#there's something so. hmm. about not recognizing the land you raised from the dead

[frasermints]

i can lift a car up all by myself

[petals2fish]

Chapter 14: Falling for Her (James’ POV)

Notes:

As most of you know I work in higher education and I raise guide dog puppies as a second job. I have a busy term for the next eight weeks, so my updates will be sporadic until I'm back on more of a usual schedule. I'm hoping one chapter a week, instead of my usual two!

As they continued sliding deep underground, James found himself in the unknown territory that Lily had led them to. Attempting to control his movements, he slid against the rocky surface, occasionally bumping his head on the top of the circular tunnel. The air had shifted from acidic to heavy, making it difficult to breathe. 

However, the relief of not being dead was a comfort he welcomed.

It had been a while since James faced such life-and-death experiences, reminiscent of his first two years learning the ways of the forest. Suddenly, the solid rock gave way to open air, and gravity took hold of him. He yelped as he tumbled to the floor, landing directly on top of someone soft. The familiar scent of her reached his nose, and he recognized it as Lily's fragrance, oddly reminiscent.

“Sorry for not warning you,” she exclaimed, her hands touching his cheeks without warning, “are you alright?”

Then, in an unexpected turn, their noses brushed against each other, making James acutely aware of the close proximity of their faces. Hastily rolling off the girl, he felt a warmth rising to his cheeks as he pretended to dust off his clothes. Despite his reluctance to admit it, a newfound attraction stirred within him. It was as if Lily had enchanted him with her quick wit and talent for finding trouble.

“I’m okay,” he told her, “where are we?”

In tunnels, below the surface, one of the wyverns said, Sirius by the sounds of it. 

"Are you sure we're safe down here?" Lily's light voice echoed through the chamber, indicating to James that the wyverns weren’t lying.

Reassuringly, Remus, the dragon with the deeper voice, responded, It's a lot safer down here than it is up there. 

We know all the best escape routes, chimed Sirius with his higher growl.

James, relying on touch, felt the ground with both hands, searching for his staff. In the pitch-black caves, he struggled to discern even blurry shapes, as there was no light. Once he located his walking stick, he stood upright, feeling his hair brush against the top of the tunnel. Enclosed, dark spaces were something James detested, and for a moment, he almost wished he had stayed above ground.

Almost.

We've been dodging those bullies since we were 200 years old, Remus added.

Were we ever that young? Sirius pondered aloud.

Remus retorted, Of course we were, you moron! 

I'm not a moron! Sirius protested, defending his intelligence.

Yes, you are! Remus countered, intensifying their playful banter.

No, I'm not! Sirius insisted, vehemently rejecting the moron label.

“With all that bickering, I'm surprised you haven't fried each other," James remarked, attempting to inject some humor into the situation. 

Lily rewarded him with a silly little giggle that seemed to emanate from somewhere on his left. James wondered if he should conjure another witty remark just to hear her infectious laugh again. He’d liked it, above, when she’d held his hand. No matter how much grief he’d given her about it. 

Bickering with her was so easy, so fun . 

Fried each other? We can't even simmer. Sirius claimed with mock indignation. In an attempt to prove his point, James heard Sirius attempting to breathe in deep and then exhale fire, but all he felt and heard was a bit of useless smoke. The absurdity of the moment left everyone, including James, unable to suppress a collective chuckle.

Yeah, you see, he can't breathe fire or fly. Hmm. Sad, really. Remus remarked with a hint of sympathy.

Oh, excusez-moi, Mr. Self-Denial, but we can't breathe fire or fly, Sirius retorted.

Only 'cause you're holding me back! Remus quipped.

“How did this conjoined twin thing happen?” Lily asked, her close proximity to James causing him to stiffen so he wouldn’t accidentally brush up against her again.

Sirius and I are cursed with this form because of our parents' mating, Sirius said. 

“Why?” Lily inquired.

As half-dragon wyverns we are not pure of blood. For that, we are deformed and we weren’t accepted by the wyvern alphas, Remus explained their predicament fluidly. And as half-wyverns, we cannot breathe fire and are much smaller than dragons, so naturally, they pick on us. 

We want to be human, Sirius added. At least humans come in all different shapes and sizes.  

“You won’t find being human any more satisfying,” James said as he untied his hair from its bun to secure it together again. “Humans can be cruel.”

“Not all humans,” Lily interjected, her voice rising in a soft tone like she'd defend herself to her last breath.

“So,” James continued, his voice echoing as he ignored Lily, “you both are cursed in this form, forever?”

We can’t fly, so we can’t hunt. We can’t breathe fire, so we cannot defend ourselves, Sirius enumerated, it’s only because of my brains that we’re still alive. 

Remus exclaimed, frustration evident as he face-palmed in exasperation. I’ve been stuck like this with him for 500 years! 

Oh dear, it's learned to count, Sirius quipped, licking Remus in the eye playfully.

Remus retorted, I don't come here to be insulted! 

Sirius, undeterred, fired back, Oh. Where do you usually go? 

The echoes of the wyverns' skirmish filled the cavern, prompting a sigh to escape James's lips. They were, without a doubt, an odd pair. He didn’t know why the forest was placing him in the company of some of the oddest–he got a whiff of Lily again from beside him–nicest smelling creatures he’d ever met. He wondered if she knew how nicely she smelled, like a forest, right after it rains. 

"Come on, James," Lily beckoned softly from his side, her voice a comforting presence in the echoing darkness. “We should keep moving.”

Responding to her call, James followed the sound of her determined footsteps reverberating through the cave. Marlene, the falcon, fluttered nearby and gracefully landed on James's shoulder. 

Affectionately nibbling his ear, she cooed to share her thoughts. You like her. 

“Quiet, Marlene,” James hissed to the bird, wary of Lily overhearing their conversation.

Instead, up ahead, Lily’s feet slid along the ground as she called for him again, “James? Are you coming?”

Sirius’ voice chimed in, You don't need him, honey. Now you've got Sirius, keeping an eye on ya. 

James followed along, trailing behind with a hint of irritation evident on his face. Marlene laughed in her own falcon way, recognizing his frustration. James shrugged her off, prompting Marlene to simply fly away, likely perching on Lily’s shoulder instead. The falcon had taken a liking to Lily just as much as James had.

When James caught up to Lily, he asked softly, “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes,” she said, “why?”

“I landed on you pretty hard back there.”

In the darkness, her hand found him again, sending shocks racing up his arm. “You couldn’t see me; it’s okay.”

He felt the itching need to touch her face so he could see her, in his own way. The desire to trace her features, memorize the shape of her nose, her eyes, and mouth consumed him. He wondered if she had freckles, or if her pale skin was as soft on her face as it was on her hands. While he knew she was smaller than him, based on how he’d held her previously, and that she seemed to have light colored eyes, he hadn't managed to make her look at him long enough to discern details through his blind spots.

“Can you describe yourself to me?” he asked softly, hoping his voice didn’t travel.

Lily was quiet for a second, and then she replied, “I’m very plain.”

“Describe yourself,” he asked again politely, “so I can draw up an image in my head.”

“I have long red hair,” she started carefully.

“Yes,” he murmured, “I see the flashes of red.”

“How–I mean–well, can you see some?”

“It’s like looking through a dark tunnel,” James described, “but there’s a pinprick of light that constantly changes color and shape.”

“Have you always been blind?”

He squeezed her hand, “I thought I was asking you the questions.”

He heard the smile in her voice when she replied, “but I’m not interesting, not like you.”

“Me?” he was surprised by her, again. “How so?”

“Well,” Lily began, “you live alone in the forbidden forest with a silver-winged falcon, and despite losing your vision, you flourish here. Catching your own food, rescuing strange girls from dragons–”

James cut her off, “You’re hardly strange.”

“You did say only a fool would come into the forbidden forest alone,” Lily reminded him.

James chuckled warmly, “Then I guess we’re both fools.”

“But we’re not alone anymore.”

James wished he could see her, more than anything he wished he could see her expression, because she had sounded so hopeful when she’d spoken, as if before meeting him, she’d been as lonely as he’d felt in the last ten years.

“No,” he agreed in a lower voice, “we’re not alone.”

Suddenly, pinpricks of light appeared, and Lily let go of his hand, cheering. James felt the air loosen its hold on his lungs and suddenly, Aura was back, its fluttering waves dragging along his skin in welcome. Beside him, Lily giggled, as the wind likely welcomed her too.

“Hello Aura!” Lily told it fondly ��did you miss us?”

When James felt a light rain touch his skin, he breathed in deeply. The thick fog that had enveloped them in Dragon Country had dissipated. Marlene, ever the free spirit, took flight and soared into the world with a fierce cry. James felt like screaming for joy too, but instead, he used his stick to find a dirt trail amongst what appeared to be long grasses.

"Well, the good news is, we're out of Dragon Country. The better news is," James announced, holding his staff in position, "the next half-day will be the land of the druids.”

“Druids,” Lily sounded far away from him, farther than he would’ve liked, “here?”

James nodded, “I lived with them for a short while but didn’t take well to their religious lifestyle.” He sniffed, the winds drifting the smell of the wyverns his way. “You two won't be welcomed if we see druids, they’ve killed for less.”

Remus’ voice cut sharply, we helped you, now you help us. 

“How can we help you?” James remarked, folding his arms over his staff.

You have wizards in Camelot, Sirius said, do you think they can change Remus and I? 

Lily spoke up, from somewhere in front of James, “Merlin, he’s the best wizard in the realm. We could ask him!”

And he could separate us and turn us human? Sirius asked skeptically.

“I don’t know, honestly,” Lily shrugged, “but my father said he saw Merlin do some pretty amazing things.”

James hesitated, reluctant to reveal the harsh truth he had discovered – that all magic had its limits. Even Merlin, the revered wizard of Camelot, had been unable to restore his sight. The idea of separating two conjoined wyverns and turning them human seemed even more beyond the realm of magical possibility.

Taking charge, James remarked, "Come on, Lily, the wyverns will be fine."

Lily, always compassionate, pleaded, "James, let's take them with us. Please."

God, her heart would be the death of him. 

With a sigh, James reluctantly agreed, "Fine!"

Despite the internal doubts about the feasibility of Merlin's intervention, he chose not to dampen Lily's hope. There was a spark of determination in her voice, an unwavering belief in the power of magic to solve even the most extraordinary challenges. He didn’t have the heart to take her hope, and squash it. He was growing too fond of her, even in the short time together, to allow himself to be the villain in her story. 

Sirius and Remus cheered, their little wings clapping on their back in response to James’ agreement. Leading the way down the path, James caught a whiff of wildflowers as Lily caught up to him. Reaching out with the hand not using the walking stick, his fingers traced along her arms until he felt the soft petals of bell-like lupine between his fingers. Lily was holding a bouquet of flowers, and a smile upturned both sides of his mouth.

“What are those for?” he asked, letting his fingers brush along her wrist, finding any excuse to touch her, to know her.

“For you,” she announced brightly, “you said you can see bright colors, so I got the brightest I could find.”

James, who hadn’t believed in Gods for a long time, looked up towards the sky for the first time since his thirteenth birthday and thanked whoever might be sitting up there for bringing him Lily. They kept walking side by side, Lily refusing to move any further from him. Occasionally, her knuckles brushed against him, almost like she needed to reassure herself that he was there. 

It made his heart thump faster in his chest. 

Suddenly, Lily spoke up again, “I have my father's eyes.”

“Hm?” James asked, smiling when her arm hit his to let him know where she was.

“You asked me to describe myself, remember,” Lily said sassily before continuing, “I have green eyes, red hair, and a rather unfortunate complexion that burns in the summers by the shore.” James had seen a beach once, before his accident, and imagined her silhouette amongst the waves. “I’m about a foot shorter than you, and my favorite clothes to wear are riding breeches with a tunic, but my mother makes me wear dresses if she can get me into them.”

“What about your hobbies?” he asked, eagerly taking in everything she offered.

He felt her shoulders shrug as she walked by his side, “I can do needlepoint if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh, you must be deadly with a needle,” he joked, earning one of her precious giggles.

“I’d say I really shine on horseback,” she replied, “I’ve been riding longer than I can remember walking.”

“Do you have a horse, back home?” he asked.

“Her name is Gwen,” Lily paused, and her voice turned somber, “she threw me off when Ruber’s men were chasing me into the forbidden forest, I am just hoping she ran back home.”

James shook his head in disbelief, “you named your horse after the queen?”

“Yes,” her tone was prideful, “Queen Quenevire has had the most amazing adventures, she’s practically a knight of Camelot.”

James chuckled, as he had heard many stories about their unorthodox queen back when he lived in the palace. “Do you want to be like her when you grow up?”

“No,” Lily’s voice grew soft, “I do not want to grow up.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because that will mean I have to be married off to some lord,” Lily huffed, and James felt a pang in his heart as he imagined her in white alongside some puffy chested knight of the round table. “But maybe if we get the sword, and I show them what I can do, I can be a lady knight instead.”

“You want to be a knight?” he realized they were not so different, him and Lily. As the words hung in the air, he could sense a shared longing for a dream. A dream he had long ago abandoned. 

“More than anything,” she said, her voice turning forlorn. “More than anything, I want to be a knight.” Her voice reflected a profound yearning, as if the very essence of her being craved the honor, valor, and noble pursuit that knighthood represented.

He could listen to her talk like that all day. 

James grappled with a moment of reflection, biting his lip as he pondered whether to disclose to Lily that, once upon a time, becoming a knight had been his dream too. The reverberations of his past aspirations echoed within him, highlighting the realization that their paths had once been aligned by a shared ambition. More and more, he was realizing that Lily was everything he never knew he had needed in a companion. A friend. Perhaps more…

Breaking the brief silence, Lily inquired, "What about you, James? What do you dream of?" 

Contemplating her question, he decided against providing a truthful answer. "I haven't dreamed in years."

"I envy that," Lily confessed. "The constraints of my dreams can be suffocating. Always expected to conform, to fit into the mold they've crafted for me, as a lady." 

Yearning to gauge her emotional state, he wished he could see her face, discerning whether she was in pain or sadness. Opting for vulnerability, he whispered to her, "Sometimes, the world doesn't see beyond what's on the surface."

Her arm gently slid against his, offering a reassuring touch. "You deserve to dream too, regardless of what the world tells you," she expressed.

If he were truthful, the remainder of the afternoon was spent lost in daydreams about what she might look like in her pretty gowns, contemplating who she truly was. He envisioned the possibility of her gaze meeting him with admiration and awe, allowing himself to indulge in thoughts of how that moment might unfold. Indulging in a fantasy where they had met under different circumstances, and he had been brave enough to court her without fearing rejection.

[songbirdstyles]

let it bleed

summary: you’re on your period, and harry just wants to make you feel good.

warnings: smut, shower sex, period sex, clothed sex/grinding, fingering

word count: 6.8k words

song inspo: let it bleed - the rolling stones (aren’t i funny)

Waking up on Saturday is generally a blissful experience - sleeping in until the day feels nearly gone, lounging with Harry around the house or heading outside when the weather permits it - sure, every day in quarantine could be chalked up to just another Saturday but there’s something different about the actual day itself. Harry’s usually awake entirely too early during the week, sitting at the kitchen table with his headphones in, suffering through meetings with producers and managers for much longer than what could possibly be bearable. And you’re generally holed up at your desk, trying not to fucking die of boredom as you sit through useless Zoom sessions and assignments given by superiors who don’t understand technology - needless to say, you’d rather waste your days wrapped in Harry’s arms than sitting through that.

This Saturday, though, wakes you up a few hours later than you usually would, Harry’s head pressed into your chest, his arm wrapped tight around your waist, fingers clutched tight on the oversized t-shirt you’d donned to bed. Chestnut curls brush the end of your nose and a sleepy smile tilts your lips upwards as your eyes crack open, squinting up at the ceiling of your bedroom, only dimly aware of the low stream of early morning light shining through the window beside your bed.

You never usually wake this early, do you? No, you don’t, and you tilt your head to glare at the clock mounted on the wall across the room from you. It’s 4:56, a whole 5 hours before you’d ever even consider getting out of bed, and, yet, your body had forced you awake for seemingly no reason. You could be curling yourself up in Harry’s arms, legs around his torso and arms around his neck as his snores ring in your ears like a lullaby, except -

There’s a dull pain in your abdomen, right above your belly button, twisting your insides with just enough force to rip a soft groan from your lips. It’s a feeling you recognize entirely too well, cramps throttling your uterus like they’re trying to fucking murder you and you’re sure that, whenever you muster the energy to pull yourself out of bed and waddle over to the bathroom, you’ll see the physical proof of exactly what’s causing it.

Harry stirs against your chest, arm tightening around your waist until his forearm is pressed to your abdomen, face pushing further into your boobs as though it’s intentional. You stare down at him for a moment - perhaps he’ll crack an eye open, lips turning up, just to see how you’d reacted - but, no, he’s truly asleep. Dead asleep, you’d assume as you lift a hand to run through his messy hair and he doesn’t move at the motion.

You hate untangling yourself from him, almost always forcing him awake, but you suppose it’s repercussions for him being such a damn cuddler - not that you’d dream of complaining.

Slowly your fingers wrap around his wrist, his fingertips still held tight onto your shirt (or is it his? You never truly know, sometimes) as though it’s some sort of lifeline - still, it’s easy enough to pull his hand from your clothes, reaching over to rest his arm against the side of his body and he hardly stirs at the disruption. 

Of course, the next part is destined to be much less graceful and significantly more disruptive to your loving boyfriend, resting like a sleeping angel, practically on top of you - you press your palm to the side of the bed next to you and use it as leverage to roll out of his embrace, pausing once you land on your back to see if he wakes.

(At the same time, you feel a familiar swooping sensation in the pit of your tummy that - isn’t pleasant, to say the very least, and you scrunch your nose up at the feeling.)

That seemed to do the trick - Harry drops flat on his face on top of the mattress and wakes with a jolt as though you’d doused him with water, pushing himself onto his forearms just as you stand up, stretching your arms high above your head with a sigh.

“What’reyoudoin’?” he slurs out, voice dripping with raspiness and sleep and you look back just as he drops his head back onto the pillow. You could fool yourself into thinking he’s gone back to bed until he lifts his head up, eyebrow raised just so. “Come back, babe - s’so early -”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you tell him, sliding your feet into your Santa slippers before making your way across the bedroom towards the bathroom, its door creaked open just so. You pause once you pass your dresser and open the top drawer, grabbing a fresh pair of panties and balling them up in your fist. “You can go back to bed - I’ll be back in a minute.”

“I’ll wait,” he insists, eyes already drooping shut as you close the bathroom door behind you, shuffling over to the toilet as you wince at the discomfort. You certainly hadn’t needed any sort of confirmation to affirm your suspicion but you still get one - blood stains your panties, your sleep shorts mercifully spared, and you kick them off your legs, balling the blood-soaked panties with a grimace. 

It takes only a minute or two to clean yourself up, and when you’ve put in a tampon and pulled on your new panties and sleep shorts, you rifle through the bathroom cabinet searching for the small bottle of painkillers that your abdomen yearns for - there’s few pills left, used mainly for this time of the month, and you shake three into your palm and pop them into your mouth. It’ll take a while to kick in - twenty minutes, usually, and that’s if you get lucky - but you’ll hopefully be fast asleep in Harry’s arms during that time. They’re not horrible, anyway, your cramps - usually they’re worse, and you’re sure they’ll pain you more as the day progresses, but at least you can take pills now to settle them.

You flick the light switch so the room basks itself in darkness before heading back into your bedroom, eyes landing on Harry’s figure, duvet pushed down to just above his hips, arms stretched high above his head. Even in the dim light of the room, illuminated solely by the rising sun that peeps through the window, you can see the way his eyes follow you - instead of walking around the bed to your side, you stop beside him, reaching down to run your fingers through his curls.

“Tha’s nice,” Harry murmurs, moving his head up further into your grasp and you grin. “Are y’comin’ back t’bed, then?”

“Yeah, sure,” you reply, voice soft, and hardly one minute ago it had been your intent to crawl into bed beside him and sleep off the first morning of your period but you’re feeling an entirely different urge, now, gaze locking with his for just a moment, and he raises his eyebrows slightly. “Yeah - scoot over.”

Harry scoffs with a lazy smile but obliges, shifting to the side so you can clamber into bed beside him. One bare arm lifts to wrap around your waist as you curl into his side, tilting your head upwards to land a light kiss to the underside of his jaw. Your palm goes up to the side of his face, cold fingertips pressed to his cheek as you tilt his head towards you, suckling light kisses into the delicate skin on the column of his throat, and you can feel his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath your lips as he exhales.

“What’re you doing?” your boyfriend questions softly, fingertips fiddling with the ends of your hair as you lift your leg to throw across both of his, kisses trailing further down his neck and your palm smoothing up and down his bare chest, nails scratching his skin softly. “Tryin’ t’make me horny - you’re the devil.”

“I’m not,” you murmur against his skin, which is a lie and a pathetic one at that, as your calf dips higher to caress the bulge in his boxers that seems to harden with every pucker of your lips against his neck. 

“You are,” Harry insists, hand sliding down your back until he reaches the hem of your sleep shorts, and before he can duck his fingers beneath the fabric your face heats up and you push yourself to straddle him, core situated directly over his cock, and he groans, the noise guttural and raspy. “What’s got you so worked up, hmm?”

You don’t answer - and it’s not as though it’s embarrassing to admit that you’re on your period, because you’ve certainly been with Harry long enough to know that he’s not a man with masculinity so fragile that it breaks with the mere mention of menstruation - but you’d rather not shatter the moment you’ve created by announcing that it can’t go on further than it already has. Instead, you roll your hips against his, spurred on by his soft moan as your hands slide down his arms until your palms press to his and you interlock your fingers, using it as leverage to rock your body against his with more force.

“Oh, shit,” Harry breathes, head digging backwards into his pillow and you drop your head back, grinding your clit against his bulge and even through the layers of fabric between you, the stimulation is good enough to pull a whimper from your throat - you hadn’t thought you’d been that needy but perhaps you were more desperate for him than you’d suspected. His hands untangle from yours and slide up your thighs, landing on your ass, fingers spreading to encompass as much of your fabric-covered skin as he can, rocking you deeper against him.

You moan softly, bracing your hands on his chest as his grasp on your ass tightens, fingers digging into the fabric of your shorts and you can feel his cock twitching in his boxers against your cunt - his hips buck gently up into yours and if you were like him, you’d tut and murmur for him to stay still, baby, but you’re nicer than that. “God, Har -”

Large hands slide from holding the globes of your ass up to your waist, fingertips smoothing circles into your skin through your shirt and the motion helps to ease the cramps still throbbing in your abdomen, though significantly lessened by both the Advil you’d taken and the pleasure building in your body as you grind against your boyfriend. Orgasms always help with cramps - when you were younger you’d spend hours in the shower, fingers toying with your clit and bringing yourself to cum over and over again. And now - well, you still do that, though grinding against Harry is much more pleasurable than doing it yourself. “I’m gonna cum, Har,” you breathe, and you lean your body forward, palms pressed into the pillow beside his head until you can dip your head down, lips pressing to his in a heated kiss that he moans into, holding your waist tighter against his dick. “Just - just a little more -”

“Don’t,” Harry grunts, which is what you’d expected him to say, and you push yourself back up, detaching your lips from his as you rise to sit above him again, hips still working against him with ease. “Wanna be inside you, baby - need t’fuck you -”

You bring your hands to his wrists when he reaches for the waistband of your shorts, preventing him from tugging them down your stomach and he looks up at you, brows furrowed and lips parted with desire as you breathe, “No - can’t -”

“Please -”

“I’m on my period,” you tell him, feeling heat creep up your neck and tainting your cheeks, and to compensate you grind further down on him, dropping your head back at his responding groan. 

His tongue darts out to lap at his lips briefly, hands smoothing back down to palm your ass and he doesn’t look nearly as weirded out as you’d expected - you hadn’t thought he’d push you off but you didn’t think he’d start rocking you against him with a new intensity that rips a whine from your throat. Harry doesn’t waste another moment before responding, as though you’d merely told him the weather instead of the current state of your menstrual cycle, “I don’t care, need t’be in you -”

He’s horny, your brain tells yourself. He would care if you hadn’t been grinding on him for nearly ten minutes. And you could accept his declaration of carelessness at face value and strip down and take him but he wouldn’t want it if he was thinking straight, and he’s decidedly not, now, brain muddled with sleep and horniness, even as his hands begin smoothing up the fabric riding up your ass. Fingertips graze your ass beneath your shorts and you jolt -

You’ll suck him off when you’re done, and you’re so close - it’s just another roll of your hips as Harry’s hands grasp your ass, digging into your skin so tight you’ll surely see bruises later that will do unspeakable things to your menstruating brain -

Your mouth drops open in a silent scream as Harry moans beneath you, grinding yourself vigorously against him with a desperate whimper, and you’d cringe at it in any other instance but God, it feels so good, better than anything your fingers could do in the shower, and you can’t bring yourself to feel embarrassed as your orgasm washes over you. It’s fast and brutal and your body jerkily attempts to maintain a rhythm against your boyfriend’s clothed cock but it’s difficult, arms shaking with the force of holding yourself up as your thighs tighten around his hips, and finally you lean forward, crashing your lips to Harry’s so he can swallow your needy moans.

His palms slide up your ass to your back, pressing against the small of your back as you lazily roll your hips over his, riding out the last aftershocks of your release until you’re done, dropping your head to his chest as heat floods your face. Perhaps he can tell you’re feeling embarrassed - he can read you like a book, generally - and his hands move up beneath your shirt, hands warm against your bare back as he breathes heavily.

(His dick is still throbbingly hard beneath you, and it’s a wonder he’s not bucking his hips into yours to chase his release, but he is, first and foremost, a gentleman.)

“Please -” he murmurs as you move your head so your cheek is pressed to his chest, feeling his heart thumping against your face. “Need t’fuck you, baby - little blood doesn’t bother me -”

Well, he’s still horny, and you ignore the way your stomach flips just like you ignore his words, sliding down his body and laying kisses against his skin as you tug the duvet fully off his body. You’ll consider his words later - debate how much he means it, and maybe he’ll mention it again later - but, for now, you can’t go on leaving him so painfully hard under you, especially when the thought of sucking him off sounds so appealing -

 ~~

 The topic goes, for the most part, unmentioned throughout the rest of the day - the two of you fall back to sleep after your early morning ministrations but only for a few more hours, venturing into the kitchen at 8 to have breakfast out in the garden. French toast amongst flowers is an unmatched experience and one you hadn’t had before quarantine, but you and Harry try to take advantage of the weather before it starts to get too chilly to spend time outside. You still had to run inside to grab cardigans for you both to don but - well, it’s the principle that matters.

And after breakfast comes movies, searching through Amazon until you find something you both haven’t seen, and Harry heads to warm your heating pad as you sacrifice the $3.99 to watch Almost Famous, and he returns with your pad just as you clear a space for him to curl onto the couch behind you. It’s such normal period protocol that you could nearly forget his eagerness to bury himself inside of you, blood and all - 

Nearly.

You haven’t forgotten, even when Jason Lee and Billy Crudup fight in a crashing plane, how Harry had begged you to let him fuck you - and he was horny, only a blind man could deny it, but he’d never made claims he couldn’t keep no matter how hard his dick was. The first time he’d confessed that he loved you, he’d been balls deep in your cunt, back pressed tight to your back as he landed biting kisses to the back of your neck, and he’d murmured the words against your sweaty skin - and, later, when you’d asked if he meant it, he’d told you that he’d never lie t’you when you’re tha’ close t’my bits.

It isn’t the most eloquent promise, but he’d mostly kept it. Still - what kind of dreamboat would someone have to be to be willing to fuck you on your period? You’d dated enough people to know what how much of a rarity that is, to have a man so cool with menstruation he doesn’t care about having sex with you and you find it hard to believe Harry truly would be willing -

His arms are crossed over your body, forearms holding your heating pad to your abdomen, palms resting nearly absentmindedly against your boobs through your shirt. His lips lay lazy kisses against the back of your neck, so gentle you’re sure he isn’t even aware he’s doing it, fingers every so often flexing gently against your chest. His curls tickle your shoulders through your tank top, cardigan discarded on the coffee table in front of you, and a chill rolls through your body at the feeling.

He doesn’t even know what he’s doing to you - or maybe he does. You can’t decide which option you prefer.

Harry pauses, breathing gentle against your skin. “What’re you thinkin’ about?”

Sometimes you forget how well he can read you. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

He hums, thumb moving in gentle circles against your boobs, grazing your nipple through the thin bra you’re wearing beneath your tank top, and you can practically hear the way his eyebrow quirks as you inhale softly. “Ah.”

“What?”

“You’re horny.”

You huff, and Harry drops his forehead against the back of your scalp with a low laugh. “Well, obviously - fingering my boobs like that - it’s the period hormones -”

“Period hormones.”

“Yes!” And you push yourself to sit up, glaring down at Harry lying beneath you, heating pad falling along with his arms to your lap, and his hands land on your thighs, palms smoothing up and down your skin. “Come on, you know I get horny on my period -”

“More than usual, you mean?”

“More than - I’m not the one who wakes up in the middle of the night with love boners!”

“Did that today, though, didn’t you?”

You, truly, don’t have any sort of response for that, mouth opening and closing a few times before you cross your arms over your chest, decidedly ignoring his smug smirk. “At least I have an excuse.”

He shrugs, drumming his fingertips up and down your thighs before raising one arm to slide beneath his head, tattooed arm gazing up at you and you want to - God, you want him to fucking rail you and you swallow thickly as his gaze never leaves yours, grin still toying at his lips. “So horny, an’ you won’t let m’fuck you.”

Heat burns at your face as you stare at him, eyebrows furrowing. Is he kidding? You can’t tell. He’s wearing that shit-eating smile that he dons when he’s fucking with you but you can’t see why he’d mention it again unless he was serious - it seems cruel. “Harry.”

“Yes?”

“You’re not serious.”

Harry shrugs, pushing himself onto his elbows, staring up at you with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. “‘Course I’m serious.”

You reach down, fingers playing with the fabric of his shirt covering his chest. “You don’t think it’s - gross? Come on, Har.”

“Do you think s’gross?” he asks, and you shrug, even if you really want to shake your head in a vehement no, glancing back up at him when he lifts his head closer to yours. “I don’t think it is -” and as he sees your doubtful, quirked eyebrow, he exhales a laugh. “M’serious! Remember when y’had the stomach bug, an’ I was cleaning up your puke an’ -”

“Okay,” you cut him off, reaching forward to place your index finger against his lips before he can finish reminding you of exactly what he’d had to clean up - he puckers his lips to land a light kiss against your digits. “But that’s different.”

But you can tell that he can tell that he’s wearing you down - “How’s it different, babe? M’fine gettin’ m’hands a little dirty.”

The expression makes you cringe and you drop your head back with a groan, rolling your eyes at Harry’s barking laugh as he reaches his hand up to rest against your waist, other hand pressed into your thigh. “Sorry, sorry,” he grins, dropping his head into your lap, and you instinctively smooth your nails against his scalp. “But m’serious. Can’t have you gettin’ yourself off by grinding - what kind of boyfriend would I be, hmm?”

A normal one, you want to reply, but the truth is you don’t think you’ll ever look twice at a normal man again if you seriously accept this. How could you go to a normal boyfriend knowing Harry is more than willing to bury himself inside of you, blood and all?

When your fingers abruptly stop scratching his scalp Harry lifts his head, pressing his cheek against your thigh, and you lower your eyes to his with your bottom lip tucked tight between your teeth.

“S’that a yes, then?” he questions, and he sounds so excited at the prospect that your stomach flips.

“A maybe,” and he doesn’t deflate at the half-rejection - you’ll come around, and the both of you know it. “We can - um - we can try it.” As a larger grin spreads across his face you playfully hit his cheek, feeling your own heating up. “In the shower tonight. So - you know - it’s less messy.”

 ~~~

 Harry runs off to start the shower nearly immediately after your late dinner while you begin loading dishes in the dishwasher, shaky hands holding tight onto each dirty plate so you don’t drop it. And you aren’t - nervous, per se, at least not as much as you’d expected yourself to be. Harry had hardly been able to keep his hands off of you all afternoon, palm resting firmly on your thigh during dinner and mouthing open mouthed kisses to your throat while you started your second and third movies of the day.

He wasn’t nervous - not at all. He seemed pretty damn excited, too, and that should make you less hesitant but your stomach still flips as you hear the shower turn on, followed by his footsteps padding down the stairs and the hallway until he emerges back in the kitchen, sweatpants low on his hips and shirt riding up his torso, and you swallow thickly as he leans against the doorway.

“Shower’s running,” he tells you as you shut the dishwasher, taking a step closer to him.

“I hear it.”

“Y’okay?”

You shrug, dragging your nails against his chest softly through his shirt, and Harry wraps his hands around your wrists with a raised eyebrow. “I’m fine,” you tell him, smiling lightly. “I’m nervous, but I’m -”

“Horny?”

“Yeah.”

Harry drops his forehead against the top of your head with a laugh, his arms snaking around your waist to pull you to him. “It’ll be fine,” he says against your hair, puckering your lips to land kiss after kiss to your head. “Anyway, don’t periods stop flowing in water?” You furrow your eyebrows. “No - what?”

“I saw tha’ online -”

“That’s not true!”

“Okay, okay!” Harry holds up his hands in surrender and you grin, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips. “Well, m’lady, can I take you upstairs, then?”

Your stomach still rolls with nerves, even as he holds a hand out for you to grasp, and his palm is warmer than yours, skin soft and damp from the shower - “‘Course you can.”

