#the eyes and the way she looks in dark environments suggest walking nightmare more than outer creature

[organised-disaster]

@randosfandos heyyy girlll

Do you reckon if i gave it a top hat and spray painted her yellow it could pass for a billsona

Say hi to Stranger who has been in the works for FAR too long with this temporary(?) design.

Once again, yapping under cut

She's the newest addition to my worldbuilding and it's from the Outer Spaces. Not outer space, the Outer Spaces. Very different places (although some Far Spaces do resemble outer space)

The Outer Spaces are pretty much the backrooms, although there are some key differences. Most things in the Outer Spaces aren't hostile (like Stranger), and the environments are mostly survivable. You can't really get to the Outer Spaces from this universe, although things from the Outer Spaces can leak in through weak points.

That's how Stranger got here. It kind of just showed up one day and didn't leave. She's Jess-Ava's friend and has made a room in her cupboard. It has an odd habit of manipulating the space around her, although this upset Jess-Ava and she stopped doing it in Jess-Ava's room fairly soon after meeting her. It's too tall for most spaces indoors and has a perpetually sore neck as a result.

It doesn't speak, although she probably understands Anglish. It's unclear if she eats, but you can put a sandwich in front of it and leave the room for a while and come back to a guilty-looking Stranger and a missing sandwich.

Maintaining eye contact with her isn't a good idea

Bigger version of the high opacity sunspots lol

[sylverstorms]

Miss Fortune x Reader ----Salt-Crusted Heart

For an easier read, head to Ao3.

Another day. Another hunt for a fetter.

Feels like this is your life now, your present and your future. It feels like this war against the ever-spreading mist and Viego will never end. Your days as a trainee Sentinel, where the tough schedule of the Academy was your only problem, seem so far away now it’s like they belong in a dream. Like that was a different you.

And it was, wasn’t it.

That ‘you’ hadn’t ever slashed at anything other than a training dummy. Now you’re out here –with a very dysfunctional crew of lunatics— fighting mist monsters.

Said dysfunctional crew is, once again, arguing amongst themselves on which way you’re supposed to be headed next. Everyone’s got their own opinion and somehow it never matches with anyone else’s. You don’t even know how they manage that.

It takes a few light years for the majority to agree you’re heading to Bilgewater.

By the time you Wayfinder them there, you’re not surprised that all you see is darkness and sickly green mist. Half the world has gone to shit already and you’ve come to terms with that. More or less. Probably less.

“Wow.” you say as you take in the ghostly-looking town ahead of you and the armada of ships at the port below, blocking this side of the island off completely. Not that there’s a lot to block because the place is a ravaged hellhole anyway.

The environment has this wrecked, haunted vibe that would be super interesting to see in a movie with an apocalypse theme. Perhaps not so much on an actualapocalypse, though.

“Likin’ the view?” Graves asks, the corner of his lips sealed over his cigar.

“No, it was more of a ‘this is so much worse than I could have imagined’ type of wow.” you explain.

“It really is.” Riven agrees.

“Funny thing; the mist ain’t changed it all that much.” Graves laughs.

“Hey. Focus.” Lucian chastises. This guy, you’re convinced, is allergic to lightening the mood. He’s also not someone you dare say this to. “See that?” he points at the sea, to the massive ship there, towering over the rest.

You’re so focused on its fine craftsmanship and the little details you keep finding the longer your eye remains on it, you miss his point entirely, at first. Then you blink and look closer –at the thin, telltale trail of green-black smoke floating upwards from its deck.

There’s no mistaking it; a fetter is on that vessel.

“Now, listen up, everybody. Big Ol’ Graves is a legend around these parts, so my name will get us on that beauty. But. People here can be a bit… unfriendly towards new faces.” he begins. “Let’s not walk up there like an attack force and end up riddled with holes, ye?”

“Good idea.” you nod.

“Rookie, Graves, you’re heading up first.” Lucian motions with his chin.

“Bad idea.” you comment, but his skewering glare has you agreeing with the plan the same second.

“Signal if you need help.” Senna adds.

Graves only laughs heartily and grabs your uniform with his large hands, pulling you along. You know you won’t like what you hear when he leans down and whispers to you:

“We won’t have time to signal if they decide we’re not worth listening to but let’s not tell them that, Rook.”

“That’s… just what I needed to hear.” you grimace.

“Ha! Which means you’re goin’ up first. Chances are they won’t instantly shoot your pretty face off.”

“Wait… what about that ‘my name will get us up there, no trouble’?” you ask.

“Hah! That was just to impress Vayne, kiddo. My name is far more likely to get us killed in these parts.” he laughs but you don’t. “Did she look impressed?”

“No.” You shake your head. “No, she didn’t, mate.” Nothing has ever moved Vayne other than when she kills monsters in a particularly violent way.

“Ah, shit. Maybe next time.”

Yeah, if there is a next time.

Your chances aren’t looking good as soon as you step onto that deck and every weapon imaginable is suddenly shifted to you.

…

Graves tells you to put your ‘social skills’ into good use. You are not aware that was one of your talents, so it’s probably more of his bullshit. Either way, death by a thousand bullets gives you a solid motivation to turn the charm on and talk.

“Gentlemen, I’m sure we can all come to an agreement here. No need for all that firepower.” you say, totally not sweating at all underneath your white jacket. “You have something that we need and I’m sure we can negotiate a profitable deal for everyone.”

Jackpot. Bounty hunters want money more than anything. And there is not a sweeter sound to their ears than the promise of wealth. Even if you’re just talking nonsense to save your ass.

“If I could just speak to the captain—”

“The captain is listening.” a commanding voice says from up ahead. Some of the crew members part to let her through…

And.

You see a vision in this nightmare.

The woman that walks forward stands out like fire over water, like stark color on Bilgewater’s salt-washed palette. Maybe it’s the vivid red of her flowing hair, stark against the gold-trimmed black of her hat, or the emerald green of her eyes, or the way she holds herself, a queen on this deck. Whatever the reason, you cannot tear your gaze off of her.

Tongue-tied at the moment, you let Graves do the talking. Big mistake.

The goddess’ visage darkens when she sees your company, who she addresses in a less than pleasant tone: “Look what washed in with the tide. Malcolm Goddamn Graves.” You wouldn’t want that glare directed at you, ever.

“Fortune? Ah, hells, naw.” he curses. “What are ya doin’ here? How did ya get a whole damn fleet a’ warships?”

“A lot has changed since we last met. Fools around here decided to challenge me for control over Bilgewater. I locked this place down until we can resolve this inconvenience.” she says, like cutting off half the freaking island is not a big issue.

The sound of her heels on the wooden floor is downright ominous as she approaches. Her eye scans you lightning-quick, then the entirety of her attention is on Graves. The very next second…

A blunderbuss pistol is pointing right to your face, same as his.

“Whoah.” you gasp.

“What’s Gankplank paying you?!” she demands.

“I ain’t workin’ for that bastard! I ain’t even on speakin’ terms with his orange-eatin’ ass! Ya know that!”

“What I know is you came onto my deck with fancy new equipment and a whole team of mercenaries at your back. You know, just in case you thought you were being subtle, in all that silver and white sticking out in Bilgewater like a sore thumb.” She has a point. “That getup isn’t cheap and there’s only one cretin around here with that kind of coin. Now tell me what he’s planning, of you’ll be smoking that cigar through a new hole.”

“Um –ma’am? He’s telling the truth.” You almost regret speaking up when her piercing stare lands on you. “And we’re not mercenaries. We’re Sentinels of Light.” you add.

“You put on a convincing performance, cutie.” she says.

In any other scenario, a goddess like that calling you cute would make you blush. But the gun still very much in your face makes it difficult to really register the word.

“Like you’ve never heard of the ‘Saltwater Scourge’, ‘Reaver King of the High Seas’… ‘Scum-sucking Hagfish Who Takes All You Ever Cared About’…”

Oh, okay. So, she’s got a screw loose as well.Not surprising considering the company you attract, lately.

“Nope. Kiddo’s right, Sarah. They’re Sentinels, alright.” the very familiar voice of your boss, which normally doesn’t make you happy to hear, has the opposite effect now. Lucian walks up behind you to save the day.

“Lucian?” she asks, finally lowering her weapons. “…this is your crew?”

“Yep. And I’d appreciate it if you kindly refrained from killing them. Need about every gun we can get.” he replies.

“Follow me.” she says. “It seems we have a lot to discuss.”

…

Captain Fortune does not drive an easy bargain.

From what you hear later, she’s given Lucian a real hard time with negotiations. And even now, she’s the one who holds all the cards.

If you are to defeat Viego and make it clear to Bilgewater it was her who made it possible, she is willing to trade with the fetter and even let you stay on her ship in the meantime. Otherwise, if she gets the feeling it’s him who gains ground and holds the power in this place, you’re basically screwed.

The others are uneasy. They’ve suggested multiple times you steal the fetter from Fortune and dash for your lives after. Thing is, with how close she keeps that relic, that plan is looking impossible.

Which brings you to where you are right now, all the Sentinels and Miss Fortune gathered around the same map, planning your next action.

“Yes, but if I help you get there, what’s in it for me?” she asks.

And really, you don’t have anything to offer her in return. Even Lucian looks to Senna for help. Who, in turn, looks at you.

Why do they keep doing that? What have you done to convince these people you are good at talking? Especially to women like the captain.

“How about the… moral reward of helping save people from these monsters?” you suggest.

Her green eyes –and holy shit are they green— look at you like she wants to both scoff and laugh sardonically. “Tell me that is a joke.”

“It –it really isn’t.” you reply.

She huffs. “Look. I’m sure you’re all nice people. But nice people here get their throats cut.” She motions with her hand. “The cutthroats get the spoils. That’s how it works. I only care about the spoils.” she states. “So, if you want things from me and my crew, you need to make it worth our time.”

Their time sure isn’t cheap.

You know you don’t have anything at Headquarters with the kind of value she’s looking for. Definitely no coin and no gold for her services. But. You’ve heard multiple times during classes that the materials the Sentinel outfits are weaved from are extremely durable and therefore, extremely desirable.

“Would you and your crew be interested in a wardrobe overhaul?” you ask. All eyes are on you, but hers are the most intense. “Every prestigious fleet has to look the part, no? Plus, these clothes…” you say, grabbing the nearest knife and dragging it across your sleeve. The fabric is not so much as scratched. “…are pretty cool.” you tell her.

Miss Fortune leans back in her captain’s chair with a pretty smile painted on her –very attractive— lips.

“Now you’re talking my language, cutie. I’m sure we can work something out.”

…

On one hand, you have Gwen sewing day and night –your fault, you feel bad for it— while the rest of you handle the fighting. On the other, you do have a ship taking you wherever you need and making your job of clearing the darkness ten times faster.

Even Lucian has given you a pat on the back for that one. That was certainly unexpected.

“We need Fortune to take us here.” Senna points on the map. “Rookie, you go tell her.”

You almost choke on your water. “Why me?” you ask.

“Because you’re finally making yourself useful.” Lucian replies. Ouch.

“I’ve been very useful from the start!” you argue. The others look amongst themselves. “Hey!”

“I mean… points for effort.” Diana comments.

“Moral support is useful, I agree.” Riven smirks at you.

‘Asshole’ you mouth, rising from your seat. Her grin only widens.

You send them a narrowed, unimpressed look over your shoulder on your way out. Some of the crew members that see you walking towards the captain’s cabin whistle your way. You’re sure there’s tons of colorful comments behind your back but you have bigger things to worry about.

Like… the way a certain redhead looks leaned back in her plush chair, a queen on her throne, toying with a gold coin that flips over her nimble fingers with effortless ease. Focus on the mission. The mission, I say. Oh, Gods…

“I love how they send you in to ask for extra.” she says. “So. Are you the silver tongue of the group?” There’s something in her little smirk and the way she says ‘tongue’ that gets to you, but that’s probably just your vivid imagination.

That and the months you’ve spent without any outlet for your stress other than fighting, on top of more fighting.

“No, the others are just that terrible at basic social interactions.” It’s the truth.

Fortune gives a small chuckle. “Let’s see how good you are, then, Sentinel.”

You pleadwith your hopeless lesbian brain not to fry on the spot. “We sort of need you to get us further than discussed. While hoping that… the scenic route will be its own reward?”

“Cute.”

“Does that mean you’ll do it?” you perk up.

“No.”

“I’ll send Lucian here next time so he can bore you to death until you agree.” You never claimed to be above blackmail.

“A bold statement.” she replies. “Tell you what. If you demolish a few of my enemies’ ships during your hunt for the mist things, then deal.”

Sentinels aren’t supposed to do that. And if you tell Lucian, that will be his exact answer. You can already hear his unpleasant voice in your head. However, you’ve already figured out the world doesn’t work by the Sentinel Code, so…

“Accidents do happen on the battlefield.” you say.

Sarah gives you that slow smile that makes a certain part of you feel hot under your outfit. “And don’t bring any of the others in here to negotiate. I’d rather look at your pretty face.”

Uh.

Um.

By the time you exit the cabin, all you can think is, what just happened?

…

Combat is a rush, sometimes. As is knowing you’re getting stronger and faster by the day. You still don’t hold a candle to the rest of your group, but you can finally say you’re helping them out.

Being further up in the enemy’s face, though, is also petrifying. You see a twisted reflection of yourself in every mist wraith’s dead eyes. There are nightmares that come hand-in-hand with the experience… and then there’s physical pain.

You’ve been hurt before. Their talons can slice through even your magic-reinforced outfits. Still, every time feels worse than the last. The laceration you’re currently sporting on your side is burning like the fires of hell.

You’re trying not to scream by the time Riven lowers you onto the deck. Your vision is blurred with sweat and the tears you’re fighting to keep at bay.

“What’s going on here?” you hear Fortune’s voice in your haze.

“Tell me you have a healer on board!” Riven shouts.

“And they can get here fast!” Senna adds.

You’re not sure how much time passes. It feels like light years until someone kneels beside you and starts working on your wound. The healing magic pulls and sears at you. Every muscle in your body is taut with the effort to keep still.

“Isn’t …a healing spell supposed to numb the pain, first?” Diana asks.

“Look, blondie, I’m no professional here, ye? Just picked up a few things from mah old man. If ya wanna criticize, come here and do it yourself.” he answers. And it’s …not the best feeling in the world to hear your healer say that.

“No offense. Just worried for our teammate.” Senna adds. At least one of your bosses cares about your wellbeing.

The other just benches you for the next mission.

…

Out of all the people you expected to come see you while you’re recovering, Sarah Fortune is the last who came to mind. You’re almost shocked mute when the captain comes to sit on the edge of your bed, graceful and fluid as ever. Gorgeous as ever, too, while you’re sure you look pale as a ghost, eyes sunken as a shipwreck.

“Hey, Rookie.” she greets.

“Ah, great. That nickname’s never gonna come off, is it.” you roll your blue eyes.

“How’s the battle scar?”

“I’m not bleeding all over your fancy deck anymore, at least.” you say. “Guess I should be glad for that.” Although you are a bit frustrated that the ‘healer’s’ hand was so shaky there’s a scar left there now, permanently, when it could have been avoided. “And that the dude wasn’t drunk bad enough to stitch my organs to my skin.”

“Yeah, luckily he was only a little drunk.” she nods.

“That makes total sense for a healer. Who, from what I know from four years at the Academy, should always be sober.” you cannot keep it in any longer.

“That’s… a tall order here.” Yes, of course, the place is far too shitty for that.

“I gathered.”

“Come, now. Don’t be upset about the scar.” You’re upset about the pain that could have been avoided if the damn guy just didn’t drink his ass off in the middle of the day. “…Want me to kiss it better?”

You’re so far up your mind –filled with thoughts of being a dead weight on the team on top of your dead classmates because of Viego— you don’t even hear her. Your head is pounding from the pressure the memory causes you, a killer mix with the effect of the painkillers you’ve been on, all evening.

“I’ll be fine, thanks.” you reply, your voice hoarse and alien to your own ears.

…

You and Fortune talk a bit more on the two days you’re out of commission.

You learn a few things about her, like the fact you have a common interest in psychology. Like the fact you shouldn’t ever ask about her past or her family, unless you want her to close up tighter than a clam, at the speed of lightning. In the meantime, if it feels like she may be throwing more smirks your way than when she talks to anyone else, you blame that on your wishful thinking.

That woman is way out of your league.

It is one in the night and everyone on the ship is either well asleep or completely passed out from booze. You wake up from a nightmare, then fully register the way the ship is swaying from the angry waves. The resulting nausea has you completely losing the desire to fall back into the land of dreams.

You thought you’d be the only one awake when you walked up to the deck, yet you quickly realize that’s not the case when the sound of heels approaches from behind. You already know it’s her. The night breeze does a wonderful job of carrying her perfume straight to your nose. As if she wasn’t already fatally attractive without it.

You keep your eyes on the waves, so dark blue they look black.

“Oh, this is a surprise. Such a romantic soul, admiring the sea in the dead of night.” she says. The slight –sexy as fuck— slur to her words must have something to do with the bottle of whiskey in her hand.

“Yeah, my thoughts are not that deep.” you chuckle. “More like ‘fuck this constant motion under my feet’.”

She gives a small, airy exhale that could pass as a laugh, leaning on the railing next to you. Kind of close, too. “Ah and here I thought Sentinels didn’t swear.” she says. “And that they don’t drink. Unless you care to prove me wrong there, too.”

She takes a swing of the bottle and passes it to you. The smart part of your brain tells you it is a bad, bad idea. The rest of you is seduced by the promise of the buzz and the challenge in her eyes.

Well. Since you’re not really getting anywhere closer to where her lips are in anything other than your very private fantasies, you think may just take the chance for an indirect kiss that’s presented.

The gulp you take from the bottle –you intended a sip but the fucking ship moves so much— burns a trail down your throat and past your insides. You almost cough. How heavy is this thing?

“Ahem. So.” you begin. “What’s keeping you out late?”

“I have great company.” At first you think she means you, then you realize it’s the bottle that’s lucky. Hah, fell right into that one. “And… my cabin is very cold tonight.”

It’s really chilly, yeah, but it’s not that bad, you think. Maybe the two of you are just used to different climates, though. “I’m… sorry to hear that.” you reply.

“Well. Guess I should head in or it will never warm up by itself.” she says.

You nod and bid her goodnight, turning your eyes back to the inky waves. But then you feel her weight softly crash into your back, ample chest pressing against you, one of her hands on your waist and the other on the railing next to yours for support. Her lips are right by your ear, so close you feel them brush against the shell as she says:

“Oops.”

Then she’s gone, taking her extremely sexy perfume with her, while your stomach drops to the sea and sinks right to the very bottom. It takes a few moments to realize you’re still holding the railing so tightly your fingers have gone white.

What the…

You go back to bed trying not to think about whatever that was.

The next day, you have no idea why she’s not speaking to you at all, or why she doesn’t even look at you when she addresses the Sentinels, none-too-pleased with your progress.

…

When one of the crewmates tell you the captain has summoned you, you do a double take and ask if she really means you. Fortune has been in a weird mood towards you since that night, to say the least.

You are mentally braced for the worst when you enter her cabin. You’re already tired from fighting mist wraiths all morning and you don’t think you can handle whatever it is that’s going on with her at the moment.

Scratch that. You’re sure you can’t when she gets up from her seat, walking almost in a circle around you, like a shark. You lean back against the wooden surface of her desk, waiting. Cautious.

“Have I not been clear enough, all these days?” she asks, as if wondering out loud.

“Um…. excuse me?” you question back. Has the mist gotten to her? It has been known to cause strange behavior after prolonged exposure.

She’s at the door now, facing you without really looking at you and it makes you feel trapped. Your one escape is blocked. “You’re not from around here, so I thought it was best not to be… Bilgewater-forward.” she says. “On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve been that subtle?”

“…I’m. I’m not…sure I follow.” you speak, quietly.

“Do you really have no idea or are you just trying to be polite?” She finally looks into your eyes.

You shake your head ‘no’.

She licks her lips. “What, was I supposed to give you a formal letter inviting you to my cabin for sex the other night?” Your jaw, you think, hits the floor and shatters. Your whole body shivers and goes rigid. “If you don’t want to, just say it so I won’t wait around for nothing.”

You… don’t know what words are at the moment. The ground has disappeared and you’re a falling mess. It is the worst case of freezing on the spot you’ve ever experienced.

“That’s not… that’s not… the case.” you manage to say.

“Good to know.” she nods, casually, then strides up to you and grabs the front of your high-collared Sentinel jacket, bringing you lip-to-lip. “Is this clear enough for you?” she breathes against you.

It’s more than clear enough when her plump lips seal over yours, tasting of sweet-flavored lipstick and alcohol and sea-salt. In fact, it is clear like a nuclear bomb going off on the back of your head.

The heat wave burns down your stomach violently and it only gets worse when she pushes her tongue into your mouth, licking over yours, her hips practically straddling you with how tightly fitted you stand. Every movement of her mouth or her body echoes all the way down yours.

It’s beyond anything you could have ever conjured in your head, having her angle your chin however she wants it while her hips slowly rock against you. It’s almost too hard and too fast and too good –and you get too close.

But then—

A knock comes on the door.

“Captain?” someone asks from the outside and it’s both a blessing and a dark curse.

Sarah tries to catch her breath, every exhale tickling your ear. “One moment.” she calls over her shoulder, sounding every bit the captain she is, as if the past minutes where you were literally dry humping each other didn’t happen.

She pulls back from you with a satisfied little smirk at how wrecked you no doubt look, pulling your outfit straight. Her thumb wipes off the smudge of her lipstick on the corner of your mouth, then she goes to a nearby mirror to reapply hers.

When she walks back over to you, your knees shake at just the sight of her. You don’t know how you’ll ever calm down from this. Safe to say she’s ruined every kiss you’ve ever had or will have.

“My bedroom will be open to you tonight. Consider this your formal letter, yes?” her long fingers brush over your jawline, as she stalks back to her seat.

“Come in.” she calls, poker face on, sounding bored.

You make your escape as tactical –and dignified— as possible and don’t look back until you’re practically off the ship.

…

To say you are distracted for the rest of the hours until night completely settles over Bilgewater is an understatement. Your head is in the clouds and you have no idea what’s going on around you. The whole world could catch fire and all you’ll be thinking about is Fortune, Fortune, Fortune…

“What’s got you so quiet tonight, little Sentinel?” Riven asks.

Only the best damn kiss of your entire life. Plus the fact you’re living a dream and you don’t want to wake up. “Maybe I’m just trying to imitate Vayne. From now on you’ll hear my voice only when we kill stuff.”

“Ha, ha.” Vayne comments in typical Vayne style from her seat, hunched over her weapon and making calibrations.

“All I’ll say is, be careful.” the Noxian lowers her voice a bit, the words kept between the two of you.

“Of what?” you play dumb.

“Just in general.”

You don’t know what Riven suspects but you can’t really bring yourself to care. You’ve been through a lot these past months. You deserve to feel something good once in a while. Your love life is none of their business unless it interferes with their business, which it won’t because you’re sure this won’t mean anything beyond Fortune’s bedroom.

You wait until everyone on the ship is asleep and take a liquid courage boost to sneak to the captain’s cabin.

…

One knock. That is all your knuckles manage, one contact with the door, until it swings open and a familiar hand grabs at the front of your outfit, pulling you in.

You’re pressed back against it as soon as it shuts, crimson lips hot on yours before you can even think to say anything. Gods, is she always so insistent?You could melt into a wet puddle on the floor from the way she presses into you alone. This woman knows exactly what she wants and how to take it.

Somewhere in the back of your head you hear the sound of a lock turning.

“Took you long enough.” she whispers when you break apart.

Once again, whatever you were about to say is cut off by her tugging on the high collar of your jacket. She either has a thing for it or for pulling you around in general, you think. No complains, whatever the case.

“Won’t you give me the tour around, first?” you ask, playing coy only thanks to the drink you’ve had. Otherwise, you’d be your usual self; a mess.

“Oh, sure.” she says as she shoves you into her bedroom, illuminated by a single candle. “Wardrobe, guns, bed.”

Well. It still feels like the best tour you’ve ever had when she walks you back until you’re falling on her very comfortable mattress, with her perched above you like a predator. She gives you a little smirk as she straddles your thigh and sits up, undoing the taut buttons on her shirt, painfully slow.

Oh… It would be very awkward if you died from a heart attack now, yet it feels like you’re on the verge of one.

“Nothing smart to say now, Sentinel?” The confidence comes with her looks, you’re sure. She knows she’s hot as fuck.

You shake your head, speechless, eyes travelling from her toned midriff to her perfect chest, to her hypnotic eyes and the sensual way her hair spills like a red waterfall across her shoulders. This is a dream, it’s not real life, but don’t wake me up ever…

Fortune leans back down, taking your chin in two fingers as she studies your flushed face. You don’t know what she’s looking for, but something in her visage softens a fraction.

“If it’s too much at any point, tell me.”

“If I can talk, I will.” you say, mesmerized by the way her eyes look under the dim light.

Your next liplock is a little less rushed than your previous ones. She takes her time exploring your mouth and you gradually get bolder with where you touch her, fingers grazing up her sides to her stomach, to the underside of her bra.

Her lips leave yours only to burn a trail down the corner of your mouth, across your jawline and to your neck. Deft fingers undo the clasps and pull down the zipper of your white jacket, guiding it past your shoulders without taking it completely off. She definitely has a thing for it. You’d comment on that, too, if you could think about anything other than how good she smells.

Clothes come off while she sucks on your neck, teeth pressing against you just shy of leaving marks. When both of you are down to your underwear and breathing heavy, her fingers caressing dangerously low on your waistline, her lips come near your ear.

“So… I want to make you beg, but I can’t help but feel like I’m already corrupting you a lot.”

Corrupt away. you want to tell her.

“Does that turn you on?” you whisper in her ear and feel her response with how her hips press down harder onto yours.

“Yes.” That breathless admission becomes your undoing.

You get lost in her lips after it and the sensation of her fingers on you –inyou— working you up towards what could be simultaneously your ruin and your salvation. You touch her in turn, filling the room with both your moans and gasps, until that glorious peak of white-hot pleasure where the whole world comes to a stop for a few moments.

There is a time limit to your time together, now and generally, you are aware. But you allow yourselves a few quiet moments together as you lay there with the excuse of catching your breath, even if you already have.

Tough game you’re playing here. The smarter part of your brain says. It’s all too easy to get addicted to having her atop you like this. The better the dream, the more bitter the wakeup.

When Fortune lifts herself off you to slide under her heavy covers, you register the chill of night. You dress almost sluggishly, your body so very exhausted from the activities of the whole day.

Kissing her goodnight is almost an urge you fight under control, not wanting to make her uncomfortable if this was all she wanted out of your dalliance.

“Well, my bunk is calling.” you turn around to tell her, trying not to blush when you see her with her elbow resting on her pillow, cheek cutely pressed on her fist, watching you like a languid cat.

“Hate to watch you leave but I love to watch you go.” she smirks at you.

You roll your eyes. “Goodnight, beautiful.”

…

It is after a long damn day of fighting that you get to finally sit down and enjoy a meal and drinks.

The crew was cold and distrustful towards you at first, but they seem to have opened up more over the course of weeks –especially today, after you secured them a chest filled with gold coins left behind by wealthy people who were running from the wraiths. From the corner of your eye, you subtly watch Sarah Fortune interact with her men, hoping it’s not obvious how badly into her you are.

“So…” Riven begins from the chair next to you and you know that’s not going to be good.

“What?” You face her, playing cool.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to say that she’s bad for you… but I will, anyway.” You give Riven a blank stare that absolutely doesn’t fool her. Shit.

“Like how do you even know.” You finally break.

“It wasn’t obvious since day one there was something there?” Yeah, maybe to everyone except you.

“Wait.” Hold on a second. “Does everyone know?”

“I think everyone except Diana has pretty much figured it out.” That certainly explains the looks Lucian has been giving you all day. Double shit.

“What? The thing between Fortune and Rookie, here?” Diana asks from behind you.

Triple—

“Scratch that. Everyone knows.” Riven tells you. “And we all agree. She’s bad for you.” You hate the emphasis on that. “As in the worst.”

“I getit, Riven, thank you.” You shake your hand in her face while the other covers yours.

“I mean I know ruthless, player redheads who can and will absolutely murder you without a second thought are, like, a kink of yours—”

You don’t think your face gets any redder than this. “What—” you nearly choke on air. “That –how do you figure that out? That’s not even true.”

“Dude. When Katarina Du Couteau was brought into our conversation you nearly gasped and fangirled for the next hour.”

“I just heard a lot about one of our biggest Demacian enemies and wanted to know if it was all true!” you defend yourself.

“You asked me if she’s as hot as rumor has it, not about her war achievements.” Riven laughs.

“And you didn’t answer! Well, is she or isn’t she?” you ask. For… scientific purposes.

“I’m not going to answer that!” Riven lifts her hands up.

