#there are also parts where the white paint has like. flaked away and it’s gray below which i don’t think is helping at all either

[pallases]

about to drop out jfc

[queenburd]

there's a hole where your heart lies (i can see it with my third eye) - 1

A/N: hello. hi. I have this teslaverse/Queenie fic that I've been working on for the better part of two years, possibly longer, and it's just been kind of stuck for a while. but I think about it often, and chapter 1 has been done for a solid minute. I've edited it and re-edited it and it's just. it's sitting here. I wanna show people. so I am posting chapter 1 for now. and if I get more done, then I get more done.

warnings for this fic as a whole...? there's a lot of child trauma, but to get into details would be massive spoilers and I'm going to keep them under wraps. for this chapter? well, there's rather dismissive language about horror victims, and there's an extended horror scene near the end. also, BUGS.

chapter 1

The world's in gray-scale.

The dirty white buildings are tightly clustered, in a courtyard that only barely meets the definition—it's a glorified parking lot, if anything. Dark gray concrete stretches out in all directions, cut through with lightning-bolt cracks that are unevenly colored in with rubbery black filler. A low fog hangs heavy above bare trees and benches with once-white paint that flakes off the dead wood.

There's no wind, but the stagnant air still manages to sting cold, sharp and biting. There's a deadly silence that rings, makes one uncomfortably aware of his own heartbeat and breathing. An abject misery hangs from the sky over the buildings like a thick, suffocating blanket.

In truth, the place seems more like a penitentiary than a children's school.

At the end of the empty lot, from a narrow gap between buildings, comes the grating gravely noise of an object being dragged across the concrete. It approaches steadily in the same way rain drums against the roof of a car; a consistent thrum of rolling, unending noise.

The child crosses the concrete at a steady pace; her wheeled backpack rolls through the silence in a deafening grind that thunders loud like a heartbeat, louder and louder and louder still, until the moment it stops. The silence races back in to fill the gaps, faster than the mind can conceive, leaving a sensation like ears popping under the release of pressure.

The girl and her cargo have stopped. Her eyebrows are furrowed, mouth set in a perplexed frown that turns into an abject, angry scowl.

“You're not supposed to be here.”

Kass snaps upright from the mattress, lungs burning for air. His hand clutches frantically at his chest where his heart pounds away under his skin, viciously trying to escape him. Dib hovers at his elbow, eyes wide and flicking between him and his bed-mate. She's still, chest rising and falling slowly; her breath softly rattles on every exhale. The pads of Kass's fingers press to his aching sternum, massaging at the space to little avail as he tries to catch his breath. His mouth is dry and cottony; he takes the time to swallow and find it in him to speak.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

--

It's been four days since he pulled the van back up into the garage; four days since he gathered up her limp, light body from the cargo hold and carried it into the garage through the back doors. Four days since Dib paced back and forth, crushing a feather that's dangled off his wrist for the better part of two years in his fist, pleading, “I need help, I need help, come on, why isn't it working,” as Kass set her down onto his bed with a terrible gentleness, and set his body into autopilot so that he wouldn't retch.

Four days of fighting the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her awake, while Dib frantically went through his own dark websites trying to figure out what went wrong.

Four days. Four days ago they were sitting next to each other in the van.

--

The streetlights are cutting stark patterns through the dirty windows of the van as it grumbles down the eerily quiet city street. The yellow-orange beams aren't enough for Dib to see his notes for more than a couple seconds before they are gone, then there again, then gone. He grimaces where he sits in the cabin, just behind the driver's seat.

“Do we know anything about the survivors?”

“Survivor, singular. Not much more beyond what I sent you,” comes the terse reply from the driver's seat where Kass white-knuckles the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead. “The little delinquent's comatose, and he's not getting better. Even with the feeding tube, doctors are saying it's getting worse.”

“Some kind of vampire maybe?”

“Definitely parasitic, but nobody's caught anything creeping in and out the place.”

May looks out the window from her place in the passenger seat silently, her shoulders hunched and curled inwards. Dib shifts uncomfortably, catching how the streetlights cut her profile in the window. He watches Kass turn his head towards her, like he's trying to catch her in his peripheral, before something in his jaw tightens and he focuses on the road.

This isn't what Dib was expecting when Kass texted him the previous night, suggesting he assist with a paranormal hunt. When they'd discussed it, there had been no mention of... this, this weird, palpable tension that's settled over the two people in the front seats. He doesn't really know what to do with the suspicion he's likely been invited along to break some of that tension.

He pushes through valiantly. “What about the other kids? I know their condition was, uh, pretty bad, but couldn't get much detail off the news articles.”

“Husks,” Kass says, his tone clipped. “Dried up like they'd been there decades. No bites, no scratches, basically mummies without the wrapping paper.”

“But the articles said they'd been missing--”

“Four days, I know, Einstein. You do realize I read the articles before I sent them to you, right? Why do you think the nasty particulars were kept out of them? The press would have a field day if they knew how the kids looked. It's why all their parents opted for torching. Can't imagine any of them would be interested in open-casket.”

It's crass, which isn't new. Beside Kass, May's fingers curl a little tighter into her sleeves. The van jostles as it pulls off the street into the empty parking lot in front of the deteriorated storefront. It comes to a rough stop that leaves Dib gripping the shoulder of the driver's seat, before the engine dies.

“Right,” Kass says. “Come on.”

They exit the vehicle in relative silence. As he climbs out the back, Dib examines May's face closely. Her eyes won't meet his, a fact he's becoming more and more alarmed by, but before he can try to reach out to her, she's trailing away from the van towards the boarded up storefront without a word. Huffing, he slams the door to the cabin shut and runs to catch up with Kass, who is two steps behind May, hands shoved into his coat pockets.

“I thought you said this place was closed up. It looks in bad shape. Why are the lights on?”

“Whole block is paid for by the city. Since the other storefronts are open, they don't bother trying to get this one shut down. Plus,” Kass says with a grimace, “wiring's at least two decades old. It's all knotted up with the other stores, so taking it out would mean rewiring the whole bloody building. Costs less to just let the bulbs burn out.”

True enough, past the dirty and broken panes at the top of the store windows, the lights inside flicker with irregularity. When they step onto the pavement, Dib can't help how his eyes are drawn to the bright yellow police tape that flutters slightly in the night breeze, stretched in front of the locked sliding doors. “You sure we're not going to have to worry about authorities?” he asks suddenly, uncertain. “Isn't this an active crime scene?”

Ahead of them, May has shifted without looking back and flown up to one of the broken windows to creep in. Kass's gaze follows her, his mouth a firm thin line. “Not anymore. Police can't find evidence of foul play, since they've gotten fuckall from the scene they're trying to retrace the victims' steps. Hell, they can't even pinpoint what day they died because of the condition of the bodies, so they're looking into other avenues.”

“But,” Dib starts, gritting his teeth when the front doors slide open slowly with a grinding noise, the padding bristles rotted and the mechanism complaining from lack of oil. May pushes them to fully widen with a grimace, and tears at the police tape with hardly a thought. “But,” he starts again, “you guys are pretty sure it's supernatural.”

“Like you said. Vampiric tendencies.” Kass steps into the store past May, and pauses there. Dib narrows his eyes, squints at the way Kass's arm lifts, as if to set a hand on one of her shoulders—before it moves up instead to scratch at the back of his head. “Hurry up now.”

Dib huffs again and follows, falling in step with May, who had stayed in the door frame. “Hey,” he says, nudging her shoulder with his to try to catch her eyes. “Thanks for getting the door.”

May finally meets his gaze, offering a crooked little half-smile that slips away far too quickly for his liking. Her brows are creased upward, and in the flickering LED lights he can't help seeing the deep dark shadows under her eyes. “S'what I'm here for.”

“Pfft, no, there's plenty of other ways we could've gotten in, you're here for way more important reasons.” Dib grins. “Somebody's gotta have some sense here. You are the one with the brain cell in the party.”

That prompts a quiet huff of laughter. “Truly, we are doomed.”

“When you two are finished playing out your sitcom,” the short tone snaps from ahead, “come look at this.”

Rolling his eyes, Dib focuses forward again, where Kass has stopped just past the customer service counter near the store entrance. He finds him looking down the expanse of the building with a grimace, and follows Kass's gaze.

“Jeez. This place is worse than the garage was when you were living in it.”

The store may have closed several years ago, but it still hosts plenty of racks and rows and shelves, numerous nooks and crannies covered in dust, grime, cobwebs, and who knows what else. It's big, too, and it only feels bigger from the broken mirrors that line the ends of the clothing racks and hover in every dark corner of the building. It's impossible to see the entirety of the store from the front, the view blocked by the shelving and the supporting pillars, save for the two main walkways down the length of it. Overhead, bugs drift lazily around the inconsistent lights.

“I thought it would be... emptier,” May says from Dib's other side. “I mean, I know the whole chain closed, so they'd have to try to sell the stands and so on, but... I guess they didn't manage.”

Kass taps his index finger against his thigh in irritation. “Bollocks. Right, strategy is going to have to change considering the mess we'll have to sort through. We'll have to be methodical about this.” He turns suddenly, his annoyed squint aimed at May. “You used to work retail. Any suggestions?”

She seems taken aback that he's looking to her, so she stumbles through her words for a few seconds. “Oh, I—um, when—When I worked retail they had us in sections for our shifts. You'd sort of weave through the aisles and shelves in that section to make sure everything was in place. And, you know, to keep an eye out for security devices.” May brings her hand up to her mouth, curling a light fist to press against her lower lip while she thinks. “Oh, and, when going to and coming back from breaks, we'd have to loop the perimeter and go through the aisles there in the same way.”

He nods, clearly thinking while he paces forward a few steps. “So starting at the corner and weaving through to make sure nothing's overlooked. I'll take the front left side and head towards the back. Astro-boy, head to the back right side and move towards the front. Duckie, take the middle racks.”

Dib frowns crookedly. He can see the logic in Kass's strategy, but it's definitely not the safest approach. Beside him, May seems to have similar thoughts.

“I don't know if it's such a good idea to split up, Kass,” she starts, before stepping back as Kass turns to stride towards her.

“What do you suggest, then? If you've any opinions on the subject, please feel free to share with the rest of us.”

Dib's missing something, if the way Kass's words make May's shoulders go right up to her ears is anything to go by. He watches uncomfortably as she visibly steels herself, words tripping through a false start. “I'm not—I'm just saying it's a lot more dangerous that way.”

Kass's voice becomes poisonous saccharine. “How about I go start in the corner, and you come back to me when you decide what you want to do instead, if what I want is clearly so unrealistic.” The humor drops and leaves chilly anger in its wake. “You make up your mind and tell me what you want. If you ever feel like bringing it up.”

“That's not—” she starts, but he has already stepped past her without giving her another glance. Dib watches her forcefully swallow, hands curled into little fists that she presses under her arms, shoulder curling inward. “That's not fair,” she finishes quietly, to nobody in particular.

There's a creeping awkward silence, where neither she nor Dib move. Then, with a small huff, May presses her fist to her mouth again and begins walking with purpose. “C'mon,” she says quietly. “We'll weave the right side together, see about getting things done more efficiently.”

Dib trails after her down the right main walkway towards the back of the store, heels of his boots feeling loud on the filthy concrete tile and broken glass. “Hey,” he says, mostly to her back, “May, slow down, c'mon.”

“What, Dib?” The question is short, terse, but she obliges, lets him alongside her. From here he can see her eyes are still on the floor, her arms still tight bands against her chest. They pass mirror after mirror, and May's profile is distorted in the cracked reflection. It makes him uneasy, how many mirrors there are.

“Are you okay? No, wait, that's a dumb question,” he admonishes himself quickly. “You're not okay, I can see that. But—what's going on between you and Kass? I mean I know it's not my business, we've been over that a million times, but I'm really... you look...”

“Like shit,” she finishes in a deadpan voice. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean I wasn't gonna say that.”

“Yeah, but we both know it's accurate.” May gives a hard sniffle, gritting her teeth like she's angry with herself. “It's—We're. We had a... disagreement. He's angry. He's...”

Dib scowls. “He shouldn't be taking it out on you, whatever the hell it is he did.”

“He didn't—Dib, you can't always...” They reach the back of the main building, and May stops and turns to face him, pinching the space between her brows hard enough to dent the skin with her nails. “He's frustrated, and it's my fault. He's allowed to feel frustrated with me.”

“That doesn't change the fact he's being needlessly mean.”

“Can we please not talk about this anymore?” There's a desperation in her voice, and a threat of her voice cracking. She looks up to the ceiling, where the lights capture the passing silhouettes of winged insects, moths and gnats alike. Her eyes shine as she clearly and valiantly attempts to not cry in front of him. “Can we just do this and, and I'll sort it out myself? Please?”

Dib audibly lets the air out of his nose. “I'll stop bugging you. Here,” he says suddenly, “you take the right side starting from the back. I'll take the left side from the back, and meet up with Kass halfway. We'll start on the middle.”

May's eyes flick from the ceiling to him, the corners lined with resignation. She looks so deeply tired, and below the flickering light the bags under her eyes look stark, the sockets sunken and shadowed.

“You know that I know you just want to pick a fight with him, right.”

“I'm not gonna pick a fight!” he says, unconvincingly defensive.

She sighs and squeezes her eyes shut, clearly frustrated but too worn to pursue the subject. “Fine. Go on. Don't hound him though. I'll meet up with you in a bit.” She doesn't look at him when she turns the corner and walks away from him, her silhouette terribly small besides the tall stands before it disappears from view entirely.

Dib takes a deep breath, and then he goes to the corner. He turns, and he doesn't weave, but beelines for where Kass is about a third of the way through the aisles, crouched by an endcap that faces the wall.

“Thought I told you to go to the other side, Encyclopedia Brown,” the man states without looking up from where he's examining something on a low shelf.

“May's started there. I need to talk to you.”

“No, you don't,” Kass retorts. “You need to turn back round and trot off like a good loyal chihuahua and take your nose right out of my business where it doesn't belong. I know you have eyes, Dib, but according to everyone in your little yes-man group, you also have a brain, so do us the honor of using it for once, and keep your trap shut.”

“Okay but you realize you just brought it up yourself before I could even say anything.”

“I'm well aware we're about the furthest thing from subtle, Columbo, even someone as emotionally constipated as you would pick up on it.”

“Could you stop being an asshole for five minutes?” Dib says utterly exasperated. “I know you don't care about what I think, and I know it's not my business, but May's in bad shape and you have something to do with it. Big shocker, I know, but I have a problem with that!”

Kass finally looks away from the shelf to put his elbow on his knee and press his forehead to his fist with a grimace. “I know, chrissake. I know, Dib.”

His tone is startlingly pained, even fraying with a waver laced through his words. Dib hasn't heard anything akin to it in his life—well, no. That isn't true. It's remarkably reminiscent to an apology offered in a deserted mall to a younger Dib. The stark surprise is enough to render him silent.

Kass continues without acknowledging whatever might be on his face. The man looks almost agonized, teeth grit and brows drawn tightly together.

“You think I want this? D'you think I find it fun? That I enjoy being an absolute arse-shit to the one person who I—who actively enjoys my presence? I don't, believe it or not, I actually truly don't.” He stands, turns sharply to face Dib, expression hardened. “But this isn't on me, this whole clusterfuck. I can't fix it. It's broken but, if you can even comprehend it, I'm not the person who cocked it up and has to try to patch it.”

Dib swallows, body tensing when Kass approaches and bullies his way into his personal bubble. They're about matching in height these days, so Kass can't loom over him like he used to, but the man's whole posture is still actively aggressive, on the offensive--

No. That doesn't seem right.

There's this thing that some species in nature do to protect themselves—it's called deimatic behavior. The phrase is used to refer to animals that do things when under threat, like make themselves look bigger, or show off bright toxic colors, in the attempt to scare off the thing hunting them. Frill-necked lizards fan out the frills on either side of their faces and open their mouths wide while standing on their hind legs, to look as large and imposing as possible. Some species of snakes flatten the skin around their heads to look more like a cobra. It's a bluff tactic, only really a type of defense mechanism.

What Kass is doing is not much different, Dib thinks. He looks posed to strike, but he's only resorted to this after an intense negative reaction because of what Dib said. He's trying to look large because he's trying to protect himself.

Dib has seen Kass in a bad way before, but hindsight is 20-20 and he lacked the context at the time to recognize a large amount of the cruelty was means of lashing out to keep himself safe. It doesn't help that, as a baseline, Kass is sullen, unpleasant, sarcastic and all around nasty around most people.

But, when Dib was younger, Kass didn't need to posture as much, not until he was on the back foot. He only doubled down when he felt actively in danger.

So this...

Kass seems to realize his reaction in the same moment, because he steps back and pinches the brow of his nose, letting out a breath.

“I know she's not okay. I know I'm not helping. I get that you have it in your head that you can just thwack me over the head to the point of concussion until I apologize or some other children's show nonsense, but this is not something either of us can fix. We can't just put a plaster over it like a baby boo-boo. Do you realize how aggravating that is, to see something so fucked but not have any power over the situation?”

Dib swallows. He bites the inside of his cheek.

“She said you were frustrated with her. I thought she was just—trying to justify you being a shithead.”

Kass doesn't say anything to that, rubbing his hand against the side of his face.

“Did she... do something?”

“She didn't do anything,” he finally mutters. “She never--”

He's cut short by a noise Dib doesn't think he'll ever be able to forget. May is screaming.

They're both moving before his brain even fully processes the sound; experience has ingrained instinct. Kass bolts ahead of him through the aisle, and they both see the stark, blazing light that reflects off the mirrors and leaves spots in Dib's retinas. It pulses and shines like a star, there by the right walkway where the aisles turn into racks.

They're still a few yards from it, their boots thudding and squeaking loudly on the dusty floors, when the screaming cuts out. Kass lurches forward, gun drawn and arm yanking at the wheeled rack, pushing himself forward. Those last few feet, Dib pushes himself desperately for a last burst of speed, so he's unprepared to run face-first into Kass's shoulder where he's stopped suddenly.

Before them, May screams around a massive bony hand that wraps around her face to hold her entire skull against the floor. The sound is muffled by the noise of swarming insects—moths of every size, in the air, on the floor, crawling out of the thing that has pinned May to the ground while her heels skid and squeak against the tiles in a futile bid for traction. They're in May's hair, on her clothes. They flutter through the exposed ribcage made of rotting wood--

The monster is a massive, skeletal thing. Wide empty sockets stare at its captured meal, out of a shattered skull where the winged insects crawl and alight on the branches of a dead tree. It's part bone, part wood, part flayed skin and exposed muscle, all pressed down on May's chest, its thin limbs caging her small body.

Kass shoots it straight in the skull, expanding the shattered hole into the eye sockets. The only reaction it provides is a tip of its head, bits of matted thin hair swaying as it tilts its face towards them.

The noise of the swarm rises, moths flying in thick clusters as Kass shoots again at a target Dib can now barely see. “Stop, stop, you'll hit May!” Dib shouts over the noise—but before the sentence is even fully out of his mouth the noise dies entirely.

The moths are gone. The creature is gone. The only sounds now is their panting, and the horrible wheeze that rattles out of May's throat as she convulses on the floor for only a moment more, before going entirely, deathly still.

Dib pushes forward past Kass, who still holds his gun as he scans the store rapidly. Dropping to his knees on the floor, Dib presses his hand to May's shoulder, then her face.

“May! May, wake up!”

By all accounts, she seems physically unharmed. She's still breathing, though it still sounds somewhat strained. But despite his shaking her shoulder, despite his hands pressing to her throat and her cheek, her eyes stay closed. She doesn't rouse. She doesn't move.

And there's something else.

“Kass, she's not waking up! She's not—I thought she was invulnerable!”

He glances over his shoulder where Kass has approached, and finds the man has gone still at the sight of them. The color has left his face entirely. He doesn't answer Dib, which is probably the most frightening thing.

“Isn't she?!”

Kass drops beside him. He touches May's hand, her cheek, and confirms what Dib has already discovered. Her skin is almost cold to the touch.

May is never cold. She's a goddess of light and life, a literal firebird, always barely warmer than the rest of them. Now, her cheek is cooler than even his own fingers.

“How was I supposed to know,” he breathes out. “I wouldn't—if I'd known this was necrotic based, I'd never have been so stupid as to have brought her.”

He looks up at Dib. The lights above are stark and harsh, which only adds to the ghastly pale shade of his face, drawn up in unfamiliar terror.

“How the fuck was I supposed to know?!”

end chapter 1.

[dollsted]

Chains

Chapter one: The Sting

Source: A03 --- F0rce0fnatur3

NSFW Warning: 18+

Pairing: SasuSaku | SakuIta

Plot: Sakura was just going about her daily life when her world shatters after being taken by two men who were sent to do their jobs and help fill the bank account of the third party they work for. When the job gets botched due to Sakura's intrusion her fate suddenly becomes tied in the hands of the brothers. What do they do with an extra witness? And should they tell their employer about this slip up?

