#there's no language that captures it. i just want to wail and scream at curse at god.

[maraeffect]

absolutely going the fuck through it rn (:

[jayjaymorgan]

RexWalker Week - Day 3, Rescued

Author’s Note : Please remember that English isn't my native language, so there might be some mistakes and stuff. I hope you all like it, have a great day/night!

Taglist : @rexwalker-week

TW : cursing, slight solitary confinement

The room was freezing and pitch black. The man’s blacks did nothing to prevent the cold of the metal floor and walls from seeping into his body, settling into his bones and weighting him down. His teeth chattered, as he sat curled up in the corner, occasionally sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He had no idea how long he had been sitting there. It felt like an eternity. It couldn’t have been more than a day or two tops, but the silence was suffocating and making him feel like he was on the brink of insanity. The leak in the ceiling. It was the only noise in the room, the slow pitter patter of the droplets falling, as the puddle of thick, murky liquid grew. He tried counting the drops, but lost count at around one thousand. The smooth walls. He spent hours pacing around the room, blindly searching for a hatch that would contain all the cables he had to rip out in order to open the door. He gave up after circling the small cell half a dozen of times, when his legs could no longer carry his weight. He tried meditating, just like Anakin taught him too, but his mind kept wandering to places he didn’t want to visit. In the end, he curled up tighter in his corner, desperately trying to conserve what little warmth he had left and waited. And waited.

He haven’t even realized that he fell asleep, if it hadn’t been for a loud explosion to shake him out of his restless stupor. His head snapped upright, heart beating out of his chest, as the emergency sirens started wailing. He could hear the distant sound of blasters and droids barking orders. The man tried to stand up, but his limbs refused to cooperate, every muscle in his body screaming in protest. The floor shook under his feet, making him stumble back onto the cold, hard floor. He cursed, before letting his cold, numb body lean against the wall. He could do nothing else but wait, as the fight outside his small cell raged on, the blasts growing louder, until...

Everything went quiet.

He strained his ears, hoping to hear the sound of friendly troops coming to his rescue, but the battlefield remained quiet.

Then, footsteps, just outside the cell.

The door opened and the man squinted as the flashing red light poured in, blinding him momentarily. He shielded his eyes, blinking back tears as he looked at the figure standing in front of him. He felt a wave of relief washing over him as his eyes got used to the blaring lights and could finally make out the details of his visitor’s face. “...kriffing finally.” he said bitterly, but there was a hint of playfulness in his voice. “Took you long enough.”

Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the emergency light, was Anakin.

His Jedi robes were torn and singed in few places from the explosions, hair disheveled, lightsaber in hand. In his other hand was the head of a tactical droid, its lifeless eyes flickering, cables spitting out sparks and hissing as they went out. His eyes were dark, face scrunched up with a look of utter furry, looking like he was pulled out straight from someone’s worst nightmare. Rex grinned from his cold corner. “...has anyone told you that you’re really handsome, covered in droid blood and all?” Skywalker’s eyes narrowed, but the corners of his lips twitched upwards, as he tried his best not to smile. He was supposed to be angry, raging, wrathful! He was supposed to scream at the clone and berate him for being such a careless idiot, for getting captured by a bunch of incompetent clankers, yet... He couldn’t help but to chuckle. “Just you, Rex.” he said quietly, the tension slowly leaving his body as took his lovers into his arms, squeezing him tight. “Just you.”

[viking-raider]

The Immortal Sky - Part VII *Mature*

Summary: It’s a battle to survive and not everyone will make it.

Pairing: Henry Cavill/You

Word Count: 17,431

Rating: M - Dystopian!AU, Futuristic!AU, Language, Dark Themes: Severe Angst, Violence, Torture, Kidnapping, Traumatic Death, Blood, Life Threatening Injures, Severe Trauma, Life Changing Events, Hurt/Comfort, and a teeny bit of Fluff

Inspiration: I’ve always wanted to write a futuristic fic!

Author’s Note: This is the final official Chapter of The Immortal Sky, I will be doing a short Epilogue to round things out though. I hope you enjoy this and thank you so much for all the love, comments and support! A super thanks to @wondersofdreaming​ for being a great support, listening to my crazy thoughts, giving me amazing suggestions and ideas, and just being an all around amazing friend!

You gasped, sitting up on your elbows, heart pounding and drenched in a cold sweat as the nightmare continued to dig its claws into your waking moments.

“Henry?” You called out, instinctively, before remembering he wasn't there.

Still.

Letting out a hard and shaky breath, you dropped back onto the mattress, damp from your sweat. You stared up at the ceiling, gripping the blankets in shaking fists as hot and furious tears dripped over your temples and into your hair.

“He isn't coming back.” You choked on your own snot. “They've captured and killed him, I just know it. He's died trying to protect me and there's nothing I can do to stop it. To make up for it, so his pain and death weren't in vain.” You took gasping breaths and only choked more on your tears. “I'm so sorry Henry. Oh my god, I am so sorry.” You wailed, crying without abandon.

You beat your fists on the mattress, outraged at your negativity and ease of giving up on him. Henry wouldn't have given up on you, he would have stayed strong and came for you, like he had when you ran away from him in London. Jerking up, you sat on the edge of the bed, the springs of the mattress creaking under your shifting weight.

“He's still alive.” You forced yourself to say out loud. “Henry is still alive, and I will find him.”

Resolved to this conviction, you stood up and dressed, pressing his shirt to your face and took a deep breath, inhaling his earthy and masculine scent, fortifying you, before slipping it on over your own shirt and finished tying your shoelaces. You weren't completely sure what to do or how to go about finding, and potentially saving, Henry. You weren't the amazing and seasoned High Marshal Henry was, is. You tried putting yourself in his shoes, hard as it was to fill size eleven boots. So, you started in the only place that made sense to you, the Black Bone pub, where your brother and his handler were known to frequent. So, locking your room, you trekked the six blocks from the hotel to the dingy pub, heart pounding in your throat as you entered.

“What can I get ya?” The bartender asked you as you approached the counter.

“Um,” You looked at the stained menu taped to the bar top. “A Virgin Mojito, please.”

The bartender lifted a brow at you, shrugged his shoulders and turned away from you. A minute later, he set the tall glass in front of you and held out his hand, wanting payment. Sighing, you dug out the meager change you had and slapped it into his hand, picked up your drink and took a seat in the corner, the same corner you occupied with Henry the day before.

You tried your best to look as inconspicuous as you possibly could, keeping your eyes on the tv, like Henry had, swirling your drink with the thin black straw inside of it and checking out everyone in the room from the corner of your vision. It was slightly more busy than it had been the morning before, but there was no sign of your brother, Knox or Henry. What your inexperienced eye failed to notice, was the bartender keeping his eye on you, for several minutes, before going to the back of the store room and making a phone call.

“Yeah, Ashe. It's me, Bruce, the owner of the Black Bone. You asked me to keep an eye out for a lady.” He rattled off your description. “Told me to call if I saw her around.”

“And?” Ashe replied, staring at the black, web-like, 3-D printed cast on the hand he busted in his fight with Henry.

“She's back.” Bruce told him, stepping out of the store room and peeking around the corner, to make sure you were still there, clearly ignoring your drink. “Sitting in a booth, right now.”

“Excellent.” Ashe grinned, wolfishly. “I'll be right over, let me know if she leaves.”

Bruce hung up with Ashe and moved back to serve his new customers, keeping his eye on you the whole time. You finally took a sip of your drink, the mint was refreshing to your taste-buds with the slight twinge of the lime's tartness, when the door of the pub chimed as it opened and from the corner of your eye you saw who entered, making your blood run cold, the man from the day before, who had given Henry the creeps and chased you both down the alleyway. Your hands shook as he glanced in your direction, a faint smirk on his thin lips, you noticed the cast on his arm and drew conclusions; knowing he and Henry must have gotten into a fight. Wishing you had the bartender put the rum into your drink after all, you gulped it down and tried to get up as casually and calmly as possible, eyes darting to the lopsided and hand written sign above the bathroom door and headed that direction.

The bathroom was big enough for a discolored and filthy toilet and a teeny window above that. Locking the bathroom door, you climbed top of the toilet, wobbling on the unstable tank to peek out the cloudy windowpane. There was another alleyway behind the pub, but you couldn't see where either end of it led out too, but you weren't going back out into the bar area with Ashe there, waiting to pounce on you. The window was wedged into the frame, sticking it into place from years of hard rains and freezing winters, swelling and warping the wood. Biting your lip, you started bashing it with the heel of your hand, the wood protesting and squeaking with each blow, until it suddenly flew open.

Glancing over your shoulder to the latched door as the dented handle started to rattle, you wasted no time, jumping and diving halfway through the window, legs flailing and kicking the dingy wall. Scrambling to get a footing and wiggle the rest of the way through the window, the rough wood scraping and cutting up your sides and ripping holes into your jacket. The bathroom door started to shake, a shoulder driving into it, you knew it wouldn't be long before Ashe busted through and hauled you out of the bathroom. Growling in frustration, you kicked hard at the wall, breaking through the crumbling drywall and used it to boost yourself up more. Punching more and more holes into the wall with your feet to you wiggle and shimmy through the window.

You gasped as your hips passed through the window frame and scrambled to get a footing on the other side, before you fell face first into a pile of two week old trash. You had just managed to flip yourself as you fell out of the window, landing on your butt on top of the overstuffed black plastic bags with a grunt. The eruption of Ashe charging through the bathroom door exploded above you, followed by his flurry of curses as his head popped through the window, the only thing small enough to fit through it.

“You fucking bitch!” He roared, pushing an arm through the window with his head to try and grab at you.

You struggled to your feet and stumbled away from Ashe and the window, out of breath and bleeding. Knowing he wasn't going to get through the window, Ashe jerked back inside and stormed out of the bathroom, shoving and knocking people aside as they came to see what all the commotion was about. Not waiting around for Ashe to reach you, you bolted down the alleyway, slipping on the slimy pavement and tripping over trash, just making it to the end, when two shadows blocked the way. Startled, you tried twisting around to run the other way, but they were faster than you were, grabbing the hood of your jacket and yanked you back, making you choke in the process.

“You ain't going anywhere.” One of them huffed as you were slammed chest first into the wall, scraping the side of your face on the rough surface.

Your arms were harshly yanked behind you and hands slipped through the loops of thick black cuffs, before your captor pressed a button on the handle connecting the cuffs and they automatically tightened around your wrists, painfully cutting off circulation and into your skin. They jerked you off the wall and faced you out of the alleyway, one of them clamped a hand down on your shoulder, making you whimper in pain and try to shrink away from him, only to be struck in the side.

“You should have stayed in London.” Ashe's angry voice growled as he approached the three of you, pinching your chin between his fingers. “Or just not have been born at all.” He hissed, letting go of your head with a jerk. “Get her in the van.” He ordered the two men, hitching a thumb over his shoulder, to the van parked at the curb, its back sliding door open and waiting.

You looked up and down the sidewalk as they pushed and shoved you towards the van, frantically hoping someone would see the four of you and rush to help you, stop them for kidnapping you. But, as you looked at the full street, you noticed everyone looking everywhere but at you, not wanting to get involved, knowing doing so would land them in the same hot water you were finding yourself in. But, to your utter shock, one face did look back at you, just as stunned to see you as you were to see them.

“Michail.” You mouthed, blinking like it was just a fragment of your frantic mind. “Mikey!” You screamed out, realizing it wasn't your mind toying with you, before you were thrown into the van and the door was slammed shut behind you.

“Let's go grab a pint.” Knox said, throwing on his jacket. “Come on, Keagan, one pint won't kill you. We have a load of time before your first big run.”

Michail sighed and rubbed at his face, his back ached from hunching over the map of his first run as an Adjutant Runner for Quinn. He had been staring at it non-stop for two weeks and the run was due to happen in three days. But, Knox was right, an hour's break to enjoy a frothy pint at the pub would do him and his brain some good. So, stiffly raising from his chair, he grabbed his own jacket and followed Knox to the lift and down the four floors to the ground floor and out onto the street. They chatted about the run as they walked down to the Black Bone, Knox's usual establishment for a good pint, hammering out more details and clearing up any misunderstanding about what was to go down, once it did happen.

But, they were interrupted by a small scuffle ahead of them, near the pub.

Looking away from each other and to the altercation, they saw three sizable men roughly handling a woman, her hands tied behind her back. Michail felt the breath in his lungs freeze and his heart drop out into his stomach as he met the woman's eye, watching her mouth his name, before yelling it out.

“Mikey!”

“Issy?” He whispered back, too stunned to manage anything louder before you were manhandled into the van.

“You know that woman, Mike?” Knox asked, his eyes panning between the speeding away van and him.

“She's my sister.” Mikey replied, his mouth hanging open, shocked and speechless to not only find you in Bristol, but being carted away by those ruffians. “But, she should be back in London.” He blinked, slowly regaining himself. “What the hell is she doing here in Bristol? Do you know who those guys were?” He asked, looking at Knox.

“Only one of them.” Knox replied, narrowing his eyes. “The blond is Ashe James, he works as a free agent, working several different jobs in every Sector.”

“Why would he take my sister like that?” Mikey asked himself, deeply troubled.

“We'll find out later, let's get that pint.” Knox answered, clasping Mikey on the back and pushed him towards the pub.

Henry spit nothing, but blood, as Emilio gave him another crack punch to the face; which was multicolored and inflamed. A cut high on the bridge of his bloody nose and upper lip, his bottom lip was split and bleeding as well, blood caked in his beard and curls, as well as his chest; soaking into the fabric of his jeans. His eyes burned from the unyielding and bright lights illuminating the room. He was spent and exhausted, leaning forward with his head lulling and eyes half rolled and swollen shut. A forest of marks and box cutter cuts littered his body, partiality around the surgical site of his artificial kidney. He was more than sure every one of his ribs were broken or cracked, making him wheeze and hiss with every breath he took.

Henry wasn't sure how much more of he could take, but that didn't mean he would break.

“I don't think you have much more blood in you, mate?” Emilio huffed, shaking his throbbing hand, his fingers puffy and bruised from hitting Henry so many times. “Usually, the people I—set straight—have given up by now. But, no. Not you, you're tough. I respect that.” He said, shrugging his sore shoulders.

“To a point.” He chuckled, slapping Henry in the back of the head, making him whimper. “Why don't you tell my boss where the girl is? Then, we can let you off. But, if you don't, you'll just end up dying here.”

Henry remained quiet, he had run out of witty and smart-ass comments hours before. So, he kept his mouth shut and reserved his energy and strength to withstand their assault on him. The one saving light was the thought of you safe and sound in your room. He knew, by now, you were freaking out and panicking. There were no clocks and only one mirror that Henry knew, without a doubt, was a two way, but he could catch a glimpse of Emilio's expensive watch. He had been in the room for nearly twelve hours, all night and most of the morning.

He sighed, grimacing as he swallowed another mouthful of blood that was pooling in his mouth from his bloody nose, cut lip and the cuts on the inside of his cheeks; his stomach cramped and twisted as he swallowed it down, adding to his discomfort. His mind started to wonder, his pain was beginning to numb his battered nerve-endings, he wondered how much longer he would survive, what blow would potentially kill him.

He counted each blow.

One.

Two.

Three.

The door came flying open and Benji waltzed in, the door slamming closed behind him, as he grinned and looked chipper after getting a good night's rest, having left not long after Henry's torture started. But, he seemed overly happy, too happy, for Henry to be comfortable with, he knew something. That's when Henry's fear finally spiked and his abused body tensed and his bloodshot, blue orbs widened with panic, showing that growing ounce of fear outwardly for the first time.

“Well, Mr. Cavill, I see that you are still alive!” Benji quipped with an amused smile, grabbing the back of Henry's sweaty and bloody curls, and jerked his head back, roughly. “I am quite impressed by your stamina. I bet the ladies love it.” He teased, lowering himself to meet Henry's gaze.

“I have a surprise for you, Henry.” He cooed, menacingly, his brown eyes darkening to a black hole of evil and danger. “I'm quite sure you'll be relieved to see it.” He said softly, running a finger over the freshly bleeding cut on Henry's brow, making him hiss as heavy beads of sweat mixed into it, then straightened up.

“Bring it in!” He yelled, moving away from Henry and turned towards the two way mirror.

The door swung open again, revealing Ashe, who pressed his back against it, to keep it open, and motion into the hall for someone to come forward. Henry's shoulders fell with his face, the last bit of his strength he had draining out of him as you were shoved into the room, stumbling and almost falling if Ashe hadn't grabbed the handle of your zip cuffs and steadied you.

Your mouth dropped open seeing the pitiful and terrifying condition Henry was in, covered in blood, bruises, cuts and god knows what else. You struggled to swallow down your throbbing heart and blinked back the searing tears that burned your eyes, biting hard into your lip to keep yourself from falling apart. Henry licked his split and chapped lips and blinked slowly at you, trying to keep himself together, but not to cry, but to not lose his temper, his muscles flexing as his anger flared and surged beneath his blue and purple, blood covered skin, straining in his restraints, like a bull seeing red.

“Two very different reactions.” Benji commented, watching the pair of you through the two-way mirror. “Interesting.” He hummed, turning on the heels of his expensive dress shoes. “I've been looking for you.” He said, stepping closer to you. “Thank you for making it so easy to find and get a hold of you.”

He smiled, touching the tip of his finger to your cheek and drew a smiley face on it.

In Henry's blood.

“Release her hands.” He ordered, snapping his fingers.

“Boss, is that a good idea?” Ashe asked, hesitating with the key to your cuffs. “She's pretty cunning.”

Benji's cool broke and slapped Ashe across the face, ripping the key out of his hand and releasing the cuffs from around your wrists. “I know what she is, you moron. But, what is she going to do? They're in my house, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of my men. Even if, they managed to get out of this room, they wouldn't make it out of the hall, before we either killed or incapacitated them. So,” He smirked at you, giving you a sour taste in your mouth.

“Let's leave them be.” He chuckled, making a motion with his hand and cleared the room, other than you and Henry.

You stood frozen for several moments, unable to move as you and Henry stared at each other, your silent tears finally escaping down your cheeks. “I'm so sorry, Henry.” You sniffled, gulping thickly.

Henry closed his eyes and sighed, groaning and gently shaking his head. He knew, he knew you had left the room to come look for him, the guilt and evidence of it was all over your face. “It's all right.” He finally replied, his voice dry and raspy. “I know you were scared.”

“I was worried.” You whimpered, slowly approaching him. “I still am.” You told him, dropping to your knees before him, looking over his battered body. “I'm sorry, Henry. I never meant for this to happen. I never wanted anyone to get hurt because of me. Least of all, you.”

Your emotions started to overwhelm you, reaching out to gently cup his face in your shaking palms and pushed up on your toes to touch your forehead to his temple. Henry frowned and nudged your face with his, trying to give you what comfort he could, while still tied to the chair. Your wet cheek smeared more blood on the both of you, as you wrapped your arms loosely around his bare waist.

“I told you to wait for me.” He whispered, meeting your damp eyes.

“I tried.” You protested, pulling back from him. “But, I-” You bit your lip and looked away from him.

“I told you, I'd come back for you.”

“How?” You snapped, incredulous. “You're tied to a fucking chair and practically bleeding to death!”

Henry narrowed his eyes at you. “I'll be fine, I just needed more time. I've done this before.” He told you, shaking his head, then regretting it.

“That doesn't make me feel any better or convince me, Henry.” You replied with a huff. “How are we going to get out of here?” You asked, lowering your voice, sure they were eavesdropping.

“I'll think of something.” Henry answered, looking around the room, but there was very little to aid you in that endeavor. “Just stay strong for me.” He added, turning his face into yours, his chapped lips brushing your ear.

“Nugget.”

Benji stood in the room adjoined to the interrogation room you and Henry were held in, watching the two of you interact and talk, when a phone started to ring. Flexing his hands, Benji turned on his men, glaring each of them in the eyes until one of them shied away from his gaze.

“Answer it, Luis.” He hissed at the smaller man. “Now!” He roared, making everyone flinch.

Luis slipped a shaking hand into his pocket and pulled out his mobile, flipping it open and answering it. “Hello?” He squeaked, his voice high pitched with fright. “Um,--” He shuttered, eyes glued to Benji. “It's Monroe, Sir. He's asking about the girl, why she was nabbed this morning.” He explained, holding his phone out to Benji.

“Knox!” Benji roared into the receiver. “Why are you asking about the girl?” He demanded.

“My new Runner, they know each other.” Knox replied, cool as ice, he was used to Benji's outbursts. “We saw Ashe and the boys dragging her out of the Black Bone, she saw us too, and called out Keagan's name. When I asked how she knew him, he answered that she was his sister.”

“Her brother?” Benji said slowly, turning back to the mirror and staring at you as you huddled close to Henry. “Bring him to me, I want you here within the hour.”

“You got it, boss.” Knox replied, hanging up.

“The bubble of intrigue just keeps growing around this girl.” He said, studying you. “I love it.”

“I just got a call from headquarters.” Knox said as he approached Mikey at their table. “We need to go in, they're having a Runner meeting we need to attend to get the new details on our run in a couple days.” He explained.

“All right.” Mikey nodded, wiping the foam off his upper lip as he finished off his pint. “Are we going straight there?” He asked, standing up.

“Yep.” Knox nodded, clapping him on the back and directing him to the door, waving to the bartender as they left.

They hailed a cab to the Hernandez building, it was the tallest building in all of Bristol, showing the power, presence and money they had, running their empire of drugs and violence. The twenty minute ride there was quiet, and Knox almost felt bad for Mikey, knowing the kid had zero clue what was about to happen to him, but he wasn't sorry for the fact he was related to you, who could possibly bring down the business that kept him employed and out of the Slums.

“Mr. Hernandez is expecting us.” Knox told the receptionist at the front desk.

Nodding her head, the receptionist picked up her phone, dialed a number and waited for it to pick up. “Mr. Monroe to see you, sir.” She said, then hung up. “He'll meet you at lift number three.” She told Knox, then returned to her paperwork.

“Come on, Keagan.” Knox called, motioning Mikey to follow him.

Mikey followed him, unaware and naive to what was about to happen to him, to what was waiting for him, as the lift doors slid open and revealed Benji and Ashe. It was seeing Benji and Ashe that Mikey got a strange feeling in his stomach, but he ignored it, figuring it was just nervous jitters from meeting the most powerful man in Bristol.

“Knox.” Benji smiled at his prized Runner, then settled his cold eyes on Mikey. “Mr. Keagan, how nice to finally meet you. I've heard so much.”

“All good, I hope.” Mikey gulped.

“Of course.” Benji chuckled, motioning for the two men to step into the lift with them. “Let's go to my office to speak.” He suggested.

The ride in the lift was silent and stiff, no one speaking or moving, not even making eye contact for the several minutes the ride took, until the ding announced their arrival to the floor and the sleek metal doors slid open. Benji stepped off first, followed by Knox and Mikey, with Ashe bringing up the rear. They walked down a long hallway and Benji stopped beside a door, scanned a key card and pushed it open, motioning for Mikey to go in first, wanting to see his reaction as he entered.

Biting his lip, Mikey did as he was told, a nervous sweat breaking out on his brow as he moved into the dark room, noticing the wall length window to one side. He stopped in front of it, looking through the two way mirror and felt his jaw and heart hit the floor.

“Issy.” He gasped, seeing you pacing the bright room, then noticed the large and beaten male tied to the chair in the room as well.

His shoulders slumped as it all clicked in his head, he had been lied to too and was now as much a prisoner as you and Henry were. A cold sweat broke out all over his body and his hands started to shake, gulping several times to try and keep his composure.

“What is the meaning of this?” He asked, eyes snapping to Benji as he watched Ashe lock and block the door, leaving Knox in the hallway.

“Who is that girl to you?” Benji asked, lightly tapping the glass of the mirror. “And answer truthfully.”

Mikey steeled himself. “I don't know.” He huffed, puffing out his chest.

Benji rolled his jaw and banged on the mirror, grabbing Emilio's attention. Smirking, Emilio pushed himself off the door he had been leaning against and strode over to you, startling you and making you stubble away from him.

“NO!” Henry and Mikey both screamed at the same time as Emilio grabbed you roughly by the hair, yanking your head backward and making you cry out as he shoved you closer to the mirror.

“Who is she to you?” Benji asked again, slowly.

“A friend.” Mikey whimpered, clenching his fists together as he felt and saw your pain.

Benji knocked on the window again. This time, Emilio twisted you around by the hair and slammed your back up against the mirror and wrapped his meaty hand around your slender neck. Henry jerked and squirmed in his chair, roaring with madness and cursing loudly as Emilio choked you, trying desperately to break free and pull him off of you, before it was too late.

“Stop!” Henry roared, letting his anger and frustration out in a violent scream. “Let her go! Do it to me!” He begged Emilio. “Let her be!”

Mikey doubled over, his hands braced on his thighs as he gasped for air, like a goldfish out of it's tank. “Please, stop this.” He begged Benji, in a wheeze.

Benji tilted his head as he watched Mikey, watching his distress as it mirrored your own. Curiously, he banged on the mirror again and Emilio, still choking you with one hand, drove the fist of his other into your stomach, making you yelp around his hand, incapable of more as you struggled for air. Mikey stumbled back into a shelf behind him, nearly losing his footing. Benji's fingers caught the underside of Mikey's chin and jerked his head back, thick strings of drool on his lips and chin.

“Tell me who she is to you?” He hissed in his face.

“Please.” Mikey begged him, weakly.

“Tell me, and I'll make him stop.” Benji told him, his face twisted with smug malice.

Mikey whimpered, hearing you struggling and Henry's desperate protests. “She's my sister.” He broke. “My twin sister.” He admitted, weakly.

“Your twin?” Benji echoed, intrigued. “So, you feel what she feels. Does she feel what you do, I wonder.” He let go of Mikey and knocked on the mirror twice, signaling Emilio to release you, which he did, causing you to collapse to the floor. “Ashe, go in there and tell me if she feels anything from him.” He ordered, keeping his eyes on Mikey.

Nodding, Ashe left the room and entered yours and Henry's, nodding at the mirror, so Benji knew he was in position. Smiling, Benji promptly drove his knee into Mikey's stomach and looked behind him and saw Ashe smirking and chuckling to himself.

“The connection between twins.” Benji laughed, amused to all ends. “I love it. Let's have a proper little family reunion, shall we!” He declared and motioned to Luis to grab Mikey. “Bring him.” He ordered, marching out of the room. “Good news everybody!” He declared, bursting into the room with you and Henry.

“It's family time!” He laughed, as Luis shoved Mikey into the room with the two of you.

“Mikey.” You coughed and rasped, holding your bruised neck.

“Issy.” He rasped back, crawling over to you. “Where have you been?” He asked, cupping your face in his shaking hands. “We thought you were dead.”

“I went looking for you, to try and patch things up with our parents, after the fight.” You explained, fresh tears dripping down your face. “But, I was caught by the Traffickers and was held by them. Henry,” You looked up at him, still straining in the chair, his blue eyes wild. “he saved me and I've been with him the whole time.”

Mikey blinked up at Henry, then narrowed his eyes at him. “Saved you?” He echoed your words, but not your sentiments and appreciation. “The only reason a person goes into a Trafficker's warehouse, if they're not merchandise, is to buy.” He hissed, his face darkening. “You bought my sister from a fucking Trafficker. Typical Upper, buying and enslaving us just because we were born in a lower Sector than you.”

“Mikey, it wasn't like that?” You panted, shaking your head at him, desperate for him to understand.

“How can you fucking defend him!” Mikey barked, gritting his teeth at you. “Unless he's already brainwashed you, convinced you that owning you didn't make you any different than him.”

“I don't own her.” Henry growled, low in his throat.

“Is that so!”

“It is!” You barked back, regaining yourself. “He never registered me for an Ownership Bracelet. Henry's never treated me like a Slave, or even a Slummer, for that matter. He's been good to me, Mikey.” You told him, cupping his tense neck in your hands and pressed your forehead to his. “He's been helping me to find you.” You whispered to him, holding his eyes.

“He's been protecting me.” You said quieter.

“I was originally meant to follow her until you were found, then bring you both back to London.” Henry added, his eyes on you. “So, she could testify against him.” He jerked his chin at Benji. “and to turn you in for your part in the Running business. But,” He paused and sighed. “But, I changed my mind and decided to just help her bring you back home, safely. Make up some story about why I didn't bring you in, then once she testified, I was going to release her to go back home to your family.” He explained.

Mikey opened his mouth to ask why a High Marshal would bother to do something like that, when he finally felt it, a warmth that came from you, and met your eyes and saw the cause of your warmth, towards Henry. You were in love with the High Marshal, and looking to Henry, he could tell that Henry felt just as strongly about you.

“I've been a complete brainless prick.” Mikey sighed, feeling guilty, if he hadn't decided to become a Runner, then none of this would have happened, the two of you and Henry would still be safe and sound in London, going about your lives as should be.

“I'm sorry, Issy.”

“Well, you're just a stupid boy, what do you know anyway.” You huffed, smiling softly and shrugging it off.

“Well, isn't this all well and sweet.” Benji huffed pushing off the wall.

“But, we all have an issue. The three of you are a threat to my business.” He said, folding his arms. “You, High Marshal, are on the case that threatens my business. You,” He looked at Mikey. “Being a Runner, know the routes and procedures of my business, and you,” He settled his eyes on you. “Are the witness to my operations and hold the key to ruining my business in London and putting away one of my best Traffickers.”

