#you will take freckled don from my cold dead hands

[j7lkx]

night on a rooftop

[leechjuice]

i was passed an open tag from @cruelflesh cause she knows i love these little games, and in honour of finishing up the first draft of my religious literary thriller, THE MAGNOLIA CLUB, i thought it a perfect time to share some with all of you.

⇢ my words are rust, ember, damp, breath & teeth

♰ " RUST " ♰ — THE MAGNOLIA CLUB, CHAPTER 21

Waylon idled below, framed inside the porthole window like an octopus swept through a current, dressed in his best whites, held together solely by a string of other people’s graciousness. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows but nothing saved them from the reddening soil—his fingertips were stained with it, his cuffs a keen shade of tetanus rust. He’d been in the garden since Mrs. Gaskill and her two middle-aged daughters finished setting out refreshments, long enough for the frankincense to burn clean out, well past when the hinge cover on the casket had been gently, quietly shut. She was out there now, a reflective floral entity on the beige lawn, pressing him to come inside. He did—only after driving the rest of a bruised belladonna tangle into a plastic garbage back and smoothing back the wilting hair from his lightless eyes.

♰ " EMBER " ♰ — THE MAGNOLIA CLUB, CHAPTER 9

“Easy,” warned Arthur, a cooling ember. “We’re not callin’ anyone.” Edith straightened from Midge’s side, taking a lengthy assessment of each of them where they stood; mismatched chess pieces on a muddy board. She tossed a sweeping hand towards the road, a dense wall of smoggy breath rising from her tense lips. “We’re goin’ on a ride. So’s she.” “Now?” Jeri intercut, her fear reeling her closer, trembling in the cold dark. “All the way out to that ol' highway? At this hour?" “Please,” Edith begged, “spell it out for all us morons.” The blonde took towards the parking lot and left Midge at Arthur's mercy, and he came quickly to her aid in a terribly familiar, jacket-donning way that made her fear for the imminent end, certain that the Lord would strip them each away from her before she was ever ready. “If you’re right, an' some fella's layin' out there on the road, havin' done this to her—then I wanna make sure the cunt’s good an’ dead.”

♰ " DAMP " ♰ — THE MAGNOLIA CLUB, CHAPTER 17

The incomparable black of Ruby's backwoods midnight made a joke of her; the tangles of bony, low-hanging willow and marshy soil didn’t help. She'd never have the time or awareness to duck if a branch swung at her; staggering the suffocating blindness, tramping like panicked hunting dogs through damp carpets of kudzu, all that came to Midge were spatters of static colour, dressed by her anxieties—Audrey, sallow and freckled, her corpse torn sloppily in two. Two dusky blue eyes pointed lazily at the sky, her painted nails locked into clawing fists at her throat, purple around the corners of her slack lips. Now beneath the hum of crickets, Gage was a wild thing in among the weeds, his eyes just two light-bouncing plates in the dark, black holes of electric lunacy. Now, he had a knife the size of a small pie server in his oily hands. Now he was grinning, skulking behind a nearby tree, stinking with adrenaline. Now, something was eating her. Now, something was tearing her apart. They’d let her go—that always kickstarted problems. The moment someone stepped out of Midge's sight, they were good as—

♰ " BREATH " ♰ — THE MAGNOLIA CLUB, CHAPTER 4

“Well, it ain’t about that damn veteran and you know that, ‘cause you’re smarter than me, and you’re smarter than them,” said Jonas, casting a finger in the same direction Midge’s gaze only just shrank from, “which means you know I love you whether I’m away or not. An' you know I care about what y'think, and how y'feel, and how folks around here see you. ‘Cause I get it—Midge,” pled Jonas, in the terrible, doting way she'd only ever suffered from others, “I try to get it, and if I don’t, I let you be. But they won’t even try.” It hurt more than usual to love her brother that night. To see even under hallway shadow the deepening bruises around his hazy eyes, sure to be yellow-rimmed by morning, his eggs and bacon set in doubles with duplicated plates and silverware. “That's why you didn’t come home?” fell Midge’s words like a dead bug on a sill, cut right from her breath. “You’re embarrassed of me?”

♰ " TEETH " ♰ — THE MAGNOLIA CLUB, CHAPTER 16

The darkness caught Midge's wrists and slid her through the split in the door, drawing her into a well of warped shadow which sluggishly took shape and meaning; a half-shredded bookshelf and pool of books, a molehill of plastic bags stuffed with sewing supplies and skeins kissed by velvet mold, tongues of outstretched Halloween decorations, a desaturated spectrum of sweaters and tarps, old milk crates, swaths of spider silk, dead termites—decay. Midge staggered through a sole walkable path, fenced by canyons of old worth, and the house devoured the whisper of her sneakers on its warped barnwood floor. What had narrowed the entry was the great, many-fingered hand of a tree, jammed against the backside of the door, its paint scraped into an illegible language by years of eager winter wind gushing through the swollen gash in the building's left side. Its roots burrowed deeply between the separating planks, coiling around the blackened teeth of an unused fireplace, smothered by sheddings of bark and a surmounting pile of rot-sweet crabapples.

i love you @cruelflesh so u have to do it now, and i'll leave an open tag for anybody who sees this and wants to join!

♰ your words are soil, shy, bleed, needle & spirit ♰

[blurpleuni-squid]

Preview of a book I’m writing called Wanderlust. Premiss is a bunch of misfit kids live life by hitching rides on trains, one day they take the wrong train and end up on a train to another world.

This is a draft of a scene much later of one of the main characters (Evan) and her backstory before she met the other main characters (Sebastian, aka the kids she’s supposed to ‘take care of’)

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Koshechka moved with purpose through the labyrinthine corridors of the underground fighting ring. The air was thick with the scent of sweat, blood, and the unmistakable musk of raw, primal aggression. She was here on business, her sharp mind and sharper tongue making her invaluable to Don white, the imposing crime boss who ran this brutal underworld empire. Aka her boss and best client.

Today, she was doing the accounting for the latest series of fights, a task that required her to ensure the books balanced and the odds were rigged just enough to keep the gamblers coming back for more. Her bubble gum pink hair stood out in the dimly lit, smoke-filled arena, and her freckled face betrayed no emotion as she calculated the night's profits. The roaring of the crowd, the clash of flesh and bone, all faded into the background as she focused on her work.

The fighters, burly men and women covered in tattoos and scars, moved like shadows in the dim light, their grunts and cries echoing through the cavernous space. Evangeline's tan skin glowed under the flickering lights, and her full hourglass figure drew appreciative glances from the patrons and fighters alike. But she paid them no mind; her eyes were fixed on the numbers, her mind a fortress of concentration, not like any one of those meaty men could afford her.

It was in the midst of this controlled chaos that her Boss, Don, as he was known to most, approached her. His tall, burly frame cast a long shadow over her, and his presence commanded immediate attention. The snake tattoo coiled around his neck seemed almost alive in the low light, its eyes glinting with the same cold calculation that Tobias himself possessed.

“Nice work, Koshechka,” he said, his voice a deep rumble that cut through the din. “Here’s your—”

“Not to deny extra cash, just picturing you sending someone to bust my windows, but this seems like a lot more than my cut,” she interrupted, not even looking up from her ledger.

“Heh, you’re funny, kitty. But nah, I got some rat I need you to scare off. He’s been scamming my casinos,” Tobias replied, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

“Sounds like a problem, but I ain’t pest control. Why not get one of your new pets to do it?” she shot back, finally meeting his gaze.

“Aww, kitty, you know you’re my favorite girl,” Tobias said with a smirk.

“Keep it in your pants, Don. You know my hours,” she retorted, rolling her eyes.

“Mhm, can’t wait till Monday,” he murmured, his tone suggestive.

“Whatever—just answer, you nasty bit—”

“Retract those claws, Koshechka. I just mean you’re far more efficient, and I don’t need him dead, just incapacitated. He’s on the young side, so I’mma give him a warning. Feeling good after these wins,” he explained, his expression turning serious.

“Fine, but I’mma need more than this. I’m assuming you don’t have a clue where he could be? You at least have a picture?” she asked, her tone now businesslike.

“Here’s a file my men put together for you. Including pay. This is half upfront, and you will be paid the rest later. I’ll leave the rest to you,” Tobias said, handing her a thick envelope.

“Huh, leave me to do all the dirty work, really nitty-gritty stuff,” she said, licking her lips.

“Sorry, doll. Besides, I know you like it when things are hard,” he purred, his eyes burning with a flickering flame.

“Oh, mr white sir, you know me so well.” She responded, “How come I don’t have a dock on time?” She moved her seat closer to the coffee table which separated them. He mimicked her movements equally as slowly, palms on the surface of the oak.

“You catch on quick, my pretty kitty. I know you won’t take long; the kid’s not exactly quick on his feet,” Tobias said, a hint of a challenge in his voice.

“You sure it’s not 'cause you’re sweet on me?” she teased, elbows now on the table and face cradled in her palms, even closer than before.

“I can’t completely reject that premise,” he leaned his weight on the dead wood again, mirroring her movements, his face wearing a sultry grin.

“Mmh, maybe you don’t have to wait for Monday,” she whispered, faces inches apart.

“Gasp, is my lustful little kitten willing to make an exception for wittle old me?” he teased back, his voice a low growl.

“Just maybe. If you want—”

“Yes! I mean—” he shouted eagerly, frightening her back into her seat. “Wait, I’m sorry, I—”

She giggled, her voice ringing across the room. Her sweet sounds turned his face red, and he turned bashfully.

“Aww, is someone a little eager?” she looked up at him, eyes trailing down his body, landing on the tent between his legs.

“Huh—” he followed her gaze and fell back into his chair, crossing his legs in embarrassment. “Shut up,” his face expression still cold as ice but body burning in anticipation. “It’s just you never seem so—happy? I guess participating and you initiating is really like I—fuck, just,” he covered his face in shame, finally showing his age.

“Aww, sweetheart.” She started undressing. She doesn’t feel sexual attraction or love at all, which made her job easier. She only felt any attachment or attraction toward someone when she got to know them. But when she did, she felt so strongly it hurt her, so she avoided making any friends. “I—I have some kind of feeling for you which makes me want you deeply… I don’t know how to express this, and it’s scary, but for some strange reason, I trust you. So I—” she walked around the table, leaning forward, stroking his face. Her hands moved down his neck, torso, and landed on his belt. She sat her naked body on his lap, body trembling. “Please take care of me, Tobi.”

His eyes widened, mouth agape, brain not able to function. The seconds felt like hours. Her face glowed red.

“F-fine, that was stupid of me. Let's jus—” she began, shifting to get off his lap, but he grabbed her hips.

“No,” he breathed.

“The fuck you mean, no?”

He placed his lips on hers with a fiery passion, hand pulling her hips impossibly close. “I promise you, Evan, I’ll take care of you the rest of our lives.” He ground up into her, and her manicured hands worked at taking his belt off, pulling his pants down with his boxers, desperate to feel him.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just proposed to me—” she murmured.

“What if I did?” he mumbled, throwing his shirt over his head. “What if I was? Do you wanna be a pretty wife? My wife?” He shook his pants off, bouncing her slightly on his thighs, making her tits bounce. As he watched them, he had this overwhelming urge to lick and suck her pretty pink nipples raw. “Mmm, look at these. Does just the thought of being my wife make you that horny?”

She looked away and nodded. He flicked them harshly, making her whimper.

“Fuck, that’s so hot.” Without a second thought, he attached his lips to the hard little nub.

“Mmm, Tobi, no, please, I wanna—” she let out a breathy moan, tracing the dark lines of the tattoo on his neck. Don mindlessly sucked and played with her tits, using both hands to stimulate her. He sloppily licked between her breasts, from her cleavage to her navel, tasting the salty beads of her sweat. He watched her round bosom spill into his palms.

“I love hearing such whiney sounds from your mouth.” He pulled her nipples, now soaked with saliva, harshly to hear her whine his name.

“Yes, I love it when you say my name. Now tell me what you want me to do now.” Evan’s thighs shook with anticipation, feeling sticky from her dripping arousal. She rubbed her stomach, coated with his precum.

“I want you inside me.”

“Whatever my pretty kitty wants.” He moved to grab a condom from his pants on the floor, but she grabbed the tip of his dick, making him shiver.

"Fuck!" he moaned loudly.

"I want you to fill me with your cum until I can taste it."

Tobias drooled at the thought of fucking her raw. "Shit, baby," he moaned, taking her hands off him. Evan, feeling like she had crossed a line, quickly retracted her hands to her chest in fear. Seeing her uncertainty, Tobias softened, pulling her close to his chest before standing up, cradling her as if she were precious. He carried her to the bedroom connected to his office, his lips never leaving her skin as he kissed her neck and face lovingly. Evan bathed in the attention he was giving her, a large smile spreading across her face as she felt his warmth and affection.

The dim light of the office bedroom cast soft shadows across Tobias's sharp features, highlighting the contrast between his albino skin and the dark tattoos that covered his body. "Damn kitty, it's real hard to walk with this raging boner," Tobias hissed, unintentionally breaking the romantic atmosphere.

"Way to kill the mood, Tobi," Evan said with a displeased look, though her legs remained tightly wrapped around his waist. She reached out to help him turn the doorknob, her touch gentle and reassuring.

Tobias chuckled, the deep sound reverberating through his chest as he carried her to the large, inviting queen-sized bed. The bed was a stark contrast to the harshness of his office-a soft sanctuary draped in luxurious, dark linens. "Brace yourself," he warned with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"For what-" Before she could finish, he spun around and threw himself onto the bed, holding her close. The sudden movement made her bounce slightly, a surprised squeak escaping her lips.

She glared at him, her eyes narrowing, but his smile was so infectious that she couldn't help but laugh at his playful antics. The tension between them melted away, replaced by a shared joy and anticipation. They lay there for a moment, the intimacy of the moment wrapping around them like a warm blanket, their laughter blending into the quiet hum of the room.

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As the morning sun began to filter through the curtains, casting a warm glow over the tangled mess of sheets, Evangeline found herself in a moment of quiet contemplation. Her gaze lingered tenderly on the man beside her, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm as steady as the beating of her own heart.

After hours of intimate entanglement, she marveled at the unexpected tenderness of their connection. It was a sensation she had long believed herself incapable of experiencing, yet here she was, entwined with a man whose very presence ignited a fire within her soul.

With a soft smile playing at the corners of her lips, Evangeline gently traced the contours of his face, her fingers dancing over the rough edges of his stubble. He lay there, blissfully unaware, his goofy smile and drool-laden slumber a stark contrast to the formidable reputation he commanded by day.

"What a dummy," she murmured affectionately, the endearment a testament to the complexity of their relationship. Despite his status as both a crime boss and her employer, he was, in this moment, nothing more than a vulnerable man lost in the depths of sleep.

Reflecting on the unspoken rules that governed their interactions, Evangeline couldn't help but marvel at the ways in which he had effortlessly dismantled her defenses. Each breach of protocol, from the absence of condoms to the forbidden kisses and post-coital cuddles, served as a poignant reminder of his ability to unravel the carefully constructed barriers around her heart.

And yet, for all her resistance, she found herself willingly surrendering to the warmth of his embrace, basking in the glow of his affection. He was more than just a client; he was a confidant, a companion, and, against all odds, the object of her deepest affections.

As she watched him twitch and smile in his slumber, a wave of tenderness washed over her, akin to the gentle caress of a summer breeze. In his vulnerability, she found solace, a rare moment of peace amidst the chaos of their clandestine world.

With a contented sigh, Evangeline nestled closer to him, her heart swelling with a love that defied all logic and reason. For in the quiet intimacy of their shared embrace, she had found a sanctuary—a place where the complexities of their lives melted away, leaving nothing but the simple purity of two souls intertwined in the sweet embrace of love.

As Tobias bolted awake, startled by the sudden jolt of laughter, Evangeline couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his bleary-eyed confusion. With a gentle touch, she wiped away the drool that had escaped the corners of his mouth, her affectionate gesture met with a sheepish grin.

"What's so funny, honey?" he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes.

"Nothing, just you. You drool like a bulldog, you know," she teased, her laughter tinkling like wind chimes in the morning breeze.

"Sorry, baby. Tongue's too big for my mouth," he quipped, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Not that you ever complained," he added with a wink, his playful banter eliciting a giggle from Evangeline.

As they rose from the tangled sheets, their playful banter continued, punctuated by affectionate touches and shared laughter. The air was filled with the sweet scent of soap and steam as they made their way to the bathroom, hand in hand, eager to wash away the remnants of the night's passion.

Settling into the warmth of the large tub, Evangeline leaned back against Tobias's chest, his strong arms enveloping her in a comforting embrace. The water lapped gently at their skin, creating a soothing rhythm that matched the steady beat of their hearts.

"Did you mean it?" she whispered softly, her voice barely above a murmur.

"Mean what, kitty?" Tobias replied, his breath warm against her ear.

"About taking care of me," she clarified, her tone tinged with vulnerability.

"Yes," he replied without hesitation, his voice filled with sincerity. "My pretty kitty, it doesn't matter because I meant it. I want you to be happy, and I want you by my side, forever."

Evangeline felt tears welling in her eyes, emotions swirling within her like a tempestuous storm. Tobias leaned in close, his warmth enveloping her, his words a soothing balm to her wounded soul.

"Evan, if that's not what you want, then tell me, and I'll do whatever you-" he began, his voice faltering with concern.

"No, I want that. I want you," she interrupted, her voice trembling with raw emotion.

In that moment, as they sat entwined in the warmth of the bath, their souls laid bare before each other, Evangeline knew that she had found something worth fighting for.

And as Tobias held her close, his love surrounding her like a shield, she felt a flicker of hope ignite within her heart—a hope that maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to build a future together, one bath at a time.

Koshechka moved with purpose through the labyrinthine corridors of the underground fighting ring. The air was thick with the scent of sweat, blood, and the unmistakable musk of raw, primal aggression. She was here on business, her sharp mind and sharper tongue making her invaluable to Don white, the imposing crime boss who ran this brutal underworld empire. Aka her boss and best client.

Today, she was doing the accounting for the latest series of fights, a task that required her to ensure the books balanced and the odds were rigged just enough to keep the gamblers coming back for more. Her bubble gum pink hair stood out in the dimly lit, smoke-filled arena, and her freckled face betrayed no emotion as she calculated the night's profits. The roaring of the crowd, the clash of flesh and bone, all faded into the background as she focused on her work.

The fighters, burly men and women covered in tattoos and scars, moved like shadows in the dim light, their grunts and cries echoing through the cavernous space. Evangeline's tan skin glowed under the flickering lights, and her full hourglass figure drew appreciative glances from the patrons and fighters alike. But she paid them no mind; her eyes were fixed on the numbers, her mind a fortress of concentration, not like any one of those meaty men could afford her.

It was in the midst of this controlled chaos that her Boss, Don, as he was known to most, approached her. His tall, burly frame cast a long shadow over her, and his presence commanded immediate attention. The snake tattoo coiled around his neck seemed almost alive in the low light, its eyes glinting with the same cold calculation that Tobias himself possessed.

“Nice work, Koshechka,” he said, his voice a deep rumble that cut through the din. “Here’s your—”

“Not to deny extra cash, just picturing you sending someone to bust my windows, but this seems like a lot more than my cut,” she interrupted, not even looking up from her ledger.

“Heh, you’re funny, kitty. But nah, I got some rat I need you to scare off. He’s been scamming my casinos,” Tobias replied, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

“Sounds like a problem, but I ain’t pest control. Why not get one of your new pets to do it?” she shot back, finally meeting his gaze.

“Aww, kitty, you know you’re my favorite girl,” Tobias said with a smirk.

“Keep it in your pants, Don. You know my hours,” she retorted, rolling her eyes.

“Mhm, can’t wait till Monday,” he murmured, his tone suggestive.

“Whatever—just answer, you nasty bit—”

“Retract those claws, Koshechka. I just mean you’re far more efficient, and I don’t need him dead, just incapacitated. He’s on the young side, so I’mma give him a warning. Feeling good after these wins,” he explained, his expression turning serious.

“Fine, but I’mma need more than this. I’m assuming you don’t have a clue where he could be? You at least have a picture?” she asked, her tone now businesslike.

“Here’s a file my men put together for you. Including pay. This is half upfront, and you will be paid the rest later. I’ll leave the rest to you,” Tobias said, handing her a thick envelope.

“Huh, leave me to do all the dirty work, really nitty-gritty stuff,” she said, licking her lips.

“Sorry, doll. Besides, I know you like it when things are hard,” he purred, his eyes burning with a flickering flame.

“Oh, mr white sir, you know me so well.” She responded, “How come I don’t have a dock on time?” She moved her seat closer to the coffee table which separated them. He mimicked her movements equally as slowly, palms on the surface of the oak.

“You catch on quick, my pretty kitty. I know you won’t take long; the kid’s not exactly quick on his feet,” Tobias said, a hint of a challenge in his voice.

“You sure it’s not 'cause you’re sweet on me?” she teased, elbows now on the table and face cradled in her palms, even closer than before.

“I can’t completely reject that premise,” he leaned his weight on the dead wood again, mirroring her movements, his face wearing a sultry grin.

“Mmh, maybe you don’t have to wait for Monday,” she whispered, faces inches apart.

“Gasp, is my lustful little kitten willing to make an exception for wittle old me?” he teased back, his voice a low growl.

“Just maybe. If you want—”

“Yes! I mean—” he shouted eagerly, frightening her back into her seat. “Wait, I’m sorry, I—”

She giggled, her voice ringing across the room. Her sweet sounds turned his face red, and he turned bashfully.

“Aww, is someone a little eager?” she looked up at him, eyes trailing down his body, landing on the tent between his legs.

“Huh—” he followed her gaze and fell back into his chair, crossing his legs in embarrassment. “Shut up,” his face expression still cold as ice but body burning in anticipation. “It’s just you never seem so—happy? I guess participating and you initiating is really like I—fuck, just,” he covered his face in shame, finally showing his age.

“Aww, sweetheart.” She started undressing. She doesn’t feel sexual attraction or love at all, which made her job easier. She only felt any attachment or attraction toward someone when she got to know them. But when she did, she felt so strongly it hurt her, so she avoided making any friends. “I—I have some kind of feeling for you which makes me want you deeply… I don’t know how to express this, and it’s scary, but for some strange reason, I trust you. So I—” she walked around the table, leaning forward, stroking his face. Her hands moved down his neck, torso, and landed on his belt. She sat her naked body on his lap, body trembling. “Please take care of me, Tobi.”

His eyes widened, mouth agape, brain not able to function. The seconds felt like hours. Her face glowed red.

“F-fine, that was stupid of me. Let's jus—” she began, shifting to get off his lap, but he grabbed her hips.

“No,” he breathed.

“The fuck you mean, no?”

He placed his lips on hers with a fiery passion, hand pulling her hips impossibly close. “I promise you, Evan, I’ll take care of you the rest of our lives.” He ground up into her, and her manicured hands worked at taking his belt off, pulling his pants down with his boxers, desperate to feel him.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just proposed to me—” she murmured.

“What if I did?” he mumbled, throwing his shirt over his head. “What if I was? Do you wanna be a pretty wife? My wife?” He shook his pants off, bouncing her slightly on his thighs, making her tits bounce. As he watched them, he had this overwhelming urge to lick and suck her pretty pink nipples raw. “Mmm, look at these. Does just the thought of being my wife make you that horny?”

She looked away and nodded. He flicked them harshly, making her whimper.

“Fuck, that’s so hot.” Without a second thought, he attached his lips to the hard little nub.