 ~~~

 Harry’s fingers are expert at undoing the clasp of your bra, letting the cups fall away from your boobs and he lowers the straps down your shoulders, dragging his fingertips gently down your skin and smiling as goosebumps pop up over your skin. Your hands, in turn, travel downwards to the front of his sweatpants, pulling the tie until they come undone and the slightly-too-big pants droop down his hips until you slide your hands into the waistband and lower them all the way down into a pool by his ankles.

His shirt has long been discarded, thrown lazily on top of the toilet seat, and your tanktop and shorts have faced similar treatment, abandoned on the floor of your bedroom until you’re both just in your underwear - you’re both itching to be free of them, though, and just as Harry’s hands slide down your waist to the waistband of your panties you grab onto his boxers and tug them down, freeing his half-hard cock from their constraints.

Your hand wraps around his length like a vise, thumb swiping over his head and his hands falter, fingers tight on the hem of your panties, and his eyes drop shut with a low moan. You’re solely interested in feeling him harden in your grasp and your wish succeeds, feeling him throb against your fingers until he’s fully up, sliding his hands up to your breasts and rolling your nipples between his thumbs as some sort of punishment. Your lips part with a whine and you rest your head against his chest, inhaling shakily.

“Y’ready?” Harry questions, pinching your nipples lightly, and you arch your chest into his hands - he knows how sensitive your boobs get on your period and he never fails to take full advantage of your increased responses to his touch. “Panties off, baby.”

You pause, and then move your hands up to his chest, taking a step away from him. “Go in the shower,” you tell him, biting back a grin as he playfully rolls his eyes.

“Are y’serious?”

“Yes - go in the shower and - and close your eyes so I can - wash myself.”

Your cheeks heat up as Harry raises his eyebrows, clearly trying to see whether you’re being serious - after a moment with neither of you budging he sighs, trailing his fingertips down your hips before taking a step back, and you get just a moment to stare at his backside as he turns to step into the shower, sliding the door shut behind him until all you can see is his silhouette in the frosty glass.

You hook your fingers in the waistband of your panties, slowly sliding them down your thighs as you can hear Harry humming in the shower - you kick them to the floor and gaze at yourself in the mirror, just for a moment, before reaching down to the unshaven apex of your thighs, hooking a finger in the string of your tampon and pulling it out with one fast yank. First day of your period and it’s mercifully bright red instead of the end of the period brown that you can’t stand to look at, and you open the trash can with your toes to drop the tampon in.

When you look back at yourself in the mirror briefly, you can already see red staining your inner thighs, and your cheeks flush but you don’t give yourself time to ponder on it for fear of backing out on the whole idea. You merely turn, sliding open the door to the shower and stepping inside, and Harry stands, hand pressed dramatically over his eyes as the water washes over him, and you press your hands to his shoulders, moving around him so you can be in the direct line of the water. The stream washes away the remnants of blood between your thighs, disappearing down the drain until you’re sure there’s nothing left, and you tap Harry on the shoulder.

“You can open,” you tell him, and the fingers clamped over his eyes separate so you can see just a band of green peeking between his digits.

“Can’t believe you’re this bothered over a spot f’blood,” Harry says, and before you can venomously retort by telling him that it’s much more than a spot of blood, and he should know, considering how often he has to go out and buy you tampons, he presses his hands to the side of your face, lowering his lips to yours in a clashing, deep kiss, his tongue forcing its way into your mouth without a moment to spare.

You nearly slip, then, taking a slippery step back until your back is pressed to the shower wall, hand reaching behind you to grab onto the railing installed into the wall for this very purpose - it’s ideal to grab onto you when he’s railing you from behind, and the little alcove dug into the wall for toiletries is the ideal place to perch on while Harry goes to town between your legs -

Now, though, you simply loop your free arm around his neck, pulling his body closer to yours with a soft moan into his mouth as one of his hands leaves your face to trail down your body, palm cupping your boob and squeezing the soft flesh. It pulls another whine from your throat, pushing your chest into his hands and he grins against your lips, dragging his thumb across your peaked nipple. You get so caught up in the kiss and his hand on your boobs that you could nearly forget about the circumstances that led you to this specific scenario, fucking in the shower instead of the comfort of your own bed -

Until his hand cupping your breast moves farther down, fingers trailing through the sodden curls between your thighs before dipping between your folds, and you jolt, arm tightening around his neck and his head drops between your neck and shoulder. Your face burns as his fingertips circle your clit, pressing into the sensitive nub as you groan before he slides them back down your folds, pressing one gently into your hole until it slips in with an embarrassing amount of ease.

“Oh fuck -” you exhale, and Harry lifts his head slightly, suckling a hickey into the side of your neck as his finger pumps in and out of you, curling upwards to hit the spongy spot inside of you that has you pushing your hips into his hands. “Come on, Har, babe - just fuck me, really fuck me -”

“Wan’ me t’fuck you, don’t you?” he exhales into your skin, soaked curls dripping moisture onto your chest, and the warm water dripping down your skin has a chill rolling through your spine like a goddamn tidal wave. “Don’t want m’fingers, d’you?”

You do want his fingers, though - and his mouth - and his cock - and the need is so overwhelming it makes your legs feel shaky. For a moment you don’t know what to say, mouth parted in a silent plea for everything and anything he’s willing to give you and Harry simply stares, thrusting his finger in and out of you before adding another. 

Eventually his pauses, fingers twisted to graze the spot inside of you that makes your vision go hazy, and you know he needs you to speak but you can hardly think of anything to say. “Please -”

“Please wha’?”

“Please - I need to cum -”

He hums and lowers his lips back to yours, and you cry out directly into his mouth as his thumb rests against your clit, rubbing slow circles entirely too soft into the nub but even the slightest bit of stimulation has your hormone ridden body bucking up into him, squeezing onto the railing behind you for dear life so you don’t collapse with need. “Need t’cum?”

“Yes!”

“Do it then, baby - cum f’me, cum on m’fingers -”

You roll your hips against his fingers, dropping your head back against the wall of the shower with a whine, and Harry continues his steady face penetrating you with his fingers - normally you’d never cum this fast, hardly five minutes with his fingers in your cunt but this isn’t a normal situation by any standards, and you can’t bring yourself to feel embarrassed over how close you are.

Harry’s teeth close on your bottom lip, nibbling on the skin gently and you’re nearly crossing your eyes to maintain eye contact with him - you know how much he loves watching when you come undone - and all it takes is one more measly pump of his fingers into your dripping pussy for you to topple over the edge. Your body trembles beneath him as his fingers still, your eyes rolling back into your scalp as you shake in his arms, cunt fluttering weakly around his fingers. His breathing is heavy in your ears, low and raspy as you whimper violently with your orgasm wrapping around you like a fucking vise and when your vision finally clears up he’s staring at you like you’re a piece in the damn Museum of Modern Art.

“Fuck, Har, felt so good,” you exhale, and Harry reaches down, one of his forearms going beneath your thighs to lift up, and you look down just as he pulls his fingers out of you. The blood on his digits is immediately washed away by the stream of water but you still cringe watching the water turn red as it disappears into the drain, and you can tell he notices your sudden shyness - fingers grasp your chin, angling your head up to stare at him. “What -?”

His lips press to yours once more, a soft, lingering kiss that doesn’t go anywhere at all, before he pulls away, hands sliding up and down your hips. “I guess eating your cunt s’out f’the picture, then …?”

You roll your eyes with a giggle as he drops your leg again, nails digging crescents into your hips as he turns you around, hips pressed flush to yours and his chest to your back, and you instinctively hold tighter onto the railing. “For now,” you groan in response as he thrusts his hips against yours, cock sliding against the sensitive folds of your cunt, and you can practically feel the way he perks up at your half-rejection. “Just fuck me, Har - please, missed it so much -”

Harry laughs at that - a dry one, void of humor, and you whine, pushing your ass back against him before he indulges you, grip landing on your hips and pulling your ass tight against his cock. “S’only been one day without my cock,” he breathes, one hand leaving your hips, presumably to line his dick up as you feel his tip poking at your folds, and you drop your forehead against the shower wall with a whine. “Look how needy you are.”

You are needy, rocking your hips against the tip of his cock that he drags through your folds, and you can’t bring yourself to care about it one bit. “Please -”

“Tell me.”

“Harry -”

“Tell me.”

You groan as he pulls the tip out, and his length smacks against your ass once and even if it’s gentle it still makes you thrust your hips back towards him, and his arm on your hips tightens until you can’t move at all. “I’m - I need you so bad, Har - need you to fuck me - fuck me like you -”

Your sentence is cut off with a loud, drawn out cry as Harry pushes himself into you, cock filling you to the brim and your mouth opens and closes uselessly before he pulls out and thrusts back in with a loud groan, water droplets flicking onto your skin as you hold tight onto the railing. Your knees feel weak as Harry fucks into you, his hands holding tight onto your hips and surely leaving bruises on your skin, but you can’t possibly bring yourself to complain as you drop your head forward with a sob.

“Fuck, Har!” you moan, pushing your hips back against his as he pumps into you, his groans nearly overpowering the slap of skin against skin but you can still hear it like music to your ears, and you gnaw on your bottom lip to try and silence some of your desperate cries. “Please, please -”

“Oh, god,” Harry grunts, holding your hips tighter to his as his pace increases, hips slamming into yours as though he hadn’t fucked you for weeks instead of one measly day. Quarantine truly had spoiled both of you - days spent without fucking each other all over the house seemed to be days wasted, aren’t they? And the week per month you’d had to spend without having sex during your period was a miserable one, and an era you’re more than glad to see gone - “fuck, baby, so - so tight, ‘round m’cock, squeezin’ me so tight.”

Your hand slips on the railing and for a second you fear you’ll fall - but then Harry’s arms slide upwards, forearms wrapped tight against your stomach as he leans forward, chest pressed to your back as his hips slam into yours over and over, lips pressing biting kisses into the wet skin of your neck. You can feel rather than hear his moans, their vibrations reverberating through your skin and you reach behind your head, dragging your nails through his hair as he leaves bites down your skin.

You can already feel your release building, pressure rising in your stomach as your cunt clenches and unclenches around him, gasping for air in the shower, humid from the hot water and your body heat. You’re sure all you need is his fingers, just circling your clit one time and you’ll snap, cumming so hard you’re sure you’ll see stars, so hard you won’t be able to hold yourself up -

“Play w’your clit, baby,” Harry breathes, so quiet you nearly can’t hear it, and you inhale shakily as you oblige, letting go of the railing with one hand to trail down your wet stomach until you reach your sensitive clit, and it throbs against your fingers. “Yeah, good girl - give it a pinch f’me, baby, make yourself cum on m’cock -”

Shaky fingers circle your clit and then press down before pinching it like he’d instructed, and your back arches into his chest, feeling his peaked nipples dragging across your skin. His body blocks most of the water’s stream onto you but you can still feel droplets soaking your skin, trailing down and meeting your fingers at your clit and it only adds to the pleasure mounting, spreading from your clit throughout your entire body -

“Fuck!”

Your knees finally give out as you sob out, squeezing your eyes shut as you hit your breaking point for the second time - your body shakes desperately, tilting your head to the side with a cry as Harry lunges forward to attach his lips to yours, every whine going directly into his mouth. His arm around your waist is the only thing holding you up but you can tell he’s close, thrusts losing their steady pace and growing jerkier, and as your cunt flutters around him you can feel his cock throbbing -

“God,” Harry moans, and you can hear his voice growing higher in pitch, and it’s a telltale sign that he’s so fucking close you’re sure he can feel it on the tip of his fingers - “clench around me, baby, come on -”

And you oblige, cunt tightening around him as you rest your forehead against the railing, and it only takes a few more jerky thrusts before he grabs hold of your hips, bringing them tight to his. The sensation of being filled with his cum is one you’ve grown so used to but it never fails to make you moan, tilting your head to the side so you can get a glimpse of his face in your peripheral vision as his eyes shut, lips parted as he groans, and hot ribbons of cum fill your cunt as he releases.

Your breathing is shaky when Harry grabs your hands, tugging you around so you’re facing him, and you glance down at the floor of the shower, watching the water beneath you tint itself red with your blood. You expect a rush of embarrassment to wash over you as he glances down to see what you’re looking at but it never comes - you can’t bring yourself to feel embarrassed when you’re so relaxed, finally satisfied, watching his cum drip down your thighs.

Harry turns to shut off the shower, the stream of water abruptly stopping, and you cross your arms over your chest, trying to preserve the humid air sure to escape as soon as he opens the door. But he doesn’t - not yet, at least - his hands, instead, coming down to land on your upper arms, thumbs rubbing circles into your skin as he stares down at you.

“How was tha’?” your boyfriend questions, voice soft and sentimental and you can’t help yourself from pushing yourself onto your toes to land a kiss to the side of his cheek. “Not as bad as y’thought, was it.”

It’s not a question - he knows the answer already. “It was amazing,” you confess truthfully, reaching up to move his wet curls out of his face, and a smile tilts your lips upward as he grins. “Not bad at all.”

“Not bad at all,” he echoes, and you can tell he’s resisting the urge to say I told you so or something of the sort, but you wouldn’t mind if he wanted to - he was right. Knows you better than you know yourself, sometimes, and it should scare you but it just makes you love him more than you thought you could. “An’ next time, we can do it on the bed.”

“On the -?”

[mah-gah-lee]

What a weird family reunion Reggie x  Reader (xLuke)

gif originally posted by @jatpsource​

Word Count: 3515 words

 Summary: You’re Reggie’s little sister. You were 3 when he died. You’re now a ghost for a decade. One night, you recognize your brother and jumped into him to an unexpected family reunion. How is it going to happen? Will Reggie believe you? In a mysterious way, that’s Luke who help you to convinced Reggie.

 Warnings: cuss (language), mention of death, mention of divorce, mention of drugs

 A/N: This is my first fic about jatp characters. Hope you’ll enjoy! keep in mind that french is my first language, so i’m so sorry if there’s some mistakes in my fic

 disclaimer: It takes place during episodes 6 and 7. I do not take into account the possibility of a Juke. The chemistry while they sing is there but no romantic feelings.

 Tagged: @asdfghjkl-fanfics​ @standingtalllove​ 

 _______

Losing a child is the worst thing a parent could live, losing two is unimaginable. It’s seems being 17 years old was a new malediction in Peters family.

 You were 3 when your older brother, Reginald, died in a weird hot dog accident. At that point, your parents were literally a fight away from a divorce but never did it because of you. You were too young to be in a divided family, according to them. But Reggie's death separated them for good. Yet they really tried to support each other, to overcome that and give you all the attention you needed. But your mother overprotected you and made you live in the shadow of your late brother. Your dad couldn't stand it. And when they finally divorce, moving out from reggie’s childhood house, you went to live with your dad.

 Even though you were too young to form a strong bond with your brother, in a way you missed him. Your mother’s house was full of pictures of him, some of his clothes were still in a room, dedicated to him. When you visited your mother, you didn’t understand why you always found yourself in this room. You were drawn like a magnet to the comforting room. Reggie’s presence in this new house brought you such a sense of security that your mother had repeatedly found you asleep on a pile of your brother’s T-shirts.

 And then you died in 2009. Kanye West had interrupted Taylor Swift's speech at the VMAs, Miley Cyrus hadn't gone crazy yet and One Direction didn't exist yet. What an era! You didn't know why the great light didn't come looking for you but you were there, as a ghost in 2009. And the time has passed ... You've had your best concerts, the best parties. A forever teenager who couldn't eat, drink or sleep.

 And then 2020 came.

 …

 You were tired of always doing the same thing for over a decade, but you couldn't help but go to every open scene that came up in your beautiful city. It was as if an inexplicable force was pushing you to go there.

 This evening was no exception to the rule and you were in a very hip little bar in the city center. You wore one of those sleeveless, gray crop tops with high waisted pants, your leather jacket draped over your shoulders. Your eyes were directly drawn to a group of girls in colorful costumes. You couldn't help but roll your eyes. It's been 10 years since you died and it seemed to you that these girls looked like the same plagues that ruined the lives of so many teenagers in your time. You put on an expression of disgust when they all took the stage, but when the music started you couldn't help but admit it was pretty catchy. However, you didn't expect a ghost to appear in the middle of the stage, improvising a choreography. Was that part of the show?

 But looking at the audience's non-reaction, you knew it wasn't. The ghost disappeared for the first time, and your gaze sought directly the distinctive light source of another apparition in the room. Your gaze lingered on a small group of three boys - the blond boy included - and two girls. You have wrinkled your eyes to better distinguish the teenagers, and your face expressed confusion.

 “Reggie? “

 You wanted to go see him so badly. You were pretty sure it was your brother but it all came too fast. The moment you decided to walk towards them, the organizer announced a new band.

 “Okay, looks like we're close the night out with one more group…Julie and the fat ones.”

 What was that for a name? Your attention had been diverted and when you looked back at the group, the boys had disappeared as one of the young girls took the stage. Your heart was beating so fast. You couldn't go wrong; you had seen so many pictures at your mother's house that it was impossible that this boy was not your brother. But you missed your chance…

 Julie started to sing and your eyes were captivated, as much as your ears were. This kid was so talented! When she sang a rather high note, the tension in the room charged into electricity. The next second, the young singer was joined by the group of boys you had seen in her company. Appearing distinctly as the ghosts did. On drums there was the blond boy you had seen dancing a few moments earlier, on the electric guitar, a boy with tousled brown hair who seemed slightly familiar to you ... and on bass, with a flannel shirt, there was your brother ... Reggie was there, identical to the photos you had admired so much.

 The bar was on fire as Julie and The Phantoms performed. What a sick name for a group made up of two-thirds of ghosts! The song was so catchy that your heart beat to the sound of the music. But your eyes did not leave your brother, you were unable to move, frozen in place. What should you do ? Will you introduce yourself after the performance? And, what would you say? "Hey hi Reggie, I'm your sister, I died ten years ago and you twenty-five years ago. Unbelievable, right?! Nice to see you again" And once again, before you knew it, the song was over and the boys were gone again, leaving Julie alone on stage in the bewilderment of the many people in the facility.

 “for God's sake, where are they?”

 You didn't want to miss it anymore. Even though the whole situation was strange, you wanted to see your brother again.

 Your eyes flew over the room before seeing the scene play out before your eyes. Julie seemed petrified in front of a man. The boys watched in amazement and as Julie left with what appeared to be her father, you rushed over to the group of three musicians before they disappeared again.

 “omg please don't poof out again.” You said almost out of breath

 The boys looked at you like you were crazy before the guitarist jumped off the bar counter, bursting with energy.

 "Wait, you can see us?"

 “as much as when mister "all eyes on me" made his performance”, you were pointing your head at the blond boy.

 The group looked at each other in puzzlement and Reggie finally spoke, his blue eyes full of mischief.

 “So…hi there cutie, how can we help you?”

 Your face expressed disgust and you stuck your tongue out mimicking vomiting.

Luke gave Alex an amused smile, seeing Reggie flirting and your spontaneous reaction. The bassist couldn't help but charm the pretty ladies.

 “Wow Reggie, that's gross ... you're my brother.”

  Reggie burst out laughing at your response, not noticing that you called him by his first name when he hadn't even introduced himself to you yet.

 “Yeah right, for sure. You just could tell me you weren’t interested. But I’m charming...”

 It was the first time he had been given such an excuse but you looked so serious that he stopped dead in his tracks as Luke and Alex watched you. They always knew Reggie had a sister. But the scene unfolding before their eyes seemed impossible. (Y / N) was so young when they died and now must have been around 28, something like that. But the girl in front of them was a teenager, their age. How was this possible?

 You didn't want to drop the information like that. It was worse than anything you could have imagined. But it had escaped you. Now he didn't take you seriously. Your eyes were wet with tears. It was scary to find you in front of your brother for the first time as a ghost teenager. Luke looked panicked when he noticed your eyes, squeezing Reggie's shoulder as you seemed to beg.

 “Can I ... can I meet you in a quieter time please, Reginald?”

 Your brother's eyes widened as Luke's hug on his shoulder tightened a bit. The eagerness and desperation in your voice had made both boys react, Alex was just looking at all of you like all of this wasn't real. The use of Reggie's name made him tense, surprised. Few called him Reginald. In fact, only his family, and the boys when they wanted to annoy him, called him that way. And although his nickname is obvious enough to deduce his

full first name, he deeply felt that you weren't just anyone.

  He seemed a little panicked and looked around for his friends to support him. As if the solution would fall by itself just by the presence of Luke and Alex.

 “Okay, but I want Luke and Alex’s there! What about tomorrow? I’ll give you the address!”

 Wow, that was quick.

 “hm, yeah, yeah sure, as you want”

 You nodded and Reggie silently slipped a note to the drummer. Alex took a pen, write something on a paper towel and gave it to you. You weren’t surprise, you also can make some tricks. And you just had the time to thanks them before they poofted again.

 …

 The next day, you landed in front of Julie's garage. Lucky she's at school because you shouldn't be explaining your presence, so she managed to see you the way she saw boys.

 Before entering, you peeked out the window and frowned. There seemed to be only Luke so far. He was leaning over the piano, his head in a notebook. Your body went through part of the garage door and you cleared your throat.

 “hmm, hi ... i came to see Reggie ..”

 Luke instantly raised his head and you caught his attention.

 “oh uh, hi! He should be here soon, come in.….”

 Silence felt as Luke motioned for you to sit on the couch. It was a rather pleasant studio; the plants gave a warm atmosphere to the room and the music set sent you good vibes.

 "Does your girlfriend mind that I'm here? I mean, that seems to be your HQ"

 "girlfriend?"

 "The girl you sing with" I simply said.

 "Julie? Um, yeah, she's not my girlfriend. She-sh-she’s great and we have this powerful connection but…not, not in a romantic way. Music tied us. Music and friendship "

 Luke chuckled lightly as he scratched his head. You were surprised they weren't dating. Yesterday the tension was intense. He seemed authentic when he had continued his momentum. You let out a smile amused by so much overflow.

 “It's okay, I don't need to know your full relationship statute or your social security number.”

 The guitarist gave you a frank smile, his eyes twinkling with amusement. For a ghost, his gaze was really alive.

 “ I’m Luke, by the way”

 "Y / N… Re .."

 "Reggie's little sister… I-I remember you a little."

 "You look familiar to me. Maybe I saw you in a few pictures with Reggie."

 Silence fell and you started to feel anxious. Maybe it was a bad idea? You had grown up since Reggie died ... were you still his little sister after all? Luke seemed to notice your dismay and put a comforting hand on your knee.

 “hey, is something bothering you?”

 “What if he doesn't believe me ... if he definitely thinks I'm not his sister.”

 “Let's be honest, it's a little hard to believe. The last time I saw you, you were three years old.”

 It was as if the memories flooded into your mind and let you carried away in your words.

 “Yeah, you gave me this teddy bear with a guitar and told Reggie you wanted to be my favorite.”

 Luke chuckled slightly before staring at you, speechless. He seemed dazed. This anecdote dates back to twenty-five years anyway. He himself had a hard time remembering it until you said it a few seconds earlier.

 “what was the smell of the stuffed animal?” he asked, confused about that funny fact

 “sorry, what?”

 “the plush, what did it smell like?”

 “hot waffle, why?”

 “okay ... maybe you are his sister ... tell me more about what you remember”

 You looked at him with a puzzled expression. Everything had been so natural before he stopped in all the movements. And now, it was hard to think about for the memories you had of Reggie on demand. The teddy bear given by Luke story had slipped out of your mind without you realizing it. As your brain seemed to boil, the fog of your thoughts cleared.

 “can I use your guitar?”

 “hell no ... why?” Luke exclaimed with far too much anticipation

 “I have this lullaby stuck inside of my head ... I think Reggie sang it to me when I was a child”

 Your pleading and desperate gaze fell on Luke who categorically refused to let you take his guitar. He ends up grabbing his six acoustic strings, terminated. There was something about you that made him weak.

 “Maybe you can teach me but ... my guitar is my guitar, nobody touches it.”

 You nodded and the lead singer moved closer to you. You were stunned by its smell, like a distant memory. Luke had definitely been a part of your life before he died, you were sure of that. You leaned over her shoulder, humming the lullaby that was left in your head. It didn't take long for him to find the right chords. Luke continued several times before you stopped singing, looking at him intently.

 “that's exactly it ... this lullaby”

 You both looked at each other, an indecipherable expression in your eyes. You both jumped at the sound of the garage door. Reggie appeared with Alex.

 "Ready to compose hellish songs! oh did I interrupt something?”

 "No, no I was there to see you. I guess you have a lot of questions."

 "hell yeah, can we start from the beginning?"

  You smiled to approve his request. The boys settled down on the sofa, while you sat down on one of the single armchairs. And the flow of questions began

  “When are you born?”

 “(your birthday date) 1992” you simply answered.

 “What’s your name?”

 (y/n) (y/m/n) Peters

 It’s seemed to convinced a little Reggie but doubt was all over his face.  It was information you could easily get on the internet nowadays.

 “What’s my favorite food?”

 “Pizza, mom said your favorite was the extra cheese with pepperoni”

 “And what was my favorite toy?”

 “I freaking don’t know, how can I suppose to known that?”

 “ah ah!” he pointed the finger at you, as if that answer was proof that you were lying. It broke your heart but you didn't show it.

Instead, you rolled your eyes and Reggie kept going to ask you some question. Of course, you would have liked to have answered his questions correctly. Your mother told you some anecdotes about him but not to the point of knowing all the details.

 “What’s the most terrible thing I said to my mom?”

 “Omg I don’t fucking know! I was 3 when you’re died, asshole!”

 Luke smiled when you exploded. Reggie was Reggie, as weird as possible. Now you were angry and desperate. Your brother didn’t believe you and he kept dragging you into this miserable feeling that you were never going to get your brother back. You had spent your short life living with a faint memory of him. Your blankie was one of his t-shirts, his voice reasoned in your head when you couldn’t sleep.

But then, in front of him, you were a stranger to him. Your heart was bruised from not being able to hug him and to finally meet this brother who had left far too soon.

 “Okay, okay… So, how can you proof me you’re really my sister?! “

 In the room’s corner, Luke looked at you, you looked desperate, about to cry again. He grabbed his guitar and cleared his throat. Reggie turned to him as the guitarist still had his eyes on you, a heartwarming smile hanging across his face. You had managed to convince him in a few minutes. He felt connected to you and the things you told him were disturbing. You could only be Reggie's sister; it was impossible otherwise.

 "Hey…What about the song you told me earlier." he said with a soft and comfort voice

 Your eyes caught his gaze, grateful for the initiative. You nodded and Luke started playing the few notes you had taught him a few minutes earlier. It was so different from all the songs the brunette could play before. It was a lullaby, such easy children's music with just a few notes.   Of course, the band wasn’t supposed to play when Julie wasn’t in the room but, Luke had thought it was the best thing to do to encourage you to keep going. He didn’t know why, but he wanted Reggie to believe you. Luke believed you, hard as nails. There only had to look at your eyes to understand this reality, and Luke had noticed that. You had the same blue eyes as your brother. How could Reggie still doubt that? You started to sing

 You're so sleepy

Very much sleepy

You want to go to the fairyland

You close your eyes

And jump into your dream.

When you'll wake up

I’ll still be on your team.

 The instant Reggie heard the first notes, he knew. But hearing you sing the lullaby he had invented for you when you didn't want to sleep as a child, was a magical moment. You were his baby sister. He gave you that sad little puppy face, so overwhelmed. Reggie opened his arms and you jumped into a hug, so glad he finally accepted the fact that you were his sister.

You felt oddly safe again, like taking a nap in Reggie's pile of old t-shirts. You were so happy to find your brother and to be able to live your non-life by his side. Nothing would be as boring as it used to be. Reggie pushed you away with a concerned look

 "but wait ... how did you die?"

 "Yeah ... I don't really know ... I was at a really, really good rock concert and I bought this drink ... and I think I got drugged up there and ... I guess I'm dead? tadaa " you tried to tell him in a light tone.

He had just learned that he had a little sister. He didn't have to know that she was sneaking out at rock concerts and drinking alcohol before she was old enough. Right? Alex looked at Luke and Reggie with his half amused half confused smile. As for Luke, he fidgeted from foot to foot at the discovery. Y / N was as much rock and roll as they all were. Rebellion had to be his middle name

You loosened Reggie's embrace and lowered your head, pursing your lips so as not to show your embarrassment. He asked if you wanted snacks and you nodded. There was a slight silence. You didn't notice the urgent look Luke gave Alex but the next moment the blond jumped up to accompany the bassist, leaving you alone in the garage with the lead singer.

 The silences were a little longer until Luke cautiously approached you. You could feel the awkwardness from miles away.

 “ Sooo, you made this.”

 “ yeah ...” you answered in a shy voice

 It was the moment you had to thank him but your words seemed frozen. You mustered all the courage to plant your gaze in Luke's eyes.

 “Thank you ... for helping me earlier.”

 “oh it was nothing”.

 “I ... yes, yes it was. You can't imagine how important seeing Reggie again is to me. Thanks for ... for helping me open his eyes.”

 A slight smile caught his lips and he reached for your cheek before stopping his gesture. Instead of stroking your skin, he simply put a section of your hair back behind your ear.

 “I would do anything for my best friends.”

 And Reggie was definitely one of Luke’s best friend. You hardly swallowed, your stomach contorting under the effect that the guitarist made you. Time had seemed to fly at an incredible speed as the moment was interrupted by Reggie and Alex coming back to you.

 “OMG LUKE DON’T FLIRT WITH MY SISTER, SHE’S 3!”

 You cleared your throat and stepped aside to pull yourself away from Luke as far as possible. Your gaze fell on your brother and you raised an eyebrow at the last remark. 3 years old, really? You were 3 years old twenty-five years ago ... now you were eternally a teenager

 “I’m seventeen.”

 “Listen, i'm your big brother, you’re three, end of discussion.”

 Your face wanted to laugh and you pursed your lips to keep from succumbing. But your eyes… Your eyes met Luke's in a complicity that slowly settled. Could you fall in love with your big brother's best friend? Definitely yes...

[nessinborderland]

Between Apple Pies and Chocolate Cosmos (01)

Pairing: Aguni x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Character Study

Words: 6.4k

Summary: Aguni first laid eyes on you in the greenhouse. After that, he simply couldn't take you out of his mind.

Warnings: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Feelings, Eventual Romance, Denial of Feelings, Slow Burn, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Notes: This was inspired by the wonderful @aghostsrantingcorner ask. For reference, there’s some things in this fic that were inspired by these posts by @hatterstan-shameblog​. This will be 2-3 parts max. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do <3

Aguni first laid eyes on you in the greenhouse.

It was a rainy morning, and the Beach was as silent as you would expect after a night of deadly games and partying. He always took advantage of the silent mornings to have a walk around the place, breathe some fresh air, and – most importantly – attend to his garden.

He had started working on it soon after he and Takeru found the Beach, still in the early days when it was only them. He never saw a reason why he shouldn’t. Since he was stuck there for an indefinite amount of time – since he would probably die there – he might as well keep up with the only hobby that brought him some resemblance of peace.

So, he did it. Every single morning. It kept him grounded; reminded him of who he was.

His Eden – as he liked to think about it – was a medium-sized glasshouse near the kitchens, surrounded by land where he had replanted a variety of fruit trees and berry bushes that he had found around Tokyo. It needed some remodeling, but it was perfect as soon as he was done fixing the broken glass and built a system to expertly use the rainwater. He loved the place. Its variety of colors and smells, the silence, and – what made him the happiest – being able to watch the literal fruit of his labor grow.

It was his little piece of heaven in the hell he was trapped in.

Now, one thing about the greenhouse: no one was allowed inside the place beside him. Everybody knew it. It was not like anyone had any real interest in plants or vegetables but, still, people knew that that was his place. Even the old ladies responsible for the meals knew to not go inside; if they needed any ingredient, they asked him.

So imagine his surprise when he got closer to the glass walls of his greenhouse and heard soft singing coming from inside. It was barely audible, the tip-tap from the rain hitting the glass making it harder for him to understand any words. But he knew someone was in there.

His first thought was to barge in and kick out whoever was disrupting his garden. He could feel his anger grow as he stared at the blurred figure on the other side of the glass, messing around with his stuff. He took a deep breath before opening the door and stepping inside. 

The air inside the greenhouse was warm, with light condensation already sliding down the glass walls. The intruder – a woman, he noticed – was with her back turned to him, humming a song that was more than familiar due to Takeru’s taste in music.

“... lay all your love on– ” you gasped as you turned to him, no doubt startled by his presence. The vase in your hands shattered as it hit the floor with a loud smash, and you let out another startled sound. You crouched to clean up the mess, a row of apologies already escaping from your lips. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, please don’t move while I–”

“You shouldn’t be here,” was all he said as he stood there, stoic and cold expression looking at you from above. Your face was vaguely familiar to him – like every other face at the Beach – but he knew nothing about you. He noticed when you froze and slowly looked up, locking eyes with him. He saw the exact moment you recognized him, eyes growing wide and mouth agape as you held broken pieces of clay in your hands.

“Aguni–”

“Clean up your mess and leave,” he mumbled as he walked past you to access the damage you had done to his greenhouse. He noticed how several of his previous empty vases were now occupied by small plants and flowers that he had meant to work on that morning. You had just done his work for him. And perfectly, he could tell. Or as perfect as he could expect from someone that wasn’t him. He felt his anger subside. “The chamomile is supposed to be planted next to the tomatoes,” he said as he started carefully removing the small flowers from the vases. “We have no need for tea here.”