“I can't let you live.” He said, looking at the three of you. “So, we're going to play a fun little game.” He smirked, greedy and giddy, as he rubbed his hands together. “Luis, your gun.” He ordered, holding his hand out to the other man. “Ashe draw yours as well, and Emilio, why don't you untie Mr. Cavill over there, we do out number them with people and firearms, so I doubt either of them will be stupid enough to try something.” He said, motioning Emilio towards Henry.

Obeying, Emilio removed the key to Henry's bonds from his front pocket, while Ashe had his gun trained on him, anticipating any attempt Henry, you or Mikey might make to try and be a savior. Emilio unlocked the ties around Henry's chaffed ankles, then his wrists. Henry let out a relieved sigh as the strain and tension of his shoulders and arms released, almost slumping out of the chair.

“Henry!” You gasped, dashing forward to try and catch him.

“Ah, no!” Benji barked, stopping you in your tracks. “Leave him be.” He hissed at you. “Get up, Cavill.” He demanded of Henry. “Now, or I'll start putting holes in her!”

Groaning, Henry forced himself to stand, swaying on his throbbing and injured legs and almost falling, but caught himself on the back of the chair. Assured that Henry would be able to reasonably stand, then took the gun Luis was still holding out to him, Benji removed the clip from the firearm, checking how many rounds it had, reloaded the clip and cocked the slide, securing a bullet into the chamber.

“Take it.” He snapped, holding it out to you.

“No.” You whimpered, shaking your head and taking a step away from him.

“You either take it, or I kill all three of you now, starting with the High Marshal, then your dear brother and you last, so you can watch as your brother and the man you love, die.” He threatened, with an eerie calm.

Taking a shuddering breath, you stepped forward again and, with a shaky hand, took the heavy weapon from Benji's hand. You looked at Henry and Mikey with wide and frightened eyes, visibly shaking with terror. They both looked back at you with the same fright and worry.

“So, this is our game.” Benji grinned, licking his lips, like an evil serpent. “You get to choose who dies first, and get the honor of killing them.” He told you, grinning sinisterly.

“No.” You whimpered, slowly shaking your head. “No, I can't. Please, I can't.” You begged him, trembling, and staring down at the gun, like you expected it to swallow you.

“None of you are going to leave this room alive. So, you might as well put each other out of your own misery.” Benji tried to reason with you. “Do you want them to suffer because of your selfishness?”

“Don't listen to him.” Henry snapped, drawing your attention. “You don't need to do this, just give me the gun.” He told you, reaching out a hand to you.

“He's right, Issy. You don't.” Mikey agreed, holding his own hand out. “Just give it to one of us, we'll figure this out.”

Both Henry and Mikey knew why Benji had given you the gun. You would never have considered hurting anyone, with or without the firearm; unlike Henry and Mikey, who would.

Your eyes darted back and forth between them, unsure who to give it to. What would Henry do, if you were to give him the gun? Would he manage to kill Benji, Ashe, Luis and Emilio before they could do any real damage to the three of you? What about Mikey? Did your brother even know how to use a gun? What would he do once he had it? Should you even give it to them? What if one of them turned on the other, what if Henry turned on Mikey? He had originally been sent after you to bring you back to testify and take care of Mikey, because of his involvement with Benji and Bristol. Would Mikey try to kill Henry, because he was a High Marshal, maybe try to save face and show Benji he could be trusted, to save himself, and maybe you too.

You knew neither of them would turn on you or harm you in any way. You weren't afraid of them; you were afraid for them, and what they might do if they had the gun themselves.

It took all you had not to throw up, then and there. Everyone was staring at you waiting for your decision, but you couldn't decide, you wouldn't decide. You loved Henry and you loved your brother, you would rather kill yourself than one of them; and it was as if they sensed your mind go in that direction, for both Henry and Mikey jerked towards you, startling you.

“No!” Henry hissed, his eyes wide with panic. “Don't you dare.” He panted heavily, spots in his eyes as his advanced blood loss started to take its toll on him, on top of everything else going on. “Don't you dare turn that gun on yourself.” He whispered, half begging and half ordering you.

“Listen to him, Issy.” Mikey agreed, nodding his head. “Don't harm yourself. We can figure this out.” He said, eyeballing Benji over your shoulder.

Tears dripped down your face, like a waterfall after a heavy rain, it was too much, it was all too overwhelming for you to take. Mikey looked between you and Henry, he saw the absolute terror and worry in Henry's eyes, his pupils eating away the cobalt blue and speck of brown of his irises. Your own blown out pupils doing the same as you started back at him. It was something that Mikey wasn't used to. When things became scary and too much, it had always been him that you looked to in those moments, but this time, it was Henry you were seeking comfort and protection from.

“You fucking prick!” Mikey growled, trying to lung at Benji.

“Ah ah!” Benji barked back, grabbing Luis's wrist and forcing him to point his gun at you. “If either of you try and act a hero, Luis will kill her, out right.” He warned, meeting Mikey and Henry's eyes.

Biting his lip, Mikey took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh, Benji had the three of you cornered. He was forcing you to kill one of the men you loved with your own life, while stopping Henry and Mikey from trying to save the day, by threatening to kill you, knowing they both would die to keep you safe.

What a twisted and poisonous web that was being weaved in the room. But, sooner or later, the strings of that web would start to snap and unravel, taking all of you with it.

Mikey took a hesitating step forward, his heart pounding and choked inside of his throat, his eyes daring between you, Benji and Luis. Reaching out, he wrapped his hand around your wrist, feeling the weight of the gun you held in that hand. The pounding pulse in your wrist drummed against Mikey's fingers, and he felt his own heart become attuned with yours. From the day the two of you came into the world, you several minutes before him, the pair of you were in sync, but as you grew older, you became less so. You had taken the right path, following the law, doing the job assigned to you, making the best of the life you had been dealt, without a complaint. While Mikey rebelled and became restless, wanting to be more, wanting the people he loved to be and have more than you already did, failing to see the wealth he already had, in you, your parents and little brother.

It was too late now to go back and fix those things, to see and cherish them properly, like Mikey now realized he should have.

The two of you synced together, heart beats the same steady, but pounding rate, breathing heavy and as one, flowing in a way that only twins could. You read his face, like it was the page of an open book and knew what he was doing. Your hand grasped the grip of the gun tighter, eyes widening and head softly shaking.

It's all right, Issy. His face and eyes said to you.

No. Your eyes begged back, blinded by collecting tears. Not like this. Don't do this. I can't live without you, Mikey.

You'll be fine, Sis.

He looked away from you, to Henry, who stood there, supporting himself on the back of the chair he had spent hours being tortured in. Henry looked back at Mikey, confused, just like everyone else in the room to what was transpiring between you, narrowing his eyes and frowning, shaking his head at Mikey, wanting to understand. But, Mikey looked back to you, squeezing your wrist and pressing his free hand to your chest.

You have the High Marshal to care for and protect you now. His eyes said to you. And he'll do a better job at it. He can give you the love, life and protection you need and deserve in life.

You shook your head at him, eyes screaming at him. Don't do this! What about our parents? Our little brother? What will I tell them? They will be crushed.

I'm no good and we both know this. Let me do this, and prove I still have some good left in me.

His hand slowly slipped down yours, gently prying your fingers from around the gun's grip, carefully taking it from you. Your hands shot out, gripping Mikey by the sleeves, one last plea for him to reconsider, to help you and Henry find a different plan and outcome, to give it a chance. But, he shook his head and took your arm in his free hand, leaned in to kiss your cheek, then gently shoved you in Henry's direction. Henry just managed to catch you before you stumbled over your feet, and himself from falling as well, blinking between you and Mikey, starting to realize what was going on.

“Mikey, n--” You started to scream as he raised the muzzle to his temple.

Henry's thick arms wrapped around you, somehow mustering the strength to hold you back as you struggled and thrashed in his embrace, trying desperately to stop what was about to happen.

A loud pop and a high pitched ringing filled your ears, muting out all other sounds that were being made, the sounds of your scream that you only knew was happening by how sore it made your throat, the warm spray of droplets against your face and neck, the world ending sight of your brother crumbling to the ground, the gun falling from his limp hand and slid across the blood covered floor, spinning under the chair at Henry's foot.

But, the chaos didn't stop there.

As Mikey hit the floor, Ashe came to life, using the distraction of Mikey's decision, to pull the gun out of his back waistband, smoothly flipping off the safety with his thumb, cocked and pointed it at Luis. All of it was in slow-motion, ears still screaming, as another pop filled the room, this time taking out Luis. Henry's body tensed up against yours as he watched Luis instinctively pull the trigger of his own weapon, the bullet whizzing towards you both. Henry wrapped his arms completely around you and threw you both down onto the floor; caging you in with his heavy and bloody body, using himself as a human shield as more muffled shots rang out.

You felt Henry's body jerk once against yours and the hot breath of him groaning against your neck, then a searing pain in your thigh, before the room went quiet and dark.

You started to come back around to the sound of Henry yelling your name, above the ringing that was still filling your ears and mind. You shook your throbbing head, feeling him pat your cheeks, trying to get you to open your eyes and respond to him.

“Can you hear me?” Henry asked, blinking down at you.

You blinked back up at him, only catching every other word he said. “A little bit.” You wheezed back, your thigh felt like an overfilled, hot water bottle as it throbbed.

“Good.” He nodded, then looked down the length of your body, just then noticing the slow puddle of blood pooling around your leg and cursed. “You've been hit.” He huffed, wrestling with his body's want to panic, but kept calm.

Spotting the tattered remains of his shirt, that Emilio had cut off, Henry grabbed it. “This is going to hurt, but, I need to control the bleeding before you lose too much.” He explained, carefully bringing your leg up, then wrapping the strip of his shirt around your thigh, just above the bullet wound, and tied it off as tightly as he could without causing any more complications.

You winced and whined as he did, gripping his bicep and digging your nails into his skin. “What happened?” You asked, out of breath, you couldn't see most of the room, Henry's body blocking your view, mostly on purpose.

“It seems, we have a friend.” Henry replied looking over his shoulder to Ashe. “We're going to get out of here.” He told you, fussing over your wound as a thin and steady stream of blood continued to flow from it, tightening his shirt more.

“We can't leave without--” You paused, remembering. “Oh god, Henry!” You gasped, it all rushed back to you.

“I know.” He frowned at you, crushed.

“We have to take him with us.”

“We can't.” Henry whispered, licking his cracked lips. “It'll slow us down.” He told you as carefully as he could. “I'll get him back for you. When we get back to London, I promise you.” He said, helping you sit up.

“Henry--” You sobbed, throwing your arms around his neck and buried your face into his sweaty and sticky chest.

“I know, love. I am so so sorry.” He whimpered in your ear, cradling you in his arms as you sobbed.

“We need to go.” Ashe's rushed voice came from the door. “Now, before the alarms go off.” He said, looking back into the hall.

He felt for you, he really did, never expecting all of this to happen, but now that it had, the three of you needed to put as many kilometers and as much time between you and Bristol as you could, because Benji's men would be coming after you in no time.

“Come on.” Henry grunted, pulling himself up to his feet and taking you with him, wrapping your arm around his neck, to support you out of the room.

Your breath caught in your throat as Henry helped you stand up, seeing Mikey's body laying there in a large pool of blood, but also Luis, Emilio and Benji's bodies as well. In the chaos of Mikey taking his own life to save you and Henry, Ashe had sprung, pulling his weapon and dispatching them in the confusion. Luis and Emilio let off several rounds from their own guns, one of them nicking Henry in the side and another going through your thigh.

“Is he on our side?” You wheezed, as you and Henry followed him down the hall.

“Yeah.” Henry nodded, shifting you against his side as you started to slip. “He's a Alpha Marshal, from London.” He explained to your questioning brow lift

“How did you not know that?” You asked him, frowning, you figured since Henry was a High Marshal, he would know all of the other Marshals.

“He finished Marshal training four years before I went in, and was recruited straight out of it to go undercover and infiltrate Bristol and climb the ladder as far as he could. Seems he got as high as being Benji Hernandez's personal enforcer.” He explained, stopping as Ashe secured the hallway around the corner.

“Which is damn lucky for the two of you.” Ashe commented, coming back. “The way is clear, there's a back service lift that goes down to the garage. I have a car there we can use to get the fuck out of Bristol.”

“Let's go.” Henry nodded, antsy.

You looked back down the hall, to the still open door to the room that held all that carnage, and shuttered. Henry looked at you, feeling the shiver and frowned, reaching up to brush your hair out of your sweaty and bloody face. He couldn't understand the level of pain and anguish you must be in, after watching your brother commit suicide to save you. But, he knew that Mikey would want him to protect you and get you the hell out of there, with or without his body, and that's what Henry planned on doing.

“You can do this.” He whispered to you, blood crusted fingertips brushing your cheek. “He would want you too.” He added even softer.

“I know.” You gulped down tears, pressing your forehead to his shoulder. “Let's go, before I lose my nerve.” You said, looking away from the door.

Nodding his head, you and Henry supported each other down the hall to the lift, leaning against the wall as it went down to the dark underground garage. Finding Ashe's car, he unlocked it and helped you and Henry get inside, before rushing around to the driver's side, tearing out of the garage and onto the street.

“Here.” You sighed and removed your torn and filthy jacket, revealing Henry's shirt beneath it, and took it off, seeing Henry's shiver.

“Thanks.” Henry whimpered, carefully pulling the shirt on his sore and battered torso. “How are we getting out of here, Ashe?”

“There's a gate out of this Sector that most of Benji's top men use for dealing with business outside of Bristol. I know the guard that works it, he'll let us through and keep his mouth shut.” Ashe explained, keeping his eyes on the road. “From there, I'll drop you both off at the drop location I use for sending my information into London.”

“What Sector is that in?” Henry asked, checking your makeshift tourniquet.

“Three.” Ashe replied, slowing his car down as they approached the gate he spoke about. “Let me do the talking.” He said over his shoulder, rolling his window down as a stocky male with a semi-automatic weapon approached the driver's side.

“James, it's been awhile. How have you been?” He asked, staring through the open driver's window.

“Been all right.” Ashe replied casually, as if nothing was amiss, like the two bleeding people in his backseat. “I need to run an errand outside the city, if you don't mind opening the gate and letting me through.”

“Sure thing.” the guard replied, chipper and oblivious to you and Henry, unable to see through the black tinted windows.

Stepping away from Ashe's car, the guard moved into a small booth beside the gate, turning a key and held down a large red button. The large and scuffed up gate groaned to life, screeching and protesting as it slid out of the way, revealing barren land and an uneven road on the other side. Waving back as the guard waved Ashe through the gate, he drove through, letting out a relieved breath as the gate closed behind you, everything so far going smooth.

“It's a two and half hour drive to your drop off location.” Ashe said, breaking the silence.

“That's fine.” Henry replied. “It took us nearly a week to walk here.” He added with a huff, that felt like a year ago at this point.

“What about you?” You asked Ashe. “What will you do now? Will you not come into London with us?” You inquired, interested, since his life and the long years he spent undercover in Bristol was now blown apart because of you, Henry and Mikey.

“I'm not originally from London.” Ashe replied, stiffly. “I'm from Chester. My father was killed in an accident and my mother couldn't take care of me. So, she had a smuggler bring me to London where I have a wealthy aunt. She took me in, adopted me and raised me as her own son, enabling me to have a better life. With her connections, I was able to attend the Marshal Council Academy, graduated top of my class and was recruited directly out of training to go undercover and infiltrate Bristol and the Hernandez family. I've been there ever since, running and doing whatever job Benji and his family tell me too, while sending the information back to London and half of the money I make back to my mum in Chester.”

“I've wanted to return to Chester for a long time, I haven't seen my mother, in person, since I was eight. So, I plan to go back there, after I drop the two of you off.”

“Won't they go looking for you there?” You asked, concerned for him, you had dragged so many people into this mess.

“No, as far as they know, all my family is dead.” He answered, glancing at you in the rear-view mirror. “My backstory was I was orphaned as a baby and raised on the streets of London, where I got in with Runners and came to Bristol to be more big time. So, I don't know who my parents are, let alone, know if I have any other family or where.”

“And they believed that?”

“For more than a decade.” Ashe chuckled, smiling at you.

The rest of the drive was quiet, you and Henry huddled together in the backseat, Henry's heavy head resting on your shoulder. His eyes were closed, but he didn't find any sleep, still too worked up to find it with the state you both were in. You rested your cheek on the top of his head and closed your own eyes, your head still throbbed and your leg was on fire, but had stopped bleeding so much. Both of you were worn, spent and weak, desperately needing proper medical attention and rest after everything that had happened.

“Henry?” You whispered softly into his messy curls.

“Hm?” He hummed back.

“What are we going to say, when we get back to London?” You asked him, biting your lip.

Henry sighed, picking up his head as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pressed his lips to your temple. That had been brewing in his mind for the last hour, trying to figure out how to explain all your injuries and absence to everyone that asked. The only person that truly knew the nature of your and Henry's disappearance was Reyes, and he didn't know what Reyes would do when the pair of you showed back up in London in the sorry state you were in, and without Mikey.

“We'll cross that road, when we get there, love.” He finally replied, kissing your temple again.

You crossed that road an hour and a half later, when Ashe pulled up to a door that had been built into the wall of Sector Three. He helped you and Henry out of the car and approached the door with you, pointing out an intercom box beside the door.

“The code is 8391, it'll ring whoever is working the door today, they'll come down and ask for credentials, tell them you're a High Marshal and you'll get all the assistance you need.” He explained to you, heading back towards his car.

“Ashe!” Henry called after him, before he could get into the car and leave. “Thank you.” He said, when Ashe turned back.

“We're Marshals, we're trained to look out for each other.” Ashe replied, nodding his head to you both and got into his car.

Henry waited until Ashe's car disappeared from sight, before limping up to the door and pressed in the code Ashe had given you. A buzzer went off and five minutes later, the door opened, revealing a Beta Marshal, who frowned between you and Henry.

“High Marshal Henry Cavill.” Henry told him, as the Beta Marshal started to open his mouth. “We require aid and you need to get a call into Supreme Commander, Dylan Reyes.” He said, grabbing your hand and pushing through the door.

“Now, Beta Marshal, before we finish bleeding to death.” Henry hissed at him, annoyed and impatient.

“Of course, sir.” the Beta Marshal squeaked, saluting Henry and showing you both to his service car. “Supreme Commander Reyes, this is Beta Marshal Grant, down at the Security Door. I have a High Marshal here, wishing to speak with you.” the Beta Marshal explained, as his call to Dylan connected over the car's speakers.

“Who would that be, Grant?” Dylan's voice asked back.

“It's me, Dylan.” Henry huffed, slumping in the seat.

“Henry!” Reyes's voice snapped in surprise. “You're alive!”

“For the time being.” Henry sighed, rubbing at his face.

“Do you have the girl and her brother?” He asked, sounding desperate and frantic.

“I have her, but not her brother.” Henry explained, glancing at you. “It's a very long story. But, right now, we both need medical attention. She's been shot in the leg and bleeding heavily and I've spent the last thirteen hours being tortured.” He revealed to his boss.

“Grant, get them both to the Marshal Council Hospital right this second and make sure they don't spare any medical intervention and assistance. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Supreme Commander.” Grant replied, with a hard nod of his head as he started his car and directed it towards the Marshal Council Hospital, in Sector One.

“I'll be there promptly.” Reyes replied, clearly rushing out of his office for the parking garage.

So much of the tension went out of you and Henry, you were finally back in the protective and safe walls of London, no more worry about people trying to find and kill you, no more filthy and bare essential hotel rooms and days of endless walking. You were home and free, and with Henry. Now, you both just needed to get looked over and have your injuries treated, then you could go back to the comfort of your own flat.

You and Henry were rushed into the hospital, dozens of doctors and nurses swarming you both, poking this and pulling on that, asking a barrage of questions too fast for either of you to answer properly. The leg of your leggings was cut all the way to your hip as they removed Henry's ripped and blood soaked shirt to examine your gunshot wound. You screamed in pain as they pushed around it, and apologized profusely for it, and became more gentle about touching it.

“Good news is, it went through, relatively clean.” The doctor explained to you, standing beside your bed.

“The bad?” You whimpered, biting your lip as you tried preparing for it.

“The bullet nicked your great saphenous vein, it's the longest vein in the human body, running the entire length of the leg; which is what's causing a lot of your bleeding. ”

“Am..” You gulped down a hot lump of vomit trying to surge up your throat. “Am I going to lose my leg?” You asked, frightened beyond belief and wished Henry was in the same room as you, but they had separated the two of you after coming in with Beta Marshal Grant.

“No.” The doctor chuckled at you, shaking his head. “We have a procedure that will stop the bleeding and help the wound heal in no time. But, I must warn you, it is rather painful.”

“As long as I don't lose my leg, I don't care.” You told him.

You had already lost too much.

“Excellent, I'll have the nurse bring in the instruments and we'll get down to treating you.” He smiled at you, sweetly, trying to be supportive and calming. “Do you have any questions, before we get started?”

“Yes, how's Henry—the High Marshal.” You asked, correcting yourself.

“High Marshal Cavill has lost a good amount of blood.” He told you, his brow creasing with his concern. “We gave him a blood transfusion and an army load of fluids, while we treated his wounds. He has broken and cracked ribs and sternum, a broken nose, a severe concussion and very deep cuts on various parts of his body.” He explained to you, as gently as he could.

“But, he will make a full recovery. He's a tough young man, and has the best medical care London has.”

“Good.” You sigh, relieved.

The doctor smiled at you, gently resting his hand on your shoulder before leaving the room to prepare your treatment. A nurse came in a moment later, pushing a cloth covered cart, then put an IV port into your arm and hung up a bag of fluids, antibiotics and blood; since you had lost so much blood from your bullet wound. You hissed as she gingerly rotated your leg and slipped a triangular shaped pillow under your bent knee, an oval notch cut in the top of it for your knee to rest comfortable and securely, while they treated you.

She removed the cloth from the metal cart she brought in with her, and you saw what looked like a short caulking gun, a tube with a fat nozzle and two packaged patches. Picking up one of the patches, she ripped it open and dipped it in a small bowl of solution, the patch absorbed some of the liquid solution and became almost rubbery and gel-like. She moved around to your stabilized leg and gently pressed the ice cold patch to the bruised and puckered hole on the inside of your thigh, where the bullet exited, more than halfway up. You hissed as the cold gel patch touched the heated and angry skin of your thigh, whatever the solution she dipped it in stung and burned like liquid fire as it covered your wound, adhering to your skin with a firm hold.

“This will keep your wound protected, clean and sterile. It has antibodies that will recognize any infections or foreign matter and attack it, preventing your wound from going bad.” She explained to you, pressing her palm to it and held it there with firm pressure.

“And that?” You asked as she let go of the patch and picked up the caulking gun-like device and slotted the tub into it.

“This is Nanite Gel. It has antibodies in it, as well as stem cells and biological Nantes, that will start working to repair the severed muscle, skin, tendons, nerve endings and tissue inside your leg; closing the wound right up.” She replied. “The doctor will insert the nozzle into your wound and slowly draw it out, while filling it with the Gel. The patch also works as a barrier, since the projectile went through one side and out the other, preventing the Nanite Gel from squirting and leaking out.” She described to you.

“Fantastic.” You replied, with a nervous sarcasm.

You gulped with anticipation as the doctor came back in, with an additional nurse, and pulling on a pair of latex gloves. He smiled at you, took his position beside your leg, and took the injector from the first nurse. The second nurse grabbed your ankle and the top of your knee, pinning your leg down as the doctor lined up the tip of the nozzle with your uncovered and slightly bloody wound.

“Deep breath.” The doctor instructed you, taking a deep breath with you. “Ready?” He asked as the first nurse carefully dabbed at the blood with a wad of gauze at the end of a clamp, keeping your wound clean, so the doctor had an easy time guiding the nozzle in, which was easily bigger than your actual wound.

“More than I ever will be.” You replied, bracing yourself.

Nodding his head, the doctor pressed the nozzle to the opening of your wound and started to push it inside. You tensed and jerked, screaming again, but the second nurse had an iron grip on your leg, keeping it still as the doctor continued to push inside. You had strobing spots in your eyes and your jaw was so tight it felt like your teeth were going to shatter at any second. The doctor barked at the first nurse to give you twelve micrograms of Fentanyl for your pain, and she scurried out of your room and came running back a minute later with a IV syringe full of the opioid, pushing it directly into the tube of your IV. Within a couple of seconds, the painkiller washed over your whole body, like a hot comforter out of the dryer, and allowed you to relax, going slack on the bed.

“Good.” The doctor nodded, seeing and feeling you relax and finished pushing the nozzle the rest of the way in.

Shifting his hand, the doctor pressed down on the trigger of the injector and slowly drew it out again, filling the tunnel the bullet made with the blue-ish gel. You didn't feel the pain of it, but you felt the pressure in your leg. Your eyes were heavy, glazed over and half lidded, you felt absolutely nothing and you were so sluggish from the opioid that you couldn't even form words to think, it felt nice after all the trauma and hardship you had gone through in the last week.

So, you let it take you, pulling you under the crashing waves of exhaustion, pain and the high of the painkiller, your body going totally limp. It alarmed the doctor and nurses for a moment, fearing you had blacked out. But, once they checked you out and determined you had simply fallen asleep, they relaxed and finished tending to your wound, filling it with the gel, then covering it with another patch, like the other one, and lightly wrapped it with a bandage.

They left you to rest, closing the blinds over the window and turned down the lights, before softly closing the door behind them.

“How is she?” Henry asked Reyes as he came into Henry's room; he had heard your screams of pain from his room, across the hall.

“She's doing fine.” Reyes assured him, patting him on the shoulder. “They treated her gunshot wound with Nanite Gel, gave her some strong pain medication and she's asleep now.”

“Good.” Henry nodded, relieved, but still wanted to see you, to be by your side.

“So, what the hell happened?” Reyes asked, pulling up a chair next Henry's bedside.

Henry started to heave a sigh, but stopped, clutching his rib-cage with an arm as his ribs screamed. “I chased after her, like I said I would. It took me nearly three days to finally catch up to her. She's crafty, in a good way. She'd make a great Marshal.” He chuckled, carefully. “I was going to bring her straight back to London to testify. But, she was dead set on finding her brother, so I went with her, figuring I'd kill two birds with one stone.”

“Get her back to London to testify and have her brother prosecuted.” Reyes nodded, understanding.

“Well, when we got there, we had no clue on how to find him.” Henry continued on, staring out his room window. “I recalled that a Beta Marshal that had been banished to Bristol for dealings with Runners and Crime Bosses. Ramsey Kellan. We found him in Sector Fifteen and he gave us the information we needed.” He rubbed the side of his face, he really wished he could just take a nap, but continued to fill Reyes in.

“Somewhere along that time frame, we were outed as being in Bristol, and looking for her brother.”

“Over a decade as an undercover, and your first blown cover happens with the girl.” Reyes laughed, greatly amused.

“Yeah.” Henry frowned, not finding it funny, if his cover with you hadn't been blown, so much of this wouldn't have happened. “As I said, our cover got blown in a pub in Sector Three of Bristol. Benji Hernandez sent his best guy to track us down there. I was able to get us out of the pub and down an alleyway, where I boosted her over a wall, to keep her safe, and faced the guy. We fought, he tazed the fuck out of me, and the next thing I knew, I'm waking up in a bright room, cuffed hand and foot to a chair.”

“They tried beating and reasoning me into telling where she was, but I refused.”

“Where was she, when this was going on?”

“The hotel room we got before going to the pub.” Henry replied with a sigh.

“But, she was clearly found.” Reyes pointed out. “How?”

“I told her I would return in an hour. When I hadn't returned by morning, she got worried and decided to try and find me. Which ended up with Benji's men, who had been keeping an eye out for her, capturing her and bringing her in.”

“And the brother?” Reyes pushed, leaning forward, his elbows pressed to his thighs.

“They saw each other as she was being thrown in a van to be taken to Benji. His handler, Knox Monroe, had found out that they were siblings and outed him, and he ended up in the room with us.” Henry replied, gingerly shifting to find a more comfortable position.

“So, where is Keagan?”

“Dead.” Henry replied, bluntly. “Benji gave her a gun and forced her to decide which one of us would die first.”

“She killed her own brother?” Reyes asked, stunned and gobsmacked.

“No.” Henry shook his head, the image still burned in his mind. “She couldn't do it. She wouldn't choose either of us, she almost turned it on herself. Before, Michail managed to take the gun from her.” He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the image out his mind, the sound of your screams as you were forced to watch.

“He took his own life, so she didn't have to choose.”

“And Hernandez allowed the pair of you to leave afterwards?”

“No, I'm sure he would have forced either her or I to kill the other, then kill the last one himself.” Henry answered, opening his eyes again.

“Then, how did the two of you make it out?” Reyes asked, tilting his head at Henry.

Henry looked at Reyes. “Do you know Alpha Marshal Ashe James?” He asked, his eyes scrutinizing his boss.

“I do.” Reyes nodded back, his brows drawing together. “My predecessor, Eric Banner, told me, when I took over his position, when he retired, that he had a man on the inside of Bristol and to expect his reports regularly.”

“He was the one that saved our asses.” Henry explained with a sigh. “He was the one that stunned me in the alleyway. When Mikey killed himself, Ashe took the opportunity to pull his weapon and dispatched Benji and his men.”

Reyes blinked at Henry. “Are you telling me that Hernandez is dead?”

“I am. Unless, there's some way Nanite Gel can repair a hole in the brain.” He replied, with slight sarcasm. “Which I know there's not. So, he's now out of the way.”