I drag my fingers through my silky pale rose colored hair, green eyes fixed on the cross walk sign waiting for the light to change and the slush of people I’m mobbed into moves. I can feel the slack in my tie holding my bun up threatening to come lose, so I crane my neck so that it is straight and proper without too much motion. A few shorter layers that frame my cheeks have come free already and a bad habit of mine is to twine my hair around my finger while strangers press uncomfortably behind me crowding the corner. I’m urged forward as we move like a swarm of fish across the road to the other side. I can feel someone who’s too inappropriately pressed behind me breathing hot breath on the naked nape of my neck. I can feel him jut against me when I try to gain distance like a pair of flats that is a size too big and the extra space slaps at my heels each step. Finally I surge forward yearning for freedom and to break free from the blobby monster and break through the congestion making my way toward Macy’s.

               Everyone steals these moments by emerging from their homes after being cooped up for the hopelessly long winter. Colors finally begin to paint against the sky above the skylines and warm rays of light dips its fingers through the spines of the buildings. Spring is in the air. We all mimic the flowers that are still hidden beneath the flat and muddy colors of the city, we angle our faces to the sun which has been hidden behind a veil of gray like a face behind a paper fan. We want to soak up as much vitamin C as we can and I feel the light burn against my exposed skin. Yesterday when I passed this way the store was still in muted colors reflecting the sludge outside but today it is bursting with pink. I stare in awe at the window display. Flamingo’s the size of the entire span of the window towers on each side of the entrance to the door all adorned and anatomy made up of pink roses! If these are fake, whoever fabricated the material made it look as realistic as possible. Hanging above their crowns are real flowers that dangle in tight tangles and it renews the stores vigor. I imagine the workers tirelessly staying through all hours of the night to prepare the store for spring.

              I brush the left strand behind my ear and begin my shameless hunting. It’s been awhile since I binged for myself and after yesterday’s messy blood and stitches night at the hospital I felt I needed to wipe the memory clean with something material. I thumb through the sales rack, I look at the new lines on the outer edges of the store, I even gravitate towards the jewelry. Black pearl earrings. Ino told me once that my complexion was fair, so soft pastels of pinks and whites would best accent me. But I found emeralds didn’t contrast against the hue of my eye color, and soft yellows also seemed to flatter me. What did she know? She was always wearing crop tops that cut off just under the lines that silhouetted her breasts and shorts that clung too tightly to her ass. I assess a bright red sweater that would free my shoulders from its grip and add it to my basket. I swipe my right stray strand behind my ear and inspect a rose gold ring that appeals to my depth of symmetry. The gold is like filigree that curves gracefully in sharp patterns and arches that eventually build up to its center which dawns a black pearl that gleams a soft shade of gray when it hits the light and bleeds to deep black like the depths of a sea. A smatter of diamonds adorn random patterns like stars. Five on the left side of the pearl, three on the right. This will match my earrings.

               With a single bag slung around my arm I wander to my usual spot which has become my favorite place to frequent for coffee. I sit at the high table crossing my legs over one another arresting the fabric of my skirt to keep it from coming loose. I pull out the book from my purse and jot down little notes. What no one tells you in medical school is that although yes you are saving lives there are more bad days that outweigh the good one does. It’s getting harder and harder to find the slips of those good moments and the more gore filled ones blot out that and remain in your head like scars. I’ve woken up numerous times in a sheen of sweat and nightmares of the faces I couldn’t save laid there on the table like a cold dead slab of meat as if they’re waiting for me to stitch up the pieces of their broken body. One of my coworkers suggested I start writing down the good. It’s a sparse entry but a little girl came in with a flesh eating virus after she went into lake water with a small open wound no more the size of my pinky’s tip. The bacteria entered that small entry point and within hours she got severely sick and in no more than eight hours later her leg began to blacken. We were able to extract the bacteria and eradicate any other threats. Had she been another hour later, she would have lost her entire leg up to her calf.

              The hospital is always filled with patients. Like the cars that pack together outside like flakes of snow, so too are the halls of the hospital. I work endlessly. I’m afraid to admit that I now lean heavily on the assistance of caffeine. Like the officers that are allowed leave after a bad case to get their sanity back together, so too have I put in for two weeks’ vacation. Tsunade insisted I take more but if I don’t do something I only drown in my own thoughts and vanish into naps. She suggested I actually go on a vacation and get out of the city but it felt so odd to picture myself somewhere tropical and warm. Like residents in hotter climates who never get snow for Christmas.

              Hinata shoots me a text. I extract the phone from my jacket pocket looking at the small rectangular screen and thumb away all the notifications clogging my feed until finally I get to the message board. She wants me to meet her at her apartment. She’s not too far from where I am, it isn’t a big enough strain to have to hail a cab. With four blocks I’m there buzzing at the front gate. I ride the elevator eleven floors up and walk halfway down the hall before knocking on her door. Quietly and quickly she opens it, her face is flushed, and she has tears rimming in her eyes like diamonds against her black lashes. Her pearl white eyes plead to mine and her brows are knit together. I’m startled. She’s truly upset. Usually she smiles and pretends there’s nothing wrong but after Ino and I finally staged an intervention to get her out of her abusive relationship she had been struggling. She motions me in. Her family has money but after Hinata left our small town and migrated here with Ino and I she had opted for a small apartment in a more down trodden part of the city.

               “Sakura, I’m so glad you’re here. Something terrible has happened.” I look at her, my own brow arched in confusion and she’s moved like a ghost effortlessly into the other room. I go to follow but she’s already floated back and produces a note tightly gripped in the confines of her shaking hand. I gently pull the letter from the feed of her palm and look over the document. The note is hand typed and not signed. The content of the letter sends a shiver through my body.

               “Someone sent you a threatening letter?”

              “D-do you th-think it could be h-him?” Her whole body convulses now and her hands find one another gripping until her knuckles are as pale as the color of her pearl eyes.

               “No. Your ex is a jackass but he’s a coward at heart and wouldn’t send something like this.” I take a seat suddenly feeling a dreadful weight in my body threatening to pull me down. “It seems to me the person whose contacting you wants a piece of your fortune.”

               “Should I tell father? Oh…he’ll be cross. He’ll want to send the police force and private investigators.” Her voice is a feather against the drumming in my ears. She hasn’t been able to look at me since she retrieved the letter. Gingerly I put my hand against her quaking shoulder offering warmth and softening my voice.

               “Hinata, I think you should let your father know about this. It could become serious…”

               “No one even knows I’m out here…who…who could…?”

              “It’s easy for a woman to be stalked. I hate to admit this to you too and scare you even more but if one wanted to type in your full name the internet isn’t shy about revealing articles about your fathers charity work and that you and your sister are heiresses.”

               I watched her shrink into herself. I looked back to the letter.

               “I don’t want my family to get hurt.”

               “All the more reason to warn them that you and them may be targeted.”

              I spent the rest of my visit cooing soft words of encouragement and making her several pots of herbal tea to calm her jittery nerves. When I suggested she speak to detective Naruto about all this she was all too eager to change the subject or dismiss it. I loved Hinata as the dear friend she was to me but, sometimes it was like speaking to a child who was afraid of her own shadow. Children could be difficult and stubborn and no matter what I pitched to her she shot down. Finally I had to threaten to tell my own sources about the letter and that seemed to sap any of her protests. She didn’t want me to get involved and made a promise that first thing in the morning before work she would go to the authorities with her proof and ask for help. It was enough to sate me. The letter gave her a two weeks’ notice to produce the money or transfer it to a secure private fund so I felt a little at ease that perhaps they wouldn’t come to collect her in exchange for that promise.

              I lay awake all night feeling guilty about Hinata. It became too hard to leave her alone and when I shot her a text to come back to my place for the time being she politely declined still feigning that she didn’t want me to get hurt in any of this exchange so I fled my apartment taking a cab as if precious moments were slipping from my fingers. Her building was alight and it helped douse a little of my fears but when I reached her front door it was then I noticed there was a splinter in the wood at the hinge. My heart was in my throat as my fingers lightly touched upon the wood of the door and it yawned open. Her apartment was dark and I could hear muffled talking. Maybe Hinata was retiring for the night and speaking to her father but then why would her door be affected by such a thing?

               I dared two steps into her room when the creak in the floor threatened to tattle on me if I moved further. I craned my neck trying to peer around the corner to the kitchen. The only light was the clock on her microwave and stove. I inched against the frame of the wall getting closer to the rush of voices. Now I heard the distinction of a male. I strained for a minute to hear Hinata’s reply but nothing came. A shadow moved across the wall in the living room. I went to strain my eyes to look into the stretch of darkness but felt a large hand press my locked lips against my teeth restraining my cries and screams of help. There was a wall of muscle at my back. My arms were pinned at my sides as the other arm snaked around me. My only free limbs were my legs which were easily lead in a dragging motion as the assailant directed us by holding my weight up and guiding us into the bedroom. My eyes widened. Hinata was slung over the shoulder of another male that seemed only a figment in the room. I could hear the venom in the elder male’s words as he hissed to the one man handling me.

                “Who the fuck is that?”

              “Don’t know. She was lurking at the door. What should we do?” I felt the pinprick of fear radiate up my spine and I began fighting. With little avail he easily coiled his arm flexing his muscles tighter against me. It was hard to take in air. I could see black blotting the corners of my vision.

               “She’s seen too much. Get rid of her.”

              “This might be the one she was texting.” I felt his hand move from my mouth and I took a sharp breath of air into my lungs but felt the scream vanish inside my throat when the clicking sound and cold round press of steel touched under my jaw. It came out as a startled gasp.

              “Don’t you even fucking dare.” My entire body began shaking. His voice was as deep and vicious as the steel under my chin. His arm uncoiled, he transferred the gun to his other hand and the free one plunged into my pockets. I let out a small yelp of surprise trying to shrink myself to get away from his invasive hands but moments later he plucked my phone from my back pocket. I glared blindly at him in the dark and shut my eyes when the shock of the bright screen flashed over my retinas. I blinked back burning tears watching him thumb through the phone then stopped.

               “That the one?” The other male ground out through tightly gritted teeth.

              “Yep.” Said my assailant with a careless sigh. He slipped the phone somewhere behind me in one of his pockets and then he resumed the hold he had before. The guns position changed to my temple.

              “Your call.” The casual exchange made me think these two criminals knew one another on a personal level. Maybe even related? I couldn’t think about that right now. Right now I needed to pine for my survival. I spent my years trying to save lives and to think of becoming just a stain within my legacy and a good front page article that would be looked over by tomorrow’s new stories made my stomach churn.

              “I know you two were the ones that sent the letter. I---I’ve already contacted the police about it.” There was a long stretch of silence that curdled the bile in my stomach even more painfully sour. The elder spoke.

               “We’re wasting time here. Bag her too. We’ll figure it out once we’re in the clear.” The one behind me didn’t respond. He only moved awkwardly behind me slipping one sleeve of a jacket to him and forcing the other sleeve to my arm. His free hand was hidden between the shared garment and the barrel was now tightly pressed at my back. I swallowed a wet gulp feeling the block roughly glide down my throat.

               “Here’s the deal. You scream. You say anything. I shoot you first. Then I shoot all the people you call out too. I don’t care if it’s a kid either. Got me?” I gave a curt nod. “Say it!”

               “Yes I understand!” I held the front of my sweater with my free hand trying to steady my nerves.

              Given the time of night there was no body that inhabited the entry ways or hallways. The elder had moved Hinata so it looked as though with her arm slung around the back of his neck and him holding her by her waist he looked like a gallant gentleman escorting his drunk girlfriend into a cab. But in the cabs stead was a black Lincoln. She was put in the trunk however…and I was forced to duck into the cabin of the back row of seats that faced one another. The elder took to the wheel. The black divider hid him completely and I was face to face with my captor who freed himself from the jacket. I was too terrified to shrug the rest of it off me. We were moving and I looked to the tinted windows walled around me. I felt small. I felt hopeless. My life was out of my hands. I knew in this moment how my patients felt…

              The younger captor was tall, not as tall as the other one but still larger than my short stature. He had long elegant legs that were cloaked in black jeans with faint tan stitching at the seams. He had heavy steel toed boots that somehow he controlled to keep his footfalls as silent as a cats. I saw the gray outlines in his shirt that made up the peaks and mountains of his midsection to his chest. His biceps were bulging from the clad shirts tight hold. The same arms that almost crushed me in two like a toothpick. He slung his forearm on the back of his seat showing the deadly muscle beneath his flesh. I looked away before his eyes could catch hold of mine. Charcoal black and bottomless like a shark’s. He had a long aristocratic nose and his lips were thin but were perfectly shaped so if he smirked they tips of them would be like little arrows that would point to his long cheekbones. His hair was a mop of thick locks and like babies he was cursed with terrible cowlicks that swirled and curved upwards but yet---it made him look distinguished and just fit to his angelic appearance. I crushed my thoughts digging bloody moons into my palms.

               Why had he put Hinata in the trunk? It wasn’t like he couldn’t overpower us if she awoke. Perhaps he didn’t want us speaking to each other. I felt my body temperature rise, the arm that was buried in the jacket suddenly burning setting wildfire throughout my other limbs. I shirked it off pulling my feet to the wide expanse of the seat tucking my knees to my chest. He was busying himself with my phone going through it and erasing the contents. I just wanted to sleep. My eyes burned with need but my body was wide awake. All my nerves were firing away with adrenaline. But as the hours went by and my mindless gaze watched the landscape scrape by in blurs I was fading. I hadn’t noticed when I stopped holding my head up and came to attention when my forehead was pressed against the cold glass. I jerked awake but couldn’t fight sleep any longer. Maybe I should just take a minuscule one---it might be my last chance for sleep. My thoughts grew heavier and became scrambled and finally I gave in to the darkness.

[ask-de-writer]

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 71 of 83 : World of Sea

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 71 of 83

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

copyright 2020

written 2007

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Users   of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may   reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information   remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in   my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical   compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story?  Read from the beginning.  PART 1 is here

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Looking back, Sarfin could see the open fore-deck of the Dark Dragon and the monster catapult being readied.  Around him he could see the catapults of the Soaring Bird being unlimbered from their hunting locks and readied for combat.  The ammunition being stacked beside them was nothing that he would want to see aimed at any ship.  There were shot designed to rip sails and destroy rigging, and others designed to scatter many small, deadly darts to clear decks and rigging of opposing crews.  

Just seeing them made Sarfin shudder.  The sight of men and women matter of factly handling such devices and getting ready to use them brought home to him just what war was really about. Something that he had known intellectually became sickeningly real.  

It was to the credit of the Council’s representatives that they were also disturbed by the deadly preparations.  Captain Urson put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the decks.  “Is this,” she gestured widely at all the orderly preparations for destruction going on about them, “really necessary?”

Sula looked her straight in the eye and answered, “Because I have seen many times that it was, even more than you, I hope that it is not. There is no harm if we are ready and do not have to fight but many lives, even ships can be lost to unreadiness.”

Sarfin turned to Sula, who was now watching the Soaring Bird’s crew, without apparent emotion.  “How can you ever get used to this kind of thing?” he asked, taking a deep breath to steady himself.

“You don’t,” she replied stonily, turning to face Sarfin.  Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.  “You do what you have to do and pray to the Dragons that you don’t have to kill again.  The one thing that you can’t do is let your own folk be the ones who pay the price of unreadiness.”

In a lighter tone Sula went on, “Now, we are guests.  Let us pay our respects to our host, the Honored Huld.”

Crewmen guided Captains Urson and Farrol away to guest quarters.

Sula led Sarfin to a companionway amidships.  As Sarfin followed, he said, grateful for a way to change the topic, “Something has been nagging at me since we first met.  Why do you call Captain Huld ‘Honored’?”

Sula smiled at the thoughts and memories that the question brought up. “That’s a bit difficult to explain.  He is Honored because in his whole life, whatever the difficulty, he has never done anything unethical or dishonorable.  His decisions in matters of honor and ethics between others are considered to be absolute by the Council that meets on the Wind.”

“OK, now I’m just as curious as before but confused as well,” said Sarfin.  “The Council that meets on the ‘wind’?”

“You will have to take my word for this one.  The Barant fleet Council is in continuous session.  The Captains meet in a way that they call talking on the Wind.  It allows them to communicate without misunderstanding, no matter the distance between them.  Since I learned of them I have also been a part of that Council.  Not only can you not shut them out, you don’t want to.  It is possible to ignore them for a while sometimes, especially when you think that you are right — Even if you’re not.”  Sula pushed open a sliding door and escorted Sarfin into a cabin.

“Shouldn’t you have knocked first?” Sarfin asked as he entered.

“No need.  I told him that we were coming and he invited us to tea,” said Sula lightly.

“Tea?” said Sarfin curiously, “What is that?”

“It’s a Barant ceremony involving a hot water drink made with especially prepared seaweeds, dried and flaked.  He is doing this to give you honor before his crew,” Sula knitted her brows as she tried to explain.  “By Barant fleet standards you are not a Captain, and neither was I until a short while ago.  According to their rules you have to be able to talk on the Wind to be a Captain.  This ceremony will let his crew know that you are worthy to command in spite of your disability.  That is the same status that I had until recently.”

Sarfin looked around the chamber and realized that it was both of Spartan simplicity and one of the most harmoniously prefect cabins that he had ever seen.  The walls had tall scroll-like paintings of ships and boats on the sea with cloudscapes behind them.  They were done in monochrome gray inks on a material of startling whiteness.  Each ship was unmistakable, yet it had been artfully reduced to only a few lines and some shadows.  Among them, he recognized his own Dorton. It was hung just back of Huld where he sat cross-legged behind a low table.  The floor was covered with a soft matting that was made of long narrow strands of material tied together into bundles.

“Welcome are you, Council Master Sarfin, Sula – Captain and friend.”  He placed both hands palms together, fingers down and bent his head toward them.  Sula repeated the gesture and sat on the floor next to the table.  After the briefest of hesitations, Sarfin did the same.

Huld serenely said, “North we go as swiftly as sail will carry us.  Let us now the time spend to know each other.  Share tea, share self. Barant way it is.”  

He picked up a bow-drill kit and with only a few quick strokes of the bow, had smoke curling up from the tender of fluffy, dried brown seaweed.  A small puff of breath brought a tiny flame which Huld applied to the wick of an oil lamp.  He set the lamp under a small Hag skin pot of water to heat it.

Altogether, the ceremony and its attendant small talk took over an hour.  As they emerged from Huld’s cabin, Sarfin said to Sula, “That tea was amazing!  I’ve never tasted anything like it before.  Do you know how I might get some?”

“Certainly,” said Sula promptly.  “I have a few hundred pounds on the Dark Dragon that I’d be willing to sell.”  She smiled.  “Can’t sell too much or I’d have a mutiny — and I’d have to join the mutineers.  We count it as one of our basic stores.”

“I can see why.  We’ve never had flavored water in the Naral fleet. . . Um … Where are we going?”

“Visitor’s cabins.  We don’t need a guide because Huld and I have been working together for a long time.  We know each other’s ships well.” Soon they were settled into adjoining cabins.

At the pace that the Soaring Bird was making, they would be in the vicinity of 00 West, 800 North by what ought have been early to midmorning.  In those latitudes, at the present time of the year, the sun did not fully set at all.  It only got low in the sky.  Sarfin found it disturbing to have no nightfall.

Sarfin spent as much time as he could studying the Soaring Bird and the way that it was run.  This kind of vessel was truly new to him.  At first he thought that the big lobster claw sails were simply exotic looking.  A short talk with the Soaring Bird’s sail lofter taught him the error in that assumption.  They were, in fact, the most efficient sails to be found on all of Sea.

Aboard the Grandalor, Darkistry stood at the steering tackle, making small adjustments to keep the Longin approaching from directly downwind. She was so careful that it appeared to be completely accidental.

While the ships were closing to hailing drum range, Thunderhead came soaring up from the south directly over the Longin and plunged into the water between the ships.  Shortly, he surfaced in a splash of spray and made a take-off run.  He had a fish in his beak.  Now that he was back, his family had to be fed.

Skye leapt from the nest and swooped to greet her mate.  They did a short aerial ballet, sweeping past each other and spiraling tightly, so close that wings gently rubbed.  The dance ended above the nest and Thunderhead dropped into it, casually checking his fall at the last moment with widespread wings and tail.  He perched on the rail and began the process of dividing the fish, sharing it out among youngsters now ready to begin flying.  That done, he flipped off the side of the rail and dropped on a long angle to land solidly on Tanlin’s shoulder, where he rubbed his beak along her jaw in greeting.