“She is.” Graves says as he slides into the seat next to you, drink in hand.

“Thank you!” You pat him on the shoulder.

“We should totally have her join the Sentinels.” he adds.

“Hah!” A vein pops at Riven’s temple. “And the answer will be something along the lines of ‘bold of you to assume I give a single fuck about the world’.” comes the imitation.

“Whoa, that’s exactly how she sounds like.” Graves says.

You’re glad the conversation has shifted away from you, at least.

From the opposite side of the room, you feel a familiar pair of eyes on you, yet they’re averted the second you raise yours to meet them.

…

They may know about your one-time thing with Fortune and heavily scrutinize it, but they still send you in now that they need to ask for more from the captain. With that, your teammates lose every right to comment on what you do and don’t do with her.

“We’ll get you the coin from that ship –well, Graves will, since they already hate him—and you help us out here. Deal?” you ask her.

There. You can be a professional and negotiate terms with the most beautiful woman in the world, who you also happened to have had mindblowing sex with, without constantly looking at her lips.

“Deal, but…” she begins. “You’re sitting all the way over there… why?”

So much for keeping your mind out of the gutter. “Um.” You lick your lips, unsure of what to say, while she smirks slow, like the cat that got the canary.

“Come here.” A pat on her desk, right in front of her chair.

Against your better judgement, you walk around the furniture and lean there, really, really close to her, especially when she stands, towering over you in her heels. You can tell she likes it, too.

“Don’t look at me like that, we leave in ten minutes.” you say. It doesn’t even phase her.

Her fingers move to the zipper of your jacket and although you should stop her, you don’t. “Really?” she leans closer, closer still, until her tantalizing mouth is a hair’s breadth from yours.

“…really. Nine, now.” you waver.

“Guess we have to be fast, then.”

She lightly pushes you onto her desk and starts undoing your belt buckles. The thought of what you’re about to do alone could make you come on the spot. It’s not just the thought that’s threatening to do that, when you feel her cool fingers slide right where you need them.

“You’re going to ditch me for your little Sentinel friends, who don’t like me?” she asks in your ear.

Oh, Gods…

“Ah, I like you enough for all of us, Fortune.” your lips move against her jawline as you speak. A little further down and you can feel how quick her pulse is. You wouldn’t have guessed, with how composed she looks fingering you on her desk.

“Sarah.” she holds your chin with two fingers as she says it, like a secret between you. “Call me Sarah when you come.”

You do.

…

It becomes a nightly thing after that, your visits in her bedroom.

She’s insatiable and she makes everything bothering you go away for those precious hours. But. The more you see of her, you cannot help but feel like something’s very wrong with Sarah.

Underneath the visage of the ruthless captain, the queen who can just reach out and take anything she wants, you see… cracks. She doesn’t sleep well. She drinks. You’re pretty sure you’re another distraction –coping mechanism?— although it doesn’t bother you. She’s the same for you, isn’t she?

It’s not like you have feelings for her.

…Right?

No, no that would be terrible. You definitely don’t. You are allowed to love the way her fingers are running lazy circles on your thigh right now without any sort of complicated emotions involved.

“You should quit while you’re ahead.” she tells you, half muffled into her pillow, stark black against the red of her hair.

This or the Sentinel war? You wonder.

“You have little cuts everywhere. They don’t even have time to disappear before new ones open on top of them.” she moves the back of her pointer to the biggest visible line near your knee, then up your arm, until her hand rests on the crook of your neck. “Leave the others to deal with the mist. It’s not your problem.”

“The world’s problem is my problem. Guess where I lived and what region fell to Viego first.”

You refrain from telling her how many people close to you met his blade before that. How many of the classmates you ate and trained with for four years you had to see skewered by him, on his insane quest for his ‘love’. You don’t want to sour your time together with your burdens. Your pain, your nightmares, are your own to deal with.

“If you keep going you’ll fall to him first.” she counters. “You’ll die protecting one of those idiots in your group or some random civilian.”

“Thanks, Miss Fortune-teller.” you say, a tad irked at her blatant disregard for anyone who isn’t herself.

“I don’t have to be one to tell.” she gives you a sad smile. “It’s always the good ones that die. It’s always the monsters that win.”

You can’t help but wonder…

What made you this way?

…

You see now why emotions are considered a distraction on the battlefield. Even as you kill monsters, all you think about is her.

Come to think of it…

You’ve never seen her smile for real. What you’re looking for is a far cry from those smirks she throws around to bring people to their knees, or the sardonic ones she levels Lucian with. Even those she offers you behind closed doors have a shadow underneath them. It makes you wonder about what would make her happy enough to give a genuine smile.

When you happen across a shipwreck filled with valuables, you think this may be it. The Sentinels take what they need and agree to give the rest to Fortune to stay on her good graces.

Her whole ship lights up with the joy of riches. The crew is ecstatic. Laughter and cheers fill the deck.

And yet.

Her glee is pretend, just for the sake of her men. Her eyes are hollow.

When she eventually retreats to her cabin, you follow her and knock on her door. “It’s always open for you~” she calls from the inside, already in the company of a whiskey bottle.

You turn the key behind you, then lean forward with your hands on her desk, staring at her.

“Why this serious, sexy?” she asks. “Need me to help loosen you up a bit?”

“You need to part with the fetter, Sarah.” you state. “It affects you in ways you won’t notice or understand but it always does.”

“Ah, part with it so you and your crew of misfits can steal it from me? Hmm… no.” she chuckles.

“I care more about what it does to you than the fetter itself right now.” you try again. Only to fail again.

“That’s sweet, but I don’t trust you.” Talk about words being sharper than knives, sometimes. “Don’t take it personally; I don’t trust anyone.”

“What a joyful life this must be.” you bite back.

“Coin is joy for me, sweetheart.” she leans back in her plush chair, taking another swing from the bottle.

“You didn’t seem very happy to me, back there.”

She gives you a look and finally sets the whiskey down. “Come here. I’ll tell you a little secret about me.” she says, a tad more serious than before.

Cautiously, you step around the desk until you’re in front of her seat. Her hand shoots up like a bullet, then, taking hold of your jacket and dragging you down until the two of you are eye-level.

“You know what would really make me happy right now?” You feel her leg move up the inside of yours, deliciously slow, as she speaks… until she hooks her calf behind your knee and makes your weight fall onto it. “For you to shut up about fetters and concerns and go down on me.”

Fuck.

Deep down, to a small part of you not ruled by your hormones, you know using sex to avoid any sort of deeper conversation between you is unhealthy. You know an arrangement where there’s no trust is unhealthy.

Then again, the circumstances that brought you together are anything but healthy.

And what sort of pretty flower can burst forth, really, from a corrupted seed?

…

When you return from your mist-slaying, late in the evening, the crew is uneasy.

“Don’t bother the cap’n right now.” One of the men says. “She ain’t havin’ the best o’ days.”

You later find out that they had a run-in with an enemy fleet. That the Reaver King has resurfaced and is looking to claim Bilgewater for himself. Major shit is about to go down, the bounty hunters tell you and you do not want to be outsiders caught in the middle when it finally hits the fan.

You give Sarah her space until the need to check up on her becomes overwhelming.

One knock on the door. “Leave.” she hisses from within the office like a tensed cat. Another knock. “You have ten seconds before I put a bullet through your skull!”

“Can’t imagine I’ll be very attractive then.” you reply.

The door swings open; her eyes are the epitome of a raging storm. You’ve never seen her like this, so hateful and distressed… and it hurts to witness. “My ‘leave’ applies to everyone. You, included.”

“Cool.” you nod at her. Pause. “So… can I come in now?”

Sarah throws her hands up in exasperation, pivoting with an angry, whispered ‘whatever’. She paces across her cabin, an agitated lion one step away from pouncing. Her hands run through her fiery hair as though they cannot keep still.

“You need to leave Bilgewater asap and never come back.” You don’t know if she’s talking to you or thinking out loud. “You need to go. With or without the rest of them, I don’t care, just go!”

“What’s… gotten into you?” you dare ask.

“He’s back. He always comes back, no matter how many times I sink the bastard. It’s like he cannot die. He just won’t die!” her voice is raw with her rage. “You Sentinels fight the darkness but you don’t kill evil. Evil will still be here –rooted here— even if you win.”

You open your mouth but can’t find anything to say.

“I have to win my own war. I will be victorious no matter the cost, no matter the bloodshed.” Sarah goes on. “But I need to know that you won’t be here. Do you understand?!”

You just look at her, sad and frozen, trying to understand. There’s nothing you can say to ease what’s hurting her and nothing you can do. You’ve seen this wretched thing eat away at her every day since the moment you met. It’s too deeply engraved in her heart for you to hope to change it; and it has little to do with the fetter in her possession.

Sarah crosses the room in two large strides and grabs your biceps. She looks like she’s ready to throw you off her ship herself…

Until.

She pulls you into her arms, instead.

Tight, like she’s afraid you’ll be gone the moment she lets go, she holds you close. Her head is tucked into your shoulder, her nails press hard into your back. You slowly bring your hands up to encircle her waist in return.

“I’ve lost everything. He took everything from me. I won’t give him the chance to take you away, as well.” she says.

Oh. you think. She cares about you, after all.

If only that was a good thing for either of you.

…

You feel it, when the moment comes.

Maybe you’ve always felt it and just didn’t want to admit it.

When Sarah stands in front of Viego offering the lot of you up along with the fetter in exchange for his ruined power, you know the agony you feel, like a blade splitting you down the middle, is your own doing. There is nobody but yourself to blame for it. The others warned you. Your own instinct warned you.

You didn’t listen.

You wanted to trust her. Maybe even to love her.

But her hatred runs deeper than whatever measly thing you were to her.

As the mist shrouds Fortune and turns her red hair luminescent blonde, as it eats away at her colors until they’re all black and sickly green, until the eyes you knew turn cold and unfeeling, you feel something in you crack. Maybe it’s your faith. Maybe it’s your heart.

There’s a lesson to take from this, you’re sure, despite how your emotions choke you. Right now, though, you focus on avoiding her bullets and having your teammates’ backs in the rain of chaos that follows.

You end up deep in the water, bleeding, defeated. You and the other Sentinels have never been crushed by your losses, but it will take some time to pick up your pieces and continue onward until the end of your war.

You allow yourself one scream muffled in the dark sea.

When you swim to the shore and pull your body out of the mud, you are silent.

“Are you okay? I know that was harder for you than it was for us.” Riven lays a hand on your shoulder.

“I’m fine. I’ll let it hurt after we get Viego.”

For now, you can’t afford taking the pain of a broken heart with you on the battlefield.

Sarah. You later think. Now I understand why hurricanes are named after people.

[thefanficmonster]

New Life

Ethan Winters x Mia Winters (Resident Evil Biohazard)

Warnings: Spoilers for Resident Evil 7 and RE8:Village, Swearing

Genre: Fluff, Romance, Comfort

Summary: Following the hellish events that took place in Louisiana, the BSAA finds the Winterses a new home far from where the horrible memories dwell - Romania. How will the couple adjust to the sudden shift from the warm heart of Texas to the snowy mountains of Romania?

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! Thank you so much for being my first and so far only Mithan requester! I love there two and I really wish they’ll be given the happy ending they deserve in a future game. If not, I make it my own duty to give them that happy ending they deserve! Anyways, I hope you enjoy the read! Love, Vy ❤

“This is it?“ Mia looks out of the window of the BSAA issued terrain truck that’s pulled up to a stop outside a modest but absolutely beautiful house of two stories, surrounded by a rather large garden that is currently covered with a thick layer of pearly white snow that’s twinkling under the faint sunrays that manage to squeeze past the tightly knitted grey clouds inhibiting the sky.

Ethan and Mia have been bracing themselves for the shift of surroundings ever since Chris dropped by their home in Texas to inform them of the decision of the BSAA to move them to a whole new continent, a whole new environment with a completely different climate. However, no amount of bracing could’ve prepared them for this mesmerizing wonderland of a town they have now found themselves in.

Ethan, having traveled around quite a bit in his life and having lived in several states, he’s experienced snow - maybe not like this, but he’s been prepared enough. Mia, however, having lived in Texas all her life and never running into snow on her travels, she’s significantly less prepared. The Texas snow could do nothing to brace her for this winter wonderland. That is exactly why she’s been glued to the window ever since she seated herself in the backseat of the truck, observing the snow-covered streets and yards with child-like amazement.

Seeing his wife so happy made him swoon over her all over again just like the first time he realized he was in love with her. Ethan had never before met nor will he ever meet a person like her. He knows damn well he would’ve carried on after Louisiana with a huge chunk of his soul missing had Mia not carried enough positivity for the both of them even since they were escorted from that hellhole. She was the one who truly started looking forward the moment they were offered the chance to start over, unlike him who constantly went back and keeps going back to that night in his mind and his worst nightmares. It hasn’t been easy for her either: she’s spent nights battling insomnia and nightmares because of those hellish memories but she’s never let it show during the day. She held her head high and refused to let the past cripple her.

Having a role-model and pillar like her beside him, he grew past it for the most part as well.

She proves to him yet again how strong and amazing she is right in this very moment - she appreciates life like no one else can. She still sees the beauty in it, more so than before even. She looks upon the world with a newfound fondness and admiration without a single shadow to cloud it. 

And if he only knew what she knows....

“Yeah, that’s it. Hope we didn’t mess up the pick.“ Chris chuckles from the driver’s seat as he puts the truck in park, unfastening his seatbelt.

“Are you kidding me?“ Mia is quick to unfasten her own, “It��s perfect!” Within a second, she’s out of the car much to the surprise of her husband and Chris who quickly calls out to her.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you! You’re significantly underdressed for this weather.” Seeing as how his warning falls upon deaf ears, he turns to Ethan instead, his facial expression growing more serious now, “I never got around to asking but...how have you been holding up?” He looks back through the backseat windows to see Mia already grabbing handfuls of snow, clearly unbothered by the negatives in temperature. “Mia seems to be holding up well.“

Ethan follows his friend’s gaze and smiles at the sight of his grinning from ear to ear over something as simple as a knee high layer of snow that she’s now standing in. “She was holding up for the both of us for the first month after we were back. But I’m ok now too, thanks to her.”

“I’m glad.” Chris replies, nodding firmly before he takes hold of the car’s door handle, pushing it open and stepping outside into the cold he warned Mia about. Though he’s significantly better braced clothing wise, he still shudders when the breeze hits him.

Ethan does the same, stepping out and finding himself knee-deep in snow right away. And if that weren’t enough, he gets a snowball to the shoulder out of the blue right as he shuts the car door.  He doesn’t even need to look up to see who threw it, the delighted laughter gives away the culprit right away, stealing an amused smile from Ethan. A smile that turns into a laugh when he sees another snowball shoot through the air, this time not heading for him but for Chris instead.

As a trained BSAA soldier, one couldn’t expect anything less of him than catching that ball mid-air which is exactly what he did mere seconds before throwing it at Ethan, hitting him directly between his shoulder blades.

“Seems to me you two will like it here quite nicely.“ The soldier comments as Ethan shivers and gives him a glare over the front bumper of the truck.

“We sure will!“ Mia answers, approaching the vehicle and coming to stand next to her husband, now lacking snowy ammunition. “Thank you again, Chris. You’ve helped us through so much, we’ll forever be in your debt.“

Ethan nods firmly, supporting her statement, figuring there’s nothing left for him to say, sensing the inevitable departure of his friend and partner approaching. He’d try and stop him, invite him inside ever if he didn’t know him better than that. If he didn’t know his job any better.

“How about not complaining whenever I drop by unannounced for dinner? You can repay me that way.“ He offers with a friendly smile which is more than most people ever get out of him.

The couple smiles at him. “Sure thing.” Ethan replies, “Anytime.”

He’s always been bad at departures and goodbyes. He’s always been afraid of that being the final goodbye or final departure. The last time he sees the person or people he’s leaving behind. It scares the hell out of him, to say the least.

“Need to get back to HQ before someone messes something up.“ He trails off, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck, “But I’ll hold you two to your word.“

“See you soon, Redfield.“

With that, the terrain truck continues down the road, taking the first left turn before disappearing in the light fog that has fallen upon the streets suggesting that even lower temperatures are approaching.

“Let’s get you inside before you freeze, shall we?“ Mia’s voice breaks Ethan free from the clutches of the sudden melancholy that has taken over him accompanied by an unwelcome rush of memories from Louisiana and all those years he thought Mia was dead. Feeling her surprisingly warm hands on his arm, he feels himself slowly pulled away from those dark times and being returned to the present where they are safe and together. Where they’re free from any mold or virus. Where they only to worry about not catching a cold.

“Luck me, I have a wife unfazed by hypothermia.“ He wraps his arm around her as they walk down the path in front of the house the BSAA staff had cleared when moving their stuff inside.

Finding the key to the front door on the windowsill, they both feel the sudden shift inside them as though this is the real deal. The snowy mountains and foreign sights weren’t the real change. This is it. Opening this door and walking into this new and unfamiliar house that’s now theirs - that’s their new start. A start of maybe something more than they had ever imagined before - a family, perhaps.

The click of the front door being locked by Ethan once they’re inside grounds them both to the new reality that will be their life from now on. They don’t rush to take it all in, instead let it all sink in gradually, bit by bit. First the sight of the unfamiliar layout they will have to grow used to; then the smell of new furniture and freshly applied wallpaper; and lastly the atmosphere - so new and unfamiliar yet so welcoming.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?“ Mia whispers, finally putting an end to the silence they let fall upon them, “This is ours now. And it’s so...clean. Nothing in it reminds of out old lives.“

“Yeah...“ he mutters, subconsciously pulling his wife closer by his side, “It’s solely ours, we don’t have to share it with any unwanted memories.“

She turns in his embrace, placing her hands on his chest as their eyes meet, “True. We can now make new ones. Good ones, uninterrupted by all that old junk. What do you say?”

Nothing much to say, really. He doesn’t have to say anything for her to read his mind - read him. That’s exactly why, instead of answering verbally, he plants his lips on top of hers, making the first good memory in this new house, this new and improved life of theirs.

[atths--twice]

Christmas Eve, 1994

After being abducted and insisting she is fine, a month in quarantine proves that may not be entirely true. It has also been a year since her father passed away. How will Scully and her family spend the day? Will Mulder be included? 

I love Firewalker, it's one of my favorite episodes. I rewatched it recently and I love episode where they are stranded and watching out for each other. Mulder is much more protective of Scully in this episode and I love it. Some might see it as him being too pushy or overbearing, but I don't. He missed her and worried about her and he doesn't want her to get hurt. Not after she had been gone for so long and he had no idea if he would ever see her again. His worry for her is incredibly sweet in my opinion.

So, I started to think about what happened during their month long quarantine and after they came home. They would have been home about mid December with Christmas just around the corner. What kind of plans were made in the Scully family? It intrigued me and thus this story began to emerge.

I hope you enjoy! Happy Holidays!

December 15, 1994

Scully sighed as she entered her apartment, exhausted after the flight home. The air felt thick and stale as she stood and looked around, the emptiness it had experienced during their month in quarantine nearly tangible.

With a groan, she walked to the refrigerator, sure she was going to find various forms of mold growing inside of it. Opening the door, she saw it was nearly empty and she frowned before she smiled slightly.

Her mother must have come by, knowing the length of time they would be away. Thankful she had done so, she sighed and closed the refrigerator. Rolling her neck as she headed to the bathroom, intent on taking a long soak in the tub, her phone rang and she groaned.

Hoping it was not Mulder calling with some rogue case he had found, considering they had been given a week off, citing a month long quarantine where they had been poked and prodded daily, as a sufficient excuse to give them a chance to relax.

“Hello?” she said, closing her eyes and crossing her fingers.

“Dana! You’re home! I was going to leave you a message on your machine, but I’m so glad to hear you’re home.” She smiled at the happiness she heard in her mother’s voice.

“Just got home actually, not more than ten minutes ago. Your mother senses must have been activated.” Her mother laughed and Scully walked down the hall to start the bath, letting the tub fill as they continued to speak.

“Thank you for taking care of things here,” Scully said, pouring some lavender bubble bath into the warm water. Breathing in deeply, she sighed as the scent washed over her.

“Of course, honey. Umm, the reason I was going to leave you a message was about Christmas. I know you’ve just gotten back, but it’s only a few days away. I wanted to let you know Bill and Tara won’t be here as he had hoped, but Missy will be and Charlie. He has a flight on Christmas Day, but he will be here Christmas Eve. I thought… as it’s been a year since we lost your dad… it would be nice to have, if not everyone, as many as we can home this year.”

“Yeah,” Scully said softly, closing her eyes as she thought of her dad, remembering the way he behaved at Christmas, tolerating it all with a shake of his head and a small smile on his face.

“I just… I’d hoped you’d be home.”

“I’m here,” she whispered, opening her eyes and watching the bubbles rising in the tub.

“You aren’t leaving again?”

“God, I hope not.” Her mother hummed and she smiled. “No, we’re off for a few days. Time off for good behavior it seems.” This time her mother was silent and Scully sighed quietly.

“So everyone who’s in town will be there?” she asked, hoping to break the tension that had appeared.

“Yes. It’ll be good, I think.”

“I agree, Mom. What time?”

“7:30 for dinner on Christmas Eve. Oh, and please ask Fox to join us.”

__________________

Scully stepped out of the tub and wrapped herself in a large towel, as the water gurgled loudly down the drain. She felt flushed, her toes and fingers pruney, her hair wet and dripping down her back.

Grabbing another towel, she wrapped it around her hair, and wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror. Shaking her head as she looked at her reflection, she let out an exasperated breath.

Please ask Fox to join us.

Her mother’s words had been playing on repeat since she had hung up the phone. She knew she and Mulder had formed a bond when she was missing, her mother telling her how much it had affected him when she was gone. How he had looked every time she saw him: his disheveled appearance, the circles under his eyes, his unanimated expressions.

“He was lost, Dana,” her mother had said and Scully shook her head, not wanting to hear it.

Not after she had no memory of what did happen. And especially not after the nightmares had begun; the thought of the faceless men in the white room, a drill of some kind coming toward her, voices she could not understand, and the fear she felt at being unable to move.

She had them more while they had been in quarantine, perhaps the constant medical attention bringing them closer to the surface.

The first night it had happened, when she had woken up soaked in sweat, tears on her face, and her breathing erratic, her door had burst open and Mulder was there, the light from the hall all that filled her darkened room.

“Are you… are you okay? I heard screaming…” He had stood in the doorway, rumpled from sleep, as though unsure if he should enter any further.

“I… I don’t know. No, I… I’m fine,” she had lied and wiped at her face, turning away from him, her heart still racing.

“Like hell. You’re not fine.” She had turned her head, ready to yell at him, tell him she was perfectly capable of knowing how she felt, when the look on his face had stopped her.

He had looked exhausted and as she stared, she realized he had looked that way since before they ever came to the goddamn volcano. He had not wanted her to go, insisting she take more time off, but she had insisted more, telling him she needed to work.

During the time there, he had been overprotective and they both knew it. She understood, she did, but it had also pissed her off immensely. She could do her job and he knew that. She knew he knew that, yet it still had not stopped him from hovering or insisting she stay back and out of danger.

But as he had stood in the doorway of her room, his worry for her finally something she was ready to truly see, she had felt the anger drain out of her.

“It was a bad dream, that’s all,” she had said quietly.

“You’re okay?” She had nodded and he had run his hand through his hair, nodding as he reached for the door handle. “Okay. Good night then.”

“Wait. Would… could you… would you mind staying for a bit? Just…” She had watched the emotions cross his face and she sighed. “You don’t have to… I… I’m fine now.”

“I can stay,” he had said, letting the door close and sitting in the lone chair in the room. He had smiled slightly at her as she adjusted her pillows and laid down.

The room had been silent until he started talking about something inane, her eyes closing as she had fallen asleep to the sound of his voice.

During the month they had spent there, he had come to her room a total of ten times, when her nightmares had woken him and he wanted to be sure she was okay. Eventually he had foregone the chair, and instead laid beside her. They did not touch, but his voice was like a balm, calming her and allowing her to sleep peacefully.

Now though, they were home, and she knew they would not speak of it again. Even though they both knew how much they needed the other, this would be something that remained known, but unspoken.

Changing into her pajamas, she dried her hair, had a cup of tea and went to bed, her body and mind exhausted.

___________________

December 16, 1994

The next day she cleaned her entire apartment. She did laundry, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, dusted and vacuumed, finding peace in creating a clean environment.

When she had finished, she went shopping, buying enough groceries for the week, knowing for certain she would be home for at least that amount of time.

She made a salad and a chicken breast for dinner, drinking a glass of red wine as she did. Glancing at the phone, she realized that she had not heard from Mulder all day.

It was not unheard of, especially considering they had just spent a month together, day in and day out, but it still felt odd. Sighing as she stared at the phone, both wishing it would and praying it did not ring, she finished her glass of wine and cleaned up the kitchen.

_____________________

December 17, 1994

In the morning, she called Ellen, who was delighted to hear from her, asking her many questions and inquiring after Mulder.

“How’s that “not jerk” partner of yours?” Ellen teased and Scully smiled, remembering the day so long ago when she had thought that way about Mulder; his stubbornness and single minded drive, overwhelming at times.

“He’s good,” she answered simply, not divulging any details.

“Still not a jerk?”

“Definitely not.”

“That’s good.”

“Hmm.”

Plans were made for lunch the next day and Scully went to bed early, her thoughts on why once again she had not heard from Mulder.

____________________

December 18, 1994

“So then I said, ‘well I’m not cleaning it up,’” Ellen said with a chuckle and the other women laughed. Scully forced a smile, her hands gripping her napkin.

When Ellen suggested lunch, Scully had not anticipated other women joining them. She did not know them and their presence had made her uncomfortable. She had been good at this once before, small talk and even gossip.

But now…

It felt commonplace and to be honest, a bit silly. She dealt in darkness and conspiracies, men who killed to protect government secrets. Listening to stories of household problems, kids who did not listen, or husbands who played too much golf, felt ridiculous and she had to fight rolling her eyes.

“I was abducted!” she wanted to yell, to see their faces when she said it. To have the table fall silent, not to continue the discussion about her abduction, but to shut them all up.

“That was fun, Dana. We need to do this more often. I know you’re busy, but we need to see each other more often,” Ellen said, hugging Dana goodbye a bit later.

“Yes, we do.” She hugged her back and closed her eyes, knowing she would not be calling, their lives far too different.

Driving away from the restaurant, she made a left instead of a right and wound up at Mulder’s apartment. Sitting in her car, she heard her mother’s words again, and she closed her eyes.

Please ask Fox to join us.

Turning off the car, she stepped out and locked the doors. Walking through his lobby, her heart began to race, not knowing why.

You’re being an idiot, she admonished herself as she stepped into the elevator. What in the hell is there to be nervous about? She shook her head and sighed as the elevator began to rise.

Clearing her throat, she knocked on his door and waited. Her fingers traced over his apartment key on her key ring that he had given her months ago, deciding if she should use it, when she heard him moving around inside. She swallowed as she stepped back and put both hands in her pockets.

“Hey,” he said, a look of surprise on his face. “I thought you were the Chinese food I ordered.”

“Sorry, no.” She smiled and he opened the door wider. She stepped in, under his arm, and stopped in the dining room, turning to look at him.

“Figured you would have been tired of seeing my ugly mug,” he teased as he closed the door. She smiled slightly and looked down. “You okay?” She nodded and raised her head. His eyes searched hers and she sighed.

“I had lunch today with some old friends. Well… an old friend who invited others to join us. I didn’t know them and…” She sighed again, shrugging her shoulders.

“You didn’t like them?”

“I don’t know. I…”

A knock sounded at the door and they both jumped. He put up a finger and she nodded as he opened the door and paid the delivery man. Closing the door again, he set the bag of food on the table and looked at her.

“Can I interest you in some egg rolls?” he asked and she shook her head. “Right, you’ve just come from lunch.” He stared at her and she took a deep breath.

“I should get going. Let you eat.”

“It’s Chinese food, it’ll keep. Always better cold anyway.”

“So you always say.” He smiled and she let out a breath. “I just felt so disconnected from them.” He nodded she shook her head. “It’s been so long since I’ve done anything with Ellen, or anyone really, I felt out of place.”

“Hmm,” he hummed with another nod.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened to me. I don’t remember it. Or… maybe I do but I don’t want to… I don’t know.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it…”

“But you want them to know.” She looked up at him and let out a deep breath.

“Yes and no. It just felt mundane talking about kids and husbands who golf too much while I…” She shrugged and he nodded.

“Believe me, I understand.”

“I know you do.” She smiled and he nodded. “I don’t want to constantly have it on my mind, but how can I not?”

“Have you had any nightmares?” he asked quietly and she shook her head. “That’s good.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged and sighed. “Especially since I no longer have anyone around to bore me back to sleep.”

“Hmm.” He chuckled softly with a nod and she smiled.

“I should go. Let you eat.”

