#the possibilities are endless. what the fuck do you need SEVEN PINS FOR!? my mind

[lusalemaart]

doudle dump

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

Selfish Part 2

Pairings | Bucky Barnes x Reader, Steve Rogers x f!reader (kind of?)

Warnings | angst, crying, swearing

Word count | 1669

Summary | y/n and Bucky struggle to deal with Steve's selfish choice

A/n | I'm thinking of writing a part three? Let me know if you'd want to see that!l

Masterlist | Part One | Part three

"Oh god," Bucky groaned the second he entered y/n's room, lifting his arm to cover over his nose teasingly as he walked in, "you know I love you, Doll, but it's starting to smell as if something's died in here." Bucky over exaggerated, pacing quickly to the windows and pushing them open.

The man let out a long sigh when he finally faced y/n after she made no response. He was so used to her quipping back to his and Sam's jokes that the past week felt as if y/n was gone, too. And in lots of ways, she was.

It had been a week since Steve left, and y/n hadn't moved much since. Bucky had sat down at a table three times a day with her, refusing to leave until she finished her meal and a cup of water. But apart from that, she'd done nothing but stare into space.

As much as he was still grieving, Bucky was used to this. Losing people, that is - not his best friend leaving him and their girl for someone they loved 70 years ago. No, he was out of his area of expertise on that one. But Bucky was used to losing the people he loved. And by now, he'd managed to cut his dazed and broken phase of grieving to a few days, so by now he was only really upset at night.

That's when he would cry into his pillow, feeling more and more alone. Sam was still running missions; just because aliens had invaded didn't mean any human threats had warned off.

It'd been him and y/n for a week in the compound, and it was now that Bucky realised that the girl hadn't even been capable of washing herself. Yikes, she was taking this bad.

"C'mon, Doll. You gotta shower at some point. Or I could run you a bath?" Bucky suggested, huffing another long sigh when y/n looked straight through him. Bucky's jaw clenched and he carded a hand through his hair, blowing out a deep breath before putting on a kind face.

The next thing y/n new, she was sat in the shower. She vaguely remembered Bucky throwing her over his shoulder and walking swiftly to the bathroom, telling her how she still needed to look after herself even though Steve was gone.

God, those words hurt. As in that Steve was gone, of course. Although Bucky telling her she needed to actually clean herself every-now-and-then because she smelt like somebody had died stung a little, it didn't hurt her.

The water pricked at her skin, slates of chilling droplets pelting down on her. She'd been sat there long enough for the water to run cold and her thoughts to run dry.

The only thing y/n could picture was Steve's lifeless body. His eyes void of life, that amused sparkle that'd glint beneath the baby blue when he'd tease her, make a joke, burnt out into emptiness. The bright smile that used to grace his lips when he'd see y/n the fist time after a mission, no matter the length, gone.

She'd also thought about how he died. Did Thanos murder him himself? Had he been saving someone? Did one of Thanos' cronies get to him? Did he fall, or get crushed? The possibilities were endless, but one thing was certain: Steve was gone.

A soft rasp of knuckles against the bathroom for momentarily pulled y/n out of her daze, her red eyes shifting upwards for a moment as she followed the noise with her sight through the steamed-over glass shower door.

"Doll? You haven't drowned, have you?" Bucky's gentle voice sang from the other side. Y/n could physically feel her muscles relaxing at the sound of his thick voice, her mind relaxing, too. Although she hadn't spoken in days, it didn't mean she didn't want Bucky to talk to her.

No, it was quite the opposite, really. Y/n was thankful for Bucky's mindless chatter and conversations, his caring questions and constant check-ups. It grounded her, gave y/n a reason for still being here if someone wanted her company.

Sighing, the girl pulled herself to her feet. She stumbled out of the shower, having to poke her head back in and turn the water off after forgetting initially. She picked up the fluffy towel that Bucky had left folded up for her and patted herself dry before wrapping the cloth around her body. Y/n ran her fingers through her now-damp hair before heaving another sigh.

"She's alive." Bucky smirked as y/n stepped out, clutching the towel to her chest. He was perched on her bed, facing the bathroom door with his hands bracing the edge of the mattress. "I thought you'd never come outta there, it's been over an hour, doll." Bucky explained as she hastily walked over to the drawers on the other side of her bed, pulling out a pair of panties and some shorts before tossing them to the bed.

She bent down more this time, pulling a t-shirt from one of the lower draws and throwing it to join the other clothes on the bed without really looking at what it was. She let the draw shut with a snap, turning to the bed and picking up the panties.

Bucky kept facing away, wanting to give y/n her privacy as she pulled the clothes on under her towel. Bucky could sense y/n still the second she reached to grab the shirt, her hand stilling mid-air.

"You okay, doll?" Bucky mumbled, not wanting to turn and face her incase she was still not fully dressed. Y/n swallowed the lump in her throat thickly, her mouth becoming dry as she hummed.

"Mm hm." It was short and cut off, the affirmative noise the closest she'd come to speaking in a week. She turned around again, pulling out another shirt before putting it on.

Y/n walked around the bed again, patting her wet hair between the towel. Bucky's eyes followed her the whole time, cerulean blue watching closely as she dumped the towel in the hamper.

"Do you want me to leave?" Bucky murmured as she climbed into bed, his weight pinning the duvet down on one side. Taking y/n's silence as a yes, Bucky moved to stand up.

"Wait." Y/n's voice was a meek thing, disjointed and hoarse from its only use for seven days being sobbing against her pillow. Yes, the one that still smelt like Steve. "Can you-" y/n took a breath as Bucky looked at her, a happy glint to his eyes. "Would you stay with me? Tonight? I don't know if I can be alone again..."

Bucky's lips tugged into a small smile, the super solder clambering into the bed beside y/n. He nestled in beside her, pulling the girl to his chest as he laced his hand with hers. Their intertwined fingers lay over his chest, his metal arm wrapped around her shoulders.

For a moment all that could be heard was the soft whirring of the metal plates in his arm, and the controlled breathing of the two people.

"Bucky?" Y/n asked, swallowing her fear as she looked up at him. Bucky hummed in acknowledgment, playing with y/n's fingers as he waited for her to speak. "How did- h-how did Steve...you know, die?" Y/n bit through the building tears.

Bucky felt his stomach drop at her question. He didn't expect that right now. Eventually, yes. But not whilst they were curled up on her bed. The words seemed to get stuck in his throat, sticking to his skin as he tried to pry them out.

"I-" he couldn't lie. He couldn't. It would be cruel, to do so. She loved Steve, so she deserved to know the whole truth. "Y/n, Steve didn't- he didn't die." Bucky grated through gritted teeth, tongue like a weight in his sandpaper throat.

"W-what?" Y/n mumbled, eyes widening with shock, fear, hope, anger. She sat up, turning around in his grip to face Bucky. A scowl had settled across her features, plaguing her gorgeous eyes with a hue of hurt. "Then where is he?"

Bucky sighed, his eyes sliding closed as the words fell from her mouth.

"Bucky. Where is Steve?" Y/n spat, her tone morphing into something harsh, something unlike her. Bucky swallowed thickly, but it seemed to do nothing. Y/n watched as his Adam's apple bobbed, arms coming to fold over her chest.

"Steve left, doll. He's not- he's not coming back." Bucky breathed, his face dropping into his hands.

"What do you mean?" Y/n whispered, voice cracking with a bubble of pain. "Why isn't he coming back?"

"Because he left to be with Peggy, okay? He left us, y/n! For some fucking dame that he loved over 70 years ago!" Bucky had finally snapped, his own tears collecting against his flushed cheeks now. Maybe the grief hadn't quiet passed.

Y/n's face dropped into one similar to the day bucky first told her Steve was gone. But, the subtle hint of difference was menacing; this time, rage fuelled her emotions.

"I-I don't understand, why would he-?" Y/n couldn't bring herself to finish her question, the answer already dancing around in her mind.

"I don't either, doll. I miss him, and yet I hate him for what he did. To me, to you, to us." Bucky's voice was barely above a murmured mutter, eyes downcast as he picked at the hem of his shirt.

"I-" y/n opened her mouth before closing it, a croaked sob interrupting a hiccup as she fell back into Bucky's embrace.

Steve, her Steve, had become a selfish, selfish man.

Part Three

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[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Wordcount: 3.6k 

Masterlist link here

AO3 Link here

Genre / Pairing: Romance, Akaashi / Reader

Summary: 

Loosely based on the anime filme ‘Your Name’, also known as Kimi No Nawa.

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears the echo of birdsong in her laughter, her songs to the gods in the wind.

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

Pro tip: Italics denote scenes in Akaashi’s dreams / past.  

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

He is seventeen again. 

Practice is hard especially with his new captaincy, with first years to train and a mountain of paperwork to clear, but even as each jolt of the train home settles exhaustion further into his bones, he’s more concerned at the sustained silence from her. His phone is empty of her text messages - no funny stories, no silly jokes, no pictures of sun drenched flower fields - but he tells himself she’s fine, she’s probably occupied herself with something vaguely illegal that she’ll tell him later about and laugh away his disapproval.

He’s in the middle of dinner when his father turns on the television to watch the news. It’s just background noise, newscasters droning on about which dignitary is visiting Tokyo this week, how the stock markets are doing, when monsoon storms are forecasted to sweep across Japan, but his interest is piqued when the newscasters mention ‘the tragedy of latchkey kids - the death of a schoolgirl in a rural Hokkaido town’.

It can’t be, he thinks, swiveling around in his seat to stare at the screen. It can’t be, he thinks, in frozen shock, as the screen shows a familiar wooden house in flames, broadcast live on national TV. 

‘The police are investigating this tragedy as an unsolved murder -’

(It can) 

‘The victim was seventeen years old -’

(It is) 

‘Calling for any witnesses to step forward -’

(She’s dead) 

‘Keiji, what wrong?’ he faintly hears his mother ask, and he looks down. His chopsticks lie slack in his hand, the other hand clenched and trembling so hard he’s knocked his bowl over, rice spilling onto the dinner table. 

‘Sorry - I don’t feel so good’, he mutters, stumbling his way into the bathroom, his stomach retching at the horror tearing down his throat like acid. Even as he clutches the cold porcelain with shaking hands to empty his stomach of its contents, his gut burns from the realization that she’s gone - there’s nothing he can do about it. 

Wait a minute. 

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sprinting to his bedroom to snatch up his omamori, before bursting out of the door, deaf to his parents’ worried shouts. He doesn’t stop running, doesn’t even stop to take a breath until he’s leapt up all twenty six steps to the shrine where he first prayed to the gods to grant his wish for more time, a wish binding their souls together in a fated knot. 

(Except that’s not true anymore, because she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead - unless he can use their bind to twist fate and bring her back from the dead)

His hands are numb when he claps them together, his head spinning as he bows, fingers barely able to grasp as he scrawls another prayer on the ema, hanging the wooden plaque on the wishing tree. 

‘You’ve already upended my life by tangling it up with hers. Please - please  grant my wish and I’ll give up anything, including what’s dearest to me’, he silently pleads, closing his eyes in prayer. 

But the gods stay silent. The shrine remains still.

The shrine attendant chases him out when it’s closing time, and he fends off his parents’ concerned looks by feeding them a lie about forgetting to help one of his teammates with homework, shutting himself in the room.

But the problem is he can’t seem to fall asleep, not when the image of a white sheet draped over her cold body is branded into the back of his eyelids. Not when he can still hear the echo of her laughter as she teases him about his old fashioned book recommendations that she still ends up reading curled up under a tree. Not when his soul has traced the constellation on her back, the crescent dimple in her right cheek -

Damn it all - he needs to fall asleep to have any chance of waking up in her body in her yesterday or is it her today - he’s not sure, doesn’t dare look at the clock for fear of chasing sleep further away, why can’t he fall asleep - he’s done this countless times before, waking up in her body in her yesterday while she wakes up in his today which resets when he then wakes up in his own body tomorrow - 

Time flutters through his fingers like fallen petals scattering in the wind and he can tell from the growing sliver of light through his curtains that it’s almost daybreak - so he stumbles desperately into the bathroom to break into his mother’s medicine cabinet, swallowing twice the recommended dosage. It’s dangerous he knows, but he can’t bring himself to even think twice about it. 

A prayer is still on his lips when his eyes finally drift shut and sleep finally overtakes him. 

 He cracks his eyes open. 

Ah, he’s in her living room. She must have just reached home from school because the irori only emits thin ribbons of smoke, flames licking the kindling in the heath. But that doesn’t explain why he’s lying face down in the dust - 

Then a dull pain hits him. Copper pools in his mouth. Hot liquid drips down his forehead. 

He curses the gods for their sick sense of humour.

‘What are you doing here, Keiji?’ he hears her whimper. ‘You aren’t supposed to be here, he’s going to end up killing us both.’

‘Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. Tell me what happened’, he answers, trying his best to inject a commanding tone to cover up the fear seeping into his words. 

‘Hana-chan must have told her father I managed to get records of whatever awful shit he’s been doing to her, because he was waiting for me when I came home from school. I refused to give the recordings to him and tried to bite his hand and I guess he lost his temper…’

‘We need to have a conversation about your lack of self-preservation when we get out of this mess’ he points out, terror building up in his throat when he’s suddenly aware of the way his arms are twisted behind his back, cloth rope binding his wrists together in place. But before he can even try to struggle against the binds, he’s pinned in place by a knee on his back.  

‘Awake already, little girl? I would’ve thought you would stay asleep a little longer considering how much you bleed from a silly little smack on the head.’ Nakamura chuckles, threading his cold fingers into his hair, and with a swift flick of his wrist, slams his face back against the floor. 

Crack. 

Akaashi gasps for air, dazed at the pain that blooms across his face. 

‘You’re not as pretty as my little Hana-chan, but it would be a pity to smash your face in. So are you going to tell me where you’ve hidden your dirty little recordings, little thief?’ Nakamura coos, and Akaashi can feel the hair at the back of his neck rise in alarm. 

‘Don’t give in to him’, she shrieks, her panic echoing in his mind. But Akaashi’s in the driver’s seat this time, and he’ll be damned if he lets her die on his watch - not when he already knows the pain of losing her once before.   

Think, Akaashi. You have a brain, think!

‘It’s on my phone in my bedroom’, he mumbles thickly, keeping his voice weak. ‘You can go get it yourself.’ 

Nakamura relinquishes his grasp on his hair, brushing the dirt from his pants onto him. ‘I’m glad you have some sense at least, little lady. But if I find you’ve been wasting my time, I’ll make sure no one even recognises your face by the time I’m done with you’. 

Akaashi waits for his footsteps to fade.

Then he rolls his body across the flow, tipping himself straight into the irori. This probably ranks as one of the most reckless things he’s ever done in his entire life, but it’s not as if he has many options with both his hands and feet bound. It’s also possible he’s been infected by her particular strain of insanity. It’s the only way he can think of to break loose from his bonds, using the flames to singe through the rope binds, but it hurts to place naked flame directly on bare flesh, blisters forming and popping and he bites down on his lip so hard it bleeds because oh gods it hurts, it hurts, it hurts – 

Thank the gods it works, he’s able to wriggle free - not a moment too soon because he can hear the door to her bedroom crash open. Between the daze from the concussion and blood loss, he’s not going to be able to outrun Nakamura to get to safety, especially not when he’s in her body, what the hell is he going to do – 

‘Store room’, he hears her gasp. 

He grits his teeth as he crawls out of the heath, mentally calculating the distance to the back of the kitchen, divided by the blistering pain in his hands and feet. 

’Move, Keiji!’ She shrieks, the thud of heavy footfalls resounding through the house ominously. 

Adrenaline and terror floods his blood. It’s barely enough to fuel his sprint to the storeroom. He doesn’t dare to look back when Nakamura snarls - ‘what the fuck are you doing, you piece of shit’, only stops to breathe when the lock clicks in place. But he doesn’t get a moment’s reprieve, the door shuddering with the weight of a deranged man’s rage. 

‘It would be easy for me to burn the house down with you in it. No one would question any foul play if a wooden house goes up in flames. Or would you prefer it if I wait for little Toya-chan to get home and bash his little head in? It’s your choice, bitch.’ 

‘What should we do?’ he asks her desperately. 

‘You’re going to think I’m crazy... ’ 

‘Let’s not waste time on foregone conclusions, thanks.’

‘Right. Remember how I told you fire is life?’

 It’s a testament to how well he knows her that he knows exactly what she means. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ He breathes, horrified. 

‘Do you have any other ideas?’ she retorts.

But she’s right, they’re essentially stranded on a flaming shipwreck, there’s nowhere else for them to run. Cursing the gods over and over again for their twisted sense of humour, Akaashi scrabbles around the store room, grabbing the ingredients to light this powder keg of an escape plan. 

‘Ready?’ 

‘Ready when you are.’ 

‘Okay’ he says, taking a deep breath in a futile attempt to keep his anxiety at bay. ‘Okay’ he repeats, loud enough for Nakamura to hear him through the door. ‘I’ll unlock the door if you leave Toya alone’. 

‘Smart girl.’ He can hear the menacing chill in the older man’s voice, but there’s no time to second guess his decision as he unlocks the door. He lets Nakamura make the first move, lets him yank the door open, and with the benefit of years of setting experience (thank you, Bokuto-san), he flicks his wrist to send a perfect arc of an entire bottle’s worth of liquid petrol splattering against Nakamura’s front. 

‘Stand back or I’ll set you on fire’ he threatens, holding her ridiculous pink lighter like a weapon as Nakamura splutters in shock. 

But the man only shakes off his surprise with a menacing laugh, slowly straightening into his full height, leaning against the door. ‘You don’t have it in you, little girl, you’re just like my Hana-chan. She used to put up a fight, always trying to scratch my eyes out but now she’s learnt that little girls should be good and docile - ‘

He can feel the brewing firestorm of rage from her. It’s not unwarranted, not when he’s seen through her eyes the abuse Hana’s suffered at his hands and in a spurt of impulsivity that shocks even himself, he surges forward to grab the man’s shirt, the naked flame from the lighter mere millimeters away from his face. ‘How dare you, disgusting pig - she’s your flesh and blood’, he spits.

Nakamura grins, deranged. ‘Exactly. She’s mine to use, and you’re going to regret ever trying to get in my way.’ He slams his head against Akaashi’s already broken nose (or rather - her nose) and  - oh gods pain bursts across his face and he trips, falling onto his back. Nakamura doesn’t waste any time, climbing on top of him, fingers digging into his throat. 

‘Let go of me’, he rasps, his vision starting to blur. Nakamura only tightens his grip, nails digging into the tender flesh of his neck.

But even with air being choked out of his lungs, her refrain ‘fire is life’ smolders in his mind. The gods must feel some pity for him today because Nakamura is so intent on going for his throat that he’s left his hands unchecked, so he closes his eyes in prayer and desperation, twisting his face as far away from his target as possible and presses his thumb on the lever on her lighter -

Everything goes up in flames. 

Nakamura screams, stumbling away, and the sound should spark a sense of cruel satisfaction if blinding pain exploding in his face weren’t a more immediate concern. There’s fire everywhere, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts -  but he already knows what hell feels like, this is nothing compared to the nightmare of her dying, so he gathers the last of his strength to fight against the ash suffocating the oxygen from his lungs, stumbles out of the backdoor to drop and roll in the mud until the flames on his clothes recede. 

He’s alive. She’ll survive. 

