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sanddusted-wisteria · 1 year ago

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A Builder, a Researcher, and a Rooftop, Ch. 17: Asterisms

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The builder snuggled closer into Qi’s side as they gazed up at the glittering sky from the blanket, letting out a content hum as they felt more of his warmth. Qi fidgeted a little, not quite sure how to react, but didn’t pull away. He was still new to this, clearly. He eventually settled for seeking out their hand with his pinky, slowly and carefully lacing their fingers together.

“…You ever make up any constellations?” the builder said suddenly.

“You mean…asterisms?”

“Uh. What?” They took their eyes off the stars, giving Qi a puzzled look.

“Asterisms. Groupings of stars that often look vaguely like real-life objects when we draw lines between them.”

“Yeah. That’s…a constellation.”

Qi sighed. “Why does everyone always—” He paused, took a deep breath, and began again, trying to sound a bit gentler this time. “That is a common misconception. What is colloquially known as a ‘constellation’ is, in truth, an ‘asterism’. How such a wide misconception started, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

The builder frowned. “Uh…huh.” Definitely a Qi thing to get particular about. “So then…a constellation is…?”

“A constellation is a region of space that we name by its titular asterism. The asterism usually contains the brightest stars, but that’s not enough to describe all the celestial bodies in a region.”

“Oookay…” the builder frowned. “Example?”

“Take Ursa Major.” Qi pointed up at the Great Bear, running its laps around the North Star. “The asterism is what we colloquially call the ‘Great Bear’, but the constellation is the entire region that surrounds it. That way, we have a way of describing the general place of other stars in that region that are not a part of the main asterism.”

The builder hummed, nodding as best they could while curled up right next to him. “Makes sense… But what about something like the Big Dipper? Never saw that on one of your star maps.”

“Ahhh, an insightful question.” The earlier frustration in Qi’s voice earlier had worn off, replaced with a familiar, simmering excitement. “The Big Dipper is another asterism. It’s actually a part of Ursa Major, as you can see.” He traced the familiar outline of the sky spoon with his finger. “Though asterisms don’t always have to be a smaller portion of an established constellation.”

The builder chuckled quietly. “Got it.”

Qi’s expression lightened. “Good. One less person to hold a misconception.”

Silence fell over them again.

“Uh…” the builder muttered. “What were we talking about before, again…?”

“Oh. Um…I believe you asked if I had come up with any asterisms.”

The builder snorted. “Oh yeah, right. So, have you made any asterisms, then?”

“Of course! I’ve been observing the sky ever since I was four. When you get acclimated enough to the established formations, it’s only natural to try making your own.”

“Show me the best one, then.”

Qi hummed. “The best...? Don’t believe there’s a way to qualify one as objectively best…”

“Well, which one’s your favorite?”

“My favorite…hmm…” Qi was silent for a moment before circling a region almost right over their heads. “I think it would have to be Vulpes Zerda.” His finger traced an hourglass shape with several protruding stars on some of the ends.

The builder squinted, trying their best to make out the shape. “What’s it supposed to be?”

“A fennec fox. You see the top half of the hourglass there? That’s the head and ears. The other half is the body and tail.”

The builder stared at it a little more, starting to see the shape a little better. “Aw, that’s cute,” they laughed.

“Er…I moreso delineated this one for its distinct shape and how it mirrors its namesake…”

“I mean, yeah, but fennec foxes are cute. So it’s also cute!”

Qi let out a few noises of protest, before sighing. “I suppose so…”

The builder chuckled again. “Only makes it better.”

Qi let out a noncommittal hum. “Have you tried making asterisms?”

Clearly trying to change the subject, but the builder obliged. “Uh…I‘ve tried. Could never make anything, though. The most I see are lots of triangles and dots.”

“It’s not easy,” Qi hummed. “Even the most well-defined asterisms are still very abstract representations of their namesakes.”

The builder’s brow furrowed as they stared up at the sky, trying to draw something new with their eyes. But all they could see were triangles, dots, and all the existing asterisms they knew about. “How do you do it, exactly?”

“Um…” Qi was silent. “There’s no reliable methodology, unfortunately. Sometimes I can see something, other times I can’t.”

“Hmm…” The builder focused harder, as if that would somehow help.

Finally, they gave up with a sigh. “Nope. Nothing. All I see are con—asterisms that I already know.”

“Understandable. I’m sure you’ll come up with one eventually. Sometimes all it takes is a burst of inspiration.”

“Hmm…maybe.”

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Qi flipped through the pages of his journal, trying to find a certain couple pages from a while ago.

Finally, he found it: several partial star charts with some of the asterisms he came up with himself. He’d been making them up ever since he was little, and he had enough by now to fully remap the sky. Usually he’d only manage to delineate one at a time, but with this batch, he’d had a sudden burst of energy to come up with several at once.

He scanned the page, at the drawings and the lists of stars. The Pickhammer. The Burning Forge. The Switchboard. The Power Stone.

And in the bottom right corner, a note: Why these? Why all at once? Why all have connections to building??

Qi felt a smile lift his lips. Now he knew why.

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A/N: WE'RE BACK!!

Welcome to Act 2! Thank you for your patience through my hiatus! I thought I could start posting again in September, but my plans kept gettin' pantsed! This act's gotten around 50% longer than when I originally planned it out…mostly because of the back half, though. This first half will be a little on the light side for most of it. Get these two dorks more acquainted with this relationship upgrade and everything.

And if you've noticed the most recent [AO3] tag to the story…yes! We've officially deviated from the canon side missions a bit. Not to worry! I saw this coming months ago (read: beta testing and datamining). I've been developing my plans largely independently of the side mission content. So while my story for Qi and the builder will be a bit different from what we'll see in the game, I still hope that it's enjoyable and interesting!

All that being said, I am very, very excited to show you what I've been working on for this act. Whether you've been here since chapter 1 or you've just found this fic, thank you, and I really do hope you look forward to what I've got in store!

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#how much time will i have to work on this between frantic wiki editting and the absolute stack of nov game releases #who knows #oh and real life stuff too i guess #shady's fics #my time at sandrock #mtas fanfic #brr

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dexterity8 · 1 month ago

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Worthmore

2 - Unversed

The first rays of sunlight crept through the tall, narrow windows of the Ravenclaw tower, casting streaks of pale gold across the room. April stirred beneath the heavy blanket, the chill of the early morning air nudging her awake. She blinked against the light, momentarily disoriented, her mind lagging as it tried to catch up to her surroundings. The bed was comfortable enough, but everything around her was alien: the circular room, the vast shelves of books stacked against the walls, the tapestry depicting stars and constellations. It took only seconds for the reality to settle over her again, and the ache in her chest pulsed anew.

Ravenclaw.

She exhaled sharply, sitting up and staring around the common room in bitter disbelief. This was supposed to be Slytherin—dark, sleek, powerful Slytherin. She should be in the dungeons, like her mother once was, surrounded by others who shared her pride, her ambition. But no, here she was, in her father's house.

That man, she thought sourly, as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. A man she didn't even know, a man who'd left before she could remember, who had done nothing but leave an empty place in her life—and yet somehow, he still managed to affect her future. She knew she was being bitter—more bitter than she probably had any right to be. But there was something about waking up here, among unfamiliar faces, in her father's house, that only stoked her frustration. If only he'd been around, if only she'd known him—maybe she would've understood what part of her was so...Ravenclaw.

She dragged her uniform over and began getting ready, determined not to dwell on him any more than necessary. But the resentment simmered quietly, unyielding as she slipped into her robe and adjusted her tie—the Ravenclaw blue felt like a final insult, as if the whole Sorting ceremony had been some grand cosmic joke. She grimaced at the attire, pouting bitterly. Her mother would've laughed if she could see it—though not unkindly. Celeste would have smiled that subtle, half-smirking smile of hers, the one that somehow said everything and nothing at once. "You'll come around," she'd say. "Slytherin or not, I know you'll make me proud regardless." But April had wanted nothing more than to uphold her mother's legacy, and now it felt as if her father was laughing straight in her face, mocking that very notion.

She turned slightly, letting her gaze wander the room some more, vaguely hearing the soft, sleepy murmurs of the other girls in her dormitory. Three of them, all first-years like her, still tangled up in their blankets. She hadn't spoken a word to them yet—didn't see the point in introducing herself when she hadn't even settled her own feelings about where she belonged. They seemed friendly enough, but they had something she didn't: genuine excitement. While they chatted and giggled last night, April had silently slipped into bed, too disheartened to share in their wonder.

Yesterday's arrival in the common room had been yet another reminder of the difference between Ravenclaw and the house she'd dreamed of joining. The bronze eagle that made up a better part of the entrance itself hadn't simply opened—it had asked them a question, a riddle that the prefect had encouraged her and the other new students to solve. "What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?"

At first, she'd thought it was clever, a bit exciting even, but she could already tell that kind of novelty would get old quickly, especially if the riddles weren't easy. April sighed, wondering how many times she'd end up stuck outside the common room, waiting until some clever upper-year could solve it for her.

Someone had guessed, correctly, "a stamp," but the delay and uncertainty as they waited at the threshold, feeling judged by an enchanted door of all things, had left a bad taste in her mouth. April couldn't shake the thought that this was Ravenclaw's way of testing her, again, to make sure she truly belonged. And although the others seemed to delight in the riddles and puzzles that filled their new home, she found herself only thinking about how exhausting it was going to be. It felt ridiculously tedious.

With a tired sigh, she put on her shoes before grabbing her wand and satchel. She glanced around the room one last time, watching as her roommates began to wake up, whispering and giggling amongst themselves. There was a slight tug in her chest, some quiet urge to speak up and introduce herself, but it quickly faded. Not until I figure out what I'm even doing here, she told herself, pressing her lips together.

It wasn't just her placement that bothered her; it was that she felt like she'd been shoved down this path because of him—her father, the one person she'd never even known. Her mother had raised her almost single-handedly, fiercely and proudly, giving her a clear picture of what she wanted to be. And yet, the Sorting Hat had insisted on this twist, like some strange, invisible hand pulling her back into a past she wanted nothing to do with.

She slung her bag over her shoulder, drawing a steadying breath. Right, she thought, doing her best to quell her frustration. One step at a time. Maybe breakfast will help.

The common room was a sight to behold in the morning light, the bookshelves gleaming and the starry ceiling reflecting a soft, early sunlight. A small notice had been pinned on a bulletin board by the entrance with the first-year timetable. Charms would be her first class, and she was actually somewhat looking forward to it. She'd heard her mother talk about Charms lessons before, and though Celeste had never been as keen on that particular branch of magic, April had always thought it sounded fun. Maybe it would be just the distraction she needed to shake off this nagging irritation.

But finding her way to the Great Hall was easier said than done. As soon as she left the common room and stepped into the corridors, her confidence wavered. Hogwarts was a labyrinth of stone walls, twisting hallways, and endless staircases that seemed to defy any semblance of logic. The castle was enormous, each corridor longer and more winding than the last, and the few helpful portraits were either fast asleep or quick to give cryptic, whimsical directions that made her feel even more lost.

April soon realized her "short walk" to breakfast might not be so short after all. She found herself squinting at an odd tapestry of dancing trolls, then turning down a hallway that led to a spiral staircase—one that she quickly realized didn't end where she expected it to. Huffing, she turned around, retracing her steps as best as she could remember. By the time she passed a suit of armor she could've sworn she'd already seen, her irritation was simmering again.

"Why does this place need so many staircases?" she muttered angrily under her breath, quickening her pace as the tantalizing thought of breakfast kept her moving. Her stomach growled, and she tried to focus on getting to the Great Hall, turning down yet another corridor and nearly colliding with an older student who merely raised an eyebrow and moved on, probably too accustomed to seeing lost first-years to bother.

Finally, after several wrong turns, more than a few frustrated sighs, and one brief, confusing conversation with a very old portrait of a wizard who insisted on debating the theory of alchemy with her, she spotted the familiar flow of students heading towards the Great Hall. She blended in quickly, falling into step with a group of chattering Ravenclaws who, thankfully, seemed to know the way.

As she entered the Great Hall, the familiar scent of breakfast filled the air—toast, eggs, bacon, and other dishes she couldn't quite identify but that looked delicious nonetheless. She allowed herself a sigh of relief as she made her way to the Ravenclaw table, sliding into an empty spot near the end. She started helping herself to breakfast, her stomach rumbling in appreciation as she filled her plate with toast, eggs, and a heap of sausages. Whatever else she might be feeling, at least the food at Hogwarts was something she could rely on. She was trying to focus on the positives, after all, as difficult as it was.

Yet, even as she ate, her thoughts inevitably returned to her father. It wasn't fair, she thought, that someone who had walked away without a second thought could still have this sort of effect on her, even years later. And now, of all things, she was wearing his colors, sitting at his table.

She shoved another bite of toast into her mouth, willing herself to be calm. She was at Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake—a place people only dreamed of coming to. This was the beginning of her magical education, and she wasn't going to let her resentment ruin that. She'd go to Charms, learn something new, and maybe, just maybe, forget the sting of being here in Ravenclaw instead of with the Slytherins.

Once she was full and ready to head to class, April rose from the bench, eyeing the chaotic swarm of students flowing out of the hall, each apparently with a clear sense of direction. She, on the other hand, hadn't the faintest idea where Charms was, nor how to get there without spiraling through yet another series of corridors, and the last thing she wanted was to arrive late. Thus, she lingered near the edge of the Great Hall a bit longer until spotting a group of fellow first years walking with a sense of purpose she clearly lacked in that moment. She quietly slipped into step behind them, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Hopefully, they were headed in the right direction—Merlin knew she'd only get lost again if she tried it alone.

By some miracle, she made it to Charms with only moments to spare. The classroom was large, with rows of desks facing each other across the aisle, a setup that made it feel almost conversational. At the end, the professor's desk sat against a wall decorated with various tomes and books alike, and a staircase by the entrance led up to an office above. There was a vibrant, almost cozy air to the place, and April's frustration began to ebb just a bit.

She chose a seat near the back, dropping into the bench as the first bell of the day tolled. Her gaze drifted over her classmates, who were settling in and chatting quietly amongst themselves. She sank slightly into her seat, still not in any mood to interact with her peers. Instead, she busied herself with pulling out some parchment and a quill, doing her best to ignore the low hum of chatter from the others.

As she settled in, however, whatever faint silence remained was suddenly broken by an excited, almost theatrical voice. "Good morning, my bright young minds!"

An older man in a sharp purple ensemble descended the steps from his office with a spry enthusiasm that instantly shifted the energy of the room. His eyes sparkled with an unmistakable warmth as he looked over his new students, and he moved with a sort of whimsical grace that hinted at his excitement for the day's lesson. April observed him warily, half-expecting the stern demeanor she imagined most professors would wield like a weapon.

When the man reached the base of the stairs, he extended his arms in a welcoming gesture, his smile broad.

"I am Professor Ronen, your Charms instructor! And let me assure you, this will not be your ordinary, dry, by-the-book class. I am a firm believer that learning is best done by doing—and, most importantly, by enjoying oneself. A little bit of fun, I think, does wonders for the mind."

April blinked, caught off guard. She'd expected something a bit more... formal, perhaps. Something more subdued, a dry lecture to match her already dour mood. But there was something unexpectedly refreshing about his enthusiasm. His lively personality practically breathed life into the room, a stark contrast to her current state, but not an entirely unwelcome one. Part of her almost felt herself getting a little excited, though she quickly tried to squash the feeling. Even so, the professor's cheery attitude was difficult to ignore. Maybe even, though she didn't want to admit it, a bit comforting.

Professor Ronen's gaze traveled over the group of curious first-years, his eyes alight with a keen interest in each of them. "Now, I could bore you with theory and wand movements right away, but where's the joy in that? Let's get to know one another first." He clapped his hands together, beaming. "After all, we shall be spending quite some time together—five years, to be precise! So, introductions are in order! Tell us your name and one interesting fact about yourself."

April stiffened in her seat, the slight ease she'd begun to feel slipping away. She was in no mood for introductions. Professor Ronen went down the rows, the other students stood up, introduced themselves, shared small facts—names, hometowns, and silly anecdotes . April tried to mentally will the moment to pass by, but dread kept bubbling in her chest the closer Professor Ronen got. She didn't want to share a fun fact—she wasn't even sure she had one worth sharing, and certainly not one she wanted to announce to the entire room. But in the midst of her inner turmoil, he reached her, and her heart skipped a beat.

"And you, miss—?" he said with a friendly smile, though April felt it pierce through her like an unwanted spotlight.

She cleared her throat, the daunting feeling of every eye in the room on her making her shudder just a bit. She swallowed, her mouth dry. "I'm April Worthmore," she said flatly, barely loud enough to be heard. "From London."

A polite nod came from the professor, but he leaned forward, a mischievous glint in his eye. "A pleasure, April! Now, I'm sure you can give us one little fun fact about yourself, can't you? Something that tells us who you are."

Her jaw tightened, the irritation bubbling up like a reflex. What did he expect her to say? That she felt completely lost in a place she should've loved? That she didn't want to be there at all? After everything—the sorting, her house, her utter disappointment? She scowled, crossing her arms across her chest, and before she could stop herself, the words slipped out, sharp and biting. "Well, I didn't exactly want to be in Ravenclaw."

A heavy silence fell over the room as her words lingered, the sheer venom in her tone catching both her classmates and Professor Ronen off guard. She clamped her mouth shut, cheeks growing warm with embarrassment, but the frustration that had been simmering all morning made her hold her ground, refusing to take the words back.

A few students exchanged wide-eyed looks; others looked away, embarrassed on her behalf. April's pulse throbbed in her ears, the silence stretching painfully long. But Professor Ronen only gave a soft chuckle in return, his tone gentle. "Ah, house disappointment... quite the common affliction, you'd be surprised." He stepped a little closer, his eyes meeting hers with an understanding she hadn't anticipated. "When I first sat under that hat, I was certain I'd end up somewhere else as well. But the hat placed me in Slytherin, and I remember feeling quite bewildered."

April's gaze darted up, surprised. He certainly didn't act like her notion of a Slytherin. There wasn't an ounce of the calculating nature she'd come to associate with the house. With her mother. He carried himself with such a joyful outlook on things, an easy humor that seemed more suited to a Hufflepuff than anything else.

Professor Ronen continued, "I questioned it for quite some time. Yet, as my school years went on, I found Slytherin gave me a foundation I never knew I needed. And here I am now, head of that very house, with a fondness I could never have imagined back then."

She wanted to believe him, but it felt different for her. Professor Ronen had been sorted into Slytherin, yet he had come to love it. She couldn't imagine feeling that way about Ravenclaw. She felt trapped here, not drawn to it in any way that mattered. She frowned, a faint pang of envy prickling her chest. Of course, he'd found peace with it, even thrived in it. How easy it must've been, she thought bitterly, to not feel out of place in one's own house. She had no patience for Ravenclaw, which felt like a prison more than a home, and she was bound here all because of some complete stranger who'd cast his shadow over her life with a maddening, silent persistence.

April's eyes dropped to her hands, clenched in her lap. The reassurance settled somewhere uncomfortable inside her, not quite touching the gnawing resentment she felt. But she forced herself to nod, half-hearted as it was. "Right... I suppose."

Professor Ronen gave her a polite nod in return, not too satisfied with her response, though he didn't press her further. Instead, he moved on to the next student, allowing her to retreat back into silence. The class resumed its rhythm, students sharing little pieces of themselves one by one, but April's mind remained clouded, unable to shake the weight of her own thoughts.

#hogwarts legacy #harry potter #writers #my writing #ravenclaw #slytherin #Spotify

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insomniasymphony · 3 years ago

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Obsessive Hisoka Morow x Female Reader [He cannot hate you]

Constellation: Obsessive Hisoka Morow x Female Reader Words I got: → Protective → Duality → Affection Rating: Teen up and Audience

►► He is the devil with a sweet tooth, And you are the candy on his tongue. Get on your knees and ask him to choose Nothing sweeter than you. For sweetness doesn't last long. ◄◄

Hectically, you jerk your head from left to right, look around for other cars and take a breath when there are no others blocking the road. In the cold evening air, your legs carry you in hurried steps across the asphalt, to the other side of the pavement that should lead you through the houses of Yorknew. Further and further, until the hotel room is forever gone.

The breath on your lips rises in white clouds, bringing something wistful with it that you don't want to pay attention to. Still, you can't rid yourself of the thought in the back of your mind.

It's not too late to give up on your plan.

You could drag yourself back to the room you've been sharing with Hisoka for four days, put on something pretty and wait for the magician to return from his meeting. He'd tell you about his new plan, kiss you, and fuck your senses into no-man's land for half the night because you're his favourite toy.

That's the problem: you're just a doll that can be replaced.

He's never said that he loves you, even though you've been spending every spare minute together for six months. Hisoka took you on his journey and he hasn't let you out of his sight since.

You shower together, eat together, he kills anyone you exchange too many kind words with. It's as if he wants to shut you off from the world so that you belong to him alone.

But this obsessive nature of his is nothing but terror for you. Sometimes you long for freedom, which you know Hisoka will never give you. He would rather strangle to death with his own hands than see you go. His subliminal threats make that clear time and time again.

And tonight you are ready to die for your freedom.

A little more hastily, you hurry ahead, turn into a narrow alley and hear the echo of your footsteps rising up the stone walls. Each reverberation makes your skin seem colder under your soft woolen coat. The goosebumps don't subside, the shiver persists, and you can't help but believe that behind every shadow is a part of Hisoka. His intense gaze has made you paranoid.

Briefly, you shake your head. This time his eyes won't be able to pierce you. When Hisoka returns, the hotel room will be empty and you will be long gone – so far away from him, with a new name and a new life, that he won't find you. For three weeks you have been looking for someone who would save you and Hisoka from this relationship and you have indeed found someone who wants to fulfil all your wishes for a lot of money in exchange.

Your gaze wanders once briefly over your shoulder. Through the echo of your own flight, you can no longer perceive anything but your own movements. Hisoka could be walking right behind you and you wouldn't notice. The racing of your heart makes the blood rush in your ears and everything else inside you is so erratically tense that you don't know if your nerves can hold it all together.

Only when the alley ends and sends you between other streets to find safety, a tiny part of the fear falls away, still simmering underneath.

Across the street, at least fourteen cars have parked. This area of the city seems like a residential neighbourhood where men return to their loving wives. The husband old-fashioned in a suit while she wears an apron because dinner is boiling on the cooker. Docile women in the kitchen who have no time to look for other men. Probably that's exactly what Hisoka is longing for too. A woman who only has eyes for him. All day long. Without exception. Locked up like a bird in a cage.

Even though you never intended to replace him. Hisoka is the man who won your heart. A guy who goes through life strong and ruthless, but always takes great care to make sure you're okay.

Your steps slow down as you stop at the edge of the pavement. One of the vehicles is started, flashing its headlights three times. The sign that this is your getaway car. The man who will take you away. Away from Hisoka, whose arms have wrapped protectively around you more than once in the last six months. His warmth on your skin has always been comforting and even though you know he hates it when you talk to other men and he has left marks on your body as a safety for himself as a result, his company has always been loving. He has never hurt you unless you found sexual pleasure in it. He never raised his voice at you. Never did he try to lock you up. His only crimes are the threats that still jump through your senses and also the fact that he likes to corner and intimidate you.

On top of that, he messes with people for your sake who are more dangerous than one might think at first. Yes, you love him. But if you don't leave, he will either throw you away or he will be killed because of you. You are poison to each other, you can't explain it any other way.

Yet, you don't want to go. The fear in your heart has made room for sorrow and the desire to run back into his strong, protective arms is strong.

Swallowing dryly, you give yourself a push. You have no choice but to make the best decision for both of you. Your feet start moving again and you drag yourself along, reaching the car you're getting into. You find room in the back seat, the fabric of which clings to you strangely and uncomfortably as you take a shaky breath and look in the rearview mirror for a half-glimpse of your helper's round face.

“Are you ready, good lady?” His smoky voice scrapes through the atmosphere, merely making you nod before he finally starts the engine and drives off. Your heart sinks four floors deeper, smothered in grief and fear, both of which settle on too many things in your chest. Maybe you're making a mistake, but this relationship has no future.

You feel the car smoothly take the turns, hear the engine accelerate, sense every bump in your bones. You claw your sweaty hands into the upholstery as you reprimand yourself to rest with conscious inhales and exhales. It's over, you've escaped, given you both the freedom you deserve.

Yorknew's houses diminish for a moment, bringing trees and the parkland to the fore where you would have loved to have a romantic walk. But Hisoka doesn't think much of boring strolls. He likes sex. Togetherness where you are close to each other – all to yourselves, so that you can snuggle up to him and you just sit there. Amusement parks. Bungee gum. You.

The thought draws a sigh from you before the car makes a strange rattling sound, forcing the driver to stop. You halt at the side of the road, so you can't help but hold your breath.

“What was that?” you press out.

“If I saw right, I just accidentally drove over a marten,” the stranger returns to you, making you exhale because it's not a horror movie you're in after all. Then he gets out.

The open door, which he doesn't close, brightens up the inside of the vehicle, makes the outside world a little more unfriendly than it really is and forces you to get out too, because you can't find a quiet minute alone on this upholstery.

Slowly you push your way back into the cold of the darkness, glancing at the streetlights flickering conspiratorially before circling the car to check on your driver. But all you see in front of the bonnet is a trail of blood. Not a marten. No one. Probably he's just taking the dead animal away, burying it so the kids won't get spooked in the park the next day.

