#when my eyes dry ill post the other thing but for now i should curl up with a pillow and cry out my feelings

[kimjunnoodle]

.

[sirthisisa-wendys]

Can I ask something like: reader being engaged to someone of the Zen'in clan (not willingly) and discovering that she is pregnant with Getou's child, which she's having a secret relationship. So this would lead to a huge conflict. Feel free to add smut or change anything if you don't feel confortable writing it! Thanks for your work. Lots of love <3<3<3

SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER (who happens to be me)

Arrangements: Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader

wc: 1.9k

tw: nsfw, angst, mentions of abuse

The priceless china teacup - the only one of its kind in the set of four - drops from your hand and to the dining room floor, where it shatters into a million pieces.

"No."

Your father looks at you with concern, as if you had just spoken some foreign language.

"No," you repeat, this time with much more emphasis. Didn't he understand the meaning of the word? Or was "no" not a part of his vocabulary?

"Unfortunately, you don't have a choice, y/n. You and Naoya have been paired together since birth, and it's now time for you to--"

"I said no!" You stand from the table and walk past your father to exit the dining room, pushing the door open with fury. As you stalk away from the arranged marriage to a Zen'in and your father, you feel tears well up in your eyes.

You scrub them away as you push past your bodyguard and into your room, where you lock the door. But the tears come faster than you expect, and you can't help but weep. It isn't until the sun goes down that you stand from your seated position and move to your desk, where the picture of you and your best friend sits, his black eyes glaring at the camera as you pinch his cheeks, smiling at him with glee. You were only five then, but if you knew then what would happen to you fifteen years later, you would have begged to run away with him much sooner.

The 'plink' of a pebble smashing into your window calls you out of your daydream, and you place the picture back down before moving to open your windowpane.

"You really could just knock," you advise Suguru Geto, who stands at your window with a silly grin on his face. "It'd be a lot less annoying."

"But what's the fun in that?" he wonders, climbing inside easily. "Plus, it gives me an excuse to find pebbles around the grounds. You know how I like rocks." You roll your eyes as he leans in, placing a deep kiss on your lips and wrapping his arms around your waist. "Mmm," Suguru hums. "You've been crying. What's new?"

"Nothing," you lie, but he tilts your chin up, examining your face.

"Looks like you've been crying for a while... Did your father say something to you at tea time?" You hold in a sob, lips quivering. "Perhaps a spat over something he sees as trivial, per usual?"

"Stop," you beg, pushing his hand away. "I don't want to talk about it."

Suguru steps back, rifling around in his pockets for something. When he produces the black stone, he hands it to you, letting your fingers drift over the polished texture as you consider opening up to the only man you love. "Here's one of my worry stones. You can rub at it and it'll take the negative feelings away."

You hold it in your hand, making a note to save it with the other pretty things Suguru has given you over the years in the box under your bed. You sit on your bed and he follows suit, laying beside you and sighing.

"Have you ever thought about running away?" you wonder, and Geto bites his lower lip thoughtfully.

"Sometimes. But then I remember that I can't run away from all of my problems, and I'd be leaving you behind."

"Maybe we should run away together." At your proposal, Geto puts his hands underneath his head, staring at the spinning fan.

"I can't condone that. You'd be running away from your problems, y/n."

"And? What does it matter if I only have you? Is that enough?"

"It matters a lot," Suguru mumbles, and you sigh. "I can't ask you to give up your life for one of hardship. I've been working on saving a bit of money, though. When I get enough, I'll buy a ring, come to your dad, and ask him for permission to marry you. Just wait a little while."

"We don't have a little while," you blurt, and he frowns. "My father wants to marry me off to some Zen'in, and--"

"What?" Suguru sits up, black hair falling down his back. "Say that again."

"My father wants to marry me off to some Zen'in," you repeat, and Suguru's eyes widen immensely before squinting.

"No, no, no... that can't be right," he breathes, and you shake your head.

"That's why I've been crying." Shock gives way to a blank look and he stands, running a hand through his hair.

"I have to go."

"Wait!" you cry out, but Suguru is out of your window in a flash, walking across your lawn without turning back.

_____________________________________________________________

The look Naoya Zen'in gives you is revolting.

When he strides into the room, your insides melt to nothingness and apprehension takes over. He circles you like prey, smiling at your shape and making lewd comments about your child-rearing abilities.

"Looks like you have a set of hips that are perfect for---"

"Naoya," your father chides, and the man slides his eyes to your father's face.

"Right, well..." the man clears his throat. "I would like to see what she's like by herself if you don't mind." Your father gives you a look that says 'behave' and you plead with him in your head to remain in the room. But he leaves you two alone, and that's when Naoya's face drops its smirk.

"Alright, let's be frank with each other." He leans forward on the table between you, lacing his fingers together. "I'm not in the business of making you feel good about yourself. You have to do that on your own. I'm going to tell you what I need when I need it. If you can't provide it, then you should seriously consider emptying that little head of yours of the idea that I won't remind you of your place."

You recoil at his words, lips curling up in disgust.

"And don't even think about replying with some smart-ass remark. I'm not the Chief of Hei for nothing." Bile rises up in your mouth at the thought of this swine being your betrothed, but you force it down, swallowing hard.

"I understand."

"Good. Now, let me see you turn around and walk out. I want to watch your hips as you walk away."

_____________________________________________________________

You rush into your bathroom and lean over the toilet, all of your consumed food coming back up. You vomit until nothing is left in your stomach, and dry heave for the rest of the time you're perched at the toilet bowl.

When it's all said and done, you wipe your mouth and flush, face redder than it was before you started feeling ill.

'Plink'.

Your head swivels to the window, and you rush to open it, coming face-to-face with Suguru.

"Babe..." he whispers, face flushed. "I brought you something." When he comes inside and sits on your bed, you consider telling him about the encounter with Naoya, but when he opens a small box, you're stopped in your tracks.

"Su!" You eye the small moonstone ring with curiosity, a smile creeping across your face. "Su, this is gorgeous."

"Solid rose gold and moonstone; your favorite." You slide the ring onto your ring finger and hold it up to the light.

"I love it... I love you." Suguru stands and brings you close to him, holding onto your head carefully.

"I'm going to take it to your father right now and--"

"I really wouldn't recommend you do that," a voice calls out from your doorway and both of you pull apart, startled by Naoya's sudden presence. "I had a feeling you'd be otherwise occupied." Naoya closes the door as he enters, smirking. "I should tell Mr. L/N myself that I've discovered this little tryst, but I think I'll let this poor man off the hook just this once." He turns to Suguru and gives him a deadly glare, crossing the space between them. "Leave. Don't come back here. I don't care how you feel or what you've done. But she's my property now, and no one other than me touches my things." Geto bristles at the threat, eye twitching.

"Make me, you piece of dogshit."

It's apparent that Naoya isn't quick to anger, but his fists clench in defiance. "I see," he breathes, letting go of his fists and running a hair through his light-colored hair. "You'll regret those words." And he leaves you two in the room, closing the door behind him carefully.

_____________________________________________________________

You stare at the little bump protruding from your belly in disbelief, fingers quivering over the skin. You try to recall the last time you and Suguru had unprotected sex and realize it was over a month ago, right before Naoya had appeared in your life.

The heavy onyx ring sits on your finger, reminding you of your engagement and the despicable man who had chased your lover away on that dreadful night.

Footsteps approach your room, and you quickly dress in your loose-fitting cotton shift dress, concealing any signs of pregnancy. Naoya throws open your doors and strides in, eyes looking about the room. "I have a little surprise for you, doll," he smiles, holding his hand out for you to take. Without hesitation, you grip it, knowing any delay could mean a swift backhand or a bruised wrist. "You'll enjoy this. I think I'll consider it my wedding present to you."

Naoya half-drags, half-walks you to the courtyard, where many of the townspeople have gathered, their faces somber and uneasy.

And chained to a post at the front is Suguru, his shirt torn and scrapes dragging across his skin.

"Just in time," Naoya chirps, pushing through the crowd and making you stand at the front, where Suguru could see you. His eyes widen, and he mouths something to you, but you shake your head, hands trembling.

"This man has been accused of stealing from the town's jeweler," Naoya calls out, circling around Suguru carefully. "And in his possession, we found a valuable piece of evidence." The accuser holds up a moonstone ring - your moonstone ring - showing it to the crowd proudly. "The punishment for theft is usually loss of a hand. But I feel that he should be delivered a much less barbaric punishment." Your heart leaps out of your chest, and you bite your tongue to keep from crying out.

Nothing Naoya would do would be less than barbaric.

"Fifty lashes are appropriate for the crime," he announces, and a man comes out of the crowd with a whip, standing behind Suguru with authority. Your eyes sting with tears, and you try your best to hold in a scream when the first lash lands across Suguru's back.

His black eyes are trained on you for the first fifteen strikes, but when the sixteenth lash rings out in the crowd, they begin to roll back, and he cries out in pain, voice echoing across the courtyard. Naoya sidles up beside you, gripping your wrist.

"See what happens when you sleep around with thieves?" he hisses, and you begin to weep, your vision blurring with tears. He chuckles and you hide your face behind your hands, sobbing furiously.

By the fortieth lash, you're all cried out, and Suguru's lost consciousness. His eyes are closed and his head lolls forward, hair drooping across his face. And when the man finishes, Suguru is left on the post, his blood and sweat mixing together across his back. You can hear ragged breathing after a minute of waiting, and Naoya goes up to Suguru's body, pulling his head back by his hair.

"Learned not to mess with my things?" he grins, and Suguru drags himself from the edge of consciousness to whisper,

"For y/n? I'd do it all over again."

The look of pure, unadulterated shock on Naoya's face is enough to haunt you every day afterward.

[fanficsrusz]

POWER - Henry Cavill Smut

Warnings: Smut.

Pairing: Y/n x Henry cavill

Summary: Y/n's plan to seduce Henry backfires but in a wondrous way.

Word Cound: 7.7k

A/N: Its been a while since I've posted anything and I feel a little nervous 😅. However I've missed the thrill of creating a world all of my own. I also apologise for any spelling/grammatical mistakes. I havent edited anything for a long time so yeahhh. 

Please comment/reblog if you enjoyed ❤️

"You're drunk" 

The accusation, issued through Henry's teeth, was an angered hiss and Henry's reaction was everything that Y/n could have wished for… And more. 

Y/n forced a little hiccup, feeling it bubble its way through her body before it made its escape out of her mouth, and almost laughed at the thin set of lips across from her that stayed in a straight line. 

He looked positively prim - just like he always did. 

"No-" she defended, "-I'm happy". The correction came with a sly smile, her upper body leaning towards him across the bar, her inner amusement increasing as she watched his body stiffen in annoyance.

 Henry was keeping a distance between their bodies, as if he thought her intoxication may be infectious. 

The hold he quickly took to her waist was more of a brace rather than an intention as she swayed forward and then backwards. 

"Don't you want me to be happy, Henry?" 

Y/n pouted, tilting her head back and looking at him with what she hoped would be a sultry invitation. She laughed, a bold, wicked sound that drew a few glances from others in the bar. Henry stared stiffly over her head, swallowing the lump in his throat that had seemed to form as he grew more irritated with the woman's involuntary outbursts. 

 "For God's sake, Y/n, control yourself", he whispered tightly. 

Was he embarrassed by her lack of inhibition? No. It was quite the opposite. He felt… lost. As if he had no idea how to act in the situation he had found himself in. 

It was normal for him, the playboy, to taunt her with his fancy words, to distract her with his sinfully dark looks and honeyed phrases, but turn the tables and he wasn't quite so poised himself and Y/n felt a delicious thrill of power at the knowledge that she had him off balance. 

She deliberately let herself go  limp in his arms, and, when his grip relaxed in relief at the stability her body found, she quickly slipped under his guard, pressing the entirety of her body sinfully against him. 

Her tactics immediately threatened to backfire as Henry's coldly rigid body seemed to be generating an incredible amount of heat and that in itself was enough for her to lose focus of her goal. 

She rested her check against his chest and willed away her trembling response even as she measured his annoyance by the wildly uneven thump of his heart. 

"You'll regret this tomorrow," he told her sternly, his hands tightening painfully on her waist.

"'Why in hell did you drink all that champagne? Do you want to make a total fool of yourself, jeopardise a deal with Dere-?" 

"Rubbish. Derek thought I was as graceful as ever; he told me so," y/n said airily, thinking that it was too late to regret drinking at a business meeting with her boss and other potential clients. 

Y/n moved steadily in his arms to prove it, brushing her breasts against his chest, hoping that the crushed velvet of her dress would hide the multitude of her sins that had seemed to accumulate quickly throughout the night and not to mention the past year that she had worked beside Henry, every single dirty thought she ever had about him portraying itself as nothing more than a red stain upon her cheeks and chest. 

She had never been sinful before, always a dutiful daughter, just as she had later been a faithful business partner to Henry but there was only so much a woman could take before she had to take drastic measures. Now she was neither a daughter nor a business partner. She was Y/n Y/l/n. Herself. A woman before anything else and more specifically a woman with needs. 

"You're the only one who thought I was wrong for declining the partnership" , she drawled mockingly, too caught up in her reckless self-absorption to monitor his surfacing awareness. "Chill out, Henry. If you can't fix it with a snap of your fingers, you might as well lie back and enjoy the open bar…" 

The thud of his heart had settled down to a swift, arrhythmic beat that set up a sympathetic vibration throughout her body from her scalp to the soles of her restless feet.

There was a small pause as he manoeuvred her pliant body away from another couple that wanted to get to the bar. Then he tilted his head to look down at her.

 "Chill out?" Amusement leaked through his iron control as he suppressed the grin he held in tight. " wow- I never thought I'd hear street-slang from that elegant, business-lady mouth of yours…". 

For a second Y/n gulped, thinking she had lost all control of the situation that she had perfectly built up all evening but then Y/n moved dreamily against him, fully immersed in her ideal scenario. 

She linked her arms round his back and arched her neck slightly so that she could see his expression. 

"But I'm not a lady tonight, Henry, I'm a woman," she said huskily.

 "Should I lie back and enjoy that too?" he enquired cynically. 

That conjured up indecent images that for a moment left Y/n shocked, breathless even and if it wasn't for the distant sound of a glass breaking somewhere in the bar then she would have stayed in her trance like manner. 

Her lips parted as she tried to say something sophisticated in response but she couldn't think of a thing and for a moment she feared that she had lost the edge. Y/n bit her lower lip and suddenly he had control over her again, his voice rough with threat, as he gave her a small shake.

"Behave yourself, Y/n. Stop being so fucking provocative. You should go home" 

"I'm not ready to go home yet" she mewled, eyes darting over to the dance floor that served as a pick up ground. 

Henry sighed, his eyes following her gaze

"One dance, that's all you get. Then I'm getting you out of here before you start leaping onto table-tops and doing the can-can!" 

"What a killjoy you're turning out to be, Henry" with fresh fury, she suddenly spun out of his arms and danced freely for a few moments before cutting mischievously in on another couple. Soon Henry was glaring murderously over the shoulder of a blonde woman while Y/n languished in the sweaty grasp of a nervous young man who was very aware of the hovering blue-eyed menace.

 When Henry cut back in a short time later, Y/n was relinquished with ill concealed relief. 

"You're playing with fire, Y/n" , Henry warned, his firm hand taking hold of her again. This time he held her so captively close that she could feel the lines of his suit being imprinted on her velvet dress. 

She had the feeling that if he had been able to shackle both her wrists behind her back without attracting attention he would. He wanted to cage her, tame her, but tonight, surrounded by the security of a crowd, she was determined to be untamable, just to see how far she could push him. 

"Mmmm, I know, and I feel so gloriously toasty and warm," she murmured wickedly, waggling her eyebrows at a passing male. 

Henry swore under his breath and pulled her flirtatious eyes away from any male that passed by capturing her gaze before she could perform some similar impropriety. He quickly brought his own hand to his mouth to mask his aggression in the pretence of courtesy. She had been right about the shackling. 

"You're drunk", he repeated raggedly, more as if he was telling himself than her. She rather liked the hint of desperation that seeped into every word he spoke. It was almost as satisfying as having him grovel at her feet. 

Y/n laughed, a sensuous 'cat-with-the-cream' look of satisfaction on her face as she widened her eyes and purred, "But not incapable, darling…".

She tamed a deliberate misstep as she spoke so that her leg slid caressingly between his thighs as they turned. 

Henry almost stumbled as she lifted her knee, briefly applying the pivoting pressure of her thigh firmly to the juncture of his. Her provocation had an immediate effect and she drew back instantly, finally aware that her teasing had gone too far. But it was too late. Henry had reached the end of his tether. 

"Fine -" he seethed, "-we'll do this the hard way then" 

Five minutes later Y/n  was belted roughly into the passenger-seat of her own car. 

" I'm perfectly fit to drive, Henry" she raged at the man who slid angrily behind the steering wheel before inserting her keys into the ignition. 

"I'm as sober as you are!"

" For your sake, I hope that's a lie, Y/n". 

His voice was nothing but a growl and y/n felt the shiver that started in her groin slowly rise up through her spine. 

"But if it is true then maybe you've done me a favour. If you were teasing me deliberately I don't have to feel guilty for what I'm about to do." his eyes stayed focused on whatever he was staring at, his fists curling tightly around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned pale. 

"Do?" Y/n asked faintly as the car sprang into motion with far more power than she ever managed to coax from under the unimpressive bonnet.

"Did you think I would calmly walk away like an obedient lap-dog when you got tired of your little game ?"

 "I...I... didn't think-" she began to splutter. 

"No? Just instinct, was it? Trap the beast, then rattle his cage until he howls? Wasn't that your goal?" 

"Henry!" 

He hadn't looked at her since they had got in the car, driving with a narrow-eyed concentration, but now he slipped a grim sideways glance at her shocked expression and what he saw there seemed to ease his ferocious tension but the wolfish twitch of his mouth wasn't reassuring

"You did, didn't you? You really thought I'd let you get away with it. You didn't think I'd have the guts to drag you kicking and screaming out of there" 

Y/n swallowed the dry lump in her throat. She had definitely underestimated her victim and definitely forgot to plan this far ahead. 

"'I wasn't kicking and screaming," she protested weakly, avoiding the obvious answers he wanted.

 "Not on the outside maybe. But your innocent act never did cut any ice with me" Henry's eyes glanced over at Y/n

Y/n clenched her fists tightly, until her nails dug into the palm of her hand, but she barely noticed. The only thing she was really aware of, was the sound of her heart throbbing against the cage of her chest. 

It wasn't until she looked up into the rear view mirror, that she noticed she had been biting her lip so much so that they were almost as red as the lipstick that had wiped off hours ago. 

"Scared, Y/n?" Henry jeered softly as she swallowed again, this time audibly. "You should be." he said lowly

"What about your own car?" she began weakly, hoping that practicalities might prevail where argument hadn't. 

"I'll pick it up tomorrow." Y/n went quiet. This fantasy was easier to plot when she didn't have to concentrate on parrying his verbal thrusts and she tried to calm her nervous actions with whatever had made her think that she could best him at his own game. 

She wished she were drunk but all she could do was hope that the drive would cool down that scorched male pride. All she could do momentarily was create another plan. 

When they would finally get back to her apartment building she would placate him, contrive to convince him that it had all been a silly mistake. For all his threatening manner, she knew instinctively that he wouldn't use violence to enforce his threats. He didn't have to... all he had to do to seduce her was to take her in his arms and then she would be at his mercy. But once she had bolted her door on him she would be safe from her own wicked urges. 

He could rage and huff and puff all he liked but he wouldn't be able to get in. The irony was rather quaint. All the security locks that he had insisted she have installed on her doors and windows when he first found out she lived alone in a not so friendly neighbourhood would ensure that her virtue remained unassailable - well for tonight at least. 

Y/n had almost convinced herself that she had already outwitted him when she noticed the unfamiliarity of their route.

"This isn't the way to my home!" 

He ignored her. The moving light thrown by the passing street-lights illuminated his shadowed expression. It was a hard mask of satisfaction.

 "Dammit, Henry, where are you taking me?" 

"I told you. Home." 

"This isn't where I live." 

"I never said I would take you to your home. I simply said 'home'. It's not my fault that you assumed I meant your home." 

Henry turned into a steep, dark, curving driveway that seemed to drop away directly into the deep black glitter of a Lake that Y/n didn't even know existed in the area. 

 Y/n's heart was in her mouth as the car swooped towards the water, but when they reached the lower curve into darkness, security lights suddenly flickered on and she saw the brick paved courtyard clearly for an instant before the car was swallowed by the lower level of the house.

The garage door closed automatically after them, and for a moment after Henry cut the engine, the only sound in the softly lit enclosed space was the faint ringing echo of the metal door. Y/n was irresistibly reminded of the metallic springing of a trap. One that she had baited herself into.

"Welcome home, Y/n." Henry leaned towards her and she flinched, but he was merely flicking open her seatbelt.

She couldn't see him smile but she could hear the amusement in his voice as he continued, "No, not here in the car. I'm not so crude as to take up your generous invitation without due ceremony and at least a few comforts." 

Henry leaned even further, reaching across her to push open her door, this time dragging his arm deliberately against her rapidly rising breasts as he withdrew. 

"Get out. I'd prefer to go inside" he purred dangerously, pointedly placing her car keys out of reach in the inside pocket of his jacket.  

" but If you can't restrain your wild passion and don't mind a little discomfort I'm quite ready and willing to make love to you against the dashboard" 

Y/n was up and out of the car with as much alacrity as her fumbling apprehension would allow. His mocking laugh as he followed suit had her searching for the door, but he was there before her, opening it with a flourish and a small bow.

" After you. " 

All the way up the narrow, spotlight staircase, Y/n was aware of the movement of her hips and legs, the breathless difficulty in her chest and, most of all, the steady, inexorable masculine tread that stalked her. 

The room at the top of the stairs was shrouded in darkness, relieved by vague glimmering white shapes that made her gasp. 

"Afraid of ghosts, too, Y/n? What a timid little thing you're turning out to be…". The murmured words smoked across the small area of vulnerable skin between her shoulder-blades, exposed by the discreet scoop of her gown, whispering across her sensitised nerves. There was a faint click and the room sprang into light. 

The white shapes were sheets, draped over bulky objects. 

Even the floor was covered by a dark green sheet, and the reason was obvious. The walls were stripped and primed, but had not yet had their first coat. 

They were in the kitchen, Y/n guessed from the positioning of the shrouded fittings. Scattered about were cans of paint and rolls of wallpaper, brushes soaking in paint and the odd ladder or two. The only ghosts here were those of the tradesmen. 

Yet,  Y/n's heart continued to flutter with a deliciously disconcerting fear, an excited apprehension.

 Without a word Henry took her by the elbow and ushered her impatiently through several more similarly dust-shrouded rooms with the unswerving instinct of a guided missile, not bothering to turn on any more lights. 

The place seemed huge, and as silent and brooding as the explosively primed man beside her.

 "You-you're redecorating!" Y/n grabbed at the chance to divert him from his relentless intention. Honestly it surprised her that she had known him for so long and yet had never seen his home, he didn't even talk of it much. 

Henry didn't answer and she fell quiet. 

He let her resistance slow him but he didn't let his grip ease. He had already been taken by surprise once too often that night.

"Have you been feeling hunted, Y/n?" Her answer was in her uneasy sidelong look. He smiled secretively. "Now you know how I felt this evening: like the helpless prey to your brazen huntress…" Y/n flushed, her whole body heating at his words. She had been brazen, utterly so, and she had enjoyed it far too obviously to try to deny it now. 

Henry let her dwell on her folly for a moment before he murmured, "The answer to your question is…" his slow smile drew out the suspense for a wickedly long second "...perhaps." 

His eyelids drooped, not quite hiding the predatory gleam that smouldered in the darkness. He was still very, very angry and he wanted her to know it.

  "Certainly it turned out to be very convenient for you…"

 His free hand came up under her other elbow and he stepped around to face her, forcing her backwards and into the realisation that while he had held her enmeshed with his equivocating words he had been slowly backing her to the wall.

"I'm no one's convenience," she spat, determined not to see the effect his calculated menace was having on her already chaotic nervous system.