“Mmm, Tobi, no, please, I wanna—” she let out a breathy moan, tracing the dark lines of the tattoo on his neck. Don mindlessly sucked and played with her tits, using both hands to stimulate her. He sloppily licked between her breasts, from her cleavage to her navel, tasting the salty beads of her sweat. He watched her round bosom spill into his palms.

“I love hearing such whiney sounds from your mouth.” He pulled her nipples, now soaked with saliva, harshly to hear her whine his name.

“Yes, I love it when you say my name. Now tell me what you want me to do now.” Evan’s thighs shook with anticipation, feeling sticky from her dripping arousal. She rubbed her stomach, coated with his precum.

“I want you inside me.”

“Whatever my pretty kitty wants.” He moved to grab a condom from his pants on the floor, but she grabbed the tip of his dick, making him shiver.

"Fuck!" he moaned loudly.

"I want you to fill me with your cum until I can taste it."

Tobias drooled at the thought of fucking her raw. "Shit, baby," he moaned, taking her hands off him. Evan, feeling like she had crossed a line, quickly retracted her hands to her chest in fear. Seeing her uncertainty, Tobias softened, pulling her close to his chest before standing up, cradling her as if she were precious. He carried her to the bedroom connected to his office, his lips never leaving her skin as he kissed her neck and face lovingly. Evan bathed in the attention he was giving her, a large smile spreading across her face as she felt his warmth and affection.

The dim light of the office bedroom cast soft shadows across Tobias's sharp features, highlighting the contrast between his albino skin and the dark tattoos that covered his body. "Damn kitty, it's real hard to walk with this raging boner," Tobias hissed, unintentionally breaking the romantic atmosphere.

"Way to kill the mood, Tobi," Evan said with a displeased look, though her legs remained tightly wrapped around his waist. She reached out to help him turn the doorknob, her touch gentle and reassuring.

Tobias chuckled, the deep sound reverberating through his chest as he carried her to the large, inviting queen-sized bed. The bed was a stark contrast to the harshness of his office-a soft sanctuary draped in luxurious, dark linens. "Brace yourself," he warned with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"For what-" Before she could finish, he spun around and threw himself onto the bed, holding her close. The sudden movement made her bounce slightly, a surprised squeak escaping her lips.

She glared at him, her eyes narrowing, but his smile was so infectious that she couldn't help but laugh at his playful antics. The tension between them melted away, replaced by a shared joy and anticipation. They lay there for a moment, the intimacy of the moment wrapping around them like a warm blanket, their laughter blending into the quiet hum of the room.

╚══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══╝

As the morning sun began to filter through the curtains, casting a warm glow over the tangled mess of sheets, Evangeline found herself in a moment of quiet contemplation. Her gaze lingered tenderly on the man beside her, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm as steady as the beating of her own heart.

After hours of intimate entanglement, she marveled at the unexpected tenderness of their connection. It was a sensation she had long believed herself incapable of experiencing, yet here she was, entwined with a man whose very presence ignited a fire within her soul.

With a soft smile playing at the corners of her lips, Evangeline gently traced the contours of his face, her fingers dancing over the rough edges of his stubble. He lay there, blissfully unaware, his goofy smile and drool-laden slumber a stark contrast to the formidable reputation he commanded by day.

"What a dummy," she murmured affectionately, the endearment a testament to the complexity of their relationship. Despite his status as both a crime boss and her employer, he was, in this moment, nothing more than a vulnerable man lost in the depths of sleep.

Reflecting on the unspoken rules that governed their interactions, Evangeline couldn't help but marvel at the ways in which he had effortlessly dismantled her defenses. Each breach of protocol, from the absence of condoms to the forbidden kisses and post-coital cuddles, served as a poignant reminder of his ability to unravel the carefully constructed barriers around her heart.

And yet, for all her resistance, she found herself willingly surrendering to the warmth of his embrace, basking in the glow of his affection. He was more than just a client; he was a confidant, a companion, and, against all odds, the object of her deepest affections.

As she watched him twitch and smile in his slumber, a wave of tenderness washed over her, akin to the gentle caress of a summer breeze. In his vulnerability, she found solace, a rare moment of peace amidst the chaos of their clandestine world.

With a contented sigh, Evangeline nestled closer to him, her heart swelling with a love that defied all logic and reason. For in the quiet intimacy of their shared embrace, she had found a sanctuary—a place where the complexities of their lives melted away, leaving nothing but the simple purity of two souls intertwined in the sweet embrace of love.

As Tobias bolted awake, startled by the sudden jolt of laughter, Evangeline couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his bleary-eyed confusion. With a gentle touch, she wiped away the drool that had escaped the corners of his mouth, her affectionate gesture met with a sheepish grin.

"What's so funny, honey?" he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes.

"Nothing, just you. You drool like a bulldog, you know," she teased, her laughter tinkling like wind chimes in the morning breeze.

"Sorry, baby. Tongue's too big for my mouth," he quipped, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Not that you ever complained," he added with a wink, his playful banter eliciting a giggle from Evangeline.

As they rose from the tangled sheets, their playful banter continued, punctuated by affectionate touches and shared laughter. The air was filled with the sweet scent of soap and steam as they made their way to the bathroom, hand in hand, eager to wash away the remnants of the night's passion.

Settling into the warmth of the large tub, Evangeline leaned back against Tobias's chest, his strong arms enveloping her in a comforting embrace. The water lapped gently at their skin, creating a soothing rhythm that matched the steady beat of their hearts.

"Did you mean it?" she whispered softly, her voice barely above a murmur.

"Mean what, kitty?" Tobias replied, his breath warm against her ear.

"About taking care of me," she clarified, her tone tinged with vulnerability.

"Yes," he replied without hesitation, his voice filled with sincerity. "My pretty kitty, it doesn't matter because I meant it. I want you to be happy, and I want you by my side, forever."

Evangeline felt tears welling in her eyes, emotions swirling within her like a tempestuous storm. Tobias leaned in close, his warmth enveloping her, his words a soothing balm to her wounded soul.

"Evan, if that's not what you want, then tell me, and I'll do whatever you-" he began, his voice faltering with concern.

"No, I want that. I want you," she interrupted, her voice trembling with raw emotion.

In that moment, as they sat entwined in the warmth of the bath, their souls laid bare before each other, Evangeline knew that she had found something worth fighting for.

And as Tobias held her close, his love surrounding her like a shield, she felt a flicker of hope ignite within her heart—a hope that maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to build a future together, one bath at a time.

❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀ ❀•°❀°•❀

Everything here belongs to me. @blurpleuni-squid

This is only a draft of what I want the story to be, I will be improving it but whoever reads this I would appreciate some constructive criticism.

[wri0thesley]

So I can’t exactly get the concept of vampire Diavolo out of my head, so if you’re still taking requests, maybe one where his s/o tries to convince him to feed on them? It can be sfw or not, depending on how you wanna go

precious - diavolo x reader (1111 words)

mostly sfw, blood, vampire diavolo, neutral reader.

“No,” he rumbles, low in the back of his throat. “You’re precious.”

A thrill goes through you at the words; that someone like him could consider someone like you precious. Diavolo, with all of his coiled up power and the flash of death in his eyes, muscled forearms and danger in every single inch of his body – thinking you, soft and small and unbearably mortal, are something to be protected.

You push yourself into his lap, gently headbutting his chest as you look up at him. Your voice is soft and breathy.

“I don’t mind,” you whisper. “I really don’t--”

“What if I can’t stop myself?” His fingers lock around your hips, digging into supple flesh, enjoying the warmth of you beneath his cold fingertips. This close to him, you can see the flash of too-sharp teeth and the strange way his eyes reflect the light. “If I hurt you--”

“I’d have asked you to,” you say, swallowing. Your own gaze cannot be torn away from his mouth.

Sometimes, he comes inside wearing his glamour; the younger, more open face, freckled and flecked with blood. And you watch him shift from the younger man to your Diavolo, see how the blood remains staining his clothes and his hands – and though you know you should hate it, be terrified and disgusted by the reminder that your lover is an inhuman monster, you feel nothing but softness for him.

You clean him up, pull off clothes and put them to one side to be washed, look at how his smile is sated when he watches you from behind. You often end those nights wrapped around him in bed, ignoring the scent of blood on his breath in favour of treasuring the feel of his cold body against yours.

“Tesoro,” he murmurs, the word heavy on his tongue. You had never expected to make a creature like Diavolo yours; had never expected to hear such a word issuing forth from his mouth. The hand on your hip travels up, mapping out the curve of your waist and your spine. He does not need to breathe to live, but you still hear the soft noise of him doing so as he looks at you. “You don’t know what you want from me.”

“I do,” you insist, pressing closer to him. One of your own hands comes up to cling to his shoulder, your fingertips tracing the hollow of his own throat – where a pulse should beat, but does not. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“More than I should,” he groans, as your position pushes the junction between your neck and shoulder directly in his line of sight. “The question should be whether you trust me. I could break you, and I . . .” He swallows. He does not often let his weakness show. He is a man – creature – who builds himself up, relies on his reputation. “If I did, I would never forgive myself.”

Your fingers are soft as they brush magenta hair out of his eyes – as you pull back just enough to look directly into them. They are lit with hunger.

He has not gone out tonight. No younger man – Doppio, he calls his glamour – has walked through the door with the scent of death clinging to his clothes. And you can see, from how he wets his lips and his eyes brush over every inch of you, that he’s hungry. You want him to be hungry. You want him to be hungry for you.

“I know you won’t,” you say to him. “I want you to. Diavolo--”

Your lips shaping his name push him over the edge.

He’d given you his name as an ultimate mark of his trust; before, you had called him ‘Sir’ and ‘Don’ – he is paranoid, despite all of his power, that everything he has worked towards is impermanent. It doesn’t matter that he’s lived for centuries; part of him, you think, still fears that he’ll be torn down in moments.

“You don’t know what you ask of me,” he murmurs, but his lips are drawn to your throat. Your fingers twist in strands of his hair as he kisses the ridges and hollows, as you feel his tongue dart out to taste your skin. A soft sigh escapes your parted lips.

“I do,” you insist. “I do know—”

Kiss. Lick. Suck. Your mind goes hazy at the feeling of him, testing out the patches of skin, looking for the perfect one to bite down and pierce. His fangs scrape against your pulse point, where your heartbeat is so loud you think everyone in a mile radius must be able to hear it.

“Just a scratch,” he murmurs, like he’s very far away – and you feel two needle-pinpricks, descending into the soft skin. You make a soft noise, a half-whimper, tugging at the hair in your grip – but the scratch quickly subsides, as his tongue traces the bite and he begins to suckle on the wound.

You dimly recall him saying something about numbing properties, being able to make a victim feel good even as he drains them of every drop of their life-force – but your mind feels heavy and tired. You stroke the hair beneath your fingertips, soft and silky (he’d been a mess when you’d first found him, and you had brushed tangles out of his hair as he sat in front of you with every muscle in his spine taut). You feel the rhythmic suckling, the spill of a single drop of blood down your throat as it trickles over your chest.

You can hear your heart beating very fast, ricocheting around your ears even as you’re sighing, wishing he’d suck harder and take more--

Diavolo presses a kiss to the wound as he pulls back. His chest is heaving, his lips stained red – and your heart skips a beat.

It’s so intimate. Seeing your own blood dripping from his mouth. The way he’s still holding you; the sudden new flash of life in his eyes. The way that he cradles your chin, suddenly, pulling you into a kiss. The kiss is quiet but hungry, the taste of your blood still lingering on his lips.

“You’re delicious,” he rasps, and you laugh – light-headed and woozy, but still alive. You knew he wouldn’t hurt you. You have wanted him to feed from you for so long; to use you as he wills, to be connected in even more ways than you already were. And as he holds you in his lap in the dead of night with your blood staining both of your bodies, you hope he will do it again.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

[didn’t realize you were a scientist]

It’s cold outside so Clementine and Louis cuddle. 

There’s other stuff too but who cares about plot when there’s cuddling to be done. 

[screenshot from @pi-creates​]

 Read on AO3

Winter hit hard and fast. 

Despite their best efforts, many windows within Ericson weren’t fully insulated and boarded up before the first snowfall. Though it seemed luck remained in their favor-- this first snowfall was barely more than a flurry. Still, paired with the harsh winds and gloomy skies, it left everyone scurrying for heavier coats and extra socks to wear as they finished the last preparations for the cold.

Well, everyone besides Louis, who still donned his favorite jacket and tattered, green shirt. Clementine thought maybe he didn’t have anything else until Ruby chewed him out that morning, demanding he go put his other coat on before he gets sick. 

His response was to button up his jacket, then pat Ruby on the head with a smile. Ruby, cheeks flushed red with both annoyance and the cold,  made to punch him in the arm. Louis expected the blow and took it with a snicker, still grinning as she continued to scold him. 

“Maybe you can talk sense into him,” Ruby told Clementine before she walked away. “Sure as hell ain’t listenin’ to me.” 

She could be heard grumbling something about the greenhouse and frozen soil as she made her way towards Aasim, AJ, and Tenn by the gates.

As it turns out, even Clementine couldn’t talk Louis into departing from the jacket in favor of something warmer, though he did eventually do up another button with a “There, okay?” look when she grew sterner with him. Not that it made a difference. 

Once that was settled, Aasim put them in charge of boarding up the remaining dorm windows so that no one would be snowed on tonight. Louis only gave him a little bit of a hard time about it, mostly for his own amusement. Once Aasim was worked up enough, Louis waved him off. 

With a wink in her direction, Louis held out his fist to Clementine.

“Team fun?”

She rolled her eyes but smiled as she connected her fist to his. 

“Team fun.” 

They spent the day bringing in scavenged planks of wood and old, musty blankets no one wanted anymore to board up dorm windows. That was their only task for the day, but a big task at that with eight large windows to cover, which required plenty of nails they had to search every nook and cranny of the basement for.  

Luckily they had each other’s company, which made the work less tedious and the time pass quickly. 

If only the cold hadn’t leaked within the walls of the dorms. While Louis seemed fine working in the chillier environment, only offering an off-hand complaint about it once in a while, Clementine had a harder time. Not only did the cold bother her leg, but it always made her think of when AJ was just a baby, and their time spent at Wellington. Not all awful memories, of course, but for every good memory, many bad ones followed. 

“Did you know that if walkers get cold enough, they stop moving?” she asked him absently when they finished up Violet and Brody’s dorm. 

“I did not know that,” Louis raised a curious brow at her. “And I take it you know that from experience?”

“We lived in a community up north for a while when AJ was just a baby. We got stuck in a storm after our truck ran out of gas and-- well, I had to walk through a bunch of them. They were frozen like statues, and it was snowing so hard that you couldn’t really see them until you almost ran into one. It was…” she trailed off, but Louis seemed to have the idea.

“Terrifying? Eerie?” 

“Yeah, something like that.”

He didn’t push any further.

It was especially cold in Willy’s room-- his window had no glass left in it, allowing plenty of snow to fly in, leaving the floor slippery. The painful wind whipped against their skin as they worked.

It made her hands tremble, which didn’t help Clementine keep the boards straight while Louis nailed them in place. After he asked her if she was okay for the third time since they got there and she assured him through chattering teeth, Louis ran back to his dorm. He came back with a pair of thick gloves, helping her slip them on despite her protests. 

He teased her, clasping both of her gloved hands in his and rubbing warmth into them. She would’ve bitten back with a remark of her own, but she was sure he would’ve let go, so she thanked him instead. 

By the time night fell and they were back in her dorm covering the final window, Clementine’s fingers were sore and stiff from the cold seeping into her gloves. 

Leaning against the frame of her bunk bed with a lit lantern in hand, Clementine watches Louis kneel on the dresser, a couple of nails poking out from between his lips as he hammered away, securing the second to last piece of wood over the window frame. Luckily the wind outside calmed down and the snow stopped, making this window the easiest to secure. 

With him so intently focused on hitting the nails rather than his thumb, Clementine allows her eyes to wander over him without getting caught. 

Not that it’d be a big deal if he caught her staring again, just as it’s not a big deal when she catches him. 

Clementine tugs at her necklace absentmindedly, curling the chain around her finger as she watches him, enjoying the quiet song he’s humming as he works. 

The curve of Louis’ nose shouldn’t be so interesting, she decides, nor should the freckles spreading over his cheeks. And his lips definitely shouldn’t be as interesting as they are. 

Clementine smiles, gripping the small charm dangling from the chain-- a piano key. 

“I want you to wear this. For luck.”

“Really? But--”

“No buts, Clem. When we bring everyone home and we’re all safe and sound, then you can give it back, but until then I want you to wear it.”

Louis shifts uncomfortably, muttering “shit” through his teeth as he moves to sit cross-legged on the dresser. 

“You okay?” 

He spits the nails out, mouth twisted in discomfort.

“My legs are asleep.” 

“Wake them up.”

“Has anyone ever told you how hilarious you are?”

“Every day.” 

Louis smiles at her, giving a little shake of his head. Glancing down at her leg, he asks, “Still doing okay?”

She gives him her best reassuring smile. 

“No worse than usual.” 

“But no better?”

“My leg’s okay, Lou.”

He resumes his work of putting the final nail on the board, and Clementine resumes studying his profile. 

Usually, his dreads fell over his face from this angle, obscuring her view.  Today’s different.

When they were boarding up the window in Tenn’s room, Louis let out a small sigh as Clementine spoke about… something? Honestly, she can’t recall what they were talking about, but she definitely remembers Louis setting his hammer down and pulling something from his wrist-- a hair tie. Then, he tied his dreads back before resuming his work, as if doing this was nothing. 

Well, it probably was nothing.

Rather, it should be nothing, something she doesn’t think twice about, and if she does think about it, something she shouldn’t feel nervous to comment on. Clementine should be able to tell him she likes it when he pulls his dreads back from his face. 

She already knows what he’ll do. He does the same thing every time. His dark eyes will go wide for just a moment at the compliment, then as if realizing he has to make of joke, he will. 

Then she’ll tell him she’s serious. His cheeks will flush, and with such sincerity, he’d thank her.  

However, the problem tonight isn’t that Louis’ first instinct is to joke about every compliment she gives him or that she’s too nervous to tell him how nice he looks. 

It’s started weighing on her mind-- her feelings for him, his for her, their friendship, and whether or not this is the right move to make. 

Next to AJ, Louis is her closest companion. Her best friend. He stuck by her side from the beginning, despite everything that happened with Marlon and the raiders, and she realized quickly that she loved him. 

And he loved her, too. 

That wasn’t presumptuous of her to believe, not when he himself told her so.

Last year when Clementine came limping through the gates with AJ practically holding her up, Aasim and Ruby were there to grab and rush her to the dorms. It wasn’t much later after Ruby cleaned and stitched her room that she heard Louis and Aasim arguing outside the door. From what she gathered, Aasim didn’t wake Louis up to let him know they made it back safely, choosing to let him sleep after he practically passed out from exhaustion the night before. 

He wasn’t sure they made it, not after they got separated from him and Tenn. He brought Tenn back to the school and wanted to turn right back, but Aasim had stopped him. 

The relief he felt fell from his eyes in the form of tears upon seeing her in bed, leg a mess, and her smiling at him. She touched the piano key charm.

“It worked.”

Weeks turned into months as Clementine healed, but Louis visited her every single day. When spring came around and she got better enough to move around with crutches, he took her for walks around Ericson.

It was when they were sitting together on the steps leading into the admin building. Her leg started to bother her, so Louis forced her to sit down and rest. He sat beside her, close enough for their shoulders to touch. As they watched AJ and Tenn practice their shooting with Aasim in their makeshift archery rage, he said it. 

“Clem?”

“Yeah?”

She remembers his hesitation, the contemplation playing loud in his eyes before the words came out quiet but sure.

“I love you.” 

When she didn’t say anything-- she didn’t know what to say-- he looked at her, not breaking their shared gaze as he continued. 

“I just-- I thought you should know that. I’m glad you’re not dead, and I’m glad to have you for a best friend. I’m glad you’re here.” 

She could’ve kissed him-- she should’ve kissed him-- but instead, she grabbed his hand and held it with both of hers, rested her cheek on his shoulder, and exhaled a shaky breath before saying it back. 

God, she should’ve kissed him, or at least made it clear that she loved him as both a best friend and something more. Hell, she should’ve told him so the night of the raider’s attack, though at that time, she had an excuse-- with the impending raid, she couldn’t let herself become distracted with romance, despite her feelings. 

What’s her excuse now?

“Please tell me we’re not outta nails,” Louis says, his casual words nearly making her jump. Clementine sets the lantern down to reach into her pocket, struggling to get the nails remaining out. Yanking the glove off, she ends up stabbing her fingers but successfully freeing them. 

“No,” she clears her throat. “We should have enough to finish this.”

“Y’know, maybe we should relocate somewhere warmer,” Louis says, holding out his hand. “Like Texas, or maybe Florida since it’s closer. Wait, no, I hear they have huge mosquitoes.”

“Mosquitoes? I’m sure the alligators are a bigger threat.”

“That settles it, we’re going to Texas.”

Clementine places the nails in his open palm, fingers brushing against his skin. The contact left her whole hand tingling. 

“I’ve never been there,” she says, flexing her fingers, not bothering to put the glove back on. She takes a slow intake of air through her nose in hopes of calming her excited heart. 

“Neither have I, but I hear they don’t have to board up their windows so they don’t wake up covered in snow.”

Together, they line up the final board. Clementine holds it firmly in place as Louis hits the first nail. 

“You know how long it’d take us to get to Texas?” 

“Well, we can make it a road trip,” Louis says with a grin, hitting the nail into the board for extra oomph. 

“That’s a long trip. Think you can handle being apart from Ericson that long?”

“Hell yeah,” Louis replies with no hesitation. “Change of scenery, some adventure, warm weather-- a real vacation.”

“No piano, though.”

Louis cocks his head, pointing the hammer at her. 

“Bold of you to assume we’re not taking the piano with us.”

That gets a laugh out of her.

“Oh, is that so?” she asks. “We’re just going to strap it to the top of the car we don’t have?”

“Yep,” Louis grins. “I’ll drive.” 

“You don’t know how to drive.” 

“Well, neither do you.”

She narrows her eyes at him and the teasing smirk happily playing on his lips. 

“Uh, actually, I’m pretty sure I know how to drive a lot better than you.”

Louis gives a slow, thoughtful nod. 

“Hmm… Remind me, out of the two of us--”

“Don’t.”

“--who has crashed the most cars? Because, and please correct me if I’m wrong, I believe it’s still one to zero.” 

“Alright, Belouga-” Louis shoots her a look, “-you can drive, and when you back us into a tree or run us off the road, just remember that not only will I be there to laugh at you, but the piano will also probably be destroyed.” 

He opens his mouth to speak but changes his mind. After a moment, he sighs. 

“Fine,” he says. “AJ can drive.”

She practically snorts out a laugh. 

“AJ can drive,” she agrees. 

“Perfect,” Louis grins. “Aaaand we’re done!” 

He hops off the dresser, straightening out his jacket as he studies their handiwork. 

Finally, Clementine thinks. Having a broken window during the summer, spring, and even early fall is nice, but once morning becomes increasingly cold and the daylight barely warms anything up, it’s far less nice. Especially when it’s the middle of the night and she’s trying to fall asleep. 

“Where’s the little dude?” Louis asks. “Figured he’d be back by now.”

“He’s patrolling with Tenn,” Clementine says. “They’re having a sleepover tonight.”

“Really?” Louis says, surprised. “And he’s gonna be okay?” 

Clementine shrugs. 

“He said he would be. They’ve been talking about doing this for a while now. Something about Tenn’s comic book collection got AJ really excited.”

“Ah, Science Dog,” Louis nods but leans back against the dresser with arms folded over his chest. “It’s just… you guys haven’t been separated since the Ranch.”

