#the imagery of God reaching his fucking arm through the skys just to push you down goes HARD

[xxdarkxmoth17xx]

The clouds will part and the sky cracks open And God himself will reach his fucking arm through Just to push you down, just to hold you down Stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss And it's hard to believe it could come down to this Back at the beginning Sinking, spinning

Trent Reznor, The Fragile, 1999

[wolf-and-bard]

For short Geraskier prompts, how about the first time they hold hands? Canon verse please?

Thanks again for the prompt! 😊💕 This isn't conventional hand-holding, but I hope it works anyway.

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Here's To The Next Bridge (1021 words, rated T)

„I am not crossing that bridge,“ Jaskier says and stamps his foot down, whirling up dust and pebbles that clatter into the depths. He’s standing at one side of a gaping chasm with crooked teeth for edges and nothing but a rickety rope bridge running across it, the only one for miles and miles. Roach is already tethered to a tree on the other side, munching happily on some grass and wildflowers. She doesn’t mind the wait, contrary to her owner who’s currently seething as he prowls back across. Jaskier would have watched him �� damnably attractive even in his fury – but his gaze is drawn by the bouncing construction and his ears hear every creak of the planks under Geralt’s feet thrice amplified. He comes to a halt just before Jaskier, glowering down his noise. Intimidating. Distracting. Beautiful.

„Jaskier,“ Geralt growls, his base rumbling, teetering toward exasperation and Jaskier understands of course. It’s a hot as balls day and they’ve travelled the entire morning under a relentless sun. They’re both at the edge of their patience and Geralt said he could hear running water somewhere on the other side of the chasm. There are some trees there too, offering gracious spots of shade, but that’s simply not enough of an incentive. That bridge looks worse than a safety hazard, it looks like certain death. And Jaskier is absolutely not crossing it. “Come along, it’s perfectly safe.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can.”

“Absolutely not.”

„Take my hand,“ Geralt says, inclining his head and holding out said hand. No gloves in this heat, no reins to hold. Just his hand, tanned and whittled by scars and swords, and alluring and strong and… well. Jaskier couldn’t possibly. He would just about melt into a puddle, on the spot. “Take my hand or so the gods help me, I will leave you here to die of thirst or trail all the way back to the nearest settlement.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jaskier gasps and presses his palm over his chest in mock outrage. Geralt rolls his eyes. They both know he wouldn’t. The most likely outcome of Jaskier not taking Geralt’s hand is that Geralt will squat down and haul him up, then carry him across. Which wouldn’t be at all good for his poor lute. The instrument might get squashed.

That is the only reason Jaskier reaches out and tentatively takes Geralt’s hand. Contrary to his expectations, Geralt’s grip is not crushing. He entwines his fingers with Jaskier’s, firm and reassuring and warm and somehow not at all sweaty. Jaskier gulps heavily. He just has to make it across that bridge.

“You go first,” he mumbles and lets himself be pulled along. It’ll be fine, yes. Geralt will take care of him. Besides, if Roach made it across with Geralt on her back, then nothing can possibly happen. Right.

Geralt steps onto the bridge and the first plank gives a terrible wheeze under his heavy boot. Jaskier winces. His feet remain rooted to the spot and now he’s the one gripping hard. He’s never felt so small and stupid before, but he can’t step onto that bridge and he can’t cope with holding Geralt’s hand and he just wants to be on the other side already.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, a dangerous edge to his tone. He glances back at Jaskier and his eyes burn. Fuck. And again, it’s not like Jaskier doesn’t understand, it’s been a terrible slog getting here.

“I can’t, Geralt, I’m sorry.”

Something must have shone through in Jaskier’s voice because the fire flickers, then extinguishes and Geralt’s features soften, annoyance replaced by the flat furrows of concern. He squeezes Jaskier’s clawing hand and holds out his other. Jaskier takes it immediately so that they are face to face now, Geralt’s back towards the chasm.

“Just look at me, alright?”

Jaskier nods, trying to keep his breath even. His eyes latch onto Geralt’s as all the imagery he’s made up for them over the years gracefully pops into his head, and he follows each of Geralt’s slow steps with one of his own. Geralt squeezes his hands again, thumbs rubbing soothing circles over Jaskier’s skin.

He loses himself in Geralt’s eyes, in the words in his head - swirls of sunflower petals, honeyed wine, buttercups and dandelions dancing in a field arm in arm, polished coin, well-aged cheese, the sky when the world is about to sunder, a boastful canary’s feathers, the sun just blotting out over the horizon – in the feel of Geralt’s hands and the sound of his own heart, pounding out a dancing tune.

Geralt guides him, one step after the other, and he’s so steady that Jaskier can’t help but feel safe.

“You’re doing great, Jask,” Geralt says. “Very good. Just keep looking at me.”

Jaskier does. It’s almost hypnotic in a way and his stomach flutters as Geralt gives him a small, crooked smile.

Halfway across the bridge, Jaskier’s foot catches on a gap between planks and he shrieks, stumbles half a step, but Geralt’s grip keeps him up and he lets Jaskier press his face against his forearm for a steadying breath.

“You’re okay, Jask. Listen to me, we can do this.”

We.

Not you.

We.

Right.

Jaskier straightens himself and just about manages not to start hyperventilating. Their eyes meet. They exchange a small nod. And on they go, crossing the remainder of the bridge without another incident.

“There you are,” Geralt says quietly once they are on solid ground again, still holding both of Jaskier’s hands.

“There I am,” Jaskier echoes, struck dumb. Then he remembers where they are and who he is and whose hands he is holding and he lets go, dusting himself off under a cacophony of awkward coughs. “Right. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Geralt’s chuckle is mockery and affection, and Jaskier makes for Roach, trying to hide his blush. A part of him considers acting like he forgot something on the other side. But that feels like pushing his luck, even if holding Geralt’s hands again would be worth the sheer terror of crossing that chasm. Here’s to the next bridge.

[tloujm]

Part III: Birthday Surprise

Author’s Notes: The plot and setting may look familiar to you guys in this. I mixed Abby’s trip with Owen with Joel’s trip with Ellie. While I could have made the museum romantic, I figured the Aquarium was more so. Also, this takes place several months after the 2nd chapter. To help imagery, it is late Autumn/fall. It’s cold and flurries of snow fall but not a full fledged winter yet.

Genre: Fluff

Summary: It’s your birthday and Joel has a surprise for you. Despite being distant with him, you decide to go along and feed into your feelings for him. If you were waiting for cute, romantic Joel, this is it. This is the beginning.

Ship: Joel x Reader

Joel has loved you since he made the choice to leave the hospital with you in his arms. That was when he admitted it to himself at least. He constantly tried doing little things to make you feel better, especially after having a fight. Sometimes, that just meant giving you space. He held on tight to the moments he got to have with you that did not involve you bringing up the incident. In those moments, he caught a glimpse of what life could be like with you and he had a strong desire for that. All he wanted to do was protect you and forget about the Fireflies. 

The day before your birthday, you responded to a knock on your door only to find a wood carved version of your horse with a note attached sitting on the ground. You could tell it was from Joel by his handwriting. It explained that he had a surprise for you and it involved an early start. It was your birthday, so your positive disposition allowed you to accept his surprise.

He wasn’t kidding when he said early start. Joel was at your door knocking before sunrise. You groaned before lazily throwing your legs over the bed. He knocked again with more force before you made it to the door. He wished you a happy birthday before walking into your makeshift living room. Your eyes were tired, but you gave him a smile nonetheless when you thanked him. He sat on the couch, rubbing his hands together in front of your space heater while he waited for you to get dressed. Apparently, the surprise involved a hike to get there so you dressed in layers. 

By the time the two of you made it past the gate with your horses, the sun had begun to rise. It was not often that you got up while it was still dark. Sunsets were more of your thing. Watching the sun rise, however, was a different kind of beautiful. The sky turned brighter shades of blue as the two of you rode through unbeaten paths. At one point, the woods became too thick for the horses and you two had to start hiking. Joel secured both of the animals before guiding you in the direction of the surprise. 

“Alright, c’mon.” Joel said.

“I’m going to start guessing now.” You stated.

“You want to spoil your surprise?” He asked.

“I’ve held out long enough.” You responded. “Is it an alien crash site?”

“Stop trying to guess. I ain’t tellin’ you.” He said with his back to you.

“Okay.” You let silence fall between you before guessing again. “So is it a nice, new car? With heated seats and one of those tvs that hang from the ceiling to watch movies on?”

He sighed playfully. “You’re not gonna guess.” You fell quiet, trying to think of something even more outrageous. The two of you approached a ledge as the path grew narrower. Joel pushed back a bare branch to give you just enough room to scoot by without falling over the edge. “Mind your step.” He warned as he gestured for you to go first. 

The walkway was so narrow that there was no other choice but for your backside to brush up against Joel’s body as you walked past him. You took it slow as to mind your step. He was so close, you could feel his breath on the back of your neck. Back in the day, you would have used this opportunity to flirt with him just to watch his face go red. After safely making it passed, you did the same for him and held the branch down while he walked across. 

“Fuck it, I’m done guessing.” You spoke up, filling the air with sound. 

“Oh, good.” He replied.

“But really though, is it a movie or something?” You got really excited before he could answer. “Don’t tell me you found some old abandoned theater and dusted off the projector and somehow figured out how to power it back up.”

“Um, no.” He said, slight disappointment in his voice. “Would you have liked that?”

“I would like anything you give me, Joel.” You replied genuinely. After a few more minutes of walking, the two of you come upon a clearing riddled with frozen over puddles. In the middle of it all was a huge temple front building. You approached the steps ahead of Joel. “Is this it?” You asked with a smile on your face. You didn’t quite know what it was, but having earned an art history degree, you had a penchant for big, old buildings.

He nodded. “Yes.”

You run up the steps like Rocky during his famous training scene in Philly. The grand doors had a faded logo painted on. It appeared to be of a dolphin and a whale swimming together like the Pisces sign. You waited for Joel to catch up with you before opening the doors. He watched as you made your way inside the large lobby. There was an enormous whale hanging from the ceiling with two grand staircases on either side leading to separate wings. The dead remnants of overgrown plants decorated the dark blue walls. As you walked closer to the information desk in the middle of the room, snow began to fall from the ceiling. You looked up and noticed that part of the roof was missing. It looked dilapidated rather than the result of an attack. It allowed in the only source of light, bouncing off the walls to cast a grayish-blue atmosphere. As you made your way further in, you found a mural on the wall of different aquatic animals.

“I think this is one of those zoos but for fish.” Joel quipped.

“Shut up.” You said playfully. He chuckled.

You walked up the stairs and immediately became attracted to a room with a shark head adorning the doorway. You headed in that direction first, but Joel warned you not to. You asked why, barely giving him the time to answer before you ignored his plea and continued to the door. It looked like a lounge room for adults. The walls were really just floor-to-ceiling windows. It gave an amazing view of the small lake behind the building. There was a bar, a large tv and multiple couches. You made your way around one couch and realized why he didn’t want you to go in the room. A skeleton, mostly decomposed, was lying on it, resting, waiting. 

“I didn’t want to move the body.” Joel spoke up. “He looked too comfortable.” He referred to the pillow behind the skeleton’s back and the blanket draped over the legs. You notice a piece of paper lying on his lap; his boney fingers keeping it in place. “(Y/N), no.” Joel protested as he watched you reach for it. 