But it's at a high cost - the white hot pain of blistering burns all over his - well, her body slamming into him like a freight train when adrenaline recedes. Gasping in pain, he welcomes the gathering darkness at the edges of his vision. He tries not to think of the survival rate of burn victims, nor the risk of infection should medical treatment not be administered soon enough - this is as far as he can possibly go. He lies on his back, completely depleted. 

The grass rustles. The wind blows. 

Toya stands over him, eyes wide. ‘Nee-chan, what’s going on?’

Oh. Thank the gods. 

‘Toya. You have to run and get help, ok?’ he manages to rasp before darkness finally devours him, swallows him whole. 

He opens his eyes and finds himself back in the forest shrine. 

It takes him a split second to gather his bearings before he leaps to his feet, his lungs still burning from the taint of smoke, his mouth still acrid with the bitter taste of ash, and he doesn’t know if either of them are alive or heaven forbid - if he failed and she’s dead – 

‘Keiji, you idiot!’ He hears her shriek as he’s tackled from behind, crashing face first into the forest floor. 

He’ll thank the gods again and again for the rest of his life because -she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive - 

She throws herself into his lap, crying as she beats her fists against his chest. ‘You fool! You dummy! You scold me for being reckless, but what if you died when your soul was stuck in my body –‘  

‘You’re alive’, he breathes in disbelief, cupping her face in his shaking hands, letting the warmth from her cheeks bleed into his skin. 

She flushes, burying her head into the crook of his neck. ‘You’re not getting out of being scolded but yes, I think so’, she mumbles, her words muffled. 

 His heart grows cold. ‘What do you mean you think so?’ 

‘Where we are isn’t real - is it?’ 

She motions for him to be silent, to listen. There's the faint beeping of a hospital monitor, barely discernible over the whispering of leaves. ‘I think we’re in my mind for now. Or my consciousness, I’m not sure. I woke up to a bright light that beckoned me to follow it, but I saw you lying here and wanted to wait for you.’ 

Fear grips his heart, the spectre of black smoke and white sheets haunting him anew. ‘Don’t follow it’, he demands, latching on to her shoulders. ‘I’m not losing you again.’ 

‘I’m not going anywhere’, she promises with a smile, the sight quenching the fear in his heart. ‘I’m here, Keiji. I’m here. You said you wouldn’t let anything happen on your watch, remember?’ 

‘That was before you got yourself killed when I wasn’t looking’, he retorts dryly, though he’s unable to fully smother the smile blooming on his face.  

‘It wasn’t my fault!’ 

‘I told you not to get caught in the first place!’ 

‘Yeah - but you came for me nonetheless’, she says, eyes sparkling. ‘You came for me, like Perseus saving Andromeda from her shackles, snatching her from the very jaws of the sea monster.’

He chuckles, amused that she remembers the stories he tells her. ‘Nakamura was definitely uglier than a sea monster, so I’m sure that’s an accurate comparison. ’

‘Stupid!’ she laughs, raising her hand to playfully smack him again when he catches her hand in his. He steals a moment to marvel at the constellations in her eyes, wondering if the stars in the sky are jealous of her light. He wants to bask in the spotlight of her warmth and songs and laughter forever and oh gods -

He’s in love with her.

The realisation strikes him like a hammer blow to the chest. 

Has it already been a year that he’s spent mapping out the infinite breadth and depth of her soul? A year that he’s spent watching her wield her kindness like a sword and a shield. A year that fate has spent trying to smother her fearlessness to no avail - she still burns like an undying flame in the night sky. A year of unwritten poetry buried in spring flowers, stanzas of the wind echoing her songs to the gods. A year's worth of lessons in patience and exuberance and laughter, reminding him that life is a miracle to be treasured and not to be dismissed as a mere series of goals.

It is only now that he understands why his heart crumbled into dust, why his soul tore itself apart when he found out that she died -  because he loves her, this silly scrap of a girl.   

Her eyes widen as he tugs her forward to lean his forehead against hers. For once she’s at a loss for words. 

I love you  –  he wants to whisper against the rosebud of her lips, wants to shout it loud enough for the whole forest – nay, for every speck of stardust in the galaxy to hear. His mouth moves to form the words, but suddenly his tongue grows thick, his mouth goes dry. 

His heart stutters to a painful stop. 

He can’t remember her name anymore. 

He tries to say her name again, tries to spell out the syllables with his tongue but it’s no use, his mind remains stubbornly blank. It can’t be. He must have said her name a thousand times in this lifetime, recited each syllable like a sacred verse. 

How could he have forgotten her name?

‘What’s wrong?’ She pulls away, noticing the horror taut on his face. 

Beep. 

He looks down at his hands. Flesh and bone start to fade to dust.

‘Keiji’, she calls, and he can hear the Kodama in the trees echo his name. Keiji, they call. Keiji, she calls again. 

Beep. 

‘I’m starting to forget you’, he whispers, heart breaking anew as despair dawns in her eyes. 

‘No - ’ she cries, desperation in her voice, repeating his name again and again - Keiji, Keiji, Keiji and he wants to respond with her name, but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t -. 

Beep. 

His memories of her are golden hued and bathed in starlight, but slowly they all wash away into shades of grey. He tries his best to grasp onto them, but it’s  hopeless -like trying to capture the sea with his bare hands. 

Beep. 

He thinks of her, dancing in grassy meadows, with moonbeams as her lone light. 

Beep. 

He thinks of her, singing to the gods in the shadow of the forest shrine. 

Beep. 

He thinks of her, brimming with laughter and joy and kindness and love - and gods - 

Beep. 

How is it even be possible to forget the birdsong in her laughter, the blossoms in her cheeks - 

Beep. 

‘Keiji! ’ She reaches desperately for him, tears spilling from her eyes.

Beep. 

 His time runs out. His soul starts to fade into the night.

Beep. 

Her eyes shine bright, the constellations liquid silver in her eyes. 

‘I’ll find you, Akaashi Keiji - even if it takes me a hundred lifetimes, even if I have to wait a thousand years. So you better be ready for me when I find you, because - because I love you -  I love you, you fool.’ 

Beep. 

It’s the last memory he forgets of her, her vow losing its light in the darkness of his mind. 

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

He wakes up with a gasp. 

He is twenty five again, lying on the forest floor with a halo of fireflies dancing above his head.

It’s been almost a whole decade since he was seventeen but finally - he remembers her. 

Taglist

@animeflower26​ @forgetou​ @kageyamakock​ @underrated-fruit-tarts-official​ @bongofrito​

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 14: Love Keeps The Monsters From Our Door] [Series Finale]

A/N: Thank you for your encouragement, enthusiasm, laughter, rants, screeches of anguish, and unapologetic thirsting for “sexy undead Italian man” Joseph Francis Mazzello. I hope you love this conclusion more than Baby Swan loves pineapple pizza. 💜

Series Summary: Potentially a better love story than Twilight?

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Til I Die” by Parsonsfield. (The #1 song I associate with this fic!)

Chapter Warnings: Language.

Word Count: 7.7k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

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Mercy

We have to stay in the Vladivostok palace until her transformation is complete, and I hate it.

The floors are cold and sterile and every clang of noise ricochets off them like a bullet. The earth outside is stripped bare and hibernal. There is no green to interrupt the bleakness of the sky, the cruel absence of color: no spruces or hemlocks or bigleaf maples, no evergreen forests, no verdant fields, only a grey that bleeds from the sky in sheets of hail and driving rain. This land is a stranger. So many of the faces, too, are strangers, although they try. Honora sits with me—her large dark eyes, like mirrors of mine, polished and wet with aching pity—and braids my hair. Morana invites me to bake homemade bread with her. Austin tries to make me smile. Cato visits me as much as he can, because he feels responsible; or maybe he would do it anyway, maybe lessening suffering is as instinctual to him as bloodshed is to so many of our kind. And when Cato is with me, I do feel a little better, like my story might belong to somebody else, like it’s a name I can’t quite remember, like it’s a transitory moment of déjà vu I can catch glimpses of but never touch. And yet, still, I send him away.  

I don’t want to be with Cato. It’s painful for him to be around me, I can see that. It’s painful for Rami, and for Ben, and for Joe, and for Lucy and Scarlett. It’s even painful for the Irish Wolfhounds that Cato found locked up for safekeeping in Larkin’s study; they skulk around the palace vigilantly but leave great swaths of uninterrupted space around me like open water. So I conjure up a mask of brave, hopeful acceptance and wear it everywhere I go.

Joe says very little, never leaves the girl he calls Baby Swan’s side, dabs her scorching skin with washcloths soaked in ice water and murmurs in sympathy when she screams through the unconsciousness, from beneath the ocean of fire we all know so well. He nods off sometimes, snatching minutes of sleep like fireflies in a jar, before jolting awake to make sure her heart is still beating. When Ben isn’t checking on them, he’s with Cato, helping to draw up plans for the future, reminiscing about the past with slick eyes and clinking midnight glasses of whiskey. Scarlett sprawls across the desk in what was once Larkin’s study and spends hours on the phone with Archer as she gazes up at the ceiling, telling him how to care for the farm animals and the garden, reassuring him that we’ll be home soon, whispering things to him that I try not to hear; and I know she wouldn’t want me to anyway. Lucy weeps delicate, ceaseless tears as she perches on the staircase landing and Rami entombs her in his arms, never having to ask what she needs from him. And I wander meaninglessly through the echoing, unfamiliar hallways like a moon without a planet.

I know what they all think about me, perhaps even Rami, for I keep it buried as deep as all skeletons should be: that I’m irrevocably kind, effortlessly forgiving. That I’m as incapable of bitterness as I am of aging. But they’re wrong. It’s a choice, and it always has been, ever since a late-November dusk in 1864 when madness eclipsed mercy. Every day I choose whether to surrender to the beckoning, malignant hatred that lurks in the back of my bedroom closet, in the dusty and ill-lit loft of the barn roped with cobwebs, in the twilight tree line of the western hemlocks crawling with shadows that whisper through fanged teeth. Every day I decide whether to become a monster. And it has never been harder to remember why I don’t.

My future is unimaginable. The nights are endless. I feel black, razored seeds of what I am horrified must be bitterness burrowing beneath my skin and taking root there. I am consumed by infected, fruitless questions that I can’t silence: Why Gwilym? Why Arthur? Why Eliza and Charlotte? Why is it always fire?

The first words that Gwilym ever spoke to me, as I unraveled from unconsciousness under a grove of sycamore trees with smoke still clinging to my unscarred skin, rattle around in my skull like windchimes beneath thunderous skies. His voice was colored with an accent I couldn’t place, and yet it sounded like home: You’re in a dark place right now. But you don’t have to stay there.

That might have been true once. That might have been true in the ruinous autumn of 1864. But now I can’t find my way out.

Seventy-three hours after our arrival in this barren corner of the world, Charlie Swan’s daughter  wakes up as a vampire. Her heart is perfectly still, her skin faultless, her senses sharp, her mind as impenetrable as ever; at least, that’s what Lucy says when she finds me. And Lucy tugs at my hand, wearing her first smile in days, insisting that I have to come meet the newest member of our coven, to welcome her. I don’t know how to tell Lucy that I’m afraid I don’t have it in me to love this girl, that I don’t have it in me to love anyone but ghosts. And yet—compliantly, yieldingly, expecting nothing but disappointment in the monster I have become—I follow her.

The door is already open to the Swan girl’s room; chattering, beaming vampires flood in and out like the tides. I step inside. And I see the way that Joe looks at her, the way that Ben does; and all those seeds that I had feared might be bitterness blossom into nothing but open air.

It’s Not A Fucking Wedding (A.K.A. 13.5 Months Later)

The ocean is a universe. Its arms are not ever-expanding, spiraling galaxies of suns and planets and nebulae and black holes, this is true; its belly is not a vacuum of inhospitable oblivion, its bones are not invisible strings of gravity, its language is not a silence older than starlight, older than eternity. But the ocean is a universe nonetheless, its borders tucked neatly around the seven continents, slumbering there until the next hurricane or tsunami or ice age comes conquering; and inevitably equilibrium is restored—like defibrillator paddles to a heart, like naloxone to an addict’s blood—and our two worlds can coexist side by side once again.  

The ocean’s arms are sighing waves, bubbling and brisk, grasping and retreating in the same breath. Its belly is swollen with life from immense blue whales down to swarming clouds of single-celled, sun-hungry phytoplankton. Its language is ancient whispers; not parched and blistering and brittle sounds like the desert’s but cool, serene, supple, engulfing. And I can hear them all, if I listen closely enough. I can hear the sentient whistling of orcas, the breaking of waves against rocks, the scrabbling of sand crabs beneath the earth, the gruff distant barks of sea lions, the rustling of evergreen pine needles in the breeze. And I understand now why it was always so easy for vampires to be introspective, to lapse into thoughtful, unhurried silences. I could imagine spending decades just sitting here with my knees tucked to my chest and my hair whipping in the brackish wind, watching the seasons roll by like a wheel.

Joe was coming back from the gravel parking lot. I turned to watch him: red U Chicago hoodie, messy dark auburn-ish hair, a pizza box clasped in his hands. The GrubHub delivery driver was returning to his car with the toothiest of grins.

“Buon appetito!” Joe announced, dramatically presenting me with the pizza box. It had become our post-finals tradition each semester: pizza at La Push beach, half-pepperoni, half-pineapple.

“Grazie, sexy undead Italian man. Your accent is getting so good!”

“I know, right?! I’m on a twelve-day Duolingo streak. I can’t let that little green owl dude down.”

“I’m impressed, I’ll admit it. I gotta brush up on my Welsh. Why’s the GrubHub driver so cheery?”

“I tipped him $500.”

I smiled, opening the box and lifting out a semi-warm slice of pineapple pizza. Elastic strands of mozzarella cheese stretched like rubber bands until they snapped. “Aww, really?”

Joe plopped down onto the cool, damp sand beside me. “No. I lied. We’re actually having a torrid love affair.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “How could you possibly have time for all that?” Between school, business ventures, family activities, and me, Joe was very rarely unoccupied. And he preferred it that way.

“I’m so glad you asked. I’m very speedy, if you recall. And that’s just one of the exclusive services I offer. I am a man of many talents. I make people’s wildest dreams come true. Who am I to deny the GrubHub delivery man the wonderland that is my spindly, annoying body?”  

“You are the fastest,” I said, winking.

“Oh shut up! I mean, uh, uhhh, silenzio!” He pointed his slice of pepperoni pizza at me reproachfully. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not the fastest at everything.”

“Whatever you say, mob guy.”

He lunged for me, pinned me down in the crumbling sand, both of us laughing wildly as the crusts of our pizza slices bounded off and were snatched up by diving, screeching seagulls. He growled with mock savagery, braced his hips against mine, kissed his way from the corner of my jaw to my lips. That oh-so-familiar commanding, craving ache for him came roaring to the surface; and now there was no bittersweet edge to it, no inescapable backdrop of lambent numbers ticking down from five or ten or fifteen years to zero. Now there was only the calm, unurgent promise of forever.

“Joe—!”

“You have besmirched my honor, Baby Swan. I am left with no recourse but to refresh your clearly flawed memory and prove you wrong.”

“Public indecency? That’s illegal, sir.”

“Okay, you gotta stop stealing my catchphrases. It’s extremely difficult for me to come up with new ones. I’m almost a hundred years old, you know.”

“Alright, I guess you’re not bad in bed for a basically-centenarian.”

He smiled down at me, his dark eyes alight, the wind tearing through his hair, one palm resting on my forehead, uncharacteristically quiet.

“What?” I asked, worried.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just really glad we’re a thing.”

“You better be. You’re kind of stuck with me now. You’ve stolen my virtue, you’ve made me fall in love with your entire demented family, you’ve forced your torturous immortality upon me. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you ever stop funding my pineapple pizza addiction, of course.”

Joe chuckled as he climbed off me and took my hand in his, pulling me upright. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, by the way. Your insistence on being a sort-of vegetarian. It’s embarrassing. You’re the wimpiest vampire ever. You’re a disgrace to the coven.”

“I eat animals!” I objected.

“Yeah, when you have to.” And Joe was right: I steered clear of flesh outside of the two or three times a week when I hunted. For environmental sustainability reasons, I mostly consumed deer or rabbits; although the very occasional shark was my guilty pleasure. Joe gnawed on his second slice of pizza and peered out into the overcast, dusky horizon, wiping crumbs from his stubbled chin with the back of his hand. “We only have one more of these left,” he said at last, a little sadly. “One more finals season at Calawah University. One more celebratory dinner at La Push.”

“We’ll just have to get used to a new view. Pizza by the Chicago River, maybe.”

Joe looked over at me, thoughtful again, smiling. He had received his acceptance letter to the University of Chicago three weeks ago. I got mine eight days later. “It won’t be hard for you to leave Forks?”

“It will be. Once upon a time I didn’t think that was possible, but I will miss Forks. And not just because of Charlie and Archer and Jessica and Angela and all the Lees. But it was hard to leave Phoenix, and I’m sure one day it will be hard to leave Chicago. Just because change is hard doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”

Joe nodded introspectively. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

“Don’t quote classic rock songs at me, mixtapes boy.”

“You love my mixtapes,” he teased, circling his left arm around my waist, pulling me in closer, touching his lips to my forehead. Mint and pine and starlight sank into my lungs like an anchor through the surf. “And that saying actually goes all the way back to Seneca, my dear.”

“Don’t tell me he’s still philosophizing in some cloudy corner of the world somewhere.”

“Not to my knowledge. Although that’s an intriguing thought. We need more famous vampires. Caligula would have made for very interesting conversation. Lincoln, Napoleon, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Dante...I guess it’s possible that anyone is still around. Maybe we should turn Meat Loaf. You know, for the good of posterity.”

“Is it not enough that they’re already cursed with student debt and global warming?”

Joe cackled, took my face in his palms, kissed each of my cheeks one after the other, then nudged my nose with his. “You ready to go, Baby Swan? I suspect we’re expected to participate in some holiday festivities tonight.”

“I’m ready,” I agreed. We threw our leftover pizza to the seagulls, disposed of the grease-spotted cardboard box, and walked back to my 1999 Honda Accord with our pulseless hands intertwined.

The evergreen trees along Routh 110 fled by beneath a sky freckling with stars. Sharp winter air poured in through the open windows. And I could feel that it was cold, in the same way that I could feel the warmth on Forks’ rare sweltering days; but there was no discomfort that accompanied that knowledge. Pain only came when the sky was unincumbered by thick clouds churning in off the Pacific, and then it felt something like staring into the sun had as a human. Sunglasses helped, but the surest remedy was avoidance, was surrender. And what an inconsequential price to pay for forever.

“Wait,” I said, spying the mailbox that marked the start of the Lees’ driveway. “They still deliver mail on Christmas Eve, right?”

“Uh, I think so, why...?” And then he remembered. “Oh, yeah, let’s check!”

I pulled up beside the mailbox and Joe leaned out, returning to his seat with a mountain of Christmas cards and business correspondence and advertisements from Costco and Sephora. He sifted through them until he found a single white envelope from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. It was addressed to a Mr. Benjamin August Hardy. Joe held it up to show me as we drove down the driveway, the Lee house coming into view and ornamented with a frankly excessive amount of multicolored string lights and inflatable reindeer.

“Oh my god!” I squealed, drumming the steering wheel.

“You want to be the one to give it to him?”

“Are you serious?! Yeah, can I?”