“Glad t’ see ye, too, T’under’ead,” said Tanlin as she reached up and scratched him in his favorite spot under the wing.  “Ugh, ye’re all wet.  Let m’ get t’is ‘arness off.  Ye did good, ye ‘andsome ‘Awk, ye.”  She unbuckled the message harness and gave it to Arnat, who was standing near.

“‘Ere, Arnat.  Stow t’is in our cabin.  Ye know w’ere ‘t goes.”  As Arnat scampered off to put away the harness, the Longin began to signal with her Hailing Drum.

“Return the prisoner Kurin to us and surrender to Council Justice!” the drum demanded imperiously.

“That’s not Master Clard’s hand on the drum,” said Kurin worriedly.  “It sounds more like his apprentice Degan.  Now I’m sure something is wrong.”

TO BE CONTINUED

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[baekhyunbitz]

Yin and Yang

An: Finally finished!!! Since it's this cuties birthday still in my country, I wanted to get it done and post it today. Happy Birthday handsome❣

Genre: Flufffffff

Pairing: Sehun x Reader

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.4k +

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The stories say on your 17th birthday, you're one step closer to finding your soulmate. You will begin to notice a tattoo take its form and only your soulmate possesses the copy. They can range from any size, color, and pattern, and could possibly change once you have met them but that case is very rare. It's become much easier as the years go on and social media becomes more popular, pictures are uploaded 24/7 making the search a bit more bearable. Then there are people like me that choose to let time take its course. Believe me, I get curious every once and a while but I'm not in any hurry. The day I turned 17 wasn't a day I was looking forward to. All everyone seems to care about anymore is finding their special person but there is so much more to live for. I was actually very pleased with my piece though. Yin and Yang. Dark and light. Simple, yes, but my light carried thin brush strokes of crimson and tangerine, while my dark looked like a messy brush stroke as if the zigzag scribbles were enough to cover the Yin next to the Yang. Messy, but simple, it fit me.

As the next few years go on, all my friends have found their S/O after hours of browsing the web, I, on the other hand, have traveled around the world, adding a new tattoo to commemorate my adventures. I saunter down the hall of my apartment towards my front door, making sure I have everything I need.

"Headphones, check. Wallet, check. Water, check. Keys...." I look towards the wall by the front door and grab them from their place on the hook. "Check." I slip on my shoes then head out the door, skipping through the lobby and out the main doors.

Today marks a year since I've moved to South Korea. I wanted a big new change in my life and this vibrant and alive city was calling out my name. From the culture to the food, the sights, to the loving. I decided to get the skyline of the city in a small celebration for this special anniversary. About 6 months ago, a new tattoo/piercing shop opened several blocks into the city, INKredible Tattoos and I've heard nothing but incredible reviews about them. I took a liking to their portfolios and decided I wanted to have them be a part of my adventure piece on my arm. I've made it a goal that I always find a new artist to add to the sleeve piece on my left arm, also adding two decently sized pieces on each thigh and a four leaf clover behind my right ear. My sleeve consists of all the places I've been to, my biggest achievements, my relationships with family and friends, all framing my soulmate tattoo.

Passing the apartment buildings of various colors and structures, the tattoo shop comes into sight, a maroon awning shading the entrance and music playing from the speaker. The bell chimes as I walk into the air-conditioned lobby. The walls are painted the same maroon with gold flakes scattered, mahogany polished flooring with black leather sofas for seating. What caught my eye though was the espresso tinted irises looking in my direction.

"Ah, welcome to INKredible Tattoos. How can I help you today?" The man stepped out from behind the glass case, my eyes falling to the way his dark blue jeans hugged his gorgeously thick thighs. Words got stuck in my throat as the sunlight from the window lit up his profile, showing his sharp jawline and deep set features. His thick chocolate locks fell onto his forehead as he extended his hand out to mine. His olive green t-shirt gripping his biceps,

"I'm sorry, my name is Dean, I'm the owner of this shop."

"Y/N. Pleasure to meet you." My eyes still fixated on his features, a chuckle escaping past his lips.

"The pleasure is mine. What were you thinking about getting today hun?"

"Well, I was thinking about getting the skyline of Seoul on my left arm here by my shou— "

"Dean!" A voice yelled, "Did you happen to—oh..." Another guy appeared in my vision, one that is a little more eccentric than Dean. His black teal tinted curls bounced as he took the space next to Dean, mahogany vortexes took me by surprise, just as much as the silver ball of his labret piercing, "What's a cute girl like you doing in a place like this? Thinking about getting a piercing from the one and only me?" He pointed at himself, my eyes catching the sling of his chest peeking out of his semi buttoned-up red, blue, and white shirt.

"Knock it off Mino, she's here for a tattoo." Dean hissed and Mino slid his hands into his dark jeans. His plush pink lips formed a pout that seemed too cute for his sultry features. I chuckle from his reaction, easing the tension, a slight smirk making itself apparent in the corner of Mino's lips.

"Hey Christian! We have a new canvas!" Mino gruffed and a guy with curly obsidian hair made his way down the hall. Clinging to his body was a gray short sleeved button down shirt, accentuating his muscular biceps, black ink art spilling down his left arm.

"Is that so, what made you decide to come here?" His thick Australian accent stunned me as he approached me, his warm skin soaked in the sunlight as well as his caramel irises turning a warm honey.

"6 months ago I heard the buzz about your shop from a friend so I decided to check out your website and admired everyone's portfolios. The different techniques from each of you are outstanding, but one in particular really captured my interest. I believe his name is Oh Sehun."

"Well, you happen to be in luck today, he's in the back room." As I followed Christian down the hall, bright red hair caught my attention. My feet stopped at one of the rooms, my eyes viewing the tattoo artist; his eyes focused on the customer's piece, the buzz of the tattoo machine at work. He pulled away from the skin, his hand grabbing the clean paper towel from his slender leg. His maroon sleeves are pushed up, showing the ink on his arm; I leaned against the door frame trying to see his features, but his red hair blocked them, "Y/N, what are you waiting for?" Christian's voice bringing me back to reality, my feet pulling me from the door to a few rooms further, "Get your guns ready, master. You've got an admirer." Christian moved to the side of the door to let me by. My heart stopped as my eyes fell on to the man sitting in the chair. His dark almond irises met with mine, the words I tried to speak stuck in my throat.

"Awesome, what'sypur name love?"

"Y/N." Even his voice has me weak. He rolled back in his chair, his shirt revealing his toned chest making my heart race,

”Go ahead and sit in the chair for me." His eyes watched me, his soft brown hair falling into his face, "What are we thinking about creating today?"

“The skyline of Seoul. I wanted to get a piece to commemorate a whole year here. It's an early birthday gift for myself and I figured now was better than never."

"We going with the black silhouette?"He rolls over in the chair next to me, the close presence sending a chill down my spine. What has come over me?

"Yes, I was thinking about getting it right here by my shoulder."

"Alright. I'm going to trace out the stencil and place it to see if you like the spot." Sehun saunters over to the light table, giving light instructions to Christian to get the necessary equipment ready. My eyes can't help but wander around the room, Sehun's work framed on the walls, his technique so effortless. My gaze lands back on Sehun at the table, his honey-like skin glowing under the soft lighting from the table.

"He's stunning isn't he?" Christian lightly whispered causing me to jump a bit in my seat.

"What? I mean...I wasn't..?"

"It’s okay love, most clients end up staring at one point or another after walking through the door." He winked with a light smirk he wondered over to Sehun to let him know the station was ready to go.

"How does this look?" Sehun rolls over to me with the stencil in hand, a black silhouette of the skyline of Seoul perfectly etched out on the tracing paper with carbon ink.

"Perfect, it's exactly what I want."

"Excellent, I'll just place it to get the right spot then we'll get started." His soft smile had my heart skipping a beat, his hands gently laid the paper against my left arm just below my shoulder at the top of my inked sleeve. His digits brushing over my skin with a feather-like touch while smoothing out the edges of the paper.

"Still looking good?" I looked into the hand mirror he held up so I can view the placement, nodding to let him know it was great where it was,

"Let's get started then, Christian you mind helping Dean out for right now since this shouldn't take too long." Christian saluted for his departure, closing the door on the way out. One of my favorite sounds fills the room as the tattoo gun comes to life, "So what's your story behind your sleeve love?"

"I have this goal for myself actually. I try to go on adventures and try new things as much as I can, when I accomplish this, I add a new piece to my sleeve. I've been adventuring since I turned 17. It hasn't been easy with everyone telling me that I won't get far if I don't have my soulmate by my side."

"I never understood why finding our soulmates was a priority. I don't need someone to make a living in life."

"Thank you! Finally, I met someone that feels the same way I do. I also started getting more pieces so people around me would stop harassing me about their soulmates." A light chuckle came from the man sitting in front of me, the corner of his lips turning into a smirk. That sound. Might just become my new favorite. What has come over me today? He's just a guy. He's just my tattoo artist.

"I'm gonna need you to turn your arm a slight bit here so I can finish it up." As I turn my arm, I noticed the machine stop buzzing, his features falling blank.

"Is there something wrong?" He furrowed his brow, struggling to find the right words as started up the machine again.

"Uh.. sor— sorry, I was just amazed by all the achievements you've made. You've done so much it seems, more than anyone I know." Is that really what caused him to stop? Nobody has done that before… I wonder—no… he can't be. There's no way.

"What got you into the tattooing business?"

"Well since I can remember, I've had a love for the art form, wasn't until I got my first tattoo that I actually started learning. Once I got used to the machine and practiced a lot with my teacher, I did my first tattoo on Dean. We've been close since that day. When he asked me to be a member of his new parlor, I was so ecstatic to finally have my dream job." The genuine smile he displayed showed the deep passion he has for this line of work.

"You're family must be really proud of you. Following your dreams and goals."

"Actually, they just wanted me to find my soulmate just like everyone else."

"I'm sorry, Sehun... I didn't me—"

"It's okay love, I've had plenty of time to get over it. Like you, it's not the most important adventure in my life. Although, I'm open to the idea as of lately." Why did those few words seem to punch me in the chest... I shouldn't feel this way for someone I just met.

"I hope you find your special someone Sehun. You seem like a great guy."

"Thank you Y/N, but I have a feeling I won't have too much trouble."

"How optimistic. Good quality to have in life."

"Alright, you're all finished hun, I hope you like it." He lifts up the hand mirror once again so I can see the finished piece. He ended up adding two birds flying above the skyline, adding onto the beautiful silhouette.

"I adore it Sehun, thank you so much. It means a great deal to me."

"Anytime, you ever feel like getting another piece in the future while you're around, I would love to be the artist." Seeing his full smile caused a blush to spread over my cheekbones. Oh God, please don't notice. He took the latex gloves off as we made our way to the door, entering the hall,

"So how are we paying today?"

"Card is fine." I reached into my pocket to pull out my card, only to see Sehun's hand laying on the counter. My heart started to pound in my chest at the replica to my soulmate piece, but in blue. Blinking a couple of times to make sure my mind wasn't playing tricks on me, the color started to change into a mauve. I look down at mine to see the tangerine shade fade into the same mauve color.

"How about a date instead?" I thought I was blushing before— boy, earlier couldn't come close to comparison. Whistles, hollers, and claps filled the space around the lobby causing a chuckle to fall past Sehun's lips as his friends applauded the long-awaited moment.

"I was beginning to wonder how long it would take for one of you to notice. I happened to see your tattoo as you explained your story, the funny part was that you were automatically drawn to his work, I didn't need to intervene." Dean explained as he high fived Christian and the red-haired man from the other room.

"Bout damn time there man, I was starting to think you were never going to find the one. By the way, my names Kwon Jiyong, but you can call me G-Dragon."

"Nice to meet you." We shook hands before he leaned down to lightly kiss the top of my hand, letting go to ruffle Sehun's hair.

"So what do you say, love? Mind if I show off your beauty to my city?"

"As long as it's you by my side, I'll go anywhere."

[dbhilluminate]

DBHI: Redemption- "The Open Door", pt. 3

ARE YOU A FAN OF DETROIT? DO YOU LIKE GAY SHIPS AND COMPLICATED, LOVEABLE BOYS?? Then please keep up with our fic, you’ll love it, I promise!

(Chapter art by dark_dumb)

**Co-authored by grayorca15

Characters: Trevor Langley, Dylan Fleur, Dennis Lenore (mentions of Rhea Fleur, Dahlia Fleur, Spencer) Word Count: 6,875

A rocky introduction leads to the beginnings of an unexpected mutual understanding, and an unlikely friendship more welcomed by one than the other.

• Archive link • Chapter Index • • Related Works • Characters •

Previous Chapter

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July 4th, 2041 - 9:18 PM The remainder of the trek back to the house was surprisingly short. Compared to the winding, off-road path their chase had taken through the trees, this road they traveled was a straight shot with only a few gentle curves right, left, and another slight left. It ended almost right back where they’d started- the trees opened up to a hill that sloped down toward the house, where the balcony stairs led up to the studio. Now that he had a moment and wasn’t just blindly running away from the house, he noticed that a grotto has been carved into the slope of the hill below the veranda, and made into a nook furnished with several lounge chairs and a few stone fireplaces for illumination and warmth. Small, open archway entrances on either side ruined the potential for complete privacy, but with the hill blocking the view at a distance, it seemed like the kind of space he’d like to pass the time in. Dylan trotted up the staircase while skipping two steps with each stride, draped his soiled cardigan and shirt over the banister, entered the house barefoot and shirtless, then grabbed another sleeveless cardigan off the back of a chair and threw it on without stopping. Trev crept in behind him with his hands in his pockets while minding the globs of paint on the floor that were still a little wet (even after nearly an hour’s drying time), then stopped to examine the room. It was exactly as he’d glimpsed the first time through, more of a studio to work in than a chamber to rest, even if the couch in the far-right corner from where he was standing (which was covered in blankets) said otherwise. The beamed, vaulted ceilings framed out to beige and walnut walls, otherwise covered in abstract impressionist paintings, displayed whatever work-in-progress charcoal sketches he’d been working on in his spare time. There were at least three tables, each home to a different art medium, the perimeter dotted with cloth-covered easels. A number of empty paint cans held dozens of broken-in paintbrushes among other drawing tools. A large, plastic tarp had been strung up behind the largest canvas to the left, protecting the wall behind. The fourth wall, the closest to his right, was taken up by a brick oven, a tabletop anvil, a metalworking workbench, and a pottery wheel, of all things. Stacks of books littered the floor, handfuls of canvases leaned against the walls, piles of assorted paint cans were arranged in small caches beneath the tables, on shelving, or stored in cabinetry like the one in the middle of the room blocking a trapdoor leading to the room beneath it. In the back-right corner (on the other end of the couch) was a deep, well-loved stainless-steel sink spotted with countless layers of dried pigments that had never quite washed off. The last thing he noticed was a ten-gallon aquarium filled with greenery and scratchy substrate, resting on a table in the back-left corner of the room next to the door; what it could have housed was a mystery, because the animal wasn't present. Altogether this was clearly the space of someone who spent a lot of their time trying to find their muse, and it was by no means a cheap vocation. The many paint cans alone ran into the hundreds of dollars, budget-wise, but the clue that most interested Trev sat opened on one of the tables: a ripped plastic bag, still half full of unfilled water balloons, next to an old paint encrusted funnel- also known as an ammo dump, in tonight’s case. Lovely. Langley feigned rubbing at his chin to hide a reflexive twitch. Surrounded by this breadth of creative thought brought to inanimate life made him realize how foreign it all was. He felt more like the outsider here than at any time prior this evening. “If this is the part where I state the obvious... I’ll skip it, if you prefer.” But Dylan said nothing of the sort. “What I’d prefer…? Or what you’d prefer?” His tone piqued from around the corner of the wall dividing the side of the room to Trevor’s right, and he glanced up from digging around in a laundry basket to flash him a friendly grin. “Cause I’d prefer you say what’s on your mind.” Fleur tossed him a white V-neck top and a pair of black joggers as he passed on his way across the room, presumably to give him the space to change, at which Trev had only hesitated long enough to be reasonably sure he wasn’t being watched. When he was satisfied that he was not, Langley slipped the slacks and jacket off, meticulously folded them both, and briefly inspected the top beneath before he took it off and decided to bag it as well. If he was going to change into something clean and dry, he might as well have gone the whole nine yards. All the while, he thought on his reply. Dylan probably expected him to disclose something in return, but what was more benign than talking about the weather? “What’s on my mind is how much I prefer not to say what’s on my mind,” he replied idly as he pulled the shirt on over his head and fruitlessly tried to finger-comb his gummed-up hair back into something neat so it wasn’t sticking out at such odd angles. “I was only going to say your space suits you. Obvious as it gets, right?” “Obvious? Or observational?” Dylan countered as he fussed with the canvas tarp over a six-foot square canvas against the opposite side of the room, unfolded the corners and pulled them out from under the wooden frame. When he put it that way, Trev supposed, one adjective did sound more negative than the other. “Regardless,” he paused just long enough to grab two fistfuls of the canvas tarp, then yanked; the fabric fluttered through the air and settled onto the ground beside him in a huge heap. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” he asked with a smile as Trev stopped beside him to examine the piece.

Removing the cover revealed a painting obscured by a few random splotches of paint deposited by the impact of water balloons, a sensation which he had been intimately introduced to that night. Even with chunks of the painting covered by mostly opaque layers of gesso, he could see what it was supposed to be: a man doubled over, hugging himself, fingers rending deep, clawed cuts into the skin of his ribs, the punctures leaking inky black shadows rather than life-giving crimson. The face had been turned away from the viewer, intentionally left obscured against a foggy, muddled backdrop of red, black, and gray. It was certainly a far cry from the hyper-realistic portrait hanging just outside the room- the erratic, emotionally charged brushstrokes, vivid colors, and sharp contrast of this piece were much more in line with what he’d expected after hearing about Dylan Fleur from his family members. The style was every bit as edgy and eccentric as he.

