#when i was sick and they got dry and cracked and they bled all the time

[daisychainsandbowties]

specific asks meme: 11, 25, 4, 12, 21

11. anything from your childhood you’ve held onto?

actually yes so much. i have books that are 22 years old and all my old pokemon games and figurines (there’s a big spider living in that box under my bed actually 🥰🥰).

i’m so careful with everything that my 20yr old gameboy works perfect (i also have a gameboy from 1989 that my mom gave to me which still plays tetris). literally anything i’ve loved i’ve held onto including my old journals with my early cyphers and languages in them and my old drawings. i have a lock of my own hair from when i chopped it all off and i have the valentine’s card my first boyfriend tried to sneak into my schoolbag only to have me BURST into the classroom like “where were you fucker we’re playing giant lizards outside and these bitches don’t know jackshit about anatomy.” so he got his mom to drive to my house and SPRINTED to the door to shove it in the letterbox instead. the next year i did the exact same to him but i wasn’t dumb enough to risk the schoolbag approach. knowing i had 59,000 random sheets of paper and a decaying apple at the bottom of my bag. that’s a place letters go to die.

anyway! yeah, lots of things or at least small important things.

25. would you say you have good taste in music?

yeah!!! aside from the mario kart rainbow road track, but even that’s a banger. i like lots of different music though so it’s more that… i like good songs than any genre loyalty whatsoever

4. mythical creature you think/believe is real?

hmm. i don’t think there’s anything currently that springs to mind. i believe there are things on this planet left to discover, but i will say that until i was 12 i believed dragons were real like dinosaurs. just thought all the medieval knights had hunted them to extinction. sad day when my archaeologist uncle told me “buddy. no they’re made up. they’re not real.” but then he told me fucked up facts about medieval medicine so it was cool.

12. brand of haircare/bodycare/skincare that you trust 100%?

i don’t really. my grandma gets me shower things for my birthday and then i repeat subscription those unless i get an allergic reaction. so right now i have some 3-in-1 mens hair thing and i have a “100000 mint leaves in this bottle!!” shower gel that i think is trying to eat my skin. tingly.

21. answered!! but all imaginary numbers are weird and shouldn’t behave like that

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Canukr 12 for the dialogue prompts

I have no idea what's going on in this fic anymore but it's written so voila. The usual siblings suffering in a trench having a conversation about love, life and what have you with background ukrcan.

Spring, 1916

Jack might have been dead, as stiff as a corpse well into rigour mortis in this cold. His toes wouldn't flex in his boots, and when he peeled back his mitts, the skin on his fingers was cracked straight through. They should have bled, but his hands were too cold. He shoved them under his armpits and shuddered into the tent's wall. If he got any closer to the anemic fire, he'd set himself alight, but there was no point in living in this kind of cold. He wished he could close his eyes and see his home's cracked, desperately thirsty surface rather than that of his own hands—dry, warm sun and blue instead of the endless grey. Or that Zee would get off duty and nick some whiskey. Either would do.

“Hey,” came Matt's low whisper, gentle but as freezing as a polar wind. “You still awake?”

“No,” Jack muttered but shifted and opened his eyes: Matt was tall and sharp and the pale green of a blade of frosted grass. He was still damp from the showers.

“Jesus, Mattie. You sick?” Jack asked him.

Matt shot him an odd look and touched his greenish cheek. “Oh, right. No. Not sick. Just woke up on the corpse pile again,”

“Fuck mate,”

“Ah, all fine. Just was looking for something, it was stupid.” He knelt to sit next to Jack on the sandbag bed, and for the first time, Jack noticed he was out of regulation even more than usual, a blue sweater over their grey army-issued undershirts poking out from under his unbuttoned coat.

“You going to sleep?"

"Nah, can't get any proper sleep when I've got snow balls.”

Matt grinned, a flash of snow blindness. “Bet I can help with that,”

He produced an earthen crock, its contents held by butcher paper held shut with twine, tore it open with his teeth and thrust it into Jack's hands, displaying it with a proud grin.

He blinked.

“It's warm,” He said dumbly. He could feel it with his own two hands, warm and still steaming. Oh, there might be a God.

“It was hot,” Matt said sorrowfully, but Jack paid him little mind. He smelled things he had half-forgotten. Onion, garlic, celery, carrots, peas, potatoes, pepper. Curry. Fucking miracle of miracles—

"Is this... curry?"

Matt grinned again. "Curried lentils, yeah."

“Soup?” He gaped. “Like actual soup? Not from a tin?”

Matt smiled. “Fresh from the cookfires of the Indian division. Aditya says you're welcome."

He dug his mess kit from deep in the pockets of his great coat and scooped some into his mouth. But it tasted as good as it smelled. Vegetal and garlicky. No meat but— Oh! Lentils. Right, some of the Indian divisions were vegetarians.

“God, that's so good,”

Matt snorted. "Is it? Good!"

"Didn't you get any?"

"I didn't have scurvy last month," Matt said. "Speak of, how's the teeth?"

"In my head," Jack said. They ached. But they were firmly in his gums, at least. "Get over here and help me eat this, you sad bastard. I'm cold just looking at you."

"I'm okay." Matt said.

"Oh, get off the cross, we need the wood." Jack rolled his eyes. "No ones going go lose the war because you only martyred yourself once today. Get over here."

Sheepishly, Matt sat, and Jack dumped some soup out for himself. He gave Matt his half in the warm redware.

"Thanks," He said. He looked oddly worn out, even for him, and Jack kicked another log onto the anemic fire.

"What got you this time?"

"Concussive blast, I think." He grimaced, one hand floating over his shoulder before he realized what he was doing and put his hand back to hold his soup.

"Do you want to go bunk with the old man? He's got a few rooms in some ponce's chateau. Warmer than out here."

Matt shook his head. "They'll be fucking."

"Who's... oh your... yeah." Jack grimaced sympathetically. "Can't blame you there. Fucken awkward just being in the same room at those two much less when they're your... whatever Bonnefoy is."

Matt hummed a particularly miserable agreement, and Jack elbowed him. "Hey, you carked it. Means you'll get another care package from Alfred, right?"

Matt snorted. "You keep more track of when those arrive than I do."

"Well yeah, where else am I going to get the good shit?"

Matt shouldered him, jostling their seat. "You just want chocolate."

"Always." He grinned and was awarded the slightest smile from Matt for his efforts and thought he might press his luck. "What are my chances of you translating some Baudelaire for me?"

Matt stirred his soup and gave a flat, dead stare. Jack laughed, uncomfortable.

"Take that as a no."

"Not a no. Just... Not today."

He gave Matt a wry grin. He’d pushed his luck, and he knew it. He gave Matt a gentle elbow and took up some more soup. He was grateful. Extra calories were a small thing in the grand scheme. However, Matt, the blessed bloodhound he sometimes was, could sniff out and scavenge spare calories at a thousand paces. The smell of soup and broth was so… normal compared to damp wool, a soggy tent, and French soil. Wet, horrible, cold French soil. He kicked at the duckboards and the hard-packed earth beneath his feet.

“Thanks for this, by the way.” He said.

Matt glanced up. “Of course. You looked like you needed a hot meal and rack time as badly as I do.”

“… About that rack time.” He grimaced, remembering the envelope in his pocket with all the odd markings Zee had told him to pass on when he saw Matt. “It’s encrypted, so it's probably urgent.”

“No.” Matt lifted one finger. “Not until I’ve eaten. This is going in me, I’m going to pretend I didn’t just crawl my way out of a corpse pile for a bit and then Dad can ruin my day.”

Jack snorted. “Look at you, not coming like a labrador just because Dad called.”

“Ah, piss off you.” Matt gave him a gentle whack. He was the best of their father, sometimes. They ate in companionable silence for a long while, silent except for the fire. Matt finished and tossed himself on the berth Zee commandeered when she was so sick of the posh limey nurses she worked with that even the comfortable billets they had weren’t worth the fucken poms and gestured for it.

“All right, I’m human, give it up.”

“Ah, bloody hell, where’d I stick it.” He went patting himself down.

“Half of me doesn’t want you to find it.” Matt shook his head. “Try your cartridge pocket. You’re always sticking things in there and forgetting.”

“Am not,” Jack said, putting his hand there anyways. Fuck, Matt was right. “All right, never mind. Am so.”

Matt shook his head, hand out. “Give it up,”

“Arsehole,”

“Sieve for brains.” He got a shoulder squeeze as he handed over the dirty envelope. Matt barely had it in his hand before going white. This was somewhat disturbing, considering he was practically green even in the firelight, and his knees collapsed beneath him as he sprawled onto the bed again.

“Matt? What... is it that bad? Why did they have to send it in code like that?" It was covered in circles, stabbed through, or otherwise backward-written.

“It’s not code…” He fumbled for his pocket knife and opened it carefully. “That’s cyrillic.”

“Cyrillic? What, like the Russian stuff?”

“Ukrainian!” Matt blurt out. He’d lit up from the inside out, colour coming into his face for the first time in weeks. He kissed the envelope.“It’s from Katia.”

“What, that scary blonde lady with the braid things?” He gestured to his head, and Matt sighed, lovelorn. Actually lovelorn. Christ was a kookaburra. The Russians occasionally tossed boats on his front doorstep whenever Ivan felt he didn’t get enough attention from Dad. He had occasionally glanced at her on other occasions, dressed well and fierce looking even when she laughed.

“Most beautiful, terrifying woman on planet earth.” He sounded instantly drunk—bloody hell. Jack had never known him to sound like that. He watched Matt clutch it to his chest like a father when he was being a mad and sentimental old bird and sigh.

“Mate.” Jack watched with amused befuddlement and more than a bit of concern. Creatures have behaviour patterns. The koalas had diets of almost nothing but eucalyptus, were riddled with chlamydia and clung to their mothers' past reason. Matt, too, mostly put away narcotics, was riddled with venereal disease and hadn’t disobeyed their father in a solid decade. Wombats mated in spring between September and December, shat in cubes and lived in their mother’s pouch. Matt mated every leave, probably had the only solid shits in the entire British army and did what their father said. It was the way of the world. He scavenged food, slept poorly, and murdered many. And now he was grinning as his eyes passed over the letter. As much as he tried, Jack couldn't help but worry.

“Mate,” He said again, dropping onto his berth and leaning over, squinting to catch a glimpse as if he’d understand even if he could see the letters. Matt looked like someone had cracked him over the head with a trench shovel again. “What does it say?”

He grinned, holding it to his chest. “It’s from Katia.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that.” He said, brows raised, bemused. Still concerned. “But what does it actually say?”

“Haven’t read it yet.” He said. “I’m just… she wrote me…”

“Why would she write you? Isn’t the eastern front in collapse?”

“Yes,” He said. “The Russians are getting trampled over there and she still wrote.”

Jack gawped. The words were grim against his brother’s delighted expression. “Okay. So why is she writing to you?"

“Might’ve… sort’ve married her.” He mumbled.

“You did what?” Jack stared. “Yoi’ve always been a few roos short of a mob but– you did what?”

“It’s not official. Bread, salt, and sex, mostly. I just–” He took a breath, but that dopey look hadn't left. Jack watched as he kissed the envelope and suddenly felt like doing what he did when their father shagged the frog across some canvas. Fleeing the country.

“Does Dad know?” And if it was possible, Matt’s grin widened.

“Old man hates Ivan so he loves her.”

“You’re telling me that our father, who art an arsehole, hallowed be thy church of him, let you go and– how did you pull that off?”

“I’m older than you,” He said, looking smug, like that explained anything.

“What has– never mind. What does it say?”

“She has these eyes.” He said dreamily.

“Reckon she does,” Jack snorted. “Most people do.”

“Shush,” Matt said, but there was no fire. “They’re alive. They burn. It’s like when the sun comes out.”

“Do you have brain damage? Are you ill?” Jack reached over, putting his hand on Matt’s forehead.

Matt tossed his hand off. “Paws off.”

“I’m serious.” Jack said, seriously scanning him now. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Can’t I be happy without something being wrong?”

“Not this happy!”

“I’m fine. Just, hush a damn minute and let me read. If it isn’t sexy, I’ll translate some of it.”

“Oohohoho now you’re talking. Story time afterall.”

They sat there for a long while, in a strange happiness, the anemic fire higher. Both were relaxed, concern absent from Jack as Matt ripped through the letter. Jack busied himself with stupid little things, straightening their few belongings, pouring each a bit of what whiskey was left from Uncle Alasdair’s last trip back home. He nearly dropped the bottle when Matt yelped.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Which one of you fuckers sent her a photo of me?” He broke into laughter. “With my hair short? Oh my god.”

“That’s a Kiwibird maneuver if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Shitheads, the lot of you.” He was still laughing, fist against the bottom of his ribs. “Jesus Christ.”

“Why, what’d she say?”

“Sit down, its story time.” Matt shook his head, incredulous and overjoyed.

“Dear…” His brother squinted, frowning. “I don’t actually know what that word means. It’s got something to do with spooky and tree and the ending is a diminunitive. Anyway.”

He started again, and Jack listened as he read out loud.

Dear 'word I can’t translate',

We have brought the harvest in. Most of the men are gone, and it was not as easy as it may have been. However, the wheat fields were yellow under the bluest skies this year. You might not recognize this village, even with your head as complete with me as it is with hundreds of thousands of mine now yours. We planted winter wheat, which the British passed on via the Red Cross. To my surprise, I found it was Canadian Soft Red winter wheat. It was a pleasant surprise, I think. You might also thank your sister for that as well.

Regardless, children and seedlings grow, and wheat and men are reaped. On and on it continues. However, with this wheat, a photo and letter were passed onto me. You can imagine my surprise to see you looking so… different. You changed your hair. I like it well enough; you may tell your sister she did a fine job. I do, however, expect it to be of its preferable length when I see you again. I also expect you to remember what I asked of you last we spoke. Remain yourself, Matthew. Also, I would ask you to inform your father that I expect you to be in one piece come the end of this war. He may recall in short order how it was in Miklagarðr.

May the winter be kind,

Katia

Jack raised a sarcastic brow. “She’s romantic.”

“Isn’t she?” Matt said, for once not hearing any of the ironies. “She’s so beautiful with words.”

“Must be prettier in Ukrainian, eh?” He said. Matt sighed and ran a hand through the short curls that made him look like Alfred.

“I wish I hadn’t let them cut it.”

“It’s not like you had a choice," Jack said. His was shorter than usual, and he’d never let it grow long. The thought, 'Even with hundreds of mine now yours,' came unbidden into his mind.

“Do you love her?” He blurted. “Is it love when its like that?”

"Yes," Matt said instantly. He constantly pondered and always considered things before he said them. But not this.

“Is it easier than humans?” Jack tried not to let the green-eyed Irishman he had let himself go arse over heart for flood into his mind. He had to clench his fists.

“Yes,” Matt said. “In a lot of ways. There’s always more time for us. Even if we die, we’ll live. But its no less nerve wracking. I haven’t had a letter from her since the war started. I’m sure Zee had to redirect some serious funding to deliver one and get this back. Remind me to get her something, would you?”

“Fork over that fancy yank soap next time you get a packet from Alfred, and I’m sure she’ll settle.” Jack said because he could easily say that while his thoughts tumbled through his mind. Tossing Will a Yorkshire pudding as he ducked a splatter of tea, laughing when they’d been camped under the pyramids. Blood. A heart-shaped disk he’d hacked out of a bit of scrap iron and slid into Will’s pocket. Screaming. Will’s hand in his as they cuddled too close in their funk hole. Aunt Brighid in black as he’d shovelled the soil over an ancient family plot in an ancient churchyard on a rainy spring morning with Australian autumn in his bones.

His fist clenched, nails puncturing his palm.

“Jack.” Matt was suddenly very close, gently squeezing Jack’s knee. “Hey. I’m sorry.”

His eyes sprang open. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed them.

“It’s fine.”

“Jack.”

“I said its fine!” He snapped. “I’m glad you can fuck our own–”

Matt squeezed his knee again, unflinching and looking like that letter had restored him to his whole self.

“We have a bit of leave soon. Why don’t we order and take a whole crop of snowdrops to Will’s grave? Dad doesn’t need to know." As soon as his anger was there, it was forgotten. The bastard was so fucking reasonable sometimes.

“Yeah.” Jack released his fist and sagged, flopping over onto his berth. “Yeah that sounds nice. Be nice to go up there when I don’t want to shoot Dad for once.”

“There you go.” Another tender pat on his knee as Matt pulled a blanket over him, but Jack shoved his face into the pillow.

“Mattie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad she wrote to you. You deserve it.”

[wizkiddx]

...surprise part 2

warnings: tw for miscarriage , mh and eating disorder(though more like just really poor relationship with food) - please don’t read if these are sensitive topics

There will be a part 3!! This is v sad, um but from experience a bit so I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, if this offends anyone please message me and I will take it down if that’s what you want xx

(this is fictional, and everyone’s experiences are different)

[part 1]

By the time it came to dinner at his parents there was still very much an elephant in the room. Tom had sort of assumed that later in the morning you’d properly explain it, at least bring it up? But you’d skilfully managed to dance your way out of the conversation every time there was the opportunity to talk it out. For example, even though Tom was pretty sure you’d already washed you hair this morning apparently you had to take the worlds longest shower in the world in preparation for his parents roast. It also didn’t go unnoticed that you’d locked the ensuite door while you were in there.

Now this might not seem odd to most but Tom knew this wasn’t right. You were 3 years deep at this point and when Tom was home the two of you really used to make the most of it- barely leaving each others side. This meant brushing your teeth together, showering and bathing together - or at least one perched on the bathroom shower while the other was washing. Just doing the mundane together, that was the intimate thing- it didn’t have to be sexual or encroaching personal space. Clockwork, that’s what it was. It had taken a bit of time at the start for you to open up and be body confident in front of Tom, yet you were both long since past that point - or so you had been. With every ounce of your being, you knew that Tom loved you for you. Frankly though, that was the issue… you weren’t you. Your body had changed , or rather withered away and that was your fault. Yet another thing to add to the list. Being conciously aware of how unattractive you looked, literally a shell of yourself, there was only a wave of sad acceptance to surged through when you did lock the door.

Because in your head you. knew. This was the beginning of the end of your time with Tom and it was all your fault.

/////////////////////////

“I can help with that.” Y/n’s voice got Nikki turning away from the sink where she was attempting to make a dent in the huge pile of washing up Sam had accumulated - the boy could most definitely cook, but clean up? Not one bit.

“No no dear you go sit with them.” She shooed and smiled kindly at the girl she thought of as an adopted child herself. Because honestly? She looked like she could pass out at any point just from standing up. She clearly tried to hide it- wearing a baggy knitted sweater and mom jeans- but even just from her face, you could tell she was gaunt.

“I-no I’ll dry.” Y/n spoke very matter of factly , making Nikki just nod in agreement since this was probably the most conversation anyone had got out of Y/n since she arrived.

Tom had texted them all before hand, with the very unspecific message of ‘please don’t mention anything she’s just been ill and stressed’ and followed up with ‘I really mean it.’ Unsurprisingly, everyone had lots of questions given the ambiguity of the message, however these were all answered as soon as the door had opened to the couple. So dinner went down quieter than normal, everyone noticing how protective Tom was being of Y/n - who never ever normally needed protection, (in fact sometimes the other way round).

So Nikki and Y/n stood side by side, silently washing up. They must’ve stood that way for 10 or so minutes, Nikki hesitant to say something that was wrong, but desperately wanting to break the silence. But Y/n took that job out of your hands.

“How did you find out you were pregnant with Tom?”

“Oh god now your making me think” Nikki laughed, suddenly so relieved at an easy topic “um I think it was a bit of a shock you know? We had spoken about kids but weren’t actively trying for one and then all of a sudden I was sick and took a test.”

“So Dom was happy about it though?”

“Of course he was over the bloody moon. The man was meant to be a dad you know? At least I think he’s pretty good at it.” Y/n giggled lightly at the question and nodded vehemently.

“Yeh he is… I think all your boys are - when I brought my cousins.” Y/n smiled a little at the memory of bringing her two toddler cousins round to Tom’s family home. Safe to say that day the kids were spoilt with attention and food and had all the boys wrapped round there little fingers.

“You might just be right there. Are you and Tom trying?” Nikki probed, testing the waters a little.

“No.” Y/n closed that thought path down very very quickly. “I er… I was just wondering.”

“Sorry I didn’t mean to-“

“No no it’s fine.”

Back to the silence of the washing up, the occasional clink of ceramics and culterlry clanging together reverberating through the otherwise empty kitchen.

“So you never had….um any issues with kids. No…er no losses or scares?”

Nikki suddenly had a much better guess at what this whole situation was about.

“One…. I lost a baby girl between the twins and Paddy. It-it hurt a lot and you know I still wonder sometimes. We just never had a little girl and it well, it would have been amazing… but I’m a firm believer of everything happens and if we never had that angel we maybe wouldn’t have Pads…”

“I’m sorry” Y/n muttered, Nikki noticing how her eyes were absolutely fixed on the frying pan she was drying up.

“I don’t mind love, and I think she’s still with us in her own special way you know.” Nikki studied how Y/n silently nodded, thinking it were going to drift back to silence - yet instead she gulped before speaking.

“I don’t think I want kids now. I do- but not right now. Just Tom’s still so busy and we aren’t married but-“ Y/n’s pace of talking suddenly dramatically picked up and Nikki could hear a wobble in her voice “but… no-one does the sort of nuclear family anymore do they? I mean suppose I did want that and-…. I don’t know but it would’ve worked out right?Like-like if I… if we um“

“Y/n love, please I just need to ask because I care about you… Did you loose a pregnancy?” Nikki hit the metaphorical hole in one. Although she was pretty certain before she’d even asked, the way Y/n froze and fear took over her expression said it all.

“I-“ Y/n stammered before forcing a controlled breath out through her nose, still looking down, now on the cutlery drying process. “I- yeh. I couldn’t do it and they-“ Nikki interrupted her, the tears brimming to such an extent the started escaping over Y/n’s eyelashes as Nikki took both the tea towel and forks out her hand.

“Come with me.” Nikki whispered in Y/n’s ear, directing her out the kitchen - leading Y/n’s small frame into Dom’s office, mainly because it was the opposite side of the house to where everyone else was.

She got Y/n sat down on the small striped sofa and joined her after retrieving a box of tissues from the window sill. At this point Y/n was properly crying, no matter how much she tried to swallow back her feelings or wipe away her tears with shaking hands. Nikki read the girl like a book, watching her try to bite back the pain.

“Love, you take a breath and then tell me what you want to.” Y/n was the one that brought up the topic, Y/n was the one that searched Nikki out that evening. Nikki knew she needed to get this off her chest.

“I found out just after Tom left for Atlanta and-and I was… I was pretty late anyway at that point, I think like …like 9 weeks they said? And I was terrified because we weren’t ready and Tom said he wanted kids in the future but not now and then…then they happened. I hated them at the start. They’d ruined my life I’d have to quit work because lets face it Tom just wouldn’t be around and then…. But-but I don’t know… I was waiting till Tom was supposed to get back. Cos then I’d have the scan picture and you sort of can’t say ‘I’m pregnant’ over the phone so. So yeh.” Nikki nodded, squeezing Y/n’s had gently, encouraging her to continue. “But then I had the scan and they had a heartbeat you know? Suddenly I was so in love with the little blob in my stomach and I was like it will all work out, because it just would and-and Tom-“Her voice cracked again, Y/n bit back the sob though and continued “Tom would be the best dad anyone could ever imagine.” Nikki exhaled heavily, pulling Y/n into her chest as she cried a bit more. Giving her a chance to ground herself again. It took a moment or two but then Nikki pressed a little again.

“He doesn’t know about any of this… does he?” Nikki knew this was something more than just telling her almost mother-in-law. This was Y/n telling someone , anyone, else for the first time. Speaking the words the first time. Making it hurt all over again. The answer wasn’t really needed, but Y/n still shook her head against Nikki’s shoulder, confirming her suspicions.

And then Nikki waited, waited for her to speak again.

“And then it was two weeks ago and I-I was 14 weeks. I had a bump and everything! But I was at dinner with my friend and I got this horrid pain in my stomach. And I knew it. I knew I….I had wished my baby away for weeks and weeks and they’d given up. I ran home and bled my baby away into the drain. And…..” She took a shaky breath, attempting to steady herself. “And I I was grieving I think? Well I think I still am. But I couldn’t eat and it was just like I didn’t do enough for them? So-so I was supposed to be getting my life sorted and you know getting over it this week before Tom came back. But then he came home last night and I-I had a migraine so I didn’t notice him until this morning. He-he was never supposed to see me like-like this! So-so I shouted at him, I was really mean. Really really horrid to him which is stupid because I love him so much and….and I killed his baby.” Y/n’s voice was raised as it also got more fragile - completely synchronised with Y/n herself, who looked like she was going to crack and break at any point.

It was important that she went through the whole story. It was important the Nikki just listened as she recounted the traumatic, vulnerable and oh so personal loss she’d gone through. It was important she let it out into the world for the first time.

“Y/n… look… these things just happens sometimes right? It’s no ones fault and… I know that the day you are blessed with a little baby you will be an incredible mother. I’d love to say I could somehow make you feel better but I’m not sure I can… when this sort of thing happened to me I needed Dom. He held me together and then picked up the pieces and - well we slowly put them back together. So you know why I can’t really help, don’t you?” Y/n sniffed, her eyes closed, but eventually after letting Nikki let silence in the air she nodded minutely. Nikki squeezed her palms tightly, as she looked at the girl with such deep empathy and sympathy. She could only imagine how traumatic it must be tp have this happen with your first child - especially without anyone else to lean on.

“Because you’re not Tom?” With an agreeing nod, Nikki stood up , withdrawing her hands from Y/n’s grip; rubbed up and down Y/n’s back before finally offering a plan.

“Look, I’ll go get him and you tell him what you told me okay? He loves you and he’s worried.”

After a little more comvinving and encouragement, Y/n steeled her nerve as Nikki fetched Tom. The two woman had agreed that the couple would just go back to their home, where Y/n, in her own space would tell Tom. Here she didn’t feel as if she could - this was unequal territory, this was Tom’s childhood home. Nikki knew that this fact would really be irrelevant - it only mattered if the couple somehow called it quits… and she knew without doubt that’d never happen.

///////////////////////////

Tom walked in quietly, clearly having been briefed that something was going on, taking notice of the tear tracks Y/n’d tried to wipe away and just how small and vulnerable she looked. Wordlessly, Tom crouched in front of her, his deep brown eyes swimming with warmth as they met hers.

“Mum said you wanted to go home… is that still okay?” She nodded jerkily in agreement, wiping her eyes once again before taking Tom’s hand as he guided her to stand. Nikki gave her a sad smile as her son led the two of them out the room and forward the front door.

It was hard- no doubt- but she had absolute faith in the relationship between the two.

They’d be okay.

Tagging people who were interested : @vanillanestor @thevelvetseries @333dolans

[trellanyx]

Dark!Stolas AU

I started to send a prompt to @vizowrites​ after reading the latest installment of her Dark!Stolas AU, then realized I wanted to write it instead. lol This is meant to be a direct sequel to Where You Belong. Thanks for letting me play in the sandbox for a bit bb!

Fic Warnings: This is an AU where Blitzo does not want to have sex with Stolas, and only does so in order to have continued access to the grimoire. Stolas has no qualms about using this leverage to keep Blitzo in line, or ignoring Blitzo’s boundaries. Nothing sexual happens in this fic, but if you don’t like reading fics based off this premise, this isn’t for you. Like the title says, Stolas is not a good person here.

“And you,” Stolas said, his gaze flashing back to Striker with a near break-neck speed, flashing in a surge of barely contained power that still seemed to simmer just beneath the surface. “While I admire that terribly forceful nature of yours, I highly suggest that you remember just to whom you are speaking. And just to whom you owe your continued opportunities that keep your schedules oh so busy. Which reminds me, darling Blitzy….bring the book with you to our next meeting.”

“Blitzy! There you are, darling.”

Regrettably, Blitzo thought. He placed the book on its usual place on the nightstand and shucked off his coat. Stolas loved it when his favorite toy showed such ‘enthusiasm’, not noticing, or perhaps not caring, that Blitzo’s only motivation was to get the night over with as quickly as possible.

He didn’t know which option was worse.

“Look, can we skip the roleplay tonight? My back has been bitching at me all day.”

Stolas giggled. “Ah yes. Isn’t that post-coital ache just delightful? I know my best mornings always happen when I can’t walk straight.”

Blitzo rolled his eyes. In the beginning, he’d respond to comments like that with something along the lines of, “I hear a good ass whooping produces the same result”, but Stolas always interpreted those retorts as encouragement, and Blitzo eventually stopped bothering. He nodded to where Stolas was decadently sprawled along a twilight-violet chaise. “That the spot you’ve decided on?”

“As thrilling as it is to be the center of such undivided attention,” purred Stolas, “I’d actually prefer we take things slower tonight. It feels like ages since we’ve had the chance to simply…talk.” Stolas’s eyes gleamed scarlet, all four of them pinned directly on Blitzo. “Given both of our busy schedules, after all.”

Blitzo stiffened, feeling his stomach shrivel with a sudden chill of terror.

“Stolas--”

“Sit, please,” said the prince, waving a hand at a matching armchair Blitzo knew hadn’t been there a moment ago. “I’m as eager to receive your glorious cock as you are to give it to me, but another need must be satisfied first.”

The words tumbled out of Blitzo so quickly they nearly slurred together. “If this is about what happened at the office, I swear--”

“I said sit.”

Blitzo’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click. He power-walked to the chair, unwilling to risk finding out what Stolas might do if he thought Blitzo was taking too long. But Stolas only giggled again, as if seeing Blitzo so flustered was cute.

“Though since you bring it up, I would like to discuss what happened when I last tried to visit you. I fear there may be some…misunderstanding among your employees about just what our relationship is like, Blitzy.”

“We don’t have a relationship, Stolas,” snapped Blitzo. “We have an arrangement. I fuck you, you don’t fuck over my business. Cut and fucking dry.”

Stolas clucked his tongue. “Blitzy, we are lovers. You could at least try to put in a little romantic effort outside the bedroom.”

Blitzo bared his teeth. “I’m plenty romantic,” he said, in a moment of reckless defiance. “Just not with you.”

Stolas blinked, and Blitzo nearly bit through his own tongue. He did not, however, take back the words. He was engaged now, for fuck’s sake. And the memory of his fiancé almost spitting in the eyes of demon royalty was enough to give Blitzo just enough courage to wipe out his remaining fucks.

You wanna talk, bitch? Fine. Let’s talk.

Stolas tapped a claw against his thigh. “Are you now?” he asked, terribly soft. Blitzo opened his mouth to snarl back, but it hung open when Stolas suddenly beamed and said, “Why Blitzy, that’s wonderful!”

“….It is?”

“Of course!” trilled Stolas. “I’m so happy to hear there are other paramours in your life! Not surprised, of course, my dear little imp. Who could possibly resist such a beautiful and wickedly talented creature like yourself?” He laughed gaily. “I wondered why that fiery little fellow seemed so testy last we met. Jealousy, hm?” Stolas gave a sage little hoot. “I understand, Blitzy. Love makes fools of us all.”

Blitzo couldn’t help but laugh incredulously. “Striker, jealous of you? Listen bitch--”

“Blitzy, darling, it’s alright,” Stolas soothed. “I understand.”

Blitzo raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Do ya now?

“It’s not the first time I’ve been threatened over our little courtship,” said Stolas, still smiling. “At least he didn’t throw something at me! Poor Seymour,” he sighed. “Two centuries of care, gone in a blink and a crash. Fortunately my reflexes are better than my wife’s aim!”

“…Am I on drugs?” Blitzo wondered. “Is Verosika about to pop out with a horse head or somethin’? ‘Cause I’m not gonna lie, that’d actually be a pretty sweet upgrade for her.”

“Silly imp,” giggled Stolas. “Well! Now that that little bit of unpleasantness has been cleared up, I say we move on to more enjoyable activities. How about some refreshments before we start?”

Blitzo withheld a groan. Feeding each other was one of Stolas’s favorite forms of foreplay. He’d constantly nip at or suck on Blitzo’s fingers, to say nothing of how often he’d pretend to feed Blitzo a strawberry or something before replacing it with his mouth at the last second. But if it got Stolas to stop asking questions about his and Striker’s relationship, Blitzo was up for anything.

“Just no strawberries, okay? Last time they made me break out in hives.”

“Alas, tonight I’m simply thirsty.” Stolas pulled a silver bell from his robe and gave it a dainty ring. Then he winked at Blitzo and added, “Of course, that’s always my mood when you’re on my mind.”

A servant imp appeared almost instantaneously, carrying a tray with two shimmering glasses of wine.

“I really do feel much better now,” said Stolas, taking his glass.

��Good for you,” deadpanned Blitzo as the servant turned his way. “Now can we get on with--”

CRASH!

“FUCK!” Blitzo scrambled backward, tripping over the arm of the chair and falling onto the floor. His claws scratched the tile as he scooted backwards on his ass, away from the servant who was now a solid block of stone. Blitzo’s wineglass was shattered on the ground. Why…why did it look like the exact shade of blood?

Stolas took a long, indulgent sip of his own wine. “Wiggles, this is Blitzy. Blitzy, Wiggles.”

“Stolas, what the fuck?!”

“Wiggles hasn’t been with me as long as Seymour was,” Stolas continued, not needing to raise his voice to talk over Blitzo’s panicked yelling. “I daresay Wiggles isn’t even his name, but that’s neither here nor there.”

The prince unfolded his unnaturally long legs and walked around the statue of Wiggles. “He’s a good servant, as far as imps go. Obedient, polite, deferential…he knows his place in the world and is content with it. Like Seymour was.” Stolas placed a hand on the top of Wiggles’s stone head. “And like Seymour…”

Blitzo realized what was coming a split second too late. “DON’T--!”

Stolas lightly pushed, and Wiggles fell forward. There was a sick crack when the statue hit the ground, and Blitzo watched in horror as Wiggles’s now detached head lay face-first in the puddle of wine. Stolas waved his hand, and the rest of the body crumbled into dust and rubble.

“Gone in a blink and a crash,” finished Stolas.

There was no flirting or good-natured silliness to Stolas now. He stared down at Blitzo with cold disappointment. Blitzo barely dared to breathe, let alone move.

“Let’s not forget what our actual roles are, my precious little imp,” murmured Stolas. “You are exceedingly good at what you can do with your body, and because of that, I allow your little family venture to succeed. Every time you rendezvous with the world above, you pay your way with my magic. Your daughter sleeps under a roof built from my generosity. Your lover fucks you in a bed gifted by my mercy. I could rip everything away from you, Blitzo. Everything you’ve ever touched. I wouldn’t even have to leave this room.”

Stolas knelt down, ignoring the way Blitzo flinched back. “But I don’t do that, darling. Because I love you. You’ve brought excitement and joy back into my world the likes of which I haven’t felt since my daughter was born. Of all my collections and all of my toys, you are my favorite.”