“Hmm...I thought you were using those for medicinal purposes?” you hesitantly asked. He kept his back to you, focusing on the task at hand as he waited for you to leave. Leave, however, you did not. "I'm sure they could be useful if–"

"There are only two kinds of people here," he interrupted in a cold tone. "The living and healthy, and the dead. If you're wounded, you belong to the latter. The tomatoes, though, could use some–"

"But couldn't we start an infirmary here?" Your question made him stop what he was doing, and he raised a brow as he looked at you over his shoulder. No one interrupted him; ever. You clearly didn't notice his hard stare as you continued to talk, "We could use garlic and oregano oil for infections, and aloe vera for–"

"You shouldn't be here," he repeated, now in a tone slightly louder than he liked to use. You halted mid-sentence, the small smile on your lips changing into a frown. "I'm not repeating myself. This greenhouse is off-limits. Leave." 

He gave you one last glance before focusing again on his task, listening as you gathered the broken vase. A whimper made him look back at you, watching as you stared at your bleeding finger, droplets of blood falling on the rich soil underneath you. He sighed before grabbing a roll of paper towels from a shelf above his head, turning to hand you one.

"Thank you," you said in a low tone as you accepted the help and involved the tissue around your finger, hissing from the pain.

Only then did he notice what that broken vase had been carrying. At your feet, in the middle of a small mountain of dirt, was a chocolate cosmos. It wasn't one of his flowers, he was sure of that. He had never even seen a live specimen before.

"Weren't those extinct?" he asked before he could stop himself.

Your eyes widen at his question before you looked at him with a soft smile on your lips. He felt the tips of his ears get warm; why in the hell were you smiling at him?

"Mhm, I think so... You can still find them in captivity, though," you said as you gently picked up the reddish-brown flower. You looked at him for a moment before nodding to the table behind him. "Could I get another vase, please? It's just that she's been staying in a box since I got her and I just wanted to– oh, thanks!"

You smiled at him again as he handed you another small vase without a word. Aguni averted his eyes, focusing on your hands as you arranged the pretty flower in its new home. He felt... uneasy, is the word. His usual relaxing morning had been ruined by some random woman with a nice smile.

He didn't like that one bit.

"Well... I'm gonna go now," you awkwardly started as you made your way to the door, before stopping and turning around as if you forgot something. "Oh, by the way, did you...did you do all this?" you asked, gesticulating around you. He nodded once and you smiled again. "It's beautiful. Good job."

With those words, you finally left him alone. 

Aguni was sure he wasn't just blushing in his ears now. His whole face was warm. He never had anyone compliment him on his gardening skills before. Yeah, Takeru told him several times he was good at it, but no one had actually shown interest. It made him feel some kind of way.

He shook his head and got back to his work. He could still enjoy his quiet morning before a council meeting if he was fast enough.

»«»«»«

You were there the next morning.

The sun had barely risen when he approached the greenhouse, a warm cup of coffee in hand while he whistled a tune that had been stuck in his head since he woke up. He hadn't even noticed you until he went to open the door, your voice making him jump slightly where he stood.

"You like ABBA too?" you asked from behind him.

He looked over his shoulder to stare at you. You were sitting under a tree not far away, that same nice smile on your face. You were holding something in your hands – something that he noticed was hot – as steam was visible in the chill morning air.

He felt his ears get warm again; damnit, he hadn't even realized that the tune he was whistling was the same song he had caught you singing the day before. He took a deep breath and shook his head. 

You both stood there, clearly waiting for the other to speak first. He was never a man of many words, though, so he just nodded once in your direction before getting inside his greenhouse and closing the door behind him.

A knock on the door not long after made him roll his eyes. He walked away from his work table with a sigh, cursing at his lack of peace and quiet; all the man wanted was to drink his morning coffee in solitude.

"What?" he asked as he opened the door to find you there, holding something wrapped in paper in his direction. He had noticed the steaming thing earlier. "What's that?"

"I wanted to thank you," you said, almost stumbling over your words as you signaled him to take it from you. "It's a pie."

"A pie?" he asked slowly, raising a brow in distrust.

"Yes, apple pie," you sent him a small smile as you tried to get him to accept the baked good. When he just stood there, arms crossed, your smile fell. He almost, almost, made a move to grab your offer then. "Hmm, Mrs. Yamamoto from the kitchen lets me use ingredients sometimes to bake stuff, and as long as I clean everything after–"

"I don't eat breakfast," he interrupted, arms still crossed as he looked you up and down with furrowed brows. He was trying to understand your intentions towards him. What was your move here?

"Oh, but you should, you know?" you said in a raised tone. "It's the most important meal of the day! A-and this one was made with your apples, so I thought you would–"

"What do you want from me?"

Even though Aguni was a man of few words, he never had any problem being direct. When you just looked at him with big, confused eyes, he was even more weirded out by your manners. You were either being genuine or were a really good actress. He didn't know what made him more uncomfortable.

"I just want to... to thank you for the vase?" you hesitantly answered, arms lowering.

His hand snapped towards your arm before he even realized, suddenly aware that he did want that pie. However, a pained gasp made him release you immediately upon touching you over your jacket. 

"Are you hurt?" he asked, secretly hoping he hadn't actually hurt you.

"I- I'm fine," you answered with a shake of your head. "It was just a small injury from yesterday's game."

"Let me see," he ordered.

You stared wide-eyed at him, and it almost made him backtrack and send you away. Why should he care if you were hurt?

Aguni was about to do exactly that when you gingerly extended your arm in his direction. He focused on your arm as his fingers lightly grabbed your wrist, pulling your sleeve up to show a burn mark roughly the size of your palm. It didn't look too bad, but he could see that you hadn't put anything on it.

"Come," he said as he gestured at you to follow him inside the greenhouse.

He worked fast as he prepared something that would help you with your burn. He didn't know much about medicinal plants, but he knew enough.

He gestured at you to sit on the table as he carefully applied a mix of aloe vera and oats to your injury with light feather-like touches. It was all done in silence until he heard a noise from you, something resembling a barely huffed laugh. He glanced up to notice you looking straight at him, that same damned smile on your lips. He quickly focused back on the injury, hoping you wouldn't notice his red ears.

"I thought I was part of the dead now," you said, clearly referencing what he had said the day before. He grunted with a shrug, now at all interested in talking about his change of ideals. "You know...I never thought you were the type," you kept talking, and he kept addressing your injury. "To like plants, I mean. This place is amazing." 

"What type am I, then?" he caught himself asking. Not that he particularly cared about your answer, but curiosity got the best of him. You laughed at his words and shrugged.

"Hmm, I don't know... the type that punches tigers?" He had to control the will to smile then, hiding his face from view. "I really wasn't expecting tall, big, and stoic Aguni to be so good with plants. I'm pleasantly surprised."

His movements halted for a second as he processed your words. He was sure he was red all over his face now, damn you. He continued what he was doing before he could overthink your words too much.

"Never judge a book by its cover."

He cringed as soon as those words left his mouth. What a corny thing to say. He decided then that your burn was sufficiently covered in aloe, and immediately retracted his hands, turning his back to you as he cleaned his fingers and tried to get his blush under control.

"Hmm, I guess you're right…" you said as he heard you stand up. "Well, thank you again, for this." He nodded and grunted in acknowledgment without turning to face you. "And the pie is here, just in case you want to try it." You hesitated, "...Hmm if you don't want it, you can always give it to Last Boss. He- he caught me in the kitchens once and I promised to bake him stuff if he helped me clean up after. He doesn't talk much and he's kind of scary, but he's nice." He turned to you then, and the expression on his face might've told you that you were overstaying your visit, so you quickly rushed for the door. "Mm okay, bye!" you said as you sent him an awkward wave and left.

He wondered if you thought he was scary but nice.

»«»«»«

A piece of chocolate cake was left by his greenhouse the day after.

The day after that, a croissant.

The gifts were always accompanied by small notes written in pretty handwriting. Some were simple recipes; others were small facts about medicinal plants he knew nothing about. He kept them all, safely hidden in a can on his worktable. A week went by where he expected a new pastry or sweet to welcome him. And, without fail, there it was. He never saw you around though, in the mornings or throughout the day, which he found odd. He didn't even know your name, but he found himself searching for you throughout the Beach, or in the games at night. But he never saw you. He would've thought you were dead if it weren't for the consistent gifts you left at his door.

Now, he wasn't lying when he said he wasn't a man for breakfast. He really wasn't. But after trying a piece of that apple pie, he saw himself devouring almost the whole thing. The same with the cake and the croissant. They were probably the best baked goods that he had ever tried. He was even more excited to start his mornings.

This morning, however, he arrived at the greenhouse to find nothing by the door. No box, no note, no wrapping. Nothing. He furrowed his brows, feeling disappointed, but quickly shrugged the feeling off as he got inside. Your pleasantries had to stop someday.

It bothered him, though. And he hated the fact that it bothered him. He hated the fact that he cared. He spent the day thinking about it. Thinking about you. Where could you possibly be? What happened? He didn’t even know your name. He didn’t know what bedroom you lived in, and it was driving him mad.

He had zoned out throughout the morning meeting, lashed out at several of the militants, and was now fully ignoring Takeru as his best friend went on and on about something he didn’t care enough to even pretend to be listening.

“Mori, hey!” His friend snapped his fingers in front of his face, forcing Aguni out of his thoughts. He stared at Takeru with a frown.

“What?” he asked, taking a sip from the glass of water in front of him.

“The first time all week that we’re having lunch together, and you’re quieter than usual,” his friend said, nodding at the plate of barely touched food in front of him. “You’re not even eating. What’s going on?” 

“I’m fine,” he shrugged, stabbing a piece of roasted rabbit with his fork and taking a bite. He chewed as he thought of a good excuse. Takeru could be annoyingly perceptive when it came to other people’s emotions, especially his. “Just have a lot on my mind, that’s all,” he finally said.

His friend looked at him for a moment before setting his elbows on the table, supporting his chin on his palms. Oh no, he knew what that meant. He was about to be questioned to death.

"Are you in love?" he asked, a slight smirk on his lips.

Aguni choked on his own spit at the man's question, violently coughing as he vehemently shook his head. 

"What the hell are you talking about?!" he asked after easing his cough, throat burning, and eyes teary from the effort.

"Well let's see," Takeru started, hand raised as he prepared himself to make a list. Aguni instantly regretted his question. "You've been late to meetings almost every morning for the past week, you barely pay attention to anything I tell you and I'm pretty sure I heard you hum 'Lay All Your Love on Me' by ABBA the other day. I've never heard you do anything close to singing," Takeru said as he wiggled three raised fingers before raising a fourth. "And a little bird told me that they heard you talking with someone inside your garden house." The smirk on his lips turned into a grin as Aguni averted his eyes. "So, tell me; who is she? Or is it a he? C'mon, you know you can tell–"

"I don't know what you're talking about," was all he said in what he hoped was a nonchalant tone.

Takeru wasn't easy to fool, though.

"You know what, I know you're full of shit, but I will allow it," he said with a fork pointed in his direction. "For now, at least. Now it's dessert time!" Takeru licked his lips as he pulled a tray to the center of the table. "I've been wanting you to try this for days, it's delicious!" He opened the tray to uncover two perfectly sized individual pies. Not just any pies, either. Aguni knew exactly who made them.

"Where did you get this?" he blurted out, staring at the perfectly cooked pastries. Takeru looked at him with a confused look.

"Huh, the kitchen? Where else?"

"Yeah, but who made them?" Aguni pressed further, wanting an answer that would show him that you were actually alive. "Were they made today?"

"Uh, I would hope so, yeah. And I don't know who made them, old Yamamoto just said it was one of her helpers," Takeru retorted with a shrug. "They're amazing, though, you should try it."

Aguni almost felt himself sag in relief. If these were made today, that meant that you were alive. It also meant that you definitely had stopped leaving gifts at his door. He tried not to focus on how he felt a little hurt by it. It was not like you owed him anything, anyway.

He still couldn't stop thinking about you as he finished his lunch with Takeru. He hated to admit it, but he felt bad for how he had treated you when you first met. He felt like he owed you at least an apology, and �� not like he would ever admit it to himself – he wanted to see you again.

He always went for a short walk after lunch before having to proceed with his duties for the day. He wasn't exactly surprised to find himself by the kitchens, peeping inside the large double doors to take a look – part of him hoping to see you there.

What he saw instead were the so-called Food Ladies, a group of old women that had taken upon themselves the important role of cooking for everyone at the Beach. They were now chilling and having their own meals after the lunch hour rush. He spotted Mrs. Yamamoto, the oldest of the bunch – that also happened to be the boss – leaning by the doors that led outside, smoking her usual cigarette. She spotted him too, with small dark eyes that made him want to run away. It was strangely similar to the way his grandmother used to look at him when he misbehaved as a child.

“Oi, boy, c’mere,” she called him before he could walk away. The laughs and conversations of the other women ceased immediately as he entered the room. They eyed him for some time, one of the old ladies elbowing another before whispering something he couldn’t hear. His brows furrowed; he hated all that attention.

“Mrs. Yama–”

“You have to learn how to control your militants, Aguni,” she said as soon as he got close enough. “Two of your boys were disturbing one of my girls this morning. God knows what they would’ve done to the poor thing if I hadn’t shooed them away.” He had to control his facial expression; was she talking about you? “That girl gets up before dawn to cook sweets for so many people in this godforsaken place, and that’s how they repay her?” The old woman shook her head, before adding, “The rude boy with the piercings on his face and the odd one with the katana. See to it that they don’t get close to her again, do ya hear me?” 

He nodded once before turning to leave, anger already simmering inside him. He had the urge to use his fists on a very specific someone.

He found whom he was looking for on the roof, as he expected. Last Boss was the first to notice him, eyes going wide as Aguni power walked to the man next to him.

“...and Chishiya– oh fuck! What the hell?!” Niragi screamed as Aguni pushed him toward the edge of the roof before forcing him to lean over it.

He held the man by his collar, almost making him lose his balance and fall to his death. Part of him really wanted to let go. He knew what Niragi was capable of.

“What were you doing in the kitchen this morning?” he asked in a cold, emotionless tone. The younger man looked down before visibly gulping and staring at him with a furrowed brow.

“T- The kitchen?...” he asked back. Aguni took a deep breath before loosening the grip on his shirt, making Niragi yelp and grab his arm. “Look look, it was his idea to go there, I didn’t do anything!”

Aguni looked back at Last Boss, and the man raised his hands while shaking his head.

“He- he just followed me there, I didn’t ask him to come with me,” the tattooed man said, stumbling on his words. “If you’re talking about the old lady, she kicked us out, but we didn’t do anything, I swear.” 

“The girl?” he asked through gritted teeth. He was starting to lose his patience. The younger men shared a look between them before Last Boss started talking.

“Y/N?” he asked for clarification. So that was your name. “We didn’t touch her. Niragi just took some pies and we left.” 

“Is that so?” Aguni asked Niragi, the man still in his grasp. He knew what he was capable of, and he wouldn’t put it past Last Boss to lie for his friend. “Cause that’s not what I heard…” his fingers loosened once again around the man’s collar, making him tighten his grip on Aguni’s arm.

“Fine, fine, I- I might’ve teased her a little,” the man confessed. “But I didn’t mean to make her cry, and we left right after. I didn’t do anything, I swear!”

Aguni considered his words for a moment, before pulling Niragi off the edge and pushing him to the ground. The man cursed something under his breath that Aguni preferred to ignore as he now focused on Last Boss.

“Do you know her last name?” he asked. The man shook his head. Aguni sighed; he would have to check Mira’s records if he wanted to find her room. “You both better stay away from the kitchens and from that girl,” he said, now keeping his stone-cold gaze on Niragi. “Is that clear?”

Both men nodded. 

Without another word, Aguni left the roof.

»«»«»«

It was surprisingly hard for him to find your room. 

Mira had immediately denied any access to her records, claiming invasion of privacy. Which it was; he would probably do the same thing if he was in her place. But he pressed on, and she eventually gave in, simply saying that you lived in the south wing of the Hotel, somewhere on the second level. He accepted the information and forced himself to ask around for you, as inconspicuously as he could. Surprisingly, practically no one recognized the description he gave of you, and no one knew your name. He was almost giving up when finally...

“Oh, Y/N?” a couple of young women said. “Yeah, she lives next door to us, room 237.”

He finally had your room number.

Aguni spent five minutes gathering the necessary courage to knock on your door, hesitating and almost leaving every time he lifted his knuckles against the door. He made a frustrated sound, annoyed with himself.

“You’re an idiot,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Hello?” someone greeted behind him. Aguni froze before looking over his shoulder. There you were. Dressed in shorts and a light jacket, hair in a braid over your shoulder, and a hesitant smile on your face, you looked pretty in his eyes. It really made him wonder if Takeru was right; he did have a crush on someone. “Hmm, is everything okay?” 

“Yeah, uh- hey.” He cleared his throat as he realized he had been staring. He could feel his face getting warm. “Hm, how’re doing?” he asked, before grimacing. Ah yes, Morizono, very nice. You raised a brow as you looked at him for a moment.

“I’m... fine,” you answered with a hesitant smile. “Were you waiting for me?”

“Yes, I- I wanted to apologize,” he cringed at his stuttering. But there it was. Direct and clear. The fastest he could get himself out of this awkward conversation, the better. “I heard about what happened this morning with two of my militants, and I just want you to know that they won’t bother you again.”

“Oh, that was just a misunderstanding!" you say as you shake your head. "I was just talking with Mrs. Yamamoto about that. Nothing happened."

"That was not what I heard."

"No, no, I'm fine, they didn't do anything to me," you reassured him. "Niragi just… said some mean things, but Last Boss stopped him. Mrs. Yamamoto thought they were hurting me and I'm really sorry." You shrugged and gave him an awkward smile. "I just cry sometimes. I even went to talk with Last Boss about it, but I think Mrs. Yamamoto really scared him, 'cause he keeps avoiding me." You said with an awkward chuckle. "But I'm okay, really."

Aguni grunted with a nod, convinced that you were telling him the truth. Still, he wanted those two, Niragi in particular, as far from you as he could.

"If they mess with you again, let me know, all right?" You nodded at his request, and he almost had the urge to smile back at you. "Okay then," he said with a nod before making a move to leave.

"Hmm, did you enjoy today's pastry?" he heard you ask in a hesitant tone. He turned around, confused. There was no pastry waiting for him today. He said so to you, and your brows furrowed. "Uh, no, I'm pretty sure I left you something. Strawberry pie with a chocolate crust?"

"There was nothing when I got there," he said. There were butterflies in his stomach, though. You hadn't stopped baking stuff for him, after all. 

"That's odd…" you said as you bit your lip, wondering what could've happened. "Well," you shrugged, "I'll make sure you get it tomorrow morning, then."

He nodded without a word and watched as you smiled at him before moving to open your door.

"How's your arm?" he blurted out before he could stop himself. You froze by the door for a moment before showing him your arm, skin looking much better than it was just a week prior.

"That aloe mix you gave me helped a lot. Thanks, again," you said with another one of those smiles that made him want to smile back.

"You know…" he hesitated for a moment before taking a deep breath and saying what he meant to say, eyes on your feet, "If you ever want to, you can show up by the greenhouse, sometimes. There are these new seeds I got that might interest you. I don't know, but the offer stands."

He shrugged, like what he just said meant nothing. He finally focused on your face, and his stomach did somersaults as he found you grinning at him.

"I would like that very much." 

»«»«»«

You were there the next morning.

And the next. And the next. And the other one after that. Always with a smile on your face, always carrying a new sweet that you would both share.

The first days were as awkward as you could imagine. He almost feared looking you in the eyes, feeling like a teenager again with all the blushing and weird sensations in the pit of his stomach. All he needed was a smile from you to look as red as one of his tomatoes. 

At first, you would eat in silence, until you eventually broke it by mentioning something about plants, or what flowers you were expecting to bring the next time you went scavenging. Then it would be just you doing most of the talk as he stuffed his mouth with whatever deliciousness you had brought him that day, nodding, and grunting on occasion. He realized he liked hearing you speak. Hearing your voice.

Then he would start working on whatever he had planned the morning before, and that's when you would watch him as he went around his garden showing you things. You would give him ideas from time to time, always following him as you attentively listened to his words. He realized he liked the attention. Your attention.

It didn't take long until you were more comfortable around each other. Then you would both talk freely, almost always about plants. He would be lying if he said he wasn't curious to know more about you, but he didn't have the courage to ask.

"What did you do... before?" you asked one day, about a week into your morning rendezvous. You were sharing a quiche today, and he took his time chewing before answering.

"Was part of the SDF," he said. You nodded like it made sense that a man like him had a job like that. "Nothing too interesting, though,” he said with a shrug. “You?"

"Worked at my family's bakery," you said, a small smile on your face as you seemed to think back to those times. "My grandma taught me everything I know. She made the best quiche in Tokyo, you know? Mine has nothing on hers."

He couldn't control his chuckle then, nor he meant to say the words that got out of his mouth next.

"Takeru would love to hear that."

"Who?" you asked, brow raised as you chewed a piece of the salty pastry. There were flakes of crust on the corner of your mouth, and he had to control the urge to wipe them away with his thumb. He shook his head instead.

"Just a friend from… from back home," he said. "The man can't cook to save his life but bakes one hell of a quiche. Yours is better, though."

You smiled at the compliment and proceeded to eat in silence. He didn't want to waste the chance to get to know you more, though.

"What do you do all day?" he asked. You raised a brow, and he specified what he meant, "I mean, I barely see you around and no one seems to know you, so…"

"Oh, I just stay in my room all day," you said as you shrugged and let out an awkward chuckle. "I'm not really a people person and I spend most of my nights awake, so I mostly just sleep."

"What do you do when you're awake, then?"

"I go to the games, I bake and, well, now I spend some time here with you." He could swear his heart beat a little faster at your words. He felt strangely honored that you decided to spend time with him. 

"Yeah, I'm not much of a people person myself," he said. "Plants are much better, aren't they?" He tried to send you a small smile but immediately regretted it as it felt more like a grimace. You smiled back at him, though, so it probably wasn't as bad as he thought it was. 

"Hmm, you're right, but I don't mind some people."

He didn't know what to make of your statement.

»«»«»«

A month passed when you met every morning. 

Your joined morning routine had taken a comfortable rhythm for both of you, where you ate, talked, and worked without that awkward vibe of the first few days. With you joining him in the work, his crops flourished. It was the best part of his day, without a doubt.

He realized several things during that time.

The first was that you liked to sing while you worked. Didn't matter if you were planting potatoes, watering the flowers, or preparing herbal remedies – that you had eventually convinced him to be useful – you were always humming a tune under your breath, or singing the words aloud. 

The second thing he realized was that he liked it.

He liked to hear you sing so much that the songs would stay in his head for the rest of the day, and he would wake up with your voice still echoing in his head. He had even caught himself whistling at times. Once during a council meeting, where he had zoned out again and was completely oblivious to the fact that he had been humming 'I Want to Break Free’ by Queen until Takeru snapped his attention and everyone was looking at him like he had grown two heads. All except his best friend, that had a knowing smirk on his lips.

The third thing he realized – and, to his shock, didn't surprise him – was that he had totally developed a crush on you.

"So, am I ever going to meet them or what?" Takeru asked over his glass of golden whiskey, taking a sip when Aguni took too long to answer. "You can't keep them a secret from me forever."

"I don't know what you're talking about," was all Aguni said as he took a gulp of his own drink, avoiding his friend's eyes and looking at the moon up high in the sky. His friend really had the best view for late-night drinking, especially after a stressful game. 

"Fine, don't tell me," Takeru shrugged like he didn't care, but Aguni could tell he one hundred percent did. What was he supposed to tell him? There was no relationship for him to talk about. 

"Okay, listen…" his friend's eyes shined as he focused all his attention on him, making Aguni want to hide from his scrutiny. He took a deep breath before saying, "There's nothing to talk about. There's no relationship."

"Ahh, but you're in love, aren't you?" Takeru let out an excited laugh, and Aguni could feel the corners of his mouth pulling up. "In all the years we've been friends I saw you like what? Three people? And you never behaved like this." He drank whatever was left of the drink in his glass before filling it up again. "This one sure looks promising." There was a pause where they just drank in silence before he asked again "So, what's her name? It’s a she, isn't it?"

"Y/N," Aguni mumbled, loud enough for him to hear. Takeru's eyes widen comically at the name.

"The pie girl?!" he asked in a raised tone. "You're head over heels for the pie girl?" He laughed then, and Aguni furrowed his brows in annoyance.

"You know her?" 

"Yeah, I mean, old Yamamoto wouldn't tell me who the miracle baker was, so I went to see for myself. She's cute," he let out a mean chuckle, "I knew you were getting thicker around the waist. She's feeding you well, I see."

"Yeah." Aguni gave him a full-on smirk as he said the next words, "She makes the best quiche I've ever eaten." 

The shocked and offended gasp that left Takeru's mouth almost made him laugh. 

"You take that back!" the man punched his arm once and drank the remaining of his whiskey in one single gulp. "You just ruined my night. Get out and think about what you just said. I'll be expecting an apology by morning."

Aguni laughed then, the only kind of laugh that he could only make when he was around his best friend.

"Yours is good," he shrugged, still laughing. "But hers is better."

»«»«»«

->Next Chapter

[dustofbrokenheart]

The Lost Boys: Take-Out Intrigue Part 2

Part One | Part Two 

Marko x Reader

Word Count: 2,524

Summary: A requested continuation of this idea. Reader runs into Marko a few weeks later and is convinced to go on a late night rendezvous. 

There were few moments in life as sweet as when you had just finished a shift.

You got along with your co-workers and the owners were good to you. The job itself wasn’t too bad outside of the occasional snotty customer. But after being on your feet, your body was grateful to go home and just sit.

“Be careful, huh? They still haven’t found that guy,” your boss cautioned as she locked up behind the both of you.

That gave you pause.

Two weeks ago, the cops had come in on official business. Yet another missing person’s case in Santa Carla except this time, the last any one had seen of the victim was outside the restaurant. There were no leads which had the workers spooked, especially since it happened nearby.

Some insisted that he had been in an accident, that he would turn up sooner or later. Others maintained that he must be a criminal himself—why else would’ve he been out so late? 

And a third group of co-workers were bold enough to come out and say he was probably long dead, the victim of a killer. You agreed with them. 

Whatever the case, everyone was more cautious when leaving after the late shift.

Most of your shifts were still in the day but after seeing that beautiful boy on a random nightshift you’d taken on a whim and started signing up for more in hopes of seeing him again. He hadn’t come back yet.

You reassured her as you zipped up your jacket. “Thank you, auntie. I promise to be careful.”

Passing a critical eye over you, she started chiding you about dressing smarter—what kind of fool wore a nylon jacket in these temperatures. You took it without complaint, knowing the nagging was how she showed that she cared.

Her husband, the other owner, was already waiting in their car and the last thing she told you as she got in was, “There’s eight in that bag. Share with everyone at home.”

You held the bag containing a pile of smooth, fluffy buns reverently against your chest.

It wasn’t often that she brought food from home to give to employees but when she did, it was always delicious. The bao was a big favorite of yours.

“Thank you. I will,” you said with a dip of your head.

They drove off and you head down to your own car. Alone on the sidewalk, you juggled everything in your arms to fish out your keys, taking great care not to squish the bao. It was a particularly quiet that night which put you on guard, your eyes darting around trying to peer into the darkness.

Every shadow was suspicious, the corners of buildings a potential hiding spot for a psycho laying in wait. There was also an alleyway you had to pass by that made you extra wary. You darted past it, careful to keep it in your line of limited vision.

Santa Carla was a shifty town, especially after dark, and you’d rather be paranoid instead of caught off guard.

The jingle of your car keys was almost obvious disrupter in the otherwise silent street as you unlocked the car. Your textbooks were demoted to the floor of the passenger seat, the bag of bao riding shot gun in the actual seat. 

For a spilt second, you thought about buckling it in but quickly dismissed it; the seat belt could crush them.

You slammed the door shut when you felt it. A cold shudder on the back of your neck. The kind of anxious realization that you were being watched.

Your head swiveled this way and that, trying to find the source of your unease but the darkness too much of a handicap. It was times like this when you were reminded just how badly lit the street was.

There were no detectible sounds either. You strained to pick up the slightest movement and only heard the rush of adrenaline in your ears.

Desperate to keep your wits about you, you took a deep breath and walked as calmly as you could to the driver’s side. You gripped the car keys tightly, in case you needed to stab someone, ignoring the tremors in your hands. Nothing happened, yet the feeling of being watched remained and you hoped that it’d be okay once you got in the car.

You reached for the handle and thought you were safe when it intensified. There was no warning before a cold hand rested on your hip, the chill cutting through your jacket.

You screamed with everything in you and whirled around, arm poised to gouge out the creep’s eyes.

The other person effortlessly batted your attack away and you recognized belatedly that those distinct curls were familiar. The fight drained out of you with one big gasp of air. “You.”

He smiled excitedly, like he hadn’t just scared the shit out of you. He spun your keys, the key ring looped around his finger. You didn’t remember them leaving your hold.

“Nice jab,” he complimented.

“Yeah,” you stammered, hand over your pounding heart. It was eerie how he snuck up on you like that, even when you were on full guard.

“You didn’t hesitate.” The spinning stopped and he offered you the keys. He leaned in close stopping just shy of invading your personal space. “You have a fighter’s instinct.”

“Only when people sneak up on me.”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry about that.”

His voice was perfectly sincere but your intuition didn’t trust him. It told you that he had liked scaring you.

The customer was just how you remembered him from the one time you took his order. Patched jacket and leather chaps and a cherubic face. The flawless face was a harsh reminder that you hadn’t been able to land a single scratch on him.

“We didn’t introduce ourselves last time,” you frowned. “What’s your name?”

He bit his thumb, the paleness of it standing in stark contrast with the dark leather of his fingerless glove even in the dim light. “Marko.” Hmm. It suited him, you decided. “And you’re Y/N.

You stood up a little straighter, uneasy. You were sure that you hadn’t said your name last time—you never introduced yourself to customers.

Once again, he stole the words out of your mouth. “It was on the name tag.”

Oh. You’d forgotten about the raised rectangular underneath your jacket. The name tag. “Sorry. I’m still a little spooked from what just happened.”

“Never took you for a screamer,” he teased. Heat exploded in your face and the night hid how he focused on the small bird shaped pin on the lapel of your jacket.  

He was more mischievous and you wished for the ease of conversation from his other visit. Was this truer to his actual personality? Normally, you’d wouldn’t have minded either way but you couldn’t ignore the weirdness of this encounter.

Your goal was to leave as soon as possible. Either he didn’t pick up on that, or he did and just didn’t care because next thing you knew, he was inviting you to hang out at a park a couple of blocks away. And he didn’t mean tomorrow or next week, he meant right then.

Your resistance was instinctive and the excuse that you needed to go home and get some sleep was both a truth and a lie.

He crowded you against the car, finally crossing into your personal space. You made the mistake of glancing into his eyes and found you couldn’t turn away. The longer you looked, the more you swore that a predatory yellow glowed from his irises.

Human eyes didn’t even come in that color! You were going crazy.

“I think you should come.” His soft tone didn’t match the determined posture. “You’ll have fun.”

You struggled internally but he started to sound reasonable. Forget the fact that this was something you knew better than to do. You really wanted to keep talking with him and an inner voice reminded you that you had been waiting for him to return…This was your chance.

“Okay,” you smiled. The previous reservations evaporated from your mind and all you could think about was the excitement.  

The two of you drove to the park, him on his motorcycle and you in your car. All of the benches empty and ready for the taking. There a few by the basketball courts and there were tons of streetlights in that direction so you went there.

Sitting down, you were finally able to see him clearly. The park used white bulbs in their lights which was an upgrade from the orange ones lining the streets.

“Here.” You handed him one of the buns that you brought with from the car. “It’s char siu bao.”

He lit up. “Whoa! I didn’t know you guys sold this. Is it a secret menu item?”

You laughed, spitting out mashed-up bits of food. Still chuckling, you made sure to swallow and then answered. “Nope, there’s not a secret menu. Not one that I know about any way. Sometimes the owners bring in food to share with us and they made bao this time.”

The first bite had him moaning obscenely. The rest of it was scarfed down quickly and he patted his stomach appreciatively, his cut-off tank riding up to expose more of his skin.

“Damn. That was orgasm by BBQ pork bun. Your angel for giving me some.”

For the second time that night, heat spread across your face and you kept your eyes trained away. His boldness was flattering. How could you have been scared of him earlier? It seemed ridiculous right then.

“So,” he continued, “I couldn’t help but notice the eyesore hanging from your rear-view mirror.”

“It’s not an eyesore. It took me a whole week to make that.”

That impressed him. “Really. You make a lot of things yourself?”

It launched a whole conversation about your latest creative projects. What kind of materials you liked to work with, where you got your supplies, and if you would show them to him sometime.

Marko talked about his as well. He mostly dabbled in clothing projects, like his jacket, and painting although he worked with shells and wood a lot, too. If the extraordinary patch work on the jacket was any indicator, he was seriously talented.

Sensing an opportunity, you proposed that you would show him your stuff, only if he showed you his.

“You’ll have to be specific what of mine you want to see,” he said with a wink.

“The projects, Marko. I mean the projects,” you sassed. It was becoming easier to respond to his quips.

He gestured further down where some patches of spray paint were visible on the concrete ground. “I can show you some now, if you want.”

Your brows shot up. He did say he did all kinds of painting, but he spray painted too? Curious, you didn’t wait for him as you went to go take a peek.

People tagged all over Santa Carla these days, normally on buildings or signs. Never had you seen it left up in a public park and on the ground, no less. A lot of residents complained about what they saw as trashy graffiti, but you thought that was a conservative view. Some it was actually quite good, the talent of the artists undeniable.

The five slabs of park sidewalk examples of good pieces. There were styles that differed from bubbly word font to intricate cartoon characters and it was apparent that many people had worked on this.

