#the graininess is God's way of reminding me of that we are dust and to dust we will return

[tomcriuse]

Álvaro Morte as Sergio Marquina La Casa de Papel | Season 1

[the-modernmary]

to be enough || aaron hotchner x gn!reader

Summary: During a movie night with your boyfriend Aaron, you accidentally stumbled onto his old wedding video, and it makes you wonder if you could ever compete with his first love?

A/N: This was an anonymous request, thank you SO MUCH for sending this in!! It’s my first request and it was so much fun to write!! I love soft Hotch so, so much. I’m sorry this took so long to get out. I was sick on and off for like two weeks straight, it was a whole thing. I hope you like this!!

masterlist || read on ao3

“I’ll make popcorn and open the wine, you pick the movie. We’ll meet back on the couch in ten minutes,” Aaron said quickly as he pressed a kiss to your cheek before making his way to his kitchen.

  You giggled at your boyfriend’s eagerness as soon as he opened the door to his apartment. Truth be told, you couldn’t blame him, though. It was rare that the two of you ever really got the chance to just hang out at his apartment. Whenever Aaron was home, he liked to spend as much free time with his son as possible, which you completely understood. So between spending time with Jack and Aaron being away on cases, you lived for these small moments of alone time and domesticity. 

  “You might regret letting me pick the movie, my love,” you called to him jokingly as you sat down in front of his TV, looking for where the remote was hiding. “I am very loyal to my early 2000’s chick flicks.”

  The sound of Aaron’s laughter floating through his apartment made your heart swell. He had never been the tough, FBI unit chief around you, but he was also rarely so carefree and light. There was always a shield around him, especially with the way he would carefully choose his words so as to not give away too much of himself. He was always so guarded and unwavering.

  Aaron poked his head out of the kitchen, hair falling in his eyes. “In the interest of honesty, I’m fully planning on moving this to the bedroom before we even get halfway through the movie,” he admitted, his voice carrying even over the sound of popcorn in the microwave.

You giggled again and shook your head fondly, unable to stop the smile spread across your face at his words. Seeing him be so playful was like a gift — always a surprise, but never unwelcome. You lived for those small glimpses of the man you knew he was.

  Aaron went back to choosing the perfect movie night wine and you settled on the couch, turning on the TV and ready to pick out the goofiest, most feel-good movie you could find. Before you could pull Netflix up, however, the DVD that was already in the television began playing.

  The film was grainy and the camera work was shaky at best, so you weren’t sure exactly what you were watching at first. There was a church in the background and men dressed in nice suits. Kids dressed in their Sunday best ran around in the grass. The camera panned over to a couple who were clearly getting married, going by the big white dress the woman was wearing.

  The camera zoomed in on the couple and your heart dropped to your stomach, because there, right in the center of the screen was Aaron. It was a much younger version of him, of course, probably law school, but it was definitely him. 

  Oh god, this was his wedding video. Which meant that the beautiful, blushing bride wrapped in his arms and making him throw his head back in laughter was Haley.

  Aaron had told you about Haley and everything that had happened between the two of them right up to her murder pretty early on in your relationship with him, but then it was never really mentioned again. But you had heard the whispers on nights out with his team, listened to them all gossip amongst themselves about how “I never thought Hotch was ever going to move on?” .

  Despite every logical bone in your body screaming at you to change the film before Aaron came back into the living room, you couldn’t help but watch in morbid fascination. The Aaron on the screen was so different from the man you had come to love.

  You watched as the film Aaron spun Haley in circles and peppered her entire face in kisses. The entire time, they never once stopped touching each other, even if it was something as simple as holding each other’s hands. Aaron kept glancing over at Haley with the biggest heart eyes you had ever seen, and it was nothing like the way Aaron had ever looked at you. Even when the couple was supposed to be paying attention to the people giving speeches around them, Haley and Aaron kept sneaking glances at each other, mouthing “I love you” like it was the only thing they could think to say.

  Aaron looked so happy and so free and it was so unlike the man in the other room. In the year and a half you had been dating him, you had never seen Aaron with a smile so big. He never gave you PDA so freely, and it wasn’t something you realized you even wanted until you saw him do it with somebody else. Suddenly, you wanted to feel young and reckless and dizzy in love the way he looked back in the film.

  It was unfair to ask him to live every day with you feeling like it was his wedding day, and you knew it. Still, something stirred inside of you that made you crave for Aaron to look at you like that, even just once.

  What you had with Aaron now was safe and a certifiable “adult” relationship. Not to say it wasn’t nice, and there was plenty of passion and fun in it. All of your friends constantly expressed how envious they were that you had found somebody who was so stable yet still unpredictable and could sweep you off your feet with romantic dates under the stars. Being with Aaron felt like home for you, and you had always thought that he felt the same, although now you weren’t sure. It had never occurred to you that Aaron may not have ever really gotten over his first love.

  The microwave beeped, signaling that the popcorn was done and that Aaron would be back in the living room at any second, and you quickly switched the TV to Netflix, clicking whatever movie popped up first, not even bothering to look at the title. 

  Just in time, too, because not long after, Aaron made his way over to the couch, precariously carrying a bowl of popcorn, two wine glasses, and a bottle of a sweet red wine that had become a go-to for you both. He generally preferred red wine, but you hated the dryness of it and basically only drank sweet, dessert wines, so when the two of you found this one, it had seemed like fate. Most of your relationship with him felt like fate, honestly.

  You forced yourself not to think about the fact that Aaron was happily drinking white wine in the wedding video.

  “Either the definition of ‘chick flick’ has changed drastically,” Aaron started, plopping down next to you. “Or Mad Max is very different from what I remember.”

  “I decided to change it up, put on a movie neither of us will be invested in,” you lied, desperately fighting to keep your voice even. “That way we can move right into the bedroom portion of the night.”

  “I like the way you think, sweetheart,” he chuckled, dropping a kiss to the top of your head. His thigh was pressed against yours, but even then, he felt a million miles away from you.

  It was unfair to get so worked up over this whole wedding video thing, and you knew that. His time with Haley had ended long before he had even met you, and logically, you knew that people could fall in love multiple times. Still, that didn’t quell the anxiety that was bubbling in your stomach, making you queasy.

  Why was he even watching that video, anyway? Did he often sit right there on the very couch you were cuddling with him on and rewatch the happiest day of his life? After a date with you, did he ever come home conflicted about his own emotions and feeling guilty for moving on, and go down memory lane to remind himself who his real true love was? 

  You kept thinking about how giddy he had looked in that video, and how easy it had seemed for him to be with her. And Haley… God, how could you compete?

  She was stunning, no doubt about it, with her blonde hair and bright eyes that shined, even through shitty 90’s video camera quality. The pink on her soft-looking lips only seemed to make Aaron want to kiss them more and more, maybe to see if he could smudge her lipstick. It never once budged, though, because of course it didn’t. She seemed too perfect to have faded lipstick on her wedding day. She had floated across the makeshift dance floor, like a fucking Disney princess leaving a trail of fairy dust and sunshine everywhere she went. Everything about her seemed soft and kind and good, all things you had never once associated with yourself.

  It was no surprise that Aaron had decided he was going to marry her from the first time he saw her, as he had said in his vows. She was everything you could have ever wanted to be, and clearly, she was everything Aaron had ever wanted.

  Aaron’s voice snapped you out of your rapid descent into crippling insecurity. “I can hear you thinking from here, honey.”

  You took a long sip of your wine, avoiding his piercing gaze. “I’m just concentrating on the movie,” you lied.

  “The movie you picked specifically so that we didn’t have to pay attention?” he retorted, eyebrows raised. Really, you should have known better than to try and give him such a blatant lie. Aaron reached over you to grab the remote and paused the movie, placing his hand lightly on your knee. “What’s going on?”

  How could you even explain what you were feeling? It definitely wasn’t jealousy, although you almost wished it was. At least with jealousy, you could push it to the side as an awful, gross feeling that comes from years of internalized misogyny and being told that other women are inherently competition for the attention of men. You could deal with that feeling.

  But it wasn’t that at all. Despite Aaron’s obvious devotion to her, you found it hard (and a little twisted, if you were being completely honest) to be jealous of a woman who was violently murdered in her own home in front of her young child. Besides, jealousy would imply that you and Haley were on somewhat equal ground, which you so clearly weren’t. 

  Haley was his high school sweetheart, the love of his life, the woman he had chosen to have children with, and you…

  Well, at one point you thought you could have been that, too, but now you were faced with the fear that you were nothing more than a person to fill the hole in his heart that Haley had left. Even worse, however, was the sinking feeling that you weren’t sure if you were ever going to be enough to fill it completely. 

  “It’s stupid,” you stuttered out, avoiding Aaron’s eyes, which were so full of concern. That was the worst part. It would be one thing if Aaron didn’t love you, but he did love you. Just not in the way he loved her. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “It’s not stupid if it’s bothering you.”

  “I—” You cut yourself off with a sigh and shifted on the couch so that you were facing him. “Am I enough for you?”

  Aaron looked about as taken aback by your question as you felt. You hadn’t meant to burst through the gate with that particular insecurity.

  “Are you enough for me?” he repeated slowly, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, like the question didn’t make any sense. In all honesty, it probably didn’t. “If you mean ‘am I happy with you’, then yes. Incredibly. Happier than I’ve been in a long time.”

  That should have made you feel better, but it wasn’t the answer you were looking for. You absentmindedly picked at a loose thread on your sweater. “I saw your wedding video,” you admitted shamefully. It felt like you were a little kid getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar. “And, I don’t know… You looked so happy and so… alive with her. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime love, Aaron. I’m never going to be able to be that for you.”

  Aaron’s frown deepened, and for a moment you were worried that he was going to get angry at you for watching the video. Maybe you had tainted that one happy memory for him. But the lines on his face softened just a bit and he covered your hand with both of his.

  “Have you always felt like this?” he asked cautiously, attempting to keep all emotion off his face. “Like you’re not… enough?”

  You shrugged. “Sometimes. If I think about it too much. Especially when we first started dating. But never this intense. I guess since I had only heard stories of her, it was almost like she didn’t exist? But now that I’ve seen her and how you looked at her… I love you so much and I want you to be happy, but I’m scared I can’t be that for you. I’m sorry if I’ve crossed a line, but this has been eating me up from the inside for a while now and I—”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Aaron cut you off mid-ramble, and you took a shuddering breath. Guilt was written all over him, which made you want to crawl into a hole and never be heard from again. “Have I done anything to make you think I’m unhappy?”

  “No, of course not! You’ve been nothing but wonderful. But I’m not Haley. I can’t make you as happy as she made you. And maybe this is selfish of me, but it hurts to know that you don’t love me the way you loved her.”

  Aaron’s frown deepened, but he still held on tightly to your hand. “I didn’t think you would want me to,” he said, and now it was your turn to be confused.

  You could practically see the gears turning in Aaron’s mind as he tried to find the right words to verbalize the floodgate of emotions that had just opened. Being vulnerable and open about his feelings wasn’t something he was very comfortable with, and it definitely didn't come easy for him. The fact that he was trying and willing gave you some comfort.

  “What I mean to say is…” he backtracked. “You’re right. You’re not Haley and the way I loved her is different from the way I love you. I love you differently because you’re different. And I’m different now, too. But different doesn’t mean less, and it never has. I would never want you to think that you’re just some consolation prize.”

  He was looking at you with such intensity and sincerity that you could have cried. “It’s just that when I realized you had been rewatching your wedding, I kept thinking that maybe she was your one love,” you explained nervously. “I don’t know what that leaves me.”

  Aaron took your hand that he was holding and moved it so that it rested on his chest and you could feel his heartbeat. “My love isn’t finite. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”

  You melted into his touch, and it was like the sun came peeking through the storm clouds. He didn’t have the exact same expression that 25-year-old him did on the wedding video, but it was something close. Maybe even something more. It was warm and inviting and felt like coming home after a long day. 

  “You’ve been nothing but the picture-perfect boyfriend,” you assured. “This is all me and my own insecurities. I saw that you had been watching the video and I just… spiraled, I guess.”

  Aaron mindlessly rubbed his thumb back and forth on your hand. “I should probably explain why I was watching it, then.”

  “God, no, you don’t owe me any explanations for what you—”

  “I was showing Jack,” Aaron interrupted, his voice soft. “He doesn’t remember her that much, and he definitely doesn’t remember when we were married. Most of his memories are of fighting or divorced parents. I wanted to show him that his parents loved each other.”

  Your face went hot as embarrassment spread through you. “Wow, that makes perfect sense and I feel like an idiot,” you breathed. “I’m sorry.”

  Aaron pressed a chaste kiss to your lips as he stood up from the couch. “You’re not an idiot, and you have nothing to be sorry for,” he promised. “Come on, let’s get changed into something a little nicer.”

  You looked down in confusion as your movie night outfit. “Why?”

  A mischievous glint flashed in Aaron’s eyes as he bent down and gave you another kiss, one much less chaste than the one before. “Because,” he mumbled against your lips. “I’m going to take you on a date and show you just how much I love you.”

[trashmenofmarvel]

Branded - Chapter 53

Pairing: Demon!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: The ritual begins.

(This is a fan AU of Falling’s Just Another Way to Fly by araniaart​ . Please check out this incredible series for all of your demon Bucky needs.)

Chapter Warnings: Blood, whump

Now with a playlist!

Spotify

YouTube

AO3

Walking into the ritual room, as you now called it, felt more like you were walking to the executioner’s block rather than to perform some magic. Maybe they would end up being one and the same.

Thankfully, there were only three other people in the room besides you. Bucky had balked at being informed there would be several other sorcerers in attendance, and after observing his memories, both in person and through old, grainy film, you could understand why a room full of people during a ritual would be terrifying.

So now there was only you, Strange, Wong, and Bucky. The latter held your attention as soon as you stepped in the room. He appeared calm on the outside, despite the fact he was strapped down with a stone table, but you would recognize the glassy fear in his eyes as intimately as if you’d looked in the mirror.

Bucky wasn’t scared of you, you knew that, but unease gripped your throat still as you approached the table. He was restrained, for his safety and for yours. The thin, silver manacles around his wrists and ankles glimmered in the light cast by the lamps around the room. A room where you’d witnessed a demon exorcism, watched Bucky frozen, and now you would be performing a spell no one had ever done before.

Generally speaking, this wasn’t a room where nice things happened. You could only hope to break that pattern.

“Are you ready?” you asked him, reaching out and taking his hand. He wrapped his fingers around yours without hesitation. Despite the chill in the room, there was sweat beading on his bare chest. All he wore were a pair of dark pants, his wings folded up behind his back, and his searching tail grasped yours as quickly as his hand had done.

“Yeah.” Bucky swallowed down the gravel in his voice. “Ready.”

You reluctantly let go with one last squeeze of your fingers. Bucky’s tail uncoiled from yours, and you missed the contact as soon as it was gone.

Oh-fucking-kay, you thought, taking a deep breath as you positioned yourself at the side of the stone table. Remember to speak clearly, and keep your thoughts clearer. Intention is more important than the words themselves.

Bucky stared up at you, but only for a moment, his jaw working as he braced himself. And then he turned his eyes up to the ceiling, staring blankly, bracing himself for what came next.

It reminded you less of someone visiting the dentist’s office, and more of someone expecting to be brutally tortured for hours. God, you hoped that wasn’t going to be the case, because you weren’t sure if you could stop the spell safely in the middle.

You stared off slow, meticulous, drawing glowing circles and patterns into the air above Bucky’s prone form. Above his chest, his head, various points of “power” all along his body, focusing most of it above the sigil on his left shoulder. That would be the gateway, the focal point of the demonic energy that was bonded to him.

That sigil had been the main focus on your studies, and you’d even taken some time to see if, by some small miracle, the effects could be reversed—that you could cast the demon energy out of Bucky permanently. You found it was impossible, not without killing Bucky in the process, so that idea was firmly thrown out the window. Finding a way to make sure no one could enslave him again was the least you could do, but if it worked, it would hopefully make the demon side more bearable for him to live with.

You chanted the words in Latin, ones that would open Bucky to be bonded to another, but hopefully not in the role of a slave. He gritted his teeth but didn’t make a sound, sweat glistening on his forehead as his breathing quickened. You were tempted to rush it, to ease his discomfort quicker, but you didn’t dare. You would go slow and make sure it was perfect.

After that, you said words that weren’t written in any book. They would signify your willingness to join Bucky in a pact, a consensual one where you were both equals. It wasn’t all that different than making a human pact, except you were saying the intention part out loud, in the language of demon magic, and hoping it was enough.

It should have been. And yet, when you were done speaking them. Nothing happened.

You met Bucky’s eye, the reluctance in them palpable. You both knew gaining direct access to Bucky’s demon side might take more than a few words.

With an apologetic wince, you turned toward the stone podium nearby. On its surface was a red velvet cloth, and on top of that, a glittering onyx blade. Curling your fingers around the athame, the very tool that had done this to Bucky, felt wrong. Profane. You’d never wanted to see it again, especially after witnessing Zemo use it on him, but there was no other option if you wanted to harness the energy within the sigil.

“Are you sure you’re still okay with this?” you asked, voice lowered so it reached no further than Bucky. “We can back out now. It’s not too late.”

“I’m fine.”

He looked anything but fine. As soon as you’d touched the knife, his brows had tensed and his breathing quickened, his tail tightly wrapped around his leg.

“Okay.” You took a deep breath and poised the blade above his shoulder, stomach queasy as you fought not to tremble. This was not the time to have shaky hands. “Tell me if you need to stop.”

Bucky nodded but said nothing. There was nothing more to say. You both knew at a certain point, you would either have to complete the ritual as intended… or seal Bucky to you, becoming his master. Once the pentagram was cut open by the athame, there was no going back.

Teeth clenched together, your heart in your throat, you aimed the edge of the blade… and sliced downwards.

Nothing could have prepared you for Bucky’s reaction to the knife. It was a blessing you were no longer connected, because you would have been too overwhelmed in agony, frozen while Bucky screamed and writhed against the restraints.

The violent reaction, you were prepared for. What you weren’t prepared for was the stones trembling at your feet and the rumble of the walls shaking, causing the lamps to flicker and dust to sprinkle from cracks in the ceiling.

The energy pouring out of Bucky’s wound was searing and nearly blinding. You’d never been aware of it before, but now it was nearly overwhelming, your senses interpreting it as a blaring red light that felt exactly like the demon realm.

And if you didn’t do something, it would continue to pour out of Bucky, until it either killed him or it brought down the entire Sanctum.

The knife dropped from your fingers and you cast out a rapid spell. Fractals split in the air, surrounding you both a good distance on either side, trapping you in a glittering dome.

Strange and Wong were blocked just outside of the Mirror Dimension pocket you’d open. Wong’s stern face was fraught with worry, and even Strange seemed fearful as he banged his fists on the barrier. Orange glyphs glowed around his fists, but it would take time for them to break through.

You ignored them. Whatever happened inside the pocket wouldn’t damage the world outside, and either way, Bucky was still screaming through his teeth. He needed you more than they did.

Sweating, you picked up the athame and stared at the demonic energy coming from his shoulder, studying it, trying to understand how to harness it, even as the floor continued to rumble.

There had to be another way—

Bucky screamed again, and your composure wavered.

You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t take away his choice, his ability to make choices. Even if you never gave him a command on purpose, it could always happen on accident.

And what then? How was Bucky being your slave any better than you being his food source?

But what else could you do? What other choice did you have than to finish the one ritual you knew would work for certain? There was nothing you could do, nothing else that would—

When the moment comes and the obvious choice feels wrong… trust yourself to find a different answer.

The world seemed to quiet around you, replaced by the Ancient One’s words, so clear as if she’d just spoken in your ear.

The air rushed out of your lungs. Ignoring the world shaking around you, you raised the black knife to your right shoulder, and cut.

The blade sliced through your flesh as easily as it had through Bucky’s demonic skin, and you nearly dropped the knife as fire coursed through your body. Your sigil burned worse than it had ever done before, and tears sprang through your eyes as you stumbled to the stone slab.

Bucky continued to writhe, in so much agony he was completely unaware of his surroundings. You couldn’t tell him what you were doing, he was in no mind to hear it, let alone understand it. So you braced yourself when you took the knife and sliced through the manacle holding his left wrist.

Bucky’s claws would have torn a chunk out of you, but you grabbed his arm and held it against your side. With magic augmenting your own strength, you were able to keep him in place, even as the armored plates shifted and rose as he tried to pull free.

Warmth dripped from your shoulder, but you ignored it. There was a distant banging on the barrier of your pocket dimension, and you ignored that, too.

You focused on nothing else except Bucky’s arm, wedged between your elbow and your side.

“I’m sorry.”

You cut the palm of his demonic hand with the blade.

Bucky arched against the slab, his screams just as intense as anything HYDRA had done to him.

Tears leaked down your face as you thought I’m sorry, I’m sorry, over and over again.

Keeping his arm in place, you transferred the blade to your other hand and cut through your right palm with one swift movement. You were growing woozy and had to hurry.

Dropping the knife, you grabbed Bucky’s wrist and pulled his arm straight, hovering his bleeding left palm over your sigil, just as you positioned your own hand over his glowing shoulder.

Bucky fought against you the whole time, unaware of anything but the pain as he tried to draw his arm against his chest, but you held it firm.

At the same exact moment, you slammed his hand down onto your bleeding shoulder, just as your wounded palm pressed against his fiery pentagram.

Like a closed circuit, heat and electricity surged through your bodies in a loop. Light and heat exploded in your vision, demonic energy filling you past the point of control, and you were sure you were going to erupt in flames—

And then it stopped. The world went quiet, and dark, and then you heard…

Birds.

You opened your eyes. You weren’t in the room, or in the Sanctum at all. You were outdoors, in a yard, surrounded by trees whose leaves were bright green in preparation for the summer.

Both of your hands were curled around something metal, and you looked up to see your fingers wrapped around the chains of a very familiar swing set. Even more confusing, your legs weren’t dragging against the ground, but flat against it.

You leapt to your feet, stumbling because your legs were a lot shorter than you remembered.

“Bucky? Bucky!”

You clapped your hands over your mouth, startled by a high-pitched voice that had come from it.

You were a child again. And the backyard was none other than the one that belonged to your family home in Boston.

How did you get here? Where was Bucky? What the hell had happened?

“Ah, there you are.”

Your breath caught in your throat. No, it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

And yet, when you slowly turned around, there she was, standing there. Alive and real and very much able to see you without question this time.

The Ancient One.

Next Chapter

[softly-savage-mint-yoongi]

Estiferous;

es.tif.er.ous /adjective/ Producing (much) heat. Pairing: Chanyeol x f.reader Rating: angst Words: 3k I spent the entire day in a seething rage about certain events that happened yesterday and so, this was born. In part because the lovely @saebyeog-i just adores him with her entire being and we’ve not stopped talking about everything wrong with the entire situation and how much he deserves to be LOVED.

