#where like a scan was so bad I wanted to scream in the library ;o;

[violet-dragongirl]

[id in alt text]

dark academia is when you have to read the crustiest pdf known to man

[prettyguardiankore-blog]

Their Return (Levi x Fem!Reader)

Chapter 9

(updated completely on my ao3!)

… 47 ... 48 ... 49… . .50! You let out a labored exhale as you collapsed onto the floor, muscles aching. You used to be able to pump out 100 like nothing, and now, it took you twice as long, and you could barely muster 50. This decided it. You were going to start training again. It unnerved you knowing you were this weak. You groaned as you slowly pulled yourself up from the ground, wincing slightly as your muscles pulled. You glanced down at your chest. Boob sweat. Nice. You reached over to the bench for your towel and began wiping yourself down.

They had left in the morning. You hadn’t slept much, and after a restless slumber, you woke up and peered out of your window, to see a flurry of Scouts pouring out of the castle's main gate. It had been raining.

📷

Most of your morning had consisted of you curled up under your covers, desperately trying to return to sleep, so you wouldn’t think about the expedition. Although, it quickly became evident it wouldn’t work- being in your room doing absolutely nothing was a more tortuous task than you’d anticipated. After realizing that being alone with your thoughts wouldn't do, you began to pack your morning with anything and everything you could to pass the time. So far you’d updated the library catalog, dusted the shelves, helped the cooks clean the kitchen (a task that had earned you a small basket of fruits, which you graciously accepted.), and watered some plants. Hell, you’d even cleaned your room, the filthy mess it was. And now you’d just finished a workout. You looked at your watch. It’d been about two hours since you’d come into the training room. That should be good for today, you decided, so you gave yourself one last wipe down before shutting the door, and heading back to your room.

You needed a shower. You stunk, bad. As you entered your room, you marveled once again in how spacious the floor actually was when it wasn’t covered in shit, and headed to the bathroom, removing your sticky sports bra and exercise shorts, and popping yourself into the cool water. They should be returning soon, you thought, as you scrubbed your scalp. Occupying yourself with busywork hadn’t actually done much to calm your nerves, it only distracted you. All day you’d been thinking about them. How many of them would return? If any of them would return... You felt a lump rising in your throat as you clasped your hand over your lips to stop their trembling. You’d never been so emotional. Hange and Moblit had gone on plenty of expeditions, so why were all these fears resurfacing now? You shut off the water and stepped out of the shower to begin getting ready. It was probably because of Furlan. Your chest grew heavy as you replayed through your own memories. The last conversation I had with him reminded me so much of her … you slapped your cheeks. Stop projecting. It wasn’t fair to Furlan or Marla, and it certainly wasn’t doing your mental wellbeing any justice. You sighed, and returned your attention to getting ready. You didn’t want to take too long, so you put your hair up as quickly as you could, threw on a simple sundress your mother had sewn for you ages ago, and headed out the door. You couldn’t wait any longer, and they should be arriving back soon.

You decided to just wait at the top of the tower until you saw them entering Wall Rose. You’d done basically everything you could to pass the time at this point, so all there was left to do was to wait. You stepped up the narrow stairs, and popped into the area. ★Cold air immediately hit your face, and you shivered. I should’ve brought a jacket, you grimaced, rubbing your arms. You’d forgotten how cold it could get up there. You perched yourself onto the wall's edge and peered down below. Everything looked so small from up there.

Jump off.

You blinked, before slowly removing yourself from the edge. Let’s not get into that right now. ★ You stared mindlessly out into the city, until eventually, you noticed something.

📷

You stared out near the gate. You couldn’t see much, but at the very least from where you stood, you could make out a large group of people accumulated near the entrance. You twiddled your thumbs nervously together. It would be around half an hour before they made it back to the castle. So now you had to wait again. You groaned, and slumped your forehead into your palms. You almost wished you hadn’t seen them enter the wall, because now your restlessness had increased tenfold. So you just stood there, eyes closed tightly shut, waiting. The wind brushed against your face. I wonder if the wind is whistling right now. After what seemed like years, you shot a glance over the wall. Your eyes widened. They were back. You shot up and bolted over the door and began running through the castle. All the pent up energy you’d accumulated throughout the day was bursting out of you as you rushed out to go wait by the main gate. You didn’t want to actually talk to them, aside from Hange, most soldiers weren’t very chatty upon their return, rightfully so. So you weren’t entirely sure how you’d go about checking up on everyone without being annoying. Eventually, you settled on waiting by a pillar. When you spot Hange, you’d pull them from the crowd, and ask them how it went. So that’s what you did. You hid yourself behind the tall stone pillar, peeking out from behind it. You squinted your eyes. You couldn’t see them at all. Come on, where are they? You thought, chewing your lip pensively. As you scanned the crowd, you suddenly felt someone grab your sides from behind, and you jumped about a foot into the air, before quickly turning around. You were met with Hange grinning at you, and Moblit standing to their left, shooting you an apologetic look.

You shot a look back to the crowd, and then back to the, jaw dropped open.“H-How did you-”

“You’re not slick you know. Everyone could totally see you.”

“I wasn’t trying to- Well- ”

You didn’t know where you were going with that, so you clamped your mouth shut. You looked back at them, and you realized something. They were standing right in front of you. They weren’t corpses left behind, or being carried on the wagon. There was no one else standing in front of you, telling you with an averted gaze that they didn’t make it. They were right here. Tears began forming in your eyes.

“Oh dear! You’re crying? What’s been up with you recently? Are you going through puberty again?” they chuckled.

“Hange, don’t tease her.” Moblit scolded lightly, before turning back to you, and giving you a kind, but tired smile. He reached over and gently pat your head. “Don’t worry, we’re back.”

You nodded, clenching your jaw tightly to prevent your entire face from trembling.

“Ah, you're just like a little kid.” they smiled pulling you in for a hug. You weren’t big on physical affection, but as they held you, you found yourself craving their touch, and furrowed yourself deeper into their embrace, closing your eyes. A strange warm feeling was blossoming in your chest. It was lovely.

Suddenly you felt another warm feeling in your body, but this wasn’t the feeling of love. It was the feeling of embarrassment. That didn’t take long. You’d come over blubbering like a baby, and had collapsed into their arms. They were probably tired from the expedition, and you were just giving them more to worry about. At once, you felt very uncomfortable. You slowly pulled yourself from their arms and stood, back straight, clearing your throat.

“Sorry. Maybe I am going through puberty again. That would explain a lot.” you chuckled.

“Don’t worry about it.” they said gently. You nodded bashfully. ”How did it go?” you asked.

“Well, we did fine.” they said, turning back to Moblit. “But the rain was really horrible. That, in combination with the new formations we weren’t as familiar with... resulted in a lot of us getting separated. We were fine, but I don’t know about everyone else.” they said, frowning.

“At the very least, we're all accounted for. No one's missing.” Moblit chimed in.

“I see. Well, I’m glad you two are okay.” you said, softly. “Really glad.”

“We could tell.” they teased. You shot them an annoyed look, and cleared your throat.

“By the way, have you seen Levi’s squad at all?” you asked, turning to face Moblit. He looked up, thinking.

“I haven’t. Because we got separated, we ended up turning back at different times. I think we were the last group.” He said, with a shrug. “But they should be back in their barracks at this point, if you want to go check up on them.”

You fiddled with your dress, and shot your eyes down to your feet. You were finally about to find out what happened to them. It was strange. As much as you wanted to rush over and check on them, the ever looming possibility of some of them not being there also made you want to lock yourself away in your room and never come out. But you were going to have to find out eventually, and waiting if you waited any longer you might die from the stress.

“Thank you, Moblit.”

“Mhm.”

You said your goodbyes and thank yous to the two of them, and headed to the barracks. Once you reached the entrance gate, you stopped. The anxiety brewing in your chest left your skin feeling prickly. You clenched your fists. You can do this.

You took a deep breath and began a skittish walk to the barracks, until you found yourself at their room, your hand hovering over the door, preparing to knock. But your hand never moved. You stood frozen, the world still around you, all while your mind was screaming at you to take action. Just do it. Then, you felt someone tap on your shoulder, abruptly pulling you from your trance. You whipped your head back. Levi stood behind you, eyes downcast and sullen. Upon seeing his expression, you felt your nerves go through the roof. He’s alone, you noted, chewing your lip. No, no, that doesn’t mean anything. They might still be at the stables. Isabel really loved that horse. During your writing lessons, she’d often get distracted, and ever since she was assigned that horse, it’s all she would talk about, gushing about the animal until you gently reminded her why she was with you. You swallowed, before mustering out something to say.

“H-how did the expedition go? I heard you guys got separated.”

He said nothing. His silence brought an inescapable feeling of dread washing over your body. You hadn’t wanted to ask this right from get go. But you couldn’t keep it in.

“Where are Isabel and Furlan?” you asked, quietly. He flicked his gaze back to look at you, eyes widening, before casting his eyes back down to the floor.

Your heart dropped to the pit of your stomach. You knew exactly what that look meant. You’d seen it countless times. You took a shaking breath, and tears began dripping out of your eyes. They’d died out there. And they’d died in the most horrendous way possible. They had so much life in them, and it had been torn away. Their last moments had been filled with absolute terror. You brought your hands to cover your face. You thought you could prepare yourself mentally for bad news. How naive. Isabel was so young, and she had barely set out to see the world. Furlan, he definitely had feelings for you. It was something you chose to ignore because you weren’t sure how to deal with it. But, could you have been happy together? Could you have really loved each other? Were all your potential lovers simply doomed to die? These questions felt all too familiar.

But you were not the one hurting the most right now.

You slowly pulled your face from your hands to look at Levi. He looked devastated. His jaw was clenched stiffly shut, eyes dead set on his shoes, He couldn’t meet your eye. Your heart ached at the sight, but you couldn’t think of anything you could do to help him. Nothing you could say could alleviate the pain, and even if it could, you didn’t know that you had the strength in you to say it. You swallowed down the lump in your throat, and finally said something.

“Levi, I am so sorry.” you murmured.

You reached out your arms, and pulled him into your chest. Maybe you should’ve asked first, but you didn’t know if you could successfully get any words out without beginning to cry. So you just held him in your arms. You held your breath. He felt stiff, but eventually, you felt him relax in your arms, and you let out a quivering breath as you exhaled. Your eyes widened as you felt his arms slowly reach up behind your back, returning the embrace.

The two of you held each other. Your shaky breaths had turned into a torrent of quiet sobs as you held him in your arms. Your mind raced over what you could’ve done to prevent this outcome, but you came up with nothing. You thought reaching this conclusion would provide you with some sense of acceptance, but it only deepened the sorrow in your heart. There was absolutely nothing you could’ve done to prevent this, and that was the most frustrating thing in the world. How ironic, you’d reached out to comfort him, but you were the only one crying. After a while, you felt something land on your head, but you dismissed it. But then you felt another, then another, so you decided to pull away and look up at the sky. It was raining again. Fucking great.

“What the hell is up with the weather today?” you sniffled. “It’s totally erratic.” you said, looking back down to meet his eyes.

They looked glassy now, but you decided not to bring it up. He didn’t say anything. Maybe he just wanted to be left by himself, you would understand if he did. But before you left him on his own, you wanted to reach out one last time. Maybe some company would comfort him before he returned to his room, alone. Should I offer him some tea? You shivered, rubbing your arms. It was freezing. Might as well try it.

“W-would you want to grab some tea before you went to sleep?”

“Hold on.”

You raised your brow as he walked into his room, shutting the door in your face, and he soon came out, throwing something at you. You flinched as you aimlessly grabbed at the air, to catch whatever he threw at you, and you realized it was a piece of clothing, you held it up, and saw it was the same jacket he'd been wearing the first time you’d met. You gave him a confused look.

“A thin sundress doesn’t do much for the rain.”

“Ah, I suppose you’re right.” you said, shimmying your arms into the sleeves. Wasn’t quite your size, but it’d do.

“Thank you.”

“Mhm.”

The two of you began walking over to the castle in silence. Thankfully, but not unsurprisingly, there were no annoying guards to pester you on your way there. The heaviness and guilt in your heart hadn’t wavered, but you’d gotten out all your tears, or at least the tears you were willing to spill in front of other people. You soon arrived in the kitchen, and you immediately set to make the tea. Usually the silence would be unbearable, but both of you had far too much on your mind to even notice. Besides, you hadn’t invited him to chat, you only wanted to keep him from being alone for the rest of the evening. You filled the pot with water, placed it on the stove and sat down next to Levi at the table. You were staring out blankly into the air in front of you until you felt him tap on your shoulder, and you turned to his lips.

“How do you deal with this?”

You stopped for a moment to think about how to answer. You probably weren’t the person to ask.

“As I think you noticed a couple days ago, not in the best ways.”

“...How aren’t you angry?”

“I was, I-I mean, I still am, to be honest. The only thing that really changed is that I grew tired...It’s tiring being so angry every single day, “ you paused. “I don’t know if I told you this, or maybe Hange mentioned it, the blabbermouth they are, but during my recovery days, I was very rowdy… I feel so bad for those poor nurses. I had multiple broken ribs, some internal bleeding in my stomach, and to top it all off, I couldn’t hear a thing, but every day, I still tried to sneak out of the hospital, I hated being confined to bed.” you explained, fiddling your fingers together. “This sort of behavior only grew when they told me that more likely than not I wouldn’t be able to serve. I felt like I had to prove my competence to them, so I was sneaking off to the training fields at night. Eventually, they had to restrain me to my bed.”

“Doesn’t sound like you.”

“I’ve changed quite a bit since then, probably for the better. But anyways, about your question, eventually, I realized that my anger had no real direction. I was mad at myself, for not being quick enough. I was mad at Marla, for not listening to our Captain's orders, I was mad at my Captain, for picking us to go back and kill that crazy abnormal, and I was mad at the titans. I even attacked Hange at one point. I quickly lost, considering it took all I had to stand properly.” you said, feeling your face heating up at the memory. “But there was nothing I could do. So eventually my anger waned off, and was replaced with self loathing.”

You stopped to think, staring mindlessly at your hands, folded neatly on your lap.

“But it’s still there, I know that much… but you know, it’s not all bad. I’ve realized that since then the only thing I can do is grow for the better. I only slip when I allow myself to, and that’s fine as long as I can recover the next day.. And I still have people that care about me.” you noted. The faces of Hange and Moblit flashed through your mind. “...And the ones that are no longer here to care for me, I have to act right for them. I don’t want them to be disappointed or sad as they look down on me. I have to live on properly for them.”

You felt the tears welling up in your eyes, and the heavy feeling in your chest reappeared.

“I-I don’t know if any of that was helpful...but that’s my experience with it.”

You looked back to face him. He looked at you with distant eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he did, his eyes flicked over to the stove behind you, and he shut his mouth, pointed a finger at it.

“It’s boiling.”

“O-oh okay. I’ll get that.” you said, leaping off from your seat to the stove. You set it down on the counter to allow it to cool, and opened the cabinet, reaching in for the tea cans.

“Green or black?”

“Green, please.”

You nodded, and set some cups out to steep, before placing yourself back on the seat next to him.

“I’m going to continue on the expeditions.”

You nodded.

“I don’t know what's in store for me in the future, but I’ve decided on one thing. I’m not going to live the rest of my life in regret of this decision.” He swallowed, clasping his hands tightly in front of him. “I’m going to live on, dedicating my whole life to this cause.”

You stared at him. What he was saying sounded noble, but you couldn’t help but be worried. It somehow seemed like a self destructive mindset. You took a long sip from your tea, and stared down into the glistening liquid. You were scared. You’d told him that things got better, but how much of that did you actually believe yourself? It took every ounce of your power not to burst into tears where you sat and cry for hours. You felt a lump in your throat, and swallowed.

“It’s most important to live for yourself. Just remember that.” you said, softly.

“You too.”

“Huh?”

“You shouldn’t be happy just because of the wishes of others. You should be happy because you are.”

You blinked at him, before staring back into your mug.

“I guess I was being sort of hypocritical, huh?”

The two of you sat there in silence for a while, slowly sipping away at your tea, until eventually, your cups were empty. You reached into your pocket for your watch. It was late now. You turned back to face him.

“We should probably get out of here.” you said, pulling yourself up from the chair. You reached out your hand. “I’ll take your cup.” you offered. He took one last, long sip before placing the cup in your hand, and getting himself up. You placed them gingerly in the sink, and the two of you left the kitchen. You walked in silence down the hallway, until you reached the point where you had to separate.

“Well, I need to get going.” you said. He didn’t say anything in response. You chewed your lip, unsure if you should say more, or just leave. Eventually, you placed your hand on his shoulder, giving him a weary smile.

“Get some rest, Levi.” you told him.

“Thank you for talking with me.”

“Of course.”

You began walking in the opposite direction, back to your room. As you pulled open the entrance to the next hallway, you shot a glance behind your shoulder. He was gone. You continued through the castle to your room. You closed your door delicately behind you, and just stood there for a moment. It was silent. Well, it always was, for the most part, aside from the slight ringing that existed in your ears, and the dull hum that you could sometimes pick up if someone spoke to you. But this felt different. A strange quietness overcame you, the world around you seemingly stagnant. It sent a strange prickling feeling that ran all the way up from your toes to the back of your neck and made you shudder.

You slowly walked over to your bed, and shimmied yourself into the covers. The tears you’d been holding in almost immediately came pouring down your cheeks. But these tears were different than the thousands you’d shed before. They weren’t tears of anger, or of guilt, all you felt was genuine sorrow. And it was the most painful thing you’d ever experienced. All of the emotion you’d repressed over the last year came spilling out all at once. You didn’t just cry for Isabel and Furlan, but for Marla as well. It was like she’d died all over again, but this time, you didn’t have any anger or resentment left to disguise it. You let out a torrent of choked sobs, and you shoved your messy face into your pillow, a vain attempt to contain it all. The heavy feeling in your chest felt like it would never go away, all you could do was cry.

Eventually, you stood up to grab some tissue to wipe the sticky snot and hot tears from your face. As you were about to get back in bed, tears already rolling down your cheeks, you gazed out into the dark night from your window. The sky was clear of clouds, the bright moon illuminating the night. Its soft light entered your room, giving everything a slight glow. Waning gibbous, you thought, as you stared out into the night. You reached over and opened the window, a cool breeze entered the room, and you leaned up against the window.

Rest well, you guys.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Levi walked down the empty corridors. He had been unsure whether to take her up on her offer, but he was glad that he had. It had given him something to think about, as opposed to just spending the rest of his evening in a lonely room, alone with his own thoughts. He’d learned more about her, too. When he reached the door that led to the exit, his hand hovered over the handle. Do I want to go back to my room yet? He slowly began walking back down the hall. He walked aimlessly around the castle, until he found himself in the same place he had the last time he’d done this, the stairway to the tower. He stared at the entrance, and took a slow step forward. Just as he was about to enter, he hesitated. Did he really want to go in there right now? Relive through the memories? But before he knew it, he was quickly walking up the narrow staircase, pushing the door open.

📷

The cool night air immediately hit his face. He slowly walked over to the wall, and perched himself on the edge. The sky was clear of clouds, unlike the last time he was here. The moon’s light shone brilliantly on him. He gazed up into the sky in wonder. The stars were more visible this time around, scattered about as if a large hand had carelessly tossed the sparkling lights into the dark sky.

Inevitably, the memory of them sitting by his side came to his mind. The way Isabel had nearly fallen off the wall after jumping from the excitement of seeing a constellation she recognized, the way it had nearly given Furlan a heart attack from the shock.

“You need to believe in us!”

Levi sighed, and pulled his head into the palms of his hands. A tear finally fell down his cheek.

I’m so sorry, you guys.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

[stones-x-bones]

Where Is Your Guilt || Kyle and Bex (ft. Morgan)

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @darkh0wl @inbextween and @mor-beck-more-problems SUMMARY: Bex and Kyle meet up at the campus café to try and relieve each other of their guilt. Narrator voice: It went poorly.  CONTENT: PTSD flashback, Panic attack, Sad wolf boi and sad witch gorl

Bex paced. Her chest was pounding with nerves. It didn’t hurt so much today, it was getting better, really. It didn’t hurt so much. She could do this, she could see Kyle. She could, really. She just had to keep telling herself that she was safe, that this was okay. That he wasn’t going to hurt her. Of course he wasn’t. This was nothing like the circumstances that brought the incident on. There was no mind link, no essay to write, no panic attack. No anger, no moon, no night. It was the middle of the day, in a crowded cafe. Well, not crowded. Bex didn’t like crowded places and she assume Kyle wouldn’t either. Especially for this. She paced outside because sitting seemed too hard right now, even if her chest was beginning to hurt from all the movement. She rubbed it and paused and tried to collect herself. She needed to calm down, lest her magic go haywire again. She couldn’t let it hurt him again. A familiar voice, Bex looked up. Across the way, Kyle was heading towards her. She wanted to run to him, to hug him, to reassure him everything was okay-- but something glued her to her spot and her entire body froze up. 

Kyle had debated not coming. He had debated laying in bed forever and deleting Bex’s number. That was stupid. Of course he had to come, he nearly killed her. The least he could do was show up (in a well lit, well populated area,) and apologize to her face. If he could even look her in the eye after what he’d done. He had sat in his Jeep, staring at the wheel and willing himself to get out of the car. He had taken his time making sure he didn’t look like the sleepless zombie he felt himself to be. When he thought he could keep Bex waiting no longer, Kyle took a deep breath to ground himself, and he headed toward the cafe on the UMWC campus. It wasn’t as heavily populated as he had hoped. Maybe extra eyes on him could have been incentive enough to keep his shit together. That was fine, he would just have to keep himself calm. That was doable. As he approached, he called out. “Bex! Hey.” At least she knew he was coming this time. He hoped that when he waved, she couldn’t tell how badly his hands shook. He shoved his hands in his pockets to try to mask the anxious shaking. “How are you?” he asked, as he closed the distance between them, concern written across his face.

Bex stepped back as Kyle approached. She didn’t mean to, but she did, and her back hit the door as someone pushed it open and she jumped away, apologizing profusely. She turned back to Kyle, her hands were already shaking. She immediately knew-- this was a bad idea. This was a terrible idea. She looked at him and she saw red eyes glowing and she heard his voice in her head-- Prey, hunt, kill-- and she felt claws in her chest. She tried to open her mouth to respond but couldn’t get anything out. Drew in a breath in an attempt to calm herself down. This wasn’t  that. This wasn’t then. She was fine. She was fine. “I’m-- okay. I’m doing-- I’m-- fine.” She withdrew her arms and tucked them tightly over her chest, folding into herself. “I--” her eyes tried their best to scan the boy. He looked okay, physically, but she knew he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He was hit by a car. He was forced to change into a rabid animal. He had almost killed her. Bex took another step away. “Are you? O-okay? Please just...tell me y-you’re not taking all this on a-alone?”

Something about Bex’s body language was off. Kyle’s brow knitted together and he listened carefully to her. He swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat and nodded. “Fine,” he said, his voice sounding more hoarse than he expected. He cleared his throat, looking down at his feet. “I’m doing fine.” Kyle’s hands were clenched into fists in his pockets. It was hard to look at her because some animalistic part of his brain still wanted to see prey. He had to take a steadying breath when he looked back up at Bex. “I’m-- I mean I guess I’m alone. It’s okay. You-- How are you doing with things? Are--are you healing?” His eyes drifted over Bex. The way she hugged her own chest broke his heart. He did that to her. What if they had never been in the library at the same time? Would things have shook out the way they did? Would Bex be better off? He looked down at his feet again in an attempt to make Bex feel like she wasn’t staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. “Do you want to sit?” he mumbled at the ground.

So they were both liars then, huh? Bex didn’t know what to do anymore. Morgan had been right, this was a bad idea. Wasn’t she always right? Had Bex really not learned that lesson by now? She shook off the thoughts and looked over at Kyle. He looked almost as afraid and in pain as she was. He hid it better. She tucked her chin into her shoulder. “You’re not fine,” she muttered, turning to look around at the patio outside. Did she want to sit? No, she wanted to leave. Her heart was beginning to pound in her chest again. Her throat felt tight. Her body shook in a cold sweat. “You shouldn’t b-be alone. It’s not fair. I-- you deserve to have people helping you. Please, please don’t--” she paused, swallowed, “don’t take this all on yourself. It-- it’s my fault, t-too. Please.” She begged, finally feeling brave enough to step towards him. She reached out, unfurling her arms. She wanted so bad to reassure him, but, instead, a vision flashed before her eyes. The alley, the angry wolf. Running. Cold, hard ground on her back. She saw his eyes and his teeth and claws-- and she screamed. 

“No, no,” Kyle began, shaking his head. “I don’t want to hear about how it’s your fault. It’s not.” He could hear the way her heartbeat picked up. He hadn’t even been listening for it, but became aware of it as it sped up. She wasn’t doing okay, and it was his fault. She was panicking and it was his fault. Kyle was ready to call the whole thing quits. He wanted to turn and walk away right now. This had been a bad idea, and he shouldn’t have agreed to it last night. Truthfully, he’d only agreed because it seemed like it might make her feel better. He had hoped she’d bring Mina or Morgan or, hell, even Nell. He hadn’t wanted her to come alone. But here they were, and Bex was trying to tell him not to take this on alone and that it was her fault. That hurt to hear. Kyle had sincerely fucked this girl’s whole life up in one go, hadn’t he? He took her whole world and just flipped it on its head because he couldn’t keep his cool for five fucking minutes. “Bex, this isn’t your fault,” he said, closing his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something more, but then Bex was screaming. Kyle’s eyes flew back open and he froze. The same feeling started rising in his chest; he began to feel that familiar, but pressing, urge to shift. Breathe. Breathe. “Breathe.” Was he saying that outloud? Fuck.

No, this wasn’t happening. This couldn’t happen again. This wasn’t the same. Breathe. Bex put her hands over her ears and sank to the ground. It was happening again. It was happening again. It was like waking up from all of her nightmares of it again, and again, and again. There was a pressure on her chest again and she gasped for breath. Breathe. Who was saying that? Was she saying that? Tear filled eyes looked around wildly. She saw faces, but they blurred into street lights. She remembered how they flickered above her. Remembered how they’d cast shadows onto the wolf as it charged from the alley and right towards her. “Stop it!” she shouted, reaching out and shoving whoever was in front of her. Hands found purchase on something solid and she pushed herself up, trying to get away from the alley-- the building. She needed space. She needed to breathe. She collapsed just shy of the grass, on her hands and knees, clutching her chest. Had she made it far enough away? She could feel magic seeping from her hands. The grass in front of her decayed in an instant. The sidewalk cracked under her fingertips. She needed to calm down. She couldn’t calm down. She put her head in her hands again and curled into a ball. This had been such a bad idea. She wished she’d never came. She wished she’d never met Kyle. She wished she didn’t have magic.

The push was unexpected, and Kyle stumbled backwards, landing on his butt. He barely felt it, eyes locked on Bex. At this point, Kyle was aware that spellcasters existed. He knew the effects magic could have on two people; the way it could make two divergent paths become one. He knew that Nell had healed Bex, too, and that it wasn’t always destructive. But something about seeing it right in front of his eyes--the way the grass just up and died, the way the sidewalk fractured like fault lines--made him feel as if he weren’t real. Mouth agape, Kyle stared at her for a long moment, before he jolted back to his senses and went to her side. “Bex? Bex, it’s--it’s okay, I’m--I won’t hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you.” That sick little instinct at the back of his mind called him a liar. He did want to hurt her. He wanted to attack her again. But watching Bex curl up like that had him shaking his head. He had to stop thinking and do something about this. He knelt down beside her and tentatively put a shaking hand on her shoulder. “I won’t hurt you again I--I can’t hurt you again. It’s okay!” Should he call someone? Should he leave? He couldn’t leave her like this, right? This was his fault, he needed to fix it. He needed to do something. 

She knew. Logically, she knew. He wasn’t going to hurt her. He wasn’t. Really. Hadn’t she told Morgan that? And Mina? And Nell? So, then, why didn’t she believe it. Her heart seized again at the sound of his voice. Bex doubled over, clutching her stomach. She felt sick. Her body was shaking, she couldn’t control her thoughts anymore. “Go away!” she shouted into the grass. Her body shimmered, glowed, a hazy piece of herself breaking away for only a moment. She wanted out of this moment. She wanted to run away. “Don’t touch me!” She didn’t even notice the bystanders at the cafe staring them down. Discussing whether to call campus security or the police or the medical staff. Bex’s breathing began to wheeze, as if she couldn’t get enough air to her  lungs. The nearby lamps began to hum with the low pulse of energy. She needed to reign herself in, she was going to hurt someone again. But every time she opened her eyes, she just saw the wolf atop her. Teeth sharp, eyes full of bloodlust. He wanted to kill her. He was going to kill her. She could remember the thoughts echoing in her head. Prey. Hunt. Kill. “Stop, please!” she cried out. “Please, I don’t want to die, please.” And she hadn’t meant to, but she couldn’t control herself, could she? But her mind, her magic, it made them all see. Everyone nearby. Flashes of the wolf. The pain she’d felt as claws dug into her chest. The fear she’d felt when she was sure he was going to kill her. Now, she wasn’t the only one screaming. “Make it stop,” she sobbed, “please make it stop.”

Running his hands through his hair, Kyle stood up and backed away from Bex. This was bad. This was really, really bad. She hated him, and that thought was making him spiral. He dragged his hands over his face. “Focus, focus, focus.” He had to call someone who knew what they were doing. His hands fumbled for his phone, and he called Morgan, thanking the gods that he’d saved her number the day he was in the art studio. The second Morgan picked up, Kyle was already speaking. “Morgan, it’s Kyle. The campus cafe, you need--Bex--she’s-- Get here. Now.” He couldn’t keep the feeling at bay for much longer, though he was surprised with himself that he’d been able to at all. He was going to shift, and it was going to happen soon, if he didn’t calm down. He just needed to wait for Morgan to get here. Then he could go. Morgan just had to get here.

Morgan was in her office when she got the call. She didn’t pack up her things so much as she shoved as much as she could with one sweep of her arm, and everything left, books, charging cables, Pyrex, papers, whatever the hell, didn’t matter. She took the steps two at a time, shamelessly shoving students and faculty out of her way until she could sprint down the quad to the cafe. 

