pulling Tony in closer, his breath warm against Tony’s neck as he moved his hand, drawing pleasure from the demon’s body. Reaching a fever pitch, Tony’s body was shuddering in Bucky’s arms, and then Bucky leaned down and licked Tony’s horn. No pain, only unimaginable pleasure, ripped through him, stunning him with its bright joy. “I have you, I’ve got you, my prayer. Give me your gift, love.”

Tony had never felt pleasure like this. It surged through his body, erasing the pain and anguish and uncertainty. Bucky’s attention and sweet words made him feel whole, however briefly. Cherished. Loved.

The tears that fell from Tony’s eyes were no less of a relief than the climax that rushed through him, healing and hot and perfect. “Bucky!” The angelic syllables tore out of his throat, echoed off the clouds, and shattered the starlight into fragments as Tony let go and fell into Bucky’s arms.

When Tony came back to himself, Bucky was still humming that glorious multichorded chorus, and wiping Tony’s chest with the corner of his robes. “You might be right,” he told Tony in all seriousness. “It’s a gift. I just cannot quite place who is giving, and who is receiving. A gift, that we give to each other.” He shifted his robes again, and Bucky’s halo slid from the pocket, a glimmering ring of gold against the clouds. “Pesky thing,” Bucky said to it, fondly. He lifted it, and then hung it on Tony’s horn. “Hold this a moment, would you?”  

Tony was so shocked he couldn’t even move for a long moment. An angel never touched another’s halo, never mind handed it over in a moment of -- what? Affectionate playfulness? And Tony was a demon. He could, in theory, do terrible things with a whole halo in his possession. “Bucky!”

“What?” Bucky finished cleaning Tony up and wrapped the spare bits of robe around him. “You know, well, of course you know, angels are the embodiment of the Lord’s love. I’m supposed to love everything that the Lord created. But I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, laughing eyes bright. “I think, of all the Lord’s creations, I love you best.”

You can’t, Tony wanted to say. You mustn’t. Because Tony was no fit vessel for love. He was a black hole, drinking in light and never returning it. He was Fallen, a demon. Surely the Lord’s mandate stopped short when it reached the gates of Hell.

He looked down at the Name shimmering under his skin, and said nothing. He just curled against Bucky’s side and felt Bucky’s wings cradling them, strong and secure and safe.

When Tony woke up, he found himself alone on a bench in the park, body slightly damp with dew. He was wearing clothes he didn’t recognize, mismatched, but concealing him. In one hand, he held a single, white feather.

The soup kitchen was a happy, busy place. The money was flowing in, the love and nutrition flowing out. Bucky had made a few suggestions in the director’s ear, and they were laying down the groundwork to buy an abandoned shopping mall and turn it into low rent and no rent housing, just outside the city. So much good was being done and Bucky was a part of it.

He had to keep damping down his glow. Even the director had commented on it, when he came in to begin the day’s work. “Looks like you had a good time last night,” she had teased.

“I did, thank you,” Bucky had said.

And now, Bucky was taking his turn at the soup line, filling bowls with thick stew, when time stopped.

Gabriel blew in the doors of the shelter, his silver trumpet already at his lips and the blast he sounded dropped a dozen pigeons dead in the streets, caused Mr. Hartwell to seize up, his heart strained. Children burst into tears, cats fled, dogs howled. The sky grew dark and ominous. Bucky dropped the soup ladle and found himself cringing against the wall as Gabriel’s boots rang against the floor.

Bucky didn’t know what the humans saw, a robber, perhaps, a drug-crazed maniac. A kidnapper, or terrorist.

But the director rushed forward, her face set with anger, and she wielded a kitchen knife threateningly against the Angel of Judgement. “Get away from him!”

“No!” Bucky threw himself between Gabriel and the director. “Leave her alone, she’s done no harm to you. I’ll come with you, just… leave them alone, Gabriel. They’re good people. They’re doing the Lord’s work.”

Gabriel looked past Bucky, through him, at the director. Weighing. Judging. Finally, he focused on Bucky and lifted his empty hand to point. “Outside, then.”

“Call an ambulance for Mr. Hartwell,” Bucky told the director, then kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. You… take care of everything here. Lord’s blessing on you.” He sealed that with his kiss; she would be protected, unless Gabriel wanted to take it up with the Lord. Terror and rage battled it out in his chest, nothing he should ever be feeling in the presence of an archangel.

He shed his human vessel as soon as he passed the threshold, vanishing from the human world. He went to Gabriel and supplicated himself, kneeling at Gabriel’s feet until his forehead touched the ground, reaching for the hem of Gabriel’s robes to kiss the fabric.

“What have you done?” Gabriel demanded. “I sent you here to repent.”

“Is this not good work?” Bucky asked, keeping his face down. “We are feeding near to five hundred people a day, getting ready to home nearly a thousand. It’s small, I know, but I’m only starting. I have brought hope, joy, faith, to at least a dozen or more.”

“And lost your own way so badly as to consort with demons!” snapped Gabriel.

“Tony is one of the Lord’s children, the same as you, or I,” Bucky said. He was petrified. Gabriel hated demons, hated them with a fervor that was unseemly in an angelic heart. Sometimes, Bucky wondered, if Gabriel didn’t hate Lucifer more than he loved the Lord. That was sinful, unworthy of Bucky to think it and he cowered closer to the ground, practically crawling. Debasing himself before one of the eldest.

“Hardly the same,” Gabriel growled. “And you have let it infect you with its lies, lain with it. The stench of Hell surrounds you like a cloud.”

“He didn’t lie,” Bucky protested. “He’s not an it, not a monster. Don’t speak about him like that!”

Thunder cracked. “How dare you? You defile your God-given body with that creature, and then dare to defy me?”

“He’s not a creature!” Bucky had never experienced righteousness. The purity of emotion that rose up on behalf of another, to defend and protect. But it grew inside him like a white ball of light until he was breaking at the seams from it. “Tony cares about me!” And the light exploded, blowing Gabriel right off his feet to tumble down the street, until the archangel was on the ground, staring up at Bucky with wide eyes.