“Good morning on this fine twenty-ninth of October! It’s a chilly one out there ladies and gentleman. Those gray skies are here to stay today, and it looks like the rain will be steady through most of the evening,” says your partner from his place at the left side of the table. He glances sidelong at you as he turns back to his notes, “Ah, Y/N you’re looking so happy about that!” You blink once, caught in your daydream and stumbling for a response. Looking at the cameras positioned in your direction, you quickly recover, “Even with the chill and the rain I just love this season.” The man beside you gives a flamboyant chuckle that turns your gut, “What do you love about it?” “The colors,” you reply with honesty directed toward your viewers, “They’re like fire. The last reminder of the Summer warmth.” Your co-anchor touches at his in-ear briefly, “Oh, speaking of fire, take a look at this!” He spins his chair to face the large monitor that serves as the background of the studio, “Breaking news of a rogue Evolved out on the streets!” The way he says the words fill you with horror while you force your body to turn. On the screen, a shaky, grainy video- clearly from a cellphone some yards away- shows a disaster scene. Dusty clouds and smoke drift in thick and thin wafts across the screen, and the back of a tall and gangly man comes into view. Immediately your body stiffens as you watch his frame against the backdrop of a burning building. There is no air in your lungs, turned to stone as you absorb the video progression. Whoever filmed this is clearly terrified, by their deep breaths and coughing, high on adrenaline. There’s a barricade of fallen metal. You hear the man taking the video shout in warning, whispering an ‘oh my god’ as a dozen large steel pipes fall on top of the man he’s filming. Some grunting and distressing sounds pass the few seconds it takes for the next moment to come. Through the smoke and dust renewed, something glows faintly at first beneath the pile of metal. Then, between the haze, the video catches a form rising from them, accompanied by the sounds of heavy metal banging against the ground. One glows to a white-hot redness before bending and falling from what appears to be the Evolved’s hand. ‘Holy shit, what kind of monster is he.’ Says the owner of the recording in a choked whisper, clearly filled with absolute terror. You’re still frozen to your chair with your heart thudding loudly in your chest as you watch the rogue man change. Gently at first as if he appears to be lit on fire slowly, until everyone watching realizes he is engulfed in flames of his own making. Oddly, he checks over both shoulders before he takes off into the burning wreckage of the building. The moment the video ends, your co-host whirls back toward the cameras with too much enthusiasm, “Amazing, aren’t they, folks? What a world it has become!” He pauses, looking over some new papers that had been passed to both of you. Looking down at your own, you read the words as they’re said by your partner, “Wow! Looks like this video was taken by someone who had just escaped that building with their life! Then this Evolved showed up right before the fire department.” It makes you jump as another video pops up on the screen behind you, of two children animatedly talking, albeit a bit hoarse. ‘It was amazing, like PSSSKKKHHHHHHAAAAA!’ says the smaller one, throwing his smoke-stained hands up into the air and then coughing. The larger child nods along enthusiastically, ‘Yeah, yeah! This guy came and grabbed the metal stuff in the way and, and-‘ he tries to find the words but needs to stop for a drink of water from an woman that coddles them both on a hospital cot. ‘-and he melted it all away like this. Hhhhnnngggg!-‘ he says, clenching both of his tiny fists and squeezing his face tight to make a bending motion. The smaller one interjects by jumping off of the cot, ‘and then he helped us outside.’ He looks sad for a moment before he shrugs and adds, ‘But I think he was shy ‘cause he wouldn’t come outside with us.’ ‘Go find the firetruck!’ hollers the older boy in a mocking tone. ‘But what do we say to the man, boys?’ the person filming asks, clearly the father. ‘Thank you for saving us!’ the boys chime together with grins too big for their cheeks. You smile to yourself, thinking of the kindness shows to these two children in such a scary situation. It doesn’t last, as hell breaks loose with the very same video of the Evolved across several social media sites. Tweets and Instagram shares and YouTube reaction videos. A few that are impressed to see such power from an Evolved, and a rogue one no less. Although much more common in today’s world than generations past and protected under their agencies, they are still the minority. Most of the buzz around the now viral video is alarming. Hateful spews of threats and accusations that this rogue started the fire himself. Calling him Hellspawn, or the devil himself. Threats and ugly words thrown around out of fear and jealousy. A few demanding the Manifestation Rehabilitation Center arrest him and lock him up so he isn’t a danger to society. “You heard it here first, Channel sixty-one news station. We’ll be right back,” says your co-anchor. He stands from his chair and adjusts his tie, stretching his back, “What an awful creature,” he comments dryly under his breath. It’s enough for you to catch. “What did you just say?” you ask him from your seat, back straight as a spring board. He looks at you blankly, and you decide in that moment that you hate his over-gelled slicked back hair and his tie is the ugliest shade of puke green you’ve ever seen. “Come on now, you know that thing probably started that fire. It’s lucky everyone made it out alive, but what about the damage?” It takes you a moment to consider his words and if he is really standing here in front of you or just a dirty apparition, “Excuse me?” He has the audacity to sneer, “What?” “That ‘creature’ you just called him, is a person! He didn’t ask for that manifestation!” you scream at him. The director and camera coordinators all jump, spilling coffee and turning back toward you at the news table. Even your co-host seems to fumble for words at your outburst, “Are you really so small minded? You’ll jump to that conclusion without all of the information?” He raises his hand at you to speak, “It’s probably true though. Looks better for the news at least. You saw how quickly it we-“ “Stop talking! This is unbelievable! You want to know who the real monsters of this world are?” your anger is rising like acid up the column of your throat, “You are! People who only care about their fucking money or their fucking story or their five fucking seconds of fame!” You spit more words at him before he can make a rebuttal, “You don’t give a shit about the people your stories might hurt? Are you so content with yourself that you don’t have an ounce of shame for the words you say about others? Are you serious right now? Have a bit more compassion for humanity!” He laughs. The man within striking distance of your palm actually laughs. It is as the phrase ‘I don’t care.’ Leaves his lips that your palm meets his cheek. It stings harshly, but your refuse to let it show. And then you walk out, flinging your fistful of notes in the air to scatter about the news studio as your heels carry you sharply across the floor and out the door with your coat and purse. ______________________________ “Unnie, I’m so sorry.” You mumble, wiping at your tears and sniffling to keep them at bay as you walk. On the other end of the line, a woman coos at you, “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?” You feel terrible. Channel sixty one was the only news station that would even look at your resume straight out of college, and only on Yoora’s word that you were perfect for the junior anchor position that got you in the door. A year later and you were promoted to anchor, gleefully dropping the ‘junior’ title from your work. Thankful to her as always, you feel even worse as you admit that you walked out. “I just quit,” you say in one breath, “Unnie they were talking about Chanyeol.” The other end of the line goes quiet for three seconds, “Where is he?” You sigh, tilting your head to hold your phone between it and your shoulder so you can unlock your car while the other holds your umbrella. “Not sure, but I have a feeling I know. I’ll text you when I find him. I’m just… I’m really sorry after all of the hard work you did for me.” She hums, “Seriously don’t worry about that. We’ll figure it out later. For now, just make sure he’s okay, please.” “On it,” you whisper, ending the call as you situate yourself in your car. With both hands on the wheel, you take off in the direction he’s most likely to be. _________________________________ Nearing late afternoon, you’ve decided there’s only one place left to find him. His G65 is tucked nicely under the foliage of a large tree. It’s the only one left in the parking lot when you pass by the only other car on their way out of the park. You don’t bother checking your phone. He’s not answering anyone’s messages or calls and he’s turned off his location. Luckily, you had your gym bag in your car, intent on having gone today after work. Running shoes and a hoodie are much better for this kind of weather as you hunt for the man you love. It doesn’t take long to find him, since the park is scarce otherwise and he never carries an umbrella. He only ever needs to for the sake of his attire. Pulling open your messages, you text Yoora that he’s safe. You save her the detailed description of your lover; sitting on a bench with his ear pods in and the length of his legs spread out into the walkway, comfortable in his slouched position. He’s wearing his scuffed-up converse, favorite jeans and a large gray hoodie. One hand, large even from a distance, is extended in front of him. You know, even from this distance, he is watching every droplet evaporate from his skin. It is obvious in the Summertime, in the way his body steams as if it were asphalt when he doesn’t care to regulate his external temperature. You smile when he lets the hand drop to his lap and his head lulls back against the bench. He exhales into the chill, a gently puff of humid white from his volcanic chest into the late October breeze. It pulls a quiet laugh from you. His head rolls in your direction, and he is not surprised to see you standing ten yards away. His expression doesn’t change, but you know it isn’t personal. His cheeks, usually high and glowing, have deflated to sag near the down turned corners of his lips. Although he still exudes warmth, it makes your heart feel chilled. As you approach, traces of his tears become evident, pink around his round eyes- staring up at you from his resting spot. “You okay?” you ask, moving your umbrella away from yourself to shield him, “Your clothes are getting soaked.” A dissatisfied hum is your only reply at first, until he sits up and grabs your free hand to tug you closer. In his hold, you let him guide you to stand in front of him so he can comfortably wrap his arms around your hips. Leaning his head into your stomach, Chanyeol sighs. “You know you saved someone, Chanyeol.” You speak the words into the breeze with such conviction, letting your free hand raise to pet his hair. Even without the sun, you are happy to notice you can still see the auburn riding the waves of his chestnut curls. “It doesn’t matter. So many more hate me for starting a fire,” he mumbles into the thickness of your hoodie. Dropping your umbrella, you sink into a squatting position between his knees and revel in the warmth of his skin against your palms where they touch his cheeks, “But you didn’t start that fire.” He groans, voice cracking with stress, “Everyone thinks I did. It’s all that seems to matter. They are making jokes about it, too.” “I don’t think you did.” For the first time, he meets your eyes. Hesitantly, “I know.” He pulls you back up against him, hugging you into his larger frame as if you were his favorite stuffed animal, but commits nothing to the conversation otherwise. “What if you signed with an agency?” you wonder aloud. Sure, conversations had come and gone about it before, when they first began gaining popularity and legitimacy, but Chanyeol had always shrugged it off for the sake of keeping his manifestation private and doing what he wanted. He hadn’t thought that far about it, thinking there would never be a need to expose himself. “Might have to now. Still don’t want to,” he admits. “Why did you risk yourself then?” He lifts his chin and tilts his lips onto yours briefly, “The kids. They wouldn’t have made it.” The words are sobering to you, as they probably were to him. “You did that for them?” He takes a deep breath through his nose. It’s clear he is exhausted, “Would you have?” “Without a second thought.” You wrap his head in your arms again, leaning down to kiss at the crown of his head and inhaling his scent. Smoky and warm, tinged with the fresh rain. “That’s why I think you should find an agency.” Chanyeol hums, squeezing you tighter, “Later. For now, let’s go home and forget about the world for a while.” He kisses you again, “Thank you for finding me.” “I will always come to find you. I just want you to be safe and happy and loved,” you remind him gently, stealing a kiss on your own from his perpetually pouted lips. He takes your hand and stands, giving you the tiniest smile- just an uptick at the corner of his lips- at the happy sound you make when he squeezes your hand in his. It is unusually warm, like always. He takes the umbrella from your other hand, looking every bit like a normal couple trying to shield themselves from the chilled rain under one small piece of fabric. Chanyeol stops a few feet from the gate you came through, and his hand grows hotter in your hold. Enough that he lets you go and subtly moves you one step behind him, “Can I help you?” Lost in your thoughts, you hadn’t noticed a man leaning against the grill of Chanyeol’s Mercedes. He’s wearing a black overcoat, bucket hat, and dark sunglasses. Even without the weather, he is immediately suspicious. The man smiles, lifting himself from the car and uncrossing his arms. He looks down and back up, lips twisted in a smirk. Not quite cocky, but almost. Chanyeol must be able to feel something off because he reacts with one small puff of flame from his breath. You don’t miss the way he spreads his fingers wide with the hand he keeps in front of you, alerted by the way his fingertips become daker pink and then red as if sunburnt. The man approaches gracefully, and something feels a little cold. You watch, transfixed and a little afraid of the way the rain doesn’t quite seem to touch him. “Easy there, let me make this a little more comfortable,” he says mysteriously with a quick look around. You immediately notice the way the sound of rain on your umbrella has stopped. Chanyeol noticed too, and hesitantly moves the umbrella. Above your heads, the rain is not suspended. Upon closer inspection, you can see it is moving around you three instead. “See? Now she won’t get wet, right?” says the man, grinning. He removes his sunglasses and lifts his head to meet Chanyeol’s eyes. “Can I help you?” Chanyeol asks again, a little less polite than before. The man, clearly an Evolved, clears his throat and holds a card out to your boyfriend, “My name is Junmyeon. CEO of JM Enterprise, an agency for Evolved.” Your lover stills, relaxing from his threatening posture. You peek around him, curious, “Wow.” Junmyeon smiles at you, “I’m particularly selective in recruiting myself. I’m looking for a partner whose manifestation is complementary of my own. Natural element types if you will.” “Are there more?” Chanyeol asks quickly, his curiosity getting the better of him. Junmyeon smirks again, a bit lopsided. “A few. Currently, five including myself. I’d like you to make it six.” “I’ll think about it,” Chanyeol agrees a bit reluctantly, clearly finished with the conversation. He takes your hand once more and moves past the CEO toward the cars. “Oh, and miss Y/N?” calls Junmyeon. Both of your heads whip back around to face him. He holds his sunglasses with both hands, sliding them back over his eyes, “We could also use someone of your journalist talent, since you’re looking for employment now that you quit.” You squeak, trying to ignore Chanyeol’s wild eyes boring into the side of your head, “You quit your job?!”

[thepulta]

Part 4

Lizzie found that locomotives had many brilliant hiding places over the next day and a half. The crew didn’t seem to like her, but she didn’t want them to like her, and regardless of sneaking around and popping out of thin air to startle them, she didn’t do any harm; so after a few hours of snooping, the crew ignored her. 

She trailed Westlie for a while. It was comforting being near someone she knew, even if they didn’t talk. Westlie was fully absorbed in her book, even though she looked over at Lizzie and gave a little smile occasionally, or just looked up and acknowledged her presence like a quick mental check that she was still there- she was still physical. Lizzie stared back at her. 

Once she got tired of watching (after an hour or so) and Westlie didn’t move, Lizzie slipped down the hall from the map room to the rooms where the crew bunked. They were fairly spacious on this locomotive. Two crewmembers to a room: the captain’s cabin near the prow of the ship. Two men were resting on their bunks with the door open. They glanced at her as she soundlessly stared inside, they looked at each other, then went back to talking. Hm.

She crept down to the next door at the end of the hallway across from the captain’s room. Storage. And Morgan.

The young woman looked up from her book to stare at her. She was sitting on a pile of dusty boxes overflowing with white cleaning rags. Colored (cleaning?) liquids in every flavor of the rainbow without labels on the jars lined the shelf above her head. There were three mops in the corner. Morgan looked, for all intents and purposes, like the queen of clean. Lizzie blinked. Morgan blinked. Lizzie shut the door. 

She snuck off down the hallway and hid herself behind some spare boxes on a shelf in the engineer room. It was atrociously loud there, but had the benefit of hiding her really well, even if she sneezed. It took thirty minutes - Lizzie assumed that Morgan had tried to continue reading, stopped, started again, and then put the book down with some sort of annoyed resignation - but Morgan finally slipped into the engine room with the sort of casual prowl a hunter would. She had the same disgruntled look on her face from the night in Port Prosper; an annoyance she was tracking her down, that it was brain space she had to use, and a further frustration Lizzie couldn’t identify. Morgan’s eyes scanned over the shelf.

However, because she was an adult, the stoker cocked his head and Morgan had to grin back. It wasn’t a full grin that reached her eyes, but it was passable as playful. She had charms and Lizzie watched them switch on. Morgan said a coy joke and she could hear the stoker laugh over the roar of the engine. Morgan teased him with a bow, then took a last, barely-noticeable scan around the room and slipped out.

Lizzie climbed from behind the shelf rather than dropping down. There was a ladder near her so one could climb onto the catwalk, and she scaled it. She snuck along the walkway, slipped through the cab - the Captain shot her an odd look - and she walked out without being stopped. Lizzie skittered soundlessly down the aisle, dipping into the cargo bay where they were staying and then ducking behind the large crates in the corner. She’d already scoped that hiding place earlier and now it felt like a cozy refuge. Westlie had moved from her spot in the map room to her bed where she was reading intently. She’d completely missed Lizzie’s entrance.

Morgan’s entrance, however, was inescapable because the door slammed open, slammed shut, and she stomped over to Westlie, yanking down her sister’s book. “I’m not fucking doing this.”

“What? The fuck?”

“I’m not doing this, Westlie.”

“We’re getting there in two hours. What are you talking about? What are you not doing?”

“I’m getting on a train right back out. I went back to London like he asked, Westlie, I’m leaving.”

“You haven’t even gotten there yet.” 

The expression on Westlie’s face was troubled with an attempt at a neutral mask. She dog-eared the page of her book and put it down. The look on Morgan’s face softened, but Lizzie saw her jaw twitch like she was trying to hold something pained in. “Why are you just- reading?”

“The hell do you mean, ‘why am I reading’?” Westlie looked offended, instead of getting softer in turn. “You’ve been pissed the last two days. Who spat in your tea?”

Morgan’s eyes flashed. “I-” She cut herself off. “No, you know what, you don’t get it.”

“I don’t get what?! If you’d just fucking talk to me-!”

“I hate it in London, Westlie!”

Westlie threw up her hands. “I know! I know that! Morgan, I know that.”

A brilliant range of expressions crossed Morgan’s face from rage to stiffled tears. “You’re so fucking stupid.” She spun on her heel and stalked towards the door. “Why are you so fucking goddamn stupid-”

“Morgan, talk��to me!” Westlie grabbed her arm. 

“I do talk to you! I did talk to you!”

“Ok! Ok fine!” Morgan was just about to jerk out of her grasp but she paused long enough for Westlie to say, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.”

“That’s... not an apology.”

“I need your help.”

The range of expressions that crossed Morgan’s face was truly impressive, Lizzie realized. It made her scarier. Her face finally settled on some mix between disgust. Westlie looked guilty, but resolute. 

“Just... just for tonight. When we get home- can you go in by yourself? I need to get up to my bedroom to set things up for Lizzie-”

“Westlie. Are you listening to yourself?”

“I’m sorry!” Westlie hissed. “I am so sorry that I’m trying to do right by her!”

“What about me, Westlie- you big fucking incompre-fucking-hensible fucking sack of shit moron.”

“Morgan-”

“Don’t ‘Morgan’ me!”

“Please,” Westlie was quiet and insistent, and it was funny, for as loud and as disgrutled and as brash as Morgan was, and as furious as she seemed, and as close to walking away she’d been, her expression was quiet now. “Please. I’m asking.”

They stared at each other for a long time in a battle of wills. Lizzie huddled behind the boxes, quietly picking at a splinter of wood. Morgan looked away first. “When will you be free?”

“Seven.” Westlie said without hesitation. Her voice dropped a bit lower. “... I’m sorry.”

Morgan didn’t say anything. After a moment, Westlie gently reached out and wrapped her in a hug. Lizzie felt a sudden wave of homesickness for Benji. Benji gave great hugs. And then she had another wave of fear that she would never see him again. Oh god. what had she done?

She kept watching though. Westlie let Morgan go from her embrace after a long minute, and Morgan just stood there. It was like someone had sucked the life right out of her, and Westlie clearly didn’t like that. Didn’t like that, and had not one clue how to stop it. Morgan turned around and left. Westlie began to pace; that took up a good two minutes before she too turned around and left the room. 

Lizzie crept over the crates. 

There wasn’t much to do in this room alone. Westlie had packed up her drawings and the carpetbag was sitting neatly on the bed. Something itched in Lizzie’s mind too. Morgan’s face didn’t betray much, but that emptiness, even after the hug, seemed familiar. She seemed sad. Lizzie glanced at the door, opened it, and started to sneak through the ship again.

It took a good forty-five minutes of lurking before Lizzie’s stomach growled and she lurked her way into the mess hall. The ship’s pantry was a fairly large storage room with several sacks of quinoa in the corner, with shelves of other dried and preserved goods. Lizzie was going for the two boxes of kipper snacks shoved into the corner by the sacks when she heard a little sniff. Lizzie inched closer and peered behind them. 

Morgan was sitting on the floor behind the sacks, one knee pulled to her chest, one outstretched. Her eyes were rimmed red; she’d clearly been crying. They stared at each other while Morgan’s face moved from distaste to apathy. 

Morgan wasn’t a child; she didn’t seem like a child, but there had been plenty of younger crying children in the orphanage, and Lizzie quietly remembered them. She glanced at the box of kipper snacks, grabbed one and munched on it, then cautiously extended the box to Morgan. 

“Heh.”

... Morgan took one. She chewed on it and made a face. “... you know these are bad for you.”

Lizzie looked at the box. They didn’t look bad. They tasted like hamburger- if hamburger were a bit grainy and hard enough to crack your teeth on. She munched on another.

Morgan kept eating them too. They ate in silence for at least five minutes before Morgan sniffled again.

“... Westlie is an idiot.”

Lizzie watched her. She wanted to stick up for the elder a little, because she did seem nice, if... struggling. She couldn’t really get the words out though, and the kipper snacks were pretty dry. She took another bite.

“... She wants to help.” Morgan said, insinuating Westlie was very definitely not helping.

... So why don’t you? Lizzie wanted to ask. She stared at the box for a minute. Weirdly enough, the words came easily. “Do you hate me?”

Morgan gave her a once-over and Lizzie was reminded of the fierce initial scan when she hopped off the train. This time was much softer. Softer still because Morgan was still managing kipper crumbs. “No.”

“... Do you want me to stay in Port Prosper?”

Morgan hesitated at that. “... No.”

They ate kipper snacks in silence.

At some point the train hissed and started to descend. Morgan didn’t make any attempt to move though, so Lizzie didn’t either. It was only when the train actually docked with a lurch that Morgan shoved herself off the floor and dusted her pants of crumbs. She didn’t offer a hand to Lizzie - not that Lizzie wanted it, but it was a bit different from Westlie’s look-behind and check. Lizzie pushed the nearly-empty box back on the shelf. 

She trailed Morgan back to the cargo hold like a small shadow. The woman paused before opening the door and she glanced at Lizzie. “I’m staying three nights in that house and not a second longer. Tell that to Westlie if she asks.”

Tell her yourself, Lizzie wanted to say. But Morgan was already in the hold scooping up her carpetbag and swinging it wildly at her side as she walked back down the hallway. She was both a curiousity and incredibly annoying. Lizzie found herself disgruntled.

-=-

They walked to a house in London that was a very grey, very Victorian townhome on the corner of St. Mark and St. Andrew. A Westlie-high brick wall wrapped around the property with some rosebushes without roses peeking over the top. There was a small cast-iron gate in front that was less intimidating than the wall, and Westlie ushered Lizzie past as they walked so they were hidden behind the brick. Morgan stayed in front of the gate. 

“Dinner tonight,” Westlie said as she gave a little rueful smile at Morgan. “Seven?”

Morgan shot her a Look and pushed open the gate. She didn’t look back.

Westlie glanced down at Lizzie and shrugged quietly. “I hope that works.”

I think you need to talk to her more, Lizzie thought quietly.

They slipped around the corner to the next street and the side of the house where Westlie - with a weird amount of practice - flung her carpetbag over the garden wall. It landed with a thud on some rocks. “Do you want to try throwing yours?”

Lizzie glanced at the wall. It was ridiculously high for her, maybe twice her height, but it seemed doble. The carpetbag was pretty light. She clutched the handle with both hands, swung it back and forth, then launched it up. The edge of the bag smacked the top of the wall, flipped from the force Lizzie put into it, then slid to the other side. Lizzie grinned.

“Nice!” Westlie offered her hand and Lizzie took it without thinking. “Now you.”

Are you- are you thowing me-?! 

Westlie pulled her to the wall, but made a little cup with her hands rather than launching her through the air. “Climb on over then. I’ll boost you.”

Lizzie glanced at her hands, then the wall. The height wasn’t that bad; she probably didn’t even need the boost. It’d make it easier though. She stepped up, grabbed the wall and pulled herself over. She slipped off into the rocks on the other side by the carpetbags.

Westlie bounced up, adjusted herself side-saddle on the fence before expertly swinging her legs and skirt over and dropping to the ground. It was ridiculously prim for breaking into a garden.

Westlie scrounged behind a bush after that and pulled out a grappling hook with a length of rope on the end. 

Lizzie stared at it with a million burning questions bubbling to the surface. “Why are we breaking in?”

Westlie paused swinging the hook and gave her a surprised, affectionate smile. Lizzie could almost see a little barrier broken down as the woman focused back on the hook. “We’re not breaking in. We live here.”

The hook caught the first time on a piece of metal someone had installed on the lip of the roof. “Is that safe?”

Westlie glanced up at it. “Well, it hasn’t fallen off yet.”

This is fucking insane, Lizzie wanted to say. Why?!

Westlie tugged a few times on the hook to make sure it was stable before tossing her bag over her shoulder and climbing up. This was not her first time, even in a skirt. She got to the top and fiddled with the window, opened it, and tossed the carpetbag in. Westlie climbed back down and gave Lizzie a little grin. “Are you alright climbing?”

