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“Mina-chan, why are you dragging me, kero. ”
“We have to hurry, Tsu-chan! I need to show you something!” Ashido dragged a disgruntled Asui into her dorm room, looking around excitedly before slipping in and locking the door. Ashido smiled and gestured to the other students she had gathered.
“Tsu-chan! Mina made a video and she wants us to watch it with her!” Uraraka jumped excitedly, her eyes sparkling. Asui sat down next to her friends, casting suspicious glances at the other students.
“Okay, Momo. We’re gonna need that projector now.” With a curt nod, Yaoyorozu produced a small, portable projector from her abdomen. She smiled wickedly as Ashido plugged in her phone,
“This is one of the best videos I’ve ever made, get ready guys.” A picture flickered to life on Ashido’s wall and some of the students gasped. Had someone actually dared…? A few seconds later, the whole room was filled with raucous laughter. Todoroki smirked and patted the back of the young boy collapsing into a pile of mirth next to him.
“I can’t - hic - can’t believe you guys di - hic - d this! How did you even get that video?” Midoriya dissolved once again, becoming a freckled puddle of uncontrollable laughter.
“Let’s just say...once we told our plan to one of the TA’s, they agreed to give us a copy of our first training sess. After that, it was only a matter of finding the right music. I think we may have done a good job on that one.” Ashido smirked and high fived her partner in crime. The video played again. Ashido and Yaoyorozu ended up falling onto a beanbag, clutching each other as tears ran down their faces. A chirp was barely heard over the noise. Ashido sat up as she wiped her face. She checked her phone.
“EVERYBODY RUN! BAKUGOU HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING!” The kids scrambled up, running for the door. “AND REMEMBER THE FIRST RULE OF BAKUMEME CLUB! DON’T EVER, EVER, TALK ABOUT BAKUMEME CLUB!” And with that, the room was emptied.
For the next few weeks after that, video after video was churned out. The Bakumeme Club met every Wednesday to watch any new videos that had been made. At first, Ashido and Yaoyorozu were the only ones who dared to make them. But after a while (and after they had all promised to never utter a single word to Bakugou about this), others joined in on the fun. The videos spread like wildfire; first to the other first-year classes, then up the ranks to the second and third years. Within months, the whole school had seen the videos. Bakugou Katsuki still had no idea.
“Hagakure, we need your help. We have a stealth mission for you.” Ashido and Yaoyorozu cornered the invisible girl, the smiles on their faces villainous.
“I don’t know about this, guys. If I get caught, I’ll be dead! He’ll kill me!”
“Oh, come on, Hagakure. Everything will be fine. The camera Momo made is practically invisible. All you need to do is stick it on your forehead, sneak into Bakugou’s room, and film him being sad! Once you’ve done that, tap twice on the camera. It’s rigged to alert Kaminari, and we’ll get Kirishima to distract Bakugou so you can escape! It’s a solid plan, you have nothing to worry about.”
“But does Bakugou ever act sad? What if he’s just always angry? What if I...see things I’m not supposed to see? Kirishima’s the only one who’s been in Bakugou’s room, and he won’t even tell us what it’s like! What if he has lewd magazi-”
“Listen. The probability of Bakugou Katsuki having porn magazines in his room is very high. That’s just a risk you’re going to have to take. As for his emotions - we’ve arranged with Kirishima to create a situation that will make Bakugou sad. Kirishima claims he’s seen Bakugou sad before, and he knows what kind of situations will trigger it. At first, when he’s around others, he will be angry and explosive. But once he’s alone in his room, he won’t have to keep up that front. Trust us. We’ve been planning this for a week.”
“Well, when you explain it like that, Yaoyorozu...Mina’s explanation really made it seem like a spur of the moment thing...You guys have really thought this out, haven’t you?” Ashido and Yaoyorozu both nodded. Their plan was working. “Okay, I’ll do it. But you guys owe me big time. And if he finds out, you guys better take credit! I don’t want to be at the other end of his sweaty hands.” Ashido and Yaoyorozu high fived.
“AAARRGH! WHAT THE FUCK SHITTY HAIR? I THOUGHT WE HAD PLANS!”
“Ehh, sorry Bakubro. Deku needs help with something. Maybe later today?”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Bakugou stormed off, steaming. Kirishima looked over at Ashido and Yaoyorozu, his expression hard.
“I’ve never had to cancel on Katsuki before. You owe me big time.” Kirishima stalked off, displeasure evident in his posture. Ashido sighed.
“I really do feel bad about making him do that. Bakugou may be an asshole, but Kirishima isn’t. He was really looking forward to hanging out with Bakugou today,” Ashido sighed, resting her head on the back of the common room couch.
“I honestly don’t know what he sees in Bakugou.” Ashido sighed again at her friend’s remark.
“Me neither. But he obviously sees something.” A pause. “Maybe we should play matchmaker?”
“Apologies, but I don’t feel like get blasted with Bakugou’s nasty sweat for meddling in his love life.”
“You’ve got a point there.”
Hagakure stood outside Bakugou’s door, waiting for him to arrive. About a minute after the exchange downstairs, the fifth floor elevator dinged. Hagakure cowered away from Bakugou, despite him not knowing she was there. She had good reason to, however. He was mad . Little sparks danced along his palms as he fumbled for his keys. Hagakure almost got crushed slipping in as Bakugou slammed his door shut.
“What the fuck! Why the fuck would Shitty Hair help Deku? Doesn’t that stupid bastard have enough friends? Why does he have to go around and steal mine?” Bakugou continued grumbling, but it died off a few seconds later. Hagakure had to cover her mouth to stop herself from gasping as tears threatened to fall from Bakugou’s eyes. He wasn’t angry. His brows weren’t furrowed and his frown didn’t tug at his cheeks. No, his face was neutral. Maybe even sad. Hagakure never expected to see this side of Bakugou. She had to admit, too. When he wasn’t all riled up, Bakugou Katsuki was kind of attractive. Tears pricked at Hagakure’s eyes as she watched the scene before her. It was kinda heartbreaking to see the class grenade acting so vulnerable. A quiet sob escaped Bakugou’s throat and Hagakure was brought back to reality. Tapping on the camera, she moved towards the door. About two minutes later, there was a knock.
“Go away.”
“Bakubro, it’s me.”
“I don’t care, go away.” Silence. Kirishima spoke up, softly.
“Katsu. I’m sorry for ditching you. I feel really bad for doing it. It was very unmanly of me. Can you open the door? Please?” Bakugou shuffled to the door, but stopped just before it, his hand resting on the knob. His voice was quiet, soft. He was hurt.
“Why should I let you in?” Kirishima’s sniffle could barely be heard through the door. He was crying. And now, so was Hagakure.
“I’m so sorry, Katsu. I really am. Please I just...I need you right now. I-I really miss you,” Kirishima trailed off. The door opened. Kirishima’s tear-filled eyes met Bakugou’s equally damp eyes. Kirishima’s sob broke the silence as he rushed forward to embrace Bakugou. Hagakure slipped out. Maybe it was best to give them some privacy.
“Hello darkness my old friend,” sung the projector. There were a few laughs, but not as much as usual. After a few seconds, Midoriya spoke up.
“Maybe we just stick with angry Kacchan memes? I don’t know, this just seems too personal,” Midoriya began mumbling as all eyes turned on him.
“I agree with Midoriya. Bakugou may be an asshole but he does deserve some privacy. This seems a little too personal to make memes about. I hope you haven’t posted it online yet.” Midoriya’s head shot up as Todoroki spoke. When the taller boy finished speaking, he smiled down at Midoriya, a dusting of pink on his cheeks. Midoriya melted into a star-struck, blushing mess and more than few eyes rolled around the room. However, a few other students piped up about their discomfort with posting something so personal. Ashido looked at the ground.
“Yeah...you guys are right. I really thought it was gonna be funny but now that I see it...I won’t post this one.” Ashido unplugged her phone from the projector and fiddled around with it. Yaoyorozu spoke up.
“Thank you all for your feedback. We won’t be releasing a video this week. If you’re all comfortable with it, we can resume posting videos next week.” The students all got up to leave, grumbling about this or that. Hagakure remembered the English test PresentMic had scheduled for next class. She joined in on the grumbling. Next to her, Ojiro stood up swiftly, turning to face Hagakure. He held his hand out to hoist the invisible girl up. Neither let go as they hurried out the door.
Bakugou walked into Kirishima’s room, slinging his bag onto the floor. Without looking, Kirishima spread his arms wide, a grunt escaping his lips as Bakugou plopped down on him. He resumed his mindless scrolling on his phone, wrapping his arms around the grumbling boy.
“Ei.”
“Yes?”
“It feels like everyone on campus keeps staring at me when I walk around.” Kirishima sent shocked looks to the other kids in his room. Ashido, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, Sero, and Kaminari all looked at each other, fear evident on their faces. Kirishima cleared his throat.
“Maybe they’ve heard rumors about you? After all, you did pretty well at the Sports Festival.”
“Heh, nerds. Can’t handle all this awesomeness,” Bakugou smirked against Kirishima’s chest. Everyone in the room seemed to deflate. He hadn’t caught on.
Kaminari Denki 19:04
Haha hey dude! Check this video out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3AaXXv1tKY
Bakugou Katsuki 19:08
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS
YOU PIECE OF SHIT
WHO DID THIS
Kaminari Denki 19:08
Oh
Oh no
“EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! BAKUGOU IS RAGING! HE SAW THE VIDEO! RUN!” Screams filled the building as everyone ran from their dorm rooms. People raced down the stairs, not waiting for the elevator to reach their floor. Within seconds, the entire building was cleared.
“AAAAAAAAARRGGGGHH! WHAT THE FUCK! HOW DARE YOU! WHO MADE THOSE VIDEOS, COME OUT AND FIGHT ME! I’LL KILL YOU ALL! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
“Bakubro! Calm down, you’re gonna set the building on fire!”
“FUCK YOU SHITTY HAIR!”
“Heh, only if you calm down.”
“Really?” In an instant, Bakugou was back to his normal, only half-homicidal self.
“What the fuck, that actually worked?!” Ashido exclaimed, coming out from around the corner. The fifth floor hallway walls were singed black, and the carpet was smoking. Bakugou stood in the middle of it all, fists clenched, eyebrows drawn down, and jaw jutting out.
“Never underestimate the power of promised pleasure, my frie-” Kirishima couldn’t even finish his sentence before Bakugou grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him into his room. The echo of the slamming door resounded through the building. Ashido gagged, realizing what was most likely going on behind that door. Yaoyorozu huffed.
“I thought they were just friends?”
“Yuck, apparently not,” Ashido and Yaoyorozu turned away, not wanting to hear any part of what was happening.
The next day, everyone was gathered in groups, muttering around their desks about what happened the night before. What was going to happen to the Bakumeme Club? The door blasted open and everyone scuttled to their seats. Out of the corner of their eyes, they watched Bakugou walk to his desk. Did he get hurt last night? He seemed to be limping. After Bakugou, Kirishima walked in. His face was glowing and his smile was devious.
Midoriya looked up as Bakugou sat down, gasping and covering his mouth. Furiously, he scribbled a note, passing it up to Ashido.
“UMM, WHY DOES KACCHAN HAVE BRUISES ON HIS NECK? AND WHY IS HE LIMPING? DID HE GET HURT LAST NIGHT?”
Ashido laughed out loud, and wrote a small note, passing the note back to Midoriya.
“LMAO BITCH HE GOT FUCKED”
Midoriya frowned, not understanding the response. A few rows away, Ashido wondered what to do with her new knowledge. After all, who would have guessed Bakugou Katsuki was a bottom?
|
Jack jolts awake as Kent comes through the bedroom door and shuts it carefully behind him. Kent’s face is pale. He’s shaking.
Jack swallows hard, sitting up from where he’d been lying on the couch. “Did you—?”
Looking numb, Kent shakes his head. “Not y-yet. Didn’t have my kit with me,” he whispers, and Jack feels a sudden wave of relief—fuck, he doesn’t want Bitty to be gone, not at all, damn it. “I’m just gonna—go get it—” Kent takes a trembling step, another—and then he crumples to his knees.
Jack is on the floor with him, gathering Kent into his arms before he even knows what he’s doing. “Kent,” he murmurs, hugging him to his chest, “You don’t—if it’s too hard, you don’t have to—“
“No!” Kent whispers harshly. “I’m gonna—I’m—g-gonna… Jack… it’s Bitty.” And then he starts sobbing, little silent movements that spasm through his whole body, tears bleeding through Jack’s shirt. Jack doesn’t know what to say, because he’s five seconds away from crying himself and he’s never been the best at giving comfort—but then Kent looks up at him and says, “I l-love him, Jack, I love him.”
The devastated whimper of his voice has tears pricking at Jack’s eyes too, and then he is crying, fuck.
And oh, God, Jack had been worried about that, about Kent being in love—he’d suspected, sure, but he was far more aware of Bitty’s feelings than he was of Kent’s. It was easy to detect the bright spark in Bitty’s eye whenever Kent came up in conversation, but with Kent—well, with Kent, Jack was usually far too distracted by his own feelings to pay attention to his thoughts about Kent and Bitty.
They’re in love.
They’re in love, and Kent is being forced to kill him.
“Fuck,” Jack shudders quietly, squeezing his eyes shut. He doesn’t know what to do.
Kent gasps a breath, then another. Suddenly, his body stills, and Jack’s heart seizes. “Oh my God,” Kent says, voice hollow. “They’re punishing me.”
“What?” Jack’s voice is shaky. “What do you mean?”
“For saving him in the first place.” Kent shakes his head, movement growing faster and faster. “They—fuck, this is all my own damn fault, I—I shouldn’t have—but then he would’ve died, Jack, what the hell was I supposed to do?”
Jack puts his hands on Kent’s shoulders, trying as best as he can to steady Kent’s quivering body. “Kent—it’s not just you, okay? It was my fault too. Hell—I’d bet this is more of a—of a warning to me than you—oh, God.”
That’s when the realization comes, a stunning blow in his brain that has shock swelling within him.
“What?” Kent’s brow trembles as it knits together, like he sees the fear in Jack’s posture and is scared because of it.
“This—this isn’t just for saving Bitty,” Jack says, the words tasting bitter and acrid on his tongue. “This is for—for saving you, too.”
“Saving me?” Kent blinks at him. “What do you mean? By not letting me kill him?”
Slowly, Jack shakes his head. “No. I mean—like, actually saving you. Back at the beginning. When your dad died.”
“Jack—I don’t understand,” Kent frowns, tears still shimmering in his eyes. “The Schooners weren’t trying to kill me—they just kept me hostage. What’re you talking about?”
And then, suddenly, Jack realizes why Kent doesn’t understand. “Christ,” he says, staring at Kemt. “You never knew.”
“Never knew what?” Kent grabs his arm, breath coming fast, and Jack would bet anything that he’s already figured it out.
“Fuck—Kent—” Jack starts, something akin to the tepid taste of blood growing on his tongue. “God, I… You… you were supposed to die with your father.”
Now it’s out there, and he can’t take it back.
Fuck.
The blood drains out of Kent’s face. “No,” he says, “No—you said that they took me because I—I showed promise or some shit like that, fuck, Jack, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew!” Jack puts his hands on Kent’s shoulders, trying to make him understand. “Anyway, you did show promise. It’s how I convinced my dad to—not to kill you.” He feels his voice goes soft at the end, and Kent gives a surprised sob. “Kent—what’s wrong?” he asks, because Kent’s getting more upset and he can’t tell at all what he’s thinking.
“They didn’t even want me,” Kent says, wrapping his arms around himself. “All this time—and they just wanted to get rid of me, just like him—fuck, Jack, why aren’t I dead? Why does he have to d-die, and not m-me—why?”
Jack’s about to open his mouth and say ‘because you didn’t flub a mission,’ but then he realizes with startling clarity that—Kent had. It’d been a small task, but an important one—just a single target, a guy named Antoine, who they’d needed to separate from the rest of his lackeys before they could kill him. And it was an accident, but Kent had let a piece of intel slip, one that nearly sabotaged their cover and could’ve blown the whole mission. But the Heads simply gave Kent a stern talking to, and then that was that—barely a slap on the wrist. It was so unremarkable that Jack had forgotten about it almost immediately after, because that was right before—
That’d been right before Kent had found out about his father.
“Kent,” Jack whispers, his stomach turning to stone. “How did you figure out about—about what my dad did in the first place?”
Kent’s face twists in confusion. “Uhh, I d-dunno—oh, nah, w-wait. When I went to mission debrief—uhh, the Antoine mission, I think? Anyway, y-your dad wasn’t there, and Hall mentioned—kinda l-like an offhand comment.”
Jack stares at him. “Christ. Kent—they leaked it on purpose.”
“I—w-what?” Kent’s jaw drops. “I—fuck—why? And anyway, what does that even m-matter? The Heads are ruthless fuckers. Just a-ask Ollie and Wicks.”
Jack’s head is spinning. “Give me a second.” He holds up a hand to stop Kent’s questions, because everything is starting to slot as neatly into place as a knife in its sleeve.
The Heads told Kent on purpose, inadvertently setting him on the spiral that nearly made him drink himself to death—but had it really been inadvertent?
And now, Bitty. Bitty, whose phone they’d bugged just so they could catch him in case he slipped up—
Almost like they’d expected it to happen.
Jack had chalked it up to mere paranoia before, but what if—what if.
There’s a small thought niggling in the corner of his brain, begging Jack to pull it out and stare it in the face, so he does. And right there, unfolding in the center of all of this mess, is the question: what if Bitty had been set up?
The fuck.
Jack knows immediately that it’s not something they can prove—the Heads will almost certainly deny a direct accusation. He’ll never be able to tell what’s real or fake, just like it’s impossible to prove the intent behind leaking the story of Kent’s dad’s death.
But he’s been trained all his life to look for patterns in people, to find out what makes them tick so he can exploit it out in the field. He’s not great with dealing with feelings, but his skill at reading motivations is a different beast, one he’s tamed and kept in his pocket so that he can let it loose on target after target.
And the part of his intuition that knows exactly how a target will react to something in the field—that’s the part that’s telling him that this is wrong, all wrong.
The Heads—they didn’t want Bitty to succeed on this mission.
“Jack—are you okay?” Kent asks, voice small. “What’s going on?”
Jack looks at him then, looks at him and thinks of a young man in the holding cell, curled up asleep next to his dad, tear tracks on his face just like now. Jack thinks of the way he himself had gone to his father and begged, pleaded with him not to kill Kent, to spare at least his life if not his dad’s.
When Jack thinks of his father, the happiest memories are of him talking about his wife—Jack’s mother—of him telling Jack stories of how beautiful and kind she was, of how he wanted nothing more than to go and find her again someday. Jack’s father knew love like no one else Jack’s ever met—except maybe Kent, and now Bitty.
When Jack had asked his father to let Kent live, his father had sighed and said he’d think about it, but when the next morning came, Jack looked over at the spare bed in his room and saw Kent there, blissfully asleep. Jack’s father had known love, had probably seen it in Jack’s eyes as he’d cried that night, and Kent had survived because of it. He shared a room with Jack for a year, trained with him and chose knife wielding as his specialty even though barely anyone did that anymore, just because he wanted to be the best at something. And he was. Kent is almost better than Jack out in the field, so muck that it sometimes makes Jack frighteningly jealous.
But now they’re here, teetering on the brink of death—the death of another young man who once sat in that holding cell with tears on his face.
Jack stopped Kent from dying, once.
Why can’t he save Bitty too?
His tongue feels sluggish as he opens his mouth to speak. “I can’t say for certain, but—damnit. I think… I think we were set up.”
Kent stares at him. “What?”
“I don’t think we can prove it, but. Didn’t Chowder have to hack into those phones before he gave them to us?”
Slowly, Kent nods. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Wouldn’t he have noticed a hidden recording device?” Jack asks him.
“Depends on how it was hidden—but yeah, probably.” Kent’s brow furrows. “Unless Chowder was the one who hid it?”
“No—I don’t think so.” Jack shakes his head. “He gets orders through our chain of command, so I would’ve heard about it.”
Kent sits back on his heels. “So—what are you suggesting?” He squints at Jack.
And oh, God.
What he’s about to suggest will most certainly get him into trouble.
What he’s about to suggest is mutiny.
Jack is strictly not a rule-breaker—the very thought makes his hands go clammy, makes him want to shiver all over. Even sleeping with Kent makes him feel guilty, makes him worry that someone might find out and get them in trouble even though nearly everyone in the complex has broken the ‘no relationships’ rule at some point or another.
But—but this is more important than the rules and regulations. This is saving Bitty, and by default, saving Kent from breaking down completely, from grieving about a life that doesn’t need to be lost. If he doesn’t do something to stop this, Kent might not ever look Jack in the eyes again, might even sever their relationship completely.
That’s the one thing that Jack desperately can’t deal with.
And—and Jack just really fucking doesn’t want Bitty to die. The only way Jack’s been getting by without bending, breaking, snapping in half is by pretending Bitty’s just another faceless target, someone he’s barely talked to instead of someone he’s trained, laughed with, made love to. But Bitty is all of those things, someone Jack wouldn’t hesitate to confide in, someone whose laughter feels like sunshine, someone who Jack cares about.
Jack can’t do it.
He can’t let Bitty die.
He sucks in a breath and opens his mouth. “I think they’re lying about the bug,” he says bluntly, his hands clenching into fists. “I don’t know how they knew about the fourth person, but either way, they hid it from us.”
“That wouldn’t make sense.” Kent bites his lip. “Unless—unless the target was a plant?”
“Oh my God,” Jack mouths, stunned. “You think?”
“I—” Kent cuts himself off, shaking his head. “I dunno anymore. Would they even do that?”
Jack’s mouth tightens. “At this point? I’d believe it,” he growls, anger sparking hot in his fingertips. “I don’t know if we can trust them. This was just too convenient of a circumstance, and I think—” He takes a breath, licks his lips, and utters the words, the ones that mean he’s going off the deep end of insubordinance—“Kent. I think you need to take Bitty and run.”
He’s expecting to see relief in Kent’s eyes, but instead Kent sighs darkly and shakes his head. “No,” he says quietly. “That’s not gonna work.”
“Why not?” Jack asks, caught off guard.
“I’ve already thought about it—we can’t. There’s no way we’d get outta here without anyone noticing, Jack. And where would we even go? ‘Sides, I’m not leaving you behind.”
“I’ll be fine without you—” Jack tries to say.
But Kent cuts in immediately. “No. I mean—you might be, I guess, but… Jack, I’m not gonna be fine without you.”
Jack’s jaw tightens. “Look. You love him, right? Save him. Please. It’s the only option—you have to go. If I took him and left, they’d—they’d kill you, you realize?”
Kent shudders a small sob. “I kn-know. And—I do love him, but fuck, Jack, I love you too.”
Jack’s heart flips in his chest, and he looks away. He should say it back.
He should say it, but—that’s not exactly going to convince Kent to leave him behind, is it?
Despite his internal turmoil, it seems like Kent already knows exactly what he’s thinking. “Jack,” Kent says quietly. “Bitty—Bitty said something, when we were talking earlier.”
Jack looks up at him, and Kent looks—nervous. And oh God, it’s entirely plausible that Bitty might’ve told him already. Kent could know right at this moment just how strongly Jack feels about him.
So there’s no use hiding it, then. “What did he say?” he asks anyway, even though he’s sure he already knows the answer.
“He said—he said I should ask you about your feelings,” Kent says, the words tumbling out in a rush. “So, uh? I’m asking.”
Well, that’s that. Jack can’t avoid it now, not with Kent looking at him like that, cheeks slightly red and his irises a rare clear blue that almost matches Jack’s own, eyebrows knit together in a way that makes Jack want to take his thumb and smooth out the creases.
So it’s easier than he’d thought it would be to open his mouth and say, “I’m pretty sure that I—um. I love you.”
Kent’s eyes go wide. He lets out a breathy laugh, running his hand through his cowlick. “I—wow. Really? I didn’t think you’d actually—say it.”
It feels almost wrong to be smiling right now, but Jack can’t help it, can’t help the warm, delighted pulse of his heart as he leans in to kiss Kent, to press soft affection into his skin. “Sorry I didn’t say before,” he mumbles against Kent’s mouth.
Kent shakes his head. “’S fine. Besides—now I know I can’t leave you, yeah?”
“But—” A flash of fear lances through Jack’s chest, fear for Bitty—but when Kent draws back, he’s smiling.
“You know—that means we’ll all just have to run away together,” Kent says easily. And God, even though it’s an impossible task, the matter-of-fact tone of his words almost makes Jack want to believe that they could pull it off.
But—that’s just it. It’s impossible. Fuck. Jack shakes his head. “Getting two of us out of here without anyone noticing would be—difficult, at best. All three of us? That’s not gonna work.”
Kent’s smile fades.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
Kent takes a shuddery breath. “Please tell me—please tell me we’re not gonna kill Bitty. Like. If we’re gonna have to—I can’t keep hoping like this, Jack, I’m gonna l-lose it,” he chokes out, and Jack pulls him back in for a hug, his own breath hitching.
“God, Kent.” He grits his teeth together. “I’m so, so, s-sorry—I don’t wanna make a promise I can’t keep.”
“B-but—” Kent’s chest heaves. “Bitty.”
“I know, I know.” Jack’s throat seizes up tight, like he’s choking on the very air he’s breathing.
“He was trying—he was trying to save someone, Jack. I’m—fuck, I’m gonna miss him s-so much,” Kent gasps out, wiping his face on his arm. It doesn’t help much—the tears keep coming anyway.
“I know. Me too,” Jack closes his eyes, and they sit there for what feels like forever, hunched in the floor, clinging to each other.
Jack doesn’t know what to do.
If this is the price they pay for saving people, what good is there left in this world?
He’s not sure how long they’ve been sitting there when Kent shudders a sigh and says, “I g-guess—I’ll go get my kit.”
He staggers to his feet. Jack watches him stand, watches him take shaky steps toward the door, all the while feeling like his own chest is caving in—he wants to tell Kent to stop, not to do it, even though he’s literally Kent’s boss, even though they have to do it—they’ve been ordered to do it—they—goddamnit. God fucking damnit.
Kent leaves the room, and the click of the door shutting rings in Jack’s ears, plaguing him as he retreats to the couch.
Everything is going to shit.
Perhaps one of the worst parts about this—besides the fact that he’s losing an agent, a partner, a friend—is that this might’ve all been going to shit for a very long while. Jack is never going to be able to trust the Heads again. The whole fucking Aces institution is built on their guidance, but now that the seeds of his suspicion have been planted, he remembers the whispers of the other agents in a brand new light—the dissent had been strongest right after Ollie and Wicks had been punished, but a fearful undercurrent has persisted for a lot longer than that, all the way since before his father had left. Jack had just—ignored it.
And then there were the other rumors. The ones that started after their most devastating mission to date, where they’d lost an agent called Sweets in a brutal accident—her partner had never been the same afterwards. The loss had shaken them all to the core, even Jack, who hadn’t known either of the women very well. But the rumors after that mission—those rumors were different. They were quiet, insidious in the way they lurked in corners and disappeared whenever Jack walked in the room, like maybe everyone thought he’d tattle to the Heads if he found out about them.
The worst part, the part that makes Jack feel sick to his stomach, is that there was a time when he would have reported the rumors. He’d had trouble caring about much else than work back then, back before his father left his position, before Kent found out about everything and nearly burned their relationship to the ground. It took weeks of not speaking to Kent for Jack to realize that he was lonely, and only then did he slowly come to understand that some things were far more precious than climbing the ranks of a job he’d stopped truly caring about long ago.
And Kent came back. Jack had kind of expected Kent to stay away forever, but then Jack found him crying and went to hold him and Kent had let him. Jack wouldn’t have blamed Kent for pushing him far, far away—but then, Jack is still honestly surprised that Kent had forgiven him at all, even now that their relationship is better than it’s ever been. Jack eventually chalked it up to gratitude for the life debt, for saving Kent from his dad’s and the Ace’s—but wait.
Wait.
The life debt that Kent—didn’t know existed?
But that means—God, Kent had just forgiven him without any excuses in play. He hadn’t felt indebted to Jack at all, had he?
All this time, Jack thought that Kent’d only stuck around because Jack is the reason that Kent’s still alive. But no. That wasn’t it. Which has to mean… Kent really loves him. He really, really loves him.
Huh.
Jack isn’t quite sure he’d fully believed that until right this second.
Kent loves him.
Jack loves him back.
But—but Kent loves Bitty too, and Jack has backed himself into another damn corner, just like the first time—because Jack can’t let Bitty die.
He just—he can’t.
But then how is he going to fix this?
The Aces complex is his home. It’s the only place he’s ever really known, loved, the only place where he’s always felt like he fits in.
He hated the brief time he spent away in high school, when his dad had insisted he get a ‘taste of the real world’—he’d detested all of it except for hockey. And, well, Kent.
Leaving here would be harder than anything he’s ever done.
But leaving would mean that he gets to keep Kent and Bitty both alive and whole and maybe even happy. And that—that’s worth almost anything.
Jack puts his head in his hands and frantically starts to plan.
xXx
“Kent—hold on.”
“I’ve gotta do it now. I can’t—I can’t do it otherwise—just let me go!”
“Kent.”
Bitty blinks his eyes awake at the sound of voices just outside his door—and oh no, oh God—the fear hits him dead center, like landing a skating jump wrong and slamming straight into the ice.
He’s not dead yet. At any minute, Kent’s going to come in with his kit and syringe, and Bitty’s going to have to be awake for it all, to watch Kent suffer while he takes Bitty’s arm and—no, no, not again.
Why couldn’t he just have stayed asleep?
The door opens. He jolts at the noise, and fuck, he can’t even pretend to still be sleeping anymore so he reluctantly opens his eyes. Kent and Zimms are both standing there, Zimms with one hand on Kent’s wrist and Kent with his face twisted in misery, kit in his other hand.
“Oh—fuck. You’re awake,” Kent says.
Bitty is paralyzed. Death has taken the face of his lover, and he’s staring it right in the eyes, willing it with all of his might to drop its gaze and leave him alone.
He can’t pretend to be okay any longer.
“P-please.” Bitty’s voice cracks, “Please d-don’t—I’m so s-scared, I—I don’t w-want to die!”
“Bitty.” Kent’s lip trembles, but Zimms interrupts him.
“No,” Zimms says. “You’re not going to.”
Both Bitty and Kent turn to stare at him in shock. “W-what?” Kent asks, eyes wide.
“I don’t—I can’t let you kill him,” Zimms says quietly. “I don’t want you to kill him—Bitty. I can’t let you die. You’re too—important to him. And—to me too, I think. But…” He falters, lips growing tight at the looks of utter surprise that Bitty and Kent are giving him. “But I need—help. I’m trying to figure this out, but I don’t know how the hell we’re going to pull it off.”
Bitty swallows thickly. He thinks he might be in shock. “P-pull off—what?”
Zimms bites his lip. “Well. I think it’s about time we retire, don’t you think?”
There’s two seconds of tense silence before Kent drops his kit and throws his arms around Zimms. “Fuck—really? Like, really, really? Oh my God. I thought we couldn’t all—God.” He shakes his head, and Bitty’s heart swells in elation.
He’s not—going to die?
They’re not going to kill him.
“Yeah,” Zimms says, and there’s a softness in his face that he only seems to get when he looks at Kent. “This is the only way, isn’t it?”
“Then—oh.” Kent straightens up, turning his head to look at Bitty—and before Bitty knows it, Kent is springing himself at him, and he doesn’t even flinch when Kent wraps his arms around him with a shaky smile. “Thank fuck. I—Bitty,” he says, “Bitty, Bitty—I love you, oh God, I love you.”
“Yes—yes, me t-too.” Bitty nods, tears springing to his eyes—but they’re happy ones this time, as Zimms comes to stand above them with a faint smile on his lips. “I love you too,” Bitty whispers, burying his face in Kent’s neck.
He’s okay. He’s okay and warm and in love. Lord, he’s so stunned with happiness that he doesn’t know what to do with himself except hold on tight to Kent.
He’s—he’s not going to die. He’s safe.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Zimms cautions, and Bitty looks up to see an anxious expression on his face. “I don’t actually know if it’s possible to run away. I’ve got my car, but they’re going to notice really quickly if we make one wrong move, and at any rate there’s nowhere to hide in the real world where they couldn’t find us.”
“Oh,” Bitty says, and then all the fear comes rushing back—Lord, getting caught sounds almost worse. Even if they escape, he won’t know if they’ll ever be safe again—oh God, oh God—
“Bitty—Bitty, shh, it’s okay,” Kent says, and it’s as he’s rubbing Bitty’s back that Bitty realizes he’d been hyperventilating. “We’ll figure something out.”
“But how?” Bitty asks, because now that Zimms has pointed out all the ways their plan could fail, Bitty’s not sure how they’re supposed to have any hope left.
Zimms squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing at his temples. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck,” Kent swears, exhaling sharply and sitting up. “What’re we—fuck.”
And then there’s a knock on the door of Zimms’ suite.
All three of them sit up at once. “Fuck,” Zimms swears. “Do you think they’d—check?”
“I dunno.” Kent grimaces. “Fuck, okay. I’ll stay in here with him. Just—you go answer it.”
Bitty clings to Kent as Zimms nods reluctantly, walking out into the living room and out of sight.
The seconds tick by, drilling the tension into Bitty’s bones, and then the door opens.
“Uhh,” Zimms says.
“Zimms—what changed?” says the voice at the door, and Bitty knows that voice. He spoke to that man earlier today, actually, at the party—and maybe his head’s feeling better, now there’s been time for him to rest.
“What do you mea—hey,” Zimms says crossly, and then Johnson pushes into the bedroom and stares at Bitty, eyes still obscured by his sunglasses.
“Um. Hi?” Bitty questions, staring at his roommate.
“My headache’s gone.” Johnson cocks his head confusedly.
“I—well, um. That’s good?” Bitty questions.
Slowly, Johnson starts to nod. “You guys need help.”
“What the fuck?” Kent squints. “How’d you—you know what, never mind. Fuck yeah, we need help.”
“Parse—” Zimms says crossly. “We shouldn’t—”
“Zimms. He’s offering.” Kent stands, gesturing wildly at Johnson. “I don’t honestly give a fuck about letting other people know. These guys aren’t the enemy, you know. They’re not gonna tell on us.”
Zimms sucks in a breath—and then he nods. “Okay,” he says carefully. “What do you think we should do?” He aims the question at Johnson, and Johnson tilts his head to look up at the ceiling.
“You need Lardo,” he pronounces after a moment of thought. “She’ll lead you to the others. I can’t say everything. But—I’ll pack you a bag.” He gestures at Bitty.
Startled Bitty nods. “Um—wow, thanks,” he says, offering a cautious smile at Johnson.
“There are very few reasons for a plot device that doesn’t help the protagonist,” Johnson says cryptically, and then he turns and leaves the room.
They all stare after him. “Well,” Kent says. “I guess—Lardo?”
“Yeah.” Zimms nods. “Go get her.”
xXx
“So what you’re saying is that you think the Heads orchestrated a secret movement to make Bitty fail, cause his death, and somehow teach you guys a lesson?”
Lardo is sitting cross-legged on the couch, posture poised as she raises her eyebrows at where the three of them are sitting at Zimms’ table.
“Sounds—ridiculous, I know.” Zimms wrinkles his nose. “But yes.”
“And the plan is to run, but you don’t have any idea whatsoever about how to do that?”
“Uhh. Yes.” Zimms nods again.
Lardo snorts. “Why the fuck didn’t you come and get me in the first place? This is easy,” she hops up, starting to pace around the room.
“Shit—really?” Kent asks, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“Tch. Of course.” Lardo shrugs. “You’ve got money—Shitty should probably have Bitty’s first payment, by the way, since that’s how payroll routes it. The Heads won’t have wanted to let on that something was up by holding off on the payment process or anything like that. And you two,” she points at Kent and Zimms, “—are fucking rich, aren’t you? So money’s not a problem. The problem is that you’re trying to hide, when really, you should be putting yourself in as obvious of a position as possible.”
Zimms raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“See, the quieter you are, the easier it’s gonna be to eliminate you without a fuss. But if you’re out there in the world, making connections, people are going to notice if all three of you disappear. Which means you need to integrate yourselves into society as fast as possible.”
“Really?” Bitty asks.
“Sure. They’re not going to aim at you when pulling the trigger would expose their own asses,” Lardo points out, crossing her arms.
“So—how are we gonna do that?” Kent asks, brow wrinkling.
At that, Lardo shrugs. “You’re gonna have to figure that out for yourselves. Think you can get a job that quickly?”
“Not really.” Zimms frowns. “I find it kind of hard to believe that one of us could become employed fast enough, let enough all three.”
“That’s gonna be your obstacle then.” Lardo flops back down on the couch. “Once you figure it out, we can start getting you outta here.”
“Fuck.” Kent sighs. “I’ve got nothing.”
They sit in dismal silence, mulling it over anxiously. Bitty looks at both Kent and Zimms and tries to imagine meeting them in a place that’s not here. He thinks about everything he knows about them—they’re assassins, first and foremost, but most of that isn’t really applicable outside of the Aces. And Kent and Zimms used to play hockey, but besides joining a team, that doesn’t really make sense either—
Wait.
There are adult hockey leagues… and then there are college hockey teams.
College.
Would it—be possible?
Hope swells up in his chest, and he tries as best as he can not to let it rise too high—there’s every chance that this could be shot down right off the bat.
But he sits straight up, eyes wide. “I might have an idea?”
“Go on,” Zimms prompts.
“Okay, so this might seem—um, silly. ’Cuz you guys are older? But—what if we like, enrolled at a college? I mean—I was plannin’ on goin’ anyway, before all this happened. And then you guys maybe could play hockey or something.” Bitty shrugs.
“Bits,” Kent stares at him, “That’s brilliant. Does that work?” he swiftly turns his head to look at Lardo.
“Don’t see why it wouldn’t.” She nods appraisingly. “Hmm, let’s see. It’d be way easier to hack your identities into a college database than it would be to put you—well, just about anywhere else, just cuz undergrad classes have so many people. That’s well within Dex’s ability, honestly, and he could probably get you onto a hockey team if you really wanted to play. It’s also definitely gonna put you in the public eye. As long as you talk to people, it’s going to be obvious if you guys disappear, and tuition money won’t be an issue either—ah, shit, except maybe for Bitty.” Her brow wrinkles.
“He’ll be fine. I’ve got it,” Kent says immediately, waving his hand in dismissal.
“Hang on! But—” Bitty starts to say.
But then Kent leans over and takes his chin, and oh Lord, kisses him soundly on the lips. “I’ve got your back, okay?”
“Um!” Bitty squeaks. “I—thanks.” He pulls away slowly, a flush burning on his cheeks, and chances a look over at Lardo. But she doesn’t seem put off by it—if anything, she looks ecstatic, a smug grin on her face.
“Ha! I thought so,” Lardo crows. “When did that happen, hmm?”
Kent looks to the ceiling in thought. “Uhh, officially? Today,” he murmurs, a little smile on his face.
The meaning trickles slowly into Bitty’s brain. “Wait—really?” he widens his eyes at Kent.
“Yeah. Except—unless you don’t wanna? Sorry, I assumed from earlier…” Kent’s lips twist, and oh goodness, he looks a little hurt.
“No! I mean—I do? Want to? I—um. Good Lord.” Bitty stares down at the table, embarrassed.
“Bitty?” Kent says softly, and when Bitty looks at him, he’s beaming. “What I said before about, um, being yours if you wanted? That still stands. So, if you wanna…” He shrugs. “I’m here.”
This time, even with the flush in his cheeks, it’s easy to grin back shyly, to reach over and take Kent’s hand and say, “I’d like that.”
And then Bitty’s all caught up in Kent’s eyes, shivering pleasantly as Kent leans in to kiss him—but it lasts barely a moment before Zimms clears his throat—and right, shit, Zimms. Not to mention they’re in the middle of a literal life-and-death strategy meeting and Lardo’s also sitting right there, Lord.
But Zimms just sounds surprised and a little confused when he asks, “Are you guys—what just happened?”
“I—fuck. Sorry, Zimms,” Kent mumbles, tone stilted with awkwardness. “I guess—we’re dating, now?”
“Oh,” Zimms blinks. “I—that’s fine. That’s really great, actually.” And now he’s smiling—and goodness, Bitty hadn’t expected that at all, this casual, easy acceptance.
But when Zimms catches Bitty’s eye, there’s a bit of sadness lingering there, the kind that hints at the definite need for some sort of conversation later. Bitty wonders what will come of that—if Zimms is jealous or if he’s just sad.
Kent clears his throat then, interrupting Bitty’s thoughts. “We should probably, um. Finish the meeting,” he suggests, eyes flicking to Lardo, who’s examining her nails with a wide grin.
But as Lardo looks up and starts talking again, Kent reaches over and slips his fingers into Zimms’ on top of the table, squeezing tight. Zimms looks at Kent, then Bitty, and Bitty watches as Zimms smiles squeezes back.
They’ll discuss their relationship later, Bitty knows, but for now he simply leans over, putting his hand on top of where Kent and Zimms’ are linked.
xXx
The hardest part is the waiting.
They’d gotten lucky—news of Bitty’s purported death won’t spread till morning—that is, if it spreads at all considering that they’ll hopefully be gone by then. But Kent and Zimms both immediately agree that Bitty isn’t allowed to join them on their trip to the training center.
“There are other people of my rank who could’ve easily heard about my meeting with the Heads,” Zimms ruffles his hair. “Sorry, bud.”
Bitty huffs a sigh—if anything, he wishes he could go to the mess hall and bake a pie, but he doesn’t even know if there’s time for that. “Fine,” he acquiesces, slumping back in his chair.
“And, um—just so you know, you probably shouldn’t fall asleep,” Kent tells him. “We’re gonna need you alert, and hopefully this isn’t gonna take more than an hour.”
Ugh, he can’t even nap—Bitty sighs. “Come back fast,” he warns, and Kent stoops to kiss him on the cheek.
“We will.”
Lardo stands from her perch on the couch. “We’re gonna need official names for you guys to put on the paperwork, by the way.”
Zimms hums contemplatively. “Right.” He turns to Bitty. “Try and think of one for yourself. We can’t use your old identity, ’cuz that’s gonna seem weird to the authorities considering you’re probably still on some of the ‘missing’ lists from two months ago—but I think it’s fine for you to keep your first name.”
“Um, okay,” Bitty blinks. “What should I do for my last name?”
“I’ve always planned on making a play on my nickname,” Kent pipes up. “Like, just adding to Parse—Parson is a last name, isn’t it?”
“Huh,” Bitty nods. Kent Parson. It fits him, and Bitty smiles a little. “That’s kinda nice.”
“I’m doing the same thing with mine,” Zimms shrugs. “Zimmermann is believable enough.”
“What’s—your first name? If you don’t mind telling?” Bitty asks carefully.
Zimms raises his eyebrows. “Well, you’re gonna find out soon anyway, so it’s probably fine. It’s Jack. Kinda boring, eh?” He smiles.
“Jack,” Kent says softly, almost like a prayer, and Jack flushes brightly. Kent laughs at that, inclining his head toward Bitty. “It’s not boring when he does that every time you say it.”
“Huh.” Bitty grins. “Jack?” he tries, and Jack groans and covers his face.
“Stop it, guys,” he grumbles. “We’ve got a mission to run.”
“You would be thinking of it as a mission,” Kent teases, walking over to grab his kit from Jack’s bedroom doorway.
“Shut it, Kent.” Jack rolls his eyes. “Anyway—Bitty. Have you thought of a name?”
Bitty swallows. “Um, well. My first name’s Eric,” he offers, wrinkling his nose slightly—it sounds weird on his lips now. “But I still dunno what to do for my last name.”
“Eric,” Kent says. “Huh.”
Bitty shudders. “Eww. Sounds weird to have you calling me that.”
Kent laughs at that. “What, you gonna keep going by Bitty?”
“Yeah, sure.” Bitty shrugs, flushing. “I like it.”
“Well, we’re gonna have to make it part of your last name then, for that to make sense,” Kent muses.
“Can you do it?” Bitty asks. “I’m no good at the whole naming thing.”
“Hmm, okay,” Kent says, a slow grin growing on his face. “Well, since you’re little—“
“I am not.”
“He really isn’t,” Lardo cuts in with a raised brow.
“Anyway,” Kent laughs. “Isn’t Bittle a last name? Like, Bitty plus little?”
Bitty thinks about it. “Eric Bittle,” he says, testing the syllables in his mouth. “I—yeah, I think I like that.”
“It suits you.” Kent grins. “Are we good on the name front, Jack?”
Jack nods approvingly. “Yeah, I think that’s all we need.”
“You guys ready?” Lardo says from by the door, aiming a reassuring smile at Bitty when they lock eyes. He smiles back, and then Lardo seems to remember something—“Oh! Hey, you should sign a piece of paper saying that it’s fine for these two to retrieve your paycheck. Shitty’s gonna be a stickler about it otherwise.”
Bitty snorts. “All right,” he agrees, and by the time he scrawls Bitty on a piece of paper, awkward because he’s not used to writing it in cursive, Kent and Jack are both ready to leave.
“We’ll be back,” Jack assures him.
The door shuts behind them soon after, and Bitty’s left to his own devices. He checks around Jack’s kitchen for anything resembling baking ingredients, but the best he can find is a refrigerated can of croissant dough. On a closer look, it seems to be expired, and Bitty sighs and chucks it into the trash can, resorting to flopping down on the couch.
A moment later, a knock comes on the door, and Bitty freezes up. Oh God. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to come back so soon, and besides, Kent or Jack would probably use the key if they’d forgotten something—Lord, maybe this is someone coming back to finish him off, to get to him while Kent and Jack are preoccupied, oh Lord—
He has to go check.
He tiptoes over to look into the peephole, heart pounding—oh.
It’s just Johnson. Right. He breathes a sigh of relief as he opens the door, shutting it quickly as Johnson enters with a smile.
“Here you go.” Johnson hands him a small duffel bag. “That should have all the clothes that were in our room.”
“Thanks,” Bitty says as he takes it. It feels strangely light, until he considers that probably half of his wardrobe is somewhere on Kent’s floor. He’ll have to collect his clothing later if he gets the chance.
“So—I guess this is goodbye, dude.” Johnson holds out his hand.
Bitty smiles, shaking it firmly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a great roommate,” he apologizes ruefully.
“Nah, no worries.” Johnson shrugs. “I prefer the room to myself anyway. ’Sides, you’ve got protag powers. You can do whatever you want.”
“Um—okay?” Bitty blinks at him. “Thanks, I guess.”
“No problem.” Johnson gives him a small salute, reaching for the door handle.
“Wait—” Bitty stops him. “Umm. If your headache’s gone, what’s with the sunglasses?”
“Oh,” Johnson says, and he reaches up and takes them off. He’s got lovely blue eyes, but the right one is duller than the other, and right across that eye is a scarred slash that Bitty can’t help but gasp softly at. “Field injury,” Johnson explains. “This eye’s fake. Sometimes it freaks people out because it doesn’t move with the other one, but I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I think you look fine,” Bitty tells him sincerely.
Johnson smiles. “Huh. I’ll have to think about showing my face more often, I guess.”
“You should!” Bitty gives an encouraging nod.
Johnson’s smile widens endearingly. “By the way,” he says, reaching for the door handle once more. “My aunt Nancy said to tell you goodbye. Well—she’s my step-aunt, but whatever,” he clarifies, waving a hand through the air.
Bitty is more confused than he’s ever been in his lifetime, but he doesn’t get a chance to say anything beyond, “Oh, her too!” before Johnson leaves, closing the door behind him.
The next half hour or so is excruciating. Kent and Jack hadn’t told Bitty their plans, so he has no idea how much danger they’re in—what if someone finds out that they’re planning on turning traitor, on breaking out of the complex and fleeing the Aces’ reach? Bitty paces back and forth across Jack’s floor, worrying continuously, wishing with all of his heart that this will turn out okay.
When the door finally opens, he jumps about a foot in the air, whipping his head over to look—but it’s just Jack. “Hey,” Jack says, jerking a thumb toward the hallway, and Bitty peeks out to see Lardo standing there. “Go with Lardo to Kent’s room so you can pack the rest of your stuff. It won’t take me long to get mine, so hurry.”
“I will!” Bitty gives a jerky nod, darting out to where Lardo’s already started walking toward the elevator.
“You nervous?” she asks him, patting him comfortingly on the arm when he nods. “Don’t be. For all intents and purposes, this is relatively safe, and as long as someone doesn’t leak what’s happening, you guys should be fine.”
“Who all knows?” Bitty bites his lip.
“Shitty, so he could deal with payroll without it being too much of a red flag. Me, obviously, and then Dex and Nursey—Dex is working on getting you into the system, creating identities, that sort of thing, and Nursey’s forging your documents.”
“Wait—did they pick a school already?” Bitty wonders.
“Yeah.” Lardo smiles. “I think you’ll like it, don’t worry. You were gonna go to college back at home, right?”
“Mhmm.” Bitty nods. Ice skating unfortunately hadn’t been enough to get him a scholarship anywhere, so he’d settled for going in-state. But God, more than anything he’d wished he could leave Georgia altogether.
It looks like he’s finally getting the chance.
“I kinda wish I had gotten a degree,” Lardo laments as she presses the button for the elevator. “Sounds like it would’ve been fun. I could’ve studied art.”
Bitty gives her a sympathetic look. “Aww, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sad on my account.” She elbows him with a smile. “I’m happy for you guys. Sad that you’re leaving, but—” She cuts off, and Bitty realizes that she’s tearing up.
“Gosh—Lardo, are you okay?” He leans over to give her the best hug he can manage. Of all of the people he’s met here, Lardo’s the one that he thinks is closest to Jack and Kent both—he hadn’t even thought about what it would be like for everyone here after they leave.
The elevator dings, and they step in as Lardo wipes her eyes. “It’s fine.” She shakes her head. “I’ll just have to go bother Shitty more often.”
“Bother him.” Bitty gives her a knowing grin.
“Yeah.” Lardo’s expression softens as she adds, “I’m gonna be a real pain in his ass, just you wait.”
“From what Kent’s said, I have a feeling that’s not entirely true,” Bitty says, and then laughs when Lardo elbows him in the side.
By the time they’ve walked to Kent’s room, Lardo’s composed herself, and Kent opens the door looking stressed. “When the fuck did I get so much stuff?” he grumbles.
Lardo and Bitty both laugh. “I’ll take your furniture,” Lardo offers eagerly.
Kent looks affronted for about two seconds before laughing and pulling her in for a hug. “Thanks for helping us figure everything out,” he tells her. “Seriously—you’re the fucking best.”
“I guess you dorks are kinda okay too.” She rolls her eyes, grinning. “But—you’ve gotta pack now, right?”
“Yeah,” Kent groans. “Here, though. Take my room key. You can have whatever after I’ve left.”
“Will do.” Lardo smiles sadly, and Bitty doesn’t think he’s mistaken the tremor in her voice as she offers another hug for them both before she leaves.
Earlier Bitty thought the hardest part would be waiting. But as he watches her go, as he thinks of Johnson, thinks about all of the friends he’s made that he won’t get to talk to before he leaves—Chowder and Shitty and Dex and Nursey and Farmer, hell, even Ransom and Holster—he realizes that he was wrong.
The hardest part is saying goodbye.
xXx
“This is probably the most dangerous part,” Kent tells him. “We’ll be out in the open—there’s no way to hide you while we’re heading to the car.”
They’re standing alone in the lobby of the residence hall, he and Kent and Jack, bags over their shoulders. Kent had left his kit behind. “I won’t need it,” he said, back in his room. “I don’t want to look at it ever again.”
In contrast, Jack’s brought his own kit with him—but Bitty’s sort of glad for that, just in case there’s some sort of trouble.
“Ready?” Jack asks, steeling his gaze. He looks sad, Bitty thinks, and he feels just a little guilty for forcing Jack to leave what’s been his home for so many years. But then Jack gives him a small smile. “Hey—don’t look so worried. We’ve got your back, eh?”
“Definitely.” Kent reaches up with his free hand and pats Bitty on the shoulder.
Bitty smiles gratefully at both of them. “I know,” he says, and he means it.
They shoulder their bags and step outside.
It’s quiet out. The complex is pretty like this, the stars glinting brightly in the sky, and Bitty is caught between admiring it all one last time and the absolute terror he feels about being out in the open. Someone could catch them at any moment, and all he wants to do is hide.
But they have to keep going.
There’s the mess hall, in its place right next to the residence building, and the training hall just up the way. But there’s no time to look back at anything as they head past it all, out towards the administrative building and the parking garage, and—
“Fuck,” Kent whispers. “Stay low!”
There’s a light on in the administrative building.
It’s a window on the second floor, one that looks right out over the path they’re on—
And there’s a faint silhouette of a person in the window.
Oh God.
“We should go around,” Jack mumbles. “If we circle around the building, they won’t even know we’re here.
Bitty and Kent nod in assent, and they’re just about to leave the path when the light in the window turns off.
“Fuck, they might’ve seen us—run!” Kent whispers harshly, and they take off toward the parking garage, Bitty’s heart jumping wildly into his throat, oh God oh God oh God.
His lungs burn from exertion by the time they reach the garage door. He’s surprised to see that Jack’s hands are shaking as he takes his keys out. He’s never seen Jack so scared before.
But then the lock clicks open and there’s no time to think about anything except running, running toward the car, running away from anyone who could be out there.
“Throw your bags in the trunk,” Kent instructs as they hurry towards the car. Bitty nearly stumbles on an uneven crack in the concrete, but he catches himself, paranoia prickling on the back of his neck as he reaches the car and dumps his bag in with Jack’s and Kent’s.
He slides into the backseat and barely has time to shut the door when Jack starts the ignition and whips out of the parking space. Bitty’s thrown forward against the back of Kent’s seat—“Ow!”
“Whoops. Sorry,” Jack says gruffly, and Bitty can’t even be mad at him because they’re doing it, they’re escaping. “Stay low. It’s better if they don’t see your face even if we do end up getting caught.”
“Alright,” Bitty says, voice trembling, and he curls up and lays across the seats. He shuts his eyes tightly, willing this all to just be over soon, please, Lord, soon—!
“Keep the headlights off ’til we’re off the grounds,” Kent instructs, voice floating somewhere above Bitty.
“I know,” Jack grumbles.
Kent sighs. “Just checking.”
They lapse into silence then. Bitty feels so tense he can hardly stand it. The path is bumpier than he remembers it being the last time they left the complex, and his stomach lurches a little when they go over a particularly large bump.
He wishes he could cuddle with Kent, or even with Jack, but that’s neither appropriate nor possible right now. Instead he just holds on, pressing his face into the seat cushion and trying his best to steady his breathing.
An immeasurable amount of time later, he feels a hand on his leg. “Hey,” Kent says. “You can sit up now. We’re away from the complex.”
Lord. Bitty pushes himself up. “Really?”
“Really,” Jack answers, looking at him through the rearview mirror. And indeed, when Bitty looks back behind him, he can’t see anything but the open highway.
“Oh my God,” Bitty murmurs, a wave of relief flashing down his spine. “Are we—safe?”
“We don’t know yet,” Kent says, turning to watch as Bitty sits back and buckles his seatbelt. “But we will soon.”
“We weren’t followed,” Jack says decisively. “That gives us more than enough of a head start, according to what Lardo said.”
“Thank the Lord,” Bitty says, and then all of the tension floods out of his body at once, washing away and out onto the road beneath them.
Suddenly, he’s exhausted. He doesn’t quite manage to stifle a yawn.
Kent chuckles at that. “You should sleep,” he says, reaching back to squeeze Bitty’s hand. He still sounds weary, but there’s hope in that voice, and even a small amount of joy.
Lord, thank you.
“I don’t want to miss anything,” Bitty says, even though he’s already started balling up his jacket to use as a pillow.
“You won’t,” Jack tells him, and his hands are steady now as he steers the car around a curve in the road. “It’s going to take us a long time to get to Samwell. Plenty of time to sleep.”
“Okay,” Bitty says, a small smile spreading on his mouth.
Samwell. It sounds like a nice place.
With that thought lingering in his head, he sleeps.
xXx
Three months later.
“Jack!” Kent shouts. “Have you seen my bag—oh hey, Bits.” He walks into the kitchen just as Bitty’s sliding his pie into the oven.
“Jack’s not here,” Bitty tells him, pulling off his oven mitts and setting them aside. “He’s in the library, I think.”
Predictably, Kent slides his backpack off, dropping it in one of the kitchen chairs and walking over to wrap his arms around Bitty from behind. Ever since they moved into the house, Kent’s been touching him constantly, all hugs and handholding and soft kisses every time they’re even somewhat alone. Not that Bitty minds the affection, but it’s something to get used to—being held, being touched, being loved.
On that note, Bitty’s incredibly relieved that were able to convince the administration to let them live off campus their first year. With Jack and Kent it was easier, since they’re nontraditional college students anyway, but Bitty—well, they school had tried its best to loop him in with all the other freshmen.
“This sucks,” Kent had grumbled as they’d emailed the secretary back and forth. He’d still been tired after their long days spent driving away from the Aces complex, a time so transitory and steeped in fear that Bitty has trouble believing it was real. “I bet they’d let you live with us if we were married.”
“Kent!” Bitty had exclaimed, because they’d barely been dating at that point and he’s still far, far too young to be thinking about marriage.
Kent had just grinned and wrapped him up in a hug, and Jack—well, Jack had left the room. It’d been hard back then, Bitty thinks, for Jack to watch them kiss and hug and touch.
Finally, they convinced the administration that Bitty was an independent and thus couldn’t leave campus when the dorms closed over winter breaks. After that they’d made short work of finding a townhouse, leaving the hotel they’d been staying at and moving in soon after.
That first week of living on their own had been the scariest. They were in the system, but classes hadn’t started yet, so there was a limited amount of people who knew that they even existed. Not to mention that there was a high chance that someone from the Aces could’ve let slip where they gone, or worse, that they could’ve had the information forced out of them.
Kent pulled Bitty aside, one of those first nights, and explained that Bitty probably wouldn’t be able to speak with his parents again—or at least for a very long time, until they were sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one in the Aces management was looking for them anymore. Even though Bitty had almost expected that outcome, it still came like a blow to the chest. He missed his parents that week more than ever.
He’s finally free, but it seems there are some shackles that will never truly be broken.
The fear dragged at he and Jack and Kent for days, weeks even. But time went on and no one showed up to murder them in their sleep, despite the fact that Bitty had started having nightmares about it, about falling asleep one night and never waking up, of blades flashing above his head and hands tight at his throat.
It was easier once Kent and Jack started pre-season practices. They’d gone to the rink a few days ahead of time to practice and break in their skates, and they’d let Bitty skate with them too, taught him how to pass and how to shoot. It’d been a lot of fun, actually, but Bitty’s well aware that hockey is a full contact sport and he’s most definitely not a fan of that—he’ll stick with figure skating, thank you very much.
Slowly, they eased into their life at Samwell. Classes started in a flurry of activity, and it didn’t take long at all to get settled into a daily routine. And now they’re here.
It’s been over a week since Bitty’s even thought about being scared.
Kent presses a kiss to Bitty’s cheek, pulling him back to the present. “Aww, he’s always at the library. When do you think he’ll be home?”
“Should be any minute now.” Bitty smiles, craning his neck up for a proper kiss. And—oh, Kent’s pushing him up against the counter, kissing him harder, oh—“K-Kent,” Bitty splutters, “I gotta set the timer!”
“Oh, all right.” Kent smirks fondly, and as soon as Bitty’s pressed the start button on the timer, Kent goes right back to kissing him. “You’re so… mmn,” Kent trails off, breath heavy against Bitty’s face.
“Oh?” Bitty raises an eyebrow, laughing when Kent smirks again.
“So—good,” Kent says, and it seems like he’s trying to be casual but his breath betrays him, hitching at the end of the word.
Bitty’s heart is so, so full. “You too, Kenny.” He beams at him, sliding his knuckles up Kent’s cheek. Kent catches Bitty’s hand, holds it there against his face, and Bitty stares into his eyes for a pleased moment before leaning in and kissing him again, again. This never gets old, the warmth of Kent’s mouth, the soft press of lips and the fluttering slide of tongues, the way arousal starts to burn hot in his groin when Kent slides his hands into Bitty’s hair and kisses him even harder.
“Hey,” Kent pants a moment later, and then he loosens his grip on Bitty and drops to his knees, grinning. “You wanna—?”
“Kent Parson, not in my kitchen!” Bitty frowns down at him, swatting him in the shoulder.
“But Bitty,” Kent says, stroking a hand over Bitty’s obvious erection through his jeans—and oh, maybe forsaking the kitchen rule wouldn’t be so bad just this once—
The front door opens, and Jack walks in, eyebrows flying up as he takes in the situation. “Sorry—am I interrupting something?”
“No!” Bitty flushes, pulling Kent off the floor. “We were just moving to the bedroom,” he adds, aiming a stern look at Kent for good measure.
Kent cracks up, sliding his hand around Bitty’s waist as he stands. “Fine, fine, we can go upstairs. Coming, Jack?”
“Well—if you guys want me there.” Jack blinks in surprise, nervously shifting his weight.
“Aww, honey—of course we want you there,” Bitty murmurs, stepping over to give him a brief hug.
And this is new—they’ve been attending classes for almost three months now, but they’ve only been officially dating Jack for about a week. It’d taken a lot of talking, a lot of reassurance on all three of their parts—Bitty’d been worried that he couldn’t stand up to all the years that Jack and Kent had been together, that Jack would decide he didn’t want Bitty after all and Kent would agree to leave him.
But it’d turned out that Jack was even more worried about being the odd one out than Bitty was, since Bitty and Kent had started dating first. And bizarrely, Kent had been worried about both of them leaving him, a notion Bitty hopes they’d quickly squashed with loving words and mouths and bodies.
“Jack,” Kent says, shuffling over to stand beside them, “First of all, you’re our boyfriend. Of course we wanna sleep with you. Second of all—I told you, didn’t I? I’m gonna have sex with you until you finally tell me you don’t want to anymore.” His voice has dropped low. “And if you never tell me that? Then it’s fine by me.”
Jack snorts. “I—okay, Kenny.” He smiles, shaking his head. “But we can’t mess around for too long. We’ve got our Skype call tonight.”
“Oh, shit,” Bitty gasps. “I forgot about that! I haven’t read the first chapter of the book that Lardo wanted me to read with her.”
Just a couple of weeks ago, Chowder had managed to configure the encryption signals from the Aces complex so they could safely Skype without having it intercepted. Bitty had very nearly cried from joy at getting to see their friends again—he and Jack and Kent had all crowded around Jack’s computer, laughing and talking and waving as everyone cycled through one or two at a time. It’d been a wondrous breakthrough, yes, but one that Bitty’s lamenting at the current moment.
“Heh, guess you should go read that instead of—you know,” Kent teases, slipping his arm around Bitty’s waist again nonetheless.
“Weeeell,” Bitty says, drawing out the syllable, “I don’t see why you couldn’t, I dunno, suck my dick while I read?”
“Hmm. Tempting.” Kent raises his eyebrows. “But then I could always just fuck Jack, you know.”
Jack laughs. “I could be convinced to do that.”
Bitty pouts. “Aww, y’all’re leaving me out?” He’s so aroused he’s shaky, and he’s starting to feel confined in his jeans—Kent is not allowed to leave him hanging like this, God.
“Maybe.” Kent grins cheekily. But then Bitty raises his eyebrows and turns and kisses him, pressing himself all up along Kent’s body. Kent groans softly into his mouth, the sound only exacerbating Bitty’s impulse to press forward against Kent’s hips—“Okay, okay,” Kent gasps, hands sliding down to Bitty’s waist. “Y-yeah. Fuck.”
“I changed my mind,” Jack says huskily, and when they both look up, his pupils are blown out and his lips are slightly open. “I wanna watch you guys.”
“Oh?” Kent grins. “I guess that’s fine by me. Think you can read while I fuck you?” he turns to Bitty, waggling his eyebrows.
“I can try,” Bitty says, laughing. Kent leans in to kiss him again, but just then Bitty feels arms around him from behind, and then Jack is lifting him up over his shoulder as Bitty squeaks, “Jack!”
“We’re going to the bedroom now,” Jack says, and Bitty can tell just from the tone of his voice that he’s smirking.
“Yeah, but you can put me down—ugh,” Bitty groans as Jack starts walking. “I literally just signed up for this, didn’t I?” He wrinkles his nose at Kent, who’s walking up the stairs behind them.
“Yep,” Kent laughs, popping the ‘p’.
But then Jack nudges open the door to Bitty and Kent’s bedroom—and it would be Jack’s too if he hadn’t requested his own space. At any rate, he sleeps with Bitty and Kent so often that it hasn’t yet mattered. Jack puts Bitty down next to the bed, and then Bitty gasps as Kent immediately walks him backwards into Jack’s body, as they sandwich him together and Kent stares at him with arousal clear in his eyes.
“See? Painless, huh?” Kent asks, sliding his hand into Bitty’s hair.
Bitty laughs. “You’re ridiculous, you know?”
“Yeah,” Kent says softly, and Bitty gasps as Jack chuckles and winds his hand around to press the heel of his palm to Bitty’s erection. “But so is he.”
“I guess you’re right,” Bitty says, and then he’s done talking, caught up in staring at the myriad of colors in Kent’s eyes, in feeling the sensations of Jack wrapped around him and Kent’s breath warm against his cheek.
Kent kisses him. Satisfied and warm, Bitty closes his eyes.
|
The last thing that you ever expected when you started your journey was a war. But to your utter horror, war was what happened. You had been sent by your father, a king, to visit the Rakshasa Court to further your education. You were supposed to meet Queen Mythri who would be helping you, but when you saw the dragon fly overhead, you knew something was wrong.
You convoy happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. An invading Gnoll army descended upon you like locusts. They took everything, ripping with their dirty hands. They took your horses and dismounted your knights.
"Your majesty, run now!" One of your knights shouted at you.
"I can't!" You gasp, shaking.
"You have to!" He shoves you away, knocking you down a dune. You roll and tumble, coming to a heavy stop at the bottom. You look up, seeing smoke start to rise. You're not sure what to do, you're just a prince. How are you supposed to survive? All you have with you are your books.
You got lost in the desert, endless sand was your only horizon on all sides. For days you wandered until you eventually collapsed in the heat. If you had any water left in your body, you might have cried then. Your knights had protected you, and what did it get them? They were probably dead, and you were going to die too. You hate that their sacrifice was for nothing.
"What's that?" A loud voice rings out.
You wish you could move and see if you were really hallucinating or not.
"It's probably nothing, we need to get back to Bastet," a second voice, this one deeper than the first.
"No, I'm going to see what it is." You hear a horse, and then you see a shadow. "Oh my god," the voice gasps. Someone leans over you and touches your face. "I have a person over here!" He yells.
The next thing you know, this person is kissing you. You feel sharp fangs on your skin, and then there's water in your mouth. They're feeding you water. You press closer, opening your mouth more for the water they're parting to you.
"We've got you," he growls and hefts you up. "We'll get you to Penu, you'll be safe."
The next time you full come to, you're in a tent, and the air is crisp. Your face feels sticky and has some strange goop all over it. You see a bowl of water beside you, and you grab it, gulping it down as fast you can.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, young man!" A voice chuckles. "There is more where that came from. You needn't drink so harshly." He takes the bowl from your hand, and you're amazed to see a Sabertooth.
You had read about the wild Sabertooth Rakshasa in your books. Some people believed they were a legend, having died out ages ago. Other had theorized they were dying out, but colonies existed in the unexplored desert, hiding away in remote oases.
This one looked old and was wearing a headscarf decorated with beads, feathers, and bird skulls. "You're lucky the watch found you when they did, boy. And longer and you'd have been burnt to a crisp."
You nod. "Thank you."
"I'm Penu, by the way." He inspects your face, rubbing some of the goo in. "Looks like the aloe and turmeric are working," he says. "You shouldn't be in too much pain from the burn. You at least kept yourself covered." He then tilts his head. "What were you doing out here?"
"My convoy was attacked," you answer. "It was Gnolls."
Penu's eyes widen. "Really?"
"There was a dragon too," you shiver. "It flew overhead before the Gnolls attacked us." You sniffle and hang your head.
"Where were you going?"
"My father, King Dion, he had made plans with Queen Mythri for my education." You glance back up at Penu. "I was heading to the court of King Amit."
"Bad timing," Penu sighs. "My son had a vision of war, and I'm afraid it's happened," he sighs with dread.
"I'm sorry," you whisper.
"Some of our men joined the fight and I fear not all of them will return," he shakes his head.
"Penu," a familiar voice calls. "Is he ok?"
"He's awake, Seif," Penu moves aside as another Sabertooth steps into the tent.
Your eyes go wide, this Seif is tall and broad shoulder. His chest is barreled, and his arms look like tree trunks. His massive fangs are capped with gold, and he wears a scarf that covered his left eye.
"Glad to see you're up and about," he sits down beside Penu.
"This is the watchman who saved you," Penu replies. "Seif is the Head of Watch while Chi and Chiyo are away."
Seif bows his head.
"Thank you," you whisper. You remember that Seif had fed you water, kissing it to you to make sure you drank. Your cheeks burn, not from the sun but from your own heat. Seif was such a stunning figure, you couldn't help but feel attracted.
"I just wanted to make sure you were alright, I feel responsible for your well being," Seif replies.
"Turns out, you saved a prince," Penu says with a smirk.
Seif's ears stick up in the air, and he looks at you with alarm. "A prince?"
You look away shyly. "Really, it shouldn't matter what I am. I am extremely grateful, and I'm sure my father will be as well."
"Once you're healed we'll get you to the court of Amit," Penu says. "But for now, I don't think it's safe for you to travel."
"Is there any way we could get word to them?" You ask.
"Othet is at the palace now," Penu says. "My son," he tells you. "I can send him word in a dream, and he can alert the proper authorities."
"In a dream?" You ask.
"Such is our way," Penu smirks. "We're what your kind would call mystics, but we really prefer to say we're healers."
Seif is oddly quiet, and he keeps looking at you.
You stay under Penu's care, but Seif visits you often. You spend most of your time reading from your books, but when Penu is around, he teaches you about the Sabertooth tribe and Bastet, their oasis as well as their goddess. You're fascinated by them, and you enjoy Penu's lessons immensely.
Despite his silence, you've grown fond of Seif as well. He sometimes sits in on Penu's lessons, and he'll have dinner with you every night.
"You don't have to sit with me," you tell him. By this time, your skin is mostly healed. It's peeling, and you still feel bruised, but Penu's medicines and balms have worked wonders.
Seif looks up from his bowl, his one eye shimmering in the dim light of the lamp. "Do you not like my company?"
"No, it's just-" you bite your lip and bow your head. "You don't have to keep watching over me. I mean...you must have people you'd prefer sitting with."
"I feel responsible for you while you're with us," Seif replies. "Besides, your company is fine. I enjoy our conversations."
You glance up at him. "You must have a girlfriend or something though," you say this, hoping to find out more about him.
Seif smirks, knowing exactly what your game is. "I do not have a lover," he replies. "And if I did, it wouldn't be a woman." He suggestively licks one of his fangs.
Your eyes widen, and your heart squeezes. "O-oh," you gasp.
He smirks and lifts his bowl again, drinking the soup inside. "What about you?" He asks. "Do you have a partner?"
You shake your head. "I've always been more concerned with my studies than anything else," you admit. "I'm too focused on my books to really see anybody." You lift your head, looking at Seif. For once, you've noticed someone, and you can't stop looking at him.
Seif chuckles. "I see then."
It's silent for a long spell, and you want to keep talking to Seif before he leaves for duty. "Can I ask you something?"
"You can ask me anything," Seif replies.
"Your eye," you motion to the scarf. "Why do you keep it covered?"
Seif sighs. "Because an arrow took it," he answers. He places his paw over it. "It isn't a pretty picture, your majesty."
"What happened?" You ask.
"Regular training," he huffs. "I was helping train the young recruits and one of them lied about their proficiency with a bow."
You gasp and cover your mouth.
"Needless to say, I don't help with the young ones anymore." He looks at you, one golden eye gleaming. "It wasn't battle or war, it was an accident."
"Oh gosh," you whisper.
"Do you have any scars?" He asks.
You blush and shrug. "Kind of," you murmur.
Seif chuckles. "Kind of? What does that mean?"
You sigh and open up your robes. Seif's eyes go dark as his pupil widens and his ears go flat on his head. You show him the pink scar on the side of your belly. "I had surgery when I was younger," you tell him. "Nothing too serious. I was having cramps a lot, and it turned out something inside me was twisted."
Seif moves in close and slips his paw under your robes, touching the thin, pink scar. You shiver, feeling his warm, rough touch on your skin. Seif lets out a soft, low growl and he inches in. His hands roam your chest and stomach, touching your bare skin. You swallow as your heart pounds in your throat. You're losing your breath the more he touches. Your nipples grow hard and ache, and when he touches them, you feel your mind go blank.
Seif clears his throat and removes his hands. "Forgive me I-" he takes a deep breath. "I...I don't know what that-"
You look into his eyes, still breathing heavy. "It's ok-" you whisper.
Seif licks his fang and chuckles. "I feel intoxicated."
You chuckle and close your robes. You reach out, touching the bulge growing along his muscular thigh. "I can see that."
He groans and lets you touch. He's thick and warm and throbbing with a pulse. "Your Highness," he growls low.
"I like you too, Seif," you murmur as you crawl into his lap.
He dips his head and your cheek brushes against his fangs. You kiss him, feeling his soft lips again. He growls, pressing closer and holding you. His rough tongue rolls in your mouth, and he pulls back.
"We shouldn't-" he swallows.
You kiss him again, and he moans, grabbing you again before yanking his head back. "Your Highness!" He snarls warningly.
You look away and sit back. "Sorry I just..." you open your robe again, splitting it all the way down until your erect cock is exposed. You look at him with a heady expression. "I want you, Seif," you whisper.
Seif glares at you, and he moves in. He wraps his paw around your cock, stroking it slowly. He growls darkly in your ear, and you shudder. "You want me?" He licks your neck. "Fuck," he snarls. "Your body is too much for my will." He licks down your chest and belly then takes your cock into his mouth.
You whimper as his rough tongue laps at you. His mouth is warm and wet, and he growls hungrily as he bobs his head up and down in your lap. You rub behind his ears and stare in awe at the scene before you. His eye flicks up to you, and you can no longer hold on. With a choked cry everything releases from you. Your seed spills in his mouth, and Seif moans.
Seif sits up, licking his chops and smiling. "You cum a lot," his paws knead your trembling thighs. "I wonder how much you'd cum with my cock inside you," he purrs into your ear.
You whimper and shiver. "Seif...oh my god..."
He chuckles, kissing your chest and neck. "Can you stand?" he purrs. "I want to show you something."
It takes you a few moments to recover, but once you can walk Seif takes you from the tent and into the chilled night air. He leads you passed the village and down a slope towards the lushest part of the oasis. He leads you to a waterfall pouring into the stream.
"I've always had a fantasy of making love here," he squeezes your hand. "Would that be ok with you, my prince?"
You bite your lip and nod. "You needn't ask."
You both strip down, and you get to admire Seif's naked body for the first time. He's so strong and built, he looks like he could easily throw you. His cock is thick and has strange nubs all over it. It's hard as a rock and throbbing with need.
"Come now," he leads you to the water. The water is warm from the harsh sun all day. It feels good on your skin. Seif pulls you close, and his cock rubs against your belly. He kisses you, pulling you under the waterfall to the cave behind it.
"Have you ever had sex before?" He asks you, setting you on the smooth stone.
You blush and turn your head. "No," you admit. "I mean...I've touched myself but...I know it's not the same thing."
Seif kisses you, growling hungrily. "Then I'll be gentle." He kisses down your chest again, licking your cock before his tongue licks at your rear. You whimper, feeling his tongue swirl around your tight pucker. It feels weird but good. He pushes his tongue in, and you gasp. He wettens it then takes something hanging from a chain on his neck. He dribbles the thick oil, rubbing it into your ass and using his finger to push it inside you.
Your lashes flutter as you feel him stretch you.
"Does it hurt?" Seif growls.
"No," you moan. "It feels...mmm," you stretch out on the stone. "I could take more."
Seif chuckles, licking your cock. "You're getting hard again. Being young is a gift." He sits up and pours more of the oil over his cock. He rubs it slowly as you watch. You sit up and crawl to him, you kiss him and reach down, stroking him and feeling how warm and thick he is.
"If it ever hurts, tell me to stop." Seif grabs you and pulls you close. He bends you over a stone and kisses your back and shoulders. His tip rubs at your entrance, and you feel him start to spear you. You gasp in shock, feeling a tightness and dull ache. It doesn't hurt though, in fact, this kind of pain feels good.
Seif grunts and whimpers, he watches as you take him, as his thick cock disappears inside you. He grips tight to your hips, pulling you back until he's entirely inside you. You whimper, biting your bottom lip.
Seif kisses the nape of your neck. "My little prince," he growls. "What do you want?"
Your voice cracks as you try to answer him. You move your hips, going forward and then pushing back against him. Seif chuckles darkly and starts to move slowly. His long moans and grunts sound so sexy, and you're shocked how good he feels.
He doubles over you, moaning directly into your ear. His deep voice and the rumble from his chest all add to the erotic aura of the cave. You groan and look up at him, seeing his lusty expression.
"You're wonderful, Seif," you pant. "You're so beautiful."
He puts his paw around your neck, turning you so he can kiss you. "My handsome prince," he growls. He starts to move faster, his hips slap against your thighs, and the sounds echo off the cave wall. Your moans grow louder, and you cry out his name. His thrusts deep inside you, stuff you full you feel like your belly could bulge. He growls and snarls, his manly sounds filling the cave and your mind.
He doubles over again, rolling his hips slowly. "I want to see you," he pants.
With a pitiful whine, he pulls out of you. He lays back on the stone and beckons you over. You straddle his lap, spearing yourself back down on him. In this position, he feels deeper inside you. You bite your lip as you gaze down on him.
"Your body is amazing," he growls, his paws roaming over your again. "I could gaze at you for hours."
You feel excited as he compliments you. You ride him, grinding him inside as you start to bounce. He holds your hips, guiding you how to move. He arches his hips, bucking straight up inside you. You whimper and moan, feeling another surge rush through your body. You stroke your cock, crying out as your release comes. You thick, milky seed splatters all over Seif's chest and belly. He snarls, thrusting hard and fast up inside you. He then bucks, twitches, and his face contorts as if in pain. But you feel him inside you, the pulse and jerk, then sudden rush of heat in your belly.
"Cum," you command him. "Fill me. I want it."
He growls and jerks, his legs kick as he continues to pump inside you. He collapses beside him, cuddling to his war, fur as his strong arms hold you. His seed is inside you, warm and thick.
"Fuck," he growls.
"Was it ok?" You ask. "Was I good?"
He chuckles, rolling on top of you and kissing you ravenously. "You were better than good, my prince," he growls. "I was worried I wasn't good enough for you."
You chuckle. "You were the best."
"How would you know?" He teases and kisses you again. "Let's swim and do it again," he purrs into your ear. "Let me make love to you until the sun rises."
You chuckle and grin. "I kind of like the sounds of that." You pet his cheek and gaze into his eye. "I think I want to stay is Bastet," you murmur. "I've really enjoyed Penu's lessons, and I adore the culture here." You sit up and look out the waterfall. "As much as I admire Amit and Mythri, I've found something here I feel a deep connection to." You then look back at Seif and smile. "I also found someone I adore."
Seif kisses you and drags his fangs down your skin. "My prince," he growls. "If you wish to stay here we'll find a way to make you useful," he purrs. "I think you shouldn't forsake your education, but I cannot argue to keeping you as long as possible."
You wrap your arms around his neck, kissing him lovingly. "Will the rest of the tribe accept me as your lover?"
He grins. "They'll be shocked I've taken one." He kisses you back. "I'll make you happy, my prince," he purrs. "And don't worry, I have lots to teach you."
|
Alicia Morgan was working the night shift again at Old Joe's Diner in New York City. It was a twenty-four seven diner that offered decent food at a busy intersection uptown. The customers ranged from locals to tourists with a mix of everything else. Loving the tips and the flexible hours, it was the perfect job for Alicia who now needed the flexibility with college.
The youthful outlook of her teenage years faded into the reality of being a single mom struggling. All of her amazing grade and high school awards mounted to a nice wall decoration and memories of better times. Going to college right after school had been derailed with Marcel wanting to move into an apartment and then both getting jobs to keep up on the bills. Going nowhere fast ended up with Marcel losing his job and resorting back to old habits of smoking marijuana and staying out late with friends.
Alicia refused to be the victim and even with the birth of her son Sebastian, she was not giving up. With her pregnancy hormones in full swing, she grabbed control over her life. Marcel was dumped to the curb and night school started right after. Although Marcel was gone, it did not stop him from trying to come back.
Moving back home with mom was the only option, but even her mother knew that it was temporary. It gets harder before it gets better rang in her ears when her son was born and her online work was due the next day. Refusing to give in was the battle song she blared in her mind when things got tough.
It was a Sunday night and Alicia was doing the dreary midnight shift again. It offered the peace and quiet of work and time to read for college. The tips were sparse but the owner Frank paid her decently by the hour knowing she would take the shift and that it would help her with college; to her it was more of a bribe because none of the other waitresses wanted to do it. The only issue was missing sleep, and not spending time with Sebastian who was only six months old.
Julissa was working tonight and between the two of them they handled the late crowd with utter ease. The only issue was the bar scene crowd which showed up at two, but it was three and the crowd had dispersed and now they were left to their own conversation. Their conversation went from college to Marcel and back to Julisa and her man who refused to commit to anything.
Julissa made the comment about her dating and for a brief moment Alicia remembered the feel of a man and the satisfaction of sex. It was something she missed dearly as she always knew her sex drive was a little high, but it was controlled with having a man and a selection of toys. She tempered her wants with needs as she knew her infant son needed a mother who casually dated men who could be losers.
Even though Julissa mentioned dating, it was not a question of getting a man, but one of getting the right man at the right time. Her petite body bounced back from pregnancy quickly as her belly went flat quickly and her perfectly curved sculpted ass never lost its ability to attract a man's eye. Her light caramel skin was highlighted by her long tight braids that she spent hours on. The only body flaw that bothered her was her breasts. She did love how long and thick her dark nipples were, and lactating made them more sensitive; although she was not lactating as much since weaning her son off her breasts. The problem was the size of the breasts her nipples were on. They were full B cups before and after pregnancy. Giving birth only made them spray milk and give her another self-conscious thing for her to handle.
With Julissa taking the conversation from dating to sex, Alicia felt her nipples harden and leak a bit as she knew her body craved sex like a drug sometimes and Julissa's comments were pushing her over the edge. With nobody in the diner, she proceeded to tell the story about how her man took her down an alley and fucked her because he needed it bad. Alicia listened and felt her own sex slicken with need as she heard how her coworker loved to be taken in public places and fucked hard while she then had to walk home with his cum spilling out of her. The erotic story and the taboo thought of public sex made her want the feel of a man's erection as it emptied his orgasm in her.
The door opened ringing the bell and both their eyes hit upon the white policeman walking in. Alicia stopped her thoughts of sex and went into work mode. "Can I help you?"
He glanced up with a smile and she saw his dark brown eyes look right at hers. "Coffee first, and then a menu."
The cop sat down putting his hat right next to him. Alicia could see he looked a bit older but not too old, maybe in his mid thirties. His dark brown hair had only a few spots of grey but his muscular jaw showed a man who appeared strong. He was much taller than her five foot four height and his vest hid what his chest looked like, but his arms gave away that he had definite muscle tone to him.
Alicia smiled at him and handed him a menu as Julissa poured him some coffee. As she walked to get silverware Julissa came back to put the coffee pot back on the burner. "Shit girl, you gave him a look," Julissa said as a smirk came across her face.
"I did not. I am not in the market for anyone, and definitely not a cop...and a white one no less," Alicia rebuked as she felt Julissa was just egging her on knowing she was single, although she did not feel desperate.
Julissa walked in the back to start the grill as Alicia took the cop's order of a burger and fries. It was a simple order and she paid no real attention to him as he was just another customer. She walked back to hand Julissa the slip just as her phone rang.
Alicia started retrieving her phone from her back pocket only to see it was Marcel. It wasn't the first time he called drunk and now it was a question of whether he was calling over their son or making an attempt to get her back. She wanted him in her life because he was the father of her son, but the feelings for him were long gone.
Marcel's voice sounded drunker than normal and his rant was louder than ever. She looked at Julissa feeling the guilt for being with him and the sorrow that she had to endure it even after breaking up with him almost a year ago.
Julissa flipped the burger and then took the phone from her and pressed speaker letting both of them hear his drunken rant. "I need to hear his shit."
His inebriated voice stumbled over words and was incoherent at times, but his digs at Alicia were vicious and precise. He rambled on about how her ass was too small, and her tits were like a boy. That he imagined other girls when looking at her breasts just so he could get off. Alicia then felt a twinge of tears build up. He was never so cruel before and he used the only weakness she had about her body as the ammo to cause the most damage.
Julissa clicked off the phone and handed it back to her, sorry that she let it go on and that he was so cruel. "I am so sorry. He is an asshole and you are better off for dumping his ass."
Alicia choked back the tears she wanted to spill and looked at her coworker trying to hold it together. "He just knew what to say is all. I know he is fucking some girl in Queens, but I am not going to get pissed...he is gone."
"You are better off girl...besides, I think you have an amazing body and cute ass," Julissa replied as she flipped the burger and began to finish the order.
""You think so? I know my tits are small, but I like my ass," Alicia confessed as she hated that he diminished her body image when she knew it was something that made her happy.
"Oh fuck yes. I bet that white cop out there would say the same thing, and he is a white guy too," she said as she finished the burger and dumped the fries on the plate giving it to her to hand to the cop waiting.
Alicia squinted and frowned giving her a look of disbelief. "Oh please." Not wanting to hear some random white guy say he thinks her ass was too small or too big.
Alicia walked out and put the plate of food in front of the waiting cop who was looking at his phone. She felt a sigh of relief that he may not have heard the whole conversation and the phone call knowing that there was a clear line of sight between the kitchen and the counter which was less than ten feet away.
Julissa walked out and poured the cop another cup of coffee as she turned to look at Alicia with a devious smile. Alicia quickly gave a sudden look of fear as she watched her coworker turn back to the cop and talk. "You think she has a cute butt? Her ex-boyfriend says it's too small."
The cop put down his phone as his eyes widened looking at Julissa and then Alicia. She felt he was instantly going to judge her and that her business was now the topic of discussion. "Some guys get pissed when they lose the most perfect thing in their life. When they do, they question the very thing that makes it perfect so it lessens the pain of losing it."
Alicia looked shocked that the officer spoke like some philosopher and poet and that he seemed to tell her that she was perfect. She then looked at Julissa as she too seemed taken back. Julissa then looked at his name badge. "So Officer Preston, you would say that she has a nice ass?"
He turned his head towards Alicia giving her a kind pure look of attention. "Yes, but that doesn't matter. Her eyes, face and breasts are all perfect too. He is pissed that a girl with the whole package left him."
"Well thank you. You are sweet Officer Preston," Alicia answered back, smiling and trying not to blush.She could see in his voice and his face that he was truthful and it made her think that her ex did let something go that was perfect.
Before anyone could say another word, the door opened and the bell sounded off that customers were walking in. Alicia spied over quickly giving him another look and wanting to tell him that he was handsome too and that a girl would be lucky to have him, but it would sound awkward now that customers were coming in.
When he was finished he left before she could even give him the bill. She walked over to see that he did leave money and a note from his pad. She saw the money first and that he left her fifty dollars for a meal that was under ten. The note read. "I hope the truth helped you, and see that you are perfect. Any real man would be lucky to even have a date with you."
Alicia felt a twinge of pleasure and guilt she did not tell him that what he said really did matter. Her self-esteem got a jolt of energy and she felt that maybe he was right. The rest of the night she replayed what he said and how he said it in her brain. It was like a record on repeat and each time it made her feel that she was perfect and that any man would be grateful to have her.
The next night Alicia found herself alone in the diner. Julissa was on break and needed to run to the store. The drunk crowd was over an hour away and Alicia knew she had some time to get some college reading done. She hated not having a full-time cook and knew it was dangerous for just the two of them to be alone. Since Julissa and she managed it for a few months now, it kind of seemed a less of a priority to him. With the owner on vacation it was pushed to the back burner because he did not want to work the late shift.
When Officer Preston walked in the door an instant smile came to her face. She did not know whether to tell him that what he said really mattered or that she found him handsome to reciprocate his kind words. She did let her eyes stare longer than expected hoping to find something to say and compliment him on. She saw that he was strong and that he was rugged yet clean shaven which made her question why she would not date him.
"Hi there," she said smiling at him, wondering if she should say more and hoping he had more to say and yet hoping he wouldn't because it would embarrass her.
"Still perfect as ever...Alicia right?" he stated as he sat in the same spot as last night.
"Yeah... it's Alicia." She then moved closer to see his name badge again thinking it might have his first and last name. "Preston right...you have a first name?"
"William, but everyone calls me Will."
"Okay, Will. What can I get for you tonight?" Alicia smiled knowing that he was a nice man who deserved to be smiled at.
"Same as last night," Will answered, smiling as he replied making her feel he wanted something else.
"It's just me right now, so it may not be as good," Alicia answered knowing she was not great at the grill but managed.
"I bet it's perfect," he said smiling and trying to hide it though.
She did not know if it was a line or he was just making her feel better. "I really do need to say that you said some sweet things last night. I really did need it, and appreciate you saying it."
She could see his brown eyes staring at her not blinking and almost pleading with her. "It was the truth though. Your ex knows it too and will call again trying to get you back and will apologize about what he said."
"You think so? I think he might finally be over me." Alicia wondered if he was right and it seemed like a reasonable answer. Marcel was not quitting even though it was just about a year now.
Once again his eyes stared at her like he was pouring something from his heart. "It wasn't harsh as it was him being mean. It's like calling a supermodel ugly...only that one guy will say it and the rest of the world will say he is an idiot."
"So I am a supermodel now?" Alicia smiled as she knew that compliment was the most uplifting thing a man had said to her in years.
"If I didn't already know you worked here, I would say you were. I am not lying either...I think you are just that gorgeous."
Alicia could not help but smile and blush like a schoolgirl. The line he gave was a good one and at the right time. "Ohhh.. I think you are just telling me what I need to hear now or maybe hitting on me."
Just as she spoke her mind went to why this white policeman was being so nice to her. In the back of her mind was what she would say if he asked for her number. She never dated a white guy before although Marcel was mixed; he identified as black. He was also a cop and a debate was raging in her what he really wanted.
"You just can't get over that you are perfect," Will again said, being more stern but sounding caring still.
Alicia felt that he was after something more and felt that his nice words were leading to something else. "You keep saying that. Now I wonder, are you here for the food or did you come back to see me?"
"Why?" Will asked as she hesitated thinking he was being nice and she misjudged his intentions.
"You into black girls or something?" Alicia had to know as she wondered if he really was into her or being nice just because he was a nice man.
"Race has nothing to do with a person's beauty. I just happen to think you were really attractive and wanted to tell you that over and over until you realize it."
"You really think I am all that?" Alicia replied as she smiled wide showing her teeth and blushing as she thought he meant it, that she could turn on a man and that a man would so moved by the way she looked. It was obvious to her that he was laying it on but the fact a man wanted her made her feel desired and sexy all at the same time.
Alicia stopped and quickly froze as Will leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. Her heart pounded quickly as she felt his lips against hers. The electric sensation of the moment was brilliant as she gave into being kissed by a man. The long dormant feeling of a pleasuring kiss came back to her as her body lost its will to say no.
Will pulled back and Alicia did the same as she now leaned against the back table still having the counter separating the two of them. She gave him a look of both shock and joy as he was smiling back at her like he kissed a girl for the first time. "Wow. That was nice but we can't be doing it again."
Will was still standing and moved towards the cutout that allowed people to go behind the counter. "I can't leave here until I kiss you again."
As she watched him approach, she knew that this man was going to come around the counter and kiss her. He was a man and not boyish looking like Marcel or have any childish mannerisms either. She had a chance to say no and knew he would back off. There was no doubt in her mind that he was there to do nothing other than give her a passionate loving kiss that she did want. Her heart was going crazy and her mind was mushy with the need to have a man kiss her like she was in some sappy movie.
Will closed the distance and Alicia breathed in knowing the moment was coming, knowing that a kiss was going to happen and yet her legs or mouth were frozen in place. This was a man in every aspect and was about to take what he wanted. Alicia could not think of a single reason why he should not come and kiss her. She quickly looked at all of his manly physical features and his face. A twinge of erotic lust came over her as he did look sexy as all hell in his uniform.
Will was there and pulled her in as she felt weak to his strong hands that were now on her thin waist. His lips were on hers melting away any reservations she had about his race, job or that they just met last night. His tongue was in her mouth and all she could do was moan softly giving in that a man was embracing her. It had been over a year since she was last kissed and it was never like this. Her sex was already becoming slick with anticipation of being invaded by him. Alicia knew she could not help it as her body demanded more than his deep kiss.
After what seemed like an eternity and a loving one at that, Will broke free. He looked at her with his soft brown eyes making her still feel weak from just his stare. "We better stop or you're going to get in trouble."
"Get me in trouble," Alicia said, knowing full well that she was asking him to have sex with her. It seemed so perfect like something she saw in a sappy romance movie and now it was unfolding for her. She could not just let him walk away with not having tasted the fruits of his labor of wooing her.
"Here?" Will asked, giving her a stunned expression.
"In the back, fuck me," Alicia demanded as she sat on the back counter she was leaning on and wrapped her legs around him, giving him no other option than to take her in the back to have her.
Will leaned in again kissing her and then carried her like she was a doll. The idea of being carried off now struck a chord in her as she knew this was going to end with sex.
She felt her ass on the counter and his lips and tongue once again deeply kissing her like she was the woman of his dreams on their wedding night. Her heart was pounding so fast with excitement and fear of being caught she wondered if he could actually hear it. Everything in her life was put on hold and her worries disappeared at this moment of pure sexual adrenaline was unfolding. She was in the back of the diner about to be taken by a man in uniform.
Alicia slid her leggings down and then followed it up by slipping down her panties. His hands were on her face kissing her and caressing her skin as she went further and reached for his pants. The thought of showing her chest came to her but the fear he would not like her small breasts came to her. She also knew the excitement of sex would make her lactate a little.
She unzipped his pants and undid his belt quickly as his kiss remained unbroken. She could not recall such a time in her life that she wanted sex so bad that she could orgasm from just the thought alone. When his belt was undone, she pulled down his pants just a little before he finally broke the kiss removing his gun belt and pulling his pants down all the way. As he did it a sense of kinky roleplay came to her as a man in uniform was about to fuck her hungry twat.
The concern of him putting his member in her without a condom did not stop her for a second as she wanted the feeling a man gave her when he finished in her. She loved feeling a stiff cock erupt inside of her as it was her ultimate pleasure for her. Some girls needed to rub their clit after sex, but Alicia knew her orgasm was in feeling a dick spew its love nectar inside of her. The mental image in her head of a cock unloading warm cum in her pussy was her big orgasm.
She looked down to see his reasonable size member fully erect and ready to plunge in her. There was not a twinge of second thoughts as she wanted to feel him take her like a man should take a woman. He easily slipped inside of her as her dark love flower opened for him like it was springtime. The satisfying feeling of being full with a man's erection now sent tingles throughout her body and waves of satisfying fullness to her sex as it quenched her desire.
Will was back to kissing her as it muffled her girly moans of pleasure from just being speared by his erection. She could sense through his mouth and his own soft moans that this was something more than a random man fucking her. The sensation of his male organ inside of her instantly made her vaginal sheath collapse around him, clenching hard with blissful wet pleasure. He pushed through her tightening orgasm making her feel even more ecstasy as he buried his love rod deep in her petite body.
Will was thrusting slowly yet forceful enough to stretch her love canal open as it tried in vain to grip his shaft. The whole interaction was expressed with soft moans into his mouth as she returned his passionate kiss. Her sex muscles were not giving up though as it continued to try to clamp down on Will's hard prick. Feeling her dormant sexual needs being met in such a glorious fashion helped her pussy keep producing wetness for the man that was having her.
Alicia felt her thick nipples harden knowing they were probably leaking a little too. The man she just met two nights ago was now pounding harder, pleasing the needs that she wanted pleased with each push of his member inside of her. Over and over his male member plunged inside her love canal hitting the spot she so desired be hit by a man and forcing her body not to hold back and just to let go. Her legs instinctively wrapped around him as her body bucked back against him wanting to make sure he went deep inside her each time.
Will did not stop but only went faster, pounding away at her sex like it was a punching bag. The feeling of his male sack hitting her ass only added fuel to the fire that a man was having her. Her eyes opened wide staring into his lust filled eyes as she felt an instant connection to him. In her mind she was giving a man who desired her among all things what he wanted. He was plundering her body as she was willing to take each hard thrust knowing it was needed to quell her female needs.
Alicia felt him slow down and moan making his lips part from hers. The familiar feel of a man about to release was felt as his cock began to swell. Her sensitive and pulsing vaginal muscles knew this feeling all too well. It was the feeling of man's sperm exploding inside of her that was going to give her the big orgasm she needed and she knew it was close now. She was not going to tell him that her most secret fetish and sexual act that got her off was having a man flood her womb with warm active swimmers.
All care and concern about the dangers of Will planting his seed in her was tossed to the four winds as the only concern she had was achieving sexual satisfaction from a man spewing his fertile cream inside of her. The thought of him finishing alone was keeping her sex tight and spasming like it was waiting for the moment when it could finally let go her final and most intense orgasm.
Will gave her a look of his own pleasure as all Alicia could do was smile at him. It was then he moaned and tightened his body pushing in her one final time. A sudden burst of warmth entered her as she let go. "Ohhhh Goddd YESSS."
The first blast of her warm orgasm was like splashing a small fire with tub of water. The second explosion of his orgasm in her was the fire of her needs being quelled to a smoking ruin. Her body shook with her big orgasm as her lack of sex was given the appropriate dose for the cure. Even if that cure came with nine months of worry, it was the feeling at the moment that only mattered right now.
Alicia clawed at his back and then shoulders as her body tightened up while her vaginal muscles continued to suck up his warm offering. The sensation of his sperm quelling her desire overcame her as her eyes closed and her fingers dug in. The lack of sex for so many months now was being satisfied to her in a glorious romantic way.
Will moved in kissing again making her pussy spasm quickly again. She could feel her sloppy sex just loving the fact it got everything it wanted. His member was deep as it was pumping the last of his male essence in her as she continued to kiss him. She was unphased that he was unloading reproductive warmth in her without protection and with no birth control either. Knowing that she was extremely fertile after just having a child six months ago brought both fear and an erotic sense of pleasure too.
The sound of the bell to the front door broke Alicia out of her post sexual euphoria. "Shit...Julissa is back. You got to go. Leave out of the back, she can't catch you back here."
"Let me get your number," Will pleaded as he picked up his pants and grabbed his gun belt.
"No time."
"Alicia you back there?" Julissa asked as her voice carried throughout the diner.
"Yeah, I am just getting the mop," she answered as she saw Will leave through the back door.
Alicia quickly scurried to the bathroom and wiped the remains of sex from her still pulsing pussy. The more she wiped the more leaked free letting her know that Will definitely came hard and deep in her. The dangers of what she did now trampled on the pleasure of it happening. The bit of guilt was now mixing with fear as she realized it may not have been the best decision to have Will cum inside of her like he did.
Just as she was done she retrieved her purse and walked back in the bathroom telling Julissa that she had to handle her breasts. She pulled out her small portable breast pump to relieve the milk in her tits that had now built up pressure from the sex. She weaned Sebastian off her breasts a week ago and did not pump as often, but it still needed to be done when the pain was to much.
Alicia pumped her breasts until the pain stopped and quickly headed back to work as the drunk crowd now began to file in. Her mind went to work mode the best it could as the thought of Will having sex with her still made her body quake from the memory.
***
The next day Alicia had off and got caught up with college and spent the day caring for her son. She was done with her assignments for the semester and loved the fact her grades were still straight A's. It was confirmation that she could handle this stressful time in her life. It was then she was reassured when the professors emailed her to talk about scholarships and careers after graduation.
With the day winding down, she let her mind drift to the thought of Will and what they did. She never thought of being with a white man before let alone a policeman, but somehow it did not matter. She let her memories go to the way he looked at her and how he talked to her. She also wanted to tell him that what they did was great, but was only a onetime thing. The idea of having a fuck friend was out of the question as she demanded a stable relationship.
The next night she was back at work with Julissa and ready for her free time away from college. She had only a week of freedom before she began her summer classes. Graduating early was her goal as the job she wanted was already willing to take her on as an intern. It was now a mission to get her career going and care for her son. Her mother also demanded that she make something of herself and constantly reminded her that she did not raise a victim.
Julissa smiled wide and stared at her like she did something wrong. Alicia gave a her a confused look back. "What's up?"
"What did you say to that white cop?"
Alicia felt guilt come over her and wondered if she knew about their sexual liaison the other day. She did not want to look guilty either and focused trying to not act guilty. "Nothing why?"
"Cause he was here last night asking all about you, like he wanted to get on that."
Alicia already knew that he tapped it and that he did a great job at it too. She did not want to spill the beans to Julissa that she got fucked in the back just as she walked in from her break. "Why, what did he say?"
"Oh, he was just asking about you, where you were, stuff like that."
"Was he?" Alicia answered with a smile, trying to be both funny to her coworker and feeling the high of being wanted by a man.
"He was into you for sure. What he said the other day and how he was last night...he is wanting to tap that ass of yours girl," Julissa commented with a smile back.
"You mean my small ass?" she replied back in jest as she began working.
"Please, you know that ass of yours is fine. That cop knows it too."
Alicia smiled back and then gave a quick booty shake making Julissa laugh at her. The two were off to work handling the few customers that came through the door. As time passed and the few customers came and went, she wondered if Will was going to walk through the door. Her mind raced with things to say to him and questions to ask. She wanted to categorize her feelings for him but settled on mixed as she did not want something steady but wanted something steady.
When she turned to see the bell chime as the door opened a rush of adrenaline ran through her. Will was coming in the diner in uniform and Julissa looked right at her with a big grin like she won a bet. Alicia was serving another customer though and paid him no attention but her mind rushed with the questions she wanted to ask him.
"Coffee and a burger?" she asked, knowing it was what he normally ordered and it allowed her to have him make the first move or ask the first question.
Will smiled back at her. "You seem to know what I want."
"I think I do," Alicia answered, pouting her lips in sarcasm and humor.
The other two customers were finishing up and within a few minutes left. Julissa walked over to her as she was cleaning up their tables. "You going to talk to him?"
She looked at her raising her eyebrows and making a face of concern. "You really want me to talk to him? You think I am just going to date him?" Her tone hit a good level of sarcasm, but she felt it was something she wanted an answer to but could not admit it to her.
"I am just saying you should talk to him girl. He is into you and not bad looking for a white guy. I mean he is a cop and all, but he seems nice and shit."
Alicia sighed and snarked at her coworker and walked over to the coffee pot grabbing it. She walked over to Will as she could see his dark brown eyes staring at her. She poured the coffee gaining the courage to talk to the man that left her full of his male seed just a couple of nights ago. As the last of the coffee poured she knew it was now or never to break the ice.
"So you plan on coming in every night?" she asked looking at him, wanting for him to say something sweet but not wanting him to know she wanted it and making it sound almost a touch rude.
"Would you blame me?" Will calming replied, talking in a hushed voice so her coworker would not hear.
"You single?" Alicia asked looking and not seeing a wedding ring. She had the urge to know more about him to see if he was a guy just looking for an easy side piece or something serious.
"Divorced," Will answered, sipping his coffee right after.
"So you plan on coming around hoping to score again?" Alicia said as she crossed her arms waiting for a typical manly answer so she could crush the notion of letting him into her panties again.
"I was wanting food...and maybe your number. I think I owe you a proper date," Will said as his voice got a bit loud.
"Hey girl, I am going to give you two lovebirds some time. I am going to pick up some stuff and smoke," Julissa said for both of them to hear as Alicia knew his voice carried.
She stared at him as he did the same as they seemed to both listen for Julissa to leave. She needed to know more about this guy and felt herself open for a date. She couldn't believe it, but the idea of dating him did not seem so bad. He was not something she would openly look for, but he was really into her and seemed to have his shit together.
The bell rang as Julissa went out of the diner and Alicia moved in closer putting her hands on the counter leaning in. "You really came for my number or to think I would let you take me into the back and have you fuck me?"
"The sex was amazing, but I was hoping to get to know you more and take you out on a date," Will said as he looked towards the door as if he was expecting her coworker to come back.
"We have about ten minutes before she will get back. But I need to know are you really into me?
"I hate that you have to ask and just don't know how beautiful you are," Will replied, shaking his head sort of upset making her realize that he was really into her.
"You really want to take me out on a date? Or are just wanting a booty call?" she asked, wanting to know where the two of them stood with each other. She was also thinking that having him on the side would help ease her female needs, although protections were going to be required. She just wondered if going on the pill was going to work even though it failed before.
"Yes I want your number so I can call you and ask you out on a proper date," Will answered adamantly not wavering.
Before Alicia could answer, he stood up and began to approach her just like the other night. He made it to the cutout in the counter that led to the back before she called out to him. "We can't...we can't do it again."
Alicia pleaded again. "We really can't...she will be back soon. We can't do it again."
Her plea fell on deaf ears as he passed through the cutout not responding to her. The fear of getting caught was there but it was the fear of the thing she was doing with him becoming something more that really scared her. The dreaded feeling of being let down or hurt emotionally made her say no but Alicia so wanted to say yes.
Will was a foot from her and her body froze in fright and in anticipation of the kiss that he was about to give her. If he kissed her, then she knew her needs were going to win over her fears. He was close enough and his head closed the distance. She saw his eyes demanding her embrace and all she could do was give it to him as her body wanted it again. The idea of a man wanting her so bad crushed her willpower and pulled out her dormant emotions.
His lips pressed against hers and then his hands pulled her closer and lifted her up. He was taking her to the back again for him to once again full commit to making love to her once more. She broke the kiss franticly thinking of something to say to stop it and yet in her mind wanting it. "We are going to get caught."
Will had her in the back room and her ass on the counter again. "I don't care, I want you."
Alicia resumed kissing him letting the moment happen and letting the fear add to the excitement now. She still did not know if it was a booty call or a moment of true passion, and it nagged at her. She wanted him to know that she was not some street slut but a mother. Her heart demanded answers and to give him full disclosure that he was about to have sex with a single mother and not some slut.
Alicia moaned into the kiss and was breathing heavy before pulling away to tell him her feelings. "I have a baby at home...you still want to date me?"
Will smiled at her as he pulled off his gun belt. "I love kids, and I still want to date you."
She put up her hands still wanting to know more. Her heart wanted to give in but her brain finally clicked on and her sensibility returned. "Fuck me right now, or go out on a proper date. What do you want?"
Will stopped and pulled back frozen. "I want more, and I am going to choose date then. But I am going to kiss you until your coworker comes back."
He moved in to kiss her as she could see his hands reaching for her hips and not to undo his belt. Her eyes could not move away from his as she saw the determination in his eyes. The idea that a man would want her like this was too much and seemingly too perfect to just let go. She felt his patience but the answer needed a just reward, and to her, his reward should be her letting him have her again.
She pulled down her leggings followed by her wet panties as he kissed her. His mouth was on hers as she felt her heart pounding with the thought he was going to have her again. Her body felt helpless with the idea of him being inside of her and the feeling it would give her body.
She broke the kiss and gave him a look of carnal desire. "I need you to fuck me...oh God I need you in me."
Will nodded as his smile grew wide and then his hands went to her shirt and began unbuttoning it. She pushed his hands away doing it faster as he then undid his belt and slid down his own pants. She then felt the tip of his member at her thighs ready to penetrate as she finally removed her bra exposing her small breasts and large nipples to him. The sudden worry about her small leaking breasts came to her. If he turned away because of her still lactating small breasts, it would ruin her.
"Just fuck me...just put your dick in me," she moaned, half afraid of what was going to happen and wanting sex still.
With no bra to hide her insecurity of her breasts, she gave him a scared look and spoke, "I know they're small...and they leak milk when I get excited."
Will smiled at her and put his mouth right on her thick nipple sucking hard. It was like he knew what to do to push her over the edge. The way his lips both sucked and pulled shot bolts of pleasure to her wet pussy demanding it clench with a small orgasm. The was no doubt in her mind that he was tasting some of her breast milk but he was not stopping. The erotic and pleasurable act of him sucking on her tit made her feel a connection to him and that he was not phased by her body.
Alicia reached down grabbing a hold of his erection and pulling it to her needy sex. Will took the hint and leaned forward as she finally felt the tip enter her. She could not stop moaning as he switched to her other nipple. Alicia felt the one he just sucked leak a few drops and pulse with pleasuring sensitivity.
Will then pushed inside of her, plunging deep quickly as she felt her vaginal muscles give way to the sensation of sex. Her soft moan escaped her lips again as Will's hard rod embedded itself in her female tunnel claiming his sweet prize. His mouth finally moved off of her breast and then gave her a look of utter satisfaction that his manhood was deep in her.
Alicia smiled and wrapped her legs around him wanting him to stay deep as he fucked her. She knew her body lay dormant too long and being fucked hard was just what it needed. Will obliged her as he began pumping his body against her, spreading her love muscles as they were her spasming with excitement. He was pounding away her need for a man with enduring repetition.
He was kissing her like a man who desperately wanted to give all of his emotions. His body was also thrusting in her sex like it wanted give her sex everything it could. Alicia let her orgasm go and felt he was pushing through it only causing her to moan into his mouth more. His hands were now pinching her nipples as she knew it would spray milk everywhere. It did not seem to bother him and her sensitive nipples being touched like that was only adding to the build up of her big orgasm.
Will's body was not slowing down as he was now banging against her small frame bent on getting his manhood inside of her as quickly and as deep as possible. She stopped kissing and moaned out softly, "Ohhhh fuckkk...feels so fucking good."
Alicia, lost in the bliss of intercourse, just let go all worries as her pussy was being pleased by a man. The erotic act of sex was now merging with the need to please him like a woman should please a man. Feeling his tool fit so snuggly in her pussy as it continuously slid in and out was having a draining effect on her ability to think straight.
She closed her eyes briefly letting out soft moans while her body recovered from a series of small intense bouts of sexual ecstasy. She opened her eyes again to see him looking at her with something she could only describe as love. She stopped giving out her soft moans to say. "You want me as your girlfriend? Ohhh yes...if you fucking me then you are dating me."
Will smiled wide as Alicia knew it was confirmation that this was something more. He then moved forward kissing her. Even though it was during sex and things get said, the idea in her head at this moment now reassured her that this was not some fuck session and it meant something.
Over and over his cock pistoned in and out of her like he was a machine made for giving her pleasure. She had her hands around his neck as her lips embraced his feeling her nipples spray a small steam of her mother's milk from all the excitement her pussy was getting. She wanted to be afraid of his reaction but could not help the fact her body was so sexually stimulated that there was nothing she could do.
His hands finally went to her face holding it in place making sure they were not broken from each other. Her tightening pussy could not keep up as he thrusted through yet another wet orgasm. Her body was beginning to shake from the intensity of what was happening. Her mind was helping construct a final moment of glory she knew would send her quivering to her knees. She flashed thoughts and memories of Will's raging erection deep in her, planting his warm orgasm so she could get hers.
Will finally broke his momentum as she knew he had to be close. Knowing the ultimate pleasure awaited her in a warm creamy dangerous ending was going to be like a tidal wave on a forest fire. Having Will cum inside of her would soothe all the demands of the fire that burned inside of her that needed to be satisfied. Having him pull out would tarnish the ultimate act of consummation and she was not going to have the fire in her sex go unchecked again for this long.
The fear of pregnancy was there but she needed to feel the warm essence of a man's love splash inside of her and fill her fertile love tank. The warm finish a man gives a woman was an orgasm of itself and Alicia demanded her orgasm having worked it up in her mind so much. She wanted to be responsible, but could not also a girl who lived in the moment and she could not get it out of her head that this unbridled moment of lust needed a magical end. The more she fought against it the more she realized her body was hardwired to accept a man's fertile nectar inside of it and Will was going to be the man to give it to her.
Keeping her legs tight around his waist, she bucked harder and harder as she could feel the tell-tale swelling of his mushroomed tip letting her know it was going to erupt. She broke the kiss and stared at him intent on making sure he delivered her big orgasm that came with the danger of reproduction. "Fucking cum deep in me."
Will grunted and almost looked scared. Alicia thought it was him having his orgasm or him worried that he was cumming inside a girl not knowing if she was on birth control or not. She could not help but smile at him to reassure him that it was okay.
As the warmth of his sperm gushed inside of her like a soothing drink on a hot day, she kissed him overcome with ecstasy and pleasure of feeling him trying to impregnate her. She felt the throb and twitch his member did as it was followed by the utter brilliant warmth of sperm flowing inside of her like her body was finally being satisfied. Her sex muscles gripping hard, wanting more and more as she just knew her love canal was being inundated with his white swimmers hoping to find something.
Will pulled out quickly as she dropped to the floor and quickly wiped up hoping not to get caught, but also feeling that if he stayed inside of her more cum and a bigger orgasm would have resulted. The burning urge inside of her was quenched slightly but him pulling out quickly dashed her hopes of a having her big ending orgasm.
As her feet touched the ground she felt Will's seed instantly spill out like it did not have a chance to get the job done in any way. A slight bit of relief was mixed with frustration as she felt he could have stayed in longer. Her lingering orgasm was still inside of her but it was nowhere as bad as it was and fingers tonight could finish it off.
She also wondered if he really did want to date her or just wanted a booty call. The idea of having a steady fuck was great, and getting on the pill could be an option for many worriless fucks for months. It still nagged at her wanting to know more about him and if he wanted something else though.
"You still want my number or do you just want to come by every night?" she asked, knowing this was going to finally settle the question she had in her mind.
Will looked at her with a big grin. "I really want your number. I don't mind coming by every night, but I do want to date you. I am serious about that."
"So you asking me to be your girlfriend?" Alicia asked, wondering if he was truthful during sex, and feeling a bit giddy that he was really wanting her.
"Thought it was already settled when we were having sex," Will answered with a smirking grin.
"Oh my God. I did say that, "she answered, knowing it was embarrassing she let her emotions get the best of her, but in that split second she could not think of a reason to say no. The only pressing thing on her mind was making sure Julissa did not find out that she got fucked in the back.
She quickly pulled up her panties and then glared at Will. "You can't be caught back here, hurry up."
She heard him pull his pants up and put his gun belt on as she fixed herself the best she could and then walked out a minute later seeing Will at the counter as if they did nothing wrong. She walked over to him to get the coffee pot acting normal.
"Boy or girl?" he asked as she walked back to him after putting the pot back on the burner.
Alicia turned around answering him, "Sebastian is six months."
She calmly walked over to him flattening her apron, making sure there was no evidence of them doing anything wrong. "If I give you my number, this is something more than...what we did back there you alright with that?"
Will grabbed his phone that he left on the counter and swiped it on. The moment it flashed on Alicia took it from him giving him a suspicious look. "Let me put it in. I want to see what you have on here."
Will said nothing as she swiped through pictures and text messages. She quickly noticed that he texted his other cop friends a lot about work and all of his pictures were of his car and his house. There was a few pictures of what looked like to be his parents but nothing that would indicate a spouse or girlfriend. After a few minutes she put in her number and full name.
"Here...I put my name and number in."
He took his phone back and looked at it quickly and then looked up at her giving her a smirk. "So Alicia Morgan, can I take you out tomorrow?"
Alicia smiled at being asked out and knew she would have to ask her mother to watch her child if she was going to go out on a real date. She had the day off and all college work was done for a few weeks. The notion of being on a real date was foreign and yet exciting at the same time. It was a new type of feeling that she had not had since she was a teenager.
"We shall see. I need a babysitter, and will ask, but I make no promises," Alicia answered with a smile wanting to be elusive and yet available.
"Can I call you when you get off work or in the morning?"
"Text me," she answered back, giving him a grin of acceptance that he was going to get in contact with him.
A call came over his radio and Will hit the button and gave her a face that he was disappointed they could not continue. He sipped his coffee quickly and put his phone away. "I got to go, and I will text you later."
Alicia sat at an empty table wondering what she just got herself into. She let Will fuck her again and then said yes to being with him as a girlfriend, or least she took it as that. The satisfying effect of having him drain his balls into her was lingering in her system as was the feeling of having a man so desperately want her.
Julissa walked in and she gave her a guilty look. Julissa instantly gave her a suspicious glare. "You said no?"
"Wait...wait. How did you know he even asked me out?"
"Oh please girl, that man is after you bad. You can see the way he looks at you and the way he comes around here."
"Well just so you know, I said yes. I need to get a babysitter and I am going to ask my Mom if she will do it. I haven't been on a date in while though."
"Should be an easy date, he is already into you," Julissa joked as she began to prepare for the large crowd about to enter.
The door opened and both of them knew their conversation had to be tempered as it was time to get back to work. Alicia was back on her feet handling the customer but still thinking about how Will had sex with her just a short time ago. It was nonstop for the rest of the night as more people came in and her shift ended as she was replaced by two other waitresses to handle the large crowds.
She was home an hour later and saw her mom feeding her son. Her mom looked at her sonand said, "Mommy is home."
Alicia sat down next to her mom taking over the duties of feeding her son. Even though her body was utterly exhausted, she did not want to give all of her chores to her mother. Her mom was up making coffee for herself as Alicia knew she needed to get some sleep.
"Mom, can I ask you a favor?" she asked wanting for her to watch her son, but cautious not to tell her that she probably has a new boyfriend.
"Sure, you need me to pick up something for you?"
"No it's not that. I was asked out on a date," she lied but knew that she would tell her the truth later on.
She saw her mother's eyes light up and her face smile big. "Oh, who is he? Tell me about him."
"Well, he is older than me."
"That's nothing. He is not like fifty is he?" Her mother quipped back with a look of concern.
"Nooo, he is like thirty-five. He is white and he is a cop though," Alicia stated waiting for her mother to make a comment, but also not worrying because her grandparents were mixed.
"If he is nice to you and treats you right, then that's all that matters."
"So can you watch Sebastian then?"
"If you want to go out on a date then yes, I can watch him," her mother said smiling.
Alicia talked with her mother for a few minutes before she went to work. Alicia then stayed up caring for her son until her mom got back and she could finally head to bed. It was right before she went to sleep that she looked at her phone to see Will had texted her if she was free tonight.
She responded back that she was free around seven. She gave him her address and wondered in bed if it was the right decision that she had sex with him not once but twice. It then made her think about each time and before she could think of anything else, she felt her sex get wet with desire. She knew he was pleasing her sexual needs, but still felt a bit worried about who he was.
Alicia was wearing a pink top that went down covering her ass and black leggings. She wanted something good but did not want something too sexy. Her closet was not filled to the brim as it was in high school as moving in with Marcel made her toss most of her things. Her makeup was done and she spent a little bit more time on her eyes accentuating her brown almond shaped eyes that he seemed to like.
The doorbell rang to the apartment and Alicia rushed to the door hoping her mother would not be too nosey and start asking him too many questions. She opened to see him in a nice shirt carrying a dozen roses. Her heart jumped with excitement that he brought flowers and made it seem like a real date. For a quick second she thought he was just going to come and take out her out to fuck her.
Alicia quickly introduced Will to her mother and was happy that she made an attempt to ask any questions before they left. Will in turn was polite and sweet as she now thought it was going to be a peaceful real date. The act of him walking her to his car and opening the door had her thinking he was being genuine and it was the real thing.
The dinner was both pleasant and informative. She listened to how he was divorced for a few years and that he changed himself through counseling and reading. Alicia divulged about her ex Marcel and how he was great until he lost the will to work or care for her or care about being in a relationship. She even went as far as saying that she did not want her son to know that her mother wasn't going to be the best for him.
She watched how his eyes were glued to hers and that he was thoughtful and listened intently without judging anything about her. She did the same and when she brought up how he made the compliment about her he held her hand from across the table and said it again.
Will paid the bill and took her to a spot in the park that offered live music at night. When he reached for her hand she gave in. It was like he was the perfect gentleman and was really trying to be a date and not a hookup. She gave him a kiss although it seemed awkward trying to kiss a man who was over six foot to her five foot four inches. But when it happened, she felt at ease that she was having a date that mattered.
It was late and she got in the car wondering if he was going to bring up fucking her. She already let him get between her legs twice and she wondered if he thought he could fuck her at will. In her mind she came up with a plan. If he was forceful and demanded sex, she would say no and then realize that he was just a fuck buddy that she may or may not want again. He did not bring it up and ended the date as a gentleman that she would offer for him to come inside her apartment. To her it was a test to see if he really wanted to be her boyfriend.
As he was driving back to her apartment he asked for permission to call her for another date. She turned to him and did not say a word as she felt lost to his question. She did not expect him to actually ask her out again not even knowing if he was going to score on this date.
She turned to him as he pulled up to her place. "It's hard for me to get free time some nights, but I will try. I am free all this weekend."
"I have to work all weekend but I am free in the afternoon. Maybe we can go to the park...I don't mind you bringing your son either," he answered, still looking at her with his soft brown eyes like he knew it was working on her.
"You really taking this boyfriend thing serious?" Alicia had to ask as it puzzled her with each time she knew what he was going to say or do and then getting it wrong. It was like her mind was completely out of sync with what a man would want.
"Look, I am too old to play around. I don't do high school games. I really meant what I said before and if we are going too fast and you want to slow down, that is fine too. What we did before was heat of the moment and I loved every minute of it. I never did that before with anyone."
"I didn't mean that way. It was a first for me too, and it's just that it all happened so fast. I really did like it though," she admitted, wanting him to know but not telling him outright that she was not some street slut that slept around.
"Do you want to talk about it this weekend?" Will calmly replied cracking a smile, letting her know he was still interested.
Alicia felt she wanted to try the relationship and that Will was worthy of having her. She also knew that her elusive games were childish and that she would lose him. "Do you want to come up and talk about it now?"
"I would love to."
Alicia let him follow her up to her apartment knowing her mother and son were well asleep. As the door opened she turned to him. "My mom and son are sleeping so we have to be quiet."
"You wanted to talk right?" Will answered, looking at her weirdly.
"If you are my boyfriend then I want you to fuck me. Are you my boyfriend?" she shot back with a half smile and half smirk. The idea of him being her boyfriend now stuck and she kinda felt the new rush of a relationship hit her.
When they both walked in she guided him to the couch. "Sit, let me make sure no one is awake."
Will sat down and moved a few kid's toys as she walked to her mother's room, cracking the door to see them both sound asleep. She then walked back knowing in her head that she was going to be fucked by her new boyfriend and the rush of it was already building excitement in her sex.
She walked into the room to see him on the couch and then she turned on the living room light, dimming it to set the mood. She strutted in and stood in front of him like she was making sure he approved of his new girlfriend. "You ready to see your girlfriend?"
"Oh yes," Will answered as she could see the anticipation in his face making her feel like a girl who is wanted.
"Well, I figure my boyfriend needs to see all of me then." Alicia smiled and spoke in her most sultry voice she could manage.
With her hands going up and down her sides, she pulled up her shirt slowly revealing her black bra. She knew her breasts were small and that her bra was not all that but she could see in his eyes that she had all of his attention and nothing was lost on him. She then turned around and slid down her leggings to show off her black thong that she had no doubt had his full attention now. With her back still turned to him having the moment of surprise, she unclasped her bra and held her firm perky breasts in her hands before turning around.
"This is all of me," Alicia said like she was offering herself to him hoping he would approve.
"You are the sexiest girl I have ever seen," Will responded making Alicia feel that either he was being nice or possibly really into her.
She finally dropped her hands revealing her brown perky tits to him like it was a big reveal, letting her man see her exposed. "You really like them?" she asked still having a twinge of fear that he didn't like them.
"Yes...I do. I love them."
Alicia got on her knees and moved forward and put her hands on his knees. "They still leak milk, please don't be grossed out."
Will reached down and Alicia felt his fingers rub and then gently pull on her sensitive thick nipples. "Ohhh...they are sensitive," she moaned slightly.
"I love your nipples, and that they leak," Will answered her fears with a soft voice and a big smile.
Alicia reached for the zipper of his pants. "Let me see you now."
"Ohh, so now you want to see me?" Will said with a joking tone.
Alicia looked up smiling. "Yeah, I want to see my boyfriend's dick."
Not waiting for a reply, she pulled down his zipper and then unbuckled his pants before sliding them down to his ankles. She pulled them completely off and tossed them to the side as her eyes went to his boxers. She then pulled down his boxers and laid her eyes on his white member that was semi hard and leaning over to the side. The thrilling excitement of knowing she was going to get laid shuddered throughout her body.
She gave Will's member a slow stroke as she moved her mouth to his giving him a quick wet kiss and then moved down to look at his prick that was coming to life. His bulbous tip was sprouting up wanting attention as his shaft thickened in her hand. Alicia's mouth watered wanting to taste him and feel his erection pulse in her mouth.
Not being able to hold out any longer, she opened her mouth and took his now fully engorged erection in her mouth. Going almost all the way down before hitting her gag reflex, she pulled back feeling her own sex prepare for what was going to enter her. The feeling of having a cock in her mouth made her own sexual needs quicken with desire.
Using her tongue now she swirled around the tip and then along the underside of his shaft as she moved down again on him. Moving back and forth Alicia wrapped her lips around his member and then glided along his shaft as she would a man she wanted to please. There was no holding back now as the erotic act of giving a man oral sex made her own sex quake with wetness.
"Ohhhh...yes," Will moaned softly yet sounded like he wanted to do it louder but was holding back.
Alicia, not stopping as she formed a tight seal around his shaft, now used her hand to simulate sex. Using more saliva than was necessary, she slipped up and down his erection feeling it pulse with need in her mouth. All her thoughts now focused on making sure her man's cock felt the ultimate pleasure with her mouth. Even though the sounds of slurping got louder, she did not stop going up and down his rigid member while keeping her tongue pressed along the underside of it.
She finally pulled away wanting him to stuff her sex with it. She stood up about to straddle him and could see in the dim light that his eyes were on her smiling. "You ready for your girlfriend to ride you?"
"Oh yes...oh God yes," Will moaned out as she grabbed a hold of his erection and aimed it at her dark slit.
She gave a quick look wanting to see his face when she let her pussy take in his male rod. As she put her weight down on his lap feeling his erection easily slip inside of her, she could not help but smile back at him as she saw his smile go big and wide and moan in pleasure. She did a soft grind, feeling it stretch her vaginal muscles, giving her the same sense of pleasure he was feeling from it all.
"Ohhh yes...I love you," Will moaned out. Alicia instantly glared at him as he said it.
His confession of love sounded heartfelt but she wondered if it was true or just something he was going to throw around during sex. She hated when Marcel would say it and then act like it had no meaning. In her heart she knew when she did say the love word it had deep emotional meaning to it and now Will dropped it on her.
"Stop for a second," she commanded as Will instantly froze looking at her wondering why.
"If you really love me then say it, but don't just say shit like that and let it have no meaning. I don't mind you fucking me and talking dirty, but don't say I love you and then act like you never said it," Alicia ranted just like she did with her ex and feeling the same weight lift off her chest when she said it to him.
"Would you be worried if I did mean it?" Will questioned her as his voice sounded sincere.
"You don't really know me and shit. I mean, I understand you saying it a week from now or even a month from now. Just don't say it if you don't really mean it."
"I love you," Will said again not smiling as if he was trying to be firm.
"You crazy...but if you really love me then cum in me," she stated knowing that once she confessed to not being on birth control would be the final test.
"You want me to cum in you?" he replied looking at her wondering.
Alicia gave a small devious smile knowing she was going to really find out the man he was. "Yes, cum in me. I am not on birth control and I think I am ovulating too." She knew the last part could be true but not for sure, although in her mind it was a good bluff.
"You serious?" Will answered as his eyes opened wide, but she still felt his erection deep in her not getting soft one bit.
"You have a vasectomy?" Alicia asked as she moved her hips forward and back feeling his hard member still embedded in her. She wanted to know if she was really paying with fire, and yet wanted to tease him into wanting more.
"No, but are you're serious? I am not playing around," Will said with a louder voice but still not sounding very authoritarian.
Alicia gave him a stern look like she was in control. "I am dead serious. You don't go saying I love you to me and not mean it. My pussy, my rules...now if you want to be telling me you love me then you better prove it."
Not waiting for a reply, Alicia began to get up feeling that this whole sexual tryst with Will was over and that he was just was not truly into her.
Before his tip was even out of her wet sex, he pulled her back down on top of him letting her feel his girth once again as she was pulled down on it. "Guess it's time to prove it," Will said.
"Oh it is?" she said feeling that their connection was more than she expected.
"Yes it is," Will calmly replied, putting his fingers on her nipples pulling out a few drops of milk with his soft pinch.
"Ohhhh Yesssss," Alicia cried out almost too loudly as she felt her sensitive nipples being pleased while Will moved her petite body on his lap letting his erection explore her love sheath.
She gave him a look of hopeless lust as she felt a quick tense of her sex gripping his shaft as she was pulled down on him. She moved her knees on the couch and rested her small luscious ass right on his bloated member. With small motions she raised her butt up and down, letting his cock just slide in and out of her pussy like it was made to fuck just her.
Wanting more, she began to bounce harder on his lap making sure each time she slammed home on his erection it went deep. Moans escaped louder and louder as she could feel his manhood pierce through her wet sex muscles with ease. She felt her pussy was no match for his cock as she pounded her body down on it as hard as she could again and again.
Will pulled her in to kiss her as she felt loving him was something that was going to come easy. The emotional sensation of having a man love her while his man muscle pushed inside her tightness drove her wild. She could feel her sex just coating his cock with her girl cum while she twerked her ass on him. Each orgasm she was having only added to the wet sloshing noises that were filling the room now.
She wanted to tell him her feelings too but also did not want to break the passionate loving embrace of their lips. His tongue was making love to hers just as his member was pleasing her wet love canal. His hands were now on her back caressing her smooth caramel skin as she knew her breasts were leaking on him as she felt the small stream spray out. To her it was like marking her property that her breast's milk was covering him with her nurturing leakage and that he earned it.
Will broke free of the kiss and she looked down at her erect nipples as her milk was dripping at a fast rate. When she looked at him he smiled like he was loving that she was still lactating a little and that she was capable of being a fertile woman for him. Knowing that his unprotected member was going to finish the job in her only made her think that this was the brilliant moment of love he was going to give her.
Alicia was still in control as she maintained the fast tempo of love making. She was not slowing down as her ass was slamming down hard on his erection. She felt his rock hard cock just slide through her orgasms each time she slammed home. There was no holding back now as she only thought that the end goal was her big orgasm of having him blow his hot orgasm where it would do the most good.
Will finally gave a look of impending closure as she saw the grimace of pleasure a man gets before cumming. She stopped slamming her ass on his and rested her full weight on his cock and moved to a back and forth grind.
"You ready to cum in your girlfriend? Alicia asked smiling and half moaning, wanting to get confirmation that it was going to happen.
"Ohhh...yes. I am close," Will moaned out like he was lost in the moment and unable to move or stop even if he wanted to.
"Mmmm that's it...fucking cum in me. Oh fuck...your going to cum deep in me too. You ready to love me now?"
Will began to shake as Alicia felt his erect cock just pulse ready for it to set off her own big moment of pleasure and give her a reason to buy a pregnancy test. Her own sex could not hold out any longer as she knew this was the moment her big orgasm was arriving. She reached for his chest gripping him as her mouth opened wide moaning, ready to let her own dam burst waiting for the second she cold feel his warm sperm coat her vaginal walls.
"Ohhhhfuckkkk...I love you," Will cried out in a loud waking everyone up moan.
Alicia nodded her head as she felt his warm semen shoot into her vaginal canal with pinpoint accuracy for her womb and waiting egg. The warm soothing feeling her sex needed to have her orgasm came as a second and third blast of possible pregnancy shot into her. In her mind his confession was true and that her body was now being inseminated with his truth. She let go and let her pussy spasm out her own wonderful ending as she felt like she was being pumped full.
"Ahhhh...shitttt...you're doing it. You're really doing it. Ohhh fuckkk," she moaned loudly, closing her eyes, the sensation of pure orgasmic bliss taking in all the perfect sensations that was happening to her.
Will continued to grunt out his own orgasm as she felt his hard member still spewing more warm swimmers for the journey to her nestled egg. The satisfaction of perfect sex with a perfect man came over her as she smiled at him while he grunted his seed in her. All doubts were gone as her pussy was still spasming and her mind went to knowing that she had a legitimate boyfriend.
"Guess you do love me," she said with a joke and a warm smile.
"Told you I am not playing around. Although I do have to ask if you are joking around about the birth control thing."
"Would it bother you if I was not joking?" Alicia now wondered if he thought this whole thing was her just wanting sexual roleplay. The idea she made a mistake came to her as the doubts came back to her.
"I am going to say that if you are not joking then we have to be serious about what we want and how we are going to proceed."
With the feeling of his dick still deep inside of her, she wondered if the doubts were not doubts but concerns about how fast they were going. She knew he was right and the fact they were moving so fast came to her like a drunk waking up from a drinking binge. "What do you want?"
"Well, for starters I want you to tell people we are dating. I also need us to be completely honest with each other all the time."
Alicia gave a smirking smile and a quick grind on his waist letting him know that he was still far into her. "Fair enough...You really single and into me?"
Will gave a quick laugh. "Yes and yes. Since we are being honest, I noticed you from the street and walked in the diner to talk with you that first night. I was into you the moment I saw you. Now tell me something you are holding back."
"Aww that is sweet," Alicia cooed as she felt he was being truthful and that everything about him wanting her seemed to matchup. Her heart was weak for a man smitten with love and since it was her it made it all the more wonderful.
"Now, since we are playing the honest game...I never would have let you fuck me the first time if I didn't like you. Although I was horny as fuck, I still found you cute and charming," she joked but still being honest that she did find him cute and was needing a man to fuck her.
Will gave a quick bump of his hip as she felt that his erection did not lose that much strength. "Ohh shit, you're still hard for me."
"It kind of happens when you turn me on so much."
"I am glad, because I am going to want it again this weekend. If you want to wear condoms you can. I won't make you cum in me if you don't want to.
"Shit, I thought you were kidding about you not being on the pill," Will replied sounding truly shocked that he just exploded his childbearing seed inside of her.
"Sorry, I did kinda like it though, and it turns me on. You mad at me?" Alicia responded feeling guilty and worried that she upset him knowing that she did have serious feelings for him.
"Guess it's too late now to worry. Damage is done, but at least you know I love you."
|
It really shouldn’t surprise Beca anymore when she walks into the Bella house to find her weirdos in swimsuits. Living in a house full of women means she’s seen plenty of skin and scanty outfits; and it’s true, it doesn’t surprise her anymore – but it doesn’t always leave her comfortable either.
Especially when her eyes automatically seek out a head of red hair. And her eyes – still working of their own accord – trail along said redhead’s bikini-clad body as Chloe bends forward to pick something off the floor (Beca’s mind doesn’t particularly care what).
The brunette snaps out of it when she hears Stacie’s voice whining.
“Man, I wish someone would look at me like Beca looks at Chloe.”
The captain snaps her head over so fast everyone’s sure it must have hurt. The panic in her eyes doesn’t stop Cynthia Rose and Fat Amy from joining the conversation.
“With love in her eyes?”
“No, like a horny teenage boy.”
“Ah, yes. I’ve seen dingoes in heat looking more subtle than those two.”
Beca’s face looks redder than Chloe’s hair.
Chloe looks up at her with a teasing smirk and an incredibly lewd wink.
Beca’s a mess.
So the brunette demands – red-faced and spluttering – that the team run a bazillion laps around the house, and looks even more indignant when they all just flip her off on their way out of the house.
Chloe’s laughter has Beca turn around to face the only other person in the house with a helpless look on her face.
“Chlo, I wasn’t- they were- Stacie’s an idiot. I wasn’t looking at you like-”
“Like a horny teenage boy? Stop it, Becs, of course you were.”
Chloe’s laughter is even more amused if it’s possible, her teasing smile glowing with that familiar flirtatious quirk that Beca’s come to expect from her best friend.
Teasing and flirty banter is just part of the BFF dynamic, right? Right.
So Beca forces an eye roll even though deep down she knows that they’re all probably right – she just won’t admit defeat.
“Anyway. What’s with the swimwear? I mean, I know it’s really hot and the heat wave doesn’t help, but isn’t this a bit much?”
“In case you haven’t noticed the stifling heat inside, let me draw your attention to the fact that the air conditioning broke this morning and it is now hell on earth.”
Beca finally feels the smothering heat around her after her own body temperature drops back to a reasonable degree.
On a good day, it always feels like she’s running a fever when she’s around Chloe. Now that the redhead is in a bikini, Beca feels like she’s visiting the surface of the sun.
“Alright, then where did they go? I swear, if any of them get arrested for public indecency again…”
Chloe waves Beca away with an eye roll. “That was one time, and Stacie’s promised to behave this time. Her “Hunter” isn’t up to any kind of added warmth at the moment.”
Beca waits a minute more with both her eyebrows raised expectantly before Chloe realizes she still hasn’t answered the younger woman.
“Oh, right. We’re commandeering the Trebles’ pool. Now hurry up and change so you don’t miss any of the fun.”
“Yeah, no thanks. I’ve got stuff I need to do, mixes to finish, papers to write—”
“You finished finals two days ago. Come on, Becs, you need to relax a little, get some sun. Bet the reason you’re even stuck on any mixes is because you’re so wound up all the time.”
Beca’s getting ready to wave Chloe off and rebuff her again before heading to her room when said woman grabs her hand and drags her upstairs – completely missing the case Beca’s carrying in her other hand.
“I’m not taking no for an answer, Beca. We’re going upstairs and putting you in a bikini.”
Beca ignores the way her heart feels like it has grown wings and is fluttering about her chest in an attempt to escape her ribcage.
Chloe leads Beca into her closet with her hands firmly on the brunette’s shoulders to bar any escape attempts. Once she’s sure Beca’s not going to bolt and she has all exit routes covered, Chloe settles on the bed and faces Beca, waiting.
Beca’s fidgeting and shifting her weight around a lot because Chloe’s looking at her expectantly.
“Uh, aren’t you at least going to look away?”
“Why? It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”
Beca can’t help it, but a big sigh leaks past her lips. She’s defeated and she knows it. So the younger Bella turns to her closet and proceeds to take off the layers of shirts she’s wearing, her back to Chloe.
The redhead is absently wondering how Beca manages to get through the day with so many pieces of clothes on when she notes something in the middle of her co-captain’s back.
Beca almost jumps through the ceiling when she feels Chloe’s fingers trailing lines on her back.
“Jesus, Chloe, you’re never going to understand what personal space is, huh?”
Chloe’s frowning as she keeps her eyes on Beca’s back, something clearly holding her attention firmly enough that she doesn’t notice the goose bumps her touch leaves along Beca’s skin.
Her voice is soft when she speaks next and Beca’s mind connects things together as she realizes what’s caught Chloe’s attention.
Say to her, "My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here."
Chloe hasn’t even formed her question when Beca cuts her off with the beginning of a story – she’s used to it by now; when Chloe’s paying more attention than usual to her ink, she usually wants a story.
“It’s from a poem – “Prayer to Persephone” – I read in high school.”
Beca didn’t turn around – being topless and all – but she felt Chloe move away from her and heard the faint noise of sheets ruffling as the redhead sat back on the bed. The brunette didn’t need to look to know Chloe’s face was sporting a light frown, her nose scrunched up in concentration as she waits for the rest of the details. So Beca starts rummaging in her closet – pretending to look for her bikini top that was right on top of everything, probably thanks to Chloe – in order to prolong their time in her room.
“You already know that my senior year was rough, with Nana being sick and all. It’s a miracle I even passed.”
Chloe murmurs an “Mhm” as she takes note of the case Beca brought up and dropped on her bed on their way in.
“Well, the only class I was doing exceptionally well in without much effort was obviously English. We were studying Greek mythology that semester, and how that aspect of Ancient Greek culture bled into the rest of the world millennia later.”
Chloe’s paying attention to Beca, but a small part of her mind is beyond curious, desperate to know what’s inside (even though the shape of the case is a dead giveaway).
“Our teacher – Miss Spencer – was new that year, and she was the best teacher I have ever had. She had such a passion for her class, her subject, even though she was – as a teacher – basically the most underappreciated person in the country, working in the shittiest environment imaginable. Like, seriously Chlo, we were the biggest bunch of brats you could imagine.”
Chloe smiles faintly, knowing that Beca was probably a surly teen – probably no different than what she’s like now at 22.
“But she walked into class with a smile that could match yours and poured everything into her work. She scattered bits and pieces of herself with every word she delivered.”
Beca pauses, smiling out of sight of Chloe. “She was kinda like you in that sense.”
The redhead tears her gaze from running her fingers along the latches on the case to smile bashfully at Beca’s back.
Clearing her throat, Beca powers on with her story.
“Anyway. She took a personal interest in each of her students, and my deal wasn’t exactly a secret. One day, I had ditched my French class and gone to the music room. It was probably not allowed, but I didn’t care; I needed to play. Music has always been a kind of stress relief for me, and with the situation being what it was at home with Nana, I was struggling with my instruments. I was desperate, and I hoped a change of scenery would help me.
I had just given up on the piano and was moving on to try the violin when she walked in. Apparently she heard music unlike anything that’s ever being played during music lessons and she got curious.
She asked permission and silently slipped into the room, asking me to play some more with a smile—” Beca pauses to laugh suddenly, throwing a smirk over her shoulder at Chloe. “After I protested, she told me she wasn’t going to leave until I played.”
Chloe laughed too, remembering the notorious shower incident she shared with Beca.
“Anyway. Eventually, I caved and played. I thought I was terrible because I knew how good I was. She loved it. I ended up playing for her for a solid thirty minutes before the bell rang. I would have skipped the class again had it not been for the fact that it was her class.
It became a daily routine after that; I’d find time to sneak into the music room, and she’d find a way to come listen to me play – and it helped. I mean, I still struggled sometimes with all of the stress, but it was better than before. Sometimes, she’d get me to talk about things and it would help loosen me up some more. We talked about all kinds of stuff, from music and family relations, to school gossip and my immensely nerdy love for all things Greek mythology-”
Chloe smirks, unable to hold back her teasing, “Like Percy Jackson?”
“Hey, don’t even go there. I’m still really mad about what Uncle Rick did to Percabeth in Mark of Athena and House of Hades.”
Chloe laughs outright this time, Beca waiting until she’s silent again before continuing.
“So, yeah. She helped me get through the year, and inspired me to keep playing even when all I wanted to do was stop.”
Chloe sobers up after a moment because she distinctly remembers Beca telling her she stopped playing after her Nana passed away. She’s caught off-guard by Beca’s soft voice, the brunette turning to face her, fully dressed in a black bikini top and board shorts. The redhead cocks her head to the side, idly wondering to herself how she didn’t notice Beca getting changed.
“Miss Spencer had an accident a couple of months before we graduated, they said it was a drunk driver. The substitute they got us was nothing like her, and the few ounces of fight I had left in me were sucked right out because it felt like anyone I got close to that year left me in the most permanent way possible.”
Chloe’s heart constricted at the sight of Beca’s immense sadness. Nobody deserved what Beca had gone through in such a short span of time. The redhead turned to face the other Bella as she plopped down on the bed with a heavy sigh, Chloe’s hand lifting to squeeze Beca’s shoulder in support before dropping down.
“The fire was gone, but I still played. I couldn’t bring myself to stop altogether, like I would disappoint her. I went to Joshua the weekend after her accident was announced and I got this tattooed on my back. It’s the last two lines from one of her favorite poems that we discussed one time as I played the violin for her.”
They’re silent for a while after Beca stops speaking, and Chloe’s hesitant to bring up the case sitting inches from their hands. The way the ginger’s hands twitch must give her away because Beca turns to glance at it briefly before addressing Chloe.
“I asked Mom to ship it out to me. Ever since I played the piano for you, this has been on my mind. I was going to sneak out tonight after everyone was asleep and take it on a test run, see if I’ve still got it. I finally feel ready to do this again.”
Chloe watches, mesmerized, as Beca unhooks the latches and lifts the lid to reveal a gorgeous white violin with a black paisley pattern, clearly custom-made.
The brunette smiles wistfully, her fingers running along the instrument’s strings and delicately eliciting a faint tune.
“Mom had this made for me when I was four.” Beca smiles smugly at Chloe’s surprised look. “Yes, Red, I said four. I was that good, that soon.”
“You do realize that you’re not getting out of playing for me, right?”
Beca just rolls her eyes, closing the lid again before getting up to leave.
Chloe’s still seated on the bed, staring at the closed case with a thoughtful look on her face, so Beca takes a minute to just look – no, she tells herself, she wants to admire Chloe – while the ginger’s attention is elsewhere.
Beca’s too lost in her own thoughts that she doesn’t immediately notice that the redhead’s looking up at her until Chloe’s standing up in the minimal space between the brunette and the bed, the cheeky smirk on her lips letting Beca know she’s been caught staring again.
“Like what you see, Becs?”
The brunette mentally refuses to lose at this game again, and rises to the challenge. She leans in dangerously close to the ginger, internally giving herself a pat on the back for making Chloe’s breath catch in her throat. Beca maintains eye contact with Chloe’s slightly dilated baby blues as she leans in further, her hand moving past the redhead and grabbing something just as she leans in and husks something in Chloe’s ear.
“I’ve seen better.”
Chloe’s left sputtering as Beca steps back with a triumphant smirk, strutting away and out of the door. Chloe hears the other Bella’s laughter flow up the stairs as she hurriedly follows, a comeback of “You wish, Mitchell!” leaving her lips a few minutes too late.
It’s much later in the night when Chloe hears the creak of Beca’s door and gets up to follow.
She sits silently on the steps of the porch next to Beca, keeping her eyes straight ahead as Beca plays what she will later find out to be a song called Sari Gelin.
The pair stay out there until the wee hours of the dawn with only Beca’s soft tunes to keep them company as they watch the sunrise.
|
As he flies higher over peaks and passes, Wei Wuxian mentally rehearses what he will say to the dragon once he arrives at—well, he doesn’t know exactly where. Jin Guangshan hadn’t been more specific than ‘Qionglong Mountain’ and ‘dragon’ and ‘eggs.’ Obviously, when a dragon shows itself for the first time in a thousand years, shrieking and causing terror for the valley villages, there must be eggs involved. That’s what all the rumors say, and everyone knows to trust those.
There’s glory to be had, and Jin Guangshan’s favor, and—ah, Wei Wuxian daren’t forget to mention—a hefty purse to any fool who manages to snag an egg for the Jin sect leader. Surely, there are other ways for cultivators to earn glory, and a lot less riskier ways for them to die honorably.
Wei Wuxian isn’t seeking glory, nor does he want to die.
Who wouldn’t want to meet a dragon? Never mind that the mountain’s in Lan sect territory, and it would have been a terrible breach of propriety to send a bunch of random idiots there to hunt down a dragon. The Lan sect have already taken in any frightened evacuees from the nearby villages with immense grace, offering no explanation as to the dragon’s behavior or any of their own sightings. Most fascinating, none of their disciples nor their sect leader had seemed interested in getting to the root cause of the dragon’s appearance.
Instead, Lan Xichen had been placid and bemused, letting Jin Guangshan wile his way onto Lan sect territory. Such danger! Such opportunity! And, of course, the Lan sect could have one of the eggs, if any such cultivator managed to bring them both back.
Wei Wuxian shakes his head at the memory. A shame, then, that Wei Wuxian will be the only one to reach the dragon, and that he’ll be bringing no eggs back for anyone’s coffers (if they even exist at all!).
Around him, the mountain’s fog grows unnaturally dense and heavy—just like Lan Xichen told him it would. He grins triumphantly. Soft blue droplets of spiritual energy plick like rain onto his arms and body as he flies through a barrier shielding the peak of the mountain. It’s too old and attached to the land to remove without consequence, Lan Xichen had said. It will only allow someone of high morals and pure intentions to pass through. And then! The Lan sect leader winked at him!
Wei Wuxian scratches his nose and focuses on flying. As the fog lifts, revealing the rocky cliffs near the peak, he raises his cultivation higher until Suibian is buzzing softly under his feet and the cold yin energy of the mountains steams off of his skin. Up this high, the mountain’s rock face has been scored, little moist rivulets as if eroded by rain. If Wei Wuxian didn’t already have dragon on his mind, he may not have thought twice about them.
He focuses his senses, searching for any unnaturally high collections of energy inside of the mountain, eventually swooping and landing at the cliff’s edge of a cave. It’s hidden down, as if dug by some giant mountain worm. Sensing no killing intent within, Wei Wuxian lights a talisman and sends it forward.
There’s very little inside. Claw marks on the floor. A musky animal scent that permeates from everywhere. Nonsensically, some old scrolls and books lay in neat little piles. One of them lists every single rule of the Lan sect, and Wei Wuxian puts it back quickly in disgust. Of all the boring things to find in a dragon’s lair! What about treasures? Stolen virgins (he does not count himself as one, obviously). Eggs?
Wei Wuxian scratches at the top of his head, following the glowing talisman deeper into the cave until he finds the edge of a massive nest. It’s old but lovingly crafted; the evergreen branches are flaking and brittle, wild grasses dead and brown, the flowers woven alongside everything withered and dry. He dare not touch it. Instead, he pulls out his nub of charcoal and tanned hide booklet, sketching everything with precise wrist flicks.
After, he snaps his book closed and sighs, speaking aloud, “Jin-zongzhu will be so disappointed! Ah, it’s what he deserves.”
Wei Wuxian cannot staunch all of his curiosity. He goes on his tip-toes to peer over the edge of the nest, leaning on it lighter than a dragonfly. “Oh? Well, that makes sense!”
Give or take thirty years, maybe, whoever told those rumors may have been correct. Inside of the nest are the cracked remnants of two eggs. Their shells, even broken, are ethereal, iridescent and robin’s egg blue. A low throb of power remains attached to them—as old as the barrier around the peak and very dangerous.
Wei Wuxian hums to himself. They’d make a fine seal of power, imbued with so much natural energy from the mountain and the dragons themselves. He licks his lips once, then draws away from the nest. Only a few steps, far enough away to be able to hold his book open to draw an image of the scattered pieces. The talisman floats by his shoulder, giving the pages an eerie red wash.
“Well!” he chirps, tucking his book away once done. “Hopefully you’re both living very fine lives by now and nobody else ever stumbles upon this place with good intentions. This Wei Ying will leave you and be on his way now, ah? I saw nothing; I report nothing, everyone goes back to their normal lives and—”
Ominously, rocks fall from the mouth of the cave inward, disturbed suddenly by something. Wei Wuxian whirls with Suibian unsheathed, knocking the rocks that bounce inside into explosions of powdery nothing. The hiss of a massive, heaving creature comes nearer to the mouth of the cave. Wei Wuxian glances over his shoulder for an escape and sees nothing but cold rock. Ah, so this is why foxes dig exit holes in the backs of their dens.
At the last second, he tosses Suibian to the side and stands completely disarmed, dialing his cultivation all the way down to nothing and snuffing out the talisman. He also halfway considers jumping into the nest, but. Judging by the loud snuffling and breathing sounds, the dragon already knows he’s here. Her head twists into view at the entrance, followed by her neck and then her two front feet, claws clicking smoothly on the stone below.
Automatically, Wei Wuxian bows low. He holds the bow despite the back of his neck growing taut with fear, his inner knees and armpits prickling with sweat. The dragon pauses its slow creep towards him as he does so, making no sound.
“My name is Wei Ying, courtesy Wei Wuxian, first disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang sect,” Wei Wuxian introduces, lifting his head and showing his palms. He laughs quickly, unable to stop the rise of hysteria when his eyes meet the golden slits of the dragon above him, its pupils dilating.
“I… really hope you aren’t going to eat me,” he continues. “I’m all gristle. Not very good for that sort of thing. But if you would sit there and let me draw you, that would be a much better idea. Ah?” Slowly, he goes for his belt and the booklet and nub, wagging them at the dragon. “You’re very beautiful, after all.”
He means it. She’s white all over except for the pale blue of her belly and throat and paws, whiskers and white ruff flowing constantly with the same magic that allows her to fly without wings. Wei Wuxian opens the booklet, musing to himself. She seems to be observing him in return. Her unnatural stillness and piercing gaze belies intelligence, until the first press of his charcoal down onto the page. The growl she lets out vibrates down into the bones within his chest. “Easy, easy,” he murmurs, as if soothing a horse. Which. She’s a bit taller than the biggest Jiang carting horse, and of course much longer. At his words, she stills again.
Wei Wuxian relaxes minutely. Intelligence means escape—talking to or annoying people into doing what he wants happens to be his specialty. A dragon could prove to be no different. While his hand jumps all over the page, she shakes out her ruff and the fluffy end of her tail and walks even closer, the long middle of her body swaying. Every inhale wooshes; each exhale heats the air between them. In furtive glances, he draws the dark intelligence in her eyes, the widening pools of her pupils, the shading of redness around each golden iris—how drool has started dripping from the corners of her mouth. Wei Wuxian’s thighs tighten. He fights the urge to take multiple steps back.
By the time she’s close enough to bend her muzzle to the top of his head, he’s scribbled out a barely passable sketch and his fingers are twitching for Suibian. After training as a cultivator under Yu Ziyuan for so many years, the frozen fear response of adrenaline has long since been beaten out of him. He counts each breath, asking casually, “Were those your eggs, back there?”
The dragon’s eyes shift away dismissively. She begins walking around him, head twisting over his shoulders and leaving a line of viscous drool across his chest. Their gazes are level, but the rest of her body continues moving, encircling him. Trapping him.
Their eyes meet again. She shakes her head once, deliberately, no. “Are you going to eat me?” Again, no. The musky smell off her body is making him dizzy, cut through with something smokier, colder. Sandalwood? A low rumble goes through her directly into his chest. He spreads his fingers wide, laughing nervously as her nose pokes against his neck and then down his body to between his legs, where she breathes in. Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen, taking a sudden step back and into the hard softness of her body.
“Wait—” he begins. In front of him, the end of her body lifts, tail twisting sideways to reveal a swollen, oozing slit. “You’re. Entire villages have been evacuated because of you.” This dragon has intelligence. It can speak to him, if not in words. He thinks of the warmer seasons, when the Jiang marshes and Nie mountains are full of cries and chirps and screeches of all manner. Why should dragons be any different? “Is it—your mating season? You’re in heat?”
The dragon huffs at him. She nips the folds of his robes and slings him down forward by his chest. He catches himself in an awkward sprawl, legs spread wide, face right next to the dripping slit. The sweet odor of it reminds him of his own scent before he comes. Has she been desperate? Are there no male dragons left for her to mate with?
As he’s pondering, claws dig into the back of his robes and tear up, exposing him from behind. He yelps as he’s bared to the cold air, their positions reversed so her belly and slit are tucked in front of him. Although the stone is cold under his hands and knees, her body pulses with heat, bathing him in it. To scramble forward would be to ruin his knees; he's got no idea why she'd want him naked and facedown anyways, his brain moving so fast his body goes completely still.
The dragon makes another sound, a grumble growl of hunger, and spreads his cheeks wide open with her claws. He hisses. In the same moment that the pinpricks of pain pierce him, her tongue dips against his hole, a warm swipe massaging where he's confusingly sensitive. “Ah!” he shouts. “W-wait, why are you—”
Wei Wuxian can’t go forward with the claws holding him, and he can’t go up without bumping his head against her body. Something wet drips onto him. He muffles a whine into his elbow before looking up. Her slit has opened, revealing the pink insides and two openings on each side. As he watches, two small appendages start to emerge. They grow and grow, ridged and dripping, until their shape becomes unmistakably phallic. Wei Wuxian winces back as they throb, leering dangerously close to his face and mouth. He’s made a mistake.
“You’re male,” Wei Wuxian says wretchedly. He’s twitching back there against each flick of the dragon’s tongue and the heat is blistering through the rest of his body. It suddenly spears into him, pulsing across somewhere intensely sensitive. “Mmm—ahhh!” he strangles out, lurching forwards right into the dragon’s two cocks. Turning his head, he accidentally licks a bit of the slime that smeared off of one onto his lips and tries to close his legs.
The dragon hasn’t even paused for breath, making him absurdly wet and slippery feeling inside and out, drool thick and hot. “Stop,” he gasps, “Stop, it’s too much, too much!” He works his hole, not knowing what else to do, and the dragon’s hips twitch forward.
Wei Wuxian turns his head again. One of the cocks still manages to catch on the corner of his mouth, smearing slick across his bottom lip and cheek. He blushes harder than he ever has in his entire life. If he allows it, this dragon will definitely try to put one or both of those in his mouth!
“Why are you doing this!” Wei Wuxian gasp-yells, clenching down as hard as he can on the tongue. The dragon just works it through the tight clutch of muscle, sending sparks flying up his spine. Against his rim, the dragon groans, and humps at his face.
This time, he’s mid-gasp himself. A giant cock pierces the back of his throat, painting his esophagus with globs of that slimy liquid, before pulling away. He coughs and swallows at the same time. Dreams of returning to Lotus Pier with a lofty swagger have long since faded from his mind. The little doodles he did seem childish now. How will he ever show them off knowing this is what followed?
Knowing that he got used like this by some huge creature that doesn’t seem to care whether he gags or coughs or cries? Wei Wuxian lowers himself down onto his hands, head bowed. This way he can no longer be face fucked. The dragon rumbles against him and pulls its mouth away from his ass. He flexes around the emptiness, tender and sore. A small hiccup hitches out of him.
The dragon turns around and uses a single claw to roll him over. He covers his face for a moment before glaring openly at the creature, embarrassment twisting in his belly. Nonplussed, the dragon bends his head, tongue flicking out over Wei Wuxian’s lips, tasting himself and reminding Wei Wuxian where he was just licking.
“Don’t treat me like this!” Wei Wuxian snaps, head spinning, pushing the velvety-soft muzzle away. “I’m Wei Wuxian, head disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang sect, master of the six arts! I didn’t come here to get—molested! By some brute like you! What sort of dragon performs cutsleeve acts on the floor of a cave with a complete stranger—you can’t even speak to defend yourself, either. This is so—ah! Don’t!”
The dragon, having listened to his entire tirade as blank-faced as its reptilian face can get, suddenly bites down on the robes still tied across Wei Wuxian’s chest and shreds them apart and open. Wei Wuxian clings furiously to the two pieces and yanks them closed again, blushing. He thinks of Suibian and calling her into his hand as the dragon puffs hot air at him, like he’s being funny trying to protect his modesty.
Who said I do not speak? The voice rumbles right into Wei Wuxian’s skull. While Wei Wuxian clings, briefly struck silent, to the remainder of the robes over his chest, the dragon knocks his knees apart with its muzzle. The voice continues, with some censure, I apologize. I cannot entirely control myself when I am like this.
Wei Wuxian blink-blinks. It’s kind of a nice voice, huh. He doesn’t know what he would do if the voice happened to be ancient or garbled, as he once imagined. “I was right? You need a mate?”
It is natural to react, the dragon replies confusingly. His tongue tickles the tip of Wei Wuxian’s half-hard dick; in response, Wei Wuxian flinches automatically with pleasure. The dragon continues, You do not like my taste? I enjoyed yours.
Wei Wuxian gasps, lurching a little when the dragon breathes that dangerously hot air against his balls and lower, where his arousal has gathered; the aching desire to continue being eaten out is almost as surprising as how much comfort he feels in finally being spoken to. But he shouldn’t forget himself that easily. This is still a dragon.
“I’d rather you didn’t shove them into my mouth without asking,” Wei Wuxian grumbles. “Beast. Do you have a name? A greeting would have been nice.”
Amusement oils the next words into his mind, You may call me Lan Zhan. A pause. Allow me to put my cocks into your mouth?
Wei Wuxian covers his nipples and crosses his legs, eyes squeezing shut. He wishes he could somehow close the part of his brain that understands speech as well. That dragon just said cocks and it was so—so hot! “No,” he snaps, turning his head away but peeking one eye open.
Lan Zhan’s gaze darkens again, red-tinged around the white edges of his eyes. His pupils dilate. A growl shakes the cave around them. Wei Wuxian nearly calls Suibian before Lan Zhan fwumps his neck and head down so he can shove his tongue back into the tight crease of Wei Wuxian’s ass, pushing insistently until he butterflies his legs open with a moan. Like this, Wei Wuxian can watch the motions of Lan Zhan going deeper, biting his lip and whimpering little breaths in the bottom of his throat. His cock, softened slightly, fills back to full hardness and beads with precome.
From where Lan Zhan has curled the length of his body, Wei Wuxian can see the twin cocks still pushed from their slit and drooling onto the stone below. Unbidden, a vision of them replacing the tongue inside slices through his thoughts. One of his hands shoots down, grabbing and holding his dick because he’s gonna come. It jerks, thickening up in his grip. Lan Zhan thinks at him again: inside, inside, inside. The two of them twined together, mating, pleasure to make them both ascend to the heavens.
“No, you can’t,” he gasps, breaths humid against his palm as he mashes his hand to his face, unable to contain how much he’s feeling. “You’re too—ahhfuckcoming!”
Lan Zhan leaves one last sloppy lick against his pulsing hole and then drinks up the release splashed across Wei Wuxian’s heaving, concaving belly. Colors swirl in Wei Wuxian’s vision. Small blue lights, like the energy of the mountain’s barrier, float around them, illuminating the darkness of the cave. Ah, that’s what he was seeing. There’s a loud heave of movement—Lan Zhan is breathing louder, eager-sounding. It trills a burst of fear through Wei Wuxian. If Lan Zhan were a dog, surely he’d be panting. Before his mind can go any further down that rabbit hole, his eyes cross, realizing the two cocks are hanging down heavy over his face.
Lan Zhan’s body is so long, he must twist off to the side to be able to achieve this position. It doesn’t seem very comfortable. Wei Wuxian hesitates to touch the cocks, but Lan Zhan hasn’t yet shoved them in his mouth, so at least he’s listening and being polite. It gives Wei Wuxian time to think, mind projecting to all the different spring books he’s ever seen in his life. He swallows and asks, voice hoarse already, “Can you get in a different position?”
Awareness, like the confused hum following a question, seeps across his mind.
“I’ll suck you,” he clarifies. “That’s what you want, right?”
With a low growl of mn, Lan Zhan steps over Wei Wuxian’s face to turn and sits up against the cave wall, body looping twice as he holds himself upright. Wei Wuxian goes and sits on his bare knees in front of him. He’s suffered worse.
Do not do it if you think of it as suffering, Lan Zhan replies, eyes narrowing above him.
That makes Wei Wuxian laugh and shake his head. “Even you cannot make me do something I do not truly wish to do.” Lan Zhan’s eyes narrow even further. A hot lick of emotion touches Wei Wuxian briefly, then gets tucked away.
Shaking his head again, Wei Wuxian takes a moment to let down his hair and re-tie it as tight as it can go. He spends these transitional moments trying to rationalize why the sight of the heavy dragon cocks engorged out of their slit is making his stomach growl, mouth water, and balls tighten with arousal. Another breathy giggle escapes him. His hand wanders down the smooth, shiny bands of Lan Zhan’s underbelly to the hot, dripping slit. Scooping, he tests the weight of one cock. Like a turgid white radish. It leaks sticky on him.
“Don’t worry,” Wei Wuxian demurs, soothing. “This Wei Ying will take good care of each little Lan Zhan.”
He sucks the tip in. Lan Zhan, with a fierce growl, bucks his hips and hits the back of Wei Wuxian’s throat immediately. His esophagus contracts, making an embarrassing hurk sound as he gags. The dragon pulls slightly out, then thrusts back in again. Teary-eyed, Wei Wuxian’s hand frantically grabs around the cock and holds it tight around one of the ridges. Unfortunately, this tight grip only seems to spur Lan Zhan on. He quickly ruts against Wei Wuxian’s face.
The other cock rubs against his cheek and ear, and he switches them out when Lan Zhan will allow it. Wei Wuxian forgets theory and the images of all the spring books he’s ever seen; he went to some dark and quiet place after Lan Zhan put one giant clawed paw onto the back of his head and used it to push. Every time he chokes, Lan Zhan lets out a low, soothing noise of his own, musical rumbles like praise. Like, good boy, gag some more around me.
Enough, Wei Ying, the dragon says after a shimmery amount of time.
Wei Wuxian’s jaw creaks as the claws tighten to peel him off the cock, mouth and throat softened and slick. He takes quick, gurgly gulps of fresh air, lips throbbing. The darkness slowly opens back to light as he becomes aware of the stiffness of his spine, lower back and knees needling pain. But he thinks if he touched himself right now, he would come within two strokes. His thighs tense as he holds himself off. Lan Zhan nuzzles against his cheek and twines his upper body around Wei Wuxian’s. I will go inside of you now.
Wei Wuxian shudders. Something about him has been irreparably changed. Arousal builds in his cock and balls, as usual, but there is an emptiness inside, where he hadn’t realized he could be filled. Where he hadn’t realized he could ache, and want. “Be gentle with me,” Wei Wuxian says, voice like grinding two rocks together. “I’ve never done this before.”
Lan Zhan’s head hangs over his shoulder, whisker tickling his cheek. He peers at Wei Wuxian with one hunger-filled golden eye, nudging at his raw lips with a sort of tenderness. It will be even more difficult for me to control myself once I am inside, he says. The way he’s holding Wei Wuxian up underneath his arms, he seems to intend to spear him directly on one or both cocks. Wei Wuxian trembles. “J-just one, I think. The first time. Yeah? Lan Zhan, have mercy.”
You will learn, Lan Zhan replies, ominous. Then he lowers Wei Wuxian down, held within the warm grip of his body, both of them panting and excited in their own ways. The tip of the first cock slides up, catching on his hole. Wei Wuxian squirms on it; Lan Zhan groans encouragingly. From the view Wei Wuxian has of the dragon over his shoulder, he sees as the next crest of heat overtakes him. Drool slips from between the peaks of Lan Zhan’s teeth, sliding down Wei Wuxian’s chest. He growls, pupils blown wide into unseeing pools.
Wei Wuxian gasps, “Lan Zhan—” and it breaks off to a squeak when Lan Zhan drops him to meet the thrust of his first cock.
Words abandon him. Wei Wuxian tries to shoot upright to escape the burning shaft and cannot, impaled and trapped as he is with his legs swinging rather uselessly in midair. He moans helplessly. “Lan Zhan! Too big! Take it out!” His chest shakes with every breath, Is he crying? He’s too warm everywhere, unable to tell.
Apologies, Lan Zhan says again, strangled even in Wei Wuxian’s mind. I cannot—I must—
Wei Wuxian digs fingers into the soft hard flesh of Lan Zhan’s body where it's wrapped around his middle, trying desperately to catch his breath. He throws his head back as Lan Zhan begins to pump into him. It stirs up some of the wetness inside where Lan Zhan ate him out. The cock, too, pours warm globlets in. Before Wei Wuxian can even fully process what has happened, the slide slickens up enough to lessen the burning stretch of it, and Lan Zhan fits in more.
“Don’t do this,” Wei Wuxian babbles, struggling lightly. “I’m a virgin, gege, I’m not, we can’t do it like this.”
How would you prefer we do it? Lan Zhan replies, winded but slightly more cognizant now that he’s been inside for longer than a few seconds. Wei Wuxian winces again when Lan Zhan grows bigger inside at the mention of him being a virgin, gege. Wei Wuxian shakily flings a piece of sweaty hair off of his shoulder and back in line with the rest. He arches his back, body aching, and knows what he wants. “You’re holding me so tightly, gege. Think you can let me go? Sit me on top?”
Lan Zhan sends a flicker of an image to ensure they’re both thinking of the same position. Wei Wuxian nods frantically, a bit abashed at how Lan Zhan imagined him: flushed down to his navel, dripping in sweat, eyes huge and hungry, dark nipples tight. Gently, Lan Zhan unwinds, letting Wei Wuxian cling to his belly instead. He loops up, like he did before, to remain close.
Wei Wuxian presses both palms to Lan Zhan’s scalding stomach, taking a moment to catch his breath. It won’t be long to savor this. Surely, another wave of heat will strike Lan Zhan and he will be unable to control himself. They stare at each other.
Wei Ying, Lan Zhan says, voice heavy with subtext and praise.
Flinging his ponytail back again to catch onto the sheen of sweat across his shoulders, Wei Wuxian gives him a bold little smile and begins sitting up straight. The grin falters as he slides back deeper onto the cock. Lan Zhan watches intently as he struggles with it, before ordering, touch yourself. Without thinking, Wei Wuxian does so. He rolls his hand fully down the soft squeeze of his own cock while writhing further onto Lan Zhan’s. “It’s too hard,” he gasps, overfull even though he has more to go.
You asked for this, Lan Zhan reminds him.
“I didn’t!” Wei Wuxian cries. “You came in here—tore my clothes off—stuck your tongue inside of me! M-made me come. Made me like this. I never would have done anything like this in my life if you hadn’t—” He gasps as his ass touches Lan Zhan’s underbelly all of a sudden, fully seated. Automatically, he reaches down to touch where the fullness has gone so deep, and jolts when his free hand brushes against the bulge poking out his belly from inside. Head bowing, he groans, “Ohhh, fuck.”
Lan Zhan makes a crooning, agreeable sound. Wei Wuxian tilts his hips forward and tries to rise up onto his knees, to get more of that friction, to fuck himself like his instincts are telling him to do. But he can barely inch off the cock. He whines in frustration. Easy, Lan Zhan says. The fluffy end of his tail brushes across Wei Wuxian’s middle, teasing the throbbing end of his cock, and wraps around him.
Wei Wuxian sighs happily—he did miss being held, although now he’s in much the same position as before, with Lan Zhan able to lift and move him at will. He finds—maybe he doesn’t mind it so much? His hips roll of their own accord, following the natural rhythm his body craves. The tail offers leverage, easing the strain of his thighs and knees. “Like that, yeah,” he sighs, pleasure building the more he rides.
Lan Zhan sends him an image of how he looks: fucking himself on Lan Zhan’s cock like he was made for it, mouth hanging open as he pants with abandon. He remembers working his hole around Lan Zhan’s tongue and how good it felt and does so again. They both flinch; Lan Zhan’s lips pull back from his teeth, a low growl slipping through. Wei Wuxian can feel every single ridge rubbing raw against his inner walls. Rubbing, all of a sudden, over the sensitive little nub Lan Zhan found earlier and then never again.
Wei Wuxian’s entire cock pulses wildly alongside his heartbeat. Touch yourself, Lan Zhan demands. Wei Wuxian sobs, obeying as fast as he can. When he strokes down his length to the tip, he finds it dripping constantly with every push across that spot. The liquid pools onto Lan Zhan’s belly, oozing down his body. Wei Wuxian strips his cock, fucking his fist frantically, so close to the best orgasm of his life that he can’t focus on or see anything else, doesn’t notice the haze falling over Lan Zhan’s expression. The riding is no longer enough for him.
Wei Wuxian, somehow, gets dumped back down onto all fours. He wails. The images Lan Zhan sends next are blood smeared, full of unrestrained wildness. They are all of Wei Wuxian: his broad shoulders bitten and clawed, the twin globes of his ass marked much the same, his hole stretched around two cocks and taut to the point where it looks like it will break. He moans down into the damp crease of his elbow as Lan Zhan snarls and mounts him. The first cock goes in smoothly, returning where it's already made a home. The second one catches, but then just rubs uselessly against the soreness of his ass.
“Both,” he moans wretchedly. “I want them both! Like you showed me—I want them—”
Grinding on top of him, Lan Zhan has gone even deeper, but he’s still missing that spot. Wei Wuxian sobs, cock spitting up a little dribble in memory of before. He plants both hands down onto the stone and glares up at Lan Zhan, twisted backwards to watch himself fucking Wei Wuxian. “I can take it gege, I can, I promise.”
The empty, only-live-to-fuck look clears from Lan Zhan’s expression again. Earlier, you said you could not take even one. He continues drilling that one cock into Wei Wuxian as his hole goes practically numb from it. It is forbidden to lie. Wei Wuxian shivers, clenching down in retaliation for the teasing lilt in the dragon’s voice. He smirks when Lan Zhan snarls as his hips stutter in their rhythm.
“Keep going with just the one, and I’ll make you come—and then I’ll leave—and you’ll never know what it’s like for me to take both,” Wei Wuxian says, panting and looking obstinately up at Lan Zhan. His golden core burns bright, muscles reenergizing. Power flows through him; he flexes his inner muscles and rolls back into Lan Zhan’s thrusts, watching as the dragon struggles to continue speaking and hold his pace. He sighs again, groaning as Lan Zhan slams into him particularly hard. “I know it feels good inside of me, gege. Let them both have a chance…”
You do not know what you’re asking for, Lan Zhan replies, gritting out the words even in the mind space. Wei Wuxian arches his back as far as possible and wiggles his ass shamelessly. He’s never thought about his ass in any sort of sexual way, but marked up and stuffed full from Lan Zhan’s point of view, it did look rather tempting. ”So what… you’ve already ruined me, gege. I’ll never be the same, I’ll never want anyone else ever again.” Blinking at himself, he realizes he’s telling the truth. Lan Zhan senses it, too.
With a gut-twisting snarl, Lan Zhan rears his hips back far enough for the second cock to align and become flush with the second. Both their tips rest comfortably in the soft gape of Wei Wuxian’s hole, before sinking in together.
Wei Wuxian bites down onto his own forearm, the low noise that trembles out him just as animalistic as Lan Zhan’s groans. About halfway, Lan Zhan loses his wits for a slow, gentle opening. He plunges them both inside at once. Wei Wuxian’s vision whites out. If he screams, he does so without any sound. The swollen spot inside of him gets rubbed against mercilessly and his cock, also swelled to the point of hurting, begins to jerk and come without permission.
Lan Zhan pulls the front of his body backwards until his spine arches toward the ceiling and he can sink his front claws into Wei Wuxian’s hips. “LanZhan, LanZhan,” Wei Wuxian slurs. He paws weakly at the ground. “Feels so much, I—I can’t even—” His hole throbs softly, unable to even try and clench anymore. “Finish in me—I wanna take you home with me, gege, carry you inside of me for—”
Teeth sink into his shoulder, a savage bite that bursts pain into heat into warmth. Wei Wuxian surprises himself by shrieking loudly, cock dripping a few more droplets of spend, as Lan Zhan licks the bite and stiffens and then spills a flood deep inside of him. Wei Wuxian grabs a hold of his belly as it swells with cum. He lays there, gasping like a fish out of water, until Lan Zhan deigns to pull out. The wet slurp that follows is truly embarrassing—but Lan Zhan sends an image of the gaping pink rawness of his hole and the creamy gush bubbling out, rumbling with approval.
His tongue flicks out, brushing against Wei Wuxian’s puffy rim. Amusement rolls through him as Wei Wuxian gasps and full-body flinches. “Enough, you beast,” he says. “Aiya, this bite! How could you!”
Lan Zhan doesn’t reply. There’s suddenly a brighter light up the walls of the cave, brighter than the blue sparks Lan Zhan summoned for them earlier, and then the most handsome man Wei Wuxian has ever seen is crouching next to him and patting at the bite with a white handkerchief.
“You were not all gristle,” this man—Lan Wangji, Lan Xichen’s younger brother, says.
Wei Wuxian stares at him, mouth open, until Lan Zhan’s face softens into a little smile and he squeezes at the bite, making Wei Wuxian wince. “Ow! Y-you! Lan Xichen practically served me to his brother on a silver platter! His brother, a dragon! You could have killed me! Ow!” He lays back down on his side and covers up his burning face, willing his golden core to work faster to heal whatever taking two massive dragon dicks did to his asshole. “This is so…”
Lan Zhan pets his hair. “Brother is meddlesome,” he agrees. “I apologize. Does it hurt badly?”
“Yes, of course,” Wei Wuxian moans. He peeks at Lan Zhan, somehow dressed fully in his Lan sect robes post dragon-shift, and crinkles his brow scoldingly. “Take responsibility. I made a big scene about coming here just in case there was a dragon and some eggs because nobody should have any business bothering them, but all I got was one of the Twin Jades in dragon form trying to fuck me to death during his heat.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan replies, staring down at him with complete fondness. “I believe we must be married, now. Dragons mate for life.” He takes off his outermost layer and drapes it over Wei Wuxian’s sweat and cum-covered form while Wei Wuxian chokes and coughs, “Excuse me!?”
Lan Zhan nods at him. “Have you met my uncle, Lan Qiren?”
Wei Wuxian covers his face again, forced to think of Lan Zhan’s family while cum continues oozing out of his ass, belly sloshing full of it. He just did so many dirty things at once, and now he’s to be married to a dragon who is actually a gorgeous man when he didn’t even know he was a cutsleeve. Whining, he nods slowly. Tilts his head up at Lan Zhan. “Before we get married, can I ask you something?”
Rather pathetically, Wei Wuxian manages to sit upright. Lan Zhan watches him just as intently as he did in dragon form, head dipping in agreement. Wei Wuxian sidles closer, touching a hand to Lan Zhan’s chest, hot enough that it burns him through the five layers that remained on. Underneath them, his future husband’s heart is racing. “Will you kiss me?”
Lan Zhan breaths out a soft laugh at him through his nose. “I will do anything you ask from now on,” he says, leaning in so their lips barely touch, eyes burning with passion. “Starting with this.”
They kiss.
THE END
This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!
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Tsuna first noticed the strangeness surrounding him when he was young, about five years in age. His mother would always do whatever he wanted whenever he said something, meaning to or not. He didn't understand it at first nor did he really like it (because he knew deep down, it wasn't right, none of it was). It unnerved him and gave him the shivers, feeling like he had done something completely and utterly abnormal.
"Mama, can I have that toy?"
Nana, his darling mother who was oblivious to the entire world, shook his head. "No, Tsuna, wait until next week. You have plenty of toys to play with right now."
Tsuna pouted, looking like he was going to throw a fit, and gave a single sniff. "But I want it."
It was then that the strangest thing happened: Nana just smiled, spinning right back towards him from where she had been gazing down the cereal section. "Okay, Tsuna." Without batting an eyelash, she did another spin and reached over to grab said toy, placing it directly into the shopping cart. It was like she had moved automatically, without thought, and went right back to shopping.
Tsuna had stared in wonder, unsure as to why his mother had suddenly changed her mind just like that. He couldn't help but shiver at the strangeness of it all and it only continued from there. Of course, it took him a while to figure out that it wasn't the people, but he himself that was causing all the weirdness.
He tested it out a couple more times on his mother and each and every time he got exactly what he wanted. Further testing it as he was getting suspicious about what exactly he could apparently do, he then went to his neighbors. He only did minor requests, from entering their home to getting them to make him a snack. It was simple stuff. He didn't have the heart to make them do something horrible. As he got older, he found he could understand people clearly like the veil around them was wide open. It was like he was reading the wording in their minds, their expressions, their movements, everything. It came to him so easily and effortlessly like he was breathing air. It just happened one day and though he wasn't hearing any words, he could just...tell. He knew everything about the person on the first initial meeting before even speaking to said individual. Like anything, it had its advantages and, of course, disadvantages.
He decided that it had to be some sort of intuition and as he explored that ability further, much like his control one, he found that he knew when something bad was going to happen to him. It was like a tingle of sensations, a whispering of words in the back of his mind, telling him things, motioning him towards some direction. He only needed one incident to figure out that his intuition was always correct and that it should be trusted completely, never ignored. That very incident had him scarred for life, both for understanding his intuition and just how far his powers could actually go (the disadvantages).
He hadn't meant it.
He hadn't meant any of it, of what he said, but he had been so angry, so filled with hate, that he had blurted out the death sentence without actually thinking. It was the first and last time he would ever let himself get so blinded by rage.
He had been mentally cautioned by his intuition on walking down his regular pathway home, warning bells ringing in the back of his mind. Without really thinking, he had pushed it bluntly aside and forgotten about the whole matter. He was tired and simply wanted to get home to sleep the rest of the day away. School had been rough earlier, his tests returning with red single digits, and his classmates teasing him endlessly for it in return. He should have known it wouldn't have ended that easily. Still, he didn't listen to the warnings.
Tsuna had only been ten years old.
Right in his path were three bullies, all ready to take him on and make his life for that day a living hell. Tsuna paled at the sight, knowing he had been caught the moment their eyes met. He couldn't escape, not this close to them, and so he sighed reluctantly to his impending fate. It wasn't like it really mattered at this point.
He was beaten, spat on, cursed at. The words of a child could still sting as much as an adult's and Tsuna felt his spirits lowering in defeat. Eventually, something bubbled in the pit of his stomach: anger. It wasn't a sensation he was familiar with, keeping a carefree life excluding his school days and living in a happy world with his sweet yet oblivious mother. Grinding his teeth, he knew he didn't want any of this. He didn't want to be some play thing for someone else. He wanted to be free and so, he lashed out.
"Why don't you all go home and just kill yourselves? Why can't you just leave me alone?!"
He screamed out of rage, tearing up from both the physical and mental pain he was experiencing. He cried and cried, never noticing the way the boys surrounding him had stopped, going completely and creepily still like dolls. Slowly, they marched away, heading towards opposite directions, and leaving Tsuna all alone in the now empty street.
The brunet didn't start moving until an hour later and didn't realize what exactly he had done until the next day when it all came back to him.
It was that very next day that he had learned of his three bullies' horrific death and realized just how powerful he is. The three boys' had hung themselves in their bedrooms from the ceiling fan and the talk of how it had happened on the same day around the very same time spread like wildfire among Namimori gossip.
Tsuna fell silent, knowing that he had been the cause of everything. Despite that, he didn't speak up about the incident, keeping it enclosed within himself. How could he? No one would believe him and then there was his power... He couldn't reveal it or what he had done. He was scared. He had seen the horror shows of experimentations, the animated TV shows, movies of superheroes, everything that had nothing but terror towards people of his kind. He wasn't even sure if it was real or not, but then that wouldn't explain much on his part.
So, in the end, he decided to watch everything he did while keeping his abilities and what he had done an absolute secret. He kept completely to himself, refusing to let anyone know about him. Not many questioned his sudden silence, considering he didn't really have any friends in the first place, and that suited him just fine. If people weren't close to him, then they would never find out the truth. His mother, Nana, never questioned his behavior, smiling along as if nothing was ever wrong. It was something he didn't like, but had no choice but to take advantage of.
Still, his curiosity over his powers grew. He needed to control them entirely so that another incident like before would never happen again and that meant using them to know where his limits were (if there were any). He experimented further on people, testing his limits, and in the end, found that nothing really mattered. He had complete and utter control of a person and it didn't matter where they went. They obeyed everything he told them, regardless if it was in person or through a phone or even just mentally thinking it towards them. Apparently, Tsuna had learned that he could telepathically control people as long as he could picture their faces, which wasn't hard considering his strange yet powerful intuition.
Now, he couldn't actually read their minds or move objects, both of which Tsuna was grateful for. He didn't want any more powers to deal with.
Furthermore, when controlling his victim, the individual would remember it in a way like it was their decision or forget the whole thing like it was some type of dream. He could even command someone to forget everything, never remembering details like their names or birthdays if he wished for it. Tsuna didn't like that and would immediately reverse the damage.
It was strange how much power he held and yet he refused to abuse it. He didn't want to become a villain like those shows/movies. He wanted to be a hero, but with what he could do, that wasn't possible. How could someone that controlled people's minds be a good person? There could only be evil. People would never give him a chance before reacting negatively first.
It was a harsh realization that Tsuna knew he not only had to hide his identity, but he needed to disappear entirely so that no one would ever be able to find him. No one could know about him, no one at all. Sawada Tsunayoshi could no longer exist.
He had only been eleven, a year after the incident, when he found that out and slowly he began to plan. He couldn't stay in a place like Namimori anymore, a place where gossip traveled fast and everyone knew everyone. Hiding in such a place was impossible. People would begin to notice if he began to wander about after erasing their memories about him.
So it took careful planning, various ideas, maneuvering with his powers, before it was finally achieved.
When he was sixteen, Sawada Tsunayoshi no longer existed in Namimori or any public government system. He had become a ghost.
Ding. Dong.
Charlie Harrison, a filthy rich man that made his riches on oil, raised an eyebrow questionably. He hadn't been expecting any guests tonight and by the look of his family, neither had they. Not only that, he had the finest security gate system and he hadn't been alerted of someone being at the entrance.
Slowly getting up from his spot at the dinner table, Charlie went towards the front door of the house and peeked outside through the eyehole to see if there was anyone on the other side. There standing at his doorstep was a young looking brunet, probably in his late teens. He was obviously Asian by the features, a foreigner here in Italy, and yet he looked so helpless by the way he stood. Curious, the man opened the door. "Yes? Can I help you?"
The teenager smiled, "I would like to come in please."
Charlie blinked once before breaking out into a smile. "Of course, come in. Come in!" He opened the door wider, welcoming the brunet. Tsuna, obviously stepped in, pleased. It hadn't taken much for him vanish completely from Japan, his records all gone. The only thing left was to find his father, who he suspected was somewhere in the dark world, which would explain his disappearance from the brunet's life.
He had managed to get to Italy by coercing a rich businessman to buy him a plane ticket and it had been so simple too. His mother and all of Namimori, Japan, no longer remembered him. He had made sure to clearly put an order into his dear mother's mind to be happy, join her friends, to travel, to do everything to live and no longer by weighed down by him or his useless father. The freedom he had now after escaping was unlimited and for the first time in a long while, he felt pleased.
Charlie and Tsuna sauntered towards the dining room where the household wife and two of their children were at. The wife immediately stood up, staring at the teen questionably before turning to her husband. "Honey, who's that?"
"I'm going to be your dear guest." Tsuna spoke and watched as the wife just nodded her head in return. She went around the table and pulled out a chair for him to sit. The brunet followed. "Hope you don't mind but I'll be staying here for a few months. If anyone asks about me, just tell them that I'm the son of an old acquaintance that needs a place to stay while in Italy. My father doesn't want me to live alone."
Charlie just grinned, settling into his seat at the dinner table. "That won't be a problem. Of course, you can stay here. We'd absolutely love it, won't we, Honey?"
The wife nodded her head cheerfully as she clapped her hands together. "Absolutely! We have plenty of spare bedrooms for you to choose from. Stay as long as you'd like."
Tsuna chuckled, "Yes, thank you."
A year and a half had passed, Tsuna now seventeen, independent, and living on his own (if one considered residing in other people's homes as such). He didn't have much of a choice in this lifestyle, but he didn't hate it either.
If anything, he hated his powers, he hated his ability over people, and yet refused to wish it away. He knew there were evil people out there that would take advantage of it and make innocents do absolutely horrible things, things that he has seen from movies to real life. All Tsuna needed was some shelter and food to keep himself going. Sometimes, he would ask for money, but never more than what he needed. Obviously, he mainly targeted the rich and even individuals that were considered vile by society. Money that disappeared on their accounts barely dented their balances.
Of course, Tsuna didn't mind using his powers to straighten them out. If someone was doing drugs, he would command them to stop or place an imprint of a memory, one that would always make them feel sick to their stomach, whenever they abused. If they were stealing (depending on the matter and why) or harming people, he would command them to turn themselves in and surrender all information regarding their crimes.
Other times, Tsuna met those that didn't deserve to live any longer.
Rapists, murderers, terrorists, etc, etc. He simply told them to confess all their crimes before taking their own lives. Tsuna had learned very quickly that those with impulses, especially the darker evils, were still there underneath the command. Though he told them to stop, they would for a while before it would just...restart. Tsuna knew what he did was terrible, taking a person's life, putting their very fate into his bare hands, but he also knew how the world worked. People could get away with anything, money being the answer to everything. They would be sentenced to jail for a few years, get out early, or just simply walk away despite everything pointing towards the guilty individual. He couldn't allow that, he didn't want to see people get hurt, and so he intervened and then had them commit suicide. It was the easiest way to take care of everything and leave his hands clean of the mess.
As the year went on, he saved many people's lives, but ended just as many. He liked to think he rescued more, helped more. It was what kept him mentally sane and move forward.
Tsuna really despised his powers, completely detested it with every inch of his being, but he still wouldn't give it to anyone else. It was his burden to bear and his burden to maintain.
The fucking world should be pretty damn happy that he's such a nice individual and didn't want to watch it burn to the ground for all that it's done to him. Oh well.
|
“Feeling better?” Merlin asks while he runs his hand through Arthur’s hair.
“You know I am,” Arthur replies from where he’s resting his head on Merlin’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. He sighs and nuzzles into Merlin’s T-shirt.
And of course, Merlin did sense the gradual shift in Arthur, how he went from frantic and panicked to devastated and hopeless and then, finally, surrendered.
“I do. I just wanted to make sure,” he explains, pressing a kiss to his hair. Arthur moves then, shifting to rise up high enough to be able to turn his head and look at Merlin, staying pressed against his body.
While still sad, his eyes sparkle. “You’re so good to me,” he murmurs, brushing his fingers against Merlin’s cheek. “You’re always there for me, by my side.”
Merlin grasps his wrist, stilling the movement, and turns to press a kiss to it, sliding his lips over the pulse-point. It picks up ever so slightly.
“You deserve it. That and so much more.” Arthur shivers against him and Merlin’s body follows suit.
“Don’t leave me,” Arthur begs. Merlin snaps to attention.
“I won’t,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Arthur shakes his head and Merlin struggles to breathe at the wave of emotion. He holds Arthur tighter.
“No, I mean... Don’t leave me. Please.”
Oh. Oh...
“Arthur. Look at me,” he orders gently, urging him with a finger to his chin.
Glassy blue eyes lock onto his. “I’m not going anywhere,” he repeats in a more profound tone of voice.
Arthur closes his eyes, a single tear breaking free and spilling over, and he surges up to kiss Merlin like a man dying of thirst.
Feeling the same desperation, Merlin pulls him closer, yearning to feel the heat of his body and the beating of his heart against his.
Arthur swipes his tongue over his lips, asking permission, and Merlin grants his wish, opening up to him. He searches out Merlin’s tongue, moaning at the first taste of him and Merlin repeats the sound like an echo. He shifts his legs slightly apart, Arthur slotting in between and lets himself sink into the bed, the weight of Arthur’s body pressing him down and holding him in place.
Arthur’s hand slips under the hem of his tee, pressing against the warm skin of his stomach.
He pulls away, just far enough to speak, lips brushing together.
“Ok?”
Merlin’s nodding before the word leaves Arthur’s lips.
He can see Arthur smile, a bit sheepish, a bit shy, but the feeling of nervous anticipation that hits him has him hold his breath at what Arthur is planning.
As though hearing Merlin’s thoughts, Arthur lifts himself off his chest in order to shift lower and press his lips against the raised edge of his hip bone. Merlin’s stomach flexes on reflex and he can feel Arthur smile against the skin.
Then, his hand is inching higher, pulling the T-shirt up with it and his lips follow in the same direction.
“Arthur,” he breathes, slipping his fingers through Arthur’s hair, loving the silky feel of it.
Arthur looks up. “Lift your arms?” he says like a question and Merlin obliges, trying to hoist himself up to get rid of the fabric. He does manage, although judging by the amused sound coming from Arthur, he must look very funny.
Arthur resumes his previous ministrations, kissing over Merlin’s stomach, up to his chest. He swipes a thumb over his left nipple, gauging Merlin’s reaction. Merlin jerks against him, a surprised gasp torn from his throat. Seemingly satisfied with the response, Arthur replaces his thumb with his mouth, sucking on the nub gently.
“Arthur,” Merlin begs, for anything, really. Arthur moans loudly from where he is and Merlin knows he must feel what Merlin’s feeling.
“Merlin,” he says in a dark voice. “Show me.”
Merlin blinks dazedly, trying to switch his brain back on. “Show you what?”
“Everything.”
He wants... oh... oh, shit.
Suddenly more coherent, Merlin pushes through the fog of desire to look properly at the man.
“Arthur. Are you-... You’re sure?” he holds his gaze, praying that Arthur understands what he’s asking of him.
Arthur raises on his elbows to press a hungry kiss to Merlin’s mouth. “Everything,” he repeats and finally, Merlin lets the channel run loose.
Arthur trembles nearly violently in his arms, his body like a furnace and pupils blown wide, the blue of his irises very much invisible. He looks down at Merlin like he wants to devour him and Merlin... Merlin wants to let him.
“Can... can I...” Arthur tries with difficulty. “Can I do it too?”
Merlin gives him an adoring smile, brushing the damp hair off his forehead. “Oh, Arthur,” he says. “I always feel what you feel.”
Arthur makes a noise like he’s in pain, which Merlin knows is not the case, and steals his breath away with one more, demanding kiss before he’s gone, taking the addictive heat of his body with him.
Next, his hands are on the waistband of Merlin’s sweats, unmoving.
Merlin lifts his head to look down at him, breath getting stuck in his throat at the sight of Arthur hovering over his groin.
Arthur licks his lips. “Okay?” he asks again and this time, Merlin hesitates.
“Are you... Do you want to?”
Arthur gives him a smile that is both fond and that describes just how ridiculous he thinks the question. “What do you think?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay, stupid question,” he admits as a wave of want slams into him.
“It is,” Arthur agrees.
“Hey!” Merlin complains. “Give me a break, will you? I’m dying here.”
“Well then, you idiot, stop fretting and let me suck your cock.” And before he’s able to retort back, Arthur has managed to pull his pants down and his breath is hot on Merlin’s cock.
He hesitates then, looking up to check with Merlin one more time. And this time, Merlin can only nod.
Arthur nods in response and without further warning, he drags his lips up the length, from the base to the tip where he wraps them around the head and gives it a gentle, experimental suck.
Merlin makes a keening noise, which seems to cause Arthur’s enthusiasm to grow. A bit bolder, he slides his mouth down Merlin’s cock, then comes to an abrupt stop as his gag reflex kicks in. He pulls off of him, coughing a little.
“Easy, Arthur,” Merlin soothes, raising a hand to caress at his cheek. “Don’t push yourself.”
“’m not,” he defends with a blush and Merlin’s heart flutters at his obvious embarrassment. It’s so very cute. “It’s just... you made it seem so easy,” he says with a frown.
“It’s not,” says Merlin. “But practice makes perfect.”
His frown deepens and he grows irritated.
“Arthur,” Merlin goes for a save. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. We’ll do something else.”
“No, I want to do this. I want to do this to you,” he insists and Merlin is rendered nearly speechless by the intensity of Arthur’s desire and determination. “Plus, you just said practice makes perfect.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Arthur,” he tries, his throat like desert. “You don’t have to-”
“I want to,” he stresses. “I want to make you feel good.”
“You are. I always feel good when I’m with you.”
The determination on Arthur’s face shifts into something softer as he looks at Merlin.
“Merlin, you big sap.” And with that, he engulfs Merlin in his wet heat again, making him choke on an inhale. This time, when he inches his mouth lower to take him deep, he does so with control, testing the waters. He makes it about four inches before he stops, breathing through his nose. He wraps his fingers around the rest of him that he can’t take in yet and pulls back up.
“I think I’ve got it now,” he announces proudly and takes Merlin in again, setting up a rhythm.
While coming apart at the seams, Merlin can’t help but feel amused by the perfectionism Arthur tends to bring to everything he does. He wants to tell him that he doesn’t need to try so hard. Wants to remind him of the last message he got on his cup - that he doesn’t need to be perfect to be amazing. This doesn’t need to be perfect to be amazing.
It already is.
But the eagerness is so endearing that Merlin can’t bring himself to say anything. He just contents himself with sending a tendril of praise to Arthur and is rewarded for it when Arthur moans around his cock, the vibration shooting right through Merlin.
“You’re so good,” he praises out loud. “So good for me, Arthur.” Arthur moans again, the sound bordering on a whimper and he redoubles his efforts, bobbing his head enthusiastically and while he can’t take Merlin in fully, he comes pretty damn close. Merlin starts thinking of dead puppies and burnt coffee just to prevent himself from thrusting up and cutting off Arthur’s air supply.
At some point, the head of his cock bumps gently into the back of Arthur’s throat. Arthur stills in the position, swallowing experimentally around him. Merlin screams wordlessly, jerking his hips on reflex. Arthur convulses around him but doesn’t pull away. He takes a few breaths through his nose, slides up and back down and repeats the action, swallowing again. Merlin stays put, holding on for dear life.
The feeling of accomplishment that Arthur emanates is both incredibly sexy and utterly amusing and Merlin just wants to let him take whatever he wants.
Suddenly, the heat of Arthur’s mouth is gone and he’s kneeling upright between Merlin’s legs. He grasps the waistband of his sweats, giving it a tug and Merlin obligingly lifts his hips up, lets Arthur divest him of the rest. Arthur pulls his own tee over his head next, throwing it on the floor without care.
Merlin can’t take his eyes of him. Arthur is always beautiful. There is a light around him that makes him shine like the North start, drawing all the attention. But now, looking at Merlin with dark eyes filled with raw, untamed desire, lips plump and red from giving Merlin pleasure and his chest heaving with anticipation... he’s otherworldly.
“Do you have lube?” he asks, snapping Merlin from his daze and sending him straight into a shock.
“Um... yeah,” he stammers, “bottom drawer,” he gestures in the direction of his nightstand. Arthur reaches over to get it and Merlin takes the opportunity to admire the stretch of his muscles as he struggles to keep his balance. Then, he’s back between Merlin’s legs, holding a cheap bottle of lube with Boots logo.
Shaking himself from the shock of hearing Arthur ask so bluntly for what he wants, Merlin bends his knees and brings the heels closer to his body.
Arthur snaps his gaze to him as he notices the movement.
“Want me to talk you through it?” Merlin offers. Arthur’s eyes widen in response, confusing Merlin momentarily and even more when his face turns bright red.
Is he getting shy now?
“Um...” Arthur starts, looking at the bottle in his hand like he just didn’t dig it out from the drawer himself. “That’s not... I meant... Oh, hell,” he huffs impatiently, apparently irritated by his lack of eloquence. Opting for exchanging words with actions, he reaches for Merlin’s wrist and presses the lube in his hand. “It’s for you.”
Merlin blinks. Once. Twice. Then gapes.
“You want...” Oh, shit. Oh, fuck.
“Yeah.”
Just the sole image of taking Arthur like that has him on the verge of sanity but he fights through the fog of lust, hoping for reason. Arthur was upset when he came to him that evening. Merlin understands if he needs to distract himself and sex is obviously an easy choice. But he can’t take that from him. Not like this.
“Arthur, I- I don’t think... I don’t think it’s the right time for that,” he says gently, hoping that Arthur understands.
He can see him tense up, a clench to his jaw that wasn’t there before. He sees him take a deep breath in preparation to call Merlin out and then... he deflates. In a matter of a second, his expression shifts from infuriated to fond and a wave of affection washes over Merlin, shaking him to his bones.
“Merlin,” he says. “I know what you’re thinking.” Do you? “And you’re wrong.”
“I-.”
Arthur cuts him of with a finger to his lips. “Merlin,” he repeats, more insistent this time. “I know you think I’m too vulnerable right now. That I’m not in my right mind. That I will regret it later.”
Yes. Yes, I do. And you will.
“And I’m telling you, you’re so very, very wrong,” he replaces his finger with his lips, kissing away any protest that is on the tip of Merlin’s tongue.
“If you don’t believe what I say, then feel it for yourself.” And while unnecessary for it to work, he takes Merlin’s free hand and places it over his chest. Despite his apprehension, Merlin is forced to admit that there is nothing in Arthur’s heart that would contradict his words and is blown away by the intensity of Arthur’s desire for him.
“I need you, Merlin,” he continues, pulling back to sit on his heels and dragging his hand across Merlin’s chest. “I want to feel you. Really feel you. Inside me.” The words send Merlin reeling. “And I won’t push it if you tell me you don’t want this,” and he smirks, looking pointedly at Merlin’s cock, still hard and spurting precome at hearing Arthur talk like that. “But we both know that would be a lie.”
Out of arguments, both against Arthur and himself, Merlin closes his eyes in surrender. Of course Arthur would get his way. Like Merlin could ever say no to him.
Smug little shit.
“Okay,” he says when he opens his eyes.
Arthur’s brows shoot up in surprise, his face lighting up.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Arthur grins at Merlin, too self-satisfied for his liking and he can only shake his head fondly at the man’s antics.
Arthur shoots up from the bed, unzipping his jeans and pulling them down and off, taking his socks with them. His underwear follows next and then, he’s climbing back on the bed, naked and so fucking gorgeous.
He flops down on his side next to Merlin, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him in a hungry kiss.
“Well?” he prompts. “Bring it on or I’ll take matters into my own hands.” And he pulls Merlin on top as he turns to lie fully on his back. Merlin only barely manages to brace himself up on his elbows and not squish Arthur under his weight. Well, that probably wouldn’t happen anyways, but still.
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” he teases, dipping down to kiss him some more.
“Shut up, Merlin,” he breathes against his lips. “You know what I mean.”
Merlin is intent on riling him up some more, just to get his revenge, but a realization comes at him, making him groan. “Shit.”
“What?”
Merlin rubs at his eyes. “I don’t have any condoms.”
Arthur doesn’t even blink. “So?”
“What do you mean?” Merlin does a double-take. “We need-”
“I’m clean,” Arthur says. “You?”
“Me too,” he confirms. “But-”
“Then no big deal. It’s fine, Merlin.”
Merlin hesitates, biting his lip. “That’s not very smart.”
“Well, neither of us is very smart either, so it fits,” Arthur jokes, making Merlin snort.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re stalling,” he complains. “Come on, Merlin.”
“So bossy,” he shoots back, fighting back a smile.
“You like it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Really?” he questions, reaching down to fist Merlin’s cock and strokes him. Merlin yelps, not expecting it. “I beg to differ.”
“Arthur!”
“Merlin,” he says impatiently. “Please. Just... It’s fine. I told you. I want to feel you. All of you.”
And once again, he finds himself surrendering to Arthur’s wishes. Just like he knows he always will.
“Yeah, okay.” He grabs the discarded bottle of lube, looking at Arthur splayed under him.
God, how is he gonna survive this?
“Can you turn over?” he asks and Arthur’s face transforms to one of displeasure. “It will be easier for you. It might hurt otherwise. Well, it might hurt regardless.”
Arthur looks thoughtful, so Merlin doesn’t say anything else, waiting for him to speak first.
“Like this,” he finally says. “I want to do it like this. Want to see you.”
Shit. Arthur is most definitely not making it any easier on him.
“Okay,” he relents. “Anything you want.” He bends down to press a kiss to his lips, his cheek, his nose, his forehead until Arthur pushes him away, scowling and giggling simultaneously.
He prompts Arthur to pull his legs further apart and up. He takes a minute to collect himself upon seeing the picture the man makes, spread out under him and just waiting for Merlin to take him.
He reaches for a pillow, urges Arthur to lift his hips and places the pillow underneath, making sure he’s comfortable. Despite being the more experienced one, he can’t fight the shake caused by Arthur’s dark gaze that follows his every movement.
He squeezes the lube on his fingers, waiting a few seconds for it to warm up, then reaches between Arthur’s spread legs.
“Okay?” he checks, getting an affirmative nod. He doesn’t take his eyes of Arthur as his fingers reach his hole, noticing the slight jerk of his body and a flicker of curiosity on his face. He doesn’t push right in, taking his time to just glide his fingertips around the tight opening in hopes to relax him. Experimentally, he lets the pad of the middle finger press slightly against it, gasping in surprise when it slips inside effortlessly, Arthur’s expression mirroring his.
“Fuck,” they both say at the same time, then laugh.
“That was-”
“Unexpected, yeah,” Merlin agrees. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
Arthur smiles at him, sliding one foot up Merlin’s calf. “You could never hurt me, Merlin.”
Swallowing down the onslaught of emotions, both his and Arthur’s, he focuses on working Arthur open. Feeling a bit more confident, he pushes into him, watching in daze as Arthur takes the whole length of the finger without any resistance. He spends a few minutes sliding in and out of him, then adds a second finger, starting as slow as before. They both slide in, although not as smoothly, and Arthur blinks at the stretch.
“Too much?”
“No,” he rushes to say. “No, it’s... it’s good. New. But good.”
Satisfied with the answer, he uses the fingers to slowly stretch Arthur further. It’s only a couple of minutes before Arthur grows impatient and starts rocking back against the fingers, trying to push them deeper.
“Arthur,” Merlin chokes, his cock leaking at the wanton way Arthur moves against him.
“Give me another one.”
“Arthur-”
“Another one, Merlin,” he demands and Merlin finally obliges. He adds more lube before returning with three fingers where Arthur wants him, then presses in at once.
Arthur gasps for breath. “Shit. Yeah, that’s- more, Merlin,” he stutters, rocking his hips again. Merlin moves his hand faster, deeper, Arthur’s eagerness urging him on and making him throw caution to the wind. He crooks his fingers, knowing that Arthur is about to go crazy in the next few seconds.
“Oh my God,” he screams, his upper body arching off the bed. “That was... do it again!” He does it again. And again. And again. “Oh God. Oh shit. Merlin... Merlin, stop. You have to stop! Merlin-.”
Merlin withdraws his fingers at once, leaving Arthur empty. “Are you ok? Did I-?”
“No. No, you- I-...” he stammers. “I didn’t want to come yet.”
“Oh,” Merlin’s mouth falls open. “Oh, okay. Do you need a minute?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I need you.”
Yeah, okay, Merlin can roll with that.
He reaches for the lube again, spreading it over his shaft and some more around Arthur, ignoring his disapproving gaze. You can never use too much lube!
Arthur doesn’t take his eyes of him and when he sees Merlin getting himself ready, he spreads his legs even further, pulling his knees up.
Merlin is pretty much fighting off a stroke.
“You’ll be the death of me,” he grumbles, shuffling forward until his thighs are pressed to the back of Arthur’s.
“You can die tomorrow. Now, get in me already.”
Merlin leans over Arthur, holding himself up with one hand placed next to Arthur’s arm and uses the other one to guide himself to where Arthur wants him. He drags the head of his cock against his hole, making Arthur quiver with anticipation and then, he’s pressing inside. Arthur resists him only for the first second, then something gives and he’s sliding in, sinking himself deep inside Arthur.