“Right…”

“Are you okay?”

Words weigh heavy on her tongue as Clementine glances down at the floor. She is okay with AJ sleeping in another room, and it’s not as if she can’t sleep in the dorms by herself. It’s much different than when they were separated before she found him at the McCarroll Ranch. Here she knows she’ll see him again tomorrow. 

That doesn’t make Louis’ concern any less sweet. 

“I’ll be fine,” she says, reluctant to admit that it’d be lonely--

Lonely. Having the whole dorm to herself, the dorm that she’s freezing her ass off in. Even if she grabs the extra blanket from the closet, she knows she’ll have a hell of a time getting warm and comfortable enough to fall asleep. But… perhaps something could be done about that. 

Clementine bites the inside of her cheek, her beating heart quickening at the idea. 

It’s forward, far more forward than she probably should be, and this time she has no idea how he’ll react to such a suggestion. She’s not even sure how she’d react if he were the one to suggest such a thing.

“Okay,” Louis says, setting aside the extra board they didn’t use. “If you’re not worried about it, then I’m not worried about it. And hey, that’s a mighty fine looking window if I do say so myself. In fact, we worked hard today. I say we celebrate.”

“Celebrate?”

With a wide smile, Louis grips the flaps of his coat and says, “Got this new song I’m working on. You wanna hear to before bed?”

“Sure--” she cuts herself off. “Wait, no, actually. I’m really tired so I think I’ll stay here.”

“Oh,” his smile wavers a bit, and she can see the disappointment lining his eyes, but he bounces back like it’s nothing. “That’s okay.”

“Maybe you could show it to me tomorrow?”

“I’d love to,” he grins warmly. “Well, if you don’t need anything else, I’ll let you get some rest. I’m sure Aasim’ll have us up and early tomorrow. It’s our turn to clean out the rabbit’s--”

“Louis,” she cuts him off, stepping forward to stop him from fully reaching the door. 

He pauses to look down at her curiously, attention fully focused on her. Even though Clementine has faced far more intimidating situations than this one, she still finds lead filling her stomach, mouth going dry at what she was to propose.

“I, uh, y’know, I was wondering-- since I’m here by myself tonight, I thought maybe we could-- that you could stay here. With me. Sleep here, I mean. Instead of sleeping in your dorm. If you want.” 

The dorm goes silent following her words. It takes all her willpower to not look away, eager to gauge his reaction. 

He stares back at her, blinking slowly, and Clementine knows the warmth reddening his cheeks isn’t from the cold.

“I...Yeah. Yeah, Clem, I can stay here if you want,” he says, then smiles. Clementine already knows what’s coming before his voice goes light, humorous. “We can have a sleepover of our own. Though, I assume you don’t have any cool comics to share, yeah?”

“No comics.”

“Damn. Neither do I. I do have some magazines I found in the headmaster’s office, though they’re not as fun as Science Dog. Guess our slumber party won’t be as cool,” he forces a chuckle that falls flat as he turns to look over AJ’s bed. “You sure AJ won’t mind? Don’t wanna sleep in the little dude’s bed just in case he comes back... Though, the top bunk doesn’t look too bad. Little dusty.”

She could drop the rest, she thinks. Hang out here with him until they’re both tired, and beat herself up for being a coward all night. 

The worst that can happen is he says no, which Clementine is perfectly fine with. She’s not fine with not knowing for sure. 

“Louis,” she brings his attention back to her. “It’s cold.”

“Yeah, Clem… it’s winter. Hence why we spent all day searching for nails and wood to patch up all the windows.”

“I mean, it’s really cold in here.”

“I know?” he says more like a question. “Do you want me to grab some more blankets?

“No, I have some-- Look, since it’s so cold, it’ll be hard to sleep even with extra blankets, so wouldn’t it make sense for us to not be cold?” 

Going off the way he’s looking at her like she’s speaking in riddles, Louis isn’t understanding what she’s getting at. Though, it’s not like she’s being entirely clear, either. If it didn’t feel like she was going to vomit up her own erratic heart, maybe she could just come right out with it.

I want to fall asleep in your arms and keep you warm, you idiot.

“Together,” she tries instead, glancing back at her own bed for emphasis.

That seems to do it. 

His dark eyes search her face for anything to indicate she's kidding but finds nothing within the look he knows too well.

“I--” he clears his throat, hands pushing his jacket back to plant on his hips. He goes to continue, but presses his lips into a tight line instead, at a loss for words. 

With every silent second under his gaze, her anxiety tightens its grip on her belly. Finally, she lets out a long sigh. 

“Nothing? Not even a joke?”

“Clementine.”

The use of her full name, something he rarely does, sends a tingle through her arms and down her spine. 

 “Are you asking if I want to cuddle?”

With how seriously he asks that, it should be funny. It would be funny if she wasn’t such a mess. 

Clementine finally looks away, peering down at the floor. 

“Yes.”

“Huh… Wow, okay, uh…” Louis seems to loosen up, arms falling to his side as a nervous chuckle escapes him. “Hmm, this isn’t what I thought was going to happen tonight. Me ending the night with a busted thumb or a bunch of splinters? Yes, of course.”

“Lou--”

“Sitting down and playing the piano with my best friend Clemmy to help relax after all the exhausting labor we were forced to do today? Obviously. The same Clemmy asking me to spend the night so we can fight the cold by cuddling? ...No. Admittedly, I didn’t see that one coming.” 

“It makes sense, alright?” Clementine interrupts, defensive now that she can’t tell if he’s taking this seriously or not. “If we want to be warm instead of freezing, then sharing body heat is the best way. It’s science, or whatever.”

Louis smirks. 

“’It’s science, or whatever?’ Didn’t realize you were such a scientist, Clem.”

“I-- Look, Louis, If you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

“No, no, no!” Louis hands his hands up, shaking his head and stepping closer to her. “It’s not that! I’m just... y’know. Didn’t expect this. Not that I’m complaining or anything because...” His gaze goes soft, sincere, as does his voice. “Uh… Yeah. Yes. Clementine, I would-- I would like to.” 

“Okay,” she breathes out. The urge to kiss him is back, but she’s not about to push her luck. Not yet. 

Louis leaves briefly to change into more comfortable clothes and grab a few extra pillows-- “Unlike you, Clem, I don’t sleep with only one pillow like some sort of heathen” -- leaving her with a few moments to pace about the room and collect her thoughts. She tries wiggling the nerves out of her hands, shaking them until they’re tingly. 

This is happening. 

As she moves, her leg grows more agitated. While most of the long, painful wound has scabbed and healed over, the nerve damage left behind left Clementine to struggle with even the simplest things, like changing into the pair of thick sweatpants Brody gave her when she and AJ first arrived. 

Pulling the extra blanket out, she laid it over the bed and smoothed it out, peering back at the door every few seconds with anticipation. 

Eventually, a soft knock breaks the silence. Clementine lets him in, finding his arms heavy with four pillows-- what the hell does he need four pillows for?-- and another blanket. 

There’s little talk between them until they stand side by side, both gazing down at the made bed. 

“So...” Louis breaks the tension. “Which side do you sleep on?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Okay... then, I guess I’ll, uh...” Louis scratches the back on his neck, reaching to pull the blanket back before he dips down to crawl close to the wall. Clementine blows out the lamp, leaving the room pitch black. For a moment, she tenses up, then realizes of course... the window. Not even the moonlight can illuminate the dorm. 

“Do you need help?” Louis asks, awkwardly. “I mean, because of your leg.” 

She can’t help but laugh. Not because there’s anything funny about her reaching out into the cold darkness in search of the bed frame or about Louis being concerned she might trip. It’s just the situation.

“I got it, just scoot over.” 

Well, aside from bumping the top of her head off the metal frame, she did manage to climb in next to him with ease. It’s only then did she realize just how small her bed is. 

“Ow.”

“Sorry.” 

“Louis, the pillows.”

“Are super comfortable, yeah?”

“No, they’re in the way.”

“Ah, well, here lemme--”

Eventually, after much awkward situating, they found themselves on their backs, shoulders and legs pressed firmly together beneath the heavy blanket. Clementine was correct, though-- it was much warmer, but the position left much to be desired. 

Clementine let out a loud sigh, shifting her whole body on its side to scoot closer to him, draping her arm around his waist and nuzzling her cheek into his shoulder. Much better. 

“Wow, okay--” Louis let out a nervous laugh. “We’re just gonna-- Cool. Super cool. Really cool.”

“Louis.”

“Hmm?”

“Shhh.”

“Okay.”

Louis rests his hand on her arm, finally relaxing into her touch. While it wasn’t said, they both quietly agreed that this was the warmest they’d been all day. 

Her hand moves to rest on his chest, feeling his heartbeat against her palm. There’s something soothing about its rhythm. 

“Is this okay?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” Louis says. “This is nice. I’ve... well, I’ve never done this before.”

That makes her smile.

“Neither have I, not like this. AJ and I used to huddle together in the back of the car before, but... y’know.”

“Right.” After a beat, he adds lightly, “Didn’t know best friends did stuff like this. Should’ve said so sooner.”

“What, you and Marlon never did this?” she teases. 

Louis laughs. 

“No, I can definitely say that Marlon and I never cuddled.”

His laughter dies down. Clementine frowns, realizing that Marlon’s still a bit of a sore topic. 

“Hope he’s alright,” Louis says. “Last I talked to him, he was still fortifying the windows in the backroom. Found a bunch of stuff beneath and inside the trains. I offered to help, but...”

“He didn’t want it.”

“No. Didn’t want me to keep Aasim waiting, apparently.”

“He has a roof over his head and a bed to sleep in,” she reminds him, knowing that’s only partially the worry. “He’s safe there.” 

Louis doesn’t say anything, but his fingers trail down her bare arm, tracing the jagged scar, and slip down to hold her hand. Like that they stay, enjoying the quiet darkness in each other's embrace. Clementine's still in disbelief that they're both actually here. 

"You know... it's probably going to be this cold all winter."

"You're probably right." 

"I think your scientific hypothesis--"

"Oh, my god."

"--about this body heat thing might be correct." 

"Might?"

"Well," Louis shrugs. "Can't just test a theory once and declare it conclusive."

"Louis, are you asking if we can do this again?"

"Yes, Clem."

They carry on with idle conversations about this and that. Only when Clementine's eyes grow too heavy to keep open does she find her confidence to ask him one of many things occupying her mind. 

"Louis?"

"Hmm?"

"What would you do if I kissed you?"

He doesn't answer right away.

"...Is that a trick question?"

"No."

When he doesn't say anything, Clementine brings his hand to her lips, pressing a light kiss against the inside of his wrist. 

Louis lets out a quiet giggle. 

She smiles. 

"...And what would you do if I kissed you?" Louis asks.

She doesn’t hesitate.

"Kiss you back."

Louis grips her hand tighter. 

"Good to know."

[hamihamstik]

idk what the fuck did i do to yeah get ready for visual cancer and my bad writing.

´´John, that's enough! ´´ claims an annoying Alexander, a 17-year-old boy who attends Columbia University, this boy had charming eyes of a blue color combined with violet and a curly hair dyed a strong brown that He could almost look red, not forgetting his beautiful freckles which were scattered all over his face. He had to admit that he was very feminine and his height and body did not help, he was very handsome among women and men although he denied it. Taking her hands off his insistent boyfriend, John, the ones that only managed to scare him.

And it was October 31 and instead of going out to party with the boys or the Schuyler sisters, he could even stay with Gil or George and Martha but no, he had decided to stay with John in his apartment, to watch movies, taking advantage of his parents and siblings are not there.

Serious mistake.

You're a coward. . .''John jokes, continuing with the pinches that distract the freckled, in his attempt to pay attention. They were watching the Japanese version of ´´The Aro´´ and the truth is that Alex was on the verge of a heart attack, he was not good at horror films, although he had a masochistic taste for these types of films.

´´John, seriously. . .Y-stop! ´´ he asks in a not so convincing way, noticing how the blond's hands begin to slip through his clothes. Alexander knows that they are alone and that they will probably do "that" to take advantage of the time together; he resists anyway.

deep down he liked that Laurens wanted more of him.

Come on, you know the end. They all die, '' he whispers in Alex's ear and although he knows he is right, his hoarse and excited voice is what disturbs him.

In less than he expects, he's already got John on top of him and he's collapsed on the bed in a struggle actually. . .not so forced. And that although he does not want to admit it, Alexander likes that rude and daring side that he rarely showed and despite that, it was ´´Jack´´ who started this type of encounter, mostly to commit indecent acts and explore the joys of sex.

´´ Why don´t you stop Lex? ´´ jokes John with a little impatience and his cock is too erect. ´´oh! I don't know, maybe it's because I have a fucking fear that a woman will appear from the TV and kill us? ´ 'Alex sarcastically responds, with a small blush peeking out of his freckled cheeks and managing to get a small laugh from both of them. Listening to Alex's melodious laugh, for John it was music to his ears, but, if he had known this was going to happen, he would have put him in one of those 80's movies, with those he hadn't had any problems the last time.

"It doesn't matter, we'll fix it," he says, smiling confidently and pulling his pants down on his embarrassed and sarcastic boyfriend. Leaving those slender and shapely legs in sight.

He didn't need his dick to lift anyway, as long as he loosened it would be fine.

´´J-jack, u-hm. . . ” Alex gasps when he feels Laurens's tongue brush against her belly button in circles, as his hands venture up his thighs, spreading them wide open. In the background you can still hear the screams of the horror movie.

Movie that they will never finish seeing.

"Do you like it?" Jack asks between gasps and his cock about to burst. He had spent minutes preparing hard the contracted entrance of his dear boy, who would not stop panting and letting out moans that made him lose what little patience he had. ´´Y-yes. . I think I'm ready," he announces to which John, instantly, unbuttons his pants. Releasing his aching erection.

´´Ngh. . . Alex´´ John moans hoarsely against his ear, at the same time that he aligned his cock in his tight entrance, without waiting any longer, the blonde enters suddenly, drawing a groan from both of them at feeling so complete. It didn't take long when he began to thrust into his ass, as the sound of the bed and their sexual release filled the room. For a moment, none of them feel the noise of the film anymore. They are both gone in that dance of sweaty bodies that invokes pleasure and to which they have become addicted without knowing how.

Until something rings.

´´What was that? ´´ asks Alexander to the busy John, who doesn´t even flinch at the loud sound. He is still very immersed in his work of going out and going into the depths of his being.

A second noise is heard.

'' John. . .´´ Alex insists, starting to get really scared. It sounded like knocks, coming from the first floor. ´´Alex, for the shit stop squeezing me ngh !. ... it must be a fucking bird crashing into the window.´´ he tries to calm him down, feeling how his member is compressed against his insides, every time the freckled body tenses.

"What if he is your father?"

The blond's face pales at the horrendous possibility.

"Shit, get dressed!" He says, completely leaving his entrance, and then running off to get their clothes. He throws Alex's clothes at his face, ordering him to stay in the room and for no reason leave there, until verifying if he is his father.

He doesn't know about their relationship, nor that Alexander is in the house. . His presence of him there would be something very annoying to explain.

(…)

The minutes pass and John does not return, Alex begins to worry.

´´John? ´´ he asks once in the kitchen, he chosen to go downstairs anyway. They had spent several minutes without knowing anything about her boyfriend and now she was really scared

He walks towards the front door. . .

It's open.

. . .

With a little chill through running her body, he quickly goes to the kitchen for something to threaten his possible aggressor. He takes a knife, but since he does not consider himself a murderer, he decides to exchange it for a large meat grinder. At least with this one he could take down the possible intruder, before escaping.

Alexander, barely breathing, creeps into the house. There is no noise in it and no sign of John. So, drawing courage from him, he does not know where, he goes outside through the backyard door, where the entrance to the shed can be seen ajar.

A stain of what appears to be blood can be seen on the door of this and causes the freckled young man to collect his heart. Then, shivering and tears streaming from his violet eyes, he enters desperately.

´´J-jack? ´´ he asks with a shaking voice and gasping for breath. He does not see the blond, because it is very dark. He advances looking for the wall switch and then. . .

Then he steps on something that made his blood run cold.

´´AHHHHHHH !! ´´ he yells when he steps on something similar to a body, then realizing that it is just a very battered scarecrow. He breathes a sigh of relief and luckily for him, he finally finds the light switch.

He turns it on.

´´AHHHHHHHHHH !!!! ´´

Alexander runs terrified of the place before what he saw. A shed full of blood-red stains and something that looked like guts scattered on the floor, but what had scared him the most was the dark cloak one that he could make out at the bottom of a corner.

It was that of a person.

. . .

Alarmed, he enters the house and without being able to reach the bathroom, in the kitchen dishwasher he begins to vomit. His body trembles and tears of deep pain fall from his eyes, as he thinks about the possibility of what he saw spread across the walls and floor. . . was his jack

-Hey, don't you think we went out of line?-

-Shut up dumb.-

-oh god, I can't anymore.-

-It was your idea, I'm just following you, asshole! -

-my idea?, it was Ben! -

-Don't blame me for his perversions, when Alex finds out he's going to hit us with that butcher's machete.-

Three young people comment on their joke while hiding in some bushes, unfortunately, precisely the ones facing the kitchen.

(…)

'' Shit, we're more than screwed. . .´´ are Benjamin's words as he sees Alexander open the bushes, revealing his hiding place. His face overcomes what is anger. His eyes are still red from crying and his serious gesture is one of complete hatred.

And he still has the machete in his hand.

"B-ben, weren't we going to the party?" Hale asks Benjamin, who nods nervously, because he knows that if they don't get out of there. . . . they will go very badly.

Alexander although he seems a weakling, but he has strength.

And a machete.

´´y-yes´´ supports him ´´ well dude. . . take care! ´´ Benjamin says goodbye, slapping John on the back, in an attempt to give him support. Although rather, it is a gesture of condolences to his sexual life.

Tonight someone was going to stay without fucking.

(…)

´´Alex,. .hey. . .´´ He tries to get closer to the redhead, taking care that the minor does not split his head.

´´NO! ´´ Alex jerks away from the arm that is trying to take him. "DON'T TOUCH ME, YOU'RE A DAMNED IDIOT!" He shouts angrily, trying not to give her the satisfaction of seeing him break into tears.

Although he was already doing it.

John, like few times in his life, feels bad about the things that

he does. And he had never seen Alex like this.

Crying as if his life were lost on it, and with so much sorrow in his eyes.

This time,

He messed it up.

´´Alex, sorry. . .´´ he whispers and makes a second attempt to get closer, which this time, if it seems to work. His dear boy is so sad and hurt that he does not resist when John embraces him, pulling him close to his body. ´´ I already told you I'm sorry, I'm fine. . Come on, don't cry. . .´´ he tries to calm him down, stroking his back and giving him small kisses on his face full of small salty tears.

'I-I thought you were dead. . .I-I saw all those things and. . .´´ Alex tries to speak but only starts crying again. John, feeling like the worst beast in the world, accompanies him in bed. Laying him on his bed and settling aside to caress his face, guiltily, until he stops crying. Spreading kisses down his cheeks, which were now red as was his nose.

´´J-john no. . .'' Alex tries to stop him when he sees him approach his lips to his face, with the intention of kiss him. ´ ´I v-vomited´´ he confesses ashamed, hiccupping from crying.

´´ I don't care, it's okay. I can clean you with my tongue. . .´´ John insists, speaking flirtatiously to make him laugh again. He likes Alexander who usually laughs, who cries in this way hurts him, and more to know that it was his fault.

´´Stop your nonsense. . . . Can we sleep? ´´ asks what Laurens, trying to control her sexual / depressive urges, nods.

He would have to stay with it this time.

They both snuggle up, covering themselves well with the blankets and giving each other a couple of kisses before going to sleep.

A noise is heard again

Alexander, snuggled against Jack's chest, looks up. John, annoyed, decides to ignore the sound similar to that of a while ago.

Again he is heard again.

These idiots. . .´´ he complains, taking his cell phone to give Benjamin's life sermon. When he answers him, he receives exactly that.

-Hey idiot, are you retarded or what? Stop with your shit or seriously I'm going to kick your balls, and until they come out.

But it is not Benjamin who speaks, it is more, nobody answers. The music of the party is not heard either. Only someone's breathing can be heard in response, so terrifying it makes John hang up the phone and throw it to the ground as if on fire.

´´What's wrong? ´´ asks Alex, calmer now. Jack was a little pale. And is that John, had already heard that noise. He heard it when he stood at the entrance of the house, when he went out in search of what was generating that annoying blow, and then ended up meeting his friends and playing that stupid joke for which he now feared that the freckled man would really hate him.

"It's nothing, let's go back to sleep." He replies, trying to convince himself that it must be another stupid joke of those two. Alexander closes his eyes quietly but John cannot sleep, any noise alerts him. He has a bad feeling.

´´ What's wrong, can't you sleep? ´´ asks Alex, noticing how his Jack moves too much on the bed. . . "no. . . .i have a little insomnia" he confesses, not wanting to terrify him with the chilling thoughts of him.

Where there was still someone in his home.

´´ Me too´´ Alex mentions as he snuggles deeper into John's arms. "Do you want to fuck?" Asks the blonde, to which Alex just laughs. "Jack, don't think I forgot the joke," he replies to which John huffs, frustrated, assuming there really wouldn't be sex today.

´´ although I am surprised that they were so detailed with all that of the blood, guts and that dark suit.´´

´´What a dark suit? ´´ asks John, not remembering that in the plan.

´´the one with the disguise, the dark cape.´´

´´ There was no dark layer .´´

´´ but I saw someone at the back of the shed.´´

. . .

This is when John is more alarmed than before.

And when another noise is heard, this time they can both notice

Which is from a window on the first floor. and that this time they will not be able to see the light of a new day.

Morning news, yesterday October 31, two bodies were found on 123rd Street, because of the atrocious way in which they were murdered, they could not recognize them, however, thanks to our best police officers, we now know their names. John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton. we recommend not leaving the house while we still do not catch this man.

On tv there was an image of the murderer of that couple.

who could say that John Andre's jealousy would lead him to commit such an atrocity.

[foolscapper]

Spn prompt! I have a HUGE love of incoherent/delirious Sam and panicking/worried Dean, whether it's head injury, curse, blood loss, or dangerously high fever 👉👈

Your wish is my command! It ended up... longer than anticipated... but here you are! Unbeta’d, we die like men. This is weechesters and involves a kid being hurt, so if that’s something that’d bother anyone, feel free to skip over this!

(Posted to Archiveofourown as well.)

Sylvester Sharpe turned from the beat up Ford truck he'd parked on the corner of A Street and Cotton Circle after a voice coolly demanded his attention. The boy  that met his critical stare was about half his age — youthful, maybe somewhere between sixteen or eighteen: dirty-blonde hair; strange old necklace; a charcoal black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, darker with sweat around a neckline littered with holes that implied he really loved that goddam shirt. Sylvester furrowed his brow, put out his cigarette on the lip of a truck bed full of trash and beer bottles and stolen shit he'd been selling to good buddies who know a thing or two about loose lips getting busted, and squinted at the boy like he were pea-sized.

"What?" Sylvester said, the clipped sound one of impatience.

"I said," the freckled boy replied back, terse, "Do they call you 'Sly' around here?"

Sylvester snorted, loose-limbed and careless and ready to move on to the nearest liquor store to get a new pack of Marlboros. He turned toward his open truck door to move along. He said, "Yeah, I'm Sly."

The kid lunged, and they were on ground in a few seconds flat. 

An old man in an ivy cap walking his dog watched as the teenager started to beat the ever-loving shit out of him.

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

You don't mess around when it comes to concussions. Concussions are traumatic brain injuries — sometimes it doesn't feel like that, because you think "oh, well, they just shook some screws loose; they just have some stars circling around their head, and they'll be fine in a few hours". But real life ain't cartoons. 