The cool air seems to bite down to your bones, numbing your skin as you count off two minutes. The restlessness keeps you looking around and for a moment you are willing to jump in the car and eagerly drive on. But your driver also has your new identity and all the other things that have been so painstakingly prepared. You can't leave without him. So you stroll a few steps towards the park. Just until the blackness seems to swallow everything, because the flickering streetlamps don't give enough light for more.

Tense, you cross your arms in front of your chest, bobbing up and down before gnawing fear begs for action. “Hello?”

Only silence returns to your question and you can't help but take a step over the dark threshold and venture further ahead to find your driver. Three, four feet ahead to the first tree closest to you. “What's wrong?”

Again you meet only silence, staggering a few more steps ahead and giving up in the same breath. A glance over your shoulder moves the car, which is already a few metres away from you, into a ghostly, almost lonely picture, apart from the other vehicles that pass by every now and then. No one seems to care about the abandoned automobile.

A little more annoyed, you take a breath, shake your head as something wet hits your cheek and you instantly look up because the sky didn't look like rain at all when you started running.

And it still doesn't.

Nevertheless, your heart stops for a beat.

Cold seems to consume you from within, makes you pull your coat tighter.

Up there, above you, fixed between branches, the lifeless eyes of the man who was supposed to help you escape stare back at you. His arms hang twisted above him and his legs are missing entirely. In the darkness, suffused with moonlight, you can only make out the bitter facts. And one of them is death.

“Do you like it?”

Instantly you suck in the air sharply, turning around in an instant only to catch sight of Hisoka. Leaning relaxed against a tree, he shuffles his cards as if nothing has happened. “I thought we had decided that you would wait in the hotel room. Where were you going with that man at such a late hour?”

His gaze lifts so that his amber eyes can look at you, while his features wait in a lack of enthusiasm for answers. You don't know if he's angry, but his expression seems to threaten you.

“I-I... I wanted to...” What do you want to say anyway? You don't know yourself what exactly you wanted other than to just get away from him for too many things that seem wrong. “Away.”

“Where to?”, Hisoka inquires, pushing himself off the trunk and coming closer. The cards disappear into the pockets of his white trousers in the same blink.

“Just... away,” you counter, unable to look at him any further because his eyes seem to look right down into your core.

“From me?” He pauses in front of you. “Why?”

Again your attention jerks to him and you hate the fact that he is wearing heels because it only makes him taller than he already is.

“You... are... constricting me.”

“Is that so?” The almost biting undertone in his voice is frightening. But you don't have time to think of what his next move might be as he grabs you by the chin and forces you to look at him very closely. His grip is so tight around your jawbone as he does so that you panic he might break it.

Then he leans towards you, breathes such a gentle kiss on your lips that, along with fear, terrible warmth rises up inside you. Your heart races wildly, but you don't know if it's the fear or the longing. Seeing him like this, knowing he is so close to you, is cruel because you love him, don't want to leave him, but don't want to see either of you die either.

The mere thought of losing him, or not being good enough anymore, knots your stomach as your vision blurs and the sobs in your throat quietly spill out.

Hisoka watches this rection, loosening his grip around your chin and running his thumb over your lips. A little like he wants more words from you. And you can't help but give them to him in a gush.

“I love you, Hisoka. I really do. But this can't work.” You have to swallow to keep from breaking into a raspy cough. “You lock me up like I'm your pet and you're messing with people who might kill you one day.” The first tear rolls down your cheeks unintentionally, making you wipe it away in frustration because you don't want to seem like an effeminate damsel in distress. “You're going to kill yourself because of me. And if not for that, then one day you'll just throw me away because you're not a man for life. And I'm afraid that by then I'll love you so much that I won't be able to stand it. So I was gonna let you go. And I can understand if you hate the decision, but isn't that the duality you love to talk about? Love and hate, both sides of the same coin? I-” Hisoka interrupts you as he takes your face in his hands and forcibly pulls you to him, far enough to force you onto your toes to press a kiss to your lips. A warm touch full of affection so gentle it takes your breath away.

Then he lets go of you, remains close in front, but his features are adorned with a friendly smile that makes him a little suspicious, while his hand caresses your cheek. As he does so, he brushes your lower eyelid, collecting another tear that was about to escape.

The tenderness he has for you irritates you so much that every one of your brain cells shuts down for a breath before Hisoka focuses on you again, piercing you with a blank stare. The atmosphere between you grows heavier.

“You think too much about nothingness, love.” His voice is so soft that it seems almost deadly at the same time. “And because you're like that, I'm going to let you get away with it for today.” He leans down to your ear, licks once over the shell with the tip of his tongue. “But if you run away again, I will kill you.”

“H-Hisoka...” You don't know what you can say to appease him. Nothing seems good enough. But Hisoka understands, straightening up to look at you again, putting on that playful smile he goes through life with. “Or I can put you in chains so I can have you with me for the rest of my life. Whichever option you like better.”

He tilts his head, looking at you with mockery and at the same time with a barely perceptible commitment so that you can feel the blush on your cheeks. On one hand, he's making a fool of you, on the other, he's conveying in his own unique way that he's sure he wants you for himself – forever.

He can't stay mad at you for long, can't even punish you for your terrible action, just takes you as you are, as if he has a weakness for all your stupid words and your troubled feelings.

And in those seconds you know that he loves you no less than you love him.

[Picture from a card collecting game]

[Want to give me kudos or a request? Check here!]

#Hunter X Hunter #hunter x 2011 #hunter x reader #hunter x you #hisoka hxh #hisoka morow #hisoka x you #hisoka x reader #Female reader #reader insert #My writing #my Ao3 works #fanfiction #fanfic #love #obsessive #obsessed

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wolf-and-bard · 4 years ago

Text

Bad Reputation

Part 2 I Part 3 I Part 4

Jaskier/Eskel, ~1.3k, rated T, no warnings

Written for @thewitcherbog fic train event together with @kueble, @professorjaskier, and @softdarlingjaskier so be on the lookout for their parts in the next few days. It was so much fun!! 😊💕

---

“Ta-da,” Jaskier says with a flourish of his hand, and gestures at the dress-form he has set up in the middle of the living area of his rooms at Oxenfurt, all furniture pushed to the side. The mannequin is clad in a positively stunning arrangement, an unpretentious doublet of deep burgundy with subtly golden ribbons at the cuffs and seams, a matching pair of cotton breeches. Underneath, an almost-black silken shirt. It’s plain for Jaskier’s tastes and habits, but it’s perfect for its recipient whose suspicious gaze is currently flicking between Jaskier and the clothes.

“What is that?” Eskel asks, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He’s wearing his typical red-and-dark stripe with those small spikes on the shoulders that Jaskier thinks are honestly ridiculous. Not big enough to work as any form of weaponry or defense mechanism, too dismissable to count as a fashion statement. Yeah, right. Wolves and fashion. Ridiculous.

Jaskier snorts and watches Eskel watch the dress-form, wary and uncomprehending to a point that is just adorable.

“That, my dear witcher, is an outfit. Your outfit to be precise. That is to say, the outfit you will wear tonight.” Jaskier puts on his brightest sunlight-smile, hoping it will cover up the awkwardness he can feel tightening his throat. This could have started better. But then again, this could have started so much worse. Eskel could already be out the door what with him just having arrived, swords still strapped to his back, one hand fisted around the plain linen sack he keeps most of his belongings in.

“Do I look like Geralt to you?” Eskel asks, brow raised which contorts the landscape of scars that cover half his face, stretching them out. Jaskier’s fingers itch to reach out and trace them, they always do whenever Eskel graces him with a visit to his apartment.

It’s about the only place they ever cross paths. With Geralt, Jaskier is bound to stumble into him in the most ridiculous of places and predicaments, as though Destiny wills it so. With Eskel… well. Jaskier learned early on in their acquaintance that finding Eskel anywhere takes effort, so it’s easier to have Eskel find him. The wolf sticks to himself almost all year round, avoids big cities and gets by on mysterious, long-winded contracts that take him to places most of the rest of the world has forgotten about. Jaskier has never once accompanied Eskel on one of his hunts, and that is perhaps why he often feels that a certain distance remains between them, no matter how often Eskel comes around.

And Eskel does, with striking regularity. At least once, whenever Jaskier’s staying in Oxenfurt for longer than a handful of days. He’ll always bring something too; a fine Toussaint vintage for them to share, a hearty piece of salt-crystal cheese for them to put on their bread, some pickled fish straight from the Skellige Isles. It isn’t always edible or drinkable, sometimes it’s useful like a pretty button or a new set of lute strings. There is no rhyme or reason to Eskel’s little gifts, just one thing that threads through them, and it is that every time, they take Jaskier by surprise. Eskel is so very reliable and Jaskier’s brain still hesitates to form expectations. Expectations can get crushed and he has already invested more heart into this relationship than is strictly healthy.

“Jaskier?” Eskel asks into the silence which has speeded by for Jaskier with his mind reminiscing, but which must have dragged excessively for the witcher. To Eskel’s credit, he doesn’t show the slightest twitch of impatience.

“Of course you don’t,” Jaskier says, shuddering inwardly. Outwardly, his smile freezes over.

You look nothing like Geralt, he doesn’t say though he knows that with taking away the scars and dyeing Geralt’s hair, they would look strikingly similar. There are no pictures of Eskel before, but it didn’t even need Vesemir telling Jaskier this for the bard to notice. They have the same cut of jawline, same set of their shoulders, a similar nose. But that’s artificial and if one looks closely, the similarities start to fall away pretty quickly.

You look much more beautiful than him – sorry Geralt, but it’s true, is what Jaskier also doesn’t say even though his rapidly beating heart keeps commanding him to.

“Then why would I wear this? What for?”

“Oh nothing special, just a wee little occasion, really.”

“Jaskier…”

“A-hem, right. The school-board is throwing a fancy dinner party tonight and I have been invited as a guest. I thought you might want to join me… be my partner if you will.”

Oh, but that feels daring. That feels very daring.

Eskel cocks his head, golden eyes boring into Jaskier’s. Jaskier feels his cheeks heat and licks his lips.

“Can’t I go the way I am?” the witcher asks finally.

“Ah, well,” Jaskier says and swallows. “Well, you see… there’s nothing wrong with the way you are, necessarily, but… it’s, well. They are very important people and I have a certain standing within the university. A reputation to maintain, if you will.”

“You?” Eskel raises a brow. “A reputation to maintain?”

A reputation other than drinking and whoring around, is what Eskel doesn’t say, but it is heavily implied and not even in a condescending manner. Eskel knows Jaskier the flamboyant bard, Jaskier the man with an eye for a good party, Jaskier that will drag any conquest into his bed regardless of whether there’s a witcher crashing in his guest bedroom or not. And even though Eskel’s been visiting him in Oxenfurt, in his rooms at the heart of the academy, Professor Pankratz is a complete stranger to both Eskel and Geralt. They know of him, of course, but they don’t know him.

“Yes, me,” Jaskier says. “A Professor at this university and highly valued member of several poet’s societies and bardic unions.”

“Trust a fucking academic to demand I dress up for him.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to trust anyone around here?” Jaskier retorts in what he hopes is a light note, but something has settled in the pit of his stomach at Eskel’s words, even though they were meant in jest. If this was Geralt, there would have been a deeper meaning woven into the words. In this regard too, Eskel is very different from Geralt in the manner in which he deals out his faith. He was wary when they first met at Kaer Morhen, of course; careful. But one night under the tightly-woven tapestry of constellations above the keep together, watching from the battlements while the temperature still allowed it, and Eskel turned from cool indifference to a low simmer of secretive smiles and sidelong glances. Jaskier can’t help but wonder if - for all of Eskel’s straightforwardness - there is still a hidden fuse he’s about to light up like a damn wildfire one day.

“I thought you were the exception,” Eskel grumbles and sighs deeply. Still eyeing the doublet wearily, the wolf witcher begins to pace around it, circling it as though it is a ghoul about to jump him and not his dress for the night. It would have been quite funny too, if it didn’t make Jaskier ponder so much. He doesn’t like pondering, not before an evening of events. He isn’t here to think, which would lead to dissecting, which would lead to inspiration and doubt at the same time. Jaskier has many doubts, especially when the handsomely rugged witcher in front of him is involved and he suspects there’s no glazing over them now, not when big words such as trust have been thrown this carelessly into the room.

“I hoped I would be,” Jaskier admits begrudgingly and carves out another smile, if dampened. “Will you come along then? It would mean the world to me.”

#the witcher #jaskier #eskel #jaskel #jaskier x eskel #my writing #fic train #fluff #oxenfurt #professor pankratz #dancing #alternating pov

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myelocin · 4 years ago

Text

please know that i’m yours to keep | oikawa tooru

synopsis: a comfort for the days you feel like you’re everything but what you try so hard to be.

genre: fluff, comfort | warnings: suggestive themes | wc: 2000+

characters: oikawa tooru

a/n: this is a commissioned piece from @triskoof ;w;

the girl | city in colour

ko-fi | commissions

Because you’re always meant to be yours, Oikawa Tooru loves you in the way that reminds you of that.

Like the tips of his fingers just barely grazing the skin on your face, he has a habit of pulling back before fully cupping your cheek. The kind of warmth that hovers—never touches—but still lingers.

Moments like now are where you’re glad that traces of him still stay, because it reminds you that his presence was meant to be one of the things that was lasting within a world that truly was anything but.

“I don’t feel beautiful,” you say, and Oikawa thinks the look in your eyes holds nothing but your most vulnerable truth.

And he supposes that he understands, because our thoughts aren’t just thoughts at the end of the day. Intertwined with them are the emotions that come as feelings, with the intention to be felt to the end and not just realized as a passing epiphany.

So, “Beautiful,” he replies, tasting the word on his tongue before swallowing it whole hoping that the heart from his truth would reach the words he always holds for you.

And he’s gentle, with not just the look in his eye, but also his honesty, when he says, “You.”

He cups your face in between his hands, and warm, you think.

They’re warm, because he’s here, and because he’s true.

He kisses you; the first on your forehead, right as he wraps his arms around you, pulling you close. The second, on the tip of your nose, as he says the word beautiful, again, right before he mutters your name.

Your name, Hailey, as just six letters from the alphabet strung together to make a sound just this morning, but suddenly turned into your whole truth laid bare as Oikawa kisses you again.

You realize that it’s your truth in not just the objective sense, but more so because it’s one of the few things that would always be your constant.

“You’re beautiful,” Oikawa mutters again, then lets his face hover just inches away from yours as he leans down, pressing his lips against yours. Phrases from him to you, which speak of not just his love, but also both his respect and awe, are mumbled in between the kisses he gives you.

In his arms you keep yourself still—pliant, even, as you let your body mold into his arms. And you feel safe, doing so. The thoughts in your head simmer from screaming into just whispers, but even as you still hear them poke and prod at you, Oikawa’s voice is what’s immediate in thundering over those which are unwelcome.

“Why aren’t you nice to yourself?” he asks, and in your moment of absolute vulnerability, you look at him and allow yourself to crack.

You don’t necessarily break, because you’ve always believed that a person can never fully be broken, but the cracks of your hurt run deeper in some places. The word beautiful rings in your head, like an echo you can’t seem to get rid of, but you want to shake it away.

Glassy brown eyes mean to peer at you and offer comfort, but it’s the ugly cracks of your resolve that come to you and whisper in your ear that you are anything but beautiful, when you see a reflection of yourself against them.

“Sometimes,” you sigh, taking the liberty of pulling yourself back and parting from him, “—it’s just hard to feel like you’re something.”

“Beautiful feels like a different person, Tooru,” you confess.

“Have you always felt this way?” he asks, ushering you to follow him to bed and making space for you to lie down in beside him. When you settle, he lies beside you, his face just inches away from yours once more.

“Some days,” you express, shrugging your shoulders. “Yeah.”

Your some days, meaning that there really are moments where it feels like you have to constantly tell yourself that you are still beautiful that it becomes redundant enough to the point of sound like a drawl.

Tonight’s one of those days.

You’re a little more cracked than composed, so you let yourself be and hang on to Oikawa who you know has never wavered.

Intimacy in the little moments shared like this, but because today you feel like you’re everything but what you should be feeling and seeing things in every way but the way you should be seeing them—like yourself—you close your eyes when your reflection flashes across Oikawa’s again.

Intimacy like trust, because you know here, you are safe.

His palm that’s quick to move up and rest against the expanse of your cheek says “I love you.”

But it’s his voice, that makes his truth be known through words as he says, “You’re always gonna be beautiful.”

“Not for now,” you shake your head.

Oikawa chuckles, murmuring something you couldn’t quite catch as he leans forward again to press a kiss at the tip of your nose. In response, you close your eyes, comfortable in the warmth he emits.

“For now is just that,” he hums. “You can’t always be on your own side or see things in the lighter way, but I’m here,” he smiles. “My eyes are open and they still you.”

“My beautiful girl,” he adds.

Through the strands of your hair that fell across your eyes, you see Oikawa offer you his honest kind of smile before propping himself up on one elbow to lean over you. He moves with purpose, but keeps his eyes on yours.

When he gets close enough, he smiles, again, and even if the thoughts in your head still rage with the intention to nestle within the cracks they made to grow and root themselves, you push them to the side in hopes they would quell.

(They don’t.)

But Oikawa’s voice reaching out to you—and arriving, hushes them again.

In the silence he builds with his words and presence alone, you release the tenseness of your muscles and sigh, holding up one hand just as Oikawa lets his down, both of your palms cradling the other’s cheeks.

Then it’s within the darkness where the two of you lay, eye to eye and face to face as the sunset in the sky shifts into the beginnings of the blue hour.

The blue hour, you recall, is the time of day that happens in the morning and night. The in between that bridges night and day, setting the scene for the transition. From black to blue at six AM, right before the sky erupts into shades of vanilla. Then, when it’s six at night—like right now, it’s the burnt orange of today’s sunset mellowing into the depth of blue.

You know it’ll turn dark soon.

But you stare straight into Oikawa’s eyes anyway, hoping to drown out the sounds of your demons with the hues of earth and reflected fragments of the sky within the two perfect orbs that look at you, as if you hold constellations.

In the blue hour—the inbetween—you let yourself be still and fall.

And at the sight of your surrender, Oikawa leans down and kisses you. His lips on your neck, starting from the spot right behind your ear, trailing down to the tops of your collarbone, he mumbles your name in between the traces of him he intertwines with you.

His name, from your lips, sounding like just a breathless whisper to the ears of the world is like a sort of lifeline for him to hang on to, because through the haze he’s aware you probably are seeing the world with in your moments of weakness—you still are with him.

So he holds you.

His legs on either side of your waist, and arms on either sides of you, he nips at the skin of your exposed neck, leaving a mark. “You’re beautiful like this,” he winks at you, all the while as you laugh, knowing full well that his words are fueled with the intent to lighten the situation.

It works, because in the soft light of the blue hour, you wait as he raises his head from your chest, your stare steady, meaning to lock with his. At the sight of you, Oikawa holds your gaze, a light smile against his lips.

“You’re just saying that,” you laugh, peering down and moving your hands to brush away his bangs that fell across his eyes.

At the sight of your earth—your world within this world—you soften. It’s only as you peered underneath the underneath where you realized that Oikawa was just a man who still had his flaws beneath the porcelain mask he wore.

“I say things because I mean them,” he tells you, and from the steadiness of his voice, there’s nothing in you that tells you to doubt him.

So you do the logical thing and believe him.

In the blue hour you make your hurts be known, finding words to string together to atleast give the hurt a name, and Oikawa listens.

But none the less, he tells you you’re beautiful, through the silence that he blankets around the room, and by the way he moves with you. He kisses you on your forehead again, tenderly, before capturing your lips with his. And love, you think—right then and there��has always felt like patience with him.

Slow kisses under your ceiling with the glow in the dark stickers in the shape of distant galaxies and stars, it has you feeling infinite.

His hands that know the contour of your body: from the dip on your waist to the scar that’s barely even there right by your thigh. He touches you like he would glass, fragile. And he breathes your name like he would whisper his confessions—and you know they’re all of love.

(You are in love.)

As in love as you are, you also are reminded that emotions can move like waves.

One day you feel beautiful, then in the next you don’t.

Emotions will always be raw, because at the very core of what they are—that’s just their nature. The ugly parts of it can come like a whirlwind some days instead of creep in slow and slam against your foundations, getting cracks to form in deep.

But, the beautiful will still remain, you think.

Beautiful like the earth of Oikawa’s eyes staring at you as if you hold all the constellations in the skies.

The silence comes and goes, and beautiful is the way he holds you when night comes and darkness floods the room. He still feels you against him, your skin a familiar kind of warmth against his, while the calluses of his palms don’t scare you even as he trails them under your shirt and over the bare skin of your chest.

“You’re beautiful,” he says again, and Oikawa knows that it’s only been those two words that you’ve heard from him again and again throughout the night, but the more he wracks his brain for a better set of words to say—the less actually comes to him.

He tries to show you, none the less.

And it isn’t just in the intimacy of sex where he lays himself bare to you too, but it’s also through this that he hopes to convey his whole truth to you, in hopes that you’d see you through his eyes to get you through the aches of your today.

Oikawa’s aware that perhaps tomorrow, you’ll rise again.

But it’s this for now where he reminds you of the infinity he’s always known you’ve held.

“I love you,” when he pushes inside you, and “I love you,” again, when he hears you sniffle at the emotions that he knows just overwhelm.

“You’re beautiful,” you know he means to say when he leans down anyway and brushes the hair away from your forehead to press his against it. “You’re beautiful,” you hear again, when his thumb brushes over the scars you know have long healed across your body, then at the shell of your ear right after he whispers your name, again.

(And your name is beautiful.)

Most days you think it is, but because today it’s a word that’s a little hard to say, you hang on to him and allow his truth to come to you and wrap you whole.

Oikawa feels you hold on to him, so he holds you too—centering you back to the now.

You’re probably a mess underneath him, you think. Lipstick from earlier still wasn’t wiped off and he’s probably kissed you a hundred times now. Your clothes are crumpled, your shirt pushed up at best and your underwear just shoved to the side in his haste, but he says beautiful again, and again, as if it’s the first he’s truly seeing you.

(Perhaps it is.)

(The face of vulnerability has always looked different every time, after all.)

The now is a moment of vulnerability, so you let him hold you.

And because Oikawa knows you’re always meant to be yours, he shows that he loves you forever, by holding you and giving you a safe space to just feel the things that come.

“I don’t feel okay,” is your moment of weakness, because you’re still human.

But in Oikawa’s wordless way of conveying “I love you,” and “You’re beautiful,” do you feel the assurance that even though days like this come and try to drown you—you’ll always have your boy with two eyes holding the earth who will keep your head from going under.

#nc.commissions #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #hq x reader #hq scenarios #hq imagines #oikawa tooru #oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa tooru scenarios #oikawa tooru fluff #oikawa tooru imagines #oikawa #oikawa x reader #oikawa scenarios #oikawa fluff

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words-with-wren · 4 years ago

Text

what is grief if not love enduring?

not me blasting sad songs and writing for an hour before retreating to youtube to watch animatics of funny bits to Cope.

The last part was written very soon after Tommy’s stream, the rest was written after the streams yesterday/before Tubbo’s one today.

Basically me just being emo and writing everyone’s pain!

______

The corridor of the prison stretched into darkness but Sam didn’t stop moving. His grip was tight around the trident he held, his pace brisk and quick and sharp. He moved down one long, endless hall, and then another, and then another.

How long he had paced through the cold, dark halls he wasn’t sure. Again and again, looking for clues he knew he wasn’t going to find. Sometimes he dove into the dark depths of the water surrounding the prison (the tomb). Sometimes he ventured into the painfully bright of outside, stood on top of the prison, covered every inch of it again and again and again.

“Sam - Sam please!”

The ghost of a boy’s voice chased him endlessly. The desperate pleas of his final moments. The words Sam had ignored.

“You’re going to have to trust me.”

He had asked for trust. Asked for faith. Asked for so many things and he had failed. Failed. Failed. Failed.

And Tommy had paid the price.

“You remember when you visited me in exile? This is worse than that.”

Tommy had been desperate. Afraid. So, so very afraid.

Sam knew why. And yet he had stilled ignored Tommy’s frantic attempts at help. He had ignored Tommy’s lowered guard, a guard he only lowered when he was desperate.

“He was mine! He obeyed me immediately. I didn’t even have to ask him to destroy his armour by the end. It was almost too easy. Too fun.”

Dream’s laughter echoed through the corridors.

No matter how much he tried to convince himself it had been necessary, Sam couldn’t rid himself of the guilt that ate him alive.

The halls were cold.

Sam kept walking, searching for a culprit even though he knew who was really to blame.

~*~

His cheeks were burning. A fire that still wasn’t as bad as the ache in his chest, a stinging that was worse than any physical pain he’d felt in a long time.

It hurt, but he couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, even when he pressed his sleeve to his face to try and dry them, to relieve the pain even a little.

Ranboo trudged through the snow, a few flowers still hanging limp from one hand, the other pressed his sleeve to his face.

He felt… numb, in many ways. The ache was strong, threatening to overwhelm, but so was the desire to just sleep.

He should have done more.

The cottage came into view and Ranboo looked up, blinking his eyes, and taking a shaky breath to keep back the rest of his tears.

He’d forgotten how much it hurt.

Fitting, really.