You examined them critically, trying to find which was Marko’s based on your limited knowledge.

The bubbly font was too soft for him. The animated turtle with a bandana and nun-chucks, certainly a comic book figure, didn’t seem like him either. Then you spotted a stylized skull with a bird placed in each eye socket, an aggressively written ‘anarchy’ running down the side length of it.

The pin was a reminder on your chest and you knew that it was his.

“Aww, how’d you guess?”

“A little birdy told me,” you said, softly touching the image. What really stood out was the high-level shading he incorporated. The cheeks appeared wicked sharp and the eye sockets had realistic depth to them. You couldn’t believe he managed those techniques with simply spray paint.

Marko crouched in front of you, watching you intently. Your scent and admiration irresistible to him.  

Neither of you spoke as he leaned ever closer. Unlike earlier, the quiet wasn’t scary and you felt anticipation. Right at the moment he his lips would’ve touched yours, there was a big rustle in the bushes to your left.

Both of you froze. You in alarm and Marko in annoyance.

Next thing you knew, another blonde rolled out from the foliage and bowled Marko over. The curly haired boy was quick to shove the other off of him and you were sure what was happening.

Until the new comer with his fluffed hair patted Marko affectionately on the shoulder, the chain attached to his black coat clinking. That was a familiar touch. “Marko!”

“Get your fat ass off me, Paul” he grumbled.

Paul dusted himself off and peered behind at his butt “I knew these pants looked good on me.”

Marko wasn’t having it. “Yeah, yeah. Why are you here?”

“You abandoned me, bud. I was gunna see if you wanted to feed but looks like you’re already occupied.” He turned his brilliant smile towards you and all you managed was wave awkwardly.

“This is Y/N,” Marko explained. “We were just talking.”

“Sure,” Paul said dragging out the r and flagrantly winking. Yikes, he would’ve gotten a show if he had waited a second more to reveal himself.

“Well now that you barged in, I suppose we should meet back up with the other two.”

Paul nodded and ran off into the darkness without any further explanation.

You stood up as well trying to salvage your dignity. Despite moving in for a kiss minutes ago, Marko didn’t try again. He walked backwards in the same direction Paul had left in, wearing his signature smirk.

“I’ll stop by for take-out soon. Surprise me with something yummy.” With one last cheeky wave, he jogged away.

At the moment he disappeared, it was as if a fog had cleared. All of your alarms came rushing back. You must be crazy for having agreed to come to the park!

Who in their right mind went somewhere with a stranger in the dead of night with a killer on the lose?

Were you that weak for a pretty face that all it took was them asking you nicely? Yes, your time with him hadn’t been horrible, actually, you enjoyed it, but something still wasn’t right.

You trudged to your car, kicking yourself. If he came to the restaurant like he claimed, you’d have to put your foot down more. Stupid decisions got people killed in Santa Carla and you were determined not to be another missing person.

Even for a face like Marko’s.

_______________

Bao is so so good! I can’t tell if I have a good handle on writing Marko yet. Yes, the missing person is the one he offed last time and yes, he did use mind powers on the reader here. 

Thanks for reading :)

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

Drowning 6 pretttttry please. Your writing is amazing, honest to god. Wish I had your talent. Keep writing!!!!

Thank you for the ask and lovely message ❤

Drowning Part 6

Masterlist

This one is a tad different that the other parts, some segments are in from Supervillain's POV which are very vague because they are meant have an altered state feel to them. You also learn a lot about Villain and Hero's past in this one.

@shydragonrider @asrasmysoulmate

Warnings: unreality, wheelchair, schizophrenia, elecric shocking, hallucinations, hate towards another, possessiveness, restraints, drugged whumpee, sick whumpee

~

Supervillain emerged from whatever fluid contraption held him in place. His body went numb, pins and needles filling every limb, every muscle like wildfire.

But, nearly as quick as he broke the surface, he fell back in...

Falling...

Falling...

Falling...

His body seized up, a ringing in his ears... then he hit solid ground, his body going slack. Nearly immediately, he felt conscious of the tubes and moniters embellishing him like ornaments and garland on a Christmas tree.

His lead-filled mouth yanked open on its own free will, trying to force a scream out, but his tongue only managed a hoarse whimper.

He jerked his head about, finding it laid nearly on a pillow, but another trap locked his head in. He clenched his hands, but his body was already falling back into the sea- all feeling washed away by the waves.

Sand. He felt sand in his body, dehydrating and numbing, as consciousness was snatched away from him once again. The tubes faded, as did the traps- leaving Supervillain with an empty void.

He had a sense, but couldn't remember what happened in brief moments of waking like this. He hardly recognized the difference between unconsciousness and consciousness and if he did, it wouldn't matter. He never could escape. Never could escape the agonizing water in and around his body.

All he could do was fall.

Fall back into the water.

《~~》

"Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them," a voice spoke. Hero had given up on trying to tell apart the various differences between the countless heroes and doctors that spoke to her on a daily basis. Trying to just intoxicated her mind with a weird feeling of displeasure and annoyance that couldn't be placed. It was right in between her eyebrows, where she would have a unibrow if she didn't wax it all the time in highschool.

"Do you know who wrote that quote, Hero? Hmm?"

Hero didn't respond. Why would she? It gave her no clearance, no escape, no epic prison break that one may expect from such a person of stengths and wits. She just sat there, limbs tied to the ground by unrelenting steel, her head angled to watch the suffering man on the bed slowly fade away with persistent illness and everyday drugs.

"Bruce Lee," the speaker answered the question after quickly realizing that Hero wasn't going to.

Hero tuned out of the conversation, leaving it as background noise as she studied the scene in front of her. Supervillain was hooked up so many moniters, it was as if he was in a coma. Hero twitched her jaw. Maybe he was. The ventilation and feeding tube stuck all the way down his nose and mouth, opening it forcibly, definitely made that thought come alive.

Hero did this a lot, zoning out whenever someone tried to talk to her. Her once vibrant personality and optimism was dampered, replaced by a dull depression. Even Villain, who watched Hero daily, was getting nervous of this rapid decline in attitude- not that Hero knew of her betrayer's thoughts and emotions. To her, in this foggy hole of misery, Villain was an outcasted shadow, adding depth to the painting, but never a main topic. Heck, if she didn't concentrate, she didn't even see the light shade on the white surface.

There was only Supervillain.

But even that has changed, and not just in the extra moniters and tubes, but her whole aspect of him. He was the cause of her pain, he was the cause of the insufferable cloud that ascended over her.

There was no fondness in the way she viewed him anymore, just resentment. The deepest kind of resentment that could also be described as despising.

But even that was an understatement.

One day, a movement drew Hero out of her hate-filled thoughts and back into reality. It was Villain, playing with something by her wrist.

"Back off," she snarled, her voice sounding unnaturally deep and cracky.

"And so she speaks." The glint in his eyes revealed the sarcasm that his monotonous voice hid. "How are you Hero?"

Hero snarled, raising her lips in an animalistic manner, but didn't reply. Once her wrist was let go, the unused muscles allowed it to flop aimlessly against her equally thining thigh. She was fed yes, a vile piece of bland, moist garbage that gave her body its much needed vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, but lack of use degraded the once hefty muscle.

Villain worked on each of the restraints. Each arm fell limp as her legs splayed out, thankful for the break from the locked position they were kept in. When her head was let free, it flopped, her neck unable to keep it up.

Villain steadied her, putting his hand unceremoniously against the base of her neck. Hero squirmed, aware of her vulnerability.

"The door with the exit sign is unlocked," he whispered, so close to her ear that Hero cringed.

At first, her brain using its old habit, began to block out his words, but suddenly stopped and rewinded, shoving them back to the front of her mind.

Unlocked...

She could get out.

Villain helped her into a nearby wheelchair and was about to wheel her away when a strand of her empathetic nature fought against the newfound distant demeanor.

"What 'bout Supervillain?" She asked, her voice a weak whisper.

"This is for you," Villain replied casually grinning down at Hero, happy that she was back to somewhat normal.

Hero sunk into the plushy cushioning of the seat and looked at Supervillain's still figure and snarled. Ha, he didn't get to leave. She did. She got to escape the inhumane confines that kept her bound up like a trapped goat.

He didn't. He could now pay for his crimes.

Yet, as stubborn as this thoughts of retribution sounded, they weren't. That sympathizing portion of her protested against the new arrangement. And, being the stronger of the two opposites, it left her tongue in forms of coherent words.

"I won't leave him," she said, her heart bursting. Whether the internal explosion was due to anticipation or exaltation, it don't matter. It felt natural, like herself.

"You really don't have a choice."

"Why do you want me free?" Hero asked.

"This place is the definition of boring."

Hero was silent and contemplated Villain's statement. He really didn't care about her levels of bore and joy, never did. Any interaction or any relationship that the two once cherished was borne of platonic care of the other's well-being. Nothing too deep, and barely held any real intent. Are you alive? Are you dead? Were the only two questions that brought along any vowels of conversing.

It was weird, abnormal. Hero might've even went as far as to say suspicious.

But it was also promising. Very, very promising. It held the possibility of freedom that the chair did not.

But he was Villain. He did not have one ounce of good will or honesty in his cold veins. He was a liar, a cheat, and as much as she would've loved to call them friends, it was close to impossible. They couldn't build a relationship off of trickery as much as the two once wanted to.

This was a scheme, a lie, to get to Hero and make her mess up. Mess up and then she gets hurt.

Or worse, Supervillain does.

That thought stood out from the rush of others in her brain for it held an interesting style to it. As close as she was to the old Hero and away from the shadow that "choosing who gets hurt" made her into, she wasn't it yet.

Not yet.

"Boring, but I am alive," Hero retorted, rolling her eyes as well as the stiff rectus muscles in her eyes allowed.

"That is otherwise obvious." Villain placed a hand on the barred door that only purpose served as an aesthetic.

"Yeah, in a way I suppose, but Supervillain isn't."

"He's breathing."

"He sleeps all day and when he does manage to wake, he passes out almost immediately. I need to stay with him!"

"You do nothing but glare daggers at him. You are released dear."

"No, you are not helping me escape from this damn place!"

Villain was silent, paused in the motion of pushing the door open.

"Amidst your utter hate for him, you still have the decency to protect him; Hero there is nothing to protect. With one simple flick of a switch, he is dead," Villain pointed out, turning to Hero with tears in his icy blue eyes that Hero once found gloriously gorgeous. Ones that she used to gaze into as they fought, unable to tear herself away. She lost many fights that way by being too distracted to actually land a punch.

But the innocence of that gaze was really just hiding the fact that Villain was a scandalous bastard- only giving half-truths and fake emotions about everything.

"Then why do you give him the serum. You guys know that I won't hurt those civilians," Hero pointed out with a shrug.

Villaim remained silent and wheeled Hero out of the room.

《~~》

Supervillain seemed to always arouse when the nurses swarmed him to administer the vile liquid that plagued his veins with nauseating adrenaline. He felt the hot- not warm, but scorching hot- drug enter his veins.

But it wasn't the beginning, the actual pain of the procedure, that caused Supervillain his horrifying misery. It was afterwards and he wasn't thinking of the dizzying fatigue that usually pushed him into another deep sleep, but the memories it brought.

Some were nostalgic, others taut with grief. Others held regret while some even had remnants of agonizing torture he once endured.

Or gave.

But they were never happy, nor comforting to any degree.

So, when a reverie of kind touch swarmed Supervillain's sensations, his lethargic heart started to pump in rocket speed, motorizing the boat to accelerate...

"Go to sleep."

Hero's voice. One that brought him so much comfort. Hands scratched at his scalp and he felt his heavy eyelids drop.

"I'll be hear when you wake up," Hero lulled, humming softly as the sweet scent of vanilla hit Supervillain's scent receptors. He smiled, the tiniest of grins and nuzzled his nose into her warm, fleece sweater.

But, even delirous as he was, in the back of his head, Supervillain knew this was a vision. A hallucination. The model of schizophrenia that the drug brought upon his mind.

But it was just so real.

So he gave in, purposely allowing himself to be washed away by the unreality of the dream.

Because he loved it. He loved the touch as if it was actually real.

A warm figure slid next to his body wrapping its- her- arms around his shivering body. Phony yes, it gave stability as the fatigue pushed itself to its maximum.

As consciousness dripped away, Supervillain hummed slightly, happy with the feeling.

《~~》

Hero's hand buzzed over the door, considering the possibilities of opening it, but in the end, she blatantly refused.

"No," she said, her old self returning. "I am not going to leave Supervillain."

Villain's eyes widened, chin shaking.

"You care for him?" He asked, voice slightly elevated like a flute's pitch. Such a change from the droning audibles that usually slugged off his tongue. "Like actually."

Hero's brows crunched together as she read Villain's new face expressions. Blond hair draped down to his pointed eyebrows where it slightly curled. Tears seemed to well in his azure eyes.

"Are you crying?" Hero asked, scoffing, but in reality, she cared.

Cared a whole bunch.

"It's just," Villain stepped forward, leaning down and resting his hand on Hero's shoulder. His other hand balanced delicately against the holster of whatever weapon he carried.

Suddenly, without warning, his hand shot up and an bolt of electricity flashed through her body. Hero fell forward, screaming and withering on the floor.

Villain leaned forward, breath warm against her sweaty cheek. "You are mine Hero. I won't ever let you hold, or care for Supervillain again," he growled, bringing thr taser back to Hero's neck. "Goodnight, my love."

The electric shock came again, and the world descended into blackness.

[passable-talent]

hey roe! i love ur work! could i request a zuko x reader where the reader and the zuko have history and they meet at the boiling rock because the reader was imprisoned (either during the invasion or at the catacombs or whatever you think works) and there's a lot of angst and it ends with a kiss or something? tysm!!!

tysm!!!! It means a lot

but u gotta think bigger anon,,, boiling rock was full of firebenders... how abt a childhood friend who defected long, long ago, and zuko could’ve never known? hmm....

in watching the boiling rock for this ask I realize that the bois get into guard uniforms and hide their clothes on the beach. so like,,, did these two dumbasses just strip on the beach and b like “hey yeah bro this is cool”. they think nothing through. HOW DID THEY EVEN GET THE GUARD UNIFORMS IN THE FIRST PLACE-

Sitting in a Boiling Rock cell wasn’t exactly one of Zuko’s top ten moments, but it sure wasn’t one of his lowest, either. He’d been tossed into a singular cell that as of yet didn’t even have a bed, the door shut in his face.

There came three quick knocks on the metal wall beside him, and he walked closer to it, curious.

“I heard you got thrown in for impersonating a guard,” came a voice on the other side, and Zuko regarded it with a healthy amount of susipicion.

“Yeah.”

“Nice,” said the voice, a little laugh following their words.

“What did you do?” asked Zuko, surprised that the voice sounded young, almost as young as himself, if he had to guess.

“Oh, I defected a long time ago. They weren’t too happy with my methods.” Zuko didn’t answer for a moment, and the person in the cell beside him took that as an opportunity to continue asking questions. “Seems like the warden wanted to punish you especially, putting you down here with this lot. Any idea why?”

“I dated his niece,” Zuko answered, his tone definitive, almost as though this information was obvious. There came a pause from the voice, and Zuko wondered what about this information was shocking. It wouldn’t be common knowledge who the warden’s niece is, would it? He thought that that would be safe information to reveal, without revealing his identity.

“Hey, how old are you?” The prisoner asked, breaking their silence. Zuko briefly considered, but decided not to lie.

“Uh, sixteen, why?”

“Zuko?” Zuko froze, and fixed his stare to the wall as though he could see through it if he glared hard enough.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s Y/N,” the voice said, and finally Zuko realized why the voice had seemed so young.

Y/N had been his friend, from academy, back before Zuko had turned twelve. Y/N was one year above him, but was a prodigy, studying under High General Bujing as young as ten years old. They were a dedicated student and a master of strategy as early as twelve- but disappeared at thirteen, never to be heard from again.

At least, by the young prince, whose father decided that telling the prince that his closest friend had attempted assassination on one of the high generals would fill the already ‘weak’ prince’s mind with ‘insubordinate ideals’.

And yet here they were.

“Y/N?” Zuko breathed, lifting his hand and pressing it to the metal, astonished. He had assumed that you were dead. “How are you here?”

“How am I here? I’m a criminal and a traitor, that’s obvious, how are you here?”

“Apparently I’m also a criminal and a traitor,” Zuko answered, and you laughed.

The assignment for the day was mopping, down in one of the lower rooms of the prison. You knew where to go, and yet the moment those doors opened you rounded the walls and hugged Zuko tightly.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” you whispered, and when you pulled away you noticed his scar. Gingerly you reached your hand upward, lightly laying your fingers against the skin, then resting the palm of your hand onto his face to fully cup his jaw.

“I knew that you’d been banished, but...” you trailed off, and slipped your hand around to the back of his neck to pull him into a tight hug.

“I wish I could’ve been there to save you,” you whispered, holding onto him. His arms wrapped around you in return, for just a moment, until a few guards shouted at the two of you to move along. Still, he walked beside you.

“What do you mean?” He asked, and you looked sideways at him.

“I knew your father was horrible, I knew the nation was horrible, that’s why I left it. But to do that to you, I...” you trailed off, and shrugged. “I guess I tell myself I should’ve brought you with me when I left.” His response was minimal, but you noticed it, the way he seemed intrigued by the thought, and slightly saddened that it hadn’t happened.

You had known of Suki, but you hadn’t formally met her until now. She was kind, and understood why another teenager was roped into the daring escape.

Sokka, on the other hand, wasn’t so pleased.

“Sokka, come on. Y/N has a better understanding of Fire Nation military strategy than anyone, even me.” Suki raised an eyebrow in your direction, to which you responded with a shrug. “We need them on our team.”

“The more we try to break out, the easier we’ll be caught. We can’t risk it.” You weren’t going to argue in your favor- in fact, the opposite.

“I’ve been in here for four years. I’m used to it, I’ll be fine,” you assured Zuko, but he shook his head. He grabbed Sokka by the shoulder and pulled him away, but underestimated your ability to eavesdrop.

“Look, we didn’t come here planning to break out Suki, but we are. Y/N is the same, for me, as Suki is to you. Okay?” Your eyes widened as you glanced to Suki, but she hadn’t caught it, and didn’t understand your surprise.

“Okay, fine,” Sokka said, breaking from Zuko’s grasp. He took a moment to ensure no one was around to listen. “I think I’ve got an escape plan.”

You’d stuck by Zuko when you were young, and you’d stick by him now, as traitors to your nation. Even if it meant giving up your only escape plan. He was loyal to Sokka, and you would be too, so you stayed behind, and bided your time, waiting for your next opportunity. Even if it meant listening to Mai scold Zuko through the walls. Sokka came to you with a new plan, though you had a sneaking suspicion you were the last of the group that he told, and when it came time to fight Azula on the gondola, you were one of the first to climb to the roof.

“Ah, Y/N, an old familiar face,” the princess said as she landed, taking in the sight of you and Zuko, side by side. “How quaint. An old traitor, and a new traitor. I’m ever so curious, Y/N, how you can claim to have any morality at all, betraying your nation twice now. Wasn’t it your own mentor you tried to kill?” You reacted in rage, and shot the first plume of fire.

The ride to the western air temple was a long one, filled as it was with jubilation, victory, and reunions. Zuko spent much of it trying to decide how to ask you in more detail about your past. You hadn’t said much to him about it, and he’d never been told, but Azula seemed to know well what had happened.

He didn’t want to push, but he wanted to know.

“Your mentor was General Bujing, right?” He asked, sitting beside you in the metal airship.

“Yeah,” you answered, your tone noncommittal.

“He was the general I stood up to. When I got banished.” Your gaze went to the young prince, and you realized just how little you knew about his past, since you left the fire nation. You also realized his tactic- to get you to share, he would share. You decided to cut him a break, and do it yourself.

You started with what he already knew.

“I lost my parents to the war when I was six. So I was sent to the academy, where they recognized my talent and rewarded me with apprenticeships and a home. Still, General Bujing was the closest I had to a parent.” You paused, and looked toward the front of the ship, where you could see clouds.

“But as I got older, and he put more questionable battle strategies on my exams, I began to see him not as a parent but as a person. And what I saw was, I assume, what you saw. Someone ruthless and angry, who didn’t believe in human life, or didn’t value it.” Zuko didn’t stop you, or interrupt. He merely listened.

“I was scared. And so I did reading, on what the Fire Nation was before Sozin, and what I saw was so much better than what I was raised in. I knew i couldn’t change much, but what I could do was get rid of an old General who would do the worst sort of things.” You looked down at your hands.

“It didn’t work. I was thirteen, of course it didn’t. But instead of killing me, he...” you trailed off, and turned your gaze away from Zuko.

“I was going to kill him, because I thought there wasn’t any good in him. And then he let me go. He spared me.” Zuko’s eyes widened, as what he knew of General Bujing, the man who would sacrifice a brigade of soldiers, did not seem to line up with what you were describing.

“I was arrested anyway, of course, but I thought for sure he’d kill me. He didn’t even challenge me to an Agni Kai. I still don’t...” you trailed off, and let your head thump back against the metal wall. “I still don’t understand.”

“People are complicated,” Zuko struggled out, seemingly trying to conjure some good-ol’-uncle-Iroh advice.

“Yeah,” you said with a breathless chuckle, and scooted a bit closer to him. “It’s good to see you again,” you said, leaning your shoulder against his. It was an odd situation to be in, because you’d last seen him when you were thirteen, and he twelve. But you knew, from what you overheard, that he felt something more for you. Something akin to Sokka and Suki, who you had noticed were clearly an explicitly romantic couple. Because of it you felt it appropriate to notice how much he’d... grown. He was older, now, and his hair was nice, and his cheekbones high, his jawline defined, not to mention an obviously master firebender. You envied that talent, as the only bending you had was leftover from your training, that ended at thirteen.

“It’s good to see you too,” he said, which you barely heard over your thoughts. You didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, as obviously Mai was a very fresh wound, but you knew his feelings were there, and wanted in subtle ways to make him realize that his choices were accepted, welcomed, to you.

You wondered if he was having similar thoughts, noticing how you’d changed since he last saw you.

The moon was high by the time the airship docked at the western air temple. You’d fallen asleep on the metal floor (you’ve slept in worse places), and Zuko decided to wake you up so that you could move to one of the bedrooms up high in the temple.

He crouched beside you, and nudged your shoulder. When that didn’t rouse you, he sat down, deciding to take a moment to study your sleeping face. He brushed back some of your hair from your face, silent in his appreciation.

He’d wake you up. In a minute.

For now, he wanted to lean down, and kiss your forehead.

When he pulled away, he noticed your eyes were open. A smile spread to your lips, and you pushed back your tiredness to respond to the moment in front of you.

“Want to try again, now that I’m awake?”

-🦌 Roe

[ollieofthebeholder]

I Remember the Fallen, Do They Think of Me: A Rusty Quill Gaming fanfic

Also on AO3.

They’re none of them in very good shape, really. Well, except for Skraak, who seems to have managed to avoid getting a finger or tendril laid on him the whole time they were in Svalbard. He seems fine. The others might be fine physically, but that purple migraine that came out of the floorboards in the Council chamber did a number on their spirits. Cel’s the worst off, although they’re doing a bit better since their mutagen wore off, but they’re still edgy and tense and more strung up than usual. Azu just looks marginally grumpy, which isn’t a good look on her. Zolf almost wants to say something about how this party only has room for one sourpuss, but he probably won’t be able to make it sound like a joke, and it isn’t really a joke anyway, and Azu is quite capable of taking his head off, literally, if the mood strikes her. Which it well might. She looks like she’s itching to kill something and Zolf isn’t keen to be it. Hamid mostly looks tired, as well he ought with all the spells he cast. There’s a part of him that wants to compliment Hamid on his conduct back there, on strategic use of his spells to help his party members and keeping his head and not only finding the kill switch but figuring out how to use it to save them all, but it probably won’t come out right. Hamid will probably think he’s being condescending or something, or use it as an excuse to pick a fight. They’re both tired, really. And Zolf is feeling every one of the blows he took; nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure, he supposes, but at least that’s the worst of it for him.

So he doesn’t protest when Einstein teleports them back to Other London and Wilde insists they get some sleep in the back of Gragg’s old tavern rather than risk breaking the surface in the state they’re in. Skraak does, and surprisingly, so does Azu, but all Zolf has to do is point at Cel, looking miserable, and they back down.

“Got a room upstairs,” Gragg says, pointing upwards. “Lots of room for you all. I’ll be down here. Oh—Mr. Smith, right?”

“Yeah?” Zolf frowns at Gragg.

“Letter came for you. From the Poseidon lot. Their messenger said they thought I’d know where to find you.” Gragg shrugs, a little helplessly, and holds out an envelope. “I didn’t, but you’re here.”

Zolf sighs and takes the envelope with a muttered “thanks”. He’s done with the Poseidon lot, has been for close to two years now, but it seems they’re not done with him. He looks over at the others. “Go lie down, the lot of you. I’ll see what this is all about and then I’ll be up in a minute.”

“Surely it can keep until the morning, Zolf,” Wilde says. “Or whatever passes for morning right now. It’s kept this long.”

“Rather not try and sleep with this hanging over my head,” Zolf replies. “Won’t be but a minute.”

“Hmm.” Azu looks at him, then nods once and starts shooing the others up the stairs. Gragg gives him a nod, too, then disappears into the back.

Once Zolf is alone, he sinks down onto a barstool and immediately wishes he hadn’t. It’s not that it’s uncomfortable, or that it’s too tall for him, or even that now that he’s sitting he doesn’t want to get up. It’s that the last time he sat on one of these stools, it was less than twenty-four hours after meeting Hamid and Sasha (and, unfortunately, Bertie), back when he was still just a mercenary, or a Cleric pretending to be a mercenary, or a mercenary pretending to be a Cleric, or just a disillusioned and drifting person desperately looking for something to believe in. Back when Other London was a bustling city full of people trying to live their lives and Gragg wasn’t responsible for anything more than having enough food and drink to last the night. Back before Zolf doomed the world.

He allows himself precisely five seconds to wallow in the guilt of the past, then props his elbows on the bar and turns the envelope over in his hands. ZOLF SMITH, CLERIC is scrawled on the front in extremely shaky, spiky handwriting, along with a series of letters at the bottom that’s obviously in some sort of code, since it’s got far too many X’s and no vowels except a couple I’s. The back is sealed with some very old wax that looks like someone literally just dripped a candle on the envelope and pressed a seal into it. Zolf sighs as he recognizes the shape—it’s a dead match for the ring he still wears on his own finger, his last connection to his family. The Spade of the Harlequins. This letter might have been passed on by a member of the Cult of Poseidon, but it’s coming from a Harlequin.

Probably it’s Curie, writing to say she isn’t dead after all, although why she’d write to him of all people is a bit beyond him. He’s also not sure why she would feel the need to emphasize his Cleric status on the address. But...whatever. Might as well get this over with.

He slides a finger under the flap of the envelope and loosens the seal, then pulls out the folded papers within. It’s a thick sheaf and surprisingly heavy, and when he unfolds them, something slips from between the pages and lands on the bar with a thump and a clatter. Zolf looks down and sees a dagger, etched with some arcane symbols he doesn’t recognize. Great. A magic dagger. That bodes well. He huffs at it. If they want him to identify it, they’re going to be out of luck; that’s not his area of expertise. Maybe he’ll ask Wilde or Hamid in the morning.

He turns his attention back to the letter. It’s the same scrawl as the front of the envelope, scratched out in some places, odd splatters of ink in others, and there are a couple places where it looks like the ink’s run a bit. Gods, he hopes he’ll be able to read this.

Less than a line in, and his blood runs cold as the rest of the world drops away.

Zolf -

It’s gone bad. It’s all gone real bad. I don’t know when this letter’s going to get to you, except I know it’ll be sometime after you left in Prague because—well, you left. You wouldn’t have left if you knew all this before. But it all went wrong, and I need you to know what happened.

It didn’t go wrong right away. At first it was kind of okay. Hamid and I went out and tried to see how many restaurants we could go to, and that was nice. It helped us both, I think, because we both missed you already, but neither of us said anything about that. Like if we pretended it didn’t happen, it wouldn’t hurt. And it worked, at least at first. And then we found Bertie at the last one we went to, and he was causing a huge mess, you know what Bertie’s like. You were right about that. After that it just kept getting worse.

I woke up the next morning and I didn’t feel good again. Everything was bleeding again and I looked kind of bad, but I pretended I was okay and Hamid and Bertie didn’t notice. Well, Bertie never noticed anything that he didn’t want to, but Hamid, I think he was still upset. I dunno. Anyway, I went to the Temple of Artemis to get healed. The lady there wasn’t like you, she didn’t really make me feel all that...I think that’s just what the Artemis lot are like, though. Everyone I’ve met who’s from Artemis, they do what needs doing and go on to the next thing. I didn’t know that then, though. Anyway, I asked her why it kept happening, why I kept waking up hurt, and how to make it stop, and she made me tell her a bunch of stuff and then said it was because I got brought back to life wrong and I’d have to go to a Temple of Aphrodite to get healed right.

Then there were zombies. Loads of zombies, and they were attacking in the middle of the square. We went to fight them off and that’s when we met Grizzop, he’s—he was a Paladin of Artemis, and he helped us fight them. Bertie had this ring, he said it was supposed to make the undead go away, but instead it made them come closer to him. It made me come closer to him, too, and that was really not a lot of fun, Zolf, I didn’t like that at all. I fought it, though. I fought it really hard and it mostly worked. But there were loads of zombies, and even though we fought them off okay, the four of us, I was real worried about you. Part of me wanted to go find you and make sure you were okay, but I knew you didn’t want to be found, so I had to trust you would be all right. Grizzop said he was supposed to be hunting down a rogue mage that was probably making all the zombies, and we were still supposed to go up to the University and stuff, so we said we’d go with him in the morning.

Everything opened up again overnight, so I had to get healed a bit. Hamid kept asking me if I was okay, and I kept telling him I was, partly because I knew he couldn’t do anything to fix it and partly because I’m just so used to pretending I’m fine when I’m not, and partly because I didn’t want to worry him more than I had to. We went up to the University like we talked about, and it just kept getting worse and worse. Mostly by Bertie being Bertie, but also because the rogue mage, Franz Kafka, he had a book that came from Rome and it drove him crazy. He was a Harlequin, the council told us, and they were all Harlequins too, they had rings like yours and Rakefine’s, and they’d kind of lied to Grizzop because they didn’t want people to know it was one of them doing the zombie thing down in the city, but they asked us to go take care of it and we said we would. So we went back down to Prague and fought loads of stuff. We had a map with all the plague pits on them, Kafka was raising zombies out of them, so we decided to try and clear out as many as we could. Hamid had got tickets for the opera and the ley lines crossed at the opera house, so he thought Kafka would choose to try and spring his trap there, but Grizzop and I said it’d be better to take out the zombies before that. We got him to agree in the end, kind of, but we didn’t manage to get all the zombie pits cleared out before the opera was supposed to start.

It got really, really bad at the opera, Zolf. I don’t know if you were still in Prague then, I don’t know if you heard about it, but it was  real bad. The basement was full of zombies and Grizzop and I tried to fight them off, but there were so many and a couple of them were really big and even though I had all these bombs I made and Grizzop had his bow and arrows and all that, we couldn’t kill them all, so we had to run up to the top. Then when we got up there, we found out that Hamid was right, that Kafka had tried to attack at the opera, and everybody was frozen and Bertie and Kafka were both flying and facing off each other, and Hamid—Hamid was gone. He was nowhere in the theater, and when I got to the stage I saw his bracelets and what was left of his clothes looking like they’d been torn apart and I knew, I knew Kafka had killed him somehow, and it was my fault because I wasn’t there to help him. And Kafka didn’t just have Bertie, he had Hamid’s sister—she was singing in the opera, it’s why Hamid wanted to go so bad—and he told Bertie that he had to pick whether he’d kill Bertie or Aziza. Don’t think it’ll surprise you which one Bertie picked.

But Kafka cheated. He killed both of them. I wasn’t fast enough, I couldn’t stop him—I tried, Zolf, I tried so hard, but even with Grizzop shooting arrows at him I couldn’t kill him fast enough to stop him from killing both of them. And, I mean, I kind of would have wanted to kill Bertie myself, or let Hamid do it, or at least let Hamid yell at him a lot, but even though Bertie wasn’t a very nice person, he didn’t deserve what happened to him. And his sister—she was just singing. She was just there and doing what she loved and Hamid was so proud of her, Zolf, and Kafka killed her just because he could. It wasn’t right. The guards finally showed up, but they were too late to help. Bertie was dead and Aziza was dead and Hamid...

Well, Hamid wasn’t dead after all. Grizzop found him on the roof of the opera house. Kafka put a spell on him and turned him into a monster, and the monster ran away. So at least he didn’t hurt anybody and not know it. He’d have hated that. I’d have hated that. Grizzop would’ve just killed him, I think, and then I’d have really been alone and I don’t know what I would have done. But he didn’t and I wasn’t, not then. They fixed us up and we had to tell Hamid about what happened. I didn’t tell him about Bertie getting to pick. He was hurt enough by what happened. And we almost got arrested or kidnapped or something like that by the Cult of Mars, but Wilde showed up and got us out of it.

As bad as Hamid wanted to go home with his sister and make sure Bertie was taken care of and all that, when they gave us a job to do, he agreed to do it before Einstein teleported us to Cairo. So then we went into Newton’s study and found his pocket dimension, and it turned out that there was somebody working there who’d been working with Kafka and Edison on Mr. Ceiling, or on something like Mr. Ceiling anyway. And it turned out that she was an old friend of Hamid’s. I think they were dating once. She really didn’t like him anymore, though, so even if she hadn’t done the work that meant Mr. Ceiling could happen, I wouldn’t have liked her, because she was really nasty to him. And he just stood there and took it. He didn’t fight her and he didn’t argue with her and he didn’t try to stand up for himself. He just kept saying she had to come with us.

