#the misery! the grief! the pain that so many could have been spared if someone had just been decent a time or two

[lostandbackagain]

im blaming it on my distrust of landy as an author but skulduggery pleasant becoming pretty explicitly a story of regret is a very welcome development

from "regret never won war, valkyrie, and sorry isn't a big enough word for what I'm feeling" and "for your sake I'd change everything," to valkyrie's self-atonement arc she'll probably be working on until the day she dies, china's whole life being built upon actions she wishes she could undo, people who didn't say "I love you" back and now they never can, chasing alternative futures until they become self-fulfilling prophecies because they already want a do-over, alternate dimensions where someone made one single decent choice and changed everything for better or worse--every book is drenched in "I wish it had been different"

[kitty-is-writing]

writemas day 5!

thanks to @agirlandherquill ! the day 5 prompts are here for anyone who wants to join in!

I thought I'd challenge myself this time and try one prompt from each category ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ

Sobbing

A cage

"You made a mistake. Right it."

The tears falling down her face washed away the ash and blood, but the pain stayed behind, as it always did.

this turned out kinda long, so it's below the cut :) also this kinda counts as one of my novel characters’ origin story, I guess?

~~~~~

The place was dark, damp and miserable. The only sounds were the echoes of her own exhausted sobs, and the faint, regular drip from a nearby pipe that was her only source of water.

Her cage was suspended high above the floor, the only thing keeping her from being gnawed at by the hungry, skittering rats infesting the place. She did not even warrant the meagre comfort of a regular cell, so terrible had her crime been.

A village destroyed.

Hundreds perished, the few survivors destined for short, painful lives and premature deaths.

And why?

Her own hubris.

Her certainty that whatever she did would work, would be brilliant and praised by all around.

The soldiers had come quickly, though not quickly enough to extinguish the flames resulting from her catastrophic mistake. The Exalted One himself had decreed her punishment; for the murder of so many, for the destruction of so much, and worst of all the arrogance of stepping into divine territory, she would not be granted the mercy of death.

She would be kept alive to suffer.

They provided just enough food and water to keep her breathing, just enough warmth to keep her from freezing, but her days were still cold, hungry and miserable.

She had lost track of how long it had been since she last saw daylight. What she would give to stand in the sun again, even for a moment! What she would give for a single spare cup of water, to wash away some of the filth and shame that still clung to her. The remnants of ash from her only home, by now ground into her very pores, along with however much grime she had picked up in here.

Thinking of her parents, her sweet little sister, and her teasing older brother, would have brought more tears to her eyes, had she not been so dehydrated. She had wept enough in the first few days here, crying from the guilt, the grief, the despair. The tears falling down her face had washed away much of the ash and blood, but the pain stayed behind, as it always did.

That pain would never leave her, she knew. No matter what, she would always be the foolish girl who had killed her family and destroyed her home.

"Chin up, lass. There's always a bright spot in the future."

She looked around, startled by the unfamiliar voice. Nobody came down here aside from the silent, surly guard who threw bread at her once a day. "Who's there?" Her voice was scratchy and faint, but still echoed in this empty place.

"A friend, if you want me to be." A face emerged from the shadows beside her cage, a grinning, dark-skinned boy around her brother's age, bringing another pang of loss to her already broken heart.

"Are you a prisoner too?" It was the only reason she could imagine for someone else to be here. How was he up so high without support, though?

The boy laughed, the sound of it seeming wrong in the dank misery of the dungeon. "They couldn't capture me if they tried." As he spoke, he dissolved into shadow, and reappeared on the other side of her. "I heard about a clever, talented lady who got caught by the Stars, and I wanted to see her for myself."

"I'm not clever or talented. I'm just a stupid failure. I'm not worth seeing."

"What idiot told you that?" He reached through the rusty bars, the warmth of his hand startling her. "I've heard about your skills. I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to burn down Old Hillton. And someone as lovely as you is always worth seeing."

She had no idea how to respond. Ever since the incident, nobody had spoken a kind word to her. She deserved the scorn and hatred flung her way, deserved the harsh insults and foul curses spat at her by everyone who saw her.

"Come with me, Theresa. I can get you out of here. You can start again, make a new life."

She shook her head, backing away until she hit the rusty bars. "I can't. I'm a monster, I destroyed everything..."

"You made a mistake. Right it." He spoke firmly, but kindly. "Sitting here in this cage until you die won't do anything. Live for them, honour their memory, give their loss meaning by honing your talents and helping others."

“How?” How could she start again, make a new life for herself when so many had lost theirs because of her?

“There are more of us. People who have magic. People who practise all kinds of skills, who can help you learn and develop yours. Let me help you, so you can help us later.” He reached out again, into the cage, almost touching her hand as he had before.

She looked at him, then around at the dank, wretched dungeon, then back at him. In that moment, she made her decision, and took his hand. “What should I call my saviour?”

He grinned, pulling her through the bars, somehow manipulating the shadows in the room to distort the reality of her cage. “Call me Luke.” His shadows twisted around them, making them unseen, carrying them out of the dungeon, out of the Grand Temple of the Stars, away towards the mountains.

She relished the glimpses of light, the rush of air, the warmth and closeness of another living being. Whatever was coming, however the future would turn out, this brief moment of freedom was one she intended to relish.

~~~~~

writer mutuals taglist!

@17panicattacksinatrenchcoat @aether-wasteland-s @theeccentricraven @aquixoticwrites @bloodmoonloveletter 

@calliecwrites @charlesjosephwrites @eli-t-spoon @kaylinalexanderbooks @leahnardo-da-veggie 

@mysticstarlightduck @oh-no-another-idea @revenantlore @rhiannonhgarrard @ryns-ramblings

[duskholland]

The Fame Game (Part Ten) - Tom Holland

Summary ↠ Tom is straight-up not having a good time right now. 

Word count ↠ 3.9k

Warnings ↠ The romantic cliché of your dreams, alcohol, references to past intimate times, swearing. Pretty tame overall though!

A/N ↠ I can’t believe we’re at the end of the series! V (mischiefandi) gave me some really good ideas for this part with Tessa - I hope you’ll like what I did there lmao. I’m going to leave my extended thank yous for the epilogue, but just know that I am so grateful for everyone who’s stuck with the series from the beginning until now... Thank you for reading and coming on this journey with me. I hope you’ll like the final official part! Epilogue next week :’))

TEN: Come Home (T)

As the front door to Tom’s house shuts behind you, Tom finds himself slumping against the wooden frame, grief overcoming his senses. He’s tired and his arms hurt, everything hurts, but he peers up through the windowpane at the top of the door and watches as you run out through the sheets of rain. Paparazzi flashes illuminate his garden, capturing you as you stride purposefully to your car, duck down and enter it. A moment later, the car pulls away from the pavement and disappears.

Tom kicks at the door.

“Fuck!”

His hands curl into fists as he turns around and leans with his back against the door, frustrated eyes falling onto his jacket and his keys. For a moment he contemplates picking them up and making a mad dash after you, reckoning he could probably beat you to Heathrow if he drove recklessly enough, but then he sags.

Tom has to give you space. You’ve asked for space. He has to respect it.

His hand twitches as he walks out of the porch, as if his very fingers can feel how badly he wants to reach out and grab the keys, but he leaves them. Instead, Tom climbs the stairs and walks straight into the spare room, throwing himself down onto the bed and burrowing his head in the pillows. He groans - loudly.

It was always a long shot - telling you how he felt. And in some ways, Tom’s admission of love had gone quite well. You reciprocate his feelings, which, really, is the most essential part of it all. But that reciprocation is only the tip of the iceberg, and it goes far deeper than that - because you still left. Tom is still alone, curled up on the bed that smells distantly of you, clenching his fingers feebly around the sheets that he’d refused to let Harrison change, even months after you’d left. Your perfume lingers on the cotton.

There’s the small pattering sound of paws moving over wooden floors, and Tom’s lips quirk up ever so slightly as he pulls his face from the pillows just to see Tessa trot into the bedroom. She plods towards the bed but hesitates, sniffing around the wardrobe. One of the doors hangs half-open, and Tom notices that you’ve left it barren.

Tessa whines.

“I know, I know, girl.” Tom looks at the dog, smiling sadly. Tessa looks miserable. “I miss her too, yeah? But it’s going to be okay.” His words hitch, and Tom reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he feels his heart clench. “It… It’s a bit fucked up, but it’ll be okay. She… She loves me, at least.” He breaks off, laughing awkwardly. “And she knows now, too, that I love her. And yeah, she still left, but… Maybe one day I’ll see her again.” Tom sighs. “Probably not, though. Bloody hell, I’m so… I’m so stupid, Tess.”

Tessa looks up at Tom. Tom sighs.

“And now I’m talking to my dog like a lunatic,” he mutters. Tom sits back against the pillows, hands settling over his stomach. “This is actually pathetic.”

Tessa emits a loud whine before jumping up onto the bed, her wet nose jutting into Tom’s neck. He sighs, smiling as he reaches up to run his hands all over her sleek body.

“You wouldn’t leave me, eh, Tess?” He mutters. “You love me?” He’s sitting up properly, smiling as Tessa basks in the cuddles, releasing happy yips. “Thought so.”

Tom stays in the spare room - your room - for almost an hour, cuddling with Tessa, pondering his predicament. He’s wallowing in it, miserably staring at the ceiling and torturing himself with the ins and outs of the conversation he’d had with you. He loves you, but he understands why you wouldn’t believe him. Tom understands that he’s hurt you and that he needs to respect your choice to leave, but that doesn’t make it any less gutting.

With a sigh, Tom stands from the bed. Tessa whines, and he rubs her head fondly before walking down into the kitchen. He spots his phone on the counter and picks it up, his heart clenching as his lockscreen pops up.

It’s a photo of you both, from many months ago. It feels like a distant memory now, but when you’d first been in London, you’d gone out bowling with Tom’s family. Afterwards, you’d all retreated to the pub, and you’d shared pints all evening. At some point, Sam had taken a photo of Tom with his arm wrapped around you. You have your cheek on his shoulder, and though it’s a little blurry, it has to be his favourite photo of you together. The way you’re looking up at him is with warmth in your eyes, and it makes Tom’s heart skip a beat to remember how nice it was to be resting at your side.

Swallowing down the resentful lump in his throat, Tom opens up his texts and clicks on your contact. With cold fingers, he types out a message, altering and adding bits for a shameful amount of time before sending off the completed thing.

Tom: Have a safe flight. I’m sorry for being such a dick. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I love you. I love you and I’ll wait for you. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to figure it out. I love you. Xxxxxxxxxx

With that done, Tom takes himself off into the living room and throws himself onto the sofa. He grumbles as he grabs a pillow and wraps his arms around it, holding it close. He keeps checking his phone, wondering if you’ll reply. The message changes to read almost as soon as he’s sent it, but after that, nothing. It only makes his heart ache more.

So, with nothing else to do but wallow in his misery, Tom closes his eyes. He tries to sleep, and after a while, Tessa curls up beside him. Slowly but surely, the noise in his head and the pain in his chest ease off enough for him to rest, and Tom lets the world of heartbreak drift away.

Knock knock.

Tom stirs, slowly.

Knock knock knock.

“Eh?”

Knockknockknock.

Tom sits up, disorientated and dizzy. It’s dark outside, but through the blinds in the living room, he can make out that the front light is on. Someone is at the door.

With a grunt, Tom stands up. Tessa wriggles around, and he pats her head softly as he stumbles towards the porch, frowning as he tries to remember if he’s ordered anything recently. He doesn’t think he has, but maybe Harrison’s been making impulse purchases in Liverpool. Tom hopes it’s something he can eat. Fuck, he’s hungry. How long has he been asleep?

Tom pulls the door open without a second thought, still groggy and tired from his nap, and he gets the shock of his life when his eyes catch sight of the person standing nervously on his doorstep.

You.

Before he can get a word in, you’re surging forward, your arms wrapping around Tom’s figure before he can process it. A short huff leaves his chest as you hug him tightly, continuing to push him until Tom’s back is up against the wall. You kick the door shut behind you, coat dripping rain onto the floor, and then you grab his face and kiss him.

Tom kisses you back, his brain waking up the moment your lips touch his. He’s slow, but he matches your movements eagerly, his palms going to your shoulders as he kisses you messily. You’re practically vibrating, your mouth curving into a smile so prominent that Tom can feel it brushing up against his face.

You came back.

Tom pulls away, his eyes prickling with tears of surprise. “Wh-What?” He stammers, smiling when you laugh. “But your flight?”

You shake your head softly. “I couldn’t do it,” you say. “I couldn’t leave, Tom.” You brush a hand through his hair. “I love you too.”

Tom kisses you again, his hands going to your face. He cradles your cheeks as he presses his lips to your mouth, over and over again, dazzled by the lightness in his chest. His heart has never felt so warm before.

“You are spectacular,” he mumbles, gushing mindlessly against your lips. “You are- you are wonderful. You are brilliant.” He breaks off as you giggle, pausing in his dialogue to kiss you again. “You are my favourite person.” Tom pulls back, looking at you fondly. His eyes trail the familiar lines of your face and he swoons, overcome with positive emotion. “I love you.”

You kiss his cheek softly. “I’m also very wet,” you say, shaking off a dripping arm. A sheepish expression crosses your face. “I, um, might need to borrow some clothes,” you murmur. “I kind of just… Turned around and ran out of the airport.” You grin nervously. “I think my suitcase is halfway to America by now.”

Tom scoffs, nodding. “That’s okay, love. I’m just so happy that you’re here.” So happy that you came back, that you don’t hate him. So happy that you love him too.

Tom reaches out and takes your hand, kissing over your knuckles gently. A thousand stars seem to twinkle in your eyes as you look at him.

“I’m happy too.”

An hour later, you’re both sitting on Tom’s living room floor, boxes of empty takeaway stacked around haphazardly. Tom’s leaning up against the sofa, legs outstretched in front of him. His arm is wrapped around you, and you have your head resting on his shoulder, and he feels more content than he’s ever felt in his life.

“I can’t believe you left your suitcases on the plane,” he murmurs, voice gentle. You’ve been sitting together and talking all evening. He’s been spacing every few sentences with another kiss to your temple, enjoying the expressions of fondness that find your face each time his lips touch your skin. You look very cute in one of his oversized hoodies. “Did you tell anyone that you left?”

“Nah.” You sit up, stretching suddenly and yawning. You turn around to look at Tom, eyes flickering out over him until you smile mischievously. You move closer, swinging one leg over Tom’s thighs before settling in his lap, your hands falling to his shoulders. A wave of your perfume washes over him, and Tom sighs contentedly as you kiss him quickly. “I told the flight attendants, but they couldn’t get my stuff off the plane. I thought it was worth it, though.”

“Oh, definitely.” Tom can’t stop kissing you. The urge to press his lips to yours whenever he wants is too powerful to ignore. “I’ll replace it all for you, if you want,” he mutters, distracted by your mouth. “I’d buy you a whole bloody house if you wanted, darling.”

You laugh against his lips. “That’s unnecessary, Tom, but very sweet.” You pause, pulling away with a bewildered expression on your face. “My lease expired on my flat,” you say, processing the words, “So I actually don’t have anywhere to stay.”

Tom wiggles his eyebrows. “Well, luckily for you, I know someone who just so happens to have a house all to himself.” He walks his fingers over your shoulder, smiling at you. “You might be able to convince him to let you stay. I hear he’s a very generous landlord.”

“Oh yeah? Happen to know where I can find him?”

He nods, grinning. “He’s right here, love.”

Tom goes back to kissing you for a while, both of you growing giddy off chaste pecks. His lips are numb and puffy but he loves it, loves the ache and the way the back of his neck hurts from all the tugging of his hair.

There’s a phone ringing, out in the porch. Both of you ignore it, even as it rings a second and a third time. When it dies after the fourth, you pull away from Tom’s lips to roll your eyes.

“It’s mine,” you mutter, “Just ignore it. I don’t care about whatever it is.” There’s a hunger in your eyes, and Tom smiles.

“Whatever you say, boss,” he teases, earning himself a flick on the shoulder.

“Don’t call me your boss,” you scowl, scrunching up your nose. “I’m not your boss.”

“Oh, do you want me to be the boss, then?” Tom returns.

You glare at him. “No. You’re not my boss. You’re…” You trail off, and Tom tilts his head to the side, smiling softly.

“What am I, darling?”

A smile curves out across your lips. “You’re my boyfriend.”

The warmth that unfurls in Tom’s chest as he hears those words almost brings tears of relief to his eyes.

“Yeah.” He brings a hand to your face and you nuzzle your cheek into his palm. “I am.” He kisses you, softly. “And I love you.”

“Love you too, boyfriend.” You look at him for a moment before tilting your head and kissing the flat of his palm. “I am overjoyed to be your girlfriend. Your real girlfriend.”

Tom laughs, nodding his head in quick agreement. “Yeah, I-”

His phone starts ringing. It vibrates over the glass coffee table, clattering noisily, and a shadow of irritation passes over his face. You turn around, craning your neck and screwing your eyes together as you get a read on the screen.

“Shit,” you mutter, grabbing the phone and passing it to him. “It’s Rebecca.”

Tom feels his mood sink. “Fantastic.” He looks at his phone before glancing up at you. “Should I answer it?”

You sigh as you nod. “She’ll just keep phoning.”

Rather reluctantly, Tom swipes his finger over the screen, accepting the call and then putting the device on speakerphone.

“Hello?” He says.

The line crackles for a moment. “Oh, hi there, Tom,” Rebecca says. “Is Y/N with you?”

Tom glances at you. You clear your throat before replying.

“Yes, I’m here. You’re on speaker.”

Rebecca swallows so loudly that it’s audible. “What have you done?” She whispers. “Paps got you leaving the airport.”

“I changed my mind,” you say. Tom reaches down and takes your hands in his, squeezing your fingers when he hears the waver in your voice. “I didn’t want to go back to LA.”

“They also got you going back to Tom’s house. The tabloids are going crazy. Nobody knows what’s going on.” Rebecca pauses, and then sighs, deeply. “What is going on?”

“I’m staying in London,” you tell her, eyes on Tom’s face. Your lips curl into a nervous smile, and you continue to look at Tom as you speak. “We’re not… We’re not breaking up, Rebecca. I don’t care if it’s not part of the plan.”

“So… You’re actually dating?”

You hum. “Yes.”

There’s a tense few moments. The sound of rustling papers comes down the line, and Tom tries to ease you by rolling his thumb over the back of your hand. He can see the nerves in your shoulders, understands that for you, the prospect of being scolded, and possibly even dropped by your management is terrifying. He knows just as well as you how much power they have over you.

“Okay.” Rebecca sighs. “Tom?”

“Yes?”

“You’ll take care of Y/N in London?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” There’s a brief moment’s pause. “I’ll get someone from the office to call you tomorrow, Y/N. You’ll need to come back to LA to shoot your next film, but I don’t see why that needs to be immediately.”

A relieved smile splits across your face, and Tom exhales.

“Thank you, Rebecca,” you say. You lean down to rest your forehead on Tom’s shoulder, and he rubs a hand over your back. “Thanks for understanding.”

“Well, it’s the least I can do,” she responds. “Congratulations, you two. For what it’s worth, I think you make a lovely couple.”

The line disconnects and Tom grins, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you impossibly closer. You squeal as he nuzzles his face into your shoulder, kissing the base of your neck over and over again. He works his way up to your lips, pausing briefly only to suck a light hickey just below your ear, and by the time he reaches your mouth, you’re pushing back against him, eager.

“I can’t believe that this has worked out,” he says. Tom lets you pad your thumb through his ruffled eyebrow.

“Neither,” you admit. “Feels almost anti-climactic. Every other part of this relationship has been so dramatic.”

“Oh, don’t tempt fate,” Tom says, eyes wide. “We’ve had enough drama.”

You laugh, nodding in fast agreement. “You certainly have a point there.”

You crack open a few beers and end up chatting in the kitchen together, the hours slipping away. Tom sits across from you, holding your hand as you talk, and talk, and talk, covering every topic beneath the sun. There have been so many taboo subjects that neither of you have felt confident enough to bring up over the course of your fake relationship, and you take the time to work them through - together.

Tom finally admits that he’s had a crush on you since you first met. You tell him that you’d only suggested the one night stand because you’d wanted to be close to him. He counters that by opening up about how stressed he’d been before his failed revelation of love.

You laugh together, you cry together. Then you move on, together.

“C’mon, Tom.” You stand up, smiling, and walk around the table to pull him up. Tom gets to his feet, his body full of a nice, lulling buzz from the beers he’d drank. You lean in and peck his cheek before tugging him towards the patio doors. “It’s too hot in here, isn’t it?”

Tom hums. He can feel the red flush to his cheeks. “We could go shower.”

You turn around to grin at him. “Or…” Dropping his hand, you twirl the lock on the patio doors and pull them open. You look back at Tom, smiling. “Care to take a dance in the rain with me, lover?”

Tom blinks a few times, looking at you curiously. “Sure,” he agrees. As you pull off your hoodie, he pulls out his phone and then turns on one of the bluetooth speakers that sits by the door. “What do you want to listen to?”

“Something romantic,” you respond.

There’s a frown of concentration on Tom’s face as he scrolls through his Spotify, but it clears when he finds a playlist of some classic love songs. He shuffles it and Elvis drifts through the air as he puts down his phone and shakes off his hoodie.

“This is very random,” he tells you, accepting your hand. You tug him out onto the patio, into the night sky, and Tom feels his t-shirt begin to dampen. It’s no longer pouring with rain, but it’s still drizzling enough to be noticeable.

“Well, I had a reason,” you murmur. Together, you do a bit of a dance. Tom grins as you spin around, laughing brightly as droplets of water stick to your face. You have fun for a while, and you even spin Tom around too, but then you both get dizzy and settle back into a loose slow-dance position, your arms around his neck as Tom perches his hands on your waist. Your foreheads press together. “I used to think about this,” you admit.

“Dancing in the rain?”

“No, no.” You pause to kiss him. Your lips are warm against his skin. “We’d used to see one another at all the shows. Oscars, BAFTA, Golden Globes… And we’d argue, or brood, and just generally be miserable.”

“I’m following.”

“Well.” You shift your face into the crook of Tom’s shoulder, kissing his neck a few times. “I always wondered what it’d be like to sneak off with you, and just… Have fun. Do something crazy. Have a couple drinks and dance. I didn’t… I didn’t like you, but I always thought we’d be able to have fun together. If you weren’t always such a dick.”

Tom hums, resting a hand on the back of your head. Raindrops pour down his face, but it’s nice. He can feel the weight of his heart pouring onto the ground, swept away with the water.

“Well, I hope we can have many fun nights together, love.”

You pull back to look up at him, water droplets clinging to your eyelashes. Both of your hands shift to Tom’s face, and you smile. It really is very romantic, swaying together in the rain, soft romantic tones in the air. You feel so warm wrapped up in his arms.

“I hope so too.” You have mascara running down your cheeks. “Plenty more nights in London like this, please.”

Tom nods. “Plenty more nights together.” He brings you back in, hand soft on the back of your head as you bury your face in his chest. Tom lets his lips rest against your head. “I love you,” he says. He can’t seem to stop saying it, thinks you must be fed up with the number of times he’s sprinkled the three special words into conversation. He just can’t help it. Now he’s open with his heart, he wants you to know, completely and without any shred of doubt, that he loves you. He never wants you to question it again.

Your hands sink into his hair, and Tom sighs happily as you play with his wet curls.

“Love you too.”

The two of you last another ten minutes before getting too cold, and then you take a shower together. Tom lays you down in his bed and you kiss some more, before things get a little raunchier. He tells you that he loves you in every way he can, and it feels like the two of you have knitted your souls together as he holds you afterwards, the bedroom full of a tranquil glow.