If there's one thing you could give their old man credit for, it was that he never undervalued a trip to the ER when it came to the safekeeping of his son's brains. Dean had a concussion before, himself. Just before he turned fifteen; got thrown into a wall by a ghost before returning back to their hotel room and vomiting his guts out in a toilet not even worth pissing in. Sam had been about eleven, casting the kindest and most worried shadow over the hunch of Dean's back, rubbing his shoulders and nervously parroting Dad about how he absolutely shouldn't go to sleep, no matter how much he slurred he wanted to.

Dad looked up the nearest ER and drove him down. 

The nurses had to stand there with their mouths in a thin, concerned line while Dean rambled on and on about how he'd caught a Chupacabra in a giant net once in Texas and ganked a vampire last week in Pasadena. And, of course, Dean also asked where Sam was — over and over and over and over — until Sam had to lean forward in his waiting room chair and wave at him, a constant reminder that he hasn't been left behind anywhere. Sam had tired lines around his mouth, then, and worry in his eyes that had been overcast with exhaustion. That's one of the few things Dean could remember about that night. Just thinking, 'Man, Sammy, why you look so tired?'

If he hadn't been so fucking concussed, the answer'd be obvious.

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

Stuck in some half-dead town in Nevada in the summer of '95, Dean was more than a little restless; Dad had left them to go wipe a vampire nest a few small towns south, and apparently Dean hadn't been "big britches" enough to handle a hunt of that scope yet. Which was total horseshit, because he was sixteen; he could outdrink any old chump at the bar and he'd gotten a kill list so long that it rivaled a suburban mom's grocery list. 

They settled into an apartment with no furniture save for a two-seated couch and some mattresses — and exactly two months worth of rent covered with no plans to renew — but at least it also had a television with a few channels, too. Sweating from the heat, he traded the urge to hunt with the privilege of kicking up his feet and watching The People's Court. School had ended an hour or so before, but Sammy'd stayed behind for some extracurricular club he'd been practically vibrating to join, and Dean had no plans to shoot it down while Dad wasn't around to comment on it.

There was a small struggle at the front door to unlock it, and Dean listened with a quirked eyebrow.

"You forget how human hands work, Stuart Little?"

The door creaked open a fraction in response, and then stayed that way for a moment. Through the sliver of open air, Dean heard a small sob that made his stomach fall through the couch, and as he swung himself up onto his feet Sam walked through the door and nearly right into him — it was easy to see why, because his right eye was completely swollen shut, purpled and shiny. Dry blood clung under his nose and matted one side of his head, and he swayed on his feet when Dean's hands jolted out to grab his shoulders.  The kid's backpack was nowhere to be seen. Probably dropped and abandoned.

"Sam. Sammy." His hand reached to touch, and he found the bloody, clumped hair hid a lump the size of a golf ball, split and oozing. The kid shuddered with pain, and tears continued to leak down one side of his face. The fear mutates and splits off, leaving a new, fresh wave of emotion: fury. This isn't a monster. These aren't claw marks or some bruise caused by a furious ghost. Some punk-ass kids must have jumped him at the school and left him like this. And his brother walked all the way back here like that. He would even bet they aren't Sam's age. Sam wouldn't have let them do this without a hell of a fight.

He could barely stop the snarl of his lips, the cold calmness. "... Sam, who did this?"

"I don't..." Sam licked his lips, looking around like he wasn't sure where he was. Garbled words took time to form with a tied tongue. Dean could bet if he peeled the other eye open, the pupils would be mismatched in size. "I don't remember. I'm... I don't know. Dean."

The fury had to wait. He moved to walk Sam to the couch, planted him there and squeezed his brother's shoulder; another cold wave of outrage washed over him when Sam winced in pain, like something was hurt there, too. "It's okay. It's okay, little brother, just don't move. I'm going to clean you up, and we're gonna — get you to the urgent care. You hear me? It'll only take a minute."

He got the first aid from the bare kitchen cabinet, dug around for all the things he'd been familiar grabbing any time Dad had gotten his bell rang. He fumbled with the supplies with all the grace Sam had opening the front door. Uttered a sorry before he carefully pressed the gel icepack to Sam's eye. The other eye locked onto him, red and wet, glazed with delirium.

"Dean," Sam wept, and Dean had to focus hard to make out what he was saying: "Dean, I think I'm dead... I tried to find help, but nobody — nobody stopped... I think they can't see me. I think I'm a ghost."

Jesus. Yeah, the kid was concussed. Bad.

"No way. Not my little brother. Never gonna let that happen." His smile was strained as he grabbed Sam's wrist and raised the hand to the boy's own face. "Ghosts aren't big on crying, right? The salt would burn like a bitch."

"Dean..." 

"Yeah?"

"My ears're weird... Sounds weird," he admitted weakly, like he'd done something wrong. 

"It's okay, dude. You're concussed."

"... Oh." Sam sat for a moment. Looked around the small, unlived space. The People's Court was moving into a commercial. "Dean... Don' tell Dad. Don't tellem I messed up."

Dean pressed a palm to Sam's chest, his thumb gently rubbing the hill of his collarbone to soothe him. Usually about now they'd be wrestling over some stupid fight, or he'd be getting him into a headlock to test his reflexes, or Sam'd be throwing pencils at him for interrupting his train of thought at the kitchen table.

"You didn't mess anything up. I promise." It was a Herculean effort to keep his hands soft and caring, because all they wanted to do now was rip someone to pieces. He was gonna. As soon as Sam was good, he was gonna split his knuckles knocking someone's teeth out. He was gonna paint the dirt with it. Gonna blacken both eyes and bleed both nostrils and break a few things in someone's body.

... But only after making sure Sammy'd be alright.

Sam was missing a backpack and about forty bucks in money he'd earned from mowing lawns for the balding, dorky librarian living across the street. That same librarian ushered the boys into the back seat of her Sedan and made a beeline for the nearest ER. With Sam leaning against him, his knobby elbow jutting into his ribs, Dean answered a question nervously asked from the driver's seat.

"I don't know who did it. But I'm real good at hunting down whatever I got to."

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

There was a gratifying sound of Sylvester's skull hitting the side of his own truck after Dean threw him into it headlong. Storming forward, he doesn't hesitate to pick Sly back up by his flannel jacket to do it all over again. "Taking from the grown-ups not good enough for you?! You think you can fucking steal from kids, huh?! Think you can beat up some kid a third your size, huh?! You fuck—"

Wheezing, Sylvester tried to drag himself up into the driver's seat of his truck, a feeble effort to escape his punishments. A small crowd from a barbershop across the street formed, but kept their distance — older ladies mostly who knew better than to put their hands between a dog fight. Dean ignored them to grab Sylvester by the front of his collar and hoist him a foot up from the seat he'd slumped on. Their faces were inches apart, so that he could look into hazel eyes seeing red. "If I ever see you again, I'mma kill you. Do you understand? Do I make myself clear? I'll sleep like a baby after."

Sylvester didn't reply, but he did moan in pain, and Dean considered that an answer. He dropped him and stepped over his heaving chest with dust-stained boots to retrieve a backpack out of the truck bed. Then he reached into the man's jean pocket with swelling knuckles, digging more than forty dollars out of the billfold he finds there and shoving the wad into his own pocket. Then he chucked the rest of the wallet across the unleased dirt field. 

"Go fuck yourself," Dean said finally, and left just as he'd come.

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

Dean and Sam could barely fit on the apartment's couch together, legs crammed together under a quilted blanket while the television had cast an ever-changing glow over them. Sam's face was still a mess of Dean's least favorite colors, but now he could see both of his eyes, and that helped loosen the knot in his stomach. John had been called from the ER, told the story from front to back, and he filled the teenager with grim vindication when he complimented Dean's recent successful hunt. 

The verdict: a 24-hour observation in the hospital, during which John Winchester strode in to keep vigilant watch over Dean as he kept vigilant watch over Sam; he hadn't stopped watching him since they'd gotten home after, either. Dean could hear his father's snores through the door into the one bedroom. Who knows when the last time Dad slept had been; he'd come straight back from the end of the destroyed vamp nest, no pitstops. 

"... Dean?" Sam asked after him, wearily. If he had a nickel for every time the boy said it today, he'd be a millionaire. But there was an awareness in Sam's eyes this time that had been frighteningly missing earlier, as he stared at him from across the short couch. In the ER, it had taken a lot of coaxing and promising that Sam wasn't as dead as he'd thought he was, and now Dean was very confident he finally believed it a day late and a dollar short.

"Yeah?" 

"Your hands."

He glanced down at the bruised, scraped up knuckles, and just shook his head at the sight of Sam's apprehension; he hadn't told Sam exactly what happened, but his brother was smart. Smarter than most people who came and went in their lives. Smarter than Dean had ever felt he could be. He sighed as he flexed his hands. "Don't worry. I'm not going to jail for murder or anything. Just... rest, okay?"

Sam's chin sunk into the blanket. Not appeased, but relenting. 

The battered kid mumbled, "You're the one who looks tired," then he smiled in that way that made Dean regret his bleeding heart. Dean's mouth opened for a moment, then closed. He played it off as best he could, but the rough emotion in the way he glanced aside and rubbed a hand down his mouth  was hardly subliminal. "Yeah, well. Sometimes worrying too much is exhausting, dude."

Sam bit his lip. "I'll try not to worry you as much, then."

Dean reached out, patted the bony knee near his.

"... I might have to hold you to that."

But really? He would never.

[15-dogs]

queen of hearts |r.l.|

pairing: (young) remus lupin x ofc (angela kerrigan)

summary: this is an excerpt from my longer fic (that I’m currently finishing) to thank you all for 100 followers! it follows remus lupin and angela kerrigan in their 7th year of Hogwarts. remus fell for her years ago but his secret affliction is holding him back from telling her the truth. but the closer he gets to her, the more he realizes she may be hiding more than he is.

warnings: implied sexual content (sort of), very very light swearing

guide: none

word count: 3559

“I would do anything to be that little 3rd year shit,” Sirius commented to James as he eyed the girl across the hall as she sat on the first step of the staircase, comforting a boy who nuzzled into her chest. “He’s using her because she’s one of the only attractive girls on campus who rarely wears a bra!”

James glared at Sirius to get him to be quiet but Sirius shrugged defiantly. Finally, James’ eyes made their way towards Angela Kerrigan, who was rubbing the back of the young Gryffindor in her arms. The boy smirked against her breast as she looked away from him.

“I’ll be right back,” James groaned as he walked over to the clueless prefect.

As soon as James left, Remus and Peter joined Sirius. The two chatted about the Chudley Cannons game that had gone on right before school had started up again. Sirius peeled his eyes away from James and Kerrigan to talk to his friends who had been held up at breakfast.

“Last year with Minnie, mates!” Sirius exclaimed as he held his schedule in front of him.

“Last year for everything here, Sirius,” Remus adds as his gaze drifted around the building. He froze as his eyes landed on Kerrigan, James, and the 3rd year boy. James’ hands moved around animatedly as if he was explaining something to the pair.

“It’s fine,” James said through grit teeth. His lips curled upwards as his sight turned towards the boy who had finally unlatched from Kerrigan. “If he wants to talk to anyone he can talk to me about his problems!”

Remus stood absolutely clueless as he tried to read their lips. He knew his friends well, though, and could somewhat interpret their actions. Kerrigan’s brow furrowed but she remained smiling, glancing up at James who was biting back laughter at the mortified boy.

“But I feel much more comfortable talking with her!” the boy cried. Kerrigan looked between the two Gryffindors before her in blatant confusion at why she wasn’t allowed to help the boy in front of her.

“Are you going to be ‘comfortable’ telling your friends why you lost house points?” James implored. The boy looked away from James’s stare and rolled his eyes. “That’s what I thought. Now, go on.” James nodded his head towards his pack of friends who attempted to hide on the other side of the staircase. The boy sauntered off towards his friends while James laughed to himself.

“What was that for?” Kerrigan asked. Her heart looked a little broken from not being able to help the sorrowful boy.

“Let me tell you that from here it looked like he wanted you to help him, if you know what I mean.” James raised his eyebrows at the American girl, her head tilting to the side.

“Huh?” Kerrigan pondered. Her eyes suddenly went wide with realization. “Oh. Thanks, James.”

Remus stared across the room as Kerrigan self-consciously covered her chest, her eyes wandering towards the floor as blush crept across her ears. What did she have to be self-conscious about?

Remus hadn’t noticed James walking towards the group until it blocked his view of Kerrigan. A smirk grew on James’ lips as he wiggled his eyebrows at Remus. Remus’s expression went cold before tuning back into whatever Sirius and Peter were talking about. As soon as all four boys begin to talk, a familiar voice calls out.

“Remus! Hey!”

Remus whipped around as fast as he could to spot the tall brunette who had approached him. Her silky hair flounced and finally fell at her shoulders as she stopped in front of him. Remus gave her a tight lipped smile as he pretended the smell of her hair didn’t have him weak in the knees.

“We have rounds together tonight, right?” Angela asked.

“Yeah, we do. Same place?” Remus responded, his strangled smile beginning to break. Her beaming at him made him go absolutely mad and he couldn’t help but beam right back at her.

“For sure.” She nodded profusely. “Same time?”

“Always.”

The girl dipped her head as she giggled. She looked up at Remus with her olive eyes, a strand of her tan and gold hair falling out from behind her ear. Remus clenched his hand into a fist to resist reaching up and brushing her hair out from her eyes; partly because he wanted to see her face and partly because her hair looked so incredibly soft.

“Hi there, Angela,” Sirius intervened smoothly. 

Kerrigan did a double take as if she didn’t know that he was there. Her eyes fell across the group and widened, noticing that it wasn’t just her and Remus. She quickly adorned a bright smile that had Remus clenching his jaw.

“Hi, Sirius,” she replied. “Hi guys!”

Kerrigan turned back towards Remus with a softer, gentler smile. Remus felt his jaw release tension as he saw the little coating of blush that dusted her cheeks. The contrast between the pink tinge and her fair skin made the smattering of freckles across her face pop.

“I better go. Lily had the genius idea of signing us up for Alchemy because she thinks that Slughorn doesn’t like her,” Kerrigan explained. Her lips curled into a smirk as she rolled her eyes.

“What?” Remus questioned in disbelief, a small chuckle rolling off his tongue. “She’s one of Slughorn’s favorites!”

“That’s what I said!” Angela moved her hands through the air in wide movements for emphasis. The pair laughed quietly until the hall started to flood with students. “Anyway…”

“Right.” Remus attempted to not sound so disappointed.

“I’m gonna head out. Talk to ya’.”

Angela turned around to walk towards her next class and Remus gave her a light wave, a lopsided smile on his face. She took no more than a few steps before James stopped her.

“Say hi to Lily for me?” James asked. Angela cocked her hip and sized up the slightly taller boy in front of her.

“Depends,” she responded, her voice smooth. Remus couldn’t help but ogle the way she ran her tongue across her teeth like she was hiding something from him.

“Depends?” James’s voice became shaky as he leaned in closer to the girl.

“On what I can get in return.”

Remus sucked in a sharp breath as her hips swished to the side. He moved his eyes away so as to not draw attention to his stare.

“Bargaining? You’re not as sweet as you look, Kerrigan.”

Her facade faltered as her eyes widened, before quickly correcting herself by donning her smug grin. “Damn straight.” Remus fought the urge to hold her, comfort her, tell her just how amazing she is.

Kerrigan crossed her arms across her chest and sighed, a smile spreading across her lips once more. “I kid, I had no chip in this anyway.” She leaned in towards James and eyed the passing students. Lowering her voice, she said, “Between you and I, I think you two would make a great couple.”

“You do?” James’ eyes went wide.

Angela nodded while fighting a smile. Quickly, she dropped the grin and furrowed her brow, pointing her finger at the muscular Head Boy before her. “But if she finds out that I said that you’re a dead man, Potter.” James raised his hands in defense, gleaning a smirk.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Angela took a few steps backwards towards Alchemy, her loose gaze drifting from James to Remus. “I’ll see you tonight, Remus.” She turned on her heel and began towards the basement.

Remus watched as she scurried away to her class before catching himself. He averted his gaze towards his friends but Sirius sauntered over to him, nudging him to look back at Kerrigan. Remus gulped and looked back at Sirius who finally made eye contact with his taller friend.

“I’d kill to be you, Moony,” Sirius sighed, clapping Remus on the back. Remus turned towards his friend, raising an eyebrow at him.

“We should get to class,” James said before Remus could question Sirius’ actions.

“We already have a prefect. Don’t turn manic for the rules on me, Head Boy,” Sirius groaned as the four of them made their way to class.

Remus walked into the foyer of the Great Hall, spotting Angela playing with a strand of her hair from one of her pigtails. Her eyes flickered up at the sound of his footsteps against the cold stones, a wide grin spreading across her face that made the sandy haired boy melt. She released the little tendrils of her hair she was braiding to wave at the boy who approached. With her robes off, her uniform was finally presented. Her socks went just over her knees and her skirt fell to the middle of her thigh, leaving a bit of skin exposed to Remus’ thirsty eyes.

“Hey,” she muttered, her voice a little raspy as if she’d been talking all day (which wasn’t a strange occurrence for her).

“Hey,” he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Ready?”

“Absolutely.”

Although the friendly American girl was tall herself, Remus was taller, causing her to strain her neck upwards at him as he moved to stand by her. The way she leaned to look up at him and the way the moonlight highlighted her features nearly made Remus want to pull her closer.

The pair walked in step, silence dawning on them. Remus continuously stole glances at the girl beside him as they fell into their normal routine. They began their routine when they became prefects together in the 5th year. Back then, they barely had rounds together, seeing one another maybe every other month for prefect responsibilities. However, Kerrigan made efforts to become friends with Remus even if they spent very little time together. Now that Lily and James were Head Girl and Boy, they organized schedules. James had them scheduled together once a month which— in Remus’s opinion— wasn’t enough.

“So, what did you do this summer?” Angela began, her eyes meeting the boy next to her.

“Not a lot. Spent some time with the guys. What about you?” As Remus leaned to look at Kerrigan, a few hairs fell into his eyes so he gave his head a swift shake to clear his view.

“You forgot already,” Kerrigan gasped, jokingly offended. Remus narrowed his eyes before understanding what she meant.

“How foolish of me,” he replied with a hearty laugh at her shock. “One.”

When Angela and Remus first started doing rounds together, Remus was quite abhorrent to the idea of socializing with her. In an attempt to become friends with him, Angela proposed a game: each person would ask questions but they had to count off to make sure each person was asked an equal amount of questions. Even after they bonded, they continued to play the game for novelty’s sake.

“Not too much. I went back to Boston. I stayed with my nonna for a few days. We cooked a lot.” Her voice trailed off and she looked off to the side as she reminisced. “One.” The grin was back on her face in an instant and it warmed Remus’s heart.

Silence fell heavy on the two. Remus watched as Angela clenched and unclenched her jaw. She stayed looking straight ahead, unable to meet his eyes. Just when he thought she forgot about asking him a question, she spoke up.

“I missed you, Remus.”

“I missed you, too.”

Remus was positive that his face was entirely red. He rarely ever got flustered around her but her genuine words had him feeling more embarrassed than ever. He had no idea what impulsive idiocy came over him, but when he started to speak he couldn’t stop.

“I wanted to write you. I really did. I got nervous and I didn’t send any of them.” Remus fiddled with his hands for a moment. He couldn’t dare meet her eyes. Why on earth had he said that? His panicked thoughts got interrupted by an extremely unfamiliar smell. He sniffed around, brow furrowed, as if the smell was following them. He didn’t want to mention it to Angela, fearing that he was only picking up the scent due to his “heightened” senses.

He was grounded by the sound of her wonderfully soft voice asking, “Nervous? Why would you be nervous?”

“Because I know that you go back to the states for summer holiday and I didn’t know your other address so I was afraid someone else would find them.” Remus felt his stomach sink. Why was he running his mouth like someone had slipped him veritaserum? “Two,” he whispered meekly.

“Someone else?” Her gaze met his, her brow knit together and mouth agape.

“I didn’t want your boyfriend to think there was something going on between us. Three.” Remus wanted to run away. Couldn’t he just be quiet for once?

Kerrigan’s face went through a series of emotions. Her gaze fell to the floor as her mouth shut. She took a deep breath, chewing on her bottom lip as she figured out what to tell him next.

“I broke up with Erik when break started.”

“Oh,” Remus whispered, trying not to sound too delighted with the news. “I’m sorry.”

“Really, don’t be. That wasn’t a...healthy relationship.”

The shortness of her breath and the anxious fumbling with her hands made Remus instantly sorry. He hated to see her look so upset, even if there was a tiny nagging part of him that made him ecstatic that they were broken up. To relieve her, he decided to steer the subject away from Erik.

“Are you still working to get that club in order?” The little look that Kerrigan threw at Remus made the change in subject all worth it.

“For sure. I have a curriculum that Lily helped me work through but I can’t seem to get a sponsor. I’ve been badgering McGonagall about it because she’s right about the only professor here that would support a female empowerment club. Two.” Angela moved her hands animatedly while talking and Remus followed each movement.

“Do you need any help with it?” Remus was hoping for her to say yes so he could spend more time with her. All he wanted to do was be with her and he wasn’t quite sure what was stopping him. 

“I’m all set, but thanks for the offer Moony,” she teased, nudging into his side. He chuckled nervously but nudged her back in the same playful manner. “Three.”

Oh, right. That’s what was stopping him. Moony.

The Marauders sat down at the Gryffindor table of the Great Hall, quickly filling their plates with breakfast. As they began to eat, James eyed Remus’s plate. James quickly picked up a few more items and spooned them onto Remus’s plate. Remus groaned and eyed his friend who shrugged at him.

“You need to eat more,” James teased. “You’re a growing boy, Moony.” Peter and Sirius made no effort to hide their amusement while Remus rolled his eyes.

“I’ll be 18 in a few months, James. Quit it.” Although James was joking, Remus was still grateful for his idiot of a friend.

James chuckled, looking away from the tall boy across from him for his eyes to land on two familiar girls down the table. James took a bite of his food before he asked, “I meant to ask, how were rounds last night?”

“Good,” he answered, attempting not to perpetuate the idea in James’s mind that Remus was mad for her (even though he was).

“How is our girl?” Sirius questioned, his eyes drifting towards her down the table.

“She’s fine.” Remus was unsure why Sirius started caring about her all of a sudden. It’s not like he never cared about her, it’s just that he never bothered to talk about her.

“You’re holding out on us, Moony. What did you two talk about? I know about that little question game you guys play.”

Remus’s gaze drifted towards Sirius. His brows knit together and eyes narrowed. He was sure that he had mentioned that game before but when had Sirius ever been paying attention?

“She went back to the states over the summer like she always does and she’s having some issues getting a sponsor for her club, but that’s about it,” Remus lied. He shoved the food around on his plate to avoid making eye contact with his friends.

“She always seems to be running around doing that sort of thing,” Peter added, nodding thoughtfully.

“I’m not supposed to be saying this,” James began, “but I heard from Lily that Kerrigan has been working awful hard to get that club in order to keep her mind off the breakup with that boyfriend of hers. What was his name? Erik?”

Remus’s head shot up to eye the scruffy haired boy in front of him before letting his eyes drift towards Lily and Angela. Remus’ eyes softened as she moved her hands wildly while she told a story, the red head across from her tilting her head back in harmonic laughter. He quickly became encapsulated with the view, the sound of Sirius asking him questions becoming mere background noise.

“You’re friends with her, right?” Sirius asked. His voice was strong and steady as if he were full of determination. 