“Do you make art or war with it?” he murmured as he approached, still distracted by the thought that the painting may have been a self-portrait. He could hear Dylan scoff as another stray balloon hit one corner of the canvas and splashed a clashing layer of green over the top of an existing spot. Trev flinched ever so slightly as it splattered just a few feet away; the movement reminded him to blink, not stare in such overt confusion. “What’s this supposed to be?” “Another failure, like me,” Dylan half-joked as he wandered away to find dry pants. With no reason to follow, Trev stayed where he was and gave the piece another slow look over. It counted as evidence of something- the act of depicting what he could only interpret as some sort of inner turmoil, rather than keeping it bottled up in one’s head, was a tried-and-true coping mechanism, but not something he himself could relate to. Trevor’s closest comparison was having a department sketch artist work with a witness to a crime to recall facial features and distinguishing characteristics of a person of interest, which was similar in its intent only to identify the concept of someone. “Only failure I’m seeing here are the new stains you added.” Tempting as it was to reach out and try wiping the unsightly green off the defaced piece, Trev contented himself with working out another stubborn flake of yellow clinging to his hair. “I mean, it wasn’t finished yet, was it?” “It was, but I didn’t like it anymore, I’m gonna start over with something different,” he explained, then added as an afterthought with a frown after checking a grouping of paint cans on the floor under the coffee table. “Gotta go buy more acrylic gesso before I can, though.” “And this is why you had balloons filled with paint? You were going to trash it?” “You almost sound offended,” Dylan teased, noting the way his brows lifted in reserved judgment at the idea. Trevor cast a corrective, brown-eyed glance at him, but stopped short when Dylan met it with a disarming smile. “I’m not, I just-... don’t understand why you’d put so much effort into creating something, only to destroy it.” “It’s common practice for artists to recycle canvases when they get sick of looking at old pieces and don’t want to stretch a new one,” Fleur explained in his most educational tone as he crossed his arms and turned to step toward him. “It might have been therapeutic to paint this at the time, but I’m ready to move on from what inspired it.” “And what was that?” Dylan swallowed the answer to that question; apparently, he hadn’t earned the right to know yet, but he was perfectly fine with that. It was just one less reason to get attached. Instead, the boy ventured another risk, his voice weaker with a hint of melancholy. “Can’t you feel it…?” Trevor clenched his teeth and shot him a sharp look, not in the mood for a guessing game. “You’re the one who painted it- so you tell me.” “I could, but that would defeat the purpose of painting it.” For a moment he gazed at the painting and seemed to lose himself in the feelings it evoked, feelings that were readable on his face clear as day, even if he didn’t want to see it. “Art is a wordless form of communication that makes it a hell of a lot easier to explain thoughts you might otherwise had a hard time articulating,” he explained with a sideways glance in his direction; already, Trev could feel the prickling sensation in the back of his mind, and he didn’t like it. “Why tell what you can show?” Trev scowled, more obviously this time. He could feel it, all too vividly, and he didn’t want to. That was the problem. It wasn’t the painting itself or who its artist was, it was the similarities of the imagery and the read-into meanings that hit too close to home for comfort. It was anguish if he’d ever felt it (and he had, after he’d lost everything he’d ever known to the rise of Purgatory, the day that Boston fell), and a deep desire to cut oneself open to bleed it out just to feel the release the bloodletting would deliver. It was dark, unnerving, and passively comforting to know they shared this common pain. And that was exactly why he refused to answer him. “Thing about art is, it’s not always meant to be permanent,” Dylan continued, undeterred at his audience’s voluntary silence. “Sometimes it’s transient, transformative- like pain.” “So, you’re saying that art is pain?” It was a suitable comparison, considering the subject matter of this particular piece, and just enough of a diversion away from the uncomfortable subject to merit a response. “Sometimes… yes,” Fleur answered thoughtfully, his green-eyed gaze too transfixed to pay him any mind as Trev eyed the ink on his skin one more time and took a closer look at the flowers on his left arm. In the case of tattoos, it was more than sometimes. “Why bother with it, then?” he asked, genuinely confounded by the contradiction. “Compulsion,” he stated plain and simple as he closed his eyes, shook his head, and lowered his chin. “The pain I suffer when I don’t create is often worse than briefly facing it to scream it onto the page.” “If you say so.” Much as he detested the urge to, Trev could relate. It was very tempting to go sour at the thought of someone at Cyberlife thinking to get creative enough to the point they would try to dupe one of their products (i.e., himself) into thinking it was the real flesh-and-blood deal. Had he the pleasure of making that person’s acquaintance, it would not have been a peaceable meeting of minds. To equate it to Dylan’s example, he was the canvas upon which something new had been redrawn. Then that second layer had been unceremoniously torn off, like garish wallpaper stripped away to reveal the bare panels underneath. No one ever asked the paper if it wanted to be removed, was the only difference. Far as it was concerned, who knew if it had simply been content as it was? Not a fan of the phantom ache that seemed to settle in between his ears, Trev shut his eyes to scratch at the leftover paint flakes above one ear. The oldest spot was turning stiff, and therefore itchy. “You sound a lot like your- sisters,” he commented, cracking an eye open once the scratching was done. “No coincidence, I’m sure.” Dylan attempted a faltering smile that spoke loudly of insecurity and he turned toward one of the tables covered in brush cans, and swiped up a chunk of brush soap. “If that were true, I’d be better off,” he mused morbidly as he returned to his side and reached for the worst of the clumps in his hair. “But I’ll take that as a compliment, ‘cause they’re the best people I know, even if they can be a little...” Trev smacked away his hand when he reached up to try and help get the paint out of his hair. He thought he had made it clear that with their game over, he wasn’t of a mind to be touched, but Fleur just chuckled in response and tossed him the soap and a comb before taking a step back. “...overbearing.” “You know a touch of that yourself,” the android countered with a grumble. “All the earnestness of you three combined…” He let the words hang unfinished and tried running the bristles into his hair, wincing as they stuck against the clumps before eventually pulling through with enough force applied. “It’s contagious in this family,” Dylan joked with a short laugh as he busied himself with filling a bucket with hot, soapy water and finding a couple of sponges. “Can’t really help treating everyone else the same ‘til I know their boundaries.” Boundaries. Trevor nearly snorted. If he’d really given a shit about those, he wouldn’t be wearing his loaned clothes and scraping paint out of his hair. If this was how Dylan treated family, then he actually felt sorry for Dahlia and Rhea. “My classmates rarely say hello to me outside of courses, yet here’s a whole evening full of coddling people to make up for it. Ugh.” He didn’t mean to sound ungrateful; it was just his reality. Even the instructors tended to give him a wide berth- with no official report delivered accounting for who he was, he supposed he couldn’t fault them for being leery of what they didn’t know, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt some days. “What are you, then...?” he diverted, after a brief pause. “A student, or a hobbyist?” “Third-year fine arts at Cranbrook Academy of Arts,” Dylan replied as he knelt to wipe as much of the paint off the floor as he could with some dry rags, then followed up with a wet sponge. “I do my schoolwork from home and video call to talk to my professors or participate in classes when I need to.” Another clue to file away in the growing dossier, one that sufficed to explain why he was such a homebody. The sight of him cleaning his own floors gave Trevor pause. If he’d grown up in a house this size, with a plethora of servants to do the work for him, wouldn’t it be logical for him to leave the mess for one of them to clean up? Yet here he was, humbling himself to scrub paint off the hardwood, already damaged by years of splashed oil and turpentine. “And when you’re not doing all that…? Pranks are it?” “Pranks are reserved for special occasions, and special people…” Dylan insisted as he crawled from one partial shoeprint to the next, dragging the bucket with him. “But I do a lot of this thing called sleeping, too… y’know?” He flashed him a small grin and popped his brows. “What about you? What do you do in your spare time that’s better than...” One hand gestured around the room at ‘all this’ was enough for him to understand the question. To immediately draw a distinction as one hobby being somehow better than the other, Trev didn’t care for that presumption. Not one bit. “I study.” He left his retort at two words and resumed brushing his hair, though the movements turned sharp and jerky, the more frustrated he became. As far as he was concerned, coursework was not inherently more rewarding than art, it was just what he knew; and by the numbers, he was already better at it than eighty percent of his classmates. Though, fitting in the occasional ride-along patrol with Dennis didn’t hurt either. It served to get him outside, at least. “And that which I’m expected to learn is as boring as it is privileged information, not for the general public to know. Not much else to it.” “So, you’re a student, too,” Dylan noted without looking up. The virility in Trev’s inner thoughts was lost on him, and for the best since he’d apparently misread his implication to begin with. “Believe it or not, I do like quiet nights in, it’s just that...” Dylan’s eyelids fluttered momentarily as he paused between cleaning spots on the floor. “...it does get really lonely.” That bordered on too close to his own thoughts. How was it their experiences could be so different, yet so universal? “And this is how you force people into spending time with you?” Langley growled quietly but a whine of distress slipped through as the comb finally snagged in the tangled knot he’d been brushing it all toward. Snagged and stuck. Fleur stopped what he was doing, walked over to the sink, and filled a brush can with hot water. “You know, you could have walked away the first time you tried,” he reminded as he strode back over, leaving it at that instead of further rubbing it in that he’d made the conscious decision to stay. In a wordless movement, he took the soap out of Trev’s hand, dunked it into the can, and lathered it into a frothy mess, then tried at touching his hair again. As expected, Trevor flinched away like a wounded animal; but instead of giving up, Fleur just took in a breath to steady himself, and waited for his feral instincts to subside. “You’re making it a lot harder for yourself than it needs to be. This will help, if you let it. Please.” In spite of the mess of mixed up feelings working overtime to push him as far away as they possibly could, Dylan still wasn’t intimidated by his snarling. How could he be so calm in the face of anger? Where everyone else would have given up, he’d persisted, against his better judgment. Whether it was just sheer stupidity or naivety, he couldn’t say, but the boy’s patience was admirable. Or, maybe, learned. Trev’s brown eyes shifted focus over his shoulder at the painting one more time and withered just enough to drain the tension out of his expression. He wondered just what his trauma could have been to have left such a deep, festering wound, and how he could have remained so patient in spite of it. Hesitantly, he lowered his hands, but not his guard; for the moment, he was tired of feeling so tightly wound. Fleur fingered the solidified chunk of hair and softly worked the soap into it from root to tip until he could feel the paint start to break down. The sensation of discomfort in Trev’s scalp subsided almost immediately, to his relief, but when Fleur reached for the comb, he snatched it out of the way and recoiled back to brush it out himself. No gloating smile or snarky grin came in response. Instead he just gave him the smallest hint of a smile as he watched him comb the knot out with considerably less effort. “Better?” A mumbled, disgruntled ‘Yeah, thanks’ was all he could offer in return amidst the combing. The paint came out easily now with the help of the soap, whether or not he wanted to admit that accepting his help had done him some good. The large, almost rubbery paint clumps rolled out with the lather in thin strands which dissolved into thinner pieces the longer it sat in the suds. As Dylan turned back to his cleanup, Trev made the short trip to the sink in the back corner of the room with the sofa and stooped to attempt to rinse the mess out of his hair. He took his glasses off to fold up and hook over the collar of his shirt. Even if it was only a partially-simulated shower, it still served to do what running water over the head at the end of a long, tiring day did best: it made him think, made him wonder… Trev reached for the faucet and turned it off, wrung the water out of his hair as best he could, then reached for a hand towel and rubbed as much of the remaining dampness as he could out of it. If Fleur was really such a misanthrope that he rarely bothered to come out of his studio, then what had made him want to try and get to know him? Or rather, what made him ‘special enough’ to want to pull such an infuriating prank? Somewhere between the boring and the interesting, he was on the more favorable end of that scale, and that necessitated investigation. “Why me?” he asked softly, his focus directed at the drain, towel still draped around his neck and hands gripped tight on the edge of the sink. Dylan paused mid-scrub and briefly met his eyes as Trevor looked his way. The look in them said everything and more, but Dylan answered anyway, in the simplest way he could. “...because you get it.” “Despite efforts to the contrary,” Trev noted pessimistically as he resumed brushing. This earned a quiet chuckle from his company, and Dylan paused to remain sitting on his knees for a few moments while cleaning up the last shoe print. “...you’re hardly the most difficult person I’ve encountered,” Fleur admitted, to his surprise. Privately, he wondered if Dennis knew this, and if he did, to what degree- the whole ugly truth, or just a partial account. Alternatively, to have anyone describe him as somehow not difficult gave Trev another reason to pause. He stopped brushing a moment to peel gathered paint crumbs from between the bristles and hesitated, the question hitched in his throat. “And if I was, would we be having this conversation?” “Knowin’ me…? Yeah, probably,” Dylan snorted as he dunked the sponge in the now-lukewarm water and wrung it out. “But it also depends on what you mean by difficult, because it takes a lot to piss me off- narcissism, chauvinism, egotism, prejudice, bein’ an asshole just because you can.” The last two terms actually drew a curl in his lip as he scrubbed harder to scratch the dried paint off the hardwood with the rough side of the sponge. “Fame chasing, glory-seeking, hurting someone because it’ll benefit you or because it just makes you happy to cut someone else down- that’s the kind of shit I can’t deal with in large doses, an’ I’ve met a lot of people like that in my life to know em’ when I see ‘em. So, you tell me, Langley.” He paused long enough to spare him a questioning look. “Are you any of those things? Or are you just hurtin’ and still a little too raw for comfort?” As he slid his glasses back on, Trevor swallowed, equal parts affronted and not that Dylan could see right through whatever he had passing for a mask. He blinked a few times to cover the involuntary twitch in his eyes, if not hide the nervous tremor in his throat that generated from nowhere to derail the sardonic retort he’d put together. And here he once thought getting away from Rhea and Dahlia would mean avoiding discussing this. A response to the former query and not the latter would be an answer in itself, no matter how he worded it, and that would have to suffice. “If I am those qualities in any measure, it’s not intentional. I… I’m still figuring it out.” Trevor focused on a stretched lock of hair and picked a few remaining paint clumps out, to avoid focusing on how hot his cheeks had become. “It’s- complicated.” “Well, take a breath, then, ‘cause as far as I can see, you’re not.” Dylan pushed himself up off the floor and stooped to pick up the bucket, then turned and looked over with a reassuring smile. “I can handle damaged, Trev. I’d be a hypocrite if I couldn’t.” The flush faded and Trev set his eyebrows in a flat line to mirror his mouth. It was nice to offer, but… “Not sure mine’s the kind of damage you’d care to hear about,” he deflected half-heartedly. “Then try me some time, you might be pleasantly surprised.” Part of him wished he hadn’t said it, but another, slightly larger part of him felt relieved at his offer. Persistence was starting to get through to him, or maybe he was just tired of arguing semantics. He watched as Fleur crossed the room, a rag and bucket in hand, and bent down to wipe up the small bits of yellow that had spilled out into the hallway. This whole encounter had started off so completely opposite, he was having a hard time believing he was still talking to the same person that had him so thoroughly pissed off an hour earlier. Instead of being at odds with a new enemy, he now found himself in the company of someone who was just as misunderstood as he- someone genuine, someone kind, someone with the potential to be a real friend if he was ever brave enough to venture out of his shell again. Which he had already begun to do, whether he wanted it or not. The charm had been one of the first things he had joked about, but self-deprecating or not, there had been truth in what he’d said: Dylan was magnetic and charismatic, much more so than he was repulsive. And out of the hundreds- hell, thousands of people he’d probably met and decided he wanted nothing to do with, he saw something in him that made him determined enough to dig his heels in and persist despite Trev’s resistance. In the end, he had taught him a valuable lesson about loosening up- and how accepting help wasn’t an admission of defeat, but a valuable tool in overcoming problems (as demonstrated by the comb now gliding through his hair with ease). He didn’t have to be alone if he didn’t want to be, he didn’t have to bury his trauma under so many layers of irritation and short-tempered reactions and never again trust another enough to open up. But he wasn’t quite there yet, brave enough to face the full scope of all that wasn’t on the agenda. Dylan had somehow managed to throw back the curtains on his gloom and doom and let the light in, but he wasn’t ready to open the window. “Not today,” he finally replied after several minutes of silence, not wanting to sound too much like he’d be willing to consider acting on his offer, if their budding friendship even made it that far; even still, the implication of his word choice was apparently obvious enough. Dylan smiled, more happy than mischievous initially, but because it was in his nature to not let things get too comfortable (which Trev quietly thanked him for), it tainted the otherwise lighthearted mood with coy suspicion. “You mean you might come back one of these days…? After everything I put you through…?” Instantly, Trevor backpedaled with a defensive finger point at his teasing. “Hey- don’t push your luck,” he warned, eyes squinty and head tilted. “It’s almost like I knew you were a good egg…” “Alright, that’s it- visitation rights have been revoked.” “What!?” Dylan’s fake-outrage was overpowered by laughter and a charming smile Trev found himself growing fonder of every time he saw it (and deep down, it terrified him). “But I just complimented you…!” “Keep it up, and I might just relocate to the next zip code, and change my name.” It might have been the best thing for him, if this kept up. “Oh, come on now, don’t be so dramatic…” Another ten minutes of idle banter elapsed before the world outside saw fit to make itself known again. Appearing with as little warning as he had the first time, Dennis Lenore didn’t knock. To find them right back where they began wasn’t a big leap of logic, having last seen them at the onset of the chase, although he probably did wonder why Trev didn’t simply return to the dining room. The sight of him perched atop one of the stools -in a fresh set of borrowed leisure clothes, listening to Dylan chatter on and on with a faint smile, a few stubborn flakes of paint still entrenched in his hairline- got an instant smirk out of him, though no questions were asked, about the fate of the suit or otherwise. “Well, I see you two are gettin’ along great.” His choice of adjective was enough to get a mildly-irritated glower out of both of them. This was, in part, all the older officer’s doing. ‘You’ll thank me later,’ he’d said, somewhat premonition-like. There was absolutely no way he hadn’t known what he was doing. Trev breached that new silence first with a mannerly stretch. “Yes, sir. Mr. Fleur is… different from what I expected.” “So, it’s Mr. now, huh?” Dylan teased with a sideways glance and a smirk. “Don’t get used to it,” he quickly amended once he realized how awkward it sounded, given how Dennis’ expression curdled a bit. “In any case, he was generous enough to not leave me a mess afterward.” “Hey, aftercare is important,” Dylan chimed in with a smirk and a ribbing nudge as he got up and passed Trev on his way to dump out the water bucket. The double meaning went over Trev’s head initially, but it came back around like a boomerang when it got an uncomfortable snort and a chuckle out of Lenore, and he flushed softly with an annoyed scowl. “Just glad to see you’re both in one piece.” “We had a rough start, but… we came to an understanding, of not understanding,” Fleur explained with a sideways wink in Trev’s direction that was met by a sigh and an eye-roll that somehow bordered on amicable. “It could have been much worse.” “Or better.” A sputtering choke on his next words at the evolution of Den’s expression from amused to devious did well enough to convey that the context had not been lost on him that time, but the blushing helped. “So does that mean you’re stayin’ the night, or do we need to get gone?” Trev sat up a bit straighter and practically jumped out of the chair as he made a note of the time. “I have classes tomorrow,” he reminded in nervous tenor, almost as if he’d completely forgotten. It was, technically, a few short hours away; even if he didn’t need to sleep, he could use a recharge after the events of the night. Thankfully, the courses were held during reasonable daytime hours, so there was still time. Looking less than compelled to back him up, Dennis shrugged and eyed him with no small measure of skepticism. “Don’t blow a gasket. You’ll only need a few hours’ recharge. Could stay and have a new uniform at the front door tomorrow morning.” “No, sir. I already-“ Trev’s stuttering insistence got the better of him momentarily, and he paused to take a calming breath. “Your suit is already going to need washing; I couldn’t impose any more expenses.” “Ah, give it a rest, Den… if he wants to go home, it’s fine by me. Wouldn’t want him to OD on my company the first night.” There was a twinge of disappointment in Dylan’s voice as he shut off the faucet and placed the bucket aside to dry. He crossed his arms and pulled the sleeveless cardigan shut over his bare chest as he crossed the room and set his gaze on the floor. The motion came across like curtains on a stage show being drawn closed. Reminded of the quiet, empty dorm room waiting for him back in the city, Trev was a bit taken aback at how he didn’t sprint right out the door. Given the chance, Dennis offering to arrange it so they might stay was and wasn’t tempting, for a multitude of reasons. On one hand, the realization that for the last half an hour, he’d felt more even-tempered and calmer than he had in months, insisted he stay; but on the other, paranoia that this wouldn’t (or maybe couldn’t) last compelled him to go and pretend none of this ever happened. Fleur’s upbeat mood suddenly deflating with the realization they’d have to pick this exchange up another day, was strangely not as satisfying to see as he’d thought it would be; if anything, it was a disappointment he understood, as much as he didn’t want to. But he hadn’t made any promises to come back, only to consider they stay in touch. That wasn’t necessarily a binding contract, or even a verbal agreement. Still, being the eagle-eyed detective that he was, Dennis read between the lines just fine. “I can always pull him off a patrol to send over as needed, Dylan. The socialization will do you both a world of good.” Trev hid another twitch by grabbing up the plastic bag containing his spotted garments, looked down at himself, then sidelong at Dylan. “I will need to return these at some point,” he debated audibly. The notion perked him up ever so slightly, and his eyes caught Trev’s flicker of brown with a sideways glance. “You can keep them if you want. You said you don’t have many clothes to begin with, right?” he offered as he meandered toward the painting and leaned one shoulder against canvas frame. “They’re not really my… preference,” he declined, but as expected, Dylan was un-dissuaded. One hand lifted and rapped a knuckle against the wooden stretch beam behind him with a grin. “Then maybe next time, we can throw this shit where it was supposed to go- maybe show you an old black an’ white?” Dennis squinted at the canvas, gleaning only a surface impression before mutely shaking his head. Nick probably wouldn’t have found this work along the same lines of ‘nice’, were he there to see it. Trev barely managed to not cringe; he still couldn’t understand his reasoning for why he’d want to wash away all that hard work with a new coat of paint. “I don’t know when that might be. I have- assignments to tend to.” Lenore called the excuse out for what it was and shot him a scowl accompanied by a light slap on the shoulder. “Stop lying, kid. It’s unbecoming of any policeman,” he scolded over his shoulder as he turned out the door. Dylan tossed Dennis an annoyed look that screamed ‘knock it off’ as he walked away, ineffective as it was when aimed at the back of his head, then turned back to respond to Trevor with an open-ended offer. His fingers nervously twitched and squeezed at his arm just trying to get it out. “Well… if you get lonely or want someplace else to chill, you know where to find me. I’m always here, don’t have much else goin’ on.” One hand extended to gesture around the room with a flourish and a chuckle to illustrate this. Decorated or not, it probably wasn’t as lively-looking as he made it seem. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” To Trev, it sounded ideal. A chamber within which one was pretty much guaranteed isolation was the best possible setting to ‘introvene’, as the made-up term would imply. Dylan made a face, clearly not of the same opinion. “It can be, when you start goin’ stir-crazy from bein’ cooped up inside for so long.” And...? He wasn’t already half crazy by default? Trev scoffed, pushed his glasses back into place. “That’s what walks are for.” His second favorite pastime- it might not be as exciting as some alternatives, but after what he had been through, monotonous was right up his alley. “Yeah, and we’ve got a lot of land to do that on, and you wouldn’t even have to worry about running into other people…” Fleur raised his brows, probably expecting him to come around to the idea. “How’s that sound?” “Almost perfect,” Trev replied with a slight smirk that dropped as soon as it appeared. “But you’d still be there.” Dylan rolled his eyes, smiled big and shook his head.  “C’mon… I thought we were past that.” “I also told you not to push your luck, but here we are.” “Who’s bein’ pushy…?” The coy grin lingering on his lips almost reached the apples of his cheeks. “I’m just gently planting seeds.” Artists had a penchant for using such poetic phrases, it was true. “So- what? You’re a gardener now, too…?” LANGLEY! YOU COMIN’ OR STAYIN’? “COMING!” Trev shouted back, almost jumping as he nervously made for the door. His own impulsive reaction to yell versus use the com left him cringing. “I mean- I’d say it was nice meeting you, but it was easily one of the worst introductions I’ve ever suffered.” Not the worst- it was up there, as far as he could remember. But it had also somehow segued into the smoothest recovery he’d ever witnessed. Not that he’d ever tell him that. Dylan chuckled again, perpetually amused. “Hey- Mom always said it was better to leave an impression than to be immediately forgotten…” “Yes, well, you’ve certainly done that.” Looking down at himself, Trev managed not to lose it to another flustered tirade. One way or another, these clothes would have to come back. “I’ll… drop these off when I can.” The look that crossed Fleur’s face was that of surprised contentment, even a little bashfulness. Somehow, he’d evidently gotten the response he’d been waiting for out of him, and it seemed even he didn’t expect to succeed. Before he could delay their departure any longer, he turned on his heel and made for the stairs, Dylan’s voice calling out to catch him just as he passed through the threshold of the studio. “Don’t feel like you need to bother with calling ahead, the door’s always open.” Letting Trev make the decision as to when that would be, compared to Dennis’ indirect attempt to force him into making a commitment on the spot, went a long way in fostering his slowly developing appreciation for Dylan Fleur, however irksome he was. Perhaps that was why he’d been finding it so hard to leave. After all, there had only ever been one other person he’d gelled with so quickly after meeting. Langley’s hand balled into a fist at his side as the tremor returned, his pace quickened to a trot down the bottom steps, and he nearly sprinted out the door to catch up with Dennis before he missed his ride home. He didn’t want to think about this right now, he didn’t need to be reminded of that gaping wound in his heart. That had been the real problem with this situation- the fact that he simultaneously saw too much and too little of a dead man in him. Maybe it needn’t have been so difficult, but he hadn’t wanted it to be this easy either.