“If it wasn’t meant to be read, then it wouldn’t have been written.” You responded. The paper had all kinds of stains on it, most likely from the decomposition of the body. The writing was faded and barely legible. “ ‘I’m taking Max away from here. He can’t spend his life inside this rotting building. All he’ll do is take on your weaknesses. I want Max to see what it looks like when people are willing to stand up for what they want. The world is harsh. It’s up to us to change it. Maybe we’ll come back someday. If we do, I hope you’re not still sitting in your stupid, fucking chair’. Wow. His kids ran off and left him.”

“Jesus.” Joel mustered.

The two of you go back downstairs and eventually find a doorway shrouded by dead vines. You pushed passed them, holding open a space for Joel to follow. Painted in large white letters are the words “Max’s place”. On the other side of the doors was the gift shop. You guessed that Max used this as his room while his family stayed there. Joel let you look around the pamphlets and trinkets. He watched on with a wide grin before he beckoned you over to the open elevator. 

“C’mon over here.” He said.

            You approached the opening and looked down. “If I knew you’d brought me out here to kill me by pushing me down this shaft, I would have stayed home”. 

“I’m not gonna kill you, darlin’, but we are going down.” 

“You’re joking.” You said flatly. 

“Nope.” He popped the “P” sound playfully as he climbed onto the ladder against the elevator shaft. He held out his hand for you to take. “It’ll be ok.”

“It better be.” You whined. He took your hand and guided it onto a rung. He began to climb down and you followed. 

He jumped off the ladder first, causing the elevator wires to shake. It made you nervous but you persevered. You gently hopped off the ladder onto the elevator roof and followed Joel through the opening of the new floor. It was very dark save from the light coming through the glass windows. You were in the basement level because there was nothing but water on the other side of them. You walked up to the plaques in front of them and read about the animals that were no longer there. You wondered if they’d been hunted or simply died when there was no one left to take care of them. Joel stayed until you were done reading. He followed you around the corner and stopped in front of a large fort made of cardboard boxes. It had a child’s touch as it was painted over with cartoonish figures. 

“Solid fort, Max.” You said.

Joel approached the entrance. “Ladies first.” He held the flaps open. You got on your hands and knees to crawl through. 

“Oh my God, Joel!” You exclaimed in a breathy tone. “You gotta see this! Have you seen this?”

He nodded. You turned to him in disappointment. “I had to secure the place before I showed it to you. ‘Sides, it’s your surprise, not mine.”

“How did you find this place?”

“I found it a few months back when it was warmer. I was on patrol with Nick. We came in from back where the lake is.” Joel explained.

“This place is beautiful, Joel.” You said, almost in a whisper. The room that you had entered was semi-circular and it was all glass. Even below your feet was glass. You couldn’t lie, it scared you for a moment. You were taken off guard when a small school of fish swam by underneath you. “Joel! Did you see that?”

“I sure did.” He replied with a smile. Through the algae and seaweed covering the windows, light peeked through and projected a dark blue glow. As the water on the other side moved, so did it's reflection on your skin. Joel gazed at the sight before him. You looked ethereal and it damn near took his breath away. He watched as your eyes filled with wonder. It was the purest thing he’d seen since the world fell apart. He allowed himself to gaze at you a few moments longer before he slid his backpack off his shoulders. “Now, this took a mighty great effort to find.” He said to get your attention. You turned around as he reached into his backpack. He pretended to dig around to prolong the suspense.

You rolled your eyes. “Joel!”

He chuckled. “Okay, okay. Here.” He pulled out a light brown ukulele. “Happy birthday, (Y/N).” He watched as your face broke into a smile. It was a wholesome experience and it made him warm inside. 

She whispered a thank you and took the ukulele. “I can’t believe you remembered. You said that you’d teach me how to play the guitar and I said--”

“You said you didn’t want to play the guitar. You wanted to learn how to play the ukulele and I said I didn’t know if I could help you with that.”

You looked up at him and met his eyes. “But you said you’d try.”

He took a step closer and watched as you fiddled with the strings. You experimented with the sound of each one before making up a little, silly tune. It was not perfect, in fact it was far from it. Still, you enjoyed playing. You even did a little dance as you plucked the strings. You twirled around and caught a glimpse of a shadow. You knew it wasn’t Joel; it moved too fast. The high pitched sound of the ukulele faded out as you stepped up to the glass. There it was again! Was it a large fish? It was too small to be a dolphin. What could survive in this cold water? You watched and waited. Joel came up behind you and did the same. A seal swam out from its hiding place and swam up to you. It's big black eyes gazed at yours. You were probably the first person that it's come across in a very long time. You let out a breathy chuckle as you watched it swim away.

“I do okay?” Joel’s voice filled the room. It was the softest you ever heard him speak. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You turned to him with a smile. His grin spread wide to match yours. “Thank you, Joel.”

He continued to gaze at you with loving eyes. It made your heart flutter and stomach do back flips. You weren’t sure what was going to happen next but all you knew was that the atmosphere was perfect. You wanted to kiss him, but was too scared. He took another step forward and you let him. Now, the two of you were close enough to touch. He leaned down and closed his eyes as he did. You saw what he was doing and you wanted it so bad but…

“Joel.” You said his name while pulling your head back. 

“I’m...I’m sorry.” He looked down at his feet. 

“No, don’t be sorry. It’s not you. I just...I’m scared.”

He playfully scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“No, it's not that.” You paused for a moment. It sounded logical in your head, but you were afraid it’d sound stupid out loud. “But what if I infect you?”

Joel looked taken aback. “What?”

“I’m a carrier of the disease. What if I'm contagious? I can spread it to you from a kiss like it was a cold.” You spoke with genuine worry.

He let out a small laugh. “You know how many times you’ve sneezed in the house without covering your mouth? If spores would have come out. I would have breathed them in and I’d be long gone by now.” 

You look down in shame before laughing yourself. “I’ll remember to cover my mouth next time.” 

Joel caressed your cheek, prompting you to look back up at him. You smiled, inviting him to try again and so he did. Joel leaned down and this time, you reached up and met him in the middle. You took his bottom lip between yours. His beard brushed against your skin but it was a welcome feeling. The two of you stopped for a split second before going in again for another kiss. Joel was the first to pull away. He knew it was the first time that the two of you had kissed and didn’t want to ruin the moment by going too far. He looked down at you and realized he was ready to go as far as you’d take him, however far that was. Kissing you was a heady sensation and it was something he’d been wanting to feel for a while now. 

******

You start to let Joel in more. Your romantic feelings for him overcame your apprehension. It still lingered in the background, but you convinced yourself to focus on the present. What happened at the hospital had already been done, right? You thought to yourself. What if Joel was telling the truth? You rarely allowed yourself to play that angle. Joel and his brother respectively left the Fireflies for a reason. Maybe they did something that rubbed him the wrong way and he didn’t want to stay there and wait for me to wake up. You couldn’t help but trust Joel after he fought to keep you alive during the journey out west. He must have had a good reason, whatever it was. 

Preparing for the Jackson winter was harsh but focusing on the present was easy and your present was with Joel. He walked you up to your door the night you two came back from the aquarium. He stood there awkwardly as if he wasn’t the one who initiated a kiss from you first. The long ride back showed you that you hadn’t infected him after all, which gave you the confidence to pull him into a goodnight kiss. You caught his eyes widening in shock as you pulled away. It was so different from the Joel that you were used to. Moments like these excited you in discovering more about him. 

It’d been a very long time since you were in a relationship and quite honestly you weren’t in many of them especially after the zombie apocalypse. You could only imagine it was the same for Joel given his guarded demeanor and the fact that he never talked about any past relationships. The morning after your birthday, he made you breakfast. He did a damn good job with what little he had in the fridge. It was easy to tell how much effort he put in it between setting the table and plating the food. The rest of the day was a whirlwind of attention. You were never good at hiding your feelings, but with Joel, you didn’t want to. People in the settlement noticed the change in your demeanor. The glow on your face. The pep in your step. Lynn definitely noticed and she wouldn’t let it go. You spilled everything to her. She soaked it up like a sponge but couldn’t believe it. “Joel?” She kept asking. Unlike you, Joel was much better at concealing his feelings. He always came off as a tough nut to crack. After a year and some change in Jackson, the townsfolk found him easier to get along with, but he was still a closed book. It made you wonder if even his own brother would be surprised by how gentle he could be. 

You didn’t see Joel again until later that night after his shift had ended. You left a note on the fridge door letting him know that you’d be down at The Watering Hole, the only bar in Jackson, if he wasn’t too tired to meet you there. You sat around waiting for him, nursing your gin and tonic. You missed cell phones for this very reason. If he was running late out on patrol or was too tired to come out, he could just call or shoot you a text. This blind waiting was almost too much to bear. You figured that you would just meet him at home and come back out later if he was up for it. Just as you got up, however, you spotted him walking through the door. You watched as he said hi to the barman before scanning the crowd. He smiled when his eyes found yours. You beckoned him over with your finger. 

“Perfect timing,” You began as he sat across from you. “I ordered you a dinner a while ago, so it should be out here any minute.”

“Thank you.” The skin around his eyes wrinkled as he smiled. You noticed that he looked tired.

“We could go home as soon as the food comes if you’re tired.” You suggested. 

He waved his hand at the idea. “No, no. I want to be here with you.” He laid that same hand down on the table, palm up, encouraging you to lay yours on top. You did so and his fingers enclosed your smaller hand, giving it a squeeze. It was his first public display of affection. On the outside, it didn’t look like much, but it meant a lot to the both of you. 

“Joel,” You paused, not knowing how to start the conversation burning in your mind. “I, um....” You were nervous and you didn’t know why. What happened to that confidence you had on your birthday. Just as you decided to begin again, the barman came over with Joel’s food and drink. 

He thanked him before turning back to you. “I know there’s somethin’ here, (Y/N). I’m not alone in thinking this am I?”

You shook your head fervently. “No, Joel. I want this, whatever this is, to be something.”

“Whatever this is, huh?” He repeated. “Well how about this,” With his hand still grasping yours, his voice turned serious. “Go steady with me.”

You raised your eyebrows. “Go steady? I don’t think the kids say that anymore.” You lightly made fun of his wording. Still it was everything you wanted to hear.

His face broke into a half smile. “Well, we ain’t kids are we?” The smile turned sly as he watched for your response. 

You shook your head. “Not at all.” You said coyly. 

[tempesrature]

Dedicated Emotions: Colt (Part I)

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

Pairing: Ride or Die | Ellie x Colt

Summary: An imagining of what happened months after RoD1 where Ellie saves Colt from a job gone wrong.  

(This is an accompaniment to the Logan Series with the same title, you don’t need to read the other series to understand this series don’t worry!)

Word Count: 1,216

Warnings: PG-16 (Mentions and imagery of blood and knife wounds although not explicitly described, cursing)

A/N: The Logan series was posted yesterday. I hope you enjoy!

Red lights passing by in a blur. Her speedometer, ninety miles per hour. Nails digging into the steering wheel leather.

It’s three in the morning in the city she left behind.

And she’s come to hijack him.

~*~

She should have left the call alone. She should have known that nothing good comes from unknown numbers and faceless shapes of gray flashing on her phone screen. But she was hopeful, maybe even optimistic, that he has kept his promise. That things would be different from now on. That I’ll be careful next time would finally ring true and life could just be memories of him, oceans and cliffs.

She really should have left the call alone.