He’d almost made it past the house when the opening of a door caught his attention. He dabbed at his cheeks again, trying to stop them stinging, to hide the fresh scars that were no doubt noticeable.

“Hey mate!” Phil called, stepping out of his house and leaning on the edge of the bridge between buildings with a grin that Ranboo suddenly wanted to punch. He balled his fist, the flowers in his hand drooping. When he didn’t respond, Phil’s expression flickered. “Everything alright?”

“No,” Ranboo said, his voice catching slightly. “No, not really.”

How could he explain?

“What’s up?”

Phil’s concern seemed so genuine and Ranboo couldn’t help but feel so angry. Angry at everyone who only cared after it was too late. Angry at everyone who hadn’t done anything, himself included, who had let this happen.

“Tommy’s dead,” he said, and the words felt heavy as he spoke them, like a finality.

(The flower sat on the path, limp and forlorn and nobody came).

“What?” Phil’s voice was almost amused, as though he were holding back a laugh. Ranboo balled his fists tighter, not caring that he was probably cutting into his palms.

“He’s gone,” he said. “He was trapped in the prison and Dream…” He bit his lip. It was better than the burning cheeks.

“Oh.”

Phil’s expression barely changed. He was silent for a long moment, knuckles white on the railing the only sign of his emotion. “I see.”

Then he turned abruptly and returned inside, shutting the door behind him. Ranboo swallowed thickly, determined not to cry anymore.

He hurt enough already.

“So Theseus finally fell.”

He started, turning to see Techno standing behind him, arms crossed, axe in one hand, Steve’s lead in the other. Ranboo nodded, swallowing again and taking a shaky breath.

“What happened to your face?” Techno’s voice didn’t change, still as steady and monotone as always. Ranboo blinked.

“When… when I cry. My tears…” It felt silly to say.

Techno didn’t answer, just gestured with one hand for Ranboo to follow him. He did, suddenly wanting to bury his face in the polar bear’s fur and cry without it hurting.

It wasn’t fair.

“I don’t even know why,” he said quietly, barely aware he was speaking. “I mean… he was always mean to me… I…” he trailed off, realizing Techno wouldn’t want to hear his rambling.

Techno didn’t answer for a while, setting Steve up beside the fire before opening a chest. Ranboo stood near the door, fidgeting nervously, spinning the flowers in his hand.

“Loss is funny like that,” Techno said finally. He glanced up from the chest, withdrawing a potion and holding it out to Ranboo. Ranboo took it, offering him a small smile.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. Techno grunted, and Ranboo took that as his cue to leave.

As he did, he heard Techno muttering something under his breath. He wasn’t sure exactly, but it sounded like “... I know… be patient. I won’t let him get away with this.”

The door to Phil’s house was closed and his windows dark.

~*~

It felt almost wrong to sleep in a room that he had effectively stolen from a dead man. Jack couldn’t sleep, staring at the ceiling, trying to stop thinking.

Somehow, he kept thinking of L’manberg. Specifically, a day a few weeks after he had joined the country, while he and Tommy were standing on top of the wall and they were laughing.

He couldn’t even remember why - maybe it had something to do with something Tubbo had said or done.

He just remembered laughing. Remembered the sun on his back and Tommy’s eyes sparkling with mirth and his loud, obnoxious cackle and laughing so hard his sides ached and he had tears running down his cheeks and he couldn’t breathe.

He curled onto his side, shutting his eyes tightly.

He remembered lying on the van with Tubbo and Niki and Tommy, pointing out stars and making up constellations.

He remembered standing over a cold crater, annoyance mingling with simmering anger and Niki’s frustrated and furious expression.

When had it all gone so wrong?

Finally, he threw the blankets aside and stepped outside onto the balcony, looking out over the land. It all felt so… empty. Just yesterday he looked out here with pride and excitement - part of him was looking forward to the challenge of keeping this hotel from Tommy’s grasp when he returned.

And now he was never going to return.

A glint of light caught his attention and he glanced down to see a figure standing in the moonlight.

Sam Nook. A silent sentry.

Jack wondered how long he would stay there, waiting for a boy who would never return home.

He gripped the edge of the balcony, feeling the cold wind and stared at the tree and the bench just across the way.

He didn’t care anymore.

He just wanted his friend back.

~*~

“I’m sorry.”

Puffy sat on the edge of the crater, staring down at the glass that reflected the stars and the pit that lay underneath.

“We all really let you down, huh?”

L’manberg was so quiet now. It had been for a long time, but Puffy refused to let its memory fully die.

Now, she felt like it had for good this time.

“You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone. You shouldn’t have had to go through that at all.”

She held a bundle of flowers - white and red, like the ones Ranboo had been collecting. Somehow it felt fitting to sit here, over the land he had created.

“I let you down. I failed you. Even before you went into the prison. I should have visited you more in exile. I’m sorry.”

She pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes, taking a shaky breath and shaking her head.

The words felt empty.

Nothing she could do could make up for what had happened to him.

She just had to make sure it didn’t happen to anyone else.

Taking a deep breath, she stood. Carefully, she held out her arm, opening her hand to let the flowers drift down to the glass that covered L’manberg.

“I heard there was a special place,” she began softly. “Where men could go and emancipate.”

The moon was cold as it shone on the lone woman, singing softly in the rubble of a home.

~*~

He paced the halls, the halls that felt more empty than ever. He’d barely unpacked from his travels, barely settled back in and now all he could think about was the pit in his chest and the ache in his bones and the lingering guilt he had carried for months.

Eret ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath, stopping in front of his throne.

Realistically, he knew he couldn’t have done anything.

Part of him wondered if this would have happened if he’d come home just a little earlier.

Part of him wondered how different things would be if he hadn’t let greed and naive foolishness blind him a long time ago.

He began pacing again, aimlessly moving through the halls of his castle. He missed them. He had missed them all for such a long time and he had only just been starting to rebuild those relationships.

Without meaning to, he found himself leaving his castle, walking the prime path, feet leading him aimlessly up the path.

He stopped in front of the shrine Puffy had made earlier that day.

Tommy had forgiven him. Tommy had been the first to forgive him, when Eret had long ago given up on any chance of that happening.

Tommy had given him hope he could be forgiven. Given him hope he could redeem himself, could rebuild the relationships he had broken.

With a long sigh, Eret reached up and took off his crown, glasses slipping down his face to reveal his white, white eyes.

Clutching both to his chest, he lowered his head, closing his eyes.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

~*~

Snowchester was cold.

Tubbo pulled a blanket over his shoulders and sat in the corner of the room, Micheal’s chicken sleeping on his lap. Micheal was asleep as well, curled in his boat across the room and Tubbo couldn’t help but be glad.

It was cold, and no matter how many blankets he pulled around himself, no matter how hot he cranked up the fire he knew he couldn’t drive all the cold away.

Part of him wondered if he’d be cold even in the depths of the Nether.

Part of him didn’t care.

It wasn’t true, surely.

Sam was just playing another prank on them. A cruel one, one that was Tubbo’s biggest fear, but that had to be it.

Right?

But Sam’s voice had been shaky and his eyes wet and deep down Tubbo knew.

This was worse than last time, somehow. Last time they hadn’t had a proper goodbye, last time Tubbo blamed himself, last time it hurt so, so much.

But Tubbo had had L’manberg. He had had to keep pushing forward. He had things to distract him.

Now he had nothing. Nothing but the cold shell of a house that had no heart, no soul.

Because that was always Tommy’s job, wasn’t it?

It was always Tommy who made a house a home. A nation a place to be proud of.

They had won and somehow that made it all so, so much worse.

They had won, and Dream had been locked up, and they had been able to go about their lives how they wanted to. They had won, and that should have been the end of the story. The book should have closed, the song should have finished.

Happily ever after, right?

Tubbo pressed himself into the corner, burying his face into the feathers of the chicken in his lap and fighting down tears.

He couldn’t do this.

Not again.

Why did Death favour Tommy?

~*~

Tommy woke with a chocked gasp, one hand flung above his head, shaking violently, a plea still on his tongue.

He shuddered, breathing deeply, shutting his eyes and regaining his breath as he slowly realized he wasn't in immediate danger.

It was warm, but not the blistering heat of the Nether, or the wet, unpleasant heat of Dream's cell. It was a pleasant warmth, like sun shining down on him.

The ground was soft as well. Not hard and uneven like the floor of the cell, but soft and comfortable, what felt like grass tickling his arms. And wind blew softly over his face, a slow, lazy breeze that made Tommy relax more.

Then he opened his eyes and stared up at the blue sky above him. A few stray clouds drifted across the sky and despite the still aching of his arms and head, Tommy smiled softly.

He was out. He wasn't trapped any more. He could feel the wind, could see the sun, could hear the trees rustling nearby. He was out and he was finally free.

(What had happened? It had been dark and hot and terrifying and Dream had been there and he had been violent and harsh and…)

He didn't want to think about that. With arms that were still shaking slightly, he pushed himself up and looked around.

A few trees dotted the area, a river flowing lazily past. Hills rose around them and standing a few meters away, his back to Tommy, was a figure.

He was tall, wearing a coat that flapped slightly in the wind. A beanie was pulled firmly over his hair, and his shoulders were more relaxed that Tommy ever remembered them being.

"Wilbur?" he called, unease and excitement mingling, together. His voice shook slightly, the panic not fully faded.

The figured turned, revealing a familiar soft smile. It was strange, seeing Wilbur like this. Wearing the clothes he died in (he was dead how was he here?), a bloodstain across his chest, but smiling. Eyes soft, proud, sorrowful.

He looked at Tommy the same way he had when Tommy claimed independence.

"Welcome home," he said softly.

Tommy blinked up at him, suddenly aware of the hand Wilbur stretched out to him. He took it, letting Wilbur pull him to his feet and swaying slightly.

Everything felt off. He was aching, pain pounding through him, but it didn't feel real. It felt as though someone else was hurting, but when he looked down at his arms he could see the bruises, could feel dry blood in his head.

"What happened to you," Wilbur said softly, cupping his chin and lifting his face. Tommy felt a lump in his throat at the softness of the touch, despite the involuntary flinch the action drew from him.

What had happened. He didn't remember exactly, everything felt like a dream. One that he didn't want to wake up from. This open field and Wilbur soft expression were far better than the nightmare of the last week.

"I-" he began, looking down. Wilbur's hand drifted down to his arm, gently holding his elbow. Tommy followed the movement, seeing the bruises that littered his arms.

(Dream standing over him, eyes blazing. Fists clenched, bloodied with Tommy's blood. He was holding his arms above his face, tears in his eyes, blood running down his cheek.)

He shuddered, despite the warmth of the afternoon. Wilbur lifted his hand hesitantly, pausing a moment before returning it.

"Take your time," he said quietly. "It takes time to adjust."

"Adjust to what?" Tommy asked, and he hated how small his voice was. "Wilbur where - where am I?"

Wilbur glanced up, and Tommy did as well. His heart skipped a beat, his breath caught suddenly in his throat.

He knew where they were. This was home. This was L'manberg's land, the foundations she was built upon before war and death had stained her soil.

If L'manberg was here, unbroken, unspoiled. And if Wilbur was here, alive…

Was Tommy?

"Wil- am…" He trailed off, breath catching. "Am I?"

(Dream was angry, more angry than Tommy had ever seen him. And the lava seemed to be laughing at him and the walls were closing in around him and -)

He was breathing quickly, shaking his head, heart bounding.

"No," he said softly.

"Tommy-" Wilbur began but Tommy stepped back, pushing Wilbur's hand away.

"No. No. I - I can't… what about my hotel? What about Tubbo. I can't leave I can't be… I was going to leave him behind, I was going to be done with him this was going to be the last time."

He couldn't breathe. He shuddered, wrapping his arms around his chest and collapsing to his knees. The ground was hard underneath him and his breath was short, sharp, panicked.

"I'm not dead," he whispered. "I - I won. I can't let him… I left him behind. I - I'm finished with him he can't… he can't win."

"Tommy." Wilbur's voice was soft, even, full of hurt. A hand lay gently on Tommy's back and he stiffened, remembering the past week of Dream's casual punches. But Wilbur's hand was steady, comforting and Tommy leaned into it despite himself. "I'm sorry."

Wilbur's voice was so genuine, so full of regret that Tommy felt tears prick his eyes again.

He was so tired.

"Wilby, I-"

He was tired. Tired of being afraid, tired of nightmares. Tired of not being normal, of freaking out over the smallest things. He was tired of Dream's shadow that never seemed to leave. Tired of losing again and again and again.

"I know," Wilbur said softly and drew Tommy into a tight hug. Tommy didn't resist, curling into Wilbur's embrace, sobbing softly.

"There - I had a hotel," he whispered. He wanted to do so much. He wanted to prove he could. He wanted to become someone, to prove that Dream didn't control him. Didn't own him.

He wanted to do so much.

He buried his face in Wilbur's chest, shoulders shaking, weeping for his lost childhood.

At least here, maybe he could rest.

#dream smp #dsmp #tommyinnit #awesamdude #ranboo #eret #captain puffy #tubbo #i was editing this and then sam got paralizationisditated #and i got very distracted by ranboo pushing him to safety and failing #safe to say it was not the vibe of this story #uuuuh #tw death #tw child death #wandavision gave me a pain quote and i am going to completely and utterly abuse it

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livesincerely · 4 years ago

Note

dude you should totally write a fic off run away w me if you like haven’t alr 👀👀

DARLING.

You know me. You know what I’m like. You know you can’t just drop amazing ideas like this in my inbox and expect me to leave them alone until I actually have time to do something with them... 😫😫😫

So.

Background: Davey makes it through his SAT, then exits the building, throws up, and passes out in the parking lot, which isn’t the first indication that something’s wrong but it’s the beginning of the end for how much Jack’s willing to let him get away with it. He’s been a nervous wreck for months, not sleeping and not eating, anxious and irritable and so obviously neglecting his health that it makes Jack wanna scream. No one else seems to see it—Davey’s not a great liar but he’s excellent at deflecting, though that’s never stopped Jack from seeing right through him. Davey manages to hobble his way through the fall semester, keeping his grades up and finishing all his college applications through sheer force of will. His parents are so proud of him, he’s set to be valedictorian and he’s expecting to get several college acceptance letters, and he’s so worried about not doing anything to disappoint them. He and Jack get into several arguments about this that never come to anything except teary, biting stalemates.

Until finally, Davey gets his college acceptance letters. The envelopes come over the course of several weeks and he can’t hardly stand to look at them. Full rides to NYU, Colombia, UCLA, and several other amazing schools. Davey gets halfway through opening the first envelope, hands shaking so bad he can barely hold onto it, before he’s running to throw up. He realizes, suddenly, that unless something gives, he’s looking at another 4+ years of this: of working himself into the ground and being miserable, of never feeling like his wants are valid enough, of always competing and working and grinding, against others sure, but mostly against this imaginary, perfect, unattainable version of himself, of always living the life his parents want him to lead, and he can’t hardly stand it. He can’t imagine going to college. He can’t imagine not going to college.

We open on him calling Jack, crying and freaking out. Because he doesn’t know what to do and he just needs someone to be in his corner and advocate for him, because at this point Davey’s not even sure if Davey’s in his own corner. Jack opens all the envelopes and he doesn’t tell Davey what they say, doesn’t confirm if any/all of them are acceptance letters or anything, just reads through them expressionless. Then he closes them back up, tucks them into the inner pocket on his jacket, and says, “Davey... run away with me.”

“What?” Davey whispers.

“Run away with me, Dave,” Jack says. “Let me take you away from all’a this. We’ll hit the road, drive ‘til the pavement ends, ‘til we’re far away from all these expectations and standards and supposed to’s. Because it’s crushing you. It’s making you fucking miserable, and if distance is what you need to find steady ground and make a choice for your own sake, that’s actually about you and what you want? Then I’m your ticket outta town.”

“Jackie...” Davey says, utterly floored. His heart is beating wildly in his chest, stuttering with something like anticipation and fear and terrible, terrible longing. “Jackie, we can’t.”

“And why can’t we?”

“Because,” Davey insists, because one of them has to be reasonable. “Because, we can’t just pack up and leave. It’s the middle of the semester, we’ve got another three months of school left, we need to graduate, and fuck, can you even imagine the fallout? My parents would kill me, just hunt me down and murder me if I left.”

“I’m still not hearin’ any reasons not to,” Jack says, and he keeps looking at Davey with those warm, steady eyes.

“I just told you—“ Davey starts.

“No,” Jack calmly interrupts. “You gave me a bunch of excuses for not going, not reasons. There’s a difference. I’m waitin’ for something more along the lines of ‘my stupidly long legs make roadtrips super uncomfortable’ or ‘our friendship won’t survive us traveling together for weeks in close quarters’ or ‘I wouldn’t trust your rusted old Chevy to take us to the state line, let alone across the country,’ or even just ‘Jack, I don’t want to.’”

Davey’s mouth closes with a soft click, swallowing heavily around a sudden lump in his throat.

Jack keeps looking at him, and the intensity of his gaze is almost to much to handle, simmering with something quiet but fierce.

“I’m not gonna stand by and watch you kill yourself over a life that you don’t even want. Not anymore. Not when it makes you call me at one in the morning, sounding like the weight of the fucking world’s on your shoulders and you’re terrified to set it down. Not after seven months of watching you waste away right in front of me, moving around like a goddamn shadow, pale as a ghost and hollow inside. Not unless you can look me in the eye right now and tell me that college is gonna make you happy.”

Davey can’t speak. Something’s gone taut in his chest, like a piano wire about to snap. Davey could prevent it. He’s not sure if he wants to.

Jack steps closer and takes both of Davey’s hands in his own. His palms are warm, or maybe it’s just that Davey’s freezing, has been so painfully cold and lonely these past few months, withering away in the shadow of his parent’s expectations. But the tangle of their fingers threading together is like a balm on Davey’s soul—the spark that reignites the embers of a dying fire.

He’s so tired of being cold.

“I just want to know that you’ll be happy,” Jack says after a moment—softly, like he’s afraid he might shatter Davey if he speaks any louder, sending the broken shards of him scattering into nothingness. Davey’s not sure he’s wrong. “And I know you, David, and this isn’t making you happy.”

“This is crazy,” Davey breathes out, and it’s not what he means to say but it comes out regardless. “It’s... Jack, this is insanity.”

“Who cares about what’s sane?” Jack says. “Fuck sanity.”

“Jackie.”

“Tell me you’re happy,” Jack says, and the gentleness of the command doesn’t make it any less compelling. “Tell me you’re happy, that you think you’ll be happy with all this, and I’ll drop it. I’ll drop it right this second, I swear.”

Davey’s eyes slip shut. He breathes in and breathes out, feeling his ribs press against that band in his chest, the last threads of it holding fast.

“Please, Dave,” Jack murmurs. “Please.”

In and out. In and out.

And the wire snaps.

“Okay,” Davey says, fingers tightening around Jack’s, his lone anchor as the world tilts out from underneath him. “Okay.”

“You’ll—?”

“Let me pack a bag,” Davey agrees.

Cue road trip shenanigans. The only people that they tell before they leave are Medda, Crutchie, and Les. Both boys have some money saved up from their part-time jobs but Medda gives them a credit card to use on the trip and helps them get things set up to finish out their last couple months of school through online/remote methods. Even still, it’s a lot of frugal, simple, happy living on the road. They drive without any goals or expectations, taking in the sights and the beauty of the countryside, sleeping in Jack’s car and in various motels.

Davey starts to get better. Just, the freedom of getting to make choices for himself and dropping some of the stressors in his life. His parents are angry, then confused, then worried, then begrudgingly accepting, then actually accepting. Medda helps mediate back home, and they eventually realize that they’ve been suffocating their son. Davey makes no promises about coming home or continuing on with college.

At some point, Davey realizes that he’s in love with Jack and has been for a while. He’s not sure what to do about this, or even if he should do anything about it. Because Jack is wonderful, he’s the best friend he’s ever had, the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and the thought of anything jeopardizing that makes Davey’s heart hurt. Until, one night they’re out somewhere in the desert, staring up at the stars from the roof of Jack’s car. Davey’s been telling stories about all the different constellations, pointing out each one as he goes, and he turns to look at Jack only to find that Jack is already staring at him, and the look on Jack’s face is just....

“Oh,” Davey says, and he’d always imagined that a realization like this would hit like a bolt of lightning. Instead it’s like sinking into a warm bath at the end of a long day. “You’re in love with me.”

Jack blinks at him, then lets out a soft chuckle, easy as anything. “Just now realizing that, are we?”

Davey stares.

“You didn’t say anything,” he points out, perhaps needlessly.

“I wasn’t exactly hiding it,” Jack responds, tilting his head back towards the stars. “And ‘sides, you weren’t ready to hear it.”

A length of silence stretches between them, not uncomfortable but more charged than it had been.

Eventually Davey says, “What if I am?”

“What do ya mean?” Jack asks.

“What if I’m ready to hear it, now?”

Jack turns towards him, and for the first time some of the relaxation slips from his posture, his spine straightening from it’s casual slump into something more active, more engaged, ready to pursue.

“S’that so?” he rumbles.

“Yeah,” Davey says, wetting his lips. “That’s so.”

Something something, getting together, romantic moments on the hood of/in the backseat of Jack’s car, something something ending.

The whole thing would be very dramatic and romantic, but ultimately about how home and freedom can be in the safety of another person, just like the song. Tada, I guess? 😅😅

Working title, “we’ll be on the road like some country song”

00000

@bound-for-santa-fe

#newsies #jack kelly #davey jacobs #javid #*ask #*the writing desk #*editor's note #ideas for later #run away with me fic #I realllllllyyyyy did not need this prompt in my life right now so I hope you’re happy lol #look what you did #this was just a stream of consciousness dump so please excuse any typos #🤗😅🤗😅

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ask-the-crimson-king · 4 years ago

Text

Music Shill of the Day: "JUDAS" by Lord of the Lost

PART 2 of 2: "SALVATION"

Welcome back to part 2 of me shilling the fuck out of Judas and telling you, the lucky reader, of why it's so great. If you didn't see part 1, here's a link. Beware, it's long as fuck. LINKS TO ALL SONGS WILL BE PROVIDED. All songs will be rated on a scale of 1-10; 1 - garbage. Horrible. Why did you let this leave the studio. 5 - average. Meh. Not horrible, but not impressive. 10 - fantastic. Thank you for this existing. I love this too much. I will make a final post about my overall thoughts separately as well as give the top 5 songs of the album. BUT FOR NOW, we venture ever onwards. STARTING WITH--

13. "The Gospel of Judas" - 9/10

Starting off EXTREMELY strong with a very excellent piece with a brilliant message.

These lads said "happy last day of Pride, please take this video and this song" and I say thank you because. Watch the video. Careful with some people malding over them becoming "political" by adding a pride flag in the comments (but there are plenty of responses shutting them down since LOTL has regularly been supportive of the LGBT+ community and very vocal about that support).

This song is meant for those who are outcasts in society for being who they are, whether it be from gender-based, sexuality-based, race-based, whatever. Great intention and a great message.

The song itself, I find myself liking the choruses more than the verses. I'm not a huge fan of the "Judas, Judas" parts, but it works well enough for the song. Not quite an absolute banger of a song, but still really fucking good.

14. "Viva Vendetta" - 9/10

This song is fascinating for two reasons. The first; it features a full 386 person choir. The second; its instrumental was given to 32 different artists, with no title attached, to see what they'd do with it. That's really fucking cool.

As for the actual piece, it has a very nice, flowy, bouncy beat all throughout. I like it. It's something to vibe to, most certainly. It has almost a bit of an 80s feel to it.

The instrumentals are very neat, with the guitars making a very nice sounding bassy groove. Though there does seem to be acoustics used throughout as well, and the occasional synth. Overall? Dope as fuck song. It's genuinely awesome. It slaps.

But. As much as it slaps. A challenger approaches. A song I had been anticipating for over 3 weeks since I heard the "Track by Track" 30s preview.

15. "Argent" - 11/10

Okay. Okay. I know. Priest? Slaps. Born with a Broken Heart? Beautiful. Death is Just a Kiss Away? Love the strings. But.

But, dear reader. Allow me to enlighten you as to why this is, in my humble opinion, the best song on the album.

Let us start with the wonderful, Arabian-sounding vocals to open it. And then the introduction of the piano, it begins to build. And build. And then the guitars and the drums kick in, along with that industrial sound in the back.

It keeps growing and growing, then it begins to cool for the verse. Everything is still there, just waiting. Slowly, everything keeps growing in intensity. It builds and builds along with the vocals of the first verse.

Then we transition to a pre-chorus for a small calm...

Are you out there? Are you out there? I suffer... Your thirteenth suffers!

And then...

IT GOES OFF!

ARE YOU OUT THERE? I'M CLINGING TO THE DARK! ARE YOU OUT THERE? MY FALLEN COUNTERPART! BETRAYAL BURNS, LIKE THE SILVER IN MY HEART! ARE YOU OUT THERE? THE ERROR OF THE STARS!

The best chorus of the album. Without a doubt. There is so much raw emotion here barely simmering at the surface. As my friend @hoholupercal-adopts said;

"It captures ethereal rage, suppressing emotions, sorrow, bliss, and a love and need for hope."

And he is so spot on with that. It is beautiful. It is intense. It's amazing.

And then we come right back to a verse. And we start again, and after the second chorus we enter a small break of calm.

As the bridge starts up, the vocals from the beginning return, along with Chris' wonderful and soft yet gravelly voice with the slowly building instrumentals behind him...