Remus halfheartedly hummed in response as he continued staring at Kerrigan, not exactly caring who saw him. Kerrigan leaned forward slightly, muttering something to Lily before slapping a hand over her mouth and bursting into laughter. Lily sat there, mouth agape, clearly trying to process whatever Kerrigan had told her. After a moment she, too, joined in the laughter.

“She seems like a great person.”

If Remus was paying any mind to his friends around him, he would’ve noticed as James’ and Peter’s faces contorted with bewilderment. James leaned his head slightly to get into Remus’s frame of view but it worked to no avail as Remus continued to stare on in a daze.

“Sure,” Remus responded, not exactly knowing what he was responding to.

“I think we’d get along well, don’t you think?”

“Right.”

“I think I’m going to ask her out. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah,” Remus droned; anything to get Sirius to be quiet.

Suddenly, Remus felt a sharp pain in his shin as James kicked him from underneath the table. Remus groaned, rubbing his leg before realizing why he got hurt. He let go of his leg, his wide eyes drifting towards James who raised his eyebrows in horror. Remus turned towards Sirius who was still eyeing the brunette who Remus always imagined would be his— even if he’d never admit that he had feelings for her.

James looked at Remus as if to say just-say-the-word-and-he’ll-back-off but the fear of admitting that he wanted her outweighed the fear of her wanting his best friend. Remus shook his head ever so slightly, turning his view back towards Kerrigan. This time, Lily told her a story while she sat there making comments every so often, a teasing smirk adorning her soft lips.

“Pads, why did you ask Moony instead of me? I’m friends with Kerrigan too,” James protested. Although Remus was too glum to realize it, James was fighting to get Sirius to back out of his plan for Remus’s sake.

“You just want to shag her best friend, you tosser. Moony here has been friends with the girl since 5th year.”

Remus tried not to let himself imagine what would have happened if he had just been paying attention— if he had said no. At first he was mad at her for being herself and distracting him but soon realized that that wasn’t a valid reason. He just felt so stupid to be so crazy about her to the point where nothing else seemed to matter but her. He wanted to be mad at Sirius, too, but he couldn’t. Remus could barely admit to himself that he had feelings for her, never mind admit that to his friends. All he could do was blame himself.

He wallowed in his anger and sorrows in the following days, but his attention shifted when he realized the full moon was quite soon. The days leading up to the full moon caused him to feel sicker, but the constant nagging of seeing Sirius around Angela made him feel a thousand times worse. The Marauders had most of their classes with Angela, excluding the advanced classes that she and Lily took for the N.E.W.T.s. When Sirius wasn’t taking Lily’s or Remus’s seat, he was waiting outside her class to pick her up. Once Remus had spotted Sirius against the wall, waiting for her to leave Alchemy. He pushed off the wall when she walked past. She glanced over her shoulder, a teasing smirk on her lips as she continued walking, Sirius trailing after her like a puppy.

Remus was more apprehensive about the full moon that night from the fear of his subconscious taking over. Sure, he was upset with Sirius but he didn’t want to hurt him. The feeling deep in his gut told him he wouldn’t have all that much control over that.

He was escorted to the dilapidated shack across campus by the school nurse. His shoulders slumped and his face turned pale, dreading the night ahead.

[c-atm]

Bittersweet meeting 10

“Now that hit the spot, Yeah?”

With a satisfied stretch, Lapis walked out of Fish Stew Pizza, with Steven following behind her.

“Fish stew always do.”

“Guess you would know, huh?” She gave him a smirk from over her shoulder.

“Ey,” he shrugs, “it’s why I got pull here.”

“Oh I forgot, you’re the ‘biggest dog’ in the parlor, right?” She turned around fully walking backward with a grin.

“Damn right,” he chuckled, shaking his hand as he pressed his thumb and middle finger together. His voice taking on a mock version of Vito Corleone “You just had a solo supper with the capo of crust, the don of the sauce, the pizza kingpin of the tri-state. Show the proper patronage and respect.”

“Excuse me, capo.” She took a knee and took his hand in hers,  “Allow me to kiss the ring in reverence.“  Playing along giving him an air kiss on his ring finger, getting a satisfied grunt.

"You're a good egg, Lazuli. I will remember to show you favor, when the time comes."

"Gracias Capo."

A second pass before, The two teens broke character and dissolved into snickers. Steven pulled the bluenette up to her feet close to him, giving her a grin; unaware of her heated and shy smile. He attempted to take his hand back only to find Lapis's grip slightly strengthened, keeping it in hers as she stood beside him.

"Hmm, what’s this about?" Steven arched his left brow with a curious smirk.

"You said you'll show me favor, I'm cashing in." She said in low as she took hold of his arm.

Steven chuckled, hiding his slight discomfort. "Naw, I won't penalize you for this lappy. Besides it's supposed to be a 'date' right? It's no problem." He put his hands in his pocket as they began to walk, unaware of Lapis's slight frown at the teasing tone of the word date .

"So, I still got a favor then."

"That's the long and short of it." Steven jest not minding the slight leaning upon his arm.

"Then can you be totally honest with me, until you drop me off?"

Steven looked down at the blue haired swimmer in inquisition. "Yeah, sure laps. Not that I haven't been."

"You ducked and dodged a bit." She retorted. "Hey, you know Budwick park is on the way. Let's stop there for a bit."

"Trying to get me alone, scandalous."

"Well. If it does turn to a scandal, it'll be worth it." Lapis looked at him with a slight adoring smile, before turning the western corner and making a left into the park's shadowy entrance.

Despite it being November, there was still some greenery to be held from the pine trees arching over the path of gravel beneath their feet. A bit of flora was still present as well along with some dead park lights. It wasn't long before they got to Lapis's destination.

A starless moonlight pond surrounded by  dim circular street lights that sat on poles of emerald colored marble and an azure ceramic fence serving as a barrier. Its four layer ivory tower spilled water into the water body below from each floor. The flashing glows of fireflies gave the area a tone of private serenity, and aura of romanticism.

"Come on, there's a free bench."  

Steven allowed himself to be pulled by the freckled girl to a green bench a few feet away. She sat down first in a slouch before stretching a bit with a grunt.

“ugh..Are you gonna join me, or are you gonna let me freeze by myself?” She patted the spot next to her, looking at him with slight anticipation.

“Freeze? It’s not that cold of a night.” He sat down with a smirk leaning back. “Then again, i’m not wearing…” he looked down and his eyes widened in shock.

“Ah! You noticed.” She taunted with a smile at his face, as she wiggled her toes.

“How the hell didn’t I realize you changed shoes!?” He yelped as he at the aqua boot flats on her feet instead of the sandals he saw her in earlier

“Cause you don’t pay attention when something else is on your mind.” She knocked his shoulder lightly, before sitting back. “Willing to bet another favor you don't even realize I'm shorter than I was in my sandals.”

Steven looked her up and down before rubbing his eyes in embarrassment. “Oh fuck, you are.” He groaned in defeat.

“Hah. Another favor!” Lapis chuckled as she sat back on the bench with a smug look.

“How the hell didn’t I notice? You’re literally three inches more compact.”He rubbed his temple in annoyance.

“Three inches more compact…” she spoke the words testing them and grimaced a bit. “You have a strange way of saying shorter, Universe.”

“Oh quiet, I’ll have you know, people think my terms are charming.” he retorted his nose  up in the air.

“Your family don’t count.” Lapis countered.

“Tsch! I see you taking pop shots.”Steven nodded as he clicked his tongue, his right hand on his left wrist as both forearms rested on his lap “Girls think it’s cute..

“Girls, huh? I guess I gotta set them straight. Obliviously, they need help.” Lapis giggled as she relaxed into her seat. She lowered her eyelids, glancing at Steven from behind them. Feeling her heart skip as his relaxed slouched form. She looked at his calm collected face as he stared forward to the pond, a pleased smirk on his face.  

‘ He really is so cool.’ she thought as she observed him rotate his shoulders before glancing towards her with from his right peripheral

“This was a fun night.” He admitted as he sat back. “ Thanks Laps.”

“It’s no problem.” her voice got a little lower as she continued. “ I’ve been wanting to do this with you for awhile.”

“What hangout? He breathed out a snort. “ We always hang together.”

“First, you haven't been hangin’ with any of us out of school for a few weeks,” She raised her hand to stop his explanation, “second, we always hangout within a group.”  She placed her hand down. “Sure, we have small one on ones when the group’s around, but we haven’t hung solo in a while, buddy.”

Steven rubbed his chin in thought. “I think you’re right.”  he scratched his head “Sorry Lappie, Oh man… When was the last time we had a time like this?”

“Think it was a few months ago, when you had that art project in Mr. Sam class.”

“Yeah!” Steven pointed at the swimmer with a look of realization on his face. “ I remember that. I had to come up with an original piece…” He shook his head, a tired smile on his face “that was a long night."

"So much wasted canvas and watercolor paint. The art room was a mess." She shook her head with a laugh. "Still can't believe you were considering body art to submit."

Steven scoffed. "Would have been an easy A, if I had a willing model."

She laughed at the accusatory tone. "Only professional or at least A+ students get to paint on this." She signaled to herself.

"Hmph,He teased, turning up his nose in a playful pout. " I did get an A+"

"That's true." Lapis tapped her index finger on her cheek while holding her head to the side. "Guess you made criteria make me splash art."

"The others would have agreed to it, criteria free.."  

"I'm sure they would have." She poked his cheek in jest. "It would give them time alone with you."

"Is my time really that precious?" He joked

"You're the only boy in a group of girls, so it's a status thing."

"Wow, that doesn't sound harem-like at all." Steven laughed as she rolled her eyes.

"Pbbt! Don't flatter yourself. " She smirked before leaning back on the bench…"But honestly, I could be projecting a bit."

Steven took notice at how sincere and steady her tone was. "Hmm?" He could feel that weight on his heart again. That uncomfortable, time bomb.

"About spending time alone with you." Lapis grace an embarrassed smile. "I do find it...Nice, not to share you for the time being." She turned away "To have your attention squarely on me and not on her." She spoke in a low, slightly bitter voice. It kind of surprised her.

"Lapis?"

"Ah..Don't mind me." Lapis reassured, his concerned voice throwing her for a loop. She breathed out and folded her hands together on her lap as the two fell into silence.

"We could do this again, right?"

Steven looked at her, quizzically  for a moment " Why would you ask that?" He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. " The answer's obviously yes, Laps."

Lapis looked at him with a slightly flushed face. "You're not just saying that. You mean it, right?"

"Well now, I'm a bit insulted."Steven arched a joking brow. "I meant it when I said it was a fun night. Not to mention I have to be honest with you til' you get home. Don's favor and all."

She smiled hopefully at him and his words. "Right…So this can definitely happen again. These solo hangouts."

"Yeah?" Steven snickered as he watched her excitement. "You're definitely jazzed about the idea.. It's not like it was impossible before this."

"Yes..it was. At least it looked that way to me."

'Oh..no.' Steven thought as she looked at him, her blue eyes determined, her lips in a line as her thumbs twirled around each other. All giving him the feeling of something he would regret.

"What'd you mean, Lappie? I was always  open to hangout...Last couple of weeks notwithstanding." He said in a strained voice.

"Sure you were...With Connie."

Steven stiffened on reflex at the accusatory pitch. "Hey now..What do N-

"Remember your favor."

Steven was silenced at her statement.

"Remember, complete honesty." She reminded him.

'Looks like we're getting to the heart of the matter.' Steven thought as he gave her a light-hearted smirk. "So, you're gonna grill me, Lappie. That's why you got me all alone."

"Partially." She gave him a scared grin " Truthfully, I just wanted more of your time and attention to myself...Like I said it's a nice feeling not having to share it." Her voice took on a slightly darker tone. "I bet Connie feels the same way."

"I thought Connie was a banned subject for the night."

"Never said that, not that it mattered." she sighed. "She's been in your head all night. Probably sitting pretty on your brain as we speak, right?"

Steven rubbed his nape and looked away. "Not...All night...I was focus on our hang-"

"Date."

Steven looked towards Lapis, who glared slightly at him.

"Date..This is a date."

Steven gulped at the finality of her voice." Granted..a platonic one."

"Does it have to be?"

The amount of hope in that one sentence  crushed his heart. He felt bile run through him as he looked at one of his dearest friends.  'Oh Lapis..I'm sorry ..'

"it's..selfish of me to ask you that," she looked down at her hands. "but in a way..So was this whole night."

"Lapis.."

"Please." Lapis interrupted. "Let me get this out." She smiled gently when he nodded. " So remember when I said there was a third reason why I never approached you? Well I thought you were already with Connie then. Or at least you had feelings for her. So I let those feelings go, once we got to high school." She rubbed the back of her head. "I mean, it was just a matter of time til' you two started dating, right? The way you carried on and such. It seemed like it was the best thing to do," she sighed.."or at least I tried to, but It's hard when your crush is one of your best friends and someone you look up to as well, you know."

Steven nodded, his mind going back to his past crush on Stevonnie.

"So. I just chose to watch from afar, wait into the inevitable like everyone else..and then let these feelings go."  She chuckled. "Little did I know I would fall even more the longer, I waited. The more I watched you and her."

"Why'd you never say anything before, Lapis?"

"Why..I?..." She released a broken chuckle. "How could I?..When the more I watched and fell for you..I witnessed you falling for her." She chuckled darkly " And why wouldn't you? Hard working, friendly, super smart, beautiful, modest...She's the jackpot, and it looked like it was mutual attraction."  Lapis sighed " How was I supposed to compete with that?"

"You're a jackpot yourself, Lapis'' He answered with a smile before sighing, "Besides you turned out to be wrong." He answered a bit bitterly. "She's got a boyfriend."

Lapis glanced at him with a smirk growing on her features. "True enough..It's part of the reason why I asked you out tonight." Lapis' face gained a bit of heat as she looked at him."Seeing how you downtrodden you looked at the party.. Wanted to make you smile, but also I saw it as a chance to show you how much I love you." She paused looking at his blushing face. A bit worried at his answer.

"..Steven..Answer me honestly, have you ever thought of me as a possible partner?"

"I …Honestly." He breathed in. "Yes. I have." His voice was steeled by truth. " You're smart, creative, humorously snarky, loyal, fun, and crazily attractive. I feel I can easily talk to you about anything. "

"You can Steven!"  She held his hands as her face glowed in excitement. " Talk or do anything, at all."

His heart broke completely at the hidden desperation in her tone. "Lapis. I love you. There's no denying that."  He looked down, unable to look her in those blue eyes. The feel on her trembling hands were more than enough.

"Why are you saying it like that? Please don't say it like that."

Her broken voice killed him. "I'm sorry Lapp-

"No...No nicknames or pet-names," She sniffed, "Not when you're rejecting me. "

"Sorry Lapis...You're right." He looked up   at her. "Lapis.. I love you..but it's not romantic"

"Is it because I'm not as good as her?". The desperation was at the forefront this time, accompanied by tears. "Not as good as Connie?"

"Damn it Lapis, you're better than that." He growled "You got so much to offer, don't lower yourself like that."

"It's true though, isn't it."  Lapis countered

"No! Lapis it has nothing to do with Connie.. She's not all that great, anyway Steven offered. "She drools and at times, snore when she sleeps..Which she needs to be put on schedule for that. She cheats at fighting games. She's one of the worst people to have to wake up-"

"Don't patronize me, Steven...Everyone can see how you feel about her." Lapis spit out. "Even now, you're bragging about her.

"She..she's my best friend Lapis..I see her as my best friend"

"Just best friends…" She ball her hands into fist. " You're lying...You promised not to lie until we part."

"I..It's the truth. " He snarled. "She's just my best friend. No matter what. No matter how I feel."

"And how do you feel?"

Steven glared.." Truthfully, betrayed.  Like it should've been me with her tonight but I missed my chance.. "

"That's not the feeling one has for just a best friend."

"Doesn't matter at the moment."

"Then why not give me a chance." She moved to sit on his lap facing him. Placing his hands on her waist before her arms around his shoulders.Her blue eyes meeting his browns, her hopeful gaze meeting his hurt and longing one.

"Lapis...I."

"It hurts." She whispered, “To be in love with someone that you deem so amazing and yet you can't have...Especially when you know they care for you so much but in a different way." She kissed his right cheek gently. "I know, I've gone through it, but you don't have to…"  She kissed the left just as gently. "Even if it's just a little while. Even if to ease off the heartbreak. Give me the chance to love you, like you love her."

He could've moved her off him easily, lifted her up without fail, but he didn't. He was aching for affection, the thought of Connie at her party, Lapis's revelations and  Steven's own bubbling feelings for the former had him in a spell of neediness.

He closed his eyes and parted his lips. He felt her cold palms on his cheeks, and felt her breath on his lips as she got closer..It was heart pounding…He could feel Lapis getting closer and he tightened in preparation.

'Just a bit of ease from this heartbreak..it's not like anyone would know.. Not like I'm hurting someone.' He thought..

Before the image of Connie in his jacket, dancing on the street listening to music on the player he got for her through the biscuit and  strawberry earbuds. The vision turned around and gave him the smile he been missing for the last weeks

'Steven..’

It was a reflex, like being burned by a heated stove..The way he moved from Lapis’s lips.

“R-really?”

Steven bit his lip in shame before looking at her. The face of dejection and pain on her beautiful features...The tears that began to run freely staining her face..He hated it. Hated that he put her through this. “I love you laps...I love you so much… “

“No,you don’t.. “ She sobbed and shook her head.. “You love her..not me..” .

He held her close, protectively “ I do..I love you both..You’re both irreplaceable to me.”

“But she has your heart, right? Why….She hurt you..”  She trembled as she latched on to his clothes desperate for any of his affection.

“She..She didn’t.” It was a hard truth for him. Connie having a partner that wasn’t him. It was a hard weight. “She didn’t hurt me..I did that, my heartbreak was caused by me and not realizing what I want, until it’s too late.”

“I can be her for you.” She muffled into his tear stained clothes.”

“Lapis.” He gave her a gentle kiss on her head,a familiar one. “I would never want that. I love you as you.”

“But you want to be with her. You chose her over me.”

It hurt him to hear the urgency in her voice. He held her closer. As a few of his own tears fell. “I”m sorry, Lapis, I can’t give you what you want.”

“Please..as my second favor..” she pleaded into his chest balling her fist into his sweater  “Please choose me and not her!”. Even for a moment. Even as a lie….Please.“

“I love you Lapis, always will...But I don’t love you in the same way I love Connie.”

She broke down again as her breathing became haggard, her sobs slightly choking as she began shivering in his arms, her head completely down, her tears raining into his lap.

“I hate you. I hate Connie..I hate me.. I hate this. ..I hate us.”  

Steven could only hold the heartbroken bluenette as she cried. Repeating how much she hated the three of them and this situation, begging for her forgiveness.

[thegreenfairy13]

No Country For Heroes (7)

Originally a Gobblepot one-shot written for the prompt ‘beg’ by the wonderful @justsimplymeagain this turned into a full story. 

Plot: the GCPD turns Jim in for Oswald’s protection. He vows to make Jim love him by using Strange’s brainwashing device. 

Warning for mature content. You can read the full piece here on Ao3.

Jim can feel his sanity dissipating. Everything is on fire. Molten sand turns into glass, turns into sand once more. She, Gotham, is crumbling before his eyes, shattering like glass. Glass used to be sand. He feels it in the back of his mouth, that taste of saffron and oranges. 

He’s happy.

Jim laughs. Everything is yellow and red, burning down before his eyes, the entire skyline is made of glass as his father drives him through the night. 

He’s without a care in the world. 

Long, elegant fingers around the steering wheel, the flash of a blade, a purple ring on his little finger.

He has never been safer. 

He’ll never be safe again. 

Why do you want to be a hero? 

Jim knows the voice but he can’t place it. 

His father taught him to be a good man, to put everyone else before him. When he’s gone, his mother will kneel down before him, ask him to be the man his father used to be, just better. 

It’s what he was always supposed to be: better.

His father had been incorruptible, honest, just. He would have never made a deal with the mob, would have never allowed for this city to taint him - unlike his son. 

His son had been weak, fallible, corrupt. When the situation called for it, he’d team up with the mob and forget where he came from. 

The shame is burning through him like the remnants of this city. 

Jim blinks, and the light is gone. What is left is the silvery glow of a blade in pale moonlight. The Don picks it up, cuts deep into his own palm until the blood oozes out, takes his father’s outstretched hand, does the same on him, and presses their hands together. 

The mobster smirks. He’s Don Falcone, Jim knows, but he’s wearing the Penguin’s face. 

I offered you my hand so often. He sounds solemn and Jim nods in return. 

He always wanted to be like his father. He should just have taken that darn hand. 

Tell me, did this city get better? The voice becomes more urgent, pressing. 

Jim can only shake his head as they drive past the police station. He takes a look at the ground, presses his fingers into his ears to block out the screams. People are starving in the streets, and it was his doing. 

“I never wanted this,” Jim manages, huge, terrified eyes trained on the Penguin, Oswald. 

“I know,” he replies, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. 

Everything Jim ever did lead to the bridges collapsing, to the city getting engulfed in chaos. 

“I just wanted to get rid of the corruption, to cut it out,” he tells him honestly. 

Oswald sighs. He understands. 

In any other city but Gotham, he might have succeeded. What he didn’t understand, though, was how the mob had been protecting her in its own rights. Jim could not have known that the citizens’ tribute to the gangsters kept a greater darkness, a more dangerous madness, at bay. 

He can see it now. None of this would have happened with a strong leader uniting them all against someone like Jerome, someone who only seeks chaos. 

Jim arrives in Gotham. It’s his first day, he’s full of hope, idealistic. He swears never to mistreat a suspect, calls anyone and everyone out all the time. He wants to be an example of the change he hopes to bring to the city. 

It doesn’t even take 40 days for him to break his rules.

And he keeps tearing through this city, shaking up the old order, sowing destruction. 

He goes to Oswald, asks for help, once, twice, twenty times. Keeps telling himself this will be the last time, that after this, he’ll be good again, stick to the rules. It’s everything for the greater good. 

And he does save them, doesn’t he? It keeps getting better, doesn’t it? 

It doesn’t. 

In the beginning, he would fight psychopaths and dangerous murderers. In the end, he’s up against shadow-societies and genetically enhanced monsters. The women coming too close too him lose their minds, his baby-girl pays the ultimate price. 

This wouldn’t have happened with you at my side. 

There’s this whisper again. Yet it’s more than a slight buzz in his ear anymore. It’s a wild roar, a desperate scream, and Jim can’t unhear it any longer. 

It’s true, though. He had always been better with Oswald at his side, the city had been more stable, they had been safe. 

And there had always been that goddamn attraction. This pull, this need to get into Oswald’s hair again, to be close to him, ask for his advice, team up with him. He’d been under his skin from that day on the pier on. 

He could never merely leave him be, tried cutting ties with him more than once, and only ended up facing him once more. And when it all became too much, he looked for another gangster to replace the old one, went back to the Falcone’s, fought fire with fire, only to get burnt. 

Giving in would have been so much easier. 

Jim looks up at his father still driving the car. “I want to be like you when I grow up,” he tells him seconds before the crash. 

This time, the pain in Jim’s head is pure agony. He spasms in his seat, mouth opening in a silent scream. His entire body is on fire, there’s not a single cell in his body left that doesn’t beg for it all to fade, to just go away, for him to finally give in. 

Jim can’t do this anymore. 

He’d rip the flesh from his arms, thinking in his delusion that if he could only shed his skin, the pain would become tolerable again. 

Oswald studies him calmly while he flails helplessly. There’s not a single emotion on his face other than serene calm. 

“Mercy,” Jim thinks, or asks, or demands. He can’t tell. Mercy, mercy, mercy. 