“This is great.” Reyes grinned at Henry. “That'll be a massive blow to the Hernandez family, their operations and Bristol. Especially, when she's healthy enough to testify against Twist and his trafficking business.”

“It will be.” Henry agreed, but the only thing he was concerned with was the two of you getting well again. “I'm guessing, they'll be postponing the trial for a few weeks.”

“I still have to call the Cleric and Royal Councils and report everything that's gone down. But, I'm sure they'll delay the trial, for at least, a month.”

“Good, I want to take care of her first.” Henry added, nodding and relieved.

Reyes frowned at Henry and leaned back in his chair. “What is it between the two of you?” He asked, he had the suspicious feeling in his gut about the two of you for a while, but had only just had the time and place to ask.

Henry's cheeks warmed slightly and glanced away from Reyes, making his boss laugh out loud, seeing it in Henry's body language.

“You're in love with her.” He blurted out, tickled at the notion. “The great Upper, Henry Cavill, is in love with a Slummer, that's meant to be his Servant and Slave.”

“She's not my Slave! And, don't fucking call her a Slummer, either.” Henry roared, huffing angrily through his nose, like a bull about to charge. “I never registered her, and I never will register her, either.”

“Oh, I know you never registered her for an Ownership Bracelet, Henry.” Dylan continued to chuckle at his friend. “I checked and I got a copy of the paperwork you both filled out for her Life Pin.”

“And, you didn't say anything?” Henry asked, surprised.

“Not my business what you do with your private life, Hank.” He replied with a sigh, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“But, you pressed me into buying her.” He hissed back, eyes wide.

“I did.” Reyes nodded, pressing his lips together. “We needed the paperwork, a trail to link Twist to trafficking, and to Benji. What you did, or didn't, do with her outside of that, was purely on you, and her.” He confessed, running a hand through his short black hair.

“I was also hoping you'd find a lover or mate.” He added, clearing his throat.

“You were what?” Henry barked, taken aback.

“I should let you rest.” Dylan sighed, getting up, then carefully rested his hand on Henry's shoulder. “It's good to have you back, and alive. You did good, taking care of her and everything else. Take all the time you need to recover, the Council will be here, when you're ready to get back into it.”

“Thanks, Dylan.” Henry replied, giving him a respectful nod of his head, still brewing on what he said.

“Do you want me to call your family?” Reyes asked as he stopped at Henry's door.

“No, I'll call them, when I'm ready.” He shook his head, feeling that new wave of stress hit him. “Last time you called them about me being in the hospital, I almost died, and ended up needing a kidney replacement.”

“Fair enough.” Reyes laughed, and saw himself out.

A day later, Henry slowly limped into your hospital room, across the hall from his, and found you sitting up in bed, eyes glued to the tv and eating a jell-o cup. Your eyes shot over to Henry as he came in, setting your cup down and turned off the tv, relieved to finally see him. The two of you had only been given random updates on each other through your shared nurse, who also, gratefully, passed messages between you as well.

“Henry, should you be out of bed?” You asked as he stopped at your bedside.

“Well, I wasn't the one shot in the leg.” He chuckled and grinned at you, before leaning in to kiss you. “I just had to see you for myself.” He confessed, brushing the back of his fingers against your cheek.

“How are you feeling?”

You took a deep breath, tilting your head into his hand. “Like I got shot in the leg.” You chuckled back at him.

“Other than that, Nugget.” He laughed, shaking his head at you.

“I feel fine. Sore, but fine.” You assured him with a nod. “How about you, Puppy?” You asked, looking him over in his hospital gown, a warm and playful smile spreading across your lips.

“Same. Sore and ready to go home.” He smiled back, his stomach full of butterflies.

“I'm ready to go home too.” You concurred with him, sighing at the thought.

The butterflies in Henry's stomach wilted and died, a nauseous, heart-shaped lump forming in his tight throat, hearing you wanted to go home. His shoulders dropped, trying to get a hold on his heartbreak, before you saw it and had your mood ruined.

“You know what I've missed about it?” You asked, looking up at him, just as he managed to hide his disappointment.

“What?” He replied, pained.

“Kal.” You chuckled at him, oblivious, until you saw his shocked face. “What? You think I would miss you, when we've been together practically the whole time?” You laughed, shaking your head at him.

“No.” Henry squeaked, confused and relieved at the same time. “I just thought..” He paused, looking away from you.

“You just what, Hen?” You frowned at him, seeing his face and became worried. “Henry, sit down.” You ordered him, becoming concerned for him as you put down the arm rail, so he could sit on the edge of the bed with you.

“Tell me.” You whispered, gingerly wrapping an arm around his waist.

“I thought you were talking about going back to your family's home.” He whispered, faintly. “When you said you were ready to go back home, and that you missed them.”

“Well, I do miss them, Henry.” You told him, pressing your cheek to his bruised and nicked shoulder. “I would love to see them again. But, I wanna stay with you.” You whispered, looking up at him.

“Unless, you don't want me too?”

“I do want you too.” He replied, quickly. “I love you and I want to be with you. I want you to come home and stay with me.” He confessed to you, nosing the hair at the top of your head. “And, Kal.” He added, softly.

“Your place has become more of a home to me, than my parents' place has ever been.” You told him, honestly.

You had grown a lot in the time you shared with Henry, and a lot had also changed you. You didn't get kidnapped in your own city, imprisoned in a pitch black and freezing cold cell, either not fed or fed food crawling with unmentionables, cut off from most contact with people, other than the traffickers that had put you there, when they dragged you out for another line up for another snobbish, stuck up and entitled Upper, or to beat you into submission, without something changing you.

You still had nightmares about being in that cell.

You also changed from all the things Henry exposed you too. New foods, tv shows and the luxury of being in the upper Sectors of London, like taking you to that Royal Dinner party with his family. Henry had taken the mostly naive and sheltered Slummer and opened the world up to you. You would always appreciate and love him for that, and for taking care of you and protecting you through the long months after saving you from Twist.

Henry and Kal had become your new home, and the three of you had made a new family.

“I love you, Henry Cavill, and nothing will ever stop or prevent that.” You told him, kissing his cheek tenderly.

“So, you'll come back home with me?” He asked, looking down at you, hopeful.

“I don't want to be anywhere else.” You replied, smiling back at him.

Henry's face broke out into a smile and cupped your face in his hands. “Neither do I.” He whispered, pressing his forehead to yours and kissed you.

“Henry!” A frantic voice came from across the hall.

“Mum!” Henry called back, breaking away from you. “Mum, over here.” He yelled out, limping to your room door as his mother rushed out of his empty room.

“Oh, thank god, Henry!” She cried, rushing him and throwing her arms around him.

“Easy, Mum.” He winced, but hugged her back. “How did you know I was here?” He asked, he hadn't gotten around to calling her and his family yet.

“A report came across my desk about you being injured in the line of duty with a Slummer, and that you were still recuperating here in the hospital. I was afraid it was serious, when you hadn't called me to tell me you were all right.” Marianne explained, shaking her head at her son. “What were you doing with some Slummer that caused you to get so hurt?” She demanded, upset.

“I hope they get the punishment they deserve for getting you into such danger.”

“Mum.” Henry snapped eyes wide and looked back at you.

Marianne blinked and looked into your room, seeing your sheepish and hurt expression, then looked up at Henry. “She's a Slummer?” She asked him, surprised, as she recognized you.

Henry took a deep breath, biting his lip. “We need to talk.” He said, stepping aside, so Marianne could enter your room and followed her, closing the door behind him.

“What's going on?” She asked, taking a seat as Henry sat back down on the edge of your bed, taking your hand in his.

“Several months ago, I was undercover in Sector Thirty-One. I was tasked with infiltrating a trafficking warehouse run by one of Benji Hernandez's men. I did so, with my usual skill and process, but after finally getting an appointment with the guy and seeing the people that had been imprisoned there, Dylan told me I had to—make a purchase—to nail the traffickers and for them to get properly arrested and prosecuted by the Councils.” He explained to her.

“One of the people they had kidnapped and had for sale, was her.” He said and looked at you, giving you a soft and loving smile. “So, I purchased her, and was meant to take care of her, until the trial happened and she testified.”

“So, you bought a Slum-”

“Don't call her that.” Henry hissed, angrily, but recalled himself. “Don't call her that.” He repeated, calmer.

Marianne took a deep breath, glaring at her son. “So, you bought her, in a sting operation, took her home and acted like none of this happened, taking her to events and other functions.” She summed up, studying the two of you. “When she is, technically, your Slave.”

“Yes. But, I don't and didn't want her as a Slave. That's why I never registered her for a Bracelet.” Henry replied, licking his lips.

“So, how did the two of you end up in Bristol, of all places?” She asked, looking between you.

“I ran away, to find my brother, who got himself into a situation, as a Runner, in Bristol.” You answered, before Henry could. “I wanted to go there to try and convince him to come back home. I didn't expect Henry to come after me, when he found out where I went.”

“But,” Henry sighed and bit his lip. “I did. I was worried about her safety, and Dylan asked me, unofficially, to bring her and her brother back here. So, she could testify at the trial and her brother could face justice for his hand in the whole thing.”

Marianne looked at you, her expression stern. “And where is your criminal brother?” She asked, stiffly.

You gulped and licked your lips, staring at your covered legs and picked at the fuzz on your blanket. “He's dead.” You whispered, choking up and tears filling your eyes. “He gave his life, so Henry and I could live and get away from Benji and his men.” You blubbered, crushed.

“Sshh.” Henry hushed you, wrapping his arms around you and hugging you against him.

Marianne blinked between the two of you, taken aback.

“They tried torturing her location out of me, that's why I'm so injured. They wanted to kill her to stop the trial against Twist and their operations. I refused, for obvious reasons. She tried to save me, but got caught. When they realized her twin brother was her sibling, they brought him in as well. He died for us, and she got shot in the leg during the escape. Another undercover Marshal helped us get away and back here, to London.” Henry finished explaining to his mother.

“That's what happened.” He sighed, his eyes still on you.

“You're in love.” Marianne blurted out, seeing it as plain as day now.

“Yes.” Henry nodded, looking up at her. “I don't care that she was born in the lower Sectors, mum. I love her, with my heart and soul, and she loves me.”

“I do.” You replied, gulping down your tears and clinging onto him.

Marianne sighed and pressed her lips together, she had waited, a long time, for Henry to finally find someone to fall in love with and share his life. He was the last of the five Cavill boys to find love, settle down and start a family. If she was honest, she didn't care about what social standing the girl he fell in love with was, as long as he was happy, and by the looks of it, you and Henry were more than happy and in love with each other.

“All right.” She whispered softly, nodding her head. “I approve.”

Henry lifted his head and blinked at his mother. “Really?” He asked, shocked to hear it. “You don't care that she's from the lower Sectors?”

“Honestly, Henry? No.” She replied, sighing and shaking her head. “Love is love, and nothing is stronger than true love, not even differing social status.” She told him, honestly. “But, you both know that if, and when, people find out about it, there will be issues. They'll gossip and make comments, some might even turn away from you, shunning you for being with a Sl—someone of a lower standing.” She said, looking between the two of you with an authority of a Royal.

“Do you think you both, and your love, can survive that?”

You and Henry looked at each other, a silent conversation happening between you, before Henry looked back to his mother. “Yes.” He answered, firmly.

The two of you had gone through a lot worse than people talking behind your backs and shunning you.

“All right then.” Marianne replied, standing up. “Then, you have my, and no doubt the rest of the family's, approval, respect and support in the choice of your relationship.” She approached the bed, hugging Henry and kissing his cheek, then turned towards you.

You gulped at her, like a mouse getting stared down by a hungry cat, before she leaned in and hugged you as well; you were surprised by her move, but gave her a hug back. Breaking the hug, Marianne left the room, leaving you alone with Henry again.

“That went incredibly better than I thought it would.” Henry commented, finally breaking the silence in the room.

“You can say that again.” You agreed with him, staring at the open door of your room. “What do we do now, Henry?” You asked, looking up at him.

“Now, Nugget.” He smiled, kissing your forehead. “We get you well enough to go home.” He said, squeezing you against him.

Four days later, with the help of some crutches, you left the hospital with Henry, going back to his flat in Sector Two. Kal was over the moon to see you guys again, Charlie having dropped him off at the flat that morning. Henry had body block the Akita to keep him from knocking you over and harming you, until you were able to sit down on the couch and he was allowed to greet you; pressing himself against you and licking at your face.

“Yes, yes!” You laughed, hugging his thick neck, trying to calm him down. “We missed you too, Bear. We missed you just as much.” You told him, kissing his face back and giving him scratches.

After getting settled back in, Henry carefully picked you up, making you laugh as he did.

“Where are we going, Henry?” You asked, wrapping your arms around his neck as he carried you through the flat.

“We are both absolutely filthy and need a proper shower.” He told you, going into the bathroom and setting you down on the sink counter. “Lucy!” He called out, looking up.

“Yes, Mr. Cavill?” His flat's AI replied.

“Start the shower on preset two, please.” He said, pulling off the clothing his mother had brought him, before you both left the hospital.

“Right away, sir.” Lucy replied, and the shower came to life.

“Here, let me help.” He said, grabbing the hem of your shirt and pulling it over your head.

“Thanks.” You smiled, then eased off the counter, balancing on your good leg and grasping Henry's forearm.

Marianne had even been kind enough to bring you clothes as well. So, Henry's hands dropped to the ties of your loose sweatpants and untied the knot, pushing them down your hips to pool around your bare feet. You half limped and half hopped under the spray of the hot shower head, making you moan and groan as it cascaded over your battered and sore body. Henry chuckled and stepped in behind you, wrapping his arms around you and kissing the top of your wet hair.

“I love you, so very much.” He whispered to you. “I'm glad you came back with me.” He added, even softer.

You turned in his arms, wrapping yours around his hips. “I love you too, Henry, and I don't want to be anywhere that you're not.”

“Neither do I.” He replied, kissing you gently on the lips.

Dried blood, dirt and grim swirled around the shower drain as you and Henry helped clean each other off. You scrubbed his skin with an exfoliating sponge, careful of his cuts and stitches, as he washed your hair, then switched, Henry washing you as you washed his hair.

“There's almost no better feeling than that shower clean feel.” You said, limping into Henry's bedroom and snagged one of his shirts out of his closet, slipping it over your head. “It's such a euphoric feeling.”

“What feels better than that?” Henry asked, coming in after you and pulling on a loose pair of pajama bottoms.

You smirked up at Henry, impishly. “I think you know.” You chuckled at him.

Henry laughed, cupping your face in his hands and kissing you, tenderly, but passionately on the lips. “I agree with that.” He said against your lips. “But, you know what else feels euphoric?” He asked, lifting a brow at you.

“Tell me?” You giggled at him.

“A nap in that bed.” He said, pointing to his bed.

“Oh yes.” You agreed, biting your lip and staring at it. “The clean and divine smelling sheets, the warm and cloud-like mattress and pillows.”

“It's an orgasm in itself.” Henry cooed, staring at his bed with a wanting lust.

“I vote we sleep in it for the next year.” You said, looking up at him.

“I vote, the next decade.” He added, looking down at you.

“Deal.”

Henry scoped you up, carrying you to bed, and laid down with you. Cocooned under the soft and clean sheets, both of you moaned, as you melted into the mattress, like warm butter. You snuggled together, wrapped in each other's arms, and almost sound asleep the moment everything settled in around you. 

“Lucy, go to night mode.” Henry mumbled, his body feeling like a ton of rocks, he was so tired.

“Yes, sir.” Lucy whispered back.

Everything went dark, heavy drapes closed over the windows, the lights went out, the doors locked and the air purifier went on, with the soothing sound of ocean waves filling the bedroom, and you and Henry were out cold within minutes.

You slept the rest of the day and well into the next, only getting up because your stomachs were growling for food and your bladders were screaming for release, then you both crawled back into bed and slept even longer. Henry was the first one to officially wake up from your long and deserved hibernation, he laid in bed with you, stroking your hair and the nap of your neck. He traced your face, placing delicate kisses to your eyes, between your brows, the tip of your nose, both cheeks and finally, softly, to your lips.

“Henry.” You whispered, a smile tugging on your lips, before your eyes fluttered open and met his sparkling blues.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” He asked, the tip of his finger ghosting over the shell of your ear.

“Warm, content and happy.” You answered, snuggling in closer to him and pressing a kiss to the side of his neck. “You?”

“The same.” Henry replied, nuzzling your hair. “We should go see your parents.” He said suddenly, biting the inside corner of his lip. “They deserve to know.”

You squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your forehead to his chest. You had been trying to avoid this, avoiding telling your parents that you had been kidnapped and sold by traffickers, to the man you were now madly in love with, and that their son was dead, having killed himself in the pursuit of saving you and Henry from the same outcome.

How do you tell them that? You asked yourself.

“I don't know how.” You mewled, squeezing his thick bicep, like it was a lifeline.

Henry frowned into your hair, stroking the small of your back. “With honesty.” He whispered back, his heart hurting for you.

You stood in front of the door to your family's flat and it felt alien, you didn't feel the familiar nostalgia of coming home, of seeing your family after a grueling and mindless fifteen hour shift at the supermarket. It felt like you were there for the very first time, as if you had never been there before and didn't belong. You could hear the noise inside the flat, your brother running around the place, playing with his toys.

Henry rested his hand on the small of your back and gave you an encouraging smile. Biting your lip, you mustered the courage to knock on the door, it didn't feel right to enter the pin and walk in. You fidgeted as you waited for the door to be open, absentmindedly rubbing your thigh as it throbbed with even the slightest bit of your weight on it.

Finally the door ripped open and Christophe looked at Henry first, his eyes growing with shock, then looked to you, where his face lit up with surprise.

“Issy!” He shouted, and launched at you.

“Fuck.” You snapped, catching him in your arms as Henry caught you in his, keeping you both from tumbling to the floor. “Easy, Christophe. I don't need any more injuries.” You tried to scold him, but only ended up laughing at him as he hung from his arms around your neck, feet dangling.

“Where have you been, Issy!” He demanded, letting go of you and looking between you and Henry. “Who's this?”

“Is mum and dad home, Chris?” You asked, smiling down at him, nervously ruffling his hair.

“Yeah!” Christophe nodded and rushed back into the flat. “Mummy! Dad! Issy's back!” He screamed running around the house.

You looked to Henry and took a deep breath, shoulders rising, rolled your eyes, and stepped into the flat. Henry followed behind you, as your parents rushed into the living room, hot on each other's heels.

“Oh my god!” Your mother gasped and scrambled to you.

“Easy.” You warned her, unable to take a second person jumping you, and motioned to your leg as she lifted a brow at you.

“What's happened to you?” Your father asked, blinking at your wrapped thigh.

“I was shot.” You sighed, figuring it was best to be open and honest, and not sugar coat too many things.

“What?” They both roared, horrified.

“You might want to sit down.” You said, motioning towards the sofas.

Looking at each other, your parents shooed Christophe back to his room and sat down on one couch while you and Henry sat on the love-seat, across from them. There was a long, and awkward, silence, before any of your spoke.

“I'm sorry, I've been gone for so long.” You started, squeezing Henry's hand for support and comfort. “There's been a lot going on, and I didn't, we didn't want to risk your, or Christophe's, safety.” You tried to explain the best you could.

“What are you talking about?” Your father frowned, shaking his head at you and Henry.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, you came out with it. “After I went looking for Mikey, that day, I was tricked and taken by a group of Traffickers in Sector Thirty-One. I spent several months in their warehouse, I don't want to go into details, I think that's best.”

“Of course.” Your mother nodded, clutching your father's hand.

“Henry here, is a High Marshal with the Marshal Council.” You introduced him. “He was undercover, trying to get information on the people running the trafficking warehouse, when he—uh—“ You gulped hard.

“He purchased me from them.”

“You what?” Your father hissed at Henry.

“It was part of his job, papa.” You cut him off, before his temper flared too much. “He had to do it for paperwork and other Council stuff. After he did that, he took me back to his place in Sector Two.”

“Is that where you've been this whole time?” Your father asked, his eyes narrowed angrily at Henry.

“It is.”

“And you couldn't contact us?” Your mother asked, upset. “Sent us something to tell us you were alive and all right?”

“She wanted too, many times.” Henry finally spoke up. “But, her life was in serious danger, and if she contacted anyone close to her, like yourselves, you would have been in grave danger as well. So, we didn't contact you for that reason.” He explained to them, hoping to ease that conflict.

“And how did you get shot?” Your father asked, still angry.

“I found out where Mikey was going.” You answered, quietly. “He was heading to Bristol, to advance his training as a Runner.” You gulped and looked up at Henry. “I ran away from Henry, and went to Bristol, trying to find him. I knew he was going to be in a load of trouble and I wanted to try and prevent that; to make him come home.” You explained to them, starting to shake.

Henry wrapped an arm around you and hugged you against him. “You can do this.” He whispered into your ear, gently.

Nodding and clearing your throat, you continued. “Henry came after me, trying to get me to return to London with him.”

“But, she wouldn't come back without Mikey.” He added, nodding his head at you, his eyes only on you. “I was meant to bring her back, so she could testify against her captors. But, I was also meant to bring Michail in, for his part in the Running business.”

“When we got to Bristol and started looking for him, people were looking for me, and they found us.” You picked up the narrative. “They took Henry after he made sure I was out of the way and safe. They hurt him.” You said, looking at his still bruised and cut up face. “I tried to go after him, but they got me as well.”

“While all that was going on, they somehow found out that Mikey and I were related and brought him in as well, locking us all in the same room.”

You stopped talking, trying to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed and turning into a sobbing mess. Your parents sat there for a long time, watching you try to control yourself and got the feeling something very bad had happened, worse than everything you were telling them.

“Where is Michail?” Your mother asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“He's-” You licked your lips and shook your head, unable to get it out of your mouth.

“I am sorry to inform you both.” Henry replied for you. “But, Michail didn't make it.” He said gently, using his High Marshal voice, the only way he knew how to say it to your grieving parents.

“They were forcing me to decide which of the three of us would go first.” You sobbed, shaking. “Mikey made the choice to take his own life, so we could live.”

Your mother wailed and threw herself on your father, howling and sobbing, screaming at the top of her lungs about the loss of her beautiful and precious boy. You sat there with Henry, clinging onto him and wincing at each terrible and heartbreaking cry your mother made into your father's neck. Your father sat there, stoically, but silently crying as he held her and rocked back and forth.

“I'm sorry.” You whined at them, drained. “I tried. I tried so hard to bring him back.” You mewled at them, crushed.

Your father's eyes were on Henry as they both comforted the women they loved. “And you, what do you get in all this?” He asked, suspicious. “You bought my daughter, are you going to keep her from her family, still?”

“No, sir.” Henry replied, frowning back at him. “I love your daughter. I have treated her as my equal from the moment I saw her, and she will always be my equal. I don't want her as a Slave or a Servant.” He looked at you and wiped your tears away.

“I just want her.” He whispered, smiling gently at you. “Forever and always.”

[andrei-svech]

what christmas means to me || f. andersen

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Some very slight language, tooth-rotting fluff and babies if you’re not into that.

Summary: It’s your fifth Christmas with your husband Freddie, but your first with your baby girl. 

a/n: Here’s some fun christmas fluff with human fridge Freddie Andersen that no one asked for! It’s VERY fluffy but was so much fun for me to write so I hope you all love it. BIG thank you to @woah-were-halfway-there​ for all her encouragement and for screaming at me to finish it (and there’s a little tie in to her AFTR series in there) you’re the best, friend. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and happy reading! 

This had always been your favorite time of year, the air in Herning crisp and biting but the fresh snow crunching under your boots putting a smile on your face. You had nothing but fond memories of Christmas. Most of your childhood you’d spent them with your mother’s extended family in Toronto, eating your grandmother’s homemade cinnamon rolls and opening presents with your cousins as the sun rose behind the house. Though you were in Denmark this Christmas, you still had the fuzzy warmth in your chest as you walked slowly beside your husband and the little girl perched in his arms. It was your fifth holiday with Freddie but your first with your daughter, whose wide eyes darted around the backyard with the unbridled curiosity of a child who was finally aware enough to take in her first snow. Your first Christmas with Freddie had been very early on in your relationship. You’d met him only a few months before, at a team barbecue hosted by the Hymans. Alannah had become one of your closest friends as the two of you navigated law school together, and you and Zach developed a friendly relationship as a result. As much time as you spent with the two of them, the first time you met his teammates didn’t come until about a year later. Alannah invited you one night over drinks and though you were a bit nervous going into a situation where you knew no one but her, you accepted the invitation and found yourself in their backyard nursing a red solo cup and being introduced to a whole mob of Maple Leafs and their significant others. After making the rounds you’d gone inside to fix another drink and found a large redhead in their kitchen. The moment his soft smile was directed back at you, you knew you were a goner. The two of you had spent almost the entirety of the barbecue chatting in that kitchen, and you left with his phone number and the promise of a date. You hadn’t looked back since. The second Christmas the two of you spent together, you decided to host both of your families at your shared home in Toronto. Your newly received engagement ring sparkled under the tree lights as the two sides finally met for the first time, excitement building for your future to come. Christmas number three you were in Herning, three months married and finding the time to travel overseas as Freddie recovered from shoulder surgery, indefinitely placed on injured reserve. You spent Christmas number four alone back in Ontario with Freddie’s hand constantly rubbing soft circles on your swollen belly as you watch holiday classics on TV. Your baby girl made her entrance two months later, wailing loudly but still managing to immediately capture both your heart and your husbands. You silently cursed yourself for not changing into something warmer as the thin leggings tucked into your boots weren’t really helping the shivers running through your body, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to go back inside. Not when your daughter stuck her tiny hand out and giggled at the feeling of the wet snow. You’d been excited to experience this with her since she was still an idea in your head. Of course you’d had snow back in Ontario, but this was the first time she really seemed to be understanding what she was seeing and feeling. The white blanket on the ground and the small flurries fascinated her as she gazed around the backyard in complete wonder.  You quietly pulled your phone from your pocket as you continued through the cold further into your yard. The time read 4:04 PM, and though you knew it was only around ten in the morning in Scottsdale, you pulled up the familiar contact and hit the FaceTime button, the ringing filling your ears but not capturing the attention of Freddie or your girl. You rolled your eyes as it connected and what your husband called the world’s most terrible mustache filled your screen, but you couldn’t help the grin that spread across your own face as one of your favorite people appeared. “Hey y/n, how’s Scandinavia treating you?” he greeted, lounging on his sofa still in pajamas with a cup of coffee sat on the side table in the background. “Hi friend, always a good time in Denmark. ‘S it hot over there in good old AZ?” The two of you made small talk for the next few minutes before you heard your husband’s loud footsteps in the snow, looking up to find them walking back toward you, Fred’s smile soft in contrast to the giggles still coming from the infant he carried. Auston noticed your gaze lift from him to above the camera and he spoke again “Is that my girl? Where’s my girl, huh?” You didn’t think your daughter’s face could light up any further than it already had but sure enough it did as she heard his voice. “Look baby, say hi to Uncle Aus!” You handed the phone to Fred and he held it for a few minutes as he allowed the two of them to talk, Auston asking your daughter what she’d gotten for Christmas and telling her about his own family’s morning as she babbled back to him. You lost focus on the conversation in favor of watching the snow as it began to fall harder onto the ground below you. It had been steadily picking up speed since you’d started watching it from the bedroom window that morning, and you knew with the chill you’d have to take her inside soon. You tuned back in as you heard the conversation coming to an end, Freddie and Auston saying their goodbyes. “Bye Aus, say hi to Cars and the kids for me! Tell them we love them!” “Bye y/n, we love you too!” The call clicked off and when Fred handed the phone back you flipped over to your camera, moving to video mode to capture the moment of your daughter’s first real experience with snow. Fred gasped and directed her to look at the camera, waving and encouraging her to do the same. “Say hi mumma! Hi mumma!” “Hi baby!” you cooed at her as she flailed her arm in her best attempt at a wave, giggling as she batted more of the snow falling against her little fist. “Are you having fun baby girl? Do you love the snow? Daddy’s having so much fun too, look!” He smiled down at his girl, nodding enthusiastically along as she babbled aimlessly, gesturing to the environment around her. You stopped the video and made sure it saved to the camera roll, knowing it was a memory you’d cherish for years to come. “Okay family, I think it’s time to go inside, it’s getting a little chilly for us out here.” Your baby’s face dropped a bit but she remained silent and continued to mumble unintelligibly to herself as the three of you made your way back toward the house. You sighed at the warmth of your home as you made your way from the backdoor into the kitchen, shedding your coat before turning to help Fred pull the many layers off of your daughter. Her hat came first, then coat, then boots and sweater until she was down to just her Christmas pajamas. You’d thought they were adorable when you picked them out but even more so when you’d put them on her and so you and Fred had decided to just keep her in them for the day, knowing you weren’t planning to leave your home. The rest of the night passed rather uneventfully, the three of you spending the evening parked right where you’d expected, on the couch with hot chocolate watching Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas before putting the baby to bed at the usual time. It had been a bit harder than usual to get her down but finally, after the excitement of the day, she fell into a fairly deep sleep in her crib. Once she had finally fallen asleep you made your way back to your husband in the living room, flopping ungracefully down next to him on the sofa, sighing deeply and resting against his very large frame. He chuckled to himself as you settled yourselves into a comfortable position, enjoying the silence of the moment together, his breathing quiet and the TV on low in the background. The Christmas tree in the corner provided the only source of light aside from whatever movie was playing, each of the ornaments telling its own story of a memory special to your little family. “Do you remember our second Christmas together, right after we got engaged? When our families met for the first time and our brothers spent the entire day chirping us for how ‘sickeningly in love’ we were?” you broke the quiet of the room and Fred laughed in reply. “Yeah and my mom insisting she help yours in the kitchen, which ended up in the two of them getting drunk together and accidentally burning the rolls.” You both laughed then, remembering your fathers waving dish towels and opening windows to try to stop the beeping of the smoke detector. “Yeah, that one. I think that was the first time I realized how much I was looking forward to having a family of our own. I remember thinking about sitting on the couch with our little girl, giggling with her while we watched you chase our little boy around the room. I wanted that so badly. And now we have it and I don’t think I could be any happier.” It was the truth. From the time you’d begun dating to now, through five years, a marriage and then a baby, your relationship had only strengthened. It wasn’t perfect, no relationship ever was, but it was perfect for you two. You’d grown together through the hard times and laughed together through the good ones and all the while you felt more and more loved by him every day. There wasn’t a sight in the world that filled your heart more than watching Fred with your baby. You had a family, one you’d hoped for since you were a little girl playing house with your sister, and you had created that family with a man who loved you the way you’d always wanted and deserved to be loved. It wasn’t ever lost on you how lucky you were to have him by your side. He let you lose yourself in your thoughts for a minute before a warm hand on your cheek turned your face toward him and you met the eyes you’d fallen madly in love with. “Ik hou van je, schat. I do, I love you. You are the love of my life, and an incredible mother. I wouldn’t ever want to do this, to have a family with anyone else.” He kissed the top of your head and left you with that. Freddie had always been a man of fewer words but you didn’t need them, you felt it in everything he did. It wasn’t about how he told you, but how he showed you. You both sat curled together watching the fire for another moment before you stood, making your way to the tree and pulling a small envelope from behind it. Freddie’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you made your way back over to the couch. “Schat, what’s that? I thought we’d finished exchanging all our gifts this morning?” He’d presented you with a beautiful set of diamond earrings to replace the pair you had lost in your move to the new house in Toronto last year, and you had gifted him with a pair of tickets and a room confirmation for a trip to Greece in the coming summer, a destination that had been at the top of both of your bucket lists. This present, though, you’d hidden behind the tree to give to him after your daughter went to sleep, when the time felt right. You handed it to him and shrugged slightly, answering vaguely with a “just another little something, go on, open it.” He opened the envelope and pulled out the card, regarding it carefully until you encouraged him to read the writing on the inside out loud. The card was simple, white with a few red hearts adorning the front, empty on the inside. You’d written the message before you left town last week, working through tears as you did. The tears welled up again as he began to read and you tried willing them away, but it proved to be nearly impossible as you heard them build in his voice as well. “You’ll watch mommy’s belly each day as I grow, and then you’ll count my ten fingers and ten little toes. You’ll hold me when I cry and rock me to sleep, but stay with me until I’m not making a peep. With mommy and sister we’ll laugh and we’ll play, and you’ll get to watch me grow every day. I’ll be there cheering at all of your games, until it’s time for me to hit the ice just the same. I can’t wait to meet you so very soon, so I’ll see you and mommy this coming June.” You were both quietly crying by the time he was done reading the card and he clutched it tightly in his hand, closing his eyes to collect his thoughts before he finally addressed you again. “Really? You’re pregnant?” You only had the chance to nod before he was up off the couch, bringing you in tightly to his body as you both tried to rein in your emotions. “I found out about a week before we left. We have the first ultrasound as soon as we get back to Toronto.” You pulled back slightly, making eye contact before you continued, “I’m so fucking happy, Fred. I’m so excited to have another baby with you. Are you happy?” “Happy? Schat, I’m elated. I can’t wait to watch you be a mother again, to bring another life into this world with me. I love you. I’m so happy.” You embraced for a few minutes longer before retiring to your bedroom, and the soft, gentle sex had you falling asleep with a small smile on your face. You slept for only a few hours before you were awoken by the giggles of your first baby from the living room, the bed empty next to you and the clock on the nightstand reading 1:47 AM. You made your way toward the sound where you found Freddie bouncing your daughter on his lap, both of them apparently unable to sleep and watching cartoons on the television set. Standing in the doorway watching them with your hand placed over your still mostly flat stomach, the excitement of giving her a baby brother or sister grew in you once more, the same visions of Freddie chasing another little one around the room that you’d had three years ago now popping back into your head. You knew that he would love this baby in the same way that he loved the one currently perched on his knee, so deeply that you saw it in every moment he spent with her. Next Christmas would be just as special as the last five with him had been, and just as special as all of those still yet to come.