The voice that filtered through the phone was different, new. It wasn’t him.

But the voice was frantic, almost terrified.

Colt is taking a job that could kill him. You have to stop him.

It’s in three weeks. Please Ellie.

She dropped the call. She didn’t want to hear it, she didn’t want to think about it. She loved him, she didn’t think she’d ever stop, but she chose Langston. This was the life she wanted.  

This is the better choice, the safer choice.

 ~*~

Yet here she is, the address texted to her on her phone bright and eerie in her passenger seat, and she’s running—running back to his side again.

She swerves to the left, narrowly hitting the bumper of a red sedan, as her heart hammers against her chest and her eyes focus on the road.

She doesn’t have a plan. She has a semblance of a thought of a plan. But a concrete and tangible plan? She doesn’t have it. Not when her nights were filled with his voice and his touch—comforting and familiar until it’s pulled away by another voice that echoes couldkillhim couldkillhim. No, she has a destination. And she’s coming to get him.

She parks her car a distance away from the address she was given, killing the engine and reaching to the passenger’s seat to grab her phone. She checks the message again, once, twice, thrice—she’s read it before but she needs to be sure, she can’t make a mistake.

She tosses her phone to the backseat and exits her car, closing the doors as gently as she can to minimize the noise before she pulls the hood of her sweater over her head and starts walking.

Her heart is beating, strong and terrified behind her chest but she doesn’t listen to it. No, she has to listen to her senses that tell her the building is too silent. To the senses that tell her that the deal should have gone done by now. To the senses that tell her that something is very wrong.

She approaches closer to the door, her feet light and her legs shaky, and she turns the handle.

Locked.

She looks around, her eyes squinting in the night, until she finds an open window below a garbage bin big enough for her to climb on. She carefully closes the lid, her nose wrinkling at the smell, before she pushes herself up and settles below the window. She takes a breath before she slowly inches her head over the window sill to look inside the building.

Her heart lurches.

It’s him.

And he’s not moving.

Shock. Panic. Horror.  

“Co—!” Her hand is faster than her brain, clamping her mouth shut. She can’t make noise. Not now, not when she doesn’t know who’s around. She looks around the space—nothing, no one. Only him, face down on the floor. Blood.

She chances it. It’s stupid, it’s suicidal. But he can’t die. Not like this, not in place where he has no one. She grips the edges of the window, throws her right leg inside as she straddles the window sill. She feels around with her foot—a table—and she swings the rest of her body inside then hops to the ground. She stumbles, she staggers but she stands and she sprints.

Ellie kneels in front of him, tears already pricking her eyes, as she takes his wrist and presses her finger to his pulse. It’s there, thank god it’s there. Her eyes roam his body, looking and searching—where is the fucking wound? And she turns his body—gently, lovingly, apologetically—and she sees it. There, spreading on his white shirt like spilled paint. She pulls shirt up—knife wound on his abdomen. Doesn’t look deep. Okay, okay. She’s learned first aid and she’s seen movies. First, pressure. Stop the blood. She pulls her sweater off and bunches it in her hand, pressing it against the wound.

He groans, his eyes opening and it catches hers. Shocked, confused, grateful, awed.

“Colt I’m here,” Her voice is shaky but resolute. “Can you get up?”

“Ye…yeah.”

Weak, so weak but he’s alive. He pushes himself off of the floor and she quickly supports his body, keeping her hand pressed against the wound. He places his hand on top of hers, pressing on the wound himself as she slings his arm around her shoulder, his body weight—his life—all on her. But she manages, she has to.

“Wha…what are you doing here El?”

“Don’t talk,” She rebukes as they hobble to the door. Her hand reaching out to unlock the door and turn the handle.

Colt chuckles. Familiar, pained, affectionate. “You really do love me.”

“Shut up,” She does. She really does. “We need to get to my car. We need to get you to the hospital.”

He grunts. “No hospital.”

“Colt you’ve been stabbed,” She argues, her eyes lighting up when she spots her car from a distance.

Colt manages a scoff and she manages to give him a sideway glare.

They reach her car and she pulls open the passenger door, carefully guiding him onto the seat. She sprints to her side, roughly pulls open the door and drops herself on the seat. She starts her engine and drives.

“Drive me to the shop,” He grunts, his eyes squeezing shut at the pain. “Sam will fix me up.”

“Colt you’ve had a rough time.”

He laughs, winces when it hurts, and turns his head to her. A witty remark already on his lips when he stops. His breath gone. His eyes wide.

“Baby don’t cry,” He reaches out a bloody hand, gripping her clinched hand on the steering wheel. “I’m not gonna die.”

Her lower lip quivers and she bites down to stop it. Blinking back the tears to stare at the road.

“You could’ve,” She takes in a shuddering breath. “If I didn’t come, you could’ve died.”

“…Yeah,” He looks up, his hand falling away from hers, his voice loud in the early morning. “I could’ve.”

She grits her teeth, her fingers curling tighter around the steering wheel, and she continues to drive.

The sun peeks out of the horizon. The sky lighting up as the city wakes up. They don’t talk. Tired, injured, battered, heartbroken—all good excuses to let the silence settle in the air.

She drives a little faster. Before the residents wake and the traffic in LA will slow her down.

But even then. She knows.

She’ll drive through it all to get to him.

[spencer-is-amazing]

Salvation (Michael Langdon x OC)

Pairing: Michael Langdon x Original Female Character

Word Length: 2k

Warnings: Very slight violent imagery

Chapter 1: The End

Chapter 2: The Beginning (x)

Summary: On one hand, she knew him as Michael- the kid with eyes that rivaled the sea and a heart that yearned to be loved.

On the other hand, he was Langdon- the man who would take all or none to the Sanctuary, and looked at her as if she was a fly on his wall that needed to be crushed.

And yet, she couldn't deny the feelings that bubbled in her soul when he looked at her with those deep sea eyes, and how she had become the one who craved his love. She only hoped it wasn't too late to save them both.

“-And remember students, your papers on the human effect in marine life is due this Sunday at 11:59 sharp. No, I will not accept papers at midnight or anytime you deem fit; I’ve given you all an ample amount of time to complete this paper, so I’m expecting all A’s! Have a good weekend students and email me with any questions or concerns!”

The class of 39 environmental biology students all praised every deity for allowing Mr. Abernathy to shut his mouth and let them leave early, though he usually let them off with ten minutes to spare every Friday, so there was no true harm done.

“You got anything planned? Dylan’s parents are out of town and I’m gonna hit that up.” Julie March smiled at her friend Chloe’s lustrous look at Dylan Parker’s back; it was no shock that Chloe wanted to climb that boy like a tree and probably would this weekend.

“I mean, just look at him, you know I’m a sucker for a good back.” Julie chuckled as her friends eyes followed Dylan out of sight, sighing when he turned out of the class. “But yeah, free house, me and him, bone town.”

“Really, bone town? What’re you, Jack Skellington?” Chloe fake laughed at Julie’s stupid joke and both girls left the room, walking through the mostly empty hall.

“I don’t really think you have the authority to make any joke whatsoever at me, seeing as you’ve probably never seen a cock in the first place and I’ve seen like four.”

Of the two girls, Chloe was the one who had spent high school with skirts shorter than her buttcheeks and bubblegum popping between her teeth, while Julie had spent it in baggy hand me downs with her nose in a book. It was strange that they were even friends to begin with.

“How come every conversation with you ends with you calling me a dickless virgin? I have seen one before.”

Chloe simultaneously scoffed and rolled her big brown eyes caked in eyeliner, “I hope you don’t mean the mystery guy from high school that no one ever actually met and also disappeared after like a year because I’d hate to call you a liar this late in the day.”

Julie shot daggers as Chloe smirked, “He was real. And maybe Dylan would go down on you if you weren’t such a dick.”

“Oh, he’ll go down on me alright. I’ll make sure of it.” They were nearing the exit of the large community campus building. “But really, any plans this weekend? And no, going to that creepy Hotel does not count.”

Julie adjusted her backpack strap and bit her lip, “My mom already asked me and I mean, It’s not that creepy.”

Chloe’s arm shot out and stopped Julie in her tracks, “I’m sorry, are we talking about the same Hotel? The one where bunches of people always die and the last time I went with you I almost did? That one right?”

Julie pushed open the front door, ready to not exactly deny her friend that that was in fact true but merely defend her pride, but the chaos that both girls were met with put an end to that.

“What the fuck-?” Chloe was thrown to the ground with a grunt, Mr. Abernathy having thrown open the doors and running for his life. Julie helped her up and both girls flinched when a loud horn blared throughout the campus.

Was there a shooter? Had someone brought a bomb on campus? What the hell had happened?

A group of students came into view and were running past them when Chloe yelled at them, asking what was happening.

One of the guys in a Mario beanie turned to them with scared eyes and pointed his finger to the sky, “They’re coming! It’s the end of the fucking world man- there’s no where to go!”

He fled off after his group, leaving them there with confusion on their faces. The end of the world?

They had so many questions; How? Why? Now?

It took a second for the absolute horrifying dread to set in, for the fear of death to fill her veins and leave her frozen. She didn’t even know what was coming and if she’d make it home in time to kiss her mom goodbye and say all the things she’d never said.

“Julie, Julie- look at me please. We need to go. Now.” She’d barely realized that tears had started streaming down her face, her friend digging those pretty pink manicured nails in the flesh of her arm and dragging her across the campus to the pretty purple convertible that picked up Julie for school every morning, but there would be no tomorrow morning would there.

Julie’s trembling hand was reaching for the glossy silver handle of the pretty purple convertible when the door opened, slamming into her gut with a strength that shocked her.

Chloe was already inside and giving her a look that could kill a man twice, “Get in the car. Now.”

The streets were like if Crazy Taxi had jumped out of her Dreamcast and had plagued the streets; it was utter chaos.

Abandoned cars littered the road and Chloe maneuvered them with excellent skill, and managed to not hit a single person, though there had been many running through the streets screaming for help from god, but no god was coming.

Julie’s shaky hand reached for her phone and read the alert;

Urgent Alert

Ballistic Missile Threat Inbound To Los Angeles

Seek Immediate Shelter. This Is Not A Drill.

A hand ripped the phone from hers and threw it in the backseat, “Don’t look at your phone. No doubt its people you fucking hate saying sorry for being douche filled assholes to you now that they’re gonna fucking be blown to pieces.”

Chloe spoke with such rage spittle flew from her teeth. “We’re gonna get you home and…. and…”

Sobs wracked the pretty 20’s year olds chest and tears streamed down her make up caked face, teeth biting the red matte lipstick and tears smearing the pitch black mascara. Julie had never seen her cry, not even when James from 10th grade broke up with her and said her nose was too big.

“Chloe.” Her hand found the shaking shoulder and squeezed lightly, “It’s okay. Even if we don’t make it, I’m glad I was with you.”

“No, No, No.” Chloe took her hands off the wheel and turned to her best friend Julie. “We’re going to get you home, and you’re gonna say bye to your mom.”

“Chloe- the car!” But she didn’t listen and instead hugged her friend close and the car seemed to steer itself closer and closer to her home.

“Chloe what’s happening? Please Chloe, tell what you’re doing?!” The hysterics were starting to set in as they skidded across her front lawn, car seemingly shutting down on its own.

Both girls had tears streaming down their faces and both of their chests felt like their hearts were going to implode. Chloe turned and held her friends chubby cheeks in her shaking hands, leaning forward and pressing a solemn kiss to each blob.