“I- I guess?” Lizzie glanced at the window, back at Westlie, and back to the window. “Do I have to?”

“I can pull you up, if that’s easier.” 

“... I’m a little scared.”

Westlie didn’t ask any questions, she just swung back to the top, slipped through the window, detached the hook, and waited for Lizzie to grab on. Lizzie wrapped herself gingerly around the rope before it jolted and she clung with a death grip. It seemed like years before Westlie heaved her through the window and she tumbled to the floor like a sack of potatoes. 

Lizzie had looked in the windows of nice townhouses before when she was particularly lonely. This was one of the nicer ones. It had polished wood floors with a rug by the bed, soft cream wallpaper with little gold designs. There wasn’t a lot of furniture; a bookshelf, a desk, a dresser, a bed, and the rest was pretty bare, but it was clean and it was real. It smelled like lilac. Lizzie took a minute to absorb it all. 

“This is my room,” Westlie added after a minute. “I was thinking we could pull a few blankets from the attic. I think we have some, maybe. I’ll ask Morgan. And we can put you by my bed. I don’t think the maids will say anything. I’ll lock the door maybe, just to be safe, and you can come with me to the office for now so you won’t be noticed. Arthur’s just down the hall.”

Lizzie was too overwhelmed by her surroundings to comment, but everything seemed fairly normal. Mostly. Other than the grappling hook. She hugged the carpetbag to her chest and told herself she was going to be ok. 

[imhereforbvcky]

Watch Me Run - Part 12

Masterlist  -  Series Masterpage  -  Part 13

Summary: You inherit a family relic that gives you the gift of foresight but there are others who are interested for more nefarious reasons. You turn to the Avengers for help. (Bucky x reader) Chapter: Needing a sense of security, you ask Bucky to help you prepare to defend yourself against the worst case scenario. Loki grows frustrated with tactical.

Warnings: Murdery violence! Loki at his worst, soz. Swearing, as per usz.

Word Count: 2985

A/N: We’re moving a little! Bucket and the reader don’t know that... well okay nobody knows it yet. Except for me. 😁

Page after page of nothing flashed over the grainy screen. An inquisitive porcupine, several returning deer, and what Bucky guessed were passing birds, too quick for the trail cam to catch. These were the only things to interrupt the sea of trees. He thumbed through shot after shot, carefully examining each one, just to be sure. It had been weeks of the same.

“This isn’t a very exciting movie,” you teased, hovering over his shoulder.

He smirked, but didn’t respond, clicking over to the next image.

“I don’t see anything,” you complained.

“Probably a bird.”

“Or a bear!” you clapped your hands excitedly. “Are there polar bears up here? Maybe you just can’t see him!”

“I’d see him.”

“Somebody’s sure of himself.”

“I was a sniper,” he leveled you with a look half bored, half offended. “I think I could spot an eight hundred pound animal.”

“Then why are we eating re-hydrated beef out of a bag?” You held your sleeve of beef stroganoff, designed for backpackers, toward him with a challenging smirk.

“Because it’s too early in the season to shoot anything but rabbits.” He snatched the sleeve out of your hands and shoveled a spoonful into his mouth. “And they’re not worth the energy.”

“But it could be something to do!” you protested, “And useful! One less trip into town where we could be spotted.”

He only sighed, handing you back the sleeve of stroganoff before returning to the trail cam. You’d had this argument before. Many times. You had begged him to let you practice shooting with his weapons, to get comfortable with them, just in case. He had firmly denied your request, every time.

“Come on!” you begged. “We have nothing else to do, and it’ll be good for me to practice.”

“No.” His answer was definitive.

But you were persistent.

“Please, it will make me feel safer.”

“We’ve talked about this.”

“No, you’ve steam-rolled me about this.” You dropped the bag of noodles on the table and pushed closed fists into your hips.

If he weren’t so serious about this topic, he might’ve laughed. You reminded him so much of Steve sometimes. Small and stubborn. Passionate and compassionate.

“Alright,” he set the camera down and turned to face you, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped in front of him. “Talk.” He had no intention of changing his mind. But if you needed to talk it out… again… maybe this time it would stick.

That surprised you. Your head tipped, and your chin lifted. A small victory, or so you thought, so you dropped into the nearest chair, dragging it close, until your knees nearly touched.

“I feel vulnerable out here.”

“You’re not. I told you, you’re safe. How many times—“

“I know,” you placed a hand on his clasped pair. “I know you’re good at this. I’m not questioning that. It’s just… I had to give up everything. I’m out of my element, here. The one thing I do have,” you placed a hand over the talisman hanging at your chest, “Is just as confusing and frightening to me as it is helpful.”

Bucky listened. He hadn’t expected to be swayed, but this… he could understand. Even if the outcome couldn’t change.

“You’re always saying how the escape plan could save me. Being prepared, having control, right? It’s so important to you?” you pushed, begging him to understand. “Well I feel very, very out of control here.”

Bucky leaned back, a frown creasing his face. “I’m sorry. I hear you, but it’s still not a good idea. The answer’s no.”

“You have the ability to give me some power over this situation. Don’t you feel… I don’t know, morally obligated to help me?”

He sighed deeply and shook his head. “Not everyone is as bound to their compassion as you are.”

“The world would be a lot nicer place if they were,” you grumbled, crossing your arms and flopping back in your chair.

“The world is not a nice place.”

“Come on,” you begged. “You brought all those weapons, just show me one! What if something goes wrong and—“

“It won’t.”

Your head dropped to the side with a frown. “Bucky. You can’t plan for everything. There’s a difference between being prepared and being a control freak. That difference is called denial.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I’m in control here. I’ve brought every weapon I think I’ll need to keep you safe and I won’t turn you into one of them just to make you feel better.” Bucky had gone from listening but firm, to deadly serious. “If anyone comes for you, they’ll be well-trained. Years of it. Training you to shoot would be… false confidence. Irresponsible.”

“Okay,” you nodded, relenting under the intensity of his command and wilting slightly with the reality of your peril. “I got it.”

“Your only job is to get the hell out of here, do you understand? I can’t have you second guessing that plan just because you can hold a revolver.”

“I said I got it,” you grumbled, springing from your chair and storming to the porch for air.

Bucky’s head dropped into his hands and he shoved them deep into his hair once you’d left the cabin. He could still see you through the window, kicking at weeds as you made your way over to the pile of firewood.

If he didn’t feel like such an ass, he might’ve laughed at the sight of you. Your frustration was futile against his will, but he heard it with empathy, nonetheless. The little ax stuck in the first log you’d struck while trying to break off kindling to blow off steam. The jerky imprecision told him your actions were more frustration than actual concern for the fire supply.

He knew he shouldn’t have snapped like that. He’d meant every word, but he hadn’t meant to anger you like this, to seem insensitive. It was just that he’d begun to break protocol in ways he couldn’t seem to get a handle on. There was a nearly imperceptible shift, a softening in the way he regarded you. Hell, even the fact that he was second guessing the conversation stood as clear evidence of that.

It made him want to dig his heels in wherever he could. None of it helped.

In any other circumstance, it wouldn’t matter. But this was a mission, an assignment. And he had a clear path. Only, it was getting harder and harder to think of you driving away. Yet if it came down to it, he needed you to do just that. Or worse.

“Damn it,” he cursed, shoving to his feet.

Nothing good could come of this. Nothing.

The logical, successful fugitive part of his brain told him it was better if you were afraid. It meant you would be more aware, you would follow the plan, you would run. But another part knew it wasn’t fair to keep you vulnerable and constantly fearful. The latter won out because there was a voice in his head that kept reminding him that he didn’t want you to fear one good god damn thing.

The longer he stayed in that cabin, watching you flail around with an axe stuck into a log, the louder that voice grew. When he caught himself smiling, a chuckle just punching out of his lungs, he decided.

He swept out the door with a shotgun in hand and a determined frown on his lips.

“Let’s go.”

The hundred year old brick trembled beneath the growing strength of the energy blistering from the blue mineral at the center of the long silver scepter.  Slender fingers tightened around the cool metal as a snarl rippled up Loki’s throat. One sharp and aimless slash of the scepter diagonally before his body and the wall before him gave way in a ripple of blue energy.

The soft whisper of paper over the dirtied, hard wood floor drew Loki’s attention. And his anger.

“How many more?” he demanded, glaring over his shoulder at the woman trembling in the doorway.

Wide eyes roved over the mess Loki had made of the house, wild with terror and watery with regret. Her mouth hung open, while her chin trembled. If not for the shock, she would have been wise enough to answer.

“HOW MANY MORE?!” This time his voice was like an avalanche, a rumble that built as loud as thunder, tone as sharp as ice and just as cold. As he shouted he struck the base of the scepter against the floor and a wave of blue energy snapped out in a plane across the house. It creaked and groaned under the force, in the same way a frozen lake snaps and buckles in springtime.

“Th-this was the last one.” The engineer trembled as dry-wall dust fell around her, and the mortar cracked overhead. The entire house and everything in it trembled under his rage.

Loki took a slow deep breath in through his nose, face rising away from the puppet who’d failed him. The shimmering blue had left her eyes, his control relinquished when he realized this was the final dead end. Now composed, he stepped toward her with a deadly calm and a dangerously slow pace. Anger would not serve him here, not anymore.

“The last one,” he echoed her words, reaching for the badge clipped to her belt on a retractable coil. “And they’re not here.”

She shook her head, watching, unable to speak. Her breath came in sharp, frantic puffs while he drew the small clear plastic card closer, examining the bright red lettering. Stark Industries.

“And you’re sure your code was successful?” his tone was gentle, almost soothing. It did nothing to calm her.

She swallowed thickly before answering. “Y-yes. These are all the safe houses in Avengers’ possession. And SHIELD’s. And anything that was even mentioned on the Stark Industries servers.”

“And yet,” he raised a flattened palm, glancing around the room. “Empty.”

“I did everything I could,” she breathed, stumbling half a step back. “Everything you asked.”

“I know,” he smiled. The venom flashed in his eyes and soured his grin to a sinister bite. It made the woman’s stomach churn. “But you’ve failed. And now, you have no use to me. Worse yet, you’ve become a liability.”

Before she could even inhale a breath in protest, Loki conjured a long slender dagger, spun it quickly in his fist and plunged it with inhuman force deep between bone. He had struck quickly and precisely, with enough force to break through the cartilage of her rib-cage and dive straight into the sinewy muscles of her heart.

The engineer blinked down at the blade protruding from her chest. It wasn’t until he withdrew the darkened knife that she gasped, gurgling and wet, choking on death itself before it swiftly claimed her.

Loki was cunning and patient, but he was also a warrior. And when his patience ran thin, he knew where to strike. He’d hoped with a swift strike, he could avoid an all-out war with Midguard and its Avengers. That no longer seemed possible.

With a sharp sigh and a scowl on his lips, Loki took one last glance at the rubble before he set off, once more, for the heart of his operation.

“Bullseye!” you shouted. “That was a bullseye, right?”

Bucky could hear the smile in your voice. He could feel it on him like a warm candle in the cold northern air.

“High,” he answered, a grin of his own turning his lips, his eyes still pressed to the binoculars.

“What! No way. Lemme see!”

“Is the safety on?” His tone a clear warning that he knew it wasn’t.

You flipped the small notch and turned to him again. “Is now! Let’s see!”

He chuckled and handed the binoculars over. You pressed a clumsy hand against your hair, pushing it out of the way. It fell right back into place. Without thinking, Bucky reached forward and held a strand back just as you swept the binoculars into place.

First, he wondered if you’d noticed. Second he wondered why the hell he’d done it. Third, he wondered, when it had become so easy to reach out like this. At what point had he become so damn comfortable that it seemed normal to touch your hair or brush your cheek?

It suddenly felt too intimate, and he retracted his hand, nearly took a step back. Your head swiveled at the motion, just a fraction, and he flushed with regret. Whether he regretted the touch or the withdrawal, he couldn’t say.

“It’s the gun,” you decided. “It’s gotta be a hundred years old.”

“That weapon is in perfect condition.” He held his hands out for the binoculars, with an open palm. In it, he held a new round. An even exchange. “Try again. Aim for the bottom of the second ring this time.”

You took the ammunition and sighed, turning the weapon sideways to load it. Like every time, you mentally walked yourself through each of Bucky’s instructions.

“This is a single barrel shotgun,” he’d explained days before. “You need to load it every time you shoot.”

You’d nodded, trying to absorb every detail he shared.

“We’re using slugs for practice because I want you to focus on aim,” he’d reached into his pocket and showed you the thick green casing, tipped by what looked to you like a huge rounded bullet.

Another nod. “’Kay.”

He’d shoved the slug back in his pocket and reached into another. “But if you have to use this on somebody to protect yourself,” he turned out a bright red shell this time. “I want you to use buck shot.”

You swallowed, throat suddenly dry and tight.

“You’re gonna be nervous and full of adrenaline,” he’d explained. “I don’t expect you to be a marksman, and this’ll get the job done. If it doesn’t kill ‘em, it’ll sure as hell slow ‘em down. Understand?”

You’d taken a shaky breath then and nodded, eyes on the shot in his hand and trying not to imagine too vividly the bloody array it signified. “Red for trouble. Got it.”

Now though, you gently, steadily pushed the forest green slug into the oblong slot on the gun. These unfamiliar motions of violence were becoming easier by the day. But then again, you were only shooting at paper.

“This time I’ll hit it.” You grinned up at Bucky, half a taunt on your lips as you gripped the pump and pulled. The unmistakable swoosh-kerchunk alerted you both that you’d loaded and cocked the weapon properly.

“It’s loaded now,” Bucky had explained to you the first time ‘round.

“It sounds like a movie,” you’d whispered. Half awe, half horror.

“This is not a movie,” he’d been quick to contradict.

“I know.”

“It’s not a game or a dream,” sharp grey eyes bore down on you. “That is the international ‘back the fuck up’ sound. You load this weapon, you’d better be ready to fire it.”

You couldn’t have helped laughing if you’d wanted to. You’d been so high strung, and it was just too much.

“That was very dramatic.”

He’d merely shrugged. “Few sounds will light a fire under someone’s ass quicker than a pump-action shotgun. One way or another.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“You are such a soldier.” There was a scowl in your eyes but a smirk on your lips. Teasing, but truthful. “You gonna make me do push-ups next?”

He’d chuckled, but shook his head. He looked serious and a little sad when he looked down at you again. “You asked me to teach you to shoot so you’d feel ready to defend yourself. Drawing a gun takes a conversation in exactly one direction. You need to be prepared for that. If it comes down to you loading that weapon while we’re here, you shoot to kill. And then you run.”

Run. That was still your best shot if things went south. Turn your back and run.

You hated it. For all the power you held in your hands, deadly and loud, you still felt powerless in a battle of gods.

This time, after days of practice, you did as Bucky said and aligned your aim just low of the center ring. It felt odd, to aim off-target, but you trusted him.

Just like he’d instructed, you gently squeezed the trigger on a smoothly released breath. Your shoulder ached now from the repeated buck of the stock against the blast.

“Better,” Bucky praised, lowering the binoculars and offering them to you. This time, you remembered the safety.

“Ish,” you complained.

He chuckled. “Hit the paper this time.”

“Is that going to be good enough?”

His smile froze for a fraction of a second before it faded. The storm returned to the grey of his eyes.

He gave a sharp nod to the binoculars in your hand before withdrawing a handful of slugs. You watched him for too long. Before you could think to raise the binoculars he’d pushed a slug into the slot and braced the rifle to his shoulder.

One round.

You got the hint and put the binoculars to your eyes to look down the make-shift range. Upper left corner.

“Ha!” you taunted, but he’d already reloaded. “Told you the gun’s no good.”

Two. Dead center.

Oh.

Three. Bottom right.

Four. Upper right.

“Okay, I get it.” You rolled your eyes.

Five. Dead center. The shot lay so tight over his second that you could barely tell the paper had been blown open wider. Just barely.

Six. Bottom left. A perfect X fired into the paper.

You threw up your hands in defeat. “Fine, you win. Gun’s fine. I’m not a good shot.”

He carefully set the shotgun down and looked to you with that unwavering certainty that nearly had you believing everything would all be alright. “You don’t have to be.”

Part 13 >>

[the-epitome-of-pretense]

Day 4 - Cranberry

Sole was investigating the ruins of a small grocery store with Nick when she found it. It was hidden under a snow-dusted, overturned shelf—a little can with a label that read “Cromwell’s Gourmet Cranberry Sauce.”

“Holy jumpin’ cats,” she murmured.

Nick stepped closer.

“What is it?” He said.

She tossed him the can. He scrutinized the writing, running one metal finger over the tin ridges with a clacking sound.

“Huh. How about that.”

“Isn’t it amazing?” She said.

“I guess if you like that sort of thing.”

“Easy to turn your nose up at something like this when you don’t have a stomach,” she scoffed.

“For the record, I never much cared for it even when I did have a stomach.”

“Well I like it.” She took back the can. “Brings back memories, you know?”

“Yeah?” He leaned against a shelf that was still standing. “What memories?”

She turned the cylinder in her hands.

“Of Christmas, of course,” she said. “When my mother and I would spend all day cooking. We made everything from scratch, you see. She hated this canned stuff. But even so, it reminds me of better times.”

An unexpected lump rose in her throat at the mention of her old life. She did not want to think about what happened to the rest of her family when the bombs fell. The best outcome she could hope for was that the blast killed them all instantly. God forbid she find any of them shambling around as feral ghouls. Would she even recognize them?

A breeze blew through the broken shop windows, bringing a flurry of snow with it. She shivered. Without a word, Nick took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.

“What did you cook?” He said.

Sole composed herself, glad for the distraction.

“The usual stuff,” she began. “Turkey, corn, mashed potatoes. We would make the stuffing out of cornbread, and sweet potatoes with caramel sauce, and a pumpkin cream pie.”

Nick closed his eyes and let out a subtle groan.

“My mouth would be watering if it could,” he said.

“Sorry for bringing it up.”

“Don’t be; I asked.” He grumbled a sigh. “You know, sometimes I think I can still taste it? Which is ridiculous considering I don’t have taste buds, but what are you going to do.”

Sole traced a finger over the metal rim, thinking about the question. The can was still perfectly sealed; it even had an opening tab. Then it dawned on her: even though she couldn’t do a thing for his sense of taste, she could do something for his sense of smell. She popped the seal and peeled off the lid. The contents had turned to a mass of nearly-black sludge. Even so, the sweet scent of cranberries and cinnamon filled the air.

“You’re not planning to eat that, are you?” He said.

“I just thought we could enjoy the bouquet.”

She inhaled deeply, relishing how the spicy scent tingled her nose, then handed it to Nick. He did the same.

“Mmm… Well, I guess I can’t object to just smelling it,” he said. “Especially if it means I won’t have to hold your hair back later.”

She took a small bit of the cranberry sludge and rolled it between her finger and thumb. It had a grainy texture; the sugar in it had long since crystallized. Sugar was a good preservative, she thought. Maybe this stuff wouldn’t turn her stomach. And it did smell so tempting. She wondered if it would taste as good as she remembered.

A different memory flashed behind her eyes, of the time she found a can of sweetened condensed milk that made her sick for two days. Then an earlier one, of her mother storing the extra homemade sauce in a mason jar, and of her father sneaking a spoonful when he thought nobody was watching. The lump rose up in Sole’s throat again. She shook her head and wiped the sludge on her pant leg.

“We should get going,” she said. “Before all these memories of the old days get me down.”

Nick had stuck his nose almost all the way into the can. He reluctantly withdrew and glanced up at her.

“Are they getting you down?” He said.

“They will if I dwell on them.” She took the can and set it on a shelf that was still upright. “I just want to forget.”

He took her hand in both of his, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“I understand. I do,” he said. “I get wanting to hang onto some things that hurt, and wanting to let go of things that made you who you are. But how would you feel about a compromise?”

“I’m listening.”

“Instead of throwing out the old ones, let’s make some new memories. Add a little sweet to the bitter.”

A hint of mischief glittered in his yellow eyes.

“Alright. What’s your plan?” She said.

He shrugged.

“Maybe we can mix some of this stuff with wax and make ourselves a candle. Then the customers will come flooding in because my place is the only one in town that smells decent.”

“While we’re at it, we can teach these kids what a cranberry was,” Sole added with a chuckle.

“Or I could find a way to distill it into a perfume for my gal.”

“I hope you mean me.”

“Or…” he took the belt of his coat and tied it behind his back, binding her to him. “Or I could just kiss you right here.”

“Hmm,” she pretended to think it over. “How about all three?”

“Hoped you’d say that.”

He closed the remaining space between them. And the scent of smoke and oil and cologne mixed with that of the cranberries and cinnamon.

[wafflewarriors]

Five Times Sherlock Shrugged Off John, and One Time He Couldn't

3. PTSD

John was never sure of the extent of what the war had done to his mental health. At first, his therapist pinned it as post-traumatic stress disorder. After the battlefields and his scarring injuries, it seemed realistic. But then, John met the Holmes brothers, and they turned the soldier 180 degrees away from his therapist's claim. They told him that he missed the war and adrenaline. He was addicted to the action and the race.

John had no doubt both were true to an extent, yet he questioned both theories. As a doctor, self-diagnosis was his natural go-to. Perhaps that was how he coped, and maybe it helped to see himself as a client and not as a victim.

He had always been dependent on the adrenaline rushes. It's what had drawn him to the rank of an army doctor. He'd been in the medical field at the time, and the army seemed like a reasonable position. He definitely missed the war for the thrill and action.

But there was also another side of John. The side of John whose leg limped when he walked, or whose arm throbbed sorely when recalling the battlefield. The John who woke up nearly crying after a sickening nightmare of recalling a bullet lodging within his skin. The John whose eyes darkened at a mere reminder of those days.

John was a complicated man, no matter what others informed him. Even through all the suffering of war, John could still fire a gun with a steady hand and he could overlook his psychosomatic limp in an intense chase. This was possible simply because Sherlock influenced him, manipulated him. He was a genius, after all. Real life was a game to Sherlock Holmes, so he dissociated easily from most emotions linked to particular cases. He presented John with the facts, so that's what John hung onto.

In fact, Sherlock had managed to mend most of John's war trauma just by busying his life with awkward situations and perplexing cases to focus on. John almost forgot his past life when he began to revolve around his new role in participating in crime solving and holding the title of Sherlock's only best friend.

And although John thrived upon a good adrenaline kick, he couldn't ignore the signs of PTSD, however slight. Because there was only one thing Sherlock would never cure, and that was his inevitable negative mental reaction to the sound of fireworks.

Fireworks had always been a trigger point to John, which utterly confused him. He’d had bombs strapped onto him by the psychopath Moriarty, watched a landmine go off in the Hounds of Baskerville case, and had a gun to his head in the Scandal of Bulgaria. Yet fireworks set him off. John loathed the crackling of colors that lined the sky.

John was at edge on New Year's Eve. As the hours crept up to midnight, something within him grumbled sickly. His anxiety reigned him inside.

The first time John had learned of this trigger was before he had ever met Sherlock Holmes. There had been a fireworks show with a new date, standing in the dew of the grass patiently. Before John even had time to process the cracks of the fireworks above, he was back in the battlefield.

The experience was not one John wanted to recall, so he focused and assigned himself a simple task: making tea. Making tea had always managed to calm John's nerves. The light, fresh, orchid fragrance soothed the night air. It never failed to wash away his worries as the warm aromas melted into the flat.

It was only a few hours before midnight struck, so the flat was asleep. Only the streetlight that filtered through the windows allowed moonlight to illuminate the corners of the flat. John sipped his tea and tiptoed to the living room and he let memory guide him down the hall.

John froze when he noticed Sherlock's unmoving silhouette on the couch; his hands were praying under his chin with his feet propped up onto the armrest. It was unlikely he was asleep, though his eyes were closed. John considered retiring to his bedroom, but he continued his way to his chair and taste his tea.

“You're up late.” Sherlock hummed.

John shifted in his seat, “Yes.”

Sherlock peeked an eye open, observing John. He was rather tense, gripping his tea close to his chest. Usually, John's default stance was his soldier posture, and not so… slouchy. “Something on your mind?” Sherlock inquired.