It wasn’t until he was standing, proud and strong, over Gabriel, that Bucky realized what he’d done. Oh, oh, oh, no! He’d struck a superior, he’d raised his Grace against an archangel. That he’d knocked Gabriel down with the force of it said nothing, except that Gabriel could not have expected the blow.

Bucky went to his belly on the ground, agast. Horrified with himself. “I’m sorry, forgive me, forgive me, I’m sorry, I didn’t--”

“Silence.” Gabriel rose to his feet, and a little beyond that, hovering over Bucky, wings outstretched in fury. “You teeter on the precipice, child of Samael. Have a care, or you will Fall. Or perhaps that is your intention.”

“I… just want to stay,” Bucky pleaded. “Finish the work. I’m doing good work. Let me stay, you’ll see.”

Gabriel was silent for a long while. It seemed years passed before he finally spoke again. “When our Lord allows me to sound the call to the Final Battle,” he said, his beautiful voice cold, “I will not hesitate to join the Host. I will lay down my trumpet and take up the sword, and I will destroy your precious Tony without a thought. And you as well, if you stand between us. Do you hear me, child?”

“Oh, Gabriel,” Bucky said, suddenly filled with sorrow. He stood, reached out for the elder. “When did you lose your Grace?”

Gabriel’s expression darkened, and the wind howled down the long-empty street. “Stay, if you will. Or Fall, if Lucifer will have you. But you are no longer welcome in Heaven.” He lifted his trumpet to his lips and blew a note that, if the humans could have heard it, surely would have destroyed them, rendered them into dust and ash. It pierced Bucky’s ears and heart and soul until he screamed and fell to his knees in pain and terror.

When it stopped and Bucky could see again, Gabriel was gone, and something... was wrong.

Bucky pulled his wings around him, cowering inside them. He reached his hand into his pocket, his fingers grasping for his halo.

A sharp spike of pain in his fingers and he pulled them out, full of dread. The golden blood of an angel dripped from his fingertips and the remnants of his shattered halo was held in his palm.

Bucky gave out a soft, agonized sob. “Father,” he cried out. “Why have You forsaken me?”

The sound sliced through Tony like a shockwave, more a feeling than a noise. He lifted his head sharply from his contemplation of the feather in his hand. He knew that instrument. He knew that note. If it continued much longer--

But it was gone. Tony slumped back against the park bench, heart pounding in fear and hope. It hadn’t stretched long enough to unmake an angel, though something had been destroyed. Tony wondered if he dared investigate.

He should feel more satisfaction. He had corrupted an angel; Bucky’s Fall was no doubt imminent. But that... only made him sad.

The ground at Tony’s feet heaved, like a large, angry mole was digging around under there, until the soil tore and Pepper clawed her way out. Tony preferred other, more dignified ways to travel, but he had to admit, Pepper’s method was quick. “Well, it sounds like someone’s having a bad morning,” she said, brushing dirt off her vessel in quick flicks of her hand. “We’re counting this as a win for the bad guys?”

“I guess so,” Tony admitted. He stuffed his hand into his pocket, feeling for the feather there.

“I have all the paperwork here,” Pepper said. “I need a drop of blood to process him into the middle circles. We can have him dragged, if he won’t sign. Make sure he knows it’s a slow climb, if we take him unwillingly. But if he comes with us, we can fast-track him. It’s been a while since you’ve had a new assistant. But I could really use some help, so well done, Tony-- Tony? Are you all right?”

“What? I’m... I guess.” Tony could feel every tiny ridge of the feather against his fingertips. “It’s just, he was so... So bright and hopeful and happy. He doesn’t deserve... this.”

Pepper waved a hand; she couldn’t actually conjure food and coffee, but there was probably some hipster across town suddenly missing their breakfast. It was one of her talents, and usually Tony enjoyed it, eating something meant for someone else. Literally taking candy from babies. “Since when have you cared about what they deserve?” Pepper asked. “Tony, this is a big win, here!”

Tony rounded on her. “It’s all about what they deserve, Pep! That’s the whole point! The whole system is explicitly set up to reward the worthy and punish the unworthy. And he doesn’t deserve this! He doesn’t deserve me.”

“What about what you deserve, Tony?” Pepper asked. “Right now, I think you deserve a doughnut and some espresso, because you’re just not yourself when you’re hungry. As far as the system goes, we’ve needed an overhaul of the system for years. It’s been on the agenda at every Diabolic Conference for the last ten generations at least. The act of buying indulgences has been on the books for so long, the really horrible sinners are getting a Fast Pass. Honestly, we’re not Walt Disney.”

“If only we had their numbers,” Tony muttered, almost by reflex, and then he shook himself. “Pepper, I can’t... I have to try to make this right.” He shoved the coffee and doughnut back into her hands and set off into the city as fast as his vessel’s legs would carry him.

Gabriel sure left his mark on a place; where his powers had touched the human world, there was destruction and chaos. Cops and SWAT teams lined the perimeter. A frantic woman described how a terrorist with a suicide bomb had come into the homeless shelter, and that their new, bravest employee, everyone loved him, and taken the man outside, and gently talked him down, until the man had gone mad and depressed the trigger.

She was sobbing as she told the story.

Ambulances were attending the injured.

Near the door, there was a crater, as if there really had been some explosion. A soft, barely there sound reached Tony’s ears. Muffled sobbing, as if so great that it was leaking through the Veil.

Tony shed his vessel -- the last thing he wanted was to deal with well-meaning but useless humans -- and swept through, a cold shiver of a wind for those crossing his path. It was physically hard to enter the crater; the echo of the note lingered there, painful static on Tony’s skin. He pushed through it anyway, because Bucky was there, kneeling at the center of the crater, wings curled protectively around himself as he sobbed.

Tony was surprised -- and relieved -- to see those wings still intact. There was some hope, then, that Tony hadn’t utterly destroyed him.

And no hope, really, that he would want to see Tony, not when Tony was the author of all this pain. But he was helpless to walk away. He stopped just outside of Bucky’s wingspan and watched for an endless moment. He couldn’t move, not until he realized that he was rubbing at the palm of his hand, thumb dragging back and forth across Bucky’s Name. Tony forced his hands to his side and air into his chest. “Bucky?”