Joe passed the envelope to me as I parked my geriatric Honda, which Archer had pledged to keep alive as long as physically possible. In return, Ben let him and Scarlett borrow the Aston Martin Vantage no less than once a week. I dashed out of the car, up the steps of the front porch, and into the house that bubbled over with the sounds of metallic kitchen clashes and frenetic voices and Wham!’s Last Christmas.

“Ben?!” I shouted.

“Hi, honey!” Mercy called from the living room, where she and Lucy were putting the final touches on Scarlett’s gown. Scarlett was playing the part of semi-willing victim, wearing gold heels and an impatient smirk and her hair out of the way in a milkmaid braid; her train of vivid red lace billowed across the hardwood floor. From the couch, Archer and Rami were playing Mario Kart on the big-screen tv and nibbling their way through a tray of homemade gingerbread cookies.

“Oh wow,” I said, clutching the envelope to my chest, mesmerized. I kept waiting for Scarlett to start looking like a normal person to me, and it never happened. Tonight, in the glow of the flameless candles and kaleidoscopic Christmas lights and draped in lace the color of pomegranate seeds, she was Persephone: a goddess of resurrection, a face that death himself could not pass by unscathed. “You’ve outdone yourself, Lucy. Seriously.”

“One day I’m going to get you out of those thrift shop sweaters,” Lucy threatened me, placing a pin in the fabric at Scarlett’s waist.

“Yeah, okay. Let me know when that shows up in one of your visions.”

“Bitch,” Lucy flung back, snickering, knowing how improbable that was. I still appeared in her visions extremely infrequently, and then only when I happened to be standing next to whoever the premonition was actually about.

“Language, dear,” Mercy tutted, inspecting the hem of Scarlett’s gown.

Joe arrived beside me, his arms still full of mail. “ScarJo, I almost didn’t recognize you! Why do you have, like, no cleavage or fishnets or thigh slits?”

“Why do you have like no eyelashes?” Scarlett replied. “See, I can ask unnecessary and invasive questions too.”

Joe frowned, wounded. “What’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“Lucy, darling, I think it’s just a tad uneven on this side,” Mercy said, showing her. “Maybe by half an inch...?”

“No, seriously, what’s wrong with my eyelashes?!”

Mercy replied distractedly: “Nothing, honey, you’re perfect just the way you are.”

“Mom!” Joe groaned.

“It really is gorgeous,” Mercy marveled as Lucy flitted around her to investigate the hem situation. “And so Christmasy. So perfect for the season. Scarlett, dear, you were right after all, and I’m so sorry for doubting you. I’d just never heard of a red wedding dress before.”

“Mom, it’s not a fucking wedding!” Scarlett exclaimed, for probably the thirtieth time since Thanksgiving. “It’s a nonbinding, informal celebration of an egalitarian romantic partnership. Will somebody please inform this woman that it’s not a wedding?!”

“Yes, yes, of course, whatever you want, sweetheart,” Mercy conceded dreamily.

Joe pointed to Archer. “Isn’t he supposed to not see the dress until the day of or something?”

“What a great question!” Archer replied, still deeply invested in Mario Kart. “You see, that would be the case if this was a wedding. However, I’ve been informed in no uncertain terms that it is most definitely not.”

Scarlett grinned triumphantly at Joe. “There you have it.”

She might snap petulantly, and she might complain, but Scarlett wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t want to; we were all intimately familiar with the futility of trying to force Scarlett into anything. The not-wedding, as improbable as it seemed, had been her idea from the start. And she wasn’t doing it for herself. She wasn’t even doing it for Archer. Scarlett was doing it for her mother.

The first six months had been hell for Mercy. She didn’t resent me, as I had feared she might; Mercy made that clear, and Rami confirmed it. But she was gutted. She wouldn’t speak of Gwil, wouldn’t listen to us talk about him, locked every photograph of him away in dark drawers, wandered around with a remote, uncanny, unseeing smile until she walked straight into walls; and then she would blink inanely up at them, as if they had dropped out of the sky rather than been built by her own hands. She baked hundreds of cakes and almost never slept. She told us she was fine every time we asked, which was more or less constantly. But on the very rare occasions when she was left alone, Mercy would unfailingly end up in the field behind the Lee house, gazing out into the forest of western hemlock trees with tears snaking silently down her cheeks, the muted light of the cloud-covered setting sun flickering red and furious on her face like wildfire.

And then one afternoon, a package had arrived from Arviat, Canada, where Cato and the rest of the surviving Draghi had relocated shortly after the rebellion at Vladivostok. It was five feet tall and another three wide, and what we found after carefully peeling away all those layers of foam padding and packing tape was a portrait of Gwilym so skillfully painted that it could have been mistaken for a photograph. Mercy had stared at it for a long time—ignoring Lucy’s attempts to guide her away, deaf to any of our concerns—until she at last picked up the portrait herself and said, quite evenly: “I think we should hang it in the living room, don’t you?”

Things had been better since then—very, very gradually, and yet unmistakably—and Gwil’s portrait remained mounted above the living room couch like a watchman, his eyes sparkling and blue, his faint smile stoic and fond and omniscient. But even in the wake of Mercy’s continued improvement, none of us kids were about to risk another agonizingly despondent Christmas. So the solution was obvious. We would keep Mercy preoccupied with what thrilled her more than absolutely anything else: the pseudo-weddings of her children. Rami and Lucy had already secretly volunteered to go next year...and after that, who knew? And there was one other thing that was making Mercy’s burden a little lighter these days.

Charlie sauntered into the living room, wearing an apron covered in cartwheeling Santas and wiping white dust like snow—powdered sugar? flour? baking soda?—from his ungainly hands. He was palpably proud. “The sugar cookies are officially in the oven. And I managed to fit them all on one baking sheet, isn’t that great?! Cuts down on dishes!”

“Why, yes, I suppose it does!” Mercy said, alarm dawning in her eyes. Had my beloved father placed the globs of dough too close together? Would we end up with one hideous, giant monster-cookie? Only time would tell. Providentially, Archer and Joe could be counted on to eat just about anything.

Joe sniffed the air, his forehead crinkling. “What’s burning?”

“Nothing should be burning,” Mercy replied, almost defensive, forever protective of Charlie and all of his profound, incurably human imperfections. Sometimes I thought that she preferred him that way, that he was a link to a simpler world in the same way I had once been, that he was a puddle of memory she could drop into, that maybe he wasn’t so unlike her first husband Arthur. “Not yet, anyway. The cookies need at least ten to twelve minutes at 350.”

“Wait, 350?!” Charlie exclaimed, horrorstruck. “I thought you said 450!”

“Oh, this is tragic,” Scarlett said.  

“I can fix it!” Mercy trilled buoyantly, breezing off to the kitchen as Charlie followed after her with a fountain of apologies. She shushed them away affectionately, patting his chest with her soft plump hands, chuckling about how luckily they had fire extinguishers stowed away in almost every closet just in case. And there were other reasons for that besides Charlie’s perilous baking attempts, but he didn’t know them. Now the record player was belting out Queen’s Thank God It’s Christmas.  

Archer lost another round in Mario Kart and exhaled a great, mournful sigh. “Hey, Baby Swanpire, can you do something about this guy?” He nodded to Rami. “This is criminal. It’s nowhere near a fair fight. He knows every freaking time I’m about to toss a banana peel.”

Rami smirked guiltily up at me from the couch, not bothering to deny it.

“Do you mind?” I asked him.

“Not at all,” Rami replied. “I want to show this loser I can beat him even without the benefit of mega-cool extrasensory superpowers.”

“Rude!” Archer cried.

“So rude,” Scarlett agreed, smiling.

“Okay, here we go.” I sat down beside Rami, still holding Ben’s envelope in my right hand, and laid my left against Rami’s cheek. And I felt a fistful of numbness—like instant peace, like milk-white Novocain—pass from my skin into his, rolling into his skull, deadening whatever telepathic livewires had been ignited there in the August of 1916. The effect would last anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours; and it worked on every vampire I’d met so far.

“Whoa, trippy,” Rami murmured. “It’s still weird, every single time.” He peered drowsily around the room. “It’s...so...quiet?! You guys really live like this? No one is constantly bombarding you with sexual fantasies or romantic pining or depressive inner monologues? How do you function?! Now I’m alone with my own thoughts, that’s actually worse!”

“Hurry up and beat him while he’s all freaked out and vulnerable,” Scarlett told Archer.

Archer laughed, picking up his Nintendo 64 controller, radiant with the promise of vengeance. “Yes ma’am.”

“Any good mail?” Lucy asked Joe.

“Yeah. Coupons and a ton of Christmas cards from random people. The vet sent us one with alpacas on it, so that’s cute. Oh, and here’s one from our favorite Canadians.”

Joe held up the card so we could all see. The picture on the front showed Cato and Honora sitting on a large velvet, forest green couch with a hulking Christmas tree illuminated in the background. The others were arranged around them: Austin, Max, Ksenia, Charity, Araminta, Akari, Morana, Phelan, Aruna, Adair, Zora, Sahel, and a few new faces I couldn’t name yet. They were all wearing matching turtleneck sweaters. And every single one of them was smiling.

Joe cleared his throat theatrically and read the text on the inside of the card:

“Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

(Oh, and Scarlett, congratulations on your not-marriage.)

- Cato Douglass Freeman”

“That bastard,” Scarlett muttered.

Rami offered me his controller. He had just slipped on a banana peel and rocketed off a cliff. “You want a turn?”

“No, thanks though. I have to talk to Ben. Is he around?”

Rami shrugged ruefully. “I would help, but my brain is temporarily broken.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, taking a gingerbread cookie from the tray and biting into it as Lucy batted crumbs from the red lace dress, exasperated. “I think he’s out in the hot tub.”

“Cool. I shall return.”

Joe took my spot on the couch as I departed, shoveling cookies into his mouth, seizing Rami’s controller and kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

I opened the door to the back porch, and frigid December air rushed in like an uninvited guest. The field was coated with a thin layer of snow, the animals safe and warm in the barn, the garden slumbering. And in the spring and summer, when blossoms of a dozen different varieties came open beneath the drizzling grey skies, Mercy’s calla lilies didn’t bother my allergies at all. Nothing did anymore. Ben was indeed in the hot tub, puffing on his vape pen, wearing only a beanie hat and swim trunks.

“What flavor is that cartridge?” I asked as I approached. “Gummy bear?”

“Close. Strawberry doughnut.”

“Ohhhh, yum!” Ben passed me the vape pen, and I took a drag as I kicked off my boots and sat near him on the rim of the hot tub, slipping my bare feet beneath the steaming, roiling water. Then I handed his vape pen back. “So. Guess what I have for you.”

“Uh.” He glanced at the envelope. “Jury duty.”

“Better.”

“Someone I hate has jury duty.”

I flipped the envelope around so he could see the University of Chicago logo on the front.

“Oh god,” Ben moaned.

“Don’t you want to see what it says?”

“Not really,” he admitted, grimacing.

“Come on, Ben. Open it.”

“Nah.”

“Why not?!”

Ben sighed. “Look, if I open it and it’s bad news, it’s gonna make Christmas weird. Rami will know. They’ll all know. They’ll all feel bad for me and it’ll be pathetic and depressing and awkward. You can look if you want to, just don’t tell anyone else yet.”

“It’s not going to be bad news,” I said, tugging at the floppy top of his beanie hat. He swatted my hand away, but he was smiling grudgingly.

“You have positively no way of knowing that. Unless Lucy’s had a vision I’m unaware of.”

“She hasn’t. You know she never sees anything important.”

“She saw you coming,” Ben countered.

“She saw human-me and Joe in love and gobbling down pretzels at a Cubs game. So I’d say there were at least a few minor details missing.”

“There’s no way I got in,” Ben said, his green eyes slick and fearful and now fixed on the envelope. “We can’t all be geniuses like you.”

“That’s an unfair accusation. I’m far from genius. I’m just obsessed with the ocean.” I’d written my senior thesis on the feeding habits of Pacific angelsharks, and my advisor was still trying to figure out how I, an amateur scuba diver at best, had managed to get so many quality photographs with my underwater camera. The secret, of course, was superhuman agility and not needing to breathe.

“I fucking hate calculus. The MCAT wrecked me. I got a 517.”

“And their median score is a 519, so I’d say you still have a fighting chance. Plus you have like eight million volunteer hours.” Ben had spent the vast majority of the past year either in class or at the hospital. The psychiatrist-in-chief, Dr. Siegel, had been more than happy to take one of Gwil’s foster children under her wing. Every human in Forks except Archer believed that Dr. Gwilym Lee had drowned in a tragic boating accident while he and Mercy were on vacation in Southern California, and that his body had never been recovered. The town had held a wonderful remembrance ceremony and dedicated a free clinic at the hospital in his honor. “Now open it.”

“You do it,” Ben relented finally. “My hands are wet. Go ahead, open it up and tell me what it says. And then kindly euthanize me to end my immortal shame.”

“That wouldn’t work,” I pointed out, tearing open the envelope. I pulled out the tri-folded piece of paper inside, flattened it against my thighs, and read the typed black text.

“...Well?” Ben pressed, vaping frantically.

I looked up and smiled at him.

“No way,” he whispered.

“I hope you like pretzels and bear-themed baseball teams, grandpa.”

And for a second, I thought he might bolt up out of the hot tub, hooting victoriously, splashing water all over the back porch as he danced around bellowing that he’d gotten into one of the best medical schools in the world, that he would be following me and Joe to Chicago. But that wasn’t Ben. Instead, a slow smile rippled across his face: it was small, but perfectly genuine. Pure, even.

“Goddamn,” he said, watching me. Venom doesn’t just resurrect or ruin; it forms a bond that is simultaneously intangible and yet immense. It’s an evolutionary adaptation, a way to facilitate stability and the building of covens in an often violent and ruleless world. And now that he had turned me, Ben had family here in Forks in more ways than one.

“Gwil would be so proud of you, Ben.”

“I hope so. I really do.”

The back door of the house opened, and Joe stepped outside. He studied Ben for a moment, and that was all it took for him to know. “Benny!” he shouted, elated.

“I know, I know. Fortunately, I look amazing in red. Thanks, supermodel genes.”

“This is going to be so fun!” Joe said, sprinting over to wrap Ben—who was characteristically lukewarm on this whole physical displays of affection business—in a hug from just outside the hot tub. “We’re going to go furniture shopping, and eat deep-dish pizza, and find apartments right next to each other, and mail home Chicago-themed care packages, and get you hooked up with some gorgeous Italian woman...or whatever you like, I guess I shouldn’t assume. Women. Men. Gang members. Marine mammals. Jessicas. Whatever. There are options.”

Ben laughed as he playfully shoved Joe away. “Sounds like a plan, pagliaccio.”

“Oh my god, stop learning Italian without me! You realize you have to tell Mom now.”

“I will,” Ben agreed, with some trepidation. “I’ll wait until after Christmas.”

“It’ll be hard for her,” I said. “But she knows it’s what you want. She knows it’s what’s best for you. So she’ll get through it. I think it would be worse for her if you didn’t get in, if she had to see you unhappy.”

Ben nodded, exhaling strawberry-doughnut-flavored vapor, gazing up at the stars, Orion and Auriga and Lynx and Perseus reflected in his thoughtful jade eyes. “She’ll still have Rami and Lucy and Scarlett here with her. And Archer. And Charlie.”

“Especially Charlie,” Joe said, grinning.

Mercy would have to leave Forks eventually, of course. The Lees had already been here for nearly four years; they could stay another ten, perhaps fifteen at the absolute maximum. And there had been a time when ten or fifteen years seemed like quite a while to me, but now it felt like I could doze off one afternoon and wake up on the other side of it, like swimming a lap in the sun-drenched public pool back in Phoenix. We would find a new home somewhere after Joe and I finished our PhDs, after Ben finished medical school, maybe Vancouver or Buffalo or Amsterdam or Edinburgh or Dublin or Reykjavik. Wherever we went, I hoped it wouldn’t be far from the sea. But Mercy couldn’t bear to leave Forks yet. It was the last home she had shared with Gwil, the last house they would ever build together, and leaving it would make his loss all the more irrevocable. She would be ready to leave someday, but not today.

In the meantime, there would still be visits for breaks and holidays. Scarlett and Archer had the shop to keep them busy, a brand new eight-car garage that held a virtual monopoly on both the Forks and Quileute communities. Lucy had opened a bohemian-style clothing boutique downtown, which confounded most of the locals but attracted more adventurous customers from as far away as Seattle. Rami was interning for a local immigration lawyer and entertaining the possibility of applying to U Chicago’s law school in another few years. And Mercy had the farm; and she had Charlie. He had asked her for cooking lessons to try to help rouse her a few months after Gwil’s death, and it had grown from there. If it wasn’t romantic just yet, I believed it would be soon. And there were moments when I thought my father might have figured something out, when his eyes narrowed and lingered on me just a little too long, when his brow knitted into suspicious, searching lines, when the hairs rose on the back of his neck and some innate insight whispered that we weren’t like him and never could be again. But then he would chuckle, shake his head, and say: “You’ve gotten weird, my gorgeous, brilliant progeny. But Forks looks pretty good on you.”

“Can I talk to you upstairs?” Joe asked me suddenly; and did I see restless nerves flicker in his dark eyes? I thought I did.

“Sure,” I replied, climbing down from the hot tub. “Ben, are you coming inside? My dad is trying to bake Christmas cookies and failing miserably. It’s pretty hilarious. Not that you should be the one to critique other people’s kitchen-related accidents.”

“I do enjoy your company a lot more now that I don’t want to murder you and slurp you down like a Chick-fil-A milkshake,” Ben said. “Yeah, give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.” And as Joe and I headed into the house, I saw Ben pick up the acceptance letter that I’d left on the rim of the hot tub and read it for himself with incredulous eyes, grappling with the irrefutable fact that it was his name on the opening line, that he had somewhere along the way become the sort of man who dedicated his immortality to saving lives rather than ending them.

In the living room, Scarlett was back in her yoga pants and absolutely brutalizing Archer in Mario Kart. Rami and Lucy were entwined together on the loveseat, murmuring, giggling, feeding each other pieces of gingerbread cookies. In the kitchen, Charlie was leading Mercy in a clumsy waltz to Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love, and each time he fumbled his steps or mortifyingly trod on her feet she would cry out in a peal of laughter brighter than the sun she had learned to live without. Joe spirited me up the staircase, into his bedroom—which, honestly, was more like our bedroom now, in the same way that my room in Charlie’s house had become Joe’s as well—and closed the door.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “Your dad totally ruined our song. Now I can’t hear it without thinking about some moustached guy in plaid trying to seduce my mom.”

“It’s the best Christmas gift I could ever ask for. Meat Loaf is vanquished. Oh, just so you’re aware, Renee and Paul are getting an Airbnb and coming up for New Years.”

“Cool. Do they still think I have a super embarrassing sunlight allergy and will break into hives and asphyxiate and that’s why we can’t visit them in Florida?”

“Yup.”

“Spectacular. Also, can you please tell me what’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“They’re just a little sparse, amore. But I still like you.”

“Well, I am only moderately attractive, you know.” Then Joe steeled himself, taking a deep breath. Uh oh. He was definitely nervous. I still couldn’t believe I had the power to make him that way, but here we were. “So I get that we’re doing presents with the whole family tomorrow morning, and you do have some under the tree, so don’t worry about that. But there’s one I wanted to give to you alone. You know. With just us. Without an audience. Or whatever.”

“...Okay...?” A secret gift? A naughty gift? “I hope it’s a new vibrator.”