"You have to admit you qualify in one or two forms of the dictionary meaning, Y/n," he drawled, driven to foment her the way that she had tormented him. "You're certainly suitable for my purposes and needs and you're close by... but no, I don't suppose you could be considered "easy to use"...

The fear that had inhibited her flared into an open temper at his overt mockery. 

"If you think I'll let you-" "-Challenging me, y/n?" he interrupted softly, and watched her hesitate as she realised the certain consequences of goading him from her very vulnerable position.

"Actually," he continued almost kindly, "it's a little late for second thoughts. You've led me this far with your little game. Now it's time to pay the piper…" He dipped his head and to her tingling shock bit her gently on the side of her satiny throat. She reared back, but there was nowhere to go, no escape that didn't involve going through that broad-shouldered, lean-hipped wall of male arrogance!

"led you! You're the one who practically kidnapped me" She was appalled to hear the breathy lightness in her words when she had meant them to be firm. 

"Mmm. Exciting, isn't it?" He bit the other side of her throat. "Just think how thoroughly helpless you are right at this minute. You're in a strange house, while I know every nook and cranny. All the exits are deadlocked. Even if you ran, where would you run to? I'm stronger than you are. bigger, harder, faster. You can't get away, no matter how hard you try. I can do anything I want with you. And there's nothing you can do about it, except…" 

" Except what?" The mouth skimming her throat was having as violent an effect as his taunting words, arousing the deeply buried desires that she had tried to deny. 

" accept what you caused" She felt the curve of his lips against her smooth skin, heard the amusement in the sensuous rumble.

 He was laughing at her. 

He wasn't content with merely seducing her. No, he wanted to humiliate her, too.

Sudden panic struck and with a fierce surge of strength she shoved at his solid chest. To both their surprise, he staggered back, far enough for her to dart away. With a roaring curse he gave chase.

Y/n's heart hammered as she scuttled from the safety of one covered piece of furniture to the next. She froze, listening for the direction of his pursuit, but Henry had also stilled. He was out there somewhere, crouched and aware, listening, just as she was, waiting to pounce. Her skin prickled hotly and she could feel the blood pulsing heavily through her veins. Y/n shivered with a strangely febrile excitement. She peered around what appeared to be a small table and saw a graduation of the blackness - A doorway!, 

Taking a deep breath, she took to a low crouch and ran for it. As she did so she felt a rush of air as close as a blow and a throaty growl. He had only just missed her! She couldn't help letting out a little scream as she abandoned stealth and bolted, darting breathlessly to the darkened room.

Henry was never far behind and at first she was grateful that he didn't switch on the lights, the better to find her, but as his taunting laughter infiltrated the night she realised that he was revelling in the chase...and so was she! 

Her inner certainty that Henry would never physically hurt her, even in genuine rage, gave an added piquancy to the situation. 

She had challenged him in the most clemental way possible and he was responding in a way that was as different and exciting as he was. 

The panic which had precipitated her flight became a delicious terror as the teasing game of hide-and-seek continued. 

Sexual tension flourished in the shrouded silence like a living thing. He was no longer in a hurry to catch her, whispering silky-voiced threats into the night that curled her toes and dampened her palms, describing in sensual detail what was going to happen when he found her.

 It didn't take Y/n very long to break. When Henry suddenly went quiet her imagination ran riot. She pressed herself even more tightly against the reassuring solidarity of what appeared to be a sideboard and quavered, "Henry?". 

There was no answer and she tried hard to sound convincingly calm. 

"Henry, this is ridiculous. Why don't you turn on the light and we'll talk about it sensibly?" Sensible was the last thing she felt but she couldn't stand the waiting no longer. 

Y/n was just close enough to the edge of her self control to try shameless grovelling.

" All right, so I acted foolishly this evening. Now you've got your revenge and now we're even aren't we?" 

Silence 

"okay fine , yes, I admit it!" she cried. "I pretended to be drunk to tease you but…" 

Silence,

"I did it because... because I didn't expect you to respond." And may God not strike her down for that awful lie!

 "I wanted to annoy you, that's all. It was wrong of me. Childish. I'm sorry. I just wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine. You always seem to have this - control over me. I just wanted to get under your skin for once."

Silence 

"Henry? Henry!' Her placatory tone slipped badly. 

" Fuck!, stop it. Henry, this isn't funny anymore!"

A soft chuckle floated out of the darkness. Y/n was too disorientated to guess its direction and she whirled a full circle. 

" I'm not playing your stupid game any more, Henry, so you may as well come out. I won't try and run away again. I promise."

Silence. 

Y/n began to tremble, not from fear but from helpless desire. Dammit, why didn't he come out and finish what she had started already. There was a soft sound to her left, a tiny echoing click that acted like a trigger on her taut nerves, catapulting her automatically to the other wall of the room, where she backed hastily between two tented objects that provided her with a solid sense of security. A false sense, she discovered, when a hand suddenly whipped across her mouth from behind, smothering her scream.

 "So much for your promises, Y/n," came the clipped murmur in her ear. "That was only my cuff-link. You ran straight into my arms."

 The hand across her mouth tightened as she tried to protest, and an arm lashed around her waist, drawing her back against a hard, familiar body. He hadn't lied in his silken whispers. He was just as aroused as she was by their foolish game. 

She stood there for a moment, her head against his shoulder, trembling and breathless. She tried to speak and tasted the sweat of his palm. Instead of dropping his hand he trailed it deliberately across her lips, his fingers curving into her parted mouth, stroking the inner surface of her mouth and fondling her tongue with an intimacy that was far more shocking than any explicit sexual caress.

Her heart thundered in her breast as he softly probed her moistness, scaling the breath from her lungs, as he whispered, "Do you like this, Y/n? Your mouth is like wet satin, wrapping around my fingers. Use your tongue, tell me if you like the taste of me…" The sheer intoxication of his husky plea made her moan and he quickly let his hand drop. 

"Am I hurting you?"

 She couldn't answer and his hand continued to fall, until it settled on the firm roundness of her left breast, his palm cupping her, feeling the pounding tumult within.

" You...frighten me," she managed to say, her taste buds tingling with each word, drowning in the full flavour of him. 

"This isn't fright, Y/n…" His hand tightened and then released, to flatten and move against her in soft rotation, compressing the flesh in a way that made her tremble even more. 

"This is excitement. You wanted to be caught, didn't you? You're as curious about me as I am about you, only you wouldn't let yourself admit it. Tell me now if this is not what you want, Y/n, because from here on in I can't guarantee my control…"

As he issued his rough command his hand moved to explore her other breast. The hand around her waist strayed, fingers splaying against her velvet belly, digging into her softness, reaching for the ache that was forming in the pit of her stomach. His mouth was moving against her shining cap of hair, seeking the sensitive hollows at the nape of her neck. 

 He was handing control to her because she made him feel wildly out of control. She had never driven a man so wild with desire that he didn't know what he was doing...

"Henry, God, -" 

"don't say no, Y/n. Not now." He spun her tightly in his arms and she made a discovery that drenched her with sensuous delight. 

"Your clothes…" 

He had taken off his jacket and tie some time during his dark pursuit and unbuttoned his shirt so that it hung free from his broad shoulders. The hands that she had placed against his chest met with bare skin- hot, damp, satiny skin covered with thick, soft hair. His heart was almost leaping from his chest and he shuddered as she pressed her palm harder against him, marveling at the strength and power rippling beneath the skin.

"I got hot, chasing you," he said.  "I still am. Wanting you makes me that way. Hot and so ready that I can hardly stand!" 

He made a subtle movement with his hips and groaned as he brushed against the thick velvet folds of her dress. She felt a fresh moisture break out on his skin and in an instinctive gesture of acceptance leaned forward to nuzzle it from his chest, her mouth inadvertently brushing against one of his large, flat nipples in his nest of hair.

He made a choking sound in his throat, arching back to give her free access to his upper body and in the process ground his swollen hardness against the juncture of her thighs

"do it" 

Y/n barely heard his ragged plea. Henry was so exquisitely responsive to every tiny movement she made, even to the very breath from her lips upon his skin, that he was soon deep in the toils of a dreamy delirium. 

She  wasn't aware of the rip he made in the back of her dress when his shaking hands wrenched the zip down, only of the molten sensuality of his gaze as he steered her into a shaft of light near the window and studied her breasts. nestled in their cups of pure white lace. 

"Did you wear this for me?" he asked thickly, roughly tracing the outline of the lace across the curving swells. "Did you want me to take off your dress tonight, Y/n? To admire you like this?" 

 His arousal was so flatteringly intense that she couldn't deny him the truth.

 "Yes…" 

She closed her eyes, gasping as she felt the stroke of his thumbs across the seams, finding the rigid tips that were evidence of her own desire. He made a sound and she felt him kneel to pull her velvet gown over her hips, revealing the white panties and suspender belt in the same simple lace design as the bra, demure yet sexy in their essential femininity.

 He made another sound, this time deep and guttural, his hands running up the backs of her thighs, pulling them closer and parting them slightly. 

She opened her eyes, clutching at his naked shoulders as he moved his mouth hotly against the lacy front panel of her panties and pressed a string of kisses from the soft skin at the tops of her stockings to the deep, frantic pulse at the hollow of her hip. 

Y/n could feel the cool air along her pussy as warmth settled there. Rough hands sent a shiver through her body as they ran the length of her thighs, kneading her ass before finding their way back to her pussy, and pushing her panties to the side  for a better look at what she had to offer. Y/n shook and he purred in approval of her reaction.

Henry pressed forward until Y/n felt his lips along her folds, teasing her before delving deeper. Y/n gasped at the first taste, the tip of his tongue poking at her entrance, her arousal spilling forth. Henry ran the length of her pussy until he flicked her clit, the twitch it brought forth made him snicker into her skin. He dragged his tongue along her clit again, grazing it over and over as her pelvis flinched unwillingly.

“shit,” she hissed, trying not to moan though it felt so good.

Y/n clung onto his shoulders, the buzz she felt in her stomach coming closer to finding its release. Her thighs trembled as he grew more persistent, his tongue agile as it drew forth an orgasm but just before she could relish in the exquisite feeling, he pulled away. It had been almost a year since you had been pleasured by anything other than her own hands and this was starting to drive her mad. 

The sight of his dark head moving against her and the sensations he was creating made her cry out in helpless need and he looked up, a dark blush crossing his face when he saw her starlit expression. 

He stood and kissed her on the mouth until they were both breathless. Then, still holding her, he reached behind him, dragging the sheet off the nearest object.

It was a smooth, polished mahogany dining table, it's dark surface reflecting the muted lights from the moon.

Y/n imagined him laying her down on that smooth hardness and leaning over her, feeling the melting pleasure of his touch. 

Henry turned her, pressing her hips against the carved mahogany edge.

"I've never made love on a table before," she whispered raggedly, hoping that she wouldn't disappoint him with her relative inexperience. No doubt he was used to women who were terribly adventurous and sexually sophisticated. She thrusted the jealous thought away and linked her arms around his neck, reminding herself that she could make him shake with passionate need. She could make up with enthusiasm for what she lacked in experience and he would never know the difference. 

He stilled and she was afraid that she had destroyed the moment with her naive little confidence. Henry lifted his head and looked at the table behind her. Then he stopped and swept her off her feet, lifting her into his strong arms.

 "No, not here," he said hoarsely. "The first time should be in a bed.." He began to move with Y/n in his arms and she turned her hot face against his broad chest, adoring him for caring enough to make this exactly right for them. 

"I don't want to wait." She told him shyly of her need and his arms tightened, the muscles of his shoulders and neck bunching into prominence as his stride quickened.

 "You won't have to." He turned into another doorway, dipping an elbow against the wall until twin lamps glowed, their light filtered into a soft, golden delicacy by the cloths that swathed them. 

Henry didn't let her go as he removed the covering over the bed and stripped back the dark feather quilt. When he finally put her down it was on to crisp white sheets that released a lavender fragrance to mingle with the heated scent of arousal that perfumed their bodies.

Henry stood by the bedside, looking down at her. Then he spread his hands, revealing the light tremor that shook his hand ever so gently. 

 "Look what you do to me. You make me weak. No one has ever had that effect on me"  Y/n reached out a hand and touched his trident stomach. 

"You're the strongest man I know," her hand ran down his stomach and over the muscle underneath as she moved down to his belt. She tugged at it gently

"I want you" she purred. 

The knowledge of their mutual desire flared in his hungry eyes, hardening the planes and angles of his face until it looked as rigid as his body under her exploring hand. He caught her wrist before she would have touched him intimately, folding her arm back into the pillow behind her head he knelt beside her.

 "Say it again. Say my name." 

"I want you to make love to me, Henry." Her words were a promise to give him all that he wanted and more. 

"No more running?" he raised his eyebrow jokingly and Y/n shook her head, unable to speak as he unclipped the front fastening of her bra, sensing that he wanted her to lie quiescently as he bared the last secrets of her body. 

She felt shy, like a precious gift being gloatingly unwrapped, but she didn't resent his moment of purely masculine triumph. The glory of the moment was also hers, this beautiful man that she had known for so long finally hers. He was giving himself to her and asking nothing but what she was willing to give in return. For tonight and perhaps for many nights to come she would let him satisfy the hunger in her soul, colour the cold grey corners of her world with a warmth and vibrant life that would dispel, at least for a time, the loneliness she had come to accept many years ago. 

"I want you, too…" she whispered as she welcomed the joy of his touch. 

Henry undressed himself with a fumbling haste that she found inexpressibly exciting and when he came down on to her she gasped at the violent energy of his enthusiasm. Y/n stared up at him, his cock hanging out for all to see. 

The controlled, disciplined man she had grown to know vanished completely. In his place was a greedy, intemperate, ardent and impetuous male, urgently intent with plundering each and every lavish pleasure of flesh. 

Henry smirked, his hand slowly pumping his dick a few times before he bent down and slid the tip over her slit and pushed inside roughly, allowing her no resistance as he filled her entirely.

This moment when he took her would live vividly in her memory forever.

 The shocking reality of his first thrust stilled them both but then he stilled, chest shaking, half across her body, his head buried in the curve of her neck. 

'Surely he's not going to stop now,'  y/n thought hysterically as her body slowly adjusted to the agonising fullness, and she felt the involuntary ripples of tension begin to absorb him even more deeply into her being. 

 Y/n dropped her head back as she let out a low growl as he thrusted sharply, allowing a moment between each as they were jolted into the bed. His hands were on her hips, holding her down as he slid in and out. 

Relax and enjoy was about all Y/n was capable of doing as his sensual onslaught built towards a fiery climax. He devoured her, feasting on her body with blind hunger, biting lushly into her skin, sipping and suckling the sweetness from her achingly swollen breasts as his hands adjusted her body around his, moaning and shuddering so violently when she even lightly caressed his body with her own that she  resorted to merely riding the exquisite storm as he sank deeper than before. 

Henry groaned and y/n felt a sudden burst of warmth, his cum leaking down her legs as she let the feeling of her own orgasm near

She plunged a hand into his sweat-drenched hair, and pulled his head back.

"Henry-" 

The moan came quickly and she hardly recognised him as she gawked up at him. His mouth was full, reddened, the skin drawn tightly over the bones of his face giving him a lean, hollowed-checked wildness, his deep set eyes open but blank with inner turbulence. He looked almost totally insensate. 

Y/n felt shaken by a sudden wave of tenderness as his cock slid over a soft spot inside her, her fingers curling tightly into silky-damp hair.

"Henry--" 

The tenderness flooded her being and was just swiftly followed by another wave of intense feeling as Henry stiffened and pulled back slightly, the pupils of his eyes contracting, his jaw clenching as he fought the blind instinct that was relentlessly driving him. 

"I hurt you, didn't i." he gritted. "I went too fast for you. I'm sorry." He moved up on his braced arms and tried to withdraw further but she stopped him, almost sobbing.

"No... oh, no" 

Henry hesitated and she moaned again, this time a bitter protest, "No, please, no, not yet…" 

Y/n's pussy tightened and she murmured in delight as he slowly thrusted against her again, her sensitive walls sending a thrill up her spine.

She was fighting to hold on, and he watched, puzzled and then fascinated, as she moaned, her eyes wide with a strange fear and confusion. Her fingers slid laxly out of his hair to clench and unclench helplessly on the pillow. A deep rosy flush spread up from her damp, heaving breasts to mantle her throat and face. He realised then what was happening to her and waited, afraid to move again for fear of breaking the wondrous spell, watching hotly as the inexorable momentum built swiftly to a flashpoint.

 Only when she rolled her flushed cheek sideways into the pillow did he move, cupping her face with his strong hand, forcing her to look at him.

 "No, let me see... let me watch it happen to you...I want to watch" 

Her eyelids fluttered at his husky command, her blush deepened, but she was too enraptured to feel embarrassed, too stunned by the speed of it all to deny him anything he asked. Her mouth trembled and parted and she began to gasp in light, shallow breaths that made her flushed breasts quiver deliciously, invitingly. 

He bent and touched a stiff pink nipple experimentally with his mouth, very gently. She jerked and cried out, exploding beneath him in a series of violent convulsions that almost unseated him. He gripped her thighs and held her steady while she sobbed and moaned and poured herself into him, and then, as she melted lovingly around him he at last began to move, uncertainly echoing her undulating movements until he established his own powerful rhythm, this time driving her with him, until his raw shout of exuberant satisfaction signalled that the whirlwind was spent. 

~

In the morning Y/n  was grateful for the resilience of her relative youth. Even after a long hot shower, her muscles ached with the extravagance of her strenuous exercise. She felt as if she had been battered, not by one whirlwind, but several. And she had. If she had thought that Henry's incandescent passion would swiftly burn them both out she discovered, through the ravishing reaches of the night, that she was marvellously mistaken.

 His desire, like his curiosity about her body, had proved insatiable. And, although the second and third time they made love it was not with the stunning speed of the first, it was still fiercely, gloriously energetic. He encouraged a boldness in her that she hadn't known she possessed. 

He made her feel unutterably sexy, as if she was the only woman in the world who could satisfy his lavish appetite for lovemaking, and he devoted and demanded the same kind of single-minded commitment to creating pleasure that he did to his more worldly objectives. In short, he was every bit the fantastic lover she had imagined he was.

Y/n smiled to herself as she sipped her coffee. Was this a case of being hoist by her own petard? If so, everyone should have such a virile executioner! 

"You look quite disgustingly smug." 

 Henry had showered, brought her coffee and toast in bed and casually dressed in front of her with the ease of a man who was thoroughly satisfied with himself and the world in general.

"You're looking fairly smug yourself," she answered boldly. 

"Making love in the morning obviously suits us both and in the evening, and at night. By the way, what are you doing at lunchtime?" Y/n couldn't stop blushing and Henry smirked.

 She wasn't that bold - yet.

 If she and Henry were lovers for long she didn't doubt that she could become very, very brazen. 

"Eating," she said repressively. 

Henry refused to be repressed. "you're a wicked, decadent woman." He leaned over and tugged at the sheet that was tucked over her breasts and down to her waist. Y/n squeaked and held out her cup, afraid she would spill some of the hot liquid as he bent to lightly kiss her rosy softness. 

" is all of you on the menu, or just selected divine parts?" 

"You're a glutton!" Y/n murmured weakly, closing her eyes, shivering at the tingling pleasure his delicately teasing tongue evoked. 

"Ouch!" Henry winched, The coffee having splashed onto his cheek as y/n unconsciously let the coffee cup slip.

"Serves you right." She didn't pull up the sheet, sitting primly among the crumbs and cotton sheets, deliciously aware of the contrast between her nudity and his dark, formal suit as he moved away. 

He had told her he had an early meeting --one reason for the necessity to rouse her just after dawn by making love to her sleepy, languorous body. 

Waking up to find Henry inside her was just one of the new, fresh pleasures of life! 

"Will you meet me for lunch? This meeting should be over by then." He straightened his tie in front of the mirror then walked back to her.

"If you want me to…" He cupped her chin, reminding her of the way he had refused to allow her to hide from him last night.

 "I want you to. Make no mistake about that, y/n. I have no regrets. None." 

"Good." She lifted her chin and tried for a little of the sophistication he was no doubt used to. "I wouldn't like to think that I had disappointed you." 

To her annoyance, he laughed. He straightened, letting his fingers trail down her throat. "There wasn't much chance of that, believe me." 

"Oh, are you so confident of your prowess?" she snapped defensively, feeling suddenly restless and mentative. "You can turn any woman into your personal love machine?" 

He seemed unruffled by her irritable crudity, a strange smile still playing around his lips.

 "On the contrary. I'm afraid I have no basis for comparison." 

"What?" Y/n stared at him blankly.

He scooped up a slice of toast and bit into it. "Couldn't you tell, Y/n? Was my gift such a paltry thing? I thought one's partner could always tell." 

What was he talking about? To her horror, Y/n suddenly realised that, although he had used protection afterwards, that first, rough coming-together had been utterly spontaneous and Henry certainly hadn't held back. Did he purposely try to get her pregnant? Was he not really the man she thought he was? No- that couldn't be it. 

 "What gift? T-tell- me. what?" she stammered, raising her cup to hide the quiver of her mouth, hoping he wasn't going to prove as selfishly arrogant as she suspected!

" Why, that it was my first time, of course." And, as she continued to stare at him uncomprehendingly over the top of the cup, his smile gentled into a tender warmth. "You were my initiation, Y/n. I gave you my virginity, you gave me my manhood." 

And, leaving her gasping and choking with shocked disbelief, a pool of hot coffee soaking into the sheets around her, he calmly turned and walked out of the house, a new found pride in his stomach and so much more to be discovered.

Taglist (added in reblog ❤️)

[montrealmadison]

t'étais réel parce qu'il t'aimait

or, “you were real because he loved you”

i work at a place that accepts children’s book donations, so when “the velveteen rabbit” came across my desk the other day, the beginnings of this popped into my head. then the lovely lau at @weneedtotalkaboutfic​ posted this and also this about ftm!bitty and my brain just took off! enjoy <3

“Has her fever gone down?”

Bitty blows out a long breath and twists around to look at the clock, on the off chance that it’ll give him a better answer than the truth—but all it tells him is that it’s 8:07, and he’s exhausted.

“No.” He pins the phone between his cheek and his shoulder so he can dry his hands. “Hasn’t budged all day.”

On the other end, his mama hums sympathetically. “It will, baby. Y’all are doin’ everything right.”

“Thanks,” he sighs, folding the dishtowel over the oven handle. “It’s just—I hate that she’s so uncomfortable.”

Bitty used to think that he’d made his peace with chaos. He’s moved schools, changed sports, reinvented himself half a hundred times. He’s come out on national television and transitioned publicly on the Internet. He’s written a book, is in the process of drafting another. He’s married to one of the most prominent NHL players in the league, for crying out loud.

But sick toddlers, Bitty is learning, are a whole other hockey game.

read more below or on ao3

Thankfully, at least the kitchen routine is muscle memory at this point: pots dried, dishwasher started, dog fed and watered for the night. The mess in here isn’t too bad, all things considered. He checks the lock on the back door and then lets himself sag against the counter, just a little. It’s been a day. A week, really. He's barely slept for the stress of it all.

“Dicky, honey, you sound like you need a break.” He can picture the frown on his mama’s face when she says it. Funny how her voice still feels like a hug from seven states away. “How’s Jack? Is he alright?”

“Mhm,” he says. “Upstairs puttin’ Ellie to bed, bless him.”

“Good. Well, listen, y’all call anytime if you need us, alright? Your daddy and I will be up, we’re goin’ to the Callahans’.”

“Ooh. Save the good gossip for me?”

“You know I will,” Mama promises with a laugh. “Now go on and sit down for me. I love you.”

“Yes, ma’am. Love you too,” Bitty says, almost absently, and flops onto the couch as the line clicks into silence.

He tries to relax—promise, he really does—but he only makes it about five minutes before the worry wins out and he has to get up again. He just can’t sit still today, especially when he hasn’t heard anything from upstairs in so long. He climbs the stairs and starts down the hall towards Giselle’s room, but pauses and peeks around the doorframe at the soft sound of Jack’s voice.