“Tony!” Bucky cried out and for a moment, Tony wasn’t certain that he wasn’t being attacked, but Bucky tucked his face against Tony’s throat, using Tony’s strength to hold himself up. “Tony, Tony, Tony, he broke it! He broke it! Gabriel broke it!”

Tony almost staggered under the sudden weight, but managed to keep them upright. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “What did he break?”

Bucky gulped down more tears, then opened his hand. Laying in the palm were three crescents, dull and black and pockmarked. “I only spoke the truth, and he shattered it,” Bucky wailed. There wasn’t even enough of Bucky’s halo left to form a decent pair of horns; they’d just be tiny spikes on either side of his head, no longer than an inch or two. Not enough to grant Bucky any demonic powers. He’d be a lesser imp, never capable of anything more than the strength of all celestial beings.  A foot soldier, sacrificed for a hill in the Last War.

Tony swallowed, hard. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m so, so sorry. It’s my fault.” He reached out, then hesitated. Touching an angel’s halo or a demon’s horns was... Bucky had touched Tony’s horns. Bucky had looped his halo over Tony’s horns, and-- Tony brushed a finger along the curve of one short crescent. “I did this.”

“No, you didn’t,” Bucky said. He wiped his cheeks angrily, smearing tears across his perfect face. “Gabriel did it. Gabriel did it, punishment for me, for daring… for daring to care about a demon. Gabriel has harbored hatred in his heart. He has lost his Grace.”

Bucky sighed, slid the pieces of his halo back into his pocket. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I’m not ashamed. I don’t regret anything I’ve done. The Lord has not judged me; Gabriel did.”

Because I tempted you. A new demon -- even if only an imp -- and news of Gabriel’s lost Grace would definitely bring Tony back into the Boss’ good books. At least for a while.

It wouldn’t even be that hard to convince Bucky to come with him, to finish Falling. To convince the angel that punishing the damned was still part of the Lord’s work. The words sprang easily to Tony’s tongue.

They tasted bitter, though. Tony found his hand in his pocket again, stroking the feather.

He took the feather out and looked at it. Angel feathers didn’t just fall out; they had to be removed. Not unlike...

“I can fix it,” Tony heard himself saying. “Give me the pieces. I can fix it.”

Bucky didn’t even ask; didn’t even hesitate. After everything that happened, Bucky still trusted Tony, implicitly and absolutely. A few slivers and a handful of what was practically dust. “I would do it again,” Bucky told him. “You’re not a monster. You’re not a thing. Gabriel had no right to say it.”

“I am absolutely a monster,” Tony said. “I am a terror in the dark. I tempt the good into sin, and sinners into damnation. But I am going to fix this. You are going Home.” He sat down there, in the center of the crater, and laid out the pieces of Bucky’s halo, every tiny sliver and speck of dust. It wasn’t enough, because of course it wasn’t, but that was all right, because Tony had his own pieces.

He didn’t look at Bucky, and he didn’t let himself think about the consequences. He grasped at his own horns and pulled.

It hurt. It hurt nearly as much as the Fall had hurt, nearly as much as losing his wings. He kept pulling. For Bucky.

At last, they came free, a pair of pitted black arcs. Tony laid them carefully next to Bucky’s pieces and measured. It would be enough, just. “I was a smith,” Tony said softly. “I built halos, before the War.” He summoned his fire -- it had been Holy fire, once upon a time, cleansing and shaping. Now it was profane, a balefyre that consumed and destroyed. But it obeyed his command, and he needed it to forge the pieces together.

He wiped blood from his face, running down out of his hair, out of the holes where his horns had been, and flung that into the fire, as well. If he was going to sacrifice his power and his standing and -- quite probably -- his existence to save the angel, then he might as well leave some of himself in the halo. Let some small piece of him return Home.

Time and space only existed when he wanted them to. He squeezed into the space between seconds, slipped into the molecules of matter, and pulled the pieces of the halo together. Bucky’s pieces joined to one another eagerly; they already knew each other. He expected it would be more difficult to join his own horns into the curve, but -- he had almost forgotten, again, Bucky hanging the halo against his horn. They knew each other. Tony tested the seams, and found it solid, if simple.

The fire licked away the black scarring, leaving a halo in its place, thinner than it had once been and more silver than gold, but true and whole. Tony released his fire and slid back into the world, and finally, allowed himself to look at Bucky again.

“What… what did you do?” Bucky was staring at him, eyes wide and awestruck. “Tony, what did you do?”

“I fixed it,” Tony said. “It just needed some parts.”

Bucky stretched out his hand. Tony thought he was reaching for the halo, but then, past it. “Tony-- oh, God’s glory, Tony… look what you did.” He touched something over Tony’s shoulder and a shock of sensation rippled down his skin and into his spine. “Tony… look at this.” He tugged, and it was reminiscent of someone pulling his tail, or… his wings?

Bucky drew the feathers over Tony’s shoulder. Not white, like an angel’s, but brilliant red and gold, like the very heart of his fires.

Tony’s throat closed, and he had to swallow around it. “I didn’t. That’s-- I didn’t do this.” He lifted a shaking hand to feel the feathers, soft coverts and stiff primaries. He stretched the wings out and they obeyed him, splaying wide. The muscles felt stiff, unused, but whole and strong. “How...?” He didn’t realize he was weeping until he looked at Bucky again and found Bucky’s face blurred.

“You… you’re Forgiven, Tony,” Bucky said, and he gently took the halo out of Tony’s hands and set it over Tony’s head. It hovered there a moment, then settled, filling him with Grace. “You can go Home.” Bucky stepped back, to look at Tony in all his glory. “Of all God’s creations, you’re the one I love best. Go Home, Tony. Go Home. You deserve it.”

Home. He could go Home. He could resume his place at the forge, could bask in the Lord’s presence, could-- Never see Bucky again.

Tony took off the halo. “No. Not without you.”

“Tony--” Bucky fingers brushed over the halo, and Tony felt it, like an extension of himself, down his fingers and into his palm where Bucky’s name was etched on his skin. Bucky brushed his thumb over Tony’s temples, Healing the gaping wounds there, wiping the blood clean. “You sacrificed everything for me. You should… there’s not enough here, not for both of us. If you don’t… what will we do?”