“Never forget me Julie.” Chloe released the chubby cheeks and watched as shadows circled the car.

“And never forget him.”

And questions Julie had were ripped to shreds as black covered hands ripped open the car doors and dragged both girls out of their cars, Chloe seemingly giving in to the inevitable and Julie refusing to give up. She wasn’t going to die without a fight.

She was placed in front of two people, both something out of a distant future sci-fi movie.

“Are you Julie March?” Her attention wasn’t on the man who asked the question but instead on Chloe, who had been placed on her knees, a large gun pointed at her temple.

The pale man spoke up once more, “You, Julie March, have been selected by the Cooperative as one of the lucky few who will be taken to a safe location away from the blast.”

That caught her attention enough to stop her struggles, “Not without my mom and Chloe.”

He gave her a hard look. “Your genetic makeup makes you a prime candidate, and theirs do not.”

“I don’t understand, candidate for what? What the hell do you people think I’m gonna do?”

“Survive.”

This was all some hellish nightmare; she must have fallen asleep in class and no one had woken her up yet. This couldn’t be real, it just couldn’t.

Julie sobbed out the same response, “Not without them. Please.” But they didn’t listen, dragging her away to a grey heavy-duty van and locking her inside, away from the rest of the world, away from her mother, away from Chloe.

She screamed with every chord in her throat as a gunshot rang through the air and the van started moving. There was no doubt that they were leaving behind her friend’s corpse on her mother’s lawn, a mother she would never see again and a friend who died too soon.

This still felt like a horrible nightmare that she couldn’t escape from, a demonic presence that had latched onto her soul and brought death and destruction in its wake, dragging her through pain and agony that seemed to have no end.

She wanted to die in that moment, wanted the blast to consume her whole and leave her with the people she loved. What was the point of survival if you had to do it alone?

~

2 Weeks Later

And as it turned out, this Survival wasn’t something she’d be doing alone. She’d met Emily and Timothy at the initial bomb shelter, the three of them crying as the tremors had ran through the concrete slabs they’d laid upon.

They’d mourned for their families and loved ones, and even the ones they hated. It was a dark time for them, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel for 13 days.

But on the 14th day, they were thrown clothes and masks, told that anything out of place would lead to their death. Any resistance would lead to death, and that it was in their best interest to cooperate.

And so they did, piling on the large suits and making sure every tube for the gas mask was in place and stepped outside of the bomb shelter, following the men in black.

The world had turned grey and cold, had become a wasteland of death and grim tidings for the ones lucky to survive. All of the green had turned to black, and the sun had turned grey and dim. This was not a world that Julie wanted to be apart of, but she had no choice.

A carriage was waiting for them- horse drawn to be exact- and Julie, Emily, Timothy and a masked stranger sat in the carriage, rocking back and forth for hours on end, their destination unknown.

It was a miracle that the carriage came to a stop after so long, that the doors opened up to reveal more grey fog as a hand helped them out, and lead them forward.

It was a building like no other, if you could even call it a building. A spiraling black beacon of death was a better way to describe it. The four of them walked forward, past two people dressed in grey on their knees- no masks on either of them- with guns pointed to their heads.

The ring of the gunshot made her trip and fall to her knees- Chloe’s tear stained face ran through her head like a hurricane- “C’mon, get up.”

Timothy held out a hand to her and she shakily took it, balancing on two legs and moving forward, not looking back at the bodies, even though she wanted to, to make sure they weren’t Chloe.

The decontamination process was threatening to say the least; the short stout woman who commanded their attention was someone who she would make sure to avoid. A few people dressed in outfits like the ones outside entered and were helping them get their suits off when a sound as steady as dropping water but heavy as iron entered the air.

The metal door opened to reveal a tall woman holding a candle.

“My name is Wilhemina Venable, and I’d like to welcome you to Outpost 3.”

Next Chapter Up Soon! Leave a Comment and Visit my Ao3 Account SpenceBox!

[vincent-frankenstein]

To My Heart and Soul

[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | you are here | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | read on AO3 ]

Warnings: major character death, villain/abusive deceit, blood, fighting, panic attacks, creepy imagery

Pairings: logince, hints of moxiety, a tiny smidge of remile and past abusive anxceit

Once again, Logan found himself battling his old friend insomnia for a good night’s rest.

They trekked through the city for quite some time, but it seemed determined to keep them away from the dragon. It looped in on itself, twisting around and around and around until no one had any idea where they were anymore. The uneven terrain made every step exhausting. Logan didn’t really consider himself a city person, but he’d take the loud bustle of the city over this bug-infested nightmare any day.

Patton made them stop to set up camp the moment the sun began to set. Toby cooked dinner with a wave of his hand as Patton set up the beds with a snap of his fingers, and Logan stood off to the side, holding his shield generator in white-knuckled hands. He hated feeling useless.

But as sunset dissolved into evening and Toby and Patton dissolved into sleep, Logan found himself still wide-awake, staring at a sky he didn’t recognize with a feeling he couldn’t place nagging in the pit of his stomach. Too much had happened in too little time; his mind felt ready to burst.

Time crawled slowly on, and still, he stayed awake. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sleep — though he didn’t, really, because sleep meant dreams and dreams meant Roman, vanishing as quickly as he appeared and leaving Logan to piece reality back together again and again. He’d already mistaken Patton for Roman once in his sleep-fogged state; he didn’t want a repeat of that morning.

Around him, the forest buzzed with life, bugs he didn’t know and strange creatures he didn’t recognize, and really, could the situation be any crueler? He prided himself on always knowing what was happening, always having the answers. To shove him into a world where he knew nothing, where he was forced to rely on others, constantly? Where he had no use, no purpose, now that they knew all the information he had? Where, if they decided that he was too much dead weight and they didn’t need him, they could leave him to die, trapped in a world where nothing made sense?

Dimly, he realized he’d begun to hyperventilate in his panic. He threw off his blanket and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to focus only on the sting of fresh, rain-cooled air on his skin. When the panic had receded to its usual level, he sat up, pushing himself to breathe as evenly as he could.

Before he could stop himself, he stood, careful not to wake Patton or Toby. He scooped the shield generator from its spot beside his makeshift bed and slipped into the shadows, clutching it to his chest. He knew he shouldn’t leave the group; the forest was dangerous enough when they were all together, and so confusing that he could be lost within minutes. Furthermore, Dorian could have been waiting around any corner.

But he couldn’t stand still any longer. He was sick of doing nothing. A walk was better than stagnation, better than wrestling with his endless thoughts for a chance at the smallest bit of rest. He walked slowly, leaves crunching underfoot, and tried to make sense of everything that had happened.

He didn’t know how long he’d been walking when he heard it: footsteps, somewhere close, too close. He froze, eyes widening, grip tightening around the shield generator. Could it be Patton, or Toby? What if it wasn’t? They were getting closer — heavy, strong footsteps, not Toby’s shuffling gait or Patton’s light step but something powerful and dangerous, definitely dangerous, and god, he didn’t want to be a dandelion —

A figure stumbled out of the shadows and froze, purple energy flying to his hand as he stumbled backwards. Recognition flashed across his half-hidden face. “What the fuck,” he whispered.

“Funny, I’ve been asking myself the same question for a week,” Logan snapped, striding forward. His irrational fear had given way to determination, and he’d been damned if he let Anxiety get away again. “I want answers, Anxiety.”

“How do you —” Anxiety shook his head, eyes narrowed. “I told you to leave. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for answers,” Logan said. “I’m looking for Roman.”

“No,” Anxiety hissed. “You’re looking for death. I don’t know how the hell you got in here, but you need to get out. Now.”

“Not until I know what’s going on.” Logan crossed his arms, standing as close to Anxiety as he dared and drawing himself up to his full height. He didn’t have the most intimidating stature in the world, but it was enough to send a flicker of hesitation through Anxiety’s eyes. “Do you know where Roman is?”

“I can’t tell you!” Anxiety swore under his breath, eyes narrowed, foot tapping nervously against the ground. “Dorian would have my head.”

“So you know Dorian, then?” Logan asked, and Anxiety swore again. “Who is he to you? Does he have Roman? You owe it to me to let me —”

“I don’t owe you shit,” Anxiety snarled, a hint of panic in his voice. “Do you have any idea how much I risked just to warn you? You were supposed to leave town. If — if he gets his hands on you, everything is ruined.”

He hissed out a shaking breath, tugging at the end of his cloak. Logan frowned. Intimidation wasn’t working; Anxiety was just receding into himself, his expression tinged with panic.

“Look,” he said, as gently as the fire inside would allow. “You seem to be in danger. Whatever you are trying to do, I can help. I have two members of the Arcane Council with me. I’m sure that, together, we could —”

“You’re with them?” Anxiety let out a noise somewhere between a strangled laugh and a panicked whine. “Great. Perfect. As if this couldn’t get a-any harder!”

“As if what couldn’t get any harder?” Logan stepped forward, voice edging on desperation. “Anxiety, please. I need information. I —”

He froze. There were footsteps, somewhere in the distance, growing closer. He gripped the shield generator and scanned the treeline, eyes narrowed against the darkness. Then came a voice, somewhere far off. “Logan? Where did you go?”

“Patton,” he breathed, relieved. Anxiety didn’t share his sentiment. He stumbled backwards, a gasp flying from his lips.

“Patton?” he whispered hoarsely. “He’s involved in this too? I — I have to go, you have to go, this —”

Logan grabbed his arm as he whirled to run, holding tightly. “Please,” he said. “I just want to see my husband again.”

Anxiety stared at him, expression shifting from blind panic to something defeated. He yanked his arm away, let out a long, shaking breath, and reached into the folds of his cloak, drawing out a strange medallion. “A-A dragon’s eye,” he said. “You need it to find the keep. Once you’re there, get the weapon and get out. Act quickly, or —”

He cut himself off. Logan took the medallion, running his thumb over the strange inscription. The gem set in the center glowed at his touch, washing the two in soft golden light, and warmth blossomed in Logan’s chest. He peered at the strange letters engraved across the top, eyebrows furrowing. The words seemed… familiar. He knew them. Why couldn’t he read them?

“Thank you,” he said softly. “Will… will you be alright?”

Anxiety snorted. “I’m putting my one chance at freedom in the hands of a mortal, what do you think?” His voice broke at the end, and he tried for a weak laugh. He stepped back. “You’re lucky you have such an insistent husband.”

“Wha —” In a flash of purple light, Anxiety disappeared, and Logan’s exclamation died on his tongue. Did Anxiety know Roman? Personally? It didn’t seem too far-fetched, if he knew Dorian. Burning cold regret flooded his lungs, and suddenly he wished he’d pushed a bit harder on Roman’s whereabouts.

His fingers tightened around the medallion. His one chance at freedom… that didn’t bode well. Was Anxiety trapped? He should have pushed his offer of help a bit harder, too.

But then again, maybe he shouldn’t have offered at all. He leaned back against a tree, lost in thought. Remy’s hatred of Anxiety, coupled with Anxiety’s own mysterious nature, and his connection to Dorian, didn’t make trusting him seem like the most logical choice. Then again, Remy’s judgement wasn’t exactly trustworthy, either. At least Anxiety had tried to help.

No, he had helped. They could find the keep, now, and Roman’s secret weapon. He’d risked his own safety to warn Logan, too — but, of course, that could have been a lie. What if Anxiety’s “help” was a part of Dorian’s plan? By trusting him, he could be leading them all straight into a trap.