John took another drink of his tea, forcing a passive expression. He failed. “New years spirit.” John offered tautly.

Sherlock gave a wary glance. Something about the way John replied didn't settle with the detective. Perhaps he could relieve John of this with a case. He cleared his throat. “Well, Lestrade suggested I observe the town before midnight. Fireworks tend to cover gunshots, and we will need to watch for potential shootouts. We might even get ourselves a case. Care to accompany me?”

John was surprised, to say vaguely, though not pleasantly. The pit of his stomach folded in dread. “Oh, sure,” was his strenuous response.

As Sherlock left the living room with narrowed his eyes, contemplating what was bothering John. Although nothing registered as potentially bothersome. Sherlock would need to dig into the topic further, though preferably not now. Sherlock was determined to distract John. After all, Sherlock owed him immensely for past experiences he'd endured.

John left to the kitchen. He steeled himself as he discarded the rest of his tea. There was nothing to fear about fireworks. He had encountered much worse is his life, so he wasn't going to allow a little explosion to handicap him. He was a soldier.

John had always suspected his reason for dreading fireworks was for the random timing. John had never fancied storms for this reason, as well. The thunder got to his head. With a gun, you knew where it was. You knew who fired it. You knew you were under attack, or at least, in John's mind.

It was a messy concept.

Sherlock was wrapping his scarf securely around his neck and proceeded to pull up his collar. He was still uncertain to the cause of John's tension, and it annoyed him endlessly.

John was failing to ignore Sherlock's prying eyes, constantly shifting his stance. He adjusted his posture and straightened his ever-failing mask.

Sherlock saw right through it.

“Prepare yourself John, keep your eyes peeled for suspicious movement. The firework show should be in a matter of minutes.”

Don’t remind me, John thought dizzily. His breathing was stressed now, with each respiration as a slight panic and a wish that he’d outright refused the case. Regret bubbled in his gut. He felt rather faint, favoring his heels as he braced himself for the distress to come. His eyes darted about, and he found himself searching for future exits. Just in case something went wrong. No harm in that knowledge, right?

Sherlock could practically feel the waves of anxiety rolling off of the soldier. He turned to him, and for the first time in his life, he was hesitant. “John? You're… you're beginning to hyperventilate.”

John swallowed thickly and blinked up at Sherlock in detachment, not registering what the detective had told him. “Hm?” He inhaled through his nostrils suddenly. “No no, I'm good.” He cleared his throat, though his breathing was still shallow and heavy. John strived for a viable reason for his breathing patterns.“Just, ah, smells nice, you know? Midnight air.” He wheezed. It was extremely unconvincing.

Sherlock stated in exasperation, “You're not a bloodhound, John. You're breathing is labored. Are you… panicking? You are. You're panicking.” Sherlock stared at John.

John was getting antsier by the minute and was now avoiding eye contact. He could get through this. He could. He just needed rational thoughts. “No.” He replied sharply.

“Yes, you are. You're a terrible liar. What's troubling you?” Sherlock was baffled.

John’s tone was snappy, “Nothing.” He rested his hands on his knees, and forced even, deep breaths. “I just need to… catch… my breath.”

Sherlock watched as John attempted to regain his composure. “John?” Concern seeped into the question.

John glanced up at Sherlock, who was lingering in clear discomfort and although he would never admit it, hovering in worry. John hesitated to state the truth. Lord knew Sherlock would have a fit once he learned John's cause for anxiety.

And, God, he was a grown man! John Watson could handle fireworks. It was irrational to fear them. He had never once had a bad experience with fireworks, but now that war blended with its loud sounds, he was crippled to suffering panic attacks beneath their harmless wrath. It was ridiculous and humiliating.

Sherlock reached out a hand, “John, it's-”

And suddenly, the sky was cracking with an enemy bomb. John nearly keeled over flinching. He grit his teeth at the overwhelming fear.

There was a shredding of shrapnel at his face. Blasts of dust made him want to cough as his lungs itched. As he touched the ground his senses reminded him where he was. The sand was like smooth concrete; there was no grainy texture. The Afghanistan sun wasn't beaming down in scalding waves, but the moon simmered in the night sky. John remembered where he was for a moment, but the memory was ingrained into his eyelids. The momentary flashes burning into his London surroundings.

And Lord, Sherlock was probably wondering what was going on. John licked his lips in unease and he battled his anxiety, “It's the fireworks. I’m… I'm afraid of fireworks. I can't- I thought I could fight it.” He was sweating beads.

Sherlock instantly moved beside him, though there was a shuffling and adjusting of something John could not see. He was too busy mentally readying for the next launch.

Another blast went off, and John slammed his hands over his ears, now prepared for the noise to come. He stumbled a bit, with waves of Afghanistan desert rolling in and enveloping his mind like a constricting python. He squeezed his eyes to avoid seeing it, but his mind reminded him exactly what a bullet wound felt like. His leg and arm suddenly ached terribly with a sharp buzz.

Sherlock was removing John’s clasped hands away from his ears and pushed them aside. Before he could protest, a cloth was wound tightly over John's ears like a thick headband, and John stared in astonishment at the detective. His shock of Sherlock's thoughtfulness shooed away any other thought of war as if it had never been a part of him. Had Sherlock just given up his scarf for John to have earmuffs? He had, hadn't he? What-

Sherlock clutched John by the shoulders and began pushing him to move. “How do you ever tolerate storms?”

John winced as a muffled boom erupted behind him. “They're not as bad. Storms rumble different than bombs or fireworks, and we never had many world-shaking storms down in Afghanistan. It is a desert, you know.”

Sherlock blocked John's view of the fireworks, even though it wasn't the color that triggered John. If anything, it kept him grounded and stable. Color was one thing he rarely saw back in the war. It had always been dusty browns and tans, and the occasional, unfortunate blood red.

John poked at the scarf and admired the fabric. Blue. There was never blue in Afghanistan. Just a pale, milky sky.

Sherlock flashed John a look of fond incredulity. “You’re alright, then?”

When John nodded, the flaps of the scarf waved at Sherlock. “Yeah, I think I might have a cup of tea, you?”

Sherlock bit back his comment for a moment. He debated whether if he should mention John's shaking hands, but he thought less of it. “Yes, that sounds... nice. Thank you.”

[realitv]

EPISODE SIX REWRITES: DONAR THE GREAT.

NOTE: The N*zis will hereby be a local mob. It’s the fucking 20s. I don’t know why they did that. I don’t want to know why they did that. I’m not keeping that in and I’m not acknowledging that as anything more than a shitty, awful fucking choice that really had no business being in there. There’s a lot to unpack in that, and none of it is good. The odd subplot of Technical B.oy recruiting Columbia, Actual Propaganda Creature, was pretty clearly written with Media in mind. Columbia, personification of the USA, was historically a pretty strong propaganda tool and now currently survives via Columbia pictures. Media really did get Columbia, huh. Technical B.oy should have been recruiting Vulcan, Hadúr, Luchtaine et cetera for technology and weaponry purposes during the war. It literally felt like the writers wrote this with Media in mind, and then realised they’d overwritten them. 🤷 Obviously y'all don’t have to go along with this specifically but I say DEATH OF THE SHOW, DEATH OF THE AUTHOR BAY-BEE! 

  IT’S A SEEDY, SMOKEY THEATRE: a hallowed hall where patrons dress up, dress down in ERMINE AND PEARLS to forget their troubles for the night, to believe in something bigger and better than they are. Art deco gilt reads AMERICA: 1929; a world on edge, a tipping point. A bullshit, razzle dazzle show that’s rehearsed and played to death to an audience that adores CHEAP THRILLS. No soul; just some sort of temple to the GLORY DAYS that were long since dead and gone. Applause, please! They’ve been watching. Of course they’ve been watching. Centre stage in a plush booth that reeks of cigarette smoke; the static always comes with them. Radio white noise and the snippets of talk shows filtering through the big jazz band and it crackles within the ears of patrons. Reminds them, tells them: GO HOME. SIT DOWN. LISTEN. LISTEN TO ME. That little brown box with the glowing little dials; the voice America woke up to. They’ve been watching for a while now; a regular devotee from the big leagues come to bless them with their appearance, their presence; people are drawn to them like flies to honey and when they applaud, when they smile, the theatre does too; rows and rows of teeth on display and Wednesday has the nerve to appear with a drink in his hand. IT’S ON THE HOUSE.   “And if I said I don’t want it, honey?” ALL THE DRAMA OF A TALK SHOW HOST! Accented syllables and vowels drawling into the beginnings of a Transatlantic accent. The Mass Media is RADIANT; glowing; spotlights upon that bleached head of perfect curls and it lights up their face; the beginnings of wires and mainframes only just starting to grow through flesh and ink. I GIVE IT AS A GIFT TO YOU. “And I said I don’t want it. See now, I don’t much approve of you and your ilk taking up space in my domain like this.” Another drag from their cigarette. Smoke spiralling into Wednesday’s face and when they laugh, the room fills with the grainy sounds of a radio jingle. “Using my voice like that! Naughty, naughty. IT IS NOT MEANT FOR YOU.” The smile fades, melts from their expression and it leaves them frigid, leaves them cold and sure. Wednesday’s one good eye burns. “I AM THE MESSAGE. The message is the future. I am not for you.” NOW, NOW, MY DEAR. YOU FORGET, WE DID NOT NEED YOU BEFORE. WE DO NOT NEED YOU NOW. THE PEOPLE WILL FORGET. THE PEOPLE WILL MOVE ON, AND YOU WILL BE OBSOLETE. Forgotten. THERE’S NO NEED TO GET ANGRY. “I was there when they wrote your stories into the Edda, when they carved your image into stone. I was there for a great many things, Al. And now, you are on my stage, using my voice. Maybe I’ll stretch my legs, and go see The Law. Tip him off, since this place just ain’t up to snuff. Or, I let you talk: I’ll take my payment later. Do we have a contract?” The white noise presses in; their eyes meet, a steady beat of silence before he nods. WE HAVE A COMPACT.

  CUT BACK TO PRESENT DAY BLACK BRIAR: The World and GENERAL ORGANA at the War Table, the right hand pushing pieces across the map. THE WAR HAS STARTED. World’s voice echoes; General Organa pausing in their ministrations to cast plasma gaze to them. “And no one has realised it. A train crash in Chicago.” A piece moves across the board. “An armed robbery in Rhode Island.” Another. “Poisoned lobster in Nashville.” Eyes meet. They mirror each other; glance for glance, smile for smile; Leia leans in close. “They have been quiet, despite all of this. Are they building THE DEATH STAR?” NO. THEY HAVE SCATTERED, AS I SAID THEY WOULD. ONE BY ONE, THEY WILL FALL. “Of course, Commander. I only wish to do my part to SERVE THE ALLIANCE.” Silence. AND YOU WILL. OF COURSE YOU WILL. YOU BOTH WILL.” Cut to General Organa, brows furrowed: The World beckons; like a shadow, they follow; a quick, purposeful stride, hands pressed to the small of their back to the sidelines. Social Media sifting through images: SWIPE RIGHT? SUPER LIKE? HEART REACT? COMMENT, TWEET, HASHTAG OVER IT! A soft ‘ahem’ from World and the noise dies; turning around to face Commander and General with wide eyes. YEAH? Nervousness, how unlike her. Leia’s gaze burns. BOTH OF YOU MUST MAKE READY FOR THE BROADCAST. “Affirmative. All preparations have been made: I am ready when you are.” I NEED MORE POWER. Two sets of eyes facing the other piece in the puzzle to find it lacking. OUR NEW FRIEND IS COMING. THEY HAVE ASSURED ME: YOU WILL BE READY. Their shadow covers her; drags away as World exits stage right. Two voices left alone; Leia stares, stares, stares. It’s empty, it’s cold; flat. Social Media holds it, twitches: it’s the same numinous dread The Boy had etched into their features whenever the General came calling. “IT’S A WONDER YOU’RE STILL ALIVE. More power. This is child’s play, but then again, YOU’RE A LITTLE SHORT FOR A STORMTROOPER.”

  AMERICA: 1933. THE THEATRE IS CRACKING, YELLOWED: prohibition may have ended but Great Depression left everyone hungry. THEY ENTER IN SILK AND RUBIES: rosy cheeks and the smile of a Hollywood Starlet. Flushed, ALIVE! Hollow eyes stare at them with RAVENOUS hunger and when they laugh, the world tints with static; PRE-CODE MASTERPIECES and biting social commentary. Standing against the backdrop of an abandoned stage and despite themselves, their feet move; tap, slide, swivel; IS IT THE CHARLESTON? Some new crazy song and dance number? TUNE IN! WATCH THE LATE NIGHT PICTURE SHOW! Snapped out of it; a slow, slow clap echoing; spotlight dies and they stand stock still. I DID NOT THINK I’D SEE YOU BACK HERE, MY DEAR. “Mister Wednesday.” A curl of their lip, hopping down from the stage and it’s a quick one-two step. “I’ve come for my payment. We have a need. We’ve had our eye on Miss Columbia. You remember our terms: I LET YOU SPEAK. Now, I want my slice of the pie.   “Hasn’t it been ages since I saw you last, honey?” YOU. YOU AGAIN. Eyes flitting between Wednesday and The Mass Media; tightening the sash on their robe and drawing it to a close under prying eyes. “I thought you’d have been happier to see lil’ ol’ me again after all this time. I’m real sorry about how the Great War ended up, but you know how it is. Mister Money decided LIBERTY SELLS, and THAT’S A WRAP! Centuries of mythos overwritten by another Goddess. She’s doing fine, by the way. All of us are.” Silence. It falls thick and heavy and the world around them buzzes with white noise. “Cat got your tongue?” WE’RE DOING FINE. A pout. “Oh, now, see here, I just hate liars. Can’t stand ‘em! It’s why I got all these new ethics and standards in place. And you, honey, are violating those. Look at you, you look like someone who just crawled out of the DUST BOWL.” And she looks down. Looks at her faded, out of date clothes. The mouldering room around her. Media takes another drag from their cigarette; lounges in the settee that’s falling apart and grins. “You’re just surviving, sweetheart. The people will forget. Then you will die, and I’ll look back on the beautiful legacy we had together, all that teamwork through the centuries and say to myself: ‘If only Miss Columbia had listened to me!’ There’s something coming. We can all feel it. I want to give you your place back, I want to move forward with you. I’ll even put you in the pictures, then you’ll never die.” It’s served on a silver platter, tied with velvet ribbon: how can any God resist? WELL -- I -- Wednesday holds up a hand. SHE’LL THINK ABOUT IT, GIVE YOU AN ANSWER SOON. “Well, don’t keep me waiting, honey.” A languid sigh; standing in a smooth motion as they moved towards the door. “--I’ll be seeing you on the studio lot.” 

  EVEN DYING MALLS HAVE EYES: grainy CCTV footage near a repair chaos picks up a tremor, something not quite right: Wednesday’s spear, carved with runes; near repaired. A black and white eye presses forward, stares. The screen goes blank with a bzzt.  RED ALERT. The noise echoes; lights flashing; World and their right hand ROD SERLING come back by popular remand; finger hovering over red button and the World pushes down to bring an awful silence. WHAT WAS THAT? Social Media scampering in; out of breath. IT’S SO ANALOGUE. As was everything within the space. WE ARE AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. “--I was not aware that we were on one.” A sideways glance; World and Serling’s eyes meet; electricity flavours the air. THEY HAVE CARVED THE RUNES INTO THE SPEAR? “Yes. IT IS MAN’S PREROGATIVE TO CREATE THEIR OWN HELL: and we, I believe, HAVE JUST CROSSED INTO THE TWILIGHT ZONE.” 

[v0idtalking]

November 24th, 2022

So I saw a couple pictures of her, of Serena. The only ones I have, from over at least 5 years ago. I always wish I had more, pretend I don't wish it, tell myself it's for the best, turn around and call myself an idiot for deleting the others--wash, rinse, repeat.

I know it's stupid. I know I should delete them. They're grainy and they're bad and they're old because I know we aren't those kids anymore. And that's why it makes me feel so stupid for being so torn up inside about her. We were kids.

I need to get over it, because it was so long ago. She doesn't think of me, despite all the things she said and did. I know she doesn't. She was awkward when I reached out to her, again so long ago, back in what, sophomore year? It'd been at least a couple years since we'd talked just THEN. She didn't want to talk to me.

I'll think I'm over it for months on end, and then something will remind me of that person I knew, or I'll scroll down to those photos either intentionally or not like an idiot, a moron. And I am. Because I know Serena was bad for me. I know the reason I still think about a girl I fell in love with when I was 13 (maybe even 12) is because of how bad we were for each other. How codependent and unhealthy we were just as friends, just as flirtatious friends.

I have closure in knowing she's gotten on with her life. She's made it. I don't know exactly what she's up to or if she's healthy and it terrifies me. And I know it shouldn't because she doesn't think about me. It's not my job to worry about her anymore, and it never was. It was not that little kid's job. But I worried so much.

Those were the best years of my life, but they were also the worst. Because the people I met were the most important to me. So much so that I was bound to them. I didn't realize it at the time, but they spoke to me, their souls fucking entwined with mine or some bullshit, and I deal with the scars of that separation. I'll never know someone like I knew those children. Not any time soon, maybe not ever.

I don't know if they have the scars, too. Maybe they do. But they don't keep picking scabs like I do. My username hasn't changed. And yet I don't speak to any of them but Angela, who kept herself distant throughout our group's short-lived wildfire, for good reason. She doesn't have the hurt.

And I pretend I don't either when I speak with her, to have some illusion of permanence, some delusion that it keeps me closer to their memory in a safe and sane way. It doesn't work, obviously. But she helps. She went through so much over these years. We're there for each other when we can be. It's how I should have been with Serena. But we couldn't control ourselves, our momentum for Christ's sake.

They aren't the same people now and it breaks my heart it pummels me into fucking dust because even if I had them all again, I'm not the same either and they aren't fucked up and obsessed about two blips of a year like I am and. It. Would. Not. Work. It wouldn't end well. I know that! And yet my mind goes and goes and goes and I hate it I hate it so much. I feel like an idiot.

I have so many pressing issues to contend with, the mundane suffering we of the lower fucking class of familial dumpster fires have to deal with. There's so much and I can't spend my time agonizing over the past, over ghosts who are alive which makes it so much worse. God. Jesus, God; fuck. I feel a little better expressing that. I know I've been thinking about it, ruminating on it endlessly.

Maybe I won't think about her, about them, for several more months now. I need sleep. My hormones are off. I'm finally taking the step and seeing a friend soon. There are factors to this slip. I have a future ahead of me. There will be independence and the ability to actually leave my binds and have a life. Just some more years. I told myself that until I graduated high school and look; that was nearly 2 years ago.

I can do it. I can power through this until I inevitably get a therapist in that nebulous future time, to help me with this and chiefly other things. Because this clearly isn't going away. Fine. Haunt my narrative. Even if I don't haunt yours. Maybe you think of me every once in a while. Maybe a casual look back every year or two. I think you do. You have to. It's okay it didn't hit as hard for you, but I know you felt something.

It's okay. I know you remember me. You don't think of me, maybe, but you remember bittersweetly. You do. That's fine. I won't ever get to know the details. And I thought that was fine. But it will be one day, I guess. I feel things too much, maybe. I can learn to manage it better than I am. I've made progress since previous times. I can do it.

I need to say goodbye to the ghost of you. I'm going to try. Whatever happens, happens, but right now, I'm trying. I don't care how stupid I look. I'm the only one reading this.

Goodbye, Serena. I have to let this go. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. This hurts and it's always hurt but you said it long before me, I'm sure. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Maybe, you know. Maybe. Good night.

EDIT: I guess I'm a bit better now. I've come to edit her name in, because I can say it again. Maybe I'm getting better now.

[ryik-the-writer]

A03

Previous Chapters

Chapter 1: Pan meets a Wendy

Chapter 2: Scars (Felix’s Story)

Chapter 3: Day One

Chapter 4: Revenge and Fireflies

Chapter 5: Brighter than Stars

Chapter 6: filler: The Tigress

Chapter 7: Operation Spotless!

Chapter 8: Operation Spotless: Reporters Down

Chapter 9: A Dance with the Devil

Chapter 10: filler: Felix and the Pancake

Chapter 11: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 1

Chapter 12: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 2

Chapter 13: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 3

Chapter 14. Recovery

Chapter 14.2 Recovery some more

Chapter 15: Trapped

Chapter 16: Fairydust pt. 1

-,-,-,-,-,-

I have reached demi-god status! Two people have done fanart on my fic:

Desklazy on tumblr and Cherrymizu on Instagram! I-I-I-I got so many feels!

desklazyhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BmgkPXrn3si/?taken-by=cherrymizu

http://desklazy.tumblr.com/tagged/papers-and-sleuthers

Also, this is my longest chapter to date at 23 pages and +9000 words, beating my record from chapter 13!

-,-,-,-,-,-,-

“Speak up, kid.” Sydney yelled through the phone.

Wendy pressed the diner phone as close to her face as she could. Her cell phone had died as soon as she left the library, and despite Storybrooke’s vintage look, it did not have payphones around town, thus she had to rely on Granny’s charity to complete the next step of her mission.

“I asked if you kept any notes on a story you worked on?” Wendy said as loudly as she could without attracting attention.

“Depends on the story. Which one you looking for?”

Though she trusted Sydney’s ability to keep silence, she didn’t want to get him too involved in case this all went south. He’d been damaged enough because of her.

“One from about…twenty years ago?”

She pulled the phone away from her ear when Glass burst out laughing.

“You want me to find notes from a story from two decades ago? What the hell have you gotten into now?”

“Research purposes.” Wendy stated vaguely.

Sydney chuckled again. “I don’t have a memory that far back, kid. Is Pan involved in this research of yours?”

“No.” Wendy huffed. “This is all me.”

“Heh, that’s unusual.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to remind her boss that every case she had worked on had started off as a solo project before Pan stuck his head into it. However, she needed to stay focused on Tink and push her frustrating counterpart into the furthest part of her mind.

They shared a few more words before Wendy hung up with a heavy sigh. A dead end. She leaned against the counter and put an strike across Glass’s name.

“Everything work out?” Granny inquired from across the counter.

“Not really.” Wendy replied, pulling her bag to her shoulder.

Granny leaned in closer. “Are you working on a new story?”

Wendy glanced behind her to see a few other diner patrons who were hungry for new news to feed their gossip groups until.

“N-no.” Wendy concluded. “Just…needed to make a phone call.”

“Hmm, right.” Granny hummed, unconvinced. “So you weren’t just changing details with Pan?”

“Poppycock.” Wendy muttered under her breath, easing out from behind the counter and leaving the friendly diner before Pan could be mentioned again.

-,-,-,-,-

“That’s him.” Graham pointed at a grainy photo on the police station wall. The man in question a curly mustache that reminded Wendy of Clark Gable.

“The sheriff before you.” Wendy nodded.

“Yep, old Holmes. Three terms unopposed.” Graham said before taking a bite out of his sandwich. It was his lunchbreak and he was working through it to get the paper work on Jekyll out before the end of the day. Wendy felt guilty about taking away the only free time he’d had, but he really didn’t seem to mind.

“Where is he now, exactly?” Wendy inquired. She hadn’t told Graham why she was looking for the ex-sheriff, and hopefully he wouldn’t be too concerned. It was best she kept her mission for Tink’s origins from as many people as possible.

“In the cemetery now.” Graham answered. “He passed away a few years ago.”

“Shit.”

Graham coughed, preventing his last bite of sandwich from going down the wrong pipe. “Pardon?”

“No, no sorry.” Wendy sighed. “I just…really wanted to meet him.”

Graham looked the journalist over suspiciously, but had too much going on to worry about her sleuthing.

“Just one question: is Pan involved in…whatever you’re doing?”

“No.” Wendy replied, annoyed.

“Alright.” Graham shrugged, turning back to the computer. “That means one less crisis this week.”

Wendy chuckled and took Graham’s dismissal has her cue to leave.

She crossed off his name from her book and hoped that her visit to the convent would be more successful.

-,-,-,-,-

The nunnery seemed much friendlier than the ones back in London, brighter with the colorful lights of the stained-glass windows bouncing off the.