Tony caught Bucky’s hand and lifted it to his lips. “There’s enough Grace between us to stay out of Hell. That’s all we need. With one halo between us, not quite all the way to being angels, but not Fallen, either. We can stay here. We can... we can do good. Here. We don’t need to be angels for that.”

“I told Gabriel you weren’t a monster,” Bucky said. He pulled himself closer to Tony, tilted his head, and claimed Tony’s mouth for a kiss. “Of all the Lord’s creations, I love you best.”

Tony pressed his mouth into Bucky’s palm, breathing into it the Name he had lost and now recovered. “I love you, Bucky. Into eternity, I love you.”

The Lord tilted His head to one side. “I’m surprised to see you, Luci. Do come in, have a seat. What can I do for you?”

Lucifer stalked in, tail whipping from side to side like an angry cat’s. “Don’t come over all inscrutable on me,” he growled. “And don’t try to tell me that you saw that coming. There’s no way you planned that. And now we’ve both lost!”

“Need I remind you that I work in mysterious ways?” The Lord waited until Lucifer was fuming, smoke pouring out of his ears. “I didn’t lose him. Bucky’s a good boy, if a touch rebellious. A bit too obsessed with the television. One might say I learned something, from the last time I had a spot of the mutinous to deal with.”

Lucifer huffed. His horns nearly formed a perfect circle, only a jagged crack between them. “And Tony is still an expert at temptation and mayhem, even if he’s got some soft spots. What do we do now?”

“Well, I’d like to offer amnesty -- there’s a demon in your employ who’s been bringing up some system overhauls. Yes, I have a spy in your midst, Luci, don’t give me that look. I know you have them, too. She has some interesting ideas. And this-- those boys? They may be our best hope for mending our fences.”

Lucifer looked startled. “Mending our fences?”

The Lord gazed at Lucifer, His eyes soft. “I did wrongly by you, Morningstar. Maybe it’s time for all of Us to let go Our old grudges and try to be a family again?” He offered His hand to Lucifer Morningstar, once the best and brightest of the angels.

Lucifer took the Lord’s hand gingerly, as if expecting it to burn. When it didn’t, he let out a soft breath and sank to one knee. “Thy will be done,” he murmured, “as always.”

“In the meanwhile… Gabriel has lost his Grace. Maybe you could take him under your wing?”

Lucifer was on his feet again, grin showing sharp teeth. “Has he, now? Well. He’s going to be stubborn about it, too, I expect. That’ll be fun.”

[mittensmorgul]

I know some people don’t like 3.1 but really do. One of the things l like about it is that shout out to Scooby Doo. I know it might be obvious but I think it would be fun when the Scooby Doo eppy airs this season that we get all of those mentions throughout the series in the previouslies opener. :) :)

Heh, that would be fun. :)

And yeah, I just watched 3.01 too (and I have a really long post I want to write about 2.22 and 13.06, but my internet is being REALLY wonky today so it’ll likely have to wait... *crosses fingers that this will actually post* *fuck you verizon this is not what I pay you asshats $90 a month for ALREADY you jerks* *get your shit together*)

But yes, 3.01 is really agonizing. Dean’s just come off this wild roller coaster couple of days:

Sam is kidnapped by demons

Through Andy Gallagher, Sam sends Dean psychic visions of where they’re being held by the demons (this is Not Fun for Dean)

Dean and Bobby show up JUST IN TIME to watch Sam get murdered fall in some pie

Like no matter how hard he tried to save Sam, because he’s a worthless failure, of course not only did he fail to save Sam, he failed by inches and had to WATCH his Ultimate Failure play out right in front of him

Because of those feelings of abject worthlessness, Dean sells his soul to a demon in exchange for Sam’s life

This is arguably Dean’s lowest point like... ever...

Because he was able to bring Sam back, however, (despite accidentally having a devil’s gate pop open and release a bunch of demons they’ll have to deal with sooner than later...) THEY FINALLY GOT THEIR REVENGE AGAINST THE DEMON THAT KILLED THEIR MOTHER

Like... their life-long revenge quest that had already claimed their father’s life FINALLY came to an end... everything they’d been raised to do, everything they’d sacrificed their entire lives for had finally come to fruition...

And there’s barely one moment to celebrate when the reality of what Dean himself has sacrificed finally comes to light

And the victory over the YED suddenly seems a little hollow... Sam might be alive but Dean’s only got a year to live. John might’ve escaped Hell but Dean’s booked a one-way ticket there.

and then 3.01... Dean’s backburnered all the worries about his demon deal and is trying his damnedest not to think about Hell, and he’s making the most of the year he’s got left. He’s, as Sam said, “polling the electorate,” having cheeseburgers for breakfast, flirting with witnesses at the crime scene in an exact visual parallel to how the demon Envy had touched the woman he’d affected into committing that crime in the first place... (interestingly enough, both “wrong shoulder” touches...). Dean’s already being directly paralleled to a demon.

In the episode we first meet Ruby (who will eventually be mirrored for Sam to Dean’s relationship with Cas beginning in 4.01), another couple makes a very impulsive move by infiltrating the bar where the demon was rumored to hang out, only to discover it wasn’t one demon, but seven. Their impulsive move leads to one of them dying in a horrifying forced self-sacrifice.

So as Dean is blowing through so many of the seven deadly sins himself because he’s got nothing left to lose (hey, he’s gonna enjoy his last damn year if it kills him, because he’s gonna be dead soon enough anyway), he’s confronted with the literal incarnations of Lust and Gluttony and all their bedfellows.