In the dim light, he can just make out Jack’s giant form carefully folded to fit into Ellie’s bed, one foot planted firmly on the floor to keep him balanced. Bitty presses a hand over his mouth, trying to resist the sudden urge to laugh at the sight of his husband trying to fit in a bed made for a toddler. Thankfully, it works, because neither Jack nor Giselle notice him—their daughter’s curled up next to her papa, tired and sleep-soft, with her flushed little face on Jack’s chest and her slow-blinking eyes fixed on the book in his hands.

The dog’s on the floor in here, too, tail thumping away against the carpet. He huffs, looks up at Bitty with big, understanding eyes as if to say: We got it in here.

Which is clearly the case—they’re already in the middle of a story. Jack is reading in soft, measured tones: “And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long.”

It's the French translation, but Bitty feels himself melt almost immediately. He’d recognize The Velveteen Rabbit anywhere. It’d been his favorite as a baby, part of the reason his mama had come home one day with Señor Bun, and—well, the rest is Bittle family history. He leans in the doorway, closes his eyes and drifts while Jack reads.

He’s had a lot of time, now, to learn the differences between French Jack and English Jack, and why each language is important to him—especially where teaching his children is concerned. In French, his voice is softer, lilting, expressive in a way that transfixes Giselle and Bitty alike. Bitty himself has fallen asleep to the sound of that voice many times, and is mostly impressed that Ellie can still fight her own exhaustion just to listen a little longer.

Jack turns the page, and Bitty watches as his face and his voice soften with emotion at the next line: “And then, one day, the Boy was ill.”

Oh. Bitty remembers this part well, too—remembers the feeling of his own mama curled around him when he was sick as a kid. Remembers Coach’s shadow in the doorway, his quieter concern, his gentle hand on Bitty’s shoulder. Jack goes on: “But the Rabbit snuggled down patiently, and looked forward to the time when the Boy should be well again, and they would go out in the garden amongst the flowers and the butterflies and play splendid games in the raspberry thicket like they used to.”

Bitty remembers Señor Bun, equally patient, snuggled up under his chin, and has an idea. He backs quietly out of the room and retreats down the hall to their bedroom, where the bunny himself is propped on the pillows, waiting for them to come to bed. Bittly inhales the familiar scent of the fabric, looks into his bright embroidered eyes. He swears they look understanding somehow.

“You ready to work your magic, buddy?” he asks. “Let’s go.”

Jack does notice him this time, eyes crinkling in acknowledgment when he sees Bitty in the doorway. His voice is getting softer now, the words slowing in time with Giselle’s blinks, and Bitty crosses the room to lay Señor Bun in their daughter’s arms.

Neither of them move until they’re sure that Giselle is asleep at last; even then, Jack extracts himself from the bed as quietly as possible, smoothes the covers over her with a feather-light touch. When they meet in the hallway, Jack presses his face into Bitty’s neck. They stand there in the quiet, breathing together, for a long time.

“How is she?” Bitty finally asks.

“Hot,” Jack says, frowning. “I gave her another Tylenol.”

Bitty sighs deep, presses his forehead into Jack’s chest. “Mm, okay. Let’s hope she kicks this soon.”

“She will,” says Jack. “She’s our kid, that’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Despite himself, Bitty finds that a smile comes easily enough. It always does with Jack’s reassurance. “Gotta be tough in this family.”

Jack laughs lightly. “Yeah.”

They retreat to their bedroom, turning off lights as they go. Their nighttime routine, too, is as comfortable as breathing now. When Bitty comes back from brushing his teeth, he finds Jack in bed, reading glasses on, still flipping through The Velveteen Rabbit.

“I’m glad you picked that one for her,” says Bitty slowly. “That was my favorite book as a kid.”

Jack turns it over in his hands, looks up at Bitty with warmth in his eyes. “This one?” he asks, smiling. “That explains Señor Bun, eh?”

“Yeah.” Bitty has to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat, and almost immediately finds himself blinking back hot tears. He bites his lip. “Well, and I, um—no, it’s stupid.”

“Bits?” says Jack, concerned. He closes the book and sits up. “Hey, no it’s not. Why else was it important?”

Bitty looks down. “I used to want to be Real,” he says, all in a rush. “Just like the Rabbit. Used to wish there’d be a fairy that would see how unhappy I was, and come and—oh, Lord—”

It’s like a switch flips in his brain; all of a sudden he’s crying in earnest, days of pent-up stress and fear rushing past the floodgates at once. Jack makes a soft sound and holds Bitty close, letting him cry it out, rocking him just a little. His hands are big and warm on Bitty’s back.

“Shh, bud, hey,” he says. “That’s not stupid at all.”

Bitty sniffles and scrubs at his eyes, lets out a burst of slightly hysterical laughter. “I—God. I don’t know what it is, I was looking at you and Ellie and—I don't know, I just wish the person I was when I first read it could see me now. I wish that little kid hadn’t had to go through all the shit I did to get here.”

Jack doesn’t say anything at first, just pulls back a little. Bitty looks up, confused—but Jack’s just reaching behind him to grab the book off his nightstand, flipping through it until he finds the page he wants. Then he puts an arm back around Bitty’s shoulders and pulls him close, kisses his temple.

“Generally,” he reads, in English this time, “by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”

He fixes Bitty with those bottomless blue eyes. "I hope you'll let me keep telling you," he says slowly, "that it all meant something, bud. You made yourself real. You gave us our daughter."

Bitty laughs, watery. "I did."

"You did." Jack kisses him again, soft and full of meaning. "And I promise I'll never stop trying to understand."

[kim-monsterlings]

Lars - M Dullahan x M Human (Reader) // NSFW

The pictures do not belong to me. I only created the mood board. Do not repost my work anywhere.

Content: NSFW/Lemon; descriptions of being ill (like having a mild cough, blocked nose, headache, etc.), dullahan caring for reader, sexual teasing, handjob in the bath, kissing and throat kisses

Wordcount: 1855

“Tropemas” Summary: unable to hide the sudden cold from the dullahan, your boyfriend came home to take care of you

Masterlist // “Tropemas” Masterlist

In the furthest corner of the room, cushioned in a dark chest, rested your boyfriend’s head. Blanketed and warmed in darkness, the home you shared when he was away became more than that; a haven for him – better than a chest buried under damp earth, and a comfort to you. No matter where Lars went, no matter how far, he was here with you. Albeit without his body, but better this than wait for brief letters scrawled on horseback, with conversations passed over weeks.

Only a fortnight ago, leather gloves tipped your face to dark flames, the faint touch of lips meeting yours. This time, Lars left for a month, though a month was nothing out of the time he was so often gone. Days would pass without a word or the smallest letter would arrive but when you missed him, really missed him, you could open that chest.

The unusual thing about this past fortnight was how little you had spoken.

Some afternoons were spent with his head on your lap, your fingers running through thick curls missing on the headless flames. Bright eyes mimicked the faefolk fire – glowing, soft as he looked up at you. Tales of his travels riding from town to town passed time, careful kisses a remedy to the ache in your chest.

But if he saw the state you were in now, he would rush home on his dark fae horse without finishing his job.

Really, you were fine. The colouring to your cheeks wasn’t too much, nothing more than the flush rising when Lars would kiss down your chest, beneath your trousers. The tickling cough wasn’t any worse than the unfamiliar itch in your throat after tasting fae food, foreign gifts returned from his travels. Exhaustion now deep in your bones could hardly amount to the lethargy Lars’ return would bring, from nights on tousled bedsheets, his touch everywhere for hours.

So really, beyond your pallor and hair slick with sweat, throat tight, you were fine.

Doubting the fatigue was your undoing. White light of the moon roused you. Curtains left open from falling onto the bed for the promise of a nap, one intended to be short, the dim light led you to a small letter posted that afternoon from Lars. The hardly veiled threat of his return if you ignored him further found its weight in your empty stomach.

Returning to the sleep so deep you hadn’t his calls happened not even a minute later. The dullahan would already be on his way home to you.

Heavy thudding dragging along the wooden floor woke you. Familiar swishes neared your bedroom and through the fog clouding your thoughts, the memory of a vertebrae whip always at your boyfriend’s side forced you to sit the rest of the way. The whip swinging and crashing low preceded a figure of bright flames, glowing in the late afternoon – had you slept all day? – before the flames flared higher, and a broken whisper of your name followed.

Bone clattered as it fell to the floor before Lars was at your side. One firm hand pressed hard on your chest until you fell back to the pillows, the other, glove removed, brushing back your damp hair. Always so cold, the touch felt like a blessing now, running down your hot cheeks to angle your face up.

“I thought something happened to you. Look at me,” Lars whispered, but the softness in his tone fell away when you struggled to look at the flaming tendrils rising from his collar as he leaned over you. “You should have told me you were sick.”

Nothing came to mind for excusing your isolation. Even had you tried to apologise, your lips were too dry, throat too hoarse for a sound to pass. With the tension fought from his words, it was no surprise that a small growl came from the dullahan’s chest. In the silence, a silence at your hand, you leaned into the cool palm on your hot cheek.

“When did you last eat? Have you…” Lars sighed and before your eyes closed, he kissed your forehead.

Different bedsheets – clean, fresh ones, were tucked around you when you woke to an empty room. The dullahan hardly needed sleep but this early, sunlight creeping through the drawn curtains, there ought to have been a dip beside you, a wrinkle in blankets thrown back from your fevering body.

The smell of hot food caught your attention, which must have woken you. Lars had changed you into clean clothes, too, your chest bare and hot. The instant your toes touched the floor, a throat cleared in warning. The sight of him would never fail to send your pulse racing, soaring at the press of his skin to your bare chest. Lars pressed you back against the headboard, sitting between your legs when you kept one out of the sheets. Though you were near feverish, the warmth of having him close eased you, and he leaned close to press a lingering kiss to your forehead.

"You're worrying me."

"It's nothing," you whispered, forcing a smile to cover the roughness of your voice. "Won't you-"

"I cannot get sick. Not like this. Open your mouth."

Spoon feeding was difficult – for him, when you protested. Beneath the vice tight at your ribs, the laboured breaths, you really were fine. Bed rest would only worsen your predicament but he wouldn’t give. When you couldn’t stomach anymore broth, Lars lifted the glass of water to your lips until you drank it all. As much as you hated tearing him from his work, leaning close enough to touch him properly made it worth it. Lars stroked down your back and sighed, shifting closer.

Quiet stories whispered against your temple lulled you. He scowled when he told you of his plans to return early in a week and a half with gifts for you – as he always did, but when the letter was unanswered, calls shouted into an responding room, he rode back without delay.

Finding any sympathy was a chore when his touch fell to stroke your thigh. Lars tucking close filled the ache wide in your chest, the very same you attempted to appease by cradling the head in the dark corner when he was away; it never did much, so his knuckles dragging over the thin shorts awoke a different heat in your stomach, one too long gone without.

“Somebody missed me,” he chuckled, fingers tightening against the restricting shorts, laughing softer at your sharp gasp. “Best not to push yourself, handsome.”

Clutching his hand did little to stop the will of a dullahan. Lars only sighed, long fingers rubbing slowly against your worsening erection. Even in taunting you, the resolve he held against you never crumbled.

Not even when you bucked up, desperately seeking some friction, whispering, "please. Please."

“No. Sleep it off,” he said, a kiss deliberately hot tearing another plea from you, but Lars only laughed and closed the bedroom door behind him.

Waking without daylight left you in the dark as to how long you slept again, and how long now that you found yourself in the full bathtub. Warm water washed the remnants of fever away, guided by a gentle hand cupping water and tangling through your hair. Always careful with his strength, the care when he unwound tangles fluttered in your pulse, but he taunted you like he had hours ago. One hand tentative and caring washed your hair, the other gliding down your inner thigh where your legs fell open against his, drawn back against his chest in the large bathtub.

"Lars," you managed to whisper, and the touch on your thigh fell lower, until you grunted and tensed.

His palm cupped your sac. The dullahan brought your head back and through bleary eyes, you found his pale face, and a shudder ran through you at meeting his still flaming eyes. A kiss from his lips - from his head now attached, and you groaned into him, reaching to hold his knee when he rolled your sac in his fingers, kissing your jaw.

"Look who's finally up," he murmured. "How are you feeling, handsome?"

Every thought was foggy, but that wasn't your cold. The tightness in your throat came from his lips hot on your jaw and his fingers running the underside of your cock, thumbing the vein beginning to throb as you stiffened. This fever making you squirm was all him, but he knew that.

And Lars only smiled, a thin scar on his lips twisting them. "Tell me."

“I’m fine,” you lied. “Better, if you wouldn’t tease me.”

“Me, tease?”

Warmed by hot water, his hand finally came around your length. Lars’ smile nudged against your temple with each steady stroke, up and tightening, running against your thin slit and pumping harder, before loosening. Torn between crying and growling, you covered his hand with yours and let out a rough moan when he let you control the pace, hips bucking into the fist.

“Maybe you aren’t as ill as I thought,” he hummed. The frailty of your voice and bags of your eyes weren't all that convincing, but you tipped your head back and guided his hand tighter. Lars needed no coaxing to run his lips down to your collarbones and stroke his touch down your chest, pausing to run around your nipple. “Promise you will rest after this.”

"Lars," you croaked, and his palm stroked lower, taking your heavy sac in his fingers. Your eyelids fell with the pleasure overcoming you. He was well-versed in how you liked to be touched, and he was doing everything possible to torture you. "I promise."

"I can hear your heart racing."

You didn't care. Maybe it was in part because of the flu still dizzying you, but with Lars running his fingers back through your hair and tugging your head back, bowing to press searing, open-mouthed kisses to your throat, you were losing yourself.

Thickening against your back, Lars rasped as his cock ran up against you. All you wanted was him and you were close, every second losing yourself to the hastening strokes, the blunt nails scraping down your scalp. Wide thighs tightened around yours as he ground himself against you, following each thrust of your hips.

Closer now, close to coming undone in his palm, and you groaned, dragging him up from your throat to meet his lips. Lars chuckled and pressed himself flush, his hips grinding lower and when he dragged himself against you, you stiffened and cried into his kiss.

Still, Lars dragged it out. His thumb slicked against your swollen head as you came, thick and trembling, your stomach clenched at the haze dizzying you. You were met with a softer glow of flames when you blinked into focus. The water remained hot but far from your thoughts, preoccupied with his cock thick and heavy to your back. Before you could turn, the dullahan groaned into your throat, littered with dark marks.

Lars grunted your name and his fingertips brushed against your cock again, still sensitive. "Maybe sleep can wait."

[floatinginwords]

Peace (1/?) Bucky Barnes x reader

Summary: Reader can’t remember wheres she been or what has happened to her. All she knows is that she is in a foreign country with loads of pain. She runs off finding herself in the hands of the lovely Bucky Barnes (Set before Civil War) 

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

A/N: hi so this story has been in my head a long long time. I have it all mapped out. if you guys like what this chapter is so far let me know, ill post more much more often. Comments and feedback is much appreciated. And as always have a lovely day and take care of your beautiful selves

 All I can think about was the pain that seemed to be never ending from head to toe. Was I born with this pain? I can’t remember. I’ve been walking down the street for too long. When did I begin to even walk.  Looking around all the signs are in another language, its night and I cant recall the sun setting or where I last was. . I don’t know where I am. I don’t know why I cant remember. I can feel tears in my eyes as I try to recall where I’ve last been. But nothings coming to me and now a headache is forming. I’m getting looks from people as I pass them. They’re mortified by the state of me. I would be too, I suppose if I could see myself. I don’t want to. By the state of my dry cracked hands I must look terrible.

I feel my shoulder being tapped. I flinch at the contact and turn around quick. It’s a man in a police uniform. His eyes are wide, he holds his hands up and backs away. He looks scared, I don’t know why.

“Miss, are you okay?” He asks me.

I tilt my head to the side. I don’t know how to answer. All I can feel is the pain.

“Do you need a hospital?” He says.

I ignore the question, I don’t like hospitals. I hate doctors and their needles and their prying hands touching me.

“Sir where am i?”

“You’re in Romania,” He judges me with his face probably thinking to himself how could this girl not know where she’s from. He says something into his walkie in another language, I cant understand. I must look insane, “I think you should come with me.”

He tries to grab my wrist but I back away. I don’t want to be touched. He comes closer to me. But I take off running down the street. I realize I have no shoes. What happened to me? How did I end up here? I have so many questions with no answers.

 I find myself in an alley way. I’m breathing heavy there’s a pain on my chest. I look and find three long scars across my chest. Faded and old.. I keep looking and find more and more over my body. Some fresh, some old. Some large, some little. All of them deep. I touch my back and can feel it the soaked blood going through the shirt. Must be what spooked the policeman. I hiss as I touch the open wound and start feeling faint. Maybe I shouldn’t have ran. Maybe a hospital would have been best.

 No, not an option now. I feel a panic just thinking about it. I look around at the buildings around me. They seem abandoned, empty. I climb the fire escape ignoring the feeling of my body wanting to pass out. I kept strong looking for an in to any one of the apartments. A lot of the windows felt glued shut or maybe I just was so weak from the loss of blood. I could feel the rain start to pour, its cold on my skin making everything just worse. But luckily there’s a window not bolted down.

I fall into the apartment. It looks as though someone lives here. There’s a mattress on the floor, a working fridge I can tell by the hum of it, fruit in a bowl, plums to be exact. I cant be bothered to look around more or even to care if someone did live here as I collapse onto my stomach on to the floor, and fall into a deep sleep wishing for the pain to stop.

*******************************************************************************************

The next day comes fast with my luck. I wake up to the sun streaming in my face only now I’m on the air mattress. I sit up quite confused and dazed. My shirt having been changed, bandages wrapped across my back. I start to panic as I realize that someone did live here, that someone had touched me. I hear the sound of things falling in the another room. They’re still here.

I can’t protect myself and I don’t even know how I would. I just want to curl myself in a ball and cry but I won’t maybe I could run. But which door is the way out? Which one will this person come out? I wait but it seems like the person id taking their time and my anxiety isn’t easing up. Finally though they walk out.

It’s a man. He has long hair, a bit of a scruff, and piercing blue eyes. He wore a long sleeved shirt and oddly a glove on his left hand. He stands awkwardly as he realizes I’m sat up awake. We stare at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time not knowing what to say. I finally break the silence.

 “Im sorry. I didn’t know someone was living here. Ill just be out of your hair” I get up quickly immediately regretting it as the dizziness mess with my head.

 “You should rest. You lost a lot of blood.” The man tells me.

 “I’ll be fine. Thank you for…” I honestly don’t know what to say as I stand still waiting for the room to stop spinning.

 “You should eat something.” He walks toward the small kitchen, looking toward the small fruit bowl he has. He picks out a plum and extend it toward me.

 I hesitantly take it from his hand. He gives me some distance. He seems tense and unsure of himself. He looks everywhere but me.

 “umm did you take my shirt off last night or-“ I already knew the answer but I just wanted to hear it from this guys mouth.

 He blushes, “ yea I had to. There was...blood everywhere. I hope you don’t mind. I tried to patch you up as best as I could. Gave you one of my shirts.”

 “I’m sorry.”

 “You don’t have to apologize.”

 I nod at his words. He seemed kind and genuine. Didn’t feel as though he had any malice or evil within his blood. A bit shy but then again I was a stranger and so was he. I was also an intruder and here he was treating me with kindness.

 “You really should eat.” He tells me noticing the plum still in my hand

 I take a small bite out of the fruit. Enjoying its sweetness. Don’t know when was the last time I ate something.

 “Whats your name?” I ask wanting to thank the man in front of me.

 “Bucky.”

  “Thank you, Bucky. I’m (Y/N)”

[suckmysupernatural]

Because I Want To

Word Count: ~1,200

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Warnings: Depression, negative self-image, sadness, few bad words?

Summary: You can’t help but feel like a burden.

A/N: Hello, a break in my series posting to give y’all a comfort one shot. I am currently in a depressive episode so this is how I am coping with some of those feelings. Much love, Sarah.

Walking past the kitchen, you could hear the sound of the water running. Peaking your head through the doorway, you saw Dean with suds up to his elbows. He was doing the dishes, which was originally a job that you had agreed to take on. Recently, it had been hard to keep up. You were just so tired. 

It wasn’t that you were incapable, you were just unmotivated. Doing small tasks like washing dishes and showering seemed like hiking up a mountain. Instead, your bed called out to you. Dean had asked a few times now if you were doing okay and of course, you said yes. It wasn’t like you were doing bad, it was just… exhausting. Once you were in bed with multiple blankets, you were fine. Your mind could rest. Anything else and it felt like you had weights tied to your body, dragging you down.

This used to happen a lot before you met the Winchesters. When you lived in a studio apartment in your early 20s, you would go weeks without cleaning anything. Dust would collect and dishes would pile up but you just couldn’t bring yourself to care. But now, you weren’t living alone. The bunker was a shared space and you weren’t doing your part to keep it clean. 

You quickly slipped out of the kitchen, not wanting Dean to notice you. It was already embarrassing enough to have him clean up your mess. You didn’t deserve Dean or any of the others that called you their friend. Dean was your boyfriend, but lately, you felt like he was your caretaker. He was always having to clean up after you, to comfort you. You didn’t understand why he stayed with you. There were no benefits for him, no reason to keep you around. You were a burden, a mess. You couldn’t even do a simple daily chore. 

Grabbing a towel, you went to take a shower. Turning the knob all the way, you let the room fill with steam. Stripping off your clothes, you avoided looking into the mirror. It wasn’t about being insecure with your body, you just didn’t want the reminder that you were a person. At least if you didn’t look down, you could just let yourself fade for a few minutes. Stepping into the shower, the water burned hot on your skin, making it tingle and go numb. You sat down, not having the energy or desire to stand. The water cascaded down your back as you curled into a tight ball, bringing your knees to your chest. Silent tears fell from your eyes. You sat there for a long time, blessing the bunker for its seemingly endless supply of hot water. You let your mind run in circles, an endless supply of self-deprecation playing on a loop. A knock interrupted it. 

“Y/N?” you could hear Dean’s voice through the bathroom door. You just laid your chin on your knees, not saying a thing. “Y/N, you’ve been in there a long time. Are you okay?” Again, you were silent. “Okay, if you don’t say anything I’m coming in.”

“I’m fine,” you said just loud enough for Dean to hear. He rolled his eyes, knowing that must be a lie. 

“Bullshit, I’m coming in anyway,” Dean warned. The door opened and you kicked yourself for not locking it. Like that would stop him, though. He was more than willing to kick it down. He saw you sitting on the floor of the shower and concern etched itself into his face. He made quick work of taking off his clothes, joining you. He sat behind you, his legs open on either side of you. He grabbed your shoulders, leaning you back to his chest. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

You didn’t say anything. The question alone brought more tears to your eyes and you weren’t sure if you would be able to hold it together if you began to explain.

 “Baby, please. Talk to me, I’m worried,” Dean whispered in your ear. He wrapped his arms around you, hugging you. 

“The dishes were my job,” you said softly.

 “I’m confused. You’re sad because I did the dishes?” Dean asked. He didn’t have any judgment in his voice. He just wanted to understand.

“No, I’m sad… I’m mad… that I didn’t. That I let them sit out for so long that you felt you might as well do them. That I can’t do the one simple fucking job,” you shook your head. 

“Sweetheart…” Dean started.

“No! Please, don’t try and make me feel better,” you turned in his arms, now facing him. “You always have to do that, make me feel better. I’m such a goddamn burden on you. You are always having to clean up my messes and I hate it. I hate that I can’t be enough. I hate that I want to be better but I just can’t seem to get there. I feel like I’m so close to being okay but I’m still just not. You, Sam, Jack, and Cas, you guys are amazing and kind and awesome. I just weigh you guys down. I’m a job, another chore you have.”

“Hey, no!” Dean grabbed the sides of your face, making you look at him. “I don’t help you because I have to. It is because I want to. I love you, Y/N. I choose you because I love you. I did the dishes so that you weren’t having to stare at them, so you wouldn’t have to beat yourself up until you did them.”

“Yeah, but…”

“No, no buts. Only your cute butt,” Dean joked. You gave him a small smile. “Y/N, I know you want to do everything, that you want to be the perfect girlfriend for me, the perfect roommate and bestie to the others. That is what matters. Not that you can’t be, because sweetheart no one is perfect. But you care, you want to be amazing. That alone makes you amazing. It makes you good, it makes you the woman I love. This… thing, this problem that you have, it is not your fault. You didn’t decide to be depressed, to have no energy or motivation. Like any other illness, I am here to take care of you. That’s what you do for people you love when they are sick. You take care of them and hope that what you’re doing makes them feel even the smallest bit better.