For the first time, Arthur is silent. His eyes are closed and his mouth open in a little ‘o’ shape. When he finally opens his eyes, they immediately fall to Merlin.
“Merlin,” he breathes and it sounds like a prayer. It feels like one too.
“Arthur,” he returns and he knows there’s no way Arthur misses the tremble in his voice.
Arthur’s hands come up to grip at his arms, pulling him closer. He falls onto his elbows either side of Arthur and Arthur’s legs lift up to wrap around him.
“Show me,” he asks once more. And once more, Merlin does.
He pulls out halfway before sinking back in, smooth and sweet, and swallows down Arthur’s moans straight from his mouth. He loses track of where he ends and Arthur begins, pouring himself inside Arthur and taking him inside himself in return.
He never wanted to lose himself inside another person before. But now, as he’s rocking into him, the man clinging desperately to him like he is about to be taken away from him, he knows he never wants to be apart from Arthur. Knows he wouldn’t survive it.
A shift in angle causes Merlin to drive straight into Arthur’s prostate, and he yells uncontrollably.
“Oh God, Merlin,” he cries. “I need - Harder. Go harder.”
“Are you-?”
“Merlin, please. You won’t break me,” he begs and Merlin is helpless to deny him anything. He shifts on his knees to get a better leverage despite Arthur still clinging to him, and puts more force in the forward motion of his hips. His hips slap against Arthur’s bum, igniting a fire inside him.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s- Just like that,” Arthur praises and gives his best to sync the movement of his hips with Merlin’s, trying to meet him halfway.
“You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?” he whispers directly in his ear, Arthur clenching around him in response.
“Shit, you can’t-- can’t just say stuff like that.”
“I can,” he disagrees. “And it’s true.” He distracts him with a kiss and Arthur starts clenching around him in regular intervals. He shifts his weight onto his left elbow in order to free his right hand and wrap it around Arthur’s cock.
“Merlin! God, I’m gonna-- Merlin...”
“Yeah,” he encourages. “God, so beautiful. Come for me, Arthur.”
He muffles Arthur’s shout with his mouth as he starts coming, spasming around Merlin and spilling in his hand and over his own stomach. Merlin guides him through the aftershocks , kissing away the little moans and whimpers he makes, then pulls his hand away when Arthur sinks into the mattress, boneless and spent, sighing happily.
He makes to pull out, when Arthur’s legs shoot back up to keep him in place.
“What are you doing?”
“Um... you’re too sensitive. I shouldn’t-”
“Shut up, you martyr, and finish what you started."
"Well, technically, you started-"
"Merliiin..."
“Arthur, I mean it.”
“I mean it too,” he insist, pulling Merlin down by his neck to whisper against his lips. “I want you to come inside me.”
Merlin makes a mental note to set up an appointment with a cardiologist. He will need it after tonight.
Knowing he won’t last much longer anyway, Merlin resumes the rocking of his hips, watching closely that he’s really not hurting Arthur. It doesn’t take long before his rhythm falters and the languid rocking turns into desperate snapping and because Arthur wants to kill him, he start squeezing deliberately around him, sending him over the edge only seconds later. He spills himself inside Arthur, and Arthur must feel it because he shudders against him despite being completely spent himself.
Catching his breath, he starts to pull out with the intention to grab a cloth from the bathroom and clean them both up but once again, he doesn’t get far.
“Wait,” Arthur says. “Just... a moment. Can we stay like this for a moment?” he asks, shy and embarrassed and absolutely lovely.
“Yeah,” Merlin replies. “Anything you want,” he promises, kissing him on the forehead. He tucks his head in the crook of Arthur’s neck and closes his eyes, relishing the feeling of still being connected to him.
“Can I spend the night?” Arthur asks, hands splayed at Merlin’s back, holding him close
Merlin presses his lips over his heart. “I wouldn’t have it any other way."
|
Cullen could have made the next meeting a week after his bruises faded. Which was only a week after he’d seen Bull in the kitchens.
But he told himself that would seem too desperate.
Another week passed, and the Iron Bull and the Chargers were sent out on a mission for the Inquisitor, and Cullen told himself that was fine, because he’d gone without for a long time, and he could go without again.
In the evenings, the tightness in his chest was a constant companion. His hands were cold, they tremored, and it was as though all the symptoms he tried to hold back through the day came crashing down upon him in slow motion. First his sight would go intermittently blurry, making it hard to get paperwork done past about ten in the evening. Then his hands would begin to go cold, making whatever task he’d assign himself – oiling leathers, burnishing armour, hauling dirty sheets and blankets down to the washing rooms and bringing up new ones on his own and beating the servants to it – something he’d have to abandon.
Then, not feeling anywhere near tired, he had a round of exercises for himself. Push ups, sit ups, things he could do in his room or office that wouldn’t require dexterity or sharp vision. That would last as long as it would take for the ceiling to feel like it was inverting.
He’d been taught exercises to calm and focus his mind. He used them so often they came to him without thought. If his breathing ran away from him, he’d calm it. If his thoughts began to spiral, he’d narrow his mind to a point. When that failed, he ached for his lyrium kit. Any lyrium kit. It would be as easy as finding one of the Templars and explaining he’d broken some of his equipment. As easy as walking down the stairs and-
The composed face he could present to people during the day abandoned him those evenings. He’d listen to the shakiness of his breath in his ever-tight chest and wish for all manner of things. From feeling like the ceiling was the ceiling again, to wondering if his hands would ever feel warm when he wasn’t forcing them through drills, to dreaming of a lash or flogger against his back until he couldn’t breathe for a different reason. Until his mind was forced to focus, and the flogger achieved what all the exercises the Chantry and the Templars had given him could not.
It was three weeks before the Iron Bull and the Chargers returned, and by then, Cullen had experienced a crest of feeling miserable and then adjusted. That was his life before Bull, he could handle it again. He told himself he didn’t really miss the companionship. There were plenty of ways to cope with what he was coping with. If all else failed, he could go to Cassandra and she would find a replacement if it came down to it.
He had days where he didn’t want to use anything the Templars had taught him. It was a subtle rebellion. There were chants he deliberately shied away from. Phrases and sayings he tried to discard from his mind. It was all ultimately a dangerous path to a dangerous outcome, and he knew other Templars did good work – incredible work, so he struggled not to show his loyalty to them in every moment that the Inquisitor would ask for his opinion. They’d been his whole life, and the skills he possessed that the Inquisition depended on now, he only had them because of what the Templars had given to him.
But there was a part of him that eschewed it, that rejected, that grieved when he pushed it away and grieved when he pulled it back, because either way, it was gone.
On a Sunday evening, he walked into the storage room at three in the morning and couldn’t feel his hands properly. He gripped the lamp so hard that there was a groove in his fingers from the ring of the handle, and only lit it once inside the room. He sat not on the chair the Bull had occupied, but on the chair he already thought of as his. He looked down at a table empty of tools of flagellation, and he lowered his forehead to it, placed his hands palm down and listened to his breathing reflect back to him as it bounced off the wood.
The month of Cloudreach approached, Drakonis nearly over. Already he was being asked about Summerday, about impromptu coming-of-age ceremonies and whether he could participate in them, seeing as he was a warrior and a Commander and had once been a Knight-Commander and apparently that meant Mother Giselle thought he might be suited to overseeing young boys and girls who wanted to be warriors, going through the rituals that prepared them for such.
He found Mother Giselle intimidating in her own way, so he’d hedged and given no clear answer. But he didn’t want to be a role model for anyone. Didn’t think they should look up to him. Was quite certain if they knew some of the things he’d done or watched other people do…
He stayed in the storage room and told himself that his feet were made of stone and that was why he couldn’t walk down the stairs and find a Templar, and say, ‘we have more kits coming with the next batch of consignment, but until then…’
So his feet were made of stone and he couldn’t move. He stayed until dawn, when he made himself use the chants and sayings he wanted to reject, to give himself the strength to get back to work.
*
Cassandra stood in front of the table. She did that. Stood right in front of his desk. Most people stood about midway into his office. Two or three paces from an exit. Cassandra walked right up to the table until her thighs brushed it.
‘Has Mother Giselle approached you about Summerday?’
Cullen gave her a look, and Cassandra returned it. Then sighed.
‘She thinks it is good for the younger of the refugees to have a coming-of-age ceremony. She’s asked me too. I said I would think about it. She seemed two steps away from saying the words, ‘it’s your duty as Seeker.’’
‘Then I imagine she’ll use that next time,’ Cullen said, leaning back in his chair and putting the quill down, raising an eyebrow. ‘Are you here to get me to talk you into it? Or give you an excuse to get out of it?’
‘If you do it with me, then I think-’
‘I’m not going to talk you into it,’ Cullen said. ‘I’m not interested in the Summerday celebrations.’
‘Was your coming-of-age with the Templars? Or before?’
‘I wasn’t that old when I joined the Templars,’ Cullen said. ‘Older, but not that old.’
Cassandra said nothing, only looked down with interest at what Cullen had on his desk. Which meant that she wanted to keep talking, but probably didn’t know what to talk about. Between them both, they’d had plenty of conversations which involved a great deal more silence than perhaps what other people were used to.
‘She’s going to come to me again, Cullen,’ Cassandra said with a sigh. ‘Then I will come here to you. Eventually you’ll say yes.’
‘Oh, Maker,’ Cullen groaned. ‘You’re here to talk me into it, aren’t you? You don’t want me to talk you out of it, you want to-’
‘Say yes now, and I’ll leave you alone.’
‘You have to leave me alone anyway, you have work to be getting on with. Don’t you have a dummy to hit with a sword?’
‘Don’t you?’ Cassandra said, arching a brow. Then she laughed. ‘Cullen, it will be one night. I will get Josie to find something we can drink afterwards. We’ll earn favour with Mother Giselle.’
‘I’m not sure I need it,’ Cullen said primly.
‘You need mine,’ she said.
‘I already have that,’ Cullen said, and felt like they were in some staring competition where she was mentally trying to will him into saying yes. The worst part was he could already feel it working. Like a willow branch being bent slowly into place. ‘No, Cassandra. It’s not my idea of a good night. It’s not-’
‘It’s no one’s idea of a good night!’ she exclaimed. ‘The children will be nervous. The adults will be wanting it to be over. We all know it’s meant to be late spring but it will probably snow. I’m not sure anyone really enjoys Summerday. That is what…’ Cassandra waved her hand, ‘the frivolities of Satinalia or even Wintersend are for. You were Knight-Commander, it would have been your duty to oversee the Templars during their coming-of-age, yes?’
‘I am not a Knight-Commander,’ Cullen said calmly. ‘But you are still a Seeker. Frankly, I’m not sure you or Mother Giselle truly want someone who may get struck down by a wave of vertigo right at the moment when I’m meant to be looking my best.’
His tone had turned scathing at the end, and he’d meant to come across as only conversational, to put it forth as light-hearted self-deprecation. But the more he spoke, the more he realised how true it was. Evening after evening adding up. There was no signs the symptoms would disappear any time soon. The cold often made it worse.
Cassandra’s expression turned troubled. She looked at him not mutinously – as he’d expected – but with concern.
‘It’s fine,’ he said quickly. ‘I’d come to you if I thought the Inquisition’s forces were at risk. You know that. I’m just not sure I’m ready to be held up as the paragon of a warrior or, Maker forbid, a hero.’
‘Maker forbid,’ Cassandra said, rolling her eyes. ‘Because there’s no reason anyone would ever think that about you.’
‘You can take your sarcasm and go inflict it on someone else,’ Cullen said.
Cassandra smiled. ‘I like inflicting it on you.’
She turned towards the exit leading towards the library. Then she paused and said:
‘We are going to talk about this again. I do not want to stand in front those teenagers on my own.’
‘You won’t be alone, you’ll have Mother Giselle. Who is likely trying to rope the Inquisitor into it as well, and Vivienne, and goodness knows who else.’
‘Yes, because standing in front of all those teenagers with Vivienne by my side is what will make that night go smoothly. It’s not that I don’t appreciate her presence, but I would like some solidarity.’
‘And that’s me, is it?’ Cullen said.
‘Trust me, I’m as dismayed about that as you are,’ she delivered, droll as ever, before walking away and leaving him to his work once more.
*
Cullen wasn’t sure how to approach Bull about another meeting.
Sending a note asking to arrange a time might be problematic. He was reluctant to visit the Herald’s Rest. It didn’t feel like his place. If anything, he felt like the soldiers he put through their paces deserved a break, and that it was intrusive if he tried to be one of them while they were unwinding and likely venting about all their superior officers. Even though he delegated most of the direct day-to-day supervision to others since they’d arrived at Skyhold, many of them still remembered him as the one throwing down orders to pull them together to work harder and better as a unit.
He was a little disgusted that after years of looking at maps and figuring out manoeuvres – not to mention coming up with last minute adjustments in the field – he couldn’t actually come up with something ideal in this situation.
Did he just wait in the Main Hall around interminable people, and hope that Bull might have to go in there for some reason, even though he, too, seemed to avoid that place?
Did he go to the practice ring more often? Lean over the wooden railings and watch others spar and pretend that he was absorbed with what was going on? Watch as warriors and soldiers and others faltered or rallied because their Commander was standing right there?
That held some appeal, but there had to be an easier way, surely.
Embarrassingly, the easier way was Bull simply walking into his office, closing the door behind him and saying:
‘You’re gonna start playing chess with me.’
Cullen was quite good at not startling, not betraying the buzz of warmth that found him when he heard the rumble of Bull’s voice. Good at ignoring the prickle of gooseflesh across his back like he was already in the damned storage room. So instead he just looked up with the pretence of calm and raised his eyebrows.
‘Am I?’
‘Yeah,’ Bull said. ‘I like it. I know you play. The ‘Vint says you’re mercenary, but we’ll see about that.’
‘Dorian cheats,’ Cullen said, smiling. ‘He’d think a child was mercenary if they knew how to play without sneaking pieces off the board and hiding them in their sleeve.’
‘He swore you didn’t know about that.’
‘Mage he may be, sleight of hand magician he is not.’
‘Yeah,’ Bull said, with a warm smile. ‘Thing is, you want this thing to happen more often. I want it to happen more often. It’s not gonna magically fall into place unless our schedules shift. Not much. Maybe a game once every two weeks.’
The boards were in the Chantry gardens, and though they were frequently busy, folks usually left the people playing chess alone. He knew that Bull played from time to time, usually when he was invited. As far as ruses went, it wasn’t a bad one.
It was one more area where Bull had quietly taken charge of an issue, and Cullen almost wanted to say ‘no’ reflexively. Wait until he found a better solution himself.
But that was ungracious, not to mention impractical. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel like something was being unravelled. As though Bull held him like a spool of thread, and pulled just a little bit each time.
‘All right,’ Cullen said.
‘You wanna sort anything out until then? I’m here now.’
And that was how they sorted out the time for the next meeting. It seemed so easy that Cullen almost resented Bull taking so long to visit. Almost, except that just as much of the responsibility fell with him, and he’d done absolutely nothing.
*
At eleven on that Sunday, they both met in the storage room once more.
‘Did you give any more thought to my suggestion?’ Bull said, sitting in the chair that Cullen already thought of as belonging to him. He lounged in it. His body language was so open as to almost be vulgar.
‘Which suggestion?’ Cullen said, frowning.
‘That’s a no,’ Bull said, and then laughed. ‘You giving more control over to me, remember?’
‘I’m not sure how,’ Cullen said, and then realised how defensive he sounded. He’d also not given it too much thought. He felt like he’d already given plenty, didn’t want Bull to erode his control over the situation until he didn’t have anything left. If he’d kept more control with Searidge, maybe he wouldn’t have driven him away. His entire ability to function was predicated on self-control.
He didn’t want to be seen as lacking.
‘I’m not sure how,’ Cullen began again, avoiding that calculating look. ‘I let you do the things that you wanted to do. Food. Water. The salve. You were the one wielding the flogger, if you’ll recall.’
‘I sure do,’ Bull said, and Cullen thought that it was a good thing he wasn’t keeping a running tally of how much he flushed around Bull when he said things like that.
‘What more do you want?’ Cullen said, feeling testy. What more was there to give?
‘Restraints are probably the most obvious choice,’ Bull said, and he looked around the room. ‘Though this isn’t well set up for it, especially for flogging. You either need to have your wrists attached to something, or tied in front of your chest. But I’m creative. There’s things like gags. Blindfolds.’ Bull took in Cullen’s expression and laughed. ‘Y’know there are people who look at me with excitement when I start talking about this stuff.’
‘Excitement,’ Cullen said, voice flat.
There was a part of him that was curious. But his heart was hammering. The curious part of him shoved aside in favour of a suspicion so broad that he couldn’t see past it.
‘Hey, I’m not going to hurt you in ways that you don’t want,’ Bull said, expression shifting, becoming concerned.
‘This was supposed to be simple,’ Cullen said, pointing to the wall. ‘Simple. Are you changing the conditions? Is it mandatory that I cede more control to you?’
‘If you need it to be like that, then yeah,’ Bull said, and Cullen had the sense that he was pushing up against a bulwark. ‘You’re shit at taking care of yourself.’
‘I’ve managed quite well up until this point, thank you,’ Cullen said, and Bull grinned at him, throwing him off track, leaving him left of centre as he so often did.
‘I know,’ Bull said. ‘In terms of just getting to this point, you’ve done amazing. But knowing how to survive isn’t knowing how to take care of yourself.’
Cullen wondered if Bull was in a mood. He felt the word ‘katoh’ in his mouth. Because even though Bull was pretending this was a casual conversation, there was no way he truly believed it was. And Cullen had just wanted the flogger, to not have to think about anything. Absently, he turned and looked at the door he’d come through. He could just leave. He wouldn’t even need to say the word at this point.
‘Here, look,’ Bull said, reaching down into his bag and pulling out a black strip of cloth. Cullen opened his mouth and then closed it abruptly when Bull lengthened it out and then tied it around his own face, blocking off the vision of his remaining eye and deftly knotting it at the back of his head. ‘See? Easy.’
‘Can you see through it?’ Cullen said, forgetting about the door.
How had he done that and made it look like it was nothing at all?
‘A little,’ Bull admitted. ‘Shapes. That’s it.’
Cullen took a step towards him, staring. His fingers itched, and he took another step, until he was looking down at him. Bull tilted his head up, a half-smile on his lips.
He’d never really gotten a chance to just look at Bull before. Everything was covert, or sidelong, or he was assessing without really taking anything in beyond ‘threat/not-threat.’ Even when he made eye contact, he tended to focus on eyes or lips, to the point where he lost other facial details. Now, he could look at the scars, the blemishes, the smooth stretches of skin and the cragged, rougher skin that became the place where his horns grew. Cullen’s fingers ached, and they curled into loose fists by his sides.
‘It opens your other senses a little more,’ Bull said.
If Bull put a blindfold on Cullen, it also meant Bull could look as freely as he wanted. Notice every imperfection. Stare without consequence.
Cullen realised that Bull did that anyway, and the stubborn, suspicious ball inside of him shrunk in on itself, fell away.
‘Can I…?’ Cullen said, one of his hands lifting. ‘Can I touch you?’
‘Yeah,’ Bull said, and Cullen envied how trusting he seemed to be.
He reached up and touched fingertips to Bull’s forehead, feeling the way it wrinkled. He avoided the mess of scar tissue around Bull’s missing eye, not because he didn’t want to touch it, but because he didn’t want to make Bull uncomfortable. He touched the skin just under the blindfold. Trailed fingertips down his cheek. The curve of his jaw. Bull didn’t do anything else except lean his head and expose more of his skin. Cullen held his fingertips just in front of Bull’s lips and felt the race of his own heart. A curiosity that warred with the condition he’d laid down.
No sex.
He wanted it though. Not here. Not in this room. But that didn’t mean that he hadn’t thought about it. And it seemed his body was thinking about it more often than he did, now that he was standing there and aware of his own reaction. The thrill of heat in his spine that had nothing to do with the idea of being whipped.
Carefully, he drew his fingers away without touching. Wondered if Bull could tell where his hand was. Probably.
‘I’ll try it,’ Cullen said. ‘The blindfold.’
Bull smiled, reached behind his head and undid the cloth. His gaze seemed proud. Then he looked around the room again and stood, seeming to take up far more space than he actually did.
‘I don’t want you against the wall this time.’
‘What?’ Cullen said, staring at him. ‘Then how do you want this to work?’
‘I want you to sit,’ Bull said. ‘I’ll show you. It’ll introduce a level of…challenge, but you’re not one to back down from one of those, are you?’
Cullen only tipped his head back slightly and raised an eyebrow and didn’t exactly miss how simple things had been with Searidge – because it wasn’t like Searidge had ever given him that complete floating sensation that Bull had after one session, or those bruises – but he thought there was something to be said for being efficient.
‘What kind of challenge?’
‘I want you to keep your hands flat against the table, once we get you in the right position. If I see them curling, or digging in, I’m going to stop and wait until they’re flat before starting again.’
Cullen’s hands curled automatically, and he looked over at the table. Would he be lying on it? Or sitting before it? Or…bending over it?
Maker, how was he meant to keep his hands flat?
‘That, or you take three sips of elfroot potion once we’re done,’ Bull said amiably.
Well then.
‘Looks like we’ll be seeing if I can keep my hands flat,’ Cullen said. ‘So how is this meant to work?’
‘Here, you take your coat and shirt off, I’ll get things set up.’
Cullen took a few steps to the side and took off his coat, folding it carefully as he watched Bull take the second chair – Cullen’s chair – and turn it so that its back was pressing into the edge of the table. The seat facing outwards. Cullen was folding his shirt when Bull simply pointed to it and said:
‘Straddle the chair, face the table and put your forearms and palms flat on it. I’ll take those.’
Bull plucked the coat and shirt from Cullen’s grip and laid them out over a piece of hessian sack covering one of the lower stacks of hay. Cullen meanwhile straddled the chair awkwardly, as this was not the kind of thing he was used to doing. It spread his legs wide, and despite having the back of the chair bracing his chest, he still felt exposed. Still, he raised his arms and lay them on the table the way Bull had asked. Like this, he couldn’t brace his forehead against anything without bowing his back. He tried that, shifting, and blunt fingers stopped him.
‘Not like that,’ Bull said, and then his hands slid down to Cullen’s lower back and pushed. ‘Keep this arched. I don’t want to see the top of your spine.’
Bull kept pushing until Cullen’s chest was flat against the back of the chair. Until he couldn’t brace his head against anything at all. His fingers started to curl into the wood and he bit the inside of his lip and made himself stop.
‘I’d prefer the wall,’ Cullen said, and swallowed when those fingers trailed up his back again to his shoulders. That was…was more of a caress than it needed to be. But seconds later, Bull was only checking his back again. Thumbs poking along the ridges of his shoulder blades.
‘I know,’ Bull said, and his voice was gentle. ‘I like it too. But it’s murder on your hands.’
Cullen wanted to say that it was fine, and it had been fine. Except that they had ached more than usual the next day. In ways that were sometimes hard to ignore. The withdrawals leeched his hands and fingers of warmth so often that a tight, scratchy pain had sunk into the joints – so constant that he sometimes forgot that he’d ever lived without it. He wasn’t ready to call it arthritis. He wasn’t ready to name it at all.
‘Okay,’ Bull said, and Cullen saw in his peripheral vision the strip of black cloth and tensed. ‘I’m gonna make this easy. You want that off, you can say. You can say you want it off, or ‘stop,’ or ‘katoh,’ or you can reach up and pull it off yourself if I’m giving you a break. Got it?’
Cullen nodded. ‘Yes. I understand.’
‘Great.’ Seconds later the strip of cloth rested over his eyes and Cullen’s nostrils flared, he didn’t exactly jerk away from it, but his head twitched. Bull moved his fingers so that they were bracing Cullen’s head, stopping him from shifting. Then the strip of cloth over his eyes, fitting snug behind his ears and being tied. He could see the dimness of the light still, and would probably see Bull’s shape silhouetted by the lamp, but otherwise it was dark.
Bull placed a hand on Cullen’s back, between his shoulder blades. It was familiar and grounding all at once. For a few long moments the hand just stayed there. Flat, warm, calloused. Then fingertips shifted, curled against his skin.
‘You good?’ Bull said.
‘Yes,’ Cullen said, though his voice was a little more strained than he wanted it to be. He fought the urge to rip the blindfold off. Every other time he’d been blindfolded, he hadn’t been given that courtesy, and that alone reminded him that this was different. Very different. And Bull had worn the blindfold first. Had sat there and let Cullen touch his face. ‘I’m good.’
Keeping his eyes open felt useless, so he closed them. He was aware of the arch in his back, the stretch in his hips that was similar to riding a horse and yet nothing like it at the same time. Bull’s hand stayed at his back, and Cullen wondered if there would ever be a time when he would let someone touch him like that outside of something like this. He wanted to be the kind of person who found it easy. In that moment, he wanted to swear that he’d try harder, do better.
He frowned and focused on his breathing. Wanting to please people – it was fine to try and do a good job, to try and do the right things for the right reasons. But wanting to please people didn’t lead to that. He’d learned.
In the dark, everything sharpened. The sound of Bull pulling tools out of his chest. The scent of leather. Cullen could feel his heart beating in his ears. Seconds later his cock gave a half-hearted twitch and he shifted minutely. This was not the most ideal position for arousal. It wasn't really the most ideal position for anything except what Bull wanted to do to him...what Cullen wanted him to do.
'Gonna start off a bit lighter and slower today. Be patient for me.'
Cullen nodded and had no idea if Bull had seen his response.
The sound of a striking implement being swung through the air a few times. Nothing touching his back.
Then, the first blow, lighter than last time but still a flogger. A skimming sharpness of multiple tails across the top of his back that stung, so that he inhaled on a hiss. But he kept his hands flat, felt minutely proud that he’d remembered.
The second blow was just as sharp, and Cullen's eyes opened and he tried to concentrate on not moving. Another few seconds later - Bull still striking him more slowly than last time - that sharp sensation again and it was a kind of fire. Not slow and throbbing, but high and tight and brittle.
'Cullen,' Bull said, and didn't hit him again.
That was when Cullen realised he'd clawed the table. Even his back had shifted. A flush of shame and embarrassment stained his cheeks as his back warmed. He could feel it wasn't bruising like last time. Ached for that heavier sensation. He opened his mouth to reprimand, to reprove, and then remembered Bull asking him for his patience.
So Cullen forced his hands flat and swallowed the apology and shifted until his posture was what Bull wanted it to be.
'Good,' Bull said, 'very good.'
A flush of warmth then that had nothing to do with the pain in his back. Then Bull’s stance shifted. Cullen blinked into darkness and tried to prepare himself for it, holding his breath and-
The next strike came and then the next, about ten seconds between them. Just enough time for Cullen to try and keep his breathing under control and dread that high sting and feel his hands shaking with strain as he tried to keep his fingers unmoving.
More of that building pain and Cullen dropped into it, even as it forced gasps from his throat.
Bull stopped again.
One of his hands was dragging down the wood so hard that his fingertips were burning. He stopped as soon as he realised. Didn’t flatten his hand down straight away.
'I want to stand against the wall,' Cullen said, and hated that he didn't sound commanding, but plaintive.
'I know. We can, if you want.'
Cullen started to stand and the end of the flogger touched his sore shoulder. He stilled.
'We can,' Bull said again, 'but only if you promise to take the elfroot after. Just a few sips.'
Cullen grimaced.
'I know what you're doing,' Cullen said. 'You're trying to trick me into-'
'No tricks,' Bull said quietly. 'I can get you where you need to go just like this, though it'll take a bit longer. Either way, your hands don't take as much abuse as they did last time. That's win-win for both of us.'
Uneasily, Cullen settled back into the chair. What would he have done once standing, anyway? Walked to the wall while blindfolded? Fallen over his own feet? He placed his forearms back on the table, his palms flat, felt jittery.
‘You good?’ Bull asked calmly.
‘Yes,’ Cullen said, mouth thinning as he tried to focus not on the pain that was coming, not on the pain that was already in his shoulders and back, but on his hands. Just his hands. Flat on the table.
The next strikes he bore well enough, though the sting was harder to take on increasingly abraded skin. He stopped trying to control his breathing. Stopped trying to bear the pain, but that somehow made it worse. Harder.
Three more times Bull stopped, and three more times Cullen had to force himself back into position. He wanted that emptiness that Bull had given him last time. Was thrumming with the kind of anger that had him wanting to grab the tails as they sung through the air, yank the stupid flogger out of Bull’s hand and throw it to the ground. Which he would never do, not to someone else’s equipment. But it was the same feeling he got with novices sometimes. When there had been too many bad days in a row. When he saw them handle their swords with disrespect and he wanted nothing more than to snatch the weapon away from them and tell them that they weren’t doing it right.
He managed to get closer, the next time. The burning in his back, the quivering in his arms from tension, he could almost feel it – that sea waiting just out of reach. Could feel the rocking of the waves and felt the edges of a meditative calm soothe the worst of his anger.
Bull stopped.
‘Cullen,’ he said.
With a growl of frustration Cullen fisted his hand – his own traitorous fingers – raised it and slammed it down into the table-
Except that Bull was there, had caught his wrist in his hand, was holding him still. Cullen tried jerking his arm free and couldn't. He was trapped in the dark. He almost bared his teeth, except with the way Bull stood, he worried Bull would see it.
'No,' Bull said calmly.
'I can't do this,' Cullen said. There, it was out in the open now. He could blame Bull’s flogger. He could blame the exposed position. He could blame everything else but ultimately, he couldn’t keep his hands flat. A simple thing designed for his benefit. All that supposed, vaunted self-control, and where was it?
'You can,' Bull said. 'There's no shame if you need to stop. Need a break. But you've done great so far, really great. Unclench your fist.'
Cullen did, almost without thinking. He turned his head towards Bull's voice, wanting to be closer to it, the inside of his knees gripping the chair he straddled.
'You believe I can do this?' Cullen said.
'Yeah,' Bull said, voice warm and sounding like it had a smile in it. 'I really do. You need a break?'
'The pain's different,' Cullen said, like that explained everything. To him, it did.
'Yeah,' Bull agreed, letting go of his wrist. 'Harder to take, right?'
Cullen went back to staring ahead, because he felt chastened somehow. As though Bull was pointing something out to him. As though he was saying, ‘see, you can’t do this the way you think you can.’ Perhaps he was trying to prove that Cullen didn’t really have a high pain threshold. Perhaps he-
‘Hey,’ Bull said, ‘talk to me. You need a break?’
‘I need something,’ Cullen spat in frustration, and then lifted his hands clear off the table when his fingers curled into fists. Did he really do it that often? His arms were still shaking, so he lowered them back to the table again.
Bull shifted to Cullen’s other side. A scrape of the other chair on the ground that was abrasive and just one more irritating thing. Then, a hand that fell broad and flat on his shoulder and Cullen hissed and went still. But it commanded his attention, he turned his head towards Bull. After a beat, Bull’s hand moved to the back of Cullen’s unmarked neck and teased gently at his hairline.
‘You were really close,’ Bull said. ‘I could hear it in your breathing. This particular flogger though. It’s a mean one. I didn’t realise when I got it at the time. I was new to buying floggers and didn’t really know what to look for. I thought if it had knots tied in the end, it was hardcore. And that if it was huge and black and terrifying looking, it was hardcore. And there was this red thing with thin leather straps and I was like, ‘oh, that looks perfect.’ Turns out I was wrong!’
He sounded cheerful, and Cullen clung to every word in the story. It was hard to imagine Bull ever needing to start out in this particular…enthusiasm of his. Easier to think that he’d just automatically known, from the very beginning.
‘It doesn’t break the skin really,’ Bull said. A few seconds later the tails were draped lightly over Cullen’s back. Gently. Bull had leaned in towards him. ‘Not unless I put my back into it. Doesn’t even bruise that well.’
Then why in the name of the Maker are you using it?
‘Cullen, do you want to take the blindfold off?’
Cullen shook his head. Frowned. Shook his head again. Bull had nicknames for everyone. Yet he used Cullen’s name so specifically. It was like hearing a bell being rung. He couldn’t help but focus when he heard it.
A broad thumb was rubbing up and down the back of his neck. It was steadying. Cullen’s eyes had closed again, he wanted to sag down and press his forehead to the back of the chair. Truthfully, all he really wanted to do – even more than stand and face that wall with the right flogger – was please Bull. It was a wash of bile-flavoured hatred inside of him, and it was only directed at himself. But he still wanted it. Bull said he thought Cullen could do it, maybe all Cullen had to do was be patient; as asked.
But what if he couldn’t?
Too many bad weeks. That was the problem. Too many bad weeks in a row. He swallowed and pushed back into Bull’s touch without really examining the urge too closely. Bull’s sound of approval made Cullen aware that his legs were still spread, made his face feel warm.
‘I like it,’ Bull said, his voice lower than before. ‘Seeing you hold up to that kind of pain, keeping your hands flat in longer stretches. Putting all that fight into something focused. It sure is something.’
Is it? Cullen thought. His lips thinned. Was it just what Bull thought he wanted to hear? If it was, he’d done a good job. Already, something felt like it was unwinding in Cullen’s chest.
‘My hands were fine,’ Cullen said, his voice strained. ‘Last time, they were-’
‘That’s shit and I want to say you know it’s shit too. But I’m not sure you do. So, I’m here to tell you – it’s shit.’
‘I think I get the picture,’ Cullen said, feeling weary. The pain was thrumming through him. He realised there was an odd sleepiness in the back of his mind, as though the very edge of that calming sea was there waiting for him. Maybe Bull had been right. Maybe he was closer to it than he thought.
‘I want to try again,’ Cullen said. ‘Like this.’
Cullen wanted to ask what happened if it didn’t work, if trying again failed – then realised how greedy it was. One session of finding that empty guilt-free space with Bull, and now he was acting like he was entitled to it? It wasn’t like he often felt anywhere near so calm with Searidge. No. He wanted the flogging so he’d have the physical pain in the days to come. And it was obvious that even if this didn’t give him the thick black bruises he wanted, it would still give him a tool to use against the inexorable march of days facing him.
When Bull stood behind him again – the hand still on his neck and gentle for a long time, like Cullen was someone to be careful with – Cullen shifted his posture so that it was correct. After years of being shown how to stand, how to turn his feet out or in, how to hold weapons or shields or axes or whatever they wanted him to use – Bull only needed to show him how to sit once before Cullen knew exactly how to fall back into place.
He heard Bull shifting his own stance, and Cullen closed his eyes and thought not of that sea he yearned for, but of something different.
His feet were made of stone. Encased in the stuff.
His hands too. They were soldered to the table. It wasn’t that he shouldn’t move them, it was that he couldn’t move them. So that even if he wanted to walk down the stairs to trick someone out of their lyrium kit, he couldn’t. He was fixed in place. It wasn’t about slowing down his breathing. It wasn’t about concentrating on not moving. He just couldn’t. He was stone.
The flogger fell and Cullen made a sound, because normally he’d tense or curl his fingers or toes, but as he bent his mind towards what he was imagining, he didn’t have the faculties left to remind himself not to make noises.
Again and again the flogger fell, spaces between the rhythm that felt too long, but even then – even with the pain so sharp he was gasping through it – he didn’t move. It was as though something had clicked into place in his mind. He wasn’t doing this to reach for that sea. It would be nice to have that guilt-free space, very nice, but he wasn’t sure he deserved it, and it wasn’t why he’d asked for this in the first place. In which case, he didn’t need to be frustrated with Bull or himself for not finding it. It wasn’t really about him at all. He was just there, Bull could have been practicing on an inanimate object, because he could not move.
The flogger kept falling. Cullen’s eyes were shut and his chest heaving because the pain was sharp and stinging and tight, his back felt swollen, but he didn’t move. His hands felt heavy.
The strokes began to speed up, and Cullen heard himself cry out, felt self-censure begin to move through him and then that fell away as well. The stinging was awful, his eyes burned behind the blindfold, but it wasn’t like Bull could see, and the fabric wicked away any tears he shed, so the worry he had about that disappeared. It was as though every stroke of the flogger stripped away a layer of concern.
It hurt desperately. He wanted to move away from it. If anyone ever asked him in the future if he liked pain that thudded into him or stinging pain, he knew what to say to them.
Eventually, the concern he had about the pain was stripped away as well. Then between one stroke and the next, it was as though he lifted into nothingness. It wasn’t meditative, exactly. He just gave himself over to what Bull was doing, he gave himself over to the desk and chair and floor that were supporting him. There was no guilt because he’d forgotten how to feel it.
This wasn’t like a gently rocking ocean at all. He had no words for it. He was reduced to noticing textures and the sensation that he was being gripped tightly in a fist. Instead of falling, instead of floating, he was just…held. But it wasn’t a calm or sweet thing. It was like being encased in stone, it carried a permanence to it that had him feeling safe enough to not think anymore.
The pain eased and Cullen hardly noticed.
His breathing was ragged. He was afraid to tune back into his body, afraid because the pain was there hanging over him like a threat. But he wanted other things too. Other things that would mean he’d have to come back to himself.
‘…Cullen? Hey there, come on now, you can move your hands. Okay, Cullen, I know you’re in deep right now, I just need you to let me know you can hear me.’
Cullen couldn’t move. He was made of stone. Didn’t Bull know that?
A shaky exhale as a hand started stroking his forearm. All the way from the inner elbow to the tips of his fingers. A faint sound before he inhaled again, and the next breath out still trembled. Bull was close to him. And warm. And steady. Cullen wanted to turn into him but he didn’t quite remember how to move. His whole body felt stuck.
‘You did so fucking well,’ Bull said, his tone almost reverent. ‘So well. Cullen, can you move your fingers for me? Just a bit. Hardly anything at all. I’m right here.’
Cullen wondered vaguely if this was the stream of talk that Bull had used last time, when Cullen had missed almost all of it. Contemplated that in a detached kind of way before he remembered that he was supposed to do something.
Move his fingers.
He made a faint sound of protest. He couldn’t.
‘I know,’ Bull said, like he understood it was the hardest task in the world, and a hand was in his hair and by the Maker did he yearn. His breath caught in his throat and he was turning his hand to meet Bull’s palm and blindly shifting in the chair – except he couldn’t move his legs properly, and he was half-groaning, half-growling at the pain in his back and seeking all at once. Either Bull moved to meet him, or he was already that close. Cullen twisted sideways and slumped clumsily against Bull’s meagre clothing, against overheated skin. Though nothing burned quite as hot as his shoulders.
‘Okay,’ Bull said. ‘That’s good.’
For a while it was nothing but his hoarse breathing, and his sweaty hand in Bull’s sweaty hand, and the awkward angle at which he leaned against Bull that felt so good he wasn’t willing to move away. There was a hand in his hair. Smoothing it. Ruffling it. Tracing the places where it met his ears.
The pain returned slowly, but all too soon it reached a point where it began hammering at him. He groaned, tried to shift to accommodate it, but nothing worked.
‘Shit,’ he murmured, his voice breaking.
‘I’ve got some elfroot for that,’ Bull said calmly. ‘Potion might be better, but let me guess, you want the salve.’
Cullen nodded, dazed, and then made a pathetic noise when the gesture pulled at his back. He pushed his forehead into Bull’s chest and thought that this wasn’t quite right. This wasn’t how he normally behaved…but it felt incredible.
And then Bull was pulling away and Cullen felt like his world was being rocked – and not in a good way. He froze, and then Bull was back and humming, like he was thinking about something.
‘Just getting the salve,’ Bull said. ‘I’m right here.’
Cullen felt like he was hanging off a precipice when the contact disappeared completely, and then Bull was back and at his side, and a hand sticky with salve pressed in carefully at the outer edges of that seething mass of pain on his back. He flinched and then frowned, because…he didn’t normally do that either.
He pushed his face back into Bull’s skin, searching for it. Why – when he seemed to wear hardly anything on his chest at all – was it now impossible to find a stretch of skin to rest against? Then Bull’s hand skated slick over his shoulders and he made a fractious sound and shifted to get even closer. His face was pushing against Bull’s arm now.
‘Ah, Cullen,’ Bull said, sounding sad. Another thing that made no sense.
Eventually, Cullen’s back was salved and the edge of the pain was steadily dropping away. It was blending into a different kind of heat and he felt dazed as he shifted again, one hand bracing on Bull’s knee while his face tipped up and he tried to find Bull’s mouth with his own. He found the curve of a jaw, tried to stretch up higher and Bull’s lips were right where he wanted them to be.
The kiss itself lacked grace – entirely his end, his body uncoordinated – but it was warm and sweet, and then it was over too soon and he tried to follow Bull’s mouth only to feel a bracing hand on his shoulder.
‘Ah ah,’ Bull said warmly, ‘not now. We gotta talk about that later. You just take it easy. I’ll stay right here. I got no better place to be. Unless, y’know, we take this to a room with a bed. Still think you should be lying down for this part.’
Cullen made a noise of agreement, because it seemed like the right point in the conversation to agree. Then he realised that he technically didn’t agree with what Bull said at all, but couldn’t bring himself to care very much.
Proper awareness came back slowly. He shifted in increments, then moved away from Bull and rested his forehead on the back of the chair. He felt tired. Queasy. He knew he’d kissed Bull and knew that if Bull had decided to fuck him at that point, Cullen would have not only gone along, but been enthusiastic, even eager. His cheeks were hot.
‘Looks like…I got there in the end,’ Cullen said, his voice rough.
‘You sure did,’ Bull said, laughing.
‘Maker, I don’t know how I’m going to get back to my room,’ Cullen said.
The sentence was absently said – sincerely meant, but it wasn’t the kind of thing he’d normally say if he had a chance to think it through. And the silence that followed was telling. Cullen opened his eyes and realised he still had the stupid blindfold on. He pulled it up and off his face, wincing at the movement. He blinked rapidly, adjusting to the light. The blindfold was damp in his fingers. He looked over at Bull and thought that he really should think through what he said before he said it.
‘Neither do I,’ Bull said, staring at him. ‘You’re not gonna let me help you, are you? You don’t think you could come up with some reason? You don’t trust me to?’
‘They’ll think I’m sleeping with you,’ Cullen said, feeling like this reintroduction into reality was too brutal, that he wasn’t ready for it. He clung to the blindfold. Wished Bull didn’t feel so far away even though he was within reaching distance. ‘I can’t be shown to be giving that kind of favour to other people.’
‘Why?’ Bull said, blinking at him. ‘No offense, but the Inquisitor doesn’t give a rat’s ass about who she sleeps with. The other advisors don’t give a shit. As for the others, they-’
‘-Are not the Commander of the Inquisition,’ Cullen grit out, and then flinched before Bull could say anything. ‘Sorry. I know I shouldn’t interrupt. I shouldn’t. But I…’
He felt unmoored. He looked away from Bull and then realised that he’d had enough of this sitting position. He didn’t need it. Without really thinking it through, he pushed backwards and then stood up. One of his knees refused to lock under him and he buckled. Bull was there, muttering something under his breath, a hand around his elbow, the other at his side.
‘Sit down,’ Bull said, and Cullen blinked at the force of the order and sat so that his side could lean into the chair’s back and his legs could lean closer together. He was facing Bull now, his head drooping. ‘I’m in a bit of a rock and a hard place with you. I could just whip you lightly, let you go back to your room all frustrated, and that’s that. But I know you want more, and I can give you that too. That’s what we both want, right? But you know what? I think this doesn’t happen again in this place until you let me walk you to your office, or you find a place for this to happen that has a bed. And I don’t mean installing some shitty cot in here, I mean a good, comfortable bed.’
Bull was angry with him. Cullen had stupidly thought he’d be pleased, because Cullen had managed to give himself up to the pain like that. He felt some part of himself shrinking inwards. Coiling in on himself. And he was mad that he was feeling that at all, because this wasn’t about someone else’s approval.
‘All right,’ Cullen said, his voice muted. ‘You can walk me back to my office.’
There was a long pause before Bull spoke.
‘What are you going to tell anyone, on the off chance we’re seen together?’
‘Maker, I don’t know,’ Cullen said.
‘You tell them that we’re both poor sleepers – people won’t ask why, it’s not like there’s not fucked up war stories from here to the other end of Skyhold. You tell them that we play chess in there, late at night, and then you bring over a chess board and set it up on this table and leave it here. Because what’s the point in playing chess in the Chantry garden past midnight, when everyone’s is sleeping and I’m telling bawdy stories?’
Cullen nodded without really thinking about it. A cover story. That was good, wasn’t it?
‘I don’t feel well,’ Cullen said, blinking in some surprise at his own words.
‘You want to stay here a bit longer? Or go back to your room and lie down?’
Cullen thought about the ladder in his office and shook his head. Then said: ‘The first one.’
Bull picked up the bag and dumped it on the table. He took out a flask of water and handed it to Cullen, then kept his fingers on the back of Cullen’s hand when it was clear that his ability to hold the flask on his own was compromised.
Cullen drank slowly, not as thirsty as last time. After that, Bull moved his chair closer. Until his leg was sliding alongside Cullen’s, until they were side by side.
‘Come here,’ Bull said softly. ‘Come on. Lean in. Is it the pain? Or is it your head?’
‘The second,’ Cullen said, trying to lean casually against Bull’s side and wanting to grab onto him and cling. Bull rested a hand against his lower back and it was steadying. It helped. ‘I’ll do it better next time.’
‘Hey, none of that,’ Bull said, and then seemed to shake his head. ‘I mean, this happens. You did just take a beating. Your body responds to that like it’s a beating, even if you actually like it or get something out of it. Sometimes these things don’t always go the way we think they will. It’s normal. It ever happen before?’
‘Yes, but…’ Cullen frowned. ‘I would often be alone at that point. And the next day the bruises would serve their purpose.’
‘Yep,’ Bull said.
‘I won’t fail the challenge next time,’ Cullen continued. ‘I swear. I know the trick of it now.’
‘You didn’t fail the challenge,’ Bull said, smoothing a circle into Cullen’s lower back. ‘Why do you think you failed?’
‘I took so long,’ Cullen said, closing his eyes, ‘to listen to you.’
‘That’s not a thing,’ Bull said slowly. ‘I could just as easily say I’d failed ‘cuz I took too long to get you there. It took longer. That’s all. You didn’t fail anything in this room tonight. You can argue with me all you like, but it’s just gonna make you more tired and it’s not gonna make you more right. I know you feel shitty right now, see if you can give yourself some of the patience you gave me.’
Cullen was as much a dead weight against Bull’s body as he could be, given his body was still supported by a chair. Bull’s words had helped, sanded back the more jagged edges in his mind. His breathing steadied and then slowed, and Bull was stroking his back and flanks, avoiding the area of his back that felt so red he wondered stupidly if it was glowing.
Much later, Cullen emerging from a half-doze, he wondered if Bull had made the meeting so much earlier than last time to give him more time to recover before the dawn came. He felt like he’d somehow slept for hours, even though he knew it wasn’t the case. He shifted restlessly against Bull’s body and then slowly pulled back, meeting Bull’s eyes hesitantly.
‘How you doing?’ Bull said.
I kissed you. I liked it. I think I’m in trouble here.
‘All right,’ Cullen said, and then chuckled. ‘Better, at least. Tired.’
‘And your hands?’
‘As good as they ever are,’ Cullen said, flexing his fingers. His hands felt cool and about as stiff as they always did at this time of night.
Cullen’s skin blanched later, when he finally got his shirt on. The coat followed and he shook his head, because he knew the pain wasn’t actually as bad as last time. Not at all. Something about what had occurred had stripped his nerves raw. He couldn’t keep his responses in check as easily as he usually did.
Walking across the battlements back to his office was quiet. Bull stayed by his side, but didn’t try and reach out and support him. Cullen got the sense that if he mis-stepped just once, Bull wouldn’t care about the rumours and just scoop him up and bridal carry him into the office. So Cullen focused on putting one foot in front of the other, the frigid night air clearing his head.
Bull kindly didn’t say anything when Cullen dragged himself up the ladder, and didn’t criticise when Cullen sat down heavily on his bed and focused on his breathing. Instead, Bull looked up at the ceiling and smiled at it.
‘You must really miss camping if you need to see this many constellations at once.’
Cullen glared at him, but couldn’t maintain it for long.
‘I know,’ Cullen said finally. ‘Everyone thinks it’s just the one hole in the ceiling, but…’ he tilted his head backwards to indicate the rest and Bull laughed.
‘Right?’ he said. ‘Vashedan, what do you do when it rains?’
‘Enjoy the abundance of fresh water immediately at my disposal,’ Cullen said, rolling onto his stomach without taking his clothing off. He smirked as Bull kept laughing.
‘Resourceful, I like it,’ Bull said. The mattress dipped as Bull sat on the bed, the bedframe creaked. Not as much as Cullen expected. But then, his bed was a sturdy Ferelden design. Cullen sighed, warming when he felt a hand resting over the back of his neck. ‘I’m gonna come check in on you tomorrow. We got some things to talk about.’
‘What things?’ Cullen said, pulling a corner of the blanket towards him and giving up when he realised he couldn’t get underneath it properly because he was lying on top of it. The sleep that beckoned him felt rich and deep and layered with rest.
‘Nothing major, just some of the conditions that we put in place. Nothing bad. Can I take your boots off?’
‘Mm,’ Cullen managed, nodding sluggishly, thinking that whatever was going to happen tomorrow could wait until tomorrow.
He fell asleep before Bull got his second boot off.
|
Tiara and Warren Jackson bought an older Victoria style house when they had been married only 3 years. Even though the house was in an all-white neighborhood, all of the neighbors liked the young black couple and immediately accepted them into the neighborhood. Between working and raising their children, they spent every available hour, and all their extra money renovating the old house. Warren owned a small roofing company and Tiara was a librarian. It took them 15 years, and when it was finished, it was beautiful. By then, their children were 13 and 15 years old. Unfortunately, six years later, Warren was killed when he had a heart attack and fell off a two-story roof. Tiara sold the company and collected on a moderate life insurance policy and realized that she could afford to remain in her house.
Tiara's son was 21 years old and a senior in college and her daughter was 19 and a sophomore. Both children attended schools several hours away so Tiara was usually alone in her big old house.
By the time Tiara was 46 years old, her husband had been gone for five years. Both of her children were college grads, married and holding down full-time jobs. She was also a grandmother to a three-year-old and a one-year-old. The best part was that her two children and their families only lived about 45 minutes away from her.
Tiara loved being the head librarian at her library. Although she tried to look the part by wearing big glasses, loose conservative clothing and a shorter hair style, she actually looked nothing like the stereotypical librarian. Although considered thin, she was the exact same size as her favorite singer, Diana Ross. She was 5'4" tall and measured 34-25-35. Even wearing her frumpy librarian clothes, men still turned to watch her walk by. She had nice legs and C cup breasts, not that anyone would know it because of her clothes.
Most men were sharp enough to realize that it didn't matter what she wore because she had a good body underneath. But Tiara was old fashioned. She didn't judge others, but she felt that, for herself, she would only date those men who were near her own age and race. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of single black men in their mid-forties who wanted a relationship, and not just to get laid.
One of her girlfriends introduced her to Keenan a few weeks ago, and they had been out a few times. He was 48-years-old and worked as a nurses' aid in a nursing home. He liked movies, Applebee's restaurants, miniature golf and camping. Unfortunately, none of those things really interested Tiara, but he appeared to be the only game in town.
As she was packing up her empty lunch bag and her jacket to leave the library one afternoon, a young man walked to the counter. She noticed he was wearing jeans and a tee shirt. He had tattoos on both arms and an odor of cigarettes assaulted her nose. He appeared to be in his early 20s. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of cigarettes and asked, "How can I help you, young man?"
He took all of her in with one quick look and smiled. He said, "Do you have any books with the poetry of Tennyson and Yeats?"
She looked at him in shock. "Are you serious, young man? Yeats?"
He smiled at her and said, "Much did I rage when I was young. Being by the world oppressed. But now with flattering tongue, It speeds the parting guest."
She looked at him dumbfounded with her mouth hanging open.
"Ma'am? Ma'am, are you OK? Ma'am?"
"I . . . I just . . . . I never would have . . . . I, uh . . . I mean. I'm sorry young man. I just . . . "
"That's OK Ma'am. I know. I don't look like I read Tennyson and Yeats, let alone read at all, right?"
"But I . . . "
The young man pointed to the counter behind her and asked, "Can I check that book out? It has many of Yeats' poems in it."
"Uh, I uh was going to . . . uh . . . uh, sure."
"If you were going to use it, that's OK. I can find another one, if you have one."
"No, that's OK. You can have it."
"How about this," he said. "I just need to read three of the poems in it. Can I buy you a Coke or something and read the poems, then you can take the book home."
Before she knew what she was doing, she agreed. When she realized what she had done, she tried to back out, but the young man pointed across the street and told her to meet him there when she's finished. He walked across the street and bought a Coke, and a few minutes later, she walked in with the book and handed it to him. She went to the counter to get a drink while the young man took a quick look at her slender body and nicely rounded ass before he began reading. When she returned to the table, they introduced themselves, and she discovered his name was Larry.
When he finished reading, the two of them sat for over an hour discussing poetry in general, and Yeats in particular. She couldn't remember when she had enjoyed an evening so much, and asked if he would like to meet again to talk about poetry. He quickly agreed and they decided to meet the following Monday. Although the smell of his cigarettes was distracting, she overlooked it because she was liked the discussions with the young white man.
The third week, when she walked across the street, he met her at the door and grabbed her hand saying, "Come on." She saw that he had a large insulated bag in his hand. He took her around the corner to the small park where he led her to a picnic table. He sat the cooler down and began emptying it. "I brought us some food today so we could spend more time together."
She felt like she had butterflies in her stomach as she helped him unpack the food. They had a good time and spent almost three hours together. Only one hour was spent talking about poetry and the rest was spent learning about each other.
When Tiara got home that night, she thought of her and Larry's time together, and she got butterflies in her stomach again. "What's wrong with me," she asked herself. "I get excited just thinking about being with Larry, and yet, we're opposites -- he's half my age, he's white and I'm black, he smokes and I hate smoking, he's covered with tats and I hate tats and I'm a professional and he's a mechanic. As she was thinking about him, she realized that her nipples were hard. "How can this white kid do this to me?"
Tiara avoided Larry for the next two weeks, but realized that she thought about him every day. Finally, she called him and invited him to dinner at her house. He brought flowers and a poem for her, and she served her home-made meat loaf. He wore a nice pair of khakis and a golf shirt and she wore slacks and a button up top with all but the top button fastened. During dinner, Larry asked, "We haven't been together for a couple weeks. Did I say something wrong?"
She paused and looked at the table. Finally, she looked up at him and told him what she had been wrestling with. "We're totally different, Larry. All we have in common is poetry. And yet I think of you every day. I know it's just the poetry, but I . . . "
She stopped talking as Larry stood from the table, and wondered if she said something wrong. He stepped over to her and held out his hands. She automatically put her hands in his and he pulled her to her feet. She looked into his eyes as he pulled her to him and bent to kiss her. She knew it was wrong, but she closed her eyes and felt his lips on hers. They felt soft but firm. She realized that her arms had gone around his neck, but didn't remember doing it. As they continued to kiss, she felt his tongue enter her mouth. She was so excited that the smell and taste of his cigarettes didn't even register with her.
He continued to kiss her. Tiara had no idea how long they kissed, but when they broke the kiss and looked at each other, she realized that her blouse was completely unbuttoned and her bra was unfastened. She took a quick breath, "Oh. Oh my," and crossed her arms over her chest and turned around. She quickly buttoned her blouse and then turned around to face him. "I'm sorry Larry, but I just . . . "
"I get it Tiara. I'm sorry. I better go. Thanks for dinner."
"Wait! Please don't . . . " But it was too late. Larry already going out the door.
Tiara couldn't sleep that night, or the next night. She thought of Larry almost all the time. She tried to call, but he didn't answer. He didn't come back to the library that week or the next week, and it was now driving her crazy. "Why had she stopped him?" She thought. "Why didn't she let him go on and take off her clothes and make love to her? It's been so long."
After work, Tiara went across to the coffee shop and asked if anyone knew where Larry worked. One of the waitresses told her, and she drove to his workshop. When Larry saw her, he said, "Hi Tiara. How have you been?"
"Will you come over tonight for dinner? Please?"
He shook his head. "No thanks. I don't think that's a good idea."
Tiara looked down and began to quietly cry. After a few seconds, she looked up into his eyes and said, "I'm so sorry Larry. Please come over tonight. I made a mistake and I want to make up for it. Please."
He paused for a minute and then nodded his head. "See you in an hour."
She smiled and mumbled, "O -- Ok. See you then."
Larry wore the same khakis and golf shirt as before, but Tiara wore a knee-length shirt dress belted at the waist. She greeted him at the door with a kiss and then led him to the table where they enjoyed spaghetti and a salad. After dinner, they put the dishes in the dishwasher and then Tiara turned and put her arms around Larry's neck and kissed him. Her tongue snaked into his mouth and he reciprocated. It only took Larry a few seconds to have her dress unbuttoned with the belt lying on the floor. This time, there was no objection.
When he broke the kiss, she looked up in to the young white man's eyes and smiled. As he smiled back, he unhooked her bra, and then slid her dress and bra off her shoulders, and they fell to the floor. He looked down at her dark skin and her even darker hard nipples. He leaned further and kissed one of her breasts and heard her moan. As he kissed her other breast, he slid his hand down the back of her panties.
"Ohhhh!" She moaned as she quickly climaxed. "Yesss. Yessssss."
Larry quickly moved her panties over her hips and they dropped to the floor. Tiara stepped out of them. Larry looked down at the completely nude older black woman in his arms. He thought, "For an older woman, she had a fantastic body." He lifted her in his arms and her arms went around his neck as she directed him to her bedroom. He gently laid her on her bed and then removed his own clothes, and climbed on the older black woman.
Larry had decided that his first-time banging Tiara was going to be memorable so he slowly kissed and licked his way down her slender body. He spent extra time on each breast and ignored her pleading to 'take her now.' He said, "My goal is to drive you crazy with lust and make you say 'fuck,' before I'm done.
As he was nibbling her breasts, she pleaded, "Please Larry. Please make love to me, baby."
He finally lifted his head and said, "We're not loving tonight Tiara. We're going to fuck." Then he continued his downward trek to her pussy. He kissed and licked her stomach and then slowly worked his way lower. She was still begging for him to take her. He began licking her clit and using his hands on her soaking wet pussy.
"Ohhh! Ohhh my," she moaned. "Yes baby. Yes." Larry increase d the tempo on her pussy. "Ahhhhh! Oh! Oh! Uunnngh! Oh . . f-f-u . . . Oh fuck fuck fuck! Please fuck me baby! I'm begging you. Please fuck me!"
He lifted his head and smirked at her. She smiled back and panted, "You won. Now fuck me! Fuck me!"
He moved up her body and easily slid his big white cock into her soaking wet pussy making her cum immediately. He started slow, but worked his way up to pounding her black pussy and making her scream and moan. She was panting like she had just run a marathon. "Oh yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Fuck me baby. I love it!"
She had no idea how many times she had cum, but she knew she had never cum that many times before. Larry pounded her pussy for more than 20 minutes before he dumped his cum into her pussy. He rested on her for a few minutes until his softening cock slid out. He rolled beside her and she quickly sniggled up to him. Her voice was hoarse, but she said, "Baby, that was the best sex I've ever had."
Larry smiled at her and said, "I guess sex is now something else we have in common, huh?"
"Mmm, you know it. Would you like to spend the night with me?"
"I don't know Tiara. Do you think that's a wise thing to do?"
"Mmm, I don't care, baby. I know that I want you beside me tonight."
"Well, I was going to go have a smoke and head for home."
Tiara wanted him to stay so badly that she blurted out, "Please Larry. You can smoke here. Please stay."
"Are you sure? I don't mind stepping outside."
She jumped out of bed and walked to his shirt and picked it up. She took his cigarettes from the pocket and found matches on her dresser that she used to light her candles. She carried them back to the bed and handed them to him. "Please baby. It's OK. Honest."
Larry took the pack and lit up a cigarette, and was surprised that Tiara stayed snuggled up next to him as he smoked it. She was even moving her hand on his stomach and chest as he smoked. When he was finished, he put it out in the candle dish next to the bed.
He said, "I hope that wasn't too disgusting for you Tiara."
"Oh no," she said quickly. "Actually, it kind of turned me on. Do you think we can have sex again tonight?"
Larry raised an eyebrow and looked down at her.
"I'm sorry baby. I mean will you fuck me again tonight?"
As they lay next to each other, she asked him about his many tats. He was explaining why he got each of them and what they meant to him. Without thinking, he reached over and lit another cigarette. AS he took his first puff, Tiara put her arm over his chest and her head on his shoulder. Her hand slowly moved down across his stomach and circle his cock. He smiled at her and whispered, "You know, if you suck on it, it will get hard quicker. And guess what that means?"
She grinned ear-to-ear at him and said, "It means you'll fuck the old lady again."
"Old lady?" He said. "Look at you seducing a youngster like me. Robbing the cradle and you call yourself a lady."
She was kneeling over his cock when she looked up and said, "I suppose you're right. A lady wouldn't rob the cradle, would she? Hmmm, so what does that make me then?" She put his cock in her mouth. As she began sucking his cock, he enjoyed his first blowjob by a black woman.
When his cock was hard, she lifted her head and began moving back up his body. She asked, "So, did you decide what I am for seducing such a child as yourself?"
He looked into her eyes and said, "I think you're a slut. You're a horny old black slut."
She grinned at him and said, "A horny old black slut that wants to fuck you." She lowered herself onto his big cock and moaned, "Ohhhhh! Oh f-fuck." She looked into his eyes and said, "Fuck your old black slut, baby." Tiara rode his cock like she was in a rodeo. Larry had his hands on her breasts and was squeezing and twisting her hard nipples. Tiara was coming over and over as she rode his cock. Finally, as her energy was waning and her body was covered with sweat, he pumped his seed into her pussy and she fell over beside him
After a few seconds, he reached for a cigarette and said, "A real slut would clean off my cock."
She lifted on her elbow and smiled at him and said, "She would, huh? Well, I guess if I'm a slut then I'd better get to work." She went down and licked and sucked his cock clean. She finished cleaning his cock as he was finishing his cigarette. "How was that?" she asked.
"That was nice, you old slut."
She laughed out loud and leaned to kiss his cheek. "I have a feeling that you have a lot to teach this old slut, don't you?"
"it all depends on whether you really want to be my slut or whether you're all talk."
She lay quietly next to him for a long time with her hand over his chest. Then she asked, "I've never done anything this wild before, Larry. I've only slept with three people, counting you in my whole life." As she looked at Larry, she saw his eyebrow was raised. She laughed and said, "OK OK. I've only ever fucked three men, counting you. And I've never fucked a white man before. And I've certainly never robbed the cradle with someone half my age." She lay quietly again. "This is normally outside my comfort zone, but for some reason, it feels natural with you." She paused again. "I want to do more, Larry, but I guess I'm kind of scared. Would you really teach me to be your slut or are you just having fun at an old lady's expense? I mean an old slut-wanna-be's expense?"
He said, "I noticed you the first day I came to the library. I knew you had a hot body under all that material. Then I find out we like the same poetry and that's even better. And now I discover that you can swear like a trooper. And you're a fast learner. Next, you'll probably be smoking my cigarettes and getting a tat. So to answer your question, I'd like to have a hot older black slut, and I'll teach you what you need to do."
She threw her arms around his neck and said, "And I'll try to be a good student and do what you tell me."
He looked at her as he lit another smoke and said, "Does it bother you to be giving yourself freely to a young white tattooed smoker? Does it bother you to be fucking someone younger than your kids? Does it bother you to be called a slut? Does it bother you to be giving yourself to someone who will take full advantage and use your hot black body in any way he sees fit? Will it bother you to sexually submit yourself fully to me?"
Tiara's hand was moving in circles on his chest as she thought of his questions. Finally, she lifted up and looked down into his face. She took the cigarette from his mouth and put it into her own mouth and said, "I want you to make me your black slut, baby," as she took a deep puff and began coughing.
|
Barton didn’t think about where he was going when he ran, he just ran. He barely registered sand under his bare feet and, when he saw the evergreen tree looking out of place at the edge of the beach, he was up it before he realized he was going to climb. It was how he always hid, finding as high a place as he possibly could and making himself small. He couldn't believe, after everything that they'd seen with Loki, what had happened to both him and Phil, that Fury would even think about using mind control on Rogers. Barton hadn't been lying. It would be better to just kill the other man rather than put him through losing a part of himself.
"Clint."
He stayed quiet. It made sense that Natasha would be the one to follow him. There were days when he thought that he'd never be able to escape from her, even if he wanted to. That she would always be able to find him. He saw her sit down at the base of the tree and cursed himself. His footprints would have led her right to the tree.
"Yeah, I know you're up there, Clint," she said. "I just want to make sure you're not going to hurt yourself is all. Look, Clint, I've seen what Thor's been doing with Rogers and it's nothing like what Loki did to you."
"You know that, do you?" he asked.
"Their magic is different," she replied. "Thor explained it to Bruce and me before he started. Loki isn't even an Asgardian, he's from another realm so his magic is different and, when combined with the staff and the tesseract, they're far more powerful. He used the power of the cube to influence you, Clint. It wasn't Loki's magic that took you, it was the cube. We didn't know it at the time, but the cube is from Loki's homeworld so he has a natural affinity for it, one that Odin tried to hide for centuries, if Thor is to be believed."
"No one should have to suffer having their minds warped by magic," he said.
"Thor isn't warping Rogers' mind, he's doing a little rearranging is all," Natasha said. "He told us he'd go in and find everything related to the attack, the wager and debt between Rogers and Howard Stark, and lock it away deeply within Rogers' mind where no one will ever be able to find it. There's no way to take the memories out, so we'll always have to be alert if we battle with magic users because they might be able to unlock what Thor's doing, but he doesn't think so. Thor's a prince and his magic is alien to us, so we should be safe."
"One hit on the head could undo everything. You proved that."
"I mentioned that and Thor said that the hit to the head knocked the cube's hold loose, not Loki's magic. You had to fight past that on your own, which you were able to do once the cube cut you loose," Natasha said. "When pressed he said the only way his cure could fail would be if he took it off, or if someone from his home with more power than he has in this form of magic released it. Loki's magic is different and Thor's people stay away by treaty, so Tony should be safe."
"Safe. He won't feel safe for years." Barton shifted higher up in the tree. "Not as long as Fury lets Rogers stay in the Tower."
"Unfortunately we have to, for now. The public is paying too much attention to us to lose Captain America," Natasha sighed. "It's possible an accident could be staged during a battle, but the super soldier program isn't really understood too well right now, so there's no way to know for sure what could actually kill him."
Barton snorted. "One of my exploding arrows to the back would do just fine," he said.
"Friendly fire is too obvious. Clint, we're going to have to give him a chance to prove himself again. Thor swears Rogers won't remember any of this, and he'll be wondering why the team is treating him differently."
"Not a chance in hell. He goes nowhere near Tony, Nat," Barton said. "I don't care about his feelings or his damn pride. You didn't watch Tony for three weeks. You haven't heard him crying from the nightmares or watched him try to put on a strong face so no one knows anything is wrong. This is Rogers fault and I'm never going to forgive him for this."
"Have you thought about what your little display did to Tony?"
"Phil will explain."
"Still is pretty selfish of you, running and hiding like this when Tony needs your help."
"It's not going to work, Natasha. I know what you're doing and it's not working," Barton said. "Go back inside and report. I'll be fine."
"I doubt that and so does Phil."
Barton bit back a sigh. "Tony's the one who needs your help right now, not me. I've been cleared for full duty."
"That's why you have all your walls up, is it?" Natasha asked. "You're fooling only yourself, Clint. This isn't you, this is Hawkeye and you're hiding away again."
"Yeah, so what?"
"Seeing Hawkeye is going to hurt Tony."
"Tony isn't going to see Hawkeye. I'm not stupid enough to do something like that."
"You were stupid enough to lock yourself away before you ran out of the pool area where you were supposed to be helping Tony. You're only thinking about yourself right now, Clint, and that's not going to work. Our focus needs to be on Tony and what's going to happen once we're back in New York."
Barton dropped down in front of her. "You don't know anything," he hissed. "Leave me alone."
Natasha sighed and watched Barton vanish down the beach towards the cliffs. She could track him, but it would be harder now that he knew she was on his trail. She turned back towards the house; if he wasn't back by nightfall, she'd go looking for him.***
"Natasha?" Coulson called when JARVIS announced she was back in the house.
"He ran again," she said. "I don't think I handled that as well as I could have, Coulson. He hasn't run from me like that in years."
"You tried."
"Yeah, but I think it might have been better for you to go. I tried to explain what's going on, the difference in Thor's magic and what Loki did, but it's like he wasn't listening," Natasha said. "He said one of his exploding arrows could solve our problems, Coulson."
"That is an incomplete report," JARVIS said quietly over the earpiece Coulson was wearing. "I have sensors as far out as they were talking and have the whole conversation recorded. I believe it best that Agent Romanov return to New York. When she is gone, I believe Agent Barton will return."
"I'll talk to him, Natasha," Coulson said. "Did Fury want you to stay out here, or are you heading back?"
"Heading back. I've got an Op that I have to get ready for," she said. "The Director wants you to call him when you have a minute free."
Coulson nodded. "I'll do that once I have Tony settled down."
"Is he okay?"
"Sleeping is still an issue. I was making him some hot chocolate when you came back," Coulson said. "He'll be fine, it'll just take time and some new inventions in the Tower. Who's your handler on the Op?"
"One of the new kids. I think part of it is me evaluating him."
"Don't break him," Coulson said. "Be safe, Natasha. We'll see you when you get back."
"Tell Clint to call me when he gets back, will you?"
"Sure."
Natasha nodded and left. She never said good-bye if she could avoid it. Coulson leaned against the counter and sighed. "Play it for me, JARVIS."
"Yes, Sir."
Coulson listened to the conversation and winced a few times. That was not how he would have tried to talk Barton down, and wasn't sure why Natasha had gone that route with him. "This is a mess, JARVIS," he said when the recording was finished.
"Indeed. If I may, Sir. When we were attempting to locate an element that would power the arc reactor, Mr. Stark and I developed a few new materials that he hasn't released to anyone. It is possible one of them may be strong enough to become the new walls and door to the lab in the Tower."
"I'll talk to Tony about it," Coulson said. "Thanks, JARVIS. Will you let me know when Barton is home?"
"Yes, Sir."
|
"It's one thing to want someone out of your life, but it's another thing to serve them a wake-up cup full of liquid drainer."
- Veronica Sawyer, Heathers
***
Hermione was in the white room again. She could read the numbers on the doors this time, but they were all marked 61001. She chose one at random and he was there, but this time he wasn't standing. Ron was on his knees, with his hands tied behind his back and a scarf over his eyes.
"Who's there?" He swung his head back and forth. He couldn't see.
"It's only me," she said, and he sagged with relief. She raised her leg and kicked him soundly in the back of the head, and he fell forward and landed on his face.
The image faded away, and Hermione sank into darkness and guilt. She wondered if Ron was unconscious, if she'd done any permanent damage and if she might have wanted to, but then the numbness passed and she crossed back into reality. She opened her eyes and tried to push herself up in bed, but she was in too much pain. Her skin didn't fit right over her bones. The pressure in her chest blocked her lungs, and her forearms and the backs of her hands stung as they brushed against the fabric of her comforter. She let out a hopeless moan as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and then she carefully lifted a hand up to her face. Her nails were caked with dried blood, and she wasn't sure whose it was, and deep scratches ran down the length of her exposed flesh. Then, the panic came.
She threw herself off the bed and searched the room with wide animal eyes. She'd been asleep on top of the blankets, still wearing her short dress. Bruises were forming on her arms with the scratches, and she wasn't sure whether she was going to throw up or pass out. She sat back down on the bed until the room stopped spinning. She couldn't remember anything past going to the pub with Malfoy.
Malfoy. She took him in, and as soon as she was too drunk to stop him, he beat her bloody. She forced herself to stand up more slowly this time, and then she stumbled down the hall into her living room, where he was sleeping like nothing happened. He must have been drunk, too, to be sleeping at night. A curious calm came over her, and she stepped in front the couch and studied him. His shirt was spotted with blood, but he seemed uninjured. His hands rested on his chest like in a casket, and his knuckles and nails were clean.
"Wake up," she said. He didn't stir. "Wake up."
He opened his eyes and looked her up and down, and he was smiling. She was going to kill him.
and then myself.
"I'd say good morning, but I don't think it's morning yet," he said, glancing at the window. Hermione realised she had no idea what time it was, but it was still dark outside.
"What did you do to me?" She could feel the muscles in her chest and neck tensing with anger. She could be stretched no tighter. He rolled off the couch and stood over her.
"I put you to bed," he said, still infuriatingly calm. "And it hurt quite a bit, but you couldn't make it up the stairs." He lifted his hands to display the insides of his arms, and the skin was red and raw and peeling all the way from his palms to his shoulders. "I'm going to have to add your impossible obstinacy to the list of things I like about you – even when you couldn't walk, you still said I couldn't carry you. The only thing you'd let me touch was your key."
"What happened to me?" she demanded. She was dizzy again.
"Don't you remember?" he asked, with an unsettling grin.
"I think it's rather obvious that I don't."
"You got in a fight, Granger," he said. He sounded disgustingly amused.
"Is that what you're going to call it?" As if words mattered. "Tell me what you did to me."
"I didn't do anything except watch, and it's a pity you don't remember. You should see the other girl," he said. "I believe I've already told you how much I like those nails of yours."
"No," she said, shaking her head. Her skin was cold, but her blood was hot. A cold glass filled with hot water will shatter. "I won't let you give me whatever fucked up fake memory you're building in your brain."
"How could I have done this if I can't touch you?"
"You said you carried me to my bed!"
"And look what I got for it." He showed her his palms again before closing his hands and turning them over. "Tell me, what part of your body do you hit somebody with?" She wasn't going to answer such a stupid question out loud, so she looked at his knuckles, which were still white and unblemished. "That's right. As I learned tonight, I get burned more the harder I push against you. I can prove it."
Without warning, he wound up gracefully and his fist connected with her shoulder, and she stumbled a half-step back. She rubbed the point of impact, but it didn't really hurt. She knew it wasn't anywhere near the best he could do.
Does he think I can't take it,
She stared in shock as he flexed and contracted his hand, hissing with pain.
or is he just lazy?
He held it up for her inspection, and most of the skin had been torn from his knuckles. She saw bone and looked away.
"If I'd hit you hard enough to bruise, I wouldn't have any skin left. You got in a fight, and it wasn't with me."
She was almost ready to break, and she pushed past him to the sofa. She pressed her spine against the arm and straightened her legs across the cushions. Malfoy sat just past her feet and watched her with a strange intensity.
"What's wrong with you?"
"You put on quite an exciting show tonight," he said, as though that were an acceptable answer.
"Did I hurt someone?" she asked, even though she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"Yes, you did." As a matter of fact.
"I…
wish I could remember what it felt like -
What's happening to me?" She didn't give him time to answer because she was afraid that for once he'd tell the truth. "This is all your fault."
"I didn't make you do anything," he said. "I didn't even make a suggestion."
For a man who had accomplished nothing, he seemed quite pleased with himself. "I never would have thought of fighting someone if it wasn't for you."
"I don't think that's true in general, but I suppose you wouldn't have thought of this particular fight if it wasn't for me." He flashed his teeth, and it was scary in the dark.
"I don't have time to play games with you," she said. Time didn't seem as predictable anymore, but she was almost certain it was running out. "You will tell me what happened."
He turned his face down and inspected his ruined hand. "Another woman was trying to take your man, and you told her to back off. She didn't listen, and she had a few unflattering opinions about you – all of which were incorrect, by the way. She was asking for it."
For a fragment of second, she almost believed him. "She was trying to take my what?"
"Your man," he repeated, his voice low and dangerous, and there was a strange tug in her stomach.
"I haven't got one of those."
"That's not what you said earlier."
"What exactly do you think I said?" With her eyes shut, she could pretend it wasn't real. She could imagine that she was the only thing that existed, and everything else was some wretched trick she played on herself to use up the hours in an infinite void. She felt him move, and she opened them to see that he had crawled carefully past her legs and leaned in much too close, one arm braced behind her, just barely avoiding contact. He looked at her face, and she realised that she must look a mess.
"You said, 'he's mine,' and you were referring to me."
"I don't believe you," she said. She pulled back, but he followed to put himself just as close, this time hovering along her jaw and then down her neck. Her head tipped back.
"That's too bad because it's true," he said. His breath was burning holes in her skin.
"You're a liar," she gasped.
"That's not very nice." She was going to catch fire or explode if he didn't stop breathing on her like that. She couldn't remember the word for
don't
stop. She couldn't think of how to ask for
less
space.
"You are, though. There's no other word for someone who lies as much as you do." She could barely hear her own voice over the violent bang and crash of her heart. She thought her ribs might crack.
"But I'm always so sure of what I'm saying."
"Then you admit it?"
"No, that was a general statement. My summary of tonight is fact."
His breath was hitching and quickening near her collarbone. He picked up his free hand, the one with the torn-up knuckles, and held it so close over her ankle that she could feel the heat of his burned palm, and he moved it through space above her bare skin. She watched as it floated all the way up to her hip and then lingered over her thigh.
He picked his head up, and his pupils were so large that his eyes looked black. "Tell me I can touch you."
Touch me.
It almost sounded like an order, and he was holding himself above her so imposingly that it was almost enough to make someone forget who was in control.
No one is.
"Tell me what really happened tonight," she said.
Entropy always wins.
"I already told you that, and you were right," he said. "I'm all yours. Say I can touch you."
Touch me!
"But nobody ever said I was yours." She closed her eyes again to find comfort in the void. He made a noise like a growl.
"You don't have to be," he said. His voice was distorted, and was it sound waves that broke underwater or was that only light or did they all stay whole but change direction? "Just let me touch you."
TOUCH ME
His body was completely rigid, so tense she could see the muscles twitching under his skin, and every part of him was as close as it could get without quite breaking the rules.
"You know how to ask nicely," she said. She saw him bite the insides of his cheeks, but he didn't need to think about it too long.
"May I please touch you," he ground out, and she looked down at his hand near her thigh.
"You can touch my hands."
It wasn't what he'd wanted to hear. He dragged his fingers across her palm, watching her face carefully, and she stifled her reaction. He rubbed the scratches on her knuckles until the cuts reopened.
"Why don't you just tell me I can touch your mind?" he asked. He was quite angry now, for a man who couldn't feel.
"What do you mean?" She had a high pain tolerance, and she kept a straight face.
"You're a brain in a jar, Granger. Can you even feel this?" He dug his short nails into the shallow wounds, and she clenched her teeth.
"Yes. It hurts."
"You'd never know." He bent her ring finger as far as the joint would allow before letting it snap back into place. "Would you rather lose your whole body or just one tenth of your brain?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.
"That is the dumbest thing that anyone has ever asked me."
"It's not dumb. It's just pointless because I already know the answer."
"You can't touch my hands anymore," she said. He dropped her finger.
"I guess it doesn't really matter. This –" he held his hand above her shoulder – "is the same as this –" and pressed it down with a grimace and a burst of orange light –"is the same as this." He took his hand off her shoulder and touched the side of the couch.
She narrowed her eyes, seeing spots from the flash and trying to decide if she should be offended. "What are you saying?"
"Those things didn't feel the same to me, but they were all the same to you. You want to make your nerve endings ask politely before you'll let them feel."
"That's not possible."
"I'm well aware, and doesn't that just disappoint you every day? Even if you could gather up everything and everybody else in the whole world and bend them to your will, you'd still be trapped in that fleshy cage, and you can never be in complete control of it," he taunted. He lifted his eyes to stare at the centre of her forehead. "Would you be happier in a jar, Granger's brain?"
"That's enough!" Her hands seemed to unfreeze, and she pushed him to the other side of the couch. He grinned like a hunter. She perched on the cushions like a bird.
"While your hands were on my chest, did you happen to notice what I feel like?"
"No."
"Then you should try again and find out. Maybe we're going about this backwards. How about you touch me?"
"I don't want to."
He shook his head slowly. "If that was an example of honesty, I don't even know how to tell when I'm lying by your standards."
"Words have definitions, Malfoy!" She was half-screaming and half-pleading, begging him to understand both what she was saying and what she wished she could say instead, and to be able to separate the two. "People don't run around with their own individual conceptions of what they all mean. I have the same standards as the rest of the world, minus you. If you say something that isn't true, then you're lying."
He cocked his head again. It was the same thing she would see if his neck were broken. "In that case, what are your standards for truth?"
"Truth is an absolute concept. Either something happened or it didn't. It's there or it's not."
"We've already talked about your absurd penchant for absolute concepts," he said. "There aren't nearly as many of those as you seem to think there are. Aren't you the one who's lying when you tell me anything about earlier tonight, considering you don't remember it?"
"No, that's not what I meant." She didn't quite know what she meant, but that wasn't it. "A lie contradicts your best knowledge of the truth."
"So, if you and I were in a hypothetical vacuum where we both knew the whole truth about the whole universe, and either of us said anything, then we'd be lying."
I am the whole universe.
"That's meaningless," she said through her teeth. He was spinning her head like the carnival ride where you stick to the walls, and that's what her brain was doing in her skull. "So much of what you say is meaningless."
"Don't play dumb. You know exactly what I'm saying, and that's why I say these things to you. I know that no matter how many times you call me crazy, you're still one of the only people in the world who can really understand what I mean."
"No, I think there are even fewer of those people than you think." She was still up on her knees, and he leaned toward her again with eyes that shone in the dark.
"Are you sure? Am I overestimating you? This is your last chance, then, and don't think I'm bluffing. If you honestly don't know what I'm talking about, then I won't ever speak to you again. I'm not asking if you agree with me, but do you understand or not?"
It was a strange question, and it hit her harder than she would have thought. She could tell he was serious, and she wasn't going to let him think she was too stupid to wrap her head around his entry-level psychology drivel.
"Of course, I understand," she said, rolling her eyes.
Her response satisfied him more than she'd intended. "Are you really that afraid of life without me?"
"Why would you think that?"
"I thought you were going to stop playing dumb."
She was losing ground fast, and it was time to retreat. "I think I'm feeling well enough to heal us now. Stay here."
"I'll stay with you 'til my seas are dry," he said serenely. It sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.
"What's that from?"
"A Muggle song."
"It's wildly inappropriate."
"That's why it's funny. I like that line – there a few different ways to interpret it."
"I can only think of one," she said, stepping off the couch. She walked to her bedroom without looking back.
"That's not true," he called after her. "You tell people such a very small portion of your thoughts."
She turned on the light in her bedroom, and it burned her eyes until they could adjust.
"That's because they don't ask," she called back. "I'm not one of those people who just unloads everything on anybody who'll stay still long enough." She checked the bed first, but it wasn't there. She moved the pillows and ruffled the blankets.
"Are you talking about me?"
"Yes." She pulled open her nightstand drawer and found Malfoy's wand but not her own. She could use his if she had to, but she would rather not.
"Do you want me to stop, then?"
"Yes!" She was starting to panic again as she threw the blankets off her bed. She felt her pocket frantically, but there was nothing. She hurried into the living room, where Malfoy observed her with interest.
"Did you lose something?" he asked.
"I am clearly looking for my wand."
"You're right, I guess that should have been obvious," he said.
She couldn't think of anywhere else it could be unless she'd lost it at the pub, and that would be a disaster. Not only was her wand lost, but it could be in the hands of an unsuspecting Muggle. She felt empty without it. Malfoy was grinning again, and she was getting sick of it, and then she knew why.
"Wait a minute. Do you know where my wand is?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes, actually I do," he said. She could tell he was stifling his laughter with difficulty.
The world had shrunk down too small, and other people were taking up the space that should have been hers, and she was crunched into a corner so cramped it broke her bones. She couldn't bear it in silence anymore. She clenched her fists and threw her head back and wailed at the ceiling because it was all too much to take. "Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, once she was airless and crumpled back up.
"You didn't ask." She got the joke, but it wasn't funny.
"How can you act like this? What is - how could you - are you - oh, god!" She tore at her hair with both hands and screamed again, and he just sat and watched.
"Do you feel better now?" he asked.
"No! You're still here!"
"Are you sure that's the problem?"
"Where is my wand?" she asked, one last time.
He didn't answer quickly enough, and she was screaming and clenching her hands in front of her chest. Her heart went fast and faster, like the deer as the car comes at it, and there were shaking black borders at the edges of the world. She was a misshapen mass of nerve endings and flaming cells and blood and guts, howling into the dark at a grinning lunatic. Fully transformed, she wasn't the brightest witch of anybody's anything. She was an animal who could talk, and it wasn't getting her anywhere.
The smile faded slowly from his face, and she could see his excitement as he watched her. "Get up!"
He moved so slowly that the sound waves bent around him. He held his hand above her shoulder again, and she was still breathing so hard it shook her whole body. "Can I touch you now?"
YES
"Where's my wand?"
"Can I touch your lungs? Can I touch your ribs? Can I touch your teeth?" He moved both hands to hover where all those things would be.
"Tell me where my wand is," she said.
"How about your eyeballs? Your eardrums?" His hands came to a stop on either side of her head, and she slapped them away. "Say it. Can I touch you?"
"Yes!"
Before she even fully comprehended what she'd said, his hands swallowed her whole. He slammed into her, and her scratches stung and her bruises ached, and she pushed back harder. He reduced his mouth to fine particles against hers in something that may have had a passing similarity to a kiss. She heard the animal noises again, and images flashed into her mind as she dragged her nails across his back. She remembered what the girl looked like as she dug oozing gutters into the outsides of her arms. She remembered tearing out sections of soft hair and making use of her elbows.
She didn't feel guilty. She felt hands and mouth and muscle and bone.
***
Hermione was going to kill every bird. She'd kill them with her wand, she'd kill them with a gun, and she'd kill them with her hands until the whole genus was extinct. And then they'd stop chirping.
She opened her eyes slowly and sat up on her elbows, but her vision wouldn't clear. She remembered that there were worse noises in the world than birds.
"Now we can say good morning," said an unwanted voice from the floor beside her bed. She might have said something, but her throat was too dry and scratchy to talk just for the sake of it.
Her fractured memories of the previous night came back in increments, and she surveyed the damages. Her clothing was intact, and the scratches and bruises didn't seem as bad in the logical daylight. She remembered pushing Malfoy onto the floor and fighting about whether he could stay in her bed, and apparently he hadn't returned to the couch.
"Where is my wand?" she asked as loudly as she could, but it didn't sound commanding. It sounded squeaky and sad.
"It rolled under the couch." She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and he was smiling again. She stepped on his chest as she left the room. "That's no way to treat your man," he called after her.
"That's not what you are, and you were in my way," she replied hoarsely as she dropped to her knees to search under the furniture.
Her wand was near the front of the sofa, and she pressed her cheek to the carpet in relief. As she reached for it, she thought of something else about last night: it had been Saturday, which meant that today was Sunday. She stood and checked the clock and almost screamed again, because she wasn't an action movie heroine at all. She was ditzy eye candy in a bad teen slasher flick. Malfoy ambled out of her bedroom, just in time to eat some of her anger.
"What's wrong?" he asked. In her defense, it was a stupid question.
"What isn't wrong? My friends are going to be here in four hours, I got in some kind of drunken catfight last night, my life is in shambles, and most importantly you're still here."
"I think you should be drunk more often," he said. "You're a lot nicer. It's all right, though – I know how you really feel now." He scratched his stomach under his shirt and yawned.
"Nothing I said last night means anything. I was smashed." She didn't even know what she had said. It could have been anything.
He stepped closer and reached his arms over his head, arching his spine like a cat in the sun. "On the contrary, nothing you're saying right now means anything because you're sober enough to lie."
"I am never drinking again," she said.
"That's what they all say." His face was a blank slate except a smile so insincere it almost seemed decorative. He was behind his wall of static again, where nothing real could reach him.
I want to go there, too. I think I'm getting close.
She pressed her palm into her aching head. "Do you know how to make coffee the Muggle way?"
"I do, actually," he said. His mandatory Muggle Studies class must have included a few days of magic-free living.
"Then do it, and make it strong," she said. "Don't touch anything you don't need for making coffee. I'm going to take a shower." She walked past him to her bedroom and chose some clean clothes. She took them to the bathroom and locked the door, and she could no longer avoid her reflection.
Her hair was a tangled mess, her mascara was dried into her cheeks, and her eyes were dull and red. Her lower lip was split open, but she didn't think she'd been hit in the mouth; if possible, there was an even worse reason for that bloody lip because it probably involved Malfoy's teeth.
The nausea came again. She had just enough time to grab a clip off the sink to hold up her hair before she was hugging the toilet, and the stomach acid stung her lips. She leaned against the bathtub, covered in cold sweat and trying to figure out how she'd fallen so far, so fast. Nothing she'd done in the entire past week was like her at all, especially the last twenty-four hours. It felt like she was turning into someone else. She didn't like this new person, but from her horrible new perspective she didn't like her old self any better.
For once, Malfoy had been right: everyone had a breaking point. She had been pushing herself forward all these years along the logical track of her future, and it had never been an option to stop or turn around. She had been too proud and afraid to ask for help when she still could have, with her turbulent emotional state or Malfoy or anything else. It had seemed irrelevant to ask herself if she was happy, but now the answer was obvious. Happy people don't go looking for danger, because they have something to lose.
She wasn't feeling sick anymore now that she'd purged her stomach, and it was time to analyze the situation a bit more objectively. She had her wand, and she could heal herself, and there was no reason to tell anyone about last night. She would be pleasant and friendly to Harry and Ginny, and they would do most of the talking. Tomorrow morning, she would go to work and decide the Leaky Cauldron case. But there was still Malfoy.
She repaired the skin on her arms and lips and brushed her teeth thoroughly and took a shower. She dressed and dried her hair, despite the ions, and put on a fresh coat of mascara. But there was still Malfoy.
He handed her a cup of coffee when she walked into the kitchen, and she eyed it suspiciously.
"I don't know where you keep the poison, Granger," he said. He clinked his mug against hers and took a drink.
To our health.
"Would you poison my coffee if you did?"
"I didn't say that. I bet you don't have any, or you would have used it on me by now."
"I can't do that," she said. She clutched the warm ceramic against her chest with both hands, breathing in the smell. "What would I do with the body?"
"You've seriously considered killing me, haven't you?" he asked, grinning, and she noticed his shirt was still blood-speckled. She generally avoided looking at his face too much because it was annoying, but it was becoming very obvious that he hadn't shaved in over a week.
He really needs to, though. It irritates my skin.
"I've considered many different options," she said. She edged past him to sit at the table, and he invited himself along.
"Let me see if I have this right: you're saying that killing people to make your own life easier is, in fact, an option."
"No. I'm not considering killing anyone, seriously or otherwise." She checked the clock, and she had two hours. She would have nothing to say at dinner.
What's going on with me? Well, last night I almost shagged my new flatmate, Draco Malfoy, but then I came to my senses and kicked him in the stomach, which is not to say that I didn't want to because I definitely did. When he landed on the floor, I could hear him trying not to vomit from the impact.
"Who's coming over?"
I've been avoiding doing any actual work at my job for an entire week, I got so smashed I couldn't even remember using my nails to teach some girl a lesson about trying to steal that person I keep saying I don't want, I'm having vivid dreams about breaking Ron's face,
"That's none of your business."
and I don't even feel bad about it. Enough about me, how's James?
"Yes, it is. This is my flat, too."
He poured some of her sugar into the coffee she'd given him and stirred it with his forefinger, while she gaped at him. "No, it isn't."
He put his finger in his mouth and sucked it clean. "How can you still be in denial about this? I've lived here for over a week, I have no plans to ever leave, and I'm getting closer and closer to sleeping in your bed," he said. She knew he was talking about more than just sleeping.
"Just because we're trapped here together doesn't make this flat yours. You still aren't paying rent."
"I'll pay you back as soon as I can figure out how to get some money," he said. She'd heard that one before. "Right now, we can't risk having my parents find out I'm still alive."
"We can't let them think you're dead, though. I already told you we're not faking your death."
"Not directly, I suppose, but we are definitely faking my death by omission. Unless you want me to write my family a letter and fill them in on the recent events in my life?"
"No."
No, no, no, this is all wrong.
"Then I think that counts as helping me fake my death."
It should always be how it is at night, when no one exists except us.
"It doesn't." She refused to think of it that way. It was already too much.
I wish it was night all the time.
"Fine, I guess you're some kind of death-faking expert, then," he said. "I wouldn't want to let any actual facts get in the way of however you're rationalizing this situation."
"Excuse me? You're the one who keeps inventing pretend memories and trying to plant them in my brain. I'm not sure you're even acquainted with the concept of reality, and yet somehow you feel comfortable lecturing me about facts and rational thinking." She had forgotten all about her coffee, and it was losing heat fast against her hand.
"My memories aren't any more or less pretend than anybody else's." She took sip of cold liquid to occupy her mouth, so she wouldn't be tempted to answer. "So, who's coming over?"
"I've already told you. My friends."
"Which ones?"
"You don't need to know that. You'll be in the closet again anyway."
"I guess that's necessary," he said gamely. "If Harry Potter found out I was here, he'd tell everybody I'm alive, and I don't want to see him anyway."
"What makes you think I'm talking about Harry?"
"How many friends have you got, Granger?"
"That's a very rude thing to say."
"I'm just asking. I mean, I don't have too many friends besides you."
"I'm not your friend."
He raised his eyebrows. "You're calling me rude?"
"I'm just stating a fact. We aren't friends."
He nodded and drummed his fingers on the table. "I see. There's only one thing that confuses me, then: you have the power to make me shut up, but you don't."
She hadn't considered it, actually. It hadn't occurred to her at all, but she didn't have time to think about it right then. "If I can't get rid of you, I might as well get some shoddy conversation out of the deal."
"You don't want to get rid of me," he said. There was victory in his eyes. "Not even a little bit."
"I want to get rid of you more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life." In that moment, she meant it. It could have been the most honest thing she'd said in days, if she had been able to admit that she wasn't talking about Malfoy.
That could mean anything.
"Don't forget, I'm still counting."
She swallowed the rest of her coffee, stone cold. "I think you should go in the closet now."
He finished his, too, which must have been even colder but sweeter. "If I have to," he said. "I'd tell you to think about me while I'm in there, but I don't need to."
I'd do anything for something good to think about.
"I wouldn't anyway."
I've already proved that.
"Whatever you say."
She slammed her empty coffee cup down on the table so hard it almost cracked, and she led him to her bedroom, and he had really been spending way too much time there lately.
|
Nearly a week after the offers, Phil calls everybody to the living room and stands in front of them. It feels just like any other Avengers meeting, but it’s far from just an average debriefing, and Phil tries to keep himself calm as he looks at each person in turn. He catches Clint’s eye last, receives a raised eyebrow of query and concern, and looks away.
He’s so not ready for this.
"Thank you all for coming," Phil says. "After much deliberation, I've made my decision to take one of you up on your very kind offer of collaring. I don't want to leave the team, and it means a lot that you don't want me to either. I wish we could fight this properly, but this is one of those times when I just have to submit…” he pauses, shaking his head, and Clint and Natasha both chuckle. “Well, there it is in a nutshell,” Phil says dryly.
"Who are you picking?" Bruce asks.
Phil hesitates. "Before I do... I know this isn't - your offers aren't made out of actually wanting me as yours. But I feel like I should explain why I haven't chosen the rest of you, just to make it clear that I'm not rejecting any of you out of any sense of dislike. There is logic; and there’s also protocol for accepting and rejecting collaring offers… and you all know what I’m like with protocol. I want to do this properly.”
"Fire away," Tony says.
"I'll start with you then," Phil says, and Tony laughs. "Thank you for your offer, Tony, but you have Pepper. Not only would that be very hard to explain and justify to a review board, but I just don't feel right having a Dom who has somebody else. Same goes for all of you," he adds. "If I end up with someone who later wants a real sub, I'll happily dissolve the contract."
There are nods all around. "Understood," Tony says. "And thanks. Rejected but not dejected, and offer withdrawn.”
Phil smiles, then turns to Thor, who stands. "Thank you for your offer, Thor, but again, there's Jane to consider. I also checked with Director Fury, and even though you’ve passed the basic psychometric and been registered as low-level Dominant, you can't legally take a Midgardian as your submissive and have it recognised as valid in a court of law. At least not for our purposes - this, of course, won’t stop you from collaring a submissive if you ever choose to, though with Jane being a neutral, I don’t think that’s something you’re considering."
Clint quickly stands and murmurs in Thor’s ear. "Then I withdraw my offer and accept your kind rejection," Thor says with a respectful nod, and sits back down.
Phil nods his thanks to Clint - it isn’t exactly necessary to stick with the formal words for accepting Phil’s rejection, but both the submissive and the detail-obsessive in Phil feel a lot better knowing that he’s ended everything properly and fully. He looks at Natasha next. "Thank you for your offer, Natasha,” he begins formally, following the protocol like all the others, then stops and smirks. “You know why I’m saying no. I wouldn't do that to you - owning a sub is distasteful to you, even if it is just for show. Besides, my preferences make the idea of having a Domme rather distasteful to me, even if it is just for show."
She smiles. "Thanks, Phil. Rejection gladly received and offer withdrawn.”
The easy ones done, Phil sighs and turns to Bruce. "Thank you for your offer, Bruce, but you made the comment that this didn't feel 'pure' to you. I would feel bad about tying you down to something you weren't comfortable with."
"I wouldn't be uncomfortable," Bruce argues. "But I'm a bit of a romantic at heart, is all. I’ve only ever had one submissive and - well. We don’t need to rehash that.”
"I know. I might be doing this out of need, but I don’t want to impose on anybody either. And also, I just don't think it would be a good fit, no matter how much it is just for show. I know you’d give it your best, but I don’t see us passing a review together. Sorry."
"Hey, no sweat," Bruce says easily. "Didn't think you'd choose me, I'm not offended. Rejection accepted, offer withdrawn.”
"Does anybody else feel like we're watching The Bachelor right now?" Tony asks, and turns to look at Steve and Clint. "The final two. Who's it gonna be? You need roses, Phil!"
Phil rolls his eyes. "As minimally dramatic as possible, thanks, Tony."
"Oh, fine. It's obvious anyway, isn't it? Biggest Captain America fanboy ever, and Captain America is offering to collar him. Like that wasn't your favourite special dream when you hit puberty."
"Tony, shut up," Natasha says.
Phil just rolls his eyes. "Ignoring the last part of that, Tony's right. I was embarrassingly obsessed, and everybody here knows it.” He still remembers bringing Steve in to join the Avengers, and tries not to let the heat rise to his face as he recalls his comments. Thankfully they’re long past that point now. But still... “That's why I'm declining your offer, Steve. I can see it causing tension between us. I value your friendship, and I don't want to make this into... well, what Tony said. But not what Tony said."
"I understand," Steve says with a smile. "I accept your rejection and won't take it personally. I withdraw my offer too.”
There's a moment of silence. "So that means -" Bruce begins, then goes quiet.
Phil takes a deep breath and turns to Clint. His heart is beating way too fast. "Thank you for your offer, Clint," he says quietly. "If it is still open, I would like to accept it."
Clint doesn't speak for a moment, then slowly stands. "You’ve thought about the fact that you’re my handler?" he asks. “I’m not withdrawing my offer, but is this going to change anything? Because you know how I feel about handlers that aren’t you.”
"It won't change," Phil assures him. "In fact, it seems the most natural. We've spent so much time together on missions, the review board are more likely to accept a bond forming between us. Granted, it’s the opposite way around, but you’ve never had any problems telling me what to do even when I’m the one supposed to be giving the orders."
Clint concedes that with a nod. "Well, then," he says. "Should I collar you now?"
Phil's emotions are in turmoil at that sentence, dreamt of for so long yet uttered so casually. "If you have a collar ready - but there's no hurry. I know this is far more rushed than normal or advisable. If you need time to think about it..."
"Nothing to think about," Clint says with a small smile. "It's hurried, but we all knew it had to be that way, and it's not like I don't already know you pretty damn well. I do have a collar - I'll go get it. Will you all bear witness?"
The group assents, and Clint leaves. While he's gone, Phil takes off his tie, undoes the first two buttons of his shirt, and puts a cushion in the middle of the floor. Then he gets out his phone and pulls up the collaring vows he's researched. It keeps his hands from shaking.
When Clint returns, box in hand, Phil gives him the phone. "These are the most simple I could find," he says. "No 'till death do us part', no 'obey', nothing that locks us into more than we're willing to give."
Clint reads them, then nods. "I like it. Simple and to the point. Who wants to read them?"
Natasha steps forward. "Allow me," she says.
Phil starts to kneel, but Clint stops him. "Look at it first," he says, and opens the box. "I know this isn't... but I still want you to like it. There's time to get a different one if you don't."
Phil takes in the collar. It's a deep purple, the shade muted but still striking. The small bronze plate has an arrow on it - of course - and Phil smiles. "It's lovely, Clint," he says honestly. "I'll be glad to wear it."
Clint smiles too. "Good. Okay, down you go."
Phil rolls his eyes, but obediently settles himself on the cushion in the formal kneel. It’s been a long time since he’s had to use it, so he spent some time this afternoon practicing and is confident that he’s got his posture and positioning perfect. No matter how little this means to Clint, Phil wants to look the part. He's taking the collar of the man he loves, after all.
When he looks up, Clint's eyes are curiously wide. Phil holds eye contact, and, through the benefit of years of experience and training, reads Clint’s emotions. He’s been Clint’s handler for eight years now, has seen him display just about every emotion possible, and where anybody else would just see mild surprise, Phil can read…
Wait.
What can he read?
Well, there’s shock. That much is obvious. But it isn’t bad shock it’s… good? And there’s amazement, absolute wonder, something Phil only sees when someone shocks Clint down to the core by doing something completely unexpected - either very good, or very bad. But he’s guarded too, uncertain, trying to hold back out of fear of -
Rejection.
Because Clint’s staring at Phil, kneeling at his feet, like he can’t believe the universe has put him here; but he’s also staring at him in fear because, as far as Clint’s concerned, the universe has put Phil here out of obligation and not…
Not for the same reasons Clint wants him to be here.
Clint wants him to be here.
Phil blinks twice, then smiles.
And it only takes a second - the same second - for Clint to read him in return, and Clint breaks out into the most beautiful smile that Phil has ever seen. Phil instinctively reaches for Clint's hand, Clint squeezing his fingers tight, and there's everything in Clint's eyes and -
And this is suddenly all very, very real.
Natasha lightly clears her throat. If Phil were to look at her now, he’d see her smiling too, and the look in her eyes would be something along the lines of well about fucking time. But he only has eyes for Clint, and Clint for him. "Clint,” Natasha says quietly, “if you'll repeat after me?"
She reads the vows and Clint recites them. Phil doesn't hear a word, nor does he pay attention to his own voice when it's his turn. His mouth says all the promises of belonging to Clint and wearing his collar and accepting him as his Dom; his eyes tell another story. No - the same story, but told in emotions rather than words.
So do Clint's. Phil can hardly believe what he's seeing - Clint wants this, just as much as he does.
When Phil finishes the vows, Clint picks up the collar and sinks to his knees in front of Phil. There's nothing more that's required, apart from putting it on, but Clint still pauses. "Will you wear my collar, Phil?" he asks.
"Yes," Phil says softly. "Gladly, and freely."
"And I give it freely," Clint says.
These are the real vows. They both know it.
Clint slips the collar around his neck and fastens it in place. Then he rises and holds out a hand, helping Phil to his feet.
Steve starts the applause. Phil rolls his eyes, then smiles. He’s still adjusting to the feel of leather around his throat, something he hasn’t had in a long time, and hopefully the slight choke to his voice when he speaks can be blamed on that. "Thanks, guys," he says. "And thank you for all of your offers. I won't forget it."
"What happens now?" Bruce asks. "You get to stay?"
"Not definitely. Now I fill in the required paperwork, and then Clint and I are submitted to a review to determine the validity of our relationship. If we pass, then I get to stay."
Clint takes his hand. "We should talk about all of that," he says, and picks up the empty collar box. "If you'll excuse us?"
The lift ride is silent, but electric. Phil meets Clint's eyes once, and his gaze is intoxicating. Phil returns it, then looks down - if he keeps his eyes on Clint, he's going to throw himself across the lift at him, and he can't do that. Not until they've talked.
Not until he's positive.
When they reach Clint's room, Clint locks the door, drops the box on the table, and turns to Phil with impossibly wide eyes. "I didn't just imagine that, did I? What I saw in your eyes... that was real?"
"It was," Phil says, and his voice is shaky. "I meant what I said - this isn't out of obligation, not for me. It never was, not when it comes to you."
"Oh my god, Phil," Clint whispers. "You wanted this? To be mine for real?"
"So much. But I never thought you'd want me."
"I do. Always have. Not even... I mean, I know you never wanted a Dom, never felt like you should have to have one - and you don't. You don't need a Dom to be amazing. But if you hadn't wanted me as a Dom, I would've wanted you as a partner anyway. I need you to know that."
Phil ducks his head a little. "I want you as a partner. But I want you as my Dom too. I'm not anti-Dom, I just never found the right one to fit with my needs. And then I did, but I never thought you'd feel the same."
"I do," Clint promises. "God, I was shaking so hard when I came up here to get the collar. I didn't know how I was going to keep it together and pretend this was just a friend doing you a favour."
"I tried to tell myself not to choose you. That it would only hurt me, to wear your collar and not have you feel the same. I'm glad I didn't have self restraint."
Clint laughs, a little breathless. "So am I, Phil. I can't believe I actually get this - get you. Can I kiss you?"
"Yes. Please."
Clint threads a hand in his hair and kisses him, hard and possessive. Phil whines low in his throat, and it's so simple to cede power to Clint, to let him take control and lead the kiss - and this is what submission is about for Phil. He spends his days projecting neutral and standing his ground against some of the toughest Dominants in the field, and the idea of coming home to this, to be able to give over control to his Dom and let Clint tell him what to do... it's intoxicating. It's what he wants.
For the first time, Phil stops cursing those damn rules that made this necessary. They've brought him Clint, and he will never regret this.
***
Eventually they end up lying together on Clint's bed. They're both fully clothed, and Phil is pretty sure sex isn't on the cards for tonight, not while Clint keeps stroking his hair so softly. He's not complaining - this is exactly what Phil wants right now, especially since it’s so easy to just be here with Clint, every kiss and soft touch coming so naturally to them both. It’s as if he’s been Clint’s forever.
In many ways, he has.
Clint's hand dips a bit lower to brush over the collar. "You look incredible in this," he murmurs.
"It's beautiful. When did you design it?"
"When I first started at SHIELD. It wasn't that I had anybody in mind - though I did think my handler was cute." Clint winks and Phil ducks his head a little, smiling. "It was just that I had the money and the freedom to, so I did. And then it sat in my closet for eight years."
"I'm the first to wear it?"
"I've had other subs," Clint amends quickly. "But before SHIELD. So the collars were cheap, store-bought, whatever I could scrounge up. You're the first to wear my custom collar."
"I'll do my best to live up to the honour bestowed upon me," Phil says, then winces. "Sorry. That was... subby."
"Shh, I don't mind." Clint smiles at him, so fond and sweet. "You are a sub, Phil. I know you don't show it a lot with your job and all that, and I want you to feel free to be however you want around me - whether that means you need plenty of equal treatment, or if you just need to let go completely. However you need to be is fine, and we'll talk about it more another day. But I did want to ask; how… well, subby are you? I mean, you know my ranking, but yours is classified."
Phil looks down. "For good reason." He sighs, knowing he shouldn't be embarrassed, but it's always hard to admit, and even harder to admit to Clint who, up until tonight, has only ever seen him projecting neutral. "Ninety-five,” Phil murmurs.
Clint's hand stills. "Ninety-five," he repeats. "Holy hell, Phil. I had you pegged at about an eighty."
"When you rank that low, you tend to project as high as you can. Especially if you're an uncollared high level SHIELD agent and the state still has the power to forcibly collar you or take away your work rights. Are you regretting this?"
"What? No, god no. Just wondering if I'm actually going to be enough for you. Don't you need an Alpha?"
Phil tries not to let that sting. "No," he says. "But if you'd rather find one you can hand me over to -"
"Oh, shit," Clint says, and draws his hand out of Phil's hair to cup his cheek. "No, Phil, honey, I'm not saying anything like that. But this is... it's real. You and me, we're really doing this. And I want you to be free to submit to the level you want and the level you're at. I never want you to suppress your submissive needs because I'm not dominant enough for you. There's nothing wrong with you, okay? It's me I'm worried about."
Phil rubs his cheek against Clint's hand, and refuses to feel ashamed about the gesture. "You're plenty dominant for me," he says. "You're not high level enough that you feel cocky about it, and I know you're going to treat me right. That's all that matters. And I'll tell you something that I probably shouldn't, but I will anyway."
"What?"
"Out of everybody who offered me their collars, you rank the highest."
Clint blinks. "What? But I'm only an eleven."
Phil wants to laugh at that. Alpha Doms rank one through ten, meaning Clint is as borderline as it gets. Only a eleven indeed. "There are no Alphas on the team. You're the closest."
“Steve?”
Phil debates sharing it, then remembers that Steve’s rank is public record. “Fifteen. Still pretty high, and obviously he can call on the Alpha traits if the situation really calls for it, but a lot of that is just charisma. I’d say your independence and... lack of enthusiasm about taking orders, is probably what ranks you higher.” Phil doesn’t talk about the times he’s seen Clint straight out of battle, fierce and strong and proud and every inch the Alpha Dom. He’d probably make a bit of an idiot of himself if he had to put his instinctive response to that into words.
"Oh." Clint processes that, then nods. "Is that why you chose me?"
Phil groans. "Clint. I picked you because I want you. I couldn't care less about your rank. How can I make that clear?"
"You don't need to," Clint soothes. "I'm sorry. I'm still having a hard time believing this is real. Give me a few days."
"I understand." Phil presses a feather-light kiss to Clint's wrist, and Clint traces his thumb across Phil's cheekbone. "What do you want to tell the others, by the way? I think they probably noticed that we got a bit... intimate."
"Nat definitely picked up on it, but she has the benefit of having me complaining to her for four years about how badly I want you." Phil laughs and Clint smiles, kissing his forehead quickly before continuing. "If you're comfortable with telling the others, we'll tell them. I'm sure it won't change things - nobody's doubted your authority before, and if anybody starts coming to me trying to get my approval to take orders from you they'll get a loud talking to."
"Thank you. Will you kiss me again?"
"With pleasure, sweetheart." Clint moves to do so, but Phil stops him, smiling slightly too much to focus on kissing right now. "What?" Clint asks.
"The pet names. Instinctive for you?"
"Yeah." Clint's blushing. "Are they a problem? I can work on toning it down."
Phil shakes his head. "Far from it. Makes me feel... cherished." And that’s embarrassing to admit, but hell, if Clint’s blushing, he might as well join him. There’s wonderful strength in shared vulnerability, and Phil wants this relationship as strong as it can be. He wants everything from Clint - including being cherished.
"Good. That's exactly how I want you feeling." Clint kisses him, then pulls away. "I'm going to send you on a task now. Go to your room, pack up an overnight bag, and bring it back here. I want you in my bed tonight - unless you have any objections?”
“None.”
“Go on then.”
Phil goes without another word. He gets pyjamas, toothbrush, gym clothes, and fresh clothes together without any fuss, then pauses and looks around. After a minute of deliberation, he adds his tablet and laptop and closes the bag - Clint said overnight, but he didn't specify what kind of night, so Phil just goes with the basics, explaining as such to Clint when he returns. "If you want anything in particular that I need anything for, I can go back and get it," he says.
Clint smiles. "There's nothing else you need," he says. "We have discussions and negotiations and a contract to write and I have so many things to learn about you and us and we need to prepare for the review - and all of that can wait until tomorrow. Tonight I just want to hold you. Is that okay?"
"I can't think of anything better."
Clint kisses him softly. "I'm usually up at about five for early range practice. I know you like to leave here at seven to get to the office, but if you want to sleep in later than me you're very welcome to."
Phil shakes his head. "I'm usually in the gym when you're on the range."
"Really? I never see you."
"I see you," Phil says, and deliberately lets his eyes trail down Clint's arms.
Clint laughs, but he also looks so damn pleased. "Maybe it's good that I can't see you working out," he says. "Might not be able to aim straight."
"I don't know if I'd be that distracting."
Clint shamelessly looks him up and down. "Oh yes you would be."
Phil blushes. "May I kiss you?" he asks.
Clint nods, then holds up a hand. "No, hang on. You haven't kissed me without asking yet - is that a thing you like or a thing you think you have to do?"
"The latter, just to be on the safe side. Some Doms like to be asked first."
"I'm not one of them. Kisses don't require permission; nor do they need to be earned, by the way. Obviously there's a time and place for everything, but if you want to kiss me, sweetheart, you go ahead and do so. They're on my list of three things I will never restrict or take away in punishment."
"What are the other two?"
"Food and hugs. Most other things are fair game - negotiation and hard limits aside, and we'll discuss all that in coming days - but more harm than good comes of taking any of those things from a sub. I don't want you to feel that my affection is based on good behaviour."
"Or food."
"Or food," Clint agrees. "Food restriction is just needlessly cruel. And I try hard not to be cruel."
"I don't think you're capable of cruelty. I see you being stern when necessary but..."
"But?"
"Sweet," Phil says, blushing a little. "And kind. Always kind."
"I do my best," Clint says softly. "If I ever treat you in a way that feels cruel to you, I'll dissolve the contract myself."
Phil shakes his head and draws closer to Clint. "We don't even have a contract yet - please don't talk about dissolving it."
"Sorry, honey." Clint kisses him softly. "Having you here in my arms is by far my biggest dream come true - I don't plan on letting you go any time soon."
Phil nuzzles his neck, and Clint strokes his hair. "Mine too," Phil murmurs into his skin. "I've wanted you for so long, and I'm here for as long as you'll keep me."
He doesn't feel like moving, and Clint makes no move to push him away. So Phil stays, only feeling faintly embarrassed about the need to nuzzle - it's subby as hell, but Clint's promised he likes Phil subby, and Phil trusts him.
Eventually he lifts his head, and Clint smiles softly at him. "Too early to call it a night?"
"Definitely not."
"Good. You take the bathroom first."
Phil does, slightly grateful that Clint's instructed him to get changed in another room. It might seem a bit pointless to be this modest around someone who now essentially owns him, and someone he'll definitely be having sex with in the very foreseeable future, but Phil likes it, likes getting to know his Dom as well as he can before jumping into bed with them. And while they certainly don't need a contract for vanilla sex, Phil likes to have all the details ironed out beforehand, and he knows Clint knows that.
More reasons to be in love with Clint. Phil hopes the reasons never stop coming.
He gets ready quickly, then heads for Clint's room. "Do you have a side you prefer sleeping on?" he asks as he enters, then frowns when Clint turns and stares. "What?"
"Oh, you're adorable," Clint says softly. “We’ve done the safe house thing so many times and I’ve never let myself just… look.”
Phil blushes, but he’s smiling. “Neither. Well… not overtly.” Clint chuckles and Phil ducks his head a little. "Side?" he asks.
"I prefer the left, unless you're partial."
"I'm not." Phil heads to the right hand side and gets in, only to find Clint staring again. "Are you the type of Dom that makes me wait to get in bed?" he asks.
"Hm? No, no way, and I hate to think of the reasoning behind that. No, I'm just enjoying the sight of you in my bed."
"Well," Phil suggests, "if you go and get ready for bed, you can enjoy it up close."
Clint chuckles. "An excellent suggestion. Back in a minute."
Phil makes himself comfortable while he waits, and can't stop himself from flat out grinning when Clint emerges. "Cute as hell," he informs him.
Clint rolls his eyes, flicks off the main lights, and joins Phil in bed. "How cuddly are you?" he asks.
Phil laughs. "Oh, insanely."
"That's what I wanted to hear."
Clint switches the lamp off, then reaches out for him. Phil draws close, easily settling in to Clint's arms. "You feel like home already," he murmurs against Clint's neck. Clint doesn't reply for a second, and Phil worries. "Too fast?"
"No way," Clint says, sounding a little choked up. "No, just... you. Being here. It's wonderful." He chuckles then, and begins tracing his fingers across Phil's back. "Sorry. I'm being silly."
"No you're not. Or, if you are, I am too."
Clint hums. "This is so far from where I thought my day would end when I woke up in this bed this morning. Hell, I didn't even know you were choosing a collar today."
"I only decided this afternoon. Even then, I thought I'd be in my bed, alone, with your collar but without you."
"That's an awful image. Forget it. You're here, with my collar and very much with me, and you're going to fall asleep in my arms."
"Is that an order?" Phil asks, smirking a little.
Clint chuckles. "Would you say no if it was?"
"No, 'cause I'm a good sub," Phil informs him, then yawns.
"Yes you are, sweetheart," Clint murmurs. "You go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
"Okay. Goodnight Clint."
"Goodnight Phil."
Phil goes to sleep in Clint's arms praying that he only wakes up from one set of dreams in the morning.
|
They found Hermione and Griphook discussing something over tea. Unfortunately, the two immediately clamped up when the dark trio arrived. So while his two Slytherins glared at their targets suspiciously Harry just quirked his eyebrow in amusement, figuring they had been discussing him.
"And what exactly are you hiding from me?" Harry teased, pulling his bonded along behind him and making them sit next to him on a quickly conjured couch.
"We're not hiding it so much as trying to evaluate whether to ignore it or not," Hermione said carefully. "It hasn't been long, thanks to the time room, but it could be something we need to watch."
"Alright, make sure to discuss it with Ron and the twins if you don't want to tell me," Harry said affably. "Incidentally I just told Fudge and his pet Aurors to fuck off."
The way the two of them froze at his words sent a deep satisfaction coiling in Harry's belly. The amusement was echoing strongly enough from his bondmates that it mixed with his own and amplified it to the point he had trouble not laughing.
"That was mean," Severus said softly, slipping up behind Harry close enough to touch but not quite there yet. Voldemort's deep chuckle of amusement just added something to the snarky wizard's smug comment.
They quickly led Harry away, back towards their room. Harry didn't object but did look at them both curiously. The moment the door to their room was shut they faced him. Severus locked eyes with him before slowly kneeling and bowing his head in submission. Voldemort, on the other hand smirked at him, standing strong and proud as they waited for Harry to make his own move.
"Explain," Harry ordered softly.
"Severus likes giving up control and enjoys a little bit of pain and roughness. I don't like how he gained that preference but I can't deny enjoying it once I found out about it. I, on the other hand, prefer to take charge. I had little control when I was younger and can not feel properly safe or satisfied unless I have most of the control in bed. We both belong to you and will follow any orders you give us but we are not bound to the exact wording. This is probably to give us the most flexibility in protecting you," Voldemort explained. "You're clearly stressed. Either let us help you relax or use us as you see fit."
"I will not abuse you," Harry said, his voice going hard.
"We're not asking that. We're asking that you take comfort from us when, where, and how you need it," Severus said softly, raising his head just enough to once more meet Harry's gaze.
"If I decided I wanted to pin you to the floor and fuck you raw?" Harry said harshly, challenging his bondmate to reject the possibility. What he wasn't expecting was for Severus' breathing to increase in obvious arousal.
"We are yours to do with as you will," Severus breathed, not even bothering to hide his reaction.
Harry's control snapped. He quickly stalked over and dragged Severus awkwardly to his feet before dominating him with an all consuming kiss. Voldemort stood passively to the side, waiting for his invitation while enjoying the show. Frustrated, Harry snagged his arm and drew them both over to the bed before pushing them onto it.
"Stop holding back! If you are going to be my bondmates you will act like it!" Harry snarled at them, his carefully hidden stress from the earlier confrontation finally making an appearance. Taking that as permission both men pulled him onto the bed and kissed him, offering comfort in their touches but taking it no further than that. The trio eventually found themselves simply cuddled together in bed.
"I take it that you don't mind showing this in public?" Harry finally asked the air as they lay together.
"I don't mind. It will be refreshing," Voldemort said with a chuckle.
"It will be a welcome change not to have to hide it from one and all," Severus agreed. "Remember we didn't get the chance to be affectionate, not before we had you."
"Alright, if I'm going to do this then both of you will take comfort from me and each other as needed. We are equal in this," Harry told them forcefully.
"Perfect," Voldemort purred as he nuzzled into the crook of Harry's neck, drawing an involuntary moan out of his bondmate. A discrete knock on their door forced them to rejoin the rest of the world. They were quickly led to a meeting room where they found the officers of the DA along with Griphook waiting for them.
"We've narrowed it down to a few properties, some one of us already owns and some we would need to purchase," Hermione said, getting into the important things almost the moment they sat down. "The minister is going to be a problem but we can counter him early by releasing a statement now. It would be a good idea to have the DA members inform their families and get permission. Even if we managed to get most of them either declared emancipated or placed under one of us as magical guardian it will go over better with actual permission from their parents. Everyone over 17 wants their names listed in the paper beside yours so that no one can accuse them of not picking a side when it all comes out. It would be up to you and your bondmates to decide if we announce the bond."
"I have to tell you mate, I think announcing it is a good idea. If we word it right it will tell the public that the raids have stopped, or at least aren't our fault or your Dark Lord's fault. It will also show that people have been screwing up big time and that the prophecy you told us about isn't a factor any more. If they bring it out in the open we can counter with the fact that it could be considered complete the night your parents died, depending on how you classify death and defeat," Ron pointed out obviously still mentally plotting the moves and counter moves of what was likely to come.
"It would help if we knew the actual wording," Voldemort grumbled as he scribbled out a few messages that would be sent via Gringotts owl.
"Yeah, but unless we can get into the ministry or Gringotts have a copy we'll have to keep dealing with everything blind. Not that a prophecy is a certainty but at least we would know what the other side was trying to force," Ron agreed with a grimace. He never really liked Divination. The class had simply been an easy pass for him and a way to spend more time with Harry.
"I want the ones under 17 when we got here to get permission from their parents. If they say no then they can be the ones to keep an eye on everyone at Hogwarts and sabotage the goat as needed using pranks and the like. Remind everyone that once they've taken their OWLs they can leave the school without their wands being snapped and legally aren't forced to continue their education. At that point I can try to hire tutors and stuff for them. Anyone 17 or officially emancipated can legally do whatever the hell they like. I am willing to set this up as a low paying job with room and board or some sort of informal apprenticeship thing to help prove employment for the emancipation," Harry explained, thinking aloud as he went along, occasionally reiterating something as he went through what was needed. "As for the paper, alright you can issue a statement. Make it very clear that we believed our lives at risk and that if we did stay someone was either going to hurt us or enslave us. Feel free to cite previous incidents like the stone, the chamber, and everything else we've had to deal with at Hogwarts, that should get us some sympathy. Offer to let the muggle parents visit any who don't decide to go home or back and send a full explanation home with any requests for permission, and/or emancipation/guardianship. I want them to understand that we can't just walk away from what happened and that we didn't start this."
"We'll bloody well finish it though," Ron agreed with a smirk that was shared by most of the room.
Severus had listened with half an ear while going over the properties that Hermione had almost immediately handed over. Anything without an appropriate potions area was immediately discarded as were any properties that had connections to the Order or the Death Eaters. The few that remained mostly consisted of ones from Harry's inheritance of both the Black and Potter Lordships. A quiet word with Griphook told him that all of them had been checked for safety and those that hadn't passed inspection had been removed and the files corrected. The best bet was looking more and more like Potter Manor.
"Severus?" Voldemort asked, noting the man's sour look as he stared down at the pile of folders.
"The best one is going to be Potter Manor," Severus said with more than a touch of bitterness in his voice. "We can convert many of the rooms as needed or double up on room assignments. It contains a dedicated dueling room, a nearly state of the art potions lab, a dinning room, a ballroom, a rather large family library, a set of dungeons, nearly twenty rooms for the family level and just as many on the guest level. There are also sufficiently modern bathrooms every couple of rooms along with multiple sitting rooms on each level for conversation and a study on each floor. The lab would take little to update it and the stable along with the rather extravagant grounds complete with greenhouses would be just as useful."
"Hey, it's alright. Just think of how much James would hate the fact that you now own part of it," Harry offered consolingly. Severus gave a small smile at that thought and went back to looking over the file with a new eye to the details. Voldemort nodded his head approvingly over how their lion had handled Severus' jealousy.
"Mate, what are you talking about?" Ron asked with narrowed eyes.
"As my bonded grounds under various laws the three of us are considered one person, married, and/or a few other things I didn't recognize or understand. So, yeah, they effectively share everything with me. Which is only fair since as my grounds anything they owned before is now mine, including the Death Eaters," Harry admitted, unconsciously reaching for his two grounds for reassurance which they freely gave by wrapping an arm around him from either side. Thankfully, the chairs they were using at the moment didn't have armrests to dig into their sides.
The quickly exchanged glance between his friends was not lost on him. He wondered if he could get Hermione focused on the legalities over their new abilities. With the way her eyes were narrowed in thought he believed it might be possible. The re-appearance of Mad Scientist Hermione was something to be greatly feared and quickly escaped from.
"What are the three of you specifically under wizarding and goblin law?" Hermione asked thoughtfully.
"Aside from special arbitrators that can over rule the ruling of every court including the Wizengamot when called upon? I think we're considered both one person and married under wizarding law. It depends on if we're being spoken to individually, jointly, or in an official capacity. The papers didn't say anything about under goblin law except that we qualify as a special exemption. Under wizard law if we're being talked to as just another person we're married, when spoken to under our official capacity we're always considered one person, and when spoken to jointly... that one's kinda weird but generally seems to fall under married. I have no idea about any of us taking on lovers or other partners or if it's even possible with the bond we share," Harry explained bluntly.
"You'd better not," Severus muttered under his breath as Voldemort growled low in agreement. Both of them took on an even firmer grip, unwilling to give him up for even a little bit. Harry didn't seem to mind. In fact Hermione could swear he leaned into their touch.
"We want to avoid mentioning the specifics of Fudge's visit just now unless he does something stupid. We can still use part of the statement to both make him look good and make it harder for him to arrest any of us. All we have to do is add on to the end that Minister Fudge has already visited us in regards to leaving the school. The fact he wouldn't or couldn't force us back immediately makes it look like we have a valid reason, which we do. It will also badly hurt his image if he tries to forcibly remove us from Gringotts, completely aside from the damage it would do to wizard-goblin relations which I don't think he actually cares about," Hermione pointed out thoughtfully, making Griphook grin nastily at the thought.
"Yes, lets try to avoid another goblin war," Severus drawled.
"You don't count as wizards under goblin law. The Kinshar and his people are separate," Griphook reminded them evilly. It was clear he was looking forwards to any idiotic attempts to remove them from goblin territory.
"Is there anything else that's urgent? Anything that has to be dealt with before moving to Potter Manor?" Harry asked, smiling slightly at the antics of both Griphook and his surly bonded.
"Gringotts would like to request a mediation between two craftmasters currently in disagreement," Griphook said carefully. "The gratuity would be... substantial."
"Alright, give us a moment and we'll listen to the case," Harry agreed after a little thought and a slight nod from his two grounds and husbands.
"Excellent!" Griphook said with great pleasure. "We can discuss any compensation after you've judged the case to avoid... the appearance of favoritism."
"Lead the way," Harry said agreeably. Griphook quickly obeyed.
|
Sally Anne was walking through the multi story car park in the early afternoon, after dropping her car there to go shopping in the city centre.
It was also to pick up her dress for her hen night that very evening, she was getting married in a weeks time to her life long childhood sweetheart, the only boy she had ever loved even though they had broken up two or three times over silly quarrels, they had got back together stronger and more in love than before.
They had been together for as long as she could remember. Sally Anne had grown into a beautiful 20 year old young woman, fully developed in every sense of the word, 5ft 6" tall, a gorgeous face , huge green eyes, full lips turned down at the corners that added to her sensuality, with a built in knock em dead smile.
Long silky thick and super soft blonde hair, her breasts were just perfect for her young body and not too overly large, her best friend always said that if a tit is more than a handful then it's a waste.
Her narrow waist was just right to support her lovely upper body, slim hips and legs to die for, and in the last year or two had found out how to really keep her man on his toes, by wearing all the nice soft lacy things that sexy beautiful women wore.
The only breach of conflict was lack of sex, or rather her refusal to have it before her marriage, Ricky (her husband to be) was over zealous about it, but as their marriage neared he was becoming more at ease with having to wait.
She did allow him to fondle her and already knew how sensitive her nipples were by the fact that she could have orgasms when he twiddled and sucked on them.
And last week she found out about the eruptions her pussy would cause when he fingered her for the first time.
For her part she acceded to wanking him off, it kept him in line and had got used to the spouting upwards of his sperm when she did, and the power she felt while he was in her control was amazing.
What she didn't know was that while Ricky had remained faithful to her and that he was truly bisexual, he had strayed from the straight and narrow with his best buddy Trent, who was a practiced homosexual, born of extremely rich parents; he had his own pool house in the grounds of their mansion.
But one night while play fighting over the remote for the TV, Trent had overpowered him and face down on the carpet and him on top hands underneath holding cock in one hand and balls in the other Ricky had submitted, that night he got fucked 3 times, and fucked Trent twice.
While Sally Anne knew he was effeminate in lots of ways, it sort of gave her more control too, so she accepted Ricky's ways wholeheartedly, although she had no idea he had carried out his feminine side so far.
As she walked to the elevator to take her to the ground floor she noticed a man's wallet lying on the floor, she automatically stooped to pick it up, the first thing she realised was how thick and heavy it was and she could also see sticking out of the top lots and lots of bank notes.
Quickly glancing around her to see if anyone had seen her pick it up, no one was nearby so she turned on her heel and hurried back to her car, inside she looked inside and there was 12500 dollars in 100 dollarnotes.
She was shocked to see so much money; never had she held such an amount! Her first thought was to go and turn it over to the police, her second one was to keep it and share it with her new husband.
Also in the wallet were credit cards, business cards, and sundry bit and pieces. The owners name was on a card and it read Albert Johnson followed by an address.
She suddenly felt an indentation in the wallet and found after a brief see through what appeared to be a thick gold pendant wrapped in a very soft pouch of velvet leather, and without a chain.
It looked quite old but she had no idea of its age or value.
After much more thought she decided that if this Albert Johnson was stupid enough to drop his wallet and not know of it then he deserved to lose it too! Especially the cash she thought wickedly.
She started her motor and said to herself that if anyone stops her and asks her about the wallet she would just say that she was taking to the police station.
She drove down the exit ramp and onto the street, all clear she beamed to herself, but she felt deliciously naughty too.
She stopped in a quiet place, took out the money and the gold pendant, and tossed the rest unseen into a rubbish bin. She returned to the town parked in a different area and went to do her shopping and pick up her dress.
She was a little nervous but everything went by according to plan.
She was on her way out of town when she passed a local gold dealer and seller of hundreds of items in the window; it was a well known and appointed shop.
She pulled over and took the pendant in and asked an attendant if he could tell her of the value of it. He disappeared for a few minutes and she began to get nervous as it was taking quite some time.
She was just about to leave without the gold pendant when a voice said. 'Good evening Madam, this pendant you have, can you please tell me where you got it from?'
Oh god she thought, why did I come in here?
'It belongs to a friend of mine, why?' She said. 'Well madam if I am not mistaken this is an extremely rare and valuable artefact of a religious nature, and it is astronomically valuable.'
'Is it really?' said Sally Anne. 'Yes, and you should tell your friend to have it locked into a bank vault for safety.' 'I will,' replied Sally Anne, 'I will tell her tonight.'
Taking the pendant back she hurried from the store got to her car and sped off, but not before the attendant had taken down the car number as directed by the store owner.
The owner went into his office at the back and dialled a number.
It rang 4 times before it was picked up 'Mr Johnson?' 'Yes this is he,' sounded a deep, baritone voice. 'This is Roy Dwight of Dwight's Jewellers., Mr Johnson.'
'Ah good evening Mr Dwight, what can I do for you?' 'Well sir, I have just been handling (I think) that gold pendant you purchased 3 weeks ago, have you sold it on?'
'Absolutely no, it is far too valuable to do that, and indeed far too religiously valuable to sell?'
Then a worried note crept into his voice, 'please wait a moment Mr Dwight.'
He was back on 1 minute later, 'Mr Dwight I have misplaced my wallet and the pendant along with a substantial amount of cash.'
'Well Mr Johnson I have just had a young lady in my shop trying to have it valued, I recognised it from the catalogue I showed you, but couldn't be truly certain, until now!'
'Jesus fucking Christ, I can't lose that!' He exploded down the phone.
'I think I may be able to save the day, I had an assistant take down her car number, would that maybe of help to you?'
'Mr Dwight if that is so and I retrieve the pendant there will be a good reward in it for you I promise.'
Mr Dwight gave him the number and make of car, and then put down the phone, he was well pleased with himself, a good reward? Wonderful he thought.
Albert Johnson was/is a very successful business man, terrifically wealthy, black, over 6 ft and powerful with it, didn't drink or smoke and kept himself fit, not always on the side of the law, but sometimes, a lot of his business was on the edge of the law and many times over it.
He was known to close associates as AJ, and a much feared man, he was ruthless with his enemies, and word had got well known that you didn't cross AJ; but that if you did it was at your peril.
The police knew of a lot of his dealings but he was a stalwart supporter of the Mayor and the city, gave and raised millions for charities, so he was usually left alone as long as his dealings didn't cause problems.
He was an extremely powerful man and had many elite connections in the country, and was able to organise lots of deals normal men would be unable to.
He called his subordinate Jamal, gave him the car details and told him to find the owner fast, real fast, he went off and an hour later he was back.
'Owner is one Sally Anne James, 20 years old, a real looker too,' he told his boss, 'you will like her.' And he added her address, phone number along with an e mail address.
'Good work,' he told his man, 'now I want to know her personal life, all about it, everything.'
That night AJ had her followed, her bag went missing along the way to see if the pendant was in it, it was, but not the money.
The pendant was immediately taken back to a very happy and relieved AJ.
'Right, by tomorrow I want her life on my desk in front of me by 5:00pm okay,' he told his man.
'Yes sir Mr Johnson,' said Jamal his first lieutenant.
Jamal called his boss at 3; 00 and told him he had all the information he wanted and went to meet him.
The stand out in formation was that in just less than one week she was going on her honeymoon for 2 weeks to the Caribbean, amongst the info were several photos of the erring girl, AJ was impressed, his cock twitched.
His mind made up in an instant, he was going to have this girl, this newly married woman and fuck her into submission.
'Jamal find out for me where they are going and where they will stay,' Mr Johnson told his man.
'Yes sir,' he reiterated.
'Mr Johnson they are staying at the Sands beach resort in Antigua, right on the beach, bungalow No 101.' He told his boss that day.
'Okay book flights and accommodation at that resort and I want the best 4 bed bungalow they have!' 'And I want them moved next to ours, even if it means paying an upgrade, got that?'
'Yes sir,' was his response.
The following Friday he and Jamal were on the same flight as Sally Anne James and her new husband, though they didn't know her new married name.
But AJ and Jamal were in first class.
They were met at the airport by a limousine and driver, and didn't have to wait for the airport formalities that the rest of the passengers had to suffer, thereby getting to the resort well ahead of anyone else.
Jamal was dispatched to the reception where he asked for the manager, he was given 10.000 dollars to arrange for both bungalows to be fully stocked with food and drink.
And security to make sure no one disturbed them during their stay. What was left of the 10.000 was a bonus to the manager, but was warned not to let Mr Johnson down!
At 10:00pm the newly weds arrived, and were watched from the adjoining bungalow, as Ricky picked up and carried his new wife over the threshold, AJ and Jamal left theirs and crossed the lawn, as Ricky was walking towards the bed room so he could have his wife, they were both over powered in a moment.
'Good evening Mr and Mrs?' AJ asked. Ricky stuttered at the surprise of being held tightly by Jamal, and Sally Anne held by AJ.
'It's Walling.' He stupidly relied, 'what the hell do you want?'
'Sally Anne here knows don't you baby?' said AJ.
'I don't know what you mean, let me go right now,' she demanded. 'But you stole my money and my gold pendant when you found my wallet didn't you?' 'Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to I was going to return it honestly.' 'Liar,' roared AJ.
AJ quickly filled in a very confused Ricky of his wife's indiscretions.
'Jamal strip him and tie him to that chair,' ordered AJ, 'and if he shouts, silence him.' Jamal punched Ricky in the stomach very hard and he collapsed.
He was stripped off and tied and gagged in moments. AJ had Sally Anne around the waist and a hand over her mouth.
'Now young lady, because of what you did you have a price to pay,' AJ told her.
A very scared Sally Anne shivered in fear. 'What are you going to do?' she begged.
'Do?' AJ said.
'I am going to do you, and Im going to do you for the next two weeks, whether you join in or not won't be of any consequence to me, but you are going to be fucked from pillar to post to teach you a lesson.' Came his devastating reply.
'Bbbut I have just got married; I am saving myself for my husband.'
AJ gaped at her, 'saving yourself, you mean you are a virgin,' he laughed.
'Yes I am, please let me go?' she beseeched. 'Not a chance now honey,' he told her. 'Jamal drag that chair into the doorway and let him watch as his wife gets fucked,' laughed AJ.
Jamal did so. 'Now,' said AJ, as he ripped Sally Anne's little dress off along with her underwear.
She struggled and managed a small scream until she received a sharp slap to her lovely face that quietened her.
Jamal held her while his boss stripped off, what Sally Anne saw almost struck her dumb, his cock was hanging down and it was bigger than her new husbands by about 2 inches.
She just gaped at it in awe; never had she imagined a prick so big or thick. He grabbed her and got her on the bed on her back and told Jamal to strip too. But Jamal's eyes were on Ricky, he was staring at AJ's tool too, and the look in his eyes was lust!
AJ told him to get his head between her legs and lick her out while he went to work on her beautiful sexy body,
'My my girl you are one sexy beautiful bitch, I sure am going to enjoy you baby.' He said into her ear.
She snuffled a yelp as his fingers touched and gently squeezed and rotated her nipples one after the other, she couldn't believe the sudden onslaught of arousal that took her over, and she gasped in surprise.
Jamal had buried his head between her shapely legs and was delighted to see a shaven pussy just waiting to be eaten; he was greedily slurping, licking and sucking at her increasingly moistening pussy.
'Please stop,' she whimpered, as her hips bucked involuntarily, she had never had this done to her and it was irresistible.
'Sorry babes, but you have a need, I can see that already, you need a cock baby, a real one too, not like pencil dick over there.' AJ gloated.
He was kissing her now and forcing her to respond to him, her nipples were on fire, there was fireworks going off in her pussy, and her belly was aching with the need for this, but it wasn't her new husband that was doing it to her, she was being raped and her body was going for it!
While Jamal was cleaving her pussy, he looked over at Ricky who was staring at his bare round tight arse, he raised himself up on his knees allowing his big black prick hang on view and Ricky's eyes went straight to it.
He's a fucking homo thought Jamal, or a definite bi, I will have to check him out after this he thought happily to himself, because there was nothing like a young whitey to excite him self with, but he would have to ask AJ, he would never take liberties with his boss.
Sally Anne was on a high now, she couldn't deny what her body was demanding and the feel of that thick heavy cock lying on her thigh was too much, AJ's kisses were denying her control of her body; his tongue was like a snake lapping its way around her mouth uncontrollably.
His fingers were driving her nipples to distraction, Jamal feeding on her increasingly hot pussy, sent her over the top into a monumental orgasm, never had she had one such as this, she screamed into AJ's mouth.
She had never kissed a black man, or boy come to that but this was different, his thick soft lips were wonderfully demanding of hers and she gave her kiss back, Ricky could never ever kiss her like this she thought miserably.
She managed to break his kiss and gasped as she really looked up at him for the first time, oh my, she thought he is so good looking and powerful, this is a real man, Ricky will never aspire to this, she considered.
He was leaning sort of over her keeping her trapped under him but not hurting her Her beautiful blonde hair scattered around her head, dishevelled, but still wonderfully soft.
Mmmm, thought AJ, that's gonna look real good when she's sucking me off on her knees before me, her man.
AJ kissed her again and Sally Anne responded completely, she couldn't help her self; she wanted to be kissed by this big strong black man that was capturing her heart and mind
Jamal was watching Ricky watching him; Ricky had a hard on to match all hard ons, although his pecker was on the smallish side it would do for Jamal to toy with and decided to ask AJ if he could try something with him.
He lifted his head and indicated to his boss that Ricky was in heat, and could he take him away?
AJ smiled nodded his head and said yes, and don't come back until the morning.
Jamal grinned at his boss happily, got off the bed and grabbed the back of Ricky's chair and hauled him off down the hallway to another bedroom, closed and locked the door.
Sally Anne's pussy retracted at the withdrawal of Jamal's tongue, it felt lonely, now she knew what she wanted, what she needed desperately, she knew that this was her destiny; she wanted a cock in there even if it wasn't her husbands.
AJ's fingers invaded her pussy now, as he continued kissing her soft submissive lips, it was wet and moist and wonderfully hot, he found her little man in its boat and stroked it, and she came in seconds, another wave of emotion washed over her.
It was time to get his prick in where it belonged; he hefted his powerful frame over her and told her to guide his big and now very hard prick into her pussy.
She took hold of it for the first time and nearly feinted at the weight and girth of it, her hand didn't fit round it properly, she used both, but begged him to be gentle with her because this was her first time, she knew her hymen had broken because of sports and horse riding, so she wasn't bothered about that, it was just the sheer size of AJ's cock, AJ? She thought to herself, WOW.
Her mind was actively thinking of him and what they/she were about to embark on, here she was just married, the marriage not consummated by her new husband, but by a large powerful black man, who she was now about to give herself willingly.
She was overcome with that strongest of aphrodisiacs, male musk, male power, male dominance, a hard prick wanting her, needing to fuck her, all the things that make a woman give her self to her man, AJ is a true alpha male, she knew.
She needed to be taken the way only an alpha male can take a woman in need, she had no sense of right or wrong now, no sense of fidelity, no sense of denial, all she wanted and needed was to be taken by this man of men.
She slipped the mushroomed head of his prick into her wanton receptive pussy, all thoughts of Ricky and her marriage were gone now, and gone forever although she didn't know it just then.
AJ slowly pushed his prick into her, he was passionately thinking of this girl now, he had already thought of keeping her for himself when he returned, such was her beauty, her softness, the way she had reacted to him, and was now giving herself to him, this was the first time in his life that a woman had responded to him in this way, they had always given them selves to him because of who he was, this girl had no idea of him.
She let go of his prick now and placed her arms around his thick neck, her legs floated up into the air and over his back in total surrender to him, and marvelled at the feeling of his prick working its inevitable way to her womb.
He took forever to get there, his last wish would be to hurt this woman, he would teach her over the next two weeks what loving a man was really about and how a man such as he could love a woman such as her, it was her inalienable right to be loved completely he thought, and now he was deciding he was going to do it and be her man
AJ was falling in love, but he had no idea of what love was, it was something that she would teach him over the next two weeks but he didn't know it, the great and powerful AJ would be taught by Sally Anne how to love her!
The soft beautiful woman below him was responding in ways she didn't know about, her response to him was purely natural, he was working his prick slowly and gently in and out of her now sopping pussy, and he loved it, as did she.
Her sensuality was as natural as nature had decreed it to be.
She began to moan to him, mewl into his mouth as she reached to kiss him, her pouty lips sucking and nibbling on his, her orgasm building to her slow rhythmic fucking until it ripped and blasted its way through her like an atomic bomb, it completely shattered her, she had no expectation of this.
He sensing her total submission and acceptance of his huge cock, gained speed now and Sally Anne clasping herself to him, urged him on, 'harder, harder AJ, faster, faster, fuck me AJ, oh god fuck me!'
He did and went on until he blasted what felt like gallons of cum into her until he rested on her giving body; she whispered terms of endearment into his smooth flat muscular chest.
They rested a while and she cried tears of regret at her stealing of his money and the gold pendant, and apologised from the bottom of her beautiful heart, but tears of happiness as well as he hugged her and told her to forget about it, all was well now, he told her.
Meanwhile down the hall, Ricky was now on his knees busily and lovingly sucking Jamal's lovely smooth cock.
Jamal had taken him into the room and locked them both in, saying you are a homo aren't you Ricky, you cant keep your eyes off my arse or my prick he told him as he played with his defenceless cock, Ricky was moaning in unabashed joy although he was trying to deny his sexuality.
Jamal poked his middle finger into Ricky's arse and tightly held his cock, Ricky shot his load!
Jamal untied him, and got him into the bed, Ricky could not resist, Jamal was a lot bigger and stronger than he, and Jamal had his hands on his cock and balls, Ricky was going nowhere but under!
Jamal told Ricky to touch him, he did so tentatively until Jamal struck his arse with the flat of his hand with a really powerful stroke, and it galvanized Ricky into action, and submission.
Trent's cock had hurt him the first time he fucked him, and Jamal's was no different either, the baby oil was of some comfort, but he couldn't deny the pleasure that was coursing through his body now, Jamal knew how to work a boy up, he thought!
He spent that night with Jamal and knew by the morning sun rising that he had made a big mistake in marrying Sally Anne, he would have to put that right somehow.
This was his fate, his destiny was to be with another man, someone like Jamal if he would have him, his power of persuasion and his delicious body turned Ricky on like he knew a woman could never do, he realised that now.
He actually never saw Sally Anne aging for the whole of the two weeks he was there, Jamal kept him at the bungalow only allowing him to use the pool, while Jamal used his now completely subservient body and mind. Ricky loved it, and hardly gave a thought to Sally Anne.
But AJ in his quest to fully complete her willingness to be his and be really sure, but he needed to make certain Ricky would never cross her mind again.
He arranged with Jamal to secretly go to his bungalow and watch him and Ricky together, the time was set for 10:00pm that night; he told Sally Anne he wanted her to see something but that total silence was paramount.
She agreed immediately saying whatever he told her was good enough.
He walked her over and they looked through a window into a bedroom, there she saw Ricky paying homage to Jamal's superlative cock, hungrily feeding the cum erupting from it, and lovingly stroking Jamal's swollen balls.
Sally Anne was horrified, her Ricky was a homosexual? She knew of his effeminacy, but not that, not this!
Then the ultimate act, Jamal got to his knees and silently ordered Ricky to fuck him, Ricky couldn't wait to do it, and went at Jamal's arse with a fervour that he had never shown to her.
She was disgusted, but glad that she had been shown the error of her ways in marrying him.
'I understand AJ, you wanted me to see that to make sure he was cast from my life?' she said.
'That's about the top and bottom of if babe,' he told her. 'Well, it's worked perfectly, I want to be yours AJ for ever if you'll have me?' As she kissed him lovingly said the most beautiful and sexiest woman he had ever fucked and loved.
'I will have my marriage annulled and belong to you,' she whispered into his mouth as he kissed her.
'Good,' said AJ, 'now talking about bottoms, I am gonna fuck yours tonight so be prepared,' he laughed.
She grimaced and said, 'oh AJ you are too big, it will kill me, I couldn't possibly have that in my bum?'
He fixed her with the look that she already knew meant it's going to happen, and it did.
He spent a long time using first one finger then two, but he got her somewhat opened, and then he started entering her little brown sphincter, she howled and squealed but eventually he was in, his large prick was almost fully embedded in her, she just lay there and miraculously the pain subsided to be replaced with a wanton delicious naughty dirty pleasure feeling swamping her inners.
She orgasmed like never before but so different from before, she felt her life going full circle and knew she would never leave this man, and she didn't care what her parents and friends would say, she was his, he was hers, they belonged to each other.
The following morning in the privacy of their garden he made her give him her first blow job, and Sally Anne went at it with more gusto and enthusiasm than he had prepared for, she was absolutely loving this alternative way of submitting to him, she got him to blow his wad in double quick time and swallowed the lot delightfully.
He knew now what love was, he silently thanked his God for the day he dropped his wallet, because it had led him to her.
He did take her back home with him; she was already carrying his baby.
Lots of people shunned her at first, but she didn't care, she was happy, truly in love, she told her parents about Ricky, they were suitably disgusted, but didn't tell them of her submission to AJ, just that in a time of need he had been there.
Ricky was left behind with associates of Jamal's and is now apparently happily living with a young man of similar age, but is made to dress in women's clothes too.
Sally Anne insisted that he be taken care of, and this was instructed by AJ.
She now has 3 children by AJ, and lives in sumptuous wealth and accommodation and AJ is the most willing of husbands, and doting of father's.
The only person he bows to is Sally Anne, and there is nothing he won't do for her.
|
Tubbo looked up from watching the bees enter and exit the hive when he heard the faint rumbling of a car. He abandoned the bees and carefully made his way back through the forest, trees parting to reveal the house. He moved closer towards the ever-encroaching treeline, looking towards where the car was normally parked--the barn.
When he didn't see it, he moved to the right to see if Phil was closer to the house, and noticed Tommy and Ranboo moving out from the forest as well, likely just as curious as him.
Wilbur and Techno exited the house with over-the-top and undoubtedly fake shouts of surprise, which Phil just stared at them for.
"What's goin' on?" Tommy asked, sidling up to Tubbo, Ranboo close behind him.
Tubbo shrugged.
"You could've at least pretended to be surprised," Phil scolded as he opened the trunk, revealing cardboard boxes with very official-looking logos on them.
"I can't believe you didn't tell us," Techno said, his words those of shock, but his tone a monotonous drawl. "I'm hurt, Phil. Wounded. Bleedin' out. I need a hospital. Which one's the heaviest?"
After taking a moment to survey the boxes, Phil pointed to two shoved to the side. "Maybe those? They're the monitors. Wilbur, can you get the fans, and I'll get the cords. We can come back for more."
The three of them each gathered a box, Wilbur grabbing a few small ones, Phil grabbing two, and Techno hoisting up a heavy-looking one.
"Do you think we should help them?" Ranboo asked.
Tubbo pondered this for only a second before he shrugged and moved towards the car. "Why not? Ranboo, you get the big one on the bottom, Tommy you get the heavy one, and I'll get a bunch of little ones."
"Why do I have to get the heavy one?" Tommy whined as he reached into the trunk.
"Cause I said so." Tubbo grabbed a couple tinier boxes, carefully stacking them in his arms.
Tommy grumbled but picked the box up with relative ease.
("Phiiil?"
"Yea'?!"
"Why are the boxes floating?"
Phil paused. He blinked and turned away from Techno, the two pausing in lowering the monitor onto the desk. "What?")
Techno leaned back in his chair and heaved a sigh, finally having finished setting up the computer. He rubbed his eyes before blinking them open, his gaze landing on the dirty plate and silverware he'd pushed to the side. He had yet to fill that side of his desk with junk to prevent him from just... leaving shit there, so the plate had been abandoned the moment he'd finished the dinner Wilbur and Phil had cooked earlier.
He really should take that down.
But he could also leave it on his desk.
His phone gave a sudden buzz, notifying Techno that he'd gotten a notification. His eyes glazed over the piece of fanart he had as his lock screen, put in the password by muscle memory, and took only a second to view his home screen--a picture of Dream, Sapnap, George, Wilbur, and Phil from a few weeks ago--before he checked his notifications.
It was a text from Dream, who was listed as "homeless man" in his contacts, which read: "hope u enjoy all the viruses i put on ur shit while sap was holding it at his house".
Techno rolled his eyes.
bold of you to assume they didnt go to ur house instead
oh wait
dont u dare
thats right
u dont have a house
techno i swear
NOOO STFU I HAVE A HOUSE YOVE BEEN HERE BEFOER
IM NOT HOEMSLSS
TEHCNO
Techno chuckled. He put his phone on silent and set it back on his desk.
"Techno."
Techno prided himself in the way he did not flinch, as he thought Ranboo would have wanted. He looked to the side, where the whisper had come from. "Sup, Ranboo?"
"You have a big computer."
"That I do."
"It's like the small one. But bigger."
"Yes, yes it is." Techno stifled a yawn.
"Very pog."
"Yes, it is." Techno felt the patch of cold that had been lingering over his shoulder for the past few hours move closer. "Do you need something?"
Ranboo was quiet.
Techno turned back to the screen. He closed a few of the tabs before he got invested into anything, waiting for Ranboo to say something more.
He'd managed to pull up YouTube and began searching for a subject to rabbit hole down--the previous one being Greek mythology for the millionth time--when he got another whisper:
"I trust you."
Techno tore his eyes away from the latest Film Theory upload that he could have rewatched again. "Hm? Oh, cool. I trust you, too." He looked back, debating over if he should show Matpat to Ranboo, or if that would only make him scarier.
Hm... Well, he had already scrolled through nosleep with him, so he might as well equip Ranboo with the proper knowledge to back up his scares. Maybe he should show him Village while he was at it so he could really sell it.
"Wanna see me?"
Techno paused, his mouse hovering over the Film Theory channel. "Uh... I guess? Not if you don't wanna show me, obviously."
"I want to."
Techno slowly pushed himself away from the desk, glancing over to his side. "You do?"
There was no verbal response, but Techno had an inkling that the ghost nodded. So, he asked, "Do you want me to look away?"
"... no."
Techno gave a little raise of his hands. "Okay, then. Whenever you're ready." His eyes flicked to the plate on his desk and the absent thought of I should bring that back to the kitchen crossed his mind.
The world before Techno began to... blur. Colors appeared where they hadn't been before, combining into a dusky gray and beige and white and why the fuck was it so tall--
Red and green wisped into being, followed by brown and white.
And then there was a person stood before Technoblade. They loomed over him, their face obscured by black and white and red and green and messy brown hair. A suit hung from their figure, jutting out in strange places like it was trying to keep in broken limbs.
Technoblade stared up at Ranboo for a solid moment before he muttered a quiet, "Hi."
Ranboo's throat bobbed. "Hi," he whispered back.
Techno's eyes roamed Ranboo's figure, still shocked that he was there. "You're very tall."
"I'm taller than Wilbur," added Ranboo. "We checked, y'know?"
Techno slowly stood, half-convinced this was an illusion because how in the hell was someone that tall. "Huh... Well, can't wait to hold that over his head."
Ranboo let out a chuckle, which attracted Techno's attention to his neck.
Oh, his neck.
Oh, his neck.
"Dude, your neck's broken."
Ranboo made a confused hm? sound. Then he drew out an, "Oh!" He tilted his head upwards, a hand coming up to prod at the way his neck bent in the middle. "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Actually, I can, uh--" He stopped talking and stretched his head up, then let it go limp--
Techno was not proud of the way he flinched when Ranboo's head promptly fell forward with a painful-sounding crrrk! and hung down to his sternum.
"I broke my neck when I died," Ranboo explained, eyes peeking over the glasses to look at Technoblade, "along with a bunch of other bones. Tom--Tomorrow, I'm gonna scare the other two with it, cause they hate it when I do this."
Techno moved to the side to get a better look at the way Ranboo's broken bone pressed against the skin, thoroughly broken and exceedingly disturbing. "I think I hate it, too." He let out a nervous chuckle.
Ranboo reached up for his head and picked it back up, slotting it back into place with ease. His hands pulled themselves away and he tilted his head side-to-side to release a couple of crackle sounds. "I can do the same with my spine!" he added gleefully, likely grinning behind his mask. "And, like... three of my limbs. Actually, I might be able to do it, like, twice with my spine."
"Terrifyin'," Techno assured with a grin. "So, was this, like, your everyday wear? With the glasses?"
Ranboo looked down at himself. "Oh, no, I was visiting my grandparents. Then I, like, got high and jumped from the attic window."
Techno... did not know what to say to that. So, he settled for, "Sounds fun."
"It was not," Ranboo stated matter-of-factly. "In theory, though, it does sound very fun."
Techno hummed. "So, can you, like, change clothes? Or are they part of you?"
Ranboo tilted his head. He reached down and tugged at his sleeve. "Um... I dunno. Never thought about it. I could probably take off the mask and glasses at least, though."
Techno 'huh'ed. "Cool. Anyways, I have a YouTube channel I wanna show you, Ranboo, I'll move the monitor, just sit down--"
The video ended, leaving the room in silence.
Techno glanced at Ranboo, who had yet to move. "So, what's your favorite food?"
Ranboo jolted to life. "Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait, hold on, gimme a second--"
A bark of laughter managed to escape from Techno's chest.
"So--hang on..." Ranboo trailed off, bringing a hand up to run through his hair. "There's a game about cans that moan when you click them--"
Techno's laugh transformed into silent wheezing.
"And it's somehow secretly about..." Ranboo shook his head. "What?!"
Techno beat his fist against his desk lightly.
"Techno--Techno, what is wrong with this generation?" Ranboo turned his wild gaze to Techno. "Gag me with a spoon..."
Techno took in a sudden breath and coughed. He inhaled, then exhaled, then let out a few more chuckles.
Ranboo said no more, still as a corpse.
"So, favorite food?"
Ranboo barely glanced at him. He began to spindle out of existence, colors dulling and weaving away from one another. "I'm going back to the barn."
"Wait, Ranboo--" Techno's shoulders shook. "No, hang on--"
He sharpened once more. "I can't believe you're making me think of food at a time like this."
"But what's your favorite food?"
Techno intended it as a joke, sure Ranboo would threaten to leave again or start an argument, but Ranboo still fell silent.
"Huh," he said plainly. "I don't remember."
Techno blinked. "You don't remember your favorite food?"
"Does Mary Jane count as a food?"
Techno barely resisted the urge to laugh. "No, Ranboo, weed is not a food... Can you eat like this?"
"What, like, as a ghost?" At Techno's nod, Ranboo went quiet again. "Maybe. We've never tried."
Techno nodded slowly. He got to his feet with a grunt. "Let's go test it out. You're not allergic to anything, right? Be quiet on the way down."
"What? No. Should you bring the plate?"
"... oh, yeah."
|
The fastest path between the tiny Temple of Agnira they'd left this morning and the trapper outpost they were heading towards would have been straight across Sensholding. Instead, they were riding down a winding trail—just the six of them; they'd left the mules at the last Guard Post, since it was easier not to worry about them when the paths were this narrow and the footing this chancy—inconveniently skirting around Sensholding, because none of them felt like dealing with the Holderkin.
Fastest wasn't always the least painful.
Bucky had met Holderkin twice now and both times he'd been filled with the entirely un-Heraldic urge to drop all of them in Lake Evendim. He knew Steve found them kind of fascinating, in a poke-a-bruise kind of way. Being a Herald meant people generally trusted you on sight. Even out of uniform, which had happened a time or two. They saw the Companions and they knew: this was someone who would help. This was someone who wouldn't hurt them. This was someone who could be trusted, who'd never ask what's in it for me.
The Holderkin were almost the exact opposite of that and sometimes Steve seemed to enjoy poking the bruise, like if he poked it enough he could figure out why.
The world blurred and Bucky drowned in a river of fluffy white. The half-panicked cry of sheep filled his ears and the deep, musky scent of wool surrounded him.
"Where?" Steve said, firm tone cutting across the white as the world came back, Winter already wheeling, a rising column of smoke visible in the distance.
"There," he said pointing, unnecessarily, and all three Companions were leaping into a gallop, racing through the trees into Sensholding, clearing the high stone wall like it was nothing.
"Details?" Sam called.
"Sheep, lots of panicked sheep, it was—"
Bucky's eyes went wide as they crested a narrow hill and a swollen river of rushing white tumbled towards them.
Sheep. So many sheep. Their eyes were wild, their coats were hugely fluffy, and they were racing straight for the three Heralds.
The reason for their panic was clear. There was a fight brewing on all sides of the massive herd. Raiders, some on foot and some on horses, and Holderkin, doing their level-best to bring those raiders down.
"We don’t need you here, Heralds!" one of the Holderkin hollered as he spotted them. "And we don’t want you, neither!"
At least they weren't hypocrites.
The brown-haired, brown-eyed, brown-clothed mountain of a Holderkin swung his staff and knocked a raider clear out of his saddle, glaring at Bucky the whole time.
Given the distance the raider flew, Bucky thought he might have a point on the need, and he'd made the want perfectly clear. Tempting as it was leave them to sort it out, they were Heralds. They had a duty to stop raiders from stealing sheep, even from people who didn't like them.
Winter surged under him, leaping like a fish against the tide of woolly bodies streaming past them, around them, under them. He barely kept his seat as Winter leapt straight up like a cat, all four hooves tucked under him.
:What in all the hells?: Bucky demanded as he scrambled for balance.
:It tickles,: Winter grumbled, snorting in displeasure, and then sheep parted, clearing the path, and Winter broke into a gallop, steady under him as Bucky raised his bow, aimed, and brought down a raider before he could cut down a Holderkin.
Another raider went down from a slung-hurled stone and Bucky signalled Winter to stop as the sheep suddenly halted, ignoring the mounted raiders' attempts to get them running again, and turned as one animal to face…
Sam. Sam, who was sitting on a brace-legged Riley, eyes distant, a wicked smile curving the corner of his mouth.
Body moving automatically, Bucky grabbed an arrow from his quiver, nocked, fired, taking down a raider about to do the same to Sam; she tumbled from her horse with a scream. Across the island of sheep, Steve and Shield crashed hard into a raider charging at Sam and sent them tumbling to the ground.
Sam lifted one hand, twirled it, and the sheep turned, lowered their heads, and charged the raiders.
Sheep were thickly armoured in wool, had heads as hard as plate armour, and, based on what Bucky was seeing, harboured a deep desire for mayhem that had just been waiting for Sam's Gift to set it free.
They mowed down the raiders, who could have escaped if their horses hadn't suddenly taken it into their heads to buck their riders off and bolt for the trees.
The Holderkin moved into their sheep—who paid them no attention, completely focussed on chasing down, stomping, butting and biting any raider they could get hooves, heads, or teeth on—subduing the dismounted raiders.
Bucky couldn't tell which was the one who'd yelled at him; they were all stocky, near-identical men dressed in thick brown wool. The only difference seemed to be their heights and facial hair, like someone had designed an incredibly boring series of dolls intended to nest one inside the other.
Steve and Shield were cantering around the mob of sheep and Holderkin, watching the trees for reinforcements, for any raiders they might have missed. Bucky nocked another arrow as Winter broke into a trot, moving closer to Sam and Riley, since Sam was still deep in his Gift, focussed on the sheep and the riderless horses now gathering in one spot neatly out of the way.
The Holderkin seemed to have things well in hand, and they weren't going too far, subduing, not killing, so he was content to leave it to the—
Bewildered shock slammed into him and he was shoving Winter's head around before he registered it was coming from Steve.
:Chosen!: Fury radiated from Shield, flashed through her mindvoice, rang in Bucky's heart and Winter launched himself through the sheep, who cleared out of his way—thank you Sam, thank you—to slide to a halt next to Steve.
Steve's sword was hanging bloody in his hand, a grey haired raider was crumpled in a heap next to Shield, his rib cage caved in from what had to be Shield's hoof, blood pooling from a deep slash across his chest.
Blood was spreading in a slow stain across Steve's Whites from the knife sticking out of his side. Steve wasn't reacting beyond blinking down at it in confusion.
"Shield, how bad is it?"
:It's not fatal.: If she was a dog she'd be growling; as it was, she was getting pretty close. :But it's not good.:
He turned in the saddle. He didn't see any raiders up, just a sea of Holderkin brown.
"Winter, is Sam back?"
Silence, then, :He's back, he's aware, he'll deal with the Holderkin. Riley says see to Steve.:
Duty first, always duty. Sometimes he could hate it. When he turned back to Steve, he met understanding. Understanding, love, and the look of a man hiding a huge amount of pain.
"He was hanging onto a sheep. Hanging onto its wool and hanging off its side. It was jumping around, I guess trying to get to him, it ended up next to Shield and he launched himself at me."
"Clever bastard." Winter got him closer to Steve and he leaned over to look closely at the knife, ignoring Steve's flinch.
"Guess that why he made it to so old."
:And he didn't go around attacking Heralds where their Companions could see,: Shield snapped out.
"That, too," Bucky agreed. She was still seething, and he wasn't going to argue with her. Not when she was right. "Do we get you down or do we keep you where you are and bring you to a Healer?"
"Hells, Bucky, don't make me climb down."
"And if you ride, what, the candlemark it's going to take to get back to the Temple of Agnira, how bad are you going to tear yourself up?"
:I can go smoothly.:
"That smoothly?"
:For my Chosen? There's nothing I can't do.:
Bucky gently touched Steve's thigh. "If she goes smooth, she goes slow, and we're talking a lot more than a candlemark."
"I'll be fine." Steve held out his sword. "I'm gonna need you to look after this, though."
Bucky took it, realised he had no way to get Steve's scabbard off him without jarring the knife, and dropped it on the ground.
Steve's, "Bucky," was pained, but he ignored it, digging in his saddlebags for what he needed to pack the wound, to keep the knife from moving, for the pain relief they all carried. He dug the last out first.
"Take it." He could hear Sam talking to the Holderkin, who were very clearly telling him to leave, the ungrateful bastards. "Steve," he added firmly, when Steve looked mulish. "Shield tell him."
:Chosen. Take it, or I'll feel guilty for the pain I'm going to cause you.:
"That's not fair."
:Not fair, but true,: Winter added.
Without another word, Steve popped the tiny cork out of the slender vial and downed the clear liquid with a grimace. Bucky shoved it back in his bags, then went to work securing Steve's wound. "It's not even a nice knife," he muttered. "It looks like the pot metal Thor's practice blades are made of."
"After it's pulled out of me we can send it back to Haven for him," Steve said.
Bucky paused, then continued with his work. "I don't think so."
"No?"
"No."
When he was done, he gave himself a moment to stop being Herald James and just be Bucky, whose lifebonded had been stabbed. Very gently, he touched two fingers to Steve chin, leaned in, and delicately kissed the corner of his mouth, letting the comfort of touch flow between them.
Steve's breath shuddered. "Better than the stuff in the vial," he whispered, tipping his head to rest against Bucky's. Just for a moment, just for the very briefest of moments.
Then they were both straightening, Bucky's hand falling away.
"Herald James, I need you." Sam was calling and, maybe, judging from his tone, it wasn't the first time he'd called.
"Be right back."
When he rode up next to Sam, Sam said, "I've tasked these fine folk with taking the raiders to the nearest Guard Post and they've assured me they will. Now I don't doubt their word, not one bit, but for the sake of making sure that, if something does happen, that everyone knows it wasn't their fault, I'm thinking second stage Truth Spell wouldn't go amiss. If you just cast it on their Headman, there?"
The gathered Holderkin, their sheep grazing peacefully behind them, said nothing. All they did was stare resentfully at Bucky, the Headman doubly so. There were bodies on the ground, but none of them were their people. Bucky couldn't see a single dead sheep. They didn't ask if Steve was badly hurt or if he'd be okay. They genuinely seemed to resent that the Heralds had interfered. Maybe they hadn't needed any help. It was possible. Bucky thought they were wrong, but they were free to believe whatever they wanted.
Just like he was free to cast second stage Truth Spell on them. He had no problems with the idea. He wouldn't trust these people without some definite proof.
It came easily to him, the wispy cloud with the bright blue eyes—he'd never realised before, but it sort of reminded him of Steve—appearing over the Headman Sam pointed to. "Are you going to take the raiders to the Guard Post like Herald Samuel asked?"
The, "Yes," came very quickly. Too quickly. It wasn't right, though.
Bucky saw...something. Something in the way he was standing, something in his eyes. Maybe something in his voice. He wasn't sure what it was, but it made him ask, "What are you planning to do with the raiders?"
There was a flash of anger in the Headman's eyes before the spell forced him to speak, and Bucky knew he'd been right. "Burn the dead ones. The live ones, they can rebuild the shearing shed they burned down and clean out the dipping baths and scrub them clean and fix the rest of the damage they caused and when they've done that, then they can go to the Guard." His mouth snapped shut and he glared. "Damn Heralds, always shoving your noses in where they don't belong."
The blue-eyed wisp never faltered. The man was speaking the truth as he knew it.
Bucky dismissed it as Sam said, "Turns out, I've got no problem with that. In fact, I'll make that a Judgement," he gave Bucky a sideways look—technically he and Steve were in charge at this point, but Bucky just gave an imperceptible nod, "but it comes with responsibilities to treat their injuries and feed, clothe, and shelter them. I'll have a copy of the Judgement delivered to you and the nearest Guard Post. I'm sure the Guard will be by to check on them, just to make sure you're all getting by."
"Aye, Herald," the Headman muttered. "You can go now. We've got no need of you here."
Bucky was happy to go. He and Winter turned and trotted back to Steve. He was looking a little soft, a little fuzzy, both hands wrapped in Shield's mane. Bucky slipped off Winter's back, dealt with Steve's sword, then wrapped it in his spare cloak and strapped it to the back of Winter's saddle before remounting.
"How are you doing?" Sam asked.
"Good." Steve smiled, sweet and slow. "You should have kept the sheep. They deserve nicer people."
"You gave him the stuff in the vial, didn't you?" Sam asked Bucky.
"Yeah. He has a knife sticking out of his side. I gave him all of it."
"At his size, he'd need all of it. Is there a reason we're not getting him off Shield and—"
Steve scowled. "No." Shield's ears went flat.
"Alright, then. I guess we're going back to the Temple."
"Slowly. Shield sets the pace."
They rode away, leaving the sheep, the smoke, raiders, the brown-clad Holderkin and their distaste for Heralds behind, Shield pacing so smoothly Bucky thought he could balance an egg between her ears and it wouldn't roll off. The knife wasn't moving, the hilt sticking out from the cloth Bucky had packed around it, and the blood hadn't spread any further across Steve's Whites.
:Shield,: Bucky sent, :are you Healing him?:
:It's not much,: she said, sounding strained, :but it's enough to hold him until we get to a real Healer.:
:He's going to be fine.: He reached out to scratch her neck and she curved an ear towards him.
"Holderkin don't like us much do they?" Steve said, staring straight ahead.
"Nope, they never have," Sam said. "They used to be on the other side of the border—well, the border used to be on the other side of them—so that might have something to do with it."
"I guess we don't have to worry about ending up with a Holderkin Herald."
Bucky snorted. "I bet that would be fun."
* * *
It took three candlemarks to get back to the Temple of Agnira, which held both a small House of Healing and a very angry Healer. It took her half a candlemark to stop muttering about damn Heralds and their damn Companions and why did she bother if they were going to ride for three candlemarks with knives sticking out of their sides.
Bucky and Sam were extremely contrite, then vanished to look after the Companions, leaving Steve to bear the brunt of it, and since she Healed him, fed him, and left him bundled, warm and sleepy, in the sick room, Steve didn't think he could complain too much.
When Bucky slipped in the door and stretched out to lie next to him, so Steve could stretch out over him—then wince, swear, and rearrange them so he was curled into his side, because he was going to hurt for the next few days, Healer or no—he knew he couldn't.
* * *
The Waystation for the collection of little villages they were currently visiting had been taken out by tree-fall a few weeks back and was still in the process of being rebuilt, so they were staying at an inn. Not in one of the villages; this one was just off the Trade Road and catered to travellers and well-off traders. It had a large common room, big enough to attract travelling Bards, and there was one performing tonight.
The three Heralds took a corner table, enjoying the chance to eat food someone else had cooked, good beer, and the sounds of happy people they weren't responsible for.
Steve hadn't quite realised how much of a difference that made. How much more he could relax when the people around him weren't looking to him to solve their problems. A Herald was never really off duty, not when they were out in the world, not even when they were out of Whites, but unless something disastrous happened, tonight they could relax and be themselves.
He leaned back, hooking one foot over Bucky's ankle, and let his contentment flow into Bucky. Bucky flashed him a smile and he felt it echo back.
Sam was watching the Bard, listening closely as she ran through warmup exercises, humming unrecognisable bars of nonsense music to prepare as she plucked an accompaniment on her lute. She took a sip of water, flexed her fingers, settled her lute more comfortably and began to sing.
What has touched me, reaching deep, piercing my ensorcelled sleep,
Darkling lady, do you weep? What is the cause of your grieving?
Why do tears of balm and bane, bathe my heart in bitter rain?
What is this longing, why this pain? What is this spell you are weaving?
Steve groaned quietly and put his head on the table. Next to him, Bucky slapped his hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter.
Sam turned around and stared at them. "Is there a problem?"
The bard kept singing:
Sunlight Singer, morning's peer, how I long for what I fear!
Not by my will are you here, how I wish I could free you!
Gladly in your arms I'd lie, but I dare not come you nigh,
For if you touch me I shall die, if I were wise I would flee you.
"Steve doesn't like songs about lifebonds," Bucky explained, with a distinct lack of sympathy and way too much laughing at flowing through their bond.
"Sun and Shadow is the worst one," Steve said without lifting his head. "It's not just a song. It's a whole cycle."
"Cheer up," Bucky said, leaning over to press a quick kiss to Steve's temple. "She might only do a few songs."
Sam was wearing a distinctly perplexed expression. "You're lifebonded."
"Yes," Steve muttered and Bucky smothered a laugh against his shoulder.
"So…shouldn't you like these kinds of songs? Shouldn't they be romantic or something?"
"You'd think so," Bucky said. "But no."
"Oh, shut up," Steve said without lifting his head.
"No."
The bard closed her eyes, pouring passion into every note, and Steve grumbled and sank down farther in his chair.
In your eyes your soul lies bare, hope is mingled with despair;
Sunborn lover, do I dare trust my heart to your keeping?
Sunrise means that I must flee, moonrise steals your soul from me;
Nothing behind but agony, nothing before us but weeping.
Her Gift was gently sliding through the music, touching it with emotion, letting the listeners feel the tragedy of it. It was very gentle, inviting not demanding, not forcing, there if her audience wanted it.
Sam sighed, a mooncalf smile on his face as he propped his chin on his hand. Bucky wrapped his arm around Steve, and Steve grumbled some more.
They didn't leave, because despite her choice of songs—and she did do the whole cycle, curse her forever—she was talented, and Sam loved the music, so they stayed, Sam swept away in the emotion of it while Bucky tried not to laugh at Steve and Steve huffed grumpily, only occasionally giving into the fact that the Bard was, if he ignored the words, extremely good.
* * *
A month and a half had passed, Sam and Bucky had finally stopped bursting into impromptu duets of Sun and Shadow just to enjoy Steve's groaning reaction, and the snows had come to the border once more. The last encounter they'd had with raiders, Riley had taken a long slash across his flank, not serious, but awkward, and he and Sam were holed up at the Howlies' Guard Post until it fully healed.
Steve and Bucky were on a narrow track that wound through the forest, making their way to the Waystation for the night. It was mostly clear, protected by the trees overhead, but outside the trees the snow was hock deep, sweeping into drifts from the wind.
It was peaceful and quiet, the snow muffling the sounds of the forest, and Steve stretched in the saddle and pulled his cloak tighter around him.
Surprise suddenly flashed into him from Bucky, and Shield turned so he could reach for him while Winter braced. He wrapped his hand around Bucky's thigh while Bucky shook his head to clear it. It had only been surprise. Not shock, not anger. That meant it wasn't a fight, wasn't someone dying.
"People in the snow," Bucky said. "That's all I got. People in the snow."
Steve let his gaze sweep around them.
"Yeah, this one was really helpful."
"Someone in the snow out here isn't going to last long."
"No, they're not. Try and find them?"
He knew Bucky meant with his Gift. "Hopefully they're not far."
It was Shield's turn to brace under him and Bucky wrapped a hand around his shoulder as Steve closed his eyes, reached for his Gift, and shifted his Sight out. The world looked different, colourless, pale, slightly glowing, and, having no idea where to start, he picked the direction away from the closest settlement.
A warning twinge scratched at his temples as he quartered the snowy forest, but he found tracks, found shadows of people, marked the direction and snapped back into his body.
"Got them."
"Any idea who they are?"
"People in the snow. People who need help. I wasn't wasting energy on perfect Sight." If he poured enough energy into it, he could get clarity and colour equal to normal sight, but he rarely bothered.
Bucky nodded and followed as Steve nudged Shield off the track, heading for where he'd Seen them.
The snow wasn't too deep, but it was damp, clinging to their Companions' hooves, and it made it slow going. By the time they reached where Steve had Seen whoever they were, they'd moved on, but they hadn't gone far, their tracks easy to follow.
When Steve saw them, saw who they were, or at least who one of them was, when he recognised the robes, he signalled Shield to stop so fast Winter almost ran into her.
Steve didn't know what they were doing here, wasn't sure how'd they'd made it this far on only their feet, but desperation could drive people to incredible lengths and he knew desperation when he saw it.
He saw it now. Looking down at the red-robed priest and the three children huddled around him, he recognised desperation. They were all staring in terror at the Companions, at Steve, at Bucky. He was just as glad Sam and Riley weren't with them, because they were barely holding themselves in check now; a third White Demon and Hellhorse might be enough to make them bolt.
The oldest child couldn't be more than ten. The youngest maybe six. The idea of chasing them down was the stuff of nightmares.
:Shield, Winter? Are you getting anything from them?:
:The children are Gifted,: Winter replied.
Suddenly, everything made terrible, horrifying sense. They'd learned what happened to the Gifted in their class on Karse. They were burned. Gifted children were burned alive by the Sunpriests.
"No one will harm you," he said in Karsite, not fluent but far better than serviceable, as he slid off Shield's back. All four startled, the children huddling closer to the Sunpriest. Because that's what he was. A Sunpriest, one who'd brought three Gifted children over the border into the land of Karsite's greatest enemy, the home of everything the people of Karse were taught to fear.
Desperation was too small a word.
The Sunpriest drew himself up, trying to push the children behind him. "I don't care what you do to me. Just swear you will not harm the children. Prove you're not what the stories paint you. Herald." He spat the last word, but Steve guessed it was better than White Demon.
"Why have you crossed into Valdemar?"
He thought the priest wouldn't answer, was sure he wouldn't answer, but as he stared back at Steve, there was defiant fire in his eyes. "It is said children with powers are safe here. I know there are followers of Vkandis in your country. I'm taking the children to them. Or I was, before you hunted us down."
Steve didn't react beyond a slow nod. The priest was bristling with hostility, but it was masking sheer terror and Steve could see he was absurdly young.
Bucky dismounted, dropped his weapons, and slowly approached. He was less imposing than Steve, especially off Winter; no matter how small Steve tried to make himself, he couldn't shed his bulk.
The priest watched warily as Bucky went to one knee a few feet away. His Karsite was as good as Steve's—not surprising, since Steve had taught him. "We will protect the children. We will protect you. Even if Karse comes seeking you back, we will protect you. Valdemar welcomes all who seek safety."
Sincerity rang through his voice, clear as bells.
The priest dragged in a shaky breath and nodded, clutching the children tightly. "I have no choice but to believe you. Help us, Herald."
Bucky smiled gently, soft as new fallen snow and Steve was struck with a wave of love for him. "I pledge you our word and the word of my King. Steven will fetch a wagon to bring you and the children to safety while Winter and I stay and keep you safe."
It was a good plan, even if he felt a twinge at leaving Bucky and Winter alone. This could be a trap. Unlikely, but it could be a trap.
But someone had to go. This was what being a Herald meant.
"I'll be back as fast as I can," he said, pulling himself up onto Shield's back as she swung around.
:All will be well, Steven,: Winter murmured in his mind as they raced away.
* * *
Winter had been right, all was well when they returned. Bucky had coaxed the priest into accepting his canteen and some honey bars for the children, and the children were sitting in a clear spot under a tree, sipping water and eating while Winter and Bucky stood guard a fair distance away.
The rattling of the wagon caught everyone's attention, but Bucky soothed them with calm, gentle words, and Dugan and Gabe moved slowly and smiled encouragingly.
Steve wasn't sure, if his position and the priest's were reversed, that he would have had the courage to climb into the wagon. To lift the children one after another and place them in the control of his lifetime's mortal enemy. But then he wasn't sure he would have had the courage to bring them across the border in the first place.
How determined must he have been to save them? To throw over a lifetime of indoctrination, a lifetime of fear, and risk everything?
That was courage. Or faith. Or both.
* * *
He and Steve weren't responsible for the Sunpriest who wouldn't stop glaring at them. Bucky was grateful for that. He didn't really blame the priest for the glaring, but he also didn't want to deal with it. He was happy his fickle Foresight had decided to show him Jannik and his children, because he wouldn't have given them much chance of surviving out there on their own, but that didn't mean he wanted to be in charge of figuring out what happened next.
They were being escorted to Haven—after having been Truth Spelled by Sam, to make sure that was really why Jannik had come over the border, which the Heralds thought was fair enough but had made Jannik glare even more. Bucky hadn't any doubts, though.
They waved goodbye to the littles, who'd become a lot less scared of the White Demons and their Hellhorses in the week they'd been in the Guard Post—a good thing, since they were going to grow up in Valdemar—and then Sam stretched and rubbed his back when it cracked.
"I'm getting old," he grumbled.
"Oh, ancient," Steve teased.
"Decrepit," Bucky added.
"Nothing but grey hairs as far as the eye can see," Steve said.
"If I've got grey hairs, it's from putting up with the two of you." He waited a beat. "Thankfully that's over."
They both stared at him.
"That shut you up, didn't it?"
Steve said, "What?"
"You're done. No more internship. Time to get sent somewhere nicer than the border."
"Can you do that?" Bucky asked.
"Technically, no. I send a recommendation to the Circle and they decide, but they never go against the mentor's recommendation." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Almost never. But you don't have anything to worry about."
"Oh." Bucky wasn't sure what to feel.
"Mmmm. I know there's a bit of time left, but after how you two dealt with the Sunpriest situation." He shrugged one shoulder. "No, you're done. Courier's due in two weeks, I'm sending my recomendation with them. Unless you have an objection?"
"What? No!" Bucky said.
"No," Steve added. "It just snuck up on us."
"That'll happen. Come on, let's get you both a drink to celebrate."
|
Chloe quietly enters the shower and immediately encircles his upper body from behind, her nose nuzzling the middle of his shoulder blades. Lucifer jumps in surprise, not expecting her to join him so soon. Chloe stands on the tip of her toes and brings her chin to his shoulder.
“Is it me or is it hot in here?”
“Well for now it’s just the steam of the shower, but if all goes according to plan, it’s about to get hot as Hell in here.” Lucifer answers with a pun of his own.
Chloe can’t actually see his smirk but she can surely picture his cheeky grin on his face and this sends another strong wave of arousal straight to her core. She trails her lips down his spine, careful of his scars - until she realises that there are none to avoid. She stops, wondering if she should ask him about it, afraid to ruin the mood. But her curiosity gets the best of her and she takes a breath before asking the sensitive question.
“Did you have some surgery?” She blurts out. Seeing this as the only viable explanation to have his two huge scars disappear all of a sudden. Whoever did it must have been an amazing plastic surgeon.
“What?” He asked, surprised at her question. “I can assure you everything you see or touch is 100 % natural, Darling.” He does a 360° to let her appreciate his natural body.
“I meant your scars. Did you have some surgery done to remove them?”
He laughs softly. “I guess that would make more sense than my Dad magically and forcefully reattaching my cut-off and burnt wings to my back.” He answers, turning around in her arms so he’s now facing her. He comes close to her ear, effectively distracting her from his missing scars. “Now! Enough about me. How about we turn this room into a bloody volcano?”
He squeezes her butt cheeks for good measure and places a wet, teasing kiss on her pulse point, sucking lightly, leaving another one of his mark on her tender skin. Chloe indeed forgets about what she wanted to say when she feels the heat of his tongue on her neck. She throws her head back, giving him more space, focusing on his lips and fingers slowly going down her body to reach between her legs, testing her wetness. She moans as she feels his fingers barely teasing her opening, going up and down, stopping at her nub to apply the slightest pressure there. Once Chloe finds some of her brain again, she slithers her hand between their bodies to wrap her slender fingers around his hard shaft and starts an unhurried rhythm, slowing down to an almost stillness when she hears his muffled moan against her skin. Lucifer bites her earlobe and inserts one long digit, his thumb closing in on her clit. There was no way she was going to be the only tease in the room. If she wanted to play, he would give her something to play with. His mouth comes closer to her ear, his hot breath sending another shiver down her body.
“Your hand is almost talented as your mouth, Love. If this is only the entrée, I can’t wait to get to the main course.” He whispers to her. He uses his free hands to still her movements completely. “But I believe I promised you a shower, and since you’re already wet…” He brings his body even closer to hers and reaches behind her to grab some soap. He pours some into his hands and the lovely scent of vanilla fills Chloe’s senses. Chloe brings her hands to his arse and squeezes it.
“I love the smell.” She says into his ears. “I never pictured you as a vanilla kind of guy.”
“I’m not - usually.” He replies. “I bought it just in case.” He finishes.
Then he applies the lather on her skin, kissing her deeply, efficiently shutting any answer she might have had. Chloe can only moan into his skillful kiss as he turns her around so he can wash her back. He massages her shoulders, kneading her sore muscles. Quickly his hands leave the top of her back and he thoroughly applies the shower gel on the rest of her body, using just the perfect pressure on her skin, not forgetting to trail up and down her long legs, but purposefully avoiding her most sensitive areas. When he comes back up, he pulls her flush against him. Chloe grinds back into him, her curvy ass teasing his member. Lucifer takes a deep breath to get his not-so-little Devil under control before things end way too quickly for his taste. Since her back was now so close to him, it was impossible for him to reach between them, so he starts to wash the front of her body again, this time paying attention to her breasts. First, he cups them softly before zeroing on her hard nipples, playing with them for a bit, pinching and tugging. He leaves out her mound on purpose. Chloe grinds even harder onto his shaft. Once the Devil is satisfied that Chloe is clean - or rather teased - enough, he decides to get to the best part of their shared shower. He grabs a massage glove and uses it, for just a brief moment, on her shoulders, before following the curves of her body. He grazes it over her breasts. The new sensation creates a deep moan from the lovely woman in his arms. Chloe shivers at the new rough sensation on her skin. She gasps and almost laughs as she feels his hands trails down her stomach, passed her belly button, tickling her in the process.
The Devil feels her shiver. “Ticklish, are we?” Lucifer teases her. Chloe growls in response.
Lucifer brings his free hand down to join the other one. Once it reaches the top of her mound, his gloved hand goes back up, playing with her nipples again, before finally dropping the massage glove to the floor. He brings his hand back to her breasts, teasing, pinching and tugging again, while his other hand cups her womanhood. In response, Chloe undulates her hips so her butt slides up and down his shaft. His member is now nestled between her butt cheeks, and her lower back, his full length rubbing against her, making him suddenly feel very thankful for his supernatural stamina. The power this woman has over his body - and mind - is simply amazing. He moans loudly into her ear and pushes further into her lower back. As she rubs his rod, he decides to test her limits. He grins against her skin and his two middle fingers settle between her wet folds, moving up and down, just posing at her entrance, pushing in so she’d feel his fingers there, but at the same time, not enough to satisfy her fully. He decides to use his voice to see how long she can resist him before finally falling over once again. Rational Chloe disappears fully when she hears his sexy voice in her ear. She might have been immune to his charms, but when his deep voice, mixed with his hot breath and what his fingers are doing to her, it’s impossible for her not to give into him.
“Detective,” Lucifer starts, using her title for a maximum effect. “The things I want to do to that amazing body of yours.” He whispers. “I can’t wait to feel your wetness around me, feel your muscles squeeze me as I enter you, complete you, Love.” He sucks the skin right below her ear. “I can already picture my shaft coming in and out as you moan and edge towards this pleasure peak you so desperately want to reach.”
His fingers mirror his words, going in and out, scratching that magical spot he found deep inside her each time he thrusts in. Chloe fully lets go and now uses his strong torso as support, fully aware her legs can’t hold her up on their own anymore. He stops talking for a brief moment to suck on her pulse point, leaving his third hickey. She’d probably be mad in the morning, but her skin was just too delicious to resist and the small whimpers or low moans coming out of her mouth weren’t helping either.
“I’m going to make sure everyone in a thirty miles radius knows exactly who’s been between your amazing legs, Darling.” He starts again.
Suddenly he lets out a loud surprised moan. Somehow the little minx managed to grab his manhood as she leant further into him. While Lucifer had his left hand between her legs, two of his fingers going in and out and his thumb rubbing on her nub and his right hand teasing her right nipple, Chloe had her free hand on her left breast, and her other hand giving the Devil one Hell of a handjob in his shower despite the very confined space between their bodies. Lucifer groans into her ear, jerking into her hand and struggling to find his words. “Ugh… Chloe!” He breathes out. “I’m going to shag you so hard, Detective, that you won’t be able to walk tomorrow without recalling every single detail of what happened tonight.”
Chloe doesn’t answers his question directly but swears loudly instead, taking advantage of being child - or roomate - free.
“Fuck! Lucifer! This feels so good. I can’t wait to feel you inside me!”
She picks up her pace, matching Lucifer’s rhythm inside her pussy. The Devil is now unable to control the movements of his hips and he now wildly thrusts into her hand, biting down her neck, moaning loudly against her ear.
“I’m almost there, Love. Don’t stop!” He breathes, panting.
“Lucifer!” Chloe simply shouts as she clamps around his fingers, her hand firmly gripping his shaft.
The feel of her hand on his cock, clenching in time with her inner walls as she rides out her orgasm and his fingers is enough to push him over. He finally lets go and feels the familiar tension at the base of his member right before he comes against her lower back with a wide choice of swear words, some language Chloe didn’t understand, before shouting - or rather growling - her name as the last of his orgasm takes him. He has to support himself against his glass shower door, still holding Chloe flush against him until the two of them can catch their breaths. After a few ragged breaths, Lucifer lets go of her just enough to turn her around, kissing her deeply.
“That was amazing, Darling.” He smiles. Chloe simply nods, still not fully back to reality. “Ready for another one?”
“Lucifer…” Chloe starts. “You couldn’t possibly…” But then she feels his almost already hard against her stomach.
“Come again?” Lucifer says, fully intending his pun, chuckling into her ear. He grabs a towel and dries her sexily, before drying himself off quickly. “Shall we proceed, Love?”
Chloe surprises him and takes his hand in hers to lead him to the bedroom. Lucifer happily follows her. She lets go of his hand and gives him a quick kiss trailing her index over his chest, down his abs before she lays down on the bed inviting him to join her. Lucifer gladly settles between her legs, rubbing his shaft over her mound, teasing and hitting her engorged nub with each movement. With her last bit of coherency she stop his thrusts. Lucifer looks at her surprised, using all his willpower to still his hips.
“Condom?” She simply says.
He chuckles, relieved. “That’s all?” He says relieved. “No need. I’m sterile and I can’t catch any STDs” He explains.
“Lucifer…”
“Eagle and lion, Darling. Different species.” He says, kissing her deeply, applying pressure on her clit.
Chloe groans. “To Hell with it!” She says. She shouldn’t be ovulating anyway.
“Perfect!” Lucifer mumbles against her skin. “It would have been a shame to cut our fun short because of a silly rubber problem.”
“Shut up!” Chloe says, kissing him back.
Lucifer gets back to his tantalising rhythm over her center. Chloe moans loudly again, already feeling her pleasure steadily rising towards her end, despite her most recent release. The Devil continues to tease her until she can’t take it anymore, the need to feel him inside her too much to bear for her.
“Lucifer!” Her voice is pleading. “Stop teasing. Please!” She tells him between breaths.
“You sure, Love? You don’t seem desperate enough to me!” He grunts back, reaching his limits as well.
If Chloe had any of her motor abilities left, she’d have rolled her eyes at his question. Instead she uses her remaining brain to take his shaft into her hand, stroking it a few times, before aligning it with her opening. Lucifer finally gets the message and enters her in one slow thrust. Chloe lets out a loud sound, between a whimper and a moan. She knew Lucifer was well endowed but she hadn’t used those muscles in a while. She’s probably going to be deliciously sore tomorrow. Luckily for her, Lucifer remains still, giving her time to adjust. He looks into her eyes and she gives him a small nod. He starts to move slowly in and out of her, enjoying her tight wetness around him. His pace remains slow and languid for a while, but each time he goes in, the head of his member hits this perfect spot inside her. Chloe is soon panting under him, urging him to speed up the movements of his hips, feeling her release about to hit her again. Lucifer feels it and changes the angle of his thrusts ever so slightly to help her fall over the edge.
“Lucifer!” She simply breathes out as her hips buck beneath him, unable to say another word.
“One more?” Lucifer asks, as he changes their position so she’s now straddling his hips.
“I can’t.” She pants.
“Sure you can, Love.” He replies, slowly moving his shaft inside her again, and taking one of her nipples into his mouth.
Chloe goes up and down a few times, surprised to already feel the tell-tale signs of another orgasm. She automatically increases her speed as she rides him, chasing her second relief in a row. Lucifer simply puts his hands on her hips to guide her down and meets her thrust for thrust. The Devil feels his own undoing getting closer and closer and decides to help her along by positioning his thumb so it brushes her clit on the way up and on the way down. But the sight of Chloe lost in her pleasure, bouncing up and down on his shaft is too much for him. Only a few more thrusts are necessary to finish him. He grips her hips hard, grunting and shouting her name as he spills himself inside her. His rapture and the noises he makes are enough to push Chloe over and she comes hard on his pulsing member.
After they both catch their breaths, Chloe gets off his laps and lies down beside him, nuzzling the crook of his shoulder. Lucifer wraps his arm around her. She traces circles on his chest and abs and she slowly comes back down from her cloud. She takes a quick look at his groin and chuckles.
“Please tell me you’re not ready for round four.”
“Not right now.” He chuckles at her question, Chloe feeling the rumble of his chest. “I think you’ve managed the unthinkable, Darling. You’ve rendered the Devil temporarily out of order. I might need a while before I can go again.” He kisses her. “But I can think of a few fun things we can do while we wait.”
“Hummm.” Chloe sleepily replies.
“Or we could just sleep until you’re up for it.” He says pulling her close to him. “Goodnight Darling.”
“Night.” Chloe simply says, before she drifts off to a deep sleep.
A few hours later - Lucifer’s penthouse
Chloe wakes up before the Devil, with the first rays of sunlight coming through the window. She opens her eyes, feeling deliciously sore in her nether regions, and utterly satisfied. She shifts looking for her night stand to check the time, but instead she sees a huge bay window. She looks under the satin sheets to see she’s naked under the duvet. “ What the Hell? ” She asks herself. Then she feels a body besides her. It feels hot, strong and very pleasant. She turns her head and sees Lucifer. Then the memories of her night come rushing down, assaulting her senses. When was the last time she had so many orgasms in one night, and two in a row. She takes a last look at the sleepy Devil beside her - ruffled hair because of their previous activity, his face digging in his pillow, snoring softly - and freaks out completely. “ Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! ” She thinks. “ So none of it was a dream. Oh my GOD. I have to leave before he wakes up. What have I done? ” She scolds herself. She slowly untangles herself from the Devil, careful not to wake him. Lucifer shifts slightly as she removes his arm from her belly. She stops immediately, watching his every move. She relaxes once she hears his soft snoring again. She quietly escapes his bed and hurries to his living-room where their clothes piled up last night. She quickly dresses and heads for his elevator, before she steps into the elevator for her first walk of shame in very a long time, she takes a paper and leaves him a quick note on the piano, with an espresso. Then she exits his penthouse.
Lucifer wakes up a few hours after the Detective sneaked out of his place. He turns around in his huge bed to wake her up slowly, ready for an encore. He taps the empty mattress. When he doesn’t find her, he briskly puts on his robe before he heads for his living-room.
“Detective?” He calls out. “Darling?”
Then he sees the cup on the piano and the note. He takes it and reads it aloud.
“ See you at work, partner .”
Lucifer balls the note and throws it back on the piano. He gulps the coffee at once and heads for his bedroom to get a shower - alone - and puts on his perfectly tailored three-pieces-suit before he drives to the precinct to meet up with his “ partner ”. He smiles devilishly as he steps into the elevator, his mind set on convincing Chloe that she meant more to him than a one-night-stand. Now that he’s finally had a taste of what she has to offer, he isn’t about to let her go without a fight. “ Let’s see how long you can resist the Devil, Partner. ” He grins as he ignites his Corvette.
|
*Chris’s point of view*
With loving care he fluffed Claire with the towel. Their vicarious young Luna had decided that after going for a swim in their new hot springs she’d roll around in the mud a little leaving her white fluff matted down and a dirt brown. Instead of turning over she decided to stay a wolf and have them physically give her a bath in Tom’s shower. It took two of them to figure out how to bathe her. Apparently Claire didn’t really like shampoo too much.
Sebastian had to hold onto her while Chris massaged the shampoo into her fur from head to toe. In the midst of this Claire was fighting them by pulling away and rearing up a little. Thankfully Tom had an extendable showerhead option and he was able to wash her off that way.
Now she was lying on the couch with a large towel underneath her and Chris sitting next to her drying her off with another one. The more he rubbed the fluffier Claire became and she slowly started to resemble that marshmallow he loved so much. He took extra care with her head and face, Claire cheekily sticking her pink tongue out at him.
“You smell like strawberries,” Chris cooed, kissing the top of her head while holding her cheeks in his hand.
Claire replied with a strained baying sound and a grumble, rubbing the top of her head on Chris’s thigh lovingly. He responded by scratching her behind the ears and making a loving kissing motion with his lips. For now he was alone with Claire and able to show her more outwardly affectionate then he would outside the bedroom. Claire groaned a little and placed her chin on his thigh, her ears twitching. Stroking her fluff between her ears he smiled.
His sweet, rambunctious, Luna - so much mentally and physically stronger than when they first met her. Chris knew that the best was yet to come as well. As her wolf got older and she started to travel down the path of a Luna she’d become unstoppable.
“Silly girl! You can’t keep playing in the mud though!” he smiled, ruffling the fur on her back a little. “And not expect to get a bath! Do you really think Tom would let you on his couch if you were a muddy mess?”
Claire gave off a low tempered bark and snorted – her way of protest.
“Are you going to be a wolf all night or are you going to turn over for us?” Chris asked, openly stroking her back and across her shoulders.
He had tried to fight petting Claire and cuddling her while she was turned over. It wasn’t proper behavior because they weren’t domesticated animals. But the more he saw the others do it after Pine said it was all right, the more he slowly gave in. Now he was doing it somewhat openly - especially if she came specifically to him for affection. Chris felt that it was more damaging to push her away than to embrace something she was clearly comfortable with. The last thing he wanted to do is drive a wedge between him and her.
Although Pine wasn’t much of a threat to him personally or his role in their pack it was still another man with a penis that she was interested in. What scared him the most is that Claire admired Pine and took his advice. Chris was fearful that she might not take his advice and instead go with someone else’s. Advice is something Chris prided himself upon giving because in his opinion it was good advice. Claire also not coming to him with her fears or problems was another sore spot. She seemed to be favoring other members with that sort of thing and rarely came to him.
“I love you, little Luna.” Chris spoke, holding her head up with his palm – the underside of her jaw resting nicely on it. “And you need to come to me if you have problems or questions, yes? I’d love to have conversations with you. I’m not just a pretty face with a sexy body,” he smirked, hoping to appear playful and not so serious.
Claire curled herself up next to his body; her head resting on his thigh while the rest resembled a loose fetal position. She sighed a few times and licked her lips, slicking her whiskers down before closing her eyes. Reaching behind him he took hold of a blanket and covered her with it making sure that only her head was exposed. Protectively Chris placed his arm under the blanket and settled his hand on her side, rubbing her gently.
He knew that in order for her to actually fall asleep in this state beside him meant that Claire was comfortable with him. She trusted him enough to know that he wasn’t going to hurt her and he’d keep her safe.
Using his free hand he stroked the little patch between her eyes gingerly, up and down. A soothing pressure point for them. Within moments her breathing became softer and her tongue would dart out from her lips a little. Under the blankets the toes on the front of her paws were kneading at the material of the couch like a cat would if content.
When the rest of the pack as well as Pine came into the living room they were quiet and careful not to disturb Claire. It was rare for her to actually sleep now since her wolf was getting older. Her puppy-hood was slowly coming to an end leaving Claire with a juvenile wolf, which, in human years would translate to an 18-20 year old depending on the wolf itself. The older Claire’s wolf gets the less sleep she’ll need. Which is a shame really because she was so cute when dozing. Her ears would twitch as well as her paws and Claire would make adorable little noises.
“The land is secured,” Tom spoke, sitting down on the ground in front of the couch to get as close to Claire without bothering her. “Claire and I need to sign the paperwork on Tuesday.”
“And then what?” Sebastian asked, Michael seated next to him rather closely.
“Well, we need to find someone to draw up the design for the home. Once the home is designed we can set into motion phase 2, which is to start building the home. Hopefully by the time the house is finished our apartments are sold. If the apartments go before the house is built we’ll have to rent something.” Tom replied softly,
“I owe close to 100k in mortgage still,” Sebastian stated nervously, using his hands to further stress his point.
“So we can sell the apartment for what it’s worth and then take 100k out of the selling amount and pay off the mortgage.” Pine suggested, “It’ll leave you with less than what you originally obtained but at least the bank is off your ass. You can go and explain what your doing to the bank and they should hold off on mortgage fees.”
Chris wasn’t going to comment because that’s what he’d suggest Seb do. He was lucky to owe less than that on his apartment but only because he chose not to purchase a flashy car like the others and he managed his money wisely. Still, Chris owed the bank roughly 45k in mortgage.
“Because of the paperwork Pine filled out Claire is being given back benefits from the council as well as a housing grant.” Tom informed them. “She’s going to be receiving a significant amount of money which will help to establish our home.”
“I have a trust account from my grandparents tucked away somewhere.” Chris offered, “They’re still alive but periodically they’ve been putting money into the account for me as well as my siblings. I never inquired because I didn’t really need it. I can use some of that for the development of our home.”
Of course everyone looked to Pine to see what he was bringing to the table. Although it was unspoken it wasn’t a fucking secret Claire fancied him enough to invite him into their pack. If he wanted into their pack he had to be a productive member of the pack and help take care of business. Chris wasn’t going to allow him to just hang around and not contribute or look after Claire and their pups. They were men – it was their duty as men to look after their women and children - a duty that Chris took very seriously.
“Well,” Pine spoke, clearing his throat, “There are a lot of forms that the council requires for us to fill out. A lot of different request forms for workers, certified contractors., that sort of thing. I’ll be filling those out.” He offered, “And I’ll make sure that everything is in order. Of course I have savings as well. A trust account from my great-grand parents with a couple hundred thousand in it.”
“Good, good. Because we’re going to need a big home to accommodate all of us plus our children.” Tom admitted, rubbing the side of his cheek. “I don’t think we can do much more tonight so let’s take it easy, yeah?”
|
“You have to come.” Michael rolls his eyes and debates taking Isobel to task over the fact that he doesn’t have to do anything. He doesn’t have to put up with his siblings just because Max fucked up and he especially doesn’t have to turn up to his Halloween party just because he wants to have an excuse to have Liz around. “No,” he calmly replies. “I don’t.” “Fine,” Isobel huffs. “You don’t have to, but I think I know one formerly-eyeliner-shaped reason you’ll want to come. When Max invited Liz, she asked if she could bring him, too. Something about the fact that she doesn’t want him to sit around feeling lonely on Halloween.” He grimaces, glad they’re not having this conversation face to face so she can’t see the moment that he goes from intending to ignore the party completely to figuring out what he’s going to dress as. “Fine,” he snaps, aware that he’s mimicking her tone right down to the huff. “This isn’t for Max, though.” “Whatever you need to tell yourself,” says Isobel and hangs up on him. He doesn’t put much effort into his costume, but given that the party is in a few hours and the last place he intends to show his face is the discount Halloween store, he thinks it’ll pass muster. At least, for anyone but Max Evans, it turns out. “What, exactly, are you supposed to be dressed up as?” Max asks as soon as Michael walks in. Michael’s wearing a plaid button-down shirt atop a pair of beige slacks. He’s wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses and has tousled his hair so that it’s a riotous mess -- even more than usual. He lowers his drink and the glare comes out in full force. “If this is some awful joke about boring people…” If it weren’t for the fact that Michael actually wants to be here (especially since he caught a glimpse of Alex in the crowd), he’d take this as an excuse to walk out. Now that he’s here, he plans to stand his ground, which means shutting down Max before he gets into dramatics about Michael not observing the theme. “Max, calm your ass down, it’s a costume,” Michael interrupts. “Besides, aren’t you happy I didn’t come to your Halloween party dressed as a little green alien?” Max grimaces, but Michael hears the ‘yes’ that gets eked out. “See?” Michael says cheerfully, clapping a hand on Max’s shoulder as he wanders inside to grab a drink. He ducks Ortecho, who’s copped out by dressing as a scientist (about as bad as Max going as a cowboy) and greets Isobel, who’s wearing a sexy cop outfit that Michael suspects is from her and Noah’s roleplay collection. “You came,” she greets him, offering him a hug. “I wish I wasn’t thinking about other times you’ve said that while wearing those clothes,” Michael complains, and fully deserves the smack that she gives him. “Ow. And yet, accurate,” he protests, taking her silence as confirmation. She lets her eyes roam over him, shaking her head. “I don’t get your costume. Are you supposed to be a nerd?” “No. Iz, come on. It’s fine,” he promises, because the only person he wants to figure it out is Alex. “So, tell me what’s new…” All the while he’s talking to her, he’s trying hard not to spend too long looking at Alex, who’s also wearing a cowboy outfit and lingering nearby. He knows he’s biased, but Michael definitely thinks that Alex pulls off the cowboy look a hell of a lot better than Max does. Things are still awkward between them, have been since the drive-in, but Michael feels like tonight’s it. If Liz wants to make sure Alex isn’t locking himself away in his house and avoiding the world, then Michael is going to take advantage and see if they can’t have a mature talk as adults. It’s a chance he’s been handed on a platter and he doesn’t intend to ignore it. He tells Isobel that he’ll come back later when another of Max’s guests drifts away from the conversation he’s been holding with Alex, eager to take advantage. Alex looks like he’s going for a drink refill, which means that Michael gets there first. He leans his hip up against the table by the big windows at the front of the party, pushing his fake glasses up his nose as he pretends to be needing the help to see Alex’s costume. “Yeehaw,” Michael deadpans as he reaches out to tip Alex’s hat. “You know, if you really wanted my hat that badly, you could’ve just asked nicely when you were over last time.” He takes abject pleasure in the way that Alex blushes for him, cheeks going bright. “Guerin,” he says, and Michael knows this is it. If he doesn’t completely mess this up in the next few hours, he’s in good shape. “Interesting costume choice,” Alex praises. “I forgot that you stole those comics from me in the toolshed and never gave them back. I always knew you liked them.” “What can I say, you’ve got great taste,” he praises with a grin, pouring Alex a drink so he can hold it out in offering. Before he can ask how Alex is doing, chaos descends as the glass from Max’s front window shatters inwards. It’s instantaneous. Michael doesn’t even think, he just moves to cover Alex’s body with his own to shield him, eyes squeezed shut. The offending weapon (a heavy brick with a note wrapped around it) clatters at their feet, but Michael’s still got both arms wrapped around Alex protectively, keeping him turned away. Whoever threw the brick is running off, laughing gleefully about “cops are pigs, dickwads!”, which means this has nothing to do with aliens and everything to do with Max’s day job. Max looks across the room to where Jenna is standing (dressed as Annie Oakley), and there’s radio chatter happening and plans being made to chase after the suspect. In the haze of chaos, no one’s noticed that every single piece of glass is currently hovering in the air around Michael just a few inches from the ground, which he quickly lets drop before it becomes suspicious. He can excuse it away as people being in a state of shock if they ask later about what they’d seen. He also takes the chaos as the excuse not to let Alex go just yet. “Guerin,” Alex protests. “I’m fine.” Alex’s drink is crumpled on the floor from trampling feet as people had rushed away from the windows, but Alex looks at him with disbelief and gratitude. “I think you’re in the wrong version of that costume, though,” he says breathlessly, reaching up to slide the glasses off of Michael’s face. He’s able to, because he’s being fully supported by the way Michael is still holding him with one arm around his neck, the other pressed firmly to the small of his back. “Nah,” Michael insists, feeling pretty robbed of breath himself. “Clark Kent’s every bit as heroic as Superman, they just do it in different ways.” Alex laughs brightly, full of joy and disbelief. “My hero,” is what he says. Instead of arguing about heroes and who’s rescuing who and under which name, Michael kisses Alex, dipped right there in his arms, fake glasses dangling from Alex’s fingers. As far as sexy world-saving aliens go, he’s always associated way more with the undercover one professing normalcy, but if he gets to save Alex Manes and kiss him like that world’s been ending, then maybe he can get used to being Superman, too.
|
Maid to Serve-Miss Militia
“That is certainly a possibility, yes,” Hannah said, leaning back in her chair as she studied the tiles that made up the paneling of her office ceiling. “A ride along with some police officers for a week or two might be just the thing needed. I’ll run it by some of the others and get back to you tomorrow.” She nodded, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. “And again, thank you for the offer, Commissioner.”