A crimson glow slowly bled into existence until it outlined Stolas’s entire body. Blitzo couldn’t look away from him, and wasn’t entirely sure that Stolas wasn’t making that possible. The air seemed to constrict around him, making his temples pound and his nose bleed.

“What you do with your time is your own business, Blitzo. But when I call on you, full moon or not, I expect you to answer,” whispered Stolas. The use of Blitzo’s full name stung him like a brand. “When I ask for privacy, I expect to not be interrupted. Above all, I expect you to make sure your associates know their place around us – and mind it. Do you understand?”

Blitzo jerked his head in as much of a nod as he could manage.

“They may hiss and spit all they like, but they will stay out of our way. Else I will remove them myself, and I will make you watch. Do you understand?”

Another nod.

“Say it, Blitzy.”

“…I understand,” said Blitzo through gritted teeth. The moment he did, the air returned to normal, leaving Blitzo gasping for air like a drowning man. Stolas finished his wine, and looked out the balcony window behind Blitzo.

“Ah! And there’s the moon. What a beautiful sight – not as lovely as you, of course.” Stolas cupped Blitzo’s cheek, looking at him with a familiar expression of lust. “Come darling,” he purred. “The night is still young, after all.”

[hellowkatey]

Febuwhump Day 16

Prompt: Broken bones

Warnings: some parts are a bit graphic! 

Read on AO3

Care, Trust, and the Force (of course)

The battle was going quite well until Anakin managed to fall off a cliff. It was a rather tall cliff, which is probably why he heard a chorus of yelling from his men as he slipped over the edge and began to plummet to the rocky terrain below, but luckily, Anakin had the quick thinking to use the Force to push himself to a small ledge. Only a few meters down.

Still, he lands hard, his body slamming like a rag doll into the cliffside. He manages to roll, but not before a loud cracking sound rings out like a cannon shot, and Anakin cries out.

Oh boy, I've done it now, he thinks as he lies haphazardly on his side. His arm is tucked underneath him, but he can feel his hand against his elbow of the same arm-- that is definitely not the direction his arm should be. Anakin squeezes his eyes shut, tears soaking through as the sharp pain pulsates up his arm. He hasn't felt this kind of pain in a long time, and the adrenaline of his fall is making it hard to connect to the Force to suppress it. So he lays for a moment, breathing heavily and slowly to try and calm himself down.

I need to get help. Call Obi-Wan... Commlink! He suddenly remembers it on his uninjured arm and raises it to his lips.

"Obi-Wan, come in," he says, his voice tight with pain.

"Anakin? What's wrong?" he replies immediately, the echo of blaster fire in the background.

"I fell... Pretty bad."

A pause. The sound of droids getting absolutely obliterated. Obi-Wan is back, his voice low and calm. His sick voice, Anakin recognizes. Whenever he was ill as a padawan, Obi-Wan's voice would get really quiet and really calm, halfway between a constant lullaby and the tempo of a mind-healer. Like it did back then, it immediately soothes him. It'll be okay. Obi-Wan will help. "Okay, Anakin, turn on your tracking beacon and I'll come get you."

"Okay, Master," he swallows thickly.

"Anakin?"

"Yes?"

"Can you tell me how bad it is? What is hurt?"

He does a quick assessment. He doesn't think he hurt anything else too bad. Maybe a mild concussion from the whiplash of landing so abruptly, and definitely some cuts and bruises pretty much everywhere. But the arm... that's what has his stomach turning.

"Broken arm. Bad broken." The kind with the bone sticking out. He nearly vomits at the thought.

Anakin was eight when he watched the owner of his good friend barge into their lunchtime and begin to beat him. The slaver was convinced Jas had stolen from him, though Anakin had watched a traveler steal the compressor bolt when he came over to pick up his friend. Trying to defend him only earned Anakin a blow to the side of the head that had the world spinning, and he laid on the ground and watched helplessly as the owner took Jas's arm and snapped it in two. His friend screamed, so loud others ran into the shop. They only watched as he collapsed, squirming in the sand as it quickly turned red around him. Someone had the sense to pick him up and throw him into the street. Yelled at him to go back to work. When he showed up back at Watto's, unable to go two minutes without sobbing, Watto had a rare moment of mercy and let him go early.

Anakin dreamed about the incident that night and many nights after. Dreamed about the stark white bones sticking out of his friend's arm. Pointed, like they'd been sharpened like a blade.

He learned the next day that the way the bones broke severed his vessels. Jas bled out on the floor of his master's shop, and his master kept the stain there as long as it remained to warn others of the consequences of stealing. Ever since Anakin hasn't been very good about broken bones.

Obi-Wan knows this. "Alright," he says, even softer. "I'm coming, Anakin."

He lowers his arm back onto his hip, realizing his entire body is quivering. Anakin feels like a kid again. A padawan. A slave on Tatooine. Anything but a Jedi Knight in the middle of battle. But he doesn't care right now. He's in too much pain to fight, too far down to Force-leap back up even if he had the strength to manage it. He would need a proper evac, but his energy is waning and he just wants to sleep it off.

"No time for sleep, young one." Obi-Wan's voice surprises him, and he nearly jumps up at the sound. He hadn't heard him jump from atop the cliff or land next to him.

"Obi-Wan," he says tearfully, curling in on himself even more.

His former master approaches him slowly, his eyes scanning over him with an emotionless expression. It must be bad, he isn't saying anything... Finally, he kneels next to him, placing a hand softly on his shoulder.

"Alright, we're going to sit you up."

"But my arm--"

"I know. Trust me. You don't have to look, but I need to check it."

He nods, biting on the skin of his cheek. Obi-Wan helps him roll to a sitting position, positioning him so he's sitting with his back against the cliffside. He immediately shuts his eyes, turning his head in the opposite direction. He will take no chances of having to see such a gruesome sight. But he can feel Obi-Wan doing the usual checks. Ribs, brushing dust off his cheek, straightening his legs out. It's methodical, soothing. It takes his mind off the pain that continues to radiate up his arm and shoulder.

"Anakin," he finally says. "Open your eyes."

Panic surges through him.

"Master, no, you know I can't."

"I know you're afraid--"

"I can't."

A hand on his cheek. Another on his shoulder. "Trust me. It's not what you think."

Feelings of calm and peace are being filtered through the Force, and Anakin fights back the sob and slowly opens his eyes. He sees the horizon first, the side of the planet not affected by the war because it's too mountainous. Slowly, as slow as he can, he pans toward Obi-Wan, who kneels at his side, looking at him with clear eyes and a slight smile.

"It hurts," he says, deliberately keeping his arm out of his peripheral.

"I know, but it will hurt less once you look."

Well, that doesn't make sense! But Obi-Wan's eyes are saying trust me, and so he does. Anakin looks down at his arm, expecting the worst, but rather than a mangled mess of bone blood, and skin, he sees an entanglement of metal and wires, his prosthetic half torn off. He blinks, stupefied.

"But... but it hurts," he says as he reaches over timidly to feel the edges of the durasteel that have snapped clean off. The stump of his arm is tender, and a little beat up, but otherwise uninjured. "Why does it hurt?"

Obi-Wan slides over to his side, sitting next to him with his back against the cliff. "You haven't had this long. Your brain needs more time to remember there isn't an arm there anymore," he carefully pushes aside the broken prosthetic on the hinge it now has, placing his own arm underneath so that at his perspective it sorta looks like he has a real, flesh forearm and hand there. "Flex your fingers on the other hand," he says, and as Anakin does, Obi-Wan mirrors him. Shockingly, the pain fades, becoming more of a dull ache from landing hard on the rock than the horrible agony of a broken arm. "See?"

He feels dumb now. His tears of pain become tears of shame, and he pulls his arm away, dragging the prosthetic across Obi-Wan's lap. "I'm sorry," he mutters.

"For what?"

"I pulled you out of battle! Acted like a little kid and I'm not even that hurt!"

"Anakin," he says softly, still in that damned sick voice. "The pain was real. It was going to feel real until you could see it was not, and I knew you weren't going to look," he looks down at the ground. "Understandably so. There was little I could do to help you on Geonosis, so I am happy to be here to help you now."

He looks him through his teary vision. He never blamed Obi-Wan for his arm, but he suddenly realizes maybe Obi-Wan blames himself.

Losing his arm was a shock, but Padmé has helped him a lot with accepting it as it is. Technology is so good the only thing he's really lost are the more sensitive aspects of his sense of touch, but he still has his other hand for such things. Sometimes he even forgets he has the thing... obviously. But did notice that Obi-Wan always seemed wary of the thing. For a while he thought he was disgusted by it or something but... if he felt guilty for some reason...

They sit in silence for a long moment. Long enough that two comms with nonurgent codes come into Obi-Wan's commlink but he silences them.

"How did you know that would help?" he asks when his tears finally dry up and they hear the distant sound of gunships overpowering the little blaster fire that remains.

"Research. I wanted to know what to possibly expect after you got your prosthesis. How to get you back to as normal as possible as quickly as possible," he says softly, looking off into the distance as though he's embarrassed. But it makes Anakin smile and a feeling of warmth. He can just imagine him spending hours in the archives trying to make heads or tails of medical literature. Force forbid, he may have even gone to the Halls of Healing to ask for advice, which is unheard of for him to do on his own fruition. It's all just... the most Obi-Wan thing he's ever heard.

"Well... thank you, Master. Really," he says. The rattle of an approaching gunship comes from around the corner of the cliff. Rex stands in the open end, pointing in their direction. "I'll try not to forget I already lost this hand next time."

A chuckle. Obi-Wan jumps to his feet while rolling his eyes. He holds out his hand to help Anakin up as well. "I do hope there won't be a next time."

[kitkat1003]

Oh it would be so Sweet, if I could be Cruel

Being King isn’t easy.  Being kind to those who’ve hurt you when you’re King is much, much harder.

Or: After the Wishing Star, and after Yakko is made King,-with co-rulers Wakko and Dot-he is put in charge of weeding out Salazar’s supporters from the kingdom.  That means confronting people he’d rather not.

Warnings: Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Dark thoughts and themes.

@asilcorner :)

From rags to riches, one might say.  Yakko remembers, after the wishing star, when they were told that they were of royal blood.  He knew it already, knew that they were special, because he remembers the castle walls.  Remembers the crack just beneath one brick that he’d feel when he ran down the hallway and let his fingers skid across its surface.  Remembers the royal colors.  Remembers his parents’ smiling faces that mirror the portrait that is all that is left of them.

Remembers fire, and screaming, and his parents finding a secure closet and locking them in there, shushing Dot as she cried, placing a kiss on each of their heads, faces smiling and yet looking so sad.

Take care of your little siblings, they’d said.  They need you.  We love you.

And Yakko had only remembered that last part, for a long time, and had stuck to it.  

He sometimes remembers Salazar’s guards, ripping him and his siblings from the closet, the blood on stone as they were dragged, screaming, to the throne room.  How he’d clutched Wakko and Dot close, curling his body around them like a shield as they wailed, shushing them and trembling as Salazar looked down upon them as if they were less than nothing, dried blood caked under his fingernails, with familiar black fur, before throwing them in a carriage and having them taken far, far away from Home.

He had kept his siblings away from danger at the orphanage, from unruly orphans or cruel adoptees, and then he did odd jobs to pay for food when the orphanage shut down.  No one would adopt them, no one wanted to take in three children at once, and they all refused to be separated.

Yakko had, once, entertained the idea of letting a couple who only wanted two children take Wakko and Dot, because then at least they would have a home.  He decided against it when he realized that would mean he wouldn’t be able to be sure that they were okay.

And the orphanage had closed down, and Yakko had dealt with it.  He’d let Dot and Wakko play and be kids-though they never did, not really, too busy making the house clean and making sure Yakko came home to a warm meal and bed after work-while he did the work.

And then Dot got sick.  And then the economy dried up, as the tax collector took more and more from the people, and Yakko couldn’t get a penny.  They saved, he sold what meager things he had.  Cut off the extra fabric and turned his overalls into pants-they were the last thing he had from Mom and Dad, but they told him to take care of his siblings, and dammit he’s doing his best-, used the extra pieces to fix Wakko’s hat when it tore and he cried, and sold the rest for scarves, because it’s getting cold.  His glove tears, and he desperately wants to buy a new one, because it’s a cardinal sin to have a glove like his, but there’s no room in the budget.  So he deals.  Dot is sick, Wakko can’t handle not having food for too long-he nearly died not eating enough, and it wasn’t just starvation, so Yakko makes sure Wakko gets bigger portions and deals with the hunger pangs in the dead of night when they’re asleep and can’t hear him groan-Yakko can deal with a ripped glove.  It’s fine.

And Dot gets worse, and Wakko leaves.  Goes off on an adventure to get money.  Works for a year to get a penny, a hay penny that is just enough to make Dot well, and Plotz, the tax payer, makes up taxes and takes it to add to his pile, and Dot suffers more.

And Yakko had nearly broke, when Wakko left.  Because he couldn’t be sure, couldn’t know Wakko was safe, could only make promises that felt like lies to Dot and hope, and hope, that Wakko was fine and happy and healthy.  They don’t have enough money for postage, can’t send letter, so Yakko doesn’t hear from his brother for a year, and it’s all for naught in the end, because of cruelty he should have known to expect.

And Wakko blames himself, too.  Yakko has to hear his younger brother apologize for not working more, for not bringing more money home after a year’s worth of work, and Yakko’s heart aches.  The cheer he tries to impart in his younger sibling then doesn’t stick, and the despair clings as he comes home and sees Wakko playing on the strings of a makeshift harp.

And then the wishing star happens.  His siblings almost die more than once, he thinks he’s lost them both too many times, and it is a miracle that everything goes right, that Dot gets better and they have money and food and soon a castle and kingdom.

Yakko asks, one day, what exactly Wakko wished for.  Because despite the fact that Wakko showed off the two hay pennies, they never actually heard what it was that Wakko wished for.

“I wished that everyone would get what they deserved.  What they needed,” Wakko had told him.  “Figured that was vague enough to give me plenty, and the townsfolk deserved something too.  They were hurting just like us, that’s why they tried to beat us there.”

Yakko marvels at the empathy within a single child, but he loves his brother more than life itself, and the truth only cements that fact further.

But now he’s King, and now, while Dot and Wakko decide what paintings and random knickknacks to get rid of from Salazar’s time, he has to go through all of the people who enforced Salazar’s laws and make sure they won’t start an uprising.  Brain is an advisor, and he’s quite harsh.  He says that Yakko should lock them up, Yakko wants to the let them try and take the new home from him, see what happens, now that he has a taste of something better than abandoned orphanages and stale meals.  

They settle on making the guard and any who worked for Salazar to swear loyalty to the Warners-however awkward the process is-and have more trusted people put in battalions with those less trustworthy to try and stymie an uprising.

His authority is shaky, and he and his co-rulers are young and inexperienced.  But they have lived through enough to have knowledge of what the people need, and with the true rulers on the throne the other countries are opening up trade routes, so prosperity is returning to the Kingdom.

So long as their people are happy, and everyone is taken care of, Yakko can almost believe they’ll be okay.

But now he sees Plotz, kneeling in front of him as the next person to be judged by him, and he wants, so, so terribly, to be a cruel King.  He can feel the distaste, not just from him, but from Brain, of the cruel tax collector hanging in the air, and he can see Plotz sweat.

He thinks, good.  Let him sweat, let him feel fear when he looks at the kid who he was all than happy to take money from, now as his King.

“Thaddeus Plotz,” He says.  “Plotzy,” He amends, grinning.  It feels strained.  The bored and relaxed air in the throne room vanishes into something still and tense, and his grip on the throne’s armrest tightens-he has fixed gloves now, but he still expects to see a flash of black when he looks down at his hands.  Nothing here feels real, yet.  He expects to wake up in a shack, to the sound of Dot’s worsening cough, and this man is part of the reason for it.

“Y-Your majesty,” Plotz says.  Not repentant, but nervous.  Flattering.  The fact that he thinks he can say sweet things and get away with what he’s done makes Yakko’s blood boil.

“I know you will swear your loyalty to the crown,” Yakko starts.  “Because you will follow anyone you know is more powerful than you to make sure you stay safe and comfortable.  That isn’t the issue here,” Brain raises a brow, and he looks as if he wants to speak, but he takes one look at Yakko’s face and decides against it.

“Do you know what you did, to our town?” he asks, because he wants to know what Plotz would have to say.  “When you bled us dry to feed yourself?  That’s almost forgivable,” Plotz opens his mouth to say something, but Yakko raises a hand.  “You had to take taxes, it’s the law, and Salazar was not a kind King.  Whether or not you took joy out of it is irrelevant.  I could forgive you, even, for trying to kill us, because it was under Salazar’s orders, and I saw how he would punish you.  See, the only thing that makes me reticent to let you off scott free is...a hay penny.”

Plotz looks pale.  Good.

“Wakko worked for a year to get that penny.  A year.  While you sat and ate good food in a warm house, as my sister slowly got worse and worse, Wakko worked for a single hay penny.  He came back with it to pay for the operation that would save Dot’s life.  And, the moment you heard of it, you made up taxes to take it from him,” And Yakko remembers the despair, how the whole town deflated.  Remembers hearing Dot cough and wondering if he should try for a heist, to steal it back, because she wouldn’t make it otherwise.

“Tell me, Plotzy, did you know what that hay penny was for?” he asks.  Plotz shakes his head.  “Would you have cared?  Hardly.  Would you have cared when I laid my sister to rest?  When I buried her, because she never got better?  Because you took the money we needed to make her better?  Would you have cared then?”

He gets no reply, for a moment.

“I-um-your Majesty-I,” Plotz stammers out, but the fury that Yakko has felt for years comes to a head then and there.

“I could have you executed in the town square, and no one would feel bad for you.  You’re a cruel person, you only care for yourself, and you would have let the whole town die if it meant you had a warm house and plenty of money to hoard,” He spits the words with vitriol.  

Plotz flinches.  

He can see the guards are shocked, as is the Brain.  Before now, Yakko had just sort of waved off the people who had been tasked with enforcing the laws of the old King.  And, well, before now, Yakko hadn’t felt anything because no one who’d entered had been personally cruel to them.  To his family.

He wrestles with the desire to make Plotz suffer.  He’s the King, he could.  No one would blame him, either.  It might even discourage dissenters of his rule to try anything, to see what Yakko will do to those who are bad to his people, his family.  And yet, he can’t find it in himself to.

“But, hey, the past is the past, huh?  That’s what this whole shindig is about,” The abrupt change of tone is startling to everyone, but Yakko moves on as if it’s nothing.  “You’re fired from your position, obviously.  You will be stripped of all of the riches you took from the townspeople,” He continues, and then winks.  “Save for a single hay penny.  Seem fair?”

“Y-yes-of course, your majesty.  Thank you for your ever gracious mercy,” Plotz bows low enough that his nose brushes the floor, trembling, and Yakko rolls his eyes.

Plotz is escorted out.

“That’s enough for today.  I’m done,” He gets up, and the crown feels heavy on his head somehow, heavier than normal, and he walks to his room, face planting onto the bed with a sigh.

He needs a nap.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He wakes up when he feels the bed dip with the weight of his two siblings.  Flipping himself over, he puts on his best smile and sets his hands behind his head.

“Hey sibs, how was your day?” he asks, and they grin at him.

“We got to blow up a bunch of stuff,” Wakko says.

“All worthless.  Not stuff that could be sold.  Just Salazar’s royal portraits and other nonsense,” Dot assures him, as if she could already tell his train of thought.  “I’m surprised you didn’t hear the explosion.”

“Guess talking to all those guards really knocked me off of my feet,” Yakko replies with a shrug, and Dot gives him a look.

“Was it the guards or was it Plotz?” She sees straight through him, and the question stings.

“Brain mentioned it,” Wakko says.  “I don’t get why you were that mad.”

“He stole the hay penny,” Yakko says, through gritted teeth.  “He took the money you worked a year for, the money we were gonna use for Dot’s operation,” Just saying it brings back the fury, and his expression goes dark.

“Well, yeah, but I shouldn’t have let everyone know about it, or at least brought more than one back.  My bad,” Wakko shrugs, a little self conscious

“And that’s the issue!  You blame yourself!  Wakko, you went out at the age of 12 and worked for a year, you have no reason to be guilty,” Yakko sits up and stares right into Wakko’s eyes, dead serious as he points to Wakko.

“Exactly.  Plotz was clearly just looking for another bit of money to take from us,” Dot agrees.  Yakko turns away, looking down at his hands, clenching them into fists so they won’t shake.

“I wanted him to die,” Yakko admits.  “I wanted him to be as terrified as I was, when I thought you were going to die, and there would be nothing I could do to stop it,” Because it wasn’t fair, and it still isn’t, because even though he’s got everything he could ever want it doesn’t erase the years shivering in the cold because the wind would tear through the old planks of wood, the years of small serving sizes and pinching pennies and then pinching those pinches, for the most he could get from near nothing.  And Plotz made that worse, without a care in the world.

“But you’re better than that,” Dot leans against him, smiling up at him, and Yakko sighs, wrapping arm around hers and Wakko’s shoulders .

“Yes, unfortunately,” Yakko says with a dramatic sigh, hugging them close.  It’s easier to forget they were hurt when they’re like this, happy and loved and safe.

“You’re gonna be the best King ever,” Wakko’s as sincere as one can be, and when he looks up Yakko looks shocked.

“Don’t be so surprised!  If you can deal with that type of anger at 14, just imagine how good you’ll be at making decisions ten years from now!” Dot adds.

“And we’ll be here the whole time,” Wakko continues.  “Helping you out the whole way,” Yakko feels like his heart could burst, and he laughs.

“How’d I get so lucky with you two?” he asks, and Dot scoffs.

“Hey, you raised us!” She shoots back.  “This is all on you!”

And it is, Yakko knows.  The kingdom, the happiness of his people, it’s all on him, even as a 14 year old.  He doesn’t know how to handle it, all the responsibility.  He barely handled raising two kids.

He wonders if Mom and Dad would be proud.  When Dot was dying, he dreamed of their glares and disappointment, and no matter how many times he apologized, he was always a failure, and the dream would turn to blood and fire and he’d wake up with a silent scream on his lips, shaking.  But now, he thinks they might be proud, and it makes him smile more sincere than he has in years.

And his siblings are still here, beside him, and for once he can be sure they aren’t going anywhere, because they’re happy and healthy and safe.  And they’re only like that because Yakko did his best, and made it work, and had them helping him, too, just like they will be until the end of time.

And suddenly the weight doesn’t feel so heavy anymore.  Now, if only the crown would fit.

It’s fine, though.  He’s got plenty of time to grow into it.

[imnotwolverine]

The Monster’s Lair - A Belle Tune

Vampire!Henry x Belle - multi-chapter

Chapter 1 - A Belle Tune | Chap 2 >

Disclaimer: Dark adult fairytale - stalking, mild injury, angsty vibes

Author’s note: Here we go dear readers, a whole new series!! As I was setting out the plotline I kept saying to myself; “Let’s make this 3-5 chapters, a short series, okay, Wolfie?” ...Welp... Apparently I have many talents, but writing short series is not one of them. I’ve tried again and again to reshape the plot into a shorter, snappier version, but I just couldn’t. So, here goes; 12 chapters of broody vampire Henry and sweet Belle. I hope you are ready ❤️

Word count: 1.991

Reading music: Agnes Obel - Tokka 

(Link to my Masterlist)

-

It was the first day of Autumn, summer finally past, as a tale of old was sung anew.

The land was cracked open dry and dusty after months without rain, the crops starting to fail just before harvest season. It made the tensions run high amongst the town folk, their worried eyes aiming upwards. The air had been thick for days now, the clouds drifting heavy and grey on dreary skies, foreboding a long awaited storm that just wouldn’t break.

And yet, not all were worried. At this moment the morning air felt slightly cheery too, as a soft tune wove through the ancient pine tree forest that lay like a prickly blanket over the rolling hills. 

It was a familiar tune, sung by a familiar woman’s voice, her pale skin and dark braided hair a sight he saw often in these parts of the land. Before her, two mutts sniffled happily, their wet noses pushing through the fallen leaves and shrubs that covered the dry forest floor. 

From the shadows of that same thicket, he was watching her, watching her rosy lips curl up in that dreamy smile, her feet kicking her blue skirts with confident strides.

Belle, he knew her name by now, was one of the few who dared to wander so close to his grounds, his domain, her skirts rustling as she conjured a book from the depths of her pockets. Always reading. 

At first he had been somewhat surprised to see a woman of her position even owning a book, a proper book. Her father was but a poor horse handler and her family long deceased. 

But, indeed, she could read. 

With an elegant hand she brushed down her skirts before sitting down on that same fallen down tree that she used everyday; her hide-out whenever the weather allowed. Clicking her tongue she instructed her dogs to lay down, her hand flicking through the book, returning to the page where she had left off a day ago.

Away from the snarky remarks and jealous whispers of the town folk, here she could read as dawn cracked over the horizon, her presence welcomed by the listening embrace of the forest and its inhabitants. The birds quieted their song and the mice and squirrels halted their squabbling, just long enough to look and listen, bewitched beady eyes watching the pretty woman as she started to read aloud.

It was an old and leather bound rendering of Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche, an ancient fairy tale, the book nearly falling apart as she brushed her fingertips over the yellowed, vulnerable pages. She had read it a dozen times now, and yet the monster couldn’t help but listen, his lips moving in a silent joined recital. He knew the words by heart at this point.

What exactly she did by the day time he couldn’t tell, his disposition making it impossible for him to visit town when the sun was out. And thus he would just imagine it. Perhaps she worked as one of the chambermaids for the Les Comtes. Perhaps she helped her father in the stables - he had seen the old man during the nights many a time, his rough hands being ever so gentle with the handsome beasts that belonged to the Les Comtes. In fact all was owned by the Les Comtes, the family so rich that almost all villagers worked for their estate and businesses.  

Far too soon Belle’s voice would silence again, her finger tracing the page she had ended on, memorising it before gently closing the book, her eyes looking up through the thicket of the tree branches, watching those looming clouds up above. He knew what she thought; it was going to rain and she probably couldn’t return to this spot for a long time.

After the rain would come hail, winds, winter. And as it goes with reading outside, her natural reading nook was simply not able to hide her from the elements, and, with her reading hobby sneered at by the town’s folk, this might very well be her last reading session for this year.

With a sigh she got up, calling for her dogs and making her way back to the village, long skirts kicking, her book hidden back in the depths of her pockets. Oh, how he was going to miss her. Even if it was just for a day. Here in the forest he was awaited by an eternal nothingness. No job, no destination, only empty days that wove into a long string of months, years, centuries.

Returning to the crumbling ruins of his castle, the grande structure long past its glory days, he wandered endlessly through its halls, dust collecting on items that shouldn’t ever run into such disuse. Plates, cups, the fireplace, the beds. For centuries now he could not feel the pleasure of the simplicity of life. The food ashen on his tongue. His eyes, though closed, never truly resting. His skin no longer feeling the comfort of a warm hearth. His still beating heart but a mousy whisper of its once roaring strength.

Watching those heavy clouds above the treetops, he knew that it would be long before he would get to hear her voice again. A storm was looming, the long dry spell finally coming to an end and taking with it the long awaited rains. He knew it was a necessity, the listening critters around him feeling desperate for food now winter was soon to arrive, but he couldn’t help but feel a deep disappointment all the same. Because with the dreary days would come even more dark hours for him, the last sparkle of joy ripped from his life until spring would probably come again.  

—

‘Another one dead.’ The hunter growled, heaving the dead dog’s body from his cart, the boneless heap of bled out sinew and fur unceremoniously dropping to the dusty ground. With the ongoing drought, food has become more and more scarce. Crops were failing, wild animals were roaming nearer to the village and despite their best efforts, the hunters had great difficulty to actually catch anything. Something strange was afoot in the forest and rumour was about; it was the beast!

‘So no luck then.’ Arthur said in a hushed tone, his old knees cracking as he squatted down to inspect the remains of the hound. And indeed. Neck cracked, jugular torn, the required strength for such an act belonging to no less than a bear..or beast..of sorts.

‘Twas a mad dog anyways. But still..’ The hunter squinted, looking out over the yellow grassed meadows, to the edge of the forest where that monstrous beast hid away. ‘..we must see to it. The darn thing must be done with once and ..for..’ He blinked, then looked at Arthur with mild confusion. ‘Is that Belle?’ He pointed at a figure that appeared from the tree-line, two dogs at either side of her light blue skirts.

Arthur pushed himself up with a groan and also squinted his eyes, his sight no longer what it had been. ‘If it’s a pretty thing with two mutts, a dress of blue and a smile for days, it must be Belle.’ He said, his vision too blurry to discern anything that resembled his daughter. The hunter gruntled his disapproval, though not denying that it was indeed Belle, his strong, broad shouldered frame turning back to his cart to bring out what few rabbits and pheasants he had managed to catch in his traps. ‘You ought to bring some sense in that girl, Arthur..’ He warned, bushy eyebrows frowning as he looked back at the girl, her skirts twirling as she threw a stick for the dogs to fetch.

‘She is just so very much like her mother.’ Arthur sighed, not fully agreeing with the hunter’s sentiments as his lips curled in an amused smile.

‘Tcould be the death of her, old man. The beast is out there, I know that much. In fact. There’s a meeting in the town hall by sundown, in case you wish to join.’

‘Good..good...’ Arthur nodded, only half-listening now, his eyes finally managing to focus on Belle as she kicked her legs over the wood log fence near the stables he worked, her face all smiles and skirts a muddy mess.

Oh..Belle!

--

The shutters of the barn-like town hall shuddered, the wind outside picking up and the torch flames dancing wildly in the draft. It was a busy night, the floorboards creaking as the town’s men got up from their benches to express their bewilderment and frustrations, loud “Aye’s” and “Nays” echoing in the air as the discussions roared.

Now the food reserves of the town were running low and people had to ration, the tension was near tangible. Winter was coming and the people felt as restless as the storm that was picking up outside. The pigs needed to be fed, the elderly were struggling, sickness was spreading and all fingers pointed angrily at the direction of that wicked forest. The Beast’s forest.

‘Dear people! My people!’ Old Master Le Comte stood up from the throne-like seat that was situated right at the head of the hall, his fatty fingers balancing a shiny cup of wine. He raised his hand to calm the uproar, old furrowy brows raising up to show two grey, beady eyes. ‘Say AYE and agree, that we must see to the end of this beast for once and for all. He threatens our livestock, steals our hunted bounty and his cursed evil talons bring us only disease and misfortune. This drought? I would not be surprised if it were by HIS design!’ He exclaimed.

The town roared up with enthusiasm, fists raised in the air as a loud ‘AYE’ resounded front to back. In fact only the old man Arthur sat quiet, far in the corner, thinking fingers pulling at his moustache. He had discussed the matter with Belle and all she had to say was; “It is indeed quite practical to make a simple minded animal responsible for all your sorrows. But is it right to kill it because you conjured an image of beastly proportion, fed by your own fears? From what I heard he only has killed those who came too close..far too close.” 

‘HELP HELP!! The church! A FIRE!’ The large doors of the hall swung open as a young man burst through, arms waving in despair, the discussions regarding the monster quickly forgotten as everyone made haste to stop the flames as they quickly swept around them, the simple wooden structures of the inner town feeding themselves like perfectly dried logs to the hellish bonfire.  

Arthur looked up from his daze and slowly followed the hastened crowd outside, his feet no longer so fast as he felt a sudden, surprising coolness in his neck. A wet coolness. With a question in his eyes he looked up at the darkened sky, feeling another drop on his wrinkly skin. Rain? Did the gods bless them just in time? Would all be well?

A conclusion made prematurely, as a new alarm was struck from the village’s heart.

‘THE BEAST! TIS THE BEAST!’ The loud screams came from the village square, Arthur’s attention immediately drawn back to the people that sped past him. Oh no..oh no...BELLE! She was alone, she was..

*FLUNK*

With a loud thud Arthur smacked to the ground, his eyes blinking in shock as he saw the person who had bumped into him rush passed, the silhouette of the person already fading from his vision as all he could do was claw into the dusty road, eyes seeing all black.

Oh no...he thought, his body now fading out of consciousness. Belle! She must be warned! She was all alone! The beast..Oh Belle..the beast..and...Belle...

With heavy blinking eyes he scratched and cried, trying to gain the attention of people rushing by, but failing. None could hear or see him as the storm drowned out his wails and the night hid him in unblinking dark, leaving him with little else but hope, hope that Belle’s joyful tunes would indeed not be ended at the slashing of beastly claws, like the hunter had warned him for this morning.

Oh Belle, dear Belle..

--

Chap 2 >

--

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Vampire!Henry Tagsquad: @elinesama​ @i-cant-remember-my-old-login

If you want to be added to or removed from my tag lists, shoot me a message! 

[when-they-write-stuff]

Oh, Alpha of Mine for @staffofoppression

pairing: sterek

word count: 9.8k

warnings: minor violence, language

tags: full shift!werwolves and alpha!stiles stilinski

When the alpha came for him, it was at the library.

Stiles had always thought that when his time came it would either be because he ate too many curly fries, challenged Erica to an ‘all-stakes’ game of truth or dare, or accidentally got himself killed after pissing off a vengeful witch or something.

He always thought he’d either die in an idiotic or a heroic way. But dying at a library had never occurred to him. Stiles didn’t want his dad to find his body surrounded by chemistry books and empty water bottles, attempting to work through the homework that Harris had assigned to them weeks ago.

Though, Stiles really didn’t want his dad to find his body at all. But then he made the mistake of grabbing a stack of boring books, finding an isolated corner in the library, and then accidentally falling asleep.

When Stiles woke up again, the lights had gone off. It took him a long moment to realize that he’d slept straight through closing hours and clearly, the librarian hadn’t bothered to make sure no one was tucked away in one of the library’s corners.

Stiles blinked a few times and then groaned. He hadn’t gotten anything done. Harris was going to give him detention for a month at least.

He pulled his stuff together and moved around, putting the books back where he’d found them. Rubbing a hand over his face, Stiles slung his backpack over his shoulder and glanced around one more time, before shaking his head and starting out of the building.

Maybe he could get Lydia to hand over a few answers. She was the only person Stiles trusted with his grade after all.

The library parking lot was empty and silent. The moon was nearing full and Stiles shivered, tugging on the neckline of his sweatshirt. He was pretty sure he deserved to sleep through this entire coming weekend.

That’s when he heard the growl.

Stiles froze and whirled around, squinting against the darkness. He couldn’t make much out other than the shadows, but then one moved and he froze, staring at glowing red eyes that peered out at him. He chucked nervous, shifting from foot to foot.

“Derek? Okay, dude, you’re hilarious, so incredibly funny. Stop being a creeper and come out here, would you?”

For a moment, nothing moved. But the alpha did and it definitely wasn’t Derek.

Stiles froze.

