#which is why i’m dropping the first chapter LOLL

[maruyaaya]

where have i been for the past few days you are asking??? well what if i told you chapter one of the neomachus fic will drop on january 6th??? what if told you that?

[keaalu]

Sundew

This came to me in that space where the alarm clock has bumped you awake and you can’t get a certain thing out of your head, but you’re not quite asleep or dreaming either? I suppose it’s sort of a half-dream. This is all you get, btw. I haven’t pinned down (and probably won’t) any of the rest like why they’re on Earth, why Zelda sent a giant sundew to the planet, WHERE it ended up, how it caught Mary, or anything.

Saw sundews on “Scotland: The New Wild” Sunday night which might have inspired it; I love carnivorous plants anyway (I have two growing on my kitchen windowsill) so it wasn’t a great leap to end up with this. Plus of course I wanted one where Hiro’s love of plants could be the bit that saves everyone! (Even in the episode where the plant was (essentially) the bad guy, AND it was all happening in their own home environment, these two idiots weren’t allowed to be the heroes without help. So. Yes I am biased.)

I am still working on all my other things. I'm about halfway to a new chapter of werekestrel, wahaha. I just needed to scribble this down.

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The plant looked like a giant sundew - easily taller than a human, the great spoon-shaped leaves covered in fleshy crimson spines, each tipped with a glistening globule of dew. Velvety, dusky-pink ribbons that could have been petals? or bracts? or... something... spiralled down from thickened, wrinkly bulbs like little brains at the top of the thickest stems.

The skeletonised remains of small animals and birds drooped from the upper leaves, like small treasures held in open palms to tempt in the unwary.

And at the top, wrapped in six or seven of the aggressive leaves, was Captain Falconer. It had already stolen her pistol and carried it far out of reach – not that she looked in any position to fight to get it back. Limbs slack, her head lolled backwards and her eyes were almost closed – she looked at very least unconscious, if she was even still alive.

“Oh, no, oh no no no!” 101 squeaked, alarmed. “Don’t you worry, ma’am, we’ll have you out of there in no time-!” He took up position just out of reach and drew his weapon.

“No, 101. Wait.” Hiro dropped into a hasty crouch next to him and mantled both hands over the gun. “No shooting.”

“What do you mean, no shooting?! It’s eating her!” the zeroid wailed. “We have to get her out of there!”

“And we shall do. But we will do it my way – with kindness and diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy? It’s a pla-ant!” 101 despaired. “What part of ‘it’s eating her’ did you miss, first time around? Did I not enunciate it properly?!”

“No, I understood you. I just think there may be a better solution than going straight into shooting it to pieces. Not to mention, we may injure the captain in the process.”

From her elevated vantage point, Captain Falconer watched with a sort of detached calm. The plant was obviously exuding some sort of sedative in its dew because in spite of the rash of itchy spots everywhere it had oozed through her clothing and made contact with her skin, she felt remarkably peaceful. Mostly comfortable. Not in any pain. She smiled at her two would-be rescuers and mouthed the greeting – hi – but no sound accompanied it.

101 looked up at her. “I’m really sorry, Captain! I don’t know what’s got into him, apart from it’s a plant so of course he’s having a freaking moment!”

Hiro shook his head, with a tired smile. “Would you stand watch, please? Just in case Zelda is monitoring all this and decides she needs to encourage a little more violence? I would prefer you were ready to defend us and not caught off-guard.”

“What?” 101 turned and immediately saw what the lieutenant was planning. “Oh, whoa, what? No!” His vocalisations grew steadily more frantic. “Hiro, what are you doing? What are you doing?! Oh, no, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare! You hear me?! Don’t! Oh please Hiro please don’t, I can’t rescue you both! I don’t even have hands-!”

But Hiro had already walked forwards, and with his hands up and palms out in a show of trust, stepped into the embrace of the leaves.

At first, the plant automatically grabbed him, with one of the enormous spatulate leaves covered in dewdrops, like an enormous sticky hand coming round behind his shoulders. Then-... it hesitated.

Hiro had picked out one of the long curling ribbonlike tendrils, with its coating of fine velvety red hairs. He held it in both hands, carefully, sandwiching it between both palms, before bringing it to his chest.

The other leaves that had been converging on his position suddenly all froze in place, trembling.

Hiro closed his eyes and concentrated. ~Hello, friend.~

The response was more of a series of vague impressions than actual words, but the meaning came across quite clearly. Confusion. A fading aggression. Surprise. Friend?

~I wish you no harm. I fear our first meeting has not been under best circumstances. I would like to rectify that...~

101 watched in jittery astonishment for a second or two. It... actually seemed like... maybe they were communicating?

Attempting to burn off a little of his agitation, the zeroid took to patrolling the perimeter, a slow fractious wobbly start-stop orbit. He’d do a quarter circuit, then stop, peer into the distance and check no-one was approaching, then spend just as long watching Hiro, worried. It was taking every ounce of willpower and trust in his best friend not to give into temptation and shoot the leaves off at the point they joined the plant’s thick trunk.

Hiro was still standing, though, and not because the leaf was holding him up. So it wasn’t eating him, 101 guessed. (Hoped.) Unless it had hypnotised him to be able to balance. 101 fidgeted, dismissed the thought before it could get itself too firmly established, and resumed his patrol.

He was on his sixteenth circuit when Hiro finally spoke out loud.

“Be ready to look after Captain Falconer,” the young man instructed, dreamily.

101 skidded to a halt. “What do you mean?”

“That plant is about to let her go. Please do not be in the way, but be ready to monitor her biosigns. I think she should be fine but she will probably not fully rouse for a little while.”

“What about you?”

“Well, I have successfully bargained for her release. Hopefully my new friend may be persuaded to let me go as well.”

“-hopefully?!-”

“...now, are you ready?”

“What?! Oh! Er? Right!”

The plant let Mary gracelessly down to the ground in a whispering rush of leaves; clumsy and probably uncomfortable but it managed not to let her head impact the ground as it did so. When it let her go, all the blobs of dew came away from the leaves, leaving her decorated with what looked like a thousand shimmering bubbles.

101 got round behind her and pushed her gently out of reach of the plant, then burrowed under her arm so her hand lay with the palm flat on his casing. Although any close contact was technically good enough, he could pick up her vital signs better that way; her heartbeat was slow, and soft, but steady – her breathing too. Like he imagined it would be if she’d been heavily sedated. Well, that all tallied. She was very sticky, too, but that would wash off. (He hoped it would wash off, seeing as it was all getting on him, as well. Ugh.) 

Unexpectedly, a minute or two later the plant released Hiro, as well; he stumbled backwards, lost his balance, and landed with a wince on his backside.

“Are you all right?” 101 was immediately fussing around him. “Talk to me? Did it hurt you? Are you okay?”

“I am fine.” He tolerated the zeroid’s increasingly anxious (and slightly heavy-handed) checkup for only a few seconds before pressing both hands to him with an exasperated laugh. “Argh! Owun, I am FINE! Go look after Mary!”

“At least just tell me how you knew it wouldn’t eat you?” 101 wondered.

“Well, I... didn’t, for definite. But I was fairly confident.”

“Fairly conf-...” 101 butted into him, frustrated. “...you are gonna make me blow a fuse, one day, and NOT in the good way.”

Hiro patted his cowling, then grimaced at the long strands of sticky dew that came away on his fingers. “Come on. We still have a job to finish.” He gathered Mary carefully against him so she wasn’t sprawled out over the rocky ground, then ensured her palm was back against the zeroid’s exterior. “Have you raised the alarm with the others?”

“Yeah. I calculate they’re about forty-five minutes out.” 101 approximated a sigh. “Could Zelda not have at least found a plant that wasn’t gross and sticky? I am going to be completely covered in twigs and dirt by the time we get home and I KNOW Zero’ll make a big deal out of it for weeks.” He leaned against Hiro’s leg, and grumbled; “And people act like I’m weird when I say I prefer it up on my lovely clean spaceship.”

Hiro cleared his throat, delicately. “Whose lovely clean spaceship?”

“Um. The?”

Hiro’s eyebrows still hadn’t stopped their voyage to deep space.

A little huff. “Fine. Your lovely clean spaceship.”

Hiro laughed. “Our spaceship, I think? Cheer up, my friend. I will help you bathe when we get back. You will soon be your clean fashionable self again.”

The zeroid gave a satisfied little chirp and wiggled himself comfortable against his friend’s side while they waited for collection. Mary slept peacefully on, although she’d started very slightly to stir, so was obviously recovering nicely.

“So, uh. What are we gonna do with Sticky, anyway?” 101 kept looking back at the monster sundew, as if not totally convinced it wasn’t about to change its mind, get up on its roots, and come after them again.

“Oh, I think Sunny is a nicer name, do you not?” At the full-body eyeroll, Hiro smiled, and patted his sticky zeroid on the crown of his head. “It was already a terribly long way from home when Zelda found it, in a damaged, abandoned exploratory vessel. She promised to find it a new and better home. It had been alone for so long, in the cold and the dark, of course it agreed. She sent it to Earth as a spore on the side of a cargo vessel, which is how it evaded our attention.”

101 looked up at him, cocked exasperatedly to one side. -and?-

“I told it we would find a home for it, until we can work out where it belongs. It accepts that we may never be able to send it home, but... At least we can find it somewhere that we can care for it and feed it, and give it the company it desires.”

101 gave him a loaded glance. “Please don’t say you mean on Spacehawk-!”

----

Plot twist: it IS an Earth sundew, picked up in prehistory by aliens, experimented on and given sentience and size in an effort to make it some sort of ‘property defence organism’, then some disaster befell the crew before they finished and they abandoned it on their ship, just drifting, where Zelda finally found it. So it WAS far from home. It’s just... not far from home any more?

[it-was-all-a-beautiful-dream]

Opposites Attract (Paul Lahote x Reader) Chapter 3

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Warnings: Swearing

Word Count�� 2.1k

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-Your POV-

They were running at a speed that seemed impossible, their size alone, impossible. The shear beauty of the animal, breath taking. This wasn’t the first time you’d dreamt of giant wolves. They visited your dreams frequently, leaving you with all sorts of un answered questions, leaving you the next day, searching “What does seeing giant wolves in your dreams mean?” Yup, you were that kinda girl. You thought there was an answer for everything, and there probably was, but you weren’t going to find the answer on google search. 

You don’t know how long you’d been in the car for. All you knew was you were in pain, then it seemed to ease and a sense of comfort washed over you. Your head felt as if it were floating, snuggled into something warm and soft. A pillow perhaps? You didn’t open your eyes to check, the pain in your abdomen and now across your whole body blinding, you’d woken a few times with a jolt, and then you passed out again. 

The next time you woke up you weren’t moving at all, which you were grateful for, the pain mixed with the motion of a moving vehicle didn’t do anything for your stomach, travel sickness was the bane of your life. Instead you found yourself in a room, the blinds drawn closed, the door shut, your body, in different clothes. A mens t-shirt? When did you get changed? Where were you? You looked around in a daze, sitting up slightly from the comfort of the pale yellow duvet set. Wooden log walls, photo frames scattered on every surface, subtle lighting and a wall lined with books, the smell of home cooking wafting through from the kitchen. You were in Emily and Sam’s guest room, how did you know this? Well for one all of the frames had pictures of the happy couple in, two, you’d stayed over once before, back when you’d been caught in a freak storm with Leah while on the beach. You vaguely remembered the place. You didn’t come over often, what with Leah and Sams history, that and as much as you liked Paul, sometimes you’d be nervous to bump into him. Paul! Speaking of Paul, you groaned and flopped back into the fluffy bed sheets. Paul was at the hotel when the pain started… where was he now? Did he drive with you back home? 

You were about to get up when Leah came bounding through the door. “Oh good I thought I could hear you awake in here.” She grinned at you. “You look like you’re feeling much better!” You pat the space beside you and Leah climbed in snuggling up to your side. 

“So, on a scale of one to ten how bad was it.” The big ‘It’ being how bad was the show in front of your long term crush. Leah shrugged as she looked at you. 

“Nothing was baddd… everyone was just worried about you, you seemed to be in some serious pain, hence why we thought it best to cut the trip short, it’s probably better that were home, it was early hours when we got here so Sam said we could just crash at his.” You raised your eye at you best friend. She was being awfully calm about the whole situation. She said Sams name in a sentence and didn’t get herself worked up. You looked down at yourself. 

“And the clothes? Or lack there of….” That’s when Leah grinned. You didn’t like the way she was looking at you. You inhaled the scent that was on the shirt. Sandel wood and aftershave, a hint of sea salt probably from the misty air outside. 

“That’s Pauls t-shirt Y/N” Your eyes went wide and you knew you were blushing.. did that mean he had undressed you. Leah noticed the panic in your eyes.

“Before you get worked up he just leant the t-shirt knowing you’d be uncomfortable in your dress, I changed you.” You audibly gave a sigh of relief, not knowing how you’d react if the guy you’d been in love with since second grade had finally seen you in your underwear. “He stayed in here with you last night you know, to make sure you were okay. He wouldn’t leave.” Leah was now proper up on one arm looking at you. You didn’t know what to make of it. You didn’t think Paul had even known you existed… You were taken from your train of thought when something started dinging. The mobile on the bedside table started beeping as texts came through one by one. Oh god, you hoped Leah hadn’t told your parents about your episode at the hotel, the last thing you needed was for them to worry. However, you realised when you picked it up, it wasn’t your phone. 

The screensaver was a picture of the guys from the res, all goofing around, it looked like it had actually been taken in Emilys kitchen. It had to be one of the guys. You realised it was Paul’s after remembering what Leah had said about him staying for some of the night. He must have forgotten it when he left. You didn’t mean to see the message but it automatically came up on screen when you tilted the Iphone in your hand.

“Such a shame we had to cancel our date last night handsome, still on for tonight?” There were a bunch of emojis next to the text, the purple devil, aubergine, water droplets. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out whoever this girl was motives were. At first you were embarrassed, to the point where your mouth was kinda slack and Leah was asking you what was wrong. Then you were pissed. 

“He’s such a dick, honestly. I don’t know why this makes him a dick, i’m just so mad. I know I’m not the prettiest, or the funniest, or most talented or anything but jesus christ I wish he would just notice me for once instead of these girls who will put out at the drop of a freakin hat!” Leah had taken the phone from you to see what you were talking about. She groaned and then noticed your whole body was shaking, in a flash she was at the door calling for Sam and the others. All you could see was red. Your vision totally blank, the covers under your hands balled up in your fists tight, your body shaking, heating up. Somewhere in the background you could hear someone shouting at you to calm down, but this time you couldn’t. You heard the sound of ripping and then all of a sudden the world around you changed. For one, everything in the room seemed to get smaller, or maybe you got bigger? You were still angry and started lashing out, only to be tackled by something from the side, leading you to smash through the wall of the wooden house. You still didn’t understand what was happening, until you heard them in your head. 

“Y/N CALM DOWN! We know this is scary but you need to calm down.” It was Sams voice. In your head. Or maybe, the voice was coming from the 8ft black wolf hovering over you. You didn’t scream, you didn’t even seem scared, and it’s because you realised, you were a wolf too. 

-Paul’s POV-

Y/N was safe, sleeping soundly in the room next door, or so Paul thought. It wasn’t until he heard the shouting that he knew something was wrong. Leah called for help and before he knew what had happened there was a bang and Sam was tackling a wolf on the ground outside the house. 

A white wolf. Small, slim, bright, with a single grey patch of fur around an eye. Paul shifted instantly, realising the unknown wolf in front of him was in fact his imprint. He let out a low growl to Sam, even though he was the Alpha, Paul didn’t like the fact he’d just tackled his girl. He looked her over, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth almost comically, all the while Y/N stood staring and the grey wolf now in front of her, he could hear through the bond that she’d just imprinted, feel it too. Now she knew. 

-Your POV-

“Hold the fuck up.” You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Part of you couldn’t tell if you were in a dream or had just gone plain crazy. The other part of you knew that everything was real but you just couldn’t process the information quick enough. “So you’re telling me, that our ancestors were these shapeshifters and the gene was passed down to us to allow us to shift into giant wolves and hunt down vampires. You know, Vampires, ‘I want to suck you blood’, creepy pale strong immortal beings with no soul? And werewolves, I mean, Shifters..” It was insane. 

“Anddd to top it off, the man i’ve had a crush on since 2nd grade is my imprint, the person I’m supposed to be with for the rest of my life?” You glared at Paul who had the audacity to wink in your direction. Looking around you noticed the other faces, all amused at your outburst. Okay, so this wasn’t a joke, it was some sick reality you were now a part of. You hadn’t looked in Leah’s direction yet, pissed that your best friend had kept such a massive secret from you. Obviously you knew it wasn’t her fault, she wasn’t aloud to tell you the tribes secret, they didn’t know that you would be another female shifter, apparently your kind were rare. It still stung a little. 

“What really sucks thought Y/N, is that you’re gonna have to cut you beautiful hair short, our human hair mimics the length of our wolf hair, hence why each of us one by one cut it all off.” Quil sat back and shrugged and Paul growled lowly, not lowly enough for heightened hearing. 

“Why now. Why. I-I have school and I have things I want to do with my life.. I can’t be a shifter..” Reality had started to sink in and you found it difficult to breath. It felt like everyone in the room was staring at you and it didn’t help that you could also hear what everyone was basically saying. Your chair was pushed back with a screech, falling over and hitting the wooden floor. 

“I-I need to get out of here, I need a minute..” You were out the door in a flash, Leah and the boys running after you. Somewhere in the distance you could make out Sam telling Paul to calm down and then heard what sounded like wolves shifting but you’d already made it to the tree line, being able to run faster than you’d imagined still in your human form. 

The air was colder the higher up you got. You didn’t know how long you’d been running for but it had been a couple of hours before you finally stopped. In the middle of nowhere, high up in the mountains you let out a scream, one that sent flocks of birds fleeing from trees, the notes of your anguish scattering in the breeze. Everything would be changing now, life as you once knew it was gone. Part of yourself would never be yours again, having to follow a pack system. Another part of you was giddy at the thought that the man you’d been in love with your whole life turned out to be the one destined for you all along, it only took shifting into a wolf for you both to realise just how compatible you were.

You’d been alone with your thoughts long enough when you heard a twig snap in the distance. The hairs on your arms stood up and your heart started beating rapidly, turning, you calmed when you noticed a familiar figure walk out into the open. 

“Paul.” You could feel the bond running through your veins, seeing him helped you breath better and the physical need and urge to be in his arms was too strong. Like he sensed it too, he was over to you in a flash, taking you in his arms, your body pressed against his, his nose buried in your hair breathing in your scent, like he was saving it to memory. 

“Y/N, it’s all going to be okay, I promise, nothing bad will ever happen to you while i’m around, I know it seems scary now, but it won’t be like this forever. You’re already so strong, and I’m lucky that fate paired me with you.”

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Yoooo. I hope you liked this chapter, I’ve had some writers block recently, just trying to keep going. I’m still not sure what direction I’m taking this fic, I do know however that this is set at the beginning of eclipse! So watch out for some vampire action!

TagList:

@mariasblogsworld

@rosella26

@punkfrogz

@jjpogueprincess

If you want to be added to this tag list please let me know, sorry if I missed anyone off! <3 Please re-blog/like/follow <3

[polaroid15]

Febuwhump day 20 - Betrayal

Summary: “How bad?” Tony asks.

“Not bad.”

“Pete-”

“I’m serious! I’ve gotten ten times worse as Spider-Man.”

When Tony looks at him, it’s gentle, and it nearly brings him to tears. “But you weren’t Spider-Man, buddy.”

Or, Peter just wanted a coffee.

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29138196/chapters/72739866

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It’s not everyday that Peter is pistol whipped in the face by a Starbucks customer.

Today, however, is that day.

He’s at the front of the line, finally, and just as the cashier hands him his change a man wearing a crudely cut ski mask shoots two bullets into the ceiling. Everyone screams, ducks, and through the mass panic Peter hears his handful of change roll across the floor.

“Are you kidding me-”

“EVERYONE ON THE GROUND!”

Peter listens, trying his best to keep calm as he assesses his surroundings. The store has six customers and two employees. Another masked individual joins the first, also holding a gun.

That they’re not afraid to use, apparently.

Slowly and praying not to draw attention, Peter’s fingers close around the watch Tony had given him for his birthday and presses the side button three times. He’s only used the distress signal once before, and Tony had been at his side to help within a matter of minutes.

These idiots won’t even know what hit them.

The first man crosses behind the counter and shoves his gun into the barista’s face. “Open the register.”

For a minute, Peter thinks she’s going to refuse, her eyes set with anger and fear. As if getting the same sense, the man with the gun presses the barrel hard against her cheek and she whimpers. “Now,” he repeats, and she obeys with shaking hands.

Even though she complies, the man steps closer, his trigger finger tensing as the first inch of the barrel practically disappears into her face. Spidey sense screaming, Peter stands carefully, hands outstretched, “hey, hey. Come on man. Ease up. She’s doing what you asked-”

“On the ground,” the second criminal yells at him, spit flying from his mask. Peter freezes on the spot, eyes glued on the trembling barista. For one terrible moment, he’s brought back to a dark alley, his hands pressing down desperately on Ben’s chest.

“The register’s open,” Peter reasons, “let her go.”

“Looks like someone’s trying to play hero,” the first robber sneers. He pushes the barista aside and she falls onto the floor with a strangled yelp. “Grab him.”

Peter doesn’t flinch as the man’s accomplice obeys, digging strong fingers into his bicep and dragging him out of line. His back is brought against the man’s chest and the gun is pressed into his throat. He swallows at the pressure and keeps his eyes trained on the first man, who’s stuffing a duffel with cash.

Outside, there’s sirens.

“Damn it!”

The first man slams the empty drawer closed, throwing his gun out widely, “which one of you called the police?”

Peter almost laughs. Almost. “Are you kidding? You would’ve heard it if someone called. It’s a small room, buddy-”

A sharp pain in his face nearly sends him crashing to his knees. Blood pools onto his tongue but he keeps it there, not wanting to scare the other customers. Through the aching pulse in his head he hears a couple of them gasp.

“Not the time to be smart, kid.”

“Well you’re the ones who decided to rob a Starbucks of all places.”

Before Peter can even suck in a breath, he’s hit three more times, all where the first blow had landed. This time he does fall, and the man kicks him in the ribs for good measure when he’s down. The force of it has him gasping and somewhere in the distance Peter hears a kid crying.

Don’t think about Ben, don’t think about Ben.

“Police are here. Damn it. What do we do?”

Peter hears shuffling as he tries to reorient himself, his head spinning like a top. He only makes it to his elbows before his jacket is grabbed at its shoulder and he’s manhandled to his feet. He sways but stands his ground, wiping the blood off his chin with his sleeve.

“We take him with us.”

Peter doesn’t have the energy to argue as he’s dragged to the entrance by his neck. Through the glass and a rapidly swelling eye, Peter sees a semi circle of police, completely closing off an escape. He thinks he sees a flash of red and gold, too, but he can’t be sure.

“Walk, kid. No funny business.”

And he does, grateful, above everything else, that no one got hurt.

With a forceful shove, Peter is thrown out of the store, the grip on his neck still strong. He knows it’ll bruise in the shape of fingers, that he’ll stare at it in the mirror later and shudder at the memory of the touch.

“Drop your weapons!”

Peter yelps as the back of his knee is kicked in, forcing him to the ground. One of the men grabs his hair, forcing his head back, and sticks his gun underneath his chin. “Make another move and the kid gets it!”

It’s only now that Peter realizes his eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on him. Tony is here, standing on the sidelines of officers, his eyes blown wide with panic before his expression is cut off by his helmet.

He feels too dazed to be relieved.

“Let the kid go!” he hears one of the officers yell.

“Let us go!”

Peter chuckles again, and he’s not sure why. He feels warm blood dribble down his chin, and the grip tightens in his hair until he’s sure it’s going to be pulled right out of his scalp.

Whatever the men holding him had thought this was going to go, it must not be working, because one of the hisses a “get up” in his ear. Peter tries to listen, but he feels shaky and weak, and mostly just lets himself be dragged. He ends up back against the man’s chest, the gun pressed so forcefully into his temple that the opposite side of his head nearly touches his shoulder.

Only now does he let himself be afraid.

He could die.

Not as Spider-Man, not as a hero, but as himself. Right now. At Starbucks, of all places.

In front of Tony.

His mentor would never forgive himself.

“Walk,” the man hisses in his ear, and Peter stumbles obediently along with them as they step away from the door. The police follow them with their guns but otherwise don’t move.

“Where are you going to run?” Peter chokes. “It’s already too late.”

“Shut up.”

“There’s no way out of this.”

“I said shut up!”

Peter gasps when his head is hit again, his vision whitening at its edges. He must slump because the man struggles to keep him vertical. Somewhere in his fall Peter hears a familiar blast of repulsors and the hostile touch leaves him instantly. He falls to the cement, barely managing to catch himself on his elbows.

There’s a sudden rush of movement and Peter winces at the sheer loudness of it all. He hears muffled curses, boots hitting the pavement, the hostages inside the store cheering-

“Peter?”

And then there’s Iron Man, crouched down beside him and lifting up his chin gently with a metal-clad hand. Peter blinks away his double vision and musters a weak smile. “Hey man,” he wheezes, “coffee break?”

Tony doesn’t laugh like Peter hoped he would. Instead, he feels the armour shift under his arms and he’s lifted up, up and away. He jams his eyes closed at the sudden vertigo and lets out a tense breath when they land together on a nearby rooftop. In a second Tony is out of the suit and sitting beside Peter, his hands ghosting over the blood and bruises on his face.

“Concussion?”

“Look at my face. What do you think?”

“Cut that sass, kid. I have enough for the both of us. Anything else hurt?”

“Uh, my pride?”

“Ha. Funny. Now tell me the real answer.”

Peter sighs, and somewhere in the middle chokes on the blood in his throat. It makes his ribs flare and the wince he makes must be enough for Tony to piece two and two together.

“How bad?” he asks.

“Not bad.”

“Pete-”

“I’m serious! I’ve gotten ten times worse as Spider-Man.”

When Tony looks at him, it’s gentle, and it nearly brings him to tears. “But you weren’t Spider-Man, buddy.”

He sighs again and this time it’s easier. He lays down against the pavement in hopes it’ll stop the world from spinning while Tony hovers beside him like a worried mother hen. “Didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“So let me guess,” Tony says, “you smart mouthed them.”

“Yep.”

“Course you did.”

Peter groans, poking gingerly at his swelling eye. He can barely see out of it anymore, which is highly unfortunate. “I lost my change. And I didn’t even get my drink.”

“Well, you’re alive, so that’s something.”

“Starbucks is expensive, Tony. I was treating myself.”

“I’ll buy you the whole damn Starbucks company if it’ll stop you from getting your face smashed in.”

Peter laughs at this. It makes his ribs burn. “Deal.”

Tony is quiet for a minute. “Feel up for a flight back home?”

Home.

He smiles.

“Only if we can pick up a coffee on the way.”

“Good God, kid. Look at these grey hairs. No seriously, I want you to look at them.”

Peter huffs out a laugh, head lolling slightly as Tony pulls him back up by his arms. Before they lift off, Peter is surprised when Tony wraps him in a hug. He blinks, then relaxes into it. It feels as if some of his pain is leaking into Tony.

He feels better.

“Thanks for coming,” he whispers.

Tony pulls away, ruffling his hair softly, his scalp still sore. “How couldn’t I? You were smart for once in your life and actually used the panic button I gave you-”

“Smart enough for a coffee?” Peter smirks, a cut on his lip stinging.

Tony looks at him solemnly and shakes his head.

“Grey hairs, Pete. Grey hairs.”

[blazingparker]

What’s Up, Danger? (Chapter 3)

Here it is! the final chapter of What’s Up, Danger? As I’ve said before, I was totally blown away by the response to this fic. Thank you to all of you who commented, left kudos, reblogged, and everything else!!

read it on ao3!

---

“JARVIS, what time is it?” Tony called out as he fiddled with repairing one of the gauntlets on one of his older suits. It had gotten damaged during the battle of Sokovia, and he’d just built a new one rather than ever repairing it. Now, with his refusal to go after Spider-Man and the lack of other missions, he’d had plenty of time to catch up on lab projects and even fix up his old suit.

“It is currently 2:37 in the morning on Friday, January 25th, sir. Might I suggest you retire and get some rest?” Tony frowned, setting down his tools. Peter still hadn’t called him, and he never stayed out patrolling this late when he had a class the next day.

Peter. The last few weeks with Peter had been some of the best of Tony’s life, hands down. While they still hadn’t defined their relationship, they were more than friends and there were definitely too many feelings involved for them to just be fuck buddies.

For once, Tony didn’t dread the early hours of the morning when JARVIS would hound him to head to bed. He’d talk on the phone with Peter, listen to how his day went and maybe tell him about his latest project before they would hang up with whispered words of affection and head to bed. On particularly good nights, he’d meet Peter in his apartment with takeout (Tony wasn’t going to fool himself into thinking he could cook, come on) and they’d cuddle up on the couch with a movie. Sometimes, he’d need to stitch Peter up or help him out of his suit to tend to his injuries, which he was always more than happy to do. Things were perfect. They were perfect.

In fact, the only reason why Tony hadn’t asked Peter to be his boyfriend yet was because he knew the young man had enough on his plate without adding the media frenzy that came with dating a billionaire. Not to mention the Avengers would find out, and that would make it even harder for Peter to keep his identity a secret.

Tony wasn’t really known for being a patient man, but for Peter? For Peter, he’d wait.

Well, not tonight. Tonight, he was done waiting. It was close to three in the morning and Peter still hadn’t called, which was highly unusual.

“JARVIS, pull up the local news.” Tony turned and leaned back against the lab table and brought his mug of coffee to his lips. Maybe Peter had gotten held up with a bigger issue, like another burning building or a larger threat that required more time to take care of. If that was the case, the local news would definitely be covering it.

What they were actually covering made him drop his coffee mug, the ceramic dish shattering when it made impact with the floor.

A blonde newscaster was speaking, but Tony tuned her out in favor of reading the tagline and watching the footage.

Spider-Man Abducted by the Avengers. There was a shaky video, likely recorded by an unassuming passerby, of Peter standing on a roof with his chest heaving. Then, out of nowhere and seemingly for no reason, he tensed. A second later, a dart could be seen sticking out of his neck. Tony’s chest filled with dread as he watched Peter pluck it out and stare at it, swaying in place. When Peter collapsed, Tony actually made a move as if he could catch the young man, and felt fury bubble up when he saw what happened next.

Steve fucking Rogers caught Peter, quickly restraining him with a pair of vibranium cuffs before slinging him over his shoulder and carrying him off.

“--people of Queens are furious. There are talks of a march on Avengers tower. They have protected us from larger threats, yes. But Spider-Man was the one looking out for the people of Queens and New York at large every day. Where were the Avengers when Lacy Collins was almost assaulted last week, when Spider-Man rescued her? Where were the Avengers--”

Tony wasn’t listening anymore. The newscaster was right, of course, Peter was better than all of them. Peter deserved nothing but the Avengers’ respect and instead he’d gotten a dart to the neck and vibranium cuffs. He stormed out of the lab, grabbing his cell phone.

“JARVIS, dial Patriotic Fucker,” he all but growled as he got into the elevator. “And take me to the suit lab on level forty. The one with the landing platform.” There was no way they’d bring Peter back to the tower, which meant Tony needed a suit. Now.

“Tony, we caught him!” Steve cried out after picking up on the first ring.

“How fucking dare you,” Tony said lowly. “The mission was to learn his identity, Rogers. Not drug him and arrest him!” By the end, he was yelling into the phone. “Where the fuck did you take him?”

“Tony-I thought this was the best course of action. He was avoiding us even more.”

“Because Clint took a fucking shot at him! If an Avenger tried to take you out, would you really be peachy-keen and excited to chat?!” Tony screamed. “You star-spangled shit, you’ve compromised everything! As if he’s ever going to work with us now, after this little stunt! Not to mention they’re talking about protests against us on the news!” Taking a deep breath, he exited the elevator and made a beeline for the nanotech suit he’d just finished up. Grabbing the little housing unit, he placed it against his chest and double-tapped it, allowing the suit to encase his body.

“Clint and I are with him at the compound. We’re upstate.” Steve’s reply came after a beat of silence, and he actually sounded remorseful. Fucking finally, Tony had a location. He blasted out of the lab and away from the tower, JARVIS automatically plugging in directions for the fastest route to the compound.

“Did Natasha know about this? What about Banner, or Thor?” Tony barked out, determined to get as much information as possible before he got there. He wanted to be able to put his full focus on Peter, not these idiots.

“No. Clint and I made the call. They’re not to blame for this, Tony.”

“Oh, and that makes things better? You kidnapped my-” Tony hesitated. Peter wasn’t technically his anything. “My Spider-Man,” he finished lamely.

“Yeah, we’re gonna have a chat about that, Tony. About the Stark Tech he’s wearing, and how your number is saved in his phone under the name ‘Snarky Bitch’. You’ve known. You knew this kid and didn’t tell the team.” Tony found his blood running cold for the second time that night.

You knew this kid.

“Steve Rogers, did you take off his mask?” He yelled, and the silence on the other end was enough of an answer. Feeling fury take over, Tony let go of any semblance of restraint he still had. That was the final straw. Peter had taken his secret identity incredibly seriously, and he deserved to reveal it to whomever he chose. Not have that choice taken from him.

“Yes, I know him. I know his name, and I’ve been helping him out,” Tony seethed. “Unlike you, you frozen fuck, I got him to trust me. He trusted me, and I helped him in return. He deserved that much. He’s sweet and kind and everything the world seems to think you are. But they were wrong. The great Captain America that the world knows would never drug and kidnap a college kid just because they didn’t do what he wanted.”

“Tony.” The voice on the other end cracked, and Tony smirked. Steve knew he was right.

“I expect you to be gone by the time I get there, which will be in about twenty minutes. You’d better stay away from him until I say otherwise, or I swear on my mother’s grave that your face will be meeting my gauntlet. Capische?”

“Understood. And-for what it’s worth, Tony, I’m sorry. I really thought this was the right call.” Tony huffed out a sigh.

“For future reference, if the plan involves drugs and kidnapping, it’s not the right call.” With that, he hung up on Steve and focused on getting to the compound as fast as he could. After a painstakingly long flight he arrived, storming through the doors and down to the detention level where he knew Peter would be. Tony exited the suit and put it on sentry mode, striding purposefully down the hall of cells, looking, searching--

Tony came to a dead stop in front of the last cell on the right and felt his heart fall right out of his body. It was Peter: restrained to a chair, in his suit but without his mask. His head lolled to the side and if Tony couldn’t see the rise and fall of his chest, he might have thought the young man was dead. Each of his legs was tied down to the chair and his hands were behind his back, likely in the vibranium cuffs still.

“JARVIS, unlock,” Tony whispered weakly, and rushed in as soon as the glass door slid open. Gently brushing Peter’s curls out of his face, he dropped to his knees in front of the man. “I’m so sorry, Peter. So, so sorry,” he whispered before making his way around to the cuffs so he could get Peter’s hands free.

---

Peter woke slowly, blinking against harsh light and instinctively letting out a groan of pain when his headache made itself known. Instinctively, he tried to rub his temple and couldn’t keep from whining softly when his hands were held down.

“Sit still, Pete. Please. I’m trying, okay? I promise, I’m trying.” Tony’s voice? That didn’t make any sense, Peter had been on patrol.

Patrol.

It all came flooding back to him - the dart, his dizziness, and the vague feeling of being restrained and carried off. After that, nothing. Now, he was awake and clearly restrained and Tony was there.

Tony had sold him out? Peter didn’t want to believe it, but it was the only thing that made sense. Tony was doing something with his cuffs and he was tied down tightly, unable to move. Tony knew his routines and when he liked to head home, and could have told the Avengers when it would be best to strike. When he’d be the most exhausted.

You idiot, he thought to himself. Peter dropped his head to his chest and tried desperately to fight back tears, not wanting Tony to know he was awake. As Spider-Man, he’d been shot, stabbed, punched and kicked. But this? This hurt the worst of anything he’d ever experienced.

All of a sudden, there was a loud bang and the pressure on his hands was gone. Peter pitched forward with a squeak of surprise, not expecting to be freed. Strong hands caught him and gently eased him back into the chair.

“Peter? You back with me?” Tony was in front of him now, face etched with concern as he brushed Peter’s hair out of his eyes and moved his hands down to his wrists. The older man gently massaged them, trying to ease any soreness as Peter slowly looked up at him.

“Why’d you do it?” He asked, shocked at how raspy his voice sounded. Tony just stared at him, confused.

“Because Steve and Clint are idiots, and this never should have happened. Bambi, I’m so sorry I didn’t check in sooner, I thought you were patrolling.” Tony started to ramble, and Peter’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“You didn’t...do this?” He asked, and winced at the horror that instantly took over Tony’s face.

“I’d never. I’d never, ever do something like this to you. You’re my Danger, my sweet-hearted vigilante who puts everyone ahead of himself and who I adore. I’m so sorry. If I’d known-” Tony was cut off by the swift press of Peter’s lips against his. Peter didn’t know why he’d doubted Tony for a second. Of course he would never sell him out - why would he help him and why would they be...whatever they were...if Tony’s whole endgame was to unmask him? He would have bailed after Peter pulled the mask off that one night all those weeks ago if that had been the case.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said, hiccuping as he tried to keep the tears at bay. “I just-I woke up and felt you doing something with my hands and I thought-I thought-”

“You thought I was putting you in the cuffs instead of taking you out of them,” Tony murmured in understanding. Peter just nodded as the other man focused on releasing his legs.

“I’m sorry-” he tried to repeat but was stopped by a finger against his lips. As soon as the finger was removed, it was replaced with a set of soft lips.

“No apologies, Bambi,” Tony whispered, and Peter just nodded again. He still felt exhausted and sluggish, likely because of the drugs making their way through his system. Luckily, Tony seemed to read his mind. “How about we head up to my private rooms, get something to eat, and watch a movie? Hm? Just like we always do.”

“That sounds nice,” Peter murmured back, pecking Tony’s lips one more time. He then grasped the man’s hand, slowly standing up and yelping in shock when his knees immediately gave out and he went crashing towards the floor.

That never happened, though. He was caught in a pair of strong arms and lifted up in a princess carry as Tony prevented the cold concrete from greeting his face. Peter’s arms instinctively wrapped around Tony’s neck.

“I’m sure I can walk if I could just try again,” Peter tried to protest, and Tony leaned their foreheads together.

“Let me do it. You’ve probably still got some stuff in your system, and I’ve been worried sick ever since I saw the news. Just let me take care of you. Let me take care of my-” Tony cut himself off, hesitating.

“Boyfriend,” Peter blurted out before staring at Tony with wide eyes. You don’t know that he wants that, Parker. His friends literally just drugged and kidnapped you, he’s probably just feeling protective--

“Boyfriend,” Tony repeated. A huge, real smile was plastered on his face as he held Peter even closer. “Let me take care of my boyfriend.” Blushing, Peter responded by simply pressing his face into Tony’s neck as though it would allow him to hide. After a split second, he pressed a soft kiss to the skin there. Tony nuzzled his face into Peter’s hair for a moment before turning and walking out of the cell.

“You know, I never got to hear about your night. Before all this, I mean,” Tony remarked as he carried Peter towards the elevator.

“I guess not,” Peter mused, pulling back just enough to look up at his boyfriend. Boyfriend, he could say that now.

“So...what’s up, Danger?”

“Oh my god.”

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Chapter 16

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

She stands on the rain-soaked sidewalk, staring up at the silhouette of the steeple against the grey sky. Church has always been a place to come home to, and yet she’s dreading walking through these doors.

Ethan slips his hand into hers, all long fingers and soft palm, and she looks at him.

“Ready?” he asks softly, and she nods once.

They push through the imposing wooden doors and enter the anteroom, turning to the right to find Father O’Dowell’s office. Ethan raps thrice on the door frame and a gruff voice commands them to enter.

“Dana, Ethan, please sit down,” he directs as they enter the room, and they take the seats across from his desk. “You’re ready to begin your Pre-Cana, then?” he asks over his bifocals, and they nod in unison.

Ethan reaches across the armrest to take the hand in her lap and she holds it limply, her stomach twisting as though it’s attempting to turn itself inside out. She probably should have eaten breakfast.

“As you both know,” Father O’Dowell begins, “marriage between two baptized Catholics such as yourselves is a sacrament. Much as Jesus turned water into wine in Cana, your marriage will be a miracle, becoming something greater and more powerful than you are alone. Your marriage will be a symbol which reveals the Lord Jesus and through which his divine life and love are communicated.”

He pauses to consider them, and she works hard to keep her expression neutral, if not leaning ever so slightly towards pleased. She can’t let the panic in her belly find its way to her face in front of this priest.

“Have you discussed your sacramental marriage commitment to each other, under all circumstances? You are each entering into this union with the intention to die married to one another, forsaking all others?” he says, giving her a pointed look.

Is she imagining it, or is he directing all of this towards her and not Ethan? She swallows and then nods softly.

“Alright,” he continues, opening a folder and sifting through several sheets of paper, “let’s talk, then, about how to prepare for a successful marriage, so that you might spend eternity as man and wife.”

Eternity.

———

“You okay?,” Ethan asks, sitting down beside her on the couch and resting his hand on the back of her neck with a brief squeeze.

She nods. “That was just...a lot,” she replies with tired eyes.

Two hours spent talking to Father O’Dowell about how they’d raise their children, how they’d keep Christ present in their marriage daily, what holiday traditions they wanted to create for their family, how they will approach conflict resolution. As a private person, these conversations feel invasive and embarrassing, but even more than that she is shell shocked by how many times he used the word eternity. Of course she knows that what she is signing on for is the rest of her life with Ethan, but the hammering home of the eternity bit along with the fact that divorce is out of the question was a bit jarring.

“You want me to stay?” Ethan asks with a concerned look. “I can cancel, it’s no big deal.”

“No,” she replies with a wave of her hand, “you should go, I think I’d actually benefit from some time alone.”

“Right, before we spend ETERNITY together,” he replies with a smirk, and she knows it’s supposed to make her laugh, but it only makes her want to run. “Okay. I’m gonna get going then, and I’ll see you tomorrow evening. I think maybe around 7, but it’ll depend on traffic. You don’t need to wait for me for dinner or anything.”

She sighs deeply. “Okay, have fun. Be safe.” She forces a weak smile.

He kisses her twice, whispers I love you into her ear, and leaves with a suitcase in hand for his college buddy’s bachelor party in Philly.

She flops to the side so that she’s laying on the couch, and spends a long while staring blankly at the ceiling.

Eternity.

That’s a very long time. The unequivocal unacceptability of divorce makes it feel longer. Realistically, of course catholic people get divorced, it happens. But how could she put her mother through that? And why is she moving forward with marrying a man if she’s considering the possibility of divorce before they’re even married?

Sitting up, she runs her hands over the skirt of her baby blue dress, the church-appropriate outfit she wore even on a day that is unseasonably cool and dreary. Always dressing for the occasion, doing what is expected of her. Always making the right choice.

She stands, grabbing her purse and keys, and leaves the apartment. She needs to be somewhere else, anywhere else. She needs to escape for a bit.

She’s been driving aimlessly for some time with the radio off when she finds herself parked in front of 2630 Hegal Place. She exits the car and walks around the block, letting the gentle rain soak her shoulders and seep into her heels. Three times. Four times. On the fifth trip, she approaches the front doors of the building.

She pauses with her hand on the door handle, too afraid to ask herself what she’s doing here. She just wants to stop thinking for a little bit. About Ethan, about marriage, about eternity. She just wants to exist for a little bit as Dana, just herself, without any of that baggage. She pulls the door open.

Mulder greets her with a dazed expression, wearing grey sweatpants and no shirt. He stares at her for a long moment, taking in the beads of water trailing off the ends of her soaked hair and her chattering jaw. He looks a little afraid, like a grenade with the pin pulled just appeared on his doorstep. All she has to do is let go and the explosion is inevitable, along with the destruction.

She opens her mouth to speak, but she can’t find words. She searches his face, looking for some reason to stay or to leave. Looking for an answer. His eyes darken a little and at that moment she lets go. She feels the tick tick tick of the timer; it’s already too late to stop. She moves one step beyond his threshold and drops her purse on the floor unceremoniously before threading her wet arms around the back of his neck, their mouths coming together like sea and shore. His lips are warm and pliant, hints of coffee and salt slick on his tongue as he slides it against her teeth. She sighs deeply, a silent moan, a giving over of control and higher reasoning, melting into the sturdy man before her as rays of sun into an oak tree.

She feels his hands warming her back, sliding down to her hips. Hips before hands, she thinks, and her pelvis bucks towards him. His hands slide down over her ass until they find the backs of her thighs, hoisting her up and onto him, carrying her like a wounded soldier into his bedroom. Her weight is dead against him, seeking only to be taken, to be had. She has nothing for him but she wants to give. Oh but she wants to give.

He sets her there on the bed, damp as a dish towel and quivering with the cold and the adrenaline. His hot lips transfer his heat to her neck, chest, face, arms. He breathes his life onto her skin, igniting her square by square until she feels like a checkerboard of warmth and chill. She’s pushed her legs wide open, welcomed the solid weight of his body to rest against her heat, and he is sending her dress higher up her thighs with eager but gentle hands.

They have not spoken a word.

As he kisses her, his fingers play tentatively at the hem of her panties, seeking permission or watching for objection. Finding none, he allows one index finger to slip behind the gusset that covers her soaked vulva, the flat of his fingernail brushing along her lips and sending shockwaves down her legs. He lets out a long, staggered breath and repeats the movement quickly a few times, groaning as her breath catches and she bucks into him. She has never wanted anyone more in her entire life. Has never needed anyone as much as she needs him now.

And then his head is between her legs, and he’s pulling her panties to the side as the rigid tip of his tongue flicks at her experimentally. She gasps audibly, a half-cry escaping her throat that catches as his finger delves inside of her, stealing the breath from her lungs. Her head lolls back, mouth agape and rapidly drying out as she struggles for air. His lips are sucking and nipping, his tongue prodding and stroking, while his fingers flutter against a place that she is only just now realizing exists. She feels a warm tingle in her toes, a flood of dopamine coursing through her, rendering her incapable of rational thought. She is high on sex and pleasure and Mulder and if this were a drug she could buy, she would go broke tomorrow.

Gathering, building, peaking, she is a swell on still waters, giving nothing away of the chaos that rages below. When she starts coming, she cries out “oh,” which is the first word either of them has said. Oh, and she’s exploding around him, and across his tongue. Oh, and he’s flexing his finger inside her, drawing it out. Oh, and as the tidal wave of release begins to recede, the awareness of what has just happened settles over her. Oh, oh, oh.

Oh, what has she done?

Oh, god.

Oh, no.

She recoils from him, pushing up into a sitting position on the bed as her hand comes to her mouth in horror.

“Scully?” he asks, reaching for her, and she pushes his hand off her knee.

She’s shaking her head, her eyes wild and unbelieving. She has to go. She has to get out. She slides off the bed and makes her way wordlessly to the foyer.

“Scully, what’s going on, are you okay?” He follows her, his fading erection still nudging the front of his sweatpants, his lips glistening with her wetness. She can’t look at him.

Her wet shoes are returned to her feet, her purse hanging haphazardly from her elbow. Mulder is looking at her with fear and confusion. She thinks he might try to stop her from leaving.

Swallowing hard to bring moisture to her throat, she forces out a strangled “I’m so sorry,” and then she goes, she runs. Down the stairwell because she can’t bear to wait for the elevator, out into the now pouring rain and behind the wheel of her car. She drives fast and recklessly, nothing left worth trying to protect.

Oh, what has she done?

[actual-lea]

The plot! I found it! It’s here!

AO3 | First chapter | Previous chapter

“Hey, Dan, listen up for a sec.”

He looks up from the newspaper in his hands, to see Frank leaning across the aisle to speak to him in a low voice.

“Once we get to Sydney, I'm gonna be getting on a different plane, and in case we don't see each other again, I just wanna make sure you and I are on the same page about everything that's happened.”

Daniel blinks; after Penny's boat had dropped them off in Perth, he'd expected that he and Frank would continue traveling together for a few more days, at least until they made it back to the States. “Which is...?”

Frank sighs, like that's the answer he expected, but not the one he wanted. “No matter what we were originally hired for, we know things, things that Charles Widmore does not want anyone to know.” He waits for a flight attendant to move past before leaning closer and continuing, “This is the kinda guy who faked a whole damn plane crash, and I think the fact that we know about it at all oughta be enough to keep us out of any trouble, long as nobody goes around spilling the beans. As long as their story holds up,” he nods to the article Dan's reading, its headline boldly claiming to tell The Amazing True Story of the Oceanic Six, “I don't think Jack and his group are in any danger. Anything happens to one of them, you can bet the whole world'll wanna know why. But nobodies like us?” He shakes his head. “It'd be a lot easier for someone like you or me to disappear under mysterious circumstances, if you catch my drift.”

He doesn't. “What...are you trying to tell me, exactly?”

Another sigh. “Look, Dan, just...” Frank puts a hand on his shoulder. “Keep your head down, for a while. Okay?”

Daniel spends most of the car ride struggling to sit up, shifting around in small movements and cursing under his breath every time he inevitably sinks back down to the smooth leather of the backseat.

By the time he's finally able to lift himself up on his elbows, just enough to see the road ahead, the surrounding buildings have all turned to industrial-looking monoliths, rectangular factories and warehouses all painted in various shades of the same dull gray.

The car slows to a stop in front of one of the warehouses, and Daniel's pulse skyrockets as Abaddon turns off the engine.

This is it. If he's going to have any chance at escape, it's now or never.

He manages to push himself up – slowly, his arms trembling with the effort – and slumps back in the seat, mostly upright, his head lolling against the headrest as he catches his breath. The door beside him opens, and Abaddon reaches in to pull him out.

“Don't, don't–” He shoves clumsily at the hands trying to grab him. To his surprise, Abaddon actually steps back, allowing him to place his feet on the pavement and grip the car door with both hands for support. “I can walk,” he insists, carefully standing up to prove his point.

He takes a tentative step forward as Abaddon watches with one eyebrow raised. “Do you know what 50,000 volts of electricity does to the human body?”

As if right on cue, Dan's leg buckles; the arm he throws out to catch himself immediately folds beneath his weight with an audible pop, and he bites back a curse as he crumples to the ground, clutching his elbow.

“You can't walk,” Abaddon states simply, and he easily hoists Dan onto his shoulders without another word.

“No–” Daniel struggles against his grasp, but only succeeds in exhausting himself, much too quickly. “Let me go,” he wheezes, driving a knee into his side. “You can't... you can't do this– Agh–” His windpipe crashes into Abaddon's shoulder as the latter roughly yanks Dan's arm forward to readjust his grip and, presumably, to shut him up.

“My employer wants you delivered unharmed, Mr. Faraday.” For the first time, there's a hint of agitation in his voice. “I can't have you breaking a bone or giving yourself a concussion because you're too stubborn to accept help.”

Daniel stills for a moment. Unharmed. It's better than the alternative; maybe he isn't being dragged to his death after all, then. He stares at the pavement of the parking lot below as it moves in a dizzying blur with each step. “This is your idea of help?” he says, hoarsely and with not nearly enough malice.

“Relax.” The pavement becomes floor, and the warehouse door swings shut behind them with a thud.

“What happened?” asks a new voice, echoing ominously in the open space, and Dan's stomach twists into a knot.

“He ran,” Abaddon replies, and then Daniel is dropped onto a folding metal chair; he fumbles ungracefully but catches himself and sits up, blinking warily at the finely-dressed man standing in front of him.

“Not quite the impression I wanted to make,” the man mutters, seemingly to himself, in an English accent. He looks old, probably at least sixty, if Dan had to guess, and oddly mundane; not exactly what he was expecting from a man who paid to have him abducted. “But, here we are, I suppose.” Something about him seems vaguely familiar as he offers a hand in greeting. “Hello, Daniel.”

He glances at it, but doesn't move.

With something like a laugh, the man drops the hand to his side. “Of course. I didn't expect you to remember me. My name is–”

“Charles Widmore,” Daniel finishes.

The man blinks. “You... You do remember?”

He shakes his head. “You're just the only person I can think of who might have any reason to kidnap me,” he says, rather proud of how nonchalant he's able to sound despite his pulse still racing frantically in his ears.

With a stiff smile, Widmore laces his hands together and looks down, as if deep in thought. “That's quite an assumption.”

Daniel looks around. The three of them are in a makeshift office space, sectioned off in one corner of the dimly lit warehouse by chainlink walls; there's a neat stack of papers sitting on one side of a large desk behind Widmore, and a few filing cabinets lining the wall behind that. The rest of the warehouse is conspicuously empty.

With a deep breath, he turns back to Widmore. “So, did you bring me here...to kill me?”

His head snaps up, and he looks surprised; offended, almost. “Why would I want to kill you?”

Daniel shrugs and rubs his sore elbow. “Because...I'm one of the only people still alive who knows the truth. About Oceanic 815. About the island.”

“I'm not going to kill you, Daniel.” Widmore laughs once. “I can promise you that. I only brought you here to talk.” He moves behind the desk and motions to Abaddon to leave.

Dan glances over his shoulder, then crosses his arms with a frustrated sigh. “You could have just asked me.”

“And would you have accepted my invitation, knowing who it came from?”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. “What do you want?”

“First, I want to apologize if your treatment today has been less than gracious. I fear I didn't make myself clear enough on the terms of your retrieval.”

Daniel isn't sure how to respond to that, so he doesn't; he watches Widmore retrieve a bottle of Scotch along with two glasses from behind the desk.

“As you can probably surmise, I am a busy man, so I'll get right to the point.” He opens the bottle and pours a centimeter of liquid into one of the glasses. “There is a certain...errand, that I need you to run for me.”

“Errand,” Dan repeats. “You mean, this isn't the warehouse where you build henchmen like him–” he jerks a thumb over his shoulder– “to do that kind of thing for you?”

“Daniel.” Widmore sets the bottle down, with just a bit of force, and circles around to the front of the desk. “I've done you the courtesy of bringing you here so we could sit, face-to-face, and have a conversation like gentlemen.” He leans forward to offer the drink to Daniel, and there's a dangerous edge to his voice when he continues, “But I'm warning you, do not test my patience.”

“Alright.” Daniel stares blankly at the glass.

Widmore sighs, and downs the drink himself. “Tell me, how well do you know them?”

Dan waits for context. “Them...?” he prompts after a few seconds.

“The Oceanic Six,” Widmore clarifies, the words dripping with disdain. “How much time did you spend with them?”

“I don't...” Daniel glances down, thinking. “A couple of weeks, maybe? I don't know.” He shakes his head. “Why are you asking me–”

“Their cover story,” Widmore interrupts. “The beach where they washed up – Sumba.” He sits down on the edge of the desk. “You and I both know how far that place is from the island. Or...” He stares at Daniel intensely. “From where the island was, at the time.”

He looks away, and doesn't respond.

“Now, I don't believe that they could have made it that far without some help, do you?”

“What...” He exhales softly and steels himself to lie. Deliberately, he lifts his head to meet Widmore's eyes. “What are you saying?”

“Have you met my daughter, Daniel?”

The directness of the question catches him off-guard; he hesitates for just a moment too long before putting on what he hopes is an adequately confused facial expression. “Your...daughter? Who's your–”

“Her name is Penelope.” Widmore taps his fingers on the empty glass. “But of course, you already knew that, didn't you?”

Daniel looks down at his hands. “Why would I know–”

“You've met her,” Widmore states with certainty. “When all of you left the island together. You, and the Six, and perhaps a few others. I don't know. I don't really care.” He sets down the glass. “I haven't spoken to my daughter in over four years, Daniel.”

“I'm...sorry to hear that,” Dan replies, not sorry at all.

“She wasted a substantial amount of time and money scouring the South Pacific, in search of the man she loved,” Widmore says with a scoff. “You've met this man as well.”

Daniel shifts his weight in the chair; the pins and needles are almost gone, now. “Even if I did, I don't see why it–”

“It matters because she found him, and in doing so, she found the rest of you.” Widmore crosses his arms. “And ever since then, I've had no information about Penny's whereabouts whatsoever.” He leans forward. “And that's where you come in.”

“So...” Dan taps a finger on his leg. “You want me to...” He shakes his head. “...what, exactly? Stalk your daughter for you?”

“No, Daniel. I need you to protect my daughter.”

His finger stills. “I, uh... I think you've got the wrong guy, Mr. Widmore.”

“No,” he says simply. “I've chosen you for a very specific reason, and that reason's name is Desmond Hume.”

Daniel takes a deep breath. “You know what...” Slowly, cautiously, he stands up, a little unsteady, but stable. “I think I'll pass, actually.”

“Excuse me?”

“The last time you offered me a job, a lot of people died,” he says, quickly, before he can lose his nerve. “This whole thing is... It's not something I want to get involved with again.”

Widmore stands suddenly, and Dan takes a small step back. “Like it or not, you're already involved in this, Daniel. Inextricably.”

“Alright, sure.” He shrugs. “But, so what? You already said that you– You're not interested in killing me, so I'll save us both some time and say no now.”

Widmore's eyes narrow. “Do you have any idea who you're speaking to?”

“Do you?” Something like a nervous laugh spills from Daniel's mouth. “Maybe you haven't done your research, Mr. Widmore, but I'm– I'm not really the kind of person that you want protecting anyone. And besides that...” He swallows, and forces himself to make eye contact, squaring his shoulders. “There's nothing you can do to me. I mean, you can have your guy shoot me with that– that taser thing again, you can... You can hurt me or threaten me all you want, but you don't have any actual leverage, because I don't have anything left for you to hold over my head that's gonna make me agree to work for someone like you.” He pauses to steady himself, but it's largely unnecessary; he's telling the truth, after all, and his voice doesn't waver. “And I think you know that, too, so what's the worst you can do if I just...walk out that door?”

Widmore does nothing but stare at him for a moment. “Would you really like to know?”

Dan shakes his head. “Thank you very much for the opportunity, Mr. Widmore, but I'm not gonna be a part of this.” And he turns to leave, halfway anticipating a bullet in his back anyway.

But it's only Widmore's voice that follows him. “Tell me, Daniel. How was Miss Spencer?”

He stops in his tracks.

“I imagine she wouldn't have been very pleased to see you. That is, if she was actually...present...when you visited yesterday.”

Daniel closes his eyes, and lets out a heavy breath. A bullet would have been better. “How do you know about...”

“I have a man keeping a close eye on her, of course. I don't often abandon my investments.”

He turns around, slowly. “What are you talking about?”

“Didn't Abigail tell you who it was that paid for Theresa's care?”

Of course. “No,” Daniel says in a monotone. “No, she didn't.”

“Was she the one who gave you that black eye?”

He responds with a glare. “Why do you care?”

“Merely curious.” Widmore puts on a mask of innocence. “Can't really blame her, after all. With everything that poor girl's gone through, her sister's unfortunate...accident.” He shrugs. “Well, it would certainly be a shame if more bad luck were to befall that sad little family.”

Dan bristles, his eyes narrowing. “If you even think about it–”

“Then you'll do what?” Widmore snaps, closing the distance between them in a few quick strides. He's only a few inches taller than Dan, but he looms over him nonetheless, his eyes cold and menacing. “Finish your sentence, boy. Tell me exactly what it is that you think you, of all people, can threaten me with.”

Daniel's hands clench into fists at his sides. “Just leave them out of this.” He can feel his expression cracking. “Please.”

“I'm not the one who got them involved in the first place. That was you, Daniel. You and your carelessness.” Widmore's voice drips with venom. “Now, will you, once again, force them to suffer the consequences of your actions?”

Dan stares defiantly at him for a long moment.

Then he hangs his head, and closes his eyes. “What do I have to do,” he asks softly.

“That's better.” Widmore's footsteps echo as he walks back to the desk. “Come here.”

Daniel steps forward mechanically as Widmore gathers up the stack of papers. He’s still speaking, distantly, details that Dan should probably be listening to, but he's not sure he'd retain them anyway.

“And now, I have reason to believe that she might be in danger, from someone with the resources to track my every move,” Widmore is saying. He places it all in Daniel's hands. “That's why I have to send someone else to find her first, and keep her safe.”

“Well...” Dan shuffles through a few of the pages on top – plane tickets, hotel stays, car rentals, credit card records, a wealth of information, most of it for Desmond Hume and all of it apparently from 2001 or earlier. “Why does it have to be me?”

“As I said. Wherever she is, Desmond is with her.”

“Uh...” He blinks a few times, confused. “What does that have to do with–”

“Daniel, please, do yourself a favor.” Widmore shakes his head, looking annoyed. “Don't try playing dumb with me. I can guarantee you, it's never going to work,” he says sternly. “I know that you'll be able to track him down, and by extension, her as well.”

Daniel takes a deep breath and swallows against the lump forming in his throat; surely that can't be what Widmore is expecting him to do?

“Now, I have something else for you.” A drawer scrapes open, and the sound echoes in the empty space. “Consider it a gift, to help you accomplish your goal.”

He holds up a leather-bound journal, and Daniel's eyes widen. “What...”

“Here.” Widmore holds it out toward him. “It's yours, take it.”

And he does, in stunned silence. He runs his fingers over the familiar creases and cracks of the cover. “How the hell did you get this?”

“There's no answer I could give you that wouldn't lead to a dozen other questions.”

Dan opens the journal – his journal, filled with his own messy scribbles – and leafs through without really seeing any of it; it's all here, all his notes and equations and dog-eared pages and coffee stains. He closes it, and looks up at Widmore, with an overwhelming sense of dread. “What... What happens if I can't do it?”

“Daniel, I know much more about you than you realize. I know that you're a man of tremendous gifts.” His voice would be gentle, almost, in any other context. “I know that, with the proper...motivations, you will accomplish great things. So don't try to tell me what you can't do, when I know very well that you can.”

Daniel stares at his feet, and nods, numbly. This is really happening, then.

“Any more questions?”

His fingernails dig into the leather cover of the journal. He might as well be treading water in the middle of the Pacific. “Why,” is the only thing he can say, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I'm sorry?”

“Why are you doing all this?”

Widmore steps closer to him, and he stands still, defeated. “You don't have any children, do you, Daniel?”

He shakes his head slowly. “No.”

“Well, then, I can't really expect you to understand, but...” An unidentifiable expression crosses Charles' face. “Suffice it to say that a father will do whatever is necessary, to protect his children.”

He puts a hand on Dan's shoulder, and he looks away, sick to his stomach.

“Find her, Daniel. Keep my daughter safe.”

(next chapter)

[bibliophilea]

Just a Flesh Wound - Ch. 2

Sorry for the wait on this chapter! I’m not sure when I’ll get to the next chapter, but I do intend to phinish this phic!

For @littlebadger.

ao3 | ffn

1 >2< 3 4 5 6

Danny's not doing so well.

It took Tucker, Sam, and Danny four hours to catch those cat-snake-ghost things — tassel-whatsits, he'll have to ask Sam what they're called later — and everything would have been fine if Valerie hadn't butted in, screaming about vengeance and death and whatnot.

Now, three hours later, Danny still hasn't managed to shake Valerie off his tail, and Tucker knows he must be tiring. None of them have gotten a break in seven hours, and it'll only take one slip up before Danny's got a hole in him they can't patch up, or Valerie takes him to her secret lair to do who knows what, or turns him over to Vlad, or—

Don't think about that.

"Remind me again why I can't just shoot at her, Tucker?" Sam growls. She's got Danny and Valerie in her scope, but her finger is very pointedly not on the trigger of the ecto-bazooka.

Tucker lists off his fingers. "One, because you might hit Danny. You're good, but not that good. Two, because you might hit Valerie, and Danny wouldn't like that. Three, because you'll blow our cover, which could blow his secret identity, and who knows how she'll react to that. Four, because—"

Sam sighs in frustration. "Alright, alright, I get it, Tuck."

"Hey, you asked." He raises an eyebrow.

"I know. It's just—" she growls. "I hate that we can't do anything! We can't even direct him to safety because she keeps getting in the way! She's going to hurt him if we can't get her off his tail or distract her or something!"

Sam throws her hands in the air, then flinches as one of Valerie's shots goes wide, hitting the parking garage across the street behind them. Dust kicks up from the impact, and it rumbles ominously. She's lucky that building's condemned, Tucker thinks, and the road workers are on break — otherwise she might hurt someone when it collapses—

Wait.

"Or something," Tucker mutters, before grabbing his binoculars and searching the sky for Danny and Valerie. He catches sight of them as Valerie shoots again, this one barely missing Danny and hitting the condemned parking garage again. It kicks up dust and debris, clouding his vision before Danny darts away again.

"What did you say, Tuck?" Sam asks.

"Or something! I've got an or something!" Tucker exclaims, dropping the binoculars so they hang from his neck. He fiddles with the Fenton phone in his ear, switching it from listen to talk and listen.

"Danny, we need to collapse the building."

"What?!" Two different voices ring out — Sam's beside him, and Danny's in his ear.

"Dudes, just trust me! We collapse the building, kick up a ton of dust you can hide in—"

"Then you can transform and stay invisible while we point Valerie away from you — Tucker, you're a genius!" Sam declares.

"But guys there's — there's people in there and — ah! Shit! — we can't just—"

"Dude, chill. It's the parking garage on the corner. The building's condemned. Just fly low so Valerie shoots at the base. We'll help take it down!" Tucker turns to Sam. "You ready to use that bazooka?"

Sam's grin is feral. "I thought you'd never ask!"

Danny doesn't speak, but he dives down to street level, goading Valerie into following him behind the condemned building with a stuck out tongue. Tucker runs along the street, Sam close behind, taking a good look at the condemned parking garage for the first time. There are no glass windows save for the four corners that hold the stairs and elevators. Most of those windows are gone, now — destroyed by ghosts or by ghost hunters or by kids looking to throw rocks at something that would break without consequence. It doesn't matter now — the building itself is half collapsed, huge chunks of concrete taken out of it as if from an explosion, leaving the broken steel rods within bare. What remains could collapse at any moment, and no one save the dead dares tread there.

He's glad the building is half-collapsed already — it makes finding the main supports keeping the rest of it up that much easier. He's so glad he took that engineering class.

"See that pillar over there?" Tucker asks, pointing into the collapsed side of the parking garage. "Take that one out first."

"On it," Sam says, readying the ecto-bazooka. With careful aim, she fires. The green-tinted ammo sails through the air, exploding against the pillar with a blast louder than a firework. The parking garage rumbles, and some of the lower floors cave inwards. As the greenish smoke clears, they see that half the concrete on the support is gone, the support itself bent inwards.

Sam's grin widens, and Tucker feels himself grinning with her. After hours of fruitless brainstorming, they can finally help Danny escape Valerie's rage!

Together, they destroy more supports, Tucker guesstimating which ones would help the building cave inwards, Sam expertly taking them out one by one. Tucker hears Danny's taunts and Valerie's screams of rage in his ears, and the sounds of impact and rumbles of the parking garage when Valerie's shots hit the building. Dust begins to fill the air. And the parking garage slowly, surely, begins to topple inwards.

Tucker has never seen a building collapse before. Not in person. He expected the dust and the noise, but he never expected there to be so much of it. He turns away as the dust comes billowing towards them — rips the Fenton phone from his ear as it emits a burst of feedback from the collapsing building and curls over himself — feels Sam yank him behind a concrete barrier and they huddle together, unable to see anything beyond the dust or hear anything beyond their less than controlled demolition—

"—can't hide forever, ghost!"

Tucker doesn't know how long it's been —two minutes? Five? Ten? — when he hears Valerie's voice over the buzzing in his ears. That's not good. Valerie should be gone by now. Danny can disappear and fly as a human, but not for long, especially after seven hours of non-stop fighting. He stands up from behind the concrete barrier, and sees Sam do the same out of the corner of his eye.

"He went that way!" Sam shouts and points.

"Inviso-Bill stole my PDA!" Tucker shouts.

Valerie pauses in the air, turning to look at them. "What?"

"Ph— Inviso-Bill stole Tucker's PDA!" Sam shouts.

"He went that way!" Tucker shouts and points.

Valerie shakes her head, growling in frustration, and points at Sam. "You. Uh, citizen. Just tell me where he went."

Sam nods, covering Tucker's mouth. Tucker resists the urge to lick her hand. "He went that way." She points down the street. "Towards the beach."

Tucker pulls Sam's hand away from his mouth.

"And he stole my PDA! My poor Jessica!" He throws his face into his hands, lamenting the loss of his PDA. He remembers when Technus stole and took over his poor PDA, and he sniffles a little. Every good lie has a kernel of truth, he's learned. And it's more important than ever that he sells this lie.

"Ugh, whatever, Fo— uh, citizen, who I definitely don't know. Um. Thanks for the tip." And then Valerie flies away, down the street at first, but steadily rising until she clears the rooftops. She then changes her bearing, disappearing behind the library.

"Man, I thought she'd never leave."

Tucker and Sam jump. They look down to see Danny sitting between them, slumped against the concrete barrier. He looks wiped. His eyes are closed, head lolling against the barrier. One leg is bent, foot resting against the curb. The other is outstretched, slightly elevated onto the sidewalk. His hair, skin, and clothes are stained gray with dust — if it weren't for the sweat beading down his face, Tucker would say he looks like a ghost. Not an Amity Park ghost — rather, a ghost from one of the movies. Quiet. Unmoving. Dead.

Then Danny opens his eyes. Piercing blue reflects the sky above, before turning to Tucker and Sam. He smiles lightly, and then raises his arms. "Help me up?"

Tucker and Sam grab his arms, heaving him up to a standing position. He sways for a moment — then the leg that was outstretched buckles, and he leans hard into Tucker with a grunt.

"Woah, dude, take it easy," Tucker says, adjusting himself so he can take on Danny's weight.

"I'm fine, Tuck. It's just—" he hisses as he gingerly places his foot on the ground, leaning further into Tucker. "Just a flesh wound."

Tucker sighs. "I know, man. But we still gotta check it out." He takes a careful step with Danny onto the sidewalk. "Sam, any luck getting a ride?"

Sam nods, typing into her phone. "I'm texting Mahira — she might ask questions, but more importantly, she won't tell mom and dad."

"Cool." Tucker's about to say something else when a soft snore snuffs against his ear. He looks down to see Danny, leaning his full weight against Tucker, eyes closed and nose snoring in his ear. Tucker smirks softly, rolling his eyes, then adjusts the way he's holding Danny, scooping his friend up bridal style. Danny would never let him carry him like this were he awake. Asleep as he is, he snuggles into Tucker's sweater, pressing his cheek to Tucker's chest. Tucker's smirk softens into a smile.

When did Danny get so light?

He walks slowly, taking his time, letting Sam walk ahead of him as he stares down at his best friend. He's still covered in dust, his hair matted with it. Bruises have begun to form on his arms and face, and are peeking out from beneath his shirt. Between the tassel-whatsits and Valerie, today has done a number on him; and it's barely noon. Despite this, his face is more peaceful than Tucker's seen in a long time. Free of tension around his eyes, free of the constant frown that normally burdens his face. Danny deserves this, Tucker thinks.

Click!

Tucker looks up to see Sam holding up her camera, a smirk on her face.

"Hey!" Tucker shouts, but then stops himself when Danny stirs.

"Shush, you," Sam sings out, turning back around. "You don't want to wake him up!"

"No fair!" Tucker whines, only just loud enough for Sam to hear. Sam chuckles and smiles back at Tucker, then runs ahead to the corner where the SUV is waiting. That must be Mahira.

Tucker picks up the pace, but only just, careful not to wake Danny. He lets Sam answer Mahira's questions; he figures Sam'll fill him in on her excuses later.

He looks down again at Danny, and can't help the small smile as Danny snores against him.

Sleep well, buddy.

[jimlingss]

Moirai [3]

Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

➜ Words: 4.8k

➜ Genres: 60% Fluff, 40% Angst, Isekai!AU

➜ Summary: Death is supposed to be the end. Or at least that's what you assumed when you're hit by a TRUCK. But the moment you open your eyes again, instead of being sent to the afterlife, you've become a baby. And not just any baby. You're the female villain of a video game.

You’re ten years old when you finally get to go to the Solar Festival.   “Come right up and challenge this brute to an arm wrestle!”   “Get your candy! Fresh candy from the west right here!”   It’s the first time you’re not deathly ill and practically on your deathbed, a secret which has been kept deep in the Devereux house. God forbid, their only heir is found to be weak. It could be detrimental to the whole aristocratic balance.   But frankly, you’re surprised you’re even alive.   While Anastasia’s death occurs shortly after she turns eighteen, the impending doom never stops weighing on your mind. You just count your blessings as each year passes.   You’re ecstatic to finally be able to go to the Solar Festival too. But you can’t believe it’s with Prince Jungkook and his bratty ass.   A year ago, you were horrified to find out you were engaged to him. It came out of nowhere, an announcement in the morning that nearly had you choking on your breakfast. You don’t know how your father managed to pull such strings, but you’re not entirely surprised. It was part of the original storyline after all.   Luckily, little has changed. It’s an arrangement only in name and was the gossip of tea parties for just a week. Jungkook is still largely uninterested in you. If anything, he still seems scared of you for that stunt you pulled when you first met. But you’re going to keep it that way.    If you can’t win him over with overbearing kindness, then fear works.   “Hey, you.” The Prince taps you on your shoulder and you realize he’s talking to you. He didn’t even refer you to your name. The damn brat. Jungkook points off to a stand and then grins. “Think you can win a prize?”   It’s a booth with three different targets two meters away and slingshots. A simple game with pretty good prizes.   You muse the game developers used a lot of modern inspirations in creating this world. The Solar Festival isn’t far off from markets and carnivals from the twenty-first century.   Jungkook smiles lazily and lolls his head at you. “Here, let me show you how it’s done.”   You scoff as he saunters off. For being only ten years old, he sure is cocky for his age.   The Prince flicks a golden coin at the vendor who bows at him and he grabs the slingshot and ball. His left eye closes and the tip of his tongue sticks out as he aims. Jungkook releases after a moment and the ball hits the second ring of the target.   “Amazing job, Your Highness,” the commoner stutters out while bowing again.   Jungkook pays no mind to him, but he turns his head towards you and smirks. “See?”   Your brow twitches and you step up to the booth. You grab the slingshot out of his hand, take a ball and within two seconds, you fire.    Bullseye.   It’s your turn to shift and smirk at the Prince. Pft. A game like this is easy peasy. C’mon, you used to play at arcades and amusement parks where all their games were professionally rigged.   “C-Congratulations!” The vendor hands you a massive brown bear that nearly overcomes you in size.   Jungkook’s jaw has dropped.   “Would you like the prize, Your Highness?”   He points at you. “You cheated!”   “Excuse me?!”   “Cheater!”   Jungkook stomps away and you’re left following after him while glaring into his backside.    The two of you are accompanied by two knights trailing after you. It’s more intimate than being surrounded in a room full of adults and dressed in extravagant attire. You suppose going to the Solar Festival together with the Prince, aka. your fiancé, is supposed to give off the impression that you’re actually close to him and that this isn’t just a shallow engagement.    The actual truth emerges as you’re busy studying the sign of a food booth. You’re perplexed that they have corn dogs here, or whatever they call it in Ashea, and as you turn around, Jungkook and the guards are gone.   Are you fucking kidding me? Did he actually leave you behind?!   You start wandering, scanning the heads around, looking past hordes of strangers, darting between their legs, dodging bodies. But the crowd is thick and before you’re swept up completely, you flounder out of the mass to the perimeters of the Solar Festival. It’s emptier there, only couples searching for an intimate space and stragglers who want a breath of air.    But by sheer coincidence and coincidence only, a familiar boy comes into your sight.   What the hell is he doing here?   You step back in surprise and cover your face with your massive plush bear. It's only when you peek out that your eyes permanently set onto Taehyung. He’s dressed in a black cloak, but the brown strands of his hair are too distinct. He’s taller than when you last remembered, growing into his skin as well. His cheeks are less rounded than before, eyes becoming sharper.   He doesn’t notice you, at least not yet. He’s too busy taking in the Solar Festival, gawking at the crowds, the twinkling lights and glowing lanterns. He stands at a distance, seemingly overwhelmed.   It feels like you’ve accidentally stumbled into a scene you’re not a part of.   It’s then that you remember there was a flashback in the game. Jungkook invited him to go out, but he couldn’t until he gave into the temptation and snuck outside the castle walls himself. This marks the first time Taehyung left the palace since his mother’s passing three years ago. He’s been trapped inside as the embodiment of the royal family’s shame since.   In the game, you remember he wanted food but didn’t have a single coin to his name.   But that’s not your problem.   You’re not supposed to be here anyway. So, you turn and walk away………………..   “Do you want a corn dog?”    Yet, somehow, you find yourself shown up in front of him regardless, arm extended with the stick of deep fried batter. Taehyung’s caught off guard, eyes wide but you’ve already diverted your vision, staring off at the side with an unknowing pout.    You can’t keep running away. You don’t want to.    The last time you did, Taehyung’s mother suffered the consequences of your inaction.   “I don’t know what they call it here in Ashea, but it’s a corn dog to me.”   The pair of you end up sitting together on a bench on the outskirts of the festival. The enormous teddy bear you won sits upright to your left as Taehyung is on your right. You’d be shrouded in darkness if not for the dim luminescence of the strung lights at the distance.    You bite into the hot corn dog, listening to the crunch and Taehyung’s chewing beside you.   He doesn’t say much, so you focus on gobbling up the oily treat.    Truth be told, you feel pity for Taehyung. Guilty. In a lot of ways, the two of you are similar. Outcasted. Isolated. The game developers are real assholes for creating this kind of backstory for the main antagonists while all the protagonists do is fall in love.    Once you’re done eating, you wipe your hands onto your navy pea coat.    The maids can clean it later.   “This is actually the first time I’ve been to the Solar Festival,” you pipe up, swinging your legs on the edge of the bench.   He looks at you, chewing in his cheek. “It’s mine too.”   You figured.   Suddenly, a surge of motivation washes over you.    Alright! You got some money on you. You can blow your entire allowance today and make it the best day ever for Taehyung!   You twist yourself to him with conviction set in your eyes. He’s startled and leans back. “Is there anything you want to do here then?!”   The corner of his mouth tugs. “Not really.”   You deflate. “Oh.”   It simmers down into quietness again, the bustle filling the spaces in between. Taehyung looks straight ahead yet you still catch his timid voice. “I never thought I’d see you again.”   It sinks in after a delayed second and you turn to him slowly. “You remember me?”   It was less than five minutes. Three years ago. A brief encounter at his mother’s burial.   “Why would I forget?” Taehyung smiles softly to himself. “So I’m just happy sitting here beside you.”   In hindsight, he probably wouldn’t have followed you or eaten beside you compliantly if you were a complete stranger to him. But to hear him say that aloud, you feel even sadder. You’re probably the closest thing he has to a friend right now.   You become silent, the knowledge of his future and yours heavy upon your shoulders.   “Revenge isn’t as great as you think it is,” you mutter.   The ten-year old boy frowns. “Pardon?”   You shake your head. “Never mind.”    What’s the point? It’s not like you could say anything to make it better. You know he’s dead set on it, on avenging his mother’s murder and you can’t even blame him for being so angry. For being so fixated. So lonely.   He’s hidden in the castle’s shadows — the only person who cared for him is gone.   You recall from the wikipage on the characters that it’s around this time Taehyung starts dabbling in magic by himself. He ends up becoming one of the greatest magicians in the empire, but obviously winds up using it for bad.   You eagerly twist yourself towards the boy, nearly nose to nose with him. “Don’t learn magic!”   “What?” Taehyung’s frowning, unable to understand where your random demand came from.   You lean closer to him. “Magicians aren’t that great and magic can blow up in your face. Literally.”   A beat later, your eyes stray off of Taehyung’s eyes to three figures in the distance. Jungkook is spinning in every direction, lugging his legs, expression tired and begrudging. The two knights are also looking around and you realize they’re searching for you.   “I have to go.” You hop onto your feet and grab your brown bear. “Bye!”   “Wait!” Taehyung whips himself around, but by then, you’ve already run off. His hand slips into the cloak’s pocket and he looks down at the pink handkerchief in hand with a small sigh.    You feel bad about leaving him behind, but you hope he enjoys the festival even if it’s just a little.

The room is small, dark and dank. With only a single bed in a wooden frame and a wardrobe, he often sits facing the window, looking up at the azure sky and the cotton clouds that are drifting past.   “Your Highness.”   A maid knocks at the door and he turns, sliding off the bed to follow after her quietly without question.   The only time he’s allowed to leave his bedroom is to the study. ‘Even if he’s a bastard child, no son of the King can be uneducated’ is what they said.   “You got two wrong on your examination.” The tutor flips over the parchments. “I’m surprised you managed to memorize up to the fifth volume of the Kalisis scriptures and the fundamental theory of Mahhild, but we’ll have to review Ashea’s sacred Imperial Language.”   Taehyung nods. “I’m sorry.”   “Do better next time.”   Silence settles as the older man puts aside the parchment and goes to pull books from the nearby shelves. In the meanwhile, Taehyung’s eyes stray outside the window to the wispy clouds, keeping still in his seat. He doesn’t ask many questions. He simply learns what is given to him and apologizes when he fails. But his mind strays to a girl in a navy pea coat, someone with a soft expression, who somehow always appears in front of him when he needs it most. And he can’t help his curiosity—   “Sir.” At the sound of his voice, the tutor turns around. “Do you...happen to know anyone by the name of Anastasia?”   The older man’s brow quirks. “You mean the Crown Prince’s fiancée, Anastasia Loretta Devereux?”   Taehyung’s caught off guard. “Fiancée?”   “Why do you ask?”   “N-No reason. I just heard of the name somewhere.” He looks away and the man finishes grabbing the textbooks, dropping them down on the surface in front of him. Taehyung’s fist is crumpled in his lap, quiet.    He didn’t know you were Jungkook’s fiancée. He didn’t know you were from the Devereux house either. Even he’s heard of that name before — the Duke’s house is an influential one.   Taehyung doesn’t know anything about you. He realizes it now.   But that doesn’t mean his desire has dwindled away. He still wants to see you again.   “Is it...possible to travel to another estate, but not by carriage?”   “Not by carriage?” The tutor pushes up his spectacles, puzzled by the inquiry that has come out of nowhere. “There’s horse, boat, ship, teleportation, but of course, you’re not allowed to use magic. Is there somewhere you would like to go?”   He quickly shakes his head.    They would never let him leave.   But he’s tired of waiting for the next encounter, for the next coincidence.   That night, Taehyung cracks open the door of his room. The hallway is swallowed in darkness with only a tiny sliver of the moon’s luminescence that will wane away tomorrow. So with his breath hitched and no one in sight, he slips into the shadows. He traces his steps down the corridor, turning the corner, up the small staircase and enters the library next door to the study.    Taehyung cringes as the glass doors creak, but once the gap is large enough, he fits himself through. The bookcases tower up three floors, ceiling high and the walkways between shelves narrow.    He doesn’t know where he should go, so he twists through the endless library and glances at the spines of the books before moving on.   It’s half an hour later that he finds what he’s looking for.    Magic: A Basic Guide for Beginners.   Taehyung reaches up on the tips of his toes and smoothly pulls the spine from its slot. He holds the emerald green cover to his chest and beelines straight out of the library.   He arrives back in his room with little to no trouble and sits on the floor far away from the door. Taehyung’s back leans against the wooden bedpost and he faces the window to allow the silver light to catch onto the cover. He cracks it open a second later and flips through the crisp pages until he finds what he’s looking for.   Teleportation.   A type of transport magic that allows one to travel to different locations without having to traverse the spaces in between. It is accomplished by the user visualizing the desired location and channeling their mana. If successful, the user will disappear from their current location and materialize at their desired location.    Transportation is by far the fastest way to travel between large distances. However, the success in which a user is able to teleport is dependent on skill level, inborn magical abilities and how detailed the location can be visualized.   Taehyung reads each word carefully and flips over the page to see if there are more details.   Once he realizes that’s all to be read, he shuts his eyes.    He doesn’t know where you are. He doesn’t know what the Devereux estate looks like.   But he thinks about you. The girl who handed him that pink handkerchief, the one who appeared in front of him with a stick of food, who sat beside him underneath that tree, on that bench.   Please let me see her again. Please.   Please.   Through sheer willpower, Taehyung suddenly feels a rush in his body as if he’s falling inside a dream. His senses tingle. Then, there’s cold wind pulling against his cheeks and through his hair, the moonlight no longer shining on his eyes.   His lashes flutter as his lid pulls open.   He’s standing in an empty, grassy field. But at the horizon is an illuminated manor.   The corner of his mouth tugs and he takes a step towards it.   But—   “No. No!”   He feels himself being pulled back. A force that prevents him from moving any further. Taehyung’s arm stretches out towards the manor the size of his thumb as if he could grab onto it. But no matter how hard he tries to stay, the next moment he blinks, he’s returned to the small, dark, dank room.   Taehyung’s chest rises and falls.   He was so close.   There’s a quiet knock at the door and he jolts out of his trance. Instantly, he pushes the book underneath the bed.   The door cracks open. Luckily, it isn’t a maid, servant or someone who’s come to punish him. It’s a dark haired boy with doe eyes, his younger brother who’s two inches shorter than he is.    “Taehyung?”   Taehyung stands up. “What are you doing here?”   Jungkook pouts, dressed in oversized, silk pajamas. “I thought we could play.”   “You know the Queen won’t be happy if she sees me with you.”   “I know.” Jungkook’s voice is pitched, brown eyes looking into his. Yet, he’s still hesitant at the doorway. “But no one will know!”   His younger brother is clueless. He has no idea what consequences or punishment means. He’s the Crown Prince. Pampered. Beloved. Everything he wants, he gets. He came here to play without knowing that if anyone saw, Taehyung would be the one punished. Starved. Locked into his room. There’s a reason he’s kept in the cold Western towers and Jungkook is free to roam the South, East and Northern wings. The entire castle is at his feet.   It’s unfair.   It’s so unfair that Taehyung wants to scream. But no one will hear.   They’re the same. Two boys with the same father. A few months apart. Yet one is loved and the other loathed.   Taehyung’s afraid one day he will come to hate Jungkook.   “We still shouldn’t. Go back to bed, Jungkook.”   “I can’t even stay for a minute?” He huffs out, shoulders slumping, dejected. Taehyung pulls the covers and climbs into his bed. After another moment, Jungkook gives up. “Fine. Goodnight.”   The door shuts and Taehyung rolls on his side to look out the window.   He was so close. A few more minutes and it would’ve been enough.   //   Taehyung guesses he has a natural gift for magic. The book says transportation is one of the more difficult spells that needs a lot of practice, but he made it on his first try without even knowing where the estate is.   The place only becomes more vivid in his mind the more times he goes. It becomes easier for him to visualize, easier for him to visit. And he tries with every chance he gets, every moment of his day, every minute spent alone.   Taehyung steals these secret seconds that have become what he looks forward to most. It’s the reason why he wakes up. Each time, he gathers his magic and teleports himself, it’s an opportunity to see you.   This time, it’s in the afternoon after lunch is brought to his room. Taehyung shuts his eyes and tries to imagine the manor with its brown walls, rounded windows, green field, a majestic arcway door.   When he opens his eyes and looks down at his hands materializing, he discovers that he’s at the side of the house, standing next to the wall.   “My lady!”   Taehyung jolts and peeks out from the corner. There’s a maid looking around and shouting with her hands cupped around her mouth. “My lady! Your dance lessons are starting! My lady?!”    His eyes stray upwards and the corner of his mouth tugs when he finds you in a tall tree. You’re wearing a brown dress with a flower bonnet, hidden up in the branches with a mischievous smile as you look down at the dismayed maid who’s completely oblivious.    He stifles back a laugh.   But it withers away when his body starts to fade.   No. No!   When Taehyung blinks again, he’s returned to his room. Back to where he belongs.   He slumps down on his bed in disappointment. He wanted it to last longer. But maybe next time. Next time, he’ll try harder and maybe then…..maybe then, he’ll actually get to talk to you.   //   The next evening, when no one’s around, Taehyung tries once more.   He shuts his eyes and thinks of you, thinks about the land, the house.   And it comes faster to him this time.    He doesn’t have to wait as long before he feels the breeze against his cheeks, the air fresh to his nose. He’s placed at the same spot as yesterday, by the wall near the back. Except neither you nor a maid are outside. In your place is the sun setting over the horizon, the rays casting into his eyes through the tree branches. The sky is painted in shades of a blazing bonfire, amber, ruby, citrine.   But Taehyung’s not here to admire the outside world. He looks down at his hands to make sure he’s materialized and he starts pacing around the perimeter of the manor. He ducks beneath windows when workers or kitchen staff walk by and sneaks along the walls to make sure he’s not caught.   It seems like he won’t be able to find you today.   But then he hears a— “ha!” followed by a metal whistle as something cuts through the air.   Taehyung peeks through the window to see you swinging your sword in the middle of your bedroom. You’re twirling it around, but after a moment, the weapon clanks to the ground and you drop down next to it on your butt.    “God, I’m so tired!”   Taehyung smiles to himself. His fist lifts to knock on the glass.   At the same time, the corner of your eye catches movement. So you turn your head.   But there’s nothing there.   Your brows furrow and you blink hard. But there really is nothing outside your windows. You swore you saw someone.    Maybe you’re just going crazy.    You should probably call quits for tonight and stop practicing.    You don’t know that miles away, Taehyung has appeared back in his room, looking down at his hands stitching into its form, materializing in the small, dark, and dank space. More importantly, he doesn’t see the horrified maid standing at the open doorway until it’s too late.   He’s been caught.   “Where did you go?”    Taehyung’s thrown onto the marble flooring, cheek bruised at the Queen’s feet. She looks down at him, dressed in a luxurious black gown with golden flowers, hair pulled in an updo with silver ornaments. The maid who tattled smirks as she stands on the sidelines. A guard passes the Queen the emerald spell book and she glances at it before tossing it on the ground where he’s been flung.   “And don’t you dare try to deny it.”   Taehyung sharply inhales at his stinging cheek and looks to the open book.   He exhales a silent breath of relief.    They don’t have the handkerchief.   If they did, she would’ve ripped it in front of him and thrown down the shreds. He’s glad he hid it well between his pillowcase.   “I...I just wanted to go outside. I’m sorry.”   “You’re lying.”   Taehyung looks up. “I swear—!”   Before he can inhale, Taehyung’s head is suddenly whipped to his side. The sound of the slap echoes through the lavish chamber and his hand lifts to cup at his numb cheek now printed with the Queen’s diamond rings.    “You lie!” she spits at him, eyes narrowed in.    “You think I was born yesterday?! There’s no reason for you to use magic to go outside. I know what you’re doing. You’re conspiring against me! Against the King. You’re trying to get rid of your brother and take the throne for yourself! Who taught you?! Who were you visiting?! Tell me.”   Taehyung grits his teeth. He turns his head to look back at the woman.   His hands crumple into fists.   “No one.”   Tears flood his vision. All he wanted was to see you.   But he’s weak. He can’t do anything. Much less fulfill his only wish.   “You dare lie to me again?” She scoffs. “Whoever it is, I will find them and I will punish them.”   He can’t protect himself. He couldn’t protect his own mom.   But he can still protect you.   “I said, no one taught me and I was seeing no one.”   She scoffs loudly and points to the maid by the door. “You there! Report to the King what you found out. When you’re done, let everyone know that this bastard is to be confined to his room for the next three months on full watch. Make sure he won’t be able to leave no matter what.”   “Yes, Your Majesty.”   The Queen stands, height looming over the ten-year old boy. She looks him dead in the eye, lips curling into a snarl. “Don’t think this is the end of it. I won’t let you run around and do as you wish like your whorish mother did. You can deny it for all you want. You won’t eat until you speak.”   “Take him away!” she shouts at the guards and they grab the back of his collar, dragging him upwards and out. Taehyung doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry. His eyes dim as he looks at the woman until the gap of the door shuts in his face.    He won’t see you anymore. Not until he becomes strong enough.   Inside the room, the Queen collapses back onto her sofa. She sighs heavily and rubs her throbbing temples between her fingertips. Her personal attendant comes to her side and bows. “Is there anything I can do for you, Your Majesty?”   “It’s suffocating being here,” she mutters and drops her hand. “Hmm, maybe I’ll take the trip down to the Summer Palace in Florendale early this year.”   The maid dips her head. “I will make the preparations then.”

Edith swiftly enters the room one morning, drawing the curtains roughly and shedding the blinding sunlight into your still-sleepy eyes. You wince and pull the covers over your head, but she rips them off of you unceremoniously.   What the hell. Seriously?!   “It’s time to get ready.”   “Why?” you groan, peeling one eye open and pressing your cheek to your pillow.   Edith doesn’t stop moving. She opens the doors to your wardrobe and starts picking through the racks of dresses. “The Queen is on her deathbed with the incurable plague. The Duke and Duchess will be leaving for the castle immediately within ten minutes. You must go with them to fulfill your duties as the heir of the Devereux house.”   It takes a delayed moment for the information to sink into your foggy mind.   But then, you’re bolting upright with wide eyes. “Wait. What?!”    You’re horrified.    This isn’t part of the original game. The Queen is supposed to be alive and well even past your supposed execution date!   But there’s no time to dwell when your face is washed and you’re dressed in a black gown, barely enough time to brush your hair. You’re rushed into the carriage and the coachman rides at a hasty speed. Your mother, in the meanwhile, lectures you to stay quiet and solemn.   Your entire family soon arrives at the familiar castle and you’re guided to the main hall.   Jungkook is sobbing in the corner, being comforted by a swarm of attendants. You’re at a loss, looking around, trying to grasp what’s going on. There’s no sight of Taehyung whatsoever.   Your father, carrying the high status of the Duke, manages to visit the King and the Queen in their personal chambers. You’re brought along behind your mother, staying silent as she had instructed you to do. Your parents offer their condolences, but when you peek out behind her and past the royal healers, blood drains from your face.   The Queen is pale. Barely breathing in her bed. Cysts and welts bubble on her wrinkled skin.   Even you know she’s not going to recover. But how? How did this happen?!   The respects your parents give doesn’t last long. You’re soon being brought into the main hall again in favour of delegates from the smaller Eastern empire giving their condolences. But on your way, you catch the murmurs of the maids.   “—plague in Florendale.”   “How awful! If only Her Majesty went in the Autumn season as she usually does. I don’t know why she chose to go earlier this year.”   “It was truly the wrong place at the wrong time.” — “A tragedy!” — “Why is Her Majesty’s fate so unfortunate?”   You can barely stitch together the pieces of what happened and all the gaps in between are full of more questions. Why these changes are happening. Why the original game is changing so much.   What this means.   A feeling of uncertainty swells inside of you.

[peaceoutofthepieces]

you were my crown

chapter 1

Ao3

hi, I finally got tired of waiting. I’ll do my best to update weekly. hopefully you all enjoy :)

~^~

The rest of the kingdom woke before Jens.

He came to when a thick strip of sunlight was already streaming through the windows, further illuminating the already-sparkling gold tones of the room. The ends of the chandelier glittered at him from underneath the canopy at the bottom of his bed. His crown sat forebodingly at the foot. None of these rays woke him. It wasn’t the sight but the sounds, heavy, repetitive bangs on his door accompanied by a familiar voice.

“Rise and shine,” Senne de Smet shouted through the wood. “You have less than an hour to get your fancy gear on and eat before the boys get here. I’d recommend opening this door within the next five minutes unless you want cold breakfast.”

Jens groaned then let the complaint melt into a sigh as he burrowed further into his silk sheets. They had crept down along his arm overnight, slipping off his shoulder, and he resisted the urge to pull them back up to his chin and curl into the warmth. He had already closed his eyes again, head still drowsy and body still heavy, glittering dreams still holding him under. Vague images stuck with him, flashes of silver and blue, scars and swords, and he rubbed them away as he pushed himself up onto one hand. The muscles in his arm trembled under his weight, not yet having enough energy for the day, and it was this thought that finally drew him out of bed and towards the door.

He didn’t care much to cover himself, pulling the heavy mahogany doors open in just his sleep trousers. It didn’t matter that he was shivering in the autumn air, barefoot and bare-chested as he was. Senne’s threats always fell true, and Jens’s stomach wouldn’t forgive him for making it survive the day without a proper breakfast.

Senne was leaning against the far wall, and he grinned cheerfully as Jens peeked through the door. Much too cheerful for this time of day. He did hold, however, a steaming plate of food that contained a collection of Jens’s favourites, so he could possibly be forgiven. He slipped in past Jens and Jens followed with his nose in the air, the delicious scents wafting up with the smoke and instantly making his stomach rumble.

“I was worried I was going to have to barge in here again,” Senne said, still too lively as he plonked the breakfast plate down on the table a few feet from the foot of the bed.

Jens sighed but dropped into the head seat, slumping against the plush back with his head drooping forward. He rubbed at his eyes again and murmured, “Remind me why I never punished you for that.”

Senne shrugged. “Because you know you wouldn’t survive without me.” He stole an apple from the fruit bowl in the center of the table and tossed it into the air, catching it one-handed. “Otherwise, you’d be stuck with Sander.”

Jens tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “You make a good point. Why’s he not the one banging down my door?”

“He’s already leading drills. You let all your friends do the work for you while you’re all wrapped up in dreamland,” Senne teased, flicking the side of his head.

Jens was grateful when the older boy dropped into the adjacent chair at his right instead of leaving. “Don’t abuse me, I’m the Prince,” he muttered, collecting his fork and knife from next to the plate and beginning to prod at a sausage. “When are the others getting here?”

“Shouldn’t be long. They’re likely already on their way.”

Jens nodded, getting some food onto his fork and then staring at it. His stomach pleaded and protested at once. He couldn’t use the excuse that it was too early, but it was certainly too soon after waking.

Senne kicked him lightly under the table. “Eat your breakfast. With your schedule today you probably won’t get anything else until your dinner.”

That wasn’t unusual, and it also wasn’t what Jens wanted to hear. “You’re like an overbearing parent all on your own.”

“I’m only two years older than you,” Senne reminded him, fixing the cuffs of his blue tunic with apple still in hand. “It’s just also my job to look after you.”

“As my guard,” Jens muttered, “not my mother.”

Senne heaved out a sigh. “Sadly, I’m not lucky enough to be the queen, no.”

Jens snorted and didn’t bother with a reply. His breakfast was already getting hard to swallow, but depending on how the day would go, it could be the only meal he would have for a while. He could manage to shovel it down as long as he didn’t also have to try to speak. Senne didn’t seem bothered, lounging in his own chair and eating his apple, and Jens appreciated it. It was always nice, to have a sound outside of himself to break up the silence. Senne and Sander knew this, and often indulged him, but while Sander filled the space with chatter and teasing and on the most drastic occasions, music, Senne provided a more stoic presence. A silent but steady company. Jens appreciated it most in the mornings.

But even this couldn’t last forever.

Senne rose from his chair and rounded the table to chuck the remnants of his apple in the fireplace. Jens rolled his eyes but didn’t protest—even if it lay there long enough to smell, it would be ashes by the time Jens returned to his room tonight, and that was enough for him. Senne set a hand on his shoulder on the way past and squeezed. “I trust you can handle yourself from here?”

Jens hummed around another mouthful of food. “I’m good. Thanks.” He wasn’t, but he just had to scrape up the remnants of this meal and then he could join his friends, so maybe he was. Either way, Senne had better things to do than hang around and babysit him. He would be fine.

“Ah, he remembers some manners,” Senne teased, squeezing his shoulder once more before heading for the door. “Have fun and don’t die.”

It was, honestly, sound advice, and Senne’s tone wasn’t entirely teasing. Still, Jens huffed between bites and waved him off. A few seconds later he heard the heavy door fall shut. It took him considerably longer to get through the rest of his breakfast, each swallow seeming more difficult as his stomach started a protest. Eventually he managed to clear the plate, and then he took another minute to pour and down a cup of water.

He moved to his wardrobe and plucked out the first tunic within reach. There wasn’t much variety to pick from, anyway. (There was, but he wouldn’t have been caught dead in anything frilly, so it was slightly more limited. He also heavily favoured red. Exceptions were made for grey now and again.) Alongside the red tunic, he dug out one of dozens of pairs of black trousers. For now, he’d be allowed to dress himself. Depending on what his mother had planned for later in the day, this was subject to change.

For now, though, he was free, and finally on his way to the library.

This was not to do some—or any—reading. The library was reserved for members of the castle or invited guests only, and most members of the castle were not frequent visitors. Few of the knights had much interest in the dusty books on offer, and the majority of the servants preferred gossiping and get-togethers once they were free of their work. This meant that, most of the time, the library was relatively empty and easily taken over, and this was often what Jens and his friends did.

The library was quiet when he entered, as expected. It was already brightly lit through the long stained-glass windows, dust shimmering in the air as it fell from ancient texts. The books were endless, spreading out for what seemed like miles in every direction. Jens had gotten lost between the shelves as a child. There was, however, a wide open space in the center leading from the door right to a staircase at the back, which led up to an attic space Jens believed no one had entered in years and that was even dustier than down there. Various tables and sofas took up this section of the floor, mahogany and velvet creating a rich mix of red and brown.

On one of these sofas lounged Robbe Ijzermans, Jens’s best (and once only) friend.

He was spread across it with one leg kicked up along the cushions and a book open in his hands, seeming deeply immersed. He looked up, however, as Jens entered, and immediately grinned and snapped the book shut—after marking his place.

“You’re late,” he teased.

“I am perfectly on time. You’re early,” Jens retorted. “The others aren’t even here yet.”

Robbe waved a dismissive hand. “Well, I don’t have as far to travel.”

It was true that he didn’t, so much so that he might have been even closer to the library than Jens. There were not many residents of the castle who weren’t either of royal blood or a servant, but Robbe was an exception. He had lived here with his mother for as long as Jens could remember, as the woman was a long-time friend of the Queen’s and a previous Lady, until her Lord had up and vanished without a word. She had been distraught, and unable to look after her young son alone. Jens’s mother had taken them in on a rare act of love that no one had ever dared to question.

Jens didn’t care what the reasons were, only that it had given him Robbe. It made them almost more than friends—brothers in all but blood. A lot of the time Jens wished they shared the same lineage. Robbe would have made a much better successor to the throne. He was already treated like a Prince by the entire kingdom.

Robbe shifted to set both feet on the ground so Jens could sit next to him. He realised they were another mixture of those rich tones, blood and rust mingling as he slumped back and let their shoulders press. Robbe, like Jens, had a preference in colours and an aversion to frills.

“You can’t be tired when you’re likely only awake,” Robbe protested, but he didn’t push Jens away.

Jens let his head loll against the backrest and narrowed his eyes at his friend. “I ate breakfast. I dressed. I know I’m talented at many things, Robbe, but even I can’t do that in my sleep. Senne gave me a very kind wake-up call a while ago, don’t worry.”

Robbe huffed. “Senne is nice. You’re just whiny.”

Before Jens could protest, the door burst open again and permitted loud greetings.

Moyo Makadi entered with his arms spread, pushed along on a food trolley by Aaron Jacobs. Jens instantly covered his face with a hand, both to block out the sight of more food and Moyo’s cheeky wave. Moyo hopped off the cart and barely managed to help Aaron draw it to a stop before it crushed Jens and Robbe’s legs.

“Oops,” Moyo said. “Hello, you royal asses.”

Robbe snorted as Jens finally dropped his hand and rolled his eyes. He was unable to stop a smile, however, as Aaron immediately slipped in to gather him and Robbe in a hug. Moyo simply slapped hands with them both and dropped onto the closest free space, another lush sofa set at an angle to the one Jens and Robbe already occupied. Aaron settled next to him and they finally struck up a conversation.

“So, what flashy business is happening today that gathered us all here?” Moyo questioned, mock-intent as he rested his chin on his fist and raised his brows at Jens.

Jens shrugged. He wasn’t always kept in the loop regarding this information, himself. “A trial of some sort, I think.” It would, inevitably, cut this little get-together short, for him at least.

“I would love to be you,” Aaron pouted at Jens. “You get to know everything.”

Jens didn’t bother pointing out that this was far from the truth, as he in fact felt he knew very little. “You can take my place if you like,” he offered, shrugging.

Many would think him ungrateful, entitled, and maybe that is exactly what these thoughts made him, but he was really just tired. He was exhausted, constantly. He shouldn’t have been, considering he was literally served everything on a silver platter, and didn’t really have to work for anything as far as the outer world was concerned. Sitting on a throne as a pretty accessory was hardly effort, after all.

He thought maybe it was this that tired him. Monotony was supposed to be tiring, wasn’t it? He was tired from doing nothing while also doing everything. He was tired of being expected to do it with a regal aura he wasn’t sure he even had.

He might have also been tired of doing it alone.

“Are you giving away the place of Prince, now?” Moyo cocked a brow, then slapped his hands together. “I’ll gladly take any going positions.”

“You can take Jens’s and I’ll take Robbe’s,” Aaron agreed.

Robbe made a small sound of protest, sitting up straighter and removing the support under Jens’s shoulder, leaving him to tilt sideways and almost knock his face into Robbe’s back. “I didn’t offer any position. I’m perfectly content right where I am.”

“You basically live in your own castles anyway,” Jens pointed out. “But you don’t have to sit in and watch my mother judge some poor commoner.”

“Aww, Jens is just too soft.” Moyo poked his knee.

Jens rolled his eyes.

“Well, at least you don’t have to travel around in a carriage on an empty stomach to get here,” Aaron said, finally leaning forward to cast his gaze over the feast they’d brought with them.

Robbe huffed, amused, and settled back alongside Jens. “You can take your fill now. All of this is for the two of you. Jens and I already ate.”

“What?” Moyo blinked at them, then stared at the food, then at Aaron. “It’s just for you, then. I actually got up in time and already had my breakfast, too.”

Aaron’s eyes widened as he glanced between all of them and then back at the cart. He let out a long breath and patted his stomach. “Alright. We can do it.”

Jens snorted as Robbe burst into giggles and Moyo simply shook his head. Jens enjoyed these moments more than anything else, the ridiculous ones with his group of friends in which he could just be himself. He didn’t have to be polite or polished or princely. He didn’t have to be anything. He could just laugh without anyone looking at him in awe or judgment.

He really didn’t have to worry about these three being in awe of him.

Moyo turned to him with a wrinkled brow, breaching the gap between them to poke him in the stomach. “It’s probably a good thing you’re opting out, you’re getting a little soft there.”

Jens batted him away. “So what if I am?”

“Don’t they have you on some strict, fancy diet and a training regime? Thought they didn’t want a pudgy Prince.”

Jens crossed his arms over his stomach and scowled.

Robbe made a small noise of protest next to him. “Jens would be basically skin and bones by your standards. I’d rather see him soften up than fade away.” He nudged Jens teasingly, but gave Moyo another pointed look.

Moyo’s expression gentled. “He knows I’m kidding. I just think it’s crazy, some of the expectations like that they have of you. I couldn’t be a knight, either.”

“Sander loves being a knight,” Robbe pointed out.

“Doesn’t Sander just love everything, though?” Aaron asked. He had a smear on his chin from some sort of sauce, even though Jens couldn’t spot any amidst the array of food.

“He loves being a pain in my ass,” Jens muttered. Sander Driesen was a nuisance more than a knight, a member of his personal guard, and one of his best friends. He was the same age as Senne, just two years older than the group of them, and still he appeared younger. Jens could speak about (tease) Sander in a manner that didn’t feel quite as appropriate with Senne.

“Maybe,” Robbe acquiesced, grinning over at him. “But at least you know it’s with love.”

“Well, who doesn’t love our dear Royal Highness,” Moyo teased.

Aaron took another chunk of food. “And his royal heinie.”

Robbe choked on his breath. Moyo, however, immediately started cackling, and Aaron joined in once Jens flipped them off. Eventually, Robbe’s giggles joined the fray, and this was eventually what roped Jens into letting out a quiet laugh of his own. They were too much, sometimes, but he thought he quite liked it that way.

The door burst open once more to permit a fluffy cloud of white hair. Sander poked his head in and raised his brows at all of them, lips twitching slightly in response to their laughter. Jens gave him a little wave and he strode into the room, still fully decked out in his chainmail with a navy cloak wrapped around his shoulders.

“Ahh, there he is,” Moyo grinned. “The skinniest knight in the land.”

Sander pulled a face and flipped him off. “I can be skinny and still know how to skin you.”

Moyo’s brows rose, but he quietened, sinking back in his seat with raised hands.

“I’m guessing you’ve come to whisk me away?” Jens sighed.

“Afraid so. I’ve been waiting all morning to come sweep you off your feet,” Sander said, hand placed mockingly over his heart as he smirked. “I almost challenged Senne to a duel to get to your chambers.”

Jens rolled his eyes skyward.

Robbe giggled, and Sander narrowed in on him and finally softened, as he usually did. It was little secret that most of the fellow castle members favoured Robbe, and that Sander in particular had a soft spot for his doe eyes. Robbe was the reason he was here, after all.

Sander rounded the food trolley and sat on the arm of the sofa next to Robbe, ruffling a hand through his curls. Robbe would have smacked any of them away, but he leaned into Sander like a cat. “I hope you’re not letting these ones corrupt you.”

“You’re hardly a stellar role model yourself,” Robbe drawled, gently teasing.

The hand Sander placed over his heart seemed slightly less mocking, but his pout twitched towards a smirk. “You wound me, dear Robin.”

“They don’t need me immediately, do they?” Jens attempted to draw Sander’s attention back.

Sander shrugged. “I was told to fetch you so you could be properly dressed,” he announced, overly amused.

Jens groaned and slumped down in his seat as Moyo laughed again.

|*~^~*|

Ow. Cinched too tight around the waist. Again. Cutting into his throat. He let out a slight grunt and the maid handling his ties and buttons mumbled an apology, still avoiding his eyes.

“It’s alright,” Jens reassured her. He thought her name might be Lisa, but he wasn’t sure, and he refused to use it only to be wrong. “It’s not you, just these clothes. I don’t see the need for them, in any case. Do you?”

Lisa paused for a moment and considered him, actually thinking through her answer. “I think they’re nice, Sire.”

Jens blinked. She was complimenting him, he thought, but she was also disagreeing with him. Not to a large extent, of course, and the good certainly outweighed the bad, but that didn’t make it any less unusual. Most of the servants just smiled and nodded and furtively agreed with anything he said. Robbe and the boys were different, as well as some of his knights, but outside that small circle, Jens rarely garnered any honest conversation or genuine opinions. It was refreshing.

“They do look quite uncomfortable, though,” she commented, and he deflated slightly. “But at least it’s not a dress. The Princesses take a lot longer.”

This startled a pleased laugh out of Jens. “I can imagine. What with Lotte being barely twelve and Lies being so demanding.”

“I wish that Lotte was going to remain that age and never require any awkward clothing,” Lisa admitted, turning away to run her hand over Jens’s heavy cloak. She looked back at him curiously. “It’s a while yet to the meeting. Would you rather wait to wear this?”

Jens waved her off. “Sure. I’ll manage it myself, I’m sure. Thank you.”

Lisa offered a small bow, as well as the hint of a smile when Jens grinned at her. She took her leave without any further fuss and let the heavy door fall shut behind her, leaving Jens once again alone in his silent chambers. He almost wished Sander had stuck around, but Sander had been starving and Jens was the one who told him to go and find himself an early lunch. He wished he could have spent more time with the boys, as well, considering now he would simply have to wait—just in a bit more discomfort than before.

He cast a glance at himself in the mirror. At least, he thought, he was still wearing red. The padded jacket hung low on his wrists and was clasped with a belt at the waist, with the collar obscuring most of his throat. It was well fitting and of a soft material and really, it wouldn’t be so bad if he was more used to it. It just felt a little too restraining. Had he actually put on a little weight?

He tugged at the collar, skin underneath beginning to itch uncomfortably. Eventually he gave in and unbuttoned the top of the garment, taking a deep breath and finally swallowing without feeling like he was being choked. He didn’t think it looked any worse, or less professional, but then again he was never the best judge. He’d once tried to convince his mother that their family taking up a more casual style would only earn them more respect from their people, and help put them all on the same level. She had disagreed.

His door opened without any forewarning, which meant it had to be a member of his family. He turned around to see Lotte racing towards his bed, throwing herself on it amidst his protests. Her giggle floated out into the room and Jens groaned slightly, but the roll of his eyes was fond. He glanced back at the mirror and checked himself over once more, fiddling with that top button, before he let his hands drop and turned to his youngest sister.

“What are you doing in here? You know there’s a meeting soon,” he berated, only to huff in amusement when she narrowed her eyes at him. “I won’t be able to spend much time with you.”

She considered him for another moment, then simply shrugged. “I know. But I’m bored. I like whatever time I get.”

Jens softened. He knew that, in some ways, it was even harder for Lotte than it was for him. He had Robbe and the boys, and Senne and Sander, who were not only his people and his guard but his friends. Many of the people who worked in the castle were his age or thereabouts.

Lotte didn’t have the same luxury.

He went to join her on the bed, ignoring the alarms in his head warning him of creased clothes as he flopped down beside her. “Okay.” He smiled over at her and gave her a nudge. “I always have time for you.”

The girl returned his smile, but it quickly faltered. “Unlike Lies,” she muttered, picking mournfully at her fingernails.

Jens grasped her small hands in one of his to stop the motion. “She doesn’t mean to brush you off, you know. She is just busy, too.”

“Not as busy as you and you make an exception.”

He supposed this was a fair point. He also supposed sisters of twelve and twenty might not have all that much in common, but they were a special case. The three of them had almost everything in common. “Have you really tried to get her to spend time with you?”

Lotte hesitated. “Not really.”

“Would you like me to mention something to her?”

“No, that’s embarrassing.”

“It won’t be. I’ll be subtle.”

“But you’re awful at that, Jens.”

“Excuse me?” Jens sat up, affronted. “I am excellent at subtlety. It’s a big part of my job.”

Lotte seemed dubious. “How? You don’t actually do much.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean with the people,” Lotte specified, blushing slightly even as she tried and failed to hide her amusement. “You don’t get many opportunities to practice subtlety. Neither do I.”

“Clearly,” Jens quipped.

Another giggle erupted, and Jens couldn’t fight back his smile. He had his friends and his family. Lotte had always looked up to him and he had always adored her—they were as close as a brother and sister eight years apart in age could be. He and Lies were close, too, though they were also, obviously, much closer in age and more likely to match up to each other’s taunts. But Lies had always been Lotte’s favourite. The two had been thick as thieves almost since Lotte’s birth, but recently Lies had been sucked into her own position in the castle. She wasn’t subject to as much nonsense as Jens, but she had her own fair share of business and responsibilities. She had also simply grown up.

But Lotte was still growing up with them, and Jens wouldn’t just let her be left behind.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m subtle,” he said. “Lies will make an effort if she knows you miss her. You know how much she loves you.”

Lotte hugged one of his many pillows against her chest and didn’t look at him. “It’s different now, though.”

“No. You’re our sister and that will never change. Okay?”

Before Lotte could respond, a harsh rap on the door interrupted their moment. Jens closed his eyes briefly, already guessing who it was. The door swinging up with no further warning confirmed his assumption.

“Well, now you’re just being difficult,” Sander said, exasperated. “I did not drag you back here early so you could get some more sleep.”

Jens groaned and tugged the pillow out of Lotte’s grasp to cover his own face with it.

Lotte giggled, and Sander finally took notice of her. His lips instantly split in a smile, and he took a deep bow, which only made Lotte’s laughter louder. “Pardon me, Princess. I hope you know I never intended to lay on you the same disgrace as your brother.”

“Of course not,” Lotte said, ever at ease as she bounded over Jens and towards Sander, letting him place the usual kiss on her hand. “You’re only doing your job right, and I am sure he deserves it.”

“I thought,” Jens interrupted loudly, “that we were supposed to stick together. I am only here because of you in the first place, but I see you’re not yet old enough to know better than to fall for his charm.”

Lotte stuck her tongue out at him, which might have proved his point. “You are just jealous Sander is better at it than you. Enjoy your meeting.” She gave him a wave and a smile before slipping away, and Jens watched after her, hoping above everything that she wouldn’t get old enough too quickly.

Sander also smiled fondly after her, but grew stern once he returned to Jens’s gaze. He placed his hands on his hips and sighed. “Your mother is going to have me in the stocks one of these days, and then I will teach you how that works in our next training session.”

Jens snorted. “I would like to see you try.”

|*~^~*|

He hated sitting in for Court. It was less about the ‘criminals’ and more about the royals, the endless lines of knights and Lords and servants, eager to witness another fool. He didn’t care much for fools, but he cared even less to laugh at them. It soothed him only slightly that Sander and Senne were visible near the front of the room.

He cared least for his formal attire. He was overheating in his jacket, once again delicately buttoned up to the throat, the collar digging into his skin. He’d tried leaving the top hanging open, and it had hardly taken a second for his mother to give him a sharp glance, nodding to a maid that had hastily run to button it back up. He was left to sit and suffocate.

His mother was seated next to him, as regal as ever in her throne. Her fitted dress was a deep burgundy, multiple shades darker than her son’s jacket, and her hair was pinned up neatly with her crown placed carefully atop it. She hadn’t paid attention to Jens, bar the instance with the clothing ‘mishap’. Instead she was talking quietly to Senne’s father, who also happened to be the head knight, or Commander. Jens didn’t know him well, and the man never seemed to give him much thought. Which was fair, he supposed, as he was obviously of less importance, and the position and size—a little behind and a lot smaller—of his own throne in comparison to his mother’s was a good reminder. This meant he was left alone as they waited for whatever poor soul was being charged to make their way to the throne.

For some reason, he wasn’t expecting the poor soul to be a boy roughly his age with scruffy hair and striking blue eyes set in a delicate face.

Jens straightened subtly in his chair, placed to the right side of his mother’s throne, and met the boy’s eyes for half a second.

His mother ordered a sharp, “Kneel.”

Before the boy could comply, one of the guards that had escorted him set a heavy hand on his shoulder and forced him down, making him land on the stone floor in a manner that left Jens’s own knees aching in sympathy. The boy simply caught his breath and held his chin high, looking straight at them and through, his jaw clenched.

Jens drummed his fingers on his knee in interest.

The same guard gave the boy’s head a forceful shove. Jens thought he might have been one of the Berg children, though of the four brothers there were in that family, he couldn’t distinguish this one. He could see, however, that the guard must have been twice the boy’s size in bulk. “Speak your name to the Court.”

The boy took a breath as some of his masqueraded confidence slipped. “Lucas. Lucas van der Heijden.”

Jens licked his lips, cataloguing the sound of his voice, the way his mouth parted for an instant before the actual sound escaped. The name rumbled deeply around the room and seeped into the walls, encased in the brick in case it would otherwise be lost.

Jens’s job was to watch, to note, and to only give judgement if asked. It often didn’t take him long to form conclusions. His conclusion of Lucas van der Heijden was that he seemed, at once, nothing and everything like a criminal.

He was young, and clean cut, though his clothes were a tad too tight and an inch too short on his ankles, fraying at the hems. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek, a familiar sandy mixture that Jens had seen on all hostages of the castle cells. It was impossible to tell how long he had been kept in them—Jens was rarely offered such information. There was an innocence to his youth but a confidence in his posture. His eyes held a pleading light and a resolute film. Whatever his crime in regards to the crown, he held a loyalty to someone.

“State his crimes,” the Queen requested. She had abandoned any attention towards the Commander, though he remained by her side. She was looking at the boy with a cool intent that surprised Jens.

The opposite guard, whom Jens failed to recall a name for, stared straight ahead as he spoke up. “Thievery and dishonor to the Court, Your Majesty.”

Jens could barely hold back a snort. He relaxed slightly. There was rarely a severe punishment for a loaf of bread. The scene before him suddenly made more sense.

His mother’s tone, however, was unusually steely. “Thievery of what?”

“Sir Viktor’s sword, Your Majesty.”

Jens blinked. A rumble of interest spread through the Court. That was something of a surprise. Jens was suddenly paying more attention.

Lucas’s jaw tightened and he gave a minuscule shake of his head, so much so that Jens was sure he was the only one to notice.

The Queen didn’t seem quite as intrigued, which meant she had already known. “And what, boy, do you want with a sword?”

“I didn’t steal it.” Lucas spoke through gritted teeth, but his gaze didn’t waver. “I’ve never even seen the sword before.”

“It was found under his bed, Your Majesty, free of its sheath. Sir Viktor had been missing it for a full day before organising a search.”

Jens barely resisted rolling his eyes. If Viktor had been missing it that long, he was almost in need of a punishment himself. He’d known Viktor Deruwe, Senne’s brother, for only over a year, becoming acquainted with him long after he’d already met Senne. Senne’s loyalty and honour, that Jens had become easily familiar with during the man’s service in his personal guard, did not seem to emanate as clearly from his brother. Jens had received only a few pleasures of his presence, and pinned his discomfort down to this unfamiliarity. As he watched Lucas’s expression tighten further, however, there was something that didn’t sit quite right with him.

The feeling only strengthened as the Queen raised her head and stared Lucas down. “You’d do best to not add dishonesty to your list, Mr van der Heijden. The proof sits against you. If you claim not to have stolen it, how do you suppose it ended up with you?”

Lucas swallowed. For a tiny second, his gaze flitted over to the crowd on his left. Jens followed his gaze and found nothing that stood out, other than his own friends. Senne was watching Lucas intently, and with mild surprise, though he did not appear angered on his brother’s behalf. Sander was flicking cautious glances at him anyway.

“I didn’t steal anything,” Lucas repeated. “I’m an artist. I have no reason for a sword.”

“And yet,” the Queen said lightly, “there was one so close to you. Are you able to explain that?”

Jens came to the realisation too late, after noticing the hard lines of his mother’s frown and the steel underlining the easiness of her voice. This wasn’t a trial—this was merely the sentencing.

“Someone else must have placed it there,” Lucas said, just as light, with just as much steel underneath.

“I’m sorry, Mr van der Heijden, truly, but the evidence against you is not something I can simply dismiss as a wrong guess. Do you have proof, of anyone else who may have had access to your quarters? Even so much as a theory.”

“It’s not hard,” Lucas laughed slightly, “to access my quarters. From the way your guards stormed my home yesterday without so much as a knock as a notice, that seems fairly clear.”

Jens raised his brows as the Queen lowered hers. “You’d do well not to speak out of turn, boy. Evidently, my guards had every right to rip your home to shreds if they so pleased.”

Jens looked at her in surprise. He knew his mother held a firm and stern rule, but she had never shown herself to be cruel. Jens would never have expected her to so openly disregard the rights and welfare of her people. He supposed Lucas was good at pushing buttons, and he’d somehow managed to hit a number of her’s throughout their short interaction. Jens glanced over Lucas again, his curls scattered and shoulders straight, and felt a stab of worry in his stomach.

Help yourself, Jens silently urged. Try to win her over. Don’t make it worse.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” Lucas seemed to force the words out, dragging them from himself as if he was being made to pull his own teeth. “My mother—I take care of her. I worried that she would have been harmed in the fray.”

Jens watched his own mother soften slightly before regaining her resolve. “While that’s admirable of you, it doesn’t truly explain your resistance. Your lies, Mr van der Heijden, may only lead to further searches of your home in an attempt to confirm either your guilt or your innocence. Would you not, in that case, rather save your mother the trouble?”

Jens swiveled his gaze back to Lucas, watching the low blow hit, cataloguing the way the boy’s own resolve crumbled.

Then he straightened, undeterred by the hand still tightly clasped on his shoulder. “My mother has no involvement, because neither do I. I’m not lying. I stole nothing.”

The Queen regarded him for another long moment, as did Jens. Then she released a heavy sigh. “I was hoping that your cooperation would provide an option for leniency. A true explanation may have lightened your sentence, but the proof against you is overwhelming.”

Jens’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t quite sure he agreed, but he was only meant to give his opinion if he was asked. He didn’t think his mother much cared what he thought, most times, but especially now.

“I cannot believe that you are free of intent to threaten the crown, due to the unusual action of your crime. I fear I have no choice.” She stood from her throne and stepped down from the dais, looming over Lucas in her heavy red robes and shimmering crown. “Lucas van der Heijden, for the charges of thievery and dishonor to the throne, I find you guilty and sentence you to death.”

The murmur this time was of a much more extensive volume, but it wasn’t quite enough to drown out Jens’s incredulous burst of laughter.

All eyes turned to him, and he felt his shoulders stiffen. Lucas’s gaze was most prominent, evidently confused, with eyes wide and disbelieving. His mother’s were equally surprised, though underlaid with anger.

Definitely not supposed to be voicing his opinion today, then.

Jens did his best to ignore his discomfort under the attention and keep a princely smile on his face. “Since when do we sentence death without proof? Now you wish it upon one of your younger subjects for the kidnapping of a sword that wasn’t even put to use?”

The murmur that he’d silenced picked up again, and his mother raised an unimpressed brow at him. “The proof has been presented to you as it has been presented to me. Are you aware of evidence we are not?”

“I’m aware that there is a possibility, however slim, that he is telling the truth. Even if he had stolen it and intended to put it to use, the sword has been retrieved. He presents no real immediate threat. If anything, I believe he would have committed the crime as a scared boy with family he wishes to protect. Surely that is something any of us can understand. He may be deserving of punishment, yes, but death?”

The room had fallen into utter silence. Jens didn’t dare look at any of the Court members, but he chanced a glance at Lucas. The other boy was staring back at him, with all surprise now wiped from his face. He wore a carefully constructed blank expression, that didn’t break as Jens looked back at him.

Jens didn’t know why he felt such a strong urge to save him. But now that he’d started, he couldn’t bring his own argument to an end.

“So what else do you suggest?” His mother asked this at length, unwillingly.

He shouldn’t have spoken out. It wasn’t his place. It wasn’t good for her, he knew, to have her rule questioned in public by her own son. But he’d argued without thinking, looking at Lucas and feeling an inexplicable need to stand up for him. To protect.

“It’s his loyalty in question, is it not?” Jens raised a brow and waited for her nod. “So let him prove it. I’m sure someone youthful and strong could have a place serving the Court.”

The murmur picked up again. Jens resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead he skipped over all the incredulous looks to find his friends, and was assured to have Sander and Senne watching on with surprise but approval. Sander cocked a brow at him, as if impressed, while Senne merely nodded his encouragement.

His mother stared at him. “Your suggestion is to allow him a position in the castle?”

“He couldn’t be placed under more watch,” Jens said simply. “I would rather test someone’s loyalty and perhaps gain a better bond than let a life go to waste.”

This murmur sounded somewhat agreeable, though it was silenced the second the Queen raised her hand. “There are no positions in the Court up for offer, and I cannot possibly gift a thief the sword he’d stolen.”

Jens didn’t even pause to think. “I don’t have a personal servant.”

There was, surprisingly, no murmur. The room was eerily quiet as Jens and his mother stared each other down and Lucas flitted his gaze between them.

It was not a lie, and was perhaps even the reason he had been doing this. He was tired of fussy maids lacing his shirts and buttoning his coats and buckling his cuffs. His sisters both had maid-servants, while Jens was left with an array of strangers carrying out various duties, never even able to become familiar with faces as they avoided contact and conversation at all costs. He did his best to be amicable with the castle staff, to form relationships, to form bonds. But aside from the few close friends he saw only on occasion (and even they were sons of various Lords in various agreements with his mother), and a few chosen guards, Jens spent most of his time alone.

He wouldn’t have minded someone like Lucas by his side. Someone his age, who wasn’t afraid to look him in the eye.

“You wish to risk letting a criminal become your personal servant? You would trust him to be so close to you?”

Jens let his mother stare disapprovingly at him before shifting his gaze to Lucas. They considered each other, concrete met with intrigue, before Jens gave a simple shrug. “I would.” He saw Lucas shake his head slightly in disbelief, and only became more sure. He turned back to his mother and kept his expression and tone firm. “It’s my risk to take, and I believe there isn’t much risk to it. If I am wrong, then I should get what’s coming to me.”

A few of the guards gave a quiet titter in acceptance, and he watched as his mother looked at a spot in the crowd for a lengthy moment.

Then she was nodding her acceptance.

She looked down upon Lucas. “Very well. You will have a guard assigned to you that will accompany you on any outings, alone or with the Prince. While you are in his service, there will be guards stationed at his door and extra security provided throughout the castle. It is only as a sign of trust towards my son that you are being given leniency. You should be grateful to him that you are leaving here with your life.” She looked to the guard on his left, the one that had spoken calmly to them without laying a finger on Lucas. “Take him and remain with him until the new measures I eventually decide upon are fully put in place.” She then turned to the room at large and raised her voice to address them all. “You are dismissed.”

Lucas listened to her silently, and remained wordless as Berg yanked him to his feet. Jens watched on until his mother spoke up again.

“Jens, you are to accompany him now. If he is not to be trusted from the beginning then he is not to be trusted without his apparent savior. You are also dismissed,” she said. “Though you will be meeting me again later to discuss this decision further.”

Jens bit back a sigh and rose to his feet. The intrigue spiraling up in him was quickly turning to elation. He felt that he had been entirely right to speak up and to continue to stand his ground, and it was a thrilling realisation that he could. It had even been easy, to earn the support of his mother and the Court, in what at first seemed to be an unshakable stance.

As he made his way down the dais and met Lucas’s stony gaze, however, he considered that it may not be as simple as he thought.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

Welcome To The Pack

Full Moon Run

Summary- 7.3k Alpha!Steve x You. Next day is the full moon run, a ritual important to bonding of wolf packs. Steve learns a bit more of what you dealt with. Warning- Violence and mentions of abuse.  

A/N- Mood Board made by @omega-nicole Thank you babes! Its beautiful and perfect ❤🐺

Chapter One  / Pack Master List

Steve was gone before you even made your way out of bed and in the shower. But the scent of coffee had your nose lead you to the kitchen, and there was a handwritten note set under an empty mug, words scribbled on it in a rush. 

‘Make yourself to home Y/N, be back sometime tonight for the run. ~Steve.’ 

Simple and to the point, your finger brushed over the letters and they were well dry. He's been gone some time, the coffee has a bit of burnt smell from being on the brewer for a while. It didn't matter, you got to indulge a bit. Who would have known something like a ready-made cup of coffee would make you excited. 

Your little wolf lolled on her back and stretched her legs out, twisting her body back and forth like she was scratching her back. <Because you weren't allowed these basic things before Y/N> 

I remember, trust me I haven't forgotten. You thought back as you lifted the mug to sip the black coffee, and searched out for a sugar bowl. Once you found it, you scooped in enough for a taste and looked around the cabin. Alone once again, you smiled to yourself. Honestly, this kind of life you could get used to. Morning coffee out on the deck, have the freedom to be in your human side or wolf side. Not have your old alpha breathing down your neck, controlling all your movements. Your hand absently came to an old scar on your shoulder, rubbing at it as it started to ache. One of the many bites you've been issued from your old pack. Although never properly claimed, you would never lose any of them. 

Shaking it off, you popped open the door and came out to see that The Compound was bustling, trucks coming and going from the large garage at the other end of the clearing, a bunch of kids were herded into another vehicle, and across the lot, Sara headed over with a greeting, a wave of her hand before she got close enough to speak. “Hey, I was heading into town, you wanted to come? Can hook you up with some clothes and such.” 

You look down at your outfit. Wearing a woman's named Wanda's shorts, and wearing the oversized tee that you had a feeling belonged to Steve, knotted at your side so it wouldn't fall almost to your knees. “I would but... well I didn't come with anything. I don't have any cash or such.” You tried to shrug off your situation and Sara dug in her pocket pulling out a card. “Steve dropped this off to me this morning, and we know Alphas don't take no for an answer. Might as well come along and get what you want.” 

“I don't know...” You started, rubbing at your arm. “Steve didn't exactly say I could leave the grounds. And I don't want to upset the Alpha already.” Sara frowned and shook her head, smiling. “Trust me, Steve isn't like that at all. He won't mind, I know he wants you to have what you need while you're here. If you want, I can call him? I know Sams got his phone on him, and they went up together to the lot.” 

You finally give in, and finish off the last swallow of your coffee. “Okay, I trust you. Give me five and I will be ready to go.” You pop back in the house and Sara comes up the steps, following you in to wait. Going to the bathroom, your finger brushes your hair, glancing around to see if Steve happened to keep a comb or something. Probably in his room, but you weren't risking that again. 

<Chicken shit> your little wolf snickered, and you rolled your eyes at your reflection, muttering under your breath. “your such a bitch.” 

<Sure we are> sharp yips echoing in your mind as laughter. Deeming yourself looking fine, you come back out, lifting the back of your shorts back up as they slid down a bit, scowling. “Clothes are desperately needed. These are just too big.” 

“That's the spirit” Sara loped and arm through yours, and ou two headed out of the cabin and to a vehicle that Sara dug keys out of her back pocket. You two headed out of the compound, and you couldn't help a bit of the panicked feeling, which Sara must have picked up on. Your breathing and heart race both lifting slightly. “Hey, I promise he's okay with this. Giving a nod, and taking a deep breath, your little wolf shook out her nerves before settling back down. 

<Steve won't hurt us.> Stated so sincerely and with conviction, you let yourself agree, and settled in the seat, taking in the scenery and Saras talking about how she and Sam met. You couldn't help but smile to yourself listening, it was apparent how much she loved her mate. For the first time in a long time, you just did something as normal as hanging out and shopping. You were happy, as well as your little wolf, although there was the occasional pining for Steve, which you promptly continued shutting that down with frustration. If you don't stop, I'm throwing up the maze for you to work through... 

<You got enough, let's go home.> prancing in places, her tail wagging at the idea. You couldn't help but smile at how happy your wolf side was now. There wasn't cowering aggression constantly rippling through you anymore. Soon, we will head back to the cabin. 

<Home.>

Maybe home. Were not sure yet. 

<After tonights run, it will be home.> you're yanking a shirt off over your head, retorting back. Its been a whole day, and who knows if we're still being hunted? You are so damn ready to bond with this male, and then what? That's it. This is where we will always belong.

<What's wrong with that?>

Before you could even answer your wolf, or pause Sara at the dressing room door since you were distracted between the two simultaneous happenings at the same time, the door open. "So I thought this color- oh sweetie" she gasped at your back. Grabbing the shirt you had just pulled off and holding it to your front, trying to spin out of sight, but this is a dressing room, and there was no hiding from all the mirrors behind you. 

"Are you okay?" Sara is sure to close the door and you still clutching the shirt. "Who did that to you?"

"It doesn't matter.... " shame floods your face and your little wolf whines while wrapping around herself, a soft quivering ball in your mind going down your spine. "Please... Don't say anything, I don't want anyone knowing." I don't want Steve knowing. 

Sara breathed out and her gaze went from the mirror to your face, that looks of sadness just bringing more shame. Her hands came up to cup your face and make you look at her. “I won't say anything, it is your story to tell. But if you want to, I'm right here. Steve too, he would want to know.” You wolf whined at his name, the feeling of yearning rolling through your chest, to have him see you and not turn away. But your last Alpha deemed you useless to mate, to marked with bites to bond with anyone. Why being collared and sold was your only option. 

“Thanks Sara... I think I'm ready to head back.” You say softly and go to pick up your shirt and slip it back on, all the memories and feelings slipping back darkly in your eyes. 

Sara gathered up the clothing you had picked, worried features pinching her face. “Let me just ring these up sweetie and we will head on home.” 

Miles away Steve stood to survey the damn delimber they used to clean the logs, arms folded over his chest until he lifted a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, cursing. Sam, he's underneath it, hands up in the machine, looking at parts. 

“Mmmhh, Just as I thought, they stuck that oversized pine into it and jammed it all up. These parts are gonna take at least a couple weeks to replace.” He rolled out from underneath and stood, brushing off his backside. 

“Standstill?” Steve asked, his headache starting to form at his temples. Not that they would be financially strapped, but there was a large order coming in, and they had won the bid to fulfill it. Steve always made sure to deliver on time, and this set back might be pushing that back, in any business, it was all about the name and word of mouth. Something he had worked fucking hard on in the years he's been Alpha. 

“Not quite, gonna be a bitch though. Clean them up by hand, it will be slow though.” Sam stated honestly, and rubbed the back of his neck, a slight bit of hesitation in his voice. “Or, you can contact Stark, see if he has the parts on hand. I know you've been wanting to drive up there to discuss Nat and Clint coming back from there internship in New York.” 

Steve remained silent, staring at the broken piece of machinery, willing it to be fixed. <If you study that thing any harder, you are gonna give us a migraine.> His wolf huffed, impatient. The beast didn't like staying still, studying, thinking. Wanting action, to do something, anything besides just staring. Well what do you think we should do, wait on the parts, or ask Stark Towers for help? 

<I think you should just get done this crap and let's go home to our mate. I bet shes back now, and just as ready to see you.> The wolf stated smugly, is no help in his current predicament. 

You know what... So am I. Checking his watch, he decided it was time to just call it a day. All of this, well it would be a problem to deal with in the morning. Maybe that would bring him the answer he needed. “Let's pack it up Sam, it's getting late, and I can think about which we should do.��� 

Sam broke out in a relieved grin, grabbing some of the tools he had used, and tossed them in the back of the pickup. “I'm not gonna say no to that. Sara sent me a message that she was done shopping with Y/N, and they were headed back.” Grabbing the walkie off the passenger seat, he pushed the button, hearing it crackle then turn to a hollow soft hum, he spoke telling everyone they were knocking off early and shut it all down. The woods slowly stopped humming with the sound of machines miles away in another lot. Another cackle with a “Sure thing Wilson” and it went silent. 

Hearing that You had spent a day out shopping made Steve warm, blossoming with soft happiness swirling from his stomach and up to his neck, turning his ears red at the thought of you twisting in a mirror to see all of you. Now he wished he was there handing you the clothes, have you model for him, see the way your eyes would light up and your cheeks bloom pink with his compliments. Of course his wolf appreciated the visual image, pressing for more control, making Steve get behind the wheel with Sam and drive just a bit faster back. 

When is the last time we've been excited to return home? Steve considered, fingers thrumming on the steering wheel as they pulled off the logging road to Route 2, speeding along to The Compounds entrance. 

<It's been a while since life's been this good.> The large wolf shook himself out, itching for the little wolf at home. <Full Moon run we will get to see her set free for the first time.> 

That made Steve smile more thinking about getting to see you shift. Having only seen you once, your wolf had been a beauty to him. Long-legged for swift travels that wolves in the south typically had. You were still smaller in size next to the northern packs such as there pack was, with a long slender muzzle that ended in a pointed nose. Large eyes that at the time were fearful. This time he hoped to see the joy in them. 

When Steve and Sam parked the truck, the two men stepping out and discussing tomorrow's plans for the crew tomorrow, Steve inhaled your scent, and whipped his head around, searching. Upon the front porch, both You and Sara are lounging in the deck chairs, feet kicked up on the railing, and a glass of iced tea in each of your hands, laughing together. Neither of you realized that that the men were back, but as they approached, Sara dropped her feet and jumped up to lean over the railing, see them. “Well look what old mutts finally arrived back! we've been waiting for you.” Sam paused and his hands went to his hips. 

“Woman, you gonna come say hello, or am I gonna have to come up there and drag you down?” A wide grin flashed her teasing, and she skipped down the stairs and raced over to him, jumping in his arms to give him a racy kiss and playful ones all over his face. “Missed you Stud.” That just made Sam grin, and let her fall back to her feet, her arm wrapping around him. Steve in the meantime walked up the steps, and you to had come to a stand to welcome the Alpha home. 

<I can tell you how to welcome him home. Look at him! He wants you to be all his like those two.>

Please give it a rest! You plead as you take in the sight of Steve coming up the porch steps, his hair a mess, they tee clung to his chest where he must have sweated at some point. Yes, yes he did, cause that just barely hit you too. Normally someone's scent would make you pull back a bit, but not his. It warmed through you, screaming MAN in your mind. Healthy and strong, your Little Wolf appreciated it, rumbling out. <Alpha, even in human form. He certainly wouldn't tire easily...> Teasing lilt to her tone. 

God your really a bitch.

Steve was looking you up and down, once he saw your outfit, his gaze seemed pleased at the choice you made, and although simple, nothing more than a pair of denim shorts, and still that men's tee tied in a knot just a few inches above the top of your shorts, he seems to fully approve of the relaxed look. “Do you want me to go get you a beer? Or make an iced tea like Sara and I are having?” 

“No, I got it. I heard you went out with Sara. I hope you were able to get everything you needed?” 

“Oh yes, thank you... you didn't have to do that Steve. But I appreciate it.” his wolf rumbled happily hearing you, and although the two of you weren't touching, you were close enough that Steve could just reach out, brush fingers along the curve of your face, grasp your chin... Enough! 

<Shes close, see the way her eyes are taking us in? She sees were strong and would protect her. If you would just make the first fucking move!>

“It was not a problem Y/N, nothing I wouldn't do for anyone.” and your eyes seemed to shut off a bit, pull back at Steve's words, leaving his wolf growling and snapping at Steves behavior. Giving an awkward nod as he reached for the door, Steve escaped inside, and you breathed out a held breath, a bit taken aback from his comment. 

Your Little Wolf paces now unsettled, nuzzling into you as she knows your upset feeling. <He cares, he's just afraid of pushing you.> so calmly said, you sink into your thoughts. I don't know, maybe I misread the situation. Besides, this is what I wanted. Nobody special, I'm just a member of this pack. You glance at the closed door. <No you haven't! Just wait, the run will prove it. I feel his wolf calling to me. Why do you keep lying to me?> You have nothing to respond with, and turn your attention to Sam and Sara coming up on the porch. Sam sat in Sara's previous chair, and Sara perching on his lap, falling right back into conversation with You. You make yourself pay attention, ignoring Steve's comment from earlier. Or trying to. 

On the other side of the door, Steve leaned against it, cursing under his breath. “Son of a fucking bitch, why did I say that?” he pulls away and tugs off his dirty shirt, balling it up and as he went into the bedroom, he tossed it with frustration at the hamper, still mentally cursing himself out for the sheer awkwardness that made him up. 

<I don't know either, I mean you just let me take over, your mate wouldn't be out on the stoop now trying to figure out your mixed fucking signals.> 

Opening his closet door, Steve grabbed a plain grey tee and tugged it on. And what do you know about any of this? She's here for protection, not to be my next anything. He snapped back as he headed into the bathroom, and ran the water to let it warm up. Soaping his hands and scrubbing vigorously before cupping to splash water in his face. <Well I know enough not to let her think she's not wanted> The large wolf roared back in frustration and as Steve dried his face, and looked up in the mirror, he stared back at yellow eyes staring back at him, not his usual blue. The wolf was pissed off, and threatening to finish taking control. Grasping the edge of the sink, he let his head dip so he didn't have to see it anymore, dragging in air deeply and letting it out slowly. The next time he glanced at himself, all was normal. The wall he slammed up in this mind would control his beast... for now. 

On his way back out, he grabbed two beers from the fridge and stepping out on the porch, he rejoined the three of them, handing Sam the beer before leaning back against the railing. The two women were animated talkers, telling Sam all about there shopping trip. Steve admired how your hands would wave in the air, and your head would tip back, long tresses of hair falling down your back as you laughed. The anger he felt dissipated in your presence, and you would look up at him with a grin, and what he wouldn't do to be the one making you feel this way. 

“And here we are.” Sara leaned back against Sam's chest, taking his beer bottle and taking a drag off it. “Y/N, how you feeling about the run tonight?” The Little Wolf pranced joyfully to be able to run in a pack again, and you hug around yourself for a moment, Steves eyes flicking to see the defensive move you made, even your scent changed slightly to him. Tinged with fear, although your smile remained on your face. “Excited, it has been a while since I've been able to do something like that. A long while... “ You drifted off and picked up the iced tea glasses. “Excuse me please.” You dipped inside and Steve pushed off the railing, taking another drag of beer. 

“Meet up with you two later?” Steve went towards the door, and Sam picked up on what he was saying, tapping Sara's thighs. “Come on Baby, how about you come to show me what you bought.” The two of them standing, Sara bit her lip and looked towards where you had disappeared. “Steve....” Sara drifted off, and Steve looked over his shoulder with an arched brow at the woman. She waved it off suddenly and went down the remaining stairs. “See you later.” Taking Sam's hand, the two-headed off. 

Weird... Steve popped open the door and went inside to see you remaking more teas. “They headed on back home till later tonight.” He let his elbows leaning on the counter while you paused. “Don't worry, I will take Saras.” Reaching out to take it, you chuckle just as he took a swallow and winced. 

“I haven't put the bit of sugar in it yet Steve.” Chuckling as you took it back and sprinkled some in. “I would have said goodbye if I known.” 

“You will see her again in just a bit,” Steve started and watched as you finished making yours. “Y/N earlier when we were discussing the run, were you okay?” The wolf perked back up at this, his ears straining towards the woman, silent though. They were both vividly aware of her nervousness at the question. 

“Sure Steve. Wh-Why do you ask?” You are not looking at him, seeming to avoid his gaze, watching with interest at the glass before you, the spoon spinning the liquid around and around. Steve reached forward once more and took the glass from you, and set it aside. 

“Y/N, please look at me.” His voice was different this time, and Steve could see the inner battle crossing your face. A bit stubborn? You have been nothing but compliant since you've arrived, and this surprised him a bit. <Tell her again, we have to find out what's wrong.> Steve tilted his head though instead and tried to catch your gaze, his tone sterner this time. This was absolute. Your Little Wolf wouldn't let you disobey him anymore. “Y/N, look at me?” This time he saw your features smooth and you did look up at him. “because you smelled of fear, If you are afraid to do this, You don't have to.” Pushing off the bar, he instinctively circled the counter to stand near you, a hand lightly touching your arm, hoping that you would be able to answer him. 

“Sorry, yes, I'm very excited about this. I haven't... I haven't been allowed to run with a pack in over a year.” You tried explaining, and Steve frowned at this. Being denied to run with your pack? It was everything a wolf craved, the closeness, working together. Steve had never thought of denying any of the packs the right to run together, and his wolf growled with a bristle of fur along his spine. <What kind of Alpha is this? He doesn't lead a pack with honor, denying his wolves the run.> Steve let it sink in that you've been semi-isolated as a wolf. 

<We need her to tell us everything that this Alpha is doing, selling wolves, denying the run... what else could the Alpha have done to her?> 

We will see if she tells us. 

“Y/N, why would he deny that to you?” Steve asked and you wrinkled your nose to keep from letting your emotions take over. Picking up your glass and taking a swallow, you set it back down, your nails tapping against it. “Because I was to be collared and sold. I was kept away from the pack with the other unmated wolves. That way we wouldn't find a partner in the run. He would lose his income.” You wipe at your face and ask softly. “Please... can you release me? Let me look away.” 

It took a minute till it clicked for Steve that you were serious, your eyes big and round staring at him, shining with held back tears, he suspected now from being forced to listen. “Of course, you can do whatever you want Y/N, you don't have to look at me anymore.” And you lost the rigid attention, seeming to sink in on yourself. Head bowed, shoulders dropped a bit with a shudder. Taking your glass of iced tea, you skirted around Steve, keeping your voice low “Was there anything else you needed right now Alpha?” 

“No... no. We will come to find you for the run in a couple of hours.” How hard did he restrain himself from reaching out to touch you, give comfort at your unease. But you didn't seek it, and he wasn't going to force it on you. Promptly you disappeared to your room. Once you were out of sight, Steve didn't look away from your door, processing everything he had just learned. 

<Her free will had been taken away... She would have obeyed us if we told her to harm herself.> His wolf whined out, ears pinned back against his skull at the unease of the situation.  

Why we will not use that on her again if we can help it... and it's time to find out more about this pack. Pulling out his phone from his pocket, and sent a text to Bucky explaining what he needed to be done. He received a simple text back with a “Done” and set his phone aside. It also reminded Steve he needed to get back with Stark about his wolves on an intern with him. If the twins Natasha and Clint were back, he would have sent them. Glancing outside, Steve noticed the moon starting to edge over the lake, and he found solace in that. At least he could be the one to give her the first run in over a year. And tonight's moon looked like a Super Moon, large glowing orb that would recharge them. Tonight will be a good night... 

Later you heard a knock on your door and you stirred in your bed. “Y/N, it's time... “ Steve poked his head in and flashed a grin of excitement that made him almost child-like. Swinging your legs off the bed, you can't help but catch that excitement, and stretch out any kinks in your back. Your Little Wolf started hopping and slapping her front paws in anticipation, just feeding your mood. 

“I'm kinda nervous” You breath out as you pass Steve, and head for the door, you're biting your lip as you look over your shoulder at him, grinning. Any discomfort from your earlier conversation just seems magically gone as both of you slip more into the wolves personas. As you opened the door, Steve came up behind you, tickling along your hips. Laughing, you sprang out of reach and leaped off the porch, and spun on your feet in the soft grass to face him, smirking as you looked up at him tugging off his shirt to toss it aside. Your breath sucked in, and fingers flexed wanting to drag your hands across his pecs, through the hair dusting down beyond his slightly softer stomach. Even your Little Wolf stopped her exciting dance, licking her muzzle with a sweep of her tongue, whimpering. 

<Y/N....> whining out and you whimpered yourself inwards, taking a teasing step back from the Alpha who started to stalk you playfully down the steps. Trust me, I see... You bolt away before he can even reach you, racing down the path where you see other people similarly playing with each other, Steve was quick to catch you, and swinging you up where he grasped your waist, your feet kicking out and laughing. Prying at his fingers, you growled at him with flashing wolf eyes. “You don't seem too nervous right now Y/N, growling at your Alpha,” Steve stated against your ear, inhaling deeply against your neck while setting you down, and your dancing away from him, your legs stretching and twisting, making you itch to shift. Your breathing was coming out in rushes at being so close, pressed against the wall of his chest, his scent having washed over you and making your body ache for so much more. 

<You can have more if you let him. I told you he wanted you.>

He's caught up like I am in the full moon, that's all it is. The Little Wolf snaps a bit at you in frustration.  

Steve pulled up quick to admire you dancing through the moonlight, your head tipped back to be washed in the light, your eyes shimmering in the wolfish way as they reflected the moonlight when you looked back at him. <Shes so beautiful Steve, this is the way she's supposed to be. Your mate, dancing in the moonlight.> And Steve really couldn't rebut the Wolf's observation at this moment. “You haven't given me a reason to be.” You turn and say simply, and before he could respond, Sara came jogging over, Wanda in tow. “Were stealing out girl here!” Sara sass's while booking an arm through Your arm, and Wanda takes over the other side, smirking at Steve, who's folding his arms over his chest. 

“Oh really, and what if I say no?” Steve retorts. Leaving Sara snorting at him, the two women already dragging you away. “Since when do we listen to you?” Slight amount of panic races through you. <He didn't say we could go Y/N, you have to go back before he gets angry!> and you're about to pull away from the women to return to the Alpha. 

Steve watched as Sara and Wanda started to lead you away when he saw your back tense up and the way you glanced at him over your shoulder. Even your scent was once more tinged with fear, now picking up that sharp sting in his inhale that mingled with your usual honeysuckle softness. Before his wolf could point out the obvious to him, he nodded at you, letting you know it was okay, you were safe to go. It was immediate, the change of relief, and you turned back to follow along with Wanda and Sara to join other women, as was how their pack started to run. 

Breathing in deeply, it surprised Steve how easily he was able to follow you, easily picking you out of the other mingled scents that made up the pack, and content that you were safe, excited and he would be seeing you within a few minutes, he decided it was officially time to start. Not bothering to go down to the lower field where the males were showing off moments of bravado and boasting as large groups of the male species did, Steve lost the last of his clothing and started to let the wolf take over. Although uncomfortable, it was fairly quick for shifters. Their bodies melding from human to wolf. When he opened his eyes again, the world was different, the night now belonged to him and he was more than ready to claim it. The silver beast tossed his head back and paid homage to the moon, officially starting the pack run. Answers called back, some as sharp yips and others as low dragged out songs. 

You had never met Wanda, but her scent was familiar as the borrowed clothes. Just as with anyone you've met so far aside from Bucky, she introduced herself and that was it, you were her packmate and she treated you as if she's known you for years. “We better be quick.” She states as she lets you go and starts tugging at her clothing, yanking it off without any hesitation, and the others around you are doing the same. A bit more tentative, trying to keep your back hidden you start doing the same. Tossing a shirt and dragging down your pants, already Sara has shifted, a sleek black wolf and Wanda is right behind her, and red wolf stretching out with long front legs stretching behind her, head was thrown back to the moon. Sara tilts her head towards you waiting as Steves howl starts. Soon you're surrounded by howling wolves, and your own Little Wolf is pushing to join. 

Releasing her, she was quick to take over and your howls are dipping right in with the rest. A ripple went through the pack, as haunches coiled underneath and a wave of wolves leaped forward, moving into the forest beyond The Compound. Sara waved her tail, and you to stretched out to run alongside her, brushing up against her as the two of you worked in sync, soon passing others on your left and right. It's not long before the larger males join, weaving among the females, snapping at them in play, out of the corner of your eye, you can see Sara pull up, and twist into a mottled brown wolf. Recognizing Sam from the day before. She leaped at her mate, brushing up against him and nipping under his chin. The pair weaved around each other, fondly biting each other's ruffs and showing affection in the way wolves do. 

Your fast run slowed to a jog, letting your nose lead you now. Once in awhile another wolf would brush up against you, enticing you in play. Slapping front paws against the pine needles, tail high in the air, waving above you like a flag before you two would charge at one another. This, this is what you missed when with your previous pack. How your Little Wolf leads you two through the night with fleeting bursts of speed. Your howl, rang clear as a bell being struck through the night. 

Steve cocked his head listening to the wolves' cries, picking you out right away, the large Alpha spun in place, his nose high in the air, seeking... until he found you. With a loose jog, he followed the tail like bread crumbs, his tongue lolling out to taste the air, and a swipe over his muzzle like a beast getting ready for dinner. Finally he saw you, teasing another packmate with leaps and bounds, back and forth chasing one another through the brush. You twisted away from yawning jaws and snapped back in play till you saw Steve. Shaking out your fur vigorously, your ears perked at him, yellow eyes flashing in the darkness at him. Rolling forward into a lope, you packed up to him, and lowered to your belly in submission to your Alpha, sidling up underneath his chin, and licking nibbling at him. The wolf softened, and nuzzled back, gentle as he bit the top of your muzzle, accepting that you now belonged to him, his packmate as well.

So easily the wolves accepted each other, now if only the humans could as well.  

Once he let go, you nipped playfully at his ear, tugging it and brushing alongside, the two of you bounding off as a pair, soon catching up with the rest and bypassing them as well. The only other pair matching you two was Sara and Sam, long-legged leaps eating up the ground, you couldn't pass up the challenge that the two of them gave, and with a burst of speed, you pulled away from the large silver wolf matching you, your legs stretching and claws barely grazing the pine needles before they flew out again, Sam huffed at being beaten watching your tail whisk at him with a laughing bark from you. 

The Alpha had never seen anything quite like it, Sam had many years ago earned the nickname Falcon for his speed, but here you were, outpacing him easily. Your sleek fur brushing back, and your muzzle sharp and streamlined you. Like a bird of prey spiraling into a dive, you twisted in the air once you got to the border, paralleling yourself along no man's land, the rest of the pack came up from behind. Soon you eased up, falling back to pace with Steve, your nose low to the ground, tracking the border scent. Half the pack weaved out to the right, the large group ominous to any that might challenge them. Steve relaxed into your touch every time you weaved back into him, your scents now intermingling, becoming as much as an imprint on others as it was on you. You were now officially part of the mountains, losing the scent of your old pack life. 

It was early hours when the pack returned to The Compound, weaving among each other, tiredly pacing with each other. Adults carried pups from the scruff if they were small enough, heads hanging low enough that the pups backsides would bounce a time or two off the soft grass, even Steve is carrying one back, the pups yawning, and blue eyes blinking sleepily up at him, licking at his chin before his head flops down to give a tiny snore. You follow along next to Steve, chuckling at the dangling pup. Soon his mother comes and collects him, bounding off towards home. 

Home... what a thought for you. You never really expected any place to feel like home, but as you pause going up the wooden steps, Steve not far behind, you watch as the rest of the pack settle down wherever they were content. A few stayed outside, circling one another in mismatched pairs, tucking head over another's back, and giving a sigh. Some returned home, Sara and Sam trotted past, still playfully nipping at one another and giving a yip in greeting before they went towards there own cabin. Steve brushed past you, mouthing your ear with affection before he went inside, you right behind, and to your room. The human persona edging for control again and a leap sent you into bed. 

You were laying there, right on the edge of a deep sleep when a hand muffled over your mouth and a sneering face loomed over you, whispering. “Make a fucking noise, and your throat is ripped out before I die.” Your eyes go wide in panic, and your hands go to claw at his chest, trying to push away. Where was Steve?!?! Your Little Wolf is snarling, pushing to shift but to exhausted from the run earlier, and your body ripples in the frustration and pain, causing you to tell out before your back to your human self. Outside you hear loud snarls of wolves fighting each other and the man cursed, that's when it clicks it's the Tracker on your trail just a couple of days ago. Grabbing you by the arm to drag you out. 

Steve is sound asleep when his senses tingle. <Intruder... someone is in the house.> His eyes shot open, and quiet as he moves to get up, yanking on a pair of sweats near the bed. Soft steps send him to the door, and his wolf is bristling in silence, honed in for any noise that might be made by the individual. It certainly wasn't anyone he knew but did carry your old scent. That's when he heard the scramble in your room, and he burst into the hallway, your scream of pain making his fist slam against the door. The door was thrown to embed into the wall, and the man had his arm fisted around your neck, wrenching your head back, you're trying to connect a fist or foot at him to release you, and Steve takes this all in a glance before he's tackling at the man, ripping him to release you, where you fall to the ground, trying to drag air back in your lungs and coughing. 

Now Steve has the upper hand, dragging the man from his house, his oversized hands wrapped along the back of his neck, ready to snap it with a twist the other fisted in his shift to haul him along. Kicking his front door open, outside was a whole other scene. Bucky must have caught the second intruder, the lookout outside the cabin as he was returning home from his time in the town. Blood streaked down his white chest and along the side of his muzzles, the wolf at his feet dead. Steve snarled in the man's ear. “You better start fucking talking or that's going to be you in five seconds.” Fingers digging in threat along the back of his neck just above the spine, the man tried twisting in his hold at an attempt to save his life. “NOW TRESPASSER" 

“She's not yours! My brother and I were told to bring her back to our Alpha. He didn't release her, you cant lay any kind of claim to her. “ The man's voice panicked, eyes rolling up at Steve looming above him. “It's our job, our Alphas command.” Just as he's saying this, you step out onto the porch, tears streaming down your face. You knew this was what would happen, Pierce never let anyone get away from him, not unless it was with death or from a sale. Steve happened to see you, and lowly growled out. “Go back inside Y/N....” But you took another step forward to descend the stairs. His anger at the situation left Steve roaring out. “Right Now" and you had to listen. Your wolf couldn't disobey her Alpha, and you raced back inside, the door yawning open to show the darkness of the interior. Now that Steve was sure you were away from the men, the pack coming out to gather around, Sam racing up alongside Bucky to kneel near the dead wolf and inspect him. 

“I have a message for your Alpha, the only reason I'm not killing you,” Steve growled out as he twisted his hand, strength making the man cry out. How easy would it be to snap his neck right now. “Tell your Alpha if he wants her, he has to come to get her from me.” Tossing him away to sprawl against his dead brother, Bucky snapping right at his face, spit and blood scattering across the man's face like splatter, leaving him blinking in shock at the white wolf. Steve snarled out. “Get out of here, and be sure to haul your brother away to. Count yourself fucking lucky. If you come back, I will rip your throat out.” Sam and a few others ready to escort them right out of town. Bucky sighed almost wearily as they marched away, and Steve dropped a hand to his friends back. “Thank you Buck.” The white wolf eased away, leaving Steve alone. 

Inside your panicking, your chest aching and pacing around. Steve came in to find you wide-eyed, his shift hanging loosely whipping around you as you snap back and forth between the kitchen and living room, there wasn't much space in between so if you went like that for long, sure to wear a hole in the floor. 

<Go to her... she needs to know it's okay, that you are here to protect her.>

“Y/N... “ Steve starts, but you snap out instead. 

“I knew, I knew this would happen. I didn't go far enough, I should have gone further north. He's coming, he's coming to destroy you all and drag me back. I can't fucking believe I caused this, Fuck fuck fuck, Steve I'm so sorry I brought this on.” 

Before you could continue, you twist to go the other way and slam into Steve's bare chest, his hands wrapping around you. You are momentarily struck into confusion, pulling away, but his voice is soft against your ear, calling you to attention. “Hush, you didn't do anything wrong, and nothing is going to happen to us. Let him come... the man needs to be removed from what he did to you what he is doing.” Your panting as your forehead least against the center of his chest, and he loosens his hold now that you are not fighting him, keeping it loose around you. 

“I shouldn't have brought it to your doorstep, Steve.” You cry out softly, unable to hold it back anymore. Warm tears fall on his chest, and he rumbles softly. 

“I'm fucking glad you did Y/N.” He allowed himself to let his head drop to press a kiss at the crown of your head. Let them try to claim you...  

<Oh yes... please let them try.> The Silver Wolf grinned in the darkness of his mind, wickedly curved canines flashing white, just waiting to be used. 

Tags- @what-is-your-plan-today @p8tn0lish @official-and-unstable-satan @kimisama1989 @stardancerluv @patzammit @princess-evans-addict @alexakeyloveloki @ayamenimthiriel @irishflutiegirl @fallenoutofrose @caffiend-queen @southerngracela​ @bigandprettyyyy @djeniiscorner​ @irespostthingsiwanttoseelater  @rinkashirikitateku

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

When We Went From Friends to This - a. beauvillier

One day late, but here it is! I’ve been studying for the LSAT, but finally took it today, so I’ll have some more time to be writing more regularly now. Title is from Taylor Swift’s Paper Rings. I loved getting to write this, so please please let me know what you think, my inbox is always open! Reading the tags is one of my favorite things to do, and reblogs help me know people are liking my work.

word count: 7.7k+

September 18 (sat)

Astride Leclair was the kind of person you always wanted on your side. She’d drop anything for a friend, always be the first to reach out, and would never give up on something — or someone — without a fight. She was also incredibly stubborn. Astride had also always had a penchant for adventure, which is how she found herself in a new job 600 miles and one international border from her hometown. And she hated asking for help, it really didn’t matter the circumstance. Which is how she found herself alone, trying to heft an armchair up the stairs of her new apartment building after being very rudely informed by the width of the elevator door that it wasn’t going to fit. 

The lump sum her firm gave her for relocation was enough to cover a fair amount of the furniture for her new place and she tried to bring as much as she could on the drive down, but it wasn’t like she was about to rent a U-Haul and there was only so much a Honda Civic could hold. And Astride was still her father’s daughter, still would rather step on a rusty nail than pay Ikea for assembly, so by God she was going to do it herself. And “doing it herself” apparently meant dragging an 80 pound box up three flights of stairs in 90º heat in September, when New York City seemed to have not quite yet gotten the memo that the rest of the Northern Hemisphere was now in fall. 

Astride finally managed to get the chair in the door, propping the door open with one of her moving boxes, unceremoniously pulling the box through the entryway as she scooted backwards into the living room. The 600 square foot expanse of her apartment was covered in boxes, more boxes, and for good measure, extra boxes. There were moving boxes, furniture boxes, shoeboxes filled with anything except for actual shoes. There was her guitar leaning against the microwave, three suitcases worth of clothes in the barely-assembled bedroom, and her dog in a crate in the corner, who had started to whine. 

“I know, baby, I’ll get you out soon,” Astride said, shooting a sympathetic glance towards the beagle mix. She had adopted Poutine a little over a year ago, soon after starting her first job out of university. It was never a question whether or not she would make the trip with Astride, and thankfully it was much easier than she anticipated to find a dog-friendly apartment in Brooklyn. It wasn’t too long a walk to Prospect Park, a little under a mile, and she was looking forward to getting out with Poutine later in the day. If, that was, she actually finished unpacking enough boxes to function like a normal human being. She had picked up her mattress-in-a-box earlier in the day, but it was still sitting in the corner of her bedroom and she wasn’t particularly looking forward to a night on the hardwood floor. 

---

Three hours later, Astride had finally gotten all of the boxes out of her car and began to make decent headway on assembling the chair, finally having let Poutine out of her crate. The beagle trotted around the apartment, sniffing the baseboards, boxes, and single bag of groceries Astride had picked up from Whole Foods earlier in the day. The rest of her Ikea order was coming the next day, the actual bedframe and couch along with a couple of other larger furniture pieces that she had had to leave in Montréal. Whatever she couldn’t order online she’d find at a thrift store. 

Astride looked tiredly over at the kitchen. She really wasn’t in the mood to cook, and was in even less of a mood to dig through all the boxes until she finally found her set of pots and pans. She really should have taken her mom’s advice and labeled everything, but Astride was stubborn as a mule, and once she was stuck in her ways, there was precious little anyone could do to convince her otherwise. Pulling out her phone, she navigated to her Uber Eats, feeling a tiny pang in her heart as she switched her location to New York. Not the language, though. Astride was so hungry that she literally clicked on whatever place could get there the fastest, which ended up being a Chinese place a mile or so away. After placing her order — she got an extra box of chow mein so she wouldn’t have to deal with breakfast the next day — she settled back into the hair, the only fully-assembled piece of furniture in the whole apartment. Her finger hovered over her Instagram for a moment before she clicked on it, liking a few photos before going to post one of her own. It was a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge as she crossed it that morning, Poutine’s head lolling out the front window. One tap and one caption later, it was posted. 

---

Anthony flopped onto his bed, his duffel landing with a satisfying thump on the floor beside him. Training camp had just ended, and while he’d certainly been keeping up on his workouts over the summer, the hours upon hours of skating had nevertheless made him more than a little sore. He grabbed his phone, opening up Instagram and scrolling through the new posts, only half paying attention. Astride’s new photo caught his eye.

Sometimes, needing a change means a new haircut. Sometimes, it means a new country. Very excited to start this next chapter in my life. Salut, New York! Anthony quickly clicked onto her profile page and read her bio. International economics analyst. Eating my way through the world one pancake at a time. BCom McGill. MTL-NYC. He read the last line over and over again. MTL-NYC. He swiped back to the photo; she had tagged herself in Brooklyn. Brooklyn. She was less than an hour away, not even thirty if the traffic wasn’t bad. But she hadn’t told him, she hadn’t said anything. Anthony felt a pang in his heart. Astride knew who he played for — obviously — and she knew that of course he’d want to see her any time they were even remotely in the same place. She knew that. Right? 

He spent the next twenty minutes typing out a message to her. Then deleting it. Then retyping it. Then continuing the type-delete-retype cycle until his head was spinning. This was his best friend. Why was he so nervous to talk to her? Because she was his best friend, and as much as he hated to admit it, he really wasn’t sure where they stood. He hadn’t been sure for a long time. Hey Asty! He internally cringed at himself at the use of her old nickname. I saw you moved to New York, that’s amazing! I’m over on Long Island, so I’d love to catch up with you for coffee or something when you get a chance. It’s been too long :) 

It might have been a little petty — scratch that, it definitely was petty — but Astride didn’t respond to his text that night. She didn’t have read receipts on, thank God, but it sat in her messages, without response, like something she was too scared to confront. And she didn’t even know why. Okay, fine, she knew exactly why. She had moved and suddenly they were in the same city for the first time since they were kids and he was, had been, her best friend, but why now of all times? It’s not like he was never in Montréal during the year, or like they couldn’t have committed to a weekly FaceTime or something, or at least texted more than once a month. He could have done something. And that something, that lack of a something, was what kept her from responding until the next morning, tapping out a text as she halfheartedly made her way through a bowl of oatmeal. Hi, Tito, just saw your text! Lie. I did, an opportunity for a transfer came up and I decided to take it. I figured you were pretty close by, so it would be great to catch up. I don’t start at the office for a week, if you’re free any time between now and then. That much was true. She wasn’t stupid, she knew the Islanders played on, well, Long Island, and as much as she wanted to still hold a grudge against him, her heart ached at the prospect of finally being able to see him again. 

Anthony responded almost instantly, Astride having just closed the door to the dishwasher — a luxury in New York, she was told — before seeing her phone light up with the telltale bubble. I’d love to, we just finished up training camp so I’m more or less free aside from practices. A second later. Is brunch still your favorite meal?

Astride laughed. It didn’t surprise her that he remembered, but it was still touching to see him say something about it. It is.

How about Tuesday? I’ll send you the directions. It’s this little café in Flatbush, I think you’ll love it. 

I’m counting on it. 

September 26 (sun)

Brunch had turned into dinner, which had turned into going to a Broadway show — Anthony had insisted the moment she told him she’d never been — which had turned into him coming over for Saturday night movies, an old habit of the pair’s from their days back in Québec. Which had turned into two movies and two bottles of wine, which had turned into Tito sleeping over on the couch instead of driving the thirty-odd minutes back to his apartment. Poutine sniffed him curiously, nudging one hand with her head. Astride stifled a giggle, opening the door to the balcony. “He’s very sleepy, Poutine. It’s not good manners to wake up your guests.”

“Even when they fall asleep on your couch and steal all your blankets?” Anthony said sleepily from behind. 

Astride wheeled around, greeted by a half-awake Anthony Beauvillier, who was indeed bundled in all of the blankets she owned that weren’t actively on her bed. “Tito! Oh my God, you scared me. How’d you sleep?”

He shrugged. “Not bad, about as well as can be expected.” He tapped his phone, cursing when he realized it was dead. “Do you know what time it is?”

She glanced down at her watch. “8:52, why?”

Anthony jumped up, throwing his shirt back on and grabbing his still-dead phone. “I’m supposed to meet Mat for breakfast at 9:30, and the place is,” he paused for a moment, running through the grid system in his head, “probably half an hour away? I’m never the late one, can’t break that streak now.” 

“Gotcha.”

He grabbed his keys, looking back at her. “Why don’t you come? You’re already dressed, and you remember Mat, right?”

She wiggled her hand. “Kind of?” She crossed the room, letting Poutine back in. “You only want me for my charged phone and navigation system.”

“You got me,” he said, laughing. 

---

“You named your dog Poutine?” Mat snickered, taking a bite of his eggs. 

“Would you rather I named him Tim Horton?” Astride deadpanned. “He’s a good Canadian boy with a good Canadian mom. He needed a good Canadian name.” 

Mat raised his coffee mug, tilting it over towards her. “Touché.”

Anthony waved his hand in front of Mat’s face, trying to catch his attention from where he was utterly preoccupied with destroying his sourdough toast. “Hey, Mat.”

“Mmm?” He glanced up. 

“Did you know that Astride lives right by Barclays? Like, right by Barclays?” 

His eyebrows rose. “No way?” Astride nodded. “That’s a great area, would have been awesome if you were here a couple of years ago. Short walk to the games.”

“That’s what I told her yesterday,” Tito responded. 

---

“You’re kidding,” Anthony said, looking up at her building, then across the street to Barclays, then back to Astride, one hand tangling through his hair. “We used to play right across from here.” 

Astride laughed. “I thought about that,” she said. “You know I still watched your games, right? Even after we fell out of touch?” Anthony shook his head. “You were still someone I cared about, are still someone I care about, even when we only talked a few times a year.” 

Beau stood there, unable to formulate a complete sentence. As far as he knew, the last Islanders game she watched had been the 2016 opener, his NHL debut and her first year at McGill. Why did he assume that? Why did he assume the worst? You can care about people even when they’re not in your life anymore. And sometimes, if you get really, really lucky, they come back. 

October 9 (sat) 

“Ebs is having a barbeque thing over at his house this weekend, just stuff to celebrate the beginning of the season if you wanted to come. No pressure if you’ve got plans already, though,” Anthony said over the FaceTime. 

Astride nodded enthusiastically. “That sounds great, I’d love to come! Just let me know when to show up and what to bring, and I’ll be there.”

 It was almost a fifty-minute drive for Astride from her apartment in Prospect Heights to the house in Garden City, but there wasn’t too much traffic and besides, she had always liked driving. So she set off in her Civic, plugged her music in, and headed down 495. Anthony met her outside of the house, greeting her with a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek as he cocked his head towards the backyard. “Party’s this way. Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.” 

Astride dutifully followed, trying not to let her nerves take hold of her. Everyone might have already been Beau’s friends, but she didn’t know them, or the dynamic of everyone’s relationships, or really, what to expect at all. 

He noticed her apprehension, stopping her with a feather-light touch on her arm just before walking through the back gate. “Hey, Asty. What is it?” 

She let out a little huff, still upset that he could read her like a book even after all this time. “I’m just worried that I’ll feel like I’m intruding on everything, like everyone already has their friends and a group and everything, and here comes some random Québécoise who’s a friend of Tito’s—” 

He laughed, turning her around to face him. “Astride, they’re going to love you. As long as you’re the hilarious, witty, caring person I know you are, they’re going to love you as much as I do, and you’re going to fit in just fine. Do you trust me?” 

She gave a tiny nod. “Yeah.” 

He smiled, squeezing her hand. “Good, now come back, everyone’s waiting.” 

They walked through the gate, greeted by a crowd of smiling faces as Anthony brought her around to everyone to make their rounds. There was Anders, he was the captain, and his wife. There was Jordan and Lauren, and she already knew Mat, and JGP — who was excited to have another person to speak French to — and a dozen or so others, along with their respective partners and children. Anthony had gone over to talk to Mat and some of the other players, while Astride had wandered over to the drinks table. Some of the other women were chatting nearby; one of them caught Astride’s eye and waved her over to join them. 

“Beau didn’t tell us he was bringing anyone!” one of the women said, pulling her over to the group with a bright smile and handing her a glass of sangria. 

“Mhm,” she replied, taking a sip of the drink. “I’m new to the city, obviously, so I think he wanted me to have some people I know outside of just work.” 

They all nodded. “How long have you two been together, though?” another asked. “I didn’t even know he was seeing anyone, did you?” She looked around at the others, who shook their heads as Astride’s eyes bulged. 

“Together? No, no, we’re not together. We’ve been best friends for ages, but,” she shook her head. 

“Could have fooled me,” Lauren said with the smallest of winks. 

Astride suddenly became very interested in the floating berries in her sangria. She looked over at Anthony, who was throwing his head back, laughing at something one of the rookies had said, and smiled. But Lauren’s words kept lingering in the back of her mind. Could have fooled me. Okay, it wasn’t like it was the first time they had been mistaken for a couple; whenever she’d make the trip up to Shawingan to visit him when he was in the QMJHL, more than once she’d have to explain to his teammates that no, she wasn’t Beau’s girlfriend, they were just best friends who had known each other forever. Just best friends. 

Astride had always equated her lingering feelings for Anthony to the nostalgia of a childhood crush, the safety and security that came with remembering something from a time that seemed so simple and so easy. But childhood crushes didn’t last for ten years. And that wasn’t something she hadn’t wanted to come to terms with, something she’d been putting off for years if she was being honest with herself. 

“You didn’t tell me Astride was coming,” Mat commented, seeing her mid-laugh in conversation with the other girls. 

Anthony nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t have any plans for the weekend and I thought it would be nice to introduce her to everyone. I remember how shitty it felt to be in a new city away from your family, don’t want her to be lonely. Plus, I genuinely think she’ll fit in great with everyone.” 

Mat hummed his agreement. “She’s changed since Switzerland, don’t you think?” he asked appreciatively, referring to over five years ago, the last time he had seen her in person.

“Don’t even think about it,” Beau mumbled to Mat, seeing his eyebrows go so far up they were hidden in his hairline. 

“I see a hot girl, I appreciate a hot girl,” Mat shrugged. “But don’t worry, I won’t try anything. I know she’s off-limits.” 

The rest of the afternoon passed quicker than she would have thought, and after a few hours and more good conversations, it was time for Astride to leave. “Have a safe drive back,” Anthony said, giving her a hug. 

“I will,” she responded. 

He opened the driver’s side door for her. “I’m really glad you came, you know. Everyone liked you, you fit in great.” 

“It wasn’t all me,” she said, sliding into the seat, turning her head to Anthony to continue the conversation. “Everyone really did seem to go out of their way to make me feel included, I think they understood the feeling of moving to a whole new place without a big support system and wanted to do what they could to help mitigate that for me.” Astride consciously left out Lauren’s little comment, four words that had been bouncing around in her head for hours since they had been said. He didn’t need to know. She didn’t need him to know, it could confuse him and complicate things when they were just getting back into the rhythm of friendship, of being each other’s person. 

Anthony tapped his fingers on the car door. “I’m glad.�� 

“Me too.”

Beau went to sleep that night, Mat’s words bouncing around in his head. “I know she’s off-limits.” It’s not like Cass was his sister or something, someone who would inherently be barred from his best friend’s dating pool. But Mat seemed to know right away, without having ever been told, that she wasn’t someone he could ever even consider pursuing. Why? And what did Mat seem to know that he didn’t?

November 12 (fri)

It was early November, and Anthony and Astride had just settled down at a table in Prospect Park, coffee cups warming their hands through the late fall chill. “How do you feel about last night?” Astride asked teasingly. He had a three point game, two goals and an assist in a 4-1 win over the Canes, so there really wasn’t any question that he was still riding on the high. 

Beau rolled his eyes. “Good, obviously. It would have been nice to get a hat trick, but I know that’s asking for a lot and I didn’t want to tempt fate too much. They made a really good push late in the second.”

“But you won,” she said, poking his shoulder with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her mocha. 

“But we won,” he agreed. He suddenly got quiet, the kind of quiet where, if you know the person well enough, you can tell that something’s up. That they’re thinking of something. And Astride was right. “Do you ever think about Switzerland?” he asked. 

Astride looked at him from the side, knowing right away that he wasn’t asking about the country. “All the time,” she admitted. 

---

It was the spring of 2015, and they were in Lucerne. By they, Astride meant her, Tito, and the rest of the 2015 Canadian U18 World Cup team. And by in Lucerne, she meant crowded into someone’s hotel room with no adult supervision. Anthony wasn’t sure where any of the coaching staff had gone, but if he was being honest, he was riding on way too big of a high to even care. They had clinched the bronze medal earlier that day, celebrating with the family and friends who had made the trip out, gotten dinner, and then packed into the first team room they came to. Well, technically, Astride, Tito, and Mat had made a stop at the grocery store before meeting everyone else back in the room. The drinking age in Switzerland was 16 for everything but spirits, and everyone was planning on taking full advantage of that. The cashier gave them a look as she took her and Anthony’s French licenses and Mat’s English one, but the charge went through just fine, and fifteen minutes later they were walking back through the doorway with three cases of beer and a few bottles of sparkling wine for good measure. Astride had never been so grateful to have her own checking account. 

“You ever drink before?” Mat asked her as they opened the cases. 

Astride shrugged. “Not really. A glass of wine every now and again back home with my parents, but nothing too crazy.” 

He held out a bottle for her, fishing around in his pocket for the bottle opener they had picked up at the store. “Have fun.” 

And have fun Astride did. She had finished off two of the beers, and one of the younger teammates — she didn’t remember who — had popped open the wine. In his slightly inebriated state, it took longer than it should have to twist off the muselet, which then led to foam all over the floor and fifteen sixteen and seventeen-year-olds running to the bathroom to grab towels to try and mop it up with. And then running back to the bathroom to get the water glasses because they needed something to drink it out of, right? And then to everyone else’s rooms because they quickly realized that two cups definitely wasn’t enough to go around, and then everyone was back in the room, on the beds and around the beds, finally letting themselves celebrate. Astride was just finishing her glass when Mat spoke. “Anyone up for never have I ever?” Nobody said otherwise, so two minutes later, they were all arranged in what could very generously be called a circle, fresh drinks in hand. After a solid five minutes of repeating the rules — there was always at least one person who seemed to genuinely struggle with the idea that you drank if you had done the thing, not if you hadn’t — they were slowly but surely making their way around the circle. 

Questions ranged from the mundane — “Never have I ever gotten detention” — to the raunchy — “Never have I ever had my parents walk in on me” — neither of which Astride or Tito drank to. 

By the time it was Mat’s turn, he had had plenty of time to think, looking around the group with a conspiratorial grin. “What is it?” Tito asked skeptically. 

He shrugged. “Never have I ever...kissed anyone in the circle.” As expected, nobody drank, but apparently that wasn’t expected, not for Mat, at least. He looked between Anthony and Astride incredulously. “Seriously? You two have never kissed?”

Anthony shook his head. “Nope.”

“How? You’ve been friends for, like, a million years, not even when you were little or anything?” he asked. 

“Never,” Astride said. “Kind of hard to kiss your best friend when you haven’t kissed anyone before.” She barely even realized that everyone was still listening in. 

“You’ve never kissed anyone?” Anthony asked, surprised. 

Astride looked down at her hands, sipping her beer. “Nope.” She gave him a brief smile. “I know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but no. Just hasn’t happened yet.”

Maybe it was the alcohol talking, or maybe it was feelings buried so deeply in Anthony’s mind that he didn’t think would ever see the light of day, let alone have to be confronted, that made him say what he did next. “I could—if you wanted—you don’t have to, but—” he stammered.

Astride laughed, looking at him curiously. “What is it, Tito? You’re not normally one to stumble over your words like that.”

He picked at his fingernails, an old nervous tick from his childhood that his mother was never quite able to get him to break, keenly aware that the whole room had decided to listen into their conversation. “I was just trying to say...I could do it, if you want. Kiss you, I mean. If you just wanted to get it over with, or whatever. I just figured. You know me, you trust me, you’re comfortable with me. Better that than some idiot at school who doesn’t care about you.”

Her cheeks burned as she looked over at him, but even though it took her nearly a minute to respond, she had her answer after five seconds. “Why not?” Astride flashed him the purest, gentlest smile, the kind that let him know just how much she cared about him and how deeply she trusted him. And the look on her face meant the world to him. 

Anthony leaned in, his hand coming up to rest on her shoulder, his fingertips just barely touching her cheek as their foreheads leant together. “You sure about this?” He needed her to be sure. 

She nodded. “I’ve had a couple of drinks, and I never imagined my first kiss would be in front of an audience,” she paused to giggle at the rest of the team, who were giving the scene their full attention in a way that somehow wasn’t uncomfortable at all, just wholesome and supportive, “but yeah. I’m sure.”

That was all the permission Anthony needed to lean forward, pressing his lips against hers, in a kiss that was soft and sweet and somehow everything Astride needed all in one. He pulled back after a moment, a goofy smile on his face. “How was it?”

Astride couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “Good, it was really good, Tito. Thank you for that.”

“What are friends for?”

---

“Friends are for kissing each other, apparently,” Astride giggled, leaning into Anthony on his couch. 

He laughed, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over her arm. “Did you ever think something was going to happen between us?” Anthony asked curiously. 

Astride shrugged. “At some point, yeah. I think it was kind of hard not to, with our parents and literally everyone we spent time with saying we were destined to fall in love.” She looked down at her hands, trying not to give away the fact that at one point, she had believed them. 

November 30 (tues)

“Do you want to come over Friday?” Anthony asked, sprawled out across her couch on one of his rare nights off. He had made the drive over to Astride’s apartment, cooking salmon and roasting vegetables while she took the much more daunting task of picking what to watch on Netflix. She settled on Back to the Future. “I can order in Thai, I know we’re trying to work our way through the Mission Impossibles.” 

Astride grimaced. “I actually...kind of have a date Friday night,” she admitted. 

Anthony made a hum of surprise. “You do?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t act so shocked, Tito. There are men in this city of nine million who want to take me out.” 

He sputtered. “It’s not that that shocks me, Asty. You’d have men lining up around the block for you if you’d give any of them a second glance. It’s just that. You never seem to bother actually going after any of them. What made this one different?” 

“I mean, honestly hour?” Astride said, shrugging. 

“Honestly hour.” 

“I haven’t been on a date since I left Montréal, you know that. It had been a few months there too. And I’ve loved hanging out with you more, getting to know Mat and the team and everyone’s partners, but...I needed something different, too. Something that felt like a part of my life that wasn’t directly connected to the team. Which, don’t get me wrong,” she added hastily, “I love them, and it’s been so nice to be a part of that group, I just…” Astride trailed off. 

“You can’t let that be the only part of your life. I get it,” Anthony added helpfully.  

“Yeah,” Astride agreed. “So enter Cole. He works in a different division of the IE department, I’m obviously Europe and he’s Asia, mostly does work with Taiwan and Singapore. Um,” she said, her eyes turning towards the ceiling, “he seems really nice, did international business at UPenn, which is a great program. Speaks fluent Mandarin, uh, I think he mentioned he’s got a few fish at home.” 

Anthony snorted. “What’s wrong with fish?” Astride asked defensively. 

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong with fish,” he said. “Just seems like an odd choice. Maybe his building doesn’t allow pets or something.” 

“Maybe,” Astride responded. “I wouldn’t know, he lives in Manhattan, over in Tribeca. Bikes to work.” 

Tito laughed again. “I don’t trust people who bike to work in New York City, Asty. They have zero regard for their own lives or safety.” 

She giggled. “That might be true. But I’m looking forward to it, the date, I mean. I really am. It’s been a while since I’ve really put myself back out there, and I’m ready for something good. Something real.” 

He gave a half-smile from his side of the couch. “I’m happy for you, Astride. I hope you have a great time, and I hope he treats you right. If he doesn’t, just let him know that you can sic an entire professional hockey team on him with a single phone call.” 

“I will,” she said. “I’ll call you when it’s over, tell you how it went.” “

I’ll be waiting,” he said. 

Anthony thought back on the conversation as he sat on the corner of his bed that night, about to go to sleep. He turned his phone over and over in his hands, his eyes fixating on the chip in the crown molding that he hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet. He wasn’t lying to Astride when he said he was happy for her. He was, of course he was, who wouldn’t want their best friend to be happy? But while he wanted nothing more, nothing more, than to be able to give his full-throated support for her date, and the potential the future held for her and this Cole guy, he couldn’t do it. There was something stopping him. And the worst part of it all was that Anthony was starting to realize what it was. 

---

Astride had said that their dinner reservation was at 7, some brasserie in the West Village. “That’s a French thing, right?” Cole had asked. 

“It is,” Astride responded, gearing up for her translation skills to be used for the first time in months. She spoke almost exclusively French around Tito, and with JGP and Brassard, but the majority of her day was spent in English. Cole said that the restaurant had come highly recommended from one of his Wall Street friends, something that should have been the first red flag. 

“Never trust the finance bros,” Reese, a German specialist and one of her friends at the office, had said. “They all think they’re God’s gift to mankind when I can guarantee you they ain’t shit.”  

She had said it was at 7, so Anthony wasn’t expecting to hear from her until much later; honestly, he would have been surprised if she had called before 10. He tried not to think about what it could mean if she didn’t call at all that night. She had said it was at 7, so when he heard a knock at his door at half past nine, he practically jumped out of his skin before scrambling to open the door. His eyebrows rose when he saw Astride on the other side of the door, then his face contorted into a look of sympathy as he saw the sad smile on her lips, her jacket slung over one arm. 

“Can I come in?” she asked. He nodded without question, holding the door while stepping out of the way. He padded to the kitchen, bringing out a bottle of Moscato and two glasses. Astride smiled gratefully at him as he uncorked the bottle and poured. He knew that she couldn’t do red wine when she was upset, and she was upset. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked tentatively. 

Astride shrugged, sipping the wine. “Not much to tell other than it was probably the worst first date I’ve ever been on.” 

That piqued Anthony’s interest. He’d never be happy that she was upset, but something told him the story wasn’t quite that simple. “What about it was so bad?” 

“Where do I begin?” she sighed. “He was on time, but that’s pretty much the only thing Cole did right the entire night. He was rude to the waitress when we had to wait all of ten minutes until our reservation was ready, because the couple ahead had gone long. Then he ordered the most expensive bottle of red wine they had, without even asking me to see what I wanted. He really just was trying to show off that he could afford it. And it was a Sangiovese, and you know I hate dry wines, so I was just trying to choke the whole thing down. And then he insisted on ordering for me, which is probably the most chauvinistic thing I could think of, I mean, who does that anymore?” she asked incredulously. 

Tito shrugged. It was disrespectful, absolutely, but more than that, it was just weird. If women have mouths that work, then they’re more than capable of doing something as simple as ordering their own food. 

“And he kept trying to pour me more wine after the first glass, even when I told him a million times I was good.” Anthony’s grip on his glass tightened. Astride rubbed her temples with her free hand. “He just kept going on and on about work, and this big promotion he’s insisting he’s going to get even though I know for a fact that they want Maria for it. I could barely get a word in edgewise. That’s when I just decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I faked that Jean-Claude was calling, grabbed my jacket, and caught a cab over here.” She looked up at him, the same disappointed expression she had worn when he opened the door. “I was really hoping this one would pan out, Tito.” 

He felt an ache in his heart. He may have been less than thrilled about the prospect of Astride going out on a date, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less to see her so despondent. He leaned over, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear that had fallen loose. “I know, Asty. And I’m sorry it didn’t.”

December 13 (mon)

Anthony and Mat were the last ones in the locker room after a morning practice. “I found this new place nearby last week that’s got great smoothie bowls, want to get one after you finish packing your stuff?” Anthony asked, looking over at Mat. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, Sounds good,” Mat nodded, half-listening. 

Anthony glanced over at him, a weird look on his face. “You good, dude? You sound distracted.”

Mat spoke abruptly, looking over at Tito with a laser-focused expression. “How long have you been in love with Astride?” 

Anthony’s eyebrows jumped a foot. “In love with Astride? Why would you think that?”

Mat gave him a look, the kind of look that let Anthony know he was dead serious about what he was saying, and more than that, that he believed it. “Tito, I’m dumb, but I’m not stupid.”

Anthony leaned forward, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “It’s that obvious?” 

“Yep,” Mat said, popping the p. 

“Do you think she knows?” His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. 

“I don’t know,” Mat said, shrugging. “I don’t think so, she doesn’t seem like the type of person to really be able to know about something as big as that and not address it. Doesn’t like to keep things bottled up, it’s not really her style.”

Anthony nodded. “It’s not.” He raked one hand through his haid, his head still leaning on the other one. “God. How do you tell your best friend you’re in love with her?”

Mat put one hand on Beau’s back, comforting him as best he could. “I don’t know, Tito. I wish I could help. What I do know,” he said, “is that you’re going to have to eventually. Because it’s going to tear you up if you don’t.”

December 18 (sat)

Astride tossed one final empty can into the garbage bag. “I think that’s it,” she said, giving his living room a cursory look. What had looked like a warzone only less than an hour before now more closely resembled the somewhat-messy but perfectly respectable bachelor pad of a man in his 20s, like it should have. With the holidays approaching, Anthony had decided to take it into his own hands to host a party — alongside Astride, who he had practically begged for help — intent on showcasing his newly-acquired skills by playing bartender the whole night. He was surprisingly capable, Astride had thought, if her Sazerac was anything to go by. 

He smiled at her. “Thanks, Asty. And thanks for staying and helping clean everything up, you really didn’t have to.” 

She tied the bag off and set it by the door with the other one. “I wanted to. And besides, I’m staying over,” she said, looking over at Anthony, “so what did you think I was going to do? Lock myself in the guest room while you cleaned up the whole apartment by yourself? What kind of a woman do you take me for?” she asked in mock offense. 

Anthony laughed, sitting down on the couch with a satisfying thump, pulling Astride into his side when she settled next to him. 

“I’m so glad we got back in contact,” she said, muffled against the fabric of his hoodie. “I’m so glad we’re friends again.” 

He felt guilty; more than that, he knew that the guilt, at least some of it, was deserved. “I should have done more,” he lamented. “I should have done more to keep in contact, more to show you I cared, more so you’d know that your friendship is one of the things I value most in my life.” 

Astride gave a small smile. “It’s a two-way street, Tito. Sure, I won’t lie and say that you really put all that much effort into keeping in contact. You didn’t.” He winced, she shot him a sympathetic look. “I love you, but you know me. I don’t mince my words. But I definitely could have done more than text you congratulations or leave a thirty-second voicemail on your birthday. We both could have done more. We both should have done more,” she said, correcting herself. “What do you think happened, though? Where did we go wrong?” As much as she might have hated it, Astride was that kind of person. She went through every bad decision in her life with a fine-toothed comb, needing to know what went wrong, needing to know what she could have done differently. 

“I think,” he began, “that it was just so easy to get distracted from ‘back home’ things. From our friendship, from my relationships with my family. From the important things, the things that I should have made an effort to prioritize even when the season got hectic and games got hard. And I’m not trying to make excuses,” he added quickly, “but there was just something about where I was, physically and mentally. I was 19, a rookie in one of the biggest cities in the world, and I think I just lost sight of things. Between the practices and games and going out and community events and trying to get in more than five hours of sleep a night, it was a lot,” he admitted. “It was stressful, probably weighed on me more than I wanted to admit. And I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I’m well aware I was — and am — living a life thousands of kids would kill for, but there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that you don’t really understand unless you’ve been through it. I don’t have many regrets from my rookie season, or really many in my career so far. Don’t regret moving for minors, don’t regret going to the Isles, don’t regret any of the contracts I’ve signed or plays I’ve made. Well,” he smirked, “maybe a few. But the one big one? The only real regret I’ve had? Letting you go.” 

Astride swallowed hard, choosing her next words carefully. “What do you mean, letting me go?”

Anthony let out a hard sigh. He’d put it off for long enough. He couldn’t do it any longer. “Never telling you how I feel.”

“How you feel?” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, her fingers tangling in the fringe of the fleece blanket that was slung over the couch cushions. 

“Like I love you so much my heart could burst.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “How long have you known?”

He looked at her with a soft smile. “Ever since Switzerland.”

“Six years?”

“Six years.” He reached out slowly, so slowly, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear when she didn’t move back. They sat in silence for a moment, and when Anthony spoke again, his voice wavered. “Asty? Say something.”

Astride’s lifted her head, finally meeting his eyes. “I knew since I was 15.”

His face split into a grin, wider and wider until she was sure she’d never seen a bigger smile. “You did? You do?”

She nodded, leaning forward so their foreheads were touching. She put her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat fluttering butterfly-fast underneath her fingertips. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since I knew what love was, Tito.”

He pushed forward, pressing his lips against hers for the first time since 2015, the first time since Switzerland. It was gentle and meaningful and somehow communicated all of the love and emotion that had been built up between the two of them in the past six years. Anthony pulled back after a minute, his lips pink and slightly puffy. “Tell me where your head’s at, Astride.”

“Is it too cliché to just say that this might be the happiest I’ve been in years?”

He shook his head, smiling. “Not at all.” But there was something that she wasn’t quite letting go of. “What is it, Astride?”

Astride sniffed. “I want this. You and I, I want it so mad it hurts. I just hate the idea that we’d turn into some sort of cliché. Childhood friends who grow up and fall in love, but something goes wrong and they split up and suddenly the dynamic of everything is messed up and I don’t want that, Tito. I don’t know if I could deal with you hating me because of how things ended.” 

“But things don’t have to end, Asty. Every broken heart, every date where some asshole has stood you up has led you to know that you deserve more. You deserve so much more, Astride, you deserve the sun and the moon and someone who would hang them in the sky for you. It doesn’t have to end in heartbreak. It doesn’t have to end at all.” 

Astride had always been someone who was cautious, someone who thought before she acted and never spoke without thinking through every possible outcome. But this was one of the times that she couldn’t do that, one of the times when, as much as she may have hated it, she needed to take a leap of faith. And so she did. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Anthony asked, his voice lifting. 

She nodded, the happiness on her face unmistakable. “Okay.”

And as Astride and Anthony FaceTimed her parents to break the news, her mom slapping her dad’s shoulder, claiming that she had “called it” back in 2014, Astride was filled with a sense of undeniable, irreplaceable joy. The kind of joy that the poets write about and artists put brush to canvas trying to depict, the kind that most people go their whole lives only hoping to get a glimpse of. The kind that made Astride more certain of one thing than she had perhaps been in her entire life. It didn’t have to end in heartbreak. And this one didn’t have to end at all. 

And as they stood two years later in a little church in their hometown, promising in front of their family and friends and the entire New York Islanders to love each other for the rest of their lives, Astride finally believed it.

[chaoticpuff17]

A Dangerous Game

part 16

masterlist

Warning: language, violence, drugging, yandere behavior obviously 

Hello darlings! So excited for this chapter, sorry its short. It was giving me trouble. And I’m officially running out of different Joon gifs to use each time. Thank you all so much for the love you’ve given this fic! Every time I see a comment or a like I just kind of sit there in awe going “Thanks! I’m trash!” Love you all, please enjoy this installment of A Dangerous Game!-- chaotic puff.

Namjoon was in a meeting when he had been interrupted by an alert on his phone. Normally, Namjoon would not have paid much mind to such a thing, but the alert concerned Y/N’s tracker, and he had immediately excused himself to make a call wanting to know just why there was no longer a signal on Y/N. His rage had only increased when he was unable to reach Jimin.

He tried Jimin’s phone twice before he called the house directly. There he was finally able to talk to Jimin. He listened from the other side of the line as Jimin explained the situation before hanging up. He sighed summoning some of his most trusted men into the room.

“It would appear that my darling wife has decided to take an impromptu vacation.” He growled grip tightening dangerously on the glass of whiskey in his hand. “I want you to find her. Bring her back. Tonight.” He ordered his features dark with contained rage.

“I thought you had Jimin watching her?” One of the men spoke brow furrowed.

“And Tae put a tracker on her.” The other chipped in.

Namjoon chuckled bitterly. “She hit him over the head, and cut the anklet off. Stole his phone too.”

“Damn.” The shorter of the two men breathed out looking highly amused by the situation. “Quite the woman, you got there, Joon. You want us to take her back to the house?”

“No. Take her to headquarters. The little bird needs to be taught a lesson in manners. And take care of that pest that’s been hanging around her. I think I’d like a word with him. Give him our warmest welcome.”

The two men nodded bowing their heads to the boss before leaving to carry out their mission.

Namjoon stood from his chair and went to the window absolutely fuming. “Fuck!” With a shout of rage, he hurled his glass against the wall sending shards all across the room. “Such a bad decision.” He growled looking out the window already planning what to do with her when he had her in his arms again.

Y/N didn’t think she’d ever been happier to see another human in her life than when she’d seen Jackson pull up along the side road to retrieve her. There had been no time for sentimental reunions though, Namjoon would know by now that she’d cut her tracker. Time was of the essence.

“I couldn’t get a flight out tonight.” Jackson explained speeding down the roads breaking every traffic law that there was as he did. “And it’s not safe to go through Incheon anyway. We’ll drive down to Cheongju, ditch the car, then take a train to Busan. I have a boat there that will take us to the Zhoushan province. From there we can take a train to Hong Kong, and then we’ll be able to fly home.”

She nodded along tiredly. The adrenalin was beginning to wear off leaving her exhausted, the movement of the car and Jackson’s presence lulling her to sleep.

Jackson sighed looking over at her tired form. “Get some sleep, little bear. I’ll wake you up when we get to Cheongju.” He promised reaching into the backseat of the car to retrieve a jacket which was then unceremoniously tossed into her face bringing an indignant whine from the tired woman before she adjusted it to be a suitable blanket.

“Thanks, Jackson.” She murmured, half asleep already.

“Anytime, little bear. Get some rest.”

Once he was sure she was asleep, Jackson pulled out his phone grim faced as he placed the call.

“Mark?” He asked once the call was taken. “I got her. Little hellion got herself over the wall and called for help. Whacked one of RM’s men over the head with a piece of decorative jade. We’re on route to Cheongju.”

“You could have just brought her here. JB is dying to meet the woman that caused such a fuss.” The other man chuckled over the line. “Don’t you think your plan is a little eccentric, Jackson? We could have gotten you out through Incheon.”

Jackson shook his head, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. “I don’t want to risk her like that. RM had a tracker on her, like she was a fucking dog.” He growled wishing he could have had a shot at RM. What he wouldn’t have given to put a bullet through the man’s head for what he’d done to his little bear, his sweet little sister.

“Should have seen him when I was there. He was all up in arms when I did nothing but talk to her. Sent her packing to her rooms like a child.” Mark paused. “Do you really think this was a good idea? You just stole the most powerful man in the country’s wife.”

“She’s not his fucking wife.” Jackson hissed glaring out the wind shield.

“Jackson, you need to know that if it comes down to a choice between you and her, JB isn’t going to lose you. You’re too important to the group.” Mark warned though he too hoped the woman would safely make it out of the country. He’d liked her. She had spirit even in that place.

“I won’t let that happen.”

“Be careful, Jackson.”

“Aren’t I always?” He joked before releasing a stream of swears slamming on the breaks. “Fuck! Shit! We’ve got company.”

Jackson tried to put the car in reverse, but found that there was another car behind him cutting him off just as the first one had.

“Fuck!” He reached over shaking the sleeping woman awake. “Get up, babes. We got company.”

“Jackson?” She murmured sleepily, swiftly waking up though as he pulled a gun out of the glove compartment. “Fuck, Jackson! What the fuck?”

“We have company.”

“What?” The entire world seemed to stop in that moment as the implication of those words sunk in. “I’m not going back there, Jackson. I’m not going back.”

“I don’t know if we have a choice.”

“How the fuck did they find us so quickly?” She asked panic creeping into her tone. “It’s only been a few hours!”

Jackson looked over at her, and his heart clenched to see the fear in her eyes. “Fuck, okay, sweet heart, here’s what we’re going to do.” He pushed his phone into her hands. “I’m going to get them out of the way, and then we are going to make a run for it into the woods. If we get separated, call Mark once you’re a safe distance away.”

“Mark?” She asked scared and confused as the cars on either side of them opened to reveal men coming to take them both back to Namjoon, something that wouldn’t be good for either of them. “Mark Tuan, he’s an old friend.”

“I met him!”

“I know.” He rushed checking over the gun quickly. “When I say go, you go. Jump out and just run. You got it?”

“I got it.”

Jackson pressed down hard on brakes sending goons scattering as the car jerked forward. The action was met with shouts and the sound of gunfire.

“Go!”

And she didn’t think twice, jumping out of the car and dashing into the woods. Screaming as more gunshots fired off.

“Keep running.” Jackson urged taking her hand and dragging her forward.

“Don’t shoot, you idiots! You could hit her!” A harsh voice barked.

Just then she stopped dead in her tracks, his hand ripped from hers followed by Jackson’s pained cry. Turning back around she saw him crumple to the ground blood pouring from a wound on his chest.

“NO!” She screamed running back and dropping to her knees by his side. “No, no, no, no, no.”

She ripped off her jacket pressing it tightly down on bullet wound, tears running freely down her face. “Go, you idiot.” He coughed a bit of blood trickling down his lips. The fabric was quickly becoming saturated, blood seeping up through it as she tried desperately to keep pressure.

“Just hold on, Jackson. Just hold on. We’ll get you help, okay?” She breathed. “Just hold on.”

“You have to go.”

“I’m not leaving you!” She cried choking on her tears.

“NO!” She screamed as she was ripped away from his side into the arms of an unfamiliar man. “No! You have to let me help him!” She cried struggling against the grip he had on her. “He needs help!” She choked out trying very hard to reach Jackson again while she was dragged further and further away.

“Fuck, Yoongi. Do you have the shot ready?” The man grunted as she landed a kick on his leg, though he didn’t let go.

“Yeah, bring her here.”

She only thrashed harder. “Let me go! Can’t you see he needs help?”

“Fucking hell, couldn’t Joon have picked a more docile woman?” A dark haired man approached a syringe in hand. “Hold her still, Hobi. Joon’ll kill us if she’s hurt.”

The hold around her strengthened keeping her still as the other man roughly turned her head shoving a needle into her neck.

“NO!” She cried kicking out, hitting the man in the stomach sending him back with an ‘oof”. But it was too late. The sedative was already in her system. “Jackson!”

The world was spinning as an overwhelming nausea made its home in her stomach. Slowly, her thrashing ceased as she lolled in the arms of her captor, still awake but without the energy to fight. The man, Hobi, lifted her up into his arms carrying her back to the waiting cars.

“Jackson…” She slurred eyes hazily fixed on his prone form on the cold ground.

part 17

[charlthotte]

Breaking Through the Iron Wall - Aone Takanobu x Reader

Chapter 17  

In an instant, I sprung up from my bed - no longer tired. "I'm coming." I stated, immediately changing into to some more appropriate clothes than the pyjamas I was wearing at the time. 

Speeding down the stairs, I grabbed a hold of my coat, while clumsily fumbling with the laces of my shoes. My dad seemed to be disturbed by the humungous racket I was causing, standing at the summit of the stairs, tiredly rubbing his eyes, his voice raspy from being abruptly woken up. He must have noticed the panicked expression on my face, understanding the situation rather quickly – giving me a sullen smile, “I’m proud of you, kiddo. Come back when you’re ready.” He said, waving me off with a sleepy hand.

I hastily locked the door behind me, almost running down the street – even though the moonlight barely lit up the pavements before me. Even after squinting to try to get my eyes to adjust to the lack of light – I could hardly see a thing; but even so, my legs carried me the whole way to Takanobu’s house, as if they were being called towards it.

Someone must have kept the front door open for my sake, as I had no trouble in opening it. Trying my best to make as little noise as possible as I stepped over the threshold into the house, I laid my eyes upon the scene on the living room’s floor. Both Ejiri and Takanobu were sprawled out on the carpet, either side of Shiro – both of their pairs of eyes brimming with abundances of tears, with some already cascading down their faces.

Somehow, Shiro appeared even more sickly than the last time I had seen him, his hair much sparser, his bones protruding more than before, his eyes glistening with a type of pain I had never seen before – pleading for a sense of relief that no one could grant him.

Underneath Takanobu’s eyes sat sunken bags, the pallor of a bruise. His expression sullen, sapped and unchanging – seemingly exhausted from being far too anxious to sleep. His cheeks were gaunter, parodying those of a malnourished child – it was obvious that he hadn’t been eating either – too internally turmoiled to do anything.

Whimpering and cowering on the floor, Shiro began gasping frantically for whatever air he could fathom – the colossal amounts of anguish he was experiencing reverberating from his frail self.

I couldn’t help but run straight towards him, beside the broken figure of Takanobu, whose eyes were shining with a stinging shade of red. Collapsing onto the floor, I ran my hand over Shiro’s back, feeling unnerved by each of his vertebrae jutting outwards. I tried my best to console his cries, softly telling him that everything would be okay. But I wasn’t really saying that to Shiro, I knew, in reality, that I was actually uttering them to solace he who sat to my side.

Almost instantly, Takanobu’s head fell down onto my shoulder, immediately letting himself go – as if all the sorrow and trepidation he had been bottling up inside were tumbling outwards. First, he lightly sobbed onto me, his breath hitching slightly, then, he began blubbering and weeping as if it was his last day on Earth – which, being frank, was     probably exactly how he felt.

In a matter of minutes, his grieving grew so intense that he struggled to intake oxygen, with his face still buried in my shoulder, lamentation taking control of his body. Gingerly, I raised my hand until it sat atop his hair, gently caressing it while I let it swirl and run around my fingers. He almost seemed to sink at my touch, his shoulders releasing the tension they were holding, the pressure inside of him completely fizzling out. For the time being…

While Takanobu nestled into my shoulders further, he never let his eyes leave his companion laid on the floor – who has quickly losing his grasp on the living world. By his side, Ejiri sighed with an undertone of unease laced into her expression – and from my inference, I knew exactly what she was thinking.

I tenderly nudged my shoulder that Takanobu laid on, signalling to him that Shiro’s end was right in front of our faces. As he rose, he took a deep breath of reassurance to himself that he could get through it. Without a second thought, he scooped Shiro up delicately in his arms, careful not to move in any way that could potentially cause him any discomfort.

Sentimentally, he smiled at his friend, perhaps reminiscing about past times they spent together, the times when the spindly fingers of death weren’t looming down upon their lives. Takanobu cradled the frail form in his arms, rocking him at a steady, gentle rhythm – stroking his fur with an extremely light touch.

Slowly but surely, Shiro’s panting for air became truly exasperated – the agony from the lack of it clawing and scrabbling at his throat – the whimpers exiting from his mouth cutting through the atmosphere in an excruciating manner. He writhed around in Takanobu’s arms, the pure hurt overriding everything else around him – burning every single nerve in his body, as if he was being stabbed by white-hot knives.

And suddenly, a stagnant plateau ripped through the air, no longer was Shiro struggling for breath, no longer was he writing around in absolute agony, but somehow he still hung on, clinging onto his last thread of life. Feeling despaired, Takanobu lovingly stroked his dog’s head for the last time, savouring the feeling of his warmth for the final minute, smiling down at him for the final moment. Just as he murmured his last ‘Goodbye’, was when Shiro spluttered – the last of his existence trailing out from his body.

He was dead.

Gone.

The air fell reticent, no one dared to say a single word. Instead, Takanobu dropped to his knees, still clutching onto the newly deceased corpse of Shiro, burying his face into his fur; sobbing as if his world had ended. Which was probably the figurative truth for him.

“Why… Why… Why… Why… Why…” Takanobu uttered meekly, falling into a pit of tremendous grief.

Sensing his distraught state, Ejiri shuffled towards him, prying Shiro’s lifeless body from his arms – having to put a substantial amount of effort in to do so. She smiled solemnly at her nephew, brushing her hand along his bicep, telling him that now was the time to let go of the corpse of his truest friend – who once was everything to him. But now, he was nothing more than a gradually waning memory.

Eventually, Takanobu gave in, cautiously handing Shiro over into the arms of Ejiri, a distraught look upon his face. He shakily raised his hands up to his chest, winding them around each other, each hand grasping onto the other – pressing them into his torso, his face contorting from overwhelming emotions.

Ejiri softly spoke from out of the blue, “I think you should say goodbye now, Takanobu.” Setting Shiro down on the sofa, wrapping him in a blanket acting in the role of a shroud.

Takanobu knelt on the floor nest to the sofa, hesitantly uncovering the fabric from Shiro’s face, cupping it in one of his hands – beginning to blubber at the sight of his former pet’s eyes glazed over, “Thank you, Shiro,” He began, pushing back his tears. “You were always there to make me smile – even when I felt like I couldn’t. When I felt like I had no one to turn to, you were there, always. When I felt like the whole world was against me, I was never truly alone. Even though we never spoke, you taught me that there was good in this world – and for all of that, thank you, goodbye.” He paused, wiping his eyes, while swiftly glancing up at me, “And, I love you.”

I froze when he said that, even if those words weren’t directed at me, they still resonated within me, as if… I wanted to hear them.

After saying my short farewell to Shiro, Ejiri bundled the shrouded corpse in her arms – finally taking it away, presumably to the crematorium. A distant look of longing reflected in Takanobu’s eyes as he watched his aunt carry the bundle to the car. Looking at him in that agony made my heart burn, so I immediately guided him to the sofa, setting him down so he lay against it, letting his head loll against the cushions, having no energy to use his strength to keep it held upright.    

I pushed myself upwards, heading towards the kitchen in order to prepare a glass of water for the wreck in the living room. After placing it down on the coffee table, trying to stir up as little commotion as possible – I hopped placidly onto the sofa, crossing my legs, directly behind where Takanobu rested his head. But rather than rise to quench his thirst from unrelenting mourning, instead he gazed straight at me, the nape of his neck upon the edge of the sofa. His eyes were glazed over with a sheen of unadulterated hurt – but there was something behind them – just the way he looked at me… It was so bittersweet.

I couldn’t help but stroke his hair, letting the crisp, white blades run passed and around my fingers, while giving his scalp a small massage. A small, earnest smile cracked from his lips – the left side of them curling upwards like it always did. Releasing a sombre sigh, he let a single tear roll down his cheek; and as if by instinct, I reached over to his face to wipe it away, as if I didn’t want his melancholy to sully him – as if I wanted him to stay okay, at least – for which I was truly desperate for.

Chuckling mirthlessly, Takanobu gruffly spoke, his voice damaged from persistently grieving, “Thank you, (Y/N). From the bottom of my heart, honestly, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stayed with me, even though… You deserve so much more than me. You’re one of the kindest people I’ve met – if not the kindest. You mean so much to me.” His face crumpled with tears, which I soon wiped away, assuring him that I was still there, and always would be – no matter the time of day.

“No, Takanobu, thank you. You have been nothing but the paragon of a friend, since the first day we met. And even if you feel as though you haven’t done enough to ‘deserve’ me, you should know that that isn’t true at all. Not one bit. You mean so much to me, too – you really have no idea” I replied, smiling fondly while caressing Takanobu’s cheek with my thumb, wiping away any tears that continued to fall.

Without saying another word, Takanobu outstretched his arm, tenderly placing his hand upon my own, rubbing his thumb comfortingly over the back of my hand – staring straight into my eyes while smiling serenely – his pupils heavily dilated, despite the more than adequate amount of light in the room.

I don’t remember how much time we spent in that position – our hands and eyes intertwined with his head very nearly resting in my lap – but I do now that a small eternity passed before Ejiri returned from the crematorium, the house one soul shorter. But when she walked through the door, Takanobu abruptly removed my palm from his grasp and diverting his line of sight. Wringing his hands together in his lap, he stared down at the floor – quite obviously flustered.

Clearing her throat, Ejiri broke the newly awkward silence, “Do you two want anything to eat? We don’t want you to go to sleep with an empty stomach, now do we?” She smiled, walking over to the kitchen, her usual pep in her step having disappeared, yet she still kept up her cheery front, as if she felt unable to break in front of her nephew.

Takanobu nodded in affirmation, still not looking up from the ground. “Is there anything you would like, my dear?” She asked, turning to me from across the way.

“Oh no, I really don’t mind.” I responded.

“Do tell me if you change your mind though, darlings.” She averred, turning to the cupboards to find the ingredients to whatever she planned to make.

Little time had come before Ejiri placed three bowls upon the dining table, each one brimming with a steaming soup – they smelled delicious.

However, after I sat down to indulge in the small meal, I entirely lost my appetite, even though it looked rather appetising. The same could seem to be said about Takanobu, who was feverishly trying to force the soup down his throat, much to no avail, as he began heaving at the food in his mouth. Desperately, he scampered to the bathroom with his hand clamped over his mouth. Immediately and without a single second of hesitation, both Ejiri and I rushed to the bathroom door, which had been strangely locked from the inside.

Ejiri softly wrapped her knuckles against the wood, asking to be let in, trying to raise her voice above the sickening sound of Takanobu’s retching. But there was no reply from him. So, I decided to ask if I could be let in the bathroom, to which my request was granted.

Closing the door behind me, leaving Ejiri at the other side of the threshold – instantly dropping to Takanobu’s side while rubbing his back while he clung to the toilet’s lid, violently throwing up. The sight before me was truly agonising to look at, especially since Takanobu had hardly consumed a thing that day.

Takanobu eyes watered in agony from the absolute discomfort of regurgitating a highly acidic substance – he pushed through the uneasiness, trying to push out dialogue, “I’m sorry, (Y/N). You shouldn’t have so see this.” He croaked in between the constant heaves.

“I really don’t care about that, Takanobu. What matters now, is that I’m here with you.” I smiled, “Just take your time.”

He glanced at me through the side of his eyes, his vision moving up and down my person – his eyelids drooping from overexertion – smiling with a nature that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Quite some time passed before the ailing wretch before me curtailed his vomiting, but after he did, the only noticeable aspect of him was his pure enervation – his entire frame collapsing onto mine, the added weight nearly toppling me over. I tried to steady the both of us, clumsily striving to lead him over to his bed – which required quite the amount of vigour.

As soon as I deposited him upon his bed, it seemed as though he completely passed out from heightened fatigue – however, I was deeply mistaken. Just as I was about to leave to slumber on the sofa downstairs, Takanobu firmly grasped onto my wrist, preventing my exit, “Stay... Please…” He tiredly rasped.

Pausing in my tracks, I turned back around – setting myself down on the carpet, leaning towards him – gazing at his sleepy figure. “I could stay on the floor, if you’d like?” I whispered serenely.

Sluggishly, he shook his head, gulping before he spoke, “Could you stay here, with me? I don’t want to be alone tonight.” His eyes shining hopefully in the dimly illuminated air.

“Oh…” I said in shock, as a reflex to his question.

Takanobu peered off to the side sheepishly, “Only if that’s okay with you, of course.”

I cupped his face, encouraging him to look at me directly. Noticing his expression had been greatly saddened, I couldn’t find the heart to refuse his request. “I’ll stay with you.” I chuckled, “Just scoot over a bit.”

Without hesitation, I clambered into his bed, expecting the encounter to be deeply awkward. But to my pleasant surprise, it was nothing of the sort.

Almost immediately, Takanobu wrapped both of his arms around me tightly, as if he couldn’t stand to let me go, nuzzling his chin into the top of my head. Exhaling calmly, I let all of my previous stress and discomfort depart my body, until my mood was nothing but mellow. In his arms, even though I had no way to move, I felt right at home.

It took little time for Takanobu to fall right into the depths of torpor, his breathing calming considerably as it managed to make every single hair on my body stand on end. But while he lay in his stupor, almost like a reflex, one of his hands made its way towards my own, our fingers intertwining like a perfectly clad jigsaw. At any other time, I would have felt utterly smothered, but there was something there… Something in the way he clung to me, his touch still remaining as gentle as a collector handling their porcelain doll.

A hammering beat rang through my ears, my heart thrumming out of control – I tried to assure myself that my flustered state could be chalked down to nothing more than the sudden contact. But I didn’t let that thought trouble me for too long, instead relaxing into the warm embrace of Takanobu’s body. Soon, every tension in me released itself, unwinding each of their unrelenting grips from around me – coercing me into the pits of slumber.

Despite the heart wrenching turn of events of that day and the day to come, that night was perhaps the best sleep of my life – dreaming of being cast into a field adorned by an abundance of romantically red tulips, much like a field I remember from my childhood back in Hokkaido, frolicking around without a care in the world. However, something about that field felt strikingly new, as if there was something major to be discovered there.

As I woke, my eyelids fluttering, adapting to the morning sunlight – I was met with a pair of eyes gazing straight into mine, pupils dilated greatly. Sheepish, they became upon realising that their watching session had been uncovered. Immediately, Takanobu shot up from his lying position, springing backwards awkwardly. Perplexed by his sudden display of discomfiture, I sleepily raised my eyebrows. “Sorry.” Was all he replied.

“You don’t need to apologise.” I softly spoke, reaching my hand forward to clasp onto his – caressing my thumb over his knuckles. With his knees tucked beneath his chin, he spun his head towards me, casting a somewhat adoring glance my way – tightening his grasp around his hand as if he would never let go.

I too sat up, taking my place beside Takanobu, not once releasing my hand from his – resting my head on his shoulder, warm and secure – with him, in due time, laying his head upon my own. He didn’t have to say anything for me to know the pain he was in – even if his stoic expression had barely a crack in it.

We stayed in that position until Ejiri knocked on the door, calling us downstairs for breakfast, even if Takanobu’s appetite had yet to return. By the time I had finished my plate of comestibles, there was barely even a dint in his, the gargantuan lump in his throat preventing him from ingesting anything. I couldn’t tell what part of him would break first.

As Takanobu and I lay on the sofa, our hands intertwined still – Ejiri having left for her shift at work – he proposed the idea of inviting Futakuchi over to the house, and of course I couldn’t deny a broken man.

Less than fifteen minutes after calling him, Futakuchi arrived at the door, devoid of his trademark smirk, as well as a snarky remark, for the time being…

Just as he hung his coat up, he made perhaps the worst timed quip he had ever made, “So what are you two doing here alone?” He inquired, oblivious to the events of the previous night.

Straight away, I shot him a deadly glare, “Kenji.” I scorned, not in the mood for entertaining one of his jests. That being the first time I had called him by his given name, he was immensely taken aback, but I wasn’t completely sure why. Was it the fact I had called him by his first name, or the fact that someone had shot him down from his pedestal and into the mud.

“Ohhh…” He said in shock, realising how distasteful his statement was, “God, I’m so sorry, Takanobu, I really didn’t realise.”

Takanobu shook his head to show he wasn’t fazed by what Futakuchi has insensitively spoke – but I knew that wasn’t genuine dismissal, at all.

A few moments of awkward silence passed by before the shattered boy broke it, “Kenji, can we talk?” Takanobu queried, while twiddling his thumbs around one another.

“Sure…” Kenji replied, curiously – seemingly endeavouring to the infer the subject of the coming conversation before it arrived. But just before they left for Takanobu’s bedroom, he turned to me, “Hey, your highness… The hour seems to rather adequate to that in which civilised people would dine, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, Futakuchi – it is lunchtime.” I sighed.

“So, Takanobu and I were wondering… Could you perhaps prepare us a fine dining experience of some lavish kuri kinton? It’s my here friend’s very favourite food in the entire world. For him, of course.” He acquiesced, guiding Takanobu up the stairs before either him or I had the chance to reply.

For Takanobu.

Luckily, I knew the basic recipe for kuri kinton, nothing special – I hoped my making it would at least encourage him to eat.

All the ingredients were conveniently hidden around the kitchen, allowing for a stress-free preparation, for the most part. I believed that everything was flowing absolutely swimmingly, until I somehow managed to set the smoke alarm off while boiling the sweet potatoes. Deafening were the alarm’s whines.

Frantically, I attempted to turn it off, beginning to panic. But just as I was about to turn the alarm’s sensor off temporarily, a wide-eyed Futakuchi came careening down the stairs, his face screaming the epitome of dread. He ran over to the switch, managing to turn it off before I could, acting as if he saved the house from a crisis, his smirk as broad as ever. Little did I know, the crisis had already been set into motion.

Kenji joined me in the kuri kinton’s preparation – resulting in a merely adequate meal. Holding the steaming plate in my hand, I wrapped my knuckles upon the door to Takanobu’s room waiting to be let in. There was no reply – just silence. Nervously, Futakuchi and I stepped into his room in tandem, only for it to be completely devoid of his presence. My heart dropped.

I motioned over to the bathroom door, noticing the lock latched tight. We both pressed our ears against the wood, hearing a faint whimpering behind it. My body froze, dropping the plate of kuri kinton all over the floor, the plate crashing with a shuddering clank.

I knew exactly what was happening, and it hurt… so much.

And in that moment I realised exactly why that pain I felt was so immense. It was because…

I loved him.

[untaemedqueen]

The Lions Den

Mafia!Taehyung x Wife!Hyejin

Genre: Mafia!AU, Smut, Fluff, Angst

Chapter 11.

Warnings: Smut, Blood, Guns, Knives, Excessive Cursing, Excessive Alcohol Intake, Smoking (Cigarettes and Cigars), Mental Health Issues

Warnings In This Chapter: Master Kink, Pet Kink, Belly Worship, Spitting, Cunnilingus, Dom!Taehyung, Brat!Hyejin, Bondage, Degradation (Slut), Pussy Slapping, Spit Swallowing, Pregnant Sex, Orgasm Denial, Edging, Cum Swallowing, Multiiple Orgasms, Cream Pie, Praise, Forced Orgasms, Clit Pinching, Squirting, Blood, Gorey Descriptions, Cut Body Parts

A/N: Shout out to @xjoonchildx​ and @ladyartemesia​ for beta-ing this and rooting me on

TagList- @ayyyocee, @mysugabear03, @wisebtsgot7prune, @imaforeigner, @yeonkiminnie, @stories1907, @ppersonna, @brilee64, @gooplibrary, @vivpurple7, @xjoonchildx, @brightwingr5, @yaniposts22, @rjsmochii, @taeslittletiger, @pjmcth, @bts-chub, @kpoppingthempills, @kim-ji-hyeons-world, @jikooksgirl19​, @yoong-i​, @ruinsofangels​, @absolutefantrash​, @chiminies-noona​, @eclectically-esoteric​, @asifetch7​, 

Sequel to The Bird Cage

Soft and heart fluttering is the only way Taehyung would describe his wife. Her skin was soft, words softer. Her eyes were always soft in expression looking at him. With a groan he rolls over in bed before pressing his lips to her hair. His hand landing gently on her growing belly as he sighs. He’s loved this woman for years, probably since the first time he saw her. She was everything to him, his sun during the night. His moon that waned high in the sky. His lighthouse that guided him home. 

“Hye?” He whispers quietly in the morning lit room, his throat clearing away the sleep that enshrouded him a few minutes previously.

She was so constantly tired because of his son and if he didn’t have his best friend Jimin to tell him what to expect he would really be a lost puppy. She makes no move, gentle breaths through parted lips as she sleeps and he smiles gently before rubbing her belly as his son squirms within her. 

“I love you.” He whispers aloud before burying his face in her hair. 

It was many years ago now that he first saw her, he can remember how frail her body looked. Her eyes were so huge compared to her face then. She had a cute button nose, he remembers as he runs his hand over her belly. She gave him a gentle smile when he entered the mansion on her first day at work. Mirae worked her hard at first, to make sure she was up to the task at hand. He watched her clean the sitting room, his body hanging over the second floor railing as he sipped a glass of whisky. She was so precious, so shy and sweet. He couldn’t seem to find himself looking anywhere else on that first day. She was a distraction for him, a distraction from the man in the playroom that murdered his little sister. For the first time, in the longest time, he wasn’t angry or guilty when he looked at her.

He followed her everywhere on her first day, talking to her and smiling so brightly the sun couldn’t possibly be his rival. Her voice was small then, catering to every whim and stupid task he put her up to just to see her. He would ask her to bring him water every two hours, ‘for hydration purposes.’ But, in reality he just wanted to drink in as much of her as he possibly could. He hated the curfew that the maids were given, he wanted to see her far later than what was allowed. Which he brought up to Jimin a few times only to hear mumbles about how whipped he was from his best friend. 

She began to open up to him as time went on, the first few months she worked at the house Taehyung could feel his breath catching every time he laid eyes on her. Her body began to fill out again as she stayed longer and he felt this overwhelming sense of love and ardor for this maid. He remembers barging into Jimin’s office during a meeting once. Disregarding the two Im’s that sat before the desk before pointing his finger at his best friend. He remembered telling Jimin how much he wants Hyejin. To give him to her. Jimin snorted over the rim of his whisky glass, telling him she’s a person and not a birthday present. With the roll of his shoulders he pleaded with his best friend, pulling him out of the office to relay how happy she makes him and how she makes him forget about his anger and guilt over his sister. Jimin promised him that if Hyejin wanted him, he could gladly have her. He had never seen his best friend so happy and he would want nothing more for Taehyung.

He can remember the times when he would sneak downstairs after curfew. Knocking gently on Hyejin’s door to see her. He can remember her voice laced with sleep as she would open the door a few inches and they would sit on the floor and talk to each other through the cracked door. He would ask her trivial questions he was dying to know. Like her favorite color and season. Her favorite food and favorite time of day. All to get to know the woman before him better. 

He remembers taking her out after curfew to the back garden where they sat and talked about every little thing and nothing at all. He held her then for the first time. He kissed her for the first time there too. He took her virginity that night, took her everything and made it his. He can remember everything with her so well it feels like just yesterday.

Now here he was, years later. Arms wrapped around the woman of his dreams as she grows his child within her. He runs his fingers over her stomach, sighing as he buries his face in her black hair. She groans gently as his son kicks harshly within her, clicking his teeth he sits up before pressing his lips to her bare belly. “Enough now, Hyungwon.” He chides as she runs her hands over her face. He shushes her gently, before kissing up her naked body. 

"Sleep more, you deserve to rest." He whispers before pressing his lips to her forehead. She hums to him before blinking slowly, wiping the sleep from her eyes. "I'm awake now." She mutters and he chuckles against her temple as his lips drift lazily over the skin.

"I love you." He mumbles before hugging her tightly. She gives a small giggle, smile widening on her face as he rocks her gently in their large bed. "I love you too."

Taehyung feels the warmth of her against him, the supple globes of her ass pressed closely to his crotch and he hums to her. "I've missed you these past few days, you've been too tired for me, my love." He jeers as she turns on to her back. Her hair sprawling out on the pillow beneath her as he runs his hand over her stomach. 

"You're the one that got me so tired in the first place." She chides him before pointing at her growing belly. He opens his mouth, fawning surprise before kissing her lips gently. "Oh don't you dare pretend like you weren't begging me to knock your filthy cunt up." He mutters before spreading her knees. He situates himself between them as his hands run over the bump he so diligently has made. He takes his time, his coffee irises blowing out as he watches her dark, puffy nipples begin to harden at his smooth circles on her belly. 

"You know, Hye. Just say the word and Master will treat you like a good little girl." He whispers as Hyejin gives a short laugh. Her head lolls over to the clock. "I'm going to get my nails done with Y/N and her sister." Hyejin tells her husband as he pins her shoulders down to the bed. He clicks his teeth as his body bows down, gently he presses his stomach to hers as his lips drift over her jawline.

"Why don't you be a good girl and tell them you have morning sickness. You just can't make it today." Every word is sensually punctualised with a kiss, working his lips down towards her swollen breasts. She takes in a sharp breath as his now ragged breath fans over her pert nipple. "Do as I say pet. And, you'll get to cum all over my cock." His tongue snakes past his lips before licking at her stiff peaked nipple. 

“Tae, come on. Y/N just started talking to me again I don’t want to- oh!” The corners of his lips flicker upwards before encircling her areola, he suckles gently at her sensitive flesh. Her back bows off of the bed as she whimpers for him. His free hand rolls her other breast in hand, squeezing delicately to accommodate their growing size before he looks back up at her. His long black hair falls into his eyes as he smiles.

“Come on, baby. Play with me. Please? I have the whole day for you.” He blows gently on her nipple, sending shivers down her spine as she runs her fingers through his hair. The stubble on his chin tickles her as he bends back down. Suckling sweetly at the nipple as he rubs circles on her belly. He could feel his son squirming around as her hips wiggle. Liquid arousal pooling out and onto the sheets below.

With a scoff she reaches for her phone on the bed side table before blinking rapidly to drive away her lusty haze. “Good girl, pet.” He mumbles against her breast as she rapidly types out that she has morning sickness and won’t be able to make it. “Mmm.” He groans before kissing down the valley of her breasts. His lips kiss over her swollen skin, suckling gently at the flesh of her belly as she moans gently. Her fingers press the delete key a billion times before she can type properly. His hands spread her legs wider, thumbs stroking over her inner thighs as she whimpers quietly. 

“I’m getting impatient, pet.” He calls to her before suckling at her belly button. His tongue trails over the dark line that traipses from below her belly button to her sex. She sends the message before throwing her phone onto the bed with a moan. Her phone vibrates not long after, both of her best girlfriends sending her ‘get better’ messages. Taehyung lets out a soft chuckle before kissing at her belly and her head cranes up to watch him as her mouth drops open. “Lay down, don’t strain yourself.” He tells her before lifting his head. 

She whines lowly, “I want to see you, this belly sucks when I can’t see you.” He clicks his teeth before rubbing at the distended sides of her stomach.

“Don’t say negative things like that, Won can hear you.” He tells her before hooking his hands under her knees and pulling her to the edge of the bed. He jumps off the bed, sitting back on the balls of his feet as he dangles her legs over the edge. Pulling her closer, she sits up on her elbows. 

“Better?” He asks before brushing some of her stray hairs behind her ear. She nods with a smile, earning a snort from him before he bows down again. “You’re such a little cum slut, pet. It’s incredible.” He murmurs before splaying her pussy lips open with his fingers. He tuts his tongue as he stares lewdly at her swollen cunt. 

“You’re so swollen, pet. So fucking wet, Jesus.” He whispers before picking some arousal up with his fingers making her whimper. He brings them to his lips before tilting his head. 

“I guess someone is dying to get split open with my huge cock, hmm?” He asks before thrusting his fingers at her face. “Lick it up, taste what your little pregnant pussy makes.” He tells her and hums in appreciation as her lips open for him. He enters his fingers into her mouth before groaning as her tongue swirls around his digits. 

“That’s it, pet. Show me how needy you are.” With a whine she suckles delicately against his fingers. He pulls his fingers from her before wiping them on the bed sheets. He spits on her cunt earning a shiver from her as he watches his spittle mix with her arousal as her pussy clenches around nothing. He gives a kitten lick to her swollen clit, feeling the way it throbs on his tongue and he moans before grabbing at her thighs. He kneads the flesh before suckling harshly, loud moans ricocheting off the walls of their room as he laps his tongue against the bud. “Fuck! Master!”

Taehyung’s cock twitches at the word before looking up at her. Barely able to see him over the belly, she tugs at his hair as her hips begin to lift off of the bed gyrating for more. Inching two fingers towards her weeping cunt, he steadies her hips as he watches the baby move within her. “Watch it, pet. Watch our son.” He chided as she tugs at his hair for more. With a quick breath he’s standing before shoving her down into the mattress.  She gasps loudly as he grabs her wrists before tugging her up the bed.

“Defy me one more time, pet. I dare you. I was going to be nice but you’re being a fucking brat.” He says before grabbing the silken strands of fabric that are tied to the bed posts. 

Hyejin lets out a low whine before stamping her feet on the bed, “I’m sorry, Master. I just wanted more.” She whispers as he runs his hand over her belly before tying her hands to the bed posts. 

“I don’t fucking care what you want. You get what I give and if that isn’t clear enough I’ll tie your legs up and use you like a hole for me to fuck until I choose. Are you going to behave?” He asks her before kneeling between her legs as she strains against the fabric. With a pout she nods to him and he slaps her cunt once for good measure. 

“Words.” He demands her before letting his lips drift over her belly. 

“Yes, I’ll be good. I promise, Master.” He hums to her before thrusting two fingers into her needy pussy without warning. Her back arches, belly straining as she moans loudly. Her pussy was so much tighter, so much warmer in this state. It was almost dizzying, he couldn’t get enough. He finally understood what Jimin had been talking about all these years. Pumping his fingers in slowly, he bows back down to her cunt. 

"You're fucking soaked. Jesus." His lips encircle her clit as he sets a steady pace with his fingers. Her gasps and groans make his eyes screw shut. The pet name he so diligently trained into her is spoken throughout the quiet of the room as her hands grasp at the silk strands that keep her arms bound. "Yes. Master! Fuck!" 

He could feel her clenching around him, begging for release. Each harsh breath she takes, strains the skin on her growing stomach. Taehyung moans against her gently, lips and cheeks becoming coated in her arousal as he curls his fingers. "I want you to cum for me, pet. I want you to show me how much you love my fingers in your needy little cunt."

Suckling harshly at her clit, she gives a sharp moan before cumming. Her ears ring out with white noise as she bows off of the bed. Taehyung sits up, pulling his fingers slowly from her before spitting on her cunt. "Good girl, my sweet pet." 

He watches her for a second, enraptured by her gorgeous face as she lays blissed out before him. Kissing her belly languidly, he waits patiently before calling her attention back to him. Tugging down his boxers, he hums as her eyes become alight with wanting. "Look how much you love my cock. Drooling over it." He runs his thumb over her bottom lip slowly. Tongue peeking out, Hye runs it over the pad of his thumb and he shivers gently before tapping her cheek. 

"Sit up." His index and middle finger gather precum from his pooling slit before holding his fingers out. Sitting up, she waits patiently for instruction as he caresses her belly. 

"Open your slut hungry mouth." He tells her as he drifts the precum over her bottom lip. Like a good girl, she opens her mouth for him. He hums as he presses his fingers harshly on her tongue. She whimpers at the taste, stringy and musky on her tongue as he hooks his thumb below her jaw. He tugs her face around as she sucks diligently before pulling her closer to him. "Spread." 

Her legs open for him as he gets comfortable between them. Watching as she tugs harshly against her restraints with all her strength, he raises an eyebrow. Pulling his fingers out, he tuts his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "Misbehaving little slut, what did I tell you?"

"I get what you give." She whispers as he spreads her legs wider. She whines loudly as he restrains her ankles to each bottom bedpost. "Look at you. Flayed for me because you just can't fucking listen. Hmm?" His hand rears back before slapping her pussy. She gasps loudly, thighs quaking as she goes through the motions of overstimulation.

He's taught her before, he'll break her down before building her back up but Hye has always been a brat by nature. She always defies, it's in her personality. But, he was fine with it. Life wasn't anything but fun with this woman beneath him. "Little fucking brat, open your mouth." She pouts at her husband, defying him with her pretty face and he lets out a dark chuckle. 

Spanking her pussy against, he feels her arousal gush out of her. "Open your fucking mouth, pet." Gripping his cock, he slaps the bulbous head harshly to her clit watching her writhe beneath him.

He pinches her puffy nipple roughly, earning a sharp groan from his wife as he taps his hand to her cheek. "Let's go, pet." Reluctantly, she opens her mouth. 

Minding her belly, he leans over her before spitting into her mouth. "Swallow it." She does so with a whimper, arousal beginning to pool onto the bed sheets beneath her as she tries to close her legs for friction.

Taehyung prods at her pregnant cunt before running his hands over her belly. "Look at you. Filthy little cock whore. Filled with my son and still getting my cock all wet. What does that say about you?" He murmurs as he bends down.

His lips plucking at her pert nipple as she moans beneath him. "That I love you, Master. Always!" She whines as her hips lift off the bed begging to be filled. 

His expression softens for a mere second, thumb drifting over her cheekbone as he smirks down at her. He plants a chaste kiss to her lips before thrusting inside of her without warning. She screeches with pleasure, eyes watering as his large cock impales her. "Fucking tight cunt, Jesus Christ." His tongue licks at his lips, head lolling back as he buries himself to the hilt.

He lets her adjust to his large size. Admiring the way her small pussy stretches around him, he gives shallow thrusts as he kisses the top of her belly, tongue rolling over the distended skin. "You're so gorgeous, pet. So pretty filled with my child. Accommodating his growing size so well, you're perfect." She smiles up at him as he tightens all four of the restraints on her limbs. 

"Your pregnant little cunt feels so amazing." He rolls his hips, earning a groan as he fills every nook and cranny of her soaked pussy. He begins to harshly thrust within her, ogling the way her breasts bounce for him. "Oh my God! Master!" Hye pulls on her restraints as he fucks her into next week.

His tongue licks at his lips, hands drifting over her engorged skin. "What are you to me?" He asks loudly as he pulls her hips up. Her body quivers at the pleasure, eyes streaming with tears as she balls her hands into fists. Her words seem to have been fucked out of her as her mind grows fuzzy. 

"Answer me, pet." He demands before slapping her breast gently. It's just enough to bring her back down to Earth as the sting radiates through her body.

"A hole! Just a hole for you to fuck!" She whines, her mouth going dry in the process as he grunts at her answer.

"That's right. You're just a pregnant fucking cocksleeve for me to use. Just a pregnant little hole for me." She gasps loudly as he pinches her clit. The sound of obscenely pornographic squelching resonates throughout their bedroom as his cock begins to twitch and pulse.

"And because you're such a fucking brat, you don't get to cum. You can watch me cum in you and cry all over my cock."

"No! Tae! Please! I'll be good!" She gasps loudly as he presses her breasts together before spitting between them. 

"Too late, pet." He whispers before drilling himself home. She whines loudly, the pleasure white-hot but not enough stimulation to finally get her to the precipice. She watches him fuck her dilligently, his black hair sticking to his sweaty face as he kneads at the skin of her stomach. 

His cock throbs wildly, growing thicker and longer as his pent up frustrations from days before finally come to a head. "Oh fuck! Hye!" He curses loudly before gripping at her hips.

Bulldozing himself inside, he watches her weep for his cock. Loving the way she struggles against the restraints to cum for him. "Please! Please Tae!" 

"No." He mumbles through gritted teeth before his hips stutter. He shudders visibly with a loud groan as he cums inside of her. She sobs at the stop of movement within her, her knuckles going white as grips the silken strands of fabric above her. He sighs gently before pulling out of her. 

Gritting her teeth, she kicks her legs in frustration as his hands run over his sweating six pack. "Open your mouth, pet." He instructs as he holds his cum covered cock. Globs of white cum meet her eyes as crawls out from her legs. 

He straddles her shoulders then, smacking the cum coated head of his cock to her lips. She opens her mouth slightly and he smacks her lips once more, white dots of cum flecking her lips and cheek as he does so. "Wider, babe." The sweet pet name has her opening wider within a second. 

"Suck me clean. Get me hard again." He tells her as her lips engulf his cock. The taste of his cum is heavy on her tongue, musky and all hers as she bobs her head. Swallowing his cum, she moans loudly at the taste. Taehyung's head turns, his fingers making a V motion as he opens up her pussy lips. He smirks at her swollen cunt, brimming and frothed white with his seed. 

Hollowing her cheeks, she adores the way his length continues to grow in her mouth. "Good girl, pet." He whispers as his fingers dip through her messy folds. Gathering his cum on his fingers, he rubs gentle circles onto her clit before moaning as she swirls her tongue over his head. 

She moans in tandem with him, clit beginning to throb wanting more and more pleasure to cum again. "Look at how swollen you are, baby. Your pussy is so fucking red." He tells her before slapping her pussy once more. She writhes beneath him as he teases her, pinching her clit earning streams of spit and tears down her face.

He pulls out of her mouth, eyeing her stomach as his son moves within her and he chuckles at the sight. Climbing off he kisses her gently. His hand strokes languidly at his cock as he situates himself again between her thighs. "Fuck your clit is huge for me, right now." He tells her before spitting on her cunt. 

Her skin feels hot, pussy weeping with cum and arousal as she begs him to fill her. Dying to get off on his cock, she lifts her hips with a whine. "Alright." He whispers before prodding at her entrance again. He sets a ginger kiss to her stomach as he enters her slowly. 

His mouth drops open at the warm, wet feeling as her cunt engulfs him. "Fuck, you're so messy with my cum. You little slut. Feels so fucking good." He wipes her tear streaked cheeks with sweet strokes of his thumbs before beginning to pick up the pace of his thrusts.

"God, you're such a good girl letting me fuck your pregnant cunt like this. Letting me use your tight hole like a cocksleeve." Her moans grow louder as he rubs her clit with rough circles. The obscene amount of wetness between her folding making it easy to build her up to the precipice. 

"Oh fuck! Thank you, Master!" She whines loudly as she lifts her hips with each thrust. "You love it, don't you? Love taking my cock and cum deep in your needy slut of a cunt." 

"Yes, Master! I love when you fuck me!" He groans at her words, feeling her pussy begin to twitch and pulse around his length. 

"Fuck, look at you. Already cumming on my cock like a virgin." He murmurs as her thighs lock and quiver. Becoming a babbling mess, her moans are keen. Eyes rolling back as he pinches her clit skillfully between his fingers. 

"That's right, pet. Cum on my big cock." He whispers.

His thrusts become steadier, working hard to please his wife beneath him. Tugging harshly at the restraints, her back bows off the bed. Lips parting for air as her pleasure reaches its peak. "Cum." Taehyung demands.

With dull ears and eyes screwed shut, she orgasms for him. Voice reaching a new high as her hips gyrate on his cock. "Fuck! So tight! Good girl, baby." He praises as her cunt clamps around his length. With a whimper, her head lolls back finding it hard to concentrate on anything as she goes through the throes of pleasure.

He spreads her legs wider, hands pressing to either side of her belly as he begins to rut himself inside of her faster. Breath catching, she whimpers as he picks up her hips. The new angle is mind dazing. With every harsh thrust, the bulbous head of his cock brushes against the spongy patch of nerves within her. 

Gritting her teeth, she whines loudly as he fucks her though over stimulation. "T-Taehyung! I-I can't!" She gasps out, tears of pleasure streaming down her cheeks. 

"You were crying to cum, pet. What's wrong? You can't handle the pleasure I give you, hmm? I'll make you cum as many times as I want." Hyejin whimpers as he thrusts with purpose.

Picking her ankle up and slinging over his shoulder, he changes up the angle once more. Deeper inside her now, she screams for him. Her wrists become chaffed by the silk as he licks at his perfectly pink lips. "That's it, pet. Look how wet you make my fucking cock. Jesus." He can feel his own orgasm coming as he locks eyes with his wife.

She begins to blubber again, words having no origin nor ending as her eyes roll back. "Good girl." Pinching her clit, without warning she orgasms again on his cock. Her breasts raise towards the ceiling as her cum squirts onto his thighs.

"Fuck! Look at that!" He groans through clenched teeth before driving himself home. He could tell it was becoming too much for her and he takes pity as she whimpers his name beneath him. "I love you." He whispers as his cock throbs wildly for release.

"I love you too!" She cries out as he stutters inside her. He sighs loudly as ropes of cum lather her swollen cunt. Wiping his hand across his sweating forehead, his tongue purchases between his teeth as he chuckles. 

Pulling out ever so gently, his lips rest on her belly. Giving gentle kisses he unties her wrists expertly, not even having to look at the process he's done so many times before. "Did I put you to sleep my Won? Hmm?" He asks sweetly before untying her ankles. 

Hyejin groans as she closes her legs and with a laugh, he lays beside her. It's unspoken that she places her head on his shoulder. And, it's also unspoken as she drifts his fingers over her forearm. "I missed you, baby." He whispers before placing his hand over his heart.

She looks up at him, chin hooking onto his pectoral muscle as she smiles. "I missed you too. Hyungwon has made me so tired and that whole Im thing just took us apart for a while." He nods to her before closing his eyes.

His hand rests on her belly as he sighs loudly. "Anything I can do that will protect our family, I gotta do it." She nods in agreement before running her nails down his chest.

"I'm so happy that Y/N is talking to me again." Hyejin admits. 

Taehyung gives a tired smile before tilting his head to look down at her. "She was having a hard time being jealous. That isn't to say she wasn't happy for us but, I know just how much she wanted another baby." 

With an agreeing hum, Hyejin throws her leg over his. The afternoon had gone by so quickly, it almost shocked him as his wife's stomach growled. "He's hungry." He whispers before patting her thigh. 

They sit up together as he kisses her temple. "What does my beautiful wife want to eat today?" 

Wrapping his arms around her, his fingers run ticklish circles around her belly as she hums to herself. She buries her face into the nook of his neck, taking in his scent of fresh soap and lingonberries. Hugging him tightly, she runs her fingers over his abs.

"You're so indecisive." He says with a laugh.

Bending down he whispers to her stomach as he lays his head on her thigh. "Won, what do you want to eat? Mommy can't decide. Do you want ginger chicken? Or soup? Noodles? Tell daddy what you want." 

"Oh. Cold spicy noodles sound delicious. " Hyejin murmurs out, earning a chuckle from her husband. 

"Then I'll get it for you. Whatever you want." He says as he kisses her temple. Jumping out of the bed, the smile that spreads across his face is dazzling. Everything he could ever want was right in front of him.

Stepping out of the restaurant, he takes his mask off of his face before walking towards his new Porchse. A perfectly wonderful present from his best friend for his birthday.

"Kim Taehyung?" 

Swirling his body around on the drop of a dime, his hand grips at his gun in the back of his pants before nodding at the delivery boy that stands in front of him. 

"What do you want?" He asks, gripping his gun tighter as a white cardboard box is presented to him. 

"Delivery." The boy says as he holds the box out farther. 

"Oh yeah? From who?" Tae asks as he sets the food on the hood of his car.

"No return to sender, just said to deliver to Mokja for Kim Taehyung." He clicks his teeth before pointing at the hood.

"Put it down and get lost." He mutters out.

Bending down he pulls his knife out of his strap around his ankle watching the delivery boy put the box on the hood. 

Quickly, he hops back on his moped before handing Taehyung the clipboard. 

"I need you to sign." He says.

He rolls his eyes before grabbing the pen and signing his name. 

Chucking the pen at the boy, he turns his body to the white box. Stabbing the box twice, he steps back before huffing gently. 

"What are you?" He mutters before opening up the box.

Peeking inside he groans at the nose and toes that sit inside the bottom of the box. With wide eyes he closes the box back up before shivering. He has to talk to Jimin immediately. 

"Fucking freaks." He scoffs before grabbing the box and the food before hopping into the driver's seat of his car.

Something is very wrong.

[hs-devote]

v. láthi: the secret

Moodboard * Content * Masterlist

Disclaimer:

All characters and situation in this story are fictitious. Resemblance to any person living or dead is only God knows.

chapter iv. the mistake

v. the secret

Harry decided to return to Centauri. He comes home feeling that everything he had done was in vain. His mission wasn't successful on Earth, and he felt useless for that. He even felt that his mission is no longer important. Well, it is. It’s important because it’s not only about him, his family, but also his crown and realm. He’s sure Selene will reproach him because he comes home empty-handed. He failed to find the Goddess of Birth and brought her back to where she came from. But, he didn’t care.

Nothing can bother him who’s grieving.

That day, when he came into the empty house of Y/N and Ilitia. His eyes found a scene that had been indigestible and incomprehensible until now. He saw his lover’s lifeless body in her grandmother’s arms who was so hysterical patting her cheek and calling out her name. He remembered very well how Ilitia sobbed while caressing her granddaughter’s pale face, eyes closed with blueish lips.

He remembered where he ran towards them, checking for a pulse he couldn’t feel. He didn’t see Y/N’s chest rising and falling to breathe, he couldn’t feel the breath through her nose, and how her body limped every time he shook her.

No, Harry didn’t understand.

No, Harry couldn’t believe it.

He shook his head in disbelieve and dropped his knees next to Y/N's limp body. His hands began to tremble as he patted her cheek while calling out her name. But, the way her head lolled to the side, confirming his nightmare.

He tried to make her breath by pressing her chest, hoping for a positive response. However, still, nothing changes. He gulped, his heart baulked at his brain's thinking. His tongue-tied to say the truth he expected.

Everything felt hazy. But, one thing for sure that he lost Y/N forever and so suddenly.

And what he regrets, until now, he couldn’t see her for the last time.

He wanted to kiss her for the last time, although she wouldn’t kiss him back. Yet, Ilitia kicked him out right before he got the chance. She screamed, blaming him for her granddaughter’s sudden and shocking death. The excruciating pain and rejection brought tears to his eyes, and the first time of him wept over a human. He realised that Ilitia really hated him when the woman didn’t allow him to even remember Y/N for the last time. And what he did at that time was.. relent, letting the little family mourning.

Harry didn't know the humans' traditions for someone death. Which he heard, humans do funerals a few days after the day of death. And when he returned to Y/N's house, her house was uninhabited. Then, he came to her work and met her co-worker, Mia. Mia told him that Y/N's funeral had been a few days ago and her grandmother, who's now alone, decided to leave Italy.

How did Harry feel?

He was sad, didn't deny the feeling of angry and disappointed. He just wanted to meet his lover whom he loved so much in a short time. He regretted his lack of efforts to try to meet her on her last days. Oh, if only he had known…

His chest felt tight thinking about her. He's confused, he's lost without her.

When the night comes, his brain forced him to think about her. Her smile, her laugh. Their memories. Everything.

He cannot bear the pain that makes tears run down his cheeks. And, this was the first time he cried since the death of his parents.

He was always thinking about what made Y/N die. The way her death called her was so sudden and strange.

Why?

How?

And now here he is, in Centauri. To recover, to heal his pain.

When he arrives at his castle, he feels all eyes are on him. It's obvious for his people that their God isn't all right. He comes back with grim, unsteady steps, and ignores all those who bow at him. Even when Selene greets him, he's not interested at all. He doesn't let her hugs and kisses him, only going straight to his bed-chamber to rest. . . . .

Harry doesn't know how long he was standing on the balcony of his bed-chamber and stared blankly at the view in front of him and doesn't realise that Selene was standing behind him.

The woman looks at her husband who's sad and agitated, unwilling to say a word. He pondered with his own mind, and even the beautiful expanse of Spikenard and Dianthus gardens under their bed-chamber balcony cannot take off his mind. And she wonders why.

“Harry, darling..” she gently touches his arms, “You're awfully quiet today. What's wrong?”

He only slightly turns his head before gripping the railing with both his hand, now ducking his head down and looking at the blooming Spikenards and Dhiantus below.  Selene just let out a sigh as she rolls her eyes, looking for a way for him to talk to her. She missed him too much and she wants to spend time with him with their bed which felt even more empty and cold with his absence every day.

“How's your mission? I can't wait to meet that Goddess and ask for her blessings. When do you think we can meet her?” she babbles as she put her head on his shoulder lovingly, her fingers rubbing his toned chest, “Sometimes I think, that Goddess is very troublesome with her mysterious disappearance and chose to live with lowly creatures on Earth. Did she not remember that she was a Goddess?”

Still, Harry doesn't budge and let his wife do whatever she wants. Meanwhile, Selene is getting more and more annoyed that her husband doesn't seem to care. Slowly, she grabs his face and brings his lips closer for her to land a kiss. Yet, he quickly avoids her and let go of her hand from him. He really isn't in the mood and just wants to grief.

“I'm sorry, Selene. I just–”

"What's wrong with you, Harry?!" his wife's voice is loud enough to make him flinched, and seeing she's so angry with her face now starting to turn red. Harry doesn't know why his refusal makes his wife furious. Indeed, during their married life, he almost never refused her touch, and only this time he did. He knows where this will lead to. It's just doesn't feel right for him to intimate with her while his heart is still grief the death of his lover on Earth.

"You came back with failure and empty-handed. Your behaviour is weird, you refuse to speak!" Selene hisses, "I've told you it's not important for you to go to that pathetic place. And now what? There's no difference between you and our useless men. You lingered on Earth doing nothing, not finding that fucking Goddess, and coming back here like this. What is this behaviour on you?"

“You called me useless?” he scoffs, staring at Selene in disbelief, “What in this realm your reason-”

“Don't twist my word–”

"You said I am no different with our men that are useless, according to you!"

“That's the truth. Our men are useless to find that Goddess, then you insisted on going down to Earth alone and refused to be accompanied by one of our trusted men.” she folds her arms together, “And looking at you now like this, I suspected something was happening on there  and you weren't honest with me.”

Harry scoffs, shaking his head and leave her alone in their bed-chamber. He's too annoyed of arguing with Selene and doesn't want to stir things up because he knows she will bring up this matter. However, it seems that the Goddess isn't satisfied and continues to demand the truth. She rushed to follow her husband behind and keeps yelling at him to be honest. And of course, it makes their servants and guards look at their God and Goddess in confusion. For the first time in forever, they see the romantic couple fight and even continued to the throne room.

“What should I do any more for making you tell the truth, forgetting the Earth and whatever happened there? Your place is here as God, the ruler of Centauri. Not in the mortal realm with the pathetic creature who make you messed up like this!" Selene cries, doesn't care with her voice echoed the empty throne room since there were only the two of them. Their servants and guards are very aware of their privacy and choose to step aside. After all, they don't want to be punished by the Goddess later if they overheard their conversation.

Harry quickly turn around, looking at Selene who's glaring at him. He doesn't say a word, letting his wife bring out whatever she feels. However, the more she shouts, the more he digests every word she said. Then, he realises something.

"It was you, wasn't it?" he hisses. His green eyes seeking the truth through Selene's eyes. He recalled her threat some time ago when she suspected him. However, she didn't bring it up again after that. Yet, he knows his wife well. She doesn't have to give him a warning anymore to make her do something awful. Selene indeed is a kind Goddess, but she can be a little cruel if she wants to. Especially when it comes to something she has or wants.

"I have to get rid of someone who seduces my husband. Moreover, she's nothing more than.. lowly and mortal creature." Selene calmly answers her husband, her face showing no emotion. Far from Harry who's suppressing his anger.

She sighs before shaking her head, “I couldn't let that rotten whore get in the way of our dreams.”

“What did you just say?” Harry takes a step closer with heaving chest. He doesn't accept his wife calling Y/N with such a name. He knows what he was doing, cheating behind Selene's back, was a mistake. Yet, he also couldn't allow Y/N to be humiliated and belittled, even if it was by his own wife.

“Even a whore is worth more than her.”

“Selene!”

“What!?” Selene yells, “Why are you still defending her, Harry? Do you love her so much that you have the heart to hurt your own wife? What did you see on her?”

"Yes, I do love her." he gives in, his eyes are still glaring at his wife as if she is now his enemy. "Why are you so desperate to kill her? Why did you do that, Selene? I know I was wrong but you didn't have to kill her! I was the one to made a move, not her."

“Because she has what we've been waiting for, Harry!” her scream echoed the whole room again, and she doesn't care if anyone hears. And this is her way of letting out her feelings, yelling at her husband to realise why she did that. She can't cry in front of Harry because her heart is refusing, she can't look weak in front of the man who has hurt her.

“I knew you were having affair with that woman for a long time, since the beginning of your arrival on Earth. I purposely let you for a few months of your time on there. Wish you will realise how wrong it was. Yet, what did I get?” she let out a sarcastic laugh before continuing what's bugging her mind, “You failed on your mission and fooled around with her, leaving your wife waiting for.. at least some good news.”

“You don't know how much I hate her when I knew your relationship with her. But, my hatred got worst when I found that someone could bear a child of my own husband. How sick was that?”

"I can't let my husband have mistress, and she's the one who gives him an heir. Let alone she's a human. Imagine what the realm would think if the successor to the throne was descended of a human?"

Harry never flicks his head that fast. He didn't mishear, did he?

He deliberately let Selene vent her anger to make her satisfied. Yet, the words that just left her mouth makes his brain seem slow to think.

“What did you mean by that, Selene?” he whispers, “If you keep talking nonsense, I swear–”

“I killed her because she was carrying your child, Harry!”

Selene no longer can contain her disappointment, and let the tears she desperately held back, roll down her face. Different from Harry who looks at her in shock, as if she had just told him a truth that he couldn't accept. However, it's true.

“That's not funny, Selene. How–”

“With you who have always had sex with her for months, nothing is impossible, Harry. Now, let me ask you. How long have you had an affair with her?” she sobs. But, it seems that Harry is still trying to remember the times where he was so complacent about his affair with Y/N. Until several minutes passed, he still can't answer her since he's so confused. How came a God impregnate a human?

"For months you were on Earth, making no effort to find that Goddess. Instead, you were having fun with her." she continues, "When I found out the news, I was so angry and disappointed. Why she could have what I want? It's disgusting to think that there was a human being who was pregnant by my husband and the child would be the first heir to the throne if it was born. I'm not allowing humans to interfere with our realm."

“How did you know if Y/N was pregnant with my child?” his voice barely just a whisper, still can't believe what Selene told him. This is too much for him to think. Y/N's death, Selene found out their affair, and now he just finds out that Y/N was pregnant with his child, his first child.

"I'm not stupid to let my husband go beyond my supervision. Even though you were not with her, my men still keeping their eyes on her every day. And when I was stalking her that day at her house, I knew which women are pregnant or not. As easy as that." she scoffs, "If I let it any longer, you'll find out and you'll protect the child desperately."

She adds afterwards, "And thinking that you would make her your mistress. I am the Goddess of Centauri, the wife of the realm's ruler, the rightful one – I would do anything to thwart it all. What would our people think if they found out, their ruler betrayed not only the throne, but them?"

Harry hasn't yet had time to open his mouth, a very familiar voice interrupted them. For a moment, he thinks he's hallucinating. But, when he looks for the source of the sound, he's shocked.

How could that be?

There, standing the grandmother of his lover. Her appearance is so different from usual, the lady dressed like a Goddess. Ilitia looks so charismatic despite her old age. He thinks, how did she get here? And most importantly, how could she know about Centauri and where the realm is?

Not long after, two guards rushed into the throne room, looking scared because the intruder managed to get into and met their God and Goddess. If Selene just raises her eyebrows at the guards, Harry makes eye contact with Ilitia. If he stares at her in confusion, Ilitia shots him a glare.

“Your Majesties! I'm sorry but this intruder–”

The guards close their mouths when Harry raised his hand, asking them to shut up. They bow at him and Selene who now studying Ilitia from head to toe before excusing themselves to remain on guard at the entrance.

"You may be wondering why I got here, Harry." Ilitia opens her mouth and averts her gaze to Selene. "And finally I can meet you in person, Selene."

“Who are you and how dare you address me by the name?!” Selene hisses while squinting her eyes, “How brave of you to infiltrate my castle.”

“How did you get here, Ilitia?” Harry whispers, “How do you know this place?”

“You call yourself the ruler of Centauri, the mighty God. Yet, you couldn't recognise me?” Ilitia shakes her head, “Your predecessors would be disappointed if they're still alive.”

“Tell us what do you want. We have more important things to do than have to deal with you.” Selene then turns to look at her husband, “Why don't you throw her out? She–”

“You can't just kick someone out especially the ones you've been looking for.”

“What?”

“Too bad Harry couldn't recognise me as the Goddess of Birth even though he saw me often.”

What Ilitia just said in front of them makes Harry widens his eyes. Ilitia must be kidding, right?

How could she claim to be the missing Goddess of Birth all of sudden? She's a human for God's sake, and Harry knows that really well. She showed no signs as a one.

“I am the one who you've been looking for. I am the Goddess of Birth.”

The words come so easily from the old lady's mouth while the husband and wife stare at her as if she has just grown a second head. Someone they had been looking for just appeared before them. However, someone who is very close to Harry and he couldn't sense her aura at all.

“You must be kidding, Ilitia.” Harry shakes his head, “If you're the one, I should have sense you at the first time. You're a human, and you can't speak like that.”

"If I am a human, how could I know this place and to got here and meet you?" Ilitia asks him, "If I am not the one, how could I know that you're looking for me for help because your wife cannot conceive while you need an heir to the throne, Your Majesty?"

“Your father, Dias, was the king of the Gods. And your mother, Tileia, the Goddess of Women and Family. They only have one heir, and it's you. Harry, the child who inherits all of the Gods and Goddesses power because your parents were so loved by the universe.” Ilitia sighs, “And even the stars and the moon bowed down at your birth.”

Harry was silent. His mother once told this story when he was a child, about how universe so blessed with the birth of the heir of the Centauri's throne. And the stars with the moon bowed down when he was born into the world.

If Ilitia could find that out, there was no way she would lie about who she is. And that leaves him even more speechless.

"Very well, then." Selene breaks the silence, "Welcome back, Goddess. What made you finally decide to come back, after all this time?"

Ilitia scoffs, “You said that you were looking for me but didn't know my name?”

"My bad. Welcome back, Carmenta." Selene faking her smile. Although she's happy to finally meet the Goddess of Birth, her arrival isn't exactly right when she was arguing with Harry. Talking about him, he seems to be in deep thought. How could he not be aware of it? The Goddess' name is Carmenta, and her name on Earth is Ilitia. And Ilitia is another unpopular name for Carmenta. Of course, she used that name to disguise herself among humans.

“I sense you're still mourning the death of my granddaughter, Harry.” Ilitia then shifts her gaze to Selene, looking at the woman with so much anger, “Ironically, it was your wife who killed Y/N herself.”

"Wait a minute. I don't understand. I've never killed any other Gods or Goddesses or their descendant!" Selene shrieks, "You're talking nonsense!"

Ilitia deadpanned, “You killed my darling Y/N because she was carrying your husband's first child, the heir to the Centauri's throne. You didn't want your husband to have a mistress and then get rid of you because you can't conceive.”

“What–”

“Y/N is her granddaughter, an adoptive to be exact.” Harry mumbles, “You knew that Y/N was pregnant with my child?”

“I am the Goddess of Birth, of course I knew. Even though Y/N didn't know she was pregnant.”

“Then, if you knew who I am, why did you let it at from the beginning?”

"I let you be with her because I know that Selene can't give you an heir until whenever. Your fate has been written since you were born that you would have heirs outside of your marriage. And when you met Y/N, I could feel that fate was coming, and I let it be. I kept her to still pure until you met her because her fate to bear the descendant of Centauri's Gods even though she's just a human."

“This is no coincidence, Harry. I adopted her parents because I knew your fate and even hers, long before she was even born.”

“And you knew her fate will end like this, didn't you?” his voice barely just a whisper, thinking about the death of Y/N still makes him uncomfortable especially in a situation like this.

“One's destiny could change if there was other interference.”

“And what was it?”

“Your wife.”

“Hold on,” Selene cuts them off, “So, Y/N is your granddaughter? You adopted a human then it was her your granddaughter?”

“Sometimes humans are better than us, Selene.” Ilitia changes the subject, doesn't want her heart hurts if she keeps thinking about her beloved Y/N, who's no longer with her. Her irritation grows when Selene chuckles and shakes her head.

“A noble creature like you adopted humans and take care of them like your own blood? How awful.”

“Selene!”

Harry yells at his wife. But, it seems she doesn't care and just rolls her eyes, looking bored with the conversation she thinks isn't important. She just wanted this Goddess to help her get pregnant immediately.

"At first, I believed in you and the destiny that was made. However, when I found out that your wife was going to kill Y/N, that's why I suddenly pushed you away. To protect her and her baby. But, it seems that Selene worked harder so that she succeeded in killing your lover and future child." Ilitia speaks sadly, "And it's gotten worse when I found out that the cursed Goddess is your wife."

“Cursed Goddess?” Harry stares at her dumbfounded, ignoring Selene who now looks panicked.

“You don't know she's a cursed Goddess?” Ilitia raises her eyebrow, “You have married her but have no idea about her past? Really, Harry?”

“Carmenta, I order–”

"I'm taking no order from anyone because I do not belong to the court." Ilitia shuts her, "Selene was a Goddess of Moon, and now is a cursed Goddess. She seduced and lured a human, visited him every night while he lay asleep. She sneaked out with him afterwards and fucking each other. The court found out her sin, punished her by removing her power, and cursed her that she couldn't have children forever and no power in the realm can help her. Even Gods or Goddesses, like me."

Selene covers her ears with both hands, doesn't want to hear her dark secret being brought up in front of her husband. She never told Harry about this. At first, she didn't care about the curse. Yet, when she married him, having children became her focus if she didn't want her position as the Goddess in Centauri to be replaced.

“You never saw her show her power, didn't you?” Ilitia smiled mockingly, shrugging her shoulders to Selene.

"And, Harry? It's not just Y/N's fate to carrying your child. She's a reincarnation of a Goddess long before your time, she and her spouse were forced to separate because she couldn't carry a child. The court dumped her to the Earth. While she was being on Earth, her spouse still was in their realm and to marry another Goddess to produce an heir. Her spouse felt guilty knowing she was alone suffered, yet he prayed to the universe that someday she would find happiness. Even if in another life. Yet, the chaos Centauri brought to Syracuse centuries ago made it all fall apart."

“How did you know?”

"Because I was her spouse married to. I knew her pain, I felt that I have betrayed her who was actually my childhood friend. I begged to the God of Life for sparing me long live until I could make up for feeling guilty and help her to be happy." . . . .

Y/N was fidgety all day, she really missed Harry and wanted to meet her lover so much. These several days, her grandmother never left her alone and always at home, as if imprisoning her with the circumstances. Even Ilitia strictly forbade her to go to work, and it irritated her the most. If her grandmother kept telling her off, how could she work and do her activities normally?

But, that day seemed to be on her side.

Ilitia trusted her granddaughter enough to be alone at home and leaving to do some groceries. Initially, Y/N insisted on accompanying her, but she refused since the grocery wasn't far from their home.

And that was when Y/N made sure her grandmother was far enough away, she rushed to pick up her mobile phone and dialled Harry's number, which unfortunately wasn't answered. She tried for two times, yet it seemed the man was busy or didn't have the phone on him.

She had the idea to take the opportunity to escape, didn't care if Ilitia didn't find her at home. She just wanted to meet Harry for a moment.

Yet, when she put on the floppy hat that Harry gave her, she winced as the front door slammed hard enough. She wondered why her grandmother came home so early sounding so irritated from how hard the door slammed.

That was weird.

Ilitia always calls her when she comes home from anywhere, and it becomes her habit to call her mia cara.

But, she didn't hear it this time.

Shrugging it off, she came out of her bedroom and rushed out to her grandmother. However, she didn't find Ilitia there. The door was wide open, and Ilitia's pots were crushed beside the door.

Something went wrong...

“Nonna?”

Silence...

“Non– who are you?!” Y/N squinted her eyes when she found three unfamiliar figure standing right in front of her. Ilitia couldn't be careless enough to leave the door unlocked even though she was inside. How could these strangers break into her home?

“What are you doing in my home?”

Those strangers didn't say a word. Instead, they kept on moving forward making Y/N widened her eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey! What are you do–” she hadn't finished her word when one of them pulling her arm and yanked it. The poor girl stumbled on her feet and fell to the floor. Her feelings were chaotic at the moment, her brain was thinking hard how could she fight them and kick them out, close and locked all the doors and windows and hide inside. Or, how to get out of there.

Well, she had to be strong if she wants to survive, did she?

Y/N tried to stand up, but one of them flew his hand and scattered the things in the living room. She screamed in shock, one of her family's picture frames hit her shoulder before falling to the floor and shattered.

What was that?

How could those things scatter on the floor without them touching?

Who were they?

What are they?

She gulped, and when the time was right, she immediately got up and ran away from them to her bedroom.

Yet, the luck wasn't on her side this time.

The intruders followed her inside, holding her bedroom's door when she was about to close it. What was the power of woman dealing with three men at once?

Y/N was freaking out. What did they want from her?

“Go away! Go away!” she stupidly yelled while trying to shove away the hand was holding her door, “What do you want?”

“You.”

She screamed when they succeded open the door wide and cornered her. She panicked even more when one of them grabbed her wrist making her stiffened. What kind of power or magic they had to make her like that?

“Our Goddess wish your death before the moon appears in the dark. You wish your own death by interfering the peace of our God and Goddess."

She frowned. What?

“I'm sorry, but I don't understand–”

“No kind in the realm will do such a thing to Centauri.”

Centauri..

Centauri...

That sounded familiar.

Hold on..

The myth.

“Wha–”

Y/N hadn't yet had a chance to speak when the pain gnawed at her body. Oxygen seemed to be being drained from her lungs, making her stuffy and unable to breathe. She didn't understand. They didn't strangle her, but why could it be difficult for her to catch a breath?

Her other free hand desperately trying to free her wrist, but the other two men held her back. She coughed badly, his head dizzy made her weak and lost her strength.

She gave up, she couldn't think how she could get rid of this pain. She just prayed whoever was suspicious with the door to her house wide open and immediately helped her. When she felt their grip loosened on her, she felt a little relieved, thinking they were satisfied enough to torture her.

However, that was a grave mistake.

When they dropped her body to the floor, the pain grew even more. Her lungs still struggling for air, while the excruciating heat ran through her already weak body. She cried as she felt like a thousand needles pricking into her skin.

“Long live the Gods and Goddesses. Long live the throne. Long live Centauri.”

That was the last word she heard before her eyes closed, yet until the last seconds of her life, Y/N prayed for her grandmother and Harry, to be happy no matter what, even if she could no longer standing beside them.

Harry gasps, his eyes were wide open with sweat pouring down his face. The God sighs when he realises it's already morning, the shining light through his wide-open balcony window shine into his bare chest. The dream he just had earlier, was very scary for him.

He saw how his innocent lover was killed by guards he knows so well, and seemed so loyal to his wife that they obeyed to kill someone who wasn't wrong. His Y/N was tortured, her right to life was taken away by a creature that she even thought was a myth.

He cannot try to remember the dream or.. nightmare again. Too painful, too tormenting his mind.

And he cannot stop thinking about Selene. He felt betrayed by her. All this time, he had seriously misjudged his wife.

About Selene, with Ilitia or Carmenta's professing faith and her own confession, Harry dragged his wife to the court to atone for her crimes. Even so, he believes that her punishment isn't severe because humans aren't their obligation. However, he thinks to ask for a marriage annulment since he's too fed up with her. At least, this time he's free from her since she had to be exiled until her trial day.

He sighs, realising that he's in his home. Although he was happy to be back, it was a sign that he had to return to being a ruler, a God, and carry out his duties. While on Earth, he was free from his duties and obligations, even it was temporarily. . . . . “Yes, Bernard's border will have additional guards but not reduce the number of other borders."

The advisor nods, understand what Harry means before bowing and excusing himself. While the God himself continued his steps to see his flower garden which he hadn't seen for a long time. Did Selene or their servant take care of them while he was away?

It seemed they did.

His Bellflowers, Hellebore, and Hyacinth are in full bloom, looking beautiful as always. Yet, the longer he stares at his garden, he remembers his lover who's so familiar with them. Hell, he misses her so much making him remember how good she smelt with fresh flowers. If their love story weren't complicated, he might be would bring her here and show her flowers she had never seen on Earth.

Then, he chooses to leave. He doesn't want to cry for her again, he doesn't want Y/N sad because he couldn't accept her death.

But, when he turns around, his body froze. He cannot believe what he's seeing now. His brain and body feel bewitched to be paralyzed for a moment.

Standing in front of him, right in the middle of the garden path, his sweet Y/N throws a sweet smile. A smile that immediately warmed his heart. A smile that he missed it the most. He cannot believe it. His brain denies what his heart is sure of, sure that his love is right in front of him. Looks beautiful and perfect, nothing less.

Smiling like an idiot, Harry steps in haste, yearning to hug her. Suddenly, his steps tripped, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground. He chuckles at his folly, so eager to touch her. Getting up, he shakes his head and ready to love on her. However, his smile faded when he no longer see Y/N.

Where is she?

Was it his mind playing a trick on him?

And from that second, tears roll down his cheeks, as if to make him realise that he no longer has her.

Harry lost Y/N, because of himself, of his mistake, of his selfishness.

*

THE END. * When I decided to write this mini series, I didn’t expect that you guys to be so excited about my second series, since my first series isn’t doing good enough. Honestly, I didn’t plan Láthi to have many chapters because the concept is so simple; Harry, who’s a God, cheated on his wife and he regrets that he lost Y/N because of his stupidity. I am very grateful for the excitement, and I hope I can do better with next writing (hopefully). English isn’t my first language, so I’m sorry if there are any errors. Well, this really helps my English.

Cheers! Lydia find me on instagram; @lydiaasft

PS: if you want to talk to me about this series, my writing, or whatever it is. my inbox is always available ;)