“Shut up,” Joe begged, laughing. “Here.” He reached into the drawer of his nightstand—our nightstand—and produced a small blue box topped with a turquoise bow. It wasn’t a ring, I was sure of that; I didn’t feel especially attached to the idea of marriage, and neither did Joe to my knowledge. How could rings or papers seal commitment when you already had eternity? I was right: the mysterious present was not a ring. When I removed the lid and emptied the box into my palm, what appeared there was a small plastic airplane.

“What is this?” I asked, amused but puzzled.

“Are you not college educated? It’s a plane.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that. But it’s also like two inches long.” I scrutinized the plane. “Are you magically transforming me into a tiny, tiny, little plastic person? Is that my gift? Because I actually got you something good.” And I really did: there was a collection of vintage Chicago Cubs photographs from the 1910s and 20s downstairs under the Christmas tree, packaged in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wrapping paper.

“We’re going on a trip,” Joe said, grinning. “The day after Christmas. It’s just a short trip, nothing huge, don’t get too excited, we’re not going to Mt. Everest or Antarctica or anything. I think you’ll still like it. But I don’t want you to know where we’re going until we’re there.”

“How will that work? Considering the tickets and signage and pilot announcements and obnoxiously noisy other passengers and all.”

“ScarJo’s going to fly us.”

“Really?!” We were taking the jet. We almost never used the jet. “What’s in it for Scarlett?”

“She found out that Archer’s never had In-N-Out Burger before and is very much looking forward to initiating him into the cult of deliciousness.”

“Oh nice. I could go for a vanilla milkshake myself, now that Ben mentioned them.”  

“Obviously I’m gonna buy you all the milkshakes and animal-style fries you want. Bankrupt me, bitch. But we have to get one other thing taken care of first.”

“So it’s somewhere they have In-N-Out Burger...” I pondered aloud. California? Texas? Las Vegas? I felt a brief but unambiguous pang of homesickness for Phoenix. But there was nothing there for me anymore.

“Stop,” Joe pleaded. “I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much. Please forget that. Get a traumatic brain injury or oxygen deprivation or something.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m rather indestructible at the moment.”

He smiled wistfully. “I wouldn’t want you to be any other way.”

There was laughter downstairs in the living room. I could detect the aroma of a fresh batch of sugar cookies baking in the kitchen, mingling with the cold night air and pine trees and peppermint candy canes. I loved Christmas. The entire world smelled like Joe. The U Chicago décor, classic rock posters, and Italian flag were now interspersed with National Geographic pages and photos of the two of us together. The Official Whatever You Want Pass hung in a small, square picture frame on the wall above Joe’s bed. Our bed.

“How real is it, Joe?” I asked quietly. I climbed onto my tiptoes, linking my hands around the back of his neck with the tiny plane still tucked between my fingers. “Seriously. The wishes thing.”

“The world may never know. Akari never met me as a human, so she wouldn’t be able to say. But if I had to place a bet...” He shrugged, grinning craftily. “Kinda real. Kinda not real. Just like vampires, I guess.”

“I am alarmingly glad that you’re real, mob guy,” I said, abruptly somber. “I never thought I’d meet someone who saw me as remarkable, who could make me see myself that way. And it’s miraculous. And it’s terrifying too, honestly. Being a thing with you. Falling for someone you could have for centuries and lose in a second.”

“It’s the scariest thing there is,” Joe concurred, taking my hand to lead me back downstairs.

Joseph

Scarlett looks like a goddess, and she knows it. But she’s not one of those magnanimous, fragile, harp-plucking, pastel-colored goddesses. She’s ferocity and wildness and crimson like blood, and that’s exactly why Archer loves her. And as they stand in front of the Christmas tree with their hands clasped together—ivory on bronze, snow on sun—with matching sprigs of holly in Scarlett’s hair and pinned to the jacket of Archer’s suit, reciting truths but no promises, I can’t help but watch the other faces in the room: Rami, Lucy, Ben, Charlie, Mom with her beaming smile and shining eyes, the woman I met sixteen months ago and now can’t fathom life without. And it occurs to me for the first time that love, in its cleanest form, isn’t something that changes people as much as it allows them to become who they truly are.

On the evening of December 26th, as soon as the sun dips beneath the western horizon, we board the jet in the Forks Airport hangar. It’s much easier for Scarlett to fly at night; otherwise she has to wear two or three pairs of sunglasses on top of each other, and even then it’s still painful, it still feels like blinding needles burrowing into the jelly of her retinas. That’s not a wrench in my plans or anything. It needs to be night where we’re going, too.

Vampire hyper-acuity notwithstanding, FAA regulations require Scarlett to have a copilot, so Archer joins her in the flight deck with his newly-minted license and spends most of the journey flipping through the latest issue of Motor Trend. As we begin our descent, he peeks back at us and teases: “It’ll be your turn eventually, guys. Scarlett and I did our time. Rami and Lucy can go next year. And after that...unless Ben happens to find someone worthy of a not-wedding...” He wiggles his black eyebrows.

“Bring it on,” I reply casually. “Fake wedding are my jam. It’ll be ocean themed. Or Roaring ‘20s themed. And we’ll all do the Cha-Cha Slide in the living room and shame Ben as a bonding activity.”

“Mercy can set up a mashed potatoes bar,” Baby Swan adds.

“Yeah. With pineapple.”

“No. Not on potatoes.”

“Yes on potatoes.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Too late,” I tell her, touching my lips to the knuckles of her cool, steady hand.

We touch down at a small noncommercial airport just outside the city, and Scarlett and Archer stay back to secure the plane as Baby Swan follows me outside. And she realizes where we are as soon as the wind hits her, as soon as her eyes soak up the sand and cacti and cloudless night sky like rain swallowed up by parched earth.

“Phoenix,” she whispers, smiling like a child.

“But wait, there’s more!” I announce in my best Billy Mays voice. I take the little glass bottle from my pocket, walk across the runway to the naked desert, crouch down when I find a suitable spot, and fill the bottle with dry, sandy earth that crumbles in my palms. Then I seal the bottle with a tiny cork and bring it back to give it to her.

“I know what it’s like to have to leave home,” I say. “You’ve had to say goodbye to Phoenix, and soon you’ll have to say goodbye to Forks, and next will be Chicago, on and on forever. You’ll always be leaving the places you learn to call home. Every five or ten or fifteen years, we start over again. Like a snake shedding its skin, like a hermit crab swapping shells. Like the water that travels from rain to seawater to mist and then back again. But now you can always have a little piece of home with you, and maybe that will make it easier.”

She takes the glass bottle and shakes her head in disbelief, in wonder. Because this is exactly what she wanted, what she needed, even if she didn’t know it yet. “Joe...how did you...?”

“What’d I tell ya? I’m a talented guy. Now you have to dance with me.”

She laughs. “Oh no. Hard pass. I don’t dance.”

“When we’re alone in my bedroom you do. So just pretend we’re alone now. In, like, a really really spacious, sandy bedroom. With probably some lizards.”

“Fine. But only because I’m willing to degrade myself for milkshakes.”

She slides the glass bottle of Arizona earth into her pocket and takes my hands. She’s still a pretty terrible dancer, honestly. She hasn’t lost that. And I love that about her. I love damn near everything about her. And it took me a long time to figure out what exactly her subtle yet peerless cocktail of fragrance is, because it wasn’t somewhere I’d ever been. The scent that drifts from her pores—the scent that now lives in my bedsheets like a shadow or a ghost—is sunlight and heat and clarity and resilience and wisdom older than the pyramids. Her scent is the desert.

Now she’s mischievous, her eyes gleaming with the reflections of the Milky Way and the full moon and the stars that are dead and yet eternal, just like us. “So what, you think you’re Vampire Boyfriend Of The Year material now or what? Some dirt and In-N-Out Burger? That’s the height of your game? Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my perpetual existence? I totally should have pursued that polyamorous triad with Scarlett and Archer when I had the chance—”

“Yeah,” I say, very softly, smiling, tilting up her chin to kiss her beneath the universe and all its eccentricities. “I love you too.”

[wtf-yoongi]

How am I supposed to sleep after this?

pairing | hoseok x reader

summary | vegas w/ your sunshine friend hoseok i don’t think i have to say anything else

genre/warnings | idiots to lovers + humor + fluff + alcohol + drunk j-hope becoming hopeless + gambling + flexing money bc he’s rich af + language bc it’s vegas come on wouldn’t expect anything less

words | 1,875

note | i went to vegas once and it hit me today: that would be 100x better if i had a hoseok (if any of u know where i can get one pls let me know thanks)

It has been thirteen minutes since you first texted Hoseok to know if he was ready to go. 

That idiot always takes the longest time for some reason. Probably choosing between which Balenciaga bag he’s going to wear for the night.

You take a deep breath and look at yourself in the mirror. You don’t look so bad, you’re just not as rich or fancy and the dress you’re wearing might have been on sale last week at Zara, but no one has to know that, right?

You could never reach Hoseok’s level of fashion. Not even if you wanted to.

You don’t want to sit down and wrinkle your dress, so you walk around the fancy room at the Cosmopolitan and stop at the window. Of course, Hoseok booked rooms with a view even though they charge an extra who-knows-how-many-dollars for that, but it ain’t a problem for him.

The sun is setting now, giving tourists a little break from the burning hot temperatures that make everyone avoid the streets as much as they can. To be honest, even at night, the walk between hotel to hotel is just one excruciating experience until you can finally feel the air con on your skin again. The walk you took yesterday showed you that.

Yesterday, however, you both decided to stay away from gambling and just get to know the hotels as if they are freaking museums. Las Vegas doesn’t offer much to do if you’re not into hotels that look like the owner just had a theme in mind and an endless amount of money to realize their vision. So, yeah, visiting hotels is a top notch, must-see tourist attraction. Go figure.

Since you didn’t gamble yesterday, today’s the day. While you were enjoying the hotel pools this afternoon, Hoseok has walked you through every single thing he wants to do tonight. And he has a very meticulous plan.

First, you have to dress up to look fancy. Second, you are going to play blackjack so he can finally realize his dream of looking like he is in a movie. Third, you have to have dinner somewhere to balance the alcohol out. And then, finally, you are going to whatever party is closest to you.

Yeah, sounds like a plan.

Another seven minutes pass and you finally get a reply.

I’m outside your door.

You quickly put your shoes on and grab your purse, checking yourself in the mirror again before opening the door. Hoseok sure is there in all his glory looking at his phone as if nothing is happening, nothing at all.

“You wanna kill someone today?” You ask, eyeing him up and down. He’s wearing red dress pants with a simple white shirt. Come on. “You were right to book two separate rooms for us, I don’t think you’re planning on coming back alone tonight.”

He finally looks up from his phone and laughs lightly after inspecting your choice of clothes. “You say that as if I’m the only one trying to take an advantage of that. You look stunning. Wanna get a drink?”

Your first stop is at one of the many hotel bars. Hoseok quickly orders two drinks from the menu without thinking twice.

“Something light for starters,” he says with a smile as he passes the Cosmopolitan glass to you.

“Oh, you think you’re so funny. Ordering Cosmopolitans at the Cosmopolitan,” you say, raising your glass to touch his. “This is going to be a good night.”

“The best. And hopefully my liver will stand the alcohol levels and you won’t have to drag me back to my room,” Hoseok says, sipping the drink slowly.

“Wouldn’t be too hopeful if I were you.” You know Hoseok and, honestly, the expectations are extremely low. “You were always a lightweight drinker. That shit doesn’t change because you’re in Vegas, you know?”

“I don’t care. What I want today is stop at every single hotel and have a drink and gamble a bit, have some fun!” Hoseok excitedly shakes your arm with his free hand.

“Sure, what’s the worst that could happen?” You ask yourself rhetorically.

As you predicted, Hoseok doesn’t go too far before he’s needing your help to walk. You’re in tiny heels and, despite being tiny, they’re still heels and adding half of his body weight to the mix isn’t helping in anyway. 

You’re inside the ARIA Hotel on your third drink of the night when you first notice that Hoseok isn’t as sharp as he thinks he is to play blackjack. He’s finally living his dream movie life, but he has switched his light Cosmopolitan for Blue Label and you know things aren’t looking up.

If there’s one thing you have to give it to him, though, is that it really feels like a movie. Everything around you looks straight out of a James Bond set, even the young, good looking lady who’s dealing the cards could easily be casted as a Bond girl. But then again, you realize with a scoff, you’re the one standing behind Hoseok’s high designer stool with an eye on his drink so he doesn’t order another one. You’re the Bond girl.

When you get to Park MGM, it’s time to stop. Hoseok is looking sad as fuck as he usually does when he’s too drunk to function and you know he won’t protest if you say he’s had enough. You sit him down on a table at Eataly and leave him for a moment to buy a bottle of water.

“There you go. Drink it up,” you order, handing him the already opened bottle. “You told me I wouldn’t have to drag your ass back to the hotel, but here we are.”

“I never said that.” He takes a break from drinking the water to look at you while you move to sit in front of him. “I said I was hopeful my liver would endure such a challenge.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No, it didn’t.”

You stay silent for a few minutes until the water bottle is empty and Hoseok is using the droplets outside the plastic bottle to wet the back of his neck. He looks wasted and cute at the same time. How is that even possible?

“How about eating something, huh?” You suggest. It’s still early in the night and people are having dinner all around you. The smell of food in this place is driving you mad. “Does pizza sound good?”

Hoseok nods and moves his hands to get his wallet from his back pocket. He hands you the credit card he’s been using all night. “The pin number is your four initials.”

You look at him with raised eyebrows. That’s his pin number?

“Don’t look at me like that, it was the first thing that crossed my mind and you know I’m not good remembering numbers.”

You blink twice and say nothing before walking towards the pizza place, ordering two slices of the best looking one on display. Soon, you’re back at the table and handing Hoseok’s slice. You both eat in silence. 

It seems like he’s coming back to his senses and normal self after eating. For good measure, you order a shot of espresso and something sweet for him to eat from the coffee shop nearby. That should do the trick.

“Are you feeling better?” You ask after a long while. Hoseok is no longer supporting himself on his elbows or looking miserable. He nods. “Good enough so I don’t really have to drag you around?”

He nods again with a shy smile. “Sorry.”

“You wanna party or go back to the hotel? It’s only 11,” you say, reaching for his wrist to check the time on his watch. “You said you wanted to party, but if I’m being honest with you… My feet are killing me.”

“We can order an Uber to go back,” he suggests with a shrug. “I feel tired now, I wanna go to bed.”

“Well if it isn’t my baby showing up again,” you joke, standing up and offering your hand to help him out. “Come on, let’s go back.”

The Uber ride is silent and quick. It’s really such a lazy thing to do, getting a car for such a short ride, but your feet really thanked you for that. 

When you arrive at the hotel, you both go straight to the elevator area and press the button to go up. It feels like an eternity passes before one of the many elevators arrives. You wait for a group of friends to exit before you enter. The door closes and you feel yourself back up until you hit the wall. Hoseok does the same. 

“Sorry for being the drunk friend all the time,” he apologizes. “I feel like you can never enjoy yourself when you know I’m gonna make a mess.”

“It’s ok, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m used to it.”

The elevator arrives at the 39th floor and you both exit quietly, walking in the direction of your rooms. Looking at Hoseok to your right, you wave him goodnight before opening the door and entering the room with a puff – you just need to be out of those heels.

Soon after, there’s a light knock at the door. 

“Hey,” you greet Hoseok, who’s standing a little taller now that you don’t have your shoes on anymore. “What are you doing?”

“I have to ask you something,” he says with a weird I was drunk five minutes ago and all of a sudden feel sober look. “What would you say if I kissed you right now?”

Is he really asking that? What the fuck?

“What?”

“Fuck it.”

Hoseok closes the gap between your bodies in half a second, reaching for your face with his hands. It’s not romantic or slow or delicate, it’s just intense. 

It’s also rushed. It ends too quickly.

When you open your eyes, you want to say something, but your body needs time to catch a breath. What just happened? What the hell is going on? Your brain is panicking.

“Sorry,” Hoseok starts with a low voice. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

He lets go of you completely and you can almost feel your body have a physical reaction to that. You want more? What the fuck?

He takes a step backwards to go back to his room, but you can’t just let him go like that. You have to do something. Do something!

“Maybe you should have,” you repeat his words, your voice just above a whisper. “I- I don’t know what else to say.”

The only thing you can do now is laugh. That is your only reaction, almost like a self-defense mechanism when awkward things happen. 

“Good. I’m going back to my room now.” He’s smiling too, taking backwards steps so he doesn’t have to turn his back to you. “Breakfast tomorrow at 9?”

“Sure,” you agree, nodding your head with a little too much enthusiasm.

“Cool. I’ll try not to be late.”

“I’m not counting on it.”

“Sleep well,” he says with a smile and finally turns to get inside his room. 

How am I supposed to sleep after this?

Read more ›› masterlist

[chiimmchiimm]

❝𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗 !¡ 𝑜𝓃𝑒 ❞

CHAPTERS “  01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 -  11  - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 “  

The northern jail was the most dangerous in the country, social scum, thousands of criminals were locked behind their bars. Who would tell poor Blair that he would end up there because of his father’s mistake. The problem was not the lack of hot water, but that inhuman obsession that many of the prisoners had for “new toys.” Rookies had two options; be submissive and abide by veterans’ orders or suffer the dangerous anger of those disturbed minds. It all started one night when Blair had the bad idea of ​​going to shower alone.

𝒫𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔: Jungkookoffender au x (female: Blair) 𝒢𝑒𝓃𝓇𝑒: smut.(later), offender au, fluff, angst. 𝒲𝑜𝓇𝒹𝓈: 5 k 𝑅𝒶𝓃𝓆𝓊𝒾𝓃𝑔:  +18   𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔:   abuse, domestic violence, painful memories, sadness, psychological abuse, dirty lenjuage. 𝒜𝓊𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓇’𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒:  This is my first novel on Tumblr, give it a lot of love and don’t forget to like it. The chapters will be uploaded weekly.

The sun dazzled much more that morning, its blinding light sneaked through the slits of the shutters halfway down giving a much more welcoming look to the living room of my parents’ house. Sitting on that white velvet sofa with a relatively steaming decaffeinated coffee on the side table. With my cheek resting heavily against the median kneecap to rest my head. The television broadcast the morning news of each day. It was the same as always; juicy gossip of some famous, unfortunate catastrophes about a natural disaster, exhaustively ridiculous scandals about some imprudent action of some human being.I got up ready to turn off that silly box that the only thing that could grant me was useless, but suddenly, photo information My father came out on the front page. My phone started ringing incessantly but I couldn’t stop staring at the screen with my mouth open when the journalist started listing all the charges that came related to our last name. I even covered my shocked mouth when a family photo appeared behind the woman. One where we all went out; Mom, he and me Mom wore a forced smile under her sad and dull eyes, my father’s hand wrapped her small waist with love, a feeling that only showed us when someone was present. A smaller me hooked on my father’s long neck with a brightly fierce emotion while teaching the few teeth he had back then. A sarcastic smile appeared early under my lips because that was the day I received my first slap.