Tom’s hand is on your cheek, fingers stroking gently over the soft skin of your face. You look so beautiful, hair a mess, eyes bright.

“Isn’t it funny,” you say, softly, “how we’ve ended up like this?”

Tom hums, his pinky nudging against your hair. “We’re lucky. Such a mad world we live in.”

You release a warm chuckle, nodding. “Our world is crazy. Fame is… Insane.” You pause for a moment. “It’s the whole reason this happened. Management wanted me to stay on top, didn’t want my image to get shattered because of that kiss. They wanted me to win the game.”

Tom tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“The fame game,” you reply, smiling. You inch nearer to kiss him quickly, and Tom finds himself chasing your lips. For a few moments, you’re both distracted, and you further intertwine, Tom’s arms hooking around your waist as he holds you close.

“The fame game,” Tom repeats, nose nudging yours. “That’s a funny way to put it.”

You shrug. “Just the way I like to think about it. Making it seem like a game made it easier when this started. It was all just a performance until it became real.”

“I like that.”

“Me too.” Your hands are on his shoulders, fingers trailing Tom’s warm skin. “The game always has its winners and its losers, Tom.”

“And what are we?”

You kiss him, softly. Your lips linger against his. Tom feels so much gratitude and love for you that his eyes prick with tears.

“The winners, of course.”

↠ EPILOGUE

[ghostdrew22]

Bloodlines || Draco Malfoy

Requested: No Pairing: post-war Draco Malfoy x fem!reader Warnings: alcohol and some angst

WORDS : 1767

~~~

Song - Bloodlines by Sleeping With Sirens

"Try not to be like mom and dad, realize you're just fucked like them."

"Are we bound to lose? Maybe we just don't get to choose."

"Is it in our DNA? Was I just born this way?"

~~~

"Another one." Draco Malfoy declares to the bartender as he slams his empty brandy glass back onto the bar. He's always loved muggle bars- the awkward stench of desperation and misery wafting through the air, and the weird music they play to keep themselves busy- absolute chaotic perfection.

Not that wizard bars are much of an option for him- after the war ended six months ago, most wizards cut ties with the Malfoys and made a public show of shunning them. In wizard bars he's usually followed by cold stares and hushed whispers- about his parents and their sentence Azkaban- which makes it particularly difficult for him to drink away his sorrows in peace.

So this is now how most of his nights are spent- hopping from bar to bar and getting blackout drunk in an effort to erase the itch of memories from the war. The silence of the night is too heavy in the Malfoy Manor- all it does is remind him of the muffled screams and pleas of people that had been trapped in his house only months before- and he can't sleep there at night.

Sometimes the moonlight creates dancing shadows across the hallways- shadows that so starkly resemble death eaters floating through his house- and it takes everything in him to not set the entire house on fire. Every time he pulls out his wand he remembers the way his aunt had tortured Hermione Granger in their foyer, and he wishes that he could just snap it in half. Every time he thinks that he can move on and escape the past, it just finds another way to follow him.

He takes his refill and starts sipping it- hoping that peace will find him before the bottom of the glass does.

~~~

Across the bar- drowning her sorrows in a bottle of gin- is Zara Jameson. Her and the blonde had known, and hated, each other throughout their Hogwarts careers- constantly bickering and arguing with every opportunity that had presented itself. She'd hated him and everything he stood for- the spoiled, pretentious Slytherin prince- and her hate had only grown when the Dark War had fallen upon them and he'd found himself on the wrong side.

But that last night- when Voldemort had finally been defeated- she'd seen a shadow of the boy she'd always known as he walked to his parents, and all the hate had completely dissipated. She'd spent years despising him and yet in their final moments together she could only muster up pity for the blonde- realising that he'd only been a product of his parents love, or lack thereof.

She takes a sip of her gin and takes a look around the room- trying to find someone that she can use as a distraction for the night. Her eyes spot that familiar tint of blonde and she almost falls over- reality hitting her like a freight train. While he's being haunted by the memories of the war- thinking about them with every waking moment he has- she's been doing the opposite and pretending that it had never happened.

Even though the pain of losing her parents and friends has never left, she's managed to shove it down so far that it's merely a dull ache of a memory now. But seeing him sends all those memories flooding through her mind again, at full force- the sound of screams filling her ears and drowning out the music that's blaring through the room. She takes a deep breath and runs her hands down her face- trying desperately to collect herself- before doing something that she never thought she'd do.

She gets up and walks toward the blonde for a chat.

~~~

"I'll have some of what he's having." Zara tells the bartender as she sits herself beside Draco- who hasn't yet turned to look at her.

He groans, "Look, I'm not particularly interested in-" The words fall out of his mouth once he turns to find that the girl sitting next to him is Zara. He looks back it his glass quietly and gulps- remembering the way she'd looked terrified the last time he'd seen her.

"Don't flatter yourself, Malfoy." She rolls her eyes- picking up the glass of brandy that's been dropped in front of her and taking a swig of the foul drink.

"You'd actually be surprised how many times I've had to decline women's advances." He sighs and takes a sip of his drink- still refusing to look at her. "Even when I look like this." He gestures to his appearance.

Zara takes him in- noticing the way his hair has grown longer and now falls in his face slightly, and the stubble he has forming by his chin. "You look the way you should after something like that."

"What the fuck do you want?" He turns to her finally and asks- his voice raw like he's been crying for hours. "I hope this isn't some kind of scolding session, because believe me I've had enough of those."

"I'm not here to argue with you Malfoy."

"Are you here to console me? Because my parents are in Azkaban and I'm alone now? Or better yet, mock me for my misfortune?"

"I'm not here for any of that."

"Then what is it? What could the great Zara Jameson possible want with the tainted Draco Malfoy?"

"I just thought maybe you could use some company."

"Not sure it'd look good if you were seen with me. Your parents might disprove." He mumbles- remembering how much her parents had hated his own, not that he blames them.

"My parents are dead, Malfoy. Killed by death eaters- people like your parents." She says coldly as she finishes her drink, "I came here because I thought that maybe if anyone could understand trying to forget that it'd be you, but maybe I was wrong."

Draco feels guilt cage him and grabs her arm to stop her leaving. "I'm sorry, please stay."

"Are you done spitting in my face?" She crosses her arms.

"Yes." She slides back into the seat and gestures for the bartender to bring an entire bottle. "I'm sorry about that- the last six months have been rough."

"Don't I know it."

"Um, I'm sorry, about your parents-"

"No. No apologies." She opens the bottle and pours brandy into her glass before passing the bottle to him. "I've heard so many of those that I think I can probably predict what you'll say next."

He refills his glass and twirls the liquid around nervously. "Have you managed?"

"Managed what?"

"To forget?" He looks at her hopefully.

"No." She takes a deep breath in, "I didn't have the strength to obliviate myself."

"I didn't either." He blinks away the memory of all the dead bodies in his house, "I think I deserve to remember."

"I think we all deserve to remember."

"Why?"

"So we learn our lesson- so we learn to be better."

"What do you possibly have to learn? Your parents weren't death eaters- they weren't murderers."

"That doesn't mean they were good people. They might not have been death eaters but they were horrible people too, Draco."

"You called me Draco." He remarks absent-mindedly.

"I think you deserve to be separated from your family name." She smiles at him softly and he looks at her with a puzzled expression- not understanding where this newfound tolerance of hers has come from. "I want to be separated from my family name."

"Why?"

"There's too much weight in it." She sips her drink. "Everyone wants me to follow in my parents footsteps and take over their dynasty."
 "You don't want to?"

"Not at all."

"Why not?"
 "Why do you keep asking me for explanations?" She laughs and he shrugs with a sheepish smile.

"I'm curious Zara."

"You called me Zara." She smiles at him again and this time he gives a genuine smile back. "I'm worried that following in their footsteps will turn me into them."

"It doesn't have to." He pops some peanuts from the bar into his mouth and continues speaking, "You can change what you were born into."

"Can I really?"

"Yes, Zara."

"I don't know, maybe we just don't get to choose."

"What do you mean?"

"The fight between nature and nurture is non-existent if they're both the same." She sighs and takes some peanuts as well. "Is it in our DNA? Are we bound to lose?"

"You can't let the weight of their failures bury you."

"What am I meant to do?"

"Create your own legacy- change what the Jameson names stands for."

A silence falls between them as she ponders on his words- deciding that there is some merit in them.

"I think the worst part, is that I didn't like them enough to grieve them and it makes me feel guilty." She says after some thinking. She hasn't told anyone this- not after they died and not after she buried them.

"I feel the same way about my aunt. A part of me had even felt relieved and I haven't been able to forgive myself for it."

"Maybe we don't get to forgive ourselves- maybe instead of grief or pain we just get guilt."

"Well if that's the case then I've got guilt to spare." He downs his drink and decides that he's had enough brandy. He calls the bartender over and asks for a bottle of vodka with some cans of red bull- a mixture he'd learned from a muggle he slept with a few weeks back. "You know, I can still hear them."

"Who?"

"Everyone." He shudders, "Everyone that my family ever hurt in our home- I hear their screams every night when I try to fall asleep."

"You're still living in the Manor?" She asks in astonishment- watching him pour a shot of vodka into his glass with half a can of red bull, and doing the same.

"I can't leave."

"Why not?"

"It's a broken home- I keep hoping that I can rebuild it."

"What's it like to be all alone in a broken home?"

"Like living with shadows. I see them everywhere I turn."

"You need to leave."

"I don't deserve to leave- it's fair that they haunt me forever." He smiles sadly, "Someone needs to pay for what my parents did."

"Yes- them, not you." She places a hand on his shoulder. "Their debts aren't yours to pay."

Another silence falls upon them as they stare at each other- the real versions of each other. For the first time Zara can see the real Draco Malfoy that had been hiding underneath his jaded persona- the vulnerable and empathetic boy he'd tried so hard to hide in an effort to gain his parents approval. Draco Malfoy can finally see the Zara Jameson that everyone at Hogwarts had fallen in love with- the strong and intelligent girl that he'd been too blind to see.

"You're not so bad Jameson."

"Likewise Malfoy."

{}

Okay, that's it for my first one!  I wrote it with the name Zara instead of Y/N because I had already envisioned a Zara and by the time I realised that it was just going to be a one-shot, it was too late. The rest will be written with Y/N- unless requested otherwise ofc.

But let me know what you think and please drop in a request for me.

love you all,

jean <3

[geraskierficrecs]

Part One 

Sorry for the long delays, but Tumblr ate the story the first time I posted so I had to rewrite.

Watching Jaskier run from the house with devastation carved into his face hurt worse than any blow he’d been dealt.

Geralt started forward, numb legs sluggish with a grief too terrible to bear, but familiar hands pulled him to a stop.

“Don’t--” Yennefer’s voice was rough with her own demons, but she clung to him with determination in her strange eyes, “--we had to do this.”

“Did you see him?” he snarled, trying to summon anger in an effort to push aside the reality of all he’d just broken.  “He--he’s...”

“It’s the only way to keep him safe.”

“He’ll never forgive me.”

Yennefer opened her mouth, but it was another voice who answered him.

“How could you?” They both turned to see Ciri standing next to the doorway Jaskier had disappeared through with a cold fury in her eyes.  “He trusted you.  He trusted both of you!”

He loved you, she didn’t say.  They already knew.

“Ciri...” Yennefer began, but Ciri shook her head.

“How many times will you break his heart before you’re satisfied?” Ciri hissed and Geralt flinched like she’d struck him.

His tongue felt thick in his mouth and he could feel his eyes burning at the thought of how easy it had been to destroy everything they had built with Jaskier here.  Geralt tried to remember the way Jaskier had smiled at him--wide and trusting--just that morning when he’d declared that he was heading into town to get some things from the market.  Already the house felt empty, cracks appearing in the walls like without the bard to hold it together the house began to fall apart.

If he closed his eyes he knew he would see the look in Jaskier’s eyes the moment he’d seen Yennefer and Geralt.  It had been so easy for him to believe the worst.

“It’s not what you think,” Yennefer tried again, hands held out to match the pleading in her expression.  “We’re trying to save him.”

Ciri’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits and Geralt wondered if she would attack them for what they’d done.  “What is there left to save?  You’ve taken everything.”

His child surprise didn’t give them a chance to respond.  She just turned on her heel and left the house to chase after Jaskier.  After a beat, Yennefer followed.

Geralt stayed behind, listening to the ghosts of his own happiness die in the silence of the empty house.

_____________________________________________________________________

It started with a whisper.

“They’re coming for you, Witcher.”

Geralt hadn’t taken the dying words of the hag to heart.  It wasn’t the first time one of the creatures he’d hunted promised revenge with their dying breath and he knew it wouldn’t be the last.  His mind had been full of anticipation for returning home to his family.  To Jaskier.

The next mention had been a fluke.

He’d been passing through a town and, through habit, checked the message boards for any odd jobs he could complete for a little extra money on his way to Novigrad for work.  There had been a few of the usual missives from locals searching for missing livestock or begging for someone to assist in work.  He scanned them without interest until his eyes settled on a rough piece of parchment, faded by the weather.

At the center of the page was a roughly drawn medallion that burned with dark flames.  The page made no mention of any work or needs, just the strange symbol and a short message beneath.

Feras morte.

Death to monsters.

Geralt stared at it for another moment before carefully pulling the page free from the message board and tucking it into his pack.  He resolved to find out more while he was Novigrad.

____________________________________________________________________

They called themselves The Order.

They were the kind of fanatical movement that made Geralt want to avoid humanity for good.  Their focus had originally been altruistic--to protect humanity from the beasts and magical nightmares that roamed the land when Witchers didn’t arrive fast enough.  They traveled in groups to areas plagued by barghest and noon wraiths had terrorized villagers.  Through luck and growing skill, they began to make a name for themselves as champions of the people--a more palatable alternative to calling a Witcher for assistance.

With their popularity growing, a more sinister element of their beliefs became more obvious.  Since the first Witcher had stepped foot on the Continent, they’d been targeted almost immediately for their unnatural new biology and abilities.  Geralt had been run out of more than a few cities just because of the odd color of his eyes so the news that a group of human labeled his Witcher brethren in the same categories as the monsters they hunted wasn’t surprising.

Whatever the Order’s altruistic intents originally, they had wandered into darker realms once they gained a following.

Anything that was not fully human was considered a threat.  For the first time in centuries, the Continent was home to witch burnings and mob attacks on children born with strange birthmarks or eerie features.  They followed the path of wars and fed on the bitterness that lingered among the survivors.  The Order gave the people of the Continent a new target for their anger.

Monsters--though the term became more flexible the longer they were around.

His contacts in Novigrad weren’t sure where the group had begun, but it was easy to track where they’d moved from the trail of bodies left in their wake.  Dopplers.  Hags.  Hedgewitches.  All burned to ash on massive pyres left at the edges of each village as a warning to the next--along with anyone foolish enough to try to protect them.

Geralt’s disdain for the blatant abuses of power and widespread violence slowly became tempered by a new fear.  The Order seem able to move as they wanted without any response from local leaders too afraid of risking their wrath.  They seemed an unstoppable force eager to continue their bloody crusade against anyone or anything that did not meet their standards for purity and innocence.

He was in Temeria when he found the dead Witcher.

There was little left of the warrior aside from burnt, tarnished medallion that had once hung proudly from his neck and the steel sword he must have wielded.

Silver for monsters.  Steel for humans.

The blade had been shattered into two pieces that were tossed alongside the burning remains of his bones.  Geralt crouched beside it, hands passing over the scarred metal and meager remains of a life spent fighting for people who’d turned on him just as easily.

“Did you know him?”

Geralt turned at the soft voice, frowning at the woman standing at the edge of the trees.  Her face was marked with age and deep sadness that seemed unending. 

“No,” he said gruffly.

She hummed, looking back at the pyre.  “Perhaps it’s better that way.”

“Why’s that?”

The hand that trembled out was blackened along the fingertips with ash as she pointed toward the smoldering pit.  “Those he loved lay there beside him.”

Geralt froze, something like horror in his expression.  He looked back at the pyre once more, eyes picking out the bits of bones. “What?”

“That’s how the Order got him to surrender,” she said, “They told him they would spare the woman--Anna--and her child that he liked to visit in the village.  He’d saved them from the creature who’d taken the girl’s father, you see, and he liked to check up on them whenever he passed by.  Sirret was a gentle soul despite his calling--he only wanted to make sure they were safe.  So he threw down his sword without a fight when the Order called for it and let them beat him and drag him through the town to the sounds of their mockery.”

“Then they killed him.”  Geralt’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword until his knuckles went white.

The old woman’s eyes were dark with tragedy.  “They killed the girl first, after a time.  Then the mother was put out of her misery when her injuries became too much.  Sirret...the Witcher held on for much longer.”

The broken sword suddenly seemed as morbid as a tomb.

He took a breath full of smoke and death and tried not to think about a bard choking on blood and a foolish wish.  “Where did the Order go?”

____________________________________________________________________

“They’re too close.  We need to do something.”

“What can we do that we haven’t already tried?” Geralt snapped, “I’ve been hunting them for months, but all I’ve managed to do is kill off a few of their soldiers.”

He carefully didn’t think about the promises they’d spat at him as they lay dying.  Promises of pain and suffering beyond what anyone should bear.

Yennefer tossed back the last of the wine in her goblet and scowled down at the mess of messages, maps, and bits of notes sprawled across the table.  They’d met at the tavern in the city closest to their cottage in an effort to keep the information far away from Jaskier and Ciri’s wandering eyes.  So far, it hadn’t seemed to help.

Yenn had been the only one he’d dared to tell about the Order--as though admitting their presence would allow them to creep closer.  Her contacts through Aretuza had made it easier to track where the Order had been most active, but continued to offer no solutions as to how to stop them.  Ciri and Jaskier were far too important to risk as targets in someone’s campaign to destroy everything they considered dangerous.

“Whoever they are, they’re going to come for us soon.  You know this.  They know we’re hunting them--that makes us a threat.”  Yennefer’s voice was firm despite the anxiety he could sense hanging in the air around them.

Geralt didn't respond.  It was the same argument they’d been having for weeks.  How could they protect Jaskier and Ciri from these horrors?

“Ciri will have to stay with us--she’s too valuable to risk letting them get their hands on her.  They’d probably consider her to be a ‘tainted’ bloodline anyway.”

“And Jaskier?” he bit out, “Do you intend to leave him behind while you run off with Ciri?”

Yenn glared at him.  “You know I don’t.”

Whatever their relationship might have been at one time, the mage and the bard were practically inseparable now.

Geralt scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed.  “We can’t let the Order torture him to try to hurt us.  He has to be safe.”

The burnt Witcher’s medallion in his pack seemed to laugh at him.

“There’s...” Yennefer sounded oddly reticent and he looked over at her curiously, “We could make Jaskier leave us.”

He shook his head.  “He would never do that.  Especially if he knew that we were in danger.”

“So we don’t let him know the Order is after us.”

“And say what? ‘Hey Jask..why don’t you stay at the University for the season?’  He’s not an idiot--he’d want to know why.”

Yennefer ran a finger over a drop of wine left on the table, face downcast.  “What if we made him want to leave?”

________________________________________________________________

Days later, Geralt watched Jaskier run out of the house and pretended it didn’t feel like his world was burning down around him.

[zuffer-weird-girl]

can you do a story on S/O died when giving birth to kaito and kaito ask overhaul what his mother was like and overhaul almost start crying in the middle of explaining. and because kaito has the same eyes as S/O overhaul can't look him in the eye but kaito says I love you anyway daddy or something like that

laughs then cries* chisaki angsty folks why not??

They will pay. They will see what pain really means on the life of someone. They complain about not getting a good grade on school, complain about politics, heroes, not getting into a fucked up school where they teach more of those sick things.

He had to right to complain. Because different from those bastards, he lost the love of his life. Five years, five years that this happened, and his grief never went away. Never.

Especially when he had someone that reminded him every fucking second on how she died and how she looked.

He couldn't despise the brat, he was a remaining of your sweet and angelic person while still alive... yet he couldn't fulfill the promise you made him do, seconds before you passed away on that cursed hospital bed.

He couldn't love him like a real father should... he tried, really, but how..? The kid was one of the most many reasons that you were gone in the first place.

Yet at least he didn't treat him badly or like Eri... you would be very disappointed and disgusted at him, looking at both of you from heaven.

At least Kaito could bring one or two rare smiles to him. Q silly yet adoring thing that he did and reminded him of you... but most of the time, he passed his days with Pops, Chrono and rarely with other precepts.

He had a busy schedule ever since he decided that he was going to turn this world upside down... make those heroes suffer how he had been for the past years, erase quirks out of existence and put the world back in the way it was.

Retribuit Pops kindness and put his son on a world without sickness, that was his objective... you would want the same... right?

~

A woman appeared in front of him... was he dreaming? The last thing he remembered was grandpop putting him into bed, again without seing his father.

He squinted his eyes and tilted his head in confusion before the said woman cooed something that he couldn't catch it and cupped his cheeks, the eyes of her, same color as his, shined with something that he only saw it in cartoons...

Love, her eyes were full of love. And the warmth she bringed to him by only a touch was so magical... he wanted more. He needed more, he never had that kind of attention before.

Although when he extended his hands the woman gave him a sad smile and got away, the more he searched for her the more she got away, not wanting to but... doing it at the same time.

He called her back, how many times he didn't count, but he started to run and shout for her even... Come back... don't stop... don't leave me..!

"Mom..." he mumbled as his eyes opened, the gentle woman no where to be found... since he only met the roof of his quarters, grabby hands on the air as some tears rolled down his chubby cheeks and fell on the matress when got up.

That word... he never had the privilege to know his mother, and everyone he knew just refused to talk about it, especially when his dad was around... like some taboo or something.

But that dream... was that his mom? Was she really? She was so pretty, so warm... so lovely. Why did she go away?

He looked at the window, Ray's of the sun passing thorigh the glass and hitting the floor of his bedroom.

An idea popped into his little head, gulping at only thinking about it... but he needed to know. That dream was too much real to be only a... what his father would call, a "childish and stupid thing".

Without changing, the kid jumped from his bed and walked out of his room, looking at the halls for any signs of human life around.

His gaze met the so know green jacket, the man using it no other than his father, that funny mask always present on his face... the funniest thing, he had even saw uncle Rappa without that bird mask, but his dad? Never on his life.

He walked and hidded on a corner when he heard uncle Kurono passing through, greeting his dad and going straight to his room, probably going to wake him up to start the day.

He grabbed the end of his uncle, more like real father figurine, and tugged once or twice to catch his attention. The man hummed in annoyance but he soon took off his mask when he saw him there.

"Well, for once you're out of the bed early." He said nonchantly as Kaito lowered his head, Hari arched one eyebrow at that and sighed while crouching down.

"Spit it out, what has gotten into you?"

"... I had a dream."

"Bad one? Kid, us from the yakusa ccant be scared of a fu-"

"No." He lifted his head and stared at Kurono, the same look his father carried most of the time, serious. "It was... different."

"Different?" He asked, eyebrow still lifted up.

"I want to talk with dad." He changed the subject and Hair immediately winced at that, knowing how Chisaki felt about... Kaito.

"Please uncle Kurono..." he lowered his head and turned his tiny hands into fists "Is really important... no one will tell me about it and he is the one that can answer it.."

"Ouch. That hurt." He said sarcastically as the kid didn't even smirked only looked at him with furrowed eyebrows.

"You won't answer me neither!" He whispered shouted "No one in here talks about my mom! I dont even know how she looked like!"

His body frozen at that. The topic was burried some years ago, indeed, and anyone who commented was dead on the spot, the only remains of them were the blood spilled on the walls, the ones that Overhaul demanded him to clean up.

"Kid, is not a good idea... trust me."