Yet there was this air of dread around Wendy, like the walls were ready to push in and crush her to dust. She wondered if this was what Tink had felt during her time here, or if her own newfound claustrophobia was arising once more.

The apprehension clung to her bones as she followed one of the nuns to Mother Superior’s office. From the brief moment Wendy had laid eyes on the woman in blue, Wendy was more than certain that she wasn’t very nice. Anyone who could make someone like Tink La’Belle cry was certainly a monster.

The nun turned to her when she paused, giving her as small smile that indicated for her to do the same. She knocked on the door and a muffled response allowed the nun to enter.

“Mother Superior,” the nun greeted. “A young lady is here to see you.”

“Yes, yes let her in.” she spoke, sounding annoyed but willing.

The younger nun turned to Wendy with an apologetic smile and stepped aside to allow her entrance. Wendy breathed out nervously, watching as the door closed behind her, leaving her with a possible enemy.

“What is it?” the mother sighed impatiently, her head lifting from the paperwork she was scribbling on. “Oh, you again.” She said with a gross whine. “You didn’t bring that hooligan with you, did you?”

A definite enemy, then.

Wendy cleared her throat, as well as clearing any rude comment that was threatening to come up.

“No, it’s just me. My name is Wendy Darling. We didn’t get the chance to introduce ourselves after you upset my friend.” Wendy snarked. It would seem she didn’t clear everything away.

Mother Superior’s eyes bowed into a hard glare. “What do you want?”

“I want to know about what you might have seen the night Tink La’Belle was left on the convent doorsteps.” Wendy stated confidently, keeping eye contact with the spiteful nun.

A flash of blankness ran over the nun’s soft features before they hardened again.

“Why on earth ado you want to know any of that?”

“For the truth.” Wendy said. “There’s something else to this simple abandonment story and I intend to find out just what it is.”

“And splay it all over your pathetic paper?” Superior snipped.

“The only person who will ever know about any of this is Tink.” Wendy clarified. God forbid if anything got back to Pan.

The nun’s face paled slightly, and Wendy could see the wheels spinning frantically behind her eyes. With a blink, she was back to her passive, professional facade.

“I told the police years ago everything I knew and saw.” She stated, looking back down at the paperwork. It was the way the pen shook in her hand that gave Wendy the indication to push forward.

“I know you were young at the time,” Wendy pressed on more softly. “But if you remember anything—a mysterious person wondering around, a sound, someone coming by later—it would help—”

“I have nothing left to say!” Superior shouted, her façade dropping and crumbling into shards before Wendy’s eyes. “Now leave, or I’ll call the police!”

“Fine!” Wendy yelled back, her own patience slipping away. “Then you can explain to them why you keep harassing Tink to the point where she’s considering getting a restraining order against you!”

The rage vanished instantly from the Mother’s face, a wave of despair washing over her instead.

“She said that?” she inquired, her voice wretched.

For a brief moment Wendy almost felt pity for the nun. It would appear that despite her harassment towards Tink, there was a part of her that generally cared for her.

Then she recalled Felix holding her sobbing friend and the rage resurfaced.

“It was indicated.” Wendy replied simply. “Maybe, when I tell her the truth about her abandonment, I can mention that you’re the reason I found it and that you helped me.”

For a moment Wendy thought she had her. The head nun seemed to contemplate what she was saying, mulling it over to an accepting extent.

Then, she disappointed Wendy by bending over her paperwork once again.

“As I said, I have nothing to say that I didn’t report to the police all those years ago.” She stated more mechanically. “Now please, excuse yourself.”

Wendy actually twitched. Really, the nerve of this woman! She was sly, Wendy would pay her that compliment. She thought of a way she could make her say more. She could reveal what Tink told her, about why she had refused to return to the convent.

That place was never a home.

But as Wendy mulled it over (and as the words hung on the very tip of her tongue), she decided against it. That was something Pan would do, and do with pleasure if she had to guess. Pan wasn’t here, she didn’t have to handle things his way.

She was Wendy Darling, and she was clean.

“If you happen to remember anything,” Wendy said with sarcastic politeness. “Just call the paper and let me know.”

The head nun flinched but did not answer, and Wendy pressed no more.

Stomping out of the convent, she slashed Mother Superior’s name off her list and hummed when she saw her next—and last source.

Mr. Gold.

-,-,-,-,-

Mr. Gold looked up from his tedious paperwork when the door opened, cursing that someone would wonder in this close to lunch time. He had planned to close shop early so that he could visit Belle in the hospital as he had done since her rescue. His agitation stilled some when he saw that it was Wendy Darling, Belle’s savior.

His savior.

“Mr. Gold,” she greeted, an air nervousness in her voice. “May I talk to you for a moment?”                          

“Miss Darling,” Mr. Gold returned, smiling whole-heartedly rather than with his usual sarcasm. “Please, come in. Would you follow me to the back?”

Wendy nodded, glad for the privacy. The shop itself reminded Belle of her grandmother’s house: a fire hazard with its antiques but strangely inviting. It had the stale smell of dust just overpowered enough by the smell of strongly brewed tea.  

Mr. Gold guested to a small, rumpled cot for her to sit, and in a moment he pulled a whistling teapot from a small hotplate.

“Milk, sugar?” Mr. Gold inquired as he set out an additional teacup next to his own.

“Just a dab, if you please.” She answered, pulling out her notebook.

He handed her a cup and took a seat in a rough desk chair across from her. Wendy noticed that his own teacup had a chip in the rim.

“Belle’s doing.” He indicated when he caught her gaze. “The first time she entered my shop, I shocked her as she was admiring a stack of books. I don’t know why, but I fell for her rather quickly after that.”

Wendy smiled at the fleeting love story. Five minutes in his shop, Mr. Gold had revealed more about himself than Pan had in the month and a half she’d known him.

“However, I’m sure you didn’t come here to hear me drawl on about my past. What can I do for you, Miss Darling?”

Wendy took a sip of her tea before she answered (it was a bit too strong for her liking but still much better than the bagged stuff she’d had to sip on during her stay in Storybrooke).

“Actually, it’s your past I’m inquiring about.” Wendy stated, pulling out her cellphone for the pictures she took in the library.

Mr. Gold’s calculated expression bowed into calm curiosity. “Is this about Pan?”

Wendy felt she would have to start introducing herself with “Hi, may we talk, and no this is not about Peter flipping Pan,” for now on.

“No, it’s about a mutual friend of ours, Tink La’Bell.” Wendy showed him the grainy picture of the cross she took in the library. “I know it’s a long shot, but I was curious if the police asked you about the cross she had with her. I would have brought it with me but…”

Mr. Gold peaked over the top of her cellphone. “But this is a silent angel mission for you?”

“It is.” Wendy confided. “I’d just like to help her find some kind of closure. Do you have any idea if someone around here had one like it, or maybe if they got it from here?”

There was a comment in his smile that Wendy wanted to hear, however his attention returned to her cellphone a moment more before he handed it back to her.

“I recall Miss La’Bell’s abandonment quite well,” Mr. Gold reminisced. “Sheriff Holmes came to my shop the day after the incident to ask me similar questions like the ones you’re asking me.”

Wendy frowned, sensing another dead end.

“Let me guess, there was nothing you could provide him.”

“You’re quick to reach the worst conclusion, Miss Darling.”  Mr. Gold teased before turning to a nearby shelf. “I cataloged the item during the 24-hours it was in my possession so that I could do extensive research to find its origins. Thusly, I came to a few conclusions to satisfy the sheriff.”

“Could you share those conclusions with me?” Wendy asked hopefully.

“Would you like the answers I gave to the sheriff or the information I found afterwards?”

Wendy’s heart pounded with anticipation. This was the best, and so far only, lead she’d gotten and it would seem it could lead her to all the answers she was striving for.

“In order, please.”

Mr. Gold pulled out a small card and low and behold there was a picture of Tink’s half-cross attached to it.

“I discovered that the cross was Italian-made, and 30% silver.” Mr. Gold relayed.

“Italian-made? Does that mean that it didn’t come from Storybrooke?”

“Perhaps. Usually when something that wasn’t made here on the mainland cycles about, it comes through my shop. Not to mention the second half of the cross was never found, so Miss La’Belle was definitely brought here from outside of Storybrooke.”

Wendy nodded, a dead-end seemingly upon her.

“At least, that’s the information I gave the authorities.”

Wendy breathed in. He knew something no one else did. Another secret keeper, too much like Pan.

Although, Pan’s secrets stemmed were more personal, while Mr. Gold’s more than likely stemmed farther. He had stakes in Storybrooke, as Pan and several others had warned her. More than likely anything he was about to tell her could land him in legal trouble. Then again, this was all off the record. What the police didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

“What else did you discover?”

Mr. Gold ran the tip of his tongue over his lip. “A great deal of secrets, all of which stem back to the very place Miss La’Bell was dropped off at.”

“With all due respect Mr. Gold, I get enough of the vague allusions from Pan. Could we be more direct with each other?”

Mr. Gold smiled approvingly. “In all honesty, there are a few details I can’t reveal.”

“For legal reasons?” Wendy sighed. “I promise you, this all off-record.”

“For business-related reasons, Miss Darling.” Mr. Gold corrected. “I made a deal with Miss La’Bell’s abdicator.”  

Wendy paused, the meaning of his words sinking deep into the liner of her brain, infuriating and intriguing her all at once.

“You know who did it, who abandoned Tink?”

“I do.” Mr. Gold stated, his tone leveling when he saw Wendy’s gaze darken.

“You’ve known all this time and you told no one? The authorities, Tink? She has the right to know! You should have told her!”

Mr. Gold barely flinched when she yelled at him. “You’re right.” He agreed.

“Then why? What kind of deal did you make with her parents that would prevent you from giving her the information she deserved?”

Mr. Gold looked down at his ring, the strange blue stone reminding Wendy so much of Belle’s eyes.

“As I said, I can’t reveal the details of the deal I made.”

“Even to the person it affected most?” Belle barked, rage boiling inside her. Tink had a hole in her heart because of her parents, a hole Gold could have filled long ago. Instead he had used Tink’s pain as a bargaining chip against the people who had caused her so much pain. He used people to put himself further on top.

Just like Pan.

Just like his brother.

“I didn’t see it before.” Wendy muttered, shaking her head. “I didn’t see the connection, the part of you that he wanted to keep buried.” She lifted her head and met Mr. Gold dead in the eyes. The slight flinch he let off from the heat of her gaze only dulled her rage slightly.

Very slightly.

“I see it now. You’re both cut from the same cloth. You’re both horrible, selfish people”

Mr. Gold surveyed the young journalist, startled by her fire yet excited to feel the licks of her flames. Despite what Pan thought, Gold had indeed been keeping tabs on his much younger brother on and off since Belle’s disappearance. He knew about his shenanigans he pulled for the sake of journalism, about the lives he’d helped destroy. About the battles with his demons and recklessness and close calls. He even knew about Jekyll and August and all the bouts of filth in-between.

And he knew about the impact the young woman before him was having on him. He had seen it in the way he had carried himself in the last few months. Even when he was bruised and cut up from his recent horrors, there was still some sort of light over him, and Wendy Darling was always by his side to cast it.

He hadn’t seen him so alive since…well, Belle.

“No, Miss Darling.” Mr. Gold finally spoke. “You’re quite wrong on that note.”

“I doubt it.” Wendy hissed, grabbing her purse and standing.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Tink and tell her everything you’ve told me!” Wendy barked. “It’ll hurt her, but she had a right to know.”

“That won’t be necessary, Miss Darling.” Mr. Gold sighed, reaching under the counter and pulling out a small box.

“So you’re going to tell me who they are?”

“No, I can’t do that.” Gold stated simply, pulling a small brass key from the box. “But perhaps, Mother Superior can.”

“I’ve already talked to her—”

“You spoke to her, but you didn’t get the truth, I’m sure.”

“What do you…”

Mr. Gold reached out for her hand and curled the ancient key into her palm.

“Go back to the convent and search her office. You’ll find all you need to know.”

“But…”  

“I can’t say anymore.” Mr. Gold stated firmly, turning to retreat into the back room. “I must ask you to be off now, Miss Darling.”

Wendy groaned. This mysterious-town cliché had gotten old fast.

“What if she won’t talk to me?”

“Trust me, Miss Darling, once you find what you’re looking for, she’ll be singing like a bird.”

Wendy glared at him as she stuffed the key into her pocket.

“I barely trust Pan, why would I trust you?”

“Because you don’t have a choice. You’re getting desperate, and one thing I can recognize is a desperate soul.”

“I am far from desperate, Mr. Gold.” Wendy commented, turning on her heel. If he thought he could manipulate her with mixed metaphors than he would be sorely disappointed.

Pan couldn’t, and neither could his much older, much calmer brother.

But as she stormed out of his shop and headed back to the convent, she did hope whatever Gold wanted her to find would lead to the end of her current case. She wasn’t desperate, but she didn’t have a single straw left to grasp.

-,-,-,-,-

It sickened Wendy to think so, but she wished she had called Pan to join her—at least on this part of her mission.

Judging by their experience with August Booth and his vicious feathered pet, Pan was much more knowledgeable in these sorts of misadventures.

And as the minutes ticked until it was quite enough for Wendy to sneak back into the convent, she wished more than ever that he was here with her. Yelling or cursing at her, soothing and reassuring her that she had nothing to worry about. Taking the blunt of their horrors and fears from her.

It sickened her to have become so dependent on someone like Pan, who frustrated, hurt, and comforted her all at once.

God she needed therapy.

Finally, the young nun from earlier left the convent, locking the doors behind her as she whistled her way to the living quarters just behind the garden. Wendy scurried to the door, searching for a key under the worn map and in the bushes near the door. Though a quick look around the grounds indicated that there were no cameras around to worry about, there was still the grinding fear of being caught that she had yet to shake during her time as a journalist.

Pan would bite her head off if he were here.

Wendy rolled her eyes and searched for a window. She’d probably go straight to Hell for breaking into a nunnery, but she would risk damnation later if Tink received some kind of peace.

She shoved her hands in her pockets to keep them warm, her knuckles grazing the key Mr. Gold had bestowed upon her earlier. She had no idea what it would open, or even if what it revealed would do anything for her current case, but she had a hunch that Mr. Gold hadn’t given it to her just to get her out of his shop.

A thought came to her as she examined the key: it was old, much like the door leading into the convent. She turned back to the door and tested her hunch, her stomach flipping with joy as the key turned easily in the door lock. She pushed the old door opened, the aging squeak barely startling her. With a shaky breath she snuck into the nunnery and closed the door carefully behind her.

The walk to the head nun’s office felt shorter, as if time were working with her to ensure that she didn’t get caught before she found what she was looking for.

Her door was locked, as it should be during the night. Yet Wendy could feel the doorknob buzzing with all the secrets inside the quaint office. Carefully, Wendy inserted the key into the ancient key hole and the door opened with ease. Mr. Gold have given her a skeleton key. Either he was indeed a persistent ally, or a misleading enemy.

Wendy turned on the light and wondered where to go from there. The key couldn’t possibly unlocked everything in the room, could it? There was only one way to find out, and Wendy nervously began searching.

She started with the cluttered shelves, searching for anything that screamed TINK. Mostly she found old religious texts and old financial records that were probably too important to be boxed up in an abandoned library for snoops like her to find.

This was becoming frustrating. What was she even supposed to be looking for? Every mystery book and movie she had consumed often indicated that this part was easy, that the answer to her problems would jump out in front of her. It was an overused but very convenient plot device.

She couldn’t have helped but think that Pan would have found it by now.

As she mused on the thought, her cellphone buzzed against her hip. She quickly grabbed it to put it on silent and stared at the unknown name in her inbox.

Find what you’re looking for yet?

Wendy’s jaw slacked. Pan? She texted back.

No Larry King who do you think?

“How did you get my number?” she muttered aloud before texting the same question.

Not important. Have you found what you were looking for?

Wendy wanted to argue on the breach of her security, but decided that if he was curious about her mystery hunt, maybe he could give her a pointer or two.

Not yet. I’m in Superior’s office looking for clues.

You broke in? Now THAT’S my girl!

Wendy rolled her eyes. Don’t call me that.

I’m coming over. This is too adorable to miss.

“No!” Wendy exclaimed, tensing at the echo of her own voice before typing again.

Don’t. This is stressful enough!

She waited for a response, but none followed. She cursed Pan and herself. She was going to get caught and more than likely thrown into a cell with him!

She had to make a quick decision before he showed up. She could either ditch her mission altogether and run, or she could push through just long enough for a miracle to happen.

Her phone buzzed once more and she pounced on it before the buzz finished.

Check the drawers. There’s always something in the drawers.

“No bloody duh.” Wendy spat at Pan’s text before rushing to the head nun’s desk. Like the doors, the locks were ancient, leaving Wendy to wonder if the desk had been part of the property from the beginning.

The contents of it were scarce, full of old receipts, office supplies and little toys no doubt confiscated from unruly children.

Then there was something that stood out: a wad of blue silky cloth. It was too much of a coincidence for Wendy to pass up. She picked up the mass and instantly felt the added weight of whatever was wrapped up. Her heart pounded in anticipation for the reveal, and by the time she unraveled the object, the answers to a 20+ years case was almost solved.

In her hand was the other half Tink’s cross.

Mother Superior’s cross?

She moved the heavy, smooth metal in her palm, glazing over the jewels and the jagged edge where the cross must have broken off.

Mother Superior had had it all along, had had it lying in a drawer to gather dust while she belittled Tink. Wendy moved the cool metal to her chest, trying to possibly envision what her friend had gone through, how relieved she must had felt when she was able to leave it behind.

She had the other half of the cross, she had the keeper to Tink’s past, but she still didn’t have a motive. A “why?”

Unless…just possibly…

“What are you doing here?”

Wendy turned to face the head nun, her eyes roaming over her robed form, no doubt having been asleep just moments before. Her eyes widened when she saw that Wendy was holding the cross.

“Give me that!” She commanded, stepping forward.

Wendy scurried behind the desk, using the ancient relic as a border between them.

“You know something.” Wendy accused. “You know who abandoned her.”

“I’m calling the police.” She said, though made no move to act on her threat.

“Good, call them!” Wendy exclaimed. “Tell them you lied to them over twenty years ago, why you withheld evidence.”

Mother Superior lunged at the desk and snatched the cross from Wendy’s hand, the whiplash causing her to send the broken edge into her palm.

Wendy gasped in pain, clenching the end of her sleeve into the bloody streak. Panic began to consume her, the fear of a repeat of her last two brush with death a rising possibility.

“This was none of your concern to being with.” The head nun growled. “Everything was going as it should be.”

Wendy took the blue silk cloth and wrapped it tightly around her hand. “How…how was anything going well?” she panted, stalling long enough for Pan to arrive. “Do you know what you put her through? What you took from her?”

The head nun seethed, squeezing the cross tighter in her palm. “I did everything possible. I kept her close, kept her safe. I gave her everything she needed.”

“Except the most important thing a mother should give their child,” Wendy seethed, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction when Superior’s expression paled. “Love.”

Mother Superior looked her over. “No…how…” her expression darkened. “Gold told you, didn’t he?”

“No,” Wendy sighed. “Honestly, I’m just connecting dots at this point. And…she has your nose.”

The head nun blinked, panic rising in her eyes. “Are…are you recording this?”

“No.” Wendy sighed, flexing her fingers. “Like I said earlier, anything you tell me will only go back to Tink.”

“Get out.”

“She deserves to know the truth!” Wendy pleaded.

“You have no proof now.” The head nun fought, shoving the rest of the cross deep into her robe pocket. “I’ll deny everything, and nothing will change.”

“Yeah it will.”

Mother Superior shot around just as Pan breezed around the corner, his lips curved in anticipation.

“Rule one of journalism: lock the damn door after you break-and-enter.” Pan said with a frown Wendy’s way. A small smirk followed. “Unless you were just hoping I’d show up.”

“Yes, the same way I hope for appendicitis.” Wendy snarked, hiding her secret smile behind her bandaged hand. “I’m kind of busy here…”

“Yeah I heard,” Pan threw back. “And I think  Graham, Sydney and, well damn, all of Storybrooke, would like to hear too.”

Wendy watched the head nun’s back tense. They had her in a corner, and while this was hardly the way Wendy had wanted this to go, it was working as things had to be.

“Please,” Wendy beseeched once more. “Tell us the truth. We can help.”

“Or we can expose you.” Pan shrugged. “Just spill it.”

Mother Superior sent a deadly glare Pan’s way, but when he smirked back at hwe unfazed, she plopped down in her chair, defeated. She scrubbed two worn hands over her face, covering her eyes for a moment before turning to Wendy once more.

“You swear you’re not reporting this?”c

“Okay,” Wendy sighed, pulling out all the evidence she had gathered. “You’re Tink’s mum. You staged her abandonment and subsequently adopted her.”

“Yes.” The head nun admitted quietly.

“Shit.” Pan mumbled.

“Fine, I get all that.” Wendy nodded. “But the real question is why? Why go through such an elaborate setup for a baby you wanted to keep? Why never tell her anything?”

“Because I would have lost everything I had ever worked for.”

Wendy glanced at Pan who was staring at the head nun in a very queer way. It concerned her really, but she couldn’t focus on him right now.

“What do you mean?” Wendy inquired.

“I…was a lot like her.” Superior said, rubbing her hands nervously together. “I was abandoned, and someone took me under their wing.”

“You call humiliating and berating someone taking them under your wing?” Pan seethed.

Wendy held a hand out, warning him to stay put. “I can handle this.” She said, turning back to the nun. “Continue.”

“The nun before me groomed me to take her place when I was eighteen. About a year before, I went on a mission trip to Italy and…” she paused, her eyes searching the past for the more intimate details. “I met a man…”

Wendy nodded, assuming that the man in question was Tink’s father.

“He said and did things that…” she smiled fondly, “that went against everything I had ever known. I loved him, I really did…”

“Yes, lovely, I’m sure the sex was great but on to the post-baby abandonment already.” Pan intervened.

“Pan, shut up.” Wendy snapped.

“She’s stalling!”

“She’s telling a story, zip it!”

Pan rolled his eyes and slid down the wall, muttering something about idiots and exhaustive details.

“Okay, you met a man and got pregnant.” Wendy said, eager to speed the story along but wanting to do so in a more professional matter. “What led to you keeping Tink?”

The head nun was quite for a moment, a myriad of emotions swimming through her deep brown eyes.

“I told…Tink’s father…” she grimaced, as if the mention of the man left a bad taste in her mouth. “But he wasn’t interested in being a father, and I had no choice but to return to the states.”

“And no one noticed you were pregnant?” Wendy questioned.

“I spent most of my time in confinement, praying.” Superior admitted, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “By the time it was time for her to be born, we went into hiding, to this cabin just outside of town…”

“Shit.” Pan cursed. “The one that Gold owns? Is that how your arse got caught?”

“I…do you really need to know all that?”

“We can get to that.” Wendy promised, more in Pan’s direction than in Superior’s. “What happened then?”

The Mother’s back remained straight, her expression blank. “That’s it really. I gave birth to her in the cabin and later I took her to the convent to be found. All staged. And you know the rest. Are we done?”

Wendy stared at her for a moment, trying to wrap her mind around her tale.

“You’ve given us the bare bones of your tale, but nothing else. No motive no real reason why you did the things you did.”

“What more do you want?” Mother Superior groaned, sounding more tried than irritating.

“I want…answers!” Wendy said. “I want something meaningful to take back to Tink! I want her to know why you would keep her for a week and then just…dump her. Why you shamed her and forbade her from doing normal things. Why you—her mother—would put her through all you did!”

“I didn’t know how to be a mother!” Mother Superior yelled, her voice breaking with a sob. “I had my entire life planned out, I didn’t know how to fit a baby into all of it.” She took a long breath and straightened her spine once more, the blank veil of emotion she carried so perfectly falling over her face. “I did the best I could to give her a good life.”

“No,” Wendy said. “You did the best you could to cover your arse so that you could keep face.”

Superior glared at Wendy, but the young journalist gave her no room to cut in an argument.