Soon after, the conversation ended and Hannah put the phone back on its holder with a click. She stayed staring at the ceiling for a while longer, letting thoughts bounce off of each other and slot themselves into place. After a while, she stood up and stretched. She could think just as well while doing simple, repetitive tasks as she could while sitting down and she needed the exercise, anyways. As the PR department made so abundantly clear, it wasn’t just enough for the female superheroines to be in shape (in fact, the men there didn’t care about being in shape at all, for either themselves or the heroes) they also had to look good, which meant pointed comments about diet and exercise. It was easier for Hannah to just go along with them and save her energy for more important things.
Like deciding what she was going to do about her two problem children. Things had gone more or less smoothly for a few years, ever since Clockblocker had lost that irreverent edge that did not mesh at all with the Protectorate’s culture and Kid Win had started a new round of medication that had helped him focus. Hannah had enjoyed acting as a mentor to the Wards, helping shape them into the heroes of the next generation. But now…
Hannah frowned as she did some push-ups, feeling the burning tension in her shoulders and upper arms and to a lesser extent in her belly. Now, with that stupid, prideful stunt that Vista and Toggle had pulled, she was having to really work at keeping everything nice and calm and ensuring that the rather battered Protectorate department here didn’t take another body blow to its public image that it could ill afford.
Sending the two of them on separate ride-alongs with some police officers, to let them get a better understanding of law and order and how unpowered people helped protect the city and its citizens might be just what they needed. It would be quite unusual and Hannah would need to essentially invent some paperwork to make it all smooth and check off all of the boxes, but she thought that she could get it done. The real question was if the girls would learn what they needed to learn from it.
And if it would keep them out of the public eye long enough. There had already been a minister and a city councilman getting interviews decrying how the Wards had shown such blatant disrespect to member of Congress. Would putting Vista and Toggle out on the streets add to that by making it seem like they weren’t being punished? Or would being in the presence of a police officer (not a PRT trooper, that would be an important distinction) be enough to show that they were receiving a new, fresh education in what it meant to properly serve and uphold the law? Hannah knew that there would be voices in the offices that would take both views and strongly attack each other and her, but, then again, there always were.
And it might appease the protestors that had come by yesterday as well. A fairly small group of perhaps two dozen in all, waving signs and chanting about the dangers of immigration, the corruptness of foreigners, the laxness of youth and other such things. If asked to describe them, Hannah would have only described them as protestors but she had seen the noose and swastika some of the loudest voices were waving around. And had heard the words they had used to describe a young woman passing by who they thought had been Toggle. If she hadn’t run for it, who knew what would have happened?
Making up her mind, Hannah nodded. She’d write up an email and send it off to the other relevant parties to get them all in agreement and make sure that Toggle and Vista’s weekends for the rest of the month were taken up with spending time with the BBPD. And drop a quiet, soft word that whoever assigned them to the officers they’d be spending time with should make sure that the cops didn’t actually take money from the till of the stores they visited. Hannah and the rest of the Protectorate stayed a careful distance away from the local police and the endemic corruption that plagued its ranks, but still, they heard stories.
And what else did she have to do today? A rather long list presented itself to Hannah as she rose to her feet but, luckily, most of the list was very quick, simple things that wouldn’t need much time or mental energy spent on doing. Answering emails, checking and filling out reports, the usual grease of paperwork that kept everyone where they should be and getting the supplies and information they needed. Nothing exciting, of course, but it still needed to be done.
The most likely thing that would get Hannah’s blood stirring today would actually be happening tonight. A small smile passed over Hannah’s face as she realized that for most people, that might mean that they were going on a date or spending time with friends. But no, she was going to be patrolling Tattletale’s small slice of territory. A sadly pro-forma gesture, since it had been almost a year since the blonde Thinker had taken the field, but appearances still had to be kept up. The people, both in the city and across North America as a whole, had to think that the government and its agents, were still in control of the city. And Hannah would of course do her part to make sure that image stayed intact.
It was less comforting to think that Tattletale and the other Undersiders had a similar level of investment in keeping things that way. Still, in another way, it was good that the leading gang and its subsidiaries were more interested in bringing in the same amount of money as last year and keeping themselves amused, instead of trying to bring other cities under their control or embark on some mad grand scheme of social rebuilding or whatever the other, more ideologically-based gangs and groups might decide on.
Still, it didn’t hurt enough for Miss Militia to keep on doing her job. Though it did mean that whenever she tried to transfer out of the city to a new, more prestigious posting, she had to make quite sure that she put a very careful shine on everything she had done, far more than had been needed when she had been asked to come to Brockton Bay in the first place and oversee the Wards program as Armsmaster’s second in command.
Well, seeing the recent incursion off and sending the assortment of white supremacist gangs off with their tails between their legs had helped. And if Hannah could get one or two more solid wins underneath her belt, then she just might be able to escape the black spot that Brockton Bay had become on her career without having to accept a lesser posting than she had now.
How to get those wins without threatening the status quo that they had with the Undersiders… that was a more difficult question. And doing it without falling into what Armsmaster had done during the Endbringer attack, as well. A tricky needle to thread, as shown by how Hannah hadn’t managed it in the past few years. But, well, there would have to be something that would come to mind and let her get what she wanted. There always was.
But probably not tonight. With a sigh, Hannah reached down and grabbed her cap from her desk. Time to head out and see what the mood on the street was.
***
Tonight, Hannah was doing a foot patrol through half a dozen blocks of the central part of Brockton Bay’s commercial district. It was busier than it had been when she had first come here, all these years ago, but it was still a deserted village compared to what New York City or Los Angeles were like at night.
From this part of the city, even when you were facing north-east, you couldn’t see the light from the portal that connected the city to New Brockton. But there were still other signs of its presence. From time to time, Hannah could hear a train whistle as some long line of engines and cars either arrived or departed from the portal. And, of course, the secondary signs, like the cleaner streets and the relative lack of graffiti were obvious to anyone who had lived in the city before the portal had opened.
And the signs that Tattletale and her small army of rather well-trained mercenaries were in control were there for those with eyes to see. Purple and black marks of a staring eye on alley walls, right next to the street were one sign. Muscular men and women lingering around doors to bars were another. Some of them tried to outstare Hannah as she walked past them, but even if the Protectorate wasn’t willing to go to war against the Undersiders, that did not mean that Hannah was even slightly intimidated by their foot soldiers, even if those Tattletale employed were a cut above the rest of the rabble that congregated around supervillains as cheap muscle.
Still, on the whole, it was probably just as good that there was no sign of actual crime going on. Despite the carefully unspoken set of rules that the local department of the Protectorate and the Undersiders had settled on, it still rankled Miss Militia to have to turn a blind eye to a shopkeeper being shaken down for protection money or to see a very expensively (and gaudily) dressed young man lingering by the rear of a car without seeming to do much (though Tattletale herself tended more towards information dealing and getting in bed with construction companies for sweetheart deals). But tonight, at least, the closest thing to lawbreaking that she had seen was a pair of drunkards rolling down the sidewalk, arm in arm as they babbled confusingly to each other. And they hadn’t even been attempting to get into a car, which Hannah would have stopped with as much tactfulness as they would have allowed her to employ.
Instead, she watched them keep on walking for another block or two before sitting down heavily on a bench and talking to each other in voices so slurred that she couldn’t even understand what they were saying to one another. Shaking her head, Hannah turned around and kept on slowly patrolling along the streets, looking for anything out of the ordinary. But not looking too hard, just in case.
Part way through her walk, Hannah had to stop as a blonde girl in her late teens came up to her. She wasn’t alone, either, with two quite large men behind her, staying half a dozen or so paces behind her. Hannah’s eyes narrowed above her flag mask as she stared down at the girl. She was wearing a rather sporty outfit of a blouse and slacks in green and white and her hair was done up in a side bun. There was no sign of a scar on her cheek but Hannah knew quite well how thoroughly makeup could hide a scar or, on the other hand conceal freckles.
“You’re Miss Militia, right?” The blonde girl said, in a voice that wasn’t quite familiar enough for Hannah to prove that it was Tattletale but was still close enough for her to know it. At most, puberty had done a few final finishing touches in the past year since they had spoken in person.
“Yes, I am,” Hannah said dourly, crossing her arms underneath her chest. “And you are?”
“Oh, just a citizen of this wonderful city,” Tattletale said, the already present smirk widening into an outright grin. “And I just wanted to say, thank you for all the hard work you do in keeping us safe. My… uncles,” she waved a hand behind her at her bodyguards, one of whom grunted and the other one nodded, “both agree with me, right? We’re all sleeping better at night knowing that you and yours are out there all the time, helping to keep us safe from those dangerous criminals.”
Tattletale’s smile widened as she spoke and Hannah could see a faint hint of contemptuous delight in her eyes, though it was buried underneath a smiling look. Hannah’s own eyes narrowed and her fingers itched as she fought the urge to form them into a fist. Instead, she nodded and decided to take this at face value, as if this really was just some girl instead of the architect behind Hannah’s stalled and stained career.
“It’s always pleasant to hear from a local citizen how much our efforts mean to them,” Hannah said, the well-practiced words falling from her lips with ease without having to let herself actually think about what she was saying and to who. That was a very useful skill that she had developed over the long years of politicking and climbing the ladder in the Protectorate. “And you can rest assured that we’re always working hard to fight to make the city, the country and the world a better place.”
Tattletale’s grin grew wider and wider as she nodded along to what Hannah was saying. Hannah didn’t like this but what choice did she have? Gunning an unarmed teenager in the middle of the street, especially one who wasn’t wearing a costume or had done anything threatening at all would not be a good look and Hannah liked to think that she wasn’t the kind of person who would do that. Holding a gun to Tattletale’s face to stop her from airing Protectorate dirty laundry and threatening Hannah’s career, yes, that was one thing (two things, actually, after both the Leviathan attack and Echidna), but gunning down a girl that she couldn’t prove was the brains behind the Undersiders was just a step too far.
“It’s wonderful to hear such high-minded ideals from you superheroes,” Tattletale simpered, her grin growing and growing until it threatened to fall right off of her face. “It makes me feel all nice and warm inside, knowing that we have such noble, valiant protectors.”
Hannah fixed Tattletale with an unamused stare. She had gotten very good at those stares over the years of corralling teenagers with a variety of behavioral and mental problems on top of the usual teenage rambucntioness, energy and lack of care for what their elders might say. It didn’t always work, though, and it certainly didn’t work with someone Hannah had absolutely zero power over.
“You rest assured, Miss…” Hannah let the word trail off, wondering what kind of lie she was going to get next.
“Rebecca,” Tattletale said with a smug smile. “It’s such an honest, upright name, don’t you think? The name of someone who always does the right thing.”
Hannah didn’t rise to that, not even to the level of shaking her head back and forth over it. Instead, she made a soft sighing sound through her mask. It seemed pretty obvious that the point of all of this was to rile Hannah up and to get her to act out. Probably not even with a camera around to record it, simply and purely for Tattletale’s pleasure.
“It’s a very nice name,” Hannah said levelly. “However, I still have some work to do, so I need to get back to my patrol.”
“Oh, no problem,” Tattletale said cheerfully, falling in next to Hannah. “I’ll walk with you and the three of us can keep you company.”
Hannah glanced again at the hired muscle hanging behind Tattletale, looking quite impassive and stolid. If Tattletale thought that they were going to be enough to take her out, even in a surprise blow from behind (and it wouldn’t be a surprise) Hannah was going to have to revise her estimation of the Thinker’s intelligence downwards.
“That’s a kind offer, but unless you have business with me,” Hannah said, shaking her head back and forth and rapidly tiring of this game, “I’ll have to decline. The life of a superhero is a dangerous one and I wouldn’t like to get you hurt by thugs working for the Undersiders or any of the other gangs in the neighborhood.”
“Yes, I heard that Tattletale runs this part of town and that she’s a real terror,” Tattletale said, not even trying to hide the smug, self-congratulatory smile on her face. “But surely I’d be safe with you if I’m going to be safe anywhere, right?”
“The streets are safer now for the average citizen then they have been for the past few decades,” Hannah shot back, “you don’t need to hang off of the arm of a superhero in order to feel safe.”
“And that safety is all thanks to the valiant efforts of you and yours,” Tattletale responded brightly, looking as innocent and naïve as she could. It wasn’t terribly convincing, though Hannah supposed that someone who didn’t know who this girl was might have been taken in. “And I would so dearly love to see how a hero like you keeps the streets of our city safe.”
“In that case, you should reach out to the Public Assistance department of the PRT,” Hannah said, rebuffing her, “and ask for an interview or possibly to go on a patrol with one of our Wards.” And once Hannah got back, she would be dropping a word to the people in that department to start screening any such applications to make sure that any blonde girls who tried to get in were given the eagle eye. “I’m sure that they would be quite able to set you up with a chance to meet your heroes in a more extended period of time.”
“It would be lovely to get that sort of chance,” Tattletale said, with a grin that said she knew what the odds of that happening were. “To get the chance to spend some time alone with Vista or Toggle and talk to them and hear what they think about the world and how its going would be something I could get a lot out of.”
And that sort of line was exactly why Tattletale would most certainly not be getting time alone with any of Hannah’s Wards. Or any of the other superheroes, though it was a lot harder for Hannah to control who got access to other adults instead of minors. Ugh, and now, just as Tattletale undoubtedly wanted, Hannah was going to have to worry about those two possibly defecting. Hannah strongly doubted that any such thing would happen but she did know how teenagers could overreact to a minor slap on the wrist like what those two had earned for their behavior.
“Well, perhaps you’ll get approved for that,” Hannah said, leaving the ‘not a chance in hell’ out in the air without actually saying that. “However, I really do need to get back to my patrol. It was quite nice talking to you,” Hannah almost said Sarah for an instant before remembering herself, “Rebecca, but I need to get back to it.”
“Ah, are you sure?” Tattletale said with a pout. “But I’m having such a good time talking to you and hearing your thoughts on everything!”
“I’m sure you are,” Hannah said, letting some of her true feelings on the subject slip into her voice. It didn’t seem to bother Tattletale, who just kept on grinning, one hand on her hip. “But there’s other things I need to do tonight, so if you’ll excuse me…” Whether Tattletale would excuse Hannah or not, she still started backing up.
“It’s a pity that we need to end this so soon,” Tattletale said, with what sounded like actual regret (and amusement) in her voice. “It’s always nice to get to have a little chat with one of the superheroes who are doing so much to keep us all safe in our beds and those nasty crooks off of the streets where they can bother and harass innocent people like me and my uncles.”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed once more but she didn’t see the point in coming up with some clever rejoinder. Instead, she turned around and started heading down the sidewalk, feeling her teeth grinding together behind her mask.
There was something especially infuriating about how young the Undersiders were, Hannah supposed. Their youth and their success was an extremely unwelcome combination., especially when it was put up against the drive that Hannah saw in her own Wards. And, of course, while gangland politics could be extremely variable and shifting (and lethal), with how young the Undersiders were, it was completely possible that they could live like this for decades. The thought of spending the rest of her working years in Brockton Bay, dealing with Skitter and Tattletale and Imp’s sense of humor was not one that that Hannah looked forward to in the least, especially not the thought of her retiring in twenty years or so and seeing a still fairly young Sarah or Taylor in her retirement party, grinning widely and wearing an expensive suit.
Shaking her head, Hannah did her best to push those thoughts out of her head and into somewhere else. She glanced around her, seeing some mostly deserted streets, with dark windows running down along either side of the road. Where was she? It took a moment for Hannah to center herself enough to bring up her perfect memory. Right, she was on the charmingly named Twenty-seventh Street, home to a collection of businesses and workshops that mostly sold to other businesses instead of the general public. That certainly explained the general lack of signage or bright colors along the front of the buildings.
There was also very little to attract either a hero or a crook, with money changing hands through checks or electronically and the valuables either locked away or to heavy to lift. Time to move on two streets over to where some all-night shops were. Possibly a target for small-timers and certainly a place where Hannah could buy a can of pop to get some sugar inside of her stomach and get her head into a better place.
It was always slightly amusing to go into an all-night convenience store and see how the clerk reacted to seeing a superhero in front of them. Sometimes they were extremely worried, obviously thinking that Hannah had come to get them for whatever it was that they were worried about (the only time she had even found out what the man was worried about, it was because he had been too flustered to hide the porn magazine that he had been reading. Nothing that Hannah could begin to care about). And then at other times, they were quite happy to see someone and almost desperately eager to chat with Hannah to do something to fill the long hours until their shift ended. And sometimes they were fans of Miss Militia or superheroes in general, occasionally even offering to give Hannah whatever snacks she wanted for free in exchange for an autograph. She always gave them the autograph but also insisted, per Protectorate guidelines, on paying for whatever it was that she had wanted.
And sometimes, as in this case, the woman behind the counter was so zoned out that it was a miracle that she could even stand upright. Hannah couldn’t tell and didn’t care if the woman was on drugs, so tired she might as well have been or just naturally spacey. She still had her act together enough to ring up the can of root beer and peanut butter bar that Hannah bought and that was enough for her.
Muttering a good night that went completely unacknowledged by the woman, Hannah stepped back out onto the city streets. After seeing the photos on the tabloids six years ago of Long Arm wolfing down cheap junk food while in costume and on patrol, Hannah didn’t instantly start to eat her purchases. There would be time for that after turning a few corners and making sure that there weren’t any snoopers around with a telescopic photo lens on their camera.
Though if the tabloids had any actual interest in journalism (they didn’t, of course being tabloids) there were plenty of other stories that Hannah could direct them to. She frowned at that thought for a bit before shaking her head as she tucked the can and bar away in her belt. Yes, on the surface, Brockton Bay looked to be doing better than it had since long before Hannah had come here. The portal to the north bringing a reason to actually do business in the town, the Undersiders having driven out any gangs that wouldn’t accept being their underlings had reduced the red-on-red violence and their… understanding with the Protectorate and the completely standard understanding they had with the BBPD (that the ABB and especially the E88 had in their heyday as well) were keeping things calmer in the public eye. And yet, the things that they had to do to get this all to happen… Hannah sighed and wondered if in the past, these deals hadn’t been made or if she had just been too junior to get a whiff of them. She had a sinking feeling that it was the latter, but how could that sort of thing possibly be proven?
Still, she would just as soon not have to deal with Tattletale again in the near future. It really was astonishing how such a smart girl could be so intentionally aggravating. At least with Imp, it was quite obvious that her outbursts came from the soul. While Tattletale, just as obviously, set out to cause trouble and stir people up. Something really should be done about her, but Hannah had a feeling that the time for that sort of action had passed a long time ago. And that while a chance might come in the future, the shape and the nature of it were utterly obscured to her and she’d just have to wait and see what might happen.
Hardly cheerful thoughts and Hannah decided that she had waited long enough and turned around enough corners to have the sugar (wrapped up in some other, less interesting substances) that she had bought. She popped the tab of the can and took a swig of it, staring ahead as she walked.
Well, if there was nothing that she could really do to make Brockton Bay actually better, instead of just looking better, then she could at least make sure that the Wards were well-equipped to handle what they would be getting into. And that would include making them understand how they needed to work with and respect the system. And by that thought, Hannah meant Vista and Toggle, especially. Make them understand why they owed respect to their superiors and seniors, even if those superiors might say some things that were not entirely agreeable with them. The ridealong would help a bit. But maybe also some one-on-one talks with Hannah so that she could help them understand why they had done wrong and that they shouldn’t do it again and should apologize to Senator King for snubbing him in public like that.
It wouldn’t be easy, Hannah knew, but it could happen. And it would be quite nice for her own career if she could help soothe the senator’s wounded ego by getting him an apology. He didn’t sit on any committees that really impacted Hannah’s life but that could always change and he was still one of the state senators. Better to have him as even a nodding acquaintance than as an enemy. Something that both Toggle and Vista should be made to learn to understand, Hannah thought.
It was Hannah’s duty to help the Wards underneath her and really, what could possibly be more important than that?
|
Jimin was dropped off at this run down place. He frowned, where the heck was he?
As he got dropped off, he stared at the building with utter shock and the man just continued walking.
"Come on," the man said as he started walking towards the door.
Jimin followed hesitantly and into the building and went inside, his breath catching in his throats at the amazing interior. It was completely different from the exterior and he gasped audibly.
"Hobi?" A voice called out softly.
"Yeah, I got a-" he started, but was cut off when someone just appeared right in front of him.
What the heck??? Are these people humans??
"Welcome back," the man said smiling,"You ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, hyung," the man-Hobi(?) replied, smiling softly.
The man looked at Hobi doubtfully before telling him to go eat. He then turned to Jimin, seemingly surprised he was standing there.
"Oh!" The man said smiling,"I didn't see you there!"
Jimin smiled softly and it might've looked more like a grimace.
"Sorry about that," the man continued,"That's Hoseok. He works at the police station and it's not always very.....nice."
Jimin frowned, but nodded.
"Anyways, you must be hungry!" The man said,"I'm Jin by the way."
He walked into what Jimin assumed as the kitchen.
He put a bowl of food in front of Jimin and he smiled softly and started eating, eyes widening at the familiar taste.
"After you're done, your room can be the first room on the left," Jin said,"I don't want you walking out in the dark..."
Jimin looked at him and smiled. Jin looked at him and smiled as well and Jimin saw his eyes widen for a fraction of a second before he smiled again.
Jimin finished and went upstairs and into the first door on the left. He entered and sighed deeply.
He just wanted to find Taehyung and go home. He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face and made his way over to the bed. Well, as long as they help him find Taehyung, he's fine.
----
Jin stayed downstairs, staring off into space, thinking hard.
That boy also had weird eyes. Looked just like Yoongi's. Jin shook his head before focusing on the dishes. He was still thinking when someone wrapped their arms around him.
"You thinking about something, babe?" Namjoon said quietly.
"Yeah...." Jin replied as he put a bowl down,"Its about that newcomer."
"Oh? I thought he was asleep?" Namjoon asked.
Jin turned in Namjoon's arms,"No, there was another one..."
Namjoon's eyes widened,"Another one?"
Jin nodded and pecked Namjoon on his lips,"This is getting really complicated. I don't know what to do. Or what to tell Yoongi or Jungkook."
"You'll find out," Namjoon said and kissed Jin fully on the lips,"Now, lets go to sleep, its late."
Jin smiled at him and walked towards their bedroom.
----
Taehyung woke up with a yawn. He felt like he was sleeping in the most comfortable bed he's ever slept in. He rubbed his eyes tiredly and sat up, wondering what woke him. Looking around his room, he noticed that it was still early in the morning looking out the window. He was confused, he never woke up this early.
Then, pain shot through his wide and he winced and looked down and his eyes widened. There was blood everywhere.
His eyes widened as he looked down at his sheets. They were covered in blood and Taehyung looked down and lifted up his shirt. There was a wound in his side. It was deep and bleeding profusely. Taehyung took of his shirt and pressed it to his side, not knowing what the do.
Suddenly, his door burst open and he saw someone in the doorway, looking at him with a hungry expression.
"H-hello?" He asked, scared.
The man in the doorway took a slow inhale and exhaled a shaky breath. Suddenly, he was being pushed away and another person was in the doorway.
"H-hey?" The new voice asked, sounding strained,"You ok?"
"Y-yeah?" He asked.
"You're hurt," it was a statement, not a question.
"Y-yeah," Taehyung said, looking down at his side,"I guess the man cut me...."
"You sure....you're ok?" The man asked, his voice sounding more strained,
"Yeah? Are you ok?" Taehyung asked,"You seem.....strange."
"Y-yeah I'm fine," the man replied. Then, someone else came barreling at him and they rolled down the hallway.
Taehyung stared at the doorway, speechless.
Then, someone else entirely came into his room. His eyes turned a bright orangey-reddish color.
"Oh wow...." the man said, standing over Taehyung,"You smell really good...."
"W-what??" Taehyung asked. His eyes were wide with fear as this man suddenly leaned down to sniff him, a shiver ran down Taehyung's spine.
"Hey!" A voice at the doorway.
Taehyung and the man's head snapped towards it.
"Don't take another step!" The voice shouted,"Calm down, come back and think about what you're doing!"
The man stared at the man in the doorway before looking back at Taehyung again and walked back out. It was still too dark to make out who was who and what was what.
"What's going on??" Taehyung asked as one of them, the man who shouted at the other, started walking towards him.
"I'm sorry about them," the man said and Taehyung recognized him as Jin,"They don't have as much self control as I do."
"S-self control?" Taehyung squeaked out.
Jin's eyes found Taehyung's wound and stared at it for a little bit,"Oh dear.....that's a lot of blood."
Taehyung looked back down at his shirt that was now soaked completely and was driving back onto the sheets. Taehyung's hand was covered in blood and blood dropped down his side.
"Yeah...." Taehyung replied.
"Ok, come with me, I'm going to patch you up, ok?" Jin said softly, smiling at him.
Taehyung nodded and moved to get up, but as soon as he stood up, black spots invaded his vision and he almost fell face first if Jin didn't catch him.
"Oh shit," he heard Jin mutter under his breath,"He lost more than I thought. This is going to be bad. I need to get him out now."
Taehyung was too delirious to understand what was going on. His blood was still dripping from his side and the shirt was still pressed against his side.
Jin hurried him I tot he bathroom, locking the door behind him and searching the cabinets for a first aid.
"Ok, I'm going need you to remove the shirt from the wound, ok?" Jin asked carefully.
Taehyung looked down at his side and removed it.
Jin's eyes turned a bright shade of red before turning back into the normal light brown.
"Ok," Jin said and searched around for a cloth or something for Taehyung to bite on,"Here," he said handing him a towel,"Bite on this."
He stuffed it into Taehyung's mouth.
He carefully took out antiseptic and put it over Taehyung's wound and he cried out in pain, muffled by the towel in his mouth. Jin winced at his pain and took out a needle and thread. He looked up at Taehyung who was looking at him with wide eyes.
"This is going to hurt....a lot," he said.
He took a deep breath and starting stitching Taehyung up, the boy's screams muffled, but clearly painful. Jin winced, but continued.
After a while, he was finally done and wrapped up Taehyung's side in bandages. Then, he helped a very dizzy Taehyung back into his room and quickly cleaned the sheets and wiped up the floors. Hopefully the boys will be ok by tomorrow. They don't have as much self control with blood as Jin does.
Jin finished cleaning and sprayed the air with some perfume to get rid of the stench of blood so the boys won't get riled up in the morning. He sighed and looked at Taehyung who was sleeping peacefully on his bed. He sighed in relief and went back to his room where Namjoon was standing still in the middle of the room.
"Joonie?" Jin questioned,"Lets go to bed."
"I lost control again, hyung," Namjoon said.
Jin sighed,"Yes, but you couldn't control it."
"I'm trying....but it never works....I don't understand how you can do it, Jinnie," he said and he sounded so broken that Jin envelope him in his arms.
"You'll get it, it took me a long time as well," Jin said.
Namjoon buried his nose into Jin's collar and breathed in deeply,"Its so hard.....the smell is so.....intoxicating."
"I know, but we can't," Jin replied,"Not after what happened. He's still shaken up and it's because of his eyes that his blood smells so strong."
"I know, but it's so tempting," Namjoon said.
Jin moved them towards the bed, laying down.
"It's ok, babe," Jin said softly,"You'll be able to control in eventually, just.....just calm down and think about what you're Doug at that very moment and don't act on what your body wants to do."
Namjoon nodded,"Ok."
"Lets go to sleep, yeah?" Jin asked with a smile and he felt Namjoon nod against him and smiled before letting himself fall into dreamland as well.
----
Jimin woke up to the sound of a series of thumps. His eyes snapped open and he looked around in terror, afraid of what was happening. He quickly sat up and looked around. His room was the same, nothing was out of the ordinary and his door was still closed and he breathed a small sigh of relief before more thumps sounded.
He frowned and tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack. There were two people on top of one another, both growling at each other. Jimin looked around and found the room across the hall wide open and someone was in the doorway, talking to somebody.
He looked back at the others, finding another person shaking his head and walking back to what Jimin assumed was his room and saw the other two also stand up and hurry into their rooms, their doors closing with a slam.
Jimin was confused.
What the heck was going on??
Jimin looked back at the open door and found a man supporting another person who looked like he was going to pass out at any minute.
Jimin froze when he saw something thick and wet drink to the ground.
Blood.
Then, everything seemed to click in his mind.
The people fighting, the weird flying, Taehyung being taken.....
They were vampires.
His eyes widened at the realization and he covered a hand over his mouth to cover the scream that was sure to happen and closed the door of his room and went back to his bed.
He sat down on his bed and thought for a minute. If they were vampires and he was a human then.....
Why haven't they killed him yet?
He stared at the door as if waiting for someone to come in and suck him dry. It didn't make any sense. They were all so nice?
But why??
Jimin thought for a while...
Maybe they were planning to gain his trust and then kill him when he least expects it...
Jimin shook his head, not wanting to believe it. They were so nice.
Jimin sighed. He laid back down onto the mattress and closed his eyes.
This is going to be one hell of a stay...
|
(*Author's POV)
Three years. Three years pass slowly. But once the day came it felt like it went all too quickly. All the days of school, sleep, and social interaction was made and done with the good and bad. Both Jackson and Mark had experienced and gained lots over the years maturing and learning.
Jackson spent the three years honing his fencing abilities and continued to win his matches and even gaining some recognition in the fencing league. But other than studying and trying his best in his athletics he had many social obstacles.
The main issue he had was with his parents. When he told them about his plans to move out when he was twenty-two they did not like the idea. His father wished for him to stay here and pursue a professional career in fencing; even to aim for the Olympics as he had.
His mother mainly didn't want her youngest to be living so far away from their family. But the argument that had his relationship on unstable ground with his mother was dealing with the fact that Mark was not only gay but in sharing information knowing that Mark was romantically fond of Jackson as well.
It made Jackson mad to hear how his mother thought of Mark as such a threat after having treated him so well before. To her, it was fine Mark was gay but it was the fact Mark liked her son that made her very wary of him.
They could avoid it for the first two years but when the time finally came to make preparations and plans for getting a job and place over there that's when things got real tense and heated. And on top of his parent's disapproval, his friends even voiced their thoughts against it.
And only to his closest of friends Yao and Guānlín did he explain further. Yao ended up teasing him the entire time that he was really moving because he actually liked Mark back. Whereas Guānlín was understanding Mei his sister was nowhere near happy about it.
But in the case of Mark, it was a happier albeit a bit sad. His family was thrilled to hear about his newfound love in a family friend. And seeing Mark so focused and thrilled about achieving his goal had the Tuan's supporting him all the way.
Mark's main issues were mainly schooling and the occasional pushy confession who he'd have to calmly reject. But again as the time came to get the place and job Mark and Jackson were in much more communication; as through the years apart they had only been sending texts.
But when the time came to finally pack their things they'd take and head off they both received rather different send-offs.
Jackson's was filled with whispers of 'you can still change your mind' and 'I'll hope to see you back sooner than not'. Even the scene of both his mother and Mei who insisted on coming ended up in tears.
It rocked his resolve a bit to see everyone so sad to see him go. But in remembering the hard time they gave him and what the near future held for him had him steeled himself as he left with confidence.
Mark though was sent off with tears but happy faces. They had plenty of advice and tips on what to buy for their apartment or how couple life will be and how to act. Though they did trust Mark to be smart about things they still wished to send him off with everything he needed even if being one hundred percent ready was impossible.
And of course, their flights weren't at the same time so it was Jackson who'd arrive first. He was welcomed by just Jinyoung as everyone else was working or at school. Jinyoung was the one to get the day off work to welcome and help Jackson get settled.
It'd be a long day but it was all worth it in the end and seeing old faces again.
"Jinyoung!" Jackson called out as he dragged and carried three large suitcases.
Jinyoung turned to see Jackson heading his way. Three years seemed to do something to Jackson. The most obvious was the physical changes. The Jackson that was once a teen was now a young adult. He was more built mostly due to his athletic occupation.
He wore more grown but fashionable clothes although they still consisted of mainly black. Also the way his face seemed to look more tired but mature as he sported a more prominent shadow of facial hair.
"Jackson hey!" Jinyoung gave a wide smile glad to see his friend again. Both came together for a brief hug.
"Geez I feel like it's been forever." Jackson grinned.
"If three years is forever then I'm sure it has been."
"Yeah yeah, it's good to see you though...I expected more people. Is everyone busy?" Jackson asked as Jinyoung took a bag from his hands.
"Yeah, I'm afraid so. Jaebum is working and the other kids are still in school." Jinyoung chuckled as they began heading out of the airport.
"Ahh, Youngjae BamBam and Yugyeom, right? How's that been?"
"Oh it's...well frankly it's been more of a stress than not. I mean me and JB have graduated so we understand but the whines and troubles that the three of them spout have me thinking I'm their actual mother." Jinyoung sighed.
"Haha sounds like them. And how's work been? You're an editor right?" Jackson asked curiously how his friends have been doing.
"Yep. It's all a learning process. And what about you? You being a PE teacher was a bit surprising."
"How so? Don't I look like a PE teacher?" Jackson asked gesturing to himself.
"Well, I suppose you look the part."
"I'm going to imagine you are just saying that as a compliment." Jackson eyed his friend suspiciously.
"Of course it seems over the years you've built your body I'd assume you'd built this muscle too." Jinyoung replied poking Jackson's head.
"...You may have gotten taller and a nicer hairdo but you're still the same old Jinyoung." Jackson sighed as they spotted a cab to load into.
"Thanks." Jinyoung replied before telling their driver the apartment address.
And once they had loaded the bags inside they buckled themselves and were off to the new apartment. The ride there was filled with more conversation to catch up. They spoke about things from Youngjae's last year in college to BamBam's memorable eighteenth birthday.
After the drive and as they finally arrived they were both eager to see the place so hurried to lug up Jackson's luggage to the right place.
"Say this building looks rather new." Jinyoung commented as Jackson went to open the door.
"Yeah, it is. It's not even six years old." Jackson replied as he unlocked and opened the door revealing the empty apartment.
"Wahh it looks nice in here. I think it might be larger than ours." Jinyoung said as they both stepped inside taking off their shoes and letting the door close.
"Ours? You and JB are still rooming together?" Jackson paused to glance back Jinyoung.
"Yeah. Why?" Jinyoung replied tugging the suitcase passed Jackson.
"Oh well, I guess I thought you'd both get your own places after you graduated." Jackson clarified his question.
"In in all fairness, we did talk about moving out alone but...we kind of realized living alone was rather...well, lonely." Jinyoung spoke honestly as he then turned away to look about the apartment more.
"Aw, that's sweet." Jackson teased.
"Hey you're one to talk. Are we not standing in the apartment that you will be sharing with Mark hyung?" Jinyoung shot back.
"...Yeah well, it's a bit different." Jackson mumbled.
"Hah yeah, I'd say it is too. I'm still honestly rather surprised you both stuck with it the entire three years not having a change of heart. I was sure something could've gone wrong on you're side at least."
"What do you mean? Are you saying that I would be more likely to back out of our plans?" Jackson narrowed his eyes.
"Precisely. But it's questionable how much planning you did...the place looks really empty." Jinyoung spoke seeing as they had no couch, tables, or chairs in sight.
"Oh well, Mark thought it'd be best if we decided on some of the furniture together. You know so we both find something we like."
"Aww, how sweet." Jinyoung mimicked.
"Thanks." Jackson smiled trying not to let the other tease him so easily.
"You're welcome." Jinyoung smiled back not one to lose.
Jackson shook his head as he led the way to the bedrooms. There were two good sized bedrooms and a decent sized bathroom. They had enough space for two people and without all the furniture it seemed even larger but less lived in.
"Huh funny I thought there was another window here...or was that the other room?" Jackson mumbled to himself as he entered the first room.
"You're asking about where the window is but may I ask where your bed is? Or perhaps did you plan to choose the bed together too?" Jinyoung asked with a sly grin.
"Ha ha very funny. No, we have separate rooms. And we did think that trying out the bed before buying it would be a good idea. So we might be out of a bed for a little while. Hopefully, we can get them sooner than later though." Jackson answered as he moved about to finally set his things down.
"So what then? Are you just gonna sleep on the floor?" Jinyoung raised a brow.
"Well yeah, but I couldn't bring a big old sleeping bag so I just had to bring some blankets and a small pillow." Jackson replied pointing to the bad which held his sleeping supplies.
"We could lend you some more blankets if you need." Jinyoung offered.
"Really? Thanks the more the better." Jackson patted Jinyoung's shoulder before passing him by to scope out the bathroom and the other bedroom.
"Say, Jackson, where exactly do you plan to eat and sit? On the floor too? You guys are really starting fresh." Jinyoung said as he went to the kitchen.
"Uhh yeah. We're going to have to go on a shopping spree tomorrow." Jackson replied coming out from what was to be Mark's bedroom.
"I'll say...you have the money right?" Jinyoung asked worrying about his friend's well-being.
"Of course. We've both been saving up like crazy. Plus we start work soon too." Jackson answered moving to the empty living room.
"Sounds like you two have a lot ahead of you." Jinyoung crossed his arms.
"No doubt." Jackson replied wanting to sit down but had to settle with sitting on the floor against the wall.
"Speaking of which. Mark's flight should be here this evening right?" Jinyoung asked sitting across from the other.
"Yeah, that's what he texted me." Jackson nodded raking a hand through his hair.
"I bet he'll be so happy to see you again." Jinyoung gave a small smile.
This entire time Jinyoung was oblivious to how things exactly went down with that phone call with Jackson and Mark three years ago. As things worked out and even escalated to even moving in with each other he was left believing his little scheme worked.
"You think so?"
"Well yeah, he likes you after all." Jinyoung stated.
"...You think he still likes me after all this time? I mean...I don't know I felt it would've faded some over the years." Jackson asked in a low tone.
"Even with the distance and time I highly doubt his feelings have changed." Jinyoung spoke seriously thinking Jackson was feeling insecure.
"You think so?" Jackson asked again looking troubled.
Over the years he had not a single stable relationship as he was so busy juggling school, fencing, and work. But as a healthy young man with charming good looks, he had little trouble finding a willing girly for a one night stand.
But even with all the time he had to himself in his heterosexual lifestyle he couldn't stop and give much reason as to why exactly he held such a soft spot in his heart for Mark. It was now an even more present concern he held for Mark who Jinyoung insisted still liked him.
"I do." Jinyoung nodded firmly.
"If you're so sure then how am I supposed to go about dating and do that stuff...you know what I mean. Because I've never been in this sort of situation."
"Uhh...well that's a bit private but I'm sure if you just have a heart to heart with Mark he'll have more answers then I would. You just can't be shy about it you know."
"Not be shy? Well, I don't want to hurt him." Jackson frowned thinking Jinyoung was telling him to be open with his dating girls.
"Hurt him? Dear god, what sort of things are going on in your head?" Jinyoung questioned having the same misunderstanding as Mark had once before.
"Huh? What are you saying? I don't want to hurt his feelings." Jackson spoke enunciating better this time.
"Oh- Why would you hurt his feeling by going out on dates and stuff? I mean just don't do anything stupid or careless and you'll be fine." Jinyoung responded.
"You're contradicting your words and not making any sense." Jackson replied with a puzzled face.
"How am I not making sense? I think all this time your brain was eating donuts behind your back."
---
After more conversation and some resting, evening approached and everyone done with school and work was ready to meet up at the airport to greet Mark. Making sure they wouldn't be late they left a little early but ended up getting there just before the others.
And in waiting for Mark's plane to land JB, BamBam, Yugyeom, and Youngjae all warmly greeted Jackson.
"Since when did everyone get so tall?" Jackson asked as BamBam stood almost equal to his height.
"You grew too hyung. Just sideways." BamBam responded with a grin. At this Youngjae and Yugyeom bit back a laugh.
"Wh- you may have grown taller but you still haven't grown up." Jackson responded holding back the want to whack his young friend.
BamBam just laughed out loud not taking Jackson's words as anything serious.
"Of course they haven't. Hell would freeze over first." Jinyoung spoke eyeing Yugyeom as well.
"Aw, why pick on me too?" Yugyeom complained.
"Because-"
"Oh my god it's Jiho!" Youngjae suddenly whispered yelled moving behind his friends more as he spotted Jiho from afar entering the airport.
And like a group of meerkats everybody's heads turned to where Youngjae was looking and subtly pointing. Low and behold it was none other than Kang Jiho himself carrying what looked to be a present dressed nicely heading their way. It wasn't hard to guess why he was here.
"For fu-" Jackson muttered but was cut off.
"Shh!" Jinyoung shushed him as Jiho was drawing near having already noticed the gang beforehand.
Jiho had also gotten a bit taller too. He wore a button up shirt, some cuffed blue jeans, and some slick brown dress shoes. And with his groomed look Jiho who had been quite handsome before only grew more refined as his face looked sharper but still ever warm.
"Evening." Jiho greeted them as he got close enough. They both would be waiting around the same area for Mark to appear.
"Hello." The gang greeted the older as he moved to stand just a bit away from them.
And in now an awkward silence they stood and waited. The obvious anticipation was there wondering how things will play out when they'll inevitably be brought to all greet Mark. The most bothered of them were, of course, Jiho and Jackson.
"How is he here??" Jackson whispered asking JB.
"They're friends. They must've been in contact." JB whispered back.
Jackson asked no more as his jaw was clenched tight. It could still be questioned why he was still holding a dislike of Jiho, but at the moment with the history they held no one really did much to fix it. The unfortunate thing was that no one was ignorant of feelings that were shared so there was a new bitterness.
Waiting there was even more unnerving as it was like a countdown. But with the hushed conversation between the gang and cordial silence from Jiho time passed even quicker when they saw lots of people coming out near where they were waiting.
"Is this his flight?" Youngjae asked also excited.
"I think so. His flight was supposed to land a little while ago. So he must be getting his bags." Jinyoung replied.
"I should've shaved." Jackson mumbled to himself as he felt his stubble peeping through his skin.
With Jiho just beside them, he couldn't help notice how nicely he was dressed unlike himself who had just changed into a different T-shirt.
But knowing it was too late he refocused on searching for Mark's familiar face. Jackson's heart was actually speeding up with each person who popped out from around the corner.
And sure enough a familiar figured came about tugging along two large suitcases. Wearing a black long sleeve and some blue jeans he walked out with a smile and scanning eyes. Jinyoung stepped forward to wave the older down also wearing a smile at just seeing him from a distance.
"Mark hyung over here!" Jinyoung called out catching Mark's eyes.
Mark was always a beauty but after not seeing each other so long everything seemed to be so much newer in their minds. Mark somehow managed to hold onto his youth so amazingly that it seemed he hadn't changed but at the same time he looked so much more stunning.
"Jinyoung! Everyone!" Mark replied biting his lips before letting his mouth split into a brilliant smile while everyone said hello and waved at him.
Mark had sprinted towards his friends so happy to see all their faces again. And unable to help it he looked over their faces only to spot who he was looking for. Jackson and he made eye contact and no one said anything to ruin the reunion.
Even Jiho who was behind them stood and waited patiently for his turn to say hello once again. Although he couldn't quite hold his gaze on the two for very long.
"Jackson." Mark spoke feeling his fingers itch to touch the other.
With little hesitance Mark let go of his suitcases not caring if they fell over; both him and Jackson understanding what each other wanted to do rose their arms simultaneously to hug the life out of one another.
Mark tightly wrapped his arms around Jackson's torso as he placed his cheek on his shoulder letting the reality of the moment sink in. Jackson replied to the loving greeting with equal strength hooking his chin on the crook of Mark's neck.
Jackson could say and do a lot of things but no one could deny how much joy was spread on his face at that moment. His heart working alone did little flips at seeing his old beloved friend again. During the long hug, he heard Mark sniffle.
In feeling how choked up Mark was getting Jackson realized that Jinyoung was probably right when he said Mark still liked him. It troubled him so. It was striking his heart thinking how much the older cared.
Especially when they let go of each other and Mark's glossy eyes stared back at him. Jackson kept on wondering...how is it Mark could look at him with so much love in his eyes?
"Jacks I've missed you." Mark breathed out still wearing a bright smile completely elated to finally be reunited.
How could he return it?
|
Rachel got into Jesse’s car.
“Why haven’t you been at school this week?”
“Can we go to your house?”
“Sure.”
Jesse didn’t say anything else on the drive. He followed Rachel into the house. Hiram was in the living room playing the piano when they got there.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hello, darling. Good afternoon, Jesse.”
“Mr. Berry, I have some things I need to tell Rachel and I’d like you to sit with us.”
“Alright.” He moved from the piano bench to one of the chairs.
Rachel sat on the couch.
Jesse sat next to her and took her hand in his. He took a deep breath. “What I’m going to tell you isn’t pleasant, but I have to tell you.”
“Are you sick? You’ve missed school all week.”
“I’m not physically sick. I’m just emotionally torn and I’ve been a wreck all week.”
“Please explain. What’s going on, Jesse?” Hiram said.
“It goes back to when we met. It was Miss Corcoran’s plan. She chose me because my uncle lives in Lima, and for other reasons. Anyway, she chose me to befriend you and to get you to trust me. But you were very suspicious, so I had to work hard to gain your trust. I even had to enroll at McKinley. She didn’t initially tell me why befriending you was important. I just assumed that she wanted me to infiltrate the group and get information and share it with her. I thought it would be a good way to practice my acting skills.”
Jesse saw tears streaming down Rachel’s face.
He reached up to wipe them. “Rachel, listen, please. Don’t jump to conclusions. By the time she wanted me to plant the tape so that you would hear her voice, I was long past befriending you as an acting project. I really like you. When you made that ‘Run, Joey Run’ video, that really hurt, and it made me realize how much I had really come to care about you.”
“I’m sorry about that. I am.”
“In a way, it’s good that you did it because it helps you see that I’m not the only one who has done something really stupid. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt in any way. I meant everything I’ve ever said to you about your talent and your future success and how I feel about you. You are amazingly talented and beautiful and sweet underneath that layer of blind ambition that we seem to share.”
Rachel smiled weakly. “Why are you telling me this exactly?”
“I’m not staying at McKinley. When you came to spy on us, I was up on that stage in costume. I saw you in the balcony. I’ve been practicing with them on the weekends. That’s why I’m never here on the weekends. I’ve been spending the weekends at my house in Akron. My parents really are in Bali, but I’m 18. I didn’t need to come stay with my uncle. Infiltrating was all fine and good until I fell for you, but now I feel awful because what I’ve done will hurt you personally. I don’t want to break up with you. I really do like you, but I have to stay in Akron and compete with Vocal Adrenaline. We’ll be competitors at Regionals. I signed a contract. Well, my parents signed it as well since I was 17 at the beginning of the school year. I can’t actually perform with New Directions, even if I wanted to. I’m so sorry.”
“So, you’re telling me all of this. Does Shelby know that you’re telling me?”
“No. Please don’t tell her. All of this is enough of a mess as it is right now. Everyone in New Directions is going to hate me and warn you to stay away from me. And I understand their point of view, but please don’t hate me. College won’t start for like six months. I haven’t even gotten any letters back from the places I applied.”
“So, you still want us to date, even though you’re going back to Akron?”
“I can move back to Lima as soon as school ends. My uncle won’t care. So, it would just be for three months. I can still drive over here every Friday when I get out of school and stay at his house all weekend unless Miss Corcoran schedules more weekend rehearsals.”
“I don’t know what to think. You used me, but then not really. You could have just left …" She sat quietly for a moment. "This is all so confusing. Shelby broke the contract she signed, but I really would like to get to know her at least a little bit, but I’m not ready to see her again. And now you have to go back to Akron. Can you give me the weekend to think? I don’t know what to say right now. But I’m not going to just break up with you right this minute because I want to think for a while.”
“That’s fair. How about you call me Sunday?”
“I can do that.”
He stood up and pulled Rachel up with him. He pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry for hurting you. It was never supposed to be personal, but it is now because I grew to really care about you—too much to walk away.” He kissed her on the cheek and left the house.
Rachel sat back down and cried.
Kurt went to Dave’s as soon as he got out of Cheerios' practice. He didn’t even bother to change. Dave opened the door before he even rang the bell. He took his coat off, put it in the closet, took his bags upstairs, and went straight into Dave’s room. He dropped his bags on the floor and went to shower. Dave put a pair of pajamas on the bathroom sink and waited for Kurt on the bed. When he came out, Dave stood up and Kurt walked into his open arms. Dave stepped back and pulled Kurt onto the bed with him and they got comfortable.
“I’m so tired. I don’t want to go cheer tonight.”
“I know, but you have to.”
“Ugh!”
Dave kissed him on the forehead. “Something else is bothering you.”
“Just the drama of everything. I saw Jesse pick Rachel up after school, so he’s obviously not sick enough to miss school all week. But I did figure out what you meant on Thursday when I saw the other guys perform today. They just didn’t seem like themselves. It was like there were barely enough of them left to know who was who. It was unnerving. It wasn’t that I didn’t like their amazing costuming because I did. I just didn’t at the same time.”
“Well, I’m glad it makes as little sense to you as it did to me on Thursday. We can commiserate in our simultaneous like and dislike of the theatricality costumes. Why did you walk out of the guys’ dressing room at lunch?”
“Oh, Finn just pissed me off. He still acts like I have cooties. It’s getting old. He’s stopped the outward behavior. He pretends to be okay with me, but when I reached to help him get that Kiss makeup off, he jumped back like I was holding a branding iron instead of a moist towelette.”
“Oh. Finn’s not the brightest crayon in the box.”
“I know, but everyone thinks he’s such a nice guy. Even me. He hasn’t said anything in ages or done anything either. It was just a real blow to see him jerk back like that especially since he’s moving into my room this weekend.”
“He’s what?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was trying to process it without turning the whole thing into another dramatic issue. But with his behavior today, I’m seriously concerned. I also don’t think that he knows yet, and that's bothering me too.”
“When did you find out?”
“Monday. I’m sorry. I just was in denial. I kept hoping that by the end of the week, my dad would say that Carole had changed her mind and that they weren’t moving in.”
“I can understand wanting that to be the case. What if my dad asks Judy and Quinn to move in here with us? That would be so weird. At least we have room for them here. My parents wanted a big family and bought this house before I was born. There were complications and they couldn’t have any more kids, so we have two guest rooms on the second floor. We never moved because the rooms came in handy when relatives came to visit and stay with us. Quinn could have one of them. I’d never have to share any space with her. But Finn will be sharing your room and your closet and bathroom.”
“I know. And I thought he was okay with it. He hasn’t acted weird all week, and now I think that’s because no one told him yet. Between me hoping that she’d change her mind and him not freaking out, I was lulled into a state of complacency.”
“So, when are they moving in?”
“Sunday. I don’t have time to think about it this coming week. Unless your dad is opposed, I will be spending every night here. I need to be able to rest and relax. Nationals is a week from tomorrow. Sue will murder me if I mess up. I had to run extra laps even though I wasn’t late today because she said I violated our agreement to wear my uniform on Fridays. I thought wearing it Wednesday was a fair trade, but since I didn’t ask in advance, I had to run laps after practice. I hate running laps.”
“That’s why you’re so tired.”
“Yeah. What time is it?”
Dave pulled his phone out of his pocket. “6:00, well almost.”
Kurt sat straight up. He got out of bed, pulled a clean Cheerios shirt out, and swapped it for his pajama shirt. He went into the bathroom and put his extra dance belt and his track pants on. He fixed his hair before he came back out. “Let’s grab something to eat. I have to be back at the school at 6:45.”
“I had made you a sandwich before you got here, but I put it in the fridge already because you were running late.”
“Perfect. Come here.”
Dave stepped closer.
Kurt wrapped his arms around Dave and hugged him. “You’re the best boyfriend. Seriously. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Come on. Let’s get you fed before we go.”
Dave ordered a pizza to be delivered to his house while he waited for Kurt to come out to his truck after the game. By the time Kurt got out of the shower, the pizza had come. Paul came in and plopped in the recliner a few minutes after Kurt had come down.
“Help yourself,” Dave said.
“Thanks.” He grabbed a slice. “How was the game?”
“We won, which was surprising,” Dave said.
“Can I ask you something?” Kurt looked at Paul.
“You can ask me anything.”
“Did my dad tell you about Carole?”
“Yeah.”
“I need to know if I can just stay here all next week. I have Nationals in a week. I can’t deal with Finn in my space, get my schoolwork done, and be ready for Nationals.”
“Did something happen between the two of you?”
“He doesn’t even know yet.”
“What? Burt told me on Monday.”
“Yeah, me too. But obviously, Carole hasn’t told Finn. He is not going to be happy. I’m not going to go into how I know that. I just know. I didn’t even tell Dave about it until today because I honestly thought Finn would freak out and Carole would change her mind before this weekend, but that’s not what happened. And the freak-out didn’t happen because he is okay with it, but because he doesn’t know still. I just need someplace where I can rest and relax so I'll be ready for next weekend.”
“It’s fine with me. Having you here is never a problem. As I've said before, you’re welcome here anytime. I really mean that.”
“Thanks. The weekend after that is Regionals for Glee Club. I’m 99% sure we can’t beat Vocal Adrenaline, but we need to come in second. Principal Figgins said the club would be disbanded if we don’t place first or second. Even without Jesse, Vocal Adrenaline will beat us. They’re like a well-oiled performing machine.”
Dave added, “And Rachel found out that Vocal Adrenaline’s coach is her birth mother.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it’s a mess. Rachel didn’t explain how it happened, but it’s true.”
Kurt was summoned home Saturday afternoon. Burt was waiting for him when he got there.
“Carole and Finn will be here in a couple of hours. Carole wants it to be a surprise. She’s really excited.”
“Alright. I’ll make some snacks.”
Kurt knew that Finn loved to eat. Maybe some nice snacks would calm him down a little bit. An hour later, he had the snacks ready. He and Burt set up the card table in Kurt’s room, which he didn’t understand, but just did whatever his dad said.
“I’m going back to Dave’s tonight.”
“Isn’t he supposed to stay over here?”
“Change of plans.”
“Fine. There’s a big game on tonight, and we’re going to watch it.”
“Have fun.”
Burt’s phone pinged with a text.
“They’re here. Just wait. Carole has a key.”
A few minutes later, Finn was being ushered down the stairs with his eyes closed. Carole told him to open them when they got to the bottom of the stairs. Kurt offered him sparkling cider. Finn took the flute of cider but looked around bewildered. He saw the “Welcome Home” banner that Burt had taped up on the wall.
“Welcome home? But who went somewhere?”
Carole moved to Burt’s side. “Burt asked us to move in with them.”
“And this is how you’re telling me?” Finn asked, obviously angry about it.
Burt responded, “It’s going to take some getting used to, but you’re gonna love it. Just think, now you won’t have to drag your tail over here every time you wanna watch something on the old 55-incher.”
Kurt hadn’t realized that Finn had been spending that much time at the house.
“We got a lot of food. It’s ethnic food—some ethnicity that’s not ours.”
Kurt added, “Tuna crudités.”
Finn took the one that he was handed but just left it in his palm.
“This house is much bigger than ours. It has two bathrooms.”
“Two and a half,” Burt corrected.
“I don’t want an extra bathroom or a tuna crude. I just want my house back.”
Kurt was doing his best to sound cheerful, but his tone was starting to sound condescending. “I think I know what this is about. Our room. The palette in here is totally unflattering to your skin tone. Not everyone can pull off Dior Gray. We need to redecorate.”
“Wait. We’re sharing a room? I am not cool with that.”
“Baby, I know it’s weird, but it can’t be much of a surprise. And in time, you’re going to be as happy as I am.”
“Look, I’ll knock out a wall upstairs and I’ll put an addition on. But until then, maybe this will grease the wheels a bit.” Burt pulled his wallet out to give Kurt some cash for his endeavor, but Carole stopped him.
She said, “We’ll work on that later.”
“We’ll have game night. Do you play Sorry?" Burt chuckled. "I’m going to beat you.”
Finn stood there dumbfounded. “When are we moving?”
“Tomorrow.”
Before what Carole said really had time to sink in, Kurt and Finn’s phone pinged at the same time. They both pulled them out and looked.
Kurt said, “Rachel has summoned all of us to her house, claiming it is a New Directions emergency. I have to go pick up Tina and Artie.”
Finn and Kurt headed up the stairs.
“Can I ride with you, dude?”
“Sure,” he said, as he grabbed his coat.
Once they were in the Nav, Kurt said, “You’ll need to find another ride home. I have plans tonight.”
“I’ll get Mike or Puck to take me home.”
For the rest of the drive, they said nothing to each other. Kurt helped Artie in, then picked Tina up. They got to Rachel’s at the appointed time. She directed everyone to the basement. Dave was waiting for Kurt. He grabbed Artie and carried him down. Kurt took his wheelchair down. Once everyone was situated, Rachel started to explain why she had called everyone. She explained the situation with Jesse.
“Wait, so he’s bailing on us two weeks before Regionals?” Artie asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Santana said, “We have no chance of winning now. We have to redo everything.”
Kurt spoke up. “Look, we never really had a chance at beating Vocal Adrenaline and we all know that. It’s been fun pretending like we might. But we saw them at the beginning of the school year. With or without Jesse, we didn’t have a chance at beating them. Some of them have been together for four years. We’ve been together for less than six months. We need to be realistic. We need to be the best we can be to come in second. That’s all we need for the club to continue next year.”
“Kurt’s right,” Mercedes agreed.
“With our lopsided group, we’re less affected by Jesse’s departure than we would be if we had all boy/girl pairs,” Tina said. “We’re mostly in lines or moving from one type of line to another line. In all honesty, our dances are just moving line dances. We’ll just have to change a few things. Instead of our three horizontal lines having a 5-4-5 pattern, we’ll just have to have it be a 4-5-4 pattern. On the risers, nothing will change except that the guys in the row that Jesse was in will have to change the distance they stand from each other.”
Kurt spoke again. “The main thing we need to figure out is who is going to sing Jesse’s featured lines. He didn’t have a solo or duet, so it’s just a few featured lines in our group song. We can either double someone’s lines or someone who isn’t featured already can sing them, so that would be Dave, Azimio, or Mike.”
Rachel cut in. “I think we should try the song three times to see who sounds the best.”
“Do you have the backing track?” Mercedes asked.
“I do. It’s already plugged in and ready to go. Are we ready?” She didn’t bother to wait for an answer. She just turned the music on.
After the third time through, Kurt said, “Everyone, close your eyes. If you think Dave should do it, raise your hand.” He counted. “Azimio?” No hands. Mike?” No hands. “Alright. Open your eyes. Dave got the most votes.”
“Fine with me. That part is too low for me,” Azimio said.
“So, you broke up with him, right?” Mercedes asked.
“No, not yet. I told him that I need time to think.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Mercedes, he told me all of this with my dad in the room. What kind of guy confesses to that type of thing in front of someone’s dad if they aren’t serious about their apology?”
Santana piped up. “A manipulative liar. That’s the kind of guy.”
“I’m not agreeing to marry him or anything. I’m 16. But I really do like him and I’m going to give him a chance to prove himself. He could have just walked away and said nothing. We would have figured it out at some point this week and had even less time to readjust. He could have fought for the lead for the solo or duet and that would have completely thrown us off. He could have just broken my heart and walked away if he didn’t care. He risked a lot by telling me. But you all have to keep this a secret until Mr. Schue figures it out. Dave can just volunteer to sing Jesse’s lines when he’s not at school again this week. We’ll get Mr. Schue to focus on our vocals for a few days.”
“Why are you protecting him?” Tina asked.
“I’m waiting until after Regionals to talk to Shelby again. I just want as much peace as I can manage until then. I think Kurt is right. We need to be happy with placing second, but to do that we still have to beat everyone but Vocal Adrenaline. Ignoring the issue with Jesse is my method of being able to focus on us doing our best. If I’m thinking about him and Shelby, I will be distracted. I don’t want to be the cause of our downfall.”
“Fine, Rachel,” Mercedes said. “We’ll ignore the giant traitor Jesse for your peace of mind and so we can focus on doing our best—FOR NOW. But only for now. Let’s sing through the song one more time with Dave singing Jesse’s part. I’ve got other stuff to do today.”
“You’ve been to Finn’s before, right?”
Dave nodded. “Yeah.”
“What color is his room, generally speaking.”
“Umm. I mostly remember that it had cowboy wallpaper because it was so unusual. I think maybe blue?” Dave closed his eyes and tried to picture Finn’s room. “Yeah. He has a medium or dark blue comforter. That’s all I can remember besides the cowboy wallpaper.”
“Well, I refuse to put cowboy wallpaper up, but we can get blue paint. Something that goes with Dior Gray. We’ll paint half of the room tonight. We’ll have to sleep upstairs or go to your house.”
“That’s fine.”
When Kurt and Dave got back to the Hummels', Kurt and Dave rearranged the furniture in the basement so that all of his stuff was against two of the walls, which left the other two walls open for Finn to use for his stuff. They taped off the stairway and covered the floor and painted the two walls a pale blue that went with the Dior gray that Kurt loved. After they cleaned up the paint and showered, they crashed on the sofa.
Sunday morning, they got up and Kurt packed enough clothes for a week in a suitcase and put it in the back of his Navigator. He wasn’t sure that he would need all of them, but if he decided to not stay at home, he wanted to be able to walk out without having to take the time to pack.
While Dave pulled the tape off the stairway edge and the trim, Kurt double-checked his side of the room to remove anything incriminating and put it in a box to take to Dave’s with him. While Kurt worked on his closet, Dave made them breakfast. Kurt paused long enough to eat it, then went right back to work.
“Can you help me fold up the stuff I’m not keeping?”
“I can try.”
“I’ll show you how.” Kurt demonstrated the quickest, neatest way to fold shirts and pants.
“Got it, I think.”
“We’ll take the stuff to Columbus the next time we go. I’ve outgrown a lot of this stuff, either physically or stylistically.” Kurt looked at each item and anything he wasn’t in love with went into the pile for Dave to fold. Once he had made it through his whole closet, he started helping Dave fold. They carried the boxes up to the Navigator. Kurt reorganized what was left and moved everything to the longer wall in the closet, leaving the other side for Finn to hang his clothes.
When Finn showed up around noon, he was not in a great mood, but Dave and Kurt helped him move his furniture into the basement. Kurt helped with the placement of the pieces to ensure that they would all fit in the available space.
Once everything was down in the basement, Kurt showed him the closet. “I made room for your hanging clothes in here.” This door leads into the bathroom. I figure you have your own towels. I made room for them on the rack. I moved all of my stuff off the counter and put it on the dresser in the closet. Please just leave my stuff alone, meaning don’t touch it. I’ll do the same for you. I’ve done what I can to make you feel at home. I painted your half of the room a warmer color. I hope you like it.”
“It’s fine,” he said flatly. “I'll just get busy emptying my boxes.”
“We’ll leave you to it, then.”
Kurt and Dave left.
Sunday afternoon, Rachel spoke to Jesse. Once they had finished discussing their personal issues, Jesse said, “I need to tell you something else. We’re coming to McKinley on Thursday at lunch. The idea is to psych you out and make the New Directions lose their focus.”
“We’ll be ready for you.”
“I’m sure you will. Are we okay for now?”
“Yes, Jesse. I’m going to give you a chance, but if you lie to me or manipulate me anymore, it’s over. I know we both have big egos and we both have a borderline obsessive need to be in the limelight, but honesty is very important to me in a relationship. I expect my competition to be ruthless and attempt to bring me down, but not my boyfriend.”
“I get it. I am really sorry.”
“You’ve said so many, many times. Now, I need to see it, not just hear it. I have to go now.” She hung up and texted everyone in New Directions again.
Within an hour everyone was back at her house and down in the basement.
“So, funk, huh?” Tina asked. “We’re going to tell Mr. Schue we’re in a funk once he finally tells us about Jesse. And we’re going to have a song ready. And one of us is going to conveniently suggest it?”
“Exactly, but we need the right song,” Rachel insisted.
They pulled their phones out and started searching. They played songs for each other until Artie played “Give up the Funk”.
“That’s perfect,” Tina said. “Let’s work on it. I don’t think we need amazing harmonies, so much as we need style and attitude, and good dance moves. We aren’t actually trying to out-sing them. We’re trying to psych them out. They can’t freestyle. They’re like robots. They’ve been drilled endlessly until their pieces are perfect, but we throw things together all the time. Look at our pieces last week. We were amazing. There’s no way a group that has never had any artistic freedom could do what we do.”
“Tina’s right,” Mercedes said. “Let’s work on costuming ideas, so we’re ready for that, but let’s blow them away with our creativity.”
They sat around and came up with a color scheme.
“Just be sure to learn the words to the song. The rest we’ll work on after Mr. Schue tells us about Jesse. We’ll perform it for Vocal Adrenaline whenever they show up and we’ll knock their pretentious asses down a few pegs,” Artie said.
“I gotta go finish my homework, guys,” Tina said.
Quite a few people in the group agreed with her. Everyone packed up and left.
Mr. Schue let everyone know of Jesse’s departure Tuesday morning. He had officially withdrawn Monday. Artie suggested they do a funk number and made the suggestion of “Give Up the Funk” like they had all decided on.
Vocal Adrenaline showed up on Thursday at lunch and sang “Another One Bites the Dust”.
When they were about to exit the auditorium, Puck spoke out. “Hey, Jesse. Have your crew take a seat. We’ve got a song for you. Something we came up with this morning. Give us five minutes.”
The members of Vocal Adrenaline moved to the seats in the auditorium and waited.
Kurt entered the stage singing much lower and anyone had realized that he could. The rest of the group came in and wowed Vocal Adrenaline with their spunky funky number. By the looks on the faces of their audience, the New Directions had succeeded.
Jesse texted Rachel on their way out.
--Come outside, but be prepared to be pelted with paint guns. I’m so sorry. I tried to talk them out of it, but I failed. Go along with whatever feelings you would have if I didn’t warn you. Please don’t take anything I say or do to heart. I talked them out of the eggs—if that shows you how much I care.”
Rachel resigned herself to the fact that she was going to do what he asked. She had Mercedes and Tina follow her, but she had them hang back enough to not be noticed. She got outside and played up being excited to see him standing in the lot alone. She ran toward him and the Vocal Adrenaline members came out from behind some cars and shot her with paintballs. One of them handed Jesse a gun.
“Do it, Jesse. Either you’re with us or you aren’t.”
Jesse carefully shot Rachel in the leg, thinking it would hurt the least. They left in a hurry before they could get caught. Jesse had driven by himself and pulled over about a block from the school and called Rachel.
She answered crying, “Hello?”
“Rachel, I’m so sorry.”
“I keep hearing that from you, but not really seeing it. I appreciate the fact that you kept them from pelting me with eggs, but I am going to be covered in bruises. Have you ever been shot from that close with a paintball gun? It really hurts, Jesse. A lot. I’m probably still going to have bruises at Regionals, and we’re wearing sleeveless dresses.”
“Think of a way I can make it up to you after Regionals. I could take you to a spa. Would you like that?”
“Yeah, but I have to go inside now. I’m freezing and covered in paint. I can’t go to class like this.”
Rachel hung up and went inside. Mercedes and Tina were waiting for her, and they had summoned the guys. They went back to the choir room as a group and found that it had been TP’d.
Tina got Rachel's clean clothes out of her locker and carried them to the locker room so Rachel could shower. Everyone else cleaned up the toilet paper and discussed ways to get back at Vocal Adrenaline, while Mr. Schue went into his office for a few minutes.
After they cleaned the room up, they sat down waiting for Mr. Schue. Puck came up with the idea of slashing their Range Rovers’ tires.
Kurt moved seats and spoke quietly. “You work in a tire shop. $200 a piece ring a bell? That’s $800 per Range Rover, and there were like 20 of them. Do you have $15,000-20,000 to pay for that if you get caught?” He got up and moved back to his seat next to Dave.
“Right. Skip the tire slashing. We'll just let all of the air out of all of their tires. That will be a totally free way to get back at them. Finn and I can sneak over there after lunch tomorrow.”
Artie said, “Whatever, dude, but Akron’s like a two-and-a-half-hour drive each way. That’s a lot of gas and time. Let’s just focus on doing our best. We’ve got like six days of practice left. And we haven’t quite gotten ourselves back to where we were before Jesse left us. The best revenge is for us to still kill it at Regionals.”
Azimio agreed with Artie. “I know it's easy to fight back. But is it worth it? I’m with Artie. You two would be better off working on Finn’s dancing for five hours than driving to Akron and back just to annoy them.”
Just then, Mr. Schue walked back into the room. “You all need to get to fourth period. Get going." He handed them all passes for being tardy. "I’ll deal with Vocal Adrenaline. Please stay out of it. If any of you caught what they did to Rachel on video, send it to me right away.”
Rachel received a pass during last period to go to Mr. Schue’s office. When she got there, she found Shelby sitting in the office as well.
“Mr. Schue, I don’t really have anything to say to Shelby right now.”
“I understand. You don’t have to speak to her, but I want you to hear what she has to say.”
“Rachel, first off, I did not authorize or know that my kids were coming here today. Somehow they all managed to come up with ways to get excused from school today. We meet last period so that we can just continue to work when school ends. I didn’t know they weren’t at school this morning until Will called me at lunch and told me what they had done. They behaved poorly, and their conduct could get us disqualified from Regionals.”
“Seems reasonable to me,” Rachel said. “That and paying to replace my clothes and shoes since that paint will never come out. I’m also covered in bruises now.”
“I am sincerely sorry that they injured you. They will most certainly cover the cost of replacing whatever they damaged. Just have Will send me a receipt after you replace them.”
“You should have left me alone and let me meet you after graduation. I don’t need this drama in my life right now.”
“Will’s solution is for me to step down from coaching VA at the end of the school year. I caused all of this, so I should be the one to pay the price, not my students. The other requirement is that I go to counseling, which I will do. After I met you, I realized that what I want is a child of my own, which you are not. Not a child I mean. You’re practically an adult. We could be friends, perhaps, one day, but I can never be your mom unless you choose that role for me and we really work at it. I’m going to get my life together. I have a lot of unresolved guilt and feelings of loss, none of which are your fault. You already have two parents who love you, and who did nothing wrong. I agreed to be a surrogate. If I had wanted a child to raise, I should have done that. I still could at some point, if I get my life in order. You have my contact information. If at any point in time, you want to talk to me, feel free to contact me. I won’t try to make myself part of your life.”
“I’m not quite sure I understand. In exchange for Mr. Schue not bringing Vocal Adrenaline’s behavior to the attention of the Show Choir Board, you're going to resign as the coach for VA?”
“You are correct, Rachel,” Mr. Schue said. “She’ll abide by the no contact agreement—no contact unless you initiate it. She will attempt to re-educate VA into following the Show Choir rules. I know that what the VA kids did was wrong, but they’ve also been led to believe that winning is their only option. They rehearse 20 hours a week. Shelby has done those kids a great disservice, and I would rather have her spend the next three months doing whatever she can to undo the damage that she’s done. Having them disqualified won’t teach them anything other than to try harder to not get caught.”
“I get it,” Rachel said. “I know you weren’t much older than me when you agreed to be a surrogate. I understand that the whole situation was more than you could handle. I had thought about doing something similar myself someday, but I think I should wait until I am much older to think about it again. I am glad that you did what you did. My dads are great, and I love both of them. But it doesn’t seem to have worked out well for you. I hope you find someone to help you. If there’s nothing else, I’d like to leave now.”
“Sure, Rachel.”
Rachel left the room and pulled the door closed behind her.
“She took that better than I had expected,” Mr. Schue said. “She has been a lot more mature about this than you have. I hope you get some help. This is your only offer from me, though. If your kids come back here and cause any more trouble for us, our deal is off and I’ll turn the evidence in to the Show Choir Board.”
“I understand. I think I’ll go back to New York for a while after the school year ends.”
That afternoon, Kurt went to work after Cheerios' practice. He decided to try eating dinner at home again that night. He went straight to the kitchen to get dinner started and found that Carole was already there, and dinner was being carried into the dining room. Kurt ran downstairs to scrub his hands again to stay out of Carole’s way while doing it.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he was shocked to find the state his room was in. There was dirty laundry all around. Kurt could see that someone had been using the futon. Stuff on his shelves had been moved around. He went into the closet to find even more clothes on the floor and his hanging clothes had been riffled through.
He stepped over the clothes on the floor and went into the bathroom, where he found several wet or previously wet towels lying on the floor and at least one was his. Stuff from the medicine cabinet was out on the counter—a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, and a brush. It smelled damp, like the vent wasn’t being used.
Kurt scrubbed his hands and dried them on a clean towel, which he hung up on his rack. He pulled his phone out and photographed the bathroom, the closet, and the bedroom before he went back upstairs.
He sat down at the table and looked at what was being served. He asked politely, “Do you need some help bringing the rest of the food in?”
Carole looked at him strangely. “The rest?”
“There aren’t any vegetables.”
“Oh. Finn won’t eat them, so I usually don’t bother during the week.”
Kurt bit his tongue and served himself some of the cheesy potato casserole and a piece of heavily battered chicken, which looked like something from the frozen section of the grocery store. As soon as he finished, he excused himself and put his dishes in the dishwasher.
He grabbed his coat and went back out to his Navigator. He took a deep breath and willed himself not to cry. He pulled out and went to the library. He texted Burt when he got there, letting him know where he was.
When the library was getting ready to close, Kurt texted Dave and told him that he was on his way. He texted Burt again, telling him that he was going to Dave’s.
Kurt did a load of laundry after he got to Dave’s. He worked in silence. He read ahead in history while he waited in the living room to hear the washer cycle finish. Once he hung some of the items up to dry and tossed the rest in the dryer, he went upstairs.
Dave was lying on his bed with his eyes closed listening to music when Kurt walked in. He opened his eyes when he heard Kurt drop his backpack on the floor. Kurt went into the bathroom and showered. He got out to find pajamas waiting for him on the sink. He put them on, did his moisturizing, and brushed his teeth. He stared intently at himself in the mirror.
Dave knew he had been out of the shower long enough to be dressed and he stepped inside. “You’re gorgeous. You can come out here and let me stare at you instead of staring at yourself.”
Kurt laughed. “I’m thinking. I’m trying not to think. I end up thinking about not thinking. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Dave walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around him.
“Did you have a nice dinner?”
“We did. Judy came over. She seems nice enough. Very proper.”
“Makes sense. Quinn always seemed very controlled and proper.”
“So, what happened that has caused this attempt at not thinking?”
“I can’t even talk about it. You can look through the pictures on my phone while I go grab my stuff out of the dryer.”
Dave took Kurt’s phone and sat down on the bed while Kurt went down and came back up. Kurt folded his clothes and hung some of them in Dave’s closet. He packed an overnight bag for Nationals. He plopped down on the bed next to Dave once he had finished.
“So, Finn has trashed your room.”
“Bingo. And it seems that Carole doesn’t serve vegetables because Finn won’t eat them. I went home to make dinner, and she had already made it. I can’t allow myself to think about this right now. I completely understand Rachel’s perspective on just leaving the Jesse issue hanging until after Regionals. Sometimes, there’s not enough room in one brain to think about so many things at once, and some things just have to get stuffed into an ‘I can’t think about this right now’ folder.”
“Okay. How about I snuggle you and we go to sleep? You’re leaving after lunch tomorrow, and I won’t see you again until Sunday. I need all the snuggles I can get to tide me over.”
“You’re such a sap.”
“You love it.”
“I do. And I love you.” He got up and turned all the lights off. He got under the covers with Dave. He kissed him goodnight, and then flopped over and scooted back as close as he could get.
Dave wrapped his arm around Kurt and held him close. “I love you too.”
Glee Club met before school to rehearse. Things were going smoothly considering the upheaval that Jesse leaving had caused.
At lunch, they sat together. Puck, Azimio, and Finn came in carrying trays of food again. This time they had plates of enchilada casserole to share. Kurt didn’t take any, but Dave did.
“That’s pretty good. You should share the recipe.”
“Sure,” Azimio said. “You can copy it down or whatever.” He slid a binder across the table.
“Just email it to me or whatever. I’m not going to copy it sitting here.”
Kurt picked at his food but eventually ate it knowing how long it would be before dinner. Once he finished, he took his tray up to dump the trash. He caught Dave’s eye and motioned just slightly with his head, looking toward the cafeteria doors. Dave got up and dumped his tray and met Kurt in the hall. Kurt took his hand and led him to the auditorium. They went into the costume room. Kurt closed the door behind them. He wrapped his arms around Dave’s neck and just leaned into him.
“You’re really nervous aren’t you?”
Kurt nodded, almost imperceptibly.
Dave ran his hands up and down Kurt’s back. “Just try to relax. It’s all you can do. I love you and I will still love you whether the Cheerios win or not. And I will become your bodyguard 24/7 to keep Coach Sue from murdering you if the Cheerios don’t win.”
Kurt laughed. “I can see that, you know. You’re very protective.”
Dave adjusted the way they were standing so that he could kiss Kurt. “Do your best. That’s all you can do.”
“I will. I’ll miss you. I have to go. I don’t know how she could make me run laps, but I’m sure she’d come up with a way. I can’t be late to the bus. I love you.” Kurt kissed him and let go.
Dave opened the door and followed Kurt out to the exterior doors. He stood inside the school door watching Kurt board the tour bus that Santana had finally convinced Sue to hire. Kurt looked back and waved as he got on the bus.
By 6:30, the Cheerios had put their bags in their rooms and were down in the lobby waiting to go to practice. After an hour of practice, with thankfully no lap running for Kurt, they finally went to eat dinner. Coach Sue sent them all back to their rooms as soon as they got back, insisting that they all go to bed by 10:00 pm.
She had a wake-up call set for 7:00 and expected everyone to be back down in the lobby at 8:00 for breakfast. The hotel was a loud, crowded place with so many cheerleaders there. Kurt longed for an empty quiet room so he could focus his thoughts.
Once they finished breakfast, they re-boarded the bus and headed to the arena. They watched all morning. Sue ordered in lunch, and they ate in the lobby during the lunch break. They watched for the first two hours after lunch, then left the participant observation area to warm up. They performed nearly flawlessly and headed back to their seats to wait to hear the finalists. Kurt wished he could use his phone because he really wanted to text Dave, but Coach Sue had threatened to take any phone she saw out during the competition.
When the finalists were named, she allowed them to use their phones for five minutes while they were lining up to move down into the finalist seating.
--We’re finalists.
--Turning the TV on.
--I love you.
--Relax and focus. You’ve got this. I love you too.
Kurt put his phone back away.
Back in Lima, Paul and Dave watched the finals in their den. Burt set the Tivo to record the finals while he watched a basketball game with Finn.
Two hours later, the five finalists had performed and they were awaiting the results. During the final commercial break, the final five teams were positioned in the performance area. When they were back live from the break, the announcer named the teams and their placements in reverse order.
“And our 2010 National Cheerleading Champions for the sixth year in a row are the Cheerios from Lima, Ohio led by Coach Sue Sylvester.”
There were lots of photos and interviews once the cameras stopped rolling. Kurt didn’t get a chance to get back to his phone for nearly an hour. When he picked it up there were congratulatory texts from Dave, Paul, Tina, Mercedes, and even Artie, Puck, and Azimio. He sent a group text thanking them.
He sent a text to his dad.
--We won!
He got one back a couple of minutes later.
--You did good.
Once the hubbub died down, they were finally able to get on their bus and go out for a quick dinner on their way back to Lima. They didn’t get back to the school until 2:00 in the morning. Kurt grabbed his bags and slowly moved down the aisle as everyone got off the bus. When he finally stepped into the parking lot, he found Dave waiting for him.
Dave walked towards him. Once he was close enough, he pulled him into a hug, then kissed him chastely. “You did it. You were amazing! You didn’t tell me you were singing for like 15 minutes in French.” Dave took his hand and led him over to his truck. He opened the passenger door and let Kurt get in.
Kurt waited to respond until Dave was in the driver’s seat. “We weren’t allowed to tell anyone. It’s part of the contract we signed. I’m relieved it’s over. It was fun in some ways, but it was really stressful too. I’m glad to be back.”
“Let’s go get some sleep. I brought you a snack. Look in the glove box.”
Kurt pulled out a small bag that had a bowl of his favorite chicken salad and a spoon in it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Kurt ate while Dave drove. He pulled into the driveway and left his truck there to keep from waking Paul up by opening the garage door. Kurt went straight to the bathroom. He found his Hershey Kiss pajamas laying out for him on the sink. He put them on when he got out of the shower. He skipped moisturizing and just got in bed with Dave.
“Are you making a request with your pajama choice?”
“I am.”
Kurt kissed him. “You can kiss me whenever you want. You surprised me tonight by kissing me in front of everyone.”
“The girls kiss their boyfriends in front of everyone. Why can’t I kiss my boyfriend in front of everyone too?”
“You can. You did. Is that something we do in public now? I said I’d follow your lead. Was that a one-time, ‘You won the championship.’ kiss?”
“Nope, not a one-time thing, just a first time.”
“Mmm.” Kurt wrapped himself around Dave and put his head on his chest. “Let’s sleep. We’ll kiss more when we wake up.”
Sunday morning after their late brunch, Kurt went back home to collect more clothes for the following week and to get another pair of boots. He opened the door and went inside. It was quiet, except he could hear faint voices coming from the dining room.
He walked into the kitchen to see the remnants of sausage, gravy, and canned biscuits sitting on the stovetop. He could hear his dad and Carole talking.
“Burt, he hasn’t been here in days. And when he was here, he stayed just long enough to eat, and then he left again. He has no curfew. He sleeps over at his boyfriend’s house most of the time. He comes and goes as he pleases. Things can’t continue this way. The rules are going to have to be fair. He needs to sleep at home. Finn would never be allowed to spend the night at his girlfriend’s house or for her to spend the night in our home, especially not in the same bed.”
“Kurt is a good kid. He doesn’t need rules like that.”
“So, you’re saying that Finn’s not a good kid?”
“You know I’m not.”
“They’re kids, Burt. They need rules.”
Kurt left the room quietly, not willing to stand around and eavesdrop anymore. He went down to his room and grabbed what he had come for, but only after taking more pictures of the even messier basement. He quietly left the house and went back to Dave’s.
He stopped by the Lima Bean and splurged on an expensive coffee. Even after sleeping in, he was exhausted and he had schoolwork left to do. He drove back to Dave’s. They took their schoolwork down to the dining room in an effort to be just uncomfortable enough to be able to stay awake and focus on their homework.
Paul came in around 1:00. “You two ready for lunch? I heard you in here a couple of hours ago. If you’re not hungry, I’ll just eat some leftovers from the freezer.”
“Go ahead. I’m going to keep working,” Dave said.
“I’m not hungry yet, but thanks.”
“We’re going out for a celebratory dinner tonight. 6:00. Be ready.”
“Okay.”
“We’re meeting up with your dad and Carole.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m not sure yet. He’s supposed to text me and let me know.”
“I’ll meet you two there. I’m just going to run home and get another bottle of the lotion I use. I didn’t realize how close to needing the new one I was. I’m going to grab it and my art stuff. I miss sketching.” He kissed Dave and headed out the door.
He opened the front door and went inside. He didn’t take his coat off since he wasn’t going to be there long. He walked through the living room where Finn was zoned out watching a basketball game and went down into the basement. He got to the bottom of the stairs to find Finn’s dirty laundry had been picked up off the floor and was in a basket on the end of his bed. He could hear water running, so he walked into the closet. He found Carole cleaning the countertop in the bathroom. The whole room had just been cleaned. He could smell the awful harsh chemicals that he never used to clean.
She wiped the counter dry with a towel and then tossed it in the pile she leaned over to pick up. She turned and jumped.
“Kurt. You startled me.”
“Sorry. I needed something and I came to pick it up.” He searched the top of his dresser, which was no longer orderly the way he had left it. “But it seems to not be here. I know I had a full bottle because I ordered two the last time to save on shipping.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get these up to the washer.”
He stepped back out of the room, giving her enough space to walk through the closet without dripping water on anything. Once she was out of the closet he stepped back in and looked through the bottles on his dresser again, but he still couldn’t find the bottle he was looking for. He grabbed a tote bag, took a deep breath, and went back into his room to get his art supplies together.
He went to his shelf to get his sketchpads but found that they had been moved from their original positions, despite being where they had been, more or less. He put them all in the tote bag. He opened his sewing cabinet drawer and pulled out all of his pencil bags and put them in the tote bag as well. By then, Carole had come back downstairs with some scented Swiffer or something and she started using it on the floor. Kurt looked for the French dictionary he wanted to take and finally found it. He noticed that someone had been fooling with his Chinese lantern lights and he carefully took them down and put them in his bag as well. He went back upstairs.
He opened the freezer to find no frozen vegetables. He looked around and didn’t find any fresh or canned ones either. The freezer was full of frozen waffles, pizzas, and pizza rolls. Kurt suppressed the urge to cry. He turned and walked into the living room.
“Finn?”
“Yeah?”
Kurt heard Carole come into the room. She stopped.
“I cannot find a particular bottle of lotion that I left on my dresser. I specifically asked you not to touch anything of mine, but since my request went unheeded, I’m asking you if you know where the missing bottle is.”
“Um, well, when I came out of the bathroom one morning, I accidentally knocked all of your bottles over. I put them all back, but one of them broke. I put everything back up there, but the lid cracked on one of the bottles and it was leaking, so I tossed it.”
“You tossed it?”
“Yeah, dude. The lid broke.”
Carole walked the rest of the way through the living room and put the Swiffer back in the garage.
“That bottle cost me $30. It was a 6-month supply.”
“Thirty dollars for a bottle of lotion? That’s nuts.”
“Your opinion about my preferences is irrelevant. You owe me $30.”
“No way, dude. You shouldn’t leave it sitting out if it costs that much.”
Kurt bit his tongue and tried to regroup. He saw Carole come in from the garage and go upstairs. By the time she came back down, Kurt was gone.
It was a long meal at the steakhouse. Kurt sat in silence unless directly spoken to. Dave took his hand under the table and squeezed it. Burt ate a large steak, a loaded baked potato, and a few rolls. He drank a regular soda and ordered dessert.
After they finished eating and were heading out the door, Burt pulled Kurt into a hug.
Kurt hugged him back and said two words as he stepped back and walked out the door. “Uncle Andy.”
The next week, Glee Club rehearsed before school and every day at lunch. When they met at lunch on Monday, they found out the devastating news that Coach Sue was going to be one of the judges for Regionals. At first, they were really down, knowing that she would do anything in her power to keep them from winning.
They finally talked themselves back into working as hard as they could and doing their best because winning was great, but doing their best and having fun was more important. They had been a ragtag group of people who didn’t know each other, and they had become a fairly cohesive group. Some had gotten closer than others, but everyone had come to respect each other’s talents.
Cheerios practices dropped down to two hours a week since Nationals were over. Kurt only had to wear his uniform to school one last time on Friday. There were still a few more home basketball games to cheer for, but that was it.
The six of them that hung around together went out to the mall Wednesday after Kurt got off and just goofed around for a while. Kurt looked through the new summer clothes that were starting to show up in the stores. They got milkshakes or smoothies and didn’t really end up buying much else.
Kurt didn’t go home all week.
When they arrived at the theater on Saturday, they found out who the other judges were—Rod Remington, Olivia Newton-John, and Josh Groban.
“We’re toast,” Puck said.
“What do you mean, Puck?” Rachel asked.
“That Josh Groban dude is going to hate us on principle. He’s the one that came to the Acafella’s show at McKinley and told Mr. Ryerson off. You think he’s going to forget that?”
“Just shut it, Puck,” Santana said. “We’re going to go out there and kill it. End of discussion. If the judges are lame and biased, then that’s on them. I didn’t convince my abuela to come watch us just for us to go out there and be terrible. Get it together, people!”
Kurt agreed with her. “She’s right. We do our best no matter what. If we lose, it won’t be because we gave up.”
“Let’s warm up,” Rachel insisted.
Once they had warmed up, she played the backing track for “Anyway You Want It” and they sang along. They were second to perform and they headed to the stage. But before they left the room, they could hear an Olivia Newton-John/Josh Groban mash-up.
“Argh. Someone tipped Aural Intensity off as to who the other judges were,” Kurt said.
“I’d put my money on Coach Sue. She knew that we needed to come in second to keep the club next year and she knew we could never beat Vocal Adrenaline, so she tipped Aural Intensity off so they would place second,” Rachel said.
“I don’t care,” Santana practically yelled. “So, what? Let’s go. We do our best, period. Move.”
They lined up on the side of the stage and entered while the curtain was down. They killed all of their songs. When they left the stage, Mr. Schue went to look for the Aural Intensity coach. He found her and cornered her. He got her to confess that she had gotten an anonymous letter in the mail telling her the identities of the judges and that she had changed their setlist. He managed to get close enough to a couple of the Aural Intensity members to flatter them into giving away when they had started to rehearse their mash-up.
During the intermission, he managed to find one of the Show Choir board members and had him listen to the evidence he had. A few minutes later, he saw the man approach Aural Intensity’s coach.
The group sat through the rest of the performances. They were all amazed by Jesse and Vocal Adrenaline. No matter how much they disliked what he had done, his performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was amazing, and everyone knew it. When it finally came time for the placement to be announced, Hoosier Harmonies, New Directions, and Vocal Adrenaline were called to the stage.
“In third place, Hoosier Harmonies, from Indianapolis, Indiana. In second place, New Directions from Lima, Ohio, and in first place and headed to Nationals for the eighth year in a row, Vocal Adrenaline from Akron, Ohio.”
No team had ever been so happy to come in second. They hugged each other and jumped all around. Once the commotion died down, Mr. Schue stepped out, got them to organize themselves, and took a few photos. They changed quickly and got back on the bus.
“I can’t believe Aural Intensity wasn’t in the top three,” Rachel said once they were on the road.
Mr. Schue responded. “That would be because their coach withdrew them from consideration.”
“Why?”
“They cheated. Creating a set list of songs performed by the judges meant that they knew who the judges would be. And when confronted, their coach confessed. Rather than face disbanding their club due to cheating, the coach pulled them from the competition list.”
“So, we have next year!” Rachel squealed.
“We do. We definitely do.”
During the ride back to the school, Kurt got a text saying that he needed to come home when they got back. He showed Dave the text. He texted Dave rather than risk someone overhearing him.
--I’m pretty sure this is some type of showdown or intervention or whatever.
He put his phone away and laid his head on Dave’s shoulder. He reached for Dave’s hand, interlaced their fingers, and tried to relax.
When they finally arrived at the school, Kurt offered to drive Finn home. Burt and Carole were in the living room waiting for them.
“How did you all do?”
“We came in second, which was the best possible outcome. We were up against the group that has won the national title for the last seven years.”
“Well, congratulations, then. We’re all planning to go out for dinner later. Mr. Schue texted everyone’s emergency contacts and invited them to Breadstix later.”
“Yeah, he told us on the bus,” Finn said.
“So, why did you want me to come home, Dad?”
“We need to have a family talk.”
“Alright.”
Burt sat in the recliner from the Hudsons' house. The other three sat on the sofa. “We need to streamline our family rules. Finn has brought up how Kurt is allowed to go and come freely, but he has a curfew. He’s brought up some other issues as well, so effective immediately, Kurt will have a curfew of 10:00 on school nights and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. You need to ask permission to go out if you’re not going to someone’s house we already know. And when you are, you need to let us know whose house you’re going to.”
“You’re serious?” Kurt asked. “I’ve never had to do that. Ever.”
Burt replied quickly. “I’m aware of that, Kurt. That’s why I said these are changes.”
Carole spoke next. “There will be no more overnights at boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s houses. And they won’t be spending the night here either.”
“This is unreasonable. I’ve been spending the night at Dave’s, and he’s spent nights here for the last five and a half months. How has that caused any problems?”
“The problem it’s causing is that it’s not fair to Finn.”
“Is Finn getting a job?”
Carole answered, “No.”
“Why not?”
“He needs time to get his schoolwork done,” Carole responded.
“I work 9-12 hours, adhere to Coach Sue’s ridiculous number of hours of Cheerios' practice, then cheer at games, and I still get my schoolwork done.”
No one said anything.
“Does that mean I get to quit? Not that I don’t like working at the shop because I do actually like it. I just want to know if I’m going to be allowed to quit and if you’re going to pay my car insurance and stuff.”
“No, Kurt. You want that extra stuff, you’ll still pay for it.”
“So, if Finn wants another video game, he’s going to pay for it himself?”
“Dude, I don’t have any money.”
“Thus my comment about you getting a job.”
“I don’t have time to work,” Finn insisted.
“What do you need all that free time for, Finn? Are you making straight As? Or going to tutoring to get your grades up as high as you can?”
“My grades are fine.”
“What chores do you do around here?”
“Mom does the chores. I don’t know how to do any of that stuff.”
“Ever heard of instruction manuals or asking someone to show you?”
“Kurt,” Burt said with a warning tone to his voice.
“No, I will not be quiet.” He pulled his phone out. “This is how Finn keeps ‘our’ room. His dirty laundry is everywhere. Everything of mine has been touched since he moved in. I specifically asked him to leave my stuff alone, but he didn’t. He tossed a $30 bottle of lotion because the cap broke. He leaves wet towels on the floor. He doesn’t put anything back that he gets out. He’s obviously not running the vent because the whole area smells damp already.”
“I didn’t mess with your stuff. I mean, I might have looked at it, but I didn’t damage anything except that lotion bottle by accident.”
“I didn’t say don’t ‘mess’ with my stuff. I asked you not to touch it. That means not moving it. Not picking it up. Nothing.”
Finn rolled his eyes.
“You’ve been sitting on my futon, or someone has.”
“Who cares, dude? It’s a couch.”
“No. It’s my bed. Would you want me to sit on your bed or let other people sit on it?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it.”
“Before you two moved, in I did EVERYTHING. I cooked, I cleaned, and I did most of the grocery shopping. I worked, I went to football practice, Glee Club practice, and then Cheerios instead of football. I’ve never gotten in trouble at school or anywhere else. I’ve never even sassed my dad until just now. I’ve never balked at doing what he asked. But I came home last weekend to find Carole cleaning the basement. She had picked up Finn’s dirty laundry. She cleaned the bathroom. She cleaned the floor. Finn was sitting up here on the sofa watching a basketball game. How is that reasonable, Finn? I mean if you had been up here with a pile of books doing research, I can see how MAYBE Carole could offer to do those things for you. But you’re not a baby, Finn. You’re 16. Grow up. I’m not going to live by the rules set for a child, like a curfew and where I can go, just because you’re a 16-year-old child.”
Burt spoke sternly. “I want you to go sit in your room for ten minutes and reconsider this attitude problem you’re having all of a sudden.”
Kurt stood and walked downstairs. He pulled his phone out of his pocket before he got all the way down and texted Dave.
--I need you to get boxes and tape, please. I’m moving out ASAP. While everyone is celebrating at Breadstix, I’m packing my stuff. If I can’t stay with you, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I’m not staying here.
He looked up when he got to the bottom of the stairs. His futon was gone and in its place was a twin bed with a dark gray comforter. His phone pinged with a response from Dave.
--I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll get boxes together and tape. Just let me know when to be there to help you pack. I’ll go talk to my dad, but I’m sure it’s not a problem.
--We’ll need your truck too. My futon is missing from my room. I just came down here, and there’s a twin bed instead. If my futon is in the garage, we’re taking it with us.
--I’ll have my dad text Mr. Schue back saying that we aren’t going to Breadstix.
Kurt heard Burt on the steps. He walked into the closet to hide the fact that he was texting.
--Gotta go. I’ll text you when to come.
Kurt set his phone to silent and put it in his pocket.
“Kurt?”
“Yeah, Dad. I’m in here.” Kurt stepped out of the closet.
“Your behavior up there was unacceptable.”
“Possibly. But your behavior caused all of this. You’ve been dating Carole for six weeks. You asked them to move in here after dating her for four weeks. Finn doesn’t even like me. We do not hang out together. We have no mutual friends. He’s slushied me. He helped lock me in lockers and porta-potties. He threw pee balloons at me. He tries to cheat off of Brittany. He’s slightly homophobic. You forced him to move into my bedroom. You caused this. I get that you’ve fallen in love. I never once said anything against Carole. But she’s raised Finn to be a spoiled brat. He does nothing to help, but she obviously buys him whatever he wants. He needs supervision. I do not. I have not been a child for a long, long time. And for the first time since Mom died, I’ve actually been happy for the last five and a half months. For the first time, I have someone besides you who cares about me. I have friends. And now because you jumped the gun in asking your girlfriend to move in with us, I have to pay the price by giving up my freedom? You already took my only refuge away. This room used to be where I could go to escape the stress of living in a small town that hates me on principle. Now, I have a homophobic, mostly ex-bully sharing that space.”
“I can’t take it back. I won’t.”
“That’s fine. But I won’t live under a monarchy where Carole dictates what I can and can’t do. She just moved in and took over. All of the food the doctor told you to eat is nowhere to be found. Canned biscuits, gravy, and pork sausage? I saw breakfast one morning when I came in and grabbed more clothes and left again without you even noticing that I was here. Where’s my futon? Why do I have a twin bed now? Don’t bother answering. I already know. If I don’t have a bed big enough for two people to sleep in then Dave can’t sleep over in my bed anymore. Problem solved.”
“Kurt, she was just trying to make the room more fair.”
“Fair? Why do places to sleep need to be fair? I got rid of the cool white chair that I loved and moved my spotlight to the garage to make room for Finn’s stuff. How much do I have to give up to make things fair?”
“She just wants one set of rules that everyone follows. It’s not that much to ask.”
“It’s too much. You jumped the gun, and I’m paying the price. Why was there no congratulatory text from you after Nationals last week? Everyone else, all of my friends, even Puck sent me texts within minutes of the announcement that we had won. Were you even watching me?”
Burt didn’t answer immediately. “I set the Tivo to record it, so you’d have the recording, and I kept flipping back and forth during the commercials on the game we were watching, but I lost track of time so I missed the live performance. After you texted me, I switched and started to record the game. I watched the recording. You were really good.”
“Aren’t we going to be late to Breadstix?”
“Yeah, we gotta get going.”
“I’m going to drive separately.”
“Fine.” Burt went back upstairs.
Kurt pulled his phone out.
--Come now. I’ll turn the porch light on when they’re gone so you’ll know the coast is clear.
--Be right there.
Kurt waited until Burt had been gone long enough to get to Breadstix to text him that he was not coming.
Two hours later, Kurt and Dave pulled out of the driveway and drove to Dave’s house. Paul was pulling out of the garage when they pulled up. They drove both of their vehicles into the garage and shut the door behind them. Paul parked in the driveway and met them inside the house.
“Your dad is going to get really angry over this.”
“I know, but I just can’t deal with it right now. It would have been different if Finn were accepting. He plays up the clueless cute jock persona. He’s not as dumb as he lets people think he is. He didn’t want to move in. He didn’t want to share a room. By being the worst roommate, he made me not want to be there. I can’t completely rule out some kind of plan to keep me away from home as much as possible. But I’m imagining that it backfired on him when he complained about me getting complete freedom while he still had a curfew. I would venture to guess that he was trying to get Carole to remove his curfew, not make it so that I would be home more often.”
“I don’t know him well enough to even guess his motivations,” Paul said. “But you’re welcome to stay here. I’ve told you that for ages.”
“I just was so angry when I saw that Finn had touched everything I own after I asked him not to touch anything. I just didn’t want any of my stuff there anymore.”
“I understand.”
“I have a really weird and kind of morbid question. I need to know about wills. What would happen to my dad’s shop if he died? What about the house? Any money he might have in the bank? And I also want to ask you a question no one should ever be asked.”
“What?”
“Would you be willing to be my guardian if something happened to my dad? I just can’t live anymore being afraid of being sent to my Uncle Andy’s. I know that it would only be an issue for the next year and a half, but I don’t want Aunt Mildred and Uncle Andy to inherit anything that belongs to my dad—most especially me.”
“It would be like sending Kurt to Uncle Jeb’s.”
“Oh. I see. No need for further explanation.”
“I can draw up a will that will protect your father’s assets and put them in a trust until you turn 18 or whatever age over 18 your dad would choose. And I can add my name as your guardian, should your dad pass away before you turn 18. That would put you in the position of having to live with me, even if you and Dave break up between now and then.”
“Well, I’m hoping that won’t be the case, but even if Dave broke up with me, I’d rather live in your garage with a portable heater than move to Arkansas and live with my aunt and uncle.”
“I would never make you live in the garage, but I understand the sentiment. I will draw a will up to reflect these issues and I’ll get your mule-headed dad to listen to me about it. And while I’m at it, I’ll do the same thing for myself. I haven’t written a new will since the divorce.”
“Who would I live with?”
“I need to think about that and talk to a few people. I’ll get back to you with an answer, but probably my parents since you’re only a year and a half from being 18.”
Kurt felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. “I’m sure they’re back home now and they’ve realized that I’ve moved out.” He pulled his phone out to look at it. He called Burt instead of texting.
“Kurt, where are you?”
“You know where I am.”
“Why is all of your stuff gone?”
“I told you that I cannot live with the guidelines you set earlier this evening.”
“Come home.”
“No. We can meet tomorrow.” Kurt covered the phone. “Can we meet at your office?”
Paul nodded and said, “11:00”.
“Meet me at Paul’s office at 11:00. We can talk then.”
“You’re a runaway now. I could call the police.”
“I’ve not run away. You know that I am perfectly safe. You know where I am. At best, I’ve been disobedient. I don’t think the police will care. And if they’re being particularly spiteful for being annoyed for no good reason, they’ll book me in juvie and place me in foster care. Stop being overly dramatic. Get some sleep. I will see you tomorrow. Don’t bring Carole. This doesn’t concern her. If you want the three of us to meet, we can set another time. 11:00 tomorrow morning.”
“Kurt—”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I am not a disobedient 8-year-old. I’m not sleeping in a room with a homophobic faux step-sibling who can’t hang his wet towels up or put his laundry in a basket. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Paul laughed. “Homophobic faux step-sibling?”
“Yep.”
“That’s a good one.”
“Well, it’s true. Look.” Kurt pulled up the photos he’d taken of the basement and showed them to Paul.
“Gross.”
“I agree. And it smells down there. I use natural cleaners, you know.”
Paul nodded. “Of course, you already got me to replace all our toxic cleaners.”
“Well, she was using bleach-based stuff because Finn hasn’t been running the vent and he leaves wet towels laying around. I got a headache from being in my own room. I’m going to need to air my clothes out somehow tomorrow. They all smell like a combination of dampness and bleach. I may just rewash all of them if you don’t mind.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry to drag you into the middle of this.”
“Meh. It’s fine. We like having you here. Why don’t you just leave all of that stuff to deal with tomorrow? I mean if your dad throws a fit and wants the furniture brought back because he paid for it, it would be easier to do that if you haven’t already carried it up two flights of stairs.”
“That’s true. I guess I need to figure out what I paid for myself. I can go ahead and keep that stuff for certain. I’m tired. I just want to go shower and sleep for now.”
|
It was a run-down cottage, fit to fall in a burst of strong wind. Eight teenagers falling into its midst nearly did the job. Dust coated everything in such thick layers, the simultaneous sneezes nearly sent a chair falling over. A burnished teapot with long cold water sat ready on the stove, a chipped cup and bag never used set at the ready with no one to save it as it toppled on its side. The only distinguishing sight from the moth-eaten, broken recliner in the living room and the tightly fitted bed was the mansion just visible in the distant gloom.
Frank tried not to look at it longer than he had to, it gave him the creeps for no good reason. Upon closer inspection of the minuscule space, he found a book lodged into the broken back of the chair, but it had changed again to a dark blue. It was much, much thicker than the previous three versions, but as it had a light blue four emblazoned on the spine he was sure it was the right one he was supposed to find. Even without previous experience, it still gave off a magical energy as blatant as the tension filling the tiny area, and he'd rather not be too close as this place gave no choice when it blew, so he tried to crack it open and begin.
He didn't even get the chapter title out.
"So that's it then?"
Alice couldn't help but be rather impressed with the way Regulus bowed up to the three boys much older and larger than him, he certainly wasn't giving it much thought as he laid into them.
"Don't know what you're on about," Sirius Black scoffed while inspecting his nails, the air around him still exuding he always found himself winding up in dusty cottages a thousand miles from school do to magic outside their control. Then she reminded herself he regularly spent his free time in that Shrieking Shack and exploring the grounds with a werewolf, so maybe that's why the four had taken it in stride so quickly. This really wasn't such a big deal in comparison.
Regulus didn't seem to agree, as he shoved at his brother to keep his attention. Alice watched as all three, she turned purposefully just to see it as true, frowned reproachfully at him for it. "You know perfectly well! Why's Peter suddenly not looking anyone in the eye, eh? What did you lot say to him? He ruddy stood by you and defended you because of some crimes, now you can't be bothered to do the same?"
It seemed to take a lot of effort for Sirius Black to force his scowl to look light and amused as he continued antagonizing his brother. "Oh, as if I have to explain to you," he pandered. "Come on Reggie, you're smart enough to know the difference between the rat who set me up for a crime isn't the same as not doing it."
"He hasn't done it you arrogant shit!" Regulus shouted loud enough dust trickled down from the rafters.
"I don't see how it's your business," Potter finally cut in as Sirius wasn't holding back his anger much longer. "Why don't you run along back to your Dark Art's club now and let the big kids handle it."
If his goal had been to infuriate the younger Black beyond words, it worked. He turned on his heel and went to stand by the front door where Pettigrew was and hissed something quietly to him.
Pettigrew just shook his head fiercely, and then 'vanished.' This time though, they all had the sense of mind to look to the ground and just spot a bald tale slipping underneath the recliner.
The three Marauders still visible looked like they were going to be sick at the cowardly display, but Lily felt like bursting into applause someone other than her had finally called them out on their insolence. She wanted to have a go at them herself, but Frank had finally taken the lingering silence to begin.
Peter listened, just like he always had for his friends. He'd always been smaller, everyone always overlooked him, he'd been the perfect one to blend in and hear every conversation in a room even before he'd shrunk down to this size. He took in quickly everything there was to say about The Riddle House and stored that information away, connecting it easily to You-Know-Who, ergo it would definitely be important later. There would be a later, there had to be.
He would not confront his friends as Regulus had suggested, nor do anything to further incite them like suddenly trying to pathetically make friends with Longbottom and Smith. He doubted he could anyways, he still wasn't sure how he'd made the friends he had. They'd take him back though, just like they had Sirius, once he found a way of reminding them of his usefulness.
Doubts began plaguing him at once though, if they even should. He'd probably just turn around and somehow get James killed all over again. You-Know-Who was no unintelligent animal to be outsmarted as he'd done in the past, and it was clear to him now they didn't even need him to do that. Their tricks and planning couldn't last forever, when school ended they'd have to find something else to do, would probably have started to forget about him anyway, he'd already seen the beginnings of that. Who would need him around then to get information? What would be his purpose?
Frank read with intrigue about the history being fed to him, but felt he was the only one really taking it in. The three Marauders had banded together in a tight circle and seemed to be having some whispered argument Black was on the outs of. He kept shaking his head and gesturing over his shoulder a lot. Lily and Alice weren't being much better, looking out the window to the decrepit old Manor being described but exchanging softly whispered words as well while throwing pitiful looks to the younger Black, who was gazing foully at the recliner.
His namesake alone seemed to have his interest as he spotted burglars in the old house, and Frank couldn't help but glance up now to make sure a light wasn't visible there yet. He was the only one paying strict attention to the details provided as the war hero made his way along the property past his beloved plants, and then began overhearing You-Know-Who's conversation to Pettigrew.
He almost wished he could climb under some furniture and hear the rest of it out too rather than read through the dead air proceeding this portion. Pathetic was the kind way to put the following description of the interactions for plots of murder, a far cry from the boy he'd been seeing recently tagging around with the most extravagant students in the castle.
The poor old groundskeeper had been marked dead as soon as he'd entered that house, to this everyone knew. Still, there were flinches all around for the curse being cast, but it was Harry's experience seeing it all that had them gasping for breath as they were pulled away.
|
"Sam, I am going to murder you," Dean claims as his little brother practically chokes on air from laughing so hard.
"I mean it. I will kill you, slowly and painfully."
Sam's currently wiping tears out of both eyes as his hiccoughs through the last of his laughter.
"C'mon Dean, Cas'll love it."
Dean rolls his eyes. This thing with Cas is still recent enough to feel new and reasonably awkward to him, so Sam's terrible, awful idea for a Valentine's Day for the two of them is both infuriating and a very good reason to go and find the nearest bag of itching power and liberally apply it to Sam's bedsheets.
He started it, after all.
"This is not a practical use for magic at all," Dean grumbles, staring in the mirror with a severe pout.
Sam scoffs at that. "It was a little white magic, no big deal. No bodily fluids involved, I promise."
He pauses, considers, and then adds, "Well, none of my bodily fluids, anyway. But I can't guarantee anything for later when you're with Cas."
"Dude!" Dean's neck is flushed and he scrubs a hand over his face in irritation.
"Relax, Dean. Look, I know you're only this flustered about your thing with Cas because he's actually someone you really really care about, so I'll keep the teasing to a minimal, I promise. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be happy with Cas."
"I could have been happy with Cas without this ridiculous getup," Dean informs Sam testily, but he's lost some of his edge thanks to the damn sincerity in Sam's voice.
That edge floods right back in, however, when he looks in the mirror again.
"Sam," Dean groans, examining his reflection fully. It's like a car crash- it's horrible, but he just can't look away.
Somehow, Sam had gotten his hands on some sort of small-time transfiguration spellbook (as much as Dean loves the Batcave, he has to admit that he's not just a little afraid of what else Sam may find tucked away in the dusty shelves), and decoded enough of the Babylonian to work out a simple enough spell to grace Dean with some extra appendages for his "special" Valentine's Day with Cas.
The appendages in question were a set of fluffy wings extending about six feet each from behind Dean, and were wide enough to cover his entire back. Suffice to say, Dean has been walking around for the past hour afraid he'll never get his posture straight again because damn, those wings are heavy. Not only that, but he hasn't even let anything touch them yet, nervous for reasons he's not even sure about.
And of course, because it's Sam, and because Sam is a giant girl, the wings are a mix of pink and red like some fruity bar drink that comes with a colorful umbrella and maraschino cherry on top.
But oh no, Sam hadn't stopped at the wings. Calling on the friggin god of all that's doily, he had also managed to shazam a goddam toga onto Dean. ("I kind of wanted to go for the cupid look," Sam had explained, "But honestly, I also wanted to be around to take pictures, and there was no way I, as your brother, was going to stand around taking naked pictures of you because... just no.") So apparently, the toga was enough, and it was probably the first time in his life Dean had bothered to question his brother's research, because really, a toga? He would rather go naked.
"Smile!" Sam chirps out, and the phone on his camera flashes, forever capturing this moment, and Dean wants to die. Of all the things he's faced in his short life, from wendigos to demons to the devil himself, Dean's seriously considering sticking this incident on top of the "worst shit I've ever come up against" list. Or maybe letting Sam top the list of "fuckers I need to get revenge on, asap".
"You better sleep with one eye open," Dean warns Sam.
"Thanks for the warning," Sam says cheerfully, jumping off Dean's bed and heading for the door. "Oh, by the way, how are those rosy cheeks I threw in feeling? You're looking very much the blushing bride tonight,"
Sam starts laughing again as Dean throws the nearest small object at him, and dodges it easily, shutting the door. Dean can hear his laughter echoing down the hallway. And really, as pissed as he is, isn't it a miracle in itself that Sam can laugh like that again?
Dean paces for a few moments, before finally sighing and deciding he may as well bite the bullet sooner rather than later. Cas expects them to be doing something tonight, and it's not like he's gonna stand the guy up.
Trying to remember what it feels like to wear pants, and doing his damnedest to hold onto that feeling, Dean tosses up a quick call on the heavenly paging system.
"Castiel, I pray for thee to flutter on down here and remind of how manly and macho I am."
There's the familiar feeling of displaced space behind Dean and the fluttering of the ever-present trench coat, and Cas is there.
"You are very ‘manly’ and ‘macho’, Dean, though I hope you realize you are no less of a man when you are wearing a toga."
Dean turns around, ready to fire off some sort of clever retort, when he gets a faceful of Castiel and almost falls over in surprise.
He can see Cas' wings. Well, kind of. They're the same kind of wings that Dean currently has, but much, much cooler, to Dean's chagrin. They're a dark midnight blue, slashed through with black and deep purple, and yet seem to shine in certain places. With a start, Dean realizes they're supposed to be the night sky, and the shimmering bits are stars.
"Holy shit, Cas," Dean breathes. Without even thinking about it, he reaches out and strokes his hands through the feathers. They ripple beneath his touch, like the lights during the aurora borealis he saw years ago when he worked a case in Alaska with John. They settle back into form, but Dean can't help reaching out again, running a feather between his fingers gently. It's soft and smooth, like silk but more natural.
Cas smiles lightly, touches Dean's jaw with two caring fingers. "Sam thought it would be some sort of equalizer if we could both see each other's 'wings'. I guess he took it more literally than I thought."
"You mean Sam worked his magic on you too?" Dean asks, aghast. "How'd he get the drop on you like that?"
Mirth dances in Cas' eyes. "He didn't get the 'drop' on me, Dean. He asked me, and I said yes. I still don't understand human rituals as well as I would like, so I deferred to Sam for information about the day that supposedly celebrates the love of all kinds between people."
Dean's face burns a little at the mention of love, but he still manages to ask, "So, why'd you get super cool telescope wings and I get stuck with these strawberry milkshakes?"
The corner of Cas' mouth twitches. "The spell that Sam found can manifest in many ways, but the general aim of it is to show one's 'true colors' so to speak. He modified it to manifest as wings. Unfortunately- or, for him, fortunately- he was able to figure out how to manipulate the spell enough to make your wings look however he liked. I'm sure it was all in the name of brotherly hijinks."
Dean feels his right eye twitch slightly. That bitch is so getting his hand put in warm water every night for the next week.
"But these wings, your wings, I mean, these aren't your real ones, are they?"
Cas shakes his head. "No, seeing my real wings would still permanently damage your eyes, unfortunately. But these wings do show my true essence, I suppose."
"They're dark." Dean states.
"Yes. I've done dark things, Dean. But, as you can see, there are bright spots as well. Stars in a dark sky. Dimensions in the colors and shades. I've felt my essence stirring, changing. Since I met you. Had this spell been performed on me before I raised you from perdition, these wings would have been flat black. But now, they're beautiful. Thanks to you."
Well. That wasn't something you heard everyday, that you literally changed what makes someone who they are.
"That's a lot to live up to, Cas," Dean says hesitantly, wishing he had something better to say in return.
Cas takes his hand, rubbing his thumb over the pale skin of Dean's wrist. "No, it's not." Cas assures him. "It's just you."
Dean licks his lips nervously. This meeting is going a lot different than he planned.
"Anyways," Cas drops Dean's wrist and takes a step back, assessing Dean. "Sam may have been able to manipulate the spell, but I'm sure I can put things right again. Would you like me to, ah, upgrade your wings as well?"
"You mean like, so I can see my essence too?" Dean asks, his nerves shooting up a couple more notches.
"Yes."
"Uh..." Dean never thought he'd miss the pink and red wings, but suddenly he's having second thoughts. Seeing what really makes Dean Dean is more than a little scary.
Cas steps back into his personal space, hand cupping his cheek.
"Dean, I would like to see you."
It's not an order. It's not even a question. It's just Cas and his trademark honesty. Dean could say no, no way, and it would never be brought up again.
But maybe that’s why. The fact that it really is his decision, and the fact that Cas isn’t playing games or trying to be coy. Cas already is himself. Dean’s already seen his wings. Dean knows Cas, and he wants to continue to know Cas, for as long as this dumb world will allow him to. He wants to know Cas better, wants to know everything that makes him tick.
And seeing those wings manifested, that’s just one more thing Dean can add to the mental list of facts about Cas.
And of course, if he wants to know Cas, and Cas wants to know him, it’s just some sort of strange, weird circular logic that means Cas should know Dean, too.
So Dean says yes to an angel.
Cas smiles a real, honest to god, genuine smile, and places his hand gently on the back of Dean’s neck and draws him in for a kiss. Dean expects to feel some sort of magic thrumming through his veins as Cas reworks the spell, but it’s just his blood pumping like normal, and the roaring in his ears that he’s come to associate with Cas’ mouth.
If he wants to get really cheesy about it, he’d say that what he and Cas have is already magic, so what’s adding a little more to the mix, really?
All in all, it’s a pretty chaste kiss, and sweet as pie. Cas pulls back, eyes blue enough to make Dean’s heart clench.
“There,” He says, voice just the slightest bit lower than usual. “Normally, I would just touch someone’s forehead to rework the spell, but I felt this might be a more… prudent means to an end.” He pauses, adds, “I also really wanted to kiss you.”
Dean snorts. Yep, Cas in all his honest glory.“So?” Dean asks, afraid to look. “Don’t tell me my essence is something lame like a suburban street in the Midwest or the inside of some dude’s refrigerator.”
Cas is looking at Dean’s wings with wide eyes, emotion welling up in them with alarming frequency. Dean suddenly feels self-conscious, wants to wrap his wings around himself and go smack Sam upside the head for such a stupid idea. But as soon as his wings move into a more defensive position, Cas’ hand shoots out and places a palm against a bed of feathers.
“Don’t, please,” He chokes out, now doing his own wing exploration. He runs a hand along Dean’s wings, examines certain feathers with the same intensity of a scientist trying to split an atom. Dean likes to think he knows Cas’ mannerisms pretty well by this point, and from the way the angel’s shoulders are slightly trembling, he guesses Cas is definitely having something of a moment.
Not being able to restrain himself anymore, Dean finds his own reflection in the mirror once again. And damn, if his breath doesn’t kind of catch.
Where Cas’ wings are dark cool colors, Dean’s are vivid and rich warm colors, all golds and oranges and deep reds. It takes him a second to realize that it’s the colors of a sunrise, and then he can’t see anything else. When his wings ruffle slightly with his surprised exhale, he sees the feathers shift slightly, adding edges of blues, like early morning clouds casting shadows across the sky. Right at the tops of his wings, though, it’s dark, cut through with purple and black.
“Uh… Cas?” Dean says, staring at the top of his left wing like it might bite him if he makes any sudden movements.
“Mmm?” Cas is still mapping his way along Dean’s wings, seeming particularly enamoured with a deep red section near the base.
“Why do the tops of my wings look like yours?”
Cas straightens up at that, lightly touching one of the dark feathers. His face is soft, and maybe even yearning as he stares at the feathers.
“The sun hasn’t entirely risen yet,” He says quietly. “Night hasn’t completely faded. There is darkness in you as well, Dean.”
Dean feels his stomach lurch, like he ate an undercooked burger.
“But it’s not just that,” Cas murmurs, grabbing Dean’s hand once again, lacing their fingers together. He uses his other hand to brush along the tops of Dean’s wings, a gentle caress. “It is also the influence of my Grace, your connection to me. Just as you proliferated my wings with bright stars, so did I mar you with my own misdeeds.”
“Whoa, hey, no need to get so down about it,” Dean cuts in hastily. “Cas, your wings- they’re gorgeous, man. That you can share your… essence with me like that, that I can share mine with you- I mean, hey, profound bond, right?” He gives a half-hearted chuckle, trying to lighten the mood.
Cas shakes his head minutely.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry I’ve had this effect on you.”
Dean sputters a bit.
“Cas, don’t even fucking say that. We’ve been through all the what ifs and maybes a million times. We’ve paid our dues, both of us. Don’t you think we’re long past ‘sorry’ by now? C’mon man, we’re here now, right? We’ve made our bed.” He waggles his eyebrows, gesturing to his bed off to the side. “Let’s lie in it.”
Dean closes a hand around Cas’ wrist, guides him to the bed. They sink onto it, Dean on top, trying to show Cas how not sorry he is about ending up here with loving kisses pressed along his cheekbone and underneath his eye, hands still exploring the inky landscape of Cas’ wings.
“Wait, wait,” Cas puts both hands on Dean’s shoulders, holds him off for a moment.
“What?” Dean asks, exasperated. He’s not ready to get back into the self-hatred that both him and Cas are so well versed in- especially when one of them is in a toga with cupid-pink cheeks and the other still has their freakin coat on.
“I want to tell you something else about your wings, your essence” Cas says, like it’s the most important thing in the world.
Dean sits up, cross legged, and gestures for Cas to go on.
“Your essence, it manifests with the colors of a sunrise,” Cas explains, and Dean nods. “Symbolically, of course. But it’s what that sunrise, those colors, mean. Dean, your essence is beginning. You are the dawn of a new day, the light after the dark. You are the savior. The protector. The revolutionary. You ripped up the script for all of us. Fought Michael, fought destiny. You give people new leases on life. You’re a god in your own way- you create- and I’d wager you’d be a much better one than the one that is currently absent. You are beautiful, Dean.”
And Dean just sits there, gobsmacked. Because all he does is fuck things up. All he does is end things. But here’s Cas- honest Cas, genuine Cas- reading his freakin’ essence of all things, something he’s instinctually certain can’t be faked, and he’s being told he is the exact opposite of what he thought he was. His mind instantly rejects the notion, instantly reminds him of everything he’s ever broken and failed to put back together. But then Cas’ hand is taking one of his, and Cas’ lips are pressed to his palm, warm and loving and again, honest. Cas doesn’t lie to him. Not anymore.
So maybe, Dean doesn’t need to believe it. Not yet. Maybe, for the moment, Cas can believe enough for the both of them.
Of all the things Dean’s ended –relationships, lives, faith, the whole goddamed world- he never thought he’d find himself here, finally starting something. Starting something good. Something pure.
And hell, if he ever needed any proof about beginnings, he could always ask the angel sitting across from him who was there at the beginning of everything. Because if Cas was there, and he saw the same thing then that he sees in Dean now, then maybe Dean has no right to question. Maybe he will, eventually, have to have faith. In Cas.
And as Dean falls, falls into the warm darkness that are Cas’ wings, falls into his mouth, into his arms, into his essence, he understands that the day could not exist without the night. They are forever intertwined. Intertwined like fingers, like tongues, like shared breaths under the covers, under the table, over the moon, over breakfast.
The wings will be gone soon, but Dean will still wake up tomorrow morning with stars in his soul.
|
Patrons. They’re supposed to be going around and being patrons.
Kaigaku is still in a daze when he and Kyoujurou exit the room Tengen had temporarily rented for the duration of the mission. He’d just finished getting changed into a simple yukata and getting his hair styled courtesy of the pillar. For a moment there, he thought he would have to pretend like Zenitsu, but no. Just a simple outfit change and he was briefed for the mission, given pep talk, and kicked out with Kyoujurou.
He barely remembers the details of it all, his brain too busy reeling from the fact that they had to partake in certain services. Namely he had to…enter and…
Kaigaku wanted to scream. Another downside to being involved in the plot. Getting roped into doing ridiculous stunts by good looking people.
Speaking of, Kaigaku begrudgingly turns to the reason he’s even in this mess in the first place. The flame pillar is currently engaged in a one-sided conversation with him, rambling exposition as they walk. It’s only then that Kaigaku registers Kyoujurou’s attire.
He's wearing a casual yukata in the color of his hair, dressed down like Tengen. Maybe too dressed down because his chest is barely covered by the clothes he wears. Kaigaku refuses to elaborate on that.
His hairstyle is noticeably different, though. His hair tied back in a loose but high ponytail, and his bangs hanging loosely to frame his face. Not completely covering his forehead, but not quite like the blown back, owl style he’d usually be seen with.
Essentially, he looks and plays the part of a red-light district customer well.
Kaigaku fumbles with his yukata, insecure, as he tries and fails to cover his chest that had been thoroughly exposed to sell their act. The fabric isn’t cheap, and boy he can tell because there wasn’t a single crease on it when he unfurled it earlier.
Feeling pressured all of a sudden, he pokes at his system.
I’m not going to, um. He’s struggling. You know. Right?
[How you proceed with situations is beyond my control.] It says back, oddly cheerful. [Just have fun!]
Have fun. Yeah. Kaigaku deadpans. How the fuck do you have fun in the red-light district.
“Over there, Kaigaku!” Kyoujurou exclaims while pointing at an elegantly built brothel. “Our mission awaits!”
A few onlookers turn their gazes their way at the booming voice and Kaigaku feels a wash of embarrassment overcome him. Can you stop making it super obvious?!
“Please lower your voice.” He begs.
Kyoujurou pays him no mind and marches onward without a care in the world, determined in his steps. Kaigaku follows after him, reluctant.
The door opens and they’re both quickly approached by a polite, but somehow terrifying, lady. They’re both led to a table and served freshly prepared tea. Kaigaku accepts graciously and takes small sips. He’s immediately given a napkin to wipe himself when some of it drips from the side of the cup.
That’s some next level service. He assumes the reason they’re being treated with amazing speed and courteousness is directly related to the flame pillar right beside him. Looks can really get you far, huh?
“Dear patrons,” She greets with a flash of her perfectly carved smile, sitting down in front of them. “How may we serve you?”
“Good afternoon!” The pillar greets back with gusto. “We’d like to be served by your most skilled!”
Kaigaku stifles a choke from Kyoujurou’s sentence--thinking something else entirely--but otherwise continues to act perfectly normal. This guy probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He nods quietly in agreement, not trusting himself to speak.
There’s a pause in the air before the lady speaks once again, this time hesitant.
“Both?” She shoots a look from Kaigaku to Kyoujurou and oh no-- “Of you?”
Kaigaku wanted to sink into the floor. Kyoujurou continued, relentless and oblivious. Or he just didn’t care at all.
“Yes!”
The lady is speechless. Kaigaku agrees. His jaw would be hanging, no actually, it’d be detached entirely from how confidently Kyoujurou was steam rolling into a conversation about a threesome--
“Yes, well.” She finally gathers her wits back, clearing her throat. “I’m not sure if we have maidens who are fit to serve, two.”
Kaigaku made a noise. Okay, this had to stop. “We. Do not require physical entertainment. Please.”
The woman just raises a brow, suspicious. “Understood.”
Kyoujurou chugs his tea and screams ‘this is delicious!’ as per usual.
They’re led into their quarters for the night by a young woman the lady had introduced them to. She wore a light green silk kimono, long hair let down with her parted bangs framing her delicate face.
The room is larger than most inn rooms, at least compared to those he’d seen meant for two people. A table sits on the center, and it’s where she motions for them to sit by. Kaigaku carefully takes a seat on the available pillow. The feeling of something soft under him keeps him grounded a little. She sits across him languidly, smiling.
Kaigaku coughs and nods back politely, a little thankful for the table separating them from her. He’d feel a little more exposed without it.
“What an oddly decorated place!” Kyoujurou exclaims openly as he plops down beside him with little reservation. “It sure is different from ones I’ve seen before.”
You’ve been in one of these before? Kaigaku thinks, wide-eyed as Kyoujurou looks about the room. How often were pillars taking missions in this place? He sounds like a frequent customer. Was he--
Kaigaku catches himself before he spirals down weird thoughts, frowning. Of course he would. For missions. For missions. He shakes his head. And they don’t always offer sex. Geez Kaigaku.
“Would you like something to drink?” The girl offers, reaching behind her for a bottle of alcohol. Kaigaku didn’t even realize she bought some with her.
Kyoujurou, ever the socialite, jumps at the offer. “Yes please! Miss,” He says, a lull in his sentence, waiting for her to add something to it.
The girl perks up, a light blush on her cheeks at the subtle prompt. “Oh, my name is Himari.”
The pillar nods in satisfaction. “Nice to meet you, Himari! Thank you for your courtesy.”
She giggles and takes a shy glance at Kaigaku. Oh right, he’s here to participate as well.
“Thank you.” He offers curtly.
She takes the bottle of sake in a flourish and delicately opens it, sliding the cups on the table to distribute it between the three of them. Kaigaku watches as she moves smoothly like a dancer, he supposes it’s done deliberately for the guest’s entertainment.
Just as she’s about to pour, however, Kyoujuro just decides that taking the bottle from the lady was a good idea.
“Let me, Himari!”
Kaigaku blinks when Kyoujurou pours sake on both hers and his cups in one fell swoop, a grin on his face as he does so.
Kaigaku’s cup remains empty.
Hello? He can’t help but hiss in his mind. What did he do??
Despite being startled by her guest’s forwardness, she continues to be the ever-accommodating host that she is and moves to take the bottle from him. Kyoujurou just laughs good-naturedly, placing the bottle far from where she can reach over the table.
“Ah. I’d like to keep this. It’s the usual amount I drink.” He says, taking a big swig of the bottle, before letting out a guffaw. “Thank you very much!”
Did you get that tolerance off your dad or something?! Kaigaku’s losing braincells by the minute. And where the hell is my share you asshole?!
Kyoujurou licks his lips, staring at the bottle after he’d downed nearly half (what the fuck) before even considering giving Kaigaku a portion.
“Here, Kaigaku!” He says, and oh good. The pillar hasn’t forgotten about him.
“It’s mild, so you’ll probably be able to handle this.”
Kaigaku feels something in him snap.
What.
The moment his cup is filled, he snatches it off the table as fast as he could muster.
“I.” He starts through grit teeth as he nears the cup to his lips. He was an adult and his alcohol tolerance will not be put into question. He was getting wasted at bars during his prime!
“Can handle worse.”
Kyoujurou acquiesces, much like an adult indulging in a kid’s fantasy. “Of course, of course!” He laughs it off, taking another swig of the booze.
System.
[Can’t kill a character you specifically wished to be revived, Kaigaku.]
Kaigaku pointedly does not meet the poor lady’s confused expression as he drinks bitterly from his cup with a slurp.
There’s silence for a moment. Due to Kyoujurou’s messing with what was supposed to be Himari’s routine, the girl probably finds herself unsure of how to approach them.
She takes another chance to lead the conversation when Kyoujurou gives him another cupful of sake, her eyes fixated on his bandaged arm.
“Sir Inadama.” She meekly calls out, moving to stand up. “You seem to be injured, if I may—”
“Oh.” Kaigaku stops her before she could. He’d rather not trouble her with first aid care. “There’s no need. The bandages will be enough for tonight—”
Kyoujurou makes a noise of complaint beside him, patting his injured arm with a heavy hand. It was probably to initiate a sense of sympathy, but all Kaigaku got was more pain.
“Nonsense! You’ll need to change those hourly if possible!” He exclaims. With how the pillar is, he’s unsure whether or not the guy was already drunk out of his mind. ”Look, some blood has already started to seep through!”
Himari, eager to be of help, stands up with a newfound vigor. “Then I will fetch you a clean batch!”
She rushes out of the room, sliding the door behind her haphazardly.
“What a spritely young woman.” Kyoujurou chuckles, leaning on the table casually.
Kaigaku lets himself relax a little too, rubbing his injured arm idly. Thankfully, this mission is easier to execute than he’d expected. They just had to sit here and be served. It looks like what they’re looking for isn’t in here anyway. He hasn’t seen any signs of Tengen’s wives anywhere. Sure, they may not actively seek them out, but not one face stood out to him.
So Kaigaku leans in a little close to the pillar, whispering covertly. “What are we supposed to do?”
Kyoujurou turns to regard him with an odd look. “Hm?”
Kaigaku tries again, trying to keep his voice low. “How are we supposed to know if--”
“They’re not here.” Kyoujurou says simply, when Kaigaku’s point finally hits him, not even bothering to change his volume. “In the rooms we’ve passed earlier, I didn’t see them.”
Oh. Figures. Of course, the pillar had been two steps ahead of him in terms of the plan.
“But.” He wonders out loud, “Shouldn’t we be moving to the next brothel?”
“Tengen’s wives were assigned at specific brothels.” Kyoujurou plays with the bottle in his grip, swirling the contents. “Tanjirou, Zenitsu and Inosuke have been assigned at the main three.”
“We’re only here as backup.” He taps the table with the hand not preoccupied with booze. “And if we move too much I fear that it would attract too much attention.”
So you’re aware that you attract too much attention. “Noted.” Kaigaku mutters.
Still, it doesn’t erase his unease. Should they really be standing idle while the kids and Tengen continue like usual? Then again, Kyoujurou isn’t supposed to exist in this scenario either, so he can’t say he’s doing anything wrong. But they have the ability to help, Kyoujurou even more so, so why can’t they?
“Now, now, Kaigaku!” Kyoujurou pats his back heartily, prying him out of his thoughts. “Don’t look so glum! This is the entertainment district after all!”
Kaigaku huffs. Well. He’ll leave any further thinking to Kyoujurou. He’s the pillar in this situation, and Kaigaku’s tired overthinking his place in this damn story.
“I don’t like to, uh, join the kind of entertainment this place has to offer.” He quips back, finessing the sake bottle out of the pillars grip to pour himself another round.
“You don’t?”
Kyoujurou’s tone makes Kaigaku whip his head in his direction, fast enough he can almost feel his neck crack. He stares incredulously.
“You do?”
Kyoujurou hums, looking him up and down and oh no that’s not fair. The pillar smiles, a casual one. But with the added context of their topic, it doesn’t seem as sunny to him anymore.
“It’s entertainment, Kaigaku.” A laugh. “It’s supposed to be fun, right?”
[+1000]
“I return with the bandages, dear guests!”
The sliding door opens with Himari’s return. That, coupled with the sudden notification of his system, almost kills him. He does a little jump that Kyoujurou’s noticed, for sure, but thankfully doesn’t point it out.
You’re paying for my funeral!, He hisses at the system when he composes himself. Sometimes he believes the little piece of shit is actively trying to kill him.
[I was simply doing my job.]
And what was it for?! Kaigaku argues, That was out of the blue you--
“Thank you, Himari!” Kyoujurou greets Himari for the both of them. Oh, right. The poor girl was waiting for acknowledgement. Damn system making him look rude.
“Thank you, Himari.” He bows, already standing up to take it from her.
That is until a hand on his shoulder, gently pushes him down and takes charge. Kyoujurou kneels close, the clean bandage already in hand, already preparing to remove his old bandage.
“Kaigaku, if I may?”
Kaigaku doesn’t move, he’s still reeling from earlier and now the guy does this? Kyoujurou decides that just taking his arm and treating Kaigaku himself is a good idea after what had just happened.
You have to at least let her serve us! Kaigaku protests weakly in his mind, but does not make any move to push Kyoujurou away.
The conversation from earlier persists in his mind like a stain because the pillar had just implied that he fucks and Kaigaku honestly does not know what to do with that information.
The pretty girl has taken to just sitting there, unsure of what to do with herself. Kaigaku takes pity and tries to strike up conversation.
“Thank you, again.” He says, acutely aware of how Kyoujurou sits close to cradle his arm. He tries not to let it sag too much in the pillar’s grip. “You didn’t have to help me with my injury.”
“No! It’s alright.” She’s quick to shake her head primly. “It’s my duty to serve you both!”
“Ah, probably not like this.” And you definitely did not expect to have your guest out serve you.
Kyoujurou merely laughs, content to give him the lead of conversation.
And what a pleasant conversation it was. Clearly, the girl had been studying a lot on how to pick and prod at a person’s interests. She knew what questions to ask to keep him talking and to make him feel comfortable sharing, even. If only she wasn’t so offset by the chaos they both brought with them, she would have been in her element.
“You’ve both been so kind, dear guests.” She says after Kaigaku recounts a tragic tale of teaching Inosuke a game called ‘the floor is lava’ and being subjected constant forced piggyback rides. Himari hadn’t quite understood it either, but she had more common sense than the kid.
“We’d hate to be rude.” Kaigaku replies.
Himari just smiles back, but her lips purse in thought after a minute. She looks like she wants to say something, so Kaigaku waits. Kyoujurou remains ever busy with his new task of playing nurse. He’s gone from cleaning his wound to applying the new bandages, finally.
“It makes me wonder if, um.” She stutters, growing increasingly bashful.
“If you both are gentle too, in bed.”
Kyoujurou falters in his ministrations, and Kaigaku is stunned for the third time this night because what what what.
“I.” Kaigaku squeaks. He squeaks. Take him out of his misery already.
Unable to think of something to say, he looks to Kyoujurou for help. You know how to deal with this, right? You’ve done this before, right?! Lead this fucking conversation!
Kyoujurou just regards him with an impassive look, head tilted in question. Kaigaku does every subtle thing he can to communicate--a frown, a nudge, eyes flickering to and fro, anything— and prays that the pillar understands his plight.
It takes a good minute, but eventually the pillar nods with a smile on his face.
Instead of being reassured, however, Kaigaku feels cold dread seep into his bones. Oh no. Whatever Kyoujurou says after this, he’s not sure he can handle it.
The pillar turns to address her with gusto.
“Miss Himari! Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not gentle!”
Yep. He was right.
“As much as we’d like to partake in your offer, we refuse!”
What do you mean, ‘as much as we’d like to’?! Kaigaku wants to get absorbed by Daki’s magical sash realm. Where is she. He’s offering himself willingly. It’s only you who wants any of this!
“I, of course.” Once again, Himari is struck speechless by Kyoujurou. “You are our dear guests, if you do not choose to do it, then I cannot force you.” She flushes. “But, um, I’m just curious what two healthy men are doing not partaking in offers, so to speak.”
Kyoujurou waves her concern off. “There was never any need to!” He chuckles, “This is a secret tryst!”
Himari gasps and Kaigaku feels his sanity slipping.
“T-Tryst?!”
Kaigaku stares holes unto the floor, wishing it was a demon that could eat him alive. Meanwhile, Kyoujurou finishes up his work on his arm, tying the bandage secure with a small ribbon.
“Yes! We’re here on a secret mission.” He nods, looking serious. At least, Kaigaku thinks he is because god knows this might be some sick joke he wants to play. “I hope you understand, miss.”
She looks back and forth from Kaigaku and Kyoujurou. Face growing redder with each look. What? What’s with that--
Oh no. Oh no no no no--
“I understand, I--!” You don’t. You really don’t, do you? Stop looking at me like that-- “I shall tell no one!”
Please! Kaigaku all but begs to her through telepathy. At this point I’d prefer it if you’d just tell everyone in this room what you understood!
But despite his head throbbing from an incoming headache, this thing that Kyoujurou had oh so helpfully implied is a perfect cover up for their mission. No one would dare question it, especially because it’s such an outlandish thing to imply.
Two lovers that had gone to the brothel to meet in secret, to hold each other with no judgement…
[You’re rather adept at creating scenarios yourself, Kaigaku.]
Shut up. Kaigaku is weary, Just shut up.
With that in thought, he says no objections and even nods to add strength to the pillar’s claim. He’s still on thin ice, though.
“Thank you very much!” Kyoujurou replies, delighted.
Himari stands up, suddenly looking very skittish. “Then, I will go to provide you privacy.” She says, a sparkle in her eyes. “I hope things go well!”
The door to the room slide shut once more.
“That went easier than I expected!” Kyoujurou laughs it off, like he hadn’t just deleted 20 years off of Kaigaku’s simulated life. “Honesty does wonders!”
Kaigaku just stares at him like he’s mad.
“Sure.”
Kaigaku would’ve skipped going for a bath, but Kyoujurou had pulled him in regardless, talking about how ‘the onsen is essential!’ and crap like that.
Thankfully, he had managed to narrowly avoid getting his back washed by the pillar--
(“Sir, with all due respect, if you come near me I’m going to kill you.” “That’s the spirit, Kaigaku! Would you prefer a towel or a loofa?” “Sir.”)
--and is now enjoying his soak at the spring, leaning on a flat rock.
Kyoujurou continues to scrub himself clean by the nearby showers, humming idly. The silence is neither awkward or comfortable, it’s teetering in between. It’s the type of silence where you don’t know if the other party wants you to talk or they’d prefer if you’d keep your mouth shut.
Kaigaku sinks himself lower in the warm water.
Despite hanging out with Kyoujurou a lot, sometimes not by his own volition, he’s come to terms that it’s the pillar who leads their conversations most of the time. Kaigaku only follows, answering or entertaining Kyoujurou’s many thoughts.
Thinking about it now, it’s unfair. He doesn’t take initiative to approach Kyoujurou at all. But from the way the kids talked about them yesterday, they looked close enough to be friends, sans the Tsuguko misunderstanding.
So, he can talk to him, right? From one story anomaly to another.
You know what? Kaigaku groans. Why is he even thinking about this too much.
“Rengoku, sir?”
“Oh!” Kyoujurou’s voice echoes out from the showers. It makes Kaigaku jump a little. “What is it?”
“You.” He thinks for a moment. “What were you doing with sir Tengen?”
“Assisting him in a mission!”
“No, I mean. Before that.”
There’s a distant sound of water splashing, Kaigaku assumes he’s finally washing himself off. With this in mind, Kaigaku quickly ducks under the water and closes his eyes as wet footsteps start getting closer to the spring.
He’s gotten used to seeing him naked, but it doesn’t mean he needs to.
“Well.” Kyoujurou’s voice is muffled because of the water entering his ears. “I was wandering, and then Uzui found me.”
Kaigaku counts to three before resurfacing, a fresh out the bath Kyoujurou now sitting beside him. He shakes his head to shed the water off him. The pillar laughs when some of it falls his way.
“Wandering? Where to?” Kaigaku pushes, relaxing again on the stone.
Kyoujurou’s eyes flicker up in thought before meeting his gaze again. “Not sure.”
At Kaigaku’s frown, Kyoujurou chuckles. “Why does it matter?”
“Well, did you have a reason to go near here?”
“I don’t.” Kyoujurou folds his arms together, his smile slowly fading. “I don’t, but I felt the need to do something.”
“You.” Kaigaku doesn’t want to force him, but he is curious. “Couldn’t you have chosen to wander anywhere else?”
It takes a while for the pillar to talk, and Kaigaku almost backpedals, but eventually Kyoujurou speaks again. “I couldn’t stay back and do nothing.” He explains, looking frustrated.
The furrow of his brow deepens, but the pillar shakes the grim expression off. His arms remain folded but he leans back, trying to seem as relaxed as he did earlier.
Kaigaku doesn’t buy it, especially when Kyoujurou adds to his statement with a low mutter.
“All I can do is look for something to do.”
Kaigaku purses his lips. It’s obvious that he’s restless. He thought Kyoujurou had adjusted himself back into the general story, maybe he’d thought wrong.
He wants to know more, ask him why finding something to do is so important to him, but it’s obvious he’s a bit bothered by this topic. It looks like a fresh development and he’d rather not have a ticked off pillar to sleep with, so he doesn’t push any further. He should change the topic.
“You know, I like mochi.”
Kyoujurou blinks, surprised.
Well. That’s one way to diffuse a situation, Kaigaku chastises himself, Such a hard-left turn of a topic.
“My master—” No turning back now. “He likes to make it as a snack so often that I accidentally got obsessed with it. It’s fluffy and has a really nice texture, it’s super easy to carry around too.”
“Zenitsu hates the red bean filling on anything so when master whips some up, I end up eating all the flavors he doesn’t like. But I never get sick of it.”
Silence. Yeah, he expected that. Kaigaku surprisingly doesn’t stop eye contact with Kyoujurou, though, despite the mortification running through his veins.
“Um.” He tries again. Cooperate with him here, please. “What do you like? To eat?”
“Hm.” Kyoujurou nods slowly, taking in the question. Eventually he slips back into his usual cheery disposition.
“I like everything!”
Kaigaku falters. Of course you do. “That’s. Uh, I gave you something specific. That’s unfair.”
Kyoujurou snaps his fingers, in agreement. “That’s true!” But he says nothing more, lost in thought.
Kaigaku waits patiently, focusing on the way the water sways him around. At least he's managed to avoid a potentially uncomfortable talk. Doesn't mean he won't ask again in the future, but for now, he'll let it slide.
“Nikujaga.” The pillar finally says.
Kaigaku acknowledges this with a hum.
“My mother had a specific recipe that made it the tastiest.” Kyoujurou sighs, remembering fond memories. “I begged for it every time we ate.” He chuckles, “She had no choice but to cook it for me to me to shut me up.”
The thought of Kyoujurou badgering his mother as a child almost makes Kaigaku laugh. “That's sweet.”
Kyoujurou’s smile melts into something warm and personal. “It is. Senjurou’s cooking comes close to it.” The smile turns melancholic, “But nothing can beat hers.”
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to steer the conversation to his dead mother either, but the irritation from earlier seems like it’s died down. Good.
“It’s pretty hard to replace a mother’s cooking, anyway.”
“Yes. But he’s doing his best.”
“Mm.”
The lull in the conversation is expected, Kaigaku didn’t want to press on and dig through some repressed memories, so he keeps himself quiet. He just watches the stars overhead, enjoying the spring to its fullest. Beside him, Kyoujurou begins to hum a tune. He’s never noticed until now, but he does it a lot to fill the silence.
He can feel himself slipping in and out of consciousness, which was bad, it’s not a good idea to fall asleep in a bath where he could drown. But the night breeze was cool and the water is so warm and—
--there’s people moaning in the spring bath next to them.
Kaigaku snaps his head to the left, eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. Oh no. This can’t be fucking happening. He knows it’s normal, this is a fucking brothel after all, but all this happening while he’s here with Kyoujurou?!
“Hm.” Kyoujurou looks to the barrier that separates them from the other bath, unbothered. “They seem to be having fun.”
Yeah, no shit! Kaigaku feels his face overheat and sinks low into the water.
Maybe they’ll stop, he tries to convince himself, maybe it’s just a quickie please for the love of god just be a quickie.
There’s a splash and the moans grow louder.
Scratch that he’s out, he moves to stand up.
“I’m leaving.”
He’s stopped by Kyoujurou, a hand catching his wrist. He’d be blushing if it weren’t for the noises in the other spring causing him a mental breakdown.
“isn’t it too early?” The pillar asks, as if this is a minor inconvenience at best. “Stay.”
“And hear people having sex?!” Kaigaku stage whispers. “Are you kidding me?!”
Kyoujurou frowns.
“Well, we could just tell them to stop.” He says, as if it’s the easiest thing to do.
Oh fuck. No, this is Kyoujurou. This is the easiest thing to do for him.
“No. Rengoku don’t—"
“Excuse me!” The pillar cups hands around his mouth, screaming. “Please lower your voice when touching each other!”
Kaigaku can only stare at the partition in disbelief when the noises do stop. But the silence that follows is so awkward that he’s sure if he strains himself enough, he’ll hear the other person’s heartbeat from where he is.
“Thank you very much!” Kyoujurou hollers, turning back to him with a nod.
“There we go.”
Kaigaku bursts out laughing.
He plops himself back in the water, ignoring the large splash he makes and covers his face with both hands in an effort to muffle himself. This guy.
“I can’t fucking believe you.” He cackles.
When he removes his hands from his face, he’s faced with a grinning Kyoujurou.
“Are you staying?”
Kaigaku just waves his question off, swimming to the spot he’d left earlier. Kyoujurou settles back too, relaxed and his arms no longer folded. The silence is finally comfortable.
“Mochi, hm?” Kyoujurou muses with a grin. “Should we put in an order?”
Kaigaku scoffs, considering the ridiculous suggestion because he’s still in a good mood. “If you order for Nikujaga too, sure.”
When they leave the baths, Kaigaku makes eye contact with a dude in the distance. The guy flinches and scurries off. He snorts.
They eat their dinner outside in one of the stalls, since Kyoujurou was very adamant about eating Nikujaga and mochi together. It was nice. If this part of the town wasn’t destroyed in the future fight, he won’t mind coming back to hang out. Not inside any brothels, of course.
Himari only comes back later to provide them their futon and spare yukatas, and shuffles away immediately once he accepts them. Kaigaku wonders just what she’d told her boss because he’s pretty sure she’s supposed to sleep with them (literally), but he won’t ask. He doesn’t want to know the answer, anyway.
Speaking of.
“Ahh! This reminds me of my youth!” Kyoujurou unabashedly pushes their futons together. “Come, Kaigaku! Let’s share stories of—”
Kaigaku rolls his eyes and tosses a blanket over the pillar in an effort to get him to shut up.
“Goodnight. Rengoku, sir.”
Surprisingly, he slept well that night.
When Kaigaku awoke the next day, he’s surprised to see Kyoujurou up so early, already hunched on the table. There’s a flurry of something that leaves through the window.
Despite his sleep muddled brain, he can piece together what was happening. Kyoujurou’s being called in for back up.
In true pillar fashion, Kyoujurou notices he’s awake when he’s barely moved an inch, looking over his shoulder to flash Kaigaku a smile.
“Good morning, Kaigaku!” He greets, “You’re up early.”
“Good morning, sir.” Kaigaku sluggishly pulls himself to sit. “I’m usually awake this hour, I swear.”
Kyoujurou’s eyes trail over his bandage, blood has seeped through it overnight. “Ask Himari to assist you with that.”
Kaigaku wants to say he can handle it, but he’s cut off by the door sliding open. Himari stands in the doorway, surprised.
“Oh!” She exclaims, holding a basket of laundry. Their freshly washed clothes, probably. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you two were already up!”
“No apologies needed!” Kyoujurou says in a voice that’s definitely not meant for mornings. Kaigaku grumbles. The pillar stands to take the basket off her hands. “Sorry for such an early favor, but my friend’s bandages you see…”
Himari looks over to Kaigaku in panic. “Ah, yes! Don’t worry, sir. I’ll get a new roll for you.”
Kyoujurou nods, grateful and waves her off. Kaigaku slips in a small thank you before she leaves.
Kaigaku’s intuition is proven true when Kyoujurou immediately frowns at the close of the door, suddenly serious. The pillar sets the basket down and begins to undress his yukata.
Kaigaku is still far too sleepy to be flustered by the scene, so he crawls his way to the table, where some left-over edamame sits from last night’s meal. He pops some into his mouth and chews without a thought in mind.
He hears the sound of fabric being flicked straight in the air and footsteps approaching him. A heavy hand rests on his shoulder and squeezes and oh had his eyes been closed?
Kyoujurou, now back in his full pillar outfit, looms over him non-threateningly.
“Stay here.” He says. It’s not a suggestion.
Kaigaku nods, a little sober now. “Yes sir.”
The pillar leaves in a flourish from the window and Kaigaku’s frown deepens.
[He is fine.] The system pauses. [He will be fine.]
I know he will. Kaigaku scoffs. His system doesn’t say anything more.
“Sir?” Himari peeks inside tentatively, in her hands are the brand-new bandages Kyoujurou has requested.
“Where is your lover?”
Ah. He nearly chokes on the edamame. That jolts him awake somewhat. Kaigaku coughs, sitting straighter. “He had some important business to attend to. Had to leave early.”
Himari sits beside him, already beginning to undo his old bandages. He winces when she tugs at the parts that cling to his skin.
“It must be hard.” She remarks, sighing wistfully. “Not being able to spend enough time together.”
Kaigaku tries his damn best to focus on the pain of his wound instead of focusing on, whatever the fuck they were currently talking about.
“Uh. Sure.”
With nowhere else to go, Kaigaku really does have no other choice but to stay in the brothel. Before he knows it, it’s dusk. Himari doesn’t seem to mind, nor does her boss for some odd reason, so his time in the room isn’t too bad.
That is, until he hears an explosion outside and screaming.
“Himari!” Kaigaku tugs her back to safety, “What are you doing?!”
The brothel is ruined, parts of it had long collapsed when the first projectile hit its foundations earlier. Luckily, everyone was able to run out to safety in the streets and he’d corralled them into the nearby forest, making sure to place them in an area where wisteria bloomed.
All except for one, apparently.
“She’s—” Himari is sobbing, distraught. “Aiko! She’s still in there, sir! Please I can’t—"
Kaigaku struggles to hold her back, she’s ready to throw herself into the rubble just to find her friend. He grits his teeth. The building was still in the process of collapsing. Himari and her friend can’t climb their way out of that together.
“I’ll look for her! Just—” He grips her shoulders tight and stares her straight in the eyes, trying to make a point. “Stay here.”
Himari looks like she wants to fight more, but thinks better of it and just nods shakily at him.
“Promise me.”
Kaigaku wastes no time and dashes inside the building, using his quick feet to dodge any falling rubble that’s big enough to give him a new head. Most of the rooms have already caved in, and it does nothing but elevate his anxiety. What if that Aiko girl was already crushed under all this junk?
Kaigaku shakes his head.
He looks and looks, every crevice and small hole he thinks a young girl could fit into to hide, he checks even at the imminent danger of the ceiling crumbling down on him.
And that’s when he hears it, whimpering and…meowing?
He rounds a corner in haste, and he finds a girl hiding under a table nearly covered shut by the fallen scaffolding and concrete overhead. In her arms is a calico cat, meowing and licking the tears streaming down her face.
Kaigaku breathes, not realizing he’d held it.
“Hey!” He shouts to get her attention, she perks up, surprised that a person was still in here.
“Did you go in here to save a cat?! What the hell were you thinking?!” He scolds as he stumbles towards her, already clearing a path for her to be able to run through. Things were still shaking and rumbling, they’d have no other choice but to run towards the exit.
“Stop crying!” He tells her when he’s able to reach under the table. “Focus!”
He grabs her hands and pull her out. She trembles, scared, but Kaigaku has a promise to fulfill. “Run. And don’t fucking stop for anything, you got me?”
And run they did. She’s barely able to catch up but Kaigaku tugs her forwards with all of his might. The debris trips their speed up at times, but they’re able to reach the exit even quicker than when Kaigaku had went it.
“Wait!” Aiko cries over the chaos, “The cat, he--!”
Kaigaku turns to look, the cat had jumped out of her arms and into the corner where a piece of metal work hung dangerously loose above it. He swears.
“Leave the damn thing alone!” Kaigaku shouts, “It can take care of itself!”
“But it’s Himari’s--!”
Fucking—
He shoves her out the door, just before another big rock falls overhead to hit them. Kaigaku doesn’t follow, though, and jumps towards the cat to shield it from the inevitable danger.
Without a sword, he can only pick up a stray piece of metal to parry the falling hazard. The impact sends a jolt of pain through his still fresh wound and he flinches.
He topples back into the concrete with a thud, cat safe in his arms.
The rumbling of the ground under him stops, but the sounds of mayhem outside continue. Kaigaku groans, head lolling back in exhaustion. The demon they handled yesterday was so much tamer compared to the shit that happens when he’s near the main characters.
The cat in his arms wiggles out of his grasp, meowing repeatedly. Kaigaku glares at it.
“Be thankful, you piece of shit.” He says at he gives it a few scratches behind the ear.
It thanks him with a bite to the knuckle.
“Ouch!” Kaigaku shakes his hand with a start, and the cat prances off somewhere else.
“Hey!” He calls after it, “I just saved you! Don’t go running around and getting yourself killed!”
The cat acts like it doesn’t hear him, ducking into a secluded area almost immediately. Kaigaku almost just wants to leave it there, but he promised Himari he’d get Aiko back, and that probably includes the cat.
So, he runs after it.
And nearly loses his mind when the cat very much phases through the wall it was just about to ram into.
Kaigaku doesn’t have the time to process it, however, because he too falls head first into said wall like its water.
He groans as he heaves himself off the ground, and mentally adds possible concussion to his list of injuries for the day.
Kaigaku hears a distinctly female gasp and the distinct sound of a sword being unsheathed.
“Who goes there?!”
He adds possible stabbing to the list. Just to make it easier for himself later.
Kaigaku looks up and finds himself situated in an oddly, not ruined living room. It’s decorated simply, but it looks notably out of place from all the rubble he’d just been trying to survive through.
But there are more pressing matters, and that is the figure that stands before him. A young man clad in a white haori, holding the katana that threatens to pierce his face.
Oh.
“You…” Yushiro, at least that’s what Kaigaku remembers his name is, mutters. “You’re a slayer.”
What? “How do you know?”
“You’ve got that stench.”
“Hey!” Kaigaku snarls. He's just as rude as he looks on print. “What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“Yushiro?” A soft voice calls from behind them. “If he is of no threat, then drop your sword. Please.”
“Of course!” He quickly complies, sheathing it faster than he had unsheathed it earlier.
Now with the removal of an impending threat, Kaigaku is able to stand fully and greet another familiar face. She moves forward, slowly extracting herself from her hiding place behind Yushiro.
“Hello.” The young woman, Tamayo, greets elegantly with a bow. “I’m afraid we haven’t met before.”
Kaigaku nods idly, fixated at the way her eyes have the unruly shade of a demon's, yet still filled with warmth. She exudes the same calming effect as Ubuyashiki would, but not as powerful. He supposes it's just her disposition.
“Stop staring, you animal!” Right. Her guard dog is still here. “If you just as so much—”
“Yushiro, please.” And with nothing more but a hushed reprimand, the guy quiets down in a snap. Kaigaku would laugh if it didn't mean he'd start a whole new demon vs. slayer thing, parallel to the uproar outside.
“Sorry, um. No, we haven’t.” He instead settles with. “I’m Kaigaku Inadama. I didn’t mean to barge into your domain.”
She shakes her head primly. “It’s alright.” The cat he’d been following nudges her feet, and Tamayo smiles, leaning down to offer it a pet. “You followed this little gentleman here?”
“Yes. It’s a girl’s pet cat.” Kaigaku replies.
Tamayo looks genuinely surprised. “Pet?”
“Huh?” It’s Yushiro’s turn to react, “Whose?!”
“Himari.”
Yushiro repeats her name, the scowl that’s already present on his face worsens. “So she’s the one who domesticated him?!”
“Yushiro—” Tamayo tries to calm him, to no avail.
“We only have a few of them left and she decides to adopt one?!”
Kaigaku just pays him no mind. Dramatics is his forte. “I’m sorry, I still need the cat back. it's dangerous outside.”
“What’s the emergency?” Tamayo asks, letting Yushiro brood a little longer.
“There’s a demon. One of the twelve kizuki.”
Yushiro stands alert. Tamayo frowns.
They exchange glances with each other, and with the wave of Yushiro's hand, sounds from the outside reach them. The clash of swords, sounds of falling debris and destruction--
Tamayo listens on in horror, cupping her mouth in shock. “I got too complacent.” She murmurs, distraught. “I thought…”
Yushiro sees this and is quick to blame Kaigaku for it. “Hey!” He admonishes, “You made Lady Tamayo upset!”
Kaigaku feels a vein throb. “I’m just telling the truth, pipsqueak!”
“Pipsq—”
“Yushiro, we must go quickly.” Tamayo stops any further disagreement from between them by laying a hand on his shoulder, shutting him up. “I apologize for letting my guard down, we were almost found because I didn’t…”
Yushiro springs into action, holding both her hands in determination. “Lady Tamayo! Please don’t blame yourself!” He draws her delicate hands to his chest. “it’s my fault, I didn’t think to lift the blindfold—"
The sound of cracking wood cuts Yushiro off, one that sounds worryingly close.
“Lady Tamayo.” He’s serious now.
Tamayo nods, composing herself. “Right. We must go.” She turns to Kaigaku with a grateful smile.
“Thank you, Inadama, for your help.”
Kaigaku shrugs. “I barely did anything. I just warned you.”
Yushiro clicks his tongue. “Accept her thanks or don’t say anything at all!”
“You fucking—” Okay that's enough out of this guy. "You’re lucky I don’t have my damn sword with me or I’ll have you—"
The cat jumps in his arms, effectively silencing whatever insult he had going. Kaigaku just sighs and scratches the thing behind the ear, earning him a purr.
“Hmph.” Yushiro begins summoning his blood art, turning away from him. “Just take that with you and leave already.”
“Isn’t he yours?”
Yushiro scoffs. “What’re you talking about? He’s owned by that Himari girl.”
Kaigaku blinks. Huh.
Beside him, Tamayo smiles appreciatively.
"Sir!" He hears Himari before he can see her, "You're okay!"
Kaigaku had only blinked once and before he knew it, he's back in the open field to where he'd left everyone to stand back. He didn't even register being led back. Damn. Tamayo’s abilities are scarier than any demon who can hack his own neck off.
Himari and Aiko crash into him for a hug, both crying desperately. Kaigaku has to raises the cat high so it doesn’t get crushed in their embrace.
“Easy on the hugs.” He grunts, prying them off to give them the howling cat. “Here. Keep a good tight grip on him, okay?”
Himari says her thanks through tears and Aiko just hugs both her and the cat tight.
Kaigaku doesn’t bother joining the fight. They have two pillars in action this time, they’ll be fine. Instead, he focuses on finding people amongst the chaos and bringing them back somewhere safe.
The girls from the brothel help him lead the people to safety. Kyutaro makes sure they don’t go too far into the destruction. The fight is still ongoing, after all.
The district is all but in ruins, the rows of buildings reduced to chunks of concrete and burnt wood.
As he hauls another citizen by the arm, he prays for everyone’s safety.
Thunder.
Zenitsu! Kaigaku looks to the horizon, seeing trails of lightning zipping around the sky. Have they separated the two demons already? He’s not sure, he lost track when he’d gathered all the people to safety.
There’s one big flash and everything goes quiet. He steps back. That means—
“Everyone!” Kaigaku screams, “Get down—!"
The entire city is destroyed.
“Mr. Inadama!” This time it’s Himari who pulls him back, despite failing miserably. “Don’t you think it’s too early to go back in?!”
Kaigaku struggles, to remove her grip. “I’ll be fine.” He says, “Stay here and wait for help. It’s on the way.”
Aiko’s also clutching his sleeve. At this rate, his yukata is going to tear
“But—”
He clears his throat. “I’ll be looking for my partner.” And wow, he’s not sure how he’s able to say that without stuttering, but it does get them to stop tugging. “He’s in there somewhere.”
They hesitate but eventually let him go. He nods back in thanks at their tentative waves goodbye. Kyutaro flies over from his perch on Himari’s head, Kaigaku catches him on his arm.
“Find Zenitsu for me.”
The pigeon coos once, pecks his finger and flies over head. He follows dutifully.
Kaigaku wants to say anything, how he was so worried, how he’s relieved to see them both okay, but what comes out of his mouth is:
“What the hell is that get-up?”
“Brother!” Zenitsu whines, offended and clutching at his sleeves to try and stand. “I was so scared! Don’t you even care that your little brother is on the brink of death?!”
“You seem fine to me!” He pushes the blonde back down. Don’t use your leg, you idiot! He looks to where Inosuke lies on a piece of roof, has Nezuko already visited them?
“Inosuke?!”
“Hah!” The kid squawks, waving both swords wildly. “As if the great Inosuke can be defeated!!”
Looks like they’re both okay.
Kyutaro had left him already, flying back with the flock of crows that had just left, presumably to alarm the Kakushi for help. Tanjirou is nowhere to be seen, but Kaigaku assumes he’s fine as well, he has Nezuko with him after all.
“Kaigaku!”
He turns, surprised to find Kyoujurou well enough to run towards him.
“Rengoku, sir I—”
Kaigaku is cut off by Kyoujurou putting both hands on his shoulders. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“I’m glad.” The pillar relaxes. “The building we had been in got destroyed, so I thought—”
Kaigaku pats his arm, slowly extricating himself from the pillar’s grip. Right, he had no way of knowing. “I evacuated all of the patrons and workers the moment my pigeon warned me of an upper rank in the area.”
Kyoujurou blinks slowly, unreadable expression on his face.
“Yes, good.” He says after a moment, relief and amusement in his eyes. “Good.”
There’s screaming in the distance, Obanai and Tengen arguing. It gives Kaigaku some comfort to know they’re well enough to argue. He’s not sure if Kyoujurou’s presence had helped lessen the sound pillar’s injuries at all. He hopes it did, even just a little.
Eventually, Tanjirou pops back into the scene, carried by a tiny Nezuko. Together, they embrace Inosuke and Zenitsu in relief. Kaigaku looks on fondly, before feeling something heavy in his pocket.
He fishes it out, only to see a note.
‘Thank you.’ It reads, before it disintegrates in the air. Must be Tamayo and Yuhsiro.
In the distance, he sees the silhouettes of the townsfolk carefully walking through the ruins of the district. Some crying in distress at the loss of property and some just relieved that they’re still alive. He spots a familiar green kimono amongst them all, carefully cradling a cat and another girl’s hand.
Kaigaku sighs. He’s glad they’re all safe.
Well. Except—
Kaigaku gives the flame pillar a once-over, duly noting the tattered sleeves and abrasions on the man’s face. He’s in no position to judge Kyoujurou and his condition, but he’s pretty sure the pillar had taken a heavy beating.
Kyoujurou meets his gaze, noticing his attention. “Me?” He remarks quite casually. “Oh, I’m fine--!”
And then Kyoujurou’s body decides to betray him and hack up a lungful of blood.
“R—Kyoujurou?!”
Kaigaku yelps, catching the pillar by his shoulder in panic. The kids, surprised by his shout, waddle on over to whine and cry for him as well. Kyoujurou just keeps laughing despite the blood constantly spurting out of his mouth. Kaigaku almost wants to punch him to shut him up.
Almost.
|
She’s daydreaming again.
A scribble on the document in a moment of absent mindedness, the name appears without a second thought—Beidou.
A furtive glance around her quarters, Ningguang squashes down a rather undignified squeak as she realizes what she has done. Sickeningly sweet, my thoughts of her consume me to a point where I can no longer think straight. She looks down at the scroll of parchment and the light etchings that stare back at her. Accusatory, unrelenting. Almost as stalwart as that gaze from the night of the Lantern Rite.
She brings her quill back down to the paper—Captain Beidou. Captain Beidou, accompanied by a heart. Captain Beidou, light and fluffy scribbles around the edges. Beidou—superfluous script. Ningguang covers her mouth with her hand, her quill falling to the desk with a noisy clatter.
Fuck. That was the third document she had messed up today.
—
Another council meeting, she wishes she could return to her bed. Her subconscious eludes her, keeping dreams from another lonely night.
Keqing is yelling—passionately, strongly worded persuasion—from her place in the room about the building permits that Ningguang had signed off on regarding a special something something Alcor something something budget something something—Beidou.
Ningguang, caught in another fit of daydreaming once more. She’s drawing Beidou’s face this time. Should she draw her smiling? Laughing? She pauses in thought as Keqing’s voice fades into the background and Ningguang’s thoughts cycle through the various expressions of a certain Caption that she has imprinted into her mind. What about… what about that sultry look—smouldering—from the sight of Ningguang in that dress on the night of the Lantern Rite?
Ningguang inhales shakily. Mmm. That look… that look that said—she needed to give Keqing her attention.
NINGGUANG.
—
She lays in her bed at night, staring at the ceiling overhead.
Ningguang can’t sleep. The silk sheets that cover her slide and shift, creasing with her discontent. Where is her mind again—oh, Beidou.
It had been but a simple round around the docks—checking on imports, quelling the arguments over tariffs. There, Ningguang sees her in the distance. She’s minding her own business, unlike Ningguang. Talking to the more unsavory looking sailors, perhaps dabbling in affairs that are less than legal in the light of day. Yet, Ningguang turns a blind eye to these dealings. Pretends she doesn’t know about Beidou’s work within the black market.
Why are you so soft on her?
She’d rather have the softness of another body beside her instead.
—
Hasty scrawling on a scrap of paper from this morning—N+B—a heart, with an arrow through the center.
—
Ningguang watches Beidou as they sit in her office, a game of chess laid out before them.
Ningguang—lovesick, desperate, pining—pretending she isn't salivating behind her steely gaze. Beidou, shoulders slouched, hunched over and biting on her lower lip as she contemplates her next move. She looks so relaxed when the two of them are alone like this. Like she actually enjoys Ningguang’s company, rather than having everyone else believe the opposite.
It’s almost as if she’s trying to hide their relationship from the whole of Liyue. Their relationship… what is their relationship? Surely, they are nothing more than business partners? Long term associates? Acquaintances from a distant past? Ningguang depended on Beidou, trusted Beidou. And yet, the pirate captain always seemed to act as if she were above Ningguang in some way whenever the two of them were in the public eye.
As Beidou scratches the back of her head, Ningguang leans over to grab her pipe and pack it with fresh tobacco. Your move… Captain.
Beidou bristles.
Her heart skips a beat.
—
Like a schoolgirl doodling their names in the margins of important documents. Sometimes she draws Beidou. Some pieces carry more intention than others. Beidou with her characteristic grin, Beidou indulging Ningguang’s wit and actually laughing at something that she says. She draws them holding hands, crude stick figures befitting the art skills of a child. Hearts in the deepest shades of red.
…As she stares at the mess of documents that she’s ruined today, Ningguang simply sighs to herself and massages her forehead. She should really invest in a diary or a journal at this point.
—
The snow that falls over Liyue only carries one secret—a name—for the desperate and clamoring merchants below—the Tianquan is in love.
—
Aboard the Alcor, she finds herself alone in Beidou’s quarters.
She’s here to play chess of course. What else would she be doing? Not envisioning doing anything more with Beidou, of course. Preposterous. Ningguang was above such uncouth behavior. …No, I’m not.
Ningguang twiddles her fingers, ignoring the anxious clicking of her nail guards as they clack against one another. She’s been in Beidou’s room before; there was no reason to be anxious or nervous. She was simply here to play chess. Play chess, hm?
Her eyes drift to Beidou’s bed. She’d rather be playing something else.
—
Should she send Beidou gifts? Surely… that would convey her interest in some way. After all, Beidou seems oblivious to everything else that Ningguang has done to convey her attraction. Her yearning. Her pining. Her longing. Her desperation. Rex Lapis, help her.
Beidou wouldn’t care for flowers, would she? Does she even like flowers? What about glaze lilies, the most sapphic flower in all of Liyue?
She draws Beidou with a glaze lily tucked behind her ear.
There’s always alcohol, Ningguang supposes. Beidou’s penchant for it and all that nonsense. Perhaps she can gift Beidou one of the finer bottles she’s been saving for a special occasion. Or, they could share it together. Ningguang would invite her to the Jade Chamber to talk business—the business of wanting them to be together.
Ningguang would pour a glass, press it to Beidou’s lips. Lean forward, catching the remnants of the liquid on her tongue.
—
She begins a diary.
Beidou, Beidou, Beidou. Ningguang, Ningguang, Ningguang.
Beidou and Ningguang. The Tianquan and the Captain. The Jade Chamber and the Alcor. Heaven and Earth.
N+B, B+N. Ningbei. Beiguang.
Cheeks burning with shame, she shoves it under her pillow. Cursing herself for her neediness and desperation for something that will never be.
—
They’re in Mondstadt and Beidou is being rough with her words again.
Ningguang crosses her arms over her chest and the poker face drops before she can control herself—which she never can when it comes to Beidou. She pouts. Ningguang actually pouts as she stares Beidou down from the other side of the table.
Shit. Beidou backtracks, laughing amicably and offers to pay. She doesn’t like that look that Ningguang’s giving her. She looks like a pissed off cat that’s ready to tear her to shreds. Her eyes lower to Ningguang’s nail guards—and with claws. Very sharp claws.
They drink. Engage in nostalgic and easy-going conversation, the previous gaff already forgotten. Ningguang waxes poetic once more, speaking of Beidou with the adulation that seems to always go over the pirate captain’s head. Beidou just stares blankly at her and asks—You’re not mocking me, are you?
For all of Beidou’s ability to read people… Ningguang, somehow, remains illegible.
—
A hike into the mountains in the light of the moon.
She trails three paces behind Beidou, not accustomed to such rigorous activity. Beidou patiently waits for her however, hands on her hips and a soft look in her eyes.
There’s quiet, silence as they traverse through the forests of a foreign land. Nothing save for the chirping of insects and the grumbling of hilichurls sleeping in their camps in the distance. They pass through, undisturbed. There’s no need to incite violence when they seek calm.
Ningguang finds herself faltering as they near the precipice and Beidou extends a hand to pull her along. Her hand closes over Ningguang’s own, firm and warm. Ningguang feels as if she’s forgotten how to breathe, her world descends into warm hues of pink and opaque bubbles as she stares at Beidou pulling her forward. We’re only holding hands for fucks sake.
As they stand side by side at the precipice, Beidou leaves her side for a moment and returns, a cheeky grin on her face. Ningguang looks down at the offering Beidou has in her hand—a Cecilia.
…For you.
—
She scribbles in her diary by the light of candle on the Alcor at night. The Cecilia rests within the binding, waiting to be pressed into the blank pages it rests on. Ningguang brings the flower to her nose, sniffing gently before resisting the urge to squeal in undignified girlish glee. She presses the flower into the pages of her diary, snapping the book shut.
Beidou. Beidou. Beidou. Captain Beidou. Beidou.
Beidou, my love. No.
…Beidou, my Captain—one singular heart.
|
The UA grounds were still charred to a lifeless rot of brown. The trees, if they had branches left at all, were leafless and their bark burnt. The lawn no longer gleamed Katsuki’s second favourite shade of green. No students loitered, despite curfew having not yet arrived. It was simply the barren remains of an un-won battle.
This is what his quirk wrought: death.
Dusk neared. Getting Izuku to breathe normally, and then getting to UA had taken up most of the afternoon. Actually getting inside UA had been concerningly easy, a fact which Katsuki chalked up to the knowledge that their traitor principal had no real interest in protecting the school and students. The thought made him so angry that he could very literally explode.
At least it made their lives easier, if only marginally. The real challenge came next.
How were they supposed to explain all this to their peers and mentors?
From the beginning, an annoyingly sincere voice whispered in the back of his head, sounding suspiciously like Izuku. Though he loathed to admit it, Katsuki knew that he couldn’t hope to place faith in his friends without first giving them the truth.
Truth. The word tasted heavy on his tongue. It felt like he’d been lying too long to even speak honestly, except to Izuku. But with Auntie Inko’s life hanging in the balance, there was nothing Katsuki wouldn’t do. Still, his stomach churned at the thought of how his confession was going to be received.
Eijirou would hate him. Murder was most certainly not manly. Katsuki pretended the thought of losing him didn’t feel like a grip around his throat. Mina and Denki may not outwardly scorn him, but he could already picture the revulsion in their eyes. And he’d already lost Hanta. So, he’d lose some of the only people who ever really knew him and loved him anyway.
It didn’t matter. It couldn't. As long as they helped find Inko Midoriya, then it would have to be worth it. Losing Auntie was not an option, not for Katsuki and certainly not for Izuku.
Oh, he’d also be kicked from the Hero program, making all their sacrifices mute in the end. Cool. Fucking whatever. This was all fucking fine.
A rough palm brushed along his arm, breaking his chain of thought, “Kacchan?”
The nerd was holding it together as well as he could. Ever impressive, the only thing that betrayed his inner turmoil was the occasional twitch of Blackwhip – smoky tendrils reaching for someone it couldn’t find. Katsuki knew Izuku like he knew how to throw a right hook though, so he knew that pressure was pushing at the seams. He could feel the undercurrent of angry, nervous energy. He could see the way Izuku's eyes darted around frantically, and how he kept clenching and unclenching his fists.
Fuck. Katsuki needed to stop this self-pity shit. Izuku needed him.
“Into the beast’s belly?” He asked.
“Aizawa sensei isn’t that scary.”
Katsuki raised his brow, you sure about that?
“… Maybe,” Izuku chuckled, still not quite himself, but a semblance of it. Katsuki felt every organ in his body physically flip. His boy was a marvel. His resilience was unmatched. Of fucking course all of this would be worth it. Anything for this boy.
Jerking his head in the direction of their dorm, Katsuki reached out his hand. As always, Izuku didn’t hesitate to reach back, clasping them together.
They managed a single step towards their destination before UA’s alarm started squealing.
Barely suppressing the urge to roar, Katsuki looked over at a befuddled Izuku, who was steadily losing his control over Blackwhip, which shot out and snaked itself around Katsuki’s waist. He swotted at it, and it dissolved into a smoky wisp.
Izuku was still looking dumbfounded, “Did we…?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, we’ve been on the grounds for a while now and nothing happened.”
“But that means …”
Their dorm was only about 600 metres from where they were. 600 metres of scorched land stood between their friends and them. They could cover that distance in no time at all if they had the right motivation.
“It means we’re not the only ones breaking the rules tonight.”
~~~
Izuku would like to say that he was doing his damned best. He had calmed down. He was following Katsuki’s instructions to the letter. He was refraining from outright screaming and tearing down entire cityscapes. Really, he was doing his best.
So, when UA’s stupid security system started up, you’ll forgive him for his immediate reaction. Because his first thought wasn’t his most upstanding.
He did not think with concern for his friends or the other patrons of UA. He was not suddenly possessed with a hunger to hunt down the threat to his school. His first thought came to him clearly, and slapped him silly with its selfishness. It was this: We don’t have fucking time for this.
Worse still was that he stood by that thought. His mother was All Might knows where, possibly hurt and definitely afraid. He was no closer to finding her than he was to being ranked No. 1 hero this year. He was about to say such concerns to Katsuki. Perhaps they should go find her just the two of them. But then they heard a familiar shout.
“You!” The cry tore through air like dagger through flesh. It was wretched and pained and much louder than should be necessary.
Izuku didn’t have the luxury of being selfish anymore, because he knew that voice. Shouto. He wasn’t the only one who recognized the gravelly tone, because Katsuki frowned and said, “Wasn’t that IcyHot?”
Incapable of standing idly by, they ran towards the dorms, the way of the shout. As they approached, it became obvious that something major was unfolding. The telltale noises of a scuffle echoed in the air in bangs and whirs and grunts of pain. Izuku could hear the hiss of flames grow louder with each step they took.
Then, just as they turned the final corner towards their dorm, the distinct yell of their teacher rose above everything.
“Get back! You are not to engage him.” Aizawa was livid, eyes wide open as he glared at his opponent. For a moment, Izuku thought the teacher had been yelling at them, but then he spotted Shouto, Eijirou, Denki and Hitoshi standing behind him, each in a fighting stance, Shouto with blood trickling down his arm.
The enemy was partially hidden in a cloud of smoke, a curtain of cobalt flames. The camouflage didn’t last long though. Dabi emerged, hands by his sides. He didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. Behind him, a small, white shape. Izuku squinted. Nedzu. Their principal stood there, calm as ever, watching the scene. Incidentally, it was he who saw them first.
“Oh look! Young Midoriya and Bakugou have returned to us at last.”
All eyes fell on Izuku and Katsuki. Eijirou and Denki shouted out to Katsuki. Even Hitoshi’s consistently stoic façade slipped a little. The shock must’ve been even great enough to force a blink out of Aizawa, because Dabi was suddenly charging at them, fire dancing around him.
“I wouldn’t,” Nedzu started, but seemed to think better of it, shrugging as Dabi hurled himself at them.
“Ready for rematch, little brat?” Dabi sang, grinning maniacally as he sped at Izuku.
We don’t have fucking time for this, Izuku thought once more, as he darted right. He didn’t check, but he knew Katsuki charged left. Two steps out they shifted direction, and met in the middle, where Dabi waited. Izuku felt the familiar electric current run through his leg as he kicked at Dabi’s knees. Katsuki swung arm forwards at Dabi’s shoulder, sparks igniting at his fingertips.
To his credit, Dabi was fast. He jumped backwards, narrowly avoiding a pair of broken kneecaps, and making space for Katsuki’s explosion to hit Izuku instead. Unfortunately for him, fighting both Katsuki and Izuku at once was not something a person just jumped away from. Before detonation, Izuku beckoned Blackwhip. The tendril shot out and grabbed Dabi around his middle and tugged him back. Katsuki grinned, the split-second delay let him bring his other hand to join the first, and as soon as Dabi was in range … Boom.
“You’re not that hot, blue bastard!” Katsuki screamed.
Dabi scrambled backwards, his melting skin scorched but otherwise unharmed. Aizawa and Shouto were waiting for him. Shouto was entirely enraptured with his brother. His eyes were cold but he moved like coals burned under his feet. Aizawa looked only exasperated.
Before either party could strike though, a black hole rimmed with purple opened in the air near the principal. A moment of hesitation, then Aizawa slung his weapon towards Nedzu instead. The creature stepped aside, the scarf slapping the ground next to him. Before Aizawa could chance another throw, Dabi had slung a wall of flames up between them.
“Kurogiri, you are late,” Nedzu said, as if this were a dentist appointment. He didn’t even spare them a second glance as he stepped towards the portal.
“How could you do this? We all trusted you,” Aizawa asked.
Nedzu looked lazily over his shoulder, “The League and I have a common enemy.” He had his creepy smile on, like he was trying to make the expression look natural on his face and failing miserably. He stepped into the portal. Dabi went to follow.
Seeing this, Shouto screamed again and made a final play. He encased himself in an armour coating of ice and leapt through the fire. Dabi watched him with curious eyes, and as his brother approached him, Dabi flung a fireball at his feet. Shouto dodged, but in doing so allowed Dabi the moment he needed to disappear into the portal.
Shouto dived again, but the portal had vanished with a small pop. A fist of ice and a fist of fire pounded against the dirt instead. Izuku ran over to him, ignoring all else. But certainly not being ignored.
“Problem children!” Aizawa began, “Where have you –“
He didn’t finish, cut off by an approaching stampede of shouts from behind a nearby building.
“The holding cell has been breached!” “Nedzu is gone!” “Is that smoke?” “Over there! By the dorms!”
Aizawa hissed under his breath, “Shit.” Then he rounded on his students. His scarf whipped like a lasso over Izuku and Shouto and tossed them backwards. Then, it similarly snatched Katsuki up too. He dumped the three of them unceremoniously by the other group of students, “Hide them; Keep them quiet!”
Again upright, Shouto snaked his arms around Izuku, one hand coming to rest over his chest, the other pulled lightly over his mouth. Blood smeared across Izuku’s shirt from Shouto’s injured arm.
“Oi!” Katsuki snapped, but before he could do anything, he too had been scooped into Eijirou’s arms, Denki reaching up to cover his mouth with his hands. A little shell-shocked by their sudden kidnapping, the group managed to pull them into the dorm’s genkan and out of sight without them causing much of a fuss. Hitoshi slammed the doors shut behind them.
Ignoring his own ‘captor’ was pretty easy. Izuku was certain he could break Shouto’s hold on him if he tried. In fact, he could feel Shouto’s hands shaking where they touched him. Also, he was pretty sure Shouto would let go on his own accord if Izuku showed any sign of discomfort.
More concerning to him was Katsuki’s muffled protests. He was thrashing in Eijirou’s arms, trying to get loose. Eijirou seemed to have hardened his upper body, not flinching at the errant elbows smashing into him. Still, Katsuki wasn’t one to give up. His face was a deep red, almost the colour of his eyes as he looked – or glared, rather – at Shouto. He shook his head, trying to loose himself from Denki’s hands. Suddenly, Denki pulled away with an offended hiss, “You bit me!”
Katsuki didn’t look apologetic in the slightest. Actually, he didn’t look at Denki at all. His eyes were trained firmly on Shouto’s limbs wrapped around Izuku. Oh dear. He was going to yell. Not a moment later, Katsuki yelled, “Keep your fucking hands to yourself, bastard! Get off him!”
Another time, Katsuki’s little possessive outcry may have flattered Izuku. May have made him blush or squeak. But now … We don’t have fucking time for this.
Denki leapt back towards Katsuki to try and cover his mouth, but Katsuki jerked his head violently back to avoid being silenced.
“Shut up, you moron!” Hitoshi seethed.
Whipping his head around to glare at his newfound enemy, Katsuki replied, “What di-”
A milky white dripped into his eyes and Katsuki fell quiet, his body going limp in Eijirou’s arms. It took a moment for Izuku to realise what had happened, and during that moment, a white hot flash of panic rippled through his body. Then it hit him: brainwashing. Hitoshi had brainwashed him. His panic twisted instantly into rage. A physical grip on Katsuki was one thing, but to take ahold of his autonomy?
Let him go!
Three tendrils of Blackwhip launched out at once, smacking hard into the shoe racks as they raised behind him, cloaking him in shadows. Shouto made a stuttering sort of gasp and dropped him at once. Then, chaos. The arms shot forward, moving almost of their own accord and unstoppably fast. If you looked closely, you could see slivers of green electricity crackling in the mist. The first tendril smashed hard in Eijirou, knocking him back. The grip around him now loosened, the second arm was able to wrap around Katsuki and pull him backwards towards Izuku. The third tendril, a little darker than the other two, pinned Hitoshi to the ground.
The strand holding Katsuki deposited him in Izuku’s arms, bridal style, and then dissolved. Hitoshi’s hold broken, the dazed look in Katsuki’s eyes cleared. Meanwhile, Izuku gently put his feet back on the ground, but kept an arm snug around his waist. Izuku pressed his pointer finger to his own lips, asking Katsuki to stay quiet. Coming back to his senses, he began gulping down air in stuttering gasps, eyes darting around before finally landing on Izuku. The whir of rage in Izuku's chest stilled.
The arm of Blackwhip that had pushed Eijirou slunk back to Izuku's side, and the end of it stroked Katsuki’s cheek absentmindedly as it too disappeared into the ether.
Now, the only sound in the room was the huffs of the six boys, each of whom was breathing heavily for one reason or another. A volatile tension strained in the air, keeping them all statue-still, as theirs minds whirred and hearts beat angrily in their chests. Each looked like they were inwardly screaming, not sure what move to make next.
Shouto was hunched over and finally applying pressure to the wound on his arm. He was undoubtedly reeling after seeing Dabi now that he knew he was his brother. Eijirou and Denki were staring at Katsuki, like they wanted to embrace him, like they wanted to give him a good thump on the head but were thrown off by the spontaneous calamity between them all. Hitoshi was still pinned to the floor by a threatening whip. He seemed to have resigned himself to this fate, and was lying flat on his back, looking annoyed. And as previously mentioned, Izuku had pressed Katsuki close to him, both of their eyes were wide and seeing only each other.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. They only breathed.
In the end, none of them breached the bizarre pause. Aizawa sensei approached the door, and they could make out his angry words to who must’ve been the rest of UA’s faculty, “I told you. If Midoriya and Bakugou were here, I didn’t see them. And if you really think that those boys are working alongside the League after risking their lives time and time again to defend our school and students against them, then I think you should reconsider your careers in education. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get back to my students, who once again have had to face off against an undue threat. Go secure the perimeter.”
Izuku could feel Katsuki’s heart, beating against his chest in time with his own. Their teacher was defending them. Protecting them. Maybe coming back hadn’t been an entire waste of time.
Outside, there was a mumble of disgruntled protests and shuffling feet. Aizawa spoke up again, “Yagi. Mic. With me.”
The moment between those words and the door finally opening felt torturously long. Izuku considered running, despite coming here specifically to talk to these people. Probably, he only managed to stay still because Katsuki was so solid beside him.
The door creaked, and Aizawa, All Might and Present Mic shuffled in, one-by-one so as to keep the door mainly closed.
He locked eyes with All Might first, who sucked in a deep breath and sagged over in relief after taking in Izuku’s and Katsuki’s relatively unharmed forms. He looked even more frail than Izuku remembered him, less of the world’s greatest hero, more a man.
Present Mic stopped mid-step to stare at them all, eyes scanning the overturned shoe racks, Hitoshi on the floor, Shouto’s bleeding arm, Aizawa’s still exasperated but unsurprised glare and finally coming to rest on Izuku and Katsuki.
“What in fresh heavens happened to your hair?” Mic asked.
At that, Eijirou and Denki burst into laughter, and finally the tense energy between them dissolved.
In a blur of red and yellow, Katsuki was tugged from Izuku’s side and into a crushing hug from his friends. Katsuki caught his eye through the mass of limbs and grimaced. Izuku just shrugged back, and with the acknowledgement that he wasn’t getting rescued this time, Katsuki succumbed, throwing his arms over his friends’ backs.
“Midoriya,” Shouto’s gravely voice came from behind him, “Sorry for grabbing you. I’m happy to see you’re okay.”
“I too am happy that you’re okay,” All Might stepped towards him, a little cautious but smiling, “And I believe I have some apologies of my own to make.”
Izuku thought that maybe he ought to feel some sense of solace or joy or comfort in everyone’s lack of hostility. Perhaps he did deep down, but a certain kind of mania had set in since he’d walked away from the Commission’s office, away from his mother. It was all he could do not to lose all semblance of sanity. Niceties would have to wait.
“Hugs and kisses have to wait. The pair of you need to explain yourselves,” Aizawa said, and Izuku sighed a breath of relief that their teacher remained to be one of the only logical people on campus. The man was currently standing by Hitoshi, having helped him up. “Where on Earth have you two been? What is going on with you both?”
Izuku looked at Katsuki, and found him already looking back. They nodded at each other, and Izuku spoke, “It’s a long story.”
~~~
Aizawa had led them through the empty common room and towards the Staff Only section of the building. As they walked, Aizawa succinctly described how Nedzu had been put in UA's holding cells after Shouto had explained to he and All Might what Izuku had seen. Apparently, other members of staff had been less than pleased, given that the only evidence against the then-principal had been the word of a teenage fugitive. Evidently, after the little breakout that the League had just staged, such concerns had changed shape and now there were worries that Nedzu, Izuku and Katsuki were all in with the League.
Katsuki tried to keep himself from spontaneously combusting. He managed. Just.
Izuku quickly explained that his mother was missing and that he suspected the Commissioner. All Might and Mic seemed a little dubious, but Katsuki noticed that Aizawa sensei seemed to immediately believe them. In turn,He couldn’t particularly pinpoint the feeling that evoked in him, but it was warm. Eijirou and Denki flanked him as they walked, grinning each time he caught their eyes. He could name the feeling that that evoked in him. Fear. Fear that it wouldn’t last after this talk.
The group made it to what was clearly a teacher’s lounge, complete with two long couches facing each other, a coffee table between them, as well as a decked out kitchenette. Had circumstances been different, Katsuki would’ve been quite impressed with the teachers’ little haven.
Aizawa gestured for them all to sit, which they did. Hitoshi balanced himself on the armrest of the couch. Izuku took the end near him, and Katsuki shoved forwards to sit next to him. Eiji and Denks squished in beside them. Present Mic sensei had led Shouto towards a cabinet, and seemed to have pulled some bandages out.
Aizawa took a seat on the other couch. All Might joined him. The pair didn’t waste any time. Aizawa looked at Izuku, calmly but extremely serious, “I need you to explain how you’ve reached a point that you think the Commissioner has kidnapped your mother, because it’s very clear to me that I’m missing crucial plot points. What did you know of Aoki before his death? You said you killed him. I need to know why, when, and how.”
His hands were shaking, so Katsuki clenched them into fists and pressed them into the top of his thighs. He looked at Izuku, who seemed to be thinking about how to respond, and he knew in his heart that Izuku would lie for him. Would come up with a story that left Katsuki relatively uninvolved. He wouldn’t even fault Katsuki for staying quiet.
Don’t flinch. Don’t run away. Not anymore. Fight, Katsuki.
“Izuku didn’t kill anyone,” He said, relieved that his voice didn’t shake.
“Kacchan …” Izuku whispered, but Katsuki shook his head.
All eyes on him, Katsuki breathed deeply, and consciously uncurled his fists. He didn’t know where to look. Usually, he’d find his solace in Izuku, but he wasn’t looking for a pardon this time. His eyes finally came to rest on All Might, who looked more confused than upset. His hero. He gulped, trying to wet his dry throat, “I –”
“Wait!”
Denki had thrown his hands out. The surprise nearly made Katsuki jump out of his seat. What could possible possess Denki, of all people, to stop him.
“We should wait for everyone else,” Denki said, “So you don’t have to explain twice.”
For a split second, everyone’s shared confusion kept them silent. Then, Aizawa sensei said, “Kaminari, the only reason I’ve allowed you four to be here is because I suspected we didn’t have time for the argument that would surely follow if I tried to send you away.”
Blinking with such a sweet ignorance, Denki replied, “Well, I wished you’d have mentioned that before..”
“Before what?” Aizawa asked, wariness colouring his question.
Denki opened his mouth to respond, but the door swung open before he could. Mina basically fell over the threshold in her haste to get inside.
“Kats! Mido!” She threw herself onto the couch and over their legs, arms flinging around them in what could only be described as a very uncomfortable hug. “Your hair looks terrible!” She said, and Katsuki realised then that she was crying, her arms trembling slightly.
A sharp pang tugged at his heart, and he rested his chin softly on top of her head, patting her back in what he hoped was a comforting manner, “Calm down… I’ve only been gone two days Pinky.”
“It feels like months!” She released Katsuki as she spoke so she could lean over to squeeze Izuku’s arm. He gave her a tight-lipped smile back.
With the door left open, they could hear the pounding of rapid footsteps coming for them. Not a minute after Mina, Tenya had burst through, engines in his legs smoking, Ochako in his arms, Tsuyu clinging to his back.
The trio cried out when they saw them, and the couch pile-up piled up higher. Elbows and gangly legs jammed into Katsuki’s side as Ochako grabbed at Izuku, crying just as much as Mina was.
“Deku-kun,” she sobbed, “We would’ve helped you!” She said something else, but it was almost entirely muffled as she pressed her face into Izuku’s shoulder. Izuku hugged her back, but his smile was strained, his dimples not as deep as they normally went. He wasn’t okay. Katsuki knew that Auntie Inko’s missing status was the only thing that Izuku could really concentrate on.
He, with great effort, pulled his hand free of the tangle of limbs and placed it lightly in Izuku’s curls. They were a bit knottier than normal, the dye having removed some of natural silkiness.
Before he could say anything, he heard a new sniffling from his other side, and found Eijirou tearing up. A bit delayed, but Katsuki felt his fondness for all of these idiots flare up.
At the door, the rest of the class was shuffling in, a mixture of emotions painting their faces. Hanta trailed near the back of the group, deep lines of exhaustion etched on his face. Katsuki’s felt a stab of regret bury itself in his chest as he looked at him.
“What is going on?” Aizawa asked, sounding more frustrated than truly angry, “How did you know we were here?”
Denki poked his head up from amongst the messy jumble of bodies on the couch, “Oh! I texted Mina.”
“And I texted everybody,” She said, wiping the last of her tears away and forcing a space between Denki and Eijirou on the couch.
All Might tried to disguise a chuckle as a cough, which started a real coughing fit. Groaning, and thumping the hero on the back, Aizawa turned his gaze back to Katsuki, “You were about to tell us something.”
The class immediately quieted. Katsuki’s short-lived security bubble, built upon being surrounded by everyone again, popped. “Yes, I was.”
He glanced over at Izuku, who shook his head slightly, creasing his eyebrows. You don’t have to do this.
A slight nod was all Katsuki could return. Yes, I do.
A chill seeped through his veins, trickling down his neck, stinging his fingertips and toes, making breathing difficult. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but again it didn’t shake, “It started this summer.”
Every time he got to a particularly gruesome or vulnerable point in the tale, he could feel the flare of energy next to him; he could see flashes of green twinkling in his periphery; he could sense Blackwhip hover behind him. A hysteric part of Katsuki wanted to laugh. He had his very own guard dog.
His classmates and mentors, as it turned out, were very attentive listeners. As he regaled the saga, nobody uttered a word, though there had been a fair few gasps and gulps throughout. The group had shifted, so they weren’t all over each other. The couch was still overcrowded, seating Ochako, Izuku, Eijirou, Mina and Denki and himself. Hitoshi had relinquished the armrest to Tsuyu, and taken to standing behind the couch listening, joined by Tenya, Hanta and Shouto. The rest of class had made themselves comfortable by the kitchen island, on stools or on the bench itself.
Katsuki told them almost everything, down to the tiniest detail – bar two. He did not mention that it had been Izuku’s idea to hide Aoki’s body, and he did not describe the part Izuku played in the actual disposal. If the aggressive flicks of Blackwhip were anything to go by, Izuku disapproved. Katsuki couldn’t bring himself to care.
Finally, as the story caught up to the present, there was a brief and beautiful moment of silence.
But it was only a moment.
A snarl slithered around the room, and Shouto was suddenly speaking, “And you are just now speaking up?! You were going to let him take the fall?”
“No!” Katsuki protested, though he could see how it looked.
Tenya looked purple, “It was you, all along… You started all this?”
Tsuyu made a tutting noise, “Tenya-kun, we agreed that Izuku would have had his reasons for doing this. We should treat Katsuki-kun with the same courtesy.”
Denki chimed in, twisting himself to face Tenya, “Yeah mate, back off. You heard what he said. It was a rough situation. Baku and Mido did what they thought they had to. It could have been any of us.”
Hisses of dissent and nods of agreement seemed to appear in equal amount. Aizawa remained quiet, watching the class’s reaction carefully. All Might’s hands were clenched together, his eyes downcast. Present Mic’s brow was creased, not in anger, but in thought.
His own mind was racing. He had thought … hoped … confessing might have brought him just a sliver of peace. If the heavy weight clogging the area around his heart was any indication, it had not. A man was still dead. No matter how hard he washed his hands, blood would forever stain them.
Still, it was not the time for guilt. He couldn’t afford to let his own miserable thoughts gets in the way of helping Auntie. He geared up to defend himself further, but before he even had the chance, Izuku glowed green.
“We don’t have time for this,” Though he spoke barely louder than normal, his voice sliced through all other noise. “My mother is missing. I do not give a fuck about who is right or wrong.” He turned to face Aizawa and All Might. “Either help us, or we are leaving.”
There was a quiet, collective gasp at Izuku swearing. Katsuki mentally smacked his hand to his forehead. This wasn’t the time to be making enemies of their allies.
Aizawa quirked an eyebrow, “You think I’d let you leave again?”
The glowing evolved into spurts of lightning, “Do you think you could stop me?”
God damn it, Zu. That’s not how you make friends.
Unfortunately, even if this wasn’t the method Katsuki would have picked to try and garner help, Izuku had committed to the threatening route. Not much to be done about it now. Nobody else needed to know his disapproval. Ride or die, right?
He faced his hands upwards, letting explosions spit out from his palms. He grinned wildly at Aizawa, “Forget him. You’d have to fight me.”
Their teacher looked about ready to thump them, “Oh my go-.”
“Me too!” Ochako said, reaching for Izuku’s hand. Unfortunately, a little spark of electricity inadvertently spurted off in her direction. Barely missing a beat, Ochako instead slid her hand into Katsuki’s, and stared defiantly at Aizawa. She didn’t seem to get the whole threatening vibe because she was smiling sweetly, but Katsuki felt a surge of affection for her nonetheless.
Tsuyu slipped her arm through Izuku’s, ignoring the sputters of electricity. She nodded at Katsuki and Ochako, then turned her gaze to Aizawa too.
The rest of the class seemed to be in a similar mind. Katsuki felt Eijirou’s hand thump onto his shoulder, and when he looked down the line, Mina and Denki were both linked together too. “Come on, Aizawa!” Denki yelled.
Tenya, Shouto and Hanta stood up straighter, chins tilted back. This trio definitely caught onto the threatening aura that Katsuki was trying to sell. They looked absolutely ready to fight. And while Izuku and himself were undoubtedly the most formidable, he certainly didn’t think fighting alongside those brawny three would decrease chances of victory.
Hitoshi had crossed his arms, watching them with an amused smile, “I’m with you both too. But for the record, you’re all idiots if you think Sensei is going to stand against you.”
The sentence caught Katsuki off guard, and his head whipped back around to where Aizawa sat.
The man looked entirely unimpressed. He rolled his eyes at them, “We’re going to help you, Problem Children. No need to be so dramatic.”
~~~
Not long after Katsuki’s confession, Izuku had found himself trapped in the common room amongst all his peers. Six months ago, he was sure he’d have been having a marvellous time. Today, he was one flippant remark away from blowing a hole in the wall.
Aizawa had led them out there, talking all the while. Fortunately, it seemed their trip here didn’t seem to have been a complete waste, because Aizawa was near certain that they would be able to uncover the whereabouts of his mother. As it turned out, Aizawa and Present Mic had been working independently of the Commission for some years now, a feat only the most respected and fearsome heroes could boast. All Might, on the other hand, was still technically in their employ, and they were going to try and use that to their advantage.
Less fortunately, Izuku wasn’t coping well with being told to stay put.
“And we’re just supposed to wait here?” He seethed.
“For now,” Aizawa answered coolly, “I would suggest you take this time to rest.”
Izuku couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Rest? He glanced at All Might, but the man was doing all he could to avoid eye contact.
He felt his grip on One-For-All slip. He could taste static in the air. He could feel the hair on his arm standing at attention. Quite surely, he could bring the dorm down around them with a single blow for his fist if he wanted. The power was delicious. It was necessary. He’d need it to save his mother. He flexed his fingers and green light surged upwards around him.
“Oi Deku,” Katsuki growled under his breath, “You have to chill out.”
Izuku quirked his eyebrows upwards. Chill out? How was he supposed to do that? And why should he? A wind swirled at his feet, pushing Smokescreen and thin, twisting tendrils of Blackwhip into a tiny, harmless tornado around him. His blood simmered with power. He wanted to go. His mother could be anywhere. She could be hurt. Wild scenarios of what could be happening to her galloped through his head, ranging from practical to exceedingly bleak and unlikely. He felt his feet rise slightly off the ground.
Katsuki clasped his hand, tugging him back down to ground. The wind died out.
Present Mic’s voice yelled out over the crowd, “We will be back as soon as we can little listeners.”
Aizawa caught Izuku’s eyes and then jerked his chin pointedly towards the dorm rooms, “I’m not joking. Rest.” He wasn’t willing to concede defeat, so for a moment he stood there, glaring at his teacher.
He was even less willing, however, to surrender Katsuki’s hand, so when Katsuki pulled him away and towards the dorms, Izuku reluctantly followed.
As they walked, he heard Aizawa’s grumbled whisper to the class, “Don’t leave them unsupervised.”
Gritting his teeth, Izuku stomped away.
Ochako and Shouto had tried to demand that they be allowed to join Izuku and Katsuki inside the dorm room, but some shouts from Katsuki, backed by a shroud of Smokescreen and a few errant streaks of lightning quickly put that idea to bed. Nonetheless, Izuku could feel the trail of the class behind him, watching him. They made their way to Katsuki’s room, unsure as to whether the damage in Izuku’s was ever repaired, and slipped behind the door, shutting their friends out with a soft click.
Within moments, Katsuki had pulled Izuku into his arms. His body was warm and trembling slightly. A wave of guilt crashed over Izuku. He hadn’t even stopped to think about how Katsuki was feeling after the confession. Trying to compensate, he pulled his Kacchan closer, coming just short of what would have literally been a bone-crushing hug. Katsuki’s forehead pushed at the crook between Izuku’s neck and shoulder – halfway between a nuzzle and a head-butt.
“We can run.” Katsuki whispered into his neck, eyes closed, face a little paler than normal, “If you want.”
Izuku would love to lie and say his reply had come easy to him, but it hadn’t. He loved his friends here; he trusted his mentors. But everything in him ached to act, and he knew the only person who could match him in that battle was Katsuki.
But they didn’t even know where his mother was, really.
He swallowed his fears, an oversized pill dragging its way down his throat, “No more running.”
The little puffs of breath against Izuku’s throat let him know that Katsuki had fallen asleep. With a feather light kiss to his brow, Izuku manoeuvred himself out of Katsuki’s hold and quietly left the room.
He’d been correct. Stationed outside the room was Tenya, Eijirou and Hanta. Tenya’s back was pressed straight against the wall, posture intensely perfect. The only indicator that he was asleep was his skewed glasses, and the little wheeze snores coming out of his mouth. Eijirou, on the other hand, was curled up in the hallway, arms flung above his head, looking like the world could flip over and he’d sleep right through it. Awake and standing, Hanta’s arms were crossed over his chest. He looked incredibly tired, and his trademark cheeky smirk was entirely absent. Izuku almost felt a pang of sympathy for him. Almost.
His eyebrows raised up as he met Izuku’s gaze. Where do you think you’re going?
“Needed some air,” Izuku said.
“Cool. I’ll join you.”
Izuku frowned and tried to brush past him, “I think I can manage on my own.”
“Aizawa sensei told us you two aren’t allowed to be left alone. Sorry man,” Hanta said, following him towards the stairs.
“And we all know you’re Aizawa’s little pet now,” Izuku grumbled, taking the steps two at a time, not looking back at the hall monitor. He still heard Hanta’s sharp intake of breath. It pleased him. He couldn't help it. He was so fucking angry. Angry that Hanta had gone behind Katsuki’s back. Angry that some people didn’t see the hero in Katsuki that he did. Angry that Katsuki had downplayed Izuku’s role in their crime. Angry that the League had broken into his school again. Angry that his mother was missing, and he couldn’t do a thing to help her.
The ground floor felt deserted. Everyone had probably already called it a night. Izuku stomped into the kitchen, suddenly parched. Smoke seemed to be escaping from his pores, and he wasn’t sure that his feet were touching the ground as he moved.
Hanta was speed-walking to keep pace with him, “Look, if you have something you need to say, then just say it.”
Izuku couldn’t tell if Hanta was nervous, frustrated or simply resigned. But he had too much energy to know what to do with, so he swivelled on his heel to face him.
