#you can pry her big hooked nose out of my cold dead hands!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pillowfriends]

I just saw art of Faile with a small, delicate nose. 3 dead 30 wounded

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

HERE IS A PROMPT FOR YOU: scully’s a little sick maybe and mulder tries to be helpful? (maybe he makes her instant ramen bc it’s the only thing he can really make that isnt in the microwave and also hey its got broth? that means it’s nutritious for the sicklies right? :’))

unabashed self-indulgence here because my brain is,,,, slightly rotting shdjdbsj. I fully believe Melissa Scully dragged her little sister out some weekend in mid-1993 to gossip about cute, jerk FBI partners and watch the silly dinosaur movie. you can pry this pointless headcanon from my cold, dead hands.

stop to think if they should

1k words | mid-s2 | tagging @today-in-fic :)

"Mulder, it's me," says Scully's stuffy-nosed voice across the phone line, and Mulder chuckles at how peeved she sounds.

She is the latest casualty to the latest cold bug going around, and had left work early the day before because of it, glaring at him when he called after her to get some rest. He supposes she must be sick of hearing that, after the last few months. First her abduction and subsequent recovery, then the quarantine after their fiasco at Mt. Avalon, then Pfaster. She's back in the field, but it hasn't been an easy time and she's probably going stir-crazy, if not crazy otherwise. She laughs louder now when she laughs, and he can't complain about that, but it's a little desperate, like she's looking for light she can't quite reach.

"Hey," he greets, "How you feeling?"

She sighs. "Achy, congested, and bored out of my mind," she says, then too-quickly adds, "But I'm fine, I promise." Which is when he knows she's not.

He's leaving the office a little late, tosses a bundle of files into the back of his car. "Want me to come over?"

"I said I'm fine, I don't need-"

"I know," he assures her. "But I've heard I'm an entertaining guy, so..."

She hesitates, a silence so thick he can practically hear it over the phone line. "Okay," she eventually says, a little quieter than before. "Sure, if you want to."

"Want me to pick anything up on my way?" He asks, smiling to himself at her acquiescence. "Some food, a movie?"

More hesitation, practically her trademark, and he's already pulling into a supermarket that he knows makes great soup. For someone with a large, obviously caring family, Scully is terrible at allowing others to take care of her. Maybe the old adage about doctors making the worst patients is true, after all. She mumbles a title and he laughs out loud, backtracking when she stammers a quick, embarrassed "nevermind".

"I got it, Scully. Half an hour, tops." He barely shuts his mouth on the casual, instinctive love you that nearly slips out, stunning himself to stillness momentarily.

He does — love her, that is, even if he can't quite pin down what that means. Her abduction proved that; she's quite possibly the most important person in his life and he's still not sure what to do about it. He buys a big container of chicken soup, enough for Scully to have leftovers for the next day, grabs a carton of ice cream — neapolitan, because he doesn't know what kind she likes best — and rents a movie. For now, he can do this for her.

She's curled up in a corner of the couch when he lets himself in, dangling the plastic supermarket bag from one hooked finger. "The party," he says by way of greeting, "Has arrived."

Scully gives half a smile over her shoulder, wrapped in a tassel-ended blanket and draped in an oversized souvenir sweatshirt he'd bought her as an apology in the Anchorage airport, after their disastrous trip to Alaska last year. That, he thinks, feels like something out of a movie. Her nose is red and her freckles are a little hidden by the flush of her cheeks, and she looks a little bit miserable, but miserable is better than genuinely ill.

"I meant to ask," she says, wobbling back and forth on the cool tile of her kitchen floor as he hunts around for bowls and spoons, "Who, exactly, has said you're entertaining?"

Mulder stops his kitchenwide search and fixes her in his gaze for a moment. She's teasing him, yes, but she's also got a hint of genuine curiosity in her bleary blue eyes. "Mostly strangers," he says with a sheepish chuckle. "In bars."

That gets a little bit of a laugh from her, then she coughs raggedly into her elbow and tugs the blanket — which she's holding like a cape, clasped around her shoulders — a little tighter. She points to the drawer where she keeps her silverware, then retreats back to the living room. After presenting her with a bowl — or cup, since it has a handle, but it's too big for him to be sure — of soup, he unveils the last item he brought and watches, maybe a little too pleased, as she flushes even redder.

"I thought you were more of a horror film person," he teases, glancing over his shoulder at her as he fiddles with her VCR. "The Exorcist and all that. Not so much Jurassic Park."

Scully shrugs, embarrassed, and Mulder flashes her a smile so she knows he's just teasing, trying to keep her distracted from her stuffy nose and watery eyes. "Melissa made me go see it with her last year," she offers as an explanation. "Some things are just... fun, I guess."

Mulder is taken off guard by the way she shifts and leans against him when he sits down beside her. Scully has never seemed to be as tactile as he is; she's never rejected his touches, even when his heart gets the better of him and he's probably pushing his luck, but the only time she's openly sought him out was after Pfaster. Now, though, with the television playing and blanket tightly around her, she curls against him almost instinctively.

He can feel the warmth of her slight fever through the fabric of his shirt, can feel her gradually go more and more limp. She's going to fall asleep on him, to the sounds of rain and dinosaurs roaring, and maybe to the sound of his heartbeat, also. He wonders for one fanciful moment if she could hear the way he feels about her through a stethoscope.

Eventually, hesitantly, he slips his arm around her back and draws her closer, her hair frizzing out across his chest. "This okay?" He asks softly against the warm top of her head, and she nods, humming sleepily and sniffling. He thinks she mumbles something about Hollywood science making no sense, and Mulder smiles with his lips still against her hair. If he told her he loves her right now, she might be too out of it from sleep and cold medicine, too preoccupied with what little of the movie she's absorbing as she drifts to sleep, to remember it in the morning. His heart beats a little faster at the thought, and he only says it in his mind. For now, this is enough.

[pairofmelaninkweens]

Zen’in’s Deadliest- Toji Fushiguro x Naraka OC

Warning: Consensual rough sex, Choking, Knife play, Blood Kink, Heavy Degradation, Violence, Use of weapons, Fighting.

Thank you @xshinigamikittenx for editing and @sweet-darling91 for Beta Reading and giving correct warnings!

By @aztecbrujeria 

Tokyo (10 years before Breaking a Curse):

Naraka stands against the dilapidated brick building, hidden in the shadows, waiting for her target to leave. The heavy air envelopes her surroundings, thick with salt and chill from the autumn night and harbor fog, a light mist from the earlier downpours still remains to make the background of the busy city a blurred haze. She's fully aware of the danger this  man is capable of, he carries the title of the deadliest jujutsu assassin, but she didn’t care. She has no one and nothing to live for or come home to at the end of the day. She lived her life as one of many third-party hitmen for the Yakuza. Regardless of who he was, this target was just another SOB that owed money and it was time to pay up. She rests her hand on her hip where the Magnum 357 revolver lies in wait in her thigh holster, the weight of the large Glock a comfort. She inhales and smiles inwardly, “The only true love I’ve ever had.” In the shadows she caught the light from the gambling den spill forth from the entrance before she lays eyes on him, causing her to hesitate about the possibility to do the hit tonight. 

Toji Fushiguro, Zenin’s deadliest, walked into the darkened alleyway and stretched his arms overhead. This man is the target?! She thought to herself in astonishment and a small amount of apprehension. She drinks him in, seeing nothing but a monster of a man in an oversized sweater and black loose pants. He runs his large digits through his straight, jet black hair as he begins to walk, his lackluster posture failing to hide his size. Looks can be deceiving. Naraka shook her head and decided to wait in order to observe him to make the right call.  The longer I wait, the better the job will go... but the longer I wait, the longer I’ll have to go without food. Just as she thought this, her stomach grumbled. She hugs her midsection, feeling her muscles contract in protest. “Shit, I need to go five-finger discount some fucking protein stat.” Shaking off her hunger, she straightened up and refocused. Based on her reports, Toji was not one to shy away from women. She could at least follow him and see where he was headed. If I’m lucky, he’ll stop by a food stall...so hungry...NO! FOCUS! Naraka steps out from the shadows and begins to follow the monster of a man walking towards the bustling lights of the city, away from the darkness of the underbelly of Tokyo. 

She can hear the cold click of her heeled boots against the pavement, sporadically splashing through puddles as she makes her way to the lights, taking care not to get too close. She weaves her way through the throngs of people, watching him part the path like Moses and the Red Sea with how large and intimidating he is against the chaotic collection of souls. Pulling her distressed denim jacket closer, she realizes that she looks like just another punk. Perfect, I already fit in, he’ll never notice. Besides, I’m five feet tall, he’ll never pinpoint someone like me. Naraka decides to be a bit braver, pushing her limit just a tad, as she closes the distance between them. She’s close enough to hear him on his cell as he takes a call. “Yeah...How much?... Fuck, yeah I can do it.” She hears the click of his phone closing and watches him angrily put it in his pocket. She smiles as she watches him, for a dead man he was very handsome. Taking a chance, she puts her pickpocket skills to good use as she craftily bumps into him. “Oh, sorry!” She was quick enough to take what little cash he had and used her sleight of hand to tuck the cash into the band of her fishnets. “I’m so sorry señor, lo siento, I didn’t…” He stood with bright emerald eyes and smirked at her. “You think you’re so sly, don’t you?” Shit, he knows, “Perdón?” He comes close enough to bend down and look Naraka directly in her honey brown eyes, noses almost touching, “You know for a pickpocket you’re pretty enough to fuck... However, just give me my money back, and I won’t kill you.” This pendejo! At least he doesn’t know...just like I thought...Naraka smiles big and reaches her arms behind her back, pulling out the cash. “Sorry, I was just hungry, I haven’t eaten in a couple days...to be honest, I didn’t think you’d notice.” Toji put his hand out for the yen she’d swiped. Eyeing his outstretched palm, she observed that he could easily grip her head like a basketball. “Sorry.” She handed him the money, and just as she was about to turn away and keep walking towards the next alley, Toji’s giant hand encompassed hers, forcing her to look back up at him, “You hungry? Let’s eat. Then, maybe later I’ll fill that pretty mouth of yours with me.” She looks up at him and his devilish smile with clear confusion. I know this man doesn’t think I’m gonna fuck him for buying me dinner?! Well, who the fuck am I kidding...that’ll be the easiest way to kill him, get some “D” and run...alright bet. 

“Yeah, I’m starving.�� Right on cue, her stomach grumbled loud enough for him to hear, his dangerous smile showing more teeth, making the scar on the right side of his lips lift with them. “Perfect, my treat.” Naraka shrugs, turning to walk towards a food stall by the closest alley. Get him to an open place...don’t let your guard down. Her attire isn’t respectable enough for an eat-in event, wearing fishnets with Doc martens, a short distressed skirt and thigh harnesses (complete with a hidden Glock and daggers). Complimenting her cropped band T with her favorite destroyed denim jacket, covered in band patches and pins. Naraka inked her skin to hide the scars from the beatings she took in her earlier life and surviving on the streets, purposefully drawing attention to her legs and chest. Five feet tall and muscular, due to the fact that she trained every day and then some to be better than any man or woman in her profession. Naraka feels his eyes roving over her body from behind. Perfect...he’s hooked, this will be a quick and eventful fuck. She’s deep in thought about the best way to deliver the deepest cut at close range, letting him bleed out under her when she feels his hand squeeze her shoulder. “Hey, you almost missed it. Did you want food or what?” She looks up at him, snapping out of her murderous thoughts, “Yeah, sorry, I’ll take some teriyaki chicken and some steamed veggies with rice.” Toji looked at her with suspicion, “Yeah, we’ll take a double order of teriyaki chicken and veggies and extra rice.” Naraka furrows her brow and looks up at him, “I was fine with just what I said.” Toji smirked, “For someone who's starving you like to complain about eating free food.” His voice is steeped in sarcasm, causing Naraka to roll her eyes in response. “Besides,” he continues, dropping his eyes down to her ass, “you gotta fuel those deadly curves.” Naraka’s head snaps up, her fight or flight response kicking in, pupils dilating and cheeks flushed, “I-Are you saying I’m fat?” Calm down idiota!!! Don’t let him get to you. As far as you know he doesn’t know who you really are. Calming herself, she smiles wickedly back at him, making sure he watches as she turns this way and that so he could see every bend and curve of her body as she checks for rolls, simultaneously double-checking she had easy access to her hidden daggers and Glock. She checks her thigh harnesses and pulls at them trying to feign innocent self-consciousness.

She whips her thick black hair back over her shoulder, playing with the braids intermingled in her curls. “I didn’t think I was fat...although I’m fine with the extra cushion. You know what they say.” She shrugs and smiles like the temptress she knows she is, catching  him in her peripheral vision when she reaches for the food as he smirks with a flash of curiosity in his malachite eyes. Naraka shoveled the food into her mouth with the chopsticks. I’m not changing for this cabrón. It’s not like he’s gonna keep seeing me...he’s gonna be dead by the end of the night anyways. She hears him laugh at her, surprised at how sexy the sound is, reverberating into her, making her body begin to riot within. She chokes on her rice reaching for some water. “Is something funny cabrón?” Toji sticks his hands in his pockets and shrugs, “No, it’s just nice to see a woman eat, that’s all.” Naraka squints her eyes at him, finishing off the meal. “Why do I feel like that’s a threat.” Her stomach finally quelled from her hunger, she finally  felt an energy boost after all that time standing and waiting for him earlier to leave the gambling den. “Well, thanks for the food. I better be going, you know, things to steal, people to bother, concerts to get to.” Naraka turns and begins to walk towards the closest alley to slip into the shadows and wait for him, but he’s so quick it doesn’t  register with her until it’s too late. His large hand wraps around her wrist and pulls her into his heavily muscled chest. Toji towers over her as he leans into Naraka’s ear, his hot breath teasing her raven tresses and tickling her flesh. The way he presses against her makes her acutely aware of every sinew of muscle that moves in tandem to keep her close.