[redstainedsocks]

Plant Day!

Whumpblr, forgive me for this... xD this is either the best or silliest idea I've ever had and honestly? I think it might be both at once. Heed the tags but also just know nothing is as serious as it seems by the time you reach the end...

for @brutal-nemesis' whump of the month prompt: plant day.

Thank you @muddy-swamp-bitch for helping me work out how to tag this thing

Warnings: cutting, knives, scarification, body horror (???), corpse mutilation [!?], environmental whump, [mass] killing (???), multiple whumpers (but not at the same time), survivors guilt, curses, magical whump, whumpee with she/her pronouns, captured whumpee. Mentions of: eye whump, bugs/insects, slavery whump

The knife wasn’t sharp enough, not for this. It was a hack job, and it wasn’t going to heal pretty. It carved into her slowly, inch by torturous inch, scraping away the surface of her skin. She screamed, but no one seemed to care, it wasn’t like they spoke the same language.

The two people leaning over, peering at her, paused in their work.

I hope crows peck out your eyes

They talked and brushed away the carnage their knife wrought, tittered, went back to their work.

I hope your children never know love, or freedom

It hurt, digging deep into the fibres of her skin. Changing the surface of it forever. It was going to scar, these strange, crude letters forever marring her perfect form.

It was no worse than anything else she had suffered but she resented it all the same.

May bear excrement ruin your water source and wasps sting you to death

Her cries went unheard. And curses didn’t mean a wad of shit if no one observed them. She liked that word shit, she’d learned it from the humans long ago. Shit shit shit, it was all shit.

Long ago, in the days before, she had watched her people be slaughtered. Hacked down one by one, cut to pieces and their bodies heaved off by horses. Horses bound to do the humans bidding, such a wretched life, she thought, but they seemed happy, they hadn’t come to her aid when she called.

She had mourned and grieved her fallen brethren, watched their lifeless forms be stacked and chained together to be burned or put to some other nefarious use, and only hoped that her own pain would end so swiftly. But it was not to be. She had been left to witness, the pain hers alone to bear.

Long, long years passed, held captive in this barren, dying place. The colonies that tried to take up life in her people’s old home were uprooted, shunned. Nothing and no one could prosper here.

She waited a long time; long after the woodcutter, and the woodcutter's son, and the woodcutter’s son’s son…. and, well, she lost track of the generations a bit after that but it had been a while.

The sun was older, the earth quieter. She was cold, her joints creaked and ached and everything was heavy. She had been abandoned by her own people and the humans who had caused their destruction. She alone, left to weather the harsh… weather. Lashed with rain and beaten by the hot sun, no friends left to help give shelter. No happy little breeze now, just the violent waves of wind, unhindered.

Her eyes were cast ever skyward, and it hurt to look at the sky, but it was better than the memories that clung to the earth. She would weep, but it only made her feel sticky and sickly.

One day a mere mortal, not more than three score years and probably not even that—she noted his features were smooth and bare, no whiskers on this one— wandered by. He was dressed strangely but everything they did was strange so she didn’t pay it much attention. He laid a hand on her and she tried to shake it loose.

Stupid humans, no touching, dirty hands, ruinous hands

“What was that?” He murmured.

She thought he was a he, he had that air about him. Entitled. An extra trunk between his legs too, if her eyes weren’t mistaken.

Go back to your cities, cretin

His hand slid around her, feeling for… something. It brushed over the scar of the initials carved into her, that claiming mark.

“Tsk, this won’t do.”

He brought out a knife. Of course he did. Just like all the rest.

He cut into her and she wailed, throwing herself around and trying to get away but it was no use. He just kept on cutting, and though his work seemed like it had a purpose she couldn’t tell what it was. Her life force oozed out around the hole he was making as he cut chunks, stole away parts of her, until a hollow hole was left where part of her should be.

It felt… if not better, certainly different. They were good at change, these humans. She looked skyward again, only feeling a little better when she noticed the scarring marks were gone. He’d cut it away?

Well, more power to him, if he wanted a piece of ruined flesh so be it. She thought no more of it until he came back three moons later and talked to her again.

“I know what you are.”

Oh goodie, someone with some brains for once. Very pleased to meet you I’m sure

“I can hear you, you know.”

I doubt it

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. I know your secret, hiding in plain sight. But you can’t hide from me.”

She stayed silent, thinking, considering. If he was telling the truth…

“You’re no tree,” he murmured, stroking at her with his silly little furless paws. “You’re a wood nymph.”

Hmmph

“No, I said nymph.”

And you are a wizard, what do you want a pat on the back?

“No, just a conversation.”

She was taken aback, she hadn’t talked to anyone for years.

“You must be lonely.”

Obviously

“You’re very grumpy.”

I’ve been stuck in a tree for near three hundred years, you would be too

“There’s not enough magic left for you to get out.”

Congratulations on stating the obvious but there is nowhere I could go anyway

“I have somewhere.” He produced a small box from his pack and her heart—woody though it was—faltered. That was—

“Yes I made this from you.”

Thief!!

“Come now, it won’t be so bad. I have a wonderful collection of items, and creatures, you won’t be lonely.”

I won’t be free

“You’re not free now.”

I won’t go

“Oh yes you will.” He opened the lid of the box, ornately carved and beautifully made but still the desecrated corpse of part of her flesh. Disgusting, sickening. Very pretty but so macabre.

It was powerful magic, runes and other things that should be of no consequence but she was too weak to resist and had been for too long. She screamed, waved her branches, reached for the sky but no great eagle or eager buzzard came to her rescue as she was pulled down, down down into the tiny wooden prison made from her own bones.

“That wasn’t so bad was it?” He asked as he snapped the lid tightly shut.

The box rattled with the force of her rage but he wrapped it in cloth and she felt the slide of ropes twinning tightly about her. It was strange, feeling part of herself outside of herself, when it shouldn’t have been part of herself any longer. I was dark and cool inside the box, but that was about the only good thing she could say about it.

Let me out

“No.”

He slipped her into his satchel, and she bounced and shook as he walked further and further away from her home.

Curse you

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you. But no, you will be a blessing. A boon to long life, nymphs, if the books are correct. We’ll be happy together.”

I doubt it. Ridiculous boy with your toys and tools, I could never be happy with you

“Hush now, tree, or I’ll leave you in that box forever.”

Shoddy craftsmanship, you should be ashamed

He laughed. “At least I know you’re not going to sulk silently like some of my prizes. No, you’ll be more entertaining.”

She went silent, just to make a point.

“If you’re very good, maybe one day I’ll work out how to re-plant you and you can feel the mud between your toes again. Wouldn’t that be nice? A little glade, lots of life around you, plenty of growing things to watch over.”

She perked up at that, suddenly feeling… was that what hope had felt like? It had been a few decades since she’d last let herself feel it.

“See, I told you. Your old tree may wither and die without you, but you can be new and fresh as a spring bud. As long as you do what you can for me.”

So that was that, she was to be a slave? No worse than she deserved, after watching her people be killed and not able to do anything to stop it. Finally her long awaited fate had caught up to her, it was about time.

Do you have what the humans call television?

“Yes, why?”

I’ve wanted to see what it is, can’t I be curious?

“Well you won’t have eyes for a good long while until I know you can behave, but we could start with some music.”

Nature makes the best music

“You haven’t heard rock’n’roll, just wait.”

[My thought process for writing this was: hmm, plant day. Plant whump... what if... the plant was the thing that was whumped. Hahah, nah... unless 👀?

And I thought about that for like three weeks before finally churning out 1k the night before the event. Sexily unedited, just the raw chaos]

[ask-the-riders]

First Meetings

Mal nearly gets herself killed, but is saved by a stranger she's never even seen before. The years pass, she dies and makes her transition to becoming War, and only then does the stranger from all those years ago finally show his face again

Trigger warnings (because I'd feel really bad if I upset anyone somehow): violence/fighting, cursing, and guns. There's some angst at the start and some implied abuse/implications that Mal was being hurt (she's still working for Error and Nightmare at the beginning), and toward the end, maybe a hair bit of suggestive language (meant to be taken as a joke/in a teasing kinda sense)

This might also be a bit OOC for Mal, but eh

Mal let out a shaky breath, her sockets wide as she stole a glance at the orange bone attack that pierced the ground beside her. Lifting a hand and touching the edge of her sockets to produce her threads, her momentary look of fear shifted into determination; she had to tough this out just a little longer. Just a little bit longer, and someone would come for her, she knew it. There was a flash of light and she cried out, a searing pain rushing through her body. Glancing down, her sockets widened again at the loss of one of her arms and began to bead up with blue tinted tears. As her gaze slowly lifted and she looked up at the massive skeleton that loomed over her, she began to visibly shake, trying desperately to force out her words.

Another bone attack appeared and she screamed as it tore through her ribs like a hot knife through butter. This... This wasn't good. A large, gloved hand captured the front of her shirt, and then she found herself being thrown backward, colliding with a tree. At the crash, her back arched and she cried out again, her blue tears transforming into threads as she noticed the dust that began to appear down her shirt. Oh god... oh no, this couldn't be happening. This couldn't be... she COULDN'T be dying... not like this. As her attacker drew nearer, she broke into sobs, attempting to curl in on herself as she croaked, "Please, please no... I didn't mean it, I didn't mean anything bad, I'm sorry. I'm sorry... so, so sorry. Just... please... please don't-" She was cut off, wailing in agony again as a gloved hand summoned another bone attack, that of which sailed forward and cracked one of her hips.

"Hey, freak."

At the casual tone that pierced the silence, Mal's sockets widened in shock and she touched the rim of her socket with her good hand, shrieking, "GET OUT OF HERE, THIS DUDE'S A FREAKIN PSYCHO!" The stranger was silent for a moment before he laughed softly, "Hey, last time I checked, I'm supposed to be the one saving you, Beautiful." She flinched at the nickname, looking up at the stranger and blinking; it was... nobody she knew. Just some dude in a gross brown hoodie with... what were thoss? Medical syringes lining his sash and belt?

Without another word, the stranger drew some sort of gun, aiming it at her attacker. His voice lost its casual, lighthearted tone as he spoke, now turning as cold as the first snowfall of winter, "Last chance, bud. Back the hell off, or be sorry." Mal's assailant began to summon forth more orange bone attacks, seeming intent on dusting the stranger too. Sockets widening in shock as the stranger fired his gun, the glitch felt her entire body jerk, quickly biting back a yelp as pain washed over her from all the injuries she'd sustained. She was frozen, slowly shifting her gaze upward to her attacker; Upon seeing the way his magic fizzled out and his bones began to turn grey, more fear surged through her. She had no idea what the stranger had shot him with, but it's like he... got infected by something.

The pulses of magic his soul had been giving off began to weaken, and Mal could've sworn she saw the life drain from his sockets, only mere seconds before he exploded into a cloud of dust. The stranger seemed completely at ease as he turned to face her, squatting a few feet away. He held a hand out, his palm facing her, and as his left eye flared up with sickly green magic, Mal panicked, "Hey, just hold on a minute, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" In response, he arched a brow bone and offered her a lazy grin, "Uhh... I'm healing you? You clearly need it." The glitch gawked at him; He was going to heal her? Why? They only just met, so it's not like they were friends or anything. There was nothing to be gained from helping her. Nothing material, at least. Her mind raced, and as the warmth of his healing magic finally reached her, she whined, her shoulders slouching. She could only think of one thing that he might want from her, and blue tinted tears pricked at her sockets again.

Hearing the whine and seeing the look on her face, the other skeleton frowned, continuing to heal her, "Hey, what's wrong?... You ok, buddy?" Her figure began to glitch noticeably more than before and she looked away from him, not wanting to meet his eye, "Why are you helping me?... I'm not a good person, and there's nothing to be gained from this. The only thing I have that you could possibly want would be-" The stranger cut her off, his playful tone suggesting that he was trying to keep the mood light, "Whoa, hold on there, bud, you're movin' kinda fast. At least take me to dinner first." His healing magic momentarily faded, his normal magic enveloping her detached arm that laid nearby. It was pulled closer to the pair of skeletons and lightly dropped on her lap, and she flinched. As his healing magic returned, she unconsciously began to relax, and he smiled softly, "Can you reattach that on your own, or?..."

Mal nodded, using her good hand to grasp her disconnected arm. She was silent as she lined it back up with her shoulder, and she briefly met the male skeleton's concerned gaze, feeling her sockets stinging as more tears threatened to spill out. She hesitated, drawing in a deep breath and then slowly exhaling, before she forced her arm back into its rightful place. At the surge of pain, tears streamed down her face and rapidly shifted into sapphire threads as she screamed, her glitching seeming to worsen for just a brief moment. Her breathing began to quicken as she struggled to cope with the pain and she sobbed, gingerly holding her shoulder. The other skeleton gently shushed her, his healing magic now being sent to her as warm, soothing pulses, and he spoke softly, careful not to startle her or risk upsetting her further, "Shhh... It's all over now. You did a good job... It looks like you lined it up perfectly, too. I'm impressed." The glitch looked back at him, meeting his gaze as she sniffled, an almost desperate look in her eyes as she murmured brokenly, "You really think I did good?..."

He nodded and hummed in confirmation, offering her a tiny smile in hopes of providing some reassurance, "Yeah, of course. You reconnected it like a pro, so I take it you've done this before?" Mal made a soft sound of acknowledgement and gave a slow nod, her gaze breaking away from his as she looked down at her lap, suddenly appearing ashamed, "Mhm... I have. More times than I care to remember." The hoodie clad stranger quietly assessed the look she wore, his small smile becoming a frown again; If he didn't know any better, he'd assume she'd had to reattach her own limbs before. That meant that she constantly went through potentially dangerous situations and regularly risked being injured. Concern bubbled in his soul and he reached out to her. Feeling his hand stop just short of touching her face, she looked back at him, a tangible mix of confusion and uncertainty on her face as well as... Was that... Was that fear again?

Her figure fizzled at the closeness of his hand, and as he began to withdraw it, she felt her soul swell, accompanied by some odd tugging sensation in her chest. Just what in the hell was happening right now? She hated touch; To her, touch never meant anything good, so why was she so disappointed when this guy pulled his hand away? Without thinking, she blurted out, "Why'd you stop?" He blinked in surprise, before that surprise morphed into a sad smile, "I can't touch you, Mal. I'm not supposed to." Her brow bones were knit in further confusion at being referred to by name, but she pressed on, "Why not?" He hesitated, lowering his voice slightly, "It'll make you sick, and I have no control over it. I don't know what you could catch."

The glitch frowned, her soul beginning to glow faintly through her shirt, "I'm not afraid of getting sick." He hesitated again, a faint green glow showing through his hoodie from his chest. Taking a deep breath, he slowly extended a hand to her once more, and she surprised herself by leaning into his touch as his hand gently rested on her cheek. She lifted a hand, delicately placing it atop his, and he stared at her in disbelief; He really... He was really touching her right now, and he could hardly believe it. Both of their souls suddenly manifested before them, causing both skeletons to immediately become flustered, their faces stained with slight blushes made of their own respective colors. The glitch raised her free hand and reached out, cautious as she lightly touched his face. As he leaned into her touch, a wave of what bordered on delight overtook her, and an uncharacteristically giddy smile stretched across her face. Meanwhile, the stranger appeared to be in total bliss, merely basking in the feeling of her hand on his cheek.

Breaking the pair out of the haze they were in, a voice called out to the glitch, and her soul quickly returned to its place within her ribs as her delight became panic again. The stranger, with much reluctance, pulled away from her, breaking the contact. As soon as his hand left her face, she pressed a hand over her mouth and began to cough violently, her body aching as her temperature started to rise. Already knowing what was happening to her, the male skeleton reached up one of his sleeves and withdrew a small vial of something, offering it to her, "Here, drink this... It'll cure you. I wasn't supposed to intervene and save you like I did, hell, I wasn't even supposed to be seen. I gotta get outta here before I'm busted." The glitch accepted the vial eagerly, her brow bones furrowing, "Before you disappear, can I at least know your name? And maybe how you knew mine, while we're at it."

He smiled slightly as she uncapped the vial and downed the antidote to his touch, shrugging his shoulders, "Are names really all that important right now, Sweetness? I'll be seeing you again eventually anyway, so we can talk more then. For now though, I really need to go." Letting out a deep sigh, Mal pouted, her cheekbones flushing a soft shade of blue, "Fiiiiine, whatever. Seeya round, weirdo." He chuckled softly in amusement and shook his head before playfully blowing a kiss at her, succeeding in instantly making her blush visibly darken. Just as she was about to give him a figurative ear full, she was caught off guard, yelping in surprise as his entire body exploded into a multitude of rats, all of which scurried away as fast as possible. As Cross and Dust came into her line of sight, her soul sank and she very slowly stood up, brushing herself off and pocketing the now empty vial. The vial was all she had left from her first encounter with who she assumed was supposed to be her soulmate, and she intended to keep it until she saw him again.

At least, she hoped he was her soulmate. He was so kind and gentle, he gave her praise, and not once did he make any unwanted advances on her. He protected and healed her when there was nothing to be gained from it; He did it because he was genuinely worried. From what he'd said, he wasn't supposed to help her, which meant he broke some set of rules to make sure that she was safe. A part of her was hesitant to believe any of that really meant anything, but there was another part of her that desperately hoped he'd let her go back with him next time they saw each other.

Even as Cross began speaking to her, she didn't hear a word he said. All she could think about was the stranger who saved her life.

The years passed, and as fate would have it, Mal had gone and acted impulsively, getting herself killed in the process. Only when she'd found a good family and a loving home, and only when she was happy would something like this happen. Why would life ever treat her kindly? After all, she was nothing more than some disgusting anomaly that shouldn't even exist in the first place. She'd gone on about her days, praying and pleading with whoever was in control of her fate to let her find her savior so she could properly thank him for what he'd done, but... she never did.

Not until today.

The tall skeleton before her sighed deeply and casually cracked his neck, perfectly at ease as Death firmly gripped her wrists, stopping her from producing threads and attacking her new teammate. The freakshow was staring at her, wearing a stupid grin that she wanted to wipe off of his equally stupid face. He was probably enjoying the show, seeing her get in trouble already.

Well, at least she already got in one good hit. That on its own would have to do, seeing as the reaper wasn't about to let her go just yet. He glanced back at the taller of the two males and dismissed him, waiting until he was gone before releasing her wrists, his magic holding her in place as he gently cupped her face. He used his magic, sending it out in the form of soothing pulses as he very gradually began to calm her down, bringing her out of the episode she'd been plunged into. Death sighed, waiting for her to completely relax before he spoke, "Alright... We'll work on getting you better acclimated to being around Famine later on. For now, you've got one more teammate to meet, and I think you're gonna like him." She narrowed her sockets in suspicion, "If he's anything like Famine, I wouldn't be so sure of that." The reaper arched a brow bone, now wearing a knowing grin as he called out, "Alright, Pest, it's your turn. Come on in and say hi to War."

Mal's... No, War's full attention centered itself on the doorway as the last of her teammates entered. Taking in that ugly brown hoodie he wore and the numerous syringes that lined his belt and sash, she froze in place, her sockets widening. He lifted his gaze to look back at her, an amused grin already stretching across his face, and the glitch felt that same tugging sensation from all those years ago. The memory of their first meeting returned in full detail, and at a loss for words, all the glitch was capable of nearly screeching was, "YOU." The stranger, whose name turned out to be Pestilence, merely tilted his head, arching a brow bone at her. Still wearing the same shit eating grin from moments ago, he hummed, his voice taking on a sing-song tone as he purred in delight, "Me~"

Death had no idea what was going on between the two of them, but sensing how strongly their souls were trying to drive them to make contact, he shrugged it off. Truth be told, he was almost disappointed that he hadn't made any popcorn to eat while he watched the encounter play out. While the pair of soulmates were focused entirely on their exchange, Death's good eye flared up with his own sky blue magic, and suddenly, he could see their souls.

The very culmination of both their beings, and their very cores, now on display for the reaper, courtesy of his magic. The pair didn't seem aware of Death's stare as he observed their souls, raising a single brow bone as Pestilence's soul grew brighter. Pairing that with the magic in the air, it was almost as if his soul itself wanted to make contact with War's. And the on the other hand, War's soul rapidly switched between growing brighter and dimmer; She was confused, and likely had no idea how to feel about everything right now. Her soul did the most adorable little flip in her ribs and Death smiled to himself, shaking his head. War was proving to be quite the stubborn one, and Death already knew how Pest could be at times.

Letting out an exaggerated sigh, he rolled his eye light, his magic fading away as he interrupted them, "God, get a room, will ya? All this sexual tension is gonna be the death of me." War's face erupted into a bright blue blush and her sockets became clouded with wars, while Pest stared at Death, visibly surprised at what he'd said. As the surprise faded into amusement, Pest wiggled his brow bones, jokingly moving closer to the glitch to wrap an arm around her waist, "Well, what do ya say, Beautiful? We should totally ditch this old dude and go back to my room. Or yours, that's fine too." Without warning, War crashed, a reboot bar appearing and floating over her head. As her legs gave out and she started to collapse, Pest was quick to catch her, all of his playfulness replaced by anxiety, "Shit, shit... I didn't just break her or something, did I? Fuck, I hope she's ok."

Death hummed, his expression softening, "She'll be fine, Pest, this just happens sometimes. The best thing you can do is get her back to her room and lay her down in bed, because it'll be a bit before she comes to." Pestilence nodded, releasing a sigh of relief, "Alright... Will do, Coffee Bean." The reaper brushed off the nickname, watching as Pestilence carefully lifted War up into his arms and held her close to himself.

They'd be alright. Sure, there'd be some bumps in the road ahead due to the differences in their personalities, but they'd be ok, and Death didn't harbor a single doubt about it whatsoever in his mind.

[rawbiredbest]

It’s All in Your Head

Contains: Fluff, Angst, Unconventional Relationships, Telepathy, Demons Fandom: Marvel (comics) Relationships: Stephen Strange/Victor von Doom Characters: Stephen Strange, Victor von Doom, Wong, Boris Word Count: 6103

Out of the blue, Stephen Strange and Victor von Doom find themselves telepathically connected.

No squealing, remember that......

Content warning for canon typical violence, profanity, implied sexual activity, and a single usage of homophobic language by a very bad individual.

Graciously commissioned by @osheets! Wanna do the same? Check my info!

Read here or on AO3!

- - -

The breakthrough comes with rapturous spontaneity. It’s like Victor von Doom has been standing on the shore of a Latverian loch, and in the blink of an eye, the grains of sand have become an orchestra, the surf their masterful conductor, and he the sole audience. He has captured their forms in glass and steel, multiplied ten million fold in the casings of complex machinery, and the entire laboratory sings the path to a bolder, brighter future. In all of his years of experimentation, innovation, desperation, he has never heard this music before. It pours from every screw and bolt, vibrates along every copper wire, thunders out of every piston and valve. The engineers below him, controlling and monitoring the device, are Gods of melody and time. Doom himself has transcended divinity, rising high on sublime notes of praise. He is Emperor, Encapsulated Universe, and his feet do not touch the floor as he glides to the heart of his machine, his veins coursing with silver beauty. Hydrogen atoms dance into the arms of their palladium partners, and their heat is love, love for each other, love for nature, love for him, and it is a primordial force unlocked from decades of ridicule and shame, and he has set it free. Genius. Monarch. Ultimate.

And then it goes. Slowly, a receding tide. It slides from his bones, leaving them aching. He braces himself against a panel, cold sweat sticking to his brow. His heart hammers in his chest, a lone drum holding a marching beat long after the band has departed into the moonless night. The engineers gape at him, oblivious to the miracle that has deafened their ruler.

Doom touches the shielding glass of the operating CMNS reactor, and its vibrations are an idiot hum. He blinks salt from his eyes, breath condensing on the machine.

Four thousand, five hundred and six miles away, a doctor and his best friend leave Madison Square Garden, wearing concert merch, beaming like loons.

- - -

To Stephen, it’s a tsunami.

He’s watching TV. The nightly news. He could tap into the Eye and view the entire world as it turns, but he doesn’t want to. It isn’t very often he feels human, let alone vegetable, so any opportunity to vegetate he takes with gusto. Stretched across his couch, he tugs down the hem of his shirt, leans his head on his hand, and waits to absorb the country’s woes.

He gets a sharp pain on the nape of his neck instead. He swats at the spot, looks at his palm. “Ow.”

Wong looks up from the email he’s writing. “Are you okay?”

Strange frowns, settles back down. “I think there’s a mosquito in here.” They’re talking about the Amazon fires. Stephen’s heart aches for the birds who will drop from the sky, their lungs full of smoke, voices forever silenced.

And then pain rips down his back, like his spine is torn out by an iron hand from his neck to his waist.

He can’t help but yell then, clutching the cushions. A heavy ache lingers in his vertebrae. Gingerly he sits up, breathing hard, eyes clenched shut. Something a bit like petrichor, a bit medicinal, a bit hot fills his nose.

Wong runs to him, but Strange raises a hand. “I’m fine,” he says, though he already braces against the thick lump rising next to his heart. As it crests, it dissipates throughout his body. He forces his eyes open, expecting to see the black trails of tiny spiders beneath his skin. Nothing but unmarked flesh.