But when confronted by Sam about finding a way out of his deal to save Dean’s life, Dean tells him about the fine print-- if they do anything to break the deal, Sam dies. Period. And if Dean’s going to Hell anyway, he won’t have his suffering be in vain. Sam Must Live in order for any of it to have been worth a damn. (heh, literally)

SAM: So, what, now I live and you die?DEAN: That's the general idea, yeah.SAM: Yeah, well, you're a hypocrite, Dean. How did you feel when Dad sold his soul for you? 'Cause I was there. I remember. You were twisted, and broken. And now you go and do the same thing. To me. (pause) What you did was selfish.DEAN: Yeah, you're right. It was selfish. But I'm okay with that.SAM: I'm not.DEAN: Tough. After everything I've done for this family, I think I'm entitled. (pause) Truth is, I'm tired, Sam. I don't know, it's like there's a, a light at the end of the tunnel.SAM: It's hellfire, Dean.DEAN: Whatever. You're alive, I feel good – for the first time in a long time. I got a year to live, Sam. I'd like to make the most of it. So what do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell, huh?

Remember back when the idea of going to hell felt GOOD? Because dammit at least he wouldn’t have to carry the burden of feeling so responsible to Sam that selling his soul and going to hell for eternity seemed like a relief in comparison? Yeah. Good times... >.>

(please read the previous paragraph as if it were written in the sarcasm font. thanks)

But this brings me back to what I wanted to talk about regarding 2.22, and the entirely subverted scene that directly parallels what was arguably one of the lowest points in Dean’s life as far as his own self-worth, despite having finally achieved one of the greatest victories in his entire life.

(hauls out my Subversion and Inversion tag from s11 and smack it on this post with extreme prejudice. Basically this does not mean what you think it means on the surface, because context matters and everything is flipped now)

Now that I’ve set the scene for 2.22:

DEAN Well, check that off the to-do list. (laughs a little)SAM You did it.DEAN I didn't do it alone.SAM Do you think Dad really... do you think he really climbed outta hell?DEAN The door was open. If anyone's stubborn enough to do it... it would be him.SAM Where do you think he is now?DEAN I don't know.SAM I kind of can't believe it, Dean. I mean... our whole lives, everything... has been prepping for this, and now I... (Chuckles) I kind of don't know what to say.DEAN I do. (He leans closer to the body) That was for our mom... you son of a bitch.

so we can compare it to the exact same words (”I don’t know what to say” and “I do”) to how VASTLY DIFFERENT the context was in 13.06:

Dean: Cas, is that really you?Sam: No. You're -- you're dead.Castiel: Yeah, I was. But then I... annoyed an ancient cosmic being so much that he sent me back.Sam: I don't even know what to say.Dean: I do. Welcome home, pal.

So let’s look at all the inversions and subversions of the 2.22 scene:

in s2 Dean had just signed away his entire life and had an appointment penciled in with a hellhound. In s13, Dean has just died and been sent back by Death with a mission, and the fact that he is Cosmically Important and not scheduled to die.

in s2 Dean literally had nothing to live for and was basically waiting for the end. In s13, Dean has literally just been handed a reason to keep on living and having hope with the return of Castiel. He literally says those words later in 13.06: Sam: You're in a good mood, huh?Dean: Yeah, and?Sam: Nothing. No, I-I-I just, uh... you've been having a rough go, so it's... it's good to see you smile.Dean: Well, I said I needed a big win. We got Cas back. That's a pretty damn big win.

in s2, the Winchesters have just completed their lifelong quest for revenge, and in s13 they’ve just embarked into Unknown Territory in this strange new multiverse that they’re only beginning to learn about, let alone understand.

in s2 that entire exchange was based on Revenge and Death, but in s13 that entire exchange was based on Hope and Life.

I could go on, but really.

[genzgay]

Flustered (part 1)

Pairing: Yugbam

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: bad pickup lines, male body part oriented games, not knowing people’s names

Fluster, verb. To make (someone) agitated or confused

Yugyeom, a quiet and shy library assistant, just wants to keep the peace. BamBam, a quirky design student, knows too many pickup lines. Then they exchanged numbers and it feels like the world turned upside down.

based off this ask

for @cutepimook (there’s a message at the end! happy birthday my dude!)

Yugyeom knew they would be trouble the moment they walked in. Nothing was reassuring about three guys walking into a library, and Yugyeom's library assistant sense had been tingling since he spotted them. So, when the tallest and scariest looking of them screamed penis at a not-so-library-appropriate volume, Yugyeom had to do something. Unfortunately, he lacked the confidence to say something and, well, the blond one was cute. Incredibly cute. Cute enough that Yugyeom couldn't bring himself to ruin their fun. 

 That's the exact problem: he'd noticed this blond kid come into the library every Wednesday and study for an hour since the beginning of the school year. Every once and a while, he'd bring a friend. Usually, though, it was just the blond, his wild fashion sense, and stack of books sitting in the middle of the library. After a while, Yugyeom had begun to crush on the quiet studying blond and it pained him. 

 Yugyeom retreated back to the safety of the sorting room. In there was senior library assistant Park Jinyoung, staring at a cart of books with a clipboard in hand. "Have you taken care of the problem, Yugyeom?" He asked, with out even looking from the books. Yugyeom let a single bone-rattling scream of penis answer for him. "Goddammit. Do I have to do it myself?" Jinyoung said, slamming the clipboard on top of the books. He walked over to open the door, a threatening motion to Yugyeom's job. 

 "No! No! I got it!" Yugyeom whined. He took two huge steps and took the door handle. He froze, looking at the blond. His cheeks were hot. His heart was pounding. 

 "Hmm." Jinyoung smiled his sinister cat smile. Yugyeom was going to die. "So you got it?"

"YES!" Yugyeom tugged the door all the way open and disappeared into the shelves. He took two deep breaths. Then four. Then two again. All he had to do was to tell the blond and his dummy friends to shut up. It was fine. Yugyeom could rebound from it. He passed through the nonfiction section and waltzed over to their table, unnoticed by the threesome. The exact moment he opened his mouth all of his guts seemed to do a backflip. "Hi." He said, awkwardly. He wanted to die. "Umm." He was dead. "You all need to stop. It's disrupting other library guests." 

 All three of them got quiet. The tall one avoided eye contact. The otter-looking one blushed. The blond, though, leaned in and laughed. "Is there really anyone else here to bother?" 

Oh shit. 