The man was tall and strongly-built. His eyes glowed bright red in the night and there was a cruel smirk dancing along his lips. Stiles retreated a step back, heart leaping into his throat, and tried not to immediately panic.

“You’re not Derek.”

“And you’re not the werewolf I came looking for.”

Stiles blinked dumbly at him. The alpha’s smirk widened.

“But you do smell like him, though, don't you? It clings to you like a stench. I didn’t come out here searching for the Hale alpha’s bitch, but that’s what I’ve come across, isn’t it?”

Stiles straightened. “Wait, what? You’re looking for Derek?”

“I was.”

“Was. Implying that now you’re…”

“Not.”

Stiles thought it was a pretty good thing he’d stocked up on books. Because before the werewolf could react, Stiles pulled his backpack off and threw it at the werewolf with all of his strength, making the man grunt in surprise and stumble backward. Stiles turned on his heel and ran, making for his jeep as fast as he could. And he very nearly made it.

Very nearly. But not near enough.

A hand wrapped around his ankle before Stiles could yank the driver’s door open and suddenly the world was tilting sideways. He hit the ground hard, tasting blood and seeing stars as his skull cracked against the asphalt. Stiles groaned and he was flipped onto his back, a pair of claws touching the underside of his neck. His breath caught in his throat and he froze.

“Running from me, Little Red?”

“What the hell do you want with Derek?”

“Do you know how an alpha werewolf challenges another for their territory, boy?”

Stiles groaned again. “Oh my god, that’s what this is? Werewolf politics?”

“It can be done many ways,” the alpha continued, undeterred by his response. “A challenge for pack leadership. A duel. Or by proving one’s power and taking away something the current alpha loves.”

“I hate to break it to you,” Stiles said. “But the only thing Derek loves is his Camaro.”

The man blinked, tilting his head slightly. He was listening to his heartbeat, Stiles realized. He shifted and smirked with bloody teeth.

“So terribly sorry, but you’re not getting anything out of killing his token human. At least, nothing to hurt Derek with.”

“Then that doesn’t make you very useful then, does it?”

Stiles’s blood turned to ice. The alpha’s eyes bled to red again and he snarled, face shifting. Stiles squawked and squirmed again as the man raised a clawed hand, struggling to get loose.

He managed to wrench his leg free, driving his foot into the alpha’s stomach. The man howled, stumbling back, and Stiles scrambled up, making for his jeep again.

He knew there was no way he was escaping by car. Instead, Stiles grabbed his baseball bat from the passenger seat and went retreating backward, swinging as hard as he could as the alpha leaped forward, all fangs and teeth.

It connected against the man’s side and he pitched sideways, snarling again. Stiles backed away a few more steps, raising the bat behind his head again. The man straightened and sneered, eyes glowing.

“Of course. The boy who runs with wolves defends himself with a baseball bat. Has no one ever told you to go with something more practical?”

“Come a little closer,” Stiles said. “I’ll show you practical.”

“You amuse me. I almost hate having to kill you.”

“I’m not here to be amusing, asshole.”

The alpha leaped forward again and Stiles swung. Since his last attempt— and failure— to take a werewolf out with a baseball bat, Stiles had upgraded. He now lugged around a grade A metal baseball bat that was always coated with wolfsbane. Scott hated it, refusing to be around when Stiles brought it along. But Stiles thought it was a pretty good investment.

He especially thought so now.

The bat cracked against the man’s outstretched clawed hand and he roared, yanking it into his chest. Stiles took that moment to swing at his head full force. There was a sicking noise of metal meeting bone and the werewolf dropped. Stiles flailed back, suddenly feeling sick.

For a moment, he just stared.

The werewolf was still. The faint tang of blood filled the air and Stiles stared at him for a moment before cautiously creeping forward. He clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to hurl at the sight of the man’s skull; he didn’t think it should look like that. Blood matted the man's hair and his skull was slightly deformed. Closing his eyes for a second, Stiles debated calling his dad or one of the pack members, and tried to think of his back-up story.

He… he could call his dad. And see the shock in his eyes followed by the inevitable disappointment. He could call Scott, but Stiles was terrified to see how the boy would react to the body currently lying at Stiles’s feet. He could call Derek, maybe, but that might—

Suddenly, there was a pair of claws sinking into his ankle.

Stiles screamed and tried to yank away but they sank in deep, curling in through flesh. For the second time that night, Stiles found his feet yanked out from under him and his back cracked against the asphalt, pain cutting through him like a knife. The alpha loomed over him, eyes bright and manic. Another cry cut from Stiles’s lungs as the claws yanked out of his leg and sunk into his shoulders, pinning him against the asphalt.

“The boy who runs with wolves,” the man snarled, blood staining his teeth and lips. “Did you think you could kill me? Did you really think you could kill an alpha?”

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, clawing at the hand twisting in the flesh of his shoulder. He tried to yank it out but the alpha only laughed. 

“I’ll tear you to pieces and use that as a challenge to your pathetic alpha. Think he’ll scream too? When I rip out his throat?”

Stiles managed to pull the claws out of his shoulder, eyes snapping open again. The man only sneered, reaching for his throat instead. Stiles used both hands to keep the claws from meeting the fragile flesh of his neck, heart pounding against his chest.

The alpha’s eyes flashed brighter. Blood dripped onto Stiles’s skin and pooled on the ground around him.

He turned the man’s hand with a crack and this time, it wasn’t Stiles who screamed. Before the alpha could even react, Stiles was shoving the man’s claws forward and yanking them sideways. Straight through the werewolf’s neck. 

Blood splattered across his face.

Stiles barely felt the weight that collapsed on top of him. He managed to roll to the side only seconds before he was dry heaving, grateful for the first time that day that he’d forgotten to eat since breakfast. He gagged and choked out broken sobs, pain wracking through his entire body and making him see stars. He couldn’t breathe right. His throat was too tight and he could feel blood staining through his sweatshirt.

He couldn’t— he couldn’t—

Stiles could already hear the sirens. Could see his dad’s terror and feel the cold metal of handcuffs as they wrapped around his wrists. Scott would never speak to him again. The pack would turn him away. Stiles would be nothing but a killer and a disappointment and he couldn’t, he couldn’t—

Stiles rolled the body off of himself and stumbled to his feet, terror crashing over him in waves. He couldn’t call his dad. He couldn’t call Scott.

There was a body at his feet. Mangled, bloody, and broken. One that looked less and less human by the second and soon, Stiles was looking at the body of a wolf. A red furred wolf, with blank eyes and teeth still bared in a snarl.

It was the body of a werewolf that Stiles had just killed. That hit him like a punch to the gut over and over again. Stiles had just killed a man. A werewolf. An alpha.

His stomach flipped. He spun around again, heaving into the asphalt.

The rest of the night was a blur. Stiles stuffed the body— the wolf— blooded and torn into the back of his jeep. He broke down in the driver’s seat, gathered himself back together again around dawn, and left the parking lot behind before anyone else could show up.

His entire body hurt. His head was spinning. He couldn’t breathe right.

Stiles dumped the body in the preserve. Then he attempted to throw up two more times. There was blood in his jeep, blood on his clothes. Covering his skin and drying underneath his nails.

There was blood everywhere.

Stiles came home to an empty driveway and went upstairs to scrub away the evidence in a broken haze.

Because he’d just killed a man.

- 

Derek recognized when something in Beacon Hills changed.

It was a change of scent in the air at first. He sat straight up, turning his nose into the air, and realized it was something beyond his pack. The handful of werewolves curled up not five feet away, all wrapped around each other, the colors of black, gold, and grey pelts melding together, hadn’t moved.  It wasn’t the smell of wolf, but that of cinnamon and autumn leaves. Soured by terror.

Derek turned his nose toward the door and sat still for a moment. The scent changed, heightened, and then all but vanished.

There was nothing left.

Derek didn’t find it easy to fall back asleep that morning.

- 

“Hey, kid?”

Stiles blinked a few times, buried in his covers. His dad leaned against the doorway of his room and Stiles was awake in a second, nearly spilling out of bed. He caught himself at the last moment and ran a hand through his hair, blinking a few times.

The occurrences of the past night filtered through his head slowly. The library. The alpha. The blood. The blood. The blood.

Cold terror curled through Stiles’s stomach as he looked at his dad, wondering if his secret was already out.

“Y… yeah pops?”

“We got a call early this morning,” the man said, eyes sweeping over Stiles’s face. Once more, he was almost too terrified to even breathe. What if there was still blood on his face? What if he hadn’t cleaned it all off?

“Oh?”

Stiles was surprised his voice wasn’t shaking.

“A jogger found a body out in the preserve,” the man said, nodding. “Wolf. Brutalized. It was bad. I don’t know if this is something on… your side of the world or not, but I figured I should say something in case any of you try to get involved.”

“Try to as in we shouldn’t?”

“Try to as in I want to know if any of you do.”

Stiles swallowed hard and nodded, hating the relief that coursed through him. He managed a smile even though he was pretty sure his dad would know it was fake. “Sure, pops, we’ll let you know. That’s all part of the agreement, right?”

Stiles knew his dad still struggled with the supernatural side of things. When he’d first found out about Derek and Scott, it had been Stiles’s promises to never keep another secret that had kept the man from packing their things up and just leaving altogether. He’d made a promise and up until now, he’d been determined to keep it.

His dad nodded. “Part of the deal.”

Stiles felt worse.

The moment the man left, Stiles was on his feet again. He locked the door and then stripped off his clothes, moving toward the mirror. A single glance showed a pale body clean of any marks; there was nothing. No claws marks marring his shoulder, no torn-up ankle. Stiles had been covered in bruises and scars yesterday but now, it was like it had all been a bad dream.

Stiles wished it had been a bad dream. He wished so hard it had been nothing but a nightmare.

He also knew better.

Stiles sank to the floor, pulling his knees into his chest. He was trembling all over, he realized. When did it happen? When did things start?

Could he kill someone else? Could he hurt his dad?

Stiles tried to take calm, deep breaths and focus on when Scott had first started to change. Two years ago, Stiles’s best friend had gone through the same thing and he’d been fine. Occasionally furry, yes, but fine.

He… he’d just needed an anchor. Scott had Allison. Stiles needed an anchor.

His father?

Stiles closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath. Opening them again, he gazed into the mirror. But nothing changed. Nothing about his features shifted. Something twisted in his gut and Stiles swallowed a shout of anger, shoving himself back up.

He pulled on clothes quickly. The last thing he wanted was to be caught by Scott, Derek, or one of Derek’s betas. They’d smell his change in an instant, wouldn’t they? Stiles couldn’t help but remember how quickly Scott had smelled Isaac’s change. He just had to keep them at an arm's-length until he figured things out. He could do that.

He could do that, right?

The knock on his window startled Stiles right out of those thoughts. He had just finished pulling on a shirt and spun around to see Scott waiting outside of his window, head tilted slightly.

Stiles’s heart stopped. His first thought was ‘he knows.’

Still, his feet moved on their own accord. Stiles crossed the room and carefully pulled his window open, letting the boy in.

Scott shifted his feet and gave him a long look. Stiles braced himself, waiting for the comment on his change of scent, the confused look Scott was bound to give him, dread coiling in his stomach as Stiles glanced down involuntarily at his hands, seeing phantom blood still coating his fingers.

“Stiles?”

“... Yeah, Scotty?”

“It’s Allison.”

Stiles’s eyes snapped back up. He stared blankly for a moment and then blinked again. Scott ran a hand through his hair and began to pace the room, a blur of words spilling out of his mouth. But Stiles was too shocked to understand them. The longer he started the more he realized there was something… different about Scott. The boy smelled like gunpowder and the faint hints of female perfume. It all clung to him like an invisible aura and Stiles found himself shying away from it, his skin itching at the overwhelming scent.

Suddenly, Scott stopped. The boy blinked at him and Stiles snapped back to reality, blinking a few times. 

“Sorry, what?”

“Bro! What am I supposed to do?”

Stiles continued to stare. Suddenly, Scott leaned forward and sniffed, and Stiles went stock-still again, his heart pounding even harder against his chest. Scott’s brows furrowed together and the alpha tilted his head. 

“Have you been around Derek’s pack lately?”

“No, why?”

“You smell different.”

“... How?”

Scott wrinkled his nose and pulled back, shaking his head. “I dunno. Bad, strange. Different. Like when Derek used to come over a lot.”

Stiles felt like he’d been punched. He nodded silently and Scott shrugged, returning to his ramblings. Stiles swallowed hard, glancing back toward the window and when he snapped back to reality, Scott was looking curiously at him again.

Stiles blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“Dude.”

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep,” Stiles said quietly. He kept waiting for the ball to drop or for Scott to realize there was something different. Something wrong. But it never happened. “Maybe just talk to her?”

Scott’s face brightened. He moved across the room and clapped Stiles on the shoulder, nodding. “I’ll do that!”

“Great, dude,” Stiles said, forcing a smile. He watched as Scott pulled himself right back out the window and then sunk onto the edge of his bed, burying his face in his hands.

He just had to figure things out. That’s all he had to do.

Stiles felt like he was breaking apart.

-

Derek was awake late into the next night. Every time he tried to close his eyes or take a deep breath, he was struck by the feeling that something was wrong. Something had happened. And it was like an itch underneath his skin that he couldn’t scratch.

Something was wrong. Derek just didn’t know what.

He found himself giving up on sleep around two in the morning and wandering into the kitchen. As he made himself a cup of coffee, figuring he might as well just not sleep at all, the sudden scent of terror and pain flooded through his nose.

Derek froze, a packet of sugar half-tilted over his mug. His eyes bled to red and tracked around the room as he slowly turned around, scenting the air. For a long moment, he couldn’t smell a thing. Nothing other than his pack and uncle, that was.

Then there it was again. Derek stepped out of the kitchen to see the loft door wide open and— his heart stopped. A pair of red eyes blinked in. But the wolf was full shift, an unfamiliar scent crashing over him. Except at the same time, some part of it was familiar. Some part of it Derek did recognize.

His blood turned cold then. The alpha growled.

“What have you done to Stiles?”

The wolf snarled again, raising its hackles. Derek snarled right back, his fangs slotting down although he didn’t shift himself. Instead, he studied the wolf in front of him. Tawny-brown fur and amber-red eyes. Fangs that gleamed in the moonlight streaming through the windows and the faint scent of Stiles clinging to the air around it.

Derek’s stomach twisted. He snapped his teeth, glaring.

“What the hell have you done to Stiles?”

And then the wolf was taking off. Away from the loft, racing down the hallway. Derek didn’t even give himself a chance to think before he was moving after him. Shedding his human form as his paws hit the floor. He thought he heard Erica’s faint sleepy voice but Derek didn’t pause, racing after the wolf that vanished down the stairs and out of the loft.

The cool night air was crisp and fresh. Derek stretched out his limbs for the first time in weeks and raced after the wolf; it was heading for the preserve, he realized. Derek tore after it, determined not to let the alpha escape.

If Stiles was hurt-- if something had happened to Stiles--

Derek was pretty sure he would rip the alpha’s throat out. He knew that Stiles had never committed to his pack and there was nothing holding the boy down, but Derek would kill anyone that ever dared hurt him. And this wolf reeked of Stiles. The scent of the boy bled off him in waves. And Derek was terrified to linger on what that meant. That Stiles was hurt or worse.

He didn’t remember the last time he’d been on a chase. But the wind sung in his ears now and the darkness bled around them. Derek knew the preserve much better than the other wolf, he could already tell. It ran blindly.

It was heading toward the Hale house.

Derek caught up before they reached the porch. Springing forward, he tackled the wolf to the ground and snapped his teeth right above its throat. The alpha whined, kicking out useless limbs, and Derek locked his teeth around the wolf’s shoulder.

It barked a cry of pain then. And as blood filled his mouth, Derek’s senses flooded with one word.

Stiles.

He was yanking back in a second. The wolf snarled and leaped for his throat but Derek moved back even more and they circled each other. He looked into amber eyes and realized that he recognized them. Recognized them outside of the dark red color. There was a whiskey tint hidden from sight. One that Derek would recognize anywhere.

But that couldn’t be— that shouldn’t be—

The wolf snarled at him, baring bloody teeth. Before it could leap forward again, Derek threw back his head and howled. The sound struck through the night, startling a nearby owl, and the wolf growled for a moment before joining in with a broken sound.

When Derek looked forward again, there was a naked boy curled up in the leaves. Stiles’s shoulder was stained with blood and he was shivering, eyes squeezed tightly closed as he muttered unintelligible things Derek couldn’t catch.

But it… it was Stiles. It was Stiles.

It was his Stiles.

Derek shifted back and just stood there for a moment, staring. Blood ran in rivets down the boy’s chest, dripping to the leaves, and Derek didn’t know what to do. He could still taste it on his tongue. Could still smell the scent of Stiles— wrong— Stiles— in his nose.

Stiles’s eyes suddenly snapped open, staring unseeing as the boy cried out a soft ‘Derek’ leaving his lips. And then Derek was moving forward, scooping him up and wincing as Stiles cried out again.

“I’m sorry,” Derek whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Stiles didn’t answer, head lolling against Derek’s shoulder. His heart beat too fast and the more Derek concentrated on his scent the more he realized it was Stiles. Stiles with a touch of something else; iron and electricity. Power.

Alpha power.

Derek’s heart lodged in his throat and he realized he was terrified to linger on that thought. Instead, he turned away from the Hale house and started the long walk back toward the loft. Stiles only stirred in his arms a few times, letting out quiet whimpers whenever he did. It struck Derek to the core every single time.

He didn’t… he didn’t… he didn’t know when this had happened. When was the last time Derek had pulled himself through the teenager’s bedroom? During the Alpha pack attack, he thought. Before they’d defeated Deucalion. Before Stiles’s father had been taken.

Months ago. 

But he thought— he hoped— he would have known about this sooner. It couldn’t have been months ago. Derek had realized something was wrong not two days ago and Stiles— Stiles should have come to him.

A pit formed in his chest as Derek realized Stiles hadn’t come to him. Had the boy been too afraid? Too stubborn? It was Stiles, so Derek supposed it could be either.

Had Scott known?

There was a werewolf in his arms. Stiles Stilinski; an Alpha werewolf. The once ‘boy who ran with wolves’ was now a wolf himself. Derek’s stomach twisted. Stiles had never asked for it. The bite. And Derek had never even considered offering it because he knew Stiles’s stance on being bitten.

Some part of him didn’t think this had been a choice at all. And that only made Derek feel worse.

He got back to the loft within the hour and the betas were waiting for him. Derek took one look at their shocked faces, eyes flitting from him, to Stiles, and back, and knew this was a conversation for tomorrow. When Derek’s shirt wasn’t covered in blood. When Stiles didn’t smell like he was dying.

When the boy was conscious.

This was a conversation for tomorrow and Derek was kind of terrified for it.

-

Stiles remembered trying not to go to sleep. 

He paced his room and then turned on Netflix, going through shows he had already seen a million times before. When he felt his eyelids growing heavy he groaned and pushed himself back up to go downstairs and get a snack.

If he didn't fall asleep, he figured nothing could happen. His dad was on a night shift so Stiles was free to keep all the lights on and do everything he could to stay awake. Because Scott’s first days… he’d gone straight to his anchor, hadn’t he? It’d been an Allison stalking spree. But Stiles was determined. Determined not to hurt his dad, determined not to lose control.

He had settled back on the couch and tried turning on the TV. He didn’t remember falling asleep but he must’ve.

Because when he woke up again, he was in an unfamiliar room.

Stiles was awake in a second. He sat straight up, the blankets catching around his legs as he flailed sideways out of the bed. He heard the sound of footsteps, was overwhelmed by a scent of aftershave, mint, pine, and then there were careful hands trying to pull him back up.

Stiles was shifting in a second, eyes bleeding red and fangs slotting down. And he felt it. Every single change, every single new addition. The sounds around him were too loud and the scents crashing down on him over and over again were too much. It hadn’t been like this yesterday. Stiles hadn’t experienced any of this yesterday.

It was too much.

He didn’t realize he was fighting back until Derek’s voice reached his ears. The man pinned him down, shouting his name over and over again. Stiles stopped fighting and felt his fangs slide away again, like a slight itching of his gums.

He blinked back tears. Derek’s grip loosened and the man’s face shifted back to normal too.

“Stiles, I need you to breathe for me. Can you breathe for me?”

“What the hell is happening?”

“You’re adjusting to the change,” Derek said. “It'll take some time. Days, weeks, months. But you need to keep your heart rate down right now.”

“No,” Stiles said, shoving the man off and scrambling up. He retreated until his back rammed against the wall and then stared at him. “What the hell is happening? I’m… I’m at the loft. Why the hell am I at the loft? How did you know?”

Derek’s brows furrowed. “You came here last night.”

Stiles stared at him. He didn’t remember that. He didn’t remember anything past blinking tiredly at Star Wars reruns on the TV and trying to drown himself in mugs of coffee. He remembered seeing Anakin cutting someone’s head off and then nothing. Darkness.

Fear gripped him like a fist around his heart. “My dad. Derek, my dad.”

“Your father is fine,” Derek said. “I called him this morning and said you spent the night at the loft.”

“Did you tell him?”

The man raised a brow. Stiles swallowed hard.

“Did you tell him why?”

“That’s not up to me to do, Stiles.”

“He can’t know,” Stiles said, shoving himself up. “No one else can know. I can mask it, Derek, I can keep it secret. My dad can’t know, Scott didn’t realize, no one else can—”

“Wait," Derek said, cutting him off. “Scott doesn’t know?”

“And he won’t.”

“But he’s seen you. Since the change?”

Stiles’s mouth went dry. He swallowed hard and nodded slowly, and Derek’s face went through a number of different expressions. Stiles was surprised that when the man’s eyes bled to red, he didn’t feel the shivers he normally did. This time, instead, he wanted to get closer. He wanted to leap at the man’s throat.

He wanted to prove to him who the real alpha was.

Stiles whimpered at the back of his throat and shook his head. He couldn't— he shouldn’t— these weren’t his thoughts. This wasn’t his head. Stiles wasn’t a killer.

“Stiles?”

Derek’s eyes were normal again, but Stiles still wanted to know how much it would take to make the man submit. He stumbled away, out of the bedroom, and out into the rest of the open loft.

There were no betas in sight. But Peter lounged on the couch and the moment Stiles saw him, he straightened. The man’s scent hit him in a rush; thoughts of smoke, ash, death, and... and… beta. Pack.  Part of him.

Stiles gagged, racing toward the kitchen. He could’ve sworn Peter was grinning.

Stiles shuffled through all the shelves of the refrigerator, grabbing some of the first things his gaze landed on. By the time he turned back toward the counter, he had an array of the oddest things in his arms. Derek came in after a moment too, raising an eyebrow at Stiles’s choices of food.

Stiles glared at him. “I’m hungry.”

“I know.”

“Like, starving hungry, dude. I need sustenance.”

He could’ve sworn there was the hint of a smile tugging at the man’s lips but Derek only nodded again, arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the doorway. “I know.”

“Please don’t tell me it’s a werewolf thing.”

“It’s werewolf thing.”

Stiles snarled and dropped everything on the counter. Abandoning his loot, he shoved past Derek and flipped Peter the bird, stalking straight out of the loft. He could’ve sworn Derek called his name but Stiles ignored him, trying to shove down the array of scents, sounds, and feelings that continued to hit him over and over again.

He felt like a stranger in his own body. He felt like he was doing something wrong.

He didn’t feel like he was the real one in his head.

Stiles made it outside and swallowed the urge to throw back his head and scream. Or maybe howl. His fingers curled into fists and after a moment, Stiles felt a slight stinging followed by something warm sliding down his skin. He heard the steady ‘drip drip’ and glanced down to see his nails had sliced straight through his palm.

Stiles swallowed a cry, his claws shooting back into his nails. As he watched, his skin stitched back together, and it looked so wrong.

Suddenly, there was a hand on his shoulder. Stiles spun around, claws coming right back out, and pinned Derek against the outside loft wall. The man grunted, face tightening in pain, and Stiles’s heart leaped into his throat as he realized his claws had buried deep into his shoulder. He made a strangled noise, stumbling backward again, and Derek started to move forward.

Stiles raised his hands, blood on his fingers.

“Don’t, Derek, oh my god, please don’t. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to—”

“Stiles,” the man said, cutting him off. “I know.”

Stiles just shook his head again. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t go home like this but he also clearly couldn’t stay around the loft. He had to go somewhere far away. Maybe he could leave Beacon Hills or lock himself up somewhere deep and dark. Away from all of those he could possibly hurt.

Stiles felt sick. His head spun and his throat constricted. He ran his fingers through his hair and whined— actually whined— feeling the urge to maybe run or change or shift—

“Stiles!”

Stiles looked sharply back up. Derek’s eyes had turned red again and Stiles knew from first-hand experience that would often make the betas submit. But he didn’t feel a single urge to back down or flash his throat. Instead, he snarled and flashed his own eyes and to his surprise, Derek moved back a little, the red bleeding away from his own.

Stiles blinked a few times, dropping his gaze to the ground. He was trembling, he realized. But before he could even react to that, Derek was stepping forward and there were careful fingers underneath his chin, tilting his face up.

“Stiles, you’re okay. You hear me? You’re okay.”

“I don’t feel okay, Derek.”

“I know,” the man said. “But you’re in control and you can keep it. Okay? Tell me your anchor. Have you figured that out yet?”

“M-my dad, I think. I don’t know, I haven’t tested it out yet, I can’t stop the shift from happening—”

“Hey,” Derek said, cutting through his panic again. Stiles looked up, meeting the man’s firm gaze and this time, it was human. No red, no bleeding, no alpha-voice or shifting expressions. Just Derek. Derek and his grey-green eyes, locking on Stiles’s like they were determined to keep him in place. Stiles breathed out shakily and focused on that, on them. On Derek and his gentle touch underneath Stiles’s chin, keeping him steady where he stood.

“It's okay, Derek. I’m okay.”

“Are you?’

“I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Derek said quietly. “It’s going to be overwhelming for the next few days. But if you can, I’d like to know how it happened. How long, how many shifts you’ve gone through, how much you remember.”

“Nothing,” Stiles said. When Derek looked confused, Stiles ground his teeth together and glared at the ground. “It happened two days ago. I don’t think I shifted at all the first night and I wasn’t planning on doing so last night. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Derek’s face softened with what could only be called pity. Stiles hated it.

“I didn’t want this, Derek.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be this.”

The man visibly flinched a little at that. Stiles figured he should feel bad— because wasn’t this Scott’s same reaction when he’d been turned? Stiles had always been on the outside looking in. He’d never understood exactly what the boy was going through. But suddenly, Stiles felt like he was being thrown through a loop. He wasn’t an outsider anymore. He wasn’t the token human or the ‘boy who ran with wolves’.

Stiles was a wolf. He’d never wanted to be a wolf.

It was going to kill his dad.

“Let me guess, Sourwolf,” Stiles said, attempting a smile. “The bite is a gift?”

The man’s face didn’t change. “You killed an alpha. Didn't you?”

Stiles felt sick all over again. He closed his eyes and realized he’d started to tremble again. His stomach twisted and churned as he remembered the deformation of the alpha’s skull. The blood that had dripped from his lips and the feeling of ripping the man’s throat out with his own claws.

Stiles had killed the alpha. It was that or him.

Maybe it should have been him.

“Stiles,” Derek said quietly. “I need you to talk to me.”

“No,” Stiles said. “I uh… no, Derek. Not now. I need somewhere to stay and I need to be far away from my dad. The full moon is coming up and unless I have control by then, I can’t go anywhere. Not anywhere that he might be.”

Derek looked sad. But still, the man nodded, and Stiles risked meeting his eyes again. The grey-green and smell of warmth. Of pine.

His head felt a little more clear. Stiles swallowed hard. “Can I stay here?”

“Of course.”

“Even with the betas?”

The man nodded quietly. Stiles offered a small smile and hesitated before ducking back around him. He was terrified; there was no lying about that. Stiles was truly and utterly terrified and he had no idea what was coming. But he knew he had to figure things out. He had to keep his dad safe. Stiles had to keep his dad safe from himself.

That was a terrible, terrible thought.

-

Stiles didn’t like being left alone with Peter.

Derek left to ‘clear some things up with Deaton’ which Stiles also didn’t like the sound of. But he hated it even more because now he was left with the Creeperwolf himself, glaring every time the man even dared breathe.

Peter seemed perfectly fine with them being left alone.

The werewolf kept giving him calm, smirking looks and Stiles hated it. He fixed his eyes straight ahead and refused to look back. Refused to retaliate. To even acknowledge the Creeperwolf’s existence at all.

Peter broke the silence first.

“So, alpha.”

Stiles hated him. “Shut up.”

“Oh, you’re sounding more and more like Derek as time goes on.”

Stiles snarled at nothing, feeling a bit of fang poking at his lower lip. He quickly tried to force it away; thinking about his dad. About the tired, exasperated face he always got when Stiles was up to new mischief. The way the man used to hold him close and talk him through nightmares after his mother’s death.

Stiles focused on those things as hard as possible. But it was only when Peter’s voice caught his attention again and Stiles thought about how he wished Derek was here to kill his uncle, that he started feeling calm again.

The other man was watching him in amusement, head tilted a little. “Looks like you nearly lost it there, Stiles.”

“What, do you want me to kill you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be your first.”

Stiles flinched violently. He curled his fingers into the couch cushions and debated ripping Peter's throat out just because. Surely Derek wouldn’t miss his uncle that bad. Peter chuckled.

“Relax, Stiles, I’m not going to try and provoke you.”

“Oh, that’s not what this is?”

“You’re more on edge than usual,” Peter said, shrugging. He clasped his hands behind his head and relaxed back into his chair, throwing his feet up on the coffee table. “It’s unnerving.”

“Well, excuse me for being a little anxious about all of this.”

“It’s not like it’s much new,” Peter said. Stiles narrowed his eyes at the man and Peter smiled, all teeth. “Don’t tell me you haven't seen it before. Who do Derek’s betas go to when they need a shoulder to cry on? Who does Derek turn to for the big decisions? Certainly not Scott. Consider this as an upgrade with improved healing and fangs, not a new status.”

Stiles continued to stare. He’d like to say he understood a single word that had just come out of the man’s mouth but that would be a lie.

Peter rolled his eyes. “I wonder how you’re still alive sometimes, Stiles.”

“Sheer luck.”

“Clearly.”

Stiles grunted and turned his eyes away again. He tried to focus on anything else. The holes in the wall, the irritating crack that cut off mid-way across the ceiling. The bookshelf full of old authors that Stiles couldn’t believe Derek would be caught dead reading. The scents of the betas clinging to the furniture, the scent of home that seemed to suffocate him, the feeling of being watched—

Stiles glared back over at Peter. The man smirked.

“You’re adjusting.”

“I’m about to commit murder.”

“Again?”

“Shut the hell up,” Stiles hissed. He felt his eyes bleed to red, felt his claws sharpen and dig into the couch cushions. But Peter only looked more amused. And more… hungry.

It hit Stiles like a punch then.

“You want it,” he said, words a snarl. “You want the alpha spark, don’t you?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“What,” Stiles said, shoving himself up. “What’s your game, huh, Creeperwolf? How do you want this to go? Wait, let me guess. You rile me up, get me mad, I lose control and attack, right? Then it’s only self-defense. Derek can’t kill his last remaining family member for protecting himself.”

“You fail to understand what Derek would do for you.”

Stiles snarled. “Shut the hell up.”

“What, am I lying, Stiles?” Peter rested his hands on his chest, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t look perturbed at all, even at the way the air had changed so quickly. “You can hear my heartbeat now, alpha. Tell me if I’m lying. Listen real hard and tell me it’s a lie when I say that Derek would kill anyone who touched a hair on your head.”

Stiles was across the room in a second, catching Peter by the neck and pinning him to the wall. The man’s eyes flashed bright blue but he only grinned wickedly, delight in his expression. Stiles snarled, flashing his own eyes red. “I said shut up.”

“But it feels good, doesn’t it? The strength, the power. There is nothing I want to take from you, Stiles, but even if I did, Derek would hunt me down and rip my throat out for a second time if I did. But you know I wouldn’t. You can feel it, can’t you? The pack bond.”

“I don’t want any sort of bond! Especially to you.”

“Your wolf has already decided against that, Stiles.”

Stiles tightened his grip and watched his claws start to poke at the tender flesh of Peter’s neck. It sent him back two years when Stiles was the one in this position. Dragged off of the lacrosse field, leaving Lydia to bleed out. A pair of claws underneath his chin and the whispered threats of a maniac in the night.

Peter seemed to read his thoughts because the man’s face tightened. “I was out of my mind.”

“I could kill you,” Stiles said. “Kill you for everything you’ve done.”

“Well, Deucalion did agree that was the best way to gain power.”

Stiles’s throat tightened. He came snapping back to himself like a rubber band stretched too far, the anger and rage dissipating. But before he could make a move, say another word, the door behind him slammed open and the scent of metal, perfume, anger, came flooding into the loft.

Stiles yanked away from Peter, stumbling back. When he turned around, Scott was looking at him in horror.

“Stiles.”

Stiles stiffened in panic. Crimson bled into his best friend’s eyes and Scott stalked forward, anger on his face.

“You are different. You have changed. Why didn’t  you tell me earlier?”

“I didn’t— I didn’t want—”

“You killed someone!”

Stiles flinched like he’d been slapped. But before he could react, Peter was stepping between them with a snarl on his lips. It wasn’t aimed at anyone except Scott, though, and the boy blinked in confusion at that.

“Peter, move.”

“I'm afraid I can’t do that.”

Scott scowled, looking at Stiles over the man’s shoulder. “Does your dad know?”

“You can’t tell him yet, Scott. You can’t tell him.”

“He could be in danger!”

“I’m learning to control it!”

“Oh,” Scott said. “Like you obviously controlled it with Peter? You were about to kill him!”

Stiles swallowed hard, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t have… I wouldn’t...”

“Scott,” Peter said calmly. “I suggest you leave.”

“There’s not room for three alphas in Beacon Hills,” Scott said, ignoring him. Stiles stared.

“What do you want me to do then?”

“Get rid of it.”

“I can’t just get rid of it, Scott! Don’t you think I would have done that if I could?”

Scott just clenched his jaw. Stiles felt a little weak, like he wasn’t quite sure how much longer he could stay upright. This wasn’t losing control, he didn’t think. It was losing hope. It was losing his best friend.

“Your dad needs to know,” Scott said, retreating back. “And you need to stay away from him, and me, and Allison. Until it’s gone. Until you’re better.”

“So it's an infection then?”

“It isn’t you.”

“I didn’t ask for it, Scott! You’re the exact same!”

“I earned what I have,” Scott said, a snarl in his voice. He was still backing away. Making for the doors and Stiles was almost terrified to let him leave. Scott would tell his dad and his dad would never forgive him for keeping another secret. “I earned mine and you stole yours.”

Stiles didn’t move. Didn't say a word. Scott reached the door, turning around, but paused a moment more. When the boy turned back, his expression was almost piteous.