[acre-of-wheat]

Summer Blue Chp. 10

Clarke makes it all the way to the kitchen, throws open the pantry door and pulls the chain light before she remembers she can’t cook. Something about taking care of Lexa, the domesticity of it all, had fooled her into thinking she somehow newly possessed this skill by virtue of genre construction.

Clarke walks into the pantry and closes the door behind her, alone with the boxes of mashed potato flakes, canned corn, and the still swinging light chain. She fights the urge to sit on the floor, curl up, and turn off her brain. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep or the early hour or the strangeness of the circumstance, but it felt like at some point in the night she and Lexa had slipped into a sideways space where nothing existed apart from them and the house. It wasn’t an unwelcome sensation, not entirely, but the intimacy of it frightens Clarke-- like this morning was one for telling secrets, whether you wanted to or not. Like staying up together as the sun rose was some kind of pact magic that existed in humans since there had been a sun to rise and Lexa’s place in her heart was going to be cemented there indelibly. As if it hadn’t been the summer of Lexa already for Clarke.

There was simply too much to lose, and Clarke doesn’t feel strong enough to brave another loss.

Clarke comes to herself, realizing that she’s been locking eyes with the Quaker Oats man the entire time. She grabs the oatmeal off the shelf, takes a deep breath, and opens the pantry door, emerging out into the kitchen where golden sunlight bisects the room-- half in brilliant warmth, the other in cool shadow.

It takes a moment for her to find where the pots are stored, the kitchen is so rarely used. After a scuffle with an overstacked cabinet and a moment to peel off the price tag, Clarke stands in the middle of the kitchen, pot held in one hand as she studies the directions on the oatmeal with a frown, deciding to eyeball the measurements rather than try to find wherever the measuring spoons and cups had ended up.

The next few minutes are taken up with the minutia of boiling water, of finding sugar and pouring milk, of rinsing blueberries and shaking up orange juice jugs. Birds sing outside the window. The normalcy of it is comforting to Clarke, and she tries to focus on nothing but the task at hand, doing her best to shake off the meditative moments where Lexa’s face comes to her mind and she finds herself staring into the middle distance.

Even with her attempted full attention, the oatmeal clumps and singes at the bottom, and Clarke does her best to hide the inconsistencies with copious amounts of sugar and berries. She clears a bowl of fake lemons off a decorative tray and replaces it with two steaming bowls of oatmeal, two spoons, two glasses of orange juice, and two green cloth napkins that Clarke folds and refolds, fussing with the placement of them so much that Clarke actually begins to lose respect for herself.

Clarke takes a deep breath, pushes her hair out of her face, and picks up the tray, padding softly back into the living room, walking carefully to avoid spilling any juice. She looks up to see Lexa, still on the couch, the sunlight accentuating every cut and bruise. Clarke could paint every shade of purple and blue she sees there, every rusting red that spiders across her skin, but she wishes she couldn’t, wishes the only sketches she could draw of Lexa were ones where she was whole. Clarke sighs, and it’s a sigh of mingled sadness and affection.

Lexa attempts to sit up as Clarke comes forward to set the tray on the coffee table. Clarke frowns at Lexa’s grimace of pain at the movement.

“Lie back down, Lexa,” Clarke commands.

Lexa shakes her head, “I’ll have to sit up eventually, Clarke.”

Clarke sighs again as Lexa continues to struggle, finally settling on placing the pillow from her floor-bed behind Lexa with a disapproving look.

“Thank you, Clarke,” Lexa says, and her eyes are only a little glassy from pain, “There is room now, if you would like to sit?”

Clarke nods, taking a seat by Lexa’s socked feet. Lexa’s socks are gray, with red toes and heels, and Clarke is too fond of her. She hands Lexa a bowl of oatmeal, and slides her orange juice closer to her on the table.

“Thank you for breakfast, Clarke,” Lexa says, stirring the oatmeal slowly, “I don’t know how to thank you. For everything you’ve done.”

Clarke shakes her head, remembering how she’d frozen the night before, how she’d been so frightened of losing Lexa she’d been unable to help the way she wanted to.

“I wish I could have done more,” is what she ends up saying.

Lexa smiles, split-lipped and soft, “I already owe you a great deal, Clarke. I don’t know that I could afford more.”

They eat in silence for a time, Lexa taking measured bites and methodically chewing, Clarke doing her best not to wolf her food down immediately. As the food runs out, the words build up, and Clarke begins to dig her toes into the carpet.

“So,” Clarke says, elongating the ‘o’ as she pushes the last clump of oatmeal around the bottom of her bowl.

“So,” Lexa replies, placing her own bowl on the table and folding her hands like she’s in a boardroom, sets her shoulders like a general.

“I was in a fight last night,” she says.

“Yes,” Clarke nods, eyes running over Lexa’s various injuries,“I put that much together.”

“Nia and her group are--” Lexa seems to grasp for the right words, “They--she--objects to my sexuality.”

“So she’s an asshole.”

“Yes. Also I dated her sister.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, eyebrows raising as she looks away from Lexa and down at her empty bowl, “Are you and her sister still close?”

Lexa takes a long time to reply, “No. We’re no longer close.”

Clarke glances back at Lexa, who is staring out at nothing, mess of hair and tousled braids obscuring her expression.

“There’s more you’re not telling me.”

“Yes,” Lexa says, but offers nothing else.

“Okay,” Clarke says, “I guess that has to be good enough.”

Lexa nods once.

“For now,” Clarke amends.

Lexa’s shoulders fall, but she nods again.

Clarke collects their bowls, stacks them on the tray and takes them back out to the kitchen. The sun has fully entered the room now and with the unforgiving light Clarke realizes how tired she is. She’d like nothing more than to turn back the sun, pad back into the living room, and collapse onto the couch with Lexa.

When she does come back to the living room, Lexa is sitting up on the couch, a look of horror on her face.

“Lexa?” Clarke asks, moving to her quickly and kneeling next to her, “What’s wrong?”

“Clarke,” Lexa says, and her eyes are downcast, “I have something to confess.”

Clarke frowns, puts her hand on Lexa’s knee.

“I think I got blood on your white couch,” Lexa says, pulling her tangled blanket to the side to reveal the smudges of dried brown blood from the many cuts and scrapes they'd been heedless of the night before in their haste to set Lexa's arm.

“Oh, shit,” Clarke says, thinking of Abby and the interior decorator she’d hired to do this room.

“Yes. Shit,” Lexa grimaces.

“Well,” Clarke says, chewing at her lip, “I guess we have to flee the scene.”

It takes time for Clarke to search through Abby’s bag to find her keys, and longer to painstakingly get Lexa to the garage, her arm thrown around Clarke’s neck as they move as slow as possible, partly for silence and partly for Lexa’s bruised ribs.

The car is new, and starts with a barely audible purr, but opening the garage door sounds like a landslide. Clarke reverses slowly, switching off the automatic headlights so not even a stray beam can make its way across Abby’s upstairs window and alert her to their escape.

Once she turns onto the twisting lake road it’s smooth sailing-- the road is deserted this early in the morning and well paved this close to the water and the complaints of the rich who abhor potholes. The silence Clarke had wrapped them in to secure their escape becomes nerve-wracking-- the only sounds the smooth whir of wheel over still wet road and the gentle huff of the air conditioning. Clarke turns on the CD player with a quick jab, and her mother’s Coldplay CD starts to play. It’s corny, Clarke thinks, glancing over at Lexa to gauge her reaction, but not too embarrassing.

Lexa has her elbow up on the window, chin in her hand as she looks out, a surprisingly relaxed gesture that feels at odds with the bruises and cuts that are still fresh on her face. Lexa looks so at ease that Clarke decides not to disturb her for directions, and instead points her internal compass towards the center of town, driving only a little over the speed limit to savor the morning.

As they leave the tree dappled lake roads and begin to pass the far less grand homes of town locals Lexa slowly loses her ease. By the time they’ve reached the roundabout at the center of town, war monument to victory winged high, Lexa’s hands are laced tight in her lap, the set of her shoulders a visible few inches higher. Clarke stops at the entrance to the deserted roundabout and looks to Lexa, at a loss for their route finally.

Lexa nods forward, “Straight on, Clarke.”

Clarke finds herself driving slower and slower, weaving carefully to avoid the several stretches of rough road, inching to a near crawl as they cross the train tracks that bisect the town. Clarke has never seen a train on these tracks.

Here is the part of town where the business’s change every summer Clarke is here, where no one can seem to sustain a dream or a storefront. They pass by the giant empty parking lot of a failed grocery store, a place where seagulls inexplicably congregate, and by a strip of fast food restaurants-- the only places that have had a face lift in the past several years, and only to keep up with the marketing campaigns that must be kept uniform through every state.

Clarke glances over at Lexa, and there is something wistful in her look, like she’s also taking in the enormity of a town that only ever seems to grow more faded and cracked every year.

“Turn here, Clarke,” Lexa instructs, and Clarke does, turning down a tree lined street with a number of old and once beautiful houses that are showing their age. At the corner is a church, white paint peeling, message board advertising a surprising number of services throughout the week, and an unelaborated on verse: Proverbs 6:16-19.

“Just down this street. On the right,” Lexa supplies.

Clarke drives forward and turns into a parking lot so cracked to pieces that dandelions are growing between the asphalt. Several cars are also parked, none of them new, and all of them with some unique car ailment-- a duct taped on exhaust pipe, missing hubcaps, a door of a completely different color. The apartment complex they sit in front of seems similarly dilapidated-- a grungy beige that was popular two decades ago, a roof that’s missing shingling, and rusted out balcony fencing. Clarke parks and turns off the engine, turning to Lexa.

Lexa doesn’t look at her, and there is color to her normally pale cheeks. Clarke is suddenly aware that what she had mistook for anxiety in Lexa may well have been something else.

“Lexa?”

Lexa picks at a blood stain at the hem of her shirt, eyes trained downward, “I may need your help getting up the stairs Clarke, but I will be fine from there. Thank you for the ride. It was kind of you.”

Clarke frowns, and shakes her head, taking one of Lexa’s too busy hands in her own.

“Quit it,” she says, and Lexa looks up to meet her eyes, “You’re being real fucking weird right now.”

Lexa smiles, which surprises both of them, and nods.

“Okay,” Clarke says, squeezing Lexa’s hand one last time before opening the car door. She goes over to Lexa’s side and helps her out, looping an arm around Lexa’s waist to support her. They hobble to the stairs and make their way up, Clarke insisting on several breathers when she sees that Lexa is gritting her teeth. When they finally make it up to the second floor, Lexa leads them to the third door down. The numbering announces that it is the 2nd apartment, but the faded imprint and screw holes of a lost number hint that it is in fact the 12th. There is an outdoor lamp that Lexa carefully unscrews the glass from, fishing out a hide-a-key and spending a moment struggling with a sticky lock, before finally pushing the door open.

It’s dim inside, the blinds all pulled closed, and it takes Clarke’s eyes a moment to adjust. The inside of the apartment is like stepping into a sepia photograph-- everything seems to have that faded out brown look to it. There is wafer thin brown carpet, a brown and tan patterned couch, and more wood panelling than Clarke had thought still existed, including an ancient wood panelled TV. Clarke can hear the refrigerator humming.

“Is there anyone else here to help you?” Clarke asks.

Lexa unwinds herself from Clarke’s hold on her, limping towards the couch. She sits on the arm of it and begins to laboriously unlace her shoes. Clarke starts forward to offer to do it for her, but stops herself.

“My sister will not be back from her haul until tomorrow evening, but I will be fine until then, Clarke.”

“Can I get you anything? Some water?”

For a moment Lexa looks as though she might refuse her, and then she winces, “Water would be welcome.”

Clarke opens several bare cupboards before she finds where the glasses are kept, grabs an orange plastic one and fills it at the sink. By the time she returns with it Lexa has managed to get one boot off and seems to be taking a break to steel herself before the next one.

“Here you go,” Clarke says, passing the glass over.

“Thank you, Clarke,” Lexa says, and the words make her sound tired. “And thank you for bringing me up. I really will be alright now.”

“I know,” Clarke says, staring at her, “Can I stay anyway?”

The side of Lexa’s mouth quirks up in a sad smile, and in this dim house she looks broken down and at home.

“Of course,” Lexa says.

Clarke matches her half smile. She feels adrift in this house, not sure what to touch or where to sit, but she knows she doesn’t want to leave.

“I think I should get out of these clothes,” Lexa says, pulling at a tear in her dark jeans, which brings to attention her dirt and blood rimmed fingers, “and perhaps take a shower.”

“Okay,” Clarke says, feeling her face color, “can I-- should I help with that?”

“I will manage, Clarke,” Lexa says, smiling at Clarke’s stutter.

Lexa begins an uneven, one-booted walk down a dim hallway, opening a door on the left, and turning back to Clarke for a moment before she disappears inside, “Make yourself at home, Clarke.”

Clarke nods and gives a stilted wave at Lexa’s disappearing form, biting her lip at the bizarrity of her own behaviour. Left alone in the house, Clarke isn’t quite sure what to do with herself, deciding to take a slow loop through the living room, fingers running along the wood panelling, catching at the seams. Behind the couch is a shelf with a few photos and tchotchkes that arrests her attention.

One photo is of a shockingly young Lexa, face dour even in childhood and pink barrettes, seated next to a teenager who shares the same sharp cheekbones, piercing eyes, and scowl. Clarke guesses this must be Anya in her youth-- the half-sister she’s heard only a little about and who seems to be away more often than not. Another photo is of a woman, perhaps a little older than Clarke is now, wearing elaborate braids and a fond smile as she looks down at a baby in her arms. There is not much beyond the similarity of her braids to Lexa’s that would suggest her identity, but Clarke makes an assumption anyway. There is an American flag folded into a triangle that Clarke tentatively traces the edge of a star on, wondering who Lexa had cared for that fell. The rest of the knick knacks Clarke can’t parse the meaning of-- a small silver bell, a drawing of a startled looking rabbit, a snow globe of Chicago with no water inside, all coated in a layer of dust.

Clarke is momentarily startled by the groaning sound of pipes and the sound of spraying water, an indication that Lexa had at least managed to get the shower going. There is nothing else on the walls of the living room to hold her attention, so Clarke’s gaze drifts downwards to a crate shoved underneath the coffee table. Refusing to listen to the part of her that suggests she might officially be snooping, Clarke gingerly pulls the box free and finds that it’s full of a old records, the sleeves showing the signs of being well-loved rather than meticulously collected. She flips through them-- Singin’ In the Rain, Judy In Love, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Couple of Song and Dance Men-- faces Clarke vaguely remembers from old movies, songs that have been covered a dozen times since these recordings. She pulls out an old copy of Oklahoma! and smiles at the brilliant orange sky over the two lovebirds giving sappy smiles, about to burst into song. She glances around the room for a record player, but there’s nothing in the living room. Still clutching the record, Clarke wanders down the hallway Lexa had disappeared down. Clarke can hear the sound of the shower through the door on her left, and she briefly places her ear against the wood, listening for she doesn’t know what before she hurries along, pushing open another door on the right to escape.

Clarke can tell immediately that this is Lexa’s room. The bed has been made with clinical precision, a frayed knit blanket folded at the end, and there is a row of plants sitting in the windowsill, all looking obnoxiously healthy and full. Aside from the bed, there is only one other piece of furniture; a desk with faux wood covering that peels at the corners, stacked carefully with books. Clarke shifts them slightly to read the titles and grimaces-- Problem Solving in Chemical Engineering with Numerical Methods, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, and Mass transfer. Three pencils are laid out in a straight line and a protractor sits at the exact same angle. Impulsively, Clarke grabs a sticky note from a well-organized supply box that also contains silver paperclips and plain thumbtacks. She slaps it on the desk next to the pencils, scrawls “super weird” and draws an arrow to the now slightly askew pencils.

Clarke wanders the room, record and sticky notes still in hand, and she finds herself writing questions and sticking them around the room. “What are these” she writes next to the plants and sticks it on the window. “Why engineering” she writes a note on top of Lexa’s books. Clarke opens Lexa’s closet to find rows of plaid button downs and just two pairs of pants. “Which is your favorite shirt,” she writes and puts it on the closet door handle. “Who made this,” is stuck to the fraying yarn of the knit blanket. As time passes Clarke writes more open-ended questions, sticking them on the walls at arbitrary points-- “who was the flag for” “what color is Anya’s truck” “when will you tell me your middle name” “do you think the fish you caught were frightened” “should we get a posse together and kick Nia’s ass.”

Clarke almost misses the sound of the the shower turning off, only stopping her scribbling when she hears shuffling steps down the hallway. She drops the sticky notes back on Lexa’s desk, returns the pen she’d been using back to its holder, just as the door opens and Lexa walks in.

It becomes quickly apparent that neither of them had thought through this part-- where Clarke would stand or where she should look or if she should say anything when Lexa walks into the room soaking wet, hair clinging damply to bruised collarbones, and wrapped only in a rough gray towel. Their eyes meet for a moment before Lexa blushes-- a coloring that Clarke can see goes all the way down her neck and chest-- and looks away.

“Sorry. I’ll go,” Clarke says, taking a step towards the door, towards Lexa. Water is puddling on the carpet at Lexa’s feet, running down her bare legs.

“It’s okay. Just have a seat,” Lexa says, backing up and gesturing in the direction of the desk chair. “You can,” Lexa clears her throat, “face the other way.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, “sure.”

Lexa opens the closet door, using it as an obscuring screen as Clarke flips the chair around, facing towards the window, eyes locked on the sky outside. She hears the sound of plastic hangers rattling and fabric rustling.

“I see you found the records,” Lexa says from behind the door.

Clarke reflexively squeezes the record in her hand, raising it to her chest, feeling as naked as Lexa in the moment.

“No record player though,” Clarke replies, her voice raspy to her own ears.

“We had to sell it,” Lexa says, “But I refused to let Anya take the records. No one would buy them anyway.”

Clarke looks down at the record in her hands-- those cheerful smiles, that brilliant sunset--wondering how long it had been since Lexa had listened to it.

“I wouldn’t have guessed you were a fan of musicals.”

“They belonged to my mother,” Lexa says, and Clarke can feel her walking up behind her, turns to look back up at her. Lexa’s hair is still tousled and wet, hanging loosely over her shoulders and a black and blue flannel. Faded block letters that read “Tri-State” ran down the legs of her worn gray sweatpants. Lexa looks pale and scrubbed clean. The blood and grime is gone, and what’s left is the fine lines of repair, like shattered ceramic carefully glued back together. “She loved old movies, old musicals. When I was small we would spend all night watching them. She knew every word to every song. She was not as talented at the dance numbers.”