Naraka’s instincts take over and she readies herself for a fight. Her senses hone in on the sounds, surroundings, and identifying quickest escape routes as Toji pulled her in closer. She feels the end of a blade pressing against her back. Slowly, she reaches up between her thighs to grip one of her daggers, ready to defend herself, even if all she could do was cut him and get away. “How about you come with me, away from prying eyes...then, we can really get to know each other-” Toji looked down to see Naraka’s hand between her thick thighs and smiles against her ear, “Are you already starting without me? Especially here, for all these people to see? You are a nasty slut.” He surprises her, licking the side of her ear and growling, sending a current of electricity straight to her core. What the fuck!? Get yourself together, he knows! Get out-NOW! He's as strong as Gojo Satoru! “I at least thought we’d end up back at your place before the fun. I didn’t think you were this bold.” Naraka stills. This pinche cabrón really  thinks I’m going to go with him quietly? “Oh,” she purrs, feigning a question as a grin settles across her lips, “ Do I look like a proper lady to you?I’m sure you’re smarter than you look...I’m not your average woman, el grande.” Toji chuckled against her ear, pressing the point of his blade further into her back. She could hear the predatory venom laced in his words, “Oh, Angel Face, I noticed immediately you weren’t average...you must be one powerful bitch if you have that Magnum 357 under your skirt.” Naraka’s eyes widen, dilating with the rush of adrenaline, shocking her system. Shit, get the fuck out! GET OUT NOW! Before Naraka could pull the dagger out, Toji crushes her body into his, hugging her tight, making them look like a couple embracing, “Don’t make a fucking scene, Princess. Like I said, let's go somewhere more...intimate.” She can only do what he wants her to do at this point. Cold-hearted? Absolutely, but not by any means a murderer of innocent people. “Alright, let’s go, show me this more intimate space you had in mind. I don’t like playing the helpless damsel...besides, I haven’t trained today, so you’ll be doing me a favor.” Naraka feels Toji begin to steer her in the direction of an alleyway that leads to abandoned warehouses beside the busy streets.

Once he’s satisfied with the distance between them and the crowd, he pushes her forward with staggering force. Naraka stumbles forward, “Hey, I would have walked you know...especially since my cover was blown.” Toji laughs, “Please, you would have run, you’re smart enough to recognize when you’re out of your depth.” She straightens up, rolling her neck on her shoulders, “You really think I’m that weak?” The sound of her neck popping sends anticipatory tremors down her spine as she turns to look at Toji, “Que dijo? I’m not your average woman.” She caresses her thick thighs up to the hem of her skirt, catching Toji’s attention, and slips her hands beneath the fabric to reach for her blades; she decides to save the revolver as a last resort. With whiplash speed and precision, she slings her daggers at Toji, distracting him for a split second before she sprints forward, barreling into his core with a high knee kick, making Toji stumble back and double over grunting before righting himself. She recenters herself a few feet away from him, her hands up in a defensive stance as she waits for him to come back at her. The sound of his low, mocking laughter ripples through her before the flash of his sweater is all she can see, his movements too quick to follow before the impact. He runs into her, picking her up to tackle her into a pile of old pallets, making them splinter beneath their weight. Toji lands one good blow to the side of her face before grabbing her throat. “You sneaky cunt you think that kick was going to what...hurt me? I thought you were going to come at me with all you’ve got.” Toji squeezes the fingers around her windpipe tighter, causing her vision to blur. “You’re nothing but another weak, good for nothing, whore.”His grip is tight, holding Naraka down as her mind begins to rage. This motherfucker is fucking DEAD! Fuck this shit! Through the pain searing in her throat, with deadly precision, Naraka wraps her muscular thighs around his neck and grabs his arm into a lock, pulling out from beneath him, trying to snap the bone, forcing him to release her throat. With a swift kick from her legs, she’s able to throw him off balance and roll out from beneath him, back into a defensive stance out of the debris of destroyed pallets. Catching her breath, Naraka looks at him with deadly brown eyes, “You, fucker, you think this is a fucking game of the weak? Save your laughter and weak ass insults for a bitch who fucking cares. Your problem is you don't want to admit I’m a threat because I’ve got a pussy.” Naraka smirks, glaring at him as his shoulders roll back, bringing him to his full height and smirking right back at her, “Lucky for you, I’m in the mood to teach a useless meat sack to kneel.”

She wipes the blood from her chin with the back of her hand, swiping her tongue across her lower lip and tasting the familiar metallic flavor in her mouth. “Though I’ll admit, no man has gone this hard on me in a while...usually, even in bed, I’m the one who runs shit.” Toji stood and began to brush off the debris from his sweater. “No weakling has been my punching bag...well, at least for a hot minute.” Naraka reaches beneath her skirt again, pulling out the last of her blades, wielding them at the ready. Toji’s eyes travel the length of her body, “You know...you're pretty fucking sexy...especially for a dead bitch.” Toji brushes the last of the debris off of his sweater, bringing his hands to rest at his side, “Tell me, are you ready to die for a job? For a crime syndicate that doesn’t give a shit whether you live or die?” Naraka smiles wide showing her pearly white gappy teeth, baring her gremlin like grin, she must look certifiably insane to Toji, “I have nothing nor anyone to live for...I like hearing the screams and cries for mercy when I get to cut down worthless fuckers like yourself.” Toji laughs loud enough for his baritone to echo off the surrounding empty buildings. “Finally, someone who’s worthy, I’ve been waiting a long time to butt heads with the likes of you. Maybe you’ll surprise me and give me something that makes me feel.”  Naraka wasn’t quite sure what she was feeling, it feels like a current of excitement intertwining with thin threads of what seemed like, hope? Not a feeling she’s used to, but she pushes it aside, ready for him to come at her with everything he had, “Are you gonna talk the whole time or are you gonna shut the fuck up and come at me big boy.” Toji walks away from the debris and readies himself, his posture extending to stand, what seemed like, ten inches taller.

Naraka braces herself, making sure her revolver is ready as she watches Toji reach behind him and pull forth a large blade. Shit! The cursed tool I was warned about. She knows it has the potential to inflict some serious pain and she’s going to have to put forth all her efforts to come out of this alive. The smile that splays across both their faces is truly horrific and beautiful, yet chilling to normal passerby. The levels of their predatory and survival instincts in full swing were tangible in the atmosphere. With one more breath, it’s instant, Toji lunges and Naraka fends off each swing and slash from Toji’s weapon with nothing but her strength and small blades. When she catches his blade, stopping it with the top of her shoulder, she feels him pull, letting the edge of the cursed object open her skin, searing her nerve endings with instant pain. She jumps back and grabs her shoulder, grunting as she fights to push it to the back of her mind. “That blade packs a punch, big boy. You even cut my favorite jacket up.” Naraka stands and shakes her arm out before returning to her defensive stance, “So considerate of you to wait on me...oh wait, a-are you getting tired?” She chuckles and hears him growl, “Awe, is Big Boy grumpy?” She giggles like a schoolgirl when Toji lunges once again. She dodges and fights off each of his attacks, the clangs from their blades meeting, and their grunts and curses of exertion echoing throughout the warehouse yard. This time her daggers cut into his sweater and kiss the skin beneath his shirt. She watches as small droplets of blood blossom upon the fabric of his oversized sweater. “Now, look at what you’ve done. You’ve ruined one of my favorite sweaters.” Toji stabs his blade into the ground beside him and pulls the sweater off, discarding it to the ground below, glaring at the small slash across his abdomen that was hugged by a tight-fitting black T-shirt. Naraka saw every muscle, every valley, and dip of his broad chest. Her arousal spreads through her bloodstream like poison, each beat of her heart sending it pulsing through her blood stream. “Well, well, well, Big Boy has looks.” She smirks at him and licks her lips, stalking him like a ravenous lioness, hungry for her prey. “Sad, I was thinking about making you scream my name before I let you bleed out beneath me.” This time Naraka lunges at Toji, a perfect opportunity since he was disarmed. She catches his forearm and slices, watching his arm bleed as she smiles wider knowing that she surprised him. Toji fends off her attacks and eventually disarms her, leaving her with nothing but her fists. She lands a couple of blows to his torso and face. Toji doesn’t realize she’s drawing him further away from his blade and her hand-to-hand combat is top tier. Toji swings, catching her by the mouth as he chuckles, thinking for sure she was going to hit the ground, knocked out cold, when Naraka stumbles in front of him and spits the blood pooling in her mouth onto the ground below. She looks up with killer determination, glaring at Toji, “You take punches like a good cunt. I wonder what else you can take?” Naraka’s glare alone would have curdled a civilian’s stomach. Toji feels his cock twitch at the sight of her standing her ground after taking a full punch to the face.

His gaze follows her body as she straightens up, pulling her ruined denim jacket off. His eyes widen at the ripples of sinew that accentuate her curves moving in sync as she stretches her arms above her head and settles into her defensive stance. He finally understood, this woman can take a full-on barrage of punches and kicks because of the machine that was her body. He licks his lips, his erection beginning to strain against his pants. I want to break this woman. He watches as Naraka reaches down, tearing open the side of her skirt to reveal the hidden Magnum 357 on her thigh harness. Watching her rip the fabric to create space for her thick thighs only made him salivate like Pavlov’s dog. “Like what you see Big Boy?” Her fingers wrap around the base of her Revolver and she holds it up, opening the chamber and spinning it for effect. “You know I thought you’d be more vicious with me. I’m actually kind of let down that you weren’t rougher.” Naraka whips the chamber closed and pulls the hammer back on the gun. Toji, clearly turned on by the woman in front of him, grabs his blade and brings it in front of him, “I guess you really are choosing to be another dead bitch then.” Naraka smiles back at him, “Make me cry pendejo.”

Without another word Naraka shoots off a couple rounds, one of them grazing his arm, as he dodges with superhuman grace that made her head spin. He didn’t slow down in her direction, he’s already on her fast and heavy, crashing into her and knocking the wind out of her, causing the revolver to fumble out of her grasp and clatter on the ground. Her back hits the wall of the crumbling warehouse and she grunts at the pain. Toji holds her small body up by her throat and puts a thick muscular thigh between her center before bringing his cursed tool to trace the valley between her breasts up to her cheek. “You have such beautiful copper skin,” the feeling of the cool blade biting into her should’ve sparked something like panic, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of him. “It looks better when it’s bleeding,” he continued. She bites her lip trying to hold in her muffled screams but the pain is too great. Her eyes clench as the sound ripples from her throat, reverberating off the walls around them as Toji smirks. “There’s the sound I've been waiting for. Let’s hear it again, hmm?” He lifts the blade away from her chest, only to bring it back down onto her shoulder. It’s ironic how gently he delivers the seething pain with a slow slicing movement. Leading the tip of his blade towards her collarbone. She unleashes another guttural scream, squirming to fight for a way to get out of his monstrous vice grip. Her vision is becoming dark around the edges but she looks into his eyes and watches him come close, his hot breath across her lips while she grabs his wrist in an attempt to pull herself up. “You look so good in a helpless position...it makes me want to really break you like the worthless whore you are, Angel face.” Toji licks up the fresh blood on her wounded cheek before crashing his full lips onto hers. She moans at the taste of copper upon his tongue as he takes her mouth, letting his strong muscle fight and compete with hers. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!

Naraka feels her arousal engulf her as she relaxes, moaning into Toji’s mouth. Her core becomes slick and soaks through her panties as she moves her hands up to entangle in his straight black hair, pulling his head back. He hisses with the pain of her nails digging into his scalp as Naraka breaks the kiss, sucking on his bottom lip and biting to draw blood. He growls as she relinquishes his mouth and Toji moves his blade to the top of her shirt, slowly letting the cool edge of the blade open another cut across her sternum making her scream turning into a pleasurable moan, “You taste so good on my lips, just like the bitch in heat I know you are, I want more.” He presses his body into her, dropping his head down to the open cut and licking around the wound, still pinning her against the wall with his strong chokehold and muscular thigh. “F-fuck, I want to fucking hear you cry my name-” Naraka hooks her legs around his center and pulls him in tighter, casuing his hips to dig into her aching cunt allowing her to feel how hard his dick has been this entire time. She rolls her hips just enough against his erection and he shudders as she moans from the friction she craved, “F-Fuck!” Toji hears her purring moan at the action of her rolling her hips into his cock and he’s unable to control himself. He takes the blade and cuts through her shirt and bra, her heavy breasts springing free, heaving with each laboured breath. He watches her skin flash with goosebumps from the cool air caressing her bare torso. 