Well, not straight into a trap.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Was there anyone he could trust?

“Logan?”

He gasped. In his excitement over the medallion, he’d forgotten Patton was looking for him. “I’m here!” he called, and his voice echoed back to him from a million different directions.

Patton ran into the clearing, breathing heavily. “Where did you go?” he asked, worry written across his face. “I woke up, and you — you were just gone!”

Logan hesitated. “I�� I apologize, Patton. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go on a small walk. I should have told you first.”

For a moment, something flickered across Patton’s face — a cocktail of worry and anger and fear and exhaustion, tied up with a bow of grief. But then it vanished, so quickly Logan couldn’t be sure he’d even seen it at all, and he smiled. “It’s okay, kiddo,” he said. “Just… please don’t wander off again, okay? It’s not safe here. I — what’s that?”

His gaze had travelled to the medallion in Logan’s hands. “I found it,” Logan said, and hoped that Patton wasn’t good at detecting lies. He wasn’t ready to put his conversation with Anxiety out in the open just yet, at least not until he knew who he could trust. “Half-buried, somewhere over there. What is it?”

Patton took the medallion, mouth open in a little ‘o’ of surprise. “It’s a dragon’s eye!” he said, relief coursing through his words. “Oh, I thought we might need one of these, but I figured we’d never find the right one! How lucky!”

“What does it do?” Logan asked, taking back the medallion.

“Well, dragons can be pretty secretive,” Patton explained. “Sometimes, they’ll create these little magical medallions, and link them to their keeps. The medallion becomes a key, and the keep becomes hidden. Pretty neat that you stumbled upon it!”

“Yes,” Logan said. “Shall we go find the dragon, then?”

Patton chuckled. “We need to sleep first, kiddo.” He yawned, stretching his arms up above his head. “You said you were having trouble sleeping? C’mon, I’ll give you a sleeping spell.”

“Didn’t Toby say not to use too much magic in the woods?”

Patton winked, a sly smile on his face. “A sleeping spell isn’t gonna hurt anyone,” he said, taking Logan’s hand and starting back towards their makeshift camp. Logan ignored the way his hand burned at the touch, peering at the medallion as they walked.

“Patton?” Logan asked. “What… what does this say?”

Patton took the medallion back, squinting at the words. “Boy, this is an old language,” he said, tapping the gem to send it's glow across the inscription. “Let’s see… um… ‘To my heart and soul, you hold the key,’ I think?”

“O-Oh.” Logan took the medallion back, something between warmth and heartbreak flickering in his chest. “Thank you.”

“No prob, bob!” Patton grinned, offering a cheerful two-fingered salute, and continued through the forest. Logan lingered behind him, running his finger along the inscription again and again and again. The words didn’t leave his mind even as Patton sat beside him and set his hand atop Logan’s forehead, whispering lilting words that brought darkness to the corners of his vision.

Roman must have engraved the dragon’s eye. There was no other explanation. But that implied, yet again, that Roman had known of events to come, that he knew Logan would someday find the medallion and use it to find his weapon.

He pulled his wedding ring from his finger, turning it over in his hand. He didn’t even have to look inside; he knew the engraving by heart, the message Roman had carved for him. He whispered it as he fell asleep.

“To my heart and soul, you hold the key.”

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Stella and the Wolf - Chapter 7

You can read it here on AO3 or find the Tumblr Chapter Index here. 

The last of the streetlights slides in a bright corona up the windshield of the Jeep as Stiles turns onto the road through the Preserve, and then the road is dark and deep, and reminds Stiles of a Robert Frost poem on that alone. The light from the headlights bounces off the potholed asphalt and the trees closest to the road, causing Stiles’s heart to jump whenever he thinks he senses movement, but as far as he can tell it’s only light and shadow and his imagination.

It’s reckless to be doing this, coming out here, with a bloodthirsty Alpha on the loose, but that’s Stiles all over, and it always has been. It’s partly because of his ADHD, he thinks, but there’s no denying he got a healthy streak of it from his Mom too. She didn’t have ADHD but Stiles can remember waking up in the car a bunch of times when he was little, before Stella came along and before Mom got sick, and discovering it wasn’t even dawn yet but they were halfway to the coast so they could have a picnic breakfast on the beach. Every day with her was an adventure. Stiles wonders what the hell she’d make of all this werewolf business. And then he remembers too, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, how she’d seen monsters towards the end, while her brain withered and died inside her skull.

He wonders if her hallucinations took place on dark roads like this one.

He could be driving into a horror movie right now, he knows, but he’s been out here before in the daylight, and dark is just the absence of light, right? He knows what the Preserve looks like in the day, when the sunlight filters through the trees, and it’s beautiful. But right now, with just a sliver of the moon riding in the sky above the scant clouds, it’s a whole different world.

There was a time when Stiles would have thought that Derek belonged out here in a nightmare world, but he’s seen past the claws and the fangs now, the glower and the growl.

The road curves like it’s following the path of an unknown river as it cuts through the Preserve. Stiles follows the final curve, the shift grinding a little as he drops down a gear into second, and then the road ends at the clearing where the Hale house once stood.

It must have been beautiful, once, but now it’s nothing but a shell. The façade is still there, jutting up into the night sky like a headstone.

And god. Stiles needs to stop jumping straight to the horror movie imagery, in case he turns it into a self fulfilling prophecy. Stiles is the mouthy sidekick in this story. If it’s a horror movie, he knows how it ends for that guy, right?

Stiles pulls to a stop in front of the house, the headlights of the Jeep illuminating the charred, blackened porch. They’re illuminating Derek as well, where he’s standing at the top of the steps, looking at the Jeep. With his werewolf hearing, he probably heard the Jeep’s whining transmission from miles away.

Stiles climbs out of the Jeep, and slams the door shut. His sneakers crunch on dead leaves as he walks toward the porch. “Hey, Derek.”

“What are you doing here?” Derek’s voice is low, his syllables cut off into short, unhappy sounds.

And this is the part that Stiles hasn’t thought through. Because Derek needs his help, and Derek needs to not be alone, but Derek is also a brick wall. If he were a Stilinski, Stiles would have grabbed him and forced him to hug it out by now, but that’s not Derek at all. He’s more vulnerable that he wants to show, but Stiles knows he can’t just point that out and expect Derek to agree and come home with him. It’s absolutely no exaggeration at all to say Derek would rather die than show any weakness.

So he shrugs and says, “Stella was worried about you.”

It’s a low blow, but it’s not a lie. And okay, it’s not a conversation that Stiles has had with Stella, but he knows his little sister. She’s as protective of the people she cares about as Stiles is. Stiles’s list is a lot shorter than Stella’s but somehow Derek Hale has made his way onto both of them.

Derek stares at him. “It’s past midnight. You shouldn’t be out here.”

“Afraid I’ll turn into a pumpkin?” Stiles asks. The sagging porch steps creak as he climbs them.

Derek glares at him, but come on. He wasn’t raised on an alien planet. Stiles knows he gets the reference.

“Yeah, it’s past midnight,” Stiles says, squaring his shoulders. “And you’re camping in the burned out remains of your family home. It’s stupid. I mean, my house has a garage we can put an air mattress in. Dad parks in the driveway. He’ll never even know you’re there.”

Derek’s mouth presses into a thin line before he speaks. “I’m not coming to sleep in your garage, Stiles.”

“Why not?” Stiles demands, because he’s pretty sure Derek responds better to aggression than he does to comfort. “At least it doesn’t have holes in the wall.”

He actually growls. “I don’t need your pity!”

Derek is all hard angles and bristling anger now, but there’s an undercurrent of vulnerability to him. It’s always been there, like one of those dumb Magic Eye pictures. For a while Stiles just saw lines and shapes and colors, but he’s seen the real picture now, and he can’t pretend to unsee it.

“I’m not offering you pity, sourwolf,” Stiles says, part of him almost enjoying the way Derek turns up the wattage on his glare when that word falls out of his mouth. “I’m offering you shelter. It’s way before pity on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s right at the base of the pyramid. You don’t get anywhere near esteem and self-actualisation until you’ve got a place to sleep. That’s science.”

Derek is unimpressed with science. “Go home, Stiles.”

He turns away and Stiles reaches out to grab his arm. “Look, you gave Scott that whole dumbass talk about being werewolf brothers now, and you know he’s not here for that, but, like, Iam.”

The slight widening of Derek’s eyes warns him he’s crossing into territory he didn’t mean to, and wasn’t supposed to, but Stiles’s mouth has never needed his brain to engage first in order to operate. Words just sort of happen for Stiles.

“And I know I’m nobody’s first choice, dude, but I’m offering you shelter, and probably even the occasional hot meal and shower, and that’s a hell of a lot more than you’ve got going on out here.”

Derek wrenches his arm away. “I’m not going with you, Stiles. Don’t you get it? The Alpha is trying to pull me and Scott into whatever game he’s playing, and soon that might mean coming after the people we know. Even coming out here tonight you might have put a target on your back. You think I should go and stay at your house? Where your dad and your little sister live? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Oh.

Oh, okay.

Stiles gets it now, he thinks.

It’s more words that Derek has ever spoken to him, probably, and it makes a painful feeling bloom in Stiles’s chest.

It’s not just Derek’s pride at play here at all.

Derek is trying to protect him, and Dad, and Stella.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice rasping. “But if the Alpha is coming after the people you know, then I’m already on his list, aren’t I? I’m Scott’s best friend.”

“You’re prey,” Derek tells him. “You’re supposed to stay quiet and still and hope the wolf doesn’t notice you.”

“Have you met me though?”

He hoped it would get at least a snort out of Derek, but Derek just stares at him a moment longer.

“Go home, Stiles,” he says at last, and turns and goes back inside whatever remains of his house.

Stiles stands on the porch a moment longer. When he speaks, it’s in his usual tone. He knows Derek will hear him.

“Dad’s on earlies this week. He leaves before six. Stella and I have breakfast at around six-thirty. We’ll put out a spare plate if you change your mind.”

Then, his eyes stinging a little, he leaves and drives home.

***

Derek doesn’t turn up for breakfast.

Stiles drops Stella off at school, hugs her goodbye, and drives to the high school. He’s early enough that he gets a good park, and sits in the driver’s seat staring at the school building, his finger and thumb pressing tight on the key in the Jeep’s ignition.

This is a mess.

This is a whole fucking mess, and nobody is doing anything. The Alpha is playing them all—Derek and Scott and the hunters, and even Stiles. He’s batting them all around like a cat does with a shivering mouse that it’s caught, and Stiles knows that sooner or later something has to give, and it’s going to be the mouse.

They need a game changer.

They need to break the pattern and shift the balance.

They need something.

Fuck this.  

Stiles might not be a werewolf, and he might not be able to fight the Alpha, but there’s one thing he’s always been good at, and that’s research. If he can find the connection between the Alpha and the murders, then maybe he can find the Alpha’s identity, and Derek and Scott can have a chance at getting the drop on him.

It’s about time Stiles stopped pretending that werewolf stuff was just something he can get around to after school and on weekends. This is life and death. The normal rules don’t apply. He’ll deal with the fallout for skipping classes when it happens, because—best case scenario—at least he’ll be alive to get his multiple detentions, right?

He stares at the school for a moment longer as the parking lot slowly fills, and then restarts the engine and drives home.