As the stormy rains on cold winter days my life always revolved around the same routine. My father attended important events and my mother and I accompanied him to maintain his elitist family profile. However, it all ended when I turned eighteen. I put an endless number of excuses so as not to have to face those humiliating talks about the lowest society. I know my father didn’t believe me, of course, he can’t hurt my head every Friday at the same time. My mother always helped me and in the end, I got what I wanted; get away from him. The relationship with my father was never affectionate and that remains unchanged now in my twenties. Instead, a small part of me wanted to go to those extravagant meetings, not because of the chatter with those insipid people, but, for not leaving my mother alone who knew that they were not to her liking either. Still with her layers of makeup my mother could not cover the tracks that my father left on her delicate skin; the bruises, bruises, breaks … His overthrown gaze was the last thing I saw before falling asleep every night. I can never erase the time he hugged me so hard that my breath left my system, I knew from his trembling, that my father had unloaded his business failure with her.

“I left.” I whispered with my mouth against the cold surface of her skin. His arms dropped slowly when I separated from her. My tone was decisive, decisive, so that I understood that I was not talking about a simple possibility, but a solution. “You don’t deserve a son of a bitch to fuck you every night.”

But as expected, my mother ducked her head. And I knew that I shied away from my penetrating gaze because I knew that deep down I was right.

He took a long breath and then answered what I was so afraid of; “Everything I do is for you.”

I did not open my mouth again all night, just lend him my back to release his helplessness with continuous crying. He understood why he did it but did not support it. I know that he wanted to give me the best education and the best luxuries, but at what price? I would gladly give up all the comforts that had been given to me as long as his suffering ended. But I knew that I was a motive but not the most relevant. My father was. I know I was afraid of him and that he justified every abuse with all kinds of inconceivable excuses. And for that crude reason, my mother always ended up being dragged by my father.

What I never thought, is that, I would also be dragged by him.

“Are you aware that you face a penalty of seven years and two months in prison?”

Everything happened so fast, that man spoke so fast. I was barely aware of the sporadic overturn that I had just given my life. And he regretted not having tasted that coffee better because from the face of that man he could deduce that it would be the last one he would drink in a long time. The prosecutor leaned a hand on the table in the interrogation room to get my attention, but the only thing he looked at was the bumps on the bricks of the white wall. The tears gathered in my eyes. The low fluidity of my breathing. And the dolls burned by the touch of the cold metal of the wives. I couldn’t even understand lucidly if he said anything else or it was just pure invention of my mind. The whitish light that came from the laminated ceiling lamps produced a frightening buzz that, to my bad luck, blocked all the orders of my central nervous system, keeping me completely stretched in a chair that, however uncomfortable, was much better than the filthy bed of The dungeons What did he want me to tell him what was innocent? He had already repeated it to satiety and seemed not to care in the least, even, I was able to absorb an improper satisfaction of a good lawyer when hearing the judge’s sentence.

Emphasizing time again, everything happened too quickly, so much that I could barely be aware that my feet were directing my body towards an unknown room. When my watery eyes read inmates I could be aware, again, of how much life could change in a matter of seconds.

“Turn it off as soon as possible and memorize the pin well, you may not remember in seven years.”

Look closely as my phone offered. However, the blow of the white tray against the table made me divert attention to the tattooed girl behind the counter. A girl with bluish hair that carefully removed the clothes while playing with a pen balancing it inside her mouth. A tap on my abdomen made me regain my composure. When I accepted my phone back I turned it off and gave it to the governor.

“Look, all size 38, okay?” And there are six complete molts included. ”The blue hair announced, making a small pout with her lips. I lift a small transparent plastic bag while showing me one by one the garments that would be my wardrobe from now on. I had changed my channel suits and my row tracksuits for a yellow jacket and pants of the same color. But without a doubt, what caught my attention was the white clothes that were in another bag.

“Hey, I brought my own underwear.” The ruler observed me immediately. “I have sensitive skin.”

The girl stopped moving things to lift her head and stare at me. Blue — since his hair wore that vivid color and he didn’t know his name. ”He intensified a line with his lips as he tightened all the features of his face. He looked at me as if he had said the worst atrocity in the world. And I certainly did not understand why he was so serious when he had said nothing wrong. It was not my fault that my skin did not support polyester, if someone wanted to blame it, then it is my strange allergy to poor quality materials. One that left me full of small red spots along my entire epidermis and an unbearable itching for three days.

“Well,_ Barbie_, we’re all the same here.” He commented mockingly. I frowned at her derogatory nickname, however, I couldn’t protest because at the moment the ruler broke into our little discussion, if we refer to her as an eloquent little talk in which I have been left as a weak and silly girl who has been belittled and he has not had the courage to defend himself.

“What is this?”

By the time I wanted to realize what was happening I already had the bottle of my vitamins being opened by the long fingers of that woman. I reacted immediately with a babble that all I reflected was how much that shit situation could.

“No, no, that’s not a drug. It’s nothing weird, it’s just royal jelly.” As I was speaking the words piled up under my tongue and my trembling made the language come out much less fluently than I expected. However, the governor raised her eyebrows as if my version of the echos was not given as true. On the other hand, blue was making fun of my nerves again with a low smile that hid while scratching her bulging hair. I felt the need to explain myself again and I did so; “It is to reinforce defenses.”

“Forty pills?” He asked so wryly that question that I was speechless. I moved, to the laugh of blue that increased my beginner’s nerves. “What will you do when they run out?”

“Man, I expected to be out when that will happen.”

But my answer falls like a vol of cold water. Then, I realize that I thought out loud. And that blue has not stopped laughing at any moment of my blunder and that now has made his laugh level up. I don’t know what I have to say to fix things, because I literally just expressed my wishes to get out of here, however, I don’t see anything wrong with that but apparently she does resent my sincerity. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be in this crappy place and endure the laughter of a criminal who does nothing but make fun of me.

For my luck, everything is there. In a little anecdote that will happen to the most shameful periods of my existence.

I pick up the tray with disgust because it didn’t look like it but it has its weight and I walk down a corridor that only leads in one direction. First, the governor enters and then I do it. I thank you ironically for the galantia of holding the door while I eat the stiffness of the glass with my mouth.

“Put the clothes on that tray when you’re done and make sure you don’t keep anything.”

Seat. Really, he won nothing by arguing with a woman who is in sight that has a character of a thousand demons. Better keep quiet and follow your orders as fast as I can. I have to change in front of her. And I thank heaven that she is a woman and not a man because she certainly would not have been able to stay naked in front of the opposite gender. Then, I move again to a room that was next to the old one to go through a metal detector machine. As you can see I don’t wear anything, he relaxes in a padlocked sigh. Poor woman, I have a feeling that you don’t usually pay much attention here. Finally, I understood that my little excursion is over when I have in front of me the automatic doors that would open my module.

Then, the governor turns to a guard who appears behind a counter.

“Open the door, I bring the new one.”

The girl presses a button and the metal doors open. The governor shakes her head to tell me to go ahead. Breathing a sigh from my own emotional instability, I shake my shoulders and walk right. However, when I hear the fortuitous noises of things being hit against the metal I remain planted on the site which causes the government to almost clash with me.

“What do you think you are doing?” “Is he not listening to the hustle and bustle that prisoners are riding?

“I can’t.” I deny uncontrollably, to the point, of almost injuring my neck when I turn from side to side. The governor places her hands at each end of her hip while looking at me with obvious discomfort. “Please.”

But my plea seems to fill his patience and the only thing that I achieve with my actions is that I push myself sharply and fall face down on the ground. And then, chaos breaks loose. The blows increase in level. I do not even look at the grotesque spectacle of which my ears are witnesses because in the story I wake up I try to run away backwards but collide with the governor and I almost fall again.

“Do you want to be still, fuck?”

“I’m innocent …” he said for the twentieth time in the day.

“Pick up the floor tray and move on.” - order. I withdraw what has been said above, this lady is a witch. He gives a fuck that he is giving me a little anxiety attack. I make sure of it when I narrow my eyes. He is throwing small threats with his gestures and I have no choice but to pick up the forgotten tray on the floor.

“Newbie!” You eat rabbit tonight.

He ducked his head and keep going.

“Go here, rule!”

-Pretty! Hey you!

I decipher a shout through the crowd and instantly regret having done it. And much more to divert the head towards the alleged culprit because the first thing my eyes see is a woman shaved and tattooed to the neck making with her fingers the shape of a vagina and passing the tongue in between. The one next to him laughs at the terrified reaction I do. I quickly simulate an arcade frightened by that grotesque insinuation.

But the worst was yet to come.

-Brunette! I’m going to give you until I’m dry!

“What a gift from Santa Claus!”

He panicked.

The governor stretches again because I have stopped again. Then, I raise my head and look at the top railings. My eyeballs widen to the point of almost leaving the site. I drop my tray when I see the stacked row of sweaty bodies controlled by testosterone looking at me directly. Their dirty and perverse glances cover the little skin that leaves prison clothes in sight. By instinct I hug myself but I can’t get the anguish to go away. When the governor who is behind me realizes that I have stayed at the site of disgust, she pushes me slightly forward to finish climbing the stairs.

“I would like to be a sardine to swim in your vagina!”

“Cell 345!”

I don’t even know who said that because my head didn’t lift it from the ground at any time. The incessant compliments do not stop disturbing my auditory ducts as I go up the steps. For a moment, I think I hear the government’s sigh but I am not sure if it was his or mine because I could barely distinguish another sound other than the bellowing of those disgusting men. Their throats were torn by the volume so high that they used to get my attention, what they did not know, that this was not the first time that he faced this type of situation and that he would not fall for his provocations. Therefore, when I thought I could worthy of raising my head I could realize that my luck had just taken a wonderful course because I was facing the opposite direction of that tangle of apes in heat.

The governor took out an orange card and passed through the magnetic sensor of the door. The noise of that steel structure stimulated my blood velocity and that my eyes responded by closing tightly. With nerves accumulating in the small lump of my throat I took the first step towards those four walls that would now be my home.

A dark-haired girl under the bed as soon as I set foot in the small cell. But he didn’t look at me, but at the ruler.

“Boss, there must have been a mistake.” The rookie goes in another cell here we are complete. ”He explained, pausing the tone of his voice to give it a much deeper touch. What gave me the most curiosity about his vocal bell was that he was adorned with the typical accent of foreigners. The white-skinned girl stood in front of me to cut my step while pointing her finger back. Her black straight hair covered her cheeks slightly while she covered her shoulders with neglect. He had long legs and thin arms under the sleeves of the yellow jacket. Small and thin lips, and a feline look that left me blank when I looked at myself for two seconds. My arms trembled unconsciously because I could perfectly perceive a warning glow.

—Blair London is assigned to this cell. Come London leave your stuff on that shelf and make your bed.

“Still rookie.”

When I took a step that girl got in my way.

“Do what I told you, London.”

“Do not do it.”

“Do it.”

“No.”

“Do it London.”

“No,” he whispered in such a dark tone that a paralyzing chill caressed my back.

I instinctively shrunk my body when that girl spit her breath over my face. Swallow nervous saliva, an act that did not go unnoticed by her. A small macabre smile greeted his features when he felt the tremor of my fingers holding the tray. I counted mentally to slow my shortness of breath but all I could get was to get his attention more.

“Do you think that because we let you smoke in here, you’re going to do whatever you want?”

When the authoritarian voice of the governor reached my ears, my back slumped forward. The palms of my hands began to sweat and my mood deteriorated at times. At this point it didn’t matter if I hid my stress because it was no longer a viable option.

“I’m just informing the module manager that we’re very tight here and if one more inmate comes in, maybe she has to sleep on the floor.” Yes or no, girls?

As he leaned to the side to see the governor directly, I could see what was behind her. Two more girls inhabited the room. One of them with much longer and darker hair was placed behind her to support what she said. The other, almost white hair and extremely white skin, sobbed and trembled almost as much as I did while swaying on the mattress with a rosary sticking out of her thin fingers. The first, nodded in a gesture of security while the other prayed in low whispers. When he saw that he was saying nothing he approached and hit him in the head.

“Answer the hell!”

“Yes-yes.” I stutter exaggeratedly. I separate her head from her shoulders and when I look at her cellmates I can see two superficial cuts, one on her lower lip and the other on her left cheek. What the fuck had they done? Really, he looked like a scared little animal about to be hunted. I felt so bad for that girl. My empathy had caused me to give him a look full of sadness.

“I’ll take the new one so you don’t make her life bitter.” The governor informed her, snapping her tongue as she gave a sideways glance at the Asian girl. However, when I thought I could finally run away from that awkward situation, the governor ended the encounter with a warning; - You think you have everything under Akame control but be very careful.— Then, I touch my shoulder to drag myself out of the cell.

“Why don’t you look at your phone, govern?” And then we talk about who’s in charge here and who has to be careful.

The woman deformed her expression to a calmer one as if those words had not affected her. But both the dark-haired girl and I knew that they had done it, and maybe for that reason, I didn’t even answer him and he took me out of there as fast as he could. Should I thank you for getting me out of that place? Definitely yes.

But before I finished showing my thanks, a tall, dark young man passed by our side. His presence seemed to startle her so much that she almost collided with me. Then he watched me a few seconds before calling the guard.

“Garcia.”

The boy turned.

“Can you take the new one to his cell?” The brunette nodded. “I don’t find myself well.

“Clear.”

The governor handed him the folder with my personal data and shot out down the hall as if an important matter was waiting for him. Would it have to do with the threat of that girl? Something told me yes.

We did not walk much, we passed two cells and stood in the third. Again, panic began to cloud my system. The air to miss me. And my knees to shake getting my balance was required immediately not to fall. I didn’t want to find another one like that girl. Was it that there was no one normal in this prison shit? All of a sudden, my nerves played tricks on me because my mouth opened to confess what I had been keeping since I crossed the courthouse door.

“I can’t.” I ran over.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I need to see a doctor.”

I don’t know if it sounded too exaggerated but I definitely didn’t want to get in there.

“Do you have tremors? Blurry vision? Dizziness Cramps? Chest pain?″

"Em, no.” I blinked as I lost myself among so many symptoms.

“Well, then nothing happens to you.” Not caring about my facial pallor, he swiped his orange card through the sensor and again, my eyes closed at the squeak of the door. He held the folder against his chest and said, “Blair London.Cell two twenty five.”

Any motor movement that my body could make seemed to have left my head. My quick breathing lifted my chest at an excessive rate denoting on the front page how nervous I was to find myself again. I took the first step into the cell. A girl of short and slender stature rose up from her bed, drawing the attention of the other two. He removed his short tinted hair from a light brown back as he glanced at his companions. A middle-aged woman who put her hand on her left leg while leaning towards my paralyzed figure examining me with curiosity and another girl with extremely pale skin much younger than the two previously mentioned behind the main culprit of my partial blush of cheeks. The aftertaste of my saliva was bitter from so many chills that ran through my little body. Too overwhelming pressure seized the area near my stomach when the bars of the cell covered the door leaving me without escape. Locked up with those three women. And above all, locked in my desperate destiny.

"I am Dallas.”

I jumped a little when I returned to my horrible reality. The low voice of that girl woke me up completely. He stretched his hand politely towards me while he leaned slightly and smiled as if we were two friends and not two inmates of the worst prison in Los Angeles. No doubt that girl was too confident. But, nevertheless, his singular sympathy for strangers was something that I sincerely thanked. I finally accepted his hand and although I could not return a smile for my state away from joy, at least, stimulate a small grimace under my dry lips.

“I am Blair, delighted.” I said, controlling the small tremor in my voice thanks to the timely appearance of my self-control. Finally, I could smile. I leaned uncomfortably towards her cheek to kiss her kindly, Dallas understood my action and we ended up giving two cheek kisses as a way of civilized greeting. The air came out of my mouth unconsciously to calm the nervous spasms I still suffered from the two pairs of eyes that saw the scene from a distance.

The second to speak was the oldest of the four.

“Where are you from, my girl?”

“From here, from Los Angeles.”

But the child’s sudden laughter stopped my response.

“No, why are you here?” He replied, pausing the space of the words he spoke. The mockery danced for her serene features, clearly, emphasizing my poor understanding. His hands flew into his pockets, dragging the fabric of his yellowish pants. His shirt ran down. The mark of his bony clavicle denoted how much he lacked a good diet. She was extremely thin compared to the weight she should have with her height. I tilt his thin leg to support his body while sweeping my perfectly buttoned shirt.

“Ah.” I issued the monosyllable with caution. “I really shouldn’t be here.” I am here for a mistake.

“And how many years have you fallen for the mistake?” Dallas asked as she adjusted the jacket of her uniform to her liking. Glancing under the eyes of complices with the smallest in his enjoyment for making me feel uncomfortable.

“Seven.” I murmured under my breath. My body shrank because the teasing did not take long to appear. Making such a big scandal that the guard soon appeared to get our attention with some blows on the bars. I was upset, however, not surprised. Neither the judge nor the ruler had believed in my innocence, did I really think they would be different? I should get used to the teasing since it seemed to be his favorite hobby. I headed for the only empty bed in that small cell. Through that tide of laughter and groans that cause my internal discomfort. I thought it was best to ignore them and I did that while I stretched the sheets.

“Do you want to keep laughing in isolation, June?” The guard’s authoritative voice appeared behind them. His warning to the smallest had been like the extinguisher that turned off his fun.

“You are very bitter, Garcia.”

Immediately, Liberty seconded his mischief.

“This is what you need is a good dust, Dallas.”

“That you be silent!”

He gave another blow as a warning resulting in the two friends separating. Liberty raised her arms signing the peace. The youngest, just climbed on the bed above mine and jumped down.

“Get in bed and sleep, mommy.”

I watched in a flash as the woman’s hand rested on my shoulder. His hand adorned with slight wrinkles and small skin spots had been the closest thing to human contact he had had in hours. And even if we were unknown, I was able to spot some tenderness in his touch. As if his words were not an order, if not, an advice that I should follow for my good. The woman had a very intense green-eyed look. There was something in those lifeless pupils that told me that I had suffered a lot in life. And for a few seconds, that woman reminded me of my mother.

“Thank you but … I don’t think I can sleep.” I confessed, undoing my usual hue at a lower one.

The heat of my shoulder disappeared when he removed his hand and turned around. A bleak emptiness stifled my body after lack of contact. I lay down slowly on the mattress while following the woman’s movement carefully. When he finished going to bed, he looked at me one last time and sighed. As if guessing all the problems that crossed my mind.

“The first night is the most difficult. If you can’t sleep, talk to God, he always listens to us.”

A bitter smile crossed my lips when the woman turned her back on me. I didn’t want to be rude and much less after he had treated me so well, for that very reason I kept quiet. I crossed my fingers over my stomach but comfort was not something I felt at that moment. I closed my eyes for several minutes to see if the dream was beating my anguish but the only thing I got was to overwhelm myself under the covers. I removed my body until I lay on my side. When my eyes met the white wall it was as if everything would make sense. It filled my mouth saying that this shit had been a mistake. But deep down I understood the mockery of that pale girl. And if you look at it from another perspective it was quite pathetic. I could say all that convinced but that didn’t make it easier. I knew that my father had screwed up my life and that as much as the woman told me that praying would help solve my problems, I made another crude excuse for not accepting reality.

The lack of weight from the mattress above distracted my hypnosis with the wall. When I turned my body slightly I could see through the little clarity that Dallas had come down from his bed. How I was covered up to the nose I could see the scene before me without realizing that I was still awake. He reached out and with the tip of his finger pressed the button on the bars. Out of nowhere a much taller figure appeared and Dallas threw forward enthusiastically. The last thing I saw before they left was a tattoo of a small heart on the wrist of the tallest.

                                                           ✞

NEXT

[hollandroos]

Hello, i love you → Tom x reader | Harrison x reader

 Soulmate AU

Summary: You’re only supposed to have one soulmate, one person to give your heart to. So what happens when two boys stumble into your life?