“After you left yesterday, she told me about how you made her feel. About how you made the only home she ever knew feel like a prison. It was heartbreaking. And you have the nerve to try to drag her back here.”

“She’s living in sin!” Superior protested.

“She’s living with someone who loves her more than anyone else in this whole damn world!” Pan barked, stepping beside Wendy.

“Peter…”

“He has never, would never, do anything to hurt her, unlike you.” Pan growled, eyes aflame. He smirked then, enjoying the way the head nun paled. “I think you know that, and I think you’re jealous. She loves him and she’ll never love you. Not then, not ever.”

“I don’t have to listen to this any longer.” The head nun decided, standing up and heading for the exit. “I answer to one higher power, and he will judge me righteous!”

Pan stepped in front of her, not necessarily blocking her escape, but his presence was enough to stall the nun.

“Righteous?” Wendy gasped behind her. “I may not know much about God, but I’m sure using his name to judge your deceitfulness is blasphemy.”

“Everything I did was for the benefit of everyone!” Superior argued. “He will see that! I did it all in his name!”

“God is not your scapegoat!” Wendy yelled back. Despite her current hatred for the pious nun, she couldn’t help but feel something equivalent to pity for her. It certainly couldn’t have been easy to get pregnant so young and then subsequently abandoned by the child’s father. She had just never tapped into her maternal instincts. Maybe with help, she could have.

“I do care for her Miss Darling, whether you,” she glanced to Pan, “or anyone else thinks so or not.”  

“Is that why you gave her the other half of your cross?” Wendy inquired, pointing at her protruding coat pocket. “So that she would know that you loved her?”

The nun looked down guiltily. “The cross was an accident. I had bougt it in Italy…with him. I meant to throw it away but it had slipped my mind. The night I faked Tink’s abandonment, the chain I had it on broke and it shattered against the concrete. I had put one of the pieces in her bassinet and by the time the police came it was too late to hide it before it was documented in their report.”

“Oh my god you’re the worse.” Pan groaned.

“The bottom line,” Superior continued, unperturbed, “is that all of this will be resolved when Tink rejoins the convent for good.”

“Oh, you plan to tell her everything if she does?” Wendy inquired more sarcastically than she meant to. “Or would that risk your position you ditched her for?”

“I suppose that’s really up to you.” Superior replied icily. “You can tell Tink all I’ve told you tonight and destroy all I’ve managed to build.”

“Bitch we just might.” Pan muttered.

“But,” the nun contemplated with a small, eerie smile. “Without a recording, she won’t believe a word you tell her, and I’ll deny you ever being here.”

Wendy gripped the table to prevent herself from diving at the nun. Cunning witch! She glanced at Pan who gave her an “I fucking told you so” look and she wished they were on a higher floor so that she could jump to her fate.

Still, Wendy refused to let the nun have the last word. She straightened her coat and gathered her things, ready to leave on a final note.

“Who do you think she’s going to believe, Mother Superior? Someone who’s actually taken the time to earn her trust, or the woman who mentally and emotionally broke her for years?”

The head nun’s satisfied smile vanished, and her mouth fell as she searched for a retort.

“My advice is to talk to her first.” Wendy said as she stepped out of her office. “It might take a while but she’ll forgive you.” She motioned to Pan. “She did him.”

“Hey, watch it.” Pan warned only for Wendy to breeze past him unperturbed. He followed her with one last dirty look at the nun.

They made it out of the convent without incident, but neither of the journalists looked or spoke to each other until they were walking the quiet streets of inner-Storybrooke.

“Well you just barely screwed that up.” Pan teased, his spirits lifting

“I was doing fine long before you poked your nose into it.” Wendy miffed.

“Please you were bored to death without me.” Pan chuckled, and then nodded to her bandaged hand. “Not to mention you get cut up a lot worse when I’m not around.”

Wendy rolled her eyes. True, she had missed his accustomed presence today, but she had been doing a lot better on her own than she thought she had. No panic attacks, no shadowy figures crossing her path. She had been fine, abet a bit lonely.

“Well, I thought you needed more time to recover from your little tantrum yesterday.” Wendy spoke, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

“Oh, I see.” Pan scoffed. “Get a good night sleep last night, Wendy? Oh wait, no you didn’t.”

Wendy skid to a stop and shot around to the jeering boy. “That’s something totally different.”

“You’d be surprised just how much it’s not.” Pan argued.

“You know what, let’s just…drop it.” Wendy sighed exasperatedly.

“Fine with me.” Pan grumbled, and the two slipped into silence again.

They were close enough to town that they could see the ever-present light of Granny’s diner twinkling in the night. Despite how lively the restaurant still seemed to be, the rest of the town seemed too quiet, too peaceful despite what had happened—and was still happening—around it.

“I wonder what she’s going to do.” Wendy pondered aloud. “Will she tell Tink anything, or will things go back to being the way they were?”

“You should have recorded it.” Pan shrugged. “Then the bitch couldn’t hide anymore.”

“Actually, I’m kind of glad I didn’t.”

“You’re glad a whole day of work was for nothing?” Pan scoffed.

Wendy stopped and turned to Pan, sighed exhaustedly. “I’m glad that Superior now has the chance to come clean without the threat of blackmail hanging over her head.”

Pan observed her, taking in her nobility and strength, but quietly judging her obscene sense of justice. She didn’t know how twisted the head nun really was. She didn’t know at all.

“This was never my story to tell.” Wendy continued. “I shouldn’t be the one to decide where Mother Superior’s secrets get thrown around. She knows we know, so maybe that will give her enough of a push to tell Tink the truth.”

“Maybe.” Pan muttered, a small pearl of rage growing in his belly. But Wendy was smiling, satisfied with her days work, and he held off.

It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know everything.

“Well,” Wendy sighed. “I think I’ll head home, try to sleep.”

“Yeah.” Pan muttered, his hand sliding deeper into his pockets.

“Goodnight.” Wendy renounced, giving him a light nod before turning away.

Pan nodded, watching as she clipped to the apartments, safe and smiling whole-heartedly for the first time in weeks.  

“Fly, fly, little bird.” Pan muttered before turning in the direction of the Mirror. As he walked, he fished deep in his pockets of his coat to pull out his cellphone.

Before him was a recording app with all thirteen and a half minutes of his and Wendy’s conversation with Mother Superior saved.

Rule one of journalism may have been to lock the door after breaking and entering, but rule two was to always have a recorder going.

Pan weighed his phone back and forth in his hands, readying himself to give into his dark urge to put it on tomorrow’s front page.

The idea that Tink deserved better was what was stopping him.

Wendy thought that the Blue fairy was also a victim in all this, but she was way off from the truth. She witnessed a mere moment of Tink’s pain brought on by the holy horror. Pan had witnessed years of it.

Once, during his first week of school, when he didn’t have Felix or anyone else to call home to, he witnessed her cruelty first-hand.

It had been an early release day, but it could have been the end of the world and Pan wouldn’t have thought different. He was numb from the excitement of classmates. All he had to go home to was a stolic brother and a quiet, dusty house.

He was ready to walk back to said quiet, dusty house when someone bumped into his shoulder and changed the course of his overly quiet life forever.

“I completely forgot about the early release day.” Tink La’Belle (who at the time wasn’t the quite confident young woman she was in later years) gasped as she and Felix Croft pushed past the exiting bustle of students. “I forgot my clothes…”

“It’s okay,” Felix (who at the time was unblemished by scars and loss) assured, and Pan watched as he rubbed a hand comfortingly over her back. “We’ll sneak through the woods and then…”

Felix suddenly stopped when a blue car in desperate need of a paintjob on the hood breezed into the school parking lot, narrowly missing the bike rack.

Pan divided his attention between the pinch-faced nun who stepped out of the car, and the way Felix Croft’s hand waved up and down on Tink La’Belle’s back. The motion was therapeutic in a way Pan didn’t understand, and it numbed him all in the right ways. When the door to the nun’s car slammed and she started screaming, the peace he felt was shattered, and he was thoroughly pissed from the interuption.

“What are you wearing?” Mother Superior demanded, marching up to Felix and Tink while many of the other students looked on.

Pan hadn’t been sure who she had been yelling at. Both Felix and Tink were dressed rather appropriately for the cool Autumn weather, right down to the jeans and boots.

“I…snagged my skirt.” Tink said quietly, a sound that didn’t suit her loud, confident nature.

“Doing what?” the nun snarled with a glare at Felix.

“Please don’t do this.” Tink begged, and Pan could feel the heat of her mortification even from his place on the steps.

“Get in the car now.” The head nun snarled, grabbing Tink by the wrist before she had a chance to protest.

The small utter of discomfort caused Pan’s stomach to turn, and a small but fierce flame to flicker in his chest.

“You’re hurting her!” Felix had yelled after them.

“You stay out of this!” the nun growled at him, bundling Tink into the passenger seat before stalking to the other side.

Students muttered their condolences as the car drove off, but Felix didn’t utter a word. Didn’t even seem to breath.

Pan rolled his eyes at the boy’s love-struck agony (it would be many months before Belle would enter his life and fill him with the same pain), but he licked his lips as an idea filled his mind.

The following morning, the Daily Mirror ran a story on the second page about how the head nun of the Sisters of Saint Melissa’s car had been completely vandalized. Torn tires, key marks in the paint, and—as the mechanic would later explain—pieces of an Apollo candy bar in the gas tank.

While Pan chuckled about the small act of revenge he performed on Tink’s behalf, it also filled him with resentment for the head horror.

Wendy had said that this was Mother Superior’s tale to tell.

She was dead wrong.

It was his, and Felix’s, and anyone else who had to witness the head nun’s cruelty.

Pan didn’t blame her for her ignorance, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him from giving the icy bitch what she had coming.

He made a turn to the Mirror, ignoring the nagging voice in his head that—for whatever damn reason—he should feel some kind of guilt for what he was about to do.

-,-,-,-,-,-,-

Despite another restless night, Wendy felt more blissful when she awoke the next morning than she had in weeks. She had accomplished something big yesterday with only a slight interference from Pan. She felt more confident now, braver. She was going to be okay, and the idea was enough to make her sob.

As she locked up her apartment and headed to the Mirror, she wondered if Mother Superior had contacted Tink yet. No doubt her name would be brought into it, and Wendy was prepared for the backlash. She hoped whatever happened, her friend could finally get the closure she deserved.

There was something off in town as Wendy got closer to the paper. People seemed to be sending her side-glances behind their freshly printed papers. Wendy assumed it was about the Jekyll story and ducked her head. She hoped Pan hadn’t added any extravagant details for shock value.

The unnatural feeling followed her into the Mirror, which was unusually quiet for a Monday morning.

It wasn’t until she saw Glass, Felix, and a sobbing Tink in Glass’s office that she realized something was horribly wrong.

Two very distinctive thoughts ran through her head at that moment:

Tink knew, or something had happened to Pan, as he was nowhere in sight.

They all turned to her when she barged into the office, searching their faces for answers.

“What’s going on?”

“Like you don’t know!” Tink screamed at her, causing Wendy to flinch from the unexpected reaction.

“Know what?” Wendy gasped, reaching out to Tink.

“Do not touch me!” she yelled, snatching away from Wendy. “Stay the hell away from me!”

“Tink calm down.” Felix tried to sooth.

“No!” Tink fought. “What she’s done is lower then low. She does not get a pass on this!”

Felix pulled her back, trying to put some distance between the two women. Glass stepped forward, a hand on his lower back to steady himself.

“What’s going on?” Wendy begged him.

Glass held up the latest addition of the Daily Mirror. The moment she saw the stolid, gray image of Mother Superior she knew what had happened.

HEAD NUN OF CONVENT REVEALED TO BE MOTHER OF BABY ABANDONED IN 1991

Wendy’s name was under the headline and Tink had her scapegoat.

“I trusted you!” she sobbed. “I told you all of that in confidence and you published it like—like some kind of bizarre tabloid story!”

“T-Tink,” Wendy gasped, the paper rattling in her hands. “I swear I didn’t—”

“I thought you were different, that you knew how to separate your job from the rest of the world.” Tink hiccupped, pulling from Felix’s protective grip so that she could step up to Wendy and look her straight in the eye. “But Pan got to you. You’re just as filthy and selfish as he is. More concerned about a few seconds of glory than people’s lives.”

Wendy’s chest constricted with the weight of Tink’s words—her very misguided, hateful words.

“No, Tink, please that’s not—”

“Save it,” Tink sneered, stepping around her. “I’m done with you.”

Wendy couldn’t speak, couldn’t move as she heard Tink leave the office, Felix following her without so much as a glance at her. The moment that followed was quiet, yet bizarrely peaceful, like the few seconds right at the end of a horrible storm that had devastated the world around it.

It was Glass who pulled her back into the storm, and Wendy felt the air scorch her skin.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, having to sit on his desk due to his still-injured back. “This was the research you were doing all day yesterday?”

“It wasn’t…I didn’t…”

Glass cursed and threw the paper on the floor. “We’ll be lucky if she or the convent don’t sue. Did you get any recordings or video? We can avoid slander at least.”

Wendy began to shake her head until a thought occurred to her.

“Pan might.” She said quietly, her strength slowly rebuilding after Tink had drained it from her.

“Shit!” Glass exclaimed. “I knew you hadn’t done this all on your own.”

Wendy’s head shot up to stare at Glass, another, much more different bubble of hurt filling her chest.

The entire town thought she was glued to Pan’s side. She couldn’t even screw up without them somehow thinking he had a say in it.

It was time to rip herself from him, or perhaps just rip him a part in general.

“Where does he live?” Wendy inquired calmly.

“You’ve been here all this time and haven’t figured out where he lives?” Glass remarked off-handedly.

“Tell me his address please.” Wendy pled more urgently.

Before Glass could respond, the office phone began to ring. He cursed and reached out to put it on hold.

“You know what, fine.” He grumbled, scribbling something out on a sticky note before tossing it carelessly Wendy’s way. “I have to deal with damage control. Just…don’t kill him before I figure all this out.”

Wendy barely managed a nod before she turned to leave the office, the note crumbling into the center of her pale, shaky palm.

She wasn’t sure what she was going to do to him when she saw him, but she knew she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she saw blood running down his traitorous face.

It took her half an hour of stomping through town and having people jump out of her way before she found the first story apartment. It surprised her that it was in the building in front of her own, and that Pan had never mentioned their close proximity before.

Another thing to add to the list of reasons he was to die today.

“Peter Pan!” she screamed as she banged on his front door. “Open this bloody door!”

She continued to bang on it, unperturbed about the neighbors or what people passing on the street may think. When he didn’t answer, she stepped aside and tried to look through his curtained windows. She could see a slither of a kitchen through the cloth, but no Pan.

Frustrated, she stepped down and search for a rock or something she could use to break the window. Just as she was knuckles-deep in dirt, the door opened. Her glare melted instantly at who was leaning against it.

“A-A…uh, Mr. Booth.” Wendy swallowed, heat numbing her cheeks at the site of the shirtless man with a coffee cup clutched in his hands.

“August is fine.” he smiled, sleep still present in his deep blue eyes. “Winry, right?”

“Wendy.” She croaked, trying to wrap her head to what was going on. “I’m sorry to…disturb…um…I’m sorry…is Pan here?”

August turned just enough so that Wendy could peek into Pan’s apartment. Just ahead she could see what she assumed was Pan’s bedroom, as she saw a figure in bed and his long, pale arm sticking out from under the covers.

“I can wake him if it’s important.” August stated.

Wendy watched the tantalizing movement of his body as he breathed peacefully, sleeping away as if he hadn’t just destroyed several lives.

The rotten bastard.

“It’s fine, I’ll wake him.”

August stepped aside as Wendy barged into the apartment, watching in mixed horror as she grabbed a stray pillow from the end of the bed and began mercilessly beating Pan until he startled awake.

“Shit.” August laughed into his coffee.

“The fuck!” Pan slurred, shooting up and rubbing his eyes. “Wendy?”

“What the actual bloody hell is wrong with you!” Wendy screamed so loud the giant fuzzy cat in the corner of the room scurried away in a frenzy.

“In general?” Pan yawned, the thin sheet covering his waist sliding further down as he stretched. “August, you still here?”

“Yep.” The man in question responded from the living room.

Wendy’s face heated from the sheer absurdity of all that had happened in the last half hour. It was almost too much to bear, especially when the person responsible cared so little that he had spent the night in the throes of passion with another person. She wanted to scream or cry or break something, anything to get the horrible feeling of failure and hurt out of her system.

She grabbed the pillow she had been beating him with and raised it over her head again, ready to destroy him once and for all.

However, Pan’s phone began to vibrate on the nightstand, and he held up a finger to stall her.

“Just a sec,” he said answering his phone. “Hello?”

“Are you bloody kidding me!” Wendy yelled at him, slapping him on the shoulder with the pillow.

With a flick of his wrist, Pan wordlessly tore the sheet from his waist. Wendy gasped, covering her face with the pillow to block her view of Pan’s parts, her face hot enough to boil water on.

“Alright, repeat that.” Pan asserted with a slight smirk.

As the blood rushing through her ears began to slow down, Wendy shifted her attention to the man chuckling over his coffee. He winked at her when he noticed her gaze, and Wendy blushed all the more.      

With her anger cooling, she now felt a bit embarrassed that she had stumbled into such an intimate setting. It was odd seeing Pan with someone who just the day before had been held for suspected murder, but it was more odd to see him with someone who he had insisted he had no current attraction to. Wendy could only wonder the circumstance that had seduced August Booth in to Pan’s bed.

“Astrid, slow down.” Pan demanded over the phone.

Wendy turned just enough so that she could see his face, using the pillow to block out his parts. She watched as his confused look melted into astonishment.

“What? When?”

Wendy gulped. Something was wrong.

“Damn…yeah, sorry for swearing, whatever.”

Oh, that he would apologize for.

“I’ll be there soon.” He said, hanging up and standing.

Wendy looked away, listening as he frantically opened and closed drawers.

“Come on, we’ve got to go.” Pan said over the rustle of clothing.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why—”

In a flash, Pan had her facing him, his hands gripping her shoulders like he was trying to hold her together.

Then Wendy saw it, the rare emotion of guilt in the depths of his green eyes. It was just a twinkle, like the life of star, but it was there all the same, and it made Wendy’s stomach turn with anticipation.

He was trying to hold himself together.

“We’ve got to get down to the convent.” Pan croaked, his hands fidgeting on Wendy’s skin. “Mother Superior was just found dead.”

-,-,-,-,-,-  

Okay, I mean to have this out sooner but I totally changed the ending at the last second (the other one was just confusing and kind of boring to me).

I have two ideas for the next couple of chapters, but I must flesh them out first. Not to mention it’s my last semester of college and I have to focus on my studies if I’m to graduate without incident.

Also, I have a side project with this story I’m working on 😉 as well as chapters to my other works. But I shall update soon I say!

Thanks for all the love guys!

[reckoningss]

The Gap

Summary: A girl meets Bucky at a bar in Brooklyn and finds that they’re both pretty far from home.

Pairing: Bucky x Unnamed Character

Warnings: None? Mild violence? Angst?

Wordcount: 5.5k

A/N: This is my first fic ever. Please, for the love of God, send me feedback.

New York isn’t her kind of city, though she’s sure she can be persuaded to…appreciate it. With time. There’s a claustrophobia to it, a manic sort of pressing closeness, without order. The buildings loom, huddled together, roads cutting tightly between them; there’s no true structure to it, no symmetry. And not nearly enough trees. But she’s here with a purpose; there’s work to be done and she can tolerate the teeming masses and the disorder. For now.

It’s just a drink, just one tumbler of South African whiskey that swims silkily between thick blocks of ice and goes down smooth. She revels in the glow for a moment, caramel and earthy vanilla that tastes faintly like home. She sees him across the bar over a sip. It’s a dark place, classic, or so she would believe, all dark oak wood everywhere and low, round tables, and the scent of tobacco and wood smoke. Traditional, like a speakeasy or a place where soldiers would gather to swap stories of their lady loves in the old Hollywood movies. She sees him through the haze of cigar smoke that’s drifting through the air and it’s almost like viewing an old picture of him from 1942, grainy and hazy around the edges.

He’s propped up on a bar stool staring down into his drink, a lager by the looks of it, but she thinks he looks like he could use something a lot stronger. She doesn’t want to take her eyes off him, doesn’t want to lose him through the haze and the throng of people slipping through the tables. The baseball cap on his head is pulled down low, but she can tell he has a strong brow, can see the lack of sleep pooling in the shadows beneath his tired eyes and she sympathizes with him. Without knowing him, without ever having spoken to him, impossibly, she sympathizes with him.  

He looks up now, feeling eyes on him, hyper aware that he’s being watched, practiced eyes picking over the crowd subtly before they land on her. She’s rewarded with a gentle thrill,  excitement running down her spine when his gaze meets hers, and she feels like he’s studying her - eyes narrowing imperceptibly as he tries to place her. Classify her. She sees him relax ever so slightly; she’s obviously not the kind of threat he should be worried about. So she raises her glass to him in acknowledgement, nearly empty, before lowering it again to her lips and taking down another mouthful. She sees a reluctant smile tip up the edges of his lips as he raises the bottle to them and swigs.

She takes it as an invitation, rising from her chair, picking up her empty tumbler, ice clinking gently against the glass. She makes her way over to the bar, and settles onto a stool near to him, one seat in between them, no need to be too forward. It’s a safe distance, distance enough to chat casually, leaving room for more. More conversation, more familiarity, more intimacy.  

She notes the layers of clothes - the long sleeves beneath a jacket despite the increasingly warm weather, the black gloves over large hands, and she says nothing. He takes her outstretched hand in his right one apprehensively (after taking a moment to assess it suspiciously) but shakes it firmly. She offers her name, listening to him repeat it back to her like he’s testing it, considering the weight of it on his tongue and she appreciates the sound. He offers his and she tilts her head at him because he very well could be a James, but he doesn’t look like one to her. She accepts it anyway.

He’s standoffish, and to begin with she can’t tell if it’s because he’s impolite or just unsure. It’s the latter, but it takes some time to work that out. They start off slow, testing the waters with polite small talk. Boring. Safe. But eventually she draws him out; he’s a lot lonelier than he’ll let on and she could use some company in this brimming, primitive city too. He’s an old soul, she finds, nostalgic for the old days and the old ways. A world that he could’ve made sense of, one that he could belong in. She feels that familiar sensation rising in her chest but this time it’s empathy because she too is a stranger adrift in a strange land, longing for the comforts of home.

He warms to her slowly, gradually, like winter snow caps running off the mountains, but she has the persistence to wait. She warms to him too, liking his old fashioned manners, liking the way he speaks like an actor from the golden age of radio. By the time she’s finally rewarded with his laugh they’re so deep into conversation that they feel like old friends. He feels like he recognizes her, he says, feels as though he’s seen her before. Something about the roundness of her face, the depth of her brown skin and eyes feels familiar, reminds him of someone he’s met. She laughs. She’s not from around here, she says, not even close. He buys her another whiskey - on the rocks - just like the first.

The hour’s not too late when he rises, ready to leave. She’s long since finished her second drink and he’s just finished nursing the beer, the last drops of it going down flat and frothy. He pushes her stool back in for her when she stands, and she smiles at the politeness of it - what a man. She follows him outside, smiles again when he holds the door open for her, the bell still tingling quietly overhead as she passes. They stop on the sidewalk, the sky gray with night and the thick smoggy haze  of the city, the streetlights haloed in smoke. He tries to say goodbye to her, his voice low and, she thinks, tinged with regret. Regret to go back to a world of unfamiliarity and solitude. Her heart aches for him.

“Let me walk you home.” She says it meekly - no need to be presumptuous - not wanting to scare him off.

He pauses, taken aback for second. Smiles wryly at her. “I think I should be offering to walk you home.”

She shrugs. “I’m in a hotel just up the street.” His eyes follow the path indicated by her back-turned thumb over her shoulder. “You have a longer walk than me.” She grins. “And I didn’t think we were done talking yet.”