“You could stay. Just me here… it gets kinda quiet.”

“No, I should go.” He nodded and she sighed, walking towards the door, wanting  to stay but knowing it was best if she left.

“Sure I can’t tempt you with some egg rolls?”

“Maybe next time.” She looked back at him, her hand on the doorknob. “Oh, my mother has extended an invitation for you to join us for dinner on Christmas Eve.” He stared at her and opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“Why?” he asked after a few seconds.

“Because it’s Christmas and she’s Maggie Scully.” She smiled and he shook his head.

“I don’t think I should. It’s a year since your father died and I… it should just be family.” An odd look crossed his face that she could not decipher, before he sighed and closed his eyes. “What time?”

“Oh… that was easier than I thought it would be,” she said in surprise.

“Yeah, well…” He shrugged and she nodded.

“7:30 at my mom’s house. I’ll write down the directions-” She started to step towards him, but he stopped her with a shake of his head.

“I know how to get there,” he said quietly and she froze. Of course he did. How many trips had he made during her absence?

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you then,” she whispered and he nodded, unable to meet her eyes.

She walked out and heard the lock clicking as she walked down the hall. As she stepped in the elevator, she suddenly felt like weeping. Covering her mouth, the doors thankfully closed before the sound of her sobs could echo down the hall.

_____________________

After that meeting, they did not speak nor see each other again. Scully spent the next few days buying and wrapping gifts, relaxing, and not thinking about her abduction.

Or at least trying not to do so.

She had a few nightmares, waking up shaking and wanting to call him, but knowing she could not. He would accept her phone call, doing whatever she asked, but she could not continue to rely on him that way; she had to do it on her own.

On Christmas Eve, she put on a new dress, put her hair up and added a pair of pearl earrings her father had given her when she graduated from college. A small spritz of perfume and she looked at her reflection, checking that she was ready. Touching her earrings, she sighed.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she whispered and left the bathroom.

The drive over to her mother’s was spent in silence, thinking about her father and how much she missed him. Missed the way he would tell a joke and laugh before he even got to the punchline. His no nonsense attitude, but the smile that came behind it. The strict rules he adhered to, which helped shape and mold the person she had become.

“I miss you, Dad,” she said softly, turning down her mother���s street.

The house was lit up, a tree in the window, the white lights shining brightly. As she walked up to the door, she wondered who had decorated outside, it looked professional.

“Dana! Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you.” Her mother held her tightly, Scully hugging her back, taking a deep breath. It smelled of spices and she closed her eyes at the familiar Christmas scent. “You’re early.”

“I thought I’d see if you needed any help.” Her mother pulled back, holding onto her upper arms as she nodded.

Half an hour later, everything was ready and people began to arrive. There were a few people from church there, people her father had held in high esteem. Charlie came in to cheers and applause. He grinned and hugged them all as Missy walked in, a serene smile on her face.

As happy as she was to see them all, Scully kept an eye on the door, wondering when Mulder would arrive, wanting to be there when he did. She did not want him to be accosted and forced to make small talk.

“He’s running a little late.”

“What?” Scully asked, looking at her mother with a frown.

“Fox. He said he would be a few minutes late.”

“When did he tell you that?” She looked at her mother, confusion on her face.

“He called earlier today and said he would be running late as he had an errand to run.”

“He called you? He has your num-“ But of course he did. Why was she surprised?

“He’ll be here.” Her mother patted her arm and smiled as she walked away.

“Yeah, Dana. He’ll be here,” Missy teased, handing Scully a tumbler glass of whiskey. They clinked their glasses and she tried not to watch the door, not wanting to hear her sister’s gloating tone.

At almost 8:00, the doorbell rang and her mother walked over to answer it. Scully heard Mulder’s low murmur and her mother’s soft laugh, and then he was in the room, his eyes finding hers immediately.

Her stomach did a flip flop and she shook her head, walking over to him as she mentally rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness.

“Hey. Sorry I was late. I was…” He stopped, looking her up and down. “Wow… you look…”

“Hello, Fox. Sorry... Mulder.” Missy said and they both turned to look at her.

“Melissa. It’s nice to see you again.” He cleared his throat and Missy looked at Scully, raising her eyebrows.

“Would you like a drink?” Missy asked and he shook his head.

“No, I’m fine.” He looked at Scully as Missy walked away. She smiled at him and he did the same. “Sorry I was late.”

“It’s okay.” Without thinking, she reached up and smoothed his tie, the knot slightly askew. When she realized what she was doing, she dropped her hand, her cheeks burning.

“Thanks,” he said softly, touching his tie and she nodded. “What are you drinking?”

“Whiskey. You want some?” She offered her glass and he took it, taking a sip. He made a face and handed it back to her.

“No. That’s godawful. Aack.” She laughed as she took a sip, having no such reaction.

“Beautiful,” he said quietly and she frowned. “I was going to say ‘beautiful.’” She continued to frown until she drew in a deep breath and let it out as she understood what he meant.

“It’s a new dress.” She shrugged, as though implying that was all it was, her mouth feeling dry as her heart began to race.

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded as her mother called everyone to dinner. He gestured for her to go first, his hand landing on the small of her back as she did, his fingers pressing gently and then disappearing.

The meal was delicious, with a toast to her father given which caused nearly everyone to tear up. Missy sniffled beside her and Scully reached for her hand, squeezing it gently.

After they ate, people sat around the table, talking about their families, friends, and plans for the new year. Mulder poured some wine into his glass and pushed it toward Scully, his arm going around and resting on the back of her chair.

As the talk turned to what had happened during the past year, Scully felt his thumb rub softly against her back, nearly imperceptible. She did not even notice how her breathing had increased until she felt his touch. Glancing at him, he kept his eyes on the person speaking, not looking her way.

Never had she been more grateful to have someone like him beside her. Someone who understood how it felt to be an outsider, while others around you carried on without a care.

His right hand was on the table and as she reached for the glass of wine, she ghosted her fingertips across his, silently thanking him. His thumb increased its pressure on her back for a second and then his touch was gone, though his arm remained on the chair.

When they moved into the living room, gifts were handed out to everyone, even Mulder, who seemed genuinely surprised by it. He held it in his lap, not opening it as everyone laughed and ripped off the ribbons and colorful paper.

“I didn’t bring a gift for everyone,” he whispered beside her and she smiled, laying the red ribbon on the sofa.

“Nor did you have to,” she said, looking at him. “My mother is my mother. This is how she says thank you. Open your gift.”

“Thank you for what?” he asked, looking down at the present lying on his lap. She said nothing and he raised his head, staring into her eyes. Neither of them said anything, but she knew he understood when he nodded, his hand brushing her knee in the pretense of moving the ribbon, and she shivered.

Laughter and thanks filled the air, people holding up their gifts for the others to see. Her mother smiled, her eyes sparkling with tears as she nodded, accepting their thanks.

Scully watched Mulder open his gift and smiled when she saw a tie and a pair of gloves. He took them out and tried them on, humming his appreciation.

“That’s the nicest looking tie you own,” she teased and he smiled with a nod, setting down the gloves and picking up the tie.

“I think you may be right.”

“Oh, I know I am.” He laughed and looked at her as she smiled.

“Do they fit alright?” Her mother stood by the sofa, smiling nervously, pointing at the gloves.

“They do, thank you, Mrs. Scully. I fear my gift wasn’t quite up to scratch.”

“No, Fox. It was perfect.” She rubbed his shoulder and walked away to speak to Charlie.

“What did you give her? I didn’t see her open anything.” He smiled and said nothing. “Mulder?”

“I gave her a Christmas Cactus. They don’t only bloom at Christmas, but I thought…. for your father and… you…” He shrugged, his leg bouncing. “I tried to find one but couldn’t until today. That’s why I was late, I found a nursery that would stay open, but it was farther than I had planned.” He shrugged and she stared at him.

“Mulder…” He looked at her and she sighed, not sure how to say what she was feeling. Nodding, he put the tie back in the box and glanced at her again. She smiled and found his hand, squeezing and letting go.

When he left, she walked with him to his car, shivering in the cold night air, despite the warmth of her coat.

“Well, I had a good time,” he stated, as though surprised, as he set his gift in the car and turned to look at her.

“Surprising, I know, considering there were no aliens or volcanic life forms.” He smiled as she raised her eyebrows and put her hands in her pockets.

“Not what I meant, but…”

“What did you mean? What were you expecting to happen?”

“Nothing to happen, per se, it’s just… I’m not family, nor exactly friendly with anyone, save you, and with your father’s anniversary, it just didn’t feel right.” He shrugged and she tilted her head, digesting his words.

“But you’re here and you agreed to be rather quickly when I asked you. You never really explained why.” He sighed and looked at the house, rubbing a hand across his mouth.

“Because of your mother.”

“How do you mean?” she asked, curious to hear his answer.

“I could say because I like her, she’s a kind person, but…”

“What?” He sighed again and put his hands in his pockets.

“When you were in the hospital, after you’d been… returned,” he said, closing his eyes. “The doctor told your mother and I about your living will, which I already knew about but never expected to have to think about so soon. When you fell below the criteria… the hospital had to abide by your decisions.”

Tears filled her eyes, imagining her mother in that situation and how she must have felt, but knowing her decisions had been right.

“It’s better to be prepared and have a plan, instead of forcing a family member to be the one to do it. To lay that guilt upon them.”

“And I agreed with you when I signed as your witness,” he said, opening his eyes. “I still feel the same way, but… seeing it in black and white and written down on paper, is different than experiencing it as you were lying there in a coma.” She nodded, wiping her cheeks, her tears warm, but cheeks cold.

“When they were walking out of the room to begin removing you from the respirator and the other life saving devices, your mother said you and I had a friendship built on respect and that while the moment was for family, I could join them if I wanted.”

He stared at her and she began to cry, unable to hold back the tears, as she understood what had made him agree to join them for dinner tonight. He stepped forward and pulled her close, her arms wrapping tightly around his waist, burying her face in his coat. Holding her as she cried, he murmured softly, his hands rubbing slowly up and down her back.

Pulling from him, she wiped her face, taking deep breaths as she did, trying to regain calm. She looked up at him and he smiled softly, his eyes searching her face, nodding as he seemed to receive the answer he was seeking.

A snowflake suddenly landed in his hair and she looked up as more began to fall. She laughed as she met his eyes again., watching the snow falling onto him, his hair filling with white flakes.

“I think you’d better get inside before you become a snowman… snow woman? Lady?” He furrowed his brow and she laughed.

But then her breath caught when, just as he had last year, he cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing away a snowflake. His hand was warm, his touch soft and gentle.

“Merry Christmas, Dana,” he whispered, and she closed her eyes briefly, his thumb stroking her cheekbone and moving down to her chin, his fingers on her neck.

“Merry Christmas, Mulder,” she whispered back, opening her eyes and staring at him. His eyes dropped to her lips and her heart fluttered, her hands coming up to his chest, almost of their own accord.

He began to lean in closer, when loud laughter erupted from her mother’s open door and echoed in the quiet of the night. Her hands dropped down as she pushed off of his chest, his hand moving from her cheek. He cleared his throat as the people leaving the party exclaimed over the falling snow.

“Well…” he said, stepping back and dropping his eyes.

“Be careful driving home,” she said and he nodded, raising his eyes to hers. She smiled with a nod and he let out a breath.

“You get inside, snow woman. It’s starting to come down harder. Don’t want you to catch a cold.” He held her gaze and she heard the words he was not saying.

“Okay.” She stepped back and made to walk toward the house when she turned around and stepped closer to him.

Reaching up on tiptoes, she kissed his cheek, the cold of the snowflakes falling contrasting with the warmth of his skin.

“Merry Christmas, Mulder,” she whispered again as she pulled back. He nodded with a small smile and she smiled back.

“Get in where it’s warm. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” She nodded and walked to the porch, turning around to watch him leave.

Waving goodbye, she stepped inside the house, hung up her coat, and went into the bathroom.

Fixing her hair, she smiled at the pink in her cheeks, knowing it was not only from the chill of the night.

No, it was from the man who chased monsters, believed in aliens, saw conspiracies in nearly everything, and had earned family status as a result of the care and devotion he had shown to her and her mother during her absence.

The one who, despite her very best efforts, had taken up residence in her heart and would be impossible to evict.

Not without taking part of her heart away with him.

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 32

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: At Waystation (again) and a bit elsewhere too

A/N: We're (finally) getting closer to the end of the 'Waystation arc'. I don't think I have that much to say about this chapter, but I'd like to dedicate it to Cecid as a late birthday present, because she has really kicked my butt to continue this story!

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!! It's super important (<- Lizzie Bennet Diaries reference)

(Ps. Fellow Europeans, vote for Finland in ESC!!!)

Words: 2950

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

The silence that fell into the room after Leo stormed out got more and more overwhelming until finally, Calypso couldn’t take it anymore. She could feel the two women and their daughter stare at her, but they were too astounded to say anything.

“I… I don’t understand what I did wrong,” Calypso mumbled eventually. “They were just matches. I didn’t mean that he should use them immediately; it was just my way of trying to tell him that I believe he can get over his fear one day.”

The women exchanged dark looks.

“Georgie, could you play with Festus outside for a moment? He looked like he needed to burn some energy,” Emmie suggested, wanting to get the girl out of the hearing distance.

“Ugh, fine,” Georgie pouted because she would have preferred admiring her gifts, but left anyway.

Once she was gone, Jo sighed. “About what just happened… you did nothing wrong, Calypso. It’s just…” She stopped to contemplate her next words. “Christmas is always a hard time for Leo. He tries his best to participate and make his jokes and all that, but his eyes betray him. He’s just… not there.”

“I want to understand…” Calypso stepped closer to Leo’s mothers. “Did something happen to him on some Christmas?”

“Yes, you could say that,” Emmie replied sadly. “Leo’s mother died on Christmas day several years ago.”

Calypso’s eyes widened as she understood what Emmie was trying to say.

“Oh gods… And she died in a fire, right? He did mention it once… No wonder he didn’t want to touch the matches, especially today.”

“Yes,” Emmie confirmed. “She did die in a fire. But there’s more to it. Leo probably wouldn’t want me to tell you this but in this situation it might be better that you know: he blames himself for the fire.”

“I probably shouldn’t ask, but… why?” Calypso asked, feeling more sickened every moment as she pictured a young boy mourning his mother and his home. “What happened?”

“We have only gotten some bits and pieces from here and there, but it seems the fire most likely started from some papers he had left near a fireplace. Accidentally, of course, but he doesn’t see it that way,” Jo sniffed. Suddenly Calypso realized that Leo’s pain must have hurt his family more than he probably even realized. They really cared about him a lot… She couldn’t help but feel just a tiny bit jealous because at least Leo had people supporting him. But she quickly pushed that unnecessary thought aside.

“That’s awful… I guess he’s afraid that he might accidentally make something like that happen again and that’s why he doesn’t want fire near him.” Calypso knew the fear of hurting someone she cared about and the guilt all too well. She would never forget the flashing lights and the loud crash that followed. Her nightmares made sure of that.

“Yes, it’s likely he feels that way. Since he moved here, he’s been seeing a therapist every once in a while but it’s clear he’s still a work in progress. He doesn’t talk about his mother a lot to us either. Just when we ask something general, and even then the answers are usually quite short.”

Bitterly, Calypso thought that was how she acted when someone brought up her family.

“I realize now that the matches were a big mistake,” she finally said. “I wish there was something I could do… I hate just watching helplessly when someone I… um...” She stopped mid sentence when she realized what she was about to reveal too much.

“Just be there for him,” Emmie suggested, luckily ignoring Calypso’s stuttering. “Despite everything, I think he’s still shown good progress the past few months. Sometimes time and patience and care can do amazing things.”

“Yeah. I think you are right there.” Calypso agreed. She herself had asked her friends, including Leo, to be patient with her as well. It was only fair she’d do the same with him.

“And Calypso?” Emmie eyed her worriedly. “Remember to take care of yourself as well.”

Calypso didn’t understand how the woman had seen through her that well. There was no way she could know what was going on in her mind because she hadn’t told even Leo everything. And Emmie and she had only known each other for a couple of days so far.

“I… sure. I will try my best!” she promised, instead of questioning Emmie’s comment.

“Good. I can’t say I know you all that well yet but know that people who are important to Leo are important to us.”

For a moment Calypso imagined what it would be like to have a mother like that. For some reason the thought made her emotional. “Thank you. You are so kind.”

“No, just doing what’s necessary. Now, I suggest you go and get dressed for the day and do what else you need to do; we might need some help with lunch soon. Besides, Georgie might need some supervision because she gets hyper when she eats too much chocolate. Funny how she and Leo are not biologically related but they still have a lot in common,” Emmie ended with a slightly amused remark.

Calypso did notice that she didn’t say anything about trying to find Leo, but she understood. He probably wanted to be on his own for a moment, and she’d respect that. Hopefully she’d get to talk to him eventually, but until then it was better to try to do something helpful rather than spend the whole day worrying. But even while she was doing her morning chores, she could still see Leo’s angry eyes when he saw her gift in her mind.

…

Leo didn’t know where he should go so he just followed his instinct. He didn’t want to hide inside; the pictures from his nightmare were still too fresh in his mind and he needed to be somewhere where he could breathe fresh air. As he was crossing the yard, Festus tried to follow him, and he wagged his tail cheerfully to make his favorite human happier, but this one time Leo didn’t want his company. He apologized to the dog and told him that he’d take him for a walk after getting his thoughts cleared.

He kept walking until finally, he reached a certain park where he and Jason used to jog often. Seeing a log bench on the side, he decided to sit down for a moment. Someone had made a campfire nearby earlier and Leo glared at the remaining ashes like they were the reason for all his troubles. He could feel the panic rise up his throat as he was reminded of the fire again, but he challenged himself to stay there for at least a moment. Finally, he sighed.

He knew he had totally overreacted to Calypso’s gift. Surely she had meant good but she didn’t know why fire and Christmas were not a good combination when it came to Leo. If he had just ignored the matches, nothing would have happened. Now he’d have to explain to her why he had freaked out like that and that wouldn’t be easy.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been staring into nothing when he suddenly felt a knock on his shoulder. Having not heard anyone arrive, he startled at the touch, but quickly recovered when he recognized the newcomer.

“Pipes! What brings you here?” he exclaimed, briefly noticing that her brown hair was now shorter than it had used to be and somehow her whole demeanor seemed a bit different. He attempted to put on a smile for her but he knew he was probably failing.

“Funny, I was gonna ask you the same question,” Piper noted, sitting down next to Leo. “I thought you would be at Waystation with your family. It’s Christmas day, after all.”

“Oh, yeah, I was there.” Piper raised her eyebrow so he quickly added: “You know me; this holiday and I don’t exactly walk hand in hand so I needed to get out for a moment.” Leo hoped that would be a sufficient explanation. She did know what had happened to his mother, even if not to the full extent.

“But Calypso was there with you. I thought that would cheer you up,” Piper pointed out.

“Funny you should say that,” Leo chuckled, although there was nothing amusing about the situation. “If you wanna know the truth, I’m kind of trying to escape from her right now.”

“You’re trying to escape…” Piper repeated with confusion. “Why? What happened? I thought things were going fine between you two. Especially after what happened after the party…”

“Not everything is how it looks to outsiders, Pipes,” Leo stopped her. “Things haven’t been amazing lately. I mean, in many ways. Yeah, I like her and somehow she also likes me, apparently. Yeah, I know, pretty unbelievable.”

Piper gave him her best ‘wow, you’re really breaking the news there, Leo’ look. He didn’t get disheartened, though, instead continuing: “But we have, um, decided that we shouldn’t get together for various reasons so we’ve been trying to find some kind of a golden mean where we can still continue being friends but it hasn’t been working out that well. One sec we are at each other's' throats for whatever stupid reason, and the next we’re acting all flirty and ignoring the rules we set. I was hoping that this Waystation visit would give us a chance to get to know each other better in an environment where we have others around us… And I think it was actually working for a while. I feel more comfortable there, and I think she was feeling more comfortable too… But today I went and messed things up again.”

“What did you do?” Piper sighed disapprovingly.

“I may or may not have gotten mad about her Christmas present,” Leo confessed finally, cringing because he realized how bad it sounded.

“Oh, Leo…” Piper shook her head. “Why would you get mad about something like that? You’re not usually someone who’d get mad that easily.”

“Yeah… I know I’m not, but… I had a pretty rough day to begin with. Not that that’s anything new to me, but…”

“But what?” Piper inquired.

“I saw a nightmare about my mom’s death right before I woke up. I was still kinda on the edge when we were opening the presents so when I saw the matches…”

“She gave you matches?” Piper tilted her head slightly as she was trying to figure out what Leo was saying.

“Yeah,” Leo shrugged. “To be clear, though, they were only a part of the present. She had made me a real nice tool belt, probably way better than any of those that they sell in some stores. The matches were in one of the pockets. And now I can see you’re gonna say: ‘well, maybe she just wanted you to try to get over your fear’, and maybe you’re right, but the timing…”

“You have not told her about the anniversary,” Piper concluded. “I’m sure you have figured out by now that you can’t blame her for something she didn’t know about. That’s not fair.”

“I know that!” Leo exclaimed. “I’m not really blaming her; I just overreacted! But how will I explain that to her? ‘Sorry I yelled at you; I just happened to burn my entire house 11 years ago today so I’m not exactly fond of fire right now?’”

“You know what I’m thinking?” Piper interrupted Leo’s unhealthy thought process. He didn’t answer. “I think you two have some serious communication issues. I know that Calypso isn’t good at opening about her past, and she has also admitted to me she has a tendency to push people back if she’s afraid they’re getting too close to her. But guess what, Leo? You’re the same. I’ve noticed that even though you’re kind of loud sometimes and you like to tell bad jokes…”

“Hey!” Leo protested.

“Shh, let me finish. My point is, you don’t often tell us what you’re really thinking. When you’re having one of your rougher periods, you withdraw into your workshop for days. All I’m trying to say here is that please talk to us. Specifically, talk to her. When she notices that you trust her enough to talk about something that personal, she might open up to you more as well. If she really likes you, she’ll understand.”

“Beauty Queen, I hate it when you see through me that well,” Leo muttered. “I dunno. I guess I’ll have to talk to her when I go back. If my moms don’t murder me first.”

“Nah. They wouldn’t. I mean, you may not get any presents next Christmas but that’s a small price to pay when you stormed out like that,” Piper teased him.

“You sure know how to make a man regret his bad deeds.” Leo rolled his eyes. “Anyway, we’ve established why I’m here right now but what about you? Shouldn’t you be with Jason or something?” Suddenly Piper didn’t seem as determined to scold Leo anymore.

“I… Jason and I are having a break.”

“A break? As in…?” Leo asked with confusion.

“As in a break,” Piper repeated more firmly. “What part of it you don’t understand? He and I are seeing if we are happier apart.”

Leo spent a moment taking the information in. “But I don’t get it. You guys have always been the most stable couple I’ve known. Why this kind of a decision all of a sudden?” He couldn’t say that he was entirely surprised by this piece of news after his talk with Jason before Christmas, but it still felt different to hear it from Piper. More final.

“I don’t think it’s all of a sudden. It’s been coming for a while now,” Piper confessed.

“Really? And you’re telling me only now?” Leo raised his eyebrow.

“It was something I needed to figure out on my own. Now, please don’t think I’ve just been playing with him, or something. I do love Jason. He’s my best friend. But… I’m starting to feel we’ve progressed too fast. That there’s a whole world out there for me to see that I missed because I was so busy getting together with Jason. I want to get to know who I am and where I really belong.”

“But… you have a house and everything together…” Leo said, suddenly feeling like a child whose parents were telling him they were breaking up, forgetting his own problems for a moment. “How are you gonna deal with that?”

“The plan is for now that we both keep living in our house until we make our final decision. I don’t want to go back to my dad and Jason would want to live with his dad even less. Of course it’s possible that we decide to continue our relationship, but if not, then we’re going to sell the house. But we are not rushing that. For now, we’re just trying to be friends, and not… exclusive.”

Leo was slightly relieved to hear that at least his best friends were still on speaking terms.

“Alright… if that’s what both of you want, then I’ll support it,” he said. “It’d suck to lose touch with either of you because of this.”

“Don’t worry,” Piper reassured him. “You won’t.” She ruffled his hair a little as if he was her little brother. “Everyone needs a Super-sized McShizzle in their lives, don’t they? It’d be pretty empty otherwise.”

Leo gave her a lopsided smile. “Glad you admitted that.”

“Anyway, enough about my boring relationship issues!” Piper decided to change the topic. “So, you told me Cal got you a tool belt and matches, but what did you give to her? It’s important, Leo.”

“You really think I’m gonna reveal it to you, Beauty Queen? I’m smarter than that,” Leo pointed out.

“I know what you did at our uni’s freshman party and I’m not afraid to tell it to Cal if I need to.” Piper winked at him in response.

Leo rolled his eyes. “Pshhh, that was freshman year. That excuses everything.”

“Alright, don’t tell me then.” Piper turned to leave.

“If you really must know,” Leo said before Piper got too far, “it was a jewelry box. With a bracelet in it. But it was not new so it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Piper asked with amusement. “You know things get serious when you give a girl a piece of jewelry.”

“Wait, what? For real?” Leo was shocked for a moment until he noticed Piper had a hard time not bursting into laughter. She was just messing with him. “OK, remind me to never tell you anything serious ever again.”

“You know you can’t resist my charm,” Piper chuckled. “Once you have forgotten what you just said, please tell me what really has happened at Waystation recently.”

Leo couldn’t help but shake his head at Piper’s enthusiasm but eventually started to tell her the whole story. He noticed that it helped him to forget about the negative thoughts for a moment so he didn’t really mind even though Piper had a tendency to be a bit pushy when it came to his feelings towards Calypso. And he assumed that Piper welcomed the distraction happily as well, because she must have felt conflicted about the whole Jason situation. When did things get so complicated, he wondered briefly before chuckling at his thoughts ironically. His life had never been simple. But even so, he would keep fighting. Because that’s what his mom would want, and that's what his family and friends would want.

[flooffybits]

Invitation From Nightmare City

When imagination and reality blend so well with each other, are you sure you can tell each other apart? Or will you let doubt and fear steer you away from the truth?

So this will be part 1 of the Dreamcatcher series I’ve decided to write. Obviously, since this is only the beginning, there’s barely anything, but once we reach part 2 or 3, I think you’ll all understand what’s happening. While I do have the flow of the story planned out, I will be open to suggestions later on if you have any so feel free to send me messages and feedback!

Start || Next

A month or two after arriving in Seoul, you had to admit that you were still unable to make your way around, often having to rely on maps and double checking your phone just to make sure you wouldn’t get lost somewhere, and you still weren’t able to adapt to the different environment.

Blame it on your new job.

After your boss had you relocated, there was so much on your plate that you could barely catch a break and enjoy your new life. The farthest you could be confident in was the little shops and café that was just a few blocks away from your apartment, plus the cute book shop in the next building. The woman, Seungwan, seemed like an absolutely kind person when she realized you were new in the neighborhood, whipping you up a batch of muffins on your second day there. She also understood your slight struggle with the language after she explained to you that she was originally from Canada.

So far, you’ve only really gotten to befriend her and a few other people, mainly from work -

“Hey, Y/n, good morning!” A dark haired female greeted you when you passed by the park like usual. “Hey, Minji, good morning. Busy day ahead?” You ask when you notice the various paper bags in her arms.

Kim Minji was someone you met by chance. While you tried to familiarize the neighborhood, you ended up walking a little too far away than you should have and it didn’t help that it was about to rain. So when you reached the park, you were almost ready to give up until the angel that stood before you showed up with a worried look across her face and then she’s offering to help you get back home after she realized your situation.

The day after that, on your way to work, you were able to recognize the path better, since you could actually see your surroundings, and end up bumping into the latter once more, giving you the chance to properly thank her.

After that, you’ve both just been able to talk with one another and you were able to consider her as the closest friend you had there, aside from Seungwan.

“Sort of. I have some people coming over, so I have to fix up the place and make sure to prepare everything.” She says with the same cute grin she always had. “Oh! What time are they coming? Do you need some help?” You ask, hoping to give the woman a lending hand, but she smiles in an assuring manner before shaking her head. “No, it’s quite alright. They’ll be arriving in the afternoon, so I doubt you’ll be able to come by since you have work.”

She tries to check on her watch despite everything she’s carrying before she was looking back at you. “And you should be hurrying, too! You can’t be late.” She shoos you away playfully and you chuckle while lifting your hands in defense. “I know, I know. I’ll see you later then. Text me though!”

“I will, now go!”

You show her a little salute before running off to the direction of your work place, leaving the woman to watch after you with a small smile on her face. Only when you were completely out of sight did she decide to walk back to her home and prepare for her friends' arrival.

.. 

"Hey, Y/n! Heading home?" Kahei, one of your colleagues, asked when she got up from her desk and began packing her things. She was one of the few foreigners that worked at the company and it helped that she knew how to speak English. You were grateful that she was kind enough to show you around and explain everything you failed to comprehend when you started.