‘What are you meant to do when you promise your heart to two people? You either give it to one or keep it for yourself. Sometimes, you tear your own heart in half in the process of deciding.’

Words: 3.7k

Warnings: None really for this part :-)

You were never good at the whole morning thing.

You’d drag yourself out of bed by seven, force yourself into the shower where the water would either be too hot and cause you to nearly jump out of your skin or bone-chilling cold and result in a possible tumble. The latter ultimately made you realise that you’d forgotten to pay your heating bill again and the threat of more stress then need be would loom over your head because it’ll all come down to whether or not you had enough coffee beans left for a cappuccino or if you’d be left with having to suffer through the bitter taste of an instant.

Breakfast is always a rush with toast crumbs squeezing their way in between the creases of whatever shirt you’d thrown on, jam making its way onto your chin and the scrunching of snack wrappers between an enclosed fist. If you were lucky, you’d have some kind of fruit left sitting on the bench that was yet to go off and maybe you’d actually be able to find your headphones in between incomplete sheets and last nights washing.

The bus usually smelt like piss and if you were extra unlucky, the remains of last night's alcohol wafting off of a hungover man's coat and you were left trying to focus on the taste of the spearmint bubblegum from the corner store. On those days, however, you happened just to be thankful for the fact that you’d nabbed a seat before the aisle filled up.

You’re lucky if the coffee shop next to where your internship is taking place isn’t overly crowded. You’re lucky if you have to wait less then five minutes in line to grab the selection of coffees you were instructed to pick up every morning by eight am sharp and you’re lucky if the waiter that always seemed to flirt with you is on- not because you enjoyed being flirted with by a stranger but because he knew your order off by heart by now and didn’t make you repeat all seven coffees each time you came in. It was both a relief and a struggle.

Today you rush straight to the front counter, a coat pulled tightly against your chest and smile at the familiar worker there. He was a younger boy, probably eighteen making him only three years younger then you but still, the flirty smile he gives you upon seeing you halt in front of him is enough to throw you off completely.

“Morning, Joe.” You force a smile, the corners of your lips surely weren’t thanking you as you hold the look long enough for him to remember every single one of the drinks you were about to order. Today you wanted to treat yourself. “Just the usual, one on me the rest on the company.”

“Got it.” He taps it into his screen and you pull your credit card out, along with a loyalty card. “Having a good morning?” Joe fumbles around, trying not to embarrass himself in front of the older, cute girl in front of him. Someone he still achieved exactly what he's trying to dodge.

“I am, thank you. Trying to take in the weather before I lock myself up for the rest of the day.”

The man in the apron with a slightly wonky name tag hands you a receipt, opening his mouth once more before you go to walk away. “It’s a shame they have someone as pretty as you locked up in the offices.”

It’s a remark that forces you to do everything in your power to hold back a grimace from appearing on your features. The kid is eighteen, he’s awkward and probably drowning in school work. You were there three years ago, so you shrug it off and offer an awkward smile.

“Thanks.”

The little bell above the door rings multiple times while you sit and wait for your order and every time it rings, cold air rushes into the room and a stranger lets out a small remark about the weather. The heat pump begins an endless cycle of pumping enough warm air into the cafe before the door is opened again. It’s a cycle you were used to– one you had gotten used to on only your fifth chilly winter morning of waiting for a tray and a half of coffee.

Aka the only thing that you were sure kept your bosses from tearing each others heads off. Huh, maybe that was why they were so demanding when it came to their caffeine. But this morning you can still taste toothpaste on your tongue and wonder if your coffee will be too impossibly bitter and you’ll be the one doing the tearing of heads.

Tom walks in at exactly seven forty-nine with his hands shoved into his coat pockets. He swears that at his point his lips may as well be blue and the tip of his nose was frozen like an iceberg. He’s almost dying to get his hands wrapped around a takeaway cup, to warm the frozen nubs and get on his own way to work– like the tens of other people in the cafe were hoping for.

He barely notices the girl in the coat that scrolls through Facebook as he makes his way to the counter and orders his drink. He barely even notices the girl as he turns around and pulls his phone out to look through his own social media. Tom would hate to admit that he was one of those people too sucked into their phones for their own good but here he was.

Still, It’s crazy that, how many strangers we walk past every single day without giving them a second glance. He only notices her for the first time when an order is called and she jumps up out of her seat, coat falling around her knees as she walks towards the counter– right next to Tom. Tom wasn't one to say that two people fit together, but he was sure straight away that they fit like cheese and crackers.

“That’s me!” She beams.

It was nearing eight am and freezing outdoors yet she sounded so lively, her voice as smooth as melted honey and she takes the trays with both hands, already eyeing a certain drink he assumes is her own and he coughs, stuffing his phone in his back pocket.

“Can I help you with anything? You really look like you’re struggling.” Tom says before he can stop himself. It was as if he was drawn to her. That type of thing wasn’t meant to happen every day, right?

With more drinks then you wished to carry in your arms, you glance at the stranger but for a moment you find yourself at a loss for words. Before, all you’d seem was a stranger hover near the counter with jeans and a torn Adidas shoes. That small inkling you’d had to look up had been swallowed back by you and now you found yourself lost in the sea that was his eyes. Cliche.

“No, I’m good! Thank you, though–” But you must’ve spoken too soon because in an instant you drop your coffee, the takeaway mugs tumble to the floor until they hit with a splat. The bitter liquid runs under your shoes and Toms, temporarily staining the coffee shop floor and your cheeks heat up in pure embarrassment as people stare. “Fuck.”

The spilt coffee was pushed to the back of Toms mind as his mouth falls open, eyes widening in shock. It was as if everything else around him suddenly didn’t matter but you. You with a now coffee stained skirt and embarrassed expression. But he saw beneath that. He saw every little line that was etched onto your features and lack of sleep, that was for sure. He saw days of what could either be too much school work or work and the stain on your shirt that wasn’t in fact from the coffee that was turning your white shirt a disgusting shade of brown.

“You’re– you’re my–” He struggles.

You cough, choking on air as he trips over his own words. In a moment you believed you’d be tripping over spilt coffee if you didn’t get your act together.

“You’re my soulmate.” You finish for him. Gentle brown eyes that resembled pools of warm honey stare adoringly. You already wanted to take in every piece of him already from the creases beneath his eyes and at the corners of his lips, to the hoodie that drowned his hands and that one overgrown curl that kept falling over his forehead despite his attempts to keep it tame.

Soulmate. That word was one you tried to ignore, pushing to the back of your mind and one you’d jump over like a hole in the footpath because when the day came to use it properly, it’d come and here it was. Staring you right in the face. Finally.

He feels his arm tingling. The feeling could be compared to a spider crawling up his arm or ants padding across his skin and that’s probably the only part of it all that makes him feel uneasy. Tom hates spiders. But that feeling, the gentle tingling in his arm only convinces him further that it’s you he’s meant to be with, the one he’s been looking for as cliche as it sounded.

“This is– this is insane. You’re so pretty.” Tom bites his tongue the second he lets the words slip, fearing he was about to scare his soulmate off before he’d even got the chance to know you. “I’m sorry I don’t know what I’m saying at all right now, you’re just so– you’re amazing. I’m shaking, wow.”

And he wasn’t lying. Toms' hands were shaking, trembling one might say. But so were yours. You could practically feel his nerves though maybe that was your own. The little mark around your ankle is tingling, making you stiffen because it’s actually uncomfortable. For such a special moment you hadn’t expected that– what could be compared to pins gently breaking the first layer of skin.

“I don’t get dressed up like an office assistant every day if that was what you were hoping for.” You laugh at his impromptu comment. “I also don’t wear my coffee to work– however, I am a bit of a clutz.”

“Things to note about my soulmate, doesn’t dress up like an office assistant every day and is a clutz, noted.” Tom smiles as the word rolls off of his tongue again. It sounded all too fake, like something he was dreaming up.

Soulmate. The one person you’re supposed to spend forever with. Someone you’re meant to love for eternity, give your all too and receive a lifetime of happiness in return. Tom couldn’t help but wonder if it’d feel like they say it does to so much as graze your skin, if hearing his name roll off of your tongue could send his chest into a frenzy of love and satisfaction and if you lay together, close enough, skin against skin, your hearts would beat as one.

You laugh lightly,  “Things to note about my soulmate, has pretty brown eyes and rambles when he’s nervous. I have to say, we’re off to a really good start as well as things go.”

“My name’s Tom.”

“Well, Tom, I’m Y/N.” He swears your name sounds like gold, pure fucking gold as it spills off of your tongue and in his mind he’s repeating it over like a chorus– and hearing his own name is better then anything, to put it simply. “I would love to stand and talk to you more but I’m about to be late for work and It’s bad enough that I no longer have their coffees…”

“Oh yeah– right. Can I give you my number?”

“I’d really like that.” You lace your fingers together, doing everything in your power to keep yourself grounded though you doubted Tom would do anything but laugh if you started jumping up and down. He seemed giggly.

“Great, awesome.” He fumbles with his coat, trying to search for anything he can use to write his number on. Maybe it would’ve been easier if he just put his number straight in your phone but his mind was messy, clouded and hazy with pictures of you. “Here, just text me whenever.” He hands you the paper and you tuck it between your fingers and then it fucking happens, the very first touch. “You will call me, right?”

It was so cliche. You met at a coffee shop, you spilt your coffee and he was there to help. Your hands touched– gently grazed and you felt shock waves throughout your entire body and surely he had to feel it too, for only after minutes you were his and he was yours.

“Of course I will, first chance I get.” You smile through lined lips. As every second passed you got closer and closer to being late to your internship but Tom seemed more important than working some desk job. Scratch that, he was. You wanted to remember every little piece of him like the colour of his eyes and the scuffed Adidas shoes on his feet. And god forbid if you lost that crinkly, torn apart paper you’d never forgive yourself.

You leave the coffee shop with a skip in your step despite messing up the coffee orders that morning and a picture of his brown locks engraved in your brain. Already you wanted to send him a text, to be impossibly close. With an overjoyed heart, you glance down at his number scribbled down on a scrap piece of paper with ‘Tom :)’ beneath it, a little heart too to match.

Tom immediately pulls out his phone and goes to his contacts. A part of him hoped to see an unfamiliar number on the screen early but instead, he sends a text to his best friend and in the process nearly walks into a pole but not even that could wipe the grin off of his face. Love at first sight was real, it was what would get him through his day and the next and the one after that. Love at first sight had proved itself.

To: Jacob

I met her. She’s perfect.

-

Harrison forces himself up many sets of stairs. He could’ve just used the elevator, but he wanted to push himself– probably not a good idea considering the day before he’d worked out legs and the ache was still very prominent. Also, his apartment seemed to be near the very top floor and it was more of a hyke then a simple climb up the stairs.

He wasn’t going to complain though. Nope, he doubted the fact that his smile had fallen once since reaching the apartment complex. He made sure to smile at every one of the other residents, even helping the little old lady on floor three make sure she pressed the right button on the elevator before hoping out himself. He gave five dollars to the man outside and allowed a lost seven-year-old to use his phone to call home.

Some would say Harrison had a heart of gold but the boy did have his fair share of bad events too like the one time he got blackout drunk and streaked around the neighbourhood much to the neighbour's disgust (luckily not his neighbours). There was the one time he got in a bar fight too and ended up with a black eye for the next few weeks.

At the same time as Harrison was clambering up the very last flight, the elevator just so happened to ping before the doors open and you climb out– more like struggle with a series of boxes in your arms, covering half of your view. In anyone else's opinion, it would seem like you were just asking for trouble by walking around with too many boxes then what you could handle but you felt confident enough. That was until your arms begun to feel like jelly and you had to side step to refrain from dropping the top box.

Something was bound to go wrong, it was only a matter of time and since this morning– since meeting the charming boy that had promised you his heart you felt like you were on cloud nine, like nothing could get you down.

It wasn’t anything too expensive inside, but the objects were close to your families hearts. It was old photos in photo frames and vases that your mother had handed down to you. There was cutlery that you planned to store away instead of use and little pieces of china that your mother had refused to let you lay your grubby finger son as a kid.

Your arms felt like jelly and your legs threatened to give out so you wanted to cry when you found out that you’d come to the wrong damn floor. You groan loudly, not seeing the stranger standing by the steps with narrowed eyes.

“Can I help you with anything? You really look like you’re struggling.”  

You grunt, holding the boxes with aching arms. This was probably the worst time to run into someone and your mind was anywhere else as you focused on not dropping any of the items in hand. It could’ve been anything in the box from precious china of your mothers to plastic cups and forks.

“No, I’m good! Thank you, though–” You shake your head right as the top box falls out of your arms, landing on the ground with a thud before a terrifying shattering sound echoes throughout the floor. “Fuck.” You groan– then it hits you, a second too late but all too soon. A truth that had hit harder then the shattered cutlery.

It hits you harder then it had this morning when you ran into the cute brunette from the coffee shop. It hits you like a fucking train because you already found your soulmate yet the words on your wrist matched what he’d just said to you and by the look on his face, the words you’d just said suited what was printed wherever on his body too. Your mind runs to Tom with the lopsided smile and cheeky glint in his eyes, from the feelings you felt when you first ran into him to the happiness that soon followed.

But now you were standing in front of another boy– a blonde with piercing blue eyes.

Harrison Osterfield gapes, feeling all kinds of happy as he realised that you were the one. He was ten when he felt the words appear, only sixteen when his closest friends found their soulmates and twenty when he realised that he was the only one without someone to love and call his own. So now he was twenty-three and his heart was swelling with joy because he couldn’t imagine a more beautiful girl to be his soulmate even if he tried. It was as if already, he was more then head over heels.

Whether it be the idea of finally finding his soulmate or that the stories he’d heard from his friends were true. Simply being near the person you were destined to spend forever with could make you ecstatic and he felt that he was finally about to understand.

So he only felt his heart drop when you realised that you looked absolutely terrified.

Fingers reach into your front pocket, toying with a scrap piece of paper just to check that it was still there, tucked away safely between empty gum wrappers and spare change– that this morning really happened and wasn’t some figmentation of your lonely imagination. That Tom existed and he had looked at you like you put the stars in the sky and spoke to you like you were the most beautiful flower in a field of hundreds, all blooming and vibrant but he’d picked you.

But Harrison looks at you like you were the one thing that makes the sun come out of hiding every morning. Like you were the first breath of fresh air in years and he was experiencing proper air in his lungs once more and the thought of letting him down, making his breathtaking smile turn into a calamitous frown made your chest ache and you realised that he too was your soulmate, because if he wasn’t you would’ve been able to let him down but you simply couldn’t because the thought of hurting the person you’re destined to give yourself to fully is meant to be the one thing that hurts more then anything else.

Then Tom is reappearing in your mind and you realise that you couldn’t hurt him either. That your heart longs for both but we can’t always have what we want.

Because how were you supposed to choose between the one that looks at you like you put the stars in the sky and the one that looks at you like you’re the reason the sun rises every morning?

Your soulmate was a brunette with brown eyes like the colour of the coffee you spilt all over the cafe floor that morning and a heart of gold, with a light that could extend to even the greatest lengths - but your soulmate was also a blonde with blue eyes that reminded you of the rain and you loved rain. You could stand in it until you were a sneezing, sniffling mess. He wore eyes that told more stories then you feared you’d ever be able to hear.

“You’re my soulmate.” You say out loud, mostly to yourself then to him. The room is spinning, photos that you’ve marched past at least six times today suddenly look like mere splashes of colour and the railing seems too far away to grasp.

“And you’re mine.” Harrison swallows and your shattered goods don’t seem all that big of a deal anymore. “Where have you been hiding away all this time, huh?”

You’d heard every horror story in the book about people's soulmates and things going wrong but not this. Never this. How exactly was it, that your heart was supposed to belong to not one, but two boys? What are you meant to do when you promise your heart to two people? You either give it to one or keep it for yourself. Sometimes, you tear your own heart in half in the process of deciding.

Maybe you just had a habit of dropping things in front of cute British boys.

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[green-eyeddragonfanfiction]

Ghosts of War: Chapter 21

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Reader Summary: After the events of Winter’s War, your and Bucky’s lives are changed forever (and not for the better). Severe torture and experimentation at the hands of Hydra leaves you shells of your former selves, your past together completely erased and replaced with deadly Hydra programming. You and the other Soldier continue training Natalia. Of course, all good(?) things must end and you and the young spy part on less than amicable terms. It’s back to business as usual for you and the other Soldier after that. In other words, killing for your masters. Warnings: Swearing (always), death, blood, guns, fighting, torture Word Count: ~3,055 A/N: And we’re done with Ghosts of War. It’s been... a time.

Masterlist // Book One // Book 3

Previous Chapter // Chapter 1 of Book 3: War of Attrition

“Tools don’t have names,” you said softly, eyes glued to the ground. Somehow, no matter how many times it was cleaned, some of the bloodstains simply didn’t wash out.

Natalia shrugged and nudged you gently with her shoulder. “You’re not tools, Mashenka. You’re my teachers.”

Her somewhat flippant words and the tones she spoke them in belied the affection behind the nicknames… and the fact that she gave you names in the first place.

Neither you nor the Soldier had anything to say to that.

No weaknesses, you wanted to tell her.

Instead, you sat and watched the sunset with Natalia and ate your bread.

You stood in the shadows at the foot of Natalia’s bed. She knew you were there, of course. You never really hid from her anymore unless you were trying to test her.

Natalia had passed every test you’d ever given her, though. Her body and mind were deadly weapons and woe to anyone who tried to stop her.

She glanced up at you from the spot on her bed, hands not pausing in their task of sharpening her collection of blades.

“Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but you’re not usually one to hover, Mashenka,” Natalia said quietly. Her voice cut sharply through the sound of stone against steel. She held the dagger up critically, looking for any signs of burred edges.

“I’ve told you not to sharpen your tools on your bed. You’ll end up with metal shards in your skin while you sleep,” you said dispassionately. She passed every test yet still practiced stupid habits like this one. It infuriated you.

She seemed to ignore the admonishment, though, and continued working. “I doubt you came here just to tell me that.”

No, it wasn’t everything you wanted to say. Try as you might, however, you couldn’t form the thoughts, much less the words. Every time you tried they slipped away. “You’re graduating soon.”

Natalia nodded and set one of the daggers aside, apparently satisfied with its deadliness, and picked up another. “The headmistress says I’m the most promising student she’s ever seen.” Without looking up, she added, “Probably because you and Yashenka trained me.”

You shook your head. “I trained all of the other candidates, too. It is only you that has survived to make it to this day. You are special.”

Natalia looked up at you then, her eyes cold and searching in the way that told you she was on guard and confused. It was only because of the amount of time you spent with her over the years that you spotted the scared little girl underneath. “... You shouldn’t say things like that, Mashenka,” she whispered so quietly you could barely hear it. You knew any hidden microphones wouldn’t pick up her words, not over the sound of her sharpening her blades.

She was right, of course. She was smart enough to figure out what the chair in that small room behind that steel door was for. She knew what happened when you didn’t listen to the handlers or voiced opinions of your own.

Which is why it was absolute madness that you kept talking. The moment of clarity cut through the haze of your foggy, damaged mind like one of Natalia’s knives. “Run away, Tashenka. Run. While you still can. Don’t let them touch you.”

The microphones would hear you.

They’d come for you.

You had minutes at best.

Seconds at worst.