Lexa’s eyes are fixed on the record as she speaks and Clarke can see in them that depth of resigned sadness she’s seen there before, like loss was a home you could grow used to rather than one you ran away from.

For a moment Clarke is tempted to ask more, but thinks better of it. Whatever had happened, Lexa’s mother wasn’t here now, and the sadness on Lexa’s face was explanation enough.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says, holding out the record.

Lexa shakes her head slightly, the corner of her mouth going up in an attempt at a smile.

“It’s alright, Clarke,” she says as she takes the record, placing it carefully on the desk, “It was a long time ago.”

Clarke can’t help but think of her father, can’t help but wonder if in a year, five years, ten, she will still have that same broken down, rusty catch in her voice that Lexa has when she speaks of her mother. Clarke wonders if she’ll also insist that the pain is too long ago to matter, even as she handles pieces of her father so gingerly, like they might cut her open if mishandled. Her heart aches for herself, and for Lexa.

“It’s this one,” Lexa says, turning back to Clarke and holding out the post-it note from the closet, “my favorite shirt.”

Clarke laughs and it catches in her throat, twists around the tears there. She reaches out to Lexa, grabbing a fistful of her shirt, soft and faded to the touch and heated from Lexa’s still water warm skin. Clarke feels Lexa’s hands in her hair, and tugs her forward so she can bury her face against Lexa’s middle, inhales the smell of fabric softener and that uniquely green smell that belongs just to Lexa. She feels Lexa’s fingers continue to twist through her hair, feels Lexa bend to hold her, feels the soft kiss Lexa leaves on top of her head.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says around the tears, face buried in Lexa’s shirt.

“I’m not,” Lexa says, and Clarke both hears and feels her voice, so close are they together. “It’s not wrong to be in pain, Clarke.”

Clarke continues to clutch at Lexa, taking comfort in the steady feel of her body around her, the way Lexa’s careful fingers run through her hair, grazing her neck.

“I’m so tired,” Clarke says.

“I know,” Lexa replies, “I am too.”

Clarke looks up and meets Lexa’s eyes, green and weary and soft for her.

“Can I stay?” She asks.

Lexa nods, and holds out a hand for Clarke to take. Clarke reaches for her, and Lexa locks their fingers together, pulls Clarke to the bed. She folds Clarke underneath blankets and close to herself, and Clarke nestles into her arms, careful against Lexa’s ribs. Lexa’s bed smells overwhelmingly of her, and Clarke clothes her eyes, breathes it in and is comforted. When she opens her eyes again she finds Lexa still looking at her with the same warmth, the same care. Clarke traces a line across Lexa’s sharp cheekbones, dancing over the scrapes there. Lexa’s fingers find their way back to Clarke’s hair, stroking it away from her temple and, instinctively, Clarke turns to kiss Lexa’s wrist.

“Clarke,” Lexa sighs, and Clarke watches her cheeks and neck color again.

Clarke loves the sound of her name in Lexa’s voice, loves the way Lexa seems to melt under her lips even more. Clarke is exhausted, and so tired of being sad. More than anything she just wants to sink into the sound of Lexa saying her name.

“This is a really strange summer for me,” Clarke says, “but I’m glad you’re in it.”

Lexa smiles, still looking a little shaken, “Well, this is all fairly standard for me.”

Clarke traces the smile with her fingertips, her touch lingering at the corner of Lexa’s mouth.

“I liked kissing you the other night,” Clarke says.

“I enjoyed it too, Clarke.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if I tried it again?”

“No,” Lexa says, and her voice is lower, her eyes darker.

Clarke closes the distance between them, presses her lips to Lexa’s jaw, to her neck, to the place just below her ear.

“Clarke,” Lexa says again, her voice nearing a whine.

Clarke grins, biting her lip, “You don’t like building anticipation?”

Lexa’s fingers twist in Clarke’s hair, dragging Clarke towards her so that Lexa’s lips finally meet her own. Lexa’s lip is split and Clarke knows it must hurt, but Lexa doesn’t seem to care, kissing Clarke harder until Clarke opens her mouth and feels Lexa’s tongue against hers. Clarke’s hands start to slide down Lexa’s side, forgetting to be careful against the bruises and cuts along her skin, digging her fingers into Lexa’s hips. One of Lexa’s hands traces down Clarke’s neck, brushes across her collarbone, and Clarke’s skin shocks at the touch.

Clarke is so wrapped up in the feeling of Lexa against her, the taste of her mouth, and the smell of her skin, that she only dimly registers the sound of a door clicking open, or the sound of stomping feet. It’s only when Lexa draws back and cocks her head at the door that Clarke’s senses are able to register anything other than Lexa.

“Lexa?” a sharp voice calls from somewhere in the apartment, sounding rough and familiar.

Lexa’s eyebrows shoot upward and Clarke would have been tempted to laugh at her expression if she wasn’t in such a compromising position.

“Anya’s home early,” Lexa says, her face still flush, “Would you like to meet my sister?”

[whimsicaldragonette]

Romancing the Sorcerer’s Stone (Part 7 of 24)

Part 1~ Part 2~  Part 3~ Part 4~ Part 5~ Part 6~ Part 7~ Part 8~ Part 9~ Part 10~ Part 11~ Part 12~ Part 13~ Part 14~ Part 15~ Part 16~ Part 17~ Part 18~ Part 19~ Part 20~ Part 21~ Part 22~ Part 23~ Part 24~

- Part 7: Golden Snitches -

April 2000 — Cachora, Peru

Harry kicks a small rock into the gutter. He mutters to himself, hands shoved deep in his pockets, eyes firmly on the ground. He doesn’t understand why none of the guides he’s encountered seem willing to take him to the Choquequirao ruins. Sure, they’re supposedly cursed, but… People don’t actually believe it, right? And even if they do, there has to be someone willing to take him.

He spins on his heel, stalking back toward the seedy bar. Someone in that smoke-darkened room is bound to be willing. He’ll just have to flash a lot more gold. He doesn’t like resorting to bribery — that’s more Malfoy’s territory — but he needs to get up there.

He strides through the swinging doors, wincing at the the way they creak and shudder. A rust-colored rain of paint flakes speckle his boots. He has to get himself under control before his magic brings the place down around his ears.

He firms his jaw and strides to the bar. The weedy man behind it peers up at him, beady eyes clouded by age and smudged lenses.

“Yes?” he asks. “What can I get you? Drinks only, mind.” His hands never stop their slow, inevitable motion over the wooden surface of the bar, smearing the stains around with a gray towel that Harry thinks was once probably white.

Harry grinds his teeth, forcing his tone to remain even. “I need a guide.”

The man blinks at him but doesn’t stop wiping the bar. “And I need to be young again.” He waits a moment. “Seems neither of us will get what he wants today.”

Harry scowls. “I can pay,” he says shortly. “Gold.”

The barman stares impassively back at him, but he doesn’t say anything else, just waits.

They stare at one another. Harry sees the beginnings of smug gloating swimming up from the depths of the man’s cloudy eyes. Before it can fully surface, someone speaks up from the silent crowd of men behind them.

“I’ll do it.”

Harry turns slowly, half expecting the voice to have been only in his head.

Facing him is a short, squat man of middling age. His hair is shading toward grey at the temples, and his tanned face is seamed with wrinkles, but his eyes are clear and hard.

“I’ll do it… for 5,000 Sol.”

Harry blinks. It’s an outrageous sum, more than a year’s wages for the average worker in Cachora, and yet… No one else bats an eye. It seems they, at least, consider it a fair price. He sighs. He’s brought that much — barely. It will leave him dangerously strapped for cash for the journey home, but… Well. Knowing Malfoy, he may as well not return without the medallion. They’ll just have to make it up in the sale.

He nods and holds out his hand. His guide ignores it.

“If we go, we go now.”

Harry looks skeptically up at the sun, which hangs decidedly higher in the sky than he would like. “But—“

The man glares at him. “Now, or not at all, outsider.”

Harry nods.

—

He regrets that decision almost immediately. He’d hoped they’d take some of the burros tied up outside the bar. Not that he’d been looking forward to riding a burro, exactly, but he really isn’t looking forward to making the climb on foot.

By late afternoon the next day, he’s bruised and beaten, trudging grimly behind his guide as the man winds inexorably up the mountain. The man clearly doesn’t believe in so mundane a thing as a path, and opts instead to veer away from any they come across, slicing through hanging vines and underbrush alike with a wicked machete that he’d whipped out of… well, Harry isn’t sure where it was, but it’s spent the last several hours almost constantly in the man’s hand. It makes Harry’s arm hurt just to watch him.

The jungle closes in around them, a million shades of green and a riot of colorful flowers and birds. The perfumed air is filled with the rhythmic thwacks of the machete, the hooting of howler monkeys, and the constant, ever-present drip of water making its way from the canopy high above.

Harry scratches yet another bug bite, hoping his magical inoculations will be strong enough to beat out whatever parasites and fevers he might otherwise acquire, and wipes beads of sweat from his brow. He hadn’t prepared to spend the night in the forest, and he’s regretting that bitterly now. He slept uneasily, unused to the night noises of the jungle, and not entirely trusting of his reticent guide. He’s also not used to hiking at this altitude, and his lungs and muscles are burning.

He takes another swig from his water-skin, debating whether to call a halt. He doesn’t think his guide would listen. Sighing, he treks on.

He tries to engage his guide in small talk, at first. Though he can hardly find the breath for speech himself, his guide moves implacably forward. But all his efforts are met with grunts and terse replies. After a succession of ‘yep’s, ‘hmmm’s, and ‘no’s, he’s learned the man’s name is Paolo and little else. Eventually, he gives it up as hopeless and focuses on his breathing. It makes walking a bit easier and, for a while, he doesn’t mind the silence.

Just when he is about to try again, Paolo holds up a hand. Harry bites his lip, forcing the words back, and looks around. They’ve reached what once must have been a large clearing, though now it’s only a thinner patch of vegetation. Harry thinks it generally uninteresting and is turning away, assuming this to be a rest break, when Paolo’s machete comes down in three smooth swipes and the vines part like a curtain.

Behind them lie the ruins. Harry stares, dumbfounded. He’d have gone right past, never realizing what he was missing. He sees the gleam of gold winking from amid the moss-covered stones, and steps forward.

Paolo stops him with an arm across his chest.

“You go from here,” he says when Harry turns to him. “I go no further.”

“But—“ Harry starts, but Paolo has already faded into the mist. Harry realizes two things in that moment. First, that the sky has grown noticeably darker than it had been when they’d begun this journey, and a thick- gray mist has sprung up to further blur the landscape, and second, that he is alone.

He turns again, scanning the trees, but there is nothing.

A monkey howls in the distance. A parrot squawks.

Harry shivers.

He turns back to stare at the ruins. It’s folly to start now. It will likely be full dark by the time he’s retrieved the amulet, and he doesn’t think he can find his way back reliably in the daylight, much less the dark.

Then he remembers that he is a Wizard, dammit, and he can just apparate away whenever he likes.

Considerably cheered, he steps forward into the clearing. The air seems almost to thicken around him, resisting him, and as he presses on it suddenly sucks him inward.

Wards.

He hadn’t thought that there would be wards.

He is an idiot.

He stands perfectly still, waiting for whatever defensive magic is still active in this place to repel him. The minutes tick by. One… two… five.

Harry sighs and steps forward, relieved. The defenses must have worn off with age.

His straining ears register the tiny hiss before his conscious mind does, and his muscles react instinctively, dropping him instantly into a sideways roll.

The blow dart quivers in the tree not three feet from him; the crimson-painted tip gleams wetly. Harry gulps. Cinnabar.

So. Not all defenses are gone, then. He’ll have to be careful.

—

Malfoy’s informant was right. There’s a second layer of rooms in the temple, hidden from muggles in a layer of wizard space, folded around and set atop the visible rooms. The Medallion is in the fifth room he tries. The first four present him with traps and puzzles — all with deadly consequences. He avoids some, disarms others, and accidentally trips a few. Luckily, those are the easiest to deal with.

The rooms themselves are gorgeous, rife with history and magical artefacts. Harry is nearly tempted by the winking emeralds and sapphires, the softly glowing rubies and diamonds, the piles of shining gold.

He knows better. A quick detection spell confirms it — the rooms and everything in them are laced with cinnabar, mercury, and a handful of other poisons. In this temple, greed leads irrevocably to death. And Harry has a mission.

Get in, get the medallion, get out. He repeats this in his head, a mantra to keep him from temptation. Get in, get the medallion, get out.

Who knows what curses lie on those riches, even if he dared to risk the poisons? He’s here for one thing, and one thing only. And then…

In the fifth room, the medallion gleams as if it has just been polished, a burnished gold circle roughly the size of Harry’s palm, emblazoned with a rising sun.

It hangs around the neck of a desiccated body, hair still attached to its gray, papery flesh.

A mummy.

A guardian.

Harry belatedly raises his wand. He casts a quick revelio, just to be sure, but…

Nothing happens. He’s cut off from his magic. It’s still there, potent as ever, but completely out of reach — as if an invisible veil has fallen between it and him.

He gulps.

He waves his wand again, in a quick succession of patterns, casting curse detection and disarming spells one after the other.

Or, he tries to cast. The wand remains limp and lifeless in his fingers.

Right. The muggle way, then, and hope like hell that it’s not coated with poison like everything else.

He’d cast the same detection spells on this room from the passageway, though. Nothing had shown up. He’ll just have to trust to luck, he thinks, wishing belatedly for the dose of felix felicis waiting in his cupboard back at home. He’s saving it for when he really needs it. He’s beginning to think that time is now.

He slips the wand into his back pocket, wipes his sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans.

He can do this.

It’s just a mummy.

No, don’t think of that. Just a— a thing, now. Not alive. Not anything to worry about.

He steps forward quickly and slips the chain over the mummy’s head.

A papery hand reaches up and latches around his wrist, and Harry’s skin grows cold.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and he’s never meant it more.

The hand tightens, bony fingers closing around his arm and squeezing tight.

Harry wants to scream.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he turns his head. He locks eyes with the sunken eye-sockets and desiccated eyes of the thing holding him.

Then he wrenches his arm sideways and back, rolling away from the thing sitting on its golden throne.

He takes the medallion with him.

He takes the arm with him, too. It breaks off cleanly from the body, tearing with a sickening crunch of bone, and he scrabbles at it. After a few seconds, the fingers relax, and he hurls the thing away from him.

He looks down, eyes wild.

He has the medallion.

He has to get out of here.

He lurches to his feet and out the door, down the corridors, running blind. By some miracle, he avoids the traps, and then he’s out, out into the fading afternoon light and he’s never been so happy to see the weak rays of sunlight in his life.

He looks down at the medallion in his hand. “How am I going to get you out of here?” he wonders as the rush of adrenaline fades, leaving him cold. He can’t apparate, not with the medallion. He’ll have to walk. But which way is the way out? His eyes light upon the hacks and cuts made by Paolo’s machete, and he smiles.

He stumbles along the path of broken branches, squinting into the darkening gloom and mist around him and wishing he’d paid more attention to their route. He’d assumed he’d have a guide on the way out, too. A foolish notion, now that he thinks of it, but there’s no help for it now.

He pats the pocket where he’s stowed the medallion. Still there. Good.

A blade whistles through the air, scant inches from his cheek, and he swerves abruptly to the left

—

The vipers are in the middle of what seems to be a family argument.

Harry groans. Of course, he would end up as the mediator to a family of hissing vipers, all while being chased by Zabini’s goons. What else did he expect? He frowns, trying to follow the conversation for a moment, fifteen different grievances and sides being argued at once.

It’s really too bad he can’t use magic, he thinks, as he continues to listen with half an ear to the drama playing out before him. It would be so much easier to take care of Bulstrode and Goyle if he could.

Of course, they can’t use magic either — which they obviously know. He’s been set up.

The knowledge hits him like ice water to the face.

He’s been set up. That bastard Paolo set him up.

He thinks of the pocketful of gold he’d given the man, the pocketful he’s no doubt wheedled out of Zabini’s goons.

It’s a small consolation, to know he probably won’t live to enjoy it.

—

The snakes are hissing at him, demanding his attention.

He apologizes, tongue slipping smoothly around the hissing sounds of parseltongue, and turns his attention back to their disagreement.

A malicious chuckle startles him, just as he’s putting the final touches on a solution that works for everyone.

“Sitting in the dirt, Potter? My, my. That’s a new low, even for you.”

“Shut it, Bulstrode,” he returns angrily. He stands slowly, dusting off the knees of his trousers and glaring at her. Goyle appears suddenly beside her, swinging a heavy club against his meaty palm. Harry winces as it thwacks dully against the skin.

Bulstrode grins triumphantly, taking advantage of his distraction, and raises her wicked blade.

He narrows his eyes and hisses “These are the ones I told you about. I will collect my payment now.”

The snake closest to him, the matriarch of the colony, bobs her head regally. “Agreed.”

Then, they attack, writhing forward in a hissing mass, surging toward Bulstrode and Goyle’s feet.

With an earsplitting shriek, she turns and runs, tossing her blade to the dirt and yanking a protesting Goyle with her. The moment they cross the magic dampening field, they spin away in a whirl of apparition.

Harry stares down at the dull metal, mystified, and then winces as he watches the blood well up from the deep gash on his thigh.

Episkey, he thinks, then, right. No magic. Um. He’s feeling woozy, and this is so not good.

He grips his wand tightly, pressing his left hand to the wound to try and stem the flow of blood, and uses every ounce of magical strength and stubbornness within him to send out a Patronus, shoving it past the magical barrier put up by the medallion.

He doesn’t have the strength to control or direct it at all, so it’s really just a magical S.O.S. broadcast on all channels — the equivalent of an amplified shout of “help!”

Part 1~ Part 2~  Part 3~ Part 4~ Part 5~ Part 6~ Part 7~ Part 8~ Part 9~ Part 10~ Part 11~ Part 12~ Part 13~ Part 14~ Part 15~ Part 16~ Part 17~ Part 18~ Part 19~ Part 20~ Part 21~ Part 22~ Part 23~ Part 24~

You can also read, comment, etc on AO3, FF, or Wattpad

[roraewrites]

twelve

[ sakura’s secret ] rating: m

// thanks for all the likes and kind words ♥ also added numbers to the chapters since there’s quite a bit now. ten points to anyone who guesses what happens next :’)

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Sakura’s eyes scanned through the texts that Naruto and Ino had spammed her with overnight. The few voicemails that her mom had left her tore her heart from her chest, made tears brim her eyes and her fists clench.

She was angry with her mom, why should she care? Sakura shook the idea from her mind and went back to the next text that came in from Ino.

Are you with that guy that I saw you with on Halloween?

She bit her lip and frowned. Sasuke was still asleep next to her, but when she began to shuffle out from under his grip, his eyes stirred awake.

“What?” He moaned.

“I’ll be back,” Sakura whispered to him in a reassuring tone. He closed his eyes and settled back into the couch, his arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed.

It was now seven-thirty in the morning when her phone started dialing Ino’s number, the ring lasting longer each time, but when the blonde picked up, Sakura could hear the panic in her voice.

“Fucking kidding me?! Where are you?!” Her shrill shout was more than what Sakura needed this early in the morning, considering she didn’t sleep much.

“Shut the hell up, Ino.” Sakura’s hissed into the phone. She closed the door behind her and sat on the counter of Sasuke’s bathroom. Her fingers smoothed some of her wild pieces of hair down, while her viridian eyes flashed to the smeared mascara under her eyes. “I needed to get away for a night--”

“So you run off and don’t tell anyone? And to make matters worse, turn your phone off?” Ino’s tone was firm, but Sakura could hear the cracking of her voice behind it. “You idiot! Damn idiot.”

Ino was crying now and Sakura felt horrible. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone like that; her emotions outweighed everything else, and she just didn’t care.

“Ino?” She says softly into the phone, her own tears starting to fall lightly down her cheeks. The only sound that came back from Ino’s side is a small sniffle, and finally a sob.

“We thought someone kidnapped you. I thought you were gone, Sakura! You didn’t answer anyone, your mother is worried, Naruto is scared shitless. We all thought you were gone for good and there was nothing anyone could do.”

Her words tore her down, ripped her spirit apart, demolished her soul. Sakura finally let out an uncontrolled sob and let the tears flow. How could she have been so selfish?

“I’m so sorry,” she breathes and Ino quiets down instantly. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Sakura waits a moment while Ino gains composure, and when she does, she heard the light hearted giggle from her best friend. “I miss you,” she says, and Sakura feels her heart throb and her throat well up.

Sakura misses her best friend too, and she misses Naruto and her mother and her father, but she also has her sights on her goals.

“I miss you, too.” Sakura responds, and she means it. She’s no longer crying in Sasuke’s bathroom, but dabbing the running makeup from her face and smiling softly while she rubs tears from her face.