“I just want to do what’s best for you. You’re my best friend, Stiles. My human best friend.”

Not anymore.

But Stiles couldn’t get the words out. And then Scott was gone.

Stiles’s knees buckled and he hit the floor hard. Because this wasn’t losing control, he thought. This wasn’t losing his hold. This was losing a pack. 

And it felt like Stiles had lost a limb with it.

-

Derek gave the betas permission to come back to the loft later on that day and showed up before they did. The first thing he noticed was the assault of scents; the pain, the anger, the despair. The second thing he noticed was Peter lounging on the couch and the terrifying emptiness of Stiles.

Derek straightened. Peter glanced up from his book, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s about time you’re back, nephew.”

“Where the hell is Stiles?”

“Currently?” Peter glanced back down at his book. “Curled up in your bedroom dealing with the loss of his best friend and previous alpha. Well done telling him about Stiles’s shift, by the way.”

“I didn’t—”

“He wasn’t very happy when he showed up.”

Derek stared for a moment. The only person he’d gone to was Deaton and… oh. Of course. Derek ground his teeth together and scented the room, but couldn’t find any traces of blood. So there hadn’t been a fight, at least.

“What happened?”

“Mr. McCall doesn’t seem to appreciate his best friend becoming a murderer to attain an alpha spark.”

“We don’t even know what happened.”

“No,” Peter said. “We don’t. Because you keep failing to talk to the boy, Derek. He’s not going to retain control forever, you know, if he can’t even rely on his own anchor.”

“He refuses to see his father.”

“I wasn’t talking about his father, Derek.”

Derek blinked in confusion at the man but Peter didn’t even glance back up from his reading. With a small growl, Derek stalked past and moved into his room. It was cracked shut and when he slowly moved inside, he saw a bundle curled up on the bed. It didn’t seem to be moving but Derek could smell the scent of Stiles and hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

He moved across the room carefully, sinking down onto the edge of the bed. Stiles didn’t move.

“Stiles—”

“It feels like losing a limb,” Stiles mumbled. Derek flinched. “That’s what your uncle had told me. I never understood it until now.”

“I should have realized Deaton would let Scott know.”

Stiles pushed down the covers and peered at him. The boy’s eyes were bloodshot and his face was pale. He smelled sick, even though Derek knew that’s not what it was. Stiles searched his face and then shook his head. “He’s going to tell my dad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My dad is going to hate me.”

“No, Stiles,” Derek said softly. “I don’t think he will.”

“I lied to him.”

“He’ll forgive you.”

“He shouldn’t. Not again.”

Derek was quiet for a moment. Then carefully, he slipped into the bed next to Stiles and looked gently at him. The boy didn’t move. He just looked tired. 

“I’ve kept more secrets that I can count,” Derek murmured. “I didn’t… I never told Laura about Kate. I couldn’t, not after the fire. I couldn’t tell her that the death of our entire family had been my fault.”

Stiles’s eyelashes fluttered. Derek swallowed hard.

“But I like to think she would have forgiven me. Laura loved her family and her pack more than anything else. She never would have anything hurt them. She would have made a good alpha.”

“I didn’t want this, Derek.”

“I know, Stiles.”

“He was going to kill me.”

Derek tensed. Stiles’s scent changed, turning even more sour, and the boy didn’t meet his gaze. He smelled wrong. He smelled guilty.

“He came here to challenge you. For territory or leadership… but he found me instead. He said things, Derek. And then he tried to kill me.”

Derek stayed quiet. Stiles looked nauseous, eyes looking blankly at nothing.

“I ripped his throat out with his own claws.”

“I’m sorry, Stiles.”

“I don’t want my dad to hate me, Derek,” Stiles said brokenly. “I don’t want Scott to hate me. I was so scared. I thought the pack would be angry. I killed a man. I killed someone.”

“You protected yourself.”

Stiles flinched. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

Derek’s chest hurt. He wanted to pull the boy into his arms and brush gentle fingers through his hair. He wanted to tell Stiles that everything was going to be okay. He was going to be alright. But instead, he laid there quietly and watched Stiles break in front of him, feeling more helpless than ever.

The silence reigned for a moment. Then Derek wet his lips.

“Do you know what happened? During your shifts?”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“Your wolf,” Derek said quietly. “It’s beautiful, Stiles.”

The boy’s amber eyes searched his face. Derek wasn't used to Stiles being the one to read his heartbeats but after a moment, Stiles’s face softened a little. “I don’t want to hate it.”

“It might take some time.”

“Derek?”

Derek raised an eyebrow. Stiles studied his face and then lowered his gaze again. 

“I don’t think my dad is my anchor.”

“Is it an emotion?”

“No,” Stiles said quietly. Derek blinked and studied his face, but Stiles was very firmly avoiding his gaze now. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch the boy’s face, focusing on the question at hand instead. His thoughts went to Scott for a moment, but that clearly wasn’t it. Derek remembered Lydia then. And he hated how his heart sunk a little.

“Stiles, do you know what your anchor is?”

“I think so.”

“Can you tell me?”

“I don't know," the boy said softly. "Would it be okay, Derek? If it was someone other than my dad?”

“Of course.”

“Even if it was someone who might not want it?”

Derek furrowed his brows, studying the boy. Stiles finally looked up nervously, searching Derek’s face once more. Quietly, Derek nodded and Stiles wet his lips.

“I might need you around, Derek. Through all of this, if that’s okay.”

Derek looked blankly at him. Stiles dropped his gaze again.

“If that’s okay.”

Then it hit him like a truck. Derek didn’t know how to react for a second but at the same time, his wolf was howling for joy. Stiles smelled terrified and Derek finally gave in to his earlier wants and pulled the boy in close, gentle fingers tracing along the back of his neck as he tucked Stiles’s face into his chest.

Stiles tensed for a moment and then sighed, relaxing into the embrace. If possible, that made Derek’s chest grow even tighter. He wanted to hold the boy close and never let go. There were thoughts spinning through his mind of Stiles, mine, and alpha and Derek just closed his eyes, holding him close. Letting Stiles tremble against his skin.

Stiles’s breaths were warm on his chest. Derek turned his face into the boy’s hair and inhaled deeply before nodding.

“Me too, Stiles.”

Stiles startled. Whined softly. And then went lax. Derek held him a little tighter.

And just for a little bit, nothing else mattered.

-

When Stiles woke up the next morning, the bed was empty. He blinked up at the ceiling a few times, the events of yesterday hitting him like a sledgehammer, and then he groaned, turning his face into the pillow. It still smelled like Derek; aftershave, mint, and pine.

Alpha, right, and his.

Stiles closed his eyes and took a trembling breath. When he finally shoved himself up and ran a hand through his hair, plodding out of the bedroom, he went stock-still to realize the apartment was not empty.

The betas were back, looking at him with wide eyes. And standing behind them, standing next to Derek, was his father. The man looked a little sad and a little tired. But it was him. He was here. Stiles faltered back.

“Dad?”

“Hey, kiddo.” 

Stiles was moving before he could stop himself, crashing into his dad’s open arms and wrapping his hands around his neck. He buried his face into his shoulder and just let the feelings and scents crash over him. The smell of burnt coffee and old car and floor cleaner. The smell of the Sheriff’s office and every scent he carried of home. Stiles let that relax him and bring him down from the edge, nearly melting into the comfort of it all.

“I’m here, Stiles,” the man said softly. “I’m here, kiddo.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“There’s nothing you have to apologize for.”

“I killed a man,” Stiles said, pulling back. “Dad, I killed someone. I killed them and things are different now and I know Scott said I should stay away but—”

“Hey,” his dad said, cutting him off. “You have nothing to apologize for Stiles, do you understand me? I prefer my son in one piece and I swear to god, I would have killed the man myself who dared try and hurt you. The only thing that matters is you’re alright. You’re still here.”

“I’m not alright anymore, dad.”

One of the betas whined. Stiles flinched.

“I’m sorry I lied.”

Once more, he was being pulled close. Stiles closed his eyes and swallowed hard, tracing careful fingers over the back of the man's neck. It felt right, somehow. Stiles didn't want him to ever smell different.

Stiles pulled back only to find himself being wrapped in a different pair of arms. Erica, tracing his nose over Stiles’s collarbone. Isaac whining softly as he wrapped himself around Stiles’s back. Boyd moving closer with a small smile on his face.

Everything from yesterday slowly died away. The pain, the loss. Stiles found his chest growing full of everything here that was right. Comforting.

It felt like home.

Stiles met Derek’s gaze over Erica’s shoulder and the man nodded once, arms crossed. Stiles met his dad’s gaze then, as the man’s eyes went from him to Derek, and then back. He’d been so terrified of what he might see in his father’s eyes. The anger or pain or disappointment. But the Sheriff’s eyes only crinkled and he nodded too, and Stiles nearly melted into the floor.

He was safe here. He hadn’t felt safe since the alpha attacked and Stiles had been pretty sure his entire life was ending. Even if he hadn’t been killed, he’d seen the endpoint from there.

Something in Stiles’s chest felt like howling. His eyes flickered red and he closed them softly, not to block away the light. Only to drink up the comforts around him more.

Warmth, safety, home.

Pack, family, his.

His.

-

Stiles stood on the edge of the preserve and gazed out at the fading sun, waiting for the full moon to slowly rise. Blood thrummed in his ears and nerves itched underneath his skin and he fought the urge to turn and run away every time it hit, keeping his gaze fixed firmly ahead.

Derek stepped beside him, one hand gently covering the back of Stiles’s neck.

“You’re nervous.”

“A little.”

"It’s going to be alright.”

“I know,” Stiles said, turning to look at him. “I’m not worried about that.”

The man raised an eyebrow and Stiles felt his face grow warm, turning to face the horizon again. The coming darkness called to him like a hand around his heart and tugging. Stiles closed his eyes and breathed in deep, feeling all the scents around him.

He’d never known how much he was missing. All the things he’d never noticed before. Derek’s fingers flexed on the back of his neck.

“You’re gonna be good at this.”

Stiles smiled, eyes flitting over to the man's face. “Well duh, dude. I have my anchor with me.”

The man chuckled. The very sound made Stiles’s heart leap. He leaned into Derek’s touch and let the man guide his head sideways, foreheads touching together. Stiles closed his eyes and just smiled, red glowing behind his eyelids. Derek shivered a little. “Alpha.”

“Mine.”

“Yeah?”

“Mine,” Stiles said again, moving forward to brush his lips against Derek’s. “And yours.”

“Mine.”

“Alpha.”

Derek smiled against his lips. In the trees behind them, the sound of distant but familiar howls filled the air and Stiles felt the grip around his heart tighten. The pull grew stronger. He shuddered and felt fangs sliding down, nipping lightly at Derek’s lower lip. The man laughed, drawing back, and then Stiles was letting the shift take over.

Soon, he was looking at a giant black wolf with blue eyes. Stiles grinned all teeth and nipped at him before taking off with a loud bark, ignoring the growl at his back. He made for the preserve, the greenery blurring around him as he raced toward the pull of the moon.

Scents washed over him. Dirt, running water, his distant pack. The moon, the falling dusk, the distant sound of his dad’s car running as he waited on the edge of the preserve. Derek, the giant black wolf loping next to him.

Warmth, safety, home.

Pack, family, his.

His.

Alpha.

It was all his.

- -

Okay, so I had so much fun with this one. Alpha!Stiles is a new writing place for me but I adore it. I hope I did the prompt justice! You’re all amazing <3

(if you enjoy my writing, consider supporting your struggling student writer? You can also request a prompt if you’d like!). https://ko-fi.com/rh27writeryouc

[stones-x-bones]

When You Come Undone || Morgan and Bex

TIMING: A little after Bex went to see Kyle PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems and @inbextween SUMMARY: Morgan consoles Bex and gets her to finally admit that death is scary. CONTENT: PTSD mention, Domestic/Child Abuse mention

Bex woke up in her bed but didn’t remember how she got there. She remembered leaving to meet Kyle and pacing outside the cafe and seeing Kyle and then-- oh. Bex turned onto her side in her bed and found herself staring at her door. It was dark in the room, but it was still light outside, and it was streaming through the hastily closed curtains behind her. She was alone in the room, but she could hear voices outside her door. Stiffly, she sat up, wincing as her chest throbbed. She’d exerted herself too much. She always pushed herself too much. Squeezing her eyes shut as she braced herself through the wave of pain, arms shaking, she tried to recall how much damage she’d done. She remembered falling into the grass, could hear the sidewalk cracking beneath her fingertips as she crawled away. She remembered Kyle saying something to her, and then a frantic beating in her chest, and a scream. Another voice. A familiar one. It was the same voice on the other side of the door. Bex pressed her ear to it and closed her eyes, letting the cool touch of the wood calm the fire in her chest. Morgan was too far away for her to hear what she was saying, so she backed away and went back to her bed, sinking on top of the blankets as if her limbs were melting. Finally, the door opened and light streamed in and Bex looked across the room to see Morgan standing in her doorway. She had something in her hands-- water, food, maybe-- and what Bex presumed to be as worried of a look as she could muster right now. She turned away and curled her arms into her chest, hugging her pillow. She didn’t want to talk, but she wondered if Morgan would even fight her on it. 

Morgan went over the whole incident with Deirdre after she tucked Bex in bed. There was so much she didn’t know, but she could guess, couldn’t she? And what now? Did she let her sleep it off and keep blaming herself? Did she drag everything out of her? Morgan was at a loss, but at least she knew that Bex had to eat, and hydrate. She put together a little meal and some soothing tea and brought it up to Bex’s room on a tray.

“Hey, honey--?” She called softly, trying to gauge if she was awake. 

Bex was curled up in bed, clutching her pillow like it was the only thing keeping her on the ground.

“I brought you a little something to help you get your strength back. You’ll get sick if you stay like this on an empty stomach and dehydrated, and I know you don’t want that.” She came inside and set the tray on the nightstand, then sat on the bed next to the girl and trailed her fingertips along her stiff back. “We don’t have to talk about it right away, but you do need to take care of yourself, honey. Okay? Can you sit up a little on your own?”

Bex clutched her pillow tighter at the touch. She didn’t mean to, but she did. Her body was still taught from the afternoon, but she was tired, so tired. She felt as if someone had unplugged her or drained her energy through a funnel and taken every bit of her away with it. She buried her face in the pillow when Morgan sat on the bed, prodded her to sit up. She knew she needed to eat, to drink some water, to do something other than lay in this bed, but she didn’t want to. She just wanted to lay here, as if defeated after a long day. Except the day hadn’t been long, it had been short and painful and terrorizing. Her heart pumped a little faster at the thought and she squeezed until her knuckles turned white before unclenching. A technique she’d learned a long time ago to make herself tired, to calm herself down. She shifted to turn her head to look back at Morgan. She looked worried, possibly upset. Her eyes went to the tray of food. “I’m not hungry,” she mumbled, feeling much like a sick child, wasting away in a bed that she wished could swallow her whole.

Morgan brought her hand up to Bex’s hair, teasing out the tangles with a lighter touch than she’d used before. “I am familiar with that feeling,” she said. “I just want to help, Bex. I can hold you up, if you feel too weak. I know you like to do for yourself, but it’ll be harder if you wait till your body gets sick. And if you’re trying to punish yourself-- well, you already know what I’m going to say about that. But you don’t have to do things for yourself all the time. Sometimes you can do things for other people. For me, for Mina, maybe. You’re not alone in this world, honey. So you don’t have to act like you are. You are loved, always.” Slowly, Morgan shifted closer on the bed and checked Bex’s cheeks for tears with a brush of her fingers. “Tell me how I can help.”

She had not been crying, there wasn’t enough energy left in her for that. Bex supposed she’d screamed it all out while she relived her nightmare on the front lawn of the campus. It still played behind her eyelids and stung in her chest. Morgan’s soft voice broke through her mind just like it had not some few hours ago. Bex turned to look at her again before turning onto her other side to face Morgan, still gripping her pillow as it were her only lifeline. She felt hollowed out, empty, old versions of herself trying to replace the one that she’d worked so hard to grow. “That’s…never happened before,” she managed to say, throat grainy and raw, probably from all the screaming she’d done. She worked her way over until her head was on Morgan’s lap and drew in a shuddering breath. “I don’t understand why that happened.” Or maybe she did, but tucked away in all of the memories of hiding and holding it in and boxing her trauma, the instructions weren’t so clear. For all the times her parents broke her bones, they’d never made her fear dying.

Morgan let Bex settle on her and reached out to guide her lanky body a little closer to her. Taking their closeness as a cue, she brushed Bex’s hair off her shoulders and started combing her fingers slowly through. “Well, you’ve never had a near death experience before either,” she said softly, barely above a whisper. “That’s not your everyday, brush it off kind of trauma. That latches onto you, like with little hooks, or like tar. You have to get off you on purpose, intentionally, or it pulls you down whenever it wants. And that’s not an easy thing. Sometimes, working at it can feel like it’s sinking you anyway, so why bother. But you have to, so you can be free.”

Bex felt both full and empty at the same time. There was too much inside and yet not enough. She knew there was pain and fear but she didn’t know how to grab onto it and push it away. She burrowed her face into Morgan’s lap. She was being selfish, she knew it-- Morgan was dealing with her own trauma, her own death, and here Bex was, unable to even comprehend the fact that she’d nearly die. She’d nearly died. She almost died, alone in an alley. Bled out from a chest wound. Her body stiffened and threatened panic again, but she forced her eyes shut and held her breath. “I don’t want to think about it at all,” she murmured, “I just want it to go away.” 

“Sshh…” Morgan saw the tension clench in Bex’s back and brought her other hand down to rub it gently, as if she could coax the muscles into giving Bex an easier time with her pain. “You can’t go back, sweetheart,” she said. “Can you tell me what you saw? Not the whole thing, just the image, or the feeling. What happened for you when things started to go wrong?”

“I don’t want to,” Bex protested, putting a hand over her eyes, squeezing tight. “I don’t want to talk about it. It makes me feel sick and like I can’t breath and like it’s happening all over again.” And it kept happening, over and over and over again. An infinite loop in her head reminding her of what almost happened, what could’ve happened, what did happen. She was afraid of so much, she didn’t want to be afraid of more. But she was. She was. “I don’t know how to make it stop. It starts and I see-- and I feel-- like it’s happening again. But it’s not, I know it’s not. So why does it feel like it is?” 

“Because you can’t release what you won’t look at or touch, Bex,” Morgan sighed. “You can’t put up your clothes or take out the trash without at least seeing what you’re doing somehow, right? Help me understand. What is that feeling? Or that sight?” She gave her a gentle squeeze. “It won’t take you, and it can’t hurt me. Your magic couldn’t hurt me even if it tried. We’re safe here, together. And I just want to understand, Bex. I suffered something similar, so I can guess what that panic was like, and how your thoughts might have raced, how everything hurt, and maybe you felt tired, but also like you couldn’t stop, not for anything. But I don’t know everything. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” Slowly, she moved her hand on the girls’ back to thread with the one over her eyes. “Not everything, I wouldn’t ask that of you, especially now. Just a piece, if you feel like you can.”

“No,” Bex cried, but her eyes were dry, “no. I can’t. I don’t want to. I don’t want to make you-- I can’t be a burden to you. You’re already-- I don’t want to.” She squeezed Morgan’s hand back. She couldn’t string sentences together as they all raced too quickly through her head. “I want to be better. I can be better for you,” she said before she realized what she was really saying. “I can be good. I can. I don’t want to make things harder. I didn’t mean to.” Her mind was shutting down again, but she tried to fight against it. She didn’t want to go back to that place. It was dragging her down, like Morgan said, little hooks. Drowning in tar. “I don’t want to go back there.” 

“Hey--Bex, hey--” Morgan slid down until she was flat on the bed and Bex’s head was propped up on her shoulder. “Listen to me, Bexley. You do not have to be good. Not for me, not for anyone here. You do not have to work harder or be better. You do not have to be anything other than what you are. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You do not have to whip yourself with guilt, or shame. You do not have to be good, Bex. Can you look at me and say that? Because I don’t do anything I don’t want to. I will not ask you for something and then shame you for giving it to me. If I am trying to crawl down the pit, it’s because I want to. The kind of pit you’re in, the kind of dark that’s pulling on you, is so hard for people who haven’t been touched by death to understand. And I want to be with you in it. Whether you talk to me about it or not, I want to be with you. Do you understand? Am I making sense right now?”

Bex clung to Morgan like she’d previously clung to her pillow. Fingers dug into cloth. You do not have to be good. Her heart stammered and jumped into her throat. How was she supposed to believe that? She wanted to believe it. You do not have to be good, Bex. She drew in a breath and held it, until her heartbeat slowed and she exhaled, long and sharp. She nodded against Morgan’s shoulder. “Okay,” she managed to breath out, “okay.” She understood-- or, at least, she could try to understand. She couldn’t really understand, how to not be good for someone. How to not make sure she was good so she didn’t make things hard or worse or be a burden. She didn’t understand because her mother had never let her know there was any other option. She drew in another shaky breath. “I-I heard him, you know,” she said barely above a whisper, “i-in my head. When he was--” she swallowed, jaw tightening, killing me, “--attacking me. I heard him.”

Morgan wrapped Bex up as tight as she could without pressing into her bandages. “I love you, just as you are, Bex. Good or not. Maybe especially not.” Without thinking, she pressed a kiss to the top of her head and cradled her against her chest the way she had ached for her mother to cradle her when her bones felt like they were going to snap after a fresh panic attack. Then she listened. “Oh, Bex,” she whispered sadly. She grazed her fingers through her hair, imagining she could comb out the memory. “And you don’t want to tell him, do you? But it feels different, knowing what that sounds like, how much of him is gone. Oh, Bex-- do you still hear it when you talk to him, or was it only when you saw him?”

Bex needed not to hold so tightly onto those words. She knew Morgan meant them, but she also knew the more she accepted them, the harder it would be when the eventuality came and she had to leave this place. She didn’t want to leave. There was a sudden chill in the room, or maybe it was just in her body, and she began to shiver. “How could I tell him that? It would ruin him,” she murmured, shaking her head, “I can’t do that to him. I can’t.” She couldn’t. She’d hurt him enough. Her chest ached, inside and out. “When I heard his voice,” she answered quietly, “when I saw his eyes. They-- they were the same. His eyes were…” they flashed in her mind again, human to wolf and Bex seized up, squeezing her eyes shut, breathing increasing for a moment. “I didn’t know I’d-- I didn’t know. I didn’t know,” she repeated into Morgan’s chest, shaking her head. “I didn’t know.”

Morgan gave Bex another squeezed and hushed her tense body. “You’re safe with me,” she whispered. She tried to imagine what hearing the voice of your death would be like, and worse, to see that face in someone you wanted to be close to. “No, of course not. That wouldn’t be kind. But it’s not kind to carry that alone either.” She would never be able to explain it, even Morgan struggled, thinking of Constance in her terrible youth and anger. What had she said? Had she supervillain laughed? Had she gone on a moral tirade? Or pronounced Morgan guilty? She shivered, starting to feel sick herself. “I am so very sorry, Bex,” she said at last, still whispering so as not to scare the girl out of her openness. “No one knows when something like that is going to happen to them. Even if they go in knowing it’s dangerous, it’s different when it happens, when the world stops and what’s in front of you can’t be real but it is. And not being able to do anything about it, that’s not something people expect either. I never did tell you how proud I am of you using your magic to get me and Mina to you in time. I was a little wrapped up in being terrified, but you fought for you and Kyle. You’re the reason it wasn’t worse. I know that’s not very comforting right now, but maybe someday. You did so well, and your compassion for your friend in the middle of all that fear, is so incredible, sweetheart. But you don’t have to be incredible all the time. You’re not betraying him, if you let yourself feel how scared you were, if you let that be real. Kyle’s your friend, not his wolf. Not anytime soon, at least.”

“I don’t know where else to put it,” Bex whispered, “I don’t know who else-- I can’t let anyone carry this. I-- I can’t.” She burrowed further into Morgan, still shaking in her arms. The more they talked, the more Bex remembered. The more she saw it. The more she fell back into the tar. But the word proud-- proud, she could hardly believe it was a real word anymore-- echoed in her head and she could feel some of the tar peeling away from her. Hot tears pooled down her cheeks before she realized they were there. “I was so scared,” she whispered, laying completely still on Morgan now, staring towards her door as if she expected all the answers to carve themselves into the wood, “I thought I was...I was sure I was going to die.” It was the first time she’d admitted it, even if it was whispered quietly into a silent room. “I didn’t want to die.”

Morgan steadied Bex in her arms and breathed slowly. “You put it down. You let go. And you let me have a piece of it too. I’ve literally got superstrength,” she murmured. The familiarity of Bex’s words struck something inside her, a nerve so numb from pain and remembrance she didn’t feel much beyond recognition. She combed Bex’s hair and saw the scenes play out on the blank ceiling, her trauma and Bex’’s mixing together like two shades of paint. 

“I know, sweetheart,” she whispered. “I know. But you’re here. You’re here, and this wave will pass faster if you let it happen. Let go, Bex. I’ve got you. You’re safe to let go…” As much as she could, at least. Morgan thought she had shed a lot of her death over the last year, but as much as she pulled out her fear, her anguish, the desperate ache in her that still went I don’t want to die, there was always a little more. The root of the thing stayed buried inside her.

But how? How was she supposed to let go? She didn’t know. She didn’t know. Bex stilled in Morgan’s arms as she tried to take in what she was saying. As she tried to understand the familiarity in her voice. Morgan knew. Morgan had died and Morgan knew. Bex had been lucky. So lucky. She was here, she was alive. What if she’d died? Who would miss her? Who would cry for her? Would Morgan? Would Mina? Would Nell? 

Would her parents?

Bex drew in a deep breath. And then she let it go, and she let go as much as she could. It came out in quiet sobs muffled by Morgan’s shirt, and painful whispers of apologies and pleas. And when she had nothing left, she simply drew in a breath-- in for three-- and let it go-- out for five. She squeezed Morgan tighter. “Thank you,” she finally mumbled. She hadn’t cried properly since it happened. She hadn’t cried properly in ages. Her body felt tired, but no longer stiff. “For...carrying it with me.”

Morgan listened to Bex’s cries and let her memories swirl and moved her hands through the girl’s hair to keep herself grounded in this bed, this room, this safe little life she and Deirdre had scraped together. But as she listened, and resisted, and held steady, The seed of her death pulled on her, and she found herself crying silently too. When Bex had spent herself, Morgan wiped her eyes first, then Bex’s. “Anytime, sweetheart. My zombie strength is yours anytime.”

[lloydskywalkers]

skywalker syndrome, pt. III

so!! in honor of being shut up inside under pseudo-quarantine in this wonderful day and age, here is an extra-long fic for you guys just because :D

(fiNE it would’ve been this long either way but i have somewhat of an excuse now)

anyways here’s the final part of skywalker syndrome, featuring things actually Getting Better for once! (and on that note i hope you’re all doing alright and keeping safe <3)

So, Lloyd decides later. He probably could’ve handled that better.

But you know what, everyone’s been telling him to open up about stuff. It’s not his fault all that stuff is ugly, and maybe explodes half the power lines on the block.

Lloyd bites his lip harder, and squeezes his eyes shut tight enough to force the welling moisture back. His eyes are sore and puffy enough already, and his head feels like it’s over-stuffed with cotton and ready to explode. More tears are the last thing he needs.

On top of like, everything else. Because not only does Sensei Wu now know that the person who chopped Lloyd’s arm off was, in fact, Lloyd himself, but he’s probably going to tell everyone else that little detail too, and then all of them are going to think Lloyd’s head is — is out of place, except for maybe Nya, until she hears from Sensei Wu about his complete meltdown, and then Lloyd’s going to lose everyone.

Lloyd’s chest hitches. He forces back the wave of nausea, and makes himself look at this analytically. On one hand, it’s a total betrayal that stings maybe a little more than it might have any other time, because he’s been getting hit with a lot of betrayals lately. And while it isn’t exactly unusual in their line of work, it does feel like a little more than usual this month in particular.

On the other hand — which is metal ‘cause it’s Lloyd’s, heh — there’s absolutely nothing left of Lloyd’s respect in the world to stop him from blaring N-pop as loud as his headphones will go while lying at the edge of the roof of their apartment, staring blankly into the nothingness of the night sky as he ignores the drying damp streaks all over his face, instead of going to evening practice like he’s supposed to. So at least that’s a plus.

But on — well, he guesses he needs someone else’s hand, now — he really should have known better than to assume he’d get away with that.

He manages to hear Kai before he sees him, but it’s a near thing. Kai’s footsteps are quiet even when he’s not trying to be, like the rest of them, and even now that Lloyd’s playlist has mellowed off into something quieter and instrumental, he almost misses him closing the rooftop door.

But then Kai comes and sits next to him, right near where Lloyd’s head is lying, and that’s impossible to miss. So Lloyd sucks in a bracing breath and tugs his headphones off, dully figuring that the only way he’s escaping this confrontation is to throw himself off the roof. Which, while admittedly kind of tempting, will probably only make Kai more concerned, and Lloyd’s been doing that enough lately.

He tilts his head, peaking at Kai from the corner of his eyes. Kai’s expression is unreadable, his eyes far away where they fix on the city vista. Lloyd bites his lip. He wants to hold out, to let Kai do the talking — but the anxiety churning in his gut becomes unbearable, so he ends up cracking first.

“Hi,” he croaks, painfully aware of how water-logged his voice still sounds. “I guess you saw the lights go nuclear, then.”

Kai gives a quiet snort. “Kinda hard to miss, bud.”

Lloyd winces, then sneaks another tentative glance at him. He doesn’t look like he thinks Lloyd’s crazy, but Lloyd also has zero luck whatsoever, so he’s not quite letting his guard down yet. “Yeah,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t need to apologize. S’fine with me,” Kai shrugs, like Lloyd didn’t just knock out all the power in their apartment. “Makes things exciting every once in a while, you know?”

“Ha,” Lloyd breathes. “Exciting.”

“Mm-hm,” Kai says, swinging a leg over the edge of the roof, his eyes still on the horizon. Lloyd shifts his head on the paved rooftop, watching as Kai’s leg sways back and forth over the dim city streets below.

“Not as exciting as your conversation with Sensei must’ve been, though.”

Lloyd’s stomach bottoms out, and he goes rigid, before swiftly sitting up. “Y-you heard that?” he manages to squeak out.

Kai shakes his head. “Not all of it. Mostly just raised voices. No one wanted to eavesdrop, or anything.”

Lloyd worries his lip more, feeling sick. That’s not the answer he’s looking for. “But you heard some of it.”

Kai exhales slowly, his shoulders slumping. He finally tears his gaze from the horizon, and faces him. Lloyd wants to duck away, but there’s no recrimination in Kai’s eyes. Just a whole lot of empathy, and doesn’t that make Lloyd want to start crying again.

“Yeah,” he finally sighs. “I heard enough.”

Lloyd bites his lip harder, and turns back to stare across the city, his eyes watering. “Oh,” he breathes.

Because — what else is he supposed to say? Kai, his big brother, who’s always been solid and steady, who’s always followed (well, mostly, but that one time was also Lloyd’s fault) him faithfully — Kai, who works so hard to keep them safe, and has literally bled for this job, got to hear Lloyd screaming about how much he hates being the Green Ninja, the team leader, like a selfish, ungrateful brat.

Kai, who wanted to be the Green Ninja enough to risk his life for it — who probably still wants to be the Green Ninja, somewhere in him, if Lloyd hasn’t totally soured the taste of it by now.

“I didn’t — I didn’t mean—” Lloyd stutters over the words, almost frantically. He’s breathing too fast, talking too fast, but he’s got to — he needs to make Kai understand. “I didn’t really — I love this team, Kai, I do, I love being the Green Ninja, it just — sometimes — and he — he went and—”

“Lloyd — Lloyd, breathe. C’mon, breathe with me.”

Kai’s hands are steady and grounding on his shoulders, even as Lloyd gasps desperately for air, desperately forcing his nerves back under control before the city gets another unexpected power outage.

Finally, Lloyd manages to match his breathing to Kai’s, slow and steady, until the world stops spinning quite as much. He gives a shuddering exhale, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

“T-thanks,” he mutters.

Kai stares at him in concern, his eyes darker than usual in the night around them. He draws back a bit, blowing his breath out. Then, laying a hand on Lloyd’s good shoulder, he jerks his head back toward the rooftop exit. “Wanna make hot chocolate?”

Kai, as usual, always knows exactly what to say.

Lloyd nods fervently, following him back down inside with little hesitation. Their apartment’s quiet by now, mostly dark save for the moonlight, as everyone’s probably gone to bed. Lloyd can’t help but be overwhelmingly thankful for this.

The hallway floor they walk across is clean, too, even if the light sockets above are all empty. Someone must’ve swept the glass up, Lloyd thinks with a hot flash of guilt. Kai jabs at the kitchen switch as they leave the hall, and the lights flicker on, leaving Lloyd to blink in confusion.

“Emergency lightbulbs,” Kai says in explanation, with a faint, wry smile. “Zane’s been prepared. We’ve got a backup generator, too.”

“Oh,” Lloyd breathes, his face heating as he lets himself sink into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Well, it’s not like Zane was wrong. Having spare lightbulbs around is probably something Lloyd should start considering anyways, but he’s been thinking he wouldn’t need to worry about that anymore, since his powers were—

Well. ‘Were’ is the key word here. His powers were under control. They’re pretty glaringly not now.

The microwave goes off with a sharp ding, and Lloyd almost jumps from his skin before placing the sound. Kai is pulling two mugs from the microwave, before dumping the little hot chocolate packets in them. Despite himself, Lloyd wrinkles his nose.

“You make hot chocolate like a heathen.”

Kai scoffs quietly. “I make hot chocolate fast. No one’s got time to wait on a kettle. Besides,” he adds. “You’re one to talk. I know this is how you make tea when Sensei’s not around.”

Kai immediately winces at the mention, clearly regretting having brought Wu up. Lloyd’s shoulders tighten, but he forces himself to relax, exhaling slowly through his nose. It’s been long enough since the…argument…that most of his fiery anger has cooled into an aching ball of hurt instead. Which is typical, Lloyd’s garbage at staying that angry for very long, and normally he wishes he was better at it, but now…

There’s a fine thread of shame creeping in there as well, and maybe a little bit of guilt. And Lloyd’s already seen what his anger does. Maybe he can just hold a quiet grudge for a bit, and that’ll make his point.

“Peppermint tea tastes better in the microwave,” Lloyd finally replies, a little sullenly.

Kai snorts. “Zane would be horrified with you.”

“I’m sure he would,” Lloyd says, but the words are too heavy for it to come off like he wanted. Zane would be horrified at him, but not for his tea crimes. Lloyd’s still surprised Kai isn’t horrified at him. Maybe he is, and he’s just biding his time to accuse him, and any minute now—

“Is your arm hurting?”

Lloyd blinks, reorienting himself. “Huh?”