"Please.." the (E/c)'s eyes of the kid started to tear up and he couldn't supress any longer... knowing even that Pops himself wasn't going to keep it a secret anymore.

In the elder's words, it was torture what Chisaki was doing with his own son, providing even the figurine of his mother to him.

He sighed and got up, leading Kaito to his dad's office... he knocked twice and Kaito felt his heartbeat increasing ten fold when a nonchantly and irritated "name and bussiness" echoed form behind that door.

Kurono said his name and opened the door. Golden, cold and uncaring eyes immediate going down on him as he tried to stood still.

"What's the meaning of this?" He asked nonchantly with a sigh as Hari sighed.

"He wanted to talk with you. Really, important thing." Hari said directly, sparing a glance at Kaito, whoose was looking down at his feet worriedly.

"...Dismissed." he said and Kurono left, closing the door as the kid gulped "You have at least five minutes."

He looked up at his father, golden eyes not lifting up from his paper work as him made his way to one of the couches to climb on.

"Dad... you... you can stop with that for one second? Listen to me?"

"I have my ears open." He said monotonously "I don't have to have my eyes on you to listen to whatever you have to say."

He gulped at that, each words felt like a slap on him.

"P-Please..?" He sluttered and looked down in favor of not feeling the glare of his father before he sighed and got up to sit on the couch in front of him.

"It better be important for you to interrupt my work."

"... h-how..." he took a shaky breath before getting the courage to look up at him "How does mom looked like?"

Now that was a sign hee clearly didn't expected to happen. His father had his arms crosses and one eyebrow lifted up befor ehe zaid those words, but after? His eyes went wide open and he seemed even more pale than his was already, his gloved hands clenching at his arms.

".. Pardon?"

"M-Mom.." he mumbled, poking his finger together "N-No one talks about her, and I wanted to know... how she was.. appearance and such..." a small smile formed into the kid's face as Kai's face itself fell.

God how he wanted to send this kid away to suffer on his own misery... yet he had pushed the topic away for years already, receiving even a scold from Pops from his actions.

"Why exactly you're asking this out of the sudden?" He sighed, burying his face on his gloved hand as his frow deepened.

"Curiosity..."

Both stayed in silence for a couple of minutes, the tension was in the air until Chisaki sighed deeply.

"You're such a pain..." Kaito winced but didn't take it the words to his heart as he listened carefully "Why your mother out of all the things...?" His voice breaked a little before he took one big breath and standed up, going to his desk and opening one drawer to take one small picture in his hands to sit down in front of his son again.

The kid frowned before his dad started to speak. Never looking on his eyes, gaze fixed on the photo that eh refused to show to him.

"Your mother was the most gentle and caring woman that I ever met... one pure of a kind on this sick world." His eyes carried sadness, Kaito was in shock at seing his father in such a state "I can't even describe her exactly, from how unique and precious she was..."

He sighed again and had the photo between his index finger and middle one, hesitantly handing the photo, gaze never leaving the floor.

Kaito widened his eyes and picked the photo eargly, (E/c)'s eyes shined at the sign in front of him. He picked a look at his father, whoose was glaring at the ground, head rested on his interlocked hands.

"Perfect (H/c) hair, soft and clean skin, voice melodious and sweet as honey and those-" he shakily breathed in as his eyes burned "Those goddamn beautiful eyes that you, of course, had to grab from her." He pointed blindly at his son who felt a bit attacked, but still holded the photo tight on his grip.

"One of the reasons I can't look at you properly... You just remind me too much of her..." he shakily exhale but arched one eyebrow at noticing his son gripped his little chest as a giggle escaped from him.

He dated to look at the kid, tears spilling from his eyes as he giggled at the image.

"It is her.." he whispered "Mom." he hugged the photo tight as he cried a bit as Kai could stare with a bit of disgust ye heartbroken eyes.

How could this kid cry over you since he didn't even met you?

He wanted to rip the photo out of his son hands, but only stared blankly at him. Waiting for when he got tired of it... his eyes burning like flames, yet he refused to spare one single tear in front of this kid.

The kid sniffled after a few minutes or almost an hour and hesitantly gave the photo back to his father, whose immediately took it back with a scoff.

"So that's why you don't like me?" The kid mumbled sadly looking up at Kai who wouldn't met his eyes "I remind you too much of mom?"

His heart clenched at his words but he still maintaned his cold and uncaring nature, looking at your photo instead of his son.

"Is not that. You're my son. That's it." He said coldly as Kaito smiled a bit, happy at least to not hear that his father didn't actually hated him.

"Go. Is time for your lessons." He said bitterly as Kaito hesitantly nodded, opening the door only to stop a bit and call for his father, him finally looking at him in the eyes and almost breaked down.

"I still love you dad... And I'm sure that mom love you as well." He smiled and Kai swore that he saw not only the image of his son... but he saw you there. Smilling at him. Lefting his office.

'No matter where I am, or what you do, I will love you until the end... Chisaki Kai'

Yoir voice echoes in his mind as Kaito closed the door... his hand holding the picture shaking slightly as the tears started to fall down, from his eyes and smothering his mask and even dripping down the floor.

He put your photo down on the coffee table as he stood up, him getting up and letting out a shout as he punched so hard the wall that his gloved hand started to bleeding and the wall breaked.

"Dammit... dammit..!" He whispered as the tears fell, shoulders shaking as he rested his head on the wall "Why...? Why you had to leave so soon (Y/n)?" He didn't even thought about how dirty the floor was dirty as he hitted his back on the wall and sitted down, letting his tears fall freely

"Why... god, why did you take my angel away...?" He clenched the back of his head as he cried silently on his shoulders.

~

"You look happy. More than usual my boy." Pops smiled at his grandson looking down at the paper in front of him "Saw a blue bird or something?" He chuckled as the boy smiled widely at him.

"Nah! I saw mommy!" The elder had almost a heart attack at the boy's words.

"What?"

"Yeah! I was dreaming and she appeared! But she didn't stay much though..." he mumbled that part a bit sadly as the elder got out from his shocked state and smiled at the boy, caressing his dark brow looks as he sitted down with him.

"Your mom surely loved you dearly kid.. She is always watching over you, the love of a mother is stronger than anything else."

The eyes of the kid shined at the old man's words as he looked up at him.

"Really?"

"Really."

Both had their attention turned to the door where Chisaki appeared, face more obscure than usual as he looked at Kaito. Pops immediatly got on guard as Kai made a signal with his hand for the kid to follow him.

The kid got up along with the old man as he sended a look to Chisaki. The young man only stared blankly back as he got out of the room without much of a word at his son followed him quietly.

Pops, afraid of kai doing something with the kid, followed a bit after to make sure nothing happened as Kai stopped at one door of the house and opened with a key.

Kai got in the room and pointed with his palm at the inside for his kid to enter as he grabbed one lighter.

"What is this place dad? I never see it." Kai walked past his son and lighten a tiny flame and touched at least four candles of it, lighten them up.

"This is a shrine." He said nonchantly as mentioned for his son to kneel besides him "We pay respect for the people who are gone from this world."

Kai sighed and took out of his pocket q photo of you and out right on the center to look at his son nonchantly.

"The respect you have towards your mother even without meeting her once is... appreciated. So this place will be for only both us." He looked at the photo with a broken look "Pay respect and... talk, whenever necessary."

Kaito's eyes and smile widened at that as Kai scoffed and left the room, leaving his son looking at the shrine he made in the afternoon.

He got out and immediately got in front of Pops, who had his arms crossed, a pitiful look on his eyes but a smirk on his lips.

"What a nice change boy... She would be happy at that. Even honored."

He scoffed at that, lowering his gaze to hide his sadness as he mumbled a excuse to leave as Pops looked his sucessor leaving the hall with a worried look... only to look at his grandson talking happily and dare he say embarrassed with the shrine as you yourself were there...

At least that the kid could have thst at least now.

[blackevermore]

x Lo So

{Bruno x Chia}

Summary: What did Chia do when the gang was away

Notes: I had this idea while listening to old timey music of Chia waiting for the gang to come back but accepting their faith. This is technically the first time she admits her feelings for Bruno.  In all honestly this is a brain dump. Aslo sorry for all the mistakes and blah I wrote this in one take ;;

Word Count: 2.5K

"If you understand how dangerous this is going to be for my gang and I. I would appreciate it if you didn't come to Italy at all."

That had been the last thing he said to her over the phone before hanging up. At first she had been upset he would hang up on her without hearing her protest. But now she understood he didn't want to hear the pain he left in her heart. He hung up so that the last memories of her voice were happy ones. Just as she couldn't bear the white noise of the line ending, he couldn't handle the sound of silent tears falling down her face onto the phone. Chia knew she couldn't make promises out of the impossible so asking him to be safe was fruitless. Telling him to come back to her in one piece was teasing false hope of the faith chosen for him. 

Chia knew there was no point in trying to call him back. He would have already destroyed the phone and threw it away. If there were ways to do so, Bruno would completely ease himself from her memory if he meant sparing her for what was meant to come. In a way, he was grateful he couldn't. If he were to die, many would mourn him, but it would her, besides his gang, from the heavens he would watch over and send wind blowing kisses to. Every day when the wind blew past her face and a cold breeze touched her cheek, it would be him telling her he was free and finally home. But he wasn't dead yet and she wasn't mourning.

Chia knew it was best to stay away from Italy while issues started to rise from the underground. Word had made it all the way back to her father's empire that Passione was currently under fire. Like Pompeii, Passione's volcano had finally erupted and unknown to the innocent lives of Italy danger was shifting. But Chia didn't care and within two days of the phone call with Bruno she was on a plane to Naples from Cameroon. Naive to blind hopelessness when she stepped off the plane she made her way straight to Le Libeccio. She knew Bruno wouldn't be there waiting in the back with a glass in hand listening to the record player. Nor would be  Abbacchio sitting at the table with his headphones on blocking out a petty argument between Narancia and Fugo. Chia didn't even have hope that when she hung up her coat at the door and waved to the host that the latest member Mista would catch sight of her. Bruno had promised he would finally introduce her to Mista the next time she visited.

As she took her seat at the gang's table in the back, she made sure to sit in the extra chair. She knew from memory how the gang preferred to sit. Bruno always left of Abbacchio and right of Fugo. Narancia sat to Abbacchio’s right, which left an empty chair. Chia could guess that empty chair was now Mista's. But it didn't make sense why there was another chair. Chia knew it couldn't be true that Bruno always had an extra chair at the table just in case. Nor would it be true that an extra chair was there for her. But in the moment of wishful thinking Chia pretended he did do it for her. In the quiet back room of the restaurant, Chia saw the imprint of the gang enjoying another day with each other. Bruno would finally make it back to the table with information about the day. Abbacchio would only listen long enough to understand it was a free day. Narancia would cheer, but Fugo would remind him he was still behind on his homework, instantly killing Narancia's spirit. A figure in a weird hat would take the seat next to Chia, but before the figure could introduce himself, someone was calling for her attention.

"Ma'am?" The waiter said, a few steps further than usual. He had a look of worry on his face as he waited for Chia to respond.

"Uh?" Chia turned her head blinking a few times to bring herself back to reality.

"Are you ready to order?" The waiter asked gently, he could sense that air of sadness and worry coming off of the girl. He too was worried about Bruno and his gang, the whole town was when it became clear they were missing for a few days. 

"Y-Yes," Chia responded.

~~~

Every day since her arrival, Chia would walk from her hotel to the restaurant for lunch and dinner. The host would greet her promptly and walk her to her seat asking about her day. At first Chia thought it was odd but then it became clear that he only wished to soften the misery she was feeling.

"Your meal will be out soon, ma'am. Your worries will be over soon as well." Chia wanted to ask the man how he would know that. Why would he say it if he had no proof that Bruno was alive? When the questions in her mind became too loud she quickly reached for the wine glass to silence them. The taste was awful and she hated every second of it rolling down her throat. She wasn't sure how Bruno and Abbacchio would ever sit and drink this so casually. When the food came she thanked the host and tried to enjoy it but the joy of Italian food didn't fill her. 

"Chia?" The voice that called to her wasn't foreign but it wasn't the voice she wanted to hear. Slowly Chia turned around and saw Fugo standing in the arch that separated the main sitting area from the back. She stood from her seat ready to greet Fugo, but her legs grew heavy, and she fell back into her seat. Fugo hurried to her side to catch her, once Chia was in her seat correctly he could see the tears bubbling in the corners of her eyes. 

"You left them?" Chia said not above a whisper.

Fugo's breath hitched and he became hesitant to answer.

"I had to." Fugo's guilt started to crawl up his back as Chia looked him in the eyes. He didn't see anger, just like Bruno, there was no disappointment. Fugo wanted to explain himself. To ensure her that he was just as loyal to Bruno as he had been before everything. But the worlds were stuck. His mind was racing trying to find the words to tell her it hurt him so much to walk away. "I couldn't-"

Chia saw the tears forming in his eyes and she pulled him in for a hug, "I know Fugo, I understand." She held him like a mother happy to have her child back. They shared the space to cry together. Fugo felt heavy in her arms and she knew she felt the same to him. Chia was happy to see Fugo, he was her last ounce of hope.

~~~

"I have to go." Fugo stood at the arch of the back room with his head hanging.

"I know," Chia said, sipping her tea heartbroken by his news.

" If I could I-"

"Fugo." Chia sat her cup down and shook her head to dismiss him. Fugo felt shame but he had to do as he was ordered. Chia meant nothing to him personally, which made it easy for him to walk away from her. But he knew that to someone else she was a part of a bigger world and he had to show his respect. If he was being repositioned, that meant Bruno and his friends were still alive. 

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

"I'll come by when I can." With that, Fugo walked away with nothing more than another hole in his heart. He didn't have to see Chia's red eyes and running makeup. He didn't have to hear her cry or allow her tears to rip him apart. Chia was safe where she was, and so was he, his survival meant more than the tears of someone's lover.

~~~

"Fugo, why is Rome on fire?" Chia rose her drink to her lips as she watched the news. He wasn't meant to actually know the answer. He was r meant to give her hope that it had something to do with Bruno.

"I don't know." He responded, refusing to look at the tv. Chia continued to watch the tv as the news anchor tried to put together what was going on in the background. Right as the news anchor stepped out of the way of the camera Chia was sure she saw someone in a white suit stumbling across the intersection. Her eyes widen and she shakenly sat her cup down on the table. Unknow to her Fugo had seen it too and held his breath.

"Fugo-"

"I don't know."

~~~

It was Sunday morning, Fugo was gone again and told her he wouldn't be back anytime soon. He had expected her to say farewell or something in those sorts. However, Chia did no such thing and told him to come when he could as if she would be staying in Italy. She wouldn't for today was her last day before packing up and going back to the states. That morning was peaceful and the air outside seemed to have life in it after the events of two days before. The people of Italy seemed to magically breathe life into her. In her days of staying in Italy she had gone through the seven stages of mourning. She had accepted that if the gang were to come back, Bruno wouldn't be among them. She had accepted that her love confession would be to a headstone when they lower him six feet under. She had already imagined that it would be Abbacchio that hears her and turns the others away as she said her final goodbyes. Or maybe none of them would come back and it would be just her and Fugo. Fugo may have had his own life outside of hers, but in silence, they shared their grief. He wouldn't walk away from her even if he genuinely wanted to. 

Chia could feel the rays of the sun shining on the back of her neck against her emerald. She ran a hand over the gem and sighed. She had to get going to start packing for the long trip back home. She finished what was left of her breakfast and stood to put on her coat. She paid her tab and waved goodbye to the host and waiter. As she made it to the door she pulled on the handle right as someone pushed. She stumbled back a bit and the person on the other side caught.

"My apologies ma'am." The stranger helped her to her feet. Chia looked up to the man holding her and blushed in embarrassment. 

"No I'm sorry, I didn't see you on the other side." Chia smiled nervously and tried to sidestep the man with a nod. But when she made it around him she right into another person. She pulled away quickly and covered her face.

"I'm so sorry!" She said.

"No no it's my fault! I should have seen you. A pretty like you is hard to miss." The new stranger winked at her and Chia nearly tripped over her feet to getaway.

"Giorno move your ass out the way, my chest hurts and you standing there makes it hurt more." Chia snapped her head around when she heard Abbacchio's rough and grumpy voice. He was wincing a bit as he pushed past the two strangers in the door. Chia wanted to reach out and stop him but she didn't get the chance when she was quickly yanked from here she stood into a tight embrace.

"Chia!" Narancia yelled and pulled her off her feet and spun her around. Chia was too shocked to react so she stayed still. "You must have heard what was going on, it was crazy, first we got a new guy, that him Giorno, then Bruno become a capo, then we had to protect Trish, you'll like Trish, she's a bit mean but she's nice!" Chia couldn't even hang on to any of his words as Narancia tried his best to recall everything. While he was in the middle of something or the other about Abbacchio getting hurt Chia pulled him into a hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and he patted her back.

"You're safe Nara, you've made it." Chia could feel the tears starting to fall before she could try and hold them back.

"I'm always safe. I told you I would stay safe." Narancia gave her a hug back then pulled away when he saw Mista coming up the side of him.

"Oi! Narancia this is your girl?" Mista looked Chia up and down spectacle. Narancia nearly choked on air as he threw his hands up to protest.

"No!"

"Then who is she?" Mista smirked and narrowed his eyes at Narancia trying to get the truth of out him. He poked Narancia a few times trying to egg him on to spill the beans.

"Narancia, Mista, stop harassing people." Mista stopped his teasing when he heard his capo behind him. Narancia smiled and whispered a quick 'see ya' to Chia before pushing Mista into the restaurant against his will. When the boys moved out the way of Chia she felt her heart skip a beat. The last few days seemed like years and Chia was already accepting the faiths. She had cried too much already and prayed to nothing. She was sure that her wishes were left unheard and the days would continue on. 

But before her stood Bruno is his amazing mafia glory. Glowing with the sun as his halo. He was wrapped in bandages and nursing an arm in a slash under his jacket. He looked tired and in need of a proper rest but underneath it all he was relieved to still be alive. When Bruno saw Chia he felt the world stop, much different than before. His heart started to race a mile a minute but he had to keep his calm and collected composure. On his good arm hung a young girl with soft pink hair. She looked towards Bruno then towards Chia before letting him go and nodding with a smile towards Chia.

"You hung up on me, Bucciarati." Chia was the first to speak up.

"I'm sorry," Bruno responded.

"You worried me, Bucciarati."

"I know."

"I thought for sure that would be the last time I heard your voice."

"It should have been," Bruno moves closer to Chia and hesitantly takes her hand. Chia looked him in the eyes to see if there was anything that followed those words. Bruno was never one to say what was entirely on his heart. You had to look in his eyes to see his hidden emotions. "But it wasn't." 

"I love you, Bruno."

"I know." Bruno leaned in and took Chia's lips into his and for the first time in a very long time Bruno allowed the world and worries around him to melt away. The heavens would have to wait or him once again. For now, he had to live on for one more person. 

Mista and Narancia smiled and giggled in the store windows as they watched what happened outside. Giorno wanted to ask what was happening, but when he saw Abbacchio come back and hit the boys upside the head, he knew better than to ask. When the others did move from the window he caught a glimpse of outside and smiled. 

[myulalie]

The prompt I thought of is technically a songfic, so I don't know if it's something you're comfortable with...but I recently listened to Tom Odell's 'Another Love' again and it kinda made me think of Magnus

Hi! Thank you for this prompt! It was very exciting to work with and I love this song, so I had A LOT of ideas and eventually settled for one: the hanahaki disease. You can read on AO3 here. Hope you’ll like it!

How to wield hearts

I wanna take you somewhere so you know I care Magnus wears his heart on his sleeve, a weak pulse hidden in frilly fabric. It’s not like he has anything to lose anymore. It doesn’t matter, not that Alec cares anyway. Magnus left his aching heart in the eighteenth century and there is no breezing through the years to get it back. He wouldn’t walk in his past self’s steps anyway, because Magnus so desperately wishes he had kept his heart someplace safe, in Alec’s calloused hands perhaps. Shadowhunters know how to wield hearts, their most precious possession, the only weapon they possess and that could turn against them.

But it's so cold and I don't know where Magnus’ withered heart remains somewhere in his chest, dark and frozen in the winter night that saw it break. It drifts away in a sea of regrets, and sharp memories like shards stab at the emptiness, as if Magnus would ever forget. There is nothing more consuming than absence, and Magnus desperately looks into himself for a sliver of golden light, even a tinge of that love he used to carry. He finds nothing, but the inkling that Alec should have been it.

I brought you daffodils in a pretty string It came in gold nuggets, flower petals he drowns in once again. Magnus never knew what to make of the daffodils, spent too long admiring them, longing and wistful. An immortal’s life is long indeed, and he didn’t believe he’d live to meet his soulmate. Now that he’s come face to face with Alec, he cannot believe he pulled the daffodils out centuries ago. He weaved the stems into flower crowns and gifted them to his lover, and now Magnus has nothing to show, can only hope that Alec believes him when he says he cares. He wants to, so much.

But they won't flower like they did last spring The flowers don’t bloom. Magnus’ spring has come and gone, like his first love, and he can’t be it for Alec. He would turn lead into gold for Alec, but Magnus’ gold is splattered with blood, ancient, and ever so cold. He hides shirt sleeves splattered with blood like skeletons, and fears the lie shows in the distant shine of jewelry. For all his glitter, Magnus is nothing but the shadow of gold now. Magnus is not it.

And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright Magnus yearns to be. He craves the taste of Alec’s lips and wishes he could breathe the shadowhunter in and soak up the light that shines through the cracks of Alec’s armor. Alec is hurting too, Magnus knows, and the shadowhunter feels like a tin soldier, setting himself on fire to keep Magnus warm. Magnus burns out for him too, yet there is nothing for Alec to find, but his petals torn loose, drained of life.

I'm just so tired to share my nights Magnus spends countless nights in the company of misery, a restless presence he hates, but prefers to loneliness. He deserves it. He was greedy, and now that his soulmate comes along, there is nothing to share but grief. Magnus resents himself for his mistakes. Alec’s pain is his own, and Magnus almost regrets Alec didn’t fall in love with someone else, because he could remove the stems too then, and lose the ability to love Magnus altogether. Magnus doesn’t deserve Alec’s love anyway, and he wants to spare Alec the pain, but the shadowhunter is determined to love Magnus, to love enough for the two of them.

I wanna cry and I wanna love Magnus doesn’t feel anything, and he wants nothing more than to cry, and to love Alec. How fortunate would Magnus have been, too. Alec brings him in relentlessly and embraces him in a silver glow, the moon watching over him at night. Magnus wants the passion and the aggravation, but he can’t even hate himself anymore, because it’s so close to love.

But all my tears have been used up He has no tears left to cry. Magnus had plenty enough time to mourn, and there is nothing to grieve either when you lose the ability to feel such things. Sometimes he dreams that his tears would bring the flowers back to life, and they’ll rise and bloom, to love Alec just this once. What a privilege it would have been, to love the shadowhunter, yet Magnus can’t even shed a tear for him.

On another love, another love He loved Camille, once. He loved her again and again, until he suffocated on the daffodils, and the stems had to be surgically removed. Alec won’t even love somebody else to spare himself the pain of a partner like Magnus, loveless and unfaithful, because he couldn’t wait another year, even less another decade, to meet his soulmate. Magnus couldn’t wait, but he couldn’t even die either. He has always wanted to live, but what’s life when all he can feel is loss?

And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight Magnus’ ire takes over when Alec is hurt, and sometimes he hopes that it’s enough. Alec must feel it, Alec must understand that there is so much Magnus feels, except for love. Yet, Alec is hurting because of him, burns himself on the magnitude of Magnus’ repressed feelings. Magnus’ will to fight flickers and dies then, because it feels like he’s lashing out at the wrong person. What is there to fight but himself anyway?