He knows without a single doubt in his mind that he won’t endure another session. He’ll either turn insane or give in to anything Oswald demands. He’s the only salvation, the only absolution left, and if he demands his entire being, he’ll hand it other gladly - if the pain just stops. 

The other man purses his lips tightly, taps the apparatus with his cane. “Did you know it’s not this machine itself that’s causing the pain?” he asks conversationally. 

Jim couldn’t care less. 

“It’s the depth of the emotion,” he elaborates, arching a curious eyebrow at the miserable detective. “The deeper the guilt, the sadness, the regret - well, you get my point, the heavier the impact. I’ve learned more and more about this machinery every day now that Strange is here,” he carries on as he walks up to Jim. “Well, was,” he corrects himself with a sly smile that causes a shiver to run down Jim’s spine. 

He leans down, places his hands on Jim’s thighs, putting his entire weight on the exhausted man in the process. Pressing their heads together, he inhales deeply. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. “So sorry it had to come to this for you to see,” he mumbles, voice unsteady and hoarse. “If you had only accepted my generous offer when you had the chance…”

Oswald bites his inner cheek, takes a step back, and with his retreat, the distraction from the pain is gone, too. Jim prays his goons will untie him soon, take him back to his room, granting him some much-needed rest. 

Jim craves the warmth to return. 

It seems like the Penguin has other plans for him. “You’d think with Strange gone, I’d have found some peace, some sense of closure.” He inhales deeply, chews his lower lip as he struggles to draw breath. “Jim, it doesn’t help,” he confesses brokenly. “Shouldn’t I be better now?” he asks, shoulders slumping. 

The detective can’t answer, still too caught up in his own pain and thoughts. Oswald doesn’t pay him much thought though. 

“Edward is back,” he then informs Jim. To the cop, this comes out of nowhere, leaves him confused and unsure if or how to respond. It’s wrong, he thinks, with something akin to jealousy, that he’d put him through all this misery only to talk about his ex now. It’s maybe the worst, yet, not even being worth some acknowledgment when the Penguin has just gone through his memory. It’s so painful he doesn’t even note he confessed another murder, wouldn’t care if he did. 

“It hurts,” Jim finally blurts out, petulantly. 

That grabs the gangster’s attention, has him finally tending to the cop in his possession. He picks half-heartedly at the bindings, steadies Jim when he almost tips over, once the support is gone. 

“I thought I would have no need for you once he’s back,” he grumbles angrily as he helps Jim laying down on the cold ground. It’s worse down there, but the touch steadies him, keeps him tied to reality, even when he feels just a push could force him to trip over. 

He’d be lost in his own mind then, alone with his demons. 

The cop’s heart aches in his chest at the revelation. Could it be true? Or is this just Oswald telling him he’s no longer of use, about to get disposed of, like a broken toy he’s grown tired of? It’s not fair, not now, not like this.

The emotion must have been visible, for Oswald hurries to elaborate. 

“We’re working well together, always have,” his voice breaks off as he looks at anything but at Jim. “For now,” he adds. Sitting down on the floor beside the blonde, he takes his hand, entwining their fingers. “I…” he pauses, draws up his shoulders. 

When he blushes, his freckles become visible under all that make-up he’s hiding his face under. Jim stares at his nose, starts counting. It’s such a soothingly simple task. 

“I want something that lasts,” he admits then, putting Jim’s hand in his lap. “Edward and I...we’re not meant for the long-run. We’ll work together, betray each other, and rewind,” he muses. Turning his gaze back at the man beside him, eyes glistening with unshed tears, he asks, “don’t I deserve that? Don’t I deserve a man I could have introduced to my mother?”

And something in the cop breaks. 

“Your mother is dead,” Jim snaps back. It’s once more not his smartest move, yet it seems he’s entirely unable to be even slightly diplomatic around the kingpin. The answer is drawn from pain, hurt pride, resentment, and humiliation. 

Oswald’s face hardens. If Jim wasn’t so exhausted, he would have felt the familiar spark of fear. 

“She is,” he deadpans. 

And because his mother has always been a sore spot, Jim can’t help but needle the mobster. “She would have been proud,” he spits sarcastically, even if each word hurts so much his vision becomes blurry. “For her son to maim and torture.” 

Oswald gasps, appalled, but doesn’t contradict, just keeps worrying his lower lip. 

“She did never know, did she?” he pants. Oswald squeezes his hand in return. 

“No,” he finally admits. “I never told her who I really was. And I think she chose to ignore it.” Pursing his lips, the gangster glowers at the man in his possession. 

“You could stop that you know,” Jim suggests, gathering his last remnants of hope. “Be the man she saw in you. The man I sometimes saw in you, too.” 

That last sentence catches the Penguin’s attention, has him turning his head in silent wonder. He sways, opens his mouth. Oswald mulls the words over in his head, he must know though, what Jim subconsciously thinks of him, how he struggles himself. 

“That man died with her,” he says, at last, shattering Jim’s tiny bit of optimism. 

Closing his eyes, the detective exhales. “If that is true, my friendship wouldn’t have made a difference either.” 

“Perhaps,” Oswald shrugs. “Perhaps not.” 

Jim notes his hands are trembling. 

“I won’t make it through another round,” he tells him at last, lacing his fingers with Oswald’s tightly. 

“I know.” His voice is so soft, barely a whisper. 

Jim struggles to get the next words out, finally admitting to his failure. “I’m terrified,” he tells him between the tears. “I have made mistakes. I have wronged you,” he admits, hoping Oswald will understand that he means it, that, if given the chance, he would start over, do things differently. Maybe. 

“But please don’t erase who I am,” he begs. Rolling over despite the pain, he faces Oswald. He’s already on the ground, struggles to get up so he can kneel. He’s at his breaking point, will grovel now, if Oswald insists. 

He gently holds him down. 

“t doesn’t hurt once it’s done,” he informs Jim. And that is even more terrifying, the prospect of bliss once he isn’t who he used to be. 

He almost tried committing suicide on several occasions, prayed for a bullet to crack his skull open, to tear his lungs out. Jim would embrace death gladly if it came to him now. But this? Turning into something entirely else? It’s worse than death, fills him with a dread he hasn’t got words for. 

“Why did you love me though?” he needs to know. What caused Oswald to love him so much it turned into such fierce hatred he must wipe it out? 

Jim doesn’t note when the other man starts weeping beside him. But now he hears the desperate, choked hiccups. 

“I don’t know,” he sobs. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he keeps repeating over and over again. “Maybe I just saw what you could have been - and it was beautiful.”

The words hit Jim with the force of a thunderstorm, they are a revelation, and an explanation for his own confusing feelings, make so much sense after everything he’s been through. 

Despite everything, he can’t help but admit that Oswald had potential, still has. 

He makes it onto his knees, begs for real, this time. 

“Then sleep with me,” he pleads. 

“What?” shocked, the mobster scrambles to get up, but Jim holds onto his ankle, stops him from retreating. 

“Have sex with me,” he urges, clarifies. “If you want me so desperately, have me as long as I’m still me.”

Jim is almost certain his words will be rewarded with a kick, with Oswald’s retreat at best, more pain at worst, but he’s merely met with silence. 

He doesn’t dare to look up, stares at the shiny tip of a perfectly polished shoe. The reflection he finds there is horrifying, a hollowed, sunken face, huge, frenzied eyes. 

Jim doesn’t expect the pair of lips crashing against his at all, or the wet slide of a tongue. He opens his mouth willingly for Oswald, returns the embrace as if his life depended on it, mirrors the needy sounds with vigor, clings to him even as he passes out, praying he’ll never wake again. 

[j7lkx]

he’s almost cool w/o his masks idk

i like it better without shading but oh well

[ashcrimson-is-writing]

Parce Mihi ~ Chapter 1

Fandom: Marvel (Pre-Marvelfilms)

Pairing: Loki x Sigyn

(Gif-creator)

Summary: It´s a tradition as old as Asgard itself: Once in a hundred years a young woman gets chosen to be a lady-in-waiting to the queen and live within her in the palace. This year Friggas choice falls on Sigyn, who volunteers to save her family. Soon enough she meets Loki, Prince of Asgard and even though he is a good actor, she slowly starts to see something different in him, than the cold and arrogant man he is to everyone else. But meanwhile, not seen by anyone, dark clouds are  gathering over the mountains of Asgard and it is only a matter of time  till the storm begins. (Angst, Fluff, Hurt)

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

<<Prologue 

Chapter 1: „What is your name?“ The young woman's heart immediately beat faster, she felt pale- and redness rose in her cheeks at the same time and her hands became icy cold despite the heat of summer. She closed her eyes for the fraction of a second, wondering how exactly she should answer and took a deep breath.

This was their only chance and if she failed it, she would be sealing the dark fate of herself, her brothers and her sisters by that. An even worse fate than their lives were already. Her answers would decide between wealth and poverty, life and death. She knew that and it made her nervous, almost anxious, although she was actually not at all of the jumpy sort. Slowly she raised her head on which her long, reddish-brown hair was firmly tucked together and glanced at the woman standing in front of her, tried to appear bolder than she was at that moment and her breath hitched a little.

She had known that Queen Frigga was beautiful, she had never really seen her before of course, but everybody knew and talked about it and still, the way she had expected the Queen to look like was nothing compared to the reality. One could certainly tell that Friggas youth was long gone, but she didn´t look old either with her blonde hair held together by a gilded ribbon that matched the decorations of her robe and sparkled like the warm smile of her eyes. She rather was one of the most beautiful woman alive.

The young woman was completely speechless for a few breaths long. Perhaps she would have even forgoten to speak at all, if her brother, who stood behind her, hadn´t given her a slight stab to her back.

Although several silent seconds had already passed, the kindness and sincere interest in the Queen´s gaze had not diminished.

“My name is Sigyn” the brunette finally announced, her heart still beating loudly in her chest and only now she became really aware of what she was doing here.

After all there was a reason why she stood in front of Asgards Queen. If everything would went according to her plan, if the Norns were with her, Sigyn intended to go with Frigga to the Golden Palace and spend the rest of her life as lady-in-waiting to her. That was why she was standing there at the market place of the city among all the other young women who hoped to be chosen by their queen just like her.

It was an old tradition in Asgard, once in a hundred years one of the citizens got chosen to be a court lady and of course this was a huge honour. Many women had been taken before her to the palace and now Sigyn stood there, next to a queen she had never seen before, but whom she would perhaps soon keep company with every day and she stood there in her best dress, which looked almost shabby though, but there had been no money for an new one and she felt terribly anxious.

Frigga still smiled at her, a kindness in her features that made Sigyn feel a little more comfortable and at the same time more insecure. It almost seemed as if she wanted Sigyn to say more, but the young woman didn´t know what to say or what to do. The whole situation was a little scary to her.

Actually Sigyn didn´t want to move into the palace, because despite the temptations that awaited her there: a warm bed of her own, a full stomach, expensive fabrics and robes, Sigyn would much rather stay in the city together with her brothers and sisters, together with the people she loved. But since it was part of the agreement, part of the tradition, that the families of the ladies-in-waiting got enough money to live comfortably without hunger or cold, without fear or worry, it was not really a choice to Sigyn. Her family needed the money. Urgent. Otherwise she was sure they  wouldn´t survive the winter and as much as the loss of her home would hurt her, she had to do it for the sake of her siblings.

“Are you alone here Sigyn?” Frigga wanted to know, her voice soft and gentle and yet as determined as a queen had to sound. A mixture of rough and soft, of deep and high, a voice that probably only existed once and that you would always recognize among thousands. Sigyn ran a shiver down her cold back. “No” she answered, sounding more hesitant than she wanted to and was happy to finally have a reason to reach for her brothers hand and carefully pull him closer: “My older brother Kjell is with me, but apart from that we are alone here, yes”.

Kjell received a smile too and he nodded at the queen, bowed slightly and squeezed Sigyns fingers, because he felt her tremble. He also disliked the thought of losing his sister, of only seeing her very rarely, but he also knew that they had no other choice.

Their parents were dead and since he had injured himself in the forge two years ago it was a miracle when he got a badly paid job. None of his siblings could read or write and Sigyn was too delicate for heavy manual labour, the other siblings were too young.

They all weren´t stupid, especially Sigyn, but they had never had time for education or teaching, they always had to work hard to stay alive, so it was a difficult task for his family to earn enough money to survive and it didn´t get easier. If Sigyn were to become a court-lady, then it would be a chance for all of them to live a safe life, maybe the only chance.

“Do you have more family or is it just the two of you?”. Sigyn shook her head slightly, she hated talking about this: “We have five younger siblings, two girls and three boys and our parents are both dead. Father died in a ship accident and our mother fell ill five years ago”. Her voice had become a little watery.

She had seldom seen their father, but had loved him nonetheless, and Sigyns mother had been everything to her. She absolutely didn´t want to cry in front of all these people, swallowed the tears and suddenly gave Frigga an defiant look she couldn´t hold back.. Why did she even wanted to know that? Why did she care? So many feeling had been stirred up again in Sigyn by the question and it almost made her a little angry. She had loved her parents a lot.

“I am very sorry” Frigga said, meant it honestly and truly, and yet Sigyn remained silent, had not been prepared to be reminded of her parents again, and tried to put aside her painful memories and thoughts.

The Queen reached for her hand and held it between her own, looking at them: “You seem to have a good heart Sigyn, you are brave and polite at once and you seem to be a quick learner” her eyes wandered back up to Sigyns face and she let go of her hand, glancing behind her to one of the guards standing there, before she turned her attention back to Sigyn: “Have you really thought about this? Are your sure you want to follow me to the palace? You can still decide”.

Sigyn took a deep breath, she was not sure if it was the right thing for her, but it was the right thing for her family and so she nodded, her heart a little heavy, and didn´t dare to look at her brother.

“Then be ready to leave tomorrow. At sunrise you will be picked up at your home and you are allowed to take any items that are of value to you, and don´t pose a danger, with you. You can also bring a horse-” “We don´t have one” Sigyn interrupted quickly, almost hoping that Frigga would withdraw her decision if she became impertinent. She had to go to the palace, but she didn´t want to, this city was her home... and it was where her family was.

“Well, then you will be riding one of our horses tomorrow. At sunrise you must be ready, in the palace you then will have to swear your loyalty to me and then you will be my lady-in-waiting”. Sigyn nodded again, sounding more indecisive than she was: “I will be ready”.

“Good. We will see each other tomorrow Sigyn” with this words the Queen said her goodbye, a little sublime, but still friendly and went back to where her horse was standing.

“Thank you” the young woman whispered, unsure if Frigga had heard it, but felt like she had to say it, before she held her breath. She had done it.

Sigyn was chosen to be a court lady.

~

Her body contracted on one hand from happiness, on the other from uncertainty, her whole form shivering because of the upcoming day. To Sigyn it seemed like there was far too little time to say goodbye to her family, before she had to leave behind everything that was familiar and dear to her to live in the palace.

“Are you a princess now?” her little sister Finnja asked, arms resting on the bed while she watched Sigyn collect some items she would take with her. So far that was a small book she had never read and a leather necklace, both reminders of a time when her family was still complete.

She sighed. It was early in the evening, her other siblings were still outside, somewhere in the forest and Kjell had gone to fetch them, which left Sigyn and Finnja to be alone in their tiny house. Only one more night until Sigyn would leave them.

“No” Sigyn smiled, although she didn´t feel like smiling at all. She already began to miss Finnja, her youngest sister and that innocent, freckled face of hers: “I´ll be a lady-in-waiting to Queen Frigga and keep her company” she explained, let herself fall on the bed next to her and gave the little girl a caring look. “Too bad, I´d love a princess as sister” the younger admitted. Her brown eyes continued to stare at Sigyn and she asked: “But you will have a room of your own, right?”. When her big sister nodded her eyes began to shine, which almost brought tears to Sigyns eyes.

Currently their entire house consisted of only two small rooms and they had three beds in which all seven of them had to sleep. “When I am in the palace, you will receive money too, you may will not have your own room, but you will have a bed all for yourself, I promise. You could share a room with Lyria” Sigyn said, smiling at the enthusiasm in the girls eyes and imagined how her big brother would settle the little quarrels of his sisters Finnja and Lyria when necessary in the future.

He would have to do that without her, a thought that made her almost a little dizzy. After their mother had died, Sigyn had to take care of them all and now she was supposed to just leave them, stop watching her siblings grow bigger with every day, stop seeing her beloved ones every day.

A tear flowed over Sigyns cheek and Finnja, who was indeed small but not stupid, was silent and slid towards her sister, sat on her lap and pressed herself against her. Immediately warm hands laid on the small, emaciated body and stroked through the same brown-reddish hair all females in their family had. Sigyn closed her eyes, felt the slight embrace of the youngest and kissed her hair. Tomorrow, at sunrise, when she would be gone, a new life would begin for both of them.

Finnja would stay here with the others, but they would finally have enough money to have daily food and proper clothes and a decent house. They wouldn´t have to stave or freeze through winter nights anymore. And Sigyn would live in the Golden Palace of Asgard. Somewhere between strangers and jewels, alone, but sure that her siblings were doing well, definitely better than now.

~

Sigyn couldn't sleep.

After all her siblings had come home she had told them about the encounter with the queen, had explained what it meant for them and Lyria had burst into tears, not wanting her big sister to leave.

“I have to go Lyria, I have to” Sigyn had tried to comfort her: “Just imagine, you will never have to go to sleep hungry again and I will still be able to visit you from time to time”, but Lyria had looked up to her, the nose red from crying: “But you won´t be here every day!”. No, Sigyn had thought and had hugged Lyria to her chest to stroke her head, I won´t be here daily, probably I won´t even see you once a week, but she hadn´t said anything.

And now Sigyn laid in their bed, between Lyria and Finnja, the latter in a firm embrace while Lyria had cuddled up against her back and listened to her sisters breathing. How could Sigyn ever be able to sleep alone in a room of her own, in a bed of her own, when she was so used to the common warmth and closeness of her sisters next to her? She never slept any other way.

Tenderly she caressed Finnjas cheek and then turned over to Lyria to brush her fingers over her soft skin as well. What would these two and her brothers do without her? Sigyn was the only adult woman they had left in their lives and now she had to leave.

It was for the best, Sigyn knew that, without the money they would have to keep on starving and freezing, perhaps even starve or freeze to death in the upcoming winter and she didn´t even want to think about that just for a minute. But still Sigyn couldn't believe that she had actually been chosen by the Queen.

What had Frigga seen in her that had convinced her? What was so different about Sigyn compared to the other girls, apart from the fact that she had the most worn out dress? Maybe that was it though, compassion for the poor girl with six siblings and no parents, just mercy.

Sigyn felt uncomfortable, still anxious, so many questions in her mind. Would Frigga even like her? And the other ladies-in-waiting, what would they think about her? Sigyn closed her eyes, her nervousness could not be pushed aside and although she was infinitely tired, she couldn´t fall asleep. It was almost as if she was trying to absorb all the warmth and closeness of her sisters, to make the most of the hours she had left with her family, absorbing everything she would be missing soon.

At some point she somehow managed to fall asleep though, sleeping restlessly and full of fear of the next sunrise, which came faster than she wanted it to.

Chapter 2 >>

[a-dorin]

in my blood: yw-382

word count: 4,157

warnings: angst, death, gore, blood, alcoholism, overcoming grief

a/n: this bubba’s backstory (filled with tragedy ofc) but as always, this is one of my babies, so i loved writing about it a little too much. i hope you guys enjoy! 

summary: cooper valara was the son of guild bounty hunter, angelo valara. cooper battles with his identity, unsure of following in his father’s footsteps. after a fateful incident, he comes to term with his destiny. enlisting in the first order, he becomes yw-382, a standard stormtrooper.

present day

“you must be yw-382,” a trooper, donned in shiny, metallic armor stood before me. his armor was similar to mine, i noticed. he stretched out his hand, “i’m yo-988.”

“i’m yw-382,” i shook his hand, clearing my throat, “i presume that you’re the one who received the promotion as well?” 

yo-988 let out a laugh, “if i wasn’t, i wouldn’t be here. to answer your question though, i am.” 

yo-988 was definitely younger than i assumed. from the way my companions spoke of him, he seemed as if he would be much older, more so his late twenties or early thirties. he didn’t seem much older than sixteen, as his voice was still inflected with that of a boy. nonetheless, he towered over me by a couple of inches, and his shoulders were broad. he definitely had the capabilities to fuck someone up pretty bad if he was in combat. 

“follow me,” yo-988 motioned towards the gate with his head, “i’ll lead you to our quarters.”

“we don’t bunk with the other troopers?”

“you have a lot to learn,” he chuckled, walking at a brisk pace, “since we were promoted, we were relocated to the level where all of the other bounty hunters bunk. say goodbye to rooming with two to three other men. it’s just us in our room now. what are you, eighteen? how long have you been with the first order?”

“i am eighteen, and not long,” i mumbled, “i just graduated from the academy about two months ago.”

“and they promoted you? that’s incredible.” 

“i’m not sure why,” my voice was quiet. 

in all reality, i had no idea why i was promoted so quickly. my friends were extremely envious that i was moving up through the ranks so rapidly. a large part of me was shocked by the sudden change, as they transferred me from my home ship to the supremacy, which was the control center of the first order. commander kylo ren lived within the walls of this massive ship. just the thought of that made me shudder. 

“well,” yo-988 stopped, punching in a code on a keypad, “this is your new home, for now. we’re permanently stationed here.”

the doors opened, giving us access to our room. yo-988 sucked in a breath, “i hope you don’t mind that i took the side closest to the viewports.” 

“i prefer to stay closer to the wall anyways,” i shrugged, setting my bag down on my bed, “i don’t like hearing the speeders and cruisers at night as they pass by.”

“that’s fair,” he nodded, heading over to the doors. he closed them shut, ensuring we were out of sight, “to be honest with you, i don’t like that following the rules bullshit. i’ve always been a little bit of a rebel when it comes to rules. so, if it’s cool with you, i’m going to remove my helmet. are you gonna be a little bitch and run to phasma, telling her i broke the rules? or, are you gonna be a cool partner and take yours off too?”

i tensed as yo-988 removed the helmet off his head, setting it on his bed. copying his actions, i took off my helmet as well, putting it on my bed. he shifted, his green eyes meeting my brown ones. freckles dotted his pale cheeks, sandy blonde hair falling into his face, “by the way, i don’t go by yo-988 with the other hunters. it just makes transmissions confusing. i prefer phoenix. what about you?”

“oh,” i mumbled, “at the academy, they liked to call me ‘bubba’.”

“bubba,” phoenix repeated, a wide grin on his face, “i like that. well, bubba, we’re going to be best friends.”

four years prior

“i’m not saying you can’t shoot him. i’m just saying you can’t shoot him here,” the voice of my father rumbled from outside of the ship. 

i sat patiently, sighing to myself as my father and his coworker, dan, negotiated how we were going to dispose of our bounty. i was promised that we were going out for a supply run, not what was actually happening. since my father was apart of a bounty hunting guild, his employment consisted of capturing fugitives or whoever’s coordinates were listed on the tracking fob.

“coop’s with us,” my dad sighed, “we at least got him unconscious. we can always bring him in hot or cold. i just don’t want my boy seein’ it.”

“fine,” dan spat, “we’re goin’ two-thirds on this then. you get one third.” 

“how is that any fair?” i could hear my father’s voice rising, “we both agreed to go half!”

“oh you’re right,” dan remarked, “okay, okay, let’s go half. i want the credit for snatchin’ him, though. do we have a deal?”

“we have a deal,” my dad agreed. 

their voices drew near as they hauled the body of a species of alien on board. he was knocked out cold, cuffs around his wrists. from his blue skin, and long headtails coming from the top of his head, i figured he was twi’lek. he laid in the holding cell, in close proximity from where i was sitting, boredom filling my thoughts.