The error of the stars... The error of the stars... A searing oath on the circles of the heart, Are you out there?

The error of the stars...

A brief pause, and then it smashes itself right back into that insane chorus.

This entire song is so powerful. Its so... so raw. So full of just a mix of emotions that it almost feels overwhelming. I just. I love this song so much.

If there is any song you listen to off "Judas", please make it be this. I cannot stress enough how fantastic this piece of incredible artistry is. It is, apparently, "Globalization in practice" according to Chris Harms himself. It is so beautiful. Please listen to it. Do yourself a favor.

16. "The Heartbeat of the Devil" - 8/10

This song has a great groove to it. I like the choice for using electronic drums. It has a very 80s feel about it. Very nice opening, with very open sounding verses and then a very nice chorus.

The piano also works as a nice accompaniment, as per usual at this point. The song is a fine song indeed, it really is grand. However its missing a few things that keep it from a 9/10 or a 10/10. Not entirely sure how to pinpoint what they are, but they're there.

Overall, a grand song, as most of these songs have been. Also this is a song for the Emperor of Mankind and it's funny cause it's number 16, which is Horus' number. But you wanna know what else else? It isn't the only ironic incident of this happening.

17. "And it Was Night" - 10/10

This song took me a bit. Off its intro with the synths, I wasn't vibing with it too much. With the introduction of the guitar and drums, I started to get into it. For the verse, I was still uncertain. That kinda odd synth was back. But it still sounded fine, I supposed.

However. The chorus is, ironically enough, where it shines the most.

It sounds beautiful. There, everything reconverges after the break in the verse, along with the backing choir, and it is simply...

It sounds ethereal. It sounds dreamlike. It sounds perfect for a song entitled "And it Was Night".

Everything afterward sounds great. The elements used in the intro and the chorus are used a bit more in the following verse, and the chorus just hard carries this song to a 10/10. It is fucking fantastic. It has some raw emotion within it, similar to Argent, but instead on a more... dreamlike, hopeful level. Kind of like childlike hope and wonder.

Also I've had 2 people tell me it's a Lorgar song and I agree wholeheartedly. Plus its #17. So ha.

18. "My Constellation" - 6/10

The vocals are fine, and they remind me of a song I can't really put my finger on. But this song just doesn't really do it for me. It has plenty of nice emotion and power with it, but the instrumentals feel kind of... weird. They fit, somehow, but they feel like they shouldn't.

It's still a very above-average song for the musicality of it alone, and the very pretty lyrics. Plus the vocals of the chorus are also nice. But it's still just missing things. It's not that great, but it's definitely an above-average song. One of the weaker entries on this album, but that's not saying a lot since this album is still fucking amazing as a whole.

19. "The Ashes of Flowers" - 8/10

The synths in the back of the intro with the piano sounded kind of odd at first. This is a song that doesn't have much buildup, it just goes along for about a minute and then BAM, intense instrumentals.

I do appreciate such songs as much as I do those that build. Those that slap you in the face will usually, indeed, slap. And this song does, for the most part. There are some bits that sound a bit janky to me, but it is a good song. Very strong entry on the list. At times it shares in that "these don't feel like they should fit together" vibes as its predecessor, but it only happens twice at most. Very gospel-sounding song, especially with how it sounds around the 3:30 mark, with the choir and Chris singing.

20. "Iskarioth" - 9/10

Now we got that more classic sounding heavy metal on the album. I grew up listening to stuff with this sort of style. But of course, the song has some newer elements added in. I love the riffs, though. They sound great. Love that classic sounding over-overdrive on the guitars. Love how it carries into the second verse. The beat and rhythm have that classic metal feel to them as well.

The chorus is, as most on the album thus far, very powerful and clean. The heavy riffs from the intro and breaks between chorus and verse are absent, leaving room for Chris and the backing choir to shine alongside the beautiful piano.

The break for the bridge that slowly builds to the final chorus is very nicely done, and I like how the guitars were added back in. An extremely strong song. Very well done. Love it.

21. "A War Within" - 9/10

Strings are back. I'm a bitch for strings. I love them when they're used in metal. I love them when combined with an organ and piano. I love them also when combined with great vocals. The opening verse leading to the pre-chorus, the repetition, the build to that powerful chorus, it's wonderful. The piano, as always, twining beautifully with the vocals.

The fucking cello solo with the leitmotif is fucking amazing. Favorite part of the song. It's so beautiful.

Very, very excellent piece of music. This song is a 9 for sure. Not quite a 10 since, while the chorus is nice, it could've used a bit more intensity. The pre-choruses where the rhythm picks up and everything feels more urgent is where the song shines for sure. Without a doubt.

22. "A World where We Belong" - 8/10

An interesting somber song that blends the heavier and intense pieces with this overall feeling of melancholy, yet hope. This song doesn't have an instrumental intro. Instead, Chris just starts right off singing. This song definitely feels like a sort of cheesy church song. But it does have a nice message to be found within the lyrics, and it's a nice and slow song too.

Good pacing. Good vocals. A good song.

23. "Apokatastasis" - 10/10

So. Um.

This song is an instrumental that's basically entirely strings.

The name means "the restoration of equilibrium after the apocalypse", and it serves as a respite for the album. A breath of fresh air, similar to Be Still and Know.

However, where Be Still and Know had the various members of the band show up, this one has them quieting down. It features the leitmotif once more, and it definitely has that feeling of peace and quiet. The album, until now, has been a bit chaotic. There's been a lot of emotion, power, and just... feeling.

This is a beautiful piece. It truly is.

10/10, easily.

Now let's wrap up the album.

24. "Work of Salvation" - 9/10

Soft, gravelly vocals greet the listener after that beautiful respite, paired with a lovely choir and piano as well.

Slowly, we get that buildup again. The organ comes back. The song feels very much like "The Death of All Colours", only this time with instrumentals backing instead of just vocals. A nice callback after this long journey.

This song works as a great ending to the album, a very nice catharsis. It isn't overbearingly powerful, but it isn't too soft either. It matches the mood of its predecessor and of that of the album wonderfully.

I'll talk about that in the post after this, but wonderful song.

It even ends with a beautiful, and almost sad rendition of that leitmotif on piano. As if lamenting that the journey is over. A beautiful end to a wonderfully amazing album.

#rip me cause tumblr ate the original reviews for the first 4 songs #i had it done and was about to start my constellation when it bugged and it was all gone #pissed me off lmao #ah well #music shill of the day #judas #lord of the lost

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lettersnorth · 4 years ago

Text

For What Ails You

Bertram arrives within the Heartwood clinic with all of the silence that one would expect for a man with the epithet 'Windshadow'. Of course, it wasn't precisely polite to go sneaking around unannounced in proper company, so Bertram produced a quick pair of raps upon the door as he slipped through. He took a moment to glance around the room in search for who might be present. He'd been told that he could find Aislinn here but he was still uncomfortable removing his visor in unfamiliar company.

Aislinn appeared to be in the middle of something that took a good portion of her concentration. She stood at the stove, her back to the door. Spread across the clinic's counters were a variety of jars that stored everything from herbs to aethersand and perhaps even an animal part or two. Currently, she was flipping between two open recipe books with one hand while the other continually stirred a mixture that was simmering in a double boiler on the stove.

At the sound of someone knocking, her expression cleared and she glanced over her shoulder. "Bertram." she greeted, albeit a bit absently. "Alright, there?"

"Keeping myself together in one piece." He answered with a subtle smile, a hand rising up to rub at the back of his neck idly before his attention shifted to the work that Aislinn was doing at the bench. His hand shifted from his neck to his visor as he moved. There's a quiet 'click' as he removes the device from his face and focuses his good eye upon the various reagents. "You certainly seem ... busy?" He then turns his attention back to Aislinn with a slightly risen brow.

"One piece is always preferable." she nodded, her hand never pausing in the stirring of the pot. "Ahh..." she looked back to the accoutrements she had spread out across the counter. "Just...trying a new potion." she said blithely. Perhaps a touch too blithe, to be honest. "But once it's done simmering it has to sit awhile, so not too terribly busy. You've caught me near the end."

Bertram nodded his head slowly, his attention shifting back to the potion-in-progress with a curious expression. "Is it ... for anything in particular ..." his attention flicks back to Aislinn, "... or is it just some exploratory alchemy?" He offers the woman a light smile.

Aislinn paused at the question, reaching up to brush away a wayward strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes. She considered and immediately discarded half a dozen lies she could have told him. In light of certain events that would have made quite the hypocrite of her.

"I'm still having a bit of trouble. With..." she trailed off, tapping a finger against her breastbone. "That issue I told you about earlier. Those attacks that make me feel like I might burn up from the inside out. It hasn't happened half as much since...well, since we dealt with all the Red Argos business but it's still there." she was quiet a moment as she stopped stirring the concoction and moved the pot off the stove to cool. "It's a bother." she said simply though that was certainly downplaying the issue. "So I'm trying this to see if it helps or not."

Bertram furrowed his brow slightly as Aislinn explains the purpose of the concoction. The man glances off to the side for a moment as he takes in a slow breath and then he's back to leveling his attention upon the pot. "It's ... not getting worse, is it?" He asked, sounding noticeably concerned, "Do you have theories as to what it might be that's causing it?"

Setting down the whisk she had been using, she takes up a towel from the rack and wipes her hands. "It...doesn't happen as often but...it feels as though it's become more intense." Again, an understatement. The other night she been crippled by it, unable to rise from the rug in her room until it had passed.

She busied herself with cleaning up the open jars, screwing the tops back on and moving to place them back on the shelves. As though if she just kept moving it would make the subject loom that much less in her mind. "Not as easy to shake off. But..." Theories. She had a few. Though that would require regaling Bertram with tales of what had happened to her while living in Ul'dah and she was less than inclined to do such a thing. "I don't really know. Nothing concrete. Though if this doesn't work I was thinking I would go and see the monks."

Bertram slowly turns his attention toward Aislinn as she offers up her back-up solution. It was, of course, easy to see the concern within his expression. Though that wasn't necessarily a surprise given the circumstances. "... do you think the Fist's'll have the answers?" He asked quietly, a bit like a dolt. Of course she did Bertram, why would she go otherwise? He cleared his throat and shook his head, side glancing to the cooling pot. "If there's anything I can do for you in that regard ...I'll do whatever I can."

Aislinn finished wiping down the counter. At those particular words, her lips compressed a moment in a flat line before she managed a tight smile she didn't feel. She flicked the towel at him before hanging it back over the rack. "It's the monks. I think I can remember my way there, I'll be fine." she said, neatly declining his offer. With a sigh, she settled against the counter and folded her arms across her chest. "But you came by the clinic for a reason of your own, didn't you?" she asked, quickly changing the subject.

Bertram lifted his hands up in a faux-defensive gesture as the towel is flicked in his direction. A quiet laugh and bow of his head conceding to her point. "You're ... right of course. You usually are." He clears his throat, "But, all the same, I just want to make sure you know I've got your back if you need it." There's a pauses as she turns the questioning around on him. "Yes ... well ... I was hoping to find some ointments for ..." He looks embarrassed, "Bug bites?"

She gave a single, non-committal nod in reply to his assertion that he would be there if she needed. But as he explained his true purpose for stopping by, her face became more expressive as she raised a skeptical brow. "What sort of bug bites? Let me see."

"I ... ah ... midges, I think?" He tries to offer though he seems entirely unsure about that situation. "I honestly didn't get a very good look at them." He lets out a quiet, nervous laugh as he shakes his head and lifts up an arm and begins to roll back a sleeve. And ... sure enough, the arms is peppered with a small constellation of angry looking red dots. Nothing life threatening, of course, but ... boy did it look uncomfortable.

Aislinn leaned forward and took a look at his arm. It was indeed, a right mess. Pushing herself off the counter, she carefully took hold of it and peered a bit closer at the bites. "Nymeia's Blood, Bertram, did you go for a joy-walk through a swamp?" she tsked. Releasing his arm, she turned for the cabinets that lined the clinic's counter and began rifling through the various pots and jars located within.

"Luckily, we're a fully stocked clinic. No telling what the members of Heartwood are going to get themselves into. Always best to try and prepare for a little bit of everything."

Bertram was quick to clear himself out of Aislinn's way as she set course for the cabinet behind him. He couldn't help but let out a quiet laugh as he swapped ends of the bench with Aislinn. "Just a bit of good samaritan work ... though I might have gone a bit overboard ... given the circumstances."

"Sometimes folk forget that the Elementals are always watching out here. Even if they aren't as potent as before."

"Well, no good deed goes unpunished." Aislinn murmured as she pulled a porcelain blue salve jar from the cabinet. She paused, her hand gripping the wide cork top, as though she just realized what she said. With a shake of her head and a soft snort, she continued, pulling the lid from the salve and giving it a whiff. "This is it." re-corking the jar, she turned and held it out to him. "Was it worth it? The good Samaritan work?"

Bertram laughs quietly at Aislinn's first comment, his head bobbing to the side amusedly before accepting the jar with a grateful smile. His brow furrows slightly at the question that she left him with as he lifts the jar to get a whiff himself. "I'm not sure I'd be a very good 'good samaritan' if I went around judging people I help like that." He teased quietly before taking a sample size of the salve and beginning to spread it on a small patch on his arm in test. "But ... they seemed like a nice enough person. Just seemed a bit ... new to the area, honestly. They were grateful at the very least."

Aislinn tilted her head, seeing that he had missed her point. "Not asking you to judge them, but I'm glad it all seemed to end up well enough. Aside from the run-in with the midges. The Elementals seem a bit touchy lately. That or there are quite a few more people than normal wandering the Shroud who are new to the area."

Bertram blinks quietly at the opening to her response, looking a bit caught off guard and suddenly second guessing what she meant from before. He gets caught up in his mind for a prolonged moment before clearing his throat, "... oh, yeah. Seems like there're more people that usual out and about. Maybe refugees?" He glanced off to the side again before looking down to his arm. He wasn't positive but the salve certainly seemed to be doing the trick. It was a distinct relief. "You're running into folks running awry of the Elementals too?"

"Maybe refugees." she nods in agreement. Leaning over the stove, she checked in on her cooling pot of potion and tested it by shaking the pot gently by the handle. Not quite ready. "But Cravendy apparently had a run in after some target practice of hers went awry. She says her aim still needs work. Can see how something like that might miff the Elementals." she said with a wry twist of her lips. "I may have possibly been chased out for that a time or two back when I was new."

Bertram laughs quietly and shakes his head, idly poking at the bites that he had covered in the salve; testing to see if they would be easily re-aggravated into itchiness. Fortunately the medicine seemed to be doing an *excellent* job. "They ... definitely aren't exactly used to gunfire being anything other than overtly hostile in ninety percent of cases, that's ... probably true." He looks back up at Aislinn with a grateful smile, "This seems to be doing the job." Bertram gives a slightly wry smile. "Maybe there should be a class."

Aislinn gave a pleased smile as he informed her the salve was working. Then a short laugh. "A 'Welcome to Gridania, Mind the Elementals' Class?" she shrugged. "Suppose it wouldn't hurt. Not sure Cravendy would have paid attention though."

Bertram bobs his head to the side slightly, "Yeah, something like that ..." He pauses as Aislinn further explains Cravendy's unlikelihood of actively benefiting from it. He can be shake his head gently with a soft amusement. "A bit of a stubborn streak then?"

In reply to his question she let go another brief laugh but this one lit up her whole face with amusement. "A bit of an understatement, that." she shook her head. "Though I suppose I'm not really one to talk." she tossed a knowing look his way that said she knew he'd agree with her.

Bertram cannot contain that easy and gentle laugh the rose up from his lungs as she gave him the pointed look. Once he'd managed to find more rein upon his faculties he gave a conceding dip of his head to her point. "Well ... if there's anything that I have a lot of experience with, Lin, it's being around stubborn personalities." He gave Aislinn a pointed look in turn. She and Barengar might be two different brands of stubborn, but ... they were *definitely* stubborn. "Maybe I'd have some luck if I taught the class."

One corner of her lips pulled upward at that. "Probably save yourself any more problematic bug bites from all that good samaritan work if you did." once again, she reached over and checked the pot. It had appeared to have settled into a consistency she was satisfied with and she reached for an empty potion jar from the shelves. "Go ask the Adders, I'm sure they're tired of rescuing people as well. They'd probably let you do it if it ended up saving them some work."

Bertram suddenly looks as though he might *actually* be seriously considering the idea that he had initially brought up as a joke. He blinked several times before looking at Aislinn with a decent measure of surprise. And then a quiet laugh as he silently talks his himself down ... for the time being. "Maybe ..." he grins slightly, "... I probably do with a more steady living situation than being an transient in the forest. I ... can admit to that."

Aislinn tilted her head from one side to the other as if considering his point. "So, start with that. Unless you're enjoying the transient life in which case I'm sure you could still convince them of your merits." she poured the potion carefully into the jar and held it up, carefully giving it a final swirl before corking it. Setting the jar aside, she picked up the pot and scooted around him to place it in the sink at his back.

"Perhaps ..." He murmurs thoughtfully, quietly shifting and moving out of Aislinn's way again as he goes about applying more of the salve to his arms. He gives her a curious look that was saddled with a touch of anticipation. "Did it ... turn out alright?" He asks in regards to the potion.

Aislinn glanced over at the jar in question, the deep blue liquid growing darker the longer it cooled. "Maybe. Won't really know until I'm in need of it." She tried not to let on how apprehensive that made her.

Bertram attempted to do the very same. There was a certain discomfort in not knowing if something you were counting on saving you ... just doesn't. The rich blue liquid remains within his gaze for several moments. He'd just have to have faith in Aislinn's formulas. It was about all he could do in this case. He looks back to Aislinn with a quiet smile, putting on his best brave face, "I'm sure it'll help."

"Is there anything that I can do to help around here?" He asks as he begins to roll his sleeves back down. "Seems ... only fair for using your guys' salve." He manages a warm smile.

Aislinn nodded in the face of his assertion that her potion would work but her hand wandered up to her neck, fingers pressing against the dip in her throat. A worried gesture. "At the very least, I'm certain it won't kill me. So there's that." she said as she let go a breath and a half-hearted laugh. Turning to look around the clinic, she considered his request. "Well..." she began thoughtfully. "I noticed we were running low on some herbs. Maybe you've seen enough of the Shroud for awhile but if you're up for it, you could help me restock?"

Bertram does his best to keep on that convinced expression, even as the expectations were brought down to a rather *bare* minimum in his eyes. As Aislinn mused upon how he might be able to return help for help proffered he gave an eager nod of his head. "I think I'd like that quite a bit." He glances toward one of the windows, "I honestly find wandering around out there to be ... pretty calming."

Aislinn inhaled a breath and, upon realizing what she was doing, quickly dropped her hand from her throat. "Right. Let me get changed and then we can go." She picked up the jar off the counter and made her way for the door. "Take the salve with you. Bring it back once the bites are gone." she said over her shoulder. "I'll meet you outside in a few."

Bertram offers Aislinn a small smile before nabbing his visor and 'clicking' it back into place. One he's tucked the jar of salve away he follows behind the woman on the way out of the clinic. "I'll be ready when you are, Lin," he offers with a gentle bob of his head before pausing, "and thanks."

Aislinn waved his thanks off as she passed through the door. "Of course. What else is a clinic for?"

#ffxiv rp #balmung rp #rp snippets #Bertram Windshadow #Aislinn North

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berensroadhouse · 4 years ago

Text

(ao3 link)

Davis drags his damp rag across the dusty countertop, sighing deeply once he hits the edge. He scans the barren interior, jumping from empty table to empty table to an empty table with bottles, plates, and crumbs left behind. His previous customers must have dipped when he wasn’t looking. Davis grabs a nearby basket, moving towards the mess. He dumps the plates inside, then the bottles after he guzzles the dregs of beer left behind. Finally, Davis takes what he’s owed. Their bill came out to thirty-eight dollars and ninety-five cents. They paid with two twenties, flat. “Fucking assholes…” Davis pockets the money, returning to his post.

Just another ordinary day at Berens’s.

He brings the used dishware into an equally empty back kitchen, the doors flapping behind him. Davis recycles the bottles and places the dishes in the sink, washing them immediately. As he sets them on the rack to dry, his eyes linger on a framed photograph hanging nearby. He brushes his thumb across a faded face, a wet fingerprint left behind on the glass. Davis smiles, chuckling softly at where water droplets race down Cal’s profile.

He misses him. It’s been so many years, and yet Davis still aches for his touch. Davis remembers the phantom feeling of Cal’s arm draped over his shoulders, of their fingers lacing together, of his nose tracing the lines of Davis’s cheek while they took this picture. It was a beautiful day at the beach for them, on a spring morning where they both decided clear skies were better than the suffocating walls of a lecture hall. They fled the campus and found a deserted shore, and under the cover of an umbrella they talked, ate, and kissed and kissed and kissed until the moon replaced the sun and made Davis’s night-dark skin shine when its light hit him. Cal, in reverence, traced constellations with his lips from memory; him, a creamy-white nebula hovering over Davis’s pitch-black galaxy, both communing in a transcendent ritual. It lasted past curfew. They were grounded. It was worth it.

Someone cuts Davis’s reflection short. A sharp whistle interrupts his thoughts, followed by a gruff, “Anyone home?”

“I’ll be with you in a second!” Davis needlessly dries his hands on the stained apron tied about his waist, hurrying out of the kitchen to greet his new customers.

He finds them waiting by the pool table, the one with deep-brunet hair inspecting the cues while the other, fairer-haired man tickles a hole in the table’s lining. They’re dressed for the beach, in brightly patterned shirts, bathing suits, and flip flops, and Davis prays they haven’t come from it. He doesn’t think his ancient joints can manage an hour of sweeping floors, collecting sand that somehow gets everywhere. Regardless, he plasters a replica of a smile onto his face. He clears his throat, drawing their attention. “Sorry for the wait,” he says, “what can I help you with?”

“Lunch,” Fair Hair says, moving close enough Davis can count the freckles dotting his pinkish cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “What d’you have?”

“Regular fare,” Davis shrugs, “I can get you a menu or –“

“No need,” Fair Hair says, “we’ll have burgers, fries, and beers, the most expensive you have!” Then, as he motions for the darker-haired man to stand beside him, he wraps his arm over the brunet’s shoulders. Davis spies the silver band on Fair Hair’s hand. It matches the one his friend wears. “We’re on our honeymoon,” Fair Hair tells Davis, without invitation to do so.

Davis’s demeanor shifts. A more genuine expression appears on his face, while a warmth rouses the rosebuds sleeping in his chest. It makes their velvet petals bloom, urge forward their aroma, rich and sweet, and causes their thorny brambles to wrap themselves tighter around Davis’s heart. “Congratulations,” he replies, “I don’t have a special newlywed section… but you can sit anywhere, at any table, or the bar… I’ll go and fix up your burgers.” He turns, hiding his glossy, brown eyes before he embarrasses himself. Married men always do this to Davis, unlock a more wistful and sappy part of his soul. Some long-buried piece, that used to dream of a time where he might have had a similar experience to those two on the other side of the kitchen doors.

He places two beef patties on the grill and starts frying oil for the fries.

While cooking, his gaze wander back – as it always does – onto that photo of him and Cal. Inspired by his new customers, he reflects on a memory years after that lazy beach day. They shared an apartment, one that offered little besides its amazing view of the ocean and a balcony they could watch the sun set along the waterline after work. It didn’t matter if Davis’s tips barely added up to a twenty, or that Cal’s eyes went cross from staring at numbers for hours at end, because they’d come home, watch orange bleed into blue, then purple into orange, and when the ink dried above Davis finally went about cooking dinner. Cal watched him; eyes alight like the stove burner that simmered their pasta water. “You deserve your own place,” he told Davis, “that way everyone can have a taste of your amazing cooking.”

Davis shook his head, chuckling. “One day, baby. One day. There’s about a million other things we need to do first, and about half of them involve money.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Cal reached across the counterspace, intwining their fingers. “It might take a while, with how we get paid.”

“It might,” Davis conceded, squeezing Cal’s hand. He brings it up and softly kisses each knuckle. “At least we’re saving where we can. Homecooked meals, cheap place… lucky we can’t get married, so we’re saving money that way.”

Cal frowned, seriousness plaguing him for the moment. He stepped closer, stare intense as he breached Davis’s personal space. “If we could?” he asked, voice hardly a whisper, “would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Want to get married?”

“If they’d let us…” Davis paused, chewing his answer over. He released Cal, moving the steaming pot off the burner. He flicked it off. “I…” He leaned against the stove, arms crossed, “Christ, Cal, I’d want to do more than that.”

Cal arched a brow, head skewed to the side. “What more is there?”

“I’d want a big wedding, with all the bells and whistles,” Davis explained, laughing, “a party, a celebration of you and me as we become… well, you-and-me. Then, after the party, we’d go on a big honeymoon –“

“When we already live next to the beach?”

“A different beach! Maybe an island!” he said, “And once we’ve finished our trip, we’d buy a little property somewhere in the ‘burbs, as we go about looking to adopt.” Davis rubbed his neck, sheepishly peeking through his lashes at a blushing Cal. “What I’m trying to say is… if I could, I’d want more than marriage. I want a life together where we can just… we can be together, without always worrying who might know, y’know? I’d kill for that. Hell, I’d fight to have that.”