“How could you do that to him?” Izuku near-wailed, “He trusted you! Don’t you know how precious that is?”
Hanta shrunk back as if Izuku had slapped him, “I was never trying to hurt Bakugou. He’s my friend. You both are.”
Blackwhip lashed out, like violent lashes against the wall, “And you’re ours! That’s why Kacchan never would have done that to you!”
At that, Hanta surged forwards, braving the wild thrashing tendrils, “Yes, he would’ve!” His voice was strained, loud and cracking, “If it was you in danger, he absolutely would’ve done what I did!” He was taller than Izuku and glared down at him as he yelled. His eyes were glassy, hurt.
Too bad for Hanta, Izuku was equally worked up, “No! He would’ve told you that you were being a moron and then he would’ve stayed by your side anyway!” Izuku screamed. Smoke pooled around their feet; a soft, menacing crackling buzzed around them, little stings of static shock kissing their cheeks. A green fork of lightning struck the ground next to Hanta’s foot. He didn’t seem to notice or care.
“Then he’s an idiot! You weren’t even in prison!” Hanta’s bottom lip trembled, “If I hadn’t said anything then we'd all be in even deeper shit.”
Izuku was dangerously quiet as he replied, “Don’t call Kacchan an idiot.”
A third voice entered the scene, “You two need to quiet down,” Tsuyu popped her head up from the couch, “People are sleeping.”
Neither Izuku nor Hanta would be proud to admit that the both jumped near out of their skins at her sudden appearance. Blackwhip instinctively shot at towards her, only for her to duck and for it to evaporate above her head as Izuku’s brain caught up with his racing heart.
Fixing her big eyes back on both of them, Tsuyu said, “We can’t start fighting amongst ourselves. It would be the end of us.”
It felt like a stand-off between the three of them, each waiting for the others to blink. He didn’t want to admit wrongdoing. He didn’t want to see Hanta’s side of the argument. He just wanted to fight. To feel like he was succeeding in protecting someone, even though he’d so clearly failed to protect his mother. Yet, Tsuyu’s calm seemed to bite away at both Izuku’s and Hanta’s calamity, and soon enough, Izuku felt himself blink.
“Sorry Tsu,” He whispered. Pushing Hanta away from him, he stomped into the kitchen and finally poured the drink he was after. He gulped it down quickly and filled the glass again. Then he grabbed a second glass for Katsuki.
As he began to head back to his room, he turned a final dark look to Hanta, “You need to make it up to him.” He turned and didn’t look back again.
He crept back into Katsuki’s room, and even the sight of his boy sleeping there didn’t cleanse the sour feeling from his body. Aizawa, All Might and Present Mic better come back soon. And they had better bring good news, because Izuku would not be collared here for long.
He curled himself back into Katsuki’s side, praying that he’d sleep, and that he’d dream of sunny afternoons with Katsuki, or of dinners with his mother. He needed the respite from the numbing cold his heart was shelfed on. He closed his eyes, and busied his mind with counting Katsuki’s breaths.
He did eventually sleep, but he dreamt of nothing at all.
|
BLOOD
Techno sat bolt upright. His head was pounding, sweat slick on his skin.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
On instinct, his hand shot toward his knife. It was tucked into his sleeve, kept on him at all times, even when he slept.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
He stumbled up and out of his tent, voices and instincts screaming BLOOD. There was nothing here, nothing here to kill, find BLOOD.
His gaze zeroed in on the tent closest to his. He prowled toward it, eyes alight with the thrill of the hunt.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
He slipped through the canvas flap. His gaze immediately fixed on the sleeping figure spill its blood, BLOOD, kill it kill it kill it kill it
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
The knife in his hand gleamed as he slipped forward, completely silent despite the uneven ground, head tilted to the side as he regarded his prey, kill it BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
It was sleeping, completely at ease, oblivious to the danger right next to it. Its breaths came deep and even from a completely exposed throat, no weapons visible beneath loose clothing, no chance of a struggle, BLOOD
Techno raised the knife.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
The knife hovered in the air. All he had to do was bring it down and the person would be dead. Techno blinked. He blinked again.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
His half-asleep mind finally shook itself the rest of the way awake. Slowly, he took in the knife, followed its point downward with his eyes to where Phil was sleeping.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?
DO IT KILL IT
BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD
KILL IT
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
SPILL HIS BLOOD
KILL IT
BLOOD BLOOD
LET THERE BE DEATH
DEATH AND BLOOD
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
Realization hit him slowly. Horror threatened to choke him as his knees went weak, panic clawing at his chest. And yet- yet, he couldn’t quite bring himself to step away, to- because blood why was he… BLOOD No? BLOOD But Phil- this was Phil- BLOOD he. He didn’t want to, he didn’t- know, understand? BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD Want- why? He.
“Techno?”
He jumped, flinching violently, knuckles going white as his grip tightened on the knife. A pair of startlingly blue eyes met his, the sight jarring enough that he stumbled back BLOOD KILL IT NOW
“...Techno?” Phil asked again, slower. He watched Phil take in the scene, eyes going from him to the knife in his hand, horror and realization dawning, but also confusion and hurt and why blood was Techno here and causing that why what this was Phil, he didn’t want to kill him, didn’t want to hurt him at all but blood no BLOOD but-
“Techno,” Phil asked again, and Techno could see him trembling, see the fear that was etching itself into his face, “Why… why are your eyes red?”
BLOOD
“Look, Techno, I need you to talk to me.” Phil was… was speaking - pleading, even - and Techno needed, he should pay attention but it was so hard, he felt like he was lost in a fog, in a dream. “How about you put the knife down, okay? And we can figure out what’s going on.”
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
Techno’s head felt like it was splitting in half.
Phil was talking and he couldn’t quite make it all out, the words floating past him. He could barely think beyond the pounding rhythm of BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD-
Phil moved.
Techno registered the motion immediately, some hair-trigger reaction instantly going off he’s going to attack he’s going to fight back kill him fight back kill him BLOOD and he moved like lightning. In an instant Phil was on the ground, Techno above him, knife pressing against his throat.
Phil was shaking, and maybe Techno was too, because this was Phil and he didn’t want to kill Phil, didn’t want to hurt him but BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and he didn’t know what to do-
Phil was talking, was saying something, throat bobbing beneath the knife. Techno kept it firmly pressed there, even as Phil spoke, even as it cut into his skin and a single drop of blood made its way down the side of his throat, instantly absorbed by the dry earth as it hit the ground.
YES
MORE
MAKE THE GROUND RED
MAKE HIM BLEED
SO LITTLE BLOOD
MORE
MORE
MORE BLOOD
This was. This was wrong.
The clarity that realization offered was overwhelming. This - hurting Phil, hurting the person who had shown him nothing but kindness, who had taken him in when he had nothing - was wrong.
Techno pulled back.
He stood up. Phil stayed splayed out on the ground, hands open in a gesture of surrender. He didn’t move, didn’t reach for his heck, stayed completely frozen save for his heaving chest.
“Find something else.” Techno rasped, and the voices grew quieter, listening. “Not him. Not Tommy or Wilbur, either. Something else.”
BLOOD
Techno spared one last glance at Phil before he bolted, taking off into the woods that surrounded them.
He awoke surrounded by blood. It wasn’t particularly surprising, but Techno’s shoulders slumped nonetheless, tears of frustration and defeat gathering in his eyes.
The past few hours were a blur. The voices hummed in the back of his mind, finally sated.
Techno felt like he was going to be sick.
He must have found some animal in the woods. Its corpse had been completely desecrated, gouged into and torn apart, blood and other parts scattered around him. It was unrecognizable - a tusk on the ground, several feet away from him, was his only proper hint as to what it might have been.
On shaky legs, Techno stood.
The worst part was the smell. At the North Pole, everything had been cold, frozen. Here, the scent of rot and blood was thick in the air. It was heady and overwhelming and sickening.
He staggered through the underbrush. Bushes poked and clawed at him, thorns digging deep into his skin, but pushed past uncaring. He just wanted out, away, just wanted this nightmare to end.
The sound of running water caught his attention. He turned toward it, pushing his way blindly through the forest. It was a lake, waves lapping gently in a faint breeze. He jumped in without hesitation.
He scrubbed frantically at his skin, leaving his arms red and raw. The water around him was stained red, a cloud that followed him as he moved through the shallows.
His clothes were ruined. They were the ones he had gotten in one of the towns they’d stopped in. Tommy had been the one to pick them out, the one who noticed Techno’s eye snagging on them, who insisted Phil buy them.
Techno had been through enough battles to know some bloodstains never come out.
You are our weapon. The Fire Lord’s words echoed in his ears. They had been spoken the day he’d been made a general, been put in charge of their army. You are the sword that will cut our path to victory. You are the Blade, the strength of the Fire Nation, the mighty executioner’s axe I wield to destroy our enemies.
Violence and bloodshed were all he’d ever been good for. The voices, the Blood God- maybe it had been fate. The universe’s way of telling him he could never escape it, despite having escaped the Fire Nation. Death followed him like a specter, always looking over his shoulder, breathing down his neck. He should’ve known it would only be a matter of him before he hurt someone he cared about.
He emerged from the lake dripping and cold, but the worst of the stench was gone. He chewed on his lip, wrapping his arms around himself.
What was he supposed to do now?
All his things were back at the campsite, not that he had much. The extra sets of clothes, bedroll, and sword would be most missed, though he could start from nothing again if he needed to.
If he was being honest, he had no idea where the camp was, either. Everything he had was courtesy of Phil anyway, and-
Techno pulled the knife out, turning it over in his hands. With a cry, he threw it back toward the lake. It hit the water with a gentle plop, sinking quickly into the depths.
Tears gathered in his eyes. He wanted to go back. He cared about Phil and Wilbur and Tommy, despite only knowing them a few days. He liked them, their companionship, the way Tommy would always sneak around to try and pull pranks, or the way Wilbur would waterbend soup into his mouth instead of using a spoon. He liked playing Pai Sho with Phil, loved the quiet conversations they would share while playing. He liked travelling.
But he had- how could he even think that when he’d nearly killed Phil, and held a knife to his throat and drawn blood? And done it because- because he’d been too stupid, too out of control to even realize what he’d been doing.
What would Phil think of him? What would Tommy, would Wilbur? They’d hate him, undoubtedly, because there was no reason, no rational explanation they would be able to see for what he’d done. Normal people didn’t go and get themselves possessed by spirits.
Did he leave? Did he dare try and apologize?
He should - he wanted to go back. He would apologize and then leave, but he wanted to see Phil one last time, wanted to try and assuage some of the hurt.
He could do that. He owed them that, at least.
Decision made, he stood. He could hardly remember the previous night, all memory lost to the haze of blood and voices, but his path through the woods hadn’t been subtle. He should be able to follow it back.
He had no problem finding the place he’d woken up. The corpse of the animal he’d killed was hardly visible beneath the bugs that swarmed it. Techno swallowed his disgust.
After that, it was relatively simple. Broken branches and deep footprints led him back to camp, a trail that would be obvious even to an untrained tracker.
But when he saw the tents, he hesitated.
They would hate him. He would deserve it, but that wasn’t going to make it hurt any less.
Maybe he should just leave. Maybe that would be easier, a clean break rather than dragging it out.
Then Wilbur emerged and met his eye, and the opportunity was gone.
Wilbur froze. Techno held his hands out in a gesture of peace, mouth going dry. He hadn’t even thought about what to say, how to begin.
Wilbur drew water out of the pouch at his side. It hovered in the air between them, poised to strike, a clear threat.
“Don’t fucking move.” Wilbur hissed. Techno swallowed, dipping his head in acknowledgement.
Danger
What are you doing?
EE
Uhhhhhhhh
He doesn’t look too happy
Maybe we should leave?
What exactly is the plan here
E
“Phil! Tommy!” Wilbur called. Stance defensive, he kept his gaze firmly fixed on Techno. His voice had been hard, but Techno could see his hands trembling, the water quivering in the air.
Phil came up behind Wilbur. He blanched at the sight of Techno, tension written in his rigid posture. Their eyes met, and Techno saw him soften fractionally.
Techno was suddenly acutely aware of his bloodstained clothing, his still-damp hair, the dirt and leaves that clung to him from his time in the forest. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
“I’m sorry.” He said, forcing himself to meet Phil’s gaze, hating the way his voice cracked in the middle. “Phil, I’m so- I’m sorry.”
Both Wilbur and Phil relaxed at that. Wilbur waved his hand, drawing the water back into his pouch, though his gaze was still wary.
“S’ alright, mate.” Phil said softly. “I know spirits when I see ‘em, and I have a feeling what happened wasn’t entirely your fault.”
He shouldn’t get his hopes up, he shouldn’t dare, shouldn’t feel relief, it was only going to get him hurt-
“I can explain.” Techno said, shaking. “I- I’m so sorry, I never thought- I can explain.”
“You better.” Tommy slipped into view. Techno was surprised to see that his eyes were red-rimmed. He glared at Techno with a shadowed gaze.
“I will.” Techno breathed, desperation making him feel faint. Guilt made his chest ache as he looked at Phil.
Phil gestured for him to join them. He took a few cautious steps forward, then started his story.
He told them everything.
The words poured out of him, every secret, all the stories from the past few weeks he thought he’d never tell. The mission, the Northern Water Tribe, the Blood God, the aftermath. The voices.
He told them about Dream. About the betrayal, the cell, his escape. So many secrets, so much he wasn’t supposed to tell, but.
He was a wanted man anyway. There was no point protecting a government that had fallen, no point being loyal to a family that was dead.
At the end of it all, they were quiet. Wilbur’s eyes were wide, Tommy’s wider.
Phil was the first to break the silence.
“Mate, you’ve got to do something about that. The voices. I can’t… I knew you were struggling with something, but I had no idea-”
“What the Tommy cut across him. “I can’t even… what. What. The. Fuck.” Wilbur was shaking, eyes glassy.
“Wait,” Tommy muttered, glancing at the blood on Techno’s shirt. “That’s not… you didn’t…”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” Techno said quickly, sensing the direction of his thoughts. “I think it was some kind of boar? Probably? I can’t really remember.”
“So you- the entire Northern Water Tribe?” Wilbur choked out. “They’re all…?”
Guilt threatened to swallow him whole, tears pricking at his eyes. “”I- I’m sorry.” He whispered, voice raw. Wilbur made some wounded noise and turned away, closing his eyes. Tommy was instantly at his side.
“And there’s no other way to get the- the voices to be quiet?” Phil asked. Techno shook his head.
“No way that I’ve found. Meditation can help, which is why I do it daily, but even that doesn’t always work. Clearly.”
“Okay,” Phil said, and his voice was strained. “Okay, that’s… we can figure this out.”
Techno stared at him in incredulity. “You’re letting me stay here?”
Phil glanced over at Wilbur and Tommy before nodding, giving him a small smile. Techno had the urge to protest, fear already clawing at his throat, but he also wanted to stay, wanted to prove himself. He could control this, he could find a way.
“So killing animals works just as well to make them stop?” Wilbur asked, turned back toward him. Techno nodded, not trusting himself to speak. “Okay.” Wilbur muttered. He wiped surreptitiously at his eyes. Techno pretended not to notice. “Do that then, instead of letting it build up again. Even if it seems cruel, it’s better than- than the alternative.” Than killing one of you.
“Got it.” Techno managed weakly.
“I know a few ways we might be able to help.” Phil mused. Techno could see the gears start turning in his mind, fear slowly draining away as they worked on assessing the problem. “Techno, have you tried going into the spirit world at all?”
“Going- in? To the Spirit World?” Phil nodded, and Techno realized he was being serious. “Uh- no. No I have not.” He paused, tilting his head. “I thought only the Avatar could enter the spirit world willingly.”
Techno knew some spirits could drag people in. That had almost happened to Dream. Dream had never really shared the details of what happened or how he’d gotten into the situation, but Techno had seen the aftermath, and it had been ugly. Spirits… there was a reason Dream was so afraid of them.
“The Avatar is the only person who can enter at any time, from any location.” Phil corrected. “But it is possible for others to do it, too. People who are particularly enlightened, for one. I know a few airbenders that managed to cross the boundary, if only briefly. And there are a few locations where the veil is thinner between the two worlds. Certain times, too - of the week, of the year, solstices, the stage of the moon, eclipses - can all make it easier for crossing.”
“Phil’s really good at all this shit.” Tommy smirked. “Big man, you picked quite possibly, dare I say, the best people to run into when you’re having spirit issues.”
Tommy glanced knowingly at Phil, whose face was flushed red. Even Wilbur looked amused. The interaction had him a little lost, but he wasn’t going to question it.
“So you think I should go to the spirit world?” Techno asked, apprehensive. Phil shook his head.
“Maybe not immediately. There’s a few other options we could try first, just to understand what’s going on with you.”
Techno exhaled, relief flooding him. “Okay...what did you have in mind?”
“The Foggy Swamp isn’t far from here.” Phil mused. Tommy and Wilbur both perked up.
“Yo, we could go see Charlie!” Wilbur said, beaming. Tommy nodded excitedly.
“Dude, Charlie is so cool. Weird as fuck, but cool.” Tommy agreed. “You’re gonna love him.”
“Why are we going to a swamp?” Techno asked. His eyes darted between the three of them in confusion.
“It’s a very spiritual place.” Phil explained. “There are a lot of spirits that chill in there, and the whole place is supposedly alive.”
Techno’s eyebrows shot up. “So why are we going there?”
“Cuz’ Charlie is epic.” Wilbur said. “And because maybe someone there will know something.”
“And you said it was alive-?”
Tommy clapped his hands together excitedly. “To the Swamp!” He shouted, dismissing Techno’s misgivings with a flourish of his hand. Phil just laughed.
“You’ll see when we get there. It’s not anything bad, I promise.”
Tommy and Wilbur exchanged grins. Phil held out a hand, an offering. “What do you say, mate?” He asked. His eyes were gently focused on Techno. They were blue, blue, blue, and Techno was amazed to see such trust in their depths.
Techno took his hand, giving him a weak smile as he stepped forward. Part of him was still incredulous that he was being given this chance, that anyone would be willing to see past what he had done. He didn’t deserve this, their kindness, them, but some selfish part of him told him to stay anyway.
“To the swamp.”
|
Nineteen years of age delivered a scrawny, ignorant boy into the middle of a war zone; his excitement tangible and his thirst for action unquenchable. Eagerness lit up his soft face as Zoro was still several years from proper physical maturity, a trait that was shared amoungst most of the new recruits. All headstrong without a morsel of humility to the dangerous situation they found themselves and the terrors that lay beyond their base.
A six month tour in a relatively safe sector had him returning with joyous intent before having his world shook as he experienced bloodshed for the first time. Getting caught in a bombing, taking part in a raid, watching as a fellow soldier triggered a land mind; laying face down in the dirt with ears ringing, body shaking, earth quaking as he looked up to see the pieces of what was once his comrade.
War had been hell.
Zoro shifted minutely from where he stood leaning against the wall, one leg propped up behind him as his gaze went hazy while he stared at the ground. Assault rifle held carefully in his still youthful hands, keeping the barrel angled lazily down as there hadn't been a sign of danger for days. Taking his turn stationed outside an entry point to the base with very little excitement.
Hand releasing the barrel, he raised a finger to hook under the strap of his helmet and pulled down with a small jerk in an attempt to adjust it. Months spent out in the desert sun had gifted him with a rather prominent tan where the strap sat, having spent more time in his gear than out of it. Sand sat in every crevasse of his clothing and his teeth were forever marred with grit from the dry air.
“Hey Zoro?” A soft voice echoed in his ear.
Coming out of his daze, he raised a heavily gloved hand to press at the ear piece wired into his helmet before responding, “Yeah?”
“Can you come up to the watch for a second?”
“Roger.” Zoro muttered quietly, turning his gaze to the other soldier and giving a small nod to him as he headed inside. They had all spent enough time together the past few months that communicating through physical actions was mostly all they did now.
Weaving his way up the stairs of the make shift watch tower, he eventually arrived at the top and noted another one of his comrades kneeling carefully beside her watch spot. Edging over to where she knelt and taking the same position behind one of the barricades, he grunted softly, “What's up?”
“There's something weird in my scope and I don't want to raise an alarm if it's nothing.” Kuina explained quietly, proffering the larger rifle in Zoro's direction, “Could you confirm for me?”
“Sure.” Zoro took the gun, sitting the stock comfortably against his shoulder as he ducked down to gaze through the scope as he readjusted his sights in the direction Kuina had been investigating. Hand coming up to support the barrel as the other slowly retracted on the grip, “Where exactly?”
“The third hill; sparse shrubbery.” Kuina explained softly, “One large deformed looking bush.”
“Yeah, alright.” Zoro murmured, centring on the location as he kept himself low and hidden behind the rifle so that he remained out of eyesight of any insurgents, “Got it.”
“'Kay, scan to the left.” Kuina ordered leaning in towards Zoro so she could look through the opening in the barricade towards the hillside she was talking about, “Doesn't it look like there's som--”
A loud crack echoed out across the hazy desert as Zoro felt the next few seconds pass in terrifyingly slow motion as he blinked heavily before turning his head to look over at his friend. The whistling which lasted less than a second rung out strong it his ears as it got closer and closer, and a solemn moment hung in the air as she turned to look at him as well.
Gaze meeting Kuina's as he stared into her wide eyes just as the bullet came sailing through the opening in the barricade and penetrated the side of her head. The hauntingly slow motion ending in an instant as what had once been the head of a young, beautiful woman was now splattered all across Zoro's distraught face.
Several seconds passing as Zoro gazed down in horror at the limp headless body at his knees and the massive garnet pool that was forming near her still hemorrhaging esophagus. All matter of human material was soaking into his clothes as the faint taste of copper on his tongue made him aware that he hadn't closed his mouth in time. Hands beginning to shake as his mind began to unravelled, all he could do was slump back against the protective wall behind him as he let out a shuddering gasp.
The ringing refused to fade and everything became blurrier until another soldier was on his knees in front of Zoro, yelling something he couldn't hear as strong hands grabbed his arms and began shaking him. Closing his eyes against the motion as it only continued to worsen before they snapped open again to be met with darkness, a foreign figure, and fear.
Adrenaline coursed through him and had him launching up at the man that was on top of him, all of his military instincts taking hold as the other seemed caught off guard by Zoro's sudden hostility. Not even putting up a fight in his shock before Zoro had him on the ground and his arm crooked into a painful lock as everything began to calm and the only thing echoing throughout the room was his harsh breathing.
“Fuck, Zoro.” A muffled voice grunted into the ground, “Let me go.”
It took several long moments to remember that what had just happened had been a dream and had to drag himself back into the present as he remembered the mission he was on. The mission and the man that was currently pinned underneath him that was his partner. Releasing him abruptly, he pushed himself away as he was still a little shook by what he had just done. Grunting quietly as he frowned to himself, “Sorry.”
“You okay?” Kohza grunted, pushing himself up and flexing his right arm with a wince across his face, “You were panicking pretty hard.”
“It's fine.” Zoro scowled, pushing himself to his feet with a hand to his knee for support and ambling back to his cot. Dropping down into it heavily as he kept his back to the man, “Go to sleep.”
“Sure.” Kohza scoffed, as a faint scuffling alluded to the man making his way back to his own bed as he bit out sardonically, “Lemme get right on that after I pop my elbow back in.”
Zoro ignored him, knowing that Kohza wasn't actually annoyed. as his own thoughts weren't on his partner or how bad he felt for attacking him in a sleep fuelled haze. It was on his dream and the subsequent memory that he hadn't dwelled on for nigh on a decade as it had been best to just bury it and ignore the trauma that had come with it. Unsettled at the newly recollected nightmare and the weird breathlessness that had accompanied it, hand pressing against his chest as a familiar pain ached deep inside.
~X~
Eyes snapping open, Zoro didn't even bother with looking at his alarm clock as he carefully pushed himself out of bed and suppressed a groan of pain as the events of yesterday were finally catching up with him. All of the adrenaline and medication from the day before had effectively worn off in his sleep and his body currently ached in ways that it hadn't since his former career.
Stumbling to his feet, he nabbed the bottle of prescription painkillers off the night table before hobbling into bathroom to relieve himself. After finishing, and washing his hands, he proceeded to pop three into his mouth and swallow them dry as he shrewdly looked himself over with distaste.
A massive bruise stretched the majority of his right side as the moulted skin had gained the coloration of a poorly mixed paint palette; reds, purples, and blues blotching across nearly half his torso. Attempting to move his shoulder did nothing as the muscles had effectively seized and upon further inspection the rest of his body was in nearly the same state. Every fibre of his body had contracted over the course of the night and refused to loosen.
Turning on the shower, he found a plastic bag to put over his cast before stepping under the hot spray with a relieved sigh, letting the scalding water massage his muscles and loosen them a minutia. Time ran away from him as standing was about the extent of his abilities at the moment until he was dragged back into reality when the shower door slid back gently and his wife stepped into the shower.
Offering her a small smile, she returned it albeit with a little more concern gracing her features as she gazed over the bruise with wide eyes. Moving a few steps over so they could share the spray of the water, he finally motivated himself to try and do something about the stiffness still riddling his body.
“Let me.” Kalifa crooned softly, hands coming up to gently caress Zoro's shoulders as he let himself relax into her caring touch. Meticulous fingers dancing lightly across his back and shoulders as she slowly worked the tension from his body, each muscle at a time, leaving a cherished kiss behind before allowing her hands to stray lower.
Eventually she reached his hips, and she slowly slithered her arms around his waist as she stepped forward to rest her forehead against his back. Feeling the humid breaths in the cleft of his shoulders as he couldn't help but sink back into her with relief, as the complications of their marriage fell away and left only the foundations on which it had been built.
“Thank you.” Zoro offered quietly, the words an unspoken acknowledgement that she could let go of him now as he began properly showering for the first time since the accident. Halfway through soaping himself he glanced over as Kalifa was doing the same, soap bubbles and suds decorating her skin as her long hair hung around her shoulders as she ran a lathered hand over her thigh.
The wet blond hair starting a sudden spark in his gut that had him gathering her up in his arms and pulling her under the shower with him. Lips sealing over hers in a fiery desperation that continued to burn the fatigue from his bones and rejuvenated his muscles with a fervour that had before been unobtainable. Eyes falling shut as the last thing he saw was his hand tangling in gorgeous blond locks as he pulled her closer, the water washing a stream of suds away and down the drain.
~X~
Working on his sweatpants with one hand, he found himself taking the stairs back into the basement as his more nimble body was feeling much more capable. Stretching, a hot shower, and other certain activities had done wonders for his body as his routine seemed to have at least kept him in relatively the same shape he had been in before retirement. Though there was a stiffness to some of his joints that had definitely become more noticeable after he had turned thirty.
Most of his training would have to be modified for the lack of an arm, but it was easily compensated if he opted for doing a lot of leg training before finishing off with one-armed push ups and pull ups. By the time he had worked his left arm to exhaustion the last of the stiffness in his upper body had faded and he was beginning to feel like himself again.
Eventually making his way upstairs in a sweaty mess, he decided against going for a run while his arm was still freshly wounded and headed upstairs for a quick second shower. When finished and dressed, he began making for his truck as he decided to head to the shelter for the day; albeit a little late.
Making it barely a foot in the front door as Conis glanced up in greeting, head turning back to her work before she fully realized what she had saw and was jolting up from her chair dramatically. Scurrying out from behind the desk in a fluster, words catching in her throat as she ran up to him. Eyes only widening further as she took in his appearance and injuries much closer.
“Oh my goodness! Zoro!” Conis immediately chirped in horror, “What happened?”
“Car accident.”
“Y-You... I mean...” Conis stammered, eyes skirting from the cast on his right arm to the nasty bruise that was visible from under the collar of his shirt. He'd done his best to cover it, but it seemed he'd clipped his jaw in the fall a nasty bruise had begun to form there as well, “Oh my gosh.”
“Just a broken arm.” Zoro reassured softly, reaching out to touch her elbow gently to try to affirm the legitimacy of his claim despite how ugly the bruise appeared, “It looks worse than it is.”
“Half of you is a bruise!” She finally managed shrilly, flailing her delicate hands about wildly as she was clearly at a loss for what to do. Shoulders tensing up near her ears as she was quite obviously in far more distress than Zoro had thought she would be, “You're...”
A twinge of gratitude pinched in his chest as he found himself surprised at the unexpected concern she had for him, and almost feeling guilty for not expecting her to care as much. Smiling sincerely at her as he tried once more earnestly, “It's fine.”
“Well... I mean...” Conis attempted hopelessly before letting out a long breath and conceding, “Okay.”
“Thank you.” Zoro offered quietly, hoping she could read his tone well enough by now to know how much her concern really meant to him at the moment. Casting a glance beyond her shoulder as he attempted to veer the conversation to much easier territory, “Who needs attention today?”
“You seriously don't need to come help today.” Conis insisted, “You should go home and rest!”
“I could use the fresh air.” Zoro argued calmly, glancing back down at her and adding firmly, “Please.”
Conis clearly still wanted to argue, but after wordlessly letting her mouth hang open as she tried to find a viable argument to use against him she eventually gave up. Mouth closing with a huff as she resigned herself to the notion that it was most likely for Zoro's own personal benefit that he be allowed to help out. Grabbing her keys and heading for the kennels as she endeavoured to make light conversation.
“Most the of the pups have been walked today,” Conis explained as they made their way to the back, “Couple of the older one's too since it is such a nice day; Wado and Lassoo still haven't been taken out though.”
Zoro nodded faintly, “I'll probably take Wado.”
“She's taken a liking to you.” Conis noted with a smile, turning away to unlock the door to the kennels. Pushing it open and holding it for him as he politely stepped past her as she continued, “She ate an hour ago; just keep an eye on her while out in the sun.”
“'Course.” Zoro nodded in gratitude, and as Conis began letting the door fall shut offered a quick, “Thank you.”
Conis gave a soft smile before making back for the front desk as Zoro immediately made for the end kennel where Wado was waiting. Letting himself in as she scurried over to accept his welcoming strokes before her nose was snuffling his cast curiously; a concerned whine echoed in her throat as Zoro wrapped an arm around her to give a smothering hug as he hushed softly into her ear, “I'm alright, girl.”
His tone seemed to be enough to reassure her, but she still kept inspecting him with anxious snuffles as though she had to ascertain for herself that he was indeed okay. Nose nudging his bruised side a few times as he fought back a wince before she returned to sniffing his cast. Finally pacified, she began nudging his uninjured hand for him to pet her although she seemed to be more docile due to his injuries. Giving a few rewarding scratches to her ear for her good behaviour he murmured gently, “Shall we go for a walk?”
The mention of a walk seemed to divert her attention as her tail began wagging furiously and she jumped up onto all fours and yipped excitedly. Paws dancing up and down on the spot as Zoro pushed himself to his feet to go get a leash, unable to fight a smile as he began leading her out of the kennel and the building.
Being outside and doing a part of his usually mundane routine was oddly reassuring despite how much he usually seemed to trudge through it. However, walking the dogs at the shelter had always been a small ray of sunshine in his normally dreary retired life. Being able to still go down the memorized streets and feel the assuaging tug of the leash on his left hand had the thought of his injuries becoming fleeting notions.
Taking a bit of a longer walk than was normal, they ducked down a few side streets and bicycle paths as the summer weather beat down on them happily. Getting turned around a couple times before eventually getting back onto the main street and heading for the other end of town as he was beginning to notice Wado was getting tired. Making it a few blocks before they both stopped at a shout that echoed across the street.
“Hey!” A voice called out, “Zoro!”
Zoro turned slowly to glance behind himself, curious about someone calling his name when there were very few people within that small town that even knew him. It took several seconds to notice the man making his way down the sidewalk towards him with a hand raised in greeting. A backpack slung over his shoulder, Zoro hardly recognized the blond when he wasn't in his work clothes.
Finally reaching Zoro, he grinned, “Fancy running into you.”
“Small town.” Zoro commented flatly, becoming more and more relieved that he didn't have to feel guilty about his conversational tone around the other man. It was relaxing being able to not have to be tactful when he spoke lest he hurt someone's feelings; Sanji never seemed perturbed by his lack of conversational skills.
“True.” Sanji noted as his eyes fell to the dog at Zoro's side, as Wado clearly recognized Sanji from their first timid meeting and this time was much more receptive to him as she was less riled up due to Zoro. Her tail began wagging happily as Sanji stooped down to run a soothing hand over her head and began scratching behind her ears, glancing up at Zoro as he asked, “What's her name?”
“Wado.” Zoro offered.
“Wado, huh?” Hands continuing their adoration as Sanji met her eyes and offered a cheery grin as he cooed playfully, “Well, she is absolutely gorgeous; the most beautiful little lady.”
A happy bark met the comment, Zoro watched as Sanji continued to woo the dog with compliments and hushed praises all the while nuzzling his nose against hers and practically burying his hands in her coat. She was amazingly receptive right away, and Zoro was once again a little saddened that such a well trained animal had been discarded so thoughtlessly.
“Is she yours?” Sanji asked absently.
“No.” Zoro shook his head mildly, “Shelter's.”
“Jeez.” Sanji scoffed as he flashed a grin up at Zoro before finishing off petting Wado with a few final ear scratches and pushing himself to his feet. Arms coming to cross over his chest as he raised a brow at him, “Walking shelter dogs and saving children; you're making the rest of us look bad.”
Zoro just fidgeted uncomfortably as he had no idea how to respond to the compliment, hand tightening and loosening on the leash in agitation as he realized his silence had left Sanji with no where to go and effectively ended the conversation. Floundering for several moments before trying dumbly, “You save people every day.”
“Eh... It's not quite the same.” Sanji scrunched his face in contemplation, before giving a half-hearted shrug and changing the subject before Zoro had a chance to argue. The blond's gaze turning down to look at the casted appendage that wasn't in the sling like it was supposed to be and inquiring, “How's the arm?”
“Healing.” Zoro commented firmly, not needing nor wanting a lecture from the nurse on how to properly take care of himself. He had been injured enough times in his life that he knew what needed to be done to heal, and he didn't need anyone nagging him about it.
“No signatures?” Sanji inquired as he looked over Zoro's cast in interest, completely avoiding the topic of Zoro's lack of sling altogether. Zoro was really beginning to appreciate the blond's tact and his intuitive ability to not comment on things Zoro didn't feel like discussing.
“No.” Zoro admitted, brows drawing together in slight confusion at the question.
“Well...” Sanji shook his head, frowning as he continued, “That just won't do.”
Shucking off his pack, he dug around in it for several moments before pulling out a marker triumphantly. Sanji gently took a hold of Zoro's hand and brought the arm in close as he began scrawling something across the top. Zoro stood awkwardly with his arm tucked into Sanji's chest, the blond's head dipped in front of him as he tried not to notice the fresh scent of the man's shampoo that accosted him.
“There ya go.” Sanji grinned, pulling away and capping the marker with finality, “Now you have one.”
Rotating his arm to look down at the note sketched into the cast, he found Sanji's name written with a curly sort of flair. At the end of the name Sanji had added a small little drawing that looked like an attempt at a fish, but had ended up looking more like a demented star with a smiley face on its arm. Looking up at the blond with a smile still touching the corner of his mouth as he murmured, “Thanks.”
Sanji just gave a cheery grin as he readjusted his backpack onto his shoulder and gestured down the street in the direction Zoro had originally been walking, “You headed back to the shelter?”
Zoro nodded.
“Do you mind if I walk with you?” Sanji asked politely, already taking a step but still keeping his body angled towards Zoro, “Hospital's that way too.”
“No.” Zoro shook his head, falling in step with the blond as they took off down the sidewalk, “Wado seems to like your company.”
“And not you?” Sanji accused with a mock hand of hurt placed across his chest, drawing back from Zoro with a ridiculous gasp of betrayal and a moue of disappointment. The man constantly had an unbelievably animated personality that bordered on embarrassing, but Zoro couldn't stop himself from enjoying it.
“You're alright.” Zoro offered simply, a small smirk quirking the corner of his lips at the blond's theatrics as he looked back down at Wado. Walking in front of them, her golden tail held high and wagging happily as she lead them down the street at a light pace.
“I get the feeling that's high praise coming from you.” Sanji mused.
Zoro just lifted a shoulder in response.
“Fine; keep your approval.” Sanji huffed playfully, still attempting an overly dramatic tone as he waved a flared hand at himself haughtily, “I can get validation else where.”
“Like a back alley?” Zoro muttered facetiously, eyes immediately widening in shock at his own words as he realized a moment too late that he had spoken them aloud; and to a near stranger no less. For some reason talking with the man had reminded him of petty banter back when he had been a soldier, the harsh quips just a usual aspect of every day life. However, this man was definitely not a soldier and he quickly glanced over at Sanji in panic, an apology was on the tip of his tongue as Sanji gifted Zoro with both eyebrows raised in shock before cackling wildly.
A biting grin flashing across his face as he snarked back, “Another joke? Seems you do have a sense of humour.”
Zoro just shook his head wordlessly; still appalled at himself for his behaviour and shocked at Sanji for his casual reaction to it.
“You're a funny guy.”
“I'm really not.” Zoro assured flatly, certain that everything Sanji was thinking as entertaining was simply his lack of coordination at navigating an average conversation. Although he supposed he would prefer the man think he was snarky rather than just an asshole.
“Well, this is me.” Sanji suddenly announced as they reached the next intersection and he jerked his thumb at the hospital in sight a few blocks away, “Doing anything this evening?”
“Uh...” Zoro grunted in confusion at the sudden change in conversation, “no.”
“Well, a bunch of guys from work and I are going bowling once our shift ends.” Sanji alluded, waving an airy hand as he really seemed to be attempting an aloof aura, “You're welcome to join?”
“Well... I... uh,” Zoro floundered, not really wanting to accept as the lanes didn't exactly seem like the most conducive place to keeping himself in check. The loud crashes and cracking of the pins could nearly be as bad as a car back firing, and he wasn't exactly in the mood for having a panic attack in front of a bunch of people he didn't know. But he also knew his therapist would hit him over the head for passing up a social opportunity. “Sure?”
“Cool.” Sanji grinned, street light changing as he began crossing the street and called back to Zoro, “Meet at the lanes at nine?”
“Yeah.” Zoro agreed softly, touched by the man's offer but unable to shake the uneasiness of willingly walking into a place that was bound to cause him some form of trouble, “Alright.”
~X~
Pushing open the door and glancing around nervously, he already found himself consciously trying to count the number of tiles on the ground before he was spotted and his name was called out. Glancing up as Sanji sauntered over with a hand held high in greeting, the initial nervousness abated nearly instantaneously at seeing the familiar face. The crashes becoming a faint hum as the tension released from his body and he offered a small nod in greeting.
“Glad you could make it.” Sanji chirped happily, throwing an arm over Zoro's uninjured shoulder in a surprisingly friendly manner as he began guiding Zoro over to a booth at one of the lanes that the group had already occupied. Zoro remained in stunned silence as he wasn't expecting to be greeted so suddenly and in such an affable manner.
“Guys! Guys!” Sanji crowed loudly, obviously having to be obnoxious to properly get the attention of the people in the group as Zoro's casted arm was already beginning to sweat nervously as Sanji introduced him, “This is Zoro; I was telling you about him.”
Everyone turned in their seats as they watched the two approach while Zoro instantly felt unnerved having so many people watching him at once. All of them giving short waves of greeting and some of them nodding as their words were almost entirely lost under the music that was playing just a tad too loud over the intercom.
“Ah, right. Mr. Hero.” A man with eccentric blue haired noted with a jovial boast, turning in his seat and reaching out a hand to shake Zoro's in a hardy grip. Zoro idly noting the interesting stars tattooed onto both of his forearms as he looked down at the man and returned the firm handshake, “Sanji's quite the fan.”
Zoro released the man's hand and placed it to the back of his neck as he tried to fight down a flush of embarrassment, not entirely in the mood to talk about what had happened the other day. Immediately overwhelmed by the compliment, his normally horrible sociability absolutely floored with what to do as he could only manage a weak smile, nod, and a grunt in embarrassment. Smacking the man in the arm, Sanji snapped with a note of embarrassment to his tone, “Don't fluster him; he doesn't do well with praise.”
“Him and Chopper should get right along then.” An elderly man on the other side of the table noted with a chuckle, the comment causing a younger boy with brown hair and tan skin to duck his head with a blush. Another man at the front of the table began cackling wildly with a piece of pizza still held in his greasy hand.
“So.” Sanji mused, “Introductions?”
Zoro just gave a polite shrug.
“Alright; the walking dead there is Brook,” Sanji explained as he pointed to the older man that was still sporting a rather impressive afro for his age whose expression went flat at Sanji's comment. The blond ignoring it completely before rounding on the rest and pointing them each out in turn, “Usopp's the guy over there bowling, Chopper's the kid hiding in his beer, and Luffy's the guy that's eating half the pizza that was meant for everybody.”
There was some eye rolling and snide comments thrown Sanji's way that went unheard as the blond turned back to Zoro with his elbow placed firmly in the top of the skull of the man with blue hair and grinned innocently, “And Franky.”
An elbow shot out to catch Sanji in the gut as the blond doubled over with a wheeze before rounding on the man in an attempt to get him back. Everyone else however completely ignored the two bickering men as they each formally gave their name and offered to shake his hand. Zoro began reaching out towards the hand offered by the younger man named Luffy before he jumped out of his chair abruptly with a loud gasp.
“WHAT'S THAT ON YOUR CAST?” The younger man bellowed excitedly, pizza dropping forgotten to his plate as he watched Zoro far too intently as Zoro glanced down. Taking a moment to note the name scratched onto the plaster with realization before looking back up at the boy that was still gazing at him eagerly.
“Sanji signed it.”
A loud gasp was torn from him as a look of pure, unbridled excitement lit up his face, already half way around the table as he exclaimed, “I haven't signed a cast since high school!”
“Um...” Zoro floundered, not entirely sure what the hype was but managing with a confused moue, “You wanna sign it?”
“YES!” Luffy shouted loudly, properly out of his chair now and darting over to Zoro's side before he even had an opportunity to question where the boy had been hiding a marker. Allowing his arm to get reefed aside as the excitable man set to work on signing the cast.
Zoro spent the next several minutes getting tugged around as each stranger practically put his injured arm in a lock to get a turn to add their own creative masterpiece. Some of them were more sincere than others and the young man whom had signed his name as Luffy had taken up nearly half of it to draw an incredibly childish, yet surprisingly vivid scene of him punching a dragon in the face.
Once the excitement had finally died down and everyone was going back to take their seats; Zoro took a quiet moment to look down at his arm. Noting each name with its own individual flare and feeling the warm sensation in his chest once more return with a fiery passion as a genuine smile touched his lips.
Drawn from his reverie as Sanji chuckled and gestured vaguely towards several empty seats, “Go ahead; they won't bite more than they already have.”
Awkwardly edging through the group, Zoro took a seat on one of the chairs near the back so he had a good view of the lanes, the score on the television, and he was also just far enough out of the way to not interrupt any conversations. Sanji plopped down next to him after retrieving a half finished beer that he must have left to come get Zoro, taking a swig before leaning in to say over the music, “We put you in the system, but you missed the first round and Luffy went for you.”
Zoro's gaze tracked up to the screen on the wall and noted seven names up on the board with utter confusion; Pirate King, Sniper King, Mr. Prince, Rudolph, Cyborg, Soul King, and Superman. Blinking slowly as the nicknames that they had decided on did absolutely nothing to help him know whom each of the people in the group were; the only thing that he could possibly take away from it was that the crew had an undeniable obsession with being king of something.
Turning to Sanji, mouth open to ask what on earth the names meant, he found Sanji already gone and making his way up to the front as the man that had just finished made his way back. Passing by his original seat as he made his way towards Zoro, snatching up his own discarded beer.
“You're the hit and run guy from yesterday.” The man with curly hair noted, clearly trying to be polite and engage Zoro in conversation as he took a seat beside him. Foot coming up to rest on the opposite knee as he glanced over with a grin, “I was there; remember me?”
“Vaguely.”
“Usopp.” Introducing himself properly as he shifted his beer into his right hand so that he could offer Zoro his left.
Zoro snatched it up and gave a firm shake before returning the notion, “Zoro.”
“Nami was the other EMT on scene; redhead.” Usopp explained idly, “When we got the call we were certain there was gonna be a much bloodier scene when we arrived.”
Zoro lifted his uninjured shoulder in a small shrug, “Lucky, I guess.”
“I'll say.” Usopp snorted, “You're kinda the talk of the department right now; we don't get many interesting calls like that. Was Luffy's idea to name you Superman.”
Zoro's gaze swiftly flicked back up to the screen, unsure of how he felt about the ridiculous nickname and immediately wishing he could argue against it. Turning his sights back to the other man he just offered a small huff and a short nod in understanding.
“So, how'd Sanji rope you into coming?” Usopp inquired with a snide grin, “Blackmail?”
“Offered.” Zoro shrugged simply, not entirely sure what the man was implying but assuming it was more of an inside joke among friends than an actual legitimate concern.
“He's a nice guy.” Usopp nodded solemnly, before chuckling softly to himself, “Bit of an ass, but a nice guy.”
They both turned as Sanji went up to take his turn, nabbing a blue ball from the rack as he made his way over to the lane. Hefting the ball up in front of himself, he readied himself before taking two long strides forward as his one foot tucked behind his front in a weird motion as he released the ball. It went fairly straight for most of it before veering a little and only taking out three pins from the corner.
Cupping his free hand around his mouth, Usopp shouted over the loud music, “Sanji, you suck!”
Sanji whipped around on his heel, finger already out and pointing at the curly haired man with a vengeance as he warned venomously, “Watch it, long nose!”
“Remember, Sanji.” The threat going unheeded as Sanji went to grab another ball and Usopp just continued to cackle loudly, barely getting the words out as he was already laughing far too hard. Another sort of inside joke that was clearly apparent to all those there as he shouted, “Be the ball!”
Sanji just kept his back to the man, holding up a simple rude gesture over his shoulder before getting into position and rolling the ball again. This time taking out the rest of the pins properly as a large dash lit up the screen above. Returning to the booth, he nabbed his beer and when he passed Usopp made a quick kicking motion that had the man jumping fearfully and spilling beer all over himself.
A pleased grin split Sanji's face as the other man jumped up with several muttered curse words to go clean up in the bathroom as Sanji retook his seat. Arm thrown over the back of an empty chair as he took a swig of his beer and watched the lanes as Chopper made his way up to go next. Taking note of the flashing name on the screen, it seemed to clarify that his nickname was Rudolph. From the order of the names it also made it easy to know Sanji's and Usopp's as well.
“So...” Zoro finally managed to mutter quietly in Sanji's direction, “what's with the names?”
“Ah,” Sanji glanced up at the screen before realizing Zoro's confusion and chuckling, “Well, Chopper's is cause he wore a pair of reindeer antlers to work once during Christmas; the name just stuck.”
“Cute.” Zoro commented with a scoff.
“Oh, adorable.” Sanji agreed vehemently with a nod, “But he hates it.”
“I'm a human.” Chopper groused quietly from his end of the table, nearly singsonging the words as though he had said them a million times and had grown weary of repeating them, “Not a reindeer.”
“Brook's is an old stage name from when he was in a band,” Sanji continued on – completely ignoring the boy whom stuck his tongue out at Sanji playfully – beginning to list off on his fingers casually, “Franky's broken so many bones that he's more plates and screws than human, and Luffy just likes pirates.”
“Ah.” Zoro made a grunt of understanding, when in reality the explanations didn't clarify nearly as much as he had hoped that they would. He felt like he needed a better explanation into Franky's injuries, and Brook's sounded like it required a whole story on its own.
“Usopp's--” Sanji began, jerking a thumb in the other man's direction as he returned from the bathroom before being cut off rudely.
“Fuck off.” Usopp grunted absently in the blond's direction as he passed, no venom to his words as it seemed to be more of reflex to say to the blond than anything else. A few paper towels in hand as it seemed he was still trying to dab his shirt dry from the beer.
Not even bothering to look over his shoulder at the other man that had just cursed him out, Sanji continued unperturbed, “Is cause he never misses.”
Zoro just raised an eyebrow.
Sanji idly waved a hand up to the score board and sure enough next to Sniper King there was a row of perfect 'X's in every column. The blond noting petulantly, “Doesn't make him much fun to play against.”
“Yours?” Zoro prodded cordially.
“That's easy.” Sanji boasted, waving a dramatic hand towards himself and declaring haughtily, “It's because I'm every woman's Prince Charming.”
There was a loud derisive snort from the other end of the table that sounded like it hurt as Zoro muttered shrewdly, “You can't do that.”
“Huh?” Sanji cocked an eyebrow curiously, Zoro smothering a chortle at the way the man's face fell and was replaced with a perplexed expression, “What?”
“You can't just give yourself your nickname.” Zoro commented with a small chuckle, readjusting his casted arm as his gaze flicked up the man's eyebrows. Faintly hidden beneath his bangs as he levelled on Sanji and added snidely, “That's not how it works, Curly.”
“Hey!” Franky pipped up, “Curly. I like that.”
“Why haven't we been calling him that?” Usopp asked with genuine bewilderment, casting a glance around the group for confirmation. Sanji resting his face in his hand as the group began rising up with laughter and belligerent comments and Usopp and Luffy began fiddling with the controls in an attempt to change Sanji's name on the scoreboard.
“Alright...” Sanji chuckled softly under his breath, turning on Zoro with a stern brow belied by his smile. Pointing a finger directly at him as he warned, “I'm gonna let the first few go, but you keep this up and I'm gonna stop playing nice.”
Zoro just smirked innocently and gave an indifferent shrug, by all means daring the man to go ahead and make good on his threat. Sanji just rolled his eyes before nodding towards the lanes, turning his finger up at the screen where Zoro's odd, embarrassing nickname was flashing. “Your turn, mosshead.”
Eyebrows climbing high at the disparaging comment, Zoro pushed himself to his feet as Sanji just offered an innocuous shrug of his own in response. Shaking his head lightly in derision at Sanji's behaviour, he turned and made his way over to the lane to choose a ball.
Picking a heavier one, he made his way over to the line and stared down the lane at the ten pins positioned at the end. It had been decades since he had gone bowling, but the premise seemed far simpler to him now than when he was younger. Taking into consideration the steps that the other men had done, he took a ready stance before following through and imitating them; sending the ball rolling straight with a lazy flick of his wrist. Compared to a head shot through heavy winds at several kilometres away, hitting a few pins a couple meters away with a large ball was child's play.
The ball continued straight until it hit the pins and knocked them all over with a loud crash, making his way back over to the group where he was strangely met with several high fives that seemed unnecessary. Taking his seat back next to the blond as Sanji turned an incredulous stare on him. “What was that?!”
“What?”
“You didn't say you were good at this!” Sanji accused childishly.
“You didn't ask.”
“That's not fair!” Sanji announced broadly, gesticulating wildly over at Usopp whom glanced over at Sanji's outburst, already grinning smugly at Sanji's whining, “We can't have two of you assholes be good at this game!”
“Step up, Curly.” Zoro muttered congenially.
Franky guffawed loudly at the comment, jerking a thumb towards Zoro as he leaned over to look at Sanji, “I like him; where'd you find him?”
“Under a truck.” Sanji grouched petulantly, sending a glower Zoro's way, “Where he's gonna end up if he doesn't cut it out.”
This time Zoro couldn't stop the wide grin from splitting his face at the threat as the harsh banter was something he hadn't realized he had so sorely missed from his old life. Sanji rolling his eyes and wacking Zoro in his uninjured arm playfully, Zoro's smile only growing wider as Sanji shook his head and turned away to watch Chopper get up to go as he took a sip of his beer.
~X~
Offering to drop Brook of at his house a few blocks away, Zoro enjoyed a strangely hilarious conversation with the older gentleman before finally pulling into his own driveway and making his way inside. Heading into the kitchen to get a glass of water as the night had gone on much later than Zoro had expected but had been surprisingly enjoyable nonetheless.
It had been a while since he had hung out with a group of people and had felt that relaxed; the casual conversation and biting comments strangely comforting as they reminded him of a time long since past. Old army buddies and espionage partners; back when jokes were the only way to cope with the constant threat of death. But this had just been simple fun, and despite his earlier trepidation he did not regret it in the slightest.
Zoro hadn't expected them to offer him such an open invitation to join them next week, but he could easily admit to himself that it would not be the worst thing in the world if he got a chance to be accosted by those excitable people again. Fighting down a smile that had been permanently affixed to his lips since leaving, he finished off his water and set the glass in the sink before making to leave the kitchen.
Passing by the fridge, he paused as his eye caught the pad of sticky notes on the counter as he mulled over a thought for a few moments before conceding and snatching it up. Scrawling 'Hobbies?' across the top and underlining it before writing out 'Bowling' underneath it and pulling it free to stick on the fridge. Looking it over silently as it wasn't an entirely exciting idea, but it was a start.
Tossing the pen aside on the counter and making his way upstairs to bed, finding Kalifa already under the covers and sleeping soundly. Climbing in as gently as he could, he considered turning his back for a moment to keep his injured arm near the edge of the bed before deciding against it. Turning in to pull her warm body close to his front as he carefully lay his injured arm around her, cast coming to rest atop the blankets in front of her. Eyes falling shut as the last thing he saw were the comforting names scrawled across the top, and a particularly swirly signature that brought a small smile to his face.
TBC...
|
The world span as he sank to the floor. He couldn't think. He couldn't breath. He was numb, completely numb. How could Eren not be at home? Maybe Hanji hadn't found him... the teen had to be hiding, that's what it had to be. Shaking he picked up the dropped phone, the call had disconnected and it took him a couple of attempts to call Hanji back, she answered immediately "What... do you mean... he's not home?"His heart was racing and he had to force his words out of his constricted throat"I've called his name, I've checked the house... but Levi, the door was open...""No... no... he has to be there..."Hanji was verging on hysterics"I'm telling you he isn't. Is there anywhere he'd go? Anyone he'd talk to""He... he has no friends... he wouldn't just leave..."He felt someone pulling him up and he growled in warning"Levi, we need to head back in"Levi growled again, baring his teeth "I'm not going back in there. I need to go...""You can't just take off"Levi pushed the phone at Erwin, Mr Smith grabbed his arm as he began to stalk off"Levi, what's going on?""Eren's missing. I need to go. I need to find him""What do you mean Eren's missing?""I mean he's not at fucking home"Levi yanked his arm from Mr Smiths hold "Erwin will go, we'll try for a recess until tomorrow. But it doesn't guarantee anything"Mr Smith took his arm firmly and forced him from the room, Erwin was still on the phone to Hanji. Levi wanted to scream, everyone was acting too calm. His blood was boiling. Didn't anyone else give a fuck about his pregnant mate?!
Mr Smith forced him into the courtroom and Kenny turned to face him, the man was smiling widely and Levi felt a shiver run down his spine. He was hit by the realisation. Kenny had something to do with this. Mr Smith pushed him on gently, they both stood behind the desk as Mr Smith explained the circumstances of their late return. Kenny's lawyer automatically began to spin this as Levi running scared, or perhaps as an admission of Eren's guilt. Both lawyers were called to approach the judge and Levi forced himself to hold the desk, it was either that or beating Kenny to a blood pulp. Fortunately for his uncle, the trial was recessed until the following morning and Levi bolted from the courtroom. He hailed the first taxi he could, the driver obviously confused by the rush of words pouring from his mouth as he tried to tell the man his address and to hurry. It was still a ridiculously long time to be trapped practically alone with anger and worry. When they arrived he pulled all the cash from his wallet, basically throwing at the man as he rushed out and over to where Hanji was standing with Erwin"Levi..."Levi stormed past them, not wanting to believe it. He called Eren's name as he marched from room to room, but as Hanji said, there was no sign of his mate. He let out a roar and Hanji, who'd been approaching, stepped back"Levi... he's not here...""I know. It was Kenny. I fucking know it. You should have seen him. You should have seen the look he gave""But Kenny was at the courthouse all day""Reiner wasn't""Wait... you think what? That Reiner and Kenny are working together? The Braun's literally just tried to sue you for slander""Yeah and I through what Reiner did to Eren in their faces! This is my fault!""Levi, he could have left on his own...""He wouldn't, he was a mess this morning, he took his meds... but wouldn't get out of bed... I'm so fucking stupid. This is my fault. He could be anywhere"Hanji stepped towards him, but the look in his eye must have screamed at her to stop"You need to calm down""I can't calm down..."Levi stalked away from his friends. He didn't even know where to start looking. Kenny had all the resources in the world at his disposal... Eren had had value before everything went down... now he was carrying Levi's children... Kenny wouldn't stand for that... but neither would Reiner... he growled at the the stool between him and the breakfast bench, picking it up with one hand, he tossed it as hard as he could, it thudded to the ground but he felt no better.
At some point Mr Smith had arrived, from the corner of his eye, Levi could see the looks of concern and pity directed his way. They seemed to think him crazy... but they didn't understand... frustrated with their apparent lack of care, Levi snatched his keys out the kitchen draw, and Erwin was yanking them from his hand before he even got out the kitchen"Erwin! Give me my fucking keys!""Levi, you need to calm down"Levi shoved Erwin as hard as he could, his friend fell back landing solidly on the floor, he moved over his friend, reaching for the keys, while panting hard with anger "Levi. Look, we are all worried about Eren""Bullshit! You don't give a fuck! You're probably happy he's gone!"Before he knew what happened, Hanji had slapped him hard across the face, she reached down and helped Erwin up"We get it, you're worried and we are too. But you can't just take off. We need to think about this"He shook, unexpected tears came to his eyes, the mental images of what Reiner could be doing to his mate... Hanji came to his side and she held him as he practically collapsed onto her"I... don't know what to do...""I know..."Hanji guided him to the sofa, he shook with fear and anger but the tears wouldn't stop. He was so scared for his mate... "So there's no where Eren would go?"Levi shook his head"He doesn't drive... I offered to teach him... but he doesn't trust himself...""Where does he go when he has an episode?""He hides... usually in the walk-in-robes or the bathroom...""So he doesn't leave the house?""He doesn't know the front door code""Well someone had too...""Kenny always did, I never knew how, but he always found his way in... no matter how many times I'd change it"Hanji nodded"Ok... so you think Reiner took him?""You didn't see the smile on Kenny's face... and Reiner wasn't in court... I don't even know how he got out"Mr Smith's voice cut through the room"His bail was posted, I wasn't even told about the arraignment""I bet it was Kenny""He's going to get away with it all over again""No he's not, we aren't going to let that happen""But we don't know where he'd take him""Did Eren ever mention where he lived... when he was with Reiner?""I never asked... I never wanted to force him to remember""Do either of you have any idea?"Levi looked up, Mr Smith was doing something on his phone and Erwin shook his head"That was all redacted""The facility would know... but... they detest Eren..."Hanji nodded"Let me call, I'll call in my capacity as Eren's doctor"Hanji let him go and he watched as she stood and moved away, his friend pulled her phone out "K-Omega Facility right?"Levi nodded"Yeah"He clenched and unclenched his hands as Hanji raised the phone to her ear, it was a long few minutes until she finally hung up"They said it wasn't in there records"Levi growled, his anger surging back up"They don't give a fuck. If Eren's dead, then all the shit they did to him just goes away""What about Reiner's current address?""He's living with his family""And his mate? Bertholdt?"Erwin frowned at him"You think he'd be involved?""You heard what Reiner's mother said. They'd been best mates since they were kids..."Erwin nodded slowly"I'll search for Bertholdt's address... but if Reiner's working for Kenny, he could be using any one of the Ackerman properties"Levi growled"Don't you think I know that"His friend let out a sigh and pulled out his phone. He was more than likely remote accessing the list of business associates on the computers at Headquarters.
"I have the address, but they aren't there. The property was demolished last year and it now a bakery"Levi's heart couldn't take it. He struggled to breathe. Hanji moved back to his side "Levi, I need you to take deep breaths for me. You'll be no good to Eren if you meltdown"Levi glared, he was already trying to take deep breaths, but doing so, he realised everything smelt of Eren and it set him off again"I can't be here. I need to go... I can't sit still"Levi stumbled up, Hanji tried to push him back down, but he stood his ground"I'll take him, I've got Bertholdt's address""I should come with you, in case..."Levi shook his head"I need you here... just... just in case..."Just in case by some miracle Eren showed back up here under his own steam... Hanji nodded and Erwin put his hand on Levi's shoulder, guiding him into the garage, Levi didn't even think to say anything to Mr Smith, he'd forgotten him the second Erwin had said he had Bertholdt's address.
*Bertholdt live on towards the outskirts of Trost, it was the kind of place you'd expect someone to hole up, which is why he didn't expect to find them there. Erwin walked beside him up to the front door, Levi had to bite his lip to keep from exploding impatiently. Bertholdt seemed surprised when he opened the door to the pair of them. Levi had to take half a step back and leave Erwin to do the talking. He couldn't trust himself. Bertholdt said he hadn't seen Reiner since the party, Levi was sure he was lying. A growl rose from his throat, but Bertholdt growled back, holding his own. Levi would have laughed about the omega growling if the situation hadn't been about Eren. Erwin quickly asked the man about places Reiner would go, but other then home, Bertholdt had no idea. Still, his friend managed to get Reiner's number from the man, before thanking him and the pair moved back to the car. Levi was struck with the realisation that he didn't even bother trying to call Eren. He hadn't thought of it. His mind had just jumped to the worst. He pulled his phone out and called his mate. It rang twice before the call ended"We can trace Eren's phone right?""Eren has a phone?"Levi nodded quickly"I didn't even think to call him... but just now, it definitely rang"Erwin swore "If he didn't have it on silent..."Levi groaned in response, he could have made things much worse for his mate. Still. Erwin did something he hadn't expected. He called the police, Levi was livid, but Erwin filled them in and he was forced to hold his tongue. Despite everything they'd said about Eren not being a danger to himself, that was the image Erwin painted to the police on the phone. Unable to stomach it, he exited the car and began to walk, he'd only made it 3 blocks before Erwin pulled over"Get back in, we'll go back to your house and see if they've heard anything"Levi nodded and he felt his phone begin to vibrate. He snatched it out his pocket, Eren's name on the ID, sliding it across he placed a finger to his lips and the phone to his ear. The voices on the other end were muffled, like when someone pocket dials. He walked around to the passenger side and climbed into the car. Listening closely, trying to pick up anything at all"It's Eren"Levi mouthed to Erwin and placed the phone on speaker. The muffled voices came through and they both leant in to listen, but then a loud crack came through and a whimper. The call dropped and Levi looked to Erwin "Police. We're going to see the police"Levi hit redial, but the call wouldn't go through, no matter how many times he pushed call.
*Arriving at the station, Erwin did the talking yet again. He filled them in on the phone call and Levi passed his phone over without hesitation. He desperately hoped they could get something out of it. They asked all the necessary questions, but all it did was frustrate Levi to no fucking end. No one knew how long Eren had been missing, he gave Eren's number over, as well as the carrier details from when he'd set the phone up. He felt so stupid not thinking of calling Eren sooner...
Levi and Erwin were asked to wait in a small visitors room, false cheerfulness filled the room, but left Levi cold. Erwin took the time to fill Hanji in on it all, the woman insisted on coming down and joining them, but Levi shook his head, his nerves couldn't take it. He kept his face buried in his hands, replaying this morning over and over, the way Eren had shook as he hid, the sad look in Eren's green eyes... god... he prayed with all he could that Eren would be alright. Erwin shook his as two officers walked in, the female officer laid a large piece of paper across the table and Levi realised it was a map"Do you know why the call came from here?"Levi examined the map, it was a fucking dot in the middle of nowhere, he began to shake his head"Levi, that's where the cabin is..."Erwin's voice was soft "You know this place?""My parents own a cabin there""And would Eren go there alone?"Levi shook his head furiously "No. No he wouldn't. He doesn't drive""Would someone drive him?""No, he doesn't really have any friends"The woman pursed her lips "We've contacted the local police to head out and take a look..."Levi groaned and she looked to him for explanation "They don't exactly like Eren or me. I was arrested by them and I tried to explain about Eren's mental health... they pulled out their guns before heading back into the cabin to retrieve him. They think he's crazy..."The woman frowned "Are you saying you believe they won't conduct their jobs properly?""I'm saying they don't give two fucks""We can send our own agents, but that's a 5 hour drive..."Levi opened his mouth"Levi, you can't leave Trost. It's a condition of you bail""I can't do nothing... anything could be happening..."Levi hung his head, his eyes on the spot the woman had tapped. Trust Kenny to ruin something else for the pair of them"Please... I can't do nothing..."He sounded so pathetic he hardly recognised his own voice "Look, I'll call dad, but I don't think he can do anything to help""Please..."Erwin moved away and Levi heard him talking on the phone. A few seconds Erwin moved back to his side"Even if he contacts the judge, you won't be able to make it there and back before court tomorrow morning"Levi's knees gave out. He was so fucking close..."Sir?""Please send someone, as he said, the police are personally biased against him and his mate"The woman nodded, she and her partner left and Levi stayed where he'd slumped"Erwin... I can't lose him... or them... I don't care if I'm being selfish... but I need him..."Erwin let out a long breath "Wanna do something crazy and illegal?"Levi looked up towards his friend"Don't joke about things like that""I'm not. I'm sure we can get there faster than the police""What do we tell them?""That you need to go home... and to keep us updated... and I don't really know""That makes a change"Erwin offered him a tight lipped smile and helped Levi up. Once again he left the talking to Erwin, he stated that Levi was falling apart, and he was going to take him home, the woman was sympathetic, promising to send someone over as soon as they knew something.
|
EPILOGUE
‘
Is the sun in your eyes, easy rider?
Do the flame coloured skies light your fire?
We are heavy metal lions, they will never understand,
The kind of people you or I am.
Bow your heads and take your hands.
They were angels forever,
Forever angels.
They were angels forever,
Forever angels.
’
- Lana Del Rey
*
One Year Later
Jace
‘So, how was your week?’
My therapy sessions always started the same; polite conversation that slowly morphed into structured routine and the discussions we shared. I liked Doctor Charlie Caron, she was warm and friendly, incisive when need be.
It was a little sad that this would be our last session.
‘It’s been good,’ I told her, settling back into the comfortable high-backed chair. Her office was stylish and spartan, the pleasant smell of ink and leather hung in the air. In her spare time, Charlie made gorgeous paintings from pen ink. Her mess corner, as she called it, was only a few feet away. Occasionally, she would ask me if I wanted to create anything that day and I smiled, remembering the days I’d agreed.
‘Just good? No highs and lows?’ she prompted, gesturing gently with her hand as she settled back into her chair, iPad on her lap.
I looked off to the side, biting my bottom lip slightly. ‘Um, very good actually.’
‘Excellent.’ She waited with a wonderful air of patience and passive interest for me to speak first. I liked speaking first, it was our dynamic here in this place of safety. I would mention something and then she would ask about it, at least with little things.
‘All right, well, Robert is leaving today.’
‘Was he here for business?’
The Mundane Doctor had no clue about what business really meant for us beyond the clever over story I’d spun. ‘Mostly just visiting us, though he’s not given up trying to get Karine back yet.’
‘Hmm.’ Charlie made a small note on her iPad before looking up again. ‘Has he spent more time with Alec on this trip?’
‘Yeah, he actually has. Since the wedding and the move, I think he’s mostly come to see me but… I don’t know. Something is shifting back into normality, I think. Not the bad normality,’ I hastened to add. ‘But…’
‘He’s trusting you to be OK again.’
‘I think so.’
‘Is that a good feeling?’
‘I want it to be a good feeling. Like I earned it.’
‘Not like he’s done his duty and is now free to check out again.’
I nodded, finger picking idly over a metal stud in the chair. ‘Maybe that worry will always be there. That his attention is only ever going to be temporary.’
‘In many ways it will be.’
I nodded slowly. ‘True. Best to make the most of it, I guess?’
‘If that feels like a worthwhile use of your energy, then yes. Do you still feel guilty about his attention?’
‘Not so much,’ I answered. ‘Now that Alec is seeing more of him, things are levelling out in that respect.’ The conversation had shifted, but she waited for me to take the lead. ‘I had a, uh…’ I paused, searching for the French word for nightmare. Cauchemar, my mind helpfully supplied. ‘A nightmare last night and it was the first time I really wasn’t afraid.’
‘Nightmares are rare for you.’
They were, for good reason. ‘Alec was working through the night and I stayed home on my own, slept alone.’
‘That doesn’t happen often,’ she observed. ‘You and Alec not sleeping at the same time.’
She was absolutely right. Our work at the Paris Institute was incredibly engaging, requiring so much of our time, but we always tried to ensure that whatever was happening, when we slept, it was together. Everything together, everything side by side. It wasn’t always possible. In the early weeks, adjusting to the new, highly dangerous playing field that was Paris, it had often left us out of sync, unable to catch each other for more than an hour some days. We’d found our rhythm, though. I played with the titanium band around my wedding finger, trying not to miss Alec, even though he’d only been gone less than twenty-four hours.
‘Something at work?’ Charlie asked.
I nodded slowly, trying to bring my focus back to her. ‘Alec went to work and I didn’t.’
‘You weren’t well?’
‘I feel OK,’ I said. ‘But he thought I was tired and I should catch up on some sleep.’
‘When Alec is with you,’ she said. ‘You never suffer nightmares.’
Because we exist in each other
’s mind and dream together, as a singular person, swimming in the waters made up of our shared soul…
‘He’s a snuggler.’
At that, Charlie smiled lopsidedly. She was well versed in the great and awesome love between us; it was all I talked about those early sessions, back when my French had still been pretty rusty.
‘So, while he was working, you experienced a nightmare but it wasn’t debilitating like they used to be?’
‘No,’ I answered. ‘It was almost a normal nightmare. Scary things coming for the people I love.’
‘Is that a normal nightmare?’
‘It is for me.’
‘You said you weren’t afraid.’
‘I knew it wasn’t real. I knew that if it was real, I could protect them. I felt… strong again.’
‘Did you wake yourself up?’
‘No. I stayed inside of it and I controlled it.’
‘That’s progress, Jace.’
‘I think so too.’
She smiled. ‘What are you plans for the weekend?’
Our appointments were always on a Friday morning, 9am. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed.
‘Well, Izzy and Max are coming for dinner, just swinging by.’ Just portalling by. ‘I’m going shopping after this and then hopefully Alec will be home by midday.’ I laughed. ‘God, I sound like a housewife.’
‘Domestic comforts are important. They are a source of clarity; a moment when the water’s surface stills and we can see what’s underneath the ripples. You and Alec have very few such moments. You’re touching base, drawing your loved ones close.’
I bit my lip. ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’
When I fell into silence, Charlie said, ‘You have something to tell me.’
‘Yeah. I think…’ my throat caught a little, unexpectedly choked up at the idea of not seeing her again. ‘This is going to be my last session with you.’
She didn’t look remotely surprised.
‘How do you feel about that?’
‘Sad,’ I said. ‘But only because it means not seeing you.’
‘You’re not afraid anymore, Jace. You haven’t needed these sessions for over a month now. You’re ready.’
‘I want to be ready.’
‘Which means you are. It’s time to move on, take the next step. Change is always a little sad. Leaving anything behind is sad because all life is, is a series of steps forward and as we take one, we can never tread backwards. Change is living, it’s honouring each moment.’
‘I’ll miss you,’ I said because it was true.
‘No, Jace,’ she said, hands clasped over the iPad, smiling at me like she knew everything. ‘Don’t miss me. Don’t falter. Take the step, breathe the new air, walk into the sunshine. You’ll be too busy being happy to miss me.’
I closed my eyes and managed a nod. ‘I hope so.’
She set the iPad aside and stood up. ‘Well, if this is our last session, let’s make something beautiful, why don’t we? Something you can keep.’
I followed her to the mess corner, rolling up my sleeves. There were all different shades of blue, on in particular reminded of Alec’s eyes. A dark, crystalline blue, the colour of fresh night skies.
She poured the ink into a tray and handed me the instrument used to create her designs, a small mop-headed brush. I selected the shade of Alec’s eyes.
‘Make something to mark this day,’ she said, turning her attention to her own canvas. ‘Something to look at and see the end of this journey, and the start of a new one.’
I stared at the canvas, the scent of ink all around and my free hand drifted unconsciously over my stomach, corner of my mouth pulling up slightly.
‘Montre moi ta colouer,’ I whispered and then I began to create.
Our first home in France had been a castle and an apartment might have seemed like a step down, but it was the place I loved most in the world. Situated in Rue Bausset, just skirting the central city, it wasn’t especially spacious but it was fucking beautiful and it was home. The best part about it was the balcony. This teeny little wrought iron balcony with a set of slim double doors. It didn’t quite have the view, but it was pretty spectacular all the same.
After staying with Karine in her (real, honest to God) castle, we were offered residency within the Paris Institute which would have made sense given that it was where we worked and spent most of our time but we both knew we wanted a place of our own.
So, home was an apartment up three flights of stairs with an elevator no one dared use it was so old. The people next door were sweet and they frequently hosted loud parties which they’d long ago given up inviting us to as we were so rarely there of a night.
After the stunning, almost intimidating space of a castle, the first apartment we’d viewed was the one we fell in love with. It was cosy and pretty but the kitchen was a decent size which was good because that was where we spent most of our time, aside from the bedroom.
After my final, inky therapy session, Charlie had dried and rolled up my creation. We had shared a hug and then, I left, never to return.
I went shopping to get things for dinner. It was always special, having Izzy and Max for dinner. Every few weeks they would come here or we would go there, courtesy of the resident Warlock in Paris, Octavia Rend, who didn’t mind portalling Shadowhunters to and fro so long as Magnus Bane was happy to help out on the other end. Octavia was a good friend of Karine’s, which definitely helped.
In the kitchen, I laid out the ingredients and glanced up at the clock. Alec should have been home by now. He’d been on patrol all night with Karine and Elaina. Usually after a night patrol, we would write up our reports in the Institute, perform a quick check of local intel to see if any new Big Bad was gearing up for anything and then come home. Usually, I was with him. We patrolled together, we wrote the reports together and then came home together.
But the last few days, Alec had insisted, with no room for compromise, that I stay home. He was right, I was tired, but it had never stopped us from hitting the streets hard before. This morning, I’d realised exactly why I was so tired.
I unpacked the rest of the shopping and began to make tea. I liked tea these days, preferred it over coffee. Alec would want tea when he was home too. It would help him unwind.
Another half an hour went and I checked my phone more than a few times, determined not to panic. The bond was steady and there were no signs of irregular distress. This far away, three or four miles, I could only make out confirmation of his existence and the absence of anything seriously bad.
I unrolled my small, inky canvas and set it out in our bedroom. Maybe I’d get it framed. It was a mishmash of shapes and swirls, but Charlie was right; my feelings at the time were imprinted into it. I would look at it and remember that morning, always.
When I heard Alec’s keys in the door, I let out a happy sigh.
‘Hey, baby,’ he called out and immediately, I felt something wasn’t right. His voice was a little strained, more worn than usual.
I hurried to the front door and took in the sight of him.
‘Fuck,’ I swore, taking his keys from him. ‘What happened?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek. ‘Just a rogue pack of raveners.’
Alec was still wearing his gear and though he’d obviously used his healing runes, they hadn’t healed everything from what had clearly been a serious fight. I touched his face, assessing the injuries and trying not to get lost in his beautiful blue eyes. Fuck, but I’d missed him so much the last few days.
‘Everyone OK?’ I asked somewhat distractedly because obviously everyone was fine, I couldn’t sense that anything in the bond that resembled our distress signal. I moved his hair back, longer now than it had ever been before and continued to scan him for where he’d been hurt as we moved into the kitchen.
‘All good,’ he assured me. ‘How are you feeling?’
I sat him down at the table and helped him shrug his coat off. He barely winced, but I could feel the spasm of pain shooting down his right side.
‘You’ve cracked a rib,’ I said, frowning with concern. ‘Two, I think.’
He sighed. ‘I asked how you were feeling?’
I gave him a dry kind of look, rolling his shirt up. ‘I’m not the one with splintered bones. This needs to come off. You ready?’ Carefully, I helped him remove the black tee, noting everywhere the fabric was damp with blood or slightly torn. ‘There were a lot of the fuckers, huh?’
‘Eight,’ he confirmed, hissing quietly as the t-shirt came away. ‘We killed them all.’
I moved hands over his bare skin, smiling. ‘Of course you did. Karine’s OK too?’
‘She’s fine.’ Alec stroked the side of my face. ‘You’re feeling better now.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, keeping my mind on his half-healed injuries. I placed my hand over his heart and breathed deeply, finding his centre and letting our bond contract and twine closely once more. Then I began to draw healing runes on him, the kind that came from our shared magic, our blood. As ever, a faint white glow came from the rune as it took hold and coursed through his body, fixing what standard Nephilim runes could not. We focused on the magic and the bond and slowly, his injuries melted away.
When I opened my eyes, he was watching me with unabashed adoration, the intensity of it enough to make me smile involuntarily.
‘I fucking missed you so much,’ he breathed and then we were kissing. At last we were kissing and finally, I felt whole once more. His lips slotted over mine, moving insistently. I slid my tongue into his mouth and carefully curled my arms around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. He lifted me from where I was kneeling in front of him and moved me onto his lap where I straddled him.
‘Missed you too,’ I managed to get out against his mouth, sucking his bottom lip between my teeth for a second, running my fingers through his beautiful black hair, carding through the long silky strands. ‘Hate being apart.’
The magic between us glowed and vibrated pleasantly, pleased at the proximity. The kiss slowed, turned into something else. We held each other close, kissing just for the sake of it now.
‘Love you,’ he murmured, tracing circles at the nape of my neck. ‘My beautiful husband.’
I smiled against his lips and drew back enough to look at him.
‘Love you too,’ I told him. ‘You feel better now?’
He sighed, nuzzling the side of my face. ‘Of course I do. I’m home.’
Alec was a pretty great cook, truth be told. Karine had shown him a few things in those early weeks and he’d been paying attention. He learned fast when it came to food and this was where we were happiest, at least during daylight hours. Music playing in the kitchen while he prepared and cooked food and occasionally, I would help, if not otherwise engaged with research, reading or whatever else required my attention.
With Izzy and Max coming, he was working hard to make something extra special, though I personally thought everything he made was special.
‘Need any help?’ I asked, looking up from the book I was reading and meticulously annotating.
‘Not yet,’ he said, peeling carrots. ‘So, how was therapy?’
Asking each other things like this was part of our routine. It would be easy for him to simply slip inside my mind and discover all this as I could with him. There was essentially no need for speech between us but that wasn’t how we wanted it to be. We made effort to ask and answer things like this as much as possible. I loved hearing his voice, hearing him explain his thoughts, his feelings and he loved it in turn, hearing from me.
‘It was good,’ I said, hand aching slightly from the sheer volume of notes. Selket demons were bad news, as far as I was concerned. Karine had been dead on about Paris being a whole other level of dangerous. ‘But I think that was my last session.’
‘Oh really?’ He washed the carrots under the tap and after they were clean and peeled, handed me a raw one. I took it and shot him a bemused look.
‘A gift… for me?’ I asked, laughing slightly.
He blinked and cocked his head like he hadn’t even realised he’d done it. ‘Huh,’ he said and shrugged it off. ‘Guess I thought you might be hungry?’
‘I am, actually,’ I said and took a bite. It was cold and crunchy, sweeter than I remembered raw carrots being. ‘And yeah, last session today.’
I felt his restraint at not simply finding the reason why and I respected it, plus it was nice not having to go out of my way to hide certain things.
‘You like her though.’
‘Of course, I do. It’s just… come to an end.’
He gave me a sweet little smile. ‘You seem happy about it.’
I shrugged and ate the rest of the carrot. ‘Change is good.’
When he handed me another, I took it without comment that time.
I went back to my notes for a few minutes until his phone rang. He answered it after the third ring, holding it between his shoulder and ear. ‘Elaina,’ he greeted, slipping into his easy, perfect French. ‘What’s up?’
Elaina Saharon was the Head of the Paris Institute, a woman who was both a kickass leader but also one hell of a fighter.
‘Yeah, he’s here,’ Alec said. ‘You need to talk to him?’ When he didn’t hand the phone over to me, I assumed that was a no and went back to my notes, content to let Alec handle whatever it was. ‘No, I don’t think so, but I’ll let you know. Talk soon, bye.’
I wondered if Alec speaking French was ever not going to be sexy.
‘Elaina says feel better and let her know if you’ll be well enough to patrol the east sector with me tomorrow night.’
I scribbled out the last word of my notes and then frowned. ‘I’m not sick.’
‘You need rest,’ he said absently. ‘Lots of rest.’
‘You’ve been saying that for days.’
‘I can feel how tired you are, that’s why. If you’re coming down with something—’
‘I never get so much as a cold.’
‘—then you need to take it easy and stay here, out of danger.’
I looked up and watched him for a moment, leaning back in the chair. ‘Alec, did you hear what you just said?’
He was distracted, attention on the vegetables. ‘Hmm?’
‘I can’t be out of danger,’ I pointed out curiously. ‘Our lives are danger.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, dashing oil into a pan. ‘I guess so. Do you want to take a nap before Izzy and Max get here?’
Delicately, I laid down my pen and tried to suppress the sense of delighted amusement I felt. This had been going on for days, this strange over-protectiveness, him being attentive in ways I hadn’t sought. Maybe if we’d been able to spend more time together, he would have figured it out by now, but fuck if it wasn’t the cutest thing in the world how he kind of knew but actually had no idea at all.
I sighed and got up, standing beside him as he worked. ‘No thanks,’ I said, expression carefully neutral. ‘Maybe I should patrol with you tomorrow, try and snap myself out of this, what do you think?’
He shook his head. ‘No way.’
Delicately, I raised my eyebrows, keeping the smile at bay, only just. ‘No way? Well, all right then Daddy.’
He shot me a look, darkly amused. ‘I just mean,’ he began to clarify, tipping the veg into the pan to give it a nice sear before it went into the oven. ‘That you shouldn’t be patrolling when you’re not a hundred percent, that’s all.’
He’d saved me a carrot before it went into the pan, offering it to me without looking. I leaned down and accepted it with my mouth like a cat.
‘I mean, maybe you should just stay here with me,’ I sighed, chewing the carrot as I began to wash up the pots and pans he’d used to far. We didn’t have many and they needed to be re-used often. ‘You could guard the door, if you want.’
‘It’s already got a magical lock.’
‘Then maybe,’ I went on, arm brushing his every few seconds as I worked. ‘I should walk around barefoot while you go out and hunt down delicious animals for us to eat as evidence of your prowess as provider.’
He wasn’t really listening; the searing was essential and he was focusing on that instead of my pleasant teasing for something he hadn’t quite realised yet.
‘Sounds good, baby,’ he said, narrow eyes watchful for any signs of blackened vegetables as he rolled the pan. ‘Whatever you want.’
When I laughed softly, he looked up, expression curious. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I shrugged.
‘No, what? Tell me?’ His attention felt like a physical caress on my skin and he set the pan aside on an unlit hob, hand moving over my lower back. It ached there; he could feel it. ‘Tell me.’
I small moan escaped my lips as his clever fingers dug into the achy part of my spine. My eyelashes fluttered, mouth opening because oh, that felt so nice and it really did ache there, a bittersweet constant kind of twinge.
Alec moved to stand behind me, both hands working the area, his fingers spread over my skin and thumbs weaving deep circles of blissful heat and pressure in all the right places.
‘Uhh,’ I groaned, unable to help it. ‘That’s so good.’
‘Hmm,’ was all I got in response and his mouth was close to my ear now. His lips skimmed the shell of my ear when he walked into me just enough to slide one hand from my lower back around to the front of my lower abdomen. The sensation was like an electric shock of something wonderful and my surprise echoed within him, but he still didn’t fucking get it.
He kissed my neck. ‘Get what, Jace?’ he asked, voice rough and low, mind distracted with me instead of vegetables this time around.
I shook my wet hands and rubbed them on the front of my jeans before covering his own hand with both of mine, keeping it there in that place as I leaned my head back onto his shoulder, eyes closed.
‘You’re so dumb,’ I said, heavy with affection.
He snorted at that, about to make a witty response when he froze.
He literally froze.
Finally, I thought.
I basked in his stunning realisation while his mind finally caught up with his body in terms of instinct and understanding. He could feel it, that little thing inside me. It was a part of me and a part of him, which was likely what threw him off at first because it didn’t feel so very different until you were looking for it. This tiny little new thread of something.
He gasped shakily, heart swelling impossibly. ‘Jace…’
I only realised this morning, I told him. I can feel it too.
Alec moved back so that I could turn. He stared at me, slack jawed and trembling with an emotion too strong to even name.
‘I think you knew before me,’ I said aloud, staring up into his wide, wonder-filled eyes. ‘The last week or so you’ve been kinda over-protective.’
He blinked slowly, shaking his head. ‘I didn’t… it didn’t register. I just thought you were tired, like maybe you needed to stay home for a few days. I… I can’t believe it,’ he added in a low, hoarse whisper. His gaze travelled down to where his hand still rested and I watched him, drunk on the feeling of his sheer fucking happiness, delighted to be the cause and container of it.
When he looked back up at me, those dark eyes hit me the depth of his feelings, every single one. All the joy, the fear, the questions, the blunt and unstoppably primal desire that flooded him and every other shade of emotion he couldn’t yet quantify, let alone decipher in such a state.
I was breathing fast, chest rising and falling, blood running hot and fast. I yanked his mouth down onto mine and moaned loudly, needing him so much I was dizzy with it. He kissed me deeply, hands cradling my face, tongue curling against mine as I panted, heart doing crazy fucking things.
‘How have you kept this from me?’ he panted, one hand slipping under my soft tee and sliding up my chest.
With the ease born of familiarity, I unbuckled his belt with one hand and shrugged. ‘Surprise?’
He stared at me for a moment and I could feel the full weight of everything between us. ‘I fucking love you so much,’ he said before he crashed our mouths back together, right where they belonged. It got heated really fast and when he picked me up, supporting me easily as I wrapped my legs around his middle, I looked over his shoulder at the food.
‘What about—’
‘Fuck it,’ he said, dragging kisses roughly down my neck as he carried me out of the kitchen, turning the oven off with his elbow. ‘We’ll order takeout.’
‘Oh my God, I missed you guys so much!’ Izzy yelled, flinging her arms around me while Alec swung Max around like he was a little kid, which he really wasn’t anymore. The kid had hit a growth spurt this past summer and was going to be taller than me soon. Izzy’s hug was warm and she didn’t let go until I managed to waddle us backwards into the apartment.
‘Portal OK?’ Alec asked her, setting Max down with a fond ruffle of his little brother’s hair which was shorter and slightly styled, judging by Max’s disapproving glare.
‘Fine,’ Izzy waved away dismissively, hauling a bag up onto the nearby dresser. ‘Brought you guys some stuff you left last time plus a few staples.’
‘Mustard!’ I cried happily, peering into the gym bag. ‘American mustard!’
Max laughed. ‘Isn’t that kind of crass? French mustard is meant to be really good.’
I shook my head with disgust. ‘Max, have you ever tried French mustard? It’s fucking spicy as shit, yurgh! Ooh, American mayo! I love you, Izzy.’
Izzy shrugged her jacket off, hanging it on the small hooks near the door. ‘OK, the mustard is spicy, I’ll give you that, but what’s wrong with their mayonnaise?’
‘It’s weird,’ I stated decisively. ‘It’s all… eggy and weird, plus kinda tangy. Look, one of us has to be American trash and I’m bravely volunteering, all right? Alec is too busy becoming the next Marco Pierre White.’
Alec and Izzy shared a hug and the kiss he planted on her cheek lingered for a good three seconds. When they parted, I noticed Alec’s eyes were a little bright.
‘Speaking of,’ Izzy said, looking around. ‘Why does nothing smell good? I mean, where’s the usual smell of amazing food?’
‘We’re getting takeout,’ I told her, while Max silently fist pumped. Alec’s food was fucking exceptional, but to a teenager, nothing beat takeout.
Izzy seemed suspicious for a moment before she shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Karine coming?’
‘Not for dinner, at least,’ Alec said as we moved into the living room, sinking down into plush, deep sofas, Izzy with Alec and Max with me. ‘I think she’s letting Dad down not so gently.’
I sighed. ‘Again.’
‘She’s never gonna get back with him,’ Max said, burrowing into my side like he used to when he was tiny. I wrapped my arms around him, dropping a kiss into his definitely-styled hair. How long until he was too big to do this anymore? I watched Izzy lay back onto Alec’s lap, feet hanging over the side of the sofa arm, while he played absently with her hair and I felt immediately reassured that it might be a while, at least. ‘He needs to get over it.’
Alec said, ‘I don’t think he’s gonna, not for a while.’
‘She’s way out of his league,’ I agreed.
‘Hence why he’s still after her,’ Izzy added dryly. ‘Oh, Mom says hi. She’s coming next week, I think. She’s got more framed photos of your wedding.’
Alec rolled his eyes, but smiled anyway. ‘More? We’ll have to build another wall at this rate.
He was exaggerating, obviously. We had maybe eight photos of that rainy day; the no-fuss ceremony in which we both wore rented tuxes and everyone else wore whatever they’d had on that day because it had been a surprise.
‘You wanna get married today?’ Alec had asked me, a week after I’d come back from the dead and Izzy was settling into her new role. We’d been due to leave for France the week after and there was no hesitation when I smiled and told him yes. The pictures showed everyone we loved, laughing in the rain, hugging and kissing and so very alive. No stilted awkwardness, no forced smiles. Messy rain, day wear and in the middle, Alec and I kissing and holding hands, newly donned rings and uncontained happiness.
‘Is it that one of us four?’ I asked. ‘I loved that one.’
‘Probably,’ Izzy said, tipping her head back to look at Alec. ‘Did she tell you about Luke yet?’
Alec frowned warily. ‘Tell me what about Luke?’ Izzy gave him a sympathetic smile and he groaned. ‘Oh God, please keep all details to yourself, Isabelle!’
‘There are no details,’ she insisted casually, glancing over at me, dark eyes twinkling. ‘They were just making out in the kitchen.’
I couldn’t help but grin while Alec grimaced. ‘That’s a fucking detail, Iz.’
‘Details would be whether or not he was feeling her up,’ Izzy corrected sagely while Alec’s expression ventured into scowl territory. ‘Or if there was any tongue—’
‘Please stop, I’m dying here!’
‘I didn’t even see it,’ she said. ‘Simon caught all the action.’
‘I think that really made him feel like part of the family,’ Max added helpfully. ‘Dude’s second night living in the Institute, he goes for a nice midnight snack of refrigerator blood and there’s people making out.’
‘Poor Simon,’ Alec lamented. ‘Though obviously, I’m happy for Mom. Luke is great.’
‘You realise this makes me and Clary sisters,’ Izzy looked up at him, positively beaming. ‘Like, if they get married, we’ll be sisters.’
‘Is it weird that I’ve made out with both your brother and new sister then?’ I asked, lips quirking.
Izzy sighed, ‘Silly Jace. Nothing in this family is weird.’
‘I made out with someone,’ Max slipped in, all casual like. I leaned back, jaw dropping as he disentangled himself from me.
‘You did not!’
Izzy sat up too, eyes wide. ‘Fuck off, Max, no you didn’t!’
Max sat there like the cat who got the cream. ‘C’mon, place your bets - am I gay, straight or somewhere in between?’
‘I mean,’ Alec began in what I immediately recognised as his lecture tone. ‘Sexuality is a spectrum, Max and there’s no need to limit yourself to—’
‘Yeah, yeah, shhh!’ Izzy waved frantically at him. ‘Max, you realise you are the tipping point here. All three of us, so far, equally represent the three cornerstones of sexuality. Gay,’ she gestured over his shoulder at Alec. ‘Bi,’ she nodded at me. ‘And straighty Mc-Straighterson over here, yours truly.’
‘Again,’ Alec said with a mildly disapproving frown. ‘There aren’t really three and you’re forgetting about asexuality, pansexual, demisexual—’
‘Babe, shut the fuck up!’ I laughed, looking expectantly at Max. ‘C’mon kid, lay it on us. Girl or boy?’
‘Wait!’ Izzy yelled, scrabbling to grasp her phone. ‘Let’s text him our guesses so we can show him after.’
I dug out my phone and sent Max my one worded guess, helplessly charmed as Alec typed out significantly more than a single word. When Alec sent it, Max bit his bottom lip, a gesture that reminded me of myself.
Softly, he said, ‘It was a guy.’
All three of us broke into uproarious cheering, showing Max our correct guesses; Alec’s text contained a bracketed note underneath the word ‘boy’ which explained that both gender and sexuality were nuanced spectrums to be explored and considered over many years’ worth of experiences, all of which we would be entirely supportive of.
‘OK, to be fair, though,’ Izzy chuckled, leaning back against Alec, after I finished drilling Max for details which he was pretty stingy with. ‘We haven’t had a female Shadowhunter around your age in the Institute for, like, months, so my guess was educated.’
Alec peered at Max. ‘I bet you like both, though, right? Girls and boys?’
Max just smiled, keeping quiet, but his answer was clear.
‘Thank God Mom and Dad are pretty cool about things like this,’ Izzy said. ‘Seventy five percent of their progeny are queer. Maybe they should get a float in the parade next year. Lightwood Pride!’ Alec cleared his throat pointedly. ‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘Sorry, Mr Herondale.’
The light-hearted banter went on for a while until there came a knock at the door and I scooted off the sofa to answer it, money in my hand for the takeout. A friendly young woman handed over our pizzas and sides, wishing me a good night and walking away with a hefty tip.
Izzy came to help. ‘Here,’ she said, taking the top box. We walked into the kitchen together. ‘Ooh, French pizza is so pretty!’ She opened the boxes, looking at the stone baked, uneven bases, drenched with mozzarella, sauce, herbs, olives and thinly sliced pepperoni. ‘Hey, while I have you,’ she added, turning to me in our small kitchen. She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and took out a folded envelope. ‘A Mundane girl was hovering around the Institute last week, trying to deliver this and another one. I spoke to her myself.’ Izzy handed me the letter, my eyes zeroing in on the handwriting. So similar to mine. The same slant of the L’s, the same curved S’s. ‘She said her roommate left all his stuff behind and never came back. When she cleared it out, she found two letters and she brought them to the address on the front. The other one was for Clary.’
I couldn’t move my eyes from the handwriting. ‘Did she think it was weird you were hanging out in an abandoned church?’ I asked.
‘Jace,’ Izzy said, placing her hand on my shoulder. ‘I didn’t open it because it’s addressed to you, but I think it’s from…’
‘Sebastian,’ I answered, swallowing thickly. ‘Or Jonathan, maybe.’
‘I don’t know why Jonathan would write you a letter,’ Izzy said gently. ‘But I think Sebastian might have. I didn’t ask Clary about hers and she didn’t tell me anything, not yet anyway. But yeah, I wanted you to have it so you can decide what to do with it.’
She began tactfully setting the plates on the table, calling Alec and Max to help her while I made a swift getaway, diverting into the bathroom before the others could see me. The letter felt heavy, even though I could tell it was barely one page.
In the bathroom, I locked the door and sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat. Slowly, I tore the opening and slid out the paper, unfolding it to see a full page of beautifully written words. My heart was beating fast when I started to read.
Dear Jace,
How strange to be writing such a letter to you, of all people. It
’s the kind of letter I never thought I’d get to write, but here we are. Life is strange, isn’t it? If you’re reading this, then I’m dead and I know it was because I couldn’t hold on any longer. Every day, I worry that this will be the day I lose control. I can feel my strength slipping; this slow, incremental process of inevitability. If I hope for anything, it’s that I can hold out long enough for Sang’s drug to kill me. There are other things I could hope for, but I’m a realist at heart. Every moment of my existence in this state is borrowed; I feel Jonathan watching, waiting for a small mistake he can twist into an opportunity. I write this to you in anticipation of my failure. My time was always going to be limited.
If I
’m dead, the only one who could have killed me was you, I’m certain of that. For this, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll find this hard to swallow, but I never wanted to cause you any pain. There’s no way to explain it, but you meant a lot to me when I was young, before I became the thing I now seek to keep at bay with magic. There was a time I used to tell myself to be more like you. I think that’s what I am, really. A small splinter of light in a vacuum of darkness; the part of me that always wanted to be just like you. I wish I had your strength, Jace.
I don
’t have to tell you to take care of Clary. If I’m dead, then she’s safe and I can rest easy knowing she is surrounded by people who love her. In my letter to her, as I’m sure you know, I left her things that will hopefully make her life easier. She deserves everything and though money and holdings do not buy happiness, they might ease her way through what I know will be a good life.
I have nothing to leave you but my gratitude and the things I told you and Alec about today in the library. Alec looked like he wanted to kill me and I don
’t doubt that he did. Sometimes I imagine a future for you and him and though I feel jealous, it always makes me smile. Belaphim is clever, but he forgets that destiny will always circle back around. Be wary of the shadow behind Belaphim, though. I cannot see the shape, but there is always a bigger fish swimming where the sun does not penetrate. I wish I could be of more help.
If the cost of killing me was high, I am sorry. Don
’t let guilt be a part of it.
Live your life in honour of everything you are. Of everything you endured and survived. I would be proud to die at your hands, brother.
It was unsigned, but that hardly mattered. I read it again, realising my hands were shaking slightly as I held the paper. A well of sadness and something else, less easily defined, came over me and I let it in. I allowed myself to grieve for that small piece of my past, for the man who represented everything I experienced as a child. My what if mirror image, in so many respects. I closed my eyes and felt two tears roll warmly down my cheeks.
I saw his face again in the moment my sword went through his neck. The brief, softening of his expression as it turned to momentary gratitude before the light went out of his eyes. Grateful to die, grateful to be prevented from hurting those he loved.
You deserved better, I thought and carefully folded his letter in half again.
When I went back to the kitchen, eyes wiped and letter stowed in our bedroom, Alec, Izzy and Max were digging into the food, talking and laughing loudly. I watched them there for a moment, hanging back.
There had been a time I felt like an outsider, an interloper into their happiness. Unworthy of their love and determination to keep me there in their family. They’d been too good for me; I belonged elsewhere, away from such goodness and kindness.
Alec’s eyes found mine and he smiled gently. I didn’t need to tell him about the letter, he already knew. He’d read it with it me, shared my pain so it was bearable. I sat beside him, smiling with overly bright eyes. His hand twined with mine and I could feel the warm metal of his wedding band, the twin of mine.
‘Here you go, baby,’ he said, passing me a slice of my favourite pizza. His voice was like an anchor to safety, a reminder that I was not, and never would be, an outsider. He always made me feel like the epicentre of his world. ‘You want some fries too? Max already ate most of them, but I rescued a few for you.’
‘Yeah, barely,’ Izzy put in. She winked at me, smiling in a way that said I love you louder than any telepathy could. ‘Kid’s not over the novelty of eating French fries in France.’
Max rolled his eyes, Lightwood style, and I let myself laugh, squeezing Alec’s hand. He was right there beside me, inside me, all around. I was safe and loved, I was one of them. It was everything Sebastian could never have had.
I would appreciate every fucking moment of it for as long as I lived.
‘So,’ Izzy said, taking a bite of her pizza, plain cheese and herbs. ‘What’s new with you guys?’
My breath caught in my chest, the excitement of seeing their reactions blossoming in my heart. Alec tried to bite down a smile, glancing at me with those beautiful eyes.
‘Well,’ I said after a beat, managing to look away from the centre of my universe. ‘We actually have some news.’
*
|
Inside Dany's chambers, on the boat docked near King's Landing, Dany was laid on her bed. She should have been resting. The Last War would take place tomorrow. But she knew sleep wouldn't find her tonight.
Her hand was placed on her lower stomach, hoping to feel Rhaelya, just in case she didn't get the chance again, but no matter how patient she was, she never felt anything. It's too early. Dany told herself.
A light knock at her door broke the silence in the room, and she moved her head to look at the source of the sound. Orders had been given to her Unsullied guards not to disturb her unless the matter was urgent, so she pushed herself off the bed, and walked over to her door, pulling it open.
Dany held in a gasp as her eyes met Jon's. He was one of the last people she expected to see stood outside her door.
Jon tilted his head, looking over her shoulder. "Can I come in?"
"Why?" She asked.
"I want to talk," Jon replied. He sounded so sincere, and Dany felt her heart flutter in her chest.
She thought about slamming the door in his face, but quickly realised she wanted someone with her, in case this was her last night alive. She stepped aside, letting him enter her chambers, pushing the door closed once he had walked past her. When she turned around towards him, her hands moved to her stomach instinctively, but she managed to cease her actions and cross her arms over her chest instead.
"What do you want to talk about?" she asked.
Jon stepped forward, moving slowly, until he was stood in front of her. She eyed him carefully as he reached out and took her head in his hands, just like he had back at Winterfell, after she begged him not to tell his sisters the truth.
"I love you, Dany," Jon told her. "I do. I love you so much, and I'm sorry I haven't said it more, but I'm..." He blinked quickly several times and wet his bottom lip with his tongue. Dany felt his grip become slightly tighter on her face, but not enough to cause her discomfort. "I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know how to deal with all of this." His eyes became glassy, and Dany could see the outline of her reflection in them."I don't know how to help you," he whispered.
"Help me?" Dany echoed. She was unsure why he mentioned her. "Help me with what?"
"With whatever your struggling with," Jon answered softly. "I want to be there for you however I can."
Dany shook her head, causing Jon to loosen his grip on her. "You're far too late to be there for me, Jon. I needed you a long time ago, and you weren't there. I needed you the night before the dead arrived. I wanted someone to spend my time with. Until I found you, I was alone. Those few hours could have been my last, and I spent them mainly looking for you. All I wanted was to spend them with you," Dany explained with tears in her eyes. Jon's hands slipped from her face, down to her shoulders. His mouth parted, but he didn't know how to respond. "I needed you after the battle, when everyone was celebrating with their friends or loved ones, and I was sat alone."
"Dany..." Jon whispered.
"I needed you when your people shunned me and made me feel like an outsider. When your sister turned against me. When your best friend decided not to trust me because I executed some of his family for their refusal to bend the knee." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
A couple of tears rolled freely down her cheeks, and she made no attempt to stop them. Jon moved his hands to wipe away her tears, like he always had in the past, but she swatted his hands away with her own. He felt wounded by her action, and held his hands to his chest awkwardly.
"I needed you when I lost my best friend, and my child fell from the sky," Dany continued. "I needed you when I found out people were conspiring behind my back to get rid of me and put you on the throne. I needed you when I cried myself to sleep every night because of how lonely I was, and I needed you when I had nightmares that made me wake up screaming." She sighed. "But most of all, I needed you by my side, Jon."
Jon looked away in shame. "I'm sorry, Dany."
"Sorry doesn't make up for all the times you weren't there," Dany replied.
Jon felt like she'd punched him in his chest with her words.
"I can be here now," he said desperately.
She remained still. He couldn't even see the rise of her shoulders to indicate she was breathing. Eventually, Dany's bottom lip trembled and Jon could tell she was trying to keep herself composed, but within seconds, she broke down into a flood of tears. Her hand moved up to her mouth to muffle her sobs, and Jon moved to wrap his arms around her. He was scared she might push him away, but was glad when she didn't. As he pulled her closer to his chest, her arms wrapped around his body, and she clung to him. Her tears dampened his shoulder and the flesh of his neck where Dany had buried her face.
"Please stay with me," Dany mumbled into his neck.
Jon squeezed her tightly. "For as long as you want me to."
***
After she had begun to cry, Jon guided her over to the bed, and she asked him to lie down with her, so he had. Dany snuggled up to Jon's side, and they both put their arms around each other.
They hadn't spoken for the past half hour; the only sounds in the room were Dany's occasional sobs and sniffs, and Jon's soothing noises of comfort.
Dany currently had her eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of Jon mindlessly running his fingers through the ends of her hair. She hadn't let anyone else touch it since Missandei died.
"Jon," she said, her voice croaky from not talking for so long.
"Hmm?"
"The people here will never follow me, will they?" she whispered, as if she was scared of her own voice.
Jon moved beneath her, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. He knew he had to be honest. "I don't know. I can't speak for them. Maybe you just need to give them a chance to see who you are," Jon told her.
Dany wriggled from his grip, and pushed herself upwards into a sitting position. Jon's arm slid down her back as she sat up, until it rested on the bed beside her. She stared at him in silence, and he searched her eyes with his own, realising they were empty. He remembered the first time he properly looked in her eyes, when he first met her at Dragonstone. They were filled with confidence, and pride, and hope, but she had lost all of that along the way.
"Like I gave the North a chance?" Dany questioned dryly.
"The Northerners are stubborn, I told you that," Jon reminded her.
"They're not just stubborn. They don't trust anyone who isn't one of them," Dany said sadly. "I know I didn't defeat the Night King, that was your sister, and I won't take that victory away from her, but I helped. I saved your life twice that night. I probably saved the lives of some of your men. I lost-" Her voice caught in her throat. I lost Jorah. She thought, unable to voice what was on her mind. Talking about him when she felt so emotional was sure to make her cry again. "What more do I need to do to gain their trust and respect?"
"I'll talk to them," Jon said. "After the war."
"That won't change anything," Dany replied. "They didn't accept me before. Why would you talking to them make any difference? If they were going to respect your wishes, they would have already done so. Just like your sister. She didn't respect your choice, or your wishes. She won't stop until you are on the throne."
Jon glanced at Dany, unable to look at her for longer than a few seconds. He felt ashamed of himself. He had failed her in so many ways. It was surprising to him that she could even bear to be near him.
"If I tell her-"
"If you tell her what?!" Dany cut him off. "You've already told her I am your Queen. You've already told her not to spread the truth about you. She ignored you on both accounts. She won't listen, Jon. She's already asked me for independence after you bent the knee to me. If you're not on the throne, she will never be happy."
Jon sat up himself, and reached out for Dany's hand, pulling it towards him, and encasing it in both his hands. "Sansa is stubborn, and strong-willed. She's a lot like you in that respect. You wouldn't back down either. I wish I could make her listen to me, but I can't."
"I know," she replied, sounding completely exhausted. Jon looked down at their joined hands, and Dany sighed. "It won't ever stop, you know that, don't you? No matter how much time passes." Dany's voice sounded calm, yet vicious. It was a strange combination that didn't blend well together. "Tyrion wants you on the throne. The High Lords and Ladies will want you on the throne. The North will want you on the throne. The people here might want that too when they find out the truth."
"So, what?!" Jon snapped. He reached up and placed one of his hands on her cheek. Her skin was warm to his touch. "Dany, I will refuse it! I will step down. Revoke my claim. I don't care about it. I don't want to be a King!"
"I don't want you to step down," she said.
Jon froze, with his mouth half open and his eyebrows lowered.
"What?" Jon asked when he found his voice.
Dany felt his hand begin to fall away from her face, and she placed her hand on top of his, pushing it back onto her cheek.
"I want you to be the King. My King. I want us to rule together." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "When this is all over, would you stay here, with me?"
Dany gave him a hopeful smile and held her breath while she waited for him to answer. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Jon locked his gaze with hers, her expression threatening to break his heart.
"If that's what you want," Jon replied.
He saw her eyes gloss over. "Is it what you want, Jon?"
Jon blinked quickly a few times. "I want to be by your side, like you need me to be."
Dany shook her head, grabbing onto his hand resting on her face and moving it down to her lap. "I only want you to stay here with me if that's what you truly want, not because it's what I need."
Jon looked to the side, and Dany saw the way his whole body tensed.
"I don't think I'm suited to be King of the Seven Kingdoms. I couldn't even be King in the North properly."
"You did what was right for your people," Dany said. "That's exactly what King's should do."
Jon gave her a small smile, but Dany knew he wasn't really accepting what she was saying. She could tell he was confused about his feelings, and perhaps in time it would be easier for him, but they could die tomorrow. She looked down, to his hand on her lap. It would be so easy to reach out and place his hand on her stomach and tell him the truth about their child.
"Do you still want to be with me, Jon? If we survive?"
After several seconds, she received nothing but silence from him. Her throat dried and she had a sudden wave a nausea.
"What about a family? If we could have one? Do you still think about that?" she asked, her tone full of apprehension.
Jon watched as the colour drained from Dany's face, making her look paler than usual.
"Jon?" Dany whispered, urging him to answer her.
"I..." He sighed.
He doesn't want Rhaelya. Dany panicked.
"Be honest with me, Jon." she said timidly.
"It's hard to think about anything else right now aside from the war," Jon replied.
A shiver ran all over Dany's body, and she felt tears spring to her eyes.
"Dany..." Jon sighed, after seeing the tears in her eyes. He reached forward to try to embrace her, but she dodged his touch.
"Please, don't," she said, her voice cracking.
"I'll come and find you after the war," Jon told her. "We can talk properly then."
Dany shook her head. "No."
"No?" Jon echoed.
"Come and find me only if you want to," she said. "I mean it, Jon. Please. I can't keep doing this. Going back and forth with you. My heart can't take much more."
"Alright." Jon agreed.
As he avoided her gaze, Dany knew there was little chance she would see him after the battle. "You should go," she whispered.
Jon cleared his throat, nodding his head, but he didn't move to leave, and instead, reached for the dagger at his side, and took it from his belt.
"I want you to have this," he told her. "After what happened at Winterfell, perhaps you should have it. Just to be safe."
He held out the dagger towards her, and she took it in her hand. The blade reflected the candlelight of her chambers as she held in in front of her.
"I have Drogon," Dany answered.
"If you fall from Drogon, you'll need something."
"You might lose Longclaw, then you would have nothing," Dany said, holding the dagger back towards Jon. "I won't fall from Drogon this time."
Jon hesitated at her offering of the dagger, so she leaned closer to him.
"I don't need it," she said, slotting it back into it's place on his belt. Jon could tell from her tone she was hurt by their conversation.
Dany pushed herself off the bed, and turned back towards Jon. She lifted her chin, and tried to muster whatever pride she had left. "I wish you good fortune in the war to come."
"Dan-"
"Just leave," Dany interrupted him. "Please," she begged, her voice trembling.
Jon didn't move for a while. He remained on the bed, watching the woman he loved, wishing he knew what to say or do to help her.
Dany eventually grew annoyed with him and his refusal to leave when she asked. She walked over to the door, and pulled it open, ordering him out with a stern glance.
Jon lowered his head, stood up and bowed to her, then walked through the door. Dany slammed it behind him, making herself jump with the loud bang it made.
She leaned back against the door, and slid down it, wrapping her arms around her middle. She wanted to cry, but she had no tears left. She felt empty. There was a gaping hole in her heart from all she had lost, and Jon had just made it even bigger.
How could it be that when she first found out about Rhaelya, everything was perfect? She had found the man she was going to marry, she was carrying his child, she was surrounded by her loyal friends. She had her armies, her children. She had lost Viserion, and she would never get over that, she would miss him forever, but she still had so much to live for. Now, she had only a few things, but even they were tinged with misery.
"What am I supposed to do?" she whispered to herself, banging her head lightly against the door behind her. "What should I do?"
But there was no one left to give her an answer.
|
He couldn’t do it.
He froze staring at the blade and his scar-ridden arm. (
He had used his metaphoragus powers during day to day life to hide and disguise his scars but now he had shifted his disguise away, it reminded him his past and how much he missed it.)
He desperately pushed his magic into the arm cuff that was on his arm and activated it.
He needed his Daddy right now.
Severus slumped down into his couch, settling down after an eventful morning and yet another class of dunderheads he had to teach. He thanked all things magical that he had a break between most of his classes and settled down into his fluffy cushion ready for a cup of coffee and some marking. Suddenly, a wash of distress hit him through the link he shared with his child and he desperately sent the comfort and love to him as he surged to his feet. A pop sounded and the very child he was ready to run to appeared right in front of him. His son stood right in front of him shaking, a blade in his hand, his sleeve rolled up, silent tears rolling down his face.
“Da...Dad… Help…. Help me…”
Severus' heart stopped, instantly he kicked back into his healer training refusing to let his emotional father instincts kick in and terrify and push away his child.
“Okay Sidor, can you put down the knife?”
“I… ca… can’t! Dad!”
Harry was on the verge of panic, his fingers were not responding and no matter what he did his hand seemed frozen around the blade.
Severus quickly re-calculated his moves and actions he needed to talk his child down and continued.
“It's okay, my little one, hey! Hey! Look at me, take one step forward Sidor, that’s it. A few more little one, come to me. It’s okay, you are safe here. Come to my arms, Sidor. That’s it, move towards me.”
Severus kept his voice soothing and opened his arms towards his child. Slowly but surely he coaxed Sidor into his arms and quickly he wrapped his arms around the small trembling body, and with deft fingers pried the blade from his child before banishing it.
Harry felt the warmth of his father surround him and the part of him that was screaming in panic and drowning in despair quieted and it was almost as if the tension in his body drained away. He barely noticed when his dad pried the blade out of his hand. All he cared about was the fact that the arms around him seemed to ground him in the tempest of his emotions.
Severus could feel when his son melted into him and the tension in his body faded. While he knew it was not over, there was a well of relief that flowed through him that Sidor was no longer standing on the edge. Gently he coaxed his little one to sit down on the couch with him and dragged him closer into his arms.
“It’s okay little one, let it out, your daddy is here. Let it out, you will feel better afterwards. I have you, little one. Let it out, little one. I will be here to catch you when you fall.”
Severus started to tenderly stroke the shaking back, and slowly but surely the shaking decreased in frequency but increase in intensity. He knew that his child was finally crying, his shirt started to get wetter, and he could feel the death grip his little Prince had on his robes get tighter and his son tried even harder to bury himself into
“My little Prince, I am here, do you need to talk to me?”
“Da...d”
Sidor stared at his father, a wave of embarrassment and shame crashed over him, he had no idea what he was going to do now. He had fallen back onto his vices and had almost relapsed at the same time, he had not scratched the itch and there is a part of him that was still screaming that he could run away, hide in a corner and finally
finally
itch the itch that had been bugging him ever since he had stopped five years ago. He had no idea how to even start to talk to or even explain what was running through his head or even his heart at the moment.
“My little one, it’s okay, will you let me in?”
Sidor stared at his father, he knew what his dad was asking, and he was very conflicted. He did not know if he could face the shame of his father knowing how far he had fallen, how far he had backslid, how far he had messed up.
How much he was a freak.
At the same time, another part of him was so very tired. He just wanted his Dad to take the burden to lighten his load and he was just so
so cold.
“Sidor, I love you, you know regardless of what happens you know that I find I will always love you. You are my son, and nothing will change that, understand that?”
The messy haired green eyed child nuzzled closer into his father’s arms before tilting his face up and the two pairs of eyes, one emerald and one obsidian meet. Instantly when their eyes connected, Severus was instantly overwhelmed by the emotions that crashed over him.
Severus’s heart was shattering, he had no idea that his little one was suffering so much. The wave of emotions that crashed over him told him that it had not just been this incident, the feelings of worthlessness had started a long time before Sidor had been injured and laid up in bed. In that split second in which he was immersed in his son’s emotions, he made a decision. He knew that Sidor would not be able to recover properly in Hogwarts, he would give their excuses and take him back home, and if he never wanted to return back to Hogwarts, then he would not force his child. His little one’s friends could come over whenever. That was
not
a problem, what
is
a problem is how badly his child is hurting.
“Mixie!”
“Master Severus! How Is bes helping?”
“Mixie pack up Sidor’s belongings and mine, we are going home.”
|
It takes twenty four hours for Roman to text her. Less than a day at home, and she can practically hear the flailing in the words on her phone.
They want me to go turkey hunting. A manly bonding thing.
I didn’t think that was the traditional Christmas meat.
The Roys don’t comply with tradition. Ham and venison are also present. Why have one overlarge plate of meat when you can have three?
Do you have to shoot the deer too?
It’s flattering you think I have that skill.
I assumed you’d have a servant or something that would do the actual shooting for you
Glen has the holiday off. Responsible for fending for ourselves in this frigid landscape.
How brave.
She’s seen photos of the Roy estate, looming in the New England countryside, imagines fireplaces in every room, is certain that whether or not Glen is real, there are at least ten people tasked with keeping the family warm and fed, holiday or not.
The winter break is always Gerri’s favorite time of year, snow falling and warm drinks, curled up on her couch. She gets too antsy over the summer break, months of unstructured time looming, but the three weeks of winter that she gets to spend away from campus - that’s the perfect amount of time.
She tweaks her syllabi occasionally, adjusts deadlines and readings, but mostly enjoys the solitude, enjoys days where she doesn’t have to open her mouth to speak, no lectures to give, no one coming to her door to complain about a bad grade when they left half the answers blank. Her ex-husband calls once, a perfunctory holiday greeting from Baird Kellman the only real tradition she has.
And now she has Roman texting her every day. Sometimes it’s short, just a quick “Help, I’m going to die out here!” and she just sends back a thumbs up. Sometimes it’s a longer diatribe on the torture of spending time with the Roys. And sometimes just a quick picture, usually blurry and out of focus, she has to squint to make out what it is he wants her to see. That usually gets an eyeroll sent back to him, nothing less, nothing more. She’s learned that he likes it better when she doesn’t give into his dramatic fits, when she stays distant and aloof. She’s seen the glint in his eye when she’s rude, the slight flush in his pale cheeks. She knows what’s there.
She gets one email from him, a reply to the all-class missive she sent out, reminding them to check their grades, wishing them a good holiday. It took two weeks, but he answered, a brown-nosing email from anyone else, but she can imagine the smirk on his face as she reads the words.
Thanks for a good semester, Dr Kellman. Nice to finally take one of your classes. I know I will be coming to you in the future. Have a good break. Be seeing you.
The last line, the echo of her words to him. It makes her whole body flush, to think that he’s kept those parting words in his own mind too.
And then he calls her, on Christmas Eve, and she can’t decide if it’s flattering how much he wants to talk to her, or insulting that he assumes she’ll be available whenever he wants to talk.
“What do you want, Mr. Roy?” she asks, leaning more towards annoyance than that childish glee, that embarrassing happiness at the thought of him calling her.
“Has anyone ever died from too much exposure to family?” They’re both beyond pleasantries, it seems. It’s almost a relief.
“I believe you build up a tolerance in your youth, that’s how you get through adulthood.” She stopped going home for Christmas a while ago, when she got divorced, when her parents sided with Baird, when she decided her career was the most important, when she moved for a professorship. She spent the holiday writing an article that turned into a book that made a small splash on the political science scene.
“It’s worn off. Kendall is practically trying to measure our dicks at the dinner table and Shiv’s been taking too many feminist classes in college and keeps telling us we’re all pigs.”
“Well, you are a pig, Roman.” It’s easy to slip into using his first name, to drop the title, to take him out of the box of student and put him into another box, one she isn’t quite sure what to name yet.
“Yeah?” There’s a breathless quality to his voice that makes her heartbeat quicken a little, makes her own breath come a little short.
“Calling up your old professor instead of spending time with your family, sending text messages of debatable maturity for two weeks, what else would you call yourself?” She stares at her fingers, sliding one nail under her thumbnail, cleaning out nonexistent dirt, thinking she might have to schedule a manicure before the next semester starts.
He sent her a selfie just yesterday, astride a horse, captioned with a groan-inducing “always been good at mounting” that Gerri will never admit made her smile fondly, too.
“Maybe, oh, I don’t know, a gentleman of questionable morals?” She can hear the slide of innuendo in his voice, can picture the way his mouth moves around the words, the tilt of his head as he waits for her to respond.
“I think we can both agree on questionable morals. Gentleman is debatable.” She leans back in her chair, head tilted against the back cushion, legs curled up on the seat. There’s a cozy familiarity here, she’s surprised at how easy it is to talk to him, to exist in this moment, where neither of them have roles to fill.
“You’re not that old,” he says, the comment coming from nowhere. Gerri blinks a little, trying to catch up, to rewind, to find where he is.
“Thank you?” is what she settles on.
“You said you were my old professor. You’re not that old.” He sounds shy, embarrassed.
“I meant old as in former, but I’m delighted to know your thoughts on my age.” She knows she’s smiling, feels the warmth from the conversation as easily as if she had a fire going, logs crackling.
“You know what I mean. Like, you’re old, obviously, but, like, not gross.” She has to suppress a laugh, has to press her hand to her mouth to stopper the sound.
“I take it back, you’re definitely a gentleman,” she says. “Good night, Roman.” It’s firm, it’s kind, it’s like a hand on a shoulder, squeezing gently.
“Good night, G-,” there’s a pause, she can hear Roman’s intake of breath. “Good night, teach. Merry Christmas.” The phone goes dead.
-
The start of the spring semester is always better than the fall, Gerri finds. Familiar first-year faces, happy to have a class with her again, a chance to teach courses related to her independent research, the promise of spring break in just a few months. There’s more hope in the air in January, a new year bringing with it promise.
She doesn’t see Roman for the first week of classes, reminds herself not to be disappointed, that she has more in her life than a twitchy twenty-one year old with a slouching problem. It doesn’t stop her from thinking that the chair just left of the middle and three rows back as “his” chair, hopes that the eager sophomore sitting there in her Mass Media and Politics class will fulfill at least some of Roman’s potential.
Despite the fact that he spent a good deal of the previous semester sitting in her office, it still feels like a surprise when he comes slouching in during the second week of classes, slides into his usual chair and waits for her to look up from her computer.
She finishes the sentence, tapping the period decisively, and then turns to him, looks over the edge of her glasses. “You aren’t in my class this semester,” she says.
“But I brought you coffee,” he answers and hands her the still warm paper cup, and she just knows he’s put in cream and sugar the way she likes it. “And Frank is an idiot.”
“Dr. Vernon,” she corrects gently, not quite able to let him be glibly disrespectful in her office. “Isn’t his class happening right now?”
Roman looks down at his hands. “Dr. Vernon is an idiot. His syllabus is narrow and he assigned his own book and I’m not giving that fucker any royalties and he just expects us to spend class telling him how nice his dick is while he slaps us in the face with it.”
Gerri means back a little at the onslaught, blinks once, twice.
“And he’s boring.”
She can’t argue with that, has had to prop herself up during his department presentations more than once.
“Be that as it may, Mr. Roy,” there’s that glint in his eye, “I’m not sure I can condone skipping classes and spending the time in my office.”
There’s a long pause, like he’s waiting to see if she’s actually going to throw him out, but she just smiles, small, almost hidden, and turns back to her computer, says nothing more, and he pulls a heavy book from his bag. It’s nice to have him there, when all’s said and done, and he can probably get just as much out of reading the textbook as he can sitting in Frank’s class.
Ten minutes go by in companionable silence.
“Anyway, should we, you know, like. Go on a date?” Gerri’s fingers fall in the keys, a smattering of letters appearing on the screen, and she turns to look at him once more. He’s staring hard at the book in his lap, won’t meet her eyes.
“Excuse me?” she says, because while she knows what she heard, she can’t quite be certain. They had that drink, that one drink, and perhaps she might have kissed him, that one kiss, but. Well, she’s not sure what he’s after.
“You, me, spaghetti. Breadsticks. Whatever. Like those two dogs sharing a plate. Meatballs.” His shoulders are hunched, his voice so studiously casual that it sounds like it’s hurting him.
“Meatballs.” She can’t remember the last time she ate a meatball, wonders if Roman’s idea of a romantic date is Olive Garden, if being so rich his whole life has warped his whole brain.
Roman shuts his book, the cover making a louder noise than he intends, his whole body starting at the sound. “Uh, well. A lot to think about, so I’ll just...let you….think about it. Mull it over.” He doesn’t even bother putting his textbook back in his bag, just practically launches himself from the chair and leaves her office, leaves her sitting there wondering if it’s the best romantic overture she’s ever had or the worst.
She can’t stop her brain from replaying the question over and over again, staring blankly in front of her, able to keep up the pretense of work if nothing else. It’s almost a relief when Frank pops his head into her office, hand gripping the doorframe.
“I see Roman spent my class in your office,” he says, and she doesn’t ask how he knows, wouldn’t be surprised if the department student aide has been tasked with being Frank’s spy or some other ridiculous task.
“It’s not my fault you’ve managed to make even the analysis of the civil wars phenomenon boring.” She stares at him, doesn’t care that he has seniority over her, doesn’t care that he’s hovering dangerously close around the secret of whatever it is she’s doing with Roman.
“Well, perhaps you can spend your cozy sessions holed up here reminding him about my strict attendance policy and let him know that he’s lost participation points for one day.” He’s trying time be snide and Gerri can’t even feign interest to tell him that Roman most likely doesn’t care at all about participation points.
“I’m surprised there’s not a whole chapter on it in that book of yours you made students buy. Sales getting thin?” Her brow is arched, her hackles raised, and she’s in no mood to let him slide. She can tell he wants to tell her to fuck off, that the only thing stopping him is the very public hall he’s standing in.
Instead he just huffs, hand dropping from the doorframe. “Stop letting him loiter in your office instead of attending the classes his parents pay for,” he says.
“Make your classes worthwhile for your students,” she volleys back as he retreats, wonders if she’ll have an email from the department chair later about proper decorum. It’d be the first one in fifteen years, perhaps she’s due.
-
Roman does not stop spending time in her office, misses Frank’s class once a week at least, but spends the hour reading the textbook, asking Gerri questions about it. She wonders if the registrar would consider it an independent study, even says as much to Roman, if only as a suggestion to stop Frank from sending weekly emails about his declining participation grade and CCing Gerri.
“I’ll take the C or whatever Dr. Vernon ends up giving me,” he says, a little defensively. She can see him stiffen up, flicking back and forth pages as he tries to get his head around the latest concept.
Realization dawns. He’s keeping her from being in an authority position again, from being responsible for his grades, for something that could be misconstrued. For all that he walks around in an idiot suit, he does show brief flashes of kindness, of maturity.
He hasn’t mentioned the idea of a date again, and Gerri wonders if her sort of bewildered silence left him feeling defeated in the matter. She also doesn’t know what she’d tell him if he asked again, feels grateful for the time to, as he said, mull it over.
He pokes around her desk sometimes, when he’s bored, or avoiding homework. When he finds the faculty invitation to the winter board reception, he waves it in her face.
“You go to these things?” he asks, and she has to grab his wrist to stop his hand from moving, to even see what it is he’s waving around. She releases him quickly, though she can still feel the warmth of her skin against her palm. Roman’s cheeks are slightly pink, and she coughs, decides the best way forward is to pretend it didn’t happen.
“I go to one or two a year, but I try to get out of it when I can. The drinks are overpriced.” She hates the formal pomp of faculty parties, of everyone waving their CVs around, comparing publication records and seeing who can get the highest donation for their department from a board member.
Roman just hums and lets the subject drop, asks her a question about political philosophy that actually makes her stop and think for a minute.
She doesn’t think about his question again until she’s dressing for the very party he asked about. She doesn’t have a conference or a trip planned, was cornered in the faculty lounge and had her attendance politely requested in a way that made her feel certain RSVPing in the negative would have consequences.
The dress code is always a matter of concern, how much glitz and glamor, how much tweed, how many elbow patches. She picks out a dress, black, low enough cut that it’ll get some attention from the old white hairs that populate these parties, high enough that there’s still the suggestion of decorousness.
The silver shawl she chooses catches the low light in the reserved hall, glittering as she walks, and she knows she’s caught the gaze of more than a few people as she makes her way to the bar. An older man slides up next to her, neat goatee, white hair combed back.
“What’s the drink tonight?” he asks, and he sounds and looks so familiar but Gerri can’t quite put her finger on it.
“Whisky,” she says, “take your pick.” She knows he must be a member of the board, that she’s seen him around at other parties and that’s most likely why he looks like someone she’s met before. The whisky is a test, to see what he orders, too high and he’s just trying to impress her, too low and he has poor taste. Just hitting that middle-range says he’s wealthy and smart, and that’s the kind of board member Gerri has time for.
“Gerri Kellman,” she says, holding out her hand, clutch squeezed between her elbow and her waist.
“Logan Roy,” he says, and as his fingers close around hers, she knows why he looks familiar. She’s seen him on the news, in the paper. And in the background of selfies from his son. “I believe you’ve had my boy in class? He mentioned something about a professor -thought he said Killman, but must have heard wrong.”
“Or not. Nicknames fly around college campuses, especially when students don’t like their grades,” she says, feeling distinctly wrong-footed and trying not to show it. The whisky he picked is good, and she takes too big a sip, feels the burning at her throat, coughs.
“Ah, excuse me,” she rasps, voice hoarse as she tries to regain her composure. She points towards some point near the door, gives a small wave in thanks for the drink, and practically flees from Roman’s father.
She’s finishing the whisky in a quiet corner when Jamie Laird comes over, an asshole from the Accounting department she made the mistake of sleeping with when she started at the school, an ill-conceived night that he’s never let go of, and one she’s done her best to forget.
There’s a sense of desperation that comes over her as her glass empties and as Jamie continues to leer at her, making her regret wearing anything but a turtleneck. It’s a relief when there’s a tap on her shoulder, something else to think about, a cessation in whatever mindless drivel is spouting from Jamie’s mouth.
“Dr. Kellman?” It’s Roman, standing there, his father’s tagalong to the function and now she knows why he asked. He looks nicer than she’s ever seen him, wonders if his dad made him shave. He drops a wink at her, sly as a fox, and reaches across her to shake Jamie’s hand, a technique he must have learned from a childhood in a boardroom.
“Roman Roy. Nice to meet you. If I could steal Dr. Kellman, there’s just a thing we need to talk about? You know political science. A never-stopping machine!” It’s pure bullshit from his mouth but Jamie can’t react quickly enough to say anything, and Roman’s already steering Gerri to the other side of the room, back towards the bar. His hand just ghosts at her back and she has to push down the thrum of pleasure at the sensation of his fingers touching her just there.
“Who was that asshole?” he asks, leaning against the counter, waiting for the bartender to come by.
“Jamie Laird,” she says, emphasizing the syllables with disdain. “Accounting fucker.” Apparently she’ll allow disrespect when it’s not a member of her department. She doesn’t want Roman to know she slept with him, doesn’t want to deal with adolescent jealous or macho posturing. “I met your father,” she says, and that makes a Roman grimace.
The bartender comes up, saving them both. “Vodka gimlet,” Roman says, holding up two fingers, and Gerri doesn’t have the heart to correct him, touched that he remembered the drink from those months ago, even if it’s not what she’s drinking tonight.
“He says you mentioned me,” she can’t resist teasing him, tinged with actual curiosity about what he might’ve said.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, he just asked who I was taking classes from, since he donated money for a whole new poli sci wing or whatever. Wants to know the department is up to scratch, I guess.” He shrugs, scuffs his show against the floor, hand in his pocket, fiddling with his money clip.
Gerri smirks. “What if I told you I wasn’t wearing panties?” she asks, dry, lips not even twitching up. Roman’s mouth goes slack as their drinks are slid across the bar, and she just laughs. “Something for you to think about the next time you’re bored in Dr. Vernon’s class.”
His wide-eyed silence is gratifying as she takes a sip of the cocktail, cold and fresh against her lips, her tongue. Maybe she was more in the mood for a gimlet after all.
|
The ride back to London was much easier than it had been to Bristol. Remus felt sad that he left his training mentor so suddenly, but promised himself he'd go back soon and spend more time with him.
Lily had been very evasive on the phone, saying she had a row with her sister yet again, and Remus had taken the first train back. If she needed his support, he had to be there.
Feeling relaxed by the endorphins the training had given him, he petted Padfoot's head, which was gently laying on his knees, and allowed himself to think back on what he would do now about the whole 'Serious' situation, as he mentally dubbed it.
He knew it was a shit thing to do to run away like he had done today, but if he hadn't, he would've done something stupid and unforgivable, like having sex with Sirius on any and every surface available. Even the kissing had been crossing the line, however much pleasurable it had been.
They needed to talk, Remus knew that. Sirius would probably demand an explanation for all this, and Remus would have to let him down gently. It was the only way to go on. Which, all things considered, would probably be the hardest thing Remus would ever have to do in his life.
~~~
Sirius was sitting in their living room, looking at the ceiling, when he heard James's phone go off. He sit up, seeing his best mate scramble to answer.
"Yeah?...Good, good...Okay I'll tell him...How did you convince him—?... Alright, alright, I was just curious, damn...Of course he won't...Thank you...Bye..."
James turned to Sirius with a bright smile.
"Now it's your turn to act, Sirius."
~~~
Remus was puzzled. As soon as he had arrived in the block, he had went straight to Lily's flat, and she had said she was okay now, and that he could go back home. She had seemed perfectly normal, like she hadn't even cried a single tear.
He entered his flat and put his bag on the floor as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.
(22:07)
Sirius: We need to talk.
Remus sighed, feeling sorrow creep up his chest.
(22:08)
Remus: I'm sorry for not answering earlier... yeah, we should talk. Tomorrow?
Sirius never answered back, and Remus shrugged, thinking he might have gone to sleep.
~~~
Remus heard a knock on his door as he was getting ready to go to bed. He put a long sleeved shirt on quickly and opened it without looking at the peep hole, thinking it would be Lily.
Grave mistake.
"Hey." Sirius was standing there, his hair down, soaked to the bone and dripping on the hall's carpet, his leather jacket shining.
Remus felt like his heart went straight to his throat.
"Did you walk here?" he said, a bit louder than intended.
"Um... yeah," Sirius sent a look behind him, gripping his own shoulders, shivering. "I needed to talk to you." He looked sheepish, not quite meeting Remus's eyes. "Can I come in?"
Remus sighed, "Sirius—"
"Please... Please, let me in."
If he talked about coming in his flat or coming in his life, Remus couldn't tell.
"All right," he stepped aside. "Only to get you warm, and then you'll get a taxi and go home, I know you've got a rehearsal tomorrow. Understood?"
Sirius nodded slowly.
Remus went and picked up a dry towel and jumper to give to Sirius. "How did you know where I live?" he asked as he tried to forget the way their fingers brushed as he gave him his clothes.
"Kingsley," replied Sirius evasively as he went straight to the bathroom to change.
Remus frowned. Kingsley was not a man of gossip, nor the type of man who would interfere with this sort of thing. He shrugged, filing this questioning for later, and busied himself by making some tea, and tried to stop the tremor in his hands by putting Sirius's jacket on one of the chairs to dry.
Remus clearly hadn't think everything through, because as soon as Sirius got out to join him in the kitchen, he felt something coil in his belly. Sirius was wearing one of his deep red jumpers, slightly oversized on his frame, damp waves flowing around his face elegantly, his cheeks and lips red from the cold standing out even more.
He was mesmerizing.
"I get why you wear these now," said Sirius, snapping Remus back to reality. "I must admit, it's quite comfortable." He gave one sleeve an experimental tug.
Remus swallowed with difficulty. "Why are you here, Sirius? It's night time, you should sleep."
He saw grey eyes searching his face.
"You know why." Sirius sighed, taking the offered cup of tea in his hands, and sat down.
"I'm not sure I do."
"You're avoiding me," Sirius started. "You keep doing that, every damn time I try to— to get closer to you, and you're so... and I thought we were— you know... and you keep wanting to get away, but I'm still... and you're still..." he made a vague motion with his hands, looking at Remus expectedly, but Remus stayed silent, not knowing what to say. "You're... Jesus, you're gonna make me say it, innit?" He seemed flustered, searching for his words, which was so unlike Sirius, it made Remus's heart clench. He saw him take a deep breath, a sudden look of determination flashing across his features. "Look... you might just be the most incomprehensible person I've ever met, nothing you do makes any sense, but I like you, alright? You're... you're amazing, and I like you, and I want something more than just this, but you keep avoiding me. You're avoiding me because of something, and I think it might be because of whatever sickness you got, and I can't have it anymore, Remus, really, I can't."
"Maybe it's because of something else. Maybe I don't want to see you," tried Remus weakly, feeling lightheaded with Sirius's revelations.
"Now that's bollocks!" Sirius stood up, leaving his untouched tea behind, and started pacing. "You can't... you can't just snog people and leave them like that, Remus. You can't give me the best bloody kiss of my entire life and expect me to feel nothing about it."
"...That was a mist–"
"Don't you dare say it was a... a mistake." Sirius said with difficulty, looking into Remus's eyes. "It was the first, the only time we were completely honest to each other. That can't be a mistake."
Remus took Sirius in: his beautiful silver eyes, his long hair, his high cheekbones, his aristocratic nose, his pale skin, his plush mouth.
"I can't," he finally murmured.
"But why?" Sirius surged forward, standing right in front of Remus, a strange reminiscence of that crucial moment that occured merely a couple of hours ago.
Remus stood up slowly. "Because... we're not good for each other. I'm not... I'm not what you seem to think I am. I'm nothing special, Sirius." Remus's eyes were fierce. Sirius opened his mouth to talk, but Remus continued. "I'm really not. I'm just a bloke who— who likes to read and be alone and away from the centre of attention, and you're a rockstar, Sirius. You were practically born to be in the spotlight. I'm surprised you don't seem to think I'm boring or something." Remus took a quick breath, and continued. "But above all that, I'm sick. I have an illness. Untreatable. Sirius... What I have... It's not pretty, and it's not... it's not 'amazing'. It's ugly, it's terrifying, and it's embarrassing. You don't want that. You won't want that—"
"Can I speak?" Sirius was boiling inside. "I think we would be great for each other if you gave us a bloody chance. And give me some fucking credit instead of immediately thinking I'd leave because of whatever illness you got, which is not your fucking fault. Remus," he took the sandy blond's face in his hands gently, "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want this. Tell me I'm crazy and I'm alone in this, and I'll go. I swear, I'll never try to get to you again... But don't you dare lie to me," he finished in a trembling voice.
Remus looked back at him, trying to say something. He put his hands on Sirius's hips unconsciously. "I—"
Padfoot suddenly started pacing around them, barking loudly, his demeanour restless. Shit!
"You have to leave, now." Remus took a step back, taking advantage of the fact that Sirius was surprised and looking at Padfoot to get out of his grip.
"I bloody hell don't. We're getting to the bottom of this tonight."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Sirius, leave now!" Remus stepped aways from him and tried to get to his bedroom, to get away, to keep him from seeing...
But he could feel it. It was already too late. There had been too much stress build-up and too little sleep in the last few days, and he knew this time would probably be a bad one.
Padfoot was getting in his way, trying to push Remus on the floor to make him lay down, barking madly. He had been trained perfectly for this, so perfectly that Remus was a bit mad at himself right now.
"What the fuck? Padfoot, calm down—" Sirius didn't touch the dog, but he couldn't understand why it was acting so crazy when he was usually the calmest dog he'd ever seen.
"Fuck!" Remus sounded frustrated as he suddenly let Padoof make him sit on the floor in the middle of his living room.
"Sirius, please..."
Sirius looked into Remus's pleading eyes just in time to see them go blank, as if life was getting out of them. Sirius felt horror seep into his body as Remus fell on his side, Padfoot placing himself beneath him just in time to break the fall, and saw Remus's hands twitch slightly, his eyes rolling on the side, his breaths shallow.
Sirius fell on his knees, scrambling to hold Remus's head as he saw all his limbs move to their own accord, trembling violently.
"No-no-no-no-no," repeated Sirius over and over, the horror filling him to the brim and panic taking over. A different scene came forward, like a veil over reality: black hair and empty eyes, a cold body in his arms, feeling life be drained from one of the people he loved most. No-no-no-no...
"No! Not you... PLEASE NO!" Sirius could barely see through his tears as he was holding Remus, trying to stop him from convulsing, trying to make him look at him, trying to bring the life back into his eyes.
"No-no-no, please... REMUS! Please don't leave me!" He barely noticed the fact that he was yelling. Nothing mattered.
The twitching didn't subside, and instead got worse. Sirius didn't register Padfoot leaving them.
"REMUS! PLEASE, NO!"
"Remus?" A voice suddenly cut through the air, a female voice.
Sirius didn't answer, too absorbed by the horror in front of him...
"Please don't leave me... Please..."
"Sirius? Is that you?!"
Hearing his name sort of got him out of his trance a little bit, just enough to lift his head.
"Lily? Lily, please help us. Please help me... it's Remus... he—"
"Sirius, calm down. I'm coming over. Don't hold him too tight. Let him have his episode, you have to let the body do its—"
But Sirius was not listening. He didn't care about anything being said while this amazing, strong and capable, beautiful and gentle man was dying in his arms. Sirius couldn't feel his own arms anymore, and felt like he himself was about to die, barely able to breathe. It was like his body wasn't his anymore, like he was just observing himself holding onto Remus. He couldn't feel anything except horror seeping through every pore of his skin, shaking him to his core, freezing him.
He held onto Remus as much as he could, even though he couldn't feel the weight of his body in his arms. He held on and held on, even minutes later when the convulsing started to subside slightly, and when small hands tried to pull him back from him. He pushed the hands away: he would not leave him for anything.
"SIRIUS, GET OFF OF HIM!" Lily was trying to push Sirius aside without hurting both he and Remus, but he was holding Remus so tightly it was almost impossible.
She didn't have a choice. She called Potter and ordered him to come here as fast as he could, and hung up.
Then, she had to get to work, and fast.
She kicked Sirius in the ribs, creating an opening when he partially let go of Remus in surprise. She took advantage of it and used all the training she had to be able to get him as far from Remus as possible. She was able to pin him down, holding both his hands and getting his feet stuck under her.
"LET ME GO!" Sirius shouted, crying and trying to free himself violently, but she held on.
"Not until you're calm! Sirius, listen to me," she talked near his ear. "You are not in your right mind and you are a danger to Remus right now. Calm. DOWN!"
She saw Remus finally starting to twitch less and less as the time went by, but Sirius didn't back down one bit.
"REMUS! REMUS!!"
There was a bit foam coming out of Remus's mouth and his eyes were still glazed over, but he stopped convulsing, only twitching slightly from time to time, Padfoot licking his hands and arms to help bringing him back to consciousness.
Lily had to use all the self control she had to not run to Remus's aid herself. She knew that if she let go of Sirius, he wouldn't be of any help, making things even worse than they already were. She hadn't seen Remus in this state for a long, long time.
Sirius was crying uncontrollably, and it was the most heart-wrenching cries she had ever heard in her life, like he was mourning.
"Sirius, listen, Remus is okay, he's gonna be okay..."
Her words didn't seem to cut through his state, but she continued chanting them anyway. For his sake or hers, she didn't know. She had to believe her own words, too.
Finally, a knock could be heard.
"ENTER!"
The door opened and messy hair appeared in her view. "What in the bloody hell?"
"Shut up and take care of Sirius! Please talk to him, he won't listen to me."
James looked at Remus with wide eyes, and then seemed to realise Sirius was the one crying.
"Jesus fucking... Sirius, hey mate. I'm here," He crawled on the floor to be of level with his best mate. "Hey, look at me, brother. That's it." He looked up to Lily, "Can you bring him up?"
She changed position so Sirius could use his legs, but she kept a grip on his arms. She sit him up; he let himself be held like a ragdoll, like all forces had left him.
"Sirius, it's me. It's James."
"...James...?"
"Yeah brother, talk to me. I'm here."
"James... he... Remus..." Sirius started breathing unevenly through his tears.
"Sirius, calm down. Breathe. Remus is..." James looked at Lily with a question in his eyes. She nodded. "Remus is fine, mate."
"No... no... they died... they all die because of me..."
"Fucking... fuck! Sirius," He took Sirius's face in his hands. "Listen to me: Remus is fine, he's alive, okay? It's not your fault. Come on, calm down with me."
"It's MY fault!" Sirius finally looked right into James's eyes, his voice breaking horribly. "It's my fault... I'm not strong enough to stop it..."
"Hey, Sirius. Remus is FINE. He's breathing! Look! See?!"
James turned Sirius's head towards where Remus was laying on the ground, effectively breathing, his eyes blinking slowly.
"He's alive, okay?"
"Remus... he's okay?"
"Yeah mate," James nodded to Lily, mouthing the words 'Let him go'. She shot him a warning glare before loosening her grip. When Sirius didn't try anything, she let him go completely and crawled to Remus to finally, finally take care of him. She used her sleeve to wipe off his mouth and she pushed him to his side like she was taught to do.
"He's okay, stop crying. Everyone is fine. We're all still here, mate. Everyone you love is still here." James hugged Sirius closely for a brief moment, and then looked into Sirius's eyes again. "Let's get you home, yeah? Benjy's waiting for us outside."
Lily brushed off a couple of curls aside from her best friend's face. "Remus? It's okay Remus, I'm here. It's Lily." She tried to connect his gaze with hers as she put a pillow from the couch under his head. She felt something slide onto her lips, and tasted something salty. She hadn't even realized she was crying.
"Sirius? Come on, brother. Let's get you up. You can see Remus later when he's feeling better, yeah?" James continued.
Sirius stood up with a lot of help from James, his eyes seemingly vacant. They stumbled to the door, where James rang Benjy to ask him for help. He couldn't see very well in the low-lighted hall of the building, and using the stairs with Sirius like this would be to dangerous for both of them.
Benjy climbed the stairs swiftly, assessing the situation. "You want me to take him?"
"Please," answered James, and Benjy took on of Sirius's arms to put it around his shoulders. "Sirius, we'll be going down the stairs together now, okay?"
Sirius didn't answer, his gaze blank, letting himself be held.
~~~
Everything hurt.
His left side hurt. His head hurt. His neck hurt like hell. Even his arms felt like they were bruised, which was weird. He was lying on a hard surface, but his head was resting on a plush pillow. What the fuck?
"Hey, Remus. It's Lily."
"Lils?" He blinked his eyes slowly.
"Yeah, it's me. You're okay." Her eyes were red around the edges, like she had been crying.
"Are y-you alright?" He asked her.
She laughed sadly. "Typical Remus. You're the one who's lying on the floor, and you're asking me if I'm alright." She rolled her eyes. "How about you tell me how you're feeling?"
"Yeah, a-about that... why do I f-feel shittier than usual?" He said as he sit up slowly. His neck and arms really fucking hurt.
"Ah... well... do you remember anything?"
Something was wrong. Lily wasn't looking at him in the eye, and her voice was trembling a little. What did he forget?
From the corner of his eyes, just behind Lily, he could see a leather jacket on one of his kitchen chairs.
Sirius's jacket.
Remus felt nauseous. Sirius had been here. Did he see anything...?
And suddenly, Sirius's confessions came back full force, and he tried to breathe normally.
"Where is Sirius?" He asked the question quietly, as if he didn't really want to know the answer.
"He went home with Potter."
"He was here too? Wait... does he... did they..."
"They saw, Remus. I'm sorry." She finally looked at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "I'm sorry, I had to call Potter. I couldn't help, I couldn't do anything with Sirius being batshit crazy, and you know Potter's the only one to be able to keep him in line, and—"
"What the hell are you talking about?!" he cut her with a shrill, panic starting to rise in his chest.
"Remus, it was horrible. I've never seen someone react so badly. It was like he was possessed, he almost suffocated you, he held you down so tightly I had to fucking kick him to get him away from you..." She was crying now, slow tears streaming down her face silently.
That would explain the bruises, thought Remus hysterically.
"I'm so sorry Remus... I came as fast as I could, as soon as I answered the alarm—"
"You're saying..." Remus began slowly, his voice blank, but feeling like his mind was slipping and his heart stopping. "You're saying he saw everything. And I had a... a bad episode."
"Yes... you had a grand mal seizure, Remus..."¹
"And he... what, tried to kill me, is what you're saying?"
"No... I mean, not intentionally anyway. He did think you were dying though, kept repeating that. Oh Remus, it was so bad..."
"So," he continued, voice still void of emotions. "So, he reacted badly."
"Ah... yeah, you could say that."
"Well..." He stood up slowly to go lie on the bed instead. "It was expected. It was only a matter of time, anyway. I knew this would happen."
"Remus—"
"I'm really tired now," his voice broke. "I'm going to sleep. See you tomorrow."
He closed the door, leaving his sniffling best friend behind him.
~~~
"Alright brother, we're home now."
Sirius saw their 'Welcome' carpet under his feet without really seeing it.
"Hey, look at me." James took his chin. "Let's sleep a little, yeah? We'll have a clearer head tomorrow." He took Sirius's hands and led him to his bedroom. "Wait here," he said, going to the bathroom quickly for their emergency meds, quickly finding the braille inscripted drug he was looking for. He took one small white pill in his hand, and filled a glass of water, getting back to the bedroom with hurried steps. "Here," he said to Sirius, who hadn't moved an inch. "Take this." He took his chin again, bringing it down, popped the medication in his mouth, and poured some water for Sirius to swallow, which he did without a fuss.
James then took the hem of a jumper he couldn't remember ever seeing on Sirius. "Put your arms up," he asked, but Sirius pushed his hands away.
"NO!"
James jumped in surprise, rising his hands in surrender.
Sirius crossed his arms around himself, looking down at the red fabric. "I want to keep it..."
"Okay, fine, you can keep it," James said gently. "Now go in bed. Come on." He pushed him a little towards it, and Sirius flopped on it.
"Stay with me?" Sirius asked, holding out a hand. They hadn't slept in the same bed for years now, only when Sirius used to have nightmares when he came back from summer or the holidays at home.
"Sure." James pushed Sirius a bit to the side so they could fit both on the bed, and lied down beside him. Sirius took his hand again.
"Thank you..." He closed his eyes as he felt James squeeze his hand back.
|
Despite the lines they had crossed, things didn’t change much. For some reason, Shigaraki kept teaming up Dabi and Hawks for recruiting missions and negotiations with Yakuza families or other bands of wretches. Their intermezzo somehow didn’t mess up their professional interactions - probably because there haven’t been any in the first place. Dabi still snapped a lot, while Hawks kept telling on him. Just Shigaraki seemed somewhat off, appearing more patient than Dabi would have ever given him credit for.
He was just glad that Hawks didn’t tell him more about the kids from UA. He forcefully avoided thinking about Shouto and basically everything related to him. And he was able to do so for one blissful week. One whole week full of semi-failed missions, burned corpses, strange interactions with a too hot wannabe-villain and bantering within the league. Dabi might have considered it a nice week, if it weren’t for that awkwardness between him and Hawks and the strange dreams he kept having about the hero.
The dreams did return after that night. There was always that blackness, it was always so very dark and vast, seemingly endless, but it never felt as lonely as that night when they slept together. The hero always appeared somewhere around him, but he was always mute. They usually interacted. Hawks always seemed somewhat relaxed, looking at him with a kind smile and hooded eyes. Every time his eyes seemed so vivid and friendly, their expression almost looked… like his mother’s, so warm and kind and caring. The color of his eyes was so different from his mother’s though, a warm reddish gold that always had some dark hue to them. They never looked as cold as they did that night. And the red of his wings was always enrapturing, brilliant and lustrous, a neverland between crimson and black. He felt the urge to touch it and found it wondrously strange that he couldn’t muster the hate he usually held for this color.
He never talked about his dreams. (Why should he? And to whom?) So he could forget about them as soon as he woke up. He forgot about them as he forgot about those kids playing heroes, too.
However, life wouldn’t give him a break - ever.
That’s why for some reason he wasn’t very surprised to find himself in another fight with Shouto after about a week after Hawks had shared the kids’ gossip with him. Shouto had always been very diligent and stubborn. Whenever an idea caught his interest, he’d stick with it. It was only natural that he would track down the villain he believed was his presumed dead brother.
Dabi was just getting back from some negotiations with some underground organization that wanted to contribute to their cause. Shigaraki still send him to do tose, despite there being much more and communicative idiots to send lately. And it was still Hawks who was usually told to keep an eye on him. He almost felt like arguing about a waste of manpower, but he knew better than to talk back to the boss. So he just went and did as he was told, avoiding the noisy hero and his gothic bird of an intern, that kept sticking with him lately whenever Hawks was on patrol or whatever it was called that heroes do.
It was a boring weekday, grey and rainy, cold and damp. It was supposed to be autumn, but in those big cities you could hardly tell all the seasons apart. In the cities it was always grey and dirty, the buildings towering tall above the vermin crawling through the streets. Before he left the side alley with that shady bar where they had met, he made sure to pull his hood deep down into his face and wound his black scarf tight around his neck and the lower half of his face. He hated to hide like this, because it was so suffocating, but he knew that his appearance was outstanding and he surely knew better than to attract attention while being out in the bright daylight. He liked nights so much better, because he could go without hiding. All cats were grey at night.
He tried to mingle with the mass of bleak raincoats and transparent umbrellas. The rain was heavy and soaking his clothes right away. Unlike most of the other bodies around him, he didn’t hurry up though. Sometimes he enjoyed the little chill on his skin, because it soothed the fire within him. There was no way he would ever say words like these aloud, but he even enjoyed the smell of rain in the air and on the concrete it colored dark.
He realized later that it was a mistake, when he came to a halt and faced the falling rain to take in more of its smell without plastic and damp clothes tainting it. He drew in a deep, freeing breath, enjoying the chilly wetness that gently tingled his healthy skin. He had really hoped to hide in the anonymity of the hushed masses hustling through the valleys of skyscrapers, he tended to forget that the benefits of being part of what was considered ‚normal‘ didn‘t apply to him anymore.
Something touched his shoulder and when he looked down, he realized there was a hand as if to keep him from running. When he followed the line of the arm, his eyes crossed a familiar face. There was a scar that looked like it was almost mirroring his own. Almost. He didn’t do anything about the impulse of squinting his eyes. He realized that Shouto was only a little bit shorter than him, now that the boy was standing right in front of him. They were almost able to see eye to eye. Just not quite yet. He chuckled a little, yet unamused. He put his smirk into place, took a pointed look at the hand on his shoulder and then back to the hero’s face. “What is this, hero?”
Shouto’s eyes were firm and determined. His grip hardened a little as if this could keep Dabi from disappearing. “You’ll come with me,” he said so convinced of himself. It made the villain laugh out loud. He put his hand slowly on Shouto’s arm and put some strength in his grip. Dabi cocked his head, as he slowly pulls Shouto’s hand off and lowered it. “What makes you think that?” he asks, not really wanting an answer.
“You’re a wanted criminal and I’m arresting you here and now,” Shouto said quietly, obviously not wanting people around him to eavesdrop and panic. Those words made Dabi grin even more. “You think this is a good idea, hero? In a tightly packed crowd like this? You know the things I could do and who am I to care about the scum around us?” He was taunting the shorter man, feeling the fire within him rise from the agitation he felt. He swallowed a little, trying to keep the fire inside for now. He remembered Hawks’ words about Shouto’s theory. He didn’t want to give him anything to validate that.
Shouto grit his teeth and yanked his hand away. Dabi scoffed a little and after a moment of looking into heterochromic eyes, he turned around to go his way. He didn‘t get far, because that gothic bird blocked his way. He felt the anger in his chest rise and feed his flames. Usually the interns were with the heros, which meant that Hawks couldn’t be too far away and he couldn’t silence the voice of doubt in his head that his so called partner might have had something to do with this encounter. “How is it possible that two wannabe-heroes like you run around like this and molest random bypassers? Where’s your babysitter, huh?” The black bird nodded in some direction behind him and Dabi knew he was giving his friend some sort of sign. Obviously there was no way to get away without a fight, because the kids were really delusional enough to think they could keep him in check. He knew that Shouto stood right behind him and that both of the kids were getting ready for a fight. He laughed a little, putting his hands in his pocket and turning away from both, not walking away yet. He was giving them an option: “I’ll ask you one last time: Do you really want to have it this way?”
Heroes wouldn’t start a fight in the middle of a crowded street and they were probably gambling on him not wanting to fight alone against two of them without any backup. But Dabi knew that it’d be a huge risk for them and he couldn’t see why they’d take it like this without calling for other pro heroes, their mentors or their teachers. He wouldn’t have taken Shouto for an idiot, but what he was about to do was just very much that (at least for a hero): idiotic. Starting an attack in a public place like this would cause them trouble for sure, it might even cost them their chance to become pros. Dabi shot Shouto a side glance. The boy took a defensive stance, but wasn’t preparing an attack. Neither was the bird. A grin crawled over his face. They were tricking him. It was up to him - did he want to raise to the bait and play a little with the kids while no adults were around? Or did he just want to leave and have whatever a villain could consider as peace?
But then again… What kind of villain was he to not take the chance to pick a fight? Especially a fight with the kind of humans he hated the most: heroes. Why should Shouto, who obviously chose to follow the road that monstrosity of a man had laid out for him, be any different, any better than those hollow figures bathing in public adoration and way too much money? No, despite everything he remembered about that boy, there was that adolescent standing right next to him, being no better than their father - seeing nothing, only going for his own fame and pleasuring himself by fulfilling his own egoistic wishes. How could he forget about it? Shouto was no longer his baby brother, he was a hero now. That thought left a sour taste on his tongue that he wanted gone as soon as possible.
Dabi pulled the package with cigarettes from his pockets very slowly, enjoying the tension coming from the two wannabe-heroes. He took one cigarette between his lips in an agonizing slow pace. The kids still didn’t move, waiting for an attack. He lit a very small blue flame in the center of his palm. Even such a small flame was painfully hot if held too close to unmarred skin. In contrast to his previous movements, he took a quick drag and lowered the cigarette again with his other hand, not extinguishing the small flame in his hand. He held it in front of him for the two boys to see. “You know, we villains are not those monsters you make us out to be. I know exactly what you want… And since you firmly believe that I’m dumb enough to raise to your bait,” Dabi smirked, stealing another side glance at Shouto who now looked less composed, more stressed out, “I’ll give you exactly what you came for.”
With that he riled the flame in his hand up to an enormous whirl, which he was about to fire into the crowd, but there was a shadow encircling them, chasing the people around them away.
“Keep him in check while I evacuate the street! I’ll be right back!” shouted the raven boy as he turned away and ran off, giving orders to the civilians comparatively calm for a kid about to fight one of the highest ranking villains of the country.
Without the black bird in the picture Dabi turned around to the other hero, who immediately send spears of ice in his direction. He countered them with a fireball, melting them away midair. Shouto’s shocked look lured a laugh from him. “Our last fight is not that long ago, did you think I’d forget your little tricks that easily?”
The boy grit his teeth, staring at the villain for a small moment without any attack. “No, I really hope you wouldn’t,” the hero said with some gravity in his voice. Dabi squinted his eyes. Slowly he became sick of heroes throwing weirdly put phrases at him that colored him confused every fucking time. Instead of saying some more, he raised another whirl of blue flames that he sent off in Shouto’s direction. Shouto defied his fire with a stream of ice, melting it instantly, but making the fire die down simultaneously. He tried to keep the fire alife, feeding it with the heat from inside his chest, using his rage as kindling for the flames. But he soon felt his body starting to crumble. He smelled the stench of burning flesh and even over the roar of his flames, he heard the high-pitched frizzle of the skin around the staples on his arms.
Both attacks died down. Dabi was panting heavily, knowing he needed to buy some time before he could start another attack. Shouto didn’t start another attack, instead he scrutinized the villain in front of him. Dabi whipped some of the sweat rolling down his cheek away, carefully licking at the skin around the staples on the back of his hand to sooth it a little. The ice fucker from the Liberation Army hadn't been taking such a toll on him, even if they had fought much longer. Shouto was really strong, he had to admit that. The boy held out his right hand, gathering small shards of ice in its palm. The shards piled up and took shape, the shape of a white-blueish, sparkling pony. Dabi stared at it for a moment, then looked up into the eyes of the hero. Shouto’s expression was very neutral, but Dabi had a hunch what the kid was up to. The worst thing about it was, that something tugged at his heart that was not rage. He hated it, hated that feeling and cursed the memory causing it.
It was late at night when he found the shivering, curled up mess of a child beneath the stairs leading down to the basement. The small frame was bandaged up, small pools of blood soaking through the gauze’s white fabric. He sat next to his baby brother, splaying his legs out, putting an arm around tiny shoulders. He knew how sensitive his brother was and how scared. He had been there himself without anyone at his side. He knew how much it hurt and how good it felt whenever a gentle hand touched him. So he tugged his brother a little closer and Shouto took the offer, crawled into his lap and started sobbing less silently, soaking the fabric of his shirt with tears and snot. Touya didn’t mind much. He carefully petted his brother’s hair and hummed the melody their mother used to sing when she brought them to bed. It was a calming, sweet song, even if he didn’t remember the words well, he remembered the notes and the feeling.
It took Shouto a while, but he stopped sobbing eventually. There were still fat tears rolling down his little, blotchy cheeks when he looked up into Touya’s face. “I hate the fire…,” he hiccuped. Touya clicked his tongue, putting both of his hands onto Shouto’s face to wipe away the tears with his thumbs. Shouto first looked away shily, then slowly dared to look into his brother’s eyes. Touya smiled at him, trying to mimic their mother’s friendliness and love. It seemed to help, because the discomfort drained from those big, teary eyes. “Why?” he asked calmly, knowing the answer very well. He had felt the same pain, endured the same harm. He still wanted to hear from Shouto himself to find the right way, the right words to make the pain bearable for his brother.
“Fire is evil and ugly,” the little boy mumbles. Touya couldn’t agree more, but he didn’t want his baby brother to come to hate such a big part of himself… or of his brother, for that matter. “You know, there are different kinds of fire, Shouto,” he explained in a steady voice, resting his forehead against his brother’s. “There is fire that hurts and that is ugly, you’re right.” He looks straight into the boy’s eyes, not seeing much other than blurry colors of white, red and grey due to the small distance. He looks to his left and Shouto follows his gaze. He raised his hand and summoned a small blue flame. “But there is fire which is giving warmth and light to those who need it, too. For those, fire is hope, you know? It’s not just evil and not just ugly.” Shouto looks at his brother’s blue flame and he’s glad that he’s older and knows to hide his pain better nowadays. He doesn’t let it show that he feels the heat of his own flame tingling uncomfortable on the skin of his palm, prickling and stinging. He smiles though.
Their father never got tired of reminding him how useless he and his flames were in a fight. That was the reason why he stopped training him right after Shouto’s quirk manifested. Their mother, however, taught him other things - small, delicate things that might not be useful for a hero, but for somebody who cares enough to distract another person from their pain. “Look,” he told Shouto and nodded to the small flame in his hand. It flickered, growing a little bit, then bent and took the shape of a pony with a flaming mane. Touya knew Shouto liked that Pokémon from the few times he had secretly sneaked into his room and watched his older brother play at night. The little boy gasped in surprise and sat up straight in his lap, admiring the fiery figurine in his brother’s hand. “Whoa, Touya-nii! That’s so cool! When did you learn that?” he squealed a little, stretching small bandaged hands out to cup his brother’s. Touya took in a sharp breath, suppressing to urge to pull his hands away to not hurt his brother with his flames. It took him some concentration, so he breathed in and out, focussing on his fire. It took him a lot of concentration, but he knew it would please Shouto. So he retreated his hands carefully, passing over the fire pony. Shouto took it a little bit closer and Touya had to focus to keep the flame as small as possible without having it loose its shape, so it wouldn’t burn his baby brother. It didn’t seem to bother the boy, he was staring at it with unconcealed astonishment.
“See, fire is not just ugly. Or do you think this is ugly?” he said quietly, but with a teasing undertone. Shouto looked up to him, but just shortly. “No! This is so awesome!” The excitement in Shouto’s voice and face made Touya laugh a little. Seemingly his mission to make Shouto forget whatever horrid thing their father did to him was successful. He placed his hand over the pony, hiding it from the boy’s view for a moment. Shouto was about to protest, but didn’t get a word out, because Touya was quick in his work and pulled his hand away soon enough, gently stroking the back of Shouto’s bandaged fingers, coming to hold them lightly. Instead of a pony, there was a heart-shaped flame flickering above their joined hands.
Shouto blinked a few times, his huge eyes sparkling with joy. Touya placed a kiss on his temple, just to make sure his sometimes slightly dense little brother would get the message.
“Do you think I could do that, too?” he whispered as if that was something nobody was ever supposed to know. And maybe it was, because if Endeavor found out about him using his quirk for something so useless that was not fighting, he’d surely beat Shouto up and then the person who taught him right after that. It wasn’t out of spite that he said the following words, but for the joy of the perspective to steal some more time with his little brother: “I can teach you,” he promised, leaning his face against Shouto’s temple, nuzzling red hair and inhaling the soothing fragrance of burning wood that was so familiar and yet so different from the burning smells he had gotten to know.
He erases the little flame by reaching for it and closing his hand around it, before his focus can slip away and thus hurt Shouto accidentally. The flame burns his hand, but he doesn’t even flinch. He just puts his hand carefully on Shouto’s white hair, relishing the coolness that soothed his irritated skin. Shouto smiled, hugged his shoulders as much as he could with his short arms and chirped a small “Yay!” while resting his head against his brother’s chest again.
Dabi remembers distantly how that white-haired boy thought to himself that he wanted to do everything to protect that precious smile.
Something close to guilt smothered whatever that memory dragged along. Dabi grit his teeth, staring at that ice figurine in the hero’s hands. That crushing feeling made bile rise to his mouth and the sting of that contorted his features with absolute disgust. He forced himself to take his eyes off the artful piece and to look into the hero’s face. His expression hadn’t changed. He moved a little, extending his right arm as if to draw the villain’s attention back to it. “My mother used to make these,” he said, offering some explanation for his unusual behaviour in the middle of a fight.
With malicious scorn Dabi scoffed, shaking his head, refusing the offered explanation. “So you’re telling me you’re nothing but a mama’s boy of a hero? How ridiculous is that?”
Before the boy could answer, Dabi threw another blast of flames at him, making him jump and drop the impromptu art, which disappeared with a small whooshing sound in blue flames. Shouto looked angry, but just dodged the attack instead of striking back. Dabi knew he was using his fire too quickly and to forcefully again, because the stench of burned flesh got stronger instantly. He heaved, trying to ignore the pain on his skin. It was hard, the last time he used his flames this much was when he was fighting Genten. Back then, it was Twice who saved his ass unknowingly from sustaining serious burns. This time, there was nobody around to save him from his own sorry ass. Dabi knew he had to think of something to get out of this without needing to see the Doctor right away.
The wannabe-hero gave him a strange look, watching him closely. Dabi didn’t start another attack directly and he knew the boy knew that he shouldn’t. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, suddenly they were enclosed by a circle of pitchblack darkness. Taken by surprise, Dabi looked around to see the other UA student, obviously using his quirk to seperate them from the civilians and to do some damage control. Dabi laughed, turning around to the birdhead. “You know birdie, I know your little friend there is scared of fire.” The hero took some defensive stance, but didn’t attack. Dabi cocked his head, curious what they were aiming at. Why didn’t the kids use their chances to attack him while he wasn’t? It didn’t make any sense and seemed even more idiotic than provoking a fight in the middle of town without any backup.
“You know,” he heard Shouto yelling from behind, “My mother used to do all kinds of figures and statues with her ice. She always made us kids smile that way.” Dabi didn’t turn around, transfixing some point far beyond the gothic bird in that pitchblack darkness as if this could anchor his posture and maybe even some of his sanity. He slowly got some idea what the kids were trying and he had to admit, if they were really trying to annoy him, it was working pretty well. He felt the anger raging within him, a firestorm about to break out. He didn’t know how long he could hold it back before he’d snap, because he felt and smelled the smoke escaping through his nostrils. He registered Shouto’s classmate gulping hard and gesturing for Shouto to stop. But it was already too late.
Dabi turned around, blue flames licking through the scars at unburned skin, he felt the fire around his hands, felt the fury boiling too hot in his chest. “And why would I care?”, he seethed, throwing brightly burning blue in the direction of the boy standing behind him. Shouto raised tall walls of ice, blocking the flames with the impressive width of them. Dabi didn’t intend to let up, throwing in some more, ignoring the pain pulling through his limbs. He couldn’t see what was going on beyond the tall wall of his flames, so he kept firing. Only when he heard his opponent shriek in surprise, he let his flames die down. He was heaving heavily, trying to make out Shoutos form through thick steam and smoke. He heard some sizzling noises coming from somewhere down his body, but he was very accustomed to the smell, the pain, the noises, so he ignored them.
When the fog cleared a little, Shouto was not where he had seen him last time. Instead, he saw two figures far to his right. He recognized the red wings immediately, they were trying to shield him from view and maybe even from harm and they infuriated Dabi only more.
“So your babysitter is finally there, huh?!” he yelled to make them stop ignoring him.
Hawks looked to him over his shoulder, keeping an arm on Shouto, who obviously tried to get away from the pro hero. Because of the visor, he couldn’t see Hawks’ expression, but he surely wasn’t amused. Shouto struggled some more, but the winged hero kept him in place. And maybe it was because he couldn’t get any closer to the villain, that he started shouting, sounding just as furious as Dabi felt: “She taught me how to do them with my ice, but my brother taught me how to do them with my fire!”
Hawks tried to interrupt, calling the student’s name, but Shouto didn’t seem to give a damn. He held out his left hand and a small flame in the shape of a fox appeared above his palm. “This is what he first did for me!! Because I loved foxes when I was a child!”
“Shouto!” Hawks yelled, but it was too late. Blue flames were already coming for them, blazing, scalding hot, burning away the shadow creature with their bright light. Somewhere behind him he heard the other student howl in pain, obviously hitting that shadow thing did a number on the bird boy, too. He felt how something tugged at his clothes and pinned him down from behind. Dabi stumbled and hit the ground, his flames dying down from the surprise. He growled out, but found it hard to move. He saw red feathers, piercing his clothes and holding him in place. Spotting them just added up on that feeling of betrayal he felt at the words the boy had yelled at him. Struggling a little, he managed to push himself up, tearing his clothes a little. Obviously Hawks had not set his mind on holding him down. Dabi tried to get up, but the pain in his arms and legs made it really hard to move at all. He wheezed roughly, knowing very well he had overdone it with using his quirk. Scrouching, he faced Shouto again, who was still being held back by his so-called partner in crime. Even if everything hurt, he knew the flames within had not vanished yet. He could still summon some, if he only wanted to and if he was prepared to die probably.
“You got that wrong,” he pressed in between some coughs caused by the rawness of his throat, feeling the blood in his lungs rattle. He didn’t really know what riled him up so much, he just felt anger, rage and irritation, mingling with something almost sweet and it just spurred the storm instead of quelling it. “It was that fucking pony.”
Shouto looked at him with his eyes wide in shock. Hawks, too, gawked at him. He refused to think about what their expressions implied. He didn’t want to give them more time to think about it either. Both heroes didn’t expect him to throw another wave of blue flames at them, but he did so anyway. He had to do something to get it out, to make this feeling go away - and maybe everything else with it. It didn’t seem to help much though. He felt how his body was reaching its limits and it hurt worse than back then. How had he been putting up with this pain every damn day? He couldn’t even picture it anymore. The pain only fueled newly risen despair which was slowly but surely growing strong, a steady stream within the storm. It seemed to form another storm within the storm. How was this ever supposed to end?
Suddenly that foreign foul taste appeared in his mouth again and he knew that the doctor was reaching for him to get him out. For a brief moment he wondered how Ujiko could have caught wind of his fight. Did Hawks contact him? He looked to the hero, who was still holding Shouto back. The boy fought the pro in vain. He still couldn’t see the hero’s face and for some reason, he was glad he didn’t. Dabi closed his eyes and gave in to the darkness that swallowed him whole.
- - -
He was glad that he, different from the others of the original League or the PLF, was on some kind of no-questions-asked basis with Ujiko. The doctor often ranted at him about his other patients or his experiments and sometimes, when he felt like it, he engaged in some chit-chat about the Noumu (he liked testing them, even though he wouldn’t admit that to the doctor’s face). But it happened more often than not, that Dabi got treated by him after a fight, sitting on his table like the total mess he was, burned skin and staples ripped off, bloody wounds and the one or other broken bone, too.
Usually when he got to the doctor, Dabi was alone with him. Today the blood-freak was there. She was acting in her usual, annoyingly cheerful and crazy way, when he materialized in the laboratory. He could hear her from the other room, gushing over the newest adjustments to her costume. When the doctor went to greet him, she was tagging along and falling silent as soon as she laid eyes on him.
Dabi knew he must have looked horrible. He was still heaving and rasping, coughing blood into his hands, hardly able to stand. The doctor made some comment that he hardly heard over the ringing in his ears. He didn’t say anything, he just felt a thick arm around his waist and on his hand as he supported him to bring him to the treatment room.
The doctor was babbling and ranting as always and Dabi let him. He was thankful for the special painkillers Ujiko provided him with right away. They always made the treatment somewhat bearable even without any anesthesia. They made him sleepy and it always felt like his head was stuffed with candy cotton, they rendered him unable to think but that was always a very welcome side effect. So he just let the doctor jabber on and on without giving any reply. He found it strange that Toga just sat in a corner of the room facing him, not engaging in the conversation the doctor obviously held with himself as he put some staples back to patch him back together, applied something against the burns, made him swallow something for his throat and lungs, which made him feel even dizzer, and eventually bandaged him up.
After some time (he couldn’t tell how much to save his life) the doctor left him alone, but he didn’t feel like moving though. The room was rotating around him in funny colors and he felt like he was about to fall asleep. It took some more moments for Toga to stand in front of him and level her face with his. “You look like you have seen some ghost, you know, Dabs?” Her voice was calmer than he ever remembered hearing it. It almost sounded like she was concerned.
When the words finally registered with him, he had to laugh a little. “Because I did. Some ghost from the past,” he slurred as if drunk.
She tilted her head, obviously puzzled by him giving her an actual reply instead of some bite. “Ghosts are always from the past,” she stated in a flat voice, but her smile was clearly amused.
“That one was pretty much alive, I think.”
“Well, it must have been to beat the shit out of you like this. You really look like shit.”
He scoffed. “It surely did. And… maybe I did some of the beating, too.”
She blinked at him and when he gave her a lop-sided smile, both laughed.
“You’re not making any sense. Come on, Dabs, let’s get you home.”
- - -
He hardly remembers how Toga got him to their headquarters and into his bed, but for once he’s thankful for her being around. He didn’t say it though, he dropped down onto his bed as soon as she loosened her surprisingly strong grip on his waist.
“Lemme sleep,” he mumbled into his pillow.
With an annoyed huff she retorted immediately: “Oh shut up, Dabdab!”
He felt his blanket being pulled over him before everything faded into blackness.
Blackness. Sheer, vast blackness. Silence. But there is some warmth that feels so familiar and yet so strange. When Dabi opens his eyes, he sees nothing. And yet it is so warm. He wonders where that warmth comes from, so he turns around. Hawks is standing back to back with him, turning around as soon as Dabi moves.
The hero’s features are graced again by that unspeakable smile, so gentle and warm, as warm as he felt right now. His eyes are a little hooded, mirroring the smile on his lips. The little shadow of his lids only helps to make the sparkle of gold and red shine brighter as small wrinkles frame his eyes, filling them with mirth. Dabi swallows when Hawks opens his mouth and starts talking. There aren’t any noises coming from him, everything is silent. But Hawks is talking anyways. It doesn‘t feel odd though. On the contrary, Dabi feels strangely comfortable and so very close to peaceful. Hawks looks cheerful and somewhat relaxed. He is visibly telling some story, gesturing with his hands and smiling wide.
Dabi just watches him silently, taking in every movement in his features, every wave through wild strands of blonde hair, every gleam in ruby-strangled golden eyes, every curl of slim fingers. The hero walks around him as he speaks, drawing a perfect circle. Unconsciously Dabi moves with him, never taking his eyes from the winged man.
After a while Hawks stills, looking at him with genuine curiosity. His eyes are so big, round and golden. Dabi blinks when he comes to realize that Hawks isn’t continuing his story, but looks right into his eyes. That seems to please Hawks, because his eyes soften and he smiles again, but so much more calmly now. That smile is so warm, it almost glows and it moves something within him with so much gentleness, that he has to take in a deep breath to settle everything that started to shift.
Dabi closes his eyes to feel how everything falls in place and when opens them again, Hawks is gone and with him the warmth he felt.
He blinked, pushing his body up as it was fighting for air. The sudden loss of that warmth left a feeling like a hole in his chest, which felt so much heavier than it had any right to do. It wasn‘t his heart that was sinking, it was neither loneliness, nor anger, it was a whole new kind of emptiness and heaviness. His throat still burned, but he didn’t feel the need to cough anymore.
After some moments he registered that same warmth again and Dabi froze. Was he still dreaming? He looked down, he was lying in his bed, that much was sure. He could feel the fabric under his fingers. But there was a weight on the mattress that was not his own. When he turned his head to look to his side, he saw Hawks’ half naked body lying next to him, sleeping soundly.
He exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. It sounded more like a sigh, some deep vibrato rumbling in his throat. That was all it took the other man to wake up, opening his eyes in languid fluttering. When he finally came to, Hawks looked at him silently. Dabi held his gaze as he held the gaze of the Hawks in his dream. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words ever passed his opened lips. Hawks didn’t say anything, didn’t push him to speak. He just watched him gape like a fish and then, after some minutes, simply smiled.
It was that warmth of a smile. It was genuine. It punched all air out of his lungs. He closed his mouth, giving up all attempts at speaking. Hawks breathed out some air which almost sounded like a huff, but it wasn’t ridiculing or anything. It almost felt like acceptance.
When his muscles started to scream from the strain and soreness, he laid back down, flat on his stomach, still facing Hawks. Hawks reached his hand out and let it rest carefully on his cheek. Dabi didn’t flinch, didn’t move, instead he sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. That gesture felt calming, reassuring. He didn’t know what reassurance he would have needed, but it felt good anyway.
It was himself who broke the silence in the end.
“Those kids were pretty dumb, huh?”
Hawks just hummed noncommittally.
“Are they at least in trouble?”
Now it was Hawks who scoffed. “They surely are.”
It was Dabi’s turn to hum.
Hawks didn’t take his hand away. It was so warm and comforting that he didn’t feel like doing something about the touch. Maybe he could blame it on the painkillers tomorrow.
But Dabi certainly remembered a time when he felt this warm and comfortable, but it was so long ago that it felt more like a dream than like a memory. His eyelids grew so heavy, drooping slowly until he shut his eyes completely, drifting back into a dreamless and restful sleep, knowing that Hawks laid right next to him through the warmth of touch.
|
1. Genesis
Clint came back from his first mission with SHIELD feeling, for the first time he could ever remember, like he fit into his own skin. He'd long since given up on having any worth in this life when SHIELD had tracked him down in the form of a mild-mannered looking gentleman in well-tailored suits who had schooled Clint in hand-to-hand when Clint had finally slipped and allowed his pursuers to get close enough. Granted, Clint was half-starved by that point, recovering from a cold that had bloomed into bronchitis, and generally not at his best. But if he was honest with himself, which he occasionally was, he knew Coulson would have taken him even if Clint had been in prime condition.
Clint went to medical in the wake of the mission as procedure dictated because he might be a smartass and willing to question orders, but he didn't want to push too hard, want to lose this opportunity, the way it made him feel. He didn't want to lose the voice in his ear that let him know he was doing well, he had someone at his back. Clint pretended he didn't even mind whose voice it was, but he suspected he might.
He was cleared quickly, since he didn't have so much as a bruise on him, and he made his way down to the mess. He was starving and wired and there wasn't a chance he was going to rest soon, so he figured he might as well swipe a snack and give his body the blood sugar boost it would need to sustain his level of energy. Without knowing why he was doing it, he grabbed a cup of dark roast coffee, one cream, no sugars. Clint didn't actually drink coffee, too bitter, soda did him just fine, but Coulson did. Coulson mainlined coffee at times. It was one of the few pieces of evidence Clint had that Coulson was actually human, and not some superior being from the future.
Clint would pass by Coulson's office on the way to his quarters anyway—kind of, if he took the scenic route—so it seemed courteous to bring the man something. He'd be doing wrap-up paperwork and he'd been the one to support Clint's training and generally be there over the past year. Clint knew he owed the guy a hell of a lot more than a coffee, but Clint wasn't really good at the big gestures, or even the little ones. He was too used to having people reject his overtures to have developed any decent protocol regarding making them.
He knocked on Coulson's door. It was cracked, which was usually a sign visitors were allowed entry, so Clint slipped inside. And found Coulson dead asleep, slumped over his desk. Clint frowned at the sight. It didn't fit into everything he'd seen up until now. He had been faintly sure Coulson was indestructible and above such things as the need for REM sleep.
Clint closed the door behind him softly, but the click woke the man all the same. He startled up and then blinked. "Barton. Did you need something?"
Clint shook his head. "Just stopped by to say thanks."
Coulson ran a hand over his face, which was a shocking tell. Clint could see the deep-set bruises around the man's eyes now that he was really looking. Coulson recovered enough to say, "You did the work on your own, specialist."
The words were both straightforward and kind, the way Clint had come to expect from his handler. They were a gift, and Clint found himself wanting to return the generosity. He said, "I could help, sir. With some of these forms. Probably not the briefings, but all the basic stuff, weapons-use reports, I could—I could do those."
Coulson looked at him a long time, probably longer than he would have had he not just awoken from exhaustion-induced unconsciousness and said, "I'd appreciate that, Barton."
Clint sat down on the other side of the desk, and got to work.
2. Exodus
Sometimes, after a mission had gone balls-up—which was roughly seventy-eight percent of the time, by Clint's very unscientific calculations—Clint liked to come up to the roof of HQ and just breathe. It wasn't quiet up there, New York was never quiet, but it was removed, somewhere to regain his balance. He'd never, in all the nearly three years he'd been coming up there, run into another person.
He stopped in his tracks when he saw Coulson's back. The man had stripped down to his shirt, and the sleeves were rolled to his elbows. The line of his shoulders was uncomfortably slumped and even though this had always been Clint's place, his hideaway, he felt like an intruder. He was about to turn around and leave when Coulson asked, "Something I can do for you, Barton?"
His voice was crisp, professional as ever, but there was a threadiness to it, like a blanket that still served well, but was worn in spots. Clint said, "Just came up to find some peace, sir. I'll commandeer another spot."
"There's plenty of space here," Coulson said softly, but loud enough for Clint to hear him. Clint knew dismissals when he heard them; invitations were always harder for him to discern. Still, he was pretty sure that constituted one. He came over to stand next to Coulson.
There was a comfortable silence between them for a long time, maybe half an hour, before Clint asked, "What's your opinion on motorcycles?"
Coulson looked over, blinking, some of the tension bleeding from his expression to be replaced by mild confusion. "American or foreign?"
Clint laughed, a sharp, shocked sound. "You're a motorcycle elitist, seriously? No, never mind, I don't even know why I'm surprised."
Coulson narrowed his eyes a bit. "Not so much an elitist as…"
"Sir?"
Coulson sighed. "My dad's a mechanic. He likes to rebuild Harleys that haven't been treated well. I can't help feeling like the rumble isn't quite right with any other bike."
Clint did his best not to show surprise, though it was a challenge. He'd never really considered Coulson's family, although now that seemed foolish. Of course Coulson had come from somewhere, probably somewhere he was loved, with people who called occasionally and checked in on him. The thought made Clint's stomach twist uncomfortably so he made himself stop thinking about it. Instead he said, "The first thing I bought after I got my first paycheck here was a 1992 Honda Fireblade CBR900RR, first run. I bought it used, couldn't afford anything like a Harley or something brand new. I've done some upgrades since, especially on the suspension. Upped the engine power from 900 to 1200."
Coulson looked baffled. "You've never said. It's not even registered as owned by you."
Clint ducked his head. "Used an alias. Still needed to feel like I had some secrets."
Coulson's laughter was a little huff of mirth, not much, but something. Clint looked up at him. "Wanna go for a ride?"
Coulson raised an eyebrow. "You have three broken fingers, a sprained elbow, and obscured vision in your right eye, Barton."
"Obviously, sir, you're going to have to drive." Clint grinned, wide and excited.
For a moment, brief and pure, Coulson seemed almost giddy. "You sure?"
Clint nodded. "Positive."
Coulson's stride to the building entrance wasn't undignified—never that—but it definitely had some speed to it that wasn't usually there.
3. Leviticus
Clint was not stupid, not in the ways that mattered for a SHIELD operative. He knew Coulson was taking the flack for Clint's decision to bring Black Widow in. He also knew being assigned her wasn't a gift from Fury. It was a punishment, for allowing something so completely out of line to happen on his watch. If Coulson succeeded, maybe then there would be rewards. If not, well, Clint wasn't sure what the consequences were, but he didn't want to know. Neither of them were going to know, if Clint had anything to say about it. He had no idea why, but he was pretty sure Widow was going to make good. He thought it might have something to do with how much she reminded him of himself.
Right now they had her on lockdown, Coulson the only one going in and out. Clint had no idea what happened in their sessions, but he knew that as soon as Coulson came out of the containment area, the strict line of his shoulders, the ever-cool façade slipped just a little, just enough. Clint noticed the relatively wan look of his features, the sharper tilt of his facial structure, suggesting he wasn't getting regular meals.
Clint caught him the fourth time he re-emerged. Coulson nodded at him coolly, but not with any blame behind it, just the need to conserve everything he had for whatever was being negotiated, hammered out, in that little room between him and one of the most notorious assassins of their day. Clint asked, "Have a moment, sir?"
Coulson looked at his watch. "Thirty minutes, exactly. What did you need?"
Clint tilted his head and said, "It's, ah…can you come with me?"
Coulson frowned, but followed as Clint threaded his way through the halls, eventually to his quarters.
Coulson paused at the door. "Barton—"
"Your virtue's safe with me," Clint quipped. "Just take a seat at the bar."
"The bar" was really more a countertop with mismatched bar chairs behind it. SHIELD quarters weren't very large, and Clint liked to utilize every inch of space. Clint went to his freezer, where he, at all times, kept two jugs of chicken soup with meat kreplachs. Clint didn't believe in much, not really, but the family of trapeze artists at the circus had been descendants of Hungarian Jews and had taught him that this particular food could literally heal anything. He'd seen it on more than one occasion. When he'd finally been able to get off SHIELD grounds, the first thing he'd done was stake out a deli that made it and order several bowls for carryout.
Now he took one of the two Tupperware containers out of the freezer and slid the contents into his pan—he only owned one—and set the stove on high. He told Coulson, "It'll only take a minute. You'll be back in plenty of time."
Coulson looked at the stove as if it might answer the questions of the universe. Finally he asked Clint, "Are you making me chicken soup?"
"Heating it up, really," Clint answered.
"That's…" Coulson, underneath his fading veneer of placidity, looked flummoxed. "That's very nice of you."
Clint laughed and got out a bowl. He owned two of those. "People should be nicer to you, I think."
4. Numbers
Clint was pissed. He was going to kill whatever incompetent dick of a base-communications lead had made it so Coulson and he were stuck at the extraction point—which was little more than a shack, barely providing cover from the harsh winds of a Bulgarian winter, let alone warmth or any other basic human comforts—for another three hours. But his anger at that particular dick was nothing compared to that which he felt at himself for getting Coulson shot.
"It's a flesh wound," Coulson said, because Coulson had the annoying ability to read Clint's mind.
"You're not funny," Clint told him.
"You're just saying that because you're hungry. You get grumpy when you're hungry."
Clint looked at him in disbelief. In truth, the injury was just a flesh wound, or at least, non-fatal, but it had bled plenty and also, "It is my job to get shot. If anyone is getting shot, it is me, sir, what the hell is so hard to understand about that?"
The bullet which had lodged itself in the fleshy part of Coulson's left shoulder probably would have gone right through Clint's throat, but that wasn't the point. The point, thank you very much, was that Coulson was the handler, his job was to stay out of the damn way, not wade in when shit looked like it was getting hairy.
"Barton," Coulson said softly, and something about it, maybe the way Coulson didn't sound like he believed he would manage to get Clint's attention at all, made Clint stop pacing.
"Sir," he said, his jaw tight.
"Want to know a secret?"
Clint blinked. It was so far from what he'd been expecting that he barely even made the decision to say, "Yes," before he was saying it.
"Today's my birthday."
It took a second for Clint to process that information. "Are you—you know there're whole schemes and plans in the organization to find that information out, right?"
"Wouldn't have wanted to give you a useless secret." Coulson sounded mildly affronted at the idea Clint might think that.
"Wow, um. Who else knows?"
"The Director. Hill."
In three hours, when they were picked up, it would no longer be the same day in Bulgaria, but Clint still had several hours in America. He figured since that was their home it technically counted. "This is kind of a crappy birthday."
"Not my worst," Coulson said.
That assertion didn't make Clint feel better. He'd seen some pretty bad birthdays, too. He wouldn't wish that on Coulson. Instead, he forced himself to stop moving and sit down next to Coulson. "How's the shoulder?"
Coulson's smile was tight. "Fine."
Clint gently pulled Coulson toward him, settling his uninjured side against Clint, so the hurt agent could rest on something more comfortable than the wooden wall of the shack. "While you're giving away secrets, wanna tell me what your favorite kind of cake is?"
"Banana caramel," Coulson answered, sounding a little woozy, but still present.
"Stay awake for me here and I'll find you some before the end of the day Eastern Standard time."
"Shouldn't bribe your superiors," Coulson told him, the words slurring, but still essentially him.
"I do all sorts of things I shouldn't." Like getting those superiors shot.
"What's yours?" Coulson asked.
"Hm, sir?"
"Flavor. Keep up, Barton."
Clint smiled, shifting to take as much of Coulson's weight as he could, provide as much warmth as possible. "Funfetti."
"That's not a flavor." Coulson sounded positively indignant.
"You and Betty Crocker can have it out, sir, as soon as we get that flesh wound all healed up."
"Barton?"
"Yes?"
"You're a plague upon truth and decency."
Clint laughed. "Don't I know it, sir."
Clint felt when Coulson slipped into unconsciousness, but by his internal clock, they only had about twenty minutes left, so he let him. He made sure, when Coulson woke up from surgery, to have banana caramel cake waiting for him—for the record, no easy feat.
Coulson looked suspicious. "Pretty sure you missed your deadline."
"No, sir, I was on time. You were the one sleeping the day away."
Coulson laughed softly, a quiet little huff, and made Clint share the cake.
5. Deuteronomy
Clint struggled up to wakefulness. He wondered what the fuck he'd taken or what he'd drunk to make him feel like he'd been hit by a truck and a few cars following the truck. Maybe he had been. Weird shit like that happened on missions now and again.
Then he managed to get his eyes open and somehow the act of being able to see allowed everything to rush back. He choked on his, "Oh," and then Coulson was there, placing ice chips on Clint's swollen, cracked tongue. When he'd gotten enough moisture in his mouth, Clint asked, "How long've I been out?"
"Better part of fifty hours, but seven of that was in surgery," Coulson told him. Clint loved that, how Coulson never acted like it was in a person's best interest not to be told something. He might not tell a person something for one reason or another, but he never behaved as though it were for the other person's benefit.
"The knee?" Clint asked, doing his best to keep an unconcerned expression, have his tone be even.
"They had to pretty much completely replace the entire structure of it, but some physical therapy and you'll be back on the ground," Coulson said, and it was only because Clint knew him that he could hear the way the man was struggling to keep his own voice flat, professional. He added, "Everything else was fairly superficial."
The arms dealers Clint had been betrayed to by a mole had kept him in their sweet, merciful care for three days before Coulson had figured out who'd given them up and how to find Clint. He'd been pretty screwed up by that time, all in all, but the kneecap where he'd taken a bullet and then had them concentrate most of their fun and games was by far the worst.
Clint smiled, at ease now that he knew things would be all right. "SHIELD witch doctors."
Coulson gave him a look that Clint knew to determine as fond. He could read behind the look, too. "Wasn't your fault, sir."
"Barton—"
"You're my handler, it's your job to see to my safety, blah, blah, blah. I've read the handbook."
"No you haven't," Coulson said, piqued, as though this was the worst lie Clint had ever told.
"No I haven’t," he agreed, "but you've read it enough for both of us."
Coulson narrowed his eyes. "Your point?"
"Shit happens, and not even you can stop it, sir."
Coulson looked like he wanted to argue, but didn't want to do anything to make the doctors pissed. In the end he simply ordered, "Go back to sleep."
Clint wanted to, but he held on to ask, softly, "When was the last time you slept?"
Coulson just looked at him, which told Clint all he needed to know. Coulson probably hadn't slept since the second he'd known Clint was missing. Clint told him, "Go get Tasha. She'll keep me safe and you know it."
Coulson took a breath. "Barton, I—I won't be able to, that is, it will do me no good to leave."
Clint could tell it took everything Coulson had for him to keep eye contact. It was in moments like this Clint knew damn well he was never going to meet anyone braver than the man in front of him. Clint nodded and said, "Then sleep in the other bed, sir. But sleep."
Coulson hesitated a second, but then went over to the empty bed a few feet over, climbed on shoes and all, and was asleep so quickly that Clint, doped up and everything, managed to stay awake long enough to see him drop off.
+1. Your People Shall Be My People
It wasn’t Tony who found Coulson post-death, or even Clint or Natasha. It was Steve. Clint couldn't decide whether Coulson would be humiliated or tickled pink. And Clint was too busy feeling guilty for not having been the one to figure things out and find him that he couldn't spare too much thought over it. Clint knew how the Director worked and he also knew that no little punk-ass alien with daddy issues was going to take Coulson down.
All the same, he'd never really felt as much relief as he did when he went back with Steve to re-break into where Coulson was being kept and saw him lying there, pale and hooked into a million machines, but alive. To distract himself from the maelstrom of feelings twisting at his insides, Clint asked, "What were you doing, again, when you found him?"
"Following a hunch," Steve said, which wasn't illustrative in the least.
Clint thought back to everything Natasha had told him when she'd had time to catch him up on what he'd missed while busy trying to destroy everything he loved in the world. "Like your hunch about Plan B?"
Steve's jaw tightened slightly. "A little bit like that."
Clint looked at the man in the bed, somehow small. He'd seen him hurt and frightened and asleep on numerous occasions, but never small. He said, "I'm taking him home with us."
"Barton—"
"You can help or you can leave," Clint said calmly, "but I am taking him home."
Steve said, "Give me twenty minutes."
"Cap—"
"It'll be easier to get him out with help, right?"
Clint started to answer out of sheer habit, tell Steve it was fine, he could get it, when he realized that a) yes it would be, b) it would probably mean less stress on Coulson and c) Steve was offering, without even having to be asked. After a second, Clint nodded. "Twenty minutes."
*
Once in the car, though, Coulson swam up from the cocktail of painkillers and sedatives being pumped into him and, in that first second of waking, an expression of uncertainty and quiet fear passed over his face. Clint said, "Coulson," said, "Sir."
Coulson's gaze sharpened as he focused in on Clint. Clint smiled. "You're all right. We've got you."
Coulson clearly took a moment to process that, then managed, "We?"
"Tasha and me and…and the Avengers."
Coulson held his attention on Clint for just a second more, as if gauging the truthfulness of this statement. Then he reached out far enough to grab Clint's hand—not very far, Clint was on his knees in front of where Steve and Thor were keeping Coulson shielded against the movement of the car—and said, "Okay."
He was still clinging to Clint's hand when he fell back asleep. Clint didn't let go.
|
"Sir, Agent Barton is on the roof," JARVIS reported.
"The roof?" Tony asked, looking around. "Why would he be on the roof? Why not just come inside?"
"He's trying to put everything away in his mind before he comes in so he can help you, Tony," Coulson said. "The best thing you can do is just be patient. He'll come in when he's ready."
"You know he's really going to be mad about this, right?"
"I don't know what else to do. If Clint isn't going to listen to me, this is my last chance to help him before he gets recalled. I have to try."
Tony sighed and settled back into the pillows behind him. He didn't like being stuck in bed, but Coulson had relented enough to let him have his StarkPad and they were working on redesigning the lab in the Tower. "If it doesn't work, let me try before you let Fury take him away?"
"I'll try," Coulson said.***
Barton sat down on the roof and stared out at the water. He wasn't ready to go back into the house and deal with people, he was still feeling too raw from that afternoon, and he didn't want to hurt Tony more by leaving himself exposed. "Director?"
"Nope, just here as Nick tonight." Fury sat down next to Barton with a sigh. "Nice view from up here, but it's kinda cold. Any reason you picked this perch, Hawk?"
"JARVIS knows I'm here and can let me know if Tony's in danger," Barton replied. "Why are you here, Sir?"
"Phil called and said you had a few issues with how we're handling the situation back in New York," Fury said. He held up a hand. "I understand why you're having the issues, Hawk, don't think that I don't, but you understand killing Rogers isn't a viable option at this time."
"Yes, Sir," Barton said. "But you'll find magic isn't the cure-all you're expecting it to be."
"How would you have handled it?"
"Depends on where the initiative is right now," Barton said. "Relocating Rogers to a secure SHIELD location with fast transport in case of emergencies or call-outs would have been my first step. If that would raise too many questions, he could be placed on a secure floor of the Tower and monitored by guards, myself and JARVIS in rotation. He'd be allowed to go out and fight, because people expect to see Captain America, but the rest of the time he'd be serving time, just like any other rapist in the nation."
"He was able to rip open a pressure sealed door on the helicarrier, Hawk," Fury said. "I don't think there's anywhere we could put him immediately that would hold him safely. We've been using the emergency room for the Hulk, but that's short term at best. Dr. Banner needs to know that's available to him at any time to remain with us. We no longer have the prison on the helicarrier, and there would be too much talk if we put Captain America in there."
"Nick, you've had him for almost a month, that's plenty of time to build another basic Hulk-proof emergency room at the Tower," Barton said. "You still should. We need to have that in case this magical crap Thor's doing backfires on us and Rogers suddenly remembers that he owns Tony."
"We still haven't told Stark about that, Hawk, although I know that both Phil and JARVIS know about it," Fury said. "We're worried about what his reaction would be. How's he doing?"
"Better than he has any right to be given what he's gone through. I can't speak for how he'll be once he's back in New York at the Tower, especially if Rogers has free reign there, but here he seems to be doing okay," Barton said. "He needs at least two weeks of time in the pool and then up that to pool and gym, but I think he can be back in fighting form by the end of the month. Tony says he doesn't know his triggers and that's a problem, but one Coulson and I can handle if it crops up."
"If the problem pops up in the middle of a battle, what then?" Fury asked.
"I don't think it will. Thor's the only one who is strong enough to do real damage to the suits Tony wears," Barton replied. "Tony would be able to blast out of there before Rogers could do anything to hurt him. I'll spot it if the shield is thrown at him and can shoot it off target. You know I see everything during a battle."
Fury nodded. "I do, and I trust you on this one, Hawk," he said. "I need you to trust me that magic is the only option we have right now. How do you think Tony would react if we didn't do this, if we just put Rogers in lockdown, and Rogers told the media at one of the press conferences? We can't keep him away from those, people would ask too many questions. It's one thing to keep the Council and our people happy, it's another to try and hide a national icon away. We need to be sure that Rogers isn't going to talk."
"I still say it's going to backfire on you, Sir," Barton said. "Trust someone who's been there."
"You really scared Phil when you ran out today,you know. He thought you were going to go to ground for a few days."
"I can't, not when Tony needs me. I'm just trying to get settled so I can go back in and talk with Tony," Barton said. "I know I'm going to have to answer some questions for him, and I'm not really looking forward to that."
"He's worried about you, so's Phil. So am I, if you want to know the truth. I thought you'd managed to shake a few of these concerns, Hawk. You're not telling me everything."
"As long as I'm fit for duty, Sir, that's what matters."
"No, what matters is that you're healthy and happy, Hawk," Fury said. "We've talked about this. You've been through more than a lot of SHIELD agents have and I know that causes you some sleepless nights. The things you should never doubt are your place with us, that Phil Coulson is head over heals in love with you, and that you are a strong, loyal man. That's all you need to know."
"Yes, Sir."
"All right, I'm going down. It's too damn cold up here. Come down before you get sick, you hear me?"
"Yes, Sir."
Fury sighed and headed down off the roof. Barton was one of the three most stubborn people he knew and Fury knew that he'd heard everything, including the unspoken words between them. He just hoped it would be enough to help. There was one last thing to work out, and that was what the hell was up with Natasha.
|
Out of all the things Rise Kujikawa was or ever had been, she was definitely not an eavesdropper.
Admittedly, the mental connection thing she could do with her Persona was kind of weird and just a little bit off-putting. While they were in the TV world, she could drop into someone's head and offer suggestions or input no matter how far away they were, without any effort at all. She usually only did it with Souji, or at least she tried to, but sometimes she'd catch herself drifting into other people's minds too. She didn't really know what emotion to blame it on; curiosity, boredom, protectiveness, maybe a little bit of all of them.
It wasn't until they'd gone into Yosuke's twisted version of Junes that she realized being able to connect with other people's minds could pose an actual, distinct problem.
There was no way she could have predicted the way that the escalator to the tenth floor had crumbled beneath them, sending everyone but Souji plummeting to the floor below, but she felt guilty about it anyway. She should have sensed something was wrong, but she'd let her guard down, tucked Himiko away in the back of her mind to give herself a reprieve before the fight she was fairly certain would ensue once they reached Yosuke's Shadow. The assumption, of course, being that they would all reach Yosuke's Shadow together. Assumptions were dangerous and she needed to stop making them; it was almost hypocritical, honestly.
Teddie had blinked the rest of the team away at the last second with a brilliantly timed Traesto, and once they were safely back on the first floor of the twisted Junes Rise immediately summoned Himiko and reached out to Souji. "Senpai?!" she shouted, louder than she meant to, the panic setting in and making her skin tingle.
I can hear you fine, Rise, no need to yell-- She breathed a sigh of relief, slumping to the floor under Himiko's shimmering form. Once she was assured that Souji was unharmed and she'd relayed that the rest of the team was okay, Himiko faded away and recessed into that familiar, formerly unused pocket of Rise's mind. The world inside the television was strange, though; even without Himiko fully summoned, Rise could still sense things. She could tell that all the other members of the team were frightened and worried; she'd only joined the team recently, but from the stories they'd told her she knew this was the first time they'd ever been separated like this. She could sense Souji, floor and floors above them now; he was deep in thought about something, a mental state of his that was already becoming familiar to her. She even thought she could sense Yosuke, just a little further away than Souji, though she didn't know much about him besides what Souji had confided, so she couldn't be sure without her Persona's assistance.
She could definitely sense the Shadow, though. That was hard to miss.
The team was already racing back through the aisles of the strange Junes; Rise trailed behind just a little, partly because she wasn't used to the same level of physical activity as the others, partly because she was still trying to sense for Souji, to make sure he wasn't doing anything stupid. It was just her luck that something stupid was exactly what Souji was about to do.
She couldn't summon Himiko like this, not while they were running, and so she couldn't respond when she heard Souji's quiet apology in her mind. She certainly wanted to, wanted to stop right there and summon Himiko and yell at him until she was blue in the face but, well, she could sense Souji's emotions right now, all knotted up and desperate, and decided it was for the best that she couldn't stop running for fear that she'd lose sight of the others.
The floors were still mostly clear from before; Souji had pushed them hard, frantic to reach his best friend. The few shadows they did encounter were easy enough to dodge or were quickly dispatched. When they reached the fifth floor, however, their path was blocked by a more powerful shadow that they'd managed to avoid before, and they had no choice but to stand firm and fight it. Rise summoned Himiko to assist them; Chie was doing her best to act as surrogate leader, but she didn't know nearly as much about shadow strengths and weaknesses as Souji did. The moment Himiko's visor lowered over Rise's eyes, however, she was hit with a massive wave of emotion coming from several floors away. She recoiled physically, staggering back and clutching at her chest, and Teddie turned around in alarm. "Rise-chan, are you okay?"
"Y- yeah," she managed, pulling herself back upright and settling in behind the visor again. "Sorry, it's just... I can feel Yosuke-senpai's Shadow... it's so strong..."
"Don't worry about that right now and tell us how to fight this thing!" Chie said, jumping from foot to foot impatiently, then swiftly dodging out of the way of the shadow's massive axe.
Rise shook her head, trying to make herself focus. "Right! Um, give me a second... fire! Try fire!"
Yukiko followed up with a powerful blast that knocked the shadow to its knees; after observing another round of combat and determining that the team had it under control, Rise turned her attention back to the overwhelming energy that was emanating from the floors above. She could see through Souji's eyes with Himiko's help, so she did just that; she saw Yosuke, pale-faced but otherwise appearing unharmed -- and she saw the Shadow, taking long strides towards Souji, a vicious gleam in its yellow eyes.
Honestly, she should have looked away, turned her attention back to the battle in front of her and let the situation upstairs play out in whatever way it was going to. Rise Kujikawa was not an eavesdropper. But the look on the Shadow's face sent a chill through her, and she ignored the whispering voice in the back of her head that told her this was definitely something she shouldn't be seeing.
Usually when they were fighting in the TV world, Rise would trail behind them like a tail, not on the front lines but never too far away. She'd never had occasion to completely trespass in Souji's mind like this -- she didn't particularly like it, it felt invasive and wrong -- so she wasn't fully prepared for the way she could feel Yosuke's Shadow's arm when it draped over Souji's shoulder. "You're special to me, y'know?" the Shadow was saying, and Rise's horrified reaction mirrored Souji's.
Her attention flickered back to the rest of the team, still fighting the shadow that barred their way. She checked on them, let Teddie know who needed healing, gave Chie a status report on about how much damage the shadow had taken, then her mind was away again, watching the scene unfold from Souji's point of view. The Shadow was circling Souji now, slow and deliberate, talking about Yosuke's feelings-- wait, Yosuke's feelings?!
Rise felt suddenly warm and a little dizzy. The only Shadows she'd seen besides her own were Teddie's and Mitsuo's, and neither of them had done anything like this. Of course she'd seen confessions before, not real ones but carefully scripted ones for television or movies, she'd even acted in one once, but this really took the cake. Sure, okay, the Shadow wasn't really saying anything outright, and Yosuke was mostly spluttering and spouting denial after denial--
Then the Shadow kissed Souji right on the mouth.
For a second, Rise's vision went blurry; she blinked a few times, but realized that it wasn't her eyes but Souji's that were faulty. She could feel the Shadow's lips as though they were on her own, and something somewhere inside said you need to stop this right now but the rest of her was frozen on the spot. She was dimly aware that she was blushing, she must have been blushing, watching this was deeply embarrassing for a variety of reasons, and then Souji pulled away and she staggered again, still trying desperately to blink the haze from her eyes.
"Uh, Rise-chan?" She heard a voice calling her but it seemed very far away and indistinct. "Rise-chan, are you alright?" A different voice, maybe. She shook her head, trying to make herself come to her senses. She moved Himiko's visor from her eyes but didn't dismiss the Persona just yet; if past experience were anything to go by, she'd need to start helping Souji in battle very soon. Once her eyes refocused on the rest of the team standing in front of her, she realized that the shadow they had been fighting was long gone and they were all standing in a clump, staring at her.