You’d be proud of him, I think.

Anyway, after that Einstein sent us to Cairo. We wound up in the middle of a real bad sandstorm—Hamid thought we were probably in the middle of the desert, but then it turned out we were on the main street and not that far from the Temple of Aphrodite. That’s when we met Azu, and that was a pretty good thing, but that was the only good thing really. They told us at the Temple they’d been having lots of really bad weather, like they were having in Dover when we were there. I like the rainstorms a lot better than sandstorms, but it still wasn’t fun. And that was the easy bad thing.

This part’s not easy to talk about, and it feels really selfish when I think back on it, because I didn’t handle it in a way that you’d be proud of. I went to talk to one of the healer people about whether or not they could fix how I kept waking up hurting and that the person at the Artemis temple had said I was a little bit undead. He checked me over and said that I wasn’t just a little undead, I was really undead, and that I only had about a month left before I turned into something else. Hamid and Grizzop called it a lich—I hope I’m spelling that right, it’s not like they ever wrote it down, but that’s what it sounds like. Grizzop said they were evil, but Hamid kept saying that maybe I would be the first non-evil lich. Which, I mean, I guess that would have been okay, but...

Eren Fairhands said there were only three ways to fix me—to die all the way and go for a resurrection, to get a necromancer to follow me around and do magic on me to keep me just plain undead, or to get this artifact called the Heart of Aphrodite that the Meritocrats had all locked up because they don’t want powerful magic just floating around for anyone to use. I told Hamid and the others that I didn’t think they’d agree to let me use something that powerful, just for me; Hamid insisted they might because we’d saved the world a couple times, and also his other sister worked for the Meritocrats so maybe it would be okay. But I didn’t believe him. The world doesn’t work that way for people like me, you know? And the other two options...I might have trusted them if you were there to do them, but not someone I didn’t know, or a god I didn’t know.

Anyway, we went to Hamid’s family’s house. Hamid was really scared about seeing his family again, but, I mean, it had to go better than seeing Barret did for me, right? And it sort of worked out okay, at first anyway, but everybody was real upset, not that I blame them. They had the funeral the next day, and it went okay, but a tall figure in a hood like the one that hung out with Barret showed up. We watched it and then it disappeared, but it was after Hamid’s brother, and we didn’t want him to lose anybody else, so we were trying to protect him. And then it came back and we attacked it and we managed to kill it, but I just, I didn’t handle it well at all. I fell apart and then I just shut down. I think I gave up. I decided I was just going to die and that was all there was to it.

Like I said, I don’t think you’d be very proud of me for that. I had options, even if they didn’t seem very likely, but there was still a chance and I should have held onto that. You would have. But I didn’t and that means I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have done.

Hamid’s brother was working for Barret. Kind of. He got in debt and he owed Barret money, and Barret wanted him to rob the bank that Hamid’s family works for to pay him back, but things went wrong and someone died. That’s what Barret gave Hamid the ring for, he wanted him to give it to his brother, but Hamid wouldn’t because he’s a good person and he didn’t want to make his brother suffer. But because someone died, the bank was going to arrest him, but Hamid’s father said he would take the blame instead. Hamid tried to make him not do that, tried to make him see that his brother needed to face the consequences, but his father did it anyway. Then Hamid came back and told us what was happening, and he asked us for advice, and I said a lot of really mean things about his family. Well, all of us did, I guess, but...it’s different with Grizzop and Azu, you know? They didn’t know him. Not like I did. I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have said because I was upset and scared and hurting and I wanted to make Hamid feel that way too, and I shouldn’t have because he already was and I should have known that and it wasn’t fair. I won’t say I didn’t mean what I said, because I did, but I still shouldn’t have said it. And I didn’t mean it about Hamid, at least. He’s a good person, Zolf, he really is,  even with what he did before, and he wanted us to help him and all Grizzop and Azu would say was that his brother and father deserved to be punished and I said they could get away with not being punished because they were rich and...

I wish you were there. You would have known what to say, what to do. You wouldn’t have made such a mess of it like I did.

I thought about you a lot that night, about what you would have said and done, and the next day when we went down for breakfast, I tried to do like you would have. I asked Hamid and Grizzop and Azu how their talk went after I left, and Hamid apologized to them for trying to keep his brother out of trouble and mucking it all up, and then he told us what happened to him. He got kicked out of university because someone he thought was his friend tried to get him to make a potion as a prank, but he wrote it down wrong and then the not-friend made it bigger and a bunch of people died, so he joined up with you—us—to try and make up for what he did. He was really worried that all he did was make things worse, because he said you didn’t think what we did in Paris helped, and then he didn’t think he helped at all in Prague. But he did, and he’s trying, and Grizzop said that was what was important. And I pointed out how much better he’s gotten since we met, because I meant it but also because I think you would have said it too, and he said it helped, me saying that. So we had a little bit of good, at least. And Hamid said a lot of really nice things about me when we met Apophis later that day, and Apophis agreed that we could use the Heart of Aphrodite to fix me. And it worked, Zolf, it really did. I’m good as new. Better, even, Fairhands even grew my finger back for me. For a little bit, everything was great, and the only thing that would have made it better was if you were there too.

And then it went bad again. We had to go to Damascus because there was information in the vaults when we got the Heart of Aphrodite that Edison was doing a bunch of stuff with the factories there, and that it might be involved with the Simulacrum and everything. The first factory was run by goblins and they were real proud of what they were doing, and they even gave me a dagger made of adamantine. When we went to investigate the other factory, though, they wouldn’t even let us in and it was really suspicious, so we sneaked in in the middle of the night to have a look around. They’d fired all the people who worked there and they had monsters in the warehouses to guard them, and they were building things like the Simulacrum. Loads of them. We had to fight our way out and then, well, we were going to go back to Damascus and find Wilde and tell him what was going on when someone showed up at the door with two more of those tall things like we killed at the funeral, and I think it was one of Bertie’s friends, you remember those people with the carriage from the Simulacrum unveiling? Wellington. Him. Anyway, Grizzop shot at him and he went away, but then they dropped a body in, only it wasn’t dead. It was Barret and he was tied up and beaten up.

You’d be proud of Hamid. He was all calm and serious and firm, just like you used to do when you were getting information out of bad people. I half expected him to threaten to drown Barret in a bucket. Would’ve loved to see the look on his face if he did. Anyway, Barret eventually told us he was working with the Cult of Hades. They’re the ones who suggested he get in touch with us about the Serpentines, and they’re the ones who helped him take all the kids out of Other London that got sent to Paris to be used for Mr. Ceiling. Then he told us the Cult of Hades had infiltrated the Meritocrats, and that he had too, and he gave Hamid a list of names. Grizzop and Azu wanted to just kill him. Hamid thought he should be arrested, but then they asked me what I wanted to do with him. If you’d been there, I’d have said he was a good candidate for a sacrifice, but...that didn’t seem right. Not just killing him. It’d be too easy to be just like him, and I never wanted that. So Azu and Hamid took him to Damascus to give him over to the Artemis lot to be put in prison, and they said they’d talk to Wilde and come back while Grizzop and I stayed and watched the factory and made sure nothing else bad happened. I went and checked one of the warehouses, and it was like it was raining in there—there was an aqueduct and they were piping water through, which I thought was weird because water was so expensive and hard to find in Damascus. Wilde showed up and asked us to show him the warehouses, then said we had to go because he’d arranged to have the factory destroyed. He said things were getting really bad, that there’d been the riots in London and Other London and a whole bunch of other places too, and that with the Meritocrats being compromised he didn’t trust anyone but our group, which kind of made me feel good and bad at the same time.

I like Wilde. Didn’t think I would, but I do.

Anyway, Apophis came in and turned the whole thing into glass, but there was steam coming up from a crack in it, so we slept on it and then investigated in the morning. There were pipes and tunnels and all sorts of things, and we almost got caught in a couple traps, but we came through okay, and then we found the secret part of the factory where they were making the outsides of the Simulacra (Hamid called them robots, I kind of like that better, actually). It turned out they were stealing the river, too, to make the factory work, so we started destroying it, because they were evil, or at least using evil things to do the work. It was all going so well for once. We were really doing good, even when we had to fight off an assassin that kept trying to turn us into stone.

And then...and then we got a weird magic message. I can’t really explain it in detail, maybe Hamid can tell you about it better, but the Cult of Hades sent us a message and told us that we needed to stop, or else. When we tried to argue with them, they showed us what they’d done.

They took our families.

Bi Ming, and Azu’s big brother, and one of Hamid’s little brothers, and a goblin who must’ve been important to Grizzop (I never got the chance to ask him about that). They had them tied up and trapped, and they said they were in Rome, and if we didn’t go and rescue them they’d...

Well. We weren’t going to let that happen, were we? We couldn’t. At least Hamid and I couldn’t. I think Azu was a little torn, because her brother can take care of himself and all, but Hamid and me, we couldn’t wait. We thought we’d pop back up, tell Wilde what was going on, get him to send in people to take care of it, and get on to Rome. We knew it was dangerous, but we had to. Grizzop argued with us about it, he said the mission was more important, and in the end he stayed behind and took care of everything while we went on to Rome with Einstein.

I’m sure you’ve heard about Rome and what it’s like. You’ve been loads more places than Hamid or I have, you’ve got to know the stories. I don’t think you can really know what it’s like unless you’ve been there, though. Best way I can describe it is, remember when we got across the Channel and you were telling me about that place you sailed through in a storm once, where you could see all the shipwrecks and things? Like that, but on dry land. Nobody lives there but monsters and the ghosts of memories. The air felt bad, and it did weird things to magic, too. Sometimes Hamid’s spells worked really well and sometimes they didn’t work at all and sometimes they were normal, it didn’t make any sense. Azu couldn’t do many spells at all, because her magic comes from Aphrodite and the prayers weren’t working. She said it was like Aphrodite couldn’t hear her, but I think now it’s the other way around—that Aphrodite could hear Azu just fine, but Azu couldn’t hear Aphrodite’s reply, and I think that’s worse. Because it means whatever was strangling Rome wanted people to feel like the gods abandoned them, but also wanted the gods to suffer knowing that people who believed in them and all that were desperately reaching for them and they couldn’t do anything but listen.

It wasn’t easy. It was hot and hard to move around sometimes, and things kept attacking us, all kinds of monsters. Einstein was basically useless, so it was just Azu and Hamid and me having to fight, and I was really glad I wasn’t trying to do this and also not turn into a lich, ‘cause not being able to heal would’ve been really bad. Worse for Hamid, though. He nearly blew himself up and it scared me half to death, but I was honestly too happy he was safe to really yell at him for it. We hid out in a basement overnight to sleep and heal, and the next day we found the place where our families were being kept...kind of. We had to sneak into this big building, and when we got in, we found a big purple cloud, like a hole in the universe or something. I don’t know the details of the magic, that was more Hamid’s thing, but the people we loved were inside it, and there was this Paladin of Apollo there, too, someone who apparently knew Bertie, and he went in there and got stuck. Grizzop got there with Eldarion, she’s—she was my teacher when I was in prison, kind of in prison anyway, and she wanted me to stop running around getting in trouble and go back somewhere safe, but I told her I wasn’t going to do that. Eventually she gave in. Einstein said he’d wait for us to teleport us out when we got out safely, we didn’t know how long it would be, because the magic led to another plane and time might not move the same way there.

Actually getting everybody out wasn’t so hard. It was like a puzzle. I kind of like puzzles, actually. We had to fight a couple monsters, nothing too serious, except one of them broke my favorite ice dagger and I was kind of upset about that. But Bi Ming was okay, and so was Issak, and Azu’s brother, and Grizzop’s friend, and even Ed. We got everything and we got together in a circle and Eldarion transported us back.

And that’s when it went really bad. At least for me.

I couldn’t hold on. There was just so much going on, and my hand slipped, and then I couldn’t grab Bi Ming’s hand quick enough to stop from getting ripped away from the group and getting lost. I didn’t come back with the others.

But, obviously, I’m writing this letter to you and it’s going to get to you, I know it will, so you know I’m not dead and I didn’t go to another reality or anything like that. I landed on the floor, and I recognized the floor of the place I’d been in before, just...newer. Brighter-looking.

I went back in time, Zolf. Grizzop too, his grip slipped too. He said Eldarion stepped out of the circle before we left the other dimension—there were too many of us, she couldn’t guarantee she’d get everyone back safe if she didn’t let go, I think—but she’s not here, so I don’t know where she ended up. But Grizzop and I came here. To Ancient Rome, in the days before it was destroyed. Literally days. I’m alive, I’m healthy...and I’m trapped two thousand years before I was even born, or anybody I love.

It’s still fresh, I don’t know if I can talk about it, but I’ll try. We tried to help, Grizzop and me. We went looking for the Cult of Mars, and the Cult of Hades, to try and take them down and see if we could stop Rome from being destroyed and the world from getting bad in the future.

We couldn’t.

We tried, honest we did, but the fight...it was too much, it was too bad. I think I should have died, but Grizzop took a spear that was meant for me. And then he kept getting hit, but he wouldn’t stop, he was trying to take down the captain. He did, but...but they killed him. I was right there and he went down and then they knocked me out and when I woke up I was strung up from the ceiling like I was going to be fed to something and there were all these dragons and Grizzop was still on the floor and he was dead and I wasn’t and...

I can’t, Zolf. I just...I can’t. Not now. Maybe, maybe someday I can, but not today.

The point is that we didn’t stop the cults, and we didn’t stop the dragons, and we didn’t save Rome, and we didn’t save the world. Maybe we couldn’t have. And Grizzop died and I didn’t. I checked when I got free, after the dragons got away, but I’m not a healer and I’m not magic and I’m not...there was nothing I could do. And I couldn’t even take him with me. I had to leave him there or I wouldn’t have got out.

I think I shut down again. I don’t remember a lot of the walk out of Rome. I just remember telling this man we’d met—his name is Cicero—I told him to show me the way out, and I followed him, and I made sure he didn’t die, because he was the only person I knew anymore and I was not going to lose anybody else. And along the way, there were—there were other people trying to leave, trying to get away, and I just, I grabbed them and I brought them with us, because I wasn’t going to leave them behind, because I couldn’t. Maybe I couldn’t save everybody, but I had to save the ones I could.

That’s all we ever can do, right?

We found a place. It’s...it’s a home. It’s warm, and dry, and safe. I can stand on the roof and see for miles around, but it’s close enough that I can get supplies if we need them, and bring in more people. Refugees from Rome, mostly. People who need a place to be safe. There aren’t as many as maybe you’d think, a lot of people just stop here before going on somewhere else, but some stay. Mostly kids. The ones with families, parents and kids, most of them go on after a while, but the kids who don’t have anywhere else, anyone else, they stay, and I’m trying to take care of them. Trying to teach them a bit.

It’s all been a way of marking time, really, up until now. I know, in my heart of hearts, that Hamid and Azu and the others made it back safe and sound. And I know Hamid won’t give up on me. Every day I’ve been expecting to see him, or a magical effect of some kind. Something to get me home. I’m trying to be patient, trying to tell myself that just because time’s going on for me doesn’t mean it is for you lot. It’s not going to be instant, it’s not—it’ll happen, I keep saying. I’ll get another chance. I’ve just got to wait.

But today, I—Cicero and the kids, they surprised me with a party. I’d told them I didn’t know when my birthday was exactly, which is kind of true because the months aren’t the same here, but I didn’t think about it until today. I got back from a supply run and they’d set up a celebration for me. Cicero told me that since I couldn’t remember when I was born, they’d decided that my new birthday was the day he met me, the day my new life started, I guess.

It’s been a year. A whole year.

I made it through the party, somehow, but as soon as I could I got away and came up here to my room. I was upset and scared and missing you more than ever, you and Hamid both, and I thought suddenly that maybe you didn’t know I was alive, that maybe Hamid thought I was lost and didn’t know where to find me, so I was going to write Hamid a letter at first, but...but I really wanted to write to you.

I really needed you.

I’m a little bit calmer now, though, and I’m thinking a little more clearly. Maybe writing all this out helped some. I just imagined I was talking to you, and that helped, too. I’ve never been all that great with words, but I’ll try here. There’s some important stuff I think I need to say.

Hamid and I were the same age, did you know that? We talked about a lot of stuff while we were going to the different restaurants in Prague, and one of the things we talked about was our birthdays. We thought it was kind of cool that we both had the same birthday. We were both twenty-three.

We were kids, Zolf. Just a couple of dumb kids who thought we were grown up. I’ve got a bunch of dumb kids of my own now, and I know what I’m talking about. We thought we knew everything about everything, and it’s probably one of the reasons we didn’t always get on so much. We both thought we knew how the world worked, and because the way I saw the world and the way he saw the world were so different, we both thought the other didn’t know anything about anything. I’d never been out of London—I’d barely been out of Other London—and Hamid, for all he’d been places, he hadn’t really seen the world, just the part of the world that rich people let their kids go. We had a lot to learn.

We needed you. I don’t blame you for leaving, I know you needed that too, and I meant what I said about how none of us were forced to be there and you could leave if you wanted to, and we both trusted you’d come back when you were doing better. And maybe we both thought we’d be okay on our own. But I thought the whole world worked like Other London and Hamid thought the whole world worked like Cairo and Cambridge. Azu and Grizzop both saw how they thought the world should be, but the difference was Azu didn’t realize that it wasn’t like that, I think, and Grizzop just tried to make it like that. But you knew how my world worked, and how Hamid’s world worked, and how the rest of the world worked, and when you were there, it was a lot easier to see things how they really were and not just how they would have been if we were where we were used to, you know?

But it’s not just that. I didn’t get to be a kid, not really. And now that I think about it, Hamid didn’t really either. I had to be a thief and he had to be a banker’s son, and there were rules and things we had to do and things we were expected to be, and we didn’t get to figure out who we were and who we wanted to be. But you let us be that. You made it safe for us to start figuring ourselves out, even if it upset you sometimes, but you were there to catch us if we went too far. And even when you yelled at us, I think we could tell you weren’t really mad. We both had a lot of growing up to do still, even if we didn’t think so, but we weren’t going to do it without someone to show us how. And you’re the only person either of us ever met who was willing to do that for us.

I don’t know if you can get me back. I know I can’t get back to you from here. Magic isn’t what I’m used to, or the people who can do that kind of magic...don’t. I keep thinking about something Apophis said, about how the Meritocrats took a lot of magic things away from humanity because only the rich people could get at them, and I wonder if it’s not something like that, that I’m just not rich enough to get to someone powerful enough to send me home. But  I think I’m going to have to wait, and hope. I’m not giving up that hope, because I know you wouldn’t want me to, but...but maybe there’s a reason I’m supposed to be here.

These kids, they need someone too. Like I did. And right now, I’m what they’ve got. If I leave, I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. So this isn’t me saying “don’t keep trying to find me”, this is me saying that if you can’t get me back...I think I’ll be okay. I just keep asking myself, every time I run up on something that I’m not sure about, I think, “What would Zolf do?” And so far I’m not doing too bad, except for the part where I had to tell Maximus he couldn’t threaten to drown his little brothers and sisters in a bucket every time they annoy him. I’m doing my best, though. That’s all I can do. I’m trying. I’m trying to be you for them.

And it’s a little bit like I’ve got you here with me.

But Hamid doesn’t. He doesn’t have you and he doesn’t have me, and his sister and his friend died, and his father and his brother are going to prison, and someone he thought was his friend doesn’t care that she was doing work that got used for horrible things. He’s still just a kid really. And Azu’s solid, but she’s not what he needs. She sees the world in black and white. Either you’re her friend, or you’re her enemy, and if you’re her friend, you’re a good person. Hamid needs somebody who sees him for who he is, and cares about him as a person and not as what he can be or do. He needs you.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to finish this letter, and I’m going to take it to the Temple of Poseidon up in the town, and I’m going to ask them to find a way to get it to you. And then I’m going to come home, and I’m going to get all the kids together, and I’m going to tell them stories. I’m going to tell them about the ocean and the rain, the stars and the sand. I’m going to tell them about monsters and mechanical men and magic. I’m going to tell them about Azu and Grizzop and Wilde and even Bertie, my friends, and I’m going to tell them about Hamid, my brother, and I’m going to tell them about Zolf, the best dad I could ever have asked for.

And what I want you to do—it’s a big favor, but I’m hoping this letter won’t get to you until you’ve had a chance to get right. I want—no, I need you to go find Hamid. Maybe it hasn’t been very long, maybe you’re getting this right after we left, in which case, go to Rome and meet him when he gets back. Or maybe it’s been a bit and you’ll need to ask Wilde. He’ll know where to find him. Tell him I sent you if you have to, if he won’t listen to you, but please, please go find Hamid. He needs someone to be there for him, and I have a feeling you need someone too. Someone who believes in you, too. I’ll feel better knowing you’re together, that you’re helping each other, keeping each other safe. Tell him I’m sorry, for what I said about his family. Tell him I miss him, and I love him. I miss you, too, and I love you, too. I mean that with everything I have in me.

We’ll see each other again. I know that. In your time or mine, in this world or the next. I know I’ll be able to see you both again. And I hope that when I do, I’ll be able to look you in the eye and know that I made you proud.

Love always,

Sasha.

P.S. I want you to have my fire dagger. It’s probably not safe to have around just now, it being magic and all, and I want you to have something to remember me by.

Zolf lowers the last page of the letter slowly to the bar top. For a long time, he doesn’t move, just stares at the sheaf of papers and the dagger without really seeing either of them.

Then he takes a deep breath, slides off the stool, and trudges slowly and quietly up the stairs.

The upper floor of what used to be Gragg’s tavern consists of what can only loosely be described as “rooms” because there are two walls, each going about a third of the way across the room, dividing it into nominally two separate spaces. There are a few crates of supplies scattered about, mostly blankets from what Zolf can see in the half-open ones, but one of them has Skraak curled up inside, sound asleep. It’s not hard to find the group, in a sort of nest of blankets tucked up against one of the dividing walls. Azu lies on her back, one arm flung over her face. Cel’s hair is just visible over the edge of a ball of blanket up against Azu’s side; Zolf can’t see their face, but he guesses they still feel pretty terrible. Sumatnyerl sleeps on her side on the opposite side of Azu, back to the party and face to the dividing wall. Einstein snores lightly, cuddling Azu’s outstretched arm like a teddy bear. Even Wilde is there, half-sitting and half-slumped against Azu’s side, a blanket loosely draped over his lap and one hand resting in the space next to it, looking for all the world like he was trying to sit up and wait for Zolf but fell asleep anyway.

Hamid is nowhere to be seen.

Zolf tries to tamp down his instinctive panic. There’s only one way in or out up here, unless Hamid climbed out a window, and he wouldn’t do something like that. Nothing could have got up here without Zolf hearing it, he’s sure—well, okay, he was lost in the letter, it’s possible, but surely the others would have heard something. Hamid’s got to be nearby. He’s just...not sleeping with the others, for some reason. Maybe as he gets more dragon-ish, he gets more like the kobolds and prefers to sleep somewhere he can’t be found easily. Maybe he just doesn’t want to sleep on the floor and has figured out how to make himself a little bed, or found a bed somewhere.

Unless an assassin with Sasha’s level of skill but no morals sneaked in through the window. Unless there’s another thing like the thing they fought in Svalbard that burned their clothing and damaged their spirits. Unless the one Hamid sucked into the kill switch got out somehow and attacked him. Unless Hamid did do something stupid, maybe testing out a new spell he’d discovered or ability he’d developed...

Zolf moves as quickly and quietly as he can into the other half of the room. It’s been mostly picked over and cleared out, those few boxes remaining pushed to the sides of the room. One, a longer and narrower box than some of the others, is up underneath a single window at the far end of the attic space. And there, sitting atop the box, is Hamid, staring out the window even though it’s pitch dark and he can’t possibly see anything.

Inhaling sharply with relief, shoulders relaxing, Zolf crosses the space. He’s still trying not to wake the sleepers, but he’s pretty sure Hamid can hear him. He sits at the other end of the box from Hamid. “Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” Hamid says. He sounds the way he did in Paris after they destroyed Mr. Ceiling for real—weary and beaten-down. The thought makes Zolf hurt all the way through, partly hating himself for the person he was then and partly because Hamid’s got no reason to feel that way now and partly because it makes him think of Sasha, not that she’s far from his mind right now.

Hamid turns away from the window and looks in Zolf’s direction; he can’t possibly see him in the total lack of light, but Zolf can see him just fine. He almost looks worse than he sounds, and Zolf has a brief moment of wondering if he’s hurt worse than he’s letting on before he convinces himself he’s just being alarmist. It’s just the shadows and dim lighting making things seem worse than they are, combined with the stress of the last day.

Now that he’s here, Zolf has no idea where to start. He tries to think of the best way to begin, then gives up and decides to just say the first thing that pops into his head. The words that come out of his mouth remind him why it’s a bad idea to do that. “Did you seriously almost blow yourself up in Rome?”

Several emotions play across Hamid’s face, too fast for Zolf to read in the darkness. He expects a shrill protest, or an angry denial, or a stammering justification, but to his surprise, Hamid simply sighs and nods. “Sort of? We were fighting something invisible. It had just attacked me, so I knew it was near me, and Azu and Sasha weren’t, so...I cast a fireball centered on me. It should’ve been fine. I can stand up to fire pretty well, so I thought even if I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, I’d be okay. But something in Rome made magic go...weird...and it was more powerful than I thought it would be. I got lucky, I guess.” He looks up at Zolf, and this time the look in his eyes is easy to read: guilt. Zolf’s not sure why. “When did Azu tell you about that?”

“She didn’t. I—” Zolf flounders for a moment. There’s got to be a better way of saying this. Finally, he just sighs and hands Hamid the letter.

Hamid makes a weary, practiced gesture, and Zolf blinks as the by-now familiar tiny dancing lights appear between them. Hamid blinks, too, then flinches. “Sorry,” he mumbles and starts to make the gesture to dismiss them.

Zolf reaches over and stops him. “It’s—fine. It’s fine,” he tells Hamid. “Nothing out there hunts by sight. Gragg says they can’t get in buildings anyway. I trust him. You’re fine.”

Hamid swallows and nods. Now that the lights are there, Zolf can see him a little better, and he reevaluates his previous assessment. Hamid does look worse than he sounds. He looks either ill or injured, with dark hollows under his eyes, which have a slightly bruised look to them, his skin ashen. There’s a smudge on his forehead of dirt or slime or blood or some combination of the three, he looks like he’s run his hands through his hair in frustration or despair, and his ever-present eyeliner is smeared down his cheeks.

It hits Zolf all at once that he’s literally never seen Hamid not perfectly groomed. Even in the catacombs under Paris, when he’d been injured and panicking, his first instinct had been a shaky prestidigitation to clean himself up. He fusses over his appearance more than anyone Zolf has ever met, with the possible exception of Wilde, and he remembers that Wilde always looked worse off than he was when he couldn’t use his own prestidigitation. It’s no wonder Hamid looks sick. Zolf resists the urge to comment on it and simply waits.

Hamid sucks in a sharp breath as he starts to read, and even more color drains from his face. His eyes fill with tears, but to Zolf’s slight surprise, they don’t fall. He smiles briefly a couple of times, barely more than a flicker, but Zolf also sees him retreat slightly into himself. And Zolf can tell when he gets to the part after they got separated coming back to Rome, because Hamid’s hands start shaking, ever so faintly.

When he reaches the end—apparently—he stares at the paper for a long moment, much like Zolf did, then takes a deep breath, folds the letter back up, and hands it back to Zolf. Zolf isn’t sure whether to be impressed or worried that Hamid hasn’t dissolved into a complete emotional mess.

“She’s right,” he says softly, and his voice is choked and shaking, but he’s not actually crying. “I was just a dumb kid. Still am, I guess.” He looks up at Zolf. “I keep—I think I’m getting better, and then I do something utterly stupid because I think I know what I’m doing, and then I argue with you when you call me out on it. And then I have the nerve to act like you’re—” He chokes off the word and looks away, taking a couple more deep breaths.

Zolf realizes, all of a sudden, what Hamid is doing. He’s trying to stop himself from crying, because he doesn’t want to be overly emotional. He’s trying to be sensible and practical and, well, grown-up about this.

Before he can say anything, Hamid looks back up at him. “I’m not—I’m not trying to justify why I’m right. I just want you to know where I...” He swallows. “When I was growing up, if I made a mistake or—o-or did something wrong, no matter what it was or how bad it was, all I had to do was admit it was wrong and apologize, and everything would be forgiven and it would go away. Like it never happened. And you—you’re kind of the opposite? At least, that’s how it looks to me sometimes. If something goes wrong, it’s in the past. Apologizing for it or—or acknowledging that it might have been a mistake doesn’t change that it was done, so there’s no reason to. Just...move on and try to do better the next time. And I know that’s the better way to handle it, but—”

“It’s not,” Zolf interrupts, his voice thick with emotion. “It’s—look, I don’t have all the answers either, you know. I act like I do, but deep down, I’m just as scared. And I don’t always know the right thing to do. When we were in Paris, I spent three days in my room wallowing, blaming myself for everything that went wrong, every mistake I’d ever made, not just the whole Mr. Ceiling thing, you remember that? The more we went on, the more I questioned everything I’d ever done, and by the time we got to Prague, I couldn’t get away from the doubts. So I walked away, from Sasha and from you, because I didn’t trust myself not to repeat my mistakes. And then Wilde tracked me down and told me you’d gone to Rome and you were gone and...” He swallows hard. “Look, you know how Sasha talks about her...shutting down and just blanking out? I did that, too, I reckon. I blamed myself, thought if I’d just stayed you’d have been okay, but...at that point, Wilde needed an ally and I needed a purpose, so I shut out the past and focused on the present. And it was easier to live like that, for a while, so I just kept doing it and it got worse.” He tries to smile. “There’s got to be something in between, right? Something between ignoring the past and dwelling on it?”

“Yeah,” Hamid says softly, looking down at his hands. They’re dirty, too, smeared with plant matter and ichor and grease, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “And there’s got to be something between acting like acknowledging a mistake makes it all go away and acting like—”

“—like not acknowledging it also makes it all go away,” Zolf completes. “And I think there’s got to be something between ‘this was the only right answer’ and ‘this was the right answer with the information we had so it’s fine,’ yeah? Like your fireball in Rome. You didn’t think that was the only solution, did you?”

“No,” Hamid whispers. “It was a calculated risk. And I didn’t think about magic going...screwy. But I wouldn’t have done it if Sasha or Azu or Einstein had been close enough that it would have hit them. I was the only one in danger, so I thought it would be okay.”

Zolf’s heart lurches, and he has to try twice before he can speak. “If you ever decide to do something like that again...just make sure I can’t see you, all right?”

Hamid looks up at Zolf and attempts to smile. “So you don’t have to yell at me?”

“So I don’t have to maybe watch you die.” Zolf keeps his voice down with an effort. “I can’t—I can’t do that, Hamid. Seeing Wilde’s body after the crash, I—that was bad. That was real bad. If I’d had to actually see it happen? I don’t know that even pushing things into the past would’ve helped. And next to Wilde, you’re the person I’d like to think I’m closest to. I don’t want to watch anyone die if I can help it, but you? Please don’t make me do that.” He swallows hard. “It’s why I took the risk of having us jump into the plant. I thought it would just...lead us straight through to wherever it was connected to, but it was that or watch you torn apart by a bunch of evil trees, and I was not going to risk that. So yeah, it was a bad idea and if I’d known what I know now I would have tried to come up with a third option, but with what we knew then, it was the best hope I had of not losing everything I cared about. Again.”

Hamid makes a tiny, pained noise that sounds like it might be a sob and goes straight to Zolf’s heart. He presses his lips tightly together for a moment, obviously forces back an emotional response, then nods. “I promise. And—and I promise not to yell like that again. I’m sorry. I am. I got scared and I took it out on you and that wasn’t fair.”

“I accept your apology, and I forgive you. And I’m not great with the whole...talking thing, but I promise I’ll try in the future.” Zolf takes a quick breath. “I do forget how young you are sometimes. And I don’t mean that as an insult, just...I forget you don’t always have the experience of the world to understand why I make the decisions I do, and then I get annoyed with you for questioning them, and that’s not fair, either. I’m sorry for that.”

“You don’t—I accept your apology, and I forgive you,” Hamid half-whispers. Zolf can tell he’s not just parroting the words, he’s sincere about them. And he appreciates that Hamid stopped himself from saying you don’t have to apologize. Because Zolf did have to apologize, and they both know it. Hamid looks down at the letter again. “She’s right about that, too. I did—I do need you. I’m...you make me a better person.”

“No,” Zolf says, putting the weight of an entire lifetime’s experience behind his words. “Nobody else can make someone a better person. You make you a better person, Hamid. I just believe you can be one.”

Hamid’s head comes up abruptly, and he stares at Zolf in genuine shock. Zolf is terrible at...people, and emotions, and all that, he doesn’t usually get them, but Hamid’s emotions are so close to the surface and so genuine that even he can read them. Nobody has ever told Hamid anything like that, ever, and Zolf is the last person he would have ever expected to hear it from.

And something inside Zolf breaks.

He reaches out and pulls Hamid into a hug, tighter and more desperate than the one he gave him right after the first quarantine all those weeks ago. Hamid hugs him back just as tightly, burying his face in Zolf’s shoulder. Zolf feels the tears begin hitting his skin, reminding him in a remote, distant way that that purple thing dissolved his shirt and coat and he’s sitting around in nothing but his breastplate, but he pushes the thought out of his mind for the moment.