Kai nods his head toward him, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. Belatedly, Lloyd realizes that he’s been digging his fingers into the groove where the prosthetic connects to his arm, clinging tightly enough that the scarring around it twists. Oh, he thinks blankly. So that’s why it’s starting to ache worse.

Lloyd gingerly peels his fingers from here they’re locked around his arm, wincing as he does. “A-a bit,” he admits. “I probably just made it worse. But uh, hey, I know it definitely works with my powers, now…?”

Kai doesn’t look amused. Lloyd lets his head hang, staring at the ground. He hates this. Normally he’s completely in synch with Kai, to the point where he knows exactly what’s going through his big brother’s head. But right now, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued as Kai is, Lloyd has no idea what the emotion brewing in his eyes might be.

There’s a quiet screech of wood across the floor, and Lloyd looks up to Kai dragging his chair closer, before setting both mugs of hot chocolate on the table in front of them.

“Can I see?” Kai asks, hesitantly. Lloyd pauses for a beat as the question registers, and Kai wrings the edge of one hand with the other. “I just, y’know…heat? It helps, sometimes, with other stuff, so maybe…”

“Oh,” Lloyd blinks. “Oh! Y-yeah, of course.”

Relief flashes across Kai’s face, which Lloyd vaguely notes as weird, before he adjusts his chair again, fingers carefully skirting the raised area of Lloyd’s t-shirt, where the metal edge of his prosthetic is. Lloyd suddenly wants to make another pun, because the silence is a tad too thick, and Kai’s so awfully subdued about everything. And whether he thinks Lloyd’s just an ungrateful brat who’s lost the last of his sanity and should never, ever lead them again or not, Lloyd needs to see something in his expression other than this — this sad kind of hesitance, because it’s not Kai. If he was even yelling at him, that would at least be—

“Let me know if it hurts at all,” Kai murmurs, and Lloyd is vividly reminded of Jay, when he’d looked at his arm. It’s the same tone of voice, all quiet and hesitant like they’re afraid Lloyd’s going to break.

Lloyd doesn’t know if it makes it any better, them thinking he hasn’t already. He’s not sure he even wants to know.

Another beat passes with Kai still unmoving, and Lloyd’s about to grasp at the weakest of puns he’s got before his hands finally knead into the tight muscles of his shoulder, starting high then moving lower, drifting carefully toward the edge of the prosthetic.

Kai lays a gentle hand on the juncture where skin meets metal, and Lloyd feels the slow increase of heat before it settles on something that’s not too hot to burn, but definitely warm. The warmth spreads steadily through the rest of his arm and shoulder, heating the tense muscles in Lloyd’s shoulder, and he feels the rigidness there finally, truly relax, in a way it hasn’t in — well, since he’d lost his arm, probably.

It’s like his shoulders are getting heavier and lighter at the same time, and oh, Lloyd’s forgotten how good Kai was at this. He’s still painfully cautious around the prosthetic, though, and the silence isn’t — it isn’t uncomfortable, per say, but Lloyd knows there’s so much Kai’s thinking but not saying, and he wants to hear it. It’s almost stressing him out, actually. He wants to say something — but Kai’s hand on his shoulder is warm, and slowly but surely that warmth reaches the terrible ache that’s been lingering where the prosthetic connects for so long, and Lloyd almost weeps in relief as the pain ebbs.

“H—they really did a number on you, huh,” Kai hisses sympathetically, as his hand skims the raised, jagged lines of scarring.

Lloyd gives a boneless little shrug, trying to force back anxiety as Kai reminds him of the somewhat important fact that he doesn’t quite know who actually did a number on him. “It’s not that bad,” he mutters. “No need to get so up in arms about it.” There. Finally, a decent pun.

Kai seems to disagree, but the odd coughing noise he makes is close enough to a laugh. “Good to know your sense of humor died when we got yanked out of the realm.”

Against his will, Lloyd’s shoulders stiffen, and his breath hitches. He immediately curses himself, because it was a joke. Kai was just responding to Lloyd’s own horrible pun, and just because he used the word died doesn’t mean he has any idea why that might set Lloyd off, because he was gone before he saw Lloyd crumple to his knees on the sky tram, and he has no idea how loud Nya screamed when she’d heard the news, and he will never know how close Lloyd was to letting himself sink in the river instead and not coming back up, because Kai is tired and hollow-eyed and stressed enough, and Lloyd will not let himself become any more of a burden to him when—

“—Lloyd please, what did I say, come back—”

“Fine!” Lloyd gasps, jerking back from where Kai’s appeared in his face, his eyes wide and frightened. “Fine, I’m fine, I’m sorry, I just—”

Kai doesn’t even have to say anything. He just looks at him, and Lloyd’s words die in his throat. He buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, staring at the floor through his fingers.

Kai is quiet for another minute, then— “You’re really not fooling anyone, you know.”

Lloyd closes his eyes. “Nuh-uh.”

“Uh-huh,” Kai nods. “You’re giving it your best shot, I’ll give you that. But you’re really not okay, Lloyd.”

“I am,” he says, but it’s wavering.

“Lloyd.” Kai’s tone is just a little too serious, shot with the undercurrent of ‘you’re lying to me right now, and I know it, don’t make me call you out on it’. It makes Lloyd’s stomach twist, because he definitely does not want to talk about it, at all, but also—

Kai was dead. Maybe not for real dead, but Lloyd had thought he was, and that had done — that had done some really bad stuff to his overall emotional state. So hearing that familiar concern now, when he’d recently convinced himself that he’d never hear it again, is a clear sign that this particular conversation isn’t going to end well.

“It’s okay if you’re not alright,” Kai says gently, and oh no, Lloyd’s really going to cry again. “You don’t have to be.”

Cycling through his available role models for defense mechanisms, Lloyd settles on Jay for some reason, and responds with utterly unconvincing babbling. “Well, I mean, I kind of can’t be alright, because, you know, my right arm’s gone—”

Kai chokes, and Lloyd breathes out a laugh. He’s thinking he can just get all the building feelings out that way, but he’s wrong, because two seconds into the laugh it turns into crying instead.

“M’sorry,” he moans, digging the heels of his palms into his welling eyes. “I just — give me a m-minute, I’ll—” his voice cracks traitorously. “I’ll get it together, promise—”

Lloyd grabs for his mug in desperation, hiding his face as he gulps at it — only to choke on how cold the hot chocolate’s gotten.

Kai gives an aggrieved sigh, tugging the mug from Lloyd’s hands and wrapping his own around it where he holds it close to his chest, slowly re-heating it. He stares at the mug for a beat, then looks back to Lloyd, a dangerous kind of fire in his eyes.

“I told you I’d kill him for doing that to you,” he says, his voice deadly low. “I still mean it.”

Lloyd blinks. It takes him a minute, but then—

Oh. Oh, no. Lloyd feels sick. Kai’s given him a way out — he’s given him a perfect way out. But he can’t keep lying to his brother forever.

“I cut it off myself,” he blurts, rushed and out of breathe. “It-it wasn’t my dad. It was me. I cut it off.”

Kai drops the mug. He barely catches it in time, setting it down with a painful, halting slowness on the table. He stares at Lloyd, his mouth opening and closing.

“What?”

“There was a snake,” Lloyd says, and he’s talking too fast now, everything spilling out like a busted dam. “I don’t — I don’t know where from but it — it was like the one that bit my dad, you know? And I was — I was doing fine, I was fine, without my powers and everything, but I was so stupid, Kai, I wasn’t looking and it — it got me, and I—”

He sucks in breath almost desperately, forcing himself to calm down again. Kai is staring at him with wide eyes, his face terribly pale, but he isn’t running away yet. Lloyd still has a chance.

“I would’ve been like him. And I couldn’t,” he continues, fiercely. “I couldn’t turn into him, I wouldn’t. I’m not my dad, so I chose not to be, and I don’t — I don’t regret it.”

There’s really nothing more that he can say, to try and explain it to Kai, other than give him the whole rundown of depressing events, so he falls silent, his words echoing in the quiet of the kitchen.

“I’m sorry.”

Kai’s voice is ragged, cracking in the middle, and Lloyd is horrified to hear the wet, sniffled edge.

“What?” Lloyd blinks, taken aback. “No, Kai, this was definitely was my fault—”

“No,” Kai shakes his head, and Lloyd is even further horrified to see the sheen of water building at the edges of his eyes. Kai bites his lip hard enough to bleed, before continuing. “No, that’s not it. I’m sorry, Lloyd. I’m so sorry, I keep — I keep promising I’ll protect you, and I fail, every single time—”

“Kai, no,” Lloyd gapes at him. “No, you don’t. It’s not your fault this keeps happening, you try harder than anyone, and you — you always come through when it matters, you have no idea—”

“No!” Kai snaps, his head whipping up, his eyes wild. “You have no idea! You don’t know, Lloyd, you don’t even know how bad I messed up, when you needed — you don’t know—”

Kai hiccups on a sob, squeezing his eyes shut tight and tilting his head back, like he can physically stop himself from crying that way. “You don’t know. You— you’re what’s important, you and Nya and the guys, and I — Lloyd, I’m sorry—”

Lloyd stares at Kai, his mouth slightly agape. Kai’s trying, he’s trying so hard to stop it, but he’s doing about a good a job as Lloyd’s been at hiding his tears, which is…pretty terrible. And that’s — Kai is crying. Sure, Kai’s emotional, but he doesn’t — he doesn’t let himself cry, certainly not in front of Lloyd. He’s got this annoying thing about always seeming strong, but now he’s apparently run out of strength to keep it up, which kind of just feels like Lloyd’s shoved his heart into blender and hit go, and—

And Lloyd’s just staring at him, like a useless lump. FSM, he’s the worst little brother ever.

Lloyd snaps back into it, immediately crossing the distance that’s left between him and Kai, wrapping his arms around his brother’s middle and comforting him in the only way he’s got left — clinging to him as tightly as he can, like he can squeeze all the sadness out of him or absorb it like osmosis, or something, anything to help Kai like he always helps Lloyd, because—

Oh.

Lloyd speaks up quietly. “You’re really not okay either, Kai.”

Kai gives an awful, half-sobbing laugh. “You don’t say.” He digs his fingers tighter into his hair, eyes squeezing tight, and swears. “—so sorry, I didn’t mean to fall apart like — like—”

Lloyd gently tugs his hands away before he can tear his hair out, and wraps his metal arm around Kai’s shoulder, hoping it’s not painful. “It’s okay,” he tells him. “It’s okay, I promise. It’s okay if you’re not alright, either. It’s not fair to you. Stop holding yourself to some — some impossibly high level, Kai, it’s okay.”

“It’s not—”

“It is. I promise.” Then, exhaling shakily— “I’m sorry I scared you. Both back then, and now. I’m going to be better about that. I’m gonna be stronger.”

Kai gives a watery laugh. “Please. You’re the strongest person I know,” he says, thickly. “You cut off your own arm. How am I ever supposed to top that?”

Lloyd snorts wetly. “Please don’t ever try to,” he says, his voice clogged. “It sucks.”

Kai just gives a choking kind of laugh, before dropping his head onto Lloyd’s shoulder weakly, his breath shuddering out. Lloyd holds him best he can, trying to channel whatever Kai-ness he can into it, because that’s normally what works best on Lloyd.

When the…situations are reversed. Which is…a lot.

But Lloyd can do his part now, hugging Kai as tightly as he can, like it’ll put him back together and keep him there, all the pieces of his big brother that make up one of the strongest people on earth he knows. Like it’ll glue them both back together, somehow, like it’ll fix Lloyd’s arm and Kai’s heart and the whole team and the city and the now-icy cold hot chocolate Lloyd is going to wish he’d gotten to drink later.

Lloyd knows the chances are slim. But for now, at least they can pretend.

And who knows. Maybe it’ll — maybe this will help. Maybe they can duct tape themselves better after this. Who knows.

He got Kai back from the dead. Lloyd’s down for anything — anything — to make sure he stays fine the rest of his life.

************************  

Lloyd never does find out exactly what Kai was trying to apologize for that night. But he’s got a fairly good idea he knows what it is already, and voicing it isn’t gonna help.

But even though they ended up staying up way too late, missed practice the next morning, and totally ruined the hot chocolate with how many times they tried to reheat it, Lloyd thinks it might have worked, a little bit.

He doesn’t feel great about the whole situation with his uncle — pretty awful, actually. Sensei’s been avoiding him now, which works out okay, because Lloyd’s avoiding him, and he’s not sure if this is a good sign or a bad one. But…he feels better, on the whole, than he did. A lot less like his head is coming unscrewed, because if he’s got Nya and Kai sticking by him now, even after everything, then it’s not as hard to believe the rest of the team will, too.

Lloyd’s aware that this is a bad mindset to keep, because it’s not like — it’s not like they’re choosing sides, or anything. He’s not about to start a one-man-war on Sensei Wu just ‘cause he went behind Lloyd’s back and yanked the choice right out of his hands like every other choice his family’s yanked from him, but — but Lloyd’s not Garmadon.

He’s Lloyd, and Lloyd doesn’t storm off to the Underworld or level half the city when things get rough. He sticks it out, because he’s not a venom-devoured drama queen. He made sure of that.

(He doesn’t blow up any palaces or terrorize villages either, or say, wake the dead, because while his coping methods might not be great, at least murder isn’t his go-to resort.)

He does, however, skip practice again, which is quickly becoming an awful habit. But his arm hurts this morning, a bit more than usual because he slept on it wrong, and the idea of getting his butt handed to him in practice over and over again because of it is almost enough to make Lloyd tear up in humiliation all over his cereal.

But he doesn’t, because he’s done crying. He’s done being pathetic and — and a dead weight, and a poor excuse of a leader.

He’s also, like, really done being this dehydrated all the time. It sucks. He’d forgotten the killer headaches it leaves you with.

So Lloyd ignores the alarm going off on his watch and shoves another spoonful of cereal into his mouth instead, flexing his grip around the pencil he’s doodling over the latest headlines with. He immediately wishes he’d taken the grocery run last evening instead of Zane, because the health cereal he’s picked for them is disgusting, where’s the chocolate—

“Hey, Lloyd.”

Cole’s voice shouldn’t be a surprise, because it’s Cole, non-threat — but it’s been quiet in the apartment this morning, and Lloyd almost has a heart attack on the spot. Instead, he promptly chokes on his cereal, and spends the next half-minute hacking it up and coughing milk from his nose.

“Are you dying?” Cole asks, now standing in front of him, sounding mildly concerned.

“I’m alive,” he wheezes, wiping at his face. “Mos’ly.”

Cole’s lips quirk up in amusement, but he quickly smooths the expression out, nodding at him.

“You busy?”

Lloyd glances at his half-eaten bowl of cereal, then at the half-completed dragon he’d been sketching on the edges of the newspaper, another idea for his arm. “Not really…?”

“Good,” Cole says briskly, tossing his green hoodie toward him. Lloyd yelps, barely managing to catch it with before the jacket meets a soggy fate in his cereal bowl. “Let’s go out, then.”

“Go out — what? Wait Cole, I don’t — Cole!”

Lloyd finally scrambles after his brother, catching him as he swings the door open, half-tangled in his jacket as the right sleeve catches on his prosthetic. “Where are we—” He tugs in frustration at the sleeve. “—going, you’re supposed to be—” Another vicious yank. “—at practice right now.”

“And you’re not?” Cole sounds amused, though, and Lloyd glares at him, one arm pinned behind him by a sleeve, his other arm twisted somewhere over his head, tangled hopelessly in the other sleeve.

Cole bites his lip, an obviously large grin threatening to break out across his face. “Do you need help?”

“Yes,” Lloyd grinds out, his cheeks flaming.

Cole fails at holding back the snicker this time, but Lloyd can forgive it for now, since he also takes pity, untangling Lloyd from his sweatshirt prison. Once Lloyd’s finally figured out how to get his sleeve over the prosthetic — and man, the temptation to hack all the right sleeves off of everything he owns is getting stronger by the day — he follows Cole out their apartment complex, heading off to…wherever, Cole is taking him.

“Out,” Cole shrugs, as they carefully step over another Colossi-sized hole in the street, maneuvering past the chunks of concrete the workers still haven’t cleaned up.

“Yeah, that’s specific,” Lloyd mutters, ducking his head and pulling his hood further over his face as they pass by other pedestrians.

Cole’s got his hood up as well, but he’s always stood out a little more than Lloyd. A little (lot) taller than Lloyd, too, so they still get a few curious looks. Not as many as he’s been used to, though, when he was running around in the blazoned green Resistance gi all the time, so Lloyd will take what he can get.

He’s had enough pitying looks to last him a lifetime, and that was before he showed up on primetime Ninjago City television.

“You’ve been cooped up too long,” Cole says, eyeing him. “You gotta stop hiding away, get back out in the world.”

Lloyd bristles. “I went to the gas station with Kai just the other night!”

“Yeah, at two a.m.” Cole sighs — then yelps as he nearly runs face-first into a broken street light, still dangling by the slimmest of twisted metal. Lloyd breaks into snickers at his expression, and Cole makes a face at him.

“My point is, the city’s not on fire anymore,” Cole continues, and Lloyd’s stomach drops as his voice turns soft. That means he’s probably about to say something like— “No one’s hunting you down anymore, Lloyd. You don’t have to keep hiding.”

Lloyd looks down, kicking at a loose chip of concrete. “Yeah,” he says, dully. “I know.”

He does, really, because no one’s jumped out and threatened to drag him off to his father lately, but it’s just — it’s hard to shake. It’s hard to shake the idea that someone’s out there, eyeing his every move, just waiting to rip his world to pieces. It’s hard to shake the idea that any one of these people could be hiding a knife behind their back, a vendetta behind a smile.

He swallows. “I’m working on it.”

“Yeah,” Cole says, and his voice is downcast now, too. “I guess we all kinda are.”

Lloyd bites his lip. There’s a whole lot of understanding in Cole’s voice, but it figures. They’ve all been hit hard by, well, everything that’s happened recently, but Cole’s always tended to see things the same way Lloyd does — with the eyes of a leader, always planning, always looking ahead, and always looking back on what went wrong. And the way he watches the people around them, with a look in his eyes that’s painfully familiar, says a lot more than anything else.

“But ah, to actually answer the question,” Cole speaks up, a bit hesitantly. “I thought, uh, maybe we could go to the hospital.”

Lloyd blinks rapidly. “The hosp— why?” A spark of irritation flares in his chest. If this is about his arm…he’s told them, many times, that he’d gotten it looked at. Many. Times. There’s nothing else any doctor could do about it that Pixal can’t, because all they can do at this point is prescribe him more pain meds, and Lloyd is getting sick of those, so—

“I was just thinking, maybe you could, uh…visit the kids. If you felt up to it.”

Lloyd pauses full-stop in the street, double-taking. “Why?” Cole turns to him, and he quickly continues. “That’s, I mean — not that I don’t want to visit kids, I-I’d be fine with that, no problem, but like — why would they want to see me? Now?”

Because sure, Lloyd’s always down for visiting kids, especially at the hospital — that’s where he met Nelson. But he also — he hasn’t really been showing up on TV in the….best light, lately. Sure, he gave that one speech, but other than that, the most his name has come up is in direct relation to his father, who very recently destroyed half the city, and probably put a whole lot of people in the hospital.

Besides, Lloyd thinks glumly, his left hand kneading reflexively at his shoulder, clutching the edge of the prosthetic. He’s not exactly an inspirational figure right now, much less a role model. More like a model of exactly how not to live your life—

“Because they’ll want to see you,” Cole shrugs, matter-of-factly. “And ‘cause I think some of them could learn something from you.”

“Learn what?” Lloyd breathes, almost laughing. “Cole, I can’t even teach you guys anything.”

“Okay, one, that’s a lie,” Cole says, firmly. “We learn a lot from you, give yourself some credit. You just have to be at practice for us to learn.”

Lloyd flushes, looking down, but Cole nudges him, forcing his gaze back up.

“And two, you’d be surprised.” A wry smile pulls at the edges of his mouth, before he sighs. “Also, I’m kinda hoping you’ll learn something, too.”

It’s Lloyd’s turn to make a face.“Oh, great. So it’s that kind of visit.”

Cole rolls his eyes. He pauses, his shoulders hunching up a bit, looking hesitant again. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“Nah,” Lloyd sighs, heavily. “I’m not gonna turn down visiting kids in the hospital, what kind of monster do you think I am.”

“I don’t,” Cole says, and his eyes are a little too knowing. “But I do think you’re entitled to choose whether you’re up for it or not.”

And oof, there goes Lloyd’s breath whooshing out of his chest again. “How did you—”

“Also,” Cole says, before Lloyd can continue. “You’re entitled to a meltdown every once and a while, too.”

Lloyd goes scarlet. “I — the other night — it was an accident, I just—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cole steamrolls over his stuttering airily. Then, just as casually— “There are always spare lightbulbs in the lower left pantry shelf, by the way. Just in case you ever needed to know.”

“Got it,” Lloyd murmurs, ducking his head.

“And half the city’s transformers already got obliterated by the Colossi, so one patch job isn’t a whole lot. Just in case, you know, someone was thinking of beating themselves up for it. Which they shouldn’t.”

Lloyd’s cheeks are flaming. “I-I got it,” he stammers out. Trying to regain some semblance of composure, because he’s been feeling like a nine year-old again way too many times this week as it is, he clears his throat. “I do want to go. Thank you for — for asking, but I do.”

Cole’s expression lightens in relief. “Good,” he says, clapping him on his left shoulder. “Because I might have already told the hospital we were coming.”

“Of course you did,” Lloyd sighs, as they round another street corner, the hospital coming into view.

“Hey, I happen to know my teammates,” Cole shrugs, grinning. “You’re predictable.”

“Of course I am,” Lloyd groans. “You know, I really…”

Lloyd’s train of thought completely derails and plummets straight off a cliff right then, so he trails off in a strangled silence as his mouth goes bone-dry.

Oh. He’d forgotten the view the hospital gave you, of…certain areas…of the city.

“Lloyd?”

Cole’s voice is muffled, filtered weirdly like it’s underwater. Lloyd’s vision tunnels, seeing but not really seeing as he stares at the blank spot in the horizon. He remembers the building that used to be there, twenty-four stories high and just blocking the corner of the sunset in the evenings. He remembers the last time he saw it standing, from halfway across the city, Skylor unconscious in his arms and his father furious. He remembers watching it fall.

He wonders if they ever found—

“Lloyd?”

Cole’s voice is hesitant, laced with concern. Lloyd blinks wildly, tearing himself from the memory, and shudders.

“Let’s go,” he says, shaking his head, as if he can shake the past off. As if he can shake her off, and everything she’s left him with.

He doubts he ever will, but Cole’s hand on his shoulder as they climb the steps outside is warm and grounding, and a reminder that, at least, she didn’t take everything from him.

The front desk attendant at the hospital lets them through without batting an eye, which is a nice change, Lloyd thinks petulantly to himself. He’s quickly tugged from any more thoughts like that, because Cole drags him straight to the kids’ ward, and Lloyd’s suddenly left desperately trying to remember where, exactly, his everything-is-bright-and-happy expression decided to disappear to, because the kids all light up like fireworks when they see him, and Lloyd’s kind of just staring weakly back.

Cole saves him, stepping in front and greeting the kids with bright enthusiasm, which gives Lloyd enough time to pull himself back together. He manages to stutter out some decently happy stuff, but then the kids start talking about the Resistance, and how awesome he looked on TV, and did he totally kick his father’s butt, and was it so cool getting to fight like that, and they were all rooting for him during the prison fight—

Lloyd’s torn between running for the window, and asking them all who in the world let them watch the prison battle, because he’s pretty sure that was not a kid-friendly kind of thing. Instead, he stammers out that yeah, it was pretty cool, and sure, he kicked his — Garmadon’s butt, all while pulling his sweatshirt sleeve further over his arm as it throbs with the constant, painful reminder that he’s a total fraud.

Cole saves him, once again.

“Hey, guys, we’ve got time to talk to all of you, and — yeah, sure bud, we can sign that for you, but Lloyd wants to talk to a few of your friends in particular, okay?”

Lloyd blinks rapidly as Cole steers him away, his words registering. “Wait, what?” He tries to yank his arm from Cole’s hold. “Cole, wait, who do you want me to — wait, I don’t have anything prepared—”

“You won’t need to,” Cole says firmly, then nods at the kid he’s been dragging him over to. Lloyd glares at Cole, huffing out a sigh before craning around his shoulder.

“I don’t—” Lloyd freezes, his mouth open. He shuts it.

The kid Cole’s been dragging him to is sitting by himself toward the back of the common room. The look in his eyes is eerily familiar, hollow and empty-looking where he’s slumped on the couch. He’s leaning awkwardly to one side, and it takes Lloyd a minute — too long, really — before he spots it.

Oh, Lloyd thinks, his breath whooshing out from his chest. He gets it now.

He ducks out from behind Cole, his feet taking him forward almost unconsciously, and he carefully approaches the kid.

“Hey,” he says gently, going down on a knee in front of the kid. “I like your socks.” He nods at the Starfarer-emblazoned ones he’s got on, where his feet dangle over the couch edge.

The kid looks at him, his eyes widening, then back toward his socks. His eyebrows pull into a sad little glare. “I can’t wear my shoes,” he says, hollowly. “I can’t tie ‘em. Not with my…” He trails off, and turns the glare on the empty sleeve of the hospital gown that hangs from his left shoulder. “My arm,” he finishes, quietly.

Something in Lloyd’s heart twists with painful familiarity. “Yeah, I get that,” he says, ruefully. The kid squints at him, and Lloyd exhales, before tugging the sleeve of his hoodie off. The kid’s eyes go huge, and Lloyd swallows, before continuing, smiling shakily at him. “See? I couldn’t even buckle my armor on the first week, and that was after I got the prosthetic. It’s tough stuff.”

The kid continues to stare at the prosthetic, his eyes looking like they’re about to pop out of his head. “Your arm’s gone,” he whispers. “Just like mine.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd breathes out. He rolls up his sleeve, pointing to the edges of the prosthetic. “Lost it right about…here.”

The kid’s eyes rove over the metal arm, lingering on his and Nya’s designs, before zeroing in on where the scarring starts. “And you’re still a ninja?” The kid’s voice is still hushed, almost awestruck.

“Sure am,” Lloyd says, with a crooked smile. “Team leader and everything.” Even if he’s been a pretty awful one lately, his mind supplies.

The kid’s lips part, and he hesitates before speaking again. “A-and you can still…do all that stuff?” he asks, his voice painfully tentative. “Even with…even with your arm?”

Lloyd’s throat goes tight, but he nods. “Yeah,” he says, thickly. “Yeah, I can — I can still do ninja stuff. Took me a bit, but I can tie my shoes, too. And I can still do, uh, handsprings and everything.”

A myriad of expressions crosses the kid’s face, shock then joy then something a whole lot like hope, and Lloyd suddenly realizes why the empty emotion he’d seen in the kid’s eyes when he walked in looked so familiar. It’s the same hollow look Lloyd’s seen looking back at him in the mirror every stupid day since—

And now it’s gone, replaced by something bright and shining.

“Awesome,” the kid says, his voice hushed and reverent, like Lloyd’s just given him some untold kind of gift.

Lloyd has to swallow again, and blinks frantically. “My — my name’s Lloyd, by the way,” he says, holding his hand out — the left one, so it’s not awkward for the kid. The kid grins, in a way that clearly says, ‘I know, duh, moron’. “What’s yours?”

The kid beams. “Max,” he says, gripping Lloyd’s arm and shaking enthusiastically, wobbling a bit off-balance.

“Nice to meet you, Max,” Lloyd smiles back. Then he goes serious, meeting the kid’s eyes. “Listen. All that stuff — you can do it, too. Tie your shoes and everything. It’ll take a bit, but you can, I promise.”

Max stares at him, listening intently, his eyes bright, and Lloyd suddenly feels a terrible amount of pressure.

“But you—” he falters, then sucks a breath in before continuing. “Don’t do it by yourself, okay? You’ve got — you’ve got family, right?”

He immediately wants to kick himself, because what a stupid question, has Harumi taught him nothing—

The kid nods, and Lloyd exhales heavily in relief. “Okay. Good. Let them help you. Family and friends, and the doctors here — they care about you. So even — even if it feels annoying sometimes, or you start thinking that maybe they just think you’re too weak, you gotta let them help you.”

Lloyd pauses, and thinks of Nya, her snarky humor and unwavering strength, the long nights they’d stay up together as she redesigned his arm. He thinks of Jay, coming up with new puns for him and leaving the pain meds bottle on the lowest shelf. He thinks of Zane, of actually listening to him and adjusting his entire training schedule; of Kai, sitting up all night with him and never holding his outbursts against him. He thinks of Cole, sewing the team back together with infinite patience and dragging him out to the hospital because he knew exactly what Lloyd needed to see.

Lloyd thinks about how completely, utterly terrible his life would be without them.

“‘Cause they care about you, and you — you can do it, but you can’t do it without them. You need people who care about you in your corner, so don’t ever take them for granted.”

Max’s eyes have widened a bit, but he nods. “I won’t,” he says, solemnly.

“Good,” Lloyd says, then smiles wryly. “You’ll get the hang of it a lot faster than I did, at that rate.”

“No way, you’re the Green Ninja,” Max scoffs, and Lloyd snorts despite himself. He shakes his head, turning to exchange looks with Cole—

—only to pause, because Cole’s eyes are horribly shiny, all suspiciously watery as he sniffs a bit.

‘You sap’, Lloyd mouths at him, his eyebrows drawing together in accusation. Cole flashes him a gesture, neatly hidden from the other kids behind his hand, and Lloyd is about to descend on him for the audacity, because he always lectures Lloyd for doing that, when Max is suddenly tugging furiously at his hand.

“Wait, wait, you gotta meet my friend!” he says, bouncing from his seat in reckless energy. Lloyd steadies him as he wobbles, and the kid beams at him. “She lost her leg ‘cause she’s real sick, and she’s been pretty sad about it too, but wait until she sees you—! She’s gonna freak out, come on, come on—”

Lloyd gives a startled laugh, but he lets Max drag him forward, tiny fingers locked around his metal ones. Cole waves to him where he’s on the floor, letting kids climb over all him, and he’s got the worst of knowing smiles on his face as they pass.

Lloyd casts his eyes skyward. Cole’s gonna be so smug about this later, but watching the look on Max’s face as he introduces him to kid after kid, Lloyd really can’t bring himself to mind.

******************

They stay a whole three hours longer than they were supposed to, but Max falls asleep on Lloyd’s shoulder by the time they have to go, so the nurses can’t get too upset about them staying way past visiting hours.

“Because you two were adorable, seriously, it’d be like kicking a puppy. I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures,” Cole shakes his head, looking disappointed in himself.

“Good,” Lloyd says fervently. “Kai would never let me live it down.”

“Aw, he’d frame it on our wall, though.”

“Yeah, and then I’d never live that down!”

Cole snorts loudly, and Lloyd huffs, bouncing down the steps as they exit the hospital. They fall into comfortable silence for a bit, and Lloyd spares a look at Cole from the corners of his eyes, biting his lip. His good mood is fading as they leave the hospital behind them, stepping out into the city evening, the streetlights just flickering on, bright and shiny as they’ve recently been repaired — reminding him.

“What you said, before we went in,” he finally asks headlong. “About…being entitled to choose, and stuff.” Lloyd swallows, then continues. “Was that, um. Did you happen to maybe, like, hear…”

“You and Sensei Wu’s talk?” Cole finishes with a wince, and uh oh, Lloyd can hear the capital ’T’ emphasis on talk. “Our apartment’s really small, Lloyd.”

Oh, no. “H-how much did you hear?” Lloyd asks, almost afraid of the answer.

Cole carefully avoids his eyes, his mouth titled downwards in guilt. “Kind of…everything?”

He definitely should’ve been afraid of the answer, Lloyd thinks numbly. “But Kai said you only—” he pauses, meeting Cole’s sympathetic gaze. His stomach turns. Oh. “Right. Okay. Kai was just trying to make me feel better.”

“He likes to do that, if you haven’t noticed.”

Lloyd grimaces, feeling a stab of his own guilt. “Yeah."

“He’s not the only one,” Cole says, pointedly. “I didn’t tell you that to make you feel bad. We’d all like you to feel better.”

“Yeah, well—” Lloyd freezes. A thought suddenly hits him, with a swooping kind of horror. If they heard everything, like everything everything—

“Cole, the part when I said — the part where I said I hated this family,” he stammers frantically. “I didn’t mean — I meant my blood one. Only my blood one, I didn’t — you guys are—”

“Lloyd.” Cole’s hand is gentle on his shoulder, halting them where they stand on the empty street that runs along the river. “I get it. And I know you didn’t mean it, about your family. Either of them.”

Lloyd’s mouth turns downward. “You guys are the only family that matters to me,” he says, stiffly.

Bitterly, his mind supplies, not without a sting, and would it shut up, he’s trying to — to emotionally distance himself here—

Cole’s eyes dart away briefly, something immeasurably sad flashing in them, and almost too empathetic.

“Lloyd, you — you have us. You’ll always have us. And I’m not — I’m not saying you should feel one way or another, ‘cause I know you’re hurt. And you have every right to be, that’s very justified.”

Lloyd looks down. “But,” he says, dully.

“But,” Cole exhales. “But lying to yourself can hurt, too. And I know — look, it was super uncool. That was low of him, and undoubtedly in the wrong. We’re all with you on that. But Lloyd, you know he — you know he cares about you, right? He didn’t… he didn’t do it to hurt you. That wasn’t his intention.”

“How do I know,” Lloyd snaps, bitterly. “How am I supposed to know, Cole. How many times am I supposed to tell myself my mom didn’t mean to leave me, my dad didn’t mean to hurt me, my uncle didn’t mean to — to—”

Lloyd breaks off, his stupid traitor eyes threatening to run as he sniffs. He blows his breath out, steadying himself. Cole, wonderful person that he is, does not comment on any of this.

“I’m just tired,” he finally whispers, staring out with hollow eyes on the river, the dark water glinting in the streetlights. Cole’s hand drops onto his shoulder again, and he squeezes once.

“I know, bud,” he says, sounding horribly young and yet so much older than he should, all at the same time. “I know. I am too.”

Lloyd doesn’t say anything to that, but he doesn’t really need to. The silence is enough, for them — it’s always been, with Cole. There are some things you can say, that you can talk out with words or powers or weapons, but there are some things that you just—

You don’t really get it, until you find it in you to call yourself leader. There aren’t exactly words for how it feels like, playing chicken with your friends’ lives and your family’s lives and the entire city and country on the line.

You just…feel tired.

Cole’s breath hitches, and his hand tightens on Lloyd’s shoulder, carefully around the edges of the prosthetic, but not in a way that grates. It’s normal Cole-careful, not the brittle kind scared-careful everyone’s been about it.

“Just…take it from someone who’s let a family argument fester,” he says quietly. “It doesn’t stop hurting. Not until you face it. However that ends is up to you, but. It helps.”