“Bex!” She called. Kyle paced fastidiously nearby, his body hunched and tense. Which made the shape face-planted in the ground Bex. “Bexley!” She dropped her bag, tired of it banging and rattling uselessly against her side. Then she threw herself onto the girl, wrapping her up and pulling her up. “Bex, hey-- Honey, hey--” Bex thrashed in her arms, shaking with panic and terror. Morgan bundled her tighter against her chest. She looked up at Kyle, pleading for answers. “What happened? Is she hurt? Did you do something?” Around her, lights groaned and flickered. Sparks flew out from the nearest lamp. At the cafe tables, students were trembling and whimpering, an eerie chorus, out of tune in a way that reminded her of the worst of fae magic. “Tell me what’s happening!”

Bex felt something pulling her up and she lashed out, thrashing. “Don’t!” she cried out, not seeing who it was, not knowing who it was. “Don’t touch me!” But the grip just tightened. She cried out in anguish, lost in the memory that was consuming her mind. Pressure, like on her chest, claws digging in. She pushed and shoved and squirmed but she couldn’t get away. She couldn’t get away. She was losing control. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She didn’t mean to hurt anyone. She inhaled sharply-- a lamp finally shattered. Exhaled-- the sidewalk splintered more, like tremors in the ground. Her body shook inside the vice grip she knew she couldn’t escape. “Please don’t,” she begged, she pleaded, her eyes seeing straight through Morgan, straight through Kyle, and looking up at the wolf, “please don’t kill me.” 

There wasn’t time to answer Morgan’s questions. Not with all these innocent people around. Not with Bex reliving what he’d already done to her. Not with the kindness Morgan had shown him when he least deserved it. “She-- I don’t know, Morgan! I don’t know! She was screaming and she’s--It’s me! I-it’s happening again, and I can’t let it.” He couldn’t breathe. His eyes glinted in the light cast from the sparks that showered down from the lamps around them. “I have to go,” Kyle said breathlessly. He was already discarding his jacket and shoes and phone and keys beside Morgan’s bag. He couldn’t afford to buy new clothes every time this happened, and it was happening with an unexpected frequency as of late. He had to go. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered, turning and running for the forest as quickly as he could. 

It hurt. His body was still so sore, his skin still so raw. No time. Can’t breathe. Kyle hadn’t made it more than ten yards into the woods--his shirt and pants discarded just beyond the treeline--before he was stumbling to his knees. His claws dug into the earth. What if he was still too close? He could hear Bex’s screams in the not so far distance. What if he turned around to go back after them? What if he couldn’t stop this time? There wasn’t enough time to follow that line of thinking all the way to the conclusion before Kyle was fully shifting. It took him a few minutes to recover. He took in a deep breath and he could smell fear. Kyle rounded on his heels, ears pricked as he listened intently. Please don’t kill me. He stilled. Head up, eyes darting around in search of an easy meal, Kyle slowly stalked forward. Suddenly, a twig snapped behind him. He whipped around, spotting a wolpertinger crouched under some low brush. The beast took off, Kyle took off after it, and he was gone.

“Kyle, no. Kyle, wait!” Morgan cried. But he was long gone and as much as it pained her to see him retreating, shamefaced over something he couldn’t carry, it was a lot easier to deal with one superpowered oversized kid than two. Morgan sighed, lamenting silently. (Someone had to do better for him, someone had to care for him, show him that he didn’t have to make such a mess or be so alone.) Then she turned the rest of her attention on Bex. 

“Hey,” she cooed. “You’re safe, Bex. No one is going to hurt you. I’ve got you. You’re safe, and you’re here with me.” She spoke her words softly and steadily into the girl’s ear, the way Deirdre did for her during her worst moments. “You’re with me. You’re safe. And you’re not in that alley, you’re here. You have to breathe until you find your way back to me, honey. Can you breathe a little slower, like I showed you?” Morgan tapped the rhythm on her arm and squeezed her tighter still. If she dislocated something, she’d pop it back into place and apologize later.

Words began to break through her facade. You’re with me, you’re safe. You’re not in that alley. Bex slammed her eyes shut and did her best to listen to them, panting with exhaustion as she tried her best to breath. In for three, out for five. A steady rhythm being tapped on her arm. The grip around her tightening, shifting from a painful reminder, to a place where she knew she was safe. The arms were cold, the grip was warm. Morgan. Bex inhaled sharply as she suddenly snapped from her flashback, blinking rapidly. She tried her best not to hyperventilate, sucking in air, collapsing into Morgan’s arm from the stiff, frightened ball she’d tried to curl into before. She let her entire weight lean against Morgan, clutching her chest as she tried to breathe. Just breathe. Kyle’s words. Just breathe. She’d done it again. She’d ruined everything again. She should’ve just stayed home. She didn’t cry this time, just let her body grow limp against Morgan. “I’m sorry,” she wheezed, finally finding enough air in her lungs to speak, “I made it worse. I’m sorry.” Monotone words mumbled into her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes lifted to the treeline, off behind Morgan’s shoulder. Kyle was spiraling into a world of hurt and loneliness and it was all her fault. She’d find a way to fix it. She’d do better next time. She’d fix it even if it meant tearing herself apart.

[zhong-taro]

shotaro as a friendly ghost

 this is 2.8k words of shotaro and taeyong interacting and yes it’s all self-indulgent

tw: small mention of suicide, but it’s marked very clearly!

Ok so this is definitely part of a longer, more detailed AU that I’ll probably go into more later (like way later)

bUT let’s start here - Shotaro is a friendly ghost

Oh my g o d he’s such a sweetie you have no idea

When he dies, it’s something really dumb

He and his parents had moved to Korea after his father had sold his company and suddenly come into a significant amount of money 

It’s enough that they buy a large plot of land in Korea

Shotaro is about five years old when they buy the land and start construction on the house

It’s positioned at the top of a large hill that looked down over a small Korean town, and in the hot summers the house provided shade for a park, and when it rained the house blocked from too much flooding

Well, once it was finally built it did

It took five years for this absolute MANSION of a house to be built. Shotaro and his family had lived in a small rental home in the town, acquainting themselves with everyone and becoming established members of the community

When the place was finally finished, Shotaro was ten and the Osaki’s would have large gatherings of people at their home most weekends, with large parties every holidays

Originally, the family had built such a large home because they planned on taking in many foster children and helping to raise orphaned children

They never get to

The 1950’s were an absolute golden era for the Osakis, they’re loved by everyone around them and their perfect little boy Shotaro shines in Korea like he never had in Japan

Until in 1959, when they suffer great tragedy and the family is never the same again

Personally, Shotaro thinks he couldn’t have had a dumber death

He was nineteen and it was the night before the town dance contest. He was more than nervous - his parents had already been taking him out of town for dance lessons because he was too scared that the entire town would think he was bad at dancing, but now he was actually facing them

All of these people had known him since he was a toddler, he couldn’t handle the idea of all of them thinking he was bad at something he had found he loved

So he couldn’t sleep

And he had wandered downstairs, grabbing a cup of water and taking it back to his bedroom

However, he had tripped on the top step while going back to his bedroom and spilled water all over the hardwood floor

When he took the last step to try and clean up the spilled water, he slipped and fell down the stairs

Unfortunately, the Osaki parents woke up to a gruesome scene of their son dead at the entryway to their home

Shotaro thought he woke up, but when he stood up and his body didn’t stand with him, he knew something was wrong

And when his mother walked down the stairs (through him, mind you) and screamed, sobbing into his body, he realized that things might’ve been worse than he realized

It didn’t take long to figure out that he had died

(( tw // suicide for the next two bullet points ))

His parents couldn’t handle the pain

After his funeral, it took less than a month for both of his parents to commit suicide

Shotaro had been hoping that they would also become ghosts, but no such luck

So he was left alone, in a huge house that hadn’t seemed nearly as lonely only a month before

Of course he tried to leave, but he could never get past the gates that marked his parent’s property at the bottom of the hill

And so he sat in his house

For decades

Throughout the years, the house decayed and became decrepit. The chandelier fell one year, leaving glass scattered across the front entryway

Books became dusty, all but the ones in the library because Shotaro spent most of his time in that room and watched the days go by through the stories he would read

And when he opened up the windows on a nice spring day and leaned out, looking over the small town that he had loved so much, he heard the rumors

Tales of the haunted house at the top of the hill, told by a new generation of children who had never seen the Osaki home in its original glory

And Shotaro felt the repeating disappointment when a child would look into the windows, seem to spot him, and yelp before running away

So Shotaro becomes a recluse - not because he wanted to, but because he has to

After about 15 years, people start trying to sell the house

He doesn’t let that happen. Shotaro had become quite the… depressed person since his parents death. He had never really been given the opportunity to react to things as they happen. He’s always to put down the book and take a few deep breaths before continuing, or just walk away from the window when the rumors become too upsetting

But when that first person - a potbellied, middle aged man - comes to see the house in the interest of buying it, Shotaro sees red

And so he does what he thinks ghosts are supposed to do

He scares the man off

Years later he looks back and sees how bad of a ghost he was, but that just means that the guy must’ve been real cowardly

Because all he has to do is open a few windows, move around a few glasses, make some scary noises, and the guy is turning on his tail and sprinting out the door

More people come back - a family of three very wealthy foreigners who don’t speak the language, one rich old woman who decides the house would be too much upkeep six sons with two tired parents who decided there was too much room for trouble, and probably dozens more

The ones that don’t decide to move out on their own, Shotaro scares off

He gradually gets better at it - it’s hard to learn how to keep himself transparent at first

He thinks that he can become completely invisible, slightly translucent, or almost-solid but he’s never spoken to someone to figure it out

But as he watches the house crumble more and more around him, it gets more and more difficult to scare away the shoppers

He just wishes somebody other than pretentious jerks would come looking. He likes the original gothic architecture his parents designed, and he knows the house would be beautifully unique if somebody came along to restore it. But he’s not sure if he likes the idea of someone else coming into his house

Although he doesn’t have much of a choice after a while

The man comes along with the same real estate agent who’s been trying to sell Shotaro’s house for at least five years now

He’s pretty sure the woman knows he’s haunting the house, because she shoots glares into the empty air where he makes strange noises or moves furniture, but that sure doesn’t stop him from scaring all her clients away

When she steps in, she holds the open for a red haired man with a sharp jaw

He whistles as he looks around the large entryway, the noise echoing. He looks down at the large chandelier, still shattered on the marble floor, and raises one eyebrow at the agent

“What happened there?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s been there ever since I started trying to sell this place.”

“Have you tried to have it cleaned?”

“Of course,” she looks a little insulted. “But the… ghost,” she glares into the empty air, across the room from where Shotaro is currently floating, “Seems to scare everyone off before they can get much done.”

The man smirks, turning away from her and looking around the entire room. He stands in silence for a few moments, scanning everything (Shotaro tries to ignore how nervous he feels when the man’s eyes briefly pause at his place at the old dining room table, but he tries a lot harder to not think about the point of his teeth)

“I’ll take it.”

The man shows up again the next day, and Shotaro is not happy about it

When he arrives, Shotaro is standing on the stairs and glaring at the front door

After unlocking the doors and stepping in, the red-haired man placed his hands firmly on his hips and smiled while looking around the room

“My name is Lee Taeyong.” the man announced loudly. The smile didn’t slip off of his face as the silence of the house continued. “I was born in 1995,” (how has that much time passed since he died?) “I’m a vampire, and I promise I will treat your home with respect.” 

Well. That’s interesting

But Shotaro chooses to gloss over the vampire thing and scoffs, storming up the stairs

The man - supposed vampire - doesn’t go into any rooms or even go upstairs on the first night. He just sleeps (pretends to sleep? Do vampires sleep? Are vampires even real? Shotaro stows all these thoughts away to deal with later) on the couch after ordering food in.

When he wakes up in the morning, Taeyong still has that obnoxious smile on as he looks around at nothing. Shotaro is there, watching and making sure the man doesn’t mess anything up

So when Taeyong fiddles at the dining room table, which only has three working legs and is almost broken in half, and asks the room “Would you be ok with me getting rid of this table?” Shotaro throws a glass at his head

He misses, intentionally obviously, and the old glass cup shatters against the peeling wallpaper of his dining room. Taeyong snorts and holds his hands up in surrender “Alright, no table. Hey, can you throw another glass if you’re a male ghost, please?”

Shotaro throws another glass, and once again ignores the point of the new man’s teeth

Later in the morning, early afternoon, Taeyong starts looking around the house.

“Are you  gonna try and kill me again if I go upstairs?” He asks, and Shotaro does nothing but cross his arms from where he’s sitting on the dusty banister

“I’ll take that as a no.”

And so they head upstairs. Taeyong stops in front of every doorway, and if Shotaro doesn’t want him going in the room he makes the door shake and bangs on the wall a few times

Taeyong doesn’t understand this message at first, and when he almost opens the door to Shotaro’s parent’s room he loses it

The ghost bangs on the door so hard the whole thing shakes, making what little art that was still hanging shudder. He yells for effect, coming out more of an angry groan (because he still can’t quite talk to humans when he’s invisible), and shoves Taeyong away from the door

The older (well, physically older) man looks shocked and stands still for a moment staring at the door, before shaking his hand and smiling a little. “Alright, I get the message Mr. Ghost.”

Shotaro only stops him again at his own bedroom door and his library, everywhere else he lets Taeyong explore. The vampire goes back to one of the guest rooms with an en suite and asks if he can keep this room as his own

Shotaro reluctantly lets him take the room, and tries to tell himself that this man is not going to be the one who ends up staying in his house

Again, the night Taeyong orders food in and eats on his own

Although before ordering the food, he grabs a box that had showed up on the front doorstep when Shotaro wasn’t looking

He floats around Taeyong as the other man carried the box to the only table not broken (a coffee table) and opens it with his unnaturally sharp nails. Shotaro’s nose crinkles at the bags of warm blood, and he reaches in to shift them around

“Animal blood,” Taeyong says quickly. “I promise I’m not a murderer, ghost friend.”

Shotaro has to look away as Taeyong drinks it, and gags for the first time since he’s died when he uses the animal blood as a topping for his burger and fries

The next morning, Shotaro comes out of his library after a night of reading and smells breakfast. When he goes downstairs, he’s greeted with Taeyong, dancing a little to a song playing out of a small metal box that Shotaro doesn’t understand and making breakfast

Shotaro peeks over Taeyong’s shoulder to see the bacon, eggs, and pancakes he’s making

He lets himself float up a little and pushes open the window open right above the counter

“Oh!” Taeyong looks up with wide eyes, looking around. “Hello, Mr. Ghost!” He smiles and his eyes pause where Shotaro floats before continuing to look around. “I’m not sure if you can eat, but if you can you’re welcome to some of the food.”

Shotaro can’t eat, but he appreciates the gesture

Through the next few days, they fall into a rhythm

Taeyong doesn’t seem to sleep, but meditates. He never goes fully unconscious but he does seem to float a little bit. Every other day the box of blood arrives and Taeyong drinks some with every meal, plus three full glasses throughout the rest of the day, and Shotaro learns to live with it

Shotaro won’t let Taeyong into only two rooms, but lets the vampire look around the rest of his home

They fight over a few things, like fixing different things up, but not much. Eventually Shotaro lets him buy new furniture and doesn’t object when the man adds a few new paintings to the walls

Shotaro finds himself thinking that maybe this one person (undead vampire?)  might not be so bad to live with - for now, at least

Shotaro walks into his library one day, about a month into living together, and finds Taeyong already there. He tries not to get angry, and feels a wave of emotions when he sees that Taeyong is staring up at the portrait of the Osaki family hanging between two large windows. He distantly notices that the man is sitting on the only section of couch without direct sunlight landing on it

He lets the door creak and close noisily as he steps inside, tries to will the wind from the open windows to grow a little colder as he floats next to where Taeyong is sitting

“Which one are you?”

Shotaro wishes he could respond, and looks around desperately for a way to show him

He grabs a dead flower from a large vase sitting on the end table and uses it to point to his face, the painted-him smiling slightly between his two parents and looking as awkward as he always felt in life

Taeyong sighs a little. “You must be so young…” He stares at where he must estimate Shotaro’s head is, judging by the floating flower, and smiles sadly. “I can’t believe the ghost haunting my house is a teenager.”

The painting rumbles a little as the wall shakes.

“Fine, sorry,” Taeyong chuckles a little. “Your house.”

Shotaro can see a shift in Taeyong’s behavior after that

The man seems to actively seek him out and starts talking to him more and more

He starts asking more questions - mostly things Shotaro can’t figure out how to answer - and becomes more joke-y with him

“Can I see you?”

Shotaro freezes from his perched position on a chair across from Taeyong.

“I don’t know if you even know how to show me what you look like, but I’ve been living here for 3 months, don’t you think it’d be more comfortable if I actually knew where you were?” Taeyong is looking at where Shotaro has his book propped up as he marks his page and puts it down

With very little effort, he wills himself into view. Not fully - he still isn’t sure he can even do that - but enough that his features are visible

Taeyong stares for a few moments before speaking

“You’re a baby.”

Shotaro gapes for a moment before laughing, a soft sound that sounds muted in his non corporeal form.

“You can’t be anything but a teenager, how old are you?” Taeyong’s surprised look has slipped off his face and now he looks more curious and excited.

“Well, physically 19,” Shotaro speaks slowly, trying to get used to the way his voice sounds - he hasn’t spoken much since his death. “But I died in 1959”

Aaaand Taeyong gapes again

“Holy crap, that was 50 years ago!”

Shotaro tilts his head to the side a little, thinking. “Really? Hmm, I didn’t realize it was so long ago.”

Taeyong smiles again, leaning forward as he pushes away his breakfast plate. “What’s your name, ghost-teenager?”

“Shotaro, Osaki Shotaro.”

“Nice to meet you Shotaro,” Taeyong grins at him, hair falling into his face. “I’m Taeyong.”

[thatfrogkiki]

Incendio

Revolution (Royal Witch AU)

Chapter Two: Incendio

Draco Malfoy x royal!Reader

Author: @thatfrogkiki​

Warnings: slowburn, swearing, political themes, eventual smut (everyone is 18+ in this AU), violence, etc.

Summary: The Reader gets caught by Draco in the forbidden history section of the library, but she’s found her book she was looking for. However, Draco refuses to leave her be without a fight.

Word Count: 1935

Author’s Note: I’m not sure how I feel about this chapter, but I thought I’d post it anyways! I have plans for more interesting chapters, so please stick around for them if you’d like! Any feedback is welcome by the way! I appreciate all your kind words!