Funny, though, that when it came time to fight, Davis lost. He fought the paramedics, but they wouldn’t let him in the ambulance. He fought the doctors, who wouldn’t let him see Cal. He fought Cal’s parents, their harsh words and condemnation like being stoned in front of an eager crowd as they chewed him out for their ‘delusions’. Davis heard Cal passed, but wasn’t there when it happened. He also wasn’t invited to Cal’s funeral, to see him off into his next life. Davis did steal a quick moment, though. A kind nurse took pity on him and snuck Davis down into the morgue. She allowed them a final goodbye, as Davis traced the lines of Cal’s cheek with his thumb and pressed tiny kisses wherever his teardrops fell. “I’m sorry,” Davis croaked, chilled by the waxy numbness of his lover’s lifeless hand, “I’m sorry forever wasn’t as long as we planned.”

Davis assembles the plates messily, mind caught between the past and present like a line of wash. He, hung up by clothespins, is pushed mercilessly by incoming winds. Those clothespins cannot hold forever. The fabric of his body shifts out of their vice-like hold until, finally, he flutters away and out of the kitchen. He returns to the main room of the bar, delivering Fair Hair and his husband’s meals. As expected of newlyweds, they’re wrapped up in each other. The husband whispering into Fair Hair’s ear as they sit on the same side of the table, their fingers laced together atop it. Davis clears his throat, setting the food and drinks down. “Here you are.”

“Thanks.” Fair Hair grabs his burger with a free hand, shoving into his mouth despite the silent, amused judgment obviously displayed on the other man’s face. Fair Hair moans around the bite, puffy cheeks bursting with a grin. “Dufe,” he says around soggy chunks of bun and burger meat, “Thif if awesfome!”

“Thanks,” Davis nods, brushing at his apron, “Now, if you need anything, don’t be afraid to holler –“

“Actually,” the husband delays Davis’s exit, pointing behind him and towards the bar. “I was wondering if you could settle something for us.” Davis looks to where he’s directed, at the glowing neon sign that hangs above rows of bottles. It’s similar to the one that brands the front of his business, in a similar script, too. Except where the cowboy hat-and-bandana hovered above ‘Berens’s’ of Berens’s Roadhouse, indoors it was placed next to it. “Dean here,” the husband continues, Dean – Fair Hair’s name, apparently – rolling his eyes at being called out, “thinks there shouldn’t be an extra ‘s’, after the apostrophe…”

“Cas…” Dean whines, unofficially introducing his husband, “You don’t have to –“

Cas continues over Dean, ignoring him. “Meanwhile, I told him that, as long as it’s not plural an ‘s’ should go after the apostrophe. Can you please tell my husband he’s wrong?”

Davis stares at his sign, tracing the curve of the script with his eyes. In the background, Dean argues in a fierce whisper. “Why are you bringing him into this? He’s not gonna admit he’s wrong!”

Cas volleys, backhanding his response at Dean. “It’s his name, Dean, he wouldn’t spell it wrong.”

“Actually,” Davis interrupts, “it’s not my name.” He turns, laughing at their bent brows and Cas’s skewed head and the tiny dots of sauce staining Dean’s mouth. “It was my old boyfriend’s name,” he explains, “Last name.”

Dean leans forward in his seat, burger forgotten for the moment. Cas realizes there’s a meal in front of him and begins picking at it, chewing absentmindedly on a fry. “You named your place after an old boyfriend?”

“Felt only right,” Davis shrugs, “Couldn’t have bought this place without him.” Cal’s job, while lacking pay, had a generous insurance policy. Davis was listed as the sole beneficiary. That, coupled with what Cal left Davis in his will, meant he had enough to buy the little property near the beach like they always planned. Naming it after Cal soothed him, somewhat. That angry, gnarly scar over his chest numbing slightly. “Besides,” Davis says, “at least, with the name… it’s like he’s with me.”

“But not actually with you?” Cas asks, “Like… you haven’t been feeling any cold spots, have you?”

“Cold spots?”

The table jolts, saltshaker sliding a few inches to the left. Davis guesses Dean kicked Cas, from the serious edge to his expression and the apologetic wince on Cas’s. “Sorry about him,” Dean apologizes, “he spent the morning binging supernatural podcasts. Y’know… monsters, hauntings, ghosts. Must’ve fried his brain better than the sun could.”

Davis huffs, smiling. He moves towards the bar, leaning against it to better chat with his customers. “Ghosts?” he says, “No… ain’t nothing like that, at least the kind you’re thinking of.” Davis lets himself imagine Cal like that, tethered to this earthly plane even after passing. His battered body floating amongst empty tables and dirty dishes. Cal chained to their dream, making it a nightmare. Davis quickly dismisses this notion. While he misses Cal, Davis knows wherever he is must be better than this failing monument to Davis’s love. “Maybe if I thought it’d help drum up some business, I’d’ve entertained it. But I doubt ghost stories would help this late in the game.”

“Oh,” Cas hums. Davis recognizes the tone, familiar with it. Hears it from his accountant, his sister, and the occasional guest who dawdles in the front before skipping off elsewhere for food. “Is your business failing?”

“Cas!”

Davis watches them descend into another fight. The paradise of honeymoon quickly crumbling, storm clouds rolling across clear blue skies. He walks behind the bar, grabbing an empty glass and filling it with the tap until the rim is frothy. As he meanders his way closer again, he tunes into their conversation. Dean picks at Cas’s bluntness, while Cas defends his claim in an even pitch that makes Dean sound hysterical.

“He’s not wrong,” Davis joins them, sitting at an unoccupied seat, “I mean… you think I’d be here chatting with you two if there were things that needed doing?”

Dean shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable given how he’s looked at the door five times in the span of a minute. “Sorry to hear that.” He guzzles his drink, drowning whatever else he might have said.

Cas resists the threatening tide of awkwardness lapping at their ankles. “It’s odd that this place isn’t more packed,” he tells Davis, “with the amount of people here – the vacationers alone – there should always be a steady stream of customers.”

“Those lemmings?” he snorts, sipping at his beer, “They’re always chasing after the next thing. What’s new? What’s shiny? When Berens’s was new and shiny, we got a lot of traffic. There was a time when you couldn’t walk three steps without bumping into someone else. But then more fancier places were being built… chains and clubs and all that… I couldn’t compete. I mean, Roadhouses are popular in the middle of nowhere when there’s barely anything else to do! But I’d’ve been damned if I had to live somewhere without the ocean. Would never want to be fuckin’ landlocked…” His eyes find that swirling script of Cal’s last name. Something heavy crushes his chest, each subsequent breath more labored. “It does suck though. This was our dream, having a place that was… ours. Even when it was just me, I still went ahead because, I thought, why not? Wasn’t as if I had much going for me after Cal… but every month now it’s like the water rises a bit higher and keeping myself afloat doesn’t seem all that worth it anymore.” He glances back at the newlyweds, seeing how he commands both their attention. He notices a somberness in their gaze Davis does not care for. “What am I doing?” he asks aloud, scoffing “This is your honeymoon. You probably have something like parasailing or jet skiing planned, right? Probably cutting into your time –“

“No, no,” Cas assures him, lips tight as he smothers the pity straining for release. “That’s not it at all –“

“Yeah,” Dean adds, “We’re all jet skied out from yesterday –“

“Dean!”

“And I’m afraid of heights,” he trails off, shoving fries into his mouth, “so that’s a no on parasailing…”

“What he means,” Cas translates for Davis, “is that we don’t mind listening. It must be stressful, running this place by yourself?”

Davis chuckles. “Stressful is an understatement.” He slides his drink back and forth across the table, its rhythmic scraping sound almost hypnotic. Skrt. Skrt. “You’d think being mostly empty would make it easier, but actually it’s worse.” Davis looks away from them, bouncing around the room. He frowns at how stray sunlight highlights the dust covering his furniture or floating in the air. “Getting to the point where I don’t know why it’s worth it, coming back day after day.”

“Because this was your dream,” Cas says, “Yours and Cal’s.” Davis bites his tongue, holstering whatever pointed he comment he had that might burst his bubble. It’s not his fault. Four minutes cannot compare to the four decades of hell Davis lived through without Cal. Forty years of slowly being picked apart by people who didn’t care nor understand what this place meant to Davis. They saw a building where they could eat for an hour, maybe two, and then leave without thinking twice about it. Dean and Cas didn’t plan on gnawing his ear off with this conversation, they stopped by because they were hungry. They were here for their honeymoon, and some of that magic must shield Cas from the harsh reality of Davis’s predicament. He’s blinded from the pain by those romantic, rosy shades. “Doesn’t that make it worth it?”

“It did, at first,” Davis concedes. He rests his elbows on the table, shoulders sagging with the tiniest amount of relief that feels like water on a blistering, arid day. “But I can’t keep doing something because it’s worth doing… not at my age… not with how business is doing.”

Cas bristles, responding with more heat than appropriate. “But what you’ve done, for as long as you’ve done it, it’s been good,” he insists, “why stop now because of a – a slump!” Davis’s good temperament chars from the observation.

He squeezes his drink, hands trembling. “It’s more than a slump,” Davis says, “it’s a freefall. I’ve been putting in all this hard work, and for what? What do I have to show for it?” Davis finishes his drink, meeting Cas’s fierce gaze with his own. “This place’ll probably do better as a condo –“

“You don’t know that.”

“I might not, but some folks do.” He bites his lip, unsure why he hurls his troubles into these strangers’ laps. Davis guesses it’s because Cas’s eyes, while hard, effortlessly prodded at the truth and that Dean listened like he cared for whatever left Davis’s mouth it made him want to say something meaningful. Or perhaps Davis was tired of keeping this to himself, and these saps were the tipping point. “Got some realtors skulking about, always asking when I’m ready to put this place out to pasture. Condos were one thing that was discussed… so were gyms, a dispensary, a parking lot –“

“You’d let them turn this place into a parking lot?” Cas asks.

“I don’t have much of a choice in my position,” Davis says, “They’ve got money that I need.”

“But you said this place… you named it in memory of your love,” Cas murmurs, softer. He shrinks, drooping slightly. Dean gently cups Cas’s neck and massages with such care Davis sucks in a quick breath. Davis feels the memory of a caress on his neck, enough that he ghosts his fingers over the skin there in case someone had touched it. “If you sell… then isn’t that like giving up on him?”

Davis wondered the same things. He spent countless hours awake in bed, worrying about how admitting failure went past the surface. That giving up on Berens’s meant letting go of that final piece of Cal he can call his.

But Davis, weary from these thoughts, has made peace with this sacrifice. “Everyone else already gave up on Berens’s,” he says, “I’ll only be the last…”

“That’s bullshit.” Dean speaks, finally rejoining their conversation. His sudden outburst places him at the center of this conversation, affixed at his husband’s side. “You shouldn’t give up. Cal wanted this place for you, didn’t he? You were only able to buy it because of him.”

“Because he died,” Davis growls, “That’s how. If he knew how much of a shitshow this whole business would’ve been, I doubt he’d have wanted me to use the money for this. Hell, he’d probably hate if I stayed and pissed away the rest of my money trying to keep the lights on in here. Like stopping footprints from being swept smooth by the tide, it’s like.”

“Well…” Dean fumbles, scratching at his plate for something to do. There’s no food left. Neither on Cas’s plate. Davis knows Cas was too busy to eat. “Okay, what if you sold it to people who… who want to run it as it is?”

“I’d ask them how they think they can do this any better,” Davis sighs, slumping backwards. “Besides, there isn’t anyone who wants to do that who’s also eyeing this property.”

“What about us?”

Davis asks Dean what he said. Dean repeats himself. From Cas’s wide-eyed stare, Davis knows he heard correctly. “Really?” he drawls, sarcasm heavily coloring his tone. “You want to buy this place? Like that?”

Dean shrugs, fiddling with his thumbs. He sweats, spotlight too warm for him now. “Uh… yeah?”

“Have you ever run a restaurant before? Or a bar?”

“No,” Dean says, “But I had family, who ran a roadhouse. Helped them a few times when my brother and I stopped over – we traveled, a lot, for work. It was years ago but I still remember a lot of what went into it…” Dean smiles unnaturally. It reminds Davis of those phony grins motivational snake-oil salesmen would coach suckers into doing in front of mirrors, to inspire confidence. “Besides, Cas and I have been looking for a career change.”

“That is true,” Cas adds, brow raised, “Although we never discussed running a roadhouse.”

“Cas, sweetie, I mentioned how owning a bar might be cool.”

“Bars and roadhouses aren’t the same thing.”

Davis coughs, nipping the budding argument while young. “As nice as the offer is,” he starts, “You boys don’t haf’ta buy this place from me because of pity –“

“It’s not pity,” Dean insists, “No, not at all. I…” He glances at Cas, a strange emotion shuddering across his face. Like maybe he’s seen a ghost. That grip on Cas’s neck visibly tightens. “I know what it feels like, wanting to keep something… of someone you love. A physical reminder that they were here and that they mattered and… they mattered to you.”

Cas leans into his husband’s side. “Dean’s very sentimental.”

“Yeah,” Dean laughs, “I guess you could call it that.” He takes the empty plate with his free hand and stacks it atop the other, pushing them towards Davis, knocking it into the salt-and-pepper shakers and napkin dispenser. “I’ve lost a lot in my life, and I’ve only been so lucky to not just have them come back to me, but to get second chances. Or third chances, or even fourths.” Dean’s lips lift at the corners, flashing a friendly smirk. He definitely appears more relaxed than he did seconds ago. “I want to be the one to give chances, now, because I can. I want to buy Berens’s from you… if that’s okay?”

It’s too good. Davis pinches himself, first. When he doesn’t wake, he knows he isn’t dreaming. He places a hand over his heart. Its strong beat reveals Davis has not died. Still, Davis cannot lower his defenses completely. “This isn’t a sting?” he asks, “Some harebrained scheme cooked up by scuzzy developers to get me to sell?”

“The fuck this look like, Scooby-Doo?”

Cas chuckles, “It might if you brought your ascot with you.”

“Cas –“

“So, you’re…” Davis scrubs a hand over his mouth, pressing it against stubble and focusing on the drag. “You’re serious? About wanting to buy this place?” He huffs a tired breath, tension leaking out of the cracks in his bones and leaving him with little support. Davis collapses on himself, smiling. “What about your honeymoon?”

“Honestly?” Dean laughs, mirroring Davis’s posture, “We were running out of things to do. Probably would have hit the road in a few days, head on back to Kansas.”

“Kansas?” Davis squawks, “You sure you aren’t using this as an opportunity to jump ship from there?”

Cas sips at his drink, a bead of condensation falling off it from how long it went untouched. “We love Kansas,” he tells Davis, “but where we live now it… there’s a lot of baggage there. We want to start fresh.”

“Besides,” Dean adds, “my brother was talking about renovations, making it more… work-friendly. Figured it’s best me and Cas dip and let the little brat have a go at it on his own. He’s earned it, I guess.”

Davis nods. “If that’s all…” His gaze darts to the neon sign, a question in his mind. “Hey,” he says, “if you are plannin’ on doing this… this crazy idea of yours, are you – do you have any preference to what you call this place?”

Dean taps at his chin, drawing the silence longer than necessary. “Well… a few come to mind. Harvelle’s… Campbell’s… Singer’s… hell, I could follow your lead and name it after Cas here, Novak’s – “

“You’re not funny.” Cas elbows Dean hard enough the other man gasps from the pain, the other two delighting from the bug-eyed look that flashes. “We’ll keep it Berens’s.”

“Thank you,” Davis says, standing, “Really… I – this is good. Great, actually. You want another round? On the house?”

“Hey!” Dean protests, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, “No giving away free booze! That’s our profit you’re eating into…”

“Not yet,” he jokes, digging through his pockets, “Deed’s not yours until the I’s are dotted and money’s in my hands.” Davis finds what he searched for, tossing a quarter towards them. Cas catches it, effortlessly. “Why don’t you pick something from the jukebox, my treat!”

He rises, and Davis turns to round the bar. Davis grabs three smaller glasses, and the Jameson he keeps on the highest shelf. He pours them each a generous fifth, maybe more. It’s a celebration, after all. As he carries the drinks back over, the opening chords of a familiar song start. Davis nearly drops the drinks.

His expression must concern them, because Cas clears his throat and asks, “Is this okay?”

Elvis croons from the speaker. Davis’s face strains from the too-wide grin threatening to crack his face in twain. “It’s perfect,” he says, settling at the table. He distributes the drinks, Cas joining them. “Cal always dug Elvis.”

“I get it,” Dean says, “guy was a hunk, for the fifties.”

They spend the next hour like that. Getting drunk, discussing the hardships of running a business and debating Elvis’s legacy as ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ plays in the background on loop. During a lull in their conversation, Davis feels, for the first time, that Cal is alive again.

It wasn’t because of the bar, or how it fares. But because of these two men, a sense of calm washed over him. They make Davis hopeful for the future.

Berens’s is in good hands.

#supernatural #spn #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #destiel fanfic #deancas #deancas fanfic #destiel wedding #destiel honeymoon #berens's roadhouse

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owillofthewisps · 5 years ago

Text

slow like honey

notes: other than my recent 'mouths, utterly lovely' one shot, i haven’t written smut in...a long time, so i’ve decided to ease myself back into it. get a little less rusty, y’know? the urban flora ep from alina baraz and galimatias - a fav - was on repeat while i was writing this. title is from fiona apple's song of the same name.

rating: explicit. pwp.

pairing: geralt/female reader

word count: 2,144

summer, you think, is all wet, indolent heat, and you have always reveled in it.

The honey wine is thick on your tongue.

It tastes of summer days, rich with golden sunshine and edged with a dizzying heat, with a soft touch of the sticky sweetness of night-blooming flowers. Summer itself has settled over the city, all syrupy, humid air hanging heavy against your skin, leaving a sheen of sweat behind that catches the flickering candlelight.

The wine drapes over you, trailing little glimmers of sensation in its wake. A flash of bone white catches your eye, and everything goes heavy, the breath before a storm. You meet Geralt’s gaze - those eyes darkening now, the very corner of his lips lilting with something hungry - and the air crackles.

You smile over the rim of your wine goblet, licking at a stray drop that trickles down the side. “Fuck,” he mutters, and then his mouth is hungry on yours, his large hands cradling your head. You part your lips with a light laugh, setting your goblet down so that you can weave your hands into his hair, the white strands spilling through your fingers like fresh snowfall.

One of his hands drops to your waist and tightens, pulling you up just enough to press against him, the thin material of your nightdress going taut over the map of your body.

“Summer,” Geralt breathes against your lips, his voice gone to gravel, “is far too good a look on you. It’s distracting.”

Summer brings the indolence out in you, all lazy, sunlit mornings and herb-scented baths that you linger in until the water is stone cold, the promise tucked into the corner of your lips as you rise from the water a temptation all its own. Nights pass like slow honey, the cooling air a blessing against your bare skin, the cloying scent of honeysuckle heady on the breeze.

“Ah,” you murmur. “I shall strive to look worse.”

“I’d prefer to just keep you in bed,” Geralt says.

He kisses any reply you might have out of you, teases your words away with his lips and tongue, his stubble scraping softly against your cheek. Heat blooms, low in your stomach, the edges of it made more robust by the wine’s soft touch. You gasp into his mouth, feel the pleased tilt of his lips against yours, and catch his bottom lip with your teeth, grazing against the soft, delicate flesh.

The sound that rumbles from Geralt makes something in you go tight. He pushes harder into the kiss, like he cannot get enough, and you press in close against him, feel the heat of his broad form soak through your thin nightshirt.

Geralt kisses his way across your jawline, nipping at the junction of your jaw and neck, the soft prick of pain melting down your spine. You tilt your head back with a lazy hum as he lays a biting kiss on the side of your neck. His large hand trails down, leaving smoldering embers in its wake, and your thin nightdress crinkles as he bunches the hem of it in one hand.

“Geralt,” you murmur, running a thumb over his cheekbone. He turns into the touch so that your thumb grazes over his lips. You feel just the slightest hint of his teeth. You suck in a sharp breath and pull him back to your mouth, drink from his lips. You wonder if you are sweet with wine to him.

His hand slides up your stomach to cup your breast, his fingers warm and firm against you, his thumb stroking circles around your nipple as it tightens, pebbling under the thin cotton separating your skin from his. The rasp of fabric bolsters the feeling, sends electricity sparking down your spine. The moan that slips from you makes Geralt’s hand tighten, his fingers flexing on your breast.

You set your teeth against his neck, suck marks into the column of his thick, pale throat.

“Fuck,” Geralt grunts.

You can still feel his hand hovering near your hip, your hem caught in his fist, his knuckles pressed against your skin. The summer air swirls up against you as he bares more of it, his mouth greedy against the salt of your skin.

The nightdress hadn’t been much of an obstacle to begin with, a flimsy thing made of thin fabric, something worn only for a hint of modesty in summer’s sweltering nights, but Geralt strips it from you as if it had been armor. As it flutters to the ground, he pushes you back against the bed.

You sink into it with a laugh, but the sound fades into a sigh as Geralt smoothes a hand up your thigh, his thumb skating across the crease in your thigh as his fingers splay across your hip. He presses a kiss against your hip bone, just a hint of teeth peeking between his lips, and your breath hitches.

Geralt rises to loom over you, his arms caging you in against the bed. Like this, he is consuming, his broad frame filling your world, leaving nothing but him. His white hair falls like a curtain as he leans down to kiss you, the pearly strands separating you and him from the rest of the world. You arch up into the kiss, meet him with teeth and tongue and want.

“You’re slow tonight,” you murmur against him, lips tilting up at the corners. Geralt tends towards wildfire, kindling pleasure with teeth and tongue and fingers as flint until it catches and burns, spreading fast.

A chuckle rumbles through him. “It’s summer,” he tells you. “And what is it you like so much about summer, again?”

You press a kiss against his jawline and slide a hand under his shirt, skating your fingertips over the hard planes of his stomach, ignoring the constellations of scars mapped over his skin. He seems to like it better that way. “Summer,” you breathe, running your thumb over his nipple and raising your head to catch his mouth once more, “is wet, and slow, and full of heat.”

His chest heaves beneath your hand; his heart is not pounding, but you have learned enough about a Witcher’s heartbeat to recognize when you’ve managed to elevate it. You reach for the laces of his breeches, but he nudges you away.

“Heat,” Geralt muses, dragging a thumb along the crease of your hip, dropping a kiss on your collarbone, the swell of your breast, grazing his teeth along your stomach. You whine. Each touch is an ignited ember, heat flaring out around each point of contact, but they are fleeting glances of his skin against yours.

“Slow,” he says, his hair trailing against your stomach in a ghostly touch as he cups your cunt with one hand, the heel of his palm providing only the slightest hint of pressure. You roll against him, the pleasure that’s been simmering just beneath your skin sparking up into something stronger. He stills there, pinning your hips down with his other arm slung low over your torso as they try to rise, and the kiss he presses low on your hip feels smug.

“Geralt.”

He peers up at you, the candlelight casting shadows that sharpen his features, his jawline cut from stone in the low light. His amber eyes are dark and warm, like sunlight filtering through whisky. The low laugh that slips from him stirs against the delicate skin just above your cunt.

“Wet,” Geralt hums, and then his tongue is tracing across your skin, the path meandering low. You hiss out a breath and arch, but he keeps you pinned in place with a simple flex of his arm. The hand cupping you shifts, spreads you, and his fingertips find you slick, slick, slick.

“And you are so wet,” he murmurs, lips curving into a pleased smirk against your skin.

You choke on your retort as he finally dips his mouth to your cunt, the tip of his tongue teasing you apart to flicker against your clit. The heat of his mouth settles into the marrow of you, sends flames skittering through your bones until the burn of the pleasure settles at the bottom of your spine.

His mouth is heavy on you, each lick at the core of you languid, the flat of his tongue sweeping through your cunt and collecting your slick.

“Fuck, Geralt!”

He grunts as you fist a hand in his white locks, wrapping the thick, ivory strands around your fingers and tugging. His tongue is clever. He knows you well, too, knows the way your hips flex before they try to push up, knows to press tight, firm circles around your clit with the tip of his tongue before sliding the blade of his tongue down and into you.

You twist beneath him as he works you, and fuck, when he glances up at you, his eyes finding yours over your heaving chest - his mouth urgent now, the red slick of his lips catching the firelight just right, the sheen of them obscene in the low light - you draw in a breath through your teeth, your thighs tensing around his head.

Geralt tightens his grip on you. You can see the play of muscles in his shoulders, in his arms, his massive form rippling as he holds you in place. The moan trickles out of you as he presses a thick finger into you, your cunt clenching around him as he stretches you open. He scrapes his teeth over your cunt with delicacy, sucks at you, and the summer’s heat has faded now, is nothing compared to the sweltering flush of pleasure twining through you. You can feel the hair at your nape sticking against your skin as you arch, fingers tightening against Geralt’s skull and pulling him closer, pressing your head back against the bed, straining your neck as you gasp.

Another finger slides into you, and Geralt laps at where he’s spreading you wide. You flutter around him, and the curse that leaves him is guttural, the gravel of it vibrating against your wet cunt.

He twists his thick fingers, curves them in the way you like, and his lips return to you, wrap around your clit as he sucks until your legs are shaking against him.

“Please,” you find yourself saying, as your muscles tremble, as you clench around him, your fingers so tight in his hair that the strands are indenting your flesh. “Geralt.”

“Fuck,” he rumbles. “Fuck, you are always so good.”