Lloyd swallows, and the river in front of him blurs, the streetlights turning hazy in his vision. He glances at Cole, then finally meets his eyes.

“You promise?”

“I promise,” Cole nods. He hesitates, then something in his expression steels.

“And if I’m wrong, I’ll help you sign the — the disownment papers, or whatever, myself,” he adds, suddenly fierce. “You can have my last name, instead. Or Kai and Nya’s, or — or we’ll all mash ours together into some garbled mess that’s yours, and you can have like, five or six whole step-parents, and it’ll be great.”

The laugh that startles out of Lloyd is so unexpected he almost makes himself jump, but it’s genuine. A little wet, maybe, but it’s the staggering feeling of relief Lloyd’s been looking for, been wanting, been needing, and—

“It’s worth it,” he blurts out. “It’s worth being the Green Ninja for you guys alone. I’d do it a hundred times if I just got to have you, because — because—”

“Aw, Lloyd,” Cole says, and he wraps him in a full hug this time. “It doesn’t work like that. You don’t need to be the Green Ninja to have us. You’d still have us if you weren’t. You’d still have us if you were just some bratty little kid we yanked from the street. You’d still have us if you only had one limb left and couldn’t even hold a sword, you’d still—”

“I get it,” Lloyd giggles wetly into Cole’s elbow.

Cole shakes his head, and squeezes Lloyd tightly. “And we’re not planning on quitting anytime soon,” he continues, his voice turning serious, and a little too knowing. “So don’t go selling us short, and think we’d die on one shattered ship. We knew what we were getting into, kiddo. We’ve always known.”

Lloyd sucks in a sharp breath, his heart stuttering. A whole bunch of questions are bubbling up in his chest, but they don’t quite make it through his throat, because it’s closing up again, so he just clings back to Cole and tries not to let his eyes water too much. Oh. Lloyd didn’t even have to tell him. Cole already knew.

That’s Cole for you though, Lloyd guesses.

************************

Lloyd has every intention of talking to Sensei Wu. Really, he does — because for one thing, it's caused a painfully obvious rift in their team dynamic which could get them into serious trouble if another threat breaks out, and going by their track record, that could happen like, tomorrow. And for another, they’re all living in an incredibly cramped apartment right now, and while Lloyd is perfectly fine avoiding his uncle by parkouring around the house like an extreme game of the floor is lava, Nya’s probably getting sick of having to get him unstuck from the air vents, so — confrontation it is.

Except if Lloyd’s going to force himself through the agony of that, he’s going to get it all out of the way at once. Besides, he owes his team an explanation, anyways. Probably…several explanations. A whole lot of words, that’s for sure.

So Lloyd sucks it up, finishes cutting off the sleeve on the right side of his pre-Resistance gi so it actually fits, and for the first time since the guys got back, feels somewhat like a shadow of the leader he’s supposed to be as he calls a team meeting. This brief burst of confidence is thoroughly shot through by Nya, who immediately dubs it the “aha, I see it’s time we all talked our issues out” meeting, but — well, it’s not like she’s wrong.

Besides, they needed it. And in hindsight, Lloyd realizes he’s been worrying about all the wrong things.

“I can’t believe you cut your own arm off and didn’t even like, take the opportunity to make a hundred Star Wars jokes. You realize there’s no escaping the Luke Skywalker jokes now, right?”

“For the last time, Luke didn’t cut his own arm off. I’m way more hard core than he is.”

“Yeah, for a maniac. You’re both on full-time babysitting. We leave for five minutes and you go around losing limbs and breaking arms, huh.”

“I can’t believe we ever mourned your deaths.”

“I can’t believe you thought we were dead and didn’t say anything!”

“He’s right, the psychological trauma stemming from such events could be—”

“If any of you say traumatizing again, I’m using the taser feature on my arm.”

“I can’t believe Nya built that in for you.”

“I can’t believe you let Uncle Wu flirt with some random lady in the First Realm.”

“He wasn’t flirting with her, would you let that drop—”

“Alright, alright! Don’t worry, I’ve hit my limb-it. Heh, get it—”

He’s met with a chorus of groans at that, and Jay chucks a couch cushion at his head. But it brightens the already-lightening mood more, weary sort of grins replacing the solemn expressions that everyone’s been wearing through most of this conversation, so Lloyd counts it as a total success. Even if none of them appreciate real humor, he thinks to himself, miffed.

“Okay, real talk, though,” Cole finally speaks up over the rest of them, as their scattered conversation dies down. He meets Lloyd’s eyes. “If you want us to come with you when you talk with your uncle, we’ll be happy to, you know.”

A tight kind of knot forms in Lloyd’s throat. Your uncle, not Sensei. He’d never dream of asking them to pick a side, but—

“Yeah, we’ve all got your back,” Jay nods, miming a punch at the air, before making a face. “You have like, this really awful habit of going all ‘oh no, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault Sensei Wu, ignore everything I said even though it was super valid’—”

Lloyd chucks the couch cushion back at him. “I do not do that,” he scowls.

Nya cuts him a pointed look. “Yes, you do.”

Lloyd glares back. “Do not.”

“She’s right, you do,” Cole echoes.

“Kinda do, bud,” Kai sighs.

Lloyd looks to Zane, pleading. Zane just shakes his head, pityingly. Lloyd sighs. “No faith in me at all,” he says, forlornly.

“We’ve got total faith in you,” Cole says. “You just need to have faith in yourself.”

Lloyd groans, leaning back so he’s fully sprawled across the living room floor. “You sound like Sensei Wu’s lesson book.”

Nya pokes him in the ribs, and Lloyd jerks away, yelping. “Listen to him, Lloyd. Not that I’m against sudden passionate outbursts, but…healthy talks. We need to work on healthy talks.” Her voice wavers, and Lloyd glances up at her. She looks down, then holds her head up, taking a deep breath.

“Which is why, when this blows over, I’d — I’d like to talk about Nadakhan,” she announces, a little unsteadily, but determined. “For — for real, this time.” She gives Lloyd a shaky smile, and he beams back, trying not to look too shiny-eyed about it. Going by her expression, he’s failed, but she spares him the embarrassment and turns her attention elsewhere. “Jay?”

Jay’s shoulders almost go boneless, and an expression of what could be relief flashes across his face. “I’m down if you are,” he exhales.

“Wait, what exactly are we talking about with Nadakhan, here?” Cole says, suddenly wildly concerned. Lloyd feels a brief spark of victory, and not a small amount of vengefulness at the look on Nya’s face — it’s about time someone else is on the chopping black.

“Nothing,” Jay says, waving his arms. He blinks, then suddenly backtracks. “Wait, I mean — it’s definitely something, but, uh — Nya said later! So we’ll talk later, haha?”

“Jay—”

“Hey,” Kai catches him off to the side, as the others dissolve into bickering. His eyes are serious, but the dark circles aren’t quite as bad. Not as awful as they’ve been, which is the best Lloyd can ask for right now, he guesses. “You’ve got this, no problem,” Kai continues, under his breath so the others can’t hear. “But on the off chance you want out, at any point? All you gotta do is yell for me and I’ll swoop in for you and run, just give the word. We can always work this out another day.”

Lloyd bites his lip, looking down. “I need to talk to him, Kai. I can’t leave it like this forever.”

“Well, yeah,” Kai says, evenly. “Maybe not. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re still Master Lloyd to us. We’ll follow your lead.”

Oh, now he’s done it. Lloyd’s throat goes painfully tight, and his eyes burn as he struggles to swallow back anymore embarrassing displays. “K-kai, you—”

“Please tell me I didn’t make you cry again,” Kai says hurriedly.

Lloyd shakes his head, elbowing him lightly in the side. “I wasn’t gonna cry,” he huffs. “I was just gonna say that I—” Lloyd swallows again, and murmurs, “I really missed you, Kai.”

Then, realizing he sounds entirely too vulnerable right now, he clears his throat and gives Kai a shaky grin. “Especially since now I really need you as my right hand man—”

Kai swats the back of his head, scuffing his hair down. “Lloyd, you’re my brother and I love you, but if you make another horrible arm pun, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Please,” Lloyd snorts. “You didn’t bring me a dragon back. If anyone should be never forgiving anyone, it’s me.”

************************

Lloyd’s not one to let fear get the best of him — for very long — but nothing’s really rooted him to the floor in terror like the sight of his uncle’s closed door has. Well, besides maybe his undead father dangling him off the floor in Kryptarium, or the sight of the Bounty getting crushed to pieces, or the way Skylor had collapsed in his arms, or the sensation of twin points of pain on the back of his hand—

Okay, so maybe fear’s been a pretty big player in his life lately, but still. Lloyd doesn’t let fear win out over him. He shouldn’t let fear win out over him.

Fear isn’t a word where I come from, Lloyd’s mind echoes half-hysterically at him.

Absolutely none of this helps the way his hands tremble violently as he knocks on Sensei’s door.

“Come in.”

Sensei Wu’s voice is quiet and level, no revealing trace of emotion in it. Nausea wells up in Lloyd’s throat, but he swallows it down. Kai’s “all you gotta do is yell for me” lingers in Lloyd’s mind, but he shrugs the thought off. As tempting as it is — Kai snatching him up from this conversation entirely and saving Lloyd a lot of awkward stuttering — he can’t just take the easy way out. Cole’s right — Lloyd needs to face this eventually. Letting things fester never helped anyone.

Harumi drove that one home pretty well.

Sucking in a breath, Lloyd finally pushes the door open, cursing his shaking fingers as they clack on the doorknob. His courage — if he can even call it that — falters, and he keeps his gaze rooted to the ground like it’s the most riveting thing in the room. The familiar smell of incense wafts over him, and Lloyd struggles not to throw up again.

There’s a measured intake of breath, before Sensei Wu exhales quietly. “Lloyd.”

Again, there’s little to no emotion in his voice, just that infuriatingly calm serenity, which is no help at all, because Lloyd has zero clue whether he’s furious with him or just — just disappointed, or something worse. And he’s sure as heck not going to look at his expression to figure it out, because that will require meeting his eyes, and Lloyd would rather combust on the spot.

He’s already faced one family member’s eyes burning in hatred on him. If he has to see Uncle Wu, too — Uncle Wu, who Lloyd’s always thought believed in him from the beginning—

“Sit, please.”

Lloyd shakes his head. He can’t. He’s already losing the battle to nerves, he can’t just — pretend this is another master-student talk. He needs to get it over with now, before he goes to pieces again.

“I…” Lloyd swallows. His mouth is painfully dry, and he still can’t get his hand to stop shaking. The metal one is finally listening to him, at least. He finally forces out a shuddery exhale, then curves his spine into a bow, his head hung low.

“Sensei,” he says, almost proud that his voice only wavers the slightest bit. “I’ve come to apologize for my actions earlier. And my words, I — I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

Sensei Wu is silent. The air is so thick Lloyd almost struggles to breath, and a part of him faintly wonders if the incense hasn’t grown a mind of its own and is actively trying to suffocate him.

“I just — it hurt, when you went behind my back, and I know — I know I’m a mess.” The admission stings, but it’s true. It’s way too true, but that still doesn’t give him the right—

“And I’m trying,” Lloyd continues, his voice cracking in all the worst places. “I’m trying so hard, Sensei Wu, I am, but I can’t — you were gone, and I tried so hard to be the-the leader you would want, I really did, but things just — everything went so wrong, and I—”

Lloyd cuts off, swallowing back a sob. “But I didn’t meant it,” he croaks out. “When I said I hated—”

He doesn’t get to finish that, because he’s suddenly being dragged out of the bow by Sensei Wu, and pulled arms-first into a tight embrace before he even realizes what’s happening. Lloyd’s poor brain short-circuits in surprise, and all he can really do is hang there like a dead fish while Uncle Wu clings to him like he hasn’t since Lloyd was nine.

He might also be crying, maybe, but he’s also in dead-fish-mode, so who knows—

“No, Lloyd,” his uncle says, and there’s an edge of a sob in his words, just like the one Lloyd was choking back earlier. “I am sorry. I am so, so very sorry, not only for going behind your back, but for everything—”

He cuts off, inhaling sharply, and Lloyd stares blankly into his shoulder as his eyes decide to run like a leaky faucet. This is — this is not going according to plan. He’s not prepared for this, he was ready for Uncle Wu to yell at him, to be angry, not—

“And you have every right to be angry with me,” Uncle Wu continues, his hold on Lloyd loosening, but not letting go. “But I must — please, Lloyd, you must know it was never you that I doubted, it was me.”

He takes a ragged breath. “I failed your father, Lloyd,” he says, his voice wet. “I failed him, and I lost him. I failed Morro, and I lost him as well. I’ve failed you too, Lloyd, and I’ve almost lost you far too many times, because of my failures, but I still — I still have you, Lloyd. The idea of losing you, for good, because I was not there when you needed me most—”

Uncle Wu’s holding him tighter again, and his word are finally starting to make sense through the haze that’s fogged up Lloyd’s brain, just in time for him to hear the next part clearly.

“You’re my family, Lloyd,” Uncle Wu rasps, suddenly sounding very old. “And I don’t tell you this as often I should, but you should know how very proud of you I am, and the person you’ve become.”

Lloyd sucks in a shuddering breath, his eyes welling over. Oh. His fingers fist into the fabric of his uncle’s robe, tentatively clutching back.

“You should also know,” Uncle Wu says, his voice wet but steady. “How very much I love you, regardless of what title you choose to bear. You will always be my nephew, no matter what color you wear.”

Oh. Oh, no, here he goes again. Lloyd clutches back tighter, drops his head onto his uncle’s shoulder, and tries very hard not to cry like a total baby.

He’s about five percent successful.

The scent of incense isn’t so suffocating anymore, even if Lloyd can’t breathe through his nose for crying right now. It smells a little more like he remembers, when he was younger.

Like home.

************************

“It can be very hard,” Uncle Wu tells him later, over the light tea he’s made them both. “To love the people in this family.”

“But you do,” Lloyd voices, watching him hesitantly.

“But I do.” Uncle Wu gives a wry breath of laughter. “Not as well as you do, though.”

Lloyd ducks his head, staring into his tea. “I don’t think it helped very much,” he whispers. “Not with…with my father.”

Uncle Wu’s hand is gentle where it rests on his shoulder.

“You have a big heart, Lloyd,” he says, his voice sad. “And that means there is only that much more to break.” He shakes his hand, and Lloyd sways the tiniest bit back and forth. “That does not mean you are any weaker for it, nor that you are wrong.”

Lloyd gives a snort that is definitely not an attempt to hide welling tears again. “Tell that to my father.”

“You should tell him yourself, if you want.”

Lloyd jerks his head up, his eyes widening. “Then…does that mean I’m off the blacklist?” he asks, tentatively. “For the prison?”

Uncle Wu sighs. “If you are certain it will not break your heart anymore,” he says. “Then you may go whenever you wish. I have already removed the block, but…I would ask that you be sure. For your sake, Lloyd.”

Lloyd stares at his hands, the metal one glinting in the dim lamplight. He thinks of cruel words echoing against prison walls, of how his heart had splintered into pieces long before his father had thrown him through that last prison wall, or he’d taken a sword to his own arm. He thinks of the TV broadcasts that Nya and Jay will never be able to wipe completely from the web, no matter how hard they try. He thinks of how his father will never know the pain of his heart splitting into pieces, certainly not for Lloyd, because it’ll never be the same heart Lloyd knew once.

And yet…

One of them is sitting in a cold cell, and one of them is drinking tea with their uncle, with the people they love most a mere room away (or right outside the door, Lloyd’s overbearing-sibling-radar has been acting up).

Lloyd shakes his head. “I don’t break,” he says, firmly.

He won’t. Not this time. Because his father — his real father, the father he loves, who he’d promised he’d live for, even in the depths of the Cursed Realm—

“I’m a Garmadon,” Lloyd says, his voice steady. “I don’t break.”

Uncle Wu is entirely unsuccessful at hiding the teary sort of smile he’s making in his teacup, but Lloyd will give him credit for trying.

************************

It’s easier walking into the prison again, the second time.

Is what Lloyd is going to say, when the others ask him how it went when he gets back. The reality is that Lloyd is every bit as mind-numbingly terrified walking through these stupid doors as he was the first time. Except this time might even be worse, actually, because he misses a step on the way in and almost trips flat on his face, which totally ruins the badass power walk he was trying to do.

It’s not like he’ll ever be able to stride around like his father, anyways, Lloyd thinks dully, even as his face burns. Not when Garmadon’s got about four entire feet and the malevolent energy of Darth Vader on him.

Lloyd spends the next three minutes cursing himself for giving in to the Star Wars references, enough that he almost forgets the growing sense of anxiety writhing in his gut as he hurries through the prison. He doesn’t spare the walls a second glance this time, making a beeline directly for the isolation cell.

He holds his breath, just a tiny bit, as the guard scans him in. He’s almost surprised as he immediately waves him through, but forces himself to shake it off.

He’s not going to walk out of this with crippling trust issues all around. He’s not. Uncle Wu said he’d told them Lloyd could go, so Lloyd trusts him. And Uncle Wu is trusting him not to break down over this, so Lloyd isn’t going to. He’s just gonna have a…a nice little chat, with his father, that’s all. Maybe ask about the impending doomsday stuff he was muttering about, and make sure he isn’t planning to break out. Definitely not going to bring up anything related to Lloyd’s emotional state, that’s for sure.

It’s going to be just fine, Lloyd assures himself, even as his metal fingers twitch, the occasional static of green buzzing between the joints. He needs to keep an eye on that. Nya’s started getting him to run actual tests on it, so he knows the green power works fine with his arm, but still.

It’s the fight that fuels his father, and Lloyd hasn’t needed a lot of encouragement to go off on someone lately.

He shoves those thoughts back as the guard takes him deeper into the prison, the hallways growing darker and narrow. Lloyd has to swallow back a growing sense of claustrophobia the farther they go, his skin crawling as unbidden memories of the fight flicker in the back of his mind.

His hands ball into fists. You’re fine, he tells himself again. This is different. It’s fine.

His power buzzes in the back of his head, as if attempting to voice that it disagrees. Lloyd studiously ignores it, because the guard’s letting him in now, and he’s got a lot more problems to worry about.

Or just one big one, he thinks faintly, staring at his father where he’s illuminated in the middle of the dark room, sitting calmly in his cell as he stares at the ceiling.

For a beat, Lloyd’s rooted to the spot — half from a dizzying sense of nausea, half because he can’t find the walkway they’ve built.

…mostly because he can’t find the walkway they’ve built. Lloyd spends an embarrassing ten seconds thinking that Garmadon’s cell is just floating there, and he’s going to have to holler this conversation back and forth across the dark expanse, before his eyes finally catch on the dim-lit walkway.

No railings, Lloyd notes, and half of him wonders how funny it’d be if, after everything, he accidentally slipped and fell on the way to visit his imprisoned father, and that’s what did him in. It’d be a real spite to Harumi, that’s what—

“I was wondering when you’d come to visit.”

Lloyd swallows at the voice, and forces himself to meet the crimson eyes staring at him, so much like his own.

“Father,” he says in greeting, as tonelessly as possible.

Garmadon scoffs, but he says nothing to refute him. The tiniest embers of hope light in Lloyd’s chest, before he violently smothers them. He’s not here to get hurt again.

His father’s eyes are moving down now, coming to a halt on Lloyd’s prosthetic. Lloyd shifts uncomfortably with the urge to hide it from view, forcing himself to stand steady.

“I never did like snakes,” Garmadon finally says, his voice even, then returns to staring at the ceiling.

Lloyd blinks. That’s it? That’s it. Lloyd’s lost an entire arm and — yeah, Garmadon already got a face-first introduction to the prosthetic back on Borg Tower, but he’d — he’d thought —

Lloyd doesn’t know what he’d thought, actually. He doesn’t have any footing with his father, anymore. He doesn’t know this person like he used to know the father who loved him.

“You said something to me, back on the tower,” Lloyd says, rallying himself. “About how they were coming. I wanted to ask you what you were talking about.”

Garmadon tilts his head, regarding him through slitted eyes. “Why don’t you ask your dear uncle?” he says, derisively. “I’m sure there’s plenty more he knows that he hasn’t told you.”

“Sensei Wu tells me enough,” Lloyd says, flatly. “If something’s coming, he’ll make sure we’re ready.”

“If you are the best he can offer, then you’re already doomed,” Garmadon scoffs.

Lloyd grits his teeth. “And yet,” he says, with forced calm. “I still beat you.”

“Watch yourself, boy,” Garmadon snarls, his teeth glinting. “You won on a technicality. Don’t be so quick to forget how easily I broke you before."

Pitching himself off the walkway is sounding like a better option by the second, which means Lloyd should probably get out of here soon.

“This threat,” he forces out, yanking them back on track. “You keep talking about. Want to share any more on that?”

Garmadon rolls his eyes. “The danger I spoke of has yet to pass,” he says, unconcerned. “I wouldn’t let it worry you and your pathetic friends’ little heads so soon. Like I said, I doubt you could handle it.”

Lloyd stares at him, incredulous. “So what, you’re just going to sit around until it’s here? And do nothing? That’s just going to make — make whatever it is worse.”

Garmadon snorts, his laugh caustic and bitter, but offers nothing else.

Lloyd’s lip curls. “Forget it, then,” he snaps. “If you’re not going to talk about anything useful, I’m not wasting my time on you. I can always come back.”

He means to storm off after that, but his feet falter, and he hesitates. He stares at his father, this hollowed-out version of him slumped in defeat in a prison cell. Something in his chest twists.

This is never what he wanted. He never wanted any of this. Is this what destiny does to them all, then? Chains them to each other until they’ve all brought each other down to their lowest point? Destroys everything thats good about them until there’s nothing but an empty shell left?

The edge of the walkway looms on either side of him, dropping into suffocating darkness. Lloyd balls his hands into fists, and remembers the crushing hopelessness he’d felt as Harumi had laughed at him on the train. It feels a lot like his grandfather’s laughing at him now, watching their stupid family drama play out like the worst kind of tragic soap opera.

Lloyd’s fists tighten. No, he tells himself. No. That’s not what destiny will do to him.  

He’s the one that got away, isn’t he?

Garmadon finally seems to lose patience, his eyes flashing as he stands. “If you’re still here to gloat, boy—”

“I’m my own person, you know,” Lloyd speaks over him, cutting his father off. “I’ve got more than just you. I’m not just some fragment of your broken legacy.”

Garmadon stares back in surprise, but he says nothing.

“But I’m still your son, no matter what you say,” Lloyd continues, his voice steady. “And I’m keeping your name. So deal with it, or whatever.”

And with that, he turns around and paces steadily from the cell, back into the light. He doesn’t look back, not even once.

He can come back later, anyways. But right now, he’s gonna be late for practice.

************************

“—left, he’s on your left, Jay, are you blind?!”

“He’s fast! I don’t see you catching him!”

“That’s ‘cause you’re supposed to be guarding the left, we’re cornering him!”

“On the contrary, you are leaving your right side wide open for me. By my calculations, neither of you will ever corner me.”

“Oh, I’ll show you, tin can—”

Lloyd gives a breathless giggle as he listens in, confident in Zane’s ability to distract Cole and Jay for now. Nya’s still a possible threat, unless she’s going after their flag right now, but Lloyd’s pretty secure in the hiding place they’d picked.

“Head in the game, green machine!”

Lloyd shakes his head, jerking himself back the present at Kai’s whispered hiss. He wobbles precariously from where he’s standing on Kai’s shoulders, throwing his arms out for balance. He glares up at where Cole’s managed to hang their flag, dangling cheerfully from the tree branch far above the ground.

“Give me a sec,” Lloyd hisses back, right arm straining as his fingertips brush the air just below the flag. He scowls, biting back a curse.

“Do not tell me you’re too short to reach,” Kai whispers, before wavering a bit and tightening his hold around Lloyd’s ankles.

Lloyd scowls down at him. “I’m not,” he grumbles. “Just hold on.”

Kai makes an anxious sound. “Lloyd, Nya’s gonna catch on to us any second—”

“Hold on, hold on,” Lloyd mutters, reaching for the prosthetic port. With a click, he detaches the arm and steadies it in his other hand, then hoists it up and neatly catches the edge of their flag with it, knocking it into Kai’s waiting hands.

“Nice!” Kai crows in victory — only to turn to a yelp as Nya comes barreling around the corner, her expression borderline terrifying.

“You’re supposed to be watching our flag!” she roars at Cole and Jay, before diving for them. Lloyd shrieks as Kai launches him from his shoulders, giving a desperate cry of “Run, Lloyd!”

Lloyd flails wildly before managing to hit the ground in a roll, somersaulting once before scrambling to his feet. He spares a moment of memoriam for Kai as Jay tackles him, before being forced to break into a dead sprint as Nya comes in hot on his heels.

“Go, Lloyd!” Zane calls, from where he’s tussling with Cole. “They haven’t found our flag, we can win!”

“Not if I catch him,” Nya hisses, the hair on Lloyd’s neck standing up at how close she is. He puts on a burst of speed, streaking across the grassy field toward their base. Nya’s a blur in the back of his vision as he turns his head, but he might be able to outrun her if—

Lloyd yelps as he’s jerked backwards. “Gotcha!” Nya yells triumphantly as she locks a hand around Lloyd’s right wrist, firmly holding him back.

Lloyd doesn’t hesitate. Shoving the edge of the flag between his teeth, he reaches up and disconnects the prosthetic, shooting forward as Nya’s left stumbling, holding his arm.

“Lloyd Garmadon!” she cries indignantly. “That’s cheating!”

Lloyd cackles wildly as he runs, wavering a bit at he’s thrown off-balance from being one-armed, before quickly adjusting to the weight change and sprinting faster. Nya’s started chasing him again, but it’s too late — she’s lost valuable time, and Lloyd skids over their base line with a whoop.

Kai and Zane burst into cheers as Cole curses, finally letting Zane free from his grasp. Nya slides to a halt beside him where he’s doubled over panting, breathing heavily herself. She’s glaring at him through the sweaty hair that’s hanging in her face, and Lloyd gives her a sunny smile in return.

“You’re a dirty cheater,” she finally huffs.

“No rules in capture the flag against taking your arm off,” he replies, cheerily.

Nya rolls her eyes, but there’s a pull at the edge of her mouth like she’s trying not to smile as she thrusts his prosthetic at him.

“I don’t appreciate you treating my creation like that,” she sniffs.

“Aw, c’mon,” Kai grins, having caught up with them. “That was classic.”

“Yeah, if you’re a cheater,” Jay scowls. “I vote a rematch.”

“What, so you can lose a fifth time?”

“It has not been five times—”

“Yes it has, Zane’s been keeping count.”

“Zane’s a dirty cheater too!”

“How dare you—”

Lloyd snickers as they dissolve into arguing, carefully clicking his arm back into place. There’s still a flicker of pain as he does, but it’s getting easier. It’ll take time, he figures, just like everything else. You can’t fix all your problems in a day, no matter what Uncle Wu’s said before.

But for now, he can play dumb training games with his team. He can forget about whatever threat on the horizon, if only for a moment. Uncle Wu can amend his stance on what counts as training, because this is Lloyd’s turn to lead practice, and if he wants to play capture the flag, then that’s his call. And he can cheat with his arm if he wants to, because the universe can take his arm from him, but it’s not gonna take his ability to be a terrible little brother.

And it’s not going to take the fact that he’s Lloyd Garmadon, either, Lloyd thinks, as he straightens, his arm swinging into place. No one is. Not Harumi, not his own father, not an entire legal team from child protection services like Cole keeps joking (threatening) to call. Lloyd Garmadon is his name, and he’s keeping it.

...arguments could be made, though, for changing it to Lloyd Arm-Is-Gone.

“Lloyd, no.”

“That was awful.”

“You guys just have no taste!”

“We have plenty of taste, but the puns—”

“It’s my missing limb, I choose the coping mechanism.”

“You wanna miss another one, punk?”

“I’d like to see you try. At least I have an excuse for losing capture the flag. Oh wait, we won.”

“Oh, you’re on. Same teams as last time, you better watch your back—”

—yeah. They might not be perfectly fine just yet, but they’re going to be. And no one can take that from them, either.

[writingsbychlo]

feels like loneliness (prologue)

word count; 2126

summary; thomas has his girlfriend pulled away, right before his very eyes, in a way he may never get her back, as she’s sent up to Maze Trial B.

notes; this is the beginning of a whole new series, one I’ve been dabbling with since 2017, so I’m glad I finally get to write it!

warnings; mental manipulation, amnesia, drug use.

“love feels like loneliness, sometimes”

“What are we doing? Sneaking off into the labs again, huh?” Thomas’ voice whispered into the air quietly. You could practically hear the smirk in his voice, his fingers tightening around your own as he trailed behind you. The playful tone in his voice would normally have you smiling, winking at him and teasing him as you dragged him up against you by a fistful of his shirt, but today it was doing nothing to ease your nerves.

Adrenaline was coursing through your veins, bile was crawling up your throat and your palm was clammy and shaking while pressed against his, but he hadn’t noticed, or at least hadn’t commented on it. 

Your breath was trembling, light and nervous as your heart pounded against your ribcage, and when you finally stopped and turned to him, he took in your wide eyes and terrified frown. His own cheeky look dropped down into a concerned gaze, hands cupping your cheeks as you licked over your dry and cracked lips, nights of chewing down until it bled as you snuck around the compound after hours. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” His fingers smoothed over your cheeks, wiping under your eyes as they watered, but no tears were shed - yet. 

“W-We can’t.. We can’t anymore.” The words were stammered, spilling from your lips as you looked up at him, his brows furrowing as he tried to decipher your words. “We can’t do this anymore, it’s not right, Tommy. Those are our friends, and we can’t do this to the-”

“Woah, woah, woah. Calm down, it’s okay.” His voice was soft and smooth, trying to calm you, and there was no tremble in his voice like there was in yours. His arms moved to pull you into his grasp, bury your face in his neck but your own moved from laying flat on his chest, scrunching the material beneath your fingers and wrinkling it as you held him away from you.

“No, Tommy, don’t you see? I’m sick of watching my friends die on screens, watching them slowly lose their memories of us, of themselves, watching them live their lives in terror and fear.”

“We have to.” His tone had an edge now, and you finally dragged your gaze up from your fists to meet his own as he looked down at you. “I know it’s hard, but look how close we are to a cure!”

“You’re willing to sacrifice our friends, our colleagues, for this?” You mumbled, eyebrows raising and a disturbingly cold calmness settled over you. Your stomach was no longer twisting and turning, instead lying flat with a weight like stone, your heart no longer pounding and racing in your chest but barely pumping at all, your breath held as you waited for his answer.

“Yes, I would. I’d sacrifice everything that needed to be. Wouldn’t you?”

“You’d sacrifice everything?” The words were almost inaudible, his eyes softening for a second as he looked at you, and you took an unsteady step backwards, head tilted to the side as you dragged a ragged breath into your lungs, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “I’m sorry, Tommy.”

“You- you’re sorry? For what?” You opened your eyes to look at him, his own scanning over you quickly and he stepped forwards, watching as you took two rapid steps back from him, an arm held out to create a distance between the two of you, keeping him at a length away. “Baby, why are you sorry? What did you do?”

“I can’t do it anymore. You might be able to watch the people you care about die, but I can’t. Not anymore. I can’t be with someone who can’t see that.. that this is wrong. It’s wrong, and I couldn’t be a part of it anymore, I had to do something an-” Your eyes snapped to the figure emerging from behind a collection of shelves, her eyes wide as she glanced over her shoulder, rushing towards the two of you.

“There’s guards, pouring in this direction, what is going on?” Teresa stopped, practically panting as she fell into step beside Thomas, looking between the two of you curiously.

“What did you do?” His raised voice made you flinch, tears streaming down your cheeks in steady paths, a watery smile on your lips as you wiped at your cheeks, the salt burning your skin. The low hissing of the doors on the other side of the room alerted you that your time had come, there was no more running and no more hiding to be done.

The pounding of multiple sets of boots sounded loudly in the room as they split up, surrounding you on all corners as it got louder, and you stilled, Thomas’ fists clenched at his sides as he shook with a mixture of confusion, rage and fear. Teresa’s eyes were wide, your words ringing in her head. This is wrong.

“I’m sorry, but I had to. I can’t be part of something like this anymore. I had to do it. No matter what they tell you about me, what happens, I had to leave. I’m sorry, but it was the only way.” Your arm was jerked roughly, a gloved hand wrapped around it as you were pulled back, another securing around your opposite shoulder, your legs kicked out from under you as you fell to your knees. 

You hit the ground harshly, the sound ringing out in the room, a sickening crunch sounded,  followed by a cry from your lips as the pain jolted along your body. A needle found your neck, piercing the skin and dragging against every nerve, nausea coursing through you as your body numbed, Teresa’s crying and Thomas’ frantic screams echoing in your ears as you faded between your conscious and unconscious states, your body numbing. Lights flashed before your eyes, as you moved quickly along the corridors you knew so well, deep underground as you headed towards your destination, a sad smile pulling lazily on your lips. 

The wheels on the trolley squeaked loudly with every rushed rotation they made, and a groan left your lips as you were tipped onto the cold ground from the trolley. You barely had time to take a breath, wheezing from the impact when the door of the room slammed shut, the sound of grinding metal of the lock on the outside door sounding loudly, echoing from the tiled walls. 

The hospital gown you were clad in was thin, doing nothing to conserve warmth, and as your senses came back to you, so did the stinging on the back of your neck. Raising your fingers to the spot, you could still feel the needle mark, the same one they’d used to activate the tracking chip in your neck, fear crawling along your spine and clawing at your skin as you looked around. 

Heaving yourself up, you pounded on the door, screaming loudly, throat raw and knuckles bleeding as you kept it up. “You were supposed to kill me, you bastards! You were supposed to kill me! You can’t put me in there! Kill me! Please, kill me! Just get it over with!” Hot tears once again warmed your flushed cheeks and you collapsed to the ground, head laying on the tiles as you sobbed, pouring it all out. 

You barely heard the sound of the door unlocking again, or the sound of feet on the floor, only recognising the feeling of warm hands on your cheeks, your eyes opening to meet honey brown ones, red rimmed and swollen much like your own, still lined with unshed tears. “It was never supposed to be you! Why did you do it? Why? What did you do?!” His voice was frantic, shaking as you picked yourself up. A bundle of clothes had been discarded near you, that he must’ve been sent with, splayed across the floor.

“I did what I had to, Tommy.” Your mind was fuzzy, barely remembering the room you were in, it had been so long since you’d last seen it. Confusion was seeping into every pore in your body, and you had to fight back to remember, repeating everything over and over again in your head. “Those are for me.. aren’t they? They’re really sending me up there.” You reached for the clothes, his hand taking yours and lacing your fingers together instead. 

“You’re leaving me. You promised you’d never do that, and you made this decision all on your own, why?” He let the tears run, and when he received no answer he shook his head, his gaze dropping from yours. He reached idly for the pile of clothes, pushing them idly towards you and getting to his feet, pacing the room from one side to another. 