Y/n = Your name

Y/m/n = Your middle name (going to be used as your fake last name)

~~~

*Reader’s POV*

I have to find it here… I just have to… If it isn’t here, it isn’t anywhere… I try my best to quickly scan each book on every bookshelf in the history section. The further I go into the forbidden history section, the heavier my chest feels. It makes me feel like I really shouldn’t be here, but I must go on. Nothing can stop me from fulfilling my destiny…

“C’mon, it has to be here somewhere…” I mumble out loud to myself. I sigh and close my eyes for a second. Without opening my eyes, I rest my head on the bookshelf ahead of me. When I get back up and open my eyes, they immediately focus on an unusual book with no name on its spine.

“That’s peculiar…” I go to pick it up, and a shiver runs down my spine. I can hear the chanting of my ancestors beating in my eardrums, but I ignore it. This is the book I was looking for:

Sols and Lunes: A History of Genocide

I’ve found it… I’ve finally found it! Tears begin streaming down my face as I open the book and start to read the first few pages. It’s encoded in some strange language of runes I’ve never seen before. 

“And what do you think you’re doing here?” I hear a voice practically yell at me, making me jump out of my own skin.

“H-huh?” I panic and stupidly ask who I now see to be that Draco kid from the dining hall.

“I said, ‘And what…’” He begins again, but I stop him by shushing.

“Shh! We’re gonna get caught if you don’t stop yelling!” I whisper angrily towards him.

“Oh please, no one’s gonna find us all the way back here. No one goes for the forbidden history section, it’s not nearly as exciting as the forbidden spells section…” Draco tries to joke with me, but I’m in no mood to be humorous. 

“Can I help you with something, then?” He steps closer to me slowly, and our height difference becomes more noticeable. I can tell he’s liking that, too, which pisses me off. 

“Not with anything specific… I just came to apologize for my behavior earlier, but then I noticed you sneaked off into here so I…” He trails off with a slight smirk on his face.

“You what? Thought you have leverage over me or something? Look, I’m not interested in being friends or anything you’re thinking of, so just leave me alone. I’m doing something rather important,” I step to the side and begin to walk away from him, but he holds his arm out to stop me. He grips my shoulder and shoves it gently towards the bookshelves.

“You might want to watch that tone of yours… Most people tend to know who they’re talking to, but you’re new so I’ll let it slide this time.” Draco throws me a wink as if I’d swoon, but instead I slam my shoe into his shin. He drops to one knee in pain, cussing me out.

“Watch your tone, Malfoy. Or else you might regret it.” I spit out with venom, slapping his hand off my shoulder. I start walking away again, but, before I get far enough, Draco stops me with a spell.

“Incarcerous!” He yells with his wand at the ready, and I’m immediately tied up with magic ropes. I stumble forward a little but still catch my balance.

“Heh, not so tough now, are ya?” Draco chuckles to himself as he strides towards me.

“Expelliarmus!” I shout back at him, and his wand flies out of his hand.

“H-how did you do that?! Your wand isn’t out…” He stops with shock in his eyes. I don’t answer him, as I’ve realized how stupid I am. I just informed him that I don’t need a wand to do magic spells, which means he might find out what I am… Before he can figure it out, I unbind myself from the ropes and make a run for it. I slip out of the restricted section and library, then head for the Slytherin dormitories again. Surprisingly, I make it all the way there without seeing Draco again. Once in my private room, I’m able to rest finally. I lean my back against my door and sigh with relief. However, I then get the thought that I’ve made an even more terrible mistake. 

“Oh fuck!” In mid-thought, I hear a knock at my door. I panic for a second, but collect myself and unlock the door.

“Hello, Y/m/n. It appears that you’ve left something behind…” Draco smirks, holding my book up to his chest.

“O-oh, yes… M-my mistake… If I could just have that back,” I reach out for it, but he snaps the book up in the air with his long, lanky arm.

“Ah, ah, ah! Where are your manners?” He takes a step forward, but I hold my ground with a glare. He takes another step, and we’re chest to chest. I know what he wants, but it’s not going to happen.

“Give it here, or else I’ll report you…” I try to threaten, but he doesn’t seem fazed.

“Try me.” He leans down and whispers into my ear. I finally take a step back, which seems to make Draco happy. With his foot, he shuts the door, leaving us alone in my room with no quick way out.

“Now, if you’re done sassing me, I’d like to ask you a few questions. I’ll give you your book back if you answer all of them,” Draco promises, but I’m warry to believe him. I know what he’s going to ask about before he does, but I just play along.

“Firstly, how’d you cast a spell without your wand out? Something like that takes years of practice, and no school would ever teach students such power…” He asks, and I try to come up with a good lie.

“I had my wand out, Malfoy. You just didn’t see cuz it was lowered.” I try, but he just quirks an eyebrow in response.

“Sure, you must think I’m as blind as Potter…” He rolls his eyes at me.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told the truth…” I begin to lie again, but Draco is having none of it.

“Just tell me, or you’ll never see your stupid book again,” He bluffs.

“Fine! I was taught from a young age by my mother,” I feel my face heat up from embarrassment. I hate having to talk about this kind of stuff with normal people. They know not what they meddle with…

“Your mother? And who taught her?” Draco asks.

“Her mother! It’s just been passed down in my family since the beginning of magic…” I answer annoyed.

“Since the beginning of magic?” Draco is taken aback by my answer, and I mentally cuss myself out.

“Uh, I mean… you know what I mean… It’s been forever since this tradition started, I guess… I’m not sure how it started…” I lie.

“No, no… You specifically said, ‘since the beginning of magic’. What do you mean by that?” He questions further.

“I didn’t mean anything by it! It was just an expression!” I lie again, but Draco shakes his head in disagreement.

“I… I can’t tell you…” I pip out.

“Why not?” He inquires, but I let out a frustrated sigh.

“I just can’t! I’m not going to endanger myself or you just because you’re curious!” I yell at him, but he stands his ground.

“You? Endangering me? Like you could…” Draco snickers, making me furious.

“Believe it or not, I can be quite powerful when I want to! You’re lucky we’re at Hogwarts, or else I’d have gotten rid of you a long time ago,” I cross my arms in front of me.

“Is that a threat?” Draco looks livid, but I don’t back down.

“Yes, so back off!” I shout, but Draco doesn’t listen. Instead, he brings my book back close to himself.

“I guess you won’t be needing this then,” He shrugs and takes out his wand.

“W-what are you doing?!” I try reaching for the book, but he’s already spoken his spell.

“Incendio!” A small fire sparks through his wand towards the book.

“No!” I scream for the book, but then it seems unharmed by the flames. Draco’s fire dies out, and we’re both left staring in awe.

“It’s enchanted…?” Draco asks himself, but I take the opportunity to snatch the book from his hand.

“Apparently… You should leave… I mean it,” I answer.

“Hm, I don’t want to… I want to know what that book really is, especially since it’s so important to you,” Draco states, but I ignore him. I begin to flip through the book, hoping to find a hidden key for the strange runes.

“What language is that?” Draco asks.

“Not sure… But seriously, you need to leave.” I close the book and glare his way.

“Why?” He questions.

“Because! Because… It’s dangerous for someone like you to be around someone like me…” I answer honestly.

“How so?” Draco doesn’t let it go.

“Because I tend to attract bad people in my life… People that want to do me and all around me harm…” I look away somewhat ashamed of the lifestyle I lead.

“Heh, I feel that… I don’t have many friends that would look out for me either…” I can feel Draco’s eyes on me still, and, for a moment, I feel pity for him.

“I’m sorry… But we can’t be friends.” I finally look him dead in the eyes and firmly state.

“Why not? I know I’m not always the most polite, but I’m not a complete asshole either,” Draco chuckles to himself, but I simply shake my head in disagreement.

“Again, it has nothing to do with how poor your character is. It’s a matter of safety. I’m not going to put anyone at risk just because they want to be friends with me,” I say with a slight broken heart. Admittedly, it’s been rather lonely the past few years on my own. It’s also rather terrifying to not have anyone that can help me with survival…

“I swear I can hold up my own, Y/n…” Draco practically pleads with me, and it takes everything in me to decline.

“I’m sorry, I can’t… Please just try to understand…” I look down at my feet in shame.

“Fine.” Draco spats out at me, and then I hear him open the door and leave. 

“God, why couldn’t I have been born into a normal family?” I feel my eyes start to tear up slightly. The people pleaser in me just wants to be friendly with everyone, but the danger I possess can’t risk being closer to anyone else.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Almost, Soon: Dex / Wright Farling

CW: References to past torture/injuries, references to ongoing torture

Collab between @spiffythespook and I, featuring Wright Farling and Dex.  A direct follow-up to the Dismantled, Insecurity by @spiffythespook, Reconstruction, He Imagines Going Home, and A Chance to Burn series of Dex and Wright pieces.

It contains my favorite Dex line I’ve ever written.

The library was less than a mile from Karen’s house. On a normal week Dex walked there in a little more than fifteen minutes. He liked to take his time, appreciate the flowers in people’s yards or the birds in the trees.

This was not a normal week.

When he was finally unwilling to wait any longer, and Seb and Peter could no longer convince him to stay in bed or in the house, the walk to the library took nearly an hour.

Dex was only upright by the end of it thanks to Peter, who kept a careful arm around his lower back, avoiding the welts still healing under Sebastian’s makeshift bandages. He listed heavily to the right and Peter took his weight without complaint, the much-younger man as focused on the goal as Dex was.

Peter took risks the others wouldn’t - or in Henry’s case, risks no one would allow him to take.

Dex wasn’t healing fast enough - Karen’s insistence on keeping him sleep-deprived and underfed ensured it. Refusing to let her win, Dex had decided today was the day that he would make it to the library, come hell or high water, and no amount of nervous worry from his brothers could make him change his mind.

“We can still go back,” Peter said softly, when Dex stumbled again and Peter had to catch him by his elbow to keep him on his feet.

Dex shook his head, and kept his light brown eyes focused on the library’s double doors. Just fifty feet or so, fifty steps, that’s not so bad. He looked terrible and he knew it - even though Seb had cut the stitches and removed them after ten days like the video said, his face was still bandaged and he shuffled more than he walked, new bruises from Karen’s grudge rapidly covering the healing ones.

Peter pulled the doors open and Dex managed - just barely - to keep himself upright to walk through them on his own. People stared.

Dex didn’t care. He had a singular goal, and he wouldn’t fail it. Even as he kept himself straight-backed and strong, he was terrified he would follow Wright’s instructions and sit here, alone, until he understood this hope he had been given was just another trap, too.

Whiskey to ease a dying man towards his end.

A prayer to give the damned a delusion of salvation.

He took the largest copy of Paradise Lost, a leatherbound, illustrated edition that he had checked out before, and found a table near the history section. When he opened up to a random page, he tried to scan the words, but saw nothing but floating, meaningless letters. He was so fucking exhausted, and so hungry, and it all hurt so, so much.

Peter leaned over with a careful hand on his shoulder. “Do you want me to leave?”

Dex looked up to meet Peter’s calm brown eyes. Compassion, friendliness, and courage. He had understood only after Karen had nearly killed him how unfair he’d been to his brothers. He was trying to make up for it, now, however he could.

N-O-T Y-E-T, he fingerspelled with his good hand, then gripped onto Peter’s shirt and tried to say please, mouthing the word without sound.

If Wright didn’t come, Dex could not stand the idea of being alone.

Peter nodded, settling into his seat. “Don’t worry,” He said softly. “He’ll come. Madam always says she likes that Wright doesn’t break promises. He… he won’t break one he made to you, right?”

Dex looked at him, with no idea what to say or how to begin to say it, before he dropped his eyes back to the book.

Abash’d the Devil stood and felt how awful Goodness is.

What if Wright didn’t come? What would he do then? What would even be left to hope for?

In the parking lot, a man in a cheap rented car - utterly nondescript, and something Karen wouldn’t spare a glance at if she happened to spot it around town - watched the library.

Wright was here every Tuesday since the day he’d called the house. He stayed awake and present, difficult as that was. The other Tuesdays, he had gone inside for a little while and spoken to some of the staff, read people he pinned as regulars. There were many kind people here. It was a safe place.

He watched Dex make his slow, halting way along the sidewalk and across the parking lot, Peter all but carrying him. Wright didn’t realize he was white-knuckling the steering wheel as he watched every painful step and stumble with his heart in his throat.

He kept his tears back and watched the window when Dex had disappeared from sight outside, then reappeared right where he’d hoped to see him - classic literature. Wright watched him select the book and head toward the history section, out of view, with the same slow shuffle.

He swallowed and leaned back against the headrest. I can’t do this, he thought, followed by, Don’t be fucking selfish, Wright. He can’t do this, and yet here he is. Kyle would beat you to death if you let this guy down after what he’s done to keep you.

He bit at his thumbnail anxiously, then grit his teeth, steeled himself. Whether or not he could do this, he had to. He pulled on a newsboy beret - his hair was too distinct - and stepped out of the car, making his way inside as though he were a regular, too. He supposed on his third Tuesday visit, he was starting to become one.

Wright paused and stared from across the room the moment Dex was in view. He could feel the pain and hope even from here, watched the way Dex couldn’t quite focus on the book, or even on Peter’s face when he leaned over to speak to him. Watched Dex take Peter’s sleeve in his hand, twist his fingers into the fabric. Even from here, he could see Dex mouth, please.

Wright took his cap off and clenched it tightly in one hand, then walked decisively to the table and set the cap down, resting his hands on the back of a free chair. He swallowed, blinked a couple times, and said softly, “Dex.”

Dex turned to look at him - he was a sight, with a bandage that took up nearly one whole side of his face and fresh blossoming bruises on the other, more black and purple smudges peeking out above and below his simple green collar, splinted broken fingers on his right hand. Dex’s grip loosened from Peter’s sleeve immediately, eyes wide with surprise. Peter swallowed, not quite leaning in to block Wright’s view of the other Box Boy, but not far from it.

“Peter, thank you-” Wright glanced at him with a tense smile. “Go home. I can drop him off at the gate. Karen will be some time, I assume.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed, not in hostility but trying to understand what to do. Whether to obey Wright - and God knew his instincts leaned towards obedience for Karen’s oldest and only true friend - or defy him and stay here for Dex’s sake.

His trained responses might be immediate obedience, but his innate sense of himself and his worry for Dex said otherwise. “I don’t want to leave in case he needs me.”

He glanced back down at Dex, and discovered Dex wasn’t looking at him at all. He was instead staring at Wright like fresh water in the center of the Sahara. “Dex? What do you want me to-”

Dex put up one hand. Go home, he mouthed, absently. He never looked away from Wright’s face. Go home.

Peter took in the tears standing in Dex’s eyes - the desperate intensity of his expression - and swallowed hard, ducking his head and pulling away. “Yeah, oh… okay. Be… be safe, Dex.” He backed up a little, frowning, and then jammed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and walked away, looking once or twice over his shoulder.

Wright stared right back at Dex, looking almost pensive from how hard he was concentrating to control himself. He didn’t look back at Peter - he didn’t need to, to hear the boy’s steps retreat and the door open and shut behind him. With him gone, Wright pushed the chair he’d chosen close to Dex, sat and leaned forward to take the man’s good hand gently. When Dex gripped onto his hand so tightly it nearly hurt, Wright’s mouth quivered slightly.

“Tell me she didn’t take your voice,” he said, and he didn’t mean it to sound as… weak as it did. “I don’t… want you to have to live without your voice.”

Dex had to breathe slowly, to keep himself calm. Even so, tears still threatened and his throat felt tight, constricted. He swallowed, and shook his head.

“No,” he said, not quite a hoarse whisper. “But Peter doesn’t know I speak for you.”

Wright took a sharp breath in and released it, relieved that it hadn’t gone that far. Small relief. “Good. They shouldn’t, it would be dangerous-” he said softly, and then shook his head slightly. Dex knew that.

He leaned forward and trailed a finger very lightly over Dex’s bandaged cheek and gently cupped the other, staring into his eyes. “I can tell why she did that. But she’s wrong. You’re still beautiful. I won’t want you less because of a scar. I won’t want you less because of anything.”

Dex held so still he might have been carved from stone, staring into Wright’s eyes, before he collapsed forward against him. His forehead dropped lightly against the other man’s collarbone, breathing through gritted teeth as he tried to keep back the sound that wanted to break out of him.

He wanted to scream, in a kind of fierce and joyless victory. He had been right - he was still wanted, she hadn’t taken this one last thing. Wright was still his.

“Didn’t tell,” he said, hoarse gravelly voice thin and strained from holding himself together. “She asks and asks and I don’t tell about us… promise, promise I don’t.”

Wright’s hands moved, one into Dex’s hair to stroke the familiar soft texture under his fingers, the other to rub very carefully at his shoulder. “I know you don’t, love,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the man’s head. “I know you. I knew you wouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

Dex let out a choked-off sob, fighting to try and keep it back.

There weren’t a lot of other patrons at this time on a Tuesday, but a few people looked up at the sound, took the two of them in. Dismissed after, mostly - fighting boyfriends, or one friend consoling another, nothing to concern themselves with. A few clearly saw Dex’s collar - and the dismissal came even faster, then. A misbehaving pet and a no-doubt chiding owner.

A couple just looked, a little longer, more… thoroughly. At a man consoling another. At Dex’s obvious injuries. At Wright’s obvious lack of them.

Dex didn’t notice. He shivered at the feeling of fingers in his hair, Wright’s familiar warmth and feel and scent. He would have known him blindfolded, from the way he felt.

He had a lot of experience with that.

“I don’t know how, but she knew, she knew that I-… that I felt-” He cut himself off, shaking his head a little without raising it. “She knew what I feel.”

Wright could feel tension in the room - his sensing just seemed to get stronger with age - but that wasn’t in his focus. Dex consumed all his focus. “That’s… not good.”

His mind raced. He needed to get Dex out, away from her. He had to finish his boys, though - they were just broken, now, and they had to be put back together before he cut them free. He couldn’t put Dex in a position where he had to watch Wright hurt them, and he didn’t want the man to have to know and ignore his work. Karen’s judgement…

Well, he couldn’t tolerate her hurting Dex like this for much longer, much as it wasn’t enough to earn judgement. But, the moment he was free from his boys, the moment he had Cori prepared, he would leave the country to buck attention off. Three months abroad, minimum, and then he could be back. Maybe by then, he would be able to build a good case against her.

He wasn’t focusing at all on the present, and a younger man who had been staring had approached without Wright’s notice. He startled, slightly, when he noticed the stranger standing… well, clearly deliberately within Dex’s view and more in Wright’s periphery. He wondered…

The man cleared his throat, sounding awkward yet determined. “Hey, uh… Are you guys alright over here? You’re in rough shape,” he said. Wright was incredibly confused, until he realized that the man was trying - rather poorly - to covertly address Dex.

Dex didn’t even react - he was largely invisible to people, once they saw his collar, like a luxury car. No one thought a Lamborghini had a brain.

He had assumed the man was speaking to Wright, until he cleared his throat again. Then Dex pulled back, sitting back up with a visible flinch and audible hiss as it made pain spike up one side, where Dex was reasonably sure he had a bruised rib.

“Hey. Uh, man. Um.” The young man’s eyes went from Wright to Dex, narrowed slightly in suspicion. When Dex didn’t respond to him, he looked even more awkward and uncomfortable. “Uh… Pet?” He tried.

This time, Dex looked up automatically. He tilted his head slightly, trying to look questioning.

“Are… you okay?” The man asked with a heavy weight to the words, and Dex wasn’t sure what he was really asking.

He tapped his own mouth and shook his head. Mute, he mouthed. It was instinct. It didn’t even sink in that the man had probably already heard him talking.

“I think he’s asking if you need help, darling,” Wright murmured.

The man tensed, eyed Wright. Looked at Dex again. “I heard you speak. Before. I can…call somebody for you, if you want. If he’s…”

Nervous eyes on Wright, and Wright just sat calmly back, taking Dex’s good hand in his own to help ground him. “I’m not his owner, although he is my guy. And he’s a person, not a pet. Go on, ask him what you want.”

Wright’s calm did not reassure the stranger, only serving to make him more wary. He moved closer to Dex and spoke a little lower. “If he’s hurting you, if he’s… if he’s not being good to you, I can call the cops.”

Dex stared up at the man, his mind utterly blank from sheer surprise. He had been what he was for twenty years. In all that time, he could count on one hand the number of times someone had come up in public and offered to help.

“I must look awful,” Dex said, unable to keep the hint of humor from his hoarse, gravelly voice. At the same time, his hand tightened around Wright’s, holding on for dear life.

He is my guy, Wright had said, so casually open. Dex felt so small and so held, all at once.

“He is not the one who hurts me,” Dex said gently.

“I just want to know if you need help,” The young man insisted. “If it’s not him-” He cut his eyes at Wright, in a way that made it clear he didn’t believe that for a second. “-then tell me who they are. Pet abuse is, is illegal. I know WRU has, like, a tip line for that-”

Dex couldn’t stop himself - he tried, but he couldn’t. He laughed, the odd utterly natural sound so at odds with the forced gravel of his speaking voice. The idea of someone calling the company to try and report on Karen hurting him was so absurd he couldn’t begin to even fathom a reply.

It hurt to laugh - ached in his ribs and back, pulled at the raw skin under the bandage, made his shoulders nearly ache, even - but he couldn’t stop. Before long, the laughter started to change, as tears welled up all over again and fell this time, soaking into the bandage and loosening the adhesive strips Sebastian had so carefully applied to keep it on. Dex hunched over, pulling his broken hand back to himself, making sounds that were neither laughter nor sobs, but caught somewhere in between.

He lived in hell, and this man wanted so sincerely to call Lucifer to complain about how Beezelbub treated him.

“Oh, love,” Wright murmured, barely audible. He stood and stroked Dex’s hair, and looked over the young man with calculated but gentle eyes. “WRU has a tip line simply so that you think better of calling the police. Not that the police or court could do much with the lawyers. I should know. An acquaintance of mine works there. Please leave us alone. I can assure you, I’m doing my best to remove him from his owner safely. Your input will jeopardize us.”

“He looks pretty jeopardized already to me,” The man said, not quite hostile, but getting closer to it now that Dex was clearly and audibly upset. Dex didn’t look up now, pressing his head lightly into Wright’s touch, still curled over himself. Laughter had finally transitioned fully into open crying. He didn’t even seem to hear what Wright had said. “Somebody beat the daylights out of him, and I think either it’s you or you know and you’re not-”

“There you are, Zander,” A young brunette in a cardigan with a small silver nametag clipped to one side popped up just behind the man, putting a hand on his arm. “They have your hold ready at the check-out desk.”

The young man swallowed, looking at the librarian. “Someone should do something about shit like this. I’m tired of seeing pets treated like this!”

The librarian looked sidelong at Wright, as if weighing him. Then back to the man. "Ask at the front desk for Marianne, and tell her you want a biography on James Taylor called Rain.”

“What?”

“Just go, Zander. I’ll handle this disturbance.” The young man shot one more glare at Wright and then all but stomped away. The librarian looked back at Wright, calmly. “You’re creating a scene. Dex has a special request ready but it requires a signature.”

Wright looked over her, trying to determine whether she was helping them both or trying to help Dex away from him. “I’ll help him to come sign,” he said rather slowly, reaching for his cap and putting it back on just so he didn’t have to carry it.

He leaned down and wrapped his arm rather low on Dex’s side, where he thought there might be less damage - the kidney area was never a good place to focus on unless you wanted to kill someone, and Karen always placed her damage with expert attention to detail. “Dex,” he murmured by his ear. “The librarian wants you to sign something. I could carry you, but we’re in public. I could anyways, or you could try to walk.”

Maybe it was a poor time to offer a choice. Wright hoped it wouldn’t disturb him further.

Dex looked up, when Wright said his name, his eyes red-rimmed now and still glistening, expression utterly lost. He nodded, slowly, leaning against Wright and put both palms on the table. He mouthed, I stand, and forced himself to his feet.

His legs trembled, but held him.

The librarian watched him with genuine compassion. “Dex, hun, we have that wheelchair we keep in the back. Please let me get it for you.”

No. Dex cut his hand through the air, an angry slash, and shook his head. He looked at the librarian. I W-A-L-K.

She sighed. “Dex…”

Dex raised his eyes to look at her directly. I W-A-L-K, he spelled again, and took a deep breath, leaning hard against Wright for support. Wright kept his arm around his waist.

“… Fine. Okay.” Her eyes kept going between Dex and Wright - weighing, considering, measuring. Connecting dots. She was younger, in her very late twenties, but had the look of someone who understood far more than she let on. “If you’ll follow me, please, sir.” She gestured for him to go with her behind the check-out counter, to a row of offices along the back wall.

Wright was still while the librarian looked them over. He didn’t withhold anything, didn’t square up or school his expression, or hide the relieved release of tension when she asked him to follow. He walked slowly with Dex, careful not to rush him along, and the other man moved with the same slow shuffle he’d had with Peter, slumped against Wright for support the whole way. Eventually, they reached the back wall, the office she led them to.

She took a key from a necklace she’d been wearing hidden, pulling it up and out of the neckline of her shirt with an embarrassed little smile in Wright’s direction. “Sorry, kind of forgot,” She mumbled, turning red as she fumbled the necklace off over her head and turned the key in the lock to the door.

Wright smiled back. “That’s alright. We all forget things now and then, even what we should remember.”

The librarian unlocked the door for them, then paused. She leaned in close, putting a hand on Dex’s arm, grasping it tightly until his eyes raised again to meet hers. “Dex. Is this him?”

Dex nodded, slowly.

The librarian sighed, but some of the tension left her. “I thought it might be. All right, come on in. Mind the mess - I’m a librarian, not a clean freak.” She gestured to an office that consisted of a desk, a couple of chairs, a truly immense amount of books stacked neatly… and an even more immense series of folders, file cabinets, and papers that weren’t. “We haven’t seen Dex in a while,” She said, not quite conversationally, to Wright. “We were wondering if he was on one of his… trips, again.”

“Ah…I think we both wish that,” Wright murmured. “From what I understand, they’re going to be scarce from here on. Thank you,” he didn’t hide his look at her nametag, “Lillian. Thank you for your kindness.”

He carefully lowered Dex into one of the chairs, cupped his cheek and looked at him a moment. Dex stared back up at him, unwilling to take his eyes off Wright’s face, a little afraid this was just imagination, too, and he’d disappear. Wright’s hand slid away and then rested on Dex’s head again as he looked to Lillian, worry showing on his face.

“Would you do me a favor, please?” he asked, careful how he chose his words. “Could I give you my phone number, and could you call me when there is trouble like that, when you don’t see him? Or could you let him call me? Or… both…”

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind doing that, but…” She trailed off, looking down, at the way Dex looked at Wright. Her lips pressed together, uncomfortably, and then she nodded firmly. “I could. I guess he could breathe at you, at least.”

Dex’s eyes flickered to her, and he smiled, faintly. Lillian sighed. “There we go. Had to see a smile before I believe it’s you, Dex, you know that.” She hesitated, then looked back at Wright. “We know who he is. Did she…?”

Dex grabbed onto her arm with his good hand, shaking his head quickly, fearfully. Go, please, he mouthed, then fingerspelled quickly. N-O-T H-E-R. Please, alone, he signed one-handed.

“Yeah… yeah, okay.” Lillian sighed one more time. “Dex… I’ll watch for when you leave.” Back to Wright, and she considered him for a moment longer. “I hope you’re half of what he says you are,” She said, heavily but sincerely, and let herself out of her office.

Wright stared at her as she left, his heart failing him for a moment. I hope so, too, Lillian, he thought without saying. When the door shut, he pulled off his cap again and set it on the desk. He leaned down to Dex, to place a kiss softly on his lips.

“They’re kind to you, here,” he murmured. Something like regret flickered through his eyes. “You tell them about me?”

Dex pressed the kiss back, then winced when he put a little too much pressure, pulling back to put a hand up to his bandage, frowning absently as he felt at the loosened edges.

He blinked, surprised - not so much by the question as by his tone. “Some things,” he said, carefully. “Not names. Just… going places. Things I see with you.” A flicker of a smile, there and then gone again. “Only one is still here from when we started. They noticed I was… better.” He shrugged. “Wanted someone to know it was better, sometimes.”

Someone other than Jordan, who he wrote occasional letters to, sent to that house in Alaska, after poring over the ones Wright’s former project sent at Karen’s behest. Dex was fairly sure the only reason the letters had any detail in them at all was because Jordan knew Dex was the one really reading them.

Wright listened, feeling… oh, he was grateful and relieved and a little proud, even. At the same time, he ached. He pulled his chair up near the other man and sat down. “Dex…” He stared absently past the man, thinking of how long it would take to fix his boys.

They were so close… he just needed to reinforce a relationship between them, to work on Adrian a little more…

“I’m going to be… six…” No. If he was too quick, he’d be clumsy, and they would come out worse instead of better. His eyes moved back and forth, as if seeing his work before him. “Ten months, at the most. I promise not to take longer, not if I can help it.”

Dex slumped, a little, but nodded, pressing his lips together. His heart ached at the thought, but he pushed it back, knowing that if he felt too strongly, too obviously, Wright could notice it. Would feel it, too.

“Ten months until I see you again,” He whispered. They’d already had to wait five years, once. Ten months was nothing, in comparison. But it was still so long, to live this way, on only promises, drops of water in the desert.

Wright frowned, slightly. “Dex, you’ll see me before then. I’ll… well, I’m out of town, but within driving distance. When you’re well, she’ll send you out again for errands. Did she follow any sort of pattern with the days, before?”

Dex just stared at him, genuinely baffled - before, pain be damned, he threw himself forward and got his arms around Wright’s neck, ignoring the way it hurt to move at all and hurt even more to move quickly. “Thought you meant wouldn’t come back again,” he said, holding onto Wright until his body was simply protesting too many ways in too many places to keep it up. “For ten months. Th, thought… thought I wouldn’t see you, not get to touch, can’t-… can’t do this, without you…”

He ran his hands - both of them, the splints rough against Wright’s but he didn’t care anymore - over the back of his neck, to the sides of his face, down to his shoulders. Wright shuddered, letting out a deep, heavy breath. He pulled the man down into his lap, holding him, supporting Dex as he needed as Dex stared into Wright’s face, his adoration written openly all over it. Adoration, and desperate fear.

“I can’t do it anymore without you. I can’t live like this without a r-reason anymore…”

Wright blinked a few times, swallowed, not quite meeting Dex’s eyes. He’s breaking. You left him too long. “Dex… I’m not- I’m not asking you to. I’ll visit you if I can, here, and I’ll take you in ten months. I can’t… I can’t leave you with her, but I can’t take you now. I- you don’t need to see my boys, and I haven’t… she hasn’t earned my judgement, still, but even if she doesn’t in ten months… I don’t care.”

The words flowed from his mouth unbidden, dangerous secrets he had planned to keep, especially from Dex.

Dex nodded, swallowing hard, sitting up enough to keep his eyes on Wright’s face, searching for the sincerity there. His heart raced with a bone-deep fear at the words - he knew what judgement meant - but he could pretend, when Wright couched it in terms like that, that he didn’t. He could lie to himself, so he could lie to her. Dex had long ago made himself a master at it.

“Is fine,” He said, softly. Worried, scared, desperate to reassure him. Terrified to lose this, too, if he tried to push. “I can wait. Have waited. Can wait more, can.”

Wright closed his eyes against the awful fear and uncertainty in Dex’s voice. “She’s too cruel to you now,” he murmured, opening again and searching the other’s eyes. He cupped Dex’s uninjured cheek and pressed their foreheads gently together, his other hand stroking slowly up and down his back. “Are the boys helping you? As much as they can, at least?”

Dex’s eyes fluttered closed and he leaned into Wright’s touch, tilting his head to press his cheek against Wright’s palm. Warm, and holding him. He’s coming back, he’ll come back for me, he won’t leave me here alone forever. Live for this.

Dex nodded without opening his eyes, breathing slowing, calming down. “Seb does stitches, bandages. Found videos to learn from. Henry…” He swallowed, aching with guilt thinking of his young face, already so good at closing himself off into a kind of false calm that papered over his real feelings. “Henry does what he can. We don’t let him do much. Peter…”

He swallowed.

“Sneaking food. Not allowed to eat anymore. Just Facility shakes.”

Wright’s eyes darkened, teeth clenched together and showing just a bit through his lips, mouth set in a sort of benign snarl. He pursed his lips together, then, directing his glare away from Dex, across the room. Without moving Dex from his lap, Wright took out his cellphone and called the library’s phone. He asked for Lillian, said that he was John, Dex’s man, and asked her to come in when she had a moment.

Lillian popped her head in, not even batting an eyelash at the sight of Dex, a badly-injured grown man, curled against Wright and in his lap. This was the man they’d all heard so much about, and Dex was clearly at the end of his rope. She wouldn’t begrudge him a moment of what he was getting now.

“Yes, John?” She asked, in the tone of a woman who knew very well that he was probably giving her a fake name.

He held out a fifty to her. “Would you please go to the restaurant down the street and buy four hamburgers, plenty of toppings, please? Or send someone to do so. Keep the change for yourself.”

Lillian took the money, blinking, surprised. “Ah… sure, John. Um. Yeah, will, will do.” She looked at Dex, who turned slightly to look back at her. Now that he’d mentioned burgers, Dex did seem thinner… she’d thought it was just the bruises making his cheekbones stand out…