You offer a smile before shaking your head and sighing. "No, I'm still trying to finish up this report. You know how our boss is." You joked before the girl giggled and patted your arm when she passed by you. "You worry too much. He has a lot of confidence in you, having you move here and all."

"It wouldn't be a surprise if you managed to become a senior officer in your first year. But don't tell anyone I said." You laughed at the playful banter between the two of you and nodded your head while waving goodbye. "See you tomorrow. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight! Don't stay so late. You know how dangerous it can be at night." She reminds you and you nod before she finally exits the room, leaving you alone to finish the task you had at hand.

While Kahei did tell you not to stay up late, you failed to notice the time until security had to come up and tell you that you should leave the building. You apologized before quickly gathering your things and heading home for the night. But a quick glance at your phone notified you that it was already nearing one in the morning.

So you picked up the pace and did your best to get home faster, avoiding any shady looking places just in case, because, like Kahei told you, it wasn’t exactly safe to be roaming around at night and it didn’t help that you were alone.

The bus was nearly empty, save for a few people who seemed to have just gotten off work like yourself. There was also a couple, not too far away, talking between themselves and then an elderly man closer to the driver’s seat whilst you occupied the middle row like usual.

When you get to your stop, you hold your bag loosely in your hand, eyes half lidded and pleading to shut after such a busy day, but you still needed to get home before you could let your guard down and finally relax. It wasn’t too far away now, but still. Anything could still happen in the few blocks you had to pass.

Maybe halfway to your apartment, you could feel your phone buzzing in your pocket and you’re confused.

Who would be calling you at such an hour?

Upon checking the caller ID, you’re surprised to see Minji’s name flashing across the screen. Before you could even answer her call, it ends and you think that maybe she’s called you by accident. But you’re proven wrong when she starts calling you again.

“Hello?”

“Y/n! Thank god, you’re okay.” Her words had caused you to slowly come to a halt, your brows pinching in confusion as you addressed the woman. “Yeah, I just left work a while ago. What’s wrong?” You inquire and she lets out a huff. “Well, it is kinda worrying when your friend hasn’t replied in, at least, five hours.” She shot back and you started walking again with a sigh.

“I’m so sorry, I’ve just been so absorbed with work that I lost track of time.” You tell her, your apartment finally coming into view. “But why are you still awake? It’s one in the morning.” You ask her. “I was worried when you didn’t text back earlier. You usually do so when you leave work.”

Suddenly you felt bad for being so reckless. You found out Minji could be quite the worry wart on the first month of being here. She's always telling you to take care, often scolding you for forgetting an umbrella or jacket on certain occasions, and just being a mother hen in general. It was endearing, especially for someone who's only known you for a couple of weeks.

"I'm so sorry. I swear, I'll make it up to you. But right now, you should get some sleep. It's late and I'm almost home, anyway." You assure the older woman. "I'd rather stay on the line until I'm sure you are home." She retorts and you let out a sigh at her stubbornness. "I swear that I'm going to be okay. I'll text you as soon as I get home, it's not even that far away anymore."

"You're still outside, and I'd rather not risk it." Knowing that there was no use arguing, you eventually gave up and allowed the other woman to stay on the line until you safely reached your apartment.

"How has your day been?" You would suddenly ask her, seeing it was a bit awkward to keep your phone to your ear without actually saying anything. "You had some friends over, yeah? How did it go?" You add and there's a slight hum from her side before she's responding.

The sound of her voice didn’t seem all too enthusiastic, or maybe it was because it was early in the morning and she was tired out. “It was alright, my friends are all filled with so much energy, though two of them are more tame.” She mumbles softly while you finally reach the front of your apartment complex. “But I think you would be able to get along with them if you ever meet them. They’ll love you for sure.” She says with a light laugh that sounds almost a bit forced, like there were more emotions locked away in her heart that she’s afraid of letting you find out.

“Well, any friend of yours is a friend of mine.” You chuckle while stepping inside the building and using your free hand to reach inside your pocket for your keys. “But, hey, I’m already at the complex, so you ca-”

Surprised, you didn’t realize someone was there until your shoulder collided with theirs and you had to stop what you were doing to face them and immediately apologize. “I’m so sorry for that, I didn’t notice you.” You tell them and the woman just stares blankly at you.

Getting a proper look, she had brown hair with the tips painted pink, dark brown orbs almost boring a hole in your forehead, and if looks could kill, you would probably be buried six feet under by now. The woman was most likely thin, hidden under the thick jacket that was wrapped around her. She was a few inches taller than you, probably the same height as Minji, you noted and you knew you would never bump into her like this again with the way she was staring at you.

“Be careful next time.” Was all she said before continuing her way out of the building and you blink after her before remembering that you were still on the phone with Minji.

“Y/n? Are you there?” You hear the woman’s worried voice. “Yeah, I’m here, sorry. I just bumped into someone.” You explain and she goes quiet before asking, “Isn’t it a bit late for someone in your complex to be up?”

Glancing over your shoulder and to the entrance, you let out a soft sigh before making your way up to your apartment. “I guess? Though she seems new, or I just haven’t noticed her until now.” You explain while rubbing the back of your head and then grabbing your keys from your pocket. “Really? What does she look like?”

“Um, judging by how I had bumped into her, kind of like an angry puppy.” You mutter while unlocking your door and Minji breathes out, almost like a huff of air coming from her lips as she turns in her bed while listening to you shutting your door. “Well, annoyed neighbor aside, it sounds like you’re already home.” She guesses while you take off your shoes. “Yeah, you don’t have to worry about me being out and finally get some sleep.”

With the assurance that you were safe and sound, Minji finally relented as she shut her eyes. “Yeah, I think I’ll do that. But don’t forget, you owe me for worrying me like that.” She hears your light laughter through the other line and a smile blooms on her face. “Goodnight, Y/n.”

You can’t help the smile that forms on your own lips before bidding her goodbye. “Goodnight. I’ll see you later.”

When the call finally ends, Minji lets her phone drop to her side as her eyes open again, her smile fading into a small frown as she recalls what you said a while ago, the worry building in her chest as she stared up at the ceiling.

“What are you doing, Yoohyeon?”

Meanwhile, after you had finally gotten comfortable and settled in your bed, it only took a matter of seconds for you to fall asleep, the exhaustion of the day helping you fall unconscious and easing you into dreamland.

However, as your eyes opened, you’re greeted by a dimly lit room. With a chandelier hanging above your head, you could see what little furniture was there along with a few pictures and books scattered about. There were papers strewn about, what appeared to be, a circle of candles around you.

Come to think of it, you were standing directly at the center of the whole thing, yet everything was empty and without a source of life, except you.

Peering around curiously, you take a cautious step outside the circle, being careful not to touch the candles. “What the…” Looking at the large windows to your left, you blinked before looking down at yourself to confirm that you weren’t wearing the shorts or plain shirt you had picked before going to sleep, but rather a white blouse and black dress pants.

You try tapping your own cheek to see if you could wake yourself up, but when you look around, nothing changes. The room is as it is and your clothes don’t change. While you know you’re dreaming, everything feels oddly realistic when you reach one of the desks, letting your fingers brush over one of the few books that was placed on top of it.

Despite being alone, you could not shake off the feeling of someone watching you. There’s a heavy weight that settles on your shoulders, and when you breathe out, your breath is visible as though the room’s temperature had dropped.

There’s a quiet creak in the direction of the archway that probably leads further into the house, and you spin around quickly, catching a glimpse of a shadow before it’s disappeared completely from your sight.

You hold your breath, not daring to call out in the event that someone or something dangerous might be present. With your heart beating faster, you catch another bit of movement, this time by the window. And when you look over, all you see is your own reflection.

Or so you thought.

Your eyes in the window looked a bit different - darker. And when you move back, your reflection’s movement is delayed, forcing you to step away and retreat.

Fear was slowly creeping up your chest and the weight from earlier had yet to go away. While you did your best to keep your breathing steady, the room started to spin around you with your head suddenly throbbing.

And then the whispers began.

You’re not sure where they’re coming from nor do you understand a single word they’re saying. All you knew was that they were growing louder and louder, making you even dizzier. When you move back towards the candles, one light flickers before you feel something grab at your leg, causing you to stumble.

But before your body could collide with the ground, someone had grabbed you by the back of your shirt and you were being shoved back to the circle.

Looking up to who had pushed you, you could barely see their face with how hazy things were getting. The only thing you could tell was that the person was a woman, dressed in a suit with her hair seemingly short, though only at the front because when she gave you another push to have you fully in the circle again, you caught sight of the rest of her hair tied in a low ponytail.

She doesn’t give you a chance to speak nor does she say her name or where you are. She merely stares at you for a few seconds before allowing you to faintly hear her voice. “You shouldn’t be here… at least not yet.”

[chocosvt]

connect universe

⚬ pairing: cyborg!hansol x reader | future!au ⚬ word count: 4315 ⚬ warnings: alcohol consumption, violence ⚬ genres: angst, heavy fluff, elements of a futuristic/dystopian society.

✧�� synopsis: hansol’s first time at an underground party isn’t what you expect it to be. you want to acquaint him with what it’s like to live normally, but the fabric of his past continues to control him.

✧✎ a/n: this is a side story to connect! i recommend you read the original fic first if you haven’t already (link is here) i rly luv this universe and i didn’t want to just stow it away!! i’ll expand on it more in the future (pun whoops)

You didn’t understand how anyone could look at Hansol and interpret him as someone malignant, someone evil. He was anything but a menace, and during the progression of your relationship you came to realize that his gentle nature was often a curse rather than a blessing. It brought you to ache, because he let people walk over him. Hansol had become so accustomed to brutal temperament that he rarely even lifted his finger to those who refused him and belittled him and reduced him to his bionic parts.

The worst part was, Hansol hated when you defended him. He would crinkle into himself like he’d just heard an ear-piercing scream and then grasp onto your wrist, shaking it, begging you to drop the argument because it was worthless. Even if you didn’t see it that way, his pleading was so genuine and desperate that you had no choice but to swallow the bullet on your tongue. Nonetheless, you practiced everything in your power to make him feel love, to understand love, that it wasn’t some weapon of faked promises but the deepest sentiment you had ever felt. “I know what love is because I have you, Hansol.”

When he first moved in with you, he experienced many nightmares, in which he’d slam awake in bed with his fists crumpling at the sheets, every circuit beneath his skin thundering in a bright, icy blue. His right leg would be jittering so quickly that you feared its bionics might burn out. But Hansol never dreamed of his chiefly horrendous past when you held him in your arms. And so every night you would press his head to your chest, feeling him squeeze around your waist while you stroked through the soft fibres of his hair until he fell asleep. Hansol thought he understood love a little more when you did that.

He was learning news joys and pleasures that he’d been reprieved of while contained in the laboratories.  One evening you found a stray kitten stumbling around through some newspapers in an alley, and brought her home to clean up. But what was most shocking was when you placed the kitten in the sink.

Hansol peered over your shoulder, his eyes violet and beaming lowly. “What is that?” He then asked, flinching slightly when the kitten opened its tiny mouth to squeak.

It was an unprecedented type of astounding. How could Hansol not know what a kitten is? However, the more you spoke with Yoojung’s father (responsible for fixing much of the cyborg’s faulty wiring and circuits) you realized Hansol didn’t know much about being a person. What he did know was fear.

“That’s what happens when you grow up in a lab with a bunch of Metal Surgeons and Circuit Technicians. You never were a person, and you’re not yet a cyborg either. You’re an experiment.” He told you.

And with those chilling words chiseled to the underside of your flesh, you adapted an extra attentive level of care when it came to Hansol. You taught him how to handle the kitten without accidentally crushing it in his iron-reflexes, how to brush her fur and tease her with a small toy and give her baths once she’d roll around in the garden. After coming home from a tiresome day at work, almost nothing else could match the happiness you felt upon seeing Hansol asleep on the couch, the kitten curled in a fluffy ball against his chest. She liked to mush her face against his bicep whenever he cradled her in his firm arms.

“He’s so gentle,” you expressed to Yoojung’s father, “he won’t even kill a spider.”

The man flipped up his welding helmet. He gave you a stern look, as though you should know to speak better, and suddenly there was this sickly pounding of your heart.

“The boy is gentle, and you’re not incorrect to think that. But don’t curse yourself by being naïve. He has that switch in him.”

“So does everyone.” You had countered, a shiver tickling down your neck.

“Not everyone is designed the way he is,” Yoojung’s father reasoned, setting down his torch, “no matter what, Hansol is not entirely human. He is devoid of feeling many emotions to their fullest extent. You can associate sunshine on a rainy day with happiness, but that doesn’t mean happiness is what you feel. A  cyborg knows merely the word, not its sensation. I want you to think safe. Hansol knew anger and violence in that laboratory before he knew compassion. It’s wired into his mechanics.”

That day, you left the garage with Hansol as this enormous lump sat in your throat. You examined the chronicles of your relationship.

Not once had the boy ever gotten angry or displayed contempt. Even when your kitten gave Hansol his first scratch, he recoiled in sadness, confusion, rather than an immediate instinct to be forceful. He asked you what he did wrong, and you had to hug him tighter than ever before while he teared up, because he genuinely didn’t comprehend that it wasn’t his fault, that the kitten just didn’t want to be held at that time. You thought about when Hansol kissed you, how he’d always guide you to lay on your back, just his fingertips rubbing softly against your waist because he was so afraid that you might not want him closer. Of course, you always did, to which he would emanate pink at your encouragement.

“If there ever comes a time when you need to deescalate Hansol, I suggest you pin-jack him.” Yoojung’s father had cautioned just before you left the garage.

“Pin-jack?” You questioned. “What’s that?”

He searched his toolbox and picked up a screwdriver with a flat tip. “Anything that can be inserted into the sensory slot at the back of his neck. If you manage to touch his chip, it’ll momentarily reset his data board. He might be delirious coming to, so you must be careful.”

Pin-jack, you scoffed inside your head as you walked home with Hansol, I’ll never have to do that.

“I think we’re getting close. Yoojung said the portal should be under the Interstitial Bridge.”

Hansol followed you, trusting your judgement as you gleaned the instructions Yoojung had earlier sent in a text message. It was difficult to differentiate much in the nighttime, especially when the Interstitial Bridge was located more toward the outskirts of the Nexus. There was hardly any luminosity apart from the moon and the few blue lightning bugs that sparked between the dark seams. Furthermore, it was difficult for Hansol to understand much of your words when the floodgate had been opened, for the concrete trough that was usually dry and empty was now gushing with contaminated city water.

Just up ahead, you could detect the silhouette of the bridge.

The portal must be under it. You knew it was wise to act quickly considering the portal’s location switched every hour, a simple safety precaution in order to spurn the Stargazers. They always attempted to shut down much of the inconspicuous activity that took place outside the eyes of the Nexus. You were anxious, but excited to say the least. This would be Hansol’s first time attending an underground party. It was extremely difficult to receive an invitation let alone successfully pinpoint an entrance portal unless the host themselves gave you the instructions on how to discover it. Yoojung managed to secure herself an invite, and extended the text containing the portal’s location to you and Hansol.

“I think I see it!” You squeaked triumphantly and grabbed onto Hansol’s hand.

Together, you ran beneath the bridge. Embedded into the misty stone was an oval-shaped hole, outlined in a glowing hue of amethyst. The black centre of the portal seemed to ripple and convulse, and every so often there would be an orange flicker against the blackness. You weren’t sure how Hansol was going to respond to such an environment: loud music, dim, flashy lights, the suffocating closeness of unfamiliar bodies, air that constantly grew thicker with humidity, it definitely wasn’t to everyone’s liking. But you figured Hansol would appreciate your offer rather than insisting he stay boxed into your home, unable to experience anything which may help move him from his self-loathing.

“Have you ever been through a portal before?” You asked him.

Hansol shook his head. “No, never.”

There was a faint shimmer of worry in his eyes. You smoothed a hand down his neck and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his mouth, hoping to reassure him.

“I’m not going to let go of your hand, okay? I promise.”

You stepped into the portal first. It was much like shifting through quicksand, for it was something smooth yet heavy, and the further you pushed into the blackness the colder it felt. Eventually, the portal filled with a blinding white light that swallowed around you, yet you squeezed your eyes shut and persisted, your fingers still interlaced with Hansol’s. No more than a second later did you sense the brightness dissipate, and when you opened your eyes, you were met with the vivacious party. You had emerged underneath a metal staircase, to which there was the loud clattering of heels and shoes walking up and down. When you looked at Hansol, he appeared a bit disoriented, but smiled nonetheless.

“Let’s go find Yoojung.” You whispered into his ear.

The atmosphere was quite intense for Hansol. It seemed as though his mechanics were spinning on overdrive, attempting to process such an influx of sound and warm bodies and scents. He stuck close to you as best he could. He was able to relax upon reuniting with Yoojung, for your touches to his arm weren’t met with rigidity and he even accepted a pineapple cocktail from a whirring hover-disk.

Though that didn’t signify he was completely subdue. A few people had managed to note the code tattooed just in front of Hansol’s ear, and while no one pitched a concerning comment, you could tell the boy had felt uneasy from their blatant, often unconscious stares, how they probed every inch of his body attempting to discover all his bionic scarring and accessories. You tended to pull him away and keep him distracted by the other means pertaining to nightlife and underground partying. For a little while you danced undisturbed, which allowed you to discover Hansol’s great sense of rhythm as he twirled you around and guided your hips and swooped you in close against his chest.

“Are you having fun, Sollie?” You murmured, holding onto his shoulders.

He pressed his forehead to yours, kissed you with a zealous edge of roughness and a smirk. You took that as confirmation, and you danced until it became hard to breathe.

But then trouble seemed to take shape in a form you least expected: Changkyun.

Once you and Hansol rediscovered Yoojung near the bar where she had been sipping a brilliant, lime green beverage, you sensed a pair of fingertips slide up your back and turned around uncomfortably. Your expression quickly morphed into shock when you were greeted by Changkyun’s dreary, smiling face, a heavy stench of alcohol radiating from his clothing. You hadn’t been on the best terms with Changkyun. He was never able to adjust to your breakup very well, and there was a reason Yoojung had also begun to distance herself from him. He smiled at you, mumbled something you didn’t quite catch.

“Changkyun,” Yoojung cautioned, setting down her drink, “I think you should clean yourself up a bit and head home. Minghao can open a portal for you.”

He ignored her. Instead, his foggy gaze was allured to you. “So, I take it you’re still w’Hansol?” He slurred despite the boy standing right next to you.

You didn’t answer his question, repeating, “I think you should go.”

“If I had known you’d throw our whole relationship away just to end up w’someone whose half-metal,” Changkyun scoffed, “I never would’ve dated you.”

Hansol stiffened at your side, his eyes wide.

“Changkyun,” Yoojung snapped, “you need to go. Now.”

“What?” The boy persisted defensively, as though he were innocent, with not one inkling as to why he was being dealt this cold treatment. Changkyun approached Hansol and gave him a slight shove against his shoulders. “How come you’ve got nothing to say Bionic Brain? Did you short circuit?”

Something flickered in Hansol’s eyes, and yet he still didn’t crack, rather he merely swallowed and furrowed his brow. It boggled you that Hansol was able to control his temperament, because you were certainly fuming. You stepped in between them and tried maneuvering Changkyun to the side. He stumbled a bit since his coordination had been utterly shredded by the copious alcohol in his system, though his glare never separated from Hansol. Right when you believed the situation was deescalating, you sighed in relief and exchanged a tiresome glance with Yoojung; however, Changkyun had managed to once again press himself right next to the boy and your heart dropped.

“Y’know what they say,” Changkyun hissed between his teeth, “they made you a cyborg because you never would’ve been good enough as a human.”

And with that, Changkyun gave a rough bump to Hansol’s shoulder. The only difference was that he lost his opportunity to walk away unscathed. This shroud of fear gripped onto you tight, rendered you paralyzed, unable to even wriggle a finger as the indifferent light in Hansol’s eyes had been demolished. Instead, his gaze was blazing. It burst into a bloodied shade of red that you had never seen before. The usually invisible circuits lining his neck and cheek started to glow in the same colour, and as Hansol curled his fingers through the collar of Changkyun’s shirt, pinning him hard against the edge of the bar, you saw that the wires in his right forearm were transmitting signals at tenfold their regular speed.

“What did you just fucking say?” Hansol growled, though you could hardly recognize his voice. It had a metallic, almost vibrational undertone. It was sharper, completely stripped of its soft grit, rife with vitriol.

Changkyun squirmed helplessly, like fresh prey caught between its predator’s jaws. Not even Yoojung was able to move, for she was in the same boat as you, unbeknownst to Hansol’s aggression and the seething hatred that he maintained for Changkyun in his eyes. Somehow, you managed to snap from your trance when Changkyun tried to knock Hansol with a punch, though the cyborg easily grasped his wrist and began twisting his entire arm. You grabbed onto Hansol, attempting to push him away, battering against his side in desperation, begging him to stop with panicked tears glued against your cheeks.

Your ex-boyfriend released a horrible cry, as though Hansol were going to break his bone. No matter what you did, Hansol’s strength was akin to steel, it was unparalleled.

It forced you to confront your only option.

Digging into your pocket you retrieved a small nail file. You didn’t allow yourself to think, rather you braced a hand against the back of Hansol’s neck and dug the nail file deep into his sensory slot, as far as the blunt metal could reach until it touched his chip and there was a blipping spark. Yoojung gasped as the colour suddenly melted from Hansol’s gaze. Every circuit beneath his synthetic flesh dimmed and his arms dropped rather lifelessly to his sides. Changkyun didn’t hesitate. He scrambled his way out from underneath Hansol, his chest heaving, sweat glistening on his temples and fear engrained into his face.

It wasn’t until you pushed against Hansol’s neck in order to withdraw the nail file that you realized how terribly you were shaking. The boy’s grey eyes flickered, and you knew he was going to reboot.

“We need to get him out of here,” Yoojung said, wrapping an arm around his waist, “it’s not good for his database to restart in a setting like this.”

Dropping the nail file on the floor, the tears still wet against your cheeks, you assisted Yoojung in helping Hansol walk. Changkyun had disappeared into the shadows.

Yoojung was able to discover Minghao on the balcony that overlooked the dance floor. It was troublesome guiding Hansol up the staircase since his delirium was so thick. He kept mumbling these indiscernible fragments while odd clicks and beeps reverberated from inside his body. You could feel how hot the metal beneath his skin had become, for even just brushing against his forearm was akin to ghosting an iron skillet. Minghao was the party host, and he had been the one to rearrange the portal. Yet, he didn’t seem eager to reopen another gateway so abruptly.

“It’s dangerous,” he began, his black, smooth suit shining against the lights, “the Stargazers have been breathing down my neck ever since my last terra. I’m a sliver away from getting put back in the Void.”

“I know,” Yoojung huffed, adjusting her grip around Hansol’s waist, “I swear, you can set a time limit on the portal for just a minute. That’s all we need to get him out safe.”

With the long, dark fringe shielding Minghao’s eyes, it was impossible to decipher his thinking. However, you did note his foot tapping against the floor. You didn’t know much about Minghao, apart from the fact he lived sumptuously and had managed to become one of the most suspicious citizens within the Nexus. Yoojung said he would be empathetic. Apparently, Minghao sustained irreparable damage to his left eye while being contained in the Void and her father had to fabricate a robotic replacement.

At last, Minghao sighed, running a hand down his face. “Alright, alright, I’ll open one.” He pulled up the sleeve of his suit. “But—you better get in and get the fuck out. I’m not going back there.”

Locked around the boy’s wrist was a silver titanium band. When he pressed his thumb against a slight groove, a series of amber dots gradually lit up around the bracelet.

“Command: open exit portal at sector D4-East, Z-Underground,” Minghao spoke so naturally, as though he knew the coordinates like the back of his palm, “Command: release at sector B2-West, Z-positive, BR-ITS. Time limit is one minute, zero seconds. Force shutdown.”

Minghao then shone his bracelet at the wall, where an amber beam pierced against the brick and opened an exit portal. Yoojung thanked him at least four times, to which he simply nodded and wished you luck with managing Hansol home safely. You pushed through the portal, sensing the coldness unforgivingly squeeze around you.

You sat on your bed, plucking at the tassels of a pillow in your lap. It was almost three in the morning and this sickness had been harbouring in your lower-tummy ever since the dispute at the bar. A shiver traced like the point of a knife down your spine as you kept visualizing that striking redness in Hansol’s gaze, a redness so harrowing and tinged with rage that you hugged the pillow to your chest for measly comfort.

But you knew it wasn’t just anger: pain, betrayal, the exhaustion of having to lace one’s own wounds while knowing they were going to split wide open again, these sentiments too flashed in that redness. A tear rolled down your cheek and splashed onto the pillow.

Yet there was a timid knock on your door, and you quickly wiped your face. Hansol entered your room. He had been laying on your couch ever since he returned home, allowing his mechanics to completely reconnect with his sensory chip. When he sat uncertainly on the edge of your bed, his right knee was already bouncing and there was a pale blue colouring his eyes.

“Are you feeling better?” You hummed, tracing the pillow’s embroidery.

Hansol nodded, looking at you peripherally. “I’m fine.”

There was an unmistaken coarseness to your voice. It was taking all your strength to not erupt into tears like you had done at the party. The feeling of digging that nail file into Hansol’s neck, jamming it so hard into his slot that his chip had sparked and this lifeless aura overwhelmed him, it made you nauseous.

You sniffled, squeezing the pillow tighter. “H-Hansol,” he turned to you with such a concerned countenance that your chest ached, “I’m sorry for pin-jacking you. I’m really sorry.”

The manner in which your tone warbled was heartbreaking. Hansol shook his head. He etched closer to you and extended his hand toward your knee, but his touch immediately withered away the second you flinched ever so slightly. Hansol felt like he’d burned himself.

“No,” he pleaded, “no, no, no. Don’t be sorry. I’m not mad at you. I could never be.” The ice in his eyes had seldom shone this brightly, and it only seemed to disturb more emotions inside you.

Hansol peered into his lap, then licked his lips and murmured in a shaky voice, “are you afraid of me?”

The question stunned you as though it were a daunting flash of light. Consequently, your mind had become hazy, and you struggled to articulate the words that could capture your every feeling. Hansol spoke up again, to which his right leg had finally stopped bouncing.

“I would never hurt you.” He met your gaze with utmost clarity. “I-I can’t promise that I won’t hurt other people… Just… I would never hurt you, ever.”

Your fingertips curled far into the pillow and you could almost hear the blood pumping in your own veins. There was no doubt he was speaking truthfully. You knew Hansol wouldn’t harm you.

“If I had never used my nail file,” you gulped heavily and held eye contact, “would you have done it? Would you have broken his arm?” Somehow, you already suspected the answer.

Hansol nodded. “I wish I could tell you the answer that would make you happy, but I can’t lie to you. I know that makes you uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

Tossing the pillow aside, you sat up straight and shook your head. “It’s not about me, Hansol,” you relayed with urgence, “everything about this night is a lot to process. I don’t know anything about your anger, or what being a cyborg entails. But what I know is that you’re hurting. You keep this darkness inside and you shouldn’t.”

“Because if I don’t people will get hurt!” He exclaimed, clenching his fists while the circuits beneath his forearm and cheek illuminated with lurid colour. “That switch is part of me. They designed me to have it and I can’t rid myself of it! ”

You were fortunate to have not one experience with the laboratories. And yet, Hansol had been tainted since he was a child. He experienced the forefront of their cruelty and their invasive experimenting. He was altered and tapered and tested on. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Hansol was open about many things exempt from his time at the facilities. His journal was the precious tool that captured his every secret.

The boy then gripped onto his right knee, which started trembling once more, his eyes tenuously flickering into a rose shade. “Whenever I feel like I’m slipping… I think about you, and my anger goes away. But that club—it was so loud, so many distractions, so many people and conversations. My sensors haven’t been overwhelmed like that in ages.”

You leaned forward with a great exhale, your hand curling around the boy’s inner thigh to comfortingly squeeze. “Baby, if it was too much, then you should have said something to me.” Cupping his cheek and turning his head toward you, his eyes were rather glossy.

“I wanted to try it,” Hansol huffed, “I just want to be with you, and do things you like.”

Tracing your thumb below his eye, you couldn’t help but sigh again. For someone with an impressive installment of metal components, his heart couldn’t be any more tender than it already was. You swore that if you poked it, your finger might sink right through as though you touched something impossibly soft and squishy. A shy smile gradually danced to the corners of his mouth as you kissed him once, then twice, then wrapped your arms around his neck and suckled the remaining flavour of sweet pineapple from his tongue. You pressed your forehead against his, studying his face with such ardour.

“We can do things you like too, y’know.”

Hansol sniffled. “I like playing with Ppomo.”