 Y/N, you know that I wouldn’t let anyone be cruel to you. That includes you. I won’t sit here and let you beat yourself up over something you have no control over. Something that you work so hard to fight. You are doing the best you can and that will always be enough for me. You are enough for me. So, I’ll do the dishes and I’ll sit in showers and I’ll hold you when you need me to. I would move mountains for you, sweetheart. This is the small stuff.” He rested a hand on your neck, pulling you into a sweet kiss. You sniffled as you pulled away. You were still crying, but for a different reason now. 

“Thank you, Dean. I needed this,” you said.

“Anytime, now we should get out of here and dry off. You look like a giant prune,” Dean laughed. You smiled. He stood and offered his hand to you, helping you up. Grabbing a towel, he dried you off and then himself. The two of you went to the bedroom you shared and got dressed in your comfiest clothes.

 “Netflix?” Dean asked, his eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

[supersickies]

Summary: "MJ wasn’t a STEM major, but if she were going for her Ph.D. she would bet he had a raging case of bronchitis. Not that the boy would ever admit to it.

“I can’t get sick MJ. It’s probably just some dust in the air.”

“Seriously Em, I just swallowed wrong that’s all.”

“My throat’s dry! I’m not sick!”

MJ had heard it all in the past few days, and she believed none of it."

OR

Peter is basically on his death bed, but MJ has a plan.

A/N: Yay! @sicktember day two! I can't lie this is really the only other sicktember fic that I have complete. Everything else is simply a WIP or merely a figment of my imagination just hoping to be made into an actual work. But who knows! Maybe I'll muster up some motivation between now and when I go see Shang-Chi in a few hours! Either way here's my first (of many) PeterMj fics for Sicktember 2021! Read it here or click the link to read on AO3! 

EDIT: LMAO I FORGOT TO POST IT BELOW THE CUT BUT ITS HERE NOW SORRY !!

MJ wasn’t really sure what she was trying to prove when she decided to take a microbiology course. Yes, she graduated from a STEM school (as valedictorian with honors, thank you very much) but college science courses like this were a whole other ballpark. Especially as a journalism major. But hey, she needed the STEM credit. That and her adorable (insufferable) boyfriend practically begged her to take the class with him. 

And who was she to say no to Peter?

So that’s how she found herself on the floor of his dorm, notecards of test questions scattered about, trying with all her might to study for their first midterm. But something was keeping her from concentrating. 

That something being her boyfriend, hacking up a lung.

Again, MJ wasn’t a STEM major, but if she were going for her PHD she would bet he had a raging case of bronchitis. Not that the boy would ever admit to it. 

“I can’t get sick MJ. It’s probably just some dust in the air.”

“Seriously Em, I just swallowed wrong that’s all.” 

“My throat’s dry! I’m not sick!” 

MJ had heard it all in the past few days, and she believed none of it. 

She had seen Peter when he was ill, long before the spider bite. In fact she had seen him sick a bunch of times, because pre-bite Peter was quite the sickly kid. She noted that this current “mystery cough” he had now was eerily similar to the one he had during their 6th grade holiday choir concert, and he sounded a lot like he did in 8th grade when he could barley talk for their group presentation on The Outsiders.

Not that she took note of all the times he was sick. She wasn’t obsessed, just observant. 

(She was a little obsessed).

But it doesn’t take an overly observant girlfriend to know that Peter should be in bed and resting right now. Especially when he could barley manage to catch a breath. 

MJ tenses as she hears the deep chesty coughs come from where Peter sits studying at his desk. She holds her tongue, not wanting to poke the bear more than she already had. Peter would never and has never in his life gotten angry at Michelle, but the more she had pushed him to admit that he wasn’t feeling well, the more annoyed he was becoming. So she stayed quiet. 

But Peter didn’t. 

It seemed as time went on, Peter’s coughs became harsher, deeper, wetter even. MJ couldn’t help but grimace at the wheeze that was also now very evident in his breathing. 

She glances up at him, his eyes glazed over with fever and his nose burred in micro-bio notes, seemingly unaware of the world around him and the virus raging in his lungs. MJ stifles a sigh, feeling fed up with her decision to keep quiet. She sets aside her flashcards and lays her head in her arms as she weighs her options. 

She could continue to push and try to beg Peter to admit that he was unwell. But Michelle knew that would only lead to more defiance, so that was out of the question. 

She could also simply force him to rest. She knew she had the capacity to get him into bed with just a look, but the idea of doing so made her feel uncomfortable. This was her boyfriend, not some animal she could just boss around.

Her feet kick in the air behind her as she continues to wrack her brain. She listens despairingly to Peter’s coughs as she thinks, and if she’s being honest, just the sound of his hacking was making her throat feel kinda scratchy too. 

Wait. That could be something. 

What if it wasn’t just Peter who wasn’t feeling their best. 

MJ was known to be prone to migraines, but hadn’t had one in a while thanks to a medication she had started. But what if, hypothetically, maybe she’d accidentally missed a dose?

MJ takes another glance at Peter, who was still zoned in on his own study guide, before making the first move in her grand plan. 

She groans. 

It’s too loud or overly painful sounding, but hopefully enough to warrant some alarm from her boyfriend. 

And it has the desired effect, as out of the corner of her eye she sees Peter stop his studying and glance at her. Now, with his attention, she takes it up a notch. She groans slightly again, this time adding a wince and an eye rub.

She hears Peter make a soft concerned noise. Bingo. 

He’s sill looking at her, so she does her best to look just as rundown and sick as she can. It works. 

“Em? You okay, babe?” Peter’s voice is gravely and nearly gone, but she can hear the worry in his tone. She’s got him right where she wants him. 

She turns her head to answer him, her eyes squinting to make it seem as though the lights were making the headache worse.

“Hm? Oh, no yeah everything’s fine, Pete.” MJ’s voice is usually deeper and raspier than most, but she really cakes it on for this. Again, desired effect achieved. 

“You really don’t sound great, Em. You sure?” His sentence is punctuated with a rough coughing fit, ironically enough. But even as the fit dies down his attention stays on MJ, who is now rubbing her temples like her life depended on it, both eyes squeezed together tightly. 

When he sees her miserable demeanor he quickly (yet shakily) abandons his own work to sit on the floor beside her. 

“Seriously, MJ.” 

She looks up at him with pitiful eyes, time to really sell it Michelle. She sighs, “M-My head just kinda hurts…It’s nothing.” She caps her Oscar worthy performance with another wince before burying her head back in her folded arms. 

She feels his way too warm hand on her back as he rubs it in an attempt to comfort her. 

He’s still buying it.

Maybe she should get a minor in theater performance?

“You sure? This doesn’t look like nothing.” He questions hoarsely. Now that he’s closer to her she can almost hear the crackling in his chest when he breathes. She had to get him to rest now or else this shit was going to get way worse. 

“I-I think I may have forgotten my pill this morning. I can’t remember. I think I was just so anxious about the exam that- I don’t know…e-everything’s so fuzzy, Peter.” She says quietly, letting out a shaky breath just like she would if her head were actually pounding. 

“Oh, Emmy.” He coos. “Come on, you need to lay down.” 

“But the midterm-“

“Hey, the midterm can wait. You’ve been working hard, okay? Take some time to take care of yourself.” 

Practice what you preach, Parker. 

“Will you lay with me?” She asks, her voice uncharacteristically small as she looks up at him, eyes still scrunched in “pain” but full of emotion. She’s laying it on thick. The things she does for this boy. 

“‘Course I will, Em.” 

And jackpot. He bought it. What a sucker. At least he’s pretty! 

MJ does a victory dance in her head as she lets him help her stand and climb onto his unmade twin bed. She waits for him to climb in and join her, but frowns when he turns and begins to to walk away. She quickly grabs his wrist and once again dons her best pitiful sick person face. 

“Stay. Please.” She “begs”, which works again (of course). Peter’s face breaks into a sad smile. 

“Just turning off the lights, Emmy. I’ll be right back, I promise.” He leans over and kisses her on the forehand, and she does her best not to think of all the germs he may have actually just passed onto her. She had him in the palm of her hand, she couldn’t break the illusion now.

For the full effect, she lets out a few pained groans here and there as he turns off the ceiling and desk lights in his room, leaving them under the glow of the spidey string lights she’d bought him as a dorm-warming gift. 

He’s rather sluggish as he makes his way back and up onto his bed. MJ figures he’ll be out as soon as his feverish head hits the pillow. And she’s basically right, as he lets out a huge yawn as soon as he curls up next to her. 

“Get some rest, Em.” He murmurs, already taking his own advice. “‘M right here if you need me.” He snuggles closer to her with a sigh, his arm wrapping around her torso and face pressing into the side of her shoulder. Only moments later soft snores are coming from his mouth. 

“You too, dork.”  She responds. 

Mission accomplished, MJ thinks triumphantly. 

[3pirouette]

Fic: The Honey Trap (6/?)

Title: The Honey Trap

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :) 

A/N- Again, thanks for your patience. I'm not sure what's going to happen with this story come Steggy Week as I plan on posting something for every day that week, but it's not being abandoned. 

Quite the opposite. Once again, I've managed to write a good chunk of the end before I've finished the middle.At least I know where it's going.

Enjoy!

Chapter Summary: Peggy meets Steve at the Pub, and everything changes.

Chapter 6: With My Life

January 2, 1945, 7PM

Peggy could feel their eyes on her. It wasn’t her normal Hydra handlers she’d spotted weeks ago, but they stuck out to her anyway.

She idly wondered, as she moved through the chilled street, if anyone else noticed people who didn’t belong, or if it was something that caught her eye because of who she was and what she did, just like her Mum could spot rot on the tomatoes two days before the black spots showed up in the garden. It felt like she could always just see things and people who stood out, who didn’t belong, little clues plastered here and there that others didn’t.

The thought kept her occupied, able to keep her face blank as she moved to the pub. It wasn’t the pub Wallace took her to, which thankfully made it just that much harder for the men watching her. With a pub or the equivalent on nearly every corner, London was a haven for a spy like her. She turned the corner, only a block away, and started to review the codes in her head. Words they’d used, phrases they’d said that she might be able to slip into conversation to let him know what she knew. She’d been trying to avoid thinking too much about her cover being blown and what that could potentially mean, but the thoughts still simmered deep in her brain.

It made everything more treacherous.

It made everything just a little more fun.

She’d been feeling that things were going sour, and she could kick herself for not trusting her gut. She’d known for weeks something was off with Wallace, but she’d gone along because she knew she didn’t have all the information.

She was about to, and it gave her a little thrill to know she was going to finally have the upper hand and a chance to use her skills to make a real difference.

As she neared the Pub, she realized this must have been what Steve had felt so long ago: the dancing monkey, left with nothing but the crumbs that others would toss his way, so close yet so far from his goal. She didn’t like the feeling, and suffered a deep pang of regret for him.

The warmth of the pub was a welcome change from the biting cold outside, and she spotted the Hydra agent at the bar with no more than a glance. No, she didn’t care very much for the man at the bar, but rather she cared about the man trying desperately to make himself look smaller in the back corner, dressed in civilian clothes that he must have pieced together from the men at the base based on their ill fit. She moved towards him slowly and sat, working hard to keep her face a blank slate as she took off her coat and slipped it around the chair.

Steve’s jaw twitched with the effort it took to hold back his smile, but she could also tell he was fighting to avoid looking concerned and serious, the downturn of his eyes spoke of the danger she was in. “Peggy,” he whispered, somehow making the word full of excitement and fear and pain all at the same time.

“Steve,” she replied, her voice just as heavy with emotion. She took a deep breath and blinked twice, waiting for his answering double blink before speaking. “You should buy me a drink, or three, just for coming out tonight.”

She saw his eyes dart to his 3 o’clock: the code sent and received. His gaze fell right back to her, and his lip curled up. “I think I knew that all along,” he replied, sounding conversational but letting her know he’d clocked the agent long ago. He sighed and reached out over the small table, taking her hand in his and twining their fingers. “We need to talk about us, Peg.”

Peggy took a moment, acting dramatically. To any bystander, they’d see a woman avoiding the stare of a former lover while still preening her hair and trying to catch his eye. Steve, while appreciative of her form, caught the way she played with her earing for just a second longer, how her fingers covered her lips in what was supposed to look like a moment of indecision. “I just don’t know, Steve.”

He nodded, eyes bright up close, letting her know that he understood: she didn’t know how much they could hear, or if they could read lips. “Are things all that different?” His tone asked a lover if she was still in love with him, but his words enquired about the state of Hydra’s spies.

“I’ve been away,” she answered, “far away, and I just don’t know the answer to that.” She sighed, trying to figure out how to tell him more, how to let him know that Wallace hadn’t just been secretive, he’d shut her out of all the decisions and the planning of what they were doing. It was looking more and more that defecting had been his plan all along.

A waitress stopped by their table, and they spent a moment ordering food that she knew would be dry and tasteless and beer that would be flat and warm. Once upon a time, she and Steve would have remarked about that, talking about all the things they’d do once the war was over, once he could take her to the ballpark and out to see the Brooklyn Bridge, and once she could get a descent full English for breakfast somewhere. Those plans seemed so small now, so inconsequential, but she desperately wished they could talk of them, that they could have just one more minute—

“Remember how we used to talk about after the war?” Steve started, as if he’d read her mind. He squeezed her hand tight, smiling. “When we could have a chance to just… just be people?”

Her breath seemed to slowly deflate from her lungs. It’s was such a simple sentiment, but to know that he shared it, in the face of everything, made her heart pound just a little faster. “It used to be all I held on to, that one day this would be over.” Still do she tapped out furiously on his wrist with her finger in morse code.

He smiled as she tapped, nodding his head, but she could still see how he was coiled tight. They paused again, waiting as the waitress dropped their beers on the table. Steve waited, but didn’t pull his hand from hers. “I want you back, Peg.” He said sharply, eyes and lips tight and serious. “I want you to come back.”

She took a deep breath, knowing things were about to escalate. “I left for a reason, Steve.”

He held her gaze, didn’t even blink as he spoke. “It was a mistake. I know it. You know it. Even Phillips sees that now.”

Peggy pulled back her hand just in time for the waitress to return, their plates in her hands. Peggy busied herself with her napkin in her lap. She finally looked back up when the waitress left. “I think I should stay.”

The corner of his lip turned down. “I didn’t come all the way out here—"

She stopped playing with her napkin and set it back on the table, standing. “I need to go wash my hands.” She stood and started to move past him to the back of the building where the bathrooms were, but he stood and caught her arm. He held her gaze for a long second before leaning forward, his lips covered by her hair to keep the Hydra agent from reading them, his words barely a whisper to be picked up even if there was a microphone somewhere. “I’m here to pull you out.”

Peggy stepped back, eyes flat and serious. “And that’s exactly why I should stay.” She pulled her arm from his grip and moved past him, to the back of the restaurant and the little hall that was out of sight from the rest of the bar.

She slipped into the small bathroom and immediately began to look it over, running her fingers under the sink and checking along the light switch to see if the cover had been tampered with and a bug hidden behind it. She turned over her shoulder as there was a knock on the door. “Peggy!”

She shook her head and nearly laughed at Steve’s theatrics. While he was passable, he certainly was no spy. “Don’t you dare!” She called out, leaning over and running her hand over the back of the toilet. She didn’t find a bug, but immediately shoved both hands under the faucet, turning on the water as hot as she could get it.

Steve remembered enough to at least pretend fighting with the door, though she’d left the lock undone. He slipped in, filling much of the available space, and pressed himself against the back of it, turning the lock with a sift flick of his wrist. Clear? He mouthed.

“As far as I can tell,” Peggy whispered, drying her hands. She took no time in closing the space between them, pressing her lips to his. Steve lifted her from her feet as he deepened the kiss, turning them to press her between the door and his body. “Good lord I’ve missed you,” she whispered against his mouth, her hands running through his hair.

He pulled back, pressing his forehead to hers. “I have to get you out.”

“And that’s exactly why I have to stay.” She gently pressed her hands against his cheeks, pushing his head back. “Quickly- all that you know.”

“Wallace has been pulling information, hiding things. We haven’t gotten one of your communiques in over a month.  Phillips has been suspicious for weeks now, but last week he gave us a false lead on a Hydra camp. It was a set-up and if we hadn’t done our own recon it would have been…” He trailed off shaking his head. He looked back at her, blue eyes sad and pleading. “Whatever he originally told us, it was a lie. He hasn’t been sharing anything of value, and we’re starting to see his name pop up in places it shouldn’t be. We don’t know what he’s trying to lure us into.”

“So, no immediate danger,” Peggy whispered with a smirk.

Steve stepped back, letting her feet touch the ground, hands holding tight at her hips like he wanted to sling her over his shoulder and run for it. “Yes, there is. If he knows he’s been found out—”

“We don’t let him know,” she whispered, taking his hand in hers. “This gives us the upper hand. He thinks he’s in control, but we are.”

“That will make him desperate,” Steve pleaded softly. “Desperate men do desperate things.”

“Desperate men are also stupid and miss things right in front of them.” Peggy leaned up and kissed him softly. “I know how we’re going to do this. And it’s going to be us. You and Me. There’s no one I trust more than you, Steve. Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” he answered without hesitation.

She smiled, running her hand over his cheek. “Then you’re going to go back to the table, and in full view of the Hydra agent wipe that lipstick off your mouth.” Peggy stilled his hand before it got to his lips. “We’re going to have an affair right in front of Hydra, and I’m going to find a way for us to win this war by giving them false information and stealing everything we’re going to need while using that as a cover.”

Steve pressed forward, kissing her desperately and quickly. “I can’t just leave you here.”

“You’re not.” She let her hands run through his hair gently. “You’re trusting me, and we’re going to come out on the other side of this, just like we planned.”

“I’ll take you on a real date,” he whispered, gathering her tight in his arms.

She laughed. “You can date me properly once we’ve finished our affair.” She pulled herself out of his arms. “Now get, I’ll be right behind you.”

He kissed her one last time, deep and intense. He smirked as he pulled away. “How’s this color look on me.”

His joke hit her in such a way that she wasn’t sure if the sound that came out of her was a laugh or a sob, but she had to bite her lip to keep more from erupting. “Go!”

The rest of dinner passed by both too fast and too slow. The codes were done with, the important information exchanged, and what was left was little more than an emotionally and sexually charged date, shared by two people who missed one another but couldn’t do anything about it.

She kept catching his eyes on her lips, and she kept finding herself drawn to his fingers. She couldn’t quite remember eating at all, but the food was tasteless, anyway, and the waitress took their payment far too soon for her tastes.

Peggy bit her thumb, looking at him from across the empty table. She moved as soon as she made the decision, standing and taking his hand, pulling him quickly and decisively out of the pub and around back to hide by the trash cans. She pushed him up against the bricks and he didn’t fight back. Instead, he pulled her to him, curling down to kiss her with all the fire she remembered.

The trash cans around them clattered as they moved, ensuring two things: they were going to be found, and that no one could sneak up on them.

“Quickly,” she whispered, biting at his earlobe, “something that can prove to Hydra I’ll have information but that won’t hurt anyone.” Steve stopped kissing her and pulled his head back. He started to ask her what she meant, but she shook her head. “Now, and loudly.”

She began kissing down his neck and he could do nothing but close his eyes and comply. “There’s an empty allied base six clicks south of the Nazi hold along the French border.”

“We could go there,” she stage-whispered loudly, turning his head to look at just her with her chilled fingers. “Meet there.”

Before he could even think to tell her no, the trash cans to their right clattered. They both turned to see the Hydra operative, eyes wide and surprised that what he thought was a sturdy hideout had collapsed on him. “Just uh…” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just gonna take a piss.”

“Take it somewhere else,” Steve replied harshly, holding Peggy tighter to him.

Peggy turned her head away, pretending to try to hide, “afraid” she’d been caught, but she hid her smile against Steve’s chest. She’d seen the man stand and start to follow them long before they’d even been out the door of the bar. If she’d tipped some of the rubbish bins just a little as they’d made their way out, made them just that much easier to push over, well, maybe Hydra should get some better spies.

The agent looked the couple up and down and smirked. Peggy risked a “fearful” glance that lasted just a second too long, a second long enough for the Hydra agent to be able to positively identify her. They stood quietly, listening as his footsteps echoed away.

Steve slowly dropped his forehead to hers, smiling as he whispered. “How did you know he was coming?”

She smiled and pecked his lips, whispering back. “Spy, darling. It’s what I do best.” She interrupted his little chuckle with another kiss. “What’s the base disguised as?”

He shook his head. “It’s not. Just a shell from earlier in the war. Phillips wanted to use it to stage a push forward.”

Peggy snuggled in his embrace, the chilled wind finally breaking through the heat of the moment. “Would Wallace know about it?”

“No,” Steve pulled her coat from where she’d slung it over her arm when they left and wrapped it around her shoulders before cuddling her back close. “Only Phillips and the commandos.”

“Phillips may have my head, but we need a bit of proof of concept here.” She took a deep breath and looked at him seriously. “Tell Phillips that plan is out. I’m going to slip the existence of the base past Wallace in conversation tomorrow. Monitor the base. If Hydra comes running for the empty base, we’ll know we’ve got him hooked.”

“I’m less worried about the hooking and more concerned about the reeling in.” Steve mumbled, rocking them gently. “I don’t like you staying out here.”

“And I don’t like you going off and getting yourself shot at, but here we are.” She pulled back. “Talk to Phillips. Get him to pull in the Commandos and Howard, and anyone else at the SSR he trusts. We’ve got a rogue agent and that’s more dangerous than we were prepared for.”

“If. If I manage to get them on board?” Steve asked cautiously, not even bothering to finish the sentiment. “I was supposed to be bringing you back with me tonight, you know.”

Peggy hummed a sad, frustrated note. “While heading back with you tonight sounds just about the most wonderful thing I could think of, we can’t waste this opportunity.” She smiled up at him, “We engage in a salacious affair, which won’t be difficult as I quite miss you, and we use that to plant what they will believe is real information for Wallace to find.” She kissed him softly. “We get Wallace.” She kissed his cheek. “We get Hydra.” She snuggled herself under his chin. “And we end this damn war so you can take me on a proper date.”

She felt more than heard his chuckle as it rumbled in his chest. “A suit, flowers, and everything as soon as we get leave,” he whispered.

“Until then, we’ll have to set up trysts. Exchange information as best we can.” She sighed. “Without a clear line of communication with everyone, the best I can do is feed him information, I can’t help you create the scenarios.”

“I’ll hold up my end, Peg.” He let his cheek fall against her forehead. “You just stay alive. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“One week from now. Same place, same time.” Steve wasn’t asking, he was telling.

Peggy smiled. “I won’t be late.”

“Don’t you dare.”

[jetaime-jespere]

Various Storms and Saints

Narcos - Javier Peña / Helena

At first Javier thinks he imagines her, as if she’s nothing more than a figment of his own weary mind, a byproduct of the years that run together like a painting that’s gotten wet, colors running together, edges curling at the sides.

I am ridiculously nervous about posting this, as I have written solely Hotchniss/CM for over a year and never thought about writing anything else, let alone Narcos of all the things. But, this somehow solidified itself in my head over the last few weeks (there is a nearly complete chapter two as well) and here we are. These two deserved so much better than what they got in the show. There are some trigger warnings for references to and mentions of past assault and trauma with this story, consistent with what happened in s1e2, along with angst/references to drug use and violence. This is actually posted on ao3 under a different username but I might transfer it to my main ao3 account at some point. The first chapter is under the cut! 🙂

At first Javier thinks he imagines her, as if she’s nothing more than a figment of his own weary mind, a byproduct of the years that run together like a painting that’s gotten wet, colors running together, edges curling at the sides. He always expected the past to catch up to him, somehow, yet she is the very last thing he expects to see in the middle of a farmer’s market just outside of Laredo on an unnaturally chilly November Saturday morning. This is south Texas, for fuck’s sake, he thinks. His head still throbs with the lingering haze of too much whiskey, as if such a thing could exist by now, and the cool air does nothing except make him feel even more numb. He was never expecting her.