"S- sorry! I was, uh. Checking up on Souji-senpai!" Her whole face was probably red now, clear out to the tips of her ears; Chie and Yukiko exchanged a glance and Kanji looked like he was about to say something, but--
There was an abrupt sound in Rise's ears, not unlike a powerful gust of wind, and she knew exactly what had happened even before she could lower the visor back over her eyes. "Senpai?!" she shouted, cupping her palms over her ears so she could hear herself better. She was in her element now, scanning the transformed Shadow from afar, assessing strengths and weaknesses, and she nearly forgot about everything she'd seen until she finished relaying information and dismissed her Persona momentarily. "We have to hurry," she said to the others, who all had deeply concerned looks on their faces. "Maybe we can get up there in time to help him!"
They all nodded and turned and ran together, Rise still a little slower than the rest, but after a moment she noticed that Yukiko seemed to be hanging back a bit too. "Rise-chan," she said once she was within earshot, "are you okay? You looked like you saw something strange back there."
Rise felt the blush returning to her cheeks and shook her head emphatically. "N- no way, Yukiko-senpai! Rise Kujikawa isn't an eavesdropper!" She forced a laugh and redoubled her running efforts, pulling a little ahead of Yukiko before she could ask any more embarrassing questions.
Rise Kujikawa was definitely not an eavesdropper. At least, not anymore.
|
Waking up in a church is always something of a surreal experience, but it was especially troubling when it occurred for no immediately discernible reason. For one thing, your gut reaction was basically just— oh shit, am I dead? You weren't, of course, but now that the subject of death had crossed your mind, you couldn't help but wonder: Could you even die? You know, what with previous brushes with it and the subsequent auto-resetting.
You laid there for a few seconds, meditative. If one of these timelines do work out—likeliness aside—are you just going to end up resetting again decades later… indefinitely?
You swallowed hard, clenching your teeth together slightly. To be honest, you… really didn't like to think about long game stuff like this, because wow, no thanks. Time to suppress that hypothetical thought right now, immediately, along with any other existential bullfuckery your mind decided to shove at you. Here. In a church.
You sat up in the pew you'd been unceremoniously sprawled out across, glancing up and down the congregation hall for… anyone, really. The whole place was dead silent, and there wasn't much light coming through the windows. How long had you been passed out? Hell, why were you even passed out? The last thing you could recall was that you were arguing with Yoosung when—
Oh.
Ohhhh, right.
You fainted.
In a graveyard.
"That's… vaguely ominous," you muttered aloud, but quietly, and with a mild sense of apprehension.
You got up in a hurry; a pit of anxiety starting to turn your stomach. What time was it? Where had Yoosung gone? And what the hell did you say to him back then…? Ugh, fuck, the more you remembered, the more you wish you didn't.
"You're awake!" you heard someone remark, prompting you to quickly spin around. It was Yoosung, inadvertently answering one of your questions. "Oh thank god," he continued, audibly sighing, with one hand over his chest. "I almost thought you died!"
Your eyes settled on Yoosung's phone, which he was holding up to his face. "…Who are you calling?" you asked with a hardened look, feeling your throat tighten.
He glanced at his cell from the corner of his eye, then looked back towards you. He put the phone down slightly, covering up the mic in case someone picked up. "Uh, Jumin. I've been trying to get a hold of him for a couple minutes, but— H-Hey! What gives?!"
From the second your husband's name left his mouth, your body seemed to move by itself — bolting over to Yoosung and snatching the phone right out of his hands. You snapped it shut, then held it closed for a solid ten seconds. "Don't— don't call him, please," you said, gingerly relinquishing the device with a touch of embarrassment over your impulsiveness.
Yoosung stared at you as he retook his phone, his expression narrowed into a mix of concern and befuddlement. "But… you…"
"Please," you repeated, pleading with him. "He… he doesn't need to know about this."
Yoosung's jaw went nearly slack. "Doesn't need to kn—? He's your husband!" he said, holding out his arms in protest.
"It's not that important," you mumbled, avoiding eye contact.
"You collapsed!" he retorted, now crossing his arms, "how is that not important?!"
You clenched your fists at your sides, feeling rather panicked under the sudden pressure to explain yourself. "I-I don't know, I just— I don't— Oh, whatever, do what you want, then! I don't… care…" you said, throwing your arms up and retreating back to the pew, ducking down out of sight. You weren't even sure… why you did this. Just so he couldn't see you? What was the point of staying, then? You should really just… apologize, or leave, or do something, but… ugh. Ughhhh. This day — this week — sucked a fucking truckload of ass.
The silence that followed this exchange lingered on for at least a minute. A long, painful minute. You didn't know what Yoosung was doing in that time; maybe he was just staring at the spot where you'd disappeared, contemplating how to even react to you or this situation right now. You sure as hell wouldn't know how to react to this weird string of outbursts if you were in his shoes, and you're the one who's supposed to be good at this stuff. Like, feelings? Sympathy…? Or… whatever. Whatever Zen had said.
The next thing you knew, you heard footsteps. Taking your eyes off the ground, you could see that Yoosung was sitting in the pew in front of you. His face was visible from the angle he was sitting at, but he wasn't looking back at you, which was… good. Kind of him, even. The more time past, the more awkward and embarrassed you felt about all of this. For fainting, for fighting, for… for thinking you're any better than he is.
"My scholarship for Sky University," Yoosung eventually said, still looking straight forwards, "was merit based. My high school grades, community involvement — all that." He took a long, deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut as he spoke. "I'm… failing, or just scraping by, in most of my classes. Last week I got told that if I don't get my GPA up by the end of this semester, the rest of my funding will be revoked. And that's not… looking… possible."
…Ah. That explained some things.
He opened his eyes, crossed his arms, and seemingly began to sink into his seat. "That scholarship paid for basically everything; my tuition, housing, the meal plan… I— I won't be kicked out without it, but I might as well be since I can't make up the difference on my own. I don't have a job, or much savings, and my parents wouldn't loan me anything if they knew I—" He stopped, suddenly getting choked up on his own words. He looked away, covering his face with one of his hands.
You laid there, practically curled into a ball, looking at the back of Yoosung's head in quiet contemplation. "…Maybe Jumin—"
"No," he interjected quickly, his brow furrowed. "No, don't ask him. Even if I wanted Jumin to bail me out, I— I'd just disappoint him, too." He sighed. "You… were right. I need to grow up and take responsibility for my actions. Or… inaction, I guess. This isn't anyone else's fault but mine."
You squirmed in the pew, shifting onto your back. "I was kind of an asshole about it, though," you said, thinking back to before.
"…Well, yeah," he conceded.
"Sorry," you said.
"It's okay," he replied with a soft smile.
It wasn't really, though.
After a few moments of silence, Yoosung spoke up again. "People… confess things in churches, right?" he asked, turning his head ever-so-slightly. "Like, I'm not religious, but that's something people do here, right? They talk about stuff they don't really wanna talk about?"
You squinted your eyes. "I— yeah, I guess?" He made confessionals sound more like an interrogation.
Yoosung nodded slowly, turning his head forwards again. "So, um… now that I've, y'know…" he began, trailing off between his words, "d-do you… wanna talk about Ray?"
Your breath caught in your throat.
Ray.
You'd… forgotten… that you…
Yoosung's voice grew skittish, perhaps sensing the tension that'd now encompassed the room. "I-If you don't want to that's fine, it's just—" he glanced back at you then, cutting himself off. "Oh."
You were frozen in place, clenching your own sleeves with white-knuckled fists. Your thoughts had swarmed into a thousand different anxiety-induced directions, but you were vaguely aware of the stream of ugly tears running down your face.
He looked away. "I-I'm sorry, I—"
"He was my friend," you blurted, quite without thought or care for the ramifications.
Yoosung's head perked back up, looking toward you. "…Was?"
"I failed him. I failed him like… everyone else in his life," you said, probably not making a lick of sense, but you couldn't seem to stop yourself. "I failed him because I thought— I was selfish. Impulsive. I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn't, I don't, and now he's— he's—" You held the word on your tongue for the longest time, not wanting to say it out loud. Saying it out loud meant admitting that it had happened, that you made it happen, and that was almost too much to bare. "…I lost him."
Yoosung regarded you with a strained, but sympathetic look, then slowly nodded his head. "…I see," he said quietly, almost to himself. "I'm sorry. It's— I know what that's like."
You regarded him with a long, lingering sort of stare. Within a single guess, you could probably figure out how he interpreted what you said, but it didn't really matter. You had no real idea one way or another, and it wasn't like you could do anything about it.
Yoosung swallowed hard. "S-So, how—"
"Stop," you interjected, furrowing your brow. "I can't talk about this. I know what you're trying to do, but I can't. I just can't."
He glanced back with a twinge of panicked frustration. "But—"
"Look," you said, pulling yourself upwards, "I shouldn't have said any of that, so just—"
"Jumin doesn't know about Ray," Yoosung cut in, glancing off to the side, "does he?"
You chewed on the inside of your cheek, casting your eyes to the floor. "…No."
"Why?" he replied, genuinely perplexed. "'It's not that important'?"
You sighed deeply, shutting your eyes and slumping your shoulders. "It's… complicated. Please don't tell him, Yoosung."
He pressed his mouth into a line, his eyes narrowed and deeply conflicted. "I don't really like secrets."
"…Neither do I," you said.
Yoosung raised a brow. "Then—?"
"I have to," you replied, answering the question before he could finish. "That's really all there is to it."
Yoosung stared at you a good long while, a glimmer of faint irritation behind his eyes. "You're a bit of a hypocrite, you know," he said rather matter-of-factly. "No offense."
You blinked back at him, then furrowed your brow. "Excuse me?"
He sighed, letting his head fall back as he ran his fingers through his hair. "I mean, like — you are sort of always inserting yourself into everybody else's business, but you won't talk to us about what's bothering you? Not even Jumin? Honestly, you're as bad as Sev—" he paused. "Actually, no. No, you're as bad as V."
You sat up straighter, mouth agape. "I— I am not!" you retorted, indignant, but you could feel the colour in your cheeks. "It's— Look, I— Ugh. Just… just trust me on this? There is no conceivable way I could unpack all of… that… without chaos ensuing."
Yoosung raised an eyebrow. "If you say so, V."
You clenched your teeth. "Yoosung."
He huffed, screwing his eyes shut. "Fine. Fine," he said. "Just… can you at least tell me this one thing? Why… did you call me…?"
Your shoulders drooped again, and you felt yourself retreating inwards, but you knew he wouldn't let this go. "…I don't know," you began, trying to think of how to phrase yourself. "You were saying some things that reminded me of him, I guess." You swallowed hard. "Ray had someone who made him feel useless. Stupid." Dependent. "It wasn't true, but it ate away at him nevertheless. This person was… bent on controlling him, so they picked apart his self-worth, his identity, until—" You paused, catching your increasingly rapid breaths. "—until there was nothing left to pick."
Yoosung stared at you with wide, watery eyes and an ever-so-slightly slacked jaw. "Who would do something like that…?"
You clenched your jaw and shook your head, suppressing the urge to smirk. "…Did Rika make you feel useless?"
He blinked a few times at you, turning his head slightly. "Huh?"
"Did Rika," you repeated, hardening your words as well as your stare, "ever make you feel… useless?"
Yoosung seemed to pale with your words, now recognizing the implication of them, then hurriedly shook his head. "N-No! Rika's not—! She'd never make anyone feel like that on purpose," he insisted, stuttering a little as he spoke.
You lifted your head slightly, eyes narrowed. "'On purpose'?"
Yoosung clasped his mouth shut, grimacing slightly. "…You didn't know Rika," he said, quietly, "but she was the best person I ever knew. Everyone loved her! She was always so good and hardworking and inspiring — I wanted to be just like her, and she was always pushing me to do the very best I could." He paused, his eyes darting everywhere but towards you. "It's just— it's a bit hard not to feel a little useless around Rika, sometimes."
You were quiet for a moment. "You're not useless, Yoosung," you said, smiling softly. "After all, Jumin's very particular about the people he works with—he didn't even want to work with me at first—and he's always going on about how much he wants to have you intern with C&R after you've completed school."
A wry smile crossed his face, then faded. "That… was before," he said, almost bashful. "I don't know who I am without Rika."
You reached forward, putting your hand on the back of the pew in front of you. "If you ask me," you began tentatively, "I think you might be too focused on what Rika wanted you to be, instead of what you want to be. I mean," you tilted your head, narrowing your eyes, "does your major even really interest you?"
He glanced off to the side, considering the question seriously. "…I don't know what else I'd do," he answered.
"There's no shame in not having everything figured out. It might not feel like it right now, but you have time," you went on, attempting to assure him.
"Not if I don't have the grades," he said, sighing, "or the money."
You leaned back. "Get a job, then," you suggested. "It might seem counter-intuitive right now, but sometimes having more responsibilities will force you to prioritize what's important — which, ah, might help with your gaming problem," you continued. "Even if you can't get your GPA up by the end of the semester, you'll have started to save up some funding of your own — which might also help your case with your parents."
Yoosung looked back at you, eyebrow raised. "Um… I-I mean, I guess, but my resumé… kind of sucks."
"Well," you began, pondering, "there's always C&R?"
Yoosung sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. "I… uhm," he said, looking sheepish, "would rather die."
An involuntary chortle escaped your mouth. "Yeah, okay, fair enough— oh!" You leaned forward, clapping your hands together. "What about Jaehee's cafe? I'm sure she'd be more than happy to have the help," you said. "And I, uh… know from pretty rigorous experience that she knows how to keep people in check."
Yoosung remained silent for a while, but something about his expression seemingly changed. It seemed less troubled, relieved; a glimmer alighting in his eyes again. And then he laughed, shaking his head a little. "You're too good at that."
Taken aback by this response, your expression fell. "…Um—?"
"Changing the conversation back to me, I mean. I didn't even realize it at first," he explained, staring right through you. "Rika was good at that too, come to think of it."
You didn't reply to that.
Yoosung turned around, then got up from his seat. "We should probably get outta here, huh? It's kinda late," he said, glancing at the windows. "Sorry for… well, all this."
You got up as well, nudging Yoosung with your elbow. "Hey, don't worry about it. Not like I was any better," you said, chuckling somewhat. "…Think you'll be okay?"
Yoosung smiled faintly, nodding. "Yeah. I think… I'm gonna head over to Jaehee's tomorrow and make my case. Hope she needs me," he said. "…How about you?"
You cleared your throat, stalling for time. It'd be easy enough to lie, or at the very least vague. For some reason, neither option felt appealing this go around.
"Time will always tell."
|
Nick stood in the doorway to his kitchen and he fought his rising queasiness. In this room he had once been so happy and now he could barely make himself enter it. It was ridiculous! It was still his kitchen after all. But the longer he stared at the room, the stronger the tidal wave of his memories got. Nick turned sharply and retreated into his living room. He perched on his couch and tried to stem the flow of his recollections. He didn’t want to think about what that woman had done to him. She had… Nick’s hands curled into fists. The motion sent stabs of pain through his bandaged wrists, but he ignored them. Fuck! If he couldn’t even label what she had done in the safety of his own head, how was he supposed to leave all this behind? He couldn’t forget it. He had tried and tried, but the memories of this goddamn night lurked in every corner of his brain. Intellectually Nick knew that he had to deal with the assault, if he ever wanted to get over it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to talk about what had happened.
In the hospital they had sent him a psychologist. Dr. Freeman had been a non-threatening looking, middle-aged man, who had a soothing voice, and who had patiently tried to get Nick to talk with no real success. Nick didn’t doubt that the doctor just wanted to help him, but the words just wouldn’t come. The hospital had seemed oppressive and Nick had released himself as early as possible. And now he was sitting at home, because Captain Renard refused to let Nick come back to work. He insisted that Nick was taking some sick leave. As if that would make anything better.
Nick looked out of the window. It was getting dark. Unease rippled through him. Millie had been arrested and he knew that nothing could happen to him, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to endure another night alone in the house. In the dark the memories crowded even closer. And he couldn’t push his fear easily away like he did so often at daytime.
Nick collected his cell phone and his keys. Without a backward glance he left the house.
-o-o-o-
Nick uneasily shifted from one foot to the other and he huddled deeper into his hoodie. The wind was biting and he probably should have worn a warmer jacket. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He hadn’t seen Monroe since his timely rescue and he wasn’t sure if he was welcome here. Maybe the Blutbad didn’t want to see him. But still… Nick figured he ought to thank Monroe for his help. That was the least he could do. Nick tentatively knocked on the door in front of him. The door opened immediately. Nick blinked in surprise and stuttered out a greeting. Monroe scrutinized him and then said, “Come in, man. You look half-frozen.”
Nick shuffled over the doorstep and let Monroe herd him into the kitchen and into a chair. Monroe got two cups out of a cupboard and started preparing some tea. Nick just watched him for a long moment and finally said, “I… I just wanted to thank you, you know. For your help. Back when…” Nick lapsed into pained silence and shifted uneasily on his seat. Monroe placed a steaming mug in front of him and said, “Don’t mention it, dude.”
He took a seat as well and scrutinized Nick again, who felt increasingly self-conscious under this steady regard. Monroe sipped at his tea.
“How’re you doing, Nick?”
Oh, here it was. The question Nick had come to absolutely hate in the last week. A sliver of annoyance twisted through him.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re fine.”
Nick bristled instantly. He didn’t like Monroe’s tone. And he resented this goddamn prodding! Why did everybody around him try to make him vomit up his goddamn feelings? As if that would make him feel better! He just wanted to have a little company. Silent company. Maybe he should buy a dog.
Monroe took another mouthful of tea and said, “Apparently we’re not using the same dictionary here, because your ‘fine’ has apparently a totally different meaning than my ‘fine’. You pretty much look like shit, Nick.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“When did you last sleep? And I mean really sleep and not napping a bit. And you’ve lost weight. Are you eating?”
“That’s none of your business!”
Nick couldn’t hide the bitter resentment in his voice and he glared at Monroe, who calmly watched him with understanding eyes. Nick instantly felt like an asshole. Monroe had saved his ungrateful ass and tried to help him now. Nick lowered his eyes and fiddled with his mug.
“I’m just not hungry, okay? And I sleep.”
Poorly, very poorly, but it was sleep nonetheless. Monroe looked unconvinced, but he dropped the subject.
“How’s Juliette holding up?”
“She, uh, she’s in Boston. She left two months ago.”
“Oh, dude…” The compassion in Monroe’s eyes nearly did Nick in. “Have you told her what happened to you?”
Nick swallowed hard and shook his head. “We’re… We’re not talking anymore. And I don’t want to burden her with my problems. It doesn’t matter.”
Monroe looked dubious, but again he didn’t dig deeper.
“How’s it going at work?”
“Don’t know. I’m still on sick leave.”
“You don’t sound very happy about this.”
“It’s bullshit. I can still do my job, but Renard insists that I take it easy. Take it easy! Ridiculous! I’d rather be back at work. I’m not sick after all.”
Monroe nodded in understanding and suddenly asked, “You taking any medication?”
Nick stared in surprise. What? That had come out of nowhere. “No, I’m not.”
“Good.”
Monroe rose and went over to the fridge. He retrieved two microbrews and placed one in front of Nick, who couldn’t help but smile a bit.
-o-o-o-
Nick woke with a start. His heart hammered in his chest and he felt faint. He sat up and fumbled for the lamp on his bedside table. His questing hand encountered only thin air and despair shot through his chest. What was going on? Where was he? This wasn’t his bed.
The door to the bedroom opened suddenly and soft light spilled into the room. Monroe poked his head inside and asked, “Are you alright, Nick?”
Nick’s memory returned. He was in Monroe’s guest bedroom. It was okay. Millie was in custody. It was okay.
“Hey.” Monroe sat on the edge of the bed and placed a gentle hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Did you have a nightmare?”
“N-No. Yes. I don’t know. I…”
To Nick’s utter mortification he felt sudden tears welling in his eyes. He just wanted to feel like his old self again. He just wanted everything to go away. Monroe wrapped him in his arms and held him close. Nick knew that he probably should pull himself together, but he couldn’t muster the strength. It felt quite good in Monroe’s arms. Safe.
TBC.
|
Mary dropped her bags in front of the door as she rooted about in her purse, looking for her keys. She knew they were in there somewhere. She had definitely grabbed them from her side table before leaving her apartment in LA.
‘Oh, come on. Where are you?’
Why hadn’t she phoned Steve and told him she was visiting? At least then he would have been waiting for her when her plane finally got in at four in the morning. Her previous enthusiasm for surprising her brother had been surpassed by wanting to fall into bed for a week.
She finally found her keys, opened the door, threw in her bags and kicked the door closed behind her. Leaning against the door she gazed around the living room, gathering strength for climbing the stairs to her room. Blinking, her eyes focused on a tie draped over the banister.
Mary frowned. Steve didn’t wear ties. In fact, the only person in Hawaii that she knew who did wear ties, was her brother’s partner, Danny.
She felt her mouth curve into a wicked smirk. Last time she had been here she had thought that her brother was watching Danny a little too much, standing a little too close to him, and that he spent a lot of time getting on the right side of his daughter. Given the relationship she knew Steve wished he’d had with their father, she wasn’t surprised that he’d fallen head over heels for a devoted father. A hot devoted father, true, but devoted nonetheless. What she hadn’t been able to tell was how Danny felt about her brother.
As she pushed off the door and started up the stairs, snagging the tie as she did, she had a feeling that she’d be finding out what Danny felt about her brother pretty damn soon.
Walking down the hallway, she dug around in her bag for her phone so she could take a photo – or twenty – of Danny and her brother. Her hand finally closed around her phone as the door swung open and she got her first look at Steve and Danny.
The sheets were kicked down to the bottom of the bed, making her particularly relieved that her brother had on his boxer briefs – less relieved that Danny had on his boxers.
Danny was sprawled on his back, one of his legs bent, and Steve was lying half on top of him, a leg hooked over Danny’s and an arm wrapped around his waist, the other hanging off the side of the bed. His head was pillowed on Danny’s shoulder and his face was tucked into Danny’s neck, Danny’s cheek was resting on Steve’s hair.
Her eyes wondered around the room, taking in all the little things that had changed since she’d last been in Steve’s room. There was a tie rack - definitely not her brother’s, shoes that he wouldn’t be seen dead in, and, most tellingly, a photo of Danny and Grace on the bedside table.
She bit her lip and slipped her phone back into a pocket. Suddenly it seemed less amusing to take photos of Steve and Danny. Instead, she’d content herself with scaring the crap out of them in the morning. It would be fun.
-------------
Steve woke slowly, the sun warming his skin. He smiled to himself as he pressed further into Danny’s neck, relishing the warm smell he found there. He loved the mornings when he woke up all tangled with Danny. He lay there, enjoying the quiet of just being until Danny began to stir, his fingers playing with the hair at the nape of Steve’s neck.
‘I’m going to make coffee,’ he mumbled into the crook of Danny’s neck.
‘Excellent plan,’ said Danny, his voice still rough from sleep.
‘I have been known to have a good idea or two in my time.’
‘I can neither confirm or deny such a statement until I’ve had my coffee.’ He shoved at Steve. ‘So get out of bed and go and make me my coffee.’
‘So demanding,’ grouched Steve, but he climbed out of bed, stealing a kiss from Danny as he did so.
‘As nice as this is, coffee.’
‘Bitch, bitch, bitch,’ grumbled Steve, standing and stretching.
‘Quit trying to distract me,’ said Danny, his eyes sweeping Steve appreciatively.
‘Fine, but you’re getting your ass out of bed.’
‘You just don’t want to drag your sorry SEAL ass back up here before going for your hundred mile swim. Admit it. You are nowhere near as ninja as you like to think you are.’
‘What can I say, Danno? You got me.’
‘Damn straight I do,’ yelled Danny as Steve made his way down the stairs.
Five minutes later, coincidently just as Steve poured the coffee, Danny wandered into the kitchen, unfortunately wearing a t-shirt. Steve still didn’t understand why Danny felt it was necessary to cover up in the privacy of their own home. On the plus side, it did mean that he got the opportunity to divest Danny of said t-shirt.
Danny grabbed a mug of coffee, lifted it to his nose and inhaled deeply.
Steve grinned as he took a sip of his own coffee. ‘You like?’
Danny rolled his eyes. ‘You’re lucky your need for constant reassurance is so endearing.’
‘I don’t need constant reassurance,’ muttered Steve, but he didn’t sound very convincing to his own ears.
Putting his now empty mug down in the sink, Danny grinned as he hopped up onto the counter and reeled Steve in, trapping him with his legs. Although it wasn’t like Steve would ever try to get away from Danny.
Danny’s hands were on his hips, his fingers dipping slightly under Steve’s boxer briefs. ‘Luckily for you, I really enjoy reassuring you.’
‘Lucky me.’ Steve grinned before leaning in and capturing Danny’s lips in a heated kiss.
‘You guys better not be about to have sex on the kitchen counter. That can only be unsanitary.’
Steve and Danny froze, mid kiss…which, was awkward. He pulled slightly away from Danny, already missing the press of his lips, keeping his eyes tightly shut because there was no way – NO WAY – his baby sister had walked in on him and Danny making out.
Mary was insufferable at the best of times; this was going to be so much worse than the time Kono had walked in on them.
Or Chin.
Or Max.
Or Rachel – that one had been particularly memorable, but for all the wrong reasons.
Danny twisted around enough so that he could see Mary leaning against the wall, smirking at them. ‘Yep, that is definitely your sister. I was kind of hoping this was some fucked up dream.’
‘Sorry, detective Williams, but you definitely aren’t dreaming.’ She scrunched up her nose. ‘Wouldn’t it be kind of icky to be dreaming about me and my brother, anyway?’
Danny groaned and dropped his head onto Steve’s shoulder, his breath ghosting along Steve’s neck, making him shiver. ‘Oh my god, I hate your sister.’
‘Me too,’ he muttered, glaring at Mary as she laughed at them.
‘Although,’ said Danny thoughtfully, ‘this probably explains how my tie ended up tied around the bedroom door handle.’
‘I didn’t want you losing such a distinctive piece of neckwear,’ said Mary.
‘What are you even doing here, Mar?’ Steve asked before Danny could start defending his ties, which everyone knew were pretty indefensible. Not even blowjobs could change Steve’s mind about Danny’s ties and Danny had been very enthusiastic in his efforts.
She rolled her eyes and pushed herself off the beam and strode into the kitchen. ‘Wow, Steve. It’s been three months and that’s the first thing you say to me? Nice.’
Steve took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, Mar. Wasn’t really expecting you.’ And he was really trying to ignore the fact that he was more or less naked in the same room as his sister. This wasn’t exactly how he’d envisaged his morning going.
‘Well, of course you weren’t, you dork. I was trying to surprise you.’
‘Definitely managed that,’ muttered Danny.
‘Why are you trying to surprise me?’
‘Because we’re doing that whole reconnecting thing, yeah? It’s what brothers and sisters do. They surprise each other and want to spend time together.’
‘Having…picnic’s?’ Because those seemed to be working out pretty well for them.
Danny started laughing into his shoulder, his hands tightening slightly on Steve’s hips.
‘What?’
‘Jesus, you really are hopeless, aren’t you?’
‘He’s more than hopeless,’ said Mary, grabbing a yogurt from the fridge and leaning next to them. He kept forgetting how much Mary enjoyed making him feel uncomfortable. ‘I really don’t know how you put up with this doofus. I can only think that he’s a really good lay. Well, judging by Cath’s vocal –‘
‘God, can you shut up now?’ Okay, so Danny totally knew about Cath, but he didn’t exactly want Mary reminding him about her right this minute.
Mary just grinned up at him, spooning more yogurt into her mouth. ‘This is way too much fun.’
‘I hate you.’
Instead of replying, Mary just kept grinning at them unrepentantly. It always made him nervous when she looked at him like that. When they’d been kids that look had guaranteed that he was going to get grounded. He really didn’t want to think about what Danny’s version of grounded would involve. Probably withholding sex, or banning Steve from days out with Grace.
‘What?’
‘I get it now.’
Steve frowned. ‘Get what?’
‘Why you’re happy.’
‘…huh?’
‘You, brother dearest, are happy.’
‘I am?’ As Danny lifted his head to glare at him, he hurriedly corrected himself. ‘I mean, I wasn’t before?’ Though, judging by the way Danny’s frowned deepened, maybe he hadn’t judged that right.
‘You’re lucky I’m a) comfy here b) have no desire to parade partially naked in front of your sister,’ said Danny, poking him in the ribs.
‘For the record, I have no problem with your boyfriend wanting to parade in front of me, naked or otherwise,’ said Mary earnestly.
Steve scowled, tightening his hold on Danny. ‘Maybe I do.’
Mary raised her eyebrows. ‘Did you just get all possessive? That’s adorable.’
Before Steve could point out that he wasn’t being possessive; she was just being lecherous, Danny butted in with, ‘What do you mean, he’s happy?’
‘Well, you know what he was like before. All focused and shit –‘
‘That doesn’t actually mean I was unhappy,’ Steve felt compelled to point out.
‘But it doesn’t mean you were happy,’ countered Mary. ‘Although, for those five years I didn’t see you, I have no idea what you were like. I’m just going on the theory of probability here.’ She waved that away. ‘But my point is, you weren’t obviously happy.’ She gestured between him and Danny. ‘You are now.’
‘But how do you know?’ asked Danny, sounding genuinely curious, which, frankly could only spell trouble for Steve.
‘He talks more on the phone. Before, talking on the phone with him was like pulling teeth, only more painful. He tried, but it was –‘ Mary shuddered ‘- so awkward. But then, about six months ago, he started talking voluntarily. Funny stories about work.’ She grinned wickedly at Danny. ‘Stories about you and Grace. Just, you know, talking more.’
‘I talked more on the phone – like you asked me to, incidentally, and that’s how you decided I’m happy?’
‘I made you happy?’ Danny was grinning like the cat that got the canary and the cream. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I love your sister.’
‘What makes you so sure?’ asked Mary, throwing the empty yoghurt pot in the bin.
Danny grinned triumphantly at her. ‘I moved in six months ago.’
Mary took a step forward and punched Steve in the arm and seeing as how he’d taught her how to punch properly, it hurt. ‘You didn’t think that maybe moving in with your boyfriend could be considered important information that your sister might want to know? I totally should have taken that photo of you last night. That’s the last time I let myself get sentimental.’
‘You took photos of us last night?’ asked Steve, horrified. If Kono ever got hold of those photos their lives would be over.
He could see his horror reflected on Danny’s face, too. ‘I’ve changed my mind again,’ he groaned. ‘I hate your sister.’
‘No, I didn’t. More fool me.’ She pulled a face. ‘I thought you looked cute.’
‘I don’t think there’s enough coffee in the world for this conversation,’ said Danny, sounding traumatised. Mary often had that affect on people.
Mary laughed. ‘Well, you boys finish up whatever it was I interrupted. I’m going surfing.’
‘Oh, thank god for that,’ muttered Steve. He couldn’t wait for this conversation to be over. ‘Uh, how long are you staying for?’
Mary shrugged. ‘About a week. Why? Want to know when you can have loud and obnoxious sex in the house again?’
‘Seriously, not enough coffee,’ said Danny, shaking his head.
‘No,’ said Steve, although that was exactly the reason. He didn’t think that Danny would be amenable to having mind-blowing sex while Mary was there, although Steve was prepared to put in the time to change his mind. ‘Just…wondering, was all.’
‘Hummmm,’ said Mary, knowingly. ‘I’ll see you tonight then. We’ll have a picnic on the beach.’
‘Whatever you want, Mar.’ He knew when he was beat.
As Mary disappeared onto the lanai Steve glanced at his watch. ‘No time for a swim.’ He hated missing his swim. It made him feel out of sorts for the rest of the day and Danny always found it hilarious.
‘I think your abs can take one day of rest,’ said Danny, pushing lightly at Steve. ‘Shower, then work, I think.’ He grabbed Steve’s hand to pull him back up the stairs. ‘And just so you know, I love your sister.’
‘You are going to be insufferable now,’ said Steve.
Danny snorted. ‘I’ll never be as bad as you.’
‘So says you.’
‘Admit it, you love it babe,’ said Danny before turning and kissing him at the top of the stairs. ‘Also, I think we should have shower sex because it’s the last time either of us will get any for the next week.
Steve groaned. ‘I hate my sister.’
|
The phone rang in the middle of the night. Artemis Lian Crock groaned, rolled over, and picked it up. Beside her, her boyfriend Wally West stirred. “Babe?” He asked sleepily. He was wearing Captain America boxers and a baggy t-shirt that had once been Conner’s, but had long since been reappropriated for Wally’s pajamas.
“Go back to sleep Wally,” Artemis told him, only half awake herself. She looked at her expensive Stark-Phone, the touch-screen lit up to show an unknown number. She pressed the bright green talk button and held it up to her ear, expecting to hear a familiar cackle of laughter and then Dick’s voice. “Hello?
“Miss Crock,” a familiar, harsh voice said, automatically causing an adrenaline spike. Artemis stiffened straight, feeling sleep fade away.
“Director,” she said, her tone professional, although she was mentally reeling. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” A glance at the red glare of her electronic alarm clock told her that it was three in the morning.
“Agent Barton’s been compromised,” Fury’s voice was clipped and brusque. Artemis got out of bed, her hair tumbling down her back as she headed for her closet. Her bare feet padded softly across the wooden floor-boards. She wore baggy sweatpants and a tight tank-top, both in her familiar green and black colors. “We need you to come in.”
“To take him down?” She asked, eyes hard and voice cold. Her free hand clenched into a tight fist as she stared blankly ahead.
“To help us save him.”
She exhaled, not caring if Fury heard it. “Where’s the pick up?”
“Bishop’s coming in too. She’ll be outside your door in half an hour. Be ready.” Fury hang up, giving him the last word. He liked the last word.
Artemis sighed. There was a sudden gust of air, the sound of something moving too quickly, and then Wally was there, wrapping his arms around her waist. “You okay?” He asked, breath tickling her ear.
“Clint’s been compromised. SHIELD’s asked Kate and me to come in.”
Wally held her close, turning her around to face him. “That’s not what I asked,” he said softly, green eyes soft.
She kissed him, threading her fingers through his hair. His hand rested on her neck, keeping them close together. It was gentle and worried, concern running through both of them.
“Come back to me,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against hers as they finally separated.
“Always,” she promised, running her hand down his face, making sure that every feature was burned into her memory.
She reluctantly pulled away, stepping into their closet, shedding her pajamas as she went. Her old uniform was there, familiar and safe.
Her uniform from her childhood had been refitted. Gone was the impractical bared midriff, gone was the cowl. The material was sturdier, and the colors subdued, but the green and the arrow motif was still there, a small remnant of home, even in this strange world. Artemis stepped into it, letting it fill her with the confidence that had once come with it, of saving lives and the world. She missed being a superhero.
She slung her quiver over her shoulder, fastening it carefully. Her compound bow expanded into her grip, and she drew the string, testing to see if it was still in perfect working condition. She smiled grimly, slipping on her arm bands and fingerless gloves. She pulled on her heavy combat boots, slipping her knives into place as she went.
She straightened up and exited the closet, determined to get some coffee and food before Kate showed up and the two of them could beat up Clint for being an idiot.
Steve Rogers was a bit surprised by Artemis Crock and Kate Bishop.
Crock looked to be in her early twenties, with Asian features and brown skin that contrasted sharply with her long blonde hair, which she had pulled into a ponytail that looked impractical for fighting. Her steely eyes leapt everywhere, analyzing everything. She wore a tight-fitting uniform of black and green leather-Kevlar-and-spandex that a lot of agents wore, with a SHIELD insignia on her right leg, and an arrow design on her chest. Her hands were scarred and calloused; she was used to working with them. Fighting with them.
Kate Bishop was very different, and yet very similar. Thick black hair hung loose past her shoulders, held back by a purple headband. Bangs covered her forehead, stopping just above elegant black eyebrows, which were held aloft as she looked around. They were very expressive eyebrows. Her eyes were hidden by purple-tinted aviator glasses, but from the twist of her mouth he was willing to bet that she was rolling them. She looked to be a few years younger than Crock, but her hands were nearly as calloused, if not nearly as scarred. She hadn’t seen as much action as Crock, but she still knew how to handle the recurve bow that was in the quiver slung over her back. Her uniform was… well, non-existent. She wore a purple, high necked catsuit which only had one sleeve, fingerless gloves, a black belt slung across her waist, and practical combat boots.
“Captain Rogers,” Agent Romanoff said, smiling as she looked at the young women. “Agent Crock, Miss Bishop.”
“I’m not an agent any more, Natasha,” Crock said, her voice a dry alto, her mouth pulling down. “Retired.”
“Reinstated for the time being,” Romanoff said, shrugging. “Above my pay grade.”
The two women huffed in unison, making Steve wonder if they were related at all.
“Kate and I are here because a friend of ours was taken captive by Loki,” Crock explained, reaching out with her hand. Steve shook it, feeling the archer’s calluses first-hand. Her grip is firm, and her eyes don’t waver. He likes her. There’s a thin scar on her fourth finger of her left hand, paler than the rest of her skin; a wedding ring that she had removed. He wondered if it was for the mission, or for more tragic reasons.
“A pleasure,” he said, and meant it.
Artemis sat next to Natasha in the plane, and watched as Captain America duked it out with a Norse God.
“Did you have these in your reality?” Natasha asked.
“Aliens or gods?” Artemis asked, mind going back to the Forever People that Conner told her about, and Conner himself, and M’gann, and Wonder Woman…
“You have both?” Natasha didn’t know much about Artemis’s world. Fury knew pretty much everything, but he was Fury. Clint knew almost as much, but Artemis didn’t like to talk about it. Didn’t like to talk about what she’d lost.
Natasha had met Wally a few times, met Dick Grayson three times, Conner Kent and Megan Morse twice, and had caught a glimpse of the mysterious Kaldur Durahm once, when she had collapsed at Artemis’s house after a mission. She had never been as close to Artemis as Clint, but they’d done work together. They trusted each other.
“Yeah,” Artemis said, smiling as Stark interrupted the fight with a blast of rock music. “M’gann’s an alien, you know. Conner’s half.”
That’s right, M’gann was how Megan’s name was really pronounced, non-Anglicized. Natasha knew a bit about that, about changing names with the world. Romanoff, Romanova, Romanof, Natasha, Natalie, Natalia, Black Widow, all were the same in the end, weren’t they?
Natasha hummed in acknowledgement, watching as Loki was “defeated”. Her eyes narrowed. She knew a thrown fight when she saw one. Loki was up to something.
Kate wanted to slap Clint. Idiot. How could he get himself brainwashed? She paced, her fingers twitching for her bow and arrows, but she restrained herself. She would need her arrows soon enough, as well as her strength.
Loki was escorted past the room where she was in, a simple conference room where she and Artemis sat around a table, along with Captain Freaking America, an amazingly armed (and this coming from an archer) and hilariously haired Norse god, and a science dude who apparently could turn into a rage monster.
Artemis crossed her arms, leaned against the wall. Her face was blank. Kate went over to her, trying to force herself to relax in her fellow archer’s company.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Artemis said quietly, not even looking at Kate. She didn’t need to.
“I know it’s not,” Kate muttered, rubbing her bare shoulder embarrassedly. “It’s just…”
“You wish you’d been there,” Artemis said. “To save him.”
“Yeah.” Kate said softly.
“No use dwelling on that. It just makes things worse.” Artemis said flatly. There it was again, that reminder that before it had been the Hawkeyes, Artemis had been on another team. She didn’t like to talk about it, but it had happened.
Kate had met Artemis when she was sixteen and Artemis was twenty-one. She’d been looking for her boyfriend Wally, who had apparently done something really stupid and vanished on her. Her eyes had been haunted, but her aim had been true and her hands steady. Kate was hurting too, the pain new and the helpless feeling overwhelming and terrifying.
“Teach me how to shoot a bow,” Kate had said, no, pleaded. She’d been so ashamed afterward, asking favors from a stranger in a bizarre outfit and a mask.
Artemis had turned her gaze onto her, evaluating. “You sure?”
“Yes.” Kate said, overcoming her shame. She would never be helpless again.
“Come on then.”
It had spiraled from there, becoming a blur of archery blisters and fletching splinters. Eventually she had joined Artemis on the rooftops of Boston, fighting crime. It had been wonderful; adrenaline and saving people, being a hero—the complete antithesis of the helpless little girl she had been. She would never be helpless again, and neither would anyone else, not as long as she could stop it.
A couple of vigilante archers drew the attention of another archer.
Hawkeye.
“You two are good,” he had said, smirking. “Hey, you think hanging with an older guy would cramp your style?”
“If you slow us down, you get ditched,” Artemis had told him. “Hey, you have access to more of those trick arrows? I’m running low.”
Kate pulled herself out of her flashback just in time for Tony Stark to make an entrance, spouting off science.
Finally, Artemis pushed herself away from the wall. “I need to make a phone call,” she said, lips pressed into a thin line. She strode out of the room, unnoticed by the bickering superheroes. Romanoff and Fury saw, however.
Kate wondered what exactly her best friend had gotten herself into. Or what she was about to get them out of.
Dick yawned, watching as the news coverage flashed of the man wearing a Captain America suit, Iron Man, and a dude in a ridiculous helmet in Germany. It had been a few hours ago, but the footage, brief though it was, was being circulated constantly, in between mini-documentaries about Captain America and a few stock quotes from Tony Stark.
“You think this is why Artemis got called in?” Conner asked, leaning over the couch. Conner was finally aging; he looked nineteen now, much to his relief and joy. One of the many things that had changed in this world.
“Gotta be,” Dick responded with a nod. He flicked on his wrist-computer, the holographic screen glowing brightly blue. “I managed to get some police reports that said that there was an attack in same town—by an archer.”
“Hawkeye?” Conner asked, his eyebrows scrunching together in an expression of concern.
“Probably. Artemis said Clint was ‘compromised’ right?”
“That’s right,” Wally confirmed, stepping into the living room, balancing sixteen BLTs on a tray. “She wasn’t sure how though.”
“You don’t think it could be like Roy, do you?” M’gann asked, entering the room. M’gann’s hair was now in a bob, held out of her face by a black headband. She wore her human guise, but the shirt she wore bore the mark of Martian Manhunter. M’gann had allowed herself to age as well, her face slightly thinner and more angular than when she had first arrived on Earth. She sat down next to Dick, tucking her bare feet underneath her.
“I don’t know what to think,” Dick said, rubbing the back of his neck absently. “I can’t hack into SHIELD from off-site without them noticing. Maybe Babs could have done it but I can’t.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Kaldur said calmly, carrying a tray of glasses. He had grown his hair out, but it was still cropped close. He wore a turtle-neck in his Atlantian colors to conceal his gills, but there was nothing he could do to hide his webbed hands or feet. Kaldur stood out. And this world did not even have an Atlantis to hide in. Kaldur was paler than he had been in times past, and Wally felt a familiar rush of pain as he noticed it. It was his fault that his friend was trapped here in this strange world, unable to venture out too often for fear of being mistaken as a mutant, and being attacked for it.
Everything was his fault. It was his fault that they were separated from their families, from the rest of the Team, from their world. If it wasn’t for him…
He squashed down that feeling quickly. The others, as they liked to remind him frequently, had made the choice to come with him, to stay here until the speed-force stabilized enough for him to go home.
It didn’t make it any easier, knowing that Kaldur lived in a world where he had no escape except for their house.
The house was a fairly large one—it had to be to house two married couples and two bachelors. It was a large redbrick house in a small town—selected because of low crime rates and distance from everything. There was an indoor pool that they had installed, along with an underground tunnel to the nearby lake, so that Kaldur could have some freedom. Three floors, three bathrooms, an extra-large kitchen, and the six of them. Wally ate a BLT sandwich, hoping that the bacon would suck up the angst and replace it with bacony goodness. It worked. Somewhat. Wally blamed the lettuce for the remaining angst.
M’gann punched him in the arm, probably having detected his thoughts. He laughed, poking Dick with his foot. “Hey, so you have any clues about the helmet guy?”
“Not a thing!” Dick said cheerfully. “It’s gonna take a lot of detective work…”
Wally’s phone rang. He leapt for it, recognizing the ring tone instantly.
She’s a Killer Queen
Gunpowder, guillotine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Anytime
“Hey babe!” He said, “What’s up?”
“Alien invasion incoming. Point of origin unknown. Be on standby?”
“Love you too. Of course.”
“Sorry, just… briefing.”
“Hey, was that really Captain America?”
“Yes. He was frozen in ice apparently.” Wally let out a small moan that sounded vaguely like science. “They defrosted him.” There was a whimper of pain. “Oh, go cry about your broken laws of physics, chemistry and biology later, geek.”
“Never,” Wally said mournfully. “My true loves are all injured by everything.”
“You’re a superhero Wally. The laws of physics shatter in your mere presence.”
“You lie!” Wally screamed, leaping to his feet dramatically. “I would never injure the laws of physics! I am their champion!”
Artemis laughed, finally allowing him to break through. It was a tense, short laugh, but it was a laugh all the same. He grinned, hoping he managed to help with her tension. “I love you,” she said quietly.
“I love you too babe,” he promised, wishing she was in the house, with him. “Always.”
He could see her smile in his mind. “Be careful.”
“That’s my line.”
“Goodbye.”
“Be safe.”
She hung up. Wally looked at them. Conner had heard every word, of course, but he still had to say it. “Alien invasion. Artemis wants us on standby.”
“I’ll prep the Bio-Ship,” M’gann said, getting to her feet gracefully. As she moved, her skin shimmered, the green spreading up her body, transforming her into the Martian heroine of their younger days. Her cape sprung from her neck, falling to cover her back and shoulders in a tumble of navy fabric. Her jeans constricted, clinging to the skin before the color darkened to a pitch black. Miss Martian left the room, her mind opening up, enveloping the Team in a blanket of familiarity as the mindlink hummed with anticipation.
Conner grumbled, getting to his feet, trying to remember where he had stored his Superboy shirts. M’gann projected an image of their closet, even giving her husband a handy quick glimpse of which shelf he’d left it neatly folded.
Kaldur went to his room, intent on making sure that his water-bearers were full before he headed off for battle. Maelstrom, they could hear him think longingly as he ran his fingers along the red of his costume. Aqualad was, after all, a very young name for a man of almost twenty-seven.
Dick left as well, muttering about the number of wing-dings he had, and whether or not he would need the electrified bo-staff.
Wally pulled the Flash ring he carried everywhere out of his pocket, and flipped it into the air, the lightning bolt catching the light. Back in the game, he thought, the mere concept causing a giddy feeling that bubbled under his skin, pulling his face up into a wide, goofy smile that would not have been out of place on the face of a fifteen year old boy who had stood outside the Hall of Justice, with a world of hopes and dreams in front of him.
“Today’s the day,” he whispered, flicking open the ring.
Coulson was dead. Artemis was frozen, her eyes not moving from the bloodstained cards—Coulson’s pride and joy, which Clint had always made fun of him for, which he had guarded with nearly lethal force and an impressively cutting snark, now covered in blood and stained, scattered carelessly on the table.
Clint was safe, but Coulson was dead. A hatred for Loki clenched at her heart, tighter than her hatred for the Light when they’d forced Tula to sacrifice herself, tighter than her hatred for the Joker after Jason, almost as tight as her hatred for the Reach after Wally had stupidly tried to sacrifice himself, forcing her to lose eighteen awful months with him. She wanted to put an arrow through that bastard’s eye. Other eye, since Clint had dibs, but still.
She went to the infirmary, needing to make sure that Clint was okay. Kate fell into step with her, her fellow archer’s face stained with tears. There were none on Artemis’s face. She’d cry later, when she was alone with Wally; she’d break and scream and cry, but only then. Now there was the mission, and Clint, and an invasion to fight.
“Hawkguy,” she called, knocking on the door briefly before coming without waiting for an answer.
“Hey Artie,” he muttered, not looking at her, “Katie-Kate.”
“Shut up Clint, and stop feeling sorry for yourself. We’ve got a Norse Asshole to shoot until he’s a pin cushion.”
“You only get one first shot for his eye,” Artemis told him. “If you miss, you don’t get re-dos.”
“I never miss,” Clint grumbled. “Brats.”
Artemis slung an arm over his shoulder. She leaned in close to him, allowing her hair to block the view of her mouth so that Natasha couldn’t read her lips. “You’ll be fine. M’gann can remove any residual damage. You’re in control.”
Clint laughed, bitter and broken. “You sound sure.”
“It worked last time,” she said quietly. He blinked, thrown off.
“Now,” Kate said, crossing her arms. “Let’s go stop the alien scum.”
Because Loki was a diva alien with a sense of grandeur and irony, the invasion is in New York. Artemis sent a text to the Team, and hopes that they would make it in time.
They’re on the ground, getting ready for a fight, when Artemis saw a familiar ripple in the air. She grinned suddenly, throwing off the Avengers who had not fought with her before. “Back up’s here,” she announced.
“We have back up?” Stark asked, twisting in midair to see where she was looking. “Whoa, that is some high tech camouflage, who has that high tech camouflage? Even I don’t have that high tech camouflage—”
The Bio-Ship landed, and shimmered into view. The door slid down, revealing the Team in all their costumed glory.
Conner wore his usual outfit, not even bothering with a mask. Dick wore his Nightwing suit, albeit the altered one with those ridiculous finger stripes that he was so fond of, which he claimed improved his attractiveness by sixteen percent, but in reality only made Artemis want to punch him sixteen percent more. Kaldur too wore his old outfit, his water-bearers already drawn, prepared for a fight. M’gann still sat in the main seat, mouth a thin grim line, but her legs crossed primly and her hands extended onto the control panels.
Artemis’s heart caught in her throat as Wally stood there, decked out in the red of the Flash. The Flash, not Kid Flash. He’d never looked better. Artemis wanted nothing more than to kiss him, but it probably wasn’t the best idea. Yet.
“We were told there is an invasion?” Kaldur asked simply, raising one eyebrow.
“You have gills,” Stark noted. “And she is green.”
“And you wear a high-tech suit,” Dick shrugged. “Don’t judge.”
“Does that ship of yours have much firepower, ma’am?” Rogers asked, clearly struggling to keep his face under control.
“Yes Captain,” M’gann said. “I’m Lady Martian. We’re friends of Artemis’s.”
“Martian?” Rogers whispered to himself, incredulous. “Good. You join Stark and Thor in the sky then. The rest of you…”
“Superman, Maelstrom, Nightwing, and the Flash,” Artemis said, pointing to each of the boys in turn.
I hate the future, might as well have been written on Captain America’s face. “You’re on the ground with Widow and me then. Archers to the roofs.”
“Need a lift, Katniss?” Stark asked Artemis. “What about Merida and Legolas?”
“My name is a perfectly good archery reference, don’t go digging,” Artemis told him, raising an eyebrow. “And sure.”
Loki was in chains, New York was saved, and Steve just wanted to sleep. But for now, he’d settle for eating shwarma and getting to know the Maelstrom fellow, whose actual name seemed to be Kaldur.
“I hate aliens,” Stark muttered. Thor, Conner (as Superman had insisted on being called the minute the Chitauri were all dead, and M’gann (as Lady Martian’s real name turned out to be) turned to look at him. Thor looked wounded, Conner amused, and M’gann mocking. “Ah shut up,” he muttered.
“Yep, genius. Definitely seeing it,” Nightwing said with a solemn nod.
“You are annoying and wearing spandex,” Stark said, eyes narrowing. “And that symbol of yours has been attached to someone who tries to hack my company a lot. Do you have a job?”
“Not if you’re offering,” Nightwing grinned. “Your security is really good.”
“I would hope so, I designed it.”
“Oh god, they’re going to make computers do things aren’t they,” Artemis muttered, poking her shwarma sleepily.
“Probably babe,” Wally said, grinning at his wife, running his fingers through her hair gently. He was talking biochemistry with Doctor Banner, using lots of multi-syllable words and things that sounded like they’d been taken out of a sci-fi comic.
M’gann and Natasha were talking as well, talking about the tactic of making people underestimate them before doing surprisingly vicious things to them. Well, they hadn’t reached the second part yet, but Steve knew it was coming.
“So, you lead these guys?” He asked Kaldur.
“For many years,” Kaldur said with a nod.
“… do your plans ever actually work?”
“On occasion. I savor it greatly.”
Steve and Kaldur sighed in unison.
|
L&H
The sound of their fast breaths filled the bedroom, steadily slowing and quieting. The man pulled out, rolling onto his side next to Louis. Louis sat up somewhat and leaned on his little elbow, teasing as he spoke, "What happened to me doing it on my own daddy?"
Mr. Styles chuckled first, wiping a hand over his face. "Sex doesn't always go as planned baby. I'm sure we both would have been satisfied," he lowered his voice, "but I decided that orgasm belonged to me." Louis' spent body was aroused slightly by those possessive words, and he peered down where come was starting to leak out of him across his skin.
"Daddy," he complained, "it feels all sticky and gross." Louis pouted, looking over at him. The man swiftly moved down between his legs, pushing Louis to lie back. Ducking his head he left a few broad licks up Louis' inner thighs, then across his cheeks, and finally his rim, tasting himself where Louis was already satisfied and sensitive. Louis bit his lip and squirmed a little. Mr. Styles sat up, thrusting a finger in halfway, loving Louis' tiny whimper as he let him. Louis watched as the man removed the finger, slowly sucking it clean. Mr. Styles briefly considered asking Louis if he wanted to experience multiple orgasms in a row again, by rimming him or something, but no, he'd withhold that thought to another time.
"Let's take a shower," he decided, letting Louis actually use his own legs and walk the short distance. When it was hot enough they got in and went about the usual tasks, Louis even running the conditioner through the man's dark locks after shyly asking. He loved the silky feel and tugged on the handfuls.
"Having fun Louis?"
"Need to work it in," he replied, innocently looking up at him. The two laughed at his minxy little self.
-
"Wear this," Mr. Styles handed Louis one of his own button down short sleeved shirts, white with thin red pinstripes. Louis liked it a lot and smiled as he cuffed the sleeves, a fashion sense that they both enjoyed. The shirt ended halfway down Louis' shaved tan thighs, loose around his middle, but his curves (especially his ass) rounded it perfectly. Mr. Styles loved to dress his beautiful boy, who wouldn't though? He liked the concept of Louis going commando in black leggings so he scrunched the flimsy things up for him, crouching for Louis to toe into them. He took his time pulling them up his legs, spreading his fingers to stroke as he did so, Louis staring down at him.
Louis didn't know if it was appropriate but, politely asked if he could please pick his daddy's outfit too. Given permission he ran his finger over the rows of shirts in Mr. Styles' drawer and chose a black tee and black sweats because that man looked fucking fantastic in black; it complemented his dark hair and contrasted his fair skin.
Mr. Styles suggested they just have a relaxing Friday night, so they had a movie marathon, Louis getting wrapped up in his blanket and pulled onto the man's lap. Louis softly requested food after awhile and was released from his blanket prison to accompany him. The man made them normal pasta this time with red sauce and salad. The boy internally sighed to see the vegetables taken out of the fridge.
Louis was made a plate, and subtly pushed the lettuce and cucumber slices somewhat under his sauce to hide it before twirling noodles on his fork. The leaves looked like the fucking weird kind you'd probably see in the woods by a brook.
"I've actually had pasta parties before with my team. Last time I had to shove a handful of cold penne down my friend's shirt though."
"And why did you have to do that Louis?"
"Because he was being a fuc - um a jerk and said 'I bet Louis only plays soccer because the cleats make him taller.'" Then he added airily, "I'm pretty sure he was just jealous that I got more playing time than him." Mr. Styles quirked an eyebrow, intrigued by Louis' fiery little self, not snuffing it out.
"When people are jealous they often try to tear you down to make you as miserable as them. You could be right... and for the record I like you just the way you are." Louis smiled; he enjoyed salting people with Mr. Styles.
Louis ate most of the pasta, their conversation occasionally broken by comfortable silences or Mr. Styles gently rubbing his thumb across Louis' lip because 'you've got sauce on your face' (he didn't though, Louis' lips were just pretty and so touchable). The boy set down his fork and leaned back in his chair when that man had to be so damn bossy, passing him organic dressing. "Eat your greens if you're still hungry. It's good for you." Couldn't get anything by this one.
"Okay daddy." He accepted defeat and the bottle, pouring some on and proceeding to clear his entire plate. Should have negotiated a handjob for himself during as incentive, he thought half seriously.
"So Louis, when is your game tomorrow?" The boy brightened up at the implication.
"It's at noon again daddy, are you um, going to come?" Mr. Styles smiled at how pure he looked when he was excited, like a freshly bloomed buttercup flower or something.
"Of course I am baby," he reached under the table to softly squeeze Louis' thigh, sending warmth throughout the boy's body. "Can't think of a better way to spend the afternoon."
-
Louis was sat upon the counter, overseeing like a princess while Mr. Styles scrubbed his stove with a sponge, when his mom called. The man gave him a fleeting glance as Louis answered his phone.
"Hi mom!" He greeted her politely, but was annoyed that she hadn't checked in until now, even though he would have had to lie through his teeth about most things.
"Hi Louis, just letting you know I won't be home until Monday," she informed him tiredly. "You should still have enough money," she scolded, anticipating him fucking up before he'd said a word.
"Not a problem, thanks." She told him to get a good night's sleep, and soon Louis was hanging up, plugging his phone back into the charging dock they were sharing.
"Everything alright?"
"Yeah. She'll be back Monday is all." Mr. Styles finished and washed his hands, coming over to leave closed mouth kisses across Louis' face, making him let out a tiny giggle at the light touches, eyes scrunched up and exaggerating his long lashes.
"You're so cute it's killing me."
"I'm not cute, I'm ruggedly handsome," Louis scoffed. So what if he was a twink in leggings and a grown man's shirt fit him like a short dress? Louis considered himself masculine, thank you very much.
"Hm, can we compromise that you're gorgeous?" Louis blushed and nodded, reaching up to rest his hands on the man's broad shoulders. Mr. Styles wrapped his arms around the boy's middle and sneakily cupped Louis' ass before sliding him right off the edge to hoist onto his waist, causing a scandalized squeal as the boy held onto him for dear life.
"Jesus christ I thought you were gonna drop me!"
"I'd never," he mumbled and nuzzled a kiss into Louis' neck before carrying him to toss back on the couch and finish watching the cheesy romantic movies that Mr. Styles unexpectedly liked best, such as Love Actually. His large hand occasionally slipping beneath the loose shirt to rub over Louis' side made him shiver, leaving goosebumps. He'd lean into the touch, always so familiar and welcomed.
Louis fell asleep and to be honest, Mr. Styles watched him more than the last half hour of the movie. He shut off the tv and lights, picking Louis up to carry to bed, getting in with him and tucking the blanket carefully around the sleeping boy. Louis immediately rolled over to rest his face against Mr. Styles' chest, softly grabbing his arm in his sleep and breathing out some jumbled words that ended in a sigh. The man wasn't sure why it made him smile so much, it was nonsense afterall. "Goodnight baby."
-
Louis was confused when he awoke alone the next morning, taking a moment to recognize his surroundings as he rubbed his eyes sleepily. He washed his face and went downstairs, finding the man in his office, already dressed for the day in his signature skinnies and a patterned peach button down exposing his muscular chest. Goddamn. Louis wanted to lick it. He had his teacher's version of their Chemistry textbook open as he put little sticky notes on pages and wrote short notes. He looked up when Louis knocked quietly on the door, wanting to be polite.
"Oh, good morning, I didn't want to wake you and I'm trying to plan out a test, plus the final exam. I'll probably make my own version of the one Ms. Donovan had. It's not the best ever." Oh, roasted her, Louis thought. He wondered if Mr. Styles was bothering to make his own version because he was hired on as a full time teacher next year? Or only because her exam sucked. Why wasn't he telling Louis his intentions? He realized that maybe, Mr. Styles didn't know yet and there was nothing to tell even if he wanted.
"It's okay daddy, I'm gonna get some cereal."
"Before I forget," Mr. Styles stopped him. "I have some personal business to take care of this afternoon, if you'd like to see your friends or anything... but come here after your game first."
"Yeah sure, we were considering it anyways." Louis left him to it, had his breakfast then got his uniform together to lay out on the bed. He texted his friends, finding out that yes they were coming to his game, and even 'hot sales boy' was tagging along too.
Louis- don't forget your promise Li, you're supposed to be extra with your Ziam love so that people stop pairing us together
Liam- yeah that was the plan. Also i wanted to see him again to remind myself he is real and not a dream
Lexie- yasss ziam! Louis can we all hang out at your house after? You promised we would before your mom came back!
Louis- yeah but not right away, I'll meet you there um, idk what time
Liam- in other words, he doesn't know what extracurriculars mr styles has planned for them
Louis- i'm neither confirming nor denying that bye
Louis tossed his phone on the bed and finished changing just as Mr. Styles walked into the bedroom, biting his lip and blatantly checking the boy out. The man came over and tugged the waistband down enough to see the briefs he was wearing, snapping the elastic fabric a little.
"Daddy, not now," Louis said breathlessly. "I need to leave."
"Later," the man said darkly, giving him a soft kiss before Louis left, thinking about anything and everything beside being turned on.
-
Mr. Styles
Mr. Styles sat on the bleachers, a little early this time not wanting Louis to think he was ditching him, when a small group of three teens passed by that he recognized as Louis' friends from that disaster of a morning when Ashley harassed Louis. There was the bubbly blonde girl that Niall had protected, alongside a slim, dark haired boy he didn't recognize with his hand low on the other boy's back.
The one with almost no hair called loudly to Louis to get his attention, and when Louis and half his teammates looked over from where they sat on their bench he yelled 'good luck Tommo!' The dark haired boy quickly kissed him on the cheek, then the mouth, like he was claiming him or something. The girl looked at Niall and gave a little wave that was returned before approaching to talk. Strange bunch.
He observed the teammates immediately talking among themselves, catching a few phrases such as 'guess that means Louis is single,' 'how does it feel to be replaced by a top?' and 'I volunteer to be your boyfriend.' That last one made the man's blood boil. Louis scowled, first subtly looking behind him and making eye contact with the man, then refocusing attention on the teasing boys, sassing them.
"Shut the fuck up I told you idiots me and Liam was a rumor, next person to talk shit is gonna catch these hands. You don't know me like that." The boys insisted they were joking and left it alone. Guess that's what Louis was referring to the other morning when he said people were spreading rumors about him. He couldn't tell if Louis was pissed off because it wasn't true he'd been with his friend or because he knew Mr. Styles had overheard. Wait, wasn't Liam the one that texted Louis at three am?
He was almost ashamed of himself that he didn't trust Louis, he knew deep down that Louis probably deserved his trust but he still struggled with it every day. His past haunted him still after all these months, especially since he and Louis weren't officially together.
Watching Louis play, with each passing moment his jealousy increased steadily. As far as he could tell, his boy was not flirting with these other boys on both his own team and the opposing. Louis was just... being Louis and that was more than enough to catch wandering eyes.
Jesus christ there was no way the multiple number of boys were gay or another non-hetero sexuality, it was statistically impossible! The way Louis struck poses during down time after a foul as they gathered by the sidelines for a throw in, little hip tossed out and opposite knee bent, or crouched over with his perfect ass on display... the way he held his arm up with a limp wrist and his fingers pointed down in a graceful, feminine way as he ran, face serious with concentration... the way he well, just existed was inherently seductive. Basically Louis was sex on legs, somehow both feminine and masculine in his flawless features and body type and any living, breathing human could appreciate that.
This is what the man reminded himself repeatedly throughout the game as Louis would get a friendly(?) swat to his round ass while he jogged by, a squeeze of his shoulder when he helped his team keep the lead, or his hip grabbed rather low while another boy tried to slow him down, causing Louis to make a surprised face and shy away from the close proximity to his length. Sure the guy removed his hand once he'd stolen the ball away but what the fuck seriously?
These boys were acting a little too familiar with his baby for his liking. He noticed himself clenching and unclenching his fists when a boy barreled right into Louis from behind, holding his hip and knocking them both onto the grass in a heap.
Get. The. Fuck. Off. My. Louis. He internally chanted in his possessiveness ridden brain. He wanted to grab Louis, take him to the nearest secluded place, throw him over his knee and make him count one spank for each time he was touched. But it wasn't Louis' fault, it was just the rough nature of a varsity boy's soccer game. That didn't mean the two couldn't engage in some even more rough and kinky sex afterward though.
Don't get turned on at a high school game, he scolded himself internally. He paid attention to what was going on more actively, forcing himself to not only stare at Louis and he maintained his composure. Even as Louis would tug on a player's jersey or bump them out of his way and laugh mischievously. He's just being small and crafty. Even when Louis himself would slide a hand along another boy's shoulder to distract him as he passed by, kicking the ball to his other teammate further down the field. It's just a game.
Okay this boy blatantly flirting with Louis during half time is so not a game. He's wearing a blue jersey, he isn't even on Louis' team for fuck's sake go across the field to your side! Louis literally swerved out of the way when the other boy went to rest a hand on his shoulder, smiling and shaking his head 'no' as the other boy's sentence had the inflection of a question when finished speaking.
Louis glanced momentarily into the stands toward his daddy. The man didn't hide that he was watching because obviously he would be.
Louis nodded his head toward the circle of white jersey clad boys, saying a quick goodbye as he gave him a polite wave and the other boy hurried to his side of the field. Mr. Styles would have preferred Louis flipping him off but okay, he had to be a good sport.
By the end of the game he was just itching to get Louis behind closed doors. His Louis that he was going to wreck in the most blissful, primal ways. Louis was going to love it, but he also was going to be sobbing maybe by the time he was done.
-
L&H
Louis parked his little red car, making his way up to Mr. Styles' house. He daintily wiped a hand across his messy fringe, getting it off his sweaty face. As soon as he was inside the front door, he dropped his bag and toed off his sneakers onto the floor. He started to pull off his jersey, wanting the damp material gone when he near shrieked at his waist being grabbed from behind. Mr. Styles was an actual savage, what was he just waiting for him to come home?
"Leave that on," that familiar voice said lowly, squeezing at his hips and pulling their bodies flush together. He rubbed his thickening bulge against Louis' shorts, right in the center of his soft ass. Louis was pretty sure this man had like, a 'soccer Louis kink' or who the fuck even knows. The man reached around his front to palm him, making Louis close his eyes as filthy things were whispered in his ear.
"Going to fuck you right now, god I need it, only I can touch your sexy little body." He squeezed Louis' now hard, clothed cock and the boy shuddered. "Want me to fuck you against the door?"
Louis whined and nodded, loud and overwhelmed. His mind was swimming in pleasure as he was shoved forward until his front made contact with the cold, polished wood, glad for some relief from the cooling touch. He groaned as his hips were forced forward, Mr. Styles' rock hard erection rubbing between his cheeks.
"Y-yeah, daddy, fu - fuck me like this," he answered breathlessly. The man stepped back a little, and Louis' shorts and tight briefs were shoved beneath the curve of his ass, then three, long fingers pushed in between Louis' open, waiting lips.
"Suck, baby." The boy closed his eyes and slightly moaned as he licked around them, sucking. Mr. Styles removed them, gripping one of Louis' cheeks and pressing his finger inside, praising him to distract from the sudden pain. "Always let me do what I want." He pushed further in, moving it back and forth a little. "Tell me, did you like when those other boys touched you?"
"No, no daddy! It was - just the game."
"Just the game huh?" He was teasing him, not mad. "I didn't know that included boys touching your ass. That belongs to me, only mine to have." He added a second finger and shoved them in deeply while Louis made loud noises, loving the possessiveness his daddy showed him, while he got fucked by his fingers.
"Al - always want you daddy," he whimpered quietly as the man finally found just the right place, brushing back and forth across his prostate.
"That's fucking right. Bet you'd let me fuck you anywhere, any time... over my desk again," the man gave him a swift spank just to feel him tighten up and push into the feeling. "On my counter... or with a vibrator in my bed, let me use you after."
Louis whined to listen to his daddy's near condescending remarks about all the erotic things they've done, knowing the words were meant only for pleasure, emphasizing their dominant and submissive dynamic. Louis was always pliant and craving his daddy's cock, whether in a classroom or getting fucked endlessly in the man's bed.
"Ugh, yes I'll... do anything. Anything for you daddy."
"So good for me." The man leaned close, biting at and sucking Louis' neck, making him tilt his head to the side for more. "Fuck, such a good boy." He thrust a third finger into Louis' entrance, spreading them and feeling Louis adjust to allow it. He licked at the boy's ear once, his heavy breath fanning across Louis' cheek, showing his need.
"Ready for me to ruin you, right here?" Louis started moaning in anticipation, barely managing a 'yes please' as the man took off his shorts and briefs entirely to leave on the floor letting Louis kick them to the side, then hurried to remove his own clothes. He pushed Louis' chest against the surface more, then tugged his hips up and back a bit.
Louis almost stood on tiptoes as his jersey was pushed halfway up his back to give access and that beautiful sight of his frame from behind. Mr. Styles grasped his hip firmly, helping hold him up and he spit in his hand, rubbing over himself fast and shoving just the head in.
Louis panted quietly, loving the burn as his muscles relaxed enough to let his daddy slide further in until he bottomed out. "Please move daddy, I'm ready." The man dragged his thick length in and out of Louis' still deliciously tight little body, letting him push back on it while they both moaned, unable to contain themselves.
Yesterday he fucked him slow and deliberate, today rapidly escalated into fast and desperate - he fucked him so hard that the door started to rattle in the frame. That was pretty reckless so he carefully pulled out to move them a few feet to the side, against the wall. Louis whimpered, was he being punished and left aching? "It's okay baby, I can fuck you proper hard like the little slut you are against the wall."
Louis nodded and the man moved him how he wanted, holding his hips to steady him, thrusting back in roughly making the boy arch his back for a good angle and yell as he felt the man's thick cock pressing against his front wall, constantly shoving across his sweet spot.
Louis turned his face to the side to rest his cheek against the wall and Mr. Styles took the opportunity to lean in and kiss him hungrily, biting at his delicate lips and making them a little swollen with the assault of nipping teeth. Louis gasped and left his lips parted, inviting a deeper kiss. Mr. Styles licked at his tongue, dominating his mouth and Louis made tiny noises, he couldn't control himself as he clenched around the man while he fucked him just right.
It felt so amazing and intense to the man that he separated their mouths for a moment and groaned. "Fuck baby, your little body's so," he shoved deep inside, "it's made to take my cock." Louis whined and nodded, he filled him up so perfectly it was always satisfying, he could make Louis want to come within mere minutes of fucking him.
Louis rambled as he was fucked harshly and faster. "Love - love how you fuck me daddy. Love you," ohfuck he thought as he felt Mr. Styles tense up against him, breath hitching and obviously caught off guard, " - your big cock inside me, makes me wanna come so hard," Louis quickly added, covering up his unwanted outburst.
"Oh my fucking god Louis," he moaned to hear his boy talking dirty to him. He grabbed Louis' chin, seeing the boy biting his lip. "Open that pretty mouth." Louis' mouth fell open and he shoved two fingers inside. "Suck on my fingers baby. Just like how you suck my cock." Louis whimpered at the thought, he was a total cockslut, listening and sucking on the long fingers, even biting down lightly.
"Is that how you want it Louis?" He teased, his voice low and gruff. He removed his fingers leaning down to give a sharp bite to where Louis' neck met his shoulder, making him cry out in surprise as he created a lovebite to admire later. He moved his lips hard across his skin and pushed himself as far as he could inside Louis, loving the pornographic sounds and quiet swears he caused the boy to make while he snapped his hips against his perfect ass. Actually, porn was shit compared to Louis' delicate, needy voice.
When they were close to the edge and neither could bear to delay their orgasms any longer, Mr. Styles growled his command into the boy's ear, "Come, want you to come for me." Louis moaned loudly, responding immediately to being told what to do, clenching around the man's cock over and over and spilling inside his jersey. His tightness caused his daddy's orgasm right after.
"Fuck," he groaned, still thrusting slowly, feeling his come filling up the boy. His boy. He stopped and withdrew from him, allowing Louis to stand up normally. Well as normally as a half-wrecked boy could, on shaky legs and resting his forehead on the wall as he caught his breath.
"Still hard for me? Will you let me make you come again?" He turned Louis around, slipping his hand under the shirt and brushing his fingers across Louis' sensitive, wet cock. The tired boy cried out at the intense shock of it, at first shying away from the painful undertone, then bucking his hips forward, letting breathy moans out when the man didn't relent because - pain kink was kind of his thing.
"Y-yeah. Want it. Fuck, please." The man let go of him and gripped his thighs, carrying him the short distance to lay on his thinly carpeted stairs. Louis leaned back, spread out for whatever his daddy wanted to do to him. He gripped the edge of the stairs by his waist as he waited.
"Such a good little sub always listening to your daddy. Going to eat you out. Tell me your color first." Louis whimpered at the praise, deciding and vocalizing it was green. Mr. Styles knew the shirt was probably uncomfortable now, helping him out of it and dropping it on the floor.
Louis watched as the man knelt in front of him, close enough to loom over most of his body. He grasped Louis' ass harshly, hoisting him up a little, exposing and licking around where he was dripping come down his thighs, enjoying the sight of how he left him all messy. He sucked on the soft skin of his thick but strong thighs.
Mr. Styles made eye contact with Louis briefly, smirking at how sweaty and flushed he was, then slowly prodded his tongue inside the boy's stretched entrance that was just waiting to get used again.
"O-oh," Louis moaned, squirming a bit at first from the uncomfortable pain. When the man started a rhythm of fucking him with his tongue, steady thrusts inside, Louis gasped and spread his legs even more, welcoming the beginning of pleasure.
He whined high after a few minutes when he was able to handle it and started rambling while the building pleasure took over his body, and clouded his mind. "Fuck! Daddy, oh please fuck feels so, ugh - so good, shit."
The man hummed and Louis' legs shook. He was pleased by his baby falling apart from his touch, squeezing him hard and kneading. Louis pushed down needily, trying to get the man's tongue as deep as he could but was stopped when the man removed his tongue to give a warning spank.
"Be good Louis. Beg for more." He licked slow, teasing stripes across his entrance as Louis pleaded, tears welling up in his shining eyes.
"Please please daddy I'm sorry please need it," his words cut off by the man's tongue diving back in, making him worry his lip between his teeth as he made muffled sounds. Mr. Styles looked up at Louis again, wanting to make his baby come faster he grasped his still wet cock and stroked him. Louis nearly lost his fucking mind and let out a little scream.
When he came it was... intense - a few small spurts of come landing on his stomach while he screamed out again and threw his head back, hitting gently against a stair with a muted thud, eyes shut tight and tears tracking down his face. His orgasm hit him like an aggressive ocean wave during a summer thunderstorm, the sharp impact knocked the breath right out of him - but he loved it. The man sat up and licked his palm off, admiring his trembling boy that was covered in his daddy's spit and his come, little chest heaving for more air.
Now what happened next was entirely accidental. Mr. Styles was reaching to take hold of Louis' waist and help him stand, when Louis' hips jerked up involuntarily from the aftershocks of his orgasm - causing the man's fingertips to brush against the boy's sensitive, overstimulated cock. Louis cried out pitifully, instinctively turning on his side and drawing his knee up to cover and protect himself. He whimpered, "Yellow, daddy... stop, no more." Louis didn't think 'red' was necessary, that should be saved for very extreme measures like if he was going to pass out.
The man was torn apart on the inside by it all, seeing his baby curled up and overwhelmed. Was Louis scared of him? Mr. Styles reacted as if he was a criminal surrendering at gunpoint - he raised his hands to his own chest level, showing he wouldn't touch, only listen. Leaning back on his heels and no longer looming over Louis, he dropped his hands to rest on the floor or he would have probably fallen over at this awkward crouched position. Louis silently watched him, each retreating movement a reassurance.
Mr. Styles' voice was soft and comforting, no stern dominance heard. "Don't be afraid baby it was an accident, we are finished. Please tell me what you need?" As he looked into Louis' eyes, there was no fear visible in the hazy aquamarine - only exhaustion. Louis turned cautiously onto his back again, exposing himself and Mr. Styles relaxed his tensed muscles.
"I'm - I'm not scared daddy I trust you just, it would have hurt too much if you kept going," he took a tired inhale of fresh air, "for a third time." The man nodded in understanding, his previous distress noticed by Louis though. "I'm sorry daddy did I upset you?"
"No, no don't ever apologize for telling me how you feel, I taught you the color system because it's important to me that you're safe. I was upset with myself for not being more careful and explaining my intentions. Promise me you will always say when I'm near your limits?" Louis nodded obediently.
"Yes daddy. This is the first time um, that I wanted you to stop. And what does limits mean, you know, in this context?"
"Kind of like where you draw the line that shouldn't be crossed. Whatever activity whether physical or emotional that you would prohibit us from participating in would be called a hard limit. For example if you didn't like bondage at all. Then a soft limit is something you aren't sure of, but are willing to try in limited amounts of time or intensity. So if you liked bondage, but only some kinds such as leather and not metal and for a short time, it is a soft limit." Louis was always so willing to experiment, this hadn't naturally come up. "You've been open to everything we try, but how about tomorrow we discuss that so I understand you better?"
Louis agreed; he was okay with that, he trusted him not to make fun or judge.
"Okay, good. Would you like to go take a shower?" When Louis nodded, the man still hesitated, he was terrified to ever truly hurt this boy, beyond a pain kink and devoid of pleasure. "Is it okay if I carry you, since you don't feel well?"
"Yes daddy, I'd like that." He gave a small smile and Mr. Styles returned it. He was scooped into his arms bridal style and carried upstairs. Louis leaned back against the counter as his daddy stuck his hand in the stream of heating water. When it was hot enough he was helped in, a strong hand grasping his arm to face Louis away from the sharp sprinkles. Louis sighed contently as his hair was massaged, letting water soak to his scalp. It was a calming experience as the dirt on his elbows and knees from the game was scrubbed off, and his cumstained lower half gently rinsed. He loved being taken care of, every inch of his body thoroughly paid attention to.
"You know I'd never hurt you on purpose right?" Mr. Styles spoke up.
"Yes daddy, I know." Don't leave me then, Louis thought.
When they were both clean, they got out and dried themselves with towels. Mr. Styles suggested they take a short nap before they parted ways for the afternoon, Louis was tired so he agreed. He collapsed naked into the bed and the man laughed.
"Baby don't fall asleep yet you need clothes." He knew Louis would be cold especially with wet hair. He fetched him boxers, sweatpants and a tee shirt, helping a sleepy, spent Louis into them. Dressing himself he climbed in the bed with Louis and gently pulled him into his chest, pulling covers over them.
"I love sleeping with you daddy," Louis admitted. He got a kiss on his damp hair.
"So do I." Louis' eyes closed and he softly huffed little breaths, looking like a little angel as he slept.
-
L
About thirty minutes later Louis' name was quietly called, waking him up as he yawned like a refreshed kitten. "Wake up baby. I need to get going." Louis blinked his eyes open, slowly getting up. He fucking hated waking up, even if it was in the middle of the day.
"Um, when should I come back?" Louis asked. Mr. Styles frowned a little as he thought, which Louis had learned didn't automatically mean displeasure. It was as if seriousness was the default look for the man. He liked it.
"Probably a few hours," he answered thoughtfully. "I'll text you when I know." So mysterious, Louis thought. He wondered if Mr. Styles was just being considerate and wanted him to go have some fun and not be alone, since Louis had told him he preferred being around others. Or maybe, he was hiding something, after all he didn't say Louis could come back whenever. It's best not to make assumptions, because more often than not - they're wrong. So Louis didn't question it, didn't ask if he could stay here to test him. Just like when they were intimate, he accepted what he was given, hoping that he wouldn't be damaged in the process.
|
There was something Hermione had noticed back in school, and it still held true years later: life became harder as a person came closer to Draco Malfoy. This was not in any way referring to an emotional state of closeness, but merely fully-clothed physical proximity. Having Malfoy in her flat made it hard to cook dinner. It was hard to read, hard to clean, and hard to think.
She managed to do these things anyway, but not as well as she'd previously been able. For example, the chicken was burnt around the edges and the rice was undercooked. She finished setting the table just as Harry and Ginny arrived, and she served dinner immediately because she didn't have the energy for living room small talk. It was like the sound of their voices was muffled somehow, like her ears were set to the wrong frequency. All she could do was nod when it seemed appropriate, but then Harry's volume spiked as he brought up a new subject.
"Weird about Malfoy, isn't it?" he asked conversationally. Hermione managed not to drop her fork, but it was a near miss.
"Yeah, have you heard anything about it in your Department?" Ginny asked. Hermione forced herself to answer as calmly and accurately as possible. The wording made it possible to be honest; if the question had been more along the lines of, 'is Draco Malfoy hiding in your bedroom closet as we speak?' then, yes – she would have lied. After all, she was already in the process of building such a tall and heavy lie pile in a house of secrets.
and 'truth' doesn't mean what I thought it did.
"Not much," she said. "I think Harry would still know more than I would – it hasn't gotten up to our Department." Yet, she realised. When they didn't find Malfoy or his body anywhere, the search would inevitably work its way up the food chain. "Most people think he's dead," she added impulsively.
especially me; I am almost certain that he is dead.
She felt guilty for saying it, even though it was true. As a recently-recognised expert in the field, she could easily spot a bit of death-faking by omission.
The Potters were both too mature to say what they were thinking, but they didn't have to. There was an uncomfortable silence, during which she could read the reply on their faces: big loss. She scowled at her plate because really it would have been. Didn't they realise how boring and mundane the world would be without him? Didn't they see that without him, all a person would have to think about were rose bushes, lawn flamingos, slip resistance tests, and useless echoes of the past?
and fear and anger and escape. He makes us look alive by comparison.
They didn't, though, because they weren't any such persons. It was only Hermione who benefited from the continued existence of Draco Malfoy, while simultaneously hoping it would end, if that made any sense, which it didn't. Nothing had made her feel sane for some time now, and Hermione was starting to fear that it never would again.
"Well, some trace of him is bound to turn up eventually," Ginny said. "There's hardly a witch or wizard in the country who wouldn't recognize him on sight. That is, unless he's dyed that ridiculous hair." She and Harry both laughed, and Hermione tried to mimic their response, but she couldn't stop the wheels from turning in her head.
What if he did dye his hair? Maybe it's time to incorporate some sort of disguise, even in Muggle London.
Of course, deliberately camouflaging Malfoy's identity counted as death-faking.
"Let's talk about something else," she said. "We've only got one evening a week together,
and I only get one evening without him,
and I'd rather not spend it talking about Malfoy."
Harry nodded his head. "You're right, I shouldn't have brought it up. It's just so strange, you know? He was supposed to get married in three months, and he disappeared on his birthday."
Her head jerked up at that. "He did? What day was that?"
"The fifth – a week ago, yesterday."
"Hm," she said. Her voice was a bit higher-pitched than usual, but no one seemed to notice.
"Not that he's much better," Ginny began conspiratorially, "but I'd run, too, if I were engaged to such an insufferable idiot. She was a year behind me in school, and she never talks about anything but herself. I think she honestly believes she's a veela."
Hermione couldn't help but snort along with Harry at that, but probably for a different reason.
If she were a veela, then why would her fiancé run away and spend his free time trying to get into my bed?
"That's doubtful," Harry said. "If she and her sister were veela, Ron would've had an even harder time in Potions."
It wasn't until he gave Hermione an apologetic look that she even realised what he'd said, and she threw up a hand to wave it off. Ginny looked like she had something to add, presumably relating to Ron, but Hermione laid down the only trump card she had for this sort of situation.
"So, how's James?" It was like holding up a shiny object in front of a toddler about to fuss. Ginny's eyes lit up with delight, and she commenced with the details until they'd finished their food.
Hermione used the time to scrape up every last speck of sauce from her plate, harder and harder, until her fork was screeching audibly and rhythmically in time with her breathing. She found the sound oddly soothing, and she wondered dimly why Ginny was suddenly having trouble finding her words. Her nails dug into her palm as she gripped the metal.
"Hermione?" This time she did drop her fork, turning to Harry as she snapped out of her trance.
"Yes?"
It's not your job to wake me up,
"Are you all right?" he asked gently. "You seem a bit… tense, this evening."
I'll wake up on my own when I'm good and ready.
She picked up her fork and looked down at her plate in confusion. It had gotten all scratched up, and she would have to throw it away, which meant that her dinnerware set would be incomplete. Her jaw dropped in absolute horror, and for a second she thought she was going to cry. An incomplete dinnerware set was unacceptable.
"Hermione?"
She looked at him again, reluctantly. "What?"
"I asked if you were all right," he said. She could see his compassion and concern, but it was too late for any of that. It wasn't his fault,
just unfortunate circumstances,
and she didn't blame him,
though it could have been prevented,
but nevertheless it was too late.
"I think I'm a bit stressed out," she admitted.
"You work too much," Ginny said. "Don't you think you should take some time off?"
"Certainly not." Her tone was colder than she'd intended, and it sounded harsh even to her own ears. Harry and Ginny shared a meaningful look, which did nothing to improve Hermione's mood. They were always talking about her with their eyes, right in front of her like she was a child.
"If you're sure," Harry said.
"If I wasn't at work, I'd be at home," she said, "and I can't be at home."
She could tell they were both confused by this line of reasoning, but they didn't question it.
"Well, we should be getting home to James. Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Ginny asked, one more time for the road. Hermione gripped the edge of the table. "It's just that we don't want you getting sick again."
They always had to bring that up. A person could be hospitalized for exhaustion just one time, and everyone would treat her like a porcelain doll forever. She used to have this recurring dream where she'd wake up to find her entire flat jammed full of packing peanuts, and Harry's voice would waft toward her through the Styrofoam to tell her it was for her own good. "That was over a year ago. I cut my hours after that, and I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"Well," Harry began, but then he stopped short.
"No, Harry, what were you going to say?" Her voice was dangerous.
I dare you, Harry Potter.
"It's just that… your assistant was so concerned that she came to me to make sure you were all right. I know you cut your hours, but you've picked them up since, and I think you might actually be working more now than you were back then."
Oh, yes, I dare you to make me stay here.
"Did she, now? How very interesting." Apparently, all of her mentoring had done nothing to teach Penny how to keep her nose out of other people's business.
"Now, don't get cross with her about this, Hermione – she really looks up to you. She's just worried, and I have to say I can see why."
Hermione took a calming breath. They needed to see her resilience, since it was clear that they had forgotten. "I appreciate how much you care about me, but no one needs to be concerned about my health. I have everything under control."
Ginny gave her a wary look. "Please let us know if you start to get overwhelmed," she said. "Don't forget, you could always visit my mum and spend a few days eating homemade soup."
That's a brilliant idea. I'll leave Malfoy alone at my flat while I spend a few days getting nagged.
"Thanks, Ginny," she said. She was absolutely still in control. "I think I'll turn in early tonight."
They cleared out of her kitchen, and Hermione saw them to the Floo, where they both hugged her tightly before departing.
She went to her kitchen, picked up her ruined plate, and threw it at the wall. It chipped when it hit the white paint, but it didn't shatter until it hit the floor and chunks of glass went every direction.
This is how good I am,
It made a very satisfying noise, and she let out the breath she'd been holding.
and I've never been better.
She'd pass out if she didn't start remembering how to breathe, but her body and mind didn't quite feel connected anymore. Not all the signals were going through, and not all her nerves could feel pain. Nothing did its job anymore, she'd noticed; not objects or people or anything else. With the way things were working, she wouldn't have been surprised if the sun and wind went and took a day off.
She smiled. She returned to her room and opened the closet door. Malfoy lifted his head and blinked as the light hit his face.
"I thought of a plan to get some money," he said. She could tell he was excited about it, whatever he was plotting.
"Is it legal?"
"Kind of," he said, as though considering this aspect for the first time. "I guess it depends how you think about it."
"I bet I'll think it's not."
"I bet you will, too, but you're going to do it anyway."
"Don't tell me what I'm going to do," she warned.
and don't tell me what's mine.
"You have been less predictable lately," he said thoughtfully, "but now I can predict that you're going to do the opposite of what you would have done six years ago."
"You need to stop acting like you've ever known anything about me."
"Nobody knows you as well as I do."
She snorted and shook her head in disbelief. "Is that so?"
"You don't really know someone until you've seen them at their worst, and nobody brings out the worst in you like I do."
"The second half of that is true."
"It will be a beautiful day when you stop lying to me."
She didn't want to talk to him anymore, but there was something she hadn't stopped wondering about since dinner. "Happy birthday, by the way," she said sarcastically.
He grinned, wide and shining. "You're the first to say it."
"I guess that's appropriate, since I'm the reason you got to be twenty-three for longer than a day."
"Nobody else was going to give me any good presents, so I had to go out and get one for myself," he said, as though it explained his behavior in any way.
"What do you mean?"
"Freedom, Granger! Try and keep up," he chastised impatiently.
"Of course, and now you've got it. Locked in closets, not allowed outside, sleeping on floors and couches, reduced to begging anytime you want to touch something." She put her hands on her hips and sneered. "You're good at this."
"When did you get so sassy?"
She was finished now. This conversation was over. "I saved you some food," she said, starting back for the kitchen. She heard him laugh as he followed her, and the sound corroded her ears.
"Don't you want to hear my plan?"
"Not particularly."
"Yes, you do. I'm going to sneak back into the manor and lift a few things for us to sell."
She turned around so quickly that they almost collided.
"It's a good idea, right?"
"No," she said. "You were right – I do think it's illegal. Only I don't just think so, it's my official pronouncement as a Magical Law Enforcement Officer."
"Like I said, it's only kind of illegal. I mean, that stuff's part mine. I was thinking I'd transfigure replicas of some minor art pieces, and if I choose carefully, I guarantee you it'll be another century before anyone so much as looks at them up close. Even if somebody broke one of those vases, my mother would just be disappointed for a few seconds until a house-elf swept it up."
"There's no such thing as 'kind of illegal,'" she pointed out.
Like how there's no accidental kidnapping or death-faking by omission.
"There's a Muggle story I read one time, I think it's actually rather famous – the legend of Robin Hood. Would you describe Robin Hood's activities as 'illegal'?"
Kind of.
"Seriously?" she asked with a grimace. "Are you really comparing yourself to Robin Hood?"
"No, I'm just drawing a parallel, but you're avoiding the question."
"It has nothing whatsoever to do with this situation."
"Sure it does. Is my family rich or poor?"
"Rich," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
"And what about you and me?"
"We're fine. We're in the middle."
"Compared to my family, we're pretty bloody poor. In your opinion, do my parents deserve those vases?"
It's all a matter of perspective.
"Definitely not," she sniffed.
"Then let's take them."
She sighed and looked down at her folded arms. She couldn't argue with his logic on that last one, despite the bizarre and completely inapplicable comparison. "How would you even get in there?"
"The front door, I would imagine. They may have put up a new ward to detect if I come home, but I know how to check for that and disarm it before I enter the property. When my father was in prison, I learned that even as a fifth year I was better at protective magic than he ever was."
"What if someone sees you?"
"They won't."
Hermione wasn't convinced; however, if she were, hypothetically, to actually consider this as a possibility, then she would theoretically know a way to make sure Malfoy wasn't seen. Borrowing from friends was in no way illegal. Malfoy was wearing a satisfied smile, and she realised she'd paused so long in thought that she couldn't plausibly deny it. "I'll think about it."
"If you have to act like you need to do that, go right ahead. I know you've already made your decision."
She turned her back on him and walked until she reached the kitchen, and she'd completely forgotten about the broken plate until she almost stepped in it.
"I see Potter's been getting on your nerves. Did you throw it at him?"
"It was an accident."
"That's strange, then. Is your kitchen having gravity issues?"
"What?"
"It's just that generally, things accidentally break on the floor, but your plate hit the wall so hard it left a mark. I was wondering if perhaps your gravity's malfunctioning."
Her hands clenched into fists. He raised his eyebrows and then glanced at the table.
"Why save the rest? If you broke one, you might as well break them all."
"They're still perfectly good plates," she muttered unconvincingly.
"No, they aren't. They're incomplete."
"I only ever have two people over anyway, and it was a set of four."
"But you'll always know, Granger. You'll never be able to set them out again without thinking about that fourth plate."
"They're just bloody plates! What is wrong with you?" she yelled, shaking her fists at him wildly. Her nails dug into her palms.
"You ask me that a lot, and this time I can tell you. Right now, I'm upset because your dinnerware is lacking. It's driving me insane just looking at those two miserable chunks of ceramic," he said breathlessly, and she really had no idea whether he was joking or not. Judging by the strange intensity in his eyes, she decided he wasn't.
"They're my plates, and I'll keep a set of three if I want a set of three plates!" Her breaths came fast and heavy now, too, and some small part of her was trying to figure out why she was so angry about dinnerware.
"Oh, sure! Like you could be happy with that! Your whole life is a set of three plates, and you never even knew it until I came in and needed the fourth one."
"Is that supposed to be a metaphor?" she yelled. Her lungs were burning, and her throat was tight.
"You know exactly what I mean," he growled, and she noticed that he'd moved closer to her, while she was slowly backing up against the table. "Face the facts, Granger. You're going to have to get some whole new plates." He was standing right in front of her, and a sharp corner was pressing into her back. She pushed him back savagely, but he didn't give up. "And I think I should pick them out, since you clearly have no taste."
"I only have bad taste in flatmates," she retorted bitterly.
"You know that's not true. I taste good."
That was it. She had to hand it to him: he really did know exactly where the 'off' switch was for the logic centre in her brain. She reached behind her and grabbed one of her ugly, incomplete plates and threw it at his head. He dodged it with a strangled cry, and so she threw the other one but missed. He kept walking toward her until he was centimetres away, and the table was still digging into her skin, and he smiled.
"I knew I could get you to do that." She slapped him across face, and he reeled back and looked at her dangerously. "That, too."
She almost wanted to respond, but her throat had closed up completely, and all she could do was reach behind her and hang onto the table.
"And you want to know something else?" he asked. She lifted her chin and stared him down. "You forgot to do something last night." She would have to get her breathing under control soon, or she'd hyperventilate. "You never said I couldn't touch you again. You've got about five more seconds to say it right now."
He came at her in a straight line, stepping carefully over the shards, but she didn't say it. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her roughly onto the table, but still she didn't say it. She didn't bother wondering why, even though the noise she made when he sunk his teeth into her shoulder was proof that her vocal chords were working just fine. She sank her nails into his skin and wrapped her legs around him, and he groaned into her neck. He put his mouth over hers again, and she thought it may have been closer to a kiss this time, but it didn't really matter.
She even managed to stop thinking for a time, and she couldn't tell how long it was, but Malfoy was growing more eager much faster than she was. There existed here a power that Hermione had never used, but she could feel that she had it.
She turned her head to suck his neck at the base of his ear, and she nibbled his earlobe before whispering in a sultry voice. "Malfoy?"
"Hm?" he managed, pushing her skirt up over her thighs.
"You can't touch me anymore."
She had never heard a man scream like that before. He launched himself off her and howled and doubled over in pain, and his whole body was shaking. When he managed to look back up at her, gasping desperately for air, his eyes were black and hard.
"You fucking bitch," he hissed. She swung her feet back and forth and smoothed her skirt back down. "Don't act like you don't want this. You're denying yourself just as much as you're denying me."
"Almost," she whispered. "I'm denying you a little bit more."
He struggled to collect himself. "When you realise that you can't wait any longer, you're going to have to remove that restriction for good," he said at last, through intermittent ragged breaths. "There's no way I'm getting near you if you're going to do that again."
"We'll see how long I can wait," she said boldly.
"I guess we will." His voice was calmer, but his eyes were much too sharp. "Have you got anything to drink?"
"No."
"Liar."
"I told you I've quit drinking," she reminded him. He was moving closer again, but not as close as he was before.
"I haven't."
"You have if I say you have."
"You'll take both of those back after another week at work. What case are you working on now? I bet it's really exciting," he taunted.
"That's none of your concern."
"You came home early on Thursday and Friday. Why was that?"
"It's my prerogative to come home an hour early if I so choose."
"Then it wouldn't have anything to do with wanting to come home to me."
"You're asleep when I get home."
"If you want to see me that badly, I could alter my sleep schedule. In fact, if you'll let me sleep in your bed, I'll even do it at night."
"No."
"Can I stay on your bedroom floor?"
She was beginning to feel drained as the last of the adrenaline seeped out of her blood. "I guess," she muttered. It was only ten o'clock, but she had to get up early anyway. "But I'm going to go to bed right now. Get out of my way."
He stepped back slowly, and she pushed herself off the table. She sucked in a surprised breath as she remembered the sea of broken glass.
Did I really do that?
She took her wand and magically swept all the shards into the bin. She cleaned the mark off the wall, went to her bedroom, and shut the door.
"Open it when you're done changing," he said. He was waiting right outside.
She put on pyjamas and turned out the lights before letting him in. As she dragged the blankets over her head, she heard him lie down on the floor and bid her goodnight.
***
She was there again, and this time she was angry. She didn't want to look at the white doors or the silver doorknobs or the shining numbered plates, and there was no way out until she picked one. She grabbed the closest handle and jerked it open.
Ron was face-down on the floor as she'd left him, except that the scarf was wrapped around his whole head. He moaned unintelligibly into the fabric, and she stepped forward and kicked him in the stomach again and again because there was no one else she could think of to be angry with. He cried out in pain and rolled over, and she realised it wasn't Ron at all. She reached down in slow motion and pulled the scarf aside, and it was Harry.
Then she was screaming and clawing at her hair.
"What's wrong?"
She started sobbing in between her cries, and her body was shaking and straining against the mass of black on top of her, but she could see nothing. Her eyes were blank screens waiting for a projector.
"It was Harry," she whimpered. She was trapped and forgotten here in the void, and it wasn't comfortable anymore. "I didn't want to hurt Harry."
"Who did you want to hurt?"
"I don't know," she said. Her voice sounded like a little girl's. "Whoever told me I had to act like this."
"Act like what?"
"I don't know," she gasped. She could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks and her hands brushing them away, but there was nothing else. This was the whole universe.
"How do you want to act?"
"I don't know."
"Can I get in your bed?"
"Yes," she said, even though the question didn't mean much to her. She felt the binds around her tighten as something pushed against her from the outside.
"Can I touch you?"
"Yes," she said, because then maybe they'd help her out of here. They could help her create a more suitable reality, from scratch now at the beginning of the world.
"Forever?"
This was the Big Bang. She could feel it.
"Yes," she said. The ties loosened, and a warm body pressed itself against her back.
***
Hermione woke up clutching the edge of her bed, with no blankets on her at all. The only reason she hadn't tumbled out onto the floor was because of a viselike restraint around her waist. Needless to say, she was surprised by this turn of events.
She turned her head slowly to find that Malfoy was in her bed, touching her. It wouldn't have made any more sense (if making sense were something that anything still did) if it had been someone else in her bed, but this was also unexpected in its own way.
"How did you get here?" she rasped. He opened his eyes.
"You said I could," he informed her before closing them again.
"When?"
"You had a nightmare, and you woke up and told me I could get in bed with you."
"I don't remember that."
"I think you were still mostly asleep."
"So, you took advantage of the situation and coerced me when you knew I couldn't say no."
"I didn't know you wouldn't remember it."
She pushed his arm away and sat up. It was too bright in her room, and she stared at the clock in horror: it was already half-past eight. "Did you turn off my alarm?"
"No, you did."
She put her hands over her face. "I don't even remember hearing it."
"It was still dark outside," he said into her pillow. "I still can't believe you get up that early every day."
She felt just as hungover as she had the day before, and she thought wildly that she might as well have gotten drunk last night. By the time she arrived at the Ministry, with no breakfast and Malfoy still in her bed, it was after nine. She was two hours late. Penny managed to catch up with her even though she was practically running to her office, and she hurried along to nip at Hermione's heels the whole way.
"Miss Granger, you look ill."
"I am," she said decisively, but maybe not how Penny meant it.
"I'm sure you could go home –"
"I wouldn't be any less ill at home."
Hermione stopped in front of her door and unlocked it, curling her lip at the disgustingly neat stack of papers on her desk. She wanted to throw them against the wall like plates, but they wouldn't shatter in such a satisfying way. She turned to face her assistant, and she must have looked like death, because Penny was really looking frightened.
"Bring me black coffee," she instructed, and the young girl fled immediately.
She really did mean to resolve the Leaky Cauldron case that day. She managed to read through a good portion of the documents, but her mind was wandering.
It's nice not waking up alone.
Penny kept coming in to check on her, and Hermione kept sending her away to refill her coffee.
I like the way his arms feel.
She even spared some time to think about Malfoy's idea. It was true that his parents didn't deserve their expensive art, especially if they didn't even appreciate it. The longer she thought about it, the more sense it made. The only issue was the execution, and she wondered if she could actually manage to get her hands on Harry's invisibility cloak. She examined the idea from all angles, but she couldn't come up with a way to get it for long enough without detection and was forced to scrap the whole thing. On the other hand, what if Hermione were to appear at Malfoy Manor on official Ministry business? And what if she could then pluck some hair from a house-elf? She hadn't in second year, but now she knew how to modify a Polyjuice potion for interspecies use. If Malfoy were a house-elf, he could appear during daylight and come in as though he'd been tending the grounds. Her thoughts were interrupted when Penny set a fresh mug of coffee on her desk, but she didn't mind this time.
"Penny, do you know who's on the Malfoy disappearance?" she asked.
Penny visibly jumped at being spoken to, but she managed to recover. "Erm, I think the Aurors are still working on that one."
"I see. Do you know how long it will be before it moves up? Assuming they don't find him, which they probably will, of course."
"Well, I'm not supposed to know," she began hesitantly.
"It's all right. Tell me anyway." She could tell her assistant was especially desperate to please her after how cold she'd been lately.
"I heard Harry Potter talking in the hall the other day, and he said they'd take it out of his hands if he didn't have new information by Friday."
"That's very useful to me. Thank you so much," she said, and Penny looked like she might just weep with joy.
Once her assistant was gone, Hermione wrote a concise note to the head of her Department: I want the Malfoy assignment.
With that in mind, she forced herself to plow through the rest of her documents, and by the end of the day she'd finally submitted her decision: the Cauldron had ninety days to refinish their floors to meet standards, at which time a new test would be performed. They would cover the old man's hospital bills, but no further damages were to be awarded.
She was collecting her things to leave, and not a moment early, when a response arrived from her boss: I wouldn't have given it to anyone else, Miss Granger.
|
Dick woke up with the sun, climbing out of bed before kissing his sleeping partner whom he had been lying next to. A sliver of sunlight illuminated Bruce’s face and he couldn’t help but grin as he watched the older man turn to avoid the light, groaning as he did so. It seemed like Dick was going to be taking a shower alone today. He climbed out of bed, wrapping his robe that was discarded on the floor from his and Bruce’s activities last night.
After a cold shower and a quick shaving session, Dick was ready for the day, dressed casually in a pair of low riding jeans and a red t-shirt that was tight around his chest. He slid down the banister and navigated his way through the eerily silent halls. With the kids asleep, the old yet well-kept halls of the ancient manor seemed dead, not alive and bright as it usually did. Shrugging off his strangely dark thoughts Dick made his way to the kitchen where he was sure at least one more awake inhabitant of the manor would be.
“Good morning, Master Dick.” Alfred’s British accent greeted him, the warmth and affection he felt for the young man standing in front of him still conveyed despite the dry tone of his voice.
“Hey, Alfie! What are you up to?” Dick cheerfully responded while gravitating toward the coffee machine so he could make his daily fix.
“I am preparing the young masters’ and yours breakfast, and perhaps Master Bruce’s as well if he deigns to get out of bed.” Alfred answered turning back to whatever he had been cooking. Dick laughed from his corner of the kitchen, his legs crossed as he leaned against the counter and took a sip from the mug in his hand.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath. He had a… rough night.” Alfred gave Dick a wry look that clearly expressed his knowledge of exactly why last night had been rough and Dick just chuckled, knowing that Alfred meant no harm in his look.
“Yes, well while Master Bruce might be allowed to sleep in today, the young master’s may certainly not. If you would, Master Dick, I would greatly appreciate it if you would wake them up.”
“Sure Alfie, anything for you.” Dick winked and left the kitchen.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
“Damian. Damian. Get up.”
A hand landed on his shoulder and began shaking him, he batted it away only for it to return again.
“nnnghh”
Damian moaned, and turned in his bed, pulling his blanket over his head. Why wouldn’t the annoying person leave him alone? Couldn’t it see he was trying to sleep?
Next to the bed, Dick was holding in his laughter from the way Damian was acting. Like father, like son. Dick thought fondly, staring down at the child that reminded him so much of his lover.
“Damian, you have ten seconds to get out of bed before I go get the ice water.” Dick warned, knowing the child could hear him. “Don’t make me count down.”
Another groan, then the lump on the bed began to move, the child underneath the covers slowly wriggling out of bed. Damian warily looked up at him with tired eyes, a yawn escaping him without permission. “Fine, Grayson. I’m up.” With that, Damian began tiredly walking to the bathroom, tripping over his own feet as he went.
Dick watched him go, amused. Honestly, the kid was worse than Bruce sometimes.
////////////////////////////////////////////
Walking into Tim’s room was like walking into the aftermath of a tornado. Clothing was strewn everywhere and textbooks littered the floor, causing Dick to trip more than once. Dick winced as he saw an opened box of moldy pizza sitting on Tim’s desk, in the middle of piles of papers.
He knew that Tim was a pretty busy kid with all the courses he took in school and leading the Titans but the least he could do is throw out food before it got moldy. Dick promised in the back of his head to speak to Tim about it later before approaching the body lying on the also paper-covered bed.
Tim slept like the dead, he knew that nothing short of a bucket of cold water would wake the teenager when he was like this. While this usually wouldn’t be a problem except having to change the sheets, with Tim’s fast reflexes and his tendency to attack anyone within five foot when he was woken up, this task can quickly become dangerous.
Fortunately, Dick was faster and much more agile than Tim, not to mention the extra years of training he had. Unfortunately, this made Dick the popular choice when someone had to wake up Tim.
Carefully, Dick tiptoed around the textbooks, a bucket of water tucked underneath his arm. Reaching over, he unceremoniously dumped the water. With a yell, Tim was on the floor arm outstretched, and on the wall behind Dick were five birdarangs perfectly placed in the shape of his head where it had been only a second ago.
Tim opened his eyes, realizing that he wasn’t being attacked, relaxed his stance.
“Oh, It’s morning already?” Tim asked through the yawn that overtook him. He stretched his arms his head before walking to the bathroom.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Dick’s coffee was still waiting where he had set it down before he left to wake the kids. Taking a hearty gulp of it, he held back a wince at the taste of stale coffee.
“Here, Master Dick. I took the liberty to make you a new cup of coffee while you were busy.”
Dick smiled as he took the mug. “Alfred, where would we be without you.”
“Dead in a slowly rotting manor.” Jason called out as he walked into the kitchen, lumbering towards the coffee machine.
“Jason! I didn’t know that you stayed the night.” Dick exclaimed looking surprise. He set his coffee down walking towards where Jason was now nursing his own mug of coffee.
“Yeah, well, if you had stopped sucking off Bruce’s face and actually came up for air, you would’ve heard Alfred asking if I would stay the night.”
“Well at least I’m getting some action. That’s more than you can say.” Dick smirked.
“Now boys, your both pretty.” Stephanie simpered as she walked into the kitchen, making a beeline to the coffee machine. Dick raised an eyebrow surprised at Stephanie’s presence as well but chose to stay quiet.
“Miss Stephanie, I thought you had left already for your class.” Alfred asked from near the stove.
“I did, but I had a three hour break between classes so I decided to drive back here for some coffee.”
“Right. It had nothing to do with the fact that you want to make out with your boyfriend.” Jason said, staring pointedly at Stephanie’s slightly red and puffy lips.
“Shut up.” Stephanie blushed.
“DICK! HAVE YOU SEEN MY RED SHIRT?” Tim’s voice floated to them from the stairs. Dick poked his head out of the kitchen door to see Tim standing on the stairs in only a pair of jeans.
“Which one, Timmy? I didn’t exactly memorize your wardrobe you know.”
“The red one with the gray sleeves and Gotham Knights logo.” Tim answered back exasperatedly, as though he actually did expect Dick to memorize his wardrobe. Dick blinked. “Actually, I think I saw it in Damian’s room.”
Tim snapped his head up the stairs, looking scandalized. “That little shit.” He muttered under his breath, stomping up the stairs. Dick watched him go and sighed before following him up to stop the inevitable fight that was going to happen.
“So does Dickiebird do this every morning?” Jason asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. The young masters have the tendency to take up all of Master Dick’s time in the morning. It’s a miracle if he’s able to eat in the mornings.”
“Whoa, Dick’s been missing out on meals? Is Bruce aware of this?” Jason asked, surprise and worry coloring his voice.
“Master Bruce usually wakes up after the young masters have left, so he isn’t aware of the situation. However, if it continues I will be forced to inform him about it.” Alfred said with a sharp glint in his eyes.
At that exact moment Dick came back into the kitchen flopping onto a chair with an air of exhaustion. “Are you okay?” Stephanie asked in worry.
“Yeah, I’m fine, I just got in the middle of Tim and Damian’s fight. Took away both of their laptops and ipods for the next three days.” Jason snorted.
“And how did that go?”
“Pretty well, they know better than to go against me on this.” Dick answered with a tired smile.
Before Jason could retort on how Dick made a good housewife, both Tim and Damian entered the kitchen, Tim running to the coffee machine while Damian head towards Dick.
“Grayson, I request your presence at school today at noon.” Damian said as he sat down regally in his chair. Dick sighed running a hand through his hair.
“Damian, I told you if you got into another fight in school I would tell Bruce. This is the fifth time this-“
“Tt- I requested your presence, not that imbecile you call a teacher. Today is VIP day, the teacher said that I should invite the person that I care the most about and since father is usually indisposed until five in the evening, I supposed you are a sufficient replacement.” Damian’s blush betrayed his true intentions and Dick couldn’t help but inwardly coo at the similarities between him and a disgruntled kitten.
“Aww Damian, of course I’ll be there.” Dick ruffled the younger boy’s hair only to be rewarded with a glare.
“Dick, you promised to be there at my science fair today too.” Tim said, practically pouting from his seat.
“Tim, your fair’s at five, both Bruce and I’ll be able to attend it after Damian’s VIP day.”
Tim huffed and silence seeped into the kitchen, only broken by the scrapes of forks against plates and the sounds of breathing. Just as Dick began to relax, his eyes caught the glimpse of a clock and he jumped into his feet.
“Tim! Damian! You’re going to be late! Get up! Go get your homework and meet Alfred in the car!” Dick herded the kids out of the kitchen before rushing to the front door to meet them.
“Have a good day, Damian. Make sure you behave, and I promise I’ll be there at twelve.” Dick kissed Damian on the forehead before handing him his lunch and ushering him out the door.
“Goodbye Tim. Try not to fall asleep in classes and control your coffee addiction.” Another kiss on the forehead and lunch passing before Tim was also out the door. Dick closed the door and slumped against it, heaving a sigh. Before he could so much as catch his breath the door bell rung. He swung it open only to be attacked by two sets of arms.
“Bye, Dick.”
“Goodbye, Grayson. I shall see you soon.”
The arms retracted and Tim and Damian ran down the stairs to where Alfred was waiting. Dick stood at the staring at them as they left and for the first time that morning he felt truly happy.
|
It was a very hot August day here in south Florida. My husband was away for the week on business. I was very bored with nothing to do, so I called my girlfriend Sarah over, from across the street. I knew that on Mondays her mom had the kids and her husband was at work. I told her to bring some wine and to meet me at my pool in the backyard.
I was laying out by the pool for about five minutes when Sarah came to join me. She brought my favorite white wine and we poured two large glasses for each other. Sarah then took off her cover up revealing her new bikini that she told me about.
"Wow girl you look great for having two kids. How do you stay so hot, I hope I look that good after I have a baby, I said."
"How is that going by the way, any luck yet, She said."
"The doctor said its Steve problem, not me. Were still trying, but no plus sign yet. I'm really starting to get frustrated."
"I don't have to worry about getting pregnant anymore. Rick just had a vasectomy, we decided two was enough, She said."
The wine was catching up to us, I was feeling good. Our conversation then turned to sex. She couldn't believe it when I told her Steve was the only guy I had been with. Sarah was telling me about her college experiences and the multiple lovers she had. The more she went in to details, the more turned on I was getting. Lately sex with my husband Steve was getting kind of stale.
"So tell me Amy, How big is Steve, She said."
"What do you mean."
"You know what I mean, His penis size."
I knew that Steve had a small dick, "Maybe four or five inches hard, I said."
"You poor girl, You need to know what it feels like to get fucked by a big cock." Then she said, "All this sex talk is making my nipples hard, you don't mind if I take my top off."
Before I could respond, Sarah had her set her tits free. I also took my top off. My house backed up to the woods, so nobody could see us. We were getting real sweaty, so we got in the pool to cool off. After a quick dip, we poured some more wine, and laid back down to catch some more rays.
We were getting more tipsy by the second. I kept thinking about what she said earlier about fucking a big cock. I asked her what was the biggest she's had. She said, "I once had sex with a black guy in college who had a ten inch dick."
I couldn't believe what she was telling me. I was getting so hot listening to her sex story. It sounded like so much fun. She could see that I was liking it, because my nipples were now rock solid. Out of nowhere Sarah then reached over and touched my boob. I was totally caught off guard, but I didn't move a muscle. She then started to massage my tit. She was expecting a response from me, but I didn't say a word. I turned on my side facing her and said, "You are such a naughty girl."
She said, "I couldn't resist, you have such nice titties."
I reached out and touched her boobs. We were laying there massaging each others tits. Sarah's hand started moving down my stomach. I spread my legs open giving her permission. Her fingers made there way down to my pussy. I let out a gasp as my breathing was getting heavier. She slowly moved her fingers under my bikini bottom. Her face was inches away from mine. I closed my eyes and our lips met. We started kissing each other slow and passionately. I let out long moan as her fingers made contact with my wet slit. I then felt her fingers enter my hole. My pussy was on fire, I was so horny.
We were going at it for about five minutes, when all of a sudden we heard the gate to my backyard opening. We stopped and reached for our towels to cover up. It was the meter reader man from the electric company. He was tall and black, with huge muscles. I would have guessed him to be in his forties.
At first he didn't see us laying there. He walked over to the electric meter to take his reading. I looked over at Sarah, she had an evil grin on her face. She turned to me and whispered in my ear, "Lets give this guy a show, it'll be fun." We then dropped our towels, exposing our tits. I couldn't believe what I was doing, it felt so naughty. When he saw us, he hid in the bushes, thinking we didn't see him. As I was laying there I was thinking about the story Sarah told me about her with that black guy. Sarah then turned to me and said quietly, "I bet he has a big dick."
"Sarah, were married, don't get any thoughts in your head."
We laid there for about five minutes, trying not to notice him spying on us. Then the guys cell phone goes off. He immediately stopped it, but it was too late, we caught him. We pretended to act shocked that he saw us.
"I'm sorry, just getting a reading on your electric meter, I'll be going now," He said.
We both noticed the massive bulge in his shorts.
"How long have you been standing there," Sarah said.
"Uh couple seconds," He said.
"What's that in your shorts there, She said."
"Sarah stop," I said.
She had that evil grin on her face again. I knew what she was up to.
"Come here," She said to the guy in a very seductive voice. He walked over to us laying on our loungers. What was she getting us in to, I thought. For some reason I didn't stop her, maybe it was all the wine we drank.
"What's your name," She said.
"Jerome"
"Hi Jerome, my name is Sarah and this is my friend Amy."
"Hi," I said.
"Do you like what you see Jerome," Sarah said.
"Yes ma'am," He said.
We were both looking at the huge bulge that was trying to burst out his shorts.
"Why don't you take them shorts off so we can see how big that thing really is," Sarah said.
Jerome couldn't believe his luck, he was smiling from ear to ear. He wasted no time in taking off his clothes. Now he was just standing there in his boxer briefs. The sweat gleamed off his huge muscles. His body was perfectly chiseled and black as coal too. Then he slowly peeled down his under wear.
Our jaws dropped to the floor. "Holy shit, is that thing real," I said. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. It had to be almost a foot long, and it was so fat.
"Do you girls like what you see," He said.
"Touch it Amy," Sarah said.
"I cant do that."
"You know you want to," Sarah said.
I couldn't control myself anymore. I sat up and reached out slowly to touch his cock. I was so nervous, I had never touched any other penis than my husbands before. My fingers made contact, It was so hot.
"Go ahead girl, It won't bite," He said with a laugh.
I could barely wrap my hand around his massive shaft. I started pulling on the big mushroom head. Sarah joined me stroking his cock. Sarah then bent down and kissed the head of his dick with her mouth. She opened her mouth wide and slowly started to suck his cock. My pussy was now dripping, I was so horny watching her give him a blow job. I got down closer, my mouth was watering. With his cock in her mouth Sarah looked over at me.
"Suck his dick Amy," was all she said. I couldn't hold back anymore. I looked up at Jerome's eyes as my mouth made contact with his dick. I slowly moved my lips over the head of his dick. My mouth was stretched open so wide. It tasted so good in my mouth. I really started to get in to it. Sarah was licking his balls as I was sucking the head. Then we both started licking up and down his shaft until our tongues met at the head. We were both licking on his dickhole. We were going at like the two little sluts we were.
Sarah then pushed me down on to the lounger. As I laid on my back, she got down and slowly peeled off my bikini bottom exposing my juicy pussy. She started to lick my pussy. I was moaning so loud, it felt so good.
"Put your cock in my mouth," I said to Jerome. I sucked hard on his dick as Sarah was licking and fingering my hot wet pussy. I could feel a orgasm coming over me. I had lost all control over my body, I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled his cock out of my mouth, looked up at Jerome and said, "Fuck me with your big black cock."
Sarah couldn't believe what she heard. Jerome came around and positioned himself over top of me. Sarah got down by my side and to guide his cock in. The massive head slowly started to stretch the opening of my cunt.
"Its too big I don't think it will fit," I said. But he slowly pushed harder. I just had to feel what a big cock felt like. Jerome was licking my nipples as he was easing his dick in and out. My pussy was so full, it felt incredible.
"YES...YES FUCK ME HARDER, IM SUCH A SLUT FOR YOUR BLACK COCK!!!"
Hs cock entered deep in to my womb. He started fucking me so hard and fast.
"IM CUMMING...FUUUCK MEEE!!!"
I explode all over his cock. I never thought I could cum so hard, It was amazing. Sarah was rubbing my clit and sucking on my nipples. Jerome pinned my legs back with his arms, fucking me deeper.
"IM SUCH A FUCKING SLUT WIFE......I LOVE YOUR FUCKING DICK!!!"
Sarah said to me, "Who's dick feels better, Jerome's or your husband Steve."
"FUCK STEVE AND HIS PUNY LITTLE DICK, I CAN NEVER FUCK HIM AGAIN!!!"
I didn't care anymore I belonged to this cock. Jerome bent down and we started kissing each other deeply. I orgasmed again. I could feel it drip down my ass crack. I knew Jerome was about to cum soon by the look on his face. The thought of me getting knocked up with a black baby sent me into another mind blowing orgasm.
"CUM INSIDE ME...PLANT YOUR SEED IN ME...KNOCK ME UP WITH YOU BLACK BABY!!!"
Sarah's face was in shock. She turned towards me and kissed my mouth deeply. Jerome was really pounding me hard.
"IM CUMMING BABY," Jerome said.
His cum shot deep up in my uterus. I was still kissing Sarah when he came in me. He blasted my womb full of his cum. Jerome bent down and joined us in a three way kiss. We kissed for two minutes straight. Then he pulled his cock out of me releasing a river of cum, dripping down my ass. Sarah went over to his cock and started sucking him clean. I joined her and we took turns sucking him back to full hardness.
That's when Sarah got up on the lounger on all fours with her ass high in the air. She looked back at Jerome, peeling down her bikini bottom and said, "I want to feel your cock inside of me too." Jerome walked up to her ass and licked her slit up and down. He spread her as cheeks apart and licked her asshole as I was still sucking on his dick.
"FUCK ME NOW," Sarah commanded.
He stood up and placed his dick at the entrance to her cunt. Sarah's eyes opened wide as he pushed in to her. Sarah was screaming in ecstasy as Jerome started to pound it to her. She was really screaming loud for all the neighbors to hear.
"IM A BLACK COCK WHORE TOO, FUCK ME HARDER!!!!"
Sarah pulled my cunt to her face and was licking the cum dripping out. Jerome was pounding as hard as he could. I could tell by the look on his face that he was about to blow again.
"Were do you want my cum baby," Jerome said.
Sarah looked me in the eye and said, "I want to be pregnant with you."
"I'm going to cum," Jerome said as a final warning.
"KNOCK ME UP MOTHERFUCKER!!!!"
"AAHHHHH," Jerome screamed out as he flooded her unprotected cunt with his hot potent sperm. After a minute, he pulled his massive cock out her. Me and Sarah both collapsed on the lounger together, holding each other in our arms. Jerome quickly got dressed and left out the gate as fast as he could.
A month later we both found that we were both pregnant. Every chance I get I'm with Sarah. We don't know what is going to happen when our husbands find out that we were impregnated by a black man. As long as we have each other, everything will be just fine.
|
Something powerful stirred inside me when I heard the groan of carnal satisfaction over the gentle waves. That something had been trying to return for a while, nudged toward life with every sultry glance and beautiful body that I encountered or imagined. But when I turned the corner that night and saw her on his lap, rolling her hips, unmistakeably fucking, that was when it officially re-awakened. It had been asleep for literally years; when I moved to Jamaica, it truly slept in peace. It was a long time coming, but as I felt the onset of hot slickness between my legs, and the warm welcome tingling of my flesh, I knew that my sex drive had returned in full, finally triggered by this one lingering, voyeuristic moment.
I had taken the same late-night nude walk on the beach a couple nights a week for the last month or so, starting as soon as the nights got warm enough to make it comfortable. It was a year and six months ago that I took residence at Hopewell Manor, and six months prior to that was when I introduced myself to the man who brought me here.
-
I knew lots of girls in school that had very specific dreams about what they wanted, and very specific plans on how to get it. Some went to college, some turned their part time jobs into full time jobs. My goals were never that well-defined, but I knew that whatever life I led, I wanted it to include plenty of comfort and cash. I'd been "on the pole" for five years, nearly a lifetime in the world of the gentleman's club, when I saw a break in the clouds.
He gave me plenty of cash right away, and as time went by, the comfort came as well. It had been so easy to set that initial hook, too. Cheek to cheek as I ground my bare pussy on his lap in the privacy of the VIP lounge, he whispered in my ear:
"You're so gorgeous baby, I bet you don't know what to do with all the nice compliments and things you get."
"No, everybody treats me like shit," I replied, in a well practiced half-pout, half-purr.
Oh poor me, the disrespected stripper, right? But that was all it took. A c-note landed in the palm of my hand a moment later. It was the first of countless others to follow, and the beginning of a relationship built on mutual needs and without apologies: a man in need of companionship, and a young woman with a thirst for cash and a better lifestyle.
He maintained three residences, one in his native England, one in my hometown for business reasons, and one in Jamaica because it's the place he called home. Whenever he was in town, he came to see me. Soon, I was seeing him outside the club if he was in town on days I didn't work. Eventually, he never came to the club at all: I was staying at his house. As sugar daddies go, David was a dream. His generosity and kindness knew few bounds, and his sexual demands were few and seldom, the perfect combination for a jaded dancer with a scorching case of sexual burnout.
Night after night, disrobing and gyrating in front of, above, and up against a blur of lonely men took its toll. Being sexy became a chore, and over time, the power of sex completely lost its allure. Lots of people assume that the single strippers who don't date and don't trick are just uptight in some way or holding out for bigger money, but some just can't get that excited about sex at all, especially with the same guys that paw at them for hours in the club. All I wished for was to not have to be sexy, to not be an object. Sex was the last thing I wanted, and between that and the difficulties of meeting good men anyway while working as a stripper, dating wasn't even worth messing with.
-
I got the text message one day as I was preparing to go into work: he'd had a heart attack the night before. When I went to visit him the next morning, his spirits were good despite being hooked up to more than a few tubes and machines. He had an idea for me.
"Angela, my dear, all I've got here are doctors telling me what I can't do, and time to think about what I can. My life is changing. I'd like to offer something to you."
Ironically, it was a debilitating emergency in his life that created an opportunity for mine. His offer was to have me move to Jamaica to live with him full-time, and to help him manage his affairs. I'd live in a big house on an estate, be waited on hand-and-foot, and enjoy a nearly perpetual summer overlooking the ocean. What was I leaving behind in exchange? Not a whole hell of a lot, besides a job I'd hate if I weren't so numb to it, and an empty-shell of a life I'd otherwise be leading. This was the future I'd seemingly hoped in vain would happen, so I accepted without hesitation.
-
Mr. Gordon's home- Hopewell Manor, as it is called- sits on the edge of a gated collection of mansions which terrace up the hillsides, overlooking the Caribbean coast. Everyone who owns property and lives there is white, and with few exceptions, English. Just on the other side of a high wall and maybe a half-mile of beach and forest lies the village of St. John's Burg. Everyone who lives in the village is black, and a good many of them make up the work staff at the various gated mansions nearby, including Hopewell Manor.
There is a daily street market there, selling fruits, vegetables, meats, and handmade goods to the working and poor of the village and beyond. Every other homeowner around us prefers to send their staff with a list, but I always loved to make the trip myself. When I exited the iron gate, where the estate wall meets the beach, I always felt free, as if I'd re-entered that which was real, and left behind the stodgy ascot-and-croquet world of what passed for a social life among my expat neighbors.
Largely numb to the effects, I nonetheless always noticed the stares, both leering and curious, as I exited the beach and walked through the center of the village to the market. I was always the lone Caucasian, showing my tanned skin in slight clothing and open sandals. I dressed for the weather to be sure, but a full view of a sexy white woman's midriff and upper thigh was not something the villagers were accustomed to seeing.
Sure, a few of these very people would serve me drinks at my poolside, or perhaps occasionally bring toiletries to me while wrapped in a towel, but work was different: the eyes were diverted, the head held lower. Here, I was in their world, on their time; they were damn sure going to look, and I didn't really care either way. The fish merchant, an intense man who surely was somewhere near my own age, always took extra interest in me.
He never said much; his communication was all in his eyes. I could never tell if he simply lusted after me, or resented me for the interloper that I was by shopping among his people; probably both. But on days when I didn't purchase fish, I missed the electric tension when I didn't see him. Sometimes I would walk by, slowly, hoping he would notice me. Even if it didn't always turn me on, I enjoyed knowing I aroused something in him every time.
In the meantime, my David, Mr. Gordon to everyone else, was forbidden by his doctors from sexual activity, among many other things. As the months passed, our relationship changed anyway. More than just an assistant and recipient of sugar daddy favors, I became his right hand associate in all matters he attended to, business and personal. What I lacked in education, I seemed to have in instinct and diligence, and as his health did not improve, I started taking more and more responsibilities.
Recently, late at night, my mind started to wander a bit. Sitting with my laptop under the verandah, letting the see breeze wash over me in the dead of night, I'd click off of a spreadsheet or email, and onto the internet. I started to let my imagination take over with an erotic story or two; or maybe it was as innocent as browsing facebook, noting the handsome men in my loosely connected network of acquaintances. But either way, between my mental workload taking its toll and my sexual identity was trying to reassert itself, I was looking for an escape without even knowing it.
I finished reading a story, one that told of a surprise encounter: the sexy young woman was blindfolded by her boyfriend on her birthday, only it turned out to not be her boyfriend at all. Deception, surprise, orgasms, and wonderful sexual expression- it made me smile, and offered me that temporary escape. I loved to let my imagination take a stroll in these stories, even if they didn't get me utterly aroused. But as I closed my laptop, I decided to take a stroll of my own.
At the base of the stairs that led down to the rolling lawn, I shed my clothing, walked the expanse of soft grass under my bare feet, and passed through the gate, marveling at the moon's reflection on the gentle waters of the sea as I emerged onto the beach. This never got old, it always felt something close to spiritual to me.
-
"Gained a few pounds, haven't you, love?" was the innocuous question David posed to me maybe eight months prior.
It was true, too: without the rigors of nearly daily dancing and entertaining, not to mention a recreational cocaine habit, my tight body had loosened just a bit. Absent the comment, I was honestly happy about it. The extra pounds went to my ass and my thighs, and I saw nothing wrong with little more curve in my sway. There was nobody here to impress, anyway, and I felt healthier. But, getting that critique from David cast it in a very different light, never mind the fact that we weren't even sexually involved anymore.
Defiance won over in the end, and after hours of self-examination in the mirror, I learned to accept my new body all over again, knowing I was damn sexy still. My nude walks were simply a self-affirmation, aside from the sweet sensation of warm wind across every inch of my skin.
-
I never walked before midnight, and at that hour, I was virtually assured privacy. The residents in my area rarely visited the beach at all, and those who were still awake were entertaining inside or on their verandahs. The staff had all gone back to the village by then, and those few staffers who were given quarters were making use of them. It was always just me, the moon, and the waves. But not on that night.
I heard the sounds of their sex just before I cleared an outcropping of rocks, exposing a young black couple in their mid-fuck throes. As I briefly locked eyes with this man, gripping his lover by both ass cheeks, directing her gyrating hips with his cock fully buried within, I saw a fire burning deep inside, conveyed in the deep thrusting each time she lowered herself into his lap. I still have no words for the feeling that was conveyed, but it lit my arousal like a thick fuse on a cherry bomb.
I broke our gaze and turned to walk back in the direction I came from, not even trying to shake the image that was seared into my brain. I embraced it, I savored it, and as strolled along the waterline, I reached a hand between my legs, savoring the long-absent wetness that only increased with the friction of my legs in movement. I passed my gate without realizing it, walking beyond the estates, letting the remnants of the waves wash over my toes as I imagined the myself, for the first time in ages, getting fucked.
I heard their voices before I saw them, and by that time, I was less than fifty feet from them. They were wearing almost nothing- swimsuits, perhaps, and dragging large nets ashore. I could only make out their dark silhouettes against the soft lunar light, speaking in the native patois, which even after all this time, I was lucky to decipher a third of. I knew they were deliberating the proper reaction to the nude white woman who suddenly happened upon their stretch of beach, but beyond that, I was at a loss.
As I got closer to them, the angles of their bodies became apparent. They froze and went silent, staring at me. I stared back at them, gazing at the smooth sable-toned skin shining at the edges from the moonlight, undulating with the contours of their muscles. I walked right up to them, only to have them each take a step back. Their eyes gave away their surprise. One finally spoke.
"Are you okay, woman?"
"I'm fine," I said. "Just taking a walk."
"Where are your clothes?" he asked, the hint of a smile coming over his face.
"They're at my house," I said. "I like to walk without them, especially on nights like this."
"She comes to our market," the other added, allowing his eyes to scan all the way down to my feet, then back up. When I met his gaze, I knew him immediately. The fish merchant!
"So you're that woman," the other said, nodding his head.
"I am that woman," I said.
"She comes scantily-clad," the fish merchant continued. "Gives us all a good show. Not this good, but quite good. I wondered what was left to the imagination. Now I know."
They shared a chuckle, but his eyes were hungry. His hands started to reach toward me, then halted. The other man, shorter but stockier, took a step to the side of me, openly gawking at my ass. While I bathed in their attention, my mind kept replying the scene that I stumbled on down the beach.
The girl, a mess of thick black hair and chocolate skin moaning while she gyrated in the lap, and at the mercy, of a hungry grunting man. The memory resets as he sets his sights on me and I turn away. I got wetter by the moment, and the two men stepped closer to me. Did they sense my arousal? In a moment of alarm, I awkwardly bid them goodnight, stepped away, and continued walking.
"Where are you going?" the merchant asked.
"Nowhere, just walking," I said over my shoulder.
"You will get to St. John's Burg soon, woman. You will be seen there," the other man said.
"So what? I just got seen by you too," I answered, and walked on.
The heat between my legs only increased, begging to be quenched. Each step sent a tingle of pleasure through me. I thought of the men, so dark and beautiful, all alone on the deserted beach. What if I'd fucked them both right then? Who would know? I didn't even know their names, and that made it even hotter. How often would I have the chance to satisfy this new found desire, especially given how unattracted I was to what passed for eligible bachelors among the stodgy club-goers in my neighborhood. I wanted to feel that hard muscle against my skin, and to be taken by somebody that dirtied their hands a little. I wanted them inside of me.
Unable to resist my imagination any longer, I walked to the edge of the beach, sat against a palm tree in the scrub grass, and sunk a finger into my soaked pussy, lost in the fantasy of me and the two men. I felt so alive, savoring the return of my sexual being, caressing my breast with one hand, and sinking two, then three, fingers into my slit. I buzzed all over as I made love to myself, digging my toes into the cool earth and arching my back off the tree trunk with every wave of pleasure. For every touch that I offered myself, both outside and in, my body craved more.
The warm summer breeze poured across my naked body like another set of gentle hands, muffling my moans and carrying them into the wild forest behind me as it held me exposed to the moonlit sea. My clit was swollen and stimulated like never before, making me shudder as the wind blew across it. Drifting in and out of orgasm, soaked with my own juices and drunk on my own arousal, I barely noticed as the two men came into view on my right, then started toward me.
"You've never seen a naked woman before?" I asked, smearing my crotch and inner thighs with my wetness. "Other than a few minutes ago, that is."
"Aren't you scared you'll be seen, woman? I bet there's a man that is wondering where you are right now," the merchant said.
"If I was scared I wouldn't be here, and nobody's looking for me," I said. "Is anyone looking for you?"
"We fish at night, but our wives will wonder soon enough," he answered, exchanging a glance with the other man.
I smeared my crotch and inner thighs with my wetness, looking up at them.
"But I can spare a few minutes, as can Delroy here...if you would like company."
He sat down, burning a hole into my skin with his eyes, tilting his head to look between my parted legs, watching my bare pussy get penetrated by my fingers. The other man, Delroy, sat down on the other side of me and leaned in.
It was all talk until that moment. These two men were breathing heavier, lusting, and every second that I sat still, arms across my body and legs spread, signaling my willingness to play, the more intense it became. My arousal had strapped me into a runaway train from a chance encounter, and part of me knew how reckless this was. Was it really what I wanted? So slutty, but what the hell, who was going to find out? Not their wives, unless they came looking for them, and David and I slept in different rooms anyway. Nobody was around, and even if I could see the roofs from the village to the west, there was no sound or movement aside from the three of us.
In Jamaica, I was alone, even with all my comforts, and as the merchant reached his big, coarse hand over to cup my breast, I knew I was unable to pass this opportunity up; my body wanted it too badly. I felt my pussy tingle at the prospect of what dangled before me. The warm summer wind sent a shiver through me as it whipped across my erect nipples. I looked at the beautiful, strong men to each side of me, fucking me in my mind and now, about to fuck me in reality too- at least if I had anything to say about it.
He squeezed my breast, sandwiching my nipple between two fingers, and wrapped his other arm behind my back. He whispered how beautiful I was, and how soft and supple my body was; I didn't even know his name. Delroy crawled up to me and brazenly reached a hand between my legs, inserting a finger inside. My pussy flooded with more juices and I spread my legs, opening myself to his touch, and suspending all decision-making in surrender to my desire.
The merchant stood up and removed his shorts, exposing a gorgeous ebony penis. Maybe half-erect and quite generous in size, it pointed toward me like a divining rod. I instinctively reached for it and he took a step closer before dropping to his knees. It had been so long since I felt a cock. I'd forgotten how much I loved the silky smooth skin of the shaft, and the spongy sensation that gave way to a delicious stiffness the more excited he got. I wrapped my hand around it gently, feeling the contours of the head and then the veins, stroking it up to the base then back down to the head, feeling it jump a little each time my fingertips grazed the sweet spot on the underside.
Delroy's hands pinched my clit and rolled my labia between his fingers, sending a shiver radiating through my body. His mouth took my left breast and swirled his tongue across my nipple.
"You suck this," the merchant said, gruffly.
Without hesitation, I leaned over and took him into my mouth, wrapping my lips around his swollen head and slathering all sides of it with his tongue. He let out a low, throaty groan and planted a hand on the back of my head, guiding me further down on his shaft. Remembering old techniques, I relaxed my throat, realizing that he had every intention of making me deep throat him. The faint tang of seawater mixed with the familiar saltiness of male skin, making me ever thirstier as I slurped on his thick, erect shaft.
The fingers in my pussy fucked me harder- sometimes one, sometimes three. I moaned uncontrollably, threatening to make me gag on the big dick lodged halfway into my throat. I pushed his hand away, only to feel it replaced by his mouth in addition to his fingers. I gagged, but the hand on my head was unrelenting.
He grunted something in patois that got a laugh from Delroy, then told me, "Keep sucking it, sexy white woman. Don't stop!"
Delroy's supple lips pressed tight around my clit and he sucked hard, then flicked his tongue across it, driving me quickly over the edge. I couldn't breathe, both from the orgasm and from the throat-fucking that the merchant was forcing on me. Finally my hands pushed me free and I came up for air, gasping in mid-orgasm, with the mouth between my legs refusing to give way. I pushed against his head, but he gripped my ass tightly from behind, holding me in place as my upper body thrashed, finally coming to rest flat on my back.
The two men chattered in their dialect, then Delroy eased me up and onto my hands and knees, right in front of the same big cock that I just dislodged from my mouth a moment before. Behind me, I felt the hot sensation of Delroy's cock, probing between my legs before wiggling into my opening and pushing forward, taking my breath away all over again. He slid in easily, but the sensation of being stretched from the inside, penetrated for the first time in a year and a half, was overwhelming. I gasped, both fearing and delighting in the sudden mass invading me from behind. He backed out, then thrust all the way in again, stretching me anew with each stroke.
I licked and stroked the merchant's cock, unable to even contemplate the same rough face-fuck as before while I got it doggy-style. I savored all of the heat that surrounded me, breaking me into a sweat: the hot dick in my hands, the body slapping into my ass from behind while he fucked me, the inner bonfire of my arousal, and the warm summer air all around us. This is what was meant by hot sex!
I looked up at the merchant, locking his eyes with mine, the same as I'd done all those times at the market, only now I held the gaze. I wanted to taste his lips and feel the weathered lines on his rugged face. I raised up on my knees and our faces met, tongues slipping past each other into open mouths, slurping loudly in the quiet night.
Delroy caught up behind me, reinserting himself into me and vigorously thrusting, filling the air with the clap of my ample ass against his groin, drowning out our wet kiss. He gripped my hips at each side, occasionally letting go of one side to slap my cheek, leaving a delicious burn after each impact.
"I love this juicy ass, mon! 'Tis perfection!" Delroy exalted to his friend, who didn't bother to break the deep soul kiss that we shared.
I reached between my legs to massage my clit and feel the shaft saw in and out of my slit, allowing the merchant's hands to explore all over me. I wanted more of him. I wanted to feel his big cock inside me, stretching me further than I already was. I wanted him to fuck me. I told him so as I pressed him backward and onto his back.
The merchant's body was rock hard, no doubt built upon years of daily labor, and without a cent of help from Gold's Gym or a personal trainer.
"Do you want to fuck me?" I cooed into his ear, to which he silently nodded, caressing my back.
My tits hung down, grazing my nipples across his chest as I reached down between us, gripping his cock and positioning my hips up to accept him.
"So all those times you fucked me with your eyes," I said, staring into them for emphasis, "now you finally get to do it with your cock."
Just as I felt the massive head start to press between my folds, he lifted me back up and set me down on his chest, sandwiching my tits against him and putting us face to face again.
"Not yet, woman" he said in that lilting accent that I always found so pleasant.
And no sooner than he said that, I felt Delroy's cock re-enter me, and he resumed the ass-smack as he pounded me from on top. The merchant's cock pressed into my lower belly, held between us by the pressure of Delroy's thrusting. I loved the hard fucking I was getting, but savored the gentle throb of the monster trapped between us as we kissed and groped each other.
With a quick "my turn," Delroy pulled out, and again I felt the merchant's shaft pressing into my mound, this time splitting my lips wide as he slipped into my pussy. My hips ached for him, and my hands pressed into his chest, lowering myself down. I gasped, savoring the sensation of my pussy getting stretched in every direction.
I imagined my pink lips stretched tight as his black stick invaded me, and felt another wave of fluid release around his cock at the thought. We both moaned at the tight sensation of the other, and I lifted up before sinking back down again. As my thighs lowered all the way down to his body, I felt a sharp pain inside, yelped, and popped back up, letting his dong slip out and rest against his body again.
"Hit the bottom, yeah woman?" he asked.
Without responding, I reinserted him and again lowered myself onto him, this time arching my back and cocking my hips back, allowing me to fuck him without it hitting my cervix. Through more than a little pain, but far overshadowed by an avalanche of pent-up passion, I worked his big dick, clapping my ass against the top of his legs as I thrust down on him, meeting his hips jerking upward. It was a desperate fuck, the kind that only the virile yet sex-deprived man can offer. His hands squeezed my ass, pressing me to bury his cock deep into my pussy over and over. I moved my hips in a circle as he thrust upward, letting him hit every nerve-ending deep within.
He grazed the back of my pussy, triggering another climax. I screamed out, then lost my breath, lifting off of his cock and writhing against his body, my hand pressed against my buzzing pussy and clit. His hand replaced mine, and was shortly replaced by Delroy's cock, again knocking on the door and pushing his way in. He fucked me vigorously, almost violently, gripping me tightly at the hips and ramming ever faster, cursing in ecstasy. I moaned out, digging my fingers into the merchant's shoulder's, holding on for dear life.
"This ass is delicious, woman. I want it!" he hollered, pulling out of my pussy then pushing past my tiny anal opening, slipping through on the slick lubrication that covered his cock.
I screamed, unable to speak through the flash of pain that racked my body and mind. He pulled out, then pushed further in. The burning was intense and I cocked my hips upward for a better angle, drooling on the merchant's dark chest as Delroy ass-fucked me, his hands steadying me at the waist as he aimed his dick down and in. I felt so slutty, finding such dirty, twisted pleasure in this pain; so pleased to be so exposed, so vulnerable. I was the stranger getting fucked, playing with my clit, rubbing on my swollen and soaked pussy, begging for him to keep fucking me in my ass.
The man underneath me squeezed my nipples, and I stroked his cock with my free hand as I felt Delroy's hold on my waist slip back to my hips and tighten again. His groans turned to low grunts, and just as he told me he was going to cum, he thrust all the way in, and pumped his semen deep into my belly. I could feel him twitching, holding himself within me until he had given me all he had. With a sigh, he backed away, leaving a burning, reamed ass full of cum, exposed to the sea breeze.
The merchant man underneath turned me onto my back, slipped his cock inside, and began to fuck me in long slow strokes. My pussy tightening around his thick shaft was enhanced by the sensation of Delroy's cum beginning to leak out of my ass. He lifted my legs up and over my shoulders, and fucked me hard, making me cry out and pressing my body into the soft grass with every thrust. I moved my hips, desperate to take him deeper, oblivious to the cramping I'd surely feel the next morning from having my womb tapped over and over by the deep-dicking I was receiving. The obscene slurps of excess fluid and trapped air added to the thick aroma of sex that lingered between us despite the breeze, and coaxed another orgasm to the surface.
I began to spasm, breathless, and tried to free my sensitive pussy from the cock that was screwing it into the fertile island soil, but to no avail. The squishing sound got louder as he pumped me harder, and I moaned loudly as soon as I caught my breath. His grunts deepened and his strokes shortened; I reached back to grip his ass, knowing he wouldn't hold out much longer. With a low groan, he let my legs down to either side of him, then picked me up, setting me upright in his lap.
We kissed deeply while I gyrated my hips atop him, holding his shaft inside and fucking him with the tight walls of my pussy, just like I'd seen in that chance moment of discovery down the beach. His breath halted and his groin tightened, then he gripped my ass as his dick throbbed, fully buried inside me. He moaned as his cock pulsed and released a fountain of hot cum, splashing, then pouring, deep into my pussy . I wrapped my legs tightly around him and moved my hips, coaxing more of his seed out with each pulse, feeling his muscles tense, then relax, kissing his lips, his cheeks, his neck. I held myself on his lap for a long time, letting his thick softening penis remain inside me.
Coming down from the high, resting against the merchant's chest, I noticed an orange glow, and saw Delroy leaning against a nearby palm, smoking a joint.
"I hope you enjoy, woman," he said with sleep-like relaxation.
Just when I was about to test my wobbly knees and lift off of the merchant's lap, I saw a black couple walk past us on the beach. The man looked at me, and in an instant, I knew those eyes, and he knew mine. We shared a smile as he turned around and continued toward the village with his partner.
When I stood up, I felt thin streams of cum seep from both holes, joining in a single rivulet down my left thigh. We shared the joint until we smoked it down to the roach, relaxing under the glow of the Caribbean moon. The warm breeze washed across our faces as we sat facing the ocean, savoring the silent afterglow of our dirty, sexy chance encounter.
Eager to cleanse myself, I ran into the ocean, feeling the gentle waves splash against me as I rushed into deeper water. The merchant followed me in, playfully dunking me a couple of times as I tried to elude him. I tread water for a few moments, enjoying the warm ocean waters in silence before swimming ashore. Wading back onto the beach, I noticed that both men were gone. The beach was desolate as far as I could see in either direction. Until I felt between my legs, I wondered for a moment if I'd imagined the whole thing.
Slipping back inside the gate, re-entering the world of trust-funds, generational wealth, and detachment, I smiled, knowing it was a good walk out in the real world. The next day there would be staff personnel issues, a stack of paperwork, management of David's medicine, and whatever else cropped up. I'd needed that walk and everything that happened along the way. With the summer just getting started, I also knew there might be more just like it to come.
|
“Kids come on! Breakfast time!” Beth called out from the bottom of the stairs. The kids had been super chilled in the last few weeks, which she put down their little chat with Rio after her meltdown. Either way, she was grateful. The less she had to fuss with them, the less energy she had to waste.
The kids came rushing down minutes later in various states of dress and followed Beth into the kitchen, plopping themselves down at the island.
“Right, what do we want to eat?” Beth asked, planting her hands on her hips.
“Pancakes mama!” Emma shot her arms up in the air to show how much she wanted them.
She smiled, “We don’t have time to make them bubba, maybe you can ask your dad to make some when he picks you up later.” Beth pushed the fact the Dean probably didn’t know how to make most food substances to the back of her mind. She wasn’t about to stomp on her daughter’s mood, and she didn’t have time before school.
Emma sagged against the counter top in disappointment, “Okay mama.”
“What about foot loops?” Kenny asked.
“To much sugar before school. What about cheerios?” They all stared at her unimpressed. Beth sighed, and turned towards the pantry. She pulled out the box of cereal and stuck out for all of them to see. “It’s honey nut. You guys like that, don’t you?”
They mumbled a varied answer that equated to a yes and Beth filled their bowls.
Rio came sauntering in then, a cup of coffee in hand. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a plain white shirt - and he never wore white all that often, Beth thought, drinking in the sight of him. He looked good, unfairly good.
“Morning everyone.”
“Morning,” they all called out, voices muffled by mouths full of cereal.
He walked over to Beth who had stopped organising their lunches to gawk at him and kissed her on the cheek. “Hey gorgeous.”
“You were up early.” She turned back around to place each container into a separate lunch bag. She thought back to when she’d heard him get out of bed a few hours before. She’d rolled over to look at the alarm clock. It had read four-thirty.
He took one last sip from his mug before placing it down on the counter next to them. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep.”
Beth huffed, “That makes two of us.”
“You too?”
“Yeah. I don’t get it. You, I get. You’ve changed a few things since being at the hospital.”
“Nah sweetheart, all I’m doing is drinking extra protein shakes and popping a few pills each morning, that’s it.” His tone was light, but she didn’t see it that way.
High blood pressure was a thing he’d have to look out for now that he only had one kidney. So he started taking medication for it. The doctors had suggested things like exercise and diet changes too.
Rio had taken it all on board with little problems. Beth on the other hand, she’d worried about it for the first weeks he was back home.
Beth ran her hands through her hair. “I don’t know, maybe it’s the stress catching up to me. I feel kinda, I don’t know, hazy.”
Rio rubbed his hand over her shoulder, “You’ve got to relax.”
“I know.”
After the kids had finished eating, they lined up next to the kitchen counter so Beth could hand them their lunches. Each kid smiled and mumbled a thank you, then skipped across the room to get their bags.
Beth had just handed Jane her lunch when she felt a burst of pain crashing in her belly. She inhaled sharply, her hand flying to the material of her dress, bunching it between her fingers and gripping down hard.
“What’s wrong mama?” Jane asked.
“Nothing baby, I’ve just got some stomach cramps,” she quickly thought up. Jane kept looking at her with concern. Beth shook her head.“It’s okay Janie. Can you go get your bag please? We’re gonna be late.”
She began walking off, the first few steps her head still twisted back at her mother, before she’d completely disappeared down the hallway and up the stairs.
Rio came up behind her and gently eased the fabric from her fingers, seeing her knuckles turn white.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked, mirroring her daughter’s concern.
“Yes. I think so.”
He turned her around and raised a knowing eyebrow, “Stomach cramps?”
She took a deep breath, hoping it would help, but sort of knowing it wouldn’t. “Yeah.”
He understood what she meant. Or at least, she thought he did.
“You gonna be okay to drive them?”
“Of course.” She responded airily.
Beth figured she’d be fine. After dropping the kids off, all she had to do was pick up a few things at the drugstore, and then she could stay on the sofa all day, or in bed if she liked.
Rio strolled cooly through restaurant doors and scanned for the table he’d book. He locked his eyes on the faces he saw waiting and made his way over. He pulled out a chair and sat down, looking at the two pairs of eyes staring back at him - one annoyed, one tired - then signaled to a waiter. He ordered tea, like always, smiling with that signature grin, like always. A minute or so went by. Their eyes stayed fixed on him.
“You are late.” Ruby stated.
“And?”
“We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes.”
“Aight, I’m sorry,” he laughed softly, licked his lips.
“You’re in a good mood,” she said crossing her arms, suspicious of his smile.
“What, I can’t be happy?”
“You’re just never this, uh -” Ruby snapped her fingers in Annie’s direction, struggling to find the right word.
“Not intimidating.” Annie supplied. Not exactly what she meant, but it would do.
They may have gotten there a little earlier than what they were supposed to, but even so twenty minutes did feel a lot longer than what it was meant to - especially when it came to Rio. Even though they knew him better know, and weren’t that scared anymore, they still weren’t taking chances. Now they were waiting - for Beth, for an explanation, anything
Rio shook his head. “So, how are you ladies doing?”
“Now you’re being overly friendly. What gives?” Her eyebrows nearly shot into her hairline.
“Annie, I’m only scary when I need to get shit done.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Rio leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “I’m just trying to have a conversation.”
“Kinda unlike you.” Ruby commented under her breath. Rio heard anyways, and raised her an eyebrow.
“How’s Sarah?”
“Sarah, uh,” she hesitated, “She’s doing a lot better. Thanks.”
“Good.” He nodded, then turned to Annie, “See, that’s how it goes. I say something, then you say something back, a conversation .”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
“And how’s your baby daddy doing? That still going on or you gonna break it off?”
Annie’s eyes flickered with something that could have resembled anger, but wasn’t quite there yet. “How do you know about that?!”
“Hey, relax,” he said, seeing her frustration bubble, “Beth likes to tell me things.”
She sunk into her seat and sighed, “Speaking of, is she gonna be late too? Why didn’t she come with you?”
“She’s not coming.”
“Then why are we here?” Ruby asked.
Rio smiled brightly, shaking his head. These girls were so impatient. He’d asked them a few days ago if they could meet up for lunch, with the address of a fancy-but-not-too-fancy restaurant. They both agreed, thinking he was asking on Beth’s behalf.
“So I can’t just have lunch with you guys?”
“No,” Annie pursed her lips, “You always have an ulterior motive.”
He opened his mouth but was stopped when the waiter came by with his order, and refilled the girls mugs that had already been there, then she was gone as quickly as she came.
“Alright. Alright, you got me.”
Rio brought his hand to his pant pocket and pulled out a small black box. He carefully slid it across the wooden table’s surface and watched their eyes widen, jaws drop. The shocked silence stretched for longer than what he expected but sat there and waited anyways, soaking up their priceless expressions.
Annie quickly steeled herself, and cocked her head. “You know, I’m flattered, but I just don’t feel that way about you.”
Ruby’s eyes narrowed at her, “ Funny .”
“I thought it was.” She looked at Rio, who clearly found it funny too, before going back to her concerned friend.
Ruby swallowed thickly, and looked back at Rio. “Is this- are you serious?”
“One hundred percent.”
She had to close the floodgates on all the thoughts that came gushing in. oh boy, did this guy know what he was doing? Dean had hurt her so badly already and she was just getting over him being in the hospital and all this was sort of overwhelming and -
“Is this a good idea?” Annie asked, pulling Ruby from her internal thoughts. Sure, her sister deserved to be happy, but she had her own reservations about the idea of Rio getting this serious. “I mean, Beth’s already been trapped by mar -”
Rio stopped her. “She was trapped because car man is a dick.”
Ruby’s expression didn’t soften. “You know what this means right?”
He curled his lips, sucking in a deep breath. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t sure.”
“ Huh. Okay.” Annie was thinking out loud.
“That surprise you?” He leaned back in his chair, running his hands over his stubble.
“Kinda, you don’t look like the marrying type” She admitted.
Ruby straightened, and dared to reach out and pick up the box. She looked to Rio for permission and he nodded. She opened it slowly, laying her eyes on the ring.
A thin silver band and a round cut diamond, partnered with two smaller sapphires perched on each side of it.
It was gorgeous .
“Wow.”
He smiled at that, a little too smugly.
“Why are you showing us this?” Annie looked unconvinced.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s beautiful, but, what do you want from us?” Ruby passed the box to Annie so she could see.
“Your blessing.”
There was a pause.
“You…want our blessing?” Annie’s face scrunched.
Rio understood their confusion (after all, he was a man that simply took what he wanted, never asking if it was okay) though he still couldn’t help feeling amused by their reactions. “Look, you guys are her family, you mean the world to her. I’m trying to do this the right way, her father ain’t around and I sure as hell ain’t going to her mother.”
Annie huffed out a laugh. “Okay, true, ma’s a sticky person.”
Both of them looked at him then, trying to gauge his intentions. He was a bad guy, or used to be a bad - whatever. He wasn’t that anymore, he was good to Beth, he was good for Beth. Life had been turned upside down since Rio had entered their lives and gotten tangled up with Beth, but in all honesty, it was better, more exciting than the cookiecutter direction they were all heading in.
“So?” He asked with baited breath,
Annie slid the ring back to him. “Hmm.”
“You do make her happy.” Ruby reasoned.
“Okay here’s the deal,” Annie said, putting on her best ‘don’t fuck with me’ voice, “You have my blessing, but , I swear to god if you hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
Rio laughed. Somehow, he didn’t doubt that. The Marks family had fire in their veins. He nodded, a silent thank you, then looked to Ruby.
“I’ve had my doubts, given previous… incidents. If you can promise me you’re not gonna drag her any deeper into whatever she’s already involved in, then yes, you have my permission. As long as you keep her smiling, I can’t really ask for more.”
Then there was another pause.
“I appreciate girls, really.” Rio said honestly.
They nodded back.
“We really here for lunch or was this it?” Annie asked.
“Nah, we’re here for lunch too. Bill’s on me. Go as wild as you want.”
She looked at the menu in front of her with glee. Oh he was going to regret telling her that…
They all left the restaurant in a good mood, Rio even more so than before. He had permission to make Beth his wife - and well, he wasn’t expecting Annie and Ruby to sway so easily.
He was almost positive nothing could trump the fluttering in is belly, the pure excitement he hadn’t felt in god knows how long. He hadn’t yet decided when he was going to do it, but it was going to be soon. Definitely.
But oh the joy was joy was brought to a halt when he pulled up to the warehouse.
A black unlicensed car was parked in front of it’s doors. He’d seen it before, and oh he’d seen the man standing there with his legs resting against the side of the bonet before. Suddenly all he could feel was annoyance simmering beneath the surface.
Rio parked next to him and got out, not even bothering with pleasantries.
“Turner.” Clipped and short.
He smiled, the upturn of his lips only vexing Rio more.
“Mr Alvarez. How are you.”
Rio pocketed his car keys and moved to mirror agent Turner, leaning against the side of his cadillac. “As well as can be expected.”
He pointed at Rio’s chest, “You all healed up?”
“All just scar tissue now.”
He nodded in response.
There was a moment of silence. Rio doesn’t know why he let it happen, he had better things to than play around with the feds.
He had to say, Turner had been relatively quiet since his arrest, and he had to give him that. It meant he could have tied up the last few batches money that needed to be washed without any chaos. Sure Beth helped, but that was only two million. The rest he’d fed through the hotel chain, and a few other ventures. He was still meaning to take Beth to one of the bars he owned downtown.
Rio knew that getting his father shot wasn’t going to go without any suspicion, or raised heads, but he wasn’t exactly stressing about it. It wasn’t going to be a problem.
“So,” Turner finally said, “I think it’s time you start telling me the truth, don’t you think?”
Rio huffed out a laugh, “And this whole time I wasn’t?”
“Come on. Beth isn’t here, it’s not like you have to lie now.”
“You think I’m lying to her?”
“Aren’t you?” Rio tsked, “Why don’t you just tell me what you want?” His vexation was slowly turning into anger.
“What are doing with her? I mean, you two don’t exactly-”
“What are you doing with a boyfriend while your family’s sitting pretty back in Baltimore?”
He shot back quickly with a mean streak in his voice, and didn’t regret it. You think you’re the only guy keeping tabs on people? He wanted to say, but decided against it. Turner paled, his mouth opening and closing again in disbelief. There were no words, no sounds, not for a good minute. Ha. That managed to keep him quiet. You wanna play this game? Fine, Rio thought.
“How do you know -”
“I suggest you stay away from Beth. My personal life ain’t none of your business, just tell me what you’re here for.”
He got the message. Turner cleared his throat and improved his stance.
“Mr Alvarez, you cannot for one minute tell me that you didn’t know the other man that you shot- oh sorry, that was shot, was your father. You have the same last name.”
Rio rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and sighed in frustration. “So what if I did? What’s your point? Unless you’re here to charge me with something, I have work to do.”
Turner kicked off the side of his car, “All I’m saying is, there’s going to be a little more digging before the investigation is put to bed. And I know it’s none of my business, but Beth doesn’t belong in your world. I need you think about that.”
Rio ticked his jaw, and glared at him impassively. “You came all this way to tell me that?”
“Just think about it,” he said, moving to the driver’s side of his car, “Goodbye Mr Alvarez.”
The house was quiet when Rio got back home. The kids were with Dean, and sure that would make it even more peaceful, but the house felt empty.
Beth’s car was in the driveway, her phone on the kitchen counter, so she was home - anyway, he didn’t think anything of it. He remembered with a smile that he still had the ring box in his back pocket and pulled it out, tossing it between his palms. The moment he’d made his mind up, he’d gone to his mother, told her what he was going to do. Maria knew, whenever he’d gone to her about anything , he was serious. Whether that was business or personal.
Anyways, he had better put it away before Beth found him and ruined the surprise.
He travelled the length of the hallway to the bedroom and quietly slipped the box into a sock draw. Rio knew Beth was well and truly past trying to sort out his clothes, because apparently his lack of organization was enough to drive her insane.
He closed the draw, and turned on his heel to leave and search the rest of the house for her when he heard a soft thud coming from the bathroom. He turned slowly, only noting now that it was closed.
The noise came again.
Coming closer and knocking softly on the door, Rio asked, “Beth?”
There was no answer. “Beth I know you’re in here. I just wanna check if you’re okay.”
He heard the same noise, then a whine, and after a moment, “Rio, I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”
He could immediately tell that she’d been crying - or was still crying. You could hear it in the way her voice had cracked on the last few words. Rio dropped his head against the door and sighed, considering her response. “Doesn’t sound like you are.”
“Rio, please.”
“Nah, the house is all quiet and you’re hiding away in the bathroom. You’re giving me a fright here.” He tested the door handle, tugging on it gently to see if it was locked - he wasn’t leaving her like that, “Can I come in?”
She went silent again, and well, that was enough of an answer for him. He opened the door slightly, and when there were no protests, he opened it all the way.
Beth was sitting on the floor, her back against the bathtub, one hand curled around its edge, the other clutching at the hem of her dress. She was breathing hard, almost panting, and the first thing Rio locked his eyes on were her fingers. They were patterned with blood.
“What happened?” He crouched down next to her faster than he thought he could move and smoothed the hair that was plastered to her skin from sweat out of her face. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, “Jesus, you’re burning up.”
Her legs twisted uncomfortably beneath her as she tried to sit up, and the action allowed her dress to ride all the way up her leg. He saw it then - the thick streak of red coating the inside of both thighs, the puddle of blood seeping out underneath her.
Beth let out a sob. “There’s so much. It won’t stop.”
“Okay, it’s okay, just breathe,” his fingers left her face and travelled down her torso, “Does it hurt?”
She winced, feeling his hand press down on her belly, “Uh huh.”
He searched her tear stained eyes. How could she have spiraled so fast?
Just this morning she was fine, she was-
How could this have -
Rio paused the rapid flooding of thoughts for a moment and took a deep breath breath.
“What’s happening Elizabeth, why are you bleeding so bad?”
“I - I think I’m having a miscarriage.”
|
Ranma was sweating a bit after a sparring session with Hibari. He wondered why every time he had an opening to strike the blonde he could only go in for a light poke or tap. Nearly two weeks into his stay with the Oozora's and Ranma still grappled with feelings of uncertainty and emotional confusion. Consciously he saw Hibari as a guy, but his subconscious refused to accept it. Had to be the curse.
The blonde in question meanwhile was panting heavily (the motion drawing Ranma's eyes, and confirming for the 100th time the lack of a bust), but beaming that smile which made Ranma further question his own sexuality.
"I actually landed a few hits today," Hibari managed between breaths, "And I think you have to admit my strength isn't really too lacking."
"Fine," Ranma replied, "You're decently strong. Surprising since you're a twig... Still too soft on defense though."
Hibari reply by sticking out her tongue.
Suddenly the door to the dojo slid open and Suzume burst in, running around them shouting too quickly for either teen to make out.
"We're gonna go skating! Skating! Yay!" they finally parsed out after the fourth or fifth lap.
"Skating?" Ranma gulped.
"Don't tell me that the amazing Saotome Ranma can't skate?" Hibari giggled.
"Never bothered to learn, pops said it was girly."
"Well, now I can teach you something," Hibari winked, once more cracking at Ranma's resolve.
***
Ranma grumbled and paid for his ticket. A few minutes later he was lacing up, still grumbling. Hibari was waiting impatiently as the pig-tailed boy walked awkwardly to the rink, placed a foot on the ice and... slipped onto his back
"Oh, very graceful," Hibari laughed.
"Yeah yeah, laugh it up," Ranma replied as he struggled back to his feet, only to fall again a few moments later.
"Come on, take my arm, I'll help you."
"I'm not gonna hold on all undignified, it's not manly," Ranma protested.
Three more falls, and a pair of kids laughing at him, proved too much for Ranma. He fumed and pulled off the skates, wandering towards a washroom.
"Where's he going?" Tsubame asked as she skated up to Hibari.
"When you gotta go, you gotta go," Hibari replied with a shrug.
A few moments later a short busty redhead emerged from the men's room. As Ranma wandered onto the ice and put his skates on again he found he couldn't even get upright now.
"Oh, right," he muttered, "they're the wrong size now."
Hibari just giggled while he took them back off. Sighing he wandered back to the skate rental desk. The slightly acne afflicted lad behind the counter's attention was captured instantly.
"Excuse me, mister, I think I go the wrong size of skates," the little redhead said adorably, handing over the skates.
"Oh yeah," the guy said nervously. "These have gotta be way too big. Wrong style too. I'll give you a discount for the confusion miss. If you'd like we've got a sizing scale over there, just put your foot in and tell me the number."
Ranma did as instructed. "It says 22 mister."
Almost instantly the man appeared with a tiny pair of pink and white skates.
"Here you go miss," he smiled.
"Er, ya got any a little less... pink?" Ranma replied, annoyed out of his cutesy act.
"You don't-You don't like pink?" the guy asked with a terrified tone. He didn't want to upset a cute girl. "Um... We've only got women's 22s. Or boy's."
"I'll go for the boy's, assuming they ain't pink."
In a few seconds he had a nice pair of red and black skates in his hands, with a big smile. The skates were on his feet quickly, and he was on the ice again. A few seconds later and his rear was on the ice again too.
"Ow," he grumbled. "Still, not as far to fall, and a fair bit more padding."
"You willing to accept some help now?" Hibari asked, skating up beside the redhead, an arm out.
"Yeah, alright," Ranma grumbled. "Only until I get this figured out. Can't be too hard to manage."
While he took Hibari's hand he proved quite reluctant to stand up, instead crouching awkwardly.
"What happened to all they manly pride?" Hibari asked with an eye roll.
"You seen this chest?" Ranma asked, a finger pointing in a rather undignified manner (that resulted in several male skaters nearby losing their footing as they made sure to see what they could). "I ain't exactly a man right now. A girl bein' clumsy on the ice looks a lot less silly than a guy."
"Oh, really?" the blonde asked.
"Like you'd know either way," Ranma mumbled.
The two ended up skating in silence for a bit. After about a minute Hibari grumbled and yanked Ranma into a more upright position, which elicited some complaints, but a few panicked yelps interrupted Ranma's ability to argue. He was just starting to get confident enough to let go of his skating partner when a handsome brown-haired teen slid up towards the pair.
"What a beautiful sight," the man with a figure skater's elegance smiled. "You two lovely ladies are a very pleasant surprise. Unfortunately though, I must ask you to move off the ice for a bit. A matter of safety you see, my partner and I need to do some rather intensive training."
He then leaned in a little too close to the pair of them. "I'll be happy to spend some time with you two later though."
"Miiiikaaadoooo!" an annoyingly cutesy girl shouted. "Do your girl chasing later. I want to get the Assault of 100 Foes done now!"
"Yes Asuza," Mikado replied. "You two girls stay safe."
Hibari and Ranma were confused at the rather strange name for a skating move, until they looked around to see a swarm of men in hockey player gear, all moving forward aggressively.
"Only in Nerima," Hibari grumbled as they skated to one side (well, Hibari skated, Ranma was more towed).
"Huh?" Ranma asked.
"Probably combat skating or something weird like that," Hibari replied. "So many oddballs in this ward. I blame all the manga and anime studios. People want to show off. They'll do anything dumb to inspire the next big hit."
As the hockey players moved into position Ranma half remembered that someone had told him Nerima was known for anime and turnips... or was it radishes? Either way, martial artist versions of varying activities seemed a much better selling point to him. Everyone should have led with that.
The hockey players descended, as Mikado lifted Asuza into the air. The pair began to spin, Azusa kicked furiously, sending opponents flying every which way. Then the pair split up, Mikado slid into a particularly thick clump of hockey players, and lashed out with elbows and knees to knock the men from their feet in seconds. Azusa meanwhile swept a number of ankles with a number of low kicks, then took out her last opponent with a dangerous looking kick to the face, splitting his mask with her skating blade, though impressively stopping before she cut his face.
"9 seconds," one of the men lying on the rink sighed. "Truly they are the golden pair."
"Hmph," Azusa replied. "If Mikado concentrated, instead of showing off to those girls, we'd have been done faster."
"I can't help that I'm a showman," Mikado smiled as he skated toward Ranma and Hibari, a comb in his hair. "Did you ladies enjoy the show?"
"Yeah!" Ranma replied, ignoring his distaste for being called a lady. "That's way more fun than regular skating. Better moves than hockey too. I coulda probably finished 'em all in 5 seconds myself though."
"Spirited little thing, aren't you?" Mikado laughed. "And you, my lovely blonde angel?"
"Fighting's not really my top interest," the yakuza heir replied, before a mischievous smirk grew on her lips. "You're fairly cute though, so that made it better."
Sure, Hibari knew the guy was a slime, but watching Ranma get flustered about Hibari flirting, and then get flustered over the fact he got flustered, was too funny to miss.
Mikado Sanzenin smiled seductively. "Always glad to please a cute girl like you. Perhaps I can make your day even better."
With that he placed a hand seductively on Hibari's chin, and moved his face so that their lips were mere inches apart. Hibari's eyes narrowed, fist clenching in preparation for any further movement.
"HEY!" Ranma shouted angrily.
"Hmm?" Mikado blinked and turned to the diminutive redhead, his face still very close to Hibari's.
"What do you think you're-WAAAH!" Ranma's shouted was interrupted as he found himself slipping, still not steady on skates.
Before he could hit the ground Sanzenin had caught him, "Poor girl, so innocent. I'll happily teach you to skate."
"Er, no thanks," Ranma replied as he realised he'd been physically swept of his feet and he began squirming awkwardly (not unlike a cat... but it would be best not to share that particular comparison with him).
"At least let me steal a little prize for catching you," Sanzenin smiled.
Ranma couldn't reply as Mikado moved in quickly for the kiss. As their lips met Ranma slid into a state of shock. He stopped processing anything of his surroundings, only vaguely aware he'd been placed back on the ice, and was slowly drifting forward. Suddenly tears filled his eyes, and he burst into a frightened scramble away, no rational thoughts in his mind.
Watching the small redhead flee Sanzenin felt a twang of guilt. "So pure. So innocent. I should have saved her to be girl number 1000 on my list of kisses. Oh well. 999 is still an important number."
Ranma barely registered that as he opened the door out of the rink, remembering there were public baths in the building. He also completely missed Hibari tensing up, eyes filled with rage. All that repeated through Ranma's mind as he scrambled into the baths was 'How dare he? How dare he?'. Ranma was so furious he rushed through the bathing area and leapt into the tub without so much as removing his skates (to the disappointment of the men in the bathing area). As a black haired boy rose from where the red-haired girl had dove in, with the same clothes on, the men began to look around for a hidden camera or something to explain the oddness. One poked around, convinced the redhead was still under water.
Fuming, Ranma marched back to the skating rink, barely noticing the pain in his feet from the much too small skates. Stomping out onto the ice, with murder in his eyes, Ranma had his quest for revenge thrown into confusion by what he saw.
Sanzenin was already unconscious, slumped against a cracked side board with a furious Hibari standing over him, fists balled and eyes filled with nearly as much murderous intent as Ranma felt in his own heart. Ranma stomped over to the blonde, not sure if he was angry Hibari for robbing him of vengeance, or glad to actually have someone take his side for once in his life. When Ranma finally reached the blonde (oblivious to the damage he was doing to the rink with his stomping, and Azusa's protests about it) he decided that the anger was stronger.
"THAT WAS MY FIGHT!" Ranma roared.
Hibari shot him an icy glare, "Well sorry for trying to defend your honour."
"A man doesn't need someone else to defend his honour!" Ranma shot back.
"OH! Now you care about being manly!" Hibari countered. "You just want to cherry pick what you see as the best of both worlds!"
"And you don't you... you pervert!?" Ranma roared. "For the first time in my life I'm truly and properly angry, and you've robbed me of the satisfaction of beating up the guy responsible!"
Hibari seemed ready to say something, but instead tears welled up in those bright blue eyes and the blonde skated away in bitter silence. Ranma let out a primal roar, and smashed his fist into the ice, needing to destroy something. He then tore off the painfully tight skates, before deciding to go for a rooftop hopping run.
"Oh boy," was all Tsugumi managed to say as she gathered up her younger sisters to return home.
Azusa meanwhile began doodling on Mikado's face, and many of their training buddies joined in. That would teach Mikado for dropping his guard so much towards girls he found cute.
It was evening by the time Ranma returned to the Oozora compound. He landed in the backyard, having leapt over the wall, and stormed through the large household. His fuming was interrupted by the appearance of Tsugumi.
"Oh, Ranma, you're back," the eldest Oozora daughter smiled compassionately. "I hope you're feeling a bit better?"
Ranma grumbled something incoherent.
"Oh hey, it's lover boy," Tsubame laughed as she strolled in. "You know, we really should tell Mikado the truth. He thinks he's kissed 999 girls now, but it's probably more like 998 and ½."
"Tsubame, stop teasing. And Ranma, don't let it bother you so much," Tsugumi tried to reassure him. "It's just a kiss. I'm sure you'll forget about it soon enough. I'm certain that guy will..."
"Mhm, not really a big deal, since you're both boys it barely counts," Tsubame laughed. "Unless maybe it was your first kiss. It wasn't... was it? That would be too much!"
The silence provided the answer, and Tsubame burst out laughing. Tsugumi couldn't help but giggle a little too. Ranma's aura turned dark and he stomped off to his room. He flopped angrily onto his bed, screaming something into his pillow. The sulking was interrupted as the divider between his room and Hibari's opened.
"So, pouting is manly?" Hibari asked. "I think dad wants me to take notes on these things."
"Oh, here to laugh at me too?" Ranma hissed.
"No," Hibari replied with surprising empathy, as the blonde sat down beside Ranma on the bed. "I've come close to your situation too many times. You've got to learn to be better prepared for those types of guys."
"You didn't fare much better. He almost kissed you," Ranma grumbled as he sat up. "If I hadn't said something-"
"I'd have socked him before our lips touched," Hibari replied confidently. "My guard is always up for those sorts of guys."
"Oh?" Ranma said, a hand sliding under Hibari's rear, and another on the beautiful blonde's shoulder, swept the yakuza heir into Ranma's lap, and their lips sat mere centimetres apart.
Both teens blushed, until Ranma's eyes grew wide as he realised what he was doing, and he leapt backwards, stumbling onto his combination of a need to defend his own honour and subconscious desire had caused Ranma to act without thinking. Waving his arms in front of him the pig-tailed martial artist began blurting out excuses.
"I wasn't – I wouldn't – no way would I kiss ya. Having – having a guy as my first and second kiss would be too much. No. Can't do it!" he was rambling.
"Hmmph, you're far too shy," Hibari replied, trying not to let the words sting.
"You keep thinking the curse is making me open to that sorta weird stuff, don't ya?" Ranma shot.
"“What I WAS HOPING was that it might make you a little more understanding of my own struggle. And a little more open, but not to anything weird. Just love, despite whatever cruel jokes of gender the Kami have played on both of us," the blonde countered. "Instead all I get is pain as you keep seeming ready and then pull away. Do you know how much that hurts? I see something like love in your eyes for a moment, then it's replaced with disgust every time! Plus the pain of seeing you complain about something I'd give anything for..."
Ranma felt stunned by the open admission of something he'd said as an insult before. Along with how much the words hurt him. As the blonde stormed back across the divider and slammed the door between the two of them he was left trying to process just what it meant. Slowly he convinced himself that Hibari's motives had to be perverted. After all, Hibari used the girl's change room, and in Ranma's opinion anyone born a man who did that had to be some sort of deviant and pervert... even if Hibari seemed more interested in guys. How did that mesh?
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of sobbing across the divider. For a brief moment he wanted to go over and comfort Hibari, but then talked himself out of it. Clearly he was just too confused and stressed out today.
***
Leaping off a boat before it was properly docked, a Chinese girl in bright clothing smiled to herself. She was finally on the trail of her enemy again. Dusting herself off quickly she set off towards the city centre.
"Did that girl have blue hair or purple? I couldn't tell in this light," a dockworker asked, too tired to really care about stopping her.
"Looked more purple to me," his coworker replied.
"Nah, that was definitely blue," another disagreed.
The argument would continue the rest of the shift.
|
The rain is falling in sheets and Louis can smell lamb in the oven. Those are the two things he notices as his breath fogs up the window, Harry laughing into his neck, and he turns his cheek to catch the cool glass.
“H,” he murmurs, smile against Harry’s hair, “we have like, people out there. Stop it,” he laughs, batting Harry away, “Harry, oh my god,” he says as Harry’s teeth graze across his jaw, “‘ve you had a couple too many drinks, darling?”
Harry stops to glare at him and his patronizing little darling, and it only makes Louis laugh again.
“Hey,” he says, leaning up to kiss him quickly. He’s still pressed up against the wall and the window, pane cool on his neck. “Hey, you alright, though?”
Harry kisses him right back, nods, right hand curled into Louis’ t-shirt and left holding himself up against the window, like he’s a particularly big footballer coming to hit on Louis in the cheerleader’s locker room. Louis doesn’t know when he started thinking of his life as an American high school movie, or of himself as a cheerleader, but he thinks he’s into it.
“Yeah,” he says, “nervous. Just a bit.”
Louis smiles, runs a hand down his cheek before giving it a light tap.
“Just our friends,” he says quietly, and then, “hey. We don’t have to. If we’re not ready, or whatever, we can wait.”
Harry just rolls his eyes, smiles, kisses Louis on the cheek.
“Right,” he drawls, “Lou. You should see the look on your face. You’re fucking…I dunno. Glowing, or something.”
Louis blushes furiously, pushes him away before pulling him back in by his belt loops.
“You do know you can’t actually get me pregnant, don’t you?” he says ridiculously, against Harry’s lips, “try as we might. That’s not how this works. And I don’t glow, thank you very much, I happen to be excited.”
Harry smiles, nips at his earlobe and threads their fingers together.
“Seriously,” Louis says, “don’t wanna do it unless you do.”
It takes Harry a second to respond, but when he does, it’s with a nod and an expression that makes Louis realise just how big this all is.
“Yeah,” he says, swallowing, “yeah, c’mon. Let’s do it.”
And Louis should notice, in the way Harry lingers behind him as they leave their room, in the tremble of Harry’s fingers and the flick of his hair and the lip-bitten smile. But he doesn’t, because – and he will remember this feeling more than anything else – this moment, now, is the happiest he’s ever been in his life.
“Where the fuck did you get to?” Zayn asks suspiciously as they come back into the living room, Louis pulling Harry along and settling next to him on the couch.
Everyone’s here for a lazy Sunday lunch, which is a flimsy pretext on account of the fact that they’re not forty years old, but everyone’s taken it rather well. Zayn’s checking the meat in Harry’s absence – Louis does not and never will add much to a kitchen scene, though he’s always good for a wash up – Perrie’s curled up on the couch with a glass of wine, and Niall and Ellie are being disgusting and kicking each other over the coffee table. Liam’s fixing a lightbulb, actually, because neither Louis nor Harry have any idea how to do it, and looking at them now it’s all rather odd.
“We had a mindblowing shag, surprised you didn’t hear us,” Louis snaps for no particular reason, but Niall just shakes his head.
“Liar, your hair’s too intact,” he says, and then when fixed with a handful of questioning glances, “what! I lived with you when you two started going at it like rabbits, I know what you look like post-orgasm.”
Louis blinks at him again, just to make him go red and squirmy.
“Fascinating insights,” he says slowly, “you gonna write my biography for me, then? Fill it with material like that?”
Everyone laughs, except Harry who looks a million miles away, and they all notice.
“You right?” Perrie asks, peering round Louis to look at him, “you look petrified.”
She looks at Louis next, and narrows her eyes. “And you look far too pleased about it,” she says, “what’s going on?”
“What’s going on with what?” Zayn asks, wiping his hands on his jeans as he comes back over.
“Are you having an asthma attack?” Ellie asks, staring at Harry, and Niall nudges her again, pouts.
“You never ask me if I’m having an asthma attack,” he says, and she just laughs, kisses him as she leans forward to get her drink.
“S’the curls,” she shrugs, and Louis fixes her with a half-joking stare that very clearly says hands off.
There’s a sort of lull, except for Liam still tinkering with the light and the stepladder creaking, and Louis sighs.
“Since Harold over here has possibly the worst poker face of all time,” he says, “we may as well do it now.”
Four pairs of eyebrows lift in interest. Zayn just smiles at the ground, gives Louis a little nod. He has no idea what that means, but Zayn’s oddly observant about things like this, so Louis lets it slide.
“Um,” he says, turning to look at Harry, and he just nods at him, gives his leg a little squeeze.
“You wanna do it?” Louis murmurs to him, and Harry just gives him a look that says, we all know you’ll butt in anyway, but kisses him gently, reassuring.
“Are we here to watch you make your sex tape?” Niall asks loudly, and not sounding altogether put off by the idea. Harry flips him off, winks anyway, and they high five over the coffee table.
“I’m so here for that,” Perrie says, shooting Zayn a sort of apologetic glance, and he shakes his head despairingly but doesn’t reply, just nods at Louis to keep going. Louis is so glad he ran into Zayn in first year Lit, and suddenly this is so, so wonderfully big, and real, and here.
“Well,” Liam and Niall say at the same time, and Louis groans into his hands.
“We should’ve send a bloody email,” he says to Harry, and Harry just laughs into his ear, rubs his shoulders for a second. Maybe they should film a sex tape instead. Might be easier.
“Just do it,” Harry murmurs into his ear, and okay, Louis thinks, yeah, just do it.
“So,” he says with a clap of his hands, “um, we have, like, an announcement? Kind of? Are we calling it an announcement?” he asks Harry, and Harry nods.
“You’re such a yes man,” he murmurs, and everyone’s sort of looking at them fondly and Louis feels like his chest’s about to burst.
“Fuck, alright. So. This one and I,” he says, halting and looking back at Harry every two seconds, “we, like. Decided a while ago, I guess? Like four or five months? How many months?”
“Four or five,” Harry supplies, and Louis nods.
“See, that’s why I love him, he knows months,” Louis says, patting Harry on the leg. Everyone laughs, probably because they can tell he’s nervous, but it’s fine. He’ll take it.
“But, yeah, um, four or five months ago we decided, like – and bear with me because this is like, an intensely fucking complicated process with no vaginas involved – we decided we, like, well. We, um, we want to have a baby? Kind of? No, well, definitely,” he corrects, “we, like, definitely want to have a baby.”
He pauses for breath more than anything, but he’s glad he does, because the noise in the room is brilliant. Harry’s hand grips his shoulders harder, Perrie shrieks delightedly and rounds on Zayn – I knew you knew something! I knew we bought champagne for a reason! – and Zayn just holds his hands up in surrender, and Louis will deal with him later because how the fuck he already knew is beyond him. Niall laughs like it’s the most brilliant thing he’s heard in the world, Ellie starts crying because she is, like, a midwife, after all, and Liam, well, Liam fucking Payne smashes a lightbulb.
“Jesus!” Louis says as it crashes to the floor, laughing into Harry’s neck, “holy shit, Li, pull it together.”
Liam just looks between them, outraged.
“Next time you drop a bombshell like that can you make sure I’m not up a ladder?” he says, but his eyes are smiling and Louis is so, so fucking happy. His best friends are all in one room and looking at him like they’re the proudest people in the world, his favourite boy is wrapped around him with those endlessly long limbs of his, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and down the hall in their room is a stack of paperwork that, with any luck, will have their spare room filled within a year.
“Well bring it the fuck in,” Niall says finally, and that’s all it takes for Harry and Louis to stand and be absolutely inundated with five people falling all over them.
Louis’ just a little teary as they break away, Zayn’s arm still looped around his shoulder, and he fixes him with a glare.
“Don’t say anything nice,” he tries and fails to snap, “if you make me cry I’ll kill you.”
“You’re already crying,” Zayn points out, and Louis can’t even be outraged at his powers of deduction.
“You knew,” he says, eyes flicking across the room to where Harry’s being peppered with kisses by Perrie and Ellie, “how do you always know?”
He shrugs, smiles quietly.
“Dropped your Breaking Bad back last week when you were at work,” he says, “there was paperwork all over the table.”
Louis glares at him some more, and Zayn laughs.
“How far along are you?” he asks, and Louis hits him over the head.
“Tally up pregnancy joke number one, Z Malik, fifth minute,” he shouts to no one in particular, but Zayn just rolls his eyes.
“I mean, like, in the process,” he asks, slapping Louis right back.
“Oh. Well. Like? We’ve gone past preliminary acceptance at like, two agencies. Which is, like, big, but also not. It’s a fucking Herculean task,” he says, and then his voice softens, “but I’m, like. I’m so excited, y’know,” he says, and when he looks back up at Zayn he’s almost sure he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes.
“M’so proud of you,” Zayn says as he pulls Louis back in for a hug, and fuck it, Louis thinks, it’s his party and he’ll cry if he wants to.
He can see Harry over Zayn’s shoulder, pulling a tray of potatoes out of the oven. They lock eyes and smile over all the heads in the room, and when Louis looks back on it, he wonders why he never noticed that Harry’s smile stopped at his lips.
**
That was two months ago, now, and it’s raining again, raining for the first time since that day. It’s coming down in sheets, and Louis leans his forehead on the window, mug cradled between hands and Harry’s grey knit and thinks, what the fuck went wrong.
Sometimes everything feels so distant now that he doesn’t know what to do next, in case it all falls down. That’s never seemed likely before, but then again, they’ve it’s never been like thisbefore. Things change, Louis supposes, and he has no idea how to go back.
It’s Saturday morning, and Harry’s at the gym with Liam. Which in and of itself isn’t a big deal, Louis supposes, but lately Harry seems to always be somewhere that doesn’t involve him, and this feels like another nail in the coffin of something bigger than he can articulate.
It started the say after they told everyone, called their mothers that night, and Harry didn’t come to bed with him. Said he had too much energy, needed to tire himself out a bit, and when Louis’d winked and said, I can help you out there, Harry had just kissed him goodnight and told him he’d be there in a bit.
An hour later and Louis fell asleep, and the nervous flip of his stomach hasn’t left since.
They haven’t spent a whole day of the weekend together in ages, because Harry’s at the gym or Harry’s seeing his friends from work or Harry’s got some huge and pressing task to do that isn’t here, isn’t with him, and if Louis thinks about it too much he feels sick. He’s thrown himself back into work after a relative lull, which Louis could put down to the somewhat unpredictable nature of family portraiture, but with everything else it’s just…it’s a lot. It’s a lot made worse by the fact that summer’s just started and Louis has no lecture halls full of students to teach for three months, so he’s sat here every day feeling so out of his depth that sometimes he doesn’t move for hours. He wonders if Harry even notices.
He doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t breathe a word of it, because as long as he doesn’t crack it could all just be in his head.
The paperwork they have due in a couple of weeks sits in the same spot as it did the day everyone came over, and Louis’ stopped asking him to sign here and initial there. There are only so many times he can hear him say later, or after dinner, or, how about next weekend, because it sounds an awful lot like something bigger that Louis doesn’t want to hear.
Not knowing is the worst part. Not knowing what he’s done, not knowing where they’re going, not knowing where Harry’s head is at, or why he’s there. He asked Liam once, if Harry had said anything to him, and after an hour of being browbeaten and triple checking that everything was okay, Louis’d resolved not to ask anyone again.
His phone buzzes with a start, and he pushes himself away from the window, goes over to the couch where it’s wedged between two cushions.
Seven years later, and Harry’s still saved as Harry Isobar, from when they met at a party of a college Louis didn’t go to and Harry was too young to legally be attending. It almost makes him want to cry.
Heyy, bumped into Ben so we’re going to get lunch. I’ll see you later? X
More than anything, Louis doesn’t like the question mark.
**
Harry gets in on Friday night, camera hitched over his shoulder, and Louis feels like he hasn’t seen him all week.
“Hey,” he says, trying to keep it absent, trying not to make himself spring up as though it’s a big deal Harry’s walked through the door.
Harry’s eyes lock onto him on the couch like he’s not expecting him to be there. Louis doesn’t know what that means, but it makes a lump rise in his throat.
“Hey,” he says, locking the door and throwing the contents of his pockets down on the sideboard. He seems soft, tonight, tired. Louis wonders if that’s good or bad. He doesn’t let himself look up and check, just keeps staring at his laptop like it’s interesting him at all.
Harry, unlike the last however many nights, doesn’t head down the hall and stay in the spare room fucking around with his photos for hours. Instead, he dumps his bags, kicks his shoes off, and pads over to the couch, lifts Louis’ legs and drapes them over his lap, curling up into the cushions. Louis forgets any and all pretense of distraction, closes his computer and rests his head so he’s looking straight at Harry.
“You look nice,” he murmurs unthinkingly, because he does, “long day?”
Harry nods sleepily, traces his fingers round Louis’ wrist a little. It’s always, always been his favourite thing, the way Harry does that, how big his hands are compared to his. Tonight it makes his breath ragged, and before he can overthink it he leans forward, kisses him properly, quietly, like maybe it’ll fix whatever this is.
Harry’s lips are warm and pink and Louis’ kissed him like this so many thousands of times but tonight it’s different, urgent. He wants him back, he decides there, as Harry’s fingers tangle in his hair, and tug him closer, he wants all of this back. He climbs into Harry’s lap in one practiced motion, knees framing his hips, and he feels his skin heat up as Harry drops his hands to his waist and tilts his head just right, groaning into Louis’ mouth as he grinds down.
“Shit,” Harry breathes, fingers working into Louis’ skin, and Louis smiles against him, messes his hair up because he can, because he wants to. They’ve not so much as gotten each other off in a week, and Harry’s not fucked him properly in two. It makes the panic rise in his chest, suddenly, and he kisses him harder, laugh dying on his lips. He needs this now, not just because he’s already hard like he was when he was nineteen and Harry kissed him like this, but because it’s a symbol, or something. They’ve not had good sex in weeks, sex that isn’t a chore or sort of an obligation, after seven years of it not even being a question. This feels better, almost, spontaneous, like it used to be, and just as Louis drops his hand to the button of Harry’s jeans, Harry pulls away.
No, Louis thinks, no, no, no, and he hopes it’s not written all over his face.
“Hey,” Harry says, flushed and breathless, “hey, we have, like. That deadline due soon. For, for the agency.”
Louis blinks, tries to shake out the fuzziness in his head.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Why don’t we do it,” Harry says quickly, “it’ll probably take a while, right? We should finish it this weekend. Let’s start now.”
“Really?” Louis says, a thousand times braver than he feels right now, dropping his hands to the line of Harry’s dick in his jeans. He rubs him slowly, pressure building the way he likes it, and Harry’s eyes close as though he’s trying to fight it. “Don’t think we could start in like, an hour or two, by any chance?” Louis asks right in his ear, and it’s after a few seconds that Harry laughs quietly, pulls his hands back up.
“No, c’mon,” he says, “let’s do it now. Things are all in our room, right?”
Louis looks at him for a long, long moment. He tries to think of one time that Harry’s ever told him no, and nothing comes to mind.
“Yeah,” he says, standing up, running a hand through his hair, “yeah, I’ll. I’ll go get it.”
He walks down the hall, splashes some water on his face in their bathroom and does not look at himself in the mirror, does not want to know what’s etched across his face. He grabs the forms they need and a couple of pens and when he gets back to the living room, Harry’s just staring into the distance, like he doesn’t know where he is.
The look in his eyes is terrible. Terrifying. Makes Louis’ stomach switch places with his heart and then go back again.
It’s okay, he tells himself. It’s okay. This is a good thing, maybe, that Harry wants to do this now. That Harry’s initiating it, not the other way round. Recklessly, maybe, but reckless is better than absent.
It has to be, or Louis’ got nothing.
He could ask. Could sit down and kiss him and say, what’s wrong, baby, and Harry would tell him and maybe he could fix it. But if he asks, it’s real, and all Louis has right now is the slim chance that this is all in his head, that this is his neuroses-addled brain dialing it all up to eleven.
So he walks back into the room, ignores the way Harry tries and fails to brighten his face, and then sits there ticking boxes in silence until Harry gets tired and goes to bed.
“We’ll finish it tomorrow,” he says, and Louis swallows and flicks the TV on.
**
They don’t finish it, because that night, everything shatters.
Louis doesn’t know it yet. Right now, his legs are tangled with Harry’s on their too-small couch and Harry’s reading a tax return upside down and Louis’ half watching him and half trying to remember his medical history off the top of his head.
“Do I have TB?” he asks, pondering, and Harry smiles and kicks him. It’s a little thin for Louis’ liking, but he’ll take it.
“Do you have TB?” Louis asks, pointing at accusingly him with his pen, “something you’re not telling me?”
The flinch makes Louis’ heart stop.
“Shut up,” Harry murmurs, “I’m a perfectly healthy specimen of a human being.”
Louis raises an eyebrow as though unconvinced, and wills his pulse to slow.
“S’weird, isn’t it,” he murmurs suddenly, out of the blue, “it could be, like. A year. And we’ll like, have a baby.”
Harry’s smile flickers.
“Yeah,” he says.
“I was talking to my Mum the other day,” he says, snuggling down into the couch for a bit, ankles wound round Harry’s, “and she said that the first few weeks are like, twilight zone shit. Like you can’t really believe it, y’know, because there’s just this tiny person clinging to you who, like, absolutely needs you. She was doing a post-natal callout, the other day, with this couple, one of the guys’ sister was their surrogate, and she said she nearly started crying because it reminded her of—"
“Stop,” Harry says suddenly, and everything goes very still.
Louis realises, in that moment, that he’s been clicking his pen, and now his finger’s just hovering over the button, like he’s forgotten how to move.
The lump rises in Louis’ throat out of nowhere. It hits him, suddenly, how ridiculous this is, how they’re sitting here making plans more long term than anything in the world, and Harry can’t even look at him.
They’ve had their rough patches before. Had fights that lasted weeks, had one winter break where Harry stayed at Liam and Dani’s, Christmas 2009 where Louis told him to fuck right off out of his Mum’s house. It’s happened, they’ve never been Zayn and Perrie, miraculously able to get over any bump with a shrug and a fuck. But this, this has never happened before. They’ve never been in limbo.
And limbo needs to end, because all of a sudden, Louis can’t not know anymore. It goes against every instinct of self-preservation he has, but he makes himself sit up, move closer.
“Haz?” he asks gently, “you…everything alright?”
Harry takes a breath, closes his eyes for a second.
“What’s wrong, love?” he asks again, voice barely there, scooting forward, and Harry flinches away, bites his lip and shakes his head.
“Don’t, Lou,” he says quietly, “please, just don’t.”
And Louis’ heard that so, so many times lately – maybe not in so many words, but it’s there. Every time Harry goes for a spontaneous run with Liam, every time he’s in the study working late, every time Louis’ felt that panicky tug in his chest because Harry’s floating away from him in infinitesimally tiny waves.
“You’re scaring the shit out of me,” he says, voice blunt and cracked, he can hear it, can here the façade falling around them, “we’re…we’re sitting here, doing all this,” he says, gesturing at the table and the floor scattered in paper and references and medical records and everything from their gas bills to their bank statements, “and you won’t even look me in the eye right now.”
Harry blinks, looks up, like Louis’ set him a challenge. He doesn’t say a word. Anything, Louis wants to yell, say anything. Make it better.
Instead, instead he does this.
“Louis,” he says, and Louis can’t remember the last time his voice sounded like that; going up at the end, almost guilty. That thought makes Louis freeze. “Lou, we need to—“
“You can’t,” Louis says quickly, harsh, “you can’t fucking break up with me. Not here, not like this.”
And Louis isn’t expecting Harry’s eyes to fill with tears, but they do.
“I’m not,” Harry says, almost broken, and Louis can hear the heaviness in his breath and the see the rise and fall of his chest, and then, “Jesus, I wouldn’t…Lou. Lou, I fucked up.”
Louis’ blood turns cold, but he makes himself take a breath, swallow back the panic and the tiny scream in his throat. He makes himself take Harry’s hand, prepare for whatever this is, for the unraveling of the last ten weeks.
“Okay,” he says slowly, “well, that’s okay. It’s gonna be okay, we can fix it, yeah?”
Harry’s smile, bitter and watery, makes Louis want to break in two. He says nothing, but Louis can see the words in his mouth like bile, can see the way they’re there and getting closer to being here; like the will to splash into a particularly cold pool or the burst of adrenaline that comes before jumping out of a plane and floating to the ground.
Somehow, Louis thinks they’re not going to land so well.
“Talk to me, darling,” he murmurs in Harry’s ear, his face in his hands, kissing his cheeks and his nose and the corner of his mouth, like if he kisses him enough he can suck the poison out, “tell me. It’s okay, it’s okay.”
And Harry’s crying just a little bit now, wipes roughly at his eyes and sits up straight, like he needs space, needs a crack between them to fill with whatever’s on his lips.
Louis doesn’t understand why he needs to be so far away.
“Lou,” he says, raspy and dry, “you have to stop.”
“Stop what?” Louis asks immediately, voice high, immediate, stop what, stop what, stop what, I’ll stop anything.
“Looking at me like…like you can fix it.”
“I can,” Louis says, reaching over to him again, but Harry flinches, “I love you. And I’m like, here for it, you know, whatever it is that’s making you—“
“I slept with someone else.”
And the first thing Louis thinks is that now, yeah, he knows why Harry wanted to be so far away.
And then he knows nothing at all, and his heart’s caught somewhere between beats, and he thinks this might be what it’s like to drown. He can hear the blood freeze in his head, feel his limbs lock into place, eyes forgetting to blink. They’re absolutely still, and Louis doesn’t speak what feels like an interminably long time.
“You what?” he asks. It’s not even a whisper. It’s a breath.
Harry’s crying properly now, silent but constant. His lips are pulled into a line and his eyes are brimming and all Louis can see is the way his knuckles are white from holding his knees.
“I’m sorry,” he says shakily, and it’s like a bullet, tears through Louis so fast that he flinches, “Louis, I’m so—“ he cuts himself off, squeezes his eyes shut, and Louis sees stars in the corners of his vision and realises he hasn’t taken a breath.
It’s his first breath this side of the line, and he very nearly stops midway.
It’s so, so fucking quiet.
“I,” he says, still barely audible, “I, Harry, I…are we talking college? Or, or what, when you went backpacking…”
He trails off, because he has no idea what he’s asking, why he’s asking it. If he wants to know the answer to any of the questions in his head. He has no idea how to do this. He’s been dating the same boy since he was nineteen.
For the first time, the nausea hits him like a train.
“Don’t say this year,” he whispers suddenly over the lump in his throat, because Harry hasn’t said a word, and he’s not looking like he wants to, “don’t fucking say it. Don’t say it was after…” he looks to his right, to the table scattered in papers and plans and things that scream forever. “Shit, H, don’t…don’t fucking do it to me.”
Harry swallows. It’s all Louis needs.
“Oh fuck,” he murmurs, and he untangles his legs from Harry’s suddenly, puts his feet on the floor, combs his fingers through his hair. He wonders what to say next. Wants to ask who he was, if indeed it was a he at all, if that would make it better or worse. Wants to know how many times, wants to know when, when was it that Harry lied – was it the trips to the gym, the working late, the going to get take out, all of it, wants to know what he looked like, if he looked like Louis, if he was a bigger guy, who could hold Harry down and make him—
It’s too much, and he breathes out harshly, stands up before he throws up.
“Louis,” Harry says miserably, and Louis can’t hear his voice unless he’s asked him to speak, like some last tendril of control, so jumps back in.
“Do I know them?” he asks quietly.
Harry stares at him, shakes his head.
“No,” he says, scratchy, “Lou, I barely fucking know him, I swear, I swear on my life—“
“Shut the fuck up,” Louis says, and the room drops silent in an instant.
“It was nothing,” Harry says quickly, once a beat has passed, “I promise you, it was nothing, I was drunk and scared of, of all of this and h—“
Louis rounds on him so fast that the words freeze in Harry’s throat, eyes wide and unnerved.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” he spits, “you don’t get to talk right now, unless I fucking want you to. That’s how this works.”
He doesn’t expect the red hot flash of anger, he doesn’t expect anything he’s feeling right now. His head is so, so sore, all of a sudden, and he winces at in involuntarily.
The anger fades; he feels grey.
“How many times?” he asks, eyes shut, left hand running over his face, massaging his temple for a second.
Harry takes so long to answer that Louis wants to shake him.
“Three,” he says hoarsely, and Louis’ eyes fly open at that, stomach lurches, because he was expecting once with everything in his body.
“Three?” he echoes, and it is inexplicably now, during all of this, that his eyes fill with tears for the first time, “Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, and then like the gravity of this has hit him properly, slower, Jesus, fucking, Christ.
“It’s not like that,” Harry says miserably, and he looks like he wants to stand, only Louis thinks he’ll kill him if he moves, if he comes any closer, “I promise. I promise you, it wasn’t, it wasn’t an…”
“What?” Louis asks, “wasn’t what? An affair? Just three drunk shags, you think that makes it—“
He cuts himself off, voice cracking before he can say better, before he can do any of this, before his legs start shaking so much that he has to sit down again, falls heavily into the arm chair across from the couch.
He’s going to burn that couch, he thinks straight away. Burn it to ash. Then their sheets, then their bed. Then he’s going to burn this place to the ground, and maybe, if they’re lucky, he’ll spare the rest of the building.
“I’m so sorry, Lou, I’m so, so, sorry,” Harry’s stumbling over his words, saying them again and again, and Louis almost tells him to get his inhaler before that thought makes his chest lurch, “I’m so sorry. It was a mistake, and, and, it was stupid, and I can’t live with that, without you knowing, without—“
“I don’t give a shit,” Louis says, words ripping slow and deadly through the room, “what you can live with.”
Harry falls quiet, and Louis looks at him for four whole seconds before it’s just too much, and he has to look away, before the next tear rolls and the next hot-faced apology trails miserably from his lips.
“Get out,” Louis says suddenly, “right now, get out.”
He stands suddenly, walks to the window over the kitchen sink and stays there, unmoving, knuckles whitening where he’s leaning his weight.
“No,” Harry murmurs, “Lou, don’t—“
“I don’t care where you go,” Louis says, voice starting to tremble behind the layers of dangerous calm he’s settled himself behind, “I don’t care. I don’t fucking care. Just get out.”
Harry’s palms are pressed to his eyes, Louis can see in his periphery, the way he stands, like he’s aching to walk over, like he’s too petrified to actually do it.
Louis wants to hit him, and he wants to cry, and he wants to sink to the kitchen floor and never get up again.
Mostly, though, he just wants Harry to leave.
“Get out,” he says again, and Harry doesn’t move, keeps fucking standing there like a lost dog, “I swear to God, H…” he cuts himself off, bites his lip, “Harry,” he corrects, “just get the fuck out.”
And Harry, after opening and closing his mouth once, then twice, walks to the door and gets his coat. He shrugs it on silently save for the sniffles and the occasional hitched breath, picks up his keys, and looks back to the kitchen for a moment.
“I love you,” he says, and Louis drops his head, finds himself staring at the drain. There’s a piece of corn in the sink from stirfry last night.
“You don’t get to say that anymore,” Louis says quietly, “I…I know you can’t live with it, but I don’t know where the fuck you got the idea that I could.”
He can hear Harry’s brain whirring, almost, can see the absolutely broken expression on his face.
“Get out!” he yells, and as soon as the door slams seconds later, Louis finally lets his legs give out. He doesn’t get up for a long, long time.
**
The sun is creeping through the cracks in the shutters and it’s making Louis want to kill something. Not metaphorically, either, but kill something with his bare hands, obliterate an actual organism.
It’s lucky Zayn’s the only person in spitting distance, because of all the sentient beings in the world, Louis probably wants him alive the most.
“Tell me this isn’t happening.”
His voice is vacant, he can hear it himself. Harry’s been gone for three days. Zayn’s been here for an hour and they’ve had tea and Louis’ thrown it up for no good reason. Too much milk, or something, too much fucking everything.
The sun’s getting brighter. He doesn’t know why that surprises him.
“Lou,” Zayn says, and it’s the first time they’ve said anything in sixty minutes. Louis supposes it’s the first time he’s acknowledged it out loud, except to Harry. He clenches his fist.
He should call his mum, and his chest heaves with that, rises right off the couch, and Zayn grips his ankle tighter.
“Tell me this isn’t happening,” he says again, and he wonders why he hasn’t yelled yet, “please.”
“I can’t,” Zayn whispers in the dark. Why’s it so fucking dark, Louis wonders, it makes him want to kill something.
It seems to be a pattern, of sorts.
“It’s like a fucking coffin in here,” he says suddenly, too loud, sitting bolt upright and flicking the shutters open, “Jesus Christ, no one’s died.”
Zayn bites his lip as Louis flops back down. It feels like there’s something underneath his skin, like the scream from that night is still trapped in his throat.
“D’you wanna talk about it?” he asks quietly, “d’you wanna go out? We can, I dunno. Get coffee. Get a train to somewhere. Go to fuckin’ Paris, I dunno.”
“As tempting as the city of love is,” Louis snaps, and Zayn shuts up.
“Sorry,” he mutters a moment later, and the anger is white hot and simmering right from his legs to his head and he can’t fucking shake it.
“You wanna get drunk?” Zayn asks tentatively, “we’re good at that.”
Louis does not want to get drunk. Louis wants to hit Zayn right in his pretty face because it’s not fair, that he gets to be fine and Louis gets to feel like someone’s harvested his organs and sold them on the Soviet black market. He wants to hit Zayn and then he wants to hit Harry and then he wants Harry to fuck him and then he wants Harry to die and then he wants Harry to come back to life and then he wants to go to Spain with him and then he wants him to explain why he did it and then he wants Harry to die again, and again, and again, and then maybe they’ll be even, or something.
He wonders where Harry is, and the thought makes angry tears prick up.
“I want to fucking kill him,” Louis says hoarsely, and he’s sure the only reason he’s not on the streets right now looking for him is Zayn’s hand on his ankle, “you know the first thing that I thought, when he told me?”
“No,” Zayn says, carefully blank.
“I thought about burning this couch,” he says, “I thought about burning everything. Why did I think that?”
Zayn doesn’t answer.
“Lou,” he says, but Louis cuts him off, anger hissing underneath his skin.
“Don’t, Malik,” he spits, “just fucking don’t. I didn’t call you for the fucking monogamy lecture, so don’t even go there. I’m not fucking interested. Don’t say it, don’t breathe a word of it, don’t give me any of it, because I can’t fucking deal with that right now.”
The venom in his own voice scares the shit out of him enough to make him sit up. Zayn looks like he’s been run over by a bus.
“I wouldn’t,” he says, shocked, “Louis. I would never. That’s…that’s my thing. Our thing. Pez and I. I would…I would never.”
“I know,” Louis murmurs into his hands, and he doesn’t expect the surge of fucking feeling that courses through him, and then his tears are spilling over for what feels like the first time, but is really only the first time in front of someone else, “oh, Jesus.”
And then Zayn’s there and his palms are rubbing circles into Louis’ back and his shoulder’s soaked by Louis’ eyes squeezing shut, and Louis feels like he’s going to throw up again.
“I’m so angry,” he says quietly, muffled into Zayn’s shirt, “and it’s not enough. I don’t. I can’t. I don’t know what I’m meant to do.”
“I know, babe,” he murmurs into Louis’ hair, listening to him cry, “m’right here. What can I do?”
Louis doesn’t hear him, doesn’t hear anything except for the most dreadful thought that’s made itself known so far.