***

Stiles hears Dad’s cruiser pulling up in the driveway at just past nine. He shoves the files he’s printed out from the photos he took back into his old gym bag, and pushes the bag under his bed. By the time Dad gets upstairs, Stiles is curled up under his comforter, a glass of water and a conspicuous bottle of Tylenol on his bedside table.

His bedroom door squeaks open.

“Kiddo?”

“Hey,” he says, hoping he sounds weak and sad.

“I got a call from the school,” Dad says. The mattress dips when he sits on it. “They said you didn’t come in. Are you feeling okay?”

“Headache,” Stiles mumbles into his pillow. He doesn’t skip very often, which he hopes makes the occasions he does seem more believable.

Dad leans over him to feel his forehead, and Stiles feels a rush of warmth at the gesture. Then Dad straightens up again, and rubs Stiles’s back gently, the way Mom used to when he was sick. “You need anything from the pharmacy?”

“No. I think I’ll be okay if I can sleep it off.”

“Okay, son,” Dad says. “I’ll pick Stella up this afternoon, so you can rest. Do you want me to make you some soup before I head back in?”

“No, I’m good,” Stiles murmurs.

Dad leans down and kisses him on the top of the head, and Stiles feels like he’s a little kid again, warm and safe and loved. “Call me if you need anything.”

“’kay.”

He waits until he hears Dad tread down the steps again, and the front door clicks closed. Then he waits until he hears the cruiser leave before scrambling out of bed and pulling the files out again.

Because Stiles might not have fangs or claws, or super speed and super hearing, but he can still hunt the Alpha in his own way.

He gets back to work.

[lokikingofasgardslover713]

Forgotten Gods: 4

1   2   3  5   6   7   8

MASTERLIST

Loki Laufeyson x Plus!Size Reader

Words: +4,400

Warnings: SMUT THIS CHAPTER! Consensual, reader is of age, I'm putting her around +21, but being Aesir she is technically decades old, but when doing the math, you get the picture. And this one is, rocky, heart break, you all will probably hate me after this one. I did bad things to Loki.

A/N: Sigyn/Siggy means victorious girlfriend or wife in old Norse. Ostmen are what the Vikings called themselves, seeress is just as it sounds a prophet, Danelagh or Danelaw is England and Norrvegr is modern day Norway. The name Gyda mean warlike in Old Norse.

Vǫlva= Viking for witch, usually old woman witch but I changed it up

Note on Viking wedding traditions: I sped some of the traditions up really fast! It normally takes years for Vikings to marry. I will leave a link, so you can see for yourself. But I kept with their traditions though mush aren’t known. Viking Wedding Tradition

For the past day, Y/N remained lying next to Bjorn’ wounded side, his arm thrown around her, Y/N dozing off when he was breathing easy & waking when he struggled for breath. Around midday their second day at sea, thank the gods they were calm for once, Y/N heard his chest rattle differently, prompting her to sit up quickly, looking down at him in darkness the candle she had lit that morning had extinguished itself, a bad omen.

“Bjorn,” Y/N unused voice rasped out, sitting up in the silk soft deer skin shift that he had gifted her with when they landed, before it all…

“Gyda, I,” he began, letting out a pained rasp, sounding like his breath was caught in his chest.

“No,” Y/N whimpered silently, knowing what this was & panic took over her body.

Flicking her wrist out to the candles, the room instantly lit up with the light that they provided, Y/N gently straddling over Bjorn’ thighs, careful not to jar the bleeding hole that he had gotten from a hatchet only a day ago. Looking from the wound to his paling face, he was dying, no he couldn’t die, this wasn’t fare, Y/N had found something familiar, something, someone that was to be hers when they reached Norrvegr &…

“Bjorn, please,” Y/N breathed out slackly leaning down to cup his pale, clammy cheeks, cherishing them & trying to keep the tears back.

“It's ok,” he rasped out, his face contorting in pain reaching up to lay a hand on her cheek, it was burning hot against the coolness of her own but gladly Y/N leaned into it.

“I go to Valhalla,” he informed her with a smile when Y/N opened her eyes to look at him, catching the tear that followed & continuing to smile at her.

“It would be very informative if you would tell me where you plan to send us every time we come here,” Loki bit out towards Thor, both getting the hang of being transported by Frigga’ seidr & not stumbling around like new born foals.

“It would be wouldn’t it,” Thor quipped back, taking in his brothers annoyed look before adding, “if I knew I would tell you, but mother keeps that secret even from me, best so that Heimdall or father doesn’t find out.”

“Understood,” was all Loki commented, turning from Thor to survey the area, it looked to be Norrvegr, but it seemed they where set out more inland, towards tip of the continent.

Both brothers looking around to find where they had been sat out & realizing that a road wasn’t far from where Frigga had put them. They would have to disguise themselves, Loki realized & called on his seidr to cover them in drab clothing so as not to attract attention.

“We should have brought horses,” Thor commented, looking over to the younger god who nodded in agreement, they wanted to avoid being seen as royalty, it would draw undue attention from more than the Ostmen.

Walking in silence for several miles, Loki finally decided to voice a worry that was beginning to nag at him, something he knew couldn’t last forever.

“How long do think mother can keep calling to the darkness like this,” he finally spoke to his older brother who let out a quiet sigh and looked over to meet his worried gaze before looking back to the road ahead.

“I'm not sure, it takes a toll on her even now,” Thor breathed out sounding defeated, thundering sounding far off.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Loki apologized to Thor, hinting to the thunder that sounded, but it felt as though it calmed slightly at his apology.

“It's fine brother, for the past, Norns knows how many nights, it keeps me awake, along with the nightmares,” Thor admitted to his brother, something Loki knew of himself, but didn’t let Thor know he heard him, though faint, calling out to Y/N & himself.

Thor didn’t have the stomach to tell Loki that he had a reoccurring nightmare of Loki falling from the Bifrost into the abyss, it sickened him every time he had that dream, & in it Loki cursed him beforehand. The two battling it out in the gate room, blue energy bolting around them & moving to the Bifrost. His younger brother continuing to curse at him about how he treated him, how he never helped to find Y/N, how he never protected her, & of the undying love that Loki felt, a love that since Y/N was never returned had turned his heart to stone, making him lash out at Thor and Odin.

“Brother,” Loki almost yelled worry crossing his features Thor coming out of his thoughts to realize that the sky had grown dark & it was beginning to drizzle when he looked at Loki.

“What is it,” Thor spoke up, calming the storm, thankful the imagery wasn’t real, & looking out to where Loki directed, a village, one that looked to be well populated.

“Good, let us find Y/N shall we,” Thor smiled, all be it fake & pained over at his brother, hoping that he didn’t pummel him into the ground for saying her name out loud though thankfully over the past few days it had passed Loki’ lips dozens of times.

“My Siggy,” Loki breathed so that only he would hear & not Thor, looking to the village in hope that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“No, I can’t,” her voice continued to shake, one hand releasing his cheek to go to the wound in his side, as if she could do something.

The gentle rocking of the ship felt as if it was trying to lull Bjorn to rest, his breath growing shallower, raspier, & Y/N absentmindedly tuning into it to match it sending herself into a deeper panic. Calling the seidr out of instinct, not realizing what she did until it began to take over both their bodies, not looking away from Bjorn’ hazing steel blue eyes.

“Gyda, Gyda, it's ok, don’t shed another tear for me, call it back you will weaken yourself,” Bjorn reassured her, calling back to how Y/N had to be carried onto the ship & placed in his bed with him because she had weakened from defending them, was he breathing easier?

“I want weaken myself,” she retorted, the room suddenly filled with a loud sickening snap that was all to audible & Bjorn letting out a pained growl that echoed around the room letting go of her face to hold to his injured side.

Blinded by her own seidr, Y/N continued to stare down at Bjorn, not seeing or hearing anything, but speaking, actually speaking with the seidr, telling it to heal him, like a conversation between old friends. A light pat to her burning cheek made her focus on Bjorn who was sitting up, holding her in his lap & looking healthy. Had she died & went to Valhalla with him?

“Gyda, look at me, I need you to focus lover,” he breathed, snapping her out of it, the pet name lover threatening to bring forth a memory but was forgotten the moment Y/N realized he was breathing easy hands wrapped around her cheeks , bringing her down out of her panic.

“Bjorn,” she finally spoke, eyes clearing, focusing, looking to his very being before he pulled her face to his & crashed their lips together, Y/N allowing his tongue entrance.

There tongues tangled fighting for dominance while Bjorn took the opportunity to gently push Y/N legs back so that he had a chance to free himself, but it seemed she was just as inpatient, hands jerked at the already loose tie, a sigh of frustration at how the leather didn’t want to give.

“Fuck,” Y/N breathed into his mouth in frustration, while Bjorn swallowed it up like a man parched, speaking with the seidr about the troublesome pants & no time they were in the floor.

“So impatient,” Bjorn laughed into her mouth, breaking the kiss to push her up, jerking the shift over her head but keeping it so it bound her arms behind her back, back arching to press soft breast in his face while Y/N scooted closer to grind on a rock-hard cock.

“So are you,” Y/N breathed out, sitting up to tease the head of his cock with her already dripping wet cunt, jerking her arms free from the shift for him to throw to the floor.

Bjorn pulled down on Y/N thick hip with one hand while the other went to the nape of her neck to pull her down for a  kiss, thrusting up to meet her only to be teased, sweat begging to bead on their bodies & not due to the seidr or his health.

“Fuck, Gyda, please don’t tease,” he spoke into her mouth, pulling hard at her hip, his grip desperate & bruising.

Finally giving, allowing him to tug her onto his cock to swallow down the moan she released as he stretched her in all the right ways. Allowing her to still because, even though she wasn’t untouched she still felt as if she was. He had no desire to hurt her, looking up into her face, a slight twinge coming to it as if from pain, and hoping that it wasn’t him as he gently rocked her hips to test the waters.

Sinking onto his cock made her mind set on fire, the flicker of something familiar running rampant through her pounding skull, why was this familiar? Another flicker, one of gold, green & black leathers. Silver short swords embellished with wolves, emeralds, no emerald eyes, a sea of green satin, while shoulder length black hair tickled along her stomach.

Her gut twisting, this was wrong, but it was right, it was pain & it was pleasure. Forcing eyes to open & the fleeting memory away because of the head splitting pain that it caused, filling nauseous when looking down into steel blue eyes. Something nagging at her that they should be emerald but brushing it off when his voice reached her ears.

“Gyda, am I hurting you,” Bjorn asked gently, guiding her hips so that she rocked over his, the fill of his cock mind-numbingly pleasurable as a smile danced across Y/N lips, rocking her hips more to thrust onto him harder.

“Not at all lover,” she breathed out on instinct, leaning back so that her breast where in his face, a pert nipple begging to be sucked.

A calloused hand caressing over the soft skin, thumb gliding over the bud before leaning to suck it into his mouth, gentle at first but raking teeth over it the moment he could feel her clinch around him. Good, because the soft, moist heat that was engulfing his eager cock was throbbing for an early release.

Y/N went first, dragging Bjorn with her, clawing to his back while wrapping arms around his shoulders to hold them tightly against each other, rutting on him & filling him empty into her. Hot seed filling her womb & making her find familiarity, comfort in it while he continued to rut on her. Riding out their highs, paying no heed to just how loud they had gotten. The pounding on the door not reaching their ears, at least not until Y/N seidr allowed the door open that she didn’t realize it held.