“Um, well," Yugyeom was trembling and his face was hotter than before. He probably looked like a tomato. Gosh, that kid was amazing close up. Come on Yugyeom get it together, he thought. "It's library policy to keep at a reasonable volume. Screaming, ahem, penis doesn't qualify." He stated, only to receive a couple of giggles. "So we'll-" He stopped. He couldn't kick them out; he couldn't look that bad.

“Sorry." The scary one said. He held his head down like he had committed the greatest sin ever. He checked his phone and the following silence was one of the most awkward ones Yugyeom would experience. "Well, BamBam, Youngjae and I gotta go. It's 4:45." So that was his name. 

 "Okay guys! See you tomorrow?" BamBam said. 

"Yep!" Youngjae replied, waving. The pair exited and Yugyeom just stood there, watching- not them, BamBam. He wanted to retreat back to the sorting room, to the safety and organization and not awkward silences. Then, BamBam spoke.

 "So, are you just going to stand there or?" He made eye contact with Yugyeom. Yugyeom blinked himself out of his daze. 

 "Uh, I, you-" Yugyeom blushed even harder. His heart was full throttle pounding and words weren't forming in his head.

"We have to kick you out for making such a fuss." A solid, calm voice came from behind Yugyeom. Thank the heavens for Park Jinyoung. 

 BamBam visibly drooped, his lip jutted out in a huge pout. "What?! I need this textbook for my design class and I-" 

 Jinyoung winked at Yugyeom. "I can let you stay if you give this poor kid your number." He said, cutting BamBam off. 

The pout transformed into a sinister smile. "You wanted my number?" BamBam asked. He cackled, or at least it felt like it, and scrawled it on a sticky note. "Here!" Yugyeom took the note and just stared at it. The entire world was spinning around him and he wouldn't ever mind. "If you thought I was cute, why didn't you say something?" 

 Yugyeom was still in shock from the number that he could only mumble, "Um... I... Ah." 

 "It's okay. I know I'm just stunningly beautiful!" BamBam joked, striking a pose. He giggled at his own joke- his laugh was like really intense inhaling- and it was too cute. Yugyeom really wanted to return to the sorting room. His cheeks were on fire. "It's okay, you're the cutest book I've ever checked out." BamBam had a shit eating grin on his face. Yugyeom was beyond flustered. 

"Ah, thanks, I-" 

"This is cute." BamBam leaned in. "Are you a library book?" 

 "No?" 

"Because you have fine written all over you." 

 Yugyeom was doing a mental spit take. "I- Okay thank you. I gotta go. You're, ah." He turned.

"Don't forget to text me, okay?" BamBam called after him.

Yugyeom mentally planned his own funeral, certain that the audacity of this kid would end up killing him. He stepped into the sorting room, took a deep breath, and then he looked over and saw Jinyoung with his phone in his hand, snickering. "You-" 

"All on camera. Funniest shit I've seen in years, my friend." Jinyoung said, slipping the device back into his pocket. Yup, Yugyeom wanted roses around the lectern. 

He began to organize one of the return carts, trying to take his mind off the sticky note that was burning a hole in his back pocket. He busied himself with putting the books back, occasionally stealing glances at BamBam. His lip stuck out in focus; his brows were furrowed in confusion. Yugyeom took his time just to observe. Then, he had to help a plethora of other students check out old medical journals and what not. Eventually, the creak of the library's ancient doors signified that BamBam was leaving. He looked back at Yugyeom and winked. Yugyeom knew he was in for something.

Yugyeom stared at the screen. He was too afraid, too nervous, too shy to send a message. He wanted to curl into a ball and for his heart to stop making him want things. He had been staring at his phone for hours now and hadn't a single clue what to say. So, he did what he did best and placed it on his shelf, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. 

 After a morning of classes, it was back to the library for another shift with Jinyoung for hours of monotonous organizing, shelving, cataloging, and checking-out (the boring kind that doesn't involve staring at cute blonds). Yugyeom trudged in, put on his name tag, and signed the assistant's schedule.He spent his first hour re-shelving books, then his second organizing nine carts, and his third at the desk. 

Just as hour four was rolling past, a certain blond strolled in. On a Thursday. Yugyeom's heart stopped. He retreated to the sorting room, where Jinyoung and the other head assistant, Namjae or something, were chatting away. Jinyoung stuck his hand up, a sinister smile on his face, and said, "Yugyeom, you looked panicked." 

"I'm not." Yugyeom replied, turning to sort a cart. "Can one of you run the front desk for awhile?" He needed to calm down and stop his face from turning firetruck red. 

"I'll do it." Jinyoung opened the door and stepped out, leaving Yugyeom and the Nam-something guy alone. Before either of them could blink at each other, Jinyoung was busting through the door. "You're going out there Kim Yugyeom! You're going out there!" Yugyeom shot a small glance at Nam-whatever as if to say, "Dear lord please help me." But, unfortunately, he was getting dragged by the arms out of the sorting room and towards the desk. He wished the invisibility cloak existed. After some struggle, Yugyeom was standing and staring at the cute blond that gave him his number yesterday. 

 "Hi." He said.

"Hello." BamBam said back. He was smiling, revealing a top row of pearly whites, and then giggled. "Good thing I brought my library card," He giggled again, "because I'm checking you out." 

 "Ah." Yugyeom laughed. "Why do you do this to me?" 

 "You're cute and you deserve to know that." BamBam answered. Yugyeom had been blasted into outer space. Someone really thinks that of me? He sat down next to BamBam and examined his textbook. 

 "What are you studying?" Yugyeom asked. All he could make out was a pattern for a shirt of some sort.

 "I'm making a leather jacket for class and this book had a good pattern for beginners." BamBam replied. "It's a cool dark purple, like here," He pulled a scrap of fabric from his binder and held it up to Yugyeom's face. His eyes got huge all the sudden. "Oh my god. Stand up for a second." He instructed. Yugyeom followed. BamBam looked at him, hand over his mouth and brows scrunched in front like a tailor examining a king. He moved, looking at each of Yugyeom's sides. "You're perfect!" He exclaimed, then came back up to face Yugyeom. "Would you model this for me?" 

Yugyeom's face was on fire again. "Sure?" His head was nodding but his mind was telling him no. Yugyeom had never been comfortable in the spotlight, so why was he accepting the offer of a near stranger to model a project?