He smiles wider, licking his lips in anticipation like the ravenous predator he was. “You nasty whore, your nipples are pierced...tell me, how does it feel if I-'' Toji takes the edge of his blade and catches one end of the piercing, making it reverberate when he flicks the bar. Naraka’s eyes roll into the back of her head as she moans, squeezing his waist tighter between her muscular thighs, “Y-yesss,” she hisses, before looking back to see Toji dip his head down to one of her exposed tits and stick his tongue out to swirl around the light brown flesh before flicking the piercing and latching on to suck and swirl while grinding his cock into her center harder. Toji finally let go of her throat and she takes the opportunity to grab his thick tresses again and pull his head back, “I’m gonna make you cry bitch.” She head butted Toji, hearing a crunch, and forced him to stumble back crying out at the pain. Once she catches herself and leans up against the wall for support, she catches her breath and slips the wrecked top and bra off. “You know that was my favorite lace bra...I guess we’re even, asshole.” Toji stands and wipes the blood from the broken nose, groaning. Naraka runs at him, jumping up, and wrapping her legs around his head. His face between her thighs, she uses  her force and weight to take him to the ground onto his back. Toji doesn’t miss a beat, latching his arms around her thighs while taking in her scent, “Fuck, you smell so fucking good.” He dives into her center and grinds his face into her drenched pussy. Naraka shudders at the feeling of his face grinding into her, rolling her hips into him making him growl against her, she feels him bring his hands to her center, “These are fucking useless.” He rips her fishnets and grabs her soaked panties to tear them off. Naraka clenches, gasping at the action of the fabric being torn away. She grabs a fistful of his hair again as he licks a wet strip from her opening to her clit. Toji moans as he tastes the slickness of her arousal that coats her thighs, “Look at you, you’re such a fucking mess,” Toji swirls his muscle around her clit, “Such a fucking cock tease, a worthless, fucking whore.” Toji tastes more of her, knowing full well the shit talking and degradation was making her come undone. Naraka looks down and holds his head down, her eyes blown out, “Shut the fuck up and get fucked Big Boy.” She doesn’t hesitate, suffocating him with her pussy, feeling his muscle work wonders against her engorged clit, “Yess, hnngggh, so fucking good.” He sucks and tastes with open mouth kisses on her thighs and digs his fingernails in as he keeps going back for more. She’s at the precipice of her orgasm when Toji pulls back and bites her thigh hard, drawing blood, making Naraka convulse and cry out cumming in his face, “Fuck you!!! OH FUCK, OH FUCK!!!” She squeezes his head between her strong thighs, letting him tongue fuck her entrance as she clamps down, making him moan into her, tasting the intoxicating mix of her orgasm and blood.

Toji feels her grip release from his hair as her legs begin to relax around his head. Reaching up, he clutches her throat and rolls her to her back, slamming her into the ground. Taking her lips, he hitches her leg up on his side, “I’m going to break you and watch you fucking come undone. You. Are. Nothing.” Toji watches as Naraka’s breath catches, her eyes rolling in the back of her head again, “But you know what...I think you’d look better from behind, face in the dirt.” He pulls her up by her throat, taking her lips again as he fists her hair and stands to make her get on all fours. Naraka moans at the feeling of her hair being pulled with so much force. Her knees being scraped open and bleeding into the dirt, as his fingernails dig into her scalp. Forced onto all fours she looks up at him and watches his eyes flash before he gets behind her and shoves her face into the dirt below. Naraka feels the debris from the dirt enter her open wound and screams in agony and pleasure as he grinds the side of her face deeper into the ground, “That’s right bitch, fucking scream for me.” Toji pulled his cock out, slick from his own arousal, and pumps a few times while he grinds Naraka’s face in more and more into the dirt below. He watches as her tight whole clenches, beckoning him, it makes him quiver as he guides his thick cock into her entrance.

She takes in the feeling of the pain and pleasure as he puts all his strength into grinding her face into the ground. She feels him tear her fishnets more as his rough, thick digits slide and explore her drenched slit before diving into her plush walls and feeling her clench at the roughness of the pads of his fingers pump in and out. Naraka hears him groan before she looks back from the ground to see the large and heavy cock that he was pumping with his free hand. She moaned at the sight of his shirt lifted, eyeing the veins on his adonis belt as he clenches while stroking. When she feels the fat head of his cock at her entrance, she moans and cries out when he thrusts into her, bottoming out inside of her. “F-Fuck, so fucking tight.” As Toji drags out, Naraka can feel the prominent vein beneath his dick hitting all her walls. She doesn’t have a chance to absorb all of the feeling before he thrusts back in, bruising her swollen lips. “I- hah- I didn’t think a yakuza slut would be this fucking t-tight...Oh fuck.” Naraka moans out and claws at the dirt, “Fuuck, Shut the fuck up, and fuck me harder; I thought you were fucking brutal not, ahhhhh, a soft little bitch.” Toji thrust in and out at a harder pace and grabs her hair, wrenching her up to force her to arch her back. He digs his nails into her hip as Naraka feels every blow, his girth and length bruising her cervix. “F-fuck! That’s it Big Boy, hnnnngh, Show me what you got! You won’t break me.”

“Hah-mmmm. Listen to you,” he growls, “You’re such a fucking brat! Shut the fuck up and take this cock.” Toji reaches around her chest and pulls her into his muscled chest, feeling her grab onto his forearm and dig her nails into his flesh as he continues the vicious thrusts of his cock, shoving his fingers into her mouth. Naraka tastes herself on his fingers and grunts with every touch to her cervix by Toji’s cock. Her saliva begins to pool in her mouth as she’s being gagged by his thick fingers and it begins to overflow, past her lips and down her throat. Her spine starts to coil and become taught from the earth shattering orgasm that’s at its tipping point, she begins to feel Toji’s cock twitch inside of her. “That’s it bitch, you sound better when your fucking mouth’s full of my fucking fingers, hah-, fuck! Fuck! I’m gonna fucking spray your insides with me and ruin this fucking pussy!” Harder and harder he thrusts, his heavy balls slapping against her, “Fucking touch yourself and make yourself cum on this cock, DO IT NOW.” Naraka, wanting her release, reaches down with one hand and begins to put pressure on her clit, circling around her aching bundle of nerves. “F-Faster, make yourself fucking come. You better fucking come right fucking now or I’ll fucking kill you.” She moans against his fingers and feels her walls begin to convulse and clench around his hard cock when she hears him throw his head back and with one more violent thrust into her turn her pink insides white with his thick seed. “FUUUCCKKK!” Toji spills himself inside of her and feels her walls clench down, milking him for every drop he’s worth. He begins to shudder and groan at the feeling of her taking his soul from him. Toji let her go and holds onto her hips as she falls forward, moaning with a primal cry, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. 

Naraka sees stars behind her eyelids as she closes them to catch her breath, with Toji’s cock still inside her still semi hard, she opens them again when she feels his grip relax. This is my chance to knock him out and run. Naraka takes the chance and pulls away slowly standing up. Toji watches as she turns toward him, brushing his hair, damp with sweat away from his eyes. His head hitting her shoulders she smiled wickedly, “You were the best fuck I’ve ever had Toji Fushiguro.” She was so short she just grabbed the back of his head and brought his lips towards her while he was on his knees, when she breaks the kiss she looks at him, “I guess I’ll let you live another day.” He never notices the brass knuckles attached to her fist when she puts all her force into knocking him unconscious. It’s the last thing he sees as his vision blackens and he’s out cold on the ground with his pants around his knees. Naraka chuckles and drops the brass knuckles beside him, “Goodnight Toji, consider your debt paid.” She straightens herself out, cleaning up as much as she can, and walks toward his cut and bloodied sweater, “I’ll just take this as a souvenir, I need a shirt anyways. Can’t walk around half naked.” Putting his sweater on, she leaves him behind in the dirt and smiles while tracing her bruised lips with her fingertips. Before getting too far she stops, backtracking toward his unconscious body. “You know, el grande, I don’t think you’ll need this either.” She reaches into his pants and takes the cash she attempted to swipe earlier. “Well, can’t make it too easy on you. Good luck getting home” She smirks, nudging his mound of a body with her boot as she stashes the cash in her thigh harness. She can’t help but laugh as she walks back towards the bustling sea of people out of the shadows feeling the ghost of his touch against her face. She lets a whisper of a thought graze across her mind, I hope he finds me again one day, knowing full well she’s ignited the spark to an overwhelming fire.

[another-chorus-girl]

Full House (of Masks and Mischief) - An Erik House Oneshot

I AM ALIVE! After a long AF hiatus I am! Now while this is not the newest EH chapter it is almost finished. This however is merely a snippet one shot I wrote for @larissabernstein “Erik Meets Erik” contest on her 18+ PotO Discord server. Hope you enjoy and see you on the update!

Dawn just peaking over the horizon, most people by this point would either still be sound asleep or early risers just rolling out of their cozy beds.

This house however, did not play host to 'most people'.

Down the street two figures made their way toward the large gates at the long expanse of property at the very outskirts of the dead end road.

Sliding his palms along the bars in a soothing manner, the man gave a wave of his hands. Be it magic or illusion, his enigmatic gesture appeared to will the gate open.

"C'mon boy," He motioned for the canine beside him to follow.

The labradoodle gave an enthusiastic bark, trotting up the stairs leading up to the front door. As the two made their way inside, the gate slowly creaked shut with the rather ominous atmosphere of a black and white talkies haunted house.

--

Sipping at his tea, a slightly older man sat at a kitchen table. He was nose deep in a new Playbill, skimming and scrutinizing the promising new talent on New York's grand stage.

His mismatch eyes perked up hearing the door open and the pitter patter of paws on the tiled floor.

"Isn't today leg day for you?" Crawford inquired, turning back to his article.

"It was suppose to be, but I couldn't resist this face." The fellow West End remarked, scratching behind the dog's ears. Soot groaned in delight, rubbing his snout against Karimloo's hand for more affection.

"I imagine your better half-apologies I didn't mean it like that-he's still sleeping it off upstairs?"

The young West End nodded, "I'll go wake him shortly. Either that or Monsieur Lerik will in an hour."

"I'm surprised he passed out as he did, absolutely bouncing off the walls last night." Glancing up from the magazine to sip his tea, "Though I prefer it that as oppose to flames puffing about in the parlor again."

The elder Merik raised his good brow seeing the items the muscular West End was laying on the counter.

"A strange variety of comfort food after a jog?" He asked, eyeing the box of oyster crackers and horse radish.

Karimloo sighed, "Not for me, since Pan's big binge on Halloween he's been feeling self conscious over his weight again."

Crawford shook his head, "And you support this despite how ludicrous he's being?"

"He is my husband after all, and I must."

"Perhaps you should have rewritten the vows," He called as the masked man and labradoodle trotted upstairs.

Without warning the opposite door swung right open, the elder Merik coughing after prematurely swallowing his tea.

Destler, dressed in only his robe and haphazardly thrown on wig darted his eyes around. All whilst clutching 'his' face in one hand.

"Have you seen my eyelash curler?" The faceless man asked as Crawford attempting to subside his coughing fit.

--

"And just WHAT in the name of Charles Garnier’s ghost do you think you're doing up there?" Kerik asked the ginger haired man up on a ladder outside.

Cherik glanced down, "Ah! Well you see it's winter."

"Ohh so that's what these cold, crystallized pellets mean. I never would have guessed." He sarcastically remarked.

"That is to say Christmas is fast approaching, no time like the present to prepare!" He answered with delight, ignoring the novelized adaption's sarcasm.

"It's over a month away!"

"And gives us lots of time to work out any bugs these may have," Piped up a voice from high above. Mr. Y poked his head out as if emphasizing his presence there.

"Should I ask?"

"Monsieur Y has graciously offered his automaton services helping set up the electric lighting and displays. It's certainly going to be a splendid little surprise for everybody."

Kerik shook his head, "Aren't you afraid of heights? Last I checked being up on a roof doesn't sit right with you."

"All the more reason to have more helping hands," Piped up Jones, as the Merik waved down at the yellow gold eyed man.

Walking back inside, Kerik snickered. "Fine Cherik, have your little reindeer games. But if you fall off the roof I'm feeding that rat of yours to Ayesha!"

Cherik frowned, "So rude. And it is NOT just reindeer. Some squirrels, a few foxes, and even a couple of rabbits all singing carols harmoniously."

"Once this mess gets de tangled that is," Mr. Y noted, playing mono a mono with a string of lights that had tangled around his ankle. "An entire theme park empire I created and THIS is what does me in." --

Lerik clutched his stomach uncomfortably exiting the upper passage on the main floor.

Gerik, having since emerged from upstairs frowned, "Isn't it your weekly game night?"

The silent filmy shook his head, signing 'Had to leave early'

"What's the matter?"

'Claudin fed us pigs feet again.'

The modern filmy grimaced, "What else is next, blood pudding and haggis? Though I don’t mind those options myself-"

Raising his hands in an over exaggerated gestured, Lerik hurriedly signed

'Good God! Don't give him any ideas!'

"Fine fine,"

Whilst Lerik took a slow seat so as to collect himself-and his aching bowels-Kerik with a hook of the arm turned the modern adaption around on his heels.

"Need some company Gerry?" Kerik gave a smirk.

"Well actually I... no nevermind." Gerik quickly responded, silent prayers that he wouldn't pry into the box in his hand.

But those prayers went unheard.

Kerik snatched it, rattling it around. "Christmas shopping early? I swear you and the rest of those fiddlers on the roof just-"

Then the two heard a crunch of broken glass from inside the package.

"That was actually the parts I ordered for Monsieur Winslow's speaker box. It was backordered..." Gerik cringed, slowly taking the box back.

"Well, sounds as though it's still on backorder doesn't it now?" Kerik half chuckled attempting to make light of the situation.

"Gerik?" They heard a call from down the hall, in what was Destler and Winslow's shared quarters.

"Oh! Uh!" Grasping the novelized adaption by his cloak lapels, Gerik whispered through gritted teeth. "Help!"

As the door opened the pair emerged together. A now fully dressed and face clad Destler as well as a silent and rather grumpy looking Winslow met Kerik and Gerik just as the former snatched back the jingling box.

"Nearly have his parts yet?" Destler said with an enthusiastic gleam in his dark eyes.

"Nearly. I was.."