As they talk over the phone for another hour, Ino finally popped the question. “Who is he?”

Sakura choked before thinking about how to answer her question honestly. She wasn’t sure what to say, but she decided that something was better than her usual ‘nothing.’

“You’ll meet him someday,” she says softly, and she can hear the promise in her voice and the hum of Ino on the other side.

“I’ll hold you to it, Forehead.” And it’s just the way she says Sakura’s endearing nickname that makes her smile, and she knows that their conversation is over now. She’ll see Ino at school come Monday, and she’ll text Naruto to apologize for disappearing too.

She thought about her mother, though, and what she was going to say to her. Sorry for disappearing and ignoring all your calls. It sounded cheesy, and she needed to apologize in person, cause a mother’s worry is pure and raw.

“Sakura?”

She jumped at his voice and hung up the phone. With the remainder of her makeup wiped from her face and her hair smoothed down, she opened the door and found Sasuke perched in front of her with sleepy eyes and a pair of sweats that had wrinkles from sleeping.

“What’re your plans today?” He inquires, his hand coming to run through his hair, revealing two eyes that shimmered with silver flecks and high hopes.

“Not sure,” she answered. She felt breathless standing in front of this gorgeous human, and as he slouched down on one leg, he flashed her a smile that showed his perfect, white teeth.

“I need to get my Christmas shopping done before it’s too hectic. Care to join?”

She feels her heart plummet to the pit of her stomach, her evergreen eyes widen with disbelief and her mouth drops open.

“Really?” She breathes out.

“Really, really.” He replies with a sarcastic tone and a smirk. Sakura nods her head with as much happiness as she can muster up, and when they agree to leave after they eat and get ready, she’s aware that she only has one set of clothing.

Sasuke’s low hum catches her attention after stating the obvious, and he disappears down the hall. “One minute.”

He’s back with a shirt and a pair of jeans; black, washed out jeans and a maroon long sleeved shirt. She frowns slightly before eyeing him. He raises an eyebrow before chuckling.

“They’re my mother’s.”

And she feels silly for acting childish, but she reaches her hand out and grabs the clothing from his hands.

.

.

.

After a breakfast of eggs with toast and a splash of orange juice, Sasuke disappears to his room while Sakura pulls his mother’s clothing over her body. They fit, surprisingly, and she twirls in front of the mirror. Her hair is braided down the side of her head, wraps around and comes to rest on her shoulder. The ends of her pink, wavy hair tickles, but she smiles at her reflection.

When she walks out of the bathroom, she waits at the door for Sasuke; her boots, hat, gloves and jacket all wrapped up on her and bundling her up.

“You look warm,” he states softly before emerging from his bedroom. He had his own jacket on, a pair of gloves, but no hat. His hair splayed in every which direction, some pieces even hanging down in his face as he joined her by the door. He’s wearing a pair of slim jeans along with the sweater that pokes out of his jacket, and slides his shoes on over his feet and takes a look at Sakura.

She can see his parted lips, shimmering dark eyes that hold interest, and when he bends down, she meets him halfway and their lips touch in unison. “Ready?” He breaks away before opening the door for her.

“Yep!” She chirps happily before walking out before him.

The elevator ride is short lived, and when she steps off, she sees that outside now holds a couple inches of snow and gray clouds.

It’s beautiful.

The snow crunched under her boots and she smiles through the cold weather and falling flakes. Her core is a furnace, raging on due to Sasuke’s thawing kiss and warm hand in her own. They walk together towards the parking lot, and he opens her door before she slides in and waits for him.

“Where are we going?” She asks.

Sasuke doesn’t look at her, only smiles before flicking his windshield wipers on and removes the snow from the windshield. It moves with ease and he puts his car in reverse. “You’ll see.” His voice held promise as he shifted his car into first and drives smoothly out of the parking lot.

He leaves Konoha in his rearview mirrors. They’re on the freeway, heading south and Sakura watches as he passes cars with ease, maneuvering over the ice covered freeway. Snow still fell from the sky -- slowly but with grace -- and Sakura’s jade eyes watched as they came up and over the hood of his black car. It was always heartwarming when it snowed, and she lovedlovedloved winter.

“Do I get any hints?” Sakura finally piped up from her side of the car, amusement dancing on her face while she pursed her lips with hope.

“No,” his response is short, but his eyes adore the way she looks at him.

His blinker turned on a second later and they exit the freeway, turning right after the stop light. Old Konoha was where he was taking her, and Sakura’s smile lit up like the lights that decorated the many stores they began to encounter.

This part of the city had been changed into more of a tourist part of town, but either way, Sakura loved coming here during the holidays. The city always decorated the trees is different colored lights, while the buildings hung lights, reefs, garland and whatever Christmas stuff they could fit.

Along the main stretch through town, the buildings had no space between one another, the sidewalks were always packed with people, and the streets were filled with cars coming and going through town. The thing that Sakura favored the most about Old Konoha was the sight of the mountains that surrounded the western side. A ski resort sat at the base, holding one of the more popular areas to spend a day in the powder.

They were tall and jagged towards the middle, while the outsides rounded off and became mellow, but they always held snow and adventures; she promised herself that she’d go up there someday and either try her hand -- or feet -- at snowboarding or skiing.

Sasuke pulled into a parking lot after a few minutes of driving and paid the parking fee. His engine died down once he parked the car and turned it off, shoving the ticket up onto his dashboard and exiting the car.

“I love it here,” Sakura yelled the moment she got out. She could hear Christmas music playing down the road, and when Sasuke glanced at her with those dark, mysterious eyes of his, she felt her cheeks paint over with red.

“Why don’t you move here?”

“Too expensive.” She waved his question off with a flick of her wrist and began to walk around towards his side of the car. “Where to first?!”

“Hn,” he nodded before turning and taking a look down the street. “I guess we’ll window shop until we find something.”

Sakura nodded before meeting his long strides with her short legs. Sasuke kept his hands in his pockets as they walked, his eyes scanning the many windows that lined the streets. Sakura found everything cute and amusing -- her younger side showing through the woman she strived to be when she was around Sasuke.

When she felt her face run into his shoulder blade, she let out a small ‘umph’ and felt her cheeks heat up the moment he glanced back at her.

“We’ll go here first.” Sasuke smirked before reaching back and wrapping his fingers around the palm of her hand and towing her in. She grinned, loving the way the lights looked against the hardwood floors, and how the inner walls were lined with brick and how old school the entire store looked.

Cheerful music played from the speakers overhead and when Sakura inhaled deeply, she felt a bombardment of different scents and flavors blast her in the face. From pine needles to sugar cookies, toasted marshmallows to cinnamon apples, she breathed in all the Christmas scents and eyed all the different colors of candles.

“My mom loves candles,” he began to explain, his eyes flashing over the different shelves and arrangements that the little tables had to offer. “I get her one every year, kind of like our little thing, I guess.”

Sakura looked at Sasuke with adoring eyes and a soft smile. She noticed the red in his cheeks when he looked away from her, and when he found something he liked, he walked away. Sakura let him browse while she picked up every other candle and held it to her nose, inhaling the many different mouth watering scents.

Almost five minutes later, he appeared by her side with a bag in hand and a smirk on his face. “You done yet?”

Sakura laughed under his gaze and nodded. She felt unbelievably happy -- either from Sasuke’s uplifting mood or from her cheerful surroundings, she felt amazing. Her feet carried her behind Sasuke and on to the next store. From outside, she could smell the sweets that resided at the end of the block, from one of her favorite stores.

“Have you ever been to Konan’s?” Sakura asked from behind him and when he peers back at her, he nodded his head.

“Itachi loves it there,” he stated with a monotone voice.

Sakura raised an eyebrow as she followed his footsteps through the snow. She didn’t push the subject, taking note of his annoyed tone and sudden cold attitude. She shrugs it off as they approach Konan’s, and to her surprise, Sasuke enters the lilac colored building and holds the door open for Sakura.

Sugar, spices, sweetness, mouthwatering food and everything else hits Sakura, and much like the candle store, her eyes travel everywhere. It’s filled to the brim with people, and Sasuke is now right up on her.

It takes her awhile to find what she was looking for, but when she does, she grabs a couple of bags. “Mom loves these.” Her eyes focus in on Sasuke, who has a look of annoyance on his face.

“You okay?” Sakura asks with a frown as she shoves the bags of cookies into one arm and began to make her way toward the counter.

Sasuke nods, keeping as close as possible to Sakura. “A lot of people.”

A smile graced Sakura’s lips when she noticed just how uncomfortable he was, and instead of staying and browsing for more sweets and baked goods, she made her way towards the counter and waited in line.

It took all of five minutes to pay and leave, and the moment they exited, she could see the tension and awkwardness melt from his face, and his body began to relax. Cheerful music flooded her ears as they walked down the street once more.

His hand brushed against Sakura’s as she walked next to him, and instead of backing off, she stood her ground. When her eyes glanced up at him, she noticed that mesmerizing smile on his lips and desirable look in his eyes.

Slowly but surely, he intertwined his fingers with hers, lacing them together loosely, but enough for Sakura to hold onto him and follow through the crowd. Her heart began to beat wildly in her chest, her blood running crazy in her body -- his touch always had such an affect on her, and the more they touched each other, the more she fell for him.

She was absolutely drawn to him.

When he pulled on her hand, her body came to meet his on the side of the street, and she followed him inside of a building that smelled of wood and leather. Guns lined the wall, while glass cases held knives and pistols.

“Hello.” An older gentleman at the counter greeted, his white hair and facial hair mirroring the color of snow. Sasuke nodded his greeting before browsing through the store. His fingers still held onto Sakura’s, and when he finally stopped, she peered into the glass case they stood in front of.

“That one is pretty,” she pointed at knife that was colored in pink and Sasuke scoffed.

“I don’t think my brother would be too fond of the colors,” he joked with a husky voice and smoldering eyes. Sakura felt a magnetic pull in her stomach, her need to press her lips to his, run her fingers through his hair and feel his body pressed against hers.

When he looked away and back down at the case, Sakura felt her lips purse and her eyes wander. When Sasuke began to move to their left, she followed closely behind, but after a moment of letting her eyes wander, she felt a heart shattering pain in her chest and a lump appear in her throat.

“Sakura?”

Her eyes narrowed, her fingers detaching themselves from Sasuke’s, and when he glanced at her, she felt nothing more than anger course through her body. Her breathing became hard, her chest rising and falling quickly while she felt her lips pull back into a sneer.

In front of her stood a man with unnatural colored hair, pushed and pulled back in a messy manner much like Sasuke’s. His eyes reflected Sakura’s; green as grass, light as emeralds, fresh like an evergreen.

“Sakura?” He asked again, but this time he approached her one step at a time.

Sakura stood her ground in the store, Sasuke on her right and when the man stopped just in front of her, she felt the tears push their way through and surround her eyes.

“Dad.”

[olivereliott]

Can-Am Cafe: A Ducati 848 with dual nationality

If the name Mike Salek sounds familiar to you, you’ve probably been with us for the long haul. Because seven years ago, when retro Honda CB café racers were all the rage, Mike built an incredible example of the type that melted our servers. Then all went quiet.

A few days ago, Mike got back in touch. “It was about time I built something else, after my CB made such a splash,” he tells us. And so we have this very sporty Ducati 848 cafe fighter, built in two countries.

Mike runs a company that makes pumps for the oil and gas industries. He regularly makes the 1,500-mile trip between Calgary in Canada and Palm Springs in the USA—but he doesn’t let the travel get in the way of bike building.

“It seemed logical to fly it back and forth, since there are so many amazing resources in Southern California,” he explains.

It helps that the Ducati is stripped down to the basics. “I wanted to make a lightweight modern cafe racer that wasn’t black, white, or silver,” says Mike. “I feel like all I see these days is colorless bikes.”

He started out with a lightly used 2008 Ducati 848: a 168 kilo (370 lb) pocket rocket that delivers a mighty 116 rwhp when it leaves the factory. But Mike has been riding and racing bikes for nearly three decades now, so he went in search of even more power.

The desmodromic L-twin is now hooked up to a Power Commander, which takes advantage of the modified airbox and K&N filter.

There’s also a custom exhaust with a stubby muffler from MotoGP suppliers SC Project. We’re guessing the sound levels are pretty high.

At his shop in Canada, Mike stripped the 848 down to the frame, de-tabbed it, and cut off everything that wasn’t needed. “Then I packed up the Ducati and flew it with me to Palm Springs,” he says. “Along with all the parts I needed to make it a roller.”

One essential part that didn’t exist at the time was the tail section. There are quite a few customized Ducatis floating around these days with off-the-shelf fiberglass units, but those don’t appeal to Mike.

“I just figured I could do it better,” he says. “I wanted a bespoke, hand-formed alloy tail section.”

Mike knew exactly the man for the job: the gifted coachbuilder David Martinez of Martinez Industries. Together, they sketched out an elongated design that runs underneath the seat.

The tail section, seat, and tank are removable, as one piece. “Just like the older Ducati 999 and 749 were designed, for easier servicing,” Mike says. “After all, it is an Italian bike—so it will always need some kind of work!”

Then Mike called up David Jameson at the Little Shop of Kustoms in Palm Springs, and they designed the flawless custom paintwork. The minty green is a Porsche 964 color, overlaid with an ice pearl and subtle metal flake. (Plus “over the top attention to detail by David.”)

The frame and wheels went to Next Level powder coating in Yucca Valley, where they were baked in a light satin gray to complement the delicious paint.

Then Mike packed it all up again, and put the bike back onto the plane, ready for countless hours of careful assembly in Calgary.

He’s added custom carbon fiber panels to enclose the underside of the trellis subframe, and sprinkled the rest of the 848 with matt carbon fiber trim parts.

The 848 now rides on a set of sticky Pirelli Diablo Superbike slicks, with control upgrades to match. Thanks to Ryan Taylor of Taylor Racing in Calgary, the bars and fluid reservoirs are from a Ducati 999. “They sit even with the upper triple, while the stock ones sat a few inches above the triple,” Mike explains.

Eagle eyes will also note the simple 6″ headlight clamped by LSL headlight mounts, CRG levers, and custom speedo mount with a carbon fiber cover. The wiring harness has been stripped down, shortened, rewrapped and tucked away.

We reckon Mike’s Ducati looks even better than the 848 Streetfighter that Bologna released in 2011. It’s simple, clean and focused—the perfect example of the modern ‘cafe fighter’ genre?

Bike and images by Mike Salek | Fabrication by David Martinez | Paint by David Jameson | Parts by Ryan Taylor

[itsworn]

2018 Detroit Autorama Invades the Motor City

Every car show is a look back. We go there to see vehicles from the past built in a style from some other point in the past—like 1932 Fords built ’50s style or 1955 Chevys built ’60s style. You get the idea. Every winter, the Detroit Autorama combines a look back with a look forward. The vehicles participating in the Cavalcade of Customs, the Autorama Extreme, various club displays, and hundreds of others filling downtown Detroit’s Cobo Center satisfy our taste for nostalgia. In addition to the tradition, the brand-new builds competing for the Pirelli Great 8 and the Ridler Award provide a look to the future. Those up-to-date rods show us where our hobby is today and where it’s going.

The 66th Annual Meguiar’s Detroit Autorama presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts was a celebration of design, engineering, and craftsmanship,—with nearly 1,000 rods, customs, trucks, bikes, race cars, cruisers, and street machines joining the party. Special exhibit areas included the perennial Cavalcade of Customs corral. For enthusiasts with an affinity for reshaped sheetmetal, imaginative painting, wide whitewalls, frenched headlights, fancy stitching, and every other aspect of traditional customs, these sleds impressed.

This year’s special display was dedicated to Bonneville Salt Flats Streamliners. The fastest cars on earth have been proving it on the Utah salt for 70 years. The gathering in Detroit featured some of the greatest recent Bonneville racers.

At the bottom of the escalator, the Cobo basement is home to Autorama Extreme, where traditionally styled, owner-built hot rods, customs, trucks, and bikes hang out.

STREET RODDER gave away several awards at the event: Best Ford in a Ford sponsored by Ford Performance Parts, the Driven Award presented by Lokar Performance Products, and 10 Painless Performance Products/STREET RODDER Top 100 awards. Of course, the coveted award was the Don Ridler Memorial Award. The selection process starts by reducing the field of competitors to eight semifinalists called the Pirelli Great 8. From those eight, judges pick the Ridler winner. In 2018, the honor went to Greg and Judy Hrehovcsik’s 1957 Chevy, built by Johnny’s Auto Trim & Rod Shop.

The 2018 Ridler Winner

The winner of the 2018 Don Ridler Memorial Award is the 1957 Chevy 150 Hardtop owned by Greg and Judy Hrehovcsik and built by Johnny’s Auto Trim & Rod Shop in Alamosa, Colorado.

“Imagine,” as the Chevy is called, began with a concept illustration by Jason Rushforth. From there, the project went through several iterations spanning more than a decade—eventually ending up at Johnny Martin’s shop.

Doing a radical rebuild on a 1957 Chevy is risky business. Making even mild changes to these iconic cars invites controversy. Johnny’s Auto Trim made hundreds.

The roof was recontoured and the top was chopped 3 inches. The window glass was sunk and laid back for a more aerodynamic profile. The popular 1957 bullets have been retained on the pancaked and sectioned hood—and can function as scoops for small twin blowers or turbos. The body has been channeled 3 inches and wedged and sectioned 1 inch in back and 3 in the front. The 19- and 21-inch one-piece custom wheels were designed and built to resemble stock hubcaps.

Power is provided by a Nelson Racing 515ci twin-turbo Chevy big-block engine, dressed up fancy with custom components. The beauty is also a beast—the engine is capable of more that 1,000 hp on pump gas. Feed it race fuel and the horsepower rating jumps to 1,800 hp. The engine is backed up by a modified Turbo 400 transmission. The Corvette rear is packed with 4.11:1 gears. The rear is suspended with custom fabricated coilovers.

The interior is 1957 Chevy inspired, but with 21st century styling, starting with the handcrafted bucket seats, split by a custom console. A new single insert was grafted into the dash and houses one-off gauges created by Classic Instruments. An Evod steering wheel was created to match the elegance and style of the rest of the cockpit.

Read more about the 2018 Ridler winner at hotrod.com. See the Pirelli Great 8 Ridler finalists at hotrod.com.

STREET RODDER Magazine’s Best Ford In A Ford A 1955 Ford F-100 With a Family History

YEAR: 1955 MAKE: Ford MODEL: F-100 OWNER: Shane Sonneveldt STATE: Maryland

More and more Ford 5.0L Coyote engines are being used in classic Blue Oval iron. At the Detroit Autorama we chose Shane Sonneveldt’s black 1995 F-100 for our Best Ford in a Ford award presented by Ford Performance Parts. Shane, from Bethesda, Maryland, said he had made the award a goal for himself.

His 1955 was built by Brian Moat and the staff at All Speed Customs in Muskegon, Michigan (that’s Paul Wetmore from ASC, Shane Sonneveldt, and Brian Moat, left to right, in the photo below). Their work included everything from sheetmetal fabrication and paint to all the mechanical modifications and the interior upholstery.

Shane’s ownership of the F-100 began 36 years ago on his 13th birthday. The truck was a birthday gift from his father, Robert, intended as a father/son project. “We quickly disassembled the truck, stripped and painted the frame, installed a new front suspension and 9-inch rear, built a junkyard Chevy 350 motor and TH400 trans, and roughed out the bodywork. The realities of working with a hard-headed teenage boy overtook the project, and the truck ended up in storage while the I focused on Trans Ams and Mustangs.” The neglected F-100 moved from one storage location to another until the late ’90s, when Shane’s father sold it.

When Robert was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, a friend located the F-100. Shane bought it and turned the project over to Brian and All Speed Customs where it was finally finished. “My dad used the truck daily for the next five years, hauling pop-up campers and grandkids, running errands, moving furniture, and commuting to doctor appointments.”

Robert died in 2016. Shane sent the F-100 back to All Speed Customs for the next phase. The bodywork was updated with gapped panels, hidden tailgate latches, and other modifications. Brian Moat’s paintjob combines high-shine Raven Black with matte gray on the roof, grille, wheels, and bedwood.

The smoothed frame is suspended with a Total Cost Involved independent front suspension and four-link rear, and RideTech double-adjustable coilovers. Wheel Vintiques wheels are wrapped in BFG Silvertown whitewalls, with 12-inch disc brakes slowing them down.

Inside, a custom bench seat is upholstered in red leather and suede. The German weave carpet was selected to match, and the doorjambs are accented with horizontal trim pieces. The 1944 Lincoln Zephyr steering wheel is a perfect finishing touch. Pioneer and JL Audio components from K2 Audio keep the cab filled with tunes. Vintage Air A/C keeps it comfortable.