Your breath catches in your throat. Geralt thrusts his fingers hard, once, twice, and works your clit with his mouth until lightning strikes home, crackling across your nerves with white heat. The sound you make as you come is filthily indulgent, all smoke and salt, and the sound it tears out of Geralt in return makes you shudder.

He keeps his mouth steady on you, gentler now, his tongue easing you through your orgasm. You hiss as the pleasure rolls into something sharp-edged, prickling at the edge of pain, and Geralt pulls away as your fingers flex in your hair.

He presses a kiss against your inner thigh and slinks back up the bed to you - his shirt and breeches rasping against your skin as he moves, the bulge in his breeches pressing briefly against your cunt - as you prop yourself up on your elbows, chest still heaving. Geralt settles down next to you. You meet his kiss and taste yourself, a sharp tang against the lingering sweetness of the honey wine. It’s a languid kiss, Geralt mapping your mouth out once more.

“Gods,” you mutter when he finally pulls away, reaching out with a trembling hand for your goblet. “You’re not even undressed.”

Geralt chuckles, low and deep. He watches as you drink deeply from the goblet, the honey wine sweet and refreshing. You toss the goblet somewhere onto the bed after draining it and reach for the laces of his breeches. He catches you before you can undo them and swings himself over you.

You huff your irritation and glance up at him.

“You’ve drunk your fill, I think,” Geralt says, his eyes dark. He strokes a thumb across your knuckles before dropping your hand and gently pushing you flat against the bed once more. He bends down, his hair raising goosebumps in its wake as it trails gently over your skin, hooks his thick arms around your thighs, and heaves you higher on the bed. You yelp in surprise, the sound pulled out of you. He grunts, amused, and noses against your hip bone, his tongue darting out to skim along your skin. You suck in a breath through your teeth.

“You’ve drunk your fill,” Geralt says again, gazing up at you with those honey eyes, his mouth just above your cunt, his lips still red and shining wet, and you feel yourself clench.

“But I am still thirsty.”

taglist: @fairytale07 @1950schick

#geralt of rivia x reader #geralt x reader #geralt imagine #the witcher x reader #the witcher imagine #nsft

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inliar · 4 years ago

Text

spaced in, spaced out

word count: 4.5k

hyojin-centric

hyojin wholeheartedly loves space; the big kind, like the sky and the planets and the brilliant, brilliant stars, but also the small kind, like the time he gets to himself when everything screams louder than it should.

mildly inspired by on the run LA ep 22, time stamp 10:25

a/n: i’ve posted this on ao3 and have since orphaned it (due to unnecessary worrying) so if you recognize it, that’s likely why.

warning: mentions of exhaustion / depressive symptoms

on days when practice runs late (which is almost every day when you don’t know when to stop; a trait hyojin admits he has but refuses to see the problem with), hyojin likes to look at the sky. when he’s feeling lazy, or when dance practice is exceptionally gruelling, he can only really manage to make it to the nearest window and do his best to look up and over the surrounding building’s walls. but when he’s feeling particularly active, he’ll take the stairs up to the rooftop patio and enjoy the sight. from there, he has a clear, unobstructed, view.

not that it’s all that clear, though. light pollution, residual smog, and occasionally cloudy skies mask what hyojin imagines would be a stunning scene without. he’s looked up some night sky pictures on nasa’s official gallery, and they were absolutely breathtaking. so were their ridiculously high quality photos of the solar system, and the milky way, and all the constellations. he has these images saved in a neat little folder on his phone, for days when his own view doesn’t cut it. one day, hyojin would like to see them in real life. maybe he could visit an actual observatory with professional telescopes.

but as it stands, all hyojin can see from his place on earth is the moon, and, if he’s lucky, a couple of stars. on most days, that’s enough. he can observe how far along the lunar cycle the moon is, and he can close his eyes and make a tiny wish to the first star he saw that night. he’s not sure if his wishes help — luck is a fickle thing that he’s never quite had enough of — but he figures it can’t hurt. and after his little ritual, he can return back to his practice room or his dorm with a peaceful mind. he’s here. he’s grounded. he has a more or less beautiful sky to look at. on most days, that’s enough.

but on other days, it’s not. like today.

for one, it’s not even nighttime. a glance at the clock in the practice room tells him that it’s 17:34, which he eventually translates into 5:34 p.m.. it’s much too early to look to the sky for comfort, and it is definitely much too early for the type of crisis that hyojin normally only gets very late at night or very early in the morning. the ones where he can’t do anything besides sit in place like some useless tree stump while he questions his life.

“do you want to go get dinner?”

hyojin hates wasting time, so he doesn’t let them happen often, but every now and then one sneaks by him. especially when he’s overworked and tired and doesn’t have the energy to fight it off. he’s not sure what’s happening just yet, but he can sense that familiar, unsettling feeling simmering somewhere very near.

“hyung, you good?” hyojin hears, and he jolts in place where he’s sitting on the practice room floor. yuto’s looking down at him, all wide eyed and polite, and seungjoon is draped over the poor boy’s back.

“yeah, sorry, i was just … thinking.” hyojin replies lamely, cursing himself for his lack of a better explanation. all of these thoughts, and not a single one is of any use outside of his head.

“seungjoon hyung asked if you were getting dinner with us, but you didn’t answer.” yuto continues. hyojin pauses to process this, before noticing just how quiet the room is. a glance around the room confirms his suspicions; the room is empty, save for the three of them. “where did everyone else go?” hyojin asks.

“jaeyoung and minkyun said they were going to the studio after practice today to work on a new song, remember? and changyoon went to start a vlive. they all said goodbye before they left?” seungjoon explains.

huh. hyojin doesn’t recall any of this. “right, now i remember!” hyojin lies, perhaps a bit too eagerly. he can feel seungjoon staring at him, but he avoids the impulse to look back and stubbornly maintains eye contact with yuto instead.

“so … dinner?” yuto asks.

hyojin hesitates. he is hungry, but going out to eat means talking to someone to order. it means maintaining a conversation with his members, or at the very least keeping up with what they’re talking about. they’re usually really good at sensing when doesn’t want to talk, and they never push him, but hyojin doesn’t want to show off how drained he’s feeling at the moment. just thinking about it makes his head hurt.

“i don’t really want to go out today.” hyojin confesses. seungjoon and yuto nod together like a pair of synchronized bobble heads. cute.

“i’m kind of getting a headache, so i think i’ll head back to the dorm for a bit and take a nap. maybe i can go live sometime today, too. did anyone say they wanted to go after changyoon?” hyojin asks.

“no, i don’t think so.” seungjoon replies, which causes hyojin to accidentally make eye contact with him. darn. seungjoon can be ridiculously perceptive when he wants to be, especially when it comes to reading him. hyojin is not in the mood to be read right now.

seungjoon must come to some sort of conclusion in his head, because he stops staring at hyojin with that weird, ambiguous gaze. “i’ll drop some food off at your place after we’re done. that kimchi fried rice and those dumplings you like.” seungjoon says decisively, before pushing himself off from yuto’s back. “are you coming down with us, at least?”

“yeah, let’s go.” hyojin mumbles as he stands up. his muscles are sore, more likely a result of yesterday’s practice than today’s. the teachers went particularly hard yesterday. it was this constant series of ‘again, again, again’ for all these minuscule details that even yuto seemed to have a hard time catching. but they were much better afterwards because of it, so hyojin figures he shouldn’t complain.

he’s happy to listen to yuto and seungjoon babble about dance practice as they walk down the stairs; partially because he loves hearing the passion in their voices as they discuss how they want to present themselves, and partially because he doesn’t think he has the power to sustain a conversation right now. thankfully, neither of the two push him to say anything. he’s not sure whether it’s because he said he was getting a headache or because they can sense something is actually off with him, but he’s grateful nonetheless.

hyojin remembers to smile and say goodbye when he parts ways with seungjoon and yuto. then, he puts his phone on do not disturb before starting his trek home. he doesn’t want to talk to anyone just yet.

hyojin sits down on his bed and he doesn’t cry. he simply thinks.

sometimes he feels like a fake. he’s been told by dozens of people that his singing voice is so emotional. that it conveys a depth of feeling that’s heart wrenchingly beautiful when it needs to be, and technically perfect when it doesn’t. and he’s grateful for that, he truly is. but sometimes, he worries that it isn’t enough.

not that he doesn’t express emotions, because he does. he knows he does. anyone who’s observed hyojin long enough can see it. but the one thing he feels like he hasn’t openly expressed is sadness. which is understandable, after all, since he’s an idol. people come to him and his music for comfort, not to hear him complain. but he’s starting to believe that his absolute inability to convey this basic emotion is what’s causing all of his weird crises.

hyojin wishes he could cry. but he hasn’t cried in so long that he fears he no longer knows how to. bottled up emotions don’t free themselves easily, not when he’s tightened the cap so hard and so often that he’s not sure where the bottle ends and the cap begins.

‘don’t you feel bad?’ he chides himself.

‘yes,’ his inner voice croaks.

‘then prove it,’ he thinks. he challenges himself. he demands.

hyojin doesn’t cry, so he stands up. it’s time for him to get a grip on himself. he takes a shower and changes into comfortable clothes. he doesn't have anything else to do for the rest of the day, so he tries to take a nap as well. it’s hard at first — he’s oddly cold under the power of the air conditioning (that he never bothered to learn how to turn off) and his mind is still whirring with empty, useless, thoughts — but his sheer exhaustion overpowers it all as he falls into a shallow, troubled rest.

when he wakes up, his room is much darker then it was before. he reaches out for his phone, his hand haphazardly scrabbling for purchase on his nightstand before finally picking it up. squinting, he manages to read the time: 8:19 p.m.. cool, so he got around two hours of sleep. he figures that’s not too bad. he got four the other day when he was actually trying to go to bed.

for a moment, hyojin contemplates attempting to sleep again before deciding against it. he’s a little drowsy, but he’s not physically tired anymore. with that in mind, he gets up, slips his phone in his pocket, and opens his bedroom door. he could use a cup of water.

the lights are on somewhere out there, which hyojin guesses probably means that changyoon is on the couch playing kart rider or something. his assumption is proven to be correct when he spots changyoon, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, mumbling under his breath at his phone.

“what are you doing?” hyojin asks, turning towards the kitchen to pour himself some water. just before he looks away, he sees changyoon flinch. “n-nothing, i was just texting minkyun,” he hears changyoon stammer awkwardly.

hyojin pauses. suspicious. changyoon is definitely hiding something. hyojin considers confronting his roommate, but before he gets the chance to do so he feels his stomach grumble. right, he skipped dinner.

“did you already eat?” hyojin asks instead, taking his cup of water with him as he walks to the couch. it’s then that he notices the nearly empty takeout box of dumplings on the coffee table.

“never mind, i guess you have.” hyojin answers himself, putting his cup on the table and sitting down next to changyoon. “hmm, what should i eat?”

“oh, right!” changyoon says, popping the last dumpling in his mouth and standing up. “i ran into seungjoon and yuto on the way here. they gave me some takeout for you,” he explains as he walks to the fridge.

hyojin had forgotten about that, but he remembers now. “yeah, i think he said he was going to do that. kimchi fried rice and dumplings, right?” hyojin asks. he could really go for some dumplings right about now, especially after seeing changyoon eating.

changyoon freezes. “o-oh, so seungjoon told you,” he chuckles nervously, pulling a clear plastic bag out of the fridge and bringing it back to where hyojin is sitting on the couch. he’s trembling, which is odd. hyojin already has a very bad feeling about this, but he doesn’t want to say anything yet. surely changyoon wouldn’t do something so dumb as to -

“where are my dumplings?” hyojin demands, after opening the styrofoam container and only finding fried rice. he looks inside the empty plastic bag one more time, just to be sure (they’re not there), before glancing at the empty styrofoam container that changyoon was eating out of before. funnily enough, it’s the same type of takeout box as his fried rice container.

“you ate my dumplings?” hyojin shrieks, immediately grabbing a pillow from the couch. changyoon has already wisely retreated to the very end of the room, but hyojin wastes no time in lunging to where changyoon escaped to with agility akin to his deer nickname. changyoon futilely attempts to dart out of the way, but hyojin manages to grasp the collar of his shirt with one hand while he smacks changyoon with the pillow in his other hand. “what - were - you - thinking?” hyojin hisses, punctuating each word with a thump from the pillow. he notices that changyoon is covering his head, so he makes sure to hit the deserving food thief extra hard.

“i’m sorry, i’m sorry!” changyoon wails as he drops to the ground to shield himself further. “i was hungry!”

“and you thought to take my food, you jerk?” hyojin yells, dropping and holding changyoon down with his knee while he continues to bash him with the pillow. “you didn’t even leave any behind for me!”

“i’m sorry, i’m sor- ow! stop hitting me, please, i’ll buy you more dumplings!” changyoon begs, and it’s enough for hyojin to graciously let changyoon go. “you better,” hyojin threatens, standing up. “you’re lucky i’m weak right now, you brat.”

“i’m sorry, what? you call that weak?” changyoon asks incredulously, sitting up and leaning back on his hands. “was that pillow made out of rocks?”

“if i hadn’t just woken up, and i wasn’t so hungry …” hyojin trails off.

“you know what, i don’t even want to think about it,” changyoon decides. “but the food stall closes at 10, so we should get going if you want the dumplings tonight.”

“i’m sorry, we?” hyojin asks incredulously. “why do i have to go out?

“don’t you want to personally make sure i get the right ones?” changyoon offers.

“no, because i can tell you right now which ones i want — pork, by the way — and if you forget you can text me.” hyojin says.

“but i don’t want to go outside alone! it’s dark, and it’s scary!”

“sucks for you, then, you shouldn’t have eaten my food in the first place. and since when have you been scared of the dark?”

“please?” changyoon asks. “i’ll buy you ice cream if you do.”

hyojin pauses. ice cream does sound really good right now. “okay, fine.” he decides. “but i’m not changing.”

“yeah, me neither. the food stall lady has known us for forever, though, so it’s probably fine.” changyoon reasons, standing up. “let me get my wallet and then we can go.”

“okay,” hyojin agrees. “i need to fix my hair anyways, it’s probably a mess.”

hyojin manages to tidy up his bedhead/warrior hair and find a cap in his room, but changyoon still hasn’t come out yet. “are you coming?” hyojin calls, walking out of his room to sit on the couch. he picks up his unfinished glass of water and takes a sip. he wouldn’t want to have damaged his throat after his screaming fit.

changyoon walks into the living room, looking sheepish. “so, um, how mad would you be if i told you that i think i left my wallet at the company?”

“... you’re serious.” hyojin deadpans incredulously.

“yeah, uh, i just realized i left my coat in the room where i did my vlive, and i normally carry my wallet in my pocket.” changyoon explains, before wincing. maybe he was expecting to get hit again?

hyojin sighs. “it’s fine. it’s on the way, anyway. let’s go?” he asks, before downing what’s left of his drink and standing up.

changyoon nods happily. “you’re the best and i love you?” he offers.

hyojin pushes changyoon. “ew. you can be sappy after i’ve eaten,” he laughs. “now get me some food.”

“come in with me?” changyoon asks, once they’re in front of WM. “i swear i saw the ghost last time, and i don’t want to face it alone.”

“well, why do i have to see it?” hyojin grumbles, but he opens the door for changyoon anyway. hyojin’s not heartless enough to ditch him, especially when he’s buying him food. but if he’s being really honest, he’d accompany changyoon regardless.

“what room did you leave your stuff in?” hyojin asks as they climb up the stairs, before coming to a realization.

“should we have asked the security guards for the keys?” hyojin pauses, before turning around. “wait, we should have, hold on, let’s go back -“

“wait!” changyoon calls, his voice amplified in the empty stairwell. hyojin reaches to cover his ears.

“oh, sorry, that was too loud,” changyoon realizes belatedly. “but trust me, we don’t need the keys.”

“what do you mean we don’t need the keys? the security guards always lock everything up after the office workers leave.” hyojin says, puzzled.

“minkyun’s in that room, he’s the one that told me i left my sweater there.” changyoon explains, as he continues to climb the stairs. instinctively, hyojin follows him.

“but why didn’t you tell me before? you could have told me that minkyun was there when you said that you left your wallet here.” hyojin asks.

“well i - uh, i forgot?” changyoon stammers.

hyojin frowns. changyoon is somehow being even more suspicious then when he ate hyojin’s dumplings, which is very confusing. something about his words are not adding up. he opens his mouth to ask something else, before being interrupted by changyoon.

“okay, we’re here!” changyoon exclaims, opening the door. except it doesn’t lead to the second or third floor like hyojin had expected.

“why are we on the roof?” hyojin asks, following changyoon before stopping in his tracks.

“oh hey, you’re here!” minkyun exclaims.

except it’s not just minkyun. the rest of the members are all there, bizarrely sitting in a circle on a large blanket on the roof. there’s various soda cans scattered around the edge of their huddle, and a couple of chip bags lie in the middle. if hyojin didn’t know better, he’d guess by the food that it was a poorly prepared picnic or a decently prepared sleepover.

“what …?” hyojin trails off in confusion.

next to him, changyoon breathes a sigh of relief and runs towards the rest of the members. “i am never doing this again. that was the most stressful hour or whatever of my life. i am incapable of lying, i swear he almost caught me twice, i have aged because of this -“

“oh, be quiet, this was your fault anyway.” minkyun snaps, but without a single hint of malice in his voice.

“so, um?” hyojin asks, frozen in place, as changyoon and minkyun bicker in the background. “what?”

“well, uh, this might sound pretty dumb, but you were really out of it in practice today.” jaeyoung starts, standing up and walking towards him. the rest of them do the same, abandoning their drinks and their snacks. “you were listening to what the teacher said and doing the dance moves correctly and everything, but it was like you weren’t actually there? you didn’t even say ‘bye’ back when minkyun and i left.”

darn. he was being obvious. hyojin opens his mouth, ready to give some kind of excuse, but seungjoon cuts him off.

“we wanted to ask you about it, but we didn’t know what to say and we didn’t want to make it awkward for you. and you mentioned how looking at the sky clears your mind, right? so we thought it would be nice to stargaze together? except it’s really cloudy …” seungjoon trails off.

hyojin looks up. seungjoon’s right, he can barely see the moon behind the clouds, let alone any stars. but the mere fact that his members came together and planned this in the first place is really, really nice.

hyojin looks around again and thinks. he knows for a fact that no one had chips at their dorm (seungjoon recently confiscated them all and donated them to the staff when he was feeling particularly sensitive about his self induced diet), so someone had went out and bought all the snacks so they’d have something to eat. someone had brought drinks so they wouldn’t get thirsty. someone had lugged this very big blanket up many flights of stairs so they’d have someplace clean to sit. someone had suggested doing this because they thought he felt bad, and someone had planned the event, even taking care to keep it a secret, to make him feel better. and they did this in their spare time, instead of practicing more or taking a well deserved break, for him.

they planned this all for him.

jaeyoung takes his silence as a bad thing, and hurriedly chimes in. “i mean, this might not have been what you were thinking of when you said you liked the galaxy, and we can always do something else! we don’t have a group practice tomorrow anyway, so we can do something fun tonight.”

“no, no! i’m just … this is good. actually, this is perfect. i - you didn’t have to do this, but it’s really thoughtful, and i?” hyojin buffers, completely lost for words.

seungjoon takes his arm. “you can just say thank you, and come sit with us.” he laughs, guiding hyojin back to their blanket where they’ve conveniently left a space for him to sit.

yuto hands him a coke as he takes his place, and hyojin wordlessly opens it and takes a sip. “thank you,” hyojin says, after a short pause. “i’m serious. this is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.”

“you’re always trying to take care of us, yeah? we can do this for you.” minkyun says, and it’s so thoughtful hyojin winces a little. he’s not in the right headspace to vent about his emotions right now. he’s not even sure if he has the right words for them. maybe later, when he has them sorted out in his head, he’ll share them with the others. but for now, he just wants to spend some time together, in each other's proximity.

hyojin normally looks to the sky to clear his head, but for once, his mind is blissfully empty. something about this entire situation brings him genuine peace and he’s extremely grateful for that. it’s not like he tries to overthink or overwork himself, but he somehow ends up overdoing things anyway. very rarely does hyojin let himself sit back and just do things. very rarely does hyojin let himself be content with just being enough, and not more. right here and right now, though, hyojin feels like enough.

“so that’s why changyoon ate my dumplings.” hyojin realizes belatedly.

the rooftop was silent before, but somehow it becomes even quieter. “changyoon stole your food?” yuto whispers in horror.

“okay, in my defence!” changyoon screams, raising his hand. “i wouldn’t have had to resort to this if you guys didn’t make me bring him here! you know i’m bad at lying, and you still chose me! i needed a reason to be nervous in front of him!”

“and you’re still alive?” seungjoon asks, shocked. “after eating his food?”

“barely.” changyoon complains. “he makes a pillow hurt.”

“i knew you wouldn’t be so dumb as to eat my food for no reason.” hyojin mutters under his breath.

“do you know how many times i nearly had a heart attack because of you?” changyoon begins, pointing an accusatory finger at hyojin. “when you came out of your room i was so stressed. we were all texting each other trying to make plans, and i was eating your food, and i had to pretend i was texting minkyun about something normal and not this whole surprise event. and then i had to make a dumb excuse to get you here, and i said i left my wallet in my coat — why would i even wear a coat, it’s summer?”

hyojin didn’t even notice that. probably because he was so caught up on the food he was missing that he didn’t even see the signs right in front of him.

“i realized it the second after i said it, but i’m so grateful you didn’t call me out for it. and then you asked me about the keys, and of course we didn’t need the keys because everyone was already here, so i had to make up another lie about minkyun, except it didn’t even make sense because i totally would have mentioned it before, and this was just an overall traumatic experience. kim hyojin, never ask me another question again.” changyoon finishes dramatically.

“but we wouldn’t have made you do this alone if you didn’t try to add hyojin to the group chat. this is technically your own fault.” minkyun points out, and hyojin frowns. “what groupchat?” hyojin asks.

“you didn’t get the notifications?” seungjoon asks, and hyojin shakes his head.

“so seungjoon tried to make a groupchat with all the members except you so we could figure out what to do together, right?” minkyun starts. “but changyoon, this absolute idiot, literally asks, ‘oh, why aren’t we just using the groupchat we already have’ and adds you. why do you think we left him out in the first place?”

“it was an honest mistake!” changyoon whines. “anyone could have done it!”

“but you did it.” minkyun teases, and changyoon stutters out excuses.

“wait, but you had no clue that we were doing this?” jaeyoung asks. “i figured we ruined it after we added you to the groupchat by accident.”

“i didn’t even get the notifications, though, are you -? oh.” hyojin says.

“what?” yuto asks.

“i turned my notifications off after i said bye to you and seungjoon.” hyojin realizes.

“then i didn’t even ruin anything! it didn’t have to be me in the first place!” changyoon screams. “this is so unfair!”

“but hey, at least you were successful.” seungjoon points out, and everyone else nods.

“the emotional trauma? that you put me through? what about that?” changyoon asks, but he’s interrupted by the sound of jaeyoung slapping his own arm.

“sorry, mosquito.” jaeyoung explains sheepishly.

“shoot, we forgot about bugs.” seungjoon sighs. “do you want to just go inside? we can order chicken or something.”

“actually, that sounds great right now. i haven’t had dinner yet, and i’m so hungry.” hyojin says happily.

“you didn’t have dinner? i literally brought you food!” seungjoon complains.

“okay, but after changyoon ate my dumplings, did you really think i was going to focus on eating over revenge?”

seungjoon pauses. “yeah, never mind. but still!”

“it’s okay, i’ll eat it later.” hyojin says. “but let’s order something in for now? and we should probably clean all this up, too.”

“we’re going inside? good, i’m getting cold.” yuto adds, standing up and picking up his empty coke can and a half eaten bag of chips.

“do you want to sleep over in the practice room?” minkyun suggests, laughing. “we’re already ordering chicken, this is basically our trainee days all over again.”

“you know what, i’m actually down for that.” jaeyoung says, grinning. “if they let us do it five years ago, they’ll let us do it now.”

“honestly?” hyojin asks, smiling one of his first real smiles. he hasn’t been this content for a while. “that sounds really, really good.”

it’s been a while, hyojin thinks as they clean up, since he’s been truly happy like this. it's been a while, he thinks, since everything has felt right. but here, in this space with five of the people he loves the most, he feels like enough. and for now, that’s all that matters.

#onf #on/off #hyojin #kim hyojin #onf fanfic #hyojin fanfic #other members are featured #onf hyojin #writing

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polymathemawrites · 5 years ago

Text

Hungover in the City of Dust Part 2

CW: depictions of broken bones, drug use (via the HEV suit), mentions of former sexual partners, guns, consumption of alcohol

Flashback with us to the year 2000 where Gordon is a useless bisexual with a huge ass crush and hasn't yet been fucked around with by eldritch abominations with briefcases

also featured: a section that looks vaguely like a songfic, do you guys remember songfics? wow so old

part one is here read below for part two

He broke his arm, he thinks. Looking down at it does nothing to help him determine this because it's in the HEV suit, but it's also in the HEV suit at a very inhuman angle. He's not that kind of doctor, so he doesn't know, but again he's pretty sure. The refrain of 'morphine administered' hums through and he staggers a bit.

Dr. Cross' voice says something, and he is forced to loop his finger in the air to get her to repeat herself, her understanding of ASL isn't as strong as some of the other AnMat members but he can get his point across easy enough.