Only a moment later, and your kitten was slipping between the thin gap in the doorway. She leapt onto the bed and mewled in her high-pitched tone, most likely imploring for someone to scratch the black and cream fur behind her ear. Ppomo’s favourite place seemed to be Hansol’s lap (you’d have to agree with her on that one) for she curled up in a small ball while he drew a gentle hand along her back. Resting your head against Hansol’s shoulder, you joined him in the petting until she fell asleep.

You thought about what Yoojung’s dad had drawled on that particular day you visited his garage, hoping to get some of Hansol’s mechanisms tweaked: a cyborg knows merely the word, not its sensation.

But you didn’t think that was necessarily true. Instead, you believed it was more accurate to say that Hansol could pinpoint many sensations, he just didn’t know what they were. He learned it was love when you held him and kissed him, happiness when he made Ppomo purr, excitement when he twirled your body in a breathtaking circle before pulling you into his chest on the dancefloor.

And you intended to teach him the name of every sensation that allowed him to feel so wonderful.

✧✎ a/n: awhile ago i answered an ask abt my expansion of the connect universe so if that lovely human reads this, i hope you liked it!! i’m not really sure where these fics into hansol’s attempts at human life will take me. 

maybe i will write an entire fic that details his time at the laboratory... i’m not sure yet!! in the mean time i’m trying to write this mingyu summer fic which i wanted to write last year, but ya... dreams crushed didn’t happen :_) ANYWAYS I HOPE U LOVE CYBORG!SOL AS MUCH AS ME he just wants to pet his kitten!!!!

[tloujm]

Part XII: Jackson Manor

Author’s Notes: Here’s my attempt at horror that I promised! Its roughly a week until Halloween, so just in time I guess! MY GOD, DOES TIME FLY. It was just the beginning of October a minute ago, wasn’t it? It’s a long one, just under 9k words, so grab a snack. It features some continuity on the main plot, but really its a stand alone chapter. Because there are multiple other characters mentioned, there is less focus on you and Joel as a couple, but there’s definitely some fluff and angst (grumpy Joel) hidden in there. I know I’m no James Wan or Stephen King, but bear with me. I only did it as a seasonal thing. The next chapter will go back to focusing on you and Joel’s relationship. 

Genre: Cheesy Horror

Summary: Maria puts together a specially curated group for the next patrol outing that includes you and Joel. The group of five are sent on a mysterious treasure hunt of sorts. The “treasure” is inside of a creepy, abandoned house that plays tricks on the group, fueling into the already existing tensions. 

Ship: Joel x Reader

Joel watched on with tired eyes as you sat with the newcomer at the daycare. You got up early so you could talk to her. So far, the girl remained silent, but her body language was responsive. Joel just stood there, unsure of when a good time to interrupt and steal you away would be. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait too long as you finally caught his gaze. After a moment, you excused yourself and walked over to him standing in the doorway. 

“Maria has us scheduled to patrol today.” He said.

“Us? Together? Well, that’s a treat. You usually do the tougher routes. Am I going on one of those with you, or are you doing an easy one with me?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not quite sure. Maria didn’t say much after she told me to come fetch you.”

“Maybe they think I’m ready for something more challenging.”

“I think so, but what’s strange is that she’s got us goin’ out with a couple other people who I don’t think are.” Joel said, scratching his beard.

“Who’s all going?” You asked.

“Tim, Rhonda and uh, Jesse.” He replied. He was less than enthused with the last name that exited his mouth. While he was civil with Jesse, he still couldn’t help but feel like he had a thing for you, whether you acknowledged it or not.

“Jesse’s a veteran, but Tim?” You made a face. “And Rhonda?” You made a slightly more exaggerated face. “Did Maria say why she chose all of us to go together?”

“Didn’t get the chance to ask. We’re meant to meet her at the stables. That’s where she’s debriefing us.”

*****

“Thank you all for meeting me for this patrol on such short notice. I know this is everyone’s day off.” Maria began. You and the others were seated on bales of hay as she paced in front of the stable doors. “I hand picked each of you to work together and complete the task at hand. I drew up copies of a special map that came into my possession a little while ago.” She handed them out. “Outside the city of Jackson, there is a little village...smaller than that really, that is not located on any published map. I want you guys to check it out and report back on it. Note everything. More specifically, I want this team to sweep through a large house over that way. You’ll know it when you see it. According to the original map, ‘the exterior is dark, almost black, three stories high and overshadowed by a massive pine tree’. I was tipped off that the house was used as a supply cache for the Jackson Frontier Faction, a recently extinct group of survivors. Bring back anything you can. Leave what you can’t and we’ll come back for it. Update the map if need be during your journey. Any questions?”

“How long do you think this mission will take?” Jesse asked.

“I don’t want you to spend too much time out there, but I estimate no more than three days. That’s including the time to get there and back on the horses. If you are not back by then, I will send a search and rescue team.” Maria responded confidently.

“No offense, but why did you pick us? We’ve never worked together as a group before.” Joel spoke up.

“True, I do not have the advantage of seeing your group dynamic, but there is method behind my way of thinking. Each of you have a specific skill set that I believe would simultaneously compliment each other as well as make the group superior to our previous patrols. Joel, you are an excellent shot and an exceptional tracker. Jesse, as well as your combat skills, you have a great sense of direction, even in the most foreign of environments, and you think outside the box. (Y/N), I know you have trained under both Joel and Tommy and I have seen your melee combat in person. I trust that you are ready for a more difficult route such as this. I also appreciate your level headedness. Keeping calm during dangerous situations can be the difference between life and death. Now as for Tim and Rhonda. I know the two of you have never been on patrol before, so I especially thank you for agreeing to this. I wish I could have introduced you to this job with a more novice route. Tim is our medic in training and has been Dr. Carson’s right hand and apprentice for over a year now. He will be there to aid in any medical relief.” She turns her attention to Tim. “If you ever need any assistance, (Y/N) is trained in first aid.” He looks at you for a long moment. You return the gaze, realizing that you’d never formally met him before. “Rhonda, you are great at your job taking inventory at the pantry. Now, you are the group’s official scribe and your job is to take inventory of the things collected. I’ve also seen how good you draw. I would like you to note the environment and work with Jesse in drawing up a new map. Also, I want you to record things of interest through writing and drawing.” Maria gives her a journal. “I would have had you all wait until the first sign of spring, but we are in desperate need of certain supplies. To be honest, this is an experiment, having all of you in a group together, but I still have high expectations. Please, do not disappoint me. We are all counting on you. Have a safe trip.” Maria left to tend to some business at the main gate.

“I think we should go over this map she gave us so we can all be on the same page.” Jesse suggested.

Joel grunted in agreement. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” You began to push the bales to form a circle. The others followed suit and Jesse placed his map in the middle. Before you could take a seat, you felt a tap on your shoulder.

“Hi, I’m Tim.” He began to laugh nervously. “I’m sure you know that because of Maria, but I wanted to introduce myself. I didn’t want my asking you to apply pressure on somebody’s wound be the first time I talk to you.”

“Nice to meet you, Tim. (Y/N).” You shook his hand.

“I’ve heard a lot about you actually.” He responded.

“Oh?” You questioned genuinely.

“Yeah. Everyone knows about that bloater you and Joel ran into. And I was there helping Dr. Carson handle the bodies when the two of you found Sid and Adam. I just want to let you know, I think you’re very brave.”

A grin slowly grew on your face. “Thank you. I’m sure you are too, having to deal with blood and whatever gory things you see in the infirmary.”

He brushed past the compliment. “No more gory than what you guys see on patrol when you run into clickers and bloaters. The way the Cordycep fungus disfigures the body is something from a nightmare.” You nodded in agreement. Joel watched on from his seat as the two of you conversated. Eventually, he cleared his throat, causing you to turn and see that everyone else was seated and ready to go over the map. Tim’s cheeks turned red as he gave you a small smile before sitting.

“Nice of you to join us.” Joel whispered after you sat next to him. You nudged him in the shoulder and focused on Jesse’s words. 

After agreeing on a specific route in accordance to the weather conditions, the group picked up their respective horses and headed to the main gate. Maria and Bill from weaponry passed out a plethora of guns and knives. Joel and Jesse led the way out into the open with a couple clicks of their tongues. Everybody's horses galloped behind. It was cold and the snow was fairly high, but light enough to dredge through. 

Tim gently kicked his horse in the rear to gallop faster and catch up with you. “So how do you think Maria found out about this place?”

“I don’t know. Must have been one of the merchants who passed through a few weeks ago. If this place was discovered by someone inside Jackson, all of the patrol groups would have known by now. For Maria to be the only one who knew and had a map?”

“Do you think it actually exists?” He asked.

“The house?”

“The whole village.” He confirmed. “Maybe a merchant made up the location with the hopes of convincing someone of a known cache supply, like a treasure map, and had the intentions of charging a high price for it.”

“Maria is smart. She wouldn’t have let anyone get over on her, especially a merchant.” You defended her. 

“I’m sure you’re right. What do you think is going to be in there?” Tim asked casually. 

You shrugged. “Food. Hopefully not molded or eaten through by rats. Medical supplies. Seeds for the spring. Could be anything.”

“So long as it’s worth it.”

“She wouldn’t have sent us if it wasn’t.” Things fell silent between the two of you. You thought about riding off to the front next to Joel, but figured it was rude to just leave him.

“You and Joel,” He began before clearing his throat. “You guys patrol a lot together?”

“We used to. Not so much anymore. Matter of fact, this is the first time we’ve been assigned to the same group in about a year.”

“Why is that?” Tim questioned.

“It was this whole thing.” You explained it away, not wanting to get into detail. He kept looking at you as if he was waiting for you to expand on the response. “We just got busy doing different things. I help out at the daycare too, you know.”

“Yeah? I know Wendy. She brings the kids by the infirmary from time to time for check ups. I traded for a pack of stickers a while back. I give them out to help put a smile on the kids’ faces when they come in. You know, a lot of them get nervous around doctors. My stickers don’t stand a chance against Joel's wooden toys though.”

“You know about those?”

“Of course. They come in holding the little horses or race cars kind of like a blankie. So...speaking of Joel, you two are together, right?”

“Yes, we are.”

He nodded. “He’s more than lucky, I’d say.” He waited until you turned and held his gaze before bidding you a goodbye. He slowed down his horse to ride alongside Rhonda. After a moment, you rode up next to Joel. You offered him a small smile, to which he returned the same.

“What did he want?” Joel nodded his head back in Tim’s direction.

“He was talking about Maria and this mission. He seems skeptical about the whole thing.”

“I don’t blame him, but I trust Maria. What else did he say?” Joel inquired.

“We were just getting to know each other. Small talk really.” You responded. You seldom saw Joel jealous, but you didn’t want him to get into a funky mood when there was a mysterious task at hand to focus on.

“The winds picking up, you feel that?” Jesse chimed. The two of you nodded.

“Yeah. I hope we find this place soon.” You shouted over the howling winds.

“According to the map, there's still a ways to go. Let’s just hope the weather doesn’t get any worse than this.”

Unfortunately for the group, not only did the winds pick up, but it got cloudier, blocking the sun’s warmth. It was hard to tell whether it was snowing or if the wind was just blowing around what had already fallen. Either way, the visibility got progressively lower by the second. At one point, you had become separated from Joel. The only people you could see were Tim and Rhonda. Joel was alone; nothing but white around him. He shouted your name over and over, but the frigid air entering his lungs began to hurt. His horse started to slow down as it became harder for her to gallop through it. Joel had been separated from the group for so long that he thought he was going crazy when he heard crunching in the snow from behind. He heard his name, but it wasn’t from your voice. Jesse came up from behind him. Despite the cold air whipping his face, he seemed happy to see Joel.

“Where are we?” Joel shouted.

“I don’t know, but we have to find somewhere soon. These horses won’t make it.” Jesse replied.

“Did you see (Y/N)?” Joel asked.

“I don’t know where anybody is.” Jesse pulled his hood back over his head. “The storm’s getting worse. Should we turn back?”

“No!” He shouted over the winds. “We came as a group, we leave as a group.”

“What if they already turned back? They’re probably assuming that we’re going to too.” Jesse pleaded.

“I’m not leaving without (Y/N).” Joel retorted. “We just need to find cover to wait out the storm and go on from there.” Jesse quietly followed his lead. There seemed to be no shelter in sight. If there were, they were masked by the white wall of snow directly in front of them. Joel was contemplating pulling out his map and risking it against the wind to estimate how far they rode from their last known point. Just as he began to pull it out,  a big dark building came into view.

“That must be it!” Jesse exclaimed.

“This way!” Joel noticed a large opening on the side of the house. As he galloped closer, he realized it was the opened door of an attached shed. The men ducked their heads as the horses walked them inside.

“Joel!” You exclaimed, voice laced in relief. He immediately looked your way and his heart skipped a beat. He was so worried. You approached his horse and waited for him to dismount before you attacked him with a tight hug. “You’re so cold.” All you wanted to do was strip him down and warm him up.

“Well, it is cold outside.” He responded sarcastically. You lightly slapped him on the arm before moving onto Jesse. You gave him a quick hug and helped tie down both of the horses.

“We’re glad you’re back.” Rhonda announced as she entered the shed. Tim followed close behind her.

“Good. The gang’s all here.” Jesse said.

“We wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t convinced (Y/N) to stay.” Tim began. “She insisted on going back out for you guys when we saw that you weren’t here. We told her that it was too dangerous, but she insisted. Practically had to hold her back.” He chuckled.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t.” Joel said flatly to Tim.

Breaking up the tension, Jesse spoke up. “Did you guys clear the house?”

“Only the first floor. There’s two more floors, not including the basement.” Rhonda responded.

“Alright, Jesse, Rhonda and Tim. Y’all sweep the top floors for Clickers. Me and (Y/N) will board up them windows over there.” Joel points to the wind entering through the broken glass. Jesse nodded and pulled out his gun. The others did the same.

“Y’all know how to use those things?” Jesse questioned them. Joel didn’t see or hear their answer as he was focused on you.

“Are you okay?” You asked him.

“I’m fine, darlin’. What about you?” He asked with a soft tone.

“I’m good now.” You smiled. He tilted your chin up with his still gloved hand and kissed you. He let his forehead rest on yours for a moment before straightening back up.

“Alright, let’s find some wood or somethin’.” Joel’s body was weary, but he didn’t want to rest until the house was secured. You couldn’t find any tools to board the windows up with, so the two of you settled on barricading them with large furniture. It wasn’t until you were done, did you realize how big the house was. 

“This isn’t just some house, it’s like a manor.” You commented. “Almost reminds me of that hotel.” The last part you said almost in a whisper.

“This ain’t gonna be like the hotel.” Joel tried to comfort you.

“How do you know?” You furrowed your brows.

“Well, how about this, I’ll make you breakfast in bed the morning after we get back if there are zero bloaters in this house...I’m sorry, manor.”

“Well aren’t you naughty, implying that I’ll stay the night when we get back.” You teased, changing the mood of the conversation.

“I’m implying that you’ll consider moving back in.” He gazed at you, all playfulness left behind.

“If you still agree to make me that breakfast in bed, I will.” You replied coyly.

“It’s settled then.” Joel smirked. 

The two lovebirds had just begun to feel each other up when the rest of the group came back downstairs. They would have been caught if it weren’t for Jesse’s heavy footsteps. He gave the all clear but claimed he saw something of interest upstairs and wanted Joel’s opinion. Rhonda, wanting to take note of whatever it was, tagged along with them as they went up to the third floor. With just you and Tim left alone, the two of you agreed to scavenge the second floor.

“Oh wow, look at this!” You walked up to a bookcase in one of the bedrooms. It was tightly stocked with classical literature with matching book spines. 

“Lord of the Flies, The Secret Garden, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy…”  Tim followed your voice into the room and read some of the titles from over your shoulder. “Quite the eclectic collection.”

“Oh look! One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” You pointed out.

“Ah, Nurse Ratched. She creeped me out. Almost didn’t finish it because of her.”

“You read it?” You asked.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” He chuckled. “I’m a well read man. It's funny, I’ve read more after the outbreak than before.”

Turning back to the bookshelf, you crouched down and ran your finger across the spines. “Look how dusty these are. They look like they haven’t been touched in years. That Jackson Frontier Faction, or whatever Maria said they were called, probably never even touched these.” You continued to read the titles before eventually picking up a book that peaked your interest. “Charlotte Bronte.” You breathed out her name as you flipped the cold, leather book in your hands. “Jane Eyre is one of my favorites. I never wanted to like all that mushy, gushy romantic stuff, but in the end, it appealed to me. You know, sometimes I think of Joel as kind of like my Mr. Rochester because he can be so grumpy at times. Don’t tell him I said that, though.” You chuckled as you turned to face Tim, but he was no longer there. 

The large bedroom was empty and you began to notice just how eerily still the air was. You calling out to him was the only sound. You waited for an answer to no prevail. Turning back to the bookshelf, you placed Jane Eyre back in its slot. With a light, barely there click, the door behind you closed. Slowly, you turned to face it. A sense of dread washed down your body as you got up and walked to the door. Your eyes cautiously bounced around as you did, looking for anything abnormal. It was wide open when the two of you walked into the room. Your hand reached out for the door knob and, barely touching it, the round thing of metal fell onto the floor and rolled around your feet. 

“Hey.” You exclaimed as you banged on the door. “Tim, the doorknob broke off. Let me out.” Your brain allowed you to think that it was all just a prank masterminded by Tim. “You got me, but it’s not funny anymore.” You began to bang louder. You heard the echoes of your fist against the wooden door, but again, he did not respond. “Tim?” You banged harder. “Help!”

“(Y/N), step away from the door.” You heard Joel’s voice on the other side. He gave you a few seconds before kicking the door in. It only took him one try before the door swung in and you were revealed to him. He pulled you into a tight hug. “You alright?” He kissed the top of your head. “How did you get locked in?”

“I’m ok---” 

As soon as he heard that you were fine, he began to bombard you with questions. “You sure? Weren’t you with Tim? Where is he?”

“Yeah, Tim was there for a moment. Look, it was probably just a draft that closed the door on me.” You wanted to believe that. 

“That still don’t change that he should’ve been with you.” Joel sternly said. Jesse watched and waited in the hallway until Joel took your hand and led you out the room. “Tim!” He called out as he sped down the stairs.

“Hey, we’ve been waiting on you guys.” Tim casually stated.

“Well, guess who’s been waitin’ on you.” Joel retorted. He glanced at you before glaring back at him.

“Wait, I don’t get it.” Tim said, confused.

“(Y/N) was locked in a room upstairs. A room both of you were meant to be in.” Joel’s voice became more aggressive.

“I don’t know how she got locked in. I didn’t do it, I swear, if that’s what you’re saying. I left it open when I walked out.” He shifted his gaze to you. “I thought you were right behind me, (Y/N). I heard Rhonda call out from downstairs and---”

“Yeah that’s true,” Rhonda began as she leaned back on an end table. “I went downstairs to look for my pencil sharpener because my tip broke and I called you guys down to keep me company. I don’t know if it’s just me, but this place kinda creeps me out. I didn’t want to be down here by myself and I know Joel and Jesse were busy upstairs so...”

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). I swear I thought you heard her too and were following me.”

“She was up there for God knows how long. You didn’t notice when you got downstairs that she wasn’t behind you? Did you even tell her that you were leaving the room?” Joel questioned him.

“Well, I mean no,” Tim began to stammer. “But that was because I thought she heard her too! I didn’t notice that she wasn’t behind me until about a minute after I got downstairs. She was having a good time looking at those books in the room, I figured maybe she ignored Rhonda and kept looking or maybe went upstairs with you guys. Look, she’s an adult! I assumed she made the decision herself not to come down. It’s not like she’s some lost child that I have to look out for!”

“She may not be a child, but we look out for each other beyond them gates. You may not be used to how patrollin’ works, but they put us in groups for a reason. Anythin’ can happen out here!” Joel explained.

“Ok, let's take a breather.” Jesse spoke up to relieve the tension. “(Y/N) is fine and that’s all that matters.” Jesse was not immune from Joel’s heated glares either. 

“You didn’t hear me calling for you?” You asked Tim in a low tone.

“No.” He simply said in an apologetic tone. You didn’t know what else to say. It was probably really all just a harmless mistake. You concluded that you didn’t hear Rhonda over your own voice when you were rambling on about Jane Eyre.

“Let’s just make sure we communicate better next time, huh?” Jesse suggested, focusing in on Tim.

A sudden, blood curdling shriek cut through the air. It belonged to Rhonda. She flailed about the living room, shaking tiny black dots off of her hand. It was hard to see as she moved quickly, but the black dots were crawling up her arm. Jesse stepped in and began swatting her with a blanket off of the couch. Her feet hopped up and down from the floor like a choreographed dance. Even after Jesse asked her to stand still to inspect her, she kept moving. Joel stepped in to gently hold her still. She whined in protest, claiming that they were still crawling on her. Tim took the time to thoroughly look over her body for anything that moved. He even raked his fingers through her hair. Jesse walked over to the end table that she was leaning against and investigated.

“There’s a sac of spider eggs directly behind one of the table’s legs. You probably broke them when you leaned against it, releasing all those baby spiders.” Jesse explained calmly.

“They could have crawled anywhere! Why did they have to go for my hand?” Rhonda asked rhetorically.

Still Jesse answered. “Maybe they were crawling toward the scent of their mother.”

“Are you saying they thought I was their mother?”

“I’m saying that the mother must still be around here close by.”

“God! I hate spiders!” Rhonda exclaimed. “I told you this house gives me the creeps. I can’t be the only one who thinks this.”

“Spiders are everywhere, Rhonda. I didn’t see any bites, so you should be alright.” Tim chimed in. 

“What were you guys checking out on the third floor?” You asked Jesse and Joel as a way to change the subject. 

“It ended up bein’ nothing.” Joel said curtly. He saw your dissatisfaction with his answer and sighed. “It turned out to be a couple of dead rats. They were frozen.”

“We haven’t gone down to the basement yet. I think we should make sure it’s clear before we start really scavenging.” Jesse made notice of the oversight. “It’s really cold in here. Can’t we make a fire first?” Tim spoke up.

“I’ll stay and make one here.” Jesse volunteered. “Tim, since you want one so bad, you can stay back and help me with it.” He turned to Joel. “Y’all can go ahead. Let us know if you run into trouble.” Joel nodded and led you and Rhonda down the basement stairs. The temperature dropped almost immediately after making it to the sub level. 

The three of you pulled your respective weapons out and cautiously walked across the cold cement floor. The large basement was divided by metal shelving units. There was no space left on any of them. It seemed like whoever owned the house before the outbreak was a hoarder. The snow blocked out any light from peering through the narrow windows. The only thing guiding the three of you were your flashlights. 

“What’s that?” Rhonda spoke up. It fell silent, but everyone heard it. It was a drawn out creaking followed by a deep rumble that sounded as if it moved across the whole basement.”

“It’s just the house settling.” Joel simply said.

“That’s what they all say. Feeling a draft when there’s no wind. Hearing doors slam in the next room. Oh, but it’s just the house settling.” Rhonda responded.

“Well, did you hear a door slam or feel a draft?” Joel inquired, almost wishing he hadn’t.

“No, but now that you mention it, it’s colder down here than upstairs. This is probably one big cold spot.”

“It’s always colder in basements.” You tried to reason.

The creaking sound occurred again. “Look,” Joel flashed his light up toward the ceiling and moved it along the direction of the pipes. “Whatever water is left in the pipes from when they were last used is freezing which means it’s expanding. As the ice grows, it’s pushing against the walls of the metal pipes.”

Rhonda looked up at the frost covering the illuminated pipes. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Come look at this.” You beckoned them over. You had found a table covered in a sheet and after whispering some encouraging words to yourself, you pulled it off.

“What is it?” Joel asked.

“It’s an orrery.” You breathed out. Despite your amazement, he was no closer to knowing what it was. As a matter of fact he was more confused. Rhonda took out her notebook and began to draw it.

“Its a mechanical model of the solar system.” You explained. To Joel, it just looked like different sized spheres positioned in a circle.

“They don’t look like planets to me.” He said.

“This isn’t the most extravagant one I’ve ever seen, but it’s something.” You walked around the table, studying the spheres. “See, right here, this one is the sun,” You pointed. “Which makes this one Earth.”

“Really makes you feel small, don’t it.” Joel chimed. 

“I know we won’t be able to take this now, but this would be great for school. The kids would love this. Teach them about how space works.” You said.

Joel studied it a little bit longer before moving on to see what were on the shelves. As soon as Rhonda was done drawing, she did the same. You threw the sheet back over the model before continuing on as well. Most of the items were either junk or rotted with mold. On one of the lower shelves, you found a small hand mirror. The base was ornate in design, but the glass itself was dull and cracked. You held it up to your face, angling it in your hands. Something moved in the corner near the crack. You didn’t pay the occurrence much mind until it happened again. You saw something in your peripheral vision that couldn’t be explained away by the house settling. Turning around, you inspected the area of interest in the dark. Everything was still. Whatever it was that moved, maybe it knew that you were watching it, so it stopped. You stood still, hoping to blend into the darkness as well. Maybe you could catch it moving before your very eyes if you just waited long enough. Your heart thumped in your chest as you began to fiddle with the switch on your flashlight. Quickly, you illuminated the space in front of you only to reveal nothing but boxes stacked up against the wall and another item covered in a sheet. Carefully, you approached the cloaked object and ripped the fabric off. You jumped out of your skin at the sight before you. 

A shaky breath escaped your lips as you turned around. “You scared the shit outta me!” You told Joel. He was standing behind you when you pulled the sheet off of a standing mirror. Your light reflecting off the glass masked some of his features and for a moment, you didn’t know exactly who was standing behind you.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, darlin’.” He said. This time it was your turn to glare at him. You knew it wasn’t his fault, but your heart was still beating out your chest. “I just came up to check on you. I saw you wandering around in the dark.”

“I’m fine. I just...I thought I----” You stammered through your explanation before being cut off by a loud thump. It went eerily silent. “Rhonda?” 

“Rhonda.” Joel called out as well. There was no response. The two of you searched up and down the makeshift aisles that the shelving units created. You called out for her again. 

“She has to still be down here.” You mentioned.

“Think she pulled a Tim?” Joel suggested.

“No, she wouldn’t do that. God, how is this basement so huge?” He led you to a tunnel-like portion of the room. “Rhonda!” Your light shone on her unmoving form on the ground. You and Joel kneeled beside her. Upon closer inspection, you found blood slowly dripping out from the back of her head. The back of her hair was matted in a mixture of gravelly dirt and the dark red liquid. Joel got back up and flashed his light around the narrow space to see what could have happened.

“Looks like she hit her head on this.” Joel commented. You followed the direction of his light and saw a stack of cement blocks against the wall. The top block had fresh blood painted on the side of it.

“Go get Tim. He needs to help her!” You were scared for her. The blood wasn’t coming out at an excessive rate, but there was still a lot more than you wanted to see on the ground underneath her head. 

Joel began to leave in a hurry, but stopped in his tracks. “Be careful, (Y/N). This is what she must have slipped on.” He said as he shone his light on a patch of black ice on the ground. He moved the light higher and inspected the pipes directly above his head. A frozen over droplet formed around a tiny crack in the cylindrical piece of metal. 

You were scared as you sat alone with her in the basement. Her lips were turning blue and you couldn’t tell if it was because she was dying or because it was really cold down there. You wanted to believe the latter. Either way, she needed to be moved. After what felt like five long minutes, Tim came rushing into the narrow section where you waited. You screamed for him to be careful around the ice. He hopped over the patch and knelt down by Rhonda’s side to assess her head injury. He managed to wake her back up, though she was slipping in and out of consciousness. Tim gently picked her up and walked her upstairs to where the fire was going. Jesse laid a blanket down on the floor in preparation for her. 

There, in the middle of the living room floor, Tim treated Rhonda. He diagnosed her as having obtained a severe concussion. He elevated her bandaged head and gave her a pain killer to swallow. He practically swaddled her in the extra blankets to discourage sudden movement. 

“I’m going to help her eat so her medicine can digest properly. After that, I’m going to ask her a set of basic questions just to see where her brain and motor functions are. Nothing major; her brain definitely needs some time to heal. Despite falling unconscious, the blunt force trauma doesn’t seem to have caused any swelling or permanent brain damage, but like I said, I still have to evaluate her and see where she’s at.” Tim explained. The four of you were huddled together on the other side of the living room to make sure she was out of ear shot.

“If you’re gonna look after her, I reckon the rest of us should finish scavenging. The faster we do this, the faster we can get back home where she can better rest.” Joel stated.

“Given the storm ends soon.” Jesse spoke up.

While the three went up the stairs, Tim went over to his backpack to review his medical supplies. As he rummaged, a drawn out creak sounded from the kitchen. He glanced in the direction of the room despite not being able to see inside. A few moments of silence was followed by a loud bang. Tim glanced back toward the kitchen again. This time, he moved closer to the fire, giving him a better view into the room. His heartbeat quickened as he peaked around the corner. From his angle, nothing suspicious could be seen. He exchanged a worried glance with Rhonda before looking at the staircase. He wanted to see if anybody upstairs had heard. If not coming down to investigate, he figured they would at least shout out to them and ask if they were ok, but there was nothing. 