“She’s right,” he says into Hamid’s hair. “I am proud of you. You stood up for yourself, and you stood up for Sasha. You didn’t give in even when it would’ve been the easiest thing in the world. And back there, in Svalbard? You did a good job. You kept your head and you didn’t argue, you figured out what that device was and how to use it. And you made sure the rest of us stayed safe. I might argue with you, I might yell, but I will never not be proud of you.”

Hamid cries harder. His emotions are usually loud and messy, but whether because he’s trying to keep quiet or for some other reason, his tears are silent. “I missed you,” he whispers, the words muffled into Zolf’s shoulder. “I missed you and I was scared something would happen to you in Prague, and then I got back from Rome and Einstein told us how long it had been and what was going on and I was scared you were dead, and then I saw you again and I was—I was so angry at you and I don’t know why—”

“It’s because I wasn’t there,” Zolf says with a rare flash of insight. “It’s because I left and suddenly everybody around you started getting hurt and dying, and then you came back and everything was different, and you didn’t know what was going on. You were confused and scared, and when you get scared these days you get angry. And I was there to be a good target. You couldn’t be angry at Azu because Azu was angry too, but me—”

“You were safe,” Hamid says softly. “I—I trusted that I could be angry at you, because I knew you’d—you’d let me be angry and we could still be friends after I was done.”

Zolf tightens his arms around Hamid, recognizing the truth in his words. “I missed you, too, you know. As soon as I walked away, I regretted it. If I could’ve taken you both with me, as stupid as that sounds, I would have, but I had to be on my own to get right. But I hadn’t been gone three days before I knew I’d be back. And then you were gone, they told me you were gone for good, and I—I wasn’t lying when I said I’d mourned for you both, but I never gave up hope. I’ve been studying the planes—I was determined, when I had a moment, I was going to go looking for you. I just, I couldn’t leave Wilde and...”

“No, I get it. I get it.” Hamid squeezes him again, then eases back and manages a weak smile up at him. “Thank you. For trying. For not giving up. Maybe...maybe that’s the only reason any of us made it back, was because you had hope.”

“Maybe.” Zolf settles back as well and manages a smile back. “I’m not giving up on her, just so you know. Even though we got that letter from her when she was older...I’m not giving up. Maybe someday...”

“Yeah. Maybe not any time soon, but someday.” Hamid wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. The gesture makes him look impossibly young. “I’m not giving up either. I can’t. She wouldn’t have given up on us.” He pauses. “Zolf—she didn’t know you weren’t with Poseidon anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s probably why the letter came through the Poseidon lot,” Zolf says. “They’ve probably been looking for me since I walked away, so to speak.”

“No, I mean she didn’t know you weren’t with Poseidon. If she lit a candle at the Temple of Artemis for Grizzop every year, and her letter to all of us came through the Cult of Aphrodite...Zolf, what if that’s why Poseidon kept trying to help you?” Hamid’s eyes are wide. “Because Sasha asked him to? Would—is that how it works?”

Ice water floods through Zolf’s veins, and he mutters a word in Dwarfish he hasn’t said since the cave-in. “It might. I don’t know. I’m not—”

“No, I’m not—I don’t think you should go back to him. I mean....clearly he wasn’t—maybe he was Sasha’s god, not yours. I just...wondered, that’s all.” Hamid rubs his face. He looks like he’s lost a fight with a fireplace, there’s so much dirt and kohl smeared over his cheeks.

“Maybe...Hamid, you sure you aren’t hurt?” Zolf gestures to his own face. “You...look a mess.”

“I...oh.” Hamid looks embarrassed. “Sorry, and I—it’s all over you, too. Here.” He snaps his fingers, producing the familiar flurry of handkerchiefs, which set to work on both Hamid and Zolf.

Zolf unbuckles his breastplate and sets it aside, wincing at the sticky sound as it peels away from his chest and the last fragments of his shirt and jacket fall away. “Thanks,” he says. “For the record, though, I wasn’t...complaining about you looking bad or whatever. I was just worried. Last time you didn’t immediately come out of a fight and tidy yourself up was...”

“Paris,” Hamid completes softly. “I know. I-it did feel...a bit like that, I guess. I just didn’t...I don’t know.” He glances over his shoulder uncertainly towards the other part of the room.

Zolf glances over, too. “They’ll be okay,” he assures Hamid, thinking he’s worrying about Cel. “Once I’ve had some rest, I can meditate and get access to a couple spells that’ll help. You and Azu, too. You said it hit you some?”

“Yeah,” Hamid says with a heavy sigh.

The handkerchiefs vanish, and Zolf sighs, too. “Right. C’mon, let’s go in the other room and get some sleep. You want to use the lights so you don’t trip?”

Hamid hesitates, for just a second, then says uncertainly, “N-no. No, I’m—I’m fine.” He snaps his fingers and the lights disappear. “Um...after you?”

Zolf stares at Hamid. He’s usually a skilled liar, almost on par with Wilde, but either because he’s tired or because of what that thing did to him, he’s not doing a very good job of it right now. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Hamid protests, even less convincingly.

“Hamid.”

It’s all he says, but it’s enough. Hamid’s shoulders slump. “I just...I don’t think I’m welcome in there right now. Azu’s mad at me. A-about the kobolds and—”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Zolf interrupts. “She’s asleep right now, so she won’t be yelling at you. And she’s not....feeling well, is she? Whatever happened to you three, she’s—she’ll be fine once we get that taken care of.”

“She meant it, Zolf. She just wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t...like this. And she wasn’t wrong.”

“She might not have been wrong, but that doesn’t mean she was right,” Zolf says firmly. He puts his hands on Hamid’s shoulders and looks him in the eye, despite knowing Hamid probably can’t see him. “Just like Sasha. Just like me. Just like you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hamid whispers. Tears fill his eyes again. “I—I really didn’t—I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that, Zolf. I’m sorry. I just—I guess I was still upset about what Aziza said and—”

“Wait, who—?” Zolf suddenly realizes that he wasn’t the only one who went through what he went through when they jumped through that plant. His shoulders slump slightly. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—we should’ve talked about this, but—”

“When have we had time?”

“Yeah, exactly. Look, I—when we jumped through that plant, before it tied us up and we fell through those planes?” Zolf sighs heavily. “I was back in the mines. With my brother. He blamed me for leaving, tried to convince me he’d still been alive when I...” He swallows. “So I was...kind of raw, too. Even though it was nothing I haven’t been saying to myself for decades. Even though I knew it wasn’t really him.”

“It wasn’t?” Hamid’s voice is small and fragile, like he was in the catacombs.

“Oh, Hamid.” Zolf hates this, hates every minute of it. “No, it wasn’t—it wasn’t them. Whoever you saw—your sister, right? The one who died in Prague?”

“Yeah. She—she said it was my fault she died. And that I hadn’t done enough to—after. That I was still making everything all about me and not—”

“Yeah, if it had really been her, she never would have said any of that, ‘cause it’s not true,” Zolf interrupts. “You were humming in the garden. I heard you. She was walking with you. That was really her. I could feel my brother with me too, I kept willing him to go away. Cel and Azu, I’m sure they were with someone they’ve lost too. What that—that thing showed us, that was a twisted version of them. Something to make us regret, make us give up. They were lies, Hamid. What happened to your sister, that’s not your fault. You did everything you could. Kafka’s the reason she died. Well, and maybe Bertie too.”

“I didn’t know that,” Hamid whispers. “About him—about Kafka giving him a choice.”

“Tell you what.” Zolf squeezes Hamid’s shoulders. “When this is all over, we’ll go find a necromancer, find where they’ve got Bertie buried, and have him turned into a zombie so we can kill him again ourselves.”

Hamid actually laughs, a bit wetly. “Only if you take the first shot.”

“Sure. We’ll use Sasha’s dagger.” Zolf pulls Hamid in for another hug. He’s not usually the touchy-feely, sort, but it’s just the two of them right now and Hamid’s one of three people he’d be willing to hug like this.

The fact that one of those people is someone he may never get the chance to hug again—or at all—makes his heart ache, but he tries not to think about it.

Hamid hugs him back, and Zolf feels him relax. After a few moments, he pulls back and manages a smile up at Zolf. “Thank you. For all of it.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Zolf smiles back, then slides off the box. “Come on. You need rest.”

This time, Hamid slides off the box too, and he matches stride with Zolf as they head back into the other room. He starts to go off to one side, but Zolf doesn’t let him. Instead, he grabs a blanket and pulls him over to join the pile that is the rest of their friends. Hamid looks reluctant, but he doesn’t argue. Zolf’s glad. He’s tired and strained and really doesn’t want to have to try to choose which of the two people he cares about most he’s going to try and protect tonight.

Wilde half-stirs when Zolf settles down next to him, but doesn’t fully wake, just shifts slightly to lean against him and shoves the blanket in his direction. Zolf tucks the blanket he grabbed around Hamid before accepting the other half of Wilde’s blanket, and he doesn’t object when he feels Hamid’s head drop onto his shoulder.

“Night, Dad,” Hamid mumbles, sounding more than half asleep.

A lump comes into Zolf’s throat. He has to try twice before he can choke out the words. “Night, Hamid.”

With one hand resting on Hamid’s head and the other gripping Wilde’s hand tightly, Zolf closes his eyes and drifts into sleep, feeling, for the first time in almost two years, like some of the grief has been lifted from his heart.

[thevalleyisjolly]

Thinking about alternate character classes lately, and I’m always thinking about A Crown of Candy at any given point in time, so without further ado, for your consideration:

Wizard!Theo, except that he’s the only wizard ever with a positive Strength modifier because that would be hilarious.  Wizard!Theo, who learned more from Lazuli than anyone knew, whose magic isn’t loud or flashy but spell notes hidden in a false prayer book, a soft glow on the tips of his paws and a muttered breath as one of the princesses falls from the top of the staircase again only to land on their feet, as softly as a feather.  In this world, he’s officially the royal tutor, because there are things that Caramelinda doesn’t know, but she does know what Lazuli taught him and she knows where his loyalties lie and she knows that one day, one day the spark she can see in Ruby’s eyes will need a teacher but will more importantly need a protector.  And to the princesses, to the rest of the court, to the world, he’s a slightly gullible, rather awkward tutor who stands on ceremony far too much, and they laugh at him and his silly little sprinkle pet and isn’t he a bit of a large goon?  Even Amethar forgets, every now and then, what he’s seen Theo do on a battlefield, to a battlefield, because as awkward as his social skills may be, Theo is committed to the part and he plays it well.  In any lifetime, in any world, Theo loves his people and he’ll do what he has to for them.

Bonus subclass: School of Abjuration obviously, this squishy gummy bear has one mission, and that’s to protect people.

Rogue!Lapin, because obviously.  Rogue!Lapin, who never summoned the Sugar Plum Fairy, who smiled and charmed and lied his way from the street to the service of a minor but respectable lord, and from there up and up the social strata until he is chamberlain to House Jawbreaker.  Duke Jawbreaker doesn’t bother much with him, but Spearia Mentha takes one look at Lapin, standing too straight and tall, the accent of the common mountain folk still seeping out at his edges, his eyes sharp and clever even when bowing and murmuring obedience, and she thinks “Hmm.”  And when her sweet baby has to go to Castle Candy as hostage, a safe and willing hostage, but a hostage nonetheless, she writes to dear sister Caramelinda and asks would it be alright if she sent someone from her own household, just to keep an eye on the boy, for her peace of mind as a mother?  Liam arrives at Castle Candy, sans pig, plus one very stuffy guardian, and Lapin Cadbury looks up at the towering spires and parapets of the castle, and a small, rare smile flashes across his face for just a second.

Bonus subclass: Mastermind is really the only way to go, isn’t it?

Sorcerer!Amethar, but listen, alright, my kingdom for Sorceror!Amethar who grows up with magic as rage flowing through his veins, whose wrath manifests not as bursts of concentrated battle fury, but in wild surges of strange and powerful magic.  There is magic in the blood and bones of House Rocks, an old and willful magic.  His sisters protected him, as much as they could, but still, there are whispers, more so once the young prince becomes the grieving king with the eyes of the world on him.  People mutter about the witch king of Candia, they say that he’s levelled armies with his sorcery, that he’s bewitched the Emperor Gustavo into friendship, that he’s dangerous and brings only death and destruction.  And it hurts, it does, not because he cares what other people think, but because they aren’t all wrong.  Look at him, the Unfallen, alive when so many have died.  It hurts that he has so much power singing in his blood, and he’s the one who’s powerless, who can’t be the protector, who must be the protected.  Why him?  Why not strong Rococoa, or brilliant Lazuli, or kind Citrina, or cunning Sapphria?  Why is he alive and not them, when he is the wildcard, the dangerous one, the last person who should be king?

Bonus subclass: I mean, it’s gotta be Wild Magic, no doubt about it.

Druid!Cumulous is another story that writes itself.  Druid!Cumulous still swears the same vows of dedication and protection to Candia’s magic, Candia’s secrets, and so Candia itself rises to acknowledge that.  It isn’t the red glow of the Hungry One that surrounds him when he fights, but the bright pink of the frosting sprites, the warm chocolate of the fudge brownies, the brilliant lemon-yellow of the river dragon’s scales, the slightest tint of sugar plum purple.  All spirits are fickle and unpredictable and dangerous, but they can recognize faith and they can appreciate service and they can reward what is freely given.  The Sugar Plum Fairy considers this one for a while.  She has no little pet bunny in this world, no servant to demand wishes from.  But fairies are jealous, too jealous.  Hearts and minds and souls, of course they should be hers, wholly hers, why wouldn’t they be, and for all the vastness of her realm, all her secrets and all her magic, there is something more to Candia than what is just in her.  So she lets this one be, and lays her trap for another prize, a bigger prize…

Bonus subclass: You could honestly make a good argument for Circle of the Shepherd or Circle of the Land, although Circle of the Moon is pretty great for more combat-focused war guys druids.

Warlock!Saccharina’s life is still a tragedy, because magic was only the most obvious thing that the nuns tried to beat out of her.  Warlock!Saccharina is not born with lightning in her fingers and a storm in her heart, but she is born with a strength and a will that the nuns despise.  In this world, Saccharina looks in the window, in the mirror, and she still sees a blue woman, a kind woman with a kind face, reaching out to her, comforting her when the nuns mistreat her, telling her wondrous stories and magical secrets.  In this world, the Rocks sisters, held in a false afterlife, stage a jailbreak.  Rococoa raises herself back to the living, cold with vengeance against the man who murdered her.  Citrina hitches up her skirts and hikes off to Vegetania, prepared to visit as many dreams and instigate as many supernatural miracles as she needs in order to reform the Church.  Sapphria laughs and winks and goes off to do something mysterious and terribly complex and probably very clever.  And Lazuli?  Lazuli goes to find her eldest niece, and to help her do something about the frankly terrible situation she’s in.  She is no spirit of the dead that a small exorcism by a provincial abbess can banish, but something new, something more.  And when Saccharina finally drowns the monastery, a grim smile on her face, it is with eyes and fingers that glow a brilliant, sharp blue.

Bonus subclass: Either Great Old One or Celestial, depending on how Lazuli fights her way back to the waking world.  Reaching out to the mortal world from the afterlife?  Probably Celestial.  Something strange and mysterious that’s never happened before in all of creation, and isn’t entirely comprehensible even to her?  Great Old One.

Barbarian!Jet grows up with so much rage inside her, but a rage for others, a fire for others.  It’s a rage that goes bone-deep, born of so much love and fear, because Jet Rocks may be sheltered and immature and naive, but one thing she does know, one of the earliest things she knows, is that the world is dangerous for people like Ruby, people like Pops, the world does not like people like Ruby and Pops, and as young as she is, she’s already heard how people whisper and seen how they point at Pops when his back is turned.  And if they found out about Ruby-  It’s a different rage that drives Barbarian!Jet, not a mindless battle frenzy, but love sharpened to the keenest focus, to protect, to guard.  In this world, and in every world, Jet Rocks loves her sister above all else, and will do anything to make sure she is safe.  Her parents worry, of course.  Caramelinda looks into her daughter’s eyes, sees hard steel and the heart of sacrifice, and she weeps when she looks into the mirror and sees the same, this is not the life she wanted for her.  Amethar understands.  He knows.  He knew the minute his daughters were placed into his arms for the first time, and the instinct to protect something so precious, precious beyond measure.  He just didn’t want his daughter to understand as well, not so soon, not so young.

Bonus subclass: Path of the Ancestral Guardian, I think, because Jet’s rage is rooted in and for her family.  Also, imagine the confusion and the angst the first time Jet summons past ancestors to fight with her in battle, and none of them include her aunts because they’re too busy raising hell elsewhere.

Bard!Ruby tumbles out of the cradle with a cheerful tongue and a clever mind, and Amethar has to stop himself from calling after Sapphria, because Ruby is so much like her, so nimble on her feet, so clever with her words.  But it’s Caramelinda that sees it first, how Ruby’s leaps and cartwheels hang just a little too long in the air, how Jet brightens and sharpens too fast after just a word from her.  And it’s Theo, of course it’s Theo, who catches Ruby and Jet trying to rob the cookie jar with a spectral, definitely magic, definitely arcane hand floating in the air, where did she even learn that, he doesn’t have that spell, this is bad, this is very, very bad.  Ruby’s more careful after that, after Mom’s lecture about how dangerous it is, and Pops just standing there, looking stern, nodding along to everything that Mom’s saying, not saying a word to the contrary.  Her magic is just for Jet now, her and Jet and nobody else, and she does a very good job of pretending she doesn’t know anything else, pretending like she doesn’t feel the thrum inside of her, pretending like something isn’t singing in her blood with every leap and twirl and handstand.  

Bonus subclass: College of Valour?  It gets that combat flavouring without being as specific as College of Swords, but I’m open to suggestions.

Warlock!Liam, and he is so young, so lonely, roaming the forests around Castle Manylicks, when he finds her or maybe she finds him.  Just a sweet little fairy who knows where to find the best seeds, the ones that have a little bit of magic in them, and here’s a lonely little boy who’s so interested in what she can show him!  And then of course, this isn’t just any lonely little boy, this is the son of Duke Jawbreaker, someone royal, someone important.  I’ll be your friend, she says, coy and sweet, a nice friend, not like your brothers.  I know lots of things, secret things, magic things, that I can show you.  Come with me, do you want to see something really neat?  Her magic is almost golden, almost Bulbian, with the slightest whiff of something rich and sticky and sweet and purple, and Liam’s only glad that he has a friend now, someone who’s nice to him, who’s interested in the same things, who remembers his name and doesn’t pick on him because he likes seeds more than swords.  Lonely children don’t need to be threatened or coerced, lonely children don’t need deals with the devil.  Lonely children just need a kind voice and warm approval and someone to show them affection, and the Sugar Plum Fairy knows just how to work with that.

Bonus subclass: Gonna diverge from Lapin here and go with Archfey as the warlock/patron relationship, because Liam isn’t in a position where he has to pretend that his powers come from the Bulb, so the SPF can lean into her feyness more.

[wienerbarnes]

Only Human

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (Cheek to Cheek)

Word Count: 1,712

Warnings: mentions to injuries and mission stuff

A/N: bucky channeled his inner Swiss cheese in this one

MAIN MASTERLIST | CHEEK TO CHEEK MASTERLIST

He’s fucked. He’s so fucked.

After taking out the HYDRA agent that just filled him with metal, he crawls over to the shitty metal door and pushes it shut, collapsing against the adjacent wall. He looks down at the six - wait, seven - bullet holes littering his body, oozing with blood, his heartbeat audible through the wounds. His metal hand flexes around his gun while his right hand moves to apply pressure to his side. Not that it’ll help much.

He’s scared. Actually scared. He shakily reaches up to his ear to tap into his comm only to find his ear empty. His eyes glaze over the room, looking for the little piece of plastic that belongs in his ear, but doesn’t see it. He can’t call Sam, can’t call Sharon, can’t call you. Not that he’d call you, he knows there’s no way you’d recover from finding his dead body. Of course he’d pick your first mission in the field to get shot and die. You’re gonna be pissed.

He’s sweating. A lot. They’re in Baghdad. In the Summer. And he attributes his profuse sweating to those facts instead of his body’s attempt to fight to stay alive.

He hears footsteps outside the door. He shuts his eyes, sighs, and raises his gun and aims at the closed door, prepared to go down shooting. Well, he’s already down, but -

The door is kicked open and Bucky points his gun, only to be faced with a barrel identical to his - it’s you. Relieved, he lowers his gun and closes his eyes for a moment again. He sighs loudly. So tired. You shut the door behind you, “Bucky, what are you -” You gasp.

His breathes are coming out sounding like gasps, too, and his heart breaks looking at you. He’s never seen such horror in your face. She’s probably looking at her worst nightmare right now.

He places his gun next to him on the floor, “Help me.” He tells you, but you're frozen, that panic-stricken look stuck on your face.

“Help me!” He yells at you, voice echoing in the room, followed by a groan.

You snap out of it, place your gun back in your holster, and crouch down to Bucky’s level. There’s a lot of blood. It’s not stopping, no matter how hard you push, no matter how many extra handkerchiefs you use. You’re crying, but you don’t dare make a sound.

Bucky’s bleeding a lot. You glance over your shoulder to see a dead agent on the floor. You push down harder on Bucky’s torso, trying to apply as much pressure as possible to the holes in his body. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Apply pressure? Should you be doing something else?

“I need to tell you something.”

“You better not give no dying wish bullshit.” You snarl, or try to, your voice just comes out sad and scared.

“Just listen -” Let me tell you I love you.

“No! Whatever you want me to do or whatever you want to tell me, you’ll tell me when we get home! You’re not fucking dying, Bucky.” You yell at him. “Where the fuck is Sam…”

He wants to tell you, he wants to argue, but he doesn’t have the energy. He’s so tired. He’s so weak. And it’s breaking him down even more seeing you sob, struggling to contain his blood. He feels nauseous and he gags before spitting up, his blood landing on your hands; your hands already covered in his blood.

You let out a huff, coughing up blood is not good. You wipe the blood from his chin, though it doesn’t do much to clean him up. He’s so fucking dizzy. He can’t tell if his eyes are closing or if his vision is just going out; they alway say your sight goes first when you’re dying.

He feels as though he hears the door open again, footsteps crowding him. But he also hears your voice, singing in the shower in the early hours of the morning. He hears his mother’s laugh. He hears Steve’s sniffles as he wipes the dirt from his face. He hears his childhood dog barking, and Alpine meowing.

His eyes close, and imagines your face as he drifts off, not you crying and covered in blood, but you smiling bright at him, with stars in your eyes.

…

Except he doesn’t.

He hears beeps and he’s angry. Angry because his side hurts and angry because he fucking hates hospitals.

Eyes blink through the crust gathered in the corners and the room he’s in is dim. It’s nighttime. He looks around, unbelievably groggy, but recognizes the room as the MedBay in the tower. He eyes slowly inch over the room until they land on your body, folded like a pretzel in the small chair next to his bed.

He’s confused because he remembers it being daytime when they were on the mission, but you’re still in your tactical gear; hell, you still have his blood all over your arms and clothes.

You’re asleep, and you look like you have been for a while. He sighs, thinking about the trauma he’s put you through; seeing your boyfriend - well, not boyfriend; whatever, he’s not getting into that now - bleed out before your eyes in the same facility ran by the organization that tortured you both.

“And he lives.” A quiet voice sounds in the room, and Bucky turns to find Sam.

He’s in pajamas, so it makes him rethink what time it is.

Sam reaches his bed and holds out his hand, and Bucky grabs it, holding it with both of his hands and bringing their interlocked hands to his chest. A silent conversation between best friends; between brothers. A conversation of thanks, of fear, of I’m glad you’re okay.

“Get me outta here, man.” Bucky whispers to him after a moment.

Sam takes his hand back with a laugh, “Can’t break you out just yet, man.”

Bucky gives him a weak smile. “How long has she been here?”

“Since we got back.” Bucky stares, because he doesn’t know how long that’s been.

“Two days.”

“I’ve been here for two days?!”

“You almost died, man. You were out on the jet and you… you flatlined a couple of times here, too, during surgery.”

Bucky looks away. He knew he was in bad shape, but he thinks that’s the worst he’s ever been.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. let me know you’re awake, but it’s, like, 3 A.M., so,” So it’s not late, just early.

“Go to sleep.” Bucky tells him.

Sam leaves the room and he glances at you, still asleep in that chair. He uses all of his body strength to push himself a little higher on the bed, a strained groan escaping him, but he gets close enough to tug at your sock-clad foot with his index and middle finger.

Your foot kicks out and you wake up with a small gasp. You blink a few times to orient yourself a bit, before realizing who woke you, and you jump up and climb on the bed with him. You ignore his moans and hug him tight around the neck, avoiding his side and torso as best you can.

You mumble his name a few times before pulling back and smashing your lips against his. You kiss him over and over and over again, switching between his lips and the sides of his mouth and his cheeks and his forehead and his nose.

“Baby - Sweetheart - Honey -” He tries every pet name in the book before just grabbing your hands from the sides of his face and getting you to look at him. He’s in pain from being shot up, but smiles, because he’s so happy to be looking at your face right now.

“How long have you been here?”

Your smile drops a bit at his question, not what you were expecting.

“Since you got here, babe.” You tell him, and Bucky can’t help the twitch in his lips at the sound of your own pet name.

“Can you do something for me, sweetheart?”

“Anything.”

“Go shower.”

“Bucky! Are you trying to tell me I smell?” You whisper.

You’re quite a sight for him right now. Body covered in thick, tactical leather, vest unbuckled but still hanging on your shoulders, all of your clothes, forearms, and hands covered in a dark red; his dried blood. There’s even splatter across your neck and face, swipes where you possibly tried to wipe tears or sweat but ended up smearing his blood instead. Your eyes are wide, looking at him as though he just offended you to the highest degree by suggesting you take a shower.  

“Yes. Go shower, get all the sweat and blood off of you. I want to see the brightest, most colorful pajama set when you come back.”

A pause, “Come back? You don’t want me to leave you for the night?” You ask, a bit of insecurity showing through.

“After you shower, I want you to come back here so I can hold you as tightly as I can, for as long as I can. Don’t sleep well without you anyway.” Bucky reassures her, and she smiles at him, before plopping one last kiss on his mouth before leaving the MedBay.

Twenty minutes later, you’re snuggled up next to Bucky, on his good side, with bright blue blankets covering your bodies.

Bucky tells you everything he was thinking, how scared he was, how he really thought he was dying. You tell him how scared you were, watching from outside the surgery room, watching him die and come back to life, but how relieved you felt seeing him stabilize and surviving.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Hmm.” Bucky hums, trailing his metal fingers up and down your arm.

“You were going to tell me something, back in that room, but I didn’t let you. What was it?”

I love you. I was going to tell you that I love you; that I adore you. That I have this infatuation with you, and that I’d do anything for you, at any given moment. That I love you and I’m in love with you, all of you, inside and out.

“I don’t remember.”

[brax-was-here]

Scarlet Briar: The Seeds of Life Chapter 10

Written by: Braxxus

Chapter 10: The First Step is the Toughest

Sometimes we chose the wrong path

The Nightmare Court moved southward through the jungle of the Auric Basin region making their way to the domain of the jungle dragon. The journey was hazardous, not just because of the mordrem, but most of the jungle’s other inhabitants were not friendly as well. They had encountered giant bizarre insect like creatures that would come in swarms, with some larger creatures projecting some kind of energy. They were passing through a section of the jungle that was thick with vegetation when Nafiona made a realization.

“Ordhram?” she spoke softly, her gaze turning to the trees above them.  

“Yes, m’lady?” her subordinate replied immediately.

“It’s eerily quiet here.” She noted. “It feels as if all the jungle’s creatures have been frightened away…or killed.” She raised her hand to stop the group from moving forward.

“Listen.” The only sound heard was the breeze as the leaves rustled in the canopy, and even it sounded eerily strange. She quickly turned to her courtiers.

“We’re entering the realm of the jungle dragon.” She spoke in a commanding tone. “Mordremoth may be dead, but that doesn’t mean this area is any less dangerous. Be extremely cautious.” She looked up at Ordhram, who was stoically staring at the twisted path leading into the broken landscape ahead.

“What’s the matter, Caelan? You look a little unnerved.” One of the courtiers spoke quietly, a slight smirk on her face as she nudged him on the shoulder.

“No!” he snapped back. “No. It’s just…it’s just after all we went through…everything that has happened. Here we are. In the land of our creator. How he took control of many of us here.” Caelan was on edge. “It’s…it’s not safe for us here.” He stammered.

“Nafiona knows what she is doing.” The courtier reassured him. “There is nothing that can happen that we can’t take care of. Remember, this is for a better world.” The courtier smiled at him warmly.

“I…I suppose you’re right.” Caelan replied nervously.

“I am right.” She assured him.

“Yes, but…but what if- “

“Caelan! Stop worrying!” The courtier barked at him in a huff.

“Hold here.” Nafiona shouted as a pungent odor drifted on the wind. “Ordhram?”

“I smell it too, m’lady. It’s the smell of rotting death.”

“Scouts. Check the path ahead and report back.” A pair of courtiers bowed to Nafiona before disappearing. “We’ll wait here for them to return. Set up a guard perimeter.” She ordered.

“The battles here must have been fierce.” Ordhram stated as te courtiers moved into defensive positions around the group. “It must have been nearly constant fighting.” Nafiona nodded her head lightly. Within the hour the scouts returned.

“M’lady.” They bowed to her. “There are the remains of a battle not far ahead.”

“Then let’s keep moving.” Nafiona motioned the group forward. Moving through the dark pathways of the jungle, the smell slowly grew stronger. The path would lead them to an open area of ravaged landscape that revealed the source of the foul odor. The silent battlefield before them was strewn with corpses. Many mordrem, some pact members, and some she recognized as members of the Court. The group slowly marched forward into the field of death, spreading out checking the dead.

“The jungle dragon was throwing everything at them.” Ordhram noted looking over the bodies.

“M’lady!” one of the courtiers called to Nafiona. The duchess cautiously maneuvered around the bodies of the fallen to see what the courtier had found.

“What is it?” she looked upon the body of a courtier, its armor bearing a familiar sigil.

“The sigil of Duchess Chrysanthea, m’lady.” The courtier responded.

“She was here. These must have been her courtiers.” Nafiona turned her attention to other fallen sylvari nearby.

“M’lady, Duke Goron is here as well…or rather what’s left of him.” A courtier knelt at the partially dismembered sylvari corpse.

“Goron?” Nafiona moved slowly over to the body. “I’m sure his arrogance was his downfall.” She sneered.

“It feels like something terrible is watching us here.” Caelan complained as he looked at a fallen pact soldier.

“You think the dead are suddenly going to rise up and attack us?” another courtier asked playfully.

“It’s not funny, Pirrita. Remember the risen would just jump up and attack.” He reminded his compatriot.

“Hah! But Zhaitan is dead. They can’t do that anymore.” The courtier laughed. “What have I told you about worrying? You need to stop.”

“There is nothing for us here. Let us move on.” Nafiona ordered the group. “The prize is waiting for us.”

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“How in Tyria do you know where you are going through all these tunnels?” Ceara asked as the group followed the nuhock through the underground burrows.

“It’s easy.” One of them grumbled. “We have markings at the burrow entrance that tells us where they lead.”

Liathlas snickered playfully at the remarked. “Shush, you.” Ceara lightly snapped at her. They exited the current tunnel back into the jungle.

“This is as far as we go underground.” The nuhock stated. The group paused.

“This is...” Ceara gasped.

“The realm of the dragon.” Malyck finished the sentence as he stepped out into the darkened landscape. The air was still, and the sounds of the jungle’s creatures were silent. Thorned vines twisted everywhere through the broken terrain, standing motionless as if frozen in time, forming a nightmarish world. Ceara’s heart started racing. She felt panicked. It was the realm of her nightmares while under Mordremoth’s sway.

“I…can’t…I can’t…” She turned to reenter the burrow, only to be stopped by Malyck in front of her.

“Scarlet.” He spoke softly. She stared at him. “You’re braver than this. Is this who you really are?”

“Get out of my way! Now!” she shouted shoving past him.

“Mother…” a child’s voice drifted through her mind, causing her to take pause. She closed her eyes tightly, her brow furrowing. Images of the visions she had been having passed through her mind. The child pale tree, the sword, the crystalline vines. She breathed in deep, trying to calm her still racing heart.

“Peace…” the voice said softly. Ceara slowly opened her eyes. The world around her had grown cold and dark, wrapped in a swirling black fog. A soft glow appeared in the swirling darkness, approaching slowly. Within moments the form of the child pale tree parted the mist, floating just off the ground towards her. It slowly raised its arms out to Ceara and smiled warmly. Cautiously, Ceara stepped forward, reaching out and with great care, took a hold of the small avatar’s tiny hands.

“Have strength…” it spoke softly. Ceara felt a wave of calm wash over her as the image faded and the fog cleared, her arms slowly falling to her sides.

“I was never afraid before.” She said to herself, a lone tear slowly flowed down her cheek. She looked over her shoulder at her partners, who were looking back at her.

“Are you ok?” Liathlas asked, somewhat sheepishly. Ceara returned to them.

“We have a mission.” Her voice raspy but determined. “We have to find that seed and stop the Nightmare Court.” She looked down the dark path the lay before them, drawing a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

“How do we know which way to go?” Liathlas asked.

“The lair of the dragon is to the south.” The nuhock directed them, pointing down the path. “Follow the energy sparks.”

“Energy sparks?” Ceara turned to giant creature.

“Yes. Lightning erupts from the ground periodically in this area. It travels towards the lair.”

“Ley energy?” Ceara’s thoughts returned to Sanctum harbor.