So they walk, her boot-clad feet scuffing lazily against the cement. He’s not a great talker, not like he used to be, but he’s found himself rather animated with her. And she’s found herself enthralled with him. She likes to hear him speak, the rise and fall of his voice, the cadence lost to time. She likes to listen to his stories. Stories of a friend and of travel  and a lifetime long past. She can see the far off look he gets when he reminisces, hear the wistful lilt in his voice and she wants to make it better. To dust off the relics of a life he used to know and restore him to his former glory, but she doesn’t think she can.

She stops at the steps leading into his flat to say goodbye, looking up at him from the sidewalk, and he’s looking down at her and she doesn’t want to go but she has to.

“Have a good night, James. It was nice to meet you.” She offers her left hand to shake and for a moment he looks as though he’ll raise his, but he doesn’t. He’s staring down at her hand like it will bite him, like her touch will set him ablaze, so she switches to her right. He takes it, an air of relief settling around him as his large hand surrounds hers and holds.

“Do you want to come inside?” There’s  apprehension in his voice when he asks and an unsure fidget in his posture and she wants to end his unease so she accepts with a smile.

He leads her inside and up the stairs to the second floor and down the hall toward the last door on the left. She stands behind him as he unlocks it, gloved hand reaching into the pocket of his jeans to retrieve a sparsely populated key ring. He unlocks the door and holds it open, shuffling out of the way so she can step inside and for a moment she’s cloaked in darkness before she hears him follow after her and the door closes softly and the deadbolt slides home and he flips the switch and the front hallway is flooded with light.

It’s a minimal apartment - bare walls, no pictures, little furniture. No plants, she notes. She can see a low, grey couch in the living room across from a humble television set sitting atop a small TV stand. It’s not much but at least the colors tie together, she thinks, and it almost feels like a home. She follows him to the living room and perches upon the love seat when he offers. It’s stilted at first, he’s not used to having anyone in his space, not in a long time. Certainly not in Romania. In Bucharest he was just beginning to taste freedom again, but it was false. Freedom that required that he always look over his shoulder, that he hide himself away; there was no room for another person. No space on the mattress on the floor or in the small kitchen. A guest would’ve meant one too many obstacles between himself and his mode of escape. Too many contingencies.

But now she’s in his living room in New York and she feels huge. It’s as if she’s taking up all the space in the room, sucking up all the air, the crown of her head brushing the ceiling. But he doesn’t hate the feeling. He offers her a beer because he doesn’t know what else to do, and she happily accepts. The re-formed ice is weak; they break it easily, conversation beginning to flow again. Picking up where they left off. They talk for hours, her asking questions and him answering them. He’d forgotten how good it felt, to converse, to laugh. To feel…normal again. Human again.

He is a perfect gentleman, maintaining a respectful distance on the couch, careful not to brush his hand against hers as he hands her the bottle, eyes forever on her face, and she’s glad for it, but she hates the waiting and guessing. So she has to make a move.

She catches him in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, leaning against the frame as he bends to retrieve her second beer from the fridge. He kicks the door shut as he backs away and when he turns he’s inches from her. Stock still. He wants to say something, but the words die on his lips and all he can do it stare down at her, her big brown eyes staring up at him. He thinks he stops breathing when she places a hand on his bicep and leans in, rocking up onto her toes so she can press her lips to his. Her forehead tipping the bill of his cap back until it topples off of his head and tumbles down his back and hits the floor.

For a moment he does nothing, just stares in wide-eyed shock at her face so close to his, eyes closed, and then he feels it, and his eyes close too and he’s kissing her back. Her arms snake around his neck and she sighs, ever so slightly, and sags into him. He’d almost forgotten what it was like, to be held. To be kissed. He remembers that he likes it. His right hand finds the small of her back and pulls her closer, the left still at his side, unsure. Unused. So she reaches out, never taking her lips off his and takes a hold of the strong wrist, guiding it to her waist. He hesitates for a moment, fingers hovering over her, before giving in, his hand forming to the dip of her waist. She stifles a shiver; his fingers are cold through the fabric of the glove. Cold on the strip of skin where her shirt has lifted away from the waistband of her jeans.

She’s smiling when she pulls back and he can’t quite place the warmth in his chest, but he’s pretty sure he’s smiling too. He resists the urge to pull her in again; that would be forward. She presses a cheek to his chest and listens to his even breath rush in and out and waits as his arms surround her, halting, but inevitable. He lowers his chin to the top of her head. Her hair smells like cocoa and amber.

It’s late now, late or early, and he’d rather if she didn’t walk home, and his conscience won’t let him put her in a cab alone at this hour so he takes a chance. He asks her to stay. She’s not scandalized like he feared she might be and relief washes over him when she accepts. She laughs when he offers to sleep on the couch, knowing that its length won’t accommodate his height. But she’s touched by his traditional sensibilities and his concern for her comfort.

“We’re both adults here. I think we can share a bed responsibly.” He looks unconvinced, an expression creeping onto his face that suggests that she might scandalize him instead. She grins. “I’ll stay on my side if you’ll stay on yours.”

In the bedroom he offers her a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. She accepts and watches him leave the room so she can change. She breathes deeply as she pulls the tee over her head, pressing the fabric to her face. Leather and a subtle, powdery floral. The scent is intoxicating and overwhelming and for a second, maybe longer, she’s lost in it until he knocks, the door opening just a crack he sticks his head in, eyes down-turned modestly. He asks if she’s ok and she wrestles the shirt over her head quickly, thankful that her deep brown skin hides the evidence of her embarrassment.

She picks at the cotton hem and calls him in. He gives her a quick once over as he shuts the door behind himself, noting how the shorts fall past her knees and the shirt hangs to her hips. She perches on the edge of the bed as he rummages through a drawer, watching the muscles of his back move beneath the fabric of his shirt. The door shuts quietly as he retreats to the bathroom to change and she listens as she piles her braids into a bun the top of her head to the sounds of cabinets opening and closing and water running and after a while she slips under the covers and lies back.

The room is just as minimal as the rest of the house but the bed is comfortable. There’s not a lot identifying it as someone’s place of dwelling, somewhere safe they can return to at the end of the day, but there’s room for improvement. Room to grow into it. He emerges from the bathroom in a pair of shorts and a long sleeve dri-fit, the thin material hugging the slope of his shoulders and the curves of his arms, that same black glove on his left hand.

His clothes are discarded in a simple hamper and then he lowers himself into the bed, slowly. Deliberately. She imagines that she can hear his bones creaking like old wood and she laughs.

“You’re such an old man.”

He peers back at her over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised and a smirk tugging at his lips. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

He reaches over and flicks off the lamp on the crate that serves as a nightstand and they’re plunged into darkness. She can hear the mattress whine as he lowers himself all the way down and fidgets to get comfortable, sighing when he finds just the right position.

For a moment they lie in silence, side by side, their breathing falling in time. Once again there’s a respectful amount of space between them and once again she makes the first move, reaching out in the darkness, her hand searching blindly for his until her reaching fingers meet the fabric of a glove and she intertwines them. He stiffens beneath her touch, silence stretching taut between them before he breaks it.

“That’s…my bad hand. It won’t be comfortable.”

She waits for a moment, considering, before turning onto her side to face him. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

And he doesn’t. He tightens his grip, glad for the first time in a long time to have a hand to hold. His hand is hard in hers and she doesn’t say anything but before he turned the light out she could see the faintest metallic glint beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.

He sleeps fitfully beside her, tossing and tangling himself in the thin sheets well into the night. Anguished murmurs punctuate his unconscious panting, words too low and unintelligible to decipher. Occasionally she wakes, places a hand on his arm and listens to his labored mutters until his breathing evens again. In the faint glow of a streetlight that filters in through the curtain she can see the curve of his brow and how it furrows, deep lines of worry and despair working their way into his face when he dreams, and she watches until they disappear fading into nothingness when he stills and peace returns to him. She keeps her hand on him and after a while he stills, slipping into more restful sleep.

She wakes in the morning before the light has even had a chance to slant through the shuddered blinds. Her back is to him but she can hear his easy, whistling breath coming in the rhythm of sleep. She turns toward him, curling in until her face is only millimeters from his. He doesn’t stir. So she leans in closer, tucking a tendril of brown hair behind his ear so she can whisper into it.

“Kulala ngokujulile, ingcuka emhlophe.” The xhosa is familiar on her tongue as she chants the practiced words, low and soothing like a lullaby. He sighs, the shroud of sleep tightening around his well-conditioned brain.

She goes to work, sitting up on the edge of the bed, every movement silent and careful so as not to wake him. She brings her foot up onto the mattress, pulling off the bracelet that hangs snugly around her ankle, the magnetic force that holds it together responding to her ministrations. A small bead comes off the end, only a few millimeters in diameter, and then the bracelet goes around her wrist as she slips from the room.

In the hall she presses on the bead and it gives a mechanical click, collapsing and separating into a series of translucent, faintly iridescent disks. Thin. Nearly invisible. Absolutely untraceable. She presses a disk to the wall just outside his door, right above the baseboard, where it blends into the paint as though it had never even been there. Then she stretches up on her toes, using the door frame for leverage, as she pushes one into the wall where it meets the ceiling. A blue grid of light tracks down the wall as the disks sync before blinking out - armed. She continues.

She places disks in the kitchen and living room, presses them to the corners of the glass of the windows, each perfectly hidden and immediately functional. She’s quick, efficient and careful, mindful not to step on the sections of floor that she noticed prone to creak the night before and light on her bare feet.

It’s in the front hall, as she’s stretched up onto her toes again to place a disk near the ceiling that a metal fist goes flying past, mere inches from her face. She feels the rush of air as it rockets by and buries itself in the wall by her head in an explosion of dust and drywall. She throws herself away from it, reflexes rebounding quickly from the shock of being ambushed. Her back collides with the wall and he’s on her immediately, crowding her, the tight sleeve of his dri-fit shirt ripped away from his bionic arm. His human hand is on her shoulder, gripping like a vice and she could probably fight her way out of this, could probably get away alive, but she didn’t come here to fight.

There’s rage in his blue eyes, pure and unadulterated, nostrils flaring, his chest heaving with it. She ignores that, turning her head to look at the hole in the wall where he buried his arm up to the elbow yawning wide.

“You probably shouldn’t have done that.”

He practically growls, rage mounting at her flippant tone, at the audacity, and his metal hand flies to her neck, fingers clasping around her throat and shoving. Her head contacts the wall with a little too much force and probably leaves a dent in the drywall. Her vision swims, only for a moment, but she already feels annoyance rising in her spine when she touches back down again. She’s has to hold back.

“Who are you? Who do you work for?”

She can hear the rising panic in his voice, mingled with the anger and she knows it’s a dangerous combination. So she tries to calm him.

“Bucky-”

His brows knit together at the sound of his nickname, a name he never told her. He pulls her forward by her throat, bringing her face only millimeters from his and she can feel the heat radiating off of him before he shoves her back, her tall frame leaving an imprint in the wall with the force of it and it hurts this time. His grip tightens on her throat and he lifts, her whole body coming off the ground, feet flexing as her toes search for purchase on the floorboards where there is none.

“Who. Are. You.”

His hold on her is starting to hurt now and she raises her hands to the cool metal of his arm, for the first time alarm beginning to rise in the back of her constricted throat.

“Bucky, pleas-”

She chokes the words out, hisses them, all the while his hold tightens, the metal slats of his arm working together to constrict with every exhalation. Like some mechanical python, the pieces ratcheting to squeeze every last breath out of her as she speaks. Her eyes are going to roll back into her head, she can see darkness beginning to creep in around the edges of her vision but she forces herself to keep her gaze steady on him.

“I can’t…talk with your…hand around my throat.”

He releases her, her body dropping back to the ground, feet contacting the hardwood like coming home and she gulps lungfuls of sweet air. She almost wants to be sick. But she won’t.

He says a name, the one she had told him, the false one. He spits it back at her like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. She doesn’t blame him. So she straightens and tells him her real name, all pretense falling away, the syllables rolling off her tongue naturally, her accent thick as she crosses her arms over her chest in the Wakandan salute, right over left. He turns away from her, angry and relieved and unsure how to feel.

“I am a member of the Dora Milage,” she calls after him.

The pieces are falling into place in his head; he’s seen her before. The memory is sparse. Full of holes and whirling wildly with color and light but he remembers. He sees himself pinned to the ground in a Wakandan field, the tall grass waving around him like the sea. An outrider sits on his chest, three of its clawed hands grasping his arm, his bad arm. Its snarling maw leering in his face, rank breath washing over him. There’s pain from where the metal meets his skin, rending pain like being torn apart and he just knows he’s going to lose his arm again. But then there’s a flash of red and the alien chokes on a shriek as a spear pierces its thick hide. It tumbles off of him and he looks up to see his savior. A Wakandan warrior, nameless, nearly faceless but for a moment before she’s gone and he’s fighting again too.

He turns back to her as the memory falls away from him, eyes searching out her face and registering the familiar features. The roundness of her face, the fullness of her mouth. The braids are new but, then again, it has been months. Then anger pushes out his gratitude and she sees it passing over his face like a storm cloud, leaving gloom in its wake.

“What are you doing here?” His voice is low and tight and she knows better than to set him off again. He paces away from her as he speaks, anger bubbling up in his voice. “Who sent you? T’Challa?”

“Shuri.”

He turns at the name, remembering the girl, the princess. A scientist smarter and more capable than anyone he’d ever known. The woman who’d silenced the echoes of Hydra’s programming rattling around in his head.

“The princess. Why?”

“To check on you.”

He bristles, remembering the night spent laughing and the cold empty bed that followed.

“To spy on me!” He grabs her hand, raises it so they can both see the remainder of the disassembled bead, the disks fanned out in between her forefinger and thumb. “What are these?”

She looks down when he lets go, hand falling back to her side. Feels as though she’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“They’re bio metric scanners.”

He looks confused so she explains.

“They pick up vocal patterns, heart rate, brain waves. Body chemistry. To make sure-”

“That I’m in my right mind.” He glares at her from beneath a heavy brow, blue eyes full of hurt.

“They just test for triggers. To keep you safe!”

He scoffs. “And everyone else. Can’t have me killing another world leader can we?” He turns away, pushing past her to stalk out of the hallway and into the living room and she follows.

“I know you didn’t kill T’Chaka.” He stops in the middle of the room, some of the defensiveness leaving his posture. A good sign. “In any case, we both know how dangerous you could be in the event of a relapse.”

“Gotta keep me contained.” He keeps his back to her, hiding the hurt. Holding it compactly in his center.

“No.” She can’t help the frustration that’s beginning to color her tone; his refusal to trust her is expected, but no less disappointing. “The entire point - the only point - of this is to protect you!”

“Then why not just talk to me?”

“Shuri didn’t think you would like the idea of being surveilled, even for your own protection.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

She clasps her hands together to keep her temper at bay. “Well what were we supposed to do? We lost contact with you months ago! You left Wakanda before you had a chance to fully complete your rehabilitation.”

He sighs, tired of the arguing and the going in circles. He runs a hand over his face. Tries to calm himself down. There’s no use in fighting when help is being offered.  “You could’ve just said something last night.”

She moves into the room finally, coming to a stop beside him. “That wasn’t part of the mission.”

His mood dips again at the word ‘mission.’ It’s clinical, a dehumanizing distance to it and if there’s anything he hates, it’s feeling like an thing. A test subject. An objective. A mission.

“A what exactly is the mission?”

For a moment she debates whether or not she should tell him. But by now she’s well past the point of discretion so she does anyway.

“Confirm visual contact, infiltrate, place the bio metric scanners and confirm operation.”

He scowls. “So all of that small talk and the flirting was just a nice touch. You could’ve just climbed in through the window, done your business and left when I wasn’t home so why the act?”

For the second time she’s grateful that her deep complexion hides her self-conscious blush. She reaches out to him, her palm contacting the cool metal of his arm. “It wasn’t an act.”

He scoffs again, jerking away from her but she follows.

“I mean it.” She can see him building up a wall again - putting space between them again - distrust pushing her back beyond his defenses once more. “I saw you…In Wakanda. You were the first person I ever saw from the outside. Face to face. And even then it was indirect. I only caught glimpses of you. Only ever heard stories. And then we fought side by side against Thanos and I just –“

She stops herself, feeling too many things at once, wanting too badly to explain herself. Ashamed at having been reduced to a scrambling girl by a virtual stranger.

“Everyone at home knows the stories of the white wolf. I just wanted to meet you.”

“So I’m just another story for you to tell.”

“Bucky. I’ve never left Wakanda before. I didn’t just volunteer for this mission for a cheap story. I wanted to see the world.” She takes a chance, reaching out to cup his cheek, raising his head so that the shoulder length brown hair falls away from his face and he’s looking at her. “And I wanted to see you.”

He doesn’t pull away from her touch and she strokes his stubbled cheek with her thumb. He sighs, softening ever so slightly in her hand. She knows he doesn’t trust her but perhaps there are more important things to worry about.

“So I’m not fixed yet?” There’s no hiding the disappointment, thick in his tone, apparent on his face.

“You’re not broken.” She taps the tip of her index finger against his temple gently. “We just want to ensure that you’re the only one banging around in there.”

He drops himself onto the couch, all of the fight leaving him, defeat taking its place. It’s moments like this when he can feel just how long his life has been, can feel all 101 years clinging to his bones and he just wants to give up. He barely remembers his life before anymore, the fragments of it, just the good ones, hazy in his muddled brain like some childhood home that one barely recalls but remembers fondly. Romanticizes. It’s been so long since he’s lived without fear of Hydra’s conditioning knocking around in his head. He’d just begun to hope he could be free of it, hope that in Wakanda the last vestiges of the rusted machinery Hydra had implanted in his brain had been extracted with thorough care. But now… Now, who knows? From the corner of his eye  the shape of a hand can already be seen purpling around her throat and the sight terrifies him. He can almost feel the Winter Soldier breathing down his neck again, feel the invasive presence working its way back into the spokes and cogs and circuits of his metal arm. His fist clenches almost of its own accord.

She’s watching him and she can see the worry and despair festering behind his eyes. She reads them on his face as he thinks and blanches and grits his teeth; he’s warring within himself, fledgling optimism no match for years of crushing hopelessness. She hates herself for hurting him. Curses herself for not being more alert, for feeling the need to meet him and speak to him. To kiss him. It’s her fault. She’s managed to revive decades of fear and oppression - dumped all of his nearly forgotten problems at his feet - and now he’s drowning in them. The Bucky she drew out last night, the one who laughs and kisses like he’s been waiting for years, is losing the battle to the Bucky who hides and locks himself away behind stone and she doesn’t know if she can shift the tide.

She kneels between his knees and takes his face in her hands. “Look at me.” She says it with a lot more authority than she feels but he complies, anguished eyes meeting hers through the fray of conflicting emotions. “You’re not a prisoner anymore; this body is yours. This,” she takes his clenched bionic hand in both of hers, “is yours. No one owns you. Not anymore.”

Eyes shut. His metal fist unfurls, just a bit, and he can breathe again. A deep intake of air and when he lets it out he exhales a demon, one of many.

“You’re going to be who you want to be again, white wolf.”

When he opens his eyes, when those blue eyes meet hers, he looks like he wants to believe her. And it’s enough.

She doesn’t know what she’ll do when it’s time to go back to Wakanda. She doesn’t know how she’ll explain away her stupid fumbling of the mission objectives, but she knows she wants to help him. There’s still hurt in his eyes - pain at having been lied to and she can still feel the suspicion radiating off of him. She’s painfully aware of the space her actions has put between them - so many steps taken back in this new friendship - and she doesn’t know if she can bridge the gap this time.

But she’ll try.

I honestly put the Xhosa in google translate and looked at a live dictionary. I tried my best. It’s supposed to say “sleep deeply, white wolf.” Feedback is beyond welcome.

[easilyaddictedin123]

Clashing of Wilds and Blood

Once again a huge thanks to @holy-minseok for the encouraging words, your my motivation!

This can also be read on AO3 : http://archiveofourown.org/works/11465187/chapters/25705545

PT1: https://easilyaddictedin123.tumblr.com/post/162841562811/clashing-of-wilds-and-blood

PT2: https://easilyaddictedin123.tumblr.com/post/162902440496/clashing-of-wilds-and-blood

PT4:  https://easilyaddictedin123.tumblr.com/post/163344208916/clashing-of-blood-and-wilds

PT3 (Pride)

“So this fire has blue flames, does it not?” -Maude glanced back as you sighed , you’d been dreading this exact moment- “Need I remind you that it wasn’t just you that was burned the last time you played with this fire.”

“You do not, I was there Maude, I remember what my father did to him.” you hissed back at the woman in the calmest tone you could muster.

It had been heart wrenching, you’d slipped away in some of the nights before Aelle was actually keeping a look on you and in turn you’d met Joseph, he was a stable boy, poor, and beautiful. His hair like fire and eyes the color of the forest leaves, freckles on his nose and when he smiled he had dimples. He’d been so kind, so loving, and gentle. He didn’t deserve his fate that when Aelle discovered you’d taken him to bed, the loft in the barn had never been so devastating than on that night. You’d been dragged down by your hair with a mere shift on, by your ‘father’, he’d paraded you in front of his men speaking on if you were going to act like a whore he might sell you out like one. The threat had been empty but what wasn’t was the moment Alfred had been dragged down too.

Your maiden honor had been stripped from you by a man who wasn’t your husband, worse by someone that King Aelle couldn’t coerce into marrying you for their allegiance, and to keep the kingdom from knowing “their princess is a wench” Joseph was put to death in the courtyard while kneeling on muddy ground with your screaming to hail him into his death. He didn’t cry out to you, he didn’t beg, simply let himself be thrown about and his head taken from his shoulders all on account of loving a foolish girl. You weren’t that girl anymore. The fire had burned your fingertips but consumed poor Joseph and you didn’t want that upon another person, Northman or no. You’d long learned your lesson.

“A hard lesson but you need to remember it, you tread on thin ice Little Lamb and I only hope that you do not stand as it crumbles beneath you.” Maude always meant well but you couldn’t help but wondering if she saved all her allegories just for when you were enjoying yourself or was that her natural state of being?

“I walk on no ice, there’s nothing between he and I in that way. He just wants to learn about the Sins and who knows maybe I can convert him?” It was a thin and measly lie but she didn’t call you upon it.

Time had fallen upon evening feast while you spoke and she picked a different dress not covered in dirt and dust and gravy to keep you meeting King Ragnar’s son. Say what she will on keeping secrets from your betters and peers but there was a curious part on how carefully constructed Maude could make lies when protecting you. How did she know what dresses to use perfectly to cover your arm’s bruise? How did she know to get dust off the back of your neck and hair before you even noticed it was there? Your mother had only been in her affair with King Aelle for a few months before leaving and the handing you up to him. Was it in any way considerable that she learned all this from a few months of passion between two people?

It didn’t matter to you once she yanked upon your hair, “Are you even listening?”, a sheepish grin crossed your features as you began to fiddle with the red dress’ sleeve. “Och, of course not. I said that Aethelwulf won’t buy you going to the kitchen the whole day. Say you spent half the day there then came here for stitching.”

Before you could even protest that there was nothing to show that you had been stitching she took a finger and with a needle pricked you, the sharpness and sudden hurt made you yelp like a child, then she handed you a plain white stitching already halfway done. Taking a moment to work on it the blood had seeped into the fabric to mimic an accident then she bandaged the finger.

“I’ve seen desire kill one of my charges, I’ll not see it get you beaten.” Her thumb brushed tenderly over the cut on your bottom lip, “Now, time for you to sup with your kin.”

It hadn’t taken long to get to the feast hall, the table already filled with more food than the four of you could possibly eat with an irked Alfred. You sat next to him with your ever present mischievous smile that now caused your lip to throb, Alfred’s irritation melted into slight concern but you simply ruffled his hair in play, turning to the feast you clasped your hands together in prayer. It was a short thanks to God for his generosity to your family’s feast and you were all too happy about that because not a second later your stomach released a rather unladylike growl.

Judith laughed lightly at it and as always Aethelwulf glared despite your redeeming table manners, “ How was your day, I didn’t see you after this morning.” The pathetic excuse for politeness used as interrogation of your whereabouts.

“I went to the kitchens, Lily always has some sweets set aside for me.” Judith chuckled at you.