Helena.

Why he’s even here is lost on him - a favor to his father, one he remembered at the last possible moment when he’d awoken that morning with a splitting headache. His mouth was dry, his stomach churning as the sun bled into the sky, the empty bottle and an ashtray littered with cigarettes not far away. But he went, because he’s watched his father age before his own two eyes, knowing innately the small act in and of itself will save the aging man a bit of his much-needed strength for later on. Javier meanders aisles with the same sharp eye of his father to find the best produce hidden while hiding bloodshot eyes behind his aviators.

He’s lost in his own thoughts - the trancelike state he often falls into when he thinks of how things panned out - right back to where he started all those years ago. How close he got to Escobar, at the expense of so much, only to not actually get there at all. The phone call from Murphy, relaying the news of the shootout and his death, plays on loop in his mind, coupled with the endless droll of the smoky bar, the plague of relief and satisfaction and a hint of jealousy, a tightening in his chest he wasn’t sure what to do with. He still doesn’t know what to do with it all - his life or lack thereof.

“Excuse me,” comes the soft, raspy voice from the much shorter person beside him reaching around for tomatoes. It renders him frozen; it takes him right back to Bogota, to the confined four walls of his apartment, a sanctuary in the middle of a fiery hell. A voice Javier was never able to forget. The voice in his dreams and his nightmares, even if the latter was more frequent. The voice that brings a memory of her, wrapped around him, or vice versa. Those images are vivid - laying her back on his leather couch to savor the last few moments inside of her, his teeth scraping her chin as tremors ran through her, a blissful smile on her face. The brace of her knees against his hips as she sat in his lap, full of him, his hands guiding her hips as she rocked over him, her fingers digging into his hair in the hours he spent between her legs, coaxing release after release out of her.

Your hands, she’d said once, her Colombian accent thick in the hazy, smoky dark of his apartment. He knew what she was thinking. How could hands like his - ones that touched her tenderly, reverently - wield a gun with exact precision, be responsible for the deaths of so many. How do you do it? She’d asked once, cradling his right hand in her own much smaller ones. He didn’t have an answer, he just passed his flask and reached for his wallet. He never asked where the money went, just that she took it. Only when he was in way too deep did he realize he didn’t care about the money. And only after she was gone did he admit to himself he never actually cared about it at all.

It can’t be. “Helena?”

He turns a little, shuffles his feet. And there she is, not at all imagined but in fact very real, close enough to touch. There’s an audible gasp that comes from her, one of her small hands clamping over her mouth as the other tightens around the seam of her jacket. It’s because she recognizes him immediately, as she tilts her head back to meet his stare, the sun reflecting on her dark brown hair like a halo.

It’s been years, he’s lost track of exactly how long. Years to bury that night in Medellín that has never gone away. But it managed to haunt him forever. They’d been moments too late. If only, he thinks a lot. If only he said no, if he refused to put her in harm’s way. If only they’d been faster. He could have saved her from the hell he’d found her in, from what came after. It’s her face he saw with every arrest he made, every step they took closer to Escobar, as if each was somehow done for her, revenge for what she endured, not for the good of a nation under siege.

But there she is, in Texas of all places, mere miles from where he’s essentially started his own life over, clearly having done the same. She was right there all along, a woman he once knew and yet, doesn’t anymore. Gone are the impractical shoes and heavy makeup, the confidence she exuded even with the dangers of her profession withered away. He always admired her for that confidence - he never told her as much, though. She’s wearing a casual jacket and jeans, simple shoes and barely a stitch of makeup. Her hair is a little shorter and lighter; it looks different but he can’t figure out why. He never paid much attention to those things. He’d always liked this Helena better - without the painted facade of lies she concocted to stay alive. He never told her that either. There were a lot of things he never said, things he should have told her long before it ended.

“Javier.” It’s slow, drawn out, as if she’s learning how to pronounce it for the first time. “It’s … what are you …-” she stumbles over a greeting as her head starts to spin, not unlike his own. She’s clearly overwhelmed by it all. She swallows hard, takes a few wary glances around. “You’re .... how?”

“I live here, remember?” He immediately regrets it; maybe she doesn’t want to remember any of it. So he backpedals, lowering his sunglasses to offer a kind smile. “My family is from Laredo.” He’d told her some things about himself during the times they were together. Not much, but he’d found himself asking her things - seeking more, something they could never have, yet he sought nonetheless.

“I remember.” She studies him, the weight of her gaze familiar, taking in the lines that have deepened in his face. They mirror the ones on her own, the culmination of it all having taken a toll over time. “You’re not there?” She means Colombia, he realizes. She’s asking why he’s not in Colombia.

“I live here now too.” His tone answers her question more than his words do. “Have for a little while now. I had no idea you were in Laredo.” It seems too close for comfort; he would have demanded she be further away from the border, for her own protection. Those details hadn’t been shared with him. He hadn’t asked.

“Maybe conduct this little reunion somewhere else?” An older woman clears her throat, arms crossed over her chest, clearing her throat to make her presence known behind them. “Some of us are trying to … you know. Keep things moving around here?” She means no ill will, yet it’s as if they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t, as if everyone in their vicinity is watching.

It’s the way Helena startles at the woman’s sudden intrusion that splinters his chest a little bit as a quick apology falling from her lips. The subtle tremble that racks her shoulders for a brief moment before she steps away, granting the other woman access to the tomatoes they’ve both forgotten all about. As they walk away he wonders, before he can stop himself, just how much she’s struggled, how unbearable it must have been to start over as she had, after what she’d endured. He has hard questions that undoubtedly have no easy answers.

A few steps from the aisles is a tree, providing reprieve from the early morning sun. They find themselves there; he leans against the tree and tucks his sunglasses into his shirt pocket. Helena keeps her distance, an arm’s length away, arms crossed protectively over her chest. Whether it’s subconscious or not, it deepens the crack in his chest that being in his proximity might make her uneasy. But they’re out of earshot of others now, and Helena speaks again, choosing words carefully. She’s guarded, cautiously aware of her surroundings, he notices - constantly looking over her shoulder, nervously toying with the ends of her hair.

“I’ve been here since I left Colombia.” She pushes her hair off her neck, drags her finger along the row of tiny hoop earrings at her ear. “We, I mean.”

She means her son. Hearing that he’s safe too is a relief. “How is he?”

“Good.” The mention of him brings a smile to her face; it’s been so long since he saw her smile. Something inside of him aches when he sees it, like he doesn’t deserve to. Javier remembers the way she beamed with pride when she’d told him one night that he called her mama for the first time, the guilt in her eyes when she explained the little boy stayed with her sister when she worked. He’d be at least 5 now, he reckons. “He’s good.”

“And you?” What he’s asking is a loaded question. He isn’t owed an answer though. His culpability in it all can’t be denied; he pushed it for information, to get closer to Escobar and she agreed because she believed it would be her out, that he would follow through on his promise of getting her to the US.

In some cruelly fucked up way, she got her wish in the end.

“I’m okay.” Good seems too generous of a description, and anything less than okay would shatter him, Helena knows. Despite the transactional nature of their relationship, it eventually morphed into something more, something that, had the circumstances been different, could have worked, maybe. It takes more effort to smile this time but she does, even though she knows he’ll see right through it. Her last memory of him isn’t a pleasant one; thinking of it makes her vision blur and her hands tremble with the moist rush of bile in her throat. He’d carried her from that disgusting warehouse, doing his best to calm her down and failing miserably. She clung to him, trembling and shell shocked silent, only to become hysterical once outside in the cloyingly oppressive Medellín heat. It was his face she saw when she felt the pinch of a needle in her arm and a heaviness in her veins, an apology written all over it. It was the very last thing she remembers before the sedative took effect and the world went black.

When she woke up more than twelve hours later in a narrow bed at a hospital, she was alone. Alone as she had always been, except this time it set into her bones and never quite left.

“That’s good.” He doesn’t believe her. How could he? She’s lost weight since then - she’d always been slender with delicate bones and narrow wrists - once he remarked how he could fit both of them in the span of one of his hands, then did just that as she writhed beneath him - but now she’s more borderline gaunt, with sharp collar bones and sunken in cheeks. “Good.”

“You?” Helena twists the cuff of her sleeve around her wrist, a nervous habit. She didn’t expect it to physically ache when she looked at him, but she never expected to see him again, either.

“Good.” Javier fumbles in his jacket pocket in search of a cigarette. The pack is empty; he curses. There’s a thick silence, full of everything that isn’t said, what never got to be said. Maybe had he been fucking honest with her none of this would have happened. “God, Helena, we used to be better at this.”

Her eyes well with unshed tears. She thought by now she would have run out of tears by now. “We had more practice then, Javier.” The expression that ghosts over her face is wistful with remembrance for that night, the night that started all of this. When they played their hand so horribly wrong. “Remember?”

He remembers it all, every last detail. It seems like a strange twist of irony that they ended up in the same place after all this time. He’s too jaded to think it could possibly be fate, something that was meant to happen all along.

But then what was it?

[ink-feathers-and-paper]

Accepting help

Original Work: The Hurricane

The characters and the story belong to me.

Prompt: Sicktemper 2021 - prompt 23) Ear infection

Number of words: 3458 words

Notes: yeah, I know, it's not September 23 yet but I never do the prompts in the right order anyway... and I didn't want to wait to post it.

Oh, and English isn't my first language, so if there are any mistakes please tell me!

...

Blue was blind. She lost one eye to illness as a child, the other in battle. That wasn’t a fatality in itself. In fact, she didn’t really care about it, she was living fine without sight. She relied on her other senses to hear, smell, taste and feel the world around her. It was how she lived the world, her way, and it was perfect as it was, she didn’t need an extra sense.

Especially when losing her sight meant that she gained so, so much more.

And, oh, wasn’t magic a wonderful thing, letting her feel the presence of everything and everyone around her? From the smallest ant to the biggest of dragons, all had a presence that she could feel.

And that wasn’t all! She was linked to Earth – oh, her dear mother Earth that gave life to her and her people, created them from the back rocks and red sands of her Desert – and thus the ground itself, the one under her feet, was alive and singing to her, chanting for her, humming sweet nothings in her ears.

Yes, magic was wonderful, and Blue’s ears could hear it all and more.

So, when one day she couldn’t hear anything, she frowned.

What’s wrong? she asked, but she got no answer. Of course. The Earth may be alive and sentient, She still was nothing but earth. With no way to hear Blue’s prayer, no way to answer her. Blue could, but She could not.

Perhaps She is just moody today, though Blue with a shrug. It happened sometimes, that magic didn’t want to be seen, heard of felt in any manner. It didn’t make Blue’s life any easier, but she could deal with it.

It never lasted anyway.

Her right ear – the one that was burned – was hurting, but perhaps she just wasn’t used to silence.

Or perhaps the foxes are playing? supposed the young woman a few days later. The magic was still silent, and Blue was getting antsy. Young kitsune foxes fed on the ambient magic and sometimes took a little bit too much.

But she couldn’t feel them anywhere. Where they were usually stood a beacon of magic, in the shape of a fox. Yet she couldn’t hear them anywhere.

They must be gone, they realised they took too much from this place and left to feed elsewhere. They will be back when the magic will be fully replenished.

Still, she missed her companions.

Using magic was getting harder and harder, more tiring each time. It felt like most of it wanted to pool in her head, near her ears, but she needed it elsewhere, so she steeled herself and made it bow to her will.

Days passed, and still nothing. Blue’s other ear was hurting too now, she was tired. Even the smallest of spells took a lot out of her and oh, what if she was losing her magic? – that would explain so much!

(Blue was scared.

She didn’t know what she would do if she lost her magic. Losing her sight was nothing in comparison to what it would mean for her.

Losing her magic would destroy her like nothing ever did before

And she wasn’t sure she could get back up from something like that.)

“Okay, are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you?” asked Youko.

Her friend sounded worried, but her voice was faint as if she were talking from all the way across the room and not sitting just beside her.

“Oh, hi. When did you come back from your mission?”

Her hair still smelled like the sea, like iodine and warm sand. Even a princess like Youko had to do her part in the reconstruction of the Empire. Especially Youko, actually.

“Last night. I wanted to see you, but I was so exhausted, I just collapsed on my bed. Thank goodness I managed to change and shower, Arashi would never let me live it down otherwise.”

Blue giggled. Arashi once came back from a mission so exhausted that he had fallen asleep in his bed, dirty boots, and bloody clothes and all. When the redhead had woken up, he had been horrified to discover that he had brought bedbugs back from his mission. It had taken him a month to fully get rid of them.

Of course, Youko had found this hilarious, and Arashi had been looking for revenge material ever since.

“But, hey, enough about me. Are you okay? You look sick.”

And, if she were being honest, Blue felt sick, too. But it couldn’t be that, her magic protected her.

“I’m fine, I just… didn’t know you were back.”

“You didn’t?”

Blue could imagine her expression, all right. She had seen it so many times before, when one of their friends got injured and didn’t tell her. Wide coppery bronze eyes lighting up in worry and anger and why didn’t you tell me sooner, you bloody idiot?!

(Why do I have to fucking guess when you are injured? I am the team medic for a reason, for fuck’s sake! Come to me!)

“I’m tired,” deflected Blue. “I overexerted myself, I think.”

“… then what are you doing out of bed?!”

Blue didn’t have a chance. Youko manhandled her onto her shoulder (darn, her friend was so strong for a so-called healer!) and carried her potato-bag-style to her room despite Blue’s protests. They grew weaker and weaker as laughter shook her shoulders and the woman resigned herself.

Youko kicked the door of her apartment open with more force than necessary and dropped her captive on the bed. “Phew, you’re heavy! You should exercise more.” Blue protested as she tried to get up but Youko kept a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t you dare move, you hear me? I’m coming right back.”

“I have duties!” protested the dark-skinned woman, fighting the hand that pinned her to the bed. “I can’t just drop them all like that.”

“Sure you can. Bedrest, doctor’s order. Don’t make me use my authority as a princess on you, Blue.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Watch me.” Her friend’s voice got softer as a hand gingerly brushed over Blue’s tightly curled hair. “You are not alone in this, you know this, right? Let me take care of a few things for you. Everyone’s in town. My brothers, Arashi, Ankora… we can help too… if you’d just let us.”

Blue felt a wave of gratitude wash over her. She grabbed her friend’s hand and squeezed it.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and Youko softly kissed her forehead.

“Thanks for letting me take care of you.”

Exhaustion washed over the Mage, and Youko hadn’t even reached the door that she was already asleep.

The next time Blue woke up, she was in too much pain to ignore. She groaned as she tried to stand, but she felt dizzy. She had the mother of all headaches, her throat was dry, and her skin was warm and clammy.

Her ears held the worst of the pain, and when Blue lifted a hand to her head, she had to bite a pained gasp. Her right ear, in particular, was hot and wet under her touch, strange-smelling liquid oozing from it. The whole room smelled like it, actually, her pillow was soaked in it. Yuk. It didn’t look good

(Ha! Blind reference!)

She was sick. Sick. Had probably been for days. What an idiot, she admonished herself. Idiot, idiot, idiot!

And she didn’t realise, didn’t tell Youko.

Oh fuck.

Youko was going to murder her. Gleefully. She was going to cut her into pieces, stamp on them and then burn whatever remained. And she was going to dance on her ashes.

The dark-skinned woman tried to stand up, but her energy had abandoned her and she fell back on her bed with a pained moan.

Great. Couldn’t get up, nobody to hear her call from the corridor and no way to call for a servant either. Blue had requested – demanded actually, you could do that when you were best friends with the Imperial family – for no guards to stand at her door nor servants assigned to her room.

They would always treat her like a fragile thing as if she were made of glass. As if being blind hadn’t kept her from fighting in two bloody fucking wars, as if being blind made her inept to live for herself.

It infuriated her.

Well, in five years, it would be the first time she would regret that particular decision.

The woman sighed and tried to summon her magic. She could call for one of the foxes to deliver a message for her, or…

Her magic sizzled and snapped. Blue cried out, more from the surprise than the pain, and rolled off her bed and on her feet, all weakness forgotten.

She was a trained soldier, and if the last years had made go soft, some instincts were hard to kill.

She stood in her bedroom, raised elbows and ready to fight for her life. She strained her ears, but everything was muted. She tried to feel the earth under her bare feet, the vibrations of the air on her skin.

But there was no one in her room… or no one that she could find or sense. And considering how fucked up her senses were, she couldn’t fully trust what they told her.

“Show yourself!” she panted. She tried summoning magic once again, but her power reared up and snarled like a wild horse. Dread pooled in her gut. “What have you done to me?” she screeched.

The smell of illness cloyed the room and her nose, her ears were out of commission and her magic didn’t answer her.

For the first time in forever, Blue wished she could see. She wished she hadn’t been amputated from a sense, because it made her oh so dependent on the others and she couldn’t function without them.

She was fine without sight, but no sight and no hearing?

That would be the end of her world, chose one or the other, not both.

Weakness started to creep back in her, dizziness filled her head, and Blue fell on her knees.

“Blue!”

Arashi.

“Blue, what’s wrong! Your magic is all worked up!”

A hand on her forehead, a curse. The man scooped her up and Blue didn’t even think to protest.

“Fuck, you’re burning up. Hold on, okay? Hold on.”

Blue barely heard him. She fell in and out of consciousness as Arashi carried her to Youko’s apartments.

(They were closer to her rooms than the infirmary.

Oh, how many times did she end up there coming back from a mission or after a spell gone wrong?

How many evenings did their little group spent there, finally together after months apart, chatting and laughing in the night – forgetting everything but each other – until the sun rose and they had to prepare for yet another day of war?)

Blue could faintly smell medicinal herbs and remedies. She could hear Youko fuss over her, her skin smelling of lavender and her still-wet hair of tea tree. Long strands brushed over Blue’s bare skin, fresh and wet, and Blue sighed.

When she woke up, she was in Youko’s bed, surrounded by her smell and old books. A young kitsune fox was sleeping on the pillow next to her, its tail brushing over her arm repeatedly. It was still too young and weak to appear on the physical plane. It could only exist in the magical plane, for now, making it invisible to nearly anyone but her. Good, my magic sense is back.

It had probably been drawn to the buzz around her head, where the Healer was working her magic, her hands on Blue’s ears. Normal healing magic, that could only accelerate healing – not her battlefield one.

(The one that could reverse time on wounds and then re-apply them on enemies.

The one Youko had inherited from her mother, and now she was the only living being in the world who could use it.

The one that nearly took Youko’s life.)

Blue still opened her eyes when she woke, they weren’t sealed shut by injuries after all. Youko had done a great job at healing the burn on her face, she just couldn't save the eye.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. How do you feel?”

“Awful,” Blue croaked. Her friend laughed.

“I can guess. You had quite a high fever, you’ve slept the whole day off! Didn’t even wake up, just grumbled something as I healed you and immediately went to sleep. It’s early in the morning if you wanna know. Arashi brought you yesterday night.”

“Oh.”

So much work to catch up on! cried Blue in her mind.

“You have an ear infection.” Youko continued. “The right’s worse than the left, it started there. Your magic was completely focused on it, it tried to heal it but, well… it’s not your speciality for a reason. It helped slow the infection down, though. Blue… why didn’t you tell someone that you felt off? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Blue felt her throat tighten up. “I… didn’t realise, I guess. I was too caught up in my work, too… I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Sight. A hand in her hair, brushing it back, and Blue leaned into the hand. It was warm, it smelled of lavender under the sting of medicinal herbs and remedies.

“Headslut,” Youko teased, even though she was the same. “I’m gonna ask Ryuu to give you days off. You can’t keep going like that, Blue…”

The dark-skinned woman stood up on her elbows. Ryuu was the consort of the actual Empress of the Guryong Empire. He also was Youko’s older brother. He was in charge of the army and the safety of the Empire. His wife, more diplomatic, handled the politics.

“I can’t!” growled Blue. “You know I can’t, else I would’ve asked someone already. It’s just… I am the only one who can sense magic like I do, Youko. No one else can even begin to imagine what I feel, hear, taste, feel and, yes, see! I am the only one who can detangle those thousands of hundreds-year-old spells through the city and the Empire! I can’t stop ‘till it’s done because my work makes the matrix of spells unstable, and who knows how long it will last? I can’t just drop it like that.”

Youko hummed in answer. Her hands went straight back to Blue’s ears and she started healing again. Neither woman spoke for a while. Then, the Healer sighed.

“I am the only one who has inherited my mother’s power. I am tasked with keeping her legacy alive, her knowledge, her art alive. Did you know she had three full libraries of notes? As well as four labs, only two assistants that knew a tiny part of her projects and over ten ongoing experiments when she died. I had to pick that all up and, well, continue her work. She took some of her secrets with her to the grave, too, so each time I do something, I don’t know if I have all the information… and if it will explode in my face or not.”

“How many times did it explode in your face?”

Youko giggled. “More often than I’d care to admit,” she said. “My point is, we all have tasks that only us can do. And yet you don’t see us neglect ourselves. I try to finish my mother’s life work. Arashi’s the only ambassador we have that can get in contact with the Demon Realm. Soren’s head of intelligence, but now he’s also head of the council and has to give advice to Ryuu. Ryuu, Blue! Do you know how hard his skull is? You have to fucking hammer your point home for him to actually listen to you, and he’s doing better since our teenage years! How is that possible?!”

She stomped, throwing her hands around while she ranted. Blue laughed.

“You know, I think he’s doing it just to mess with you.”

“I know! That’s the worse part of it all, I know he’s just pretending, and I hate that he still manages to make me mad!”

“He’s your big brother, he’ll always be annoying.”

“He’s the absolute worst,” Youko grumbled, but Blue could hear the fondness in her voice. “There,” she added suddenly. “All healed up. But I’m keeping you there for another day, ‘else I don’t think you’re going to follow my orders.”

“Which are?”

Youko grabbed her face with two hands and rested her forehead against Blue’s. “Bedrest. Strict.”

“Hmph!”

“I’m nod kidding. I’m gonna stay in this chair, just next to you, to make sure you don’t leave this bed. And it sucks, because I can’t do my work here.”

They were in Youko’s bedroom, no one wanted her to blow this wing of the palace up. The mental image of a restless Youko, away from her labs and books made Blue laugh.

“Forced vacation for the both of us, then, I guess!” she teased. “Can’t be that bad.”

“Aaaargh! You know what, I take back what I said about Ryuu, you’re the worst.”

“Yep, that’s me, your oldest friend!” said Blue cheerfully. “You’re stuck with me until the end, deal with it!”

Youko whined as if she were dying, and Blue laughed. She had forgotten how good it felt to just hang out with a friend and not working beside one another. It felt like a breath of fresh air after a long time inside, a whiff of spring after a hard winter.

“Wait, I was in the middle of my lesson here, why did you interrupt me?” Youko suddenly slammed a hand on her forehead. “Nice diversion here, Blue,” she said with false venom. “Uuugh, I hate you, I don’t remember where I was now!”

“At the part where you are working on the projects your mother left behind.”

“Oh, yeah, right, thank you. I love you again.”

“Yuk!” Blue stuck her tongue out in disgust. “Thank you, but no thank you!”

“You’re impossible” the other deadpanned. “How am I friend with you again?”

“I struck sand in your eyes and you hit me with a book in retaliation.”

Youko teared up. “… fuck, and that’s my tamest friendship. I’m a lost cause, aren’t I?”

“Yep!” Blue popped the ‘p’ childishly. “But we can be lost causes together, so it’s alright.”

“Thank you. Oh, well, back to what I was saying. I hired more assistants, you know? Didn’t want to become stuck in my work as my mother was, I’d end up crazy. I needed help anyway. My point is… you don’t have to do this alone. You could, you know, teach someone.”

Blue blinked.

“Youko, I’m blind.”

“And? That’s never stopped you before, has it?”

“Losing my sight was what allowed me to start sensing magic as I do. My magic sense, it… I only obtained it because I had to develop all my senses to make up for blindness.”

“And your brain gives it the form of sight, I know.” finished Youko. “But that’s not what I was saying. Your students – if you take students, which I strongly recommend– they don’t have to see – sorry, sense – the world like you do, but if they can sense what you sense in their own way, then they could help you.”