Silence fell between the two of you as you dressed in your new clothes, and eventually you cleared your throat, his name whispered from your sore throat as he turned to look at you. He was breaking, the usual bright and hopeful look in his eyes was replaced with nothing but emptiness and fear. Kneeling beside you, his trembling fingers did up the laces on your boots, tying them tightly and he leaned into you, placing a chaste kiss to your lips, a hum sounding in his throat at the contact.

Taking your wrist, he popped off the charm around it, tying on his own, the matching ones he’d given to you for your thirteenth birthday, before he’d ever admitted how he felt for you. The silver ‘T’ sat on your skin, metal warmed by his own as he tucked yours into his pocket, choking back a sob. 

Raising your hand to his cheek, you lifted his gaze to yours, a smile on your lips as he watched you. “Why are you crying, Tommy?”

“What?” 

Wiping at his cheek, you laughed lightly, clearing his face of the streams of water. “You’re crying, you doofus. What’s wrong? And where the hell are we?” You laughed, looking around the room you were in, and Thomas felt himself dry-heave at the thought, knowing exactly what was happening.

Two guards followed in, the metal wall across from you both opening to reveal a wired metal cage, already loaded with supplies and he watched as you looked at it curiously, nothing but wonder filling you now. Turning you around, pulled you flush against him, his lips descending on yours desperately, your hands tight on his waist as you squeaked. It hurt him, every step he took hurt him as he backed you up, but he wanted to be the last to hold you, the last to touch you. 

He didn’t want you thrown into the cage roughly, and so with every painful step stabbing at his heart, he walked you backwards, your lips moving against his softly, your fingers playing with his hair. When he finally detached from yours, he sucked in a breath, looking at you one last time as you stood in the darkness now, the brightly tiled white room behind you both as you stood within the trembling metal work. “I love you, I love you so much.”

“I-I.. um.. where are we?” You muttered, glancing around and his touch fell to your hand as you got lost in your thoughts for a second. His hand twitched to take yours again when you snatched it away, stepping back from him as fear and panic filled your system. “Who the hell are you?”

Stepping back, he lifted the edge of the cage quickly, sealing it shut tightly, before you could dart from the box and your fingers wrapped in the wire, shaking at it in fear as the gears kicked into work. He fell to his knees, body numb and mind blank as he watched you. 

“Who the hell are you? Why am I here? Why.. what’s going on?” Your eyes met his, and for a moment he swore he saw you recognise him for a second, but he knew it was impossible. The door was lowering, causing you to fade into darkness as you sank to the ground, eyes still fixed on his. “Please! No! Please, get me out of here! What is going on, I-” The doors sealed shut, red light filling the box as a horn sounded loudly, your heart beating in your ears as you fell away from the cage walls, the box beginning to move upwards slowly. You had no idea where you were, where you were going, or what was happening. 

You didn’t even know who you were. You couldn't remember anything. All you had now was a pair of brown eyes, burned into your memory, your mind blanking as fear took over. Then, everything was gone.

[aliceslantern]

Give/Take, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 4

Ienzo has been too busy since the war to be overwhelmed by the past. But with little progress to be made in his work with Kairi, old nightmares start to invade.

Riku is a glorified housesitter. Lonely and faced with no choice but to wait for a way to find his friends, he eagerly accepts when Ienzo asks him to help do repairs around the castle. Before long, the two strike up an unlikely friendship, united by their dark pasts and their attempts to be better people.

But just as they begin to consider something more... Kairi wakes up.

Ienzoku (Ienzo/Riku), post-Melody of Memory, slow burn. Updates Thursdays until it's done.

Chapter summary:  Ienzo tells Riku about what happened after their fight at Castle Oblivion. With nothing else to do, Riku helps with castle repairs, and has a conversation with Aeleus.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

For a while after he ran out of Riku’s room like a coward, Ienzo struggled to breathe. He remained sitting against the wall, curled up, adrenaline shocking him in little waves. He hated this sensation, how it robbed him of his self-control--

Breathe in. Breathe out. Riku hadn’t even gone for his throat, but rather his wrist, and only because Ienzo had touched him while he was dead asleep--

Redheaded demon and a puppet and the dark corner sharp hurt burning--

I am okay. I am okay. I am okay. He traced the soft scarred flesh with one hand, loosened the ascot at his throat. I can breathe. That was a memory. It wasn’t real. A flush of embarrassment came to his face when he thought of the strangled, animal sound he’d made. Pathetic.

Ienzo forced himself to his feet. He pulled back the sleeve of his jacket. There was a red mark where Riku had gripped him, and likely later a bruise; but he wasn’t significantly injured. Both of his hands were trembling uncontrollably. Get it together. Riku hadn’t meant to hurt him-- he’d probably taken that whole interaction to heart--

But the thought of going back to him right now and explaining, patiently, why he’d had that reaction, only made him feel nauseous. He tried to turn his mind back to the work, but he kept getting pulled and pulled into the basement, into an itchy achy helplessness.

Ienzo started walking, and walking, as if he could physically get away from the memory. He was so tense his teeth hurt, and his chest was hot and tight from his shallow breathing. He pulled the ascot from around his throat and undid the top buttons of his shirt, but it didn’t help ease the sensation much.

Breathe.

He found himself in the main library, which had once been beautiful but was now in serious disrepair. The collections were disorganized, the recessed lighting cracked and in need of new bulbs. Heartless had shattered several of the shadowboxes, and some of the paintings on the walls were torn. Ienzo reached up and brushed his fingers along the canvas of one. This portrait had evidently been of his adoptive great-grandmother, but anything resembling a face was ribbons of cloth and oil paint. He moved around a bit shamblingly, his body feeling heavy and strange now that the adrenaline was fading. He sank wearily into his favorite armchair, picked up his abandoned novel, and started to read.

It took hours for his heart to stop pounding.

A few weeks passed, tremulously. Perhaps a month, maybe longer; Ienzo’s concept of time was hazy at best. The winter got deeper, colder; they kept working with Kairi. While the light of her heart sustained her physical form, kept her warm and nourished and prevented atrophy, he still felt a stab of guilt that they were not finishing their examination faster. Sixteen years was a lot of memory, a lot to unpack and try to understand, and of course there was the curveball that she was a princess of heart. They all worked as long and as hard as they physically could, but it was still taking much, much too long.

Riku didn’t drop by as much, and Ienzo realized one day that he hadn’t been here since he’d gotten sick. Was this because of the way he’d acted? He knew he should apologize--

For what? An involuntary reaction?

Ienzo considered how he might feel if the opposite were true, if someone had woken him in the grips of a feverish nightmare. He should be glad he’d had little more than bruises, than a panic attack. He would’ve probably done much worse to his own attacker. (He kept a kitchen knife in his bedside table. It was the only thing that helped him feel safe with the nightmares.) He almost wrote Riku several times, but each time managed to find an excuse not to complete the note. A phone call, an urgent task to be completed. This shouldn’t bother him so much; he wasn’t the one at fault. Neither of them really were.

Finally, one snowy day, Riku came back. “I’m sorry for dropping by,” he said, his usual greeting. Ienzo noted with relief that he at least seemed to have adequate winter clothing. “Any… news?”

Ienzo cleared his throat a little. “Not much, I’m afraid. We’re making as much progress as we can.”

He took a few steps closer to Kairi. Ienzo recognized that glint in his eye; loneliness, and to a degree longing. It was the very same sort of look that his Nobody had preyed on.

He wondered if Riku spoke to his other friends.

“Do you…” Ienzo almost stopped himself. “Do you have a moment? To discuss something?” Even gave him an odd look, but Ienzo just glared at him.

“Uh--sure. Yeah. I’ve got a little time.”

“Excellent. I was wanting some tea anyway. Right then.” There was a kettle in the office; Ienzo switched it on. “What kind of tea would you like?”

“Uh--whatever you’re having, I guess. I don’t care.”

They sat down at Ansem’s old desk. Riku’s hair had gotten still longer, just barely brushing his shoulders, and he kept swatting it out of his eyes. It was more white than silver in this light, Ienzo thought, and looked fresh and fluffy, like it had just been washed. He thought of his own dirty, dry hair. For just a breath, he wondered what that hair might feel like under his fingertips.

What an odd thing to think about. He shook his head to brush away this thought.

“So what’s up?” Riku asked.

“I wanted to… talk about what happened, the last time we saw one another.”

He winced. “I tried to find you--”

“...But I avoided you.” He admitted this to his mug. “Truthfully, I must apolo--”

“I’m sorry,” Riku said at the same time. “I’m so sorry.”

Ienzo furrowed his brows. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You had a fever and I startled you when you were dead asleep.”

“I still hurt you. And--” He squinted. “Something just felt really… off.”

“...Which is what I wanted to talk about, because it’s clear that if we’re to have any functioning rapport…” He drummed his fingers on the table, trying to come up with a tactful way of saying this. You look like my murderer. He took a breath. “At Castle Oblivion, after we fought--”

Riku visibly tensed.

“It was, perhaps, only a few moments later that I--”

He dropped his eyes. “I know. Bad blood. Bad memories.”

“But you weren’t the one who… ultimately made it happen.”

Riku bit his lip. “I figured you might’ve… bled out. I don’t like thinking about it.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said softly. “But you recall… the replica?”

“Of me?” He frowned. “Um, yeah.”

“I’m going to say it very bluntly.” His heart was beating hard. “Axel had him kill me. I’d learned too much about the Organization’s coup.” The memory stabbed him, especially seated right across from him. But between the new hairstyle, and the few years’ of aging, Riku did not look much like the puppet anymore.

“Of course you panicked,” Riku said. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

“It is wholly embarrassing. I…” He cleared his throat. “For some reason that felt… necessary, in order to move on.”

“...Especially with me randomly poking my ugly mug in,” he said, shaking his head.

Not ugly, Ienzo thought, feeling a different flash of nerves. Perhaps that was part of why this was so unsettling.

“I’ll try to avoid cornering you,” he continued. “And, uh, grabbing.”

“It seems what happened was neither of our faults,” Ienzo said. “But I don’t want us to have to walk on eggshells around each other. I do enough of that as it is.”

A nervous smile flickered on his face. “You guys don’t get along?”

“It’s… a bit complicated.” Ienzo didn’t feel much like going into all that .

“Sounds like you could use a friend.”

Ienzo looked up. His expression was genuine, and if Ienzo was understanding correctly, pleading. Ienzo wondered again if Riku actually spent time with anyone. “...Perhaps I could.”

This smile was less hesitant.

“...And you could stop making up excuses to drop by.” He tried to say this kindly. “I imagine… it’s not easy, doing all this work by yourself.”

Riku’s grip on his mug loosened a bit. “To be completely honest…” He chuckled. “I… am bored out of my mind. When I said I was housesitting? I wasn’t being modest. That’s literally what I was asked to do.” Something honest crept into his tone.

Ienzo blinked. “...I see. Why don’t you go home, then? Spend time with your family?”

Evidently, this was the wrong question to ask: what little humor in Riku’s expression fell. “It feels… wrong, to go back without them,” he said softly. “When we were last home a few months ago… I… made a promise to myself that I would bring them home. I can’t… look their parents in the eye. It feels like my fault somehow.”

“I’m sure it isn’t.” He exhaled. “We will do our best to try and help you get back together.”

“I know. I know you’re all working hard, I didn’t mean to imply--”

“I know.” Ienzo smiled. “But let me do this for you. As friends.”

He nodded.

“Moreover… if you’re bored.” He cocked his head. “Aeleus and Dilan have their hands full doing repairs around the castle. How good are you with your hands?”

His eyebrows shot up, and Ienzo saw the almost desperate glimmer in his eye. “Actually pretty good,” he said. “I used to build stuff on the play island all the time.”

“Great. Then perhaps you’d be willing to help? Say, a day or so a week, or whatever would work best with your schedule? I know traveling back and forth must be annoying.”

“I’d hate to… be an inconvenience,” he said slowly.

“You’d be helping us ,” Ienzo said. “And that way, you don’t need to travel goodness-knows-how-far to pester me about Kairi.”

Riku flushed. “Ha… yeah, I guess so. Ah. I’ll check up on things in the castle and come back.”

“Great. So it’s a date.”

There was a long, pronounced silence,  Ienzo wondered if this was the wrong thing to say. His heart was fluttering hard again, the same way it had before, and he swallowed it down. This was… strange, and he wasn’t sure he liked how it felt.

Riku seemed nervous too. “Awesome. So. It’s a date.”

Ienzo cleared his throat. “I won’t hold you up any longer.”

“No, I should… go, so I can come back.” He stood.

“Safe travels,” Ienzo said, hearing the artificiality in his own voice. When Riku was gone, his heart was still pounding, beating hard in an insistent way he didn’t know how to read. He thought, involuntarily, of that hair again, of how it might feel.

Ienzo had a feeling he didn’t want to know.

---

On his way back to the Land of Departure, Riku felt... fuzzy. Nervous, jumpy. This was only amplified by the utter silence of the place. He paced, restlessly, trying to understand what it was he might be feeling. There seemed to be a lot to unpack.

He thought he’d killed Zexion the same way he’d killed Lexeaus. A blow to the spine, some internal damage. Zexion had been a mighty opponent, but not physically that strong. From the moment he’d first struck down Lexeaus, he’d tried not to think of the truth, the brutality, of what he’d done, that he’d essentially just killed a person. Knowing it had led to their direct humanity seemed… both a comfort, and an insult.

Also… the fact that Axel was capable of such brutality… having fought alongside Lea in the war, and seeing the awkward and charming way he acted with Kairi… it made him feel slightly ill.

But you did awful things under the influence of darkness too, the ever-present guilt reminded him. All the Heartless you summoned, and the things Maleficent told you to do with them. You probably killed people and didn’t even realize.

He sat down on his bed and looked out the window. Snow was falling in the Land of Departure. As a Nobody… hadn’t Zexion done the same? And Riku had done this all in the sake of… what… gathering power? Mining his “true potential”? Which was--?

Sitting here overthinking, apparently. The sooner he finished up these loose ends, the sooner he could return and do what Ienzo had asked. Maybe he could even talk to him more about this conundrum, and see if the Somebodies there felt the same way about the things they’d done in the past. Just because both of them had turned over a new leaf didn’t mean the past was forgiven, or forgotten.

He should probably try to get some sleep, too.

After tending to his few chores, Riku lay in bed, trying to switch off. At some point in the past he’d been able to fall asleep practically on command, but now the action seemed something of a labor, and his mind would spin and spin in any direction and on any memory until it was late enough to be considered early. Fighting Heartless, and training himself to physical exhaustion, made it easier , but not easy. He parsed that interaction out in his mind, thinking back to the expression on Ienzo’s face when Riku accidentally grabbed him. Ienzo must have thought of the moment when the puppet… did whatever the puppet did.

(And, Riku thought, if the puppet was a likeness of him, down to his personality at the time, was Riku capable of that kind of violence as well?)

He took a deep breath and let it out, trying to stop thinking about that. Instead, he found himself thinking about the way their conversation had ended. So it’s a date. He didn’t mean-- no, he just meant a place and a time, a date on a calendar. Why would he--

But Ienzo was so eloquent, it couldn’t just be a slip of the tongue. Right? Or perhaps it had? And if so, what did that mean?

The last thing Riku needed was for things to get more complicated. He needed Ienzo and the others to be able to help Kairi help Sora.

Still, the way his heart was beating… was new. And odd. And he thought of that moment during the Mark of Mastery exam, when Shiki had most likely been flirting with him. How he hadn’t felt anything at the time, wasn’t sure if he was supposed to--there was a lot of things going on that were far more important.

But now? When nothing was going on?

There was banter right before he got sick, too. And he’d felt the same jump, the same uncertainty. But he also bantered with Sora and Kairi all the time, and then he sometimes got nervous thinking of witty replies on the fly. But did it make him feel like this? And was this something Riku wanted to feel?

You’re putting way more into this than was there, he thought, shaking his head. What reason would he even have for doing something like that?

He shut his eyes, but the thoughts didn’t stop.

---

Riku was used to the flight between Radiant Garden and Land of Departure by now. He’d started calling it his “commute”, in moments of deeper loneliness. Commuting to see Kairi. He wondered what his life would look like if none of this had happened. He’d be wrapping up his last year of high school, he knew, getting ready for university or the greater world. Riku tried to imagine himself working a job: at a coffee shop, or as a waiter, or bagging groceries. Typing and typing at an office job. Much like when he was fifteen, the notion made him feel vaguely nauseous. But equally, he wasn’t sure of what would become his future now . His eighteenth birthday was some months away. Theoretical adulthood.

Well, he was a Keyblade master now, not that that seemed to mean much of anything. Would he… take on apprentices? Teach them? Would that be satisfying?

Sora and Kairi aren’t even home yet. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Maybe they would help him make sense of this mess. Yes, that was it. He thought of Kairi, her laugh. Riku, you’re such a downer sometimes, you know? And Sora, as long as it’s the three of us, we’ll be okay.

He wondered how pathetic it was to be having imaginary conversations with his best friends.

Riku landed in the outer recesses of Radiant Garden and started the now-familiar walk to the castle. It was always so cold here, so gloomy, now that winter had come over the city. Thankfully he’d actually been able to get a coat. He tugged his collar up a bit higher. He’d experienced a lot over the past two years or so, but he was still, at heart, an islander.

He wasn’t sure where exactly to go or what he had to do, so he went down to the lab. He couldn’t help but smile a little when he saw Kairi, even if she was completely unaware of his presence. He wondered for the millionth time what she was doing in there, what she was experiencing. How they all made numbers about it was beyond him.

“Ah--Riku. Back so soon, I see?” Even asked, his tone brisk and cool as usual.

“Uh--yeah, actually. Ienzo said you guys needed help with the… repairs, so I figured… I have some time--”

“We mustn’t take you from your duties,” Ansem said.

“No, you’re really not.” He forced a laugh. “This is helpful, actually.” He looked around. “So… uh… where is he?”

“He had some questions about some code and thought Cid might be able to help,” Even said.

“...Questions?”

“There are some anomalies in her heart, recently. We’re fairly certain it’s the differences in structure due to her nature as princess of heart, but it’s always good to… seek a second opinion.” Ansem smiled; Even scowled.

Riku frowned. “Is she okay?”

“As far as we can tell, yes,” Even said. “The sleep isn’t physically affecting her in the slightest--other than the obvious.”

He walked over to her and adjusted the blanket draped over her. “It’s a little cold over here. Can you turn down the AC?”

“We need it to keep the machines--” Even began, but Ansem patted Riku’s shoulder gently.

“I’ll bring in a space heater for her,” he said.

“Thank you.” He watched her breathe for a moment. “So… what should I--”

“I believe Aeleus is painting near the library. Do you know where that is?”

Riku swallowed, suddenly finding his mouth very dry. “Yes. I remember.”

He very nearly left then. He’d only seen Aeleus briefly in passing a few times coming and going, and the man never said much other than to curtly nod at him. While he now knew he hadn’t felled Zexion… well. He was certain he’d finished the job with Lexeaus.

What do you say to someone you’ve killed?

Maybe start with sorry, he imagined Kairi telling him.

Right. It would be… a good idea to not be on tenterhooks here. Especially if he were going to be helping out. If it weren’t for this, he would still be sitting in that castle, bored out of his mind. This was something good, constructive. It was good.

He took a deep breath.

Seeing the deterioration in this castle, Riku felt another stab of guilt. Some of this destruction had been here when he’d arrived, but some of it had come from his own practice trying to get the Heartless to do his bidding. He brushed his fingers across a torn painting, wondering what had happened to the person who made it.

Well. At least he could quite literally undo some of the damage.

He saw Aeleus on a ladder towards the end of the hallway, very carefully trying to paint over a new patch in the ceiling. Riku took a deep breath. He didn’t want to startle Aeleus either. “Hi there,” he called.

He looked over.

“So, uh.” He cleared his throat. “I’m here to… help? If I can?”

“Ienzo told me you were interested in helping do some repairs, yes.”

“Well. Uh. Could I do anything?”

He considered Riku. His expression was nearly impossible to read. “That can of green. If you want to start going over where I whitewashed. You can use the roller. Prime it first.”

“...Thanks.” He went over to the area that Aeleus had gestured to. There had once been wallpaper here, but it had been removed, and the holes and cracks beneath repaired with plaster. Riku poured some of the primer into a pan and got to it. He was glad that his braces couldn’t get stained; he saw that very quickly this could get messy.

For what felt like an eternity, but was maybe only an hour or two, he and Aeleus painted in silence, and the only audible sound was the dipping and rolling of the brush and roller. Riku wasn’t sure if he was imagining the tension in the air or not. He reached up to swat the hair out of his eyes and inadvertently smeared paint on his face. “...Ugh.”

“...You might want to do something about that,” Aeleus said. He took a clean bandanna out of his pocket and handed it to him.

“Thanks.” His hair was at that awkward in-between length that was too short to tie up but too long to feel manageable loose. He could cut it, he knew, and go back to the way he’d looked before, but the spikes reminded him too much of Sora. Riku looked down at the smear of paint on the cloth. Just say sorry. “Listen,” he began. “I just… wanted to say sorry. For everything.”

Aeleus set his brush down on top of the can and turned to face Riku more fully. “What do you have to apologize for?”

He blinked. He didn’t want to have to say it. “...You know. Castle Oblivion. Everything… that happened.”

Aeleus looked into the middle distance for a moment. “You don’t owe me an apology,” he said, in a low voice. “Rather… the other way around. Don’t you think?”

Riku shook his head slowly. “Ienzo said something similar.”

“We… treated you terribly. Tried to use you. Am I supposed to be mad that you fought back?”

“But I…” He couldn’t bring himself to say “killed you.”

“...Which is part of the reason I am here, and working to be better, instead of continuing to do evil in that Organization’s name.” He seemed to be smiling just the slightest.

“It’s not like any of us knew about the reformation at the time--”

“We needed to be stopped,” Aeleus said shortly. “Neither of us blame you, Riku.”

“Do you think you… still would be with the Organization, if your Nobody had survived?”

Aeleus thought about it. “That depends entirely on whether or not Vexen and Zexion survived as well.”

Riku cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure that “friends” is the right term to use,” he said. “But the three of us… well. Even and I raised Ienzo from when he was a boy. Even with our true bonds severed by the lack of a heart, there was enough of a relationship there for me to… make their wellbeing my priority. If they had survived and turned back to the Organization, I would’ve too. But if they’d have passed on, and I survived, I might have… left. But either way…” He spread his large hands. “We all perished, but we are all human now.”

“What does that… feel like?”

Aeleus’s eyebrows shot up.

“Sorry. I just… I’m curious.”

He thought for another long moment. “It is both so strange and so natural,” he said. “The rush of emotion… feels as if it is so strong. There is a lot of guilt. But I feel more… me, than I thought I would, in those rare moments I considered Xemnas’s fake goal of giving us hearts.”

“More like Lexeaus, you mean?”

“We were Nobodies for just under ten years. I was not much older than Ienzo is now when it happened. As the years passed… my human self seemed soft, weak, and what he felt… unnecessary and boorish. But to have those feelings back… well. I realize that humanity is different than what I thought. There is strength to it that the darkness and the nothing couldn’t provide.”

“I think I understand,” Riku said. My friends are my power! He remembered. “Thanks for that.” He breathed the taste of paint. “Do you still feel the darkness?” He didn’t expect an answer.

Aeleus held his chin up, just a little. “I do,” he admitted, “but I know its price. And I intend to keep it at bay.”

Riku nodded. “Yeah. I know how that is.”

“...I think all of us here do.” He climbed back up the ladder and picked up his brush. “Might I suggest bobby pins? Ienzo finds them useful.”

“...You’re probably right.”

[cum-a-calla]

cockwarming with that nasty fucker mister gray??? sitting nice n soft n pretty on his lap while he puts his grease paint on, paying no mind to it getting in your hair or on your nice dress?????? paying even less attention when you cum just from sitting on that oh so heavy oh so Big cock ?????? PLS SIR

"Mister Gray?"

Beyond the door, there's a dry chuckle, laughter bubbling up from under the uneven space between the floor and the door's weathered edge. It's an unseemly gap that reveals the age of this place, the neglect.

"Mister. Don't have any misters here, little thing. You can call me Bob Gray, same as everyone else."

[[MORE]]

"Bob - right. Can I come in, Bob? You need anything?"

Silence. Shifting, creaks in the floorboards, and even a hint of his breathy, raspy laugh. No answer.

He's strange. It doesn't bother you so much as keep you on edge, constantly stressed about doing your job well. Assistant means many, many things at his circus, but the most difficult responsibility by far is anticipating and meeting Bob Gray's needs. He's impossible, a leering, sleepy-eyed man without much to say. Gleaning direction from him is exhausting in itself. How the fuck are you supposed to assist somebody who won't let you?

"Mister - uh, Bob? I really don't mean to bother you --"

"Willing to go the extra mile to do what you're told, aren't you?"

His voice warbles from under the crack of the door and sets your hair on end. A shudder creeps up your spine and shakes through your shoulders, and the urge to turn on your heel and flee is trumped only by your burning curiosity. What is he doing in there? What does he want?

"I... yeah, I guess. Yes." You lick your lips, heart pounding. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Come in."

He sits in his chair across the room, at his table, makeup opened and ready to apply. His shirt's old, billowy and loose about the neck, and as he hunches forward, the line of his throat curves into a hollow at the base, collarbones pushing up through his flesh as though seeking escape.

In his lap, flushed and heavy and achingly hard, his cock leaks over his fingers. He pets himself, teases the head. There's something grotesquely wrong with it, but it's indescribable; it's hard to pinpoint, like you can't quite focus on it. It makes you sick. It makes you unbearably hot, sweat prickling at your hairline.

"Gunna help an old man?"

Opening your mouth proves pointless. Your tongue lay useless in the cradle of your jaw, unable to formulate the words to say. Sirens shoot off in your body. The instinct to run is almost painful, a low thrum through your legs that begs them to move, to back up, to fucking escape.

Instead, you wander closer. Your legs don't feel like your own, but the shameful pooling of heat in your belly is your own. His cock throbs with his pulse. Under his heavy brow, he watches you, lips wet as his dick, wet as his bright, bloodshot eyes.

Wet as you.

"Hard to focus with this. Need you to take care of it while I get ready."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, you think because I'm a clown that I'm a jokin' man, little doll, huh? Scared, soaked little animal? Think I can't smell you? Get your dumb, dripping cunt in my lap."

Pulling the hem of your skirt up takes zero thought. It takes less thought to act the longer you stay in this room, in the general vicinity of Bob Gray. He's got a smirk on his lips, a mean slash of a grin that barely hides his crooked cannibal teeth. A feature that seemed endearing in his act now seems like some kind of threat. They look so much sharper up close.

He leans back in his seat, making zero effort to help you adjust. It's just you, red-faced, scared and humiliated as you maneuver yourself over his cock and reach down to guide him against you.

It feels bad. It feels wrong, what the fuck is it, what is that texture why does it FEEL LIKE THAT --

"Down you go. Come on. Do it for ol' Bob, be a good little fucktoy and take it."

He grabs the base of his cock with one hand and drops the other on your hip, one huge hand digging its fingers into your flesh and slamming you down.

Searing. The pain explodes behind your eyelids and tingles all the way down to your toes, explosive, absolutely devastating as he forces you open to him. It feels bigger than it should. It feels like his cock is rippling inside of you, morphing to fit, to take up as much space as you can stand to offer him, and he giggles between his gasping breaths.

How can nobody else hear you whine like that? Even as your body screams for relief, you grab his shoulders and grind down against the pain, desperate to rub your clit against his pelvic bone, to feel the soft low of his belly.

"Stay still, now - c'mon, be good. Sit still. Gotta get myself nice and ready. Keep me warm, little thing."

"Yes, sir..."

He shifts his massive frame and scoots you with him, as though you weigh nothing splayed out over his lap like that wiggling slow and easy as pressure builds and builds and builds. He breathes the occasional little laugh, leaning to see himself in the mirror. He's not clean or careful. Gobs of paint drip over your dress, your naked thighs. His hair is in your face, and it smells like autumn, like burnt leaves and rotting things in the woods, like rainwater and ozone and smoke.

"Gunna cum?" Bob Gray croons, rolling his hips. He uses the pad of his finger to rub deep red paint on his lips, leaning back only slightly to watch you. "Been good. Might just let you get away with it. But if you cum, I'll cum. S'that what you want? For me to fill you up?"

"God, yes."

"Then do your fuckin' job and earn it."

He acts oblivious to you as he paints the rest of his face, the thin line of the brows, the matching red ribbons curving up the apples of his cheeks and stretching over his forehead. As he finishes, that cannibal smile only gets wider, crueler. He barely moves, but all your squirming and writhing and bucking is having its effect. His cock pulses inside of you and to the rhythm of his lazy rocking, constant and smooth like a wave.

He sets his tools down to grasp you by the waist and it dawns on you just how violently powerful this tall, strange man is as he lifts and drops you on his cock until that pain is back at the forefront, blinding. He slams your bodies together until he's bent into you, curling inward, panting and growling and grunting after each obnoxious slap.

His makeup is running. Weak rivulets of red come down from his eyes, from the corners of his mouth, and then... it's not makeup. Blood wells up in his eyes and drips down the curve of his nose. It stains his teeth and drools out of his mouth over your thighs, over your pubic hair, at the joining of your bodies, and it burns. He's giddy as he comes apart and you're frozen between the brink of orgasm and the deep, debilitating fear.

Whatever Bob Gray is, it's not a clown. Not even a man, not even close.

"Scared? You scared? Are you scared, are you so fucking scared, baby, huh, are you SCARED?"

His boots scuff against the floor and he drags his tongue up the side of your face, tasting your sweat, the tang of your fear and repulsion, tasting the tears gathered on your lashes. He gets his fucking blood on your face, in your mouth as he forces his tongue behind your teeth and against yours. It makes you gag. It makes you clench around his horrible cock and beg him to let you cum.

"Do it. Cum for me, only for me, all mine, cum like the dumb, pretty cocksleeve you are. Just my toy. Just a hungry little slut in the circus - lucky me."

You do. You tumble into it by accident, obedient to the point of climax. It takes your breath away and distorts him somehow, his eyes glowing like an animal's as your vision blurs. He holds you flush and grabs your face, fingers squeezing into the hollows of your cheeks until you open up, and there's his tongue again, coaxing you to taste him. It grows, reaches, thrusts beyond the tight ring of your throat to gag you mid-orgasm. His cock follows suit, pumping cum into you until it's leaking around him. It hurts. It feels full, feels too fucking hot, why is everything so hot.

Floating gently back down to Earth, you catch your breath, hands on his chest. He's loosened his grip and watches you under heavy lids, threads of drool connecting from his full bottom lip to his soiled shirt.

The blood is gone. The makeup is there, but smeared. Messy. His eyes aren't orange - hadn't they been? Hadn't his teeth been sharper...? His face, it - it changed, it bled...

"Gunna have to start over, now."

He shoves you off. You tumble over the old flooring with no grace to speak of, crumpled in a heap at his feet while he smirks.

"Not very helpful, after all. You distract me." He swallows and straightens up, zipping himself away. He wipes his lip and looks at himself in the mirror, waving you away. "Leave me. Don't need you anymore... for now. Welcome to the circus."

[fistsoflightning]

15: a life in your shape

prompt: ache || masterpost || other fills || ao3 mirror

word count: 2517

A’dewah just wants to be loved, no matter how much he’ll have to give. (Or; things don’t necessarily turn out well when you keep falling for guys already in love with your friends.)

Aha....... A’dewah angst.... ‘when the prompt is ache am I just supposed to ignore the very easy path to listen to ‘Strawberry Blond’ for two hours’; the fic.

The first time he realizes, the flowers in his hands are in full bloom; vibrant oldroses and brightlilies from his garden. Summer in Mor Dhona means the gloom clearing, and when Zaya drags him along to Lake Silvertear with everyone else he doesn’t really have the choice to say no, so he grabs his basket and weaves flower crowns by the shore as everyone chases each other around in some chaotic game of tag.

Funnily enough, G’raha breaks away from the crowd to sit next to him, at some point; he starts on a ruby red and white crown for him as he catches his breath. His eyes are bright, mismatched teal and Allagan red, and even though A’dewah hides his odd eye the same way G’raha does he wonders what he might look like with his bangs pinned back.

(That, he thinks, was probably his first mistake: thinking G’raha enjoyed spending time with him as much as he did. It wasn’t that he didn’t, but he’d always had the problem of hoping for more where he didn’t deserve it.)

He looks up, halfway through the crown, and sees G’raha still watching everyone scramble about—in the distance A’dewah can see a gigas, hopefully it won’t come much closer—and even though he knows it’ll break him, he keeps weaving flower stems back and forth as he asks, “Who are you looking at?”

G’raha sighs, unbearably fond, and A’dewah knows the look on his face a bit too well when he looks up. 

“Lunya,” he says, and it doesn’t take a bard to tell that he’s utterly besotted. “How she’s so energetic I will never know.”

Oh, he realizes, fingers stiffening in the tangle of flower stems as he looks back at Lunya—she hardly even spares him a glance, waving only to G’raha. He’d thought he’d done something else wrong, like insulting her sense of fashion—which, honestly, wasn’t a reach, considering his coat and the earring—or being able to heal more than she could, or something even stupider, but this—

Oh, I’m an idiot, he thinks as Lunya looks away and G’raha can’t help but keep staring.

If he finishes up the rest of the flower crown sloppily, G’raha doesn’t say anything, not even when A’dewah carefully places it on his head and runs off, his heart askew.

(He doesn’t even say anything before he goes and seals himself off in the tower—not that A’dewah was expecting anything. He wasn’t a friend, really, so he expected to hear the news from someone else, expected to hear that he confessed just before leaving.

He doesn’t know what’s worse: the fact that he was stupid enough to think Raha cared or the fact that looking in the mirror, seeing one red eye and dark red hair—that it’s enough to make him ache.)

...

The second time—gods, he’s so stupid to have more than one time—the second time, the flowers in his hand are wilting. It’s fall—flowers usually die off sooner, so he’s not sure why the ones he has are simply wilting—but it is also Coerthas, and the chill is enough to make him want to wilt.

So is, he thinks, Haurchefant’s smile. Bright and blinding, full of life.

(He’d known he’d fall from the moment they met the man, after the raid on the Waking Sands and before the fall of the wild roses—he’d known what would happen if he let himself accept the kindness Haurchefant had so freely given, and he’d seen Reese’s reaction to his exuberant greetings. He’d known.

He doesn’t know why he didn’t try to stay away.)

The Vault is a blur; flurries of flame and magicked armor, the Heavens’ Ward, the number of elixirs A’dewah drains to keep up—and even then, he’s only got so much of himself left when Haurchefant falls at Zephirin’s spear, and if it weren’t for Lunya he’d have bled himself dry to save his smile, even when his heart aches at the thought of a knight sacrificing everything for his ladylove.