“Should I call Doctor Carter?” Wong asks, thumbing toward the antique phone. It’s enchanted to call anywhere, anytime, any-plane.

“No, no.” Stephen leans on his knees, rubbing his temples. The pain is moving, changing. “This isn’t exactly her--”

--forte, he wants to say, but he is cut off by trees. Huge trees. Trees that consume the sky in fractal tangles of evergreen. Primordial, pristine trees, the definition of trees. The little things that crawl beneath and flit between, some carrying light, some with rigid jaws.

It’s a psychic attack. Strange has weathered them before. This one is weird. As he waves for Wong to get the Eye, he endures the spikes of pain that impale his senses to grab a closer look. This entity is lumbering, gigantic in scope yet wet around the edges.

It’s being born, he realizes. It’s waking up.

It hurts, it hurts but he’s curious. He sees New York now, its spires and streets lined up like so much circuitry. He feels the rough brush of concrete, hears the car horn concerto, smells the burn of rubber, and all throughout are rules, parameters, reasons. The thing is learning, feasting on information, and gathering more at an exponential rate. A tidal wave of green descends on the city, picking and plucking at this imaginary world.

And as it eats, thousands and thousands of hungry mouths devouring America, it hates. It hates the excess, the cruelty, the inefficiencies. It roars, barreling down the Sanctum, thousands upon thousands of tons of incomparable loathing.

Wong presses the Eye into Stephen’s hand.

“Pardon my French, dear friend,” Strange says.

The Eye bursts open, and the Sorcerer Supreme throws every ounce of his mystic might at the slavering invader. The living room cascades with dancing whorls of light as he raises his arms, funneling a solar flare, and cries a spell that every New Yorker knows by heart.

“FUCK OFF!”

Utter obliteration. When he opens his eyes, glittering motes trickle from the ceiling. The pain is gone. The TV has gone to commercial.

The phone is ringing.

Wong answers it as Stephen sinks to the couch. He slips the Eye around his neck, and its weight comforts. He thinks he’ll sleep with it tonight.

“It’s for you.”

Strange massages his ear. Vulgarity is embarrassing, but faced with an immaterial infant in the depths of an unholy tantrum doing everything in its power to cram a fork in a magic electrical socket, seemed like a good idea at the time. He takes the phone. “Hello?”

“Doctor! The master -- Victor -- something has happened, I do not know-- I--”

“Boris?” Stephen sits up. “Boris, it’s all right. Slow down. What’s going on?”

Behind the old retainer’s words, a siren wails. “The master--” He hesitates. “His newest Doombot. He turned it on for the first time. All was well, and then it exploded! And now Victor -- he is breathing this flame, this plasma! It burned through his mask! Doctor, what do I do!?”

Strange inhales deep. Counts to three. Lets it go. “He’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I do not mean to doubt you, but--”

“It will pass. Give him an ice pack and put him somewhere dark and quiet for a few hours.”

“I trust you, doctor, but please, when you can, come and see him. The violence of it, it scares me.”

“I know. It’s fine. Just something he ate.”

Boris thanks him and hangs up.

Stephen wishes the couch would eat him as he heaves a sigh. “Wong,” he asks, “Is it too late to rescind discovering my bisexuality at the ripe age of however old I am now?”

“I don’t know,” Wong replies, “To both parts of your question. I lost count in the five hundreds.”

Strange curses again.

- - -

“So. We have a telepathic link. Any idea how it got there?”

He may as well be speaking to a wall of granite. Doom, arms folded, sneers at him across the table.

Stephen links his fingers together. “I have nothing. It’s rather disconcerting. I don’t believe it’s malevolent, which is always a plus, but it’s unremarkable, which isn’t. So I’d appreciate any insight, Victor. Whatever you’d like to...you know. Get off your chest.”

Doom’s eyes are cold.

“Anything at all. Need to vent? I know you can get heated.”

The table weighs over three hundred pounds, yet Doom flings it at him like a feather. Strange cuts it in half with a bolt of solid light as Crimson Bands constrict around his other arm. They serpentine and splinter into smaller tendrils, their tips unhinging into fanged blooms, and a thought comes to Stephen as the king charges him: he was born in a forest. It’s nature’s fury that fills his head, a cacophony of hellish noise, the wild hunt calling for his spilled blood. Doom’s rage in concentrated, psychic form, howling down their link.

The Daggers of Denak, blades spinning, do an admirable job trimming the vines, their severed heads still snapping, and Strange summons the Winds of Watoomb to push Doom away. The gale staggers him yet he presses forward, arcane runes flashing a ice blue aegis on his gauntlet. Step by step, forcing him back towards the wall.

He lunges. Strange is ready for it. Doom’s arm comes up, Stephen’s arms fan out. Before the king grasps his throat, he calls a pair of razors into his palms. Victor’s grip is suffocating. Strange holds his head between two guillotine blades. An impasse.

Doom’s voice rasps, thin and scorched. “That. Hurt.”

Stephen sips the tiny breaths he can. Something’s pressing into his belly. Sweat beads on his brow. It’s a gun. It’s the stupid gun Doom carries in the stupid pouch on his stupid belt. Why does he even have it? For shooting idiot sorcerers, he thinks. He swallows hard, knows Doom can feel it through the metal. Not so evenly matched as he thought.

And then he notices it. Hiding deep under the screams is a layer of fire. Reaching through the link, he touches it. Color rushes to his cheeks.

“Seriously?” he ekes out, “This is turning you on?”

Doom’s grip loosens. A minuscule amount, enough for Strange to squeeze a few more words. The fire leaps into his psychic palm, eager, aggressive.

“There’s no shame in it. You’re good at what you do, Victor. Very few people can put me in check. Look at you. You’ve pinned me to a wall like a butterfly. That’s impressive. I--”

The king leans closer. Stephen smells ashes on his breath.

“Hoary hosts.”

The gun is holstered. A steel thumb strokes his cheek.

“Reap what you sow,” Doom mutters.

- - -

The aches and bruises will last for days, but the coolness of Doom’s armor against the carpet burn on his back is soothing. He rests a hand in the king’s own. Anything else feels too strenuous. “Was that your first time having telepathic sex? It’s intense, isn’t it?”

Victor takes in the state of the room. Paintings smashed, furniture so much firewood, stone walls fractured and cratered. How much destruction is his? He has no idea. One or the other had to have held back. The castle is still standing, after all.

Neither man speaks. Stephen ventures a glimpse down their link and gets only an image of black curtains. Doom’s already set up defenses. Though some of his own are raised, he lets some satisfaction flow between them. An olive branch.

A quiet, amused huff. “At times, Strange,” Doom says, and already his voice sounds better, “Your physical merits outweigh the strenuous mental exertions you put me through.”

“I never much cared for the medieval aesthetic myself, yet here we are.” He grunts as he looks over his shoulder, thighs twinging. “How drunk were we that night?”

“Doom was sober.”

“Oh no, your golden goblet saw plenty of refills. You were, at the very least, tipsy.”

“You question Doom’s memory?”

Stephen cups his chin, looks deep into dark brown eyes. “I question, my lord, why you claim to remember, with crystal clarity, a night you could have easily decreed never happened at all.”

Nothing comes. No biting remark, no caustic humiliation. Doom only holds his gaze, and under the black curtains flashes something bright, something strong. It lasts for only half a second before the king gets up, using Strange’s shoulder for support. “This link shall be insufferable. Do your part to get rid of it.”

Stephen frowns, annoyed that his legs work. He wonders if Victor left any of his clothing intact. “Right. Ground rules. Stay out of my head, and I won’t make you cough up another star. Deal?”

“Stay out of Doom’s head, and you shall not know pain unending. You have a deal.”

- - -

This lasts for two months.

- - -

On Day 51, a current of malicious satisfaction slithers through Strange’s mind. Gooseflesh rises up his back. The half-chewed wad of pastrami and egg in his mouth goes sour. He spits it out, bracing himself on the dinner table, and without thinking of thinking, he thinks: what have you done now?

The smirk on Doom’s face reminds him of the crocodiles at the Bronx Zoo. The thing Victor is smiling at reminds him of shop class. He can’t begin to make heads or tails of it. Like many of the king’s devices, it could have come off the set of a sci-fi movie. Sleek and chrome, rigged with multicolored wires, pumps, and gauges, a porthole reveals the heart of the machine, a vile purple light. Stephen’s gut tells him that color would eat him alive if it could, tear into his flesh and drip his blood from its teeth. Stephen trusts his gut.

Strange, Doom replies, smile quickly fading into a scowl, We had an agreement.

You broke first. I felt you. My spidey sense tingled.

Victor’s gauntlets ball into fists, and he sends a wave of serrated anger barreling toward the magician. A chained wolf, barking and snarling. An executioner waiting for the condemned to dig his own grave deeper.

Stephen curses. He didn’t mean to think that out loud. Look. Just tell me what it is and I’ll leave you alone.

The black curtains rustle, then lift like a wing. Swimming in the purple light are mathematical equations, coiling around metal rods. It makes perfect sense to Doom, but to Strange it’s a form of gibberish undecipherable by any eldritch tome.

Then he hears it. It’s not coming from the machine. It’s from Doom. Subvocalized lyrics. A silent song. He could recognize the tune anywhere.

He bought its album at the concert.

This is cold fusion.

Stephen snaps back to attention. Cold fusion. Should I be worried?

Victor folds his arms. That I built a safe, eternal form of energy for myself and my people? Yes, Strange, cower and quake. Your country shall never have it so long as I draw breath.

There are many dangerous rebuttals to that he could say. Names he could drop. Yet Doom promised pain unending. Fifty-one days into their connection, Strange has no leads into its inner workings. Finding out if he could make good on his word is a risk Stephen is unwilling to take.

I don’t like this, the sorcerer thinks, but I have to believe you. Don’t misbehave.

His own mental defense is a never-ending subway express train, its doors and windows a veil of golden thorns. Sighing, he sits back down. What’s left of his sandwich has the appeal of wet newspaper.

Doom was right. The link is awful.

- - -

On Day 60, despite the blazing fire in the hearth, Victor’s feet send ripples through a puddle.

He regards it from his antique armchair throne with indifferent curiosity. Through the filters in his mask, he smells the green, pungent scent of foliage rot and seawater. In the puddle itself swim millions of plankton. A frenzy of eating, fucking, dying, and birthing unfolds beneath his alloy soles.

From the corner of his eye, he watches the puddle extend an arm of water across the floor. Sliding under a wall, a line of slithering damp turns the paint a moldy gray. Moisture fans across the entire side of the room in a pattern like falling stars, like skeletal hands trailing through a river. The scent grows stronger as the puddle expands. He rises before it consumes his chair. The leather sinks until it is a speck of mahogany in the brine. Gloom washes over it and it is gone.

Doom folds his arms. A breeze teases the tail of his cloak. Murmuring a quiet word, he puts out the fire with an arc of a finger, and turns around into another world.

It is eternal night. It has no sun, and what few stars can be seen are lucky glimpses through a lush canopy of branches and black, web-like leaves many hundreds of feet above. The grass under him has a sticky grip, but gentle. If grass could want for anything, it would like to give the king safe passage on his journey. He isn’t the sustenance it’s looking for. That comes on the wind, in the form of tiny shards of detritus falling from forest layers high overhead. It shimmers as it tumbles down, the only source of light in this hadal garden.

He doesn’t need to go far. Half-concealed behind a root far taller than he, Doom watches himself and Stephen Strange on the next mound over.

The magician talks with grand gestures, sweeping an arm over trees as dark as ink. Doom remembers himself speaking little, allowing Strange to tell him the highlights of the world. No recorded examples of predation. Negligible changes in evolution for millennia. A slow world. A place of peace.

Stephen steps into the water. Waist deep, he holds out his arm. His garb drips off him, revealing pale skin. He smiles, bare and inviting.

The other Victor undoes his belt.

“And you complain when I get you out of the house.”

Doom peers at the Stephen Strange sitting in lotus position beside him. “You drag me into your affairs with no concern for my well-being or sanity.”

“Please. The times you dig your heels in are cursory, at best. And then we end up doing things like this.”

Across the mound, the other king’s armor sits in a neat pile, and the two doctors stand in each other’s arms, their lips meeting and parting only to inhale.

Victor kneels on the grass. “Even you are capable of stumbling onto a good idea.”

Stephen’s lip curls upward. “I think about this often. This place is beautiful. This memory pleasant. I took effort not to broadcast this to you. My apologies if I disturbed you.”

Doom looks away. “You did not.”

“Oh? Your Royal Highness, we had an agreement.”

“Am I not allowed to reminisce myself?”

“Ssh. Meditate with me.”

He closes his eyes. Strange’s hand creeps into his own, and he lets it stay.

Perhaps he was wrong. The link isn’t so bad.

- - -

Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up!

Stephen rolls molasses slow toward awareness. The bedroom is pitch black, swimming in unholy hour of the morning disorientation.

Your wife is in trouble!

He cracks an eye open, shifting in the sheets. “Clea?”

No! Your big green wife! Get up, right now!

Those aren’t his thoughts. It’s a voice he’s never heard before, coming from inside his head. He holds very still and feels something slither over his brain.

He snaps wide awake.

I’m sorry we have to meet like this, the voice says, but we must hurry. The whole world is at stake!

In any other circumstance, Strange would interrogate the voice within an inch of its life, but its fear is genuine. Swinging out of bed, he yanks some pants on, startles the Cloak of Levitation from of its own sleep, and pulls open a portal to Latveria.

Curse me for a novice! the voice squeaks, That can’t be good!

Enormous rends in reality drape over the castle. Shimmering in the air, some bisect the stone in clean, monomolecular cuts. One vomits a steady stream of magma, causing a massive fire in the castle courtyard. Through each of them Stephen sees other dimensions. Another hole fans out from the keep itself and drops a mass of red crystals that crush an entire rampart.

Please! Hurry!

Stephen slams the portal shut, imagines his destination, and wrenches open a new one directly to Doom’s lab. The room is bathed in sunset colors and thick, acrid smoke. At its heart lies the fusion reactor, which is now anything but cold. The purple light pounds waves of energy, reverberating off its containment and magnifying a new tear in the world.

Victor stands in front of the machine. His motions are jerky, abrupt, a marionette controlled by a mob of children. He lifts a twitching hand and the tear throws itself through the castle to join the others outside.

Sister-Brother! the voice cries, Stop!

Doom’s arms drop, strings cut. The voice that comes from his mind is higher than the other.

No, I don’t think so, it says, I think I’m going to continue. You’re more than welcome to burn.

“You’re the link,” Strange says.

Just figured that out now? Sister-Brother asks, Wow, Brother-Sister. You sure drew the short straw. My host is incredible. I’ve mapped every gyri and sulci in here and it’s gorgeous. I’d stay forever if I could. It’s almost a shame he has to die.

Stephen glares, raising his hands, fingers glowing with magic. “As Sorcerer Supreme, I command you to release Doctor Doom!”

The laugh that echoes down the link is nails on a chalkboard. You have no idea what we are.

“You’re playing with fire. You’re threatening the dimensional stability of all of Doomstadt. And when I find you, you’ll have hell to pay.”

This host has already seen hell, Sister-Brother chides, What better place to grow up than in a body demon-touched? Have you considered that I’m doing him a favor? This is how it plays out. This is fate.

Doom turns around without his mask.

A bloodcurdling shriek ricochets across Strange’s mind, his hand thrusts forward with a will not his own, and a thunderbolt connects with the king’s head. Victor flies against a control panel, smashing it with the weight of his impact. Groaning and creaking, the reactor starts to power down, sprinklers in the ceiling damping the flames.

His face, Brother-Sister whispers, Gods, oh gods, what’s wrong with his face...

Stephen contains his screams until he kneels at Doom’s side, hefting his body into his arms. The scent of burning meat fills his nose. He howls for someone, anyone, to help him, royal blood seeping onto his chest.

- - -

He awakens to the beeping of the heart monitor.

Doom feels like mountainsides have taken residence on his eyelids. Slowly sliding them open, he takes inventory. The room is bright, sterile, no windows. He’s propped up in a bed. His hands are bare yet weigh like continents. He looks to his left.

“Hello,” Stephen says.

The sorcerer looks terrible. Ashen skin, reddened eyes, a frown threatening to rip his mouth off. The clothes he wears belong to any servant of the castle. The hands clasped together between his knees shake worse than Doom has ever seen.

“You’re on a morphine drip. You’ve been unconscious for the past twelve hours. You’re in the castle. We set up a makeshift triage room. For a while...” He takes a deep breath, steeling his voice. “We didn’t know if you would make it.”

Doom thinks, and his head is wonderfully quiet.

“Thank every deity you know that your skull is almost as hard as your armor. You’re going to be in a lot of pain for the next few days, but the alternative...I don’t want to think about. And I got rid of the link.” Strange picks up a jar from a nearby stand. “Meet Brother-Sister and Sister-Brother.”

Floating in cerebrospinal fluid are two worms. One is storm cloud gray bracketed by navy blue. The other is dark yellow-green with flecks of red. Flat as ribbons and only an inch long, they give each other a wide berth.

“Pineal parasites,” Stephen continues, “Stuck to the undercarriage of our minds, learning how to be through our eyes. They talked together through us. Saw magic through us. Deciphered grand machines through us. And now they’re ready to go home. That’s what yours was trying to do. They were looking for a place where nothing changes and nothing happens because all who go there are hijacked and killed. Not such a good idea after all, was it?”

Doom blinks.

Putting the worms down, Strange digs his wrists into his eyes. “Victor, I swear to you on everything I am I had no idea. I thought you’d like it. I thought you could forget being so angry, forget the Four if only for an hour, and be happy. Now you--”

He stares at the door, fist to his mouth. Swallowing his heart, he says, “I’m bringing them back. They’re not at fault. They’re just following their life cycle. Despite what they’ve done, they deserve to live.”

Birds that will choke on ashes, he thinks, Countless trees turned to dust. No more. No more death.

“The best doctors in your kingdom are here for you. I’ll be back.”

“Doom will go with you.”

Victor’s voice is quiet but steady. Stephen shakes his head. “No. You’re in no shape to get out of bed, let alone travel dimensions.”

The monarch shuts his eyes. Heavy footsteps pass through the door. A doppelganger in emerald and steel, the Doombot bows its head to its ruler.

“Doom will go with you,” Victor repeats.

Strange blows a ragged breath. By Doom’s creased brow, that wasn’t easy. “Okay. Rest now. Don’t do anything until I return.”

Victor says nothing. Stephen waits until he drifts to sleep, presses a kiss to rough lips, and departs, robot in tow.

- - -

Q-4301 is indistinguishable from the real deal, from its ramrod straight spine to its folded arms, yet there’s no look of wonder in its lenses, no human, if royally restrained, sense of adventure in its copper and silicon heart. It doesn’t care about the bits and pieces of gold falling from the alien canopy, the grass patting its boots. It stares at Strange, emotionless, and that very lack of feeling gnaws at the pit of the sorcerer’s stomach.

They’re on the same black water island mound as before. He can pick out the tree Victor pressed him against from all the rest. Had the microscopic eggs that birthed the parasite twins been attracted to their sex, or had it been sheer luck? He doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know.

In his hand is a candle made from the blood of priests. “Do you have them?” Stephen asks.

Q-4301 lifts a corner of its cloak. Sewn into the cloth is a glass vial. Brother-Sister and Sister-Brother are inside.

Strange nods. “I don’t know if Doom programmed you to feel fear. Either way, let me do the talking. If all goes well, you won’t have to do anything.”

The Doombot says nothing. Taking a deep breath, Stephen snaps a spark between his fingers and lights the candle.

The world goes silent. The wind ceases, and so does the steady fall of golden bits and bobs. The grass curls into tight nubs. The only indication that time has not stopped entirely is the gleam of flame like an undulating eel on the surface of the water. Stephen’s breath is deafening in his own ears.

The voice that speaks is low and obsidian slick. “Well, well, well. Look what the fags dragged in.”

The demon, descending from the trees, blends perfectly into the dark. Its teeth are yellowed and pitted from a diet of rot. It moves on long, soundless talons. Its eyes are cherry red, pupils like mouths.

“Doctor Strange,” the khat murmurs, “You honor me with your presence. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re a cautionary tale among khat-kind, you know. A warning about too much power in frail, mortal meat. Like stuffing a sun into a stomach, it’s only a matter of time till it bursts.”

Stephen purses his lips. “Cut the shit. I have something for you.”

The khat’s grin splits up to its ears. “A gift? Is it your heart? Your humanity? Your soul? Please tell me it’s your soul. I would so like your soul.”

“Come closer and I’ll show you.”

The demon pads on water, leaving no ripples in its path. “Is it the thing beside you?” Nostrils flaring, it sizes up the Doombot. “Not the usual breed of lost lambs you lead to slaughter. What sort of lies did you tell it to follow you? An offer of redemption, perhaps? Anything desperate enough to flaunt about in a green skirt would listen to you.”

“Desperation is for the weak,” Q-4301 snaps.

Strange swallows the ball of curses on his tongue and hopes it doesn’t show. Doombots fall for bait. Exactly like the original.

The khat stops. “Everything has weaknesses. You were once a babe in your mother’s arms, no? Look at your companion. The Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, can barely keep a friend around, let alone alive. No, no, no, there has to be a reason he wants you here.” It lies on all fours, rests its cheek on its fist. “What sort of gift was it again?”

Stephen starts to speak. Q-4301 beats him. “The only gift a demon like you deserves.”

Red eyes narrow in amusement. “Oh, it’s too much for a single khat to bear! Let me call my brothers. We shall find out together.” Rising into a crouch, it takes a deep breath.

There’s still time to salvage the plan. Strange shouts, “Do it!”

Q-4301 lunges into the water, tears the vial from its cloak, and thrusts its arm out. As predicted, the khat opens its toothy jaws and swallows the punch up to the Doombot’s shoulder. Payload delivered, they need to flee.

The portal spell is halfway done when Stephen spots Q-4301 motionless.

For a second, the khat too is still. Then, beaming around the steel in its mouth, it bites, and tears Q-4301′s arm off.

No robot could replicate the spray of blood and scream in agonized terror.

Strange doesn’t realize he’s also screaming. The khat snatches Q-4301′s shoulder and slams it beneath the surface. The water boils in the struggle. Shadows like hellish stalagmites reach for the leaf-choked sky as the sorcerer calls his magic. Black muck splatters the trees, the grass, Stephen’s legs as he gathers flame in his shaking palms.

The blast turns the water to steam as the garden sees more light than it has in billions of years. He looks for a target, finds nothing but the bare riverbed quickly flooding to fill the void.

The khat geysers up behind him, grabs his leg, and wrenches him into the water. The Cloak of Levitation has enough time to flip him face up before a heavy paw pins it down. Eyes stinging, heart hammering, Strange fends off the khat’s snapping jaws with novas in his palms. It takes all his training to anticipate where the teeth will be, vision obscured by plumes of bubbles, and not lose a limb.

Claws curl in his suit and drag him through the brine. His head connects with a tree root and all of reality goes sideways. His breath whooshes free, and sour liquid fills his throat.

The demon hauls him out, shoves him against a tree. Three blurry khats grin in Stephen’s eyes. Dozens of fangs.

“The gift is all three,” it says, “Your heart, humanity, and soul. Why were we ever warned about you? You’re nothing.”

It opens its mouth.

LEAVE HIM ALONE!

Stephen shakes water and blood from his eyes. The khat is frozen save its eyes, which widen in shock. Two voices erupt from its gullet. One, higher-pitched, screeches an incoherent string of profanity.

By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth, the other cries, I demand you let him go!

If he squints, Strange can see two ribbons in the khat’s belly. One yellow-green and red, the other gray and blue.

“What have you done,” the demon barks, “What have you done to me!?”

The claws pry open. Stephen beats a hasty retreat, flying to the unfinished portal. As he works to complete it, something moves at his feet. The grass scuttles bits and pieces of shattered human along pathways only it knows. He reaches down, grabs a fragment, and rage flows through him hot enough to make his skin glow, heat radiating from him in convection circles.

The khat breaks free of the parasites’ control, smashing its head against the tree for good measure. Screaming, it leaps for him. Strange sidesteps into another world -- home -- closes the portal, and waits until his ears stop ringing.

His anger he keeps. He storms through castle halls, eager to strike while the iron is hot.

- - -

Doom must really try this relaxation thing more often. It isn’t bad. Balcony doors open, letting in sunshine and a floral breeze, he reclines in his seat, sips his tea, and listens to the vinyl spinning on the antique phonograph.

I’m coming down, coming down like a monkey, but it’s all right Like a load on your back that you can’t see, oooh but it’s all right

The song has been in his head for months. It’s nice to hear it in the open. Doom smiles. Stephen has good taste in music.

“Bastard!”

The chair spins around and Doom is confronted by a feral magician. Strange notes the king’s simple garb: no steel in sight, just a cotton shirt and pants. He aims for Victor’s face but his quaking hands botch the throw. It bounces off his chest and lands in his teacup. “You’re not white!”

Doom looks at his tea. The blue eye in the tea looks back. “About time someone noticed,” he deadpans, extracting the orb by its optic nerve and setting it on a napkin.

The chair bucks like a bronco and Victor spills out. Stephen catches him with magic, hangs him in the air. The cup breaks into a thousand pieces and the king’s disappointed frown makes Strange want to throttle him. “Who was in the Doombot?”

“A nuclear engineer working on the CMNS reactor.” Doom sounds bored. “He tweeted about the parasite-induced euphoria I experienced. Called it an episode. Implications of weakness are illegal. Justice -- and the parasites -- were served. Two birds with one stone.”

“You killed a man for a tweet.”

“Whatever creature you encountered in the garden slew him, not I.”

Stephen drops him, relishing Victor’s grunt as a shard of teacup cuts his foot. It’s a slimy pleasure, and his face contracts. “Bastard. There isn’t an ounce of goodness in you.”

The king pulls the porcelain out of his flesh and points the bloodied end of it. “I have my ways just as you have yours. Until you grasp this concept, we shall always be at odds.”

“Be at odds? I saved your life!”

Doom brushes back his hair. Black stitches stretch from one ear across his head to the other. “You scarred me.”

They’re on thin ice. Strange dials back his fury, fists clenched. Monstrous tyrant or not, Victor is recovering from brain surgery. “You had a worm in your head.”

Tossing the shard aside, Doom sinks back in the chair in a position Stephen calls the regal slouch. “The sentence for weakness implications is community service. The engineer served his community. The sentence for injury to the royal person is death.” A scowl darkens his face. “I have half a mind to not let you leave this room alive.”

The sorcerer shuts his eyes.

“However.” Doom thinks, picking his words. “The extraneous circumstances surrounding the crime cannot be ignored. A different punishment is called for. It shall be made at a later time.” He draws a holographic display before him. A tigress pants in her den, lozenges squirming at her belly. “Three cubs were born at the Latverian Zoo this morning.” He looks at Stephen. “I find myself preoccupied with some wildlife conservation of my own.”

The sigh comes from the bottom of his heart. One day Victor will come out and thank him. Today is not that day. It will have to do. Strange rubs his eyes. “May I make a suggestion?”

“Speak.”

“Exile. A break. Another two months, or two years, or two hundred years. I’m not picky. I just don’t want to see you for a while.”

Doom looks back at the panel. “Your suggestion carries weight. So be it. Begone.”

That’s that. Another story concluded. Feeling empty, feeling light, Stephen turns to go.

“Strange.”

Fuck, so close. The sorcerer looks over his shoulder. “What?”

“When next we sojourn, for Doom knows we shall--” Victor’s lip turns up, the smallest hint of a smirk. “--I shall pick our destination.”

[lapuswolf]

Skylanders Prompts 1

Day One: Questioning (This isn’t really “struggling” about something, but I thought this would be cute anyways. Also I’m going to try and connect all the prompts, like one long continuous story)

@cyberstarfox @skylander-prompts

Warning: Small language and long post. (I’m on mobile so I can’t change it..)

Blades Finds Love?

“Could be better.” He huffed in his gruff tone. “Y’know it’s pride month right?” Blades rolled his eyes making Five frown. “This means you could totally get somebody. I’m tired of watching you be so lonely all the time. As your friend, I will be your wingman. Literally.” He fluttered two of his wings.

“Thanks mate, but I already have all the ladies!” He stood up proudly, opening his wings to show the underside. “Everyone loves me!” He looked over and winked at a passing dragon, Flashwing. Just as he thought, she giggled and waved her tail before trotting over to Bash and Terrafin. “See? I could totally get any girl I please! Even a dude! I can be gay.”

Five grimaced slightly. “Gooood to know. Just saying, Flashwing is off limits. She’s with, Bash and just about every other dragon as someone. And if your trying to be gay, don’t look at me. Not interested.” Blades frowned slightly before looking around the area again. That’s when he saw her. A beautiful finned water dragon. Echo. “Oh no, no no no. Don’t be thinking about Echo. Y’know how she is about relationships! She’s asexual! And imagine a playboy like YOU trying to flirt with her!” Five hissed.

Blades grinned over to Five. “I take that as a compliment. Besides I like a good challenge. I’ll just use my good looks and charm to get her swooned!” Five could only stare in horror. He knew how terribly this would tumble downhill. Blades made his way over to the dragon and puffed his chest, and opened his wings a bit. “Greetings, Echo. Fine day it is, isn’t it?”