“sorry that took so long cooper,” my dad placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, “jin’aari was a bit of a fighter.”

“i swear we only shot him with the stun gun twenty-two times,” dan snorted, sliding into copilot chair, “your dad was the one who kept fuckin’ it up for us.”

“are you bringing him in hot or cold?” i mocked my father’s statement. 

“hot,” dan scoffed, punching in the coordinates of the guild headquarters, “we’d get more credits if he was dead, but your father is bein’ a wuss about it.”

“i don’t want my boy around that,” my dad’s voice was soft, full of seriousness, “bounty hunting is in our blood, but he’s a little young for that yet. his training doesn’t start till next year, when he’s fifteen.”

“i started when i was fourteen,” dan smirked, shooting me a wink, “i think you ought to start him as soon as possible. cooper, you’ll have an excellent mentor. your father is the best sniper  in our little guild. he’s not too bad when it comes to hand-on-hand combat. he has a pretty nasty right hook.”

i blinked, shooting my father a questioning look, “can i please start early, dad?”

“don’t go fillin’ his heads with ideas,” my dad grumbled, “he’s too young to begin an apprenticeship with the guild. we both know that, dan.” 

“WHAT THE FUCK!” a scream echoed through the ship. jin’aari, the prisoner, must have regained consciousness.

“you know that the guild has a bounty on your head, jin’aari,” dan looked over his shoulder, yelling in his direction.

jin’aari slammed his hands on the bars, rattling them, “i could kill both of you, daniel carr and angelo valara. i promise you that, angelo. your boy can watch as i strangle you to death, then rip your head off, blood spurt-”

“you ain’t gonna do shit,” dan narrowed his eyes, “it’s three against one.”

“i favor those odds,” jin’aari sneered, anger blazing in his eyes. 

“shut the fuck up,” my dad growled, his tone furious. 

jin’aari’s tough guy act crumbled, and he sat down on the bench in the cell, letting out a long sigh, “i have a family, ya know. i always despised living as a smuggler, as i was always up and moving. my wife is going to fret when i don’t come back. i was supposed to be back home, now. she’s probably pacing back and forth, pondering my location.”

“yet you’re a criminal,” scorn was laced in my father’s voice, “you’ve spilled blood, jin’aari. there’s too much blood for you to clean up now. you have to be a man and face the consequences instead of running away from them.”

“don’t you have a slightest bit of compassion?” jin’aari challenged, “your son is sitting right next to my cell. wouldn’t you like to come home to your son everyday?” 

“i haven’t slain civilians in cold blood,” i sat in silence, my eyes darting back and forth between the twi’lek and my father as they argued, “that’s the difference between you and i, jin’aari.”

“at least i didn’t watch my wife die,” jin’aari snarled. 

the words of the twi’lek struck my father, as my dad didn’t banter any more with the prisoner. dan remained silent as my father punched coordinates into our ship’s navigation system, “we’re making an unexpected stop.” 

“i thought we were heading straight towards base-” dan began, but was cut off.

“listen to me, dan.”

dan flinched, but obeyed my father’s order, beginning to land the ship as we descended from the atmosphere. we sat in the ship in a cold silence, the only noise the hum of the engine. jin’aari didn’t make any more snide comments, keeping his lips in a thin line. he could sense my father’s rage as we made contact with the ground. 

“unlock his cell.”

dan pressed the button, his fingers trembling. him and i stayed inside the ship, continuing the streak of silence as my father shoved jin’aari out of the ship, muttering under his breath. pleas began to rise from jin’aari, as you could hear his painful wails. you didn’t hear a single word from my father during the encounter. 

moments later, he returned, letting a bag thump to the floor of our ship. he didn’t have to explain himself. we both were well aware of what occurred outside of the ship. vomit rose from the back of the throat, but my thoughts were egging me to glance over at the it. the beige bag was stained a dark crimson at the bottom. 

inside, was the head of jin’aari, his headtails poking out from the rim of the sack. 

three years prior

 “what assignments do we have today?” i let out an exasperated sigh, sifting through the tracking fobs.

“hopefully something good,” came a grumble.

i turned from the pilot chair, my cheeks burning with shame. my father caught me sitting in his chair, messing around, “i’m sorry dad. i-” 

he chuckled, “don’t apologize for being drawn to the seat, son. you will be the pilot of this fine ship in time. just be patient. you still have a lot to learn in your apprenticeship.”

the thought of becoming a bounty hunter filled my thoughts with dread. although it was in our tradition, i no longer desired the life of killing others. i felt more drawn to the pilots seat, desperately aching to sail through the beauty of space. 

however, the fear of rejection stirred within me whenever i longed to fly. my father only knew how to fly because our ship was our home. endless skye, was our piece of junk, but it was named after my mother, so it held a strange beauty. it was a small cruiser, big enough to host two beds, a holding cell, and adequately sized storage area below the main deck. it had more problems than we could keep track off, but i knew in my heart that he couldn’t part with the ship, even if we got a deal on the best ship in the galaxy. 

the most heartbreaking aspect was that i never got a chance to meet my mother. she passed away when i was four years old, at the hands of a fellow bounty hunter. no one knew the full story of that night, except my father. he refused to talk about it, as the memory was far too painful. he claims that it was a freak accident, as they were in the pursuit of a criminal that night. however, rumors swirled around that the bounty hunter with them turned, killing my mother with a blaster at close range. 

skye was her name, and she was only twenty-five when she died. that’s about all i recollected. of course, there were photos of her on the ship’s control panels, and i often caught my dad glancing at them fondly, his thumb tracing her face on the film. if she was still alive, she would be approximately thirty-six. my dad was forty-six.

it went without saying that my father was extremely restrictive over me. due to the emotional trauma of losing my mother, he didn’t want to lose me too. he kept a close eye on me at all times, and didn’t allow me to create many friendships. besides, we never stayed on one planet for longer than a year. we were constantly up and moving, as there were many criminals and smugglers crawling all over the galaxy. 

the guild my father was involved in was a smaller one, residing on the planet of dandoran. the other well known guild was the bounty hunter’s guild of nevarro, but that was slowly dissolving. many bounty hunters didn’t agree with the code of the guilds, so often times, they went rogue. unfortunately, my father felt that killing hundreds of criminals by the month would try and fill the empty void in his heart. i knew it didn’t help. 

at fifteen, i was undergoing my apprenticeship for the bounty hunter’s guild. having your dad as a mentor was the worst possible scenario. constantly, i was tormented by him rather taught. he also developed a strong taste for alcohol, as he drank it more and more frequently as the years passed on. the alcohol didn’t numb the pain either. 

“hey dad,” i began, spinning around in the copilot seat.

“hmmm?” 

“how would you feel if i changed my career path?” i inquired, my knee bouncing up and down.

“you wanna be affiliated with the private investigators or somethin’?” his eyes stayed focused on the endless vast of space ahead of us, stars whizzing by as we flew towards our destination. 

“not necessarily,” i mumbled, guilt already brewing inside of me.

“speak up, son,” he snorted. 

“i want to be a pilot!” the words tumbled out of my mouth, my voice pitched high with anxiety.

“a pilot?” 

“a pilot,” i repeated, ensuring he heard me correctly, “wasn’t mom a pilot when the two of you met?”

my father’s shoulders tensed up, “she was. however, she abandoned that pursuit when she realized she could be making double the money as a bounty hunter. they pay well, you know. if you wanted to make a decent living, work for the rich. they like to take out anyone who could put their lives in turmoil. they pay well for that, extremely well.”

“but-” 

“no buts,” he countered, “bounty hunting is the route that all men in my family have taken. pilots are for men who are too scared to kill someone.” 

i sucked in a breath, “but i don’t want to kill people, dad.” 

“i don’t care,” he snapped. 

suddenly, our cruiser jolted from the back. my dad cursed, glancing at our radar. behind us, there were three small gunships. from the looks of it, they were from the resistance. they tailed behind us, their guns aimed directly at us. 

“what the…” my dad trailed off. 

“what’s going on?” i sat up in the chair, alarmed. 

“they must have the wrong ship,” he answered, punching in some buttons on the control panel, “or maybe my years of hunting have caught up to me.”

“what do you mean?” my voice was full of panic. 

my dad turned to me, his face grim, “listen, son. when you’ve been in the guild as long as i have, you meet a lot of people. you also kill a lot of people. i may have killed a few resistance fighters back in my day. we must have been spotted on their radars, and they recognize the numbers in their databases.”

“what does this mean then?” 

“it means that i have to face my consequences, son,” his voice faltered slightly, “i have a plan in mind.”

“what’s that entail?” i could sense the waves of fear radiating off my father, as he attempted to remain calm in front of me. 

“you’re going to have to say goodbye to your old man,” tears ran down his face. he forced a smile, trying to remain strong. 

“but,” my lip trembled. 

“it’s no use,” he shook his head, “i’m going to launch myself out of the skye, and you’re going to do a small jump through hyperspace. she’s already programmed to do it to the nearest planet. she’ll guide you coop, i promise. lay low for a bit, probably about a year or so. change your name, and start over.”

“i don’t want to leave you,” i pleaded, sobs forming. 

“you have to,” my father embraced me, “i love you, son. this isn’t your battle to fight. it’s mine. i’ve done a lot of running, and i’m worn down. i’ll be okay. your momma has been waiting for me for a very long time. this has to be done.” 

my legs felt like blobs, my ankles anchored to the floor, “i love you too, dad.”

he gave me one last smile, “you’re going to make me proud, i know you are.”

the tears cascaded down my face as i watched my dad climb down the ladder to the main gate, where he would be jumping out of the endless skye. the gate opened, air circulating through the main deck as he jumped out, his body floating in space. i got one last glance, before the ship went into the jump. 

numbness filled my body as i sat there in silence. now, i was an orphan, with no known family. my father was with my mother now, where i knew he was happiest. the weight of his death weighed on my shoulders, consuming me with grief. 

however, i couldn’t just stop now. i had to keep going, for the sake of my parents. i couldn’t give up. i had to create a new name for myself, where i could grow and be successful, just like the future my dad wished for me. perhaps i could still pursue an education, becoming an engineer or mathematician. 

i landed with a jolt, sending vibrations from my toes to my temple. shakily, i checked the control panel, glancing at the coordinates my dad set for me. sucking in deep breaths, i attempted to stay somewhat calm, but it wasn’t working. the panic of being completely alone was beginning to set in. how was i supposed to survive? 

two years later

“hey!” a voice shouted, “where do you think you’re going, laundry boy?”

i paused, stopping the laundry cart, “i’m going to do the bedding.”

“god,” my bunk mate, vn-892 snorted, “you’re an idiot, sometimes, you know that?” 

“sorry,” i mumbled, my voice quiet. 

“you don’t have to apologize,” vn-892 murmured, “why do you always apologize for everything, bubba?”

“that’s just my nature,” i shrugged.

“i can see that,” he remarked. 

currently, i was a laundry boy for the first order. it was my first assigned duty as a soldier, since i was graduated from their military. i enlisted about a year ago, as i knew it was one of the only ways i could make a living now. the pay wasn’t great, but there was a sense of community within the storm troopers, which gave me hope. 

since the death of my father, i was a wanderer. for months, i wandered from planet to planet, scavenging for food and begging for money. being a teenage boy, it worked, sometimes. however, some were not as kind. 

one night, i was strolling through the streets of a small village, seeing what the town had to offer. propaganda from the first order lined the walls of bazaars and casinos. i knew in my heart as soon as i glimpsed at the posters it was what i had to do. it was my destiny. i visited a recruiting office, stating my case onto why i wished to be enlisted. they welcomed me, taking me immediately. the endless skye was now an abandoned cruiser, sitting to rot in a junkyard. i didn’t want to part from my father’s beloved craft, but i knew it had to be done. 

while i excelled in the education, artillery, and combat aspects of the academy, i lacked when it came to socialization. due to my strict upbringing, i had no real communication skills. often times, i would be made fun of, the other soldiers jeering and prodding me. 

however, my bunkmates were kinder than the rest. one night, i suffered from a horrible nightmare, writhing and screaming in my sleep. the boys woke me up, shaking me out of it. they comforted me while i explained my life story. 

vn-892, tt-654, and uh-235, all shared similar stories to mine. taken from their homes at young ages, they knew nothing of their families, as the first order was their family now. they were given new names, a random code of letters and numbers. we all were like that, some of our memories wiped from us as the first order beat it into our heads that we were important assets of a larger picture. that larger picture, was our endless devotion to our duties, which in turn, provided strength to the first order and dark side.

 yet, we had moments in which we were no longer zombies. there were moments that made us all human. often, we would play card games after completing our daily assignments. or, we would joke with one another in the dining hall, shoving each other playfully. we all had nicknames for one another. due to my soft temperament, i was gifted with the nickname of “bubba.” 

luckily, the first order had no knowledge of who my father was. once enlisting with them, i was placed on a flagship, somewhere in an outer rim. we were in close proximity with the supremacy, which was the main headquarters of the first order itself.  however, once i was training, i heard a variety of stories and tales about legendary angelo valara. it took all of my strength in my being to not unveil my secret. that i, yw-382, was the son of angelo valara, a guild bounty hunter. 

even if the first order tried to rip my memories away from me, i knew i could not erase the image of my father away from my heart. even if he was troubled, he was a good man. all he wanted to pursue was justice, in the honor of his wife, who he lost at the hands of another man. 

“yw-382,” our platoon leader entered the laundry facility, “i need to speak with you.” 

“yes sir,” i nodded respectfully. 

he pulled me out of the room, clearing his throat, “so we may have come across some valuable information in our databases, relating to you.”

“what’s that?” anxiety built up within me, making my hands clam under my gloves.

“that you may be connected to angelo valara,” he paused, “is that correct information?”

there was no use in being dishonest. they would kill me over it, “yes, sir, that is correct.”

“ah,” he sucked in a breath, “i figured that to be true. whilst you were training, i noticed that you were quite the sharpshooter. it must be in your blood. since that is the case, we have an offer for you.”

“i would take it with honor,” i replied, standing straighter. 

“we have an opening with the bounty hunter regiment, at the supremacy,” he explained, “would you like to be within this specialized task force?”

a slight feeling of joy creeped into my body, filling me with happiness. in my heart, i knew that i would be making my father proud. he would have the proudest look on his face me when i gave him the news of my promotion, glimmers of pride in his eyes. 

“i would with honor,” i swallowed, “it would be an honor.” 

“excellent,” he gave me a slight smile, “come, let’s get your materials gathered. you begin your training there tomorrow. you have an assigned partner for this position.”

“oh,” surprise filled my tone.

“he’s the most skilled bounty hunter in the galaxy,” my leader escorted me to the armory, “there is a catch to him. he’s still a teenager, like you.” 

“what’s his code name?” i inquired. 

“yo-988.” 

“when do i meet him?” 

“tomorrow.” 

as i followed my platoon leader into the armory, a gleam caught my attention. i focused in on it, my breath hitching in my throat. 

there were two figures standing, almost transparent against the dark wall of the ship. tears brimmed my eyes. 

we are so proud of you, son. my father’s voice rang in my head, his tone warm with love. shaking my head, the figures disappeared. however, in my heart, i felt satisfied. 

this was my true destiny, and i was going to fulfill it. no matter what was thrown my way.

[dracwife]

dex’s comprehensive s/i list

this took way too long. will be updated as i develop them further! note that these only include a few of my main, more developed s/is, but i do have s/is for all my f/o’s universes!

[ evil dead ]

name: river kennedy

[ movie canon ]

age: 22

occupation: pizza delivery boy

physical: river kennedy was always on the taller side, his physicality being his foremost quality. he was the star quarterback in high school, and his muscular prowess didnt leave him after he graduated. finding no need for college, his routine consisted of working out during the day and going to work at night. his lean stature doesn't precede him - he can hold his own in the midst of chaos...and deadites.

6'0"

green eyes

dirty blonde hair

a southern drawl accents this cowboy's witty and devil-may-care temperament

while he's the more sensible of the two, it's only by a tad...ash and river are the quintessential "team one brain cell"

about: ash and river met on a wild night out during their high school years. needless to say, it wasn’t long before they ended up together, inseparable and making as many bad decisions as possible. 

sarcastic

upbeat

enthusiastic

here for a good time, not a long time

ship name: sympathy for the devil

[ show canon ]

age: 36

occupation: sheriff

physical: living in a small town has its perks - mainly that there’s not much to do during the day. the most action river sees on a daily basis is maybe a kid or two caught vandalizing the old bleachers behind the high school...and even then, it’s a stretch to say it’s much more than chasing down a teen with spraypaint. while he’s still physically fit, he’s not quite at his peak like he once was, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still hold his own against whatever the necronomicon may throw at him.

6'0"

green eyes

dirty blonde hair

a southern drawl accents this cowboy's witty and devil-may-care temperament

while he's the more sensible of the two, it's only by a tad...ash and river are the quintessential "team one brain cell"

about: while they never quite settled down, river took some time on his own to live with his family. he and ash lost contact for nearly twenty years, until the deadites returned out of nowhere. upon hearing the news, river tracked ash down, and again their shenanigans resumed, for the better or worse, no one really knows. 

sarcastic

upbeat

enthusiastic

here for a good time, not a long time

ship name: born to be wild

[ saw ]

name: everett bailey ; salem

age: 23

occupation: freelance coder / web designer

physical: salem is not physically intimidating, but that doesn’t stop him from picking fights with those bigger than him

5′6″

bleached hair, often dyed

blue eyes

lots of leather

about: salem is, to say the least, a scammer who profits off of the ignorance of those less technologically capable than himself. for this reason (and for getting in the way of adam’s game) he too was punished, thrown into a trap that left him scarred both physically and mentally.

cocky

angry. just angry

daddy issues

drugs! probably

literally just a little shit.

ship name: waiting game / the jig is up / coma white / absolute penance (au)

[ twilight ]

name: holden cullen

age: 24 (at time of death)

occupation: clinical attendant / physician

physical: holden is physically smaller than most of his peers, but don’t let that fool you - he can definitely hunt just as well as the rest of them.

5′7″ (short king mama hey)

dark brown hair / soft black

green eyes (golden after death)

freckles

about: holden met carlisle at work, where he worked as a clinical attendant. within a few months carlisle had introduced holden to the rest of the cullens, and not long after holden deduced their family secret, though carlisle refused to turn holden on the basis that holden could live happily as a human. after a particularly nasty car crash, however, carlisle was forced to turn holden lest he let him die, and thus holden was finally a true member of the family. in his spare time during his “recovery,” he was able to complete his doctorate, and now works alongside carlisle at the clinic.

upbeat

fun-loving

dedicated

kind-hearted

absolute dad

holden’s gift is similar to that of jasper’s - with a strange type of pathokinesis, he is able to dull the pain (physical and emotional) of others, instead taking it himself. 

he uses it to help carlisle destress most of the time - when he was human, carlisle would always say just how comforting it was to be with holden, that he had a sort of warmth to him, and that warmth followed him even after his death. carlisle describes the calming nature of it as though holden has “sunlight in his hands,” as a mere touch from him can bring complete serenity. 

ship name: sunlight in his hands 

[ house, m.d. ]

name: rowan kirk

age: 30

occupation: pediatrician

physical: rowan is likely the least intimidating person you’d ever meet - he’s very quiet, and very bubbly. his stature is rather lax, and his soft temperament is complimented by his just as inviting looks, making him the perfect doctor for even the rowdiest of children.

5′8″

strawberry blonde hair

green eyes

freckles

always smiling

never seen without a stuffed animal and at least 10 lollipops in his lab coat

about: rowan is a kind-hearted doctor, driven by an inexplicable need to help others. it was for this reason that he quickly caught the eye of james, and together they make quite the hopeless pair of romantics.

has good intentions

soft-spoken

hates star trek jokes

absolute hopeless romantic

Repressed Trauma tm

always cold gay

ship name: sunshine & star trek jokes

[ quantum leap ]

name: dexter marsh

age: 26

occupation: chemist/biologist

physical: while short, dex’s wit makes up for more than enough of what he lacks in height. he’s far more on the nerdy side, bookish in all senses of the word.

curly hair

freckles

brown eyes

short

wardrobe consists of sweaters exclusively

about: dex works as a chemist on the starbright project alongside sam and, after one too many late nights spent on research they realized the feelings they harbored for each other were those of more than just friends.

quiet, but brilliant

strange fascination for chemistry and biology

hired on originally as a data analyist for the starbright project

married to sam after his leap home

has two dogs, a german shepherd and a husky named melody and marley respectively

ship name: terminally good

[ gotham ]

name: dexter “cheshire” chester

age: 23

occupation: gang leader

physical: his grin as wicked as the cheshire cat himself, dexter dons stripes and a leather jacket to complete his look

catlike reflexes

nearly always high

blue eyes

bleached hair, a few purple streaks to accent it

never seen without his trusted smashin bat

about: having found his family through his gang, he runs the strays of gotham alongside his adopted sister queen, and finds his niche in illegal dealings

cares far too much for his “family”

gained the nickname cheshire from a combination of his gang’s name and the fact he always seems to disappear from the scene of the crime

peddles an experimental drug called “jabberwock” which is similar to speed as well as weapons and other illegal substances

ship name: down the rabbit hole

[ phantom of the opera ]

name: adonis

age: 20

occupation: performer ; actor / singer

physical: adonis knew from a young age that he hated his body. it simply felt wrong, and though he had a talent for the musical arts, he passed at the opportunity to perform in lieu of working as a stagehand, passing as male and taking the name adonis.

trans (ftm)

binds with a corset even though it isn’t healthy

dirty blonde hair

blue eyes

doesn’t own a single shirt that fits him properly

about: he caught the eye of erik when, on a whim, he sang aloud to himself on stage as he was readying the props for a show. erik was smitten from that day, intrigued by the young man and his strangely beautiful voice. since then, erik has helped adonis train his voice, and he now performs on stage and is very popular among the patrons of the theater. 

ship name: gods & monsters

[ ahs ]

name: clarence miller

age: 20

occupation: performer

physical: born an albino, clarence miller was inducted into elsa mars’ freakshow at a young age, and now looks up to her like a mother. 

pale, pale, pale

short

nearly blind due to albinism

does not own any clothes that fit, actually

about: clarence is quiet and keeps to himself most of the time. while he doesn’t have any standout talents, he acts as a tickettaker for the freakshow

has a little pet lizard

falls asleep in the booth a lot

cannot go out in the sun for long

dandy can and WILL kill for him

ship name: dance macabre

[ ghostbusters ]

name: oasis*

age: unknown* (deceased)

occupation: physicist / parapsychologist

physical: while he does seem human in all aspects, oasis is far from it.

extremely pale

white hair

green eyes

lanky

can and will appear behind u...nothin personnel, kid.....

just can’t stop floatin’ sometimes

about: *while oasis is not his real name, it was the name of the theory accredited to him, in which he believed there to be two planes of existence, one of the living and one of the dead that are consistently manipulated by each other, the phenomenon that results are noticeable but often disappear when investigated further, “Like a mirage, and oasis in the desert.”

ship name: oasis theorem

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

                                          THE WHITE FAWN

                                                          ao3

What Arya wants it to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. And maybe, just maybe, Sansa's songs are no so stupid after all. // What if Arya and Gendry would never part?

Arya is, as more often than not lately, awaken by the high-pitch shrill of a newborn babe piercing her ears and immediately making her breasts fill up. With a pained groan, she untangles herself from her sleeping husband’s arms and tumbles off the cot; it’s still dark outside, so early, that the birds are still quiet, but late enough that the embers in the fireplace have already gone cold. Her breath forms a mist in the air when she exhales.