Shane chose a Ford Coyote engine to power the pickup, backed by a Ford six-speed automatic transmission, and a 9-inch rear with 3.55 gears. “My dad was an old hot rodder who felt that a Ford body should be powered by a Ford V-8,” he explains.

The 1955 F-100 shows up at events like the Detroit Autorama from time to time, but it’s more likely to be seen on the street, with Shane’s kids along for the ride.

See additional photos and video at hotrod.com.

Painless Performance Products Presents STREET RODDER Top 100

For more info, photos, and videos of these winners go to hotrod.com.

Tech Tip: Melted Plastic Fuses Have you found a fuse that has melted but not burned, blown, the link inside? This happens when the load is below the rated current flow of the fuse but the fuse connection is poor. A bad connection will allow excessive heat buildup and melt the fuse due to arcing between it and the fuse block terminals.

1955 Chevy Nomad | Vic & Sharon LaBantschnig | Fenton, MO Vic LaBantschnig purchased the one-owner 1955 in 1965. In 2014, the rebuild began at Carnock Creations, using an Art Morrison frame and an LS3 with Inglese Eight Stack injection. ET Sebring pin-drive knockoff wheels add vintage racing style. Inside, waffle-pattern leather, a CON2R steering wheel, Classic Instruments, and other retro-style elements maintain a stock theme on the completely redone Nomad.

1956 Continental Mark II | Chris Ryan | Ninety Six, SC Ryan’s Rod and Kustom owner Chris Ryan wanted a ’60s-style show custom. His 1956 Continental nails the look with a 2-inch chop, slammed stance, wide whites on one-off Curtis Speed wheels, and candy and flake paint. Period-perfect interior mods include a 1960 Plymouth steering wheel, 1962 Chrysler Astrodome gauges, and 1964 Thunderbird seats in white leather with red piping. The Ford Coyote engine is a surprise.

1926 Ford Pickup | Larry Birdsong | Prescott Valley, AZ Larry Birdsong has owned this truck for 30 years and has dreamed of building it since he was 14. A blown 427 SOHC engine was angled 40 degrees to fit under the uncut Model T hood. A jackshaft underneath runs the accessories. The transmission is an offset driven C6. Larry’s sheetmetal mods include a 6-inch cab stretch, widened fenders, stretched hood, shortened bed, and flush-fit doors. The interior was finished in button tuck leather.

1931 Ford Coupe | Scott McDonagh | Northville, MI The chopped Model A was completed for Scott by Bill Jagenow at Brothers Custom Automotive. A stroked 383 Chevy is topped with Tri-Power induction and tied to a TREMEC trans. The 1932 frame hangs on SO-CAL coilovers, and Ford wheels roll on Firestone piecrusts from Coker. A 1940 Ford-style wheel and Stewart-Warner gauges complement the interior. The cowhide seat upholstery clinched the deal.

1947 Cadillac | Kevin Anderson | Indianapolis, IN The 1947 Series 62 four-door sedan went from a museum to Mike Boerema at Gas Axe Garage, where it was converted to a coupe with 48-inch doors, a 5-inch chop, and airbags to drop it. The leather upholstery features authentic Cadillac fabric inserts. The original 47,000-mile Cadillac flathead lives under the hood. A padded Carson-style top, chromed sombrero caps, and wide whites complete the classic custom look.

1960 Ford “Adonis” Starliner | Bill Whetstone | Warren, MI The original Adonis 1960 Starliner custom was built by the Alexander Brothers for Bill Whetstone and won Best Custom at the 1961 Detroit Autorama. By the ’70s, it was destroyed. This precise clone, with candy wild cherry paint and pearl white vinyl upholstery, debuted at the 2002 Autorama. In 2017, Bill bought it. He drives the 390-powered custom to shows during the warm months, as he did with his first Adonis.

1934 Ford Pickup | Danielle Lutz | Moscow, PA Danielle Lutz trusted Jason Graham Hot Rods & Cool Customs with her truck. They delivered, giving the 1934 a healthy chop, custom grille insert and bed sides, and 1-1/2-inch cab stretch. Traditional hot rod suspension parts include a straight axle, front and rear split wishbones, Winters quick-change and four-link rear, and quarter-elliptic springs. Inglese Eight Stack induction tops a stroked 347 Ford. Relicate leather covers the interior.

1927 Ford Roadster | Dave Wilson | Williamsville, NY Seventy-four-year-old Dave, a rodder since he was 14, asked Paul Forbes of California Dreamin Hot Rods for an old-school hot rod. A Shadow Rods body has a louvered hood and rear pan. Triple Strombergs and Thunderbird valve covers embellish the Ford 302. A suicide frontend with hairpins, and Houdaille shocks and Aldan coilovers in back, were added to the 1932 frame. Dave and copilot ride in leather-covered bomber seats.

1939 Ford Sedan Delivery | Rhea & Harold Schrader | Franklin Lakes, NJ When Rhea and Harold bought the sedan delivery it was an ’80s-style rod. Dan Wickett at Hot Rod Construction turned it into a Garnet Red Metallic modern driver, powered by an injected 5.7L Hemi and rolling on Schott wheels. The sheetmetal is extensively rehaped. The interior is finished with zebrawood, leather, and suede, as well as a modified 1939 Cadillac wheel and a dash filled with 1941 Ford DeLuxe gauges.

1955 Chevrolet Bel Air | Larry Gayhart | San Antonio, TX Larry Gayhart’s Torch Red 1955 Bel Air hardtop underwent a three-year rebuild by Derick Samson at Samson Design. The bodywork retains a lot of characteristic hardware and trim, plus 100 handmade chrome pieces throughout the fully smoothed body. The chassis is handmade and a Tri-Five-inspired engine shroud covers the LS3 engine. The leather interior features extensive chrome trim pieces. Hot Rods By Boyd supplied the wheels.

Driven Award Presented by Lokar Performance Products

The 2018 Driven Award Presented by Lokar Performance Products was won by Christopher Shevlin’s 1928 Ford Model A roadster pickup from Farmington Hills, Michigan.

The all-steel body is channeled over the custom boxed frame. The frontend features a dropped axle, transverse spring, and lever shocks. The 8-inch rear runs 4.10:1 gears. Custom seats are upholstered in black and white vinyl.

Chris built up the small-block Ford to 331 cid with a stroker kit. He also added a Tri-Power setup, polished intake, early SO-CAL valve covers, and a Joe Hunt distributor. A C4 trans backs up the engine. Although he doesn’t know the full history of his Model A, Chris has written its story for the past 22 year. “I am only the curator,” he says, “and enjoy driving and showing the car—keeping rodding history alive for others to enjoy.”

For more about Chris Shevlin’s 1928 Ford RPU visit hotrod.com.

Autorama Extreme

Autorama Extreme, in the Cobo Center basement, is the spot for traditionally styled, owner-built (typically) hot rods, customs, trucks, and bikes. This year the basement was as packed as ever—with vehicles as well as with an atmosphere and energy different from the main floor. Activities exclusive to Autorama Extreme are the separate awards ceremony with custom made trophies, live bands, the Vinsetta Garage Miss Autorama pinup girl contest, Gene Winfield’s Chop Shop, and an irreverent attitude that shows itself in the displays. The vehicles are traditional; the displays are far from it. The common element to upstairs and downstairs is the imagination and passion that is poured into the vehicles.

See more of Autorama Extreme at hotrod.com.

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[pennycrossed]

Legendary: 5th flank

It was midday, light gray skies and a general slowness had set in. The last skirmish was less than two hours ago,the tree line just a few hundred feet away from the camp had been receding due to the attacks, a mire of blood, bodies and just a lot of mud. 

The camp was still intact, the tents stood, the forest where the attacking guild was coming from didn’t allow artillery so they were safe from that, that didn’t stop the droves of well trained foot soldiers from attacking. for every one they killed they lost two, it wasn’t due to poor training on their part; it was just the amount of them. the amount of heavy plated armor, the cunning brute force tactics. each fight was getting to be less than winning, but about survival. Carter knew this.

And nothing was being done about it.

Carter was at a nearby tent sitting on a stool outside cleaning his blades. He had had his long sword and saber for some time now, it always relaxed him after a fight. His coat had finally dried out, the mud flaking off his arms as he worked. His green pants looking far too worn for any sort of commander to wear, the plates of armor attached looking like scrap metal with the heavy worn lines etched into them, their paint faded and scraped away from the same blows. the rest of his light armor looking quite the same.

It reflected the status of his men as well. It was bright, new and perfectly made for battle. but nothing like this slog.

The pattern of horse hoofs splattering into the mud started to come into his soundscape. He paid no mind, just another messenger, he’ll talk to them soon enough. There is this really vexing mark in his sword that he just could not work out and this was his mission.

Until he heard the horse stop near him, the rider dismounting, and hearing their steps.

See, He was part of a group of people, Le’Ren one of the High knight commander of the Bloodhardt guild, she was the youngest of them in the guild’s thousand year history. Tom, her protoge, Knight Ser in training, Tan, the mage necromancer the latter and himself had saved from death and the rogue thief Natla. Each of them were given positions in this fight. He knew how each one walked, how they breathed and how it sounded when they make a wordless sentence with their face. you tend to get that close.

These steps belonged to Le’ren. the second in command of the entire regiment, all 7 flanks.

“Carter, i’m here to help. Talk to me and we can fix this, I hope.” she said. she always had a great commanding voice. she put it on when things were serious.

“About goddamn time Le’Ren.” Carter stood and spun in one smooth move. sheathing his blade as he turned to face her. she had tanned skin, thankfully most of it hidden under her armor. The White and red armor looked heavy and complicated, many different layers of hinges of metal, chainmail intersected and criss-crossed. maximum coverage with maximum mobility. she didn’t have her helmet though, Her green eyes were dimmed by the day’s light. The strawberry blonde hair pulled into a braid. Red war paint covered her eyes, a tradition of the guild she told him. Her custom rapier at her side, a large shield attached to her left arm, giving her total defense for her fencing form.

“you’re not the only one who’s fighting, Carter. This is just one front. It takes awhile for us to sort out just what is going on and what needs work. Lots of times requests like yours are cowardly or lazy commanders looking for a easy way out of fighting.” Le’ren tersely said. 

“So, that’s why it took you a full week of me sending detailed, accurate accounts and might I add correctly filled out requests for reinforcements. because you thought, i was, what? Overreacting?” he angrily spat. He hadn’t an outlet for his anger so, he was having a hard time to hold it back to someone who didn’t deserve it. like his men.

“to be honest? A bit. Commander Lote doesn’t know you like I do. that’s why i’m here. to verify it. can’t just take it on blind faith. too much is at risk.”

“Tell that to the 135 men we’ve lost this week, alone!” Carter wasn’t having it anymore. He needed to say it. his men needed to hear it. He is going to fight for them.

“you know precisely how many men we have in this flank! 135, dead! 45 grievously wounded! 11 “not life threateningly wounded”” He threw up some haphazard air quotes then, “that’s out of 400 men! we barely have half strength!” Carter shouted exasperatedly.

“I get that! goddamnit, Carter, this is war! I know you’re new to this shit! throwing numbers in my face isn’t gonna make me sympathetic, my numbers are goddamn higher. I’m not just one flank i’m every-fucking-one of them!” she snappedLe’Ren was never one to back down from him, They always fought. neither one would win.

“then you know like I know that no one else is losing men this fast! I get the reports! This isn’t ignorance, this is me doing my best for the fight, the guild for my men and for YOU!” he bellowed.

“Think about this, okay? If I send you any sort of help people are going to think I did it because of our relationship, okay?! That can’t happen!” Le’Ren shouted. 

something snapped in Carter, there was a small crowd forming. seeing the rookie commander go head-to-head with one of the most powerful knights in the guild currently, the knight that had given him his position as well. it was exciting to them

Carter didn’t care who he was talking to.

“YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT GOSSIP?! PEOPLE ARE DYING!!” Carter had never screamed that loud before, he felt his throat tense up, ribbons of pain striking through it. 

But he wasn’t done.

“I don’t give a fuck about what some high and mighty fuck wit thinks of you and I, I don’t even care right now! we have a goddamn job to do. The fact you’re not prioritizing the fight is just plain fucking disgusting.” He seethed, his voice now raspy and unable to hold a proper tone.

“I! You-fucking! Grrrahhh!!” Le’Ren angrily stuttered out. “what is his problem! “about you and I?” this is about him proving himself! if he get’s my help it’ll undermine everything! he has to do this alone! why isn’t he getting that?” Le’Ren thought to herself

“What is she thinking? I don’t care about the guild! I don’t care about the gossip! where does she get off thinking it’ll ruin me if I get help I asked for? I thought one of the things she stood by was not being afraid to ask for help!” Carter was also angrily thinking.

Le’Ren decided to speak up after a few minutes of their angry staring. breathlessly she said

 “If we prioritize one flank over another the whole plan comes apart. it’s not about gossip, not entirely, it’s about the whole plan. I’ll do whatever I can. I’m, disappointed that you think I care more about how I look than how I act.” she turned to her steed, and mounted it.

 “it’s one of the things you taught me to not worry about.”

She lead her horse into the direction she had come from. and left.

Carter was still furious. He stood there for a bit, the crowd had dispersed. he went back to working on his blade. Angry at Le’Ren, himself. and that goddamn spot.

It’s going to be another long week.

[ask-de-writer]

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : World of Sea : Part 71

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

copyright 2018

written 2007

All rights reserved.

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions. All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story?  Read from the beginning.  PART 1 is here

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Looking back, Sarfin could see the open fore-deck of the Dark Dragon and the monster catapult being readied.  Around him he could see the catapults of the Soaring Bird being unlimbered from their hunting locks and readied for combat.  The ammunition being stacked beside them was nothing that he would want to see aimed at any ship.  There were shot designed to rip sails and destroy rigging, and others designed to scatter many small, deadly darts to clear decks and rigging of opposing crews.  

Just seeing them made Sarfin shudder.  The sight of men and women matter of factly handling such devices and getting ready to use them brought home to him just what war was really about. Something that he had known intellectually became sickeningly real.  

It was to the credit of the Council’s representatives that they were also disturbed by the deadly preparations.  Captain Urson put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the decks.  “Is this,” she gestured widely at all the orderly preparations for destruction going on about them, “really necessary?”

Sula looked her straight in the eye and answered, “Because I have seen many times that it was, even more than you, I hope that it is not. There is no harm if we are ready and do not have to fight but many lives, even ships can be lost to unreadiness.”

Sarfin turned to Sula, who was now watching the Soaring Bird’s crew, without apparent emotion.  “How can you ever get used to this kind of thing?” he asked, taking a deep breath to steady himself.

“You don’t,” she replied stonily, turning to face Sarfin.  Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.  “You do what you have to do and pray to the Dragons that you don’t have to kill again.  The one thing that you can’t do is let your own folk be the ones who pay the price of unreadiness.”

In a lighter tone Sula went on, “Now, we are guests.  Let us pay our respects to our host, the Honored Huld.”

Crewmen guided Captains Urson and Farrol away to guest quarters.

Sula led Sarfin to a companionway amidships.  As Sarfin followed, he said, grateful for a way to change the topic, “Something has been nagging at me since we first met.  Why do you call Captain Huld ‘Honored’?”

Sula smiled at the thoughts and memories that the question brought up. “That’s a bit difficult to explain.  He is Honored because in his whole life, whatever the difficulty, he has never done anything unethical or dishonorable.  His decisions in matters of honor and ethics between others are considered to be absolute by the Council that meets on the Wind.”

“OK, now I’m just as curious as before but confused as well,” said Sarfin.  “The Council that meets on the ‘wind’?”

“You will have to take my word for this one.  The Barant fleet Council is in continuous session.  The Captains meet in a way that they call talking on the Wind.  It allows them to communicate without misunderstanding, no matter the distance between them.  Since I learned of them I have also been a part of that Council.  Not only can you not shut them out, you don’t want to.  It is possible to ignore them for a while sometimes, especially when you think that you are right --- Even if you’re not.”  Sula pushed open a sliding door and escorted Sarfin into a cabin.

“Shouldn’t you have knocked first?” Sarfin asked as he entered.

“No need.  I told him that we were coming and he invited us to tea,” said Sula lightly.

“Tea?” said Sarfin curiously, “What is that?”

“It’s a Barant ceremony involving a hot water drink made with especially prepared seaweeds, dried and flaked.  He is doing this to give you honor before his crew,” Sula knitted her brows as she tried to explain.  “By Barant fleet standards you are not a Captain, and neither was I until a short while ago.  According to their rules you have to be able to talk on the Wind to be a Captain.  This ceremony will let his crew know that you are worthy to command in spite of your disability.  That is the same status that I had until recently.”

Sarfin looked around the chamber and realized that it was both of Spartan simplicity and one of the most harmoniously prefect cabins that he had ever seen.  The walls had tall scroll-like paintings of ships and boats on the sea with cloudscapes behind them.  They were done in monochrome gray inks on a material of startling whiteness.  Each ship was unmistakable, yet it had been artfully reduced to only a few lines and some shadows.  Among them, he recognized his own Dorton. It was hung just back of Huld where he sat cross-legged behind a low table.  The floor was covered with a soft matting that was made of long narrow strands of material tied together into bundles.

“Welcome are you, Council Master Sarfin, Sula – Captain and friend.”  He placed both hands palms together, fingers down and bent his head toward them.  Sula repeated the gesture and sat on the floor next to the table.  After the briefest of hesitations, Sarfin did the same.

Huld serenely said, “North we go as swiftly as sail will carry us.  Let us now the time spend to know each other.  Share tea, share self. Barant way it is.”  

He picked up a bow-drill kit and with only a few quick strokes of the bow, had smoke curling up from the tender of fluffy, dried brown seaweed.  A small puff of breath brought a tiny flame which Huld applied to the wick of an oil lamp.  He set the lamp under a small Hag skin pot of water to heat it.

Altogether, the ceremony and its attendant small talk took over an hour.  As they emerged from Huld’s cabin, Sarfin said to Sula, “That tea was amazing!  I’ve never tasted anything like it before.  Do you know how I might get some?”

“Certainly,” said Sula promptly.  “I have a few hundred pounds on the Dark Dragon that I’d be willing to sell.”  She smiled.  “Can’t sell too much or I’d have a mutiny — and I’d have to join the mutineers.  We count it as one of our basic stores.”

“I can see why.  We’ve never had flavored water in the Naral fleet. . . Um . . . Where are we going?”

“Visitor’s cabins.  We don’t need a guide because Huld and I have been working together for a long time.  We know each other’s ships well.” Soon they were settled into adjoining cabins.

At the pace that the Soaring Bird was making, they would be in the vicinity of 00 West, 800 North by what ought have been early to midmorning.  In those latitudes, at the present time of the year, the sun did not fully set at all.  It only got low in the sky.  Sarfin found it disturbing to have no nightfall.

Sarfin spent as much time as he could studying the Soaring Bird and the way that it was run.  This kind of vessel was truly new to him.  At first he thought that the big lobster claw sails were simply exotic looking.  A short talk with the Soaring Bird’s sail lofter taught him the error in that assumption.  They were, in fact, the most efficient sails to be found on all of Sea.

Aboard the Grandalor, Darkistry stood at the steering tackle, making small adjustments to keep the Longin approaching from directly downwind. She was so careful that it appeared to be completely accidental.

While the ships were closing to hailing drum range, Thunderhead came soaring up from the south directly over the Longin and plunged into the water between the ships.  Shortly, he surfaced in a splash of spray and made a take-off run.  He had a fish in his beak.  Now that he was back, his family had to be fed.

Skye leapt from the nest and swooped to greet her mate.  They did a short aerial ballet, sweeping past each other and spiraling tightly, so close that wings gently rubbed.  The dance ended above the nest and Thunderhead dropped into it, casually checking his fall at the last moment with widespread wings and tail.  He perched on the rail and began the process of dividing the fish, sharing it out among youngsters now ready to begin flying.  That done, he flipped off the side of the rail and dropped on a long angle to land solidly on Tanlin’s shoulder, where he rubbed his beak along her jaw in greeting.

“Glad t’ see ye, too, T’under’ead,” said Tanlin as she reached up and scratched him in his favorite spot under the wing.  “Ugh, ye’re all wet.  Let m’ get t’is ‘arness off.  Ye did good, ye ‘andsome ‘Awk, ye.”  She unbuckled the message harness and gave it to Arnat, who was standing near.

“‘Ere, Arnat.  Stow t’is in our cabin.  Ye know w’ere ‘t goes.”  As Arnat scampered off to put away the harness, the Longin began to signal with her Hailing Drum.

“Return the prisoner Kurin to us and surrender to Council Justice!” the drum demanded imperiously.

“That’s not Master Clard’s hand on the drum,” said Kurin worriedly.  “It sounds more like his apprentice Degan.  Now I’m sure something is wrong.”

TO BE CONTINUED

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