But my hand's been broken, one too many times Alec bites the hands that feed him and struggles so ruthlessly against people that it shoves them back to the depth of an ocean of feelings, resentment left untold. It also breaks what’s left of Magnus’ withered heart. He goes under, and can’t come up to breathe. How can Magnus prove that he cares, when he can barely swim?

So I'll use my voice, I'll be so fucking rude He speaks instead, and he speaks out of turn to let Alec know how he feels. If Magnus can’t convince Alec, then maybe he can push the shadowhunter away. Alec doesn’t deserve the pain, and Magnus has no qualms about sparing Alec if he can’t feel anything, can’t love Alec properly.

Words they always win, but I know I'll lose Actions speak louder than words, and Alec sees through Magnus’ ruse. Alec only heeds Magnus’ words when he speaks of fondness, or caring so much it hurts. Magnus’ broken promises and whispered pleas bring Alec closer than ever when night recedes and gives way to the first lights of dawn. Magnus blames himself for failing Alec yet again, and the night falls again.

And I'd sing a song, that'd be just ours He longs to give his withered heart to Alec. Magnus yearns for it so much, but what is there to give? Still life, and so little to share but specks of dust and crumbling leaves, the layers of the man Magnus used to be. Magnus gave up on his heart long ago, when it brought flowers to the wrong person and choked on petals like golden chips. He can’t even say the words to his soulmate now. Alec feels like everything that could have been, but Magnus feels nothing.

But I sang 'em all to another heart Magnus thought he could make his heart sing another name, Camille’s. It was another time, and another love, not the right kind of love, nor the right kind of person. Magnus’ heart can’t sing anymore. There is nothing but silence, and Magnus’ thoughts, rushing to his lips to flow in a never ending stream of repressed feelings. Alec listens, patient, and reads everything left unsaid, that flickers on Magnus’ face and echoes in everything Magnus does. Alec understands then, and Alec believes in the meaning of his silence. There is nothing to be said.

And I wanna cry, I wanna learn to love Magnus learns that caring feels a lot like loving.

[nelllraiser]

when the sun has set | felix & nell

TIMING: before bea’s ghost appeared. LOCATION: the common. PARTIES: @nelllraiser and @streetharmacist​

— when the sun has set, no candle can replace it.

Nell had told her friends about what happened to Bea. Well— some of them. She was still working her way through them, some being easier than others to impart the news to. But now there was the matter of Bea’s friends. A rock that had formed in Nell’s gut ever since Felix had messaged her seemed all too happy to continue its residence, weighing her down as she found Felix in The Common. As she sat, Nell patted the little square gift box that was nestled in her pocket, unwrapped, to make sure it was still there. How fucked would it have been to wrap a gift in a situation like this? That wasn’t the only thing she’d brought, though. Greeting Felix, she sat a little container of the bread Bea had been making out when she came to find Nell on the table, along with a jumbo bag of Takis. “Hey, Felix.” Her tone was much quieter than her usual, rather impassioned voice, far too tired to give him anything more at the moment. “There’s some bread, if you want it. Thanks for coming here.” Now what? Now she had to rip apart Felix’s world the same way her’s had been? Dive into his chest and tear out his heart with this news, leave him feeling as empty as she did?

His hands wound tightly together as he walked. Nervous energy coiled around his muscles and kept him from remaining still. It was hard to. Concern coated his tongue like absinthe. Something had come up. Sure, Felix could understand that. There weren’t any hard feelings about that. The nervous energy made its way to his stomach, though settled some as he approached Nell from the shadowed Common. He breathed out and the sound wavered as he smiled at her. Something seemed off and his head tilted. She had said she hadn’t been sleeping well and she looked it. She looked haunted, he thought. “Hiya, Nell,” he said, energy spared enough for the both of them. His gaze drifted to the bread and he picked up the tin curiously. “This looks like Bea bread.” He cracked open the tin and tore off a small piece to pop into his mouth. After he swallowed, he reached into his jacket pocket and held out the Aram. “Told you I’d be here. Keeping a word is a big thing to me,” he assured. “So, what’s going on? You alright? Is--” He shifted. Cleared his throat. His brow furrowed. “Is Bea? I know you said something had come up and that’s fine, I swear. Just concerned and all, y’know.” A nervous laugh followed.

Felix was... as Felix as always. Seemingly endless charisma and energy that Nell used to match with her own explanation points, and joking echoing of the funny little phrases he’d say. But that was gone at a time like this, when the only reason she seemed to be getting out of her makeshift bed in the greenhouse was Blanche being there to witness it, and the desperate need to find Bea’s ghost. “Yep- yep that’s- it’s-” she faltered, it hitting her all at once that Felix knew Bea well enough to recognize her bread on sight. “It is Bea bread.” Nell wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the way they mooned after one another, danced around one another, practically all but professed undying love to one another. To think that they’d been so close, and fate had decided to tear them apart before they’d even gotten the chance to know how far they might go, to find out if they’d go anywhere at all. And she was the one who had to tell him this, to tell him that he’d never get to find out whether or not they would have gone that distance. “Felix…”she began softly this time. No matter how many times she did this, how many times she told people Bea was gone- it wasn’t getting any easier. “I’m- I’m so sorry.” Her face became tight, as if she were willing herself not to break here and now. Felix needed to hear this from someone who was calm, someone who could be the strong one should he shatter before her very eyes. “Bea didn’t show up- she wasn’t there because-” Spit it out. Spit it out and put the man out of his misery, or launch him into it. “She was killed. She’s- she’s gone, Felix. I’m so- so sorry.”

Something was wrong. Felix’s smile, his laughter, was pressed under the weight of it. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t chime in. But when she said sorry, of all words, his lips parted with a startled laugh. “What’s there to be sor--” His voice was quiet, confused, and then gone. Silent. Snuffed out as she continued. The container of bread slipped from his hands. Crumbs scattered. He stared at Nell through his blood-tinted glasses. Pain halved him. He didn’t bleed shadow. He bled human red. Red like her lipstick. Red like the heart she had shown him when he showed her the dark of his own. Red like the bloodshot of her eyes. He bled warmth. Nell hadn’t meant to wound him and he could see it in her eyes. The wound had been dealt to her the same, ten-fold. She had lost her blood. He saw truth in her too. His breath faded. To be mortal was to die. To die old yet so young without barely a century lived. That was their lot in life. It always had been. Time had not changed that. He had seen many lives come and go. Humanity was a blink, a whisper forgotten. Not Bea. She was a breath of life caught and held in between teeth. Warmth. Comfort. A candle that could not go out. It did not occur to him that it could. Or it had and the thought had been buried impossibly, foolishly, deep. A flame that had welcomed his shadow for all it was. Had welcomed many. Fates, she was loved. But Death had never stopped for such things. There was no dark he could stare into that would coax her spirit out. Three years. Three squeezes of his hands before they stilled. Darkness clambered up his skin as he faded into night, his horned shadow jagged like something shattered. Wet starlight slipped past the barrier of his glasses. It was Bea. Bea. Hadn’t it always been? He was not meant to grieve humanity but no matter how hard he tried to fight against it, his insides twisted. Blood gathered between his teeth as his jaw locked. He could not lie. He could not lie. Rage was a brother to sorrow, something fit to arm. Somehow, in stillness, he trembled. His voice tentatively rose from the quiet between. “How?”

The way the bread slipped from his grasp seemed to ricochet through Nell like a cannon, as if she could see the way his world had shattered before her very eyes. It wouldn’t be the same exact way her’s had broken into a million pieces, pointed glass cutting into her hands as she kept trying to pick them up in this aftermath and fit them back into a mirror, but she was sure it’d be just as painful, just as soul-numbing. Breaking was painful no matter which way the shards fell to the floor. The single word and question that finally fell from him was another stab of pain, guilt shooting through her now that she’d have to tell him, let it be known that she was the reason Bea was no longer here, that she’d had a hand in ripping this part of him away. “It was my fault,” she began in just as soft a tone, trying to keep her voice from quivering. “There was a hunter- I don’t know if he was a witch hunter, or Hunter hunter or- whatever he was- he was ready. He was going to kill me and- and-” Her throat tightened, the first tears since Bea had died gathering in her eyes and threatening to fall, as Bea fell in her mind’s eye. But she blinked them away. Felix deserved her strength in these moments. “I don’t even know where she came from. One second it was just me and him, and then she was just there. She was just there and put herself in front of the blade and- and-” It was done. She’d been gone. Whisked away in no more than a blink of an eye. “-it was done. I’m sorry- I’m so sorry, Felix.” Even now, she couldn’t stop apologizing, couldn’t stop trying to atone for what had happened.

The fae sat completely still, his eyes closed. With the illusion no longer maintained, the light would have been too much. Even if Felix had looked at Nell, he envisioned that there was no darkness he could send her to that would be worse than what sat in her hands. It was the nature of illusions to give way. Hindsight opened the door to clarity, sharp as the chill against once-kissed cheeks. But as he listened to Nell, fixated on her words to dull the light of his eyes, he did not dive into that chasm. If there was doubt in him at what she said, it did not linger. Nell would not lie. The same way he couldn’t. The pain of it alone would cripple the spirit beyond repair. He could doubt humanity but he could not doubt the bond of blood that cinched sisterhood. He thought of his own sister. His breath quaked, slipped through like thin smoke, as he looked at her. She had been fashioned into a death knell by a stranger, now meant to toll her sister’s passing. The chime echoed in his head, quieter than the way Bea’s laugh did. Would always. “Nell,” he said. His voice was a flat line. “Apologies are funny things. Over the years, I’ve found it’s the wrong people that utter them the most.” The tears did not stop, but they did slow as he found his voice. Every bit of him fumbled to stay together but he held. Not here. He would wait for the dark, even as he became it. “You are her blood. Her life. That’s where she came from,” he said softly. “You and Luce. And it’s where she remains even…” He stopped. She was in the chair beside him at the Stacked Deck. She was in her kitchen, Dia ever watchful. She was with Luce and with Nell, heads together. Her friends. She was not gone even if she was. His horned head bowed as his blood trembled with grief and a rage unfelt before. He was not meant to grieve humanity but it was not humanity that he grieved for. It was Bea. Bea, who had told him, called to him, to meet her eyes. Bea who could not be contained in such simple, archaic terms. Who could not be snuffed out by monsters. He angled his head toward Nell. “Is this hunter still alive?”

Nell let the momentary silence pass between them, unwilling to rob Felix of whatever time he may need to process, or do whatever it was that was running through his mind. At least he was asking questions she could answer, and the hardest part was over. Right? Telling him what had happened, and how it had happened— that was the focal point of the earthquake, shaking the world apart. Now they were caught in the aftershocks, trying to find solid ground in the wake of what had left them stumbling. As for his veiled denial of her apologies, Nell shook her head in response, knowing that she hadn’t been her sister’s killing blow. Still, it was undeniable that if Nell hadn’t been there, hadn’t put a target on her back...Bea would still be here. But she’d let Felix have this, for now. People always spoke about not denying someone their dying wish, but what of those that were left to deal with the dying? They were the ones who had to repair the fallout, to try their best to set things back into place, to shove square pegs into holes that no longer fit. Surely they deserved something of a wish as well? So she simply let it rest. Besides, she was getting tired of repeating it. As for blood— “There’s still parts of her.” Not so many that she could see in herself, but others in Luce, around the house, even Felix, little bits of light refracting off one another that held the same shine that Bea had. “I- brought something else, too. Something besides the bread, if you want it.” Now was the time to pull her the little box she’d stowed away in her pocket. Gingerly, she sat it on the table between them. “It’s not- I mean it’s nothing...huge. Just so you could have a part of her to keep.” Of course, there was no doubt in Nell’s mind that there were parts of Bea that Felix was already the keeper of. But this was something he could hold between his fingers, to touch and feel. It was one of Bea’s favorite rings, a daily piece of her ensemble that she never went without, always found on her thumb amongst her other twinkling pieces of jewelry. In the middle of it was a sun, as bright and warm as Bea had once been, the rays of it reaching outwards to pull in any and all around her. She wiped her hands as Felix asked his final question, the smallest hint of a smile gracing her lips. Of course he would want to know whether the killer was alive, and she could only guess as to why. No doubt he sought blood as well. “Yes. But not for long. I’ll make him pay for what he’s done if it’s the last thing I do.” There was no hesitation before she spoke, Nell knowing all too well the gravity of them, the words she’d chosen. “And I can promise you that.” 

Felix counted his breaths. It wouldn’t do much. Not for long. The parts of him that he did not cover with his suits and his glasses, the bravado, threatened to collapse. Mere moments without Bea to speak with, to look forward to, already seemed grey. The one sunrise that had not burned him. It was hard to think of her in the past already, even as stuck in it as he could be. The lampade slipped his glasses off and folded them neatly, the plastic clicking together double-time as his hands shook. He looked at the bread that had fallen to the dirty ground. His vision blurred as droplets gathered. He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand like he was a child again. Maybe throughout this he had been a child, naive to assume that death did not extend its hand to all, even those he loved. Had she been screamed for? Surely, as night slid behind day, there were those that would. His voice came to him as soon as Nell quieted. “I do.” He had yet to see what the box held and tentatively, he reached for it. When he opened it, the sun greeted him. Slowly, he ran his thumb along its golden surface. He anticipated it to burn. To sear him. But it did not. It was cool against his skin until it accepted his warmth. What little he could give. “A ’ghrian nan làmhan,” he murmured, the words delicate on his tongue. The sun in their hands. His uncovered eyes looked to Nell, full moons that blinked slowly. The strange words came to him carefully. “Thank you for this, Nell.” She had given him something great, even as it sat small in the palm of his hand. A boon that could not be weighed. He traced the delicate lines as he listened to Nell. With his eyes on her, he did not miss the small lift at the corner of her mouth. Good. Blood would have blood and there would be no rest before. If the world went blind, so be it. His thumb stilled on the ring as she uttered the word. Promise. Just as before, he read the truth in her and did not doubt it. She knew what he was and yet, continued. He nodded once. “Will you give me his name when it’s done?” Ring in hand, he sat up straighter and lifted his head. If they were to speak of it, then they would look it in the eye and not falter. “Not before. I want to know the name that true death will have once the weeds claim his bones.”

It was strange for Nell to see Felix so detached from the man he generally seemed to be, glasses gone and all. But perhaps it was fitting. After all, she could only assume that he’d lowered the mask for Bea when she was around, been nothing more than himself when it came to her rather than things he might need to be, things he’d become. Reflexively, Nell twitched her hand in a Summoning motion, a little bag of tissues appearing in her hand from home. Wordlessly, she slid them across the table to the man before her, not wanting him to feel as if he had to use them or anything of that like. It was just a small, perhaps painfully human gesture as she gave this last little gift to him. “Of course- I’m sure she-” Nell had been avoiding her name for quite some time, now, trying not to say it unless she absolutely had to. But being here with Felix, sharing their grief- Bea deserved it, didn’t she? To be remembered properly, to be named. “I’m sure Bea would have liked you to have it- if she’d...known.” If she’d been able to predict her own death. “And you deserve to keep a piece of her.” A piece that was tangible, able to be felt and held in hand rather than the piece of his heart she most likely occupied. As for the killer’s name- “It’s yours once we’re done with him.” Her own gaze met his without hesitation, sheer determination behind her eyes, and a hunger that spoke of how much she craved Montgomery's blood, his pain, his death. “If we have our way-” and she was certain they would, “-there won’t even be bones left.” 

The corners of his mouth lifted some at the box of tissues. As much as Felix could disappear into the dark, he was still whole. As much as he wished he could not be. The night had made him real and all that it entailed. The initial shock gave way to a numbness that extended to his fingertips. As he ran his fingers along the ring, he hardly felt the metal. “I suppose she would.” He was quiet. Had it been him? Perhaps a half-moon, broken from the tips of his antlers. He could not reach to the sky and grab it himself. It would have been enough, maybe, but it was difficult to think of with the sun in his hand. The knowledge of how it had come down from the sky and into his hand picked at his heart. Or what he had in place of one. Whatever it was, Bea had curled herself inside of it. Even the warmth of that could not reach him. Not right then. Not as he looked at Nell and yearned to dig a grave for every person that thought to harm Bea or her blood. He slipped the ring back into the box and pocketed it. The fae took in a breath before he unfolded his glasses and set them back on as he stood. Red lenses in a sea of dark looked back at Nell, his expression muted. “I look forward to that,” he said. “Thank you for this. If you need anything, you or Luce, you know how to reach me. Goodnight, Nell.” As he turned, turned toward the dark that he stepped back into, he shut his eyes. Goodnight Bea.

[wongxiexie]

The blind and the blamed

Pairing: Kim Jongin x Reader Genre: Angst, Mafia!AU Word Count: 690 words Warnings: Death, mild cursing Note: Thank you so much @hyunniebaeked​ for letting me use your gif! 🌸🌸 Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I was swamped with uni work and everything, but I’m on a break now so hopefully I’ll be able to write more! 

Black and harsh grays marred the sky as heavy drops beat nonstop on your already battered and bruised form. Is this what unforgiving means? Well, you don’t know since you don’t really care – didn’t use to care, and the realization that you now do sets a foul taste at the back of your throat.

You don’t care. 

That’s what you tell yourself at least.

“Your ego and selfishness won’t even let you spare the dead an apology?” his strained voice reaches your ears and even amidst the downpour, you find his tears making their way down his sharp features.

Flowing nonstop and beautiful in their misery, that’s what you think of his tears, but you don’t tell him that. No, you don’t talk to him the way you would have back when you were still each other’s worlds.

Back when it was still [Y/N] and Jongin against the world.

A scoff breaks you out of your momentary stupor and you meet his gaze head on, keeping your face neutral and letting him say all that he has to say.

“You were supposed to protect her, but you–,” his voice breaks and it almost makes you laugh at how your fucking fragile heart mimics it. “You just let her–”

He collapses on his knees, hands grasping at the mud that now covers his beloved.

The hate he bears is almost tangible and you feel yourself choking bit by bit at the pressure you thought you were ready to take. He abhors you for so many things – for always pushing him to leave her, for always being hostile to her, for not giving your all to protect her, and for not even honoring her with a proper burial.

It amazes you how it’s possible to love and hate someone so much all the same time. Even though you love him with your entire existence and more, you want nothing more than to swipe your gun from its holster and fire one or ten at him just to try and make him feel even a sliver of what he was making you feel.

He hates you for the things he thought you did and if you aren’t so clogged up from all the grief and despair, you would’ve answered his allegations with all the scathe you could muster.

But you don’t, because you don’t care, right?

You don’t tell him how you hated him so much for dragging an innocent to your wretched world.

You don’t tell him how you wished it was you whose life ended – not for Jongin, but for her. Because you wanted her to live and grow old as she deserved. 

Your don’t tell him how you’ve always hated her for the glimmer of hope always present in her eyes – envy eating at your insides for how yours had long ago faded when you entered this life.

You don’t even tell Jongin about the wounds, much less the bleeding gunshot on your stomach.

And you don’t tell him how you gave her an unnamed grave to protect her family. You knew what if felt to lose one and as much as you hated her, you’d rather swallow your pride than to fuck someone’s remaining kin over.

You don’t tell him all that. Instead, you turn your back to him and leave him to his own devices, but his voice stops you dead in your tracks. 

“Yeah, walk away [Y/N],” his voice cuts through the heavy pattering and a pained laugh escapes him. “Walk away like you always do…”

“Walk away just like all the times you did before because you don’t even care.”

It takes everything in you not to turn around and one dragged step a a time, you move away from him, finally letting your own tears mix with the rain. You walk away from your love, bearing the loss and pain of burying a victim.

And you walk away carrying the weight of the blame dropped on your shoulders by the most important person in the world for you. You won’t even try to reason with him.

After all, as he said, you don’t care.

[scarletgardensrpg]

UNDEAD ♦ TWENTY-SIX ♦ NEUTRAL

EVANDER BUCHANAN is the Gravekeeper of the Oude Kerk. While Evander does not uphold most traditional priestly duties, such as Sunday sermons and rituals, he offers Undead baptisms, wherein the newly rehabilitated are “purified” as a means of initiation into Amsterdam—a common practice for nearly all Undead citizens, regardless of their religious affiliation. He was killed and transformed into a rotbeest at the age of twenty-six by Cecile, then resurrected in the Carpathian Mountains by Julian in 2045. 

BIOGRAPHY

tw: alcohol and drug abuse, death

“Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.” Julian, on the other end of the line, sounded tinny and unimpressed. Thank you for that, good morning to you as well. Now if you'll be more specific... “Okay, um. I’m still at the beach.” A long silence. “I took Papa’s Porsche.” An even longer silence. “It’s, like, not in great condition. Anymore.” This last stretch of silence went on for so long, Evander pulled his phone back from his ear to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected. “Julian.” Is it still driveable? “Yeah, I think so. Maybe. I dunno, the wheels look fine?” That’s not—okay. Drive it to the nearest collision center. Now, it was Evander’s turn to be silent. For the first time, in a long time, he felt something akin to shame. He was nineteen, and still trying—failing—to make his brother proud. “I’m, uh, still kind of drunk. Sorry. Do you think you could—” Yes. I’ll be there soon. Click. Evander swore under his breath and shoved his phone back into his pocket. His eyes hurt, there was sand in the depths of his ass crack, and Ce was going to mock him for a week. 

- ❀ -

Spare the rod and spoil the child. He came last: after Julian had been born and deemed favorite and heir, after Cecile had been born and deemed illegitimate and unwanted. Evander, then, found himself with nothing to prove and nothing to endure: it was all roses. Handsome, good grades, star of the football team; he’d spend his youth living out some iteration of the American fantasy: a young prince without a care in the world, idling indulgently by an emerald infinity pool—the very picture of privilege. But, of course, as with all things that seemed too good to be true, there was the untarnished gleam of good appearances and saved face—and then, there was the truth. The Buchanans, for all their money’s worth, were a study in psychopathy: generations of well-dressed bastards who had lied and cheated their way up to Heaven, and scaled up the ladder of power using their claws and teeth. A thousand ruined lives could be put to Papa’s name—his own children’s being chief among them. It was a beautiful life, filled with exotic vacations and designer clothes, more money than he’d ever need, enough to fill entire rooms with—and it was an ugly life, marred by screaming matches, broken furniture, and five perpetually unoccupied seats at the dinner table. 

In the end, it was enough to drive Julian to heartlessness, Cecile to madness, and Evander to debauchery. He, especially, wanted no part in any of it all. His siblings were formidable and hungry: the boldest and brightest of the Buchanan clan, with enough conviction to set the world aflame and enough ambition to swallow it whole. What candle could he have held to those big people, those big dreams? He had no interest in trying. Instead, at Dartmouth, he would retreat into his expensive amusements and vices: liquor and wine, lines of cocaine, a quarter-million dollars blown on a bad bet in the casino, yes-men all around him. You’re so pathetic, Cecile would say disdainfully each morning she found him passed out in the foyer—and this, Evander knew, was the one thing she and Julian could agree on. He didn’t mind. That meant there was one less thing he had to listen to them fight about. He loved them, dearly and inexplicably—and he had thought they loved him, too. Wasn’t it enough that they had one another? The answer was, printed in neat clinical letters atop a stack of biochemical consent forms: No. He had underestimated both of them. Julian’s love and Julian’s ambition were two breeds of the same beast. Cecile’s wrath and her ambition were two strains of the same poison.