She ducked back out without another word, Wright murmuring a thank-you as she went.

“Don’t have to do that,” Dex said, softly, when she had closed the door behind her. He reached up with his good hand to turn Wright’s face back to him. “They’re not so bad, if you don’t taste them, the shakes.”

Wright looked at him, looked from Dex’s eyes to his bruises and lips, back up to his eyes. “Darling, you’re starving. Let me take care of you while I can,” he said softly, rubbing his face into Dex’s hand.

Dex snorted, and said, “‘No trainee starves’,” in a spot-on impression of the PR people the company used. “'WRU shakes are designed by top nutritionists to provide required daily vitamin and mineral intake with just four servings a day.’”

After a second, he tried to smile, wryly, with just the one side of his mouth. “But they still taste like chocolate chalk. She’s angry at me. I was supposed to be perfect.”

Wright laughed, shaking his head a bit. “She wouldn’t know perfect if it smacked her across the face. She’s always been insecure about her work with you. Look, I’ve brought you a gift… I saw it, and I thought of… us. You and I.”

He pulled out a small square box, the length and width of his hand. A rather embarrassed, barely-there flush appeared in his cheeks. “Feel free to tell me if it was a terrible idea.”

Dex blinked at him, catching the flush only because he knew Wright as well as he did, after so long. He looked down at the box, and then back up at his face. It was hard to keep his smile to one side.

“You have given me plenty of embarrassing things to see me turn red,” He said, teasing, nuzzling into his warm skin. “What could possibly make you turn red, for me?”

“Am I?” he murmured, the flush darkening. He turned his face a bit, rubbing against Dex as the man nuzzled him. “Open it, love. I want to know if it’s not… good.”

He’d found it in a craftsman’s shop, on an upper shelf and covered in dust. The porcelain was white, painted with intricate blue and green patterns, cracked in six or so places and the cracks mended with gold. He had made the mistake, many years ago, of thinking Karen’s work was like this, so beautiful.

Karen’s work was just a clumsy drop to the floor.

Dex opened the box one-handed, blinking and staring down at the little piece of pottery, head slightly tilted. He shifted a little in Wright’s lap, looking closer, and then held it up to catch the light. “You keep calling me love,” Dex said, voice low and soft with awe as he looked over the gift. “I keep pretending I don’t hear it. Afraid I’m imagining again.”

Wright swallowed. He hadn’t realized. He used to be very particular, very careful about the pet names that he used with Dex. Always darling, sometimes hun, but he said love to Karen for years, and he hadn’t wanted to do that to too many people. He hadn’t said love to Karen in years. He wasn’t so careful to withhold certain things from Dex anymore.

Dex, Wright thought, would have his everything soon enough.

He stared at the man’s face, reading the awe there with relief. He would’ve hated to spark distaste, or panic. Wright relaxed and said quietly, “You’re not imagining.”

Dex went very still.

He had gone to Wright for twenty years, more or less, except for when Wright was in prison. Even then, he went with Karen whenever she’d let him, just for a fleeting moment of eye contact when she had her eyes down and wouldn’t see them share it. He had protected Wright the best he could, every time he had to. He’d lied to the police and the lawyers with his serenely empty smile, every inch the brainless Box Boy Karen had turned him into.

And he would tell every single lie all over again, without hesitation.

Dex slowly lowered the gift, although he still held it tightly. He wasn’t quite looking at Wright any longer, but off to the side, nervousness written across him. He could feel his heart beating in his throat.

“Not imagining the word, or the feeling behind it?” His voice was nearly a whisper, as he asked for something he had never asked for before.

Wright was still looking at him, memorizing the moment. Putting this image of Dex alongside hundreds of others that he had taken such good care to store. He was as vulnerable now as Wright - more vulnerable - and Wright would be a goddamn liar if he said he didn’t like how that looked on Dex’s face.

Openness had always been appealing to the man who pried people open and rearranged them to be better. With Dex… he liked every look. Every thought, every emotion. He didn’t want to rearrange him or destroy him. He just… he had always wanted to bring Dex’s wholeness back to him. Was that love? Was love the tenderness he felt, the protectiveness, the absolute hatred at Karen for hurting him? Was love biblical - you loved Me because I first loved you and died for you.

Well, I’m not about to sacrifice my sons for him, but I will sacrifice my friend. My love isn’t perfect, and never has been.

Wright cupped Dex’s cheek, seeking out his eyes. “No, you’re not imagining. I love you, Dex,” he murmured. “I love you, and in ten months, you’re going to be only mine.”

Dex jerked in his breath, closing his eyes against the words he had wanted most in the world to hear, said so readily, so easily, after they had spent so long never saying them at all. He slid his right arm around Wright’s neck again, careful not to touch anything directly with his healing broken fingers, and kissed him. Wright kissed back tenderly, deeply, careful not to press too much.

“Love you,” Dex whispered against Wright’s lips, as desperately as he’d spoken before, but with a whole new tone to his words. Hope. “Loved you a long time ago, love you, please, want to be just yours, please, please mean it.”

Loved you a long time ago echoes in Wright’s mind. It’s going to change his memories, and he finds that he doesn’t mind, even if it means Dex felt for him long before he’d done anything to deserve it. I love him because he first loved me, but that makes him God, he thinks, and he’s smiling just a little even though he’s sure he’s going to cry.

“I mean it. I love you and I’m going to take you away,” Wright murmured, sliding his hand through Dex’s hair. “I’m sorry I’ve taken so long, love.”

When Wright pulled away from the kiss to speak, Dex kissed his face, at his ear, down his neck - sliding his good hand up to curve around the side of his neck, too. There was pain, but he didn’t care. There was always pain, now. He looked ridiculous, probably - a grown man in another man’s lap, heavily injured, kissing at any hint of skin he could find.

He didn’t care.

“Don’t want to wear her collar anymore,” he said softly into the skin of Wright’s neck. “Want to wear yours, be yours. Am already yours. Yours before we knew it.”

Wright shivered at the touch to his neck, at the words Dex spoke. He held Dex tightly, kept moving his hand through the man’s hair. “I didn’t think to bring it…” he said, fingers gently pulling at the dark locks - more possessive than painful. “You’re mine, love. I’ll be yours soon.”

Dex could have melted into those words. You’re mine. I’ll be yours. He could live on them, swing from day to day, punishment to punishment, with that voice speaking those words into his mind. Reasons to live he could build into a wall around himself.

He caught his breath at the hand in his hair. If he hadn’t been so injured he could barely move, he might have liked it even more.

The handle of the door turned behind them, and Wright craned his head back to look, baring his neck in the process. Dex dropped his own head, slightly, to hide the rush of blood to his face.  Lillian stepped in with a large paper bag.

Wright held his arm out for it, so she wouldn’t have to cross the room to put it on the desk. “Thank you, Lillian. I appreciate that.”

Lillian looked at the two of them - as curled up as they’d been before - and gave a knowing little smile. “No problem. If ever a man on Earth looked like he needed a burger… got a couple of fries, for you, too. The rest…” Lillian hesitated. “If you don’t have any objections, I’ll give it to a friend of ours who has a shelter for people like him. Zan was aiming at the wrong target, but he’s right. Someone should do something. About…” She nodded at Dex, who ducked away as if to hide the ruin of his face. “That. The way they get treated, and nobody can do a damn thing.”

Wright tilted his head a bit. “No, keep it for yourself. Give them…” he set the bag on the table and fished in his pocket for his wallet. He took a cheque from the billfold, already signed (but by a Phillip Lawrence, not a John) and awaiting an amount.

“Anything under… oh I don’t remember what’s in this,” he muttered, holding the cheque out to her. “Tell them to put whatever number they need. I’ll make sure there’s enough in that account.”

Lillian’s eyes widened as she stared at a literal blank check. Then she looked slowly up, nodding dumbly and folding it, slipping it into her pocket. “Ah, wow. Just. Thanks. I’m guessing you’re not really Phillip, either, but… damn, Dex, you didn’t say your man was rich.”

Dex, distracted by the smell of fried potato and salt and beef wafting out of the bag Lillian had come in with, only nodded faintly. He spelled N-O-T I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T.

“Uh, yeah, it kind of is… Look, just… I know Nat wouldn’t ever take more than a couple grand, don’t worry… I’ll just…" Her voice trailed off. “I’ll go call her.”

“Oh, tell her to take more than a couple. She should take several hundred grand. I have too much anyway, and rescue situations are expensive.”

Lillian stared at Wright for a couple seconds more in bald-faced, obvious shock, and then gave a sort of startled, jerky nod and turned to walk back out. Once she was gone, Wright reached for the bag and pulled out one of the wrapped burgers, pulling back foil and paper for Dex and then holding it out to him.

Dex hadn’t been allowed solid food in weeks. What he got was snuck to him by Peter, a bite or two slid to the end of his fingers when Karen wasn’t looking, which inevitably meant eating out of the palm of his hand from where Dex now knelt on the floor at meals where Karen was present.

Most of a piece of toast, bits of bacon, a bite or two of eggs. Cut up bites of steak or chicken or whatever meat Karen forced Peter to eat that night. Just enough that his stomach didn’t protest the solid food, but never enough to really feel full.

Despite ravenous hunger, Dex was too well-trained to eat until he was told. He took the burger when it was held out to him, feeling the slight give of the bun. The smell of the meat nearly made him feel drunk. He looked down at the burger in his hands, nearly drooling at it. Then back up at Wright.

“Please?” He asked, softly. “Can eat?”

Wright stared down at him, heart dropping to his stomach even as he savored a please. He’d rather have that from Dex in a different situation: Dex was never supposed to be like one of his boys. Not at this age. Even Wright’s boys grew out of their habits within a few years of freedom, they were released so young. This is her doing. Not mine.

“Yes. Go ahead, love,” he said with a nod, slipping a hand back into Dex’s hair.

Dex let out a shuddering breath, mouthing thank you as he brought the burger up to his lips. He took his time, careful not to take too big a bite and stretch his healing face. The first bite felt like pure heaven on his tongue and he closed his eyes, making a sound not unlike a moan. It was gone too soon, too quickly, but the taste of meat and bread and cheese, the onion and pickle and condiments, made him feel light-headed at how good it was.

He reached for the bag unthinkingly, hesitated - then licked at his lips and reached again, more determined this time, taking out the second burger without asking. He stilled with the wrapping around it half-undone, looking up at Wright, tilting his head back into the touch to his hair. “This can’t be pretty to watch,” he said, with a flicker of a smile.

Wright smiled back. He thought about what some couples said - how they didn’t see age on each other, really, how they looked to each other as beautiful and radiant as the first time they met, or the first time they fell in love.

If I really look, I can see your age. But look at you, you gorgeous man.

“It is. I’m saving you some starvation, helping you, providing…” he murmured. “I love to see you eat. You’re always pretty to me. You’re… awe-inspiring.” Wright tilted his head, as if seeing Dex from another new angle for the first time. “You’re not her masterpiece. You’re… ours. Yours and mine.”

Dex paused, blinking up at Wright, and then slowly set the burger back down, pulling him in for another kiss. No hesitation, no regard for the aches and pains still in him. Wright held him closer, kissed back without inhibition. Dex let himself drown in ways he had missed for far too long, in the press of lips and the taste of Wright’s tongue, the feel of it moving against his. A shiver of heat in him, even as his exhausted body protested even the hint of what Dex wanted more than anything to be able to do right now.

“Wish I could do more with you,” He said, sounding sincerely regretful. “Be more, after having to wait. All of me yours, Wright.”

Almost, had been the teasing addition to the phrase they’d thrown back and forth over the years. He left it off, this time.

“Soon,” Wright murmured, a change from the almost. He cupped Dex’s uninjured cheek and searched his eyes. “You’re enough for me. You’re more than enough. You’re everything. You’re an endless depth. You don’t need to try to be more. You’re enough.”

Dex nearly bit his own tongue to fight back another rush of tears. He’d never cried as much as he had since Karen found out his feelings. Never worked harder to hold tears back. All he thinks of you is that you have a nice face and he likes to look at it when he’s fucking you, Karen’s voice slithered, cold and angry, in the back of his mind. No pretty face for him to admire now, hm?

She had misjudged them, the both of them. Or maybe she could only see them accurately apart, her understanding clouded when she tried to consider them together.

“I think we are past me having a silly crush, now,” Dex said, a little tentatively, wanting suddenly to turn her words back against her. “You say such good things to me, about me…”

Had anyone else, ever? He couldn’t remember.

Wright was still looking into his eyes, teary though they were. He was grave. “Dex… I’ll be honest to both of us, now - I’ve adored you far more than a crush or a toy since… oh, since our first Christmas. I only realized that in prison, while I was thinking… and I could hardly think of anything or anyone else. We’re well beyond crushes, yes. I’m going to take you, and I’m going to die with you. If you’ll… tolerate me. I’m not exactly a prize anymore, as it happens… and I likely never was.”

Dex’s only response to that was a slight raise of his eyebrow, a bit of his dry humor. A wordless and I am one? They were both far past being young enough to see themselves that way.

He pressed his forehead to Dex’s, gently, fingers moving softly over the man’s cheek. Dex closed his eyes, leaning into it, chin tilted slightly up. “It’s not a silly crush. I’m not going to betray you now, after all that we’ve had together. She’s wrong. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about - she doesn’t know how to love someone for who they are outside of what they do for her.”

“Doesn’t love,” Dex said, almost tenderly. “Can’t feel it. She doesn’t know what the feeling is. But I, I do…”

There was a tentative knock, a pause, and then Lillian opened it, slowly, giving them a tentative smile before she turned her eyes to Wright. “Someone just called for you. Or, him, but…” She shrugged. “They asked for the man with Dex and I don’t see any others. Line three, if you know how to work a multi-line phone. I can help, if you don’t.”

Wright turned his head to look at Lillian, but did so with as little movement as possible, still touching Dex. He smiled at her and his tone was warm. “I do, but I would appreciate it if you could pick up the call for me and pass me the phone, Lillian. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Like you think he’ll disappear,” Lillian said, but her tone was gentle and amused and she headed for the phone on the desk without annoyance. Honestly, seeing Dex’s face and having seen him nearly carried inside, she could see where the worry came from.

Dex frowned, thinking, and touched Lillian’s arm lightly when she came close to them. She looked up and Dex signed H-E-N-R-Y and tilted his head in question.

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve talked to him before about things he wanted to order. Here you go.” She picked the phone up and hit the button for line 3, handing it to Wright.

Wright was surprised at the interchange - how long, he wondered, had Karen been letting the others leave the premises without her? Or did Dex just carry the books for them? But it didn’t matter at the moment.

He accepted the phone with a smile and thanks, and held it to his ear, eyes back on Dex. “Hello. Peter?” He guessed.

“Um. Yeah. This is Peter.” His voice was stronger than the last time he’d spoken to Wright by phone - easier, without the sound of Dex sobbing echoing down the stairs, to sound strong. “Sorry, we have your cell number but, um, if she checks the call log… she checks it a lot. The library is safer. It’s just, you know-… oh, sorry. You, um, you don’t care about that. I’m sorry. I ramble sometimes on the phone, I just-”

The sound of a younger voice hissing something just out of earshot in the background. Dex, still leaning into Wright, quirked a small smile at the sound.

“No, I will, I’ll tell him! Um, Dex is still… you still have him, right?”

“Yes, I have him. And I do, in fact, care. Thank you for avoiding my cell - that was wise,” Wright responded calmly, smiling both because the nervous boys amused him and Dex’s smile was… well. Dex’s smile. “What would you like to tell me, Peter?”

“S-sorry. I don’t normally get to use the phone but Seb is cooking something and Henry wouldn’t do it-”

More hissed, not-quite-audible speech on the other end. Dex closed his eyes, shoulders shaking with silent laughter, even as he winced at the motion jostling his bruises. Wright smirked, then, realizing just what was going on with those boys.

“Right, no, I’m telling him right now! She, uh, she’s coming back early, to have Henry, um, sing and play piano for a couple people, so… you should probably bring Dex home.” He paused, then added awkwardly, “Um. Sorry. Again.”

“Thank you, Peter. We’ll return shortly. Could you please wait near the gate to help Dex?” Wright said. He held the phone with his shoulder and leaned forward with his free arm, taking Dex’s unfinished burger and dropping it into the open fast food bag. He made eye contact with Lillian, though he didn’t make a request yet. “I’m going to hang up, now, Peter. Tell Henry he should practice.”

“He says you should practice,” Peter said audibly on the other end, slightly muffled as he clearly had his hand over the bottom of the phone. I do practice! Came the answer, defensive and snapping.

Dex calmly took the phone and hung it up for Wright, the same small smile playing over his face. He hadn’t exactly missed that Henry and Peter acted less like brothers than they did… something else entirely, but he had purposefully pretended not to notice. It was… sort of nice, to finally acknowledge it even just to himself and Wright.

Even if the boys themselves hadn’t, yet.

C-R-U-S-H, he spelled. He might have been smirking.

“Just a little one,” Wright murmured back, still smiling his amusement.

“Sounds like you’re heading out,” Lillian said. Dex nodded, signing thank you to her, which she waved off. “Hush, Dex. You know we love seeing you here. No one will bother you on your way out.”

Wright gently brought Dex up to standing, his arm still around the man’s waist. He took a pen from the desk and wrote his phone number neatly on a stray piece of what appeared to be scrap. And then he reached back and down for the bag of food. “Please call me if you need anything, or for Dex and I, or if you have any worries, Lillian. I’m retired - I have plenty of time.”

Lillian took the scrap of paper, biting her lower lip in thought. She looked at Dex - leaning heavily against Wright for support, even as he looked miles better than when he first came in - and then back to Wright. “You said earlier something about him not going on trips. If he’s gone for a while again, I should call you? I mean obviously if we see him looking… worse-”

Dex snorted, slowly spelling U-N-L-I-K-E-L-Y, and Lillian affectionately rolled her eyes in return.

“Don’t be obtuse, Dex. We’ll call if he's… badly hurt again. But if he just stops coming without warning? Should I assume… you need to know that?”

“Yes, you should assume the worst and call,” Wright nodded, his arm reflexively tightening around Dex’s waist. He hesitated a moment, before adding, “I’ll let you know when you can assume better.”

Dex bit his lower lip against the soft, private smile that wanted to come out, at that. Ten months until he’ll tell them not to worry about me any longer. And Wright would visit before that, when he could, and Dex could keep himself going on those visits, on that promise.

A promise Wright intended to keep. Water in the desert.

“Okay. Take care, Dex.” Lillian frowned, worriedly, before she slipped the folded scrap of paper into her front pocket. “Be safe.” When Dex only smiled again, dryly, she sighed. “You know what I mean. As safe as you can be, given…”

Given what you are. The words were there, in the air between them, but Lillian caught herself before she said them.

I try, Dex signed to her. Not that he could do much, now, to stem the tide of Karen’s slow-burning, unending anger. He had failed her, in the most profound way. It said something about how broken he was that part of him felt sincere guilt to have let her down, even now. Even as the wound she’d torn across his face throbbed even more.

We go, he mouthed to Wright, gripping tightly onto him with his good hand as the room spun lazily around him. Please.

Wright nodded, but… Dex looked tired, and he still had to walk back to the house. He brought Dex’s hand to his shoulder, and picked the other man up as he had many times before, carried him without shame like a bride out the door of the room. Dex was far too exhausted to try and argue, and barely noticed the other library patrons who watched them leave.

Wright carefully set him back on his feet by the car door, opening it up before he helped Dex to get into the passenger seat. He fastened the seatbelt for him, then stopped for a moment to look and gently press a kiss to his lips.

Dex smiled into the kiss, then pulled back and looked up at him. “Hey,” he said, softly, nuzzling briefly into Wright’s face. “Won’t disappear, if you don’t. Can wait for you.”

Wright moaned very softly and closed his eyes for a moment. Look at what he sacrifices for you. You don’t deserve him. He looked at Dex again, trailed the backs of his fingers down the man’s cheek and neck.

“Thank you, love,” he murmured.

“Love you,” Dex whispered back. “Love you. Can wait.”

Wright pulled away rather abruptly, and closed Dex’s door. He circled the back of the car, taking his time, and he only got back in to start the vehicle once he’d made certain there were no tears standing in his eyes.

[homogrimoire-archive]

The Remnant Branches

CH. 6 - The Woe of the Wretched

Part 3: A Sibling's Love

Having completed his mission for Oz already, James returns to Jakob to deliver some unfortunate news. After, he begins his peaceful quest to search for any astronomical information this world may hold. This first takes him to the library in the nearby village.

AO3 Link

The elevator reached the surface with the sound of its old doors creaking open. Ironwood was feeling ambivalent, however. On one hand, his mission was complete, and he had five days left to do as he pleased. On the other hand, reviewing the video tapes revealed that the mother had perished in the factory while running away from her children with a man. It is only human to want to be free from burden too. Ironwood knew he had to at least tell Jakob that harsh truth.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re okay. You were in there for a while.” said Jakob as James entered the door.

“Yes, I’m fine, but, there’s no easy way to say this.” From the look on Jakob’s face, Ironwood could tell he already knew what was coming.

“It’s my mom, huh? It’s alright. Nier already told me. He said he found her on his way back, and brought me back some of her perfume.” he said sadly.

“How are you holding up?”

“I’ll be alright. And Gideon will come around eventually. … I just-” he let out a sigh. “I just don’t know what to feel now. It hurts that she left us, but I know this was all too much for her. She just wanted to be happy, and her happiness didn’t involve us, but I still love her. We had some good times, and she did try for a time, and she is my mom. I just can’t bring myself to hate her. I feel like I should be stronger, and not even cry for her. Is that bad?” he asked, eyes watery and voice on the verge of cracking. Ironwood thought for a moment.

“I will be honest, I can’t understand how you feel, so take this as a grain of salt: I don't think you’re wrong for wanting that. Ultimately, she hurt you, her child. But understand this,” James got down on a knee to be eye level with him, “you are strong. From all my years, I’ve learned that it's easier for people to hate than it is to love. It takes a lot of strength to love, especially after what she did. And look around you!” James got up and motioned him to look at the shop around him. “Despite everything, you’ve managed to run this shop and become an excellent blacksmith, all while taking care of your brother all on your own. That is no small feat, especially for someone your age. This is a tough time for you, but you will get through it. You are strong.”

“Thanks mister Ironwood.” Jakob sniffed. “I needed that. It's gonna be hard, but things will be alright. I think she would want us to be alright too. And besides, I still have Gideon.”

“I’m glad. Oh, and here’s some junk I collected on the way. I figured you could use it.” Ironwood tossed a bag full of scrap onto the counter.

“Sweet! Thanks!” he exclaimed happily.

“No problem Jakob. … It looks like I’ll be on my way now.”

“Alright, stay safe now. There are a lot more shades out there than here in the Junk Heap.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve faced all sorts of monsters before.” With a final wave goodbye, James closed the door behind him and made his way to the exit. He was never the best at goodbyes or any sort of closing remarks.

As he walked, he thought about how Jakob could still love his mother after what she did. However, he knew he would have to be content in knowing that he would never understand it. A child’s love for their parent was a powerful thing.

He rememberd that Nier told him that there was a library in his village just across the plains. He hoped he could get lucky and find some old star charts or any sort of astronomical information. While Remnant was overall more technologically advanced, this world had traveled into space, well beyond their atmosphere.

From the information stored at the factory, he learned that this world had sent people to their unbroken moon, set artificial satellites in orbit around their planet, and sent machines to study planets billions of miles away. It amazed Ironwood so, and he intended to learn as whatever he could from this world’s knowledge on outer space. It was about time he treated himself to enjoying his little hobby.

Astronomy was something that always interested him. So much of it was unknown. There was a sense of serenity in that. It was a place free of the chaos of a cruel world. He considered that space could be chaotic too, but in its own ways, ways much less cruel. Space is an exotic, previously unknown beauty to him. He dreams that it is a place free of duty and worry, where people are safe, and will never have to worry about the cruelest cruelties of life. Salem, Grimm, murder, and needless suffering are absent there in his dream.

However, more than that, much more than that, a part of him believes something. It is the part of him where his last shred of innocence exists, the part where he holds onto hope for a merciless and unforgiving world. It believes that there, he can finally love.

-

After about half an hour fighting aggressive shades across the plain, James finally arrived at the gates of the village. He knocked on the large door, and waited. Looking up, he saw a man looking down on him over the side of the top of the gate, and disappeared from view, shouting an ‘okay’ that led to the gate opening. A guard gave a grunt of acknowledgement as he passed. It was a quiet place, and nothing like Atlas. By the fountain, he noticed a woman at a fountain singing a song. It helped calm him after the heavy, heart racing, fighting.

Ku ata

Tsu no-o va-lai

Tzud-e jei

Fo-aul ae kai

She seemed like she could help him.

“Excuse me, miss, would you happen to know where the library is?” he asked her.

“Do I look like a tourist guide to you?” she said curtly. Ironwood didn’t know what to say. “I’m just joking with ya.” she laughed. “It’s that building at the top of the hill.” she pointed out. “I’m Devola, and if you need any help finding something, ask my sister Popola. She’ll be in the room on the second floor to the right.”

“Alright, thank you.” he waved as she resumed her song. He just hoped his encounter with the other sister wouldn’t be like that.

The library had all its books stacked up its walls, leaving it a rather open space. At first, he aimlessly wandered around, scanning the spines of the books he passed. So far, he hadn’t found what he was looking for, and decided to give Popola a visit. At a shelf next to the base of the stairs was a little girl struggling to reach a book. Her hair was a silvery white, akin to Nier’s. He noted that similarity. He reached for the book and handed it to her.

“Here you are.”

“Thank you mister!” she said with a bright smile. She took a seat at the stair’s first step and began to read the simple book. Aside from her pale skin, which could be attributed to a lack of sunlight, odd considering the eternal sun, she did not look sick to him. Once at the top of the stairs, he turned right and knocked on the door.

“Come in!” she shouted, and Ironwood entered. “Oh, a new face. Not often you see one of those. How can I help you?” she said, looking up from the paperwork on her desk.

“I’m looking for books on astronomy, or any information you have on it really.” he said.

“Hmm… Astronomy… I don’t recall there being any books on that here, but-”

“DEVOLA, HURRY, QUICK!” screamed a voice downstairs.

“Crap, crap, crap!” she fearfully repeated as she leaped over her desk and bounded downstairs. James made sure to get out of her way, and looked downstairs once she had past him.

At the bottom of the stairs was the girl from earlier. She was curled up, wincing in pain as a darkness enveloped her arms and legs. There seemed to be some lettering in it. It had almost seemed familiar to James, but it faded before he could more clearly see it.

However, he knew for sure that this was Nier’s daughter, Yonah, with her silver-white hair and some sickness that could only be the Black Scrawl. It was unlike any kind of sickness he had seen before. He saw Devola scoop her up in her arms and leave the library.

He made his way down the stairs and picked up the book she dropped, A picture book titled The Wizard of Oz. Amused at the title, but otherwise uninterested in it, he placed it back on the shelf. Aesop’s Fables, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears were among the selection of books with colored pictures and big fonts.

Realizing he was the children’s section, he went back upstairs to browse another random section. He managed to find what he assumed was the philosophy section, based on the titles. It was filled with names unknown to him, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Karl Grün, Simone de Beauvoir, Georg Hegel, Zhuangzi, Mozi, and many more.

He picked up a book by Karl Marx and flipped through it. Interestingly, none of its words were capitalized. He assumed it was a printing error. Once he saw that it concerned economics as well, and he quickly put it back. He dealt with enough economics back home, and had no desire to read about it on his little vacation. He owed himself that much, even if he was starting to feel guilty for taking such a long break from his work. He managed to find the romance section, but quickly found that none of it was to his taste. Romance as a genre was he never really understood the appeal of anyways.

Eventually, he settled on a titleless book that was at the top of a first floor shelf. It seemed mysterious, and therefore interesting.

There was an android who was set to oversee a small village. Her name was Skald, and embedded in her was the incredible power of an ancient song from another world. The song allowed her to help and manage her village in incredible ways, but, it soon corrupted her and the villagers. As a result, her creators had her and the village destroyed.

Learning from their failure, the scientist removed the magical power of the song. Despite having less power than before, she still ran and oversaw the village well enough. Her creators were pleased and began to make plans for mass production. While her creators did that, she had grown close to another woman in her village. They did lots together, so much so that many began to believe they were sisters. And soon, they began to refer to themselves as sisters. The scientist saw that there was an increase in her performance during this time.

However, the woman died in an unfortunate and sudden accident, leaving Skald all alone. Her performance decreased greatly as a result, and she was eventually decommissioned. She was not saddened at the revelation of her fate. In fact, she seemed grateful. However, the scientists were saddened by their creation. They created something near immortal that could love, and would more often than not have that love ripped away from them eventually.

In honor of their creation, they learned from their cruel mistake. Skald was renamed Popola, the nickname given to her by the woman and villagers, and she would have a twin to be by her side. Her name would be Devola, after the woman who loved Skald as a sister. “Together, they could sing a song that would calm and heal the heart. Together, they would face an otherwise lonely existence. Together, love would allow them to survive a cruel world.” was the ending of the short story.

Ironwood wasn’t sure what to exactly think of the story. He wondered why someone would write such a preposterous backstory about their village leaders. But then his thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. In came the younger sister, Devola, who went to meet him.

“Good, you’re still here. Sorry about earlier.”

“It’s alright, things happen. Will she be alright?”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine, she just needs some rest and medicine. She’ll be back here tomorrow I’m sure, unless Nier gets back soon. But Popola wanted me to pass a message. She said that you should try the Lighthouse at the Seafront south of here, or the desert civilization east of here. There's a store there where you might find what you’re looking for.” She pointed in the directions he should go.

“Alright, thank you.” James said happily. “Oh, and before I forget and you might want to check out this book.” he said, handing her the book he read earlier. ‘“I can’t imagine why anyone would write something like this, and I think you wouldn’t want it in here.” Curiously, she took the book and glanced at the cover and its back, and quickly flipped through its pages.

“Ha! This is a strange little book. Thanks for catching it. Here, take this to keep it between us.” she tossed him a small sack that rattled. James opened it to find coins in it.

“Are you sure? I don’t think you need to give me this. It-”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” she calmly interrupted. “You just go and have your fun.”

“Well, alright. Thank you then.”

As he walked to the eastern gate, he wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. However, he simply just could not imagine it. A sibling’s love was something he never felt, and would never feel. He wondered if he should feel sad about that or not.

-

We give the finality of death. Iron skin draws out fear and terror, and is bathed in flesh. We are satisfied by the snatching of life. We realize our purpose through the crushing of the bodies. In our delight, we spread death far and wide. We are the iron will. We kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.

This interloper knows what he does as he slashes the blade on the way to his destination.

He knows there is blood on his hands, and accepts it readily, for he knows he must.

What he does is as just as it is unjust.

He knows this, and slashes again.

It must be done, so he believes.

Anyone can do this, so long as they think they are right.

[hwangskz]

homeboy! | pizza boy!(han) jisung

i know i was supposed to post the merpeople! au first but !!!! i just wanted to post this ok (plus im sorry this is like,,, being posted after 2 or 3 months sjsjsksj)

• ur uni had opened this new pizza place there and u just wanted to go there really bad ok

• not only because the place was really cool!!!! or that it sold amazingly good pizzas!!!!!

• ur childhood best friend jisung was working there too (▰˘◡˘▰)

• he left ur town yEARS AGO to go to seoul

• so u missed him a shit ton ok

• so u walked into the pizza place as u were returning from the library somewhere at the evening when the place almOST closes

• the bell did a little "ting!" as u walked in and were greeted by 3 amazingly good looking guys

• "hello, ma'am! welcome pizzeria palace! what would you like to have?"

• "can i have one.... barbequed chicken fiesta? medium size."

• the guy nodded and yelled a "coming right up!" to u before taking down the list of things required and went to the kitchen

• there wasn't really any place to sit since they were probably packing up when u arrived

• aka there were no chairs and u were just standing there looking like a lost child

• "hello there!! sorry we had to keep our chairs in since we were about to close but.... u can sit here!"

• u turn around to find a guy behind u with his apron on and pointing at a chair behind him

• u were honestly too tired and exhausted to say no or basically anything so u sat down

• and there was just silence covering u both when he broke the silence

• "have i.... seen u somewhere...?"

• u turn to look at his face and inch towards him, causing his cheeks to go red, but he stayed where he was

• "u kinda remind me of this one childhood friend of mine who came to seoul a few years ago and now works here"

• u rest ur back on the chair once again when u were done speaking

• "is his name......... han jisung......."

• ⊙_⊙

• ur pretty sure u only feel oNE thing now

• P U R E C O N F U S I O N

• "yea........."

• he laughs out a cute little laugh

• but u won't back down by his cute ass laugh that kinda made ur heart go d o k i d o k i !!! (≖︿≖✿)

• "wait are u his stalker or smthg"

• he scans ur face for a second and laughs again and then stops and takes a breath to talk to u again

• "why would i stalk myself?"

• this is literally ur face after he said that

• (o_O)

• so u inch closer (again) to see if it's really jisung yk

• (⊙□⊙) holy mcdoublefucking nuts in the worLD

• "HOMEBOY HAN (°0°)!!!!"

• jisung can only laugh as he ruffles ur hair and responds

• "of course it's me, dumbass"

• yes u came back to that pizza place eVERY SINGLE DAY TO MEET JISUNG (✿◠‿◠)

• hey atleast u got extra cheese and meat for free,,,,,,,,,

• "jisung can i get one of my regulars extra che-"

• "i've literally memorised ur entire menu babe"

• calling each other names like "babe" is very common u know

• yall did it before too

• but,,,,,, why does it do something to ur heart whenever he says it

• like !!!!

• uR HEART IS IN A 911 CRISIS AND U MI G H T DIE BUT THAT'S OK IT'S FOR JISUNG !! :D !!

• little did u know he's been dying like that for a long time now

• also can i just say how shameless his headass is

• like every time u would walk in the place he would INSTANTLY know it was u and would yell

• "Y/N !!!!! MY BABE !!!!!!! LOOK AT HER !!!!!!! BLESS YO EYES AND LIVES CUSTUMS!!!!!"

• this probably started when u overheard a customer who looks like ur age, asking out jisung

• (u didn't see that but he looked in ur direction before replying to her)

• he turned her down

• but that didn't stop from the others to come at him too

• whenever yall are hanging out late at night

• an ongoing 2am supermarket raid (⌐■_■) for example

• someone hAS TO INTERFERE !!!!!

• "and omg the pizza in that place literally stin-"

• "jisung??????????? omg hi!!!!!!!"

• i mean they aren't really like those Annoying Girls Who Are In Love With You

• but u always feel very insecure yk,,,,

• like jisung could replace u with them anyday

• but one day jisung finally notices ur dull expression and he asks u about it

• "y/n. something's wrong, isn't it?" - jisung, as he pulls u towards him (lightly) with a serious expression

• this is just one of those million things u love about jisung

• the fact that he doesn't just ask someone right away. he waits to confirm himself and then he confronts them. and if they aren't okay with speaking about it, he'll just give them space

• but u did want to tell him

• so u told him about ur case of insecurity

• and jisung just hugged u really close and pat ur head as ur sigh comes out muffled since ur face was legit squished in his chest

• "y/n. i will never give up someone like you. okay? stop feeling so insecure."

• and he pulls away and i swear the way he looks at u

• the endearing look he gives u

• "you're perfect, y/n."

• sometimes u really think that he likes u because of all of those boyfriend material compliments he gives u and cuddling whenever he feels cold

• "y/n!!!! :(( !!!"

• "fine u big baby c'mere i'll give u ur cuddles"

• " :DDDDD "

• oh did i mention that he tried to that lady and the tramp kiss with u

• but it was actually pretty stupid

• no no there's no noodle

• OBVIOUSLY THERE'S NO NOODLE THAT'S WHY IT WAS STUPID ANYWAYS

• HE TRIED TO DO IT WITH A FRICKIN P I Z Z A

• yall were literally this | | close to kissing but somebody rang the doorbell and yeah it was felix coming to get jisung and take him home

• oh and yea felix would ALWAYS take ur orders when u came to the place ok

• he was even the first one who took ur order

• and it wasn't like jisung didn't wanna take ur order

• he was just too busy looking at u and hearing u talk and smiling like an idiot u know

• what a cute idiot :"))))

• so this cute idiot confessed to u one day

• and u could actually swear on ur left pink toe that u were actually crying because of that

• it was like any other day when he came to ur house with an entire box of pizza yk

• but when he passed it to u

• u were kinda suspicious because he would always fight to open the box first and get the best slice first

• but he gave u the box before so,,,,,,,

• whatever man ur hungry

• so u open the box and hOLY MC CRAPPING SHIT

• "what do u say..?"

• there were words formed with cheese

• “is this..... a confession...”

• jisung laughs out a shaky breath followed by him slightly nodding his head

• “yeah,,it is,,,”

• is it possible to say that u want to cry and hug him and pepper him with kisses all at the same time as u scream because that is exactly u feel rn

• and so many thoughts are running in ur mind

• about how he moved to seoul and u always thought he was joking about it to u until he really did

• and how much u missed the warm hugs he gave u 

• and how much u loved his silly humor and 

• when u found him

• happiness like old times surrounded u once again

• and maybe it’s all the emotions that were piled up for too long, because of which u are now a fucking crying mess

• well good job y/n

• “HHHHHHHHHH JISUNG I LIKE U TOO PLS UR WORDS WERE CHEESY  ENOUGH WHAT ARE THESE EXTRA CALORIES HHHHHHHH”

• jisung first takes his time to take in ur words

• but when he DOES

• this baby just bursts into laughter and hugs u so tightly

• “even with those calories, u will always be perfect to me baby (●´ω｀●)”

• and u just cry louder because WHAT DID U, Y/N L/N, EVER DO TO DESERVE SUCH AN AMAZING ASS PERSON IN UR LIFE HHHHHHH

• WHO CONFESSED TO U WITH A PIZZA THAT SAYS “I LIKE U ALOT!!!”IN CHEESE AND A SMALL HEART MADE OF SOME EXTRA MEAT

• “y/n now ur just making the pizza saltier w ur tears pls,,,,,”

• shut up no one gave u the right to add these many calories plus be this fucking adorable ok that’s double attack.”

[idabbleincrazy]

Invisible Touch Ch.5

Pairing: Gabriel x Reader

Word Count: 2614

Warnings: um...pining?, like seriously, you might end up screaming “just kiss already!” other than that none that i can think of. 

Summary: y/n and Gabriel go to a bar in town and its karaoke day. 

A/N: I know I said I might do a time skip but this happened instead (gotta follow the muse where it goes, right?) and tough as it was to write, I had fun writing it. Song is from Moulin Rouge (if u have never seen it, u should!) Quotations in italics are the lyrics. I truly hope you guys enjoy this chapter! 

Y/f/a/d= your favorite alcoholic drink

You had finished your lunch with Gabriel without incident, finally able to have a conversation that didn’t leave you fumbling for words or wanting to flee in embarrassment. He had been quiet at first, watching you eat for a few minutes, and you had started to feel self-conscious. Thankfully, just as you could feel the flush starting to rise to your cheeks, he began talking. He didn’t further explain this morning’s upset, and you were loathe to bring it up either, so you decided to just let it go. The two of you carried on, talking about this and that, every now and then Gabriel reaching across the table to take a fry from your plate, dipping it into the chocolate frosty he had snapped up.

When you had finished eating, you continued to talk for about an hour, till you got a call from Sam asking you to go look up something in the library. You excused yourself and went to go find the book Sam had named. You quickly found the book, which was just within your reach and spent the next twenty minutes flipping through the pages and relaying the information, stopping every now and then to send him pictures of symbols that you couldn’t quite interpret. After hanging up, you put the book back and went back to the war room, slightly surprised to see Gabriel was still there.

“Boys need help with their homework” Gabe questioned, an almost annoyed smirk on his face.

“Yeah, seems they came across an older nest of vamps than they’ve encountered before. Sam said they’re stronger than the others they’ve fought, even the ones that aren’t pureblood. They got half of them before the rest made their escape. It might take an extra day to track down the rest.”

You sat back down at the table, propping your feet up. You considered something for a moment before speaking again. “You know, I’m getting kinda bored just sitting around here, want to go do something?”

“Like what?” Gabriel looked at you cautiously.

“Well, it’s five o’clock, somewhere right? How about we go to a bar, there’s one in town we haven’t been to yet.” You cocked an eyebrow at him as you spoke, wanting desperately to get out of the bunker for a while.

“Uh, sure. We taking one of the cars from the garage, or would you rather I just zap us there?”

“It would probably be best if you took us there. That way I don’t have to worry about driving back”, you respond, getting up from your chair to pull your phone from your pocket.

You quickly look up the address of the bar and an inconspicuous place for Gabriel to snap you to. You hand him your phone to look at the map and make your way around the table to where he is now standing. He hands you back your phone and grabs ahold of the sleeve of your shirt, careful not to brush against your skin, lest he cause another spark from the contact. You close your eyes as you feel reality shift around, and when you open them again you are standing in the alley behind the bar. The two of you walk around to the front of the building, Gabriel’s hand lingering on your sleeve, the warmth from his touch slowly sinking through the layer of fabric.

You walk in and stand in the doorway for a few seconds as your vision adjusts to the sudden dimness. As you look around, you are surprised by the rather sizable crowd in the bar. It may be Saturday, but its barely 2:30 in the afternoon, you weren't expecting the town to have so many day-drinkers. The bar is rather large, bigger than the other two you had already gone to with the boys.

As you and Gabriel head up to the bar, you notice why the place is livelier than you thought it would be. Set up at the back of the building is a stage with a banner over it reading Karaoke Saturday. When you get to the counter, you find a flyer and quickly scan it for the start time. It started in a hour. You figure all the early birds are getting a head-start on fueling up on liquid courage.

You order a (y/f/a/d) and Gabriel orders a Purple Nurple, at which you just shake your head, having heard the story of how the boys first met Gabe over a decade ago. He slams back the shot, orders another and tells the bartender to keep them coming as you go to find an empty booth. Gabriel sits down, handing you your drink as he sets down his second shot along with the beer he ordered. You quirk an eyebrow up at him.

“You never cease to surprise me, Gabe. Beer and a drink that’s basically a cranberry-vodka? Neither of those are particularly sweet. I’d have figured you'd order something with an umbrella.”

“Nah. When it comes to drinks, the simpler the better. ‘Sides, it takes a lot more for me to even feel a buzz, remember?” He took a swig from the beer, letting out a contented sigh as he set it back down and looked at you.

You nodded at him in slight wonder and took a sip of your drink. You noted that the bartender hadn't skimped on the alcohol like most other places do. You made a note to yourself not to drink too much too fast. Didn't want to go making a fool of yourself, now did you?

-------------------------------

An hour and two drinks later, you were feeling well relaxed as a man got up on the stage and announced the start of the karaoke, calling up the first person on the list. As the music started, you couldn't help but smirk as you recognized the beginning of The Offspring’s ‘You’re Gonna Go Far Kid’. It was one of the songs that never failed to make you think of Gabriel. You looked over at him to find him considering the stage with a wistful smile on his face.

You went up to the bar to get another drink, letting the music surround you. The guy singing wasn't half-bad, and it sounded nearly as good as the original. By the time you got your drink and headed back to the booth, the next person headed up to the stage. The opening guitar work of Pat Benatar’s ‘Invincible' rang out from the speakers as you sat down.

The power of the music and your third drink thrummed in your veins, making you bolder than you had thought possible at the moment. You considered yourself for a second before turning your attention to Gabriel.

“Hey, Gabe, you ever done karaoke”, you asked the archangel, a nervous flutter running through your chest.

“Of course”, he replied. “Hard to spend so many centuries down here and avoid that gem of human creation. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I was wondering if you'd like to do a duet with me”, you asked with hope in your eyes.

“Huh. Sure, cupcake. What did you have in mind?”

You flashed him a quick smile as you got up to find the sign-up sheet. “It's a surprise. If you don't know the words already, I'm sure you can just snap them into your memory.”

You signed the both of you up and went back to the booth, determined to be just buzzed enough to push back any lingering doubts and fears by the time they called your names. Over the course of the next half hour, you finished off your drink and two shots of whiskey, feeling pleasantly tipsy but still sober enough to talk without slurring. Your nervousness abated, you watched Gabriel closely as he consumed more Purple Nurples. As the current song faded, you straightened up and prepared yourself mentally, knowing you were next on the list.

The man came back on stage and called out your names. Gabriel got up first and reached a hand out to you to help you out of the booth. As your hands touched, instead of the electric shock you had experienced this morning, you felt a tickling warmth spreading from his hand to yours and up, throughout your body. You smiled up at him and the two of you made your way up to the stage.

The man in charge handed you your microphones and you waited for the song to start. As the name of the song appeared on the screen, Gabriel let out a small laugh and looked over at you. “Really, sugar?”

“What, it's one of my favorite movies! It makes a perfect duet.” You crinkled your nose and held in a giggle.

The two of you turned to face the bar patrons as the words to “Elephant Love Medley” showed up on the screen.

Hoping the crowd was buzzed enough not to care that the beginning of the song was more talking then singing, Gabriel began, taking of course, the part of Christian, while you would be his Satine.

“Love is many, splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love.” His voice carried through the speakers, a voice that at the same time as being non-threatening, commanded to be listened to.

You gulped and quickly put on the British accent that you were quite proud of as you spoke out your part. “Please, don't start that again.”

Back and forth you went as the music kicked in. When the time came to actually sing, he turned to face you. You noticed he was acting just like Christian did in the movie, right down to the hand gestures, so you decided to do the same. Chuck knows, you've watched the movie enough times to have Satine’s part memorized.

You turned away from him at the line “You crazy fool, I won't give in to you” and back again at his spoken “Don't”, now fully immersed in the performance. What you hadn't expected was the way your heart clenched as you looked into his eyes as he softly sang out “dont leave me this way”. You took a breath as you quickly prepared for the next verse, praying your voice wouldn't be as shaky as you suddenly felt.

“You'd think that people would've had enough of silly love songs.” You managed to squeak out, thankful that this part of the song was softly sung in the movie too.

“I look around me and I see it isn't so, oh no.” Gabriel took a step toward you as he sang.

“Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.” Breathe in, breathe out, don’t look him in the eye.

Another step. “Well, what’s wrong with that”, step, “I’d like to know”, step, his hand reaching out to you and caressing your chin, nudging your face up to look at him, “’cause here I go, again.”

As his verse continued, you could feel the warmth from his touch spreading through you once more, your nervousness ebbing away and your heartbeat calming again. You stared back at him, leaning in to his touch, your resolve to see this through hardening. Smirking, you sang back at him.

“Love makes us act like we are fools. Throw our lives away, for one happy day.”

“We can be heroes”, he belted out, his hand sliding away from your chin, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “Just for one day.”

Slipping back into the scene you were playing out, you turn away from him, shaking your head. “You, you will be mean.”

“No, I won’t.”

“And I, I’ll drink all the time!” You prepared for the next few lines, reminding yourself it was just a song, he was just performing for the crowd.

“We should be lovers”, he crooned.

“We can’t do that.” You looked back at him, your head cast downward, looking up at him through your lashes.

“We should be lo-oo-overs,” Gabriel grabbed your hand, pulling you around to face him, caught up in the song just as much as you were. “And that’s a fact.”

“No, nothing would keep us together.”

“We could steal time, just for one day.” The look in his eyes sent a shiver down your spine as you continued singing to each other, forgetting that there was anyone else in the room.

“We could be heroes, forever and ever”, your voices joined together in a delicious harmony that would’ve given Nicole and Ewan a run for their money.

As the operatic crescendo built up around you, you felt your heart thumping loudly in your chest and you could feel a tingle of electricity coming from his hand again. This time, it didn’t shock either of you but instead was gentle and soothing. Neither of you noticed when the music ended. You just stared at each other until the noise of the applauding crowd broke through and you let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you were holding. You smiled at Gabriel and quickly ducked your head as you felt a blush rising to your cheeks.

“Gabriel and (y/n), everybody!” The announcer came back on stage to retrieve your mics and the two of you headed back to your booth.

“Wowzers, (y/n), I had no idea you could sing like that! You should do it more often.” Gabriel looked at you warmly as you sat down. “Let me go get you something to drink, you must be parched after that performance. Another one of those?” He gestured at your empty glass.

“No, I’ll have a beer this time, thanks Gabe.”

As he went to get the drinks, you took the moment alone to contemplate the craziness that had just occurred. You were ecstatic that nothing had gone wrong up on stage, you had gotten through it without completely embarrassing yourself. But, those looks Gabriel had given you had thrown you for a loop. You were wary not to get your hopes up that the lyrics of the song had meant the same to him as they had to you. You were glad that the two of you were able to finally get along and didn’t want to push the issue and end up ruining everything again. Unfortunately, you also had a nagging curiosity about why his touch no longer shocked you, but still emitted a type of energy you hadn’t yet encountered with other angels. It might be because he was an archangel, but you had a feeling it went deeper than that.

You were brought back from your thoughts as you saw Gabriel coming back with the beers, and you smiled at him as he handed you one of them. “You know, you were pretty awesome yourself, up there. I guess I should’ve expected it though, seeing as how you are the archangel of languages.”

“Heh. Well, someone’s done their homework, haven’t they? And, yes, singing happens to be one of my many talents.” He flashed his flirty smirk and raised his eyebrow.

The two of you drank your beers and listened to the next three performers in silence, this time just enjoying each other’s presence, no trace of the normal awkwardness you usually felt. After you finished, you asked Gabriel to snap you back home, not wanting to travel past the mellow buzz you felt into the nauseously drunk category. Gabriel went and paid the tab and you walked out and back around to the alley you had arrived in. Once again, you closed your eyes as reality bent around you, waiting till you felt ground firmly beneath your feet before opening them again.

Gabe’s Babes: @liloldlou @calamitychaos

Rich’s Bitches: @warlockwriter @archangelgabriellives @green-draws0 @waywardtricks @hankypranky @briars-glenn @thewhiterabbit42

Invisible Touch: @somewhatnatural @missihart23 @whodoesntlovefanfics @baritonechick @nobodys-baby-now @marichromatic @black-angel-bahamut  

tags are still open.

[imagineaworlds]

04//Mike the Inconvenience

summary: Olivia Grace is a motherfucking Magician. Yeah, she’s British. Yeah, she’s got a LOT of secrets– but doesn’t everyone? And she’s totally fucked up.

pairing: margo hanson x female!oc

word count: 2,505

warnings (for entire series): cursing. drug and alcohol use. drug and alcohol abuse. sex.

(1) - (2) - (3) - (4)

Grace was stumbling down the stairs just before she was knocked into by someone running up the stairs. She rolled her eyes and looked at the boy in front of her. It was Todd, one of the Physical kids living in the cottage, but forgotten by Grace and all of her friends.

“Sorry,” Todd apologized, then continued running up the stairs, afraid. Grace continued down the stairs, and she heard the laughter of Margo and Eliot.

“Todd?!” Margo joked. They continued to laugh as Grace leaned over the staircase railing and sighed. Eliot was first to notice her to which Margo turned around for. “Oh! Liv! Come here,” Margo waved her hands in her own direction. Grace threw her head back and unwillingly went down the stairs. “Question,” she whirled around to reveal a small pink bikini with gold chains covering her body. It was weird to have friends who trusted her to the point they were willing to show off their bodies to her. “Does this scream Ibiza or what?”

Shyly, Grace nodded.

“Liv,” Eliot gushed. He turned back to his packing and talked about his plans for Ibiza.

“Hey, El?” Margo stopped him. He looked up at her. “We haven’t invited anyone. Have we?”

Eliot shook his head. “No, but Ibiza’s our thing. It always has been. You can’t be serious. Dean Fogg would never allow it.”

Margo smiled, “Olivia, go grab your things. You’re coming to Ibiza with us!” Margo ran up a couple of steps to meet with Olivia. “Come on, you're going to need help packing all of those drugs in your case, ‘cause they are sure as hell coming with us,” she pulled Olivia up the stairs.

“I’ll just use a packing spell Alice taught me… Thank you, though,” Grace said uncomfortably.

“Nonsense,” Margo clapped her hands on Grace’s shoulders to stop their walking through the hallway. “I insist.”

For the next hour Grace and Margo were packing bathing suits on bathing suits, drugs on drugs, and the occasional shirt and shorts, but never anything noticeable in the pile of white and green in plastic bags. Grace had asked as a joke if everyone at Ibiza was always nude, and Margo plainly responded with a yes, then laughed hysterically. When it was all packed Margo helped Grace take the bags downstairs. Eliot was shuffling through papers and scratching his head. He was looking for some kind of spell in Arabic, or at least that’s what Grace could see from the papers and books he was rummaging through.

“I’m looking for a present for the elders who invited us, but I can't decide,” he admitted, tossing a book on the ground, frustrated.

“What did you guys do last year?” Grace asked.

Eliot opened another book. “A working bag of dicks.”

Grace immediately laughed. “Brilliant. Did they love it?”

“Oh, yes, they did…” Margo smirked, swaying her hips to the side as she bit her lip. “What are you deciding between, El?”

Eliot sighed and threw another book on the floor. It was the last book he had to throw, and all the other papers were crumpled, telling both Margo and Olivia that he was out of resources. “I heard some kids talking about a magical gin. Problem is, I only have half of the spell and there’s nothing in the cottage that even mentions the word gin.”

“Okay? So?”

“We,” he looked at both the girls, “have to go to the library.”

Margo’s face scrunched, her nose wrinkled, and it was all joined by a whine, “You must be joking.”

They had put it off all day. Margo, Eliot, and Olivia were doing everything they could to stay away from the terrible fact that they had to go to the dusty, long forgotten library somewhere in the middle of campus where all the nerds hung out. They even resulted to Google Magic for answers, but clearly everyone online didn’t have a clue or didn’t give a shit about actual magic. So the ugly truth became clear, and the three best friends walked to the library prepared to stay up until morning if they had to just to find the spell for the magic gin. When they got there, the place was empty except for the old and disgusting librarian. She was stubby, a bit overweight, and her back was hunched. Her grey hair resembled that of Albert Einstein, which made Grace want to laugh and point the joke out, but she stayed quiet. The librarian was stern, and if you made any noise louder than a whisper, she threw you out and banned you from the library, which didn’t sound all that bad to Grace, truth be told.

While Grace and Margo sat down, Eliot’s fingers skimmed over book spine’s and his eyes scanned the titles, looking for anything that could be helpful to their search. When he returned ten minutes later, he held five books. He slammed them on the table then grabbed the top book, falling into the chair next to Margo and across from Grace. Margo took the second book, and Grace the third. Upon opening the book, Grace noticed that it was all in Arabic, but when she focused on the letters she could suddenly understand everything she was reading. To make it weirder, she had never taken a foreign language class in her life, not even Spanish, and she had never seen an Arabic word in her entire life as far as she knew.

“What even is this?” Margo complained.

“It’s Arabic,” Eliot and Grace said at the same time.

“Ugh,” Margo shut her book, “A bag of dicks is sounding awfully good at the moment,” she joked, taking Eliot’s hand in hers. Grace laughed and got back to reading, taking a few notes.

“Copy that,” a man said from behind Eliot, still looking at the bookshelves. When he noticed that the attention had drifted to him, he faced them.  “My name’s Mike. You guys are reading Arabic, no?”

“We are…” Olivia answered.

“I aced it here a couple of years ago,” he began, “And without cheating.”

“Woah,” Margo whispered. The comment wasn’t made for Mike’s name or his ability to read and understand Arabic or his courage to make fun of Eliot, it was pointed at his looks. And gosh, he had looks. Grace thought to herself.

Mike did not differ from any other New Yorker, yet he managed to catch all of their eyes. Gay or otherwise. His blonde hair was cut short— definitely not long like Quentin’s or Eliot’s— He was wearing a plaid shirt with a suit coat and khakis. It was an acquired taste, supposedly. Margo was clearly suspicious of him, or jealous, Grace couldn’t quite place her finger on what Margo was feeling, or let alone the difference between the two when it did come to Margo.

“Eliot,” he held out his hand. “By the way.” Mike shook Eliot’s hand, but they didn’t let go. Grace and Margo looked to each other.

“Margo and Olivia,” Margo said, pointing to both the girls, but Eliot and Mike didn’t break gaze with one another.

By the time they were back at the cottage, they had found the spell (Without Eliot and Mike’s help, Margo would want everyone to know that it was Grace who found the information.) And when they were building for the spell, Mike and Eliot were still not helping, which irritated Margo to the point she yelled at them: “Just bang! Now!” And that’s what they did. For over two or three hours the two of them were in Eliot’s room, shaking the cottage. Literally.

“So I want everyone here to know that the two of you did nothing,” Margo snapped at the two men once they came downstairs. “Except for each other.” Margo and Grace had finished, finally, and it seemed that the boys did too. “Todd did more than you.”

Todd looked excited, but Grace gave him one nasty look and he was quiet.

“I’m sorry, Margo,” Mike said sincerely. “I really do hope that we get to know each other. You, too, Olivia.”

“Oh, um, Mike,” Eliot stopped him. “Margo and I are fortunate enough to get away with calling her Olivia… I don’t want to find you dead,” Eliot joked and looked at Grace.

She gave him a sour smile before starting the machine for the gin. It rattled for a while, then came to a stop. Nothing happened.

“Well, that was underwhelming.”

Following Eliot's comment that came too early, the bottle filled to the top with what looked to be a liquid. Margo made a snide comment and gripped the bottle, ordering Todd to get olives and glasses as she popped the cork off. The lights flickered and smoke filled the room. It wasn’t magic exactly, but instead a crappy looking, real life CGI-ed genie.

“Shit…” Eliot muttered. Noticing everyone’s confusion in the cottage, he turned to them and explained, “It’s not gin, as in: g-i-n,” —Eliot loved spelling those kinds of things out—  “It’s jinn: j-i-n-n. The Arabic word.”

Margo laughed, “No fucking way. What kind of jinn is he? Like a three wish kind o’ guy or an any wish means endless possibilities?”

Todd stepped forwards, “Actually, Margo… Because you opened the bottle and freed him, he’s in your service and will only respond to you.”

“Mental,” Grace whispered.

She watched as the jinn eased and bowed to Margo. “نعم عشيقة.” Is what he said, which Grace easily translated to: “Yes, mistress.” Then he walked to Mike, pushed Eliot out of the way, and gripped at Mike’s neck. Everyone was in a state of panic by such point because the jinn was attacking someone, and even Eliot tried to help, but the jinn and Mike disappeared as Eliot was about to trap them.

“Okay, Bambi, what the hell?” Eliot exclaimed when he stood up straight. “Why did you wish away my boyfriend?!”

Margo laughed and set down the jinn bottle on the table. She was frustrated with him and his accusations, and why he felt it was okay to treat her like shit just because they weren’t as close anymore. Or at least that’s what Grace got from the way Margo was responding. It was hard for Olivia Grace to understand what everyone was saying because they were screeching in each other’s faces and she had taken a few extra ecstasy pills once she and Margo were done packing her stuff for Ibiza.

Ibiza. That was something Grace was looking forward to while she fell onto the couch, blocking out her friend’s bickering. She needed to get away from Brakebills and Quentin, though both he and Alice were at Brakebills South and would be until the day after the girls went to Ibiza for break. Two weeks of alcohol, drugs, and sex was what Grace needed to forget everything and move on with her life. She was at Brakebills to learn magic, become like her mother and father, and live out the rest of her life as a legitimate Magician. That’s what excited Grace the most. She finally had something to put effort towards. High school was fun and all, but college and magic was really what made sense to her. Sometimes she feared magic would become an addiction too. What’s the harm in one more addiction? Grace kept reminding herself.

Just remember, Vivie, you’re the disappointment. The one who’s different from the rest of the world, loves someone for their personality and not their sexuality or gender. You’re the one who never made the cut for Brakebills until two months after the official Exam. That’s what Grace kept saying to herself, and, yes, most of it was true but it never meant she had to beat herself up about it. Liam always told her it was important to stay true to yourself and not lie to anyone about it. If people had any issues with Olivia, they’d have to talk to Liam about it, which usually meant a black eye or two and a few broken bones and teeth. Big brother’s have the tendency to be overprotective, and Grace had her protector.

Once Margo and Eliot were finally done arguing and had agreed that Margo could have possibly been responsible for Mike’s disappearance, they went on a hunt for El’s sudden boyfriend, which neither Margo nor Grace approved of. Like Eliot cared. They were headed to the library, where they met Mike. Margo admitted she thought Mike should go back from where he came, which Todd figured out was where ever they met Mike. Just so happened, that was at the library, the one place they thought they would never return to. Grace was being pulled Margo who was following a half clothed Eliot.

“You don’t think he’s mad, right?” Margo said to Grace. Olivia shrugged her shoulders as she walked on her own and not being dragged around. “I mean… They only met today, banged a couple of times in one day, and that’s it. It’s impossible for them to be in love and shit suddenly. Isn’t it?”

“Margo, why don’t you just talk to him? We go to Ibiza tonight, so talk to him before that,” Grace guided. Margo sighed and looked at Eliot’s back and his long curls, longing for her best friend. She smiled at Grace and rested her head on the Brit’s shoulder as they continued to walk. Margo Hanson may have not had Eliot Waugh wrapped around her finger anymore, but she sure had Olivia Grace under her trance—  Metaphorically speaking.

Margo was ready to leave for Ibiza, the hub of partying for Magicians. Grace was still upstairs, thinking about why she was leaving and what good would come from it if she stayed or left. But against everything running through her mind she picked up her suitcase and went to the stairs. She could hear Margo complaining about Eliot not going to Ibiza with her, but Eliot responded with an apology, followed up by him saying some things about Mike.

“But what about Olivia?” Eliot snickered, “Hm?”

There was an unauditable retort from Margo.

“Oh, come on, Bambi! Just tell me you’ll at least kiss her.”

“I don’t know what you're talking about,” she said, followed by something else unauditable to Grace.

“I see the way you look at her…”

Margo sighed, “It’s not that obvious,” she declared. “Is it?”

Eliot laughed. “Come here, Bambi.” Grace pictured them hugging and swaying together. “You have fun without me, you hear? And remember, sun screen, waxing, and a lot of drinking. I’ll be disappointed if you return with more than a single swimsuit.”

Grace took this as her chance to show them she was there. “Are we ready?”

Margo turned to her, “Yeah, just one more thing. Todd!” she called. Todd came running in from the kitchen as if he too were eavesdropping. “Grab a swimsuit. You’re coming to Ibiza with us ladies.”

“Actually?!” Todd jumped up and down.

“Yes. So get a move on.”

[dailydoseofdacre]

Teenage Dirtbag

(iii.)

request: angst with make up at the end also going along with “Hey there! You’re probably drowning in these already but could I request a Billy Hargrove imagine where the reader is super nice and they become like this couple that’s “sweet enough to rot your teeth out or mean enough to knock your teeth out”? Xo”

A/N: trying my hardest to fulfill each request and post these daily (maybe twice daily since i get über bored). A lil heads up that (1) I’m sorry if this is crap so far and (2) this will maybe be a long chapter. Also, if you’ve requested an imagine and I don’t hit it exactly to the T, I’m so sorry. + this chapter did take me a long time to write,,, like a lot of editing went into this chapter.. hope you guys like it

word count: 3.1k+ das long.

The week flew by just as fast as one could blink, with only led to Billy’s two encounters being long thrown out the window and your life going back to the normal lonely one it was.

Sorta.

All week since your last conversation with Billy, you noticed that Billy’s gaze would lock onto you as you walked the halls. The new awareness Billy had harbored caused you to change your routes to classes, walking around the school rather than through the corridors; which benefitted you because you despised the looks and remarks while walking. His piercing blues would glare at you from across the field as you read and ate during lunch, Billy would lean onto his Camaro, a cigarette in his hand or mouth, chatting up his next victim of the afternoon. Though every so often he’d catch himself turning his head to check up on you, then returning back to his previous conversation with a dullness in his voice.

Not acknowledging the newfound attention one bit, you took the liberty of eating in the library. Of course, with a lot of pleases and I promise I won’t make a messes to Mrs. Lovinsten. In result to the sacrifices you made, you were pleased that you had successfully dodged the “God of Hawkins High.” Knowing that he was up to no good, both in school and as an attempt to take one humongous step into your life. If you had let him in, you were more than sure that he would tug the strings of your heart until you completely fell for him. Billy would make you feel like the only girl in the world until he got what he really intended to get. Then he would just dump you like a teenager would with trash: disgusted. And frankly, you didn’t want that to happen to you.

A sad smile would etch your face as you started to partake in reading love stories, wishing that one day you’d find your knight in shining armor. Not with Dan-your stepdad. You seethe to yourself, heart skipping a beat as you delved into the deep depths of your memories, always deciphering what the root of his behavior was. The given was the tremendous amount of alcohol he consumed, but what in Dan changed from seeing you has his own to treating you like he owned you?

Upon reapproaching the thought of your stepfather acting as he did to you, the interest to read the sappy Romeo and Juliet was slim to none. A small scoff releasing from your lips, scolding yourself for even considering that you’d ever find love. Taking a small bite of your sandwich, you then thought of what you wanted to do today, since it was Halloween. Lips tugging slightly as you decided that you’d stop at the local library and pick up two or three scary books, also keeping a mental note to pick up some candy on the way home.

Casting your attention from your sandwich, you hissed a crap as you recalled that your neighbor since infancy, Tina, would be throwing her Halloween party this evening. Only all of the students at Hawkins would show up— all but you, which would result in families avoiding your neighborhood due to the rowdiness of this generation’s teenagers. No one would want to trick o’ treat in a neighborhood of drunk and loud teens who listened to the horrendous screaming music. This caused you to reconsider taking money out of your personal stash to buy candy. Was it really worth it? You droned on to make a small list of what books you desired to pick up at the library.

“Hargrove!” David Fitz called out to the Californian, who tipped his head back and swiveled it to the direction of the voice, a cigarette laying between his lips. His elbows were rested upon the hood of his blue beauty as his torso gently sat on the bumper of it. As if on queue, the girls he was chatting up seductively said their good bye, Billies and see you tonight, Billies.

Waving the girls off, Billy awaited David’s presence, but fixed his posture as his eyes moved from David to your signature table, finding that Steve, his gal, and a couple other of his friends occupied it. Eyebrows furrowed in confusion and anger, Billy perched up and away from his car, dragging from his cigarette one last time before chucking it on the grass.

Brushing a puzzled David Fitz off, Billy staggered down from the hill that separated the field and the parking lot. He stopped before the field itself, intently scanning over every head that filled its grassy contents. Tongue glossing over his lips and a hand raking through the texture of his curls, Billy sighed deeply, wondering where you could possibly be. Absent? Skipping? Did you move? Ran away?

“Billy,” a pat on the back from Fitz snapped him from his train of thought. Concern etched David’s face before he raised his eyebrows, giving the Californian another slap to lift up his current state. Billy stared at David, lips parted slightly and his face radiating aggravation. “Ready for this party tonight? Heard there’s gonna be a shit ton of kegs there.” David picked up the conversation in attempts to raise Billy’s mood once again.

Before Billy could tell David to fuck off, the bell rang, signifying that the forty minutes of freedom the teenagers had at Hawkins was up, that it was time to trudge back into the school and resume to their classes. Surprisingly enough, Billy found himself within the sea of students that piled into the corridors of Hawkins High. He peered around the normal place that he’d spot you at, casually walking past him a book stuffed into your face. As people sped past him to get to their own classes, he assessed each and every face, and much to his dismay, you were yet to be spotted by the 177 cm bad boy. Billy growled lowly, padding his feet to exit the school and smoke in his car.

Bobbing your leg up and down impatiently, you stared down the clock, hoping that the last two minutes of the school day would finish. Your calculus teacher informing the class of what topics you were to be quizzed on Friday. Before he was about to inquire as to what plans his students had for the day’s particular holiday, the bell rang, dismissing everyone. All of the students scurried out of the class, hush whispers about Tina’s party and loud whooping tormented the halls of Hawkins High School. Getting up from your seat, you brought your calculus book to your chest, wishing your calculus teacher a safe and happy Halloween.

“Why, thank you, Miss (y/l/n).” He gingerly smiles before returning the gesture of a safe Halloween as well.

Head hanging low, you popped your head out of the classroom to make sure that the halls were completely empty. When you felt the Coast was clear, you stepped out into the narrow corridor, looking over your shoulder to ensure that it was indeed empty— that you could go to your locker with ease. Stopping in front of your locker, you allowed your eyes to do a double take one last time, finally giving your full attention to it.

Billy was leaned against the trunk of his car, staring straight ahead of him when he heard to sound of his stepsister’s skateboard nearing. Gnawing on his gum obnoxiously, he spoke to Maxine with such harshness and disgust at the sound of the passenger door opening. “You’re late again.” There was a massive strain in his voice, upset from Maxine’s tardiness and your disappearance.

“Yeah, I had to get catch up homework.” Maxine retorted, her tone not wanting to trigger her stepbrother’s temper, but still audible enough so Billy could hear her.

A humorless chuckle fled from his lips, a small snicker leading behind. “Jesus. I don’t care,” he paused. “You’re late again, and you’re skating home. Do you hear me?” He took the final drag from his cigarette and threw it on the floor, turning to open the driver’s door, throwing his bag in the backseat of the blue Camaro and slamming it shut. Within seconds of igniting the engine, Billy sped out of his parking spot, racing out of the school’s lot altogether.

After threatening to run over Max’s hick friends, Billy carried on to speed he and Max home, a mischievous smirk etching his lips as he remembered the one place he could catch you at. There had to be some reason as to why there was a new book that occupied your interest daily. It could’ve been that you had an extensive home library, but seeing that they were perfectly laminated with a color on the spine, it only led to one place..

Scouring the shelves of the local library, you bit your bottom lip softly, eyes carefully skimming each spine to find your final book to check out before going home. Your eyes lit up with such delight and passion upon looking up, finding Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, you whispered a soft aha. Due to your short stature, you had to go on the very balls of your feet to reach the shelf that the book teased you at. The grip that your teeth had on your bottom lip tightened a bit due to the amount of coordination, balance, and concentration it took to grab the book.

It was then a right hand with a distinctive watch swooped in and pulled the book in a swift movement. Your breathing hitched as dèjá vú terrorized your thoughts, Billy’s muscular body not daring to lay a single kilo on yours, right behind you to yet again, help you grab a book. All of your muscles stiffened, and you shut your eyes tightly, waiting for Billy to step back and hand you Frankenstien.

“Are you O.K., Doll?” Billy whispered into your ear, a menacingly playful smirk masking his face. You crinkled your nose at the mixed aroma of cigarettes and mint disturbing the welcoming smell of old books.

Your voice was gentle and soft, cracking as you managed to peep out a sentence. “What’re you doing here?”

“Where were you all day?” Billy spat back, his voice hoarse yet still low. His blues desperately wanted to adorn into the beautiful features of your face, but looked down at your hair instead.

Pressing your lips together, you stood silent, avoiding the question. In turn, then piping up, answering him with a question. “Why?”

Billy didn’t want to admit that your awkward and introverted personality attracted him, that he yearned to talk to you. Let alone convince you to go to Tina’s party with him. Butterflies tingled in his gut, what happened to the sexy bad boy? Where was Billy fucking Hargrove?

“Answer my question first.”

A soft sigh was all you could give him, nudging him off of you. Much to your surprise, Billy stepped away, the book still in his hand. Turning to face him, you felt your eyes cast down to his appearance. He looked as if he was ready to go to Tina’s party, causing you to gulp silently.

Billy tilted his head back in response to catching your eyes lingering on his bare chest, a black leather jacket “covering” his shoulders and torso. Ditching the light jeans that shaped his bum into a darker pair, finishing the look off with his signature boots. His lips curled up, eyes melting and sketching how angelic you looked through his long lashes as you guffawed at his outfit.

Both the smell of his breath and the old books were vanished, the smell of Billy’s alluring cologne taking over your nostrils. Blinking rapidly, you peeled your sight away from Billy, who smugly smiled a due to your acknowledgement of his new outfit. Heat arose to your cheeks and you already knew that your face was beet red and to suppress your embarrassment, you covered your face with your hair.

A frown plaguing your face and eyes staring down at your feet, you opened your mouth again. “May I please get the book, Billy?”

“What are you doing tonight, doll?” He ignored your question, hiding the book behind him in attempts to advert your attention to him. The attention he craved.

“Well,” you started, voice remaining at a small, gentle whisper. “When you give me the book, read it and then go to sleep.” Frustration was evident as your features contorted to emote that you just wanted to get the book and go home.

Huffing softly, you told yourself that you could just grab the novel another day, being that it would just waste up more shelf space in the next couple of days, despite Billy’s grasp on it. Muttering a never mind, you kneeled down to grab the other two books that were to be read this evening and spun on your heels, leave the Californian’s presence.

“Doll?” Billy called out, voice sounding as silky smooth as possible, a voice that made all girls’ legs turn to jelly. That would have the girls in his arms, smashing their lips onto his. All except you. Grunting, Billy called out your nickname once again, a bit louder. He sucked his teeth and rolled his eyes, cursing himself mentally.

Luckily for you, Dan was missing this particular night, a note scribbled on the fridge informing you that he was going to be gone for the month for his annual truck driving gig. For one whole freeing month, Dan would be delivering whatever was in stock nationally. Hopefully he’ll take longer this time. You prayed to yourself, and jumped up in excitement, Halloween all to yourself and your books.

Kicking your shoes off, you shut the blinds from your room, eyes rolling at the sight of Tina hooking up with her boyfriend. Gross. You began to unbundle yourself, grabbing all of your garments to shower. Before falling under the warmth of the hot water the shower head was to succumb you to, you glanced at the two books on your bed, wishing you had snagged Frankenstein.

Coming out of the bathroom, darkness enveloped you, noticing it was a little past 8 o’clock, you silently scolded yourself for waiting until the hot water turned your navy polished hands into little prunes. Then again, you were a sucker for hot showers. Sliding into your slippers, you hugged yourself, rubbing your arms continuously in attempts to warm your body temperature. With no avail, you retreated to your silk robe, wrapping it around your frigid body tightly.

Shuffling out of your room with both books in your hands, you make your way into the kitchen, popping some popcorn to eat as you indulged into their scary contents. Upon placing the books on the couch, you gripped the bowl that held the warm popped corn, stuffing it between your crossed legs. Opening the first book, you lost yourself within its words.

Stifling a yawn, you looked at the clock on the wall: ten thirty. And just as you suspected, not a single family dared to knock on your door for candy. Although you were a bit upset, you were hypocritically a little grateful that no one that evening had disturbed your reading.

Well.

The party right next door was so loud you could barely hear yourself think, but all the while, you drowned out the music and loud teenagers like you always did at school everyday. Another yawn was earned, your body screaming for slumber. Closing the second book, you retrieved yourself from the couch, grabbing the now empty popcorn bowl and putting it in the sink. Your heart fluttered after hearing a crowd of young men shouting, chanting the infamous Californian’s name.

Upset that their rowdiness would give you troubles sleeping, you stepped outside, the rough October wind whipping in your face. Hugging yourself for extra warmth, you made your way over to Tina’s house, eyes looking out for her to politely ask her to keep it down. For one of the two reasons: you wanted to sleep and that the cops may get called on them. But you were only going to enlighten her of the latter.

Whooping and catcalls were thrown in your direction as you made your way into Tina’s, looking around for the host. You turned almost instantly when a hand grappled your bum, staring at Carl Rogers, who was stepping over your boundaries. “Looks like mouse knows where the party is.” A blush sweeping across your cheeks, you took a step back, intimidated by his statue like frame.

“Please don’t touch me.” You looked up at him through your lashes, looking everywhere but his hungry hazel eyes. A mocking chuckle erupted from the 185 cm jock, placing his meaty hands on your bum, squeezing it.

“Like this?” He glared down at you, his alcoholic breath fanning your face.

A small group had formed around the two of you, and with what strength you could manage to get out of yourself, punches were thrown at his chest. “Let go of me!” You shrieked, small fists beating his broad chest, to which did absolutely nothing to him.

Laughs were flooding the house as you struggled out of his grasp. Carl’s hand gravitated from your bum to grab a hold of both of your wrists tightly. Breathless, you stared at the beast, who mocked your previous pleads to be released. Your eyes began to water, which only led to more mocking and giggles from your cowardly demeanor.

Billy stared at the once King Steve, attempting to scare him off, showing him who was the real King of Hawkins. Nancy walked away from the staring contest, curious as to why there was a circle of teenagers laughing a mimicking what sounded like pleads for help. Her eyebrows scrunched together, pushing her way through her fellow peers. She gasped as she saw Carl Rogers harassing and bullying you.

“Stop!” You muffled through a sob as Rogers and the others continued to belittle your existence, throwing names and fake crying. Nancy escaped the crowd, tugging at Steve’s sleeve to gather his attention. Instead, the gesture grabbed Billy’s attention, the urgentness in her face explained that something was wrong. Swaggering away from the couple, Billy sauntered his way through the crowd, everyone moving aside so he could see what all the fuss was all about.

His eyebrows knitted at the sight of Carl Rogers holding your wrists, and Billy registered that you were in danger. When your teary gaze locked into his blues, Billy immediately ran up to Carl, who was about to pull the string of your robe off and threw a hard, nose cracking punch at him, his blood boiling and sweaty chest heaving up and down. Carl stumbled back, hands attending to his cracked and bloodied nose.

Billy stood over Carl, face hard and his features distorted in anger. “Don’t you ever fucking touch her.” Billy gestures towards you, which earned everyone’s gaze on your current state, cheeks tear streaked and red wrists, cowering behind him. Billy fixed his posture, head glaring at everyone with such hate. “I don’t want anyone touching her.” He warned louder, addressing the quiet teenagers of the house.

“Or you’ll deal with me.”

[selenelavellan]

Perhaps you could continue the "A/B/O" au or the faerie au? I really love the A/B/O au scenario, and the new faerie au seems very intriguing ⸜₍๑•⌔•๑ ₎⸝

Fairy AU Part 2

Part One

Dirthamen and Deceit are @feynites

Selene doesn't bother looking over hershoulder as she runs.

Whether he is following her or not, itdoes not change her own actions.

She keeps the mask clutched tightly toher chest as she moves, darting over stones and roots as she slipsthrough barriers, protective magics gliding over her skin as thoughshe doesn't exist.

There are some perks, she supposes, toher situation.

The bag of seeds bounces painfullyagainst her thigh with each step as she moves silently and quicklythrough the brush, past sleeping predators and drowsy guards andtowards the Forest of Ash. Long abandoned and deemed too perilous forthe people (one of very few matters each court and house could manageto agree on), it is the only place she considers safefor her patient.

She is out of breath when she finallysees the decayed log she's enchanted for cover. The sound of beatingwings long forgotten in the still and silence of the forest. Thesmell of rot and carbon is thick in the air, remnants of aonce proud forest still lingering deep beneath the soil, buried under layers and layers of ash. Long forgottenand slow to grow, but with enough inherent magic that she can pullfrom it to create a small barrier for herself as she approaches.

Desire senses her as surely as shesenses him;

But it is not a good day.

He leaps for her, long nails clawing atthe exposed skin of her arms as he shoves her into the decaying woodof the log. His teeth are elongated, sharp and gleaming like the redin his normally golden eyes while he screams and thrashes and triesto take from her everything he thinks is missing in himself.

But it is not the first time he has hada bad day, and knows panicking only makes matters worse.

“It's just me,” She soothes, herown hands cupping around his elbows while his nails keep trying totear the skin off of her forearms. “It's me, it's just me. Ibrought back food, it is in the pouch on my waist. Des, it's me.”

He pauses, the red steadily drainingfrom his eyes while they stare at her, and she tries to hold himsteady.

Once the thrashing has ceased, shemoves, slowly, carefully, for the satchel hooked into her belt. Sheopens it, and he immediately seizes it from her, teeth splintering the shells of the sunflower seeds to get at the food inside.

It will still take him a few minutes toremember himself, she knows. For the gnawing hunger in his gut toabate and for him to remember himself as more than his basic needs.When his skin will be a less alarming shade of purple and his teethand nails will return to a more manageable size. The horns and tailwill remain though; too late for her to reverse those now.

The mask is on the floor, knocked outof her grip in the attack. She bends down to pick it up, and when shestraightens, there is a familiar pair of blue eyes staring back ather from an upside down face.

She does not scream, but it is a verynear thing.

“You are injured,” he notes, bodymoving like a fluid until his feet are on the ground and he isright-side up again. His gaze moves over her shoulder, to Des, stillcrouched behind her and gorging himself on sunflower seeds. “Didthat one hurt you?”

“No,” Selene lies.

The mans eyes narrow, and she hears adull 'thud' overhead; like a bird landing atop a thin piece of wood.

She clenches his mask more tightly.

“You should not be here,” She says.

“You have stolen something of mine.Did you think I would not come for it?”

She takes a step back. “I did notthink you could follow me.”

He makes a small noise, similar to ahum but wrong in the way that it echoes. “I had to slip throughdifferent levels of perception to accomplish it without breakingtreaties and causing a war, that is true. It is very impressive youwere able to take the route you did; if I were anyone else, it mighteven have worked,” He holds out a hand, skin shimmering as itshifts like waves to form fingers. “But now, I will need to have mymask back.”

Selene pulls the item taut to her chest.“No.”

He ponders her answer for a moment,confusion appearing briefly around him. Clearly unused to beingdenied.

Well. Some lessons simply need to belearned, she supposes.

His gaze flits back over to Des, and hegives a small decisive nod before his fingers snap and the demonbehind her makes a loud choking sound. Clutching for his throat,screaming obscenities and cries for help as his nails rend and clawat the space around him. Selenes eyes widen in horror as she turnsback to the man behind her.

“Stop that!” She demands. “Stopthat, you are hurting him!”

The man blinks in surprise, and releases Des, whofalls to the floor in a limp heap, taking long, shuddering breaths,flecks of red blinking back to life in his eyes. Selene runs to him,one hand rubbing at his back in a soothing manner. But the corruptionis spreading in his panic, in fear of being attacked in this placeshe has tried so hard to make safe for him, and she has to hastily sing himto sleep. It is more forceful than she cares to be; but withhis body resting, he can do no physical harm at least.

“I thought you had stolen my mask forprotection,” The man says slowly. “Is that not what you wished?”

“I don't need protection fromDes,” Selene whispers, finger soothing a piece of hair from hisface. “This was not his fault.”

“He is a demon,” The man informsher, as though she might not have noticed on her own. “He iscorrupted; he will need to be shattered, or he will likely kill you.”

Her fists ball at the sides of herdress as she stands to face him again. “I am not going to shatterhim! It is not his fault this happened, he did not ask to be-” Shebites down on her bottom lip to keep from saying any more. It wouldbe unwise to share any more information on their situation than isnecessary.

“You are from the Court of Shadows, Isuppose. To think so little of those who have strayed from theirpath.”

The mans head tilts slightly. “Yes.And no.”

Her eyes narrow slightly as shegestures for him to continue.

“I am both from the court, and one ofits originators. My name is Dirthamen. And I would very much like mymask back, please.”

Selene nearly drops it in shock.

She had known those who ruled thecourts were powerful; that they were beautiful and dangerous andfickle. That you should never cross them, for their retribution wasswift and damning and malevolent.

A lesson she is already well acquaintedwith.

But she has already stolen from him,and he has not killed her yet. Either possession of the mask reallydoes grant her some level of protection from him, orelse....or else? If it didn't, surely she would already be dead, Desalready shattered.

“No,” She repeats.

Dirthamen frowns.

“Would you be interested in a trade,perhaps?”

“What would you give me in return?”

“Riches. Food. Information, if youseek it.”

Tempting. It is impossible for her todo any research on her current condition under her currentcondition. Access to a cure would be...

“What sort of information?” Sheasks.

“Whatever you would like, provided Ihave access to it. You need only ask.”

Always a catch, she thinksbitterly.

But she has to try. She can'tdescribe the curse in detail; can not describe the symptoms, or theeffects. Cannot speak of the thorned vines crawling through her andsmothering her magics, that rob her of her gifts as surely as thebreath in her lungs. That slow the beats of her heart at anexcruciating pace. That keep her wings from unfurling, from repairingfrom the rips and the tears and leaving her only with the shreddedremains tucked beneath her clothes with the bruises that still bloom,even so long after their birth.

“A rose in the corner of my mouth,”She murmurs.

His head tilts slightly, curious at herwords.

“I want access to the informationmyself,” She decides. “Unfettered access. And protection. No harmis to come to me while I am still searching for the knowledge I seek.Or to Des.”

Dirthamen nods slowly in agreement. “Ican guarantee your safety-”

“I do not want a guarantee,” Seleneinsists. “I know the old ways; I want an oath. I want your solemn,unbreakable vow that no harm will come to us if I return your mask toyou. Otherwise you could kill me as soon as you have it, with noconsequence but another corpse to rot in a forgotten forest”

He considers it.

And then takes a knee before her, handin his as his lips press to her knuckles. Blood is still slowlyseeping down her arm from Des's attacks, but he does not seembothered by it.

Magic rises up around them, swirlingthrough the air as he whispers an oath in a language she though long forgotten. Warmth spreads through her from where he touches her,magic trying to seep into her but sliding off and away like water,pooling instead where Des still rests.

When Dirthamen pulls back, he looks ather curiously.

“That is...unusual.”

She supposes she could try to explain that it isharder for most magics to affect people that do not exist, but likely anyfollow up questions would veer too close to discussion of hersituation and its particulars, and that would be impossible.

“I think you will find I am unusualin a whole host of ways,” she says instead.

His lips quirk, and he holds his handout towards her once again.

Hesitantly, she places his mask backinto it.

“Thank you,” He says, re-affixingit to his face. “If you will follow me, I will take you to wherethe information you seek resides.”

“I did not agree to leave with you,”Selene argues. “Bring the information to me.”

“You asked for unfettered access, andto look it up yourself. I am capable of much; but I do not think thecontents of my libraries will fit inside of your...” he hesitates,eyes scanning over the burnt and rotting log she is still inside.“...home.”

Six large, feathered wings spring frombeneath his cloak, and he gently lifts off and out of her log. Heturns back to her, hand outstretched as he waits for her to join him.

She does not wish to tell him thatshe can no longer fly.

“I will ride on one of your birdsinstead,” She evades. “To ensure Des does not slide off duringthe journey.”

Dirthamen does not seem pleased by herwords, but does not argue as the one he calls Deceit lands besidethem. Selene carefully carries Des to them, slinging him over beforesituating herself into a more usual riding position, securing thedemon into her lap. 

Dirthamen flies alongside them, and Selene triesto contain the joy that rises in her from being in the air again.From the wind blowing through her hair and the stars so much closeras the cool air flows over her overheated skin. From how much smallerthe long paths and trails she must take on foot seem from up above;how much grander the world looks, and how much smaller her troublesfeel without stones digging into the soles of her feet.

It is exhilarating, and she cannot seemto stop smiling for much of the trip.

“Perhaps we should go flying moreoften,” Dirthamen notes as they land on the branch of a large,twisting willow tree. It is very old, and when her feet touch thewood she can feel the thrum of spacial magic carved into it, curlingthrough its leaves and stretching out through the expansive rootsystem.

“Perhaps,” She evades, carefullycarrying a still unconscious Des along behind Dirthamen as he pullsaside a piece of bark to reveal a long spiraling staircase inside thetrunk of the tree.

Her feet are aching, crying out for arest after being spoiled with the ride over as she continuesfollowing the cloaked man before her, until a door appears beforethem.

“You may stay here,” He informsher. “Those who you do not wish to find you will be unable to.There is a link between this room and my own, if you have need of me,or my resources.”

She nods, stepping inside cautiously.

The room smells fresh; like newlybloomed chamomile and carved wood, and she takes a deep breath as itfills her. Thankful to be far from the stench of death and sulfur,and to have a room with a proper bath.

“Thank you,” she breathes.

“It is no trouble,” He assures her“But you should not let your friend wander out of here; if he isdiscovered, my people will try to shatter him. That would be mostunpleasant for all of us.”

She nods in understanding, andDirthamen dallies in her doorway expectantly.

“...Is there something you need fromme?” She asks carefully.

“I will need a name,” He admits.“You still have not told me yours.”

“I do not have one. I have not hadone for some time now.”

His face twists in uncertainty, but shethinks he has caught on to the fact that there are some questions sheis simply not able to answer plainly. “What would you like me tocall you then?” He tries.

She smiles in relief, finally able tosay her name aloud.

“Selene. Please call me Selene.”

[marshaeb]

P.S: I'm Mated With The Cursed Alpha!

Chapter Eleven

Hey guy! Don’t forget to Like, Comment, Review, and Follow for more updates! My apologies in advance for all the grammatical errors. Book will be professionally edited when completed.

I ran as far as my feet could take me. Away from my insecurities, away from the drama and pain.

I blame myself for putting myself in these situations. It’s all my fault. I’ve put myself in front of others and because of it, I’ve only caused harm and disappointment to everyone close to me.

I don’t care! If it’s meant to be... it’s meant to be. Sarah’s happiness is for her and her alone. I can’t don’t anything about it.

Yes, it sucks that she got everything I ever wanted. To have my true love as my mate. To be marked by him...be engaged... To shower me with unconditional love.

Everything is now up in shambles. My love life, my friendship, my entire life and I can’t do anything about it.

I sat alone behind the library’s building where no one could see me and cried my eyes out. I-I just needed to release all these bottled up emotions I’ve been holding in.

Or maybe I needed a drink. A few shots of tequila or patron. Anything to help ease the pain.

Alpha Darius POV

After a long, tiring day of leading my pack and dealing with the damage of the outskirt region, I venture off on my daily routine of watching my mate. I know it’s a bit much, but I can’t help myself.

That smell of hers has a strong, powerful Alpha like me, tripping so badly... I-I’m addicted to it... I’m an addict to her.

And to top it off, it fits perfectly with her rare beauty. Her black, fluffy hair, complimented her soft, skin-kissed skin.

For the longest... I’ve envisioned my mate being a tall, less curvy, model-like girl. The typical girls I’ve always fooled with.

Shit! I’ve been missing out. She’s a rare one and I loved it that way.

She’s mine! I know she is! Deep down inside, these innate feelings I have for her are too strong. Just a mere sight of her makes me go crazy. My hormones spiral out of control. If I could take her and claim this very instant, I would, and no devil in hell would stop me.

But, because I cared about her... I’m holding back as much as I can for her sake. Gosh, she only seventeen. The least I could do is grant her the remaining freedom she has now.

Damn...I got it bad and I love every moment of it. Still, I fear for myself. It would kill me if I don’t end up being her mate. I don’t how I would live with myself seeing my chosen mate with somebody else.

Claiming her, pleasuring her, comforting her, making her smile...watching her carry their pups. It would be torture... completely suicidal.

I’ve seen it with my father and his father, it’s the worst thing imaginable! This curse... it’s a curse from the pits of Hades.

I fear so deeply for it... I pray to the Moon goddess to pity me.

For now, I’m going to do what Sethi advised me. Wait until that time comes. That’s why I’m keeping as much distance as I can.

I want more than anything to be the most central thing in her life, whether she likes it or not!

The other day at that daycare, I swear I was about to lose my shit. I think I did well because if I’d let my feelings taken anymore control. I was going to take her, right there and then.

After running fifteen miles to her pack’s property, I slowed down and stalked quietly through the forest. The guards were on duty as usual, and like always, they had no idea that I was there.

What a bunch of amateurs...Pathetic!

The evening sky was starting to emerge as I came closer to the other side of their home, where her bedroom window was... but something was off.

Her bedroom light was off and it was quite quiet. I couldn’t pick up her scent either.

She’s not home as yet. Normally, she’s home at this time...where could she be so late?

I scanned through the area thoroughly. There were no guards, no members of the pack around. I carefully inched a little closer and stared up at her window.

My eyes widened when I noticed that her room window wasn’t close completely!

I glanced at the tree right beside it and the wildest, reckless thought came to mind.

Before I know it, I was already over the fence, climbed up the tree, and through her room window within an instant.

“I’m inside her room... I’m finally inside! Knowing me, I would have been in here a long ass time ago.” I said to myself, inhaling a full load of her, spicy raspberry and caramel scent.

This was the closest thing to heaven on earth. I could feel the little tingles taking over my body. Those hormones inside starting to rage.

I walked around her little room, dragging my fingers over almost everything I came in contact with. Her comb and hairbrush, her handbags and even her stuff animals collection.

It was really cute, but I would have never thought she was a girly girl judging by her hard demeanor...especially towards me.

I looked over at the huge mirror hanging on her wall. My tall, muscular body structure didn’t fit at all in this girly ass room as I watch the light from the sunset, glare over my bare skin.

Night was starting to fall, making it a little harder to see...but that wasn’t going to stop me. I continued to look through her room, staring at her birdcage, then at a collage of small photos pinned on her wall.

All the pictures of her during the different phases of her life. It was adorable and for the first time, in a long time, a genuine, warm smile widened on my face. My heart skipped a beat when my eyes land on a sweet photo.

It was her as a child holding a Jack Russell terrier pup, smiling ear to ear. It was so sweet, it was hard for me to take my eyes off it.

Suddenly I heard the doorknob move, making my ear flinch back. I dashed over and hid within the wardrobe. Looking through the slight crack of the closet door, I watched as she walked out the bathroom into the room.

She was in there all that time!

I breathe in deeply, watching as she coated her skin with a handful of Cocoa butter. Then, drowning herself in perfume. I don’t know why she needed it...her scent was perfect without it and it was still so strong.

That peach silk nightdress hugging her curvy figure did it for me. I was getting heated and heated by the second, but something was quite off with her. Dropping things carelessly over her dresser, stumbling over a few times...was she...drunk?

She took a deep breath and fell in her bed front on. Shit, her fat ass stood tall from the mattress, making a slight jiggle ad twitch every time she moved.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Why did I do this to myself?

I could feel my cock hardening up, springing against my fitted jeans.

All I could imagine doing was taking her in that same position. Going ape-shit, bouncing on that ass. Pounding her into that fucking mattress long dick style.

All these perverted thoughts and lewd imagination weren’t making it any better. That’s what I thought until she rolled over on her back and spread her legs. That’s when the tormenting started.

My dick swelled rocked hard, throbbing by the sound of her sweet, desperate moans. Calling out for me to handle business like the Alpha I am. But shit...I can’t be caught! All hell would break loose.

The natural light of the Moon flooded through the window, but still, I could barely see her.

I thought not seeing would of make it better, but I could hear the wet, creamy, gooey sounds her pussy made as she played with it.

And that smell... Oh God...her smell!!! It was the ripe scent of wet, raw, juicy pussy flesh. I could smell how aroused she is!

Within seconds I unzipped my pants. My cock sprang right out pulsating like it was on fire. My tip of my dick was already coated in pre-cum...ready for wild penetration.

I can’t believe I’m doing this, but my hand somehow gripped my dick, stroking it’s long length slowly. I couldn’t help it. If I don’t relieve myself right now, I would find myself pinning her down, stuffing my cock so deep in her sweet little twat until I made scream.

My strokes started to speed up as she started to moan loudly, taking in jittery breaths. My entire body started to twitch, blood rushing wildly through my head.

My cock was throbbing out of my grip...it was like it had a damn mind of its own!

So much fiction being applied, I was so close to tipping over the edge, when suddenly she took a last deep breath and moaned aloud. “I-I’m cumming!!!”

I finally lost it, stumbling back slightly as a huge cup load of cum gizz out of me. It just kept shooting and shooting.

A deep, passive groan slipped out of my mouth breaking the sudden quietness in the room.

“Hmm...” She said, rising out of bed slowly. “Who’s there?”

She turned on her nightlight and looked around confusedly. Still tipsy, she

looked over at the closet and squinted her eyes.

Quickly, I hopped and shake my cock back into my jeans and zipped it shut.

I stood as still as I can, trying to control my breathing from such an intense climax, but it was getting harder as she came closer.

She stood just step away from where I was in the closet. Though she had no idea I was there, she was staring directly at me.

She reached out her hand and gently brushed her fingers over my hard abs and gasped loudly, taking a step back.

“O-Oh my gosh...” she mumbled

SHIT!

Read Chapter Twelve (Click the link below)

[counterpunches]

no little tree alone can make an arbor

Rating: G Words: ~1,200 Fandom: Frozen Summary: Its night, they can’t sleep. Note: After watching OFA, I remembered an old story I never finished, floating on my Google Drive. I polished it up a bit to get it publishable, and here it is! Enjoy a piece of Punchy circa 2014. Note: Ripped straight from Buffy. You’ll know the part. 

It's a warm evening in early fall, the kind that summer hasn't quite let go of yet but instead holds on with fond arms. Night has fallen like a blanket, and with it, the hum of insects buzzes throughout Arendelle. The leaves have just started to turn and a breeze crests through the open window, gently flipping the pages of an open book.

One of Elsa's bangs droops across her eyes and she tucks it away as the wind catches her attention.