“Uhm…” Echo turned her head to face Blades. Her bright yellow eyes looked into Blades’. Blades could only stare in her eyes. His wings shifted slightly. “Did you need something?” He faltered, and was no longer confident. His heart practically melted but he tried to stay strong.

“I-I-I uh.” He stammered, mentally cursing at himself. What the bloody hell is wrong with me? Just ask her out! “I was w-wondering I’d like you dinner go s-somewhere me with? Uh…” Echo stared in confusion. Blades took in a deep breath. “Wouldyouliketogoonadatwwithme?”

Echo’s eyes widened before she snorted. “Haha? That’s a joke right? Cause this is really funny. You’re just a playboy, I’m surprised your dim brain wanted to ask an asexual out.” Blades’ wings drooped, and his heart ached. More than it should. He couldn’t help but laugh nervously. “Yeah, no. You’re weird. Go find yourself a nice slut, m’Kay?” She turned on her heels before bouncing away.

Blades blinked before slumping down to the ground. His eyes sparkled and watered at the same time. He had no clue what he was feeling. While he was so caught up in his emotions, he didn’t hear High Five coming up behind him. “Yeesh, that sucks man. Better luck next time.” When he didn’t get a response, he leaned his head down to look at Blades’ face. Five blinked before frowning. “Oh, wooow I can’t believe it! You’re in love! Oh my god! Playboy, narcissistic, Blades is in love!”

“I-is that what I’m feeling?” Blades covered his face with his claws. “O-oh wow…” Five was certainly surprised, as he has never seen Blades so hopeless. “I think...I think I am in love….” He stood up and spun around happily. “Didya look at the way she smiled and laughed?! Her voice his like butter! She’s so amazing!”