It felt like a breeze on her skin, the smell of spring, the earth after rain. So many possibilities, so many opportunities. How did I not think of this sooner?!

Her friend was still piling up arguments to try and convince Blue to take apprentices, the dark-skinned woman lifted a hand to interrupt her.

“Youko, you’re a genius.”

“… I am?”

Blue hated that tiny voice, that doubt weaved in it, with a passion. Her friend was so intelligent, and yet she thought herself below average. If only she had not spent her life comparing herself to her siblings, perhaps she would have more confidence in herself.

“Of course you are. And you know what? I think it’s worth a shot.”

Youko gave a watery chuckle. “You’ll do it?”

“Yes. I’ll make a stop by the Academy at the end of the week, perhaps talk with the other Mages. They might know someone. But only if we start spending some more time together. It’s been too long since our group had a game night.”

Youko laughed. “Of course. First night tonight with Arashi and Ankora?”

“Oh yeah. I know the perfect game.”

Sometimes, you just have to accept the fact that you need help… and that it’s not the end of the world, Blue mused. And that it’s good to have friends. Now, let’s show ‘em who’s boss.

[carewyncromwell]

Whew! Three drawings for the price of one for the POTC AU! The first two feature our new Pirate King Jules Farrier-Weasley @cursebreakerfarrier (flanked by Jacob “Black Jack” Cromwell Roberts and Orion Amari), and Cutler Beckett (flanked by Carewyn Cromwell “Carey Weasley” and Patricia Rakepick). The last one features the human form of our Davy Jones, Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws, with his One True Love Chiara Dalma, A.K.A. Calypso! These took a while, but they were fun to do, so I hope you like them.

Jules’s “tunic” is actually the same chemise she cut up while she was still on board the Artemis, as seen in a doodle on a previous post. Carewyn’s new uniform (which we’ll address in this part) is based on yet another of James Norrington’s costumes, this time the one he wears in the third Pirates film. Unlike the character whose role she roughly fills, though, Carey isn’t going to die unceremoniously in the middle of the damn story after getting this costume change. (Why no, I’m not bitter about the fact that Jack Davenport didn’t get more screentime and that Norrington didn’t get to be the Javert to Captain Jack Sparrow’s Valjean in the sequels the way he so could’ve been after the first movie, why would you think that? *snort*)

Now that we’re getting more into the Davy Jones/Calypso stuff, I can acknowledge how much I’ve changed from the original films’ depictions of the characters, as well as why. Personally I find the characters’ relationship to be a bit toxic and not as romantic as it should be. Calypso, being a goddess, could very easily not understand things like the passage of time through a man’s eyes, but the excuse she gives for why she wasn’t there to support her lover after all of the hard and lonely work he’d put in for her after ten years is just “it’s who I am.” I get that she’s a manifestation of the sea and not something you can pin down and all that jazz, but at the same time, it was cruel to follow her own selfish whims over considering her lover’s feelings. She presumably then also didn’t even try following up with Jones after he returned to the sea, as they aren’t able to sort out that misunderstanding before the events of At World’s End. (I mean, she’s a shape-shifting goddess of the sea, and she made him that way in the first place, so it’s not like she couldn’t have met him somewhere that wasn’t dry land.) I understand Jones couldn’t expect her to change her nature, and that’s fair, but it doesn’t make me like Calypso very much or feel much of anything for her relationship with Jones. And on the flip side, Jones decides to take out his pain at this misunderstanding (which he really should’ve tried clearing up AGES before the events of At World’s End) on his lover in the most spiteful, vindictive way -- teaching a bunch of pirates how to trap an immortal goddess into a mortal body that definitely has none of the power innate to her, presumably feels pain, and could even age or die. Rather than trying to quit the job Calypso gave him or even trying to figure out what happened, he decides to clip the wings of the woman he supposedly loves, all due to his own pain at being betrayed. So I don’t feel much for Jones as a character and for his relationship with Calypso either. In the end, when they quasi-make up, I didn’t think it was earned or that it was a good outcome for either of them. I do think there’s some tragedy in the situation, for they clearly feel deeply for each other, but their romance is really dysfunctional in my opinion, and I think it could’ve been handled a lot better if you wanted to make the pairing as romantic as the theme Hans Zimmer wrote for it. (As a side, take a listen to this lovely lyric cover someone wrote for the Davy Jones theme, it’s so good!) This is part of why I like being able to write Chia and Finn (the Calypso and Jones analogues in this AU) with a more sympathetic backstory, as well as some organic development for both them and their relationship while they’re apart from each other, which I kind of think was lacking in Tia Dalma/Calypso in particular.

Previous part is here, whole tag is here, and I hope you all enjoy!

x~x~x~x

Carewyn was perturbed by how fast an armada of ships from Port Royal caught up with the Flying Dutchman, once Rakepick had Jones send one of his cursed crew members with a message for Beckett. It was as though the head of the East India Trading Company had been waiting in eager anticipation of the Dutchman locating Shipwreck Cove ever since he gave her and Rakepick the mission in the first place.

Among the armada was the Clearwater, and Carewyn was shocked and a little happy to see Percy crossing over to the Dutchman from his ship and leaping off the gangplank to greet her. The youngest of the three Weasley brothers who’d joined the Navy gave her a salute for formalities’ sake, but he couldn’t keep the relieved smile off his face.

“Commodore Weasley,” he said formally.

“Captain Weasley,” said Carewyn in return.

As soon as they’d greeted each other, both of them loosened considerably. Carewyn opened her arms and brought Percy into a rather mannish hug, clapping his back the way Bill often did whenever he hugged his brothers.

“Jones’s men treated you well, I hope?” Percy murmured under his breath, his voice betraying some cold suspicion despite himself.

“Well enough,” Carewyn said softly.

When they broke apart, Percy was smiling a bit more fully. 

“It is good to see you, Carey,” he said, his faintly pompous voice nonetheless incredibly sincere, “though I’m afraid I’ll have my own ship to run now...”

Carewyn smiled proudly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. A Commodore needs a talented Captain in his fleet.”

‘I know how long you’ve dreamed of moving up the ranks. Even if the Navy isn’t what it should be...I’m glad that you’re living your dream, Percy.’

Percy’s brown eyes softened, clearly touched. Before he could say anything, however, a familiar, aloof voice interrupted him.

"A Commodore does indeed need a talented Captain...”

Both Weasleys turned to Cutler Beckett as he stepped down onto the deck of the Dutchman beside them. His small eyes were locked firmly on Carewyn.

“...as does the Admiral of the fleet.”

He materialized a folded letter and held it out to Carewyn. Her eyebrows furrowed as she opened it, before her eyes widened upon its contents and the royal wax seal at the bottom.

“I’d already had this prepared ahead of time, prior to your departure from Port Royal,” said Beckett with a cool smile. “I wrote to the King of how impressed I was with your dedication, ingenuity, and talents, and he was most pleased. When I requested you to be at the head of my fleet for this upcoming venture, he agreed immediately. Upon receiving Madam Rakepick’s letter about you initiating the search for the Tower Raven’s old fleet and using one of their own ships to guide us to our target...I knew that my faith had been more than warranted.”

His eyes narrowed slightly over his cold, satisfied smile.

“Congratulations...Admiral Carey Weasley.”

The “honor” the King had bestowed upon her, if one could call it that, made Carewyn feel ill for multiple reasons. Not only did she truly not, NOT want to fight the Pirate Lords and whatever ships they gathered together, but she knew that she had largely gotten the position thanks to the effort of Rakepick -- who had for whatever reason credited Carewyn for following the Phoenix rather than taking credit herself -- and Beckett -- who Carewyn didn’t trust as far as she could throw him, but couldn’t figure out why exactly he had so much “faith” in her. Was she truly that good of an actress to completely fool him? She wanted to think so -- and yet the way he looked at her, not unlike how Rakepick looked at her, spoke of him knowing something she didn’t. Sadly Percy, even if he had seemed legitimately troubled by the hangings in Port Royal, was not distrustful enough of Beckett to express anything but pride in Carewyn’s accomplishment, so Carewyn couldn’t talk to him or anyone else about her suspicions.

When she confronted Rakepick about what she wrote to Beckett, the older woman’s response was oddly coy.

“I already told you you don’t belong on this ship,” she said, her dark blue eyes locked firmly onto Carewyn’s with a murky emotion she couldn’t quite identify. “Now that you’re Admiral, you’ll have more power to command your own ship, overlooking the Dutchman as well as the rest of the fleet.”

Carewyn’s eyes narrowed. “So you wrote that so I’d get off the Dutchman?”

Rakepick’s eyes narrowed slightly too, becoming more solemn. “You heard Lord Beckett -- he’d already planned this for you in advance. Although my reasons are different from his, I’m more than willing to play along with his whims, if it means I get what I want.”

“And what is it you want, Rakepick?”

Rakepick’s red lips curled up into a cool smirk. “Now, Admiral...one can hardly expect a lady to answer such a personal question.”

Not long after confronting Rakepick, Beckett summoned Carewyn to his cabin on his flagship, a Man O’ War called the HMS Lion. Unlike any of their previous meetings in his office, Carewyn found the cabin completely empty except for Beckett when she arrived -- in the past, Percy or Rakepick had been there too, as well as one or two employees of the East India Trading Company. It gave her the feeling that Beckett wanted this meeting to be more private than the others, which gave her a terrible sense of foreboding.

“You wished to see me, Lord Beckett?” she asked, once she’d finished saluting him.

“Yes,” said Beckett.

He was sitting behind his desk, which once again had a map laid out with different model soldiers and ships littered all over it. There were also seven Piece of Eight coins lined up in a neat little row -- he was once again playing with the eighth, rolling it along his fingers lackadaisically.

“Word has come from Shipwreck Cove, from the so-called ‘Pirate King,’“ he said, his eyes on the coin in his hand. “She wishes to rendez-vous on a tiny island on the far side of Shipwreck Island at sunset tonight, a ways away from the Cove. No weapons -- just talking.”

Beckett’s eyes flickered up to Carewyn’s face almost critically.

“...The Pirate King...signed her name as ‘Captain Jules Weasley’ -- so she’d be an old flame of yours, would she not?”

Carewyn stiffened slightly. ‘Jules is the Pirate King?’

She covered up her surprise quickly, her blue eyes narrowing.

“Miss Farrier -- pardon, Mrs. William Weasley -- never commanded any affection from me. Although her father bid she court me, her feelings were always for my brother -- so much so that she followed him into piracy.”

Beckett’s lips spread into a cold smile. “Then it’s as I surmised. Governor Farrier expressed frustration that his daughter had not managed to ensnare your heart, as opposed to your older brother’s -- especially considering how much she seemed to enjoy your company...”

Carewyn could not figure out what Beckett was trying to suss out from this conversation and it troubled her greatly -- so she put on her best, coldest expression and lied through her teeth.

“Whatever woman I respected in the past is dead, now that she’s an enemy of the Crown,” she said harshly. “I know no ‘Captain Jules Weasley’...nor do I wish to.”

Beckett’s smile did not shift in the slightest. If anything, his small, dark eyes flickered in something almost like triumph.

“I understand your sensitivity to the matter. You truly do love with all of your heart, don’t you, Admiral Weasley?”

Carewyn’s eyebrows knit tightly over her eyes in confusion, but she did not reply. Beckett put the Piece of Eight coin down in the row on his deck and rose from his chair, moving over to the decanter of red wine on the side table so he could pour a glass.

“I saw you with Captain Weasley, before you left Port Royal -- and of course, your reunion on-board the Dutchman, earlier today. I also heard quite a few interesting rumors circulated among our prisoners from Tortuga, speaking of your honor and the respect you showed them despite their criminal status...even moving a woman into a cell with her husband without being asked, if I’m not mistaken...”

His voice was very aloof and was tinged with a bizarre fascination, like an entomologist might have for a rare butterfly he’d pinned to his wall. Carewyn felt like her heart was being squeezed, but she dare not say anything.

Beckett finished pouring out two glasses of wine and put down the decanter so he could pick up both glasses.

“It’s not something I’m familiar with, that kind of concern for others.”

He offered the glass of red wine to Carewyn, his eyes boring into her face. Carewyn kept her face as blank as she could even though she could feel the blood leaving it as she took the glass of wine from him, but did not drink it.

“...I did not mean to displease you, Lord Beckett,” she said lowly.

Beckett’s eyes flickered again with that strange satisfaction as he took a sip from his glass of wine.

“On the contrary -- it’s only appropriate, for a woman to have a gentle heart.”

Carewyn stiffened sharply.

‘No. No, no, no -- !’

It was one thing for Rakepick to find out, but Beckett to know -- did Rakepick tell him? No, she said she wasn’t really doing any of this for Beckett -- should she deny it, Carewyn wondered? But if she did, and he caught her in a lie, could that make it worse -- ? 

Her hesitation made Beckett’s eyes gleam with greater satisfaction than ever.

“Then I was right,” he murmured. “I admit, I wasn’t sure. True, your voice is higher than one normally hears and you’re smaller than most, but I know first hand that means nothing. And your military record...had it not been for me having met and employed Patricia Rakepick previously, I would never have believed a woman could be so skilled in battle and strategy, nor so aggressive. But when Captain Weasley expressed such interest in me having hired a woman, and even went out of his way to bring it up to you...my interest was peaked. All the more so when I found out how truly useful you are, as an officer.”

Carewyn felt like she was drowning in horrifying, icy cold water. Beckett knew she was a woman -- he knew she was a woman, and could tell anyone about it, if he so chose. She’d not only lose her position -- the one thing that she had left that she could use to protect Jacob, Orion, Bill, Charlie, and Jules...but she’d be cast out in disgrace, leaving her with nothing -- possibly taking Percy along with her for having kept her true gender a secret --

Her blue eyes had drifted down to the floor absently, but were not focusing on anything.

Yet...Beckett had said nothing of his suspicions to anyone. True, he hadn’t known for sure...but why would he recommend her to the King as an Admiral, if he’d suspected?

And then it hit her.

She bowed her head, casting her eyes into shadow as she put down her untouched wine glass on the side table.

“...What do you want from me, Lord Beckett?”

Beckett raised his eyebrows but did not respond.

“You very easily could’ve gotten both Percy and me cast out of the Navy in disgrace,” she said, keeping her voice low in an attempt to try to keep it steady, “yet you’ve kept me and even helped get me promoted, presumably because I’m so ‘useful.’ What use do I have, for you?”

Beckett gave her something of a patronizing smile as he stepped forward, coming up right in front of Carewyn so that his chin rested just shy of her shoulder and he could look at her face out the side of his eye.

“Isn’t it obvious? You are an excellent Naval officer -- a leader and inspiration to those who serve under you. You’re world-renown for your honor, your courage -- your passion. You prompt people to fight with you -- for you -- with a loyalty that even the King of England himself cannot boast. Were you a man, you would be someone I’d be very threatened by, indeed. But since you are a woman...I can appeal to your heart.”

Carewyn could feel his breath sliding past her ear and she couldn’t help but cringe. She stubbornly refused to look him in the eye, keeping her gaze firmly on the floor.

“I’m afraid my disinterest in the once-Miss Farrier was not a one-off thing, Lord Beckett,” she said very dryly. “Romance is not something I think about very regularly.”

Orion’s face rippled over her mind, making her heart ache. Oh, if he were there, in that room -- the thought of him seeing her letting herself get pushed around by the man who’d branded him and sent the Navy after him for piracy...it made her feel ill.

Beckett’s lips curled up in a slightly tighter, almost miffed smile as he pulled away just enough that he was facing the wall behind her rather than looking at her face.

“...Oh...no, Admiral...you misunderstand me. I know I own no part of your heart...but Captain Weasley, he most assuredly does.”

Carewyn’s head shot up so she could look at him, her expression stricken despite herself.

“Your younger brother is not nearly as useful as you, but he has shown great dedication to me, since I threw him a bone and ensured his promotion. It’s a loyalty I hope that you will likewise show me...especially considering that both you and he have been given access to information that few others have been...and that I would do just about anything to ensure doesn’t become common knowledge...”

Carewyn stared at Beckett, her shock giving way to cold hatred. 

“So that’s it,” she murmured. “You’ll hold Percy’s and my lives and livelihoods over our heads, to make sure that I don’t surpass you, somehow. How I don’t know, considering that the Navy is not part of the East India Trading Company, nor shall it ever be, but clearly you feel loyalty is something to threaten out of people, rather than earn -- ”

“The only thing one can really earn in this world, Admiral, is money, and therefore power,” Beckett cut her off sharply, “and I have no intention of losing either, now that I’ve earned both of which I’m owed!”

He turned to look Carewyn straight-on in the eye, their faces mere inches apart. Gone was any hint of attempt at gentlemanly poise -- there was a hard edge to his gaze, not unlike the way he’d looked at Jones, but because he was actually an inch or so taller than Carewyn, he seemed to relish the power he had looking down at her both literally and figuratively.

“You will use your talents to serve my interests,” he said under his breath, “and I, in return, will continue to reward you and your brother, by ensuring that your careers and lives flourish under me. It’s just good business.”

At sundown, Beckett and Jules met at the tiny island agreed upon. Jules strolled down the long, narrow beach toward the shoreline where they were to meet, Jacob on one side of her and Orion on the other. She’d originally wanted Bill with her, but McNully was able to persuade her that she’d look that bit more intimidating to Beckett if she arrived in the company of two of the most wanted pirate captains in the world, and even Bill had to agree. Jules was determined to stand between Jacob and Orion, though, considering that there was still a lot of tension between them.

Jules had been furious with Jacob, when she’d learned about the deal he’d struck with Davy Jones. Even if he’d originally planned to give Jones “a Cromwell” as in Charles or Blaise Cromwell -- two objectively bad people who had been largely responsible for Carewyn and Jacob’s abusive, unloving childhoods -- Jules was also confident in thinking that Carewyn would be horrified, knowing that Jacob was willing to enslave another person to Davy Jones, just to find her. Jacob refused to feel guilty for that, but he clearly was destroyed by the knowledge that his choice had put Carewyn in so much danger. It was apparent from the way he talked about it and the way his hands and shoulders shook with silent sobs that Jacob would’ve sacrificed himself a hundred times over, if it would guarantee Carewyn wouldn’t be harmed.

Orion, by contrast, hadn’t said a word since Jacob told them what was going on. Throughout the entire conversation, he’d had his hands clasped tightly in front of him and kept his gaze downcast, even taking time to close his eyes for long periods of time as if he were meditating. Despite his silence and his detached affect, his usually stoic expression and unsteady breathing betrayed genuine anxiety. At one point, Bill brought a hand onto Orion’s shoulder to try to comfort him, and Orion actually subconsciously smacked his hand away.

“I’m sorry,” said the Captain quickly, his voice very hushed and tense as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. “Just...please, don’t touch me.”

Bill, Charlie, and Jules all thought they could guess how Orion was feeling. Although the others had forcefully shot down the idea that Orion was the least bit responsible since he couldn’t have known the consequences of calling Carewyn by her real name, their words had done little to soften the Pirate Lord’s brow. If Orion’s past behavior hadn’t been indicative of how deeply he felt for Carewyn, then the way he clasped anxiously at his own hands and shut himself off from everyone else at the thought of her being doomed to spend the rest of her life trapped on board the Flying Dutchman made it crystal clear.

“Orion’s always valued his own freedom more than any kind of loot,” McNully murmured to the three Weasleys under her breath, “more than anything, really. And if he cares about the Commodore so much...”

“...He probably couldn’t bear it, if she lost hers,” finished Charlie, bowing his head and closing his eyes as they welled up with pain and righteous anger.

As Jules, Jacob, and Orion approached the shore, they caught sight of three people standing in the distance. The man in the middle dressed in black Orion identified as Cutler Beckett. On his left was an older woman as tall as Orion with hair as ginger red as Bill and Charlie’s that Jacob immediately recognized as Rakepick...and on his right was Carewyn, dressed in a new yellow-trimmed navy blue uniform and a black tricorn hat.

The three pirates stopped five feet away from the Head of the East India Trading Company and his two female companions, a notable sting of tension prickling at the air. Jules tried hard to keep her focus on Beckett, but her eyes were drawn to Carewyn despite herself. Although her friend faced Orion -- the person directly in front of her -- with a hard, stoic expression, she looked so pale. When Jules glanced over, she noticed out the side of her eye that Orion’s unreadable gaze was also locked on Carewyn, even as he took deep breaths through his nose and his hands clenched absently at his sides.

“Well, well,” said Beckett, his eyes narrowing darkly upon Orion’s face, “if it isn’t my old friend, Orion Amari.”

Orion glanced at Beckett out the side of his eye without turning his face away from Carewyn’s. Although his face remained rather calm, there was a faint edge to his soft-spoken response.

“...I did not think you were ever much in the market for friendship, Cutler Beckett...considering it’s something you cannot buy.”

His gaze returned to Carewyn. Beckett glanced from Carewyn to Orion, his lips curling up in a very cold smile.

“Ah, yes -- you and Amari are old friends also, aren’t you, Admiral Weasley?”

“Admiral?” repeated Orion, taken aback despite himself.

“Yes,” said Carewyn, and although her response was very cold, her eyes pulsed with emotion that she attempted to obscure by glancing to the side in Jacob’s direction rather than straight at Orion. “By order of the King, as a reward for my work alongside Lord Beckett.”

Jules could see Jacob’s jaw clench out the corner of her eye. She too felt like her heart was being squeezed. Carewyn no doubt hated her promotion with everything in her, if it was something she’d earned chasing after them on Beckett’s orders. Still...Jules couldn’t express that flat-out, so she put on the strongest expression she could.

“...I suppose congratulations are in order, then.” 

Carewyn flashed Jules a look. “I don’t want congratulations from you, Mrs. Weasley. Or should I call you ‘Your Majesty,’ now that you’ve started playacting as a royal?”

Jules’s lips came together tightly when she saw how broadly Beckett smirked. The small man’s reaction seemed to piss off Jacob too.

“You will show proper respect to the Pirate King,” he said with a fierce look at the Head of the East India Trading Company.

“Respect,” scorned Rakepick. “Is that a word you can even define, Black Jack?”

“As well as I could wring your neck, if I were allowed,” spat Jacob.

“I’m surprised your ‘Pirate King’ would want a man in her company who’s so comfortable threatening a lady’s life,” said Carewyn sharply.

‘Don’t start a fight with her,’ she thought desperately, praying that Jacob would be able to sense her intent even with the act she had to play. 

Unfortunately Jacob, as smart as he was, was never the best at reading people’s emotions -- and so when his narrowed eyes shot to Carewyn, she could see a flicker of pain. She surmised that even if he clearly didn’t think she believed what she was saying, it hurt him beyond reason, to see her having to defend the woman who’d tried to kill him.

Orion, however, very quickly adapted to the new method of “conversation,” fixing Carewyn with a calm, but piercing gaze.

“And I’m surprised that a honorable officer such as yourself would be so comfortable in the company of those with no honor whatsoever,” he said.

‘You’re in danger,’ Carewyn surmised he was trying to say. Her eyes narrowed upon Orion’s face.

“I beg your pardon?” she retorted. “I fail to see how a pirate has any leg to stand on, speaking of honor.” ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

“Even I have more honor than a captain who would burn an entire settlement to the ground,” murmured Orion. ‘Davy Jones.’

“Jones follows orders, as do we all...something else a pirate wouldn’t understand.” ‘What about Jones?’

"Orders...from Cutler Beckett, or from you? From what I’ve heard, you were on the Flying Dutchman yourself -- hardly a place one would expect to find Port Royal’s greatest hero.” ‘You must get away from Davy Jones. Get off of the Flying Dutchman.’

Carewyn’s blue eyes narrowed a bit more. First Rakepick wanted her off the Dutchman, and now Orion? Yes, Davy Jones was dangerous, but at present she found him much less of a threat than Beckett...

“A true hero knows that his reputation comes second to the good of the others,” she said very softly. “As does a loyal officer.” ‘I can’t leave.’

Something in Orion’s dark eyes flinched.

“Your older brother will be very disappointed, to know you’ve sold your loyalty so cheaply,” he said just as softly.