Winter is coming.

The new babe is a girl, which makes her head spin a little bit. She has only ever carried boys and took care of boys; boys, in her mind, are a simpler breed, easier to understand. She has never been that good at talking with other girls or making friends among them, even when she was just a lass and that remains one of the very few things that haven’t changed upon her flowering and marriage. But her little girl is cute beyond measure, with her button-like nose and beautiful eyes, blue and round as a doe’s. Gendry adores the very sight of her, cradling her in his arms for hours and skipping work just to stare at her in awe. After weeks of deliberations, they have decided to name her Alysanne and began calling her Aly, which, Arya reasons in her head, is a good enough compromise between going with something too fancy and attention-catching and completely forgetting any high-born connotation.

True, Arya is no lady now and Alysanne will never be a lady anyway. But she is of North still, with Stark blood running in her veins and she deserves a name to reflect this. A name carried by Good Queen Alysanne and Black Aly, wife of Lord Cregan Stark who gave her maidenhead to a horse and who ranked amongst Arya’s favorite characters in Old Nan’s bedtime stories.

‘’Shhhh, sweetling, don’t cry.’’ – Arya reaches inside the wicker basket set next to the dark fireplace and swiftly raises her daughter up, cradling her to her chest. – ‘’Shhh, we don’t want to wake your father up, do we?’’

For a second or two Arya tries to remember times when she did not know how to nurse a babe, how to lull it to sleep with a song or shush its fussing, but it seems a lifetime away. She recalls though, how miserable she was when Jory was born, how helpless she felt. Gendry would come back from the forge and find her sitting on the floor, crying alongside their newborn boy. Her nipples cracked so that it was too painful for her to nurse and she would stain all her shirts with blood and milk. And Jory would sob and sob, for hours with no end; his little body squirming in her arms and his little face turning all purple.

She recalls wishing desperately for her mother, for Sansa, for any woman really to just appear out of thin air and teach her what she never wanted to learn until it was too late to find any teacher.

How they survived those first few months – her and Gendry, barely grown themselves and with no one to guide them – she has no idea, but in time they have learned. Slowly and painfully, but they did. And now she is left thinking how unfair it was for poor Jory to suffer her unsteady hands and Gendry’s too rough grip, when his brothers and sister had it so much easier.

Funny enough, she has never understood why her mother wanted so many children in the first place, but she understands it now so perfectly, as she sits down on the threshold, wrapping a blanket around her daughter and herself and watching  Aly suckling, all content and calm. It gets easier. It gets addicting. It wrecks her heart every time in the most wonderful way to bear yet another child and watch them grow.

From their little hut up on the hill, she can see the pink stone walls of Maidenpool, strangely ethereal while surrounded by the early morning mist. The sun’s barely up, but she knows that the silver waters of Bay of Crabs are somewhere beyond it. The fisherman must get be getting ready to sail, if they are not aboard already.

And behind her, inside the house, there is a quiet gruff and then the sound of the heavy footsteps, before a pair of lips is pressed to Arya’s cheek, warming her up better than any blanket could.

‘’Well, good morning, m’lady. Seems someone broke their fast early today.’’

*

Autumn sun does not color her skin, but instead makes it all spotty, scattering little brown freckles across her nose and cheekbones.

They lay together on the sweet-smelling grass and Gendry attempts to count them all, except either he is worse with sums than she though he is, or he makes mistakes just to start over again. She just stays still with her eyes closed and savors the moment; it’s rare now, that they have an afternoon like that all to themselves. It’s getting colder and colder, and their house is far from finished. Between slaving in the forge in the Maidenpool and constructions in every free time he has, Gendry falls asleep the moment his head rests on the flat surface. And she’s so tired now also, straight to her bones. She has taken to tending to horses in the local minor lord’s stables and that might be quite much more work than she thought it would be.

But Gendry is not sleeping now. And she is not tired.

‘’Leave ‘em be, they will fade soon enough.’’

‘’I don’t want them to fade. Look at you.’’ She feels the tip of his nose pressing against hers  ‘’You have spots like a fawn.’’

I could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs. Isn’t that what I used to imagine?

‘’M’lady.’’ He kisses her jaw.

‘’My forest lass.’’ He kisses her neck.

‘’Mind your words, Waters.’’ She growls, but there is no bite in her voice, no heat. Hard to be angry, when the sun is so warm and the grass is so soft, and Gendry puts his hand on her barely swollen belly oh-so-gently and kisses it also, through layers upon layers of clothing but still somehow managing to make her shiver.

‘’My love, then.’’

She opens her eyes slowly and his face is right above hers, blue eyes sparkling. And so, she smiles, as widely as she can, because why shouldn’t she? This is hers. All this happiness is hers. She can as well own it.

‘’This one I can approve of.’’

*

They are married on her ten and sixth name day, Brotherhood in a half-circle around them chanting ‘’Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” to the rhythm of the stomping boots and whistling sharply when they do.

She has a crown of wildflowers on her head – forget-me-nots, poppies, pennyroyal and hellebores entwined with weeds and wheat, and tied with white ribbons.  Jeyne and Willow presented it to her as a wedding gift, along with a maiden cloak. No sigil on it, but its grey trimmed with white and makes her choke on tears when she looks at it.

(These are poisonous, y’know?-  he asks her in their marriage bed on the Crossroads Inn, lazily playing with the strands of her hair and a few flowers still left tangled in them.

Fitting for me. - she only mumbles in response, tired and content, her eyelids heavy.

He chuckles quietly and it’s such a joyful sound that her heart clenches in her chest.

You don’t know what you’re talking about, Arya. – comes his whisper and then he caresses her bare thigh with a blade of pennyroyal until blood rushes back to her head, until her breath catches; with this, all the conversations and her tiredness are forgotten.

Later, she thinks the girls might have tried to suggest something with their choice of flowers. But, ironically or not, her crown stays discarded into parts on the inn’s floors and she does not drink moon tea after that night or ever, for that matter. Heddle sisters subtle offer is declined before it could be even considered)

Her dress – because she actually dons a dress, to surprise of everyone – is bought with blood money Arya had taken from the raper whom she had killed a fortnight before.  After she left him choking on blood on the King’s Road, she was unsure what she should do with the heavy sack. She couldn’t give it back to the lass he abused and robbed, for she was gone along her parents, so she kept it in her pocket for a day or two and then slipped away to the marketplace nearby.  The dress has short sleeves and is made from simple yellow silk, which makes Tom Sevenstrings lets out a bark of laughter and plays Forest Love all night long… which he would do regardless, but maybe, just maybe, this one time Arya does not mind.

The flower crown, the yellow dress, her dark hair washed and combed; it is all worth it, just to see the sun in Gendry’s eyes when he is looking at her.

She loves him, she loves him, she loves him. She says her vows with all the conviction, all the sweetness she can manage to put in speech and she watches as he blooms with happiness when hers ‘’I take this man’’ rings loud and clear. He kisses her as if it was their last night and not the first of many and, in between kisses, promises to let her guard him with her sword, which makes her laugh breathlessly against his lips.

I wish Jon could be here. – crosses her mind briefly, but then there is dancing and singing and bedding, and she refuses to think of past long gone anymore.

*

‘’The Brotherhood is going North, to fight the dead. ‘’ he pauses for a second, his eyes glued to his hands. “You can go home. You know Bolton’s are gone – I heard your brother Jon is the new King in the North. You are a Northern princess again, Arya.’’

Home.

Her heart beats in her chest painfully fast.

Home.

What does it mean now?

She hasn’t seen Winterfell since she was a child, since she was nine. She barely remembers it now; the summer snows, the Godswood, her father’s laughter, her mother’s gentle smile. Jon’s smile.

She could take it back, have it back. But then she couldn’t.

Home.

Unwillingly, the thoughts of Gendry’s eyes and greenery of Riverland’s forests cross her mind.

“A princess. Do you think this is what I’m fit for, Gendry?’’

Back to Winterfell, to her remaining siblings; back to the life of highborn lady with servants and manners, who is not supposed to associate with smallfolk. Who is not supposed to fall in love with bastard base-born blacksmiths, even if her bastard base-born blacksmith is a knight. Even if he is a good person, a good man, the best one she has ever met.

The one who saw her starving and desperate, and hopeless. The one who would wash the blood off her skin and guard her against cold.

Gendry chuckles at that, reaching out to take her hand in his. His skin is rough, but his touch is delicate; he is always delicate with her, even when he tries not to be. Gently, he runs his thumb across her knuckles.

‘’Those little things – but not so soft anymore, huh. Suppose you don’t want to trade your Needle for a regular one still?

She lets out a bark of laughter. Why do you know me so well? Why are you like this?

‘’Yes, I’m dreaming of becoming a master embroiderer indeed.”

Gendry’s smile is a rare thing, but he has always gifted her with it generously and freely. I would make her stomach feel funny even before she flowered and now it has a dangerous power over her; she can never get enough of it, she can never stop mourning how short are those moments of happiness painted on his face. It’s like seeing the sky clear up for a moment before storm clouds cover it again. And this time too, soon enough the corners of his lips drop.

‘’But you miss your family, right? You belong with them.’’ – there is tightness in his voice, as if he was stopping himself from saying something.

She takes a deep breath, bracing herself. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Stop being a coward, Arya.

‘’I don’t know,’’ she answers quietly, putting her other hand on top of his. ‘’I don’t know if I belong with them anymore.’’

Winterfell would not be like in her rainbow-colored memories. Jon would be a stranger to her now, Sansa too. And she would be a stranger to them, after everything she went through. She could go North and be a highborn lady again, if she couldn’t ride with Brotherhood anymore. She could learn how to love her siblings again.

Until they would marry me off to some lesser bannerman just to forge an alliance. – voice cold as a winter wind hisses inside her head

Jon wouldn’t do it!

The Jon you knew wouldn’t. But he is a King now. – she thinks of Robb, how easily he traded her hand for a godsdamned bridge, how he sold her without a second thought but married for love himself. – You will never be free in Winterfell. You have never been free there.

You will marry a high lord and rule his castle.

Do you want that, Arya?

What do I want, really?

What she wants it to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. And maybe, just maybe, Sansa's songs are no so stupid after all, for she supposes she could forget Riverlands, mud on her face and wind in her hair. She could forget Brotherhood and Heddle sisters and Hot Pie. She could put Needle down and never mention being an outlaw again.

But there is one thing she refuses to sacrifice.

She raises her head, until her eyes found Gendry’s stare. His eyebrows are furrowed with concern, his lips pressed tightly together. Oh, how she loves his face. How she loves his heart.  How much she wished to never part with him. She cannot even recall how it was to be on her own, without him.

Father is dead. Mother is dead. Robb is dead. Bran and Rickon are dead.  There is nothing waiting for her in the Winterfell, not anymore.  But maybe, just maybe, she can have something here.

‘’I don’t think my family is in the North.’’ – she says slowly and then waits patiently, watching Gendry eyes widening as the meaning of her words unfolded in his head.

‘’Arya-‘’

‘’Could you be my family, Gendry? If Brotherhood leaves… could you stay with me?’’ – she blurts out hastily, before she can stop herself, before she can cage her heart in her chest as she did ever since she saw Gendry slow dancing with Jeyne Heddle and bitter jealousy almost choke her, he’s mine, mine, mine stuck in her throat.

For a second or two he remains silent, still holding her hand and staring at her face as if he was trying to read it. And then, apparently getting his fill,  he swiftly pulls her closer, so that her body is flush against his. He cups her cheeks, letting his forehead rest on hers.

She feels as if she was on fire, her whole skin tingling head-to-toe, trembling in anticipation. Her lips part slightly and she can see his eyes darkening.

‘’Aye, Arya. I will be your family.’’ He says quietly, his voice low and solemn.

“Even when the dead come down South and kill us all?’’

It’s a far more serious question than she intended it to be, but she’s still rewarded by his smile for asking it.

‘’Well, I hope you will protect me then.’’

Arya seals her fate with a kiss; her fingers carding through Gendry’s hair and the light of the setting sun warming her cheeks.

*

She doesn’t wonder about her siblings very often, to be honest.

But sometimes, in rare moments of calm and solitude, those thoughts just creep on her. What would her younger brother, Lord Bran Stark do, if she knew who she became? What would her favorite brother, King Jon Targaryen do?  What would her little brother, Sir Rickon Stark do? More interestingly, would her sister, lady Sansa Clegane, gasp at Arya’s choices considering her own?

These are just fantasies she indulges in, nothing that breaks her internal conviction that where she is, is precisely where she is supposed to be.  All of her surviving boys rose so terribly high. She must seem like a fuzzy memory right now, just like they are to her.  As happy as she was when she learned that Bran and Rick turned out to be fine and whole after all, it did not change her mind, so she supposes nothing will. The Stark Pack is no longer and she has a new pack now. Four boys for four brothers; one girl for one sister.

But sometimes, just sometimes, at the dead of the night, she lays with her cheek pressed to Gendry’s chest and tries to recall her parents' faces and voices.  She wonders how outraged Mother would be to see her living under the Tully dominium but not in the fine castle but in one of the huts on the rolling hills near Maidenpool. And then she would inevitably ponder on if her Father would be disappointed to see whom she decided to spend her life with.

There are tales of her, endless speculation how and when she disappeared from the history scrolls into the dark. She became quite a story. Arya Stark, Lost Princess of the Realm. Who would have thought that in the world of Undead and dragons and hidden Targaryen heirs, she is now Arya, blacksmith’s wife with no surname at all and a litter of children around her, equally nameless; no princes nor knights, but well-fed and well-loved they are. Happy.

I am no lady, but I am well-loved also. If Sansa or Jon or Bran or Rick really love me... If Father and Mother really wanted me to be happy… That should be enough for them. – she reasons in her head those nights, pressing herself closer to Gendry until he tightens his hold of her. Listening to her children steady breathing and her husband’s heartbeat, she drifts into dreams of snow and blood and wolves.

*

White linen is billowing on the wind, drying on the clothesline. Her sons are running up the hill; Arya watches their four dark heads as they meet with Gendry halfway; he leans down, somehow scoops them all at once into his open arms and spins around. Their shrieks of joy are so loud that Aly wakes up in her wicker basket and coos, waving her little hands to have her picked up.

There is sweetness in the air; it tastes like summer, summer that never ends.

Arya inhales deeply and kneels on the ground, letting baby grab her long dark hair. Her husband is almost home, their boys in tow.

I need no songs, my brothers can keep them, my sister can keep them; this is enough.

[assassins-and-hidden-blades]

Through The Ages

Request: What if Jacob and the Reader were childhood sweethearts or smth?

A/N: Well I am sorry this took so long. This was my oldest request so I’m just doing them in chronological order :) Others are coming, don’t you worry! I hope you enjoy it! I thought that the ending sort of dropped off at the end, but I dunno. Have fun, kids!

Age 5:

Your father gripped your hand tightly as you walked through the streets of Crawley, your feet doubling the speed of his. You felt his strange swishing clothes—you had no idea what kind of shop he went to to procure them—brush against your body.

“Where are we going?” You tugged on his arm and brought your arms up, silently asking to be held.

“I’m going to meet a friend of mine and talk about boring things,” he said with a smile, setting you on his hip as he weaved through the people on the street. You took his hat from his fluffy hair and tried it on for size. It slipped as far down as the bridge of your nose. “He also has children; they’re your age too.”

Peeking out from under the rim of his hat, you grinned cheekily. “Can we play hide and seek?”

He laughed heartily. “Why, that’s their favourite game!”

He walked up to the door of a house that was different but also blended in. After three sharp raps, another adult man opened the door. You shrunk into the crook of your father’s neck as they greeted each other. “Y/N, Love, this is my best friend Ethan.” You mumbled a very shy, “Hi” back.

“Hello, Y/N.” This Ethan fellow had a kind face, with a smile that you could quickly trust. “Evie! Jacob!”

Your father put you down and pressed his hand against your head as you stood behind his leg, clutching his trousers. A little girl, about your age, came into view not a second after, with bright blue eyes and freckles. She flashed an adorable smile, sticking out her hand. “Hello!” She greeted cheerfully.

You took a deep breath, steeling yourself, and stepped forward. “Hi.”

“My name is—“

“Jacob Frye!” You giggled to yourself as you saw a boy, about the same height and age as the girl in front of you, walk towards the front door, covered in mud. “What on earth are you doing?” His father asked, not as much angry as disbelieved.

“Making mud pies!” He grinned cheekily, before eyes eyes landed on you. “I like your hat!” He exclaimed, before heading into a direction which you assumed was the washroom.

On the other hand, you completely forgot that you were wearing your father’s hat and you felt your cheeks flush. Jacob was a complete contrast to the girl in front of you, dressed tidily with not a speck of dirt to be seen. “I’m Evie,” she finally managed to say.

“Y/N.” You looked to your father for permission before you went with Evie for a tour (and a hunt) around her home (for her brother).

Age 15:

Another fist came flying for your face. You dodged in time, leaping around the small space in the alley. You swore these boys were watching you at school all day. They probably weren’t even paying attention.

You caught the arm of another boy, twisted him around and kicked out his knees. “Never talk about my mother again.” You squeezed his arm more for good measure as he let out a whimper. The other boys began scrambling to leave, and you gave them a few seconds before releasing your victim.

After a few hours, you found yourself on your roof, leaning against the chimney, legs sprawled in front of you lazily. You rubbed your bruised knuckles tenderly, replaying your father’s words in your head. “Your mother was the bravest martyr in the entire world. You know that. By God, you’ve inherited that. The bravery, the recklessness…

If you know your mother’s past, why listen to the lies of others?”

“But they said—“

“It doesn’t matter what they said.” He applied an ice cold rag to your cheek as he explained, making you wince. “Sorry. What matters is what you do in return, and this…” He lifted up one of your sore hands. “Is not always the way.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” you shrugged, desperately trying not to give into your teenage instincts and roll your eyes.

Your father kissed your knuckles. “I know, my dear.”

The night was cold from where you were, but you were so engrossed in thought that you didn’t feel the change in temperature at all…

Nor the sound of footsteps leaping towards you. “Y/N? What are you doing up here?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Jacob.” You shuffled over so Jacob could take a seat next to you.

“What happened?”

“Some boys were talking about my mum… they were just so…” you couldn’t believe the lump forming in your throat. “They couldn’t get away with it.”

“They managed to get a few good hits in.” Your ears pricked at the tone of his voice; puberty lowered his pitch by a fair amount, and he’s definitely grown capable of sounding completely menacing when his emotions leak through. You felt his fingers touch your chin before he tilted your face towards him, examining the damage.

“You should see the other guys.” He cracked a smile at your joke before he spoke.

“I’ve never seen this before.” He pressed his finger against a mark under your jaw. “Is it a scar?”

You hummed in amusement at the assumption. “I was born with it.”

“I think it’s beautiful.”

Your eyes dropped to meet with Jacob’s when he brushed his thumb against your bruised cheek. At the same time, it sensed, you both realised how close the two of you were, but you made no sign of moving. “May I kiSS—“ he cleared his throat when his voice cracked, making you burst out laughing. “Sorry.” This only made you laugh harder, as he purposely dropped his voice even lower than normal. To put both of you out of your misery, you leaned in quickly, cutting him off.

As you broke apart, your eyes glanced up towards Jacob’s hair, a new flat cap upon it. “I like your hat,” you smiled cheekily.

“That’s very funny, Y/N/N.”

Age 20:

London was calling. Desperately.

You were sitting on the roof of a steam locomotive, swinging your legs over the side as you saw Whitechapel Station come into view. Your replica of your father’s robes (a stunning combination of deep purple and thin streaks of orange around the edges) comforted you as the train rolled nearer.

There was a letter sent to your house a few days prior, threatening you to stay away.

Of course, you never listened to letters.

So you hopped off the train at the station and weaved through various people and down the steps.

No sooner than taking a foot to the path did a green carriage shoot down the road, a few red ones trailing behind. Curiously, you scaled the nearest building and followed the carriages around the borough.

There was a hooded gentleman at the reigns of the green carriage, spurring the horses for all they had. “Follow that man!” And variants of the words were being hollered down past pedestrians.

You stood there, blinking. What a start, you thought, pulling your cowl past your ears and over your eyes. You began heading down the street, catching your bearings and gathering intel about the situation and who is actually guilty of corruption.

By the time it was noon, the morning’s events had dissipated into the past, and you soon forgot about it completely. Every now and then you would spot a few groups of green coats and red coats. The people clad in green would greet you politely, whereas the ones who donned red were consistently harassing the public.

It quickly became clear who was in the wrong.

You had very quickly walked from Whitechapel into Southwark. The roads were a bit bleaker as they grew farther away from the City, but there were still pleasant enough people. The men and women in green—Rooks, you heard people say—were more abundant in this area.

As the sun began to set, you decided to go find a hotel. Your late father knew a friend who owned a hotel by the name of The Great Liberty Manor. It would serve as a good place to rest for the night.

You headed in the general direction of the Main Street when arms grabbed you and pulled you around the corner. Immediately, your instincts kicked in, and you punched your captor in the crotch, pulling away and readying your stance. The man stood tall in a green waistcoat and black leather coat, sporting a blade on his arm and a hood on his head. He threw a punch which you countered with a dodge, grabbing his limb and twisting.

If he didn’t strike you in the sternum, you probably could have escaped. He pinned you face first into the wall of the alley, a hand pinning your arm to your back and a forearm pressing the other beside your head against the wall. He was one of the strongest men you had ever faced.

“I want you to tell me the truth,” he began, unsheathing his blade on his arm to aim at your temple. “You will answer me truthfully.” The voice was deep and menacing, yet the accent was not unfamiliar.

“Those aren’t Y/F/N Y/L/N’s robes, but they look almost exactly the same. What are you playing at?” His grip tightened as he mentioned your father’s name.

“You knew my father?!”

You were released without a second thought.

Spinning around, you stared down the shadow of the stranger. “Who are you?”

His hands came before his face and pushed the fabric over the yolk of his shoulders.

You saw a pale face with hazel eyes, a scar on an eyebrow and stubble scattered over a jaw. Hair curled behind his ears and at the nape of his neck and if you didn’t know any better…

“No… you can’t be.” You assumed he was dead; he left for a mission with Evie and George and never came back. All you heard was that a lab exploded and a train got derailed.

They never came back. What were you supposed to think?

You were frozen to the spot, wondering how after all this time, he was alive. You snapped back to the present when you felt hands slowly tug the fabric off of your head.

No words were said in this exchange. His arms cradled you and held you tightly as your eyes began to well up.

No. You weren’t going to cry. You should be angry.

But you couldn’t be. Not now.

“I thought you were dead!” You pulled away from his chest.

“I thought you were dead!” He lifted your chin, and you watched him check for the area your birthmark resided.

Just to be sure.

You sighed, a smirk playing at your lips. “Where’s Evie?”

His eyes grew dark, and his gaze dropped to the floor as a frown replaced his grin. “She… uh…”

Your hand covered your mouth as tears pricked your eyes again.

“Alright, Love, calm down! She’s only on the train.”

Smack!

“Ow!” Jacob rubbed his arm dramatically. “What was that for?!”

“You’re such an idiot!”

Before he could say anything, you pulled his head down for a kiss. “Not a word. Can we see Evie?”

Jacob huffed a laugh as he revealed a hat from his coat. “Very well.” He walked to the edge of the alleyway, straightening the creases in it when he realised that his shoes were the only set of footsteps heard. Placing the hat upon his head, he waited. “Aren’t you coming?” You took in the sight of his shadow against the setting sun; a pure, menacing shadow which stood tall with pride and cheek.

You smiled widely before moving to catch up. “You look good in that hat.”

“That’s... not what we say.”