Natalia stared at you, wide-eyed. You could tell she was looking for the hidden test in your words.

You surged forward and clasped your hands to her shoulders, ignoring the blade that she pressed lightning-fast to your neck. It bit lightly into your skin, but you barely felt it.

“Please, Natalia. Escape. Do what I cannot. You will regret staying. You will see them for what they are. Run. Please!” you pleaded, voice strangled. You could tell you were scaring her. It was the first time you’d used her name to her face. This madness could kill her by association, too, and she knew it.

She was eighteen, but still a kid. So, so young.

So much blood already on her hands.

It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t deserve it.

You could tell by the look in her eyes, though, that you hadn’t reached her. Even as she relaxed and nodded, you knew her too well for her tricks to work. You shook your head quickly, a litany of protests leaving your lips. “No, no, no, listen! you have to-”

“It’s alright, Mashenka. I understand. We can escape together. Let’s go now,” she said, removing the dagger from your neck and placing it safely in her boot.

“No, Natalia! I know what you’re doing! It won’t-” you pushed away from her, but she pounced on you, obviously trying to restrain you.

“Guards! In here! The Asset is having a break!” she yelled, voice cold and detached.

You were able to fight and keep her from getting a pin on you, but unlike Natalia you weren’t going for a disable. You didn’t want to hurt her. She needed to escape. Escape before-

Natalia’s door banged inwards and in streamed a small horde of heavily armed guards. They narrowly avoided your and Natalia’s punches and kicks and all it took was Natalia distracting you for a split second to let a guard to get a clean shot with the needle.

It plunged deep into the meat of your thigh and even as you pulled the empty syringe out you started to feel its effects. It was working too quickly. This was for the other Soldier.

“You stupid fucks gave me the wrong-”

The room faded to black around the edges.

You were unconscious before you hit the floor.

Natalia’s POV

She stared hollowly at your prone form on the cold medical table. Thick insulated metal clasps restrained your arms and legs. They’d even taken the liberty to bind your head down with a leather strap.

More tubes than Natalia wanted to bother counting were shoved in your arms. Some were red, some clear, and she subconsciously took note of what was what.

Between that and the conversation the scientists hadn’t bothered hiding, Natalia knew what was happening.

Yashenka’s serum was too unstable to duplicate, but yours wasn’t. They were taking nearly endless blood samples in an attempt to recreate it. Brute force science, but it was yielding results if the scientist’s exclamations were to be believed.

She knew she’d receive a dose when she graduated. Prolonged youth and enhanced reflexes. Even the scientists weren’t exactly sure what the full effects were, but 70 years of results were hard to argue with. Once they were reasonably sure the mental issues weren’t attached to the serum, they’d begun tests immediately in an attempt to recreate it.

“017.”

Natalia turned her attention from your unconscious form to the headmistress, who’d aged over the years, but still managed to do her hair the same way every day; a tight bun without a single hair out of place. The only difference now was the streak of grey through the dirty blond locks.

“Headmistress?” Natalia asked, voice and posture calm as ever.

“The scientists had a breakthrough. We’re going ahead with your surgery as soon as possible. Report to medical for your orders.”

Natalia bowed deeply. “By your leave, headmistress.” She could feel the woman’s beady eyes on her as she walked away, but Natalia’s mind was still back in her room less than forty-eight hours ago.

Your frantic face, full of more emotion than Natalia had ever seen. Your slightly-glowing eyes nearly brimming over with tears you didn’t notice. Your clammy hands as they grasped her shoulders.

You didn’t follow your own advice.

“No weaknesses, Mashenka,” Natalia promised, voice cold. She would be unbreakable. Not even her Yashenka and Mashenka would sway her heart.

Even though-

Natalia bit down on her tongue so hard it nearly drew blood.

She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before walking through the medical room’s doors. A small team of scientists and doctors were waiting for her, already prepared for surgery. Natalia was thankful they’d told her to start getting ready yesterday. She wanted to get this over as quickly as possible so she could begin serving the Motherland.

“Good morning, 017. Congratulations on making it to the last phase of the Black Widow Ops Program. Lie down on the table and we’ll begin at once.”

2009 - Outside of Odessa, Ukraine

It was mind-boggling how much Natasha’s life had changed in just the last seven years. She went from being one of the most feared [brainwashed] Russian spies in the world to an attack dog for an organization based out of the United States.

At least she was doing good now.

Said organization- SHIELD, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division- was the reason why she was in ass-end of nowhere. Well, not nowhere. Half hour outside of Odessa. But it may as well have been the ass-end of nowhere. Backup was at least a half hour away and if the people she thought were following her actually were, she’d be long dead by the time it arrived.

Natasha managed to kick the door of the upturned vehicle open, tried her best to ignore the blood dripping down her forehead and into her right eye, and clambered out. 

When had this whole thing gone down the shitter? Natasha tried to piece together the moments before the crash.

Only one car, less conspicuous than a convoy. She was the best of the best at SHIELD, so backup shouldn’t have been needed. The escort mission was top secret and only Level 8s and above knew about it beside Natasha and Clint.

Country road. Little traffic. Made it easy to spot bogeys.

Pursuers out of nowhere, two motorbikes. One male, one female.

Too fast to escape.

Run off the road. Down a cliff.

Robot-like coordination. Flashes of silver and red.

Natasha was on high alert. She instantly drew her pistols, scanning the trees and the cliff above, somewhat blinded by the sun. It was purposeful, she was sure. If this was them, they never did anything without reason.

The glint of sun off a metal drew her attention and she aimed her pistols and fired without a second thought. The nuclear scientist she was protecting- a man by the name of Doctor Dean Shen- flinched and ran behind her, spooked by the fire. She was used to the lab coats running from gunfire. He was safer behind her anyway.

The figure on the ridge moved quickly, too quickly, before Natasha had even pulled the trigger. By the time the bullets reached where the shadow had been, the figure was already twenty feet away.

Natasha cursed and followed it with her line of fire.

If she had any doubts, they were quickly cast aside.

Mashenka.

Your silver and red legs glinted menacingly. The fire from the jets in your heels were two bright spots in the shade of the trees you were weaving through.

The report of a rifle rang out in the valley, but the noise barely registered because the bullet had already torn through her stomach, near her left hip.

Yashenka.

She hadn’t kept track of him. Rookie mistake. She knew how they worked. She should have known better.

The sound of something heavy dropping to the ground drew her attention and she nearly cursed when she saw Shen’s lifeless body slumped in the dirt, a bullet hole perfectly between the man’s eyes.

She clutched at the gaping hole in her stomach with one hand and held a pistol up determinedly with the other. She was trying her best to stay conscious. She wouldn’t let herself become prone, not with two ruthless predators circling her, the scent of blood in the air.

A flash on the ridge caught her attention and she pivoted and fired shots straight towards the movement. The sound of bullets meeting metal echoed through the canyon, the sound high and grating on her ears. With her pistol empty, she raised her hand to block out the worst of the sun.

You stood on the ridge, the bright sun blocking Natasha from seeing any details.

But she knew exactly what she’d see if she could. Light blue eyes, dark brown hair, metal arm. Intricate circuitry inlaid in skin, two deadly metal legs, eye ringed by glowing lights. So familiar she can almost imagine them on the almost shapeless figures on the ridge.

The two of you stood side by side, staring down at her from your perches at the edge of the rocky crevasse. Natasha could just make out a huge rifle strapped to the back of Yashenka.

She would not cower. If she went out it would be face to face with her attackers, with her trainers, the people who loved her before she knew what love was.

She closed her eyes, tilted her chin up defiantly, and waited, regret tingeing her thoughts. She’d hoped she’d find you two one day. Get you out. Put a bullet between your skulls if it meant you wouldn’t suffer anymore. Anything.

But you’d found her first. There were worse ways to go. Yashenka would make it painless. Single bullet to the brain pan.

The bullet never came, though. After a few seconds Natasha opened her eyes, squinting against the sunset.

Where you’d been a moment before was now empty space. Not even the sound of motorcycles heralded your departure.

Natasha collapsed to the ground, heart beating fast and breathing labored.

She hadn’t been your mission. You never left your missions unfinished. Whoever was using the two of you now hadn’t thought to tell you to eliminate witnesses. It was pure luck that she was alive right now.

“Tasha! Tasha? Report, damnit!”

Natasha groaned and used the last of her energy to clamber over to the upside down car and grab the SHIELD communication device out of the glove box.

“I’m here, Clint,” she said quietly.

“Report! You called for backup! What’s the situation?” he asked frantically.

“Run off the road by hostiles. Survived the crash, but they got my ward anyway. Shen is dead.”

“Shit,” Clint swore. Natasha could practically see him pacing in the rafters. “Are you hit?”

“Affirmative. Extraction would be ideal before I bleed out,” Natasha said dryly.

“Understood. Medical’s on its way along with the backup you requested. Did you identify your attackers?” Clint asked, obviously talking to other agents while on the phone with Natasha.

Natasha blew out a long breath of air, wincing as her stomach clenched painfully. Damn, that was a lot of blood. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“Just tell me, Tasha. I’m a big boy. I can handle it,” Clint argued.

“The Winter Soldiers.”

A pause, then, “Well, fuck.”

2014 - Washington D.C., United States of America

“молниеносный. Поезд. В поле зрения. Сорок один. Предсказать. путешествие. Боль. Три. защищать. империя.” Lightning. Train. Insight. Forty-one. Predict. Voyage. Pain. Three. Defend. Empire.

“Soldier?”

You stared up at him, eyes cold and brain barely functioning. “Ready to comply.”

The man with the little red book nodded. He spoke Russian with a slight accent, but the words were still quite clear. “You understand English, yes?” he asked.

You nodded and he smiled, although it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Good, that makes my life much easier. I fear my Russian is a little rusty. If you’ll be patient I think we-”

“Secretary Pierce, the other one is awake, too,” said a nervous-looking agent from the doorway. Nervousness was normal around you and the other Soldier, so you weren’t worried about the reaction.

“Good, good. Send him in. I’ll only have to give the orders once this way,” the man- Pierce- said, giving that same smile that reminded you dully of a snake.

The other Soldier was dragged in a moment later, held between two of the biggest guards you’d seen so far. You knew you’d have to be moved that way too if it came to it. The freeze hadn’t worn off yet. They practically threw him into a chair beside you and it groaned under the strain but managed to stay upright and in one piece.

“Your mission: Assassination. I know you’re used to working in the shadows, but this mission calls for the target’s immediate death. You’ll be given whatever you need, don’t worry about witnesses. Kill anyone who gets in your way, but he is your only target.”

He held a picture up and your eyes scanned the file beside it.

Fury, Nicholas J.

“Level 6 target. I want confirmation of death within ten hours of cryofreeze fatigue wearing off. He’ll be well guarded. Your best bet is to kill him when he’s traveling, but I’ll leave that for you to determine. You two are, after all, the ones with the experience here.” He set the file down on the small table in front of you and stood. “Understood?”

“Mission orders received,” the two of you responded in unison.

He smiled that dangerous smile again. “Good. I eagerly await confirmation of his death.”

He turned and left the room without another word, leaving you and the other Soldier alone with a small guard. Little boxes lined the wall and a large circular door easily clued you in to where they were keeping you: a bank vault. It was a good choice. You and the other Soldier were dangerous. It made sense to keep you somewhere safe that also had the ability to keep you contained.

An hour later you were suited and booted, both of you armed to the teeth. They spared no expense, it seemed. A mask hid the bottom half of your faces and goggles protected your eyes. They may not care about witnesses seeing you, but they seemed determined that they not be able to identify you. Even your legs and his arm were covered.

Wordlessly, you and the other Soldier left the depths of the bank, both of you wary at the sunlight and hordes of people on the street. The comms in your ears chattered incessantly about the status of your target.

You glanced to the other Soldier who turned to you as if out of reflex. You shared an almost imperceptible nod and slipped into the shadows.

End of Book Two of Winter’s War, Ghosts of War.

Book Three, War of Attrition: Chapter 1

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[veryangryhedgehog]

“Mike Miller’s Second Day”, an Ede Valley story by Hedgehog.

Mike Miller’s second day at St. Adelaide’s School for Gifted Youth opened rather abruptly at approximately 3:30 in the morning. Gradually, a series of bumps and scraping noises jostled him awake. Not that he’d been really that asleep anyway, strange bed and all. Was someone trying to break in? If so, they were being awfully loud about it.

After a minute he rolled out of the small bed, and approached the door. Mike didn’t have anything to defend himself, but he played soccer. He could just kick them. That’s how it worked, right? To his still half-asleep mind, anything was possible.

Mike opened the door an inch and peeked outside. There was someone in the room, fumbling with Doug’s door. He almost went in to tackle the intruder, but as his eyes adjusted to the dark he caught the faint glow of white hair. It was Doug who was trying to break into Doug’s room. Wait. That wasn’t right. Mike blinked, trying to wake himself up more.

“...and herd. Seems to make it all just a little bit...” Doug mumbled to himself, fumbling with his key.

“Doug?” Mike asked, opening his door a little more.

Doug turned slowly, the mere quarter revolution almost seeming to make him dizzy. He blinked several times. “Oh, hey Mike,” his words slurred a little. “I... forgot you were here.”

Frowning, Mike took a step towards his roommate. “Dude, are you high?”

“What?” Doug leaned back dramatically, and almost fell over. “No, no. nononono. I’ve just had a rather... shocking evening.” He paused, as if he had just now processed the words that had come out of his mouth. “‘Shocking evening,’ that’s a good one.”

“Are you... sure you’re okay?” Mike asked. He certainly didn’t look okay.

“Oh, yeah.” Doug nodded lazily as he finally managed to get his key into the hole on the doorknob. “‘S nothing I ain’t used to.” The door opened, and Doug almost fell into the room. “Good night.”

Mike bit his lip as Doug’s door closed again. That, to say the least, was weird. He hadn’t really seemed drunk or high. That was... something else. But he shook himself. What Doug got up to was really none of Mike’s business. He was older than him anyway. Mike was concerned, but there was nothing he could do about it right now at 3:30 in the morning. He went back into his room, plopped down on the tiny, hard bed, and tried to go back to sleep.

He maybe got another hour or so of shut-eye before his alarm woke him at seven. Mike had never been able to sleep well in new places, but knowing this didn’t make getting up any easier. Breakfast wasn’t until eight, but Mike wanted to give himself extra time to make sure he wasn’t late. He didn’t need it, because fifteen minutes later, Mike found himself all ready with a lot of time to kill. Eventually he decided to take a walk in order to shake off the weirdness of this morning.

Briefly, Mike considered asking Doug to go with him, but he found his door shut with the light off. He decided that it would probably be best to let him work off whatever he was on earlier. So he passed by Doug’s room and went out into the hallway.

It was cloudy and dark out, he could tell right away from the lack of light in the common room ahead of him. What lovely weather for his first day of class. The common room seemed devoid of life, at least to the point when he reached the stairs. Just then, Jilli unpeeled herself from the shadows in the corner and smiled, waving.

“Good morning, Mi-kun,” her grin widened as an exasperated look crossed Mike’s face. “You’re up early.”

“I don’t sleep well in new places,” he said, a little lamely. “I could say the same for you.”

“I don’t sleep well period.” She laughed, a little bitterly. “Comes from years of 5AM rehearsals, I guess.”

Mike’s eyes widened. “Were they really that early? I mean, I’ve heard some stuff about the idol industry, but that just seems too crazy.”

“No, it’s true. When you’re an idol, you have to live and breathe your work,” she explained. “You start to feel like a singing robot, or a certain voice synthesizer.” They both chuckled a little at that. “And sometimes it gets a little... claustrophobic.”

“How so?”

“Well, the managers and agents can be a little overbearing,” Jilli made a strange face. “Our image is controlled even more so than a lot of pop singers over here. We can’t even have boyfriends. Of course, most of us did anyway, but the pressure and paranoia tend to get to you after a while. I remember a lot of girls having really nasty breakups when their managers found out, or when they couldn’t take the secrecy anymore.”

Shaking his head, Mike’s eyebrows knitted together. “Jeez,” he said. “Sounds really depressing.”

“It is,” she admitted. “But you know, I do really miss it. The singing, I mean, and the performance. I was just about to graduate before my, uh, incident. If I’d been able to hang in just a little longer, I might have been able to become a solo artist.”

“You still could.” Mike smiled. “I haven’t heard you sing, but I’m sure a lot of people would want to hear it.”

Jilli laughed, though there was a hint of sadness behind it. “You’re a sweet kid, Mi-kun,” she patted him on the head. “But, enough about me. It’s almost time for breakfast. Have you seen Doug?” She noticed Mike’s sudden frown immediately.

“He was... out really late last night and, uh, came in a little messed up,” Mike confessed. “I thought it was probably best to just leave him alone.”

“Good call,” Jilli nodded. “It was most likely one of his sessions.”

“Sessions?”

She grimaced. “Yeah, there’s an on-site staff of psychiatrists here.” She paused momentarily as Mike’s face twisted in confusion. “Rich kid school,” was the only explanation she needed to give. “Only the best for our screwy little brains.”

But Mike was still concerned. “So, Doug...”

“I mean, he’s Doug,” she shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never noticed anything explicitly ‘wrong’ with him. But who knows. All I know is that every once in a while, those creepy people in white lab coats come to take him away, and he comes back all fucked up. He’s always back to his annoying self soon enough though.” Jilli tried to appear nonplussed, but Mike could tell that she was worried.

“What can we do to help?”

“Pff, hell if I know,” she said with a hint of frustration. “He never talks about it. Believe me, we’ve all asked. Victor, Sonia, you name it, not a word.” Jilli shook her head. “But if he really needs help, he’ll come to us. Anyway, should we get going? Sometimes they give out donuts to the early kids.”

Unfortunately, there were no donuts on this particular morning, just a large, drab room with many tables of assorted sizes scattered around its area. Metal beams stretched across the high ceiling, casting unnatural half-shadows on the tile floor. The cafeteria was about a third of the way full of students milling about or eating an early breakfast.

From somewhere in the quiet crowd, Sonia stood and waved to the two of them, and Mike followed Jilli over to a round table in a small, out of the way corner. “Good morning, Jilli, Mike,” Sonia beamed. “Is beautiful day, da?” Ah, so that’s where the sun went. Sonia had stolen it all from the sky.

“Beautiful?” Mike glanced out the long, thin windows to the vaguely miserable skyline. “I don’t know about that, but whatever you...” He broke off as he turned back to see that Sonia was no longer looking at him. Instead, her gaze was drifting away towards an empty corner, her eyes glassy, as if trying to see something she couldn’t quite make out. “Uh, Sonia? Are you—?”

“It’s alright, she does that sometimes.” Jilli waved it off. “We told you about it yesterday, didn’t we?”

Mike nodded, remembering. “That’s right, you did. Is she gonna be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” rumbled a deep voice as Gil came up behind them. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Sonia?” He whispered, and her eyes fluttered a bit as she focused again.

“Oh, Gil,” she smiled again. “Good morning. I apologize,” Sonia bowed her head towards Mike and Jilli. “I was just, uh...” she looked confused herself. “Never mind.”

“Clearly, it was a spirit attempting to contact you from beyond the mortal realm.” Gil said sagely, placing himself in the chair next to her with that smooth, nearly catlike way which he did most things. “You must remember that you are most sensitive to these things, my lady. I will do some research in my Tomes of Knowledge and we shall see if we can communicate with it.”