"I asked if you wished to stop the simulation, Dr. Freeman."

He shakes his head.

It takes a further half an hour of training and the chemicals that the suit chooses to pump him with cause him to vomit up his lunch but they clear it.

He is beaming with pride, his arm in a sling when he meets an off-duty Barney Calhoun at the bar in the town above ground and a bus-ride away. The one Barney loved most, with the fake UFO constructed on the roof and the bigfoot pictures on the walls.

"Hole-lee shit, what happened to you, doc?"

Gordon makes him order him a drink from the bar and return before he signs out a heavily edited version of events, the REDACTED blanks nearly hang in the air between them.

But I'll be fine in a few days, it's not as bad as it looks.

Barney takes a sip of his PBR and Gordon's eyes immediately track the way his throat works around it, the wide-breadth of his chest in the plain black t-shirt he's wearing. Due to experience with Barney's limited wardrobe he knows he's wearing the same worn Levis he always wears, and that his uniform boots are what those jeans are tucked into.

Gordon reaches out and drags the menu of bar appetizers over in front of him even though he has it memorized at this point. Something to do with his eyes that isn't stare at Barney Calhoun like an idiot.

He sips his hard apple cider and listens to Barney give him a less redacted version of his day's events - the usual, who locked themselves out of their office, who stole whose lunch, who broke the elevator. Gordon snorted and stopped him, holding his hand up.

The elevator just hangs so whoever hits the button is not who breaks it, Barn.

He could finger-spell Barney, he could, but using the English Sign for Barn/Shed the first time had caused Barney to laugh so hard he choked, so he's done it since.

"I don't know doc, I think it's a pretty good working hypothesis."

Gordon laughs again, the same huffy silent breath, the sound makes Barney's eyes light up, his frankly devastatingly attractive face break out in a sweet smile.

No more hypotheticals from you.

Gordon touches him, a lot maybe, the more drinks he gets in him the more tactile he gets, eventually he slides into the same booth as Barney when he comes back from the bathroom, makes an excuse about how it will be easier for him to see the book Barney has bought from the similarly themed book-store next door to the bar. He laughs at the bad science, points it out and corrects it, and makes Barney laugh or huff and try badly to defend whatever not-a-scientist researcher has to say. Barney holds his PBR, cheap-ass fake piss water for babies, far more than Gordon holds his alcoholic apple juice for toddlers, so that when they do hitch the bus back to the compound, Barney has Gordon's arm slung around his shoulders.

Barney doesn't live in the underground, but he follows Gordon all the way to his rooms - or rather he shepherds him all the way there, together they manage with the door lock mechanism and despite it being a massive breach of security, it's Barney who inputs the numerical code to open the door in the end when Gordon can't seem to manage.

Deposited on the cheap mass-produced couch, Gordon kicks off his shoes and pulls his khaki-clad legs underneath himself while Barney messes around in the tiny kitchenette. Gordon had worked himself up to having the seniority enough to get his own kitchenette, it was a crowning achievement here at Black Mesa. Even if you didn't cook for shit, having a kitchenette meant you were considered a vital enough investment to be allowed a heating element in your dorm that wasn't a coffee maker.

It was a bit like perpetually living in a motel, when one thought about it. Less the college life and more hundreds of identical suites.

Barney crashes down next to him and shoves a glass of water at Gordon's chest. It doesn't manage to slosh and Gordon notes that Barney has even politely put a neon-pink bendy straw in it just for him.

He sips the water obediently and Barney puts his feet up on the coffee table.

He wants very badly to turn Barney's face toward him, to see that soft please smile up close. He wants even more to press forward, chase the taste of blue ribbon from the edges of his lips, follow deeper. He wants to drag his hands - or hand as the case may be tonight - over Barney's broad chest, the softness of his stomach, the stretch of his shoulders. Maybe five years ago he would have. If he'd met Barney when he was in college, not that it was at all likely seeing as Barney went to school on the entire opposite side of the country but still. Definitely not now that Barney was, is, the best friend he's ever had.

They'd hit it off like wild-fire from day one, Barney getting his dry and dark humor and Gordon obliging his conspiracy theories and charming warmth. A few months in and Barney had invited him to sneak onto a roof in the middle of the night, Gordon had come, half expecting Barney to confront him on Gordon's feelings. Instead there had been a cooler of beer, a blanket stretched out on the ground, and Barney's grin. Gordon told him the names of constellations and Barney made some up. UFO watching, except it's mostly star-gazing, and Barney didn't confront him, hasn't yet, but he also hasn't closed the distance between them either.

Gordon isn't open about his sexuality, but he's had boyfriends and girlfriends both, and one memorable night in which he had been propositioned at a bar by a couple and had ended up the very intimate meat in a sandwich.

When he puts the water glass down and reaches out to rest his hand upon Barney's arm, the guard turns his gaze from the ceiling to Gordon's face - his smile still easy and open.

He's a coward, he doesn't move in, he doesn't press his lips to Barney's smile, doesn't trace the curve with his tongue.

Gonna head to bed, you can camp on the couch if you want.

"Thanks Gord, I think I will." Barney pats him on the leg, makes him take the water to the bedroom with him.

He finishes half of the water while he sways on his feet, undressing and leaving the clothes he strips to the floor. He puts the arm sling on the bedside table and studies the bruising on his mending arm. The bone had been a clean break and a cleaner thing to heal for the mess of chemicals and other things. He didn't pretend to think he understood what it was that Black Mesa was working with that could heal a broken bone. Or where they got the samples they worked with in AnMat. He wasn't paid to think about where anything came from, only to get excited over the prospect of working with it, and he was - is. His college thesis has already been expanded on here, exponentially. There is so much to observe, so much to theorize on and then potentially prove or disprove.

He loves his job, really he does, he knows he is honored to be working here.

But breaking a bone hurts like a bitch. He curls up on his side and clicks off the light, remembers to remove his glasses only after he's already smashed them into his face via the pillow. He thinks about Barney removing his boots and jeans in the other room, about the months they've spent going to that bar or sneaking places they probably shouldn't. Lauren Calhoun hugging him and thanking him for keeping her brother out of trouble. It was her birthday soon, Gordon knew because Barney was at a loss for what to get her. Gordon's suggestion of flowers had been taken well, he only hoped Barney knew what she was and wasn't allergic to.

Gordon is allergic to dandelions, not that they were a flower usually used in bouquets, they were a weed, but still. Not that anyone had ever even gotten him flowers? Not even Kyle, although it wasn't as if they were open about their relationship anyway. When Kyle told him he was getting married but that didn't mean they needed to stop fucking, Gordon had politely ended it with him. Gordon had really wanted to deck Kyle and call him a bastard but well, the ever-present anger simmering under the surface had never exploded yet and Gordon was a patient man, maybe he never would - fated instead to go on in life with a steady undercurrent of seething rage. Was that actually normal? He didn't know to be honest.

He's thinking of what flowers Barney would get him, when he falls asleep.

You look like, a perfect fit, for a girl in need of a tourniquet.

Gordon sways along to Aimee Mann in the shower, eyes shut and head tilted up to the shower's spray, washing his hair with one hand.

But can you save me, come on and save me.

Gordon prefers vinyl but the bathroom isn't the place for his record player, so he listens to the CD he mail-ordered. He hasn't actually seen Magnolia, but he's listened to the soundtrack on repeat more than once while working. It fits his hangover just fine today.

If you could save me, from the ranks of the freaks, who suspect they could never love anyone.

He hangs his head down for the rinse, mouths out the words as the hot-hot water slides soap over his shoulders. There is a bang on the door and Barney's informal, "I'm comin' in."

Over Aimee Mann's voice crooning out Gordon's emotional state of being a perpetual bachelor in need of affection and human connection is the sound of Barney getting ready for work, swishing Gordon's mouth-wash, cleaning his face, flushing the toilet. "If you stay in there much longer you're gonna be late again, Gord." Barney warns him.

Gordon flips him off by sticking his hand out of the curtain and Barney laughs before letting himself out.

Except the freaks who could never love anyone.

When Gordon goes to run out the door, shoving his arm back into the sling and gathering the read-outs he'd dropped off before heading out to the bar he notices the cup of coffee Barney had made for him, waiting right there next to the door.

It is painfully domestic and Gordon sips his coffee as the tram carries him toward AnMat, perfectly sweetened and mellowed out with a heavy scoop of non-dairy creamer. Creamer of which Barney liked to tell him could cause cancer, even while putting it in his coffee for him, but if Gordon is going to get cancer from anything it will likely be a computer monitor. Also, Barney drinks his coffee plain and black which clearly means he has no soul or taste buds.

The guard who lets him out at the tram is named Harold, which Gordon knows because he's beat him at beer pong in the Security dorms above ground an undetermined amount of times. "Did Barney hook up in town or was he slumming it down with you guys?"

Gordon grins at him which is answer enough, he raises his cup of coffee to the man when he keys in the code for him and does the retinal scan. Some days more of the security staff will talk to him than the science staff and he knows he owes that to Barney, who had somehow decided he belonged at their weekly gatherings. He wonders sometimes what they think of him, if he's the weird mute nerd, or if he's actually been accepted as it seems he has.

The guard on the front desk gives him his messages, Dr. Vance wants to check in with him on the training yesterday and his request to use the supercomputer to run computations has gone through. When he throws the empty paper cup over his shoulder and effortlessly lands it in the waste bin on his way out it is to a short shout of excitement from the guard and the combined looks of annoyance and confusion from the loitering scientists and techs. This is probably why he 1. wins at beer pong all the time and 2. has more contact with the security team than his own.

He scarfs down a cold poptart in the break room and buys a bottle of overpriced water from the machine because he's starting to actually consider Barney's theory about the onsite water treatment facility putting mind-altering drugs into the tap water. The aging microwave hasn't given up yet but whenever he microwaves his poptarts someone looks at him weird and points out the perfectly working toaster.

He's just setting up at his desk to bring up the schedule for the supercomputer when Dr. Vance enters and shuts the door behind him, not actually the usual protocol for a meeting, Gordon instantly worries he's messed something up and the older man is going to gently berate him outside of earshot of the rest of AnMat. He wasn't THAT late!

What did I do?

Dr. Vance's kind face immediately takes on a rather guilty appearance, "No, no Gor- Doctor Freeman, you're fine. I just heard what happened during your training simulation yesterday and wanted to check on you." Gordon is aware that Eli Vance is a father, he's never met his child but he has been the recipient of a few nearly fatherly interactions with the man. Relief pours over him as he realizes he is just being worried after and hasn't messed up an equation or something serious.

I'm fine.

"You know, if it gets too much, you can always pause your training." Dr. Vance says it gently like it's not the most terrifying thing Gordon has ever considered. Months, they'd lose months of time, would have to train someone else and no one is even near Gordon's placement. He has been training with the HEV suit and anomalous environments for months now, he's the youngest scientist in AnMat. He had literally been physically training for half a year already, numb with horror he shakes his head and something in his expression must be less blank than he'd like it to be, because Dr. Vance gives a soft sigh, "The tests will wait, Gordon, you have to think about yourself too."

I'm fine. He signs it harder this time.

"You don't have to burn yourself out, you're young yet."

Gordon wants to tell him he's not that much younger than him, that just because he's married and has a kid and has seniority in AnMat, just because Gordon is a shut in who wont kiss his best friend, doesn't mean Gordon needs someone to tell him he doesn't have to break his body to pieces to prove a point. Because he knows that's what this is, it's the time the professor he was TA to had to take him aside in his office, hand warm and comforting on Gordon's shoulder and told him he wasn't going to green-light Gordon's request to double up his classes. He could have graduated two years earlier, damn it!

Thank you Dr. Vance, your concern is very kind. But I really am fine.

Smile, smile through the rage boiling under the surface. Dr. Vance gives up with a kind smile and a shrug of the shoulders.

The rage stays, all through his early morning meetings, the equations he runs on the supercomputer, lunch taken in silence, and the remaining hours spent running computations on the newest materials borrowed from Lambda. The frustration mounts when Dr. Keller, who doesn't know ASL, comes to 'discuss' his work on the last batch of materials and 'really this one equation just seems off' and he has to use the white-board to argue with the man, not argue, discuss their disagreement passively and with an objective toward polite reconciliation and a working resolution. Dr. Keller cuts Gordon off a few times, hard to do when Gordon is mute, and yet.

He excuses himself when it proves that Dr. Keller is too fucking stupid to admit he's wrong, doing so with a polite smile and and an apologetic wave. Takes his lab results and himself and shuts everything out in his office.

Barney must have gone everywhere looking for him, when he finds Gordon in the security dorm's gym, running his rage out on the treadmill he looks a little out of breath.

"Want to hit the shooting range with me?" Barney asks, as if he knows, as if just by looking at Gordon's carefully passive face, tense shoulders, and discarded arm sling, what a shit awful day he's had.

He dumps the arm sling in the trash on the way out, his arm aches down to the very bone and they told him to rest it for a week but the break is mended and the bruises are hidden by the long sleeve of his sweater so whose to say he was even hurt at all? He catches Barney looking at his arm a few times but the guard, his friend, says nothing about it all through the shooting range.

It was a rarity, that they do this. Gordon had asked Barney to teach him when he'd followed him in a few too many times during a conversation and had to wait. Something more to do with his hands, and the familiar motions center him as he checks the chamber and loads the beretta m9. Barney leans carefully in the opening of the booth behind him as Gordon unloads five of the fifteen rounds perfectly into the center of the moving target. The security staff who had seen him shoot had told him his mantra of 'it's just physics' was bullshit but that's really all it was. Computational math of trajectory and environmental input. There wasn't anything like windspeed in the firing range, but the few times he'd gone with Barney to the open-air range in town had been similarly (un)spectacular for Gordon.

His body feels loose after the guns are checked back in and the sweat has dried on his skin. Barney trails alongside him through the quiet tunnels of Black Mesa, toward the Science housing. "I'm sure glad we're friends so when you inevitably go postal I might survive." Barney is grinning at him, and Gordon smirk softly back at him.

He doesn't have to ask Barney inside, the guard follows him in too, and before Gordon can offer him a drink, Barney shocks him.

Gordon is tactile, he touches people, mostly unconsciously. Grounds himself in physicality and has always been a kinetic learner, retaining information by doing. In contrast Barney largely keeps his hands to himself. Over the months he's opened up with Gordon, yeah, but when he gently takes Gordon's arm in his strong sure hands, it is completely unexpected. Barney pushed his sleeve up, all the way to his elbow and Gordon stares down in numb shock. The bruising is ugly and mottled on his pale freckled skin, contrasted with the tan of Barney's hands it looks even worse.

"Gord, you gotta take care of yourself." When Barney says this it does not cause the same stream of anger to flow down his throat. It is a thrill of cool ice-water down his spine, a tingle along his nerve endings, makes his stomach clench up and get all fluttery at once. "Lets get some ice on this for twenty minutes and then put a heating pack on it, this has to be hurting you."

It does hurt, but with Barney's gentle hands holding his arm, he can barely feel it. They should bottle this up, Barney's warm concern, because it does more for Gordon than 10 mgms of morphine does, fuck.

Barney sets him down on the couch and puts a bag of frozen green beans on his arm. They watch a bootleg tape of MST3K Gordon swapped on the underground tape-trading circuit while Barney carefully times out alternating heating pad and frozen vegetable usage. Eventually Gordon starts to fall asleep to the sound of Tom Servo crooning out 'Creepy Girl' only rousing when he feels Barney's hand gently brush his hair back.

It feels so good that he closes his eyes and leans into it, so Barney does it again, gently carding his fingers through Gordon's hair. If he wasn't so bone-deep exhausted he might even be freaking out about this right now, but Barney is touching him and doesn't seem like it's something weird.

He blinks over at his friend in the light provided by the tv screen and the kitchenette's overhead. Warm smile, soft eyes, dark hair and five-o-clock shadow. Barney ruffles up his hair and finally removes his hand, "You need to eat something."

Probably.

But all he wants to do is sleep. So he doses off while Barney does something in his kitchen. He listens to it, pots and knife to chopping board. He doesn't even remember what he has in the half-fridge but Barney must have found whatever something is. When he presents Gordon with a bowl of ramen that has been beefed up with a soft boiled egg and vegetables he isn't too surprised.

Thanks.

He laughs silently and Barney settles down to eat his own bowl, they watch the end of the tape and Gordon turns off the white-noise static of the TV.

"So, whatcha doin' this weekend?" Barney asks him.

Nothing yet, what do you have in mind?

Barney grins at him softly and Gordon turns his attention to the noodles floating in cheap broth, because if he keeps looking at Barney right now, he might do something really stupid. Might do something like close the distance and kiss him or ask Barney to please touch his hair again because he thinks he could get addicted to that feeling if he isn't already, he is though. Barney is terribly easy to get addicted to.

#freehoun #half life but it's gay now #barney/gordon

37 notes · View notes

celosiaa · 5 years ago

Text

steady, love (chapter 8 - end)

Summary:

Martin is not doing well.

Jon is there with him through every step.

(because I became obsessed ™ with the idea of Martin dealing with the physical and emotional aftermath of leaving the Lonely)

Complete work is up on ao3 under the same username!

(The EYE speaks in glitched text. Jon’s thoughts are italicized.)

WARNINGS: illness, mild body horror

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

“Ooh, sorry—”

“It’s alright, hang on—”

Martin leans away from Jon, panting and resting heavily against the side of the cottage while Jon unlocks the door. Dusk has begun to fall, casting their stoop in shadow, and Jon squints at his ring of keys to find the right one.

Should really just get rid of them. They’re not of much use, anymore.

Upon seeing his continual improvement over the afternoon, the doctor had decided to send Martin home with a course of antibiotics, fever reducers, and an inhaler, provided he check in with the clinic if anything were to go wrong. While Jon is thankful not to have to make the journey to Aberdeen, he can feel frustration bubbling up in him nonetheless.

I just need some sleep.

His hands shake.

And the statements.

At last, he finds Daisy’s key and swings the door wide, draping Martin’s arm over his shoulders once again before they stumble inside. Martin’s breathing has become rapid, shallow, and crackling, his face visibly pale even in the dark of the unlit room. When Jon deposits him on the sofa, he immediately leans forward, bracing his upper body over his knees.

“Do you need the inhaler?”

Martin pauses for a moment, considering, before shaking his head.

“Wait it out,” he chokes between gasps.

“Alright.”

Walking around the coffee table, Jon sits beside him, listening intently as his breaths gradually slow, deepen, and come to rest in a more comfortable pattern.

Jon’s head is pounding. Reflexively, he reaches a hand up to massage his right temple, and Martin regards him carefully, with eyes no longer fever-glassed.

“Jon, you…you look awful.”

Jon’s instinct is to bristle, to snap, to push Martin away. It is only with monumental effort that he shoves it down.

He chooses honesty instead.

“I know,” he replies lowly.

Martin angles his body toward him in concern.

“What’s going on?” he asks, voice ticking upward.

“Look, we—we don’t need to talk about this right now, just don’t worry—”

“Jon. Talk to me.”

Martin’s voice leaves no room for argument. With a burdened sigh, Jon replies.

“Basira sent me some statements and they’ll be here in the morning. So I’ll be alright.”

“You’re hungry?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“That is not the same thing.”

At this, Jon looks away, exhaling sharply in frustration.

Calm down, just leave it be, he’s only trying to help.

“You should have told me,” Martin continues, tone drifting into scolding.

The anger hits Jon like a tidal wave, and he turns back, snarling.

“If you haven’t noticed, Martin, we’ve been a bit busy of late.”

Martin’s eyes blow wide in shock.

“That’s not— right. Okay, then,” he replies, short and terse.

Grunting a noise of frustration, Jon stands abruptly, striding toward the kitchen. He stares out the window, fuming, clawing desperately at his anger in attempt to tear it down.

His head throbs.

Behind him, Martin takes a shaky inhale, before erupting into a deep coughing fit, forceful and exhausting. Even with his building worry, Jon cannot bring himself to turn around.

Martin collapses back against the sofa before speaking between pants.

“Look—why don’t you just—”

Suddenly breathless, he breaks off, lungs gurgling audibly. At this, Jon’s head whips around, brows furrowing when he sees Martin pitch forward again, gagging, a hand rubbing into his chest.

“Jon, I—I think I—I need—"

Jon tenses, ready to move. “You need the inhaler?”

“S-Sorry.”

Jon growls as he crosses the room to grab it, hands balling in anger that he knows is both irrational and misplaced.

“Just—stop apologizing.”

“S—okay.”

His soft reply sends a lightning bolt of guilt through Jon.

What is wrong with you?

Christ’s sake.

Collecting the inhaler from his bag, he shakes it well before handing it to Martin. Jon watches as he pushes out all the air he can from overflowing lungs, before pressing down on the inhaler and drawing a long breath. As he exhales unsteadily, the heavy crackling morphs into coughing once more, and Martin presses a tissue quickly over his face, finally able to get something out after a massive effort.

He remains hunched over, regaining his breath, shoulders trembling in exhaustion. Jon is rooted to the spot, senseless irritation preventing him even from reaching out a hand of comfort.

At last, Martin looks up, giving Jon a quick nod before leaning back and dropping his gaze anxiously.

Lͧoͧ̄o͖͒k̭͎̎ ̈́͗͋̇w̗̑͑ͣh̻̪̩̞a͍̓ͯ͒̚t̤̗͐ͩ̃ ̥ͣͬͬ̑y̙̌̈ͦ͆o̙̞̔ͥ̈́u͓̮̜̾̆'̟͓̃̆v͍̓̓̚ȅ̦ͭ ͚ͣ̋d̃ͅőn̉e, the Eye says with glee.

D̅oͭ̍ ̌̔ͩỵ̫̅ó̂̿͌u̳͓̓ͭ ͇͍̮ͤ̈ŵ̜̫͋͋a̰̩̩͖̩̘nͦ̀̉̉͆ͤẗ̩̬̣ͪ̅̑ ̲͕̖͎̒ͦ̂t̪̦ͧ̄ͫ̌ͣo̗̻͇̍ͭ̎̎̓ ͕̮͓͎̤̋͛̑s͚̱̫̘̲͗̌̈́e̳͇̙ͣ̾ͭ̆͑e̻̫ͫ̏͌̈̾̚ ͇͚͉̍̅͒͌̑w̬̼̓̅ͧ̅ͦ̂h͈̜̻̲̿̈́̑a͕̯̘ͯ̔ͧ̎t̩͓̲ͨ̑̇ͤ ͉ͩ͐͂̊́̃h̠̙̄ͦ̐̎a̗̝̔ͧ̉ͫp̟̥̿ͬͧp̯̩͉ͯ̔e̖̒̓̚nͥͯ͒s̯̙͋ ͐̌nͅeͅxt?

D̚õ͎ ̮̖͊y̥̠ͭȯ́̾͋u̩̙̭̚ ̹̙̰̒̓w̟̼͛͗ͥ̚a̘̻̣̖ͯ̈́n̖̦͑ͬ͒ͨ́t̠̋̐̓ͦ̆ͦ ̟͈͍̝̼̬ͨ͂t͈͕̘͙̲̋͌̂ȯ̲͕̮͙̤̓̚ ̙̥͔̫̺ͥͭͅͅḴ̻͙͉̟ͫ̿̽ͅN̩̬̦̍̇́͋͛͋O̝̪͈̬͎̹̠ͫ̓W͚̩̝͙̊ͦͩ̂̄ ̤͓̒͐̋̉̆ͣ͂w͙̫͕̩ͯ̄̌̐͗h̪̘̞̘̾̐̂͒͂a͓̺ͥ͐̔̇̇̐ͥt̼͖͉ͥ͂̓̈́̚ͅ ̱͇̦̀̿̆ͫ̃̏ỷ̥͙̩̽̑̏̀ͣo̜̗͔̩̲͚̎͋͐u͈͙̠͉͙ͦ̈̈́'͍̺̮̌͐ͪ̀̃r͚̹͔͉̘͒ͮĕ͓̬̟̻̑̊ ̣͈̽͐̑̿̓d̲̖͉̓͗ͬȏ̤̤͔̎ͭi̱̠̦͑̅ṅ̫͋͑g͚̻͐ͩ ̖̣ͣt͋̐o͖ͫ ̾him?

GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT

Jon fights back as much as he is able, forcing his body to sit on the edge of the coffee table, at a right angle to Martin.

I need to apologize.

I͚ ͇̑c͙͋a̪̚n͕̊'͊tͩ.

Devastated, Jon buries his head in his hands.

“Look, why don’t you go for a walk or something. Get some air.”

Jon turns, looking at him incredulously, but remains silent.

“It’ll do you some good. I know how…upset the hunger makes you, and you’re clearly exhausted, so…just go, give yourself some space.”

Martin’s words are kind, but his tone has tensed. Furious at himself, Jon tries desperately to will away his pulsing anger.

He’s too good for me.

“You’ll be alright here for a bit?” he asks, as gently as he can muster.

“Yes, Jon. Go. It’ll do you good,” Martin replies, voice kept intentionally flat.

Jon knows he’s right, Knows he’ll be calmer afterwards—and makes a decision. He needs to communicate his remorse to Martin somehow, no matter how much the Eye protests it. Leaning over, every instinct screaming at him to stop, he plants a kiss on top of Martin’s head.

“I love you,” he murmurs, voice muffled by curls.

Jon strides quickly across the room and out the door.