“I’m going to go see what that was.” Tim said to Rhonda.

“Please don’t.” She replied weakly.

“It’ll be fine, I promise.” 

“No, no, no.” She profusely shook her head. Tim read her face, he knew that she was sincerely frightened, but if there was an impending danger, he needed to know where it was. I would only be gone for a moment, he told her in his head. He pulled his gaze from her and turned the corner. The kitchen appeared completely normal. He was confused. The sound was so close; it had to have come from the kitchen. As a precaution, Tim went into the laundry room located right off the kitchen. 

“(Y/N)? Come here. Wait with me.” Rhonda spoke up, barely above a whisper. She didn’t hear you come down the stairs, but you were in the living room nonetheless. It was good timing as she was too scared to be by herself. “Please?” You hadn’t so much as looked in Rhonda’s direction. You just walked from one end of the room and down the hallway, disappearing from her view. “(Y/N)?”

Rhonda waited for you to come back down the hall. This time you’d be facing her and surely she’d be able to get your attention. Despite calling out again, you never did. Left to her own devices, Rhonda began to think about what you wore when the group left Jackson. She couldn’t completely remember, but the more she thought on it, the more she realized what you wore just a moment ago was different from what you wore earlier today. She never did get a good look at that woman’s face, but she thought it was you by the color of your hair and the height. She wanted it to be you. A wave of shivers ran down her spine as the realization sat in. 

You, Jesse and Joel split up the rooms upstairs to cover more ground, but decided to stay on the same floor to avoid a repeat of what happened earlier. As soon as you were done searching your room, you moved on to the next only to find Jesse. He called you over from the doorway but shushed you as you walked in. You noticed that it was a grand bedroom, similar to the one you were locked in on the second floor. You walked past the four post bed and stood next to him. His ear was to the wall.

“Tell me if it’s coming from here.” Jesse whispered. You heard a faint scratching sound, but it could have been from anything inside the old house. Standing next to him, you mirrored his position and let your ear rest against the cold wall. The scratching sound became more clear as it mingled with a slow, yet distinct clicking sound. The two of you stared at each other. You silently expressed to him that you did in fact hear what he was hearing. You read the question in his eyes, unsure of how to answer: what was behind these walls? This was the last room in the hallway, so there wasn’t much space for anything else. You began to walk backwards with your ear sliding against the wall to follow the sound. Jesse followed your footsteps. When you stopped, there was no more than a half foot distance between you two.

“It’s right here. Right on the other side.” You whispered. Jessed nodded. Subconsciously, you held your breath and stayed like that for a few moments. Suddenly, you jumped at a new sound echoing through the room. It was Joel clearing his throat as he glared between you and Jesse from the doorway.

“What’s this?” Joel asked in a less than impressed tone. His arms were crossed as he walked in further. You hadn’t realized how the proximity in which you stood to Jesse looked from another view point. You knew Joel wasn’t the happiest camper around Jesse, but you also knew that you hadn’t done anything wrong. Quietly, you placed a finger to your lips and pleaded for his silence with your eyes. As he walked closer, you could tell by the curiosity in his face that he heard it too. He made a move to stand in between the two of you, prompting the other man to walk away from the wall. “It’s probably termites or rats. This house is old and falling apart. There’s no tellin’ how many little openings there are.”

“With all due respect, I don’t think it’s rats this time.” Jesse disagreed. “I think we should investigate.”

“What good would that do? There’s nothing beyond these walls! You’ve seen it; there's nothing but the outside. If it ain’t rats, then what is it? We ain’t here to play ghost hunter, alright? We’re meant to be lookin’ for them supplies.” Joel argued. His attention was geared at Jesse, but when there was no rebuttal, he turned to look at you only to find a hint of disappointment in your face.

“Who knows how long we’re gonna be stuck in this house. We may as well while we’re here.” You said. Much to Joel’s dislike, you sided with Jesse. With an exasperated sigh, he agreed under the condition that it wouldn’t take long.

The three of you walked around the room, looking for clues such as holes in the walls for rodents to scurry through. It didn’t take long for you to find a draft coming from behind the armoire. It was as if the large piece of furniture was blocking an opening. The two men moved it out the way to find that it was blocking a crawl space. With the opening exposed, the scratching and clicking became clearer. The three of you were hesitant, knowing that whatever it was making that sound, it was through that small, dark space. You glanced between the two men before volunteering to go in first. You were the smallest, you argued, and could best fit through. Crouching down, you saw that the large hole in the wall was like a tunnel to something deeper in the house but that it also passed the interior of the wall. You let out a deep breath and began to crawl with a knife in your right hand.

With your body only 3/4ths of the way in, you came face to face with the origin of those sounds. You removed your flashlight from your waist and shined it on the clicker. It was so disfigured that you concluded that it had turned many years ago. Remaining completely still, you watched as it slowly clawed at the wall. The scene before you was so abnormal. Never had you seen a clicker move so slow. You eyed the way it was positioned between the walls. It could have found its way out easily if it wanted to. Living for years after the outbreak, you observed how the fungal parasite used its host cleverly to spread its disease. It had probably been there for so long, blocked by the armoire, that its blood lust fell dormant. You continued to watch as its mouth slowly opened to release a few clicking sounds before closing again. You were afraid that as soon as any sudden movements were made, a switch would flip in whatever was left of the  clicker’s brain and it would begin attacking you. While silently weighing your choices, Joel and Jesse noticed that you hadn’t moved for minutes and asked if you were ok at the same time. He gave the younger man a glare before refocusing on your well being. Your eyes immediately went back to the clicker to see if it was disturbed by the sudden sound. Normally, all it took was the tiniest sound of a human voice to activate their savage nature. You watched and waited, but nothing different happened. You let out a deep breath and told the guys you were ok. Despite the thing being closer than you would have liked, it was an easy kill. You told them what had happened before carrying on through the crawl space. The tunnel spilled out into a secret room. It was as big as a walk-in pantry closet or a janitor room. Before you stood up, you shouted behind you for them to follow. It was a tight squeeze, but they did it.

The group had already scavenged valuable odds and ends throughout the house, but this was the jackpot. The walls were lined with nonperishable foods and cases of bottled water stacked up as tall as Joel. Jesse broke the lock on a heavy duty trunk to find it full of weapons and ammunition. There was another trunk with other survival tools like batteries, matches and medical supplies raided from a hospital. The three of you donned huge smiles at the amount of supplies that was discovered. With Rhonda injured, you pulled out your own notebook and marked everything that was inside the room while the other two filled their bags up to the brim to take what they could.

Downstairs in the laundry room, Tim found nothing out of the ordinary. It made no sense to him. Was it all a prank; something the rest of the group was doing to initiate him into the patrol job? Or was it all in his head? He knew it wasn’t that; he wasn’t crazy. Just as he turned to walk back into the kitchen, he heard the loud bang again. It came from the same place he investigated just moments ago.

“Rhonda, did you hear…” He shouted out as he walked into the kitchen. He stopped mid sentence when he saw the disarray before him. All the drawers were pulled out and all the cabinet doors were opened. His body froze in fear. The only thing that moved were his eyes as he watched a mouse scurry between the cupboards. For no good reason at all, he was overcome with a feeling to not look behind him as if there was something there waiting to reveal itself in the laundry room.

“Tim!” Joel shouted from the living room. He was still scared, but hearing his voice snapped him out of that debilitating fear. Quickly, he made his way out the kitchen. Without warning Joel pushed him against the living room wall and held his arm against Tim’s throat to keep him in place. “Where the hell were you?” Joel asked aggressively. “We come down here to find Rhonda crying and bleeding through her bandages.” Tim’s eyes, bulged out, danced across the room before landing on the wounded woman. You were holding her in your arms.

“C’mon. Ease up. He gets it.” Jesse gently rested his hand on Joel’s shoulder.

“No, I don’t think he does.” He replied over his shoulder before looking back at Tim. “When you said you were gonna look after her, I figured you meant it. I thought we’d been over this, Tim.” He glared daggers into the medic’s eyes, but he was only met back with fear. Assuming that he was the cause, Joel finally let go. Tim scurried to another corner of the living room to gather himself. 

“I saw her...it...whatever that thing was!” Rhonda spoke up raspily. “I called out to her, thinking it was you. I thought you’d left me, but then she came back. Not once did she look at me, but she paced the living room and each time she walked back, she got closer to me. I told her to stay away, but she didn’t listen; she kept coming closer. I tried to crawl away, but I got dizzy and my vision got blurry.” She began to weep again. “So I closed my eyes and counted to ten, like my Nana taught me when I was little. Then I heard you guys come down the stairs. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was you. The real you. She was gone. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Rhonda.” Tim hoarsely apologized. “I...I was gone because there was this sound. A huge bang. You guys didn’t hear that?” Joel only offered a blank glare while you and Jesse shook your heads. “It had come from the kitchen. It was only right there, so I figured it was close enough for me to see what it was. Just in and out.”

“Well, it wasn’t in and out was it?” Joel questioned.

“That’s the thing. When I went into the kitchen, I couldn’t find anything out of place; nothing to have made such a noise.”

“I told you not to go in there.” Rhonda said in a low tone.

“I saw that there was another room right off of the kitchen. I decided to investigate that while I was in there. I meant to be quick.” Tim explained, meeting no one’s eyes in particular. “I...I...I swear to you, my back was to the kitchen, and when I turned back around, the whole thing was a mess.” You continued to hold Rhonda as she shivered while Jesse and Joel rounded the corner into the kitchen. Things were a mess, yes, but in the way a house this dilapidated would be.

“I don’t get it.” Jesse whispered to Joel.

“I know you couldn’t have expected this place to be immaculate.” Joel said to Tim. The medic followed them into the kitchen and looked around with his mouth agape.

“It wasn’t like this. The...the cabinet doors were open! All of them! And the drawers. All pulled out! I mean what could have done that all at once in the matter of seconds?”

“Your mind maybe.” Jesse answered. 

Tim shook his head. “I saw it with my own eyes.” He whispered. 

“Whatever it was, it’s gone now.” Joel concluded.

“Yeah, I vote we call it a night and settle around the fire. Tomorrow morning, we will collect as much as we can upstairs and prepare to leave.” Jesse suggested.

“Right, we meant to tell you guys, we found the cache!” You began excitedly. “You should have seen it. It wasn’t as extravagant as when the kids found the pirate ship in The Goonies, but it was just as special. Everything in there is everything we need.”

Rhonda’s weeping quieted down into whimpers as she was comforted by the idea that they would get to leave soon. Tim acknowledged your words with only a nod. His mind was still on the house and all the tricks it's played since the group arrived. Was the woman that Rhonda spoke about all in her head. He was quick to think so on account of her head injury. For her it was easy to explain away, but what about himself? He wasn’t a doctor of psychology, but he was familiar with the idea. He felt fine and had no idea how he could have made something up that played with more than one of his senses. 

Tim volunteered to take the first shift of keeping watch, determined to catch whatever was messing with him. His plan was to wake the others up as soon as something happened so they could see what he had saw. The exhaustion he felt, however, played against him and he dozed off. When he came to, the living room was shrouded in darkness. The makeshift pit in the middle of the living room floor was nothing but ash. His mind raced as his thoughts went back to that elusive woman Rhonda was haunted by. He was so engulfed with fear that he couldn’t tell if what he was hearing was the whistling wind seeping through the cracks of the barricaded windows or the whispers of a woman. He looked at all the sleeping forms and wanted so badly to wake someone up to keep watch with him, but selflessly chose against it. Sitting there, his eyes flickered to every corner of the room, waiting for something to happen. He waited for so long that he forgot to wake Jesse up for his shift to keep watch. It wasn’t until the little rays of sunshine poked through did Tim realize how long he’d stayed awake for. There was something about the light that comforted him. He mustered enough courage to get up and stretch his legs before waking up the rest of the group. 

Joel peaked behind one of the barricades and saw that the blizzard had finally passed. Despite that, there was a significant amount of snow left on the ground. The group wasted no time in doing as they agreed last night. The bad feeling that each of them got coupled with Rhonda’s injury, quickened their pace. After packing what they could carry, the group grabbed their horses and made a slow trek through the snow back to Jackson, leaving the dark manor in their wake. 

[extremelyblackandwhite]

the unseen one - 16

Pairing: Hades!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: none

A/N: i rewrote this 100 times. hope you guys enjoy it xx

Next Chapter >>

Her head felt heavy as her senses returned to her. The first thing that returned to her was sound, although all she could hear were mumbles and murmurs. She opened her eyes to the feeling of a moist cloth being dabbed onto her forehead. As her view got sharper and clearer she was able to make out various female faces looking down at her, one holding the moist cloth that was being constantly dabbed on her forehead, care and curiosity on their faces. She immediately raised her torso from where she was laying, recognising she did not know any of these women and as she turned her head to look at where she was staying, she also did not know where she was. 

She pushed away from their grasp, her feet hitting what felt like hot stone as she rushed from where she was. Y/N did not know where she was or who those people were but if there was something she knew it was that she needed to rush away from them. She ran further into wherever she was standing until she hit someone, making her fall back into the same hot stone. 

      - I’m so sorry, my lady. - she raised her head to see a clothed figure reaching his hand to help her get up which she declined. Y/N kept scanning her surroundings. It was dark and hot but not hot in a way a holiday felt, hot in a way that felt like her breathe was about to be constantly taken away. Her eyes returned to the clothed figure, examining it until she realised the figure had no face. She let out a shriek, crawling away from the figure, wondering if she hit her head a bit to hard. The figure followed her which scared her even more causing her to crawl away, praying that she woke up from his nightmare. The faceless man stopped, bowing ceremoniously which confused her. - Your Highness. 

      - I got this. - she recognised that voice. Finally something she recognised in this god forsaken place, whatever that place was. She turned her head ever so slightly, seeing James standing behind her. His expression softened, softly taking her hands in his helping her to her feet. Y/N wrapped her arms around him, the only single thing she knew was real right now. He carefully brushed her hair with his fingers, kissing the top of her head. - It’s alright, sweetness. You’re alright.

     - What the fuck? - she finally softly murmured, still looking around her surroundings. Everything seemed to be carved out of rock, black stone which shimered whenever the river which seemed to cut the land in half where some translucent figures seemed to be travelling in it. James cuddled her closer to him, not entirely sure how to break it to him. He didn’t even know how she’d gotten the pomegranate in the first place. - James, you need to take me home. I have to speak with Anne, she’s acting weird and I have to work tomorrow. 

     - Sweetness ... - he sighed, cupping her jaw in his hands, not entirely sure how to explain it to her. She’d think he’d gone insane if he told her who he really was and what her eating the pomegranate had cursed her to. She gave him a confused look yet relished into his touch. - I need you to come with me. 

Y/N noticed his tense features, lips pulled tight and eyes avoiding to look into hers as he regularly did. Her hand cupped his cheek, ring finger caressing it in a soothing manner. He leaned onto her touch, he was sure he could find a way to get her off the underworld. She hadn’t eaten the pomegranate knowing what it was and therefore, he was sure he could argue it at the council of Gods but he still had to explain it to her anyway. He took her hand in his, taking her into his office. She found it way more calming than the dark outside with grey yet illuminated walls but what she found more lovely was her sunflower on his desk. He took a seat on top of his mahogany desk, thinking about how to tell her, how to explain it to her. Her parents had been historians so she probably knew how a bit of this worked but the hard bit was to try and convince her. 

He opened his mouth, trying to find the words to say to her but finding none. Thankfully, Hecate intervened, walking into his office in such fashion that suggested she was the ruler of the Underworld and not the other way around.  

      - She’s alive. - Hecate placed her hand over her face, sighing deeply. Last time they had a mortal in the underworld, things didn’t end up exactly swell. Between Orpheus, Theseus, and Pirithous, she knew exactly how things went downhill whenever one was near. The only exception was that this particular mortal had eaten the fruit of the dead and thus now belonged to the Underworld. - Mortals are incredibly resilient these days if you ask me.

       - Excuse me? - Y/N spoke up, mostly to herself than to the woman. She had to admit she looked intimidating with her red fiery hair and thin matching red dress which went beautifully with her pale complexion. Her eyes moved between her and James as her mind started to make up the wildest of assumptions. 

       - I wanted you to know .. - the redhead turned to face the man sat on the desk, finger pointed towards him. - That this maiden plan is a terrible plan. If you wanna coddle her so much, then do it yourself. 

      - Hecate, that’s quite enough. - he threatened, his patience for her sarcastic and sassy remarks growing smaller and smaller. Y/N’s head immediately moved back to Hecate. She knew that name, it was an odd one and one she had definitely read before.

      - Hecate? As in the Greek goddess of witchcraft? 

      - I am the Goddess of Witchcraft. - she snapped her head towards the mortal, innervated the mortal did not bow down ready to worship her. She did miss the good old Greek days where people feared her name. She was about to berate her once she realised why she did not know. Her head turned to face James who had the most annoyed look on his face. - You haven’t told her yet, have you?

      - Told me what? - her eyes settled onto James’ face, mind going haywire.

      - That you’re in the Underworld. Most specifically the Asphodel Meadows. Do you seriously don’t know? - she scoffed at Y/N who was looking at both James and her like a scolded child. - Oh dear Zeus, you don’t know. 

     - Yes, Hecate, she does not know. She did not steal the pomegranate because as I fucking told you, she was with me all of last night. 

     - Wait ... the underworld does not exist. - she raised her hands in exasperation. - It’s just the ancient way of dealing with death and since the Greeks were afraid of dying and stop existing, they created the Underworld. 

     - For someone who’s fucking the God of the Underworld, you sure are clueless. - she narrowed her gaze at the both of them before deciding that dealing with both him and her as something she did not want to waste her immortality time on. She closed the door behind her, the sound of the door banging being the only one as Y/N stared at him.

     - James, you better explain yourself, right now. - she stomped her foot against the floor, not entirely sure if she was dreaming or not. Underworld, God of the Underworld, Hecate? Between that and Anne’s weird behaviour, she wondered if insanity had finally hit her. 

Bucky sighed, hand rushing through the back of his neck. He wanted to tell her, he really did and when he thought about telling her, he always considered taking her out something nice and ease her onto it. However, the current circumstances did not allow him to slowly and sweetly introduce her to what had been his environment for years. 

He took a few steps forwards, placing his hands on her shoulders to try and pull her into him but she pushed him back, hands in front of her and pushing onto his chest.

     - You lied to me, James. - he couldn’t see her face as she was staring at the ground, but he could hear the disappointment in her voice.

     - C’mon, Y/N ... - his fingers grabbed her chin, softly pulling it up so he could look at her face. - Wouldn’t you have thought I was crazy if my opening line was I’m the God of the Underworld?

     - Why am I here? - she lowered her arms, hand coming to hold the opposite elbow. 

     - Last night someone stole a pomegranate from her and it somehow ended up with you. You at ...

     - I know the fruit of the dead myth. - she let herself slide onto one of the chairs of his office. - Am I here forever?

     - No. - he rushed to her side, crutching to her level, taking her hands into his and mindlessly started to rub circles on her skin. - I’m gonna figure this out, I promise. You didn’t eat it knowing what it was and I didn’t give it to you, the rules shouldn’t apply. 

     - So ... are you Hades? Is that your name? - Y/N wondered if he had lied about his name too.

     - It is my name, it’s complicated, sweetness. I think that’s something to explain to you later.

     - Can I still call you Bucky?

     - You can call me whatever you want, sweetness.

tag list: @philogrobizedvee​​​​  @keithseabrook27​​​ @inlovewith3​​​19

[drowning-rats-in-fandoms]

Y/N is an intelligence officer on Ren's ship and he always goes to her before missions

When she first gets hired, she always has the mission information sent to him as early as possible

During the debriefing missions, she has the balls to corrent and add information that aas left out or wrong

It's almost always directed to Hux

Kylo enjoys watching someone else irritate Hux by doing their job

When the missions became more sporadic and information was being brought in left and right, Y/N moved her living quarters closer to Kylo's and Hux's living quarters so when she needs to present the information, she goes to them any hour of the day

Hux hates it, wishing to fire her. He know how important she is to the First Order, so he can't

Kylo doesn't care what time she delivers information. Y/N isnt like the guards that stumble over their words and take for ever to relay information

Y/N shows up (after sometime she is given Kylo's code of access to his quarters), hands him her data pad, and leaves.

Hux get an older model of data pads, Kylo gets her own. Her information is all stored on those two devices

Kylo always returns her pad to the table in her quarters. Hux never seeks Y/N out to give it back.

One mission in particular was stressful

On both their ends

Y/N has a translator implanted in her brain to allow her to read and decipher words

During the mission debrief, Hux suggested that Y/N should go along since she mentioned one(1) time that she is one of the only people able to decipher those words

Kylo immediately rejected, having grown fold of his coworker, not romantically of course

"Commander Ren, General Hux is correct. I should go on the mission."

"You have no field training, you'll hold us back. We can just send you video of the dialect." He thought he had a point

"I remember you forgetting to ask what my previous job was commander, may I fill you in?" She snaps right back, General Hux smirking that she is now attacking Ren instead of him.

"Please, enlighten me." Kylo leaned back in his seat, arms crossed. She was nothing more than a brain.

Y/N untucked her uniform to show a gnarly scar lacerating her entire side.

"That was my last bounty hunting job I did with a mandalorian. Saved his skin and his ship. Left me for dead. General Hux has been watching me for a while to recruit me, saw his chance." Y/N would never credit Hex with saving her life, even though they both knew it.

"I know my way around any weapon you give me. I'll do my job and stay out of your way." She sits down in her seat, readjusting her clothes.

Kylo sits there for a moment, empathetic for her, his mask not showing it.

"Report at the hanger at 0600 tomorrow. Stop by the arsenal to pick a weapon." Kylo then leaves in a rush, the meeting quickly adjourned

He

Never

Left

Her

Side

The crypt was filled with strange coffins, some decorated, some not.

Cobwebs and rodents fill the place, Commander Ren taking lead and eliminating the distractions.

Any rune Y/N would see, she would decipher, hoping to point her commander in the correct direction.

Once they get to the end of the tunnel, a bare wall is presented to them.

Kylo ignited is Saber and was about to destroy the wall when Y/N shouted for him to stop.

The urgency in his voice made him hesitate, the hand on his arm guiding the saber close to the made him stop. He allowed her to hover his saber closer to the wall, her hand warm though his field clothes.

Then he saw it.

The heirogliphs showed faintly though the light of the Kyber crystal, the regular lights not doing anthing.

"Lights off. Now." The 4 storm troopers accompanying them complied, turning the hallway dark except for the glowing red saber.

The wall completely illuminated with glyphs, making Y/N gasp.

"What is it?" Kylo asked, his mask trained on her astonished face

"You found it. What your looking for is on the other side. I just need to find a way in." Her voice is low, focused. Kylo saw that she was in her environment, adrenaline rushing through her veins allowed for a quicker deciphering.

Her hands voided the saber in weird movement along the wall, allowing for her to read.

Kylo noticed everything about her, the way she bit her cheek when her breathing picked up, her eyes flickering to him fir a moment before continuing to read. Her grip on his forearm tightens as she holds her breath, hovering over the last hieroglyph.

Y/N let's go of Kylo's arm and takes a step back, creating professional spacing.

"In short, you actually have to stable the wall. In long, you can only stab it in one spot. Only you can see the spot using the force. Dont ask me how, it never said." Y/N steps back with the troopers, allowing Kylo to do his thing.

He nods his head to her, she nods back, her face blank.

Kylo turns to the wall, closes his eye, feeling for the weak spot. He grows frustrated when he cant find it, letting out a huff.

"What do you feel." You.

"There is no weakness in the wall." His voice is strained though the modulator, trying to not last out.

"Maybe the wall is all weak and you need to look for the strong spot. Breaking that should weaken the hold on the weak spots, allowing the wall to crumble." She sounded so close to him, like it was only them.

Kylo focuses on the calm in her tone of voice, allowing him to concentrate on his objective.

Not even seconds later, he finds it, the spot is in the direct center of the wall.

"The keystone." He whispers, the modulator garbling the word.

He reposition his last connection to his grandfather, the helmet being completely destroyed by Supreme Leader Snoke. Kylo drives the blade through the spot, the wall immediately shaking.

Two strong hands grab his robes and pull him out of the stones impact, the small group watching the wall shift and change.

Larger pieces of rock fall as the smaller ones swirl in a circle, assembling themselves in the doorway behind the wall.

The door opens to reveal a corpse cradling a book to its chest.

Kylo immediately rips the book from the corpse's grasp before Y/N could stop him.

"Is that what you need?" Chills run down her spine as the entire crypt turns silent.

Too silent.

"Yes." He turns back to her, handing the text to Y/N, allowing her to out it in her book bag.

Before the mission he pulled her aside. Her job is to translate and to protect the text. His job was to get them in and get them out. They agreed.

Y/N facial expression and the sense of dread Kylo could read on her told him to move quickly.

"Stay behind me. Make sure she doesnt get hit." He points to the respectful groups before charging off into the darkness.

Y/N asks the trooper to turn their lights back on to help them see their way back.

Not everyone has the force to guide them.

Everyone did their jobs, quickly and quietly. The six moved through the crypt, moving up from the deep dungeons.

Once they get to the first open area, they were ambushed. Reanimated skeletons, strange tan creatures, and those damn rats attacked the group.

Y/N drew her sword, charging it. She stayed relatively near the middle of the room, not seating out a fight.

Kylo Ren sliced and diced through the enemies, keeping an eyes on Y/N. The troopers shot down the rats with surprising accuracy. Kylo took care of everything else.

Until two yellow monster slipped from the main group and attacked Y/N from infront and behind.

Kylo quickly eliminated the rest of his threats and watched in awe as Y/N gracefully finished the fight.

Her kicked the one infront of her, throwing him on his back. She quickly pivots, her sword cutting up through the stomach, and down across its head. Before the second monster can register what happened, Y/N turned again, finishing off the first monster with a quick decapitation.

She quickly disarms her sword, reattached it to her back, and looked at the other 5 people in her group.

"They said that more are on their way. We need to leave. Now." It took Kylo a sweet second to put his ass in gear and steer his group out of the crypt, not meeting any more strange creatures.

Once in hyperspace, Y/N stands behind Kylo's chair, watching the stars.

"How did you hear them communicate? None of them spoke." Kylo was watching her through the reflection of the window, further respect for his colleague bloomed in his mind.

"The rats were actually in charge. The yellow creatures, called voulnders, were allowed to live in and around the crypts. Their exchange was that the Voulnders were to reanimate the corpses with their magic when their temple was under attack."

"They said all of that?" Kylo turned in his seat, Y/N already standing far enough away to not get hit.

"The wall that you hit showed the pact that those two creatures made. It also showed how to get in. Only a might warrior could." There was a pause before Y/N spoke again.

"Don't let that go to your head." She then walked out of the room.

Over the years, the two grew closer.

Sparring, talking, planning missions. Everything platonic.

When Kylo cant sleep because of the nightmares caused by Snoke, he'd go into Y/N's room, falling alseep on her couch, in view of her bed.

"If you like my couch so much, why not move it to your room." Y/N asks one morning, handing Kylo his caf.

"It's not the couch that puts me to sleep." His voice is low, eyes dropping to the ground.

Y/N hand cups his chin, lifting his eyes to meet hers. Her gentile smile puts him at ease.

Y/N remembers the first time she saw him without the mask.

It was a few nights in after relentless nightmares, the first time Kylo slept in Y/N's room.

He was half asleep, running on caf and a few minutes of sleep. Everyone on the ship could sense his worsening mood, assuming that it was from the last failed mission.

It was a repercussion of it, Snoke filling everyone involved in the mission with thoughts of dread.

Y/N hid it suprising well when on the command deck, doing her job.

But now, in the middle of the night, she knew she looked like shit.

When her commander knocked on her door, she rolled out of bed, her hair in a loose braid, her body clad in a pair of over sized black training shots and shirt.

Her commander was dressed similarly. She recognized the drained look in his eyes from her own.

She stepped aside to let him in her space, her eyes never leaving the constipation of beauty marks on his face.

Y/N shut off her night, resetting their automatic switch.

She grabs Kylo's bare arm and leads him to bed. She lies on her back, and she pulls him into her, his head resting on her stomach.

Kylo didnt right against her, his mind not raising any alarms.

Once her hands started to play with his hair, Kylo was out.

Y/N stayed awake a little longer, enjoying how soft and smooth her Commander's hair is. She falls asleep, her hands still tangled in his hair.

She woke up first at the rising of the dim lights, she took her time to wake up, enjoying the presence of another body against hers.

Kylo's breathing was still even as she replaced her body with her pillow.