Carewyn felt her heart clench. She knew he didn’t mean Bill -- and yet the thought of both her surrogate brothers and Jacob was a silent knife to her back. She didn’t dare look at Jacob for fear her strong facade would crack, so she kept her focus solidly on Orion.

“I would think given your own history with Lord Beckett, you’d know full well how valuable of an ally he is, ” she shot back quickly, feigning temper as best she could, “and how dangerous of an enemy, as well. Both I and the brother who chose to follow the law rather than spit in its face are certainly glad for his aid, in ending your reign of terror.”

‘I can’t leave, not with what Beckett has over me and Percy. And if I do leave, then you’ll be in more danger than ever...’

Her eyes bore into Orion’s fiercely as she begged beyond reason he’d understand.

“...You may tell William...that I am no Bedlam maid in need of saving.”

‘You can’t help me. I love you.’

Deep in the depths of his sparkling black eyes, Carewyn could see a flicker of desperation, almost like anxiety. Afraid that Beckett might notice the crack in Orion’s expression, or in her own at the sight of it, she quickly whirled on Jules.

“He is the one who should stand down,” she said, her voice hardening further in an attempt to obscure her emotions. “All of you should, unless you wish to face down an entire armada.”

‘There are 34 Man O’ Wars waiting out there for you,’ she hoped Jules would be able to discern. Even if she didn’t know an armada had that many ships, Jacob and Orion would.

Jules, to her credit, matched Carewyn’s act with her own cold gaze. “Don’t underestimate us, Admiral Weasley. Both the British Navy and the East India Trading Company have done that consistently from the beginning.”

“And now we have come to the end,” said Beckett smoothly. “Of you and the rest of your Brethren.”

The others all turned to look at him. He flashed Orion a look better suited to a cockroach before redirecting his gaze onto Jules.

“Tell your Court this,” he said in an aloof, condescending voice. “You can fight, and all of you will die...or you can stand down, in which case only most of you will die. I daresay the Governor could be persuaded to spare you from the gallows, if you threw yourself on his mercy...and if I were to be merciful enough to leave out your new position, in my correspondence with the King...”

Jules’s dark eyes flashed with hatred as she strode forward, coming to a stop two feet from Beckett so she could glare right into his face.

“There are few things I can tolerate less than cowards who resort to blackmail just to make themselves feel powerful.”

She didn’t look at Carewyn, but Carewyn could sense Jules was thinking of her, as she said this.

“We will fight. And you’d best hope that we will show more mercy than you would, in our place.”

The Pirate King turned on her heel and walked away. With some reluctance, Orion and then Jacob turned away and strode quickly after her, leaving the other three alone on the shore.

“So be it,” said Beckett with a cold smile.

Carewyn couldn’t look at Rakepick or Beckett at her side. Her gaze was solidly locked on the departing backs of her brother, friend, and love as they began to shrink into the distance.

She’d never been very good at relying on or having faith in others...but in that moment, more than anything, she knew all she could do now was put her trust in Orion -- in Jules -- in Jacob -- in Bill and Charlie and all of the other pirates on Shipwreck Cove.

‘Please...please, be careful. Please be safe.’

In that moment of helplessness, she felt her heart ache all the more, watching Orion walk away. She closed her eyes, trying to bring back the memory of him standing shoulder to shoulder with her on the Artemis -- of him lying in bed as she tended to him, when they were young -- but it was no use. The graveness of the situation was too dire even for escapism...

Carewyn clutched her own arms behind her back. They suddenly felt so much heavier...as if there really were manacles there she couldn’t hope to break.

‘...Please...please live.’

On the opposite side of the island, both Jules and Jacob noticed the silent tears that had streaked down Orion’s face...but none had the heart to address it as they boarded the jollyboat that would take them back to the Artemis and to Shipwreck Cove.

At the same time that the pirates and the leaders of the British Navy were meeting, Davy Jones had been left behind on the Flying Dutchman with Percy supervising the troops. Beckett thought that Jones was threatened into line by how many soldiers were still guarding his heart, but thanks to Carewyn, Jones knew that Rakepick had stolen and relocated it. Now that he didn’t know where his heart was at all, he knew he couldn’t afford to move until he’d found it again -- and with Carewyn likely leaving the Dutchman with her new position as Admiral, it was likely it’d take a while before she could smuggle him any more information she might acquire about that. For the moment, though, Jones had put that concern on the back burner, for the Dutchman’s arrival near Shipwreck Cove gave him the opportunity to catch up with the Phoenix.

As luck would have it, when Jones phased through the Dutchman and onto the Phoenix, the ship was largely abandoned, since the crew had all gone ashore to Shipwreck Cove. The only person remaining was a small woman with long white hair, looking out to sea over the deck. In her hand was a pretty silver locket in the shape of a moon, the lid of which was cracked open so that a sweet, tinkling music box melody played.

Chia Dalma closed the locket half-way through the song, her eyes closing sadly as she clasped the locket close to her chest. She straightened up in shock, however, when she suddenly heard the rest of the tune echoing from behind her. She whirled around, to be faced with a giant, hulking shadow with writhing tentacles sprouting out from his jaw, holding an identical locket in his claw. Anyone would’ve been terrified at the sight -- but Chia looked upon the figure with tears in her eyes.

“Finn,” she breathed. Her lips were curled up in a weak smile, just as they had been before, but the joy was stained with so many other emotions -- grief, shame, and regret.

Davy Jones regarded Chia critically as he took several plodding steps toward her. “You know I haven’t been called that name in years.”

Chia bowed her head. “Nor have I been called my true name in years.”

Jones tilted his head, trying to read her expression better now she was looking away from him.

“I had not expected to find you like this,” he said very lowly. “You’ve never taken on such a small shape before.”

Chia’s eyes flashed with righteous anger as she raised her head. “That’s because this form is one I did not choose to take. It was thrust upon me by the Brethren Court.”

Jones straightened up slightly. His eyes narrowed to slits.

“...Then they did not kill or trap you. They transformed you.”

His voice was as low and growling as thunder. Chia clutched at the sides of her arms with her hands, her gaze smouldering with resentment as she glared down at the deck.

“Oh, but they did trap me,” she said bitterly, “trapped me in this single form, which can’t do even half of what I should be able to. I’ve been able to use what power I have to slow down the aging process, but this body still feels pain. This body still feels strain, and weakness, and hunger, and exhaustion, and longing...”

Something rippled over her eyes -- something more ashamed and pained.

“...I never knew...how much time truly weighs on a human,” she murmured.

Jones’s expression grew much more grim. “An immortal such as yourself should never have had to learn that.”

“Should never have had to, yes...but...”

She looked up at Jones, her gray eyes pulsing with strength despite the pain rippling within.

“...why did you not tell me, how long ten years felt for you? I have felt those ten years several times over, trapped in this tiny, fragile, helpless body every single moment -- and it’s...it’s been torture. To know you took the job I gave you -- only coming ashore once every ten years, so you could help me with the burden of tending to the dead at sea -- when ten years feels like that, to you -- ”

Chia’s eyes flooded with tears.

“I gave you the position of ferryman because I wanted to spare you from death,” she whispered. “Because if I didn’t give you that role and give you some of my power, you would’ve died. I’d never thought that those ten years would feel so long -- drain you so much...”

Jones was quiet for a long moment. Then he brought up his claw to brush her bangs from her eye.

“It’s only natural that you saw things the way an immortal would. Time is no object to you -- ten years no doubt felt like a small price to pay, in the face of your life span. And...”

His eyes became a bit smaller.

“...it’s not exactly like I wanted to die and be separated from you either. Even though part of me always doubted you’d be there waiting for me, when I returned...even though I resented you for years because you weren’t there...”

A ghost of a smile flickered over his features.

“...I know I shouldn’t have expected you to see things as I have -- to change yourself to suit me. If you did...you wouldn’t be the goddess I fell in love with, would you?”

Chia smiled up at Jones, her eyes shining with tenderness.

“I tried to make it back to you,” she murmured. “When the Court transformed me, I tried so hard to get there, to reach you...”

She extended her hands, tentatively trailing them along his tentacled face. Jones seemed to tremble at her touch.

“I know of the danger you’re in, Finn,” said Chia seriously. “As long as Cutler Beckett has your heart, I know you’re beholden to him. But I have allies among this newest Brethren Court. If they convince the others to break my chains, as I’ve foreseen they will...then as soon as I am free, I will come for you. I will make sure you and I are never separated again...and I will make sure your captors suffer the consequences, for hurting the man I love.”

As her small white hands held his face, Jones’s face and frame suddenly began to morph. In an instant, the slimy texture, the tentacles clinging to his face, and his claw all vanished -- and there stood the tall, handsome pirate she’d fallen in love with so long ago.

Finn McGarry’s face broke out into a broken, soft smile. He stretched out his hand, caressing his love’s human cheek with more gentleness than his claw ever could have.

“Calypso...” he murmured.

Chia’s face broke out into a full smile as well. She knew she couldn’t permanently remove the fishy transformation, as it was something that had mutated Jones over the many years they’d been apart, due to his heartbreak and grief...but seeing him looking so much like his old self after so long...it made her currently human heart swell with love.

“Just as you gave me your heart, when you became captain of the Flying Dutchman,” she murmured, “so too will you always have mine.”

[romanovanoff]

bio says black widow stories but i do like to dabble with other characters too. ill have a full list on another post.

YOU & I

A Bellatrix & Tom Riddle story

part one

characters:

bellatrix black

tom riddle

narcissa black

andromeda black

druella black

rodolphus lestrange

rabastan lestrange

(tba)

relationships:

bella/tom

narcissa/lucius

andromeda/ted

(tba)

summary: tom is the new kid in school and is already popular amongst his peers. his goal is to have bellatrix black by his side when he conquers the wizarding world, and his only problem? bella is already in an arranged marriage and also wants nothing to do with him.

disclaimer: i have never read the books, and ive seen all the movies only like twice. im not a crazy fanatic potterhead, i just have an unhealthy obsession for bellatrix/helena bonham carter 😌. so apologies in advance if i make any mistakes, regarding whats canon in the harry potter universe and so on. the little things, the big things, my bad. i hope the fact that its mostly au makes up for what it lacks in accuracy.

word count: 3497

——————————

"I overheard earlier today that Hogwarts received a new student," Druella spoke as she took a sip of tea, delicately patting a napkin across her lips before gazing over at her three daughters. Bellatrix, who didn't seem interested at all in the conversation, Andromeda, who was busy scribbling something in her diary, and little Narcissa who was following along to her mother's words.

"Yes, it's true," The blonde girl, thirteen years old, responded. "I thought it strange at first but apparently he and his family were living somewhere in Europe. Tom Riddle, I think his name is. He'd been taught at home and his father had gotten a job at the ministry so they transferred him to Hogwarts."

Ever the gossip, it didn't surprise Bellatrix in the slightest that Cissy knew so much about the new student. She rolled her eyes, wondering why the hell they were even discussing this in the first place. It was just a new student, who cares? She voiced this several times out loud but had received the usual disapproving glances from the two blondes. It creeped the raven-haired witch sometimes at how much Cissy resembled their mother.

Letting out a sigh Bella swirled her spoon around in her teacup, not finding the appetite to drink nor eat the sweets that accompanied her tea. The three of them were currently in Rosa Lee's teashop, a place they often went to every other week, with permission to leave the school of course- though she didn’t ask for it most times. Usually Bellatrix would devour the treats but today she was feeling too anxious to do anything but. At seventeen years old she had stretched out her days of freedom and was now forced into a marriage that should have taken place two years ago.

The thought of marriage wasn't all that bad, if she was being honest. Sometimes when her thoughts and actions weren't clouded with hate and rage she'd daydream a not so near future of a perfect wedding. A wedding where she would be marrying someone she truly loved and could cherish, to honor their vows to the fullest extent. So the wedding itself wasn't the problem, it was who she was supposed to be wed to that was. Her long time childhood friend, Rodolphus Lestrange. And one of the very few in the sacred 28 that wasn't related to the Blacks by blood. At least that she was aware of… The thought still made her cringe, even after checking every family tapestry available and an exhausting amount of research.

Everyone wanted her to be happy about the fact she'd get to marry someone she's known for years, something most pure-bloods didn't have the honor of having, but it was the fact she knew him so well that she hated. He was like a brother to her, albeit at times an annoying and even sexist brother. He wasn't husband material and she was most certainly not wife material for him. And add to the fact that they'd be pressured to have children immediately after becoming man and wife, the thought of having sex with him made her want to gag. You'd think they'd notice that such a practice was incredibly outdated. She hated to wonder if the marriage had taken place two years ago, would they really pressure two 15 year olds to consumate? Fuck this life.

She felt like the world and everyone in it was against her. All her complaints had been shot down, leaving her inwardly seething with rage before being left totally subdued. Oh, how she hated being so… powerless, left without a voice, without a right to do what she wanted and to do so as she pleased, the ever present shadow looming over her shoulder that was the society and family she was born into.

Letting out a sigh she looked over at Andromeda who was still scribbling in that damn book. Probably instant messaging her friends, something Bellatrix didn't have the luxury of having. At least genuine ones anyway. The ones she had in school were merely vultures following around, waiting for the opportunity to eat away at the scraps she bared. They didn't hesitate to use her to their advantage, trying to play her like a fool. Idiots, they should've known she was the brightest witch of her age for a reason. And no one took advantage of Bellatrix Black.

Despite still being superior she continued feeling a bitter pang in her heart, knowing no one truly cared for her there. Well, maybe except for her sisters, Rodolphus and his brother that is.

Catching her eyes on what she was doing Andromeda quickly closed her book and narrowed her eyes at her eldest sister. But then a familiar smirk curled the girls lips and Bellatrix knew what was going to happen before her sister could even utter a word. She knew that smirk anywhere. Bella herself wore that smirk on several occasions, actually even taught it to her dear sister! If only mother knew how truly naughty Andy was, maybe then the heat wouldn't fall upon Bella so heavily when she did something that displeased her.

"Mother," Andromeda chimed in, interrupting Cissy's conversation with the older woman. "Bellatrix is right. Why not talk about something else."

"Andy…" The dark haired witch warned, fingers clenched around her spoon.

"Like… Bella's wedding perhaps? Surely there are plenty of plans to discuss. Some of which I'm sure my dear sister here is needed for?" The brunette suggested 'innocently', smiling back at Bellatrix before looking at her mother.

Druella blinked once, then twice before she brightened up. Damnit, Andy, Bella thought to herself angrily, glaring daggers at her younger sister. "You're right! We only have a short few weeks before the big day and still so much to do. How about we end this little meal early and say we go to one of the boutiques nearby, check up on your wedding dress," Druella said as she rose from her seat.

And so that's what they did. They went to the boutique, checked the incredibly old fashioned dress, with what looked like the most painfully looking corset yet stitched into the fabric. After, they stopped by a few other shops to double check things were in order for the wedding before finally apparating home. The entire time Bellatrix had trudged along reluctantly behind her sisters and mother, offering a few weak comments and opinions for this thing and that when asked of her.

She was glad to finally be back home, finding relief in the knowledge that tomorrow morning she'd be returning back to Hogwarts, having spent the weekend with her family. On one hand she was glad she managed to extend the wedding date, convincing her parents that it might be wise that she finish her last year and take her N.E.W.T.s before focusing on 'wifely duties'. Yes, that was how she phrased it. And yes, they'd taken the bait, obviously wanting their daughter to focus on her marriage once out of school, and not caring about the intelligence hidden behind her usual mask of indifference.

She made short work separating from her family's side to make her way upstairs to her room. And then made even shorter work getting ready for bed. No one ever bothered her when she was up the stairs and hidden away. It was known to all that Bellatrix Black inherited the 'mad' gene in the family, more prone to violent outbursts and destructive tantrums. Because of this her room wasn't the prettiest, constantly being repaired and sparse so there were less objects to break. The room was also constantly being placed under a silencing charm, quieting her screams so the rest of the household could sleep peacefully. How thoughtful of them, she thought to herself bitterly.

The sun was already down by the time she emerged from the bathroom, all scrubbed up and her hair wet, the many strands in ringlets falling down her back. With her wand, she casted a quick-drying spell to both her body and hair, not bothering with any sleeping robes as she climbed into bed. Once in she blew out the candles before getting comfortable under the covers. Usually, it would be too early to go to sleep, and she'd have at least a glass or two of firewhiskey to help her doze off but she felt the whole unexpected wedding planning this afternoon was enough to do her in. Not only that but she did need to wake up early to catch the train back to Hogwarts tomorrow. So without much further thought she closed her heavy eyes and fell asleep, hoping things could be much easier in the future.

THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS

"Tom Riddle is in our class."

"I heard Tom's family is incredibly wealthy and direct descendants to Salazar Slytherin."

"It's true! I overheard him talking to snakes! Snakes!"

The whispers and excited talk continued on and on the moment Bellatrix stepped onto the Hogwarts express. If she thought Cissy talking to mother about this ‘nobody’ annoyed her, she was absolutely wrong. Hearing everyone around her discuss this Riddle boy absolutely drenched her high spirits and put her in one of her dark moods.

No one needed to look twice to know to stay away from the young witch. If dark glaring eyes didn't strike fear into her peers, then the dark energy and aura surrounding her would.

Not wanting to hear the gossip anymore Bella separated from her 'friends' and found a seating compartment for herself, only able to hold two people, but thankfully no one dared claim the other spot. She sat close to the window, forehead touching the glass, and seeming to cool her ever bubbling irritation. Trees and rolling hills passed by in a blur but she wasn't particularly watching, eyes slightly glazed over as she got lost in thought.

So lost in thought she almost didn't notice the sounds of her compartment door being slid open and a person taking a seat across from her. Blinking slowly she looked over to the 'intruder' as the door slid closed once more, leaving the two individuals with some privacy she didn't necessarily want.

The person in front of her was a young man. Probably around her age with dark brown hair, curling neatly at the front. He had bright emerald eyes, warm but she got the hint of something darker underneath, something dangerous hidden beneath the surface and ready to strike unsuspecting prey. Despite that though everything else about him seemed pretty bland. Pale skin- but not as pale as hers-, average build, and put together uniform.

"Who're you?" She found herself asking, swallowing the automatic 'get out' she was originally planning on saying. Given the fact she hasn't seen him before in this school year or any year before that, she was already dreading the answer. She wasn't even sure why she disliked him so much already. Maybe it was the fact he's barely even started school here and yet everyone was already drooling over him. Maybe it was the fact he was well known for things the student body hasn't even had proof of, things he was already praised for. And on her side of things she was well known for her infamous anger and her upcoming marriage to Rodolphus. That or her status of being the firstborn Black daughter. Otherwise known as the current heir of the Black family. Well. That was until her idiot cousin, Sirius was old enough to steal the mantle from her.

So when he said, "Tom. Tom Riddle," She really couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes. Cause of course the person she had no care for was sat in, of all seats, the one in front of her. "Does that name offend you?" He then asked, wearing the same damn smirk he wore the moment she took in his appearance just seconds earlier.

"No," She said in a bored drawl, eyes once again gazing out the window as her head rested against the glass. "Unlike every other idiot out there, I care not for who you are. You're just another ordinary student attending Hogwarts. Nothing special about that," She told him, her tone consistent in telling him of how much she didn't care.

He was quiet for some time. Not too long, but enough to give her pause and wonder if she'd wandered too deep in thought and he'd slipped away. Only a glance his way revealed that, no, he was still here. "I agree," He finally spoke again. "There's nothing special about me at all. And I'm starting to despise the fact people are so interested in me. Took a look at the school Friday and suddenly everyone thinks so highly of me just because it was a private tour by the headmaster himself," He huffed.

It was clear to Bellatrix by the way he spoke, by the way he talked that he was excellent at charming people, manipulating them even if you would use the darker term. Again, she was many things but an idiot was not one of them and she wasn't falling for his 'charms' or tactics any time soon.

"Oh, poor you," She said in a mocking voice, jutting out her bottom lip as she faced him fully. "New kid in school has everyone fawning over him. Such a terrible life you must live, knowing you have everyone in the palm of your hands with just a smile." She finished the sentence off with said smile before turning it into a sneer.

"I won't repeat myself again. I care not for who you are, and I don't wish to know you or anything about you. So if you're going to sit here, then it better be in silence, or so help me merlin I will curse you. Laws be damned," She hissed. Hopefully for the last time she turned away again, feeling her mood lighten just slightly at her first threat of the day.

Usually, other students would run away by now, flee the vicinity in which she occupied, but Tom just sat there, in shock, or because he actually listened to her words. Finding herself curious about which option she chanced another glance but was surprised to see him wearing that annoying little smirk instead. "Cute," He told her, enjoying the way her eyes widened just slightly before darkening with anger. "That threat might work on others but it won't with me."

Her magic was absolutely crackling around her, like static in the air just before an oncoming storm. She was soon to make good on her threat. "Based on your looks, in how you speak, and the way I saw you walk earlier, looking down at everyone as if they were beneath you. I would safely assume you are a… Black. Bellatrix Black? Considering you look to be in the same year as me," He continued, assuming everything correctly. She didn't need to know though that he'd actually done his research prior to moving here, and that he had asked around earlier. "I don't expect you to get along with me from the start, but you will see me around often. I'll personally make sure of that. Cause I like you," He said with a shrug, smirk still in place.

Bold. Oh, so very bold and before Bellatrix could even utter a single word or even grab and raise her wand for that matter, he was already out the door. The space in front of her was once again vacant and she stared at the now unoccupied seat as the door slid closed.

LATER THAT DAY

It was almost impossible for the raven haired witch to avoid hearing or seeing Tom. It was as if everywhere she turned, someone was talking about him or he himself was staring at her from a distance. Usually she would never admit such a thing, her pride too strong, but it greatly unnerved her. Who the hell did he think he was? Claiming he would see her more often because he liked her? “Doesn’t even know me,” She scoffed to herself, annoyed as she continued on the familiar path to her dormitory.

Bellatrix was a slytherin through and through, like every other Black family member before her. There had been no question about it. Well, maybe after. She questioned it alot. The houses, the characteristics and traits. All of it. And once she's put herself in a more outside perspective about it she really couldn't help but laugh at the whole student body, almost all of them adapting and practically absorbing their houses certain traits into their own personality.

Anyway, she was a slytherin, but she couldn't help but wonder if she'd changed her mindset that first day, if her family hadn't been so adamant on which house she went to, would she have been chosen for hufflepuff, perhaps? Maybe gryffindor? Ew, no. Possibly ravenclaw. These thoughts raced past in her mind as she made her way down into the dungeons. There was a little of her in each, she supposed.

"Drommie, Cissy," Bellatrix greeted once she made it into the girls dorm, having already said the password and walked through the shared sitting room. All three Black sisters shared the same room, something Bellatrix and her mother both insisted and agreed upon to the headmaster when first starting school here. It was a protective thing. Bella knew that her sisters weren't like her, lacking in gut and courage. She was sure Andromeda could take care of herself, at times, but if worse came to worse she was more likely to break under pressure and need rescuing from her bigger sister. And little Narcissa, the spoiled brat she was, didn't have a single backbone in her body, choosing instead to flee or hide behind one's robes. Despite those certain qualities though Bellatrix still loved her sisters dearly and simply made it a priority to keep them safe, consequences to herself be damned.

Sure… maybe it was Bella's fault for them needing protection, having spent most of her years reigning terror down upon those who even glance at her, therefore her peers not liking her and taking it out on her sisters instead. But… hey! They looked at her funny, they deserved it!

"Bella why didn't you sit with us on the train," Narcissa asked, looking at her older sister as she sat on her bed.

Bellatrix rolled her eyes and walked past, towards her own bed furthest in the room and by the window. "As if I'd sit and listen to you two and your friends gossiping about the 'new boy'," She said back.

Andromeda turned to her with a quirked brow. "I don't know, by the looks of it you sat just fine with the 'new boy' before you ran him away."

Bellatrix was only able to scoff as a response before Narcissa quickly interrupted, hopping over towards Bellatrix. "You got to talk to Tom Riddle?" She asked excitedly. "How was he like? Was he charming? Did he show you parseltongue?"

"Cissy, please, calm down. He was none of those things. He was very bland… and cocky, and arrogant," Bella responded, the end getting heated with annoyance. Not towards her sister of course.