So: he would die by the hands of his siblings. At this point, it was so trite to talk about: six years of experimentation, Cecile shouldering the brunt of it—not out of concern for Evander, but a twisted need for it to fucking work, already before it got to Julian. When at last it did, and Cecile came out of the bloody waters a dead woman with gleaming eyes, she’d make plans to raise hell, as was so typical of her—but this time, intended Evander to partake in the chaos, too. He had bled to death at her feet, cheek pressed to the filthy basement floor, more afraid than ever. When his mind sank away from him at last, Cecile let him up and swung the door open. It’s me, Ce, she cooed. You always liked to have fun. We’re going to have some fun. And was it fun? In the moment, it might’ve been. Evander couldn’t say. He would come to in three years, in the mountains with Julian’s blood in his mouth and no recollection of what had occurred in the time between the night he’d died and now. His brother looked older, icier than ever. Cecile was nowhere to be found. There’s no need to save her, Evander had spat into the snow. She saved herself. 

At least I’ve saved you, Julian said. To that, Evander could only laugh and laugh, until the incredulity wore off, and there was only grief.

CONNECTIONS

IVONNE – PESKY WOMAN. Evander understands she is his counterpart of sorts—a Priestess to the living in the same way he is a Gravekeeper for the dead. Evander doesn’t understand how this, alone, is sufficient justification in Ivonne’s eyes to enter and leave his church as she pleases (“Evander, this is public property. Your attitude is un-priestly.” “I’m not a priest!”) with armfuls of baked goods, insisting matter-of-factly that he doesn’t eat enough, among a myriad of other baseless declarations she makes to him, about him. They are, in Evander's opinion, vastly different people: where he had happened upon the abandoned Oude Kerk and, in seeing no better option, made a reluctant home for himself there, Ivonne is a zealous New Worlder type. She is a peculiar woman in general: for all her power and popularity, it doesn’t seem she has many friends, nor particularly wants them. In some ways, Evander thinks she’s even lonelier than him. Despite this, he remains quick to brush her off—sometimes aggressively, the hurt of having someone to look after him after so many years both sharp and jarring, and other times begrudgingly, between bitefuls of (admittedly delicious) lemon meringue. She is not exactly motherly, per se—Ivonne acts more like a disapproving corporate manager, or a disinterested therapist—but her attentiveness for Evander is both overwhelming and...neither appreciated, nor unappreciated. He’s conflicted. You know, I can take care of myself, he told her once. Ivonne had lifted a single, elegant brow. Yes, I know. I wonder all the time why you don’t.

JULIAN & CECILE – TWO KNIVES IN HIS BACK. It’s hard—no, impossible—for him to reconcile that Julian, who read him to sleep after nightmares and took a welt to the cheek for Evander after he’d crashed the Porsche, had also watched impassively from across the expanse of an infinite table while Evander signed his life away—and that Cecile, who cried in the bathroom when nobody came to her recital, and accepted expulsion from six successive schools for the simple want of being loved, had been the same woman to draw Evander calmly into her arms, only to kill him between teethfuls of flesh and blood. Once, Evander thought his older brother and sister hung the moon. Cecile never was able to accept Julian’s kindnesses—ones she called debts, mouth wrapped sourly around the word—but Evander would have been content to bask in that kindness forever: diamonds and Jaguars, exotic beaches, lovers in every city—and above all other luxuries, the one of knowing the three of them would be together, always. That hope of his has come true, he supposes, in the most twisted of ways. True, he has Cecile to thank for not abandoning him in a basement in Palestrina—but she’d left him three years later instead in Poland. And he has Julian to thank for resurrecting him—but Julian was the pronouncer of his death sentence to begin with; and what’s more, he’s carried him out of one Hell, only to drag him into another. They were never a happy family, but they were a family. Now, whatever it is that’s keeping them together—science, death, and that ugly word, debts—Evander wishes it wouldn’t.

KISARA & OKSANA – THE LOVERS. He really, really, wishes they would stop making out in his cemetery. Well—they are not exactly kissing, but by the way they spar and wrestle, eyes gleaming bright with the closest thing to feeling alive : it might as well be kissing. Kisara is an old friend—someone he used to visit at the Moulin Rouge when he’d first arrived in Amsterdam, having defaulted back to sex and gambling to quell his misery. The two of them had once gone to depraved depths with one another, lost their minds eating seeds, tumbled about in satin sheets— Eventually, he turned his back on all of it once and for all, but Kisara stuck around. According to her, Oksana is new meat. I’m showing her around, she says, feinting disinterest as she goes to examine her perfect, shiny red nails. Evander snorts. Yeah, showing her around your bed. When Kisara jabs him in the rib with a snarl, he has to roll on the ground and make exaggerated sounds of pain for like, a while, before she finally laughs and forgives him. Kisara and Oksana have been coming around more often—De Wallen is cramped and unsightly, while Centraal Station tends to overrun itself with creepy 200 junkies when it gets late enough. The Oude Kerk, decrepit and, exempting Evander himself, void of people, is an admittedly good place to have some privacy. In truth, Evander doesn’t really mind. Kisara is welcome to come whenever she’d like, and he likes Oksana enough: she’s witty, abrasive, and reminds him a lot of Cecile. But perhaps it’s that very resemblance to his conniving sister that makes him uneasy about her. Kisara, too wrapped up in whatever it is they have going on, doesn’t seem to see the way Oksana holds herself: calmly and calculatively, showing just enough teeth to pass off as fully feral. Evander knows her kind. He’s not inclined to trust her.

OPEN ♦ FC: SEAN O'PRY

[mhicaella13-blog]

    As soon as she opened the door, Althea immediately saw her friend sitting on a single sofa- embracing her legs, head was resting on her knee- beside the window, staring blankly outside as if she was either looking or searching for something for a very long time already. She was too focused on what she was doing that seems to be the reason of her being oblivious around. Or maybe, she already sensed her yet, just chose to ignore her presence. This girl used to be a bubbly person, the exact opposite of what she was seeing right now. Before, every time she would enter her room, her friend would greet her with a very big, bright smile on her face. But now… she sighed from her own thoughts.

She felt something on her throat that caused the tears she had been keeping all by herself to suddenly came out this time, yet, Althea silently wiped all of those. This was not about her. She had to be strong and set her feelings aside- her own grief to be exact- because someone seemed to need her. Her best friend badly needed her. 

Althea was about to call her when slowly, her friend glanced at her side, tried to smile to acknowledge her presence but, failed to do so. In the end, she just turned her back on her and looked back outside the window once again. That only happened for a matter of seconds but for Althea, it did felt like it took for an hour.

“Hera…”, she said. 

But she got no response. Althea slowly walked towards the bed, sat across that sofa, and stared intently at her. She was analyzing things on how it should ought to be. There were so many rehearsed words she wanted to say, but none of it came out. She did not know how to start. Or even when to start. There was an ongoing battle between her mind and heart for her to speak or not but- in the end- she decided to choose the latter.

Silence almost ate her up when someone broke the silence caused her to startle.

“Where do you think is he now?” Althea said. She paused for a second and continued. “Do you think he’s somewhat happy already by now?”

For her, the mere fact that Hera had just talked to her was a little bit accomplishment on her part. According to her family, it had been months since Hera shut herself from the rest of the world. She did not want to talk to anybody, even to her parents. But instead of answering her questions, all she could say was that, 

“Have you eaten up already?”

 She mentally slapped her head and screamed on her mind. It was already her chance to talk to her yet she ruined it, by simply asking that stupid question.

She was about to speak again and grab that opportunity back when she noticed something from Hera’s left cheek which was the only side she could saw from her seat. Althea saw how those tears fell down on her reddening cheeks. She was moved by how Hera was trying to control those emotions that was ready to be blown away any minute. She wanted to say those comforting words she knew but she did not even know where to begin with. From what she was seeing, she could not help but to let her tears came out again, just like the way it used to do since that day. The day when she, together with her friend, received that heartbreaking news.

“Stop pretending that you’re okay…”, her friend said bluntly. “I know that you know that we’re both not okay so…” Hera looked at her suspiciously, “What brought you here?”

She sighed. Hera was obviously shutting herself again from other people who wanted to be with her. To grief with her. Of course, she knew all along that her friend had been silently crying and praying for something and someone to come back. But they also both know that that was too impossible to happen already. It was quite saddening that because of what had happened, their lives changed. Because of someone’s sudden death, everything had changed.

“Hera, I know how hard it is for you to accept the fact that he is gone now but…” she looked up in order for her tears not to fall once more, “You have to let it go, it’s time for you now to let him go-”

“If that’s only what you came for, you better go.” Hera interrupted. “I don’t need you here.”

Althea wiped her tears, again. “Everyone is worried about you. You neither eat nor go out of this room. You even don’t want your mom to stay here beside you.” She had said it as calm as she could for Althea did not wanted to sound like she was pushing Hera to do something she did not want to. “Do you think he would be happy seeing you like this? Is this something he could be proud of? Hera, please, do not live your life like this. You have to move on…”

She met her piercing, glistening eyes. “Aah… You’re here because of what they have told you. If you are here just to lecture me- just like what others did every time they would enter here- on how I should live my life after what I did, then…” she put her feet down on the floor and stand. “You really need to go.”

“Hera- “

“Just go.” Her friend was about to go to the comfort room inside her room to probably locked herself up when she grabbed her arm caused her to stopped and almost stumbled. “Just fuck off, will you?”

“Then what? Leave you just like what Zach did?!” she shouted that made her friend stay still and gaze fell on her feet. Althea knew that what she had said was off the line but that was only her last resort to finally got her attention and knocked some senses on her. “Until when you wanted to be like this? Is this really what you want for the rest of your life? To look wasted all the time? Everybody is so damn worried about you, you know!”

Because of the intensity happening between them, she almost did not notice that her grip on her arm tightened. “You’re already hurting me, Althea. Let me go.”, her friend said, trying to pull her arm away. Trying to be firmer this time. 

Althea laughed sarcastically, “Now you know…”, her eyes staring on her friend’s very messy hair fell down on her clenched left fist. “Now you know what it feels like not to be set free by someone who does not want to let go…Now you know what probably would Zach feel because of what you are doing to yourself. For Pete’ s sake, haven’t you look yourself on the mirror for quite some time?!”

“Stop this, will you?”

“No… I will never ever stop not until you finally realized that you are just wasting your time on either sitting or lying down here on your bed or sofa and not doing anything except for endlessly crying and hopelessly praying for someone to be back!” she could hold back her feelings anymore. “You are just prolonging your miseries, that’s why. Get a hold of yourself. Go and get back all of your senses for there is still a bright future ahead of you, waiting for you.”

Hera raised her head and meet her eyes. “Don’t talk as if you totally knew what I feel just because we share the same thing.”, she said and bit her lower lip.

She could not utter a word. Not because she did not know on how to respond on what Hera had just said but because right after she looked through her eyes and heard those words, she saw nothing but an endless emptiness on her.

 “How could you say those things, huh? Why does you sounded like you’re just mocking my own feelings?”, her friend said. A tear escaped on her cheek. “Do you think I am liking this? Do you think I want to be like this forever? You are wrong because no, I don’t want to be like this…I don’t like to stay like this forever either…” her face soften as she continued,” It’s just that… every time I will try to open that goddamn door and go back to life that I once had as if nothing happened, my knees starts to shake. My conscience is bugging me to death. I am being drowned by my so many what if’s. And, all I could do is to think of him…

“Zach’s face pleading to accept him still. Asking me to give him the chance for us to start all over again. A chance that if I only give that day, it could have probably spared his life from death. It could have spared all of us to from feel these griefs and agonies. It could have spared me from the loneliness and emptiness which I am feeling. That, if I only gave him that very chance for us to bring back things the way it used to be, I could have had a happy ending…”

Hera’s right hand got her hand gripped from her own shoulder and held it firmly, as if her life depended on it.

“Do you think he already forgave me? I mean…Could he even forgive me for saying those words that hurt him big time? Would he ever forgive me for hurting him the way he hurt me just to get even? Is there any possibility for all of those questions to be answer-now he’s gone, permanently..?”

Accepting someone’s death had never been an easy thing and all they could do was to cry to somehow ease the pain it had caused. It had been months since Zach died because of a car accident. His car fell from a cliff and his body was burned out because of its explosion. It was indeed a tragic ending but what made it more tragic for Hera was that, she was blaming herself for her boyfriend’s death, who happened to be Althea’s twin brother.

It was too painful to bear. Too painful that being angry at her and blame her friend because of what happened was the only thing crossed on her mind that time. Actually, it was the first time they saw each other again after Zach’s burial a few months back.  And she was so guilty because of that. After she got back her senses and realized that his sudden death should be blame to no one, together with help she got from her family and other friends, it somehow helped her to move on…. 

She let go of her hand from her very first friend who taught her before on how to be strong, and instead, hugged her tight as she could, closer than she should be. Althea did it because she realized one thing.

 Hera does not need those rehearsed words she had had a couple of minutes before she opened the door a while ago. She does not need any of those used to say words every time someone dies. She does not need any lectures neither as for how she should cope up nor as for why she should move on. She does not need someone else’s pity and most especially, she does not need to be blame for someone’s twin brother’s death. She does not need all of those things for what she needed was someone who would and could stay beside her no matter what happens.

 A person who would still be there to listen no matter how many times she or he was being shouted or ignored. Someone who could still pat her head just to assure that nobody was blaming her for what had happened despite of being shoved away several times. A person who would be ready to become a soldier just to pass through her and break her high and thick walls just to offer his or her shoulders to cry on. Someone who would also be willing to embrace what she was feeling.

Someone who would and could hugged her so tightly- like what she was finally doing…

[ehsan-nouri]

Simple Rules Rule: A Confession of Human-Made Misery

This is real. We are stuck in our homes and breathing through our narrow windows, worrying to go out, just in case that death might give us a random visit outdoors. Corona is real, physical and probably a touchable disease. A world-wide catastrophe is caused by this nasty creature, however, we wise human beings are aspiring to show our strength in the battle. But this has just popped into sight, while there were many other diseases out there, ones we were simply unable to see. Their symptoms have been long misunderstood and been referred to other causes. Their consequent effects have been so subtle to address and you may at the end of the next paragraphs, oppose me aggressively due to calling them a “disease”.

I haven’t been able to write and to live in the past few months, or even years. So, this is my most desperate effort to alleviate the pain of resting for more than a hundred days (How dare you want to have a life-time of rest and joy! That’s unbearable). But that’s not how it looks from inside. At least, I am not relieved of a long-time working agenda by this rest. On the other hand, a futile struggle of thoughts has been constantly happening in my mind, draining all the energy and leaveing no other option for better muscles to enjoy (every other part that can feel the real touch of joy, not this imaginary, perception-constrained and deluded machine we call “brain”).

I am asking you to dive with me, hand-in-hand in the endless ocean of thought. You already have done so, sorry not inform you early on. I do it alone everyday, but a companion will probably save me from draining, or maybe we will be swallowed by the monster, which is yet another great adventure. So here we are, watching the wild waves and deep dark blue eyes of our gorgeous friend who invites us to jump off the cliff and embrace her. The charm is irresistible.

Have you ever been re-engineering your self? Have you been successful in identifying your core drives? Sadly, we have a disadvantage of not having a tablet that shows what drives our emotions, in comparison to hosts in the Westworld TV series. Just the same drives that push you in the re-engineering room, prevent you from touching them. What a misery!

The sad ones among us, are consumed by the over-thinking virus. An incurable disease as old as the human consciousness and unfortunately the most ignored one! That’s even a larger misery that we, wise human beings, have stopped finding remedies for such a terrible illness. I guess it has always been the selfish healthy who ignored the danger carried by this virus, and since it was less contagious than the Corona one, they just let it out to infect the vulnerable and bring them slow decay. Who cares? Do you care for the drug addicted up until they cause you any harm or maybe infect you? No, you don’t. Take off your altruistic masks and let your inner monster be exposed.

Overthinking is paralyzing. It’s the lamp draining all the car battery and leaving you helpless in the middle of nowhere. It’s a process that consumes all the CPU and your systems becomes unable to handle simple tasks, like writing into Microsoft Word, as I’m doing now. Happily, my laptop is not traumatized that way and we can still put a few words together. But on certain days, we are both down. He is unable to play a single music track and I am as well unable to do anything other than watching him fail! As a former engineer, I some times make comparisons of the real world entities, with electronic parts, and only my fellow engineer friends get the point. On an expert level, one of my friends, with the same super-atheist level as me, usually quotes from important Muslim figures like Ali-ibn-Abi-Taleb to clarify his points. Can’t deny I love this offensive level of humor.

“We aren’t yet drown, there is hope.” That’s a lie! Let us go deeper to see how scientists and psychologists have failed us for centuries. This is a nasty monster who offers comfort getting away from him, while he’s still breathing out there. And the only remedy offered by our fancy science has been ignorance, let alone the chemical anti-depressants that treat us like the miserable pets we are. I’m in no position to criticize their efforts and not certainly ignore them. Ignorance is their game, not mine. They have been quite successful in curing the mentally paralyzed, but the case has not been fully resolved. The symptoms are vanished by force, but the inner cause lives. Usually these treatments take a long time and there’s still the possibility of a relapse, which puts the ill no other option than taking a life-time increasing dose of pills. Let’s hope they are not changing us in unforeseen ways. The vocabulary these fellow scientists and coaches use includes certain words like “Letting go”, “Vulnerability”, “Adaptation”, “Fate”, “Belief” and finally “Hope”. The most disgusting package of the human-made world of misery!

Indeed, it should be a simple issue. Since it’s rooted in a single monster, all explanations converge. Last year for example, I watched three movies from the amazing writer Charlie Kaufman, “Synecdoche New York”, “Adaptation” and “Anomalisa”. They were truly brilliant works of art that made me fall in love with Charlie’s works and for the first time I printed someone’s picture and sticked it onto the wall.

They were passionate moments. I tried to find every writing of him, watch all his speeches and movies. That’s how love works, and please spare me a lot of your time if you’d like to know more on how it works. You’ll love the love’s way and that puts you in an exponentially growing loop of feelings. But please don’t fall in love with your thoughts because you don’t want to occupy your brain with an exponentially growing demon. Do it with your heart, which as simply as possible “denies any thought!”

The secret behind my love story with Charlie was simple. He made confessions in an honest and vulnerable way. In his movies, you do really feel how characters fail in understanding the dynamics of their lives, despite their desperate efforts to understand. Caden Cotard in Synecdoche New York for example (named after the Cotard delusion, that one thinks he’s already dead), spends a life-time to build a massive theater representing routine human lives of every actor, letting them play their own story to show the secrets of real life. He wants to decipher them in a truthful way for his own comfort and in the eyes of the audience. But he fails, and Charlie portrays his failure with the ending of his life, having lost every endeavor, every precious meaning and finally “fading into oblivion”. Caden chose titles that could represent his huge theater over and over, but could never feel contempt with any. “Simulacrum”, “Flawed light of love and grief” and “The Obscure Moon Lighting an Obscure World” were among them. This challenge of understanding was likewise presented in his Adaptaion movie, written out of Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief”. The name speaks itself.

When you adapt, you surrender. There’s no radical motive left. Nothing exceptional. You realize “That’s how it should work” when there’s no other option. Brené Brown introduces vulnerability as a symptom of courage. That is stepping into the unknown with all its uncertainties and possible failures, because there’s no other way. Our rational mind is unable to assess all uncertainties and alternatives. The more you push it towards a whole understanding, you find your self more troubled and helpless. But then we invent Courage, which says “If you can’t win with your mind, win with your heart”. If you knew there were strategies in a war that can put soldiers out of the field, you would definitely do, unless you are suffering from another disease called religion, which is irrelevant for now.

Let’s sort all other wise responses of our fellow intellectuals. Letting go of thought, as prescribed in many East Asian philosophies, stands as the most naïve one. Accepting the foolish concept of fate, as the banner of victimhood. Belief and faith as the food for fantasies. And finally, HOPE, the most deceptive force, has appeared in many literary works, paintings, songs and even social movements over time. Hope is like a temporary relief, a small bondage to stop bleeding while the wound is right there. I think we play with hope and protect ourselves when fears rush through the door. That’s a good game by the way. I have been dreaming for many months now, that I can bring this deceptive force back into myself and I’ve failed. After all, if the wound is meant to be there, why not using a bondage? Let’s decorate it with fancy colors, turn it into a piece of clothing and enjoy. The idea of decorating something immovable seems familiar, doesn’t? How many societies, books and doctrines have been built upon? But surely, we know that hope has the same rotten roots as courage. We project success in the future when we have no idea what is going to happen. Yet of course, why not?

The world grows unknown as you grow older. A world-wide false expression is that the elder, given their experience, understand the world better, while they only learn their limitations over time. That’s all. As kids, we falsely believe in our knowledge about the surrounding things and aging comes with the enlightenment of limitations. That’s why the elder hesitates in making decisions while the kid makes in an instant. I envy myself in five years ago, when I bravely made decisions and stood firm supporting them. That’s braveness my friend, however foolish it might seem.

Realm of creation is the realm of god. It’s stepping into the dark, courageously, anticipating various outcomes. That’s how Dr. Rollo May defines creation in his book “The courage to Create”. Once, in a long discussion with Mr. Zia, we both agreed in the comfort of accepting the melancholy caused by fears since it was god-like to be brave. And that’s true, we all like to be gods - The omniscient and powerful creature we invented in our most profound fictions. In him, the humankind has invested his most wild and selfish dreams. But it seems that Dr. May forgot the fact that gods are supposed to be free from constraints like time and limitations of knowledge. Fear of failure and unknown does not apply to those who know the consequences of every act, and believe me, that’s super boring!

We enjoy far more than gods do. The concept of courage is coupled with the concept of unknown. There is no courageous being who knows everything. Besides, when there’s unlimited time and resources available, no penalty for failure and no vision for success, you won’t feel anxious because you can always test other alternatives in your infinite life. How many times have you used cheat codes in a game and later felt regret because infinite cash destroyed the joy of earning it? Silly gods work with cheat codes.

We want wise men who can tell us the best scenarios in our daily decision making. They should be free from feelings and emotional attachments but decide best under time constraints- Time breeds anxiety when the process of reaching a conclusion takes long, and anxiety is a weakening force, if not a stopping one. But that will neither be humane nor god anymore. We have created another fiction, a constrained super-hero. It does not exist.

Let’s finish our miserable search for role-models and take a look at our real surroundings. All we own, is a bounded rationality limited by many elements. The world is complex. Events are the same and so does the relationship between things. Yet, simple rules rule. We know joy is out there and so is sadness. We will someday experience success and fail the other day. But is it a mess? Some of the successful among us may believe so. I guess because they are a mess themselves and have won by chance. Remember, sad losers who lost by chance, never express themselves. Contents published out there are mostly coming from fool naïve successful folks, who in their own terms were gifted with intelligence and wise decisions. Only a true loser can defeat them if he gets a say out there. Otherwise winning by chance turns into a culture and idiots will be ruling us. Oh, am I a bit late to say so?

There’s much left to say but I’m tired of writing. It’s 9PM already in Tehran and we’re in lockdown. Such a terrible complicated time to write about these simple rules. I study economic complexity in my thesis, and everyone should know that most complex behaviors arise from simple rules. Bounded rationality is too one of the core concepts. Actors in a complex system are not gods, but they can feel contempt with their limited decisions. The simple rule is that as humans, we can be contempt. We can accept our boundaries and learn few universal rules about love, expectations, happiness and staying sharp. The more we try extending our decision-making logic, the more we will grow weary of time and greedy of the results. So, am I letting go of all the heavy thought process I’ve defended up to now? No. That’s a gift. A wise man’s approach that should be treated with honor and be understood, while he learns and accepts his limitations. I am reading a book called “Simple Heuristics that Makes us Smart” with a group of friends and most of these notes were inspired by that. Hopefully, I can share a lot more about how these techniques could alleviate the pain of understanding while giving us good reasons to stop endless venturing in the unknown like gods! I wish to be contempt being a human.

[writtingfiction]

If its alright could i please get some onesided takumi x corrin x silas where he keeps seeing them speak in norhian together and after stalking them starts to fall for corrin. only to find her kissing silas the day he plans to confess. Bonus points if she sees him and says brother isnt it wonderful were getting married!

Alright! I’m back and in the groove. Man, Takumi can’t seem to catch a break can he. Putting the man through more heartbreak, but I hope those bonus points are still available to collect… I’m always a sucker for bonus points.ー( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

pairing: Takumi x Corrin x Silas

words: 1.3k

He had been told, that he should be happy, grateful that his sister had come back. But, he didn’t trust her. She could just suddenly turn around and run her sword through them all. He felt that his suspicion was right when their mother had died, but the grief that Corrin went through had him pause.

It affected her more than he thought. Turning into a wild rampant dragon, Azura being the only person to calm her; to which he wasn’t surprised with. Perhaps those two were in it together, faking that this is the first time they met each other. But, when the time had finally come, Corrin standing at odds with her blood family calling out to her to come back; her Nohrian family, also calling her back home.

Even though, deep down inside him, he wished she would stay and come back home, her true home. It still surprised him that she chose to side with Hoshido. When she took the further steps to make sure that Sakura was safe, he was happy but there was such a strong sense of distrust he had in her.

It didn’t help with that nohrian knight claiming to be her best friend when they were just children. What was his name? Solas? No, Silas. Silas, the man who became a knight just so he could see his best friend again.

Noble, and dedicated. It was almost inspiring, if Corrin was able to recognize him. That’s why he decided to keep a close eye on them. Most nights he would see them conversing in Nohrian. He couldn’t understand a lick of it, but he couldn’t let them go unwatched. It was all too convenient, a knight that she once knew claiming to be her best friend. Maybe, he was trying to convince her to go back to Nohr.

Takumi couldn’t let that happen. He was just starting to get used to her presence. He was starting to converse with her, instead of being blunt and perhaps rude with her. Or maybe it was the other way around; after her many attempts she had finally gotten through to him.

“Takumi! I’m so glad I’ve run into you, there’s something I would like your help on.” Corrin, says happily. Large smile on her face, but she plays with her fingers. She’s nervous still. Takumi glances towards her, before looking ahead.

“What is it?” Takumi replied. He winced inside, it sounded too harsh.

“O-oh! I was, uh, wondering if you could teach me on how to use a bow?” Corrin asked, and Takumi gave her a look.

“Why ask me? There’s other people you could ask.” Takumi waved her off. However, Corrin pushed.

“I’m asking you, because you’re the most skilled archer in this army, Takumi.” Corrin said confidently. “You’re strong, confident and very skilled with a bow. No one else comes to mind for a better teacher.” Takumi couldn’t stop the blush rising to his cheeks as he let out a yell.

“Alright! Alright! Grab a bow and I’ll set up a target…” Takumi said, quickly turning away from her, trying to hide his red face. He heard Corrin cry out triumphantly before scurrying off to grab a spare bow.

His thoughts were a bit muddy as he tried to think straight about what he could train her. Mind you, she did boost his ego with the list of compliments, but it felt nice to be recognized. Someone, had finally noticed the effort he put in. Someone had finally given him praise for the work he put in. He was happy to receive the praise, so, why did his heart race some much when he heard her speak?

He started to notice how his heart picked up its pace whenever she came near. He began to notice all the small little touches she gave him. However, there was also that sinking feeling in his stomach.

He had wondered why his mother gave him that enclosed letter before she died. He wondered why she gave him the envelope and told him to only open it under certain circumstances. Except, here he was, under those oddly specific circumstances, and he opened the letter.

It was shocking, yes, to learn all about this. That it was a lie all along, but he felt his heart picking up its rapid pace again. His feelings weren’t wrong, they never were. With the letter he feels more confident, but not enough courage to tell her.

So, he thinks he’ll try tomorrow, when he’s training her with the bow again. But, as he’s making his patrols that night, he sees Corrin and Silas sneaking off. Takumi rolls his eyes and scoffs.

He wonders if they were trying to be sneaky. Although, with how loud they were laughing as he trailed behind them, he didn’t think they thought they would get in trouble. They weren’t thinking about the possible ambush the enemy could spring. They weren’t thinking about the possible dangers it could bring; they didn’t —

Takumi freezes upon seeing the scene. Silas down on one knee, saying words that are most likely romantic but it’s all in Nohrian. He doesn’t understand specifically, but he understands too much, and it makes his heart shatter. There are tears that bubble in her eyes as Silas begins to finish his small speech, and he can’t stop the painful ache in his chest when she falls towards Silas holding him tight and saying the one of the few words, he knew in Nohrian. Yes.

He felt weak at the knees, wobbling as he stared at the pair. Smiling and giggling as they slip the ring on. And it’s when they start to close the space between them, does he make his presence known. He had too. He couldn’t watch it any longer.

“Corrin. Silas.” His tone his flat, hiding the pain he feels in his chest and throat. Suffocating him.

Corrin beams, just beams at him with the largest smile and comes running towards him. Quickly hugging him in her excitement.

“Look. Silas just proposed! I’m going to marry him!!!” Corrin giggles. Takumi gives her a strained smile, he has to try.

“Wow, what a nice ring.” And it was, it truly was. He had just hoped, wished it was for something else when he had caught the knight playing with it the other day. “Congrats.” He says it as happily as he can without biting down on his tongue for the disgust he felt.

“Thank you, your words mean a lot, to me, to us.” Corrin says, a sappy swoon to her voice as she steals a quick look at the embarrassed knight. Takumi feels as if she had placed weights on his body and told him to march to the border and back home. He gives the both of them a strained smile.

“As much as this is nice, we must head back. It’s dangerous being out at night.” Takumi said, bowing his head and turning around, trying to hold back tears. “The enemy could be anywhere and you don’t have your weapons.”

Corrin and Silas couldn’t argue and followed Takumi back towards the camp. Trailing behind him in their own little happy atmosphere, while Takumi was trying not to fall apart in front of them. His heart was shattered, broken into so many pieces he wasn’t sure he would recover. Not only that, but his chest ached, it hurt to breath. He felt the pain suffocating him with each step, each breath he took. As if a snake had wrapped around torso and neck and slowly started to squeeze.

It was unbearable and as soon as they made it back, he didn’t dare turn and continued on his way towards his own tent. Tears already spilling before he could have even had the chance to make it inside. The gods above loved to laugh at his own misery, they loved to play with his happiness it seemed. And It seemed the gods deemed him worthy enough to play with, but he was a toy that would be thrown away after they grew tired of it. And, the gods wondered after watching the heartfelt display, if they would take pity on him.

[starswornoaths]

12. Accolade

The accolades and chronicles of the adventures of the Warriors of Light have been meticulously written, edited, and published by the Bard of the group, who wanted to have an accurate retelling of the stories to prevent their tale from turning myth.

That she also wrote a romance series as it happened in front of her eyes was besides the point.

Featuring a friend’s character: Zephina Arlentes! (I’d link her profile, but she has no tumblr, but I have borrowed Zeph with permission!)

In the time since she had turned her coat and pledged herself to Ishgard, Lucia had come to know herself rather well. She was a creature of habit, liked her tea a certain way, and was slow to warm were she describing her temperament kindly. Had anyone told her a year ago that she would consider several Warriors of Light— with their high energy and eclectic lives— some of her closest friends, she might have entertained the thought of referring them to a chirurgeon to get that crack in their skull checked.

As thing were she was, in fact, incredibly close to the small number of Warriors of Light that had crossed the Arc of the Worthy with all their eclectic enthusiasm.

Though even that had some level of routine to it, she realized; even if she could not predict the precise when of their strange and abrupt interruptions to the status quo, that they happened was a constant. With the accumulation of their accolades— chronicled by the Bard in the group— the taller their tale grew and with it, Lucia’s definition of normal had warped— at least, where her newfound little group of friends was concerned.

So when Zephina— the aforementioned Raen Bard— sprinted into the Congregation of the Knights Most Heavenly, jumped over Lucia’s desk and said, “I’m not here,” while nudging Lucia’s legs out of the way to crawl underneath the desk, it was only surprising that Lucia was only just barely startled by it all.

A year ago, Lucia would have held her at swordpoint, demanded to know what had prompted such a gross display of disrespect and what the meaning of all this was. Now, she merely sighed and moved her legs to allow for ample room for the petite Raen to hide in with her tail tucked about her without even looking up from her report.

Normal was relative to those around you, Lucia conceded to herself with a sigh. 

The First Commander opened her mouth to ask what had possessed Zephina to behave in such a way, but the door opened — gentler this time, at least — and in stomped a rather red faced and displeased looking Serella.

“Where. Is. Zephina.” The Paladin ground out.

The two of them were fighting? Strange, Lucia thought. The two of them were thick as thieves, as far as she had understood it. Had something of great import happened between them? A curious development in their tale, she mused.

“For full disclosure,” Lucia spoke up. Well aware that she was not getting work done any time soon, she looked up from the report she had been reading over. “My answer differs vastly depending on why you are looking for her.”

“Because she’s been making money off of my misery!” Serella said in a harsh whisper, her face aflame. “My pain! My own internal struggle! She’s been taking it all to the bank!”

Lucia arched a brow but was, admittedly, intrigued.

“I will likely regret asking, but how?” The First Commander asked.

“She has a book series,” Serella began, crossing her arms. Her fingers tapped against her arm. “She’s written an entire series based on my emotional turmoil.” She narrowed her eyes. “And she didn’t even tell me.”

“Are you referring to her chronicling your travels?” Lucia asked. “For though your accolades are many, your grief is fairly plain there—”

“No.” Serella huffed. “Those don’t bother me— she told me she was going to do that.” With a sweep of her hand, she explained, “she writes this, this romance series under a pen name: Scintilla Weiss.”

Lucia froze— she knew that author name. How could she not? It was on the cover of every book of the newest series that had currently stolen her attention. Over the last new moons the At Her Gates romance series had really taken off in Eorzea detailing a heart wrenching will-they-won’t-they between the series’ main heroine Sera Soulshield and a commander of a neighboring nation Myrick Boreas as they work together to end a bloody and brutal conflict—

Well. It was more than a little vindicating to know she had not been reaching in making certain comparisons, then.

“It’s this slow burn obnoxious thing she’s been writing on inaccurate assumptions and—” Serella had begun to rant in earnest, pulling Lucia out of her revelation.

“I have heard of this author.” Lucia spoke up. Steepling her fingers together on top of her desk she continued airily, “‘twould seem Zephina has been busy.”

“To put it mildly.” Serella deadpanned. “Now where is she? I have yet to properly throttle her.”

“I have not seen Lady Arlentes.” Lucia answered in an even tone. She maintained a neutral expression as best she could with the revelation that her current favorite author was hiding under her desk. “I wish I could be of greater help— perhaps she moved to the Pillars in the hopes of finding shelter with House Fortemps?”

Serella narrowed her eyes in suspicion but Lucia was, as ever, unflinching.

“I don’t have any evidence to call you out on this,” Serella admitted. “But I think you’re lying.”

“That is entirely possible.” Lucia said with a shrug.

“Well, if you do see her,” Serella said, already turning to leave. “Please inform her that she’s dead as soon as I find her.”

“I shall.” Lucia said with a small wave of farewell. She waited several minutes following the doors closing after the Paladin before leaning to look under the desk. Zephina blinked owlishly up at her, her knees tucked to her chest like a child. “She is gone.”

“Oh, you’re an angel, Lucia!” Zephina sighed, clamoring out from behind the desk of the First Commander. “Thank you!”

“Though I’m sure you heard,” the First Commander mused, dipping the tip of her quill in the inkwell. “I have been asked to inform you that upon her discovery of you, you will be dead.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” Zephina grumbled, scuffing the floor with her boot as she pouted.

“Have you truly been publishing those books without her knowledge?” Lucia asked her.

“I wasn’t sure she would even care.” The Bard sighed, gathering her long ebony hair over one shoulder. “I changed the names, the setting, everything but what was happening between them— and the whole centuries long struggle bit, but even that I changed! I was sure it would be fine!” She paused before quietly admitting, “well, that, and I didn’t think she’d ever find out.” She shrugged. “I didn’t think she would even want to read romance novels.”

“Aside from the fact that your series has swiftly grown in popularity since release,” Lucia said, returning to her paperwork. “It was only a matter of time before she caught wind of it— in particular around the Congregation.”

“Is,” Zephina said, blinking stupidly at her. “Is it that obvious who I’ve been writing about?”

“It is.” Lucia admitted. “But even if it were less...apparent,” she sighed. “Templars are notorious gossips, I fear. I’ve found more than a few of them reading over your books and whispering about how...similar it all sounds.” She spared her a sidelong glance. “Though I would recommend, perhaps, hiring an editor.”

“Editor?” Zephina parroted, tilting her head. “I mean, makes sense, but what makes you say that?”

“For an entire chapter in the last book,” Lucia mentioned as casually as one spoke about the weather. “You stopped calling them ‘Sera and Myrick’ and just called them ‘Serella and Aymeric.’ If people did not suspect before—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Zephina held her hands out in front of her, eyes wide as saucers. “You read that?”

“Of course,” the First Commander affirmed. She felt a smile creep onto her face. “I did not know that you had written it for certain, but I was fairly certain that someone in your group was writing it— the tale seemed to eerily mirror your own exploits and accolades.”

“You read romance novels.” Zephina was still stuck on the first point, it seemed.

“Aye, many.” Lucia admitted freely, nodding. “Yours is the most current one I have had the chance to read. ‘Tis my favorite new series thus far.”

“I can’t picture you reading romance novels.” Zephina confessed, at a loss. “Let alone mine.”

“I have a rather vast collection of them,” Lucia admitted freely, still only just looking past her paperwork. “I enjoy them immensely.”

“Why tell me this?” Zephina asked. “You know I’m a gossip, too.”

“Because,” Lucia said with a grin, at last looking up at her. “No one will believe you.”

“You—!” Zephina gasped, pointing at her. “Oh, that’s just cruel!”

“Perhaps.” Lucia said with a shrug, already turning her focus back to her work. “I imagine Serella is far enough into the Pillars you could make a hasty retreat.” She paused a moment before adding, “though for my troubles in hiding you away, I would like a first edition copy of your next book.” She spared her a sidelong glance. “Signed, if you please.”

“Suppose I could do that.” Zephina grumbled. “Provided I even get to live long enough to publish the damned thing.”

“You had damn well better.” Lucia said offhandedly, even as she leveled a hard glare at the Bard. “You left it off at an awful cliffhanger, you miserable cretin.”

“Sorry.” Zephina said in a tone that indicated she was not, in fact, sorry. “Fair warning: next book probably won’t see them together either with the rate they’re going— else it would no longer be based on real events.”

Lucia pursed her lips in displeasure but otherwise said nothing as the Bard dashed out the door. Returning to her paperwork, she had an errant thought of speeding things along as it were though quickly dismissed it; it was not her place and besides— if anything would have been the catalyst for them, she would have thought the Lord Commander nearly dying while ‘Sera’ was away would have done it. As things stood all it did was add the most frustrating chapter in the entire series. She had nearly thrown her book at the wall at the end.

Romantic fools, the lot of them, she thought, fully aware of the irony. She focused on her report to avoid feeling frustrated over it again.

[poipoi1912]

Barisi Episode Tag, 19x05

(10.9K. Inspired by Sonny's nauseated face when he carried Emma Lawrence, by his indifference when he got dumped by Miss Raw Foods, and by my desire to see Rafael's reaction to both of those things. Angsty, introspective and romantic. Please enjoy.)

~~~

Dormant

(or, The Deleted Scenes We Didn't See)

~~~

“You hear about Carisi?”

Rafael has not heard anything about Carisi lately, and despite what Rollins might think, he’d prefer to keep it that way.

“What about him?”

Or not.

Rollins steps closer, like she doesn’t want anybody else at the precinct to overhear, which suggests the information is personal, and now Rafael is even less inclined to find out wh-

“You catch the front page of The Ledger this morning? Carisi’s the source.”

Rafael blinks.

“I can only assume it was inadvertent?”

Rollins makes an expression Rafael can’t deciph-

“You could say that. He’s been datin’ the reporter who wrote the story.”

Oh.

That explains it.

Some of it, anyway.

Rafael nods.

“I see. I suppose we can always trust Carisi to do something stupid and make our lives that much harder.”

Rollins gives Rafael a look, except this one is a lot easier to read.

She’s not buying what Rafael is selling, and it’s just as well. Rafael has left the insults behind, for years now, and this is not the time to revert back to that behavior.

Easy as it would be. Good as it might feel.

Rafael just hopes Rollins can’t read his own expression, he hopes she can’t see the jealousy there, because Rafael just got official confirmation that Carisi is in a relationship, and he thinks he’s allowed to be petty for the next several minut-

“Come on, Barba. He’s real broken up about it. He didn’t mean to tell her. He was just excited we found Emma Lawrence.”

Right.

“Except you didn’t. Find her.”

That was the wrong thing to say, and Rollins looks haunted, just like that, and Rafael sometimes forgets she has a kid of her own now, and these cases must hit her even hard-

“No. We didn’t.”

Rafael almost apologizes for being cruel.

He doesn’t.

He knows Rollins would never let him hear the end of it. Rafael Barba, apologizing. She’d want to get it on camera.

Rafael doesn’t apologize, because whatever he might tell Rollins, whatever blame he might mistakenly place on her, Rafael knows she’s way ahead of him.  

Cops have a way of blaming themselves.

Prosecutors, they always have someone else to blame. They are lawyers, after all. Prosecutors blame the judge, or the jury, or the cops, like Rafael just did, and he really wants to apologize, still, and he d-

“That reporter, she’s the one who’s got Carisi eatin’ raw food all the time. You ever notice that, Barba?”

Rafael would thank Rollins for the change of subject, but that pettiness is rising inside him again, and h-

“Nah, of course you haven’t noticed. Why would you?”

Rafael’s nostrils flare.

Rollins looks suspiciously nonchalant, in a way she never is, because she’s always sharp and focused and she never speaks unless she has something very specific to say, and Rafael realizes she’s punishing him for what he said before.

While he may very well deserve that, Rafael doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t want to hear what else Rollins might have to s-

“Anyway, Carisi’s always eating peanuts for lunch, and ordering salads, and bringin’ in stray fruit from home. He’s been gettin’ on Fin’s last nerve.”

Wait a minute.

“I saw Carisi eating an entire pizza for lunch, right there on his desk, just the other week. I distinctly remember it, because I saw him use an affidavit as a napkin.”

Rollins snorts.

“Yeah, well, he says he’s been tryin’, but sometimes it’s hard to resist.”

Rafael knows the feeling.

He’s experiencing it right now.

It’s hard to resist.

“How long has that been going on, Rollins?”

Rollins narrows her eyes.

Of course she does.

She’s a detective. And a good one, too. Rafael knew her obliviousness was too much to hope for, but he had no choice. She’s the only one who would know, because she and Carisi are friends, and Rafael has no other way of finding out if this is serious of if it’s n-

“What? The raw diet?”

Rafael does not appreciate being called out like that.

Rollins is reading him like a book.

Fine.

The least she could do is pretend she didn’t already know. Rollins could at least act surprised, instead of gleeful, because she’s got Rafael begging her for scraps of information on Carisi’s personal life. If not out of friendship, then out of professional courtesy.

“Yes, Rollins. The raw diet. How long?”

Rafael truly hopes what he sees in her face is not pity.

“Hard to tell, counselor. We only found out by accident, me and Fin. Carisi never talks about her.”

He doesn’t?

Carisi, the same Carisi who gives everyone semi-regular updates on his second oldest sister’s hunt for a husband, the same Carisi who mass texts pictures of his niece dressed as an elf to the entire precinct every Christmas, the same Carisi who blathers on about the Mustang he used to save up for, and the girl he had a crush on in elementary school, and that one time he stole candy from a store when he was eight, that Carisi, doesn’t talk about the woman he’s in lov…

Rafael stops himself right there.

Pettiness is bad enough, nosiness is even worse, and the last thing he needs is to jump straight into misery.  He always does th-

“Best guess, though? Six or seven months. Come to think of it, isn’t that around the time you and him started yellin’ at each other?”

Rafael does not yell.

He does, however, know this is not the hill he wants to die on. Not right now. He doesn’t need to give Rollins more ammo by being defensive, and pedantic, and pointing out that Carisi started yelling at him almost a year ago.

Rafael just rolls his eyes and hopes it’s convincing.

“Will that be all, Rollins? Or do you have more irrelevant gossip to share?”

Rollins silently calls bullshit on ‘irrelevant,’ with a raise of her left eyebrow that’s so subtle Rafael is instantly envious of it, and then she steps even closer.

Which is a little disconcert-

“Just for the record, Barba, Carisi didn’t look happy this morning. He confronted her, soon as the paper hit the stands. She denied using him as a source, but he said he didn’t buy it. I mean, it is a hard sell. That early in the investigation, there was only so many people who knew, and I sure as hell didn’t tell her. So… It’s not lookin’ so hot. Between ‘em. If it’s any consolation.”

It is, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“Why would that be a consolation, Rollins?”

Rollins bites her top lip, clearly trying not to laugh, and Rafael wants to kick himself.

“Why would I need consolation?”

Rollins laughs.

She literally laughs in Rafael’s face, and it’s a quiet laugh, it’s at a low, work-appropriate volume, but she’s standing so close she might as well be cackling. Rafael almost reprimands her for her imaginary lack of decorum, but he says nothing, because she’s right.

Of course he needs consolation.

He’s needed consolation for a long time.

Six or seven months.

Longer.

Almost a year ago.

More than a year ago.

Rollins is still laughing when Rafael turns around and walks out of the precinct, as fast as he can. It’s all he can do to retain the last shreds of dignity he mistakenly believes he still possesses.

~~~

The allocution goes as well as could be expected.

Bill Lawrence details his actions, and he expresses his anguish, even if his lack of remorse leaves something to be desired, and the Lawrence family is spared a lengthy trial, and Rafael is spared the hassle of having to devise a closing argument strong enough to convict a father who faked his own daughter’s abduction to protect his son.

The real killer.

For ten years, Bill Lawrence kept up the lie.

Rafael does not blame Karen Lawrence for storming out of the courtroom. Most days, he wishes he could do the same. At least today justice was served. At least today Rafael is not packing up his briefcase in silent fury, the faster to get out of there, because a slick defense attorney managed to sufficiently vilify a victim, or because a naïve jury fell for the charms of a predator.

Today, Rafael gathers his things leisurely, and walks out of the courtroom in slow, easy steps.

Heavy, but easy.

Rafael’s steps are always heavy.

Carisi rushed out the door.

Light on his feet.

Carisi followed Karen Lawrence outside, and Rafael can only hope he had the good sense to leave that poor woman alone, becaus-

Of course not.

Carisi, to no one’s surprise, is standing in the hallway, talking to Mrs. Lawrence.

No.

Listening.

Carisi is listening to Mrs. Lawrence, and part of Rafael feels bad for him, part of Rafael wants to step in and shield Carisi from her anger, but another part of Rafael wants to let this play out. Maybe that’s what she needs. Maybe this grief-stricken mother who just lost her entire family will get some closure if she gets to yell at the cop who dared to give her false hope.

Rafael thinks that’s a terrible thing to think.

None of this is Carisi’s fault.

Almost none of this.

They’re all to blame.

Rafael, too. He’s not blameless.

He never is.

Rafael exhales.

Rafael exhales, and then he takes a few steps in Carisi’s direction. He can’t hear what Karen Lawrence is saying, but he can see the nauseated expression on Carisi’s face.

It’s breathtaking.

The way Carisi’s pain is carved on his face.

Lines and lines of pain, cutting deep.

Rafael wonders when Carisi will finally learn to cover it up.

Never, probably.

Right now, Carisi looks like he’s about two seconds away from throwing up all over his shoes.

Rafael knows he should be looking at Mrs. Lawrence, he should be focusing on her pain, powerful and fierce and raw, but that’s not easy when Carisi looks so lost.

Carisi looks even worse than he did yesterday, and that’s when he had just recovered the real Emma’s remains.

Rafael wants to touch him.

Rafael has no right.

Still.

Rafael wants to touch him.

Rafael touched Carisi, yesterday.

Yesterday, Carisi returned to the precinct after having carried a dead child in his arms, and Rafael saw him, shoulders tense, and lips downturned, and eyes empty, and Rafael touched him.

Rafael put a hand on Carisi’s shoulder.

It was only a few seconds, and Rafael felt it was what Carisi needed, so he…

No.

It was what Rafael needed.

It’s hard, watching Carisi in pain. It’s hard not to want to comfort him, even if Rafael doesn’t really know how.

Rafael touched Carisi once before.

Twice.

In comfort.

They had just lost Dodds, and Rafael feels guilty even thinking that, because ‘they’ didn’t lose Dodds, Rafael didn’t, but Carisi did, and Carisi took it hard, and Rafael touched him.

At the precinct, after they caught Heredio. A small pat on the arm.

At the bar, after the funeral. A lingering touch on the wrist.

Rafael thinks this is his own fault.

He started it.

Rafael doesn’t touch people.

A touch is an invitation, and Rafael doesn’t let anyone in.

Doesn’t want anyone in.

Rafael touches Carisi.

Rafael touched Carisi, once before, twice, and Carisi tried to make his way inside.

Yesterday, Rafael touched Carisi, Rafael squeezed Carisi’s shoulder, pointy and bony and warm, and Carisi didn’t look up, but his body sagged in a good way, and Rafael can’t believe that distinction was so glaringly clear.

Rafael can’t believe he can tell when Carisi breathes out in pain, or in relief.

He had never seen Carisi so devastated.

Right now, Carisi looks even worse.

Shattered.

Carisi looks shattered, as Mrs. Lawrence finally leaves.

Rafael doesn’t know if he should stay.

If he should approach Carisi.

Rafael almost wants to pretend he didn’t see.

He wants to give Carisi a private moment to properly wallow in self-loathing, like any public servant deserves.

They’ve all earned it.

Except Carisi spots him.

Carisi locks eyes with him, and Rafael sees the pleading, and the pain, and the nausea, and sometimes it’s hard to resist.

The more Rafael approaches, the more awkward Carisi looks.

Rafael is not cut out for this.

Rafael doesn’t know how to ask if Carisi is okay, how to ask if he can help.

So he doesn’t.

“What did she say, Carisi?”

Carisi looks down, and it makes the dark circles under his eyes all the more pronounced. His face is all shadow, and he looks half dead, and Raf-

“Sorry I didn’t drop off my case notes yesterday.”

Of course.

Carisi wants to change the subject.

Rafael doesn’t know if he should let Carisi get away with that or if he sh-

“I told Carmen I would. That’s why I… Maybe she told you. I was gonna do it, but I didn’t get around to it. I’m sorry.”

Carisi looks off, looks lost, looks apologetic to the point of apoplexy, and it’s hard not to want to comfort him.

Rafael is not cruel, so he decides to let Carisi off the hook.

For now.

“No need to apologize, detective. You had a long day.”

Carisi lets out a quiet exhale which could almost be mistaken for a laugh, at least if they weren’t talking about Carisi digging up the corpse of a dead six-year-old.

“Yeah. I’ll say. Anyway, I know you probably didn’t… I know you didn’t need the notes for today, ‘cause this was an allocution,  and Bill Lawrence gave you everything you needed, so… But still, that’s not an excuse, because I told you I’d drop them off, or… I told Carmen I would, and I didn’t, and maybe she was… Maybe she stayed late, waitin’ for me, or maybe… Maybe you were waitin’ for these notes so you could put them away and officially close the file, and… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t forget, I just d-”

“What did Karen Lawrence say to you, Carisi?”

Short of slapping Carisi in the face, this is the only thing Rafael can think of to stop Carisi from spiraling.

The pain Karen Lawrence inflicted.

Rafael isn’t even sorry.

The rambling, and the stumbling over words, and the self-flagellation, it all needs to stop, even if it’s over a forgotten notebook, because it’s not over a notebook, because it’s a slippery slope, and Carisi needs to stop before he starts blaming himself for other, more unforgivable offenses.

Carisi breathes out, and it sounds shakier than it should, shallower than it should, and Rafael can’t believe he can make that distinction either, and if he didn’t know any better he’d swear Carisi was on the verge of tears.

It occurs to Rafael that maybe he doesn’t know bett-

“The truth. She said she wishes I’d never found Emma. The real one. Before all this, she said she had hope. She could pretend Emma was still out there. Alive. And now all she has is an old blanket and a dug up grave. Because of me.”

She’s right.

That’s Rafael’s first shameful thought.

Karen Lawrence is right, but Carisi was right, too. In a way. Or he was wrong for the right reasons. Carisi genuinely believed they had found Emma, and he didn’t want to deprive the Lawrences of their own child for a moment longer. Not after ten years.

They should have done a DNA test, they should have monitored ‘Emma’ more closely before sending her ‘home,’ they should have kept this out of the press, they should have done a lot of things, but they didn’t, and Carisi isn’t the only one who failed to do right by this famil-

“We should have pushed for the girl’s DNA. I should have pushed. I should have figured out the dad’s reactions were off. And Glenn? It was obvious. I should’ve seen it sooner.”

Blame.

For other, more unforgivable offenses.

“And I should have gotten you a warrant for the girl’s DNA.  But I didn’t. There’s plenty of blame to go around, Carisi. You don’t get to bogart it.”

Carisi actually cracks a smile, and Rafael feels absurdly happy he was able to chase away the nausea, and the pain, Rafael was able to put an actual smile back on Carisi’s face, where it belongs, because Carisi should always be smil-

“That wasn’t your fault, Barba.”

Wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it Rafael’s job to make sur-

“It was my fault. If I hadn’t opened my big mouth, The Ledger wouldn’t have printed the story. Not on the front page, at least. We wouldn’t have had this media circus to deal with, and the D.A. wouldn’t have been breathin’ down your neck, and you’d have been free to work the case like you wanted.”

That’s a naïve assumption. Perhaps the media attention would have been less extreme, but a missing child is a missing child, even if it’s a cold case, and the D.A. would have still wanted to be informed of any develop-

“But, see, I couldn’t help myself. I just had to spill the beans. I just had to tell my friend, and she just had to report it. ‘Cause it was her duty to the truth, and to the readers of The Ledger. That’s what she said.”

Rafael bites the inside of his cheek.

“Your friend?”

His inflection is unmistakable.

And, even if it weren’t, Carisi is not an idiot. Much as Rafael likes to pretend otherwise.

Except Carisi looks surprised.

Carisi looks surprised, because Rafael slipped.

Rafael is not supposed to know that.

Carisi looks surprised, and then confused, and then guilty, for some godforsaken reason which feels like a punch to the gut, and Rafael has to try to maintain his composure.

After a good second or three, Carisi’s expression settles to what looks like defeat.

“Yeah, she’s… I know, I know. Which makes it even worse, huh?”

Rafael is struck by Carisi’s inability to use the term ‘girlfriend’ to refer to his actual girlfriend.

“What does?”

Carisi frowns.

“What makes it even worse, Carisi?”

Carisi stares.

“That I’m… That she’s… She was… Never mind, Barba. Never mind. I gotta go. I’ll drop off my notes later, so you can file them away. Alright? I… I gotta go.”

Carisi practically bolts, long legs taking long strides, and Rafael couldn’t catch up even if he wanted to.

Rafael slowly makes his way to the exit.

His steps are heavy.

~~~

It’s ten o’clock when Carisi shows up at Rafael’s office.

Rafael is not ashamed to admit that’s the only reason he is still there. He sent Carmen away hours ago, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

At the courthouse, Carisi said ‘later,’ and Rafael didn’t want to have to find a neatly filled notebook outside his doorstep in the morning.

Rafael wanted to see Carisi.

Tonight.

Tonight, Carisi looks a little better, a little less overwhelmed, but still not back to his old s-

“Still here, counselor? I was gonna drop these off on Carmen’s desk but then I saw the light.”

Yeah.

“You can leave them with me, Carisi.”

That’s what Rafael says.

He doesn’t ask.

It’s a stupid question, anyway. It’s obvious Carisi is not ‘okay.’

It’s also obvious that Carisi is trying.

Carisi even attempts a smile as he hands Rafael the notebook.

Rafael sets it aside without even looking at it.

He doesn’t smile back.

Rafael is not cut out for this.

Rafael doesn’t know how to ask if Carisi needs anything, how to ask Carisi to stay.

So he doesn-

“Feel like havin’ a drink?”

Rafael has never said no to that question, but there’s a first for everything. He doesn’t know if he can trust himself to take Carisi to some bar and drink until they’re both just drunk enough to mayb-

Oh.

Carisi walks up to the main cabinet and pulls out the whiskey.

That, Rafael can do.

A drink with a colleague, in a professional setting, at the end of a long day.

Rafael can only assume this is about what happened at the courthouse. Carisi probably feels weird about the way he scampered off earlier, and this is his way of apologizing.

Carisi wants to make amends, and he’s dipping into Rafael’s stash to do it, because he didn’t have the courtesy or the foresight to bring his own liquor.

That’s alright.

Rafael gets up and his knees creak.

It’s late.

He’s old.

Rafael hopes Carisi didn’t hear.

Carisi reaches for the glasses, and then he opens the thin drawer at the bottom of the cabinet to get the coasters.

He knows where everything is.

This is Rafael’s office, but Carisi is making himself at home. He’s already plopped the whole bottle on the coffee table, without even asking.

That’s why Rafael is on his feet.

They’ll be sitting on the leather couch tonight.

Inches from each other.

That’s not optimal, not for Rafael, not for tonight, but that’s what Carisi needs, so that’s what Rafael will do.

Rafael tells himself it’s not about proximity.

It’s about Carisi trying to be practical. The couch will be more comfortable. The coffee table will offer easier access to their drinks. Less of a chance to spill on one of the documents Rafael kept scattered on his desk to pretend he was still working, while he hopelessly waited for Carisi to show up.

Carisi removes his coat, and his jacket, Carisi unbuttons his vest, and rolls up his sleeves, Carisi takes a seat, and exhales, and then he pours out two glasses of whiskey.

The good stuff.

That would make a passable joke, actually. A good opener, to break the ice, because Carisi seems reluctant to speak, even if the imitation of a smile on his face is relatively promising.

Rafael could maybe say, ‘You couldn’t have picked something less expensive, detective? This requires a palate far more refined than y-

“Pretty stupid, huh? Dating a reporter?”

Rafael reaches for his glass and tries not to squeeze it hard enough to crack.

This is not about Carisi apologizing for this morning.

This is about Carisi answering Rafael’s question.

‘Dating.’

Not ‘friend.’

This is the first time Carisi has ever used language explicit enough to suggest that he is, in fact, dating someone, and Rafael regrets ever asking.

He doesn’t even feel like drinking anymore, but he takes a sip, because he’s been grabbing at his glass for an uncomfortably long time and it would look strange if he didn’t.

“Are you here for romantic advice, Carisi? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Carisi looks startled.

His eyes are wide. His smile is gone. He clearly wasn’t expecting Rafael to be so direct, and now he’s speechless.

Rafael lets him squirm.

For a while.

Rafael is very petty.

“In case you didn’t know, detective, I haven’t had a successful relationship since the Reagan administration. Perhaps you’d have better luck asking someone else for help.”

Carisi relaxes instantly. His smile is back, and this time it almost looks real.

Jokes seem to help. Jokes seem to chase away Carisi’s pain, whether it’s case-related or personal, and Rafael feels a strange obligation to keep them comin-

“Yeah? Like who? Liv? Fin? Amanda? Come on, counselor. We’re all trainwrecks. I mean, I wanna say it’s the job, but maybe…”

Rafael smirks.

“But maybe it’s just your winning personalities.”

Carisi laughs, Carisi actually laughs, and the lines on his face should be deepening, crow’s feet and smile lines, and those fine lines on his forehead Rafael only sees when they’re too close, Carisi’s face should be looking like etched glass, but all Rafael can see is dimples and soft skin and eyes with some life in them, at last.

Rafael keeps the jokes coming.

“Not to mention my personality, of course. The biggest trainwreck of them all.”

Carisi keeps laughing.

“I’m pretty sure I got you beat, counselor. Front page of The Ledger says so. I got quoted as an ‘anonymous source’ and I didn’t even know it. I had to find out over my morning coffee. I mean, she swears I wasn’t the source, but who else could it have been?

“A uni? Who, what, happened to feed her the exact same information I gave her? Or, what, somebody called the paper with an anonymous tip, and she just happened to get the byline? And she forgot to give me a heads up, even though she knew I was workin’ the case? Please.”

‘She.’

That’s all Rafael got from Carisi’s little rant.

Rafael doesn’t even know the woman’s name.

Carisi won’t say it.

Maybe Rafael should dig out his copy of The Ledger and check the byline. Maybe that’s the only way to get an ID on her.

Maybe Rafael could even read the article. He only glanced at the headline, but that was before he knew Carisi was romantically attached to the writer.

Maybe she’s good. Maybe she writes with flair. Maybe that’s what Carisi sees in her.

Maybe Rafael should stop.

Go back to the jokes.

“Of course you’ve got me beat, Carisi. You’re the definition of a trainwreck. Everyone knows that. I was trying to be nice.”

Carisi grins.

With good reason.

Rafael has never in his life actively tried to be nice.

It’s always an accident.

Except when Carisi is involv-

“How come? You feelin’ sorry for me, Barba?”

It would be easy to misconstrue that question as hostile, but Rafael is currently staring at Carisi’s smiling face, and he knows that’s not true.

Carisi is teasing.

“Hardly. I just don’t want to hit you while you’re down. That’s boring. I like a challenge. Not that you’ve ever been much of a challenge.”

Carisi smiles again, like he’s happy to see Rafael teasing back. Carisi slides a little lower, sinks a little deeper into the couch, all comfortable and loose, and Rafael can’t stop thinking about all the times they did this before.

Why they did this before.

What they almost did, before.

That can’t happen again.

Not now.

“Why are you here, Carisi?”

Carisi tenses up, sits up, the leather dipping slightly, and Rafael has been very careful so far, Rafael has kept his hands to himself, and his knees at an appropriate distance, which is very hard to do because Carisi always sits spread eagle, for some reason, but the more Carisi moves the more the cushions dip, and any minute now, Rafael thinks he might roll right onto Carisi’s lap, and that won’t b-

“For the free scotch? And the conversation, I guess? I didn’t know where else to go. Amanda won’t stop making fun of me. She keeps saying she’s proud of me for finally gettin’ my cherry popped. Hilarious, right? ‘Cause this is the first time I ever got in trouble with Liv. And Fin, he’s got his grandson until later. Ken and Alejandro are doing date night. And… And I can’t face Liv right now.”

Oh.

Okay.

Carisi just needs to vent.

Good.

Rafael tops up their glasses with more of that ‘free’ scotch which cost him an arm and a leg.

Carisi needs to vent to a colleague, and Rafael is his fourth choice.

That’s good.

Rafael is surprised he’s even on the list.

Rafael is glad he’s on the list.

Rafael can do this.

He already took care of the scotch, so all that’s left is the conversation.

“You told Liv?”

Carisi sits back with a sigh, like he’s relieved Rafael stopped pressing for answers and simply decided to lend an ear. The cushions dip again, and Rafael suddenly finds himself an inch clos-

“Yeah. I had to tell her. That was on me, Barba. It was my mistake, and it affected our case. That article, it interfered with your job, and Liv’s job, and she needed to know.”

Rafael briefly wonders if that’s why Carisi is confiding in him, right now. If Carisi simply feels responsible for making Rafael’s job harder than it already is, if this conversation really is just an informal apology and there’s nothing more to it.

And then Rafael remembers that Carisi did not, in fact, confide in him, not voluntarily, at least. Not at first. Rafael had to ask, point blank, and that was after he got second-hand intel from Rollins. Without her, he’d probably still be in the dark.

Liv must have gotten the full story. Carisi must have told her everything, otherwise there wouldn’t be a point to the confession. Rafael doubts Carisi hemmed and hawed and fed Liv some nonsense about telling a ‘friend,’ like he did this morning at the courthouse.

Rafael doesn’t know what that means.

If it means anything.

“Telling Liv was the right thing to do, Carisi. Don’t worry about it. She won’t think less of you. She’s seen a lot worse. I’m sure Rollins has told you about some of the stunts she and Amaro have pulled over the years. What you did is small-time. Take it from me.

“If I know Liv, and I do, right now she’s not even thinking about you. She’s just glad she knows what happened. That means she won’t have to worry about launching an internal investigation to find a leak in the department.”

Carisi’s smile is back, and it’s wide, and he looks relieved, again, like Rafael is telling him exactly what he wants to hear, which is weird, because Rafael never does that, certainly not on purpose, Rafael never cares about what people want to hear, except when Carisi is involv-

“Exactly. That’s what I thought. I couldn’t have her worrying about that, on top of everything else. I came clean, and now Liv knows there’s no leak. There’s just me and my big mouth.”

Rafael can’t argue with that, but he still wants to try, because this pep talk won’t take if Carisi keeps blaming himself.

This conversation, it’s a pep talk now, apparently.

Because that’s what Carisi needs.

Rafael doesn’t care about what people need.

Except when Carisi is involved.

Rafael is about to say something inane, something like, ‘You should cut yourself some slack, Carisi,’ because that sounds like what a nicer person might say in a situation like this, but the smile on Carisi’s face stops him.

Carisi is still smiling.

Even now.

Carisi looks cheerful, almost. Almost like he no longer needs the pep talk.

There’s no bitterness in his voice when he says, ‘me and my big mouth.’ No overwhelming sadness in his eyes. That self-flagellating look from this morning, it’s gone. All that’s left is a hint of self-deprecation, but that’s just Carisi on any given day.

Maybe talking to Liv did the trick. Maybe it cleared Carisi’s conscience.

That’s what Rafael tells himself, because the alternative is that Carisi is cheerful because of him, because they’re currently sharing a drink, and talking, and smiling, like they used to, and yes, Rafael is smiling too, which is wholly uncharacteristic of him, but he can’t help the way his face reacts when Carisi looks at him lik-

“I just wanted to tell somebody the good news, you know? Share my happiness. I thought we’d found Emma Lawrence, after all these years, and I got excited, and I got carried away. And I told her. And…”

Carisi stops talking abruptly. It’s almost like he needs help to finish his thought. Or like he doesn’t want to finish it. Like he regrets ever starting.

He’s not smiling anymore.

Neither is Rafael.

Rafael can’t smile. He’s too busy trying to push through the stinging pain he feels in his chest when he hears about Carisi sharing his happiness with someone else.

“And…”

Carisi starts and stops again.

Rafael takes pity on him.

“And, if you had found Emma, Carisi, this would have been the feel-good story of the year. You’d be getting a commendation from the Chief, and your girlfriend would be getting a promotion.”

For some reason, Carisi waits until Rafael makes eye contact before he speaks again.

It takes a minute.

Rafael is not proud to admit he had to avert his eyes before he was able to even utter the word ‘girlfr-

“My ex-girlfriend. We broke up. Or… I got dumped. I think. I don’t know. I didn’t ask for clarification. Either way, we’re done.”

Oh.

Rafael barely manages to contain his surprise.

Or maybe he doesn’t manage it at all, if Carisi’s curious expression is anything to go by.

Fine.

Rafael is surprised. Who wouldn’t be?

There’s so much to be surprised by. It’s not just the ‘ex’ part. It’s the way Carisi mentioned it so casually. It’s the fact Carisi sounds so unaffected, so cheerful, still, so relieved, still, like he didn’t just break up with the person he had been dating for the past six or seven m-

“What, Rollins didn’t tell you that?”

Rafael stares at the bottom of his rapidly emptying glass, the better to avoid Carisi’s smug expression.

As a matter of fact, no, Rollins did not share that particular piece of information, but she’s always been a reliable source, so Rafael is willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

She probably didn’t get a chance to tell him. The breakup has to be recent, and Rollins wasn’t in court, so Rafael hasn’t seen her all day. She probably wanted to relay that little tidbit in person. Rollins would never pass up an opportunity to laugh in Rafael’s fac-

“No point in denying it, counselor. You knew about my friend before I talked to Liv. Amanda’s the only one who could’ve told you.”

Rafael is not going to ‘deny’ it. That would be ridiculous. They’re not children. Rafael is going to tell the truth.

Now.

Now that he knows Carisi practically caught him red-handed.

Rafael was totally going to deny it. Blame it on Liv, just like Carisi said.

Now, he’ll have to settle for the truth.

Or a version of it.

“You’re not the only one with a big mouth, Carisi. Rollins loves to gossip. Whatever information she chooses to share with me does not necessarily reflect my interests.”

The annoying smirk on Carisi’s face tells Rafael what he already knew.

He’s not fooling anyone.

That annoying smirk, it’s not annoying.

It’s Carisi’s flirty smirk. It’s Carisi’s ‘oh, Rafael,’ smirk, it’s the smirk Carisi has been flashing at him non-stop lately, after months and months of blank stares and curt half-smiles, it’s the same smirk that had Rafael hoping Carisi was available again, until Rollins had to rain on his parade.

Carisi is available.

Now.

Too available.

This conversation they’re having, it’s too cheerful.

Just this morning, Carisi was so upset he literally ran away just to avoid talking to Rafael.

Tonight, their knees are drifting closer and closer together as they drink.

It’s too soon.

Too soon for Carisi to be doing that well, after what he’s been through.

Rafael thinks maybe Carisi’s nonchalance is an act. Maybe Carisi is hurting, deep down. Maybe he’s hurting enough to want to make a mistake.

Maybe Rafael is Carisi’s mistake of choice.

Maybe that’s why he’s here.

Rafael would be lying if he said he didn’t understand.

He’s felt that same urge, before. That same irrational desire to forget why he shouldn’t, and just run to Carisi after an unpleasant experience.

Like that could help, somehow.

It took all of Rafael’s strength not to approach Carisi after his suspension. His life was already a mess, his political career over before it began, and Rafael tried to tell himself one more mistake wouldn’t make a difference.

It would.

Carisi will not be his mistake.

When this happens, if this happens, it won’t be a mistake.

Rafael rearranges his legs in a way that puts sufficient distance between his knee and Carisi’s thigh.

Carisi’s eyes follow the movement, drawn to parts of Rafael’s anatomy he would truly prefer to keep out of this equation, and Rafael needs to say something fast.

“Wait, is that why you’re here, Carisi? You’re newly heartbroken, so you need a shoulder to cry on? And, obviously, you chose mine, because I’m known for my soft and cuddly disposition?”

Carisi chuckles, and he spreads his legs even more, as if on purpose, and Rafael will not be a mistake but he will let his knee drift just an inch to the right, until they’re almost touching again.

He could swear Carisi’s smile gets brighter when the distance between their bodies gets smaller, and in Rafael’s mind that’s reason enough to giv-

“Sorry, counselor, lil’ Jesse beat you to it. And she’s a lot cuddlier than you, I’ll tell you that. Rollins had me over last night. She said, and I quote, ‘Jesse’s the perfect shoulder to cry on, Carisi, and I speak from experience.’”

Last night.

Just like Rafael suspected, the breakup was recent.

Too recen-

“Not that there was any cryin’ involved. Mostly we just cooked pasta and watched cartoons.”

Rafael smiles at the image.