Y/N went to her closet, pulled out her repaired bounty hunting armour, the silver beskar reminding her of painful memories of her old partner.

She changes quickly, keeping an eye on the commander in her bed.

"where are you going?" His voice asks, not removing his head from your pillow.

"To fix our problem."

"Snoke doesnt respond well to asking nicely."

"Oh, that's not why in going to Snoke. Go back to sleep if you can Commander. You need it." He seemed to get only a few hours of sleep last night.

Y/N straps the rest of her weapons to her body, her rifle sliding easily over her back. Her viroblade in the holster at her waist.

She tucks the bucket in her arm, looking at Kylo one last time before going on her first line mission during her First Order Career.

It wont be her last.

It only took her two days, the bounty hunter returning to Snoke with a head and the correct location of the cargo.

"How do you know its correct?" Snoke leans in his chair, observing the cleanly severed head at his feet.

"This tracker." Her voice is modulated, she throws the red chip to her Supreme Leader.

Snoke catches it, hums in approval.

"You have a new job. We have a suitable replacement for you."

Commander Y/N Y/L/N, leader of the bounties hunters and scouts of the first order.

The nightmares stopped

Missions became more successful

Kylo still couldn't sleep without being in the presence of Y/N. Her calm attitude put him at ease enough to fall asleep.

[fearfulkittenwrites]

Nightmares

Warnings: Talks about his parents a little if that’s something that upsets you, but other than that, nothing.

Word count: 1928

Notes: Hey there! So, a little disclaimer: I don't know all that much about Duke, so I just really hope his characterization is good. I also don't know if Dick is the one he's the closer to, but... I know more about Dick than I know about the others so I though it'd be best to use him??? Also, I really think he's the one least likely to be perceived as a threat in general, because he seems to be the one who just... smiles the most. And Idk, it made sense in my head. Now that we got that out of the way, I hope you enjoy this work!

Duke blinked his eyes open. His room was still drowning in darkness, so he sat up as quickly as he could and turned the lights on, vision blacking out for a moment. His eyes hurt because of the sudden brightness, but that was better than the unlit environment, so he rubbed them for a second, hoping it would make it better. Slowly, he managed to keep his eyes open, and looked down at his bare legs and sock-covered feet.

He was alive.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

He was safe.

It wasn’t the first night it had happened. Or the second. It wasn’t even the tenth time that it had happened, and we’re only talking about one month. He ran a hand across his face, feeling how sweaty his forehead was, and then slipped out of bed, walking towards the bathroom as his legs still felt a little bit funny, too light to properly carry his body around. He supported his weight on the sink, not wanting to face the mirror just yet.

The cold water helped. Duke felt grounded again, and, unfortunately, more awake. He sighed, face still dripping wet. Sleeping now would be near impossible. He stared into his own reflection.

“Why am I this stupid?” He shook his head, murmuring to himself “It’s just a dream.”

Letting go of the sink, he patted his face dry, coming back to bed. He checked the time on his phone. 3:41.

“Fuck.” All that he managed were four hours, if that, of sleep. Again. And he was no Tim Drake, meaning that functioning during the day would be a big problem.

He laid his head on the fluffy pillow, staring at the ceiling for a moment. He wondered what to do.

He knew that all of the other bats had the same type of issues. Mostly because some of them would wake up screaming in horror, even when they were just taking a nap on the couch. Jason, Damian and Tim had them like that. Cass and Dick never screamed, but they always shot awake quickly and broke down sobbing soon after. He was sure Bruce had them too, but he never saw the man sleeping. He just put two and two together, noticing how his mood changed and how much sleep he seemed to be getting, and assumed he would get them just as often as any of his kids.

He knew all of them would wander into each other’s rooms at night, when they couldn’t sleep. As usual, not because he had been told, but because he had seen Damian and Cass leaving Dick’s room in the morning way too many times. The same thing happened to Tim and Jason, who seemed to often invade the other’s space. But that didn’t stop both of them from searching for Dick frequently as well. And the older boy would, occasionally, be spotted leaving Jason’s room.

He wondered how that worked. If they had a code, or a calendar, any sort of system that had been set up in the past.

He wished he was part of that system.

He checked the time again. Two minutes had passed.

Time was ticking too slowly. He was tired, but sitting alone in the dark was definitely not a good idea right now.

He’d have to ask for help.

Duke swallowed, analyzing his options. Damian was an angry menace, so he was off the list. Cass was scary and the one member you most definetly don’t want to piss off, which meant the risk was too great. Tim wouldn’t be such a bad option, but if he wasn’t out on patrol then he’d be working on one of his projects or homework, in a coffee induced mania. Which meant no. Jason was nice. They got along fine. But still, there was something about him that was always on edge, a little too wild, unpredictable.

Which left out one option. Dick Grayson.

And he was not exactly a great one either.

The teen swallowed.

“Well, it’s now or never, Duke.”

He stepped out of the bed and walked to the man’s door. He stared at the wood’s detailing for a longer time than what he had originally planned on. He raised a shaky hand and gave it three weak, quick knocks.

“Hm...?” Comes the answer.

“Uhm, Dick?” Duke asks “Sorry to wake you, I just...” he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. There was some shuffling on the other side of the door, before it was swung open carefully.

“Hey there.” Dick smiled, blue eyes half closed and voice still raspy as he leaned on the doorframe “Can’t sleep?” Duke shook his head “I see. Come in.” Dick gesture him to enter. Duke noticed he had a nightlight on, making the room dark enough to sleep, but light enough to see in “Want me to turn on the lights?”

“No, this is fine.” He answered, watching Dick lay down again. The older man tapped on the bed slightly. Duke didn’t quite get the message.

“Duke. You can sit.” Dick said gently.

“Oh. Right.” He nodded.

Dick studied his movements as he carefully sat down, back towards him.

“Duke,” He asked, pushing himself up on his elbow “What’s going through your mind? Like, right now?” He asked “Be honest.”

The teen sighed.

“That I shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t have woken you up. I’m sorry. You’re always working so much, I shouldn’t be so selfish, you need to sleep, and...”

“Okay, calm down.” Dick sat up next to him, shuffling to throw his legs off the bed “Why did you come here?”

Duke winced. He regretted everything and wished he had just dealt with it by himself.

“I-I had a nightmare and I couldn’t sleep.” He answered “I’m sorry, I know that’s not your problem, I should just...” He tried to get up, but felt Dick’s hand on his shoulder and stopped.

“Hey,” He called, calmly “Don’t say stuff like that. You’re my brother, Duke. I’m here to help.” Duke looked into the other’s eyes, bright blue lights staring into his soul “Okay?” Duke nodded “Good.” He rubbed his back a little, and Duke slowly eased into the touch “Something tells me this isn’t the first time you had a nightmare.” Duke bit his lip “That’s okay. Why didn’t you ask for help?”

“I... I didn’t think I could.”

Dick tilted his head to the side.

“Why not?”

“I mean... You guys seem to have your system or whatever. I didn’t want to get in the way.” He answered, staring at the floor. Dick frowned, confused.

“System?”

“Yeah,” He answered “I’ve seen you guys waking up on each other’s rooms and all. I know you must’ve worked out a way of... I don’t know. Helping each other, I guess? And I didn’t want to cause some sort of imbalance.”

Dick went quiet for a while, thinking.

“Duke,” He started “We don’t have a system.”

“You don’t?” He looked at the other, who shook his head slowly “But then how does it...” He gestured vaguely, trying to convey a message. Dick grinned.

“Whenever one of us can’t sleep, we go to someone’s room. That’s all there is to it, really.” He explained.

“But... What if someone walks into a room where someone else is having a rough time too? Like, what if Tim goes to Jason and he’s also having a nightmare or an insomnia espisode? Or if Damian comes into your room but Cass is already here?”

Dick shrugged.

“I don’t know how the others deal with it, but if I’m having a nightmare when someone comes in, it’s a relief for me too. And the beds are big enough to fit three or more people.”

Duke thought for a moment.

“So there is no system?”

“Nope.” Dick answered “And just to make things clear: you can knock at my door whenever you need to, alright?” Duke nodded “Great.” He smiled.

It made Duke feel at home. The nightlight kept the room in a comfortable gloom, and nothing here seemed threatening or dangerous. A big teddy bear was sitting on a chest of drawers, surrounded by three smaller plushies; a cat, a bat and a bunny. He had too many pillows on the bed, and every piece of furniture was painted on the lighter side. A real contrast to the man who jumped from buildings and kicked faces for a living.

“So... The bad dream,” Dick started, carefully “What was it about?”

“My mom and my dad.” He looked down again “I was... They were chasing me. I was in a forest and... They didn’t know who I was, and I was running, it was dark and I kept stumbling, falling, tripping on roots and stones... And then...” Duke made a choked sound, and covered his mouth, feeling embarassed.

“It’s alright.” Dick whispered, hand rubbing circles on his back again.

“And then... The Joker was there. And the forest was gone. But I don’t know where I was, it was so dark and I couldn’t see anything, except for him. I tried to run, but I was paralized, in that weird dream way, you know?” Dick nodded, and Duke nodded with him “Yeah. And he didn’t say anything, he just... laughed and laughed and laughed... And then I woke up.”

“That sounds awful, Duke.” He said, soft eyes and understanding voice.

“It... It was.” He felt an arm across his shoulders, and he leaned into Dick’s chest. His shirt smelled like laundry detergent.

“Yeah. But you’re safe now. I’ve got you.” The man gave him a squeeze, resting his chin on the top of his head.

“I- I know.” He answered “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They stayed like that for a while, until Duke trusted himself to speak without crying.

“How do you...” Duke started, and Dick let go of him so they could properly talk “When someone sleeps here, how does that happen? Like, where... Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“In the bed?” Dick tilted his head again.

“But... Isn’t it, like, weird?”

“Oh...” He raised his eyebrows “I see. Not really, no. Usually we cuddle, but that’s not mandatory. Cass is the only one who isn’t always wanting to, but even if she doesn’t want to touch me, the bed is big enough so that we don’t have to. Look, if you want to, you can use the couch, but I strongly suggest against it.” Duke looked at the small sofa placed against the wall. He’d have to curl up in a weird position to sleep in it.

“I think I’ll take the bed.”

Dick tapped his back slightly.

“Good choice.” He smiled, turning around to lay down again. Duke mimicked the action, placing his head on the pillow. Dick’s were much softer and fluffier than his. Not in a bad way, just different.

It felt odd. The bed smelled distinctly like his brother, but he was unsure on which product had that effect; the aftershave, the cologne, the deodorant, the shampoo, the hair pomade... Maybe a combination of all of those. Weirdly, it felt comforting. Safe.

He turned around, laying on his side and curling up a little, like he always did. Dick had his back turned to him.

“Hey, uhm, Dick?” He whispered.

“Yeah?” The other murmured sleepily.

“I was... M-maybe... If we... Like, would it... U-uh...”

Dick turned around.

“It’s okay.” He said, wrapping his arm around the other “Like this?”

“Y-yeah.” He stuttered “Thank you.”

“No worries, baby bro.” He grinned “Good night Duke.”

“Good night.”

[tlbodine]

What exactly is 'character voice'? Is it merely a character having opinions on things? And how do I have good voice if I am writing in first or third person omnipresent? Do I give the narrator's opinion on things? The character's opinions? The different opinions of the characters?

Voice is a tricky thing to pin down -- a bit of a “know it when you see it” type thing. But I’ll see if I can break it down a bit. 

First: Stories will contain both “authorial voice” and “character voice.” Authorial voice is the individual writing style of the author, and you’ll start to notice it most strongly after you’ve read multiple works by one author. Character voice on the other hand is unique to the character. A strong character voice will often overshadow the author’s voice, which is usually a good thing! It keeps every book you read from an author from sounding the same. If you’re reading a book in first person or close third POV, the narrative should be in the character’s voice. If you’re reading it in a more omniscient POV, the narrative might have a very different voice. Books that alternate POVs might have different voices for different perspectives, so that you could tell who’s speaking even if the chapters weren’t labeled. 

But OK. What makes up Voice in writing? 

Opinions. Characters with a strong voice have opinions about the world, and those opinions color the way they see things. They don’t sit and tell you how they feel, but instead deliver the world through the lens of those opinions.

Focus. What a character chooses to pay attention to vs ignore in the world around them. This gives an underlying glimpse at what is important to them. 

Word Choice. On a structural level, voice comes down to word choice, grammar, syntax, etc. being used with purpose to create a cumulative effect. 

Books without a strong voice sound dry, like a technical manual or book report. They lack any poetic devices or colorful insights.  A strong voice is one that doesn’t sound generic, which means it’s not usually “correct” from, say, a middle school English class perspective. (In fact, some young writers may often butt heads with teachers over the use of voice in writing -- I know I did. Once you get good at it, 

It might just be easier to show this in action than try to explain it so...

Carrie, by Stephen King: 

She had tried to fit. She had defied Momma in a hundred little ways had tried to erase the redplague circle that had been drawn around her from the first day she had left the controlled environment of the small house on Carlin Street and had walked up to the Barker Street Grammar School with her Bible under her arm. She could still remember that day, the stares, and the sudden, awful silence when she had gotten down on her knees before lunch in the school cafeteria -- the laughter had begun on that day and had echoed up through the years. 

Carrie calls her mother “Momma” even in her head, which already implies a lot about her socioeconomic class, upbringing, and intelligence. She didn’t try to fit in, she tried to ‘fit’ -- a non-idiomatic description. The run-on second sentence gives a hint of a racing thought. “Redplague” as one word is evocative and more powerful than a more drawn-out metaphor might be. 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams 

Mr. L. Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based bipedal life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby, and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn’t know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr. L. Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and predilection for little fur hats. 

Comedy lives or dies on the strength of its voice, and Douglas Adams is a master at a very specific type of comedy. Here we see it on display. Prosser is an antagonist, and he’s here being described in a way that suggests, without stating outright, that he’s quite pathetic. We open with a cliche saying, and then immediately deconstruct it in a way that’s overly precise -- a technique of absurdism. Then we compare him to Genghis Khan (also a villain, and a very strong one) in a side-by-side parallel that definitely paints Prosser unflatteringly (his genes are “juggled,” a word that evokes clownishness) and the “little fur hats” detail is the icing on the cake -- imagine standing beside Genghis Khan and the ONLY thing you have in common is the hat! (”Predilection” is also a fussy-sounding word. “Stoutness about the tum” sounds like a childishly euphemistic protest, sort of like “big-boned” but dialed up to 11). 

The Cabin at the End of the World, by Paul Tremblay 

Wen’s eighth birthday is in six days. Her dads not so secretly wonder (she has overheard them discussing this) if the day is her actual date of birth or one assigned to her by the orphanage in China’s Hubei Province. For her age she is in the fifty-sixth percentile for height and forty-second for weight, or at least she was when she went to the pediatrician six months ago. She made Dr. Meyer explain the context of those numbers in detail. As pleased as she was to be above the fifty-line for height, she was angry to be below it for weight. Wen is as direct and determined as she is athletic and wiry, often besting her dads in battles of wills and in scripted wrestling matches on their bed. her eyes are a deep, dark brown, with thin caterpillar eyebrows that wiggle on their own. Along the right edge of her philtrum is the hint of a scar that is only visible in a certain light and if you know to look for it (so she is told). The thin white slash is the remaining evidence of a cleft lip repaired with multiple surgeries between the ages of two and four. She remembers the first and final trips to the hospital, but not the ones in between. That those middle visits and procedures have been somehow lost bothers her. Wen is friendly, outgoing, and as goofy as any other child her age, but isn’t easy with her reconstructed smiles. Her smiles have to be earned. 

The thing I love about Tremblay’s writing style is how wonderfully understated it is. At first blush, it seems very straightforward and precise. But the details work to give such a rich image beyond what’s on the page -- like one of those paintings that creates a cat with just like, two brushstrokes of ink. This paragraph is jam-packed with information -- the character’s age, race, adoption, gay parents -- but also illustrates her character indirectly: a kid who is interested in precise numbers, competitive in a specific way, self-conscious, skeptical. Little lines really stand out, like “caterpillar eyebrows” and “reconstructed smiles.” 

Horrorstor, by Grady Hendrix 

It was dawn, and the zombies were stumbling through the parking lot, streaming toward the massive beige box at the far end. Later they’d be resurrected by megadoses of Starbucks, but for now they were the barely living dead. Their causes of death differed: hangovers, nightmares, strung out from epic online gaming sessions, circadian rhythms broken by late-night TV, children who couldn’t stop crying, neighbors partying til 4 a.m., broken hearts, unpaid bills, roads not taken, sick dogs, deployed daughters, ailing parents, midnight ice cream binges. 

But every morning, five days a week (seven during the holidays), they dragged themselves here, to the one thing in their lives that never changed, the one thing that they could count on come rain, or shine, or dead pets, or divorce: work. 

This is the opening of the book, and it does a perfect job of setting the tone for the story -- a combination of humor and horror, a lighthearted touch on a really dismal subject. Like the Douglas Adams example, it relies on an excess of hyper-specific detail to create comedy through absurdism. Describing the store they wrok at as a “massive beige box” says a lot -- beige is a boring color, box is a boring shape (and implies constraint, the opposite of “think outside the box” etc.) Calling the workers “zombies” and using zombie words (”stumbling”, “streaming”) invokes a specific set of concepts -- mindlessness, for starters, and death -- and using that to describe going to a job certainly implies something about what it’s like to go to work, right? This paragraph could just come outright and say “work is soul-sucking and pointless and takes you away from things that are important” but it illustrates that instead. A perfect example of “show don’t tell” in action. 

Hopefully that gives a bit more illustration to what I’m talking about. As you read, pay attention to the way things are said and how that varies from one book to the next, and you’ll get a better intuition for voice (and learn to craft your own through practice). 

Some general tips/things to think about when creating strong voice for your narrative and characters: 

Education and socioeconomic level of the characters. A professor will talk differently from a car mechanic; a college graduate sounds different from an elementary school student; an inner-city black teen will use words differently from a New England socialite. Think about what kind of background a character has and choose vocabulary and syntax that makes sense for them. 

Evocative descriptions. Words come with baggage, and good writing puts that baggage to use to create a meaning stronger than what’s on the page. Precision with language, not just what words mean but what they imply, is the hallmark of good writing. 

Words used uniquely -- in other words, avoiding cliches and descriptions we’ve seen before in favor of creating new word combinations that do the heavy lifting of the previous bullet point. 

Hopefully that helps! 

[rosenbergh]

Attic slumber parties

I wrote a fic based on this post by @dashuisofanubis because I have no self restraint lmao

Summary: Noa has nightmares and doesn’t feel safe in her room after the events in the season two finale. Solution? Attic slumber parties which keep getting bigger.

-------------

So here’s the thing: when you’re minding your own business in your room and then someone you were supposed to be able to trust shows up, chloroforms you, kidnaps you, and wants to use you for a ritual along with her partner in crime (another person you were supposed to be able to trust!)—that’s kind of a hard thing to get over.

When it gets revealed that you’re an Egyptian princess, well, that’s something that requires some processing, too. Noa had her suspicions, of course, but to get it confirmed like that with a disgusting piece of skin in a baggie was…something else.

The whole ‘holding the grail up to save Jeroen from getting killed despite not knowing if she would survive the ritual’ thing was probably the worst of it.

But she’s dealing with it! It’s over, done, it happened. Wolf, or Raven, or whatever he wants to call himself, is gone and so is Vera. She prefers to focus on the positives, just forget the whole thing entirely and move on.

At least, that was the plan. When she’s back in her room in the attic, she gets this sick twinge in her stomach. Noa staunchly ignores it and crawls in her bed to go to sleep. The ghost is gone, too (the ghost that is her ancestor, because her life wasn’t crazy enough already), so she has all the peace she needs for a good night’s sleep.

She dreams about being in her room, a place that was supposed to be hers and safe, but Vera and Wolf are there. They sneer and laugh and mock her, you’re not Noa, you’re Fazia, and there’s rope around her wrists, and they’re in the tower—Raven is about to kill Jeroen so she holds up the grail despite his pleas to the contrary, except she doesn’t have the grail, it’s gone, and Raven and Vera are so angry—

She wakes up on the floor, her cheeks wet. “But I love you,” she’s saying. “But I love you.”

Disoriented, she looks around, and concludes she must have fallen out of bed. The dream is over, it wasn’t real. In reality, everything turned out okay, but she still doesn’t feel safe.

Eventually, she goes back to bed and cries herself to sleep.

-

The morning after her nightmare, she sees the bags under her eyes that she saw in the mirror reflected in Jeroen’s. She doesn’t need to ask to know that he had a nightmare, too. He doesn’t ask, either. Both of them know.

Amber, on the other hand, is well-rested and very concerned in that Amber way of hers. She asks if she’s okay, to which Noa replies yes.

“Are you sure?” Amber asks, her perfectly epilated eyebrows resting in a frown. “You look tired. Did you have a nightmare?”

“No,” she lies. “I’m just tired because of everything that happened.”

She still doesn’t look satisfied. “Okay, but if something is up, you can always tell me. You know that, right?”

“Of course, Amber,” Noa says. “Thank you.”

The next evening, when she goes up to her room, Jeroen joins her under the guise of watching their favorite horror movies together. It’s very reminiscent of the first time they watched a movie together, except this time when they fall asleep in her bed, it’s deliberate.

Raven and Vera are gone but she’s still the ‘chosen one’, like she’s some overglorified unicorn instead of a human being, and what if there are other rituals that have to involve her? Other people that need her? The possibility of opening the door in her room to another Vera with more chloroform is not an irrational fear and she thinks that, actually, that’s the worst part.

It’s the worst of worst parts, and she dreams about people she trusts like she used to trust Vera and Wolf showing up in her room and the whole mess happening all over again, until she’s gasping awake.

“Whoa,” Jeroen says, steadying, like it’s not weird that they’re both awake at—she blearily glances at the clock—four in the morning. “It’s okay, you’re fine, you’re fine, Noa.”

She’s silent and just breathes while he rubs her arms like he’s trying to soothe the dream away.

“Sorry,” she says when she can’t take the silence anymore.

“For what?”

“Waking you up.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “I was already awake.”

She looks at him as best as she can in the dark room, concerned. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do you?” he counters, which, well, she really doesn’t.

Still, despite herself, she confesses, “I’m scared.”

He’s running his fingers through her hair lightly, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

“It’s okay,” he says again, like if he says it enough times it’ll be true. “It’s okay.”

-

They spend the next couple of nights like that, always careful to make sure Victor doesn’t catch him going to the attic at night. It doesn’t always stop the nightmares, but not being alone in her room helps.

“That smells godly,” Appie says, walking into the kitchen excitedly. “What is it? When is it done?”

Trudie gives him a reproachful look while Noa crouches down to put the batter in the oven.

“You’ll have to wait until after dinner to find out,” says Trudie.

Noa stands up again and gives him a smile. “I promise it’ll be worth the wait.”

“Something baked by Trudie and Noa? I don’t doubt it.” He smiles back dreamily. “My taste buds thank you in advance.”

She laughs and Trudie exits the kitchen to start cleaning elsewhere.

“So, Noa,” Appie starts nonchalantly once they’re alone. “I couldn’t help but notice Jeroen’s bed has been empty these past few nights.”

“You noticed that, did you? Your powers of observation are out of this world.”

He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “So, what are you crazy kids up to at night? Slumber parties? Ghost hunting?” He does a dramatic gasp, and whispers, “Karaoke?"

“No,” she says sweetly. “Sleeping.”

He frowns. “Well, that’s boring.”

“Tell you what, next time you can join us and liven things up, how does that sound?”

His eyes light up. “Yes, that’s a great idea! I told you, everyone needs a bed Ap. Without one, life is just too sad.”

“Okay, Appie,” she says, humoring him.

She’s sure he’s joking, right up until the moment when not just Jeroen shows up in her room that evening, but Appie as well.

When Appie makes himself comfortable and is clearly gearing up for some shenanigans, she sternly tells him she just wants to sleep.

“Okay,” he says. “So I guess you don’t want to hear about the time Jeroen stripped in front of a teacher.”

Jeroen’s eyes go wide.

“Tell me,” Noa urges, curious, ignoring Jeroen’s protests while Appie gleefully launches into the story.

They spend the rest of the night like that, telling ridiculous stories until they fall asleep. Not a single one of them have a nightmare.

-

The thing is, once Appie starts extending his nightly visits to more than just one time, Amber starts noticing it. And wants in. It’s really hard to say no to Amber when she’s determined, so Noa resigns herself to having three extra people sleep in her room.

It’s way too rowdy an environment for falling asleep in, and if they make more noise Victor’s gonna hear them, but when Noa laughs at Appie’s Victor impression, she doesn’t mind it so much.

“The last time I used my Victor impression, it was to con ourselves a bad replacement of Trudie. It backfired, though.”

Amber shudders next to Noa. “Don’t remind me of that.”

All four of them are in Noa’s bed, and it’s a really tight fit, but she can’t bring herself to demote them to a sleeping bag or chair this time, not when their prescence makes her forget the reason she doesn’t want to be alone in this room.

“Replacement?” Noa asks, confused.

They explain that Trudie had been fired, and as a result things at the house had gotten very unpleasant.

“He built a fence?” she repeats shrilly, before quickly lowering her voice. They’re at the attic, but there is a limit to the amount of sound they can make if they don’t want to get caught. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, it was big and blocked the stairs to the first floor completely,” Jeroen confirms.

“And if we didn’t get up at a ridiculously early hour, we didn’t get to eat breakfast!” Amber says, still sounding incredulous about it. “I ended up fainting in class because I was so hungry.”

“So what changed? Why was Trudie allowed to come back?”

“Mick’s father pretty much saved the day,” says Appie.

Noa changes the subject, because the thought of big fences blocking her way out of the house gives her an icky feeling in her stomach. “Hey, Amber, I noticed you were wearing a new dress today. It’s really pretty.”

Amber looks extremely flattered. “Thank you! Finally, someone who can appreciate good taste.”

Appie and Jeroen exchange looks and eyerolls at the direction the conversation is going, but both are smiling.

“I think the clothes you wear are really pretty, too!” Amber continues, excited. “We should go shopping together sometime.”

“I’d like that,” she says. “I don’t always buy my dresses, though. Sometimes, if I have the time and fabric, I make them myself.”

“Really?” Amber looks at her with wide eyes. “I wish I could do that!”

“I could teach you,” she offers.

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m not really great with that sort of stuff,” she rambles. “I’m more of a ‘buy the most pretty looking stuff with my dad’s credit card’ type of girl.”

“Nonsense. Everyone can learn how to do it. You’ve already got the style, you just need the skills.”

Amber looks like she just handed her the moon. It makes Noa smile.

“Okay, as interesting as all of this is, I think it’s time we talked about what’s really important: horror.”

“No, Ap, I’ll get nightmares,” Amber protests.

“Well, then what else is there to talk about?”

“Something all of us can talk about,” Jeroen adds.

All are silent for a moment, before Amber perks up. “I’ve got it! We can play truth or dare.”

Appie grins. “Okay, but if it ends with Jeroen and Noa kissing again, I’m out of here.”

-

“This is getting ridiculous,” Noa informs them the next night while Nienke gets in the bed right next to Amber. Appie follows.

Fabian stands next to the bed, uncertain. “I don’t think I’ll fit. I can sleep in the chair.”

“You can fit, come on, just try it,” Nienke says.

“No, I agree with Noa,” says Jeroen. “This is getting way too cramped.”

“Well, then, why don’t you sleep in the chair?” Amber asks, sickly sweet. “And then Fabian can join us.”

Jeroen is silent and doesn’t move from his position, lying on the edge next to Noa. Next to Noa is Amber, then Nienke, and then on the other edge is Appie.

“That’s what I thought,” Amber says smugly to Jeroen.

Fabian smiles at them like they’re crazy and Noa is starting to think the same thing, but he gets in the bed next to Appie nonetheless.

It’s tight and Noa can barely move, yet somehow, when she falls asleep, it’s the best sleep she’s had in weeks.

-

(The next time she’s alone in her room, she doesn’t feel a sick twinge in her stomach. There’s the memory of getting ambushed by Vera, but there’s also countless of memories of sleepovers, and she chooses to focus on those—she feels safe again.)

[realm-sweet-realm]

Broken Strings, chapter one: A Hole in the Wall and Where it Leads.

Broken Strings is a story meant to complete the Showdown Bandit narrative and give it a proper ending.

---

Showdown Valley is a place of contradictions. A place where puppets pretend to be living in peace while they tear each other apart. A place where they pretend to be free while, with every action, they are bound by strings and acting according to their pre-determined part. A place where they pretend to be happy while fearing insanity should they ever step out of line.

Showdown Valley was supposed to be a happy place, and yet it was a place of nightmares. That is, until one day a threat to their very existence forced the puppets to leave behind everything they'd ever known- or die trying to maintain the status quo.