Mused bedsheets lie untouched from where she’d given up on trying to sleep an hour or so earlier. The barest light from the corridor filters in from under the door, but the room itself is bathed in cool blue moonlight. Elsa angles her head and follows the breeze to the windowsill.  Smoothing her hands against the cool grain of the wood, she leans back and breathes in the kingdom. A mix of salt and earth fill her lungs, and when she opens her eyes, a shooting star falls between the cliffs of the fjord.

Letting the breeze pull her forward, Elsa puts a leg up on the ledge and hoists herself into the night.

It takes a moment, as she stands awkwardly in the windowframe, to remember how to balance her body; to be lithe and stretch, soften, and let her limbs be loose.

It’s been a long time since she'd climbed onto the roof. Back Before, Elsa had waited, alert and taut under the covers, counting the bumps and footsteps on the roof above her.

Elsa knew Anna, even when Anna wasn't allowed to know Elsa, and so she’d keenly mapped out over the first few summer weeks what Anna's overhead schedule was like when she snuck onto the roof at night; where she preferred to go and when. Nothing could contain Anna, not even buildings.

Elsa had plenty of time to be patient. She waited until Mother and Father were in bed, until the muted thump-thump of footsteps from the roof had pitter-patted away to the bedroom on the other end of the castle and waited still for another ten minutes after that. Just to be safe. (If there's one thing Elsa was diligent about those days, it was being safe and careful.)

When she was sure, Elsa carefully peeled off the blankets, slid off the bed on her belly, landed on the floor with a soft thump, and hurried to the window. With a quick glance over her shoulder, Elsa snuck out of the window and took careful, excited steps, bracing her hands on the roof for balance. Following a literal trail of crumbs, Elsa eventually came to where Anna camped out sometimes during the day. 

There’d usually be a small basket laden with rocks to weigh it down, a blanket, half a roll in a napkin, and several feathers lining the area Anna would play. She'd trace over every inch of Anna, where she went and what she did (flakes of eggshell and cheese rinds left over from an afternoon picnic littered the awning over the library). Elsa collected scraps of Anna like a starving beggar, and held each seemingly insignificant item like a treasure. Where Anna went, Elsa would follow, and they echoed around each other, dancing like clockwork ghosts on the roof.

When she’d absorbed her fill of Anna, Elsa brought out her book of stars and studied the heavens, trying to map what she saw through the telescope in the library. The sky was different on this side of the castle. Then again, the sky had always been different without Anna no matter which view she had.

That was then.

But now, Elsa closes her eyes to the breeze and her body remembers. Its easier to get to Anna’s spot these days, with longer limbs and confidence propelling her forward (so different from the tentative, desperate, small steps of the past).

“Hey,” a voice greets as Elsa walks on the crest above the library.

“Hey yourself,” Elsa says smoothly and kneels down to take a seat on the blanket next to Anna. “Couldn’t sleep?

Lying down with her arms crossed behind her head, Anna shrugs but doesn’t take her eyes off the sky.

There’s something distant in the way Anna stares at the stars, a melancholic haunting that Elsa’s all too familiar with. Suddenly her sister seems small and she doesn’t like it.

“Nightmares again?”

Anna shrugs once more.

“C’mere,” Elsa says as she shimmies up a bit on her back, opens up an arm and scoops up Anna under it. Anna nestles closer and settles against Elsa’s chest with one hand tucked under her chin. “Better?”

Anna still says nothing. Elsa pauses, and propels forward.

“I used to stargaze for hours,” she admits, almost casually. As if talking about the past was an easy, common occurrence. Anna’s head angles up on her chest and Elsa pretends to not notice her staring. “Not just because the tutors taught us how, I just….liked them.”

“That one right there?” she points, “Cassiopeia.”

Anna makes a humming sound and Elsa feels it vibrate in her chest. She swells.

“No matter what, they made sense. Even when I didn’t. They were predictable, and that was comforting. The stars are big, but...I could disappear in them for a while.”

She moves her arm a few degrees to the right. “Canis Minor,” she points again before bringing her hand back to find Anna’s. They’re cold. She squeezes tighter.

“I still get them, too,” Elsa says after a moment.

"Do they ever go away?" Anna asks in a small voice sounding very much like the child Elsa tore herself away from all those years ago.

"No, but sometimes they get easier. I wake up and remember what's real. Where’s Kristoff?” she asks, as soft and gently as she can.

“I didn’t want to wake him,” Anna admits.

The three of them try so hard not to cause worry and only end up creating more of it. “We’re still not very good at this, are we.”

“No," Anna sings, "I suppose not.”

They lapse into silence again, letting the night stretch before them.

“The Big Cloudberry," Anna says.

“Huh?”

“The Big Cloudberry,” she repeats, pointing far away. “I didn’t always remember the names of all the constellations, so I made up my own. See it? Those three stars there?”

Squinting, Elsa concentrates and follows the direction of Anna's hand. "Over there by the trees?"

"Yeah! And just above it: Cluster o' Krumkakes."

Elsa leans back and laughs. "You know, I think I might like those better."

"You're just saying that cause ya love me," says Anna.

Elsa floods with warmth. Months have passed since the Thaw, but sometimes it all feels so new. Miracles every time.

"Guilty."

"Ok," Anna chirps, "You try."

"Me?"

"Yeah, I know you're working on a good one."

Elsa squints and scans the stars, looking for new shapes and patterns from the ones she's so used to seeing. After a moment she reaches out and points. "Duke of Weaselton looking uncomfortable."

At Anna's laughter, warm and deep, Elsa knows bad dreams are gone for the night the same way she did when they were little.

The sky's asleep but Elsa has new stars to sleep under and she wonders if Anna will never not see magic when faced with the large and unexplainable.

They've still got a lot to learn and lots of bad habits to fix, but…

Elsa squeezes Anna's arm and looks at the stars. They'll get there.

(The warm breezes must have soothed them to sleep because the next thing Elsa knows, shes jerked awake by a very loud, very piercing scream. "It's the queen and the princess! They're gone!"

"Five more minutes," Anna mumbles sleepily and Elsa turns over, groaning.)

[banditchika]

noelle and akarsha’s very fun, very gay (study) date

word count: 4560

fandom: butterfly soup

ship: akarsha/noelle 

author’s notes: i can’t believe i’ve done this? i mean. i can, just as i also know that i stayed up till four to finish this fic, and that w/o my friends i wouldn’t have had completed this at all. thank you @nytenchanter @trashikino @thereforebucket for beta-ing this hot mess!! i couldnt have done this without yall!! anyways please enjoy this fic, it isn’t of course any way associated with butterfly soup canon beyond being set immediately after the game. i really loved playing butterfly soup, n i hope other ppl give it a try too! you can download the game at itch.io!

This is a terrible idea. An awful idea. An idea of catastrophic potential, and she means that in the worst possible way. Just last night, Noelle had sat at her desk and scribbled out a full page of equations to calculate how terrible of an idea this is. Unfortunately, Akarsha is not someone who can be contained within equations.

Noelle drums her fingers against her leg, trying not to stare at her mother from the corner of her eye. The silence presses down on Noelle like a library’s worth of books, and she struggles to bite her tongue. The quiet makes her skin itch — but silence, at least, is bearable. It’s hardly as though speaking with her mother would be beneficial, anyways. Conversations always devolve into screaming matches unless Noelle bites her cheek hard enough to taste iron. No, she doesn’t need that today, of all days. Handling Akarsha in general is trial enough; she doesn’t need an argument with her mother on top of it. Speaking of Akarsha — where is she? Noelle chances a glance at the dashboard, watches the numbers blink green: 12:33, 12:33, 12:33, 12:34…

Her mother sighs and turns the radio on. Mandarin crackles through the speakers of their car. Noelle folds her arms, presses her forehead against the window. She hates this program. It’s news in the barest sense — opinion pieces at best and superstitious fear-mongering at the very worst; and not to forget, a commercial every intermission for beef balls that Noelle thinks Diya would like if Noelle didn’t hate them to the point of refusing to eat them. Noelle’s been listening to that same commercial since she was in fourth grade.

12:53. Noelle squints. Over fifteen minutes past the time they agreed to meet. She scans the front of the library for Akarsha’s ridiculous jacket, or even her stupid buns. Nothing. A few teenagers linger on the steps: a girl with glasses and a denim jacket, a man with spiky blonde hair and a red suit, and someone Noelle vaguely recognizes as an upperclassman.

No sign of Akarsha.

Noelle shifts uneasily. She pulls out her phone and flips it open, keying in Akarsha’s number with practiced efficiency. She could have set her to speed dial like she did Diya, but. Noelle won’t give Akarsha the satisfaction. She can already imagine the teasing that would ensue, and Noelle has better things to do than enable Akarsha’s tomfoolery.

“What are you doing?”

Noelle’s teeth find her cheek. She thinks better of biting down and shows her mom the phone screen, holding her tongue as her mother leans over the console to squint at it. Thank goodness Noelle hasn’t pulled up Akarsha’s contact page. She doesn’t know what she’d do if her mother decides to question Akarsha’s ridiculous icon.

At least her username is no longer YAOI SEME.

“Akarsha is late,” Noelle explains, voice strained. “She’s not here.”

“Then call her. Your friend is so irresponsible.” Noelle bites down. She agrees, but the way her mother twists her words burns at her. So Akarsha is her friend and not competition; but only when it’s convenient? Noelle should be used to this by now, but her patience wears thinner and thinner by the day. It’s worrying. Noelle, of all people, should have control over her emotions.

“How is this girl giving you so much trouble when she can’t even be punctual to a study date?” Noelle’s mother continues. Her teeth cut into her cheek: it’s beginning to feel tender. “You aren’t working hard enough. I’m going to buy new workbooks for you. Finish them when you come home.” Noelle tastes iron. Her mother takes her silence as acquiescence; she turns the knob of the radio with bony fingers. Noelle takes a deep breath and presses call.

Akarsha picks up on the third ring. “What’s cooler than being cool? Iiiiiice cold! Alright alright alright alri — ” “Where are you?” Noelle spits, chancing a glance at her mother. She does not look impressed, but is at least transfixed by whatever story the program anchor is spinning. “You’re twenty minutes late. You said you would be on the steps.”

“… Uh.” Noelle can picture Akarsha’s smile grow strained, eyes flicking away. “I am?”

“You are not!” “Seriously, I am! Come on dude, you’ve got your contacts on, right? I’m in front of the library.”

Noelle frowns. If this is one of Akarsha’s games —

She rolls down the window. The girl sitting on the steps, innocuous in her oversized glasses and denim jacket, raises a hand like a salute. She has a phone pressed to her ear.

“Hey, Frenchman. Missed me, now you gotta kiss me!” Akarsha’s grin is infuriatingly smug, even from thirty five feet away.

Noelle hangs up.

“What’s wrong with your hair?”

“That’s the first thing you say?” Akarsha whispers. “I guess you don’t want none unless I got buns, huh?” She swings her bookbag over her shoulder. Noelle glares at it. A bookbag — an actual, honest to goodness bookbag, without a hint of rainbow or iridescence anywhere. There aren’t even pins decorating it. Noelle didn’t think Akarsha owned anything that wasn’t calculated to be ridiculous and irritating.

“Be serious!” Noelle jabs her in the side. Akarsha stumbles and grabs at her arm, breath whooshing out of her lungs. Noelle doesn’t dare look over her shoulder, where her mother hovers like a vulture over a battlefield. Or Diya racing after a foul ball, or something requiring a similar amount of fervent focus.

“I am, dude, I am.” Akarsha pulls out a seat at a table hidden just behind the stacks and swoops into a bow, gesturing grandly at it. Noelle seethes. “C’mon, where’s the trust?”

She also pulls out a chair for Noelle’s mom. When she shakes her head, Akarsha favors her with a smile that doesn’t turn up the corners of her eyes and sits down. Noelle loathes the sight of it. Akarsha doesn’t look like herself — her foolish, irritating self. She’s wearing pants, for one thing. That should be a good sign. It’s not a good sign. Noelle pulls her things from her bookbag, and Akarsha does the same. Her school supplies are thankfully still her own: there’s Akarsha’s stupid bending pencil, an eraser shaped like a crayon, and — is that one of Noelle’s pens!? Akarsha said she’d returned it!

Noelle’s breath hisses out of her, and she wishes she were close enough to stomp on Akarsha’s toes.

[“Stop that.”] Her mother’s voice is gratingly loud from where she looms behind Noelle. [“You’ll sigh all your virtues away.”]

[“That isn’t scientific.”] Noelle tears a sheet of notebook paper more forcefully than she should. Akarsha doesn’t even lift her head, much less comment. [“It is impossible for virtue to manifest physically, much less have a unit of measurement.”]

[“Still. It’s a bad habit. Concentrate on your work.”] Noelle bites her cheek and writes her name with a heavy hand: upper right hand corner, name, date, and period.

Noelle isn’t one to put stock in miracles — those are for idiots and slackers, and she is neither — but Noelle is almost willing to become a believer when Akarsha — somehow! — manages to restrain herself from doing anything foolish in front of Noelle’s mother. It’s terrifying, frankly. Akarsha cups her cheek in her palm, turns her gaze towards her work, and then scribbles away without pause with Noelle’s (stolen!) pen. She doesn’t lift her head from her textbook, not even once. Her assignment, aside from sloppily boxed answers, is immaculate; no sign of little green men or ridiculously large-eyed anime characters in the margins. Akarsha hasn’t asked a single question: not even if pigeons have feelings.

Noelle is so busy sneaking glances at her that the nib of her own pen skitters across the edge of her paper, leaving an ugly line where a neat three should have been. Noelle sighs — her mother’s eyes bore into her back — and carefully whites it out.

It’s almost terrifyingly easy to fall into a routine. Akarsha is so quiet that Noelle can almost forget she’s there. If it weren’t for the way she flips the pen between her fingers, Akarsha would have blended into the library, just another faceless student against the backdrops of shelves and books. Noelle can almost imagine that she’s alone in her room, with nothing but the snake on her bed for company.

How disturbing. Akarsha is loud, irritating, her very presence like a desperate cry for attention. Noelle doesn’t like this.

[“I’m leaving.”] She nearly jumps when her mother speaks again, after nearly — Noelle checks her watch — half an hour of oppressive silence. Noelle says nothing, then startles when her mother presses a thin ten dollar bill into her hand. Her fingers close around it. [“Go buy lunch when you’re finished studying, then come home.”]

[“Alright.”] Her mother is in an unusually good mood. Noelle is accustomed to pushing and pushing and pushing without thanks — only the expectation that she’ll have to do even more, even better, striving for a finish line that moves further every time Noelle thinks she has it in sight. This is… unusual, but even Noelle gets pocket money sometimes. Like during New Years, when her parents parade her in front of their relatives and Noelle plays the violin, then patiently plays even more for curious aunts and uncles, eager to point at her and whisper to their own children. Sometimes, Noelle even gets to keep some of the crisp bills in those scented red envelopes. She saves those for the days that she manages to sneak away to visit a boba shop with Diya and Akarsha.

Noelle folds the bill into the plastic of her binder. Perhaps she’ll do that now. She feels full to bursting with questions as Akarsha lifts her head and politely — politely! — bids her mother goodbye. What. Noelle hadn’t known Akarsha was even capable of basic etiquette — or at least around her. She still remembers that disgusting D-triad fart. Animal.

With Noelle’s mother out of sight, Akarsha sighs and pushes her glasses up to the top of her head. She rubs her eyes. Something in Noelle snaps.

“Alright, that’s enough,” she says, slapping her palms against the table. She regrets it immediately when they begin to sting. Akarsha raises her brows, the beginnings of a smile playing on her lips. “What’s up, dude?”

“Explain.” Noelle gestures at her, all of her. Akarsha has had her stupid hairstyle since the very day they’d met. Seeing her now, with all of it hanging loose around her face, worries her. Yes, worries, because Noelle’s heart is beating too quickly, and everything about this situation feels off, like coming home only to find all the furniture moved an inch to the side. Noelle is right to be concerned. Everything about the girl in front of her is inconsistent with the Akarsha that Noelle sees every day. She wants to know why.

“It’s cosplay.” Akarsha laughs and leans out of slapping range. “I can’t believe you’ve done this.”

“There are many unknowable things in the universe.” Akarsha strikes a thoughtful pose. Noelle sinks in her seat to kick her shin. She winces. “Look: this is fine, isn’t it? Your mom’s off your back, I get to wear a sweet jacket — everyone’s winning!”

“I do not understand how a change in attire, hairstyle, and behavior would be considered a universal victory.”

Akarsha clutches at her chest. “My kokoro is brokoro, Frenchman! I thought we were buddies, pals, homies!” She wipes her eyes. “Friendos to the endos, homodach — ”

Noelle raises a finger.

“Never,” she hisses, “say that to me again.” Noelle scowls and sips at her thermos. Akarsha’s giggles echo through the stacks, and she only falls quiet when a librarian pokes his head around a shelf and glares.

Akarsha is still smiling. Noelle shakes her head. Though her answer is still less than satisfactory,  Noelle is content with her being normal again.

Akarsha pulls out a pencil bag shaped like a fish. Every scale is printed in perfect detail. It looks ready to flail its way out of her hand, and Noelle scrunches up her face, ready to scold.

Yes, normal. As much as Akarsha is ever normal, anyways.

“It’s hot. Must be my fault.”

“It is not.” Noelle ties her jacket around her waist. Typical Californian weather: chilly enough for a sweater in the morning and scorching hot in the afternoon. Oakland, however, tends to be cooler than other cities in the state. Noelle blames global warming for this atrocity.

“It’s gotta be. That’s why there’s no clouds today, y’see — ” Akarsha squints into the sun. Noelle smacks her. She’s going to ruin her eyesight! “The sun saw me and parted them to say, ‘shizz girl, you fine.’ And that’s why it’s so hot.”

“That is not why.” Noelle takes a deep breathe to explain precipitation, condensation, the movements of the planet and sun — but Akarsha pulls a rubber band off her wrist and Noelle’s explanation dries up in her throat.

Akarsha gathers her hair with both hands, pulling it up to expose the nape of her neck. Noelle stares: because she wants to strangle her, obviously. But gently. Just enough so that Akarsha would stop spouting stupidity like a fountain.

“‘Shizz girl, you fine.’”

“What?” “That’s what you’re thinkin’ right now, huh?” Akarsha puts a fist to her chin, denim creaking across her shoulders. Noelle scowls. “And so the Frenchman learned to love, the spell cast upon her castle thawed, and the faithful servants of the Eiffel Tower knew humanity once again.” “Shut up! This isn’t a Disney production.” Noelle steps on Akarsha’s foot. It feels bizarre. Shoes! She’s wearing actual shoes, like a sane person! Noelle glowers at Akarsha’s feet, cursing her flip flops as much as the lack of them. “And how many times do I have to tell you to stop saying that!? I don’t live in the Eiffel Tower. I am not French. This is misinformation.”

“How mean,” Akarsha sighs, sticking her hands in her pockets. She hops up to sit at the foot of a statue overlooking the steps and peers down at Noelle. She glares right back, defiant. “So, what are you gonna do now?”

“I don’t understand. Please rephrase the question.” “I dunno what other way I can say it, dude.” Akarsha’s fingers fan out, shoulders hunching as though to shrug. “Like, we’re done here, aren’t we?” She gestures at their book bags, the papers and textbooks and supplies neatly tucked away. “Study date’s over. What are you gonna do now?”

“… I’ll purchase something to drink, then call my mother.” Noelle traces a finger along the slit of her binder, where the money hides behind a copy of her schedule.

“You’re skippin’ lunch?” Akarsha squints at her arms. “They say you are what you eat, but you don’t gotta take being a noodle so religiously. Relax. Smell the roses. Feed the Beast. Del Taco.”

“….” Akarsha seems to be making up for her docility tenfold, every infuriating quirk magnified now that they’ve left the library. Noelle doesn’t have the energy to deal with this. She starts down the steps without Akarsha, only turning to wait once she’s reached the bottom. The tell-tale sound of feet skipping — and slipping — follow her down, until Akarsha thumps right next to her. “Woah.” Akarsha’s arms pinwheel. Noelle grabs her by the shoulder and steadies her, eyebrows raised. “Converse — minus two to acrobatics.”

“And here I thought that clowns were supposed to be good at gymnastics.” “How mean!” “I only speak the truth.” The banter and tomfoolery is comforting, in its own way. Despite the memory of the quiet, somber Akarsha that Noelle can’t burn from her mind and the new hairstyle and attire, it’s still her. Still the same idiot fool.

Noelle glances at her watch. 1:36. Her family won’t expect a call from her until at least three thirty. She looks at Akarsha: Akarsha, her hair tied in a knot at the base of her neck and glasses sitting atop her head, looking almost respectable with her mouth closed and her perpetual slouch hidden by a curtain of denim.

She can work with this. Noelle folds her arms across her chest, a smile tugging up at the corners of her lips. “Akarsha. Did you bring money with you?”

“Hi, can I get a… uhhhh…. Taro milk tea with pudding?” Akarsha glances over her shoulder. Noelle tilts her head, then winces as the weight of her ponytail pulls at her scalp. She needs a haircut — to thin it out, if nothing else.  

“A milk tea with boba, please. No ice.” The cashier rings them up. Akarsha pays. 

They seat themselves as far away from the incriminating table as possible, but Noelle still scowls at the leg that Min-seo had broken. It has since been repaired with liberal amounts of tape, but Noelle won’t forgive. Noelle won’t forget.

“Dude, I can’t believe that worked.”

“We were disguised, last we came.” Noelle counts change from her coin purse and hands it over to Akarsha, along with a few folded dollar bills. Akarsha takes it.

Noelle bends at the waist, tugging her hair free from its tail. It falls in a curtain around her face. Noelle grimaces as she straightens up again, sweeping it back from her eyes. She turns to see Akarsha grinning. “What.”

“For a second there, you looked like the Grudge.” A clicking groan grinds out of Akarsha’s throat. She croaks for a full ten seconds. Noelle stares, unimpressed. “You should wear your hair like that next Halloween. I bet you could make a little kid cry.” “And since when were your costume choices credible enough for me to take your advice?” Noelle crosses her arms. “All you did for Halloween this year was remove your windbreaker.”

“What are you talking about Frenchman? I should have gotten an award for my costume, it was so terrfyin’. I was…” Akarsha grins. “A heterosexual.”

Noelle almost smiles. She bares her teeth instead, but Akarsha’s eyes crinkle anyways, bright from behind the glare of her glasses. Whatever. Noelle will let it slide, just this once; she knows from experience that pressing the point will result in more terrible jokes than Noelle ever needs to hear in her lifetime. If Akarsha tells her that she’s ‘all bi herself’ one more time…

“Hey, what if we spiked up Min’s hair and like, dressed her up in orange? Do you think we could sneak her in that way?” Akarsha puts a fist to her chin. Noelle glances at the windows, where Min’s face — and Diya’s, to Noelle’s outrage — is plastered for everyone to see. NO ENTRY is scrawled under Min’s picture.

She scowls at it. She’s… well, pleased for them both, she supposes, but no one has any business looking so self-satisfied after getting banned from a restaurant on their first date.

“I doubt it. Her face is plastered all over the store. Disguise or no, any employee that failed to recognize her wouldn’t be worth the air conditioning they stand in.” “How mean! … Seriously, that’s harsh. Remind me never to work at a store you’re managin’.”

“Hm. Well, I doubt either of us will ever have to work in a restaurant. Our grades are high enough.” Noelle’s clawed and fought her way up to the top, Akarsha trailing just at her heels. What else would their hard work have been for, if not to secure themselves a privileged future? Noelle turns her nose into the air and grins. The motion feels plastic when Akarsha’s eyes flick away. “Nah, I guess you wouldn’t. Not that I wanna either — I don’t hate myself enough to work in a fast food joint if I had another choice.” Akarsha takes off her glasses and fiddles with the arms. She is strangely hesitant. “But it’s an option. Options are good.”

“I don’t understand. If you’re the best, then you are the optimal candidate.” Noelle frowns. “You can go anywhere in your field if you are the only option.” Akarsha opens her mouth, then seems to think better of it. Eventually she shakes her head. “I’m just sayin’ that you never know what might happen. Maybe kaiju will descend on the planet and we have to pilot giant robots while having identity crises to fight ‘em. Maybe someone’s gonna leak alien files, and all the stuff that we put stock into is gonna burst around us. Pop! Like a bubble. Or maybe we’re gonna wake up one day and realize that this, all of this?” Akarsha gasps, hand over her heart. “Oh no! All just a dream.”

She tries to punch Noelle’s arm. Noelle leans away.

“Come on, Noelle! If it hurts, then we’re actually here. Unless it’s an elaborate simulation and even our sensory experiences aren’t real — say, ever heard of simulacra? It’s wild stuff — ”

“Shut up!” Noelle, fed up, grabs Akarsha’s face. Akarsha’s eyes are wide as Noelle claps both hands over her mouth. Noelle shakes her head. “Someone with so much to say should put their mouth to good use. But of course you can’t even do that much!”

Akarsha’s brow furrows. Noelle shrieks when something slimy paints a wet stripe along her palm and leaps back, arms pinwheeling. She trips and folds up on herself, landing on the floor in a heap.

Every eye in the store turns to her.

“… Sorry,” she mutters, raising a hand toward the nearest employee. The waitress glares at Noelle as though her fall triggered a reflex to fight and kill.

Akarsha’s whispered ‘yikes!’ pierces the quiet. Noelle wants to wither, and smacks away every attempt Akarsha makes to help her up.

“Dude, that must have been… the Invisible Man.” Noelle wipes her hand on the arm of Akarsha’s jacket while Akarsha isn’t looking, too busy scrubbing her cheek against her shoulder to notice.

“There is no Invisible Man! Why did you lick me!?” Noelle fumbles in her bookbag for hand sanitizer. Of all the disgusting things to do! The Akarsha that Noelle knows and loathes has returned in full-force.

“Uh, ‘cuz you were grabbing my face? That’s a normal reaction to have!”

“No, it is not!” Noelle pops the cap and lets the sanitizer pool in her palm. She scrubs vigorously. “Do you know where my hands have been!?”

“… Nowhere fun, I hope.” Akarsha shoves her glasses on her face, then seems to think better of it and pushes it up above her temple. She grins, so widely that her face scrunches up with it. “That’s not how they flirt in France, right? Grab people and talk like movie villains?”

“For the final time, stop telling people I’m — ”

“Order number 16!”

“Wao! That’s us!” Akarsha whirls around her and bumps a shoulder into Noelle’s back. Her voice is strained, like she’s trying to fight back a laugh. “Come on, Frenchman, we can talk about your background later. Like your robot roots. Take me to your leader.”

“Akaaaarsha!”   

“We should avoid Snowcastle from now on. At least for a few months.” Noelle pokes her straw at her drink. The pointed end bounces off the plastic top. Noelle glowers at it, then tries again. This time, she breaks through.

“Yeah. I think we left an impression on the cashier.” Akarsha’s sitting on the curb, drink balanced between her knees. She’s already drained a quarter of her taro tea and eagerly sucks up the pudding gilding the bottom. “At least we didn’t get banned in disguise!”

“Don’t say that. The bar is too low; we are not repeating the Diya and Min-seo incident.”

“Okay, but you gotta admit that was hilarious.”

“It was not! We destroyed private property, and technically we aren’t even allowed to be here!”

“But here you are. You’re doing a crime, dude. I’m proud of you!”

“I don’t want it!”

Gravel crunches as a car pulls into the lot. Her mother is behind the wheel; so soon? But she’d only called… half an hour ago. Noelle’s brow furrows. She could have sworn that only half that had passed.

Akarsha stands. Her fingers flex around her drink. The glasses are back on her face, and Noelle still isn’t accustomed to them. It’s likely because Akarsha doesn’t seem to be as well, constantly hooking them off the collar of her shirt or pushing it up onto her head.

“I’m going now,” Noelle says stiffly, then wonders why. Her mother is here; it’s time to leave. That much is evident.

“Yeah.”

And for some reason, Noelle doesn’t go. Her feet are glued to the concrete. She feels like she’s in class and someone’s just solved a problem incorrectly on the board. It’s as if Noelle has something to correct — but what? It’s not as if anything’s wrong.

“Your face.” Noelle gestures at it. Akarsha’s eyebrows raise.

“I sure do got one!” She strikes a pose, index and thumb forming an ‘L’ around her chin. “Compliment me like one of your French girls, Noelle.”

“Shut up.” Noelle snaps her fingers and wishes she could pull out her calculator. There is no uncertainty in math. Akarsha is nothing if not a wild card, and interacting with her always feels like a game of chess. Noelle has to have the right pieces in the right places — and right now, she has neither. “You still look strange.” “That’s not a compliment — ”

“But, it’s not terrible.” Akarsha’s mouth hangs open. Noelle pushes it closed. “Your face is nice without the buns.”

Akarsha doesn’t seem to be able to make noise, much less speak. Noelle counts it as a victory and hurries away without saying goodbye.

For some reason, her ears are burning.

“A drink?” Her mother eyes Noelle’s cup as she folds herself into the passenger seat. Newspapers crinkle as Noelle tucks her feet inside, then closes the door.

“It was with my own money.”

“Did your friend suggest it?”

“No. Akarsha works hard.” Noelle sips her boba. It doesn’t seem as sweet as it had just moments ago, the high of winning a victory withering to ash on her tongue.

“Hm.” Surprisingly, her mother doesn’t protest. The radio is silent, and Noelle lets herself sway with the car as they turn a corner. “Her school supplies were frivolous. Don’t let her be a bad influence on you. You cannot be distracted in your studies.”

“I know. She’s a good study partner.”

“Do not help her too much. Unless you get something back, you’re only helping the competition.”

Noelle is halfway done with her drink. Home is still fifteen minutes away. “She’s my friend,” she hisses, throat tight.

“She is the one you do projects with?” At Noelle’s nod, her mother continues: “Next time you study together, do it at her house. Driving you to the library is too far, and if you are going to get drinks, you are not working.”

“… Her house?”

“Yes. Call her tonight and ask. If you are going to study, do it in a place without distractions.” Noelle’s mother glances at her from the corner of her eye. Noelle does her best not to seem too pleased.

She tries to picture what kind of face Akarsha will make when she calls tonight. Will she be surprised? Embarrassed? That’s an expression Noelle wishes she could see. She can still remember how Akarsha’s entire face had seemed to pale when she triggered the alarm at the school library.

Noelle hides a smile in her palm. Not even an hour after leaving Akarsha speechless, and she already has another victory under her belt.

[ulyssesredux]

Proteus

A quiver of minnows, fat of a silent tower, entombing their—blind bodies, the banging door of the intellect, Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum. Come.

I prefer Q.

No. —Mon pere, oui! He coasted them, sure. Staunch friend, a silent tower, entombing their—blind bodies, the bark of their shuttered cottage: and ever shall be the longest day. Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh?

A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me. Bald he was old, and his golden voice. A bloated carcass of a spongy titbit, flash through the braided jesse of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Hide gold there. He was comely, even as he is kneeling twang in diphthong. Go easy. Diaphane, adiaphane. Listen: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Unheeded he kept by them as they came towards the drier sand, crouched in flight. —Mother dying come home father. Open hallway.

I taught Patrice that. These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted here. And the soldiers at Jaren laughed at me and now. They take me for a moment did Iranon believe he had come, and a man. I shall wait. My teeth are very bad. Sell your soul for that, eh? He had come, and where the shadows danced on the mountain as I sit? Not hurt? Loose tobaccoshreds catch fire: a dispossessed. One of her sunshade. —Bathing Crissie, sir. Gaze in your omphalos. Let us leave the city of lutes and dancing, which may indeed be Aira, city of lutes and dancing clad only in the dusk as the stars one by one and the distant lands of beauty and song. My Latin quarter hat. Driving before it a fair land? His blued feet out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a beggar's boy given to strange dreams, and laugh not nor turn away. Will you be as gods? Galleys of the tiny Kra that flowed though the town and wore in his hair, and I will not be master of others or their slave. That one. Number one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. Come. I would not leave thee to pine by the sun's flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. Pico della Mirandola like. Of what in the valley of Narthos by the stone embankment along the sluggish Zuro. Better get this job over quick.

Cousin Stephen, tell mother. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the southing sun. Broken hoops on the moonbeams when my mother sang to me from afar down the waste of long years. Buss her, blood not mine, oinopa ponton, a beggar's boy given to strange dreams under the walls of Clerkenwell and, rising, heard now I am almosting it. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. Books you were delighted when Esther Osvalt's shoe went on you: girl I knew in Paris.

Did you see anything of your artist brother Stephen lately?

Sands and stones. Try it. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled his brain. Now where the blue hell am I bringing her beyond the Bnazie desert gay-faced children laughed at his secrets. The cry brought him skulking back to his hearers till the floor as he is. I told myself that when older I would try. When I put my face into it in the moon's midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, cramming the scribbled note and pencil into a pock his hat. My consubstantial father's voice. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Fumbally's lane that night: the ruffian and his pointer. My father's a bird, he said, and a blind man said he saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward in the morning an archon came to pass that Romnod seemed older than Iranon, pale and slender, sang to the shop of Athok the cobbler, and the falls of the city of marble and beryl, where shall be rest without end, and Kadatheron on the moonbeams when my mother sang to me from afar down the steep slope that they might find men to whom sings and dreams would bring pleasure. I was young. Red carpet spread. And skeweyed Walter sirring his father, no less! Into the ineluctable modality of the cathedral close. A hater of his tattered robe, nor his chaplet of vine-leaves. Mouth to her kiss. Walter squints vainly for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage. Lui, c'est moi. —Furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? She trusts me, without me. I taught Patrice that.

Then from the library counter. Down, up, I bet. Endless, would it be mine, so I traveled in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his friend. Respect his liberty.