"Really?" BamBam was glowing. Happiness seemed to burst through the room. "Okay great. I’m over in the Green Dorms. Building two, floor two, room two. Okay?" He handed Yugyeom a sticky note with the information on it. "Can you come at seven? I need your measurements." 

"Definitely!" Yugyeom said, hoping not to sound too excited. His heart was going to explode.

BamBam laughed again. "Great!" He started organizing his stuff back into his bag. "I'll see you later then?"

 "Yep." 

 As soon as BamBam was gone, Yugyeom did a full on happy dance in the back of the nonfiction section. Tonight was going to be the best night of his life 

A Message for June: Happiest of birthdays June! Since you’re one of my favorite people on this hellsite, I decided to write this thing we discussed back in November because someone needed to do it!! I really intended to have this 100% done for your birthday, but drama club got in the way. So, I’m updating this with a part every Tuesday until it’s done. I hope you’ve enjoyed!!!!!! 

[ruffoverthinksthings]

I VERY MUCH ENJOYED YOUR JAY/MAL BIT AND WOULD LOVE TO KNOW MORE! Things like Ben thinking maybe he and Mal weren't an Ever After and how the Jay/Mal relationship develops (for some reason the Natalia Kills line comes to mind: who needs true love, as long as you love me truly. I don't know why.) But yes, more please if you are willing to share!

All of these asks all neatly tie in to more of the events of whatis quickly becoming ahalf-headcanon/half-full-blown-fanfic-in-bit-and-pieces, actually!

As a refresher: Mal and Ben are still officially together, Mal gotwasted at a Big Party with intentionally capitalized letters, Jay tried to do Drunk Patrol, and it ended upwith it looking like they were totally about to get it on in adressing room even though Jay was being a gentleman and refusing totake advantage of Mal, but Mal was emboldened with the strength andcunning of a horny octopus.

(I’m sorry, I’m really proud of that metaphor.)

Auradon blows up in scandal, simultaneously decrying the perceivedinfidelity, lack of morals, and tested loyalties with Mal, Ben, andJay, and tuning in on all the celebrity rags to see all the latestjuicy details, insider stories, and speculation about it. While thethree of them got the situation cleared up, and are cool with eachother because they’re all mature adults like that, the fact remainsthat most of Auradon is convinced that Mal is cheating on Ben withJay, Ben is either tragically oblivious or slowly plotting how toframe Jay in an elaborate revenge ploy, or the three of them arehaving a totally consensual, loving, healthy (but still taboo)polyamorous relationship among other salacious accusations.

(And a large, sudden influx in “real person fanfiction” butthat’s a different topic altogether.)

Neither of them are psychiatrists however, so they deal with itthe only way they know how:

Raising hell and causing mischief.

The two of them rent a car so they won’t get ID’d straight away, buy several boxes of spraypaint, andgo all about the seedier side of Auradon City, the hostess/hostclubs, the authentically shitty dive bars, the districts that thelocal government and their residents mutually agree they shouldforget about trying to renovate and “clean up” every time theannual budget rolls around.

They tag walls and show the new generation of punks (”AVK’sgot nothing on us originals” Mal says as she paints over some OFFENSIVELY mild and not at all rebellious graffiti), they get drunk, they get into places they’renot supposed to just because they can, and they have a blast.

Mal slurs and giggles as she’s walking down a sidewalk with Jay, a LOT drunker than she thought she would be--and a lot deeper inthe crook of his arm than she strictly needs to be to stay upright. “Shit, Jay: I AM SOFUCKING WASTED! Do you know the last time I got THIS messed up?”

“Little less than a week ago, when you were at that... what wasit again?”

Mal scowls. “I dunno. I don’t fucking know what that party wascalled, who we were throwing it for, and why the fuck I decided I’d helphost it--all I care is that I am drunk, I am happy, and I think I amkinda high from all those paint fumes...”

Mal staggers to the side and awkwardly stretches herself out, as if letting aninvisible fae about waist high walk past them without slowing down.Jay keeps her from overbalancing.

“And you know what the best part of this night is?” shecontinues as she returns to their old configuration.

“What?”

“NOBODY FUCKING CARES! I’m drunk, I’m high, and I’m stillterrified of whatever the fuck that thing is that’s beenstaring at us since Merrygold Street, but you know what?” she flipsthe bird at a seemingly random direction. “It doesn’t matter!Because it’s just me and one of my best friends, ever, and there’s no media orwitnesses to see just how much of a hot mess I am right now...”

“And here you were having second thoughts...” Jay chuckles.“Good thing I was there to save you from another boring night!”

“Hell yeah!” Mal says, throwing the Maleficent. (The Horns, to us.)

She slows down, and Jay keeps going for a while until he starts tofeel Mal pulling him back. “Something up, M?” he asks.

“Thanks, Jay,” Mal mutters. “I mean it: thank you. Becauseof you, I’m free. I mean, it’s just for tonight, andtomorrow’s going to fucking suck, there’s no two shitsabout that, but...”

She trails off, and smiles at Jay.And even if she’s got greenpaint all over one side of her face when she got reacquainted withthe right side of the nozzle, her breath reeks like cheap jelloand even cheaper vodka, and her hair’s all frazzled and everywhere,he wants nothing more than to kiss her.

He lets the thought pass, however. Because he knows he reallyshouldn’t, and that for all that’s happened tonight, she’sstill Ben’s.

“Disgusting,” they hear from the side.

The two of them turn their heads and see a little old lady--thekind that refuses to move from her old apartment building that’s asancient as she is, complete with the pillbox hat--looking at themwith a glare that would have been terrifying under very differentcircumstances, but is just funny to them now.

Jay smiles. “Lady, we’re just two friends out having fun,”he says.

“Don’t you lie to me, boy!” the old lady cries, wagging afinger at them. “I can see right through you two--you don’tthink someone like me keeps up with the news? Why, I watch thosefancy ‘live feeds’ like a hawk, I tell you,A HAWK!

“And you! Maleficent Bertha Jr., you should be ashamed ofyourself! Is that any way for a future Queen to act, cavorting abouttown, getting drunk in the arm of a man who isn’t your husband,where anyone can see you?”