“Start the drill!” her voice shouted through her head. “I redirected the leyline here.” She muttered quietly. “It will lead us right to…” she paused, turning to Malyck and Liathlas. “We have to hurry!” She started hurrying through the twisted landscape. Liathlas and Malyck looked at each other before following behind her. The trail twisted and turned through the vine covered landscape.

“There.” Ceara shouted spotting a small eruption of energy from a crevasse in the ground. Lightning sporadically arced across the terrain, flowing towards the south.

“What do you think we’ll find when we get there?” Liathlas shouted.

“I don’t know, but I’m eager to find out.” Ceara replied to her.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Playing her cards carefully with a band of outlaws, Orla had managed to secure a way through the bandit-controlled areas of Brisban Wildlands. She gained the trust of a group that were travelling east which worked in her favor. Her thoughts turned to revenge.

“Amaranda. I have not forgotten. Your time is coming, dreamer.” Her face twisted in disgust.

“So, what’s your deal?” one of the bandits asked.

“Hmm?” Orla’s attention snapped back. “What did you ask?”

“What’s your deal? Why a lone Nightmare Courtier out here in the wilderness asking for help? From an unsavory group such as us?” A chuckle went through the group.

“I’d rather keep that information to myself.” She snarled as she turned her gaze away from him.

“Oooh, super-secret dark sylvari information. So, let me guess. You’re looking for some magical artifact that will grant you unlimited power that you will use to ‘destroy the giant tree and take over the sylvari’ am I right?”

“It would be best if you kept your questions to yourself.” She spat at him.

“OOooo, a little testy. Consider yourself lucky, lass, that we haven’t killed you yet.”

“Ken, leave her alone.” One of the others said. “It’s obvious she doesn’t want to deal with your nonsense right now.”

“What? Loran, since when did you side with the plants?”

“I’m not siding with the plants. I’m just sayin I got the feelin’ that eggin’ her on like that is gonna be a sorry situation for you.” Loran warned.

“Bah! She don’t look like she could even break a twig.” Ken chuckled as he playfully waved his hand as if shooing her away.

“You should silence your tongue before I silence it for you.” Orla hissed at him.

“I’d like to see you try.” The bandit snapped back unsheathing his dagger in an instant. Orla disappeared from sight.

“See, Ken. I saw what she did to Markos back at the camp. You don’t want to mess with her.” Loran cautioned his partner as the group spread out away from the bewildered Ken.

“Where are you!?” the bandit shouted as he constantly moved about looking for his adversary. “Stop with the tricks and fight fair, ya shrub!”

The group laughed at the comment. Orla suddenly appeared behind him, grabbing him around the neck and locking his arm holding the dagger in place.

“Nice try, lass.” He managed to get his other arm behind her enough to toss her to the ground. Holding on to him tightly, she was able to drag him down with her, but he managed to kick loose and rolled away from her. Both combatants got to their feet quickly.

“Come on, lass. Don’t be afraid.” Ken mused as he wiped his chin. He spun quickly, slicing his blade through the air. Orla ducked, hearing the song of the weapon as it passed over her head. She grabbed his wrist and tried to toss him to the ground again, but he grabbed her around the neck with his free arm.

“Whatcha gonna do now, lass?” He whispered in her ear. Orla watched as he slowly turned the dagger towards her as she tried to hold his weapon at bay. She stomped on the bridge of his foot with all her strength.

“Gah!” he growled. “Nice try, but that aint- “ She stomped again, hearing a snap indicating that she had broken one of his bones.

“Aaaaaah!!!” Ken cried out. He shoved her away as he reached for his boot. “She broke my foot!”

“That’s not all.” Orla snarled at him. He looked up at her just in time to feel her foot connect with the side of his head, knocking him to the ground.

“Ok, that’s enough. You taught him his lesson for the day.” The bandit Loran slowly walked over, kneeling to check on his fallen comrade. “Let’s get him up on the wagon.” A few of the group picked up their unconscious Ken and tossed him in the small carriage.

“You fight well, sylvari.” Loran said to Orla. “If you ever need a group to run with…”

“No thanks. I have all I need.”

Loran nodded his head. “Alright, then let’s get moving. We gotta make it to the camp by sundown or we’ll all be dead.”

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the Nightmare Court marched farther south through the dragon’s realm, the terrain became increasingly difficult to navigate. Gigantic, thorned vines, that had once erupted from the ground, fractured and upheaved the landscape, creating a nightmarish world ruled by the jungle dragon. Throughout their journey, they would occasionally come across more of the dead. Rotted corpses of warriors and mordrem with no one to bury them.  

“Such a shame.” Caelan mentioned as they passed another field of battle.

“Hmm?” Nafiona glanced over her shoulder at the courtier. “What is it?”

“All this fighting. How many of our people slain?” He asked solemnly as he passed by a fallen sylvari.

“What’s done is done.” Nafiona said to him. “They knew the risks coming here. They knew what could happen and they paid the price with their blood.”

“To protect Tyria from the elder dragons.” He pondered for a moment. “M’lady? Do you think it’s true that the Pale Tree is a dragon champion?” He asked her.

Nafiona paused, turning to him, staring him in the eyes. Caelan felt as if her gaze was staring into his soul. She smiled at him. “Of course, I do, young one. And that is part of the plan.” She spoke gleefully. “Imagine, if you will, the Pale Tree, a champion of the jungle dragon, under our control. Why, the Nightmare Court would have an endless army of sylvari. Just imagine, Tyria governed by our rule.” She smiled sinisterly at the thought. “And with the Pale Tree in its currently weakened state, it’s the perfect to strike!”

“But what about the commander? Surely-“ Caelan was cut off by the large sylvari.

“Know your place, Caelan.” Ordhram stepped forward. “M’lady will deal with that nuisance in due time.”

“You should watch your tongue, Caelan.” Nafiona said quietly to him. “Some words are razor sharp if not used properly.”

“I…forgive me, m’lady. I just worry that-“

“Enough!” Ordhram grabbed Caelan by the throat, lifting him off the ground.

“Ordhram, release him.” The large sylvari dropped him, causing the courtier to stumble to the ground as he gasped for air. Nafiona approached him, placing the end of her scepter under his chin. “You needed worry, young one. Everything is going to work out just as planned.”

“Yes…yes, m’lady.” Caelan bowed his head slightly to her.

“Good. Let’s keep moving.” She turned, hooking her scepter back to her belt. Another courtier slightly shoved Caelan as the group started moving again.

“But what if…” Caelan thought to himself, looking over the bodies of the long dead. “What if it doesn’t work? An army of sylvari?” He slowly meandered after the group. “Our whole creed is to live unbound by the tenants of Ventari. But do we have to destroy ourselves to fulfill a dream?” He looked ahead at Nafiona, who was busy talking to Ordhram. “A dream to rule Tyria. Are we not subjecting ourselves to the same thing? Give up being ruled by one to be ruled by another?” Caelan sighed as he quickened his pace to catch the rest of the courtiers.

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The route taken was just as twisted as the landscape through which it traveled. The trio moved as fast as they could as the land seemed to get darker and more foreboding the further south they went. Numerous times they came upon the remains of pact encampments along the path.

“They were as prepared as they could have been, it seems.” Ceara noted the remains of makeshift tools laying in the dirt near a fire pit that had long been extinguished.

“It seems they had allies to help with the fighting here.” Malyck noted, lifting the remains of a giant battlehammer laying in the dirt.

“It seems a little unnerving that we haven’t seen any mordrem here.” Liathlas stated. “If this is the jungle dragon’s domain, wouldn’t we have seen any?”

“Not unless the pact performed a complete annihilation here. This is where Mordremoth’s influence would be at its strongest.” Ceara shuddered at the thought. “If I had been here, he would have consumed me completely. I would have become one of the mordrem.” She thought to herself.

“Hey, you still with us?” Liathlas asked, poking Ceara in the shoulder.

“Yes, I’m still here. Just…just lost in thought about all this.” Looked up at a giant vine that twisted through a ridge not far away. “It’s a tad unsettling knowing what is here and what it did.” Her voice trailed off a bit as she noticed a small camp in the distance.

“The pact is here.” She spoke quietly.

“Indeed. And since we are now apparently wanted criminals by their standards, I think we should avoid them.” Malyck suggested, a stern tone in his voice.

“Is there another path around?” Liathlas asked.

“Judging by the landscape, that’s our only way forward.” Malyck looked at the fractured terrain around them.

“Maybe they haven’t been contacted by the others yet?” Liathlas suggested.

“It’s possible, but do we take the risk?” Ceara asked.

“It may be the only thing we can do.” Malyck replied.

“We could tell them we’re researchers looking for the rare flower that when prepared in a tonic it heightens one’s intellect.” Ceara muttered. Malyck stared blankly at her as Liathlas snickered to herself.

“Are you..are you serious?” Malyck asked.

“Hey, it worked before against the Vigil.” She answered. Malyck continued to stare. “What? Do you have any better suggestions?” Ceara looked at Malyck smugly, her hands on her hips.

“We don’t exactly look like researchers.” He rebuttled.

“Well, she’s dressed like a sylvari, and I’m dressed like a sylvari, and you…you’re the hired protection.” Liathlas added.

“And the rifle you’re carrying?” he motioned to the rifle slung on Ceara’s back.

“It’s a cryogenic freeze spray device.” She smirked.

Liathlas stifled her chuckling as she knew Malyck was not going to win this.

“We use this device to freeze the flower in stasis for transport back to our lab in the Grove.”

Malyck rolled his eyes, sighing. “Ok. But I don’t believe this will work.” The trio walked towards the pact camp.

“There doesn’t seem to be many around.” Liathlas noted a few members of the Durmond Priory conversing amongst themselves.

“Maybe through that opening beyond the camp.” Malyck suggested.

“Hail.” One of the scholars waved to the group. “This area is off limits to non-pact personnel. What brings you here?”

“We’re researchers from the Grove looking for certain flora here in the jungle. Especially a type of rare flower used to make tonics that could heighten one’s intellect!” Ceara quip excitedly.

The scholar pondered a moment, before looking at his comrades, one nodding to him. He turned back to the group. “Well, you seem to be in luck. We did find the rare Railatium Nocturnus growing in the moss around the base of the blighting tree in the grove beyond the cliff face.”

Ceara jaw dropped as she and Liathlas looked at each other in disbelief. They heard Malyck snort, stifling his laugh.

“Is there…is there more?” Ceara asked quietly.

“Possibly, but as I said, this area is off limits.”

“Oh, come on.” Ceara said in a huff, placing her hands on her hips. “You are going to deny us the chance of a lifetime!?”

“I’m sorry, but you aren’t allowed in the area.”

Ceara raised a finger to him. “Do you remember the first time you wanted to explore something, but you were told no? What did you do?”

“Well, I…uh…well, I snuck in.”

“Well, how do you think we feel? We traveled all the way here from the Grove to find this flower, and you are going to keep us from it because of some haughty rule.”

“Yes, but, ma’am- “

“Don’t you ‘but ma’am’ me. This is all for science.” Ceara leaned forward staring at the scholar, a disgruntled look on her face. Liathlas closed her eyes, trying to stifle her laughter. Malyck gazed out over the surrounding area keeping a calm composure.

The scholar looked back at his group, who were all laughing at him. “Ok, ok! Sheesh.” he relented. “Just be careful in there.”

“You’re so good to us.” Ceara smiled, gently tweaking the scholar’s cheek. “Ok, let’s go.” She spoke over her shoulder at her compatriots.

“You tweaked his face.” Liathlas giggled.

“I told you it would work.” They traveled through the opening, pausing at the sight that stood before them. Ceara’s heart sank as she gazed upon the remains of a blighting tree, a gnarled warped version of her mother.  

“Is that?” Liathlas asked.

“That is just one of many. What Mordremoth used to create his armies.” Malyck stepped forward. “Much like the one in the corpse grove.”

Ceara’s thoughts briefly drifted back to the vision she saw in the Mists. “Well, it’s dead now.” She spoke softly.

“Indeed. Dying just as the rest of them died when Mordremoth was vanquished.”

“Do you think the seed is here?” Liathlas asked.

“If it is all the scholars here from the Priory would have found it by now.” Ceara mentioned, noting the number of pact members in the area around the small grove.

“Perhaps we should ask?”

“I don’t think that would be wise.” Malyck rebutted. “It might be seen as suspicious.”

“I have an idea.” Ceara spoke. She quickly approached one of the scholars nearby.

“Excuse me! I’d like to talk to you!” she gleefully said to the asura.

“Yes…?” He paused staring at her. “Aren’t you...” His face betrayed his suspicion.

Ceara sighed heavily, rolling her eyes. “No, I’m not. I just happen to resemble her. I get mistaken a lot, sadly” She gave him a big smile.

“I…see…” he raised one eyebrow. “Well, I’m terribly busy right now, so what can I do for you? And make it quick.”

“I’m a researcher from the Grove and we’re looking for a rare flower that- “

“It’s already been found.”

“Well, yes but are there more?”

“Unlikely, maybe further in the cave.”

“The cave?”

“Yes, that way in the rock wall on the far side of this area.”

“Oh, thank you. Has there been anything else found here? Like seeds from this tree?”

“That seems rather specific, sylvari.” He turned to her.

“Well, I am a sylvari and we kind of have a thing for plants, you know.”

He sighed lightly. “No, we have not found anything like a seed. Now, please leave. I have work to do.”

“Thank you for your time, scholar.” Ceara returned to Liathlas and Malyck. “Well, no seeds seem to have been found, but he did mention a cave on the far side of this grove. Shall we?”

“Then let’s go.” Malyck answered.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Orla travelled along the banks of the river that flowed through the southern part of Brisban Wildlands. She travelled as far as she could with the bandits, before breaking off from them without a word. The area she now travelled was populated by inquisitive Asura going about their research. She could see their iconic structures lit up in the evening sky in the distance. She paid them no mind as her real target was Amaranda. She would have to gain the trust of the local populance to find out where the seer resided and pay her a visit.

“I’ll have to be careful once I get to the village. I need to make sure the inhabitants don’t recognize me.” She thought to herself. “Find out where the dreamer lives, strike fast and quietly, and disappear into the night back to the arbor.” The sun set below the horizon by the time she could see lights from the sylvari village.

“Thorns. I’ll have to cross the lake.” She grumbled to herself. She quietly entered the cold water that took her breath momentarily as she swam across to the village. Pulling herself up on the shore, she started ringing the water out of her robe.

“Now this thing weighs more than Ordhram and Caelen combined.” She complained to herself. She cautiously entered the small village, spying a group of sylvari sitting around a table.

“Um, excuse me.” She called to them as innocently as she could. “Could you possibly help me?”

They turned to her. “Yes, what is the matter, sapling?” One of them responded looking up from his drink.

“I’m looking for a powerful seer. I am told that she lives in this village, that she could help me interpret my dream.”

“Ah, you are looking for Amaranda. She lives up the hillside.” He pointed out of the village. Orla looked up the hill and saw the soft lights from Amaranda’s home.

“Thank you very much.” Orla bowed lightly to them and started making her way up the pathway to the hilltop.

Amaranda knelt at her table, a book and papers laid out in front of her, a bowl of noodles in her hand, and Widget across from her.

“Anything yet?” she asked the small golem. It just beeped lightly as its gem flashed slowly from red to blue and back. She sighed lightly going to back to her book.

“Someone-approaches.” The golem spoke. Amaranda set down the bowl and stood, rushing to the door. The quick flash of a blade caused her to teleport backwards into her home, leaving a clone of herself in her place.

“Who’s out there!?” She shouted as her clone was steady launching small bolts of energy towards its target. Orla rushed through the illusion, which shattered as she raced into Amaranda’s home.

“You!? Again!?”” Amaranda shouted back.

“Now, dreamer. It’s time to settle this score.” Orla snarled through her teeth. The courtier leapt at her, causing Amaranda to sidestep. The courtier slashed her blade towards Amaranda, who back-pedaled, creating another clone in her place, this one wielding a sword. It slashed at Orla, burning her arm before she could dodge out of the way. With the courtier distracted for a moment, Amaranda darted to her room to retrieve her weapon, which hung on the wall near her bed. She unsheathed the sword and spun around just in time to knock Orla’s blade out of the way. Amaranda spun around again, slashing at the courtier, who easily dodged the attack, spinning herself low, tripping Amaranda to the floor. Orla jumped on her quickly, pinning her weapon down. She brought her dagger up to Amaranda’s neck.

“Please-no-fighting.” Widget’s electronic voice called out from behind a small cabinet.

“Now, dreamer, the time has come for you to meet that old cen-“ Orla was knocked to the floor by a swift kick from another of Amaranda’s clones.

“Gah!” she quickly started to get to her feet but paused as she looked at the circle of clones around her, each with different weapons drawn on her.

“Now, courtier.” Amaranda started. “You seem to currently be at a disadvantage. Let us try to be civilized about this this time, shall we?”

Orla gritted her teeth. “Just kill me then.”

“That would be the easy way out now, wouldn’t it?” Amaranda paused, focusing her mind on Orla. “But I can see that your conscious is conflicted.”

“The only conflict I have right now is ending you.” Orla snapped back at her.

“Why? For trying to retrieve the armor you stole?” An eldritch field appeared underneath Orla as the clones slowly started to disappear one by one until only Amaranda remained. She held the tip of her sword at Orla’s throat. “Now drop your weapon.”

Orla tried to pull herself away from the field, but it held fast. She glared menacingly at Amaranda, smiling slyly before dropping her blade to the floor. “Do what you will, dreamer.”

“Courtier, once you turn to nightmare, you can never return. It consumes you. But I can see that you…you have not yet truly fallen.”

“Nightmare allows us to be who we should be.” Orla rebuttled.

“Those are the words of the jungle dragon.” Amaranda stated. Orla’s narrowed her eyes. “By falling to nightmare, you throw away your freedom to give a lifetime of servitude to another. Is that what you want? To be a slave to someone else? To be told what to do for the rest of your existance?”

“You’re wasting your breath, dreamer.”

“Am I?” Amaranda looked at Orla, tilting her head slightly as she studied Orla’s connection to the Dream of Dreams.

“She pains for the loss of a loved one.” Amaranda thought, as she sifted through the ethereal memories of Orla’s mind. “A brother…fallen to Mordremoth.” A sudden billowing cloud of darkness caused Amaranda to snap back.

“Life is no different under Ventari’s tenants and the Pale Tree.” Orla snarled.

Amaranda stared at her. “Ventari’s tenants are but suggestions that we can choose to follow if we so wish. Did you forget that when you were a sapling?” Amaranda paused for a moment, drawing a deep breath. “Or…you can live your life away from Ventari and his tenants without falling to nightmare if you wish it.”

“By becoming a lowly soundless?” Orla snidely asked.

“If that is what it takes.” Amaranda paused. “Think about my sister, for example. She is neither a dreamer nor a courtier, and she lives happily with herself.”  Orla stared at Amaranda in silence, her thoughts twisting back and forth on Amaranda’s words. Amaranda could feel confusion creeping into Orla’s mind. She could feel nightmare trying to push, to take over the courtier, but also the dream pushing it back. A constant struggle. Orla looked down, watching the field that was keeping her pinned to the floor slowly fade, Amaranda’s sword still at her neck.

“A life of servitude, or a life of freedom? The choice is yours, courtier.” Amaranda slowly lowered her weapon.

“What about you, dreamer?” Orla glared at Amaranda.

“I choose to follow Ventari’s words.” Amaranda spoke softly. “But I don’t try to push those words on others if they do not wish it. If you wish to be truly free, you must cast aside nightmare, lest you become a puppet for a master.” Orla closed her eyes, thinking about what Cadryn, Faolain, and Nafiona had promised. A life away from the Pale Tree, a life of freedom, but…at what cost to herself? She looked at Amaranda.

“It won’t be easy.” Amaranda spoke, holding out her hand. “The first step is always the toughest.”

[writer-k-pop]

The Bookseller (j.w.w) - Waning Crescent Hotel

Please read this (W.C.Hotel) if you this is the first post of this series that you see. Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of death Genre: Angst, Hotel Del Luna AU, Choose your own adventure, SVT x Fem! Reader Staff: Yong (Spirit General Manager) / Jiwoo (Human General Manager) / Soon Bok (Room Manager) / Mun Hee (Front Desk Receptionist) / Shin (Grim Reaper assigned to Waning Crescent) Word Count: Ending A - 4.8k / Ending B - 4.7k

W.C.Hotel | Seventeen Masterlist | Masterlists

"And there's a problem with one of the elevators." Jiwoo says sheepishly and I close my eyes in frustration, a scowl growing on my face.

Stopping in the middle of the hall, I look up at the ceiling and pucker my lips together. "What's next? The front doors break?" I say up to the Gods, not caring if they are actually listening or not.

Jiwoo raises his eyebrows at me, "You wanna be challenging them like that?"

I lower my gaze to him and narrow my eyes, "I will do as I please."

Jiwoo holds up his hands in surrender.

Taking a deep breath, I compose myself again, "Add it to the maintenance list and I'll wrestle with it tomorrow." I instruct him.

"Will do." Jiwoo nods and we continue on our way.

"Is he still with Soon Bok?" I ask him, getting tired of hearing only the sounds of our shoes hitting the flooring.

"Yes, she should be finishing the tour and should be heading to his room." Jiwoo answers just before we hit a more open area and guests mill past us.

"What room?" I ask, ignoring most of the guests even though they offer polite smiles.

"Number 177." Jiwoo informs me. "The one with the huge book shelf wall."

I smile, already knowing the answer to my thought, "Well, let's hope he enjoyed books in his ..." I look at him to finish my sentence.

"Oh," Jiwoo quickly realizes what information I'm searching for, "6 lives."

I nod, "Pretty average. But let's hope he enjoyed books in at least some of his 6 lives."

Jiwoo shrugs, "If not, it's a nice aesthetic wall."

I pat him on the shoulder, "I'm glad you think it's good for staring at. Because I definitely spent hours picking each book so that it could be just a good photo opportunity." I finish sarcastically.

"Not everyone's a reader." Jiwoo rolls his eyes.

"They should be." I retort.

"Anyway..." Jiwoo changes the subject as we reach the edge of the lobby, "Will you be joining the us for the celebration this weekend?”

I open my mouth to give my regular 'no' answer but two males cut me off. They barrel through the front office doors, a brunette following a few steps behind a blonde one. Both seem angry and on edge.

"I saw you with my girl!" The brunette shouts.

"I don't what you saw, man, but I was never WITH your girl." The blonde one responds and flicks a certain unpleasant finger behind him, "So leave me the fuck alone."

The lobby slowly gets quiet and not a soul moves, not even me or Jiwoo. Jiwoo out of fear and me cause I kind of want to see where this leads.

The brunette jogs ahead of the blonde and forces him to stop, "Just tell me why you were with my girl and then I'll leave you the fuck alone." The brunette seethes.

"Dude." The blonde holds out his hands, "We're best friends. Why would you think I'd be with your girl? Do you really think that low of me?"

"You know, after the stunt you pulled with Henry, I wouldn't put it past you." The brunette spits.

The blonde gets right up in the brunette's face and presses finger into his chest, "None of that was my fault. I was the one who got played and yet everyone seems to believe otherwise."

"The evidence is pretty clear." The brunette grits his teeth.

Jiwoo slowly leans over as if any faster and the men's radar would latch onto him. "Shouldn't you do something?" He whispers.

I shrug and look at him, "They're only yelling right now. I don't have to do anything until the-"

The sound of someone crashing against a column cuts me off. I look over and find the brunette pushing off of the pillar, anger steaming off of him. The blonde drops into a fighting stance.

Sighing, I uncross my arms, "Now I do something." I mumble, quite annoyed that they would cause such a scene when they're dead. It's not like they could kill each other here.

I stalk closer to the brawling men who now have a fistful of each other's shirts. When I'm a few steps away, I clear my throat loudly to get their attention.

They both glance at me for a second before returning to staring at each other.

"Leave us alone, sweetheart." The blonde says lowly.

"This is none of your business." The brunette adds.

I scoff, "Actually, this is entirely my business seeing as you are acting ridiculous in my hotel."

The men land a few punches on each other but remain close.

"You want to kill each other?" I wonder but the men don't answer, "You're already dead so there's no point in trying."

Both men pause, look at me, then back at each other. And a new kind of fury is awoken in them.

"YOU GOT ME KILLED?" They both scream just as I was thinking they were going to back down.

They begin going at each other again but this time with more anger and all I can do is groan. After giving them a couple seconds, I walk towards them to pull them apart. I grab both of their arms and before I can 'magically' send them flying away from each other, the men swing the arms I'm grabbing. With their combined force aimed at my stomach, I'm sent skidding backwards on my side across the floor.

When I finally stop sliding, I jump to my feet, ready to kick both of their asses. But when I look up, Mun Hee is restraining the blonde one while the brunette is being shoved backwards by a guest.

"Hey, cool down man. Cool down." The guest says and my ears instantly recognize his voice: Wonwoo's.

"(y/n), you okay?" Jiwoo jogs over to my side, worried.

I swat at my pants, "I'm fine." I answer him without taking my eyes off of Wonwoo as he stands in front of the brunette male.

"You probably shouldn't have told them they were dead." Jiwoo states and I shoot him a glare. He frowns and nervously glances around the lobby.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" I clasp my hands behind my back and look at the brunette then the blonde with cold eyes. They both instantly realize they may have screwed up and lower their defenses.

"If you would've actually stopped to look at where you were, you would've stopped at the front desk and understood what was going on." I explain as they step closer, Wonwoo and Mun Hee not far behind. "And what is going on is that you both have died. Congrats." I give them a sarcastic smile. "And unfortunately, your souls don't have another life lined up so." I gesture to the hotel, "You have come here to greet your past lives once more before heading to the place where your soul will rest peacefully.... Hopefully." I say, mumbling the last word in disgust.

The men look at each other in a bit of shame and embarrassment.

"From my understanding," I continue, "You both died because you were fighting over some bitch-"

"She's not a bitch." Both males cut me off with the same sentence before sharing a menacing look which has Mun Hee and Wonwoo on alert for another fight.

"And you walked right into the street, where, well you know." I finish, ignoring their intrusion. My words sink in and they both soon realize that I'm being serious and am not joking, which turns them somewhat somber.

"So what do we do?" The blonde asks.

"You go get assigned a room, stay here for the duration of your lives, and then get the hell out of my hotel." I snarl. "Oh, and stay out of my sight. I'm already annoyed with you two."

"Oh, actually." Mun Hee chuckles and raises a hand, "He's supposed to go to Hotel Blue Moon." He points to the blonde male who's eyes widen.

"What is that?" The blonde asks, afraid it might be somewhere along the lines of hell. And man do I wish that is true.

I glower at the lobby wall, "It's the place where souls go before living another life." I say, ready to have a very strong word with the Gods.

"What about me?" The brunette wonders, glancing at me like he’s afraid to be left here in my hotel.

"Can I see your palm?" Mun Hee steps forward and examines the man's palm. "Hmm... You too. You're not supposed to be here."

With my annoyance nearing my tolerance levels, I turn away from the small group but before I walk away, I tell them, "Get out of my hotel."

Without waiting for them to respond, I walk away hoping for silence so I can mentally scream profanities at the Gods and Hotel Blue Moon. But instead of silence, I hear footsteps following me.

I run a hand through my hair and turn to face the idiot following me.

And by idiot, I mean the man who let me sit in his book store for hours and the man I loved.

"Hi, sorry." Wonwoo nervously rubs the back of his neck, "Uh, I was just headed to the library." He makes up an excuse.

I press my lips together then point back the way we had come, "The library is back that way." I inform him.

He turns around and I use the chance to slip down an unknown hallway, hidden by a tapestry.

"Actually, I was..." I hear Wonwoo turn back around, "Going to ask if you were okay." He finishes before sighing.

I turn my head to the side and look down at the floor, listening to his footsteps retreat back towards the lobby. Part of me feels kind of bad for ditching him like that but another part of me doesn't want to get close to him until he's the soul I knew.

Which is going to take 6 days.

~The Sixth Day~

"What's wrong with you?" I ask Mun Hee who is laying on my couch, his eyes squeezed shut in pain.

"The Wonwoo guy asked me to bring him a bunch of supplies last night." He groans and I walk to my desk to add some more files to my growing stack.

"What kind of supplies?" I question and lean back against my desk.

"Books, paper, glue, binding, and some book covers if we had them." Mun Hee says and I chuckle because of course Wonwoo would want those supplies.

He was a bookseller when I knew him but he cared for books just as much and found a lot of joy in fixing old books.

"Ugh. My shoulders are killing me." Mun Hee rolls his shoulders backwards.

"You're already dead." I remind him.

"Way to shoot a man while he's down." Mun Hee sasses.

I shrug. "Eh."

"So much love." Mun Hee mutters.

I chuckle and move to sit in my desk. But before I can, the door opens and Yong pops just her head in.

"Hey, Wonwoo's in the garden." She informs me and I nod with a smile, "And have you seen Mun Hee? He disappeared a while ago and I haven't seen him anywhere."

I point to the couch and Yong steps into my office to look, "Right there."

"Mun Hee!" Yong raises her voice a touch, "Get back to work. Goodness, I am not your mother."

Mun Hee rises to his feet, "Feels like it sometimes." He grumbles and then follows Yong out of my office.

When I step into the hall, I hear their echos of laughter floating farther away. After securely closing my office doors, I turn down the hallway and head for the elevators. I rock back and forth in my heels anxiously while the elevator slowly approaches my floor. The elevator finally arrives and opens its doors. I quickly rush inside and furiously press the lobby floor button.

"Come on." I encourage it to go faster but hey, like everything else about this hotel, it doesn't listen to me.

Eons later, the elevator reaches the lobby and releases me from its squared hold. I rush out and nearly run into Jiwoo.

"Woah, hey, where's the fire?" He wonders as I continue past him.

"Can't keep my man waiting." I throw a wave at him over my head and his only response is laughter.

About halfway down the hall, I pause to control my breathing and straighten out my dress. After I'm satisfied with the way I look, at least the way I think I look, I walk the last little bit to the garden.

Peeking in, the midnight moonlight illuminates the area with a crisp, clean look. The bare tree somehow looks less dead but only very slightly. The usually hidden bench is out in front of the tree and its subsequent chrysanthemums. And sitting on the bench, with his nose buried in a book as per usual, is Wonwoo. A simple broad striped sweater hugs his shoulders and his glasses sit prominently on his nose. With one leg bent over the other and the book in his hands, he looks like the perfect gentleman.

"Took you long enough." Wonwoo comments and turns to the next page of his book, "I nearly finished three chapters while waiting for you."

I roll my eyes and walk around the bench, "I had things to do, Mr. I-can-read-500-pages-in-5-hours."

"That's a bit exaggerated." He closes one eye in thought but then breaks out into a smile. "Come here." Wonwoo grabs my hand, pulls me down, and securely wraps me in a hug. He doesn't care that his place in the book is lost as the front cover closes shut.

I chuckle and snuggle close into him.

"I missed you." He breathes out after a bit of silence.

"I did too." I mumble into his chest. "I'm sorry for leaving."

Wonwoo shrugs and I readjust to be sitting properly. "It was what it was. I'm just glad to know that you weren't dead."

"Well, I can't exactly die." I give him a silly smile and nod towards the tree.

"I know that now." Wonwoo says a smile on his own lips. The smile that knocked me off my feet every day.

"What were you reading?" I ask, glancing at the book now in his lap.

Wonwoo picks it up and holds it out in front of us. "The one I've read a million times."

I squint my eyes in thought, "You've read a lot of books a million times, so which one is it?"

Wonwoo chuckles and knowing that I can still make him laugh with my mundaneness makes me very happy. "Sherlock Holmes." He says, setting the book aside.

"Is it still fun to read after the first time?" I wonder.

"Of course it is." Wonwoo answers as if I lost my marbles. "You get to go back and pick up on details that you missed during the first read."

"Yeah, but you have to read it all again." I give a small, shy smile.

"But you would rather spend all your time staring at me while I read." Wonwoo stretches out his arms arrogantly.

I hit his chest playfully and he retracts his arms while laughing.

"I heard you're the reason Mun Hee was in my office complaining about his back." I say following a groove in the tree with my eyes.

"Am I? Oh, is it from all the stuff I asked him for?" Wonwoo wonders then clicks his tongue, "I told him I could help if it was a lot. But he said he was fine so I just sat in my room."

"Sounds like something Mun Hee would do." I nod my head, "How did you like your room by the way?"

Wonwoo smiles contently, "I loved it. The wall of books was beautiful. You had all my favorites in there." He nudges my shoulder with his shoulder.

"Took me ages to find all of them. Some of them were quite old." I say with a slightly apologetic look.

But Wonwoo shakes his head, "Don't worry. I fixed them all."

I look at him in wonder, "You fixed all of them?" I ask.

He nods, "Yeah, most of them just needed some binding repairs and the rest weren't that hard to repair."

"So that's why you asked for the supplies and broke Mun Hee's back." I realize though I should've realized sooner.

Wonwoo laughs and my heart flutters happily at the sound. "That's why I needed the supplies."

"You didn't read all of them in that time, did you?" I double check and give him a questioning look.

He boops my nose and scrunches his face at me, "No I didn't. It took me a whole lifetime to read all those books."

"A whole lifetime." I repeat his words.

"How did you even find all those?" Wonwoo asks, playing with my hand, "I read most of those after you left."

I smile bashfully, "I kind of guessed."

'You guessed?" Now Wonwoo gives me the questioning look.

"After I left, I just kind of kept an ear open in the book world and sometimes I would come across a book that just felt like you would really enjoy. So I brought it back and started a collection in that room."

"But other guests use that room." Wonwoo pouts, feeling kind of jealous that other people would've read those books before him.