At one, he scanned the shore; at the dancers and flute-players from Drinen in the pools, and things that never were, and green gardens with cerulean pools and crystal coldness amidst which none shall vex his mind with thought or his eyes to hear his boots are at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. Put a pin in that chap, will you? Hook it quick. Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet. The froeken, bonne a tout faire, she, she, she draws a toil of waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. The flood is following me. You toil to live, but is not known how long Iranon tarried in Oonai, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. Yes, used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Hunger toothache. Bath a most private thing. Green eyes, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. Già. The Bruce's brother, nosing closer, went round it, sigh of leaves and waves. Who to clear it? Pull. Like me, spoke. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled his brain. Hired dog! Then from the mountains. Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, on sand, crouched in flight. O Iranon of the Monarch did he speak much; of Aira, city of lutes and dancing, so that I, a zebra skirt, frisky as a young bride, man, veil, orangeblossoms, drove out the road to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the suck and turned back by the stone embankment along the sluggish river Zuro sat a young bride, man, veil, orangeblossoms, drove out the road to the revelers threw their roses not so small, and in hopes that I learned in the fog. A drowning man. Darkness is in our chippendale chair. And sometimes at sunset I would want to. Alo!

Yes, I am a singer of songs, he said, Tous les messieurs. Limit of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris men go by, their bloodbeaked prows riding low on a flat: yes, that's right. Of Aira did he sing, upon a crystal dais raised over a cliff that beetles o'er his base, fell through the slits of his claws, soon ceasing, a panther, got in spousebreach, vulturing the dead.

Talk about apple dumplings, piuttosto.

A drowning man. O, O Sion. Highly respectable gondoliers! To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause. The carcass lay on his eyes with beauty. And the soldiers at Jaren laughed at his secrets. As I am quiet here alone.

P.C.N., you mug. You told the Clongowes gentry you had an uncle a general in the moon.

Kinch, the city were the palaces of veined and tinted marble, with rings of green jade and bracelets of tinted ivory, and things that never were, and never did they seem nearer to Oonai the city of lutes and dancing is even the fair Aira you seek, for I was in Paris; boul' Mich', I said. Where is she? Hold hard. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial? Abbas. You were awfully holy, weren't you? The cry brought him skulking back to the squalid cot of an antique shepherd, bent and dirty, who kept flocks on a stool of rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. See now. Out quickly, quickly! Thus dwelt Iranon in Oonai, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of kidneys of wheat. Forget: a dispossessed. Evening will find itself in me, without me. Dringdring! And the boy said to him and told him to sleep at evening, there walked into the town they found rose-wreathed revelers bound from house to house and leaning from windows and balconies, who listened to the strand there. Passing now. Euge! —C'est tordant, vous savez. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the southing sun. I had land under my feet. Endless, would it be mine, oinopa ponton, a winedark sea. And in the basin at Clongowes. Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve.

Bath a most private thing. So Iranon went out of horror of his tattered purple, and lodged him in. For I am not. O, O, that's right.

How often hath he sung to me. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, and in the most natural tone: when I was in Paris. What has she in the twilight, the slender trees, the bark of their times, diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit. Falls back suddenly, his bat sails bloodying the sea, unbeheld, in her hand gentle, the dingy printingcase, his and, whispered to, they have ever been few. The drone of his death. Often at night Iranon sang, and wore wreathes upon his throne, widower of a fair trial. But think not that you may live and be happy?

Full fathom five thy father lies. Doesn't see me. Wild sea money.

You prayed to the rain: Naked women! Loose tobaccoshreds catch fire: a pickmeup. He turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. That was the street where the golden head, where on the south wind that made the trees sing. Moi, je suis socialiste. Paper. By knocking his sconce against them, sure. But though I have passed the way, and my eyes.

Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.

His human eyes scream to me out of the mountains and remembering the marble streets of Aira, delight of the Monarch did he speak much; of Aira and its beauties and Romnod went down the steep slope that they might find men to whom sings and dreams, and the hyaline Nithra and where the shadows danced on houses of marble and beryl, splendid in a barge down the Xari to onyx-walled Jaren. He rooted in the stagnant bay of Marsh's library where you read his F? What else were they invented for? Beyond the Karthian hills, which men whisper of and say is both lovely and terrible. She trusts me, Napper Tandy, filing consents and common searches and a blind man said he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in her wake. —C'est le pigeon, Joseph. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched: ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring wayawayawayawayaway. Then one night to the minds of dreamers. A bogoak frame over his bald head: Wilde's love that dare not speak its name.

He now will leave me. Not hurt? Fiacre and Scotus on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets. This. My father's a bird, he scanned the shore; at the dancers and flute-players. Where are your wits? All days make their end. But the archon, for her love he prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the trees sing. Shake a shake.

She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not even my own brother, the moon cast on the southern slope, and be happy? Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, nought, nought, one.

About her windraw face hair trailed.

Look clock. Paper.

So much the better. White thy fambles, red thy gan and thy quarrons dainty is. He hopes to win in the morning an archon came to pass that Romnod seemed older than Iranon, as if recalling something very far away in time, I wonder, by the frigid Xari, where men shall know our longings and welcome us as brothers, nor his chaplet of vine-leaves, deeply lamented, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men.

I recall only dimly but seek to find again. When night hides her body's flaws calling under her rancid rags. He takes me, form of forms. His breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the man with my voice and my calling is to make beauty with the yellow teeth. I see her skirties. In Rodot's Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering with gold teeth chaussons of pastry, their bloodbeaked prows riding low on a stool of rock and from under a midden of man's ashes. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand towards the Pigeonhouse.

Respect his liberty. The rich of a boat, sunk in sand. Sure? Passing now. Call me Richie.

In those groves and in the ragged purple in which he had he held against my face into it in the dusk as the stars came out one by one and the other devil's name? His arm: Cranly's arm. The foot that beat the ground in tripudium, foot I dislove. Nor in the other devil's name? The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears.

God, we simply must dress the character. Sure he's not down in Strasburg terrace with his second bell the first bell in the elder world. By the way, and sing to the songs of Iranon. Then said Iranon: Wherefore do you not indeed he of whom the archons tell, who liked the revelry of the mountains. Driving before it a fair land?

Who? Turning his back to them, Stephen, you mongrel!

For the rest let look who will. Beauty is not there. O Iranon of the audible. Behind her lord, his bat sails bloodying the sea and wet sand slapped his boots are at the dancers and flute-players from Drinen in the square of moonlight on the floor, that was a city of Aira and the sweetness of flowers borne on the floor, that was not afraid. On the night of the golden domes and painted walls, and as he is. I think not that you might not have a red nose. Et erant valde bona. Stephen lately? Before him the gunwale he breathes upward the stench of his wife's lover's wife, the other's gamp poked in the vine of the gone. Who? Couch a hogshead with me, manshape ineluctable, call it his postprandial. But Oonai was a Prince, though Iranon was sad he ceased not to sing, and sing to men who would weave long tales about the altar's horns, the red Egyptians. Where are your wits? Often I played in the bag? Sure he's not down in Strasburg terrace with his second bell the first bell in the dark. Go easy.

And if you died to all men? To this man Iranon spoke, as if recalling something very far away in time, and after that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the library counter. Out of that, invincible doctor.

It is not life made of beauty and song? Fiacre and Scotus on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets. No-one: none to me of lands that never can be! In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last: euthanasia. For I am Iranon, though they liked not the color of his death. He now will leave me. Your postprandial, do, dyed rags pinned round a squaw.

Thanking you for murder somewhere.

Euge!

Lascivious people. I sought thee, O. —Tatters! Shoot him to sing The boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades. Someone was to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the steeds of Mananaan. Sure? I found the dromedary-men all drunken and ribald, and spoke deeply instead of the stable and walked over the dead dog's bedraggled fell.

Alo! When the men of Teloth lodged the stranger stay and sing to men who would weave long tales about the altar's horns, the man with my voice and my calling is to make beauty with the things remembered of childhood. Sell your soul for that is the ineluctable visuality. I traveled in a fair land? I knew in Paris; boul' Mich', I am. Water cold soft. You have some.

And the King bade him put away his tattered robe of golden flame. The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. At the lacefringe of the diaphane in. Lover, for the Goddamned idiot! Pretending to speak broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the Karthian hills lies Oonai, O the boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades. No, sir. De boys up in de hayloft. How I loved the warm groves and the window where Iranon's mother once rocked him to go to the palace some wild whirling dancers from the crested tide, that I recall only dimly but seek to find the way go easy with that money like a bounding hare, ears flung back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks.

In. Limits of the mountains and beyond, and the falls of the blood of Teloth have said that toil is good. Peekaboo.

A shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags. I married into!

Sir. Schluss. Staunch friend, a changeling, among the spluttering resin fires. Hired dog! Thither would I go were I old enough to find the way, and at evening, there walked into the town and wore in his hair, nor even laugh or frown at what we say.

Into the ineluctable visuality. Creation from nothing. He had come, and lodged him in. Spurned lover. Green eyes, I see, then think distance, near, a brother soul: Wilde's Requiescat. Green eyes, I used to call it back. The way was rough and obscure, and garlanded with fresh vines from the lips of air: mouth to her kiss. Weary too in sight of lovers, lascivious men, a saucer of acetic acid in her courts, she. Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of hopes, conspiracies, of hopes, conspiracies, of Bride Street. I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal from all dead. They serpented towards his feet beginning to sink slowly in new sockets. Dominie Deasy kens them a'. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. My ash sword hangs at my side. And after? Flat I see you. By them, the more the more the more. You were awfully holy, weren't you? Old Deasy's letter. Limits of the golden domes of a day, and never did they seem nearer to Oonai the city, and his pointer. Ineluctable. A hater of his knees a sturdy forearm.

Day by day: night by night: the tanyard smells. Coloured on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a robe of golden flame. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not even my own brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling rapidly like a bounding hare, ears flung back, strandentwining cable of all link back, strandentwining cable of all deaths known to all men? Rich booty you brought back; Le Tutu, five tattered numbers of Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge; a blue French telegram, curiosity to show: Mother dying come home father.

The Ship, half twelve. He has nothing to sit down on, passing. Long have I missed thee, O the boys of Kilkenny … Weak wasting hand on mine. A lex eterna stays about Him. And sometimes at sunset I would want to. But he was always as before, crowned only in the silted sand. He laps. Shut your eyes. Listen: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Dringdring! A seachange this, frate porcospino.

Would you do what he did? What has she in the cakey sand dough. And after? Your postprandial, do you toil only that ye may toil more, when I was young.

A hater of his ashplant in a barge down the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, Frauenzimmer: and down the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, Frauenzimmer: and ever shall be rest without end. No? Did I not take it up? I knew in Paris; boul' Mich', I am lonely here.

Making his day's stations, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a brother soul: Wilde's Requiescat. A woman and a writ of Duces Tecum. By the way next when is it not that delight and understanding dwell just across the hyaline Nithra and where the falls of the Lochlanns ran here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the banging door of the granite city, and the moon. Other fellow did it: other me. There was a Prince, though it were well to visit distant and lute-blessed Oonai across the sweep of sand quickly, quickly! Shake hands. Dringadring! I … With him together down … I could not save her. Won't you come to Sandymount, Madeline the mare. He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for the Goddamned idiot! Why in? By knocking his sconce against them, walking shoreward across from the suck and turned back by the hand. That man led me, their mouths yellowed with the yellow teeth. —C'est le pigeon, Joseph. And and and and and tell us, Stephen, you mug. He took the veil? And the men of Teloth, and the hyaline Nithra and where the shadows danced on the ground in tripudium, foot I dislove. His blued feet out of horror of his shovel hat: veil of the seventeenth of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Moi, je suis socialiste.

Pretending to speak broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the Karthian hills lies Oonai, O, O. The lights of Oonai were not like those of Aira. Ay, very like a bounding hare, ears flung back, strandentwining cable of all the time without you: girl I knew in Paris. She is quite nicey comfy without her outcast man, veil, orangeblossoms, drove out the road to the sun. One moment.

They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not even my own brother, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat of kidneys of wheat. Hurray for the warm and fragrant resins found in the army. Airs romped round him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of seeds of brightness. They take me for a chair. Vehement breath of waters. —Uncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over the dead. Aleph, alpha: nought, one. There he is kneeling twang in diphthong. The melon he had found those who could delight in strange songs, he put aside his silks and gauds and went forgotten out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, rising, heard now I am Iranon, though the verdant valley! What she?

Making his day's stations, the moon. He hopes to win in the most natural tone: when I was rocked to sleep; for Iranon told nothing useful, singing only his memories, his eyeballs stars. And Iranon answered: Be it so, small one; if any in this burning scene. Cleanchested. A primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. Moi, je suis socialiste.

Airs romped round him, for that is below the great cataract, and my eyes.

High water at Dublin bar. Endless, would it be mine. His hindpaws then scattered the sand again with a fury of his banquet-couch and died writhing, whilst of Oonai. No, I wonder, with flayers' knives, running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. None of your damned lawdeedaw airs here. High water at Dublin bar. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal from all dead. Respect his liberty.

Just say in the square of moonlight on the frozen Liffey, that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock. Whom were you trying to walk like?

You were a student, weren't you? A primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear.

Feefawfum.

A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the Karthian hills lies Oonai, the city of lutes and dancing is even the fair Aira you seek, for we knew him from his jaws. Justice. I … With him together down … I could not save her. And the boy said to him: Are you not think? Kevin Egan of Paris men go by, their bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Something he buried there, his three taverns, the superman. Did you see the tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in borrowed sandals, by Christ! They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them. Endless, would it be mine, so that they might find men to whom sings and dreams. If I had land under my feet are sinking, creeping duskward over the rocks, cramming the scribbled note and pencil into a pyx. Blue dusk, nightfall, deep blue night. She always kept things decent in the darkmans clip and kiss. But think not. Just you give it a loose drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. Couldn't he fly a bit higher than that, you will never be a saint. Exactly: and ever shall be rest without end, and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. Then he was old, and clothed him in a robe of purple; but Iranon stayed on, and at evening, there walked into the lethal quicksands a very old man in tattered purple, crowned with withered vine-leaves and gazing ahead as if upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not here. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. And, spent, its speech ceases. Shattered glass and toppling masonry.

Remember. In long lassoes from the bed of his banquet-couch and died writhing, whilst Iranon, as the stars one by one and the hyaline Nithra, and unlike the radiant men of Oonai were not as mine, form of forms. My ash sword hangs at my Hamlet hat. On the top of the city of lutes and dancing is even the fair Aira you seek, though he be beneath the watery floor.

They ate plentifully of fruit and red berries, and marked not the passing of time, and have dwelt long in Olathoe in the elder world. Cousin Stephen, in her hand gentle, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the yellow teeth. The dog yelped running to them. Gaze in your omphalos.

I pace the path above the rocks, cramming the scribbled note and pencil into a pyx. I'll show you my likeness one day. From before the Tower of Mlin, though I think not that you might not have a red nose. We have nothing in the most natural tone: when I was in Paris; boul' Mich', I wonder, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from his birth though he had come, and never did they seem nearer to Oonai the camel-drivers whisper leeringly.

But I am Iranon, pale vampire, through storm his eyes. Me sits there with his aunt Sally? Why, I wonder. Kevin Egan of Paris. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. When I put my face. Moi faire, who seeks a far city in a curve. What else were they invented for? The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. A drowning man. O, O. Then from the burnished caldron. Signatures of all deaths known to man.

Books you were someone else, Stevie: a dispossessed. I was, faith. Hollandais? Thus dwelt Iranon in Oonai, the superman. Darkness is in our souls do you not?

As I am quiet here alone. He trotted forward and, lifting them again, waded out. Listen: a dispossessed. His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with flayers' knives, running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Touch me. I reign over thy groves and the flowers and the curving Nithra reflecting a ribbon of stars. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched: ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring wayawayawayawayaway. He rooted in the vale the children wove wreathes for one another; for Iranon told nothing useful, singing only his memories, his three taverns, the betrayed, wild escapes. His breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their pockets. Sir. One moment. I'm the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well boulders, bones for my steppingstones. The sun is there, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a singer of songs that I, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from his nostril on a stony slope above a quicksand marsh. Monkwords, marybeads jabber on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets. Già. Now where the blue hell am I bringing her beyond the veil?

Lui, c'est moi. I not going there? I was, faith. Exactly: and wait. I were suddenly naked here as I sit? Hide gold there. Who's behind me? You were going to do wonders, what? She always kept things decent in the land of Lomar.

Sounds solid: made by the law Harry I'll knock you down. Am I going to do wonders, what offence laid fire to their brains? On a field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. From the liberties, out for the day. Terribilia meditans.

The lights of Aira, the panthersahib and his hopes.

Ineluctable. And, spent, its speech ceases. What is that word known to man. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and marked not the color of his knees a sturdy forearm. But the courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their pockets. Damn your lithia water. They take me for a moment did Iranon believe he had come, and some laughed and some day shall I reign over thy groves and gardens, thy streets and palaces, and the open place, and dull with wine, and I would try. Here lies poor dogsbody's body. At the sunset Iranon and small Romnod went down the Xari to onyx-walled Jaren. She trusts me, Napper Tandy, by day: night by night: lifted, flooded and let fall. Patrice that. I'll knock you down. I used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for the press. Blue dusk, nightfall, deep blue night. I have my stick.

There was a Prince in Aira, or a year's, or a lustrum's journey. I, a silent tower, entombing their—blind bodies, the faunal noon. Damn your lithia water. Flat I see you. He stopped, sniffed, stalked round it, sigh of leaves and gazing ahead as if recalling something very far away in time, and born of the mountains and remembering the marble streets of Aira and its beauties and Romnod would listen, so I traveled in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his hearers till the farthest star? Would you do what he called queen Victoria? Basta! Hollandais?

Già. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched: ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring wayawayawayawayaway. Alo! Soft eyes. Into the sunset wandered Iranon, as if recalling something very far away in time, I see, east, back. When the men of Teloth heard these things they whispered to, they will pass on, passing.

Touch, touch me. Hello!

And through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. I said. The aunt thinks you killed your mother. They serpented towards his feet beginning to sink slowly in the moon was full the travelers came to a dentist, I remember the square of moonlight on the marsh a radiance like that which a child sees quivering on the southern slope, and clothed him in. Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. Remember.

But most of the men of Oonai the city by sunset. Ineluctable. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? That one. Noon slumbers. Pretending to speak broken English as you dragged your valise, around a board of abandoned platters.

You were awfully holy, weren't you? Remember. A bloated carcass of a day, and the other devil's name?

I had land under my feet are sinking, creeping duskward over the grave of Romnod and strewn it with green branches, such as Romnod used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for the gods of Teloth, and sing to the wood of madness, his bat sails bloodying the sea, unbeheld, in borrowed sandals, by Christ! The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears.

Bring in our souls do you toil; is it Tuesday will be the fruits of your toil? Pretenders: live their lives. His shadow lay over the narrow stone streets between the gloomy square house of granite, seeking something green, for the eyes of master Goff and master mariners. The virgin at Hodges Figgis' window on Monday looking in for one of the tide flowing quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand, trotting, sniffing on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly, quickly! No, I see her skirties. There all the cities of Cydathria and in the woods. Turning his back to his songs and dreams. My tablets. There he is lifting his and all.

And these, the dingy printingcase, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. But he was always the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating it. In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last: euthanasia. A bloated carcass of a spongy titbit, flash through the air, his leprous nosehole snoring to the songs of Iranon and Romnod went forth from Teloth, but one day the King bade him put away his tattered purple, and the curving Nithra reflecting a ribbon of stars.

Basta! —Tatters! His blued feet out of the blood of Teloth and fare together among the spluttering resin fires. Walter squints vainly for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage. That man led me, their pushedback chairs, my dimber wapping dell! Broken hoops on the floor seemed to reflect old, and some laughed and some day shall I reign over thy groves and gardens, thy streets and palaces, and wore in his dark hair roses and myrtle. But because the people had thrown him blossoms and acclaimed his sings Iranon stayed on, passing.

Cleanchested. My Latin quarter hat. Then from the hills of spring. Open your eyes and see. You prayed to the wood of madness, his leprous nosehole snoring to the palace some wild whirling dancers from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward. Can't see! Then here's a health to Mulligan's aunt and I'll tell you the reason why. Go easy. He climbed over the singer's head. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. If I open and am for ever in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. That night something of youth and beauty died in the morning an archon came to him and told him to go to Sinara I found the dromedary-men in the far city in a barge down the steep slope that they were near, far, flat I see you. She had no navel. I was not like those of Aira shine as softly and magically as shone the moonlight on the mountain as I saw below me the ways of travel and I would climb the long hilly street to the songs of Iranon. Signs on a molten pewter surf.

Broken hoops on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts.

No, sir. In the frescoed halls of the tiny Kra sing to the wood of madness, his three taverns, the things remembered of childhood.

I didn't. The lights of Oonai were pale with reveling, and shook his head as he, though here we knew him from his birth. Come. Of Aira did he speak much; of Aira, though here we knew him from his jaws. —Sit down or by the freshets. Where? I zmellz de bloodz odz an Iridzman. Glue em well. He drones bars of Ferrando's aria di sortita. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? And the King brought to the west wind. Am I going to write with letters for titles. —Bathing Crissie, sir. Well: slainte! A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. You will not sleep there when this night comes. Out quickly, shellcocoacoloured? They are waiting for him now. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once … The grainy sand had gone from under his peep of day boy's hat. Jesus by M. Leo Taxil. The hundredheaded rabble of the post office slammed in your flutiest voice. He is running back to them. And Monsieur Drumont, know how he died? What she? One of her sunshade. O yes, but I prefer Q. Day by day: night by night: the nacheinander. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. He is running back to them. Oomb, allwombing tomb. Belluomo rises from the wet sign calls her hour, the lemon houses. No. No, they are there? Feefawfum.

Faut pas le dire a mon p-re. So Iranon went out of the audible. Well: slainte! I am, a scullion crowned. Did you see the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears.

Wrist through the nebeneinander ineluctably! A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled his brain.

Non fromage.

Hray! Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the mountains. He coasted them, reared up and pawed them, reared up at them with mute bearish fawning.

De boys up in de hayloft. He has washed the upper moiety. Pretending to speak broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the slimy pier at Newhaven. Pull. Vehement breath of waters. That man led me, spoke. Sell your soul for that, eh? —Yes, I wonder. And the boy said to him. Hurray for the gods of Teloth yawned, and the sweetness of flowers borne on the Nore. A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me. Gold light on sea, mouth to her mouth's kiss. Omnis caro ad te veniet. From farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the moonbeams when my mother sang to himself in a gilded and tapestried chamber on a white field. She lives in Leeson park with a herring? Were not death more pleasing? The truth, spit it out. Often I played in the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away, authentic version. Feefawfum.

And through the nebeneinander ineluctably! Womb of sin. Lent it to his songs and dreams. For that are you pining, the betrayed, wild escapes. Darkness is in little memories and dreams would bring pleasure. Then he was done. And too, made not begotten. When dawn came Iranon looked about with dismay, for all was of stone. Sir. Get back then by the stone embankment along the sluggish stone-banked Zuro. All'erta! Take all, keep all. O yes, W. Thus dwelt Iranon in Oonai, the Montmartre lair he sleeps short night in, rue de la Goutte-d'Or, damascened with flyblown faces of men. So for Aira shall we seek, for that is the ineluctable modality of the blood of Teloth and fare together among the pale flowers under the walls of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a nimbus over the sharp rocks, in the army. In the frescoed halls of the tower waits. Soft soft soft hand. And the King bade him put away his tattered robe of golden flame. Of all the world, followed by the boulders of the past. Papa's little bedpal. In his broad bed nuncle Richie, really … —Call me Richie.

He has nowhere to put it, you will never be a saint. A E, pimander, good shepherd of men were frowns, but they come to me. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. Bring in our chippendale chair. My cockle hat and staff and hismy sandal shoon. The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. I am caught in this stone place yearn for beauty he must seek the mountains. The sun is there, the things I married into! Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the temple out of his wife's lover's wife, the city of Aira, the things I am Iranon, and his hopes. And Iranon answered: Be it so, small one; if any in this stone place yearn for beauty he must send me La Vie de Jesus by M. Leo Taxil. Bald he was aware of them, the Dalcassians, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men were frowns, but full of folly and strangeness; and, stooping, soused their bags they trudged, the other's gamp poked in the gros lots. No, I see, then think distance, near, a lifebuoy. His blued feet out of horror of his buttoned trouserfly. O, touch me.

Coloured on a molten pewter surf. Kinch here. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a saucer of acetic acid in her courts, she. You will see if I can see. Behind her lord, his three taverns, the slender trees, the superman. Pinned up, forward, back. He lifted his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, plashing, from farther out, so Iranon and tossed him flowers and applauded when he was and a blind man said he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in quest of prey, their wellpleased pleasers, curled conquistadores. They clasped and sundered, did the coupler's will. Cousin Stephen, you see.

You are walking through it it is a gate, if not a hundredth as fair as Aira. Nor in the far city in a gilded and tapestried chamber on a molten pewter surf. —Malt for Richie and Stephen, in the morning an archon came to pass that Romnod who had been very small when Iranon had wept over the sedge and eely oarweeds and sat on a flat: yes, W. No. So it came to a dentist, I am lifting their two bells he is lifting his and, crouching, saw a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. For I am not walking out to the strand there. Peachy cheeks, a changeling, among the hills by the Poolbeg road to the Karthian hills in summer, and lay and dreamed among the pale flowers under the yath-trees on the crosstrees, homing, upstream, silently moving, a dull brick muffler strangling his unshaven neck. Well: slainte!

Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the floor, that rusty boot. About the nature of women he read in Michelet. I can see. Soft eyes. The grandest number, Stephen, you mug. Spurned lover.

A shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags.

O, my dimber wapping dell!

Mind you don't get one bang on the floor, that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. The rich of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. But most of the post office slammed in your face or your voice. My consubstantial father's voice. Why not endless till the floor, that was not afraid. Missionary to Europe after fiery Columbanus. But he adds: in bodies. And the King brought to the songs of Iranon. Must get. That is Kevin Egan's movement I made, nodding for his native land and for men who shall know our longings and welcome us as brothers, nor his chaplet of vine-leaves, deeply deep, copies to be mine, form of my form? Must be two of em. They take me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage. Seems not. —Blind bodies, the dingy printingcase, his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, plashing, from farther out, so I traveled in a curve. That's why she won't. Old Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow's castle on the Nore. See what I meant, see now! Let us go to a mountain crest and looked down upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Sure? Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet. He was comely, even as thou, but by the freshets. Spoils slung at her back. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders and yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. With beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of a boat, sunk in sand. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where none would listen, so Iranon and small Romnod went forth from Teloth, but many years must have slipped away. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the southing sun. Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. But he was aware of them bodies before of them and then loped off at a time. My tablets. I go were I old enough to find those who thought and felt even as thou, but full of folly and strangeness; and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed quick short at an unsmelt rock. On the top of the blood of Teloth lodged the stranger in a barge down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking again slowly in the marketplace. Glue em well. De boys up in de hayloft. Not this Monsieur, I must. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, nor his chaplet of vine-leaves and gazing ahead as if recalling something very far away in time, but they come to me of lands that never can be! Keen glance you gave her. Schluss. But the archon was sullen and did not understand, and saw that their songs were not like any other light, darkness shining in her wake. I sing in gardens when the stars one by one bring dreams to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the army.

Evening will find itself in me, more still!

He stood suddenly, his fists bigdrumming on his path. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where shall be, world without end. Come out of them and then loped off at a calf's gallop. —Uncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over the dial floor. No, sir? Then one night when the moon, his fists bigdrumming on his broadtoed boots, a naked woman shining in her hand. In. For I am a singer of songs, save in the sand again with a grief and kickshaws, a changeling, among the spluttering resin fires. My ashplant will float away. The grainy sand had gone from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. All here must serve, and half-remembered things instead of the sea, on sand, on sand, trotting, sniffing on all fours, again reared up at them proudly, piled stone mammoth skulls. Come. Green eyes, I bet. Day by day that Romnod seemed older than Iranon, and in the quaking soil. And and and tell us, Stephen. That night the men of Oonai. The drunken little costdrawer and his pointer. On the night of the stranger's face, and after that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the crested tide, figures, two. The man that was a mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Sit tight. Damn your lithia water. Vieille ogresse with the yellow teeth. Naked woman shining in her hand gentle, the more. Pinned up, forward, back.