He’s happy Carisi has a friend in Rollins. In Jesse, too.

Rafael is considerably less happy to see Carisi downplaying the importance of his relationship, yet again. Carisi keeps acting like he’s completely over a break-up which happened all of five minutes ago.

This isn’t like him.

Rationalizing a past relationship to the point of rendering it meaningless retroactively? That’s strictly Barba territory.

Carisi is sweeter than that.

Carisi is emotional, if not sentimental, and he gets overly attached to… to people, to friends, to colleagues, even, let alone romantic partners, not that Rafael would know anything about that, Carisi is caring, and considerate, and this indifference is not like him.

It’s possible this breakup is hitting Carisi harder than he realizes.

Maybe Rafael can help.

Right after he takes a big gulp of whiskey.

“Don’t mistake this for actual concern, Carisi, but are you sure this breakup was a good idea? Maybe you’re being too hasty. I… I don’t know this woman, but clearly you saw something in her. You, uh… You chose to be with her, which…”

Carisi looks guilty again, for falling in love, like that makes sense, and Rafael has to blink away his anger.

“Which is a very strong indictment of her character, obviously, because you’re you, but still. Running with this story couldn’t have been an easy decision. She must have felt conflicted, but journalism is a competitive field, and I’m sure she has her ambitions. As she should. When this big story fell into her lap, she seized the opportunity. Many would do the same. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about you. Maybe she regrets what she did.”

Carisi is looking at Rafael with what could only be described as bewilderment in his eyes. An appropriate reaction, considering Rafael just unleashed a load of schmaltzy bullshit on him without any provocation.

Meanwhile, Rafael is mentally putting together his petition for sainthood. These last few sentences alone would surely qualify him for canonization. All he’s missing a miracle, and he thinks he’ll have it by the end of the night, when he goes home alone without exploiting Carisi’s fragile emotional state.

Rafael Barba performing an act of altruism. If that isn’t a miracle, Rafael doesn’t know wh-

“Sure. Nothing says ‘I care’ like dumping your boyfriend by way of a forty-second phone call. But, hey, at least she didn’t do it by text. And there’s nothing for her to regret. She didn’t do anything. That’s her official position. She swore up and down I wasn’t the source. She kept lying, even after we broke up.”

Rafael tries to find some resentment in Carisi’s words, but he fails. All he finds is an almost breezy resignation.

“What if she’s not lying?”

Carisi appears skeptical.

And confused.

Which makes two of them.

Never mind Carisi, Rafael himself can’t figure out why he’s doing this.

Refusing to take advantage of Carisi is one thing, but actively pushing him back into the arms of an ex? Even altruism has its limits. After that, it’s plain martyrdom, and Rafael is not usually a martyr, except when Carisi is involv-

“Nah. She’s lying. I know it. And if she’s not, that’s even worse, ‘cause I still don’t believe her. That’s the one thing we both agreed on. I can’t trust her, and that’s no way to feel about your partner.”

Rafael supposes that’s true.

Also, he tried, he really tried, and he sincerely hopes the Pope will appreciate his noble efforts to help Carisi patch things up with his hitherto nameless romantic rival.

“Alright. You know better than me, Carisi. And that’s the first and last time I ever say that. I guess I’m just surprised you’re not all torn up over this. You did get dumped. And, no offense, but I always took you for a crier.”

Carisi cracks up.

“You sound just like Rollins.”

Rafael is deeply offended by that notion. Mostly because it’s accurat-

“I’m fine. This was a long time coming. The writing’s been on the wall for months now. This whole thing, with the article, and the lying, it wasn’t even the main reason. It just put things into perspective. You know me, counselor. I always wanna see the best in people. If I can’t see the best in my partner, if I won’t, it means something’s wrong.”

That’s something Rafael hadn’t considered.

The Carisi he knows is always willing to believe.

To trust.

Carisi sees the best in everyone. He should be able to see it in the woman he loves.

Perhaps Carisi’s indifference is not an act. It’s possible he’s already come to terms with this breakup, because he had started processing it before it even occurred. Rafael has been there, once or twice. It is hard to muster much of a reaction when a relationship is over before it officially ends. Perh-

“And that’s not all. When we found Emma, when I… When I found the real Emma, I mean, I didn’t go to her.”

‘Her.’

Rafael hates how curious he is about an insignificant detail like this woman’s nam-

“I didn’t even wanna see her. Sharing good news is one thing. Being happy and wantin’ to tell everybody. That’s one thing. But when I was… After Emma, when I was… you know. You saw me. After that, I didn’t wanna see her.”

Rafael doesn’t know what to say to that.

How to express sympathy without sounding insincere.

All he can think to say is, ‘I’m glad you didn’t go to ‘her’ for comfort, even though that’s what you needed.’

Rafael does not make for a good martyr.

Or maybe he does.

“Of course you didn’t want to see her, Carisi. You had been fighting. You can’t decide anything based on th-”

“I’m not just talking about this case, Barba. Or this week. This wasn’t even the first time I’ve had to avoid her after… After a bad day. I’ve been havin’ a lot of those, lately, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Rafael has noticed.

Emma Lawrence was just the latest in a string of traumatic incidents Carisi has had to endure in the past few months alone.

Just the other week, Carisi witnessed death first-hand. Literally. Carisi felt the hand of a rapist slip through his grasp over a rooftop railing, and according to Liv he was devastated, because that’s what Carisi does.

Carisi reacts emotionally even when that emotion isn’t warranted, he sees the best in people, even when they don’t deserve it, Carisi cares, because that’s who Carisi is.

That’s why Rafael is having trouble buying this casual act, mere hours after Carisi had his heart brok-

“Not one time did I go to her. In all those months. Not when I had a problem. Not when I needed somebody to be there for me. That’s what my sisters were for. Or my mom. Or you. I’d get mad, and I’d blow up at you. It was never your fault, but I’d yell at you anyway, to make myself feel better, ‘cause I couldn’t yell at anybody else. ‘Cause I knew you wouldn’t hold it against me.”

Rafael wonders if it’s weird to feel good about that.

About the fact Carisi trusted him enough to yell. About the fact Carisi knew that an argument or two wouldn’t change the w-

“Or I’d vent to Rollins over home-cooked pasta, or I’d tag along with Fin and some of his old buddies on these wild pub crawls, and try not to get alcohol poisoning while they laughed at me. I never went to her. She was just for the good days. The fun stuff. The real stuff, I kept it to myself.”

Rafael can’t help a smile.

“A pub crawl with Detective Tutuola sounds pretty fun to me, Carisi.”

Carisi smiles back.

“Yeah. Yellin’ at you wasn’t fun, though. But you still let me do it.”

Rafael keeps smilin-

“Cause that’s what you’re supposed to do. When you care about somebody. You’re supposed to be there for them. Good days and bad.”

Rafael’s smile is a little tighter, now, a little forced, but it’s still there.

Of course he cares about Carisi.

Of course Carisi knows that.

Of course Carisi knows that Rafael let him yell, because that’s what Carisi needed, somebody to yell at, and Rafael wanted to give that to him, for lack of anything else to give, and maybe the Pope should take note because Rafael totally deserves to be sainted.

Especially considering what he’s about to say next.

“That’s not entirely fair, Carisi. This job, the nature of this job, it does take a toll. Most people’s ‘real stuff’ is dealing with an overly strict boss, or an entitled client, or a totaled car, or a bad haircut. Your real stuff is finding dead children. On a bad day. It’s harder to want to share that. It’s natural to want to protect your loved ones from th-”

“I didn’t love her.”

Carisi says that immediately.

Deliberately.

Like he really wants Rafael to know that, for some reason Rafael does not care to recognize.

Like he’s surprised Rafael would even think that.

What else was Rafael supposed to think?

That’s what Carisi does.

He loves people.

That’s how Rafael sees him.

Like love.

Rafael is not cut out for this.

Rafael doesn’t know how to ask if Carisi means that, how to ask what it all means.

So he doesn’t.

Carisi says, ‘I didn’t love her,’ and Rafael hears the rest, Rafael sees the rest on Carisi’s face, Rafael sees, ‘Like I loved you,’ and that past tense hurts, even when it’s imaginary, even when it’s a vision projected onto Carisi’s eyes, and Rafael doesn’t ask, because hearing the word ‘loved’ out loud is not an experience he wants to suffer tonight.

Or ever.

Rafael doesn’t ask.

Rafael keeps staring at Carisi’s face, and he sees ‘loved,’ and he sees an expression that’s softer than usual, and more open, and Rafael wants to close it, Rafael wishes he could push a button and make Carisi stop, becaus-

“When I saw the front page of The Ledger, my first thought was Liv. I thought, good job, Sonny. Way to open your big, fat mouth and let down your Lieutenant. That was it. That’s why I got mad. It didn’t feel like some huge betrayal. That didn’t even register. I was mad at myself for compromising an investigation. How’s that for love?”

Rafael tries to breathe.

“I wouldn’t know.”

Carisi nods.

“Yeah.”

For the first time tonight, they lift their glasses simultaneously, and the silence between them is extended.

They drink.

Seconds pass, and neither of them tries to sp-

“It wasn’t some great love story, Barba. Just so you know. It was just… Normal. I was just trying to do what people do. My sisters kept pestering me to put myself out there, kept sayin’ I wasn’t living my life to the fullest, so I tried.

“And, let me tell ya, it was harder than I thought. I mean, the beginning, that was easy. It was fun. You see a nice-lookin’ girl, you turn on the charm, a little smile here, a little compliment there. The physical attraction alone takes care of it, you know?”

Rafael wonders if it would be weird to start chugging whiskey straight from the bottle.

Probably, but he’s still tempted to d-

“After a while, though? It became too much effort. I was tryin’ to be a good boyfriend, and take her to Broadway shows, and eat the raw sprouts she called food, I was tryin’ to book weekend getaways last minute, callin’ every bed and breakfast in the Tri-State Area whenever our schedules would randomly sync up, I was… I was trying. Like people do.”

Rafael does not want to hear any more of this. He went from not even knowing this woman’s name, which he still doesn’t, by the way, to knowing her dietary preferences and her travel itinerar-

“That was the problem. It wasn’t real. Wasn’t from the heart. I had to fake it. I had to try. And I never have to try. I like taking care of people. But I kept tryin’ anyway. ‘Cause that’s what you’re supposed to do. When you care about somebody. You’re supposed to be there for them.

“I didn’t love her, but I liked her well enough, and we got along okay, or at least I thought we did, before she sold me out for a story, so I figured I owed it to her to try. That’s where I got it wrong. You’re not supposed to be there. You’re supposed to want to be there.”

Rafael is missing the point.

He has to be.

There has to be a point to this.

To Carisi’s whining.

This can’t just be about Carisi wanting to vent about his love life. It can’t be about him needing to take a load off and finding a friendly ear in Rafael Barba, also known as The World's Unfriendliest Ear.

It can’t be.

What is Carisi even trying to say? That he was going through the motions? Is there a bigger cliché? Why is Carisi telling h-

“That’s why I’m not all torn up. ‘Cause it wasn’t real. I mean, you weren’t too far off. I am kind of a crier. But look at me. I just got dumped, and I don’t even care. I should care more. Right? Isn’t that how it goes, counselor? You lose somebody, and it hurts?”

Oh.

This is the point Carisi was trying to make.

Rafael wishes he could go back to missing it.

Rafael keeps his mouth firmly shut, because he doesn’t know what he’ll say if he opens it.

He doesn’t know what the question means.

He doesn’t even know if Carisi knows what it means.

Rafael lost Carisi, and it hurt like a sonofabitch.

He wonders if Carisi knows that.

If that’s what Carisi is asking.

If it hurt for Carisi, too.

Rafael had his reasons.

That’s what he told himself.

Rafael does not date cops, and he certainly doesn’t date SVU detectives.

That’s what he tried to tell himself, more than a year ago.

Carisi squeezed his hand.

More than a year ago, Carisi squeezed his hand, on this same leather couch, Carisi squeezed his hand and held it, and Carisi’s fingers were cold, from the glass, because they were drinking whiskey on the rocks that night, more than a year ago Carisi leaned in, eyes open and lips ready, and Rafael was surprised by how unsurprising it was.

Rafael pulled away.

More than a year ago, Rafael pulled away, Rafael got up and didn’t look back, Rafael got up and retreated behind his desk, like a coward, like nothing happened, like Carisi wasn’t left waiting on the couch with a parted mouth and an empty hand, more than a year ago Rafael watched as Carisi grabbed his coat and left without saying a word.

Rafael had his reasons.

That’s what he tells himself, still.

Rafael didn’t want another strike against him.

Another nail in the coffin that was his political career. He still had aspirations, back then. He still had dreams.

It’s funny now.

It wasn’t before.

Before Rafael got found out. Before he got suspended. Before he was told he’d be on perpetual probation, because he couldn’t be trusted with the witnesses.

For the six months between that almost kiss and his suspension, Rafael was happy with his decision.

No.

Not ‘happy.’

Never happy.

For those six months, Rafael felt he had done the right thing. Rafael felt he was too old and too cynical and too reasonable to even consider putting lust over his career, he felt he had worked too hard to let love get in the way, and…

Lust.

Love.

Whatever.

Rafael had worked too hard, and he had dreams, and he wasn’t about to give them up. Not for Carisi.

That’s what he told himself.

That’s the lie he told himself.

One of the lies.

Carisi would be better off without him.

That was another one.

Another lie.

Rafael would make for a great martyr, actually.

It didn’t even matter, in the end.

Rafael should have seen it coming. The D.A. was already unhappy with him, after the Terrence Reynolds case, and the ensuing death threats, and the bad publicity, not to mention the Gary Munson case, which had every other union rep calling for his head.

Rafael did not see it coming.

Even though he had managed to make an enemy out of most of the major political organizations whose endorsement he would have to seek, should he ever choose to run for election, Rafael refused to give up hope.

Rafael kept hoping, and trying to stay on his best behavior, and the last thing he needed was for his career to take another hit because of a dalliance with one of his detectives.

‘Dalliance.’

Love.

Whatever.

For six months, it was okay. Even as Carisi yelled at him. Even as Carisi kept a professional but unfamiliar distance. Even as Rafael had to relearn how to exist without Carisi’s smiles, and Carisi’s compliments, and Carisi’s jokes, and Carisi’s pastries, and Carisi.

It was okay.

And then Rafael got found out.

Suspended.

Then, David Willard dug into his past, and hacked his bank account, and found the one secret which could cost Rafael his job.

It didn’t.

Rafael kept his job but lost his hope.

Even worse, Rafael’s decision became indefensible.

Unsustainable.

After his suspension, it took all of Rafael’s strength not to approach Carisi. Not to apologize. Not to grab Carisi by the vest and kiss him and hope all hope wasn’t lost.

Rafael did no such thing.

Rafael did nothing at all, and he spent the next six months regretting it.

Rafael no longer regrets it.

If anything, he’s retroactively grateful. He knows now that Carisi would have rejected him.

Not out of spite.

Six months ago, Carisi wasn’t available. Carisi was in a relationship. Carisi had moved on, and it was still new but he was happy, and Rafael is grateful he never got to hear about any of this when Carisi and his unnamed reporter were still in the honeymoon phase.

It’s hard enough hearing about it now that it’s over.

The very thought of seeing Carisi all giddy over someone else is bringing back that stinging pain in Rafael’s chest.

Rafael is grateful he did not make that mistake.

Rafael is grateful he couldn’t find a better, a less cheap way to say, ‘My career is dead now, so I have no reason not to fuck you.’

‘Fuck.’

Love.

Whatever.

No.

Love.

It was love.

Six months ago, Rafael’s career effectively died, so he no longer had a reason not to love Carisi, and that was a new experience, because Rafael had spent the past few years of his life desperately looking for a reason, desperately inventing reasons that weren’t even real, because Carisi was so easy to love, Carisi is so easy to love, even for someone like Rafael who doesn’t know how.

Still.

Rafael did not make that mistake.

It wouldn’t have been fair to Carisi.

Six months ago, the stakes were too low.

More than a year ago, when Carisi leaned in, when it really mattered, when Rafael still had something to lose, he pulled away like a coward.

It didn’t feel fair to take that back, the moment Rafael had nothing left to lose.

Literally.

Rafael had lost Carisi already, more than a year ago, Rafael had kissed Carisi goodbye but without the kiss, Rafael had ditched Carisi like a coward, and six months ago he lost all his excuses for doing it.

And it hurt.

Tonight, Carisi is looking at Rafael like he knows that.

Like maybe it hurt for him, too.

Carisi looks lost, again, overwhelmed, again, and Rafael has never regretted not kissing him more th-

“She said I was an angel.”

What?

Who s-

“Mrs. Lawrence. When we found Em… When we thought we found Emma, and me and Rollins went over to their house, to give ‘em the good news. You should’ve seen the look on her face, Barba. I can’t even describe it. She said she looked at me, and she saw an angel. The angel that found her baby girl.”

Oh.

It appears the sadness in Carisi’s eyes is unrelated to his romantic entanglements, past or future or pretend.

While Rafael was busy reminiscing, Carisi found an opportunity to start spiraling again.

Rafael blames himself and the fact he spent the past five minutes staring a hole into the far wall, too afraid to make eye contact as Carisi waited for an answer.

Carisi should not be left alone with his thoughts.

Not tonight.

Rafael knew the cheerfulness was too good to be true. Carisi is not okay. Maybe the breakup didn’t affect him, but the case did, and that’s even worse.

Karen Lawrence called him an angel.

Rafael thinks, of course she did.

Carisi is an angel.

He guides, and he protects, he brings relief, he punishes the wicked.

He punishes himself, when he is found wanting.

Rafael thinks, being an angel isn’t all it’s cracked out to b-

“I used to dream about it. About a moment like that. I was a rookie back then, when Emma Lawrence disappeared, and I used to daydream about finding her. I used to think, what if I got to save her? What if I got to bring her home? Get her back to her parents? How would that feel like?

“I, uh… My pops was in the hospital, when the story broke. He had a heart attack. It was touch-and-go for a while, so we spent that entire month in the ICU. I watched a ton of TV that September. I needed a distraction, you know? I couldn’t help my dad. I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was wait. So I followed the case, and I… That’s why I was so happy, when we found this girl. ‘Cause I thought I’d finally get to bring Emma home.”

Of course.

Of course this case affected Carisi. Of course Carisi has a personal reason to still be emotionally connected to a cold case from ten years ago that he didn’t even work. That’s what Carisi does. That’s who Caris-

“In the end, all I got to do was deliver Emma’s corpse to her mother in a rotted blanket. Talk about a dream come true.”

The naked emotion on Carisi’s face is making Rafael uncomfortable.

Rafael Barba was not put on this earth to provide comfort, even if Carisi has always seemed to disagree.

Rafael is not cut out for this.

For any of this.

For Carisi.

Rafael doesn’t know how to say the right thing, if that’s what Carisi wants, how to give emotional support, if that’s what Carisi needs.

Rafael looks at Carisi, and he tries anyway.

“You did bring her home, Carisi. Not in the way you wanted, but you did bring her home. That’s all you could have done. Emma Lawrence died ten years ago. That is all you could have done.”

Carisi blinks.

Stunned.

Like he never thought of that. Like he still naively believed that he could somehow save Emma, even now.

Rafael thinks, angels aren’t real.

“I know her mother said… I know you were upset by what her mother said at the courthouse, but that was out of your control. For some people, knowing is worse. For others, there’s nothing worse than not knowing. I’ve seen parents tearfully thanking patrol cops for finding bone fragments of their long lost children. For bringing them home. Any part of them. That’s what you did, Carisi. You brought Emma home.”

Carisi smiles.

Peaceful.

Like that worked.

Rafael would be surprised, but he’s not.

This has happened before.

Carisi seems to have a way of ripping the comfort out of him, as if by force. Rafael has it in him, dormant, that comfort, and that compassion, and that love, dormant, but he doesn’t know how to wake it, he doesn’t know how to give it, and sometimes Rafael thinks all this unused love will fester in him, if that’s even possible.

Love, festering.

Until Carisi just reaches inside and takes it.

Somehow.

Rafael is not cut out for this, but Carisi is.

Carisi slides closer and takes hold of Rafael’s hand.

His fingers are warmer than Rafael remembers.

Their hands rest on the leather, connected.

It’s not a romantic overture.

Not like last time.

It’s not suggestive.

Carisi isn’t asking for anything more than this.

Carisi is just reaching inside.

A touch is an invitation, and Carisi is inviting himself to Rafael.

Rafael thinks, that’s the only way anyone will ever get in.

Rafael is not cut out for Carisi.

That’s what he always thought, even if Carisi has always seemed to disagree.

Rafael always thought Carisi should be with someone who gave comfort freely, and love, freely, because that’s what Carisi needs, and Rafael doesn’t know how to give it, except Carisi has shitty taste, even now, because he keeps seeking comfort from Rafael, regardless.

Love, regardless.

Then again, Carisi has always had shitty taste.

He’s always had feelings for Rafael.

Feelings Rafael pretended to ignore, for years.

Conveniently.

Rafael also ignored his own feelings, of course, but that was far less convenient.

It was unbearable, at times.

It was never okay.

Rafael did it anyway.

Rafael kept doing it, until the death threats escalated, and Dodds died, and Carisi needed him, and Rafael lost his resolve, and he touched Carisi, once, twice, and it was his own fault, for trying to give comfort in his own clumsy way, and Rafael started it, and Carisi held his hand, that night, just like tonight, just like right now, and Rafael could no longer ignore it.

Rafael can’t ignore it.

The gratitude he sees right now, on Carisi’s face, just because he managed to cobble together a half-decent and fully maudlin attempt at conveying sympathy via platitudes, Rafael can’t ignore the way it sh-

“You, puttin’ your hand on my shoulder, for two seconds, at the station? When I still had dirt in my shoes from Emma’s grave? That’s why I didn’t go to her, Barba. I didn’t love her.”

Rafael’s hand twitches, but Carisi doesn’t let go.

That’s why Carisi didn’t go to ‘her.’ He didn’t need to. Rafael’s clumsy touch was enough.

Carisi says, ‘I didn’t love her,’ and Rafael hears the rest, Rafael sees the rest on Carisi’s face, Rafael sees, ‘Like I love you,’ in the present tense, right here, right now, and Rafael doesn’t ask, but he hopes he can hear the word ‘love’ out loud, someday, from Carisi’s lips.

Rafael keeps staring at Carisi’s face, and he sees ‘love,’ and finally he knows why Carisi came here tonight. Why Carisi keeps talking about Emma Lawrence, and her mother, and her blanket, and that shallow grave.

Comfort.

Love.

Whichever.

Both.

That’s what Carisi needs.

From him.

That’s what Carisi needs from him.

That’s all there is to it.

That’s what you’re supposed to do. When you care about somebody. You’re supposed to be there for them.

You’re supposed to want to be there.

Good days and bad.

Today was a bad day.

Tomorrow will be better.

Carisi is smiling, peaceful, and Rafael thinks maybe some days can be both.

Rafael breathes out.

For the first time tonight, the couch stops feeling small, it stops feeling like a trap, like quicksand, for the first time tonight Rafael stops worrying he’s going to sink into it, and into Carisi, and never get out.

Rafael wants to sink.

Rafael would be happy to sink into Carisi and stay there forever.

Rafael regrets ever pretending otherwise.

Carisi is touching him, and Rafael doesn’t even know who is comforting whom and for what.

It doesn’t matter.

Carisi squeezes his hand.

They don’t move.

This time, they don’t move.

Carisi doesn’t lean in.

Rafael doesn’t pull away.

Not like last time.

Not like next time.

Next time Rafael will not make the same mistake.

Next time Rafael will meet Carisi halfway.

They don’t kiss.

This time, they don’t kiss.

Just like last time.

Next time will be different.