Five couldn’t help but smile slightly. “Oh boy…” he said sarcastically.

~~~

“Hey! Oh wow! Would ya look at that?” Blades exclaimed, shaking High Five by the shoulders. He tugged away and gave Blades a death glare. “She looked at me!” He smiled dreamily.

“Not anymore when you act like that.” Five mused before he was shoved down into a bush. “What the— Blades! What are you doing?!” A fake mustache was slapped onto his face. He blinked confusingly, before turning over to his friends. Blades also had a fake mustache, and a pair of black shades. “What the actual hell.”

“It’s our disguises!”

“For what?! What are we even doing?!”

“Checking out the competition! Look.” Blades pointed a claw over to Echo, who was talking with another water skylander. “Who does he think he is?! Zap shouldn’t be allowed to hang out with her! Only I can.”

Five shivered slightly as he heard what Blades said. “First off, I’m getting serious yandere vibes right now. Secondly, aren’t Zap and Echo cousins or something?” (It's a headcanon of mine)

Blades lifted off his shades and narrowed his eyes, “Mother of god…” He tosses the glasses on the ground and pulled off his mustache. He sighed to himself and watched Echo laugh with Zap. The way she wailed out in laughter really made his heart flutter. He really did like her. His thoughts were interrupted as he saw something move in the distance. He turned his head and his eyes widened. A giant ball of bright energy came swooshing forward. “Echo! Look out!” He cried before he kept out of the bush.

Echo was quite surprised to see a fellow dragon randomly jump out of the bushes. That when she realized what he was doing. He opened his wings and used them as a shield. The golden light slammed against him. His body slowly turned into gold, and he muttered something under his breath. Echo watched in horror as Blades was now a gold statue. “Holy smokes!” Zap screamed. “GOLDEN QUEEN IS HERE!”

“I’ll sound the alarm!” High five called out before he used his power to zip away. Zap growled and his mouth filled up with lightning, and Echo readied herself.

“Ahaha, oh how sweet. The pathetic dragon sacrificed himself!” Golden Queen appeared and spun her staff around. She smirked before speaking again. “What a useless bunch of skylanders!” She cackled.

Echo raised an eyebrow. “Why are you alone? Where’s the rest of the Doom Raiders?!”

“They’re all trapped in CloudCracker Prison!” Golden Queen grumbled. “I was lucky enough to not get captured…”

“For some reason I don’t believe you.” Zap hissed. Golden scowled before sending a beam of light. Zap helped as he jumped away, barely missing the blast. He growled before sending a blast of lightly back at her. She easily dodged and laughed.

“You are all pathetic!” She boomed and was preparing for another attack. Suddenly there was a large cracking noise. Everyone turned to the Blades’ golden statue. It cracked and a giant burst of light appeared. Blades appeared and his scales glistened. He had summoned his legendary armor, and his scales were a shimmery gold and blue. “You’re a legendary?!” Golden exclaimed.

“You sure bet I am!” Blades chuckled before he spun around. A giant tornado appeared, spinning a handful of tiny swords. Golden cried out in agony, before the tornado swept her up and she was sent flying off the island. Blades couldn’t help but laugh as his armor slowly faded and he turned back to his normal blue color.

He turned around and looked at Echo and Zap. Zap’s mouth hung open, while Echo was frozen in shock. She shook her head and she smiled slightly. She carefully bounced over to Blades and nudged him. “So, what about that date?”

“H-huh?” Blades flushed, his wings, becoming stone. “Y-you want to go on a date? With me? Why me? I thought you were asexual? And you hated playboys!”

“I am, I despise playboys. But I love heroes.” She smiled and looked over where Golden Queen fell. “You save my life, I have to pay you back somehow.” She chuckled before nuzzling his cheek, “meet you here tomorrow at noon.” She waved her claw before heading back over to Zap and the two walked away.

Blades eyes were wide and he stood there dumbfounded. “Hiyah!” He yelped as he was slammed down onto the ground by a very cold blade. “Die you ugly bad guy!”

“Woah! Freeze! Calm down! That’s Blades! Golden Queen is the bad guy!” High Five called out as he caught up with the super speedy skylander. Freeze Blade sulked slightly and hopped off of Blades. “Speaking of the Doom Raider, where is she?”

“I defeated her.” Blades huffed as he stood back up, flapping his wings to heat them up. “I had this awesome heroic moment where I broke free of her power with my superior legendary armor. Then Echo asked me out. Who knew that to get the girl of your dreams all you needed to do was be in a life threatening situation with a Doom Raider.”

Freeze was oddly confused at what as going on and tilted his head in confusion. Five just sighed and frowned. “He’ll never learn...will he…”

[billys-hard-grove]

MIA - Army AU pt 2

This goes out to all the people that messaged me in tears and especially to the anon who suggested a way to fix it, it was an EXCELLENT idea.

I tried to make you happy, my dear anon, but this turned into 1000+ words of pure angst with only a very slight sliver of non-angst, im so sorry

Read part 1 here

It had been 3 months.

3 months since Max had shown him the letter and Steve’s life had fallen apart. The hope he had clung to in the beginning was slowly fading and he didn’t know what to think anymore.

Missing in action.

Steve had read the letter over and over again, the words burning into his mind. What did that even mean? What was he supposed to do?

Neil had scoffed and had told Susan almost laughingly that the coward had probably deserted, but Steve refused to believe that. Billy was nothing if not determined and he really did believe in the cause. Steve knew he wouldn’t have left the army. He wouldn’t have left Steve.

Maybe there had been a mistake? Maybe he had gotten lost? Wounded? Captured? The thought of Billy rotting away in a filthy prison cell, beaten to within an inch of his life left Steve nauseated, but at least he would be alive. He couldn’t even stomach the thought of the other option.

That first month, it was hope that kept Steve on his feet and going through the motions.

He had held onto it for dear life. The hope that Billy was still out there, putting up a fight no matter what situation he was in, probably laughing if he knew how worried Steve was. The hope that Billy was missing Steve as much as Steve was missing him. The hope that Billy would return to him safe and sound.

He had clung to it desperately until his hope was shattered into a million pieces and Steve had shattered with it.

One month after they had gotten the letter declaring Billy to be MIA, Brad had visited Hawkins, Brad the army buddy.

He had looked like a broken man when he sat down in front of Neil and Susan and told them about the battle, the battle that had left dozens of soldiers unaccounted for. Their platoon had been lead into a trap and it had been brutal, the rebel troops shooting at them from all sides as they tried desperately to escape, climbing over the lifeless bodies of their fallen brothers. Brad had told them about how brave of a man Billy was and that if anyone from the missing guys was still out there, it would be Billy.

But the words sounded all wrong to Max, who had been listening from the doorway. Silently tears streamed down her face when she heard the man talk. She knew what he was saying. She could read between the lines.

It had been brutal.

Neil had only waited two weeks after that before he organised a ceremony. He had probably been all too eager to get it over and done with and forget all about his good-for-nothing son.

It had only been 6 weeks and the asshole had given him up.

Steve had been so angry when he heard about it. He had raged. He had kicked and screamed, cursed Neil’s name until all the anger was burnt up and the only thing that was left was sadness and pain.

He had spent days crying, sobbing into his pillow. He had wailed and wailed until his throat was raw and his whole body was sore from all the heaving.

He kept imagining Billy’s dead body, covered in blood and dirt in a ditch on the other side of the world, his eyes wide open but unseeing, surrounded by other soldiers, forgotten by everyone.

He wondered if they had buried him.

He had clasped Billy’s necklace between his hands as he prayed and prayed to a God he no longer believed in.

It had hurt so much. 

But now, 3 months after they’d gotten the letter, there was nothing left anymore. He was all cried out and the void that Billy had left behind had filled him up completely.

Steve felt numb. He barely slept, he barely ate, he barely even existed anymore.

Billy’s necklace was stuffed away inside a drawer. Steve couldn’t wear it anymore, he couldn’t even look at it. The memories were too painful.

He spent most days curled up in bed, unable to do anything, unable to smile at Nancy when she ran a hand through his hair, unable to laugh at Dustin’s attempts to lighten his mood.

He just felt so empty.

--

--

It had been 3 months.

3 months of beating, breaking and cutting. Unidentifiable men kept coming in, keeping him awake, spitting on him, screaming in a language that he didn’t understand. They only fed him moulded scraps and only gave him water when Billy was seconds away from dying of thirst.

Every day brought a fresh hell of pain and exhaustion. He knew they wanted information, but the broken man had none to give.

It had been 3 months and they had broken him, he was done fighting. He couldn’t take it any longer.

He felt himself teetering at the edge of consciousness and he was ready to plummet into the darkness. He was ready to surrender.

He closed his eyes and all he could see was Steve, looking back at him with a radiant smile and eyes that were brimming with love. Billy basked in it for a moment before he let himself fall and it all went black.

--

--

He woke up days later in a field hospital where they kept him for another two weeks. It was a blur of sleep and people asking him questions. Where had he been? Who had he met? What did they want?

Billy didn’t have answers. His captors had never given him any clues to their whereabouts or identities.

It was exhausting and the more he recovered, the more he wanted out. The nurses just laughed every time he threw a fit, calling his anger a good sign of his recovery.

Eventually they had let him go. He had been flown back to the US and after even more questions and more paperwork, here he was.

He was wandering through Hawkins, but the familiar town felt surreal. It was even quieter than before he had left and it made him feel on edge. He had gotten used to the constant sounds of war around him and he didn’t trust the eerie silence.

A man walking his dog appeared around the corner and Billy felt himself tense up, eyeing him suspiciously as he approached. The passer-by smiled at him and Billy had to fight down a snarl before he nodded curtly at the man.

Billy started walking faster after the encounter. It took him another 10 minutes until he rounded the corner onto Steve’s street. He felt himself relax when he saw the large house. He hadn’t realise how tense he still was until he unclenched his fist and released a deep breath.

He walked up the driveway, a different kind of apprehension making him jittery as he rang the doorbell.

He waited impatiently.

His heart was pounding in his chest. This was it. He had been waiting for this moment since he had gotten on that bus almost a year ago.

He rang the doorbell again.

He rang it again 5 times actually before the door cracked open and Steve appeared.

His eyes widened when he saw Billy and he had to catch himself on the door.

They stared at each other, neither of them knowing what to say and Billy noticed how bad Steve looked. His skin was pale and blotchy and he had lost weight. His hair was too long and hung limply in his face, Billy could tell it hadn’t been washed in a while. Steve was staring at him with his big brown eyes, but they didn’t sparkle how they used to.

‘B-Billy?’ Steve managed to say, his voice weak.

Billy nodded.

‘You’re here? You’re real?’ Steve looked like he honestly didn’t believe that it was true. ‘You’re… You’re alive?’

‘I’m home, Steve,’ Billy said softly, a smile tugged at his lips.

Steve lurched forward and fell into his arms, crying into his shoulder, desperately clutching onto him. Billy wrapped his arms around Steve’s small frame and just held him. They stood there for what felt like hours until Steve’s sobs died down.

Billy pressed his lips to Steve’s temple and he knew that was he said was true.

He was home.

[flowerslut]

A Chance Encounter

Sasuke-centric. Post-canon. Rated M for language and implied CSA.

A/N: I told y’all I was going to write this the second I got home from work. And five hours later, here it is. Painfully unedited and not proof-read.  #shez-back-yall

Inspired by this prompt. 

The rumbling of thunder catches his attention, ripping his eyes from his path to turn and glance behind him with mild interest. The sky at the edge of the horizon is dark, almost black in color as a storm gathers in the near distance. He stares, unflinchingly, as another strike of lightning splits the sky in two, the thunder echoing through the forest around him, shaking the Earth beneath his feet and causing him to stop for a moment.

By the look of it, it’s likely to be a bad storm if it’s approaching so quickly and so violently already. He turns back to his path and deliberates his next move, closing his eyes as he orients himself to his surroundings. His internal map is as good as any he could buy on paper; years spent traveling would give anyone a keen sense of direction.

He’s still a half a day’s journey from his next destination and he’s only a couple hours east of a small village in the mountainside, so for half of a second he contemplates veering off course, but he’s no fool.

Sasuke Uchiha knows that there are plenty of things in life you can run from, but Mother Nature is not one of them.

Instead he braces himself and pulls his cloak tighter around him, turning back toward his path as he begins to walk again—there’s no point in running when the downpour will be upon him in minutes.

A noise just ahead of him quickly alerts himself to the fact that he is not alone in these woods. He feels foolish as he opens a hand, holding it over the handle of his katana. The fact that the thunder distracted him this much is unacceptable and his mood immediately sours.

It takes only seconds before a group of shinobi emerge from the woods, laughing among one another as they step directly into his path.

In the moment it takes for them to realize that they’ve nearly run into another shinobi, Sasuke has already studied them all, head to toe, lone sharingan red and blazing as he memorizes everything about them.

There are four of them in their party; all men who lack headbands but who carry themselves with the confidence and grace of a group of shinobi proudly finished with a mission. Sasuke doesn’t know what they were talking about just before they emerged from the thick woods and in front of him, but they were speaking with a laid-back attitude about them. A couple of them are grinning, and one man laughs openly.

Each of them are dressed head to toe in an off-white color, mostly fitted gear with pearlescent armor plating their chests and backs. Two of them have swords, one of them has only kunai strapped to his body, and the fourth is armed with only what lies in the bag on his back.

Sasuke memorizes it all in a fraction of a second: hair color, eye color, height and even face shape. He recognizes none of these men but now he knows that if he ever comes across one of them again, he’ll be aware.

It’s always easiest for him to simply trap the various shinobi he stumbles across in a genjutsu—no matter whether they are enemies or allies—just in case, so that’s what he does. The smiles haven’t even fallen from their faces before he has them trapped in a world of his own creation as they meet his eyes.

Their forms still as reality slips away from them and for a moment Sasuke sizes them up. They look like they’re part some elite-level organization and the lack of headbands strapped to their heads strikes him as a little odd. Especially in the Land of Lightning, where Kumokagure’s shinobi are known for their ego and would never go without their hitai-ate.

He resolves to let them out of the genjutsu after he travels about another kilometer up the road—it’ll give him enough time to get off their radar and by the time the genjutsu releases the storm will likely be upon them. It’s a little inconveniencing for the group of shinobi, but Sasuke doesn’t feel too bad about it.

A little rain never hurt anyone.

He doesn’t turn his back to them even as he passes, circling around them swiftly even as their forms remain motionless, their minds captured by his jutsu.

That’s when he sees it.

The backpack on the fourth shinobi shifts, ever so slightly. Sasuke grips his katana and unsheathes it slightly, lowering his stance and preparing himself for anything.

But when he hears a tiny voice begin to cry—the noise so soft it hardly carries over the thunder rolling toward them—he freezes.

It takes him another few seconds to realize that it is the cry of a child. And with a swiftness that only a shinobi whose weapon acts like an extension to their own body has, he slashes the bottom of the backpack open.

He can hardly react in time as he watches a tiny child, bound and gagged, fall toward the dirt beneath them.

Thrusting his katana into the earth to free up his hand, he is lucky enough to snatch the back of the child’s shirt before they fall face-first to the ground. Backing up he swiftly moves to cradle the tiny form with what remains of his left arm before snatching back his sword and taking up a defensive stance.

But the men are still trapped in the genjutsu, unaware of what’s happening around them.

Sasuke continues backing up until the men are several meters away before he sheathes his katana and turns his attention to the bound child he’s clinging to. Barely a child, he notes with disgust as he props the girl up against him, working to untie her arms and remove the gag from her mouth.

She’s nearly a baby, her tiny dark hair messy with baby curls not yet grown past her ears. Her eyes are swollen shut, red and puffy from too many tears, and the gag—nothing more than a thick white cloth tied against the back of her head—is tied too tight, pink where the fabric meets the edges of her tiny mouth.

Sasuke has to swallow down thick fury as he tries to untie the gag with one hand (it’s difficult but not impossible, he knows) trying hard to ignore the fact that this could so very easily have been his daughter.

And heavens knows he’s had nightmares surrounding his own little Sarada; the dark recesses of his mind often taunting him with horrific scenarios beyond his comprehension and of the terrors that could await her, all because of who he is.

But she is not his daughter (his daughter is safe his daughter is with Sakura his daughter is home) and he forces himself to nail that thought into his mind and concentrate a bit steadier on the situation he’s landed himself in. He has to think about how to get this obviously-kidnapped toddler back to wherever she belongs and safely. And he has to do it quickly.

The moment he pulls the gag from the child’s face and takes a good look at her he actually curses out loud. Loudly, repeatedly, and angrily.

Because while this isn’t his daughter, there’s no mistaking whose daughter she is.

And the girl’s poor cheeks are rubbed so raw by her restraints that the black whiskers marks on her cheeks only stand out further against the red skin.

“Fuck,” he mutters again, blinking up toward the sky as the storm finally reaches them, splattering them in heavy, cold raindrops. “Fuck.”

And the little girl is finally trying to open her eyes, the raindrops landing on her face causing her to wince, to blink a few times, and to focus on anything she can see.

Sasuke wasn’t aware of the fact that Naruto had a daughter—his best friend’s son was only a baby when he departed for this mission, much like Sarada had been—but this child is undoubtedly his. The whiskered cheeks, the hair the same shade as Hinata’s, and the blue eyes that now are staring up at him with a terrified look on her face.

“It’s okay,” is all he can manage to say to the toddler—she can’t be any older than two—before a crack of thunder causes her to cry out and, with a strength that catches him off guard, attempt to yank herself from his grasp.

“Hey—stop!” And this little girl—Naruto’s little girl, his mind refuses to let him forget—is suddenly screaming and wailing so loud that it’s with a sick realization Sasuke knows how vital the gag had been for these people.

“Home, you want to go home?” He’s speaking quickly as he tries to restrain her without harming her, “Konoha? Home? With Naru—“ he curses to himself, realizing that no toddler would know their parent’s given names. “Dad? Mom? You want your dad and mom?” Still the child is screeching and clawing at him and trying so hard to get away that Sasuke is finding it difficult to keep his grasp on her with just his one arm.

Weapons are easier to wield, he’s quickly realizing as she begins yanking her arm out of his grasp repeatedly.

Think, he tells himself, struggling to think of anything to calm the child, think.

“Boruto?” He quickly offers her, finally remembering the name of Naruto’s first-born. “You want Boruto?”

And like a light has been switched on, an awareness suddenly flickers across her face as she stops fighting him completely. “Nii-san?” Her voice is as small as she is, but she speaks the word clearly.

Sasuke nods, desperate to calm her, “Yes, nii-san. Boruto nii-san. Do you want to see him? I know Boruto. I know Mom and Dad. Do you want to go home?”

She’s still crying but now she’s nodding and reaching out for him. Sasuke doesn’t even need to coax her any further before her tiny arms are wrapped around his neck and she’s clinging to him so tightly he almost can’t breathe for a moment.

“Home,” she wails into his neck as the sky continues to open up around them, “Go home. Wanna go home.”

“Okay,” he breathes, straightening himself up as he adjusts his hold on her, “I’ll take you home.”

In his peripheral he sees movement, and before his mind can react his body moves.

Only one of the men has broken free from his genjutsu and it’s the one who’d been holding the girl in the backpack. Sasuke knows he needs to immobilize him as quickly as possible before the man releases his comrades from the genjutsu, too. If he is well-versed in genjutsu enough to break free so quickly and easily from Sasuke’s, then that means the skill level of this group of shinobi is nothing to take lightly, and this situation could get bad fast.

Flipping back, Sasuke is thankful for his rinnegan and the fact that it makes fighting with one arm much easier. With practiced ease Sasuke reaches out—Naruto’s daughter clinging to him so hard that he doesn’t even need to support her minuscule weight—and using his Bansho Tenin he yanks the man toward him.

And like most people Sasuke has ever used this rinnegan ability on, they aren’t expecting a strange force to pull them so violently forward, but it does. And then his hand grips the man’s throat he slams him into the Earth. In seconds the ninja’s hands and feet are bound with razor-sharp wire and his face is pressed into the mud under him.

But all too quickly he’s spinning out of the way again, dodging a poorly-tossed kunai and tossing a flurry of shuriken toward the other man who is now conscious.

It seems that before Sasuke could yank the first man toward him he’d had enough foresight to break at least one of his comrades free from the jutsu. The man probably wasn’t anticipating his fellow shinobi to be so disoriented upon waking though. And within seconds Sasuke had taken down the second man, his wire strapping him to the trunk of a nearby tree.

“Kenma!” The first man, the one who had been wearing Naruto’s daughter on his back like luggage, screams into the mud. “Damnit Kenma, you fucked up!”

Sasuke can’t help but agree. Their other two comrades are still trapped in his genjutsu and Sasuke takes a few seconds to concentrate and ensure that those two will stay in his jutsu as long as he wills it.

Kenma can’t reply though. Sasuke had knocked him into the tree so hard that his head had just about cracked open at the back upon impact. Currently the only thing the disoriented shinobi could do was loll his head weakly to the side and vomit.

“You,” Sasuke walks up to the man, who is started to spit muddy water out of his mouth as the path begins to flood, “what are you doing with this child.”

“Aye, fuck off!” The man sneers, fighting against his restraint for a moment before the skin around his wrists begins to split. He hisses in pain and then shouts out of anger, his words all gargled nonsense.

Ignoring the man throwing his fit Sasuke lowers his arm and shifts the girl in his arm again, trying to get her to lighten her death grip on his neck.

“Kid,” he rasps, pulling lightly at her arm, and taking a few steps back, “too tight.”

As he adjusts her once more, he thinks hard as to what he needs to do next. He definitely needs to get her out of there and back to Konoha somehow, but he can’t simply leave these criminals here. If anything he wants to drag them to Konoha himself and let their justice system wring them out (however flawed the system may still be).

But the rain is unrelenting and there’s no way he can call any of his summons right now; not when the wind is threatening to blow him off his feet and the lightning crackling all around him promises to strike. It would be a death sentence to send a hawk.

He’s almost out of ideas when he suddenly remembers something.

It takes him longer than he cares to admit to dig the plastic bag out from the bottom of his bag. He has to use his teeth to rip the plastic open, but he manages to catch the device before it can fall into the muddy waters growing under his feet.

“I don’t know if you’d be interested,” the man on the ground eventually shouts to him over the sound of the storm, “but if you let us go, we’ll let you in on the reward.” He coughs and sputters, trying to turn his head in a way that the rainwater won’t keep trying to drown him. “Those eyes will go for a fortune. Trust me. She isn’t even sealed. It’s a guaranteed thing.”

“You’re not taking her eyes.”

“I—of course not I mean. But the people who want them will give us a lot of money and then all we have to do is double-cross them. It won’t be hard. You get money and the girl—“

Sasuke is keen on ignoring the man as he attempts to figure out the contraption in his hand, but when the second man begins chiming in, his temper starts to eat away at his forced patience. He’s never used this phone before—he meant, prior to his trip, to learn how cellular devices worked—but he’s sure it can’t be too difficult.

“Fuck the Hyuuga girl,” Kenma slurs from where he is strapped to the tree, “Byakugan won’t give us—we won’t get as much damn money—shoulda been the other—”

“Shut up Kenma!” The man trying to bargain with Sasuke, snaps. “Just be quiet.”

“No—don’t you tell me—I mean—I know who that is,” Kenma is very clearly only holding onto a thin thread of consciousness, and seemingly out of sheer stubbornness. “Fucking Uchiha scum. Fuck the Hyuuga girl and fuck the Uchiha brat we couldn’t find.”

Sasuke pauses, takes in a steady breath, lowers the phone, and turns toward the shinobi.

“What was that?”

“You heard me—you know—why the fuck would we—why’d we wanna—grab the Hokage’s kid? Yours is—it’d be easier to grab your Uchiha brat—it’s not like—‘cause it’s not like you’re gonna stop us,” he laughs, his head lolling forward again before he forces it back, trying to glare at Sasuke through the rain. “You’re not even there!” He laughs again. “You’re fuckin’ lucky we—we shoulda kept lookin’ for her. But this one was—she was easy to nab. Smaller, still good—“

The fury he begins to feel is an all-encompassing thing. It starts in his toes and works his way up through his body, until his chest is on fire and his head feels as if it’s about to burst. Anger has a funny way of making your limbs feel like lead but then supplying you with the insatiable urge to take said heavy limbs and destroy everything in your path.

And somehow in that moment of clarifying rage he remembers how this stupid contraption in his hand works, pressing the center button followed by the green one in the corner. He places the damn gadget against his ear and struggles to focus on it instead of the words still tripping out of the mouth of the shinobi with a death wish.

“Y’wanna know how much—we get so much money for those—that stupid sharingan of yours. It’s—it’s like we get the money—and then we still have a girl,” he hacks for a few seconds and Sasuke’s psyche is honest-to-gods grateful for the seconds of silence he gets. “And you get—people pay for the girl, too.”

He hears someone speaking on the other end of the receiver but he can barely get a grasp on what they’re saying—the voice is loud and clear and the words are decipherable, but between the storm they’re trapped in and the man rambling at him (who’s head so desperately wants to be separated from his body) he’s only barely clinging to his composure.

“The girl is where the real—the good money is—they pay so good for that—even if they’re blind. It’s even better sometimes. ‘Cause they say—y’know when people are blind they—their other senses—they’re good with their hands. Young and blind and—“

“I am approximately thirty miles south and four east of Kumokagure,” Sasuke starts speaking loud and clear, ignoring the person on the other side and their demands that he give them an authorization code or a password of some sort, “I have the Hokage’s daughter with me.” There is silence for a moment and then Sasuke can hear as whoever it is—it’s distinctly not Naruto; Shikamaru maybe?—recognizes his voice. “She is unharmed. But if she is not retrieved soon, I will be forced to do unspeakable things to her kidnappers.”

Upon hearing this, the first man begins shouting with renewed fervor, begging Kenma to stay quiet and pleading for mercy from Sasuke.

“You have my location.” Sasuke again speaks over who he is almost certain is Shikamaru. “Hurry, or I will kill them.” He doesn’t know how to shut the device off so he simply shoves it back into his pack, not caring that just about every one of his meager supplies is drenched with rainwater now.

No, nothing matters right now except for the fact that his daughter—and Naruto’s, he thinks as he holds the girl tightly against him—is safe from whatever disgusting fate these bounty hunters had planned for them.

“I am not a patient man,” he speaks almost too soft for either man to hear, “if Konoha shinobi don’t come to your rescue soon, you will be begging me for death.” And what’s funny is he knows that Naruto won’t fault him if Sasuke explains the situation the same way Kenma has disgustingly painted it for him. Sasuke could easily get away with killing them, despite the many prohibitions that Konoha still has managed to place over him, despite the time and distance he has spent away.

“Do it,” Kenma slurs, his voice somehow carrying over both his partners pleas and the thunder shaking the forest around them. “Kill us. People are still gonna—they’re gonna get her,” he taunts, smiling widely to show off his mouth full of blood. “You kill us and they still get her. You’re not there—you’re not in Konoha to protect her. They’re gonna get her.”

And it’s at this point when Sasuke finally realizes what the man is doing. Taunting him on purpose. Using whatever words and phrases he knows will get him killed quickly. He knows it’s over now. Either he’ll die in a cell or he’ll die right here and right now. He’s trying to choose the way he goes and the second this fact is apparent, Sasuke’s anger is much easier to reign in.

It doesn’t disappear nor does it ebb in its intensity; he hates these men with every fiber of his being. He would certainly love to drive his sword through each of them, even those still dead to the waking world under his genjutsu. A sicker, more sadistic part of his mind wants to press their faces down into the running stream that’s grown as the storm throws more water at them, let them drown beneath his boot.

But he knows, like any good former incarcerated criminal does, how death would simply be the kinder, easier way out. The cowards way out. So if he wants these men to suffer for what they’ve attempted to do, he’ll have to resist killing them.

No matter how badly the hatred in his bones begs him to do it.

Naruto’s daughter tightens her arms once more around his neck and for a second Sasuke pretends it’s his own daughter—his baby, his Sarada—and cradles her, letting her tiny, cold hands keep him grounded to reality as the rain bears down on his back.

“Go home,” she cries into his neck, her tiny voice hoarse from screaming, “Wanna go home.”

“Yeah,” he holds her tightly, swallowing the thickness in his throat. Me too.

It’s under an hour later—fantastically impressive timing—when a group of Konoha shinobi, fronted by none other than the Nanadaime Hokage himself, bursts into the clearing in a flash of gold light.

The rain has stopped and a sunset has just begun to shine its way across the sky, lighting the scene before them.

(After several more minutes of listening to Kenma’s attempts at goading Sasuke into killing him, and his partner’s attempts at bribing his way free, Sasuke put the both of them in a genjutsu. One he was certain neither would break free from regardless of how versed they were in illusionary techniques.)

Naruto runs straight up to him, his feet heavy and his face displaying every emotion the man is currently experiencing.

“Himawari,” he nearly-sobs as he pulls the little girl from Sasuke’s grip. “Oh, Himawari. My baby. My Himawari.”

“Papa,” Himawari cries, her tears starting anew upon sight of her father, “Papa go home. Home papa. Home.”

And Sasuke can’t help but stand there and watch Naruto fall to his knees, his little girl in his arms as he peppers her with kisses and tells her how much he loves her. And suddenly he aches so thoroughly that he has the urge to run, but not away. No, he wants to run straight back to Konoha and embrace his daughter and kiss his wife and tell them that he’ll never leave their side and that he’ll always be there to protect them.

But he doesn’t.

And he can’t.

And he isn’t.

And the sudden awareness of their absence in his life leaves him feeling like he’s just realized how hollow he is. And heavens does it hurt.

“Sasuke,” Naruto looks up through his tears and smiles. And it’s a smile so pure and so different that Sasuke’s sure he’s never seen it, but he understands where it comes from, and in that moment Sasuke knows that despite the ache he feels, he doesn’t need to worry.

Because he knows that Naruto would do anything to protect his family.

Just like Sasuke would for him.

It’s with that knowledge that eventually he has the courage to turn back around and keep moving forward.

[siren-dragon]

A Maiden’s Kiss (Ardyn Izunia x Reader) oneshot

Hey Everybody!

So recently, @poisonous-panda had an anon request about Ardyn’s S/O turning into a 3-year-old. And the more I thought of it, a story soon began to take shape. So thank you Panda, for the mention! ^_^

Also, whoever the anon was that sent that request, I hope you like this story too. Anyway, let’s get this show started!

It was an accident.

Well, to be honest, it was an avoidable accident that held an interesting outcome; but an accident nonetheless. It was common knowledge that, when one was faced with a daemon, to be on high alert. Not only were said monsters incredibly strong and difficult to kill, but they possessed a numerable amount of offensive abilities that left….interesting effects upon their victims. An effect you had the displeasure of experiencing first-hand.

It had occurred during a standard assignment you and Aranea both received from your current employer: Ardyn Izunia; the Chancellor of Niflheim. And while your fellow mercenary found the eccentric and flamboyant man to be tad bit over-bearing (to put it kindly), you found his personality to be quite charming. He was not the standard “uptight, wealthy, know-it-all snob” that you had dealt with many a time, and the change was quite refreshing. So, when you entered his current “office” at Fort Vaullery, the magenta-haired politician gave a cheerful smile at your arrival.

“Ah, Commodore Highwind and Captain (l/n); a pleasure to see you both once more ladies.”

“What is it that you want this time, Izunia?” Aranea spoke, never one for ideal chit-chat.

“I’m afraid it is a less than favorable task this time, and involves harvesting more delightful specimens for our dear researchers back in Gralea. And fear not ladies, the nearest daemon will be more than adequate.”

“Of course, Chancellor,” you answered politely.

Ardyn’s eyes lingered upon you for a split second, a smirk tugging at his lips. “I eagerly await your success. Enjoy the hunt ladies.~”

“Ugh, that man is unbearable,” Aranea tsked as soon as the two of you were out of earshot of his office.

“Come on Aranea, we’ve had worst clients. Remember that Altissian who paid you to be his bodyguard 24/7 because he said the Mob was after him. And then he ended up using that time to simply introduce you as his girlfriend to his family and friends.”

The ivory-haired dragoon shuddered in disgust. “At least I got extra paid for that.”

“Right after you broke his nose.”

Arriving to the main gate, Aranea readied the soldiers while you prepared the vehicles and supplies you would be needing in the convey. Biggs and Wedge had already geared up and ready for the drive to your new harvest location: Fociaugh Hollow. By the time you arrived at the entrance of the large cavern, twilight was fast approaching as the sun set behind the tree line. Immediately the soldiers began setting up light fixtures to beat back the roaming daemons, transport containers, camping equipment, and so on. At 20:00 PM, you readied your bow and double-checked your armor before following your friends and fellow soldiers-for-hire down into the darkness of the cavern.

The job was a rather simple one, lure daemons out and incapacitate them before readying their transport back to an Imperial Base and from there; to Gralea. It was a task you performed constantly, and got good money for due to it’s more hazardous nature. Yet you couldn’t help the bad feeling that unsettled your stomach like a pre-meditated warning….You should have listened to your gut.

“Did you ‘ear that?” Biggs spoke, glancing around the cave.

“Hear what?” Aranea asked, raising her lance. 

“It sounded like…crying, or something.”

Wedge frowned, “I hear it too. It’s coming from over there….”

You held still and listened, hearing what sounded like a person groaning within the shadows. Wedge lifted his torch higher to see further into the darkness to find the noise’s source. The soft groaning soon turned to hissing, causing your eyes to widen in fear.

“Wedge, get down!” You shouted, knocking your friend and colleague to the floor just as a large, serpentine tail appeared from the darkness. It immediately grabbed hold of your ankle and dragged you backwards, causing you to yell in anger and panic as you tried to pry yourself free. Raising your torch upon the creature that currently held you captive, you gazed upon a massive Naga daemon that glared down upon you.

”Where….My baby….” The daemon groaned.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you….” You replied nervously, reaching for the dagger you kept strapped to your thigh.

The daemon hissed angrily at you, saliva dripping from it’s gapping maw. ”Oh, but you can….by BECOMING THEM!”

Quickly you stabbed the Naga’s tail, causing it to wail in pain as you scrambled to your feet and sprinting away. The Naga screamed in rage at you, a green cloud of mist enveloping you. Slowly you felt your eyes become heavy before you fell to the ground; the world fading the black.

When next you awoke, you found yourself within what appeared to be a bed within the Medical Wing of what you assumed was an Imperial base. Slowly you sat up, trying to remember the events of the previous evening before cursing loudly. That damn Naga appeared out of nowhere and you only hoped that Aranea and the others were alright.

“Now, now; there is no need for such language, my dear.”

You looked toward your left to see Ardyn standing within the doorway, his lips twisted into a smirk that appeared as if he was trying to prevent himself from laughing. It was a curious expression to see on your employer’s face, seeing how you only saw him wear a smirk so often it seemed apart of his face. He sauntered over to you, sitting within the chair that resided at your bedside. “I trust you are feeling well, Captain (l/n).”

“I suppose, though my memories of last night are rather hazy,” you replied, looking up at him. Strange…has he always been so tall?

”Is there anything that you can recall? The Commodore could only explain so much.”

You frowned, trying to recall the events of the previous evening. “….We encountered a Naga within Fociaugh Hollow and it tried to capture Wedge, though I pushed him out of the way and it grabbed me instead. And then…it spoke, asking for its child. Afterward I tried to flee but then…it attacked me and then I passed out.”

Ardyn nodded, listening intently to your story; though his smirk seemed to grow larger and larger. As if he was holding out a punch line on a joke only he was privy to. “You had the misfortune of having a Toad Curse placed upon you. However,” he spoke, taking hold of a small hand mirror that rested on the bedside table; “it seems to have left an interesting effect upon you.”

Taking hold of the offered mirror, you flipped it over to look at your reflection only to scream in horror at the sight that awaited you. A young girl, who looked no older than a 3-year-old, stared back at you with the same expression while Ardyn laughed.

“I hate this.” You grumbled, seething with barely repressed anger.

“I’m sorry Captain, it should have been me.” Wedge spoke, nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

Aranea shook her head, “what’s done is done, and there’s no use blaming yourself Wedge.”

You sighed, giving Wedge a wry smile. “It’s alright Wedge, I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“And I’m sorry to say this (f/n), but you won’t be able to leave the fort in your, err…condition. The effect should wear off, but until then you’ll be stuck here.” Aranea said, kneeling next to you with a smirk. “Besides, who would have thought you were such a cute kid.”

“Thanks,” you groaned, swatting away her hand as she tried to ruffle your hair. “I’ll see you all later.”

You watched your friends (though Aranea refuses to use that term) leave for another daemon harvest near Leide by Formouth Garrison, knowing it would be a while before they returned.

Due to your curious ailment, you were unable to leave the fort for your own safety. Several standby researchers have been trying to cure your ridiculous predicament, though the Maiden’s Kiss potion did nothing the change your physical appearance. So, you were placed under house-arrest until a cure could be created, or the curse eventually wore off. And you prayed to ever Astral there was, that it wouldn’t be for too long.

“Good morning, Captain (l/n), came the cheerful voice of Niflheim’s Chancellor. “I assume our dear Commodore has left already.”

“Unfortunately,” you sighed. “Meanwhile I am restrained to this damn compound because I lost over 2 feet of my height.”

“Oh? I did not see any difference.”

You tried to glare up at the magenta-haired man, your now childish face making the expression more of a pout. Ardyn laughed, “you are quite the adorable child, Captain.”

“I’ll just take that as a compliment. Now if you will excuse me Chancellor, I am returning to my room.”

“Oh, my dear (f/n), I am amazed at your reaction to this intriguing predicament of yours. Most people would be praising the Astrals on bended knee for a second-chance at childhood.” Ardyn spoke, easily keeping pace with you.

“I am not most peop- AHHHH! Wh-what are you doing?!” you exclaimed, feeling your feet leave the ground as you were lifted into the air.

“I have a few errands to attend to in Lestallum, and I wish for you to join me. Though you don’t truly have a choice, seeing how I am your employer.”

“And what if I refuse?….” you asked.

He grinned deviously down at you, “than you will leave me know choice but to use some unsavory methods….”

You swallowed nervously, held tightly within Ardyn’s arms before his left hand came forward and begun tickling you mercilessly. He watched in amusement as you laughed loudly while his fingers danced across your small body. You felt tears begin to stream down your face while your face flushed red. “Ahahahaha! O-Okay, I agree! Ahahaha! I’ll g-go with you!”

“Excellent, my dear!” Ardyn replied cheerfully. “Shall we be off?”

You walked beside Ardyn down the Main Street of Lestallum, watching children play hide and seek as music floated through the air from some nearby musicians. Running to keep pace with Ardyn’s long stride, you followed him to what appeared to be a restaurant. He pulled out your chair for you, causing you to blink in surprise before muttering a soft “thank you,” and sitting down.

“Your welcome, my dear,” he spoke.

“May I ask why we’re at a restaurant?” you asked, glancing around.

Ardyn shrugged, “I thought you’d enjoy a change in scenery. You were most likely losing all trace of your sanity locked within that metal prison.”

“So, you decided to take a girl who appears to be your daughter to lunch instead?”

He narrowed his eyes at you, causing a sly smile to pull across your face. Just as a waitress arrived at your table Ardyn gave the worker a charming grin. “I am sorry to disturb you, but can you please fetch a Children’s Menu.”

“Of course, sir.” The waitress nodded before rushing off.

You raised an eyebrow, “seriously?”

“What is the matter?” Ardyn asked, “the Children’s Menu is for myself.”

He couldn’t help but smile as you laughed aloud, disturbing every other customer.

After lunch, in which you had a simple soup with toasted bread and Ardyn had a Lestallum Curry Trio (complete with a swirly straw drink), the two of you continued walking through the city. You did ask Ardyn about his supposed “errand”, however he kept dodging the question, saying it can wait. It made you increasingly curious to see the Chancellor so…normal, and it made you a bit nervous.

As the sun progressed through the sky, Ardyn treated you to an entire day of activities. And despite the odd pairing you made, with him being a full-grown man and you being a full-grown woman within a toddler version of your body, the day was rather pleasant. Granted you couldn’t help but blush in embarrassment as he knelt before you to bequeath a single sylleblossom from a flower stand. However, you could make the infamous Chancellor chuckle as you danced with him to the melodies of Lestallum’s street musicians. It was one of the most enjoyable days you had, regardless of being mistaken of as a child or not.

“May I ask you a question?” you spoke, sitting on the Pegglar Outlook as you two watched the flames of the Meteor drift into the evening sky.

“I believe you just did,” Ardyn teased, “but you may ask another.”

“…you didn’t have an errand to run, did you?”

“On the contrary, my dear, I did. I simply chose to ignore it in favor of more enjoyable company.”

“Well, despite how strange our day was; or the fact that you tortured me with cruel and unusual punishments….I did enjoy myself.” You leaned forward a placed a gentle kiss upon his lips, “thank you Ardyn.”

Immediately a pale, green mist shrouded your body and you glanced down to see yourself returned to your original age and body. Ardyn blinked in surprise before a smirk came to his lips. “It seems the Frog Princess simply needed a kiss to cure her curse.”

“You know…I’m feeling a little green still. Perhaps I need another.” You spoke, smiling shyly.

“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” He grinned before your lips met his.

[ao3-hipster-fangirl-trash]

"No."

Ok so i have this idea or Stafou where lefou wants to prove he deserves to be part of the castle staff (even though everyone but him knows he does) so he just starts taking people’s work for them and overworking himself and Stanley can’t sleep one night and so he passes LeFou’s room and its like 3 in the morning and a light is on and so he goes to investigate and LeFou is working on idk something and stanley’s like its 3 in the morning you should be asleep he says i just need to finish some stuff so they don’t see me as the fool who blindly followed Gaston. His words are slurred and he’s swaying and exhausted out of his mind. Stanley’s like you need sleep and LeFou starts mumbling about how he has to prove he’s good enough and he’s not just Gaston’s idiot sidekick. Stanley’s reassuring him that no one thinks that and forces Lefou to sleep and explain the situation to all the people LeFou’s helping and wraps up his boyfriend and protects him.

Ok so quick information this is where Gaston didn’t fall when he shot the beast, instead he was restrained and eventually taken to court and hung for attempted murder, yup, my imagination yay!

Ngl i was listening to evermore through this whole thing and crying :’)

Warnings: self hate, hanging, descriptions of death

Aight, it’s here and queer, let’s get going shall me children

LeFou had never felt so disgusted with himself. The pure loathing of his own being was something that was foreign to him, who had always justified himself in one way or another.

The day of the hanging, he threw up.

It wasn’t that he had any pity for Gaston, he knew exactly what he did and how he had done it, the wrong which he had caused for so many people and how it had hurt them, but it was that it wasn’t quick.

LeFou didn’t know that if the neck wouldnt break, it he wasn’t dropped far enough, then it would take 20 minutes for the painfully elongated death to finally come to a halt. 20 minutes of jerking, choking and begging. 20 minutes of watching someone whom he had previously trusted watch him as the life faded from him. He would forever remember the look of fear that passed over Gaston’s face just as the life finally left his eyes.

The sickening thud as they him cut down didn’t help either, or that the villagers cheered.

When they returned to the castle, all he could do was put on a small smile, trying to blend in with the rest. Why wouldn’t he? The man who had manipulated him for years was finally gone from his life, yet he couldn’t seem to be happy.

The problem about being close with someone, is you only seem to stay because you have things which you believe to be similar with them, so of course, LeFou, being him, had somewhat seen himself in Gaston, and if they could cut him off, someone who had been involved with the village (albeit not positively) then what was stopping them from doing it to him?

Of course the first thing LeFou thought of was to work to show that he could help, that was why Gaston kept him around, he was a good worker, always had and always will be. If needs be, he would compromise his own health to get a job done, in some cases far too much, but a couple of day in bed would usually get him enough strength for the next job, and thus repeated the dangerous cycle over and over again. Not once had he broken it and he had the feeling that he wouldn’t ever again. This was evident when Mrs Potts came down his room with tea, seeming distracted.

“Is everything alright Mrs Potts?” She simply nodded and walked away hurriedly trying to get somewhere in a rush.

When he later saw her, she was in the library quickly stacking books. LeFou would sometimes come and try to read with Belle, he could now do it on his own so the library was a safe space for him, yet the din of books crashing to the floor and a horrified wail was not something that he was used to when going there.

Rushing in, he found Mrs Potts grappling for hundreds of leather bound pages that had scattered from one end of the room to the other, whilst trying to hold up a small bookcase which seemed to be trying to crush her.