“You really think it’s possible?” Sonia’s eyes widened. “Ooo, I can’t wait! I am wondering what kind of spirit it is? Perhaps a Viking! Great warrior with magic sword!”

Gil nodded. “Indeed. The possibilities are endless.”

Mike couldn’t help noticing how his smile fell half an inch, but at that moment, Jilli turned to him, raising an eyebrow, and they laughed silently as Gil and Sonia kept up their dialogue.

One by one, they went to get breakfast, and Mike couldn’t help noticing the gathering of faceless men and women in lab coats that were surrounding the perimeter of the room. They must have been the psychiatrists that Jilli was talking about. By the time the cafeteria was mostly full, there must have been a good ten to fifteen of them. Mike didn’t like it; they gave him the heebie-jeebies. But none of the others seemed particularly disturbed by their presence, so he tried to ignore the growing feeling of unease in his gut.

Just as Jilli got back to the table with a plateful of fruit and waffles, one of the psychiatrists moved to the platform on the far side of the room. The students quickly fell silent, so much so that you could have heard a pin drop. “And now,” the psychiatrist said, “a word from the Director.”

There was a crackle, and a burst of static that reverberated around the room. Mike looked up to follow the noise, and saw for the first time the speakers perched in the upper corners of the room. A strange noise came through suddenly, like someone clearing their throat, but he couldn’t quite tell because it sounded so distorted.

“Good morning, students. The new semester is here at last.” The voice boomed across the room, altered by static and modulation, but decidedly female. Probably something about its tone and inflections, Mike decided. “To those now joining us, welcome to St. Adelaide’s. To those old faces, welcome back to your home away from home.”

Jilli scoffed, and even Gil rolled his eyes. Sonia, on the other hand, had zoned out again.

Mike didn’t like this. The voice sounded pleasant enough, but there was something about it, something Mike couldn’t quite put his finger on. There were shivers running up and down his spine.

“Remember that you are all the most gifted students in the country, possibly the world, and we look to you all as the hope of the future. And it anyone has any concerns, questions, or snide remarks, feel free to talk to the friendly men and women in lab coats. They are here to help.”

The Director continued on for a few minutes, mentioning a few other events and announcements relevant to the student body at large, before finally wrapping up her address. “Thank you as always for your patience,” she said, “and enjoy your first day of the new semester.”

With another small crackle, the speakers fell silent, and gradually the students began to converse once more. “Well,” Mike muttered, “that wasn’t ominous at all.”

Jilli and Sonia both began to laugh. “Do not worry,” Sonia reassured him. “You will become used to it after a while.”

“I’m not sure I want to.” He frowned. “It all seems a little ‘Big Brother’ to me.”

“What sort of daemonic older brother do you have?” Gil asked, looking horrified.

Jilli sighed. “1984, Gil.”

He blinked. “Ah, yes. Of course. My apologies.”

The four continued talking as they ate breakfast, which if Mike was honest, was not very good. The texture of Aunt Marma’s Totally Genuine Maple Syrup™ stuck to the roof of his mouth. Finally, Jilli looked up at the clock and saw the time.

“Well,” she stretched, “first period begins soon. What’ve you got, Mike?”

“Uh...” he pulled out the slightly crumpled piece of paper from his pocket which had his schedule. “Ugh, Algebra II.”

“What instructor have you been assigned to?” Gil asked.

“Vantas,” Mike added after looking back at the paper.

Gil nodded, a determined expression settling into his pale features. “Then this is a battle we share, my friend. If you would have it, I would accompany you to our battlefield.”

As he blinked, Mike wasn’t sure he’d gotten a word of that. “Uh...”

“He has the same class,” Sonia translated. “He wants to know if you want to walk there together.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Gil bowed his head as he took her hand. “That was my question exactly.”

“Oh, um, sure! Thanks.”

Jilli stood, grabbing her trey. “Well, Sonia and I are off to choir, see you losers later.” She waved. “Oh, and Mike, tell Doug hi for me if you see him, yeah?”

“Will do,” he nodded, standing as well.

“You coming, Sonia?”

“I will catch up with you in few,” she smiled, before beginning to zone out again.

Gil’s gaze seemed to linger on her for a moment before he shook himself. “Come, young apprentice,” he said to Mike, his coat swishing dramatically as he began to walk. “The battle of mathematics awaits us.”

Mike would have probably gotten lost in the crowd had it not been for the fact that Gil stood out like a sore thumb. Students seemed to give him space wherever he walked. He didn’t seem to mind. Gradually, as the crowd broke away into the various directions of their classes, Mike was able to hear himself think again. Gil was silent a few steps ahead of him, seemingly lost in thought. Mike wondered just what went on in his head. He seemed like a really smart guy, so why did he persist in his delusions? Did he honestly believe that he was a warlock with infinite power? Or was there some other reason? Mike didn’t think he had the guts to outright ask him.

“So, Sonia,” he asked instead. That was what guys talked about, right? “Are you two—?”

“Our love transcends time and space,” he intoned. “I have loved her for four-thousand years, and I will love her for four-thousand more.”

“So, it’s complicated, huh?” Mike didn’t know what to say to this guy. He felt like he was stuck in the middle of a role-playing game with method actors.

There was almost no one in the hallway anymore, and Mike was sure he’d seen that motivational cat poster just a second ago. This place was like a maze. “Hey Gil,” he asked. “Are you sure we’re going the right...?”

Gil looked to the left and the right, then abruptly turned on his heel to face Mike. “A warning for you, Michael Miller.” His golden eye almost seemed to freeze Mike in place. “Your wariness of this place is not unwarranted. Don’t ignore your intuition. It may just save your life.” He wasn’t joking. “There are forces at work in this school that will attempt to pull your very being apart. I’ve been affected by it, Sonia, that ignoramus you call a roommate, all of us have. If I were you, I’d watch where you step.” It was not a threat, more like a warning. Gil seemed genuinely worried. And for a moment, Mike thought that he might actually understand what he was trying to say.

But the second passed as quickly as it came, and Gild grinned knowingly once more. “Now, on to slay this dragon built of overly complicated equations.” He started walking again, laughing manically, and after hesitating for a moment, Mike followed him.

Needless to say, he didn’t pay any attention during class that day as teachers handed out syllabi and repeated the same information over and over until Mike thought he’d never forget that three absences equaled a tardy. But he had too many questions running through his mind to care about any of that. He had had this lingering feeling that something was strange here, off even, except that everyone around him seemed so used to it that he thought he might be the weird one. “Don’t ignore your intuition,” Gill had told him.

But wait, why was he listening to Gil? He was delusional! It was probably just one of his wizard roleplaying things again. Yet something about what he’d said, the look in his eyes, the sincerity of his words. Gil had known what he was talking about. That hadn’t been some sort of weird fantasy metaphor, Mike could somehow tell. He was right, something was wrong here, Mike could feel it. And he thought the others could too, even if they didn’t talk about it.

There were so many mysteries, so many questions left unanswered. Mike decided to make a list. That would help him organize his thoughts.

1). Who was the Director? Yes, she was a crazy, modulated voice over a speaker system, but why? Why bother hiding her face and voice from the student body? It certainly made her intimidating and slightly creepy, but wasn’t enough of a reason by itself.

2). The psychiatrists. He didn’t know of any other school that needed ten of them. And the explanation of “rich kid school” simply didn’t cut it. To be honest, they seemed more like a security force than a group of doctors.

3). Why was everyone here so weird? Not just in their personalities, though the school was nearly stranger than a superhero’s rogue’s gallery in that respect. But more so in the way everyone seemed so nonplussed about all of these other questions Mike had. They didn’t care about the psychiatrists, or the Director, or the other host of strange things. Or maybe they were just really good at hiding it. And finally,

4). Doug. What the hell were they doing to him in his “sessions” that made him act like that? He’d hardly been able to walk properly. In addition, though he hadn’t really known him for that long, it seemed entirely out of Doug’s character to not talk to anybody about it. Most importantly, why was everyone not harassing him about it non-stop until he gave in and told them what was going on? That was the only way that they could help him, after all.

Maybe these questions wouldn’t be so confusing after he’d been here for a few months, but to be honest, he didn’t want to become numb to the strangeness like everyone else. He couldn’t handle not knowing these things. And if no one was going to help him, then he guessed that he’d just have to find the answers himself.

Of all the questions he had, one stuck out as the easiest to answer: Doug. He also had the distinct feeling that if he answered this one question, then all the others would begin to fall into place. Like dominos.

The rest of the day passed slower than paint drying, all of the thoughts and confusion cycling through his mind every time he saw a lab coat pass, especially whenever the students turned away from them. Finally, classes were done for the day, the final bell rang, and according to his schedule there was an hour before dinner. So Mike headed back across the snowy path to the dorm. Maybe Doug would be feeling better by now. Either way he needed to drop off his backpack, which was as good an excuse as any.

The light was on in the room, Mike could see it in the wide gap in the bottom of the door from the end of the hallway. At the very least, Doug was up. Mike didn’t know if he had known him for long enough to just knock on his door, but he ended up being lucky. When he pushed open the heavy door, Mike turned to see Doug at the bathroom mirror, trying in vain to smooth down his hair. He hadn’t noticed this morning in the dark, but now Mike saw that Doug’s hair was now even more static-y and gravity-defying than it had been yesterday. His sweatshirt sleeves were pulled up to prevent them getting wet, and Mike couldn’t help noticing a strange, metallic bracelet on his right wrist as it caught the bathroom light.

“Oh, hey Mike,” Doug grinned lazily as he saw him though the mirror. His speech was still a little slow, but he seemed much more normal now. Or at least, normal for Doug anyway. “How was your first day of class? Want to jump off a bridge yet?”

He didn’t even know, but Mike decided not to open that can of worms just yet. Maybe just peek inside the lid. “Almost,” he nodded instead. “Maybe give it another day.” Alright, now was the time. “Hey, so what happened last night? You were in really late.”

Doug paused for a second, before rolling his sleeves back down and turning to properly face Mike. “I’m sure the others told you about my ‘sessions’ right? Jilli, I’m guessing.”

“Two for two.” Mike nodded.

Sighing, Doug shook his head. “Listen,” he began, “the last guy I told even a little about what really goes on in this place, he disappeared. Just gone from the dorm one day and never came back. I don’t want that to happen to you, or any of the others. The only reason I’m even telling you this much is because I know you’ll just keep asking about it if I don’t. You’re that kinda guy, right?”

Mike looked down sheepishly. There went his whole plan down the toilet. “That makes three. But if you tell us, maybe we can help you.”

Much to his surprise, Doug started laughing. Whatever the joke was, Mike didn’t get it. “Your optimism is admirable,” Doug admitted. “But in this case, optimism alone won’t cut it. If I tell you not to go asking questions you’ll probably just do it anyway, so I’ll say this instead: keep your head down, Mike. That’s the only way you’ll get out of this place alive.”

He began to scoot past him towards the door. “Now, I hear that Jilli and the nerds are playing a rousing game of Dungeons and Dragons. So I’m gonna go crash it. If you want to come along, first one in gets to make the wizard cry.”

As he watched Doug wheel himself out of the room, Mike hesitated. That was the second vague warning he’d received today, and Mike wasn’t sure whose advice to follow. Doug told him to keep his head down, but Gil had told him to trust his intuition, which in turn was telling him to start asking questions and solving mysteries.

As much as Doug warned him against it, Mike really wanted to help him, and part of him couldn’t ignore the weirdness of this place. So, okay, he guessed he’d step carefully, but that didn’t mean he had to stop asking questions.

“Yeah,” he grinned at Doug, who was waiting in the doorway. “Let’s do it. I’ve always wanted to make a paladin fall.”

[mysticmoneyhoney]

Mystic Messenger Heist!AU Ch3

=================================

A month later

=================================

"You need to get lost soon." The static in the ear piece the red head wore distracted him from typing. "They're going to find and kill you, and we won't have what we need!" The voice was urgent this time finally warranting a response.

"Don't worry! Hacker supreme 7-0-7, is almost done!" The cheery and confident voice suddenly dropped in a dangerous tone. "So stop bothering me." Going back to his computer and watching the data download fromt he large computer onto his laptop. His glasses reflected the screens in the dark office. He glanced out the window to the large warehouse the office looked over. It seemed to be an endless supply of boxes. Boxes full of illegal guns, drugs, and possibly counterfeit money. Seeing light slowly enter the warehouse, the great hacker knew he needed to speed up the process. But there was no speeding up file transfers. They always went at their own pace.

Moving low to the ground, he gently set a can next to the door and crawled back to the computer to check the file status.

67%. Oh come on.

Seven could hear shouts from below now. They must have figured something was amiss when the lights weren't turning on. "Come on baby. Today please." He was going to have to jump. He raised a figure and gently felt the glass, giving small gentle taps to the window. Not bullet proof. Glancing over to the laptop he hoped it was just about done.

74%

"Fuckin' piece of-" He grumbled under his breath and made sure to start packing up anything that wasn't necessary for the transfer into a aluminum case. He was going to have to use this to smash the window. Slipping a small device in his pocket he glanced out the window. It looked like 4 men with guns were marching up the stairs towards the office. Leaving 3 on the ground. Tsk. The chances of not getting shot dwindling very very quickly. Hopefully they weren't good shots.

82%

Part of him wanted to reach out and shake the computer. Knowing fully well it wouldn't help at all. But it surely would make him feel better. They were getting too close for true comfort. He was going to have to make a jump. He gently set the laptop into the briefcase, still open as it downloaded the files.

96%

Someone attempted to open the door, as if it would be unlocked. The door handle gave a few shakes before it grew silent. Then a loud bang, then another, and another, someone was trying to kick it down.

98%

The kicking stopped shortly after. There were low murmurs filed the tense silence that was filling Seven's ears. There was a click, and rapid fire that hit the door handle, leaving the door to swing open.

100% "All done meow~!"

As the computer chimed, seven closed the briefcase and stood up. As the men rushed in, he slid his hand into his pocket, and turned away from them. Bright flashes of light and sound erupted from the small can near the door. Reaching his arm back he slammed the briefcase against the window. The weight of which was suppose to carry him forward through the glass, but his arm gave a jerk as the case bounced back spinning him around.

"What?!" Another hit to the window and it didn't shatter. It wasn't bullet proof why?! Oh lord in heaven. Why do you place so many trials upon this poor sinner. Freezing in place Seven tried to formulate a plan. If they hit him in the chest and legs he'd be okay. The bullet proof vest would work and he could power through a leg/arm shot. But his head.... Maybe they'd shoot chest first, inspect and he could hijack a gun.

The flashes had finished not long after starting and the men were gaining vision back. The leader already had a gun fixed upon Seven. The chest is where the gun was aiming but no bullet escaped. "You snooped too long." The gruff voice mocked the red haired man.

"I did. You were a lot faster than I had expected. Silly me." Seven gave a little grin and held onto the briefcase tightly with one hand and raised one hand in a defenseless motion to show he wasn't holding a weapon. "Do I get to be a prisoner and tortured?" With torture there was possibilities of escape. Death, not so much.

"No. We will kill you. Take briefcase, and send your balls back to your boss as warning." The gun raised. His neck? They wanted to watch him choke on his own blood before dying. How brutal. Seven hissed in disappointment. "What a shame." He stared down his attacker, waiting for the trigger pull.

A shot rang out, blood splashing onto Seven's face. The searing hot flames of pain erupting in his mind. Before calmly fading into a strong stinging sensation. Seven watched the body of the man in front fall to the ground before 3 other shots rang out. Reaching a hand up he felt the grazed shot along his cheek. "Had they missed him and then tried to cover up??" Looking towards the window four holes decorated the window that hadn't been there before.

Hearing another gunshot, Seven tried to pin point the location. He found one of the guards below cautiously walking around, gun raised, before being gunned down with a single shot. That was 6 shots. That meant there was one more guard around the area. Seven made his way over the bodies and out the door, wiping the blood from his cheek off onto his sleeve. Where was the other guard?? He looked around, letting himself get into a small covered area behind some boxes. He should just make a run for it.

"Cutting it a little close Luciel." A voice spoke from above, and for a split second, Seven was certain it was the holy son himself. Watching a leg dangle from above him, before a whole body of a man in the guard uniform drop down in front of him. Sniper rifle strapped onto his shoulder. "Did you even have a plan? What was with that poor window breaking attempt?" The man removed his helmet, letting his white locks flow so free. They gently went back into place, as if the man had never been wearing a helmet.

"Zen you scared the fuck out of me. Why are you here?" Seven held a hand to his chest and tried to calm the sharp pain that was his quickly beating heart. The sniper gave the hacker a pat on the back and escorted him from the building.

"V sent me. He wasn't sure where you were. So I had to do some shit guard duty. Lucky me." A cigarette was already in the man's hands, as he took a long drag. Seven plucked the cig from Zen's hands and tossed it to the ground. "Don't smoke. It'll make me sick. And you'll stink up my baby."

The two men walked down an alley passing various small garage doors before stopping at one 3 away from the end. Seven tapped a card against the keypad that rested on the side of the door frame, opening the door. "So, V is out? Is he okay? Trying to plan a reunion already?" Seven started asking questions as he unlocked the car for the both of them.

Zen placed his sniper rifle and bags in the back of the car before hopping in the passenger seat. Seven placed the briefcase behind his seat before getting into the driver seat and starting the car. "V is out. He says we're back in business. At least for one final heist." Zen made sure his seatbelt was secure, right before the hacker peeled out of the garage and made his way into the open road.

"Why, would V be interested in a new heist? The last one was...." Seven stopped himself feeling the bitter taste on his tongue. He could see in his peripheral view Zen tensing up. The car remained silent for a few moments as both men stopped themselves from getting overly angry.

Zen finally spoke. "Because revenge fuels the best plans." Looking over to Seven, he smirked. "You wanna? Jaehee, Jumin, and myself already said yes. It won't be the same without you."

The red head scoffed. "Won't be the same...You guys couldn't do anything without me. What's the hit?"

Zen chuckled before relaxing in the seat, getting used to the top speeds the vehicle was driving at. "A casino."

"Casino? Does he realize how dangerous, complex, and intricate those systems are?! Not to mention how practically impossible they are to crack!" The car gave a small jerk slightly as Seven drifted the vehicle into a left turn suddenly.

"You can't do it?" The white haired man gripped the seatbelt and the 'Oh Shit' handle, respectably.

"I didn't say I couldn't do it. I said it was practically impossible." The red head adjusted his glasses and smirked. "You know I can make the impossible, possible. It would be quite the feat for a hacker such as myself. My rates would triple."

"Well god. It's Rika's Casino. V wants our money back. So you can get your rates back plus some from the last heist." Zen reached for his pack of cigs, before heaving a sigh remembering the no smoking rule in the car. "You're going to need to connect us again."

Seven shook his head. "No We're going to need to be in close contact. A chatroom would be redundant at this point. I'll make a secure texting/call system. That way it won't be traceable." He gave a few taps on his chin trying to think of how he'd design it. "Where are we all meeting?"

"At mista trust fund's pad." Zen pouted. Not wanting to be subjected to a cat hair filled death trap. Which reminded him he needed to preemptively take some pills.

"Oh~ I'll get to see my Elly." Seven laughed as Zen started to sneeze and whine about how he hated cats and their terrible hair. From then the car ride was silent until seven reached his home. Pulling into his own garage Seven got out and took the briefcase from the back of the car. "Hey, you know what I just thought about?" Seven watched the other male gather his things from the back. Zen gave a small 'hmm' as to signal Seven to continue talking. "What about Yoosung?"