Shivering, Jon pulls his hands inside his jacket sleeves and tips his head down to brace against the cruel wind. Night has truly fallen, and he has been walking for the better part of an hour beneath the glow of resplendent constellations. A sense of awe envelopes him. In a meditation of sorts, he’s been naming each one as he finds them, choosing to focus on the magnificence of this part of creation that even the Beholding cannot fully understand.

Now, however, he is just cold. Cold, calm, and filled with regret.

Martin was right. As always.

Reaching the front door, his numbed fingers fumble with the frosted metal for a moment before he manages to open it. Heat washes over his face as soon as he enters, the tips of his ears and nose burning as they regain feeling. Even with the warmth, the house is entirely shrouded in darkness. Jon flips on the light over the entryway, revealing Martin where he lies on the couch, having propped himself up on a mountain of pillows. Soft snores echo around the cottage.

He’s too good for me.

With a sigh, Jon leaves his coat and boots in the entryway and walks as quietly as possible to the refrigerator, taking out the leftover soup to reheat it. It’s not enough, not nearly enough to cover over the hurt he’s inflicted, and he knows it.

But it might be a start.

Within a few minutes, the simmering soup fills the cottage with fragrance, wafting into every dust-laden corner. Jon turns when he hears Martin stirring behind him, groaning as he sits up. Immediately, he reaches out a shaky arm for a tissue, dissolving into yet another fit of churning coughs that Jon knows will bring him no relief.

A hot knife of guilt stabs through him.

YͬOͩ͋Ṳͭ ̙͇̮M̬̮̹ͅẠ̞̥̾D̺̩͛̅ͬE͍̱̔̌͆ ̣̝̃͊̅̋I͈͕͙ͤ̏ͬȚ͕̟ͪ̋ͮͣ ͚̩͕̝͑̈̚W̺͒ͬ̒̂̉̆̋O͙̣̘̽̈́̑̀̚R̺̖̻͙ͩ̾̇̾͛S͈̻̗̲͇ͭ͋̈́ͦE̖̞̫ͮ̅͛̓̔͂ ̝̝̬͈̞͔͒̎̇͛Ỹ͕͈̱̘͓̥͓̏ͨÔ̮̑ͯ́ͪ̋̾͛̈U͈̟̰̼̪ͪ̓̇̽̂ͥ ͎̳̖̠́̿̒̑̒̉ͬM͍̹͔͍̦̎̍̈͂ͨ̚Ạ̣̖̋ͯͧͭ̒ͤ͋ͧD͖͇̳̼̳̈́̽ͪ̿̈̊E̻̠͖ͫ͒̋͐͋̇͛̚ ͎̬̭͋̇̑͂̐̐͑̓I͈͉͔̒̽̈́ͭ̈ͩͣ̊Ṱ͈͆̆ͥ̐̀̾̽̉ͅ ̤͍̣͉̦͍͂̑̑̎̈W̳̫̰͑͆ͪ͆̔ͣͯ̂O̬̘͇̺ͤ͂̊͐̾͊ͅR̙̰̒ͮ͂͗͒ͫ̎ͪS̪̰̻̻͍ͥ͊ͩ̚ͅḚ̱̤͌̔̐͌͒ͪ̀ ̮ͧͦ̽̃̽͂͂̊Y̱̻̌̔͋͌̌̌̚Ő̮̥͈̭͙̲͊̎U͕͚̩͕ͫ̒̐̾ ̭̟̜͆̓̽̈́ͅM͕̯̓̍̊̈̈A̮ͯͭͩ̓̅̚D͚̗̞̩̙̏E͓͈̿͊̂ͯ ̟̮̤̝̼I̱͈ͬ́̾T̺̳ͧͫ ̫̩ͯ̓Wͧ̎ͩŎ̊R͖̜S͋Ẹ

Jon gives himself a moment, taking a few measured breaths with eyes closed.

STOP. Breathe. Focus.

As the fit comes to an unproductive end, Jon steels himself, and brings Martin a glass of water along with his prescribed fever-reducers. He stares in silence for a moment as Martin looks up, regarding him warily.

“Are you…are you alright?” Jon asks hesitantly.

Martin’s eyes soften a bit at this, though the look of suspicion has not entirely left him. Nodding, he reaches out to take Jon’s offerings and mouths a “thank you.” Jon shifts his weight uncomfortably as he watches Martin’s movements, still a bit unsteady as he swallows the pills and downs the glass of water.

“Would you like some soup? I’ve reheated it, I-I can bring it to you.”

Martin clears his throat painfully before replying, voice wrecked, and the beginnings of a smile on his face.

“That sounds lovely, dear. Thank you.”

Dear dear dear dear

Heart skipping a beat, he practically bounds back into the kitchen to fetch a bowl for both of them, spilling just a bit on his shirt in the process. He hurriedly places Martin’s bowl in front of him on the coffee table before nervously taking a seat on the opposite end of the sofa, desperately hoping it’s the right decision.

Martin huffs out a laugh, turning to face Jon with an amused grin.

“I suppose you ought to call this ‘Apology Soup.’”

Jon’s eyebrows shoot up into his hair, and Martin continues his half-hearted, uncomfortable laughter.

“M-Martin, I—”

Martin stammers over him in a rush, anxiety dripping from every word.

“Look, we all have our moments, Jon, a-and I know you’ve got a lot to shoulder right now. You’re hungry, for god’s sake. And exhausted, because of me, a-and—”

Jon shakes his head violently at this, interrupting him immediately.

“No! No, Martin, it’s not…it’s not because of you, ever, I swear.”

Martin meets his gaze tentatively, eyes starting to brim—from illness or emotion, Jon could never be sure.

“I mean, it’s true in part—I am hungry, and the Eye is not pleased with me, but…none of that is yours to bear. None of it. Looking after you while you’re ill is…well, it doesn’t come naturally to me, but…I want to do it. I want to show you that I care for you, always. But the Eye—”

“—the Eye wants to cause you pain,” Martin finishes, balling up a fist. “And it’s using me to do it.”

“…perhaps.”

Martin nods, thinking for a moment while running a hand through his hair. With a sigh, he continues.

“Look, it—it wasn’t…nice, and I’d prefer it hadn’t happened, but…I forgive you. Because I know you’re sorry—”

He gestures at the soup.

“—and I know it’s not entirely your fault anyway. It’s the Eye, and it’s hungry, and…I understand how draining it can be to suddenly become a caretaker. You can’t deny that, not…not with me,” he says, eyes filled with intense sincerity.

Jon shakes his head incredulously, turning bodily to face him.

You’re too good for me you’re too good you’re too good

“Martin, I…I had no right to take it out on you. There is no excuse, not even the hunger, not even the Eye. I…I love you, and I’m so sorry.”

Jon’s voice breaks for just a moment, and he blinks away the sudden moisture pooling in the corners of his vision. Martin reaches out a hand, placing it on Jon’s knee and gazing deeply into his eyes.

“I love you too, Jon. You’re forgiven,” he says, before giving Jon’s knee a small shake.

This, at last, pulls a smile onto Jon’s face, and he allows himself to relax into the sofa as they eat in silence.

The next day finds Martin utterly spent, and Jon battling a pounding headache he had been sure would fade with sleep. It takes him all morning to work up the energy, but Martin eventually manages to drag himself from the bed, leaning heavily on Jon as they trudge down the stairs. Neither can manage to do anything but sit in silence, Jon curling up in the armchair while Martin stretches out on the couch.

Jon’s getting desperate now, his entire body shaking. All he can think about is the terrible, gnawing hunger, constantly clawing at his insides for control. His thoughts are cyclical and uniform:

They’re coming they’re coming they’re coming

Just hold on just hold on just hold on

They’re coming they’re coming they’re coming

At last—

A knock at the door.

Static immediately fills Jon’s head, and when he looks down, he’s standing at the door with thick envelope in his hands. With horror, he feels a sickeningly wide grin plastered across his face, saliva spilling between his teeth, eyes opening on all corners of his face.

“Jon?” Martin calls from the sofa, sounding slightly alarmed.

D͓ọ̹n̬̺'̦̦͗t̲͆̚ ͉͛̓ͭt̺̀̅ͩũ̾͂̄r̪̈͒͆ň̀ͥ̄ ̖̘̍ͦa̘͍̗r̘̬̍ő̰ṳ͗n̖d͆

Hͮe̻͑'̬̔l̻͂ͩl̘̙ͨͮ ͊̈́ͬ͂b̯̓̾͌ͫë̮͕̖͖ ͙͓̺͇ͥ͂f͕̐́̀͌͒r͓͙͚̳̈͗i̪̮̦ͬ̀̄̉g̪̗̲ͣ̍͛̈́h̯͈̣ͥ͂̈̔t̰̥ͬ̉̃ͬ̊è͍͍ͬ̉̍̀n͔̣̤̭̽ͭͅe̼͙̎̐ͪ͂ͅd̳̲̞̟̈́̔̉ ̦̝̭ͣ͒̀͒ĭ͕̮̿̒̚ͅḟ͎̰̱͙͂̍ ̗̣̆͌̈́̉h̟͒̄ͧ̃̂e̠͊̐̓̓ͅ ̟̫̰ͧ̊s͈̐̒̽͒e̤̥̣ͦe̩̍͐̐s͓̖͐ ̘ͪy̥͈o͇û

Jon shoves the corners of his mouth down, wiping it with his sleeve.

Monster.

“I’ll just go upstairs and do this, Martin. Don’t…don’t look at me, alright? I’m going to turn around now,” he replies, voice shaking with effort.

He does. Martin has refused to look away.

Eyes growing wide beneath his glasses, his mouth falls open in surprise.

But not fear.

“Well, that is…certainly unexpected,” he says, initial shock melting into a warm smile.

Jon cannot reply, mouth hanging open in astonishment for a moment before he snaps it shut.

“What? It’s hardly the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he continues as he roots around on the couch beside him for a moment, then waves his headphones in the air. “Come sit down.”

Jon can’t help but bark out a laugh.

Unbelievable.

Martin swings his legs over the side of the sofa, straining to pull himself upward to sitting with significant difficulty. At this, Jon’s trance seems to break, and he crosses the room quickly, pushing Martin’s shoulders gently back against the pillows.

“No no, don’t—just lie back, darling.”

He then sits at the opposite end of the sofa, pulling Martin’s legs to rest over his lap.

With a giddy grin, Martin slips on his headphones and pulls his blanket closer.

At long last, the Archivist drinks his fill.

Oh, damn it all.

Should have known.

Tucked away in the bathroom for the moment, Jon rubs at his steadily dripping nose, willing it to stop being useless. All day, he’s been downing glass after glass of water, trying to ease the persistent tickle that’s made its home in the back of his throat. He’s quite sure he’s got a fever now, if the sheen on his forehead is anything to go by.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Martin has made significant improvements over the past few days, using the inhaler less and less as time passes. His coughing is still painful and deep and awful, and he’s not able to move around much without becoming winded, but his fever is just barely perceptible now.

Jon, on the other hand, is finding it increasingly hard to focus.

Later that day, Jon stands in the kitchen, washing the dishes from their lunch. His vision swims dizzyingly as the tickling at the back of his nose and throat pulls tears to his eyes, and he constantly sniffs at the building fullness of his sinuses. When Martin begins coughing loudly from the living room, Jon can’t help but feel overwhelmed with relief. He hastens to grab a paper towel, blowing into it hastily, hoping the sound will be drowned out.

His hopes are proven to be in vain, however, when this involuntarily pulls a dry, hacking cough from him—one that he cannot stop in time with Martin’s.

Shit.

He can feel Martin’s eyes boring into him even before he turns around.

“Oh no. Did I get you ill, love?” he asks, guilt lacing up every word.

“No no no, it’s just allergies,” Jon stammers, washing his hands.

“You’ve never had allergies before.”

Jon turns back around in surprise. “How would you know?”

“I’m really quite observant, dear. And we have worked together for a number of years.”

At this, Jon sighs wetly, tipping his head back in exasperation. The movement causes something to shift, and he scrambles to tear off a paper towel in response, pressing it to his face—

Several forceful sneezes tear their way out, leaving pulsing, painful sinuses in their wake.

“Bless you, love. That sounds awful.”

Jon sighs miserably.

Nothing for it now.

With reluctance, he slinks back into the living room, flopping down on the couch morosely. Martin pushes the box of tissues toward him wordlessly, and Jon mutters his thanks before trying to clear his head.

When all is said and done, he leans back against the sofa, sighing.

“Jon, I am so sorry,” Martin says, anxiety touching every word.

Jon can’t help but laugh.

“Martin, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I am, though.”

“You’re what? Sorry or ridiculous?”

“Well…both, I suppose.”

Jon grins widely at this, and Martin can’t help but mirror him. After a moment, Jon scoots closer, laying his head to rest on Martin’s broad shoulder. Planting a kiss on his burning forehead, Martin gently stretches his own blanket them both.

“Stop it, Martin, sit back down!”

Jon’s voice is in tatters, but he puts as much force behind these words as he can muster, pulling at Martin’s arm from where he’s curled up on the sofa.

“You stop it, Jon. You’re ill,” Martin says matter-of-factly, before pressing a hand against Jon’s forehead, frowning at the heat he finds there, then walking determinedly toward the kitchen.

Jon throws his arms wide, sputtering in disbelief.

“You’re ill, for Christ’s sake!”

Martin huffs as he flicks on the kettle, turning around with one hand on his hip.

“Sure. My fever’s gone, though. Can’t say the same for you.”

Jon groans in exasperation, sniffing heavily before resting his head in his hands. Rubbing at his painful sinuses, he begs silently for something to loosen, before moving on to his throbbing temples.

He hears Martin puttering in the kitchen, shaking pills out of a bottle. Turning to look, he watches as Martin fills a glass of water, picks up the fever reducers, and—stops dead in his tracks.

He sways before slumping heavily into a kitchen chair, breathing hard and rapid.

“Martin!”

Jon is on his feet in a split-second, and goes immediately for his inhaler, shaking it as he half-jogs over to him. Martin takes it gratefully, hands trembling, and Jon sinks down into the chair adjacent to him.

Face ashen, he draws the medicine into his lungs, before beginning yet another painful, congested fit that leaves him exhausted and gasping for air. Jon shakes his head frustratedly as he watches.

Stubborn fool.

After a few minutes of regaining his breath, Martin looks up at Jon sheepishly, leaning his head onto one fist.

“We’re a right mess, aren’t we?” he smirks, eyes streaming.

Jon can’t help but chuckle in spite of himself as he stands to finish making their tea.

Two weeks later finds them strolling through the Highland countryside.

Martin still tires easily, and Jon makes sure not to push them too hard, enforcing a slow pace with many rests. Although his Jon’s illness has been entirely gone for several days now, Martin’s got them both bundled up, insisting that Jon wear a hat with an obscene orange pompom and a matching scarf. For his part, Jon knows better than to argue when Martin’s fussing.

They’ve been walking without rest for nearly twenty minutes now, the longest Martin has gone to date. Autumn wind whips up the fallen leaves along the path, swirling around them in a vortex of orange and yellow and red, drawing delighted laughter from Martin. Jon can’t help but beam at him.

God, I love him.

Looking at him now, his soft smile has become near permanent, freckled cheeks rounded and rosy beneath his glasses. Jon has recently trimmed his hair, cropping the sides close and leaving long curls on top, which now blow in the crisp breeze. Dark roots are beginning the process of replacing the faded white, and the fresh stubble of his beard is following suit.

Though he knows he’s staring, Jon cannot bear to pull his eyes away.

He is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.

Martin has walked ahead of him now, unaware that Jon has not followed until he’s reached the bottom of the small incline. Looking around for him, the face that greets Martin is lopsided, grinning, adoring, scarred, and—

Jon.

“What is it?” Martin calls out, giggling.

Jon blinks for a moment, stock still, before joining Martin at the bottom of the hill. Slipping a hand into Martin’s gloved one, he lifts himself to his tiptoes, brushing their wind-chapped lips together.

“Nothing at all, darling,” he murmurs against him before lacing his arms around Martin’s neck, deepening the kiss when he lets out a noise of pleasant surprise. His hands snake around Jon’s waist, drawing him closer, sending lightning through Jon’s entire being. Arms still firmly hanging around him, Jon pulls away for a moment to look at him, greeted with the warm hazel of Martin’s eyes.

“Just that…I think you’re it, for me.”

Martin flushes scarlet at this, grin widening before he whips Jon around swiftly, pulling him into a dip, causing Jon to clutch at him in surprise. Strong arms suspend him above the ground effortlessly.

“Woah, M-Martin!”

They lock eyes, the sun above illuminating Martin’s head like a halo.

It takes Jon’s breath away.

“I think you’re it for me too.”

The world around them, everything that grows darker with each day, fades away in the warmth of their embrace. They are certain of only one thing—

Whatever comes, they will weather the storm as one.

#tma #tma fic #tma sickfic #jonmartin #tw illness #tw body horror #thank you so much for reading!!!#i had the best time writing this fic #and i will miss it #more to come :)#my writing

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tsukkinami · 5 years ago

Text

clever-tongued

fandom: The Last Kingdom (TV)

pairing: aethelflaed / aldhelm

rating: Explicit

chapters: 1/1

read on ao3 here

The evening started innocently enough—the quiet of her bedroom, a mahogany lounge lined in sheepskin, wine poured halfway to the top before rippling with the echo of colliding goblets. Aldhelm seemed weary, distracted, and Aethelflaed found she could not blame him. Who could? The burden of knowledge is a heavy one, encumbering when padded with secrets, and the man had been yoked by loyalty to Mercia through her husband for a long while. But Aldhelm is good at his job. He had always been tight-lipped and clever-tongued.

The candlelight flickers once, twice. Aethelflaed first begins to feel the hum of her alcohol running just beneath her skin, and it’s not too much. She laughs at something, spoken hushed between them, and it’s a bubble rising in her chest that bursts. Aldhelm smiles, tries to hide it by focusing his gaze to the floor between his planted feet, but Aethelflaed leans into him to pull him close, to draw him into the warmth of her small delight. She says something back, a quick retort, and his laugh mirrors hers.

And then the laughter fades into silence, into curious flicks of the eye to noses, lips, planes of cheeks. Aethelflaed never realized that gold was spun into Aldhelm’s dark hair, that his eyes held storms and his brow arched to the right, like hers.

I want you to kiss me. She had not meant to say it outloud.

There’s a strangeness in the moment, like being plucked from time itself. Aldhelm is still, lips parted to reply, to act, to promise. No thought demands the action of Aethelflaed moving her hand to rest upon his, but she does so regardless, pink fingertips brushing against the hem of his blue linen sleeve and curling. It is an anchor, a touchstone, and it draws Aldhelm’s eyes away from hers for a moment, to assure himself that the words she had spoken were true.

“Lady, I cannot.”

It’s a push and pull, a calculated move which Aethelflaed can see him forming a plan around in his mind. He always thought two steps ahead, strategic and cautious. Oft she’d find herself thinking in stride, but tonight her patience was not held for games.

“Why?”

Her voice is as quiet as the flutter of her eyelashes, when her gaze falls from him to the small space between them, growing smaller with the passing seconds. She watches his eyes do the same, watches his mind struggle to keep up with the moments ticking by.

“I fear what a kiss becomes.” His hand twitches, turns over in her palm, to hold it, to run his thumb over the peaks and valleys of her knuckles. “I fear I am not worthy.”

His hand is soft on hers, his presence warm and comforting. He’d saved her life, time and time again, even when it seemed not in danger. The tears she had cried into his shoulder number too many to count. Aethelflaed has no fear.

“Then let me prove you wrong.”

She grants him no quarter, no time to think, to retreat. Her body moves forward, curving into his embrace, and her mouth finds him, even in the low light, with trained ease. His stubble scratches at the corners of her lips, the underside of her nose. He smells of pine and the wine they shared, and when she breathes in, he is all she knows.

For all his hesitation, Aldhelm does not fight, but responds with her enthusiasm, blended with his own long-suppressed desire. He runs that clever tongue along her bottom lip, lets her guide his hands to her waist as she presses herself against him. The heat at her core rises to simmer against her skin, to set them both alight at every point of contact. He seems not to mind being burned.

The heat grows, amplified by their closeness, and soon Aethelflaed is shrugging out of her dress, a red velvet affair which clings stubbornly to her body. Without a word or a pause, Aldhelm brings his deft hands to her collar and lets his fingers stutter across her pale skin, slipping her arms from the confines of the garment. She snatches one of his palms from her shoulder and draws it to her breast, body lurching as he molds his touch to supple skin. When she moves, upsetting their rhythm, he breaks away from their kiss, sealing his lips now to her pulse point and sucking a dark red brand against it. His lips drag, gentle and purposeful, down the length of her neck and pause to rest inside her clavicle, kissing her freckles in the pattern of a constellation.

Despite the heat, Aethelflaed shivers, eyes shivering closed in kind, and takes a gasping breath between her lips as her fingers trail up his arms to his neck. The binds of Aldhelm’s shirt are loosed with precision, and soon she is spanning her palms across his chest with possessive desperation, nails grazing across his skin in an unspoken promise to him that by night’s end, neither one of them would go unmarked.

He hums into her skin, spurred by her ministrations, and in a motion as quick as thought, he reaches around her waist and draws her up into his lap. The sheepskin is soft against her knees as she braces her hands on his shoulders and captures him between her thighs, locks of her hair falling against his ears when she kisses the top of his head. His arms curl around her back to pull her flush against him, and his mouth worships her heart, her breasts, until she can be silent no longer, her moan echoing about the room as she tilts her head back to let it slide from her throat.

“Is there still fear in your heart?” she whispers into his hair once she cranes her head back down. Aldhelm pauses, peering up at her in the same way a priest peers to the heavens, reverence only faintly undercut by lust, a darkening thunderhead in his eyes. Never before in her life has Aethelflaed so badly wanted to be caught in a storm.

“For you, my Lady—always.”

And with that, he resumes, efforts redoubled; whether it is to draw more noise from her lips or for his own pleasure, Aethelflaed does not know. She does not care. Her hips cant against him when his hands wander to the soft plush of her belly, tracing the marks of childbirth that line her thighs.

“I fear what you do to me,” he whispers as she pulls his shirt over his head, hair mussed when she twines her fingers through it. He plucks at the fabric gathered at her hips before diving beneath, exploring her searing heat. “I fear what I become for you.”

His nose bumps the lobe of her ear as his fingers breach her, eased by her arousal. Air hisses through her teeth as his wrist flexes to move his fingers inside of her, accompanied not by pain but by surprise and feverish anticipation. She moves her hips in time to assure him of his actions, moaning into his neck between uncoordinated kisses.

“I fear what you could do to my heart if you realized just how much of it belongs to you.”

In a flurry, she tears his face from her nape and bruises his lips with hers, gasping against his mouth as his fingers quicken their pace. The flat of his thumb rubs against her clit with pinpoint accuracy, and she cries as fire ignites inside her blood, tightening fast around his fingers and rocking against them as the flames lick her from head to toe. She barely has time to let the air return to her lungs before Aldhelm is lifting her upright, careful to keep her steady.

The rest of her dress falls to her feet, and she steps backwards out of it, glued to him still as he guides her to her bed and lays her gently down. He takes a knee at the foot of it once he tugs his boots from his feet and his breeches from his legs. Aethelflaed is still awash in the glow of pleasure when she feels his hands running up the underside of her thighs, hooking them over his shoulders as he inches her closer to his face.

“My blood runs hot for you, Lady,” she hears him say, and props herself up on her elbows to peer in awe down at him. “If I could—”

“Aldhelm, yes,” she cuts him off, grabbing a fistful of his hair. She knows his intentions already, and the mere thought makes her skin jump. “Please, I cannot—oh!”

The feeling is so different than what she expected it to be. It is hot to hot, slick to slick, an alien sensation which makes her angry—angry—not to have felt before tonight. It seizes her for a long moment, draws all air from her chest and thoughts from her mind as Aldhelm drags his clever tongue between her wet folds, lily soft and trembling with residual waves of shock.

Her neck cranes backward, the crown of her head brushing the pillows beneath as she lets out a long groan, bucking against his mouth and twitching when his facial hair scratches the delicate skin around her core. Aldhelm is relentlessly delicate, mouth moving with practiced form, and if Aethelflaed did not know him better, she would think him an expert at his craft. It is not long before she is all but clay beneath him, shaped to him and pliant to every scorching touch he graces her with, and not much longer after that before she is rutting against his tongue in small, febrile movements, chasing after the fire in her gut with him as a guide.

When he hums his pleasure of the moment, the feeling of her around him, all-consuming, the lady of Mercia loses her head, stars soaring across her vision as she trembles with her second shockwave of release that night. Her back arches out of her control, fingernails scratching against his hair as she pulls him close, and never once does he relent or complain. He has done now twiceover what no one else could ever do.

Aldhelm waits for her to quiet, to still, before planting kisses on her thighs, her hips, her belly, finally to her mouth. Her slick is heady and intoxicating on his tongue, and when it’s mixed with his taste, not the finest wine can compare.

“Do you still believe yourself unworthy?” she murmurs once he pulls away, body slotting neatly between her legs. She feels his arousal rub against her wetness and she brushes up into it, eager, despite the tenderness at her center and the tiredness in her veins, to continue their escapades. He gazes at her with the highest adoration, lips quirking into an easy smile.

“Lady, I have not yet begun to prove myself,” he vows, and Aethelflaed’s nostrils flare as heat does the same down her spine.

“Then you’d best start now.”

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