(It’s terrible, his jealousy, so unwanted and unkind. He does not hate his friends—they’re stronger and sharper than he is, anyways, and if he did actually come to hate one of them they’d surely be able to tell and break his spine for it—but part of him wishes he were good enough to be wanted in their place, and everytime he thinks about it he feels worse than he did the last time.

He’s good for something, sure. Maybe that something is healing. Maybe that something is making his friends hate him.)

Haurchefant survives, of course; Lunya is so much stronger than he is, so stubborn that she wouldn’t have let his tale end here, but even stars have their limits. Right after the Vault, there’s no one left among them with enough energy to keep watch, in case something goes awry. Reese offers to stay, but she looks ready to collapse even moreso than A’dewah does.

When Count Edmont asks who would be keeping watch, A’dewah practically forces himself into their sickroom before anyone else, and keeps himself up that night watching the quiver of their connected aether rather than the quiet burning in his stomach.

He hates himself. He truly does; why else would he stick so close?

…

He doesn’t even remember why he has dead flowers in his hands the third time—something to do with a sudden cold snap killing even the hardiest of flowers around Ishgard, and volunteering himself to see if any plants were saveable under the packed snow—but it’s a halfway decent example of what he feels like when he sees Aymeric and Hanami walking along the cleared path back to the row of minor houses, away from the Last Vigil.

(The fact that he looks at them and wants makes him sick. He should want for nothing—he’s alive, he’s not in a gaol, he’s—)

A’dewah’s not sure he looks back down to the grey dirt fast enough to avoid Hanami’s quick turn, coldfire gaze freezing him in place more than the weather, but he sure as all hells tries. She’s already angry enough at him as is, having heard the truth at the Wall and then right from Ilberd’s lips, the bastard.

(He can’t say he didn’t know before—it’d just sound like a lie, no matter how true it actually was, even with desperation reddening his eyes and leaving tears dripping from his chin. He doesn’t know how to say anything that might make them listen again, doesn’t remember any half-decent apologies that he’d spewed to his sisters—and those never worked, either.

It was easier to let them hate him, anyhow. Better to let a tainted flower die than to give it one last chance.)

He’s not sure what breaks first, when he hears Aymeric whisper is aught amiss and he suddenly wishes (selfishly, horribly, wickedly) that he was the one he was speaking to; his composure, or his heart, but he curls up further into himself anyways until he hears two sets of feet walking away.

(And if his heart bursts open after that, summer rain melting Ishgard’s winter snow, there is no one around to tell him to stop being such a crybaby.)

…

“—keep yer hands pressed down hard, I’ll be right back with a healer—”

“—go, I got it—”

He doesn’t know who’s speaking, head spinning as it is behind closed eyes, and he only realizes he can’t feel his hands when he tries to rub his eyes and finds he can’t.

“Hey,” someone asks—someone from earlier, but A’dewah’s ears ring and he can’t think too hard on it without everything fading, so he just tilts his head somewhat to his left to show he’s listening. “There you are. How’re you feeling?”

What he says, he doesn’t quite hear, but maybe it was something like tired or drunk or… something; he can’t accurately describe the feeling-non-feeling of being unable to move but still there. The only thing he can tell is that there’s a weight on his chest, and that it smells a lot like iron. Kind of like an infirmary, packed with injured, if he thinks about it; too close to Rhalgr’s Reach after the run-in with Zenos.

Right. Zenos. He’d been fighting alongside everyone, sneaking out to the spring night—was it Yugiri that told them the crown prince was here, or someone else—and he remembers the red crackle of his third blade, and the disgruntled groan of—of someone, he can’t remember who, and he’d ran forward…

“Can you focus on breathing for me?” 

A’dewah does; at least he’s good at listening, if not for anything else, his breath evening out. His head stops spinning enough for him to think once he does, but even digging for the name to place to the voice is hard enough. He finally manages to crack his eyes open enough to see past the blur, then, and blinking a few times clears it enough for him to realize two things:

One: Oh. Haruki.

Two: That’s a lot of blood in the towel on my chest.

If he could feel his hands, he might have tried to feel his chest, lay his hands on top of Haruki’s—they’re covered in blood, doesn’t he hate the sight of injuries, doesn’t he hate the smell—but he doesn’t, because his hands don’t move when he tries to. Like a puppet, strings cut, unfeeling. Instead, he just looks down as much as he can, the white coat he usually wears gone and a cut in the black turtleneck he’d been wearing. The lily of the valley from Mune that he’d tucked into the collar of his coat lays at his side, stained crimson. A bit like his hair, now that he looks at the mess; maybe red dye wasn’t the best of choices.

Zenos, his mind supplies when Haruki shifts his hands a little and A’dewah sees the gash. You jumped in front of his sword for someone.

Well, that explains all the blood. Probably. 

(A part of him is disappointed Zenos didn’t cut away enough of him to prove to Haruki that he’s not worth the trouble, that he’s not as kind and hopeful and brave as he used to be, but he doesn’t say anything. He’d just sound pathetic.)

“Don’t worry about it,” Haruki says, even though he looks like he’s about to panic when A’dewah looks back up. His little grin is too sharp, at the edges, glued into place, and even though he knows something’s wrong more than just a lot of blood and an injury he doesn’t fight it. He probably wouldn’t, even if he could. “Just stay with me, yeah?”

Sure. He nods, staring up at the ceiling, and then to Haruki, a question at the tip of his tongue.

“Are…” He coughs, and the way Haruki winces makes him grimace, too. “Are they… safe?”

“...Yeah.” Haruki’s face twists into something strained but fond at the edges, and A’dewah doesn’t like the way his heart skips a beat for it. He can’t—it isn’t. He won’t let his heart ruin him again, even if it means ignoring the way his traitorous ears flick back when Haruki reaches up and brushes his hair out of his eyes, even if there’s still blood stuck on his hands and even if the sticky feeling makes him feel ill. “Dewah, keep your eyes open, ‘kay? Think Tehra’ir’s almost back with someone.”

He nods again, but his vision is already blacking out at the edges—oh, he thinks, blood loss will do that, huh—and when Haruki looks back up at him he’s already got his eyes closed, heart heavy and hearing fading as he starts to fall asleep, even when Haruki calls out—

.

.

.

“Dewah?”

He jerks up, already halfway to standing when his knee connects with Haruki’s ribs; for his merit, he only lets out a small oof before A’dewah realizes where he is. He blinks a few times, just for good measure.

Right. The One Garden. Napping under a tree, flowers (that he wasn’t certain were there when they sat down) blooming around them as the breeze made them sway.

“S-sorry! I didn’t—I thought someone was—” He’s not sure whether to lay his hands over the spot where he’s sure Haruki will bruise or to sit back down and stay still so he doesn’t smack him again, so in his fluster he decides on neither, wobbling back and forth between the two until Haruki pulls him down into his lap.

“No worries, sunshine.” Haruki smiles brightly, and A’dewah’s not sure if he bristles at the reminder of his heartaches or at the gentle touch he puts on his shoulder. “Accident, yeah?”

He nods, face a bit flushed as he tips his head down. There isn’t blood, anywhere—horrible of his head, to throw him back to then rather than letting him dream of something stupid, like Zaya’s oversized sheep and even more oversized yol terrorizing Revanant’s Toll, or singing flowers. 

“So, uh,” he says after a few moments, feeling a bit more himself. “You called?”

“Yeah. You looked—” Haruki pauses, then, to yawn, lifting his hands from A’dewah’s sides to stretch his arms. “You looked distressed,” he says, resting a hand on his head and lightly tracing a line down the shell of A’dewah’s ear with his finger. “Bad dream?”

“A bit,” he mumbles, folding his hands in his lap. Wanting to reach out but a bit afraid to touch, like if he lets himself do what he will this will all fade away into the abyss of his nightmares. Like he’s fooled himself into thinking someone cares, again.

But Haruki reaches out first, raising a hand to scratch at the base of A’dewah’s ear—he should have never told him all those years ago that he liked that, too easy a tell and too easy a cure to his aching heart—and he all but melts into the touch, cooling the skin where the summer sunlight has warmed.

“We still got a few bells; you can go back to sleep, if you’re still exhausted.”

“No,” he says, but he still lets himself fall back onto Haruki’s chest—and, yeah, maybe he’s still tired, because he doesn’t even flush at how close he is to his heartbeat, letting his fall in time to it. It’s a bit strange, how he just… fits, in some way that if he had to describe he’s sure he’d die for good. Even being swept up into group hugs by Syhrwyda and Zaya wasn’t as comforting as falling into Haruki’s cool touch—which, kami above, that’s even more embarrassing to think of. “This is fine.”

“Oh, now it is,” Haruki grumbles good-naturedly even as he wraps his arms back around to the small of his back, and A’dewah giggles—stupidly, maybe, but there’s no one around to judge him for it. “Tell me; what changed from a bell ago to make you okay with cuddles now?”

“You’re warmer now,” he replies, and as the wind rushes through his hair again all he hears is Haruki’s laugh, bright as the sun even beneath the shade of the plum tree.

[bangtan-gal]

Heartstrings

Lee Minho x Fem!Reader Half-demon half-angel!au Warnings: angst, swearing, drinking, drugging, deaths, graphic depictions of blood, UNEDITED Word Count: 4k

Masterlist  Other Angel AUs: Chan | Jisung | Hyunjin 

The cool, night air prickled against your skin and you rubbed your arms slowly. You stood with your friends in line, waiting to get into the club. There should’ve been a smile on your face, or some form of happiness present in that moment, but you just felt lost. Is this really where you wanted to be? It wasn’t like you could say you wanted to be anywhere else—you always felt empty, no matter where you were.

“Hey, lighten up a bit Y/N.”

Your roommate nudged you with her elbow, face illuminated by a mischievous grin. You barely spared her a glance as you moved with the line and handed your ID to the bouncer. His eyes skimmed over it before handing it back to you. You slid into the club, not bothering to look back to see if your friends were keeping up. The second you stepped into the building, your whole body started to pulsate from the bass shaking the floor. All anger and confidence was lost as you stood at the entrance, staring into the wide, glamorous expanse. Humans, demons, vampires, and other nightmares bounced in a sloppy rhythm on the floor. You had to fight the urge to turn and run. 

This isn’t right. 

Your friends’ reactions were more positive.

“Holy shit, it really is a supernatural bar!” Your roommate exclaimed, the others nodding in excitement. You wanted to scream at them, asking them what exactly was wrong with them. Humans were killed all the time by these creatures—they were nothing short of evil.

Your town was… odd to say in the least. The outside world didn’t seem to know of these nightmarish creatures. Here, you lived in a fragile harmony with them. They lived in houses, drove cars, raised families, and acted almost just as if they were human. They could act normal, but if you knew what to look for, you could tell that they weren’t. The eyes were always unnaturally bright, the ears coming up to a weird slant, teeth coming down in terrifying points, and shadows following them wherever they went.

The creatures tried not to kill humans.

They weren’t very good at controlling their urges.

Either way, you swallowed your fear and followed your friends to a booth near the back. When they had proposed the idea to you, you were immediately against it. Then they convinced you to come and here you were. 

Something bad was bound to happen.

“Y/N, come up with me to order drinks,” Renna demanded, hooking her arm through yours. You started to protest, pulling against her, but her determination dragged you across the floor and all the way to the bar. A man—a demon from the looks of it—approached slowly, a dark grin on his face.

“What can I get you ladies?” He asked.

“Three martinis please,” Renna hummed and then glanced at you. You shook your head. “And a beer for my reluctant friend.”

The man smirked at you and his eyes ran over you. You shivered, crossing your arms over your chest. Here, you were the prey. Here, you weren’t protected.

“Renna, you know this isn’t good,” you whispered, turning to her. She frowned at you. “We’re gonna get hurt.” She huffed. “The last murder was years ago, Y/N.”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s only because rules were set in place. They live on the East side and we live on the West side—we don’t interact as much as we used to! And who's to say there haven’t been murders since? Plenty of people could be dead.”

Renna’s frown deepened, her eyebrows furrowing.

“We’re a small town, we’d know if someone went missing.”

“B—”

She shot you a look. 

The bartender returned with your drinks, sending a filthy wink your way. You ignored him, snatching your beer and stalking back to the table. Your friends chatted happily as you silently nursed your drink, frowning at nothing in particular. The LED lights in the club were giving you a headache and you didn’t like how your whole body jumped every time there was a big bass drop in a song. 

You weren’t sure how much time passed, but at some point your headache became too much. You stumbled to the bathroom, pressing a hand to your temple. It barely subsided—if anything, it only got worse. You sank down to the floor, pressing yourself against the wall. Something wasn’t right. Your throat was burning and pain was starting to pull at your stomach.

You groaned.

“Aw, how cute.”

You cracked your eyes open, watching as the door opened all the way. 

Anger flushed through you. The beer.

The bartender strode across the floor until he was in front of you. In the normal lighting, his eyes shone a bright blue. He crouched down, his hand wrapping around your ankle. You tried to pull back, but his grip was like iron.

“A little sick, aren’t you?” He purred, his other hand running along your face. You swatted him away, coughing as your throat screamed for liquid. “Let’s get you out of here.”

You couldn’t fight him, even if you weren’t extremely dizzy. He had inhuman strength and could snap your spine in half if he really wanted to. You wiggled against him, but the world was only spinning faster as he carried you out of the bathroom. Paying attention to where you were going was impossible. Cold air brushed your skin as you were brought outside. For a small second, you felt better, your lungs filling with proper air, before your whole body deflated again. He set you down and for a second you thought he was just going to let you go and that you read the situation wrong.

Instead, he grabbed your wrist painfully tight and started to drag you down the sidewalk. Your voice was hoarse and barely there as you cried for help, but there was no one around. And even if there was; it would be other demons and why would they stop him?

“You going somewhere with that?”

You groggily looked up, still fighting hopelessly against his hold on you. Another man stood on the sidewalk, hands tucked into his pockets. A cigarette hung from his lips, the light gray curling slowly into the air. A broken sob escaped you as you pleaded with him silently. His eyes darted between you and the man until they just rested on you. He tilted his head, black hair falling across his face, covering up equally dark eyes. 

“Just let her go man,” he muttered, “you know how screwed we’ll be if the town finds out another one was killed.”

Your captor laughed. 

“Seriously?” He pulled on your hair. “It’ll be fine. They haven’t noticed for the past several years. Aren’t we allowed to fulfill our cravings?”

“You can get off on animals dumbass. Leave the girl alone.”

“As if—”

His grip on your wrist vanished. You fell to your knees, trying to keep your eyes open. There was a grumble of pain somewhere nearby and then a sound of something tearing. You managed to look up, watching as your captor’s bled spread over the street. The other man stood beside him, face tilted as he just stared at him. Then he turned to you and your relief vanished. He knelt down in front of you.

“I won’t hurt you, don’t worry,” he whispered, eyes running over your face. “But I’ll need to help you with the poison.”

“The wha—?”

⥷⥷⥷⥷⥷   

You were woken up by a pounding headache and a bright light shining over your face. You managed to sit up, shielding the sun from your eyes. The room was mostly bare, nothing hung on the walls—nothing of personal value. You fell back onto the pillow, trying to remember what happened. There was no recollection of yesterday as a whole—you didn’t know what time you got up, what you had for lunch, where you went to get this loud headache, or how you ended up here.

“You’re awake.”

Your eyes cracked open, watching as a young man strut across the room. Something inside you stirred, you felt like you’d seen him before. His hair was dark, falling across his brow. He was lean, with a beautifully crafted face.

“W-what happened?” Your mouth was extremely dry.

“You were poisoned,” he muttered, crouching down beside the bed. With him only a few feet away, you could see that his eyes were dark, but they glittered purple. You winced, scooting away from him. Demon. “I did as much as I could—got rid of the poisoning, so you’ll no longer be dizzy and in pain—but I’m afraid I can’t fix everything. It’s gonna feel like you’re hungover and your memory might take a while to fully recuperate.”

You wanted to reply, but your throat was screaming and your mouth was completely dry.

“I’ll get you some water and toast.”

With that, he stood up and was gone. You watched him step out of the room and wander down the hallway, turning into another room. You could hear him rummaging around and then he appeared again with water, a medication bottle, and a plate of toast. His steps were delicate as he walked back into the room, feet unheard against the wooden floor.

You weren’t sure if you should trust him, but your body betrayed you as you swallowed the pain relief and downed the water. You took a bite of the bread and then your stomach revolted, so you warily handed him the food back. He stared at you the whole time, curiosity shining in his eyes. 

You were able to find your voice.

“What?”

He tilted his head and then shrugged.

“You just took really well to the healing,” he explained carefully, eyes running over your face. “Most… uhm, most human bodies aren’t very receptive to supernatural abilities.”

You frowned, slowly sitting up in the bed.

“Why heal me? Why not let me suffer?” You queried. The boy didn’t look surprised by your question, but he did look repulsed. A frown set firmly on his face and he looked away, the purple in his eyes becoming brighter as he surveyed the room. His jaw ticked.

“Not all of us are the same,” he deadpanned, “believe me—part of my nature would’ve joined in on making your life miserable but the other part… wasn’t happy.”

You blinked several times, not exactly sure what he was saying. The purple in his eyes started to fade and went back to the dim lavender it was earlier. He licked his lips, mouth opening just enough for you to see his teeth. There was no sharp edges; they looked just like human teeth. Demons’ teeth were sharpened, yet if it wasn’t for his eyes, you would’ve mistaken him as human.

“You have two natures?”

What the fuck could his other nature be? “Angel.” His voice was blank as he answered. His face was void of any emotion, but there was a small flit of something like sadness on his face. You opened your mouth and then closed it. Your eyes narrowed in thought.

“Angels exist?” You whispered.

He raised an eyebrow. “What? You thought there’d be all these demons running around and have no counterpart?”

“I guess… I mean-you-huh? I figured if there were angels they would…”

“Show up,” he mumbled, nodding. He started to pick at his nails. “I always thought they would too.”

Silence burned up the air between you. 

“I’m Y/N”—you didn’t know what you were doing, but you held out your hand—“thanks, honestly.”

He shook your hand slowly, confusion rippling across his still features.

“Minho,” he muttered. Your hand lingered in his and something sparked deep inside you. This was definitely not right—you weren’t supposed to trust supernatural creatures—but something about him was calling out to you and something inside you shouted back. It didn’t help that his eyes dropped, red blooming on his cheeks after you finally let go of his hand. He paused for a second, biting his lip. “Uhm… I should’ve told you earlier, but you’re gonna need to stay for another day. Most healing processes take two days for it to properly work and although it worked the first time I’m worried that it might reverse or something.”

“You want to keep an eye on me,” you confirmed.

Minho nodded.

You smiled nervously. “That’s fine.”

You spent the next several hours asleep. Early afternoon came and you woke up, your headache mostly gone. You stumbled out of bed on your own, walking down the hallway. The apartment was small: one room with a miniscule kitchen and a barely-there living room.  Minho seemed to be gone. 

You didn’t want to snoop, but curiosity was brewing deep in your stomach. His room was completely void of anything personal—family, friends, hobbies. There was just a bed in the corner with a nightstand, a few boxes stacked in the corner, and tiny closet of clothes. Although, there didn’t seem to be anything else. The kitchen only had a stove, sink, microwave, and refrigerator with tiny counters. He didn’t even have a couch in his living room and it had you wondering where he slept last night.

Of course… does he actually sleep?

It almost didn’t feel right for there to be nothing. Sure, he wasn’t human, but the way he had talked of angels earlier sounded as if he was waiting for a parent to come back. His demon parent had probably been there, but his life was empty of the good side of him. There had to be a family or maybe friends. From what you’d seen, demons acted a lot like humans—made friends, had relationships, one-night stands, and everything far out and in between. 

Just as you gave up on looking, the front door opened. Minho stepped in. He looked surprised to see you standing in the middle of the living room, completely frozen. You prayed that he couldn’t read minds because something told you he wouldn’t be happy about you trying to snoop. His angelic nature had saved your life earlier, but how many more times would it be able to do it? 

That was something you were genuinely curious about. Were his natures like split personalities? Did they argue every time he was given the chance to do something bad or something good? He had made it sound like he would do something bad, but his angelic nature wouldn’t let him. It had to work the other way, right? There had to be times where he wanted to do something good, but his demonic side refused. Or maybe he had control over it and chose to do good.

He watched you.

“You have lots of questions,” he sighed, pulling off his jacket and hanging it up on the hook. “I can’t read minds by the way—I’m not a full angel and telepathy is a very rare trait in demons. Your face says it all.”

You blushed, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

“I guess… I just want to know who you are; how-how you came to be.”

That felt like a stupid question.

“Angels can’t get pregnant.” You hadn’t expected him to dive right in, but he seemed to have other ideas. “Demons have the same make of humans—only females can become pregnant. Never met my dad, but he somehow fell in love with my mom and they had me. I was raised by my mom for the first ten years of my life and then she suddenly disappeared. Spent the rest of my life in foster care.”

Your mouth formed an ‘O.’

“Truthfully, I don’t know how my parents fell in love. They do say that opposites attract, but you wouldn’t think mortal enemies would. Not sure how my father faired; maybe he fell from heaven or possibly got decimated. For a demon, my mother wasn’t inherently evil. She had her moments, but she was better at controlling her urges and shockingly… she wanted me to grow up to be good. Always told me that. She told me that my demonic side wasn’t bad, but it would want me to do things that I shouldn’t.”

Minho paused, eyes glazing over. His fingers played with the ends of his shirt. Then he shook his head, letting out a shaky sigh.

“‘Listen to your angel, because in the end, it will do you best.’”

Minho grew silent and you were unable to respond to that. He started chewing on his lips and his eyes ran over the apartment, looking everywhere but you. A bad feeling crept through your anatomy and you regretted asking him. It was your fault that memories were resurfacing—memories that he probably didn’t want to remember.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled, “you don’t have to say anymore if you don’t want to.”

He nodded, smiling tightly.

“You hungry?” “Yeah.”

⥷⥷⥷⥷⥷  

  You were woken up by a gravelly voice and someone shaking you. When your eyes opened, you found the world to still be dark. It took your vision several moments to adjust to the darkness, but once it did, you found that whoever stood at your bedside, was not your parents. A short man with bright red eyes stared down at you. Your whole body shook.

“Come on kid.”

You were reluctant to follow, but you were given no choice. He dragged you out of bed and down the hallway. The loudest thing was the sound of your heart beating so loudly against your ribcage, it could’ve escaped. The living room was flooded with light and your eyes widened at the sight in front of you. Smears of blood lined the walls and carpet. Your mother was slumped against the wall, eyes wide open and glazed over. A trail of red slid from her mouth, down her chin, and dripped onto her collar. There was a large, gaping hole in her chest. Nothing was there, not even bones.

Your father sat beside her, tears slipping down his face as his gaze switched between you and her. His lip was quivering and he was shaking his head at you. His lips moved around silent words and it was hard to distinguish exactly what he was saying. It seemed like he was switching between ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m sorry.’ 

“Dad?” You gasped, body starting to shake with the oncoming onslaught of sobs. You covered your mouth, crumbling to your knees in front of them. Another man and woman loitered in the room. The man was staring at you with swirling green eyes, an almost finished roll hanging between his lips. The room reeked of weed and something painfully metallic.

“Please don’t hurt her,” your dad cried, “s-she’s too young.”

The woman huffed a laugh, her eyes darting to where you knelt. 

“I doubt we could get anything from her,” she commented, tilting her head. Her eyes flashed as she did so. You cringed away, only to wince when you pressed against the third demon behind you. 

“Don’t!” Your father screamed as the other man stepped towards you. The demon turned to your father, something psychotic rioting in his face. It was bright; it was dangerous. 

Sirens came to your rescue and very quickly, you could see the blue and red lights flashing angrily. All three demons stiffened, exchanging uncertain stares. Then it happened so quick—too quick. The woman hurried to your father, crouching down in front of him and cradling his head in her hands.

“Oh, we won’t lay a hand on her, but we’ll leave her scars that will never fade,” she hissed. You tried to look away, spare yourself from what you knew was coming. You were too late. It was hard to say what was more sickening: the loud crack that tore through the room or how long it took the light to die from his eyes. You were shoved to the ground as the three fled the scene, leaving you alone in a silent house with your mutilated parents. 

“Y/N?”

You looked up, blinking in confusion.

“Y/N, hey!”

Your eyes opened quickly and you looked around rapidly. Your body was hot and sticky with sweat. The few sheets that you hadn’t managed to kick off the bed clung to your skin. You could feel the tears that were pressed to your face Minho hovered over you, shaking you desperately. 

“Oh my god.”

You didn’t mean to, but you shoved him off of you and rolled away. You were sleeping in a demon’s house, putting as much trust in him as you could. What was to stop him from hurting you? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing was stopping him from hurting you; he could take you out with a single flick of his wrist.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Has the poison relapsed?”

“I’m fucking fine!” You snapped, sitting up. Your anger vanquished as you stared at his face. Worry, confusion, and agony was racing through his eyes. You pinched your eyes shut, exhaling. He didn’t do this to you, he wouldn’t. 

“Do-do you want to talk about it?” He asked softly, sitting on the other side of the bed. 

“Not really.”

He was silent as you struggled to get your breathing under control. As you sat there, trying to collect your thoughts, you realized how stupid and selfish you were being. Minho had told you of his family life without hesitation. You knew talking about this would help—you hadn’t told a single person.

And now you were about to tell a demonic person.

“My parents were murdered by demons when I was eleven,” you muttered, “it was… it was terrible.”

You slowly recounted the events, not even realizing you were describing it in deep detail. It was stuck in your system; burned into you like a branding. It was unforgettable. Every single moment was just there, almost as if you were remembering what you had done only hours ago. Minho listened dutifully the whole time, deep eyes filling with understanding.  

“I really wish that all demons weren’t that terrible,” he muttered. Then he shook his head. “But most of them don’t even try to control their urges.”

You wiped a tear away, licking your lips. 

“What exactly are the urges?” 

You already had a terrible idea of what they were.

“It’s just… to make people’s life miserable. Torture them, hurt them as much as we can, and when we completely lose control… people die. Humans think we need to kill to survive, but that’s far from the truth. It only helps us feel alive, even if for only a few moments.” He pinched his eyes shut. “They’re unfortunately really hard to control. We could easily use animals and get a similar high, but it’s the pleading, the crying. That look in their eyes when they realize they’re helpless. Animals can’t do it, but humans can.”

Minho blinked rapidly and bit his lip. 

You stared at him. 

“You’ve done it before, haven’t you?” You whispered, unconsciously scooting away. He shook his head, tears starting to spill from his eyes.

“Every day I wish I hadn’t,” he cried, “I’ve taken it every chance I’ve had to make up for it. I know I never can, nothing can ever fix what I did.”

You looked at him, expecting to see a monster, but all you saw was a broken boy. It didn’t matter that he was a supernatural being, because he had grown up all the same as other humans. He’d experienced tragedies, had cried. He had emotions. 

He was human. 

“Minho, it’s okay,” you mumbled, wrapping your arms around him. He smelled like strawberries. “It’s only a voice in your head. It’s not apart of you—it’s not who you are. I know you don’t want to hurt others, from what I’ve seen so far, you’re more of an angel than you are a demon.”

You pulled back slightly, wiping away one of his tears.

His gaze met yours.

“It’s okay. Really.”

The two of you were silent for a second.

Then a shaky smile appeared on his face.

“I promise I’ll never hurt you Y/N,” he stated, his thumb gripping your chin. He was so close. “Never.”

You smiled, your eyes fluttering closed as his lips met yours.

Nothing had ever tasted sweeter. 

[kd-holloman]

The Traveler's Gift deleted Prologue

Have a deleted prologue from TTG! Please ignore any glaring errors. It's deleted and therefore not perfect.

The trenches were filthy, despicable, disease-riddled places. They froze at night, faced unbearable heat during the day, and when it rained the men had no choice but to slog through the filthy pits, like bilge rats. Death surrounded them, brought on by sickness and the attempts for the enemy to advance. 

    Maybe he had been feeling particularly patriotic the day he’d enlisted. Maybe he’d done it because it felt like the right thing at the time. It was more likely, that Louis had been looking for some sort of adventure, the chance to see some corner of the world that wasn’t the same city blocks and the familiar church pew he sat in every Sunday. 

    He’d expected the fighting, but he hadn’t expected this. 

    He hadn’t expected freezing nights with nothing but the stars for company as he listened and watched for anything to happen. He hadn’t expected to be reading his Bible over a fallen comrade while they moved on from one life to the next. He hadn’t expected sore and aching feet, men with wounds from wearing their boots for too long and head lice running rampant among the ranks. He hadn’t expected canon fire, his stomach knotting with dread each time he heard a plane in the air, or fighting against the instinct to not breathe as mustard gas tried to smother him. 

    Nothing could have prepared him for this misery. 

    Yet, he still wore his uniform with pride. He was serving his country and fighting for justice for the men and women on all of the ships that the Germans had sunk. 

    On his particularly bad days, he had to remind himself why he was here and things got a little better. 

    It had been a quiet morning. The skies had been clear of enemy craft, no shots had been fired from the enemy’s trench. The birds were singing, the sun was burning the frost off of the scarred and rutted ground. 

    Louis had been sitting on a crate of ammunition thumbing through the pages of the well-worn Bible his father had made sure he had. It made him so homesick that he ached. He and his siblings had spent many hours with their golden heads craned over their Bibles, learning how to read and write. They had recited passages in church, with their father at the altar, standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers in their best clothes. 

    He lifted his head as he heard the hum of planes in the distance. He traded his bible for his rifle leaning against the crate next to him. 

    He crept up to the edge of the trench, cautiously peering over the edge. 

    He didn’t look out at the barren, muddy, barbed-wire strewn ground before him. That was no-man’s land. Instead, his green eyes were cast skyward in an attempt to identify the oncoming aircraft. 

    He couldn’t tell from here, whether the plane was an ally or an enemy. 

    The sharp crack of a rifle firing over enemy lines jerked his attention back to the present. 

    “Mahoney!” A fellow soldier snarled, grabbing him by the back of his filthy uniform and yanking him back from the lip of the trench. “Do you have a death wish? If he had aimed any higher you’d have a hole in your head!” 

    “Sorry!” He breathed, fingers numb with shock. 

    He knew better. 

    “Incoming!” Somebody further down the trench bellowed. 

    Louis didn’t bother to try to find out where the bombs were going to hit. He knew he didn’t have time. 

He ducked into the alcove he had dug out in the trench, a semi-dry place for him to sleep at night and a place to take cover when necessary. 

    He folded himself over his knees and covered his ears. 

    Even with hands mashed over his ears, the sound of the earth shuddering around him as it was ripped apart was deafening. 

    He could just imagine the ground cracking open, swallowing him up. It would bury him alive, like the bodies of his fallen comrades that he’d helped lay to rest. 

    The soil above his head crumbled down in fist-size clumps. Rocks rolled off of his helmet, he could taste blood and dirt on his tongue from where he bit his lip so hard it bled. 

    He couldn’t breathe! The walls of his hidey-hole were getting closer together! No, no, it had always been this small, right? 

    Another bomb shook the earth around him. 

    He wasn’t going to die valiantly holding the line from the Germans. No, he was going to be buried alive, taking cover from an air raid. 

    His ears were ringing. He could feel the hole closing in around him. 

    Then, there was nothing but excruciating pain. 

    He was being ripped apart, burning alive. 

    It only lasted a moment, but the way it felt made it seem like it lasted an eternity. 

    Then, he was on his hands and knees in the middle of a muddy road, miles away from the filthy trench he’d been occupying. 

    Louis couldn’t tell up from down, left from right. The only thing that made sense to him was the feeling of his fingers curling into the mud and the heat of the sun on his back as he vomited the contents of his stomach onto the ground before him. 

    He didn’t sit up until he had nothing left to upchuck. 

    He dragged his sleeve across his mouth and looked around, unbuckling his helmet and setting it in his lap. 

    He was sitting in the main street of a French village. Most of the inhabitants had taken cover at the sound of approaching planes. Yet, one woman carefully left the safety of her home to see to him. 

    Louis knew some French. He’d learned it from his mother and he’d picked up a better grasp of the language after being deployed. 

    The woman approached him cautiously, like she was afraid he was going to turn on her. Her fear was not displaced. He was filthy, battered, and bruised from fighting in the trenches for weeks. She had probably had a few unpleasant run-ins with other soldiers. 

    He lifted his head and looked at her. “Do you have something for pain?” 

    She stopped, looking at him with a fearful gaze before turning and retreating back to the house. 

    When the door slammed, Louis figured that was the last he would see of her and he had walk toward the sound of the fighting or risk being accused of being a deserter. So, he painstakingly got to his feet. 

    His rifle was gone. He had no idea where it went, but his Bible was tucked away in one of the many pockets of his uniform. 

    Perhaps, he thought wryly, if the enemy finds me I can just change their hearts with the word of God. 

    Then, the door opened and the woman was running out to meet him. She held a bottle of liquor out to him and when he accepted it she recoiled away from his touch. 

    “Which way to the fight?” He asked her. He pointed down the road. “Is it this way?” 

    The woman nodded. 

    Louis pressed the bottle to his lips and took a few deep swallows. The burn of the alcohol soothed away the deep-set ache in his bones. 

    The woman flinched away when he lowered it back down. 

    He scowled and looked at her, “what is your problem? I’m not going to hurt you.” 

    The woman’s cheeks flushed and she bowed her head, “I am sorry. I just want to please a god.” 

    Louis laughed, the sound rough and too-loud in the quiet street. He was not a god. He was the farthest thing from one. “I’m not a god.”

    “Then, He has blessed you with a gift.”

    He studied her, looking for some hint of a joke in her expression. He came away empty. Was the ability to suddenly be transported miles away a gift? The pain that accompanied said “gift” could certainly be considered a curse. 

    Perhaps, she was right. Perhaps, God had given him a gift. If it was not a gift it was certainly the opposite. Maybe God was punishing him for fighting in this war, for the lives he’d taken at the other end of his rifle. 

    He cleared his throat and nodded at her, “Thank you.” He didn’t have much time to waste. He had to get moving before anybody noticed he was gone. 

    Louis dragged himself out of the mud and headed back toward the trench. 

    Judging from the sounds of it, he was halfway back before he stopped running, doubled over his knees to catch his breath. 

    If that woman was right, if he had been gifted, shouldn’t he be able to transport himself back to the trench by will alone?

    He closed his eyes and pictured the trench. Go there! He commanded himself silently. He braced himself for the excruciating pain and waited. 

    Nothing. 

    He pinched his eyes shut harder, take me back to the trench!

    The only thing that happened was the sound of gunfire in the distance. 

    Take me back, please?

    Louis waited a dozen seconds before giving up. He gave an annoyed sigh and started running again. “Some gift,” he muttered under his breath as his boots kicked up mud. 

    Still, as he fell back into a familiar leg-burning rhythm, he couldn’t help but think of the woman’s words.

    He has blessed you with a gift.

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