---

Bandit woke up to a banging on his door. “Bandit, wake up! I have somethin’ serious to tell ya!” It was Miss Lorelei. If it were anyone else, he’d be tempted to roll over and go back to sleep, but she didn’t tend to be the dramatic type. So, he sat up and yelled “What?!”

“I found a hole in the wall of the Happy Mines. This could be how the stringless keep gettin’ in. And I think Penny got out through it!”

Bandit pulled the bandanna down from around his eyes and ran out. Miss Undertaker was holding what looked to be a small, ripped-off square of Penny’s dress.

“I’m gonna rescue her, and I was wonderin’ if I could employ your shootin’ skills, Bandit. Sixty Bandit Bucks- whadda ya say?”

“Make it a hundred and you got a deal.”

“Alright. Let’s set off, shall we?”

And they did. Bandit was honestly just glad for something to break up his boring schedule of sleeping in, shooting stuff, drinking, visiting Davy West by the scrapyard, and spray-painting the walls. Thankfully, Bandit's character was rather lazy. If he were supposed to play the part of a more active character, he might have to get a bit creative, considering there was no real employment and not much work in their world. There simply wasn’t much to do in Showdown Valley, aside from fighting off the brainless stringless who were always wandering around. A bit of adventure sounded like fun, and it fit his character perfectly to be adventurous.

Along the way, Bandit shot out a few lurking stringless puppets. They seemed to be cropping up in larger numbers lately. Ah, well- they were fun to kill, even if they were annoying and a little unnerving.

As the duo approached the mines, Bandit's thrill picked up. The mines were dark- well, their entire world was awfully gloomy, but the mines were so dark that a Bandit couldn't even see Miss Undertaker walking ten feet in front of him, unless he used the lanterns that Murray the mine keeper had lent them to light their way. Miss Undertaker had suggested that they use them sparingly, and feel their way along as much as possible- "it would be a pity if their- if they went out," she said. Bandit knew she meant if their batteries ran out, but they were supposed to act as though the lanterns were actually lit with fire. Bandit realized that he was letting it touch his vest and re-adjusted it- it would be easier than pretending to be on fire the entire trip as he trudged around the stalagmites, felt ahead for stalactites, and lit his lantern for a few seconds every now and then to ensure that he was keeping up with Miss Undertaker and was headed in vaguely the same direction as her. As far as adventures went, this was quite enjoyable- he wondered if it would it be in character to come here more often.

A loud scream pierced the air, followed by the sound of Miss Undertaker's shovel falling to the ground and a low growl, apparently from another person in the mines. Bandit lit his lantern to see a puppet much like himself holding Miss undertaker to a wall, face clawed off and knife prepared for stabbing. Bandit dropped his lantern and ran over. As the faceless Bandit's knife came down, Miss Undertaker got out from under the madpuppet's grip, leading him to stab the wall, knife sinking into soft, sandy rock until it would be impossible to retrieve. He abandoned the knife and ran after her. Bandit threw Undertaker's shovel to her. She swung it into Faceless Bandit's head, knocking him back and allowing Bandit to get in close and shoot him in the face with his corkgun. Just to be sure, Bandit stepped onto the fallen enemy's chest. He wasn't stirring, but that meant very little- playing dead was extremely easy for a puppet. Miss Undertaker gave him a little stab with her shovel, and he didn't react.

"Well, that was a close one, but ah think he's dead," she said.

Bandit nodded. "Still think we ought to be usin' the lanterns sparrin'ly?"

"Nope. My mistake. Well, should we carry on?"

"Uh-huh."

After they'd been walking for another minute or so, a thought occurred to Bandit. "So, that creature there used to just like me, eh?"

"Yep."

"How'd he get that way?"

"Same reason any puppet could have for goin' insane. He didn't follow the three rules. And look where it got him."

Bandit had understood from the first moments of his life that following the rules was important, and he supposed that made as much sense as anything as a reason why. "Does that mean you'll go insane if you don't leap into my arms and give me a kiss?"

Miss Undertaker rolled her eyes. "Lookie here. If I acted like the meek little love interest I'm supposed to be, who would take care of all those stringless? And Penny? Who would look after her? Anyhow, Bandits never last longer than three weeks or so. Pretty hard to call that a romance."

"Okay, but why aren't you crazy, then?"

"Maybe it's because I never break a string. Maybe some puppets can bend the rules a little more than others without losin' it. Maybe Miss Lorelei is supposed to have this side to her. I don't know. Anyhow, we're here."

Miss Undertaker turned off her lantern and prompted Bandit to do the same. In the darkness, a small chink of light was visible, seemingly from far within a tunnel.

“That’s where you’re squeezin’ in, Miss Undertaker explained. “There’s a reason ah came to get ya, and that’s because I wasn’t sure I could fit. I need you to go in as a check. I’ll pull ya out by the strings if you get stuck.”

Bandit sighed. He should have guessed that Miss Undertaker wouldn’t have brought him along without a reason, considering that she could have handled the combat side of things herself. He dropped to his knees and felt for the tunnel’s entrance. While doing so, he knocked a rock loose.

“Right. And ah’ll dig ya out if it caves in. But it won’t.”

On that comforting note, Bandit crawled in. At first, the tunnel was big enough for him to crawl through on his hands and knees. A good thing, considering how damp and cold it was. As he continued, however, it grew so constricting that he had to flatten onto his stomach. He could feel cracks in the rocks he was dragging himself across, and could hear the sound of aracknits chittering within them. A few attached their strings to him, and jumped over to nibble at his wood.

That was plenty- Penny was not worth getting eaten for! Bandit tried to crawl backwards, but found that he couldn’t. Fear overwhelmed him- the chittering, the chill of his wood against the dank rocks, the claustrophobic tightness and the blinding dark. It was as though the tunnel might eat him alive.

But there was no way out but through. Over the next seven minutes, Bandit managed to squeeze his way out, tumbling into the outside and onto his back- eyes instinctively closed, of course.

“Everythin’ okay out there?” Miss Lorelei’s voice called, echoing through the tunnel.

“Darn Tootin’.”

“Alright. I’ll be right behind ya. Hang tight!”

With that, Bandit got up. When he opened his eyes, he was amazed by what he saw. The expanse before him had to be ten times the length of Showdown Valley. There were several crates easily five times his height, and beyond that, wooden walls. Then, he saw the trail of red string leading back to a spool of thread placed right by the hole he’d emerged from. The hole was in a red crate. He’d come from a crate! And through the holes, he could see his strings, limp and dragging on the floor. The sight of that made Bandit jump.

He could jump.  Without his strings, how was he still standing? It was so much to take in- like seeing your arms chopped off but still somehow lifting a cup to your mouth.

Ms. Lorelei couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes before emerging from the tunnel. She was just as awestruck by the environment as Bandit had been. After a moment of slince, she said, "So. This is what's beyond the Valley."

“Uh huh. An’ look- Ah think that Penny left us a little trail to follow,” Bandit responded, pointing to the red string.

“Oh. Well, let’s follow it, then.”

The walk was fairly long. About halfway through, they saw began to hear her voice.

Gaurd your strings and say your prayers,

Play your part, don’t sell your wares,

Trust the rules and keep lookin' down,

The hoard is coming to our town,

To cut our strings,

To end us all.

Tomorrow, I will watch the fall.

It wasn’t a particularly annoying song, and her tinkly voice was fairly nice, but after hearing a week of hearing her sing it at all hours, counting down the days like a prophetess of doom, Bandit was sick of it. If only she’d ripped out her mouth and not her eyes. He wondered why Miss Lorelei was so fond of her.

Things got worse when she came into view: she was at the top of a box.

"We ain't climbing up there. She got herself up there, she can get herself back down."

Miss Lorelei paid Bandit's words no attention. She turned the corner around the box and found a few cardboard boxes stacked up against the other side of the crate. Thankfully she was very tall for a Showdown puppet and was able to climb up. The box was open, but thankfully its edges were made of solid plastic and thick enough to walk on.

No words could describe what she found in the box below. There in a village that looked like a discount version of Showdown Valley. There was no stage and no audience. Most of the buildings were made very simply, as though from whatever scraps could be gathered or stolen. Miss Lorelei even caught sight of a board stolen from her own house a few days prior by a stringless puppet. What's more, the village was habitated. There were at least a dozen puppets down there that she could count, and the size of the village suggested that there were at least twice that- it was as large as Showdown Valley. Not a single one of their residents had strings. Worst of all, in the center was what appeared to be a cache of weapons and a training ground. On it, two stringless puppets were sparing. Another arrived to deliver a box full of clubs.

This made little sense. She'd thought that the stringless were mindless- but it seemed that they were preparing for a war. Was someone controlling them? She thought back on the behaviour she'd seen from them- maybe it made more sense in context than she'd given them credit for...

A piercing high note from Penny's song brought Miss Lorelei back to reality.

The hoard is coming to our town,

She'd been trying to warn them. Miss Lorelei went over to where Bandit was waiting and gestured for him to hold onto the red string-one sane puppet claiming this would be disbelieved more easily than two. She pulled him up and got him to look over the side, gesturing for him to be quiet as he did so.

They scurried over to Penny and Miss Lorelei picked her up. Penny squeaked in surprise but Miss Lorelei shushed her. Thankfully, she was able to make it down before anyone took notice. They walked until they were a safe distance away, and then Miss Lorelei spoke. "Sweetheart, I need you to tell me everything you know about what we just saw. And don't even think about leaving a damn thing out."

[xxpadfootxx]

🐾Night Terrors & New Beginnings - Part 6 (The Rite of Passage)🐾

Izuku’s consciousness faded into darkness and at first, he believed that he had fallen for the dragon’s trap and that this was his end. He felt his heart pound and unconsciously began counting the beats in his head, fearing that each one would be his last. Suddenly, the darkness around him exploded with light, a warm light that washed over him and wove its golden fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes for a moment, unsure of where he even was. He knew he wasn’t in the bedroom anymore, well, maybe he was. Who knows? Maybe the dragon had a quirk that could change how his mind viewed the environment around him. He tried to get ahold of his breathing as the light around him wavered and bubbled, forming unrecognizable shapes that floated and morphed around him. Then, he recognized a shape, the shape of a tree. As he gazed around his peculiar surroundings, he found more recognizable objects. Izuku closed his eyes for a moment, reaching up to rub at his temples.

Izuku opened his eyes and blinked in surprise. The light that had once been holding him suspended in the air was gone and had been replaced with the clearing in the forest where he had met the Night Fury. He looked up into the canopy of trees and raised a hand to block out the warm sun that was glaring down at him from between the leaves. A soft growl had Izuku whipping around to face behind him and his eyes widened fearfully once he saw the Night Fury, sitting in front of a large oak tree. Fear blinded Izuku at first but then he noticed that the dragon had changed, it was no longer hurt, its scales smooth and its wings full and untorn. Its paws were settled underneath itself and its tail was laying across them neatly. The dragon and Izuku stared at one another for a little while, those piercing eyes glowing and never leaving his face. Izuku gulped softly.

“Hello,” Izuku said.

The dragon tilted its head.

“Where are we?”

The dragon just blinked at him in response. Izuku placed his hands on the soft, spongy earth beneath him where he had fallen over after the light had disappeared and stood up slowly. He waited for the dragon to lunge at him, to bite at him or to even just growl at him but it didn’t do any of those things. It just watched him warily. Izuku dusted off his pants and made eye contact with the Night Fury again, still trying to wrap his head around where they were and why. The dragon remained still and after a few moments of thinking, he sighed and realized that there was only one way to get the answers he needed. Izuku took a deep breath and forced down all of the fear that was rearing up inside of him, threatening to burst through him, and walked up to the dragon with his head held high. The Night Fury’s eyes widened ever so slightly but it still did not react other than that. Finally, Izuku stood directly in front of the creature and stared up into those fierce-looking eyes as the beast lowered its head to look at Izuku properly.

“Um… hello, again, w-we may not know each other v-very well but I meant what I said back there, that I w-want to help you. I don’t know what you are after, or why you branded me, but I want to help you because I have the strangest feeling that there is more to it than just wanting to eat me.”

The Night Fury considered him for a moment, its eyes narrow and calculating until it finally relaxed a little bit and dipped its head, its eyes closing. Izuku felt his heart flutter a little bit at the rebelliousness of helping a dragon but also the happiness of possibly not dying today.

“Well, first thing’s first, I need to get to know you a little bit, I want to research you.”

The dragon growled a little bit at the word ‘research’ and Izuku cringed slightly, clearing his throat and feeling his face go pale.

“I meant I want to learn more about you,” He corrected himself. “For starters, my name is Izuku Midoriya, but most of my friends call me Deku. I know you probably don’t understand Japenese, but I want you to get to know me as well.”

Izuku felt a little less anxious once he started talking. He knew that the dragon was familiar with certain words like ‘research’ but he had no idea how well-versed the dragon actually was in human language. Even so, he continued to talk as if he were having a normal conversation with a friend, hoping to convey through the emotions in his words that he meant no harm.

“You don’t have a name so maybe I should give you one? I feel a little strange naming a dragon as if it were a pet but I don’t want to call you ‘The Dragon’ for the time being. I don’t even know if you know what a name is, to be fully honest so maybe it won’t matter?” Izuku eventually decided that choosing a name for it would help make the dragon seem less frightening and more like someone he could work with and so he started running through a list of possible names in his head.

“Flash? I’ve heard that Night Furies are one of the fastest dragons on the planet,” Izuku suggested. The dragon bared its teeth and Izuku flinched a little. “Alright, not Flash then.”

He thought for a long while, his eyes glued to the ground and his feet beginning to shuffle as he mumbled to himself. He looked up at the dragon.

“Salazar?”

“Grim?”

“Fang?”

“Azriel?”

“Montag?”

“Pyro?”

“Yoru?”

“Cerberus?”

Izuku knew he wasn’t the best with names but he was sure that at least one of those would have stuck. But he was wrong, the dragon rejected all of them, its eyes narrowing and its paws shuffling in impatience. Izuku glanced down and started mumbling again, ideas and thoughts running across his mind as he rushed to find a good name for the dragon.

“How about-”

That’s when it hit him.

“You’re female, aren’t you?”

The dragon watched him for a moment before dipping her head with her eyes closed once more, a soft purring sound coming from her throat.

Izuku felt a little shocked at first but then he smiled. No wonder she had been so agitated, he had only been suggesting male names! He placed his thumb and forefinger on his chin and thought some more. With this new development, it only took Izuku a few minutes before the perfect name drifted across his brain.

“What about Dakota?” He asked, his heart hammering. The Night Fury tilted her head as if she were thinking about it, tossing it around in her mind and tasting it on her tongue. After what seemed like both an eternity, the dragon leaned forward and placed her head against Izuku’s palm so that their symbols matched up. In no time, the forest scenery had disappeared and Izuku jolted awake to find himself on the floor of his bedroom, leaning against the black dog’s flank. She snarled at him and he shot up, scooting away until he was a healthy distance away. His body was shaking and his nerves were tingling but he managed to stand up and wobble over to the bed where he collapsed down onto his blankets and pillows. He glanced at his alarm clock and realized that only one minute had passed since he had placed his palm on her head. He still had no idea where he had gone or why and he wasn’t completely sure that he hadn’t gone crazy but he was happy to be back in his bedroom in one piece. Izuku took a shaky breath and leaned over to turn off the light.

“Goodnight, Dakota.”

The dog only responded with a soft sigh, but compared to the growls and snarls she had been giving him up until that point, Izuku was willing to go out on a limb and say that she didn’t mind the name.

_______________________________________

It was only three hours earlier when Izuku’s mother opened the door to Izuku’s room to check on him. She had barely slept that night and had eventually given up at 6:00 in the morning to settle her concerns. She peeked through the open door and saw her son fast asleep on his side, facing her. His mouth was open and he was snoring a little bit in a way that made Inko smile. She then looked at the make-shift dog bed on the floor to see the dog. The dog had woken up to the soft sound of the door opening and was watching Inko warily but her paws were tucked underneath her body and her ears remained pointed into the air rather than pinned back so although Inko sucked in a breath at the sight of the dog staring at her through the darkness she was able to calm herself. After glancing around one last time, she silently slipped the door closed and padded back to her bedroom to try to get some sleep.

_______________________________________

Even though Inko had peeked in at 6:00 am, Izuku did not wake up until almost 10:00 am, his body groaning at him as he sat up as if he had just run six miles. He sighed and placed a hand on his forehead, trying to get his tired, jumbled thoughts in order. It was when he was yawning when the memories of the strange experience with the dog from last night came flooding back causing him to pause mid-yawn and widen his eyes. He closed his mouth and leaned over the bed to look down at the dog, who he saw was fast asleep. Her head was resting on the edge of a pillow while her paws were tucked neatly underneath her body so that she resembled a large black croissant. Her tail was wrapped around her body and her ears were flicking a little in her sleep. As Izuku watched, he concluded that she was almost cute. Terrifying, and the offspring of nightmares and death, but... cute.

She must have felt his stare because she eventually opened her eyes a little and glanced up at him. Izuku quickly backed away from the end of his bed and waited, his breathing quickening slightly as if he had almost fallen off of a high edge. The dog stretched a little and yawned before trying to stand up. She may have acted brave and fought through the pain in the forest clearing but now that she had gotten some rest and all of the adrenaline was gone, as soon as she put weight on one leg she was a yelping mess. Izuku didn’t even hesitate to jump over the side of the bed and rush to her side, his brain not even processing the fact that he was going near the most dangerous animal on the planet. He crossed the room in a matter of seconds and met her on the floor, his hands automatically shooting out to stabilize her as she swayed in place and collapsed back into the dog bed. Once she was stable, she sighed along with Izuku before the pair suddenly realized how close he was to her. She snarled at him with a loud guttural sound that resonated through him in a way that struck him like lightning and he leaped away with the speed of a rabbit outrunning a fox. The dog glared at him with her teeth bared and her ears pinned flat to her head but she didn’t move, either because she was too tired or too injured to, but Izuku remained far away from her, afraid that she wouldn’t hesitate to lash out despite her crippling injuries.

“Sorry… I just wanted to h-help you.” Izuku said shakily, the flash adrenaline rush making him feel dizzy.

The dog finally relaxed after a few minutes, she allowed the fur on her scruff to lay flat once more and her lips lowered back over her sharp, pearly fangs. She yawned and moved her head so that it was resting back over her front paws and began to close her eyes slowly. Izuku saw that her eyes were closed but he had no doubt in his mind that she was listening intently for him to move to harm her and so he stood as slowly as possible and opened his bedroom door to find something for the both of them to eat.

It wasn’t until he had entered the kitchen that he was able to fully relax and think about the situation. He knew he had a strange compulsion to help the dragon despite how dangerous she was but he also knew that she was scared and hungry and injured. He took a deep breath and marched around the corner to find his mother sipping at a steaming cup of tea and staring off into space. She had dark circles under her eyes and her fingers were quietly tapping on the side of the mug.

“Mom?”

“Oh, Izuku!” Inko jumped in her seat and looked up at her son with a tired smile.

“How did you sleep?”

“Pretty well,” Izuku lied with a tense shrug. He knew that his mother could see through the veiled lie but she nodded and let it slide, going back to sipping her tea as he dug around for some breakfast for both him and Dakota. He froze as he opened the door to the fridge. What do dragons eat? He knew that they loved meat and most were definitely willing to pick off anything from a sheep to a human but he really didn’t know if they had preferences to specific meat or if they couldn’t eat something in particular. Finally, after digging around in the fridge for a little bit, he found some frozen waffles for himself and a three cold burger patties for Dakota, all of which he heated up before placing it on a plate to bring to her. He gave his mother a quick morning hug on his way back to his room, his concern for her health helping to clear up some of his own exhaustion, and then headed back to his bedroom, his hands shaking as they reached for the door handle.

Upon opening the door Izuku half expected the dog to be waiting for him with bared teeth and a snarl but he found her curled up in her bed, her ears drooping and her paws crossed. Her eyes shot to him as he opened the door and slipped inside but she seemed almost too tired to move. Izuku walked as slowly and non-threateningly as possible, ready to bolt for the door should she try to make a move and placed his plate on the bed. He then crouched down until he was low enough to slide the plate with the beef on it to her. She growled at him as he lowered himself onto the ground beside her but did not move or bare her teeth, her eyes following every movement of the plate in front of her.

“Easy girl, I won’t hurt you, this is something that will help you feel better I promise,” Izuku said, forcing his voice to remain steady as he pushed his hand even closer to her. Finally, he gave one last small push and pulled his hand away, the anxiety of losing a hand making his skin buzz with fear. Dakota watched him out of the corner of her eye as she leaned over the side of the bed, her body shifting to compromise for the added weight to her front legs and sniffed the meat. Her body stiffened at the pain of moving and putting a tiny amount of weight on her broken paw but she continued to examine the meat. Her eyes never leaving Izuku’s, Dakota suddenly snapped up the meat, the movement so fast that Izuku almost missed it. It sent a shiver down his spine thinking of the idea that that could have been his hand. After she had finished the first burger patty, she wolfed down the other two, licking her lips and smelling the air for more.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have anymore,” Izuku said as he slowly rose to his knees and crept back to slide up onto his bed, the smell of his own breakfast bringing him away from those snapping quicksilver fangs. The dog growled at him and pinned her ears again before turning away from him in disappointment. The pouty-like movement almost made Izuku chuckle but he kept it to himself as he ate, his mind lost in his plans for when his day off from school ended. He glanced at Dakota once more and felt the beginnings of a smile tug at the corner of his lips. He was slowly getting there, baby steps toward her heavily locked up personality.

[oliverwxod]

Don’t get me wrong - (Bucky Barnes)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Warnings: not really any

Summary: The reader and Steve were so close to becoming a couple, but after winning the battle against Thanos he left for his final mission and nothing was ever the same when he returned. 

Y/n remembered when times were much simpler. Well, they weren’t ever simple, but compared to now they seemed to be. A time where herself and Steve had become close; through the battle of New York, Ultron, The Winter soldier- or Bucky as she calls him now. Y/n was there with Steve through it all. 

Steve and Y/n had always been a would they or wouldn’t they type of couple. Both of them really wanted to be together and make it work, yet the time was never right, especially when the accords split the Avengers. Y/n took Steve’s side like always, yet it still wasn’t the right time to pursue everything. 

Until years later; when the snap happened and half the population disappeared, but they somehow managed to win in the end through the sacrifice of friends and family. 

And Y/n thought the time was finally right. When everyone had seemed to come to terms with everything. With no more obvious threats lingering. It would have been the perfect time to start something real. 

Steve thought so too. Y/n remembers exactly what he had said to her only minutes before he left on his final mission to return the infinity stones. 

“I’ll see you soon doll. And the time will finally be right” He had leaned in to kiss her, but she halted him. 

“Save it for when you get back Cap” she spoke, smiling softly up at him. Steve had chuckled under his breath, giving her hand a quick squeeze before he walked to the podium and within seconds he was gone.

Y/n wished she had never turned his kiss away. For now she would never know what it felt like to kiss Steve Rogers. She only knew the pain of loving him, her heart clenching at the thought of how he didn’t return to her. Her mind whirling into a spiral of confusion as she had found him sitting on a nearby bench, aged and having lived a life of happiness with his one true love, Peggy Carter. 

-------------------------

The ceiling of the room swirled in delicate patterns of white and ivory. Y/n couldn’t help but compare them to how the previous compounds ceiling used to be, plain textured and the same dull white colour, yet it had always been a place y/n had called home. 

Everything had changed and everything was different now. Y/n hated it. The new compound constructed with the help of Pepper, was a lot smaller than previous towers. Which was fitting with how only a few remaining avengers survived and chose to live there.

Y/n was one of those. She hadn’t wanted to leave, feeling it would be and always will be her duty to her country. To protect them, no matter the loss.

She had already lost so much, there was no point giving up now, she had no family like Clint or Pepper, no relationship, no pets. Nothing to give her a chance of an excuse to get out of this life.

Standing up from where she lay on her bed, Y/n dragged a sheet over her bare body, shuffling over to the balcony to admire the view.

She often found herself waking up in the middle of the night, an invisible pull taking her feet over to the sliding windows, so she could step outside and overlook the lake and dark shadows of trees.

The moon was the only source of light, reflecting in the slow ripple of waves, illuminating the towering trees that stood around the compound, shielding it from plain view, a supposed peaceful and serene environment. She took a seat on the small outside sofa, allowing her thoughts to cloud her mind in the quiet of the night.

“What are you doing out here at this time doll?” The raspy morning voice Y/n had come to know so well made her jump, expecting Bucky to still be asleep in her bed where she left him moments ago.

“Couldn’t sleep” she mumbled, her voice soft so that Bucky had to strain his ears to hear her.

She heard him sigh quietly, feeling his stare on her face before he sat himself down next to her, leg pressed against hers as he hitched the sheets resting around her higher to make sure she didn’t freeze.

“Do you still think of him?” Bucky asked, already knowing the answer. Bucky was never one to beat around the bush. 

“It’s hard not too, I’m sorry Buck...” she spoke ashamed.

“It’s alright” he shrugged, sighing softly at the thought of his best friend. “I miss him too”

“I’ve tried to move past it- but- I just can’t help thinking” she said quietly, her eyes following the pathway of a bird, swooping down past the lake and disappearing into the woodland.

“Can’t help thinking what?” He prompted following her eyeline to watch the same bird she had been distracted by.

“I can’t help thinking why I wasn’t good enough. Why I wasn’t enough for him to stay” she confessed. It was her darkest thought recently. But one that didn’t seem to budge from the back of her mind no matter how many times she told herself to stop.

“You shouldn’t think like that doll. It’s unhealthy” Bucky replies gently. The thought of her thinking that she wasn’t good enough made him frown and although he was glad his best friend chose the path of happiness, he was angry that he had to break Y/n’s heart in order to do so.

“I know. But- I just can’t help it. Because if I was enough- then he would have stayed” she spoke, her voice wavering as quiet and stifled breaths left her lips.

“Steve has always regretted crashing that jet into the water. It’s been the one thing weighing him down, haunting his nightmares and I think he finally did something for himself. I think it was always his destiny to be with her-“

“You’re not making me feel any better” y/n spoke, holding back a sob, her throat tightening as she tried to swallow the tears creeping up on her.

“And sometimes you will want something so bad that all thoughts of anyone else leave your mind and maybe when he went back he thought what if- what if he never crashed the jet.” Bucky spoke. “I don't think he intentionally meant to hurt you, he loved you- I know that. But-”

“But it wasn’t enough” she whispered, finishing off his sentence. 

“There’s always going to be someone out there that will hurt your feelings and make you feel like you’re not good enough. But there’s always someone who will come into your life unexpected and help you pick up the pieces.” he spoke. Trying not to be too obvious that the person he was talking about was himself. 

“And who do you suggest that person is? You?” she scoffed at the words that left his mouth. He had said it in such a soft, careful way and she hated it. Her defences pulling up wanting to fight him. 

Bucky sighed, Y/n immediately feeling bad. 

“Sorry” she mumbled. “That was unfair of me” 

“S’alright” Bucky said quietly, silence falling upon them both as y/n was lost in thought. She was trying to find out why she suddenly felt the need to lash out at him and she realised it was because what he said was true. 

Bucky had been picking up the pieces that Steve had left behind, whether it was in the form of a friend or the comfort of the soft, loving touches they shared at night behind closed bedroom doors. 

“Thank you” she said, the need to show him just how much she appreciated him was sudden, crawling up on her, chiling and desperate. “Thank you for being here” 

“I want to be here” he spoke. Y/n didn’t want to mention the fact that she was all Bucky had so he didn’t really have a choice. Sam was always so busy now, taking over Steve’s previous Captain position. So It was either her or loneliness. 

The two of them in similar positions. 

“I do” Bucky spoke as he watched her get lost in her mind. 

“Do what?” she asked, turning her head to the side in question, her body now facing him more. 

“I do want to be here” he said “with you” 

Y/n’s eyes widened. Scared that he knew her so well inside and out. 

“So do I” she whispered, it held a certain kind of sadness to it. But Bucky understood. 

It must have been hard to have nearly had someone you loved with your whole heart, a touch or fingertip away; to then lose them unexpectedly without a goodbye, being left to wonder for the rest of their lives...what if...

Bucky watched her, eyes tracing every inch of her face. She stood up, blanket still wrapped around her form, only turning back once she reached the door. 

“you coming back to bed?” she asked, eyebrow cocking slightly as she waited. 

Bucky didn’t respond, standing up and walking towards her. He saw her smile briefly before turning back around to walk inside towards the bed, her blanket slightly trailing on the floor behind her. 

Bucky stood on it, watching as it yanked the blanket away from her body, falling completely on the floor and revealing herself to him. She gasped, turning around to glare at him, but stopped when she saw the look on his face.

His stare was intense, scanning the length of her body with a hungry look in his eyes before he moved towards her with desperation, pulling her too him once she was at arms length. 

“I was serious” he spoke looking into her eyes. “I want to be with you”

TAGS:  lmfao I know it’s been a while since I've posted anything and I'm sorry xx

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