“I love him so much.” His breath hitches in his chest and for a moment he’s shaking so hard he feels like he’s about to die. “I love him so, so much.”
It takes him a second to make himself take a breath. When he does, Louis’ pretty sure Zayn’s not coping with this, so he wipes his eyes and sniffs in a way that’s entirely unattractive. Harry’d kill him for it.
Jesus.
“Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean to make it, like—“
“Louis fuckin’ Tomlinson, are you listening to me right now?” Zayn asks slowly, tilting his head up with his index finger, “you can say, or do, or fucking scream, anything you want to, okay, and I’m gonna be right here for all of it.”
All of it. It sounds so big. It makes him want to crawl under the couch and actually, physically die.
“Okay,” he says instead, taking the most unsure breath he’s ever mustered, “fuck, right, okay.”
He clears his throat, then closes his eyes again. He loves him so much.
“I need you to do something for me,” he says loudly, if only it was louder than his head. He stands up, paces the room twice. Zayn just nods, like he knows Louis needs to be in control, or at least give the appearance of it.
“I need you to turn, like, some very angry music on very loud. And I’m going to lock myself in the bathroom and try very hard not to kill myself. And you’re going to throw all of this shit away.”
He gestures at the pile of forms and papers and adoption agency brochures that he still hasn’t touched, and he does not look at them.
“Just. Get rid of them. Burn them, preferably, take a shit on them, I don’t care. Rip them to shreds, put ‘em in a bin very far from anywhere I’ll ever go. I can’t keep walking past it or I’m going to…” he stops. Whatever. Superlatives and hyperbole and all the exaggeration in the world lost their meaning three days ago.
Zayn nods.
“And then. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ll keep trying very hard not to kill myself and we’re going to drink a lot of vodka and if I die it will be a happy accident.”
Zayn looks at him like his plan has some flaws. He’s potentially correct. Louis doesn’t care, mostly because his layer of control right now is very thin and if he starts to think beyond the next five minutes he’s going to fall down and cry and he probably won’t be able to stand up again.
“Okay?” he asks, and Zayn looks at him dubiously.
“Okay,” he says, “you should eat some food.”
“When I say I’m trying very hard not to kill myself,” Louis says as he floats down the hall, “I mean, I’ll move out of the way if a piano falls through the ceiling. Probably.”
“So no food?” Zayn calls, “I’ll get you whatever you want.”
“No,” Louis says, and moments later he hears Zayn start up some Metallica. The bathroom tiles are cold underneath his feet. He used to stand on Harry’s feet, in winter, and fuck that. Fuck it all.
On a whim he snaps Harry’s purple plastic toothbrush in half, and for a second it makes everything okay, so he snaps his razor too, then his fucking fancy lavender soap from Italy, throwing the pieces in the bath. He pours his aftershave down the sink and he smashes the bottle in a spare drawer and he throws his moisturizer into the bin so hard that it splits in two. He has no idea how he’s doing it, it’s like some hulk cross mother-with-a-baby-trapped-under-a-car shit, and well, isn’t that a fucking great joke, babies, and to stop himself from punching the mirror he bites down very hard on his wrist and throws out every bottle of lube in their bathroom, and then smashes his own aftershave, crushes Harry’s expensive bath salts down the sink and holds himself up on the counter and cries until Zayn drags him out and pours half his liquor cabinet down his throat.
That is day three, and it barely registers as a low in the grand scheme of things.
**
More than anything, he wishes it wasn’t June.
Actually, more than anything he wishes the only person he’s ever fallen in love with hadn’t fucked someone else three times while Louis sat at home with a stack of adoption papers waiting to take the definitive leap into long term commitment with him, but that’s neither here nor there.
So, more than anything, he wishes it wasn’t June, because he has two months and a week left of summer break and therefore no reason to even try and pull himself together.
He still hasn’t died, which is unfortunate, because waking up every day is a massive fucking downer.
There’s a knock at his bedroom door, and automatically he rolls over onto his side and pretends to be asleep.
“I know you’re awake,” his mother says gently, smile in her voice, and Louis frowns like he’s fifteen and being woken up for school.
“No you don’t,” he grumbles back, and he hears her laugh quietly before opening the door.
He turns to scowl at her, and for the thousandth time in his life his chest actually hurts because she’s so, so wonderful.
He mustered up the wherewithal to call her on day eight. She already knew, of course, that something was wrong, because Louis normally calls every other day and Harry will usually at least text Lottie once a week and throw in a say hi to your mum for me for good measure. He sat on the balcony and chain-smoked half a pack of Zayn’s cigarettes and when he finally told her he focused very hard on a dent in the plastic chair across from him.
Louis focuses on tiny things a lot when he tells people because if he feels like he’s talking to a scratch on the wall or a dead pixel in the TV it makes it marginally easier.
Coincidentally, that’s a total load of bullshit, but he tells himself poetic nothings like that in the vain hope this is all a particularly bad dream.
He hadn’t asked her to come down, because she has a job and the twins are still at home and if there’s anyone with a stupidly busy life that doesn’t need her twenty-six year old son asking her to drive three hours south and stay in the flat he until recently shared with his boyfriend of seven years, it’s probably her. He could never, ever ask that of her, feels bad as it is being self-indulgent enough to cry at her for an hour on a Wednesday night when she’s got mouths to feed and loads of washing to run and a shift the next morning.
When she’d offered, he’d said no, before being politely informed that he didn’t actually have a choice. So he’d hung up and kicked Zayn out, put his spare key under the doormat and went to bed until she got there.
This is the third day she’s knocked on his door to get him up and he loves her so much that for a second, he forgets that his life is over.
Then he remembers, so turns his head into his pillow and tries not to scream as she opens the blinds. She makes a little sound, comes and sits on the edge of the bed and puts a hand on his leg.
She doesn’t ask anything stupid like how’re you going? or feeling any better?, just sits there and waits for him to talk.
“I’m hungry,” he says blankly, and she squeezes his knee.
“You want a fry up?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to die.”
He’s not entirely sure how serious he is when he says that. Zayn always took it Very Seriously, and it had pissed Louis off for no good reason. Everything pisses him off for no good reason. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t give him concerned eyebrows, just nods, runs a hand over his back.
“I know, baby,” she says, “you might feel like that for a little bit.”
She has this wonderful way of talking where nothing is forever and everything is changeable. He feels like he can breathe around it, when she talks like that; you might, a little bit.
“And then what?”
She doesn’t answer straight away, so he turns onto his side and cracks an eye open. She smiles, runs a cool hand over his cheek like when he was in primary school with a raging fever. Well, either with a fever, or after he’d run the blowdryer over his forehead to get out of school. He wonders why he ever thought that’d work; she’s a fucking registered nurse.
“Why don’t we just do this for now, hm?” she says, and he nods. That sounds less awful than anything else.
“I should get out of bed,” he says quietly.
“Do you want to?”
“No,” he says, and not that she asked, but, “the sheets still smell like him.”
And then there it is again, and he feels so dreadfully little and so fucking pathetic, more than anything, just pathetic, and he fists a hand into his pillow and tries not to cry.
“Oh, Lou,” she says, and he doesn’t wait for her to ask, just sits up and falls sort of miserably into her, almost overrun with how fucking instinctively comforting it is to be able to give her a hug. There’s no one else, absolutely no one, he’d rather be with right now. Bar one, maybe, but he’s not an option.
He doesn’t really even realise when he cries anymore because it all feels the same in his head; tears and smashing arbitrary objects Harry holds dear and insomnia and whatever’s in between. But he must be, because she’s stroking his hair and kissing his cheek like she did those handful of other times he’s cried on her shoulder since he was fourteen, so he wills himself to sit up, stop.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby,” she says, and he smiles at that tearily.
“You used to call me that in front of my friends,” eyes closed and head on her shoulder, “when I was like, fifteen.”
“Only by accident,” she says, and her hands don’t stop moving down his back and he could probably fall asleep like this. She gives a little laugh into his hair. “You’d get furious at me for it. Wouldn’t do anything I asked for bloody days.”
He smiles. He wishes he was fifteen. Maybe not, actually, maybe eighteen. Maybe five. He doesn’t know, but he wishes he wasn’t here.
“So embarrassing, Mum,” he says in a voice more resembling that of a Neanderthal than his teenage self, and she snorts.
“You’re kidding yourself if you think your voice’s ever been that low.”
He laughs. It’s nice. He wishes he could stay here forever, could keep her forever, so he wriggles forward until she gets the message and holds him tighter.
“Can I ask you something?” he says shakily, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a minute, wonders if his tear ducts are getting paid overtime for this.
“You can absolutely ask me anything,” she says, “you can ask me anything or tell me anything whenever you want to.”
He rolls his eyes.
“You know, if I’d known that was a pre-prepared opening in times of traumatic life events, it would’ve comforted me a lot less when I came out.”
She smiles into his hair. “What’s on your mind?”
And right, yeah. Can’t deflect with his mother. He forgets that sometimes. He sits up slowly, wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I don’t want to, like. Bring up things that’ll upset you,” he says thickly, “but.” He swallows, waits for her to nod, blurry as it might be to him right now.
“How’d you do it?” he whispers, “how did you just…start getting up in the morning. And, and going to work, and eating when you were meant to, and seeing your friends without wanting to kill them. How did you just…be okay?”
She looks at him for a moment, smile at the corners of her mouth.
“First or second time?” she asks wryly, and he visibly pales, rubs his eyes.
“Sorry,” he says, “sorry, I shouldn’t’ve—“
“I’m kidding,” she says, drawing him back in for a moment, “shh, I’m kidding. You want to know, really?” she asks, and he nods. “Well, the first time I had a beautiful little baby who needed me to be okay. So I was. And the second time I had, for all his attempts to convince me otherwise, the best boy in the world doing far more than I could’ve possibly asked of him. That’s how I was okay.”
“That answer doesn’t help me,” he mutters, “also it’s lame.”
“I know,” she says, “that’s why I didn’t tell you earlier.”
She kisses his hair and he feels, suddenly, panicked.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he says, “I don’t think…shit. Shit. He’s just…” he falters miserably, “he’s it, for me. He’s always been it. He’s my favourite person in the world and he’s the best person I know and…Mum,” he croaks, as though she can fix it, “I love him so much. I think I hate him and I break his stuff and I say I want to kill him, and I just. I love him so much. And he didn’t…fuck. I don’t. I don’t know. I can’t even think about it. I don’t think I can do this.”
He needs her to say something, needs her to tell him otherwise, but she doesn’t. She lets him sit there until he starts breathing like a normal human being and opens his eyes, and then she tugs him up to his feet so she can hug him properly, and he wants to smash his head against her shoulder until he passes out.
“I know,” is all she says, and it’s the first person Louis’ believed it from, “I know. But you’re gonna be okay, Lou,” she murmurs, “you’re gonna be okay.”
“You have no proof of that,” he says, “you’re the strongest person I know. I’ve never had to be like that before. I don’t think I can do it.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment.
“Well, hey,” she says, “got out of bed, didn’t you?”
Yes, he supposes, he did. Fan-fucking-tastic. He lifts his head and bites the inside of his cheek and keeps trying not to scream. Gently, he lets her go and pulls the door open and walks down the hall.
“Where’re you going?” she asks calmly.
“I haven’t snapped his favourite records yet,” he says, “so I’m going to do that. Starting with the Stones ones.”
“Why?”
It’s the first time anyone’s asked him that since he’s started making his way through each room and breaking all of Harry’s things. It makes him stop.
“Because it’s the only thing that makes me feel okay,” he says slowly, before looking at her again, like he’s twelve and needs her to validate everything he does, “it’s like. If I break enough of his shit, maybe I won’t be angry. Or maybe he’ll feel like I do. Or something. I don’t know.”
She nods.
“Want to help me with breakfast instead?” she asks.
He levels with her from across the room, half expects her to hold her hand out and lead him to the kitchen. She doesn’t, but it’s in her eyes, and he relinquishes with a sigh.
“Can I crack the eggs?” he mutters darkly, and she laughs, nods him over to the fridge.
**
The thing about having his world shat on by the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, is that, well. That’s exactly it. It’s not the world, it’s his, and at the three-week mark crisis mode ends for everyone else and Louis doesn’t know how to deal with that. There’s an expectation, unspoken, but he can feel it, that he’s going to start being Okay now. Which is interesting, because yesterday he very calmly and calculatedly stepped out onto the balcony and burnt Harry’s college sweatshirt with his lighter and then broke two plates for not fitting into the dishwasher.
His mum goes home, obviously, and it’s not that he was expecting her to stay forever, it’s just that he was expecting her to stay forever. He makes out like he’s fine and he helps her pack up and he waits five minutes, just in case she’s forgotten something and comes back, until he curls up on the couch with his knees to his chest and tries not to feel like the loneliest person in the world.
He doesn’t know how to do this. He doesn’t know how to move onto phase two like everyone else seems to be doing, mostly because he has no idea what phase two entails. He feels exactly like he did the first day, before he called anyone, before he pulled himself off the kitchen floor, only now he feels like he’s meant to feel something different. Like his blood’s not meant to boil anymore and he’s meant to want to go outside and he’s meant to, God, what, call his friends, or go out, or do something other than cry or sleep or smash his fist into a wall, and then there’s Harry and he can’t even, like, think about that.
“Fuck,” he says to the empty flat, from where he’s lying aimlessly on the couch, “fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.”
He stops, and it’s too quiet.
“Fuck!” he yells, and then again, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, as loud as he can, holding the u until his lungs are seconds from giving out on him.
He goes to yell louder, but is cut off by a knock at his door, and Jesus Christ if it’s a neighbour coming to tell him to keep it down he’ll go back to his original plan of burning everything, and this time include the building.
Every time someone knocks at the door, a little part of him hopes it’s going to be Harry.
This time, however, it’s not. He opens it with his heart in his throat, and it’s Niall. Louis blinks at him for a long moment, because he’s quite literally seen no one but his mother and Zayn and the pizza guy and Lottie via Skype for three weeks.
“Hey,” Niall says, like he’s turned up at a house party and not the end of Louis’ existence, “I have beer.”
Niall. Beer. Okay. His brain is short-circuiting, but can do this. He clears his throat.
“I’m more of a hard liquor man these days,” Louis says faintly, “but. Um. Hey. Come in.”
If Louis had to place bets on where Harry’s staying, Niall’s wouldn’t be bottom of the list. He’s probably, realistically, with that group of people Louis doesn’t really know, with Lou or someone, but if he had to choose someone Harry would go to out of the five of them, it would probably be Niall.
And it’s nothing personal, because Louis loves Niall more than he loves most of his extended relatives and pot noodle and his black Topman jeans combined, but he is not going to let anyone come here and do Harry’s bidding for him.
He knows he’ll have to talk to Harry again at some point in his life, he realised that three days ago, in the midst of throwing his favourite brown boots in the charity collection down the road. He’s just hoping that piano crashes through the ceiling before he gets to it.
“Hey,” Niall says, closing the door and following Louis inside.
Louis has never had an awkward encounter with Niall Horan in his life. He has walked in on Niall Horan having sex with two other people more than once in college and he can still definitively say they have never exchanged an awkward silence through the entire eight years of their friendship.
Everything changes, Louis supposes.
“Look—“
“Lou—“
They stop. Niall gives a little laugh.
“This is weird, isn’t it,” he says, and Louis smiles. What a word for it. Weird.
“I’d say cataclysmic,” he jokes weakly, “but weird works too.”
“Yeah,” Niall says, looking at the ground, and then something changes. He sighs, looks Louis right in the eye, and the pity Louis’ been dreading seeing there for weeks now is, mercifully, absent. Mostly, he just looks a little retrospective. “Hey, look. I have beer and a bunch of shit Zayn told me to bring round, but mostly I just wanna give you a hug. You’re like. You’re one of my favourite people, Lou. S’it okay if I give you a hug and hang around for a bit? I miss you.”
Louis feels so many things all the time, now, but one of the things he’s absolutely learnt is that he’s somehow lucky enough to be surrounded by the best people in the world.
“I’d like that a lot,” he says, and Niall’s all smiles and about time eye rolls, and then he’s pulling Louis in and swaying them side to side and laughing into his ear.
“Christ, Lou, have a shave would you,” Niall says, “s’like hugging fuckin’ Santa.”
“I broke all the razors,” Louis says bluntly, “and like. Everything else, too. So.”
“Yeah, Zayn said,” Niall nods, letting him go, “got you a new pack. And like, groceries and whatever. And soap. No offence mate, but I’m glad I did, because you smell like shit.”
The soap here smells like Harry, Louis thinks, so does the shampoo. So does everything.
He doesn’t say it out loud, because making Niall sad is worthy of trial at The Hague. He just. He doesn’t know. It’s nice, to have someone he feels like he’s not exclusively weighing down with all of his bullshit.
“Legend,” he says instead, “what else?”
“Popcorn,” Niall says, “which was gonna be mine, but. You can have it. Beer. Strawberries? I don’t know why, really, but—“
“I love you,” Louis says, draping himself over Niall’s shoulders as he rifles through the bag, “I miss you. I’m tired.”
“You wanna go to bed, Tommo?” he asks, “watch a movie?”
Louis goes to say yes, but it sticks in his throat. If they were to go to bed, Niall would be getting in next to Louis. That’s Harry’s side. He doesn’t even let himself there anymore, bar once, one weak moment awake in the early morning last week, rolling over to find him not there.
“No,” he says quickly, “let’s stay out here. You mentioned something about beer?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” Niall says, “put something on telly, I’ll deal with all this shit.”
He does. He restocks the fridge and tidies up, a bit, the shitstorm of destruction that Louis’ become accustomed to since he broke that first toothbrush reduced to something resembling manageable. He takes the garbage out and does the dishes and is on his way down the hall when Louis calls after him.
“Where’re you going?”
“Fresh sheets,” he calls back, and Louis’ heart slips into panic mode for the first time all afternoon.
“Don’t,” he says, too loud, “please.”
It sounds plaintive, weak. He doesn’t care. He hasn’t screamed yet, but if Niall so much as goes in there, he might. He could barely handle his Mum perched on the edge of the bed, let alone fresh sheets, someone scratching up everything that’s still them, the them before all of this.
Niall doesn’t press it, appears a few seconds later and falls down on the couch next to him, and there’s a Seinfeld marathon on one of the channels Harry insists they pay for and they’re halfway through The Checks when Louis can’t take it anymore.
“Man, he’s sick,” Niall grins, presumably pointing at Kramer, “it takes a lot to be funny like that, I reck—“
“How is he?”
Louis hasn’t asked anyone about Harry in three and a half weeks. He’s not called Harry, not sent a text. He wouldn’t know if he’s received either, because Zayn and his Mum did a pretty good job of round the clock selective screening. It’s been radio silence. He hasn’t asked. Hasn’t wanted to know, mostly, couldn’t know, but something about Niall being here, about the net widening fractionally, has Louis panicked. It’s real, now, realer than before. Everyone knows. He hasn’t considered that before, but everyone knows. Niall knows, so Ellie would know, so Greg would know, so douchebag Nick from uni could know, feasibly. If he knows, there’s a high likelihood that everyone knows.
And Louis doesn’t even know how Harry is.
“I dunno,” Niall says with a shrug, eyes still on the TV, “he got into some shit a couple years back, some racist thing he said on stage—“
“Not Michael fucking Richards,” Louis says quietly, and then Niall freezes, flicks the telly to mute and turns to him.
“You haven’t asked anyone else that,” he says quietly, picking at the couch, quirking a sad smile, “you think I’m a double agent?”
Louis shoves him in an effort to remain calm.
“Zayn’s the only other person I’ve spoken to,” he says, “and I know he’s like. Not seeing him. Or whatever.”
Niall nods, then looks up at Louis, and Louis is surprised by the intensity in his eyes.
“I hope you’re not, like, mad, that I’m not freezing him out,” he says quickly, muddled, “because I know he fucked up. I know that, and, and that’s not in dispute. But, like, everything’s a bit up in the air? And that’s not me telling you it shouldn’t be, or whatever, but it’s just a fact. And I guess. I don’t know, it sounds less shitty in my head, but I guess, like? He could use someone there too? Even though it’s his fault.”
Louis doesn’t say anything, tries to process all of that.
“Shit,” Niall murmurs, “Lou, I’m sorry. I didn’t—“
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Louis says, and it’s truthful, “I get it. Really, I do.”
Niall nods, and Louis can’t take this.
“How is he?” he barely whispers, and Niall flinches.
“Like,” he says, “bad? Really bad, y’know.”
“Good,” Louis snaps without thinking, tries to breathe; calm the anger coiling in his stomach, “I mean. Okay. Whatever.”
Niall’s brow’s furrowed, like he’s confused, and he is, probably. He’s never seen Louis like this before. Louis’ never seen Louis like this before.
“He’s called,” Niall says, “like, a lot.”
“I wouldn’t know. I said I didn’t want to talk to him, so. Zayn and my Mum, y’know. Dealt with my phone, and stuff.”
“Yeah,” Niall says, “well. I think he’d be ready to talk, or whatever, when you are.”
“Well how fucking good of him,” Louis mutters, before catching himself. It’s not Niall’s fault. It’s not Niall’s fault, or Zayn’s fault, or Liam’s fault, and he wonders, fleetingly, where the fuck Liam is. It’s not on any of them.
For the first time, he allows himself to wonder just who’s fault it is, and he has to close his eyes for a minute.
“Sorry,” Niall says, “Lou, I’m so, so sorry. I can…d’you want me to go?”
Louis blinks at him, tries to smile.
“Not really,” he says, “but it’s not exactly a laugh a minute here, and it’s Saturday, so. Don’t let me keep you in this chamber of misery.”
“D’you wanna go out?” Niall asks.
“No,” Louis says, immediate, tired, “I just. I got out of bed before midday today, and that’s like, a win for me, lately. I don’t think—“
“—No, s’fine,” Niall says hurriedly, “I just though I’d check. Hey,” he says gently, “you want some good news, though?”
Louis smiles, closes his eyes. “There is nothing I want more,” he says, “hit me.”
“Next episode’s The Chicken Roaster,” he says, moving up the couch till he’s tucked into Louis’ side, “and we have beer, and popcorn.”
“And strawberries,” Louis says, and Niall laughs.
“You’re gonna be okay, Tommo,” he says, “everything’s gonna work out. Yeah?”
Louis doesn’t respond, just turns the TV up. Tell me this isn’t happening; it’s the first thing he said, and he’s still waiting for it to come.
**
According to Cosmo, a month marks the time to take stock and get logical. He has no idea why he’s reading Cosmo articles, but that was the first hit after he googled how to get over your partner cheating, so. He’s reading Cosmo.
On the long, long list of very fucked up things going on in his life at the moment, it’s the least of his worries.
Up until now, he supposes, everyone’s been getting logical for him. Niall took a load of Harry’s shit for him the other day, Zayn pops in with food and hugs four times a week, stole his PayPal details out of his phone and pays his bills when they’re due, and his Mum calls at midday, rain, hail or shine, to get him up. People start creeping back into his life, too, start inviting him out again. For the most part, he doesn’t go. He can’t do it. Last Friday, when he was feeling less like throwing himself under a bus than usual, he finally gave in, went to lunch with Zayn and Liam and Niall and Perrie and Ellie, and as soon as he walked in, knew it was too much. He sat there for half an hour before making his excuses, and the nausea of being there without Harry stayed for a day.
The point is – and his head hasn’t been great at being staying on topic lately – but the point is, he’s supposed to get logical.
He hasn’t spoken to Harry in a month, which is something that until now he’s not been able to confront. He’s not really able to now, either, but there comes a point where it’s not a choice. He wonders if they’re broken up, technically, doesn’t want to think about that, if he owes him more than a get out and a box of his stuff, if he’s supposed to…well, what. Talk to him. Go to counseling with him. Fucking forgive him, and God, Louis can’t even think about him without wanting to find a very deep hole and fall into it, so he feels like that’s a lost cause, closes his laptop for a bit and takes a very long nap.
Getting logical seems to be a catchphrase, because it’s what every goddamned self-help-improve-your-life-counselling-dot-com piece of shit website seems to be telling him. Things like inviting your partner to come and clear their stuff out, if it’s over. Things like getting coffee with them or inviting them to spend the night and reconnect. He’s meant to figure out how he’ll make rent and bills and work and commitments either in the new arc of his relationship or in the early stages of singledom.
All the words make him want to vomit. He needs someone to do this for him, because he’s got no idea. None. Nada. Nein! Harry would shout, because when Louis was twenty-one they watched all of Hogan’s Heroes over three weeks at Harry’s stepdad’s bungalow and since then Harry’s had an affinity with German catchphrases.
Louis hasn’t seen him in a month, and he throws up for the first time in weeks.
Shit, he thinks, shit.
Getting logical seems to be a task for someone far more equipped to deal with this than Louis, and three hours later he’s sat on the bathroom floor with an old bottle of Harry’s favourite fucking rum between his legs and his phone in his hand and all he wants is to hear Harry’s voice.
It’s all he’s wanted for a week. It’s all he’s wanted since, for the first time with Niall, he spoke his name and the world didn’t cave in anymore than it already had. He wants to hear his voice. He wants to hit him. He wants to see his face as he’s fucking him slowly and when he’s fucking him fast and when he’s laughing drunkenly into his neck and fucking him seconds from passing out. He wants to feel the ridges in his hands and the dimple in his cheek and he wants his chicken-wrapped-in-ham-wrapped-in-love Friday night dinner special and he wants. Fuck. He wants him, so much, so overwhelmingly, that he smashes his head back against the bathroom cabinet and winces at the pain that rips through his skull.
And fuck it, he thinks, and his brain is cloudy and the tiles are cold and when the tiles are cold Harry’s meant to be here and let him stand on his feet, so fuck it, fuck it all.
He waits five seconds, just in case by some miracle someone’s going to knock and stop him doing this, and then he speed dials one, puts the phone on speaker, and closes his eyes.
It rings once. It rings twice. The third ring is shaky and he thinks his signal cuts out but it rings a fourth time. And a fifth. He’s breathing too hard to hear the sixth but it rings a seventh, and then there’s a rustle, and he feels like his throat’s going to close over when—
Hi, this is Harry Styles, I’m probably in a shoot or like…um, busy. But, uhh, leave your name and your number and I’ll get back to you. Cheers.
The tone beeps, and suddenly it’s the closest they’ve been since he kicked him out four weeks ago.
They were going to have a baby.
“My feet are cold,” he says hoarsely, blinking that thought away, voice echoing softly off the tiles. He doesn’t know why he says it, but it’s what falls out first. “I walk in here every fucking night to brush my teeth and my feet are cold and it makes me think of you. D’you know how unfair that is?” he asks, clearing his throat, trying not to slur, “because I sit here fucking…fucking festering in this bullshit all day and you’re still in my head when I come to brush my fucking teeth.”
His breathing is ragged and he can feel the lump in his throat and God, there was a time in his life he didn’t break down into alcohol-induced tears every day, but it seems like a long, long time ago.
He pauses like he’s expecting Harry to say something.
“We were going to have a baby,” he says harshly, without warning, and it’s like bile in his mouth, “a fucking baby, and, and it was going to be so good. D’you know what it was like, to call my Mum after all that fucking happiness and tell her…” He can’t say it, hits his head back on the cabinet again. One tear rolls down his cheek, and he wipes it away, won’t cry, because he’s trying to be angry, he’s trying to hold it together.
“You were the first person I ever told, about my Dad,” he says, louder, “and my fucking stepdad. You knew, more than anyone, why you, and fucking deciding to have a kid, and all the commitment bullshit was a big deal to me, and you did it anyway. You fucking went out there with all those hipster shits that you know and you fucked the first boy that’d have you,” he snarls, “and I hate you so, so fucking much sometimes, I hope you know that, I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone.”
He has another drink and tries to calm down and he can’t, because this is his direct line to Harry and he wants to make him hurt, all of a sudden, the anger flaring like it did the first day with Zayn but a thousand times more, because he’s here.
“You’re such a selfish fucking bastard, Harry Styles,” he says, picking his phone up and speaking right into it, “I’m sat on this fucking floor because you’re sucha cunt, and I hope you listen to this a thousand times, and I hope you cry, and I hope, God, I hope—”
And the sob that escapes him then takes him completely by surprise, ripping through him so wholly that he scratches his nails across the marble to try and make himself stop, and he can’t.
“I miss you so much,” he says, voice wavering the whole time. He presses his lips together, palms to his eyes, knees to his chin, tries to stop himself falling to all the heart-stopping sadness just beneath the anger, “I miss you so, so fucking much, you don’t even know. I wake up in the middle of the night and I just…you used to be there,” he rasps, “you were fucking there every night for seven years, even when it was shitty. When it got hard. And I just. I don’t know how to wake up without you there. I don’t know what I did,” he croaks, finally, and the words sound strangled falling out, “I don’t know what I did, and I need to know, I need to fucking know, because I’ve sat here for a month and it’s the only thing I’ve thought about. The only thing, and I feel like maybe I’m going to die because it’s…it’s so big,” he whispers, “and I don’t know what I did to make that happen.”
His breath hitches, and he’s so miserable, he realises. Definitively more than the anger and absolutely more than the hatred, he’s so, so fucking desolate and it’s so much fucking louder than anything else.
“I was so happy,” he says, choked and wobbling, “I was so, so happy, and you just…you weren’t. You fucked someone else, three times,” he spits, “and I just…I don’t know how I’m meant to get over that. I don’t know how I’m meant to go through every day for the rest of my life knowing you were out there fucking someone else while I thought…” he blinks out a tear or two, “I thought we were so happy.”
He needs to hang up, he knows, because he called to yell and snarl and bitch, and instead he’s saying this, and his eyes are barely staying open and he feels hungover even though he’s not gone to sleep and he wishes, for the first time in a while, that he could just drop dead instead of doing this.
“I love you,” he says, dropping his head and laughing, bitter, “do you know how fucking pathetic it feels, every time I think that? Because…because you couldn’t fucking find it within yourself to tell me you were unhappy, or not fuck some boy at a bar, and I…I sit here, and I know all that, and I just, like. I just love you. It’s all there is, still. I hate you and I want to kill you and I’ve broken all of your shit, and I just. Nothing works. I love you so much. And not knowing if that’s enough anymore scares me more than, like, anything. Ever.”
He’s quieter now, tired, and his finger hovers over the disconnect.
“Call me later,” he says, “or don’t, actually. Don’t. Or. Or whatever. I just,” he whispers, “I don’t know anymore, H. I don’t know how to do this. I’m too tired.
And before he can keep going, before he makes this worse than he already has, he makes himself hang up. His phone rings five minutes later, and he clutches it in his hand as he passes out on the tiled floor.
**
Louis wakes up the next morning and everything hurts and his phone is ringing and it’s Harry. In his morning haze, he nearly picks it up, and then he remembers everything, he remembers the night before, and he lets it ring out and goes back to sleep, in bed this time. Harry’s side is still unmade, creases from weeks ago.
Louis wakes up to his phone buzzing the morning after, too, and he does not pick up. Harry calls the fourth time when he’s gone for a run, and the ninth time when he’s in the middle of Tesco, and the fifteenth time when he’s in bed at three in the afternoon with a too-warm vodka and coke, and Louis does not pick up. He calls, again and again, and Louis can’t pick up, won’t pick up, because he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to do this, so instead he lets it ring out and then he stares at the wall for a very long time, until he falls asleep or someone comes over or Harry calls again and restarts the whole process.
Harry calls for the thirty-sixth time when Louis and Zayn are on the balcony four days later.
“That’s disgusting,” Louis says, waving his hand and turning up his nose as Zayn somewhat accidentally blows smoke in his face, “why’ve you enjoyed doing that to me so much since I was eighteen?”
“Because it shits you off, and I’m a dick,” Zayn says, grin lazy and tired, “seriously. Stop deflecting. How are you?”
Louis rolls his eyes.
“You look exhausted,” he says, instead of answering the question, “go home. I’m okay.”
“Are you really, though?” Zayn asks, “because in my experience, you’re almost always lying to me when you say that.”
Louis doesn’t say anything, looks out over the balcony for a few seconds.
“I did something stupid,” he murmurs, loose thread on his jeans finding its way between his fingers, “I called him.”
Zayn seems to consider that for a moment, nods slowly.
“Were you drunk?” he asks, and Louis nods shortly.
“Was it late?” he asks, and Louis nods again.
“Did you cry?” and Louis huffs out a little laugh, nods again.
“I’m always fuckin’ crying,” he says, “I’m like, ridiculous, have you noticed?”
“No you’re not,” Zayn murmurs, “c’mere.”
He puts his cigarette in the ashtray, a bowl Harry’d made at school when he was fourteen, and gives Louis a hug, before pulling away and stretching out.
They sit in silence for a minute, Louis’ brain ticking over slowly. His phone’s on the table, he’s watching it, and it hasn’t rung in two hours. He wants him to call again – won’t answer it – but needs him to keep calling. Needs proof he’s still interested, hasn’t given up.
Zayn’s watching him, which is always dangerous.
“How many times has he called?” he asks curiously, and Louis bites his lip. Of course he can read it on him, just like he could read it the time Louis threw up on the shirt he’d leant him and the time he lost his iPod and the time he and Harry were going to have a baby.
“Thirty five,” he says quietly, “thirty five. And I can’t fucking pick it up.”
Zayn nods, because he always knows when he’s meant to just listen.
“I should be ready,” Louis says suddenly, “and…and I want to be. I just. I can’t make the first move. That can’t be me, in all of this.”
Zayn nods again.
“I don’t,” Louis says suddenly, and he doesn’t know how to say it out loud, so says it bluntly, “I don’t know if we’re broken up. That feels so, so weird. I don’t know if he’s still mine or not. I don’t know if I want him to be. And I don’t…how am I meant to pick up the phone, without knowing that stuff? It’s been a month. More. And I feel like I’ll never figure it out, y’know. It’s so…it’s so much.”
“Yeah,” Zayn says, steadying hand on his leg, “yeah. Can I say something, though?”
Louis nods, chews his lip and looks at the floor.
“I think—“
And before he can keep going, Louis’ phone starts vibrating on the table. It makes them both jump, cutting the silence, and Louis freezes, can’t look anywhere but right at it. They can both see it from here, Harry Isobar, with a picture Zayn, actually, had taken at the bar one night, Louis slapping a kiss on Harry’s drunk-red cheek.
It’s so long ago, and as it keeps ringing, Louis has to look away. He remembers that night, because it was the day they’d got the call to say they’d made it through preliminary acceptance at their first agency. They’d been all over each other all night; Harry’d nearly gotten him off in the bathroom before Louis made the executive decision to have some dignity and go home.
He wonders if Harry had fucked someone else at that point, and slams his hand down on the table so hard that Zayn jumps again.
It rings out, the silence returns, a bird lands on the telegraph pole across the road.
“Thirty six,” Louis says quietly, rubbing his thumb over his throbbing hand.
“I think,” Zayn starts again, “I think you’re going to need to pick up the phone before you get your answers.”
Louis smiles, looks at the ground.
“I wish I could,” he murmurs, “I wish…I don’t know. Make it better,” he says, “I’m begging you, here. Make it better.”
Zayn laughs, a little quiet, a little sad, ruffles Louis’ hair.
“Just think about it,” he says softly, “don’t have to pick up number thirty-seven, or forty, or whatever. Not till you’re ready. But it doesn’t go away if you just keep doing the same thing,” he says, “and I think. I think anything’s got to be better than this, y’know? Knowing has to be better.”
Louis feels small, all of a sudden, and looks to Zayn for reassurance that he’s still here, maybe.
Zayn just smiles, nods at him with a little glint in his eye.
“You know something,” he says, “I’ve been blowing smoke in your face for weeks, trying to make you yell at me like you used to. S’the first time you did it, today.”
“Baby’s first carcinogen,” Louis says dryly, and Zayn laughs.
“If you’re not ready, Tommo, I get it,” he says quietly, “I do. But, mate. You can absolutely do it. A hundred per cent. And whatever happens, like. We’re all here for it. We, like, love you a surprising amount.”
Louis laughs, pockets his phone, and looks at Zayn with a small smile.
“Go home,” he says gently, “Pez’ll kill me if you stay here again.”
You’ve got someone to go home to, he wants to say, don’t fuck that up, but he bites his tongue.
**
It’s four in the morning and Zayn left at seven and Louis can’t sleep. Granted, he hasn’t been to bed, still on the couch in his jeans and a t-shirt watching infomercials, but he knows he won’t be able to anyway, so. He doesn’t bother trying
He’s considering buying a Shark steam mop when his phone rings on the table. He ignores it, puts a pillow over it and waits for it to stop.
It rings again, ten seconds later. He moves the pillow and replaces it with a coffee table book his Mum got them last year, 1001 Things To Do Before You Die. He’s never read it, wonders if answer your phone is one of them.
It rings again, and the fourth time Louis throws the book on the ground, snatches his phone up, and rejects the call. He’s never done that before, usually lets it ring out, but it’s the middle of the night and he’s overtired and his patience is wearing thin and his panic is only getting more unavoidable.
Harry calls again, and Louis rejects it straight away, and again, again, again, his finger hitting the button hard and Harry redialing faster every time, and it’s almost like they’re doing this; fighting, yelling, except they’re not, because Louis’ flat is empty save for the sound of the TV trying to sell him a set of titanium knives.
He’s breathing hard, and finally, the next call doesn’t come. Two minutes pass in silence before Louis lets himself think he’s in the clear, assumes Harry’s given up for the night, and then he closes his eyes, sinks down into the couch out of pure exhaustion, suddenly hitting him right in the chest.
Seconds from a fitful, crick-in-the-neck-inducing sleep, his phone vibrates again. He goes to hang up, half asleep, but it doesn’t keep going. It’s just once.
He opens his eyes, looks at the screen, and the sight makes his stomach lurch.
Pick up, please. I know you’re awake.
Harry hasn’t texted before this. Save for his message tone, it’s the first time Louis’ heard anything from him in so, so long.
He shouldn’t reply, but he does anyway.
I can’t.
And he realises, that without meaning to, he’s doing this. He barely has time to let his head spin with that before Harry’s typing again.
Why?
What a good question, he wants to say, ten fucking points to you. But his eyes are heavy and the sadness is always more than the anger at night, and lying on the couch alone, curled up in a throw big enough for two, Louis almost can’t feel the anger at all.
He doesn’t have an answer, really, not one he can type out and send as a neat little message. But he does try.
I need more than a phone call.
It even surprises him, that that falls from his fingers.
What do you need?
I don’t know, he says truthfully, and then, I just. I need more than a phone call, H. It’s not enough for me right now.
Harry doesn’t reply for a long time, which is maybe no more than two minutes. To Louis, it feels like a small lifetime, and then Harry’s barely typing before his message comes through.
Okay. Yeah, you’re right. Okay.
And Louis knows, then, that this is going to happen, and he’s not sure that it’s a reality he can deal with. He flicks the TV off and the room is plunged into black and he thinks he knows, now, what people mean when they say their heart is in their throat and their hair is on end, what it means to be petrified. Because, everything aside, he knows Harry better than he knows anyone. There are times he can’t predict himself; bar this, this fucking catastrophic shitstorm he missed, he can always predict Harry.
When the knock on the door comes, Louis still jumps, but he is expecting it.
It takes some time to make himself stand, to answer the door. He almost doesn’t. He’s almost convinced himself to pretend to be asleep, and then he sees Harry’s shadow through the crack in the door, and he’s so close that to say no isn’t an option.
And for the first time in a month, when Louis opens the door, the only person he wants to see is standing there, and it takes all his strength not to slam the door in his face.
There is no moment, through all of this, that even compares to how Louis feels now. That even touches the flood in his head or the rush of his pulse, that comes close to the surge that works its way through his whole body, because there, in a red and black plaid shirt, in his black jeans and a pair of new boots, with his hair messed up by the wind and his face an absolute fucking mess of emotion, is Harry.
Louis wants absolutely nothing more than to jump into his arms and be pinned up against the wall and kissed until the air has trouble finding his lungs. He wants to feel his skin and his hair and the way he smiles when Louis whispers in his ear, and he wants so much that he thinks he might pass out.
Harry’s so, so beautiful, and Louis wonders if two people have ever looked at each other across a threshold with quite so much lying broken between them
“Shit,” Harry says finally, and his voice, Louis has to close his eyes, “hi.”
Louis can’t speak.
“I’m,” Harry says quietly, and he looks like he’s about to cry, looks exactly how Louis feels, but he blinks it back, “say something. Please, I just. I’ve played that message so many times. I can’t…that can’t be the last thing I hear from you.
Louis can’t speak, and Harry’s face veritably cracks into two in front of him at the sheer fucking silence. Louis is never frozen silent. Harry knows that. Harry’s face is one of absolute terror, and Louis wants to hit him and kiss him so much that he leans his head on the door, makes himself breathe.
He’s right there.
“You said more than a phone call,” Harry says quietly, doesn’t dare step inside, “this is all I’ve got. I’m…I’ve got nothing else, Louis. This is it. Please. Please just say something. Say anything.”
Say anything. It almost makes Louis want to laugh, because he’s had so, so many words, so many tears and spills and smashes and now, here, he can’t move. But Harry’s at the door, and if Louis sends him away, he thinks maybe that’ll be the end. That maybe he’ll never be able to do this again, never be able to bring himself to the edge like tonight.
He doesn’t say a word. His head is messy and his eyes feel like they’re burning, and he turns from the door and lets it swing slowly towards closed. He presses his palms to his eyes for a moment, before walking over to the sideboard, grabs his wallet and his phone and his keys.
The door’s about to slam shut when he opens it again, when he sees Harry with his hands in his hair, pacing and biting his lip and looking a second from a sob
He sees Louis locking the door, on the same side of it as him, and his face freezes, and Louis can’t speak.
Except he has to, now, because his brain’s in overdrive and he’s locked the door and this, he has decided, is how he wants to do it.
“Come with me,” he says, and that’s all. The lift is quiet and they do not look at each other. The ding as they hit the basement sends them both jumping. They don’t laugh. Louis steps out first, unlocks the car from across the lot, and Harry’s close behind.
Louis wonders if they’ve even got petrol, if the shitbox they drive is even going to turn on. He hasn’t used it; he doubts Harry has. Odd, he thinks, how many things fall into dust without them.
“Where are we going?” Harry asks as they get to the car park, voice echoing hollowly between the concrete, “Lou, I’m, I…where are we going?”
Louis rounds on him and his eyes are wild. It’s the first time he looks at him properly, shadows cast deep across his face. He looks tired, looks like the sleep Louis always wants and never gets. He feels unhinged, now, and every time he looks at Harry it’s so, so overwhelming, and if drowning was a month ago then he wonders what this feeling’s called.
“I don’t know,” he says finally, “but we’re going to drive for a long time, because I don’t want to do this here. I don’t want to do this somewhere I might be again. And when I want to stop, we’ll stop, and then we’re going to talk, and I might drive you back or I might leave you out there.”
Harry doesn’t even say yes, just gets in the passenger seat and waits.
**
A blue Honda zooms past as Louis and Harry sit on the hood of the car. They’ve been sitting there for six minutes and two seconds. Louis’ been looking at the hands on Harry’s watch.
“We haven’t talked sober in a while,” Louis says quietly, still audible over the growing traffic, and Harry nods.
“No,” he says, “no we haven’t. We haven’t talked at all.”
The sun’s risen, just. It’s fourteen minutes past seven. Louis always drives a highway to clear his head, and they’re maybe half an hour out of Manchester now. He has no idea why. He drove the M6 and the M1 for three hours and pulled into an arbitrary emergency bay and now they’re here. That’s all he knows, and his head is spinning, because Harry’s sitting next to him and this is the furthest he’s been from his flat this side of the line Harry drew that night.
Their flat, he thinks.
He can’t avoid this forever, he supposes, which is unfortunate, because he’s done a good job trying.
He stands up, can’t take the stasis anymore, wipes his hands on his jeans. Harry looks like he’s going to follow, but Louis shoots him a look and he stops.
“This is how this is going to work,” he says, “you will fucking answer what I ask you, and I might not throw you in front of four lanes of traffic.”
Harry nods, squints at the sun as he looks up at Louis. To be fair, he probably wasn’t banking on needing sunglasses when he came out at four in the morning.
“Yeah,” he says, and that’s all, and he doesn’t mention the fact that Louis’ almost a head shorter than him and has been to the gym far less.
Probably because he doesn’t want to get thrown into the traffic, Louis supposes.
He takes a breath. Pretends he’s in a movie, pretends this isn’t his life, pretends he isn’t here.
“Where’ve you been living?”
“Ben’s,” Harry answers without hesitation, “his attic.”
“Who bought you your shit?”
“Niall and Liam”
“Have you seen them a lot?”
Harry blinks, mouth turning down.
“A bit. Yeah. I dunno. They’re waiting for you to make the first move, really.”
“Zayn?”
“I don’t know,” Harry says quietly, “he hasn’t returned my calls, so.”
Right, Louis thinks, steeling himself, okay. This isn’t so bad. He’s three questions in, and he doesn’t want to snap himself in two. A silver BMW growls past. Harry’s still sat on the car, and Louis takes a few steps away before coming back.
“How’ve you been, really? Without making it sound better or worse, how’ve you been?”
Harry smiles, and it’s terrible, and he fiddles with the right sleeve of his shirt.
“Fucking…dreadful,” he settles on, “or worse. I don’t know. I haven’t gotten out of bed a lot.”
“Good,” Louis snaps. He closes his eyes. Maybe he was wrong, he thinks, maybe this was stupid. The air is morning cold, fresh, he breathes it in and tries to be okay.
“How’ve you been?” Harry asks, and Louis stops pacing across gravel, looks at him.
“I don’t know, Harry, how do you imagine you’d be feeling, if you were me?”
God, it’s biting, his voice is vicious. He can’t help it, it makes him feel calm, it makes him feel satisfied, to give Harry little cuts like that. How awful he thinks, how fucking awful, that it’s come to that.
Harry’s face contorts and he looks away. There’s a pause.
“I don’t know,” he says, “but it’s all I think about.”
Cry me a fucking river, Louis wants to say, scream, in his face, you couldn’t fucking live a day of it.
He loves him so much.
“Interrupt me one more time and you can fucking walk home,” he settles on saying, and then, without warning, before he falters, “now why’d you do it?”
Harry stops moving, fiddling, breathing, so quickly that Louis’ almost concerned. He opens his mouth, but Louis isn’t ready, so covers it in malice.
“Don’t um and ah,” he says, “I don’t know if you can tell, but my mood’s liable to change a fucking lot at the moment. Don’t bullshit me, don’t you fucking dare.”
“Okay.”
“So why’d you fucking do it, you selfish prick,” he says loudly, and when his voice cracks Harry looks away.
Let him hurt, Louis thinks, let him cry. Let him turn away like it’s all too much. Let him feel half of what Louis’ felt for the past five weeks.
“Louis—“
“Why did you fucking do it?” he yells, and it makes Harry’s head look up, “don’t fucking look away from me. Just tell me,” he croaks, voice dropping, “just say it. Please.”
Harry nods, wipes the back of his hand over his eyes.
“Okay,” he says, “okay. But you have to…it’s not logic, Lou. It’s not…” he trails off, grinds his teeth, almost, annoyance flaring. It’s like he’s resolving himself to do this, and Louis’ breath sticks in his throat.
Three cars go past before he speaks again. Louis fights not to launch himself in front of one of them.
“I got scared,” he says, finally, and it’s so quiet, “you didn’t. You didn’t do anything, and you didn’t not do anything. I just. I panicked. I panicked and I drank too much and you were a million miles away and I fucked up.”
Louis shakes his head, sniffs.
“Not enough,” he says, “that’s not good enough. You don’t fuck someone else and get away with it in a sentence, I can’t live with that.”
Harry doesn’t say a word, walks back to lean on the car, and Louis’ chest is tight. He can’t watch Harry walk away, not even a few feet, can’t stomach the imagery of it.
“You wanted it, too, didn’t you?” he asks suddenly, following him until they’re inches away from one another, “or, or what? You lied? To what, to indulge me, thought it’d all work out if you just pretended to want to start a family?”
“Of course I wanted it,” Harry says quietly, antithesis of the venom in Louis’ voice, “of course I did.”
And he never says enough, he never keeps going, and Louis wants to hit him till he talks.
“Then what the fuck?” he asks angrily, pushing him before turning away, walking to the side of the highway, until he could step out a fraction more and be run down. He turns his head, sees Harry watching him. “What the fuck was it all for, I don’t understand.”
“It was meant to be an abstract,” Harry says suddenly, and for the first time all morning he’s saying something that Louis wants to listen to, maybe, “it was…shit, Louis, we’re twenty-fucking-five and twenty-seven years old. It wasn’t…it was never meant to go anywhere, this time, it was a start. A fucking test run for five years time when we had a chance in hell of God, of getting anywhere.”
Louis blinks at him, turns totally from the road, walks closer, can’t miss this.
“And then by some fucking miracle, we did,” Harry says, “it started to happen. And, and suddenly you’re talking about fucking colour schemes and, and in a year we could have a kid, and it scared me. I was fucking scared.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Louis croaks, “why didn’t…you could’ve just told me.”
Harry snorts, pushes himself off the car, gravel crunching underneath his feet.
“D’you even know what kind of a person you are to let down?” Harry asks, breeze carrying his voice, and he rushes his thumb under his right eye and the back of his hand over his left, “what was I meant to say, in between the monologue, and the calls from your Mum, and, and then we told the others and there was no way out. You were so happy. I…I couldn’t do that to you. I was scared, and out of my depth, and I fucked up.”
“So you just decided to fuck it off and put your dick in someone else,” Louis spits, “like that wasn’t going to let me down, like that wasn’t going to cause a bit of a problem, like—“
“You asked me why, Louis,” Harry says, and he raises his voice for the first time, “you were the one who asked me why. I’m not saying it makes sense, but…that’s it. That’s all.”
Louis thought it would make him feel better. He really, really did. Knowing has to be better, except for how it’s not, and he turns away, let’s out a tiny silent scream into his fist.
“I should’ve known,” he says, ashen, “I should’ve realised. I…oh my god, I should’ve asked. It was all there,” he says, “and I just. I didn’t. I did nothing.”
Louis could deal with not knowing. He can’t deal with the pressure on his chest that says it’s on you, that says it’s your fault.
He thinks he might throw up, braces himself on the hood of the car.
“It’s not your fault,” Harry says behind him, “it’ll never be your fault, you have to…you have to know that.”
“But it is,” Louis says, turning around, “don’t you get it? You couldn’t…you couldn’t fucking tell me, and, and, oh, God,” he says, and it hits him so hard and the tears are so overwhelming and he doesn’t even notice Harry’s holding him until his legs just about give out.
He wants to push him away, wants to throw him off, wants to say don’t fucking touch me, and he’s not strong enough for any of it. Because he’s so, so fucking tired, and sad, and overcome and confused and he’s so, so in love with this boy and he feels like if he lets go he’s going to forget how to breathe.
“I hate you,” he murmurs into Harry’s shoulder, but pulls him closer, bites down on the cotton of his t-shirt, shudders as Harry kisses his hair and his forehead and his arms encompass him so totally, “I can’t fucking do this.”
“I’m so sorry,” Harry whispers, “I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did it and I’m sorry I hurt you and I’m sorry I’ve fucked it all up and I’m sorry I didn’t—“
“No,” Louis says, and before he knows what he’s doing he pushes him away, so he stumbles backwards, and Louis walks the other way, “no, that’s not fair, you don’t get to do that, you don’t get to say sorry and have it all better.”
“I’m—"
“I fucking love you,” he yells, and someone blows a horn driving past, and he kicks up a cloud of dust in absolute, overwhelming, distress, “and, and God, I don’t trust you right now, and I don’t understand you, and I hate you, a lot, but…I still love you,” he says, “and that’s never gone away. And I don’t fucking know how you can say you feel the same when you did all this,” he says, and he bites back the to me.
Harry stops in his tracks, stops moving, stops flicking his nails together, stops tugging on his shirt.
“Louis, I didn’t get out of bed for a week,” he says, “I slept and I threw up and I pissed and I slept.”
“Join the fucking club,” Louis snaps.
“And then, like, no one picked up the phone, for a long time. And no one returned a text, and your Mum, Jesus, she had your phone one night and gave me a fucking earful, and.”
He stops, closes his eyes, and Louis’ seconds from warning him to stop playing the pity card lest he want to get left in the middle of a highway when he says, “and I didn’t even care.”
Everything snaps quiet in Louis’ head.
“What?”
“I didn’t care,” he says, “because all I could think about was getting you back. That first fucking night, when I knocked on Ben’s door, the first thing I said was I want to go home.”
Louis snorts, turns away, and then turns back for no reason.
“That’s a fucking story book,” he says, shaking his head, “that’s a fucking Hallmark card. Don’t do it.”
“But it’s true,” Harry says, “and it hasn’t changed. I want to come home. I want it, so much, and I know…” he closes his eyes, “I know that might not happen. And I know if it does that it might not…we might not be able to do it,” he says, “but I want it. I snuck into a college party when I was seventeen and you’re the only person I’ve wanted ever since.”
Louis bites his lip. “That’s not true,” he says quietly, “because you fucked someone else.”
He sees the way that rips through Harry, the way it absolutely breaks him, and Louis doesn’t feel satisfied, doesn’t feel vengeful, seeing that now. He’s just so, so tired.
“Yeah,” Harry says, “and the last time it happened I cried, and then I came home, and then I went twenty-four hours before I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Louis doesn’t say anything, looks at the ground and the road and a black Subaru and a tree and the sky and the car. Then he looks at Harry.
“I don’t know what to do,” Harry says, “but tell me what it is, and I’ll fucking do it. I’ll do whatever you need, whatever you want. You’re so…” he trails off, bites his lip, “you’re so gorgeous, Lou. You’re my favourite person in the world, and I’d really like to make you believe that again, if you’d let me.”
It’s so much, and Louis needs to go home, and Louis needs to sort out his head, and suddenly, he doesn’t want to be here anymore.
“Yeah. Well. I think you’ve probably done enough, for today. Let’s go,” he says, and the car is silent for three hours back to London.
Louis lets Harry walk him to the door, for no other reason than he’s too tired to stop him, almost doesn’t have the wherewithal to tell him to leave again. But they get to their floor and Louis remembers what their apartment looks like right now, what it represents, all the brokenness and emptiness and anger between those walls, and he can’t let him in.
“You should go, H,” he says quietly, and Harry’s eyes close so slowly and painfully it’s like they might not open again.
“Please,” is all he says, “please, Lou.”
His voice is miserable and cracked and it’s instinct, when Louis puts a hand on his arm, tries to soothe him; like riding a bike, Louis supposes, never forget it.
“I’ll call you,” he murmurs, “I will, I promise. I just. I need a couple of days.”
Harry opens his eyes, nods, and with a kiss pressed to Louis’ cheek and a glance over his shoulder, he’s gone.
Louis opens the door and he does not stop moving until he falls into bed. He’s driven six hours, had the life drained out of him in the process, and he cannot go another minute doing this until he gets some sleep.
**
So, he thinks, when he wakes up the next day, let the clean up commence.
He has a cup of tea, turns the TV on for some background noise, and tries to figure out his game plan here.
He gives himself two days, to pack up the last six weeks of destruction and make his next move with a clear flat and a clear head. He goes chronologically, bathroom first, sweeps out the glass in the drawers and buys new everything; toothbrushes, razors, soap, shampoo, all the things he’s broken. He goes to the living room and deletes all the bad TV he’s recorded since Harry left and tidies up the CDs and DVDs and Harry’s records, which he never actually got around to snapping. He washes his clothes and throws out all the shirts of Harry’s he’s ripped and all the cigarette-leg jeans he’s cut, and refolds the rest, right next to all his own stuff. It makes his hands shake, but he does it. He tidies the study and restacks all of Harry’s boxes of negatives and very calmly puts away the How to Decorate a Nursery books he hasn’t so much as seen in all this time. That’s hard. It’s really hard, but he doesn’t cry, just puts them behind the bookshelf for another day, somewhere very far down the track.
It takes him a long, long time to change the sheets, but he does do it. Somehow, through all of this, it feels like one of the most awfully profound things he’s done. It almost feels like a victory, like the definitive what’s next that he’s been looking for.
It knocks the wind out of him, and he thinks it’s a good thing.
And then he has to make a decision.
“Good evening this is the Tomlinson residence, Daisy speaking,” his sister parrots down the line, and Louis smiles so hard it takes him a moment to answer.
“Hey, cutie,” he says, “remember me?”
“Lou!” she yells, “I miss you!”
‘Miss you too, button,” he says, “hey listen, I’ll call soon, I promise, but can you put Mum on for me?”
“Yeah,” she says, before screaming, Muuuum, it’s Lou! up the stairs, and not ten seconds later he hears her wrangling the phone off Daisy and the speaker rustling past her hair.
“Louis Tomlinson, have you even heard of answering your bloody texts?”
He laughs, winces as he remembers the reams of messages he ignored all weekend.
“Sorry,” he says, cheek on his knee, “weird few days.”
She doesn’t say anything, and he hears the clink as she picks up her glass of wine, turns the TV down and shoos the girls away.
“What’s going on, then?” she asks quietly, and he takes a very deep breath.
“I need to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth,” he says slowly
“Okay.”
“Do you think,” he starts, closing his eyes, “do you think it’s stupid, or, or like, I don’t know. Weak. If I take him back?”
She doesn’t say anything for a long time, though he hears her tapping her nails on her glass though, knows she’s there.
“I think,” she says slowly, “that as long as you’re the most important person in whatever decision you make, then no. It’s none of those things. Even if it turns out you think you’ve made a mistake. I think it’s the maybe the strongest thing you can do, forgiving someone.”
“I haven’t forgiven him,” he murmurs, “I don’t…I don’t know how, yet.”
“Of course,” she says, “of course.”
He blinks, tries to wrap his head round all of this, around everything she’s done, and like everything, it’s too much.
“I love you,” he says quietly, swallows thickly, “I just. You’re the best person I know. Thank you. For coming to London and answering the phone and all of it, you know, and doing everything for me, and—"
“Lou,” she says quietly, smile in her voice, “you got out of bed. Not me.”
He laughs and cries at the same time, bites his lip so hard he can taste metallic.
“You’re so lame,” he croaks, “this is why I’m like this, you know. It’s your fault.”
“I know,” she says, “and I’m pretty bloody proud of it. I’ll talk to you later, baby. Go get him.”
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, okay,” and then she’s gone, and then he’s got to do the single biggest thing of his life.
He would have a drink to calm himself down, but for the first time in weeks, he thinks he wants to be sober.
Harry’s phone rings once, then twice, and Louis’ head is leant on the cool brickwork when he picks up.
“Lou?” he says, out of breath, panicked, and Louis swallows.
“Hey,” he says, quiet and calm, and he’s not sure what hearing his voice is making him feel, but he knows he wants to find out, “so. I was thinking. If you’re not busy, or whatever. D’you wanna, like…” he trails off.
D’you want to come over, it’s all he needs to say.
He can hear Harry’s breath, shaky, on the other end.
“D’you want to come home?” he says finally, and Harry makes a sound that makes him smile, despite everything, like he’s taking his first breath in six weeks.
“Are you sure?” he croaks, and Louis closes his eyes.
“No,” he says quietly, “but. I want to try. I want you to come home, and that’s, like. That’s all I’ve got so far.”
“Yeah,” Harry says, “okay. Okay.”
“H?” he says, tentative.
“Yeah?”
“You might, um. Want to pick up some new clothes, at some point. And milk, we need milk. Don’t forget the milk.”
Harry laughs like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to, but it’s a start.
**
The first three months are rocky, to say the least.
When Louis opens the door that first afternoon, it’s the beginning of something neither of them have ever done, and it’s hard. There’s a space Louis can’t fill, a gap that manifests when they’re meant to be close – on the couch, sidling past each other in the kitchen, bumping legs underneath the table. Every touch is uncertain, there’s a pull back, however small, every time. Louis will wake up in the middle of the night to Harry breathing softly next to him, and after weeks of missing that so, so much, he can’t take it, pads out to the living room and wakes up on the couch to Harry glancing at him from the kitchen with a frown that Louis, inexplicably, feels guilty for putting there.
It’s hard, but they keep trying and it gets better, fractionally. Work starts the week after Harry comes home and Louis revels in it, likes feeling like he’s doing something again, teaching, achieving something. Granted, the artful avoidance of how was your summer from colleagues and students wears thin after a while, but it’s good for him, he knows it, to be outside, to be around people not interminably caught up in all of this.
When he gets home and Harry isn’t there, though, the nausea hits him so hard that he cannot think of anything to do but sit on the couch and stare at the TV until he gets home. He knows, God, he knows that Harry’s at work, or getting groceries, or is having a couple of quiet ones with Niall, and yet. And yet he doesn’t, really, can’t make that logic settle, because the brutal fucking truth of it is that he was just as convinced of the same two months before, and that didn’t end so well.
He thinks Harry knows, when he comes in from work or the gym or wherever he’s been, thinks he can see it all over Louis’ face, the worry and the relief all at once. The flashes of guilt across Harry’s face don’t go unnoticed either, but it’s okay. They’re trying to be okay, so Harry will throw his bag on the floor and kick his shoes off and when he pulls Louis closer and flicks the channel to something they might actually want to watch, presses a kiss to Louis’ temple, he thinks they just might get there.
Maybe more than anything, sex is the most difficult part of all of this to get back to normal, because it’s a thousand times bigger and more immediate than any other reminder. The second night Harry’s home, when he’s got a hand on Louis’ hip and his teeth on his pulse point, grinding down slowly, all Louis can think is he fucked someone else, and he can’t do it. When Harry wakes him up on the first Saturday morning with a hand stroking his dick through his briefs, his skin warm and hair tickling his face, all Louis can think is he fucked someone else, and he can’t do it.
The furthest they get is Tuesday the next week, only it kills the mood a little when Louis has to ask him if they need to use a condom. Harry doesn’t bother keeping on trying, that time.
It panics Louis a lot, actually, more than he’d like to admit and more than anything else does. He fucking hates himself for it, hates that he can’t let it go, hates that he can’t shut his head up for long enough to try and fix this, but there’s nothing he can do. Harry doesn’t bat an eyelid when he feels Louis tense up, just whispers let me make you feel good, and it’s stupid and corny enough to almost make Louis relax, except it doesn’t. When he pushes Harry away, eyes closed and breath ragged, Harry just says it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, pulls him close and kisses him lazily till they’re too tired to be sad, till Louis falls asleep with his head on his chest.
There’s no great resolution on Louis’ part to put it behind him, there’s no conscious decision. Harry texts him one afternoon to be at their favourite restaurant, down near St. Paul’s, by eight o’clock, and Louis doesn’t question it, gets home from work and forgets the tutorial papers he’s meant to mark and gets ready for dinner. He’s there early, takes the table, and when Harry walks in ten minutes later it’s the first time since he’s been home that Louis feels his chest clench in a good way.
He’s so, so beautiful; Louis’ thought those same four words since he was nineteen but tonight, here, he thinks he’s somehow never really seen it until now. They have fun, and it seems like a given but it’s not, lately, that Louis will just enjoy being around him, and tonight he does. Harry’s ridiculous, makes him order three courses and asks for another candle for the table, leans across to kiss him all night and buys him flowers on the way home; all the things they never bothered with after the first few years. This is him doing it properly, Louis realises, this is him trying, and when Harry takes his hand and tugs him the couple of steps to the door with a laugh, Louis feels something click.
He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why he feels anything, anymore, why those things change, but they do. Slowly, small things and little routines click back, and this is a big one. Louis doesn’t fight it, takes a breath, and instead of letting Harry wander off to the couch when they get inside, tugs on his belt loop, waits till he turns, and leans up and kisses him.
It’s the first time Louis’ instigated anything and it hits them both at the same time. Harry pulls him closer straight away, instinct, but it’s gentle, and he cups Louis’ cheek with one hand, fits their mouths together and bites down on his lip. He tastes like red wine and pastry, and Louis smiles against him, feels his whole body move with how good it feels, finally, to have him back, to want this.
Harry pulls back after a moment, hair messy from where Louis’ threaded his fingers through it, cheeks pink. His eyes say are you sure, and Louis’ little nod says yes, and then he’s laughing quietly into Louis’ neck, and yeah, Louis thinks, yeah, he’s sure.
Harry kisses him right down the hall, opens the bedroom door with a hand snaking past Louis’ waist, and steadies Louis’ fall back onto the bed, takes his wrist as he climbs over him, knees bracing Louis’ hips. Louis tugs him down, and they look at each other just for a moment, lock eyes, before Harry kisses him again, lips warm and hands sliding underneath Louis’ shirt. His hands swipe up Louis’ sides, sure and strong, and Louis rolls up into it, feels the goosebumps break out over his skin as Harry kisses the corner of his mouth and his neck and dips down to his collarbone, Louis’ hands finding his hair again.
“I can’t—” Louis says, just as Harry moves a leg in between his, rocks up and makes the breath catch in his throat. Harry stops straight away, pulls back and studies his face, and Louis lets the pause last a little too long. Keep him on his toes, and all that.
“—Breathe in these jeans,” he finishes finally, when he’s sure he’s not going to moan as he speaks, and Harry stares at him for a long moment, before shaking his head, laughing like he can’t quite believe it.
“I fucking love you,” he murmurs, lips on Louis’ as he sinks his fingertips into what he can get to of Louis’ arse, biting a little too hard on his lip, and Louis laughs too; fingers caught up in his hair, skin caught up in the heat between them, head caught up in Harry.
Harry makes quick work of Louis’ shirt and then his jeans, tossing them somewhere on the floor, and then his own, and then he’s everywhere. His left hand rests in the dip of Louis’ waist, his right on Louis’ cheek, and when Louis hook his legs around him and pulls him closer, grinding up into him and sending them breathing heavily into each other’s mouths, it’s the closest he’s felt to okay through all of this.
“You’re so,” Harry pants, voice low and sending Louis’ skin tingling, arousal low in his stomach, “you’re so—“
“Haz,” Louis says against his lips, chests pressed together, “more, like, now.”
“Yeah,” Harry says, sitting up, blinking a little as he leans over and finds a bottle of lube Louis miraculously spared in his great overhaul, “yeah, okay. Hey, though, c’mere.”
He drops the lube on the bed, forgotten for a moment, and Louis makes a small noise of annoyance because he wants this, now, but Harry just smiles, kisses him gently before dropping to his jaw, grazing his teeth. Louis shudders, keeps his fingers wound tight in Harry’s hair as he kisses a line from his neck to his shoulder, his collarbone, his chest, kisses over his heart and just next to his nipple and then the other one. Louis’ fallen silent, breathing heavily with how much he’s missed this, how good it is, to have Harry here and kissing him quiet again, his mouth over his ribcage and drifting down to his waist and his stomach. Where he leaves little bites he kisses over them, where he finds skin he likes he lingers, teasing and gentle, and when he starts biting at Louis’ inner thigh, face nuzzled into his dick, fleetingly, Louis’ skin feels like it’s on fire. He groans, pushes up into him without thinking about it, but Harry ignores him, nips at his other thigh instead.
“Harry,” he whines softly, all semblance of control lost, and Harry just hums quietly, shucks Louis’ briefs and then his own and kisses the head of Louis’ dick where it lies achingly hard against his stomach.
“Jesus, Styles,” he says, and he sounds wound up but his limbs are pliant, everything feels fuzzy, and when Harry finally sits up and slicks his fingers, Louis can see his little smirk at the audible sigh of relief that escapes him.
“Shut up,” Louis says, failing miserably at anything close to authoritative, and Harry laughs, and then he’s sliding a pillow under Louis’ back and his finger’s circling his hole and when he pushes in, Louis doesn’t hear a lot, because it’s been so, so long and Harry’s all he ever wants.
Harry stretches him open slowly, heart-stoppingly slowly, leaning down and kissing him quiet every time he adds another finger, and it’s exactly how Louis needs this tonight. Just the right amount of fun, sweet enough to be sorry, slow enough to mean something, because it does, this time, it means more than maybe every other time they’ve done this since the first and Louis’ whole body is moving with how much that is.
“You alright?” Harry asks, sitting up for a moment, and Louis nods, little moan escaping his throat as Harry crooks his fingers.
“Yeah,” he says, barely there, breath ragged, “yeah, yes, yes, I’m good.”
He pulls out slowly and Louis moans at the loss, so Harry kisses him quickly, mouth falling open as he slicks himself up. Louis decides, then, that he needs this now, so not-so-subtly pulls him closer with his legs, and Harry smiles.
“Hold your fuckin’ horses,” he says, and Louis’d bite right back at him, but in that moment he grips Louis’ thigh with one hand and his hip in the other, and sinks into him so slowly that Louis just about passes out.
“Shit,” he breathes, eyes fluttering shut and his hands on Harry’s, and then after a few seconds, “okay, okay, move.”
Harry does, slowly, pulls out and then pushes back in again, all the way this time, and Louis’ legs fall open around him, looking for more, needing more. Twice more and Harry starts to build up a rhythm, leaning down to catch Louis’ lips as he fucks into him slowly, making Louis arch up and cry out with it every time his fingers dig into his skin and he thrusts up. Louis’ close, too close; he wants to last in this moment forever, have Harry like this forever. Harry’s hand comes up and tangles with Louis’ just above his head, grasping at each other as Harry starts to come apart and lose his control, nails dug into Louis’ hip for leverage, and when he leans down and whispers you look so, so gorgeous, Lou, you always look so lovely like this, that’s all it takes, and Louis comes with a shudder that wracks his whole body, and as he clenches around him Harry follows soon after.
When they’ve come down, and Louis opens his eyes and turns to look at him, he realises they’re still holding hands. Harry smiles sleepily, tugs on his fingers and kisses his wrist, just on his pulse, and for the first time, Louis knows this is going to last.
Harry wakes him up with a trail of kisses down the shell of his ear the next morning, and Louis just cracks an eyelid, watches him for a moment.
“You know,” he murmurs, wincing a little as he moves, “some of us are trying to sleep.”
“Oh yeah?” Harry says with a grin, brushing Louis’ hair off his face “well. Some of us think you look too nice sleeping and want to say hi. That okay?”
Louis blinks.
“Yes,” he says decisively, “yeah, no, that’ll be fine.”
There are days he thinks he can’t do it and nights he can’t be in the same bed as him and there are frantic, hushed phone calls to whoever he thinks of first when it’s all too much. The uncertainty lingers for a long, long time, longer than he expects. But in the middle of that, there’s everything else. There’s the first time he realises he goes a day without thinking about it, there’s Harry popping in when he knows he’s got long office hours with lunch and a trashy magazine. They start dating each other again, eye-rollingly lame as Louis brushes it off to be, but it works. It’s good for them; plans, fun, feeling like this is new again. They go for lunch at places they can’t really afford and Harry takes him to his favourite markets one Sunday, takes stupid photos all day and let’s Louis sit with him while he develops them the next day. There are nights out and nights in and nights where they talk and hurt and try and make it through a bad day and there are nights they don’t say anything at all, don’t need to, because they’re okay.
Everything fixes, slowly. There comes a day where Louis stops finding little bits of broken nothings strewn through the flat, there comes a time when his Mum stops watching Harry with pursed lips, there comes a night where for the first time the lot of them are together again and he thinks it’s exactly how it used to be.
“Lou,” Harry murmurs one night, shifting between the sheets, “Lou, you awake?”
“Mm,” Louis says, biting down on his shoulder until he laughs, “what’s up?”
“Just thinking,” he says, and Louis rolls his eyes in the dark.
“Always dangerous,” he smiles into Harry’s chest, “what’s on your mind?”
Harry’s quiet for a long moment, and Louis realises it’s going to be more than goodnight as he starts speaking.
“I just,” he says, “I like, lie here before I fall asleep, and I think about a million things, or whatever. I think about you the most, though. And I just, I don’t know. But there’s nowhere else I’d rather fall asleep than right here. It’s the last thing I think every night.”
Louis’ silent, doesn’t know what to say, and Harry shifts underneath him, pulls him closer.
“I just, like, always want to say that to you, and I want you to know that all the time,” he says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, “love you, y’know.”
“Yeah,” Louis murmurs, kissing his jaw, eyes heavy, “yeah, I know. Love you too, as it turns out.”
Harry seems satisfied with that and is asleep in moments; Louis’ awake a little longer. He brushes his fingers over Harry’s skin until he’s calm enough to drop off, and when he wakes the next morning, it’s to the smell of Harry cooking bacon in the kitchen, and he stretches, turns his cheek to catch the cool plush of the pillow.
Everything fixes, slowly.
Harry and Louis fix last, but that’s okay, he thinks. He got out of bed. He can do the rest.
**
|
muffin boy - 11:34
Hey Bin.
How are you today?
Binnie - 11:34
oh hi eunwoo!
im doing pretty good
just woke up actually haha
muffin boy - 11:34
Just woke up?
Bin, it's almost 12pm.
Binnie - 11:35
my sleep schedule is shot to hell and back man
anyways why are you messaging me at this time
whats up friend you need anything
muffin boy - 11:35
Oh, no. Nothing of the sort, I was just...
There're no customers in store right now, and I'm running the shop alone today.
Binnie - 11:35
gasp
eunwoo are you
are you /lonely/
muffin boy - 11:36
...
Binnie - 11:36
omg
muffin boy - 11:37
Don't laugh.
Binnie - 11:37
im not!!!
muffin boy - 11:37
I can hear it in your typing.
Binnie - 11:37
damn eunwoo you must have supersonic hearing or something if you can hear letters
muffin boy - 11:37
Stooop
Binnie - 11:38
ehehhe
i just cant believe you got bored and lonely and you chose to message /me/ im
im so touched eunwoo i
[wipes a single tear from my eye]
muffin boy - 11:38
Haha.
I'm normally fine with running shop alone, I'm not sure why today is any different.
I hope I'm not bothering you, if I am I can stop.
Binnie - 11:39
no no its fine!!
im just pleasantly surprised i guess
you miss me man thats
thats soft
muffin boy - 11:39
Missing is a bit of a strong term, but...
Well, I enjoy chatting to you.
It makes the time go by a lot faster.
Binnie - 11:39
you know what they say
time flies when youre having fun and all that
muffin boy - 11:40
If our conversations are anything to go by I can confirm that.
Binnie - 11:40
i assume you're at bunshine right now then if you're running a store or whatever
muffin boy - 11:40
Yep.
Today's been quieter than usual.
Binnie - 11:41
you know whats weird
ive been to bunshine a bunch of times but ive never seen you there??
when do you even work eunwoo what the hell are your shifts
muffin boy - 11:42
Oh, normally I'm working on the weekends in the pre-lunch shifts and sometimes I'll hold the closing shifts.
Considering it's a weekend right now and you just woke up, I'm assuming that you're not an early riser.
Binnie - 11:42
exposed
i normally sleep past noon an early morning on the weekends is pre-2pm for me lmao
muffin boy - 11:42
Yea, I'm off work by then.
When do you normally stop by?
Binnie - 11:43
i think ive said this before but
generally in mornings if im running late for school and dont have breakfast
all my classes are during weekdays though so
if you only take weekend shifts then we'll never meet eunwoo
fated to never cross paths in this lifetime
muffin boy - 11:43
Haha.
Stop quoting Star-Crossed Lovers Bin you're such a nerd.
Binnie - 11:43
lame and proud that's me
what are you doing rn anyway
you said you normally run the counter right what do you do if there are no customers
muffin boy - 11:45
Ah, I'm actually in the back baking right now.
It helps the time go by, and I like to make small batches of stuff to practice recipes or make new ones sometimes.
Binnie - 11:45
how the hell are you baking and texting at the same time
what sort of multi-tasking monster are you
muffin boy - 11:46
Pfft. No way.
I made mini apple-cinnamon pies.
They're in the oven right now, so I have 10 minutes to kill.
Binnie - 11:47
mini pies?? sounds delicious
muffin boy - 11:47
I hope they are, I haven't made them in a while.
Binnie - 11:47
how do you make them im curious how wild the kitchen gets
muffin boy - 11:49
Not that wild.
I just mix up some pastry and roll it out, then fit it into the tins and bake it a little so the base cooks.
The filling is just apples, sugar, a little vinegar to balance the sweetness, and cinnamon.
Cook that until it softens, then add it onto the base and top with puff pastry, store-bought because I'm not making puff pastry by hand I'd be here for hours.
I was feeling it today so I made a lattice and then just put it into the oven to bake, which brings us back to this conversation.
Binnie - 11:52
eunwoo...
my stomach just growled wtf that sounds so good
are you an angel jesus youre baking the food of the gods or smth there
muffin boy - 11:52
Haha, nothing of the sort. It's pretty basic, I just like pies and apples.
Binnie - 11:52
"nothing basic" he says
meanwhile i struggle to flip an egg without the yolk breaking
muffin boy - 11:53
That's the good thing about baking. It doesn't matter whether the yolks broken, cause everything gets mixed in the end.
Binnie - 11:53
for some reason you managed to make talking about a heckin egg sound kind of deep
how long do you have til you're off work??
maybe ill stop by and keep you company
and also grab one of those pies
muffin boy - 11:55
Oh, I'm cleaning up now actually. The pies just finished.
I'll be gone in like 5 minutes; there's no point coming down.
Binnie - 11:55
ah dang
my stomach is crying about missed opportunities
muffin boy - 11:56
Haha, don't be sad.
We live in the same apartment, I'll bake for you some time.
Binnie - 11:56
omg
im convinced
i know an angel by the name of Cha Eunwoo
can i get uh one of everything because everything i know youve made so far sounds delicious
muffin boy - 11:57
Bin, I've only told you about two foods.
Binnie - 11:58
my point still stands
tbh if i came down i was really hoping i could catch a glimpse of eunwoo in the flesh
im really curious about what you look like
a pie wouldve just been a bonus
muffin boy - 11:58
You missed your chance to confirm that I'm truly not an old man.
Binnie - 11:59
dw man
even if you were an old dude id only be a little disappointed
esp cause the bunshine uniform is adorable on anyone tbh
muffin boy - 11:59
I've been told by the owners that I suit it very well, actually.
Binnie - 11:59
pics or it didnt happen
muffin boy - 11:59
...
You really just want to see what I look like, huh.
Binnie - 12:00
c;
muffin boy - 12:02
Well, I just changed into my normal clothes.
Your timing is terrible today, Bin.
Binnie - 12:03
goddang
the gods they have foresaken me
one day ill see you in your uniform eunwoo
or just see you
/one day mark my words/
muffin boy - 12:04
I look forward to when you'll manage that.
Anyway, I'm walking home now. It's dangerous to text and cross roads, so I'll see you.
Thanks for keeping me amused.
Binnie - 12:04
oh okay
dw about it it was fun talking to you eunwoo!!
feel free to message any time
i should probably get my butt out of bed
muffin boy - 12:05
I'll leave you to that then.
Bye, Binnie.
Binnie - 12:06
bye eunwoo!!
wait
binnie
did you just call me binnie
eunwoo get back here and EXPLAIN YOURSELF SIR
EUNWOO
muffin boy - 12:06
c;
CONTACT EDITED:
muffin boy --> eunwoo ☆
|
From the moment Bucky had closed the door, Peggy had been pacing in circles, gathering her thoughts. She didn’t stop, her eyes fixed on the floor as she walked the perimeter of the room, her hands clenching and unclenching by her sides.
Broad hands came to rest on her shoulders. Her mind was so focussed on the enemy that she struck out. Her hands, spread wide, struck her assailant in the middle of his chest, the force tossing him across the room like a rag doll. He hit the bookshelves, crashing to the floor as she stepped into a defensive stance.
Steve winced, looking up at her from the floor. “Hey.”
Peggy stared at him blankly, her hands still shielding her centre. “Steve?”
Bucky stepped alongside him and help him up. “You okay?”
Steve nodded. He crossed the floor without hesitation and caught Peggy’s hands, drawing them down from their defensive position. “You okay, Peggy?”
Her hands were shaking in his, and she looked at them, as if they were betraying her. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice unsteady. He tugged on her fingers, and she took the unspoken invitation, stepping into his arms and holding him tightly. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “Bruises. Gone in no time.”
“So that’s why Captain Grandpa wanted to bring her back to the real world?”
She almost jerked out of Steve’s arms at Stark’s voice. “Stark?”
“Easy, Peggy, easy,” Steve murmured, stroking her back soothingly. “Just breathe for a second, okay?” His cheek was resting against her hair, and he was breathing in and out, slow and steady, until she was breathing with the same rhythm. “Calm is better.”
“This is my place, Steve,” she whispered, her fingers clenching against his back. “I-I felt safe here. I was safe here. With you. With Barnes. And now…” She shuddered, burying her face in his chest.
“I know,” he said softly.
Her fingers were flexing slowly against his back. “I want to finish it.”
His hand cupped the back of her head and he pressed his lips to her crown. He gave her no words of reassurance that everything would be fine, because she knew he couldn’t lie like that. Instead, he just held her and said quietly, “So we finish it.”
She took a gulping breath and drew back to look beyond him. Bucky was standing by the doorway, arms tightly folded over his chest. He didn’t look happy. Natasha was standing just inside the door, and Stark was still in the hall, rocking on the balls of his feet.
“I thought you had Avengers business?” she said, looking up at Steve.
He kneaded the back of her neck with his fingertips. “That can wait,” he said. “This can’t. If they’re watching you, they’re coming for you.”
Peggy didn’t need to be told that.
She put one hand to his chest and closed her eyes tightly. There was no need for her thoughts to running in panicked circles. It was a mission. Nothing more. It should not have mattered that this time, they were on her soil, and this time, they were targeting her, rather than the other way around.
It should not have mattered, but it did.
They were targeting her, and she knew why.
“This isn’t a kill mission ,” she confessed in a whisper. “Karpov tried to control me. Belova was going to take me back.” Her voice was shaking and god, she was terrified. “If I’m taken, if you have a shot, promise me you’ll take it.” She opened her eyes, looking up at him. Her cheeks felt wet. “I can’t go back to that. I can’t.”
Steve’s hand covered hers on his chest, as it had so many weeks ago at the hospital.
“I won’t let that happen,” he said fiercely. “You’re with us now. We won’t let them take you back.”
She couldn’t speak, her throat tight with emotion. She could only nod, grateful. Support. She had support now. A team. Allies. Not alone. Not isolated. Not a single weapon.
Natasha spoke quietly. “Tell us what you need us to do.”
Peggy pressed her fingertips against Steve’s chest, grounding herself.
She breathed slowly, in, then out, in then out. New target assigned. Standard mission protocol. Acquire targets and logistics. Collate relevant data to locate, disable, and neutralise threats.
“I need to know where to find them,” she said. “I need to know everything. I need to know if he’s working alone or if they have sent a team. I need to know the scale of the operation.” She looked at Stark. “You have your computers. Barnes can show you where I saw them. The hotel. Find the names they’re using. Find CCTV footage. Find their faces. Find anything you can.”
Stark looked surprised. “Is she always like this?” he said out of the corner of his mouth to Romanoff.
“On a mission?” Natasha replied. “This is her being nice.” She jerked her head. “You might want to get on that, Stark.”
Stark nodded, touching a fingertip to his ear. “You get all that, JARVIS?” He looked at Bucky. “You’re coming with me, Uncle Buck. We have intelligence to collect.”
“Can’t help thinking we’re sending the wrong people on that mission,” Steve said, loudly enough for both men to hear him as they headed into the hall.
Bucky’s hand reappeared around the doorframe, one finger poking upwards, and for half a moment, Peggy could almost smile. It lasted until the front door closed, then she forced herself to step back from Steve’s proximity.
Comfort was appreciated, but it was also a distraction when she needed to be alert.
“Did you have any experience of Operative Three?” she asked Natasha.
Natasha shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I think I crossed paths with him a couple of times, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“Do you have a face for him?” Steve asked.
Peggy went over to her couch, sitting down on the edge. She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, trying to remember.
It was hard enough to organise the memories of events and people she wanted to recall, but to trace the details of the face of another person she had trained and broken and put together as neatly as a revolver was like beating at a door that wouldn’t open.
She knew she had to remember, but a greater part of her wanted to recoil from the knowledge.
Belova had been trial enough.
“I did,” she said, soft and harsh. Her nails were biting into her brow. “I… can’t reach it.”
Abruptly, Steve was in front of her, kneeling down, and drawing her hands from her face.
“Don’t push for it,” he said, his hands gentle around her wrists. He knelt up to rest his brow against hers, and brought her hands back to his chest, holding both of them there. “Focus on what’s coming. Not what was. We’ll find them.”
“We don’t know what he looks like,” she protested. “Male, dark-haired. In this city, how does that help anyone?”
“I don’t care about him now,” Steve said, his voice just as calm and low. “I care about you. I know how badly Belova upset you. You don’t need that again. You don’t need to look back at that, not when it hurts you.”
She shook her head helplessly. “I need to know who I’m fighting, Steve.”
He lifted his hands to cup her face. “Then think of this as a new enemy,” he said, “and we can work from there. Someone sent by the people you do know. Someone who we know is as well-trained as you and Natasha were. We don’t need a face to fight someone like that.”
She closed her eyes, pressing her brow to his. “I want to see his face,” she whispered, “before we’re done. I need to see his face.”
“Would it help?” Natasha asked quietly. “Another face to remind you of those days?”
Peggy took a shaking breath. “I can’t forget those days, even if I wanted to,” she said in a low voice. “They’re always there in some form or another. You know that. If I see him, I’ll know another threat is gone.”
Natasha didn’t argue.
“We’ll use this place as our base,” Steve said firmly, “and wait to see what the guys find.”
Peggy nodded, forcing herself to step back from him.
The first priority was making sure their surroundings were secure. Steve made sure of it, and Peggy ensured that she double- and triple-checked everything for her own reassurance.
It felt like cowardice to close herself away in the flat while Stark and his technology gathered intelligence, but she had no desire to face her enemy without knowing all the variables.
Stark was efficient in his task.
Within two hours, the first data started arriving to Steve's e-mail. He opened the computer for her, setting it on the table in the livingroom, and Peggy sat down at it at once. Much of it was not relevant, but she skimmed through days of footage from security feeds within the hotel lobbies and CCTV footage from the streets outside, searching for a familiar face.
She didn't know how long she was sitting there, one leg folded beneath her, and nor did she care.
The mission was the priority.
Seventy years had scored that deeply into her psyche.
Now, it could be useful.
She had always been steadfast and patient, but only human. Her handlers had made her something else. They had provided her with endurance that she should not have had, whether to run, to attack, or to focus on a task until her eyes were dry and aching.
Food was placed within her reach, and she must have eaten, but she could not be sure of the flavour or the substance of it. It was only when warm hands came to rest on her shoulders that she tore her eyes from the screen.
It was dark outside, and the lights were on. Peggy blinked hard, lifting her right hand to rub at her eyes. Her arm spasmed, the muscles protesting so many unmoving hours.
"Anything familiar?" Steve asked quietly, his hands kneading her shoulders gently.
She closed her eyes. "No," she said, her voice startling her with how hoarse and dry it was. "He must have support too."
"You're a serious threat." Natasha's voice spoke from nearby. Peggy didn't even try to turn her head, her neck aching. "You've taken out their base, raided one of their major facilities, as well as two of their operatives, mostly single-handed as far as they know. They must be worried if they've put together a team."
The idea filled her with trepidation.
It was entirely possible that there were other operatives that she knew nothing about, people she had not trained or had any hand in. If the last of her trainees was collaborating with others of their ilk, if they were numerous, they stood a far greater chance than if they were alone.
Steve's hands continued to knead at her neck and shoulders, trying to ease tension that went right down to her bones.
"You can't do more tonight," he said quietly. "You need to rest, if you can."
If seemed such a challenging word, but he was right, of course.
Even if the mission had to be a priority, she had to consider her physical state. The Winter Soldier never needed to. Repairs were made. Supplements and energy substitutes were provided. Sleep was not considered essential.
She nodded, rolling her shoulders beneath his hands. "A bath," she said. "I need a bath. Hot."
He didn't even hesitate or question it. He just dropped a kiss on top of her head, and walked out of the room to draw one for her.
With effort, Peggy unfolded her legs from beneath her, and turned on the seat. Pins and needles ran the length of her legs. She shifted both legs slowly, easing the tension, raising her head to look over at Romanoff.
Natasha was barefoot and sitting on the couch, a tablet in her lap. She looked at Peggy with visible concern. "I'm sorry I can't remember him," she said quietly. "I know it would have helped."
"He was before your time," Peggy demurred, slowly curling and uncurling her hands. "You weren't to know."
Natasha set the tablet aside. "At least we still have an advantage," she said. Peggy raised her eyebrows in enquiry. "He may know that you and I have been working together, but no one knows your current affiliations."
Peggy laughed quietly, wearily. "I'm currently living with Captain America," she murmured, "I suspect it may have been noticed."
Natasha shrugged. "That means nothing," she said. "You could be his prisoner by proxy. You could be manipulating him. You could be using him, as far as anyone outside of this apartment knows. No one knows what your relationship is to him." She set her feet down on the floor, leaning forward. "You can use that."
Peggy lifted her hand to rub at her eyes. "No," she said.
"It's an adv..."
"I said," Peggy said, her voice brittle, "no. They've sullied every other part of my life. They do not get to touch that." Her words shrank to a thin, unsteady whisper. "I won't let them. It's the one good, pure thing I have left."
Natasha was quiet for a moment. "Oh.”
Peggy looked down at her hands, clenched in tight knots in her lap. "Yes."
Natasha exhaled quietly. "Okay. So we find another way."
"Yes," Peggy repeated, just as quietly.
They both turned their heads when Steve re-entered the room a moment later.
"Bath's ready," he said. "Nat, call Bucky. Get him home. I think we need to all be here tonight."
She wished she had the wit to thank him for that, but she was tired.
She let him help her to her feet and back through to the bathroom. As he undressed her, he let his hands brush her skin, warm where she felt cold, soft where she felt hard, a reminder that she was more than they had made her.
The tears were gathering in her eyes, and they were a stupid damnable weakness, but she couldn't stop them from spilling down her cheeks.
Only two days before, she had felt happy and safe and loved.
Only two days before, the threat was so distant that she could ignore it for a time, but now, it was choking her.
She stepped as close to Steve as she could, her hands at his waist, and pressed bodily to him. She could feel his palms ghost over her shoulders, down her back, holding her, but doing it so gently that she knew she could break free in a heartbeat.
"I'd offer to share the tub with you," he murmured, looking down at her, "but it was a tight enough fit for Buck."
“We wouldn’t want to be trapped like sardines,” she agreed, as much as she wished he would join her. “But you’ll stay?”
He cupped her cheeks with his hands and kissed her softly on the forehead. “As long as you’ll have me,” he promised.
|
We finally pull up to the club and I release a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. The building looks like a basic office building. There’s a parking lot full of cars off to the side but I don’t see anyone. No one but a very large man in front of typical glass office doors. Adrien practically jumps out of the cab. He gets a few steps before he seems to realize how he looks. Dragging to a stop he hesitates before turning back to open Alya’s door and hold the door open for me. Alya throws me a toothy grin before she steps out. Adrien’s eyes remain stubbornly fixed on the sidewalk as I slide to the open door. The cab is parked just far enough from the curb that it is awkward for me to try and step out. It doesn’t help matters that I am wearing white platform stilettos. I grab onto the side of the door to give myself leverage when I see Adrien’s hand before me.
I look up into his face as my hand slides into his. That glow in his eyes is back but his face looks bored. My eyes stay locked on his as my fingertips brush along the inside of his fingers to his palm. The skin to skin contact makes my nerve endings tingle and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. There’s a buzz between us as I brace my feet and let him pull me out of the cab. He’s stronger than he looks and pulls me up with no difficulty. When he reached for me he had to step close to the curb. This leaves very little room between the curb and his much larger body. As I get to my feet I end up flush against him. The tension that has been strumming between us suddenly spikes.
My heartbeat goes wild and I feel like I’m going to combust. He seems to have the exact opposite reaction to our proximity. His nerves from before have compressed to a solid wall. He stands ridged in front of me and watches me with hooded, cool green eyes. I can’t read him. Is he irritated at my invasion of his space? Is he just being polite so I don’t feel awkward? A rebellious part of me flares. I will draw some kind of reaction out of him. Without really thinking I arch my back and press my body into his a little more. I hear an audible click as he tries to swallow and his eyes bore into mine.
Someone clears their throat behind us loudly.
Adrien recoils. He still had my hand though and the loss of support in the front with the slight tug on my hand made me over correct backward to stay upright. I step back and my heel goes over the edge of the curb. The backward motion makes it impossible for me to save myself. My hand is ripped from Adrien’s as I fight to balance but it’s useless and I fall back. I am stopped midair by a strong arm around my waist. Before I can even register what has happed I am swung further from the curb and plopped unceremoniously on my feet. I look up at Adrien but he has turned his back on me. He swings the door to the cab closed with an apology to the driver but still doesn’t face me.
“Any time guys,” Alya laughs over her shoulder.
She walks up to the guard at the office building and holds up her bracelet. He flashes a hand held black light at it and motions her inside. She waves for us to hurry and walks in.
Adrien looks over his shoulder at the office building and walks right past me to follow Alya. I stand for a second trying to tap down my seething emotions. I don’t know which is worse feeling this attraction to him or thinking he feels the same only to have him dismiss me. I enjoy the feel of the cool breeze across my heated skin for a few more seconds before I follow Alya and Adrien.
When I turn toward the building I see Adrien standing there with the door open but he looks everywhere but me. Why does he have to be so hot and cold? I check in with the guard and move inside. Adrien’s eyes catch mine just as I enter. He looks so unsure that I can’t hold back a grateful smile. He just blushes and shrugs, following behind me into the main lobby.
The building is pretty unremarkable when we enter. Fluorescent lights flicker over doors lining either side of a wide hallway leading down to two elevator doors. One in particular glows with several different colors in the dim light. Alya is nowhere to be seen. She must have already figured out where the club was.
“I guess that’s the entrance.” Adrien indicates the door with a jerk of his head.
“What gave it away?” I poke him in the ribs as I walk away.
I tap on the call button and feel Adrien come up beside me. This close to the elevator I can hear the faint sound of bass from above.
“Alya sure took off fast. Didn’t even wait to ride the elevator with us.”
I just shrug, “It doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t. She’s not a leisurely walk, take in the atmosphere, kind of person. Besides I know she was itching to see Nino before he went up to DJ.”
We don’t wait long before the doors open with a ding. More designs are glowing along the walls but that seems to be the only light source in the space. I hesitate to be in such a dim confined space.
I can feel Adrien’s smirk. “After you, princess.”
The term of endearment makes me stop short and hits an already raw nerve. I jerk my eyes over to Adrien’s and see his green eyes widen slightly. Like Manon when I catch her sneaking sweets from the bakery. I watch him for just a second longer but that damn poker face slams down and I can no longer read him. I turn sharply and enter the cab trying to bury a suspicion that is snowballing out of control.
_______________
I follow Marinette into the elevator and see that the top floor button glows hot pink.
“11th floor it is.”
I hit the button and move a comfortable distance away from Marinette who’s brooding in the corner. I slipped up calling her princess. I blame everything that’s happened and this damn thing between us tonight. It’s putting me on edge and making me reckless. It’s not the first time I’ve slipped with the nickname but usually she just over looks it. Tonight though, with everything that has happened, she’s on edge. The way she looked at me in the cab on the ride over. She saw Chat for a moment. Now calling her by Chat’s nickname for her, I’ve really dug myself a hole. I never have had trouble separating myself from my alter ego before. I don’t know why tonight is any different. Something about Marinette is tugging at me like a lost memory. I just can’t place it.
I’m trying to think of a way of deflecting her thoughts when I hear her clear her throat.
“Adrien, if you don’t mind me asking,” dread fills me and I try to hear her over the sudden buzzing in my ears, “Why do you have callouses only on your thumb and index finger?”
I suddenly feel like my head is floating and release an airy chuckle. That was NOT what I thought she was going to ask. I look over at her but she just watches the numbers above to door slowly light up and go out.
Did I just overreact? Has tonight all been in my head? Has stress done something to my head? Man, no matter what the answer is I dodged a bullet.
“I only have them on my right hand. They’re from fencing. My dad has always bought the best gloves available to use, which has helped, but he makes me practice. A lot. So the pad of my thumb and the outer edge of my index figure has gotten a little rough over the years. You should see my feet.” Feeling suddenly jubilant at my good luck I turn and wink at her, “I could never be a foot model.”
Her eyes meet mine and she gives me an easy grin. “Oh, I’m well aware. I’ve seen you at the pool.”
My head is thrown back with the force of my laughter; there’s an almost giddy quality to it. Her barb catches me off guard and lightens my mood further. I move closer and shove her shoulder gently making her giggle.
The elevator door opens and we walk out. The discomfort and tension of the last hour, of the last few days, is left behind in the elevator.
|
Michael Jones hated Gavin Free.
The entire school was aware of this fact, even Gavin himself.
If you asked him why, he wouldn’t actually be able to give you a legitimate answer. He just hated the kid, and that’s all there was to it. He hated his stupid British accent, his dumb hair, his ridiculous made up words, and the fact that everybody else seemed to adore him.
Gavin hated him too, but not to the extent that Michael did. In fact, he thought Michael’s hatred was amusing. They happened to have a lot of mutual friends, such as Lindsay, Ray, Barbara, etc. They were actually really good friends with all of the same people, but Michael refused to ever hang out with Gavin. Lindsay would invite him to go to the movies with all of them, and the first question out of his mouth would be, “Is Gavin going to be there?” Needless to say, his arrival depended on her answer.
Sometimes Gavin would try to talk to him, saying foolish things like “Hello, Michael! How has your day been?” in a smug tone just because he knew that his very presence was pissing him off.
If he knew his other friends wouldn’t get pissed at him, he would not hesitate to punch that British prick in the face.
Which is why he hated going to Life Science class.
Life Science was the only class that they had together. Michael went out of his way to make sure he sat on the opposite side of the room from Gavin, even if it meant not being able to sit with Ray and Lindsay (who were also in the class.) It didn’t matter to him, he had other friends to pretend he cared about as much as them. Besides, asking Ray and Lindsay if they would sit with him instead would just cause them to roll their eyes and tell him to just suck it up and sit with them.
On this particular day, when he walks into the classroom, the three are already sitting in the back together so Michael opts to sit near the front, only a few seats away from the teachers desk.
Mr. Burns was the type of teacher that everybody liked. The girls all had crushes on him and would swoon over him all class and the guy’s appreciated his lack of strict teaching methods. Unlike most other teachers, Mr. Burns just didn’t bother yelling at students for misbehaving. Mainly because students liked him enough to not want to misbehave.
Besides, he teaches Life Science. Michael figures it’s a pretty slack class. They spend a lot of their time doing dumb little projects and quizzes that he could A+ with his eyes closed.
"Okay, class!" Mr. Burns announces as he walks into class carrying a huge blue Tupperware container. "It’s that time of year again. Time for the infamous baby project."
A few in the class let out an annoyed groan. The baby project is what the Life Science class is basically known for. It was the sole reason for Michael not wanting to take this class and trying everything he could to get out of it. But, of course, he had schedule conflicts and no other classes could fill the slot.
The large blue container takes up a large portion of his desk when he sets it down on top, and then pulls off the lid.
"This," he states as he pulls a baby doll out of the container, "Is going to be your baby for the next four days."
Some of the girls in class start excitedly chattering with their friends about what the babies will be like and what they’ll name it. Michael wants nothing to do with this project.
"When it cries, it’s your job to figure out what’s wrong with it.”
"How do we stop it’s crying?" a curious student in the back asks.
"There are a few ways. Along with the baby you each get a small car-seat for easier travel, a baby bottle, and two diapers. The bottle is magnetized so that when you hold it to it’s mouth, the doll registers it and begins to drink. When it laughs, that means that it’s done. The diapers are the same way and when you change the diaper to the other one, then it will stop crying as well."
"What happens if we just let it cry and decide not to give a shit about it?" somebody questions.
"Then you fail," Mr. Burns smirks and rolls his eyes, "You all know that this is the main project for this class. It’s a large percentage of your overall grade, so failing it would not be in your favor."
"You can turn the baby on and off by opening up the panel in it’s back and flipping the switch. If you ever need to turn it off because of an emergency, you can use that switch. But only for an emergency. If you don’t have a good reason for doing so, then you automatically fail. It will turn off on it’s own during school hours so that you won’t have to take it to school.”
"We can’t take it to school?"
"Nah," he shrugs, "Some teachers make you, but I don’t see the point. If you had a real baby you wouldn’t take it to high school with you. It’ll turn off an hour before school starts and will turn on an hour after school ends. That should give you plenty of time to get back to it."
"What if we have plans after school?"
"You can kiss your plans goodbye because now you’ve got a baby to take care of."
Mr. Burns uncaring attitude makes some students chuckle. He’s never been a teacher known to bullshit around and care about complaints that don’t make any sense. Of course, Michael just can’t help himself.
"This project is so pointless," he mutters, but he says it loud enough for Mr. Burns to hear him.
"Well I’m sorry you feel that way, Michael, but it is a required project. So you have to do it." he states, not even pretending to feel bad about it.
Michael scoffs and rolls his eyes, “What does it even prove? That babies are obnoxious and cry a lot? News flash, pretty sure we know that already.”
Mr. Burns lets out an irritated sigh, “Are you going to bitch and complain for the entire day?”
Michael raises an eyebrow at his language, but it’s not really anything out of the ordinary for Mr. Burns. Besides, he never bats an eye when a student curses in front of him. He’s actually one of the better teachers in the school when it comes to dealing with students.
"Yes."
Mr. Burns doesn’t respond with annoyance this time, instead he smirks in amusement as an idea forms in his head. Michael already regrets being stubborn because who knows what kind of punishment his Life Science teacher will force on him.
"Well then, I suppose I should give you some more material for that by partnering you up with somebody of my choosing."
Michael’s eyes widen when he realizes what this means. No amount of begging or apologizing for being an asshole is really going to get him out of this now. Every teacher and student knows which person he hates more than anybody else in the world.
"Not Gavin. Not Gavin. Not Gavin. Not Gavin." he continues to chant out loud, already knowing the horrible fate that his teacher will soon bestow upon him regardless.
"Hmmm," Mr. Burns pretends to think while looking around the classroom with his hands to his chin, "Who should I pick as Michael Jones’ partner?”
Honestly, he couldn’t have just taken the stupid baby project without complaints? At least then he’d have a tolerable partner like Lindsay or Ray.
Of course, hearing Michael’s name causes Gavin to immediately loose interest in the conversation he was having with another student and his head snaps up to look at Mr. Burns. “Me! I’ll be his partner! Pick me, Mr. Burns! Pick me! Gavin!”
"Ah!" the teacher pretends the idea has just come upon him, "Gavin! Would you like to be Michael’s partner for this project?"
He doesn’t even hesitate, “Yes!”
"Perfect!" he beams, while pulling him up from his seat. Gavin has the biggest shit eating grin on his face as he’s dragged over by his elbow.
"Here’s your husband," the teacher states, leaving Gavin at Michael’s desk so that he can root through the box on his desk. He pulls out one of the dolls and a sheet of paper before coming over and putting both in front of the two. "And here’s your baby."
"You are the worst teacher ever," Michael glares at him.
"Have fun, boys," he snickers and then turns back to the front of the class, "Everybody else pick your partners and sit with them."
He tunes out the rest of the teachers instructions while Gavin noisily pulls a spare chair over to the desk so that he can sit as close as possible.
"Hello, Mr. Free!” he giggles obnoxiously, knowing how much pain he’s causing the other boy.
"First of all, fuck you," Michael states, "And second off all, you must be pretty goddamn stupid if you think I would ever take your last name. You’d be Mr. Jones for sure.”
"I’ll be whoever you want me to be, love," he pretends to flirt just to irritate him further, and it’s apparent that it’s working.
"Shut the hell up," Michael glares at him before picking up the doll, "I don’t want to get a bad grade on this stupid project, so I’m not gonna fail just because you’re an incompetent moron."
Gavin looks almost offended, “I’m plenty good with babies!”
Michael somehow doubts that, and as if to prove it, he tosses the doll at him. Gavin’s taken off guard but quickly fumbles, trying to catch the thing. It ends up falling to the floor between their chairs.
"Yeah," Michael mutters, "So good with babies.”
Gavin huffs and leans down to pick it up. Thank goodness it isn’t turned on yet or else they would have failed already for sure. “Yeah, well, you bloody threw it at me! I think throwing the baby in the first place makes you a much worse parent than me!”
"I was just testing your reflexes! Babies are bouncy little fuckers. What if he or she fell off the changing table or some shit? You’d be hopeless!"
"I’d be able to do it then!” he argues back, “Not when you’re throwing the thing at me like it’s an American football!”
"It was a gentle toss," Michael scoffs, "Don’t be such a baby."
"Aren’t you excited to be my husband? We’re like partners in crime or something!" Gavin cries, completely disregarding their previous conversation.
"If you act like this for the majority of the project, I might actually strangle you."
"Michael!" he cries, his usual pronunciation of the name along with that whiny tone is like nails on a chalkboard to him.
"Will you shut the hell up?" he glares, trying to keep his voice quiet so that Mr. Burns won’t scold him for arguing with his "partner."
"I’m just trying to be a good partner! Both class wise and marriage wise.”
"We are not marriage partners. We are just two people stuck taking care of a stupid electronic baby for four days." Michael states strictly, already refusing to put up with any of Gavin’s ridiculous shit.
"A whole four days?"
"Yeah, that’s what Mr. Burns just told us.”
"Well, we should stay at my house."
Michael raises an eyebrow, “Why?”
"We have to pass in this doll on Monday, right?"
"Yeah," Michael nods, trying to figure out the days in his head, "It’s Thursday now, then we have to spend today, Friday, and the weekend with this thing. Then I’m home free from both this stupid doll and stupid you.”
Gavin ignores the insult, “Geoff and Griffon are out of town and I’ve got the whole house to myself. They won’t be back until the Wednesday of next week so it wouldn’t be a problem. It’ll be easier to take care of the baby if we’re staying under the same roof and that way your parents don’t get disturbed.”
Michael must admit that it sounds like a pretty good plan. The only downside is the fact that he has to live with Gavin for four days. But it sure as hell beats having Gavin stay at his and annoy the hell out of his parents.
They could easily just do what most of the other students are doing. One person takes the baby one day, then the other takes it the next, then so on and so forth. But Michael actually wants to get a good grade in this, so leaving Gavin alone with the doll is pretty much out of the question.
"Yeah, that’s probably best. You can get a ride with me in my car and we’ll pop in to my house so that I can get some shit, and then we’ll crash at your place. And no, it is not a sleepover.”
Gavin doesn’t even seem to process the last sentence and just grins wide at the thought of a week long slumber party with the guy who hates him. “This is going to be fun!”
He rolls his eyes, knowing that no amount of arguing will convince Gavin otherwise.
"Hey, Michael?"
"What?"
"I know that you hate me and everything, but I think for the sake of the baby, we should be friends for this week." Gavin states, smiling at him contentedly.
"Friends?" Michael quirks an eyebrow.
"Yeah, we can put our differences and hate behind us, and just be two lads raising a fake baby together."
Michael doesn’t want to be anywhere near the line of being friends with Gavin Free. But it’s only been a few minutes into the project and all they’ve succeeded in doing is arguing. If being friends with him for this short amount of time means that this will all end with no murder charges on his behalf, then maybe it’s a good idea.
"Okay, fine," Michael relents after glaring at him suspiciously, "We can befriends until the project is over. But after all of this, I am never speaking to you again.”
"Deal!" Gavin beams, and holds out his hand for a shake. Michael rejects him and instead turns his focus back to the information sheet.
Looking back on the agreement later when this is all over, Michael’s still not sure if he regrets accepting or not.
"Okay, everybody!" Mr. Burns gets the classes attention and holds up one of the spare dolls to demonstrate on, "Now that you’re all paired up and you’ve got your dolls, you can turn it on by opening the panel in it’s back and flipping the switch."
Michael flips the doll around and raises it’s little shirt. The panel is the same color as the rest of the baby and looks like a place where you’d put batteries in a child’s toy. As soon as he changes the switch to “on,” a happy gurgle is heard and it almost makes him drop the thing out of fright.
"It’s alive!" Gavin squeals excitedly.
Michael raises an eyebrow but turns the baby back around so that they can look at it’s face. Just a plastic baby dolls face, unmoving with cold plastic eyes. “This thing is creepy as hell.”
"For the rest of class, you and your partner can look over the information sheet," Mr. Burns states, once again proving how much of a slack class this is.
Of course Michael is still bitter about this entire thing. He hates Gavin Free and wants nothing more than to be as far away from him as possible. If he can survive the oncoming week, he’s fairly certain that he can survive just about anything. All he needs is a good mark on this project, so he’s just going to have to grit his teeth and bear it. Gavin’s an annoying asshole, but he isn’t worth failing a class over.
Mr. Burns is going around handing out the bottles that “feed” the babies and everybody gets one of the car seats so that it’s easier to travel and carry it around. This school really goes all out on stupid Life Science projects. But then again, it is one of the main projects for the course.
He looks over the information sheet, it states simple and obvious rules about how to take care of the doll. Figuring that they can read that later, he skips to the area where they have to fill out questions. Just stupid things like what the parents names are (he quickly scrawls his and Gavin’s names in the blank), what they’ll name it, and how they have taken care of it.
"I don’t think I really trust you with that thing," Michael mutters, watching as Gavin attempts to feed it with the bottle. Nothing happens, and it’s obviously because the kid isn’t hungry.
"Why not? I think I’d make a great dad."
Michael sighs and shakes his head in defeat. No matter how annoyed he is, he’s still going to be spending the next few days with this asshole and “their baby.” He might as well attempt to be nice to Gavin, even though it already sounds like an impossible task.
"What should we name it?" he questions, watching as Gavin eagerly studies every inch of the baby. He’s already taking this project too seriously.
"It’s not an "it", Michael." he argues, turning away from the doll to glare at him playfully.
"You just referred to it as an it, dumbass!"
"Only because you called it an it and now I’ve fallen into the habit!"
"I called it an it once!”
Gavin sighs, resting the doll down on the desk, “This conversation is hurting my brain.”
"Figures." Michael mutters while rolling his eyes.
"Oi!" Gavin cries, his eyebrows furrowed, "What’s that supposed to mean?"
“OI! Wot’s that supposed to mean?!” he mocks in a terrible British accent, and Gavin’s about to say something back but they’re interrupted by the teacher.
"Gavin! Michael! Behave yourselves."
Michael rolls his eyes. Out of all people he could have been paired with for this stupid project, it had to be Gavin. He skims through the project information sheet, looking for their dolls gender.
"According to the paper, it’s a boy."
“He’s a boy.”
"Shut the fuck up, Gavin. So, what should we call him?"
"How about Hamish?" he suggests happily.
"What?!"
"Hamish," he repeats, as he writes it down on the paper.
Michael looks at the name, and raises a brow, “Dude, that says Hamish.” Pronouncing it as though its a pork product instead of their baby’s name.
"It’s Hamish! And I think it’s a cute name.”
"Why can’t we name it something badass? Like Mogar?"
"I don’t think anybody in the history of ever has named their child Mogar."
"Well, they’re missing out."
"It’s dumb."
"No it’s not! It represents power! He’s like a mighty warrior. No kid on the playground would fuck with him if he had a name like Mogar."
"Fine, Mogar can be his middle name." He scrawls Mogar after the word Hamish.
"His last name is Jones."
"What?! Why does he get your last name?!"
"Because I said so! Hamish Mogar Jones sounds a lot better than Hamish Mogar Free!"
"What if it was like a combination of the two! Like… Joree or Frones!"
Michael gives him a blank look, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
"Fine, fine." He mutters and scrawls Free-Jones on the paper.
"Why does your name get to be first?!"
Gavin groans, “Fine!” while erasing the name and re-writing it to Jones-Free. “Happy now?”
"Immensely." It’s only been five minutes and they’re already fighting. Michael already wants to stab his eyes out with forks. "Good thing this is just a doll and not a real kid."
Gavin hums as he thinks about it, “Could you imagine the two of us as gay parents?”
"I don’t want to."
"I think it’d be top! I think the kid would be awesome."
"I think the kid would be severely fucked up in the head."
Gavin ignores him and instead picks up the baby and starts cooing to it, “Hello there, Hamish Mogar Jones-Free!”
The baby gurgles happily.
"Look!" he grins at Michael, "He likes his name!"
It was going to be a long four days.
|
-=-=-=-Chapter 26: Unexpected Comatose State -=-=-=-=-
Minerva, as promised, began to take Hermione under wing a little more with the stress of the reconstruction simmering down to a manageable stress level. She drilled the rules into the young witch, or rather insured she knew which ones she was obligated to be strict in reprimanding and which she could turn a blind eye to as long as it wasn’t hurting someone. Minerva’s list of acceptable blindness was terribly small, but Hermione expected nothing less from the witch who was a known disciplinarian.
Minerva showed Hermione the places to patrol for loitering often missed by the prefects and Head Boys and Girls as well as when it perfectly acceptable to step in as an intervention. By the time she was done doing a mock patrol with her, Hermione’s head was full of rules, what-ifs, and things to look out for that she began to understand why being caught by a patrolling professor was more apt to bring more stern punishment than by a patrolling prefect. It wasn’t that Hermione hadn’t been aware of the rules, but there were subtleties that ebbed and flowed in the life of a professor that she was expected to follow when the students swarmed the walls of Hogwart’s.
When Hermione wandered back into the lab after a long day with Minerva, she saw Severus sitting down on a comfortably transfigured couch in the middle the lab. He nodded to her soundlessly upon her entry, inclining his head towards a waiting teacup and the empty space beside him.
“Minerva filling your head with rules, regulations, and subtle interrogation techniques?” Severus questioned as she sank into the couch with a sigh of relief.
“I used to think you made up most of the things you docked house points for,” Hermione replied, sipping her tea and leaning back into the couch.
Snape’s mouth curved upward slightly in amusement. “It becomes even more complicated when you are Head of House.”
“Oh I don’t even want to go there,” she said as she shook her adamantly, closing her eyes. “We always thought we were so clever sneaking into places unseen, but you knew the places all along.”
Severus snorted. “You cannot be everywhere at once, but it helps to make everyone think you can.” He met her gaze with his impenetrable black eyes. “When we patrol together, I’ll be sure to show you some quality places to check for errant rule-breakers.”
Hermione sniggered, setting down her teacup and leaning back against the couch. She closed her eyes for the moment to relax, but within a few moments was fast asleep, her body wilted in the couch until she leaned against Severus. Severus’ brows furrowed for a moment before he pulled a blanket out of thin air and cast it over her as she slept on obliviously.
Severus had finished his tea and a few more chapters in the book he was reading when Minerva came wandering in looking for either him or Hermione. Snape’s eyes glared at her as she started to say something, his eyes flicking downward to his sleeping apprentice.
“That will be quite enough abuse of our apprentice, Minerva,” Severus admonished quietly. “There is nothing so important that cannot wait until tomorrow.”
McGonagall seemed torn as to what to say or do at the sight of Hermione passed out against the Potion Master. Her face softened and she whispered, “The poor dear. I overtaxed her.”
“You are dreadfully talented in that area of expertise,” Severus rumbled, his eyes going back to his book.
McGonagall rolled her eyes and shook her head. She turned and left the dungeons to find other duties to attend to.
Severus flipped a page of the book he was reading, unfazed.
-=-=-=-Chapter 27: Sorting Issues -=-=-=-=-
The re-opening came like a shift in the weather. A flood of excitement filled the hallways and the Great Hall, replacing the accustomed construction workers and artisans that had filled it during the summer. Hermione stood at the entrance of the Great Hall as if stopped by an invisible barrier. She saw some familiar faces mixed in with the wave of newly accepted Hogwart’s students. A tremor of trepidation shivered through her as the significance of her first walk down the aisles in front of the new student body.
Severus came up behind her. “You have faced far more intimidating things than this, Professor Granger,” he rumbled, placing her formal hat on her head in a smooth movement, moving it so the point dipped downward more gracefully. “Surely that Gryffindor backbone hasn’t hidden itself away somewhere unseen.”
Hermione took in a long breath and met his eyes, her chin lifted in challenge to the Potion Master.
“Ah, there you are,” he rumbled with a quirk of his mouth. “We should take our seats before the Sorting begins.” He inclined his head in the direction of the High Table and walked across the threshold.
Hermione followed at his side, shoulders squared, and chin slightly lifted, her eyes only briefly scanning the faces of those she passed. They walked together in synchronization as their strides carried them towards the Head Table. Previous students quickly hushed and turned around to face the table, casting their head down as the Potion Master passed. The unsorted students stumbled out of the way jerkily and froze with wide eyes as they passed, looking as though they were about to salute or turn to stone at any given moment.
As the pair swished by, the tables started to chatter again.
As the Sorting Hat finished spouting the random House poems, Hermione smirked as Severus grunted at the hat’s description of the Gryffindor House. Minerva called up each new child to the High Table as the Sorting began in earnest.
“Hufflepuff,” Severus said quietly as the Sorting Hat mumbled on top of a child’s head.
“Hufflepuff!” proclaimed the Sorting Hat and the boy scampered off to the Hufflepuff tables.
Another child came up and Hermione narrowed her eyes as she sized up the young witch. “Ravenclaw,” she said to Severus.
“Ravenclaw!” came the voice of the Sorting Hat as the new Ravenclaw scurried to the correct tables.
A boy came up next. His head was held high in manner that seemed to proclaim self-assuredness. Hermione gritted her teeth, remembering that look upon Draco Malfoy well enough to know where that arrogance had come from. “Slytherin,” she murmured.
The boy walked over to the Slytherin tables, getting pats on the back and cheers from the other students there.
A girl approached the hat next. Her hair was pulled back into a straight braid that swished behind her as she bounced up to the platform.
“Gryffindor,” Severus sighed, his voice rasped as if the name itself was distasteful to pronounce.
Sure enough, the girl skipped towards the Gryffindor table as Hermione covered her mouth in a small giggle.
It continued like this for an hour, with Severus and Hermione attempting to predict the sorting hat’s decision. They were not alone in this, however, as many of the other professors seemed to be engaging in the same game amongst themselves. Pomona pumped her fist a little each time someone was sorted into Hufflepuff. Filius gave a small wink when someone went into Ravenclaw. Minerva shot Hermione a smile each time Gryffindor gained a member, causing Severus to scoff derisively into his hand.
Minerva grinned mischievously as she introduced all the professors to the incoming students. Hermione blushed furiously as the old witch singled her out before moving on to introduce a professor Hermione didn’t recognize at all.
“Who is that?” Hermione whispered.
Severus scowled, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. “I do not know,” he answered sourly. “I do not like not knowing.”
Hermione nodded, staring at the new professor with a combination of curiosity and suspicion. When had she become so suspicious of new faces? She shook her head.
When it was over, Minerva waved her wand to decorate the Great Hall as the welcoming feast began.
As the people began to file out of the Great Hall, Severus and Hermione stood to make their way to the dungeons. The classroom had to be prepared for its first wave of incoming students in the morning, and Hermione could sense the growing growl in Severus’ voice when he spoke of it.
As the two excused themselves from the table. The new DADA professor was eagerly handshaking with a number of the faculty, talking excitedly about his anticipation of the upcoming year. He turned towards Severus and Hermione whose faces had become simultaneously unreadable.
“Hello!” the man greeted happily. “Brody, Nicolas Brody. So happy to be here. I’ve heard great things about Hogwart’s.” He thrust his hand out expectantly.
Severus curled his lip and didn’t move, but Hermione extended her hand slowly for him to take. She curtsied a few centimeters, but her eyes never left the new DADA professor’s face. Brody extended his hand for Severus, and Snape glowered down at him with his impassive face and fathomless eyes. “Charmed,” he said, lips pursed in a thin line.
Severus turned, exiting the Great Hall without a further look back. Hermione broke the scrutinizing stare she had upon him, turned on her heels, and shadowed Snape’s exit.
The new DADA professor frowned slightly at the space where the Potion Master and his apprentice had been standing, then turned back to the other faculty wearing a disarming smile.
“Don’t fret over those two, Nicolas,” Pomona comforted the new professor. “She’ll come around eventually. Severus… well… you might as well try and give dental work to a Hungarian Horntail.”
“I felt like I was a boy of twelve again,” Nicolas admitted, scratching his short brown hair with a laugh, “and having to recant all of my sins by date and degree of severity.”
Pomona laughed and waved him closer.
-=-=-=-Chapter 28: Untrust vs Trust -=-=-=-=-
“When did I become so untrusting?” Hermione said to no one in particular. She set the cauldron down on the desk with a small cutting board and a silver knife.
Severus moved behind her, setting up the desks behind her. They moved from desk to desk, setting down the tools until every desk had the basic supplies needed for the first class, minus the books and other such supplies every student was accountable for on their own.
“The question is,” Severus began, “if there was a respectable reason for it.”
Hermione paused in her distribution of school supplies and pondered a moment. “He feels… too cheerful.”
“Elaborate,” Severus replied.
Hermione frowned and stared at one of the cauldrons in thought. “His energy didn’t match his face.” She looked to see Severus staring at her, his dark eyes looking through her as he chewed on her observation in her head.
“Describe the energy,” he continued.
“Heavy as if laden down,” Hermione described. “Sticky. Like a sneeze.”
Severus’ eyes seemed to gain an even darker appearance, his lips tightened into a thin line. “Come with me. There is something I must teach you.” He walked out of the classroom and down the hallway to his quarters, waving his wand to extinguish all the lights in the classroom.
Hermione followed, jumping a little as the door slammed behind her. She followed the dark flutter of Severus’ robe until they had passed through the portrait into his private quarters. He waved his wand to bring the light to an acceptable yet dim level. He paced back and forth as he gestured for her to sit in the battered leather chair before the hearth. The tingle in the air signaled his wards being raised, and he cast the privacy charm as he paced.
“The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure,” Severus spoke softly, recalling the same words he once drilled into Potter on Dumbledore’s behest. “Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by an invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing. It can be bent… broken… unhinged. Those that attempt to delve into the minds of others may not find what they are looking for, even if it is just under the surface.”
His dark eyes met hers with a fierce glare, a trace of anger in them. “Those who use or abuse Legilimency do not always have to be good at it to find what they think they are looking for. It takes practice, skill, and great forces of will to be exacting in a read into someone’s mind. The mind can be damaged by such unskilled attacks. Especially to those who do not know how to shield from it. Not all of them will be as well-meaning as Albus.”
Hermione recalled that Harry had once told her that Snape had to teach something to protect himself from Voldemort. Was this what he was referring to? She frowned, trying to decipher what he was trying to explain to her.
Severus stopped pacing and looked at her. “I wish to teach you Occlumency.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Your thoughts must remain your own unless you wish them to be read. I need you to trust me.”
Hermione closed her eyes a moment. She opened them and met his gaze. “I trust you, Severus.”
“Hermione,” Severus said softly. “This will mostly likely bring up things you do not wish to share.”
She nodded silently. “I trust you.”
Snape pulled up another chair and faced her. He help out his hands to her, palm up. She placed her hands in his, feeling his cool fingers close around her own. He placed his forehead to hers. “Clear your mind.”
Hermione took in a deep breath and closed her eyes as her face went expressionless.
Memories flooded back to her in waves, and he was there inside her head, guiding her how to encase them a wall and thrust them back into the corners of her mind. She saw the method, etched in his mind. She memorized the feel of the wall, forcing herself to remember how it reacted to pressure. She was dragged into a memory of Severus blocking his thoughts from the Dark Lord and forced herself to absorb the construction around his thoughts instead of paying attention to the scene itself. The memory of Ron leaving her and Harry in the wilderness rose up, and he guided her how to raise the wall and shove it back into crevices hidden within crevices in her own mind. She saw how Harry had accidently breached his carefully controlled shields before he had slammed his controls down over himself and cast Harry from his most painful memories.
Severus pulled away, releasing her hands, staring into her eyes. They stared at each other uncounted minutes until she took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m ready to begin.”
Severus stood, pulled out his wand, and pointed it at her. “Legilimens!”
Hermione screamed as the first wave of memories rushed by her. She saw herself erasing her existence from the minds of her own parents. She saw herself crying at the Yule Ball. She saw Bellatrix cackling above her as she cursed her to the edge of death.
“Concentrate,” Severus said. “Keep me out.”
She screamed again as memories of Snape standing above her in class, sneering at her, calling her an insufferable know-it-all. She saw Ron at the dance with his girlfriend. She saw his face as he accused her familiar for eating his rat. She saw Harry hanging limply in Hagrid’s arms. She saw Severus dying in front of her, bleeding out as she thrust the vial into Harry’s hands to collect the memories.
She gritted her teeth, pulling on the memory of Severus’ instruction. Clear your mind.
She snarled, pulling on the rage she tapped into when she threw hexes towards Ron when he returned from abandoning her. Focus on nothing.
She remembered the cold emptiness she found in the depths of the war when she raised her wand to deliver her first killing curse. Slow your mind until nothing is the only thing that remains.
Her eyes darkened, her face hardened into a cold expression of pure force of will. She built the walls as Severus had done around her memories and cast them into the abyss of her own mind, tearing them from her own thoughts and forced them fleeing into the darkness. She let the deadly calm fill her up, and she cast Severus from her mind, sending his wand flying into the wall of his chambers.
Hermione took in a deep breath and shuddered, expression returning to her face as she searched Severus’ face for a sign of her success or failure.
He stared at her with his obscure eyes and nodded to her solemnly.
Hermione stared into the fire, watching the flames dance across the wood. Her mind was settled and almost eerily calm. Her mind had clutched on the knowledge she had learned, harnessed it, and stowed it away for the future unknown.
Severus had retrieved his wand and was rustling with something on the far side of his quarters. He returned to the empty seat next to her and sat down, laying a tray with tea between them. They both stared into the flickering flames as they sipped the tea.
“Thank you for trusting me, Hermione.”
“Thank you for trusting me, Severus.”
They continued to stare into the fire together until the embers died out.
-=-=-=-Chapter 29: Who was the teacher again? -=-=-=-=-
“Hermione,” Severus’ voice rumbled. “We have our first class in an hour.”
Hermione shot up straight in the chair, eyes wide. The blanket she had somehow acquired during the night fell to her lap, and she looked around wildly. Her eyes darted from place to place quickly, taking in the surroundings as reality came to her. “Crickets, I’m so sorry.”
Severus gave her an amused look. “You had a rough night. I will not begrudge you stealing my favorite chair.”
Hermione smiled at Severus. “It was a very comfortable chair.”
“Fortunately, I have two of them.” Severus handed her a breakfast biscuit and a glass of juice. “Eat.”
Hermione inhaled the biscuit hungrily, downing the juice in a couple seconds. Severus watched her with an arched eyebrow and handed her another biscuit. “Thank you,” she mumbled with her mouth half full of biscuit.
“How confident do you feel about basic potion making and methods?” Snape said as he rustled through his wardrobe.
“I think I have enough grasp of my faculties to instruct a basic class without blowing anyone up, Professor Snape,” Hermione grinned as she wolfed down the last of the second biscuit.
“Oh?” Snape said in his familiar disbelieving tone.
“Yes, I believe I am,” Hermione said, meeting his gaze and tilting her chin up in defiance.
Severus pulled out a bundle of clothing and a potion with an ornate stopper on it. “Prove it, Professor.” He flipped the stopper and placed his wand to his head, pulling out a strand of hair and guiding it into the open potion bottle. He blew into it with his breath and replaced the stopper.
Hermione’s eyes got wide. “You want… you mean…. Me?” she squeaked.
“Oh, don’t worry. I plan to be watching you.” He stared at her for a moment and pulled out another potion, opening the lid. He eyed her silently. Hermione’s eyes sparkled with mischief. She placed her wand to her head and pulled a strand and sent it into the potion.
“You breathed into this one… do I need to breathe into that one for you?” Hermione tilted her head at the potion flask.
“Unless you want me to sound like this wearing your body, Ms. Granger, I suspect you should,” Severus rolled his eyes to look at her.
Hermione giggled and blew into the potion bottle and put the stopper back in. “I didn’t know you could do that! The polyjuice potion always changed the outside but left us our voices.”
“Hermione,” Severus admonished her with a look. “I’m the Potions Master. Did you think I hadn’t thought of that?”
Hermione laughed and accio’ed a set of her robes with her wand. She handed Severus the bundle and dashed out the door to her room.
Severus smirked as he sat at the back of the classroom watching himself walk into the classroom.
“There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class,” Hermione intoned lowly. She raked her gaze across the classroom, committing every face to memory. “As such, I do not expect many of you to appreciate the… subtle and exact art that is potion-making.” Hermione, looking as stern as she remembered him from her first year in Potions class, walked down the aisle of the classroom to the front. “However, for those select few who possess the predisposition, I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses.”
Minerva had walked into the classroom while “Severus” was teaching, sitting down next to “Hermione.” “How is it going for you, dear?”
“Delightful,” Snape answered her.
Minerva looked closer at “Hermione.” She eyed her collar and noticed the lack of the apprenticeship sigils. Turning her gaze to “Severus,” she noticed the two sigils clipped to his collar. “Severus?!” Minerva hissed at him.
“Hermione” quirked her lips into a smirk, placing her finger to her lips. “Shhh, Minerva. I’m learning.”
Minerva looked back and forth between Severus and Hermione and placed her hand in front of her face to stifle a laugh so the young students didn’t turn around and stare at her.
“I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death,” Hermione lectured in Snape’s voice. She turned towards the class with a somber expression that caused the children in the rows to fidget.
“I cannot tell you that everything you learn in this class will grant you powers beyond comprehension or that it will save you from having to take your exams. I will tell you, however,” Hermione said in a low rumbling voice, using Severus’ naturally tone to carry across the room, “that one of these potions could save you or your friends from poison. One of these potions could counter the effects of petrification. One of these potions could restore blood back to someone who hovers on the line of life… and death.” Hermione used Snape’s dark eyes to glower. “A potion is powerful tool. When used properly it can provide sleep without dreams, ease pain, and even induce euphoria.”
Hermione paced at the front of the classroom. “I’m sure at least some of you can understand why this class is just as important as learning to hold your wand correctly. It is my hope that by the time you are done with this class in your first year, all of you will understand this.” Hermione’s eyes unfocused a moment, her thoughts far away. “One day you may find that a potion is what saves those you care about from a fate far worse than detention. Pray that this does not come to pass.”
Hermione stood up to Severus’ full height. “Now to begin, I want this first row to put your heads together and give me information on bezoars. You may use your text, but I want at least one use that isn’t in the book. Think carefully.”
“This row,” she continued, “Break up and tell me one really good use for dragon blood that has nothing to do potions.”
“This row,” she rapped her knuckles on the desk as the first and second row had already started to chatter. “Find me the ingredient that is added to a Forgetfulness Potion that must be added with a dropper.”
“And you three chatterboxes,” Hermione used Snape’s trademark glare, “can tell me what is created when the powdered root of asphodel is added to an infusion of wormwood.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Get to it.”
Students scurried to move their desks together and break into teams. Chatter rose in the room, but somewhat miraculously stayed on the topic at hand. Teams whipped out their books and flipped through the pages quickly, attempting to find the answers to her questions.
Hermione, glided down the aisle to where Severus and Minerva were sitting. Her lip quirked up in amusement as Minerva waved at her to come sit down with them.
“Hermione,” Minerva laughed. “That was an impressive first go at it.”
“It is hard to forget my first potions lecture,” Hermione said in Severus’ voice.
“You do look the part,” Minerva made a face. “I won’t even ask how or why this happened, but hopefully it wears off before lunchtime.” Minerva turned to look at “Hermione.” “It will wear off by lunchtime, won’t it Severus?” Minerva gave him the glare that spoke of unspeakable things that would happen if it didn’t.
“Of course, Minerva,” Severus cooed in Hermione’s voice.
Hermione chuckled, stood up and returned to the front of the classroom. “Times up, groups! Now tell me what you have discovered.”
Raised hands and excited yammering completed with each other.
Minerva smiled. “I think she’s doing just fine.”
“Undoubtedly,” Severus smirked.
-=-=-=-Chapter 30: Growling Stomach -=-=-=-=-
Hermione sat in the empty classroom, slamming her head into the desk with a soft groan. Her first morning teaching had been slightly terrifying to her, though she had a feeling that the visage of the brooding Potion Master she had been wearing had not failed to bring a little terror into many of the students by appearance alone. She felt a little less awkward now that she was back in her own skin, but the morning’s mischief had been both surreal and draining. Imitating the Potion Master had been easier than some of the faces she could have been wearing. Her memories of her classes with him had been etched into her through constant and unwavering repetition.
The mirth had been worth it. Minerva’s response could have come with admonishing glares and a thorough chewing out session, but strangely the old witch seemed to think the entire scenario had been perfectly acceptable before lunch.
Why lunch? Hermione pondered. Oh right. She had to sit in with Minerva’s class this afternoon. She giggled to herself. Imagining Severus stuck in Hermione’s body forced to sit in Minerva’s transfiguration class caused her shoulders to shake in laughter. Now that would have been… interesting.
Hermione realized suddenly that she was sitting at her old desk. Memories of Neville’s many potions gone wrong caused her to snort into her old desk with amusement. There were so many memories of this particular classroom. Admittedly, some of them were far more positive than others.
Her stomach growled, and she was suddenly quite aware of the fact that her entire breakfast that morning had been a glass of juice and two breakfast biscuits. “Ugh,” she groaned.
Standing up from the desk, she adjusted her robes and collar. Scanning the room with her senses, she reinforced the wards, walked out the door, and sealed the classroom behind her.
Sunlight coming in from the upper hall windows caused her to squint. She inhaled the fresh air from outside, enjoying the scent that blew in. The sound of muffled whimpering broke her concentration. Turning towards it, she followed the sound. A young boy sat in the dark of one of the hall pillars. Parchment and books were scattered in disarray around him. A spilled inkwell and a broken quill seemed to point to something more sinister than tripping. Her mind searched her memory for his face.
“Mr. Mitchell,” she addressed him softly. “Is there a reason you are here admiring our outstanding tile work instead of going to lunch?” Without waiting for an answer, she kneeled down, gathering the scattered parchments. She patted them together and placed them together with the scattered books.
“I’m sorry, Pr…Professor,” the boy sniffed a reply.
Hermione looked the boy into the eyes. His eyes widened under her scrutiny, and she forced a happier expression upon her own face. “Here you go, young Mr. Mitchell.” She handed him his papers and books. With a wave of her wand, she tipped the inkwell upright, guided the ink back into the well, snapped the lip closed, and moved it into her hand with the broken quill. With a tap of her wand and a soft whisper, the quill mended itself. She handed both of them to the boy.
His eyes had watched what she had done with astonished fascination.
“What House are you, Mr. Mitchell?” Hermione asked gently.
“S…Slytherin House, ma’am,” the boy replied.
The corner of Hermione’s lip lifted with amusement. “Well then, Mr. Mitchell of Slytherin House. Let’s get you to the Great Hall before all the food is gone, yes?”
“Yes, ma’am!” he said excitedly, standing up and clutching his supplies to his chest.
She continued her walk towards the Great Hall, the young man trailing behind her with his books cradled in his arms. Students leaving the Great Hall moved out of her way as she led Mitchell into it. She led him to the Slytherin tables and waited until he found someone he recognized. A group of young Slytherins waved towards him. Mitchell looked up at her. “Thank you, Professor.”
“You are welcome, Mr. Mitchell,” she replied. “Enjoy your lunch.” She turned and continued her walk up to the High Table where Minerva and Hagrid smiled a welcome.
-=-=-=-Chapter 31: Transfiguration Amusements -=-=-=-=-
“Hermione, dear,” Minerva said as she peered down to the table at her. “Has Severus been starving you?”
Hermione froze in devouring the piece of chicken that she had practically inhaled bones and all. “I woke up late this morning, Minerva,” she replied sheepishly after swallowing her mouthful of food.
Minerva tutted at her, shaking her fork at her.
Hermione grinned genuinely and went back to tearing into her chicken leg slightly less ravenously as before.
Lunch went without a hitch, and Hermione followed Minerva to her next class afterwards. Hermione smiled as she passed through the middle courtyard, remembering many and exciting gossip session with her friends.
Minerva chuckled as they approached the classroom as Hermione found herself talking to a cat. Minerva padded towards the classroom on all four silent feet, her tail up in the air like a flag. At that moment, Hermione found herself missing Crookshanks fiercely, but she followed with a slightly smug expression cast about her face.
Hermione took a seat at the back of the classroom, favoring watching from where the view would be better. The students began to file in a few minutes after she had sat down, chattering and gossiping to themselves. Minerva sprawled over her desk in the front in typical cat style, her silver fur glistening against the dark of her desk.
Four seats were still blatantly empty when the clock chime rang, but the silver tabby on the desk did not move. The students, thinking their professor late, continued to babble on to each other while Hermione’s expression curved into a smirk.
Four students slinked into the classroom a few minutes later, keeping low to the ground in an attempt to slip into their desks. Seeing no one at the desk in front, they rushed forward and sat down. Hermione stifled a laugh, recognizing the scene all too well.
“Mr. Harris. Ms. Doherty. Mr. Walker. Ms. Thompson,” Minerva’s voice broke the chattering. She sat on the edge of her desk wearing the scowling intolerant face that commanded instant respect. Gasps and muttering spread through the classroom as the new students tried to figure out where their professor had come from. “I will not tolerate tardiness to my class. That will 10 points from Gryffindor, 5 from Ravenclaw, and 5 from Hufflepuff. Do not test me again.”
Minerva clapped her hands together to focus the class. “Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts. Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”
McGonagall waved her wand towards the board nearby, causing Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration to scrawl itself upon the surface. “Now, can anyone tell me what Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration is?”
Class continued smoothy afterwards with no one daring to cross the stern looking witch. Despite their different methods, Hermione was reminded of the same wide eyes in Minerva’s students that Severus inspired in his. You didn’t cross Minerva McGonagall, and you most certainly didn’t cross Severus Snape. Those that were too dimwitted to figure that out within the first class were doomed to learn it through merciless repetition.
When the class was dismissed, Minerva shot Hermione an amused look. “Remind you of someone, Hermione?”
Hermione laughed. “I remember my first Transfiguration class, Minerva. As you well know what happened there.”
Minerva grinned at her, waving her wand to erase the board. “Could you be a dear and check up on an order of mice for me, Hermione? I ordered them for classes next week, but I haven’t had the time to figure out why they haven’t arrived yet.”
Hermione nodded. “Sure.”
After McGonagall locked up the classroom, they parted ways. Minerva headed towards the Headmistress’s office on a mission known only to her. Hermione trudged off towards the direction of the front gates.
Severus was standing in the middle of the far corridor, scowling down at a student. “If you cannot pry your eyes away from Mr. Williams long enough to pay attention to where you are going, Ms. Crankshaft, might I suggest you find a different sort of crowbar, unless you wish to contemplate the meaning of life in detention.”
“Y….yes, Sir! I’m sorry Professor Snape,” the girl stammered over herself as she tried to pick up her books. She attempted to reach for the book that Severus had dropped during their collision, but his scowl darkened even more, sending the girl fleeing down the corridor as fast as her feet could carry her without actually running.
Hermione walked over and picked up the book from the floor, brushing it off with a smooth motion of her hand. She held it out to him, eyes twinkling.
Severus locked gazes with her and took a deep breath, his dark eyes flickered with annoyance. He carefully tucked the book under his arm, inclining his head in thanks.
“Minerva wants me to go check on her mice,” Hermione said as they walked together down the hall. “They haven’t arrived yet.”
“Exhilarating,” he replied sourly.
They walked together soundlessly in companionable silence until they reached a turn off.
“Do have fun collecting Minerva’s… rodents,” Severus said to her as they parted.
“You know I will,” Hermione grinned and excused herself, rushing out the front gates towards Hogsmeade.
Severus’ dark eyes looked after her as the normal detached mask cast itself back into place.
-=-=-=- Chapter 32: Rodent Management -=-=-=-=-
“Hermione?” came a voice behind her.
Hermione turned around as a familiar young man dashed up towards her.
“It is you!” The hug came in as a collision as he pressed his lips to both cheeks in greeting.
“Hello, Rupert,” Hermione greeted in return. “How was your summer?”
“Awful, ‘mione,” he admitted. “Mum and Da insisted we go on vacation this summer and we went to a muggle park of some sort in the States. They couldn’t use spells to make things more comfortable. We had to do it the hard way.”
“Aw, Rupert,” Hermione sympathized. “Was the scenery at least worth the trip?”
Rupert sagged at little at the shoulders. “Yea, the park was gorgeous. Very different from what we see here.” He looked like he was ashamed to admit it was worth all the hassle.
“Don’t look so down. It’s great to travel and get away from it all sometimes,” Hermione admonished him.
“I know, I know,” Rupert chuckled. “I just missed my mates, ya know?”
“I do know how that is, believe me,” Hermione shook her head in agreement.
“Oh, I didn’t get to tell you before I left for the summer. Thank you so much for the tutoring last semester. I swear I’d never have figured out that arithmancy homework without you!” Rupert bounced on his heels.
“She’s a strict one, Professor Vector,” Hermione admitted. “I did love her classes though.”
“You would love her classes, Hermione. Nothing ever phases you in academics,” Rupert hassled her. He looked at her funny. “Holy Crickets, ‘mione. I totally forgot you graduated last term…. Whaaaaaa. Look at you! Spin around for me!”
Hermione arched a brow, but did as Rupert asked.
“So… official looking,” he observed. “I guess I have to call you Professor and Ma’am now, eh?”
Hermione laughed, “At least in front of others, Rupert. You definitely don’t want to get caught using my first name in front of Professor Snape or McGonagall.”
Rupert’s eyes went wide and his shivered in a conditioned response and shook his head adamantly. “No worries about that,” he confessed. Rupert furrowed his brows.
“What is your question, Rupert,” Hermione asked, seeing the tell-tale signs of his emerging question forming on his face.
“Will you still be able to help me with my Arithmancy now that you are… well you know…” Rupert tried to form his question into something more coherant.
“Rupert,” Hermione said with a shake of her head. “Of course I will still help you if you need it. “We’re friends, after all. I do not have a anti-help wasting disease just because I wear teaching robes.”
Rupert sighed with relief. “I’ve never had a friend that became my professor before.”
Hermione shook her head with amusement. “You are welcome to come by the office after classes and I will help you with whatever questions you have. Do remember to knock. I may forgive you, but Professor Snape will not.”
Rupert’s eyes grew wide. “You share an office with Professor Snape?”
Hermione chuckled. “Of course. He is my Master, Rupert. Where else would a master’s apprentice go?”
Rupert seemed to digest this. “He won’t… yell at me for coming to you for help?”
Hermione smirked. It was utterly amazing how the mere thought of Severus Snape being in the same room as them sent a student’s ability to think rationally right out the window. “Rupert, it is office hours. That is why we have them.”
Rupert gave a lop-sided grin that reminded Hermione of Ronald when he was younger. It was both comforting and bittersweet.
“I’ll probably come by pretty regularly. You know me and Arithmancy,” Rupert said with a grin.
Hermione smiled and then cocked her head as if listening to something. “You are going to be late to class, Mr. Soloway.” She set a stern look upon her face. “Do not attempt to use me as your excuse for being tardy.”
Rupert grinned broadly and scampered off to class.
Hermione shook her head and continued on her way.
Unlike other days when she walked the long path down towards Hogsmeade, Hermione found herself greeted by a young thestral romping along the path. The almost skeletal looking creature bounced along side of her playfully, as if testing to see if she could actually see him.
Hermione ran her hand along the thestral’s back as he passed, her fingers gently brushing the soft skin of his wings. As if her touch flipped a switch in the young creature, he trotted along side her, rubbing his head against her shoulder and nipping at her hair with his flexible lips.
“How did you manage to ditch your herd, hrm?” Hermione smiled as she stroked the glossy skin of the young thestral. “Are you a rebel?”
The thestral lipped her fingers as he trotted along side her and placed his head across her shoulder, snuffling her hair. His breath tickled her neck.
“You better not be chasing the school owls,” Hermione said to the young thestral. “Hagrid will not be happy with you.”
The thestral nickered as if to placate her, nudging her cheek with his nose.
Hermione placed her arm across the thestral’s back and walked with him down the path towards Hogsmeade. Time passed quickly with the unexpected escort, and Hermione found she didn’t mind.
When Hogsmeade was finally more than a destination on the horizon, the young thestral bumped into her shoulder and nickered, tossing his head.
“This is where we part, hrm?” Hermione asked, giving the young thestral an affectionate pat.
He lipped her teaching robes as if in apology.
Hermione bowed her head. “Thank you for your company,” she said softly.
The thestral shoulder bumped her with his head and trotted back the way they had come, seeking whatever entertainment a young thestral was wont to find.
Hermione smiled somewhat sadly as the thestral left, but her eyes caught a shimmer upon her robes. She plucked a few strands of the young thestral’s mane where he had rubbed against her. Her heart warmed slightly at the gift, and she clutched the strands tightly. Pulling a vial out from her robes, she guided the strands into the vial and stoppered it. There were some gifts you did not question and could only accept.
She took in a deep breath as she turned to walk into Hogsmeade on her quest to fetch Minerva’s rodents.
“I’m so sorry about that, Professor Granger!” the squirrely looking man apologized as he stared at a purchase order. “I’m not sure why we didn’t get this up there sooner! It’s stamped and dated from over a month ago.”
Hermione raised a brow, watching the man flit around the counter like a man afraid for his life. Paperwork went flying in all directions until he found something that seemed to keep his attention for a few seconds. He tore off into the backroom without an explanation muttering things under his breath.
A bit of yelling, a thud, and a crashing sound that sounded like silverware later, the man came huffing back to her, carrying a few stacked cages of startled looking rodents. “Very sorry. Very sorry,” he muttered, stamping the slips in front of him and handing her one in return. “I promise the next batch will be delivered as we originally promised.”
Hermione took the slip of paper with the same enthusiasm as a person accepting a used tissue. “Thank you, Mr. Raffordy,” she said flatly. She picked up the stacked cages, closed her eyes for a moment until the weight of the cages eased, and hoisted them into her arms. She exited the door with her acquired rodents and walked towards the direction of Hogwart’s.
Severus looked up from his desk as Hermione entered. A young Slytherin that was gathering his things balked as she entered and scurried off down the hallway towards the Slytherin common room.
Hermione lifted a brow. “Head of House counseling already?”
Severus tilted his head to the side and massaged his own shoulder with his hand. “Can’t even go a week into the return and someone is already causing drama. It seems that Mr. Anders had his Potions textbook transfigured into a bat and it flew off over Black Lake.”
Hermione gave a short barking laugh.
Severus rolled his eyes towards her, giving her the look that conveyed what he really thought of student abuse of books. “How was your… rodent fetching errand?”
Hermione shook her head. “Safely acquired and placed in Minerva’s classroom. The man tending the stockroom was… irritating.”
Severus lifted a brow. “Thin, wire-haired, wide-eyed, reminds you of a squirrel?”
“Yes,” Hermione nodded in affirmative. “Mr. Raffordy.”
Severus turned up one of his lips in a sneer. “Irritating fellow.” He stood up from his desk, shoving a pile of half-graded papers to the side with a grunt. “I suppose we should make an appearance for the dinner hour before the evening patrols begin.”
He inclined his head towards the door, and Hermione let the way out as Severus wand waved the door closed behind them.
-=-=-=-Chapter 33: Respect is Earned Not Given Freely -=-=-=-=-
Severus stood completely still in the darkened hallway as the DADA professor approached with an obnoxiously loud gait. The man had been hovering around him for hours, as if waiting for a time to catch him alone. Snape’s eyes narrowed as Brody approached him. His eyes gained the characteristics of deep obsidian. Slamming down the shields over mind, he reinforced the impassive expression on his face.
“Ah, Severus,” Brody called to him. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Is there,” Snape droned, “something you need?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask if I could steal your apprentice away for an evening,” Brody said cheerfully, as if asking to borrow cauldron. “I’d like some potions I need for my class next week, but I’m not sure which ones are easily made with the stock we have here at Hogwart’s.”
Snape’s eyes narrowed.
“I figure instead of pulling you away from your classes and duties as Head of Slytherin, she could help me come up with a list of useable potions for my class,” Brody explained. He had an obnoxious cheerful expression on his face. His words seemed, for all intents and purposes, innocent enough, but Severus had not forgotten Hermione’s first sense of him.
Severus glowered and spoke in a controlled voice, “You may ask her for her assistance for a night if she does not have something previously planned by the Headmistress.” Severus locked gazes with him, causing the younger man to flick his eyes away instinctively. “See that you do not abuse it.”
With that, Severus turned, returning to his patrol, black robes marking his passage like a dark cloud over the moon.
“Professor Brody wishes to borrow your services for a night,” Severus said with a curl of his lip as Hermione caught up with him on his patrol. “Something about defense potions for his class that he doesn’t wish to bother me with.”
Hermione lifted an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware defense potions were standard curriculum fare for Defense Against the Dark Arts.”
“It is not,” Severus agreed. “I gave my permission for him to ask you if Minerva had nothing planned; however,” he paused slightly, “if you to make up some duty I have inflicted upon you on whatever night he desires to use you, I would not fault you.”
“I do appreciate that, Severus,” Hermione chuckled as they walked together. Their eyes scanned the halls together for wandering young witches and wizards avoiding curfew. “I think I will humor him, if anything… to keep him out of your hair for a while.”
Severus grunted. “As you wish.”
Their attention was disrupted as a flash of movement gave away a student sneaking around the corner.
“Mr. Harrison,” Severus said with a growl. “What makes you think that your forays outside of curfew would go unnoticed?”
“Salmon feet flakes?” Hermione stared at the potion ingredient list. “I’ve never even heard of such a thing!” Hermione shook her head and quilled out a tentative list of potions that could be made without taxing the delicate balance of Severus’ reserves. “I refuse to believe that that Gillacutty Gilldragons are real, let alone their feet.”
“Are you sure this is a real ingredient list, Professor Brody?” Hermione’s voice had gone from amused to annoyed in a flash change of mood.
“Of course it is,” Brody tsked her. “I got it from our old Potion Master in Manchester. He always had a potion for everything, and he never complained about the components.”
“Well at least the Chinese Chomping Cabbage is real,” Hermione mumbled, her eyes darkening with each reading of the list the DADA professor had given her. She scribbled more on her parchment, her quill starting to gain speed with her rise in annoyance. “Oh bloody ‘ell,” she snarled. “Why would you put deadlyius in with a healing potion? You might as well just force a jar of Exploding Ginger Eyelashes down someone’s throat.”
Professor Brody didn’t seem fazed by Hermione’s frustration. “We had utter confidence in our Potion Master, Hermione. He never steered us wrong.”
Hermione growled lowly, an echo of her mentor resonated in her throat. She did not like the way her name sounded from a man she did not know. She felt a tingle on the edges of her mind, and she instantly slammed down her shields on her mind with a deeper growl.
Professor Brody dropped the tin he was holding, breaking her concentration. Her head snapped up with a glare, eyes narrowing. She forced a look of surprise on her face, twisting her face into a more calm and carefree expression. “That must be true. Why would a Master of Potions ever try to mislead you? That would be silly.”
Brody fumbled around on the floor looking for his tin. “Maybe I could just get some burn-paste and Draughts of Peace?”
“Now that I know we can provide,” Hermione acquiesced, crossing out things on the parchment and scribbling down other notes.
“How long has Snape been Potion Master at Hogwart’s?” Brody mumbled the question as he groveled around on the floor.
Hermione lifted an eyebrow, wondering why the man didn’t just accio the bloody thing to his hand. He managed to pick up the tin with his fingers and drag it to him. “A long time,” she said vaguely.
She felt the odd tingle in her head again which irritated her, so she filled her mind with a curtain of dark space and slammed her shields down completely. She felt the emotionless visage slide over her face.
Professor Brody had stood up with his prize for a moment but dropped it again as if the tin was covered in butter. He went down to the floor again, patting around for it.
Hermione’s lip curved slightly in disdain. “I will take this list to Professor Snape, and we will get you the things you need for your class.” She stood, spun on her heels, and exited the room with a swish of her robe.
-=-=-=-=-=-= Chapter 34: Mourning -=-=-=-=
“He wanted… what?” Severus’ eyebrow disappeared into his hair.
“Salmon feet flakes,” Hermione repeated. “Gillacutty Gilldragon feet.”
“Preposterous,” Severus scoffed into his teacup. “There is no such things as Gillacutty Gilldragons.”
“That’s what I said,” Hermione agreed. “He swears his Potion Master in Manchester used to make him these things all the time.”
Severus read the parchment with Hermione’s notes on it as he sipped his tea. “I can’t even tell if this is some regional naming mismatch from this. Deadlyius? In a healing draught?” He scowled at the paper. “Manchester?”
“That’s what he said, Severus,” Hermione placated the Potion Master. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“I don’t recall there being a Wizarding School or College in Manchester,” Snape’s voice rumbled. “Or even a well-known apothecary.”
“Somehow I doubt any place that says they are selling salmon feet flakes are going to go on the record as a fine well-known apothecary,” Hermione smirked. “I’d expect something like that at Wizarding Wheezes…” Hermione’s voice tapered off slightly as the memory of Fred and George Weasley brought back unwanted memories of Fred’s death.
“I will owl some people and see if those names are just a bad misnomer of something we already use, but I highly doubt it,” Severus said as he set his teacup down. “The recipe doesn’t even seem like it would work.”
Hermione was silent, causing Severus to turn to her. He saw the tears running down her cheeks. She trembled as she attempted to wrestle with her emotions, but the wound of that particular memory had caught her off-guard and vulnerable.
Silently, Severus put his arm around her, pulling her against him on the couch as she mourned into his robes. She shuddered against him, her breaths caught in her lungs as her soft sobs combined with her ragged breathing. She cried until her body finally stilled against him.
As he pulled a blanket over her, she stirred. “Severus?”
“Yes, Hermione?” he replied softly.
“I’m glad you survived that night,” she whispered as she buried her face into his robe.
He slowly placed his hand over her head, resting it there in silent comfort.
-=-=-=-Chapter 35: Bad Dreams -=-=-=-=-
The house was dark. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed all around him, rumbling the walls of the house with its unforgiving sound. He slowly stepped into the house, panic filling his mind and his heart. Lily. Lily was inside. His Lily. The only one he had ever cared for.
He crept into the house sluggishly, placing his feet with exaggerated slowness. The lightning flashed, providing flashes of devastation in a house filled with family pictures of happy times. Each step was agony, sending tremors of trepidation through his body. He forced himself to walk forward. A baby was crying. A high pitched wail of pain and confusion. He stepped over the body of James Potter. His eyes stared into nothingness.
Severus took another step. Another.
He crossed the threshold into the room and saw her sprawled on her stomach.
Lily. No. Not Lily. She was supposed to be safe. She was supposed to survive.
Severus let out a cry of agony, sliding down the wall as every moment of joy in his life shattered inside of him into countless cutting pieces. He wailed, pulling her body close to him, wrapping his arms around her. He cradled her to him, rocking his body back and forth as if it would wake her. Save her. Somehow.
He placed his hand to her head, looking into her face, praying to see some semblance of life in her face.
It was Hermione’s face that stared back at him in death.
Severus jolted awake in his bed with a gasp, staring into the blackness of his quarters. His breathing caught in his throat as remembered pain rose up unbidden from the jails he normally buried them. He swallowed hard, forcing his controls into place and willing his emotions to bury themselves back where they belonged.
He shoved a wave of despair away from his thoughts, but the image of Hermione’s lifeless face did not leave him. He fumbled in the dark for the drawer on his bedside table, pulling out a dark crystal vial. He opened it, sniffed it, and quaffed it, slamming the empty vial into the drawer. He fell back onto his pillow with a moan as the hurricane of thoughts slowly faded and sleep claimed him once more.
-=-=-=-Chapter 36: Invisible Paranoia -=-=-=-=-
Hermione yawned as she stirred in her bed. She stretched while still under the covers and pulled her pillow close to her as her mind tried to backtrack the previous night’s activities. Blushing upon remembering her crying her eyes out on the Potion Master’s robe, she hoped he wouldn’t begrudge her falling to pieces on him. She was normally so much better at controlling her emotions without sobbing uncontrollably on her mentor’s clothing. That could be awkward when she saw Severus next.
She trudged off to the shower and stood in the warm water for few minutes doing absolutely nothing. Washing quickly afterwards, she toweled off, brushed her teeth, and grabbed a robe from the wardrobe. Furiously toweling her hair for a minute or two, she grunted, pulling on her outer robe, transferred her sigils, and yawned again. Calling her wand to her from whatever dark place she had left it, she waited until it slammed into her palm. Stashing the wand in her inner pocket, she headed out the door.
The door to the classroom was slightly ajar. Severus must have already been up setting up materials for the morning class. She hoped silently that he had tea waiting. She could use a good cup of tea… or fifteen.
Walking into the classroom, she smiled at the desks having been arranged in a perfect line. Perfectionist, she thought to herself.
A sound caused her to turn, and she spun, expecting an errant student poking their nose into the empty classroom, but there was nothing. The hair on the back of her neck rose as a tingle around her head brushed against her mental shields. Her wand was in her hand in an instant, and she squared her feet on the floor in preparation for battle. She slammed down extra layers of shields over her thoughts. Her face hardened as all trace of emotion drained away. Her body was a tense as a spring, reverting to heightened readiness for combat that came from war.
She growled, whispering something with gritted teeth. With a flick of her wand that was barely seen, mage-lights formed on the end of her wand and moved out throughout the room, casting a bright radiance that illuminated the potions classroom.
She stood, motionless in the classroom, tensed and waiting, her eyes stared into the corner, seeing nothing, but unable to shake the feeling of being watched.
A familiar brush of a shoe on the stone floor came from outside the potions classroom. She flicked her eyes towards the ajar door to see Severus staring at the half opened door with curiosity. She remained where she was, but her body relaxed slightly.
Severus had his wand in his hand as he stepped into his classroom, eyes scanning the room with a slight squint as the mage-lights hovered in places he normally did not expect bright light.
Severus felt a rush of wind move against him as he stepped in, causing him to whirl to stare out the half open door. With a low growl, he raised his wand and uttered the incantation to multiple wards – slamming them down into place over his classroom. There was a sensation of hot wind that blew through the aisles of the classroom as his wards crashed down, and only then did Hermione relax her posture and slowly lower her wand.
As both the wizard and the witch tucked their wands away, Hermione dispelled the mage-lights, bringing the room back to its more customary gloom. Severus ignited the torches at the same time as he walked towards Hermione with a concerned expression.
With a word, he transfigured their accustomed couch and pulled a tea set out of thin air, setting it down on the small table. Hermione had once asked him if Hogwart’s had the house elves keep fully prepared tea sets in stasis somewhere in the castle that each professor could just fetch at any given time. She had always been entirely too clever for her own good. She would have made an excellent Slytherin.
They both sat down wearily as if the morning had already been over and done with.
“You look horrible, Severus,” Hermione said candidly.
“Hrph,” he muttered. “Speak for yourself.”
Hermione smiled, despite her earlier tension.
He turned to look at her. “What happened before I came in?”
Hermione frowned. “I felt like I was being watched.”
It was his turn to frown. “Explain.”
She turned her eyes up to look at the ceiling a moment. “You remember how I told you last night that I kept feeling like a tingle in my head when I was around Professor Brody?”
Severus nodded, narrowing his eyes.
“It was like that, only, no one was here,” she said. “I put up the shields, as you taught me, but it only made the tingle go away. I still felt… eyes on me.”
Snape stared into the bottom of his teacup as he drank from it. “He has not attempted anything on me as of yet, but that does not mean I am making light of your concerns. I do not know, however, if he has attempted some clumsy scan of anyone else. It is not a topic one casually brings up over dinner.”
“Oh pardon me, Professor Sprout,” Hermione said cheerfully. “You would happen to have someone trying to pry into your mind lately, by chance? No? Well carry on then!”
Snape set his teacup down and closed his eyes a moment, seemingly wrestling down a laugh. “Yes… that would be too easy. Absolutely disturbing, actually.”
“You do look positively awful, Severus,” Hermione said with concern. “I’m sorry I kept you up last night.”
His eyes opened, and he locked gazes with her. “Never apologize for that, Hermione,” he said solemnly. “Do I make myself clear?”
She smiled back at him, casting her eyes down slightly. “Perfectly, Professor Snape.”
They worked silently in the lab until the breakfast bell rang. Hermione scooped up the thick orange burn paste into multiple smaller tins. She slathered it into each tin, making a face as it made a schlucking sound that was discomfiting. She dipped her fingers into the warm wax in the smaller cauldron next to her, running her fingers along the edge of the tins to seal them.
Severus worked beside her, brewing multiple cauldrons of Draught of Peace. His face was expressionless as he stirred each one, pausing only to add a pinch of the next ingredient.
Hermione set out the bottles for him without a word, setting the funnel down next to them. She turned and gathered the pile of paste tins into her arms and carried them to his desk, dumping them on top of the desk as she sat down in his chair. Pulling out a piece of parchment, she dipped a quill in ink and began writing out labels.
Severus poured doses of the draught into each waiting bottle and closed the tops just as a flurry of labels whooshed by him, wrapping themselves tightly around the bottle’s surface. He turned to look back at his desk where Hermione fastidiously quilled on the parchment in front of her. With a small smile of approval turning the corners of his mouth, he accio’ed a crate to him and began to set each potion into the cushioning straw.
He hoisted the crate up and carried it to his desk just as Hermione finished labeling all of the tins. She stood with a sigh, gently placing the burn paste tins into the crate straw with the draughts.
Severus inclined his head silently towards the door, and Hermione lead the way out. He carried the crate under his arm as he exited, waving his wand without looking back as the door snapped shut by his silent command. They walked up the spiral stairs out the dungeons.
“Professor Granger!” a boy’s high voice called to her as she and Severus rounded the corner past the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room.
The two professors turned simultaneously towards the voice.
The boy ran towards them with an excited gait, causing Severus to scowl down at him.
“Mr. Mitchell,” Hermione greeted softly. “Did you get to all of your classes okay?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he beamed up at her. He pulled out a small piece of parchment and held it out to her. She knelt down a little to meet his gaze. As she eyed the parchment curiously, it formed into delicate poppy flower. “Thank you for helping me the other day!”
Hermione smiled, grasping the gift with her delicate fingers. “You are welcome, Mr. Mitchell.” She stood back to her full height with a small smile.
The boy looked up at the towering figure of the Potion Master and wore the expression of one attempting to meet the eyes of giraffe from the viewpoint of a mongoose. “Good morning, Professor Snape.”
Severus looked blankly down at the boy. “Good morning, Mr. Mitchell.” He locked gazes with the boy in complete silence until the boy blushed and scurried back towards the Slytherin Common Room where a couple other students ruffled his hair and pushed his shoulder.
Hermione and Severus continued on their way. Hermione looked up into the Potion Master’s dark eyes with silent laughter. The corner of his lip twitched upward before he turned his gaze forward.
|
Sidor looked up at his father in surprise he may be slightly insensate, but he was not completely out of it yet. He was almost 100% sure that he had just heard his dad say that they were going home.
Eerily as though his dad had heard his thoughts, the man in question immediately chimed in, “We are going home, My Prince.”
Well, that settled that, his dad could bring him to the end of the earth right at this moment and he will not care, just as long his dad does not let him go.
“Master Severus, Mixie has done what Master Severus has asked. Is there anything else you want Mixie to do?” “Thank you Mixie, will you be able to pop us back home?”
“Mixie can!”
Mixie stretched out her hands and grabbed on to the robes that Severus and Sidor were wearing, and waited for Severus to give her the signal. At his nod, Mixie snapped her fingers and brought both of them into her young master’s room and silently popped away.
Severus nodded in gratitude in her direction. Before turning around to give all his attention to the silent snuggle-bug that was trying his best to bury himself into his chest.
“Okay little one, I need you to slowly let go, I am going to give both of us a nice shower before we take a little nap yes?”
Sidor just shook his head slightly before redoubling his efforts to bury himself into his father’s chest. Severus just sighed at what his child was doing, and instead of trying to detach his child from his chest just hoisted him up and carried him into the attached bathroom.
He magicked away both of their clothing and settled his child into the standing shower and turned on the water. Slowly he started to wash his child scrubbing and massaging the tense muscles that he could find all over his little prince. It scared Severus on a very visceral level how unresponsive and lifeless he was, apart from the death grip Sidor had on his wrist and the occasional quiet sniffle that the little boy gave out, he would truly be unable to tell if he were alive.
Wrapping the shaking body up in a huge fluffy towel and quickly dried himself up before he tenderly towelling Sidor dry. He picked up his wand again and magicked both of them into the softest and comfiest pyjamas they had and carried his child into bed.
Severus could not help but smile when he saw Sidor’s bed, the house-elves have already gotten to it, pulling out and displaying all of Sidor’s favourite soft toys and pillows on it, creating a warm and welcoming little nest for his child. Nightshade was placed in the middle of the bed just waiting for his owner just cuddle into.
He settled Sidor into the bed and placed Nightshade into the boy’s arm before curling up around him. Sidor slowly relaxed into him and pulled Nightshade closer into his arms, and slowly, he fell asleep.
Severus could feel Morphesus pulling at him as well, he could tell his parents later. Sleep first.
Yes, that sounds like a very good idea….
Penerelle and Nicholas felt their wards go off in the family wing and they both quickly got onto their feet. The both of them may be old, but they were not defenceless, they exchanged a glance and pulled on the wards to allow them to apparate directly into the area that they had felt the disturbance.
Once their vision had cleared from their hasty apparition, their death grips on their wands relaxed. Their children were back in the house. They could and would get the story out of their children later, but for now, they would let them sleep, they were in no hurry.
Two hours later, Severus woke up more comfortable than he had been in a while. Slowly he opened his eyes and he noticed a small head pressed into his side.
Sidor?
Slowly he raised his hand and calmly ran his fingers through his child’s hair, as the memories started to fly through his mind.
Slowly he disentangled himself from his little prince and walked himself to where the wards told him his pseudo parents were.
“Nick, Pen, do you have a minute? There are things I need to talk to you about, about Sidor.”
“We have been waiting for you to wake Sev, we know that something must have happened for you to bring our little fledgeling and yourself home on such short notice.”
“It’s a long story Pen, Nick, and it’s not a happy one, brace yourself.”
Nick and Pen just looked at him, before looking at each other. They both stood up and pulled the young man between them, both their parent senses going wild knowing their child needed some comfort.
In between his surrogate parents, he could not help the tears that started to leak out of his eyes, quickly the storey tumbled out of him. The facts first, then how helpless he felt, and how much he just wanted to take the pain away from his child.
Pen and Nick glanced at each other as they both moved to cuddle the slightly shaking body between them, slowly trickling calming magic into him. They communicated silently through their bond, they quickly came to a decision that they could best protect the two precious souls under their charge. Nick shifted his son into his arms, pushing the head into his shoulder and continued to smooth the young man. Pen, on the other hand, slipped off the couch and started towards Sidor’s room intent on making sure the young man will not be alone when he woke. At the same time, she sent a Patronus towards the two other men that were residing in their manner, to let them know what was going on.
They had two people to take care of, and they were going to make sure that they do not fail.
Sidor woke up warm and comfortable, snuggling into the bed he quickly realized one important fact.
He was not in his dorm room.
He instantly sat up straight and was immediately caught by a wave of vertigo. (His skipping of meals on an off the past few days was finally catching up to him, he was weak and unsteady.) He swayed on his bed and instantly firm warm hands steadied him, gently lay him back on his mountain of pillows.
“My little fledgeling, don’t panic, yes you are home. Do you remember what happened?”
Hearing his Grandma’s voice he relaxed, allowing the soft hands to lower him down into the pillows. Instantly, memories of what happened yesterday flew through his mind, and the shame, the guilt started to creep in. Subconsciously, he started to scratch his arms, seeking the relief that pain offered him.
The same hands that were lowering him instantly grabbed onto his hands and held onto them firmly, not allowing him to do any more damage to himself. The same hands started to pour calming magic into him, forcibly calming him down before he could do any further damage to himself.
So started the long road to recovery that Sidor was back on, and he knew that regardless of what happened, his
family
would always be there for him.
|
“Come on, Ben!” Rey laughs impatiently as she stands hovering in the open doorway, bouncing on her heels and swinging her arms back and forth at the sides of her body.
Ben chuckles as he crosses the room toward her, pulling his arms through his jacket sleeves and pressing a fond kiss to the top of her head when he reaches the spot where she hovers.
Rey spins on her heel and practically runs through the seventh-floor corridor, ignoring the exasperated calls of the schools’ portraits telling her to “slow down, young lady” as she whistles down the lengths and skids around the corners. Ben swears at one point that he can see a trail of dust in her wake; she moves so quick. She slides to a stop at the entrance to the Grand Staircase, narrowly avoiding smashing face-first into the thick door in her haste. She turns back to watch him trail behind her, resuming her eager bobbing.
Gradually, and to Rey’s contentment, Ben gains some speed in his long legs and then is easily matching her jogging pace down the Grand Staircase in long strides with no effort at all.
They whirl through the castle, electricity buzzing from every inch of Rey as they inch closer and closer to their destination with every hallway, every stairwell conquered. She almost takes out a small first-year girl entirely as she narrowly twists her entire to avoid colliding with her, yelling apologies over her shoulder as she whizzes further onward without pause.
When they cross the Entrance Hall, Rey shoves the heavy doors open with her shoulder and steps out into the chilly January morning air. It almost instantly tints the tip of her nose a rosy pink and Ben silently berates himself for not forcing her to stop and bundle up a little warmer, but she slightly relishes the sensation of the cool breeze on her now clammy skin.
The slight girl, her hair billowing in the wind as she moves against its force, drags Ben by the hand with impressive strength all the way down to the edge of the grounds. She stops right on the boundary, her deep and laboured breaths leaving small puffs of mist in the air around them. She leans forward, her lively hazel eyes narrow, scanning ahead… waiting…
Waiting…
A tiny squeak escapes her lips, and she jumps up and down as several dozen large box-shaped silhouettes break through the fog in their approach, pulled along by some invisible entity. A line of ever-growing shapes wobbles toward them on unevenly sized wheels down the earthy, frost-kissed pathway toward where they stand.
Just as the details of the Hogwarts’ carriages begin to become clearer; the dark canvas fabric of the retractable rooves, the knotted wood of the black knobbly frames, a side door of one at the very front of the herd swings open abruptly, sounding a thud as it whacks against the outside panel, that echoes thunderously through the quiet grounds. From within it emerges one, two, three, four, five bodies. They begin to jog- no, sprint- in Rey and Ben’s direction, shrill laughter bubbling all around them.
Within seconds, Rey is swept off her feet and is being spun in joyful circles in Finn’s embrace, her legs flailing loosely in the air behind her. She holds onto him tightly, burying her face into the collar of his jacket and squealing in delight as his booming laughter rattles through her bones.
He sets her back down when they are both dizzy to the brink of collapse and grins widely at her with big, pearly white teeth while they both clumsily stumble to stay upright.
“Hi, peanut!”, he chirps.
Rey beams in reply and turns to greet the others who are exchanging hugs in greeting behind them. Rose currently has her arms flung around Ben’s waist and her face pressed somewhere against his abdomen, that being as high as she can reach up to his towering figure. In response, he folds his body down to rest his pale cheek atop her dark hair and squeezes her fondly.
Rey’s body is yanked sideways and into the grip of Poe, who all but crushes the life from her while popping a kiss onto her temple with an overemphasised ‘mwah’ sound.
From over Poe’s shoulder, Hux nods once and awkwardly pats Rey on the shoulder, while Phasma winks coolly at her; hands shoved casually into her pockets.
Rose eventually releases Ben to his housemates and worms between Rey and Poe, demanding that he “move and give her to me!”. She immediately seizes hold of Rey’s face and peppers heavy, frantic kisses on either of her cheeks, screeching chants of “I missed you!” onto her freckled skin. Through Rose’s assault, Rey spots Ben and Finn exchange jovial fist bumps and boyish laughter.
Rose embraces Rey, swaying from side to side on the spot and making a string of incoherent, excited noises right into her ear, deafening her slightly.
“Let’s go, before Kaydel catches us up”, Finn suggests as he looks cautiously over his shoulder at the carriages, now with the rest of Hogwarts’ returning students pouring from within them, “she spent the entire train journey talking about the Cup. Any more Quidditch talk, and I’ll throw myself in front of a Bludger”.
He ushers the group away from the cluster of carriages and up the tree-lined pathway, back to the castle on the horizon.
Rey feels as though her face might split from smiling so wide. As she loops both arms through those of her dearest friends and they make their way back home, her entire body feels as though it could burn up from happiness. It’s as though her soul itself is singing.
They chatter the whole way, both as a collective and on individual tangents. Rose tells everyone that Paige sends her love to them as well as all the mischief they got up to over the holidays, Poe recounts a hilarious story involving a rogue garden gnome that got into the liquor cupboard while Rey fights back tears of laughter, and she definitely catches Ben telling Hux that he must try ice skating on the lake before Spring melts the natural rink.
Once in the Entrance Hall, the group disbands and sets off to their respective dormitories to freshen up from the long journey; the three Slytherins to the dungeons and the lone Hufflepuff toward the kitchen corridor. Poe shoots off to meet with the Heads of Houses and the other Prefects but promises to be “quick as a Snitch”. They swear to meet back up in a swift sixty minutes for lunch and perhaps some sort of intense wizard’s chess showdown. Regardless of what they settle on for the day’s activities, they are all in agreement that they should spend no longer than it is absolutely necessary to be apart.
Rey and Finn walk arm in arm the entire way to the welcome warmth of the Gryffindor Common Room to wait there for Poe. Rey bolts up the dormitory stairs two at a time to retrieve her box of Christmas gift sweets from her battered old trunk before joining Finn; perched in the alcove of one of the deep windowsills of one of the tower’s arched windows. He has picked, she knows purposefully, Rey’s favourite spot in the whole tower. From here, you can see an uninterrupted clear view of the lake. It was from here that she first caught a glimpse of the Giant Squid in her first year, a story that she had believed to be an utter fabrication until she had seen it at that moment with her own eyes. She had all but fallen backwards off the windowsill when she had seen its monumental tentacles wiggling above the water’s surface, splashing droplets towards the shore and seemingly playing with some pixies bathing in the shallows.
The pair sit facing one another with their backs pressed against the walls of the alcove, legs crossed as they pour their snacks into one communal pile in the middle. Rey instantly reaches for a pumpkin pasty and pops it into her mouth whole, not realising until now how ravenous she is. Finn warily cracks open a chocolate frog box, grabbing hold of it and taking a large bite of its rear end before it can disappear into the depths of the Common Room.
The friends chew happily for a few moments, scrunching their faces and making small noises of joy and contentment at both the sugary treats and their reunion.
After a short handful of minutes, something mischievous flashes across Finn’s eyes. Rey picks up on it at once and braces herself for what she knows is coming…
“Well… Solo, then?”, he says with a playful smile.
With her own cheeky smirk, she fires back, “Dameron, then?”.
They collapse into each other in a flurry of giggles, clinging on as they lose all control over their limbs.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
The first week back into the school routine takes the wind right out of the students' sails. Their Professors throw them headfirst into the stormy depths of N.E.W.T studies, with Professor Snoke shrieking at them during one particularly sleepy Potions lesson that they should bring back the old punishments of stringing students up in the dungeons for falling behind in his class. But, he supposes, simply eradicating the burden of them from his class will have to suffice.
Kaydel becomes, if such a thing is possible, even more of a tyrant when it comes to Quidditch practice. She in turn tells her team after hearing of Snoke’s outburst that they should be ‘more than prepared, in fact, honoured’ to be booted from any of their classes if it means they have more time to focus on winning the remainder of their matches this year.
There isn’t even any refuge to be found at Chewie’s. He had vanished from the grounds at some point after New Year’s Day and seemingly not returned. The windows of his ironically small hut sit uncharacteristically dark, and the chimney chugs out no smoke. Rey had always found it eery to see his home in this way when he left the grounds. Almost like the heart of Hogwarts was missing, the furnace at its core cold and unlit.
Also, there was always the very real possibility that he would return with some sort of bizarre, havoc-wreaking creature. This both excited and concerned Rey in equal gigantic measures.
So, Rey spends every waking hour, of which there are many it seems, practising the most complicated of spells and refining tricky flying moves with her friends and Ben. The group band together most evenings and weekends for study and practical sessions, helping one another in the areas in which each one needs support.
Every class, every hour, starts to feel as though it drags on for a month. Rey can’t even get excited for their first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson of the term. She reluctantly hauls herself into Professor Kenobi’s room, silently begging her favourite member of the teaching staff to cut them some slack, just for a short while. Please.
He doesn’t disappoint, announcing brightly to his exhausted pupils that they will be practising the shield charm, Protego, before proceeding to separate them into pairs. “Nothing too strenuous for our first class back, eh?”, he smiles.
Rey sighs a small exhale of relief. This one is easy. And Kenobi pairs her with the Slytherin Beater Xi’an, who has never made many secrets of her dislike for ‘goody two shoes’ Gryffindor’s, let alone their rival team members, and therefore won’t waste any time trying to make small talk.
The girls find a space on the rickety wooden floor and face each other. Rey flashes a faint smile but is met with what she can only classify as a scowl.
Definitely no chance of small talk today, then.
Rey absentmindedly casts the charm with a nonverbal call of ‘Protego’, and a shimmering barrier forms before her to protect from Xi’an’s onslaught of hexes that follow within seconds.
They continue the rhythm. Rey starts to drop her shield, throwing up a new one with perfect timing to deflect the spells coming her way each time. After ten or so minutes, Kenobi calls for them all to swap roles and Rey proceeds to half-heartedly fling random offensive magic her partner’s way, twirling and flourishing her wand wrist loosely in a strange sort of dancing movement.
It’s beyond mind-numbing, really, but she welcomes the reprieve from using too much brainpower. Rey begins to daydream about how sort of pudding there might be at dinner tonight when-
In her daze, she fires off a Flipendo Knockback jinx that pierces right through Xi’an’s shield and clips the fabric of her robes, frankly, doing not more than ruffling it.
The rest of her protection shatters to reveal her thunderous face glaring wide-eyed back at Rey.
It hadn’t even been that powerful a spell and after the initial surprise, Rey is nothing short of confused as to how it could have possibly broken through her partner’s defence. Not unless that defence had been, honestly, a little flimsy to begin with, she thinks to herself.
“Oh- I- sorry”, Rey stutters out hurriedly and smiles apologetically. A few students turn to look in their direction, their attention grabbed by Rey’s voice sounding unexpectedly. Their gaze somehow seems to intensify Xi’an’s fury.
“Are you some sort of fucking mountain troll?!” she seethes, “you nearly took my head off!”
Rey finds her back straightening instinctively, her shoulders pulling back. “It’s not like I meant- “.
“Maybe you should be more careful, then”, Xi’an hisses.
“Maybe you could do with some more practise if a simple Knockback can break your shield”, Rey hisses right back.
Xi’an growls something unintelligible, but no doubt full of some inventive curse words. She turns and stomps over to where Professor Kenobi stands. He is, at present, attempting to tell off Finn and Ben through his own tears of laughter, for veering wildly off the course of today’s topic. Finn dangles upside in the air by one ankle, his tongue poking out of one corner of his mouth as he desperately tries, with little success, to twist himself upright. Ben is hunched over and clutching his stomach, laughing uncontrollably.
All three of their faces fall sombre when Xi’an approaches and starts to animatedly complain and wave her arms in Rey’s vague direction. Kenobi holds his hands up and nods non-committedly to pacify the tiny, furious Slytherin girl.
After a surprisingly short conversation, Kenobi sets Finn the right way up and back down to his feet before jerking his head in Rey’s direction. Whatever he says causes Ben’s shoulders to drop, and all trace of laughter evaporates from around his eyes.
Then, Finn is bouncing across the classroom toward Rey. She cocks an eyebrow at him curiously and folds her arms across her chest expectantly.
He comes to a stop in front of her and beams. “Kenobi told me to swap partners. Xi’an reckons you’re trying to murder her”.
Rey rolls her eyes and tuts in a mock gesture of annoyance. “So, I’m stuck with you now, am I?”.
“Could be worse”, he snorts, “you could be Ben right now”.
Rey leans around her friend to check on Ben, who is now sat on the edge of one of the comparatively tiny desks pushed against the far wall, his eye glazed over and staring into space while Xi’an paces in front of him gesturing with her hands in various frantic and frustrated ways.
“Eek”, Rey winces, a pang of sympathy swirling in her gut for him. She feels suddenly a little guilty for riling her up.
The remainder of the lesson passes in an uneventful drag. Rey and Finn hurl half-arsed assaults at one another’s only slightly less half-arsed Protego charms. When Professor Kenobi claps his hands together and announces that the students are “free of his company”, almost every dazed pupil in the room jumps from their skin.
Rey shoves her wand into the back pocket of her tight blue jeans and scoops up her bag from where it is stashed in the corner. She tells her friends she should retrieve her boyfriend and doesn’t blame them when they opt to go ahead, not wanting to tempt the wrath of his substitute partner. Rey takes a deep gulp before heading in the direction of the pair.
He stands with his arms folded sternly across his chest while Xi’an continues to rant at him with seemingly no end in sight. She no longer paces but is standing just slightly on her tiptoes before him, her hands planted firmly on her hips as though scolding a child.
As Rey approaches and hovers just in their periphery, the petite Slytherin girls voice becomes clearer…
“-seen you practising with them on the pitch. You shouldn’t even be talking to them. I don’t know how they conduct themselves over at Elvermong-“
-Ben’s eye twitches in reaction to her careless, and most likely utterly deliberate, butchering of his old home’s name-
“-But where is your pride? Where is the loyalty to your house?”
“Look- “, Ben begins to interject, only to be spoken over-
“She’s just getting in your head to throw you off, Solo! Connix will do anything to win this year. You’re fraternizing with the enemy!”, she jabs.
“That’s enough”, Ben says fiercely. A small growl lines his voice and it stops Xi’an dead in her tracks.
Her bottom lip juts out and she glares wildly up at him, her chest heaving to catch some breath as though in preparation for another endless stream of words.
Not about to give her the opportunity to bend Ben’s ear any further, Rey takes a broad step forward and clears her throat gently to alert them to her presence. Xi’an’s head whips in her direction and her expression is murderous. She looks back up to Ben as though expecting him to dismiss Rey, but he simply stares at her defiantly.
Xi’an turns on her heel and storms from the room, her hands curled into fists at her sides. As she passes, she attempts to shove past Rey roughly, who nimbly sidesteps out of her pathway and leaves her thumping her shoulder into the empty air. The weight of her feet slamming into the floorboards triple, then, until they vanish through the open door and fade into the corridor beyond.
“Fun lesson?”, Rey asks blankly.
“It was. Until Xi’an decided to be… Xi’an”, he responds glumly with a minute sigh.
Rey shuffles her feet and drops her gaze momentarily to her shoes. “What was she saying?”, she asks.
Ben throws an arm over her shoulders and starts guiding her out of Professor Kenobi’s classroom. “That I shouldn’t be practising with you. That you’re trying to throw me off my Quidditch game by fluttering your beautiful eyelashes at me. That I shouldn’t be talking to you. Looking at you. Thinking about you. That you’re an evil mastermind solely out to cause havoc”, he scoffs lightly at the immaturity of his teammate.
“Well-”, she shrugs, “-perhaps I am”, and peeks up at him with a mischievous smirk.
“By all means”, he presses a kiss to the top of her hair with a breathy chuckle, “continue. I welcome your havoc”.
She weaves an arm around his midriff and squeezes him close as they walk, relishing his scent as she soaks it in. The warmth and comfort of his body wrapping partially around her makes her even more exhausted and she finds herself wishing for nothing else but a nap. Around three days should do.
“What’s up next?”, she enquires through a yawn.
“Potions…”, Ben mumbles tentatively.
“You should have let Xi’an hex me”, she whines in response.
|
“I don’t have to work today,” Merlin stills with one hand on the door. “I can stay if you need me. Freya will be fine.”
Arthur looks up from where he’s bent over, tying up his shoelaces. He hopes that the smile he gives Merlin speaks volumes about how grateful he’s for the offer.
“Yes, you do,” he disagrees. “And so do I.” Yeah, he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do, but he sure as hell knows he’s not gonna just sit back and take orders anymore. He has to talk to his father again, damn the consequences.
He walks over to Merlin, pulling him in an unhurried kiss. “Thank you though.” He brushes a thumb over his cheek. “I’ll give you a lift to the shop.”
Merlin shakes his head. “No. It’s fine if you don’t need me to stay but I don’t want you driving back and forth.”
“It’s no trouble-"
“Doesn’t matter,” Merlin interrupts. “Go home, put on fresh clothes and go to work. And when you’re ready, tell me everything.”
Arthur’s not happy about it, but nods solemnly. “Alright. I can do that. But I’ll come collect my coffee first.”
Merlin beams at him, pecking him on the lips. “I'll have a message waiting for you.”
“Deal.”
He doesn’t feel any less helpless than he did half an hour ago when he left Merlin’s place. His mind keeps taking him to that argument with Uther. He can’t help but feel that his relationship with Merlin didn’t bother him as much as the prospect of Arthur leaving did.
Yes, he wasn’t thrilled about Arthur’s coming-out, but that was more due to the fact that his co-workers and clients might not take too well to it. Which would have a negative impact on the company - naturally.
That’s what Uther was so worried about, wasn’t it? The company, as always.
He doesn’t understand why his father is so set on putting him in charge. Sure, it’s the family business, and Uther does need someone to take over in a few years. But regardless of how good he is, Arthur is not passionate. Surely, his father should prefer someone who would love the company as much as he does, or not?
He doesn’t even respect Arthur. Doesn’t trust him. Hell, he doesn’t trust anyone.
Except...
It’s as if a light-bulb switches on in Arthur’s brain. Suddenly, it’s all very clear.
He knows what he needs to do.
How did I not see that before?
Right, he was upset. Is still upset, but spending the night with Merlin, in his arms, made the world seem a bit brighter.
Merlin.
He stares at the roses Merlin gave him two nights ago, blooming beautifully without a sign of withering.
He doesn’t know how things are going to turn out. But he’s going to do everything in his power to set himself free. To be with Merlin.
“Hey,” Merlin greets when Arthur appears in front of him at the till, then stares at him inquiringly. “You look different,” he comments.
“I just had a revelation,” he explains, heart beating fast from nerves and excitement.
Please, please, let this work.
“Are you going to elaborate or leave me hanging?” Merlin teases, passing Freya Arthur’s usual order.
“I’ll leave you hanging,” he replies, earning a scowl. “But I’ll tell you everything when I come back in the afternoon,” he adds. “Also, I’ll have Leon’s drink. Medium latte, two sugars.”
Merlin blinks in surprise. “You’re gonna see him today?”
“Yeah, there is something I need to address.”
All of sudden, Merlin shudders minutely.
“Are you ok?” Arthur frowns, grazing his fingertips over Merlin’s hand.
“Yeah,” he says. “I just saw something.” He reaches for a cup and a pen and begins to scribble something frantically.
“Oh,” Arthur says, “I’m getting curious.”
Merlin smirks, passing the cup to Freya. “That was not for you.”
Huh. So Leon gets one too today.
“I want one too,” he complains petulantly.
“You will,” Merlin reassures. “I promised.”
Satisfied, Arthur goes to wait in the other line, going over his plan again. Doubts start creeping up but he’s determined to not give in. This is too important for that.
Merlin delivers his drinks, despite being the one on the till today. Again.
Arthur takes the drinks from him, brushing their hands in the process.
“Thank you.” And without hesitation, he leans over the counter to kiss Merlin on the mouth. He vaguely registers Freya’s grumbling voice a few feet away and a few awws from the customers. He doesn’t care about either.
Merlin’s eyes are glazed over and unfocused when he pulls apart, his gaze fixated on Arthur’s lips. He licks his own, like he’s chasing Arthur’s lingering taste and clears his throat.
“Uh... you’re welcome?”
Arthur chuckles, too proud of himself for rendering Merlin incoherent.
“See you later, Merlin.” He makes his way to the door, snorting when Freya flips him the bird. He gets in his car and secures the cups in the holder. Then curiosity gets better of him and he gingerly takes Leon’s cup and reads over his message.
Trust the timing of your life
Holy shit. How does Merlin do it?!
He swaps the cups and takes a look at his own, swallowing over the lump in his throat.
I love you
He chokes back a sob, taking a shaky breath. God, he’s such a girl. And he doesn’t have time for this. He’s got work to do.
Right...
Well... here goes nothing.
He knocks on Leon’s door, balancing the cups in one hand.
“Come in.”
Leon looks up from his laptop, surprise evident on his face. “Arthur,” he greets, than his eyes fall to Arthur’s hands. “Oh, did you bring me a coffee?”
Arthur places Leon’s cup on the desk, holding onto his like it’s keeping him from falling apart. “Yes. I have to confess though, it’s more of a bribery than a random act of kindness,” he tries to crack a joke. “I have something I need to talk to you about.” He sweeps his gaze over the piles of papers on the desk, feeling bad for stealing more time from Leon’s busy schedule but he needs to do this. “It’s important.”
Leon considers Arthur’s solemn look, probably noticing the clench in his jaw and the rigidity of his posture. He closes the laptop shut, gesturing for Arthur to take a seat.
“I’m listening.”
“Are you sure about this, Arthur?” Leon asks for the third time as they exit the elevator on the top floor.
“Not at all,” he admits. “But it’s the only solution I can think of.”
Leon nods, not happy but accepting nonetheless. “I understand.”
They stop in front of Uther’s office. Arthur checked his schedule. He knows he has approximately twenty minutes before his father leaves for a meeting with a client.
That will have to do.
He turns to Leon with a hand to his shoulder. “I think it best that I walk in alone at first. Would you mind waiting a bit?”
Leon frowns. “Okay?” He grows even more serious then. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Taking a deep breath, Arthur nods. “I’ll fetch you when it’s time.”
“I’ll be here,” Leon promises and with one last, shaky exhale, Arthur knocks.
“Yes?”
Here we go.
“Father,” he says as he walks in the office, shutting the door behind him. Uther looks up from his laptop with a frown, watching Arthur like he’s seeing him for the first time.
“Arthur,” he says in a voice laced with warning. “What do you want? I told you I’m busy.”
“You did. I checked your schedule, we have a few minutes before you need to go.” And without waiting for an invitation that wouldn’t come anyway, he takes the seat directly across from him.
Uther narrows his eyes. “I have work to do. You better make it quick.”
“That depends on you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I have something to say. If you listen and let me finish, this will be over fairly quickly. If not... well,” he shrugs like it’s all the same to him, although his stomach is in knots.
“Get on with it then.”
“Alright,” he starts, sitting himself upright and leaning forward. “I don’t want the company. I don’t want to follow in your steps.”
Uther bristles in his seat. “Arthur, I think I made it perfectly clear that I don’t want to hea-”
“At this pace, we’re going to be here for hours,” Arthur comments, not expecting any less from his father.
“What makes you think that-”
“Father,” he says, losing his composure despite his best efforts. “Please, just once in your life... listen to what I have to say,” he begs and pauses. “Please.”
He can see the struggle in Uther to not just tell Arthur off but something in his voice must have convinced him to hold back. He latches onto that hope like a lifeline.
“I know this is what you’ve always wanted for me. To follow your legacy. To live up to the Pendragon’s name. But... this is not who I am. I am not who you want me to be.”
Uther doesn’t say anything, his expression speaking volumes. Arthur takes what he can get.
“You’ve built this company from the ground. You dedicated your whole life to it. I know that’s what you wanted from me too. And I’m sorry. But that will never happen.”
The pause between what he wants to say next is long enough that Uther considers it a prompt to speak.
“Arthur. It doesn’t matter whether you think you can do it or not. I need you to do it. I need a successor. And you’re my son. It’s the natural order.”
Arthur inhales sharply. It’s time to bring in the big guns.
“I know,” he says and stands up. “But I have a better solution.” He walks to the door to open it and invite Leon in. The man looks as nervous as Arthur feels, Uther’s sceptical expression not exactly inviting.
“Leon,” he says more like a question than a greeting. He looks to Arthur. “What is this?”
“I have a proposition for you.” He walks back to the desk but remains standing, Leon following suit. “You need someone to take over after you and let’s be honest, I’m the least suitable person in this building. Leon, on the other hand,” he turns to look at him, getting and approving nod. “He’s perfect for it.”
Uther remains silent and Arthur finds it’s because he’s too busy gaping at them.
“You’ve got to be joking,” he finally says. “Have you lost your mind?!”
Leon stiffens next to him. “Uther,” he tries. “Please, just listen to what he has to say.”
“This is madness!”
“Why? It makes perfect sense?”
“Makes sense? You’re my son! My rightful heir! What makes sense is that you do your duty!”
“Can you hear yourself? You make it sound like we’re in medieval ages and I’m supposed to take over the throne. It’s ridiculous! Leon is the most entitled to that position, no matter he has no actual connection to you. He’s loyal to you, has worked for you for many years and you trust him completely. Why is it not enough?”
Uther clenches his jaw and this time, he speaks to Leon.
“Leon, you know how I think about you. You’re my most trusted employee. And you’re a good friend of mine. I know I can rely on you with any task. But it seems that my son misinterpreted how this works.”
“I didn’t misinterpret anything,” Arthur argues. “You just don’t want to listen!”
“Listen to what, your foolish ideas? You are not making sense, Arthur. You say this is not who you are, what you’re supposed to do. So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna start a music band? Become a football player? Or pursue some other mindless dream of yours and call it a career?”
Arthur blinks back the tears, unwilling to give up that easy. “No. Of course you don’t know. You never asked,” he spits out. “If you did, you would know that I still want to stay involved in law.”
“Then why-”
“Because I want to do something different! I want to help people. I want to change the world for the better.”
Uther snorts. “Playing a hero, are you now? And how do you do that?”
“By defending people who are in a tough place and can’t afford a lawyer. I want to help women get out of abusive relationships and not lose their kids. I want to clear the names of men who are innocent but can’t prove it on their own. I want help people who are being exploited by their employers or landlords. I just... I just want to make a difference.”
Uther doesn’t say anything, so Arthur continues before he loses the nerve.
“I’m a good lawyer.” He looks at his father, eyes growing softer at what he’s about to say next. “And I owe that to you.” Uther’s face transforms in shock at the simple admission. “You taught me everything I know. And I’m grateful for that. But it’s time that I go my own way. And you need to let me go.”
At that, Uther shifts in his seat, preparing a come-back. Arthur rushes to stop him.
“Father. You need to let me go. Or you will lose me.” He holds his breath. “Just like you lost Morgana.”
Uther’s face turns stormy. “Don’t you dare!”
“You know it’s the truth! You pushed too hard and you never listened.” He wipes at his eyes, giving up the pretense. Shit, he’s losing it. There goes his plan. He wishes Merlin was here. He would know what to do.
He doesn’t know how it happens, but as he makes the wish, three words flash behind his eyelids, glowing gold.
The three words that Merlin wrote on his cup this morning.
Oh...
Finding his purpose again, Arthur speaks. “I don’t want this to happen. I know we rarely see each other eye to eye, but you are my father. And I... I love you.” The words feel foreign on his tongue but they are not a lie.
Uther stares in shock, rendered speechless by the confession. Arthur takes the final leap.
“I love you and I don’t want to lose you. I’ve lost my mother, and my sister. You’re all I have left.” He holds Uther’s gaze. “But I won’t let you keep me in a cage any longer. You have to make a choice.”
Uther doesn’t blink as his eyes bore into Arthur’s. And for the life of him, Arthur has no idea what’s going through the man’s head. Once more, he wishes Merlin was here.
Finally, Uther moves, sagging in his chair and rubbing at his eyes. It’s the most human gesture he’s done since Arthur entered the office.
“If that’s all, feel free to leave,” he says and Arthur’s stomach drops.
So this is it? He put himself out there for nothing?
Holding himself back from bursting in tears on the spot, he turns on his heel and starts walking to the door.
Uther speaks again. “I’ll get back to you later.”
Arthur stops in his tracks and his jaw hits the floor when the underlying meaning of the words sinks in.
Uther looks up uncertainly and doesn’t look directly at him.
“I’m too busy today,” he repeats. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Arthur wants to start crying for a completely different reason now. Actually, he isn’t sure it wouldn’t come out as a manic laugh.
“Yes, father,” he replies and for the first time in his life, the words are not filled with resentment.
He’s been counting minutes to his lunch break so when the clock on his laptop lights up showing 12:30, he springs up from his chair like he just got burned, pocketing the car keys and pretty much running to the elevators.
He knows he’s going way over the speed limit as he drives to the cafe and doesn’t even care about getting fined. He just needs to see Merlin.
He doesn’t bother locking the car as he rushes to get in the shop, surprised to find it completely empty. Not that it would matter if the place was packed to the brim.
He spots Merlin at one of the tables by the wall, holding a cloth and wiping the surface. He looks up at Arthur as the sound of the door closing alerts him to someone’s presence, locking eyes with him. The wide smile that splits his face has Arthur gasping for breath.
“Hello,” he says and stands upright. “Wow, you’re early. Not that I’m complaining.”
For a few seconds, Arthur just stares, unmoving. He takes in the sight of Merlin, his tall, lean frame and broad shoulders, the disarray of his dark hair and the shape of his plump mouth, the faint shadow of his stubble and the ever-present sparkle of his eyes.
At once, he snaps back to the present moment and without saying a word, he takes several long steps in Merlin’s direction. Merlin’s gaze follows him the whole time and he opens his mouth to say something else but doesn’t get a chance as Arthur steals all the breath from his lungs with a deep, desperate kiss.
He sucks his upper lip between both of his, then licks over the seam in a request to open up for him. And Merlin does. He parts his lips and allows Arthur to slip his tongue inside, searching out Merlin’s and tangling them together. Merlin throws his hands over Arthur’s neck, still holding the cloth, and deepens the kiss even further, moaning into Arthur’s mouth and nipping at his lips.
Only when he’s struggling to breathe does Arthur pull apart, touching his forehead to Merlin’s.
“Oh, wow” Merlin exhales against him, “I have no idea how I deserved that but I’ll do it all over again if I must.”
Arthur huffs out a quiet laugh, brushing their lips together. “You’re fucking amazing, that’s how. ” He pulls away further to be able to look him directly in the eye. “I think I did it. I finally got father to listen. And he agreed to talk. Tomorrow.”
His emotions must be coming off strong because Merlin starts welling up in front of him. “Oh, Arthur. That’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you.” He leans forward for another kiss.
“It’s all thanks to you. I could never do that without you.”
“That was all you, Arthur. Because you’re incredible and so, so brave.” Another kiss. “I knew you could do it.”
“No, not without you,” he disagrees. “From the moment I met you, I haven’t been the same. You took down all my walls and the only thing I was left with was the truth. And I couldn’t ignore it anymore. You helped me find myself. And in the process... I fell in love.” Merlin’s eyes widen at the confession, his breath hitching. “And then... the message you wrote for me this morning. That finally did it.”
“Oh,” says Merlin, dumbstruck and a bit in daze. “So... you liked it?” He licks nervously at his lips.
“Yeah. I really, really did.”
“Good.”
In the next moment, Frey shows up in the shop with a bag of what looks like a takeout, apparently on her break as well. She blinks at the picture the two of them make and rolls her eyes instead of a greeting and conveniently disappears in the staff room. They both chuckle at her reaction.
“So,” Merlin starts. “Gonna talk me through it all?”
Arthur nods in affirmation and gestures for Merlin to take a seat. He begins the story from the point he dropped Merlin off at home after Uther summoned him.
Merlin doesn’t let go of his hand the whole time Arthur is talking.
When he finishes with the story, Merlin answers with another kiss, slow and sweet.
“Like I said,” he says. “So brave.”
Arthur shudders against his lips. “Merlin.”
“Yeah?”
“I need to get back.”
“Oh. Yeah, okay.”
Arthur pulls him even closer and whispers directly in his ear, lips grazing at the shell, “I’ll pick you up when you’ve finished. Then I’ll drive you home. And you’re going to take me upstairs and make love to me.”
Merlin jumps back in the chair like he was zapped with an electric shock. His eyes are like saucers, mouth hanging open.
Arthur trails his fingers over his cheek, stopping with the pad of his thumb pressed to his bottom lip. “That sound good to you?”
Merlin starts nodding before Arthur finishes speaking. “Yeah,” he clears his throat. “Very, very good.”
“Good.” He presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then stands up and makes his way out.
Freya’s back behind the counter so he gives a small wave. Judging by the disgusted face she makes, he can only guess how much she saw and heard.
He can’t bring himself to feel embarrassed.
When Arthur picks Merlin up at 6:15, he’s already closed the shop and is waiting outside, leaning against the large window. He watches Arthur pull up at the curb and walks to the passenger’s side, sliding into the seat without a word.
They don’t speak for the whole duration of the drive, but Merlin’s hand is on Arthur’s thigh, rubbing subtly at the seam on the inside of his slacks. Arthur grips the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping him sane. It probably is.
They don’t speak as Arthur parks the car in the usual spot and they make their way upstairs, hand in hand.
They don’t speak as they divest each other of their clothes, crawling on the bed, Arthur on his back with Merlin hovering above him.
They don’t speak as Merlin works him open ever so slowly, driving him crazy with anticipation.
They don’t speak as Merlin finally pushes inside, Arthur letting out a deep exhale of relief.
They don’t speak as Merlin rocks into him, not until he starts whispering sweet nothings in Arthur’s ear, making him tremble in his arms. He showers him with praise, telling him how good he is, how brave and beautiful.
Arthur comes with a silent cry, followed by Merlin only seconds later, and unable to hold back any longer, he whispers I love you against Merlin’s lips.
He lifts a hand to wipe away a stray tear running down Merlin’s cheek and Merlin takes it in his own and presses Arthur’s palm over his heart.
Arthur just smiles because he already knows.
|
James stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom. The late-night sky cast silvery light into the room. The weight on his chest crushed him and comforted him all at once.
Severina’s sleeping form clung to him. Not that he minded, but her right hand splayed over his chest and the night shone on the diamond snake that wrapped her finger and its emerald eyes taunted him.
They were back home for Christmas break at the Potter estate with his parents and Sirius down the hall. The Lupins were visiting as well. Peter may join them for the New Year. It was Christmas morning and all James could think about was the girl in his arms and wondered why they had to fight so hard for their happiness.
James brushed the back of Severina’s hand, causing a gentle wave of goosebumps across her skin. His fingers reached the ring and he gave it a small tug. The silver snake wrapped more tightly and threatened to strangle the finger it held. He stopped and the snake loosened to a more comfortable fit. James turned his head and pressed his lips firmly to Severina’s hair.
The first time she tried to remove the ring, she panicked and tore at the ring and tried to rip it off until her finger turned purple and James had to pull her hands away. He expected her to cry, to fall into his arms and weep, but she didn’t. She shoved every emotion behind her damned mental wall and stood like a shell of herself. James held her anyway, more for himself— he needed to feel her in his arms. He wept for them both because she wouldn’t. Instead, she had said,
“We need to run, James.”
“No,’ he had answered, ‘We’ll stay and fight. Together.”
“It’s past time to be brave. We need to be smart. We need to be cunning. We need to run. Run as far as we can and never look back and maybe never stop running.”
What a nightmare their Yule Ball had turned out to be and how beautiful it had started, like a perfect dream. Severina had been gorgeous. The sight of her had stolen his breath. Her gown was silver and white and charmed to glitter softly like snowfall. Her hair was done-up elegantly to show off the slender slope of her neck and shoulders which were unobstructed by the thin straps that held the dress. Her makeup had been done in silver tones to match and she looked like a queen.
Her Slytherin “friends” stood by smugly watching him gape at his girlfriend. James had had a hard time swallowing enough to tell her… He wanted to. He wanted to tell her he had never seen anyone so stunningly beautiful and he was stunned. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her and she was all the more tempting for not even noticing. She had no idea. She didn’t care. She might as well have still been in her school robes, unadorned, hair still lank and greasy.
When they had walked into the Hall, everyone stared. James had noticed “Regulus” long before he approached. He had noticed how the other's eyes had drunk her in and James had instinctually pulled her closer to himself. Severina had looked up at James as if she couldn't believe who stood next to her; as if he were the only man in existence who mattered.
James wished he could have found his voice enough to tell her and somehow explain in a way she could understand, that he couldn’t look at her or even think of her without his heart trying to break from his chest. His love for her was so intense at times, he almost couldn’t bear it. Could she ever understand that? Could anyone?
Maybe Sev was right, maybe they should run away together.
There hadn’t been any time before they left for Christmas break to find out who Tom Riddle was (besides the obvious) and James’s parents said he wasn’t of their time. Of course, he would’ve been after. Mr. Lupin said the name certainly sounded familiar and that there had been a boy with that name who had been Head Boy when Mr. Lupin was in his fourth-year, but that they couldn’t possibly be the same person.
No one really knew what to think. Remus and Sirius were as shaken by what happened at the Yule Ball as he was.
“Maybe it’s time to go to Dumbledore.” Remus suggested.
“Yeah,’ Sirius said, ‘maybe it’s time to choose a side.”
James looked to Severina, “The enemy of our enemy is our friend, right?” but whenever James slipped into Sev’s mind, she was still desperate to run. Not that she would ever leave without him and James wouldn’t leave without his parents and his friends.
James pulled her sleeping form more firmly to himself and moved his lips to her brow. They hadn’t bothered to dress after they had made love that night and her naked skin was hot against his and her soft breasts pillowed into his side. He couldn’t lose her, not for anything. The thought of being separated from her caused his body to shake and tears to drip down his temples, hot at first against his skin and cooling quickly by winter’s air which permitted the room outside the bed.
Severina stirred and her arms flexed around him. James could feel her soft lips pressing kisses to his chest.
“James?’ She asked softly, ‘are you awake?”
“Can’t sleep,” he rasped.
“James, I have to tell you and you have to understand, you have to believe… I love you and you are the most important person in the world to me. You matter more than anyone.”
James sighed and pressed his cheek to her hair, “I know, Sev.”
“Then why are you still pulling at the ring?”
His eyes snapped down and the snake wrapped tightly around her finger and cut painfully into her skin. He snatched his hand away, wrapped her into a fierce embrace and rocked them both moaning,
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”
She answered soothing, “It’s okay James.”
“I hate him,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Me too.”
“What if we can’t run away? What if he can track you with that thing?”
Severina sighed wearily, “Other than the bind to keep it from being removed, I’ve only detected protection charms. Mr. Lupin has said the same.”