"Nah, only the right touch can get certain books off the shelf." I tell him with a knowing smile, "I made sure that no one but you or I would be able to read the special ones. To every other guest, it's just a really aesthetic wall."

"Well, look at my girl go." Wonwoo says smugly.

"So." I say, wanting to change the topic.

"So?" Wonwoo responds, turning his body slightly to face more towards me.

"I wanna know..." I pause.

"Mmhm?" He nods once, encouraging me to keep speaking.

"Did you end up married to your books or did some lucky girl come and steal your heart?" I ask with a genuine smile of curiosity.

Wonwoo chuckles but I notice the light behind his eyes dims ever so slightly. His chuckle dies down but he doesn't say anything. Instead he just looks at the tree, contemplating.

"You know I'm not mad if you did move on." I clarify, "I honestly wanted nothing more than for you to be happy and I wanted you to find it after I left. You deserved that happiness."

I know Wonwoo hears me because he chews on the inside of his cheek but he still doesn't say anything.

"What you didn't deserve was falling into the pain of me and my punishment." I say apologetically, "It happened to twelve others and I never for a moment thought any of you deserved that pain."

Wonwoo wraps an arm around me and pulls me close again, "Oh, it's not your fault. It's that damn demon's and trust me if I ever get the chance to meet it, I will get revenge for what it did to you." He presses a kiss to my temple before whispering. "I did marry."

I smile and ignore the slight pain slicing through my heart. Even though my words about wanting his happiness are true, it still stings.

"I met her like 5 or 6 years after you left." Wonwoo recalls and the memories sparkle in his eyes, "She first started coming in and reading her own books. Then she'd come in and read the books I had on the shelves. Then she started to watch me while I repaired books."

"That must've been awkward." I giggle.

"It was at first." Wonwoo agrees, "But then she did something and I knew she was supposed to be in my life."

"What'd she do?" I ask, intrigued.

"Remember the first edition book you and I repaired together?" He wonders.

I nod, "How could I forget that? I was finding glue in random places for weeks."

Wonwoo chuckles at the memory, "You're the one knocked over the glue can."

"You're the one who put it on the edge of the table." I banter back.

"Anyway." Wonwoo squeezes my arm, "I kept it in a showcase box near the back of the store. Hardly anyone asked about it and those who did only wondered if it was for sale. But she, she inspected it and then asked if I had put it together."

"And what did you tell her?" I probed.

"I told her that I had repaired with someone special. I think she could see or hear the bit of sadness in my voice cause she didn't dig deeper." Wonwoo explains, "So then I asked her what made her think that we'd done it by hand. And she," He laughs, "She said cause the back cover was crooked and on the part that poked out, she could see some writing. Somehow made out my name."

I chuckle and think back to the night we stayed up for hours trying to decide what to write there. Like it was our will that would go down in history as the most important document ever. The warm tea cup in my hands and the burning candles that painted the room in rustic comfort.

"And then that was that really. We dated for a while, got married. and then we raised three kids." Wonwoo continues his story.

"Three kids?" I inquire.

Wonwoo nods proudly, "Three. Changkyun was my oldest then came the twins, Soyou and Lisa. Changkyun protected the girls well and the girls grew up tough all thanks to him."

"Nah, I'm sure you had a large part in that too." I reassure him. "You were always tougher than I. Even in future lives." I reference the first day of his stay.

"Oh, I totally was going to ask you if you were okay that day, but you just disappeared." Wonwoo remembers and pouts that he didn't get the chance to ask then. "Part of the punishment I'm guessing."

"Actually I don't know. I never really tried so I don't know if it's against the rules or not." I admit. "But I, uh, I didn't want to find out."

Wonwoo gives me an understanding look, "Totally understand. It couldn't have been easy being stuck here for all those years."

"For the first hundred years, it was awful." I tell him, "But after that, I grew numb to the passing of time. It just kind of happened like that."

"So while you were numb to time, I was terribly sensitive to the passing of time." Wonwoo ponders the thought.

"Kids grow up too fast?" I guess.

Wonwoo looks at me with confusion cause how am I supposed to know what it's like to have kids.

"I overhear guests chatting with each other and a big part of the conversations are kids and how they just grow up so fast." I explain pointing a thumb behind us towards the hotel.

"Ah, I see." Wonwoo murmurs, "But yeah. They just kept growing and then all of a sudden, my wife and I were empty nesters and then a second later, we had grey hairs on our heads and grand babies in our arms. Completely crazy."

I giggle at his amazement, "So what did your kids end up doing?" I ask and he dives into the stories of his children and his life with them.

I sit and listen to his low voice tell the tales of the bookstore, how some years the store would be overrun with teens and then next year it would be filled with fresh out of college adults. He immerses himself in the ocean of stories from his life while I float along the with the waves and let his voice take me through the stories.

All too soon, though, the setting sun freezes the ocean and my tree's crooked branches set me back in reality.

"The setting sun always represented an end with another beginning." Wonwoo stares at the western windows where the last rays of sunlight are slowly being swallowed up by the night. "But this one is just an end."

I stare at his face, hoping to memorize all the pieces I missed before. Like he does during a second or third read of a book.

"For your worldly soul, it's an end." I say, "But for your true soul, it's the start of an eternity of peace."

"What do you think happens on the other side?" He asks, looking back at me.

I give a small shrug, "I don't know, but you'll find out today and someday I'll find out too."

"Could it be like the books?" Wonwoo wonders.

"Depends on which book." I tell him with a tender smile.

"Touché." He tilts his head. "You know," He leans closer to me, "I know I have to go, but I really don't want to." Wonwoo giggles.

I laugh before pressing a kiss to his cheek, "But we do." I remind him, trying to keep the sadness out of my voice.

Wonwoo sighs, "We do." He repeats and stands up before helping me up. "Were you always this fashionable?" He asks after looking me up and down.

I raise my eyebrows, "Uh, yes, and fashion has changed since we were together."

Wonwoo grabs my hand and swings it between us as we walk, "Well, the change looks absolutely stunning on you."

The lobby is quiet as the hotel's opening hours are just around the corner. We quickly make it to the back door and like a gentleman, Wonwoo opens the door for me.

The cool night air rushes by us and we both stand on the landing just taking in the scene.

"Remember the night by the river?" Wonwoo wonders when he starts walking towards the forest, Shin, and the car that will take him.

"The night when you said you loved me?" I ask and he nods, "The air feels the same, doesn't it?"

"Exactly the same. " Wonwoo nods, gripping my hand tighter. "Do you think the Gods are doing this on purpose?"

I look up at the dark sky that's littered with tiny little lights from thousands of miles away. "At this point, I'm certain everything that happens to me is because they," I point upwards, "Want it to happen."

"Well then, I guess I'll have to thank them for letting me happen to you." Wonwoo smiles and I feel his eyes on me.

Lowering my gaze, I meet his gaze, "But I caused you pain. Like freakishly awful pain."

Wonwoo shrugs, "Still don't regret meeting you." He says as we reach the car.

Shin has the door open and is waiting patiently.

"This is the end of my worldly journey then." Wonwoo comments, glancing at the forest and its fog.

"Now you can rest. Forever." I place my hands on his cheeks and he rests one of his on top of mine.

"You know, hearing it now, it isn't as scary as I initially thought." He says a placid smile on his lips.

I kiss him through a smile, "Says the man who would be willing to jump from the highest heights just for the thrill." I mumble against his lips.

"Answer me this, will you?" He asks and rests his forehead against mine. I nod and he asks, "If you were to have met me without a punishment, would you have stayed with me?"

I stare into his eyes and move to rest my arms on his shoulders, "Till the very end." I say with honesty rallying behind me.

"That's all I need to hear." Wonwoo says then presses another kiss to my lips. When he pulls away, his eyes are glossy but I know he won't cry. "I love you, (y/n)." He whispers.

"I love you too." I tell him, feeling my own eyes fill with tears.

Wonwoo pulls away and lowers himself into the car. After Shin shuts the door behind him, the car drives into the fog.

The tires crunch over the gravel road and Shin stops next to me.

"That was the bookseller?" He asks.

I nod, a tear slipping down my cheek.

"He was a good man. He shall be very comfortable." Shin reassures me and walks back into the hotel.

With Shin gone, I let the tears fall freely. Letting the tears fill with the sadness and pain of being left then let them fall and land wherever they please. My heart cracks into a million pieces and it takes everything within me to keep it from exploding into more pieces. It is then that a white chrysanthemum withers away in my garden.

After a while, the moon has risen high into the sky and my tears have dry though my heart hasn't stopped aching. But even now, I have a hotel to run and others to wait for. So I run my hands through my hair, detangling it, and wipe away the left over tears. Just as Wonwoo always told me, I straighten out my shoulders, hold my head level, and walk back into the hotel with purpose.

Return to the Navigation Page (Waning Crescent Hotel) to choose the next guest.

"Did you ever think today would come?" Wonwoo wonders.

"I knew it would come but I just could never definitively say when it would come." I tell him, "Like when an author has a story and a perfect plot in their mind but putting it on paper is harder than imagined and they’re not sure if the story will ever leave their mind."

“Good analogy.” Wonwoo chuckles, “Come on. Your story has left the author's mind." We stand up together and I instantly grab his hand. Like a child latching onto their favorite toy.

We walk hand in hand to the lobby where Yong, Mun Hee, Soon Bok, and Jiwoo stand solemnly.

"Hey, Mun Hee." Wonwoo calls out, "I would've helped you with the supplies. You didn't have to carry them by yourself and hurt your back."

Mun Hee vigorously shakes his head, "No, no. I didn't hurt myself, I'm just sore. I haven't worked my body like that in ages." He gives excuses.

"Well, you should start again. Who knows what other guests will request." Wonwoo advises and Mun Hee gives him a thumbs up.

"So this is it?" Mun Hee asks and looks at me with tears appearing in his eyes. "This is the day you leave us?"

I wrap him up in a hug, only a tiny bit annoyed that he's being so sappy. "Maybe I'll get punished again and be back here by the end of the year." I try to joke but Mun Hee abruptly pushes back from me.

"Don't you dare say that. You better not return here." He says angrily through his tears and I hear Wonwoo chuckle behind me.

I chuckle, "I won't come back. I promise."

Turning to Soon Bok, I thank her for her service and her amazing work. Something I never did and should've done more.

Next onto Jiwoo. I also thank him for his and his entire family's service then I unclip the bracelet that has held him to this place.

"When you leave today, you won't be able to find this place again." I inform him, "I hope that you'll be able to go and live your life happily."

Jiwoo nods, "Thank you for letting me work with you. I won't ever forget you."

I smile sadly, "You will. But thank you."

Finally I reach Yong who is sniffling and trying so very hard not cry.

"You'd think after all these years of waiting that I'd be prepared for this day." She says through sniffles.

"Thank you, Yong." I rests my hands on her shoulders, "For everything. Thank you."

With lips pursed together, she leans forward and wraps me in an unexpected hug. But I soon wrap my arms around her and squeeze her tightly.

We pull apart after a couple seconds and I wipe the few tears that have escaped from her eyes.

"Keep this hotel running beautifully." I tell her before Wonwoo grabs my hand again.

With final waves of goodbye, Wonwoo and I walk out to the foggy forest that will take us to our resting place.

At the edge of the forest, Shin stands next to an idling car, a somber look on his face.

"(y/n)." He says when we reach him, "It has been an honor working with you. I wish you both a peaceful rest." Shin bows his head and I pat his arm.

"The honor was mine." I tell him with a smile. Now the tears start to line my eyes as the realization fully sets in.

I'm free. I served my years of punishment and now I'm free to let my soul rest.

I turn back towards the hotel and look up to the top where the rooftop patio is outlined with bright string lights. Then to the mid floors where random room lights are turned on, some guests staying in while others opting to experience the hotel's many services. Then to grand base where guests would be milling around, waiting their turns to leave this world.

"(y/n)?" Wonwoo softly asks pulling my attention to where he sits just inside the car, "Are you ready?"

I take one last quick look at the hotel before turning away from it. "Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go."

I lower myself into the car and Shin securely closes the door after I am completely inside. As the car begins to drive forward, Wonwoo securely grabs my hand and I let his warmth guide me towards our final destination.

In the garden, the final chrysanthemum withers and dies so that no more stand at the base of the bare tree.

[ahwait-no-yes]

🍬 Candy Kingdom 🍭

First official chapter!!! Really hope you enjoy it!! Took some time but was super fun!!

-1-

Shuichi told everyone he was just going on a walk to calm down. He was upset about an argument that had broke out, and had wanted to just leave the situation for a little while.

After a few minutes of walking, he eventually came to the edge of a forest. He knew he shouldn’t go in. He told his parents that he’d be back in ten minutes. Though, right now he wanted nothing more then to relax and try not to overthink the situation.

—

“So,” His mom suddenly spoke up, looking at the two expectantly. “We’ve been meaning to discuss something with you two.” She said in a monotone voice. Junko looked up, seemingly uninterested. Shuichi did the same, but with a much more nervous expression.

“What did you want to talk about?..” He asked hesitantly, avoiding eye contact. He knew his parents absolutely hated it when he did that, but he couldn’t help it.

His parents glanced at each other before his father spoke up this time. “As we know, your older sister, Junko, is going to become queen soon.” He watched a small grin come to her face.

“And? Why’re we talking about what’s set in stone?” She asked, playing with her food. His mother politely ignored her. “What we were going to talk about is mostly centered around your brother, Shuichi.“ 

Saihara looked up at them and shrunk as far as he could into his chair. What could they possibly want to talk about? His parents looked at each other before his mother plastered on a smile. “Seeing as Junko is becoming a queen, you won’t be able to rule over any land, correct?” She asked, looking him dead in the eye.

“I-” he fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. “Yes, that is true..” Where was she going with this? “Well, seeing as we still want you to become a king, we have decided to arrange a marriage with the neighboring kingdom.”

Shuichi stared at them in shock for a few seconds before whispering, “What-?..” His mother quietly sighed before saying, “I’m sure you heard us the first time. Is there anything you’d like to say?”

Shuichi felt a surge of what he wish was confidence. In reality, it was just fear. What if they didn’t like him? What if they were rude? What if- 

“Soo, does that mean Shuichi’s finally gonna get a girlfriend?” Junko asked, twirling her hair. “Technically, they’re already engaged, seeing as we both agreed.”

What.

“Y-you didn’t-” “we didn’t tell you, seeing as it would be good for our kingdoms to unite.”

Now this made Shuichi upset. He felt like he had unwillingly signed his life away to someone he didn’t even know.

He decided now would be a good time to speak up.

“So, what you’re telling me is that I’m going to marry a stranger I didn’t even know existed?” He said abruptly. His parents stared at him for a moment before his mother cleared her throat. “It was bound to happen eventually, we just chose the kingdom next to us.” Her stare hardened. “Is there a problem, Shuichi?”

He wanted to back down, but decided not to. “Other then the fact I’m being forced to marry someone I don’t know, I suppose there isn’t.” He edged on. “Shuichi. Do not be disrespectful to your mother.” His father warned, placing down his fork.

“I’m not. I’m just saying my opinion.”

“In a disrespectful manner.” Junko chided, smiling innocently.

“I still don’t get why I have to marry someone I’ve never met! Don’t you already have enough people to boss around?!” He shouted, gripping at the hem of his shirt.

“Do not raise your voice at me!” His mother shouted back. Junko was watching and eating some popcorn. (where the hell did she get that?) 

“I’m not trying to, you’d just never listen otherwise,” He muttered, pulling at the ends of his hair. “What was that?” His mother asked while glaring at him. “Nothing.” He replied, feeling tears gather in his eyes.

If I cry right now I might as well die on the spot.

“I’m gonna go on a walk. Is that fine?” He asked, his voice coming out sterner then planned. His mother sighed and looked away, “Yes, you can leave again,” she then muttered something along the lines of, “Seeing as you’re so upset with us when we just wanted to help.”

“That’s not what I-..” His voice trailed off. He just turned away and pulled at the hem of his shirt. They would do things like that when he was younger, and had started trying to avoid things like that happening. Usually by locking himself in his room for days on end, and only coming out at night.

Wasn’t the best option but he still did it.

He just muttered a quiet, “Okay,” and left.

—

Shuichi took a deep breath and looked around. He realized he must’ve spaced out while walking and got lost. He leaned against a tree and looked around, trying to see how far he managed to get.

Just how long has he been spaced out?

He felt panic settle in as he looked around again. There had to be something he recognized. He couldn’t have gone far. The trees are probably just covering things, so it just feels like he’s in the middle of a huge forest.

But that probably wasn’t true.

He sat down and took slow and deep breaths. It was best not to panic, Saihara was sure he’d be able to find his way back eventually.

Though he felt panicky again when he heard approaching footsteps.

Suddenly, a boy that looked around his age (or maybe younger? He was kind of short..) bounded up to him. “Hey! You seem kinda lost!” He announced, pointing at him while grinning.

“Uh- yeah, I guess I am-..” Shuichi muttered, where had the boy come from? He was sure he was alone a few seconds ago. He hadn’t heard any walking until now either.

“Weeeell! If you are I can totally help you!” He continued. “Ah, you can?-” Saihara asked, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “Yep! All you need to do is be able to repay me!” He chirped, playing with his hair. “I see.. Is there anything I can do to help-?..

“Of courseeee! All you need to do is give me your life!” He beamed, lifting his index finger to his mouth a smirking slyly. “What-?! I can’t possibly-”

“Then again, I’m just lying!” He continued, his grin turning into a carefree smile. “But maybe that’s a lie!” He giggled, his face darkening.

“I-..” His voice trailed off. This boy was.. something else, that was for sure. He wasn’t sure why he was lying so much, (one of those statements had to be a lie.) but then again, he might just be lying to mess with him. Even though Saihara had just met him, he seemed like the kind of person to do that.

“Is- there anything else I can do?..” He asked hesitantly, avoiding eye contact. “Hmm.. Keep me entertained while I show you the way out! If you fail, I kill you! If not, I’ll still kill you, but no torture!” He chirped innocently, fluttering his eyelashes as if he was trying to convince him.

“That doesn’t sound fair at all-!” Saihara muttered, pulling at the ends of his hair and covering his mouth with it. The purple haired boy groaned dramatically and yelled, “Fineee! If you entertain me, you live. Sound fair Mr. Emo?" 

"I would prefer not to die, but I have a feeling that it won’t be "fair” to you.“ He commented, quickly glancing at him to see what he looked like.

… How does his hair defy gravity? How’s that even possible?

"You can take a picture if you wanna keep staring Mr. Emo.” He stated, looking at his nails. “Ah-! I wasn’t trying to-!” He boy interrupted him again. “Since you were to busy staring at me, I said I agreed. So lets go, alright?” He grinned, lifting his finger to his mouth again.

“Can I at least know your name?” Saihara asked exasperatedly, finally making eye contact. The boy stared back, unblinking. Shuichi nervously shifted in place. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked that.

“My name’s Kokichi Ouma. What’s yours?”

A smile.

“Shuichi Saihara.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*   *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*   *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

everyone let us appreciate dream anon for this work of art 🤍 I really wanted to do a doodle for it too! 

-

1 | 2 | 3

Read it on AO3 too!

[albrich]

@wordhost​​, for childe : [ smile ] for your muse to smile at mine from across the room —— nonverbal ( accepting )

        LUDI HARPASTRUM IS ALWAYS QUITE THE OCCASION, the crowning jewel of the cultural celebrations which mondstadt holds, a time for merriment and joy and imbibement, loosening lips and encouraging flagrant gossip, throngs of residents and visitors from all around tripping over themselves to speak loudly and at length about their personal dealings and drama, because alcohol is ever so useful. and what’s mondstadt known for if not ALCOHOL, after all? plying its guests and watching them whirl, lost in the cavernous alleys of the beast.

        no well off family of mondstadt would go without a ludi harpastrum celebration ( those THREE YEARS that master diluc was absent are an exception, of course, for there was no ragnvindr in mondstadt for the first time in living or dead memory for that time, after all ), an extravagant party overflowing with music and the hymns of freedom ——— BARBATOS WOULD EXPECT NOTHING LESS, AFTER ALL.

         kaeya enjoys these celebrations, naturally. ( for all that it makes his CHEST ACHE, memories of a father lost festering / memories of echoing singing far beneath this land, memories of hands reaching and laughter bouncing off of the caverns, memories of another life another place other celebrations, carrying ) the spirit, the spirits, TONGUES WAGGING. ludi harpastrum is the greatest time of year for celebrations and information gathering ——— it’s something of a shame that he, himself, cannot let loose quite so much but it’s well worth it. after all : what better show can there be than people living, utterly uninhibited, laughing and cheering and dancing.

        what better show can there be than this : THE ELEVENTH HARBINGER OF THE FATUI, MINGLING. a luminous smile on his face, light reflecting water / dazzling and distracting / moving about the crowd with a glass in his hand, fluid in all the ways that matter. it’s quite the sight, something that they indulge in, glass pressed to their bottom lip as they speak idly with another dry member of mondstadt nobility. these conversations are always SO VERY DULL : utterly mind numbing, kaeya has a script practically written for how to conduct them, allowing his attention to drift. to settle just to the left of this noblewoman, watching as tartaglia shifts through the crowd / a steady fluid wave. he wonders how much of that smile is FALSE / wonders how much if it is REAL / wonders how much of childe is real. perhaps they should just reach out and see.

        their eyes meet, childe’s gaze catching upon theirs as he sweeps across the room / and his eyebrows raise and kaeya almost wants to laugh / he can feel his mouth twitch, smile widening. CHILDE GRINS IN RETURN. it’s a very convincing show of SURPRISE at seeing kaeya ——— as if they hadn’t been aware of each other with sharp acuity from the moment that tartaglia had arrived, fashionably late. kaeya holds that gaze / feels the back of his neck PRICKLE / before looking back to the woman he had been speaking to and bowing to her politely, ❝ if you’ll excuse me, mistress johanna ——— i hate to leave your stunning presence so soon, but duty calls. ❞

        she laughs, a pretty and effervescent sound. ❝ you’re such a charmer, captain alberich. oh, go on then, but you work too hard. ❞

       ❝ no rest for the wicked, i’m afraid, ❞ he gestures widely, arms thrown out and / spins gracefully as her laughter follows him and then fades into the music and he dances his way across the room, bowing to people and nodding at others, eyes tracking the room for a SHOCK OF ORANGE HAIR / childe had disappeared from where he had stood moments ago, to kaeya’s utter lack of surprise. they would have been disappointed, if he hadn’t. THE THRILL OF THE CHASE isn’t something to be understated.

        chasing after an enemy, heart racing and adrenaline thrumming ICE SHARP, jagged in their veins / chasing after tartaglia. is there any difference?

        perhaps / perhaps not. there is a certain PREDATORY TILT that settles over them as they make their way across the lavish room, taking a pretty lady for a turn under his arm / laughing as a gentleman dips him before relinquishing him back to the crowd at large, kaeya’s laughter carrying through the air. they prowl, they scan, steady and slow and INTENT and ——— there. a flash of orange, there and gone again, water swept away by the current. kaeya ducks beneath a tray, snags two fresh glasses as he deposits his empty one, NOT BOTHERING TO RUSH.

        it’s not as though childe would have allowed himself to be SEEN, unless he wished to be found.

        a flurry of curtains and open double doors and THE NIGHT SKY BEYOND, starlight glittering in the lowered lights of the city / sometimes kaeya misses leylines and glowing lines above in steady rock / and childe standing at the balcony, hands on the railing, staring out at the rooftops. he’s silhouetted handsomely in the light filtering from the room behind them, and sounds of celebration continue on as kaeya strides across the balcony, not bothering to announce himself as he stops beside childe, holding out the wineglass for him to take. childe’s fingers brush against his / HIS TOUCH BURNS.

       ❝ enjoying the celebrations, i see. ❞ kaeya taps their glasses together when childe takes his, head tipping, smile curling dangerous.

        ❝ mondstadt is always a place i look forward to visiting, ❞ childe takes a sip of his wine, grinning. ❝ it’s always so entertaining. you guys certainly know how to throw a party. ❞

        ❝ ludi harpastrum showcases the best of mond, ❞ it’s more of a JOKE than anything, something that childe seems to recognize as he laughs / their elbows bump and their shoulders brush / kaeya pretends to take a sip of his wine. ❝ i’m relieved that you can enjoy yourself on a diplomatic visit. how else shall we show you the wonders of mondstadt at ludi harpastrum, i wonder? ❞

        ❝ hmm, ❞ tartaglia draws out the syllable, mouth curling / kaeya feels a BRIEF THRILL. a thrum of excitement / a feeling of foreboding. ❝ ah, i know just the thing !! ❞

        the glass is pulled from their hand and childe takes hold of his wrist and kaeya leans into the touch, allowing himself to be pulled around and towards tartaglia, their chests brushing / kaeya’s eyebrows lift, grin widening. ❝ isn’t this forward? people may talk, tartaglia.”

       ❝ but i would love to learn how to dance in the mondstadt style, captain. it’s so different than dancing in snezhnaya ——— diplomacy, you know? ❞

       ❝ then it’s my responsibility to TEACH YOU, isn’t it? ❞ kaeya drapes an arm across childe’s shoulders, allowing himself to be whisked away / TWO PREDATORS CIRCLING EACH OTHER / and they laugh when childe twirls him and dips him, grinning wider when childe laughs when he does it in return.

        blades hovering at each other’s backs / eyes ever—watching. how fun.

[imagine-nation20]

A Healer’s Kindness

Summary: “I realize that kindness is one of your best features, but seriously, that is a bit much.”

Requested By: Anon

Request: “I realize that kindness is one of your best features, but seriously, you go way overboard.” with Geralt of Rivia x reader please?

A/N: I ended up changing the sentence slightly so it fits more with the type of talking they do in the show. Hope you don’t mind! Also, slight warning, there are mentions of blood and wounds in this so, if your uncomfortable then just skip over this one.

~~~

You pulled the plant out of the ground by its roots, careful not to kill it and make it impossible to re-plant in the pot you brought with you. The red and white flower in your hands was rare, only growing high on the sheer cliffside near your house. A small, dangerous pathway, not entirely meant for humans was the only path, and the further up you made it to the flower, the harsher the winds became. It was dangerous just to get it, let alone take in back with you unharmed.

The wind blew, almost knocking you off the cliffside as you stood, plant in pot and in your hand. You caught yourself on a root sticking out from the dirt and rocks, sighing in relief when it held and you were easily able to pull yourself back upright.

“Hopefully I never have to come here again…” You mumbled, tucking the pot safely in your left arm. With your right hand now your only stabilizer, you began to shimmy back across the steep walkway, wary of every breeze that passed. 

Your foot slipped momentarily down the slope of the path, causing you to lose your balance, and grip tighter to the handhold of the cliff. Your fingers stung, digging into the rock and drawing a bit of blood. Your teeth clenched, but you forced yourself to bring your leg back up, using your now injured hand to pull yourself.

It’s a long way down, with a few more close calls, but eventually your feet meet solid ground and you release a sigh. The flower is unharmed beneath your arm, but you still had to be careful as you walked your way back to your cottage, as it was an unmarked path through woods rife with predatory animals and the occasional band of humans.

Because of the dangerous, rocky, and sheer terrain, you had opted for pants, a shirt, and a long jacket that reaches your knees. While this had been a great choice for the terrain, it wasn’t the best for the weather. The cold autumn air bit right through the pants, chilling your joints and making your movement slower.

It wasn’t a long walk back, but the cold stretched the time to seem like an eternity. When the cold stone of the cottage came into sight, you sighed. The thought of your warm fireplace sent a pleasant chill up your spin.

The blood smeared on the wall next to your door did not.

Your face hardened, as you reached for the dagger on your belt. You placed the potted plant on the stone wall surrounding your front garden, swinging open the already ajar gate. It squeaked and you cursed yourself for not buying the oil you had meant to get at the market a village over.

The door to the cottage was open as well, light from a lit fire spilling out. It shone against more blood smeared on the wooden door. Inside, the smell of rotten flesh and dirt permeated the air. You cringed, slowly stepping inside and holding your breath. The fire crackled, but the air was still cold enough to know that it had only just been lit. Your favorite chair, which you used to read often, was knocked over, the warm fur blanket heaped on the floor next to it. The shape of a man, large in stature, drew your attention.

He was sprawled at the base of your hearth, breath ragged. You recognized the white of his hair, even if it was caked in dirt and blood.

“Geralt!” I came out like a whisper, and you were already on your knees next to him, brushing the hair from his face and checking for wounds when he opened his eyes at your voice.

He looked unfocused, eyes roaming the room before landing on your. You barely paid attention to the look on his face, eyes drawn to the slash across his chest. It had cut clean through his armor, the flesh and blood around it darkened to a sickening black. It wasn’t often that your witcher was injured, and never as badly as this.

“This is the work of a poison,” You said, mostly to yourself. You glanced up to Geralt’s face, cupping his cheeks and ignoring the smears of black goo you left in your wake. “I need to know what did this, Geralt,”

“Manticore,” He grounded out, eyes scrunching in pain. You shushed him, earning a glare that you brushed off.

Placing his hand over his wound, you ordered him to keep as much pressure as he could while you searched for a cure. You had never dealt with manticore poison before, but you were sure you had seen something about it in your grandmother’s journal. Something about a remedy.

You scanned the pages, finally stumbling upon a familiar sketch of a manticore stinger, searching the paragraphs of information for a cure.

“Cut away all poisoned flesh, as the minute it blackens, it is dead…” The first paragraph instructed how to do this, but it was the second that caught your eye. An even more familiar sketch caught your eye, the words making you curse under your breath. “The only cure for manticore poison is the ground up petals of a rare flower that grows on a mountain in Temeria,” 

The red and white petals taunted you, but you didn’t give it a second thought. Rushing outside, your snatched the plant off the wall and brought it back in, beginning your work.

---

It was dark out when the witcher stirred, looking less pale than he had when you had first laid eyes on him. Not that it was much of a difference, as he was already naturally as pale as a ghost. His eyes had barely opened, falling back closed, and you were there, water and a bowl of soup in hand, easing him to sit up. The bandages around his torso were more of a placebo, only their to hide the salve from the flower that had long since begun to work.

While it was an incredibly fast healing agent, it also cured most poisons, and numbed the area it was applied. Many herbalists, healers, and medicine peddlers had come searching for it, but very few ever left with one.

Geralt groaned as you helped him sit up, the blanket resting across him falling to his waist. His armor and shirt were folded on a chair next to the bed, so you opted to sit on the edge of the straw mattress, grabbing the bowl and spooning some of the broth out of the bowl.

“Eat,” You urged, raising the spoon to the witcher’s mouth. “You lost a lot of blood, and you’ll need your strength. The salve I used is fast working, but it just amplifies your healing and poison resilience, meaning you need to eat or it will kill you through exhaustion.”

“What did you give me?” Geralt asked, taking the spoon and bowl from your hands. You sighed at his stubbornness, but didn’t fight him.

“A rare flower from the mountain range a few miles away,” You leveled him with a look. “It is the only known plant able to cure manticore poison, so consider yourself lucky that had gone to get one today.”

He rose a brow at you, taking another spoonful of soup. “I thought you grow your own?”

“Yes, but this one is only known to grow on the sheer cliffside of the mountain here. My grandmother showed it to me when I was little, and told me only to go up when I absolutely had to,” You sighed, taking the dirty bowl and rag you had left in the room to wipe the sweat from the witcher’s brow. “I was planning on planting it in the garden, but you needed it. I’ll have to go back up to get another when the winds die down once more.”

You stood to leave, planning on emptying the bowl. A hand on your wrist caught you, and you turned to see the witcher narrow his eyes at you. “Sheer cliffside?”

“Yes, barely have a foot wide, why?” You answered, already knowing what was coming.

“Why waste a flower that you could plant to grow more?” He grumbeld out.

You narrowed your eyes. “It wasn’t a waste. It saved your life.”

“I’m a witcher.”

“That doesn’t make you immortal,” You ground out, taking your arm from his grip as softly as you could. Geralt sighed, looking down at the floor a moment. You waited for him to say something, to scold you again.

“I realize that kindness is one of your best features, but seriously, that is a bit much.” He said, taking a step back. “Even for you.”

“I can just go and get another like I-”

“No.”

“Geralt!” You hissed, furrowing your brows, “I have to get another one. What if someone else needs one and I don’t have it. You got lucky today, but someone else may not.”

“I’ll do it.” He insisted, walking over to pick up his shirt and armor. You had mended the tear in the cloth, but the leather was not something you were able to help, leaving a giant gash down the center that had Geralt sighed in annoyance.

“You’re injured, and plus, I’m sure you still have a manticore to hunt. I’ll be fine.” He didn’t respond, only continued to gather his things. You gripped his arm, spinning him around. He didn’t fight, which you considered lucky for you, as you wouldn’t have been able to turn him if he had.

“I’ll get you two this time, as a payment,”

“They can’t be damaged,” You tried to reason as to why you had to go.

“I’ll be careful.” He stated simply, but you scoffed at him. If there was one thing you were absolutely sure about Geralt, it was that he was never careful.

“I will fit better along the path.”

“Hmm,” Was his only response this time. You were getting frustrated. Grasping at straws always seemed to be what you did when arguing with the man in front of you. After saving his life from a tikwi a while back, he often came to you for remedies and medicines when in the area. He had even given you a book on how to make the potions he used when fighting.

You stopped him with a hand to his chest as he moved to leave the room. His head tilted down, staring at you. “Please, be careful. The winds are strong up there, and the path crumbles in places.”

You hadn't noticed the deep crease in your brow until Geralt was leaning down and kissing you forehead, following it with a thumb to smooth away the worry.

“I’ll be back soon.”