Jay rolls his eyes. “Geeze, lady--”

Mal puts a finger to his lips. The two look each other in theeyes, and hatch a plan in an instant.

“Oh no!” Mal says in her most overdramatic voice possible. “Mypristine reputation! My dignity! My pride as a woman, sullied by anight of temptation, vice, and sin!”

“And by the hands of such a handsome, devilish rogue of questionable moralitysuch as myself!” Jay says smugly, twirling an invisible mustache.

What follows next is about the most overblown, melodramatic,clearly faking it unless you’re really, really, really densescene of them making up the most ridiculous, salacious, scandalousimplications they can think of, going through the whole range ofsecret Evil parties in basements, cavorting about with Dionysus’Maenads, both actual fae and the alternative lifestyle community, vague references to body parts and acts with them, allwhile emphasizing the worst, most awful thing about everythingthey’ve “done”:

Jay and Mal aren’t married, and neither is she to Ben!

This poor old woman is just getting redder and redder and frothingat the mouth, waggling her ancient bony finger at them, and Jay andMal are just dying from laughter, they aren’t even trying tohold it back anymore.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit...” Jay is whispering inbetween the actual tears of delight streaming down his face. “Weshould stop--like seriously stop, I think she’s having a heartattack.”

“Gee, ya think?” Mal titters back. “Okay, okay, we really should, but afterone last thing--big finale.”

“Lay it on me.”

“I’m going to kiss you,” Mal says calmly. “But like, just a fake,stage kiss.”

Jay’s laughter stops in an instant.

Mal misinterprets it as his giving her the go ahead.

She kisses him. And through the haze of alcohol, paint fumes, anduncontrollable laughter, she realizes that she’s totally kissinghim in a way that can be interpreted as anything BUT “a fake, stagekiss.”

The old lady sputters angrily, frothing at the mouth, before shesuddenly just keels over. Jay drops Mal in shock, she doesn’t evenfeel her head hitting the sidewalk.

Mostly because she’s too busy processing the fact that A:

They might have actually killed an innocent if severelystuck-up old lady.

And B:

There is totally a crowd that wasn’t there before that’svideotaping the whole thing from every angleon their phones.

Meanwhile, as this is happening...

Ben sighs happily as he settles down into his private study, stilldressed in formal kingly attire from the waist up, and just hisinfamous crown boxers from the waist down. He never really got theappeal of his father going around with no pants if he could help it,until now, when he, too, was king.

He’s about to take the first book from the perennial stack of“To Be Read” books on his desk, when there’s a knocking on thedoor. “Come in!” he calls out.

The door opens, and in walks Lumiere with tray, on it a piping hot potof tea and a freshly poured cup. “Good evening, Master!Compliments of Mrs. Potts,” he says as he walks in and begins toserve it, “a most salacious and frankly ridiculous rumourjust popped up in the internet, and she wished to channel her outrageinto something productive.”

Ben graciously takes the cup into his hands. “Tell her I saidthank you, and please, Lumiere: just call me Ben,” he saysas he takes a sip.

He smiles; he can taste the heat of Mrs. Potts rage, butthe tea leaves make it a soothing sort of warmth that spreads fromhis stomach to the rest of his body.

Lumiere smiles apologetically. “Forgive me, Ben, but won’t youplease let this old servant perform his old tricks? Life is notquite the same, ever since your father and mother permanently movedout.” He pauses. “Especially when you perform much of yourfather’s old habits, this… how do the Americans say it? ‘GoingCommando’?”

Ben chuckles. “That’s going around fully clothed sansunderwear, Lumiere. This is just ‘No Pants Time.’”

“Bah!” Lumiere shakes his head. “I’m getting so old,”he mutters playfully.

“Not that old!” Ben counters.

Lumiere beams, up until he notices the title of book on top of thepile:

“Till It’s Gone: Recognizing the Value Of Your RelationshipsBefore It’s Too Late”

“That is… a rather ominous choice for bedtime reading, Master.”

Ben shrugs. “Never hurts to face the uglier sides of life sometimes,right?”

Lumiere frowns. “Is this about that deluge of scandalous anduntrue accusations that have befallen you, Mademoiselle Mal, andMonsieur Jay?”

Ben nods. “It’s just… I thought I left all of that behind inAuradon Prep, you know? And just... for all of it to come back, along with all of these people talking about when we’re getting married, it’s just...”

Lumiere puts his hand on his shoulder and gives him a loving,paternal squeeze. “Just do what I did, Master: grin, speak with them politely, and waitfor them to get bored and move onto someone else and make ridiculousrumours about them.

“And I should know: I was often an eye witness, ifnot one of the main parties involved!”

Ben laughs. “Dad always did say you had a very… colourfulpast, before you came to work for him.”

Lumiere smirks. “That’s certainly one way to put it. Mypoint still stands, Master: this is all just a natural, inevitablepratfall of being among the aristocracy. Soon enough, this will allblow over, you and Mademoiselle Mal will be back to your normal,loving selves, and all of you—Monsieur Jay included—will belooking back on this incident and laugh.

“Once this media circus packs up for the road, perhaps a vacation to Neverland is in order, with plans of adifferent sort along with it...?” he waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Ben looks at Lumiere, then back to his stack of books. He smiles,takes “Till It’s Gone,” and places it to the side, cover down.The new top book on the stack:

“How Do You Put A Ring On It?: The Commitment-phobe’sGuide To Going Steady, Proposing, and Staying Happily Married ForeverAfter”

“Thanks, Lumiere,” Ben says. “Could you get Cogsworth onthat?”

Lumiere allows himself a moment on unprofessional behaviour andpumps his fist in the air. “At once, Ben. Shall I also call yourmother and tell her it’s finally time?”

Ben nods, looking at the photo he has on his desk of just him andBelle, recently taken on her birthday earlier that year. “No timelike the present,” he says.

Lumiere pats him on the shoulder once more. “Her ring is goingto look so beautiful on Mal’s hand, Master.”

He lives to regret those words, but to be fair, though, therereally was no way he could have known.