"Sounds like someone I know," Andromeda spoke up with a pointed look Bella's way.

"Shut up," The dark haired witch shot back. Because of course she couldn't deny it. She was those things sometimes… all the time. "Whatever. Let’s go. It's time for lunch anyway."

(A/N: lets be honest idk how classes work at hogwarts so lets say bellatrix and sis’s meet up w mother on the reggy, with permission or without, and this particular weekend was a break for all students to either visit their fam or relax in their dorms/explore school grounds. today (mon) is a day for them to get readjusted and classes start up again the following day. anyway continue)

All the way to the great hall Bellatrix's sisters continued teasing her about Tom. Thankfully she took the teasing easily, shoving her sisters good naturedly and joking along. That was until they reached the great hall. She didn't think her sisters noticed but as they walked past others to get to their table Bellatrix could feel a strong force on her, like something digging into the back of her head. She scanned her eyes around the room once, trying to catch the culprit of whatever was happening but all she could see were other students eating merrily, not a clue to her predicament. Thankfully by the time she'd sat down the force had vanished and she could focus back on her sisters.

Tom stood just outside the doors of the great hall, panting and trying to catch his breath. Never had he been rejected so quickly from someone's mind, not even close to breaching it in fact. Her magic was strong, untampered and just waiting to be fully unleashed just beneath the surface. A magic enough to rival his own. She may think she was strong now but oh just wait until he had her with him, by his side. Just wait until he showed her what she's truly capable of.

With these thoughts in mind he swiftly walked away from the great hall entrance, on his way back to his dorm.

[instantlyexhaustedowl]

"He was my first love... And only one."

Summary:

Old photos, one old love and two not that old twins. A bit of talking after Weirmaggedon. Stan listening to his bro-bro memories about college lover.

Notes:

Please be kind to me, it's my first fanfic in English and also my first fanfic i have ever posted.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28580418

Ford was nostalgically sorting old photoes. Wrinkled paper gently rustled in his weary hands. All those memories, forgotten things with distand feeling of lost love, whole past in his worn out hands. "Ya look sad, bro," Stan's voice broke the silence of Ford's room. His twin was looking at him with curious brown eyes covered with thick glasses. He leaned on the doorframe.

Older twin  smiled sligtly, running his polydactyl hands thru grey hairs. Fingers touched silver stripe that cut thru dark grey hairs. He felt suddenly old and exhausted. "Just... Overthinking past, i guess." He patted spot on the sofa next to himself, showing that companion is welcome.

"Pics?" asked carefully Stanley. His mind was still a bit wobbly, but he remembered nearly everything. Definitely good sign. Stan sheepishly sat next to Ford on the sofa. Old matress swayed under his weight and caused, that Ford leaned a bit agaist Stan's shoulder. "What? Oh, yeah... Pictures. Old ones." said author of the journals with sigh while his hands gently folded photos on the lap. "Hehe, 'm probably not in your colection,...  Hey that one... that guy looks cute," chuckled his brother. He pointed at picture of tall smiling boy, maybe a bit older than twenty-one. Long sand blond hair, big blue eyes brightly shining with happines were hinding partly behind small round glasses. That noodle nerd had two daysies tucked behind his ear, big smile on his face. He looked like hippie college student. "Yeah... Fantastic old friend of mine. Wait! It...He is a man. Why do you think he is cute?" suddenly asked Ford. Stan was ladies man. Why he would think something like that?! Stanley blushed. His eyes wondered over room. Now seemed every piece of furniture like super interesting. "Ehh...No comment?" "No Stanley. We should be more honest with each other. We spend enought of our time pushing each other away. I just want to know why do you think that. No judgement, only curiosity." Old man mumbled something. Then he scooted away from Ford. Scietinst seemed a bit concerned. His brother was always the one who wanted to feel the others presence, but this was different. He was suddenly so shy. Ford like physical contact too but only from persons he loved and liked. Stanley was different- he loved patting peoples shoulder, hugging them even thou they were strangers. His attention was like contact sport. And sometimes it could change into one when that person made him angry. Ford's attention thou. It was more about reading between lines. "Pardon, Lee? I didn't understand." "I said... That i dated men too," sighed Stanley. His fingers were twiching. Eyes were trying to burned thru the floor into the heart of the Earth. He made himself look tiny. Whole body curled into himself. Ford's mouth formed into small silent "oh". "'m sorry... Gonna vanish, don't worry." "Are you crazy, Lee?! No vanishing, no going away." "But..." it was strange. Stanley could brake a montain with bare hands and now... He looked so vulnurable. Like scared teen he once was- standing outside in the middle of warm spring night hoping that Ford could forgive him. "But 'm nothing just familly disapointment. Stupid big idiot and even gay..." "If you say it one more time, i will punch you. Without warning! You are not disapointment! You are my best friend i have ever had and best twin brother i could wish for!" "Poindexer, i am weird old fag!" "Probably not. And that is absolutely horrible word, do not use it, please! You did loved Carla, hm." "And some other girls..." admited Stanley with blush of embarassment. "So you are bisexual. You like both." "'m not picky type," shrugged younger brother with hint of smile. He seemed more comfortable now. Hands put on his knees, eyes still sticked to the ground but he didn't look like persone who wanted to crawl under the rock and stay there for next few milleniums. "I am fag... At least that would Pa called me... If he had knew about it..." "That explains lots of things... And highschool," mumbled Stan scooting back so they shoulders touched again. "Pardon me?!" shrieked Ford. "You were curious only about science. And why girls didn't talk to you! Nothing was about girls, only why they kept ignoring you," explained Stan. Ford blinked few times, his face making pretty good impression of confuesed owl. Stanley was smugly smiling: "I've knew the whole time that you are not straight. 'm glad that Pa never knew about it thou. He would kick ya out too, maybe beat ya...Ya would never make it out unharm, on the streets..." "You were the one that ended up there... I can not forgive myself," two big tears started to roll down. Ford tried to dry them with his sleeve. "Poindexter, let it be. We are here, we are good..." "And gay," added Ford with tiny smile. Roaring of Stan's laught filled the room: "YEAH, we are gay! SO ... Who was that cutie? First crush?" His eyebrows wiggled in devilish way. "First crush, first love and only one. He took my heart without asking and never gave it back..." His brother wrapped arm around his shoulders. "You are old sappy man, Ford." "I know. I... Everything could be so different." "What happened?" asked younger twin. He hated seeing Ford depressed. "First time he went back to his family, after a while he had one too. And later when we found each other... Portal happened." "Sixer! I ... I caused...! Did I....?" Stanford grabbed old photos. He hold them on his chest, close to his fast-beating heart. "It was my fault, we had huge arguement and split up. I should have listened to him, but i was the biggest idiot on this Earth!" Stanley suddenly gasped. "You were dating McGucket?! Old man MCGUCKET?! Oh holy hot Belgian waffles!" "Kids aren't home," snarkyly pointed out Ford still carressing his pictures. "In that case- FUCK!" Small smile crept on scientist's face. "May i tell you a story, Lee?" asked Ford. He looked way younger now. Shy blush on his cheeks, still a bit teary eyes behind glasses. But they were light up with memories. "Yep, ya nerd. I haven't heard romantic novel for a long time! Ok i saw one last night. But i want to hear yar romance," beamed happily Stan and made himsleft comfortable. He was now sprawled on sofa, legs streched infront of him, hands folded on his soft belly. "So...Tell me yar fairytale, bro-bro." "Lee you are so silly," nudged Stan's elbow Ford playfully. "Fine. Long time ago... Ok, i am really getting old and silly. We were college roomates. I liked him first time i saw him. He was true opposite of me. Emotinal, empathic, wonderfully talented. His genius was amazing. After a while we got closer and closer. Fidds was so carring, nearly motherly. You should saw him when i was ill. I phoned dad, that i needed some money... to see a doctor, cause i felt really awful. He... shouted at me- to be a man and sleep it off. So i tried it. And fainthed during one of our classes we had together. Fidds did knew what to do, he took care about me. Got me to our room, helped in bed where i stayed for next week barely knowing about world. I don't remember much, my fever was too high. All seemed like a dream. After i got better i found him sitting on the window frame. His eyes were looking into starry night, silently crying. He was aftraid about me whole week and...He finally snapped... We started dating few days later." Ford had tears on his cheeks while he hold old pictures like precious treasure. His hands were clutching them, only gems he had from his past. Someone knock on the door frame. Fiddleford Hadron Mcgucket stood there. He was dressed in jeans, silly shirt with watermelons and drinks on it. He had crazy bowler hat with daisy that kept danggling. Still with beard that could belong to the oldest wizzard in the Dungeons, Dungeons and more Dungeons, but under it was hidden smile. "I swear Stanferd, ma biggest mistake was leaving ya. And i fool made it twice!" Stanley looked at them with squint eyes trying to seem like he fall asleep. "Stop foolin' us, ya'r great conman, but that's horrible try," laugh Fidds hopping on the sofa from Ford's free side. He covered one six-fingered hand with his small one. They fitted perfectly, like two pieces of puzzles. Maybe their hands were a bit cold, but hearts were still aflame with passion and love. "I guess now i've to keep an eye on two nerds," sighed Stanley. "Have fun ya two, i am gonna go to... Don't know. Want a coffee?" "Yeah we will join you," smiled Ford when Fiddleford hugged his waist. "Yej, coffee is great idea pals!" "Gentlemen, we will have gayffee party!" clasped his big hands Stanley and went to the kitchen, chuckling because he liked that new horrible pun. Ford froze a bit and then shouted: "Do not tell this term in front of Mable! Or we all end up covered in rainbow glitters! I don't mind them but i certainly don't like to drink them with my coffee!" "WHO SAID SOMETHING ABOUT RAINBOW GLITTEEEEEERS???????!" "Mabel, calm down! Honey, put that bottle of rainbow disaster down!"

[ditch-witches]

Through Sick and Thin (Dean-Charles Chapman Fluff)

requested: yes/no (Thank you all for your requests! We have a bunch set up to be posted this week! If y’all have any other ideas, send them our way :))

pairing: Dean-Charles Chapman x reader

warnings: fluffy stupid shit, like two(2) swear words oof

word count: 1,238

a/n: *insert crying cat reaction* I just had the flu. I needed this. Let me know what you thought! :)

Your alarm blared monotonically, echoing around the room. Dean groaned and rolled away from you, pulling the covers up around himself so only his nose peeked out from the fabrics. Your fist came down on the button and interrupted the shutter of noise, silence now filling the room. You felt groggier than usual but attempted to push the ache in your throat out of your mind, figuring you just needed coffee and a hot shower.

As the water squeaked on, you pinched the bridge of your nose between your thumb and index finger, your head feeling ten times heavier than usual and your sinuses were completely clogged. It didn’t help that you looked just as horrible as you felt. The shower was not as rejuvenating as you had hoped, only making you now feel light-headed and sleepy. Opting out of makeup to match your attire, you shuffled downstairs rather slowly. “Fuck,” you murmured to yourself, realizing that what was living in your head was preparing to be one of the most annoying colds you could add to the list of stuff you had absolutely no time for.

Dean bustled around the kitchen, a welcomed sight as he poured you a cup of coffee and sent you a grin. “I thought you went back to bed?” You muttered, your voice coming out in a raspy whisper causing him to raise his eyebrows. You attempted to clear your throat as you sunk into one of the high-legged chairs, trying your best to hide how awful you felt. You knew that if you let on that you were sick, Dean would baby you and that’s the last thing you needed. Your fingers curled around the ceramic mug he sent your way, basking in the warmth it brought to you as you realized you were borderline shivering.

Dean eyed you before leaning against the counter. “I mean this with all the love in my heart, honestly,” you met his eyes and a grin crossed his face, “but you look like shit.”

“What a magnificent way to greet the woman you share a bed with,” you quipped back, your voice having more husk in it than his was proving to be your downfall. He sent you an almost excited smile, moving to lean over the counter in front of you. You sent him a puzzled look, resting your chin in your hand.

“You gonna call in sick so I can take care of you?” He moved his shoulders slightly, unable to hide his enjoyment due to the rarity of occasions like this. “It’ll be fun.”

You sighed. “Yeah and you’ll get sick and I’ll have to take more time off because you’re a baby when you get colds,” you nipped at him.

His grin grew wider. “I’ll saran wrap myself, pinky swear.” It didn’t help that while he was making his oath, he had moved around the bar separating the two of you to wrap his arms around you from over the back of your chair, pressing his cheek against your shoulder.

“No, I need to go,” you stated, biting back a laugh at his actions.

He reached a hand up to press against your forehead. He hummed. “No, you’re burning up. You could die from that alone, you know?”

“Really? You’re joking,” you teased, your laugh coming out dry and he gave you one of his famous know-it-all looks as you were building his argument for him. You rolled your eyes as he took your face in his hands.

“I’ll make you grilled cheese.”

You sighed. “Fine.” He’s smile somehow grew more and he leaned forward to kiss you in celebration, but you pushed his face away. “Stop!”

“Sorry! I keep forgetting!” You groaned at his giddy response, pushing yourself out of your chair and leaving to change. Before you knew it, Dean had you bundled up and all of the humidifiers in the house positioned on the floor around you. You absent-mindedly typed away in your laptop as Dean clamored around in the kitchen, refilling your tea mug when you had barely taken a sip and asking if you needed anything or what you were working on every few minutes.

“What do you usually do all day when you’re home, love?” You asked, peering through some of the layers of blankets at Dean, who was eagerly waiting in the threshold of the living room for you to give him a job to do.

He shrugged slightly. “I don’t know. Laundry?” You chuckled at his response, shrugging out of the mountain of comforters and closing your laptop.

“Why do you like my sick days?” You asked him, tilting your head at him slightly, trying your best to give him some kind of an appreciative smile. After all, the man you adored was waiting on your every beck and call without a second thought.

He moved to sit on the coffee table across from you. If you weren’t so sick, you would have reached out to bury yourself in his soft sweatshirt. His immune system was shit. He always got sick. “I enjoy your company.”

You chuckled slightly, rubbing your eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

Dean grinned at you, standing and grabbing your arms to pull you up as well. “If you’re done, you should probably get back into bed, sicky,” he mocked. You pushed his hands away from you as he laughed. “Go on. I’ll be up in a minute.”

As you climbed into bed, you fought not to smile, thinking about your other half who was absolutely giddy about little things the two of you shared. Finding joy in a simple sick day was difficult to do and it almost frustrated you at how well he always took care of you. The only problem was the fact that the bed was cold without him in it beside you. It was going to be difficult falling asleep without him there.

You heard Dean’s footsteps up the stairs and he was peering inside the bedroom shortly after. He had a fresh mug in his hand, as he moved through the room, setting it on the stand beside you. “I noticed you drank a bit of the last one so I brought you another.”

You smiled up at him and he seemed to soften around his edges even more. “Thank you,” you hummed, digging into the sheets more.

He placed a hand in your hair, rubbing his thumb against your cheek slightly before leaning forward again, this time stopping himself. “Dammit, I’m just going to leave before I get whatever you have because I can’t control myself.” You laughed at this.

He turned on his heel and before he made it back out the door, you spoke. “I love you,” you called after him and bit back his smile.

“Okay, you’re just going to have to take more time off because I don’t want to leave you alone.” He practically jumped into bed beside you, wrapping his arms around your body and snuggling against you. You didn’t fight him this time; his warmth made you realize just how tired you actually were.

The next morning you woke up refreshed---tired---but refreshed. You realized your illness had miraculously cleared up as you shut the alarm off, leaning over to press a kiss to Dean’s cheek. As you made your way into the bathroom, you heard him cough slightly, causing you to roll your eyes. “Called it,” you mumbled.

[raelly-writing]

Prompt 8: Clamour - FFXIVWrite 2020

Post 5.3 so beware of the spoilers! Speedwriting in the middle of the night seem like a poor time for Urianger dialogue but eeeeh, whims of the muse?

Clamour: a loud and persistent noise.

---

An unreasonably cold rainstorm had swept in over Mor Dhona and seemingly decided to just stay there for the day.

In short, it was a miserable experience to travel through it. The longing call of dry clothes and something warm to eat and drink made Thancred hurry his steps as he made his way from the stables to the Rising Stones.

Gods, he felt cold. Water dripped off his coat when he finally slunk in through the doors and into the comperative warmth inside. Not that it was easy to feel with the soaked through fabric hanging off his shoulders. Instantly, the familiar clamour and din of the Scions in the middle of dinnertime met him - by the sound of it, Hoary and Ocher was in the middle of retelling some story, their loud voices carrying just over the noise of everyone as they bickered over some detail or another the way siblings seemed to often do.

“Well, look what the coeurl dragged in.” Alisaie gave him a critical once-over as he approached the table where she, Alphinaud, Y’shtola, G’raha and Urianger were seated. “You look terrible.”

“Hello to you too,” Thancred drawled and eyed the barely touched stew in front of each of them. “I see I return just in time for dinner as well.”

“Did it all go well?” Alphinaud set down his mug to look up at him with that adult intensity that looked a fair bit out of place on his still young features.

Nodding, Thancred procured an envelope from his satchel from the contact he had met up with. “Everything is in there.”

Eagerly, he accepted the envelope, his dinner seemingly forgotten as he tore it open and retrieved the documents within.

Casting a glance around to the others, Thancred crossed his arms. “I take it Viana is still in Ishgard?”

“It would appear so,” Y’shtola replied before sipping on her drink.

“Busy as always,” Alisaie added with a shrug. “Probably won’t rest until she’s seen the place rebuilt brick by brick, and by then there’ll be something else to occupy her time.”

The nervous flick of one red ear caught his attention. Evidently sensing Thancred’s gaze on him, G’raha looked up with his brow furrowed and concern evident in his red eyes. “No, I met her a mere hour ago,” he replied.

Instantly, Alisaie sat up straight, brows drawn together in a frown as she fixed G’raha with a stare. “What? Where is she then?”

Suddenly the center of everyone’s attention, even Alphinaud’s, G’raha’s gaze flickered about for a moment, before looking back to Thancred. “She said she wanted to finish some reports before dinner,” he explained slowly. “I assumed she was merely caught up in it and would be down at any moment.”

“You should have said something sooner!” Alisaie exclaimed. “Gods, she's just as bad as you were at taking a break!”

Ignoring the sudden flurry of back-and-forth rebukes and retorts between Alisaie and G’raha, Thancred instinctively cast a concerned glance towards the door leading to the rest of the Rising Stones. A small ball of worry settled in his chest. Usually, Viana was quite punctual about eating with everyone else when she was able to make it back to the Rising Stones.

“Perhaps someone ought to check on her?” Y’shtola’s calm and even voice cut through the other two’s bickering and Alphinaud’s attempts to mediate.

“With the weather this foul, perhaps she hath fallen ill,” Urianger added.

A hush fell over the entire table as they all exchanged looks.

G’raha’s ears lay flat against his head, tail twitching anxiously. “She… did look a bit pale and unfocused.”

Alisaie made a frustrated sound and threw her hands up in the air. “She once fainted straight into Thancred’s arms due to a fever, after insisting that all was fine.” With a sour glance in G’raha’s direction, she crossed her arms and looked for all the world like she was barely holding herself back from bolting from her seat, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “Don’t take her estimates of her own health at face value.”

Thancred could only recall the incident all too well. The prickle of worry in his chest grew as the cold from the rain suddenly was far from his mind. Uncrossing his arms, he began making his way towards the door. “I’ll check on her,” he called back over his shoulder.

--

“Viana?”

A gentle hand on her shoulder shook her from the dark oblivion of a restless sleep. Blinking slowly, her vision swam for a moment before coming into focus. Concerned hazel eyes peered back at her from beneath thick, messy silver bangs.

“Thancred?” she rasped out. Gods, how long had she been asleep? Squinting, she tried to make out the time on the chronometer, but the light filtering in from the window sent another sharp stab of pain through her head.

Groaning, Viana quickly screwed her eyes shut and turned her face back in towards her pillow as her head throbbed as if someone was trying to hammer a spike into her forehead.

“Are you ill? Should I fetch Krile?” Thancred asked while stroking her arm, his voice soft and quiet. Bless him. The touch of his hand was cold, and sent a small shiver through her body.

“Just a headache,” she murmured. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

She felt him grasp her hand in his, the leather of his gloves just as chilly as his fingertips, then the press of his lips against her knuckles. “The others were worried when you didn’t show up for dinner.”

Guilt tugged at her heart. “Tell them I’m sorry for making them worry,” she replied quietly. She wanted to look at him, but didn’t dare to open her eyes lest the throbbing pain in her head would just intensify. Blindly, she reached out and carefully felt for him. Wet coat fabric met her fingertips and she followed it up until she felt his damp skin, tracing the cord of his neck until she could caress his cheek. “You’re wet, love.”

“It’s still pouring down rain outside,” he replied gently, a small trace of mirth colouring his words. Through her muddled thoughts, she recognised the steady drum of the rain against her window then. Ah, right, it had been raining all day so far.

“Do you want me to leave you in peace?”

She wanted to say no, to ask him to stay, but the feeling of his wet hair brushing against her hand, and the chill of his skin made her bite the words back. Surely he was tired from his mission, and cold after riding through this weather. She’d felt frozen to the bone just from running from the aetheryte plaza after teleporting back. “You don’t have to stay,” she quietly responded.

His hand covered hers and she felt him turn his head to press a kiss to her palm. “Not what I was asking, darling.”

Swallowing, she nodded. “Then stay, please.”

The rustle of leather and cloth when he stood up felt sharper in her ears than usual. “Give me a moment then,” Thancred spoke before she felt him brush a gentle kiss to her cheek.

Viana nodded, and curled up beneath the warm covers as she silently listened as he removed his gear.

“Ah, I see this is where my shirt has disappeared off to.”

Despite the pain, Viana managed a small, sheepish smile. “Sorry. It smelled like you,” she mumbled drowsily. “Then it stopped to. Found another. Wearing it now.”

Thancred made a quiet, muffled sound that sounded very much like a rumble of approval. “It’s quite alright, my dear.”

The damp, chilly air nipped at her skin when he lifted up the covers so he could slip beneath them. Viana tried to just shuffle back, but Thancred wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer as he settled on his back. “This okay?” he whispered.

“Mhm,” she responded. Not caring that his skin was cool to the touch, she eagerly fit herself against the length of his body, tucking her face in against his neck despite the damp tips of his hair that were cold against her temple. The scent of rain clinging to him mixed with the familiar, somewhat muted notes of his cologne, leather and the residue from his gunblade cartridges.

Thancred brushed his fingers through the short hairs at the back of her head. “I forgot one thing, Viana... “

Making a quiet noise to show that she was listening, she tilted her head up towards him, but all she caught was the quiet chime of a linkpearl activating.

“Urianger?” Thancred quietly spoke into it while rubbing her back with his other hand. Realising his intent, Viana relaxed again, drifting in a half-aware state. It was only just that she could overhear the sound of Urianger responding.

“Hast ill befallen her? Does thou require mine aid?”

“No, I don’t think so, she seems to just have a severe headache that she wants to sleep off.”

“Ah. I shall convey thy words to the others once and alert mistress Krile to the situation.”

“Thank you. I’ll stay here with Viana, but could you ask F’lhammin to prepare something to eat in a couple of hours? I wager she knows something that fits the situation.”

“Of course, as thou wish. We will check on thy once the set time hast passed.”

There was another small chime as the call was disconnected, and Thancred wrapped his other arm around her once more. The warmth beneath the blankets and covers were slowly seeping into his body, chasing away the cold of the rain. It was so warm and comfortable, quiet save for the drone of the rain against the window.

“I love our friends,” Viana mumbled against the curve of Thancred’s neck. “All of them. But they can get so loud.”

His chest reverberated with a low laugh. “They can get quite lively, yes.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “Did you get the headache in Ishgard?”

“Mrr… Sea of Clouds. Heatwave. So many people around, the constant clamouring and hammering in the Firmament.” Another spike of pain drew a miserable noise from her throat. “Behold; the mighty ‘Warrior of Light’, laid low by a headache,” she groused.

“You are only mortal,” he replied gently. Another kiss was pressed to her hair while his hands still rubbed her back and arm. “Try to go back to sleep, Viana.”

“Mmmkay,” she mumbled, already half-way there, content in his embrace.