The horror adaption frowned, "Did I not pay them enough? Do I need to have a little chat with our mail courier?"  

Seeing Destler's fingers teasingly graze the blade in his satchel, Kerik piped in.

"Not required my good man. Just had my own long discussion with him on the matter when I was fetching a package I ordered for Ayesha."

As if further emphasizing his point Kerik violently shook the box-to Gerik's silent horror and look of astonished disbelief. "Some nice jingle bells and mousing toys for my little lady. Need her to have more motivation if she's going to sniff out more of the dumpster dweller's pests."

This seem to appease Destler enough who snorted, "Jerik's rodents are becoming quite a nuisance I'll say. A ratcatcher ought to be called in."

"He was... And you threatened to chop off his fingers." Gerik pointed out.

"All at once! Not one at a time, what do you take me for? At any rate, do hurry along with that, if Lerik's chalkboard doesn't hold out, poor dear Winslow here will have to resort to a juvenile Etch a Sketch to communicate."

Winslow mutely grumbled with a wheeze as he and Destler made their leave for the pub.

Gerik breathed a sigh of relief. "If only I'd worked on my fencing."

"And you still wouldn't be able to best him."

He frowned at the novelized adaption, "A little below the belt there."

Kerik smirked, "Oh that'll come later. As now you owe me."

He patted the stronger built masked man on the back whilst steering them upstairs to Kerik's quarters, passed the Yamaha organ in the parlor.

Gerik groaned taking the box back.

"I was going to try and return this..." He frowned

"You still can."

"And what do I say when they see this?"

Kerik shrugged already loosening the man's cravat, "Damaged during delivery, should I not get a full refund a disaster beyond your imagination will occur?"

Gerik paused to take this all in, with a smile he nodded. "That's good thank you."

Tiny Footnotes as usual in Erik House:

-Panaro partaking in strange foods comes from Hugh Panaro’s “Ask A Star” segement on Broadway . com where he mentions eating various types of crackers, cheese, and horse radish when he was overweight as a kid and trying to lose weight. Coming from Hugh himself after DO NOT follow this example if you want to lose weight.

-Another dig at Gerard Butler’s Scottish heritage when he remarks on the food of choice at Claudin’s game night.

-As Winslow needs his soundbox to properly communicate in PotP he has resorted to writing his words down.

-Gerik being unable to fence or handle a sword as seen in the 2004 film.

[galadrieljones]

that he may hold me by the hand: chapter 2

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x Albert Mason  

Rating: Mature (Adult Themes, Violence, and Sexual Content)

Summary: After saving Albert from stumbling off a cliff in the Heartlands, Arthur invites him to Valentine for a drink. What ensues after that is a quiet love story, in which both men find themselves completely undone.

Masterpost | AO3 | Epigraph

Chapter 2: We don’t have to talk.

Arthur showed up to Strawberry a couple of days early. He played a bunch of blackjack in the speakeasy and won the pot so many times he began to piss people off. He knew how to cheat and calculate cards. He never made for sleight of hand anymore, though he used to. He chewed on coccaine gum at the speakeasy counter on the night before he was set to meet Albert and struck up conversation with a widow who boarded in an apartment in town. Her name was Wanda Eugene, and she had once been married to a rustler named Cody and claimed to have lived in Texas for most of her life.

“I ain’t met a lot of women married to rustlers no more,” said Arthur.

“Well, he’s dead,” said Wanda. “So.”

They were drinking whiskey. “You miss Texas?”

“Most days.”

“What’s keeping you from going back?”

She had wide, tired eyes, but she was mild-looking. Pretty in a plain sort of way. She was probably about Arthur’s age with a tight braid down her back and wearing blue jeans. She said that she could not go back to Texas. She said that every time she even thought about going back, she was met with nightmares of the way her late husband had died. “Shot by a Ranger,” she said. “Three times in the back. They thought he was somebody else. Fucking two-bit assholes.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Arthur.

“Jesus was not there that day, I can assure you. I hate lawmen. I wish they’d all die.”

She openly asked him to spend the night with her then. She said he seemed big and rough, and she missed that sort of man. She was sick of the soft-handed. Arthur found himself oddly flattered. “I ain’t much for temptation, Mrs. Eugene. If I was, you might just be it.”

“Is that a No then?”

“It is.”

She sighed. “Good grief. I’m just so goddam lonely. I’m starting to forget what it is to feel.” She finished her whiskey and ordered another from the bartender who was missing a front tooth. “One for my friend here, too,” she said.

Arthur knew the feeling of which she spoke. He missed the human body. He often wished he still got the inclination to sleep with strangers. And when it came to working girls, he had lost his interest. He felt beyond their wiles, as he could tell that they were all so deadened to touch, they hardly noticed their own needs, and this was not what he wanted. He just wanted something warm, something that would react to him. For a moment, he reconsidered her offer, but ultimately, he just smiled.

“You got a wife, I bet,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he lied. It was easier to lie.

The next day, Arthur woke up late with a headache. He had some oatmeal in the lounge. The proprietor of the hotel in Strawberry was annoying. He spoke regularly of the town as if it were the center of the universe. Arthur wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up and take a vacation. But he didn’t.

He waited and read the newspaper. The front page went on about Valentine and all that had gone down there. SHOOTOUT IN VALENTINE. A whole lot of shit. Arthur sighed, folded the paper in half and set it away. He wore his hat and sat in a chair by the window and smoked, thinking of anything else. People went in and out of the door. He didn’t see Wanda again.

Albert arrived about half-past noon, looking dead beat and like hadn’t slept in days.

“Mr. Mason,” said Arthur, rising to meet him.

Albert sneezed and refused a hand shake.

“What’s going on?” said Arthur. “You sick?”

“I am,” said Albert, blowing his nose into a handkerchief. “I caught a terrible cold a few days back. Truth be told, I thought it would have subsided by now.”

“That ain’t no good.”

“No sir. However, it is good to see you.” He straightened up and removed his hat. He smiled, his kind eyes. He didn’t look so bad upon further inspection. A little puffy maybe.

“It’s good to see you, too,” said Arthur. He took Albert’s bag, told him to take a seat. “You know, we can postpone our journey, if you wanna rest up a bit.”

“No, no,” said Albert. “I’d prefer not to. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“As have I, but I don’t want you to get any sicker.”

“You are a true gentleman, Arthur. But I assure you, I’ll be fine.”

They left about an hour later, packed up their horses and rode northwest. Albert sneezed most of the way but kept up. He was a better rider than Arthur had realized. It was easy to underestimate him. He made a mental note not to do that anymore.

They followed the river. When they got to the heart of Big Valley, Albert slowed his horse and shouted for Arthur to hold up a second. They were in the middle of a huge, purple field of lavender. The breeze was coming through, rustling the plants. There was a flock of sheep nearby, and a young man shepherd on horseback. Whitetail everywhere. “My lord,” said Albert. He got off of his horse, took a few steps and looked around. “Do you see all this?”

“Yes, sir,” said Arthur. He leaned forward to pat Amelia on the main. “It sure is majestic. I knew you’d like it.”

“Like it?” said Albert. “It’s magnificent.” He looked at Arthur, serious, no longer sneezing, just full of reverence. “Thank you for taking me here. I’ve already forgotten why we’ve come, but I am quite certain I never want to leave. It is truly Arcadia.”

Arthur smiled, very pleased. He dusted his hands together and hopped right off his horse. “To find the bear, we gotta go out to the edges of the valley,” he said. “It’s a little more dangerous out there. Kind of barbed territory. There’s cougar and boar. It ain’t friendly. But here, here I reckon we’re pretty safe.”

“If you say so,” said Albert. “I’d like to get a few shots of all this, if you don’t mind. The fields. They smell so darn good. I wish I could capture that in a photo.”

“Only way to do that is in writing, I expect.”

“Absolutely,” said Albert. Then, “Do you write, Arthur?”

The question took Arthur by surprise. He glanced up to the sky. A couple of sparrows took off, whipping up out of the foliage. “Sometimes,” he said. He hooked his hands over his belt in a casual fashion. “I have been known to write a little.”

Albert smiled. “I should like to read it someday, your writing.”

“Oh, no,” said Arthur. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a journal,” said Arthur. “It’s just ramblings. Sketches here and there. It ain’t really intended for an audience.”

“You’re an artist?”

He blushed. “Well, I—”

“Say no more,” said Albert, still effusive but seeming to catch his drift. “I’ll quit prying.”

“That’s okay.”

Albert assembled his camera, his tripod. He took many pictures of the fields. He took pictures of the sheep and the shepherd, the little dog with two different colored eyes that herded the sheep. Arthur watched. He ate a can of strawberries with a little tin spoon, smoked four cigarettes. He and Albert talked of stuff he would later forget about, idle things. Arthur managed to get a few sketches in—one of the dog, one of Albert photographing the dog. They fed the horses and before long, the sun was losing steam and the light growing long and lost across the valley. The bubbling streams filled with herbivores, coming to drink. Albert put away his camera with the loss of the light, and with this, it was too late to go looking for bear. They decided to make camp.

They washed their faces in the creek, set up a couple tents. Arthur caught a fish for their dinner while Albert sat by the fire, rolling cigarettes. He had a particular talent for this. His tobacco product was very neat and looked expensive.

Arthur cleaned and cooked the fish. After dinner, he poured some whiskey into a flask, and night fell. They sat, warming themselves by the fire. Albert gave him one of the cigarettes, struck a match, lit it, and then lit his own. Albert’s cold seemed to be clearing with the fresh air, but now it was getting chilly, and he had grown tired. Arthur rolled some more cigarettes. His were looser than Albert’s, not quite as meticulously sealed.

They sat and smoked for a while, existing. Arthur had a flask of whiskey, which they began to pass. At some point, Albert cleared his throat and sat up to speak. “So, Arthur.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How has everything been going, since I saw you last?”

Arthur glanced at him. He plucked a big old piece of grass from the earth, the cigarette hitched to the corner of his mouth. “Fine,” he said. “Just fine.”

“Are you still living in the Heartlands?”

“No,” he said, shredding that piece of grass between his fingers.

“Oh?” said Albert. “Where have you moved?”

“Further south,” said Arthur, laying the pieces of grass side by side. “Near a big old lake.”

“Flat Iron Lake?”

“That might be the one.”

“Good fishing, or so I hear.”

“That, it is.”

The fire crackled and sparked. It was like molten lava. Albert smoked and blew the smoke and flicked the ashes to the earth. He could tell that Arthur didn’t really want to talk about it. His head was a little stuffy. He blinked, took a drag.

“How you feeling?” said Arthur. “Your cold.”

“Better,” said Albert. “A little tired, but no worse for the wear.”

Arthur picked up a pebble then, tossed it into the fire. Albert took a drink from the flask and watched as Arthur picked up another pebble, held it in his palm, and then he absentmindedly closed it in his fist. He turned his fist over, sort of shook it, and when he opened his hand again, the pebble was gone. It was a marvelous surprise.

Albert laughed and set the flask down between them. “You know magic?”

Arthur seemed to have surprised himself. “A little,” he said, smiling. “I learned sleight of hand when I was kid, for cheating cards. My dad taught me, before he died. And I know a magician, too. He’s taught me a couple of things here and there. We’ve traded tricks over the years.”

“Your father, what did he do?”

“Rob banks mostly.”

“I see.”

“Anyway,” said Arthur.

“I must say,” said Albert. “I’m impressed. Is there anything you can’t do?”

Arthur turned red—like a fast, hot streak in which he seemed to vibrate, but only for a moment. “You flatter me.”

“Maybe you can show me how to do that. It’s a great parlor trick.”

“Do you hang out in many parlors, Albert?”

Albert found this to be funny. He laughed. “Oh, no. Not anymore. Perhaps a long time ago. Back in Pennsylvania, when I was a teenager. But I’ve done with all that.”

"All what.”

“The social circus. What have you.”

“Ah.”

“My interest in photography came about precisely so that I could have an excuse to get out of the house. I suppose that it took, though I am quite dreadful. Still, I try. I enjoy it a great deal.”

“You’re not dreadful, Albert. Quit talking about yourself that way.”

Albert knew that he was right. He was gratified. He took another drink from the flask, passed it. Arthur was a big man beside him. He’d never really sat next to him before. He was taller than Albert, though not a great deal—just enough, and his width, his wingspan, it could intimidate. Albert was not intimidated. He looked down, finished his cigarette, tossed it into the fire. The air was cold, and he shifted toward Arthur a little, almost absentmindedly.

“Hey,” said Arthur after a little while, swigging from the flask.

Albert jumped. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I was just gonna ask, how did that meeting go with the gallery owner?”

“Oh,” said Albert, scratching at his beard a little. “It went well. Thank you for asking. I have another meeting in a few weeks. I’ve promised more material. From the Big Valley, of course.”

“That’s real good, I expect?”

“Yes, sir. It is.”

Arthur stared at him. He seemed a little sad, but it was way in the back somewhere. He took a drink of his whiskey and then looked back at the fire. “Good.”

“Arthur,” said Albert.

“Yep.”

“Thank you for taking me here,” he said. Arthur looked back, genuine. “I’m very fond of the terrain.” Albert took a deep breath. “I’m fond of you. I’m glad you’re with me.”

Arthur looked down at his hands. “Yeah, me, too,” he said, then he looked up and smiled, warm. He had little scars on his face. They were like little pieces taken away, or dents. Here and there. His hands were big and worn. Albert watched as he reached into his front pocket, took out a couple more cigarettes. He held one out for Albert. Albert took it. Their fingers touched. Something kicked up between them, but it was momentary.