“Those dresses won’t grow with you dear sister.” You gaped at the woman, she was Ecbert’s lover but Aethelwulf was still her husband and not too forgiving of her antics.

“My dear sweet sister don’t you know I pray upon my knees for not a single gain of weight.” The innuendo not lost on her as she chuckled and shook her head, “After the kitchen I went to stitching with Maude, pricked myself something painful to and messed up the fabric.”

You displayed the finger that had the slightest red tinge to assist in the smooth lie, Maude was your life saver. Super passed in relative ease, as much as was expected at least, and upon Alfred walking with you down the halls you were ready for the demands.

“You promised I could go with you.” He sounded more hurt than angry, “You got hit for it, didn’t you? And don’t lie telling me you just ran into something.”

“Oh, Alfred you are too clever for your age.” You ruffled his hair much to his pinched face of displeasure, “I’m sorry that I can’t take you to see the Northmen, we’ll just have to wait until your grandfather gets here. He’ll let you meet them no doubt.”

The answer soothed him as he walked you to your room. The four walls were cold despite the bed and fire, the room bare but filled with ornaments and tapestries hanging on the walls. You just sighed and shrugged out of the clothes, unbecoming of you to sleep in nothing you pulled a sheer nightgown on and slid in bed, intent on dreaming away the occasional throb in your lip and even the bright blue eyes inquisitively looking at you.  The rise of sleep cascading gently down on you made you sigh in gratefulness, nothingness and quiet cradling while you willingly fell into the dark of it.

You expected to not dream, you hadn’t since you were a child after all, not the sound of waves lapping against the grainy sand under your bare feet. The breeze  was dancing through your hair, tossing whichever way it pleased, while the sun was warm but the chill pressed you upon the ground of having goosebumps yet not needing a cloak. The air was crisp feeling your lungs and birds sang while there were creaks of boats somewhere with the laughter of children. You couldn’t see them. You could see the bank and the farm and trees rising with the cliffs. All of it familiar and not at all.

A child ran by, a girl with blonde hair, that grabbed your hand and tugged you into a run; she was small to be so strong while she pulled this way and that. You were passing the farm and going into the trees where it was dark and soft greens played against vibrant browns.

“Where are we going?” Your voice sounded far off and seemed to echo but the girl only giggled you hadn’t noticed she’d already let go of you as your feet carried after her in curiosity.

She spoke in some language all the while twirling about with you desperately trying to keep up and almost falling off the cliff if you hadn’t looked down. It was a sharp drop into water far below but she hovered above it looking at you expectantly and waved you to come over. You shook your head and instead of running off like you’d expected her to do she simply sat on nothing looking content to wait.

The dream didn’t shatter or fall from under your feet instead you just sat up with the odd sensation of wanting to run. Not in fear but just to run. To feel the muddy sand under your feet or taste the cool air despite it being summer. You shook loose the thoughts and lingering sensations to be met with a cool room and a purple dress. You slid it on over egear at the idea of teaching Ragnar’s son about sin. It was better than spending the day in the castle with a heinous, temperamental, self entitled-

“I hope you’re not talking about yourself.” Maude’s crooning voice sounded from the door as you struggled with your back lacings, “You’re up rather early, my lady.”

“Of course; I’m off to see Nobody.” You grinned at the name, if lying was a sin then you wouldn’t lie.

Nobody was what Odysseus had called himself to keep the cyclops Polyphemus from calling to his comrades. Seeing as how you didn’t know his name then your new student would be called Nobody until he got exasperated enough to actually tell you his name. He was being smug because he didn’t know how impatiently patient you could be, a contradictory of course but if you could get under his skin just enough to antagonize him it might force him into telling you.

The guards were asleep on their feet as you had two apples, one balancing in the grip of your teeth and a wine skin of water courtesy of Maude, and slid by them with ease thankful that your antics had made you quiet. You had learned your lesson by getting too close to Nobody in attempt to wake him up, instead you made loud clacking to sound that you were in the room. He didn’t sit up but one eye did open, seemingly uncaring of your being there.

“Good morning, I’ve got you an apple and then we can get to talking about Sins.” You had to admit to the excited sensation and impatience in your chest.

He groaned and rolled onto his side, away from you while you jutted your hip out, “Or I could take my breakfast and just let you beat your head against the wall in frustrated loneliness.”

You could feel him roll his eyes before turning back to you, “And why do you think I am lonely?”

“Because you asked me yesterday to come back and talk about Sin. You could have easily dismissed me.” A sly grin slid across your face at his scowl, “So Nobody-”

“Why Nobody? I do have a name?” Ivar partly growled and huffed.

“Do you? If you tell me I’ll call you by it.” At that he huffed out a laugh and you smiled.

It was a small sound but still pleasing to the ear while he shifted about to let you sit by him and give him the apple that was bitten into with a loud ‘crunch’ to echo of the walls. Odd that they didn’t seem as cold as your room’s had.

“You said sins, more than one?” You nodded thinking of which one to speak of first.

“Seven and we’ll talk about Pride today. Pride is to think of yourself high than others, and to -”

“But you are higher than others, if you are higher.” He didn’t let you finish, “How can you not have pride in what you do or how it defines you from the rest of people?”

“That’s why it’s a sin, you should be humble in getting recognition.” He raised an eyebrow, “Do you not know what humble is?”

“I’m not an idiot, woman, I know what humble is.” He snarled out at what he took as an insult, “It seems foolish not to want to take claim on what you’ve rightfully done. If you are not proud of your death or what you have done in life how do you know what your accomplishments are worth?”

“That’s the thing though, your accomplishments of good are weighed against those actions of evil like stealing from others.” You watched him mull about in his mind, blue eyes drifting off on their focus.

“If you’ve conquered and take what is yours though by right is that considered your evil?” Ivar sounded amused at the look on your face, “After all whatever you conquer now becomes yours does it not? Taking lands from those who had it before you like your kings would do in war. Is that not evil?”

“Well, yes but”-

“Then are you all not guilty if you have taken the land that you stand on. Even you? After all this belonged to someone else and now you claim it as home and hearth.” He grinned leaning back and taking another bite of the apple, it’s juice running down his chin.

It was your brief thought to lean forwards and...no that’s not a good place to go, “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Though you can be forgiven by God for any sin.”

“You conquered this land, no? It had its own people, its own Gods but yours came and took it. You put up odd houses with your bells and take pride in that you are ‘spreading’ the word of your God. Is that not taking pride in a sin you committed of taking land, or accomplishing that you took what was theirs?” You eyebrows scrunched together in thought.

“I think I liked you better when I had to guess your name.” He laughed and you thought it was peculiar to be captivated by such a simple sound, higher than you thought it’d be, and though it took pleasure out of mocking you perhaps it wasn’t so bad.

“Then shall you guess again? Or am I to turn your words upon yourself.” Ivar’s eyes were slow in taking you in, under the words you might have had to clear the lack of anything in your throat.

Ivar was certain he’d been in here far too long despite how short of a time it might be. He was able to admit to a small degree that he was going to enjoy turning things on yourself but he hadn’t expected to enjoy it so much. Nor expect to enjoy the pale morning light shining into his dark hole that made all the brighter by your being here. Not the sweetness of an offered apple that he took from your hands. He could smell lavender lingering on your skin and wondered how close you’d let him if he moved a little. Ivar could easily blame it upon you being the only one to even dare to look in here.

“You are odd.” You tilted your head at that, “You see my legs but yet you don’t stare or laugh at it.”

“Well you are a North-”

“Viking. The word is Viking.” He offered, tired of the Northman title.

“Viking. Well you are a Viking and it wouldn’t be in best interest to make you want to throttle me. Besides they’re just legs. I’ve seen worse.” He scoffed.

“I’m serious. I’ve seen a man with no eye. And a woman without either of her legs. At least you still have yours.” You teased, “You can still feel can’t you?”

Ivar shifted now uncomfortable, “I think I liked you better when you were guessing my name.”

He parroted back and you blushed but nodded agreeing on talking of different things and of Pride. It was to a point infuriating and worse still? Some things that he said made sense, some tales of his Gods made sense and you couldn’t help but find similarities between the two.

“Do you have any brothers” at the question he groaned, you snickered, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“They’re all a pain.” Laughter came easy around him, bruises lessened and rooms became warmer.

“Do you play games, besides weapons I mean?” Ivar enjoyed your eagerness in your questioning.

“Do you besides your stitching?” He cocked his head and you grinned.

“I play chess, I’m rather good at it.” You boasted proudly, him smirking at how you’d just sinned on your own without thought.

“Think you so? I could beat you.” Ivar took amusement and the snort that escaped you.

“You could try. In any case I suppose I should at least bring the board here to prove myself.” You stood up rather excitedly and walked to the door.

“Woman.” You turned before opening it, “Did you not sin of pride at how good you are at chess?”

The thought washed over you and for once in his company you felt heat on your face. You looked down thinking over something to say before the tale of your mother came to mind.

“God forgives all.” and with that you left for the chance at beating him in chess.

Ivar watched you leave, the dress trailing behind you as it flowed, there was something to the way your h/c locks shifted through the movements it must be soft. He found a small part of him thankful that you’d not been caught or perhaps you lied well enough that you wouldn’t be beaten again. He begrudgingly admitted to himself what he’d never do allowed, your company both soothed and infuriated him. The ringing laughter was agreeable to his silence that paraded in the room leaving him to thoughts. The wide eyes of fascination about the simplest of things, the soft sounds of interest. Those were deadly to the ears, the hum of questioning or the rolling ‘ah’ of understanding.

There was no denying the beauty that graced you but it was difficult to fully grasp at the fact that you were enraptured by his world as he was with the way you lived as yourself. Suffocating in your own home, bursting at the seams for a small filter of fresh air into your dank life and how silent you could be slipping in and out of shadows. The soft hands that had seen nothing but needlework, could they ever threaten a weapon? You walked back in with a smile and a checkerboard willing to play a game.

The game was slow, planned, a challenge, the soft ‘tak’ of moving pieces made you grin, “I’m going to win dear Nobody.”

“That so?” He put you in check to which you bite your lower lips, something about the movement was appealing.

“Your pride will be your downfall.” Moving out of check forced him into checkmate, “I won.” He scoffed but had a grin on his face.

“Tell me more of your home, this Kattegat.”

“It’s a trading post with boats coming in and docking. The flourishing is made by wares and the Longhouse where the thrones sit are filled with the slaves going back and forth for anything you could ask. Not unlike your servant woman.”

“Maude, she’s my keeper or at least that’s what she keeps trying to imprint in my head.” You chuckled, “All the while she is torn of encouraging me or scolding me and I don’t understand her half the time with her speaking in riddles.”

“I know someone that she might be like, save that he’s a little more...more.” You couldn’t help the snicker nor notice Maude leaving wine in the room as you fetched it for the two of you.

Wine was a wonder of the world, the way it made your mind hazy the ease it cause and the lack of control it helped spin. Such a drink helped to the moment where you were curiously looking over Nobody’s hands. They’d ended in your lap as you pressed against the rough skin, feeling the callouses under your fingertips.

“They’re rough. Rougher than a soldier's I’ve touched those before, why?” You questioned turning his hands and looking at the small scars and tracing lines.

“They’re the hands of a sinner.” He chided carefully and you chuffed at the thought, you had sin on your own hands and yet they were not as rough nor were the men’s hands in the castle, “I go to the smiths, the buckles aren’t kind either.”

The smile was soft and gentle that played over your lips. When had you gotten this close? He wasn’t sure and found it humorous that you were holding and inquiring over the hands that could strangle you with ease, these hands that would be dripping in red with your kinsmen from a raid. What would you think of them then? Would you run and hide from him? You weren’t like the shield-maidens of his home, no your hands were more like a royals. Small, smooth, dainty.

These hands could never kill, "Yours are soft, what do they do?” “Perhaps they sin too, more gently than yours but sin is still sin.” You looked up shyly from under your eyelashes at him- “They’re pricked by needles.” -his finger pressed gently on the wrapped pointer finger.

“They sneak around on walls no doubt, and play chess. But they couldn’t hold an axe or shield.” He now examined your hands just as intently, tracing the lines on your palm with callouses dragging against the skin.

“No, but maybe one day a bow?” Ivar shook his head, blue eyes like the sky after a storm flickered up to you there was something there, something vibrant and fierce in them made you pull your hand back.

‘Too close to the fire and it will burn, too close.’ You cleared your throat resting your hands back on your lap.

“You said there were seven.” You raised an eyebrow, “Sins.”

“Yes. We’ll speak of Gluttony tomorrow, won’t we?” Why had your voice gone so hoarse?

“Another game too.” The noncommittal hum from your mouth had you already trying to plan the next day and talks of Gluttony.

Even then you were hoping there was a way around warming your hands against the fire that was burning hot enough to be blue in it’s hue. Burning like his eyes. Burning.

‘Would it be so bad to be burned?’

[averyxadeline]

-UNDER CONSTRUCTION UNDER CONSTRUCTION

PLEASE BE KIND PLEASE BE KIND-

There is debris in the young girl’s eyes, or perhaps she is no longer a young girl. Its been a while. She wakes up with the sourness of sawdust in her mouth and enjoys her coffee with a touch of graininess. Her dreams alternate between a good one, and then a bad one, depending on what God’s feeling like tonight, but the sound of drilling is a constant. But amidst the rubble, there is a quiet contentment that sits upon the back of the bee-like busyness that reverberates across 4ams. The signboards have been up for a while now; she’s glad people haven’t noticed them in the forms of “I’m sorry I’m busy over the weekend!” or “I need to make a move first!”. They’re not bad things or times, she simply wishes to go home earlier to talk to the stars that night. She’s learned to celebrate them as an equal to the day and acknowledge that her working hours are also lovingly distributed into them. It’s been a while since writing hasn’t been a place of pain.

So I don’t quite know what I’m building in this aftermath.

I know it’s foundation, I barely have a blueprint but I know a little bit more about what love means. I know the firm foundation of the Maker’s love that’s consistently cradled my falls with its concrete. I know how things bruise and what scratches I need to hide with hung-up picture frames and I know the good faces, and the bad ones, that deserve a rightful place in them. I always tell people, in the aftermath of calamity, the most lasting mark is erasure, it’s whiteness is destructively felt as a returning eternity. It’s the most violent and yet deceivingly gratifying thing to do in the short-run, so I’m glad I chose to swallow all the pain at once and remember instead. One day I’ll tell my children that you don’t get to edit the past, you may thank it until you’re tired and then pat it on the back when it surfaces 2 months later. 20 years from now, when the dog wakes me up, I will get up and tell them over breakfast that I dreamt of You and I will thank You for being proof of their mother’s history that preceded them the way that they exceed me now. It’s a visual eternity that sits at the back of our heads until one day you forget the name of the bar you laughed with them at or the punchline of the joke that was always repeated in their presence. Snippets and snippets and snippets. Bricks and bricks and bricks. My old house got demolished and it taught me that homelessness will not predicate a poverty mindset forever unless you get accustomed to the dust in your nose. I’m also grateful that in this entire experience, I’ve not had to beg. I’ve been fed and nourished warmly by the soup of loving friends and family, some living in hermit-shells and others in mansions, but thankfully all in the same neighborhood. I would apologize for getting dust on your shoes but I know you’ll tell me not to and I’ll smile weakly and you’ll smile knowingly and pat me on the back. This pat, this lovely kiss of a gesture, has manifested in memes sent, photo booth pictures, long voice-messages with memory verses and making sure that I don’t have to visit museums alone. Please know that I’m grateful. But I’m terribly sorry for getting dust on y–

Okay, I’m inviting all of you in faith to a house that has not been built yet! Thank you for clapping when I laid out the foundation. I still stamp on it fortnightly not to test if it’ll falter, but because sometimes it’s nice to know that even if you haven’t got a roof yet, at least you’ve got the floor. I will build my life upon your love, it is a firm foundation. And I will put my trust in you alone and I will not be shaken. On every bad day that I’ve woken up to, I thank God for concrete and I take my shoes off in church. So at least the vertigo stopped. At least I get a good view of the stars which I wouldn’t appreciate if certain seasons didn’t require the ripping-off of roofs. One cloudy night when I was crying by the poolside, I felt God say, “My goodness is like the stars above; you know two things, that they’re there, and in an abundance that you can’t see or comprehend.” Ever since then, I’ve been counting stars, especially wherever I don’t see them. For that, I’m in no rush for a roof.

Morning comes and with new mercies, I really really lust for sunlight. Once, recently, I woke up from a dream so surreal that it happily merged itself with my real bedroom and it’s been hard for me to get up on the wrong side ever since. In it, I saw my own toes peek out from under the covers intertwined with someone else’s. Upon them, an enormous blast of orange sunlight flooded upon them so intensely that my toes felt heavier all morning. There was something about the sunlight banishing the mesh of our entire beings under the covers and summoning our ugly little toes to a begrudging new day. This is what I want. To wake up to orange sunlight and its illuminating game of footsie. I went to a museum with friends recently and for an interactive time capsule, they asked us to write down what we want for our futures. I don’t blame or condescend upon my friends for specifying the relationship, career or family they desired, we all have a picture of what that looks like and one day, I too intend to frame it up. But for now, I wrote, “Late mornings, photo frames, love, orange sunlight, ugly toes, and wide wide windows.”

If your windows are wide enough, you don’t quite need to worry about which door opens and which one closes. In this season of my life, kindness to oneself looks a lot like wide wide windows. I am constantly trying to welcome abundance; to crack a window when things get too much and remind myself that I still deserve to breathe even when the door is jammed. It also ensures that plenty of sunlight pours in to water the baby shoots that deserve new beginnings. In the confidence of its orangeness, any spirit of trepidation or fear dissipates with the new day. I made a vow to myself that I would water myself with the right things and voices. You cannot immediately recover from your own state of melancholy but it is more so your responsibility than anyone else’s to place yourself in environments that are conducive to healing. Indeed, recovery is a privilege but to embark on a journey towards healing is a choice. So on a daily basis, I choose to surround myself with people that provided safe and fragrant dwellings, I sieve through prophetic patternistic “maybes” that the world likes to impose upon us, and I look out for the voices of alternative hope that teach me how repetition can teach rather than enslave me. And above all, I choose to believe that love remains a selfless entity that is strengthened in me through the departure of loved objects that have found their own existences apart from me. Only in the abundance of sunlight do I have the strength to declare, “Amo: Volo ut sis! I love you so I want you to be!“, I want you to experience a beautiful day without it having to be my beautiful day! Please continue, I do not need to own your desire, don’t worry about me, I will survive, please enjoy. It is only in the dark that we grapple and grasp and attempt to possess because we do not have the dexterity to wait for the new morning that has never failed us before. So enjoy your morning, but sometimes I miss your toes.

The drilling is getting a bit louder, especially between the hours of 4-6am. Please excuse me while I quietly attempt to build a civilization without a blueprint. The dog has woken and the new dawn shall break soon. I’m running out of words, the bricks are getting few and there’s some dust in my eyes. Perhaps I fear my own solitude against the orangeness that should invade us in about an hour. But for all that’s been said, if you’re reading this, thank you for sorting through my rubble of words with me. It’s been a while since I’ve dared to come back here but I’ve decided against homelessness. Thank you for the pat on the back and the housewarming. Thank you for teaching me that I do not need to be completed to be congratulated.

I don’t know how long this construction will last, maybe forever, but thank God for wide windows and thank you for your kindness.

Under Construction Please Be Kind -UNDER CONSTRUCTION UNDER CONSTRUCTION PLEASE BE KIND PLEASE BE KIND- There is debris in the young girl's eyes, or perhaps she is no longer a young girl.

[seekfirstme]

The following reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager © 2019. Don's website is located at Dailyscripture.ServantsOfTheWord.org

Meditation: Are you ever driven by anger, rage, or revenge? The first person to hate his brother was Cain, the son of Adam and Eve. God warned Cain: Why are you angry? ..Sin is couching at the door; it's desire is for you, but you must master it (Genesis 4:6-7). Sin doesn't just happen to us - it first grows as a tiny seed in our heart. Unless it is uprooted by God's grace, it grows like a weed and chokes the vine and all its fruit.

Forbidden anger must be uprooted from our heart

Jesus addressed the issue of keeping the commandments with his disciples. The scribes and Pharisees equated righteousness with satisfying the outward observance of the law. Jesus showed them how short they had come. Jesus points to the heart as the seat of desire and choice. Unless evil and forbidden desires are eradicated, the heart will be corrupted. Jesus points to forbidden anger with one's brother. This is a selfish anger that broods and is long-lived, that nurses a grudge and keeps wrath warm, and that refuses to die. Harboring anger in the heart as well as anger in speech and action are equally forbidden by God.

God's love and truth sets us free from anger and malice

What is the antidote to anger and rage? Mercy, kindness, and forbearance spring from a heart full of love and forgiveness. God has forgiven us and he calls us to extend mercy and forgiveness towards those who cause us grief and harm. In the cross of Jesus we see the supreme example of love and forgiveness and the power of goodness for overcoming evil. Only God's love and grace can set our hearts and minds free from the tyranny of wounded pride and spiteful revenge.

Do you harbor any anger towards another person? And are you quick to be reconciled when a rupture has been caused in your relationships? Ask God to set you free and to fill your heart and mind with his love and goodness. Paul the Apostle reminds us that "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us" (Romans 5:5). Through the grace and help of the Holy Spirit we can overcome malice with good, hatred with kindness, and injury with pardon.

"May I be no man's enemy, and may I be the friend of that which is eternal and abides. May I never quarrel with those nearest me: and if I do, may I be reconciled quickly. May I love, seek, and attain only that which is good. May I wish for all men's happiness and envy none. May I never rejoice in the ill-fortune of one who has wronged me. When I have done or said what is wrong, may I never wait for the rebuke of others, but always rebuke myself until I make amends. May I win no victory that harms either me or my opponent. May I reconcile friends who are angry with one another. May I never fail a friend who is in danger. When visiting those in grief may I be able by gentle and healing words to soften their pain. May I respect myself. May I always keep tame that which rages within me. May I accustom myself to be gentle, and never be angry with people because of circumstances. May I never discuss who is wicked and what wicked things he has done, but know good men and follow in their footsteps."  (Prayer of Eusebius, 3rd century)

The following reflection is from One Bread, One Body courtesy of Presentation Ministries © 2019.

THE SPIRIT UNVEILS THE WORD

  "But whenever he turns to the Lord, the veil will be removed." —2 Corinthians 3:16  

At the age of twenty-one, I was blessed to take part in a Life in the Spirit seminar. During the fifth week, the team members laid hands on me to be baptized in the Holy Spirit (see Acts 8:17; 19:5-6). I had been reading the Bible every day for some time. The next day, I picked up my Bible for my daily Bible study. When I began reading the Scripture, the Word of God came alive in a new way. It was as though I could smell the dust on the road and hear the apostles speaking. It was like watching a grainy black and white movie and suddenly the movie was in crisp, glorious color. The Spirit had removed the veil that was obscuring my understanding. The Bible suddenly made sense. Many decades later, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are still opening my eyes to the understanding of the Scriptures (see Lk 24:32, 45). All praise be to God!

We have just experienced the feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Turn to the Lord (2 Cor 3:16) and beg for a new Pentecost, a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Rm 5:5). When we turn to the Lord, that is, the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17), the veil is removed (2 Cor 3:16, 18). The Holy Spirit is the Author of the Bible. We can always understand a book more clearly if we can sit with the author and ask what he or she meant when writing their work. How much more can we understand the Word of God with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit! Ask for the Holy Spirit (Lk 11:13).

  Prayer: Father, how merciful You are to allow me to serve You, the omnipotent and almighty One. Renew me in Your love. Promise: "Near indeed is His salvation to those who fear Him, glory dwelling in our land." —Ps 85:10 Praise: St. Anthony's life changed when the bodies of five Franciscan martyrs were returned from Morocco to his native Portugal. Though never martyred, he poured out his life for Christ.   (This teaching was submitted by a member of our editorial team.)  

  Rescript: In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") for One Bread, One Body covering the period from June 1, 2019 through July 31, 2019.

†Most Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Auxiliary Bishop, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, October 24, 2018.  

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements