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oleksiak-pettersson · 3 years ago

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Summer Paradise - Elias Pettersson

Because today is my birthday, I've decided to spoil y'all with some of my older smutty fics from my old blog (oh-holy-alien). Love you guys! (There's a bit of smutty stuff in this one, but not full ass smut)

The sun bouncing off the lake is what wakes you. Elias forgot to close the blinds in his haste to get you to bed.

The summer air is cool as it seeps in from the open window. You can’t help but stretch out and sigh when you struggle to move. There’s an arm wrapped around your waist and it pulls you closer trying to stop your wiggles.

“Stop moving, you’re taking all my warmth,” Elias mumbles, his arm not holding you grips his pillow tighter. Your back is flush against his front, but you turn your torso for a better angle to glimpse him. You can feel every crevice and muscle of his body and it makes you tingle.

“Maybe you’d be warmer if you put on clothes before bed,” you tease, dragging a finger along his cheek.

“I would’ve but I was too tired from fucking you into the mattress.” He smirks, lips pursing to press a kiss to your bare shoulder. He drags his mouth along the length of your shoulder and trails up the side of your neck.

“So crude, mister Pettersson,” you can’t help but giggle at the feeling of his scruff on your skin. “We should probably get up soon.”

“No, I want to stay here with you forever.” He whines, dramatic as ever. You roll your eyes at his childish antics, he may be sassy to the media but he’s your teddy bear. In more ways than one.

You sigh happily and you grab at his bicep, pulling yourself up onto his chest. You cross your arms behind his head, curling your fingers into the long hair at the back of his head. You don’t let yourself kiss him, instead, inspecting his face. The morning light highlights the tan his normally pale skin has adorned so far this summer. His eyelashes are a dark contrast against his skin. The long lashes frame his eyes perfectly, the cerulean blue of his iris is hypnotizing and you find yourself lost.

“What are you thinking about?” He asks, breaking you from your concentration. He’s got both hands gripping your hips and you can tell that he’s straining himself from jumping your bones.

“Just that I’ve got the most incredible view right now,” You tantalize, leaning down to press kisses along his bare collarbone.

Elias’s cheeks become rosy, he can’t help but smile dopily. Moments like these are his favourite. “I’m thinking the same thing. All the more reason to never leave this bed.”

You giggle at that, to emphasize his point he pulls you flush to him and starts peppering kisses all over your face. It tickles and you can’t help but try to wiggle away.

A knock at the door startles you both apart.

“Good morning! There’s breakfast ready when you are.” Irene calls from the other side of the closed door.

You hide your head in Elias’s side, hoping she doesn’t enter the room.

“Tack, mor,” Elias yells back, running a hand up and down your back. He waits until he can’t hear her footsteps anymore. “We should shower.”

“Yeah, you smell,” You tease, pulling your body away from his.

“Hey!” He laughs, pushing himself onto the floor and stretching in all his naked glory. You can’t help but ogle his beautiful form. You can’t refrain yourself as your body slips out of bed solely intent on slapping his nice juicy ass. If anything it was taunting you to hit it.

He turns around quickly, you have barely enough time to feign innocence as he throws you over his shoulder.

“Elias!” You cry out, giggles erupting from your mouth as you try to beat at his back to be put down.

Instead, he brings a hand up to caress your ass as he walks the both of you to the bathroom. He places you down gently on the bathroom counter, turning his back to you to start up the shower.

“Don’t even think about it,” Elias says not even turning to look at you. “Do not touch my ass.”

Sometimes it’s freaky how he can read your mind. His ass is once again perfectly in eyesight and you had been thinking about touching it again. You sigh dramatically, playing up your faux disappointment at the lack of playful contact.

Elias pulls back the curtain, the water inside the shower is streaming down and it’s very enticing. There’s steam rising into the room. Elias gestures for you to jump down, holding a hand out for you to take as he guides you into the shower.

“So are we fooling around in here or not?” You ask, pretending to be serious.

The alien death stare you get in return has you pouting. You turn your back to him and focus on the steady stream that encapsulates you. You focus on the tiled wall in front of you, trying to will yourself to be fully awake. Hands sneak around your waist, gripping at your boobs. They squeeze and massage, fingers moving to tweak your nipples.

You can’t stop the moan that squeaks out of your throat. Elias steps forward to once again press himself flush against you.

“Thought you said we weren’t fooling around,” You smile, turning your head to peak at the blonde.

“We’re not,” He smirks looking over your shoulder at what his hands are doing.

“Okay,” You draw out, “but you’ve got no soap on your hands.”

He rolls his eyes before reaching around you for the loofah. You grab the body wash and hand it over your shoulder to him. He lathers the body wash onto the loofah, before taking his time rubbing it on your body. He purposely takes his time paying attention to areas he normally spends large amounts of time touching.

“Okay, your turn pretty girl.” He says, and reaching over your shoulder to hand you the loofah.

You smirk devilishly, taking the soapy object in your hand and pressing it against his chest. You take your sweet time, lingering your touches. His hand wraps gently around your wrist stopping your actions, you look up slyly at him. You bat your eyes, feigning innocence.

“I know what you’re doing,” he growls, he’s trying not to take you right there, you can see it in his eyes. “We are not having sex in the shower. My family is here.”

“People have never stopped us before.” You whine, continuing to move the loofah lower. You wrap your empty hand around his half-hard cock. You try to start jerking him off but with little success, as his hand grasps yours and it pulls your hand off of him. A whine makes its way out of your mouth. All you want is this sexy man to fuck you against the tile.

“I think they’ve heard us enough for the next little while.” Elias’s eyes flicker shut and he struggles to let out a breath without moaning. He tries to back away from you and get closer to the tiled wall at the opposite end of the shower.

“You owe me,” your eyes narrow and you turn away from him. You go about your usual shower routine, ignoring the large man behind you as he does the same.

When you’re both clean, he reaches around to turn the shower off. He places a gentle kiss on the crook of your mouth, grabbing a towel. Ever the gentleman, he wraps you uptight, double-checking to make sure you’re dry before letting you out of the shower. He grabs his own towel, drying his hair quickly.

It gives you a chance to once again drool over his beautiful body. If he wasn’t being such a prude right now, you would’ve jumped his bones without hesitation but you also understood his wish to not scar his family any more than you already had last night.

“Get dressed,” he says as you make your way back into the bedroom. “We’re spending the day on the lake so be ready.”

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“Good morning,” you smile, watching as Irene turns to return your smile. She’s standing in front of the stove, finishing up breakfast. Emil and Fanny also smile up at you from where they’re seated at the kitchen table.

“You look surprisingly well-rested,” Emil jabs, clearly eyeing the singular hickey on your neck. He’s smirking very hard and you can tell he heard you relate night activities. You can’t fight the blush that seems to cover your face at his insinuation. Fanny laughs looking at your reddening cheeks and nudges Emil.

“We slept great,” Elias deadpans, appearing down the stairs. He kisses the side of your head before leading you to the table. He pulls your chair out for you and tucks you into the table, immediately going to check if his mother needs help. “You’re just jealous I got laid and you didn’t.”

Elias smirks, he’s proud of the fact that he had you crying out loud enough to be heard across the house. His mom rolls her eyes, sending the three of you at the table into a fit of laughter.

“Where’s dad?” Elias inquires, he’s fixing up two plates. His mother turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. She’s got a spatula in her hand and she points it towards the lake out the window. Elias nods, fully understanding that his father has already gone fishing.

You can’t help but watch as he carefully and calculatedly places things on your plate, you trust he knows what you want. You wish this could last forever. Having him for the entire summer with no reason to be apart is the best time of year. He’s really a work of art, his intent focus on preparing breakfast is something you could watch all day.

“So, what are your plans for the day?” Fanny asks, pulling your attention from where your boyfriend is prepping your breakfast. She’s got her head cradled in her hand as she perches against the table. Emil is also watching you, you feel a little embarrassed that they caught you lost in your thoughts staring at your boyfriend.

“Oh, uh,” You stammer, attempting to recover from your blatant gawking. “I’m not actually sure.” You look up to find Elias and ask, but he’s disappeared from getting breakfast. A plate is placed in front of you, Elias pulls the chair beside you out and slips in smoothly.

“We are taking the jet ski for a picnic on the other side of the lake,” Elias says, his left arm coming up to rest on the back of your chair. He uses his free hand to start eating, with his fork of course. “What are you two doing today?”

“Going into town to meet friends for lunch,” Emil says, looking at fanny to double-check the plane. She nods, coffee mug in hand as she checks her phone that rests on the table.

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“Are you ready to go?” Elias pokes his head into your shared room. He’s got no shirt on, which has been pretty standard so far this summer. You look up at him from where you’re struggling to tie the back of your bathing suit top.

“Almost, can you help me tie this?” You ask, turning and holding your hair up. He makes the short trip from the doorway into the room to stand behind you.

His large hands are cold against the small of your back and he traces the hem of the bathing suit where it rests on your skin. He quickly ties the strings into a nice bow, a hand falls down to trace the curve of your body.

“Will you put sunscreen on me?” You ask innocently, lip bitten between your lips. You know damn well how to work him up in the ways you want. He groans, before attempting to discreetly adjust himself in his swim trunks. You smile to yourself as he fails to do so without you noticing.

You hand him the sunscreen, and he flips the cap open. The liquid is cold as he rubs it into your skin. It’s super intimate as he performs an oddly general task for you.

“Have you put sunscreen on, babe?” You ask, looking at him over your shoulder. His eyes dart to you and back to where he’s rubbing in the sunscreen.

“No, not yet.” He murmurs, his eyes are narrowed on your skin. He dives into his state of ultimate concentration. You appreciate that he’s focusing pretty hard on covering your exposed skin with sunscreen. You really would not like to get skin cancer.

Once he’s done, he hands the tube of cream to you. You take it happily, turning on your heel to face him in order to cover him.

“No funny business,” he says, eyeing you wisely. It’s almost unfair how attuned he is to your thought process. Although you could argue you were equally attuned to his. This request is also based on a prank you had previously played on Quinn last summer at Brock’s lake house.

While the young defenceman had fallen asleep, you’d drawn shapes on him in sunscreen. When he got burnt, as he always did, he’d had small spots of skin that weren’t burnt. Boy was he not pleased. Brock and Elias had thought it was hilarious, there was a very large dick imprinted on Quinn’s chest that required he wear a shirt the rest of the trip. You’d been in hot water with him after three days when he’d tried to hook up with a lovely lady, who upon seeing the sunscreen tattoo, lost the mood and laughed so hard she threw up.

“I would never do that to you,” you roll your eyes. “I value our relationship.” You start to rub the white substance into his skin.

“I value our relationship too.” He smiles cheekily, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips. It’s a welcomed distraction, even though your hands keep moving to cover his body in sunscreen.

“Turn around please,” you finally break away. You pour more sunscreen into your hands and immediately press two hands marks onto his back once he turns.

“You better rub those in,” he says, you can’t see his face but you know he’s serious. You move your hands in circular motions, all without removing them from his back after the initial strike of your hands.

“Don’t worry, Petey,” You smile, knowing he hates when you call him that. “I won’t let you burn.”

The look he shoots you over his shoulder has you shaking in glee, fully aware you got under his skin. You spend the next couple of minutes in silence as you finish lathering him up in sunscreen. You’ve done a surprising amount of touching him in sensuous ways today with a lack of actual sex. Usually, if you had been touching each other in the ways you had been, you’d be three rounds deep, tied up in the sheets.

It’s an odd thought to cross your head as you keep putting sunscreen on him, how you’ve had a lack of sex today. Is there something wrong with you? Missing sex seems to be an odd thought but at the same time, summer is its own world. You can’t really do three or more rounds during the season. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not impossible but not as frequent as it is when you’re in Sweden for the summer.

“Okay, babe you’re done.” You smile, getting the excess sunscreen off your hands by grabbing a towel from the rack. You quickly throw on a shirt and pair of shorts, you don’t feel like just wearing your bikini for the ride to the other side of the lake.

“Thank you, mitt hjärta,” He grabs the beach bag you’ve prepared on the bed. His fingers creep along your hand before they fully engulf your hand. You happily let him guide you down the stairs and out of the house. He only stops walking once he’s reached the dock. Elias lets go of your hand, going to lift up the seat and place the beach bag and the food bag that you hadn’t even noticed he’d grabbed inside the storage compartment underneath.

Elias grabs a life jacket, handing it to you before fixing his own.

“Do you want me on the front or the back?” You ask, standing back as he does some checks. You’re hesitant to get on the machine, it doesn’t look like it’s supposed to fit two people. You rub your hand up and down your other arm.

“You can go on the back,” Elias says, not even turning to look at you. If he had, he would’ve noticed the apprehension on your face. He continues to fiddle with the jet ski.

“Is it safe?” You wonder out loud.

Elias whips around to look at you, finally having picked up on your hesitation. He approaches you slowly, wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you close in comfort.

“I would never ask you to do anything dangerous,” he says, maintaining eye contact. “I promise.”

You feel a lot safer with the reassurance from him. It doesn’t fully quell the fear from the back of your mind but you feel at least a little bit better. He pulls back from you, moving to sit on the jet ski. It’s tied tightly to the dock.

Elias turns to look at you, patting the remaining portion of the seat. You move towards him, stepping gently on the edge of the machine. You hike your leg over the width and snuggle yourself into Elias’ back. Even with the life jacket on, he fits perfectly into your arms.

Elias leans over, untying the rope and pushing off the dock. He turns the key, the engine begins to purr. As the jet ski starts up, Elias smiles at you over his shoulder, pressing a kiss to your forehead before he turns back and starts moving away from the dock.

It’s exhilarating, the wind is in your hair and Elias begins to zig-zag along the water. You can’t help but grip tighter onto him. It’s incredible the way he maneuvers the machine in the way he wants to go.

The way you’re gliding over the water is incredible, you can feel your body relaxing. There’s a small amount of spray being blown at you but it’s welcome. The smile has written itself on your face.

“This is awesome,” you all but shout into Elias’ ear, with your head resting on his shoulder you can see the smile he wears effortlessly.

This is Elias’ happy place and in this moment you understand why. The lake is incredible, the ability to go out on the water whenever is a luxury you wish you had all the time in Vancouver. Elias is at ease here, you can feel the weight of your world almost flying away with the wind.

He takes you around the lake multiple times, before finally settling on a beautiful beach around the corner from any other cabin. You smirk at the fact that he’d chosen such a hidden space.

When the jet ski comes to a stop, Elias gently gets off. He splashes into the water that’s only knee-deep before he guides the machine to rest upon the sandy beach. It’s a beautiful day, the sun beats down perfectly on the little hidden cove. You can’t help the awe written on your face as you take in the beautiful little area.

The water is beautifully blue, the sand seems to glow in the sunshine. There’s a light breeze rolling along the shore and you’re thankful for it. The sun is beating down unobstructed and it’s warm as hell. The sun is welcome against your face, it’s a blissful heat against your wind-chilled skin.

Elias holds out a hand to help you get off the jet ski, instead of letting you walk into the water, he picks you up and walks you to the edge of the sand. Once on your own two feet on the beach, you stretch out your stiff body. Elias grabs the two bags from the storage area, bringing them right to you.

“You want to step the blanket right here?” He asks, handing you the beach bag. He assesses the beach for a possible better spot. The entire beach is flawless and you can’t go wrong picking a spot.

“Sure thing, babe,” you pull the blanket out and shake it out on that sand. Elias places the bag with the food at the far corner, you place the beach bag along with it, after pulling out your phone. You take off your life jacket, Elias doing the same. He grabs both and walks back to the jet ski to hang them off the handlebars.

“Will you take some photos for my insta?” You ask when he returns to sit on the blanket. You bat your eyelashes, puppy dog face in full effect. You know you don’t really need it because Elias would rewrite the stars if you asked him to. He scoffs playfully, pretending to roll his eyes and be annoyed by the request.

“Of course, min kärlek,” He takes the phone from your outstretched hand. You peel off your shirt, slowly and teasingly knowing full well Elias’ eyes are bugging out. His shorts look a little tighter by the time your shirt is over your head. It makes you smirk, you love the control you have over him without even touching him. Your shorts slip off easily and you move towards the water to pose.

“Gorgeous, älskling,” He’s got your camera in his hands and you can hear the telltale clicking of a photo being taken. Elias starts to get the best angles as you continue to pose. He makes the occasional comment about how pretty you look or compliments the pose you’re in. He keeps discreetly adjusting his swim trunks, not so discreetly. It may only be the fact that you know him so well, that you actually notice him doing so.

You move to the beach blanket, quickly grabbing your sunglass before lazing yourself on the blanket for more pictures. You make Elias gets a couple of good ones before you move into your self-proclaimed ‘sexier’ poses. Elias continues to take photos as you position yourself in more revealing ways. He’s stopped trying to hide his arousal. Instead, he’s completely open about the fact that he’s hard as a rock.

You’re laying on your belly, ass on display in the barely covering bottoms you bought specifically for Elias, when you move into your knees. You slip your hand behind your back to undo your top, letting it fall freely to the ground.

Elias almost drops your phone, his eyes wide. He quickly shoves it into the beach bag as he scrambles to get himself on the beach blanket with you. He easily pulls his shorts down, freeing himself and you smile coyly, spitting into your hand. You finally grasp him and start to jerk him off.

“Oh fuck,” Elias cries out, he’s immobile under your touch. His head is thrown back, his eyes closed with his eyelashes resting upon his cheek.

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It’s late when everybody finally returns to the cabin. You and Elias had arrived back midafternoon. You’d spent the rest of the day dancing around the kitchen, making dinner for the rest of the group. Torbjorn had returned an hour or so after you, several fish in hand.

You had teased Elias about being tonight’s cook, fish was his specialty and it appeared to be meant to be. It had tasted fantastic and you’d had a nice dinner just the three of you, patiently waiting for the rest to return.

Elias had decided once the sun began to set that a fire was well deserved. He and his father had built a nice burning one in the outside firepit, dragging some chairs around to spend the evening around the ring.

You’re sat in Elias’ lap, laughing along to some childhood story that Irene in the midst of telling. There’s a blanket over top of your lap, Elias’ arms around your waist as he too laughs. It’s a beautiful sound, different than the one you normally hear during the season. It’s unrestrained and boisterous. You’re happy here and so is he. You wish this summer could last forever.

“Are you okay?” He whispers in your ear, catching on to the fact that you’ve definitely zoned out from the story.

“Yeah,” You murmur, turning to meet his eyes, “I’m perfect.”

#elias pettersson #elias pettersson imagine #nhl imagine #nhl smut #party like it’s my birthday #my standalone fics #kylie writes hockey #hockey imagine

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sunjaesol · 3 years ago

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“The simple act of being in love with you is enough for me.”

jiara | post-s2 | pining idiots | title: quote by Pacey from Dawson's Creek

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“Kie.”

“Hm?” The girl’s mop of curls obscured her face as she mumbled out some vowels, clearly still buzzed from the night before. An amused smile ticked up his lips and slapped her calf again. She sighed. “What?”

“Leggo,” he pushed, “we gotta get to Pope’s place.”

“Why?”

Even if everyone else would deny it, JJ swore Kie was as bad as he was: slow and fucking lethargic before eleven in the morning. Sure, she had better grades in school, but he wasn’t gonna give her more credit than that. Speaking of, “Helping him with that new scholarship, remember?”

The girl groaned and rolled over to face him, droopy eyes cracking open to scowl at him. She slept where he used to crash whenever his dad’s place became too much, but since the old man fucked off to Yucatán, he found peace in the quiet walls and cracked windows. Regardless, it was weird seeing her sprawled on this mattress, the boy almost able to envision himself beside her. A dangerous fantasy to linger on, so he pushed it aside and kept on trucking.

“C’mon, Kie.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered and sat upright. “How did you even get in the Château?”

JJ grinned and snagged a key chain from his shorts. “Spare key. Duh.”

She rolled her eyes, uttering, “John B’s stupid,” and then pushed him out the guest room, telling him she’d get ready. His mouth opened to make the joke if he couldn’t stay and watch, but the door slammed in his face and that was that.

Having a crush on Kiara was the freakiest thing ever. First of all, JJ and emotions didn’t mesh well — it only led to trouble, a perfect example being his dad and him with the most fucked up dynamic to boot. He preferred to not even think about the man, though one glance in the mirror often betrayed his mind and brought a rush of memories to the forefront, whether it was a shiner against his eye, or the fact that he resembled his father when he was young.

So yeah, he didn’t like anything ‘love’ related. It was stupid. It was more reckless than buying a jacuzzi or trying to steal a golden cross from a boat with dozens of armed men. Friendship, however, was easy. He told the Pogues just that: they were ‘it’ for him, he’d go through fire for them, through hell and fucking back.

But he didn’t think he’d actually die for them, which almost happened when he tried saving Kie on the Coastal Venture — to which she ended up saving him. (A vision illuminated by a golden sun, hovering over him. He’d never forget it.)

While he inspected the contents of the fridge, embarrassingly filled with only beer, eggs, milk and junk food, the door creaked open and revealed a dressed and less-wrecked Kiara. His gaze flicked up and down her frame, quick, and then averted it back to the fridge.

“You got no food, man.”

She chuckled. “I know. It’s not exactly The Wreck type of food…”

“You haven’t gone back?”

“Nope,” she replied, curt, and moved past him to shove a container of sausages aside to grab a bottle of almond milk. Even if she wasn’t with her parents, she still somehow kept up her ‘no dairy’ principles.

Also, Kiara was hella beautiful. He hadn’t let it register when she walked in, but it was true. Her soft-looking, shiny skin, sporting the prettiest smile in all of the OBX, and she was just hot. Especially when she propped herself on the kitchen counter, to which he settled beside her to not look at her legs.

“How many scholarships are there?” she asked. “Like, I’m obviously proud of him, but…”

“He told us last night,” JJ laughed. “You were that fucking high?”

She giggled, “Yeah! You were there, I was just on my ass.” And then, quieter, “And… I don’t know, I guess I’ve been kind of distracted.”

He perked up, surprised. Though the Pogues were family, openly talking about emotions when it wasn’t prompted by anything, remained rare. They were better at talking shit and smoking and napping on boats. Whatever, he took the bait.

“Why?”

She shook her head. “It’s stupid, JJ.”

“Kie, you’re talking to me,” he nudged her shoulder, “throw me a bone here. Is it Pope? You got the hots for our favourite nerd again?”

Taking a sip from the bottle, her brow quirked up as though that was the stupidest thing he ever said, and retorted with, “Why’re you always doing that?”

His hands raised instantly, defensive. “Doing what?”

“You’re always digging, like, when I was with Pope you got all weird.”

“I don’t dig.”

“You do.”

“I don’t. Kie, what’s up?” He kept it moving before she found the core of his problem, and bounced back to the original issue. “Before I start saying shit to Pope.”

She scoffed. “You're full of shit.”

“Oh, Kie,” he drawled with a smirk. “You can do better than that.”

Silence fell. He waited, fiddling with his fingers, and quietly hoped Pope wouldn't be too annoyed when they arrived late — then again, they were begrudgingly coined 'tortoise and tortoise' by the group anyway.

She placed the bottle back in the fridge and sent him a rueful smile, one he often saw her showing Sarah before they went aside and had a private talk. Their eyes locked and she finally spoke.

“Sometimes, I… I miss my parents. And it's like, I don't get how they don't just accept that I'm a Pogue, that I'm friends with you guys, you know? But I still miss them.” She looked down at her feet, crossing at the ankles like a little girl waiting to be reprimanded by the teacher. “I miss my dad's hugs.”

Instantly, his arm swung around her for a gentle side hug, a grateful smile pulling on her lips as she leaned into him. Both knew they should savour a moment like this, as hugging with a twitchy JJ and often irritated Kie happened once every blue moon.

Ignoring the guilty look in her eye — yeah, he didn't understand missing a paternal embrace, rather used to a blow in the stomach or a crude remark, but that didn't mean he lacked empathy — he resisted the urge to encourage her to reconnect with them. Knowing her, she'd just close up and glare at him for the rest of the day.

So no, he wasn't going to ask her. And no, she shouldn't feel guilty. P4L 'til the end, baby.

“Thanks, JJ,” she whispered.

He snickered and pushed her off. “You can't tell the guys I'm becoming soft, dude. Theyʼll give me so much shit for it.”

“They know you're soft,” she teased, “don't even try.”

“I'm tough,” he tried.

“Like Play-Doh.”

“Whatever,” he mumbled and motioned at the kitchen door. “Let's go, Carrera. Before John B and Sarah come back and act all married.”

Now that was fucking annoying. After John B and Sarah faked their death, they got married by a bandana strip and hadn't let that notion go after returning. Sure, there was that small blip when they were fighting the crazy religious chick, but that was old news.

John B made him swear he wouldn't tell a soul, but the guy waxed poetry about Sarah whenever they were drunk and alone. It was hilariously sad. Another man lost to a girl.

(“She wants a beach wedding,” JB sighed a couple nights ago. “Nice, right?”

“I– yeah, I really don't care about this, man.”)

JJ knew that when he got a girlfriend (Kiara unintentionally but also very intentionally crossed his mind), he'd act normal. No mushy shit. No poetry. Definitely no creepy Romeo and Juliet references thrown in as if that shouldn't freak the Pogues out. Their behaviour better not be infectious.

Expectedly, Pope's scowl reached them all the way from the car, Kie and JJ sharing a sheepish look before stepping out.

“Gee, guys,” the boy deadpanned, “thanks for making haste. Really appreciate it.”

JJ's wide grin hoped to salvage it. Slapping his friend on the shoulder, he pushed past him and yelled, “Kie was dead, dude!”

Pope grimaced. “Don't joke about that.”

He watched as Kie stopped beside Pope with an apologetic expression, telling him she overslept and was sorry and that he knew how JJ was — “Always joking.”

His chapped lips pursed, a familiar punch hitting his chest with him then pretending it didn't hurt. She always did this. Even if she claimed she didn't, she always took Pope's side. Relationship or not. JJ knew she didn't owe him her 'side', but it'd be a nice change of pace either way.

Whatever. This wasn't the JJ Pining For Kiara Show. Pope needed their help.

A state-wide scholarship competition gave Pope another shot at winning a huge chunk of money (no gold type of rich though) and getting his ass out of OBX, hopefully launching himself into some fancy college when he revealed to be of Denmark Tanny's lineage. Those hibrow assholes loved a good sob story.

All Pope had to do was score hella high on some test — easy — and impress the panel — not so easy — and he'd be the luckiest Pogue of all.

But that did mean Kie and him had to sit on his creaky bed with a freaky amount of flashcards while a stressed out Pope paced around his room. He was pretty sure the floor was eroding.

Also, he had no fucking clue what any of the flashcards meant. Did Pope's smarts really attracted Kie that much? Was it the brain? Brain over brawl? But where was the fun in that? JJ loved Pope to death, but the guy had to be fully medicated or high before his brain shut off and he acted carefree.

“Pope, do you even know what this all means?” Kie bemoaned, flipping the cards around.

“You got a dictionary somewhere?” added JJ, squinting at the word aberration. It sounded like some weird disease. He showed him the word.

Pope dismissed it. “It means: different from the norm.”

“Dude, why not write that then?”

“Because they want aberration.”

He didn't get it. “No one uses it though.”

“JJ, that's just the way it is,” Pope pressed.

“Guys, stop,” Kiara interrupted. “But honestly Pope, it's so, like, elitist. None of these questions are important to the world, or the well-being of the people.”

“Sorry, Kiara, but unfortunately not everyone cares that much,” he sighed. JJ could tell they were starting to annoy their friend, their tortoise bullshit bleeding through.

Her nose scrunched up, peeved. “Right. Because there's a planet B just waiting to be used by us. Duh.”

“Ooh,” JJ drawled, nudging her arm. “Are there donkeys shitting money?”

Kie laughed. “Yes. All beaches, clean air, no Kooks, and money-shitting donkeys.”

“Nah, I want it to be hella Kooky,” he joked, gesturing wildly. “I want a yacht and tell people someone else does my laundry, or something.”

“You don't even do your laundry anyway,” she bounced back with a roll of the eye. “I know you force John B.”

“He's already playing House with Sarah, might as well wash my underwear, too.”

Oh, man. He could do this all day. Talking shit with Kiara went as smooth as fishing for him. Each time he thought he one-upped her, she threw more on top and kept it going 'til neither knew what the point even was anymore. Sarah dubbed it as 'banter' which he believed was a rich way of saying 'talking smack.'

“I don't believe you even know how to do it,” she challenged.

JJ huffed and crossed his arms. “I can do it.”

A smirk bloomed on her lips as she kept jabbing. “It's kinda cute, how you need John B to be your mom.”

“I don't.”

“You literally said it five seconds ago.”

“Guys,” Pope groaned, followed by an exhausted sigh eerily similar to Heyward. “Can we get back to the flashcards?”

Kie and JJ were too far into their discussion though, jabbing at each other at rapid speed. Then she threw her cards at him and all bets were off. He yelled she should make a goal with her hands, to which he folded up a flashcard and shot it straight between her fingers.

And that was when Pope kicked them out. JJ presumed it was a victory they lasted as long as they did. Kie kept apologising over her shoulder, prompting Pope to ask Cleo for help instead.

For a beat, they were silent stepping out of his place and back into the car. JJ felt a stab of guilt for fucking up Pope's study time, but it was hard to dial his brain to school when his friends surrounded him. Just when he wanted to ask if she felt bad too, she went off about the climate — as usual.

“It's so dumb how there were no questions about the environment or human rights or, or anything like that! It's all science and lit, like, there's more to life than fucking chemistry formulas!”

“I skipped those cards. Didn't get them.”

“It's so fucked,” she hummed. “And I'm obviously glad that you drove to the Château to wake me up and all—”

“Yeah?”

“—but I really wish those questions would matter. We almost died, JJ!”

“No, shit,” he grumbled, quickly starting to lose his patience with the ranting girl. She didn't even realise what the fuck she was saying anymore — what she did to his heart, skipping like some elemtary school girl on the playground, when she slipped some nice words in.

“Died!” she pressed. “Why even care about stuff like that?”

“Fucks sake, Kie—”

“And I didn't want to say it, but did you see how many flashcards there were? How many trees were cut for that? It's like, hello, Quizlet exists!”

“Kie, shut up!” he yelled.

Her mouth fell slack, gobsmacked, gawking at him like his interruption was a slap in the face.

Gesturing wildly with one hand, he exclaimed, “You know, you can just go on and on and I hear you talking and it's like, yeah, we get it, Mother Earth needs to be saved, we're fucked, you don't gotta repeat it twenty-four seven.”

“What the hell, JJ!”

“You have an opinion about everything! A man gets tired!”

“A man?” She scoffed. “You're not even eighteen.”

“Point is you don't gotta act all preachy all the time.” He turned the corner, hands tightening around the steering wheel.

Kie scowled. “Where is this coming from? I'm not preachy, I'm educating you.”

Now that was just fucking with his head. Incredulous, he exclaimed, “You think I don't listen? Kie, I'm the only one that does. JB is on Planet Sarah all the damn time and Pope only did shit 'cause—"

"That!” she yelled, throwing her hands up with frustration. “That's what I mean! You're doing it again! You dig!”

“What?!”

“Every time you mention Pope and I, you dig. You needle!” Twisting in her seat, his gaze flickered to catch her disgruntled expression. “Why do you do that? It's so… sus.”

JJ laughed. “Sus?”

“You don't ask John B about Sarah.”

“'Cause they're fucking obvious.”

“Still,” she pressed. “Did I do something to piss you off? Is that it? Is it me constantly asking you to recycle and yet — shocker! — you never do?!”

“Fucking God,” he grumbled under his breath.

With frazzled thoughts and shaking hands, adrenaline coursed through him as he swerved to the side of the road and stopped the car. If he fought with Kie any longer to this degree of fuckery, they were gonna crash.

She frowned. “What're you doing?”

“You, Carrera, are driving me insane,” he deadpanned, matter-of-fact. Then he slammed the door open and stepped out, desperate to catch his breath.

In the back of his mind, he had an inkling as to why he was so keyed up. Kiara would call him a Neandethal, but fuck it, here was the truth: Kiara was hot as hell when she argued with him.

Following his lead, she got out, her sneakers stomping against the asphalt. The sun steeped low on the horizon, the light hitting the hood and reflecting onto her face; her curls shifting from dark brown to gold. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was so fucked. He almost missed the start of her spiel, too enthralled.

“I'm driving you insane? I'm always getting you out of trouble, because you never think things through! You never see the bigger picture!”

He rolled his eyes. “Bigger picture? The only thing I see, Kie, is you going on about nature. That easy.” And then, before he could stop himself, he spewed out, “And you don't have to do that.”

“What?”

“Getting me out of trouble,” he said, pursing his lips. “That's not your responsibility.”

“Right. Duh. Because after everything we've been through, I can't care about you,” she exclaimed, face twisting up in pure fury. She got in his space, shoving his shoulder, but when he didn't budge, it only seemed to anger her more.

JJ didn't know what was going on anymore. Why was she so mad? Even if she didn't want to admit it, he was telling the truth. Of course all the Pogues had each other's back, but Kiara doted over him more than was necessary. The constant checking of injuries, limiting his day drinking, all that. Like he was some child!

He leaned in and mumbled, “I can take care of myself.”

Kie smirked. “Then do your own laundry.”

It happened naturally. One second he stared at her furious eyes and thought about how much he loved arguing with her despite the bullshit, the next his fingers curled into her hair and pulled her in a fierce kiss.

At first, her hands laid frozen on his shoulders, surprised, but the moment he realised his impulsive decision was a mistake, they slid around his neck and kept him close.

JJ sighed in relief and deepened the kiss he'd been craving ever since they were fourteen and Kie went from gangly to statuesque. Her lips were warm and soft and her hands were soft and she hadn't let go and holy shit — he was kissing Kiara Carrera.

The kiss lessened when her mouth quirked into a smile, their grins pressing flush together, and JJ shivered from delight. Oh, man. He was gone.

“You drive me damn crazy, Kie,” he murmured, voice dropped to an undeniably soft tone.

She bit back her silly grin and whispered, “Good.”

Taking a deep breath, he tried focusing up, but all he could do was stare at her face. A shy hand grabbed hers.

He had to get it out of the way now, or else he'd kick himself later. “I'm… really into you. I'm– oh, fuck, uh–”

“Maybe we can talk about it not on the side of the road?” she suggested, amused.

JJ grinned, elated (What was the word he saw on the flashcards? Exalted!), and kissed her again, because he could.

On the ride back to the Château, he confessed to seeing her in a different light for years, while she couldn't really pinpoint a time or moment, that it just happened. It didn't matter, though he was in utter disbelief that he and Kie were having this conversation. No jokes, no BS, all seriousness. Tomorrow, he'd wake up and it wouldn't be some sick dream. Kie liked him back.

JJ was sure he'd doubt himself or overthink it in the future, but today, he'd bask in the certainty and the major ego boost.

“Okay, but did you ever legit like Pope then?”

A sheepish smile crawled up her cheeks as her gaze averted to the window. “I thought I did. But we have, like, no chemistry, so…” She shook her head. “I was confused.”

“That's okay,” he uttered. He couldn't give her shit for it. Even if he did torture himself with their short-lived relationship, he understood.

How would he react though? John B and Sarah wouldn't care, or Cleo, but Pope? He didn't want one of his brothers hating him. Being iced out by the guy fucking sucked, as it meant he was truly hurt and therefore meant JJ truly fucked up. He couldn't handle disappointing him.

Kie read his mind. “He'll be fine with it.”

“I dunno, man…”

“He will,” she repeated. “We're Pogues. We've all narrowly survived death. And besides…” She turned back to him with a secretive grin. “I think he has a thing for Cleo.”

Whoa. He did not see that coming. His brows shot up to his hairline, mentally kicking himself for being so focused on Kie that he didn't even notice the shift of interest between Pope and Cleo. They made sense, too. Know-it-all's, but well-meaning, and only speaking when needed.

If the idea didn't relief him of worries, he'd be concerned as to why they were all seamlessly coupled up like in some 90s sitcom Big John had on VHS.

“What a player,” he joked.

“Tell me about it.”

They arrived at the house, the Twinkie and Sarah's bike sprawled on the overgrown front lawn. JJ frowned. He had hoped to have some alone time with Kie, not to jump her bones and fulfill a regular dream of his, but to talk. To figure it out. He wanted to do this right. Because after everything, they deserved to have good things, to start on a high note — he deserved it.

Kie noticed it, too. Puckering her lips on contemplation, her gaze trailed from him to the rest of the property, ending on the trusty ol' hammock. She jabbed her thumb at it.

“Let's sit there.”

Normally, they laid on opposite ends on the hammock, if they even shared one to begin with. But now, she pressed herself right beside him and he felt like heaven dropped down on them in the best way possible. He suddenly understood what John B was lamenting about — the company, intimacy, the ease. Nerves rippled through his body like a summer storm, but he figured that was what it cost to lose one's mind over a girl.

He didn't know what to say, so Kiara spoke instead.

“I don't want us, the way we are around each other, to change, you know?” she said. “Like, I don't want you to think you have to act like some mellow ass boyfriend all of a sudden.”

He smirked. “Who said anything about boyfriend?”

“Bye.”

“Hey, wait,” he grinned, latching onto her arm before she pushed herself out. “C'mon, Kie.”

Her nose scrunched up. “I don't do this usually, okay?”

“You think I do?” he asked. His hand softly slid down to wrap around hers, to which she hooked their fingers together. Okay. Wow. It felt so damn nice that it propelled him to say, “I wanna be your boyfriend, Kie.”

The girl smiled and then surprised him by leaning in herself, pressing a gentle kiss on his chapped lips. It was overwhelming having her instigate it, his gut twisting up in excitement like when he was about to backflip from a boat, or cliff dive, or something similar like that.

He let go of her hand to cup her cheeks, only to whisper, “That's a yes, yeah? Gotta get a yes.”

“Yes, JJ,” she uttered back. “Here's to not fucking this up.”

“Cheers, baby.”

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

#jiara #outer banks #obx #obx fanfiction #otp: cause i'll come #It's messy but in a cute way

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yurtletheturtlehenderson · 3 years ago

Text

Scars That Heal || Eddie Kaspbrak x Reader Series

• Ch. 11: Under Pressure •

TRIGGER WARNINGS: blatant homophobia from Nicklesmart The Beatboxing Jester™️ in disguise as someone you know, internalized homophobia throughout the whole chapter. As usual, will put a skip marker for the heavier scene before and after if you need/want to skip. It is not light, ngl 😔 [trigger words: f*iry + the f slur, each used on exactly one occasion, and (as an insult) queer. I'm so sorry, this was not easy for me either and please do not read this if any of this in any way bothers you, i won't be mad if you skip the chapter 💕]

A/N: Next chapter will be all fluff I promise 🥲, I'm so sorry, but I needed something that could solidify Richie and Y/n's friendship for good, and her helping him through his worst fear is the best way to do that and will be explored in other ways throughout the rest of the series, specifically in the sequel. all that aside, I missed you guys and this series so much!!

LGBTQ+ RESOURCES AND SELF HELP LINKS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CHAPTER

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

- 𝗔𝗨𝗚𝗨𝗦𝗧 -

Richie keeps his eyes trained on the dried mud on his navy blue slip-ons as he makes his way across town, his mind buzzing twice as fast as it normally did. He felt as if his entire body had been put through a blender; his skull still vibrating in his head turning his brain into jelly. His stomach empty and lurching as it twisted into knots far more impossible than what you'd see from a circus performer and his heartbeat could rival a hummingbird's. Not to mention he was walking with two extra legs he'd grow from time to time, another freaky affect the physical and mental toll these past few weeks had put on him and his eyesight. The caffeine he had been living on hadn't helped him one bit either he reckoned.

Insomnia had become his best friend in the past few weeks, hence this last-minute trip to the old gravel pit just behind Derry Town dump. At least, this was the lie he told himself to pluck up enough courage to call Y/n up. Richie hoped she could talk him through it, give him some advice. He was never this nervous to talk to her and deep down in a corner he wished to bury forever - that small part of himself that begged to be free - knew exactly why. This small, repressed Richie Tozier that lived locked away in the center of his heart was calling the shots that day. Hell, he probably had been his whole life but he wasn't ready to admit that to himself yet, let alone his true attentions of seeking her help.

All he knew is he was nervous as all hell, his palms were sweating, he couldn't stop fiddling with his glasses and he was sure one wrong move and he'd shit his pants. For fucks sake, he needed to shake this! He had already freaked Y/n out, that he knew. He could still hear her voice over the receiver. It was soaked in static and every 's', or 'c' sound she made felt like a pencil was being shoved into his eardrums cause of her shitty outdated telephone.

"You," she had asked with a pause. "want to meet at... the dump?"

"Yeah," he scoffed, scratching the same spot behind his ear for what had to be the billionth time out of nervous habit. "you got wax in your ears, L/n?"

"Nope. Just, a little confused is all. You seem kinda... I don't know, squirrely," she said wearily, and through a sharp crackling hiss from the receiver he can make out a nervous chuckle on her end. "You sure nothin' jumped up your ass or anything?"

He bit his lip. Hard. As if punishing himself for drawing her suspicions this early. What if she somehow caught on to what he was gonna talk to her about? Her walk to the gravel pit would surely give her enough time to get to that conclusion, and Richie wasn't daft. He knew he wasn't exactly subtle about... "insomnia". What with how many times he teased insomnia, called it that special nickname he knew it hated but secretly loved. That forbidden flutter in his chest when insomnia would laugh at his jokes, and the small but precious moments they shared from time to time when the others were late that would stay in his heart and mind for weeks to come. But it didn't matter now, as everyone knew; insomnia kept Y/n's company now.

Thankfully his mouth was faster than his brain, and it fired a rapid response before a lull could form.

"You bet your fur," he fires, his lanky arm had rested awkwardly against the wall beside the wall mount. "I am right as rain, toots."

He of course hadn't seen it, but she had frowned at her phone. Her concern was growing with every word spoken from him.

"Yeah," she snorts, throwing back a sarcastic remark. "Cause you sound it."

She had eased a bit, growing soft and falling back into their usual banter. Their special dynamic always seemed to coax down his guard a bit.

"You're talking like a 1950's gangster in a speakeasy," She straightened a little and had begun pacing as much as the phone cord would allow her. "Ya know... More than usual."

Y/n smiled when she could practically hear the smirk taking over his face, and she certainly had no trouble picturing his hunched shoulders and intimidating snarl he was most likely dawning.

"It's a little somethin' called moxie, kid," he spoke with curled his words, imitating all the gangsters he had seen in those cheesy old films. "somethin' you just don't have,"

Y/n had rolled her eyes again, at least Richie could see her doing so when he heard her respond. "Right, right. My bad Baby Face."

"Hey!" He barked, snapping his fingers and pointing at the floor as if she could see him. His voice lowered in a thick Chicago accent. "That's mista Baby Face to ya."

"Mista Baby Face Nelson!" She strained, her annoyed shout tainted with a laugh. "Are we meeting at five or not?"

Richie released a quick and silent breath, expelling as many nerves as possible.

"You bet your fur."

The exchange kept playing over and over in his mind and Richie wondered if the same rang true for Y/n. He hoped not, cause that would mean she was thinking about it too much. Hell, he was thinking about it too much now. A heavy sigh rolls off of his chest as every anxiety collectively manifests into its own dark thought.

Fuck, he really had it bad.

How pathetic he was.

Eddie would surely be horrified to know what Richie really thought of him, that was for sure.

And as if he hadn't felt crazy enough, the thoughts actually began to feel like voices calling him from the darkest shadows of his mind.

'And the other Losers? You'll be lucky if they even look at you again.'

Richie was surprised to find himself fighting back, pushing back as much as he could. Despite all the jokes and jabs, he couldn't be completely alone. A small part whispered in his heart that he wasn't, and he thought briefly of the turtle strangely enough but it was gone just as soon as it had come. All he knew was that whatever was telling him this thing was stubborn. But so was Richie Tozier.

He treated it as an intrusive thought. Made a decision then and there that it was, never occurring to him what it could be if wasn't.

No way. Not those assholes, he tells the voice. These are the Losers for fucks sake!

The more he thought about it the more he was sure of it. God forbid Eddie did find out, which Richie had no intention of, and what would happen was in fact unclear. But no matter how he looked at it, he just couldn't picture the little spaghetti man ever cutting him out of his life completely. Not by choice at least.

Now Ben, that lovable sappy haystack of his that was too passionate for his own good. Richie may not be the silent type but he does pick up on things, and Hanscom's affections for Beverly Marsh were far from subtle. Always opening doors for her and turning redder than a tomato when she smiled at him. Not to mention Richie was about ninety percent sure there was a poem of some sort involved. And that was just Beverly, Ben was always thinking of the Losers. Now Richie knew for sure that boy had no hateful bone in his body to the point it was fucking annoying.

Mike, Richie felt, might be a little similar. The kid had a lot of heart, always going on about the animals on his farm. Would even go as far to say he considered them his friends, what with how much Richie knew about Mooriuel the calf and he hadn't even met her for cripes sake! Richie imagined he'd be a bit more shocked but would try some sappy speech when he came around. Would make a whole big thing of it, pat him on the back, and even invite a conversation. He scoffed at the thought, the image of Mike slapping him on the back and his signature grin... Yeah, he appreciated the hypothetical gesture but it wasn't Richie's style.

He could easily see Big Bill sputtering up a storm, but managing a smile. He'd probably even manage to forget their differences long enough to say something stupid but supportive. And Beverly and Stan were the ones he worried about the least. Stan would probably be too indifferent to care, throw him some snarky ass comment like, "took ya long enough, dipshit," and Beverly? Well, Beverly had always been cool, very laid back. She never took shit, and she never dished it out if she didn't think it was deserved which Richie admired greatly. This was one of many reasons he was so shocked she had taken Bill's side in the fight.

The thought brings him back down again, and as soon as the memory touches him so do the nerves in his jaw tensing up again where he had been hit. He could feel the punch all over again. And he suddenly remembers why he is here.

He is here, he realized.

Just around the bend, coming into view was the gravel pit. Old and crumbling it was, and overrun with weeds and bushes. One could easily scale in and out of it, and at the very bottom Rich had discovered one day was a beaten and tattered leather seat from a car that found its way from the junkyard just a ways over. This was where he told Y/n to meet him.

Y/n...

Jesus fuck, what would Y/n say? How would he tell her? Would she still wanna be friends with him? Would she laugh and crack a joke, not taking it seriously? Would she hate him for it? More importantly, why in the ever-loving fuck was he here and willing to tell her?

His gangly legs tumble into a sprint as he picks up momentum descending the uneven terrain. The rubber soles of his shoes kicking up the layers of dirt and shaved gravel that lay beneath the rocks and he had to put effort into not crashing as he comes to a stop. He manages to avoid a nasty fall, completely ignorant to the fact that his right foot had been only inches away from a root peeking out from the rocks surely would have broken his neck had he made even one wrong move. He puffs out his chest, dusting himself off, and once again tries to dispel the nausea broiling in his stomach like hot tar.

He closes his eyes tiredly as he drags his feet to the leather bench, letting his backside fall through the air and into the somewhat plush cushion with a deep groan. "Fuck."

His fingers rub his tired eyes, his fingertips finding bits of crust he hadn't gotten earlier and his knuckles brush his glasses further up onto his forehead. Not quite knowing what to do with the overwhelming thoughts and emotions clouding him, his fingers dig further into his eye sockets until all he can see are inky splotches behind his eyes.

Richie doesn't know why he would ever think those things of Y/n. He hadn't ever told her this, not directly at least, but she was just about the only person in the world he trusted most. He knew in his heart of hearts this was why he found himself dialing her number before he could even register what he was doing. Even after their separation and the bitter feelings they took with it, the Losers were and always would be his best friends in the world.

So why did everything about this feel so wrong?

From the moment the phone call ended, he felt like he was waltzing into a trap like some putz...

"Well, look who it is..." snarled a voice from up above the surface.

Richie's blood ran cold and it felt as if the remainder of the air in his lungs had been squeezed out like air in a deflating balloon. He whipped around at the voice, his head twisting up at the silhouetted figure so fast he was shocked he hadn't broken his own neck. The figure held their hands on their hips, thousands of the sun's rays spilling around them as they blocked out a part of the sun, an advantage they reaped from where they stood before Richie at just the right angle. His breath caught in his throat as he had recognized the voice immediately, but the figure didn't quite match the voice.

The last thing person he needed to see right now was Henry fucking Bowers, that was for sure.

The universe agreed so it would seem. The figure shifted, just out of the light revealing the teasing smirk of his best friend Y/n. Her hands snapped together, her palms forming a handgun, the barrel aiming right at Richie's forehead.

"The jig is up," she snarled. "We knows it was you. You was the ones to steal from Big Bill's dame, and I wouldn't be surprised if yous was in cahoots, neithers."

Despite the fear that had clutched his heart only seconds ago, a small chortle left Richie at how awful her accent was. Hadn't she learned anything from him? A smug smile overtook Y/n's face as he broke. She holstered her handguns and gracefully descended the pile of gravel. His smile expired not long after, and despite the thin veil of clouds creeping over the sun the light in the sky was much too hard to even glance at his friend without blinking back several painful searing tears from the harsh light. But he could still make her out.

She was dressed in her usual ratty and eclectic garb; a mix of something far too big for her frame and something that seemed far too tight to be comfortable. Richie was certain she had never once owned even a thread of clothing that had always been hers. Her s/c brow had its usual, light glossy sheen of grease that Richie had learned very early on to not ask about. But there was something about her now, something he couldn't quite place.

Though one question kept popping up in his mind. One that left an itch in his brain he couldn't quite scratch in his dazed state. And that was how could he have possibly thought she sounded like Henry Bowers?

He finds himself looking down at the gravel now, wiping away as much of the sun's damage pooling in his eyes as he can. Unbeknownst to him, she watches him studiously, the ghost of her smile still on her lips as if she was enjoying his discomfort. His long and gangly limbs are folded awkwardly, still, onto the leather seat that sits on the ground. Finally, she takes a seat beside him with a huff as he had.

As he rubs his tired eyes for a second time she takes a long look around, breaking the silence when her trip around the gravel pit lands on him.

"Well, you've looked better." She quips, offering a smile.

Richie snorts, pushing his slipping glasses up the bridge of his nose with a friendly smirk. "This comin' from Raggedy Ann?"

They both breathe a small laugh and for a moment - just one beautiful, fleeting moment - Richie forgets he was ever scared. This is what he needed.

"So," she says, pulling his gaze towards her, sending him a cocky smile as a knowing look sparkles behind her eyes. "I'm guessing there's a reason I'm here, and not helping you with your summer training?"

Richie, for reasons unknown to him, feels his muscles tense up again involuntarily. Like a puppeteer suddenly yanking the strings, ripping his shoulders up to his ears and his muscles bracing. He felt rigid and he was, but he was doing all he could not to show it. All his unease came back in steady waves marching up the sand, but what could he do now? He could already feel her eyes burning holes into the side of his head as he kicked around a sizeable rock with the toe of his shoe, studying him. Waiting.

Finally, his shoulders slumped in a shrug, lower lip in an indifferent pout as he looked around at the sky hanging above the gravel pit.

"Just needed a change from all those ugly mugs, I guess," he manages a laugh, and he rises to his feet to lazily chase the rock that had rolled out of his reach.

He can feel her eyes on him still, and he doesn't know what to make of it until finally she breaks her silence with a chuckle and rises to join him. She catches the rock with the heel of her dirtied sneakers. They're worn down to the very last thread and several shades off from the original color. She kicks the rock back to him, and they engage in a lazy game of rock soccer.

"I can understand that," she says calmly, eyes trained on the rock as it tumbles across the gravel with several chunky clanks. "Reckon it'll be good for you, too,"

He frowns confused without looking up at her, winding one lanky leg back before one big kick. "Whad'ya mean?"

"Well, you don't wanna spend your whole summer inside of an arcade, do you?"

Richie's face freezes in a frown, the rest of his body going rigid. His eyes cement on the rock underneath his shoe, willing away the veil of tears that threatened to fall. Had he not been so caught up on why he was here, Richie might have had a clear enough head to realize Y/n wasn't there for that conversation, nor had she heard about it from anyone there. Instead, all Rich can think about is the small hypochondriac boy that had stolen his heart.

He can hear the conversation he had with his best friend, all those weeks ago when school let out. And if felt like a lifetime since he had seen that squishable, pouty little disgusted frown Eddie always put on that made Richie's inside melt. As if reading his mind, Y/n spoke.

"This is about Eddie, isn't it?"

Her tone is gentle but veiled. Something was concealed about the way she held herself, ever since she had arrived, something that Richie couldn't quite place. And there it was. He was right about her suspecting him, he must be. Richie battles the lump forming in his throat, and he can feel his ears turning pink under her unwavering and unblinking stare.

Richie does all he can to fight a snarky response, not knowing how else to navigate and survive the intensity of his feelings. All he manages to do is nod.

[■■■■■■■■■■■■]

"Rich, it's okay," she says, taking a step forward, his gaze is pulled to her eyes. And here it is, he thinks. The moment he had been dreading, the moment he hadn't even allowed himself to think about. "...I miss him, too."

His face caught in another frown. That's definitely not what he expected her to say. Quickly as he could, he wiped away a spot of snot at his nose. He had managed to keep the tears at bay but now they had found another way out. He felt like a fucking fool, and he wanted nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Of course she didn't know what he was talking about. Why would she - how would she? His spirits were crushed, and he suddenly didn't feel like getting into it now. She seemed off today, not that Richie cared. All he wanted was for this whole day to be over with, not even knowing the worst had yet to come.

She studies his reaction, almost as if she had been waiting for this and she blinks for what Richie is now starting to realize must be the first time since she got here. Y/n's face screws into a frown, and yet there still lingered an uneasy smile that taunted him. Her eyes squint suspiciously at Richie, her head tilting in an expression he never knew he had always feared would come.

She laughs finally, a shrill and grating laugh he hadn't quite heard before and she nudges him playfully. "Oh, come on! It's not like you've got some faggy crush on him or something?"

When he doesn't answer, she scoffs, turning away and shaking her head in disbelief for a moment.

Richie felt he just might vomit. Or cry. Or both. He had never felt so distraught, so dejected. So broken.

How could she be saying these things?

He tries with all his might to conjure a response, any fucking thing at all so he wasn't some blubbering broken chump breaking down in front of her. But for the first time in his life, Richie "loudmouth" Tozier was speechless.

That fuck-awful grating laugh returns, a sour look screws up her face as she looks him up and down in disgust.

"Wait, seriously?" She gapes with a scoff, making him feel about two inches tall. "You actually think he'd want to be with some fairy freak like you?"

"F-f-uck off," he sputters, though he does not feel better.

The trembling in his voice, the vulnerability, hearing it in himself strips any remaining scrap of confidence he had left. He's crying now and there's no hiding it. And she heard it in his voice, he knew that now as he looks at her. Her lips curl into a malicious smile and she takes another step closer, Richie fumbles a step back.

"He isn't some," her nose crinkles as she continues to advance on him, the fire in her eyes building as he stumbles back to escape her sudden venom. "rotten queer like you."

Y/n spits the words out like they were poison on her tongue, and this was true in every way. Her fiery stare never left Richie, it burned holes right through him as she advanced on him like a wolf on a wounded doe. They were nearing the edge of the gravel pit, and Richie had nearly run out of room when her finger stabbed his chest like a sword's final strike to the heart, pushing him to the ground as she spoke those poisonous words.

Richie felt his backside meet several jagged rocks that brought even more tears to his eyes, though none of them hurt as much as her words. She towered over him now, the sun beating down on her back and pouring over her shoulders, trapping Richie in her shadow. She shakes her head, and he can still make out the pathetic look on her face as she glowers at him.

"It's girls he likes. It's me he likes." she points to herself, shaking her head. "He was mine the second he saw me, but you?"

She scoffs again, and her shadow releases him as she kneels to balance on her feet, legs folded before him with a snide look.

"You've always been the insufferable loudmouth he couldn't get rid of." A sharp laugh escapes her, the clutch on his heart tightening to dangerous amounts he fears it will give out. "Well, I guess he doesn't have to worry about that now, huh?"

His heart feels as if it has been ripped to shreds, the claws of the wolf had struck and now he was drowning in his own sorrows as pain as the heartbreak filled his lungs. Richie could no longer see behind the thick wall of glassy tears that blanketed his eyes, and the sounds of his own sobs amplified his embarrassment and despair. He was hopelessly broken, and he could feel himself crumble, each piece disappearing amongst the gravel underneath him until he couldn't be found. He blinked only once, but it was enough to send every tear racing down his cheek at once.

Another malicious smile contorts her face, her e/c eyes burning darker until they looked almost a completely different shade. Her lips seemed to stretch on and on and on in a way only one thing could. And it was then that it occurred to him.

Not one thing she had said to him is something he could have ever prepared himself for, each word constricting his heart and lungs and swelling his throat with the ever-growing lump.

Nor was any of it something she would ever dream of saying, he knew this now.

[■■■■■■■■■■■■]

This wasn't Y/n, this was never Y/n. She had never showed, and if he hadn't been so wrapped up in his own fucking head he would have caught on from the second "Y/n" arrived. Especially that entrance, Y/n surely would have fallen on her ass on her way down into the gravel pit never mind the fact her accent wouldn't be nearly as shit.

But none of this mattered now. This thing that looked like his friend had him cornered, and It knew it.

A wicked grin overtook the mask of Y/n's face that chilled Richie to his bones, and yet it also reassured him. Y/n was tough and could be scary from time to time, but he knew she could never be capable of the pure evil that now danced in It's eyes. Richie's body was already in motion, his arms and legs scrambling for any sort of grip that could take him up the side of the pit and to safety. But the gravel beneath him was always shifting, rolling out from underneath him when it wasn't raking his palms to pieces and all he was accomplishing was a small plume of dust that clung to his backside.

Richie didn't know where it came from, but his actions were faster than his feelings as his fist collided with It's nose. And no sooner did the heel of his shoe collide in a painful crack that sent It's head back, did his eyes widen in horrific shock. The painful crack that would surely haunt him for many nights to come, had not been from the collision of his heel on It's nose but It's head - or Y/n's as this was still It's disguise - had snapped completely back and dangled completely off It's/her shoulders.

The only thing connecting her head to her shoulders was the suit of s/c skin. Protruding from the center of her neck just under the skin was the end of her spine where it had disconnected, giving away a disturbing lack of muscles and veins in her neck as if it had been hollowed out like a pumpkin. Her head rolled back and forth limply, and Richie could feel bile climbing up his throat, ready to burst out his digested mac and cheese.

His mind was screaming at his legs to run while all was still but a small part of him knew this was all a gambit, that it didn't matter if she was frozen stiff or not. Richie knew as soon as he booked it, It would spring to life with something even more twisted. That now, without his friends, he was as good as dead.

And It was more than happy to prove Richie right.

The clone of his friend sprang to life, It's head still rolling around on It's shoulders. Connected only by the skin of It's neck, and moving around like some fucked up slinky toy. Richie was already halfway up the gravel pit, bits of rock and dirt finding their way into his shoes as he kicked up the earth though that was the farthest thing from his mind.

By the time Richie reached the top of the pit, he could no longer hear the thunderous boom of his heart attempting to break loose from his chest, which was saying an awful lot. His screams echoed out into the air only to be swallowed by the screams of other children and Richie didn't know how he knew this but he knew those were the screams of Betty Ripsom, Ed Corcoran... Georgie Denbrough. The bloodied screams of It's victims were drowning Richie as he ran for the junkyard, and he wondered if he might live to hear them stop.

The screams were so fucking loud in his ears he could see them. Each of them a blinding, deafening, gut-wrenching, and blood-curdling scream that danced through the air like ribbons as they begged for their lives. Richie cried out and he couldn't even hear his own voice, but he didn't let this stop his legs from pumping as hard as they possibly could. He was nearly to the junkyard, surely he could use something to fend It off but he knew he was just buying time.

He could taste the blood on his tongue from where his teeth bit into his cheek. In all his short life, Richie Tozier would not have guessed child-eating clown to be the way he'd kick the can. When ever the thought of death began troubling him, he always liked to picture something like a western. Him and his rightful enemy squaring off against good and evil, he'd shoot first and save the day but still sustain an injury and bleed out. But it'd be a hero's death. And that was something.

But this... this was something born out of darker than evil and Richie was about to be pulled into the gravity well of this black hole and swallowed up. And he knew in his soul, the very pits of his stomach it would reach out with its shadowy arms and pull him into darkness.

And it did.

Richie had been rapidly approaching the edge of the junkyard without realizing and within an instant found himself on the ground, caved in on himself as he tumbled in the dirt and rocks accepting he was to join them soon enough. He closed his eyes and waited for death as a hand curled around his shoulder and pulled him around. Another jolt of shock shot through his entire body at the sudden contact, locking his jaw and paralyzing his entire body in fear as he was met with the new threat. He didn't dare open his eyes, and certainly not when he heard his best friend's voice again.

"Richie! Richie?"

It was her again, he realized. Y/n's real voice, the one that he heard on the telephone that was dripped in static. The one now dripped in fear.

"Richie?!"

When the boy opened his eyes, they were filled with terror and his sobs continued. A lense Y/n never thought she'd see Richie look at her through. Her heart broke in an instant when she realized he was afraid... of her. Instantly, she released him and let her backside fall back into the gravel. She watched through a thick wall of tears as he trembled, crying to himself, and never in all her life had she seen Richie Tozier so broken.

It tore her apart.

She didn't have to be a genius to realize what had happened here. Before she had even reached the junkyard on her bike she had heard his screams strangled through the wall of trees gating the area. When she had reached the gravel yard, she was happy to see him still in one piece but he was running for his life from an invisible force. The damn coward had gotten what It wanted and scared him shitless, but why would he disappear just because she showed? She had wondered.

Now she was beginning to understand. It didn't need to be here to scare her. Just the sight of Richie in such a state was enough to tear her down and it took just about everything in her not to scream into the sky from a mix of fury and fear.

Besides the tears that race down her cheeks and wet her legs, all Y/n could feel was a painfully numbing fear. Fear that Richie would never be the same. Fear that Richie would never speak to her again. Fear that Richie would never trust her again. Fear for whatever the fucking hell that thing did to Richie. Fear that It would do it again.

All she felt now was fear for Richie.

Y/n doesn't bother to fight the sob that breaks loose, her bottom lip quivers violently and her arms fall to the gravely pavement beneath her. As if her head had filled with lead, it grew heavy enough to fall into her chest where her chin landed, shaking several more tears loose.

"I'm s-so sorry, Richie,"

Y/n yearns to say more, but her body is physically weak from sadness and shame. Yet still, she repeats it in her mind hoping with everything in her it slips out of her mouth, or maybe if she thought them loud enough he'd hear them in his mind.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry for whatever happened. I'm so goddamn sorry...

"I'm sorry," she whimpers. "I promise..."

I promise I'm not gonna hurt you. I promise I'm not gonna hate you. I promise I'm gonna be there for you, from now on. I promise.

Her sniffles blend with his own, and Richie is unsure why this is the moment he knows for sure this is the real Y/n before him; maybe he was just too exhausted to think it through, perhaps it was the godawful sound she was making trying to keep herself from snotting as bad as he was but he knew It had gone. And the Y/n sitting beside him — crying with him, was the one he dialed up today. This was the Y/n he had been prepared to bare his soul to. His true self.

So with one shaky hand — the other still tucked in close to his chest — Richie's left hand slid out from under him and across the gravel to Y/n's open palm. Her fingers were digging into the gravel, sharp edges of the rock digging into her skin as if to assure herself she was really real. Suddenly, she felt Richie's shaky palm slide underneath hers, carefully taking it.

Y/n picked her glassy stare up from the ground to look at their intertwined hands, and she melted a little. Several of those fears — not all of them, but some — were ebbed away and she looked to Richie. He was still curled up in the dirt, his eyes closed and silent tears streaking his dirt-covered face. Each tear paved a path of clean skin, washing the dirt away in wild streaks where ever each tear had fallen. Several large and swollen beads of tears collected at his chin where they dangled, threatening to fall.

She gave his hand a squeeze, letting him know she was there for him as she had promised him. And she was ready to sit with him for as long as he needed.

For hours that feel only like minutes, they sit together in tear-filled silence, clinging to one another's presence and the knowledge that they are now all they have left.

And there was no way they were letting go.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Here are some LGBTQ+ resources for mental health and self help if you feel you need them:

How do I find LGBTQ friendly therapy?

An article on safe ways to find the best sources of help that are right for you

The Trevor Project

Self Care Tips for Trans and Non Binary Folks

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passivenovember · 4 years ago

Text

Cinnamon.

Dawn's got a boyfriend.

A stupid, dorky, lanky boyfriend who decorates his nails and pairs platform jelly crocs with unbelievably tight jeans.

Dawn paints things on the pockets.

The ass pockets, much to Billy's sniveling, sneering disapproval. Little pictures of toaster ovens and broken light bulbs, industrial and punk and.

Perfect.

Weird.

Just like her.

Billy doesn't understand what she see's in the guy.

His family moves in the summer before sophomore year and everything changes. Billy's got a fourth blanket in the hamper next to Dawns for movie night, all of a sudden, and he's being dragged to double dates with the kid's freaky artistic parents. Steve's inviting them to dinner because I like them, Bills.

Then the boy's sleeping over in their living room.

Every weekend.

Probably kissing Billy's fifteen year old daughter at three in the morning and eating Billy's favorite pop tarts, just.

All of a sudden.

Out of nowhere, like. An alien invasion gone horribly, terribly wrong.

Billy feels like he should've seen it coming.

It's Friday night. The first in years that's just them, just.

Steve and Billy and Dawn.

Cooking after a shit week. Cracking jokes and dancing around the kitchen to Joy Division. The first Friday in months without the boy and his golden-retriever ass blocking access to the record player. Doing nothing. Eating cherry tomatoes and laughing too loudly at everything Billy says.

It's just them.

The three musketeers.

Billy's over the moon excited to spend it with his husband. Burning their vegan lasagna and sneaking kisses on the couch while Dawn tells them to knock it off. Watching horror films, bickering over what flavor of ice cream to have delivered, and.

Hugging Steve and Dawn to his chest when the nightmares come.

Billy knows, alright, he.

Feels it.

There aren't too many of these left.

He'll take what he can get.

So it's Friday night and Dawn isn't in her movie night onesie, she's.

Tromping around the house in the docs Billy got her for Christmas last year. Still wearing her knock-off Susie Sioux war paint and homemade skirt, the one that's covered in functional patches. Billy smiles, flooded with warmth, when he sees the newest addition tacked right above the tear in her knee.

A butterfly. The one they painted together.

"Nice," He says, chopping up cucumbers for the salad. "'S a little girly, though. Fuck Nazi's should come next if balance is to be restored."

"I think we should save that one. Stick it somewhere special, on something that'll last." Dawn meanders slowly around the kitchen. Running her fingertips along the cutting board, kissing Steve on the cheek and kicking Billy on the shin. Her usual form of hello.

Billy rifles through what he knows of her wardrobe. "You only have special shit. Staple pieces."

"True, but something, like." Dawn sneaks a slice of cucumber, crunching loudly next to Billy's ear. "Super special. A jacket, perhaps."

Steve coos like a bird, suddenly checked into the conversation. "A leather one?"

Dawn shakes her head. "Nah, something lighter."

Steve grins, clapping his oven mitts together. "Staples, leather, can't blame a guy for trying."

"Something more versatile." Dawn tries. "Light blue. Loved and lost by generations of Hargrove's before me."

Billy empties his cucumber slices into a bowl, not liking where this is headed.

Dawn wraps her arm around his shoulders.

"Of the denim variety?"

Billy shrugs her arm away, moving to put the casserole in the oven because. Steve does pottery for a living but he's still scared of the oven.

Dawn follows closely behind. "Just picture it. A gorgeous, vintage denim jacket covered in studs."

Billy sighs. "Metal Heads don't need all that shit to feel cool."

But Dawn just keeps talking. "And a patch of the most excellent quality tacked right above something artistic, like. A lipstick smear--

"You're not getting my jacket." Billy concludes, doing his best to put some bass in it.

Assert some of that dominance he was known for in high school, but.

It doesn't work.

Dawn waggles her eyebrows because once you let a little girl paint your toenails she stops being afraid of you. "It could be a love letter." She says. "A little 'kiss my ass,' to every skinhead in Hawkins."

Steve makes a noise from his place on the counter, checking in once more. "Since when are there skinheads in Hawkins?"

"Since always." Billy says to his husband. And then, to his daughter; "The jacket is written into our will."

She snorts. "Are you serious?"

Before Billy can say anything, snarky or otherwise, the doorbell rings.

"I'll get it," Dawn says, voice going high and airy in the way it only does when--

"Does Peter like casserole?"

Billy wishes Steve had a single rude bone in his body.

Dawn's cheeks go bright red. "Who said Peter's here?"

And then she's gone. Opening the front door and greeting him.

Peter.

Like he's the second coming or some shit.

"Oh, maybe because he's always here." Billy grumbles. "Eating my poptarts and forgetting to put more toilet paper in the bathroom--"

"Bills." Steve says.

"What? Just stating facts."

"Thought you wanted her to make friends her own age?" Steve says easily, planting a delicate, sweet kiss on the curve of Billy's neck.

Down the hall things are quiet.

Too quiet.

"Peter isn't a friend, he's a goddamn turd." Billy scrubs roughly at the counter top, trying to work out a seven year old Kool-Aid stain. "Flirty little turd trying to flirt with our kid, That's what--"

"Dawn and Peter don't flirt."

And Billy wishes Steve had a single thought in his pretty little head.

Billy throws the towel down on the countertop, hands on hips. "Are you fuckin' serious?"

But before Steve can say anything Turd Boy is rounding the corner in a denim vest and a flowery skirt, a giggling Dawn stumbling over the floor behind him. Since Billy saw him last, Peter's nose grew a ring of metal and his hair has turned pink.

Bright pink.

Pastel pink, clashing and melding with a shirt Billy remembers from Dawn's fifth grade yearbook.

Kid looks cool.

Really gnarly, like Sid Vicious and David Bowie rolled into one, and Billy instantly hates it when Dawn says that they're going to a fucking football game.

Billy puts on his dad hat.

The responsible one that makes him feel like a dweeb, and asks all the right questions. Who will be there, when are they coming home, does she need money or a pair of brass knuckles to intimidate the skinheads--

Steve asks if he should get a head start on the pillow fort, and.

Peter laughs.

Dawn holds out her hand, like, "That might be cool."

Billy tenses when Steve's arms find his waist. "The knuckles or the fort?"

She thinks about it. Then; "Both."

So Billy digs around for his wallet. And hands over his pocket-knuckles. And tries not to vomit when Dawn makes big, disgusting goo-goo eyes at the boyfriend that could, all things considered, be a lot fucking worse.

Steve tells them to call if they need anything and Peter promises to look have Dawn home by ten thirty. Swears to look out for her and use the knuckles if he's gotta, so.

Billy believes the kid.

Hates him because he has to, believes him because Steve does.

And then they're gone.

Billy stares after them long after the front door has slammed shut, trying not to feel disappointed that they'll be empty nesters until their kids stumble home from a night of normalcy.

Steve hasn't said a word.

"Guess it's just us, tonight," Billy whispers to the front door. Steve kisses the back of his neck. "I found some rolling papers in Dawn's room if you wanna--"

"Should we be letting her date?"

Which.

"Since when have we let Dawn do anything?"

#harringrove #harringrove april #day four #butterflies #I like how every prompt is just me mentioning the topic once #like #blink and you'll miss it honey #lmao #i love dawn

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cordria · 5 years ago

Text

Moon

“Don’t step into the moon,” was the cryptic message left by her predecessor, scrawled on the paperwork.

“Great help,” Sally Effords muttered as she stepped out of her car and looked up at the building her temp agency had contracted her out to. She stopped. “Oh, shit, no.”

The whole street was residential - including this… house? - but it stood out like a sore thumb in the morning sunshine. Gadgets and things-she-had-no-name-for stuck out everywhere from the two story brick home. Some strange sort of craft perched on top, and a huge sign hung into the street. Code violations obvious everywhere.

Too bad she wasn’t working for the city anymore. She’d gotten paid by the violation. She’d have made two month’s rent on his place.

She glanced down at the paperwork, pointlessly rechecking the address. “Hate my job sometimes,” she whispered before hiking up her skirt and walking up the front steps of this monstrosity. “Secretarial work my ass.” She knocked. Perhaps nobody would answer the door and she could go back and find something else.

For the longest time, nobody did answer.

She raised her hand to try knocking again when the door was wrenched open. An impressively large man was standing there, his bulk covered in some sort of bright orange overalls, a weird glowing headset over his eyes, and a thick head of gray hair. He filled the doorway, and was a half-step too close for comfort. “What?”

“Ballast sent me to fill your secretary job?” Sally asked, raising her chin and refusing to take even the smallest step backwards. She’d been employed by weirdos before, and this job offered a stellar bonus for making it through a week. “Sally Effords.” She held out her hand.

The man pushed back the headset. Handsome pale blue eyes were framed by an honest, open face and a pleasant smile. “A new one! MADS WE GOT A NEW ONE!” he shouted.

Sally set her jaw at the bone-rattling shout. “Yes,” she said, uncertain what else to say. She’d certainly been expecting a handshake, or a welcome, or something beyond a shout that woke up the entire neighborhood.

A woman appeared in the small space left by the man’s bulk. She was in blue coveralls, gray peppering her red hair, with a pleased smile that was very like the man’s. “Excellent, Jack, but you could welcome her inside instead of making her stand in the street.”

A little knot in Sally’s stomach relaxed slightly. At least one of her new employers was normal-ish. She set the lady a smile. “Sally Effords,” she introduced herself, holding out a hand.

The woman didn’t shake her hand either. “Come on in,” the woman said. “I’m Maddie. Maddie Fenton. This is my husband, Jack.”

Sally let her hand fall to her side with a mental shrug. Perhaps it was a cultural thing. She stepped inside, trying to survey her surroundings without looking nosy. It was a living room, kitchen visible through a doorway, stairs that led up to a second floor. “Ballast said you were in need of a secretary.”

“Yes,” Maddie said. “Our business is in the basement, and I’m afraid the three of us are just lousy at paperwork. DANNY!” Her voice went from pleasant to a shout in a heartbeat. Sally had to fight down a flinch.

“What?” came a new voice from right next to her.

Sally did flinch this time. She was quite observant, had looked around, and there were only the two people nearby seconds ago. She glanced to her left, spotting a twenty-something man leaning against a wall. He had black hair that was longer than the typical male, a lean build, and normal clothing. How had she not seen him there?

“She clean?” Jack asked.

“Obviously,” the younger man - Danny? - drawled. “She got in the house without setting off everything.” He smiled at her, blue eyes almost glowing. “Danny,” he said, holding out his hand for a handshake. “Are you enjoying meeting my parents?”

Sally shook his hand. “Quite.”

“It’s a pretty average FentonWorks greeting,” Danny said. “They don’t stand much on normal behavior.”

Maddie laughed. “We’re plenty normal, Danny.”

“Plenty,” Danny agreed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why don’t you show Sally the lab?”

“Yes,” Jack piped in, heading through the living room and towards the kitchen. Maddie was a few steps behind, talking about some sort of project they had going on.

Sally lingered near the door, wondering if she was expected to remove her shoes. She turned to ask Danny, but the man was gone. She spun in a little circle, convinced she hadn’t heard him head up the stairs or through the door, and knowing he hadn’t followed his parents. “Creepy,” she whispered, and kept her shoes on.

Through the normal - if a bit outdated - living room was a kitchen that was similarly outdated, and quite a bit more beat up. Cabinet doors weren’t closed properly. Several drawers had long scratches. The table looked like it had been fixed several times by someone who didn’t quite know what they were doing.

She heard her new employers talking through an orange door. Sally walked over and found stairs leading down into a basement. “Okay,” she whispered, hesitating. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to head downstairs in this odd home. But she squared her shoulders and set her feet on the stairs.

The basement was lit with bright fluorescent lights. Shelving units lined most of the walls, and tables were scattered everywhere. Some sort of freaky closet was along the back wall, with round doors and hazard lights around it. Electronic bits and bobs were everywhere, wires and things scattered across the tables and shelves, and a general sense of haphazardness everywhere.

“This is your desk,” Maddie said, pointing to the table closest to the stairs. Unlike the other tables, this one was covered in papers. A phone and computer was barely visible behind the stacks. “Jack and I work over there,” she gestured with a hand towards the other tables, “and Danny over there.” She pointed towards a spot on the other side of the stairs, a smaller table that was noticeably cleaner than everywhere else.

Sally blinked, spotting the younger man already sitting in a chair. He gave her a little wave. How had he gotten down here so fast? Was there a back way down?

“So, yes,” Maddie said, walking over to the paper-covered table and studying it with her hands on her hips. “I suppose the first thing you’ll need to do is organize it. The last one left in a bit of a hurry...” She dug through the piles, pulling out a random piece of paper and holding it out.

Sally took it, glancing down at it. A basic listing of secretarial duties with almost no detail. ‘Answer the phone’ was on there, but nothing about the standard greeting for the business or where to route calls that came through or how to take memos. Her mouth twisted. Businesses like this set up temps for failure.

She now understood the nice bonus for making it through a week. This place was a kooky disaster. “Sounds like a plan,” she said, aiming for a brisk and business-like tone and giving the woman a smile.

Maddie smiled back, that same open and honest expression she’d had before. “Jack and I will be over there. Yell if you need us.”

Sally nodded. ‘Yell’ was likely not an overstatement. Then she turned to the table, studying it. Organization was one of her talents - it’s why she loved the library jobs. She cracked her knuckles, wishing she had chosen something a bit more practical than a pencil skirt and heels to wear today. She’d know better for tomorrow. First things first, figure out what she was organizing.

Halfway through cleaning off the table, sorting the papers into a dozen stacks on the floor and debating whether or not ‘by date’ or ‘alphabetical’ would be a more logical sorting system, she glanced over at her new employers. The two elder Fentons were busy tinkering one something-or-other. The younger Fenton was doing something on his computer.

So far, the people were kooky and the house was weird and full of odd hazards she would have to start making a list of, but the job seemed relatively standard. Why had they run through two dozen temps in just three months?

Her mouth twisted into a frown as she picked up another bit of paper. Perhaps she should have done a little more research on this business before she arrived. The paperwork had made it seem like a scientific company that did research and development for the government.

“How’s it going?”

Sally flinched, glancing over her shoulder. The young man was standing next to her, studying the piles she was making. She hadn’t heard him walk over - he was an impressively quiet walker wearing those thick boots on the hard floor. “This is quite a stack of papers,” she said.

Danny laughed and crouched down, picking up one of the stacks and flicking through it. “My parents collect a few things. Paperwork seems to be one of them.” He set the papers down where he’d found them, then picked up a different stack with a blanch. “Is this really a whole stack of warning letters from the city?”

“Yes.” Sally watched the disbelief settle onto the man’s face. “Didn’t you know you were getting them?”

“Not really,” Danny muttered, setting them down and moving on to a new pile. “It’ll be really nice to have this organized and in some sort of working order. My parents waste a ton of money each year because of this,” he gestured towards the mess.

“Can’t get a stable secretary?”

“Can’t convince my dad we need one.” Danny shot her a smile. “My mom’s on board. She hates answering the phone and doing paperwork. My dad still thinks he’s handling it just fine.”

Sally had to fight to keep the expression on her face bland - this mess certainly wasn’t just fine, but she wasn’t going to offer negatives against her boss on the first day. “I enjoy organizing, so this works for me,” she said.

Danny chuckled. “That good.” Then an odd expression settled on his face. “Do you have any idea what we do here?”

“Not particularly. It’s a private R&D company for the government, according to the paperwork.”

His head tipped to the side. “You live in Amity Park and you’ve never heard of FentonWorks?”

Feeling like it was some sort of trick question, Sally hesitated. But the smile on his face was polite and nice, and so she answered honestly. “No.”

He nodded slowly, the smile growing. “Excellent.”

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re the first person we’ve hired that’s… actually done work.”

Sally blinked up at him. “What?”

“Well, there were a couple that pretended. And there was the one that, I think, was actually going to work but she wouldn’t step foot in the lab. But the rest? Nah. They just straight-up were trying to steal stuff.”

Sally glanced around. Wires. Gadgets. “Why?”

Danny shrugged, then pointed at the piece of paper in her hand. “Like that. Next-generation, million-dollar patent.”

She glanced down at the paper she’d picked up. It was the third or forth such piece of paper she’d found. Sure enough, it was a patent. “Million-dollar?” she repeated, trying to not sound doubtful.

“There’s people that would pay you a hundred thousand bucks if you’d just slip that into your bag and bring it home.” Danny’s eyes glittered, like he was holding back laughter. “I’m surprised none of them stopped you on the way here and offered.”

“Are you actually being serious, or tugging my leg?”

“Nah, honestly.” A shoulder went up and down. “My parents don’t give one little rip about it. They used to, but they’ve made so much from their government contracts that they’ve stopped paying attention.”

Sally thought about the broken, out of style house she’d walked through to get here, still skeptical about the man’s claims.

“Yeah, all they care about is this lab,” Danny said, seemingly following her train of thought. “The upstairs is simply a place they sleep, and sometimes eat.”

“Oh.” Sally set down the patent - perhaps a little more carefully than before - and studied the piles of paper. If the young man was being honest, this paperwork was worth tens of millions of dollars. Still thinking about all that money, she absently asked, “Do you think they’d like it organized alphabetical or by date?”

Danny broke out laughing, a genuinely happy sound that made the other two Fentons pause and look over. “I don’t think they have any idea what either of those are. Organization is an alien concept for them. You decide.”

“I can do that. I might need some containers for all this, otherwise it’ll just get messy again.”

He stood up and grabbed the phone, turned the receiver over, and pulled off something taped to the bottom. It was a credit card. He held it out to her. “Maybe take a long lunch break. Stop at the store and get what you think is best.”

“Uh…” Sally stared at him. She’d worked here for a few hours, and he was handing her a credit card already? The credit card was a shiny silver, with ‘FentonWorks’ listed on it. “How much-”

“It’s got a quarter million dollar credit limit,” the man said with a grin. “Spend what you want. Don’t go nuts, but get something that’ll last. Avoid the dollar stores. It goes back under the phone when you’re done. Unless you have a better plan so it doesn’t get lost.” With that, he walked away, stopping next to the strange, lighted closet. “I’ll be back in a bit,” he told his parents. “Gonna go grab a friend.”

“Yup,” Jack said, waving a hand. “I’ll save some lunch for you.”

He glanced at her, smiled, and pushed a button. The doors of the closet opened on their own - but it was no closet behind the doors. It was a mass of swirling gas that seemed to glow like the full moon on a dark night.

“Don’t step into the moon?” she whispered, remembering the odd comment scrawled on her paperwork. “What is that?” And assuming his story was true, what had her predecessor tried to steal from inside the closet?

The young man took a large step backwards and vanished into the mist. The doors of the closet slowly closed behind him.

Sally waited, watching, wondering what in the world was with the doors and the weird moon-shine gas behind it. When nothing happened, she shook her head and went back to sorting through the paperwork. Alphabetical she decided, nodding to herself. She glanced at the credit card, wondering if this whole thing was some sort of joke. She’d try it out at lunch, just to see.

She was mentally planning through what she’d get - she had a bit of a knack for design, after all - when the closet doors swooshed open again. She looked up into the shine, and two somethings stepped out of the moon. One resolved itself into Danny Fenton. Then other…

Papers fluttered from her nerveless fingers, as she suddenly put together the name FentonWorks and the local news she’d read about over the last decade. “Oh my,” she whispered. “Oh... shit.”

#dannymay2020 #quick writing #this started and was going to go somewhere else #i'm not entirely sure how it ended up here #but it maybe works #moon-tangential at the least

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oscars-wifeyyy · 5 years ago

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Chapter 3 (The Innocent)

The next day came around, Cesar, Monse, and Elizabeth were walking to school. The three were talking when Jamal and Ruby rode past them with their bikes.

“Get out the way,” Ruby called out as Jamal imitated a care engine.

Elizabeth chuckled, but gags when Cesar kissed Monse, “I love y’all, but don’t do that in front of me,”

“Eli, shut up,” Cesar rolled his eyes, “you and my brother probably do that when you’re alone,”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Elizabeth looked at him confused.

“Nothing,” Cesar shrugged as the three continued on their way to school.

Elizabeth was in class with Ruby and Olivia when the intercom came on with the announcements, “Attention, students. One last reminder to buy your tickets to tonight’s homecoming dance. A magical night of wonder, excitement, and romance can be yours for only $10.99,”

“So…” Ruby trailed off, “you going?”

“Yeah,” Olivia smiled, “Do you…”

“Do you…” Ruby started at the same time as Olivia, “you go first,”

“Do you need any underwear?” Elizabeth started laughing at the turn of events.

“What?” Ruby asked, horrified.

“ Your mom’s at Costco,” Olivia explained.

“Um…” Ruby turned to look straight, “I’m good,”

“Ok,” Olivia turned back to her phone, “also, they ran out of your gummy vitamins so your mom got you small easy to swallow pills. That cool?”

Ruby hummed in embarrassment while Elizabeth couldn’t breathe and began weezing at the turn of events. She had to contain herself when Ruby turned and glared at her so she looked down and took out her notebook with her lips sealed, but still let out a few laughs. The teacher arrived inside the class and began the lesson so Elizabeth listened and took notes as her eyes drifted towards the clock to see how long left until class is over.

Lunch came around and Elizabeth was the first one to get to the table with her food, she sat with her food in front of her and a book. A few pages turned and a couple bites into her food, the group finally came to the table so she put away her book and looked to the group, but an awkward pause passed.

“I’m wearing indigo tonight,” Ruby interrupted the silence, “I thought we should claim colors to avoid outfit clases. Indigo? Any objections?”

“Nah, Ruby. All you, man,” Elizabeth chuckled.

“Oh, and my pants have red pockets. I know, it sounds weird, but it works,” Ruby continued.

“What are the pockets for?” Olivia asked before she leaned towards Monse, “Roofies?”

The boys and Elizabeth looked at them weird, “so what time should we meet?” Cesar asked the group.

“Yeah, let’s get that in the books. More specific, the better,” Jamal said, “what are you guys thinking, like 8? 8:05? 8:10?”

“I’m gonna play it by ear,” Olivia replied, “I don’t think I’m feeling it,”

“What? Why?” Ruby asked.

“Not sure I’m in the mood to be objectified,” Olivia smiled sarcastically, “if I want to see boners, I’ll look online,”

“Didn’t you hear Principle Serge? Dance is a no-bone zone,” Jamal brought up the announcement.

“Are you kidding me? Dances are cesspools of bad behavior,” Cesar shook his head at Monse’s strategy, “I don’t wanna go,”

“Yeah, people get freaky, but what’s wrong with that?” Ruby shrugged, “I don’t get it,”

“Yeah, Monse. Why don’t you wanna go? Explain it to us. You were pretty excited this morning,” Cesar pried into Monse.

“That was before I remembered that dances are lame,” Monse glared at the boy, “and maybe we’re not in the mood,”

“Oh,” Ruby looked as if he realized something, “is it your menses?”

Elizabeth started laughing while Olivia looked at him weird, “her what?”

“Her lady pond runneth red,” Ruby said before Jamal hit him on his arm to stop.

“My what?” Monse glared at Ruby.

“What?” Ruby looked genuinely confused, “what am I saying wrong?”

“Everything!” The two girls exclaimed at the confused friend.

“You guys just don’t understand what it’s like to be a woman and treated like an object,” Monse looked at the guys, “we have hearts!”

“And minds,” Olivia added, “so take out any question that we’re going tonight. The answer is no. with a period, ‘cause that’s what it’s actually called,”

“Girls, let’s dine in a less hostile environment,” Monse stood up.

“You read my mind,” Olivia rolled her eyes.

“I gotta go anyway to finish some assignments,” Elizabeth chuckled as she grabbed her backpack, “I don’t know what happened, but I’ll see y’all later,”

The day went by as classes dragged on until the last bell rang and students flooded the halls to leave the place they personally called hell. Elizabeth was part of the last few people in the flood since she needed to go to her locker and pick up her homework, but when she walked out and saw the feared gang leader inside his beloved cherry red Impala. She wanted to turn back and exit through the back; however, he already saw her when he got out and leaned his back into the car, staring at her. The girl decided to try to ignore him and walk past without a glance. She was about to walk past until he gently held her right hand before she walked past.

“Mamita,” Oscar smirked at the girl, “you ain’t getting rid of me easy so get in the car,”

Elizabeth glared at the older man in front of her, “nah, I got some shit to focus on so I’ll catch up with Ruby and Jamal,”

Oscar’s smirked dropped as he quickly, but gently pushed her against his car, resting his hands on the top of the car, “they may be tu amigos pero I’m not afraid to beat their asses,”

Elizabeth felt everyone’s eyes on them so she rolled her eyes and complied, not wanting to be the center of everyone’s attention. Oscar smirked and kissed her forehead before moving to open the passenger door for her. The gang leader went to the driver’s side and turned to his passenger.

“Where do you wanna go?” Oscar took the blunt behind his ear.

“Home,” Elizabeth’s stomach decided to rumble at that moment.

Oscar chuckled, “Nah, we stoppin’ somewhere to eat. Whatchu feelin’?”

“Nuggets. Chicken nuggets. Let’s go to McDonald’s and you’re paying since you’re kinda kidnapping me,” Elizabeth glared at Oscar.

“Alright, mamita. Whatever you say,” Oscar smirked at the irritated girl as he turned into the parking lot of a McDonald’s.

The two got out once he parked and went inside to put in their order. While the two were waiting, she got a text from the girls group chat asking if she was going to the dance with them. She didn’t know that Oscar moved to stand right behind her, chest touching back, and saw the text.

“You goin’ to the dance?” Oscar asked.

“Don’t know,” Elizabeth shrugged, turning to face him, “might pick up an extra shift that night at the restaurant,”

“Nope. You’re not because you study too much and work too much,” Oscar shook his head and laid a hand on her waist, “you and I are hanging out tonight,”

“I need to, ‘Scar,” Elizabeth rolled her eyes as she pushed his hand off her waist, “deje de tratar de tocarme,”

“Por que, bebita? I can’t help myself. eres demasiado hermosa,” Oscar smirked as he wrapped an arm around her neck and walked to the register to order their food.

“Hello. Welcome to McDonald’s. What can I get you guys?”

“Let’s get the 20 piece chicken nuggets combo and a number one,” Oscar took out his wallet and brought out two twenties.

Oscar got his change as Elizabeth went to the soda fountain and chose her drink, Oscar coming up from behind and choosing his. They decided to take a sit next to the pick up counter and small talked their way until the food came out.

Elizabeth looked down at her food as she dipped her nugget in ranch, “Oscar, why are you trying so hard to get at me? I’m nothing special and there are a lot of other girls that want you and will make time for you. I’m not gonna lie, I barely have time to even hang out with my friends so I’m barely gonna have time for you,”

Oscar swallowed the food in his mouth, “Well, I want you because there is something about you. No me importa si apenas tienes tiempo, siempre y cuando me des algo de tu tiempo. Let me claim you as mine, bebe,”

The two ate their food, moving past the subject, and made their way home, but Oscar passed Elizabeth’s house and continued making his way farther from her house.

“Oscar, where are you going? We passed my house,” Elizabeth was getting confused.

“I just wanna show you something,” Oscar glance at her.

Oscar drove in silence as his right arm had moved to rest behind Elizabeth, his hand lightly touching her right shoulder. Elizabeth felt her heartbeat increase in her chest and it was foreign feeling to her because she never felt like that towards anybody. However, she pushed it aside and focused on the road when she realized that they ended up at the beach. The moment Oscar parked the car, Elizabeth got out and stood in front of the car with a huge smile on her face, turning to Oscar and giving him the sight of her smiling face with the son behind her. It was quite a beautiful sight to the scary leader.

“Why did you take me here?” Elizabeth asked, smile stuck on her face.

“This is the place I go to when I need to think and want to get away from Freeridge. The openness and sounds of the oceans help me think and relax,” Oscar stared at the never ending blue ocean as Elizabeth admired the man from the side.

Elizabeth was surprised by his answer, “so you took me to your secret place?”

Oscar nodded, “I want to show you that I am serious about you and that I want you to be mine. Why do you work so hard? Why do you hustle that much?”

Elizabeth took a pause to contemplate telling him, “my dad was a construction worker so he would be in dangerous areas. One day, he was on ground level doing his job when something happened and he got hit in the head. Ever since then he has been messed up and goes to hospital visits to check on his head. Hospital bills build up and the compensation that he got was used on his bills and appointment he needs to go to so I work to help my mom out with bills and I get some extra money for myself and the future,”

Oscar cleared his throat and moved in front of Elizabeth to hold both of her hands while interlocking their fingers, “I’m here if you need anything, mamita,”

“Gracias, ‘Scar,” Elizabeth had a soft smile on her face, “Let’s take things slow and maybe I’ll be yours,”

The two smiled at each other as they moved to look at the sunset, but it seemed like the two of them were enchanted with the other.

“Tell me about you,” Elizabeth stared at the man next to her, “why did you choose this life? Just tell me everything about you,”

“When I was young, my father was killed and my mother was a drug addict. That left me to take care of Cesar so I did all I could to take care of him. I mean, I had an opportunity to go to this fancy school in Pasadena and I had recommendation letters written from the principal and teachers, but I didn’t want Cesar alone so I gave it up and got jumped in because of ‘destiny’ of the Diaz familia,” Oscar scoffed, “it’s hard. I think about what could have been, but I don’t regret not going because Cesar is here,”

Elizabeth smiled at the love that was so evident in his eyes and tone when he talked about his little brother, “thanks for sharing, ‘scar. I didn’t know you were smart,”

“Pendeja,” Oscar chuckled with Elizabeth while wrapping his arm around her and kissing her head.

@love-me-91393

#OMB #on my block #oscar spooky diaz #spooky diaz #spooky diaz x reader #spooky diaz imagines #spooky diaz imagine #julio macias #julio macias fanfic #julio macias fanfiction #Oscar Diaz #oscar diaz imagine #oscar diaz x reader #oscar diaz imagines #cesar diaz #monse finnie #Jamal Turner #ruby martinez #oscar x elizabeth

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arts-butthound · 4 years ago

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Sense and Salarian Ability Chp. 1

If you prefer, read my work over on AO3. Leave me a kudos if you like my work! https://archiveofourown.org/works/22537765/chapters/53856136

That small gaunt face was like a haunting from the lonesome dead. It echoed on his display window often enough, translucent. It would bounce from window to mirror to mirror- the image getting all the more faint and cursed the further it bounced into the establishment. Dirty clothes, filthy fingernails, with limp black hair that only made that colorless human skin all the more pale. Lau had chased her off before- throwing small cleaning rags at the child or yelling at her from an open door, but the duct rat continued to return and permeate the foul taste of guilt and privilege to both his clientele and contributors. The creature hurt business. His was a place of class and cultural significance. She only smudged it’s elegance with her left over breath.

It was the child’s eyes that struck the divining rod in Lau’s soul with an unforgivable chill. Large, crystalline, and so void of any thought, that there had been moments in her brief presence that made the salarian dealer wonder if those orb’s haunted his soul’s memory from another life, the wheel finally taking it’s vengeance for a misdeed done to a sister or dalatrass. Had she been someone before that he had known? On those nights where Lau actually needed sleep-those eyes resonated in his dreams like the girls face did in the window.

And here she was again, with her dead eyes trained on the sculptures within the exhibition hall. Only this time she was joined by other street mongrels, all inching towards the entrance door. At least her friends’ eyes had comprehensible intention. Human eyes were so unsettling, so alien and unreadable. His skin crawled as he tried not to be drawn into looking at her.

“Hey, mister!” the turian boy called from the door, standing in front of his two friends with the same arrogance as a Primarch. Lau sighed bitterly. He tried to ignore the boy. But like all turians, he persisted through adversity. “Do you have any work we can do? We’re hard workers, sir!”

“No. I don’t.” Anything to get the urchins to leave him alone. Anything to make her eyes go away. “Now beat it.” One had to be quick and to the point with duct rats. Without parents or without supervision, they clung to one territorial spot in a ward to cause trouble or beg from others. The girls behind the lad shuffled their feet and exchanged glances. It struck Lau as odd that the asari girl, probably an even thirty to the other children’s ten, stood behind the turian child instead of in front.

Eramanthe took his shoulder in hand and smiled. She was a regular contributor here, her work often selling faster than she could make it. And she had a bleeding heart. “Ropon Lau,” her voice was like heavy wooden wind chimes on a breezy day-that firm and elegant sound, “I’m sure that there’s plenty of work in the back studio for these fine young entrepreneurs to do. It’s plenty dirty back there.” The asari matron winked at the children in the doorway, summoning them closer with an ethereal lavender hand. The children ran to her before Lau could stop them. He glared at her over the tops of their varied heads, shaking his furiously.

“Era, no. I refuse to let them back there. There’s too much they could break!”

“It smells like clay dust and there are metal shavings all over the floor, Lau.” Her eyes glittered mischievously. Lau crossed his arms across the hollow of his chest, determined to stay firm on this. If Sapient Resources caught wind of what she was asking of him, they would crucify him to a wall and feed his entrails to a krogan. He suppressed a shudder just thinking about it. “Lau.” Eramanthe pushed, cocking a brow.

The woman was nigh impossible to say no to and she knew it. Her work had won the gallery notoriety and it continued to keep the lights on. The five went to the back room. Eramanthe smiled gratefully towards her friend. “I hate you.” Lau uttered.

Lau had, shortly after opening the art gallery, created this room for artists to convene and work in. Those who could rent the place out for a day or those with exceptional talent but had no place to work would come here with a hunger to create. When the lights went on, monoliths of stone and of steel welcomed the three children with hands raised skyward. Contorted figures danced, half formed and grotesque. “…Freaky…” the asari girl whispered, shrugging up one of her overall straps. In another part of the workshop, behind a wall and away from the dust, paintings in varying stages of completion sat on easels, colors reaching beyond the spectrum some species could even see. Beyond Lau’s attention, Eramanthe looked to the children, asking if they thought they could manage the work.

The turian boy rolled up his sleeves, grabbing a dust covered broom and nodded encouragingly towards his friends. “Count on us!” He quickly gave directions to his partners and got to work. Of course, SHE managed to get the job of cleaning the windows and mirrors. Those empty eyes-

“Was that so bad, hard ass?” Eramanthe took a seat on the table top that Lau was currently leaning back on, the dust clinging carelessly to her skirt and palms. Lau sighed irritably, crossing his arms and leaning further into the table, causing Eramanthe to lose balance briefly as it scrapped backwards across the floor. “They’re already doing such a good job.” Eramanthe scowled at him, burning through Lau’s skull for a brief, suspicious moment.

“I don’t like kids.” He said honestly, watching the duct rats with the precision and the subtle intensity of a jungle beast on Sur’Kesh. Lau didn’t even associate with his dozen’s of nephews and nieces regularly. Too loud, too needy, too many, and too much. When around them, during family get-togethers, he stuck to the adults as much as he possibly could. Only taking part in their antics when they showed potential in the family business…and that was more out of necessity than anything. “I like duct rats even less. What if they steal something? Or ruin a piece? Nothing here is cheap. Some of it irreplaceable!” Lau’s hand tightened around his shirt fabric, knuckles trembling.

By the tiny, unkempt, knife like nails on all the children’s hands, Lau felt threatened in the most primal of ways. This backroom was more precious than the rest of the gallery. Treasures lay here, the freedom his hands had fumbled with resided back here with its abundant resources. To give this room to even the potential of a risk made his chest ache with unimaginable anxiety. That these children had been hustled inside against his will felt like raw skin. The flutter of his already fast paced heart made him want to vomit. “If its tools you’re worried about, if anything happens- I’ll pay for replacements. Besides, these babies have honest faces.” Eramanthe encouraged. But that wasn’t the point.

With a flick of Lau’s brown eyes, his heart leapt up into his chest and fell back into his stomach with a magnificent thud. The human child had followed the glass dutifully, finding her way to a secluded corner of the workshop. Her small fingers ghosted curiously over Lau’s own work. It had sat there for months, unfinished, uninspired, but no less dear to the curator. “Get away from that!” Before Lau knew it, he was across the room with the girl’s wrist gripped firmly within his hand. By salarian habit, in moments he had taken in the many details of her small frame. In equal measure, the girl gazed at Lau- seeing nearly every bone underneath his thick amphibian skin. “Don’t. Touch. The artwork.”

Her fingers curled back into her palm, tendons flexing underneath her skin, the girl’s eyes never leaving his. “Sorry.” To her credit, the duct rat human didn’t quake in his grasp. She didn’t fight to peel herself from his fingers. The human child was as still as the statues she was surrounded by.

“Lau!” Eramanthe crossed her arms disapprovingly, manicured nails tapping against her arm. The Asari child held back her turian friend from charging. All eyes in the room were on Lau and were suffocating. He released the girl to check his work for imperceptible cracks. Had she pushed too hard on any one piece? The girl’s friends ran to her side, pulling her back from the much taller man and putting a decent distance between them. “Come get a coffee in the lobby with me, Lau. You need to cool off.” The asari matron demanded, hopping off the table to elegantly brush the dust off her bum.

Like a scolded varren on a leash, Eramanthe led Lau away from the children and into the adjacent room. The empty hall echoed back their footsteps. The marbled stone walls were polished to a perfect shine, as were the floors. Looking down at the floor, Lau watched several clones of himself follow in step with Eramanthe. She stopped in front of the coffee table. Turned on the machine. Gave a cool side eye over her shoulder. Judged him. Lau didn’t meet her eyes, but sneered at the floor. She couldn’t make him regret doing what he’d done. The kid needed to be told not to touch things. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

The sound of the coffee starting to percolate filled the silence between the two adults. The gentle, almost purring sound massaged the nerves inside his skull. The artificial lighting of the ward filtered through the windows, coloring the walls and floors a cool blue. It ghosted across his brown skin, almost like a gauze veil. “You have a problem with humans, Lau?” Eramanthe poured out the brown liquid into two mugs and fixed them up to each of their likings. She handed him the smooth white cup.

“What? No! I’m not a racist, Era.” He set the cup back down on the counter.

“Mm, Species-ist.” Eramanthe took a small sip of her drink. “It’s okay if you are-Well, actually, not okay. But you wouldn’t be the first to not like them.”

“No, Era. I just don’t like kids! I told you that!”

Eramanthe cocked a brow and waited for him to continue. When he did not, she filled the quiet. “Sure. I get that. But you’ve paid a mean kind of attention to her since those three walked in here. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” With asari grace, her stare leveled him. Cutting to his core, her green eyes searched for answers. “Do you have a problem with humans?”

That she found the need to reiterate herself was insulting. For the five years she had known him, there was still a shadow of a doubt that he could be a racist? All because of that kid with the pale eyes. It was like someone had drained nearly all the paint out of them but left only a smattering of blue. They were too familiar, but for once Lau couldn’t put his finger on from where. With the way those eyes disturbed him; maybe he didn’t want to know.

“No.” Lau straightened his back, drawing himself to his full height. He was taller than Eramanthe by a few inches, the asari only coming up to his shoulders. Eramanthe placed a hand on her hip, nodding and smiling. Satisfied.

“Breathe, then.” Like the tide going out to sea, Eramanthe’s hands moved out toward the open air. The tension dissipated, leaving Lau with a bitter ringing in his ears. Give him five minutes, he’d be fine. But for now, the way Eramanthe had sloughed off the interrogation vexed him. “You’re such a serious little frog, my friend. You were too intense back there! You should have just asked her not to touch your doodad. No need to yell and grab her.”

“I guess.” Lau rubbed his arm, conceding with a deep breath. The kid should know by now, but…

Eramanthe finished off her coffee, and looked at Lau’s mug. It remained untouched. She took time to consider the space that the two inhabited and fiddled with her fingers. Another quiet moment passed between them as the two stood in close proximity, caressed by the blue light of the Tayseri Ward. She wrapped her arms around Lau’s spindly waist and rested her head on the rim of his upper chest. “I’m sorry.” Eramanthe’s gaze was directed at the floor, her brows knit together by thought. “I was overly pushy with you again, wasn’t I?”

Lau grunted half heartedly, returning Eramanthe’s hug with a friendly and accepting pat to her back. “Its fine, Era. Don’t worry about it.” It wasn’t as if this was unusual behavior for Eramanthe. Lau knew enough of her to expect little else-she was an overly enthusiastic woman, and an asari besides. Where else could he expect her to put her energy towards? It was in the species nature.

Breaking the silence of the lobby was a loud shattering sound from the back room and the two adults eyes widened as they looked at each other in horror! Their feet stumbled over the smooth paneling of the floor as they ran towards the sound, fearing the break they were about to see-the news they’d have to bring to a creator. Lau and Eramanthe’s head pivoted as far as their bodies would allow as they surveyed the statues on the working floor. Nothing appeared overturned or broken, but the children were nowhere to be seen. Lau moved quickly through the maze of half finished forms, eyes taking in the unperceivable with a speed that rivaled lightning.

His heart sank into his gut for the second time that day and his head snapped with dizzying speed towards the darkened corner he called his own. Eramanthe slapped her hands over her mouth, looking towards the salarian with watering eyes. Lau’s hand grazed across an empty podium, tiny shards of clay scattered across the floor. The larger pieces, however, were missing. The human child had broken it.

And then she’d stolen it.

#butthound writes #salarian #salarians #mass effect #mass effect 1 #asari #turian #fanfiction #fanfic #SASA

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brokenjardaantech · 4 years ago

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captain allen appreciation week 2020 day 1 + 7: vacation + acceptance

notes:

i combined day 1 & 7 as they happen to be the theme of the same story. it's also a prequel to a fic that i haven't written a word yet.

a little bit background since i think things can be confusing:

allen's full name is Louis White Allen. his dad's french and his mom american, though he's raised in alaska. his sister, anna allen, is a commissioned officer in the air force. the siblings speaks both english and french fluently.

sara ryder replaces elijah kamski as the inventor of androids.

this fic is set in september 2038, about a month after connor was first deployed at the phillips' hostage situation.

tags: griefing, family issues, brief mentions of childhood neglect and parentification

ao3 link if that’s what you prefer

-----

To this day, Lou's heart hammers when he sees a call from the military. Last time he received one was ten years ago, and he ended up with more questions than answers, answers that he knows he and his father very likely will not get in their lifetime. Staring at his phone vibrating on the coffee table, Lou debates whether to induce his cats' wrath - one sleeping on his lap and the other he hasn't stopped petting since they finished dinner - by standing up and interrupting their naps. It's not like he's at his full mobility anyways; his cybernetics still needs about half an hour to sync with his nervous system properly and to download the newest software. Whoever the fuck is in charge of calling the family of a soldier who went AWOL in Göttingen can wait.

It seems that the universe has other plans, as the air suddenly becomes charged with static and the phone launches itself towards Lou's chest. The tip of his fingers are numb, a common occurrence after his and his sister's unexplainable outbursts, but he manages to catch the phone before it hits his chest or, heaven forbids, his cat, who is startled awake and promptly returns to sleep after her favourite bed has no intention to move.

He accepts the call. 'Allen speaking. I don't think I have family members in the military anymore.'

'I don't know how many of yours are with us,' the voice from the other end lacks the robotic quality of an android's, so it seems the military is still using humans to contact family members, 'but this concerns your mother, Commander Deborah White. You're the only next of kin we can reach, Mister Allen.'

Lou does sigh. Just as he thinks he can leave her behind after all these years... 'What about her?' Not that he feels strongly that she was gone, as she wasn't quite there for her family to begin with, but something about a Commander going missing on the flagship of a fleet always sits wrong with him; as poor of a mother Deborah White was, a woman with her service record didn't deserve to simply vanish. 'I thought she went MIA more than twenty years ago.'

'She was until a few hours ago. I wish I can break it to you more gently but... we found her. Her remains, at least.'

The beat of his heart suddenly becomes too overwhelming. The air swells with the familiar buzz of static, and it takes all of Lou's self-control to not break everything in the living room with a shattering hazard. There is also the urge to hang up, to pretend that this is just one of those weird dreams he never can remember the details of, because he doesn't need to be burdened with a closure; he wasn't close enough to her to want that, he tells himself. Knowing that she's gone is enough. However, 'How?' is what he says in the end. He closes his eyes, free hand buried in his cat's fur, trying to convince himself that he is doing this for his father.

'Your mother's bones were found in a sealed compartment in the USS Blue Ridge when we were scrapping her. She must've been sitting there for years. Her skull indicates that -'

'Thanks, but I don't think I need to know that,' Lou swallows, willing himself to not think of the implication of an intact skull. It would've been a horrible way to die, sitting in cold seawater for days, feeling her skin rot away before dying of starvation; he'd rather her snap her neck upon impact and go painlessly. 'Anything more?'

'Yes. How would you like to deal with the body?'

Something tickles Lou's chin. When he opens his eyes, he finds the third cat trying to squeeze himself onto his already-occupied lap and purring as if having sensed the human's distress and wanting to soothe him. He recalls how his mother joked that she would probably die at sea and his father's reluctant acceptance of the entire affair; Papa's resignation after he received the news, saying, 'At least she got what she wanted.'

'She spent most of her life at sea,' he replies. No need to rub salt on his father's wounds. 'Let her rest there as well.'

'Very well. If you wish to, a memorial will be held in two months' time. Families of other deceased will attend. You may find support there.'

Support my ass, Lou thinks. It's been twenty-something fucking years. Yet, for some reason, he still promises that he'll consider going before hanging up. His finger hovers over his father's contact afterwards, but remembering that it's midnight in France and that he has a month worth of leave accumulated, he opens his browser instead and starts searching for plane tickets.

----

A month later, Lou finds himself in the commune of Gâvres with a large backpack on his shoulder and missing his cats very dearly. They aren't even his cats, technically; his neighbours keep them as outdoor cats, and Lou, unable to stand the thought of them suffering out in the winter cold of Detroit, took them in, and now they spend more time at his than at their original owners'. Having dropped them off at Hank's - that man takes better care of his pet (now pets) than himself - Lou isn't worried - he doubts his neighbours will even notice that their cats are gone. Emotions are terrible things, however, and the purpose of this trip alone makes it different from all the time he has visited his father before. At least he hasn't just recovered from nearly dying from implant rejection this time.

'Louis?'

Lou turns when he hears his father's voice and the awkward weight reminds him that he hasn't taken off his backpack yet and has been standing in the living room of his father's house staring at nothing for the past few minutes. Not waiting for his son to take it off, Papa Allen crosses the room and embraces Lou, sweat and all. 'How are you?' he asks in French, and when Lou answers truthfully in the same language, 'I missed you,' somehow everything in the world goes right again. Fuck the deviant crisis, fuck the android-infested America that makes his nerves buzz every single waking moment, fuck absent mothers still managing to make a comeback years after she died. He's just Louis Allen, absolutely not a SWAT captain, not the only survivor of the Blast, not the pioneer/guinea pig of CyberLife's groundbreaking cybernetics technology.

He has to let go of his father. 'I hope it's okay. What I did with Mom.'

Papa sighs. 'How about you take off that thing first,' indicating the backpack, 'and settle down for now.'

So Lou walks up the stairs and deposits his backpack in the room designated as his, and, catching sight of the other bed in the room, his legs suddenly feel weak, and he lowers himself, trembling, onto his mattress. Smart, fearless Anna, whose brain always runs - ran - a lot faster than the rest of the world.

Who graduated top of her class and as the Valedictorian of the academy, and subsequently disappeared without a trace.

His left leg twitches. The feeling of something foreign using his body returns, and when he leans forward - with a difficulty that wasn't there before - to take off his sock, it reveals white and grey chassis. A stark reminder that he owes her his life two times over despite her being the younger sibling.

‘How come I’m still alive?’ was the first question he asked after he regained his voice. ‘Ryder threw a fucking building on me.’

‘I dug you out, Lulu,’ replied Anna. ‘Freaky glowy telekinesis finally has its use. I was hungry for hours afterwards.’

At that moment, Lou made the mistake of looking down and seeing his pure white leg. ‘What the hell happened to my leg?’

‘CyberLife’s newest tech.’ As if to demonstrate how he should use his new leg, she gave his feet a poke, and Lou nearly screamed from the sensation. He did not expect to feel anything at all, but apart from the looks, the leg felt...real. ‘Fucking building crushed half your pelvis, your entire left leg and a rib. It’s already minced when I uncovered you, so they need to rebuild everything from scratch. I asked them to add something that can help you control the telekinesis better as well, so we’ll need to test it out later. No more randomly exploding shit. And before you ask, yes, your junk’s unharmed.’

Lou’s coma-addled brain struggled to process the influx of information, and all he got was, ‘I should’ve died.’

Anna hit the break to what seemed to be the beginning of a technical jargon-filled rant. ‘Well yes,’ she gestured just like the meme, ‘but you lived.’

��No one survives after being crushed by a building, Anna,’ he said, voice rising. Then he asked in French since English felt too raw, ‘Exactly how much tech is in me right now? And how long was I out for? Why did CyberLife choose me?’

She looked away.

‘Anna?’

‘I don’t fucking know, okay?’ she replied in the same language. ‘You were on the brink of death when I dug you out, and there Ryder was, offering to save your life for no cost. You were in a medically-induced coma for one month and was out for reconstruction for another. It took your body two weeks to get used to the cybernetics and...here you are.’

‘Ryder offered,’ Lou said slowly, ‘to save me? As in Sara Ryder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anna, she was the one who threw the building on me!’

‘I know. One more reason to let her save you.’

‘But you did it anyway.’

‘I did.’

‘Even though you know it’ll probably come back to bite our asses.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘You know the answer, Lulu.’

And Lou has stopped denying that he does a few years ago. Anna joined the Air Force to fly, to be closer to the sky, but he knows that it wasn’t enough; from the way she turned her eyes towards the aurora when they were young, the attention she paid towards all news related to space observation and exploration, to the talks about leaving the wasteland that is known as earth behind and finding a new home in the cosmos - Anna belongs to the abyss of space. The military was simply a stepping stone towards something greater, a greatness that she must be working towards somewhere on this god-forsaken piece of rock.

The place where Lou’s flesh meets his implants aches in anticipation of the storm that will no doubt force them to remain indoors for days. Grinding his teeth in the numbing pain, he uses his hands to put his non-functional left leg onto the bed and lies down sideways with his back towards his sister’s bed, his phone buzzing in his pocket to notify him of an unexpected software error that may take hours to fix. Switching on do-not-disturb, he shoves the offending piece of technology underneath his pillow and loses his fight against jet lag and pain.

----

Lou wakes up cold and hungry. He is covered by a blanket that wasn't there when he fell asleep, so his father must have checked on him when he realized that his son was doing more than putting down his luggage, and the dark sky outside the window almost brings him back again before it flashes.

Then the booming thunder reminds him that it isn't dusk at all.

He successfully rolls over on his other side, which means that his cybernetics are functional once more. Kicking the blanket away, he sits up and grimaces at the taste of his mouth.

He feels better after his regular morning rituals, though the lack of three furry friends harassing him and brushing against his feet is something that he'll need to get used to, and his father is cooking lunch when he reaches the kitchen.

'Morning, Louis,' Papa says as he hands the pan over to his son. 'What did they drag you through to have you sleep for so long?'

Lou is glad that he can use concentrating on not burning his food as an excuse to buy himself a minute. Should he tell his father the truth, or should he avoid talking about work just like many people do during their vacation? 'Things are getting bad in Detroit,' he decides in the end as going on a vacation at one's father's house isn't exactly normal either. 'Androids are breaking their programming and starts having their own thoughts. CyberLife's trying to cover it up, but I've dealt with enough violent deviants - that's what they're calling those androids - to know it's gonna be a problem real soon if they don't solve it now.' A pause to think of how to continue. 'I'm glad you're not in America anymore.'

'It must be exhausting,' is his father's reply, and that's all Lou needs to realize that his father has no idea what he's talking about. Then again, the man moved back to France before androids were a thing, and although they kept in frequent contact, Lou never talked much about his work; the police getting reformed means that SWAT is deployed only when peace is not the option - that means seeing people get hurt or die constantly. Androids aren't really a thing in Europe, so his father never experienced the 'androids taking over everything and making everyone lose their jobs' shit. He won't understand.

'That's why I'm here.'

They lapse into silence as Lou finishes cooking and empties the content of the pan onto two plates. Never one for formality, Papa brings them to the living room, sitting at the corner of a couch while Lou retrieves his plate and fork and curls onto the window sill. At this proximity, he can feel the raindrops hitting the glass as if he is standing in the rain.

Papa clears his throat. 'About your mother, Louis.'

Lou tears his eyes away from the raindrop he's betting on to win. He hastily shoved some eggs into his mouth to buy himself some time to mentally prepare for the conversation. 'What now?'

What he actually says isn't what Lou expected. 'I'm glad about what you did with your mother's body.'

'Her skeleton, you mean,' he replies. 'What's left of it anyways. I don't think they found the whole set.'

'Still,' Papa isn't looking at him. 'That's what she would've wanted. And by I'm glad - I'm not opposed to it.'

'That's it?' Lou turns back towards the rain. 'That wasn't your reaction when they told you that she was MIA.'

'I was young - younger - back then,' a sigh. 'It wasn't fair to you. Or to Anna. Especially to Anna. I'm sorry.'

No it wasn't, Lou wants to say, but - 'I've made peace with it a long time ago. Mom, me and Anna, Alaska; that was all you knew. I... I don't blame you for it.'

He has to close his eyes and press his forehead against the glass. He considers switching to German to further detach his emotions, but then he realizes that nearly everything has fled his mind from disuse. Why does he think spending his vacation with his father right after they discovered that his mother might have died painfully a good idea?

'That's what I thought I'd react when you called me, you know?' Papa says. 'I thought I'd break down. Then I realized that I've moved on and... that's it. Hard not to after more than twenty years.' Even with his vision gone, Lou can still feel his father's gaze on him. 'You've done that for your mother. Have you, for Anna? It's been ten years.'

'Have you, Papa?' Lou asks instead of answering even though he knows his answer. 'Can you stand the thought of your daughter gone as well?'

'After your mother?' the father feeds himself a mouthful of food and swallows. 'Kind of have to.'

'Of course you did. I raised her, not you.'

That is the last thing he says to his father before the storm goes away.

----

Emotionally exhausted, Lou goes to sleep early despite waking up not ten hours ago.

He knows he’s dreaming as soon as he opens the door and discovers his childhood living room behind it. The room is dark, so the lights must have been switched off, and even though it feels like he has smacked his hand all over the wall it’s on, he still can’t find the switch. It does bring him closer to the window, outside where a storm is going on at full force and paints everything white, and although he knows that what he is seeing isn’t real, he dreads the upcoming and necessary shovelling.

The world is suddenly lit up from behind him, followed by the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson and the clicks of a keyboard. When Lou turns, Anna is there sitting in front of the couch, her brother's homework scattered in a semi-circle around her, and an old, bulky laptop snug between her crossed legs. It should have been a normal day in their house in Anchorage had Anna been a child but not an adult, which is the form Dream Anna is appearing in - she is younger than him by nearly eight years.

‘Where’s the light switch?’ Lou asks, looking around for good measure. ‘As much as you enjoy Cosmos, a documentary about space isn’t sufficient lighting.’

‘Relax,’ says Anna. ‘Eye problems aren’t in our genes.’ Then, waving at the papers around her, ‘Everything’s done. Your teachers didn’t suspect a thing,’ she gets younger and younger following each syllable until her age makes sense, ‘but you asked me to do it on a separate piece of paper, so I did. Feel free to copy directly if you wish.’

That is when Lou realizes that she’s playing games on the notebook, something that looks like a simplified version of Temple Run but set in space. ‘No thanks,’ he says. ‘I’d like to keep the creases on my brain.’ Then he notices that his sister didn’t really answer his question, so he asks again, ‘How am I supposed to switch on the lights?’

‘With your phone,’ is the matter-of-fact reply. ‘Don’t tell me you uninstalled the fucking app for cat pictures.’

‘For one last time, Anna, I don’t download cat pictures.’ And it hits him. ‘Wait, phone? The house isn’t automated when you’re at this age.’

‘Is it?’

Anna stands up and stalks closer to her brother, and she grows and grows and grows until they’re off the same height and she looks... older, how she should look like if she’s alive she’s still here. She is now Major Anna White Allen of the United States Air Force, dressed smartly in her dress uniform except for her cap, which she holds in her right hand. Their surroundings have also changed to that of the Phillips' penthouse terrace, harsh wind whipping around them.

'You aren't real,' Lou breathes, feeling light-headed. ‘You - you’re gone. Just like Mom.’

‘Open your eyes, then. End this early if you want to. Forget that this ever happened. I don’t mind.’

It is followed by a terrifying moment of wakefulness, the images blurring and then regaining clarity as he stays asleep. ‘And Papa wants me to let you go,’ he says with a sad chuckle.

‘Why?’

‘We found what’s left Mom. How long do we need to wait to find what’s left of you?’

‘Why are you talking like I’m dead?’

‘Cause you probably are, like Mom?’

‘I know you think we’re alike,’ an eye roll, ‘but we’re different.’

‘Say you’re not dead. Where the hell are you?’

‘Does it matter?’

A blink. They’re floating in space, Anna dressed in some form of armor, and Lou in normal clothes. He attempts to draw a breath and wakes up choking and crying, the dream completely forgotten save for the faint image of Anna falling towards earth and getting burnt to crisps.

----

A few days later, Lou finds himself walking on the beach with his father. The sky is cloudy and the wind is strong, so it is cool even though it’s September and Lou grew up in Alaska. They started throwing questions back and forth ten minutes into their walk, some of them silly and simple and give them a good laugh, but the others -

‘Answer me honestly, Louis. Do you think Anna’s dead?’

It is easy. ‘No.’

‘Where do you think she is, then?’

Lou’s face suddenly becomes too hot to bear. ‘Does it matter?’

‘If it affects you, yes.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. She wouldn’t want us to speculate.’

‘But she’s not here, is she? Maybe you’ll feel better after you say it out loud.’

Lou sighs, oh how the turntables… ‘In space, probably.’

‘You’d think we’ll hear about that.’

‘Secret space programs exist, Papa.’

‘Not in America.’

‘I never said it’s an American program,’ Lou says as he kicks a rock away. ‘Do you know what they said when I received the first call from the Air Force? They asked me if Anna has ties with other space agencies even though she’s never been in NASA; she just talked about other countries’ space programs so much that they suspected her having ties with them.’

‘Hmm.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘You know you won’t see her again, right?’

Lou halts his steps. Anna? Gone forever? ‘Does it matter?’

Papa sighs. ‘You’re in denial, Louis. You didn’t do this with your mother.’

How dare he - ‘Of course I didn’t, she was barely there!’ he has to put a few steps between them. ‘I raised Anna! How do you think that’s even comparable?’

‘I simply don’t want you to live in uncertainty for the rest of your life.’

‘You just don’t know your daughter,’ he counters. ‘She told me she’ll come back.’

‘You know -’

‘You don’t know shit!’

He runs. His lungs and legs are strained when he gets home, his father’s home, but he doesn't stop at that. He packs his stuff (not that there’s much to put back into his backpack), jumps into his rental car, and is back in Brest before he knows what he’s doing. His return flight is next week, so he has a lot of time to kill.

In the end, he takes a trip around the country alone, going to places he both never had time for and, if he’s been there before, misses dearly. He may have forgotten what they’ve talked about, but he remembers Anna visiting him often. The images flee his mind whenever he tries to recall them, but he doesn’t think they’re talking on earth, and he always wishes that he at least remembers some of it.

A few months later, he’ll learn that his speculations are closer to the truth than he thinks. A few months later, Louis Allen will prove his father wrong.

But he doesn’t know that yet. Therefore, after collecting the cats from Hank and unpacking his luggage, he takes all of Anna’s things and puts them into a box, telling himself that it is the first step towards admitting that maybe, it’s a big fucking maybe, he will never see his sister again.

#allen art week #allen appreciation #dbh allen #detroit: become human #dbh captain allen #allenartweek #allenappreciation #groom lake aftermath

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scenecipriano · 5 years ago

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Such Horrible Things(6)

Chapter Six: When They Were Fourteen…

Summary: Roman and Remus Hartfield are identical twins, with Roman being only two minutes and fifty-two seconds older than Remus. The two are polar opposites, Roman the loud and boisterous twin who loved Disney and various musicals, and Remus the twin who preferred to keep to himself until he grew close to you and showed his true chaotic nature. But is Remus really the chaotic one? Or is it the brother that people least expect…

Warnings: Unsympathetic Roman, Blood, Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Mildly Unsympathetic Logan and Patton, Implied/Reference to Character Death (In later chapters)

TW For this chapter: Animal cruelty, death mention

AU Type: Human

Ships: Logicality, (Toxic) Roceit (In later chapters), and Dukexiety (In later chapters)

——————–

Roman was bored, hopelessly uttering bored. Most summers for him weren't bored considering he had Remus to torment, but no this summer his twin decided to go to art camp. Their papa tried to convince him to go as well, but Roman wasn't about to go to some stupid camp and get eat up with multiple mosquitos while being surrounded by annoying kids. Roman sighs as he stabs the pointed stick he had through the abdomen of the frog he had pinned down, its guts and blood splattering against the warm rock it was pinned to. If Remus were here, his arm would be in the frog's place. The fourteen-year-old couldn't help but snort in amusement at the thought.

"Can hear him now, 'Please, Ro let me go! I'll tell!' he's always been such a bitch." Roman mutters as he stabs the frog over and over again, causing more of its blood to paint the rock a dark red.

This would be something that would chill his papa to the bone, honestly, he didn't understand how a grown man could be so childish. 'I bet he screams like a girl, he does whenever he and dad decide to get freaky.' Roman chuckles to himself as he drags the stick down, cutting the frog's stomach completely open, watching as its guts spill completely out.

"Roman! Dinner time kiddo!" His papa calls.

The teen stares down at the frog's mutilated corpse for a moment, the time ticking away. A smirk forms on Roman's face as he scoops the frog up, ignoring the bloody mess that was becoming of his hands.

"Coming, papa!"

Roman stuffs the dead frog into his pocket, he wipes his hands clean on the grass as to not distress his papa about the alarming amount of blood that was gathered on them. He pushes himself up from the ground and runs towards his house, a giddy feeling seeping into his chest, 'This is going to be fun...'

As Roman stood at the sink, preparing to wash his hands, he took the opportunity to slip the dead frog into the silverware drawer, knowing that his papa was always forgetful when it came to setting the utensils out. Roman chuckles as he quickly closes the drawer back, washing his hands good to get rid of the dirt and leftover blood. Once his hands were cleaned and dried, Roman took his seat at the table where his parents were waiting.

"So, how was your day today, Roman?" His dad asks.

"It was okay, little boring without Rem here..."

"Kiddo, you sure you don't want to join him at camp? I think you would have a lot of fun!" His papa chimes in.

Roman sneers his nose up, 'What are they trying to do? Get rid of me?'

"Patton, sweetheart you forgot the silverware again."

"Shoot! You're right, I'll be right back!"

A grin forms on Roman's face, he sits up straighter in his chair. Softly he begins to count down, he covers his mouth to muffle his laugh when a high pitched scream comes from the kitchen. He watched as his dad moved away from the table to check on his papa, a sound of disgust tells him that his dad has seen the heavily mutilated frog. Roman couldn't help the small giggle that left his mouth.

"Roman Winston Hartfield! Did you put this frog in the drawer?"

"I thought it was something cool, papa! Don't you like it? ...I did it myself."

The way Roman spoke sent a chill up Patton's spine, he glances over to Logan who looked as equally spooked by their fourteen-year-old. Logan takes a deep breath and steps back into the dining room, he narrows his eyes at Roman.

"Well, what you did wasn't nice, Roman. You're grounded, now go get that frog out of here and be sure to wash your hands again when you're done."

Roman's jaw went slack as he stares at his father, 'He can't be serious?'

"You're grounding me, over a harmless, prank? That's not fair!!"

"Life isn't fair, Roman, now do as you're told or your grounding will last longer than a week," Logan scolds.

Roman softly growls under his breath as he stands from the dining room table, he pushes past his father making sure to shove the older man a bit as he does. He grabs the frog, making sure to squeeze a bit more blood out of it, staining the silverware as he does. Roman stomps outside and hurls the dead frog across the backyard.

"You want to ground me for something stupid? Fine, but I'm going to give you a reason to ground me you ass."

Roman learned the hard way that cutting something's head off wasn't as easy as television made it out to be. That and all he had was a kitchen knife, but he was able to saw through the rabbit's neck. That morning when he heard his parents mixed screams, Roman smiled and for once it reached his eyes.

"I don't want to go!!" Roman screams as he tries to pull away from his papa. When Patton tightens his grip, that led to his son screaming even louder. After the bunny incident and various other incidents that Patton really didn't want to talk about right now, he and Logan thought it was best that Roman see a psychiatrist.

"You don't get a choice, Roman! Now stop fighting!"

With one final tug, Patton was able to pull Roman into the psychiatrist's office, it was the same doctor that they had Remus seeing. Dr. Emile Picani stares at them with shocked brown eyes. Patton offers him an apologetic smile as he forces Roman to sit in one of the brown leather chairs in front of Emile's oak desk.

"I'm going to assume this is, Roman?" Emile asks.

"Yes, sorry he's... He's having a difficult time right now."

Roman barks out a humorless laugh, catching both adult's attention as he does.

"More like you and dad are having a difficult time, I told you that I didn't want to fucking be here."

Patton softly scolds Roman for his language, which only led to the teen rolling his eyes at his papa's weak discipline actions. Emile clears his throat, capturing both of Roman and Patton's attention. He offers Roman a polite smile as he pushes his pink glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Well, Roman, it's nice to make your acquaintance. Patton, you can step out now I'd like to have a chat with Roman."

Patton takes a shaky breath and nods, closing the door behind him as he leaves. Roman huffs and folds his arms over his chest, sliding down into his chair as he glares at the smiling doctors face.

"So, why don't you tell me a little about yourself Roman?"

Psychopathic tendencies are what Emile had called it. Roman had been seeing for a good two weeks now, and that was what the good doctor came up with was psychopathic tendencies. Sure, Roman lacked empathy, or a real conscience apparently not having a little voice in your head telling you right from wrong wasn't normal. Roman remembers his papa breaking down into tears, he remembers rolling his eyes at the man's theatrics, he cried as if Roman were dying.

"Is there any way we can treat it, Dr. Picani? Medicine? Therapy?" His dad asked.

"There are no known medicine for this no... but group therapy may help. This would give Roman a chance to interact with other people like him, maybe even help him cope with his issue."

Roman remembered frowning at the idea, hating at having to be around annoying people for two hours, he remembers wanting to throw a fit, yelling at the adults that he didn't need therapy, but he's glad he didn't do that.

Roman smirks and saunters up to his latest prey, making sure to replace the devious smirk with a soft smile that was similar to his papa's.

"Hi, I'm Roman Hartfield it's nice to meet you!"

The boy with a yellow beanie with matching gloves looks at him, his blue and amber eyes look directly into his green ones. The burn mark on the boy's face stood out like a sore thumb, but it didn't ruin his looks in Roman's opinion. The boy smiles back and offers a gloved hand to Roman.

"I'm Eden Summers! It's nice to meet too, Roman!"

Roman notices the scars that littered Eden's arms as he shook the boy's hand, he allows his smirk to return.

'Things just got interesting~.'

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

~TAGLIST~: @sparrow-flightninggale @perhaps-im-dave-rolland

A/N: WELL WELL WELL LOOK WHO GOT CAUGHT- And was led straight to a new victim

Also note! I’m not saying that all diagnosed psychopaths are evil! Roman just turns out to be very violent-

#sanders sides #roman sanders #remus sanders mentioned #logan sanders #patton sanders #unsympathetic roman #deceit sanders #he's eden #sympathetic deceit #logicality #emile picani #tw animal cruelty #tw blood #tw violence #tw mental disorders #tw self harm mentioned #tw scars

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cilliansaccent · 5 years ago

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Class of Temptation - CHAPTER SEVEN

Leave a like, reblog or comment below to show your support and love! Enjoy…

PLEASE READ:

No mention of Cillian’s true family or relatives. All names are made up.

This is a TEACHER x STUDENT fanfiction, it’s going to be kinky and very taboo!

I will write whenever the mood grabs me, so I apologise if there are long breaks between chapters :)

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Background: Tessa is a twenty-three-year-old model from a broken-up family, living in London with her best friend and starting a course on Drama and Theatre. Though, when she gets closer to the super hot Mr Murphy who is her much older teacher, there is a battle of lust and love between them. They’ll have to figure out what to do with their tight relationship as other issues begin to rise and nip at their heels…

Word Count: 1,800

!!Warnings!!: Light mention of homophobic slur at the beginning with Julian.

Chapter Name: Private Lesson

Brief Chapter Outline: Tessa faces of with Sofia once more and helps out her friend Julian. But the consequences of her actions may end up bad for Tessa. Her first lesson with Cillian alone starts.

——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——- ——-

Tessa's weekend was once again packed and busy. Another quick trip overseas but this time she was able to make her class like a normal person. And today she had her first private lesson with Cillian. They would meet up about half an hour after class in a smaller classroom in the library to go over some theory work.

She wondered whether this was legal or in any way right for a professor to do. She heard stories where teachers would give you a task and it was up to you to finish it or not and that they wouldn't care for the outcome.

Cillian, on the other hand, was pretty adamant that he would help her through the term.

Heading down the hall, Tessa shook her head. She really didn't want to do this. But, ugh, the look he gave her she felt so compelled to just do what he wanted. She wondered if this man had some magical powers, she honestly felt this odd gravitational pull to him.

As she passed a door she saw something odd happen inside. She peeked through the little rectangular window and saw Julian, his head bowed as Sofia and her vultures surrounded him. She could hear atrocious words be spoken to him, belittling him for who he was.

"Hey Tess," Elijah came beside her, "Whatcha looking at?"

But Tessa didn't hear him as she shoved the door open, "What the fuck are you doing?" Tessa snapped, walking right up to Sofia and standing between her and Julian.

"Teaching this freaky faggot a lesson." She went to grab Tessa to push her out of the way but Elijah yelled.

"Hey! Get the fuck out of here, Sofia. No one gives a shit about what or who you are. Don't you dare touch her." Elijah stormed up as Sofia scoffed and stepped back.

"What you gonna stand up to these two freaks? Thought you were better than this. Shoulda stayed with me, Eli, showed you the right pathway." Sofia rolled her eyes.

"You're cruel and just because you are rich, doesn't mean you gotta belittle others. Disgusting. I'm glad I broke up with you." Elijah growled.

As the two exes's fought, Tessa turned to Julian, cupping his face. He wasn't physically hurt, which was good. "Jules, hey. Look at me. Are you okay?" She asked.

The girls had finally left the classroom.

Julian looked up, his eyes full of tears, "Just leave me alone." He pushed her hands away and grabbed his bag and ran out quickly. She must've said worse things to him, Tessa thought.

"You should report this," Elijah said, turning to Tessa.

"First I'll talk to Julian. And then we can go together if he wants to." Tessa thought. She learned that Julian did not want many people to know about him being gay, and if she stirred the pot...

"I don't think you should. Sofia isn't the type to just stop." Elijah said.

Tessa knew that. The bitch constantly muttered degrading words to her as they passed the hallway, which made her much more self-conscious of herself. Or even stole money from her.

"I might. Take it up with my teacher." Tessa nodded. Julian was her best male friend and she didn't want to see him hurt. She wondered if this wasn't the first time, either.

"Good. Come on, lemme walk you to your class." Elijah slung an arm around her shoulders and they walked together. "Probably bad timing to ask, but you uh... wanna go out tonight? For dinner?"

She frowned, "What time?"

"I dunno, like, around eight? I can pick you up." He offered as they came to the classroom door, people were walking in.

She thought of the lesson she had today with Cillian, "Let me get you back on that. But hopefully, we can." She smiled sweetly.

"Awesome. See ya 'round, lovely." He kissed her cheek which made her blush profusely as he left her be.

She hurried inside and took her spot beside Julian, who still kept his head down.

The class continued on as usual and ended as usual, only that Julian left very quickly before she could talk to him. She sighed before she felt a hard flick on the back of her head as Sofia waltzed by.

Tessa rubbed her head and packed up as Cillian came up to her, "We still okay for today?" He asked not seeing what just happened.

"Oh yeah. Library in half an hour." Tessa nodded as she threw her bag over her shoulder.

"Great," he smiled, making the corners of his eyes crinkle, "See you then," He said before she left the room.

She took a quick stop in the bathroom before she came out of the stall.

Only to find Sofia and her hounds with her, "What's your deal with Elijah?" Sofia asked, arms folded across her fake chest.

"Nothing. We're just friends." Tessa said as she washed her hands, not liking how they got closer to her.

"Doesn't seem like it. He backs your whore ass as well as that cocksucker you call a 'friend'." Sofia forced her to turn and held her against the wall, getting all up in her face. "You back the fuck of Elijah. He's mine."

"He isn't, he made it clear you are no longer part of his life." Tessa snapped back, trying to shove her off.

The next moment made her also scream as Sofia held up her fist as if she would punch her. But lucky enough her hounds had grabbed her and tried to pull her off.

"Watch your back, whore. You make a move-" She growled as she was taken out of the bathroom.

Once they were gone, Tessa slid down the wall. She was shaking all over as she pulled her knees to her chest. The last time she felt that fear was when... Oh god, she thought with dread as tears fell down her cheeks.

She didn't know how long she was there but when she looked up and checked her time...

"Fuck," She whispered. She was ten minutes late and she hastily wiped her still falling tears and raced to the library. She went right to the rented room Cillian had told her and was sort of glad he was there. It had no windows save for the very back wall and a door with a small rectangular window.

But she did look like a mess as she came in.

"Tessa! My god, are you okay?" He stood up from the paperwork he had in front of him. His beautiful baby blues were wide with concern for her state. She really looked like a mess, eyes red as her cheeks were still marked with tears.

His lovely accent made her skin prick and she was so tempted to run into his arms and let him cradle her. But no, she couldn't. She shook her head, "I'm fine. Really don't worry." She sat down as she wiped her eyes.

"You don't look fine. Tessa," He knelt beside her, a hand on the back of the chair. "Tessa look at me."

Her leg was bouncing as she stared at the brick wall. All she could see was that fist in the air. She sniffled and tried to pull herself together. "Can we just do what I came here for, Cillian? Please?" She whispered, unable to look at him.

Cillian did not like it one bit before he sat in a chair beside her. He pulled out his handkerchief from his pocket and slipped it into her hand, "Okay. We can do that, but I want you to know that I am here for you. Not just as a teacher but as a friend. You are not alone in this." He said with such kindness to his tone she almost wept from it. She felt his strong hand on her shoulder and she managed to gaze at him, feeling his strength seep into her very bones.

She searched that handsome face of his, trying to find any of that fake attitude or cruelness. But there was none. Yet she was still wary about it. This kindness was much different than what Esther gave her.

"Let's get this done." She murmured, wiping her tears with the square cloth and held on to it for dear life.

"Okay. Let's start." He said nodding and began to teach her.

Tessa tried her best to stay focused but her mind was far, far from earth. Dark memories rose and her emotions conflicted with the current situation, her work, Julian, Elijah, her studies, in a few months she would see her shitty father and his equally shitty wife and her sons.

She just sat back from what she was writing, Cillian pausing his talking and looked at her.

"I want to go home." She whispered. She wanted to sleep, hide under her covers and just... be alone. The room felt so small around her, the walls closing in.

"You want to go home?" Cillian replied back. He took in her expression, it was devoid of emotion yet her eyes, so much like the ocean, was swirling with some intense emotions even he was quite shocked. Like a storm was growing, something intense and wild.

"Yeah," her voice was soft and fragile, "Just... go home. Is that okay?" She looked at him but it was clear she wasn't with him entirely.

"Sure. But Tessa," He stood up to stop her from packing up her items, "You really don't want to talk right now? You can trust me, you know you can." He wanted to reach out and touch her but that would be inappropriate and not a good time with the state she looked.

"No, Cillian. I don't. It's really not your concern either." She said with this sudden cold tone which made him slightly flinch from it.

She picked it up and shook her head, "I'll see you tomorrow Cillian. Thank you for trying." She said and brushed past him and left him there.

He knew that most teachers would try and keep pushing and definitely not allow such rude behaviour. But Cillian knew the boundaries and would wait patiently, wait until they would come forward. And he would remind Tessa constantly that he was there for her and offer silent support.

Something had happened between class and the private lesson, whatever it was he would find out and stop it. They were in the second month of this term and he did not want Tessa to fall too behind nor get herself hurt.

If anyone was hurting her, god... He would make sure that that person will be brought down.

He promised that to her. He wasn't going to let anyone in his care get hurt. No matter what.

#cillian murphy #teacher x student #thomas shelby #peaky blinders #fanfiction

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planetsxend · 4 years ago

Text

“Moist”

@sweettifalockhart issued the writing challenge: moist. I posted a snippet so I’d stay on track, and hell did I stay on track. Probably OOC in places, but that hasn’t stopped me writing before :P Reno/Tifa below the cut, set very loosely in the tie between OG/Remake & AC

1 year, 4 months, 2 weeks, 3 days after The Plate

“- and then she threw me out the bar! Literally threw me. How is that even possible?”

“... It’s Tifa,” Rude says, as if that explains everything from gravity’s pull to the magic show of pigs suddenly sprouting wings and taking to the sky (although that wouldn’t be magic so much as fucking freaky who has the alien head this time?). “Would’ve paid for a video,” his partner’s quiet addition, the bare bones of a smirk flirting with his mouth and Reno well - he can’t let that one go unchallenged. The bastard doesn’t even startle when the elastic band pings off his shades. Hmmph.

He grumbles some more, under his breath, and he’s well-versed in the feeling of eyes on him, knows Rude’s picked up on the fact he’s legitimately out of sorts with this recent development. Knows that behind those shades, Rude’s staring at him, measuring the weight of each word on his tongue before lending voice to it.

“Either start talking or start writing. This paperwork isn’t going to finish itself.”

“There’re memories in that bar,” Reno replies, the last he’ll say on the matter simply because it covers the entirety of his discomfiture.

~ ~ ~

7 months, 3 days after The Plate

It’s the first he’s properly laid eyes on her since... since The Plate and he slinks in like a cat on the scavenge, well aware there’s a dispute in his very near future the further in he goes, vividly aware he’s out of his depth. He’s still got a sharp smart in his ribs to prove just how hard she punches on a bad day. But here, now, on her turf? Where every territorial instinct she has will be on red alert the second she clocks him? Where every protective instinct will kick into high gear the second she recognises a threat? He’s gonna wind up with his face smashed in and a couple teeth knocked loose and he’ll probably roll over and thank her for it after.

Better than the guilt gnawing him open from the inside out, right?

Sure enough, he’s not even singled out the quietest corner when she spots him, and because he keeps bouncing between where to sit and where’s the danger, he sees it. The smile for her patrons vanishes so fast he might as well have smacked it off her, face settling into an expression carved from stone. Empty. Blank. Carefully so, but she can’t do shit about her eyes. They burn, even as her spine snaps straight and her chin lifts just so.

A challenge he doesn’t meet. A challenge he can’t back down from, either. His own issued when he approaches her directly, well and truly in the lion’s den.

“What do you want?” She spits, and if words were acid he’d be stripped to the bone in seconds. A lesser man would flinch, and a smarter man would leave, but neither man is him and so he slaps on a smirk and replies cool as Shiva’s kiss - he’d like a drink, if you please. He sure as shit doesn’t imagine the creak of leather around her fists, but she’s a gracious host, and everyone’s welcome in Seventh Heaven, she can’t go around denying customers willy nilly without consequences.

He’s actually surprised when he survives that first drink, never mind the entire goddamn night.

7 months, 2 weeks, 5 days after The Plate

It’s almost a game between them a few weeks later, this animosity. Every night he intrudes on her space and every night she’ll hiss at him like she’s ready to claw his face off. Sometimes he’ll get blackout drunk and someone has the decency to phone Rude to cart his ass back home, sometimes he doesn’t and he’ll nurse one drink the entire night, every second under the same roof as her an agony. When will she do it, he wonders. When will she snap? When will that practised calm give out in favour of confronting him? Just what the fuck is it gonna take?

He’s not drunk tonight, just on the wrong side of tipsy, weaving one way on his stool then jerking centre and weaving the other. Loose-lipped, too, if anyone thought to talk to him, but the suit keeps most folk at a respectable distance. She comes at him when most of the regulars clear out and over the blast of the jukebox he thinks fuckin’ finally.

‘Cept she slams a glass of water down in front of him, sloshes some of it over his hand for good measure. And while he swears and trips over his own tongue and waves his hand around and wipes it down with the stupid fuckin’ square Tseng always insists on cramming into his breast pocket, she parks her ass down opposite him, and jams both elbows down on the table. There’s no warning creak this time, because her hands are bare of their usual gloves, and the fire in her eyes isn’t quite so bright tonight.

The hell?

“Why do you keep coming here, Reno?” She asks, and if anything should catch him off guard maybe it should be that she remembers his name. Instead, it’s her tone, the tired quality to it curling ‘round the words and robbing them of the caustic bite she usually keeps in reserve all for him. Like she’s as weary to the bone as he is. Like she’s beaten down and wrung out and barely hanging on by the tips of her fingers.

Like maybe - just maybe - she’s in the same boat as him.

You got snarlin’ little beasties crawling around in your head, too?

But he doesn’t ask that, it’s early days yet, right? She’s more liable to smash the glass on his head and jab him in the eye with one of the resulting pointy bits, right? So he looks at her instead, fighter-turned-bartender, damaged soul under all that easy charm, and lets his own trademark smirk fall just a little. Just enough to clue her in on his little secret - I know the taste of regret, and it sure is bitter.

“To drink. To forget.”

~ ~ ~

It doesn’t make things right between them, not by a long shot. But the water’s her white flag, and his truth an apology. It’s a step in some direction, maybe not the right one.

9 months, 1 week after The Plate

She asks him about it eventually, just like he knew she would. She’s a blunt woman, Tifa, when it comes down to the nitty gritty details. Her patience has its limits and beating around the bush as they are, tolerating one another as they are... something has to give somewhere. So she asks him. About it. About The Plate.

Such a simple question, really. Do you regret it?

Does he have an answer for it? Oh sure, he has an answer alright. Yes. Yes he regrets it, every damn time he thinks about it his stomach curdles and his skin goes clammy. So many questions circling his head ‘til he’s dizzy: was it necessary? Was it worth it? How many died? How many people suffered - trapped under crushing weight, their last moments ones of terror and darkness and indescribable pain? How many begged for help on their last breath? How many stretched out broken hands in the hope someone beyond the rubble would grab on and help them free? How many people ripped apart? How many families struck from the census records in one fell swoop? What were their names? Their ages? How many kids died that night?

“Yeah,” he says instead, voice wavering under all that strain locked up inside his skull, queasy and not from the food he’d ordered (still not poisoned, she’s out of her goddamn mind). He doesn’t know what he looks like in that moment - can’t stand to look in mirrors much these days except to scrape the scruff off his chops in the morning - but she does. Tifa looks at him then and sees whatever he can’t smother, standard Turk mask of indifference be damned, and a switch flips between them. Animosity to understanding.

There should be surprise when she closes the bar early, promising discounts for the inconvenience, when she sets a bottle of hard liquor by his plate... and two glasses. Instead he musters up the ghost of a smile and leans back - almost makes an ass of himself toppling right over, but hey, the reflexes have saved him from worse (like Strife’s sword) - daring to drag his eyes from her face to her waist and back up again. “Come to confess to the big bad wolf, doll?”

“Eat a dick, Turk,” she snaps back and twists the cap open, sealing their fate.

~ ~ ~

“We, I, killed people, too... when we... blew up the Reactors. Maybe not... maybe not every life lost was immediate but... the riots, the robberies, the people dying at home because their heating went out and never came back on again. I don’t know how many deaths can be traced back to my hands.”

“That’s not the same as-”

“Does the how really matter, Reno? People died. By our actions. By our choices. That is the burden we bear.”

~ ~ ~

He comes awake the following morning to the unforgiving thump of a combat boot in the ribs, and bright sunlight stabbing a thousand daggers into his eyeballs, and a behemoth using his head as a chew toy. It’s Strife above him, hands on the table he’s shoved aside to get to him, baby blues gone dark and thunderous and hell if that ain’t a safe wake-up call. From his left somewhere a pitiful moan as Tifa rouses, and Murder Face turns his attention elsewhere, moves in her direction, giving Reno just enough space to try and get his legs under him. Where are his legs again? His - where the fuck’s his shoe?

“What did you do this time?” Rude asks the second the call connects as he trips his way out the bar, and all Reno can manage without upsetting his entire lack of balance is a raspy laugh and cradling his head in his free hand.

“Made a mess, prob’ly.”

11 months, 1 week, 4 days after The Plate

“Are you asking me out?” Really, she doesn’t need to look so suspicious. What’s he gonna do, chuck her in a chopper and fly her across the continent? Avalanche’d kill him deader than dead in two seconds flat. Still, she’s not exactly wrong, which. Yeah, okay, this isn’t one of his better ideas by far but. Hm.

“No? Figured it’d be a better bonding experience if we had a chat while stone cold sober, is all. You like coffee?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Tseng.”

Call him crazy, but her laugh sounds less hollow than he’s ever heard it.

~ ~ ~

Marlene nails him in the back of the hand with a fork and Denzel gets melon juice all down his shirt. Accidental his ass.

At least Strife is upfront with his threats of bodily harm if he breaks Tifa’s heart.

1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks after The Plate

The next time they wind up under what he’s dubbed their table, alcohol has absolutely nothing to do with it... Well. Except for the sticky residue he can taste on her fingers.

He has enough common sense to make sure they drag their asses upstairs and to her bedroom before dawn. Enhanced senses must suck balls, though, because when Strife drops by the following afternoon he doesn’t even bat an eye at Reno’s perch at the bar (munching away at the remnants of a fruit salad the brats didn’t take to school), but he does when he gets closer and breathes. His nose scrunches up as he sniffs in Reno’s direction like a dog - or that snarling wolf emblem he’s so fond of slapping on anything he can get his hands on - and darts those baby blues between his shit-eating grin and Tifa raised brow. Try me, that look says, complete with the casual gathering of her hair into a high ponytail, the flex of her fingers after it. Do they smell of each other, then? How cute.

“... I don’t even wanna know,” Strife eventually says, and Reno laughs.

1 year, 4 months, 2 weeks, 3 days after The Plate

The punch she lands smack on his left pectoral is a love tap compared to what she’s capable of, and instead of the fire he’s half-expecting there’s... mischief in her gaze.

“Tifa -”

“Never say that word in my bar again, Reno, or I’ll ban you permanently.”

“Yes Ma’am, lesson learned.”

“I might even ban Rufus, too. Make sure the lesson really sticks.”

“Aw naw, c’mon! That’s hitting below the belt!”

“Please. We both know you’d be sobbing on the floor if I did that.”

He pouts (she does have a point). Tifa laughs. It’s fast becoming his most favourite sound in the world.

#sweettifalockhart #stories for your ears only writing #can this even be called a drabble? What word count qualifies as that iahufhesuhffhrhg

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starlightsoulwriting · 5 years ago

Text

Constellations Against Skin

n.t. "You hold him in your arms, a thousand stars in the bones of a man, and nobody could have thought you’d come so close to holding constellations against your skin."

You'd always been... off. Knowing things you shouldn't. People's secrets, what they really think. Their emotions. You didn't even realize at first it was Tele-empathy, but by the time a demon tried to kill you, it was well known you were a freak psychic.

From the time you could hold a crayon you'd been leaving old magic in your wake, the ancient words flowing from your hand like water. It wasn't until you were older and you started hunting you realized your nonsense soulmark was in Enochian. Funny how that works.

And then Dean God-Damn Winchester shows up in your life. And suddenly you're head-over-heels for someone who's name isn't written on your skin. But you'd long since given up the idea that the Angel you're bound to would ever show up. That's okay. You'd learned to be happy with what you have.

Imagine the shock that comes when you wake up one day with a second soulmark.AKA: The Demons of your past catch up to you. Figuratively and literally.

Dean Winchester X Reader; Castiel X Reader

Soulmate AU

[AO3] [Chapter List]

Chapter One: Found

Normal day, normal hunt.

You’d taken out a rogue werewolf in Wyoming, even if just to spend your time doing something other than sulking. Since John died and you’d been throwing yourself into hunts more and more. It was the only thing keeping the emptiness from swallowing you whole. It burned you up inside and made you feel hollow - you’d almost considered going back to New York, to hide away where you were safe. But there was a reason you'd left and you weren’t changing your mind anytime soon. Even if they would protect you. Even if you missed a few of them.

You knocked back a drink in some crummy bar. A High School state championship game played on the TVs, leaving the room full of cheering and angry locals. It was filled with more people than a place like this should get in a week. Every other second someone in an annoyingly cheery color of yellow knocked into you. Some high schooler made you spill your drink and you scowled. Fucking teenager wasn't even supposed to be there.

The whole reason you'd chosen this place was because you thought it would be funny - it was a country themed joint lauded by locals as a good time. Mechanical bulls, line dancing, a Texas flag on the wall made of beer cans. You'd hoped to see some horrible drunken dancing but you got this mess instead.

Your life was ever the series of disappointments.

You fought back a yawn and slid a twenty to the bartender; you needed to get some sleep if you were going to hit the road tomorrow. You’d stayed in town too long already. You let out a sigh - you had no idea where you were going to go. You didn’t have another case yet.

Maybe you would stop by Bobby's. It'd been a long time since you'd seen him. Since before you got the news John died. You hoped he was doing alright and not drinking too much. You would have to check up on him, make sure he wasn’t destroying his liver. You owed him that much.

You slid off the wobbly stool and began the ordeal of shoving your way through the sardine can crowd and towards the door.

You felt sick.

And the more you moved the worse you felt, goosebumps rushing along your skin and a pit of dread pooling like tar in your chest. You shouldered your way past a frat guy and almost face planted - tunnel vision closing in on you. Your ears echoed with the sound of rushing water and static. You tried to shake out of it but the room was spinning.

Something was horribly wrong.

You looked for signs something was off, that maybe you were making a mistake. But nothing was out of place; not the people or the exits, the lights, the TVs. There was no tell-tale flickering lights and electrical interference. But the all too familiar acid-burn of a demon’s presence snaked through your senses nonetheless - like something acrid was crawling through your ribs and crushing your heart.

There was no way.

He couldn't have found you so soon.

You’d been so careful.

You felt a gun press against your back. The smell of sulphur and cheap cologne invaded your nose.

Cold metal bit into your spine and hot breath fanned against your jaw. His hand snaked onto your hip and dug in hard enough to break skin with his nails. You fought back a flinch at the feel of his body pressed against your back. Static encroached on your vision and ringing pierced your ears.

His lips touched the shell of your ear and you shuddered. His touch felt like burning ice.

His voice was like nails on a chalkboard, even when it came out as a low, smooth murmur. You were reacting violently to his presence just as you always had; you were close to passing out. You closed your eyes tight and tried not to give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry.

"Come with me or I start shooting civilians."

The ringing of a phone woke Dean up at half past three in the morning.

Because of fucking course it did.

He groaned, blindly reaching over for his phone on the nightstand. What the hell? This was the first decent night's sleep he'd gotten in a week and a half.

"There better be good reason for this, Bobby." He mumbled out, sleep clinging to his voice and slurring his speech.

"You still in Wyoming?" He said, as if there was nothing wrong with calling someone in the middle of the night.

"Yeah,” Dean grunted and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t like where this was going. “And?"

"Gotta case. I'm three hours out from a town called Ridgeview. And you two are gonna meet me there.” Bobby’s tone was tense and left no room for argument. “So get your sorry ass out of bed and on the road."

Dean rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the bed, shaking off the tangled sheets. He flicked Sam on his nose to wake him up. How had the phone not bothered him? He ignored his brother's indignant look and started getting dressed. "So what's such a big deal it can't wait till morning?"

"(Y/n)(L/n). She's a hunter. And a friend," There was a pause on the line and a long, tired sigh. His voice somehow sounded both exhausted and extremely pissed off. "She's in the ICU. Some son of a bitch nearly killed her, and I plan on kickin’ its ass."

Dean shrugged on some flannel and smacked Sam's leg. He was being slow as hell. "We know what she was hunting?"

"She called me yesterday and said she'd just finished up with a werewolf case. Open and shut, nothing left to do. And her injuries, from what I’ve heard, don’t line up with a wolf attack. Naw, it was somethin’ else. Somethin’ pissed off."

Sam was finally rolling out of bed as Dean threw what few belongings he had into his duffel. "You don't have to keep me in suspense, Bobby, just lay it on me."

"I think the demon she's been running from caught up with her."

Fifteen minutes later the boys were in the Impala, Dean turning up the radio to keep himself awake. Sam sat in the passenger seat, fighting back yawns and flipping through John’s journal. “Bobby said this demon’s name is Alioth?”

“Yeah. Dad should have an entry or two in there, apparently he and this (Y/n) chick exorcised it more than once.” Dean let out a huff of breath, annoyed. “Don’t know why I’ve never heard of her though, if they were so close.”

Sam scoffed. “Right, because we know every single person Dad’s ever hunted with.”

Dean flicked him on the ear. It was too early for sarcasm!

“Jerk,” Sam let out under his breath.

Dean rolled his eyes and focused on the road. “Just do the damn research.”

The car was quiet but for the blaring radio and tires on asphalt. He was on edge and tired and restless all at once. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, clenching and unclenching his jaw.

Maybe this bastard would lead them to Yellow-Eyes.

Not long later Sam sat up straight in his seat. “Found something.” He turned down the radio and Dean had to stop himself from smacking his hand away from the knob. Sam lay the journal flat in his lap and sighed. “Okay, so…”

Dean waited for Sam to say something but he was quiet. “Okay, what’d you find?” He spared a quick glance at his brother, whose eyebrows were knitted together and eyes narrowed.

It took Sam a moment to respond, still looking at the journal. “Dad first met this thing all the way back in ‘86. Ran into it another half dozen times since then. It keeps going after the same person - (Y/n).”

“Great, she has a demon stalker.” Dean started, gears in his brain working through the new information. “Do we know why?”

His brother was quiet.

“Sam?”

“She’s Psychic.” Sam breathed; Dean could barely hear him over the guitar solo playing low on the radio.

Huh.

“Like Missouri psychic or freaky, ‘Special Kids’ psychic?”

Dean didn’t catch Sam’s offended look. “I’m not sure. Dad didn’t seem to know what was up either.” He heard shuffling paper and a surprised hum. “Check out these polaroids. She was eight.”

“Dude, I’m driving.” But Dean caught a glimpse of them anyway. It was a devils trap scrawled on a children’s bedroom wall in blue crayon. He furrowed his brow. “Huh. That’s not something you see every day.”

“No kidding.”

They got to Ridgeview, Wyoming four hours later, checking into a motel room before meeting Bobby at a diner. The older hunter looked run ragged, dark circles harsher than usual and a sour look on his face. They ordered their food before talking about the case. Bobby rested his face in his hand.

“Dude, you look like shit.” Dean said, worry prickling his nerves and festering in his chest. Bobby was the only family they had left. He hated seeing him so bothered.

“Thanks,” he grumbled. “I try.”

Sam shifted in his seat, pulling out John’s journal and ignoring their exchange. “So you think it was the demon that attacked her, right? What makes you say that?”

Bobby let out a drawn-out sigh and took a long drink of his coffee. “We’ll have to visit her in the ICU to be sure, but this’s got ‘Sadistic Bastard’ written all over it. This wasn’t something lashing out or defending itself. Something worked her over.” His knuckles were white against his coffee mug. If anybody noticed the tremors they didn’t say anything. “She was tortured, Sam.”

The brothers looked at each other. Well, shit.

Dean leaned forward with a whisper. “Like how bad are we talking here?”

“She nearly flatlined.”

And in the hospital, after arguing with the receptionist to let all three of them in instead of just Bobby, Dean was pissed. He swallowed and tried not to think of his own time trapped in a hospital bed, dying - how John had sacrificed himself. But he forced those thoughts away like he'd been doing for the past few months. It wasn’t the time for that. It was never the time for that.

The nurse had been happy some family had shown up, said that it was the worst crime to happen in town in twenty years. The whole staff of the tiny emergency center was on edge, they were used to hunting injuries, not… this.

Sam was in the hallway interviewing the paramedics while he and Bobby went to see you. Only two people could be in the room at once, at least until you said otherwise.

You were unconscious - partially sedated for the pain. Dean couldn’t tell if you were asleep or hovering in a drugged in-between; every once in a while you would move, apparently trying to get comfortable. An IV lead was right under your collarbone, your arms were wrapped in thick bandages. The rest of you, from what he could see, was covered just as thoroughly. The only part of you without bandages was your face, and that was a deep, bruised purple underneath the oxygen mask.

Dean narrowed his eyes as he looked over the doctor’s report. Over a hundred shallow lacerations, more than a few blunt force injuries, a broken leg and three broken fingers. Areas where your skin had been cut off altogether, leaving bare patches of muscle exposed. There were third degree burns over the soulmark on your ribs, like someone had tried to burn it off you for good. A tattoo on your leg had been burned through. You’d needed a lot of grafts and it’d been hard to find intact skin to use.

Your heartbeat had been dangerously slow when they found you. You’d been in shock and went into cardiac arrest two times. You were stable now, but only just.

Bobby pulled up a chair and sat next to you, mumbling apologies under his breath. Dean felt like he was intruding on something, but stayed still nonetheless. “We’re gonna find the son of a bitch that did this, Bobby. I promise.” He moved to stand at your other side, hands clenching on on the railing and looking over your form. God, sometimes this job got to him. He was pissed off and nauseated at the same time. You would think after all he’s seen on hunts, he’d react better - but he was used to monsters… not this. He’d only encountered a few demons before, and it was mostly quick deaths and destruction, plane crashes or house fires.

He really fucking hated demons.

He didn’t know when you drifted awake, but your half-lidded eyes were on him, mouth moving underneath your oxygen mask. He didn’t know what you were saying, all that was coming out of your mouth was raspy mumbling, too quiet and jumbled for him to make out. Your hand twitched toward his.

Bobby put a hand on your hair, one of the few parts of you not beat to hell, and stole your attention. Your eyes were glassy and unfocused, and Dean wondered if you even knew where you were. Bobby just hushed you, voice gentle like when Dean was nine and having nightmares. One of the few times Bobby Singer was ever soft was when one of his kids was hurt.

Now Dean really felt like he was intruding.

He went to leave but felt shaky fingers wrap around his hand. He fought the urge to flinch away. Your touch felt like warm static, making goosebumps rush over his skin. But you weren’t looking at him. Your eyes were off on the distance, classic hundred-yard stare, half-shut, but your hand held onto his. Dean didn’t have the heart to pull away.

Damn.

Bobby stayed with you when Dean eventually left. He had enough holy water to drown a full grown man in - he wasn’t leaving you alone until they found the demon. Sam and Dean went to the crime scene.

And, boy, was that place a mess - the abandoned paper mill had seen better days, and was in a quiet part of town. The room was dark and smelled of mold and metal and sulphur. Rust coated machinery sat silent and unused, leaky pipes on the walls making the only noise. On the floor lay a marker for where the local police found a body - probably the thing’s meatsuit, a bloody knife not too far away. It was a small thing, skinny and only about two inches long, but a knife is a knife is a knife. Dean knew better than most that you didn’t need a giant blade to fuck someone up. A few feet behind where they found the dead guy was a blow torch.

“So,” Sam started, examining a strange symbol drawn on the floor in blood. Your blood. “Paramedics say they heard a high-pitched ringing so horrible, it made their ears bleed. There was a flash of pure white light, and all the lightbulbs for about three blocks exploded.”

Dean grunted in response, staring at the intermittent pools of blood on the floor and what looked to be singed ropes. It must’ve been where you were restrained. “So what stopped it?”

“What?” Sam looked at him oddly.

“What stopped the demon? Looks like it cut and run.” Dean moved to look over at some exploded lamps on the ceiling. “If it wanted to kill (Y/n), it could’ve. But the paramedics found the scene just like this, right?” He gestured to the blood and broken glass. “So why did it stop? Why did it let her go?” He fixed Sam with a pointed look.

All Sam had for him was a shrug. “Maybe it was looking for information and it got what it wanted.”

“Maybe.” Sam took a photo of the symbol as Dean looked at the ropes closer. It was like they’d been burned through from the inside out. “But wouldn’t it kill her afterward anyway?”

That night Dean's dreams were scattered.

There was fire burning his house. He could only watch from the outside in John’s arms as it burned to ash with his parents inside. Then he was face to face with a demon in a motel, hiding behind John's legs and clutching at his coat. He was only eight. The demon wanted something from him. Its white eyes looked at him like he was a lab rat. Then there were nuns. A church and Catholic School. He lived in a group home with other orphans. The nuns were angry with him for something. Then he was alone in the church that was far too big. The stained glass windows cast ominous light into an empty, echoing vastness of the church. No matter how much he ran he ended up back in the pulpit.

But then you were there, in a navy blue private school uniform. Younger, with different hair. He couldn't make out your face but he somehow knew it was you. There was warmth. You were trying to tell him something, something important, but he couldn’t understand you. It was like you were speaking another language entirely. One that spiked in his ears and made his head hurt. You were frustrated. Were you crying? Yelling? He didn’t know. You sighed and drew something on his hand in sharpie.

The marble tile beneath him cracked and fractured, opening up to the void underneath. It crumbled away completely.

The two of you fell.

Dean woke up a little past six in the morning with a sigil scratched bright-red into his palm.

#dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #Castiel x reader #soulmate au #supernatural #c.a.s.#chaptered #reader #longfic #dean winchester #castiel

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