“If we run, you think he’d not follow you? He called you an investment.” It made James sick. The sick bastard didn’t even see her as a person; to him, she was just some asset to acquire. Maybe they should have just joined the Death Eaters and kept their heads down. Refusing had only made Severina more valuable somehow.
Severina turned her face into his neck and squeezed her arms around him, “I don’t know what else to do to keep you safe,” she said and James felt the pain in her voice.
James sighed. He didn’t know what to do either. Everyone was shaken by the boldness of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (but whose name was Tom Riddle). His Darkness had backed them into a corner, threatened Severina and Regulus in one fell swoop- scaring the shit out of them all.
James didn’t want to run. He wanted to fight the bastard but that's not what he said. He said,
“Okay, Love, we’ll run.”
Severina sat up and looked down on him, and he wished he could see her face in the dark. The sheet fell with her movement and revealed her silhouette; her bare pale skin shone ever-so softly and James missed her presence in his arms.
“You mean it?” She asked and her voice was cautiously hopeful.
James didn’t like the idea of running, but to hear hope and relief in her voice was enough to solidify the decision. His hand sought hers and when he found it he enlaced their fingers.
“Severina Snape, will you run away with me?”
Severina laughed and brought the palm of his hand to her lips and kissed it.
“I’ve already talked it over with your mother and father. They said they would take care of arrangements and could maybe convince the Lupins to come too. We could leave at the beginning of summer, as soon as school ends. The wolfsbane potion could at least be in a testing phase by then. Sirius might want to try to bring Regulus as well, we could leave sooner, but logistically, there are too many of us.”
It left an uneasy feeling in his gut but her voice was hopeful and he wanted to hold onto that. James smiled, “I have something for you.” He got out of bed, switched on the bedlamp, and fetched the gift from his drawer. When he returned, Severina had lifted the sheet to cover her breasts and he sat on the bed in front of her and offered it to her, “Happy Christmas, Love.”
The shape was obvious, a small box that fit in her palm. She pulled at the twine and unwrapped the velvet box. She lifted the lid and inside sat two thin silver rings shaped like twigs.
“When I told my father that I wanted to give you a promise ring, he took me to our family vault and gave me these. He said its tradition, that he and my mother even wore these before he made his fortune and decided to splurge a little on themselves. Anyway, he said our ancestors were once one of the wealthiest wizarding families, but we had lost our family's ancient fortunes because of these rings. Now each Potter heir adds a little more back into the coffers.'
James cleared his throat.
"Apparently, before we were even called Potter, my ancestor had his inheritance given to his cousin. Anyway, this ancestor was engaged to be married and he liked her well enough. She was beautiful and wealthy, with a pleasant disposition. Oh, his name was Hadrian.’ James laughed at himself, ‘Sorry I’m muddling this up.”
Severina pecked his cheek, “Keep going.”
“So Hadrian was in the woods one day, trying to catch a glimpse of a unicorn. He thought he might bring back unicorn hair to impress his fiancé or something. When he found the unicorns, he saw a woman there walking among them. She was taking the horns and even though the unicorns didn’t seem bothered, Hadrian confronted her and they argued. She explained that she was harvesting them and that it didn’t hurt the creatures. Hadrian insisted that she should have waited for them to fall off naturally and not have been taking them off. She said they make better potions when the horns are fresh. Thinking that she might have been speaking to a muggle, she was suddenly afraid and ran off. I guess back then, unicorns were more common and even muggles knew about them. Hadrian went back to the woods the next day to try to find the witch again. Dad thinks he wanted to apologize or explain that he wasn’t a muggle, but my great-grandfather believed that Hadrian was drawn to his soulmate.’
James scratched the back of his neck, ‘My Dad said his grandfather believed that our family is either blessed or doomed in meeting their soulmate, but that we always do. Like it's our family curse or something to have soulmates.” He chuckled
“I’m a curse, then?” Severina asked.
James laughed and took the rings from her hand as he tackled her to the bed and kissed her. She was giggling too much to respond so he trailed kisses down her neck and across her collar bone until she moaned and wiggled under him.
“James,’ she moaned, ‘finish your story.”
“Oh right,’ he cleared his throat and propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her, and laid the rings on her stomach. ‘So, Hadrian meets her again, but not in the woods. He met her at some family gathering and found out that she was engaged to his cousin. He found out her name was Isolda. Hadrian’s cousin was a bit a no-good, he fathered a lot of bastards or something and families were reluctant to marry their daughters to him, but Isolda was the fifth of seven girls and not very pretty. So, she was stuck with Hadrian’s disreputable cousin. Hadrian felt sorry for her, but she resented his pity because she didn’t care that she was marrying someone who would be unfaithful. She declared that she didn’t believe in love.”
Severina threaded her fingers through James’s hair at his temples and he leaned into her touch while he continued.
“Hadrian, who hoped to one day love his betrothed as his wife, couldn’t understand someone who didn’t believe in love. He was haunted by dreams of Isolda and couldn't get her out of his mind. So, he went out to the woods in hopes to see her again and after she found out he was a wizard, she started coming back. He told her he wanted to be her friend and that he knew the woods well and could help her with her gathering.’
James kissed the back of Severina’s hand and laced their fingers together.
“They met nearly every day and eventually, Hadrian realized he was in love with Isolda. He confessed his love to her and begged her to marry him instead of his cousin. Knowing his family would likely disown him if he broke off his engagement and married the plain middle child of a less wealthy family, Isolda convinced him that she did not return his love. Truth was, she had also fallen in love with him and was only trying to protect him from the shame of loving her.’
James leaned over and kissed Severina’s forehead.
“But it was too late for Hadrian. He was in love and he couldn’t in good conscience marry his betrothed when he was in love with someone else. He broke off his engagement, which brought shame to the family and they disowned him and gave his inheritance to his cousin, who was his closest male relative. Hadrian comforted himself that at least the woman he loved would have the comforts of life which he had wanted to provide for her. He built for himself a humble cottage in the woods, near the place he first saw Isolda with the unicorns.’
“Isolda didn’t know any of this. No one thought to tell her because no one even considered she might be the witch Hadrian had fallen in love with. She found out shortly before she was to be married when her betrothed bragged about the inheritance he acquired from his foolish romantic cousin. After hearing what Hadrian had done, Isolda went to the woods and searched their meeting places for him. She found Hadrian running with unicorn foals. He was dirty and his beard and hair were a mess and his clothes were ragged but he was happy and laughing and free. He spotted her watching him and asked her if she was married yet. She told him she was not. So, he begged her to stay with him because he was convinced that his love could make her happier than any wealth could. Isolda didn't care about the wealth, she had only ever cared about him and so she stayed with him in his little cottage in the woods.”
James pulled out the rings and slipped the smaller one onto Severina’s left ring finger.
“They didn’t have any money or any real wedding ceremony, I don’t think. My Dad said they would have been able to do a binding ceremony even without witnesses but they would have needed rings. So, Hadrian transfigured twigs into rings for them, these are those rings.”
Severina took the other ring and slipped it on James's left ring finger. She kissed his fingers and felt the cool metal beneath her lips.
“I know it doesn’t have any diamond or jewels… I’ll get you something a bit nicer…”
“These are perfect, James.” Severina insisted. “I don’t need anything more than this.” She pulled him down into a kiss, hands languidly exploring familiar skin.
James pulled away after a moment, his face pinched.
“What is it?” Severina asked.
“There is a bit more to the story. The cousin… even though he was rich and had other offers of marriage, he never married. It’s unclear as to whether he actually loved Isolda or if his pride was just hurt by her abandonment so close to their wedding, but he… he searched for the couple for the rest of his life. He squandered a lot of the inheritance which was eventually given to his younger brother.”
“He must not have found them.” Severina said.
“No, he did.” James spoke in a hush. “Dad didn’t say. He said that the couple successfully eluded him, but Sev I… I just have this feeling, I just know he found them.” James looked thoughtful.
“But they survived James. They had children and lived happily together. These rings survived generations. He couldn’t have found them.”
“Maybe they never knew he did, but he found them. He found them happy, poor, and alone in the woods, but happy because they loved each other. I think he left them alone because you can’t inherit or steal happiness like that.”
James exhaled softly, laid his cheek on Severina’s chest, and wrapped his body around hers. Severina wrapped her arms around James and stroked his hair until he fell asleep. While she lay awake staring at the ceiling with his weight pressing down on her, crushing and comforting her all at once.
|
Tabby blinked in surprise as Diavolo disappeared back into the crowd, the many demons all jostling for his attention. This party was apparently the event of the year, and the prince sharing it with her as an honoured guest was quite unexpected.
And why just me? What about Solomon and the angels?
Nothing was turning out quite like she expected, the noble demons treating her with a respectful wariness or a respectful warmth depending on their opinion of humans as a whole, the security being so tight, and now Diavolo himself sharing the spotlight with her so brazenly at a celebratory event that all his subjects were bound to hear about.
With Cerberus watching over her, a guardian demon at her side, and seeing the brothers spread across the entire room, her nerves had slowly begun to settle. She still felt fear, the demon forms displayed fangs and claws at every turn, the memory of a clawed hand gripping her throat trying to push up through her mind again and again. If her thoughts strayed too far - I died, I was killed, a demon murdered me - she could almost see the reality around her start to cloud over…
Am I alive, or am I dead? Am I an angel, or am I a ghost? How could I even begin to tell, surrounded by demons and living in hell?
The person she loved most met her with a sweeping bow and a cheeky grin that dispelled her growing gloom, his eyes a piercing blue despite his demon form.
“Care for a dance, master?” Mammon asked, his seductive expression belying his innocent tone.
“Oh indeed, my handsome demon,” she replied in her most formal and demure voice, as her wolf blushed happily.
He led her to the busy dance floor, turning her into his arms, and she took the opportunity to fully enjoy the sight of him. All the brothers had transformed into their demon forms for the evening, wings, horns, tails, and all, but each had added to their usual looks, making a powerful statement. Tabby was fairly sure most of the other demon guests had done the same, some of them dripping in gold that couldn’t be practical anywhere else, but the seven Avatars stood out the most by far.
The ‘little extra’ that Asmo had alluded to consisted of thigh high laced boots, a cape that formed the shape of a demon tail, and a deep plunge shirt with puffy sleeves that his golden scorpion wrapped around. Jewels hung from his cuffs, adding splashes of pink to his black ensemble. Beel had leaned harder into his punk aesthetic with studs and spikes, and a cape with a huge fluffy ruff, leaving most of his chest exposed. She blushed slightly, realising she was staring at him again.
Satan had perhaps finally taken some fashion advice from the Avatar of Lust, opting to wear an outfit that was primarily black and silver, with just a hint of a dark mint green. He wore a theatrical mask over one eye, and she’d seen more than a few enamoured demons batting eyelashes in his direction. Lucifer however looked quite uncomfortable, in contrast to his incredible clothing. The Avatar of Pride had added peacock feather plumage, in creams, reds, blacks and golds, his cape sporting plainer feathers even as the mantle now dripped golden chains across his body.
Tabby realised with a small jolt that he looked every inch the fallen Morning Star, right down to the chains of bondage that so weighed him down.
No wonder he seems so uncomfortable. And with everyone staring at him too…
Even Levi had added embellishments to his attire, letting his scales fully show and removing the need for any sleeves. The otaku was surprisingly toned given his sedentary lifestyle and she wondered whether the big aquarium tank in his room was used for more than just housing the tiny Henry goldfish.
“How ya feelin’ kitten?”
In her opinion, Mammon already had the best outfit, his exposed skin projecting a confidence he now fully had, the black straps laid wonderfully against his white markings. His look had changed the least, her demon adding a thin twist of gold around each horn from root to tip, the same metal that now capped the spikes of his wings in molten form. Compared to the others, he was positively understated, the Avatar of Greed even wearing more restrained skintight trousers and close fitting boots, his jacket also a more simple soft black with minimal gold trim.
Under the dancefloor lighting, his markings seemed to glow, giving him an ethereal presence
“You look gorgeous,” she breathed, smiling as her demon blushed happily. “I’m enjoying myself, actually. It’s really fun seeing everyone dressed up, and nobody has tried to eat me-”
Mammon gave a little growl at the idea, his chest rumbling beneath her hand as she rested her palm against his cool skin, thankful that this party wasn’t the place for formal dancing that made touching him more restrictive.
“-I guess being a guest of honour ensures good behaviour from the other demons?”
“Mhm, should do. But I don’t think that was his first thought. When he’s upset Lucifer before, Diavolo usually gives him a gift, somethin’ extravagant.”
“Huh,” Tabby tilted her head as she considered the idea. “So it’s an apology of sorts?”
“Yeah,” the guardian demon shrugged, looking less than accepting. “Ya probably won’t get a word in edgeways with him tonight, it’s all politics an’ that shit. So maybe it’s ‘cause of that, or for what… y’know. Earlier crap.”
He spun her as the music shifted, keeping them in perfect time. While some demons were avoiding the dancefloor, she had noticed that the brothers were all rather excellent dancers.
Though I suppose they have had centuries of practise…
Mammon and Asmo in particular seemed to have a handle on a wide variety of dance styles, though she had overheard Levi speaking of Belphie as the best dancer of all. Whether he was or not, he had elected not to dance, and Tabby was just grateful he was keeping his distance from her.
“Well, it’s something,” she mused, before chuckling at Mammon rolling his eyes.
“I guess. I dunno, kitten, it’s your feelin’s that count, ya know? But I ain’t gonna be forgivin’ him any time soon, not considerin’ what he put ya through. I don’t wanna be the sourpuss though an’ put more stress on ya.”
“Sourwolf,” she winked, making him smile. “I understand. I think I’ll know better where I stand when I can actually speak to him properly. And if that’s not going to be tonight, I can relax for now. Although… you said he apologises to Lucifer by giving him expensive gifts?”
“Extravagant ones, yeah. One time he bought him a fuckin’ island, ta try an’ encourage him ta go on holiday more often.”
At least wanting Lu to rest more is a good thing. That means it’s unlikely Diavolo is directly the reason for all the overworking… he’s doing it to himself in the name of duty perhaps?
“I’m not sure, but wouldn’t Lu hate that?”
Mammon snorted a laugh, holding her closer.
“I told ya! Ya know him well, Tabs. Yeah he does, so everythin’ gets sent back or returned.”
I bet it probably works though… Whether to stop the stress of having to reject gifts, or added guilt, he no doubt then forgives Diavolo. Though the prince may not realise that?
The music slowed, and Tabby felt her demon’s wings brush cooly against her sides as he wrapped them around her, blocking out the huge crowd. A hand softly tilted her face up, and even in her high footwear she had to raise herself a little, Mammon’s eyes flickering a little now with gold, his fangs noticeably lengthened.
So pretty...
There were butterflies in her stomach as he kissed her, gentle despite his restrained intensity, and she wondered that she’d ever thought kissing humans was satisfying. Her demon often kissed her with passionate enthusiasm, his need so openly shown that it took her breath away, made her feel like a figure of worship in his eyes, but he was also more than happy to kiss her long and slow, the slightest press of a fang against her tongue or lip absolutely electrifying.
The music was too loud to catch the sound, but she could feel the vibrations of his contented purr at every point their bodies connected, a warmth of happiness spreading beneath her skin.
A polite sounding cough interrupted, and Mammon pointedly ignored it for a few more seconds before pulling back reluctantly, his wings following suit.
“Pardon the interruption,” Barbatos nodded his head in surprising deference to the guardian demon before turning to her. “Might I have a private chat, Tabby?”
Mammon's fingers gripped her just a smidgen more firmly, as his face remained calm, and she realised he was still trying to mask his own worries for her, that he was concerned for her safety.
Because he doesn’t want to put more stress on me. But he’s spent all these years having his feelings rejected by his family, being ridiculed for his emotions. I need to help him realise he can be open with me and… I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t try and do the same in return.
Shit. I have to tell him how I’m really doing. And I think- I think I can?
Tabby realised the demons were still waiting on her response, unaware that one of the biggest walls in her mind had just come tumbling down, that she fully accepted how safe she was with Mammon.
“Of course,” she managed, giving the butler a small smile and squeezing her guardian demon’s hand as she disentangled herself. “I’ll take Cerberus, so don’t worry, wolf. Go enjoy yourself, you’re in demand tonight too!”
“Hmph,” Mammon leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “Yeah, okay. If ya need me just tell Cerberus an’ he’ll sniff me down. I better go see the Greed bunch…”
~~~
“I can’t remember ever seeing Mammon so focused before,” mused Barbatos as he led her over to a table at the edge of the party. “You certainly bring out the best in the brothers.”
“Well, not all of them,” she pointed out as she sat.
“Of course. My apologies.”
Tabby looked at the butler thoughtfully as Cerberus made himself comfortable on the floor, one of his heads resting on her foot. The closest she’d ever come to a one on one conversation with Barbatos had been directly before she was thrust backwards in time. Yet that had been more an explanation of directions rather than an actual discussion.
She really knew very little about the enigmatic demon himself. He was loyal to Diavolo, that much was clear, and massively powerful given his ability to ignore the rules of time entirely. But his personality, his likes and dislikes, his opinions that might differ from the prince’s… all were as mysterious as the reason he apparently wanted to talk with her.
“Cerberus…” Barbatos spoke quietly, and she leaned in closer to hear. “Did you know he lived here in the Devildom before the brothers arrived? He guarded the traditional gates to this realm, the only entry point before other doorways were created. The mighty hound of hell, who razed all before him, who had no master but the Infernal Realm itself, as large as the Leviathan, and as feared.”
She glanced down at the soppy dog, knowing the snores she could just about detect from him were fake, the hellhound fully aware of his surroundings as he now guarded not the realm, but a mere human.
The Cerberus of myth, he was the hound of Hades was he not? Captured by Heracles, charmed by Orpheus… but unfathomably strong, borne of two ancient monsters.
Certainly he was never supposed to be a friendly dog, and even tonight the other demons seem largely afraid of him. But what does this have to do with anything?
“How did he come to belong to Lucifer?” asked Tabby, her curiosity about all things Devildom winning out.
“After the angels fell, the old demon king had them enter the main gates. A formality and tradition, a way for his people to accept those they had long fought against-”
A humiliation then.
“As they approached, Cerberus saw them and began to shrink. From a size so vast to the larger size he often uses to this day. He ran at Lucifer, who did not move, even as the others readied themselves for battle once again, still exhausted. But when the hound reached them, he lay down in front of Lucifer, who touched his hand to the hound’s head, and murmured unheard words. Cerberus has followed him ever since, and has only ever barely tolerated any other. Until you.”
“I…”
She didn’t know what to say, torn between confusion about the dog’s actions, that she was apparently only the second person anyone remembered Cerberus serving, and uneasy uncertainty over why Barbatos was bringing this up now.
“I tell you this to make one thing clear,” the butler continued, his face as neutral as ever. “Cerberus has only ever obeyed Lucifer. But he obeys the truth of him. And in that regard, he has never disobeyed his master.”
Never disobeyed? Then, when he saved me from Lucifer in the crypt… the truth was that Lu never wanted to attack me. And I had the strangest feeling he was yelling at himself, not at me.
He told me I should be scared of him, that my belief he wouldn’t really attack me was wrong. But if Cerberus obeys his truth, even when he himself can’t recognise it as such… I’m right. Lucifer wouldn’t harm me.
If this is why Cerberus cares for me so much though, ever since that night, is that what Lu is so afraid of?
“Why are you telling me this?” her voice was quiet, her eyes on the table, willing herself not to fidget as her mind turned the information over again and again.
“I present myself as Lord Diavolo’s butler. His assistant. And that is not incorrect, my priority is to aid the young master. However, those duties prevent me from being an adequate check and balance, a role that was taken up by Lucifer. His rational thought and cool head are essential to the running of the Devildom, to ensure all feel more content than frustrated with their place in society, and with Lord Diavolo’s plans.”
But Lucifer didn’t know about any of the time travel shit, or that the prince knew Belphie was in the attic!
“Does Diavolo often not tell Lucifer of his plans?” Tabby tried to keep the bitterness from her voice, but she still sounded sharp to her own ears.
“It is a rare event,” the demon answered impassively. “After all, the young master detests lying and seeks to avoid it at all costs. He worries a great deal for all his subjects, perhaps Lucifer more than most. Had he spoken with the Avatar of Pride…”
Barbatos trailed off, unwilling to finish a sentence that might have even the lightest condemnation of his lord.
“Do you regret what you did?”
The butler’s eyes widened a near imperceptible amount, and he gave a sad smile, the first sign of emotion she had ever seen from him.
“I cannot regret my actions, I trust Lord Diavolo above all others. But… I do regret that you were caused great harm. Such a thing is far more unacceptable for a mortal to experience than a demon. I knew that you would live, even if I could not grasp how. It was not enough. The pain you were put through, that the brothers were put through, I attempted to shield Diavolo from the reality of what occurred.”
“He doesn’t know?!”
“I did not expect I could keep it from him, and the decision was not mine to make. I was instructed to leave not long after Lucifer arrived, as full of wrath as when he first fell. Indeed, they have spoken little since-”
Wait-
“-The young master did not ask me to speak with you this evening, and I will apologise for my impudence. But Lord Diavolo did not know what you would be put through, because I could not see it. I saw only the end result. It is for good reason that my powers are rarely used - manipulating time leads to chaos. The fault is mine, and I apologise without reservation, without expectation or request of forgiveness-”
Barbatos stood suddenly, with a bow of his head.
“-Ah, if you’ll excuse me, my Lord requires my attention.”
Tabby exhaled quietly, petting Cerberus absentmindedly as the dog rested a head on her lap. She supposed it was unlikely that Barbatos was lying, and there was a logic to what he said, a feeling that it made sense. If Diavolo had been focused solely on the result, without taking into consideration how such a thing might occur…
It’s still a huge danger to put me in, but I wonder if for demons the means matter less than the end. After all, they have infinity to deal with terrible events, and they cannot be killed, not easily at least. It doesn’t excuse what happened, and it suggests a lack of foresight even with literal foresight at his command, but-
She really wasn’t sure how to feel. It was a relief in a way, to know that Diavolo hadn’t deliberately sought to throw her life away. But the prince still hadn’t taken the scale of the danger into consideration, when surely there had been a million other ways to get to the same answers.
And Lucifer went to see him, ‘as full of wrath as when he first fell’? Mammon said that Lu told him to be careful with his words, to not let the prince know how angry he was. I thought he meant that nobody should, not that he alone would do so.
But if they haven’t been speaking that much… where has Lucifer been?!
~~~
Mammon smiled as he saw his brothers taking the opportunity to each spend some alone time with his human. The jealousy he’d been so used to feeling was completely absent, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. The protection of the others was the key to her security of course, and all but two had a pact with Tabby, guaranteeing her safety.
Even so, he wondered that watching over her now, smiling and joking with Levi, talking excitedly with Satan, laughing with Asmo, made his heart lighter and his mood better. In a room full of demons dressed in shining gold, he found it hard to drag his eyes away from his kitten, who without gold or bright colours had lit up the entire room.
He swallowed his sigh as he sent a request on his DDD, while Valefar stood waiting patiently. Various demons had wanted to speak with him, either for social or business networking, and it was dreadfully dull.
I shoulda brought Karasu in person ta handle this for me, ugh.
Talking numbers was something he could do in his sleep at least, and the Greed conglomerate was one of the most successful in the Infernal Realm. Avarice was still worshipped in the human world, with a constant stream of summoning requests coming from above. Of course, it was never Mammon himself who answered, the Little D’s of Greed could handle most, with various divisions of higher demons to handle the more serious enquiries.
The Greed conglomerate also had an impressive human world property portfolio, which contrary to Diavolo’s expectations were all quite legal. As Avatar, it was Mammon’s job to oversee the demons of his sin, but much like the majority of his brothers, the vast bulk of the work was done by underlings, with Lucifer keeping a watchful eye. It was convenient that without the Avatar, there was no direct conduit to the human world, as otherwise he’d have no doubt had to contend with those greedy for his own position.
Dunno that’d be so bad really. Shame it ain’t a position someone else can hold. Though on the other hand, look at all the stuff I can buy!
He’d chuckled to himself overhearing more than one of his brothers insist that Mammon definitely wouldn’t have bought Tabby a gift, and he was glad their own gifts had been quite thoughtful.
Not as good as mine, obviously! Tabs is gonna be stoked.
Beel had kept his present a secret, but Mammon was fairly sure it would be food related, and his largest brother had assured him Belphie would continue maintaining his distance.
Doesn’t explain Lucifer though, I know he’s hatin’ all the attention but he hasn’t even tried ta go see her.
What Tabby still didn't know was that the brothers planned on exiting the party reasonably early, to have their own exclusive afterparty back at the House of Lamentation. The guardian demon resolved to have a quiet word in his elder brother's ear.
If he's not comfy here, least he can do is speak ta her when we get back. She's been wanting ta chat with him for a while now, an'-
Karasu chirped in his hand, and he glanced down at his DDD to see the stock information he had requested. He waited a few extra beats before returning to his conversation with the duke, another small power move on top of his deliberately less ornate look.
~~~
Tabby smiled as Beel slid into the seat next to her with a towering pile of food.
“Brought you a snack to keep you going,” he beamed, looking wistfully at the plate.
“Um, I think you might need to help me eat all that!”
“Well… if you’re sure…”
She chuckled as the large demon helped himself. As soon as Barbatos had left, she’d had a procession of brothers sit next to her, all keen to share their gifts. First had been Levi, who was a little frazzled by the presence of so many people socialising, but had gifted her a Funtendo handheld console for her very own.
And so I can share my Mononoke Land goodies I bet!
Satan had been delighted by her excitement over a short-term pass to the forbidden areas of the grand library, as long as she was his guest, and she was itching to get in there to try and find some answers to her many questions. A very smug Asmo had revealed that when she returned to her room, she’d find her wardrobe had been magically expanded, and filled with clothes he’d bought for her, based on her existing style.
It was all a little overwhelming. Tabby wasn’t at all used to anyone celebrating her, she didn’t even know the exact date of her birthday. And while there were, deep down, happy memories in her childhood before her mother had passed, she had always felt they were too fragile to try and raise, to separate them from the horrors.
Accepting gifts had always left her feeling awkward and unsure how to react, whether she was displaying adequate emotions that expressed how genuinely pleased she was, despite her discomfort. But the brothers had made it easy, each giving her something that was meaningful to her, but without any expectation of how she should reply.
By dint of their age alone, and due to the way the Devildom functioned, none of the brothers were ever truly in need of money. Even Mammon, who frequently complained about being broke, never had to cut off his payments to the various people he helped in secret.
“Are you feeling okay, kitcat?”
Beel’s voice brought her back to herself, and she smiled.
“Just a bit tired I think. This has all been a lot to process, so many names and faces!”
“And so much noise,” the large demon nodded, before reaching into his pocket and retrieving a small package. “I, uh, got you something. It’s not- it’s not really like what the others got you but… I hope you like it.”
Her curiosity piqued by the usually unflappable demon suddenly sounding shy, she unwrapped the - soft, light - gift. The paper fell away, leaving her holding a-
Tabby burst into tears, the emotions pushing forward before she could stop them.
“Oh, shit, oh no!” Beel panicked, and before he could jump to his feet, she reached for his hand, shaking her head.
“No- I’m not-”
Oh my fuck, stop crying!
“-I love him!” she held the small stuffed bear to her chest, squeezing the confused demon’s hand. “It’s just… I used to have a teddy bear, when I was really young. And I- I lost him, and we couldn’t go back for him, and I refused to have another because it wasn’t him, but then I always missed having one at all, and-”
She breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself.
“-thank you. Thank you so much.”
The large demon swallowed hard, the worry slowly disappearing as his face lit up.
“A bear from your bear,” he said softly. “I wanted you to know that nothing has changed, kitcat. You stepped in front of another demon to try and save me, before we made our pact. And I would stand in front of any demon, any person, who tried to harm you. Even Belphegor. Not that he’s going to- But I didn’t make my pact with you for him. I made it because I wanted to be your protector- ”
He gave a sad sigh.
“-It wasn’t the same situation as when we fell, when I wanted to protect two but could only save one. If I’d been there when Bel- when he got out, I'd have done everything in my power to stop him. Mammon gave me the opportunity to speak out, to defend my twin, but I’d just lost one of the most important people in my life. And when you came back… hah, shit.”
Beel wiped at his eyes, giving her a bashful smile.
“I’m sorry things have been a bit strained between us,” Tabby’s voice was soft but firm, even as he shook his head to dismiss the need for her apology. “I’ve been stuck in my head a lot. You never disappeared on me, helping me with training, just being solidly there. But I think I did need to hear that, and I do trust you. I know you wouldn’t let me come to harm.”
“Damn right,” the demon relaxed, his relief evident as he grinned. “Talion kept telling me to talk to you, but I didn’t want to, I don’t know. I was caught up in my own feelings, guilt and grief and worse. Too scared that I’d upset you, that seeing you afraid of me would prove I wasn’t the protector I strive to be. I don’t know how Mammon does it, just pouring out exactly how he feels at all hours of the day and night.”
“Hah!” she chuckled. “Yeah, it’s a skill I’d like to have too. Thank you, bear.”
“There is one other thing,” Beel murmured, still holding her hand. “Belphie doesn’t want to spook you by giving you anything, but he asked me to let you know he’d like to make a pact with you, if you agree. I’m sure he’ll understand if you don’t want that, but it’s his way of trying to help you feel safe. Under a pact, he wouldn’t be able to ever hurt you, even if someone else commanded it. You don’t need to answer now, or at all. I’m here if you want to talk about anything, as are the rest of us.”
As the demon got to his feet, Tabby stood as well, hearing his surprised huff as she hugged him.
Aaaaaand I forgot he’s bare chested, ahaha. Oopsie.
She pulled back, blushing a little, but Beel gave her a massive grin before disappearing back into the crowd, and despite now having a new Belphie issue to turn over in her head, she couldn’t deny that she shared the large demon’s relief in re-establishing their friendship properly.
The teddy bear was still hugged to her chest tight, and even here, in a room full of demons, in hell itself, she finally felt safe.
~~~
|
Izuku looked around excitedly, his round eyes shining with child-like wonder. He was finally here! His mom was right, the surprise was definitely worth the wait. The lucent blue water was glistening beautifully against the sandy shore, a series of impressive rock formations nestled along the coast. Izuku stood at the edge of the water, his pant legs rolled up to his knees with his toes dug into the sand.
They were in in the beautiful Shimokita Peninsula in the Tohoku region of far northern Honshu. More specifically, Hotoke-ga-ura. Surrounded by beautiful green cliffs, green volcanic rock formations dotted the landscape, creating a truly breathtaking view. They had woken up early to drive to the city of Mutsu where Katsuki had purchased tickets for the tour boat to take them to the area.
Izuku had talked his ear off the whole time, trying and failing to guess where they were going. They stopped at a store to buy food and drinks for a picnic, Izuku guessing everything from parks to hotels and hot springs. Katsuki had simply shook his head at all of them, barely managing to not give in and just tell him. When they got on the boat, Izuku had officially given up and decided to just be surprised.
When they reached the shores, Izuku had quickly flung off his shoes and sprinted towards the water leaving Katsuki to set up the blanket by himself. Not that he minded, seeing Izuku this happy make his heart flutter in his chest. When he finished setting up their little picnic, he slipped off his shoes and went to join his boyfriend.
Katsuki walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist and placing a kiss to his temple, tasting the salt from the breeze. Izuku grabbed his hands, holding them tightly against his stomach. “It’s fucking beautiful isn’t it?” Katsuki murmured, nuzzling his head in the crook of Izuku’s neck. “It’s amazing, Kacchan. Thank you for bringing me here” he said, kissing his cheek. They held each in a comfortable silence, simply enjoying the beautiful view and each other's presence.
“Hey, Kacchan?” Izuku asked after a while, grabbing Katsuki’s hands and walking back to sit in the sand. “What’s up, Deku?” Izuku looked at his boyfriend’s face, his crimson eyes reflecting the sun like rubies. “What made you think of this trip?” he asked. "I mean, I've never even heard of this town before." Katsuki looked at their joined hands, his smile fading slightly. “You want me to be honest?” he asked, looking up through his blonde lashes. Izuku cupped his cheek, lifting his face to meet his eyes fully. He smiled a warm smile and nodded, completely erasing all of Katsuki’s worries.
“Alright, I’ll tell you. But you can’t fucking laugh at me got it?” Izuku nodded again and kissed Katsuki’s knuckles. Sighing, he began his explanation. “I’ve loved you for a long time now. Since first year, maybe even longer without me realizing it.” Izuku smiled but didn’t interrupt him. “Like I said the other day, I thought you were dating that half and half bastard. Or, at the very least I thought he was going to ask you out after we graduated.” Katsuki looked into Izuku’s eyes, expecting to see annoyance. When he saw nothing but love and admiration, he smiled and continued. “So…I planned this trip to spend some time with you before I ‘lost’ you for good. I honestly just picked the longest trip I could so I could spend as long as possible with you” he finished, hanging his head.
Izuku pulled Katsuki in for a hug, gently rubbing his back. “I’m so glad you did, Kacchan. I don’t know if I ever would have been brave enough to tell you how I felt otherwise” he said, kissing the top of his head. “Yeah, me neither, Deku.” Katsuki leaned back, a lopsided smile on his face. “Oh, I guess I should stop calling you Deku now huh?”
Izuku chuckled. “I don’t mind. I know you don’t mean it the way you used to” he said. “Plus you’ve called me Deku for literally ever. It’d be kind of weird if you started calling me anything else.” Katsuki’s eyes gleamed with mischief, a smirk spreading across his face. “Yeah? You didn’t seem to mind me calling you Izuku last night” he winked, delighted when his boyfriend’s face turned bright red.
“Shut up!" he squeaked. "Don’t think I didn’t notice you moaning louder whenever I called you Katsuki” he said, slapping his boyfriend’s shoulder. It was Katsuki’s turn to blush but he didn’t care. He loved hearing Izuku say his name, no matter the context. “Well maybe next time you can top and try to make me scream your name even louder.”
Izuku blushed even harder, hiding his face in Katsuki’s chest. “You’re horrible, Kacchan” he mumbled. “You weren’t saying that last night” he teased. Izuku punched his shoulder. “Oh my gods, stooooooop!” he laughed, knocking the blonde on his back. Katsuki managed to grab Izuku’s hand before he fell, pulling him on top of him.
"I could get used to this" Katsuki said, leaning up for a kiss. Izuku laughed, meeting Katsuki hallway to brush their lips together in a passionate kiss. He could feel the warmth of Katsuki’s body against his own, his heart threatening to overflow with everything he felt for the blonde. He licked across Katsuki’s bottom lip, gently sucking before letting his tongue explore further into his mouth. They melted into the kiss, Izuku moving his hands to tangle in the blonde’s hair.
Katsuki wrapped one arm around Izuku’s shoulders, the other tightly hugging his waist. Izuku tugged softly on the blonde's hair, swallowing Katsuki's moan of pleasure. Panting, Izuku broke the kiss when Katsuki started grinding their arousal against each other, suddenly remembering they were in public. Katsuki pouted but eventually complied, holding him tight and sitting up so Izuku was now straddling his lap.
“We’re fucking continuing this when we get back to the hotel” Katsuki growled, kissing Izuku’s neck. “Mmmm I’ll gladly take you up on that offer of making you scream my name” he teased, licking Katsuki’s ear. “Fuuuu don’t tease me, dammit. I’m getting this fucking close to fucking you right here and now” he said, thrusting his hips upwards. Izuku laughed and got off of Katsuki’s lap, reaching his hand down to help him up.
He looked around at the beautiful ocean scenery, grinning when he spotted a large formation out in the water. ‘Perfect’ he thought. “I have an idea, Kacchan. First one to reach the top of that rock formation wins. Sound fun?” Katsuki looked to the rock he was pointing to. It was the tallest one in their area completely surrounded by the water. He smiled devilishly. “You’re on, nerd.” Izuku crouched down, green sparks dancing around his body. “Ok, readysetgo!” he yelled, immediately sprinting towards the rock.
Katsuki blinked in shock for a second, the air pressure from Izuku’s takeoff nearly knocking him over. “You fucking cheater!” he screamed, using his hands to blast after Izuku. “Get back here and do it properly you little shit!” Izuku sped up, laughing gleefully as he hopped and bounced his way up the rock. He was the first one there, Katsuki only losing by a few seconds. He went to grab Izuku and tackle him, looking around in confusion when his arms came up empty. “What the fuck?”
“Up here, Kacchan” he giggled. Katsuki looked up, seeing Izuku floating upside down above him with a shit eating grin. “Get down here so I can fucking kick your ass” he growled. Izuku stuck out his tongue, floating higher. “Dammit, Izuku!” Katsuki used an explosion to propel himself upwards, grabbing on to Izuku’s waist.
Izuku caught him easily, wrapping Katsuki’s legs around his waist and leaning back so they were ‘laying down’ in the air. “Look’s like ya caught me, Kacchan” Izuku said, laughing cheerfully. “Fuck yeah I did, nerd.” He leaned down to press their lips together in a chaste kiss. “And I’m never fucking letting you go again.”
Izuku smiled, cupping Katsuki’s face. “Is that a threat or a promise?” he teased. Katsuki rolled his eyes, a smile of his own brightening his features. “I fucking promise to threaten you with my love every single day” he said, biting his freckled cheek. Izuku laughed, crushing his lover in a tight hug. “I'm looking forward to it, Kacchan.” They looked into in each other’s eyes, never wanting this moment to end. Katsuki brought their foreheads together, kissing the bridge of his nose.
“I love you so fucking much, Izuku” he whispered. “And I promise I will do everything in my fucking power to make you happy. You’re the most important person in my life and I can’t wait to come home to see you dancing like an idiot in the kitchen, singing as loud as possible while you burn down my kitchen.” Izuku laughed and smacked his shoulder. “Rude” he said.
Katsuki smiled and kissed his lips. “I can’t wait for you to be the last thing I see before I go to bed and the first thing I see waking up. I can’t wait to hold you after a shitty day at work or celebrate with you after a successful mission. I can’t wait to just love you every single day for the rest of our lives, Izuku.” Izuku’s eyes welled up with tears and his cheeks were starting to hurt from how big his smile was. “Kacchan” he sniffled. “It almost sounds like you’re proposing to me” he said, hiccupping.
Katsuki fluffed his curls and laughed softly. “Well, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves” he chuckled. “How about this. I promise that I want to go into this relationship with the goal of marriage later down the line. That sound ok to you?” Izuku grabbed his neck and kissed him until they were both gasping for air. “Deal!” he sobbed. “I love you so much, Katsuki. I can’t wait to the best husband hero duo out there!” Katsuki laughed. “Hell yeah, nerd.” He looked down to the ground, checking his watch.
“You do remember how to get down right? The boat leaves in like 20 minutes.” Izuku laughed and slowly began to sink back to the ground. He set Katsuki down first then let his feet fully touch the ground. “You ready to go back to the hotel?” Katsuki asked. “Mmhm!” Izuku smirked, leaning up to whisper into Katsuki’s ear. “You ready to scream my name to the whole world, Kaaat~suki?” he purred, running his fingers down the blonde’s stomach. Katsuki shivered, his pupils blowing wide in arousal. He grabbed Izuku's hips and roughly smashed their lips together. “Bring it on, nerd.”
|
Shoto tried to help with dinner, but all of his efforts were quickly met with complaints.
“Could you at least try to cut straight?” Katsuki berated the alpha as he inspected Shoto's work from behind. “God damn.”
He followed Katsuki's instructions to the best of his ability, however nothing was good enough. According to the omega, Shoto's work was shoddy and slow. It wasn’t long before Katsuki pushed him to the side and assumed all tasks.
Shoto retreated from the narrow kitchen and pulled out a chair from the dining table. At least there was something the alpha could accomplish with a degree of competence: he could stay out of the way.
With little to do other than twiddle his thumbs and stare at Katsuki's ass, Shoto inspected the omega's living space. He could tell Katsuki was one of those people who got their full security deposits back. Minimally decorated, Katsuki's one bedroom apartment was comfortable and warm. The place was a stark contrast to his own: compact and put together. Everything within his view was in working order. All the drawers were on tracks and there were no holes in the wall.
The alpha smiled thinking of what existed beyond his vantage point in the kitchen. Shoto was willing to bet Katsuki's couch had a cover and that there was blue water in his toilet. It made sense that Katsuki lived like an old lady given his grouchy, overly serious demeanor.
In no more than thirty minutes, Katsuki had their food plated and the table set. As the two settled across from one another in a silence, Shoto took the opportunity to appreciate Katsuki’s cooking. He could spot a few large irregularly shaped onion chunks from his initial efforts, but everything else was expertly prepared. Was there anything the omega couldn’t do? Katsuki's consistency was astounding. The fact that he had put so much effort into something for the two of them to enjoy warmed Shoto's heart.
That’s when he knew. After months of speculation Shoto finally had his answer. There was no more room for doubt: Katsuki was the one.
Apparently there was some truth to the old adage: a man's heart is in his stomach. Although, strange enough, Shoto didn't even have to taste the food on his plate for the omega to win him over. It was passion behind the gesture that took him captive: the warmth of surroundings and the inexplicable feeling of being home. He needed the omega and all of his fire. No one else would do.
The alpha felt like an ass for avoiding the truth for so long. Sure, it was a bummer that he couldn’t enjoy the rest of his college life free of commitment, but what good was all of that when he felt empty inside?
It was time to grow up and move on.
Shoto figured he might as well spit it out. In most situations, he noted Katsuki appreciated a direct approach. Before he even so much as took a bite of his meal, the alpha spoke up. “I really like you.”
The instant the words hit him, Katsuki nearly jumped out of his seat. Mid bite, the omega was thrown into a coughing fit. It took a moment for Katsuki to gain his composure. Once he was mostly together, Katsuki cast a fierce glare in Shoto's direction.
In spite of the omega’s exaggerated response, Shoto continued on, “Go out with me.”
After Katsuki cleared his throat, he hit himself in the chest a few times for good measure. “Mother fucker! I swear to God. Give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile!”
Shoto calmly replied, “At this point I think it's pretty clear that I don't give a shit about much. There has to be a reason I can't get you out of my head. What if you're my soul mate?”
“Fat chance.” The omega sneered. “You're just trying to fuck.”
Before Shoto even had a chance to refute his claims, Katsuki pointed at the alpha with his fork. “Don’t you dare argue otherwise. You’ve been on my ass all semester.”
“This is some typical alpha bullshit. You'll say anything to get into my pants.” Katsuki griped. "Let me ask you this: when you get what you want, what then? The moment I get attached to your ass are you going to cast me aside?”
The omega set his fork down and folded his arms over his chest. “Be honest, Todoroki. Have you ever been in a relationship?”
“No.” Shoto replied. “But that doesn't mean I don't understand my feelings.”
“Maybe, but there's a lot more to relationships than just feelings.” The omega countered. “I'm not going to be your practice lap.”
“Can you keep your alpha in check?" Katsuki asked. "You're cool now, but who knows? Maybe you'll switch up on me. You could end up being a real dick.”
“Tell me, Shoto. If you are feeling insecure, will you mark me up? Bruise me to the point where it’s an embarrassment to leave the house?" As the omega rambled on, the more animated and heated he became. "If I don't answer all of your texts will you show up out of nowhere? Or worse yet, find new freaky ways to keep tabs on me?”
Shoto didn’t dare interrupt. While he listened carefully to the omega's words, a knot formed at the pit of his stomach. There had to be substance behind Katsuki’s oddly specific concerns.
Katsuki tilted his chair back and stared at the ceiling. “What about my friends? A lot of them are alpha. Will you try to keep me away from them?”
The omega’s chest sank as he exhaled. “Who knows? Maybe you'll start following me around school.”
Dumbfounded, Shoto shook his head, "Man, that ex did a number on you.”
“You don't even know the half of it.” Katsuki gave a dry chuckle before sitting upright.
After their exchange, the pair quietly resumed their meals. Distracted, Shoto didn’t get more than a few bites in. The thought of Katsuki being mistreated had essentially ruined his appetite. If the omega had endured half of the awful situations he brought up, it was too much.
As he pushed around food on his plate, Shoto thought aloud. “It seems like you’ve given this a lot of thought. Maybe you're more interested in me than you let on.”
Without skipping a beat, Katsuki replied, “Or maybe I'm just trying to crush your hopes so that I can finish this project without any more of your bullshit.”
“Speaking of which…” Shoto cocked his head to the side, “Since I'm here, do you want to knock out the rest of the draft?”
In response Katsuki gave an impassive shrug. “Sure.”
All of the tension created from their dreary dinner conversation had melted away as they delved into their studies. While Katsuki made complaints, there were little signs that he was more comfortable with Shoto than he let on. A slight smile was fixed on the edge of Katsuki’s lips as he took the seat right next to Shoto on the sofa. Their knees knocked together from time to time as they worked into the night. The setting was far more intimate than any study date should have been.
Towards midnight Shoto reluctantly made the decision to head out.
“Thanks for having me over.” At the door, right before Shoto made his exit, he turned towards the omega. A smile came easy as he stared directly into Katsuki’s eyes. “Dinner was great.”
“Whatever.” There was a hint of redness to Katsuki’s cheeks as he looked away. “Text me when you get home.”
The alpha replied matter of factly. “I can’t do that without a number.”
“Motherfucker.” Immediately Katsuki’s face twisted up in revulsion. Cursing under his breath, he pulled out his phone.
After a few taps, the omega shoved his phone back into his pocket “There! Are you happy now?!”
"Yeah. I am." Shoto smiled even brighter after he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He checked the front screen and sure enough, there was a text of a middle finger from an unknown number.
As Katsuki lingering in the entryway, there was the slightest tilt to his head. The pout to his lip and the look in his eyes gave away that he didn’t really want the alpha to leave. Shoto allowed himself the tiniest inkling of hope. Maybe, just maybe, if he came correct the omega would accept him.
Unfortunately Shoto's optimistic high was short lived. In retrospect, he should have been prepared for what came next. The alpha had spent enough time with Katsuki to recognize the pattern.
The moment the door was closed behind him, the scent was back, more vile and potent than ever. Katsuki’s ghost was clearly disturbed by their late night visit.
The walk home was uncomfortable to say the least. Crashing through bushes and even tipping over a garbage can, the apparition's anger and jealousy was palpable as it followed him down the empty streets.
Unwilling to be intimidated by any alpha, alive or dead, Shoto stuck his chest out and walked with purpose. A friend of his, Tokoyami, had a flair for the occult. Shoto planned on reaching out the following day. Perhaps something could be done to diminish the spirit's power.
The following Friday, upon Katsuki's insistence, the pair skipped the library altogether. With a brown sack containing beer in one hand and dried sage in the other, Shoto made his way to Katsuki’s apartment that evening. At the door, Katsuki's irritated stare indicated he wasn't too impressed with either item. Without saying a word, before leading the alpha down the hallway, the omega snatched both right out of his hands.
Dinner was already made. While Katsuki put his beer in the fridge, Shoto took a seat at the table. Clearly, Katsuki had put a lot of thought into the meal. There were a lot of things on the table he had not eaten since he left for college 3 years prior. Some things, Shoto wasn’t sure he had ever tried. Still, instead of experiencing apprehension, Shoto felt warm inside. Yet again Katsuki had shown through his actions that his time with the alpha meant something to him.
When Katsuki joined Shoto at the table, the omega brought him one beer from his six-pack. His demand was accompanied by a threatening glare, “Use a coaster.”
With a nod Shoto complied and the two dug in. The alpha wasn’t at all surprised to discover the food tasted even better than it appeared.
This time around, there wasn't a whole lot of talking. However, the silence was not in the least bit awkward. Rather, it was effortless and light. Moments like these were Shoto’s favorite. They affirmed his connection with Katsuki. He felt tranquil and right.
The easy atmosphere carried on into their studies.
For someone who didn't want him to get ideas, Katsuki was looking awfully cute dressed down in loungewear. The scooped collar of his shirt sat a little too low on his neckline. Whenever he leaned forward his entire chest was exposed right down to his nipples.
Shoto knew Katsuki wasn't teasing; he was just careless and unaware of his body. Even so, Katsuki’s naivety only made it worse as Shoto had no choice but to act like nothing was going on.
It was late when they put the finishing touches on their project. While they agreed to meet once more to run through their presentation, for the most part, all of the topics were set in stone. It was silly, but when thinking about what they had managed to accomplish together, Shoto couldn’t help but feel proud. He was excited to share his work with the rest of his class. Without a doubt, Katsuki’s work ethic had rubbed off on him.
After gathering his things together, Shoto expected Katsuki to herd him out the door. Instead, he was handed a second beer and led to the living room.
Katsuki plopped onto the couch and clicked on the TV. He didn’t ask for Shoto’s input as he clicked through the Netflix options.
Wordlessly, the alpha sat beside Katsuki. Preparing himself for another round of mixed signals, Shoto got comfortable, wrapping his arm around the back of the couch.
The movie was alright, a little too violent for his taste, but the warm feel of Katsuki at his side more than made up for any needless gore.
Shoto didn't think of the repercussions of their proximity or what he could do to improve his chances with the omega. In truth, he wasn't really thinking of much beyond the moment. It could have been his imagination, but for some reason Katsuki scent was more sweet than usual. Perhaps it was a sign that Katsuki was equally content in his presence.
Midway through the movie, Shoto looked over in Katsuki’s direction, only to find the omega staring back at him. Immediately, Katsuki tensed, as if caught in the act.
Still, even after Shoto had caught him, Katsuki didn't look away. With blue television light cast over part of his face, the omega looked more ethereal than ever. The gentle curve of the shadow over his face accentuated the Katsuki’s soft features. In an instant, Shoto was overwhelmed by his feelings for the omega. Katsuki was so beautiful, so perfect for him.
Caught up in one another’s gaze, Katsuki’s adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. The longing in his eyes had never been more apparent.
Shoto didn't question it. The moment was right so he went for it.
Slow in his approach, Shoto gave Katsuki every opportunity to turn him down. However, to his surprise, all of the typical signs of doubt were missing. Katsuki closed his eyes, puckering his lips together slightly in anticipation.
For a moment Shoto hesitated, mesmerized by the sight laid out before him. He had never seen Katsuki so open, so sweet. Up close, Shoto grew more confident in his previous assessment. Undoubtedly, the omega’s scent had lost its bitter kick. Katsuki wanted this, possibly as much as he did.
When their lips connected, Katsuki shivered. The moment couldn't have been more perfect.
Katsuki was right about him. Shoto didn't know a goddamn thing about love, but if he had to guess what he felt for the omega was the kindling to the fire.
Soft and supple, Katsuki’s lips were the only thing that mattered to Shoto in that instant. Wrapping an arm around his midsection, gently, Shoto pulled the omega close.
The alpha couldn't stop at one. So he didn't. Pressing kiss after kiss into omega's lips, Shoto took notice of the manner in which Katsuki clung to the front of his shirt. Amused by Katsuki's needy response, Shoto smiled as he continued on. There was something innately gratifying about a brash loudmouth melting just for him.
What was chaste to start steadily developed into heavy petting. It was a natural, effortless progression. Shoto sensed an eagerness in Katsuki's touch: a yearning for more. And of course, the alpha was more than happy to provide assistance.
Slowly, Katsuki relinquished control to him, allowing the alpha full access to his mouth. As Shoto’s hands wandered over the expanse of the omega’s back, one found its way to the back of his head and the other to the curve of his ass.
Lovingly touching Katsuki over his clothes, while gentle, Shoto’s touch was firm. He wanted to feel everything, learn every curve and edge to the omega's body.
For a moment Shoto pulled off the omega's lips and adjusted his crotch. It wasn't surprising that a little kissing had his dick hard. He hadn't fucked in months and the delicious undertones of Katsuki's scent were oh so enticing.
Soon he was pressing a trail of soft kisses down the omega's neck. Kneading Katsuki's thighs, the alpha worked on the omega until he was effectively boneless.
While Katsuki's body was forthcoming and responsive to Shoto's handling, strangely, the omega kept his lips sealed. The alpha figured he was holding back, possibly to retain some element of control. And yet, Katsuki's reactions were merely stifled. Try as he might, repressed sounds of pleasure came out as sudden gasps and hums.
When Shoto eventually made his way to the delicate, unmarred flesh of Katsuki's scent gland, his heart was pounding. This was a first for them. While their scents had mixed, Shoto had yet to taste Katsuki.
Dragging the flat of his tongue over the raised flesh, the sugary taste sent a chill down Shoto's spine. The alpha had never before experienced a flavor so intense. Katsuki's natural scent was a reflection of his essence: vibrant and bold.
Any semblance of control thrown to the wayside as Katsuki shouted out. "Shoto! Ahhh… Fuck!"
Spurred on by the omega's cries, Shoto eagerly lapped at the succulent flesh. He sucked on the gland, drawing out the omega's fragrance until it was freely leaking oil.
The attention had Katsuki slumped over, arms draping over Shoto's shoulders. He was a babbling mess, dishing out unintelligible expletives.
The alpha then pressed their necks together, coating the omega in his own pheromones. Scenting was no joke. It was a disorienting sensation that left his emotions scrambled and his hormones running wild. It probably wasn’t a good time to make any serious decisions. Regardless, Shoto was through second-guessing his inclinations.
All the fondling was well and nice, but it just wasn't enough. The intoxicating mixture of their scents kicked his instincts into a higher gear. The alpha wanted to feel Katsuki skin-to-skin, kiss him places the sun had not seen, and possibly get his dick wet.
He was going for broke.
Placing a hand in the center of Katsuki's chest, Shoto pushed the other man down into the couch cushions.
Katsuki didn't fight it. With a light huff Katsuki laid lax on the sofa, staring fervently at Shoto as the alpha climbed on top of him.
From above, Shoto brushed the hair away from Katsuki's forehead. A warmth spread over his own cheeks as the alpha marveled at the man before him. He wanted to tell Katsuki how beautiful he looked, but he knew from experience such flattery would not be received well. If anything it would have broken the spell. So he kept his commentary to himself, instead using his energy to commit the moment to memory.
Shimmying underneath him, Katsuki licked his swollen lips. The omega was a mess. Lightly panting, the omega stared back at him with dilated pupils. Everywhere Shoto's lips had been, he was pink.
Eventually, when the alpha had his fill, he dipped down to kiss Katsuki. This time around was special. Katsuki wasn't just some pretty little thing he met at a party. Each kiss pressed into the omega's lips was laden with intent.
Up to that point, all of his words had fallen flat. If the alpha were ever to get his point across, every ounce of his conviction needed to be employed. Only then would Katsuki acknowledge his sincerity.
While the two made out, Shoto couldn't help but grind against the omega’s crotch.
"Ahh…" Air filled with the scent of their arousal, Katsuki laid there pliant and dazed, accepting Shoto's sloppy kisses. He opened his legs up, welcoming the friction.
The alpha was a little caught off guard by Katsuki's by submissive state, but it wasn't an unwelcomed surprise. If anything, it was pretty sexy.
Soon Shoto’s hand crept underneath the omega's shirt. It was time to give some attention to those pretty little nipples that had been teasing him all night. Pushing Katsuki’s shirt up to his collar, the alpha first placed a hand over one of the omega’s pecs. Working the flesh in his hand, he thumbed at the nub.
"Hah!" The omega cried out loud as his back arched. While the alpha continued to massage Katsuki’s soft chest, the omega supplied the most adorable whimpers. Honed in on Katsuki’s reactions, Shoto allowed the omega’s body direct his fondling.
"Shit, shit, shit…" Writhing beneath him, Katsuki’s needy little sounds went straight to Shoto’s dick.
With zeal, he brought his lips to Katsuki’s neglected nipple. Compared to the other, the bud looked so deflated and sad. Shoto wouldn’t have that. Katsuki whined in response to the new point of contact. Sucking and teasing with his tongue, the alpha abused the nub until it was filled out and standing tall.
All it took was a little nibble and the omega was losing his shit. Immediately Katsuki's hands went to the back of his head.
"Oh fuck!" the omega screamed. With little regard for anything, Katsuki yanked at the hair at the base of Shoto’s skull.
It was delicious chaos. In one instant Katsuki would shove the alpha away only to push Shoto back into his chest a second later.
As Shoto switched off to moisten the other nipple, he felt a shudder ripple through the omega’s body. Katsuki screamed out, "God damnit!"
All of a sudden Katsuki’s hands pulled away from his hair. Surprised by the sudden change, Shoto looked up only to discover the omega had buried his face into his palms. The action was followed by a muffled sob.
Shoto had to wonder: were all Katsuki’s reactions so obscene? It was enough to make his head swell. Being the one to elicit such a response from the omega, he felt all-powerful and dominant.
The alpha decided right then that it was all right for Katsuki to hide for a moment or two. Shoto knew that if he played his cards right, he had plenty of time to watch the omega come apart.
Twisting and teasing the omega's nipples, Shoto found his composure was waning. He didn’t want to be the kind of guy Katsuki that had previously expressed disdain for: domineering and quick to cover an omega up with possessive marks. And yet, at the end of the day, he was an alpha. Shoto didn't stop until Katsuki’s chest was covered in blotchy patches of pink.
His next move required the utmost finesse. Slowly, with just enough pressure to fill in every dip and crevice, Shoto's hand traveled down Katsuki’s body.
As the alpha’s hand wedged itself underneath the omega's waistband, he looked to Katsuki for permission. "This okay?"
The omega only provided a sheepish nod in response. Shoto should have waited for something more explicit, but ultimately he was far too engaged to halt the momentum. He was dying to see Katsuki's dick.
In one go, he peeled back Katsuki's sweats and underwear. Lying in a bed of neatly trimmed pubic hair: Katsuki's cock was firm, pink and damp. It wasn't much in Shoto's large hand, but man, was it adorable.
A quick squeeze and the omega jolted, “Hah!”
Focused near the head, with a tight grip, Shoto jerked him slow. Like before, Katsuki was weak to Shoto's touch, trembling hard as the alpha worked his dick.
Carefully, the alpha pulled down Katsuki’s sweats and pushed his legs open. Shoto swallowed hard as he zeroed in on the sinful expanse of flesh. The omega’s thick muscular thighs seemed to glisten in the dimly lit room. Balls tight against his body; Katsuki was wound up and ready to go.
And the omega's puffy little asshole? Well, it was definitely special. So pretty and fuckable, the hole was slippery moist. Shoto's cock was straining against his pants, eager to put it to use.
It was then Shoto had a wonderful, terrible idea. What if he bypassed preparation and jammed his cock into that undoubtedly tight hole? The thought alone had him salivating.
With no chance to acclimate, Katsuki would be driven to his limits. He imagined the omega bouncing along with every thrust, voice hoarse from screaming out. What a sight to behold: Katsuki, unhinged and teary eyed, coming on his dick.
Immediately the alpha gave his head a rough shake. As much as he was tempted to rush things along, it was a no go. For a little while longer it was necessary to maintain his pace. Once his trance was broken, Shoto resumed stroking Katsuki's dick. He massaged the surrounding flesh before easing his fingers inside.
“Mmmph…” Eyes screwed closed, the omega moaned.
Katsuki’s ass was pushing against the finger so tightly, it was almost like he was fucking around with a virgin. Thrusting and scissoring into Katsuki's ass, each time Shoto pulled out just a bit, juices leaked out gushy and thick.
Soon, he pushed his head between the omega’s legs. For the fun of it, starting at the taint, Shoto's tongue trailed upwards: over his balls, to the underside of his dick, and then all the way to the tip.
"Aaah!" Overwhelmed, the omega smacked him on the shoulder. It kind of hurt, but at the same time it was pretty hot.
Tongue swirling around the tip of his cock, Shoto continued to jack Katsuki off. Was it too much? Probably. It was worth it just to witness the manner in which Katsuki was shaking and screaming.
It didn't take long before the omega's muscles were tightening. Shoto could feel the tension building through every point of contact: Katsuki was close.
The alpha gave it everything he had. Insides like a vice grip on his fingers; Shoto continued to finger fuck Katsuki in tandem with his mouth. Repeatedly, he pressed into Katsuki's sweet spot.
Drowning in sensation, the omega could do very little but take it. Body seizing, in the midst of the assault, Katsuki let out a deep throaty moan.
And just like that, Katsuki was coming. The omega was even tighter, hot wetness pushing out around his fingers. Shoto diligently sucked it up everything as it came out, only relenting when all of the tension had left Katsuki's body.
Katsuki sunk into the cushions. Chest heaving, the omega's unfocused gaze flitted across the room until it eventually settled on the alpha positioned between his legs.
Shoto didn't bother moving. Hell, he didn't even pull his fingers out. It soon dawned on him; after the omega came to his senses, there was a strong possibility that Katsuki would kick him out. And strangely, even with a hard on, the concept didn’t bother Shoto too much. It was weird. He didn't even come and yet here he was reveling in the omega’s satisfaction.
After a moment or two Katsuki wiggled down onto his fingers. "You gonna take off your pants or what?"
The suggestion sent an electric current through the alpha’s dick. Masking his excitement, Shoto cocked his head to the side. “You sure?”
In response Katsuki clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth and cursed to himself. Hooking his arms around his knees, the omega pushed his legs up high.
Well, if that wasn’t consent, Shoto didn’t know what was. Immediately, the alpha cast his shirt aside and unzipped his pants. In all likelihood, Shoto came off too eager, but could he be blamed? He had spent months banging his head against a wall only for the floodgates to be unexpectedly opened.
Shoto held his dick out, awaiting Katsuki's reaction. Rock hard, knot rounding out at the base, the alpha believed the sight would please the omega. After all, the omega was solely responsible for his excited state. Unfortunately for Shoto, Katsuki's response did not match up with his expectations.
The instant the omega’s eyes made contact with Shoto’s cock, his mouth dropped. At once Katsuki’s legs were released and the air turned sour.
“What the fuck!?”
“There's no way.” The omega squirmed away. Gaze fixed on the alpha’s dick, Katsuki shook his head, "No."
Shoto sported a quizzical look as he looked to his cock and then back to Katsuki's disturbed expression. What went wrong?
“All of that won't fit.” Katsuki glared at the alpha's swollen cock. “You better not put it all the way in."
Shoto gave his dick a stroke as he mulled over Katsuki's response. He knew it wasn't small, however, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It came with the territory; most alphas were packing heat.
With a raised eyebrow he replied. “So you expect me to fuck you with half of my dick?”
Too fixated on his apprehension, Katsuki provided no response.
Shoto let out a breath. The mood was going downhill fast. Shifting over to sit properly on the sofa, the alpha made an attempt to reassure Katsuki. "There's no reason to be scared. We can stop whenever you want.“
"Fuck you!" Sitting upright, Katsuki furiously barked out. “I am not scared!”
Again, Shoto sighed. Where it stood, Katsuki’s afterglow had all but dissipated. The omega was clearly defensive and uncomfortable. Shoto lamented. If only there was a way he could level the playing field. Surely Katsuki would feel more secure if he had some control over the situation.
Then it hit him.
Making slow, deliberate movements, Shoto pushed his pants past his thighs and pulled the omega into his lap. Katsuki was not resistant, however the look in his eyes gave away his trepidation.
It started off with a kiss. It was non-threatening enough and made for an adequate distraction. Placing his hands over Katsuki’s hips, Shoto began to caress the omega’s bare skin.
Walking the fine line between gentle and rough, the alpha took his time lovingly attending to Katsuki’s flesh. Soon Katsuki’s distress pheromones were replaced with a scent far more receptive and sweet. While the omega returned his kisses, Shoto could feel Katsuki's hardening dick press into his own.
When he was sure Katsuki’s head was in the game, Shoto grabbed the omega by the waist, lifting him slightly. Reaching underneath, the alpha positioned his dick in between Katsuki's legs.
"Let's do it like this." The alpha planted a kiss on Katsuki's cheek. “You control the pace.”
Shoto could feel Katsuki tense up in response. The omega's face screwed up in confusion. “Ha?”
Again, the alpha was left perplexed by Katsuki’s response. "What? You've never been on top before?"
All of a sudden Katsuki's grip tightened on Shoto's shoulder. Red faced, he shouted. “Shut up!”
At once, Shoto kissed away his embarrassment. This time around, the moment wouldn’t get away from him. Inundating the omega in affection, the alpha fondled Katsuki's ass until the exchange was all but forgotten.
Katsuki's limited sexual knowledge was weird, but in the end, it didn't matter. The alpha positioned his dick against Katsuki’s entrance. Nuzzling the omega's neck, Shoto whispered. "Like this. Sit on it.”
Kissing on Katsuki’s collarbone, the alpha continued, “Take your time”
And just like that, the omega complied.
Whimpering, Katsuki sunk down onto his dick. To ease his discomfort, Shoto distracted him, kissing and touching the omega wherever he could.
Katsuki was slow to start. His tentative movements were limited to Shoto’s dickhead. Even so, with Katsuki's plush chest pressed against his face, Shoto didn’t mind one bit. While his cock popped in and out of the omega’s body, the alpha let out a groan. With every shallow motion, slick seeped out, dripping down to the base of his dick.
“Holy fuck! Aaah!” Katsuki cried out. It had to be an overwhelming experience for the omega, sinking down only to pull himself back up. Fortunately, gravity did its job, assisting the omega in taking a little more each time.
While Katsuki slowly fucked himself on Shoto's dick, the alpha bit back his impulses to buck up. It was blissful torture. The omega's insides teased his dick, repeatedly constricting and relaxing.
One final push over his forming knot and the omega’s ass had swallowed his dick whole. Having taken the alpha to find hilt, Katsuki sat there for a moment, glossy eyed and panting.
In an effort to comfort the omega in his time of vulnerability, Shoto thumbed his hair to the sides of his face. The two shared a gentle tongue kiss before Katsuki resumed his efforts.
Erratic and unsteadied, Katsuki's movements were clearly hindered by his body's response to Shoto's dick. Try as he might, Katsuki struggled to find a rhythm. Each time the knot popped back into his body the omega would cry out, momentarily losing himself in the sensation.
Shoto could tell Katsuki was losing patience. As over stimulated as he was, the man's efforts alone were inadequate.
The alpha wanted to help, he really did. However, until Katsuki gave the signal, his hands were tied. Plus, Shoto couldn’t deny watching the omega struggle on his dick did something for him.
Finally at wit’s end, he hit Shoto on the chest. The threat was likely meant to be more demanding, however it came out as a plea.
“Fuck me right!"
Shoto didn't miss a beat. Promptly grabbing the omega by the hips, the alpha thrusted upwards.
The first impact took Katsuki’s breath away. Scrambling for purchase, his nails dug into the skin of Shoto’s back.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" the omega cried out in rhythm with each thrust. The sloppy smack of their flesh colliding grew louder as Shoto rammed his dick into the omega.
Shoto grit his teeth together as Katsuki got impossibly tight.
"Oh Shit! Oh Shit!" Head bobbing, the impact of each thrust reverberated through the omega's body.
It happened so quickly, Shoto nearly missed it. However, the wet feeling between them was unmistakable: Katsuki came.
Holy shit. Again? It was almost too easy.
Shoto relented momentarily in order to give Katsuki a chance to recover. However, his actions were immediately met with backlash.
“Don't stop!”
Quickly the alpha flipped their positions. Pinning the omega into the couch cushions, Shoto folded Katsuki in half. Using Katsuki's own arms for leverage, Shoto proceeded to piston into the omega.
"Oh God!" Katsuki wailed helplessly, “ Ahh!”
As Shoto gave it to him hard and fast, there wasn't much he could do other than take it. Spewing out the filthiest nonsense, the omega was shaking like a leaf.
This time around Shoto caught on early to the signs of Katsuki's impending orgasm. He could see it in his scrunched up face, hear it in his louder, throatier, moans. Katsuki’s muscles were stiff up until there was cum dribbling from his dick.
In response, the alpha smirked. If all it took was a good pounding, Shoto figured he might as well put his dick control to good use and wrack up the count.
The alpha took great pleasure in watching the omega repeatedly climax. Just when he thought Katsuki couldn’t get any more gorgeous, here he was: tears streaming down his face, crying out for him as his little cock squirted out clear fluid. Truly unraveled, the sight of the omega ravished exceeded all of his expectations.
Much to Shoto’s disappointment, their fucking couldn't last forever. Eventually Katsuki hit his limit.
"Fucking hell!" Katsuki screamed, desperate and debauched. “Just come already!”
Adhering to the omega's command, Shoto then focused on his own pleasure. He switched up his stroke game, rubbing his dick upwards into Katsuki’s slick warm softness.
The friction made his head fuzzy. Under the conditions, it wouldn’t be long.
When his knot was beginning to pull with every thrust, Katsuki cries became more insistent.
“I can’t take it!” The omega squirmed about as he pleaded, "It's too much!"
Tension in his core building and building, Shoto grit his teeth together as his balls tightened in preparation to unload. When it got to the point where Shoto could no longer push his knot it with ease, he made the split decision to smash it in.
“Ahh!” Katsuki screamed as the alpha quickly expanded inside. The omega's insides were pulsating and wet, clamping down on his dick.
The sudden rush of hormones briefly incapacitated the alpha. Eyes screwed closed, heart thudding against his chest, Shoto released into the omega.
Breathing hard, sweat trickling down his brow; Shoto rested his arms on each side of Katsuki. It was hands down, the best nut of his life.
Feeling especially affectionate in his sensitive state, the alpha nuzzled into Katsuki’s neck as he rode out his orgasm. Shoto couldn’t get enough of the omega’s blissful scent. He found himself aggressively spreading it all over his neck, in turn covering Katsuki in his own sex pheromones.
Soon the intensity of his orgasm dulled, leaving his skin tingly and warm. The longer his cock drained into the omega, the heavier his body became. Smiling ear to ear, Shoto over indulged in his state. Contented and lazy, the alpha continued to scent Katsuki, kissing him every so often.
Eventually when he came to, Shoto pulled back to check for signs of discomfort. Katsuki was spent, however, given the intensity of their fucking, the omega didn’t look too roughed up. He had a feeling Katsuki would not appreciate the dark marks on his hips or the love bites all over his chest. Nonetheless, his heart swelled at the sight of his omega bearing evidence of their union.
When it was safe to do so, Shoto pulled out. He tucked a pillow underneath the omega’s bum to keep from making a bigger mess. The alpha delivered one final kiss on Katsuki's forehead and got to his feet. Once his pants were buttoned up Shoto made his way over to the kitchen. Upon retrieving a bottled water bottle and a beer from the fridge, he quickly returned to the omega’s side.
Shoto handed the water over to the omega and proceeded to down his beer. As the cool liquid flowed down his throat, Shoto was momentarily revitalized. He exhaled happily. Somehow strenuous activity made beer taste even better.
A few sips and Katsuki handed his bottle back to the alpha. When both drinks were set on coasters, Shoto looked to the hallway and asked, “Bathroom?”
Katsuki quietly replied, “First door on the left.”
It wasn't too difficult to find where Katsuki kept the washcloths. After dousing a cloth in warm running water, Shoto wrung the cloth and wiped himself down.
Next, he wet another cloth and brought it to the omega. It had been a minute, but Katsuki was still laying in the same position he left him in: sweats hanging off of one ankle, fucked out. Still sensitive from their activities, every wipe from the damp cloth had Katsuki whining.
There was only so much Shoto could do given his inexperience in caring for another post sex. When the omega’s exterior was clean of bodily fluids, he coaxed Katsuki into his arms.
After opening a few doors, the alpha found Katsuki’s bedroom. As soon as Shoto set him on the mattress, the omega rolled over and settled into the opposite end of the bed. Katsuki then looked over his shoulder at the alpha as if he expected Shoto to lie beside him.
Without a word exchanged between the two, Shoto crawled into bed next to the omega. Once he was settled under the covers Katsuki wiggled backwards into him. Draping an arm around Katsuki's mid section, Shoto closed his eyes. Within a matter of minutes, he settled into sleep.
|
Trevor’s been to some pretty swanky hotels in his time - his family are nobility, after all, even if most of the money these days goes into trying to keep the roof on the remains of the old family manor from collapsing again. This hotel, though, is something else; it’s a building with more gilt and marble than sense, and the whole thing is fancy to the point of absurdity. It’s also - especially considering the very central location, impressively big. But it’s also strangely hard to spot from outside - and the only in-use entrance seems to be from the underground carpark, where Dracula slams the brakes on his hearse-car-thing, and then tosses his keys with a pained sigh to a pinch-faced valet.
“This way,” he grumbles, swishing his cape with unnecessary ferocity as he leads them up through a wide staircase into the lobby and over toward the reception desk.
“Well,” says Trevor, gesturing at a vast oil painting of a handsome youth having his neck torn open, “welcoming spot you’ve brought us to, Adrian. Bet the Yelp reviews are amazing.”
Sypha elbows him, but Adrian snorts.
“Tripadvisor,” he grins, with a sidelong glance at Trevor. “Four stars. Decor was nice, room was gorgeous, but I’m deducting a star because I lost a limb to a ravenous walking corpse. Overall I would definitely visit again, but-”
“Boy!” snaps Dracula, already several feet ahead of the trio with his cape billowing out behind him, “stop dawdling back there. I have enough matters to attend to without wasting time on your idle chatter.”
“Matters to- come on,” snorts Adrian, “why do you have to make everything sound so sinister all the time?”
Dracula glares over his shoulder from the reception desk. “Because, Adrian, I often have sinister business to do.”
“Yeah? And what kind of ‘sinister business’ do you have to do at a fucking wedding, dad-”
“Language!”
“Oh, don’t avoid the subject. What do you have to do that’s so pressing you have to yell at me for-”
“I-” Dracula lowers his voice, with a frown like thunder. “Your mother needs me to help her set up a…” his expression darkens further, teeth gritted. “A… floral arch.”
Sypha stifles her giggle - Trevor is not so lucky. Adrian outright howls.
Dracula glares at them all. “Look, it’s just because I’m very tall, and I- oh, never mind.” He turns to the receptionist with a long-suffering sigh. “Room keys,” he says, gesturing derisively behind him, “for these three.”
As the receptionist nods, disappearing into a cavernous looking cloakroom behind the front desk, a tall, dark-skinned man with a sharply-fitted suit and a clean-shaven head approaches the desk. “Good morning,” he says, with a slight incline of his chin towards Dracula, and then another even slighter one in the direction of Adrian and Sypha. Trevor notices that he receives no nod at all - just a pinch-lipped glare. “I see you’ve failed to murder the Belmont. Congratulations are in order, perhaps.”
Dracula pinches the bridge of his nose between two long, clawed fingers. “It’s early yet.”
The sharply dressed man laughs. It’s a handsome laugh, but it’s not exactly a kind one. “Adrian,” he says, “You’ve grown.”
“Uncle Isaac,” says Adrian, with his own stiff little nod. “I hope Uncle Hector is well.”
“Oh yes. He’s causing me a tremendous number of problems and a great deal of stress, as per usual. So he is…” and here Isaac’s mouth tilts up into the very faintest suggestion of a smile, “in his element, I suppose. And this must be your Sypha Belnades and Trevor Belmont.”
Sypha pokes her head round from behind Adrian with an only slightly nervous wave; “Uh, yes, hi! Thank you for inviting us.”
“Uh, yeah,” says Trevor. “Thank you. I think.”
The receptionist returns with three ornate keys, which Dracula pockets. “Hmmph. Well, don’t let me keep you, Isaac - I’m sure you have much to do. I’ll escort these three to their rooms so that they don’t get underfoot-”
“We’re right here,” grumbles Adrian.
“- and then I can go and assist Lisa with-”
He’s interrupted by a cheerful shout from the woman herself, who emerges from a nearby elevator with a friendly wave. She looks so much like Adrian that Trevor almost does a double-take. “Hello!” she calls; “Glad you all made it in one piece.” She bustles over toward them, and although they don’t exchange a word, Dracula bends almost double so that she can kiss his cheek as she passes on the way to scoop Adrian up in a hug. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t pick you up, sweetie, Hector needed help with- oh! Ah, there you both are!”
She ducks around Adrian, beaming light. “Sypha! So lovely to see you again, are we- do we do hugs? Are you a hugger?”
“Of course,” says Sypha, opening her arms, “Yes, it’s so nice to see you here, Dr Tepes-”
“Lisa, Lisa is just fine - oh, I like your dress.”
“It has pockets!”
“Then I like it even more. And you-” she rounds on Trevor, who finds himself almost as inclined to flinch under the force of her smile as he did under Dracula’s frown, “You must be Trevor. I’m so glad we’ve finally had a chance to meet, Adrian is always talking about you-”
“ Mum !”
“What? It’s sweet. Now, are you a hugger, Trevor? Or more of a shaking-hands sort?”
“Uh… hug is fine,” he mumbles, which seems to be the right answer.
Dracula clears his throat. “As I was saying before you arrived, my beloved - I’ll escort these three to their rooms, and then I can return to aid you-”
Lisa finally lets Trevor go as she wheels round to glare up at Dracula. “Rooms?”
“Yes?”
“Rooms?”
“I-”
“Rooms plural?”
“... yes.” The sight of Dracula, all seven-foot-and-some of him, looking cowed and sheepish in the face of a woman who barely comes up to his waist is truly a sight to behold.
“ Darling ,” says Lisa, sternly, and he withers.
“I- alright. Fine.” He pulls the three keys from his pocket with a scowl like a scorned child. “You sort it, then. I shall go and…”
“Sulk?”
“No.
“Good. Because I promised Hector you would help him with the flower arch.”
Isaac gives him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. “I’ll walk you there, I need to speak to the caterers anyway.”
Dracula sighs. “Fine.” He casts one last angry glare toward Sypha and Adrian and Trevor (but mostly Trevor), kisses Lisa’s forehead, bows deeply, and sweeps away across the lobby toward the grand double doors on the far side of the room.
Lisa shakes her head. “I’m so sorry Sypha, Trevor - he’s a little… well, he can be-”
“A dickhead?” supplies Adrian.
“No! Just- he takes a while to warm up to people. That’s all.”
Adrian rolls his eyes.
After a brief conversation with the receptionist (who looks significantly less terrified now that Dracula has left the room), Lisa manages to procure a very fancy looking gold key, and waves the trio toward the elevator she’d popped out of earlier.
“It’s a bit of an acquired taste, this place,” she says, with a knowing glance at the deep red velvet curtains pulled shut across the windows, despite the early hour, “but it does have some very nice rooms. I managed to find you one with a proper three-person bed, at least - which, actually, that reminds me, Adrian, do you need a new bed for your room at uni?”
Adrian chokes on spit. “Pardon?”
“Well, I can’t help thinking, it’s only a little double we got you for your place, and you and Trevor are both ever so tall, and if you still sleep anything like you did as a child you kick like a donkey, and you dribble, and I’m sure there must be hardly any space at all for poor Sypha, so-”
Adrian stares up at the elevator ceiling with an expression of abject despair. “Please don’t trouble yourself about- it’s fine.”
Lisa rolls her eyes. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t be silly about it - I’m just saying, if you need me to order you something, you can just let me know and I’m more than happy to-”
“I said I’m fine ,” hisses Adrian.
“Alright, well, I’m just mentioning it because back when your father and I first met, he used to come and stay round at my flat, and I had the tiniest little single, and he’s so tall he actually broke-”
“Oh my god! Mum! It’s- the bed isn’t a problem. Please stop talking about it.”
Lisa tuts. “Well, fine. But don’t come complaining to me when you end up with a bad back. Sleep is important! Especially with your exams coming up - and Sypha dear, you must have a lot of labs, too, in Chemistry.”
Sypha is still trying to stifle a giggle at Adrian’s mortified expression as she turns to answer. “Oh, um, yeah. They’re not so bad, though - I prefer them to the written work, really. I’ve always been better with the practical side of things, I guess.”
Lisa nods. “Mmm. And Trevor - you must have your exams coming up soon, too, with the end of term approaching? Although, I imagine that staying in a hotel full of vampires is perhaps rather more nerve-wracking than any test that university could put you through.”
Trevor shrugs. “Oh, it’s… it’s fine, you know, uh- I mean, it’s really nice to be invited, so-”
Lisa gives him a knowing smile. “You needn’t pretend to be thrilled about the setup. But I understand enough about the Belmonts to be very grateful that my son has found somebody as brave and as loyal as you. And, of course, Sypha, you already know that I think you’re wonderful - ah,” she says, coming to an abrupt stop and gesturing at the door in front of her “Now, here’s your room.”
She hands Adrian the key. “I’ve got to dash back downstairs to prevent your father from causing any more mischief, but you won’t be needed until, oh, five-ish, probably, when we’re doing final fittings for suits and dresses and so on. Meet you in the lobby then?”
“Sure.”
“Perfect - and Trevor, Sypha, do feel free to help yourself to anything you want via room service - it’s on me, alright? I’m just-” she clasps her hand together, eyes warm. “Well, I’m just so glad you’re both here. Give me a shout if you need anything, alright?”
“You know what,” says Sypha, after Adrian has finally waved Lisa away and firmly shut the door on her, “I like your mum.”
“Uuuuurrrghhhh,” says Adrian, going over to the (genuinely huge, Trevor is impressed) four-poster bed and collapsing onto it face-first. “I hate my fucking family,” he grumbles, voice muffled and distorted through thick layers of feather duvet and pillows.
“Nah, you know what,” says Trevor, making a beeline for the mini fridge, “I agree with Sypha - your mum is nice! Your dad, on the other hand…”
“UuuuurghhhhhHHH,” says Adrian.
Sypha hops up onto the bed next to him, and has to halfway lie down herself just to reach his shoulder and give him a consoling pat. “I know. I know.”
Trevor grabs a fistful of bit-sized chocolates from the mini fridge, and begins unwrapping them. He laughs when Adrian rolls onto his side and perks his head up at the noise of foil rustling. “You want some chocolate?”
Adrian fixes him with the biggest, saddest doe-eyes. “... maybe.”
Trevor takes a running leap over at the bed, sending a delighted Sypha and a very indignant Adrian bouncing momentarily upward toward the canopy.
“Bastard,” grumbles Adrian.
He’s pouting, nose crinkled, his usually immaculate blonde hair tumbling haphazardly into his eyes. He looks lovely - and also amazingly indignant. “Your bloody face you pull,” laughs Trevor, tugging him into what’s half supposed to be a headlock, only the angles are all wrong and the bed is too soft and so he ends up with just an armful of indigent Adrian instead.
“What about my face?” Adrian scowls.
“It’s very cute,” supplies Sypha, laughing as she scrambles half into his lap to plant a kiss right on the tip of his furiously crinkled nose.
“I’m not cute,” says Adrian, “I’m in a state of crisis. My family are all awful and now you two are ganging up on me.”
“Ah, shut up,” says Trevor, “Here, eat your chocolate, dickhead.” He pops one of the chocolates out of its wrapper and presses it to Adrian’s lips. Which.
Ah.
Hmm.
Sometimes - quite often, actually - Trevor manages to get most of the way into doing something before he realises what a monumentally stupid idea it is, and this is one of those times. God, this is one of those times. Because Adrian is flushed and ruffled and he opens his mouth without a hint of resistance and then the very tip of Trevor’s finger is pressed against the faint warmth of his tongue and then against the knife-sharp edge of his fang and…
Trevor pulls his hand away as if he’s been burned. “Uh,” he says, glancing up at Sypha who just… grins? And it's a cunning, conspiratorial grin, like she thinks they’re both in on something.
“You know,” she says, stroking the back of her hand along Adrian’s cheek as she brushes a stray hair away, “We probably don’t really need to be carrying on with this fake-dating thing when there’s no-one here to see us.”
“Right,” says Trevor, his voice strangely hoarse to his ears, “Uh. Yeah. No. I mean- it’s good practise, though, I guess.”
“Uh-huh,” says Sypha, prying another chocolate from his hands and slowly unwrapping it. “I mean, is it?
She presses the chocolate to Adrian’s lips, but - unlike Trevor - she doesn’t flinch or pull her hand away. She lingers, steady and deliberate as she smooths the pad of her thumb along the soft curve of his bottom lip.
“Uh, yeah,” says Trevor, who can hardly hear himself think over the sound of his heart thundering away in his ears, “I mean, you’re- this is-” he gestures at her, “uh, you’re getting very convincing. So. Must be working!”
Sypha raises an eyebrow. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“I-”
And here’s the thing - Trevor's not stupid. He’s 90% sure that if he asks right now, they’d both actually be down. Like. Actual honest-to-god down to have a threesome. Which is sort of blowing his mind. But the 10%, the lingering doubt, the thought of being rejected in the moment and then the worse rejection that would follow… the idea of losing his two best friends… or- or what if to them it would just be sex, and then he’d have to deal with that and… urgh. No, he doesn’t want to be the one to actually put it out there. His palms are sweating.
So he says. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s - that sounds about right. That’s what I’m going with.”
Her gaze flickers down toward Adrian, who’s still apparently transfixed by the feeling of her thumb against his lip. “Well?”
“Well?” he echoes, his voice husky, his eyes wide.
“What do you think?”
“I, uh,” he says, after a moment, “you- well. It’s uh. It… you are getting very convincing.”
And at that Sypha laughs, letting herself flop backwards onto the covers and roll away off the bed. “Alright, ok, if that’s the party line - so be it.” She hops up and stretches, all of the tension and the poise and the intent gone from her body in an instant, as if it had never been there in the first place. She’s always been changeable like that, but it happens so fast, and now the moment’s gone… maybe Trevor had imagined it, after all?
“I’m going to order pizza,” says Sypha, “and find out what kind of shitty reality TV I can find on that big posh flat-screen over there. You guys want anything?”
|
"Hey." Kuramochi mutters quietly with his eyes closed and his back leaning on the lower bunk bed of Miyuki's roommate. "As much as I want to talk about how much we f*cked everything up, I need to confirm something with you real quick."
"..what?" Miyuki answers after a while with his head flattened down towards his desk. He can't even bear to look at his friend knowing that even though it wasn't solely his fault. There's this huge gap of responsibility between the two second years since Miyuki is not only the captain but Eijun's main battery partner too. 'Although, Mochi is his roommate so I guess we just both suck and can go to h*ll.' He can't help but look back on how he dealt with the situation earlier that day. He wants to say that if he could turn back time, he would have done things differently.
But to be honest, he doesn't know.
If he could change the words he said, he would have. But that moment where Eijun recoils from his touch just keeps popping up between his eyelids. And it hurt. He didn't think that things would turn out for the worse.
"His voicemail."
"Yeah, what about it? My eyes hurt from all that crying." The catcher responds nonchalantly as he finally peeks a look at his teammate. He's not even ashamed of it since they both were crying. Kuramochi's eyes are just as puffy as his so the shortstop can't really judge.
"Did I hear it wrong or.." Kuramochi says, staring hard at Miyuki. He brings a hand up and grabs some of his hair in frustration. He wants to stop remembering every word but he can't help but feel that he deserves the pain it brings. On the other hand, he startingly recalled something about the message that's been bothering him for a few minutes now ever since he noticed it. He can't help but ask "Did Sawamura really mention Narumiya's name? Along with Inashiro's captain?"
'..I did my best to follow your instructions and all the tips Mei-san and Harada-senpai told me about but maybe I’m still not doing things right?'
Miyuki abruptly raises his head, furrows his brows in confusion and immediately backtracks to the whole conversation they have had with their senpai just two hours ago.
"That can't be right.." He looks at Kuramochi unbelievingly. "I.. But how? I don't understand.. There's no possible way. And why?!" Miyuki stutters his way through trying to properly convey his thoughts. His hands move around erratically not knowing what to make of this revelation as he straightens up and fully turns his body towards his teammate.
"So I was right. He did say their names, then. And he used Narumiya's first name too." Kuramochi replies with narrowed eyes as he bites a finger in contemplation. "The weekend getaway!" He bangs a hand on the floor in realization and immediately stands up. "Inashiro isn't just a ride away but they probably met up someplace! Wait, he was watching Keio University videos in the cafeteria when he got back right?" He point towards the other in dawning comprehension.
"They have practice games during the off season.." Miyuki mumbled as his eyes widen along with Kuramochi's. "Sometimes in Hachioji which is only one ride away from here." He quickly grabs his phone and pulls up the search bar to confirm said information. "F*ck. There was a practice game with Waseda Uni that Saturday in Fujimori Park!"
Kuramochi couldn't help but exclaim and pace in a bit of a panic. "So what? They're friends now?! They watch baseball games together and all that?" He can't help but feel a little bit of jealousy rise to the surface even after everything. He knows he was a sh*t senpai to Eijun but the knowledge that the pitcher went out and spent his only day off with none other than their rival team is slowly starting to make him mad.
"Oi, don't blame this on Sawamura." Miyuki firmly states as he pins the other down with a sharp look. "We don't know for sure if he really was with them. All we really know is that they have been talking. And if they are friends, there are no rules against it. Sawamura's allowed to make friends with whomever he likes." Seido's captain argues Eijun's side even if it was said with a shred of bitterness. He's trying to think rationally but he won't deny that he understands what the other feels and is also a bit offended by this.
"Miyuki, it's Narumiya! He's been on your ass since forever. I know that Sawamura can interact with anyone he wants to but come on! Inashiro's ace?! Really?! Out of everyone else!" The shortstop replies in mounting annoyance. He stops walking in circles and massages his temples trying to calm himself down. 'Breathe in. Breathe out.'
Meanwhile, Miyuki can do nothing but sigh. He sees Kuramochi's point, he really does. But just as he said, Sawamura is not prohibited from being friendly with both Narumiya and Harada no matter the discord between both teams. Both second years may not like it but they don't really have a say in it. Especially now that they inadvertently pushed their kouhai further away from his own team.
"Don't mention this to anyone. We'll talk to Chris-senpai about it tomorrow if we can. He seems to know the most about the situation more than he's already let on."
"I wasn't planning on snitching, you idiot! But do you understand what this will look like to the team if they find out?!" Kuramochi says, sounding worried. His breaths start to quicken and he frantically looks around as if someone will suddenly pop up and call them out for this newfound secret saying that they heard everything before suddenly pausing his vivid imagination and uttering, "Wait.. Do you think?"
"What now?" Miyuki asks as he thunks his head on his desk for the nth time. This new "problem" makes him want to take a sick day. He's so confused on what to do about the whole situation. He's trying to plan everything out in his mind that first, he should probably talk to the team. Finally reprimand the people who are toeing the line between voicing out their opinions and outright bullying a teammate. Next, go to Chris-senpai. Beg for his help and -
"..where he ran off to?" Kuramochi whispers so softly but it makes Miyuki’s thought process halt all the same.
"What? What do you mean where he ran off to? Sawamura??" The catcher blinks his eyes sluggishly before his brain catches up with what the other second year is insinuating. "..you think?"
"There's no one else, Miyuki. Chris-senpai would have been his first choice but.. Well.. Since he said that he needed to get away from here, he couldn't really go to his shisho who's staying in the same place he wants to run away from, right? He'd be left with his only other choice: Naru-"
Both second years startle and jump back, Miyuki almost falling out of his chair and Kuramochi nearly hitting his head on the upper bunk bed railing, when there's a sudden knock at the door. Their heart rates skyrocket when it opens without preamble and not a single word from whoever decided to just barge in without permission.
Masuko merely raises a brow at the two while observing their stupefied states. "Were you expecting someone?"
Kuramochi sinks down to the ground for the second time that night with one hand on his chest. "I think I almost died of fright."
"Oh, you probably will." The third year replies with a wicked smile that both his kouhais have never seen (and wow, talk about creepy) on his face before. "Ryousuke knows what you did. And he's not happy.
Run, little Mochi."
∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻
Masatoshi knew that despite not being the cause of such pain, he and his teammates should try to ease Eijun's burdens, even just for the little while that he's staying with them. Especially now that the first year has spontaneously left his own school to seek comfort from him and Mei. As the third year was thinking of what they should settle on doing next as silence descends in the dugout due to Eijun's tears, Masatoshi spots movement in the corner of his eye and discreetly takes a peek.
Kunitomo Kantoku is unreadable as ever. The Inashiro coach merely nods in acknowledgement and taps his wristwatch before waking away.
Masatoshi smiled in relief. 'Thank you, coach.' Looking at his kantoku's retreating back, the almost graduate can't help but appreciate how lucky they were to have respectable adults around them who were not only their for supervision but also for proper guidance and support.
Baseball, after all, is a very competitive sport.
And as evidenced with Eijun, one wrong or even unlucky move can instantly end your career within the next second - that is if you're alone. Luckily for his kouhai, the catcher is sure that at the least, he has three people ready to fight for his dreams.
The catcher walks up toward the two pitchers huddled together and lays a hand on both their shoulders. "We should start heading for the dorms. It's getting late. Eijun travelled all the way here after what I'm sure is an already exhausting practice in Seido. He needs to rest." He, then, turns to raise an eyebrow at the other two second years. "Go to your rooms. We'll talk more tomorrow. Do not say a word to anyone, do you understand? The only people who knows that Eijun is here are the four of us. If word gets out, I will not stop Mei from taking out his anger on you."
"We won't talk, captain! Cross my heart and hope to die." Carlos smiles mischievously in response while Shirakawa just settles for a stoic nod in reply before grabbing onto the back of Carlos' shirt and dragging Inashiro's lead-off man back towards their dormitories.
"Good night, everyone! Don't forget to tell me when we'll kick Miyuki's ass, okay?! I want to join!!" Carlos' parting words manage a small upturn of the lips from Eijun before he hesitantly gives a small wave towards the two older players sauntering away. "Good night, senpais."
Masatoshi ruffles the youngest' hair before gently pushing both Eijun and Mei to also start moving out of the dugout. "Mei doesn't have a roommate right now so you can comfortably stay in his room. It's also just on the first floor so there are less chances of us bumping into someone else. If you want to wash your face, we can pass by the bathroom before I walk the both of you back to Mei's dorm."
Eijun numbly nods in response with a tight smile as Mei hands him his tea bottle back. The other pitcher already insisted on carrying his duffle bag claiming that it was so light that he can almost forget that he's even carrying anything. "I use weights so much heavier than this, Eijun." Mei says with a huff. "Seriously, the shirt is covering it but there are muscles underneath!"
They start slowly trudging their way across the field without another word after the small debate. Although he can finally breathe easier now that he's miles away from Seidou, Eijun still can't help but feel a certain heaviness in his heart. It was scary - how he didn't even need to think about it. Leaving, that is.
After he walked away from Miyuki with a broken heart, he ran towards his dorm room and collapsed against the closed door knowing that his older roommate won't be back until late. Eijun hugged himself and cried into his arms for more than a handful of minutes before letting the sobs die down. The most upsetting thing about it was because they weren't even tears of sadness. He was so, so mad. It was uncharacteristic from the normally joyous and energetic kid and that scared him. He's never felt this angry at anyone before but he just couldn't take it anymore! He doesn't understand why not a single person from the first string, who claims to be his friends and who he thought the same of and treated as, ever stood up for him. Not once! Eijun didn't necessarily want for a fight to break out or even be witness to a small verbal match with him as the cause but he can't help but remember his Nagano best friends the more he felt excluded from the team.
A classmate once jokingly laughed at Eijun's dream.
For how can someone like him ever step foot at Koshien when he can't even help his middle school team win one single match during their first ever tournament?
Surprisingly, it wasn't Wakana that shot that classmate down. Oh make no mistake, she did try. She was up into arms within the next second. But someone was faster.
Nobu, Eijun's first catcher, slammed the book he was previously reading down his desk. The loud bang silenced everyone else in their classroom that day. Not one peep was made as everyone stared at the usually silent and shy boy. "Don't you dare talk about Eijun's dream like you know anything." The catcher stated looking directly at their classmate with fiery eyes and an impressive scowl. "What do you know about big dreams anyway? It's not like you have one." Nobu further raised an eyebrow as if to ask 'Well? You know I'm right. Try to prove me wrong with a lie or learn to shut that trap.'
Wakana settled back down in her chair with a smirk and with a sweet, innocent voice added, "Oh how hard life must be for you. Living in the countryside where you'll inherit your family's corn farm. You don't even need to finish high school. Ah, well.. But some of us were destined for so much more than that. Of course, I don't expect you to understand Keiji-kun." Eijun's best friend uttered almost sympathetically. Before her lips turned up into a condescending smile as she lazily looked their classmate up and down. Wakana then rolled her eyes as if she found everything unsatisfactory. "Never forget what you said today. Because Eijun WILL play in the Koshien grounds and I want you to remember that you will never be able to brag about knowing my best friend because you will be nothing more than a blurred face in the memories of our ace. Now, face the front."
Eijun didn't even have time to say anything else in defense to himself or to even thank his best friends because the teacher entered just a few seconds after the tense confrontation. Asami-sensei immediately noticed the fearful gazes of some of their classmates but stopped herself from asking more about it when she noticed her class president, Wakana-chan, minutely shake her head. The homeroom teacher merely sighed and figured that she'll ask more details from the girl after class in a more private setting.
Eijun, on the other hand, just kept interchangeably staring at both his friends in shock and utter gratefulness. He even blinked a few tines in stupor wandering if he somehow slept throughout lunch and is dreaming all of this up. Everything that has happened was slow to sink in and as he was just about to speak without regard for their teacher at the front of the class, Nobu glanced back at him.
The other boy just smiled and pointed to Eijun's bag, "Page 48. If you don't get the textbook out, I'm not helping you answer sensei's question if you get called on later Ei-chan."
Eijun just sighed in resignation before smiling back, hoping that his friend knows how much what they did meant to him, and took out his textbook for another lesson that he would probably doze off on.
He always knew he got lucky. That was why he was so hesitant to leave Nagano - for how can he chase his dreams without his people by his side? How will he be able to stomach standing in a baseball field knowing his friends aren't going to be playing with him? Will he ever be able to trust another team to have his back like Wakana and Nobu and everybody else does as easy as breathing?
He found the answer soon enough.
Yes, he can chase his dreams. Because they looked at him with pride and he would never betray the faith that his friends and family bestowed upon him.
Yes, he can play even if they're not on the field with him. Because he knows that as much and as often as they can, they will be supporting from the stands - screaming his name until their throats run dry. Eijun knows that all he needs to do is look up and they'll be right there with big smiles.
And yes, he was able to trust someone else. He confidently went out there knowing that his senpais will also be doing their best behind his back as they all aim to win every single match to reach the top.
But as for what happened with that trust in his current situation?
Eijun doesn't know if it even exists anymore.
But in the encroaching darkness, his thoughts also wander to bright exceptions.
Kanemaru, who although hesitant and fearful of sustaining an injury, agreed to help stand in the batter's box just so Eijun would start getting used to facing an opponent once more.
Kariba, who was soft-spoken and a little timid compared to the pitcher, practiced with Eijun as much as he can as their afternoons turned into night and gathered enough courage to actually try to stand up for him when faced with Ochiai-kantoku's unwarranted compaints in the indoor training ground.
Chris, his beloved shisho, who never once doubted that Eijun will rise to the challenge and overcome every single one with or without the third year's help. The upperclassman who devoted all his free time to the pitcher, helping in both teaching and catching for him, instead of choosing to actually rest. The teammate who never once looked at him with pity once Eijun's situation came to light but understanding and resolve with assurances that as long as Eijun doesn't give up then Chris won't either.
Harada, their rival team's captain, who smiled at Eijun and treated him as if he was an Inashiro kouhai. The third year that gently taught him how to properly bat and gave helpful tips without restraint, not acknowledging the fact that he was from another team, and helping him realize what it's like to have a good battery dynamic with his interactions with his own pitcher.
And said pitcher, the most unexpected of them all - Narumiya Mei. The first person that looked at Eijun at his lowest and saw him, really saw him and still encouraged (pushed him a bit forcefully, really, but Eijun thinks he needed that) him to stand up and continue chasing for his dreams. That one person who told him straight up that this isn't the end. The rival pitcher that promised him a way and actually acted accordingly so as not to break his word. In another world, Mei might be nothing more than an annoying, immature rival that Eijun will barely look at with admiration but in this one?
Narumiya Mei became one of Sawamura Eijun's strongest pillars of support.
"Get some sleep, Eijun." The second year pitcher mutters as he gently pushes his kouhai down the lower bunk bed, helping to tuck in the other with a soft blanket. "Don't worry too much about it. We'll deal with everything else tomorrow, okay? Together."
"Together." Eijun replies with a small smile before he finally surrenders himself to the world of dreams.
∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻∻
"Takigawa-kun, there's no need to fret. Eijun arrived safely and will be staying with Mei for tonight." Masatoshi says with a phone in hand as he makes his way towards the separated dorm rooms for the graduating class. "Yes, I'll be seeing you tomorrow then. Good night."
"..senpai?"
He abruptly stops and turns around with confusion. It was almost midnight and despite the knowledge that some of his idiot kouhais practice until deep into the night, they all should have been in bed by now or the coach will have their heads.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't sleep." Tadano Itsuki apologetically explains with a small bow. "I was a little worried. Is everything alright? I didn't want to disturb Mei-san."
The third year smiles in reassurance before softly turning his fellow catcher around to face his own building. "Everything is okay now, Itsuki. It's late. You have practice tomorrow and will need all the rest you can get." He gives the first year a nudge to make him start walking. "And Itsuki? Thank you for bringing the coach at the dugout."
"Uh hai, senpai. It was no big deal. Good night." Despite his doubts, Itsuki walks back towards his room not knowing that this is the calm before the storm.
One by one, the pieces are slowly falling into place and a final decision will soon be made.
|
Crowley had to press a hand to his mouth when he saw the mausoleum, covering a choked laugh with a cough.
It was elegant, yes, but it also had more bereaved nudes carved all over it than the angel had ever seen in his life. The fact that some of the mourning nudes seemed to be needing to mourn in the company of… well… other nudes…
“He will be sadly missed,” a young fop said, clutching a kerchief to his breast. “He was a good and generous man.”
“Mm.” Crowley managed, lips pressed in a thin line to try and keep his face straight. “Mm-hm.”
“Too soon!” Another wailed, clutching at the arm of his fellow. “Oh why does the Lord take the best of us!”
It seemed to be a theme among the dozens of young mourners. Most were men, every one of them was lavishly dressed in clothes that were bordering on scandalously snug and revealing. A few of the ladies had selected near sheer linen as appropriate funeralwear.
“Did you know him well?” The man at Crowley’s side asked quietly.
“Mm.” Crowley nodded. “Most of our lives. Honestly, I’m amazed the stupid bastard made it this far.”
Several affronted gasps rang out around him.
“I mean,” Crowley continued, unable to help himself, “given how much he put it about, I’m amazed the clap didn’t get him years ago.”
“Sir!” A puffed up little Duke stormed towards him. “How dare you speak ill of the dead!”
“No different to how I spoke of him when he was alive,” Crowley said, his grin breaking onto his face. “Let me know if I guess right: you met him at an orgy, yes? Thought it would be a fantastic idea to listen to his plans for that little caper down at Southwark?”
The Duke’s face went chalk white under his make-up. “Sir! You slander me!”
“Nah,” Crowley said happily. “Don’t think I do.” He leaned closer and tapped the young man in the middle of the chest. “You ought to mend your ways, Philip. The Lord is always watching you know.” He offered his most benevolent smile. “Confess your sins, lad, and all will be well.”
“AHEM!”
Crowley straightened up, schooling his expression before turning. A plump, very large-bosomed and veiled woman was standing immediately behind him, arms folded. “Madame.”
“Sir! Desist from distressing the mourners!”
She unfolded her arms, catching him by the arm and hauling him away around the side of the mausoleum. Crowley followed, but gave the whey-faced Duke a cheery wave, then tapped beside his eyes and pointed at him, before he was yanked around the corner.
The woman released his arm and even through the veil, he could feel the glare.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that!” he laughed. “What did you expect?”
Aziraphale shoved his veil back from his face. “I didn’t expect you to try redeeming my little bastards at my grave, you impertinent little bugger! I worked very hard on the Hellfire club and now you’re undoing it!”
Crowley was shaking with laughter. “If it’s that easy to undo your work, you can’t have done a very good job of it.”
Aziraphale glowered at him. “I did very well, thank you! Dozens of the little idiots dancing to my tune!”
“And they’re dancing on your grave now,” Crowley observed. “Been a while since I’ve seen you resort to the old fake-your-death routine.”
Aziraphale sighed hugely and hauled up his skirts to pull a flask from his garter. “I thought a martyr would do them good. A name to toast for the cause and whatnot.” He took a mouthful from the flask and offered it to Crowley. Never one to refuse a drink, the angel took a drink, hissing at the pleasant burn.
“You know,” he said, as he handed the flask back, “I don’t think that’s it at all. These don’t seem the types to like a martyr.” He leaned sideways, peering around the edge of the crypt and studying the mourners. One in particular caught his eye. Possibly because the young man was howling on top of the coffin. “What about Edward?”
Aziraphale gave a huffing growl. “Oh, fine. Yes. It’s because of Edward.”
Crowley sat down on a nearby headstone. “Enjoy yourself a bit too much?”
The demon made a face. “One time,” he said, then mimed a very particular gesture with one hand in front of his face, prodding his tongue into his cheek. Crowley’s cheeks burned. “You’d think I’d set the bloody stars, the way he carried on.”
Crowley had to cover his mouth to stifle his laughter. “Oh Lord…”
“Don’t.” The demon pointed at him.
“You actually did it.”
“Crowley, I’m warning you!”
“You made a human fall in love with you!”
Aziraphale was on him in a blink, pinning Crowley to his body, his hand pressing over the angel’s mouth, which was probably a good thing, because Crowley couldn’t stop the laughter bubbling up.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Aziraphale hissed. “No love! No… soppy tender pure rubbish like that!”
Behind Aziraphale’s hand, Crowley nodded, grinning.
“No!” Aziraphale insisted. “Absolutely and definitely not! I didn’t! And even if you tried to tell anyone, they wouldn’t believe you, so it doesn’t matter what you think and you really need to stop laughing, you idiot!”
Crowley held up his hands in surrender, still chuckling as Aziraphale released him. “Methinks,” he said as he smoothed his waistcoat down, “the lady doth protest too much.”
Aziraphale opened and shut his mouth, wagging a finger, then huffed, “Don’t you use Hamlet at me, my dear. It’s neither funny nor clever!”
“S’accurate though,” Crowley said, wiping at his eye with a happy sigh. “Lord, I needed that.”
“It’s not funny,” Aziraphale grumbled.
Crowley gave him a look. “Really? You give a young human such a good…”
“Blow of the bagpipe?” Aziraphale offers, smirking.
“Yes.” Crowley coughs. “That and he literally sees Heaven and falls in love with you? And then you’re so awkward about it you –and I cannot emphasise how much I love this – fake your own death to avoid him. It’s kind of hilarious.”
One side of Aziraphale’s mouth twitched up. “It was meant to corrupt him. Good pious little Anglican boys aren’t meant to get the… pure feelings from a good seeing to.”
“The Lord,” Crowley said with a bold attempt at a straight face, “works in mysterious ways.”
Aziraphale threw his veiled hat at him. “Oh, do be quiet, angel!”
“Madame!” Crowley feigned horror. “Uncovering your head! At a funeral? Shame on you!”
Aziraphale tried to glare, but his eyes were dancing. “Idiot.” He glanced sidelong. “I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. Shall we…?” He jerked his thumb to the far side of the crypt and away from the funeral. “I only wanted to see who turned up. No need to sit through the lamentations.”
Crowley offered him the hat and his arm. “And wine?”
“Of course wine,” Aziraphale sniffed. “What kind of animal do you take me for?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Crowley sighed as they moved off between the grave stones. “One who made a human fall in love with – ow!” He rubbed his smarting backside. “Aziraphale!”
“Not one more mention of the ‘L’ word,” Aziraphale sniffed, “or there shall be no wine.”
“Fine,” Crowley sighed. “Ruin my fun.” He leaned sideways. “Does this mean you’re going to sign off having sex with the humans, then? I mean… just in case it happens again…”
Aziraphale gave him such a horrified look that he burst out laughing again.
“Oh dear. Do you think I ought to take precautions?”
“Like what? Wearing a bag on your head?” Crowley patted his hand. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again. One-off, that.”
“Oh, good,” Aziraphale said, relieved.
“Yeah,” Crowley said, fighting a grin. “I don’t think you’re that good.”
“I beg your pardon!”
Crowley smiled like an angel.
|
“You know where he is, don't you,” Baines said, tone matter-of-fact. If Bobby was surprised at the man entering the room without alerting him, he wasn't going to give any indication. Bobby gave him a level look, not saying one way or the other. “He doesn't have to be on his own in this.”
“He's a good kid,” Bobby told him. “And his mind's full of holes. He's got little enough as it is; figured I'd let him keep his choices.”
“I'd rather he keep his life.”
Bobby sighed. He removed his cap and ran a hand over his head as he considered how to explain himself.
“They ain't gonna give up,” Bobby told him.
“The Tuatha always were vindictive pricks,” Baines agreed easily. “The Fomorians are worse. But do you really think after angels, gods and Old Ones that the team isn't going to figure out how to deal with a few fairies?”
Bobby smiled wryly. He had to admit, Dean's team had accomplished some pretty amazing things, and he liked Vin, he really did. If there was a chance of saving him, Bobby wasn't going to throw it away.
“Missouri Mosley,” Bobby admitted finally. “Lawrence, Kansas.”
Baines nodded.
…
Vin swept the dust and grit off Missouri's porch, enjoying the repetitive motion. He didn't have to think, didn't have to remember; he could just let the rhythm of the movements lull him into a sense of peace and calm. The time he'd spent with her had been helpful, but it hadn't been without its stresses. He'd just finished sweeping when she appeared in the doorway with a glass of lemonade. He didn't miss the way she surveyed the street or the tension that pinched the corners of her eyes.
He gratefully took the glass from her and followed her inside, closing the door behind him. He wasn't sure about the details, but he knew the house had some level of protection, so the closed door provided a small measure of comfort. Not as much as Bobby's with it's panic room but more than when he'd been on his own.
“I'll pack my things,” Vin said softly. Missouri pursed her lips.
“I'm not gonna kick you out, child,” she told him. “But they're closing in on you. I can sense something, something old and wild, sniffing around the edges of my protections.”
Vin nodded and took another long drink of lemonade, wondering when the next time he'd get a chance to experience the comforts of home, even if it wasn't his home. Even if Missouri wasn't telling him to leave, he knew he couldn't stay. No only would she be in danger, but it would only be a matter of time before they got to him anyway. He finished his drink and placed his glass in the sink, movements slow and careful as he considered where to go from there.
“You'd better come back to finish the backyard,” she told him.
"I'll be back," he assured her. She patted his shoulder as he passed and he didn't have to be psychic to know that she was worried. His own fear was an almost tangible thing gripping his chest and making it difficult to breathe.
“Thanks for everything, Ms Mosley,” he told her, tipping the brim of his peak cap. She smiled at him, but it was sad, regretful.
...
Chris was never going to get used to travelling by angel. Part of it, he was sure, was because of his vampire nature. The angel didn't seem to particularly mind one way or the other and he'd heard DiNozzo's team joking about associating with all sorts of creatures, not least of all demons, but it still made him uncomfortable.
Sarah had been religious and to be turned just after her death had seemed like some sort of sign to him that god wanted nothing to do with him. To be consorting with demons and angels, and who knew what else, seemed entirely beyond his experience. Vin was near, though, according to Singer. Chris would have put up with a lot more for the chance to find his friend and bring him home.
“Mosley should be just down the road,” Baines said and Chris nodded. Without another word, they crossed the street to Mosley's house and Chris began pounding on her door.
"He's not there," the angel said, looking away, down the road and into the gloom of approaching night. Chris tilted his head to face the wind and breathed in deeply. There was a strange scent on the air, something strange and dangerous. He tensed, fangs lowering as he glared into the darkness.
Winchester and Baines were already drawing their weapons when the atmosphere changed. The air around them grew heavy with foreboding as several figures appeared out of the darkness. They were beautiful, but uncanny, in some way too perfect, like they weren't entirely real.
He couldn't hear their heartbeats or feel the allure of the blood rushing through their veins. Hypocritical as it might be, they just didn't seem natural. He snarled, ready to pounce.
...
Dean tightened his grip on his gun. He really hated these things. They weren't sparkly or little or cute, they were inhuman.
"You will not keep him from us," one of them said, stepping forward.
"Looks like you're too late anyway," Adam said, mouth twisting into a smirk. One of the fairies frowned, moving forward to look down at Adam. Adam didn't appear intimidated but Dean always figured it was difficult to intimidate someone who was, at least partly, about as old as the universe.
"He's still here somewhere," one of the dark fairies said, looking around.
Half the number detached, pacing around the group. The other half remained, staring down at them.
"Leave him alone," Chris snarled, shifting his stance like it was all he could do not to attack them. Dean stepped closer, unsure if he wanted to stop him or join him.
"You who are the lowest of creatures dares to keep us from what's ours?" one of the fairies asked, torn between amusement and scorn. Chris growled, a low threatening rumble that made Dean's skin crawl, but didn't seem to affect the fairies at all.
"I wouldn't call vampires the lowest," Dean said. "I mean, rougarous must be lower on the heirarchy. And so far, I've met more vampires I'd have a beer with than any of you guys."
"Kill them and be done with it," one of the pale fairies said. "We've already got the brother."
Dean wondered what brother they were referring to, since as far as he knew Vin was an only child and an orphan.
"Don't touch them," Vin said, materialising from the shadows around them.
"Vin," Chris breathed and Vin spared him a small, quick smile. Dean felt some relief that Vin seemed to recognise Chris this time, though it didn't really help their situation much. "You should have gone."
"Couldn't let you have all the fun, cowboy," Vin said and he faltered a moment, clearly unsure where the moniker had come from. Chris' s grin was feral.
One of the fairies made a move for Vin, who ducked out of the way and Chris launched himself at the fairy, only to be batted aside. It was chaos after that. Dean ducked a blow, only to have his knee kicked out from beneath him.
Cas grabbed the fairy, hand around her neck. A glow began around Cas' s hand, not quite the same as when he expelled a demon, the fairy dropped to the ground, body collapsing in on itself until all that was left was dust. Dean managed to get in a good hit on a distracted fairy only to have him turn and backhand Vin, knocking him hard to the ground.
Adam fought like Death and the fairies didn't seem to be able to hit him in any meaningful way. Vin and Chris fought back-to-back, they were doing well, but both of them were beginning to falter. Dean knew it wasn't going to end well.
He reached into his pocket, pulling out something Lindsey had prepared earlier. He slapped a hand around one of the fairy's ankles and held on tight. The foot aimed at his head was the last thing he saw before everything went black.
...
Vin couldn't stop thinking about the carnage that had been left behind. At least two of the people who had come after him were down, unconscious or dead. The one in the long coat had still been fighting valiantly, but he had been swarmed by five fairies. The last thing Vin had seen before they subdued him was Chris being stabbed through the chest. Vin hoped the kind of vampire he was could survive that.
"We must try again soon," one of the Tuatha who'd taken him said.
"I agree. There is not much time before the way will be closed to us forever," another said.
"We need to make preparations," the first added.
They walked away, still in fierce discussion, leaving Vin alone with a single guard, one of the dark-skinned Fomorians. The guard seemed unable to look him in the eye. Vin wondered if it was disdain or guilt.
"Why am I so important?" Vin asked, letting the guard lead him without much of a struggle, not that he could put up much of one the way his body was aching. He hoped he would get some answers instead. The Fomorian remained silent, leading him further down into the abandonned building. "Why does it have to be me?"
"Because you're half way," the Fomorian conceded, tone faintly apologetic.
"Half way?"
"Half way between us and them, between worlds," the guard told him. "You're the key."
Something about the way he said that made Vin think it wouldn't end all that well for him. Especially because most of them only considered him a means to an end.
"The key to what?" Vin asked, pressing now that he was finally getting answers. The Fomorian seemed to realise how much he'd revealed because he shook his head.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," the Fomorian said, stopping to unlock a shaded door. Peeling paint flaked to the floor as he pushed it open. "If there was any other choice..."
His sympathy didn't touch Vin because it ultimately changed nothing. The guard guard bowed to him briefly before shutting the door, the lock clicking loudly in the silence.
...
Lindsey watched the two teams talk urgently between themselves. Cas was exhausted and Dean was down for the count until he'd recovered from his strength to heal him. Larabee was off somewhere drinking enough blood to get him back on his feet. Even Adam was looking tired.
“You knew what he was from the start, didn’t you?” Lindsey said, not turning to look at Adam who settled in next to him. He didn’t need to clarify who he was talking about either. Vin was the focus of all their attention. Adam shrugged which was as good as a confession.
“So, the hours I spent on failing to bribe or con the answer out of him, the time I spent researching what he might be, you were just laughing at me?”
“Yep.”
“I hate you.”
Adam smirked and looked entirely unconcerned.
“I hate you so much,” Lindsey told him.
|
On his way to pick up Mrs Hudson from Baker Street, John looks like a right idiot. He can only be grateful for the shelter a growler provides, the closed carriage hiding him from public view. Is there anything more moronic in appearance than being alone in fancy dress? John’s uncertain but heavily leaning toward the negative.
Such a good decision in hindsight, not bringing a spear. Bad enough being ridiculous without being a ridiculous menace. He supposes he is a bit of a menace tonight, but not quite in such an obvious way.
He leaves his mask upon the seat as he collects Mrs Hudson from her door. His coat falls over most of his outfit, for which he is thankful. Mrs Hudson’s outerwear does the same, the long black cloak falling over her white dress with elegance and dignity even as she giggles. He really ought to have left the gauntlets in the carriage.
“You look so uncomfortable.” She pats his arm fondly. “Don’t worry, that will fade. You’re not used to fancy dress, are you?”
“I’ve never been much for it,” he answers, handing her up into the carriage. They settle side by side in the back, their masks sitting across from them. Both are helmets with visors, hers gold with a red plume, his silver with none.
As the carriage pulls away from the kerb, Mrs Hudson unpins something from the underside of her cloak. “Turn here,” she prompts.
John does. He opens his coat when she tuts and holds still as she pins on a silver broach, its shape that of a spear over a shield.
“There. Oh, wait, should it be at a different angle...? Hm, let’s see.”
Grinning a bit, John holds still as Mrs Hudson sorts out the final touches. The spear fixes to the white of his tunic, left of the red, central stripe. John’s belt over the tunic is wide and red, the same shade as the vertical stripe, and that completes the cross on this Saint George. His trousers and boots are plain enough in cut, but the metallic shimmer of his trousers is frankly embarrassing. The shirt beneath the tunic is much the same. The gauntlets are primarily leather, pieces of metal fixed along the back of the hands and fingers. They’re light, a borrowed stage prop Miss Hooper said wouldn’t be missed. They’re slightly too large, however, intended for a man larger than John. He imagines he’ll remove them soon enough, possibly sticking them through his tunic belt.
He doesn’t see Mrs Hudson’s costume in full until they arrive at the opera house. Tonight, the building shines with light, all aglow from within and without. The streetlamps beat back the evening fog. Lights from the roof as well as the windows illuminate the opera house facade, turning its familiar face into that of a more attractive stranger.
Inside, the lobby shines with tinsel and the good candles. The marble floor has been polished to within an inch of its life, and that is the least of the visible preparations. There are flowers, actual flowers, a true hothouse indulgence at this time of year.
Helmets on, Mrs Hudson and John wait in the cloakroom queue. It gives John time to look about. Though he’s attended the backstage festivities in other years, the drunken revelry in narrow wooden halls pales in comparison to this. Everyone about them is elaborately disguised, impeccably dressed. The only comparison seems to be the growing inebriation. Masked ushers play the parts of waiters, weaving through the crowd with trays laden with cups and morsels.
Above the grand staircase, the conductor stands in the main balcony wearing the horns and fleece of a golden ram. Mr Johnson’s motions direct the musicians positioned over the main door, situated on the wrap-around balcony over the lobby. His position is clearly intended to draw attention, a reminder of the quality of music which will accompany the Masquerade all evening. Such a reminder is hardly necessary. The sound is rich and full.
Though the evening is still young, the dancing is already underway across the lobby floor. John tries to catch sight of a familiar shape, if not a familiar face, and finds himself at a loss. Domino masks across the eyes, half masks down to the lips, full masks concealing the entire face, animal masks contorting the features: all prevent John from any sort of immediate recognition. Perhaps some of them are police. If John can’t tell, he sincerely hopes the same is true of their phantom.
Handing over his coat at last, John takes advantage of the moment to surreptitiously adjust the item tucked beneath his regular belt, beneath his tunic and red belt but over his shirt. Perhaps bringing along his revolver wasn’t the most prudent course of action—if his bullets did damage to the marble, he’d never be able to pay for repairs—but the risks inherent in leaving it at home seemed larger than those of bringing it.
Adjusting her shawl over her shoulders, Mrs Hudson doesn’t seem to notice. She has little in the way of sleeves, her flowing white dress elegant in its simplicity. Toga-like and belted in gold high above her natural waist, the outfit makes her every inch Britannia. The shawl serves in the stead of a shield, blue with white and red stripes. Her trident pendant glitters on its gold rope about her neck. When she grins out at him through visor of her plumed helm, the sense of timeless dignity somewhat abates, leaving beloved Mrs Hudson standing beside him once more.
“I’ve no idea what you’re so embarrassed about,” she chides, taking his arm. “You’re very handsome, Dr Watson. Let’s see where Sherlock’s off to: he did promise you that sword.”
The search proves more entertaining than fruitful. They ooh and ahh over more elaborate costumes and laugh at the clever. At the sight of a plain white mask, John nearly gives himself whiplash. On the second glance, the mask is clearly the wrong shape, covering too little of the cheeks and forehead. What’s more, the man wearing it is a healthy, robust weight.
After that, John simply can’t stop looking. The conviction seizes him, absolutely irrational, that Vernet must be in attendance. How could it be possible for so many masked faces to be within one building and none of them belong to Vernet? This line of thought hardly makes sense, but the absurdity of the emotion does little to prevent John from feeling it. There’s a fellow dressed as Red Death with a skull mask and flaming scarlet cape, but while his flair matches Vernet’s, his height falls sadly short.
Mrs Hudson pats his arm in obvious understanding. For an instant, a flitter of what might be guilt crosses her features, but surely that’s the visor distorting an expression of concern.
“Is he all right?” John asks softly, a question he’s not permitted himself to ask for nearly an entire month.
She nearly sighs, and John recognises that combination of sad resignation and fondness from his own heart. “He’s quite all right,” Mrs Hudson promises. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough, dear.”
John’s gaze snaps out over the crowd immediately, seeking the tall men, the thin men, the tall, thin men.
“Later,” Mrs Hudson adds.
Early January, John knows. Early January, Vernet had said. New Year’s Eve is hardly that. Rather than press, John asks her about how the chandelier repairs are coming along. Quite well, it seems, but she shushes him: that announcement is meant to come later tonight.
The current song ends, and the dancers turn to applaud the conductor and the musicians in turn. Securing his helmet with his left hand, John peers up at the violinists, then at the conductor. No, still no. Though the ram’s head thoroughly disguises the conductor’s features, the man’s gestures are entirely wrong as he starts up the next waltz. It’s Mr Johnson after all. When Mrs Hudson pulls John into the whirling crowd of dancers, John has no complaints, only distractions.
One dance is all they have time for. Possibly for the best with Mrs Hudson’s hip to be considered. When this waltz concludes, the following pause stretches distinctly longer than the others, certainly longer than the applause lasts.
“Oh, there he is,” Mrs Hudson murmurs to John. “He doesn’t usually come in with his brother.”
John turns to the grand staircase in time to see a party of four descending the stairs. Costumed as the sun, the Earl’s face is largely obscured by his mask, but the moon beside him is too petite to be Miss Adler and must therefore be the Countess. The structure of her dress conceals well any signs of her condition. It must not be public news yet.
Behind the Earl and Countess follow Holmes and Miss Adler. When the Earl stands at the landing of the staircase, clearly about to give a bit of a speech, his moon remains in orbit. His brother does not. Holmes and Miss Adler move aside to stand by the marble railing, her arm threaded through his.
The Earl speaks words of welcome, but John’s attention has already been thoroughly captured. Holmes dresses in black tonight, black with ample nuance and no relief. The satin of his waistcoat gleams darkly against the coal of his linen shirt. A fleck of silver is apparent in his cravat, silk and black. What the silver pin is, John cannot say from his position at the bottom of the stairs.
Another glint of silver comes from his hand where fingers gloved in black leather curl about the head of an ebony walking stick. Holmes wears a cape over his jacket, trimmed with feather rather than fur at each shoulder. The cape matches the mask, a black domino with something of a beak. The well-fitting mask reveals much of his pale face, turning the sight of his skin shocking. From the top of the mask, dark plumage forms a small crest over his sleek hair. Were it not for this flamboyance, his outfit would appear as one of deep mourning.
In comparison to Holmes’ dark shine, Miss Adler emits an eerie glow, ethereal in white. With her double-tiered dress thirty years out of fashion and her mask painted with waxen features, she’s clearly meant to appear dated, ghostly. Seen jointly, their theme becomes clear: the Raven and Lost Lenore. Had John not earlier seen the Red Death walking about, the Edgar Allan Poe reference might have been lost upon him.
Without warning, Miss Adler looks him directly in the eyes and smiles.
John nods politely, then shifts his gaze to the Earl. This happens to be the moment where the Earl concludes speaking, and John is left with a sense that he ought to have paid better attention.
“Oh, that’s lovely, isn’t it?” Mrs Hudson asks, clearly rhetorical.
“Ah, yes,” John says. She means Holmes and Adler’s joint costume, doesn’t she?
“It’ll be good to get back to work,” Mrs Hudson continues. Apparently the speech touched on the new chandelier.
“What day did he say that was?”
Mrs Hudson gives him an odd look through her visor. “The third of January.”
“I meant day of the week,” John corrects before working through his calendar aloud. Mrs Hudson seems to accept this.
Before John can make any more verbal missteps in the relative safety of Mrs Hudson’s company, Holmes and Miss Adler descend the steps to join them. Polite greetings are exchanged. When John and Holmes fail to do more than stare at each other, Miss Adler and Mrs Hudson seize hold of the conversation on their own. Something about the choreography of a ballet John doesn’t think he’s heard of, but it’s a topic Mrs Hudson takes to fondly once Miss Adler asks after it.
From under his fitted mask, Holmes flicks a smile in John’s direction. John returns it. The silver cravat pin is a bird in flight. Possibly a raven. It’s still difficult to tell. The buttons upon his waistcoat appear to be jet. Designed specifically for this costume, or something elaborately dark already in Holmes’ wardrobe? John wonders.
“I tucked the sword away in one of the back halls,” Holmes murmurs.
“Oh!” He wasn’t staring too intently, was he? “Ah, thank you.” His stomach turns over. “Where...?”
Holmes gestures slightly with his cane. “Shall we?”
“No, you shan’t,” Mrs Hudson interrupts. She looks to Miss Adler. “Once he vanishes, he never comes back.”
Very much amused, Miss Adler looks at John rather than Holmes. “Oh, I hardly mind. Do what you like with him.”
“But he so seldom complies,” John replies, thinking of the envelope still upon his dresser. Somewhat crinkled around the edges by now, but he’ll manage to slip it onto Holmes’ person at some point in the future.
As it so often is, Miss Adler’s grin is absolutely wicked. She curls her hand about Holmes’ elbow. “I’m certain we could make him between the two of us.”
The raven mask is much too small to disguise the flush blooming across Holmes’ cheeks, let alone the pink rising up his neck. He no longer appears quite so aristocratically pale, and yet it’s remarkably fetching. Holmes clears his throat. “I believe I owe Mrs Hudson a dance first.”
“Yes you do!” Mrs Hudson agrees. She accepts his arm from Miss Adler. John accepts Holmes’ cane. The head of it is, of course, a silver raven.
“I don’t suppose...?” John looks at Miss Adler with a question in his eyes. When she shakes her head against a dance, he sighs in relief.
“I’d much rather we talk,” she says and takes his arm as if his limb is his leash.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself with Holmes,” John says.
“He’s so easy to tease. If it weren’t so delightful, it’d be an absolute waste. He doesn’t have your shameless ways of flirtation, Dr Watson.”
“That’s more a case of losing shame than gaining flirtation,” John replies, pleased to see her grin.
“You simply must teach him how.”
“I’ll do my best.”
They look at the costumes of those dancing past, their words those of quiet praise or quieter mockery. Miss Adler has no difficulty recognising the individuals behind the masks, a skill John wonders at.
“How do you see through them so well?” John asks after she identifies Mr Havill behind a full mask.
“I hardly need to see through them,” she replies, eyes upon the crowd. “A disguise is a remarkable self-portrait, don’t you agree?”
“I’m not sure I do.”
She points him toward the Earl. “All of us in orbit about him?”
John laughs. “Too true. But what about you?”
“What about me?” She gestures down her body, then back to her mask.
John dissects the literary allusion. “Ah. The unattainable woman. Much sought, much pined-after, but forever lost to man.”
Miss Adler’s raised eyebrow is more cutting than any accusation of John taking the piss ever could be.
“I’m hardly a saint,” John explains, indicating the red cross over his tunic.
“But you would love to slay dragons, wouldn’t you,” she muses.
When they’d first met, such a comment would have disturbed him. By now, her perceptiveness hardly flusters him. He hums something noncommittal.
Still dancing, Mrs Hudson and Holmes rotate in their direction, Mrs Hudson so small and delicate in Holmes’ arms that John is nearly concerned. Holmes’ costume is just as attractive from behind as it is the front, the cut of his jacket stylishly short above the waist, his cape fluttering with his movements.
“Mrs Hudson needs no explanation, but what of Holmes?” John asks Miss Adler.
“Really? I’d have thought that would be obvious.” A smile plays at her lips.
“Not to me.”
“He’s a giant preening bird.”
John laughs. It’s so absurdly true. Beak, feathers and posture combine into the perfect articulation of that masterful arrogance. “Oh, God, I can’t stop seeing it now.” He knows why he didn’t see it before, however. Holmes normally loathes being stared at by large numbers. Perhaps it’s the pretence of anonymity that brings out this side of him.
When Holmes and Mrs Hudson rejoin them, both flushed and smiling, John manages to keep from laughing. It’s a close struggle. Holmes’ eyes linger on John’s face before John remembers to return the cane to him. The gauntlets make him slightly clumsy, an effect only worsened by the festive atmosphere. Holmes hardly seems to mind.
“Now, if Mrs Hudson finds it acceptable,” Holmes remarks, “I expect to vanish.”
“Your vanishing, yes. Your stealing our John, no,” Mrs Hudson replies, a playful hand on John’s arm.
“What if he promises to return me?” John asks.
“I don’t,” Holmes answers bluntly. “That defies the point of vanishing.”
“That defies of the point of adding a sword to my outfit, then.”
Holmes sighs. “Yes, yes, you can come back later and let Mrs Hudson show you off.”
“We’ll entertain ourselves in the meanwhile,” Miss Adler promises. “It’s been ages since I’ve had someone to discuss politics with. Now off you go.”
Mrs Hudson passes from John’s arm to link her elbow with Miss Adler’s. “We’ll get along nicely, I think,” she says, patting Miss Adler’s hand.
Holmes steers John away before John can be tempted into the conversation. He thinks he knows their initial topic from the newspaper, but he must have read the matter with only half his mind. Too distracted by the attempt to remember the specifics, he doesn’t realise just how far away from the party Holmes is leading him until Holmes opens a door to the backstage area.
“You stored it back here?”
“I didn’t want anyone happening over it,” Holmes answers with a hushed voice. He gestures John forward. John finds his way through the darkness with an outstretched hand, navigating toward the glow of the ghost light upon the stage. Its sphere of illumination is small, turning all beyond the pit to shadow.
“This seems excessive!” John calls back into the dark.
Holmes has rendered himself practically invisible, black on black on black. Only the shine of his buttons and the gleam of feathers separate him from shadow. “Here we are,” he says, holding the sheathed sword. Where he picked it up or how he located it, John has no idea. “The slit in your tunic ought to be high enough that it can attach to your belt beneath.”
“Ah, thank you.”
John holds out his hand, but Holmes steps close, a creature of dark refinement. He has recently chewed mint, the scent lingering on his breath. “Allow me.”
“Ah,” John says. His head nods permission as his mind shudders to a stop. Beneath the scent of mint lies a heady cologne, reminding the nose of old books, the pleasing smoke of a crackling wood fire, and soft, deep leather cushions.
“Lift your tunic for me.”
John does so, bunching the fabric high. He tries not to think about how ridiculous his trousers must look, even in such little light. He remembers the helmet and promptly surrenders any hope of dignity.
Holmes makes quick, efficient work of it, the backs of his leather-clad fingers bumping against John’s shirt, his waist. As closely as he stands, it’s still a wonder he can see the task at hand. Belt shifting about his hips, pulled by the additional weight of the rapier, John holds his body as still as possible, abruptly concerned for the weapon already tucked behind his belt. He reaches behind himself to hold it in place and hopes Holmes won’t notice.
“There,” Holmes says, releasing him. When he pulls away, the air turns noticeably colder. “How does it sit?”
“Well.” His eyes having adjusted, John looks out into the house, out and up. The space is remarkable, empty, a skeleton awaiting its flesh. The curtains of the boxes slumber like so many closed eyes. “The new chandelier,” he notes.
“Nearly identical to the old one.” Standing at John’s side, he strikes a fearsome profile, harsh and majestic. A self-portrait, indeed.
“But more difficult to tamper with, I hope?”
Holmes hums. “Would you care to see the new arrangement?” He gestures to the shadows above the house.
For an instant, John thinks of Mrs Hudson. In the next instant, he thinks of how perfectly capable she is of amusing herself. Miss Adler hardly merits a concern on that front.
“I would, thank you.”
They locate a small lamp and light it with matches. There would be something sacrilegious about using the ghost light for such a mundane task. His steps confident, Holmes leads the way with the flame in his hand. He leaves his cane behind. He never hesitates in direction, never falters when navigating the low beams that begin to interfere with their progress.
“How much time have you spent up here?” John wonders aloud, careful to keep the sword and hilt from hitting anything. It takes some growing accustomed to.
“Recently? Next to none.”
“And not recently?”
“Several decades ago, as frequently as I could escape my brother’s eye. The dimensions of the place have changed considerably.”
John laughs quietly, a low chuckle that doesn’t much sound like him. He clears his throat.
They reach the great chain and the mechanism holding the chandelier aloft. Holmes explains the additional safety measures, the lock and key required, and so on. The sound of his voice is pleasant, light and soft, the way spring rain ought to be. It falls away into the darkness before and below them, swallowed by the whisper of music heard even up so close to the ceiling.
When Holmes finishes speaking, he seems to expect some answer. Lacking it, John asks instead, “Supposing someone tried to drop this one, how would they go about it?”
Holmes seems pleased to convey his thoughts on the matter. There are but two ways in and out to the lowering mechanism and the great chain, all of them leading back toward the way they’d come. Easily enough watched.
“Shall we circle around the other way, then?” John suggests.
Perhaps Holmes’ expression flickers. Perhaps the lamp does. “Are you forever on duty, Watson?”
“Not forever,” John answers, smoothing seriousness over a grin. “Every so often, I have a bit of a lie-in.”
“Do you, now?”
“Yes. Sometimes as late as six o’clock.”
Holmes ducks his head, his lips pulled in the stupidest of grins. Boyish and idiotic, a remarkable impression of a young fool.
“This way?” John prompts, pointing. Entirely rhetorical.
“This way.” Holmes leads him. He’s careful to hold the lamp so both of them might see where to set their feet, a considerate matter indeed when they reach the access stairway. As they descend, there’s some light through the old window, though very little.
Struck by sudden insight, John halts.
Holmes turns to face him, a question on his lips, and John points at the window.
“There. That. Can that open?” Even as John asks this, he strips off his gauntlets and tucks them through the red belt. He tries the grimy window and it opens smoothly. Not a creak, not a protest. “I know for a fact no one oils this window.”
“The puddle before the chandelier fell,” Holmes adds, present on John’s page, on his exact paragraph, upon his very word.
“That’s how no one sees him,” John realises.
“Each time he causes an accident, he escapes out the nearest window,” Holmes continues. “Or even returns inside, should the rain put him in danger of falling.”
“No one noticed a puddle here,” John says.
Holmes immediately drops to a crouch, holding the lamp low. John bends down to look as much as he can manage with the sword on his hip. “No signs of water damage,” Holmes says. “Not so much as a droplet. Check the window.”
“For?”
“Stick your head out and have a look around.”
“Right.” John opens the window as far as it will go, breathing in what passes for fresh London air. He deposits his helmet on to the stairs. With that secure, he sticks his head out and twists, thoroughly off-balance. His gun at the small of his back only makes the whole thing more awkward, to say nothing of the sword. Holmes secures him, a hand on John’s side to keep him from tumbling down the staircase with his head still out a window.
“There’s an overhang,” John reports, pulling back inside. “I don’t think we’d have any water in through this window unless the wind were blowing in this exact direction.”
“Or he could have snuck in through the other window, left his puddle there and proceeded here once he was dry.” Holmes closes the window one-handed. “Do you think you could fit through here?”
“It’s wider than I am, but not by much,” John answers. “I’ve no idea how I’d manoeuvre. If you want me to try that--”
“Hardly.”
“That’s a relief.”
Holmes nods, a flash of black feathers. “There’s no sense in you trying. We’re looking for someone highly skilled, practised.”
“What, a professional burglar?”
“Not quite what I had in mind, no. We need a better look at the walls from the outside.” Holmes takes a step before stopping, nearly making John walk into him. “Don’t forget that.” Holmes gestures to John’s helmet with the lamp.
“Right, thanks.” John grabs it up and follows Holmes down the stairs and through a narrow wooden corridor, the site of one of the major falls in November. Good God, it’s enough to make the ridiculous seem plausible.
Walking between beams, smelling paint and sweat and infused smoke, John matches his steps to Holmes’. His ears strain for sound other than those of their movements, of breath and rustling cloth. At an unexpected creak, John seizes Holmes by the arm. Holmes freezes on the spot. John’s free hand settles on his revolver. Neither of them breathes.
For a long, slow moment, silence reigns.
As gently as he can, John releases him. “Sorry,” he whispers.
Holmes nods curtly but otherwise does not move.
John remains stationary as well.
Nothing happens. Nothing continues to happen. At last, Holmes nods a second time. He resumes his previous stride. Fighting the urge to drag Holmes away to a well-illuminated room full of masked policemen, John follows more closely than before.
Holmes opens the door to the balcony portion of the roof, and they exit beneath a brumous sky. The streetlamps set the fog beneath them aglow but fail to reach higher. The winter clouds form a grey barrier against the light of the street and opera house both. John pulls his gauntlets back on, their leather of some use against the chill.
Ripping his mask off, Holmes strides to the edge of the roof. He sets down both mask and lamp upon the stone railing there before standing in front of the light and gazing up at the opera house. Alert and still, he makes a study of the walls. Even with the feathered cape, he is remarkably as John first truly remembers him: a man of aristocratic features and morbid fascination, a man watching a stagehand hang upon a rope.
John moves to stand at his side, helmet in his hands. The face of the opera house is elaborately carved. It would provide ample handholds to any skilled climber.
“Can you see?” Holmes asks, moving forward. He points up and around, directing John’s gaze. “There are paths between the windows, if one is sure of foot.” When he moves too close to the edge, John catches him by the arm once again.
“I can see it,” John says. “Is there anything else we need before we tell the police?”
“A footprint would be lovely.”
“Anything else?” Too much rain this December, and it’s been weeks since the opera house was open to business and therefore attacks.
“Do you suppose he could also climb down from here?” Holmes leans over the edge. “Theoretically possible. He’d be hidden within the dark and the fog.”
“You don’t think he’s coming in through below? Or even the front door?”
“The front door is always a risk...”
“But...?”
“That’s not dramatic enough.”
John nearly laughs. “Not everything has to be dramatic.”
“Everything else in his pattern is,” Holmes counters. “The timing of the hanging and the chandelier crash, for a start. The horse thefts were a feat of slight-of-hand. The injuries among the staff have played into common superstition. If it’s not suitably dramatic, it won’t be done.”
“Then you think it’s a theatre type? A theatre type who climbs, so... an acrobat?”
“The puppet master is hardly going to be the one climbing,” Holmes dismisses. “The cabbie had a plan from someone. Our climber—possibly an acrobat, yes—our climber must also have his orders.”
“Yes, but it would still make the puppet master a theatre type,” John argues.
Holmes looks at him oddly. “How do you mean?”
John returns the look in full. “Who else in the world thinks like that?”
“Not army men, by your implication.”
“Not particularly, no.”
Holmes shrugs a bit as if not particularly bothered. He leaves John’s side to return to the lamp. He checks his pocket watch in its light. “Ah, we still have plenty of time.”
“Sorry?” John half-follows, half-hovers. He folds his arms over his front, fighting down shivers when the wind picks up.
His cape billowing out behind him, Holmes leans in close, his eyes shining. “A masquerade on New Year’s Eve? On the most significant midnight of the year, a room full of society’s finest will unmask themselves. How could he possibly resist?”
“He wouldn’t be the only one enjoying himself,” John notes.
Holmes smirks. “I doubt we’d be alone in our enjoyment. Or do you bring a firearm to every party?”
John could choke on his tongue. He nearly does. Instead he says, “Only the dull ones.”
Holmes laughs, a startled, delighted sound that tugs on John’s heart first, his mind second. John frowns, confused without reason to be.
“I promise an exciting finish to the evening,” Holmes replies. “One way or another.”
John laughs as well. “Ought I to be frightened?”
Playing his hesitation for show, Holmes pauses a falsely ponderous moment before shaking his head. Though charming, this too strikes John oddly. It’s nearly as if Holmes is doing an impression of someone else, and yet the motions are sincere.
“Is, um.” John wets his lips. The moisture dries almost instantly in the cold. “Is something else the matter?”
Holmes’ hesitation becomes jarringly real.
John blinks and stands straighter, his shoulder protesting. “Beg pardon. If you’d rather not--”
“I’d rather,” Holmes interrupts.
Nodding, John waits rather than presses. An unconscious movement, his hands move to fold behind his back. His left hand hits the hilt of Holmes’ sword on the way. His right hand holds his helmet. His arms tremble with a shiver. It’s as much Holmes’ intent gaze as it is the chill.
“How much do you remember of Christmas?” Holmes asks.
“I remember impressively strong eggnog, for the most part,” John admits.
“Mrs Hudson has led a remarkable life. Her liver reflects this. What else, Watson?”
“I... imagine we began to refer to each other more informally.”
Holmes nods. Though dressed as a raven, he gazes as a hawk.
“You brought me home. After that, it’s all a touch dreamlike.”
“In what way?”
In many ways. He knows from the morning that Holmes lit him a fire. He thinks he remembers Holmes removing his shoes, kneeling upon the cold floor. Though the sight is clear in his mind, it doesn’t seem real. “In that I don’t remember it clearly. I’ve never been a moody drunk, only a sleepy one.”
“I said there was something I needed to tell you. Do you remember that?”
John fiddles with the helmet behind his back. He forces himself to stop. “You... You needed to ask your lord brother first.”
Holmes nods. “I have. As loath as I am to ask permission, I do have it.”
“Should you--” John shivers. “Should you be saying it out here? The breeze might carry.”
“Yes,” Holmes says, the word oddly detached. Then: “Yes! Yes, inside.” He takes up the lantern and his mask. They close the door securely behind them. Though the air inside isn’t warm enough to make the contrast burn, the lack of wind is an obvious blessing. John still carries his chilled helmet rather than putting it back on. Holmes does the same with his mask.
Biting down any sound of complaint at the ache of his shoulder, John follows Holmes silently until he realises the man’s destination. Does Holmes truly not know how little privacy that would afford them?
“Where are you going?” John whispers.
“A box,” Holmes answers.
John stops immediately.
Holmes walks nearly five paces before turning around. The lamp flickers with his motion. “Problem?”
“Not the best place to be if you don’t want to be overheard tonight.”
Holmes frowns as if mystified.
John clears his throat out of delicacy.
Holmes’ frown deepens.
“Many of them will already be in use,” John explains. “In much the same way I imagine members of the staff are occupying several of the dressing rooms.”
Holmes blinks very slowly. A flush crawls up his throat.
“Unless you’d rather overhear some very intimate proceedings, I suggest somewhere else.”
“Privacy would be... Ah, this way.” Holmes walks quickly away. John fancies even his ears are red.
Holmes leads them back down to the stage area. Rather than approach the ghost light, Holmes keeps to the wings. “Close the door,” he whispers to John, and John does so more by feel than by sight. With the grand drape down, more light comes from Holmes’ lamp than the ghost light. Holmes dims it before setting it and his mask down on a tall stool by the side wall. He moves to stand between the backdrop and a groundrow. A leg curtain falls behind the groundrow, and it is this curtain to which Holmes gestures.
“Here,” Holmes whispers. If the background behind him weren’t that of a spring sky, Holmes would vanish into shadow. The lamp shines faintly along one side of him, his other half as dark as the unknowable side of the moon.
Intrigued, John complies. He leaves his helmet behind to stand with his back to the leg curtain, to the row of leg curtains and the grand drape, to the house beyond. The hanging fabric stirs when the sheath brushes against it.
“Can we be overheard?” John asks. The stage is meant to amplify sound, not conceal it.
Holmes shakes his head. “The curtain is very effective. I have to ask you to keep your voice low.”
John nods. Only the boxes high above ought to be occupied, and those have their own curtains drawn, their own sounds, soft and sighing. They ought not to be overheard and, if overheard, may be ignored for better, sweeter things.
Possibly thinking of the same, Holmes radiates discomfort. John tries to imagine Holmes’ reaction if they had drawn close enough to hear the wet, straining sounds of lovemaking from within the boxes. Perhaps his face would have turned a scarlet to match the box curtains. Perhaps he would have steadfastly carried on, appearing just as pained as he does now.
“There are two matters I am compelled to share with you,” Holmes begins. “Knowledge of the second is contingent upon your acceptance of the first. This is a matter of safety. Of mine and, by extension, my brother’s. Do you understand?”
Not in the slightest. “Yes,” John answers nonetheless, “but if it would be safer not to tell me, I feel you ought not to tell me.”
“This confidence is already drastically overdue, Watson.”
“Drastically?”
Holmes nods curtly. Sharp tension lines his body, nearly trembles within him.
“Then I accept the first. Whatever you need me for, yes.” When Holmes fails to relax in the slightest, clearly doubting John’s word, John asks, “How long has this been a problem?”
“Not a problem.” Holmes’ whisper is harsh. “A problem for Mycroft, not for me.”
John nods gently, willing to guide Holmes through his agitation. Compared to Vernet’s raging doubts over his score and libretto, this can hardly present a difficulty. “He refused you permission until recently?”
“I... lacked evidence to sway him. He refused to trust you.”
“What changed his mind?”
Holmes slips into the explanation with sudden ease. “On paper, you appear a quiet man. Your history here suggests you took the position out of grief and a desire for distraction. You permitted the opera house to consume you, as is its wont. You appeared content to remain static: loyal to the concept of the joint-enterprise of the stage, but truly attached to only a few.”
Voice barely a whisper, Holmes leans in closer, assuring John’s understanding of his words, if not his greater meaning. His cologne is distracting. “You prefer not to discuss your past and grow agitated when pressed beyond your self-imposed limits. Initially, I thought this was grief and you trapped within it. Or guilt, perhaps. But I was wrong. You live in your unchanging home without suffocation and think of your wife’s ghost with fondness, not loyalty: it is neither grief nor guilt.
“It is a hatred of pity. Cloying sympathy is anathema to you. It took me until Christmas to see that. I apologise for the delay.”
“I still don’t understand,” John whispers. “How does any of this impact your lord brother?”
“Only through me.” Holmes leans closer still, enough for John to feel the heat of his breath. The scent of mint has largely abated, but what is left is pleasant for more than merely its warmth. John’s mouth waters. He thinks fleetingly, irrationally, of indoor herb gardens and the way Holmes fingers might look plucking soft leaves from a sprig.
Holmes’ height and proximity bid John’s chin to rise, his head to tilt. Holmes’ face is little more than shadow in the dark, recognisable only through the prominence of his cheekbones and the angle of his jaw.
“To have you at all grief-ridden or guilt-bound would be... inconvenient.”
“To what--” John turns his head and clears his throat, surprised by his own sudden rasp. “To what end?”
“To whatever end.”
Too afraid of reaching the wrong conclusion, John’s mind shies away from his first resulting thought. “I... ah. What, er.” John wets his lips. “What particular destination do you have in mind?” He ignores his breathless voice. He attempts a smile.
Holmes looks down. Not at John’s mouth but at his own hands, clasped low between their bodies. Visible only by the sheen upon the leather, their grip is tight and slowly relinquished. The right hand rises. Holmes’ hand navigates the low barrier of the sword hilt before hovering over John’s arm, circling from elbow to forearm.
Holmes’ fingers dip between John’s arm and his side. They dip deeply, sliding between layers of fabric until Holmes’ palm lies against the curve of John’s ribcage. John continues to stare, to watch Holmes’ forearm even as he feels gloved fingers curl into him. All movement of his body has been claimed by his pounding heart. There is nothing left for any other part of him.
“I know you want me,” Holmes murmurs, “but will you have me?”
There is a kiss on those lips, one which would prove as easily claimed as rain upon an upturned face. There is warmth and good work and an earl-to-be willing to kneel at his feet. There is an increasingly crinkled envelope upon John’s bedroom dresser. There is so terribly much to be held in the darkness. There is so terribly little that may ever know sunlight.
“I don’t think I can,” John whispers.
Holmes releases his breath in a rush, nearly laughing in incomprehensive relief. “You can.” He presses his lips to John’s temple. “You can and you may. We’ve Mycroft’s permission, practically his blessing. For him, that’s much the same thing.”
His kisses to John’s skin are clumsy, rushed, so desperate is their sincerity. They demand John turn his face and answer them in kind. They demand John never move again and remain a stationary target to their tender onslaught.
John could. So very easily. He could look up. As simple as that. Instead, he shakes his head and feels as if he may die.
“No?” Holmes asks, indulgent and amused. “There are no barriers, John. Only discretion. We are each more than capable of that.”
“And if your nephew is born a niece?” John tries to pull back, but his hands traitorously remain anchored on Holmes’ hips. His back presses against the curtain. As Holmes pursues him, the fabric ripples and gives way, enveloping them in a soft, shifting alcove.
“I told you, I’ll never marry.” Holmes presses their foreheads together rather than seeking John’s mouth, a respite John mentally welcomes and physically resents. His body has no complaints, no need for sanity. Though terribly warm, he shivers at the touch of leather curling against his cheek. With that, the line of John’s trousers becomes absolutely ruined.
John shakes his head against Holmes’ brow, his palm. “Not even for your nieces? Not even if your brother cuts you off?”
“I’ve thought this through,” Holmes answers, irritation creeping into his quiet tone. His light voice grows tight.
“All right,” John whispers softly. “Then what will you do if it’s a girl and your brother cuts you off? You’d take poorly to being a kept man.”
“I’ve some investments. I’m hardly destitute.”
“How often would we see each other? On what pretences?”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what, being reasonable?”
“We’ll find a way around it,” Holmes insists.
John shies away into the curtain. Guilt boils through his stomach, the fumes of it rising into his mouth. “I don’t...”
“You don’t what?” Holmes’ eyes narrow. “You don’t want to. You--” His hand jerks back from John’s face. “These aren’t concerns. They’re excuses.”
“I’m sorry,” John whispers.
“You’re sorry.”
“Yes.”
“And for what, pray tell, are you sorry?” Holmes practically spits the word, his voice never rising in volume.
For wanting someone else, John doesn’t say. Instead, John ducks his head and begins to free his belt of Holmes’ sword. Holmes stands before him without a word, without a sound, but so very far from silent. Not even the darkness can conceal the shaking of his hands or the contortion of his features.
Rather than risk handing it over, John leans down to the side and sets the sword upon the stage. He stands slowly, carefully. They no longer touch in any way.
“Tell me, Dr Watson,” Holmes bids him. “How far does your amenable nature serve? How many acts of perversion would you allow me to commit before disgust overcame your compliance?”
“I’m not disgusted. I...” There ought to be words for this. Surely they exist. “You’re a very attractive man. I stopped thinking.”
Holmes’ lip curls. “You didn’t. Not for one instant.”
“I was confused.”
“By what?”
“This not being all in my head,” John explains.
“You’re an extremely unobservant man.”
“Oh, good, we agree.”
A flippant response, a stupid response, and Holmes’ resulting rage is well-deserved. Such a wordless, towering rage. It blazes through his eyes and brings his tall stature to tremble. To look up at his face is to gaze upon the heights of a cliff when the ground begins to quake. John braces for a blow that never falls.
“Go,” Holmes growls.
John escapes from the curtain’s embrace, nearly tripping over the painted scenery of the wooden groundrow. The ghost light half blinds him as he emerges from behind the grand drape. His footsteps resound against the stage, against the stairs, and John is around the pit before he realises he’s left his helmet. It lies at the base of the stool with Holmes’ mask upon it.
With a quiet, unintentional curse, John stops. There’s no rejoining the Masquerade without his helmet. He thinks for a moment of hiding in one of the halls, but Holmes might also choose to hide there. He can’t remain in the house either, not with Holmes still upon the stage.
At the sound of footsteps upon the stage, John turns and immediately ducks behind the pit wall. His helmet smacks against the other side. John waits a moment, uncertain Holmes isn’t about to throw the sword at him as well. Rising slowly from his crouch, he peers over the pit wall.
Holmes glares down at him with tense shoulders and fisted hands. Proud even now, especially now, he holds his chin high. The cold footlights decorate the stage before him, as if reality willingly embroiders itself to better display Sherlock Holmes.
John is almost sick to recognise the moment for what it is: another opening, another chance. John can change his mind. He can apologise, can fall upon his knees and throw caution away with even more force than Holmes mustered on his helmet. Regardless of any observers from above, the opportunity beckons. John can do this, and Holmes will still have him.
Instead, eyes on the floor, John walks to the small gate in the pit wall, reaches inside, and unfastens the latch. He finds his helmet. He doesn’t inspect it, doesn’t put it on. He merely takes it and exits the pit. Turning to latch the gate behind him, he looks up. He knows he shouldn’t and he does it all the same.
Holmes is unreadable from this angle, the ghost light transformed into a halo, Holmes into a silhouette. John shifts to the side until he can make out Holmes’ face.
“What?” Holmes snaps.
Willing himself into the living embodiment of an apology, John shakes his head.
“If you’ve a question, ask it.”
Considering the number of policemen in the lobby and Holmes’ prominence upon the stage, that would be foolish in the extreme.
At the first sign of John’s continuing silence, Holmes bristles all the worse.
“You said two matters,” John mumbles as quietly as he can.
“I said knowledge of the second was contingent upon acceptance of the first.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” Holmes mocks, arms folded across his chest.
John’s mind stumbles, repeating, wondering at a secret that could require acceptance of Holmes’ proclivities. A matter of safety. Inversion is a matter of safety, but what could possibly compound upon that?
The answer comes upon him with full and terrifying force. It falls from his lips in the merest whisper, a statement to be contradicted, an idea to be torn to shreds: “You’re in love with me.”
Holmes doesn’t reply, but his answer is plain. It resides in the fall of his arms to his sides, in the step backward into the light. It lives openly upon Holmes’ features in surprise and devastation. In no hyperbolic terms, the very moment Holmes’ heart shatters upon the stage is unavoidably, inescapably visible.
John’s first instinct is to step forward, to rush forward. To sweep the pieces up and assemble them between his hands. If he could press them together until they fused anew, if he could breathe upon broken flesh and mend it through heat alone, he would. Most readily, he would.
He steps forward, and his friend shatters in full.
Holmes does not shout or cry or find another object to throw. He does not gain in volume. Instead, he mutes himself. He becomes utterly, terribly silent in a way John has never before known him. He does not tell John to go. He doesn’t say anything at all.
“My mistake,” John whispers, because clearly it was. Because that was not something to be said, and because whatever pride Holmes retains ought to be salvaged.
Holmes continues to stand, utterly wordless. His mouth trembles. Be it from the force of a shout or the repression of tears, John doesn’t remain to discover. Helmet in hand, John turns and walks quickly up the long stretch of aisle. When he reaches the door, he risks a glance, but Holmes is already gone.
|
“Okay, that’s it, give it back now,” Bucky ordered, getting up from the couch and walking towards Tony. He leaned over and took his smartphone from Tony’s hands.
“No!” Tony said, reaching for the phone with both hands, but Bucky put it in his pocket right away. Tony stamped his feet a couple of times before dropping to the floor on his diapered butt, and he start to wail at the top of his lungs.
“Oh no, no, no, stop that right now, you know perfect well you’re just allowed two use it for two hours,” Bucky stated as he sat down on the sofa again, determined not to give in. He had gotten tired of waiting for Tony to hand him the smartphone himself. To be fair, Tony had stood up a second after Bucky had told him the time was up, but he had walked so slowly that, after thirty minutes, he still hadn’t reached Bucky, and they were only a few feet away.
“’imme!” Tony demanded, a small and chubby hand pointing at Bucky’s pocket. Bucky shook his head as he crossed his arms over his chest. “’IMME!”
“Don’t yell at me,” Bucky asked, though that only made Tony cry louder.
Bucky cringed. The scene in front of him had repeated itself every single day – once or twice, sometimes more – for the last week, and it was beginning to get on his nerves.
Truth be told, Bucky had gotten out of the habit of dealing with tantrums. Steve and he had agreed to give Tony some more freedom, and so, over the last three weeks, they had left Tony do as he wished – within the range of boundaries set to prevent Tony from getting harmed, of course. As long as Tony’s basic needs were correctly and completely fulfilled, Steve and Bucky tried not to stick their noses into Tony’s business. As a result, Tony had stopped throwing fits for every trifle, and he just lost his temper when he was truly frustrated.
However, the fact that Tony seemed to have started misbehaving once more wasn't what was bothering Bucky, but rather the reason why Tony was doing that.
Steve and Bucky had gone on a mission only once since Tony had been turned into a baby, and they had decided not to go to another one until Tony was changed back after finding out how he had reacted when they had left. Fury had respected their decision, and their presence hadn’t been required ever since. But then Loki had shown up, and he had refused to change Tony back to normality, which made this whole situation indefinitely permanent. Fury began arguing he couldn’t afford to have two super soldiers benched for who knew how long, and he ended up talking them into agreeing to go on missions once in a while, one at a time so they didn’t have to leave Tony completely alone.
Last week, they had got a call from SHIELD, and Steve had been away on a mission since then. The exact same day when Tony’s bad behavior had started. Tony denied it, and he got very grumpy when Bucky suggested such a thing, but Bucky was sure Tony was acting the way he was because he missed Steve.
They might have given Tony more space, and he was obviously enjoying it, though that didn’t mean Tony didn’t want to spend time with them at all. There were plenty of things that Tony preferred to do by himself, but there were also other things Steve and Bucky had noticed he liked it when they did them for him.
Tony didn’t let them feed him, but he had no problem with letting them hold the bottle while he drank from it. He hated when they tried to make him take a nap, but he loved to be bounced by them when he realized he was too sleepy to stay awake. He didn’t want to be scrubbed when taking a bath, but he got grumpy if they didn’t play with him while he was in the bathtub – games whose only objective was getting them wet, of course. He disliked it when they pet him and caress him so frequently, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he enjoyed an occasional hug, especially when he was feeling a little blue. And at night, Tony wouldn’t go to bed if a story wasn’t read to him. By both of them.
So, it had started that night, when Bucky had been the only one who read to him; and little by little, Bucky began to notice how Tony pouted when he was the only one who showed up, or when he did the things Steve was usually in charge of; until he reached the point where he was now: losing it over everything.
That was what was bothering Bucky. Tantrums? He could definitely deal with them. What he couldn’t deal with was the fact he couldn’t do anything to prevent them, even if he knew what caused them. He couldn’t make Steve come home, and he couldn’t do anything to soothe Tony as he wouldn’t allow it.
Bucky sighed heavily after several minutes, when he realized Tony wasn’t planning on calming down any time soon. He stood up and walked closer to him once more. “Come here, you little monster,” he said with no real heat as he bended over and picked Tony up. Tony kept crying, but he also curled in the crook of Bucky’s arm, melting into his body.
_______________
“Seriously? You go away for ten days and you come back looking like a tramp?” Bucky mocked, stretching his arm so he could hold a lock of Steve’s hair in his hand.
“You know my hair grows too fast,” Steve said a bit irritatingly, pushing Bucky’s hand away. It had been one of the changes he had experienced after having been injected with the serum. The only reason he always looked so impeccable was because he shaved every day and got a haircut frequently. “You’re one to talk,” he pointed out, pulling one of Bucky’s wisps of hair.
“I don’t mind having long hair,” Bucky claimed, shrugging. “You’re the one who wants to get a haircut every single week. And what’s the deal with the beard?”
“It’s not like I could stop to shave during the mission,” Steve pointed out, taking a hand to his chin to caress his beard. “I don’t like having long hair, but I think I’m keeping the beard, what do you think?”
“Well, now you’ll look like the old guy you are,” Bucky sneered, Steve pushed him to move him out of his way. Bucky laughed.
“Where is he?” Steve asked, and there was no doubt Bucky knew he was referring to Tony.
“He’s taking a nap… hey, hey, hey, no!” Bucky ordered as soon as he read Steve’s intention, grabbing him by the arm, “don’t wake him up, it was an odyssey to get him to sleep.”
“Oh, c’mon, I haven’t seen him in more than a week, I missed him,” Steve complained, lips pursing. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed being on the battlefield once more, but it was also truth that he had felt extremely homesick, anxious for not knowing how Tony was, and afraid he hadn’t even noticed his absence.
“And he missed you too, but wait until he wakes up to greet him,” Bucky asked with a serious expression.
“Really? He missed me?” Steve questioned with a surprised tone of voice. Finding out that Tony had missed him made his stomach fluttered pleasantly.
“No, wipe that goofy smile off your face, you know how grumpy he gets when he’s awaken,” Bucky warned.
“It doesn’t matter, I’ll deal with him. Besides, if he missed me, he’s going to be happy to see me, isn’t he?” Steve reasoned. Bucky sighed deeply before letting his arm go.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Bucky stated as walked towards the couch and sat on it, reaching for the TV remote.
Steve didn’t bother to stay and listen to what Bucky had to say, instead, he turned around and made a beeline to the nursery, smiling to himself when he heard the soft melody coming from inside. Tony hated the musical mobile that hung from his crib, and he threw a tantrum every time they turned it on when he was awake, so they waited until he was asleep to do it, because it certainly helped him to sleep more peacefully.
Pushing the door opened, Steve made his way to the crib and leaned over one of its sides. Tony was lying on his back, mouth slightly open, and right arm hugging a dog plushie to his chest. For someone who claimed to dislike stuffed animals, Tony always ended up grabbing one in his sleep.
"Sweetheart," Steve called after a few minutes. Watching Tony sleep was something he found very soothing, and he would have gladly done that all afternoon, but he also wanted to interact with him, and to do that, he needed him to be awake. "Baby, daddy's home," he announced, raising his voice a little. Tony stirred, but he didn't wake up.
After trying to wake him up for some more minutes without achieving it, Steve put down the side of the crib carefully and bended over until his face was a couple of inches away from Tony’s tummy. He took some seconds to inhale that baby smell he totally loved, and then he started pressing kisses to Tony’s belly.
It wasn’t long before Tony slowly began to come awake. He made a little whiney sound while he stretched out and then his eyes fluttered open, blinking several times before he was able to focused on anything. Steve kept the kisses coming, just stopping to smile widely when Tony noticed his presence, and he would have continued giving him kisses if Tony hadn’t crawled to the corner of the crib crying at the top of his lungs, calling for Bucky.
“Great job, daddy,” Bucky said a bit sarcastically as he appeared at the door, crossing the room in four strides. “That’s why I told you not to wake him up,” he scolded, sliding his arms under Tony’s armpits and lifting him up, “ohh, it’s okay, doll, it’s okay,” he soothed Tony, bouncing him gently at the same time he rubbed his back. Bucky glared at him on his way out of the nursery, leaving Steve with a baffled expression on his face.
What on earth had just happened?
_______________
“Tony, come on baby, come to dada,” Steve begged, motioning for Tony to ‘come here’ with his hands, arms extended. Just as he has been doing for the last thirty minutes, Tony shook his head energetically while his hands clutched Bucky’s t-shirt like his life depended on it. “Yes baby, come here,” he insisted.
“Stop that, you’re gonna upset him again,” Bucky ordered, a disapproving look on his face.
“But I just don’t get it, what did I do? Are you mad at me for leaving, sweety? Because if that’s the case, I promise I won’t go on missions anymore,” Steve assured, placing a hand on Tony’s back. Tony shook it off right away. “Come on, Tony, don’t be like that with me. Come here,” he said before lifting Tony from Bucky’s lap and placing him on his.
“Papa!” Tony cried, hands reaching for Bucky desperately. Bucky raised an eyebrow at Steve.
“Come on, Tony, tell me why you you’re mad at me,” Steve pleaded, trying to keep Tony in place.
“Papa!”
“Is it because I didn’t say good bye to you? I’m so sorry, baby, but I left very early and I didn’t want to wake you up,” Steve apologized as he rubbed a thumb against Tony’s tummy, though the caress went probably unnoticed due to how much Tony was moving in his attempt to go back to Bucky.
“Papa!” Tony called again, this time with tears in his eyes, Bucky reach for him and held him against his chest immediately.
“That’s enough, stop upsetting him,” Bucky ordered.
“But I want to know what’s wrong,” Steve whined, furrowing his brow when Bucky hugged Tony in such protective way Steve knew the chances of him being able to hold him again were non-existent.
“You really don’t know what happened?” Bucky asked, sounding a bit surprised.
“You do?”
“Well, I would’ve gotten a bit unsettled too if I’d been awaken by Bigfoot,” Bucky commented.
“Hey!”
“Go and get rid of the extra hair,” Bucky ordered getting up from the couch and walking towards the window.
_______________
“Tony, the piece doesn’t fit there,” Steve pointed out, refraining himself from chuckling when Tony tried to put two pieces together – that clearly didn’t match – by hitting them.
“No!” Tony ordered right after he saw Steve picking up some of the pieces.
“What? Why not?” Steve asked, voice confused.
“No! Me!” Tony clarified as he crawled closer to Steve, his small hands reaching for the pieces.
“What’s the point of asking me to play with you if you won’t let me help you?” Steve questioned, letting Tony take the pieces of the puzzle from his hand. Tony’s cheeks puffed into a pout, and Steve couldn’t help leaning forward a little to press a kiss to one of them.
“NO!” Tony complained, slapping Steve’s thigh.
“Hey, no hitting,” Steve scolded, giving him one more kiss.
“’TOP!” Tony demanded as he hit him one more time, earning another kiss. “NOO!”
“If you don’t stop hitting me, I won’t stop kissing you,” Steve warned right when Tony raised his hand, threatening to slap him once more. Tony’s pout deepened, but he lowered his hand and he focused on the pieces he had taken away from Steve minutes before.
A one-thousand-piece round jigsaw puzzle that, once completed, was supposed to be a rainbow palette. Leave it to Tony to want to play with something like that. Despite being round, Tony hadn’t struggled with pulling out all the edge pieces and connecting them, but now that it was time to put together the center pieces, well, it was turning out to be quite difficult, and Tony’s patience had certainly shrunk as well as his body.
“I don’t think those go there either,” Steve commented.
“Me!” Tony protested, making Steve sigh.
It was a matter of time before Tony got frustrated and lost it. Steve didn’t want to have to deal with a tantrum when they were supposed to be having a good time. When Tony began throwing the pieces which refused to fit, Steve lifted him up and placed him on his lap. Tony didn’t like it that much when Steve tickled him, though he also seemed to have a hard time getting mad after he had laughed so much, as his brain focused more on trying to even his breathing than on whatever it had upset him.
With that in mind, Steve pulled Tony’s t-shirt over his head and started blowing raspberries directly on his bare belly. Tony shrieked at the sensation and began wriggling around in an attempt to get free, but Steve’s kept him in place gently and effortlessly. Although it was obvious he was trying to refrain himself from doing so, Tony started squealing with laughter, something that encourage Steve to continue. Tony’s giggles were music to his ears.
Shamefully, those squeals turned into cries from one moment to the next, and Steve was taken aback when he found himself with a wailing Tony in his arms, batting at his head frantically.
“Did you seriously just make him cry?” Bucky asked as he appeared on Steve’s left side, startling him.
“He was laughing two seconds ago, I swear,” Steve defended himself, not putting up resistance when Bucky bended over and picked Tony up. Bucky pursed his lips in disapproval.
_______________
“Tony, quit it, it hurts,” Steve complained. It didn’t really hurt, but he had to admit having someone pulling your beard constantly was sort of annoying.
“No!” Tony refused as he slapped him. Okay, Steve had been mistaken, having someone slapping your face constantly was more annoying.
“Come here, doll,” Bucky said, grabbing Tony by the arm and pulling him gently towards him. Tony whined loudly. “No, Tony, stop bothering you Dada.”
“No, leamme!” Tony ordered, hands pushing Bucky’s arm away. “Dada, pick!”
“No, because you’re going to continue hitting me,” Steve argued, arms folding over his chest, determined not to give in.
“No, pick!” Tony promised as his little arms reached for him.
“Yes, you are.”
“No! Dada!” Tony pleaded with a shaky voice.
Steve sighed heavily before letting Bucky know with a tired nod that it was fine for him to let Tony free. Without any delay, Tony climbed down Bucky’s lap and crawled towards Steve.
“Up!” Tony demanded, and as soon as Steve scooped him up and brought him to his chest, Tony’s small hand restarted the tugging and the slapping.
“You should at least take some seconds to pretend that you weren’t thinking on breaking your promise as soon as you made it,” Steve complained, pushing Tony’s hands away.
“Seriously dude, what did you do to him?” Bucky questioned, not even trying to hide the mock on his face.
“Nothing! I swear!” Steve defended himself as he moved his head out of reach of Tony.
“Then why this obsession with your beard? I mean, I do think you look like a cheap imitation of Thor, but it’s not like I hate it,” Bucky commented, Steve glared at him. “You must’ve done something, because he certainly seems to hate it.”
“I don’t really know what had gotten into him,” Steve assured. And he really didn’t know.
Tony loathed it when his beard came into contact with his skin, the many times he had burst into tears right after Steve had begun kissing him repeatedly or blowing raspberries had made Steve sure of that. Steve didn’t blame him, Tony’s skin was more sensitive now and his facial hair wasn’t exactly silky. The fact that Tony had gotten a slight beard burn shouldn’t have been that shocking.
Because of that, Steve had stopped those displays of affection, believing that would be enough not to upset Tony anymore. And that should have been enough, after all, Tony had certainly let him know he didn’t enjoy how affectionate Steve was, but it wasn’t. Tony seemed to dislike his beard in general, and Steve had had to deal with a baby who apparently thought the only way there was to get rid of it was pulling out hair by hair.
“Tony, seriously, stop it, I’m gonna get mad at you,” Steve warmed with a serious tone of voice.
“No!”
“Jesus Tony, what problem do you have with my beard? I’ve apologized several times for hurting you with it, I promise I won’t do it again,” Steve said for who knows what time that week.
“No! Chave!” Tony ordered, stretching as much as he cool to reach Steve’s face.
“I already told you I’m not shaving it.”
“No wike it!” Tony informed, cheeks puffed in a pout.
“But I do,” Steve argued.
“No!” Tony denied, finally reaching Steve’s beard and pulling it yet one more time.
Steve just winced at the wail that escaped from Tony’s mouth when he stood up and placed Tony on Bucky’s lap.
_______________
“Dada!” Tony called him as he tugged at his sweatpants. Steve stopped chopping the carrots for a moment to look down at him, and he couldn’t help frowning when Tony raised his arms wanting to be scooped up. “Up!”
“I already told you I’m busy making lunch,” Steve said, returning his focus to the carrots.
“Dada!” Tony insisted, tugging at his pants again.
“Busy.”
“I ’ep!” Tony offered.
“I don’t need help, I’m almost done,” Steve lied. Tony liked helping with preparing meals every now and then – Steve suspected he did that just as a way to try to ingest something he wasn’t supposed to – but right now he was completely sure the only reason Tony wanted to be picked up was because of that obsession with his beard.
“No! Dada!” Tony whined as he stamped his feet in anger.
“Tony, if you keep distracting me, lunch will never be ready,” Steve warned, though he doubted Tony cared about that.
“Up!”
“Would you please take him?” Steve asked, fixing his eyes on Bucky.
Bucky calmly took a sip from his water bottle before answering, “You know he’d cry if I do that.”
“But I’m gonna end up stepping on him,” Steve said, pursing his lips at how Tony stubbornly followed him on his way to the fridge.
Yesterday, Steve had knocked him over by accident, and even if Tony hadn’t gotten hurt, Steve had felt awful. He had missed Tony terribly when he was away on a mission, and he definitely liked it when Tony willingly wanted to be around him, but having him chasing after him whenever he went during all day was beginning to be a bit too much.
“Why don’t you save it off? He’s not gonna stop harassing you until you do,” Bucky assured.
“But I like it.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t,” Bucky pointed out.
“But I can’t understand why, my beard doesn’t go near you anymore.” Steve directed the last sentence to Tony. “I mean, tell me a good reason why I should shave it besides the fact that you don’t like it. Tell me why you don’t like it, and I will shave it,” he promised. A scowl appeared on Tony’s face before he kicked Steve in the ankle, clearly tired of having his demands ignored. “Hey! Don’t start with that,” he ordered, though Tony didn’t hesitate to throw another kick at him, “no, we’re not doing this again.”
Steve wiped his hands on the apron and bend down to lift up Tony, holding him up away from his face. Determined, he walked closer to the highchair and set Tony in it, snapping the strap shut to make sure he didn’t fell off it.
“And now he’s crying… again,” Bucky commented. Steve took a deep breath.
_______________
"No Tony, stay right there," Steve ordered, keeping a hand in front of Tony so he didn't move closer to the edge of the armchair.
"No!"
"Yes, I need to go training and I can't take you with me," Steve explained, though Bucky knew it was futile. It was no use trying to explain something to Tony when every demand had fallen on deaf ears over the last week.
"No! Up!" Tony insisted, holding out an arm to Steve while he used the other to push Steve's hand.
"Buckyyyy," Steve called, sounding a bit too much like Clint when he complained to Phil.
"Yes?" Bucky answered, trying not to look amused.
"A little help here," Steve begged.
"He doesn't want me. He wants you," Bucky commented.
“But it’s your turn to look after him while I go training,” Steve complained.
“I know, and I’d be more than happy to take care of him. But again, he wants you,” Bucky insisted, failing to hide a smirk.
It had been kind of funny to see Steve and Tony interact lately. Normally, Steve was the one who was all over Tony trying to spend some quality time with him, and Tony was the one who demanded to be given some space; but those roles had been exchanged without a doubt. Bucky had gotten used to seeing Tony waddling behind Steve, just like a duckling following his mother. And even if Steve had clearly enjoyed it during the first couple of days, after two weeks, it had gotten on his nerves.
“He’s going to fall if you don’t take him,” Steve warned.
“Then don’t leave,” Bucky said calmly.
“Oh, c’mon!” Steve expressed, a bit upset.
“Just shave it, I’ve told you thousands of times that’s the only solution.”
“I will when he tells me why he doesn’t like it.” Steve promised, squinting at Tony, who was more concentrated on how to get rid of Steve’s arm so he could climb off the armchair.
“You complain about how stubborn he is, but you’re too.” Bucky commented.
“I just want to know why.”
“I’m shocked you still haven’t figured it out,” Bucky said, though he was sure Steve didn’t hear him, as Tony had begun crying because Steve kept ignoring his demands of moving his arm away so he could get closer to him.
_______________
If Steve was asked what the movie being played on the screen was about, he would have no idea of what to answer. It was an animated movie with some sort of robots in it, but that was pretty much everything he knew. When he settled into the couch with a small bowl of popcorns in his hands, he had had every intention of paying attention to it; and he certainly had at the beginning, before Tony started kicking him.
The first kicks passed almost unnoticed by Steve, Tony tended to wriggle a lot before settling into a comfortable position – especially when he was sitting down between Bucky and him, not wanting to be too close to them, but not too far either – so Steve had figured that was what Tony had been doing. However, when the kicks didn’t stop after some minutes, Steve couldn’t help wondering if Tony was doing it on purpose. Was he still mad at him? That couldn’t be. It was true that Tony had been hitting him a lot over the last weeks, but the problem had been his beard and Steve had already shaved it off, so what could possibly be upsetting Tony now?
Nothing, apparently. When Steve looked down at him out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Tony was leaning against Bucky’s side, his eyes focused on the TV while he gave lazy sucks to the thumb in his mouth. Tony wasn’t even paying attention to him. That had made Steve thought it had been his imagination, that Tony had been truly stretching and Steve’s thigh had just been in the way. And Steve would have kept thinking that if the kicks hadn’t continued. They weren’t frequent and they didn’t feel like Tony had been trying to hurt him (he actually couldn’t do that, but that never stop him from trying), so Steve chose to ignoring them.
But then, the kicks became more frequent, and when Steve looked at Tony once more, he was surprised to see him with his lips slightly curled into a smile.
“Hey! I knew I wasn’t imagining it,” Steve exclaimed, gently pushing Tony’s legs away from him.
“Tony, stop bothering your Dada,” Bucky ordered as he reached for the bowl of popcorns Steve had on his lap. Tony fidgeted a little, but said nothing.
Ten minutes later, when Steve thought Tony wouldn’t hit him anymore, he felt yet another kick. He looked down at Tony once more, but the former smiled innocently and pretended nothing had happened.
“If you want me to move, just say it,” Steve suggested. Maybe what Tony wanted was more space. It wouldn’t be the first time he asked for it that way. Tony shook his head, and stretched his leg to kick him once more. “If you do that again, I’m going to kiss you,” Steve warned.
“No!” Tony shrieked, earning a chuckle from Bucky. Steve didn’t know whether to feel glad because that threat seemed to always deter Tony from doing whatever bad thing he was doing, or to feel sad because of the way Tony rejected any show of affection from him.
“Well, then stop it,” Steve ordered, getting a nod for an answer. And another kick as soon as he looked away from Tony. “Okay, I warned you.”
“No!” Tony demanded when Steve leaned forward to kiss him noisily on his tummy.
“If you don’t like it, then stop kicking me,” Steve exclaimed as he pulled away fast enough so Tony couldn’t slap him on the face.
Tony puffed out his cheeks and kicked him again. “No!” he ordered, but even if he extended his arms to try to stop Steve from going closer, Steve managed to press another kiss to his stomach.
“If you weren’t going to watch the movie, why are we here?” Bucky complained.
“I was going to watch it, but your son won’t let me,” Steve argued before taking Tony’s little foot in order to pretend to eat it. If Tony thought he was going to be able to kick him on the face, he was more than mistaken.
“Papa!” Tony called when he realized he couldn’t set his foot free. Rolling his eyes, Bucky pushed Steve away and lifted Tony to place him on the other side, away from Steve.
“If you’re not going to put up with your Dada’s payback, then don’t get him started,” Bucky scolded, “Now, if you’re not going to watch the movie, tell me, so we can go to bed.”
“No!” Tony denied.
“Then, settle down… you too,” Bucky clarified before Steve could reach out for Tony when he stuck his tongue at him.
For a little while, Steve could finally pay attention to the film. There were effectively some robots in it, as well as some humans who were extremely overweight, but before he could really understand what the plot was about, he felt how something fell on his lap. He looked down at it, and raised a confused eyebrow at the popcorn that lay between his legs. Had it felt off the bowl when Bucky took it away from him? He couldn't really recall. Not that it mattered that much. He reached for the popcorn and ate it just to see another one fall right where the other popcorn had been. And another one. Somebody must have thrown them.
Steve turned his head towards Tony just in time to see Bucky raising the bowl of popcorns, away from the baby.
"'imme!"
"No, you're just throwing them," Bucky refused, extending an arm in front of Tony to prevent him from falling off the couch in his attempt to reach the bowl.
"No! Hungy!" Tony insisted.
Bucky sighed, and he pursed his lips as he grabbed one popcorn and handed it to Tony, “if you throw it again, I won’t–” But Tony had thrown the popcorn at Steve before Bucky could finish that sentence.
“Okay, that’s it, you asked for it,” Steve remarked as he stood up from the couch and walked past Bucky, kneeling down right in front of Tony so he could pin him down. In a matter of seconds, he had Tony wriggling frantically as laughed chokingly.
“You’re two of a kind,” Bucky said without being able to help smiling.
_______________
“Well, at least we won’t struggle to get him to sleep,” Bucky whispered when he saw Tony curled against Steve’s chest, eyes closed. “But I guess he’ll need a change before, you made him laugh too much.”
“He was asking for it, you saw it,” Steve defended himself, and Bucky couldn’t argue back. Every time Steve stopped tickling him, kissing him or blowing raspberries on his stomach, Tony began bothering him once more after catching his breath.
“Of course he was, you finally shaved off your beard,” Bucky said with a tone of voice that expressed how obvious his comment was.
“What does that have to do with this?” Steve asked, bewildered.
“You really are oblivious.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Steve questioned, bouncing Tony gently.
Bucky shook his head slightly. “I can’t believe you never figured out the reason why he hated your beard so much,” he said as he turned off the TV and stood up.
“You did?”
“Of course. He likes it when you kiss him, and you wouldn’t do it as long as you had that beard because you didn’t want to hurt him,” Bucky informed, turning around and heading towards the hallway, not without glancing beforehand at the goofy smile on Steve’s face.
|
Morning in the caves came with the booting up of the screens, fizzling to display the cloudy morning sky. Mallory was already awake, striding to Commander Kelp’s office.
It was quiet moments like these, when the only sound was his slippers against the floor, when he wasn’t surrounded by soldiers, or meeting other Octolings, or following the Commander around, that Mallory took the time to think about how wild his life had become.
It was easy to separate it into two- before and after Commander Kelp. Before his and after his torture.
Mallory turned down one empty hallway and into another, past the endless doors to the barracks, where soldiers would just now be waking up and donning armor. Once upon a time, he had been the secretary to a general now dead.
Kelp had made certain of that.
Once upon a time, he had been given a message to deliver. And Commander Kelp had taken that message, and taken him, and torn everything to shreds. Phantom pains ached when he thought about it. He did not want to think about it. Only a couple minutes, and he had been terrified. He was still terrified, but it was a different sort now, as though he were chasing a storm that could easily cripple him, instead of being dragged by the neck to a slow moving guillotine.
When he arrived, Commander Kelp was already awake and leaning against her office door. Her head turned to him at the sound of his slippers.
“You got the papers?”
Mallory held out the folder he’d been carrying in his arms and nodded.
“Give ‘em here.”
Odd, thought Mallory as he handed her the folder, she seems... looser today.
There were many adjectives with which Mallory would describe Commander Kelp. Coiled. Tight. Predatory. Never once did “loose” appear on that list. Yet here she was, languidly flipping through the papers in the folder. The moment felt surreal. Quiet.
“Alright, kid,” she rasped, voice scratchy in the haze of morning, “everything’s here. Nice job.”
Mallory froze.
“...thank you?” he forced out.
Kelp responded to this by patting him lightly on the head three times, before her hand stopped just above his tentacles. Mallory was trembling at her touch. The phantom pain had returned. He repressed a shiver.
Her hands on him, grabbing, pulling, twisting at his tentacles. Throat raw from screaming--
Footsteps. A click. Commander Kelp had disappeared into her office with the folder. Idly, Mallory realized he still had no idea what its contents were.
Now he would be wondering all week.
Snow flaked from the sky and crusted the tops of city buildings. Standing alone in Aaron’s apartment, staring out the window, all Don could think about was how he shouldn’t have been watching this alone.
He should have been standing there with Sandy leaning against the windowsill, with Terra and Gravel snuggling so close it was disgusting, the four of them casually bantering about something inane and irrelevant. He shouldn’t have been alone so close to Squidmas.
And yet he was, and it was all his fault.
What a fucking loser.
He caught his reflection in the window. Washed out. Too pale. Sallow. Still brooding even after he had spent so much time he had lost track already doing that. Why hadn’t he gotten a job around here? Found his own place? Or done some turf war? Or apologized to any of his teammates? Did they even want to see him? Don wouldn’t want to see himself either.
This was pathetic.
Glowering at his reflection, Don huffed.
“You’re better than this,” he told himself.
Even Aaron, annoyingly patient, had become fed up with him. He had really hit the bottom of the canyon, hadn’t he?
There was a click as the door to Aaron’s apartment swung open. Don turned, meeting Aaron’s gaze. The inkling was smiling, but upon seeing Don, that grin faded. Neither moved. The door remained open.
“I-” Don started, but had no idea what to say. Aaron sighed, closing the door behind him. Don found himself tripping over his subdued behavior. There were no enthusiastic declarations of support, nor any obvious anger like there had been the other day. Aaron just looked tired.
“You what?” he asked, after a moment.
“I am,” Don swallowed, “sorry?”
“I’m really not the one you should be apologizing to.”
May.
“She doesn’t want to see me.”
Aaron raised an eyebrow.
“Or do you not want to see her?”
Don scowled. He had been doing that a lot lately.
Aaron ignored him and kept talking.
“How many years has it been since she hurt you? Four? And you’re still not over it?”
Don’s shoulders slumped. “Five years,” he admitted, “we were thirteen. And I don’t hate her. Not anymore. But I can’t get over it.” He sat down right there on the floor, pressing his cheek to his palm. “You don’t understand. We found out what she’d done, and our prize was revoked, and I blew up at her, and then she was gone. My last memory of her was a betrayal and then nothing. She just wasn’t there.”
Aaron was silent for a moment. Then:
“May ran away to live in the city when she was thirteen? ”
Don sighed, leaning back against the wall beneath the window.
“I don’t know what she did. One day she was there, and one day she wasn’t.”
They sat in silence. After a moment, Aaron sat beside Don, the two of them staring at Aaron’s still open door, a rectangle of light beaming into the dim apartment.
“You hurt her, you know.” Aaron finally said.
“She hurt me too.” rasped Don. “She-” he sniffed.
“How did she hurt you, Don?”
“She left!” He felt like a baby. “She was my best friend and she just- she just left!” Don rubbed at his eyes, looking away from Aaron. He didn’t want the other inkling to see him cry.
“Hey,” said Aaron, “come on. Just let it go.” He pulled Don into a hug. “You’ve held onto this for too long now. Let it go.”
He was smoothing a hand over the top of Don’s head. It was... nice.
“This is- so dumb.” Don sniffled into Aaron’s shirt. “I’m better than this...”
“Shh,” whispered Aaron, “just let it go. Just let it all go.”
Mixed into Don’s embarrassment at being held was a heady rush of relief, relaxing the tension in his shoulders.
“How about tomorrow we go and apologize to May, huh? Leave all the pain behind.”
Don nodded, burrowing his face further into Aaron’s shirt. Tomorrow, yeah. Tomorrow it would all be over.
They slept in the same bed, now.
Every morning they’d wake up with their limbs tangled together. Lacey, per military training, woke at the brink of dawn. Though her left arm remained numb, movement came more easily now. On this particular morning she sat up in the greyness of May’s room, lit only by a stream of light from the shaded window. May, still asleep, was drooling on the pillow, one arm splayed to the left, the other leaning against Lacey. The bags under her eyes had lessened. She was smiling.
This felt like the past. A black and white movie, one of those film noirs that May had shown Lacey once. At any second, someone would come bursting through the room to take all this away. And she would be ready.
But instead, May was waking up. Her face was pleasant, smooth, even as she yawned. Lacey caught a glimpse sharp white teeth, then they were obscured behind two wonderful pink lips.
“Good morning, sunshine,” whispered Lacey.
“What time is it?” moaned May. She leaned over, glancing at a clock. “Seven AM? Jeez Lacey, why are we up so early?”
Lacey shrugged. “This is my normal wake up time. Why are you up so early?”
“Guess I wanted to see you.” she pushed herself upward. “To spend as much time as possible with my wonderful girlfriend!” As an accent, she planted a large, sloppy kiss on Lacey’s lips as dramatically as she could. Then they both broke into giggles.
“Let's go out today,” Lacey said, suddenly. She met May’s eyes. “We could meet your other friends. Or get ice cream.”
May’s answering smile seemed to warm the entire room. “Of course!”
|
Humans have legends about sirens calling them out to drown in the depths of the ocean.
The merfolk, of course, know that they do not need to do so. After all, the sea has her own means of luring people in.
He's back at the shoreline again.
Aomine is watching him from his usual spot, hidden behind an outcrop of rocks, most of his body submerged in the dark water.
As always, the man doesn't do anything. He doesn't throw stones, doesn't dig around in the sand as some of the littler humans do. He doesn't wander up and down with his dog, like the big red-headed one used to. He doesn't row out on a boat and try to catch fish.
Instead, he is just standing there as he does almost every night, though he seems to dare walk a little bit further with each passing day, as if the temptation is only ever growing.
Today, he is closer to the waves than ever before. His boots are standing in the wet sand, the lapping water almost grazing his toes as the flood inches its way up the beach.
Aomine has no interest in humans, neither respect nor disgust. They just are, as boring and predictable as everything else under the sun.
This one, though. This one is different.
The look on his face is the same every time. Whenever he stands there, his gazed fixed on the far-off horizon, even as the harsh winds beat his cheeks, he always has that desolate expression in his eyes. It's longing and speechlessness and desperation.
He looks lost, Aomine thinks to himself. Bereft.
A particularly eager wave unexpectedly leaps forward, drenching the human's boots. He gasps and takes a step back – but just a small one. Then, slow and unsteady, as though his body were moving on its own, he steps closer towards the water until his feet are entirely submerged.
Aomine stares. This has never happened before. Up till now, the human had never dared to actually step into the sea.
“Ryouta!” a voice suddenly calls out and the man's head snaps around, eyes drawn away from the ocean.
Another man is jogging along the shoreline at a leisured pace, but Aomine can see that his jaw is thightly set.
“Shogo,” the other man says quietly, blinking as though waking from a dream.
“What are you doing, Ryouta,” Shogo chides, grabbing him by the wrist and tugging him back, farther up the beach where the sand is still dry. “You're ruining your shoes.”
“Oh,” the other says and dumbly looks down at himself as if he had only just noticed.
“It's getting too cold out here,” Shogo claims, pulling him away step by step. “Let's go back.”
“Of course,” comes the reply, but it sounds uncertain, confused.
Together, the two leave the beach, and to Aomine's lament his human does not even glance back. Still, at least he now has a name to call him by. And Aomine knows that by tomorrow, Ryouta will be back.
Aomine doesn't care for the land. He only swims up to ride the surf and feel the sun on his skin.
The others don't understand. The others are scared.
“Stay away from the shoreline and don't fall in with humans,” Akashi warns him, and though his face is calm, his scarlet tail twitches dangerously like that of a lionfish. “Remember what happened to Tetsuya.”
Satsuki still cries a lot, inconsolable, no matter how many times Aomine offers to go pearl-diving with her.
Aomine is a merman. Humans capture and kill his kind, if the stories his elders tell are to be believed.
And Aomine can outswim any ship, is not afraid of any harpoon, but Tetsu's fate has taught him an unexpected kind of fear.
So Aomine should know better.
And he is not a siren, he does not want to lure anyone in.
Still, as dusk falls over the bleeding red sea, he sits on his rock and sings until Ryouta finally appears.
“Humans are dangerous,” Akashi reiterates upon every occasion since Tetsu disappeared. “Being killed by them is one thing. Giving up who you are, however, is unforgivable.”
Midorima is probably the smartest guy Aomine knows, apart from Akashi, and Aomine sure as hell isn't going to ask him any questions.
“There are many legends,” Midorima explains, clearly reluctant. “And most of those are make-belief at best. You shouldn't waste your thoughts on them.”
“Still,” Aomine insists. “What do they say?”
Midorima sighs, resigned.
“When one of us falls for one of them and is rejected,” he says slowly, unable to look Aomine in the eye, “We are said to perish from heartbreak and turn into seafoam.”
Looking back, Aomine should have seen it coming. Should have seen the change that was making Tetsu restless and taciturn.
“Are you swimming up to the surface, Kurochin?” Murasakibara asks guilelessly as Tetsu subtly makes his excuses. “Can you bring me some of that tasty moss that grows on the rocks?”
“Of course, Murasakibara-kun,” Tetsu says after a beat. “I will be back shortly.”
Hours pass until he returns and when he does he has forgotten the moss. The smile on his face is private and blissful, but his eyes are eternally sad.
One day, Aomine follows him.
Tetsu is sitting on a rock, much too close to the shore and in direct line of the human at the beach if he were to glance over. If Akashi knew, he'd rip Tetsu to shreds, but it's not like Aomine is gonna tell on him.
“Who is he?” he asks instead because he has a feeling Tetsu might know.
“His name is Kagami Taiga,” Tetsu replies with a serene expression, never taking his eyes off the tall, red-headed man who's gallivating up and down the beach with his four-legged companion. The human is laughing and throwing a stick that the animal chases after with obvious excitement.
“He's the son of a rich nobleman and lives nearby,” Tetsu continues. “He used to be afraid of dogs, but now that he has Nigou it has gotten much better.”
Aomine blinks, trying to parse all this.
“What are dogs?” he asks finally.
“Animals that humans keep both for work and companionship,” Tetsu explains. “I think it's quite beautiful.”
“How do you know all this?” Aomine wonders.
“I asked Midorima-kun.”
“Midorima knew the human's name?”
“Oh,” Tetsu realizes and shakes his head. “No. I found that out all by myself.”
“How long have you been watching him?” Aomine says and feels worry creeping into his voice.
“A while,” Tetsu says simply, still not looking at him. “You should go back, Aomine-kun. Momoi-san mentioned that she wants to go pearl-diving.”
So Aomine leaves him, but he doesn't go far. Instead, he only swims a little way off and watches while Tetsu watches the human.
They never discuss it. Not when Tetsu first starts behaving oddly, and not when one day he does not return from his exploits. Akashi's piercing eyes force them into silence.
Only later, when Satsuki is crying quietly, face hidden in her hands, does Aomine put his arms around her and swear to find out what happened to Tetsu.
He does not find Tetsu, no matter how many times he goes up to the surface.
Instead, he finds his own obsession.
“You don't understand, Aomine-kun,” Tetsu had told him once when Aomine had finally insisted that he stay where he belonged. “He is life, and light. I want to be a shadow under his sun.”
Back then, Aomine had indeed not understood. But now, as he looks at Ryouta with his golden hair and storm-swept gaze, he thinks that he might.
Ryouta is always there, always staring out at the sea.
Sometimes, the one named Shogo is with him, all shark-sharp grins and a voice of rolling thunder, dark and distantly threatening.
He puts his hands on Ryouta not as an anchor keeping a ship in place, but a fisher's net pulling a flurry of shimmering scales from the sea. Inconsiderate. Lethal.
Ryouta is growing more and more restless, though.
Aomine is singing to him all the time now, low and lilting, the sounds washing up against the shore and ebbing away again, a constant back and forth. A temptation.
All the songs of love and battle, of the deadly beauty of the ocean, of sailors drowing far from home. They are songs of his people, ancient as the sea herself.
So Aomine sings and waits, never quite knowing why, until one day the tides finally turn.
At the horizon, a storm is gathering, sea and sky an ominous roiling grey.
It's so dark that Aomine's tail, usually bright like a regal blue tang, gleams jetblack in the water as he rides out the growing waves.
As soon as Aomine spots movement at the shore, he can tell that something is different. Because today, Ryouta does not stop when he reaches the water. Instead, he heads straight for the sea and wades out, up to his knees, his waist, his chest.
Soon, he is neck-deep in water. Soon, he is swimming.
The underlying grace to his movements, however, is swallowed up by the francticness in his eyes. His body is jerking intermittedly, as if undecided whether to stay on his path or return to land.
On any other day, Aomine would have smirked, triumphant that the sea's call had finally gotten through to Ryouta. But with the storm growing stronger and stronger, Aomine knows that the human will not be able to keep his head over water for long.
Not wasting a second thought, Aomine goes after him.
Ryouta makes it far, farther than any other human could possibly follow him. That's why, when Ryouta finally falters, Aomine knows that he will surely drown.
“Don't trust the humans,” Akashi had said. “Don't touch them. Humans are poison all over and rotten to the core. Remember what happened to Tetsuya.”
But none of them knew what had happened to Tetsu. Whether he was turned into seafoam or skewered by a harpoon. Whether he was caught by a net and dragged away. He could even have been killed by a shark or an overpowering current. Or maybe, he was sick of Akashi's condescending and controlling habits and simply chose to stay away.
Ryouta swallows a mouthful of water, gasps, coughs, and goes under.
With a clench of his teeth, Aomine dives forward.
The rain is still coming down hard and the sand crunches under their weight as Aomine drags them ashore. He's never been on land, not like this. But then again, he's never saved a human either.
As soon as Ryouta is flat on his back, he coughs and heaves up a gush of water, rolling onto his side. He's barely conscious, his eyes flickering open and sliding shut again, their gaze unfocused and bleary.
“Hey,” Aomine tries, slapping his cheek first lightly, and then harder. Ryouta only groans.
“Fuck it,” Aomine growls and begins to sing.
“Ryouta!” a voice bellows down the beach, accompanied by thunder and lightening. “Dammit, Ryouta, where are you?!”
Within a blink, Aomine has leapt back into the shallow water, pulling himself forward on his hands like a seal, until it's deep enough to swim again. He doesn't, though, only submerges himself far enough that Shogo won't be able to see him.
“Ryouta!” Shogo calls again and it's more of a curse as he comes skitting to a stop next to Ryouta's prone body. For a moment, Shogo's glare is so angry that Aomine fears his recent effort of saving Ryouta was in vain, but then Shogo only kicks at the sand before falling to his knees and roughly pulling the other into his arms.
It's not exactly an embrace, too possessive and clutching for that, and Aomine does not like the way Ryouta's limp arms hesitantly come up to return the gesture in a weaker fashion.
“I told you to stay away from the water!” Shogo hisses. “Never do something like that again, you hear me?!”
Ryouta, obviously still whoozy, nods and offers a tentative apology. Shogo does not accept it outright, just pulls Ryouta up to his feet and drags him away.
Aomine stays long enough to see how Ryouta throws a helpless look back over his shoulder.
Days pass and Ryouta does not return. Aomine takes to checking the surface at irregular intervalls instead of just swimming up at dusk.
“Please don't go,” Satsuki begs him one day, holding on to his wrist as he is about to leave again.
He shrugs her off and swims away, not understanding her sudden clinginess. Only when he is sitting on his usual rock once more does it occur to him why she is so worried.
I am becoming like Tetsu, he realizes, eyes widening. But it does not deter him.
Instead, he starts to explore the rest of the shoreline, not just the small stretch of beach where he had seen Ryouta that first day and every time thereafter.
In one direction, there is a small village with fishing boats sitting in the sand and women untangling nets, followed by a series of fields and pastures.
The other direction is mostly covered in high cliffs that prevent Aomine from seeing much. But there must be a bigger town, and he has see bits of a grand house peeking up from behind the rocks.
He doesn't even know what he expects when he looks up, but it's certainly not to see Tetsuy walking along the winding path that leads down to the rocky beach. Walking. On legs. Like a human.
Aomine doesn't even have to think.
“Tetsu!” he yells, elation and desperation in equal measure.
Tetsu turns around and smiles.
“You didn't turn into seafoam,” Aomine observes numbly, hopelessly caught off guard by being re-united with his best friend.
“Does Aomine-kun really believe in those superstitious tales?” Tetsu chides mildly, but his expression is fond. “Also, we are only supposed to turn into foam when our love is not returned. And as you can see, Kagami-kun did not reject me.”
“Lucky me,” Kagami says and gives a dopey grin. Aomine wants to dislike him, but with the way the two idiots are looking at each other, he can't really find it in himself.
"But how?” Aomine wants to know, still not used to seeing Tetsu dressed in cloth, his skin slightly darkened by the sun, and legs in place of the pale blue scales that Satsuki used to moon over so much. “Did you just decide to grow a pair of feet?”
“I made a deal with a sea witch,” Tetsu says plainy as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. “My voice in exchange for a chance to become human.”
“But you still have your voice,” Aomine points out.
“The deal was that I would have to make Kagami-kun kiss me within three days,” Tetsu explains.
“Or else?” Aomine asks, feeling that there has to be more to it.
“Or else I would forever be enthralled to her,” the other deadpans.
“What the hell, Tetsu!” Aomine snaps and whacks him over the head. “Are you crazy?”
“I am in love,” Tetsu counters, and then he and Kagami exchange another of those disgusting looks, so Aomine decides to change the subject.
When Aomine explains that he was not actually looking for his missing friend, Tetsu is surprised.
“Aomine-kun is looking for a human?” he asks and then puts a possessive hand to Kagami's arm. “He cannot have Kagami-kun.”
“No, you idiot.” His own horrified expression is mirrored on Kagami's face. “A different human. His name is Ryouta.”
At that, Kagami blinks. “Kise Ryouta? The one who lives with Haizaki Shogo?”
“Yes!” Aomine sits up straighter. “You know him?”
“Not really. But Haizaki is a right ass,” Kagami claims and Aomine can easily believe him. “He is selfish and cruel. A while ago he returned from several months of travel, and he brought Kise with him.”
“He rarely leaves his side,” Tetsu adds. “But he seems rather unhappy.”
“I heard a rumor that he recently tried to drown himself,” Kagami adds glumly. “But Haizaki saved him.”
“He didn't,” Aomine clenches his fists. “I did.”
“Does Aomine-kun have a soft spot for humans?” Tetsu teases gently. “Or is it just for Kise-kun?”
“He likes the sea,” Aomine just says as if that would explain anything. Then again, maybe it does.
“Allegedly, some of our bretheren from other parts of the world are able to shed their skin and walk on land in human guise,” Midorima relates, this time not even trying to avoid the questions.
“Sounds useful,” Aomine comments, feeling a 'but' coming up. He is not disappointed.
“But highly dangerous,” Midorima objects. “There are several risks involved. If one were to lose one's skin, they would be unable to return to their natural form and would therefore be stranded. And the longer you are separated from the sea, the more you lose part of yourself. In fact, you might even forget who you are.”
“What if a human were to steal a merman's skin?” Aomine demands. “Would that be possible?”
“Humans are devious and cruel,” Midorima echoes what Akashi has said a hundred times. “I wouldn't be surprised.”
“So we have to find his skin,” Kagami surmizes. “Sounds easy enough.”
“He would have it hidden somewhere safe,” Tetsu muses. “We need to find it and steal it back.”
“You have to do it,” Aomine growls, for once hating that he is bound to the sea.
“We will attempt it tonight,” Tetsu promises resolutely. “Just be here at sunset.”
It's already more night than day when Tetsu and Ryouta come wandering along the shore.
“Let us take a break, Kise-kun,” Tetsu proposes, settling down in the sand. “I get tired so easily.”
“Do your feet hurt, too, Kurokocchi?” Ryouta asks, joining him. “Mine do all the time.”
His tone is light, but his gaze has already been pulled out to the ocean.
“I might even have to wait for Kagami-kun to carry me back,” Tetsu admits, sligthly abashed.
“Hm,” Ryouta nods distractedly. “What was that business deal he wanted to make with Shogo again?”
“Haizaki-kun has something in his possession that we would like to acquire,” Tetsu replies vaguely. “They should be done soon enough.”
“Good,” Ryouta says and shivers, rubbing his arms. “Shogo does not want me this close to the sea.”
“I know,” Tetsu says, but then Aomine can already see Kagami running towards them. In his arms, he carries an old tarp.
“I got it!” he crows, coming to a stop in front of the others. “Quick, before he comes to and finds us.”
“Kagamicchi?” Ryouta asks worriedly, getting to his feet. “Where is Shogo? And what is that ugly thing?”
“Your return ticket home,” Kagami answers, ignoring the first question and folding open the tarp. Immediately Ryouta gasps, reaching out a hesitant hand.
“It's beautiful,” he breathes, his voice trembling. “Did Shogo give it to you?”
“After some persuation,” Kagami says and cracks his knuckles.
“Kise-kun should try it on,” Tetsu encourages him, and this time Ryouta does not even question it.
Mesmerized, Aomine watches as Ryouta pulls the skin up and around himself.
The last sliver of red sun that remains at the horizon casts a flaming glow upon the golden scales that are fluid like water between Ryouta's fingers.
“Oh,” he sighs, barely even noticing that Tetsu starts to help him out of his man-made clothes, that his fake feet carry him closer to the cold water.
As the last light of day fades away, so does Kise Ryouta's human guise. The waves welcome him with tender caresses and quiet understanding.
His blonde head ducks under and then he is gone.
“You are not going to go after him?” Tetsu asks, but it's more of an observation than a question.
“Nah,” Aomine rubs the side of his neck, seemingly unaffected. “He'll probably try to get back to wherever he came from. And he never even knew me to begin with. You guys helped him, but he didn't even look back. I am a complete stranger.”
“But you saved him,” Tetsu points out, gently insistent. “Twice.”
“You shouldn't give up without even trying,” Kagami tells him, some sort of challenge in his voice. “After all, you wouldn't even have to strike a bargain with a sea witch.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Aomine waves them off. “I have to go now. And if Akashi doesn't rip my head off, I'll even be back for a visit. Along with Satsuki.”
Tetsu looks chagrined at the implied rebuke, but with Kagami's hands on his shoulder it's easier for Aomine to think that he has gained a new friend instead of giving up an old one.
Aomine finds himself on the surface once more, although there is no longer anyone who could still possibly hear him. He's mostly doing this for himself anyway.
All by itself, the song that trickles from his lips is one of abandonment and loneliness.
He's sprawled out on a large rock, out of sight from the shore, and his tail fin draws lazy circles through the water, an arm thrown over his face so he is not tempted to look whether by some idiotic miracle Ryouta is standing back on the beach again.
Next to him, there is a small splash, barely even enough to catch his attention. But then he can feel someone watching him. When he pulls his arm away and turns his head to the side, amber eyes with sunlight on water reflected in them are staring back at him.
“Who are you?” Ryouta asks, tilting his head to the side.
“What the hell do you care?” Aomine drawls, wanting to look away again, but still unable, even after all this time.
“I know your voice,” Ryouta says and looks like he does not understand himself.
“He promised to give it back if I went with him,” Ryouta says, anxiously running his hands along his vibrantly coloured tail, as if to make sure that it is really still there. “Every day, I asked and every day he promised. Eventually, I stopped asking. Eventually, I forgot. I only knew my name because he called me by it. And still, all I wanted was the sea.”