“I think I’ll save this.” Albert smiled. “For now, I should be off to sleep. I’m still under the weather. I’d like to be fresh for tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” said Arthur, lighting the cigarette. “I’m gonna keep watch, just for a little while. There’s cougars around here. Sometimes they’re drawn to the smell of a campfire.”

Albert stood up, dusted off his pants. “It’s chilly,” he said. “Don’t stay up too late, and be careful.”

“Don’t worry about me. You get some sleep now, Mr. Mason.”

“Goodnight, Arthur,” said Albert.

“Goodnight.”

Back in his tent, Albert removed his boots and his hat. He scrubbed his scalp a little. He smoothed his beard, looked down at his fingers where he held the cigarette. Then he tucked it into the band of his hat. He lay back and closed his eyes. He could smell the smoke from Arthur’s cigarette, coming in through the tent flaps. Arthur’s tobacco was fresh and cut with a little bit of sweetness. He couldn’t tell what, but he could tell that Arthur had dried and treated it himself. It was not store-bought. Albert felt disoriented all of a sudden, like he was coming apart a little. He turned onto his side to go to sleep.

Meanwhile, Arthur fell asleep next to the fire, hardened into the dirt as a root. He hadn’t meant to drift, but the night was peaceful, and he’d got woozy from the booze and it made his eyes droop. He rarely dreamed in those days. It was almost as if he was too locked down, too unwilling to look behind the curtain of his own subconscious, for fear of what he might find there. But that night, he had a dream. It was a very simple dream. He dreamed that a pretty buck had come down into the valley while he slept. The sky was a cold and lonely mountain, far away, and he was beneath it, waiting. The buck had twelve points. It entered the moonlight, emerging from a shallow den of trees on the edge of the lavender field. He wanted badly to sketch it, but he knew that he was sleeping, and it would be gone by the time he woke. He dreamed that the buck came over to sniff around the campfire. It sniffed around his face. Its cold nose was on his ear. He tried to make sense of the feeling. He awoke.

What he awoke to was nothing so peaceful. He felt that cold touch on his ear, but it was no buck. It was the mouth of a gun, pressing on his face. It was nudging him into consciousness.

“It’s him,” said a voice.

Arthur opened his eyes. It was dawn. He saw a young man—maybe twenty-four or twenty-five years old—a ruffian with missing teeth in the front wearing a long black coat. He looked serious. He was holding a shotgun to Arthur’s head.

Arthur felt the adrenaline, sucking into his chest and yanking him from the dream. Like being plunged into ice cold water, and it near on made him nauseous. He eased his hands over his head, turned onto his back. “Easy,” he said. “Easy, boy.”

“Shoot him,” said another voice.

“Colm said bring him to Hanging Dog alive,” said the boy.

Arthur was suddenly terrified. He glanced to the tent. He saw that it had been roughed up. Then he saw the other guy—he had Albert by the throat with a pistol to the head, and Albert looked white with fear and a little queasy. He was ragged, unnatural with his hands up like that. It triggered something in Arthur. He initially made to lunge, but he caught a boot to the gut for that, sending him to his side curled up like a goddam snail. The sound he’d made was ugly. He felt bludgeoned with regret, as he knew what he was going to have to do. “You’re making a mistake,” he said.

“You’re coming with us,” said the boy. “You go quiet, and we’ll let your friend here live.”

“Yeah, I don’t really believe you.”

“Arthur?” said Albert. “Arthur, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Arthur. “Try not to talk too much, Mr. Mason.”

“If you say so.”

“Get up,” said the boy, nudging Arthur with the gun.

“You nudge me with that gun one more time, boy, things ain’t gonna pan out too smooth for you in the end.”

“Get up.” He nudged him again, this time too hard.

It went by in an instant after that. Arthur was fast when he wanted to be, ruthless. He grabbed the barrel of the gun with both hands, shoved it up, hard, cracking straight into the kid’s dumbass face. It sort of exploded on impact, his nose neatly broken as he stumbled backward, allowing Arthur to usurp the weapon and shove the boy into the dirt and shoot him dead. Arthur then pointed the gun at the second man, the one who had Albert. He was a young man as well, even younger by the looks of it, and Arthur felt terrible inside, like he was looking in a mirror. “Let him go, or I do you up, too,” he said.

The boy sent Albert forward to his hands and knees with little hesitation. Then he stared at Arthur in abject horror for a moment before picking up and running as fast as he could in the other direction. Arthur lowered the gun, let him go. He went to Albert who coughed and beat his fists into the dirt a couple times. He seemed to have got the wind knocked out of him. Arthur hauled him to his feet and steadied him hard. “You okay?” he said, dusting off his vest. “Albert? Talk to me.”

Albert was out of breath, his shirt untucked but he did have his boots on. “Good heavens,” he said. He lurched forward a little with his hands on his knees. “Is that man dead?”

Arthur patted him on the back. “I’m afraid he is. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Better him than me.”

“They ambush you in your tent or something?”

“No,” said Albert, popping up now, wiping his face with the yellow handkerchief from his pocket. “I went down to the creek, to get some water. They ambushed me there.” He sneezed.

“You went down to the creek alone?”

“I thought I could handle a few whitetail,” he said. “Those men showed up, asked me who you were. I wouldn’t tell them, so the one grabbed me, dragged me back here, and then the next thing you know, you’re shooting people, and my entire life is flashing before my eyes.” He sneezed again.

Arthur straightened up and sighed. “Bless you.”

“Thank you,” said Albert. He took a deep breath. “Boy I’ve got some luck, don’t I.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” said Arthur. “But we do need to get the hell out of here.”

“I couldn’t agree more. You know, I think the shots I got yesterday, of the lavender fields and the herd of sheep, those are better than anything I’ve gotten so far? No black bear, but bears be damned. I’m through with predators.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I am.” He turned to Arthur then, slowly, finally catching his breath. “Thank you. For saving me.”

“Of course. I wasn’t gonna let them kill you,” said Arthur. “And I sure as hell wasn’t going with them.”

“Did you know who they were?”

“Not really,” said Arthur, scratching his head. He looked around, making sure nobody else was coming up the horizon. “I mean—I know there’s rough stuff around these parts. I should’ve been more careful. I thought we was safe.”

“With you, I am always safe,” said Albert. “I just wish I were a little more aware of my surroundings. It’s always been a problem for me. As you well know. When I was a boy, my father used to shout at me to get my head out of the clouds. Told me to quit chasing the damned butterflies. That was before the cholera got him, of course.”

Arthur threw the shotgun over his shoulder by the strap, studied Albert. “Cholera, huh?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Well, don’t be too down on yourself. You held your own back there.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You didn’t give in to those men. That’s very brave.”

Albert smiled in spite of himself. Then, he stumbled forward, just a little. Arthur caught him by the shoulders. “My word,” said Albert. “I guess I’m still a little dizzy.”

“Just try to breathe. In through your nose, out your mouth.”

“You’re kind, Mr. Morgan.”

Arthur cleared his throat. “I ain’t kind, Mr. Mason.”

“Well, to me, you are kind.” Albert smiled and took a deep breath. He seemed to blink many times as if to acclimate his vision. “Now, if you don’t mind, let’s please go.”

They packed up their camp, stowed the bedrolls and the tents and all of their earthly goods upon their horses. Arthur let Albert hang onto the canteen. They then mounted up and began riding back toward Strawberry at a pleasant trot. Arthur did not think about how that man he had killed back there, the man trying to abduct him, was an O'Driscoll. He tossed Albert an apple and then shined one up for himself.

“What are your plans now?” said Arthur as they came around the curve. The rocks, the terrain in these parts was beautiful, but treacherous. “You heading back right away?”

“I thought I’d stay the night at the hotel,” said Albert. “Take the train back to St. Denis in the morning.”

“Sounds good,” said Arthur. “Maybe I’ll go with you.”

“Oh?”

“Sure,” he said, biting into that apple. “Where I’m camped, on Flat Iron Lake, it ain’t far from Rhodes.”

“Rhodes?” said Albert. “My, what a dreadful little town.”

“You’re telling me.”

“You know I stopped through there once,” said Albert, “just looking for a drink at the parlor house they've got. Four different men asked me where I stood on the War of Northern Aggression. Of course, they were all neanderthals, and far be it from me to correct them on the fact that it’s 1899. I thought I’d keep my front teeth.”

Arthur laughed out loud at this, tossed the apple core to the weeds. “You still make me laugh, Mr. Mason, the way you talk sometimes.”

“Well,” said Albert, a little bashful for this. He trotted up alongside him. “I certainly do try.”

[ragingemerson]

Faith is like a fire that never burns to embers → Self-Para

They can take my heart They can take my breath When they pry it from my cold, dead chest

Skillet — The Resistance

It was only a matter of time before the Tsunami was breached. All Emerson could do was keep bullets in her gun and her crew alive. She had to. They weren’t hers to risk.

She had to force down the panic that threatened to overtake her. She had to force it away and she had to make sure everyone stayed in her line of sight. If this was a full crew to her third of one, it was three to a person. Depending on the other crew’s fighting skills, she could take three people down with no problem. There was no other choice. Emerson couldn’t leave a single member of that crew alive and she wouldn’t. There was no room for mercy in this, no room for mistakes.

She flicked the safety off her gun, her jaw tightening as she felt the impending sense of doom rising like bile in her throat. No backing down. No room for mistakes. No time to turn back around and run. Magazines remained in the inside the pocket of her jacket.

It was like something out of a bad pirate movie. She spotted the plank linking the ships together and it was there that she spotted the name of the ship.

Poseidon’s Wrath.

She knew that name from when the Tsunami and Oceania were procured. They’d fought for the Tsunami and won. There was a Tulach in every region, thus driving out other pirates from their turf. The sound of gunfire was deafening as she hunted around for an ax, anything to keep them from breaching the ship.

“Breach!” she yelled as more clamored onboard. Emerson had to push the fear away. The dread. The guilt. None of that mattered when it came to keeping these people alive. Her head whipped around to look for someone familiar to either help them or have them help her. The ax came down hard on the wood to splinter it before someone else came on board. Her shoulders ached from exertion, but she fought to keep from falling overboard as the ship lurched violently under her feet. “Fuck.”

She caught sight of John on the deck above her. Instead of a hook that she was certain he’d go for, he’d clearly opted for a porcelain-white prosthetic hand to replace the one she’d cut off with the same ax she’d dropped on the ground.

“Surprised to see me again, Tulach? I told you I’d make you pay.”

The fear gave way to anger. Emerson was no longer afraid of dying and the fury radiated off her in near physical waves. Her vision was somewhat hindered by the dark hair plastered to her face due to the sea water spraying every which way.

“You’ve gone two long years without any form of consequences.”

A sneer curled on her lips and a dark laugh shook her form. “The consequence of your unfortunate existence is punishment enough, Roberts,” she replied. As he spoke, she marveled at how easily distracted he was. He was making the worst mistake by exposing his weak side to her. A simple bullet to the carotid and he would bleed out within minutes. It was then that she spotted the knife in his good hand. Twenty feet. Within twenty feet, any somewhat decent fighter could hold their own against someone with a gun.

If she was going to fight, it had to be good. As soon as the blade was pointed in her direction, her finger squeezed the trigger. The crack reverberated around the ship among the fighting. The beady dark eyes rolled back into his skull and John sank to the ground.

“Maybe us modern pirates have something to us after all. Can’t do that with a musket, can you?” she mused as she nudged him off deck with the toe of her boot. Scarlet blood stained the planks below her feet, diluted by the rain pelting the ship.

Each toss of the waves against the Tsunami had Emerson clutching the rails with each lurch, forcing her to holster her pistol. If it wasn’t for the anchors, she’d worry about who was in control. A sweep of the ship had all six of her comrades in her line of sight. Going down the stairs unarmed was risky, especially when she could only count a few of the people from the opposite ship.

She needed to keep them there. They were all stronger together and she had to be their backup. Miles, by now, had to have locked down the island. Everyone else would be safe.

Through the sea water and rain stinging her eyes, she could see Flynn’s back. More importantly, the man with the gun poised to shoot in front of her. “Sawyer, on your right!”

No response.

Before the other could pull the trigger, Emerson squeezed hers. A deafening gunshot sang through the air, the bullet neatly hitting the other pirate in the back of the head. He sank on to the ground. Through the curtain of pouring rain, she could only just make out Flynn’s lanky figure. She knew Eli’s silhouette that was nearly dwarfed by the navigator she’d known for so long. There hadn’t been time to think, only act. What she needed to do was find the Captain in charge of this little expedition and finish this. A dead Captain denoted the victor. Emerson wouldn’t let this be her end; she was far too stubborn to let it end this way. She fought too hard for her Captaincy only to lose it in her first major battle.

The wolves of the sea. That was what Cyd had called them before Emerson had even settled on a figurine for the ship. She had gone from innocent prey to a predator. The sins of the father were paid by the children and she’d come too far to turn back now. Adrenaline coursed through her veins and it made each sickening punch to her adversaries that much sweeter. Emerson eagerly welcomed each strike against her body. The pain meant she was alive. The yells of pain from her adversary meant she was winning.

Whoever this elusive Captain was, they were waiting for her to tire before making their presence known. It was a coward’s tactic and she was able to deduce that they were older. It meant they were likely too slow to keep up with her. Inexperience had its perks. Pure dumb luck was on their side.

It was the click of an empty clip that pulled her from her reverie. Several clicks. She turned around to see someone being dragged to the ground with Flynn. What followed after was a barrage of closed-fist hits, each one with his full weight behind it. The rain, gunfire, yells, all of it faded away for just a moment as her focus shifted. Flynn was losing it.