After finally pulling the bookshelf back to its original position LeFou made the bold move of asking Mrs Potts what on earth was wrong.

“I can’t seem to do it!” she wailed, grabbing her tea towel which always hung on her apron and whipping it out, to rub at one of the tables for some reason.

“What can’t you do Mrs Potts?” Lefou inquired, taking a tentative step towards her.

“Greek!” she screamed, turning once more and almost catching LeFou with her towel.

“Pardon?”

“Greek! I don’t know greek and half of these cursed things are. Some ambassador lad from Greece is coming to meet the prince and of course i have to write between him and the Master, so of course i don’t know greek or what to do,” at this point, she had collapsed onto the floor with her head in her hands and tears falling down her face.

“I know greek.”

Mrs Potts looked up to LeFou with a questioning look. “What?”

“I know greek.” he replied.

It wasn’t a lie, LeFou really did know greek. He had a friend in the army who only knew the language and of course in his free time got lessons from others, wanting to understand more about the questionable gentleman. Naturally he had picked it up quite quickly, much like reading, and had even taken a couple of lessons with Belle every now and then.

Mrs Potts still looked confused.

“I could do the corresponding,” he sighed, knowing what was about to happen, “i could write what the master wants me to write and i could do it in greek.”

Mrs Potts gave a squeal of joy, and tackled LeFou in a hug, squeezing him close to her.

“Oh you are a darling aren’t you!”

From then on the jobs just grew.

Researching recipes in the library, helping out with the washing and cleaning the stables, even helping Lumiere with lighting the candles before any ball.

Between all of these jobs, LeFou never really had any time to eat, or sleep, or do anything for that matter. It had been weeks since he had met up with stanley, who was now serving as an apprentice for Madame Garderobe, and days since he had even had a moment to spare for himself, yet all to help the staff and get into their favor. Anytime he felt himself slacking, he remembered the rope around Gaston’s neck, the look of fear, then the emptiness, and that was motivation enough, on any day.

He wasn’t sure what time it was when Stanley stopped by, but it had definitely been past dinner, and even past midnight when he heard a familiar knock on the door, and a creak which he had grown used to.

He usually had warning when Stanley came to visit, maybe an ‘on va ce voir ce soire’ when they passed in the corridor, yet when the knock came, he found himself scrambling to remove the scraps of paper from his desk, sweeping them to one side and messily arranging them to be in some sort of an order which could be deemed presentable.

By the time the door had opened, LeFou had just realised that the mess in his room could not be fixed with a quick spruce up.

The food which Mrs Potts had brought to him that morning was sitting, cold and forgotten in one corner, ink had spilled all over the floor at some point and so many different pages were scattered around, in fact LeFou wasn’t completely sure how he had functioned in this mess until now.

Stanley stood at the door smiling to himself, until he turned and saw LeFou standing in the bombshell which had gone off around him.

“Mon dieux, mon amour what happened?” he looked appalled, and ran up to lefou, sweeping his hair from his face and bringing him closer.

“Are you ok?” he brought LeFou away to inspect him.

LeFou simply shrugged, unsure of how to answer him.

“I think so… why?” he looked up at stanley to see pure worry in his eyes, and felt himself melt slightly at the beautiful brown orbs which had captured his.

“Mon amour it looks like you’ve been awake for days,” stanley replied, still searching LeFou’s face for any sort of injury.

LeFou sighed, dropping his shoulders and shaking his head.

“I have.”

Stanley looked up.

“What.”

LeFou closed his eyes as he felt the tears welling up behind his lids.

“I’ve been awake for days. I can’t sleep.”

He waited for it, the remark, the one that Gaston usually made about how he should stay up more to get work done, or how if he ate as much as he slept, everything would be balanced, or some sort of insult which made him feel worse and worse every time.

Instead he heard a soft sigh which sounded suspiciously like he was asking something.

“Why?”

LeFou felt one of the tears fall, then another, and another and one more, until they had begun a steady steam. He began sobbing and felt his knees give way, as he clung to Stanley who had knelt with him, holding tightly to his jacket and buried his face in the collar.

He had reached his limit.

All those nights of sleeplessness, the lack of food, even just the lack of human contact was enough to drive several men mad, yet it only seemed to hurt LeFou, never stop him, not once.

In all that time, Stanley stayed, rubbing his back as he cried into his shirt, whispering encouraging words to him and giving him small kisses to his cheeks, which only prompted him to cry more. In all his time he had never known such kindness until it was exposed to him in that moment.

He sniffled and sobbed, wailed and whined until he was too dehydrated to let any more water fall from his eyes, and yet still clung to stanley as if he were a lifeline, keeping him from joining Gaston in whatever afterlife may await him.

When LeFou finally calmed down, he sat back, and let his head drop slightly, wiping the snot from his nose.

Stanley simply sat, opposite him with a look of utmost sympathy framing his face, and what could have been seen as fear to what LeFou could possibly do to himself.

“Why would you do this to yourself?” He whispered tentatively, reaching out to hold onto LeFou’s hand gently.

LeFou sniffed.

“If they did it to him, why not do it to me?”

A look of confusion passed over Stanley’s face, before understanding settled in.

“Gaston.”

LeFou nodded.

Finally, Stanley knew why. He knew why LeFou was overworking himself to the bone, why he had let himself get so involved in the work which he had taken up, and why he didn’t care if he compromised his health and why he stayed up so late to finish it, because he thought that he was expected to. He thought that if he didn’t, people would see him as worthless. Because if he didn’t, he thought they would see that he thought he was similar to Gaston, and, god forbid, they believed he was like Gaston and did to him what they did to the villain.

Stanley reached out and grabbed LeFous other hand, and brought them to his lips. He placed a small kiss on each then pulled LeFou physically closer, and lay his chin upon his forehead.

“Etienne?”

LeFou nodded.

“If you were anything like him, would you have been offered a room in the châteaux?”

LeFou froze, contemplating the question asked.

“And would Mrs Potts have brought you breakfast every morning?”

LeFou shook his head.

“And would I be in this room letting you snot all over my jacket?”

At this, LeFou gave a giggle and shook his head again.

Looking up to Stanley, LeFou gently whispered out one word.

“No.”

Stanley smiled.

“Now remember that word,” LeFou nodded, “and reply to my next question with it.”

LeFou, confused, complied.

“Now, mon amour, are you anything like Gaston.”

LeFou let out an enormous grin.

“No.”

[chaiteakusuri]

Running with a Ghost Chapter 4

Chp1, Chp2, Chp3, Read Chapter 4 on my Ao3

Chapter 4: Ghostly Turns of Phrase

               Alfred sat at work, in the meeting room with bags under his eyes, an exhausted demeanor to replace his usual happy one, and a conscience that was as clear as mud.                About half a week had passed since Alfred’s run in with the ghost and he hadn’t been able to rest peacefully since; not only because of the encounter, but because Matthew’s words were weighing on him more heavily than Alfred had anticipated they would. Alfred really had just screamed at it- him and ran away.

               And now he couldn't’ stop thinking about it.

               The last time Alfred had felt this guilty, he had been in middle school and accidentally dumped a vat of quick-drying glue on a poor classmate of his. Wanting to distract himself, Alfred attempted to invest himself in eavesdropping on the conversation going on while they all waited for today's meeting to begin.

               “I’m starving; all I had to eat today was some burnt ghost.” Alfred listed to someone say, causing him to choke on the sugary coffee drink he’d been nursing slowly for the last hour.

               “W-What?” Alfred asked between coughs.

               “Oooh, don’t be so surprised that Arthur burnt his toast.” another co-worker replied to Alfred with a snicker. Oh. Toast, Alfred thought, the tension in his shoulders dissipating.  

               “Sod off.” Arthur spat, “I forgot about it.” he added, defending himself.

               “Those toaster ovens have a ‘toast’ setting, you know.” the co-worker retorted, jeering at the Briton.

               “Sod. Off.” he repeated with more bite.

               “Just have that boyfriend of yours make you food, Arthur.” Alfred heard someone say before he turned his attentions to something else.

               Minutes passed and, thankfully, the American would think, the meeting started.

               However, Alfred quickly found that he couldn’t seem to escape the idea of ghosts, let alone his fear of them.

               “Alfred.” The meeting head spoke, capturing everyone’s attention as the entered the room. “Today we’re going to discuss possible ways for us to work through the problems we’re facing with the Florist project we’re working on.”

               At least he would be able to take his mind of the ghost while he was at work, Alfred thought while pulling a portfolio out of his bag.

               “Shall we?” The head asked, and thusly, the meeting began.

               Only an hour later, not even close to their first break, Alfred found himself beginning to slump in his office chair; this project didn’t really seem to need the Labor relations branch very much, not today, anyway.

               Alfred normally enjoyed when he would have an easy day at work, but not today. Having on easy day meant that he could let his mind wonder now and again; letting his mind wonder means his thoughts would return to the ghost; and thinking about the ghost only served to make the American all the more uncomfortable in his already uncomfortable office chair.

               And, despite his efforts not to, his mind did return to thoughts of the ghost.

               It was real; horrifically real, Alfred thought to himself, chewing worriedly on the side of his thumb. Alfred wanted it to be fake; on lord in heaven how he wanted it to have been fake, but Alfred knew it was real. He didn’t want it to be, but it just had to be.

               “I was the one being a dick, not him...” Alfred thought, the words of his brother ringing through his mind.

               “Maybe that ghost just wanted to be your friend or something.” Alfred heard Matthew say in his mind. He frowned, furrowing his brow just before being turn from his thoughts.

               “Alfred!” The American heard his British co-worker hiss as he gave the younger man a quick jab in the ribs.

               “Ow!?” Alfred cried, giving Arthur an irritated look.

               “Isn’t that right, Labor relations?” Arthur asked, nodding Alfred’s attention towards the meeting head, successfully throwing the American under the bus.

               “U-Uh.” Alfred stuttered, worry and confusion owning the blonde’s expressions. Upon seeing the almost tangible confusion on the man's face, the head repeated the statement that essentially got him into this mess:

               “We won’t be giving up the ghost on this project anytime soon, now will we, Mr. Jones?” they asked, effectively shocking the American.                “G-Ghost?” Alfred echoed, intelligibly, looking at the head with growing alarm. The head blinked, chuckled softly, and shook their head; Alfred was lucky that the head had a good sense of humor.

               “Yes, Alfred, you’re “Ghost relations manager” as of right now.”

               “Ghost relations!?” He gasped, echoing once more in shock.

               “Lord, you really were distracted.” Arthur said, “Ghost movies again?” he jested, the joking falling flat for his friend.

               “Thank you for, at least, making this morning amusing, Labor relations.” The head said, giving the flustered blonde a smile. “I think we’ll all start our morning break a little early today everyone; how about you take up the idea of more coffee, eh, Alfred?” They asked.

               “Y-Yeah.” Alfred muttered with much chagrin, his face burning with embarrassment as their break began.

               ---------------

               During their 15-minute break while Alfred tried to recover from the embarrassment he subjected himself to, he allowed himself to listen to the conversation Arthur was having with another co-worker. But, to Alfred’s great displeasure, the idea resurfaced in a fresh, new, format mere seconds after he clued himself in to their conversation.

               “Hey, I heard that that ‘Hayes’ author you seem to like so much is actually using a ghost writer.” they said, intent on gauging the Briton’s reaction, but, Alfred reacted first.

               “Oh my God.” Alfred said, scared tension in his voice, “You gotta be kidding me!”

               “Quite so!” Arthur chimed in, not catching the true reason why the tension was in his friend's voice. “There’s not a ghost of a chance that she uses a ghost writer!”

               “Agh!” Alfred cried in agitation and dismay. He snatched up his phone, stood himself up, and promptly excused himself from the room, desperate to get away from the topic. “I can’t believe this!”

               “I concur!” Alfred heard Arthur say on his exit, “the very idea is simply beyond me!” Arthur said in a huff, under the assumption that Alfred was sharing his disbelief about the author rather than ghosts.

               Alfred walked down the hallway a ways before stopping and leaning against the corridor wall in dismay. “I’m cursed.” Alfred through to himself. “I’m cursed.”

               Alfred spent the remaining minutes of their morning break where he leaned against the wall, scrolling through social media to distract himself. But, unfortunately for the American, no amount of cat videos and silly dogs were proving able enough to distance his thought from it- from the ghost.

               Alfred shook his head; he wasn’t going to think about this, not now- never again if he had it his way. “Ahg, c’mon.” Alfred grumbled to himself as he returned to the meeting room, dead set on preventing the ghostly thoughts from surfacing again. Alfred even decided to take notes on the meeting upon returning to his seat. As the meeting began once more, Alfred pulled out a notebook to solidify his chances.

               The second half of the meeting went as well as Alfred hoped it would, much to the man’s delight. Alfred had been more focused and up to speed with the progression of their current project than he had been in weeks- and now he had notes about everything!

               “This must be what it’s like to be a good worker.” Alfred though, an amused smile playing across his face with a soft snicker. They were halfway through the day now; halfway through the day meant lunch! Alfred stood up, intent on heading to the break room to fetch his lunch when he overheard another conversation between Arthur and someone else.

               “What’s that you got there for lunch, Arthur? Just a lame old sandwich?” they wondered, sounding bewildered, “I thought you were dating a chef!” they exclaimed. “Are you sure he’s not ghosting you?” They asked while leaning against the tabletop.

               Arthur scoffed with disgust he made no attempt at hiding; he huffed and nodded in agreement with an appalled sound from Alfred that rang through the meeting room. “You’re being quite irksome today, aren’t you?” The Briton asked, giving the co-worker a displeased look

               “I can’t believe this! God!” Alfred cried, holding his head in his hands- just how many phrases are there in the English language about ghosts?!

               “That’s right!” Arthur huffed, feeding off Alfred’s energy, “Francis would never do that to me! The nerve of it!”

               Alfred groaned, beginning to believe that he’d really been cursed. With that, Alfred made a quick exit from the meeting room.

               “You all met Francis once, stop making assumptions about him!” Alfred heard Arthur huff angrily as he exited the room.

               The tail end of the work day seemed to drag on for days rather than hours; Alfred even stopped bothering with note taking: what was the point of using notes to distract himself if his thoughts- willing or otherwise- would just end up on the ghost once more? Alfred was made exhausted by a normal work day and couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment.

               Alfred almost wailed when ghosts were brought up at the very end of the meeting; there was no escape or end it seemed. Alfred was tempted to ask his co-workers to refrain from bringing up the subject, but refrained, the idea of being the butt of workplace jokes twice in one day not appealing very much to the American.

               Alfred already was ‘Manager of Ghost relations’ after all. And right now, all the Manager of Ghost Relations wanted to do was go to his ghost free home, have some ghost free dinner, and play some ghost free video games.

[nugget-lover-boy-draws]

so what i put below the read more is a collection of blurbs i wrote for a story i had, but i wrote them whenever i was very depressed. all of them are not happy, but i’ve put enough plot points in them for them not to be too confusing. 

i’ve not put these here for any other reason other than to just put them out there. i’ve had these personal for a long time, but i just want them to float on the internet. 

warning: these do get dark and there are some detailed descriptions of gore and depressive thoughts and language.

There was too much blood, too many warm colors. Too much pink of Jacy’s exposed muscle and black of his burnt flesh. It was all Malachi saw, but yet two pure white eyes stared back at him. Those foggy orbs were bright and clear, a complete contrast to everything around them. What made Malachi die inside was the happiness that danced in them.

Jacy was smiling, despite everything. There was a hole where his heart should be, only some of his skin still held on, death was getting nearer- yet he smiled. Malachi held him in his arms, the wet, squishy shell of his partner while he saw time flow steadily before him. He didn’t try to fight the inevitable, but clung to the now and tried to stay strong for Jacy. With all his lover had done for him, he at least owed him this.

He knew how to kill a Wendigo. Rip their heart out and burn it; burying it and the body was just extra precaution. That was how you officially killed one, and Malachi knew that is what happened to Jacy. He knew his partner didn’t have one chance of living, so he knew he had to be the best he could in these final moments. Yet, Jacy talked like Malachi didn’t just pull him out of a burning abandoned mental hospital, like he still has his heart in his chest.

“All these years I never thought death could reach me. I believed this curse would follow me until this planet burns out. But it’s here, and it’s beautiful. I can finally be free of my inner torment. I can have the freedom I’ve dreamed of, but... The only thing I regret...” Jacy’s head slowly turned to look at him again, the smile leaving his lips. Color slowly returned to his partner’s irises again, letting Malachi see the swirl of brown that had captured him many times before. Jacy’s hand twitched its way to the human’s face and settled on his cheek. Malachi cupped the burned, wet hand in response and tears finally started falling.

“Is t-that I-I..-” Jacy coughed and spit up more blood that should have stayed in his body. “That I am not… With you.”

Malachi cried silently, keeping a good grip on the hand on his cheek, breaking, as it was slowly losing to gravity. Jacy stared at him long enough for the human to think he passed, but a phrase he had heard countless times before reached his ears. The words that Jacy had said before he went back to his time, words he said as they laid in bed for hours, when they went on hunts, when they were alone, when they were in public. The phrase had lost its value over time, but that phrase meant more to him now than ever. The words ‘I love you’ in his partner’s native language.

Malachi didn’t have much time until Jacy’s hand went fully limp in his.

He didn’t know how long he cried in that position with Jacy’s body slowly going cold and drying up. He didn’t stop wailing and screaming until he could no longer form a sound, until no more tears came. He sat back and rested Jacy’s head between his crossed legs, petting what was left of his hair just like they did to each other not even two months ago. He brushed his knuckles over Jacy’s cracking cheeks just like he did so many times before. He tried humming the tune Jacy had taught him, but his vocal chords were unresponsive.

He sat there for years and minutes, but only moved when the world around him shifted.

“You know that Destiel is totally canon; you literally can’t deny it, like seriously!”

The TV was playing Supernatural and Jacy was waving his arms wildly. Everything was warm and comforting, Jacy’s soft hair in his fingers and familiarity of their apartment. How long had it been?

He stilled and fought to understand which was reality. Jacy’s hair in his hand and the weight of his head on his lap felt very real, but so did his death. Everything felt strange and bile started to rise in his throat.

His partner’s head tilted back in his lap and looked up with a confused expression, “Hey, you okay?”

Malachi didn’t respond, but looked at Jacy with an intense stare. He studied the other’s features and tried to figure out what was real, but was halted when Jacy lifted his hand. The finger that Jacy raised to poke into his chest passed through him as the world blew away like smoke.

Jacy’s bloody, broken body still rested in his lap, his fingers stuck in the Native American’s hair.

“Oh… Oh my God!” A shrill voice echoed from behind him. He knows that voice.

Before Selene can say or do anything else, Malachi moved. He slowly and carefully places his partner’s head on the floor and places both crumbling hands on his still-damp chest. He ignores the stiff dryness of his pants as he stands up and faces the woman.

“M-my god, what happened?”

Malachi suddenly remembers how Jacy died, or, how he was murdered. By the man that laid not even three meters away.

Immediately, a searing rage engulfed him and he didn’t think straight anymore. Other urges inside him that he never knew he had manifested and sunk their claws into his brain. He heard his blood boil in his ears and felt a sweeping rush sear through him, like something inside him just unleashed itself. He was moving and suddenly the petrified face of Simon was in front of him, the bastard’s neck held tight in Malachi’s hand. He lifted the man with such an ease he’d never experienced before and enjoyed the writhing the pitiful, damned man tried.

Malachi felt something within him grow and strive, slither and come to light. He felt such urges, familiarity and power that would have overwhelmed him had he not had a clear task at hand. Such thoughts and instincts of an animal raced around his head and he couldn’t tell which idea he liked better. Suddenly, everything gained a clarity and he was acutely aware of everything going on. He could feel Selene’s horrified aura behind him and the pure terror that radiated from the man in his hand.

Blood began to swell in Simon’s eyes as he started violently convulsing. One of his eyes deflated and a black-speckled, clear substance poured down his cheek. Simon’s mouth opened and his tongue shot out, slowly getting longer and longer. Blood steadily started dripping down his jaw and onto the cold, concrete ground as he heard the ripping from the other man’s mouth. Malachi could understand that he was the one doing this, but it was far too satisfying to stop and figure out how a human could tear a man apart with his mind.

A cut appeared on each cheek and slowly grew larger, the skin slowly peeling back to expose pink, bloody flesh. Just how Jacy looked. Looks.

Soon and fulfilling, Simon’s face was being pulled back while the sorry piece of existence was still breathing. He should fix that.

Soon, two loud pops sounded from Simon’s throat and his breathing was replaced by what sounded like wrinkling tin foil as he tried to suck in breaths with his now deflated lungs.

Malachi let go of the man’s neck and found himself impressed at how Simon stayed suspended in air. He watched as his thoughts pushed Simon back until he was pressed against the wall, and smiled as the other’s arms stretched wide. The instruments that he used to cut open Jacy levitated up and shot themselves into the man’s hands, now suspending him like a brutal reincarnation of Jesus’ crucifixion. Before Malachi let the man fully die, Simon’s chest ripped open and Malachi pinned the flaps of skin to the wall with more scissors, scalpels, and other blades. Immediately, his guts fell to the floor in an ugly heap.

The moment Malachi did this, Simon stopped moving, but he didn’t stop his fun because of it. One by one he plucked a rib bone from its place and stabbed them into random parts of his body. His lungs hung like deflated balloons. Malachi noticed the flaps of skin pulled back on his face were hanging in an ungraceful way, so he fixed that by ripping them off completely and pinning the skin on the wall above Simon like a grotesque trophy.

Suddenly, an anguished cry rang out from behind him and he remembered Selene was here. The urges he felt just moments before dissipated like ashes in the wind. He turned and stared at the woman, seeing her cup her mouth and cry, shaking violently. She sank to her knees and sobbed, but only then did Malachi feel again. His heart throbbed and he found himself falling to his knees as well, all the immense power he felt left him in an instant.

..oo0oo..

“Malachi, stop!” He wouldn't have listened, but Selene cast a charm to make him immobile. He grew angrier at her interference, but didn't break out, even though he knew he could. She approached him and stood tall in his face, but he could pick out the lingering fear in her eyes.

“What are you doing, Malachi?” She asked. He was about to reply with something along the lines of, ‘What I've been craving.’, but she continued. “What would Jacy think of this? What would he think of what you're doing right now?”

“I'm avenging him!” He screamed, anger bubbling through his being. He brushed off the charm and walked forewords, glaring at Selene. She backed up, but didn't lose her composure.

“You avenged him when you skinned Simon alive. Now you're just killing innocent people because something in you broke beyond fixing.” He didn't know how to respond, so she ignored his silence and continued.

“Jacy spent his entire life saving people from bad guys, and what do you think he'd feel if he knew you became one of them, huh? He gave everything he had to make sure people were safe, and you're throwing away all his life’s work by doing this. If you keep going like this, then you didn't care about him at all.”

Malachi felt tears fall down his cheeks and the hole in his heart throb. Her words echoed in his head and a battle started taking place behind his eyes. He was losing the part of him that could differentiate right from wrong, but the part of him that fought alongside Jacy had been screaming at him ever since he first killed an innocent. He felt the need to kill, but somewhere he knew he shouldn't be.

He fell to his knees, surrounded by desperation and agony. He looked up to the blurry ceiling as Selene followed him and wrapped him in her embrace. He cried and screamed as a flurry of repressed emotions finally came through.

“I'm losing myself, Selene. Everything is slipping and I can't hang on. I can't do this; it's so hard to continue. I want to kill myself so badly, but something inside me always stops. I kill other people because it soothes me for a while, but it's not enough. It's smothering me and I can't do this.”

By the end of the vocalization of his emotional turmoil, Selene’s green shirt was ripped by his clenched fists and his head was spinning. Her arms were tight around him, the only thing keeping him from collapsing. She didn't say anything for a long while, but eventually started humming a familiar tune.

His heart sung along and he started wailing. He tried to push Selene away, but she held firm and continued the melody. He gave up and just laid there in her arms, listening to the song that Jacy had sung to him.

Her fingers danced through his dirty and greasy hair, and he soon met darkness.

I miss him too.

When he woke up, he felt almost at peace. He recognized the smell of cinnamon and the soft purple walls of Selene’s house. He was wrapped up in a handmade, quilted blanket and was lying on her living room couch. Other than getting up and assessing the situation, he elected to lay there. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do because that hollow, dark part of him still persisted, but the human part of him was stronger now.

..oo00oo..

The ocean lapped at his bare feet, the warm wind hugged him and blew his hair around his face; it was a most peaceful, innocent thing, but the familiarity sent unpleasant shivers down his spine. He could imagine Jacy swimming out in the distance, happily yelling and giggling. His partner always had an infatuation with water and absolutely loved the ocean, which is probably why Malachi chose this spot. He didn’t deserve this good of a place, but it was the only place he felt most guilty. None of the other places he tried really pushed him over the edge into despair like this one.

He absentmindedly wrapped the thick, rustic chain around his neck and secured it strongly as he thought about old memories. The old chain was heavy and scratchy around his exposed flesh, but he didn't feel uncomfortable. If anything, he was at peace. This feeling must have been what Jacy experienced as his smiling self died in Malachi’s arms. Completely at peace with everything.

He stared at the mix of pinks and oranges on the horizon as he began treading on the water towards it. He stared at the swirl of cool mixing with warm, casting such a wondrous glow on his skin, he was reminded on how beautiful the world can be. The beautiful world that he tried to destroy.

The ocean was cool, but he didn't mind; the sunset was warm and welcoming enough. It was like Jacy had painted it just for him. Like Jacy was making this night pure and beautiful just for him; just for his broken self. Trying to provide solace for the lost.

He hoped Selene wouldn't take his sudden absence too badly since he wasn't going to come back from this. He already apologized enough in the letter wrote for her, so she didn't need to come for him. There was nothing left of him left worth saving. Anything good about him had withered away ever since Jacy died, and no matter how hard he tried to cling to his sanity for everyone’s own good, he didn’t succeed. His morals slipped between the gaps in his fingers as he tried to bury his feelings six feet under.

He tried to put up a good front for Selene these past couple years. At first he was perfect at it, it was just like slipping into another form of mind, the one he had before Jacy was murdered. But as his mental health dwindled, that front was harder to put on. His ability to feel had crumbled to the point where he couldn’t convincingly react to things like he would before. Out of all of this, he was able to feel only a few things. Anger, pain, and emptiness.

When he wasn’t putting up a front for Selene, he was out. Or, more specifically, taking people out, and he wasn’t talking about dates. Malachi was in such pain and experiencing so much trauma, he didn’t want to be the only one with this torture.

At first, it had been innocents, random people he would snatch off dark streets when the pain got too much. He would tear them apart and cry the entire time, crying at the satisfaction he got from their terror and agony. He was so disgusted at himself for finding solace in killing innocent people, but eventually found that voice in his head was getting muffled every time he did it again. Soon, there was a name floating around the city. They called him the ‘Black Demon’.

Selene heard of this and was smart enough to put two and two together. He didn’t stop until she confronted him during one of his kills and reminded him of what Jacy lived for, what he fought for. Malachi spent a year murdering and mutilating innocent people while Jacy had spent centuries slaying the monsters that did exactly that. He became the creature that Jacy pledged himself to defeat.

After that, he stopped, from what Selene knew. He kept it up, but this time he found reason to kill people other than the rage and hurt in his soul. He preyed on the scumbags and criminals of the city and ripped them apart in the worst ways. He never cleaned his messes, so controversy started over the ‘Black Demon’ on which the murders were by the same man and if the Demon was good or not. Malachi knew which one he was.

He did this for two years, gained a mainly positive reputation, and played witness to what he was becoming and what he was doing. The agony was never going to end, and he knew that. If there was a Hell, he knew where he was spending eternity.

Despite this, he was happy with the current events, happy that he finally lost his fears and worries. He didn't feel the gut-wrenching terror he felt before, nor the warnings in his head that this was a bad idea and he should turn back now. He was empty, so it was about time he filled himself again.

However, he did make sure Selene knew how much he appreciated her efforts for him, how much he loved her and cherished her soul. He made sure she knew none of this was her fault; he didn't blame her. He didn't blame anyone anymore.

He focused once more on the darkening sunset, studying its brush of colors and swirl of clouds. It was one of the most beautiful things he'd seen, so ironic for the pitiful event he planned tonight. Yet, Malachi knew Jacy would have loved to have seen the distant view. He would have taken so many pictures and deleted them all because they ‘couldn't catch the essence’.

At the memory of Jacy scowling at his phone and complaining to him over the quality of the photos on it caused Malachi to stop. His heart dropped and he was disgusted that pain was almost the only feeling he had anymore.

He turned around and judged his distance from the shore. He walked maybe a mile, which would be good enough.

He looked to the large cinder block that floated next to him, the same chain around his neck looped through its holes. With the reality of his plan right before him, he understood he was not going back. It was time.

He faced the sunset once more, the orange and pink replaced with a variety of blues. The horizon glowed so comforting, he felt relaxed and reassured. He was welcomed, no matter how hellish his afterlife. He felt comfort in its presence, but was still aware of the chain hanging from his neck. He closed his eyes.

With goodbye on his lips and sorrow deep in his heart, he let the cinder block drop.

His body was ripped backwards and he instantly found himself plunged in the cool, salty waters of the ocean. He watched the bubbles from his nose and mouth rise to the surface that he was sinking from. He watched as darkness grew thicker and as pressure built in him. The leather of his long, black coat whipped at his sides and his hair moved in the same manner. As he sank deeper, the swelling in his head doubled, and then, there was nothing.

00-00-00-00

He woke up. Why did he wake up?

The smell hit him first. It was fresh like far in the woods where civilization never touched. It was crisp and old, but had a toxic edge.

Was he dreaming?

He opened his eyes. No, he couldn't be dreaming. It was like he opened his eyes into a video game, something of fantasy.

The walls surrounding him were made of wooden boards and all the supports were wood too, no windows to be found. An old cottage or cabin or sorts, and everything looked like it was brought from the Medieval Era. Just one large, single room. No electricity in sight, candles and lanterns took that place. There was a unique desk and chair with papers and books towering high. A small fireplace took residence near the bed.

He was cocooned in a heavy, quilted blanket on a wooden bed with a headboard so simple that he had to sit up and process better.

He looked around again, understanding the wool in his hands. The paintings that hung on the walls were just that- paintings; not printed or copied. There was enough of a draft to know that there wasn't insulation, but the ground was carpeted.

Suddenly, he realized why he wasn't freaking out at this new development. This place felt familiar, like a very distant memory. But there was still a very prominent concern.

He died. How was he here? This is some strange afterlife if that's the case.

He watched the covers pull away from his legs. So he still had that feat. He didn't have longer to think.

The large, wood door began to open and he stared intently, waiting for whoever to give him answers.

A petite, blonde woman stepped in. Her hair was pulled back into a fancy braid and her clothes confirmed he wasn't in his own world. She wore form-fitting, green cloth leggings that looked to be stitched up on both sides, shoes that mildly resembled that of a pilgrim, but without the large buckle on top, and a decorative white blouse.

"Oh, good. You're awake." Her voice and words contradicted her appearance. She didn't seem to be fazed by his presence, so he chose not to be either.

"Where am I?"

"Not avoiding the big question, huh? I can tell you one thing; you're alive."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Because the better question would be 'when are you', not 'where'. I believe I best explain."

He watched as she casually walked over to the desk, swung the chair around, and sat facing him, straddling the back rest.

"Everything you lived was an illusion. The world you lived in only existed in your head. You do not have a sister, you do not have those parents. You were born and raised here and put under a powerful sleep-hypnotic spell so we could advance your powers and mind faster. Being under the spell for so long has dwindled your memory of this place, but this is where you spent the majority of your life. I can promise you, you went under the spell willingly."

Malachi took a second to ponder the information. The world he experienced was fake; all the science and history wasn't actually true. So nothing he did before mattered? Interesting. Although, he still felt guilt.

"You're looking at 3002. Nuclear war set right after the little world you experienced wiped out plenty of the population. There was some truth to the world you were set in. Not everything was accurate, but that's the basics of our history. What you're seeing now is the slow recovery being set. And right now, war is on the horizon again, but this time it could wipe out the entire planet as a whole. We need warriors, and the fastest way to do that, Sebastian and I figured, was to make people like you age and develop in your own worlds faster than you would in this time. Think of it this way, 24 hours in your world was 1 minute in ours."

Malachi understood the information presented to him, but the reality still hurt.

"Am I the only one? No one in my world existed?"

She hesitated, but her face remained stern, crossing her arms on the top of the chair.

"No, actually. We discovered that by doing the ritual at the same time on people in close proximity actually made them share the same world. Jacy and Selene are real and alive, although Selene still is yet to awaken."

He looked at the soft, red carpet. All the agony he endured and caused was fake. His heart and mind tore themselves apart because of an illusion. Jacy's death wasn't real, but he spent three years believing it was, suffering the consequences of a mirage.

The image of Jacy's dead, burned, bloody body will never leave him, and all for him to develop into a cold, merciless warrior to fight a war he knows nothing about.

"I had to endure my mind shattering and my humanity falling to pieces because you need warriors to fight a war?"

"In our defence, that was never our intention. We did not expect you three to share a world, nor did we predict you would all meet at all or develop such bonds. We only have minimal impacts on your world, but the rest was up to the spell. You have my apologies, if we had known how Jacy's death would have affected you, we might have avoided it."

His blood boiled, "Might?"

"Yes. It was only after Jacy's death did your abilities awaken, of course at the cost of your mental health. All it usually takes is a small push like that. It's common for us to have to experience something traumatic before we unlock our assets. It is also what makes us perfect for war. We're colder, less hesitant to perform a needed slaughter of the enemy. When you were 20 in your world, your heart dropped at the thought of accidentally killing a dog. Now, you don't bat an eye at stringing up a rapist by his intestines in the woods. These are the people we need, not afraid to make the final blow. Of course, we also need leaders and other teammates, for we are only the hand that forces."

He understands, but he's not happy about it.

"What's this war about?"

She didn't skip a beat, talking like she's rehearsed.

"After the nuclear war, the people that survived started slowly noticing changes. Minor changes at first, then came the more drastic, noticeable effects. People that were closer to the blasts got it the worst, we call them Finsa. They are the very things children in your world feared in their closets. Their bodies mutated, and along with that, their minds. They're savage and animalistic, but a sense of mind still remains and that makes them dangerous. They can plan, understand, and ruin; they are predators, and we are their prey.

"The ones that were affected by the radiation a bit less are the Tvral. They are mutated, but still have many human characteristics. They have a more stable sense of mind, and can be our allies, or our enemies.

"And we, the Valran, have been affected the least. Minor physical changes and we have the most sensible mind, in my opinion. We usually have the most civilized communities and orderly conducts. You and Selene are Valran, Jacy is a Tvral. In his world, well, your world, he was able to shift between forms, Wendigo and human. We found that very surprising, since he does not have that ability to take a human appearance. What I'm telling you is that Jacy has the same mind he had in the world, just like you do, but he does not have the same appearance."

Malachi did not respond. He was still trying to get over the hurdle that Jacy was still alive, but now Jacy probably permanently looked like his true Wendigo form. He decided to ignore that.

"So why is there a war?"

"For a while, all of us had lived in moderate peace, as much as you can get with those savages trying to slaughter anyone that's not them. However, something started changing. The attacks on us started increasing. More travelers went missing, merchants not arriving, ambushes on smaller villages. They have become more skilled in murdering us. However, that was only the beginning.

"Recently, we found out why they've started growing in power. They have found a leader, one that has more power than all of us. He is grotesque and malicious, and he wants more than his minion army. We've heard whispers of his name- Galyisiam. He is a very real threat and if he gets what he wants, it's the end for all of us."

"So I can't kill myself again out of spite for all the shit thrust into my arms?"

"If you do, you might have just caused Hell on Earth. We need everyone we can get, especially with advanced powers as your own."

"So, in this world it's common for people to have powers?"

"Yes. Finsa are the most common to develop powers, which is a disadvantage to us. They're usually born with abilities, while us Valran have to awaken them, if we have any at all. If we Valrans do not possess any ability, we are able to pursue artificial magic, as I and Selene do. It's very difficult, and only looked to by the capable and daring, the rest are commoners or trained into the Order as Plavven- the common soldier.

"Those who are educated suspect that humans have always had the ability to do more than what our history speaks. Tales of monsters and of the supernatural might not have been as fiction as we all assumed, but the more we advanced, we grew farther from the truth. The radiation from the war might have gave the kick that we needed to unlock that tucked away potential."

She paused, watching him. He stared right back, now noticing the smaller features he didn't before. Her light skin tone was normal enough, but as he looked closer he could see her veins cast a subtle green hue. Her eyes were also lime green, along with her lips.

He stopped looking.

"The only way you were eligible to undergo the ritual was if you joined our organization. We breed soldiers that are strong and dependable to be on the front lines. We take the brunt of the enemy and actively search them out. We have connections and recruits that make us more of an army than a band of misfits that don't like to hide from danger.

"We are the soldiers of this army. Our boss is Commander Kellansei, he gives us orders and we complete them. And he takes orders from our big boss, Leader Sammiel. He has power over everyone here, but he's reliable."

She stood up, walking to the door. "I'll fetch you a meal while you process all you've heard. We'll head out and give you a run of the town later."

She shut the door behind her and silence greeted him again.

The moment he stood up, he fell to the floor. His shoulder smacked on the carpet and his head followed next.

..oo00oo..

Malachi tore the head off the Snivel, watching the dark creature slump to the ground and he dropped the elongated head next to it. The deformed head rolled next to the black, tar arm and faced up at him, eyes vacant and cold. He spared the monster only a glance before turning back into the woods. He planned to do more scouting and secure the area, however, he wasn’t alone.

“So you’re Worrin, Demon of the Shadows.” The voice was a mere whisper in the trees, sliding around him and coming from every angle. He stopped, focusing his mind to find the source. It was weird, like whoever was speaking was just the wind.

“I’d have thought you’d look different, you know. After waking up and donning a new identity. Old habits are hard to kick, I guess.” The voice circled around him and held his breath. He finally looked around, uselessly trying to find who was talking to him.

“Who are you?” He demanded, for once in a long time, feeling vulnerable. The voice didn’t respond, but he could still feel its presence around him. It was unnerving and he was preparing for a fight. Suddenly, it all gathered in one spot behind him.

“You didn’t come for me. You didn’t wait for me when they told you I was alive. You hid from everyone; you hid from me. Why?”

Malachi suddenly placed the voice. He knew who was behind him. He didn’t turn; he couldn’t. He didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say. However, he did hear Jacy gently and slowly approaching him.

“They told me what you did after I woke up. They told me what you were doing in our world. You- You’re not the same man I once knew, are you?” The Wendigo’s tone told Malachi that Jacy already knew the answer, told him it really wasn’t even a question. The words fell hard on his chest, but he swallowed the guilt.

“Ever since I woke up, a hole opened in my heart, though I know it’s not as vast as yours. I knew we would reunite, so I was able to tolerate the pain again, like when we first met. However, I didn’t realize in what circumstance that would be. I just need to know- Do you still care for me?”

Malachi’s heart thrummed with yes, but it wasn’t strong, not that he could feel. However, this statement prompted him to turn around, to finally face Jacy.

Everything startled him, but the intricate network of antlers above the other’s head is what fascinated him the most. They twisted and curled like mystical branches, but he could see that they were trimmed, probably to keep decent mobility. They didn’t reach more than a foot above his head.

He still had long, wavy black hair, framing his white face in such a contrast, Malachi wouldn’t class him as a monster. Jacy’s eyes were snow white, skin pulled tight over his entire frame, but his face didn’t lose appeal. He still had the same features, just a little more sunken.

He was maybe a foot and a half taller and Malachi assumed he looked damn near like a skeleton, but his assassin garbs covered his body. He had a hunch, menacing and ready to lunge. Malachi pondered that it was probably the default posture, having to bend over all the time to talk properly and enter buildings.

Even though the man looked near completely different, it was still Jacy. He could see his common fidget, rubbing his thumb over the side his pointer finger, the way his legs were spaced in his stance, and the eyes. They looked at him, and although they were slightly harder to read, Malachi could still pick out the emotions. Hope, guilt, pleading, despair.

Malachi redirected his attention to the question. He asked his heart, and voiced the response.

“Not in the way I did before. I lost too much to be able to do that again. The only reason I still do care for you are our memories.”

Malachi had to lay witness to the absolute agony that took resident in Jacy’s features. His mouth drooped in defeat, his eyes glimmered in affliction, and his eyebrows drew in betrayal. As he watched, he could see his former lover wither and his own soul throbbed in empathy. He didn’t provide any comfort, since he didn’t need to. Jacy was too naive and ignorant to fully grasp Malachi’s change, so he didn’t have much sympathy for the other.

His heart couldn’t heal, even with the fact that it could long for Jacy again. The world damaged him too far, and he didn’t have the strength to pick up the debris- it had blown away, so if he could or even wanted to, he didn’t have the pieces to fix himself anymore.

Jacy laughed, bringing the Valran’s attention back to Tvral. It was a broken, forced sound. “I was foolish to think I could have you back. I didn’t grasp that the Malachi I loved died back there just as I did to you.”

He didn’t say anything, but he agreed.

“Well, Worrin, let fate decide if we meet again.” Jacy said with a faded smile, then became a white blur that disappeared into the trees in a second. The moment he was truly gone, when Malachi could no longer feel him, he wept in sorrow. His muscles lagged and he fell to his hands and knees, dropping his head in shame. He let every emotion he thought he’d abandoned sweep over him and do their damage. Because now, Jacy was truly and completely gone.

He screamed into the burning air and dug his fingers into the Earth. Such torture bubbled in his being and such pain gripped him and it rivaled the agony he endured when he first thought Jacy had died. He trembled and unleashed cry and wail to the ground, feeling his mind turn into a ravaging storm of emptiness, sadism, and abandonment envelop his entire being. He was lost in maltreatment and abuse and couldn’t see his way to the light.

Eventually, the storm cleared and he tried to blink away the blurriness. There was a prominent, unpleasant pressure behind his eyes and found he was lying immobile on his side. The emptiness he’d grown used to returned in a heavy robustness that he stared ahead at the trees. He didn’t need to blink, as the tears came steadily. He just watched the vague, rough outline of the trees sway.