The moment was broken when the door to the room slammed open as if an invisible force was holding it shut, the men stumbled in wielding their weapons & looking breathless. Looking to their leader who sat upright, holding a fur over Y/N who was obviously straddling him, buried in his chest & Bjorn looked remarkably…well.

Quickly, without pulling out of Y/N pulsing heat, Bjorn jerked the nearest fur over their bodies, sweat rolling off of them & both panting hard when the door banged open. The bang of it causing Gyda to jump in his arms, wrapping her own around his waist & hold tightly onto a healed side. Y/N peaking out at one of the other leaders from another ship.

“We thought, sire, you're healed,” the one who had pushed in first began, stepping closer but pausing when he noticed the discarded shift on the floor.

“I am thanks to our young vǫlva,” Bjorn spoke, breathing easy & running his hand along her thigh cherishing it.

“Good news sire, we will leave you two alone,” the man spoke, sheathing his axe & ushering the others out gruffly.

“A seeress,” Thor asked Loki as they were back out on the road, that thankfully wasn’t swimming with mud, “why would they take her to a seeress, if this is ..”

Glancing over quickly at Thor, the looked Loki fixed him with told him to keep his mouth shut, to not deprive Loki of hope.

“Did the woman give you any names, anything to go by, something we could give mother,” Thor spoke rationally, using his battle training to force himself to think rationally & coherently.

“The woman that she described looking exactly like Y/N, she was accompanying the one who found her, Bjorn in Danelagh to the seeress that is a day’s ride,” Loki began to explain looking straight ahead with hope, strides getting longer.

“They called her Gyda, said that this Bjorn found her in a meadow after a raid there, said she remembers nothing but when she was found,” Loki continued to speak on happily, Thor trying to think rational once more.

“Wait how do you know this Gyda is her? It could just be some war prize that …,” was all Thor got out before a coldness washed over Loki’ features.

Loki stopped quickly, Thor making it a few strides ahead till he realized he had stopped & reluctantly turned to face his brother. The hateful gaze he focused on Thor sent shivers down his spine, it wasn’t Loki he was looking at, it was something completely different, he was void of emotion, body ridged & gaze that cut through him like tiny shards of ice making his very bones hurt. It troubled Thor that he had switched that fast, eyes that once sparkled with hope boring into him as if he was seeing him but wasn’t & above all what terrified Thor the most was the fact that he resembled the Loki he fought on the Bifrost, the one from his nightmares.

“Their leader was dying on the voyage here from a gaping hole in his side that was pouring blood, & when he reached the shore here he was completely healed & was ready to take this journey to take HER to the seeress because the seeress had explained to Bjorn where to find her in Danelagh. The seeress described Gyda, MY Siggy as a gift from the gods & that when found she was to be brought before the prophetess,” Loki bit out viciously, but then again he was calm, so collected, his gaze not faltering even when a thin tear broke free.

“Wait if she is with Bjorn, that means that, from what I gathered…,” Thor got out before Loki snarled out at him violently, stalking towards him to stop inches from him, glaring daggers into his soul.

“I know what it means brother! But she doesn’t know who she is, what we are to each other! Now shut up,” Loki growled, looking calm still, but also looking like a rabid beast about to pounce if Thor said one more word & that was something that they couldn’t afford at the moment.

The plodding of the horse was rhythmic as they followed the path to visit the seeress, causing Y/N to slump over, tired from healing Bjorn, from the journey, from the entire ordeal in general & was slowly nodding off on her mount. Y/N mount, a stallion that she tamed with just her touch. Gentle nudging at her elbow making her snap out of it to look over at Bjorn with a sleepy smile, leaning into his touch as he reached out to cherish her cheek.

“What do you dream of lover? I hear you call out to someone, but it's so quiet I never hear,” Bjorn asked her gently, confusion crossing her features, evident she didn’t realize what she did when she would drift off to sleep.

“I don’t know, all I see when I dream is colors of green, gold, black, & emerald,” Y/N admitted, missing the fill of his hand on her face when the horses shifted due to the terrain, noting that they where heading into snow dusted trees & the air was surprisingly colder than ever.

Fear shivered along Y/N spine along with the oddly unbearable cold that didn’t seem natural, looking around to figure out where they could be & spotting a grouping of cabins that situated in the trees. Walkways traversed between them, so no one walked in the mud, one off to itself leaving Y/N guessing it belonged to the seeress.

“Then hopefully Asta can help you remember then,” he spoke to her with confidence though she cold visibly watch a shiver move along his spine the closer they got to the cabins.

Bjorn halting his mount to jump down to catch Y/N’ & hold him for her to dismount, another tug at memory another sharp pain and another forgotten even when it felt as though steel blue eyes should look like sparkling emeralds.

“Don’t play games woman,” the man, snapped in the seeress face, an unreadable expression as she was violently slammed to the wall in the cabin, glad she enchanted it so no one heard there squabbles.

“I'm not! She is hear as we speak,” the old woman spat out, hand flying to the one at her throat pinning her to the wall, but still she hardly flinched, the tall man bearing down her, his illusion flickering but calling it back.

“And you are sure she remembers nothing? Sure that the sorcerer want find her,” the man snarled in her face, free hand producing a weapon that no Ostmen carried and holding the tip to the seeress throat in warning.

“I am positive! If you hadn’t fucked up in Danelagh when they had to turn back because of Thor’ anger then we would not have this problem,” she bit out, kicking the man back, making him drop her, but still he held the blade to her throat & towered over her.

A knock sounded at the door, the seeress gaze shooting up to look into the dark eyes of the man that towered over her hinting to the door that led out of the back of the cabin.

“Damn you Býleistr, go,” she snarled quietly, “I will bring her when I discard of her newest lover.”

Slowly Bjorn entered first, holding tightly to Y/N hand leading her into the seeress’ cabin, the old woman looking away from the back entrance that clicked shut, & looking to the two. An odd look of satisfaction coming to her eyes that sent a violent shiver through the two, the room colder than the outside despite the fact a fire burned at its center.

“My sire! I see you found the young vǫlva shield maiden that I spoke of,” the old woman spoke out in awe, coming forward & taking the time to look over Y/N like a prized bull.

“Aye, saved my life,” he admitted proudly motioning Y/N to go with the old woman who stood close to the fire.

The old seeress reaching out to take Y/N chin to turn her head this way & that. Looking over the deer skin pants, fur covered boots, the gold chain & pendant that was around her neck sparkling in the fire light. A pendant Asta knew belonged to Bjorn’ mother, the older shield maiden must have given it to the younger one when they landed. Looking quickly to Y/N side to see a sword, the one belonging to Bjorn, was lashed to her side by a beautiful belt, bring nit to question if he carried something of Y/N, spotting the golden handled dagger that rested inside the young ruler’s breast pocket.

“You were wed,” the seeress spoke, not sure how to proceed, normally these things took years, but if Bjorn’ mother blessed them then it was possible it was a fast ceremony in private.

“Not yet, when we return,” Bjorn admitted watching the seeress continue to focus on Y/N, how eerie it was that Asta looked Gyda over like a sacrifice.

“Come! You two must sit, we need to talk,” the seeress began, snapping out of her trance & hinting to the two to take a seat close to the fire as snow began to fall through the chimney over the pit.

Looking at Y/N, Bjorn noticed her color pale, especially when the seeress ghosted over her forearm, reaching out to pull Y/N close looking into fear-stricken eyes before looking to the old woman who rambled on about something then back to Y/N.

“Forgive us Asta but allow me to walk Gyda to the long house to rest, it was a long journey &…,” Bjorn began, cut off by the vicious shout of the old seeress who looked slightly taller now.

“I have waited too long & have ice cold death breathing down my neck! It's time to go,” was the shout that made the two realize the trap that they had entered had clamped shut around them & there was no escape.

Looking ahead to the trees in front of them, smelling burning wood & meat. Striding closer to once again see crows fly overhead, no not again. Before Thor could stop Loki, he raced ahead through the burring trees & lodges. Emerald seidr in a frenzy to stop the burning only to wind up in the middle of a ring of death. Burned houses, men, women, children, horses, looking as if it was to cover someone’s tracks.

“Loki! Stop,” Thor shouted after his brother running after Loki, the irate go showing not signs of stopping when he spotted the cabin that was further up on the hill, away to itself, a burnt shell.

Running up in his brother, Thor watched Loki stoop, pulling something off of a body lying next to the fire pit, that looked to have once been a man. The item he picked up glistened gold & silver, snakes intertwining down the fuller. Without putting any thought to it, Loki wrapped his palm around the blade, looking around the shell of a cabin & seeing nothing else but a sword he didn’t recognize. Hand tightening around the blade, cutting flesh to spill blood. Loki, no longer able to hold onto hope, falling to his knees & screaming out to nothing.

Thor stopped, he needed time, but then again what can he do? Y/N wasn’t here & who appeared to be Bjorn laid burned to death at Loki’ knees. And Loki, Norns, what the Hel was he going to do, how would he get him home? It was past night fall on Midgard as well as Asgard. Thor’ gut twisting because something told him this would be the last time they ventured to Midgard, the last time in a long time because Odin had found out. The two would be lucky if they weren’t confined to their rooms or the dungeon for that fact.

His last hope, Loki’ last hope was bleeding out all over his leathers, running down his knees & dripping onto the scorched platform. The young gods anger escaping in loud incoherent curses that shook the very ground with his anger. Unable to stop till he was breathless, hoarse, & completely spent. Leaving it up to Thor to get him to his feet, struggling in his arms to let him go & allow him to stay as penance. Forcefully Thor drug his struggling brother to wobbly legs to call out to their mother to bring them home & choking on his own sob.

“Look at who shivers before me,” Y/N heard a deep male voice echo around her in the dark, freezing room.

Trying to look through the darkness, but this time seeing nothing, dawning on Y/N that someone had rendered her blind. Arms stretched & pulled over her head, stretched out like a piece of meat to be butchered. Jumping when a cold breath moved across her skin, telling her that something was close. The cold of the room biting I through the clothes as if Y/N wore nothing, only remembering. Remembering, what was she to remember again? Shivering, chains jingling to echo around the room.

“Return her sight, I want to see her expression when she sees my face for the first time,” the voice spoke right in front of her, another breeze of cold air making her realize it was her captors breath.

Slowly as if coming out of a hazy fog, Y/N regained her sight, only to look into blood red eyes that were sat in a leathery blue face scared with lines and gold adornments on his head. Unable to stop the gasp that left her, the creatures cold breath taking her own as he let out a chuckle & stood up strait backing away to stand to his true height.

“My sweet little goddess, how far you have fallen & without any memory to serve you but for the ones we are about to create from this moment on,” the blue giant laughed.

Y/N forced herself to look away, only to realize that there were several more in the room with her, one that wasn’t as tall as the one laughing over her, he looked young. Another next to him who was tall like the one before her & a lifeless body laid on the floor, the body of something dead. It was hard to tell what it was, a frostbitten heap of flesh that looked burned as well.

“Unbind her, I want to see what my runt of a son Loki seen in this creature,” the giant chuckled darkly.

The fall taking her breath, hitting the cold floor, instinct telling her to call out to the seidr to protect her, but who was Loki & how had she gotten here? The last she thought before trying to free herself from these monsters that towered over her.

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[ackbang]

it’s all everything with you (ao3)

an unofficial sequel to “it’s all nothing without you[x]” (check out the accompanying art piece by @erwinsalive here[x]). inspired by a trip to the ocean a few weeks ago (and then forgot about because of all the prompts i was doing lol).

They start by remembering each other’s names.

“Erwin.”

“Levi.”

They know the names are theirs, even though they’ve lived this life by another for over three decades. The other memories bubble from the bases of their brain stems, pop against the surface of their consciousness like the champagne they share. They clink their glasses at New Year’s--another year, another one together. They kiss when the ball drops. Erwin says into Levi’s lips, “Eight years together, darling.” And Levi doesn’t correct him when they sit back into their seats, because it really doesn’t feel like a lifetime away since they had parted.

Love was easy. Instantaneous. Erwin said it after they first met. Took his face between his hands, hands so big and familiar they made Levi’s heart ache with a pain he thought he had forgotten in death. Their lips fell together like they always did, like they had been chiseled from the same stone. And as they lived on together again, they masoned the pieces of this life with the last. It was interesting to see how parallels were formed--how certain phobias transcended through spirit and left them bodily weak. They haven’t remembered everything, they wouldn’t even know when they would have reached the pinnacle of remembering anyway, but they remember enough.

Levi remembers the ocean the following year.

He sits paralyzed in the passenger seat. His hands gripping his pants as if he’s trying to rip them off. He knows now why he has always hated the ocean. He was able to compose himself around imagery and video of it, choking down the anxiety like a pill too big through his throat. But now it was here, undulating like a maggot’s backside, and vast like the sky that sits atop of it. Inside the car, he’s drowning. Inside the car, he’s safe. He swallows, but he can’t move anything else. He’s drowning, he’s...

“Levi?” Erwin takes off his sunglasses and folds them, placing one arm of them into the collar of his polo shirt.

Levi can’t come up with the words. They’re parked right along the beach. He can see the waves rolling in. He can see the brats wadding in the shallow waves. He can see Hange shin deep in water so blue he never knew the specific word for it (he learned in this life it was “turquoise”). He brings his hand to his forehead and shakes out a breath.

“Levi, darling. Talk to me. Did you remember something?”

Levi bites his lip and nods shallowly. He rests the side of his head against the window. It’s cold from the air conditioning blowing on it for the past hour. He feels fevered, sick, disgusted.

“About what?” Erwin leans over and places his hand on top of Levi’s, and Levi’s fingers relax slightly, the denim of his jeans releasing from under nails. “Maybe I can help you through this, like when you remembered…”

“We made it…” Levi starts, because he’d rather talk about this than about the serum. “We made it to the ocean.”

“Oh?” Erwin huffs out a sound of amusement. It surprises Levi, and he turns his head to look. There’s a smile and a blank stare on his face… Just like that other time. “That’s… Awesome.”

“What?” And Levi can’t tell if he’s more surprised by the word or by the mood. “How is that awesome?”

Erwin turns to look at Levi, grin wide and childlike. “You all fought so hard. You were able to achieve something that could have never been dreamed of for an entire century. That’s… Remarkable.”

“It sucked.” Levi sinks into his seat.

It’s Erwin’s turn to be confused. “How?”

“It…” Levi swallows and presses his shoulder into the door. “The brats were so excited.” Erwin watches him with quiet attention, his thumb trailing across Levi’s fingers tenderly, as if trying to search for the scars that used to be there. Levi’s a teacher now, he has no blade cuts on his hands, just the faded ones on his wrists.  “Even Hange loosened up.” Levi tries to laugh, but it comes out like whimper. “Big fuckin’ feet tromping through the sand… Picking up, uh…” It takes him a moment to remember the word he knew in this life, one that he didn’t know back then. “A, uh, snail... And proddin’ it like it was a damn titan.”

“Sounds like it was nice.”

Levi squeezes his jeans again, and Erwin’s hand stays formed tightly around his. “You should have been there.”

“We’re here together now.”

“It’s not the same.” Levi squeezes Erwin’s fingers in his own. “I was so goddamn mad. I wanted them all to just be fuckin’ sucked away into the waves. I’ve never felt like that... It wasn’t… It wasn’t fuckin’ fair.”

“We’re together.”

Levi looks up at Erwin, his lip between his teeth. “I never wanted to stop sharing my life with you.” He’s crying now, quiet tears that only drown his voice, makes it deeper and sorrowful. Tears enough for two lifetimes, crying now when he couldn’t then, at a place Levi had imagined at the time to be the edge of the world. “I thought I was stronger. But I missed you so fuckin’ much, Erwin.”

Erwin looks at him, watches him, studies him, learns him all over again. Levi had been so strong, had let Erwin rest with his comrades, let him die a soldier’s--no, a commander’s--death out on the field. He sacrificed his own happiness, his own sanity, to grant Erwin dignity.

Squeezing his fingers around Levi’s shaking one, Erwin leans across the center console of the SUV and places a kiss on Levi’s cheek. “We can go home. I apologize for bringing you here.”

Levi’s lips move against his teeth as he tries to control his breathing, tries to push the tears back into their place. But his past life claws out from the back of his mind, takes control of his emotions, and sends his body forward, crumpled into the seat with his back heaving out heavy, devastating sobs. It was worse than when he remembered the serum, because the serum was the last thing he remembered from his past life. He had hoped he had died shortly after, that there was no continuation to his story. That the memories stopped there, and only new ones would be created.

Afterall, how could there be anything else to remember after Erwin?

“Levi! Levi…” Erwin unbuckles himself and hastily gets out of the car. He rounds the front of it and pulls Levi’s door open, turns the man’s small body toward him and wraps his arms around him. He shushes him against his chest, feels weak fingers come up around his neck and pull him closer as it grows wet with Levi’s tears. “It’s okay. We can leave. I’m here, and we’re together, and we can leave. We don’t ever, ever have to see the ocean again.”

Levi buries his face in Erwin’s shoulder, gasps loudly as his eyes screw shut, leaking tears as hot and slick as the blood that covered his face on that day he held the syringe. The cries hurt, wrench from his body like his spirit passing through flesh, and he finally finds enough strength to squeeze his arms tightly around Erwin. Because he’s here. Dear god, he’s here, and he’s alive, and even after he knew, oh god, even after he knew, he didn’t leave. He just…

Erwin’s hand comes up to cradle the back of Levi’s head. He places soft kisses into Levi’s neck and shoulder while shushing gentle, quiet words. “I love you.” He says. He says it all the time in this life, means it more and more with each iteration. But now he says it without taking a chance to refresh a breath, breaks only for placing his lips somewhere, anywhere, on Levi. Trying without understanding how to sedate a man that never needed comfort before, finding it more and more difficult that two lives was far too many for any one man to share, let alone two. “Levi.”

“Shut up.” Levi hisses through a beaten voice, and he just doesn’t want to hear what he knows is going to come next. He didn’t fucking deserve to see the ocean, not without him. He should have fucking died. He should have…

“Thank you.”

Levi pulls Erwin closer, practically drags him back into the car as he tightens his teeth so hard he hears the grind of them throughout his entire skull. “Shut up.”

“I’m sorry I died. I’m sorry I left you alone. But I’m here now, and you have always given me a life worth living. You gave me a death I never deserved.” Levi’s breathing slows, but his grip is still tight around Erwin. “I’m glad you got to experience the things I could not... So you could share them with me in this life.”

Levi sits, catches his breath weakly against Erwin until he pulls back and looks at Erwin. Erwin who is here, alive again, breathing, telling him he loves him, holds him every night even through the nightmares they both share. The man that loves him even though he was killed by him--no… No he didn’t kill Erwin. “Erwin.”

“Let’s go home.” Erwin kisses Levi tenderly, carefully, as if he’s afraid he’ll disappear like a short term memory. “Let’s go home and watch some reality television and eat some ice cream.” He smiles, tries to laugh, but he hurts just as much as Levi. Wants his captain to feel better, wants him to know that his life always had a meaning even without him.

“But you…” Levi croaks out, and he feels like a child, nose bubbling with snot and eyes big and red from too many tears. “You spent all this money…”

Erwin laughs out heartily. It makes Levi feel small, and he nestles back into Erwin’s embrace. “No no, Levi. It doesn’t matter. This vacation is nothing if you don’t enjoy it.”

Levi stares into Erwin’s shoulder, blinks slowly as he begins to feel normal again. “I want to see it.”

“Hm?” Erwin asks, rubbing a hand gently over Levi’s back.

“I want to see the ocean with you.” And truthfully, he had managed to avoid it completely in this life. All he knew of the ocean was in his past life--sweet and salty, the smell of steaming cabbage, and the heavy, sticky taste of water gone rotten and permeating in the air. Maybe it was different now. Maybe… “I want to.”

Erwin draws back, nods at Levi as he meets his eyes. He draws his thumbs across puffy red eyes and smiles with a gentleness that he only shows around Levi. “All right.”

“Ok.” Levi says, pushing his cheek into Erwin’s palm, kisses his wrist and sighs out when he feels the pulse beating against his lips.

Levi holds Erwin’s hand tight and close to him, holds it in front of his body as if the ocean is some kind of aggressor meant to beat him down again. With his nose pressed against Erwin’s bicep, he presses a kiss to the soft skin as they struggle across beach sand in flip flops. Erwin loses a sandal, needs to go back to retrieve it, never once losing Levi wrapped around his arm like a barnacle. Kissing the top of Levi’s head, he smiles and says for the millionth and one time: “I love you.”

They make it to wet sand and Erwin steps out of his sandals, Levi following his example as their toes sink into the ground. Levi holds onto Erwin’s arm as he continues to move toward the water, anchors his arm away from Erwin, his eyes pleading up at him. “Come on, darling.” Erwin says, softly.

Levi takes a hesitant step forward. He never felt the ocean. Never removed his boots, not even his scabbards, when they had gone to the ocean. The sensation was uncomfortable. Dirty. Unsettling. He moves to stand next to Erwin again, forehead resting on his arm.

“We’ll just stand here for a few minutes, all right?” Erwin squeeze Levi’s hand. “The water might touch us.”

“Okay…”

The waves pull and push against the shore, crashing like static as each sheet of water folds over itself. White, frothy bubbles lace the edges of cresting water and they pop and draw clear as the ocean drags away the water, leaving holes of feeding clams and oysters in its wake. A wave circles up, grows large, and crashes up the sand, rushes too quickly for them to step backward, and the water licks up to Levi’s shin as he clutches terrified to Erwin.

“Fuck.” Levi hisses.

“It’s all right.” And Erwin anchors him. Keeps him steady, calm. He’s smiling, toothy and satisfied. Unmoving like he was on the battlefield.

“It’s cold.”

Erwin laughs. “Yes.”

“We’ll catch hyperthermia.”

“You’re a health teacher. You know that’s not true.”

Levi tuts. But he relaxes, settles his weight into the squishy sand, lets his toes wiggle and sink. “Give me another hour and I can show you how true it is.”

Erwin releases his hand and wraps it around the small of Levi’s back, pulls his hip to his. “An hour, you say?”

Levi rests his head against Erwin’s arm, wraps his arm around Erwin’s waist, and sighs softly. “Yeah.”

Another wave sighs onto the shore, tickles their feet with crackling chatter of chill. But it feels alive. Moving. Vast and unfathomable but beautiful. And comforting. Levi closes his eyes, breathes in the smell of seaweed and salt, sighs out the disappointment and anger and fear. Erwin’s here. Erwin’s here and...  “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Erwin squeezes Levi’s hip to his. “More than anything.”