This was where she needed to step in, her focus shifted to Flynn. Despite the battle going around, this was something he didn’t need to do. Emerson knew the risk of startling him, but her fingers tangled into the same shirt they’d tangled themselves into earlier, only this time was much different.

“Flynn, Flynn,” she told him, this time her fingers tightened on his shoulder. Anything to reach him. “Don’t do it, love. He’s not worth it.” Emerson’s filter vanished and her mouth was on autopilot. It was a risk to show such softness on the battlefield, but her words seemed to penetrate into his psyche when the damaging blows lessened until they ceased. His dark eyes pierced her to the core and she released his shoulder, her hand falling to her side before curling into a fist.

She needed to find that Captain and end this. Once and for all, either this showdown would result in her death or in his. Emerson wasn’t about to go down with anything less than the fight of a lifetime. If she failed, her father’s plan fell apart. The royals would fall into even less capable hands than a Tulach.

Her boots squeaked on the wood as she climbed the stairs, just as the ship swayed. This time, her balance teetered and her grip tightened on the railing.

“Come on, Captain! You wanted my attention and you fucking got it. Let’s fucking finish this!” she taunted. The ledge of the cabin caught the heel of her boot in time for another heave to catch her off guard just right and fall. Her head collided with the ground hard enough to bounce and she shifted her weight to roll on to her side, albeit sluggishly.

Her legs didn’t work at first and her vision blurred even worse now than with the rain. Emerson could feel her face tingle, focused on her nose. Someone’s hand clasped around hers to pull her to her feet and she could only hope it was one of her people. Based on the lack of pain radiating from a punch from a perfect opportunity, it was someone she knew. For the life of her, however, she couldn’t focus on the face enough to see who it was until she staggered forward to lock eyes towards the sky.

Roza.

“‘M fine,” Emerson mumbled, dropping her hand to her side. Fuck, she couldn’t focus. Her footing scrambled even worse on the wet floorboards. A storm was the perfect setting for a sea battle. How the fuck had they planned this so well?

At least at first glance, she could count all her people. Cyd, Cyd’s twin brother that she didn’t know he had up until then, Roza and her doppelganger that somehow snuck on board. Blinking the fog away, she stumbled blindly for anything to use as a weapon. Deep down, Emerson knew she was in no state to fight.

That was, until she spotted the only person she hadn’t recognized. Perfectly unscathed. He wasn’t as tall as she would have pictured, probably a hair under six feet. Lanky, scarred, with grey peppering his dark hair.

He’d hidden away, let his crew weaken her, before going in for the kill. Fucking coward.

“Big, bad man is so scared of a little girl that you had to let your boys rough me up before you could swoop in for the kill?” she taunted. His grey eyes tightened at her words and Emerson knew she’d struck a nerve. “You want to take my turf, you want to take my ship, you want to kill me, but you’re too much of a coward to do it when I’m full strength.” All fogginess lifted for a moment, but the ground still swayed abruptly beneath her unsteady feet. Her weight was off kilter and she still couldn’t grasp her footing, but she’d be damned if she didn’t die trying.

No, she wasn’t dying. Not yet. She wouldn’t let some coward pirate be the death of her.  

“It’s a shame I can’t keep you as a pet,” he said smoothly. His voice was deceptive. Warm and smooth, like good coffee.

“I’d kill you in your sleep,” she stated. Her mouth and her arrogance were her downfall; she was far too cocky for someone who needed help rescuing things from high shelves. “You’re a fucking coward.”

Even if he was shorter than her brothers, he still towered over her. Her head turned from the force of his slap across her face and she tasted the coppery tang of blood on her tongue.

Oh, fuck no.

Head injury or not, she wasn’t letting it fly. Her fingers balled into a fist at her side before she delivered a solid punch to his mouth. Emerson wouldn’t put it past him to sneak a gun or a knife on her as they struggled. She needed to be careful, but it was doubly hard to fight someone when her head was working against her and the ship swayed with every white-peaked dark grey wave that tossed at each side. Gravity was working against her, but she fought. She could feel pain lancing through her side, her face, but she fought hard. Every punch landed bruised the skin of her knuckles, every time she fell, she sprang back up.

It wasn’t a concussion; the fall from the cabin had only dazed her. She could feel her strength returning, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Her siblings had never let her win a single sparring session, her parents had never let her win a chess match, and it was for this reason. Emerson would win on skill alone. Skill, brute strength, and a steady refusal to let anybody best her. He wouldn’t kill her because she was too goddamned stubborn to die.

Her fingers closed on one of Cyd’s many pairs of brass knuckles she’d snagged from him in the past. The metal fit snugly, almost as if they were specially made for her smaller hands. Realistically, it could have been.

The crunch of bone when the brass connected with his face was easily one of the most satisfying sounds she’d ever heard, but she let out a squeak as his fingers found purchase on her throat. He squeezed and she scrabbled for control.

No.

No, no, no, no.

The brass knuckles clattered to the floor on the deck, her legs kicking out as she struggled. Her lungs burned for air as she pulled at his fingers, anything to get the air she so desperately craved. Emerson struggled as the other Captain lowered her to the deck. Darkness blurred in the edges of her vision, spots dancing in her eyes.

“I win,” he growled and Emerson felt her head slam down on the deck, this time it was twice.

No, no, no, no, no.

The grip loosened as her consciousness was ebbing. Emerson’s muscles were loose as her hands dropped to the ground. Golden eyes barely registered the gun pointed at her head. Hers. In the struggle, she hadn’t even realized he’d grabbed it off her person.

“Any last words?”

Emerson wouldn’t give him that. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of him having her last words. It was bad enough that she was wrong. Besides, there was a certain poetry for her last words being that he was a fucking coward, because he was.

Her will was stronger than her body, but even arrogance reached its limit. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her last words or her acceptance of her fate.

Click.

Misfire. The gun jammed.

Emerson blinked bleary eyes and shoved herself up. This time, she knew it was a concussion that staggered her steps and slowed her down. It had happened once before when she was younger, but this time, her adrenaline kicked in. With a flash, she knocked the gun out of his hand, sending it sliding across the ship.

“I don’t fucking think so.” He went for his knife and she lunged for the gun. It was then that she realized the gun hadn’t jammed; the safety was still on. She used the brass knuckles for a solid deck to the jaw, this time the bone broke. She lunged, only for the clip to be dropped from the handle.

Emerson grabbed the gun, flicking off the safety, and aimed it directly at him. “You think you’re the one that gets to kill me?” There was her arrogance. Her cockiness, her overconfidence that had left her for dead. “I’m Emerson fucking Tulach. And I’m fucking crazy.”

“There are no bullets in the gun, you stupid bitch,” he sneered, though his words were slurred.

Emerson’s hand rested on the slide, prepping the bullet in the chamber. “That’s the trick when you drop a clip. You need to get the one out of the chamber,” she replied before a smirk curled on her lips. “Alea iacta est. Bitch.”

The bullet hit him between the eyes and his body slumped on to the deck.

It was over. Finally. She stumbled backwards a step or two, the rain having ceased. Her wet clothes hung from her petite frame, clinging to her like a second skin. Her hair plastered to her face and her breath left her lungs in ragged pants. Adrenaline seemed to leave just as quickly as it spurred her on and she buckled, only for a pair of strong hands to grip her around the waist.

Cyd.

With the other Captain dead, her body was losing the fight with consciousness. Perhaps her stubbornness had won once again. Her head lolled back against Cyd’s broad shoulder and she gave a snort. “You ever get tired of bailing my dumb ass out of fixes?” she commented as she was helped down the steps towards the main deck. A quick sweep counted all five, save for herself and Cyd. He’d come through yet again, same as he always had. Out of anyone Emerson could have picked for a First Mate, Cyd was by far her best choice. He was her best and truest friend.

She leaned against the cabin door, her head resting against it. “Poseidon’s Wrath is ours. Search the ship and you lot can take what you want. I’ll get there soon,” she told them.

Flynn would need to get them home. Roza would need to tend to the injured because from the looks of Eli, he was in no shape. Neither was Emerson. She wasn’t in any shape to give orders, even, but that was what Cyd was for; stepping in when she couldn’t.

All Emerson wanted was the medical supplies, the Poseidon bust off the helm of the ship, and the black box. Maybe all the alcohol on board as a keepsake. Anything else could go to the others.

Once everyone seemed satisfied with their spoils, she pulled out her now-soaked phone to see the missed text from Miles.

Be safe.

She’d be home soon. A lockdown would ensue and she’d make sure everyone was safe.

“Let’s go home.”

[clarketomylexa]

It Rained In Seattle

Clexa Week 2018, Day 2, Constantly Mistaken For A Couple | read on ao3 | part II

The sun shone and the flowers bloomed and it rained in Seattle.

Those were the truths that Clarke knew, but in peeling the water-logged raincoat back from the three-year-old’s cough-rattled frame, she wished she didn’t, if only to save the way her heart cracked under the weight of the ugly sound.

Who thought adopting a child on her own would be a good idea, anyway? In a city she hadn’t grown up in, without the support of her parents? She realised now with corroding guilt why the social working had looked at her askance when Clarke explained her situation.

Legally, the stiff-nosed woman with her clipboard and bic pen couldn’t do anything to stop the adoption going through. Clarke had good a good job with better prospects – the name Griffin, as in Abigail Griffin the chief of Neuro at Mount Sinai had its perks –  and a stable home environment that would be certainly better for the orphaned victim of the car wreck that had killed her parents than the group home social services had set up for her. But she had advised Clarke, strongly one might say, to find a sturdy support system.

Seven months later, drowning in online forums and sugar-free juice boxes, that was the one thing the blonde was still in search for.

The rained sleeted down. The handle of her front door was stagnant under her heavy-handed rattle. “Shit.” Clarke shook the pockets of her rain jacket as the face of the little girl by her knees twisted comically. “Andy,” the blonde counched on the wet stone of her stoop, grimacing at the dampness that seeped through the denim. “Do you know where Mommy put her keys?”

The three-year-old jabbed a wet finger at the glass panel beside the door and Clarke groaned at the sight of her kering sitting on the hall table. Her phone was dead too – it had been on ten percent when they left the house for a park down the street that they had found sodden and water-logged.

Andy coughed, a harsh, wet sound that rattled in her chest and Clarke winched, adjusting the neckline of her sweater over the three-year-old’s collarbone, thinking about her keys and how she had managed to walk out of the house without them.

It had been a hectic afternoon admittedly, Andy was fussy and the both of them were going stir-crazy from cabin fever – ‘Dora’ was only education the first four times around. But there had been a break in the weather, her little girl had sat herself in front of the window in the living room with Gilbert the ill-proportioned bear wedged under her chin, to watch the passage of the lone patch of blue across the sky. Tugging on the cuff of Clarke’s sweater and prying her from her laptop on the kitchen counter when it was above them. She had big eyes and Clarke’s memorized promise on her lips, the one she had made the day she was late picking Andy up from daycare because she had had to cover another doctor’s shift with unbound reluctance because it meant she couldn’t take her little girl to the park on the way home.

Which way why Clarke had caved so easily when Andy reminded her with big eyes, and had bundled her into rainboots and a coat, trying to ignore the annoying inkling that told her she wasn’t doing enough as she sat on the cool bench by the playground and watched the three-year-old splash puddle water into her boots.

She told herself Andy didn’t care – that at her age she was more preoccupied with the crepe paper hearts her daycare teacher had promised they would make for Valentines next week – but Clarke was a hot mess with a three-year-old and a month-old promotion that had her working like a pack mule. This was going to be the straw that broke her.

Pressing Andy’s frame to the side of her leg, Clarke eyed her neighbours porch across the dip of their shared driveway. Hers was a contemporary looking, semi-detached townhouse that her mother had helped her fund when she got her residency out here and the yellow-gold light spilling from the glass encased entrance next to her was like a beacon against the steadying dim of early evening.

Mouth twisting, Clarke made her choice.

“C’mon sweetheart,” she cooed, She pulled the child onto her hip, feeling her feet swing in their dripping rain boots and draped her sodden yellow rain jacket over her arm. Andy sneezed, cold nose in Clarke’s neck and she pulled her closer.

“Lexa?” Andy whined, tongue tripping through her teeth.

“Yeah,” Clarke confirmed, pressing the doorbell with a bluing finger and brushing limp strands of blonde hair out of her face, hoping she didn't look like a drowned sewer dweller as she bounced Andy further up her him, shivering involuntarily.

A dog yipped behind the door. ‘Fish!’ the familiar voice barked in retaliation. ‘Upstairs,’ it ordered, ‘now.’ When her neighbour opened the door she was sweater-clad and glasses-wearing – round, tortoiseshell frames around her eyes – jeans rolled up at the ankle showcasing ridiculous Pippy Long Stocking-esque striped socks.

“Hi.” Clarke trapped her breath in her chest and appraised Lexa’s reaction to them, rain soaked and shivering, but the brunette grinned.

“The intrepid adventurers are back from the park, I see,” she smiled and it warmed Clarke from her stomach. Intrepid was certainty a word for them, mud clung to their boots and there was wet grass in Andy’s hair from a head-first dive off the wet slide.

Clarke smiled, “I’m sorry,” she apologised in earnest. “I left my keys inside and the security company has the spare but my phone is flat, would you mind if I called them from your landline?” Andy sneezed again, violently so that the tremors shook her frame and Clarke soothed her hands up the vertebrae of her spine thinking that the timing couldn’t have been better if Clarke had coached her.

“Not at all,” Lexa opened the door for them and Clarke sagged in an all-encompassing kind of relief that echoed in her cold bones. She toed off her rain boots, juggling child and sodden rain jacket and Lexa tsked quietly.

“Here,” she offered, her voice a low hum. She pulled a shivering Andy into her arms and the child found solace in the warmth of the familiar sweatered chest, giggling a half-hearted ‘exa,’ syllables slurred into one another in exhaustion.

It was past six, Clarke guessed, they would usually be halfway through dinner and thinking about a bath now, as per the haphazard routine Clarke had established when an online parenting website had prescribed it as a must. She was still ironing out the kinks of it; understanding that Andy was fussy about eating dinner – the dietitian was third on her to-do list – but clapped happily through her bath. How the three-year-old should be put down early because the usually outgoing child clung to Clarke like a bush baby at the prospect of her bed and how she was skittish around busy highways so that Clarke had to stick to suburban streets and ease her back into it as per the suggestion of the family therapist they had appointments with monthly.

Hands now free, Clarke hung her dripping jacket on the hook by the door, hanging Andy’s by the hood over the top of her own, fingers trailing the short expanse of waterproof material before she lined up their boots beneath the rack and wiggled her toes in the sagging ends of her socks. She peeled them off too.

“How did her vaccinations go on Tuesday?” Lexa asked as they made their way upstairs. Clarke’s hair hung limp and there was water under the collar of her sweater. She wrung it out with cold hands.

“Good,” Clarke nodded, “she fussed a bit at the doctor’s office but I bribed her with mint-chip ice-cream and she brightened up.”

“Ah,” Lexa grinned, “you have good taste Dee.” Andy smiled at the soft nickname and Lexa pressed a messy kiss to where the three-year-old’s temple met the unruly line of her unbrushed hair and released the child, feet kicking in soggy socks, onto the plush carpet of Lexa’s living room. They watched her go wheeling to the sofa in a tangle of uncoordinated limbs where the golden-brown labrador puppy cocked his head, ear fur frizzing like it had had a blow out.

“Fish!,” Andy squealed, greeting her self-proclaimed best friend. Fish yipped in happy reply, his wet nose raising to her hands. “Mommy,” her little finger pointed, “is Fish!”

“I see that baby.” Clarke stopped by her daughter on the way to where Lexa’s landline sat perched on the wall in the kitchen, readjusting the part in her hair with cold fingers – apologising in profuse little whispers for the cold – and combed the wet bangs down her forehead. A haircut, she decided, would be bumped up to fifth, above find new cereal but below procuring a spare key.

“No, house ‘b’,” Clarke raked a hand through the messy tendrils of hair freeing themselves from her half-professional bun, phone to her ear. The security company was doing its best to make her unproductive as she sat in the on call room, the long sleeve under her scrubs pushed up to her elbow.

“Do you have your four digit pin?”

Fingers fisted in her in the hair by her temple, Clarke pressed her eyes, visualising the mess of papers in the metal odds and ends rack on the kitchen bench. She would have written the pin for the security company on a post-it when she had signed up originally but she couldn’t for the life of her remember. “No,” she groaned in reply. Someone knocked on the door. “Look,” she reasoned, “can I get back to you in a day or so, I’m on call.”

“Of course ma’am.”

“Thanks.”

She ended the call and tucked her phone into the pocket of her scrubs and shrugged on her coat back on, crossing the room to open the door.

“How’s the Mrs.?”

Cocky smirk and powder blue scrubs, the dark haired nurse slung herself across the doorframe, ponytail scraped tight on the crown of her head and seemingly unphased with the dark smudge of blood on her shirt.

“You’re not funny, Octavia,” Clarke informed her as they walked. “Really?” the brunette grinned, “because I’ve been told otherwise.”

“Then you’ve been told wrong.” Clarke skimmed a patient's charts that was handed to her by a waiting intern and handed them back with a nod and a short, ‘give me five.’ She couldn’t say she regretted telling the brunette about her quiet neighbour with the labrador puppy that helped with Andy when she needed it – Octavia was the first person she became friendly with in the city and it was nice to have a confidant that wasn’t her mother a thousand miles away over the phone. Still, the teasing was getting old, Clarke refused to believe she was as smitted as her friend said.

“Anyway, it wasn’t Lexa it was the security company,” Clarke corrected her, “I called them about getting a spare key and they’re being about as helpful as usual.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Octavia hummed, like the considerably less exciting answer was a buzzkill. “We’re having after-shift drinks tonight,” she reminded the doctor, “you’re invited. Indebted practically since you’ve missed the last four times.”

“I can’t, O, I have to pick my kid up.”

Octavia picked at her scrubs and sniffed, “wow,” she teased, “that’s sad.” But the look Clarke gave her – the terse ‘please, O, I’m on the end of my tether’ look that had become a staple with the blonde – silenced her effectively. Octavia knew the weight that had descended on her friend since the introduction of Andy into her life as much as she knew the light the spread to the blonde’s eyes every time someone mentioned the three-year-old. She cared about Andy because she loved her immeasurably and no matter how many times the hospital staff had told Clarke it would be fine to bring her in every once in the while – she was the resident hospital kid, spending a month in the peds wing before Clarke offered to take her in – the doctor still felt she wasn’t doing enough. That much was painfully obvious.

“It’s okay,” the brunette conceded as they came up to a curtained off bed in the end of a ward. “I’m sure you and Lexa will have a lovely evening.”

“Octavia, if I hear another word about the romance you’ve built up between myself and my neighbour, I swear to god –” she raked the curtain back, Octavia on her heels, “– hello, Mrs. Ward, how are we this morning –” The woman replied ‘good’ and nodded in reply to the doctors perfunctory questions. She signed off the patient charts on the clipboard and shut the curtain. “She helps out with Andy,” she informed the nurse shortly, “that’s it. She doesn't like me.”

“But you like her.”

“That’s besides the question.”

“Au contraire, doctor, I believe that is precisely the question.”

Saved from further interrogation by the shrill fring of her phone, Clarke felt her heart-rate skyrocket insurmountably at the caller ID: ‘Andy’s Daycare’. She unlocked it swiftly, swallowing. “This is Clarke.”

“Hello, yes, this is Emma, from the daycare center. I’m calling about Andy.”

Clarke could feel the headache descending in her temples like the vestiges of a summer storm. “Is she okay?”

“She isn’t feeling well –” well versed, the woman on the line went to assure the doctor before she could complete her intake of breath, “– it isn’t serious. She was sick about ten minutes ago and has a mild temperature so we think it might be a stomach bug but center policy says we need you to take her home in case it’s contagious.”

She could feel the concern in Octavia’s eyes on her back where she was turned from the hall, toe of her sensible shoes kicking the linoleum. A stomach bug? She didn’t recall Andy’s teacher saying one had been going around the last time she picked her up. Or had she? Did they have child friendly painkillers at home? She resolved to swing past the pharmacy on the way to the carpark. Fisting her hand in the free tendrils of her hair, Clarke nodded, “yes,” she breathed, “yes, okay. I can be there in twenty minute.”

“Thanks, Clarke.”

“Okay, Emma.”

To Octavia, she said, “Andy isn’t well. I need to pick her up, it’s center policy.” It was a question, not a statement and the nurse nodded immediately.

“I can find cover for your shift,” she nodded, “is the kid okay?”

“Yes, it isn’t serious. They think it’s a stomach bug.” She tailed Clarke along the hall to the locker room where the blonde tugged at the mechanism of her locker until her hands shook in frustration and she had to nudge the blonde out of the way.

“Hey,” she hummed, aware of the other doctors, changing in and out of clean and dirtied scrubs. “Clarke, take a breath.” She watched her sit down on the bench in the aisle before unlocking it, handing her friend street clothes, jeans and a jacket to go over the long-sleeve rolled up under her scrubs, all of which the blonde took gingerly and pulled on without a word until she was finished and tucking her hair back again with the hairband clinging to her wrist. “Thanks, O.”

“Just take care of the kid,” she grinned, as she headed back into the hall, “and I’m still waiting on an invite to that house-warming.”

“I’ve been here for a year, it doesn’t count as a house-warning anymore!” Clarke hollered after her.

She grabbed her things – keys, wallet, phone bag – and headed to the parking lot.

She had an early shift tomorrow. She had planned on leaving Andy with Lexa in the morning as the brunette had offered to drop the three-year-old at the daycare center on her way to work, should she call her and tell her it probably wouldn't be necessary? If they were sending her home today it wasn’t likely they would let her back tomorrow. Clarke stared at her phone in the passenger seat, Octavia’s teases ringing in her head like a middle school taunt and suddenly found her situation inexplicably awkward. What were they doing?

She had to admit their relationship was unconventional at best. Friend who juggle child care would be apt, but Lexa knew some of the most intimate details of Clarke’s domestic life – the mundane mutterings at the end of a work day, the way she liked her coffee – in a way that made her sure it was more than that. Not to mention her dog was an endless source of entertainment for a fussy toddler.

Pushing her key into the ignition, she listed these things in her head as she turned onto the road, finding solace in the grey-black asphalt where existentialism lay, hands dancing on the leather of her steering wheel. She worked her thumb into a seam in the hard material.

Clarke hadn’t thought much of her neighbour when the brunette had moved in eleven months ago. The truck in their shared drive, muddy dog at her side. Her first thought had been to hope the white-gold animal wouldn’t keep her up at night but the soft-spoken woman and her labrador weren’t influencers in her insular world until they intercepted her on her doorstep five months later – the brunette’s brow dipped delicately and hair around her ears as she asked if a potential hostage situation could be the cause of the streaming child trying to Houdini her way out of the doctor’s arms.

Clarke couldn’t tell if she was joking.

Her eyes were disarming, verdant green, more-so than the greying-green grass on the verge as she offered to hold something while Clarke unlocked the door.

‘No kidnapping,’ the blonde assured her but her laugh grated on her teeth, felt like a plea for help. ‘She’s, uh, she’s mine.’

‘Yours?’

Clarke nodded and chewed her bottom lip. Barely two months into guardianship and it felt grossly disrespectful to call Andy hers. The thought ate at her. ‘Now she is.’

Lexa cocked her head. She had little dents on the bridge of her nose and reading glasses protruding from her jean pocket, Clarke could see the outline under the hem of her sweater.

‘She’s adopted.’

‘Ah.’

Andy squawked unhappily and Clarke was forced to let her down before she hurt herself. The daycare center had told her the toddler had been disruptive all day, she didn’t sleep when the other children were sleeping, she found out how to rattle the sides of her crib to wake the others and she had been temper tantruming when Clarke picked her up. She watched the three-year-old flee down the hallway, face like thunder and ruddy cheeks, with anxiety clawing at her chest and the ever growing reminder to baby proof. ‘And I’m in over my head.’

‘We all have those days. Tell – uh –’ watching Lexa stutter was like a strange contradiction to the times she had spoken to her over swapped out mail and the offending neighbour on the left hand side of them’s late night habits. The brunette was eloquent, she spoke in a timbre that Clarke likened to a lullaby but the blush that cowered under the high neck of her sweater now proved otherwise. Clarke only wished she could tuck her hair back and tease her about her ears turning pink. ‘Tell me if you ever need help, yeah? It’s just me and Fish over here,’ the brunette jerked a thumb to her house, ‘I don’t mind, honestly.’

Clarke nodded, chin dipping, ‘yeah,’ she decided, with a smile, ‘okay.’

She was certain if she analysed when ‘tell me if you ever need help’ had turned to Saturday playdates and Lexa as the second emergency contact at the daycare, the carefully constructed cavern of half-truths and assurances she built their foundation on would collapse and wind them both.

The sunlight was a weak sputtering thing by the time Clarke pulled into the daycare center, misty rain split the light like a prism but it would not be ignored, rooting its way through the greying cloud layer with the determination of Andy begging for dessert. She sat herself in her car for a minute collecting herself, going through her conversation with the teacher, ‘a mild temperature’ the woman had assured her. The blonde was a doctor and though peds wasn’t here specialty, a temperature could mean any number of things from teething – which Andy was a little too late for – to measles.

Abby said much the same.

“It’s probably a twenty-four hour bug, honey,” her mother assured her over the phone in the middle of a hospital shift. Clarke felt bad for interrupting as she sat in the front seat of her car, watching the rain gather on the windshield. “You won’t know until you see her, did they say anything was going around?”

“Not that I know of, but Octavia’s had kids in with norovirus.” The nurse had sauntered into the breakroom one day with her nose turned up exclaiming she had a kid puke on her shoes.

“Well there you go,” Abby hummed with the bedside manner of a doctor, “take her home, get her some fluids and paracetamol, I wouldn’t worry too much.”

Nodding, Clarke said her goodbye and tucked her phone into her back pocket, ducking inside to be met with pressed-nosed faces against the glass of the door in the entrance way, fingers splayed in sticky handprints.

“She’s sleeping now,” the teacher told her, ‘tsking’ quietly in the doorway of the nap room and Clarke’s bottom lep went out in sympathy for the pink-cheeked three-year-old, laying sideways on her assigned mat in the otherwise empty room.

“Thanks, Jillian,” she said to the teacher who held the door as she signed Andy out, drowsy, feverish three-year-old in arms, Dora backpack slung off her right arm. She hummed pretty words and gave sweeping kisses to the heated forehead as she buckled the three-year-old into her car seat and gave her a packet of kiddy cookies as much peace offering as distraction.

But Andy whimpered and nodded off, mousy curls in her eyes before Clarke had pulled out of the parking lot.

Clarke found out quickly when they got home that Andy was trained in the mastery of avoiding thermometers and medication – she didn’t blame her, the children’s Tylenol from the drugstore was garish pink and bubblegum flavoured, but the blonde was at her wits end and tears threatened to crawl up her throat, toxic and bubbling.

A ‘crash-clatter’ sent the pink-topped sippy cup flying. The lid snapped off the plastic rim and watering soaked the carpet of the three-year-olds room.

“Andy!” She scolded in the loud, cruel tone she promised herself she wouldn’t use. “That was naughty!” But the toddler was already stiffening, unbidden, her eyes saucered, lips bird-mouthed and unimpressed as she released a harrowing wail that made Clarke’s heart thunder. She rubbed the headache brewing where it had earlier in the day.

The house was steeped in darkness now, save the nightlight and the lamplight from Clarke’s room across the hall seeping in through the open door and Clarke dragged her hands through her loose hair, skin cool under the flimsy fabric of her sleepwear. There was a panel heater on the opposite wall but she had turned it off when she tried to put Andy down to keep the temperature low – a failed effort – and the hairs on her arm were raising against the cold.

She groped for the time on her phone, “two-oh-eight,” she sighed, and leant back over the one open side of the modified crib to rake the girl’s sweaty bangs from her forehead. Her knees ached on the floor, she had a shift in five hours and dark bruises under her eyes. Andy’s temperature was wreaking a cruel kind of havoc and and Clarke had stripped the child down to her pull-up and tied her hair loosely with the hairband clinging to her wrist but her forehead refused to cool.

Theory, Clarke was discovering, went down the plughole quickly when it came to reality.

“Andy,” she breathed through her nose and carded her hair between her fingers to refasten it, “baby,” please. Can you try to sleep.”

“No.”

It was decisive.

“For Mommy,” she whispered, “please?”

The three-year-old screeched an awful sound, clogged with mucus and gunk that made the doctor think it wasn’t a simple stomach bug. She kicked her feet against the wall in retaliation to Clarke trying to move her back to the center of the mattress where she swum in sheet and kicked-back comforters. The blonde went to catch the offending feet at which Andy scrunched her face in distress. “Stop,” she whined. “Andy!”

“Stop!”

Clarke snapped.

“Fine!”

Her body was vibrating. Everything within her shaking with the unadulterated exhaustion of building her dam, brick and mortar, against tears. She wanted to cry. She wanted to Andy to sleep. But patience waned thin at two o’clock in the morning so she snatched her phone from the floor and slammed the door on her way out into the hallway, feeling the rattle of the hinges and the way it shook her foundations to dust, listening to the retaliatory wailings on the other side of the door, feet pounding dull thuds into her skull where she felt like it would crack.

She couldn’t do this.

How fucking foolish had she been to take on the responsibility of a three-year-old on her own, in a city she didn’t know, in a job she was new to? She wasn’t good at this, she could barely get dinner on the table and guilt corroded the cavity of her chest like hot acid, she gagged on a sob as Andy wailed.

“Mommy.”

Clarke swallowed.

“Mommy!”

She pressed fists into her eyes until her head spun and she could see stars, then clasped her phone to her chest, pressing with shaking fingers and tear-blurry vision, hoping. Her breath trapped itself inside her chest like a lead balloon.

“‘ello?”

“Lexa?”

“Clarke?” the brunette’s voice was low, raspy like it was covered in the thin film of sleep and she pictured her neighbour sitting up in bed, pianist fingers sifting through bedside table clutter for the round shape of her clock. The thought alone was like a strange kind of cooling balm but then Andy screeched again and it sent her spiralling, desperation seizing her chest like her heart wanted to escape.

“I – I can get her to sleep. She’s – she’s hot – she’s got a temperature I think, but I can’t give her any more meds and she won’t sleep, she won’t drink anything, I’ve tried – oh god, I don’t know what to do.”

“Clarke –”

“– I can’t do this. I have a shift in four hours and she isn’t sleeping, I can’t –”

“Clarke, who? Andy?”

“Yes, I –”

“Do you know what her temperature is?”

“She won’t let me take it, I can’t take it –”

“That’s okay, Clarke,” the blonde leant her head against the hard panel of the bedroom door and wiped her dripping nose on her wrist. “I can be over in two minutes if that suits?” Clarke nodded, then swallowed, “okay,” she whispered, hoarse, choking on the effects of her own exhaustion and guilty desperation, “thank you.”

Lexa was there a in a minute in a half in rolled ankle jeans and yesterdays creased university tee – UC Berkeley Clarke noticed with a sloping smile – and her hair in a haphazard ponytail that had frizz curling at her hairline.

They were in the emergency room a half-hour later.

Clarke leant on her knees with the clipboard they had given her, filling out the admittance form with a blue pen and slow fingers so that her writing didn’t shake as she printed ‘guardian’ on the thin line of ‘Relationship to Individual’. Andy, left thumb tucked into her mouth, hair in sweaty pigtails, was curled into the sticky vinyl of the waiting room chairs, her head pillowed on Lexa’s jean-clad thigh, asleep – funnily enough it had been the thrum of rain on the windshield that had lulled her into a reluctant sleep and Clarke felt like an overreacting idiot even though her temperature raged and there were dark bruises forming under her eyes.

The brunette lifted the three-year-old's forehead when a receptionist returned with thin pillow and switched chairs to the one next to Clarke’s, smiling in soft sympathy when the blonde signed her name and walked over to hand the forms back, sitting down to dig the heels of her palms into her eyes.  

“I’m sorry,” she whispered watching colours kaleidoscope on her eyelids, “I’m a doctor, I should be able to handle this –”

“Clarke, no –”

“She just wouldn’t sleep and I – I’ve never been good with kids, I don’t know why I took her in, I’m ridiculous.” She took a hard, ragged breath and relished guiltily into the way it hurt when it caught in her throat, “god, this was a mistake, I’m doing everything wrong –”  

“Clarke,” soft hands slid into hers, unbidden, and pulled with little resistance until Clarke was blinking up at the harsh fluorescent light and there was hair curling at her forehead. “You’re doing nothing wrong.” Lexa was on her knees now, kneeling in front of her so that she was a little less than eye level with the blonde, tangling their fingers so that their palms were pressed together and Clarke would pull away if her head wasn’t so fuzzy, if she wasn’t sleep deprived, if guilt didn’t cling to her bones like spider webs to the tree roots Andy would root around in at the park. She in turn, clung to Lexa like a child might its blanket, simultaneously her constant and her wildcard.

“You’re doing a good thing. Andy loves you.”

Clarke shook her head, mouth tilting into a smile, this close she could see the freckle on Lexa’s top lip and the proud line of her cheekbones. “She loves you,”

“She loves Fish,” Lexa corrected and Clarke giggled wetly. Lexa’s breath danced over her cheeks and the tears that dried there.

“Griffin?” The nurse on call asked form behind the desk, eyes flicking briefly through the forms on the clipboard. Lexa squeezed Clarke’s hand, “go clean up, I’ll take her in.” She rose as Clarke nodded and scooped Andy into her arms gently as to not jostle her and Clarke wiped her hands on her jeans, watching the nurse escort them down the hall before asking the receptionist for directions to the restrooms where she washed her hands and used a square of toilet paper to blow her nose. Her eyes were dark and her hair was loose and there was dinner on the collar of her shirt. She splashed warm water on her face and returned to the waiting room, sneaking down the hall to the room she knew the nurse ushered Lexa and Andy into, slipping through the half-open door with her hand in her hair, making sure it fell right.

“Hi,” she sat down, “sorry.”

“That’s fine,” the doctor was young, only a little older than her, clothes crisp, and alert. “Clarke your wife was telling me you picked Andy up from preschool early today, did they tell you if they took her temperature then? Do you know what it was?”

Clarke stiffened with a violent kind of embarrassment, redness burning on her cheeks as she rushed to correct the woman, “oh,” she swallowed, flapping an inarticulate hand, meeting Lexa’s eyes – wide with the same kind of quiet horror – “no, we’re –” she shook her head, “we’re not together.”

“Oh.” The doctor looked between them, too close in awkwardly placed chairs, Andy, flushed and red, waving a plastic wrapped sucker from the desk, cradled between Lexa’s knees. She giggled conspiratorially. “I just assumed,” the woman re-considered the forms, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” Clarke waved the awkwardness – unsuccessfully – away she tucked her hands between her cross legs and recalled the original question. “They didn’t tell me her temperature, I’m sorry, and she wouldn’t let me take it later.”

“Okay,” the doctor nodded, “well it’s 102.2° now.” She re-checked her notes, chewing her lip as she considered then looked back up at them. “It looks like influenza, which means, if managed correctly, she’ll be fine in a week, give or take.” The pen clicked. Clarke fiddled with the join on her jeans, she could see Lexa shifting out of the corner of her eyes. “Just make sure she stays hydrated, keep her comfortable and paracetamol every four to five hours if the fever persists. I’d recommend keeping her home for the rest of the week, mostly for her own fatigue, if nothing else, but she seems strong, she’ll get past it with no problem, I’m sure.”

The appointment over, they said their thank yous.

Clarke leant over to take Andy from Lexa and their fingers brushed, the touch prickling like fire on her wrist. She studiously avoided the brunette’s eyes as she shifted Andy further on her hip, feeling the three-year-old yanking on the collar of her shirt. “Andy,” she whispered, taking the girls hand in her own before any skin was shown.

Reddening, Lexa cleared her throat.

It was raining when they got home.

Lexa stood in the doorway, hip against the frame, watching the way it poured off the roof via the gutter and how soft Clarke looked in the yellow-white light of Andy’s night light. The blonde combed Andy’s hair back from her forehead and brown eyes blinked up at her, sleepy and docile. “Gimme a kiss,” she requested softly, Andy puckered her lips and kissed Clarke, full of saliva and uncoordinated ability but Clarke grinned. “Goodnight, Andy.”

“Nigh-nigh.”

“I love you.”

“I lo’ you.”

Standing with an effort-filled huff, Clarke crossed the room, padding softly in miss-matching socks – laundry day got putt of this week – to flick the switch on the monitor and stand by Lexa, watching the head of unruly curls shift among cotton sheets.

“Momma?”

She frowned at the unfamiliar title, Andy didn’t call her that. “Yes?”

“No,” Andy sat up, brow pressed, “Momma.” Her hands rose, little fingers stretching and flexing, an expectant grabby motion in Lexa’s direction and the brunette stiffened in shock. “Kisses Momma,” Andy demanded like she would ask for juice, like it was the silliest thing in the world.

Verdant eyes turned to her, wavering in want for permission. It was endearing but their foundations were already collapsing and the pretence of whatever charade they had been playing with themselves, with Andy, wasn’t there anymore. Clarke felt like she was floundering without a ground for her feet but then Lexa crossed the room and Andy flung her little arms around her neck, fingers curling together in a bruising hold, kisses were mandatory, and an unimaginable kind of fondness seized her chest, an unabashed need to take Lexa by the sleeves and cling to her.

“Nigh-nigh, Momma,” Andy sung, snuggling herself into her mattress.

Clarke waited until the baby was still, and the door was pulled to, and the air was stagnant in the corridor around them, the panel heater humming away on the wall, before she pressed herself into the brunette, unbidden. “I love you,” she implored, fingers wound in her the brunette’s collar, chests flush, lips cold and tongues hot, the rush in her ears beating the common sense out of her head.

[pillowfriends]

oddly specific ways i picture some WoT characters

in celebration of finishing the slog (book 10 doneeee but I'm sadly taking a break before book 11), I'm going to make some self indulgent silly posts. first up: how I picture some of the characters. as someone who doesn't have clear visuals in my head when I read, most of the characters are gray blobs. but sometimes a character trait gets lodged in my mind and when I intentionally conjure up an image of a character, they become a gray blob with that one distinct feature.

in no particular order, here we go.

Faile - has a mullet. adorable mullet kind of like this but curlier. I have no idea where this came from but I feel very strongly about it and will inevitably be dismayed when show!Faile is lacking the mullet. [I KNOW SHE ISN'T WHITE and you can pry her beautiful hooked nose out of my cold dead hands. the below image is not how I picture her, just how I picture her hair.]

Graendal - wears her hair exclusively in 40s/50s pinup girl styles

Moggy - insane goth eyeliner 24/7. alt girl on tiktok during 2020 lockdown eyeliner. also she is tiny like 5'

Mazrim Taim - I had a dream about him one time so he is crystal clear in my head. his hooked nose is big and beautiful. his cheekbones are to die for. he is so sexy [I am a lesbian. this man has no right to be so hot in my head esp bc he's a terrible person and I hate him]

Aludra - I accidentally started picturing her exactly like Allura from Critical Role because their names sound similar, and now I can't stop. this is Aludra to me:

Elaida - this one is also super non-canonical but in my head she has the dykiest haircut. it's kind of like this but with streaks of gray

Berelain - I pictured her as a POC with medium dark skin and was shocked to my core to learn she was white. I do not accept it. she looks kind of Middle Eastern in my mind and has pretty soft features.

Thom - has a really stupid double mustache. I misunderstood RJ's "two mustaches" description for like, five whole books and by then it was too late. in my mind he has two thin, waxed white mustaches one above the other. it's a statement.

Aelfinn and Eelfinn - look exactly* like Ira Wendagoth/the Nightmare King from Critical Role. aka they scare the shit out of me *except they don't have 2 toes like the Nightmare King does that is simply TOO FAR.

Siuan - when prompted, my brain gets really confused on whether to picture New Spring comic!Siuan or show!Siuan, but the one constant is that she has a small gap between her front teeth. I accidentally headcanoned this one so hard in an AU that now I can't picture her without the little tooth gap.

anyone else have weird non-canonical mental images? I'd love to hear them.