His turns his eyes on Aomine once more, wide and searching. “I never quite believed the scary stories I was told. Are all humans this cruel?”
“Many,” Aomine admits. “But not all.”
“I have missed the ocean,” Ryouta says, tilting his head back with a small, relieved smile. “I want to weave sea shells in my hair and play with dolphins. I want to go whale-surfing and pearl-diving.”
“You should meet my friend Satsuki then,” Aomine huffs, rolling his eyes.
“Really?” Ryouta asks and his voice is timid in a way that shows he's had to ask for permission for too long. “May I? Stay here, that is?”
“Sure,” Aomine shrugs, even as a pleasant shiver runs down his spine. “Under one condition, though.”
For a moment, Ryouta looks wary, but also curious. “What is it?”
“You have to race me back to my grotto!” Aomine calls and a moment later he already has a head-start.
“Wait!” Ryouta complains, hot on his fins. “I don't even know where your grotto is!”
“You wouldn't make it there first anyway!” Aomine laughs and then chokes on a mouthful of water as a golden blur passes him by.
“Catch me, Aominecchi!” Ryouta dares him and his allure is even greater than that of the sea.
|
Mark opens his eyes to a bright shock of green; he didn’t even remember falling asleep. After having sex with Sean, he remembers pulling the covers over them both, twining their legs together, and talking well into the night because Sean was too hyper to sleep. Sean had a cute sleeping face. It was strange seeing him so peaceful and quiet. Mark runs his fingers through the dyed hair and pushes it away from Sean’s sleeping face. That was apparently too bold of a move, because soon after Sean opens his eyes just a little, squinting against the morning light. Mark smiles down at him, and Sean just tugs the covers over his head and tries to turn around and go back to sleep. Mark tugs the covers down again and is struck by Sean’s sleepy glare, “Hey there. You are definitely not a morning person, are you?” Sean gives up on hiding beneath the covers and sits up with a long sigh.
“Mornin’ Mark,” Jack says, stretching his arms high above his head. He almost misses a quiet snicker coming from his bedmate and turns to look at Mark just in time to see him bite his lips and look away, pretending nothing happened. “What?” “Uhh… Nothing!” Mark raises his eyebrows and tries to look innocent but Jack doesn’t buy it. “Yeah right. What is it, Mark?” This time Mark didn’t even bother hiding his giggle. “Merk,” Mark mumbled between giggles. “What?” “You called me Merk, like M-E-R-K. It’s cute.” “Fuck’s sake, Mark!” The outbust rips out another short round of laughter from the other. “It’s too early for this shite.” “You are more Irish in the mornings. It’s so funny.” Jack was trying to be mad, but he takes one glance down and sees Mark looking adorable: his eyes are all squinty, his shoulders are shaking from laughing, and his bed-head is out of control against the pillowcase. Jack tries to hold on to his annoyance, but the image forces a smile out of him. “Damn these leprechauns hidin’ me lucky chaerms.” He gets in on the joke and forces his accent even more just to see Mark smile. Mark looks at him with mirth in his dark eyes, “Hey, would you be offended if I told you I have Lucky Charms in my kitchen?” “Not as long as we don’t eat it for breakfast today.” “Oh come on, I did something Irish last night, why can’t I do something Irish for breakfast?” The sudden flirt takes Jack by surprise; it was quite impressive. “Well, if you wanted to do something Irish for breakfast, you could’ve just asked me.” This shuts Mark up almost immediately. Jack licks his lips: it is so fun to tease Mark. “Oh…” Jack can almost see the loading screen in Mark’s brain as he processes that sentence. “Does that mean-” “Buuut, since you decided to make fun of my accent… I demand breakfast first. Oh, and no Lucky Charms.” Jack is starting to feel hungry anyway. It was better to interrupt any naughtiness before proper nutrition. Mark still looks a little horny but laughs at his joke anyway, “Alright, you can finish waking up, and I’ll go check what we can do for breakfast.” Mark surprises him with a loud smooch on top of the head before picking up his underwear from the floor and walking out the door.
Mark is proud to be a decent cook. His mom spent a lot of time working once his father passed, and inevitably he had to learn how to fend for himself in the subject of meals. The same could not be said for his brother, which was only a bigger incentive to cook more often. While Mark is cutting up a carrot and some green pepper for an omelet, Sean shows up in the kitchen. He looks tiny and sweet, still half asleep and rumpled, dressed in the previous night’s underwear. Mark asks him to help chop some tomatoes while he sets the table. “Ya know, you look unfairly good in the mornings.”It seemed Sean was more like himself after a few sips of coffee and some breakfast, “You should never wear a shirt again.” He was making little noises of approval with every bite he took. Mark preens a little from the compliment. It is nice to know he still looks good the morning after without the fog of lust to cloud things up. He knows he is still a little too green to have made an impression on Sean last night, but he is willing to learn if he gets the chance to practice. Speaking of practice… “Hey, wanna share a shower after we finish this up?” Mark tries sounding hot. He makes full use of his deep voice, but as he looks up, he finds Sean frozen with his fork halfway up his open mouth. It didn’t seem very effective. Sean lowers his fork and licks his lips a little nervously. “Mark, I don’t know how else to say this…” In an instant Mark’s heart drops to his stomach and he reconsiders everything he has done so far. Maybe he misread the situation somehow? “It’s just that…” Sean scrunches up his face and covers his eyes with his hands. “I fucking hate shower sex” Sean peeks at him from between his fingers, looking red in the face and insecure. “Oh, that’s it? Alright then, we won’t have any.” Mark sighs, “You scared me there for a second.” “Sorry.” Sean drops his hands back down on the table and starts fidgeting with his fork. “You can take the first shower if you want.” “I just told you we don’t need to have sex. We can still shower together. I do have some self control, you know.” Sean looks surprised. It breaks Mark’s heart a little bit that Sean hadn’t even considered that, but Sean makes it all better by ducking his head down and smiling shyly.
If Jack thought Mark looked good shirtless before, he was definitely unprepared for naked, wet Mark. The water feels nice and warm, and the shower stall is small enough that they have to squeeze past each other every time they switch up positions. Mark offers to soap up his hair for him and Jack readily agrees. Mark’s fingers feel really nice even when he playfully tugs at the strands trying to sculpt a mohawk. They share soapy kisses under the stream of water. It is a whole new kind of intimacy that is both endearing and scary as fuck. How can he be so attached to this guy already? Jack understands he is attracted to the good guy vibes Mark practically oozes, but it still seems a little extreme to feel this giddy just to be around him. He tests Mark’s patience a little by rubbing up against him and kissing him deep, all slick and warm. Mark grabs him by the ass for a while and Jack can feel him starting to get hard pressed up against him, but Mark doesn’t try to escalate anything and eventually lets go of his butt and goes back to cleaning himself up. It feels like a small eternity before they get out of the shower and start toweling off. Mark lends him a fresh pair of underwear, just so he wouldn’t have to reuse the ones from the previous day. Jack bends down and tugs on a pair of light blue boxer shorts that are just a little too big on him. He hears a weird groan coming from behind him and turns to look over his shoulder. Behind him is Mark, eyes dark, face flushed, and holding on tightly to the towel strategically placed in front of his crotch. He was fooling absolutely no one. “So let me guess… I look pretty good in your clothes?” Mark approaches him slowly, drops his towel on the floor and hugs him from behind pressing a soft kiss against the nape of Jack’s neck. “You smell like my shampoo now,” Mark mutters, and Jack feels his voice almost like a caress. “It’s doing things to my brain.” The boxers end up on the ground soon after. Mark grinds against him from behind and reaches around to give him a hand job. Jack has to focus on not letting his knees buckle. Mark’s hands on his dick and all the wet kisses on his neck and shoulders, combined with the rough texture of Mark’s stubble, are bordering on overstimulation. He breathes a sigh of relief when Mark stops his kisses to peer over Jack’s shoulders to admire his job well done, but the sigh turns into a moan once Mark decides to use his free hand to torment Jack’s nipples. They get a little messy after that and Mark has to find him a new pair of boxers that is not stained with cum.
Jack leaves Mark’s place a bit later than he had planned. He has just enough time to drop by his place to change his clothes before going to the Red Leopard studio. He picks out clothes that are comfortable and easy to take off, since today he would have to deal with the costuming department, which meant a lot of trying things on and taking them off over and over. They might do the hair and make-up tests on the same day too. On one hand it would mean he wouldn’t have to come back again, but on the other, doing it all at once would mean he had a full afternoon ahead of him. He almost changes into one of his own pairs of underwear but hesitates when he goes to take off the one borrowed from Mark. It was probably a bit weird to want to keep them on, but it felt nice to walk around with something of Mark’s. Costuming is even more chaotic than he expected. Jack meets his co-star for the scene; they would do their costume tests at the same time to see if they matched as a couple. Jack didn’t end up with the role he was really hoping for, but playing the office intern wouldn’t be too bad. They make Jack try on at least ten different button up shirts before choosing a simple white shirt with a little black trim on the collar as his main costume. It feels like cheap fabric and it is a little too big on him, but the team would still stuff him full of pins to take in any extra fabric. At least his tie options were a little more expensive looking. Selecting his underwear takes them no time at all: apparently it is a consensus that he looks good on white boxer briefs. After every change of clothes, they take a quick picture of him. By the time they finally decide what trousers he is going to wear, Jack is certain that they must have filled a memory card full of him looking bored in a bazillion different clothing combinations. Hair and makeup feel like a relief after so much movement. Jack is finally able to sit back and let them do whatever they liked on his face. The lady in charge of his makeup notices some redness on the side of his neck and scolds him a little for getting a stubble burn for her to cover up, Jack mentally curses Mark a little bit and tries to convince the woman that the redness is just a minor allergy to his laundry detergent. She rolls her eyes, clearly not buying any of it, but doesn’t mention it again. Jack hates getting marks, not only does his pale skin make them too obvious, but unlike Mark’s underwear, he can’t leave them behind when he wants to.
|
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE
Hermione stared down at the words she'd copied down onto her piece of parchment. She hadn't gotten the handwriting quite right—what she wouldn't give for a pen instead of her quills, which had a habit of distorting her handwriting with extra ink—but she assumed whoever had written it had changed theirs up, anyway. The letters were in evenly written uppercase script. From the way the strokes slanted, she thought the writer was right-handed, but that really was no help. Underneath the heir's message were her notes from Professor Binns' class and the tidbits of information she'd found in old library books. And below that were notes on the hissing Harry had heard in the walls. It was one of their biggest clues, but also the most confusing.
"Tell me what the hissing said again," Hermione said, dipping her quill in ink and grabbing another sheet. Knowing the specifics of memories tended to fade quickly, she'd gotten Harry to write everything down as soon as possible, but maybe a second time would be useful.
Harry first glanced around—the three of them were in an empty corner of the library, but Filch had taken to jumping out from corners at them, trying to discover something incriminating—and then began to recite the events of a couple days ago.
"The first thing I heard when we got out of Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party was just hissing, then I realized it was saying kill. And tear, things like that. Not full sentences."
"Did it sound intelligent?"
"No. I don't know. Maybe. It was hungry. It was going after someone, saying it smelled blood. And that's when we found Mrs. Norris."
"Did you hear any sounds after we got to Mrs. Norris?"
"No—or maybe a little bit of hissing, like it was getting farther away. I was distracted."
Hermione nodded. Harry hadn't remembered anything new. She placed her quill down and rested her head in her hands. Oh, it was the most irritating thing in the world, the knowledge that she could learn and learn and there would still be so many things she wouldn't know! Some days, that idea was a fantastic one, because she loved learning, but right now it was just terrible.
"I don't know why we're doing this," Ron said, sighing. "The professors have it covered. They'll find out who did it in a week or something and Filch'll stop giving us dirty looks."
Hermione gave him a dirty look. "This is important! We need to prove our innocence."
"And you're curious," Ron retorted, eyebrow raised.
"Hrumph." Well, Ron wasn't wrong.
Harry grinned at her. "It's okay, Hermione. We'll figure it out way before the professors. There's no one better at figuring things out than you."
"He's right," Ron said. "But also let's not skip dinner tonight; yesterday was killer. I don't study well on an empty stomach."
Hermione was pretty sure Ron just didn't study well at all, but she let it slide. "You said it sounded like hissing? Was it like snakes hissing? Or pipes? Air? Something else?"
Harry's brow furrowed. "It sounded distorted and far away, but more like a snake than anything else. Actually… now that I think about it, it sounded a little like the snake I talked to at the zoo before I started Hogwarts."
"Was it a magical zoo?" Hermione asked. "I heard there's one in France, it sounds amazing—so many different animals!—but I've never been."
"No, it was a regular snake. A boa constrictor."
"And you understood it?" Hermione asked. She looked over at Ron, who knew a more about the magical world than she or Harry did simply due to growing up in it. His face was ashen as he stared wide-eyed at Harry. "Ron?"
"You—you talked to a snake?" Ron asked. "Was it just that snake?"
"No, I tried talking to the snakes I found in the woods last summer near Privet Drive and understood them, too. They weren't as smart as the boa but they were still better company than Dudley. Was I not supposed to? I didn't think it counted as underage magic since I wasn't using my wand at all."
"It's called parseltongue," Ron explained. "The snake language. It's evil. They say Salazar Slytherin spoke it. That's why the Slytherin house symbol is a snake."
"Oh," Harry said, looking down at the books he'd left open.
Hermione's mind was spinning all over the place, but the most important thing was, "Don't be silly, Ron. Of course it's not evil. If Harry knows it, then it can't be evil. Right?"
There was only one answer to that question, the glare she put into her eyes said.
Ron quickly nodded. "Right." To Harry, he said, "It's a stupid superstition, mate. Nothing to worry about. Actually it's a good thing that you can speak parseltongue; that really narrows down our search. There can't be that many snakes who can petrify crazy old cats."
Still looking a little spooked, Harry said, "You mean it? It doesn't scare you?"
And Ron didn't need prodding this time to immediately say, "Never. You're my best mate—both of you—and some ruddy snake stuff isn't going to change that."
Hermione really did have the best friends. Even if one of them had a strange knowledge of the snake language and the worst propensity for getting into trouble. But, it wasn't as though Harry's parseltongue abilities really mattered in the grand scheme of things. After a couple days, whether or not they found a creature who fit their profile, they would tell the professors their suspicions and everything would be back to whatever passed for normal at Hogwarts.
That day, they'd only started their search for the creature. They left the library with a tower of books and a stern word from Madam Pince about bringing them all back or else. Hermione managed to go through one of the books before bed, and one during breakfast in between Harry and Ron's prodding for her to eat. And then that evening was the night of Professor Lockhart's new dueling club. Hermione hadn't planned to go—Professor Lockhart was amazing, and handsome, and oh so charming, but she really did have better things to do—but she tagged along with Harry and Ron anyway.
Harry had the luck of getting chosen as an assistant, despite Hermione being right there and eager to be noticed by Professor Lockhart, but she could forgive him since it wasn't really his fault. She wasn't sure she wanted to try a spell for the first time in front of so many people, anyway.
And then Malfoy summoned a snake to the middle of the dueling platform and Harry's spell turned into a hiss and Hermione only just managed to muffle her gasp. The people around her didn't try at all.
It was obvious to her that all Harry was doing was trying to calm the snake down; he'd even leaned over a bit, like people did with small frightened animals. But no one else saw it that way. What seemed like the whole student body was staring at her friend with absolute horror on their faces. Hermione shared a panicked looked with Ron, but it wasn't panic because of Harry's skill.
This was just one more thing Harry was going to be alone in, Hermione thought, and something deep in her bones ached. For all that she was Harry's friend, she couldn't help bear any of his burdens. He was the Boy-Who-Lived, the only living person to speak Slytherin's tongue…
As far as anyone knew.
A thought crept into her head. She took a millisecond to wonder if this was really a good idea and decided it was a fantastic one. Hermione turned to Ron with a determined expression.
"No," Ron said, automatically.
Hermione pulled him up onto the dueling stage with her anyway. While professors Snape and Lockhart were arguing about who was going to banish the snake, she walked over to Harry's right side, and Ron took his other side. Harry was still trying to calm the snake, but he noticed them when Hermione took his hand.
Hermione breathed in one deep breath, started glaring evilly because it seemed like the wizarding world was completely convinced one had to be evil to be a parselmouth, and began to copy Harry's hissing.
"Mum's going to kill me," Ron whispered, but he followed her lead.
If the wizarding world was going to hate Harry for being a parselmouth, well at least he wasn't going to be alone.
When she looked back at Malfoy, she found he'd fainted.
|
Dean’s head was throbbing when Benny dropped him off at his dorm early the next morning.
“I’m an idiot,” he said aloud, sitting in the passenger’s seat of Benny’s truck. He heard Benny laugh beside him.
“Sure are, Deanno. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna head back to my apartment and clean up your mess before I sleep in until noon.”
Dean snapped out of his trance. “Oh, man, I’m really sorry about -.”
Benny held up a hand. “Hey, I offered. It’s no problem, brotha’.” He smiled. “What are friends for?”
Dean sighed, relieved that Benny wasn’t angry. He had gotten so drunk the night before, he hardly remembered what happened, but when he woke up that morning, his phone was dead, he wished he was dead, and Benny’s living room was trashed.
“No chick flick moments, man,” Dean chided. “I have class in a couple hours, so I have time to shower off the alcohol.”
“And…?” Benny asked, awaiting a reply.
“And apologize to Cas for being an absolute imbecile, yeah yeah yeah,” Dean finished quickly, opening the car door and waving Benny off before closing it again.
“Atta boy,” Benny chucked. “Good luck!”
After Benny drove away, Dean walked past his baby in the parking lot and leaned on the hood. It was early, and the morning air held the slightest trace of autumn. Suddenly, he remembered that he’d left Cas’s blue roses in the back of the car, and pulled out his keys. Dammit. He walked over to the back door and pulled it open, reaching down to grab the vase by its neck. Most of the roses had wilted, but a few of them were somehow still in good shape. After closing the door and locking the Impala, Dean made his way up to his room. He moved slowly and quietly, as to not wake Cas, but when he tiptoed inside, Cas wasn’t there.
“Hmm,” Dean hummed, checking the bathroom. Maybe he had an early class today? Dean checked Cas’s desk, and his bag was gone. He shrugged, placed the vase on Cas’s dresser, then plugged his phone into its charger on his bedside table. He stripped out of his clothes to take a long shower. As the water sprayed down onto his back, he leaned his head against the tile. Who gets shitfaced on a Sunday night?
After standing in the shower for what seemed like ages, Dean stepped out, rubbing a towel through his hair before drying off his body. Before he could stop in front of the mirror, he heard his phone ringing.
Maybe it’s Cas,
he thought, rushing out of the bathroom to grab his phone. Castiel’s name appeared on the screen, and Dean felt a mixture of relief and nervousness. He picked up.
“Cas, hey, look, I’m really so-.”
“Is this Dean Winchester?” A strange voice asked, a woman, and Dean tensed. What the hell?
“Yes? Who the hell is this?” Had Cas gone off with some chick for the night? Dean’s head swam with possibilities and he felt himself clenching his fists.
“My name is Sheriff Mills. Now, this phone was located near a crime scene where a young man was found a couple hours ago. Your number seems to be the last one dialed, so I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
Wait, what? Sheriff? Crime scene?
Dean sat down on his bed. What the hell was this woman going on about?
“Questions about what? Did something happen? Is Cas okay?” Dean asked, frantic. Cas called? He hadn’t heard his phone…but then again, he had been drunk, and then his phone died. Fuck.
“Castiel Novak? So you do know him?” the Sheriff asked.
“Of course I know him, we’re-!” Dean paused, wondering if he should even mention what they were. Was he a suspect? “He’s my roommate,” Dean said, trying to stay calm. “We’re roommates.”
“Oh, alright,” said Sheriff Mills, and Dean heard a pen scratching paper over the phone. “May I ask where you were last night?”
Shit.
“I was at a friend’s-.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
I’m a fucking suspect.
“Yes, Benny Lafitte, what the hell is going on?”
The Sheriff sighed and Dean’s body tensed. He’d watched enough television to know that he wasn’t about to get any good news.
“Sheriff?” he asked, slight whimper in his voice. Dean cleared his throat and asked, “Is he…?”
“Mr. Novak is alive, as far as I know,” Sheriff Mills responded, “but he’s in bad shape. I can’t discuss details, because this is an ongoing investigation, but we got a call about a student unconscious on the edge of the college campus, and the paramedics rushed him to the hospital after confirming a pulse… Hello?”
Dean had put the phone on speaker in order to get dressed as quickly as possible. He threw on the first pair of jeans he could reach and pulled on a plain green shirt. His vision was blurred, and he didn’t realize that there were tears in his eyes until he had to wipe the wetness away with the tips of his fingers.
“Mr. Winchester, are you there?”
“Yes, I’m- uh, yes.” Dean said loudly, stuffing his wallet into his back pocket and scrabbling to find his keys. He had to get to Cas. I have to get to him now. “Which hospital did you say Cas was at, Sheriff?”
“Mr. Novak was taken to the university hospital, since it was closest-.”
“Thank you, Sheriff.” Dean said quickly before ending the call. He looked around the room in a panic, keys in hand, trying to remember if he knew how to get to the hospital. Can I even drive right now? Dean was well aware of his hung over state, but that didn’t matter. He was also well aware that he had classes to attend, but that didn’t matter either. He needed to get to Cas. All that mattered was Cas.
He’s alive.
Dean bolted out of the room and headed for the stairs. He realized that he still had no clue what had happened. Had Cas simply passed out? Then it wouldn’t have been a crime scene, you idiot. He knew he really shouldn’t drive, but how else was he supposed to get to the hospital? He couldn’t call Benny and drag him into his problems again. He could call Sammy, but he didn’t want his little brother to see him like this – a hung over, guilt ridden, anxious mess. He was on his own.
This is my fault.
Sliding into the impala and shifting into drive, Dean carefully made his way towards the direction of the university hospital. It was located five minutes outside campus, he remembered, but he’d made it there in under two, unsure of how he managed not to get pulled over.
After parking in the visitor lot, Dean rushed through the main doors of the hospital and toward the reception desk.
“How may I help you?” the nurse at the desk asked.
“I’m looking for a patient? Castiel Novak?”
The nurse typed on her computer, and her relaxed expression turned pensive.
“He’s alive?” Dean asked, feeling desperate. What if he was too late?
“Yes, yes, he’s alive,” the nurse nodded, “but had to have surgery to fix some fractured ribs… Are you family?”
Broken ribs? Had someone hurt Cas?
Dean released a sharp breath. “No, not family, but is he alright? Can I see him?”
The nurse sighed. “I can’t release patient information to anyone who isn’t Mr. Novak’s immediate family.”
“You what?” Dean asked, fists clenching again. “But… please?”
The nurse frowned. “I’m sorry, sir. I wish I co-.”
“I’m his soul mate!” Dean blurted, attracting a few wry glances from other visitors in the waiting area.
The nurse’s eyes widened. “Oh… Um…” She clicked around her desktop before looking back up at Dean. “There was no one listed in Mr. Novak’s file.”
“That’s because we didn’t get our tattoos until about a month ago,” Dean responded, trying to hide his immense frustration. Wasn’t there a rule about this? Weren’t soul mates considered family?
“Can you tell me what your tattoo looks like?” the nurse asked in a whisper. “I can call Mr. Novak’s doctor and…confirm that you are soul mates.”
Dean shook his head. Is this really necessary? “Wings. Two large, black wings. On my back.”
The nurse picked up the phone next to her computer and dialed a short number that Dean assumed was the doctor’s. She spoke so quietly, Dean couldn’t hear a word, but when she hung up, she smiled at him.
“He’s post-op, in the ICU, and from what I can tell, he’s still unconscious. But you can go see him, if you’d like. Room 221.”
Still unconscious. Still unconscious?
This was bad.
“Thank you,” Dean replied with a weak smile. He made his way up the flight of stairs at the center of the hospital, looking for 221. He walked through endless hallways passing one white room after another, until he found it. 221.
The room was near the end of a hall, where there weren’t too many visitors milling around. He could see a hospital bed from the window of the room. He stood outside the door, hands shaking, and began to pace, back and forth, in an attempt to wear out his selfish anger. Get in there, god dammit, he could probably die at any minute, and you’re too much of an ass to even see him for one last time –
“He’s in a coma,” a voice said from close by, and Dean jumped, turning to find a man in a white lab coat standing behind him.
“How subtle of you,” Dean scoffed, statement practically dripping with sarcasm.
“But he’s stable,” the man, Castiel’s doctor, Dean assumed, continued, “so for now, there’s no need to tread a hole into the floor.” He stuck out his hand. “Dr. Victor Henricksen.”
After a little hesitation, Dean took the man’s hand and shook it as firmly as he could manage. “You’re Cas’s doctor?”
“I performed his surgery – I stabilized his fractured ribs with titanium plates, so they’ll heal less painfully.”
“Good,” Dean answered, “good.” He almost started pacing again, but stopped himself, facing the door.
“Can I ask you something, Mister…?”
“Dean,” Dean responded, unmoving, “Call me Dean.”
“Dean, then,” Dr. Henricksen said, “you are Castiel’s soul mate, correct?”
Dean was silent for a beat, then took a breath, “Yeah,” he shook his head, staring at his converse shoes. And a shitty one, at that.
“I was wondering, where is his family? Have they not been contacted?”
That was a good question. Dean hadn’t even thought to find Gabriel’s number and tell him what had happened, or Anna.
“I’m here because Cas –.” Dean’s chest ached, as he remembered that Cas had called him, him, of all people, while he was, what, getting attacked? Screaming for help? Begging for mercy? Dean cleared his throat. “Castiel’s phone was left at the crime scene, and my number was the last one dialed.”
“Ohhh,” the doctor nodded, understanding. “I see. Well, now that Castiel is stable, I’m going to contact his family. Are you okay here?”
“Yeah,” Dean said roughly, tear ducts threatening to spill over. “I’m good.”
Dr. Henricksen placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “He’s going to be alright, Dean.”
Dean nodded, afraid that if he opened his mouth, he would start wailing. After the doctor walked away, Dean took two deep breaths and walked into Cas’s hospital room.
What he saw floored him.
|
Pharah watches Mercy pace the length of the VTOL aircraft twice, take off her halo at least three times and redo her ponytail, chatter nervously with Zenyatta four separate times for a grand total of twenty minutes, avoid Winston like the plague, and sit in the co-pilot chair for a very jittery five minutes. Even Tracer, however high-strung and energetic the Brit usually was, seems unsettled by Mercy’s inability to relax.
They’re going to Switzerland. High in the Alps, Winston had received reports of Talon regrouping and an unusual frequency of bizarre deaths after dark in the neighboring town over the past few days. The team needs to evacuate the civilians and shut down Talon before they can do any more damage. Due to the nature of the deaths, Reaper’s likely to be there, even if Winston hadn’t mentioned the wraith in his brief address during take off, but during the briefing, Shrike and Soldier had shared a look that, even with one eye between them, Pharah did not miss.
Nearly everyone else on the ship is lounging about in various states of pre-battle activity. Torbjorn’s watching D.Va play video games, fondly criticizing her play style. Genji sits on one side of Symmetra; Pharah sits between her and Shrike, with Soldier 76 next to his old friend, and Winston, who discusses something with him on a tablet. In the cockpit, Tracer’s chatting with Zenyatta, who has now taken a seat in the co-pilot chair. Just behind them stands Mercy, posture tight, staring out of the windshield at the terrain unfolding ahead of them. At her request, one of Zenyatta’s orbs hovers around her head emitting a soft golden light but Mercy’s still posture doesn’t mean it’s working. Even though the suit’s wings are folded into a resting position, the orange hard light “hover feathers” of the Valkyrie flicker into existence sporadically, almost as if the young field medic’s flicking a switch absently- on, off, on, off, on, off.
Shrike and Pharah both look up when Mercy pushes off the wall of the cockpit vestibule and begins her third pace of the aircraft.
“Mercy,” Shrike calls out, startling the anxious Swiss out of her measured steps. She eases closer, painfully aware of the Amaris' eyes on her.
“Ah, yes?” Her accent is much more pronounced, a noticeable byproduct of nerves. Pharah reaches out to grab her hand and Mercy takes it, squeezing gratefully.
“I was making tea before we were called to action. It’s lavender.” The older woman retrieves a thermos from between her and Soldier 76. “Have some; it’ll soothe your nerves.”
“I’m not nervous!” Mercy squeaks, as the orb around her glows brighter. Shrike just laughs and hands her the mug-top of the thermos. The medic relaxes the tiniest bit as the sniper fills it to the brim and fragrance reaches her nose.
“It’s not easy to return to one’s home, especially under these circumstances,” Shrike says after the younger medic takes a sip.
“It's not even that. This is not the first time I’ve ever...I cannot…” Mercy trails off, transitioning to fretful German. At this point, just about everyone on the bench looks up at her. Blushing, she ducks her head and gulps down more tea.
“Believe me, I understand. It’ll be alright, habibti. No harm will come to you here.” She takes the mug back and replaces it on the thermos. Mercy thanks her softly and Shrike smiles, her eye crinkling.
“Tracer would like me to tell you there are ten minutes until we touchdown. Please be prepared.” Zenyatta’s sudden announcement and presence make very little sense, in light of the plane's intercom system and their personal comm channel, until the omnic places another orb in Mercy’s orbit. He floats back the way he came.
Pharah slides off the bench to kneel on the floor of the aircraft carefully, as Mercy sinks slowly into a sitting position.
“I hope I will be fine once we are on the ground.” She whispers, dragging a hand down her face. “It's not as if anything Switzerland is not different from any other country. There's no cause for this... this overwhelming anxiety. I don't know why.”
“Well, it’s better to freak out now. I've got your back while we're out there and we'll be fine.” Pharah pauses as the plane rocks a bit-turbulence, perhaps?- before continuing. “We’ll get this over with and talk later, okay?”
Before Mercy can muster a response, the plane rocks something fierce. The team scrambles to stay steady-D.Va and Torbjorn jump to their feet, ready to fight. Neither Symmetra nor Genji respond to the disturbance since they both trade heavily in keeping their balance. Soldier gets thrown off the edge of bench into Winston’s lap. Shrike very narrowly avoids the sharp edges of the Raptora suit by clinging to the handrail behind her. Over the comms Tracer frantically apologizes while Soldier 76 barks out orders: he, Mercy, Pharah, Ana, Winston, and Genji will head to the Talon-defended fortress while the rest of the team evacuates the town’s citizens from any blast ranges. After the worst of the turbulence is over, Pharah and Mercy get to their feet. Mercy returns the two orbs back to Zenyatta’s orbit. Pharah puts on her helmet and looks to Shrike, who’s still gripping the handrail while she one-handedly slips her rifle over her shoulder.
“I’m gonna drop you lot outside the fortress really quickly! In a minute! Quite literally a minute! Winston, these anti-aircraft guns were not on your intel!” Her comm-lecture trails off into curses as the jet dips and swerves.
“Sorry about that. We’ll take them down, Tracer! Just drop us as close as you can; we’ll handle the rest.”
The strike team hustles to the bay door. Soldier 76 prefers a parachute but Shrike allows herself to picked up by Pharah in a bridal carry, safely shielded from the imminent heat of the Raptora’s blasters. She reaches up to retrace the tattooed udjat and Pharah huffs.
“I can’t do that. My hands are full.”
“After we’re back on the ship then.” Behind them, Mercy smiles. They always do this- giving each other a reason to fight, to come back, via the simple gesture. They all have their rituals.
“Keep the skies clear for me?” She asks Pharah as Tracer begins to lower the door. The sounds of guns and engines roar drown out Pharah’s response so she sticks her tongue out at the medic over her shoulder as well. Winston jumps out the door as soon as it’s open enough; Genji’s clinging to his back. Mercy waits for Pharah to take off before activating her guardian angel tracking and flying after her. Somewhere behind them, Soldier drops out and Tracer flies off to distract the aircraft gun until they reach the ground. She hovers as Pharah drops Shrike off. She wants desperately to join Pharah in the air, can’t help shake the feeling that it’s safer for some reason. Usually, Mercy limits her airtime because it makes her an easy target, but there’s no place she wants to be more right now.
She shakes the thought as Soldier lands in a courtyard below them where Winston is waiting. Shrike runs above to find a good perch and Genji has already run ahead, as usual. With one last look at Pharah’s ascending silhouette, Mercy touches down and resigns herself to damage boosting Winston and Soldier as they plow through the base.
The mission goes pleasantly well. Soldier and Shrike help keep Genji out of trouble; he even circles back to flank their backside instead of staying in the rafters and trying to pick off Talon goons. Shrike, Soldier, and Winston thin the crowd so efficiently that Mercy begins to feel less protected and more useless. It’s not until they get to the inner courtyard where Talon is protecting something they’ve stored in an underground cistern, that it really goes to shit.
Shrike spots Talon’s infamous Widowmaker and requests Genji’s help in incapacitating her while Winston and Soldier 76 charge the crowd. Pharah arrives with a timely prepared rocket barrage and Mercy can’t explain how relieved she is to fly to her with her damage stream engaged, even if she’s not terribly happy with the carnage that results below. She switches to healing as some stragglers try to return fire; Pharah responds with her usual rocket as Mercy calmly hovers behind her. The Raptora suit beeps, spent on its fuel for now and Pharah quickly lands on a parapet nearby to recharge. Disappointed their aerial dance is over, Mercy dutifully floats downward until she lands among Winston, Soldier, and Genji. Shrike’s absence is not unusual; the fact that Genji’s back means they probably succeeded in incapacitating the rival sniper.
They’re gearing up to head down into the cistern when Pharah cries out, not over the comms, but from the parapet.
“Well, Ana,” growls an unfamiliar voice over the comm link. “What will it be? Your daughter? Or your mission? Can you make the right decision this time?”
Mercy is already dashing to the stairs that lead from the courtyard at the sound of Reaper’s voice. She knows, in her heart, that Genji climbing up a wall, Winston using his boosters, or Shrike through sheer force of motherly anger will get there before she does. She doesn’t even consider that it might be a trap until it’s too late. She already has her pistol out when Reaper mists out of the darkened stairwell; she shoots him twice in the head but he only laughs and floats away.
Frightened both of Reaper and her poor decision making, she sprints up the remaining stairs. Pharah is still at the top of the parapet when she reaches it, sitting up. Genji is holding her helmet in her hands while she wipes the blood off from a cut near her eye. The medic rushes to her side, holstering her pistol and retrieving her staff from its place on her back. The Egyptian’s smile is short-lived; her eyes widen as Reaper begins to materialize behind Mercy. Genji hastily passes her helmet back and draws his sword.
Pharah and Mercy scramble to their feet but Mercy doesn’t draw her pistol again. She’s safely behind Pharah and her arsenal. Even with Mercy alternatively empowering Genji and Pharah, Reaper still parries both of their attacks easily. Soldier emerges from the stairwell already firing rounds at the wraith. Reaper cackles, delighted by the presence of his best enemy, blocking Soldier’s bullets with one shotgun and slapping Genji out of the way with the other. Irritated with the extended melee, Mercy heals her allies, grabs her pistol from her holster and straps the Caduceus to her back once more.
Unfortunately, this is what Reaper has been waiting for. She sees it, always does, in his posture when he prepares to perform his lethal death dance. Before he can utter the first “die”, Mercy flings herself backward off the parapet. It will not be the first mission she’s had to resurrect the team after Reaper does this, not even the second. However, it is the first time in a long time that tears spring to her eyes unbidden as she essentially abandons the team, even knowing she can’t do any good if she’s up there with them. She’s only been falling for half a second when she hears:
“Die-”
“No one’s dying today, Gabriel.” Shrike’s voice rings out over the comms and Mercy sighs in relief. She engages the hover and rolls over in mid-air, preparing to land four stories below. She doesn’t see the remaining Talon mercenary aiming up. A shot rings out. The medic jerks back instinctively, her wings flaring out as she flexes her spine, but her back explodes into pain.
Fall faster, she thinks frantically, trying to get of the way. She’s dizzied by the pain but the Valkyrie does respond by killing the hover and letting her free-fall. Just before she reaches a safe point to re-engage the hover, a jutting gargoyle from a passing balcony catches on her suit, shredding the Valkyrie's wings as she falls, cutting deep into her armor and sending her back into an agonizing spasm of pain.
Vaguely aware that she’s screaming, Mercy blacks out.
|
Will and Hannibal sit in Hannibal's parked car. The rain falls in steady a shower, the fat droplets obscuring the windshields. Will likes the isolated feeling it gives him. They are parked outside of a medical supply warehouse down in the river bottoms. Jack and his SWAT team are raiding the building's interior. They've been in there too long already. Will's fingers drum nervously on the armrest.
"Are you all right?" Hannibal asks. He has kept a close eye on Will the entire ride out here. He's psy-null, but he always seems to know how Will is feeling.
Will shifts in his seat, shrugging. "People call it reading, like a person is a book you can open and close. Put back on the shelf. But that's not how it works. Doesn't matter how careful I am, there's no way to force myself into someone else's mind without them seeing bits of me as well. It's always ... intimate. I leave pieces of myself in every murderer and rapist I touch. And they leave pieces in me." He taps two fingers against his temple. "I feel contaminated."
"You don't have to do it," Hannibal says. "The FBI has other telepaths."
"Not like me, they don't." Will huffs a sigh to try and purge some of his anxiety. "She's been mixing up shipments, and it could mean hundreds of lives if we don't figure out which ones and fast. I have to do this. This could --"
"Will." Hannibal points.
A small figure has emerged on the roof of the warehouse, the white lab coat a beacon against the gray sky. It's Anita Goins, running along the roof to a rusty fire escape. Before Will can move, Hannibal is out of the car and Will follows on his heels, the wet gravel crunching underfoot. It's maybe three hundred yards to the building, she's already made the final drop to the ground, disappearing around the far corner of the building.
Hannibal clears it first, and Will comes around a heartbeat later, nearly running straight into Hannibal. With horror, Will realizes that Anita had stopped short, hiding herself behind the corner of the building, and has ambushed Hannibal. She has a syringe buried in his neck, her thumb already pressing down the plunger. Hannibal bodychecks her into the brick and yanks the needle from his neck before staggering and going to his knees.
For a wild instant Will is confused; he should have felt her – but he's still got his shields up. He drops them and is immediately struck by the scent of her madness which hangs around her like flies about a corpse. It makes him gag. He reaches for her both physically and psychically, trying to grab her. Touch always makes for a stronger connection, but he can take her down with brute mental force if need be.
She evades his grip and lashes out; Will sees the scalpel in her hand too late. She buries it in the meat of his thigh, a few inches below his hip bone. He grunts, losing his balance, but the attack has brought her in range and he grabs her wrist. Then he shatters her mind: a brute force attack that overrides her own neural impulses, short-circuiting them like an electrical storm. She is instantly unconscious. He lets her fall to the ground, crumpling into a heap. He can still feel the chatter of her rabid thoughts at the back of his brain.
"Hannibal!" Will limps to Hannibal's side, where he lays sprawled, his hair plastered to his face from rain. Will takes Hannibal's chin in his hands. His pupils have contracted to pinpricks, and he is shivering violently. "What did she give you?"
"Not … entirely sure." Hannibal's voice has an unfocused, dreamy quality. "Something psychotropic."
"Shit." Will fumbles his cellphone out of his pocket, debates whether to call Jack or 911. 911 wins out. He's giving the operator the address, when it hits him. The unmistakable feel of another psy-presence.
He turns, prepared to knock Anita out again, but she lies still and prone, deeply unconscious. His attention turns to Hannibal, who is staring up at the sky and blinking slowly. The presence of psy-users is stronger than psy-nulls. There's a quality Will has never been able to articulate – like psy-users are the same song in a different key. He's spent hundreds of hours in Hannibal's presence, and he’s never picked up on it.
It doesn't make sense.
He reaches out, gently, slowly, taking all the care he didn't with Anita, and brushes up against Hannibal's mind. There's the slightest resistance, like a mind which is used to maintaining a shield, used to disguising itself.
"No," Hannibal whispers, and presses the palm of his hand to his temple, as if he could keep Will out. "Will. Stop."
It's too late, though. Hannibal's consciousness washes over Will. It is sweet and heady and familiar, a scarlet and black ribbon which tugs Will along. The dark scent of oleander winds through it, and Will can't look away.
Blood. Pain. Fear. Death.
Will cries aloud as realization tears through his brain like a bullet. He takes Hannibal's head in his hands – tucking his thumbs behind the ears and lacing his fingers around the back of the skull – and presses his forehead to Hannibal's. The Dell-Cander position to maximize access to a subject's mind. He closes his eyes.
Hannibal's thoughts are muddied and made kaleidoscopic by the drug; it's why he finally lost control of his shields. He's not a very strong psy user – his abilities are paltry in comparison with Will's – but he must have excellent control. Even Will's not sure if he could maintain that kind of façade for so long.
He can hear the 911 dispatcher's voice distant and tinny through his cell phone, asking if he's still on the line, but he ignores it. He probes the depths of Hannibal's memory, gorge rising with each image. It's not just visual; he can smell the blood and viscera, the sharp and earthy scent of rosemary and thyme that goes into the sausage. He can feel Hannibal's rage and pleasure as if it the emotions were his own.
"You're the Chesapeake Ripper." He whispers it directly into Hannibal's mind.
Pride and amusement bubble up through Hannibal's limbic system. "Yes. And you never knew."
"Clever," Will agrees.
Will ruthlessly sorts through Hannibal's mind, cataloging and studying each new piece of information. The murders, the safe houses, the lies and half-truths.
Almost everyone has a gravitational center around which the rest of their thoughts, feelings and beliefs rotate — that center is usually a person or a belief in a high power. As Will is drawn deeper into the recesses of Hannibal's mind, it becomes clear exactly who has become Hannibal's gravitation center.
"You are." The thought rustles past Will like a warm wind. Hannibal has kept a collection of every memory he has ever made with Will, carefully curated and preserved. And not just memories, but fantasies as well. Will shies away from them as a lick of arousal runs through Hannibal.
"What will you do now that you've caught me?"
It takes Will a second to realize Hannibal has said the words aloud. They are still forehead to forehead, as if in prelude to a kiss. Hannibal's lips quirk upward; he can still hear Will's thoughts.
"How could you lie to me?" Will grits out, his vision is wet and blurred. "I trusted you! And his grief and anger rock him like a shockwave.
"I was going to tell you." His hands are on Will's forearms, just steadying himself; he makes no effort to pull away. He switches to verbal communication. "But it was hardly something I could drop into casual conversation. Had to work up to you, you see." His voice isn't quite slurred, but there's a softness which indicates he's impaired. "I thought you might come to it on your own."
"And now I have."
Hannibal agrees wordlessly, a swell of pleasure washing over Will. It occurs Will that euphoria may be a side effect of the drug. He can feel Hannibal's mind slipping into unconsciousness, teetering on the brink of inky blackness. It threatens to pull Will along with him.
Hannibal's mind reaches out to Will's own, bringing a crimson warmth that simultaneously entices and repels. "Follow me down, clever boy." And then he's unconscious.
Will feels a hand on his shoulder. Jack has found them. He's asking questions, but Will is beyond them. Alone in his own head now. He raises his shields, pulls them tightly around himself, and still he can hear the buzz of the SWAT agents around him like a generator’s hum.. He feels faint, from the discovery or from the loss of blood, he doesn't know. He feels like he is watching the paramedics bandage his leg, watching himself wave away the offer of a morphine shot, and watching them be loaded into an ambulance from a great distance.
He rides on a gurney staring up at the ceiling of the ambulance. Refusing to look over at Hannibal, but aware of his presence as if he were a flashing neon sign. With Hannibal's shields down, Will can reach out to brush against his mind and he can't seem to keep himself from doing it, keeps poking at Hannibal like a sore tooth.
Will can feel the paramedics' minds as well, both busy with monitoring heart-rates and the city traffic. They're both psy-null; they don't notice as he slips into the backs of their minds — he doesn't intend to interfere, just to monitor. But then some part of his unconscious self makes a decision, and he takes control. The driver turns off the GPS tracking and the radio and takes an exit ramp which heads away from the hospital and out of the city. The paramedic sitting with them in the back goes slack in her seat, eyes unfocused and unseeing.
Just outside of the city, Will directs the driver to pull off at a rest stop. The ambulance is too conspicuous. He finds a lone driver with a minivan and takes over his mind as well and soon the paramedics load Hannibal into the back of the van. The tableau would be memorable, but Will projects just enough that none of the other travelers notice the commotion. With a still unconscious Hannibal stretched out in the back, Will guiltily reaches into the minds of the medics and minivan-owner, carefully wiping away any memory of his face and what's happened. They climb into the back of the ambulance and lie down. He has a few hours before they will wake up again.
Hannibal has a safe house near Chester Gap, Virginia, of all places. It's an old farm house off a dirt road, shadowed by oak and pine forest. Hannibal is beginning to rouse when they get there, though Will can still feel the intoxicant in his system. The paramedics had removed his tie, and the trip has left him untucked and rumbled. He pushes himself cautiously upright.
He is curious but not particularly alarmed as he realizes where he is. "This is my least favorite," he says, as Will slides open the minivan door for him. "It is far more … rustic than, than I would like." He smoothes his hair, pushing it away from his forehead, the motion is exaggerated and poorly coordinated. "There are far better options."
"I know. I've seen them." Will grasps his elbow and half-guides, half-pulls Hannibal from the van. "This one was the closest. Your comfort was not my first consideration."
Hannibal makes a dismayed noise. Will can feel him trying to enter his mind, peer into his thoughts and read his intentions. Will rebuffs him, easily able to shove Hannibal away while maintaining access to Hannibal's own thoughts. Hannibal is considering, simultaneously: potential escape paths; how Will's injury will slow him down and how easy it would be to run him down and do … things to him; the people he's killed at this house; that he wants a shower and a glass of sauvignon blanc; and that he is acutely aware of the scent of Will's aftershave and damp shirt.
Fatigued from the exertion of controlling so many people in one day, Will is starting to get a headache. His leg really hurts. He's bled through the bandage. Will grips the banister up the front steps of the house onto the covered porch and he can feel Hannibal evaluating the weakness with a keen eye.
Hannibal produces a key from under a loose porch plank and lets them inside. There is knife in the drawer of the side table just inside the entryway. Hannibal considers it a split second before distracting himself with the state of the carpet — practiced distraction is an uncertain technique to keep from being read, and Will has no problem detecting it.
Will violently seizes Hannibal's mind, sinking claws into it and taking over so that Hannibal is suddenly a prisoner in his own mind.
"I have been gentle so far, Hannibal" Will says. "But I don't have to be." Of Will's volition, Hannibal removes the knife from the drawer and sets it at his own throat. The blade digs in just a little a a trickle of blood seeps down the column of his throat, staining the collar of his shirt.
Amusement. "You've taken the tiger by the tail, Will. You cannot hold him forever. What do you think will happen when your grip fails?"
Will holds out his hand, and Hannibal gently sets the handle of the knife into his palm. "I'm curious about that myself."
---
Through Hannibal's memory, Will already knows the house: its layout, its strengths and weaknesses. A particular strength, for someone of Hannibal's proclivities, is the basement. It's large, built out out of solid limestone foundation, windowless. Concrete has been poured over the dirt floor, and a half bath has been partially finished — toilet and sink in the corner, enclosed with framing, but no drywall has been hung. The door at the top of the steps is re-enforced steel with a deadbolt, set so that someone can be locked in the basement, rather than out of it. There is a long row of stainless steel workbenches running along the wall and a mattress in the corner, an army surplus blanket neatly folded on top of it.
Will scours Hannibal's mind, has him remove everything which might be used as a weapon — mostly surgical equipment. Will shudders at the memories attached to each cruel implement. Hannibal is only too happy to think of each murder in detail, so they play out like a movie projected in on the screen, only Will can feel the savage joy took in those deaths as if it were his own.
"Those deaths call to your blood, as surely as they to mine," he says, stopping from his work. He reaches to touch Will, rest a hand against his cheek, but Will stops him, and his hand freezes in mid-air. "It may gall you to admit it, even to yourself, but we are far more alike than we are different."
"That's your theory, not mine."
Hannibal's hand drops back to his side, but he smiles slightly. "It's a theory I mean to test."
When the basement has been cleared to Will's satisfaction, he locks Hannibal in and hobbles upstairs to the master bedroom. It's musty but made-up with sheets on the bed. He collapses onto the mattress and falls into a deep sleep.
---
It's still dark when Will wakes, and it takes him a long time to realize where he is. The panic hardly abates as he places his surroundings, remembers what has happened. It's just before five a.m. Two floors below him, he can feel Hannibal, alert and curious. Will shuts him out.
He strips out his clothes, gingerly peeling the cloth away from his injured leg. He takes his shower, leaning against the cool tile and watches as pinked water runs down the drain. He sits on the toilet and bandages his leg with first aid supplies he scavenged from the closet. The wound isn't very long, but it is deep. He does his best to clean it out; the bleeding had started again in the shower. He applies a generous amount of gauze and bandages it tightly. It will have to do.
He finds clothes, actually does manage to find a plain black t-shirt and pair of gray slacks amongst Hannibal's things, which are an acceptable fit. It's not perfect, but he's grateful he isn't going to have to wear a three-piece suit.
He goes downstairs and finds the coffee beans and a grinder, boils water for the french press. The house is built into the side of the hill and when he goes out on the back porch, he has a breathtaking view of the valley. The sun is starting to rise, gilding the treetops in gold. He sips his coffee and watches it, trying not to think. Keeping Hannibal locked in the basement is not a viable long-term solution.
He'll call the FBI, but he needs some time. He worked side-by-side with one of the most notorious serial killers of the last fifty years and failed to notice. He has to atone for that failure. Even if Hannibal isn't a particularly strong telepath, he's a skilled one — as skilled as Will is. He will prove a challenge to even the FBI's most skilled telepathic interrogators. Handing them a list of names, dates, details, when he turns Hannibal in is the least he can do to make up for his shame, his abject failure. They're not going to let him out in the field after this. He'll be stuck in the tele-interrogation building, spending his days in the petty and poisonous minds of murderers and rapists, and testifying in court.
He finishes his coffee, continuing to ignore the occasional inquiry Hannibal makes. He can't use any of his credit cards, but luckily, Hannibal has several thousand dollars worth of cash in a safe. Will punches the numbers in and takes out a couple hundred. There are no groceries in the house, other than a few dry goods, and he doesn't know how long they'll be here. Without the benefit of the psychotropic drugs, it may take Will awhile to break into Hannibal's mind.
He is passed by a cop car on the highway as he drives into town, and is acutely aware that he's driving a stolen car. There must be an APB out on him by now. But the cop doesn't even look over at him.
He shuffles zombie-like through the store without much of a plan, picking up some staples: frozen pizza, breakfast cereal, Hot Pockets. It's a discount chain, and Will alternates between being worried about the contempt that Hannibal will have for the wilted iceberg lettuce and being glad for an opportunity to spite him.
---
Hannibal is sitting on the mattress, his back against the wall, when Will unlocks the door.
"Good morning, Will."
"Good morning, Dr. Lecter. I hope you weren't too uncomfortable down here." Will extends little feelers, wrapping around the edges of Hannibal's mind, ready to tighten the noose if necessary, but Hannibal is docile under his touch.
"Not at all. I slept very well." Hannibal rises gracefully, and stretches a little.
"Would you like some breakfast?"
"That would be lovely. I'm famished."
Will retreats to the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him. Hannibal follows and takes a moment to survey the groceries Will has brought home.
"Not up to your standards," Will says.
"Very few things are. It's something of a curse, really. I know you did the best you could, and I appreciate your efforts."
Will had meant to pour himself a bowl of cereal, but Hannibal is already pulling out a cutting board and frying pan. So instead, Will pours himself another cup of coffee and takes a seat at the kitchen table, watching Hannibal work. Hannibal grasps a knife from the block, with the slightest glance Will's direction, and begins dicing an onion.
"Are you feeling any residual effects from the drug?" Will asks.
Hannibal cracks eggs into a silver mixing bowl and vigorously whisks them. "I am perhaps a little fatigued, but the wooziness has passed entirely, and I feel like my usual self."
"Any guesses what she gave you?"
"I believe it was a mixture. Clonazepam or another benzodiazepine, almost certainly. Phenobarbital, maybe. Probably a depressant or narcotic, as well. It's lucky I didn't get the full dose. It likely would have proved fatal." Hannibal pours the egg mixture into the oiled frying pan. "How is your leg?"
"Fine," Will says and shrugs. "I've had worse."
"You should let me look at it nonetheless. Puncture wounds can be tricky."
"I'll take my chances," Will says wryly.
"As you prefer," Hannibal says with a slight shrug. He folds filling into the omelette, pressing down on it with the spatula.
Anxiety and the concentration needed to guard against Hannibal has stolen Will's appetite, and he takes a few unenthused bites.
"Is it not to your liking?" Hannibal asks, watching him with a keen eye.
"No, it's very good. You are, as always, an excellent cook. I'm just not very hungry."
"You shouldn't rely on your body to cue your appetite. You've been working very hard the past twenty-four hours. It must be exhausting, and you shouldn't let it sap your strength. You will need it." Hannibal says this with warm solicitude.
"Thank you for your concern," Will replies, and takes a few more bites, before clearing their dishes.
"I suppose I'm allowed to shower and change?" Hannibal inquires.
"Of course," Will says.
"And then what do you mean to do with me? I do wonder why I am not yet in FBI custody."
"You will be," Will replies evenly. "But there are some questions I need to ask you first, and I will not get the chance to ask them once the FBI has you."
"I see. I look forward to them, then."
---
Hannibal disappears into the bathroom and reappears freshly showered and shaved, wearing a white button-down and gray trousers.
Will is waiting for him in the sitting room at the front of the house. The room is formally decorated with a horsehair sofa and two arm-chairs which Will has pulled up to face each other. Will takes a seat in one and indicates Hannibal should take the other.
Hannibal does so, and Will takes a deep breath, studying his features which are at once familiar and alien. Hannibal meets his gaze, unconcerned and perhaps a little curious. It's Will who has to look away.
"I apologize for the intrusion," he says.
Hannibal shrugs slightly. "I understand, Will." He leans forward to give Will access, and Will takes his head in his hands. His fingers slips through the silky hair at the back of Hannibal's skull. The small intimacy is enough to heat Will's face, and he keeps his gaze cast down. He's taken this position with hundreds of suspects — at crime scenes and in the sterility of the lab, but it has never made him feel as vulnerable as he does now.
He takes a moment to center himself, calm his own mind before entering the mind of another. He braces himself as best he can for the carnage he knows he will find in Hannibal's brain. He takes a deep breath and reaches out his consciousness, extends past the boundary where his mind ends and Hannibal's begins.
He meets no resistance; Hannibal has thrown open the gates, practically rolled out the red carpet. It is hard to describe, but every person's brain has a map and a sense of its own self. The parts of the brain a person accesses most frequently are at the forefront and the more distant the memory the farther below it is in the brain. Beyond that, even, are memories forgotten or memories too painful to risk tripping over and which have been buried.
"Who was the first person you killed?" Will asks.
"Wrong question. The question you should be asking is who is the first person that died."
Before Will can ask, Hannibal summons a memory, and Will can watch it play out behind his eyes like it is his own. It has a dilute and hazy quality, one of Hannibal's oldest memories. A small child sits in a garden, bathed in the bright sunshine of late spring. She is picking violets from the long grass. Her blonde hair curls in baby-fine wisps around her ears. She looks up at him and smiles and she raises her chubby arms to be picked up.
She babbles with an to him as he scoops her up and braces her against his hip. The language is foreign to Will, but he understands. "Look, brother, look! Violets!" She hands one of the purple flowers to him, her smile revealing deep dimples.
He is enchanted.
The memory fades and is replaced by another.
The same girl, several years later. She has grown tall for her age, gangly and coltish, maybe eight years old, her hair plaited down her back, tanned from the sun, scabbed at the knees. She's climbing the half-dead crabapple tree, with the confidence that comes from long practice. She smiles down at him, her front teeth are missing. Look at me! He feels a pang of worry; she's climbing too high, trying to impress him.
"Come down from there!" he calls, already starting after her, the bark rough under his hands. "Those branches can't hold your weight." She presses on heedless, too brave for her own good. He's gaining on her, but she's a quick little monkey and evades his grasp. He hears the crack of the dead branch before he sees her fall. His heart stops in his chest as time slows to a crawl. He reaches for her, his fingers closing on a wrist as she slips by him. Her weight nearly jerks his arm out of his socket, but his grip holds. She regains her footing, but he refuses to let her go, and they make their way back to the ground like that, as a pair. She's shaking and crying now that her feet are back on the ground. He gathers her up in his arms, and she allows herself to be held like a baby, her face buried in his shoulder.
The memory shifts again.
Same girl, now on the cusp of adolescence. She's watching out the window, her brow furrowed and worried. Fear washes over him and the sense of dread settles in the pit of his stomach. She looks at him and he tries to smile at her. Her mind brushes against his, seeking reassurance. He tries to project confidence he doesn’t feel.
"We'll slip out the back. They'll be gone soon enough." He takes her hand and pulls her along, and she winces and tells him his hand is holding too tight. He makes an effort to be gentler, not to telegraph his terror through his grip. They're stumbling down the servants' stairs, making their way around the back of the house. The back gate is within reach. Once they reach the cover of the woods, he can hide them.
They dash. He is running as fast as he can, pulling her along after him. The earth before his feet explodes into a row of puffs. Machine gun fire. He grabs her, presses her up against the scant protection of the chicken coop, covers her with his body.
They are taken. Separated. He is locked root cellar. He can hear her screams. Her wordless fear reverberates through him. He batters himself against the door, digs until his his nails are bloodied and shredded. His breath comes in short rapid gasps, and his heart races for the whole of his incarceration.
Her consciousness fades, the link between them weakened by distance.
”Brother. Help me,” is the last thing he hears before the link is severed entirely.
They let him out some time later — days or weeks later. He begs them to tell him where she is, to let him see her. They laugh in his face. They lead him up to the kitchen. Ladle out stew into a wooden bowl. It's the first real food he's had since they came, and despite himself, he's starving. He tears into it. The meat is tender and a little gamey — venison, maybe. They watch him eat. Fill his bowl when he empties it.
He asks if he can see his sister. They say yes, and he's grateful, more grateful than he's ever been. He says as much, and they're helping him up onto unsteady feet, pushing him along the hallway. She's in the larder, they say. They open the door and push him in. It's dark, his eyes slowly adjust to the dim. He calls her name. He sees a bit of blonde hair peeking out from under a burlap sack and he falls to his knees beside it, pulling the rough fabric back. Her body shifts and her face rolls toward him. Her eyes are open and have gone empty and milky. He knows then that she is dead, but it isn't until he pulls her body towards him, cradles her in his arms, that he sees her limbs are gone and that she's been eviscerated, that he knows they have fed him his own sister.
Will jerks his hands away from Hannibal, pulls out of his mind so fast that it's dizzying. His gorge rises and tries to stand but stumbles and falls to hands and knees on the carpet. He retches, bring up bile onto the thin carpet, heaving long after his stomach is empty. Tears are streaming down his face, blurring his vision. He breathes deeply through his nose and slowly regains control over himself. He settles back on his knees and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. He still feels too shaky to rise.
Hannibal is still seated in the chair watching him impassively. "Did that answer any of your questions?"
Will doesn't trust himself to speak. Hannibal doesn't wait for an answer, but rises and retrieves a roll of paper towels, a can of carpet cleaner and a trash bag. He scrubs the vomit off the carpet and then takes the bag of soiled paper towels out to the kitchen trash. Will pushes himself to his feet and follows.
There's still nothing to say. Hannibal pours him a glass of water and Will rinses his mouth and spits in the sink. It doesn't help, the back of his mouth is still vile. Hannibal has taken up a dish cloth and is folding it into a neat square. Will rests a hand on his arm. Hannibal stills, but doesn't look at him. His face is emotionless, but there is tension written in the set of his shoulders.
Will swallows hard. "I'm sorry."
"For the intrusion or the tragedy?"
"For both."
"In either case, your apology is useless," Hannibal says, lip curling.
"Why show it to me?"
"You would have gotten there eventually in your quest for answers. You'd never have left a tragic backstory alone. You're far too curious. And for all that you think this is about making amends, the true reason you're conducting this interrogation is curiosity. Easier to just give you what you want now."
Will splashes water on his face, rinsing away the salt tears. Hannibal hands him a dish towel to dry with.
"And yet, I can’t help but suspect your true motive is one of manipulation. You knew I would be suitably horrified. Perhaps you seek to humanize yourself in my eyes. Try to move me to pity."
"And are you? Moved to pity?"
"Yes," Will says simply. "But if you sought to mitigate your own monstrousness, you've failed. You were born, not created. Your own suffering was not instrumental to your savage nature."
"We are all savage by nature."
Will's lip quirks upward. "You more than most. You can't really debate me on that point."
"And yet you feel an obligation to map out that savagery personally." It's not a question. "That suggests that you have a particular fascination, even if you don't share my pathology."
"I feel an obligation. You're not a powerful telepath, but you have excellent control."
"I've found that control usually beats power."
"You'll certainly prove a challenge to FBI telepaths. None of them have your control. They'd wear you down eventually, but who knows how long that would take, and they are understaffed anyway."
"And they won't let you perform the interrogation yourself," Hannibal adds. "Being too close to the subject could cloud your judgement."
Will nods. "Oh, I know my judgement is clouded. That's the funny thing — just because you know your thought process has been compromised, doesn't mean you care."
"True," Hannibal allows, with a small smile. "Though I do wonder if you realize who this is supposed to punish: me or you?"
Will shrugs; it's not a question he's particularly interested in entertaining. "Do you mind if we continue?"
"If you feel well enough. You take care with your health, Will. This could takes weeks or even months. You need to make sure you have the stamina."
"Your concern is touching," Will says. "Please, sit."
They resume their positions, this time at the kitchen table rather than the parlor, which still reeks of vomit.
Will is once again the chapel foyer. He's wary, ready for ambush.
Hannibal is at his elbow, watching. "What would you like me to show you? There are a few memories I think would be particularly instructive. If you're really going to show them off to your friends at the Bureau."
"Thank you, but perhaps later. Show me your first victim."
"Oh, of course." Hannibal opens a door that wasn't there before. "Right this way."
Will immediately recognizes the estate where Mischa died. It's the depth of winter now and the snow blankets the landscape. It is stained red a row of corpses is strung up from a large pine. Mischa's killers, Will notes in grim satisfaction.
He's butchering them as they butchered her, save for one locked in the dungeon.
"All right. Who was next?" Will asks.
The scene shifts.
---
Will catalogues Hannibal's murders. They are staggering in both number and savagery and, Will thinks, artistry. Will watches as Hannibal matures from the unthinking rage of youth to a practiced and elegant killer. Each memory becomes Will's own, like copying files from a hard drive, and the emotions bleed into Will's, until there no filter remains. .
He works his way chronologically through Hannibal's brain. Their days fall into routine. Memory-work, dinner prep and a pre-dinner cocktail, then a meal of magret du canard or steak du poivre. It is almost civilized.
The dinner plates have been cleared and they're lingering over the bottle of wine.
"When did your power manifest?" Hannibal asks.
Will remains silent; he keeps his own shields raised. Hannibal, however, has made no effort to shield his own mind since Will’s initial discovery. Almost as though he is reveling in sharing the dark workings of his mind.
"You've spent so much time in my head, Will. Hardly seems fair that you won't even answer a benign question."
"I was a late bloomer. I had just turned sixteen."
"That's common for more powerful telepaths. Marie Chennault's power didn't come until she was twenty. I myself was twelve. But then, I guess you know that." Hannibal takes a sip of wine. "It must have been a jarring transition."
"Indeed." Will swirls his wine around the glass. "I had accepted that I was psy-null. You know, I was even disappointed. I thought psy ability would make me special." He gives a humorless smile. "I should have been careful what I wished for. You want to know how cruel teenagers are? Listen to their thoughts and find out what they really think of you."
"You are special, Will. But it isn't your ability that makes you so."
Will shrugs the praise away. "They yanked me out of high school anyway, once I was finally tested. I never even got my diploma."
"The FBI did?"
"DOD, actually. I didn't end up with the FBI until ten years ago."
Hannibal considers this. "Were your assignments voluntary?"
"They were voluntary in that I never tried to say no."
Hannibal's eyes narrow ever so slightly. "I see."
"Just as well I guess. I changed schools a lot, and I was always behind. Definitely didn't have the grades to get into college. So it would have been following my dad as a mechanic or enlisting. This way I never had to get my hands dirty."
"You don't think so?" Hannibal asks.
"Touché." Will looks away. "We cannot speak of the past and we cannot speak of the future. This conversation is a precarious one."
"I have always preferred to live in the present. And I do well enough in precarious situations."
"I suppose we could consider philosophy, but I am ill-equipped to discuss it. Psychology is more my area."
"Are you familiar with Greek myth?"
Will shrugs. "A little."
"I find that it often walks the line between philosophy and psychology, revealing the deeper truths about humanity." Elbows set on the table, Hannibal steeples his fingers together. "Have you heard about the goddess Persephone?"
"I remember that she was seized by Hades and dragged to the Underworld to be his bride. Her mother Demeter, goddess of the harvest, was pretty upset about it — and it's how we got the seasons, if I recall correctly."
Hannibal nods. "That's how most people know the story. A kidnapped girl, raped and held prisoner. But there is more to the myth. Persephone was as feared as goddess of the underworld and as powerful as her husband. She had many titles for few would dare to use her name lest they draw her attention. She ruled as Hades equal — a privilege none of Zeus's conquests ever enjoyed. She started her reign as a victim, but she did not allow herself to remain one. It was by her leave that the earth flourished, and by her will that it faltered and died. She was one of the most beautiful and severe goddesses."
"Which of us is Persephone in this scenario?" Will asks, wryly. "I know you can't resist the symbolism."
Hannibal smiles. "I am not usually so literal. But the myth of Persephone considers the balance of fate and free-will in our lives, and I’ve always found it a particularly compelling question. Where do the things that happen to us end and where do the choices we make in response to them begin?”
Will doesn’t particularly care to take the bait, but Hannibal is perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation by himself.
“You find yourself in rather an interesting predicament, as she did. She was a captive, powerless, until she chose to accept her true nature.”
“I’m not a captive.”
“But neither are you free. You could walk out of this house, yet you stay. What holds you, Will Graham?”
Will keeps his gaze lowered, avoiding Hannibal’s dark eyes. Abruptly, he pushes himself up, his chair scraping across the floor.
“I’m going to bed.” Will waits.
“Ah.” Hannibal says and rises gracefully. “And that means I am retiring as well. May I do a bit of cleaning up first?” He nods to the dirty dishes on the table.
“No.”
“All right,” Hannibal say amiably.
He pushes his chair in and then retreats to the basement. He takes two steps down and turns, glancing up at Will. His hair has fallen down across his forehead. “Good night, Will.”
“Goodnight, Hannibal.”
---
Will struggles up the stairs to the bedroom. His leg is shaky and weak under his weight. A jolt of pain strikes through him with every step. He strips out of his jeans, dropping them to the floor. The wound isn't healing. Not like it's supposed to. There's a redness around the injury, a hotness to the touch that he knows is bad. He needs a doctor and a bunch of antibiotics.
He doesn't know how to get them. He has no fake ID to see a doctor with, and the FBI will have sent his picture to every hospital and urgent care facility within five hundred miles.
He just has to hold on a little longer. He just need as few more days with Hannibal. He can make it.
He has to.
---
It is exceedingly strange when he reaches Hannibal's memory of the first time they met.
Hannibal had not particularly impressed Will upon introduction. There had been a long parade of egghead psychologists in Will's life, each eager to see what studying him could do for their careers — dissecting him with their MRIs and their personality tests. Hannibal had just been another one. In fact, it was hard for Will to pinpoint exactly when he'd stopped being a psychologist, and started being a friend. Started being more than a friend really. Will had had very few friends to judge by, but even he knew that the bond they shared crossed the line.
The human memory is an unsteady thing, colored by emotion and worn thin with time. The blood and agony of birth is forgotten, and the perfect love for a child casts the day in rosy hues. And the fairytale wedding curdled and is cast into shades of gray after the divorce.
Still, Will's own memory of their initial meeting was pedestrian and unremarkable: Jack's office, grey carpet, crime scene photos. He slips into Hannibal's memory, and sees it through his eyes. It is as though the saturation has been turned up, and the colors so bright they bleed around the edges. Will's eyes are a bright cerulean, a clearer and more piercing shade than they have ever been in life. Jack is speaking, his voice a dull mumble in the background, his words inconsequential. Hannibal's entire focus is on Will.
Even within the confines of Hannibal's consciousness, Will feels gutted and impaled, like a butterfly pinned to board. The memory is one of Hannibal's most treasured, a fulcrum upon which the course of his life hinges.
Will shies away and the office recedes into darkness, though he can feel Hannibal calm regard watching and considering. Will reaches out, hunting for the next victim. He finds her quickly.
Cassie Boyle.
There is a strange dissonance as he realizes what he should have known all along, what some small part of him suspected. He is both staggered and deeply unsurprised.
He forces himself to watch. Her fear and pain, the last few brutal moments of her life. Watches as understanding that she is going to die registers on her face and as the life fades from her eyes. It is not a good death.
He looks for Marissa Schurr next. She had tried to fight. Had given Hannibal more trouble than men twice her size, but the end is inevitable.
The surge of Hannibal's bloodlust and satisfaction mingle with Will's horror and guilt in a discordant clash. He pulls out of Hannibal's mind, coming to his feet. He feels hot, light-headed, his hands are shaky. He tugs at the collar of his shirt. Why is it so hot in here? He needs water. He limps to the kitchen, his injured leg throbs, sending a pulse of pain through him with every step.
He pulls a glass from the cabinet and turns on the faucet. The glass slips through his sweaty fingers and shatters against the bottom of the sink.
"Shit." He turns off the water, picks up the largest piece of glass and starts filling it with shards. Blood wells from a cut on his thumb.
"Leave it, Will. You're distraught," Hannibal says.
"It's my fault," he says and his voice sounds distant and fuzzy to his own ears. "Two girls died because of me."
"Indirectly," Hannibal allows. He pulls the white handkerchief from his pocket and presses it to Will's bleeding thumb. "Their deaths were necessary."
"I know the argument you will make," Will says, miserable. "The inevitability of it all. I'm very familiar with your philosophy, each twisted link in the chain of your thoughts. I just don't share it."
"You should sit down, Will." Hannibal puts the palm of his hand to Will's forehead. "You don't look well."
Will catches Hannibal's wrist and pulls his hand away.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Will says plaintively, his grip one Hannibal's wrist is tight enough to be painful, but Hannibal displays no discomfort. "I don't … understand …"
Will sways on his feet. He braces a hand against the counter as the room swims around him. His vision is tunneling, blackness encroaching, and his hearing has gone fuzzy, as though he has cotton in his ears. He is teetering on the brink of unconsciousness, and he slumps against the counter, sinking down to avoid an outright fall.
"Hannibal," he thinks and loses consciousness.
---
There is some period of time which passes. Will is vaguely aware of it, never quite comes to full consciousness, but surfaces enough to know that someone is pouring water down his throat or is sponging his brow or that he is alternately shivering or sweating.
When he finally does come to, he is lying in the upstairs bedroom. Late afternoon sunlight casts shadows across the bed. Even lying flat on his back, Will feels dizzy.
"How are you feeling, Will?"
Hannibal. He has left Hannibal unattended, he could have done anything, hurt anyone. Will sends a frantic feeler out, reaching for Hannibal's mind, trying to read him. He feels nothing. Not quite nothing, the warm presence of Hannibal's psyche is still there, but Will can't seem to press beyond his outermost defenses.
Alarmed, Will tries to push himself up in the bed, but his strength fails him and he immediately feels dizzy and faint. He feels very drunk, and he has to work to keep his eyes focused.
"Don't upset yourself." Hannibal sits on the edge of the bed, and pushes Will back down. "Your fever's broken, but you're still weak."
"I can't feel…" Will presses a hand to his forehead. "What did you do?"
"I dosed you with a similar cocktail to what I was given. Much milder, of course, but it should interfere with your telepathic ability. You won't be able to control me or even breach my shields." He pauses for dramatic effect. "I'm sure you can appreciate the irony."
Will tries to hold his thoughts together, but the slip away like cupping water in his hands. Hannibal has drugged him. When? How?
He must have said it aloud or Hannibal is reading his thoughts, because he says, "I merely took advantage of your fever. You've been running a low-grade fever for days now. You haven't been taking care of yourself. I did warn you. It was only a matter of time before it came back to bite you." He shrugs. "I only had to wait until you were too weak to resist. I already keep a stock of the drugs on hand. They've come in handy more than once."
Will struggles with the sheet covering his legs. He's wearing boxers and an undershirt. He tries to sit up, more slowly this time and with more success. Hannibal puts an arm to his shoulder to steady him.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"The better part of two days. You are still sick, don't push yourself. I told you that puncture wounds could be tricky."
"I have to urinate," Will says, as more parts of his body come back online. The pressure in his bladder is enough to make the pain in his leg dull by comparison. The few feet to the bathroom seem daunting as Everest at the moment.
"Of course." Hannibal stands and takes Will's arm to help him up. Will hesitates, and is tempted to refuse Hannibal's help, but he really has to pee and the victory will be short-lived if he collapses before he makes it.
Hannibal keeps him upright. Will's injured leg can take hardly any weight at all. He keeps a forearm braced against the wall as he relieves him. Hannibal waits, his eyes politely averted.
Will washes his hands and splashes water on his face. His own haggard reflection stares back at him in the mirror. He desperately needs to shave and he has dark circles on his eyes. His skin as a pale, greyish cast. He looks like shit. Makes sense. He feels like shit.
His leg gives out on the trip back to the bed. Hannibal catches him, keeps him from sprawling. He hooks Will's arm around his neck, and literally sweeps him off his feet, depositing him in the bed.
Will turns his face to the wall, his shame is exquisite.
"I'm afraid you will not like it, but your bandage needs to be changed."
Will says nothing, pulls apathy around himself like armor, while Hannibal gathers a fresh bandage and disinfectant. Will allows himself to be shifted as Hannibal cuts through the old bandage with blunt-tipped medical scissors. He probes the wound carefully.
"Good, it's healing. You're lucky you didn't get sepsis," Hannibal chides as he rinses it out with an antiseptic which stings sharply. You should take more care with your health. You spend too much time locked in your own mind and failed to realize the severity of the siege your own body was under." He presses new gauze to the injury and winds it around Will's thigh.
"I am an idiot."
"No. You are many things, but never an idiot. At most, I would say you are occasionally short-sighted."
"Kind of you, Dr. Lecter."
"Hannibal, please. We are long past the point of such formalities."
Will glances to Hannibal's elegant fingers, taping the bandage in place. "I suppose I know you better than anyone ever has."
"And better than anyone ever could. It is a strange thing to be completely known. The people in our lives give us context. They reflect back to us the reality we project. When we live our lives in concealment, that image is warped. I have always found it an incredible burden. You've freed me of that burden, Will."
Fatigue pulls at Will, his eyelids feel heavy and his limbs weak. He lets his eyes drift closed.
"You can sleep, but please drink something first. Dehydration is always a threat."
Hannibal fetches a glass of water, a couple of slices of lemon floating at the rim. Will pushes himself up onto an elbow and Hannibal sets the glass to his lips. It's only as the water pours over his tongue that Will realizes his thirst. He drains the glass and then sinks back and allows sleep to take him.
---
"It's time for your medicine, Will." Hannibal's voice brings him to wakefulness an uncertain span of time later.
Will quails a little at the thought of the needle and the woozy feeling that would come with it, clouding his mind. He doesn't say anything, though. He knows Hannibal will not reconsider, and he sits up docilely, leaning back against the headboard of the bed as Hannibal rolls up his sleeve and swabs the inside of his elbow.
Hannibal gives Will's wrist a reassuring squeeze. "Anything that clouds that beautiful mind is a shame, but it's necessary for now. I've adjusted the formula. You should find this less disorienting." He injects Will smoothly, and it hardly even stings. A moment later, Will feels his muscles relax. It reminds him strangely of having his pupils dilated. It has that same sort of sticky, expansive feeling and his body's annoyance at losing control of a function. He closes his eyes, lets his head drop back and feels the room spin around him.
"That's very good. Thank you," Hannibal says. He has a Band-Aid out and places it carefully over the drop of blood on Will's arm. "Give that a moment and let me know how you feel." Will makes a small noise of agreement without opening his eyes. Hannibal brushes Will's hair off his forehead, and the soft touch feels good, but then his hand slips back to cradle the back of Will's head.
"Please," Will whispers hoarsely. "Please don't do this."
"You did this to me." Hannibal's eyes are bright with unshed tears. "Seems only fair."
"I had to — it was my duty."
"Duty? Your duty was to turn me in to the FBI. You took my mind because you wanted to. I assume you were curious. Just as I am curious."
Will's breath is rapid and uneven. He tries to calm himself, center himself enough to put up his shields, with the medication, they are as uncertain and crumbling as a sandcastle. Hannibal's consciousness breezes past them.
Hannibal is in Will's mind, privy to his every thought and memory.
"Why? Will says, helpless. What can you possibly want to know?"
"I want to know you, Will. Quite simply, I want to know everything — to know you in your entirety. I want to know the happiest you've ever been. I want to know what the angriest you've ever been is. I want to know the highs and lows and the everyday tedium of your existence."
"Tedium is right," Will says vehemently. "I am completely ordinary. And I know the contempt in which you hold ordinary people. I don't know anything, I'm not clever, I've never traveled anywhere or done anything. Christ, I've never even gone to the opera. The only reason you've mistaken me for being interesting is my telepathy. But that isn't me, that's a fluke of genetics."
"No. You are quite possibly the most interesting human being I've ever met, and it has nothing to do with your telepathy. Although, I admit your telepathy may have been what first drew my notice."
Will feels as he turns his attention away, casting through the vaults of Will's mind like he's panning for gold.
The first memory he settles on:
Linda Rondstadt's Blue Bayou is playing on the transistor radio. His mother is putting on her make-up, compacts and brushes scattered around the sink. Will sits cross-legged on the toilet, his Teddy Ruxpin cradled in his lap. His mother is very pretty, and he likes to watch her. She's wearing a short acid-wash skirt, and one of the ruffled sleeves of her shirt has fallen off her shoulder as she leans in toward the mirror. She brushes silver blue shadow across her eyelids. Her bleached hair is teased and crimped and she smells like vanilla. She's in a good mood, humming along to the radio.
She turns and looks at him, takes a long sip of her drink. "How do I look, baby?"
"Beautiful!" he says and she blows him a kiss. He reaches out his arms, and she sweeps him up, Teddy Ruxpin falling to the floor. She sets him on her hip, which he doesn't mind even though he's not a baby anymore, and sways in time to the music, singing in earnest now. She dips and twirls, her hoop earrings brushing his cheek.
A car outside honks. She startles and then half-sets, half-drops him on the couch and goes to the window, peering through the blinds.
"Shit, he's early." She turns back toward Will, glances at the clock, indecision written on her face. "It'll be fine." She gathers up her purse, stuffing lipstick and keys into it. "Sherry will be here in just a little bit, baby. You'll be all right until then, won't you?" She leans over to give him a kiss on the top of his head. "Be a good boy, okay."
Then she's gone. He watches from the window as she hops into the cab of a pickup, which squeals as it pulls away from the curb. She's laughing and he catches one last glimpse of her blonde hair. When the pickup has disappeared from view, he goes back to the bathroom and picks up Teddy Ruxpin.
In another three months she'll be gone for good. But Will doesn't remember the actual, for sure, last time he saw her. This is the memory of her his brain has preserved.
"Your mother was a beauty," Hannibal says.
"Yes. Not too bright though." Will gives whatever the mental equivalent of a shrug is. "I think she really did love me in her own way. She just wasn't capable of much."
"I'm sorry, Will."
"Don't be."
"How was your relationship with your father?"
"Careful, you're starting to sound like a shrink."
The memory comes without Will's consent. It's night. He's driving from Fort Bragg to Pensacola. He's got dispensation to leave, but he has to be back in thirty-six hours.
His father is dying.
He parks in the hospital lot. A nurse takes him back to his father's room. His father lies in bed, the coverlet tucked around him. A baseball game is on the TV, but the sound is muted. His father isn't even fifty, but he looks eighty, his skin grey and paper thin, eyes sunken and rheumy.
"Hey, Dad," Will says, and pulls up a chair to sit by his bedside. "How you feeling?"
His dad's face turns toward him, but his eyes fail to focus properly. "Like shit." The answer is clear enough.
"Is there anything I can get for you?"
"Yeah, booze. Nurses won't let me have anything."
"I don't think I can do that."
"Then what good are you."
"Maybe some ice cream or something?"
His dad turns away, reaches out a bony arm and grasps the TV remote. He turns the volume up.
Eight hours later, he dies with a shuddering gasp. Will signs some paperwork, collects the effects the nurse boxes for him, gets back in his car and drives to the fort. He hasn't even missed a training session.
"Yeah, that's all you really need to see of that relationship. He was an asshole."
"Family is a strange concept. They seem destined to tear us up. You're family was neglectful and cruel, and you will wear the scars they gave you the rest of your life. My family loved me as you ought to have been loved, but their loss has given me my own set of scars."
"We're screwed either way, I guess."
---
Now the memory shifts to a vacant lot, sandy with patches of stubby grass. A bunch of twelve-year-old boys, sunburned and sweaty, with baseball bats and gloves. Will is one of them, new to town, but the teams are always uneven so they let him play. He's an athletic kid, but a little uncoordinated. He's good enough to not be a liability, always drafted somewhere in the middle of the pack. He likes it that way; it keeps him safely inconspicuous. At least, that his hope, but Tommy Bugajski notices him anyway. A loud, gap-toothed kid with a mean streak, he quickly hones in on Will as a convenient target. As playground bullies go, he's pathetic, and Will's dealt with worst.
Will avoids confrontation where he can, lets it wash over him without protest when he can. Most of the time he doesn't even have lunch money, and as far as he's concerned, the stakes are low.
When Will snaps, it's not even about Tommy. Will's dad has just gotten fired — again — for drinking on the job. Which means they're moving again, just when Will had mostly sorted out his school work. Miss Bell thinks he's making real progress. They'd been here longer than anywhere else, and Will had begun to hope that this time, it would work out.
Tommy just happens to get in the way after school. He's there with a snide remark — nothing even that inflammatory. Will can't even remember the exact words, just the tone and the smug curl of Tommy's lip. And something within him breaks.
He sucker punches Tommy, catching him in the jaw. He makes good contact, and Tommy's head snaps back cracking against the wall behind him. It's not enough, Will want to inflict pain, real pain, and he hits Tom again. Tommy's too surprised or dazed to put up anything more than weak defense. If he makes contact, Will doesn't even feel it. They're on the floor now, Will straddling Tommy's waist, and Will punching him, alternating left and right fists. Tommy isn't trying to fight back anymore, his nose it bloody and he is moaning low, his eyes swollen shut. A group of kids have gathered around them, first whooping and cheering, but now they've fallen silent.
An adult is hauling him off Tommy, lifting him as if in slow motion. Will looks down at Tommy lying splayed on the green tile, a halo of red spreading around his head.
"I am not proud of this," Will says directly to Hannibal. "I don't want to see."
"I thought you didn't share my appetite for violence," Hannibal's voice comes back to him.
"Perhaps the diversion in our natures is not our aptitude for violence but our reaction to that part of ourselves. I see it as a character flaw to be tamped out. You see it as a virtue."
"Incorrect. I see it as neither vice nor virtue. I see it as intrinsic to our identity. Neither of us would be ourselves without it."
"I don't want to be this person." Will doesn't even mean to think it, but he cannot keep it to himself here. His every thought is laid bare.
"It's your guilt that is the vice that needs eradication. You carry your guilt like a millstone." Hannibal's voice is reasonable, reassuring, and Will wants to lose himself in it, accept the absolution Hannibal offers. "What other useless guilt do you carry?"
And, unbidden, Will remembers.
Westridge South High School. A brick building with all the charm of a low-security prison. The weird broccoli cafeteria smell and florescent lighting. It's where Will meets Sloane McKenzie. Will tries out for the baseball team, makes JV. Sloane is the captain, a sunny good-looking teen with broad shoulders and freckles. He's nice to Will, maybe not particularly bright, but friendly and easygoing. He's not popular, exactly, but everyone likes him. Will likes him a lot, likes him with an intensity. He recognizes it as a crush, but tries not to think about the ramifications, tamps it down as an inconvenience.
But it doesn't go away. He steals glimpses of Sloane in the locker room, takes the long way to his second period English class so he can pass him in the hall, finds ways to be near him during practice. He keeps his gaze off of Sloane, always fixed on some other nearby point, like Sloane is the sun.
When his powers manifest, Will thinks he's gone insane. He'd been feeling jittery and ill-at-ease for weeks, had trouble sleeping, concentrating. He assumes it's hormones or stress, probably both. He's at practice and it's hot, the sun is merciless overhead. The headache that's been plaguing him since yesterday blossoms into the worst migraine he's ever had. It feels like the voice of all of the kids on the field and the coaches are screaming directly in his ear, louder and louder. Will falls to his knees, palms pressed to his ears.
"Something's wrong with that kid, he thinks. But, no, that doesn't make sense. "Graham's fainted. Shit, probably the heat. Hope he's all right. This school doesn't need another lawsuit."
It's Coach Lawson's voice and it is in his head. Fuck.
"Will, are you okay?" A hand is on his shoulder. He can't look up, it's too bright. "Can you get up?" It's Sloane. Will doesn't even care.
"Get him up and take him inside. Make him drink something — this is why I tell you to hydrate!"
Will struggles to his feet, slumping against Sloane's solid form. It's a little better in the dark cool of the locker rooms.
Sloane brings him a paper cup of ice water. Will takes a sip and sets it aside. He feels like his head is reverberating like a gong that has just been struck, but it doesn't fade, it just goes on and on and on.
"Will, can you hear me?" Sloane says.
"Yes," Will says, face in his hands.
"I didn't say that out loud."
Will looks up.
Sloane shrugs. "Yeah, looks like you're a telepath.
"Shit," Will says.
"My older brother is a telepath. It was pretty rough on him too. You need to protect your mind, like from all the brain waves and stuff."
"Okay. Not sure how to do that."
"Just, like, take deep breaths and focus. I know it feels like you don't have any control, but you do. You can make it go away." Sloane breathes in and out to demonstrate. "You have to imagine a wall surrounding your brain. Focus on the wall. Ignore everything else."
"Okay." Will focuses. He imagines a wall, and feels something coalesce in his brain, a weird mental shifting that is unlike anything he has ever felt before. The din recedes, the noise falling to a level that's manageable. The tension in his shoulder eases.
"Better?" Sloane asks.
"Little bit," Will says. "Thanks."
Sloane smiles. "Good. You'll get better at it with classes. That's what my brother says. Must be weird, huh?"
"You have no idea," Will agrees.
The locker room blurs as the memory shifts, and it's a few months later. That was his last semester at that school; they'd be moving over the summer. He doesn't really have friends, but somehow gets an invite to the bonfire outside of town. An end-of-year thing the popular kids do. He's drunk on stolen whiskey, when Sloane offers him a ride back. And he can so clearly see Sloane's face rimmed in the red glow of the fire. And Will feels the agonizing stab of desire accompanied by the knowledge that he will mostly likely never see Sloane again.
Sloane drives a nice car, bench seat, chrome and leather interior. It smells vaguely of stale cigarette smoke and Sloane's aftershave. Will slumps against the window, watching as the trees slip past. He directs Sloane to the bad part of town, to the rundown apartment building. Sloane turns into the crumbling parking lot and pulls into a spot. Two of the street lamps have burned out, leaving the the street in near total darkness.
"Thanks for the ride," Will says, trying to drag out the seconds, willing time to stop. He can feel Sloane, he's edgy, still keyed up from the party, horny in the way that teenage boys usually are.
"Sure," he says.
Will reaches for Sloane, reaches with his mind's tendrils, caressing Sloane's mind ever so gently. Sloane sighs, sinks back against his seat a little, but shows no other sign he's even aware of Will's presence. Most non-telepaths are oblivious to such interference.
Will sidles a little closer, and Sloane looks over at him. Even in the dark, Will can make out his dreamy look.
"Hey," Will says, and dares touch him, grazing fingertips down the side of Sloane's chin.
"Hey," Sloane says, his breath is coming a little faster as he becomes aroused. Will is aroused too. He squirms in his seat to adjust himself, shifting his erection against the fly of his jeans. Will kisses him, tentatively, waiting for Sloane to shove him away, punch his lights out. Sloane doesn't do that. He's pliant and warm under Will's lips. Will kisses the column of his neck, bring his hand up between Sloane's legs, palming his dick. Will's heart his racing, and sweat prickles along the back of his neck, under his arms. Sloane arches back, pushing into Will's hand.
Will has grown bold with his desire, and he struggles with the zipper, shoves at the cumbersome fabric of pants and boxers. Then he has Sloane's cock in his hand, solid and hot to the touch. Sloane shudders and gives a small moan at the back of his throat. The sound goes through Will like a shock of electricity. The impulse to take it in his mouth is strong, nearly inexorable, and he leans forward and does so. Sloane bucks and grasps at the collar of Will's shirt.
Sloane's climax comes quickly, a few quick strokes and he's spurting in Will's mouth. Will is surprised, and he didn't have a plan what to do it, he doesn't shut his mouth in time and the bitter fluid dribbles down his chin. He swallows, swipes his sleeve against his mouth.
Sloane tugs at the hem of his shirt, and yanking his clothes back into place. "I, uh…" There's an shaky, uncertain note in his voice. "I'm not sure that was a good idea."
"Yeah, no," Will says. "Sorry." He scrambles out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. He lets himself into the apartment, and just makes it to the bathroom before he throws up.
"Christ, have you seen enough?" Will interrupts the memory to address Hannibal.
"Why are you embarrassed?"
Will tries to clear his mind, to think of nothing but waves of emptiness which will the closes thing to no answer he can do. But the guilt and shame of that night — He never would have allowed me if I hadn't … been in his mind. I didn't mean to, really I didn't mean to. — overwhelm him. The same sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and he fights the urge to retch.
"You ought not be ashamed, Will. You didn't do anything wrong. It's endearing that you're so concerned with his autonomy. He shared your desire, your mode of persuasion was no stronger than a glass of wine and particularly flattering lighting. If he'd had any particular will of his own, he would have resisted. But in his own petty way, he realized that is a far better thing to offer himself up to you. It was far greater luck than he deserved."
Bitter mirth wells up in Will. "Excuse me if I don't accept you as a moral authority."
"On the contrary, I am familiar with many schools of morality. What you call morality is merely a calcification of cultural dogma, passed on and repeated without thought or examination. Morality is for minds smaller than yours. We are beyond such mean and arbitrary strictures. You carry your useless guilt like an albatross, because they have made you think that it belongs there. Cut yourself free, Will."
Hannibal pulls back, out of Will's mind and they both open their eyes. Will's vision is blurred, and tears are are tracking down the side of his face. Hannibal sits beside him on the bed. His hands drop out of the Dell-Cander position, sliding down the sides of Will's neck, but he doesn't pull away entirely.
"Please don't look at me," Will says hoarsely around the lump in his throat. He grabs Hannibal's wrists, though he does not try to pull them away from his neck.
"You were meant to be seen," Hannibal says fiercely.
Will takes a shuddering breath. "This is what you wanted. All along." Will pauses, forces himself to meet Hannibal's fathomless gaze. "Your shields are very good. But you must have known that soon or later they would slip and I would see you as you see me. Yet you chose to work with me every day for months."
"I wanted you to see me."
"Why?" Will says, nearly pleading.
"Why is the moth drawn to the flame?"
"Don't be facile."
"Don't be obtuse," Hannibal snaps back, an edge to his voice for the first time. "You already know the answer to these inane questions, yet you continue to fish, trawling the waters for a more convenient answer. One which will corroborate your self-delusion."
"And what delusion is that?"
"That there is no real bond between us. That you are incapable of sharing such affection with a monster. And that, as a monster, I am incapable of bearing you the greatest love you have ever known."
Will laughs bitterly, the tightness in his chest contracting to a single agonizing point.
Hannibal tilts his head slightly. "Let me pose one question of my own. Why, when you discovered my true nature, did you save me?"
"I didn't save you," Will says.
"All right, as you prefer: why didn't you turn me in?"
Will hesitates. "There were too many answers I wanted to dig out of your brain myself. They would never let me in a room with you again — our previous association casts suspicion upon me."
"We both know that you're lying."
"I'm not," Will says, soft and helpless. He closes his eyes, insulating himself from the intensity of Hannibal's gaze, letting his head drop forward.
Hannibal leans in and whispers against Will's temple. "You are." Then directly into Will's mind, the words come."Why are you lying, Will? Is the truth so bitter? Why did you take me?"
"I don't know."
"You do know."
"I don't. I don't, I don't, I don't."
"You do. Tell me, Will. Tell me."
"BECAUSE I WILL NOT LET THEM HAVE YOU." The words tear through his, a cri de cœur that rocks him to the marrow of his bones. "YOU BELONG TO ME." He kisses Hannibal then, a hard press of lips.
Hannibal doesn't pull away as Will finally breaks the kiss. He press his face to Will's and Will can hear as Hannibal takes a shuddering breath and can feel Hannibal's happiness.
Eventually, reluctantly, Hannibal lets go. "Thank you, Will." His eyes are bright with unshed tears. He cradles the side of Will's face in his hand. "Now. You need to go and get cleaned up. And I need to start on dinner."
"I'm not hungry."
"Of course you are. Emotional breakthroughs are hungry work."
---
Hannibal draws Will a bath. The water is very hot and scented with juniper and sandalwood oil. Will sinks into the tub, hissing a the heat of the water against his skin. The tub is huge, centered in the spacious bathroom. There's a skylight in the ceiling above, and he can just see the tops of the trees.
Will dozes in the bath, emerging only when his fingers are well and truly pruned.
Hannibal has laid things out for Will to wear. A dove grey suit with waistcoat and silver cufflinks and wingtip shoes. A little formal for eating in, but Hannibal has always liked things to have a sense of occasion. Blue and white delphiniums and asters are spilling out of a large vase in the centerpiece. The table is elaborately set with cut crystal glasses and porcelain with gold leaf.
"You've really outdone yourself," Will calls. Hannibal is in the kitchen, accompanied by the sound of a great deal of rattling. He emerges, wearing a pristine white apron over his suit. He's holding two glasses of champagne. Will accepts one, and the effervescence washes over his tongue, leaving the aftertaste of citrus and apple. He takes a seat in the chair Hannibal pulls out for him.
"Jarrets d'agneau braisés à la provençale," Hannibal says, setting a plate before Will. "Served with wild rice and asparagus."
"But this isn't lamb," Will says, looking at the "lamb" shank plated on a mound of of the dark rice, a sprig of rosemary nestled alongside it.
"No," Hannibal agrees, taking his seat across from Will. "The recipe will work with a number of meats."
Will picks up his utensils, hesitating a moment before placing the first bite in his mouth. It is tender enough to melt over his tongue, the flavor complex, but somehow homey.
"Delicious. My compliments to the chef."
Hannibal smiles in earnest delight. "I'm so glad you approve. You've lost weight, and I've made it my goal to put some meat on your bones. As they say. And I suppose I wanted to apologize."
"You? Pretty sure that's a first."
Hannibal frowns slightly. "I know it been a difficult time for you. I thought a little pampering might be in order. I am not always cruel."
"Not always, no."
"It's strange for me to find myself seeking forgiveness."
"Most people want to be forgiven because they feel remorse. And remorse is an emotion entirely absent from your repertoire," Will says mildly.
"True. Perhaps I misspoke. It is not your forgiveness I want."
"You want my love," Will says, pausing with each word. "But how can you love me."
Hannibal finishes chewing and swallows. "That isn't really a question."
"Usually, all we have are a person's words and actions and from that evidence we have to deduce their feelings toward us."
Hannibal nods once. "But we're not usual people. We're telepaths."
"I know your mind. You know mine — better than I do, I suspect." Hannibal waits for Will to continue. "So when I say you love me, it isn't because I think it's true, or hope or fear that it's true. It's because I know that it's true." Will pauses and watches Hannibal, feels his interest and anticipation reflected back to him in the undercurrent of psy-energy between them.
"I have learned a great deal about love from you," Will says. "It's an emotion that inspires such banality. Love is patient, love is kind — that's all bullshit."
"What definition would you propose?"
"I don't know. I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't just an idea made up by the greeting card companies."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps is is merely a chemical imbalance in the brain. All our emotions have biological basis."
"We are … meat machines," Will says. "A sum of naturally selected parts. It seems strange that this," he gestures vaguely at his own temple, "is the design Nature would pursue."
Hannibal takes a meditative sip of wine, considering this.
"I don't know what to do with your love," Will admits. "But it seems that despite myself, I cannot give it up."
"And that makes you unsure of yourself."
"Your love has changed me. The truths I knew about myself a few days ago have been proven false. And I haven't found new truths to replace them. I thought I was a good person, but my actions haven't been those of a good person."
"I can think of nothing more tedious than a good person. It's a useless conceit. Do you know what a camera obscura is?" Hannibal asks.
Will struggles to follow the sudden change in conversation. "Yeah, uh it's a precursor to modern photography."
"Yes, it's a device which uses light directed through a pinhole to reflect scenes. Unless corrected with mirrors, the projected image is upside down. Many great artists used it as a drawing aid to help the artist capture linear perspective. You see, it's very easy to us to get caught up in what we think there ought to be and fail to see what actually is."
"And you're my camera obscure? Is that the metaphor?" Will says, dubiously.
Hannibal smiles at that. "You know I can't resist a good metaphor. Through me your truest nature is revealed and by me you see undistorted version of yourself."
"You're asking me to trust you," Will says.
"No, I'm merely pointing out why you already do."
Will opens his mouth to argue the point and, to his surprise, finds that he can't. After a moment he smiles wryly and pushes himself away from the table. The wine has made him sleepy, and he doesn't want to think anymore. He attempts to help clear the dishes, but Hannibal waves him away.
"Go and sit down, Will. It's late, and I can finish cleaning in the morning."
Will shuffles into the living room, and then sinks down into the yielding upholstery of the sofa. He’s left his jacket somewhere, and his shirt has come half-untucked. He toes off his shoes, exposing argyle dress socks. Embers are left smoldering in the fireplace, casting the room in an orange glow. Will can just feel the heat on the side of his face. It is exceedingly pleasant.
The couch is long enough for him to stretch out on. He kicks his shoes off and does so, pulling a tasseled cushion into position under his head. He's drowsing almost immediately. His vaguely aware as Hannibal leans on the back of the sofa, peering down at him. Will feels Hannibal's mind brush against his, not forcing his way in, but seeking an invitation. Hannibal is in as great a state of undress as Will, his jacket gone, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up.
Will shifts forward, making room. Hannibal takes a seat at the foot of the sofa, and Will pats the space he's cleared next to him. Hannibal gracefully lowers himself down, so he's sandwiched between Will and the back of the sofa. It's a wide piece of furniture, upholstered in red velvet, but they are still pressed up against each other. The thrum of Hannibal's mind is as comforting as the heat of his body.
Hannibal's arm comes to rest around Will's waist. Will shifts, rolling into the embrace. Hannibal's hand strokes Will's side, a gentle, lulling caress. Will can do nothing but surrender to it, at it traces up his ribs and sternum, then down over belly and hip. Will sighs a little, and luxuriates in the touch. He has not been touched, not like this, for years.
Hannibal's breath tickles the back of his neck and Will can smell his cologne and cognac. A ripple of agitation roils through Will's stomach, an itch he finally recognizes as desire, and he rolls onto his back, though there is hardly room for it. Hannibal must feel it as he feels it, and Hannibal’s hand hesitates before teasing lower. Will's shirt is half-untucked, and Hannibal's hand finds the gap, fingers slipping underneath so they touch skin. He pulls more of the shirttail from the waistband, and soon Will's belly is exposed, his shirt rucked up to his ribs. The air is cold against his skin, and the heat of Hannibal's hand stands as stark contrast. Hannibal makes lazy circles around Will's navel, touch light.
Will's cock is half-hard, interested in the preceding, but still sleepy and full as the rest of him. Hannibal's reach goes lower, until his fingers trace the outline of Will's cock through the thin wool of his trousers. There is no urgency behind the caress, no real intent, as if his dick is just one more part of Will to touch. The fingers traces the flesh of Will's thighs and return to the naked skin of his stomach. Will is patient, yielding, willing to go where Hannibal leads. He sighs, and turns his face toward Hannibal's. His eyes are closed, but he knows that Hannibal watches him. They have bled into each other and he can see what Hannibal sees like an afterimage in his brain. He sees his own face, very pale, hair too long across his forehead, dark circles under his eyes. He looks like shit.
"No, beautiful." Hannibal nuzzles the side of Will's neck, nosing the hair behind his ear. Hannibal's fingers catch on the buckle of Will's belt, slipping the leather free and deftly unbuttoning his fly and inching the zipper down. He slides his hand under the fabric of Will's pants, but still over the cotton of his boxers, so he's stroking Will through the thin fabric. The touch send little frissons of pleasure through Will like electricity.
Hannibal toys with him, tracing Will's cock with just the very tips of his fingers, lingering at the head before switching to use the palm of his hand to half-grip Will and stroke him. The varying pressure and pace brings Will to full erection, but isn't enough to send him over. Desire curls in the pit of Will's stomach, and he writhes, just a little impatience. Hannibal's mind brushes through Will's, conveying his own arousal.
"Good things come to those who wait."
"Do those who wait come?"
Hannibal is amused, but he pinches Will's hip sharply, and he shushes him. Slowly, carefully, with the exactitude he brings to everything, Hannibal tugs down the band of Will's boxers. Will is hard, very hard; his cock rising off his stomach and jerking as Hannibal traces the head with one finger.
"Hannibal."
"I'm here." Hannibal shifts lower, so he is curled around Will's side. He takes Will's cock in his hand, his grip firm and confident, and then licks a thin stripe up the underside. The pink of his tongue and his hair veiling his face overwhelms Will, and he closes his eyes tightly. Hannibal's mouth closes on him, hot and wet and overwhelming. They're in a feedback loop, Will's pleasure bleeds into Hannibal and Hannibal's satisfaction and desire surge back through Will.
Their positions don't allow Hannibal full range of motion, but he laves the head of Will's cock with his tongue, creating soft suction with his hollowed cheeks, his hand working the shaft.
Will's hand comes up, curls around the back of Hannibal's neck, twisting through his hair. The touch steadies him, strengthens the connection between them. Hannibal can feel the crescendo as Will approaches climax, intensifies his efforts.
Will gives a breathless cry as he comes, spill himself across his own stomach and into Hannibal's mouth. Hannibal spits into his own hand, rises up on to his knees, tugging his flies open with his other hand. He grasps his own erection, coming a few short strokes later. Hannibal's climax pulses through Will, as his come splashes across Will's belly and ribs. Hannibal collapses, catching him with one arm. He kisses Will, pulls Will's lower lip between his teeth and sucks it. He sweeps a hand up through the mess on Will's stomach, and then grips Will's face with damp fingers. Will turns his face, and takes those fingers in his mouth, the bitter tastes of their combined come on his tongue.
The look on Hannibal's face is akin to wonder, tempered with a fierce edge. After a moment he sinks back down onto the couch, his fingers slipping from Will's mouth. He presses a kiss to the corner of Will's mouth.
In the aftermath of pleasure, Will is sated and drowsy. Hannibal is still in his mind, an unobtrusive, warm presence. Will lets his eyes close, sleep creeping up on him.
"We should retire upstairs," Hannibal says, voice low and amused. "I don't want to have to carry you."
Will tries to move but fails to work up the motivation. "And I should really take a shower."
Hannibal is dismayed. "Perhaps in the morning?" He leans in to press his nose against Will's collarbone. "I like smelling myself on you."
"Of course you do. Is there no end to your depravity?"
Hannibal laughs low at the back of his throat. "I'm afraid not. Come along, darling boy." He rolls over Will, taking his wrists and tugging upward as he stands. Will makes an unhappy noise but allows himself to be led up the stairs.
He falls into the bed, has a moment to be grateful that Hannibal has a truly wonderful mattress, and is asleep a moment later.
---
Will wakes late, having slept like the dead, still groggy. Will swings his feet over the edge of the bed and sits, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. The bed room is empty. He reaches for Hannibal, finds him downstairs, busy with breakfast. Hannibal pauses, reaches back for him, in a distracted sort of way, brushing against Will's mind in greeting. Satisfied, Will dresses and pads downstairs in this stocking feet.
"So ... now what?" Will says. Hannibal pours him a glass of orange juice. It's fresh-squeezed; there's a juicer out on the counter. "Where do we go from here?"
Hannibal looks at him and blinks. "Where would you like to go?"
"Home," Will says, immediately.
"Then we will go home."
"Can we?"
"I'm sure we can find a suitable reason for our unexplained absence. I'm sure you'll be able to use your powers of persuasion. In fact, Jack and his team will likely conclude that we haven't been missing at all."
"You can't keep me drugged," Will says.
"It hadn't been my intention. Fourteen hours have passed since your last dose. The drug should be completely clear of your system now."
Will's eyes narrow and he tests his ability. With a giddy rush, he realizes that Hannibal is correct, and the last muddy poison has evaporated from his brain. Hannibal doesn't have his shields up, and when Will slips into his mind it's like stepping out of the shadow and into the bright summer sunshine. After all the lies, this can't be feigned. Hannibal's love for him is cosmic in scope, without bound or limitation. He could seize control now. But he can't bring himself to.
"You don't want to turn me in."
"No," Will agrees. "The strongest terms I'd use would be that I want to want to turn you in."
Hannibal smiles, and his good humor is contagious; the corners of Will's mouth turn up in response. "That feeling will fade with time."
"Quite quickly, I'm sure."
"And if you want to go home, we shall go home," Hannibal says.
"I … do," Will says. "Though I'm still not sure entirely what my new life will look like."
Hannibal raises his glass of orange in a toast. "Have no doubt it will be wonderful."
Will smiles, with more confidence now. "I'm beginning to think you're right."
|
“Hyungs!” Was the first thing Soobin and Yeonjun heard when they arrived back in Veloria. The two of them left after promising his mom to visit and to bring their friends along too. His mom said she would explain the situation to her family and he might want to come back in a little while to tell the police to shut down their active missing persons case, but according to his mom it wasn’t much of a case to begin with.
“We’ve only been gone a couple of hours, little sprout” Yeonjun chuckled fondly when they got an armful of the nymph. Hyuka, despite being taller than Yeonjun, tucked his head into his shoulder.
“I know but it felt like longer” he mumbled. The dragon cooed and pet Kai’s hair.
“Our poor sapling” Soobin teased.
“Welcome back hyungs” Taehyun and Beomgyu were walking out of the canopy of trees. It made the human assume that Kai had run ahead when he sensed them and left his mates behind. The mage and other shifter appeared to be standing closer to each other than before he left, so it probably had something to do with Hyuka being so bashful.
“Hyungs! Guess what? We developed a new mating ability” Soobin had to take a second to remember what that was. Besides the basic abilities he and Yeonjun had gained after their mating, they hadn’t gotten any more. It had made the human forget that other mated people could develop other things. What had Yeonjun once said? Things like gaining new senses. To be honest he still wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
“That’s fantastic! What is it? Yeonjun asked, eyes sparkling with interest. Adorable.
“We can see out of each other’s eyes!” Beomgyu gushed, obviously as excited as his nymph mate at the news. Soobin’s confusion must have showed on his face because Beomgyu explained more. “I can switch my vision from my own to what one of my mates is seeing”
“That’s some matrix shit” Soobin said, amazed at the possibilities of having that ability with Yeonjun. He could see what the back of his own head looked like.
“Which one is matrix?” Taehyun asked. Soobin was thinking about what it would look like if he was in dragon form. Or rather in Yeonjun’s shifted form.
“I think it’s a group of singers” Yeonjun said. Soobin blinked, realizing what they were saying.
“Oh, no it’s- you know what it’s not important” there were more important things to talk about than the matrix, but he’d never say so in front of his old roommate. Soobin told them all about his sister and the journal and his mom. Taehyun even chimed in with what he had seen in his dreams. It made sense with what he knew. But if they needed a dagger to get through the gate, where could they find one?
Taehyun didn’t know if it was some kind of weird dragon thing, but Beomgyu had unbelievable stamina. They had quite literally been doing it for hours at this point. He was exhausted.
“Hyung! Shift your hips!” Damn it all. Couldn’t he see that Taehyun was about to collapse? He felt like if he even moved he would die.
“Hyuka, Beomgyu!” Soobin cut their sparring session off, to the mages complete and utter gratitude. As soon as his mate got out of his battle stance, Taehyun let his legs go and fell into the dirt. All three pups surrounded him instantly. He couldn’t even breathe without them licking his face. By the ancestors.
“Come here you!” Soobin scooped two of them up and was trying to grab the last one. Taehyun wasn’t in the state of mind to care though, he was about to pass out.
“I think… made him…” those were the words he thinks he heard as he drifted off.
Seoah sat on a round slab of stone. It was half buried under forest growth, but from what he could see it looked like there were ornate carvings on it. Taehyun looked around, taking in their surroundings. Tall, thick trees grew around them. Instead of the more straight trunks he was used to, these trees curved and zagged in different directions. They looked like waves on the surface of a pond. Their bark was a deep blue as well, with white leaves shaped like Jœni horns tumbling down the side like raindrops. There wasn’t much grass on the ground, more a mixture of different colored mosses and fallen leaves. He couldn’t feel the temperature but Seoah was wearing a heavier cloak.
“Are you sure this is it?” The voice made Taehyun do a double take. He hadn’t even noticed there was a small group of people around them. The couple and their two sleeping kids, the old man, the young girl, and even the old woman all stood back off the stone slab. There were others too, a man who looked about his age stood with two other men, both taller than him. The shorter man had a bundle in his arms.
“Positive, I just need to place one of the blades on the Moseom clan crest. I just can’t find it” Seoah said as she continued her search. The man with the bundle stepped forwards and swept his foot over an area. It cleared the leaves and revealed what Taehyun assumed to be the clan crest. It was the teardrop shape of a dragon scale with ancient symbols he didn’t understand.
“My mother always said the crest of any clan would be located at the dragons eye” the man said. Taehyun didn’t quite understand what he meant until he looked at the uncovered parts of the stone slab as a whole. It was a dragon, curled around itself into a circle. It’s horns were etched into the stone with great care and the details were starting to shine through. The slight coloration of some areas weren’t from moss but from long forgotten colorants. It was a gorgeous piece of art covered up for hundreds of years.
“Thank you Yoongi” Seoah gasped a breath of relief and hesitated as she stared at the crest, directly where the eye of the stone dragon should be. “Everyone needs to have both feet on the stone”
As soon as Seoah saw each person in their group with both feet on the stone, she released a shaky breath and pulled a black dagger from under her cloak. Gently, she pressed it flat against the crest. The next instant the entire group was standing on an identical stone slab, in a meadow of foreign flowers. The sky was tinged pinkish purple and soundless lightning flashed in the sky.
“We’ve made it” the old woman actually wept. Tears silently ran down her face as if she was seeing the most beautiful thing in the world.
Soobin saw it before the others did. The odd rustle of leaves when there was no wind. He brushed it off and helped readjust Taehyun’s sleeping form on Beomgyu’s shoulder. When the mage started to stir he saw something sparkle out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t until Taehyun shot awake and muttered some kind of spell that sent purple leaves flying from around them that he understood. They had been found.
Kai shot into action right away, using his weird tree controlling abilities to create a maze of roots and branches that blocked whoever was out there. Beomgyu took that time to shift into his dragon form.
“Hyung! get Yeonjun!” Taehyun was already looking around as if he could see where their enemies were hiding amongst the foliage.
“Babe, we’re being attacked, they’re being held off, don’t worry” and as soon as he was done sending that message to his mate he heard the familiar roar of a dragon boom across the forest. Soobin looked around for some kind of weapon and came up with nothing, he realized how completely useless he was at that moment. Just a human who couldn’t protect his friends and his husband. Hyuka had inadvertently trapped them within the clearing so it wasn’t as if he could run back to the cave and find something.
“Hyung!” He felt himself get knocked to the ground as a blast of fire burst through the tangle of wood behind him. Taehyun was on top of him, casting some kind of barrier around their bodies. Beomgyu roared beside them, but he didn’t shoot any flames back. The fire around them dissipated and Taehyun was immediately up and muttering spells. A wall of earth shot up from the ground and covered the burnt hole the flames had left behind. Soobin looked over at Kai who looked as if he was in physical pain at the sight of more attackers trying to get through his defense. They were surrounded.
“We need to get out of here! Quickly!” He called out to his friends. “Yeonjun come quicker”
He wanted to grab all of them and go to his plane but he couldn’t leave without Yeonjun. He knew his mate was getting closer from their bond, but their defenses were weakening and Beomgyu was beginning to swallow some of the people breaking through, whole. The human narrowly dodged an arrow. He looked around frantically for something. A dead mage, probably, was just a couple of feet away and she had a sword. Not wasting any time, Soobin dove at the weapon and grabbed its handle just as more fire was shot where he had been standing.
“Hyung! Stay close to one of us!” Kai yelled over his battle with two burly men throwing lightning and other nasty spells at him. Taehyun was the closest to him, just feet away blasting a gust of wind that knocked his attacker into the trunk of a tree with a horrifying crack of what must’ve been bone.
“Hyunnie! I have a plan, get everyone close to me!” As soon as he said it he could hear the mage whistle and three pups ran through the battle towards him. They stood guard, barking out small puffs of flame where need be. Most people weren’t paying any attention to Soobin though, going after the obviously bigger targets. That and the fact that he was laid out on the ground covered in dirt, hardly moving out of shock and fear probably made him look like a dead body.
A roar let out once more, Beomgyu had been impaled in the side with some kind of javelin. Kai was already at his side, impaling the woman who shot him straight through her body. She looked as if she had been split in half by a tree. He saw Taehyun was already making his way over to his mates and Soobin knew he needed to be with all of them. The human gripped his sword and ran. He jumped over a body and swung wildly when someone got in his way. The few feet away he had been before shrunk and he barreled into Kai, puppies hot on his trail.
Soobin could almost feel how hard Beomgyu was restraining himself from letting his fire loose. The human had figured out right away that the sole reason he wasn’t using it was because of the forest. Beomgyu physically couldn’t harm his mate and Kai was literally a part of the forest.
“Get ready darling”
|
Masquerade AU
There was a difference between Bruce and Bruce Wayne.
Bruce was taciturn, unobtrusive. He observed and considered before making a move, whether it be in a fist fight or his turn at game night. He was shrewd and calculated. He came across as very cold and solitary, but it was just to hide the fact that he cared, a lot, and very deeply.
Bruce Wayne was the exact opposite. He was loud, and always wanted attention on him. He was reckless and stupid, sticking his foot into his mouth every other word and not caring. He blustered about so you had no choice but to look at him. He talked to everyone and immediately forgot what he’d said to them, showing just how unimportant they really were to him.
Clark had thought he’d known which persona he preferred, but was shocked to see another side to him―the side that Tony Stark brought out, equal parts Bruce and Bruce Wayne. He laughed loudly, but it was genuine. He could be goaded into recklessness, but not if it would put his friend out. He still spoke to people, but it was with Tony in mind, introducing him and keeping an eye on the conversation. It made him seem… softer, somehow.
Clark watched Bruce grab a blond man by the arm and lean in close, ears catching a truly horrifying and scathing threat. The blond man sneered, but Bruce just narrowed his eyes, and the man fled.
Well. Perhaps not too much softer.
Clark couldn’t help but make his way over to them, curious.
“Clark,” Bruce greeted, not… warmly, but not coldly either.
“Who the fuck is Clark,” Tony said, and then paused to give Clark a long once over. “Hmm. Anyway!” he added, turning back to Bruce. “How do you recognize all these people with these masks on? Do you have super powers? Can you see through masks?”
“I don’t know,” Bruce said, allowing amusement to color his tone. “How could you recognize me with my mask on?”
“We’ve known each other since we were seven, Bruce,” Tony told him snidely. “You think just because you cover your cheekbones, I wouldn’t recognize you?”
Bruce considered this.
“Also you’re the only one here that can afford real diamonds on your mask,” Tony added.
Clark was glad he’d already swallowed his sip of champagne, otherwise he would have spewed it everywhere.
“Fair,” Bruce said. “Tony, this is Clark. He’s a… work friend.”
Clark smiled nervously as Tony gave him another long onceover.
“Is he a work friend, or a work friend ?” Tony asked.
“...What’s the difference,” Clark asked, confused.
Bruce sighed and rolled his eyes. “He’s not a prostitute, Tony.”
“I NEVER SAID HE WAS,” Tony howled immediately, and then reached out to grab Clark’s arm, looking up at him with big, brown eyes, dewy like the calves’ eyes back home on the farm, Clark thought. “I don’t think you’re a prostitute. Although if you were that would be okay! Sex work is just as respectable as―um―”
“A journalist,” Bruce offered.
“As a journalist!” Tony exclaimed. He paused, then looked down at Clark’s arm under his hands. “A journalist.” He squeezed Clark’s arm carefully before tipping his head back to squint up at him, disbelieving. “A journalist?”
Clark froze. What was he supposed to say? No one ever actually realized how muscular he was. They didn’t typically touch him when he was just Clark. Hell, Bruce tried his best not to touch anyone in general.
“Yes,” Bruce said, coming to his rescue. His smile said ‘you owe me.’ “He works for the Daily Planet .”
“Oh!” Tony said happily. “I read the Daily Planet !” He sensed more than saw Bruce rolling his eyes and turned, barking, “Some of us like to keep up on the news!”
“Right. Makes sense,” Bruce said, clearly placating him.
Still, Tony’s hackles went down, and he went back to smiling up at Clark. “Would you care to dance?”
“Uh,” Clark said, beginning to sweat.
Bruce’s eyes went wide for a second before narrowing with wicked delight. “Clark loves to dance! I’m sure he’d love to dance with you, Tony!”
Tony’s eyes went big and hopeful behind his mask.
All Clark could do was helplessly offer Tony his arm again, and smile a little when Tony cheerfully took it, leading him to the dance floor. Clark gave Bruce a sharp look over his shoulder.
“I’m not sorry,” Clark heard Bruce whisper, and he mulishly decided Bruce would be after he’d trod all over Tony’s feet and broken toes.
Tony was surprisingly small in his arms.
“Wow, you really are big,” Tony said, surprised, as he looked up at him. “How come I didn’t see you before? I notice everyone at parties.”
“I… try not to be seen,” Clark offered. It wasn’t that he tried not to be seen, it was just… as Clark, people tended to look over him.
Tony, disconcertingly, did not look down at their feet once. “Oh, are you an investigative journalist? I know they try not to be seen.”
“...Yes,” Clark said after a moment. “You got me.”
“Your secret’s safe with me!” Tony chirped, looking incredibly smug for being right. It was cute. “Not that it would matter, I guess,” he added, mostly to himself. “I don’t know what you look like. But if I felt your arms I’d recognize you!”
Clark couldn’t help a laugh. “You probably shouldn’t be going up to strangers and feeling their arms.”
Tony sighed, frowning. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He brightened up immediately. “I wouldn’t have to if you agreed to go out to dinner with me! No masks!”
“...I could just take the mask off,” Clark said.
Tony somehow managed to give him an incredibly impressive bitch-face even with half of his face covered by a mask. “It’s a masquerade ball, Clark! You’re not supposed to take your mask off!”
“Excuse me,” Clark replied, unable to help being amused. “This is my first masquerade party. I guess I didn’t realize that was part of the rules.”
“Well, to be honest, masquerade parties are real bores,” Tony admitted. “Eventually you realize who you’re talking to. And since I’m not from Gotham I don’t know a lot of people, but they still figure out who I am pretty quickly. It’s off putting. For me, at least,” he added. “I’m sure everyone else gets a kick out of it.”
“Probably,” Clark agreed.
“So?” Tony asked hopefully. “Dinner?”
Clark paused, considering, and promptly stepped on Tony’s foot. He jerked upward immediately, mortified.
“Oh,” Tony said, somehow simultaneously looking surprised and smug. “So you are a work friend .” And then he used the hand on Clark’s shoulder to yank him down.
Clark’s feet hit the floor with a thump, and he was even more mortified to realize that he had been hovering in midair to keep from trampling all over the smaller man’s feet.
“It’s okay!” Tony told him cheerfully. “I know how to keep a secret! Or, well. I know how to keep other people’s secrets!”
“Tony,” Clark choked out.
Tony still had those wide, hopeful eyes. “So dinner?”
Clark stared at him, bewildered, and flatly repeated, “Dinner.”
Tony seized on this. “Great! Dinner! Pick me up at seven tomorrow!”
“What,” Clark said.
“I’ll be staying here with Bruce, so make sure you tell Alfred that you’re for me when you arrive,” Tony added.
“What,” Clark said again.
Tony beamed up at him and patted him on the arm. “Take me somewhere nice!” And then he flounced off without so much as a ‘goodbye.’
Clark could only watch him go, perplexed and, perhaps, a little intimidated.
“Bring him flowers,” he heard Bruce say over the blood pounding in his ears, and for the life of him couldn’t tell if Bruce was next to him or halfway across the room.
Tony couldn’t have been serious. Could he? And… did Tony really know he was Superman? Had he figured it out, or had Bruce told him? Would Bruce have told him? He couldn’t imagine Bruce would share his secret like that...
.-.-.-.
“Oh, he didn’t, but I figured out he was Batman and figured he’d only really be friendly with people who helped him save the world,” Tony replied casually as he fussed with the vase for the flowers Clark had brought him.
“...So you just… figured out I was Superman?” Clark asked, stunned.
“Well I mean, you’re the only one of his friends built like you are,” Tony reasoned. “And then you were hovering on the dance floor and it sort of cinched it for me.”
“Are you saying you figured out I was Superman when you felt my arm?!” Clark sputtered.
Tony tilted his head thoughtfully before shrugging. “I’m not an idiot, Clark.”
Clark was pretty sure the only reason he didn’t faint was because he was Kryptonian, but it was a near thing. He noticed Bruce hovering at the top of the stairs and couldn’t help but tilt his head towards him.
“If you hurt Tony I’ll shove a piece of kryptonite so far up your ass I could fill your teeth with it,” Bruce said.
“Anyway I made reservations so we should go,” Clark said hastily.
“Okay,” Tony said happily. “Bye, Bruce!”
“Have fun!” Bruce called back. “Or else,” he added under his breath.
Clark was sweating again. God, he hoped nothing went wrong on their date.
"Oh, by the way," Tony added, looking up at him with a smile. "You're even more handsome than I imagined."
Clark smiled at him, blushing a little. "Oh, thank you. You're very handsome, too."
"Thanks! I think we're gonna have a fun date!" Tony replied happily.
"I hope so," Clark said, and not just because he could feel Bruce staring daggers at his back.
|
"Will you un-blindfold me already?" you complain.
The carriage has come to a stop, and you feel like you have sat in the dark for long enough.
"Not quite yet, darling," Loki replies, moving about in the carriage until you hear the door click open. "Let me help you out first."
You reach blindly in the direction of his voice, sliding along the seat to get closer to the door.
He takes your hands, helping you stand, and then literally lifts you from the carriage, onto the frozen ground that crunches under your boots.
You yelp in surprise, feeling a salty wind on your face and the sunlight on your skin.
Finally, Loki is ready to show you what he has been preparing all this time, after you'd already given up hope it would be done any time before Fridi's birth.
You're quite close to your due date now, which is why Loki is treating you like glass and fussing over you whenever he can.
"Come along," he beckons, one hand on your back, the other holding yours, steering you away from the carriage. He is insisting on holding your hand while walking, ever since your belly became big enough to hinder graceful movement.
You are sure now you are near the ocean, and you think you can hear the waves crashing some distance away. You turn your head in every direction as you move along, sniffing the air.
Loki chuckles softly, guiding you slowly across the uneven ground until he finally comes to a standstill. Then, gently, he tugs the blindfold off your eyes.
You blink, gazing up at his sunlit face. He is looking back at you expectantly. Slowly, you turn on your axis, and realize you are on a grassy cliff. Behind you, waits the carriage.
Quite a distance below is the sea, stretching out to the edge of Asgard where it falls off into space. You can see the first touches of spring in the flowers poking from the hoarfrost covered grass and the brand new leaves sprouting from tree branches. Besides that, you see nothing more than untouched nature.
You turn back to Loki, wondering why he brought you here, and why he was gone so long preparing this.
He is simply regarding you with fondness in his gaze.
You shield your face against the sun and the wind, blinking up at him. "Did you bring me here to push me off a cliff?"
He looks taken aback for a moment, before smiling. "No, darling. I came here to give you something."
"Something?" you repeat, your heart suddenly beating faster.
A scenic cliff, just the two of you, a mysterious surprise—this can only mean one thing.
"Yes," he says, taking your hand. "It's right over there."
Before you can express your confusion, he begins pulling you with him, along the cliff. It doesn't take long for the cliff to taper down into a secluded lagoon, and further in that lagoon, right on the hillside, is a house. A very big house. A villa.
Your feet stop moving and Loki is forced to stop, too. He looks back at you questioningly.
Your brain seems to have shut down.
"Is the... Is the gift inside the house?" you ask, fearing the answer.
Loki smiles and takes the step back that he was ahead. "The gift is the house. And more."
You almost choke. "More?"
He hums in confirmation, still smiling at your shock. "Come along. I will explain."
He takes your hand again and carefully leads you down the hillside.
"This was our summer home," he explains. "With ours, I mean Frigga, Odin, Thor's and mine. We came here on occasion to take a break from royal duties. There is a village close by, right beyond the trees. I have fond childhood memories here, though Odin did not enjoy abandoning his duties and rarely stayed for long. I have not been here since Thor came of age to be king. That is, until recently, when he helped me prepare this for you."
"For me?" you ask, dumbfounded. The house is getting even bigger the closer you get.
"For us. We cleaned it and refurnished it for two people and a baby to live in. We set up a nursery. And we made sure the village here has a good school and carts to deliver food with."
Now you really do forget how to breathe. You've reached the porch and shakily walk up the steps.
Loki is still smiling slyly, summoning a key to his hand and unlocking the front door, letting it swing inwards. Before you can say anything, he grabs you and lifts you in his arms, then carries you across the threshold.
You yelp again, clinging to him and hoping he won't drop you. Thankfully, he sets you down inside, and you step further in to stare at the interior. It looks really nice. Everything is spacey, and furnished with cozy pieces.
You hear the door close and Loki comes up behind you. "I have not done too much decorating, as I thought we'd like to do that together. Now, I'm sure you have some concerns—how we should handle all this by ourselves without servants, but I have an answer for that."
You turn back to him, hoping dearly he won't gift you an army of servants as well.
He chuckles at your expression. "No, darling, it is just us in here. I thought you might be happier with that. The palace can get... hectic. And there are bad memories for both of us tied to it.
"Since this is only a summer home, I thought we would live here for the warmer moons of the year, send Fridi to school in the village to make friends, and then, in the winter, we would return to the palace to enjoy the warmth and luxuries it offers.
"The village schools would most likely be closed anyway, with the harvest and the snowfall, so Fridi will receive private tutoring in the palace. He will be a prince, after all. Speaking of, I doubt you wish him groomed to take over the throne after me, do you? Perhaps we can leave it a choice for him, see if it suits-"
You take a step back. "W- Wait, wait a moment. 'After you?' I thought Thor-"
Your eyes widen when Loki's smile grows.
"Thor and I have talked, and neither of us are willing to shoulder the burden of the throne alone. Until we name a successor, we thought we would share it. Thor will be the king of the summer, ruling Asgard while you and I live here. I will take over in the harsher months, and you and I will return to the palace.
"While I rule, you will have complete access to nursemaids who will take Fridi off your hands as long as you wish it. I may get busy sometimes, so being unable to help you, I thought it only fair. When he gets older, he can invite his friends, of course. In the summer, I am all yours, and we can do whatever we please. The Valkyrie will help both of us and take over in case of illness, so you will not have to worry about me having to leave you for an emergency."
"You-" You are speechless. This is all completely thought out. No problems for you to lose sleep over, nothing to fret over. Just... a future. A summer of your life, and a winter of his. A gentle king, and a harsh one.
Loki's gaze softens and he reaches out to stroke your cheek with the back of his hand. "We can always return to the palace if raising our son alone proves too difficult, but I thought you might like it this way. Just us two, and our son. For now. Cooking our own food, tending to our own home, and spending time with the villagers. Allowing him to make friends, lead a normal life, and not the one forced on me. He might get teased for his parentage, but believe me, the palace would not treat him much better. Here, we can teach him to accept every side of himself and be kind, and he will not buckle so soon under the pressure of his bloodline."
You open your mouth, but you still can't say anything, and so you let your emotions turn into tears, hiding your face against Loki's hand.
He steps closer and pulls you to him, wiping them away with his fingers.
"Oh, shh. Hush, my darling. This is nothing. I would do so much more for you. For us. I want you happy as many days of your life as you can be."
You clutch at his coat and begin sobbing your eyes out as he tries to soothe you.
"Th-thank you," you stammer. "Loki, I- I don't know what to say. This is all so per-" You hiccup. "-Perfect, I just... You didn't have to do this!"
He gently pries your hands away and tilts your chin up so you are looking at him.
"Don't think of this as a favor, sweet one. It is an investment into our future together. We are one now, don't ever think otherwise."
You sniffle and nod, trying to calm down instead of succumbing to your hormones. "We are one?" you repeat. "Forever?"
"Indeed," he confirms. "Here, let me show you around."
You nod mutely, wiping at your eyes.
He shows you the ground floor, and then the upper level with the master bedroom, the nursery, and the spare bedrooms for when Fridi is old enough, and for any other people that might appear in your life.
Over the course of the tour, you manage to calm down and focus on the actual rooms. You are most impressed with the nursery.
It seems fully stocked with diapers, towels, a changing table on top of a dresser, a crib, a rocking chair, and even a good amount of baby clothes, some books, and toys.
"This is amazing!" you exclaim, rifling through the drawers. "I'm glad we have at least a little stuff already here. Do you think the village has more? I'd love to go shopping for more things! Wouldn't that be fun?"
Loki has remained in the door frame, and you assume he is watching you with amusement.
"I'm sure it will be," he says. "But there is one more thing. I need you to do me a favor."
"Hm?" you ask absentmindedly, too distracted by the mental list you are making of all the baby things you want to buy. "A favor? Yeah, sure."
"Will you marry me?"
You are sitting in front of the dresser, in your hand a little baby hat, and your brain seems to stop completely. When it begins functioning again, you drop the hat and abruptly turn your head around.
Loki is on one knee, holding out a ring box, grinning like an absolute bastard.
You stare at him, your heart beating so fast you feel like it can't possibly be good for you. You don't know what to do or say. Here you are, round and heavy and sitting on the floor, and there he is, on one knee, offering you everything.
Loki's grin fades at your minimal reaction, and you see the questions in his eyes. "I know it is customary for me to bring gifts to your family's home and ask your father for your hand in marriage, but seeing as I don't actually know where your parents live, I thought to ask you first. I can, of course, rectify this faux pas, and you can forget I ever asked until I have your father's approval..."
He's beginning to look a little uncertain as you continue staring at him. Then a sound between a sob and a hiccup leaves you.
Oh, Norns. Are you going to cry again?
You open your mouth, and then you absolutely break down, wailing like a child because you can't physically stand up, prance over to him, gracefully accept the ring, and deliver a heartwarming response. Instead, you can sit on the floor like the sack of potatoes you are and sob.
Shocked, Loki moves over to you and pulls you into his arms, patting your back with one hand while still holding the ring box with the other.
"Lo... ki," you sob, clutching at him and letting your tears fall on his shoulder. How can he want this? How can he find anything at all appealing about you right now?
"Darling," he says, sounding concerned. "Are you alright? Did I-" He takes a deep breath. "Was this the wrong time? Did you not... want to focus on this so soon? I understand if you-"
"No, no, no," you cut him off, shaking your head against his shoulder while still sobbing. "How can you want me like this?"
"Like what?" he asks, sounding genuinely concerned. "With a baby in your belly? My baby? With that excited expression on your face when you began talking of going to the village and buying things for Fridi? With the way you look at me as if you think I am the greatest person in the nine realms, despite that title clearly falling to you?"
You have to laugh involuntarily. "No, you are the greatest."
You feel your sobs subside and you finally draw back to look at the ring. It seems familiar. A golden band with a circular emerald.
"Is that... Is that the one you wanted to give to Lady Anise?" you ask breathlessly.
Loki makes a pained noise. "Do not speak of her now, please. You know I never intended to marry her."
"Then why..." You are still having trouble forming coherent sentences, staring mesmerized at the gem that sparkles in the sunlight.
"Why did I have it for so long?" he completes your sentence, sounding rather defensive. Then, he sighs and mutters his confession. "I bought it in a moment of emotional weakness when I was hopelessly in love with you and wanted you to be my wife. I've had it ever since."
You jerk back to stare at him. He's looking back at you as if he has just been put through the greatest emotional torment of his life.
"Oh," is all you can think of saying. "And now?"
He grits his teeth. "Now I would hope you would fall into my arms with an enthusiastic 'yes!' and we can be done with this."
You have to smile at that. "Right. I didn't answer yet.
He glares at you and you wipe the smile off your face.
Your heart beats faster again and you hold out your left hand. "I love you so much Loki," you breathe. "I want to be your wife. I want you to be my husband. I want to be with you forever. I am in love with this house, and the opportunities it presents. I can't wait to move in here with you. I can't wait for our child to come. I can't wait to get married."
Loki looks like you just lifted the greatest of burdens from his shoulders and very quickly plucks the ring from the box and slides it on your finger, as if he's afraid you'll take it all back.
"I am so glad you have chosen this answer, my darling," he says, pulling you to your feet, "because if you had come back without that ring, Thor would have shaken me until I found some way to get you to say yes."
You laugh happily. "Is he really waiting for us? Well, of course he is. You two did this whole thing together. He's probably biting his nails waiting for you to come back and tell him my answer. I'm sorry for crying so much, by the way."
Loki gives you a fond look. "It is normal to cry in such a situation. However, I suggest the next time someone asks you to marry him, you say yes before becoming an incomprehensible mess. It would really save him a lot of anxiety."
You laugh again. "Aww. Were you really worried I was going to say no?"
He gives you a sharp look. "There was no way I could have known for certain what you would say. Of course I was worried."
You give him another sympathetic look. "Aww, baby. I'm sorry. I've wanted to marry you for a while now, if that helps ease your nerves."
He looks like he wants to say something, but then he simply steps forwards and pulls you against him.
Wait. Is he hugging you?
Baffled, you try to look at him, but he has dropped his head beside yours, breathing in your scent.
He is actually hugging you. You don't think that's ever happened. Usually you are the one seeking comfort from him, but now it seems the roles have been reversed. Knowing that, you wrap your arms safely around him and pull him as tight as your belly allows.
He seems to like that, because you hear him take a deep breath.
You stand silently like this, and you can feel in Loki's body language how desperate he is for the comfort you offer. You continue to squeeze him tightly, and he seems to drink up your touch like a healing medicine for his wounded heart.
"Everything's okay now," you say. "You have me, and I have you. We're together now. We're a team, and you're no longer allowed to feel alone in this world. You've worked hard and secured a wonderful future for use. I'm so grateful for that. I think our son will appreciate that, too. You can take a breath now, Loki. I've got you. I've got you completely."
He buries his face against your neck, stooped over and standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, but it doesn't seem like he wants to let go.
You've never had a big strong man cry on your shoulder before, but you feel a surge of protectiveness and warmth. Here, in this house, away from prying eyes and politics, he can be himself. He trusts you, and that feels so dizzyingly wonderful.
He's finally taking what he needs from you. Love. Affection. Trust. He's letting down the barriers around his heart and exposing the vulnerable, wounded part of him that he likes to pretend doesn't exist. He's giving it to you, his silence asking you to keep it safe. To guard it from everything that might cause it harm, and to help it to the best of your abilities. To give it love, and in return, be loved by all of him. Every part, every open wound and every long healed scar. Parts of him no one gets to see. Ugly parts and beautiful parts. And he wants you to see them. To have them. To have him.
You hold him tightly and give yourself in return. Your body, the child you carry in it, your heart full of love, your fears and your worries, your aches and your sorrows, your hopes and your happiness. Because he needs them. Needs them as much as you need him.
You feel him grow colder, know that his skin is turning blue under his clothes, feel his tears freeze into little chunks of ice against your neck.
He draws back and gazes at you, red eyes calm and peaceful.
"My most precious," you say. "My dearest. My Loki. My almost husband. My king."
"My goddess," he says in return, his eyes moving down your body. "My child."
You give him an encouraging smile. "He'll love to see you like this. Know that he's not alone."
His eyes move back to yours. "I'm... not alone anymore."
"That's right," you confirm excitedly. "We'll have another asgardian jotunn."
"I suppose so," he agrees. "I might have to... tell everyone. If our son is to be himself, they must know who I am. Who he is."
You take his frosty hand, giving him another encouraging smile. "I think that's for the best. He shouldn't have to hide part of himself. And you shouldn't, either."
He looks down at your joined hands, entwining his fingers with yours.
"Perhaps you'll be the only one to accept me... but that will be enough."
You give him an encouraging smile. "Things will change, but the good and bad will always be in balance."
"The question now is, if you would like to get married before or after Fridi's birth," he changes the topic, shifting back to his æsir form so he can keep holding your hand without hurting you.
"Well, I... I doubt I'd fit into a dress like this," you say with a laugh. When Loki doesn't react to your attempt at humor, you quickly get more serious. "...Unless it's unacceptable for royals to have a baby before marriage."
He gives your hand a squeeze. "You are already my consort. The only thing unacceptable here is me having a baby with my sex slave and then marrying her."
He is completely deadpan as he says this, and you briefly take him seriously and feel a pang of insecurity.
"Right... I'm not royal at all. Will the people find that illegitimate?"
Now he does laugh. "Darling, me marrying you is the least scandalous thing I've done. They're probably all glad I'm not marrying one of them."
You huff and glower at him for making you worry, and he just looks more amused.
"Alright, we shall get married after you've recovered from birth," he summarizes. "We would have to include Fridi in our official marriage painting, and perhaps have him with us at the exchange of swords, but for the celebration, I would have him sent to bed."
You are about to agree, when a worrying thought strikes you.
"Loki, I don't have a sword! My father didn't give me one! Stars, my family knows nothing about where I've been or what I've been doing."
He places a comforting hand on your shoulder. "We shall have them informed. You should invite whoever you wish, and perhaps you will receive your sword after all. If not, we shall have someone else gift you one. Your friend, Frederikke perhaps."
You are a bit baffled at the idea. The purpose of giving Loki your father's sword is symbolically handing him the responsibility of protecting you, which previously would have been your father's job. A ritual that stems from the idea that men must protect their women. However, your best friend has done a lot more protecting in recent years than your father, mainly because you lived with her and tried to topple a monarchy together.
"I want it to be Rika," you say decisively.
Loki smiles, his eyes glittering with pride and amusement. "Very well. Another thing to think about, is that the sword I will gift you is meant to be passed onto our firstborn son, who will already be there when this happens. Perhaps I shall gift you two swords, no?"
You look at him with pure love and joy in your eyes. "You truly are the perfect man for me. Yes, I would like a sword of my own, not just one to safe keep for Fridi."
He laughs again. "I thought as much. I shall have that arranged, then. There is one more thing. If you would like a new title, we need to arrange that before the wedding."
You are confused at first. "A title? Like a... royal title?"
"Indeed," he confirms, like it's nothing. "Or a noble one. I could make you a lady rather easily. A royal title would require me to involve your parents."
"Right, Thor said as much," you remember, a bit overwhelmed at the prospect.
"You talked to Thor about this?" he asks, amused. "Did you ask him if marrying me would make you a princess?"
You glare at him. "I was just curious. I didn't know how complicated it would be."
"You can be a princess, if you wish," he says kindly. "Do you want that?"
For a moment, you don't know what to say, never having thought it possible. "Y... Yes? Would that be weird? If you're a king and I'm a princess?"
He gives you a soft smile. "Not at all. I assume you do not wish to be a reagent. Thor's potential wife would most likely be Queen of Asgard, then, if that's alright."
"Yeah," you breathe. "Yeah, that's alright. I just want to be with you. I don't care about Asgard."
He leans down and kisses you, cradling your head in his hand. You sling your arms around him, slightly overwhelmed with emotion, but very, very happy.
Once you've had enough of his lips, which takes quite a while, he draws back again to gaze at you.
"My princess," he says, looking fondly at you.
"Loki," you breathe. "I love you so much."
You reach up and stroke his cheek, causing him to smile. Your heart flutters, and you realize you have that power now. To make him smile. He is yours forever now, and you are his.
"Sweet darling," he returns. "We should head back. Thor will wonder if we've broken in the new bed one too many times."
Your cheeks heat a little. "Right. We should be celebrating our engagement, shouldn't we?"
Loki only laughs at that and steers you out of the nursery. "That has time. An entire lifetime. Come now, let us deliver the news."
An entire lifetime, you reiterate in your head. Because he is yours, and you are his.
***
Thor is waiting at the palace entrance as your carriage pulls into the courtyard. While Loki helps you step out, he is already approaching, his expression revealing his nervousness over your answer.
Loki turns to face him, his own expression revealing absolutely nothing. You also stare at him blankly, waiting for either of the brothers to speak.
Thor halts, looking between the two of you. He looks worried before composing himself.
"Ah, hello brother," he greets Loki. "You are back. Did you-" He catches himself and looks at you. "Did he show you the house?"
"He did," you confirm with a smile. "I liked it very much."
Thor is beginning to look rather helpless. "Anything else?"
You pretend to think, quickly hiding your left hand behind your skirt. "The nursery, too! I also liked it."
You can see Loki's grin from the corner of your eye.
Thor looks over at Loki now, a stern look forming on his face. "Brother... I thought you said..."
He trails off, glancing at you, then back at Loki. "I must have a word with you."
Before Loki can answer, you step forward.
"Oh, should I leave? That's perfect, because I'm heading off to tell my friends I just got engaged."
You stride past him as quickly as you can, making sure to put the ring in full view.
You can hear Loki's laughter behind you, and then hurried footsteps going after you.
"My lady, please wait!" Thor calls after you as he catches up, which only takes about three strides.
You stop and turn to him, grinning widely and holding up your left hand. "Yes, Thor, he asked me and I said yes. You can breathe now."
Thor looks immediately relieved, before he seems to remember the prank you just pulled.
"Did Loki put you up to this?" he scolds. "I truly thought he had not asked you! I would have pulled him by the ears, had he made me endure this tension any longer!"
He looks back at Loki, who has begun strolling over.
"A woman after my own heart," Loki says and steps up behind you, his hands on your shoulders. "We shall get married after our son is born."
He leans down and kisses your cheek, which makes you a little flustered. He usually doesn't dole out affection in public so easily.
Thor's anger seems to fade and he begins to subtly wipe at his eyes, smiling at you. "I am so happy for you. I never thought this day would come. My brother, marrying and having a child."
You return the smile, equally moved. "Loki is great. You probably know how complicated he can make things, but he's wonderful all the same. He's kind and caring. Insightful, attentive, responsible. Intelligent, empathetic, a good teacher. I can... I can already imagine how good of a father he'll be-"
Happy tears run down your cheeks while Thor listens in complete rapture, wiping at his own eyes more and more, sniffling and clearing his throat in an attempt to remain composed.
"Indeed. He is a good boy."
"By the Norns!" Loki groans, drawing away from you and hiding his face in one hand. "You two truly have no control over your emotions."
Thor and you exchange a smile, still crying happy tears.
"Come here, Loki," Thor finally says, spreading his arms.
Loki removes his hand from his face and looks alarmed at the threat of receiving a rib crushing hug.
"Thor, this is not necessary," he flounders, taking a step back. "I accept your congratulations, you don't-"
Thor swoops in and pulls him into his arms, clapping him on the back so hard he coughs.
"I'm so proud of you, brother," he says, tears running freely down his face and collecting in his beard.
Loki gives you a sour look over Thor's shoulder.
You put two fingers to your face and lift up the corners of your mouth to imitate a smile.
To your surprise, Loki's face actually relaxes and the softest, warmest smile forms on his lips, meant only for you. He lifts one arm to pat the crying Thor on the back, still giving you that smile.
You smile back at him while Thor slowly collects himself.
"I love you, brother," Thor finally says, his voice full of emotion as he relaxes his grip on Loki.
Loki rolls his eyes at you, but mutters an annoyed "I love you, too, Thor," nonetheless.
You beam at them when they pull apart. That's when Thor grabs you and pulls you toward them, now hugging both you and Loki together—much to your fiancé's "delight."
Loki begins struggling to get away, but you gladly accept the hug, noting that Thor is being very careful with you.
"I'm so happy for both of you," Thor says earnestly. "And your son. You will be great parents, and I cannot wait to meet him. I hope to spend a lot of time with him, lest he become too much of a rascal."
You smile in agreement, but Loki still looks annoyed.
"Last I remember, Thor," he says snidely, "I was the good, studious child, and you were the one sneaking out and getting into trouble."
Thor laughs, patting both of you on the back. "Until you discovered your mischievous side. Then you became a menace."
Loki smiles smugly. "We shall see what Fridi prefers. My soon-to-be wife has quite the warrior spirit. Perhaps he will take after her."
You practically glow, hearing him say that.
Thor laughs again and draws away. "Whatever he will be, he will make a great prince. And you will have more than one child, yes? If he ends up loving books more than swords, I will simply have to try harder with the next one."
You look at Loki, and he looks back at you. A moment of silence passes between you, then he takes your face in his hands and gazes into your eyes.
"Whatever my darling decides," he says, giving you a peck on the lips.
You put one arm on his back, giving him a longer kiss back.
"I highly doubt we'll be able to leave it at one, but I might need a break in between," you answer with a laugh.
You watch Loki's lips stretch into a smile, and then he kisses you properly. When you pull apart, Thor is grinning at both of you.
"I believe the two of you have something to celebrate," he says knowingly, "and I must return to the throne. I shall see you two for dinner."
Loki chuckles and watches him leave, then pulls you into the palace as well. It doesn't take him long to press you against a wall, pin your hands above your head, and kiss you thoroughly.
***
It takes a surprisingly long time to gather your entire three friends in a room together.
Rika seems obsessed with Valkyrie, Mat is busy being an intellectual and studying politics, and Lee seems to like helping the servant boys with their work even though he is not actually employed by the palace anymore.
Half an hour before dinnertime, you have managed to group them all into Rika's room for an important announcement. Mat is lying on the bed, looking lazily at you, Lee is sitting on a chair, completely attentive, and Rika is standing to your right, looking like she's prepared to catch you, should you collapse from excitement.
"Okay, so I have some really big news," you begin, so excited to tell them you can hardly breathe.
"The pregnancy was all an elaborate sham and you're actually still cool on the inside?" Mat guesses, smirking at you.
You glare at him.
"You're having twins?" Lee guesses.
You're caught a bit off guard, glancing over at him now. "Uh, no. But good guess. Well, not that I wanted you to guess at all! Can I just announce this already?"
Everyone looks at Rika.
"I don't need to guess, because it's pretty obvious what you are going to say," she remarks, ever the realist.
"Fine, okay, Loki and I are getting married!" You hold up your left hand for them to see.
"Congrats," Mat says, clapping his hands together while continuing to smirk. "This is all kinds of problematic, considering, but let's ignore that in favor of love."
You give him another glare.
"Oh. I'm happy for you," Lee says very genuinely. "He was actually nice to me most of the time. He only really cared about taking revenge on you, which I suppose makes sense now, if he was secretly in love with you the entire time."
You laugh awkwardly, remembering that time. "Yeah... Thankfully, he has changed."
Rika gives you a rather you-should-have-listened-to-me-from-the-beginning look, but says nothing.
"I think it's kind of romantic," Lee defends himself. "He's so obsessed with you he can't deal with it, and decides to make your life miserable, when in reality he just wants to stick his tongue into your mouth. Now, a few months later, you're pregnant and getting married. I certainly wouldn't complain if that happened to me."
"O-kay..." you reply, unsure what else to say. This is getting a little weird.
Mat just laughs. "What is it with you two and that greasy slime ball?"
You give Rika a helpless look.
"Uh, I'm happy for you," she forces herself to say. "I can't say I agree with your choice of man, but he seems to have his act together now. If he ever messes up, you can always leave him and come find me. I'll take you in, but I can't guarantee I'll give you another chance if you do decide you like women."
You roll your eyes. "That's fine, Rika. Thank you, though. I was going to ask if you wanted to gift me a sword to use during the ceremony. You will have on made available to you, of course."
Rika's eyes widen and she stares at you.
"Two men in the room, and Rika is the father figure," Mat jokes, but you ignore him.
"You want me to give you a sword, which you can then give to Loki?" she asks.
You feel a bit embarrassed now. "Well, yeah. You've always protected me and I think it's only fitting you now hold Loki accountable to do the same. We probably won't see each other that often anymore, since Loki and I will have a summer home outside of the palace, and you'll probably do your own thing."
Rika doesn't hesitate long before she steps forward and pulls you into her arms.
"Of course I'll give you a sword," she says. "You can still choose to stab him with it, but gifting it to him is fine as well."
You hold her for a moment. "Thanks, Rika. That means a lot."
You pull apart when you hear Mat get off the bed.
He gives you a genuine smile and puts a hand on your shoulder. "Hey. I'm happy for you. I don't care who you marry. What matters is that you are happy."
You smile gratefully. "Thanks, Mat." Then you give him a hug as well.
Awkwardly, Lee gets up to give you the third and final congratulations, which you gladly receive.
"I, for one, approve of your choice of husband," he comments while you hug. "I don't care what the others think, Loki is hot. I heard from some of the servant boys that they agree. Well, only two agreed, but we're the only ones with good taste. Anyway, if you ever have any spicy stories about your sex life you want to share, I'm here to hear them."
"Uhm, Lee..." you say, finally extricating yourself from the hug. "I'm not going to have you fantasizing about sleeping with my future husband."
That makes him laugh, clearly not being very serious about this. Rika and Mat both have their eyebrows raised, listening to this strange conversation.
Lee shrugs now, giving you a coy smile. "Hey, he is hot. You think so, too. Seriously, I'm happy for you, and all I'm offering is a little girl talk. If you can call it that."
"Sure..." you say skeptically, eyeing him suspiciously. "So you won't make a move on him?"
He laughs again, shaking his head. "No way. He's yours. I'd never dare do that anyway. He's a little... too dom for me. But I do like thinking about it!"
You roll your eyes in defeat. "Lee, you need to get laid. Only then will I give you spicy details. Just like... have a threesome with those two servants and you can all jerk each other off to the thought of my husband."
Lee's expression becomes one of shocked amusement, while Rika buries her face in her hands and Mat swiftly exits the room.
"Bye everyone! I'm off to dinner!" he calls out from the hallway.
"Me, too," Rika says, shooting you a very judgmental as she quickly follows him.
Both you and Lee burst out into a fit of giggles.
"Okay, okay, seriously," you say, trying to compose yourself. "You're an overenthusiastic virgin who wants to explore his sexuality, but please do it with someone who isn't going to be my husband. I trust you, obviously, but I promise this infatuation will go away if you just find someone for yourself. Loki really isn't a good choice. I've just barely managed to tame him, and bad boys aren't as fun as they seem at first."
"Yeah, for sure," Lee agrees with a smile. "I'd never go for that. I just want some spicy gossip whenever you want to hang out. Or you can just ramble about baby clothes or something."
You roll your eyes again with a half-smile. "Right. I'll try to keep our talks entertaining. Now, shall we head to dinner? I believe Thor is celebrating Loki's and my engagement."
"Great," Lee says. "I hate parties."
Nevertheless, he follows you out of the room and to the banquet hall.
***
The people Thor invited to celebrate are thankfully limited to a couple of warriors. Maybe Valkyrie invited some, too, but you wouldn't know. They're already going at it with the feasting and drinking by the time you and Lee arrive. Rika is sitting by Valkyrie, and Mat has found an armored lady to chat up.
You spot Loki next to Thor, several empty seats beside him. He looks up when you enter, giving you a smile and pulling out the chair beside him. It doesn't look like he has eaten much yet.
"Ah, there she is!" Thor announces when he spots you. "The bride to be!"
All heads turn to you with some cheering, and Lee quickly escapes the attention to sit next to Mat. You give them a smile and a wave, then head over to sit by Loki.
"How are you?" he asks immediately, helping you push your chair back in.
"Pretty good," you answer, scanning the table to try and decide what of the plentiful food to eat first.
You notice Thor's selection of banquet dishes are mainly roasted game and potatoes, completely opposite to the finer courses Loki chose when he announced you his consort.
"How about you?"
Loki follows your gaze and helps you reach for the things you were eyeing.
"I am doing well, my darling. Although the warrior's three and Lady Sif still despise me for exiling Thor and Odin, they have offered me their congratulations."
You don't know any of the people Loki just mentioned, but you assume they are some of the warriors present.
"Hm, well, you can't expect everyone to get on board with everything," you say with a shrug and begin digging in.
"Indeed," Loki agrees, reaching for a pitcher and pouring a dark red drink into your goblet.
You pause your eating, confused because you think it's wine, but he immediately soothes your worries.
"It's berry juice," he explains. "I did not want you feeling left out. I'm abstaining as well, because I do plan on kissing you quite thoroughly tonight."
You turn to him while your cheeks glow warmly. You smile fondly and he smiles back. You reach for your goblet and drink without breaking eye contact. It tastes wonderful.
When you set it back down again, Loki's gaze drops to your lips. He doesn't hesitate long before he leans down and licks at them, tasting the remnants of the juice. You open your mouth and his tongue moves inside, which devolves into a heated kiss that has you clutching at his armor. You kiss each other like you've had nothing to drink in years and the other's mouth offers a magical elixir.
When you pull apart, gasping, you are quite embarrassed because anyone could have seen your less than decent table manners.
You glance around, checking if anyone's eyes are on you. Some of the warriors are smirking at you, Mat and the woman he was chatting with look mildly put off, and Lee gives you a thumbs up.
You turn back to Loki, who is also smirking at you, his own cheeks slightly flushed.
"I am tempted to drink only from your mouth tonight, but that would neglect another part of you I would rather drink from," he says mischievously.
Your face gets even hotter and you shrink down in your chair.
"Loki!" you scold.
"It is true," he adds on. "You are far sweeter than this juice and far more precious."
"Alright, you insatiable man," you give in, returning your attention to your meal. "But I'll have you know that Lee is going to ask for all the spicy details."
"Huh?" Loki replies, completely thrown for a loop. "Who-" His eyes scan the table, eventually landing on Lee. "Your friend?"
You find it amusing that Loki is seemingly trying to engage with your off-handed joke about Lee, because he wants to be involved in your life and thinks you were being serious.
"Yeah, my friend," you confirm, hiding your smirk behind a spoonful of mashed potatoes. "He's crushing on you."
Loki looks at you, his expression one of utter confusion, then back at Lee. He's silent for a while, kind of just staring at your friend as he tries to comprehend your meaningless remarks.
"I-" he begins, then breaks off. "Are you asking-?"
In that moment, Lee glances in your direction, visibly flinching when he sees Loki intently staring at him.
You grin at him, point at Loki, and mouth: I told him.
Lee instantly looks shocked and extremely embarrassed, glancing back and forth between Loki and you.
Loki also looks between you and Lee, his brow increasingly furrowing.
"Pet, are you trying to suggest something?" he asks sternly.
"What?" you look at him in confusion, licking off your spoon.
"You are saying your friend desires me, is that correct?" he summarizes, the stern look on his face not going away.
"Yeah, but he-" you flounder, quickly getting interrupted.
"Why would you tell me this, hm?" Loki challenges. "I don't detect any jealousy in you. You are clearly not upset about this. In fact, I believe you are, at the very least, amused by it. Does this mean you wish to have your friend join us in the bedroom?"
Now your eyes go wide. "What? No! No, no, no. Nope. Never. I..."
You trail off, unsure what else to say. The entire notion is ridiculous.
Loki narrows his eyes, staying silent.
"Wait, are you jealous?" you ask. "I don't see him like that. And he doesn't see me like that, either. He likes boys as far as I can tell. There is no need to be worried."
Loki continues eyeing you with suspicion, but his expression relaxes somewhat. "Not only am I concerned about you being attracted to someone other than me, but I am also concerned at the fact that you did not see it fit to be jealous over me."
This has you smiling a little. "Aww. Don't worry, Loki baby, I was a little jealous. I did tell him off, before he revealed that he was mainly joking around. He just thinks you're hot, but he wouldn't go after you even if you were single."
Loki sighs in defeat and finally relaxes fully. "I have several things to say to that, but I believe it is best we leave it at that. If you truly were interested in seeing me with a man, I can always turn you into one."
That kills your teasing mood. "What?! You could turn me into a man?!"
He smirks cruelly at you. "Of course. My powers know no bounds. Under no circumstances will I allow someone other than me to touch you, so this is the only option for us. I can't guarantee it will be pleasant for you, but it surely would be entertaining for me."
The grin on his face is pure evil, and you instinctively shrink away from him a little. "I- I think I'll pass," you decline quickly. "I'd rather stay myself, thanks."
Loki continues smirking at you, though now it is more teasing than malicious.
"I'd love you in any shape," he says fondly. "Even if you were turned into a frog, I'd simply shift into a frog as well and we will be together. We'd find a nice pond and make frog babies until the curse is lifted."
You almost choke on your food, which leads to a lengthy coughing fit.
"Are you... are you sure you've not had any wine?" you ask, tears in your eyes from the effort it took to breathe normally again.
He just smiles at you. "I mean it. Nothing will keep me from you. Even if we get separated in the afterlife, I shall simply drag you to Helheim with me."
"Or Valhalla," you suggest. "We could both go to Valhalla."
"And be stuck in a realm with Thor and Odin?" Loki sneers. "I don't think so. The best alternative is simply never dying."
"Or dying together," you add. "I want to die with you and not a moment later."
Loki's expression turns solemn, and he reaches out to cup your cheek. "Then I shall try not to perish before our children are grown up."
"I'll make sure you stay out of trouble," you promise, putting your hand over his. "Besides, we're gods, right? We don't truly die as long as people remember us. Ragnarok has yet to come."
"And I will first have to cause it," Loki says, leaning down to kiss your forehead.
"With me by your side," you add, squeezing his hand. "And our children."
His eyes become hooded and he regards you for a while. "Indeed."
You smile at him. "I love you, Loki."
His expression remains the way it is and he strokes your cheek before withdrawing his hand.
Your smile fades little by little. "Is something the matter?"
He gives you an unguarded look. "No. Why do you ask?"
"You didn't say it back," you note, beginning to frown. "You don't say it nearly as often as I do, in fact."
He raises an eyebrow. "Say that I love you? I thought you knew that."
Now your brow furrows. "Yeah, but... You can't just say it once and leave it at that. I want to know you love me as often as possible."
A slight smile forms on his lips and he reaches out to stroke your cheek again. "But you do know, darling. Can you not sense it? Every time I touch you. Every moment I dedicate thinking about you. The hours I spent planning our future. If you wish to hear the words, I suppose I can make an effort, but to me, actions are more genuine than words. I could tell anyone at this table I loved them, but I would never be moved to do what I do for you."
"Oh," is all you can say. You tilt your head, leaning into his touch. "I suppose that makes sense. The God of Lies will not tell me he loves me. The God of Lies will prove it to me instead."
Loki chuckles softly. "I do love you, darling. The Goddess of Fidelity who stands by my side regardless of what happens."
You smile and lift your goblet of juice. "To our future!"
He lifts his own and clinks it against yours. "To our future."
|
The Art of Crafting Stiff Peaks
Once upon a time, Bilbo had been the very respectable Baggins of Bag End, had been very well thought of by all, except, perhaps, the Sackville branch of the family, and he had never done anything unexpected. He had been the quintessential Hobbit in nearly every respect.
And then, of course, Gandalf Grayhame had thrust thirteen rowdy, stubborn, secretive, wonderful Dwarrow into his life and everything had changed radically for Bilbo Baggins of the Shire. Amidst battling Trolls and Goblins and Orcs and riddling with a Valar-damned Dragon, Bilbo had concluded that he was much happier being himself than he been wearing the polite mask of a Gentlehobbit and that he would much rather surround himself with Mahal’s children than the people whom he had grown up with. So when the Battle had ended, with everyone alive and free of the madness the gold had evoked in them, and the Company had broached the topic of Bilbo staying in Erebor with them instead of returning to the kindly west, Bilbo had not hesitated to agree to the scheme. And when Thorin had taken him aside to explain what he had truly meant when he gifted Bilbo the Mithril shirt and then shyly presented Bilbo with a Courting Bead of red diamond, carved to look like a rose, Bilbo’s happiness had known no bounds.
Courting was, as most things in the Mountain were, a very serious and complex business amongst the Dwarrow. As a result, Bilbo and Thorin had been diligent about adhering to every custom of Durin’s Folk, whether any particular one was salient or trivial in nature. The King set the example for his people, after all, and every decision that he made was judged – especially his choice of Consort.
If Bilbo himself would not be the most traditional of spouses for the King Under the Mountain, then at least no one could complain that he and Thorin had shirked any of the rites and customs expected of them.
In addition to their meticulous consideration of the set courtship conventions, Bilbo wore Dwarven-made and styled clothing nearly all the time. The embroidered waistcoats he had worn in the Shire had been replaced with gem-studded jerkins, his cravats traded in for sashes and stoles woven through with golden and silver and platinum threading, and the floral patterns he was so used to had been changed out for sharp geometric ones. Training every morning with Thorin and sometimes joined by their nephews or Dwalin or Nori, Bilbo learned how to properly wield Sting, how to heft an axe without toppling over at the weight of it, how to throw a spear across a large room, how hit the center of a target with arrows and knives each and every time he aimed, and how basically anything could be used as a weapon in a pinch. Bilbo had even joined the Colorweaver’s Guild, earning himself a Mastery in short order and enchanting even the most conventional of Dwarrow with his paintings and drawings, and he served as a member of the Golden Council in the Court of Carven Stone as one of Thorin’s most trusted advisors.
No, Bilbo would not call himself a proper Hobbit any longer, and he could not deny that he had set aside many of the practices which he had grown up with easily enough, but there was one thing, one ritual that dated back before the Settling, that he could not let go of.
When building their apartment in the Royal Wing, Thorin had made sure to include, among other things, a well-appointed kitchen for Bilbo to make use of as he saw fit. And make use of it he did, particularly in the month leading up to their wedding day. He could exchange beads instead of bonding bracelets delightedly and he could handle a crown of Mithril and jewels rather than blossoms resting upon his head when they spoke their vows before all of Erebor, but there would be no stopping Bilbo from Baking for Thorin.
It had taken him weeks to craft the recipe and tweak it to perfection, combining three of Thorin’s favorite things into a single treat that was good enough for Bilbo’s lofty standards – Hobbits did not mess around when it came to food – and could be served to his betrothed the evening before their wedding. All that was left was for him to Bake the finalized version.
He separated the eggs first and foremost, because it was easiest do so when they were still cold, and then he started working on the filling, pouring pre-heated heavy cream over small but numerous chunks of chocolate – a luxury in Erebor, to be sure, but nothing that Bilbo was unable to get his hands on; having vast funds at his disposal was quite helpful in that regard. He whisked the cream and chocolate together until it was smooth and seamlessly combined and then he covered the bowl with a towel and set the silky ganache aside to cool.
With the egg whites having warmed to room temperature in their copper bowl, which was best for whipping them effectively, Bilbo began to whisk, gradually adding sugar as he did. First, soft peaks formed as Bilbo forced air into the egg whites, then came the firm peaks, and then finally the desired stiff peaks came into being. Taking care not to overbeat the eggs, Bilbo ensured that all the sugar was properly dissolved and was rewarded with a product that was fluffy and just a bit glossy. At that point, he gently folded several large dollops of raspberry jam and a hint of food coloring into the meringue, flavoring it and changing its color to a soft pink hue, and then began to painstakingly shape the mixture into two dozen roses.
Once they were baking, Bilbo began to handle the details of the rest of their dinner. Venison was seared with caramelized onions and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and then garnished with dandelion leaves. Cheesy garlic butter potatoes and dark pumpernickel bread were prepared to accent the dish and Bilbo sent one of the servants to fetch a bottle of Dale Red, with notes of cherry and black currant, from the royal cellars to pair with the meal.
When Bilbo’s rosettes were dry and crisp all the way through, he removed them from the oven and let them cool just a bit before spreading the ganache evenly over half of them. The other dozen meringues were used to sandwich the chocolate spread and then Bilbo placed the confections into a special airtight container that kept all food within from spoiling.
Thorin entered their suite just as Bilbo was pouring the wine into a pair of platinum goblets, “Evening, Ghivashel. It smells amazing in here.”
“The trick is getting the whole lot to taste good too,” Bilbo said with a quirk of his lips, “Is everything squared away with the Northern Mines?”
“Aye, the blockage has been cleared and we found a shaft full of diamonds, to boot, so the panic earlier has already been forgotten,” Thorin replied, taking a seat at the table. “Rumors have spread that it is a sign that Mahal has blessed our wedding tomorrow.”
“But, aren’t diamonds fairly common?” Bilbo asked as he served the food for them both.
“Not blue and green ones,” Thorin remarked, “Which is what was found in the new tunnel. Several miles worth, as a point of fact.” Thorin took a bite of the venison and then moaned almost obscenely, “By my beard, Bilbo, this is incredible. You could get a Second Mastery with the Chef’s Guild in days.”
Bilbo flushed in pleasure, “I’m glad you like it, darling. Do save room for dessert though.”
The meal was consumed with no small degree of relish on Thorin’s part and then Bilbo went to go fetch the rosettes from his kitchen, transferring them onto a serving tray. He brought the dish to Thorin and set it down before him, smiling at the look of delighted surprise on Thorin’s face.
“They’re roses,” Thorin marveled, “I had no idea that could be done. And is that chocolate?”
“Each is a raspberry meringue sandwich with a chocolate ganache middle,” Bilbo told him, “A combination of your favorite things, Khaeluh. I Baked them for you.”
“You invented these?” Thorin questioned with a smile.
“Yes, I… how did you guess that?”
“I’m not as ignorant of the ways of Hobbits as everyone seems to believe,” Thorin stated and then admitted, “I wrote a letter to your Thain, asking about Hobbit courting and marriage customs. Baking was discussed at length – it is something that all Hobbits do, inventing a new recipe just for their spouse-to-be, to show how well they know their tastes and demonstrate that they are willing to make every effort for them. He wrote that it was a nearly sacred art.”
“It’s a very old practice,” Bilbo agreed, sliding into Thorin’s lap when the Dwarf indicated that he wished for him to. “Dating back to almost the Beginning.”
“I can’t cook.” Thorin frowned.
“I know that, dearest,” Bilbo laughed lightly, “And I don’t hold it against you. I’m a right nightmare in a smithy, after all. Thank the Green Lady that family is allowed to help make the wedding beads, because otherwise your beads would be carved from wood – metal working is not my forte, by any means – and the Silver Council would be throwing a fit tomorrow.”
“Bonding bracelets are made of wood,” Thorin commented in a blithe tone.
“They are,” Bilbo confirmed, a bit suspicious.
Thorin hummed and then, “Can I taste one of your meringues?”
Bilbo picked one up and held it to Thorin’s mouth, gratified when he took a bite and then sunk back into his chair at the pleasure of it.
“Forget days,” Thorin announced with pride, “You could earn a Second Mastery in mere hours with this, Ghivashel.”
“They’re for you and me alone,” Bilbo said, “That’s how the tradition goes. And for our children, of course, once they’ve sprouted. Eventually, I’ll pass the recipe on to them and they will make it for their families.”
“A bright and beautiful future,” Thorin murmured, kissing him tenderly.
THE END
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Translations (Khuzdûl)
|
Shopping with Alphys is more fun than you expected. Sans is working and Papyrus is camping with Undyne so you've been assigned an escort who, well, also needed to buy some new clothes. A little over half a year of living with one skeleton that loves carbs and another skeleton that loves greasy junk food and sugary condiments has led you to go up by two pants sizes. Needless to say, it's about time you replace a few pieces of your wardrobe, which is a shame because you had to buy an entirely new one after the fire. At least you're still cute as hell.
You're skeptical about how useful Alphys would be in any confrontational situation but thinking back to that night in the forest, you're reminded that appearance really doesn't matter in terms of strength. Alphys' body type is such that she'll fit in about an XXL women's size if you do a bit of modifying to the general shape of the garment. Papyrus agreed to let you two use his sewing machine this weekend. He loves modifying clothes and spends a surprising amount of time tailoring his perfectly. Come to think of it, maybe that's why Sans always prefers pants with elastic waistbands. It's a little hard to keep pants up if you don't have an ass.
"Oh, oh! I r-really like th-these ones!" Alphys has spotted a cute pair of puffy, mid-thigh bloomer-style shorts. She's bouncing up and down.
"It's a little unlike you to pick something that's not a skirt." You're a little excited by her sudden change in preference. "We can probably put in a hole for your tail if we try hard enough though."
"Oh n-no. I was thinking they would look good on y-y-you." She fidgets.
You try to picture it. Maybe…? They are on sale because they're part of the summer collection. It wouldn't hurt to try them on.
"I'll give 'em a shot." You grab two different sizes for fitting comparison and add them to your bag of infinite clothing.
One long fitting room montage later you're both headed to pick up some essentials in the socks and underwear department. Here's where Alphys definitely needs some modification after purchasing.
"I used to g-get custom-made clothes back wh-when we lived underground." She lifts a pack of basic briefs. "M-monsters have so many d-different body types s-so it's hard to m-mass produce clothing. Everything was m-made to order."
"Alphys, put those down." You say this a little more sternly than you meant and Alphys flinches. "Oh, sorry." You cover your mouth with your hands in apology. "Girl, those granny panties are a no-no. You're absolutely getting the cute lacy ones." You give her a saucy look. Undyne will thank you later.
"F-fine but…" Alphys dons a mischievous expression, "I get to pick your s-socks." True friendship.
The weekend ends up being much more fun than you expected. Alphys calls Undyne and tells her it's an emergency that you haven't seen any Mew Mew Kissy Cutie and ends up sleeping over. A whole day of sewing and movies later, you both retire into your bed because the couch would be awkwardly narrow for poor Alphys with her tail. You both end up extending your movie marathon on your laptop in bed. Girls' night rules and you're grateful to have a friend like Alphys.
--
You're angrily woken up at two in the morning a day later.
"why does your bed smell different?" Not a tone you hear very often.
"Look, Sans, if you're going to be sneaking into my bedroom regularly instead of using your own damn bed, could you at least try to let me sleep?"
"who slept in your bed?" He sounds pissed? Like it's any of his damn business? You guys aren't even a thing and he thinks he owns you or something?
"What the hell? Calm down. Alphys slept over, remember?" You roll over to face away from him and try to get back to sleep.
Chomp.
"WHAT? THE? FUCK? GUY?" He bit your neck. Hard. It hurts. He-- actually broke the skin? What the hell? You're bleeding. "Get out of my bedroom!"
There's a knock at the door.
"_________, ARE YOU OKAY?" Oh right, Papyrus sleeps for like two or thee hours a day at most. "I HEARD A SCREAM." Fuck.
"I had a nightmare. I'm fine. Going back to sleep now. Thanks, Paps." You call out in a miraculously calm voice.
"OKIE DOKIE. NIGHTY NIGHT." You hear him walk off and close the door to his room.
"that was close, huh?" Sans presses his body up against yours and licks the blood from your neck. It's not bleeding much but it's still enough for the licking to make a difference. He's making that growling noise.
"Sans, get the fuck off me."
"you break my heart." He coos.
"Skeletons don't have hearts."
"that doesn't mean you can't be my Big Favourite." It's a husky whisper. He grabs your wrist and pulls your arm up behind your back, sliding his free hand into your pants to play with your clit. "your blood tastes so good. i've always wondered what it'd taste like." The growling gets louder.
"Sans, stop it, you're scaring me." You whimper and squirm against him as he inserts his fingers between your folds and starts pumping them. You resent your mild enjoyment.
"but you're so cute when you're scared." He takes a moment to bite down again. It's not as hard as the last one but it's still enough to jolt you.
"Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Get out!" You sob and flail.
He withdraws and sits up.
"sorry."
There's another knock at the door.
"________, ARE YOU STILL HAVING NIGHTMARES?" He sounds really concerned. "WOULD YOU LIKE TO SLEEP IN MY ROOM?"
"I think I would!" You call out gratefully. You get up and quietly slide out of your room after grabbing a newly purchased scarf to hide your neck."
You're too upset to notice Sans' reaction.
--
You wake up with the wrong skeleton spooning you. Today will certainly be… a day. Papyrus does this thing where we wraps his arms around you and grips his own wrist, making it impossible to escape until he wakes up. Wiggle wiggle. Yup, trapped forever. This is where you die. You look around the room and-- what the hell?
"Did you just sit there and watch us sleep all night?" You whisper at Sans who's sitting cross-legged and sweaty as always in a corner.
"yup." Sans' voice is barely above a whisper.
"Would you please just leave me alone for a bit?"
"nope."
"You really freaked me out last night."
"i wanna talk."
"Sure. Later. Just leave me alone right now."
"not goin' anywhere."
"Fine." You squirm enough to rotate in Papyrus' arms and turn your body so that your face is buried in his chest. If only skeletons weren't so… bony. It's really uncomfortable. "If you don't go away, I'll lick him right here." Obviously it's a bluff. You'd never do that to Paps.
You're wrenched out of Papyrus' grip and painfully dragged to the basement before you could even say another word. Sans thrusts you into the chair by the desk and looms over you.
"why?" He normally has the patience of a saint so you've never seen him like this. He grabs your chin and pinches your lips, forcing you to look up at him. "why?" His voice cracks. He sounds like he's going to cry. He releases your face to allow you to speak.
"I'm not your property." Your tone is bitter.
"and i'm not your toy!" His voice is shaking.
"Why are you acting like we're in some kind of relationship and I cheated on you or something?" You're having a hard time choking back tears. This is so overwhelming.
"i accidentally pair-bonded with you and the smell of another monster's scent in your bed drove me insane last night. then you had to pull that shit with papyrus?" His expression suddenly changes at the realization of what he just let slip.
"Wait, what?"
"i-- i didn't mean to!" His tone shifts from anger to panic. Wait. It wasn't anger. It was... jealousy?
"Wait. You what?" You vaguely recall Toriel mentioning monster bonding being a really big deal but you were only half paying attention.
"…" He looks away.
"How… long ago?"
"…"
"Sans?"
"…"
He looks back at you with blank eyes. There are tears streaming down his face. You've never seen him cry before.
You get off the chair and wrap your arms around him.
"I'm sorry."
|
The house simply wasn’t big enough to easily fit the number of people expected for dinner. Rather than clear out enough furniture to make the space for so many bodies, they (meaning mostly Mother) opted to make something that could be eaten with hands and set out an array of blankets for everyone to sit on. (“A picnic, I love a picnic!” Kadar had said.)
Malik sat some distance from the others. Frank Herbert and George the baker were talking to newcomers about methods to help with the longing of the curse. Most of them were standing, milling around, trading stories about how they felt and how they’d told others that they’d gotten caught.
Jala was countering every complaint with the (now true) story of Mary Dare and how she hadn’t even bothered to show up because she was too worried about her fiancé. But it was Old Greavy, sitting in one of the only chairs available that clucked her tongue at the shame-faced men with bruises on their jaws, saying, “it serves you right. It’s about time someone brought some sense back to the situation. What were you all thinking? Acting like a bunch of cowards too afraid of their own shadows to figure out that nobody’s trying to do harm to anyone.”
Malik wasn’t happy for the defense (nearly a score of years late, too late at this point to settle anything). He alternated between trying to ignore them altogether and glaring at them. It was only his own insistence that they shouldn’t antagonize the situation that stopped him from taking Altair’s hand.
As it was, the simple fact that they were sitting together (close, but not even touching), was enough to have the Constable looking at Altair like he was trying to figure out the easiest way to have Altair removed from the picture.
Instead of addressing it, Malik just scowled at his dinner, wishing he were anywhere but here.
(He could run off into the forest. Malik knew that place better than almost anyone. He knew all the hiding places where even the most persistent of his suitors hadn’t been able to find. He could even drag Altair with him. Mother would understand, surely.)
The sigh he let out was irritated right before he picked up his food.
“It doesn’t taste that bad,” Altair said at his side. It was an obvious attempt to make a joke. Malik offered him a smile for trying. Then they both sighed together as they watched the crowd. The only decent thing to come out of the whole debacle was the fact that he was wearing only one layer of clothing, eating his food with bare hands and sitting outside in the heat without reaching an immediate boiling point. If forcing the people to develop an immunity meant he didn’t have to nearly kill himself leaving the house, it was worth something (at least).
It wasn’t surprising at all that Constable Cherry finally managed to pick himself up and come over to face them. He stood while they sat on the blanket they were sharing. The bulk of his body cast a pleasant shade that brought an immediate relief from the heat of the sun. For a minute, it seemed that the constable was content to tower over them making a surly, discontent face.
“Yes?” Altair said after a long pause.
Malik elbowed him in the ribs.
Constable Cherry frowned all the harder at Altair. “If this plan of yours does not work, I’m arresting your boyfriend and your brother for disturbing the peace.” The words were a poor cover for the longing, jealous way he leered at Malik.
Altair didn’t even move to fight back but leaned ever so slightly so he could look at the Constable more easily. “When it does work, you have to admit you were wrong. And apologize to Malik.” His smile was a vicious slice across his face, all at once feral and dangerous.
“If it works,” Constable Cherry said, like the very idea of it was an offense (more likely he was just offended by the knowledge that Altair was the one Malik had chosen).
“It will work. Ask the others: they will tell you.” But they must have already by this point, “But if you’re really convinced we’re wrong, then there’s no reason you can’t promise this.” It looked like there was something the Constable wanted to say to that and the very act of not saying it made him look like he’d swallowed a lemon.
Everything about Altair’s posture was lazy and loose, but there was no forgetting the fact that he’d single-handedly beaten up a crowd of fifteen men (not with a smile like that).
“Fine.” He said, like every word had to be dragged from his mouth, “You’ll get your apology if this farce of yours turns out to be true.”
“Good.” Altair said with a nod and the Constable flushed in anger and embarrassment because Malik had gone back to his food and was ignoring the entire conversation. He didn’t look up again until the Constable had stormed away.
“I said not to antagonize anyone.” Malik said.
Altair’s laugh was quiet enough not to draw any attention but the elbow that bumped against Malik’s side was a challenge to the very idea that he was to blame. “You started it,” he said. Then he picked up a sliver of meat off his plate and dropped it into his grinning mouth. “These people will get to know you yet.” It was evident from the softening around his eyes that he wanted to kiss Malik but he didn’t, rather than move closer he looked out at the crowd. “You should go and talk to some of them. Maybe the ones that think they love you will realize how acerbic and unlikable you really are and get over it.”
“Ha, ha.” But Malik set his dish to the side and got to his feet. Mother saw him move and came over immediately to guide him to the little pockets of the crowd were half-convinced men were sharing stories about how they’d all gone to school together.
“I don’t remember why you left school,” a brilliant boy (with blue-tinged bruises on his jaw) named Carlos said. The tone he used was inviting, caught in a suddenly realized puzzle of confusion, and he looked at Malik like he hadn’t seen him (before, ever).
“Well, they kicked me out,” Malik said. Because it was simply too dangerous to have Malik out around the other kids in the end. He’d held on as long as he could, but between the possibility of heat stroke and the certainty of some asshole trying to pull his hood off, it had been mutually decided he was better off with a tutor than at a school.
“Oh,” was an echo of shame-faced boys suddenly looking very sorry for asking. There was only one, (a shrewd faced sort of guy who Malik could not remember the name of) that said, “well that wasn’t fair.” He looked almost embarrassed to have said it.
“It was almost as unfair as fifteen against one but that didn’t stop any of you from getting your asses kicked,” Malik smiled at them and then motioned over toward the next pocket of people he had little interest in speaking to. “Excuse me,” he said.
--
The afternoon ended when the very last of the affected finally left their yard. Malik had given up on interacting (by insulting) them and found a soft, sunny patch of grass to lay in. He hadn’t been outside in the middle of the day without the fear of being discovered in so long that the natural tickle of heat from the sunshine felt foreign. He heard the footsteps before he opened his eyes to look at who had decided to come. While he waited for them to speak he tried to figure out who it was and they would want.
“If you’re trying to make them immune by making them not like you, maybe consider that our business counts on people actually wanting to purchase things from us.”
“Unless they can find someone who does the kind of work Altair does I don’t think they have a choice. Besides, you’re the one who does the selling.”
Kadar was as likeable as Malik was prickly and acerbic. It was a proven fact that it was difficult to not like the younger Al-Sayf and it was impossible to stay angry at him for extended periods of times. Malik couldn’t quite explain why (Kadar joked it was because Malik inherited all of Mother’s anger and sharp wit, all that was left was for him to inherit everything else).
He didn’t seem impressed by Malik’s reasoning, regardless.
“Because you don’t have a head for business since you don’t see that what we’re selling is a luxury good. No one needs it. If they didn’t want to buy it from us then they can just not buy it at all.” Kadar rubbed his face with his hand. “The point is, you didn’t have to insult Mary Dare to make her immune. I know you’re angry but can’t you do something that’s not going to hurt our business like, I don’t know!” Kadar threw up his hands, “Make out with your boyfriend or something. At least they’ll stop being angry at that once they’re immune.”
Since it’s clear that Malik had abandoned any attempt at not antagonizing people and had, in fact, decided to do the exact opposite of it and antagonize everyone.
Malik hadn’t gotten up during this entire time. Lying down was also another luxury he couldn’t afford outside of the (at times dubious) privacy of his own room. It left his cowl lying in a bunch around his head on the ground instead of covering it. The last time he could have stared up at his brother like this, Kadar was still a toddler with perpetually sticky fingers no matter how often Malik helped clean them.
When he finally did sit up, Malik didn’t bother pulling his hood up.
“The fairy said she gave me this curse because I was ‘unpleasant’. I’d convinced myself it was my fault and everyone seemed to agree.” He said as he picked at the grass, “I thought I could make up for it by not picking fights or getting angry. I thought it’d make it easier. But I’m tired of hiding.”
Kadar’s sigh right before he dropped down beside Malik was long-suffering. “I’m glad to hear that, but can’t you express that without insulting everyone? Maybe just half of them.” He frowned as if something just occurred to him, “it was Altair’s idea, wasn’t it?”
Malik snorted. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the whole thing reeked of Altair’s brand of justice. (Especially not considering how often he’d said as much in the past few days.) “Even if it was his idea, I like to think I wouldn’t have done if I didn’t want to.” He sighed after that though and collapsed back to lying in the sunshine. “I’ll try not to make all the potential customers angry.”
“I still say making out with Altair is the best idea. They won’t even care that you did it once the curse wears off. That’s sage advice from me.” He was grinning at himself, the giggle was in his voice even if Malik couldn’t clearly see his face. “And if we do survive this with customers, and we get commissions like we did at the fair, maybe we could rent an actual shop.”
“That would be good,” Malik agreed. “Better than that old cart.”
Kadar set into the fantasy of his great ideas. He was building the shop building in his imagination from the ground up. It was a nameless venture with big display windows and countless beautiful glass sculptures. It was frequented by dozens of people with pockets full of gold and shelves in need of delicate knick-knacks. The sort of dream that seemed ludicrous to Malik (even now) but sounded melodical and lovely and possible none the less. “It could be great,” Kadar said.
“It could be,” Malik agreed. Then he reached up and yanked Kadar back to lay out in the grass next to him. “Now stop talking. I was enjoying the quiet.”
--
Altair looked amused not embarrassed when Malik told him what Kadar said later (back in the relative privacy of his--their room).
“I don’t mind if you don’t.” He said as his hands slipped under Malik’s shirt and up his back.
“Of course you don’t.” Malik sighed. It was meant to be a weary sound, but it was hard to make it convincing when he was all but sitting on Altair’s lap, and especially not with the way he met Altair half way when he leaned in to kiss him.
--
Altair’s lack of shame wasn’t a surprise, but what did surprise Malik was how little he cared about the gathered audience as he buttered his toast and tried to find a good excuse to kiss Altair at breakfast the following day.
When no suitable opportunity presented itself by the time Malik had covered one side of his toast in butter, he took the butter knife and, instead of scraping the remaining butter on the side of his toast, reached out and smeared it on the Altair’s cheek.
Altair’s jerked at the contact. When he turned to Malik he looked confused and offended, which transformed when Malik leaned in to lick up the trail of butter he’d left on Altair’s face. It was followed by a quick kiss before Malik pulled back.
He said (loud enough for everyone to hear), “There was something on your face.” It sounded more sly than innocent, especially with the way he followed it up by smearing more butter over Altair’s mouth.
(When they were done, the Constable was making a face like he’d swallowed a lemon but that might also be because George the Baker had come by the night before to tell Mother that he won’t be coming today because he can’t leave his wife with all the morning preparations a third time.)
--
The others left after breakfast, all except Jala who hovered on the front porch. It was fairly impossible to tell (just from a casual glance) what exactly her motivation for staying behind was. Her face was flushed but her hands were curled up in aggravation. Twelve years ago, when he knew less (and was happy to be ignorant) he might have thought some ornery kid had made fun of her in class again. The pinkness around her eyes made it seem like she might have cried (or might be trying not to) in the way she had whenever the big boys in the back of the class snickered jokes about her.
As soon as he stopped on the porch next to her, she sneered at him with so much violent distaste he flinched away from getting smack even though she didn’t try to hit him. “I know we’ve put you through worse. I know you were only a child. I know you have every reason to be angry and to be spiteful but you are a miserable, mean-spirited bitch, Malik Al-Sayf.”
(On the list of things he never thought his once-upon-a-time teacher would say to him, that was high.) Malik’s natural inclination was to apologize for his selfish behavior but as peevish as he felt about the whole ridiculous scenario, he just crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe if you hate me, it’ll break the spell.”
Jala laughed at him. “The Constable hates you more than any of us could--and he hates Altair even more than that. If hating you would stop me from wanting to fuck you, I would gladly hate you. I’m so angry at you that I could hit you until I broke my hands and I still want you.”
“Well stop,” Malik said back bluntly.
“I can’t!” She motioned back up the path toward the town. “I don’t have anyone else! I don’t have a lover or a husband or anyone. I don’t even have anyone that could just--just--spend a night with me! I don’t think it would matter if I did because any man I fucked would be a poor stand in for you.”
Malik sighed. “I’m sorry this is difficult for you. I don’t know how to make it easier.” In fact, considering the majority of his life was spent aware that he stood no chance at romance or sex without having to deal with the guilt that the interested party had fallen to the curse, he couldn’t even temper or manage his own sudden, encompassing, thought-stealing attraction to Altair. That was not even a curse. “Maybe, just--try to think of me in a way that’s not sexual?”
“I have tried,” Jala said. “I’ve tried the alternative. Neither have worked.” She let a long breath out through her nose and then shook her head. “I won’t be coming to eat meals with you anymore. If I have to sit through you buttering up your hot new boyfriend one more time I will stab him. If I have to see you to get rid of this curse, I’ll come when you’re not--acting out.” Then she stepped off the porch with a very dismissive wave of her hand and went walking back toward the town.
--
Kadar insisted they set up the cart for the day.
“Everyone who’s going to cause trouble is either recovering at home or in love with you. I don’t think they’re going to be a problem.”
Beyond that, it was agreed that it was better for Altair to be out and about, to show off the fact that he didn’t need to be close to Malik at all times (even if Malik missed the easy distraction he provided).
Malik’s feelings about Jala’s absence at lunch (an event that seemed to take forever to arrive with how uneventful the morning has been), were too complicated for him to decide if, like Mary Dare and George the Baker’s decisions to not show up, it were a good thing. But the others seemed to take it as a positive sign.
The only people left from their original test group along with Kadar and Mother were carrying on as they had before: talking to those affected and giving them advice on how to deal with the curse.
Malik thought that they probably weren’t much help to people like Jala, whose problems weren’t rooted in the fact that what they felt wasn’t real lust.
That thought kept him from wandering around (to the various men who looked equal parts relieved and disappointed to be deprived of his less-than-charming company). Instead, he stayed off to the side with Altair. They were close enough to touch, but Malik kept his hands busy with the food, or plucking at the blanket they were sitting on.
It was Altair who touched him first, a brief bump of the back of his hand against Malik’s. It could be easily excused as accidental, but served to get Malik’s attention.
Malik shook his head at the question he saw in Altair’s expression, “it’s nothing.” Then it was: “what did the curse do to you? Was it love or lust?” It was a question he hadn’t thought much about, not when he was convinced everything Altair felt or did was caused by the curse, and not when it turned out that everything he thought he knew about the curse had been wrong.
“Lust,” Altair said. He was leaning forward a bit, like he was trying to trap the words between them, looking at Malik with narrow eyes and nervous hands holding his dish on all sides. “I told you.”
It was true that Altair had told him that he wanted to have sex with Malik. Considering what he knew about Altair’s past (the tidbits here and there that had been shared) it seemed perfectly logical that the curse hadn’t been strong enough to appeal to love. “Well how did you--I don’t want you to start complaining again--but how did you keep it under control?”
That made Altair frown at him (ever so slightly) as he muttered, “I don’t complain,” under his breath in a way that was quietly enough it could be ignored. “I don’t have a new answer for you. The curse doesn’t feel real. I’ve felt instantly attracted to people before but not in the same degree as I felt when I saw you by the river.”
“This plan can’t work if we have people like Jala and the Constable that can’t get over their fixation on me. It’s all well and good if everyone that falls in love with me can just remember that they love everyone else more but Jala is three days into the curse and she still wants to stab you.” He hadn’t been thinking about it through an entirely selfless lens. It was pragmatic to want a solution that allowed everyone the possibility of overcoming the curse as early as possible. Any early stories of elongated torture would end with the hold-outs and townspeople that resisted.
Altair just sighed. “I don’t know what would help. Maybe,” and he hesitated there, “just tell her flat out that you don’t want to sleep with her. Tell her you don’t find her attractive?”
That did not exactly sound like it would help the situation at all. Malik just sighed again.
“You can practice on the Constable,” Altair said. He pointed over at the man who was giving them the most obvious stinkeye in the world, glaring like he could put holes in them from a great distance.
Malik snorted.
There were probably compelling reasons for why he shouldn't. Malik could probably name most of them if he bothered. But none of them seemed good enough when measured against the years he’d spent listening to (and believing) the Constable when he said how Malik was a menace to good society and how, for the benefit of the town, he should be kept isolated from people in general.
He could concede that Kadar and Jala’s arguments were valid. But, he doubted Constable Cherry would have wanted anything to do with something Altair had made and while he was as ignorant as all the men and women who had blamed him for the curse, none of them had been so fervent or as relentless in their reproach of him.
If Malik had to pick one person he could not forgive for these cursed years, there was no question of who that would be.
“Fine,” He said, setting his own plate to the side. He briefly considered leaning over to kiss Altair. He thought of Jala, the defiant, angry jut of her chin offset by the brittleness of her laugh, and thought better of it.
Still, his fingers lingered on Altair’s arm for a moment as he stood. Once he’d straightened his clothes, he marched over to where the Constable was sitting, looking like a mouse caught in a trap.
“Constable Cherry, I want to have a word with you.”
The Constable set down his plate of food with more care than entirely necessary. Malik watched him dust the crumbs off the front of his uniform and wipe his fingers daintily on his napkin before he stood. Once he was on his feet, his face was a confusing twitch of haughty disinterest providing a poor cover for the eager-pink-hope making his cheeks and neck flush red. His hands were awkwardly against his hips under the swell of his gut and he seemed to be in a constant state of adjusting his stance to better show off the assets Malik might find attractive. “Yes?” he said. “About what?”
Malik’s grin was offensive (and he knew it). The way tipping his head and tugging at the bottom of his shirt was offensive. He might even have pulled the top buttons free just to show off the full extent of hickies that Altair had left behind. (Oh hell, just to watch this stupid, petty man’s face go brilliant red, he might have pulled his shirt off entirely.) “We are,” Malik said. He did reach up to pull a button loose at his neck. And tugged the sides open. It was a ridiculous, overt action that should have sent the Constable storming away (like Jala) but drew him in closer instead. “Having some trouble figuring out how to help the men that are-- afflicted with lust.” That was true. “So, it is with your best interest in mind, that I have come over here to say that you are well below my minimum standards. I have spent almost the whole of my life with the understanding that I could not be loved or touched or even looked at by another living human being. You can understand, maybe, how this creates a sense of desperation in one’s sexual fantasies. I have imagined myself with very nearly ever person that I have ever met. I have created elaborate fantasies where everyone in town from Silas,” a withered, brittle, mean-spirited old man, “to the Widow Greavy,” a woman old enough to have given birth to his grandmother, “overcoming the curse and falling in love with me. So understand how wholly and completely unattractive I find you to be that even if you had been the only man who could have broken this curse, I would have gladly lived in isolation until I died.”
Everyone gathered had stopped eating to gape, first at Malik then at the Constable, whose entire face was red. He sputtered out a, “now see here--” before his mouth shut with an audible click. There was a conflict written in his expression. The curse no doubt demanded he be pleased by any attention offered him, going against the Constable’s natural inclination towards pomposity.
Judging from the way the Constable’s gaze skirted to Malik’s bared skin (scowling at the hickey Altair had left high on Malik’s neck), looking furiously chastised the curse had won.
The sound Malik made as he shook his head was not exactly derisive, but certainly unimpressed. There was satisfaction in having done this, but Malik was more disappointed than he expected at the outcome as he turned around to walked towards Altair. He did not sit back down, but leaned over to take Altair’s hand and drag him up. “Come on.” He said, only waiting long enough to let Altair get his feet under him before he started walking away from the gathering. Altair followed him without asking where they were going and (oddly enough) without another glance at the assembled victims of the curse.
There were no more aggressive displays of affection, but they held hands all the way as they walked.
--
“Kadar’s going to be angry.” Malik didn’t sound very invested in the observation. There was nothing urgent or concerned in the tone of his voice; nothing that indicated he wanted to do anything about the predicted anger. Instead, he was sitting with his feet in the shallowest part of the stream. His toes were wavering shapes underneath the gentle wave of the water. His shirt was still farther up on the bank where he’d left it, his pants were still loose at his waist, rolled up at his ankles to keep them dry. His skin (so gloriously bare at the moment) soaked up the sunshine with ease. Every day that Altair dragged him out, away from the house and his layers of clothes, he looked healthier and more human.
Altair was crouching with his feet in the slick slime at the edge of the stream, cupping the water over his head. The day was hot but the water was very cold. It felt good anyway, to wash the sweat off his skin. “I think your brother needs to adjust his expectations. There’s a minor revolution happening, commissions aren’t as important as changing the way these people think.” He rubbed his fingers through his hair and found a twig stuck in the tangles at the back. He threw it into the water.
“He won’t see it that way.” But Malik didn’t sound invested in that either. He was just wiggling his toes in the water like a child.
Altair didn’t sigh but he felt the inclination. Rather than committing to a sigh, he went back up to the drier part of the bank to sit on the pile of their clothes. Malik followed the motion with his eyes, but did not turn his head. There were obvious problems that required some thought. There was nothing to be done to help Malik work through rediscover his own self-worth. His selfishness was returning to him, and it brought a deep and well-earned unhappiness regarding his present situation. Altair had been in enough shit in his life that he understood the need to work it out without constant attention from well-meaning observers.
“I think I’ll go talk to Jala,” Altair said.
Malik looked over his shoulder at him. The impression his eyebrows gave off was that he was thinking something rude but despite the aggression and defeat that made his shoulders tight and droopy he didn’t say them. He said, “to do what?”
“Well, I know what she feels. Maybe if we talk about it, we can find some similarity or something to help the others.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, really. In fact, it would have been a fantastic idea absent the way Jala seemed to constantly be on the verge of stabbing Altair whenever Malik became a part of the equation.
“I’m not sure there’s much similarity between Jala and the Constable.” Possibly. But if Malik had learned anything by now, it was that Altair simply would not let go of an idea once he’d taken to it. So he only shook his head and stood up. “Just make sure there’s nothing sharp around when you talk to her.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
Altair watched Malik as he kicked his feet to shake off the excess water. He walked back to where Altair was and dropped down beside him. There was some assumption that Malik was going to kiss him (it seemed to be what they did whenever they were alone), but Malik only sat closer pressing himself up against Altair’s side. Altair’s brought his arm up to wrap around his shoulder.
Malik picked at their pile of clothing as he asked, “if you knew it would be this much trouble, in the beginning, would you still have stayed?”
It seemed that so many people had taken advantage of small lies and the comfort of selfish cruelties in Malik’s life. Altair could have denied that he ever would have considered leaving. It might have been something comfortable to hear. But he sighed a little, “I think I had some idea you were trouble; I’ve been a lot of places in my life and you’re the first man I met wearing over a dozen layers of black clothes during a heat wave. If you mean, if I had known about all this when I decided I was going to sneak to the river to look at you?” But, it was too hard to work that out. He had known he was getting himself in trouble and he saw no reason not to bother (curse or not) because it had interested him. There weren’t enough things left in the world that were interesting to let one pass him by. “Yes,” he said, “I would have done it. I don’t care about them. I want to know whatever I can learn about you. I did before all this too. So yes, I would always have stayed.”
Malik did kiss him then, briefly, and then pushed at him with his elbow. “Go talk to Jala. Don’t let her stab any of your good parts.”
Altair laughed at that. “I’ve only got good parts.” He sorted his clothes out of the heap and worked on pulling them off while Malik rolled his eyes and laid back on his spread-out shirt with his arms behind his head.
|
As they crested the last ridge, the land sloped away below them. And there, nestled like a white jewel amid the heavy green of the forest, the gold of ripening grain, and the white smoke of midday fires in the surrounding town, was Camelot.
Nothing had changed. Of course nothing had changed. They had not been gone a month, not even long enough for the harvest to begin or the leaves to change. Still, it felt wrong. So much had happened, how could it all still be the same? Panic spiked in Merlin's chest as Llamrei carried him closer and closer, and his breaths drew short and tight, like he was being strangled from within.
"Merlin?" Arthur said, quiet but concerned. He brought Hengroen up close, so that their legs brushed against each other. "Remember what I said. It will be all right."
Merlin nodded, tried to calm himself. "Good thing we weren't gone longer," he said, straining to make a joke. "I might not have wanted to come back at all."
Arthur gave a start of mock offense. "Then as your master, I would've had to order you back."
Merlin wanted to reply with a joke about how insolent and useless a servant he was, how he never followed Arthur's orders. But even as a jest, the words felt false and wrong on his tongue. His insolence had been born of necessity, for when his duty to protect Arthur conflicted with his duty to serve him. And he didn't want to be useless again, not now that he knew what it was to be valued. What he wanted was to be Arthur's knight, brave and determined and loyal, but that was the one thing he could no longer be.
"You should order me back, then," he said, glancing at Arthur and then away, the quiet admission leaving him bared.
He would go back, for Arthur. He would walk willingly to his fate, and submit himself to Arthur's judgement. But he needed something. He needed the order, he needed Arthur to need it. He could always be brave for Arthur, when he couldn't for himself.
Arthur didn't say anything at first, and when Merlin glanced sideways at him, he saw that Arthur was giving him a considering look. Measuring him up, perhaps, or seeing that Merlin was not the same as he had been, when they left. Seeing what was left of the knight in him, now that the armor and position were stripped away.
"Merlin," Arthur said, with deliberate care, "I order you to return with me to Camelot, and to remain at my side until you are released from my service. Which will be, at current estimation, roughly never. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sire," Merlin said, relief dulling his panic. It wasn't much, in the face of all that awaited him, but it would have to be enough. His breathing eased.
Arthur guided Hengroen back into position, rather pleased with the persistence of their new dynamic. No doubt he was enjoying the idea of Merlin being as faithful and obedient a servant as he had been a knight. Merlin could only hope that when he placed his secrets into Arthur's hands, that persistence would be reassurance enough that Merlin would never lie to him again.
And he wouldn't. Once he'd told Arthur about his magic, he would tell him everything, all the secrets that were his to share. And once it was safe, once he had permission, he would tell Arthur about Morgana and about Merek and his family, and about all that magic was already doing to preserve and protect the kingdom. And perhaps they could visit Gedref again together, this time without bringing an army with them. Lord Wichard and Lady Helewisa could teach them both what they knew about magic, as they must already be teaching Merek. And Morgana could come, too, so they could help her with her nightmares.
Yes, he liked the sound of that. He and Arthur and Morgana, and Gwen, too. Gedref would be good for all of them. The prospect of returning there calmed Merlin's fears another notch. Merek's family would have answers and guidance, and Arthur could work with them to make Camelot as safe and bountiful as he dreamed it could be. And from there, their future would be wide open with possibilities.
Merlin relaxed his grip on the reins and straightened his posture from his anxious hunch. Arthur was looking ahead, sitting tall and proud, glad to be nearly home after the long road and everything along it. Merlin did his best to match him, to share the gladness he saw. He knew now what it was to be in harmony with his King, and he would hold on to that memory as the road brought them down.
§
It seemed that the entire population of the town was there to welcome them, lining the streets, cheering and waving brightly-colored flags. The way to the courtyard was similarly decorated, with swaths of bright fabrics that transitioned to Pendragon red and gold as they made their way into the castle proper. Merlin couldn't help but grin, and he grinned even wider when he saw that Arthur actually looked bashful beneath his calm, noble posture.
"You're a hero," he teased Arthur, as they rode into the courtyard.
"I'm their Prince," Arthur said, unruffled. "I did my duty. I have no need for all this… fussing."
"Admit it, you like a fuss."
Arthur shrugged. "It's not unpleasant."
Merlin laughed.
Even if his own victories had to be hidden, he still shared the larger victory of the battle itself. He shared it with Arthur and the whole army. And even though army was about to break apart, in this last moment together, he and they were celebrated as one. They had won a good victory in Gedref. Many lives were saved, just as Eduard said. That was what mattered. And he did not have to be a knight to continue to save lives. He had been saving lives for a long time, for far longer than he had been Arthur's knight. And he would keep on saving lives as Arthur's sorcerer. They would have new ways to fight side by side, protecting Camelot together.
As the streets had been full of commoners, the broad steps to the castle were spilling over with nobility and castle servants. With perfect timing, Uther strode out to greet them as they brought their horses to a halt.
"Welcome home, my son," Uther said, bursting with pride and relief.
"Father," Arthur nodded. "It's good to be home." He dismounted in one smooth motion, and stepped forward to meet his father's embrace. They shook arms and patted each other's backs.
"You must be tired from your long journey," Uther said. "You must tell me everything, but formalities will wait until tomorrow. In a few days, we shall have a feast to celebrate your splendid victory. Absolutely splendid!"
"Thank you, father," Arthur said, and Merlin could see that he took pleasure in Uther's praise in a way that he had not from the festive crowds. It was something quieter, deeper, and Merlin was happy to see it in him, even if he would rather Arthur not be taking pleasure in anything from Uther. But of course, Uther had no idea that Arthur had so utterly undermined his precious First Code. Merlin could not deny that he took a viciously personal satisfaction in that.
Merlin heard his name called, and he turned to see Gwen and Gaius waving to him and walking over. He dismounted and was immediately pulled into a tight, tight hug by Gwen.
"I'm so glad you're all right," she said, grinning ear to ear as she released him. "The messenger Arthur sent barely told us a thing!"
Gaius was next, holding him close and sighing with relief. "It's good to see you home, my boy," he said, warmly. "You and Arthur both. I imagine you've had quite an adventure."
There was so much to tell, so much say, that Merlin barely knew where to begin. He wasn't even sure what he should tell. But then, Gaius and Gwen and Morgana all knew that Arthur had taken him into battle as more than just a servant. And when he could get a moment alone with Gaius, there were things he needed to talk to him about that even Arthur didn't know about yet. And then there was Morgana...
"Where's Morgana?" he asked, looking around to find her, thinking that perhaps she would greet Arthur before anyone else.
Gwen's grin faded. "Resting," she said, though her concern indicated that there was more to it than any sudden desire for a nap. "But she said to pass on her welcome and that she would absolutely be better in time for the feast."
The feast that was days from now. Merlin grew even more concerned, but before he could inquire further, Arthur had returned. "Ah, Gaius, good. I need you and Merlin to take care of the injured."
"Of course, sire," Gaius said, with a bow of his head. "And Arthur, it's good to see you home."
Arthur nodded his reply.
Merlin wanted to help Gaius, but he also wanted to stay with Arthur. "But you need me to take our bags. Stable the horses." He was aware that Gwen and Gaius were both looking at him with surprise, but it was only Arthur's reaction that mattered.
There was understanding in Arthur's eyes. He didn't want things to go back to the way they were, either. He didn't want to have to give Merlin up to anyone else, just as Merlin didn't want to leave him. But things couldn't stay the same. They were home now, and things were different here. They would have to adapt and try to fit themselves into their old lives again, no matter how tight the squeeze.
"I need you where your skills are most useful," Arthur said, giving him a gentle order. "And right now, that is with Gaius. Even a prince can carry a few bags."
Arthur gave him a soft, fond smile, and Merlin wanted to live in it forever. He recognized the gesture for what it was, and it warmed him. Even if Merlin was only a manservant again to everyone else, he was still a knight in Arthur's heart. Not everything had to go back the way it was. Not everything had to be taken away.
"Sire," Merlin said, softly acknowledging. The word earned him a quiet approval that was as close to a hug as he could get in the middle of the courtyard.
When Merlin forced himself to turn away from Arthur, he found that if Gwen and Gaius had been surprised before, now they had matching eyebrows of astonishment.
Gaius cleared his throat. "Well, then. Shall we?"
"Yes," Merlin said, a blush heating his cheeks.
§
As the afternoon faded into evening, Gwen abandoned them briefly to check on both Morgana and Arthur. She made up for her absence by bringing them dinner, which Merlin hurriedly devoured, and the news that Arthur was still in his long meeting with Uther, giving him his private report on the battle. Merlin wished he was there to hear what Arthur was saying. But then again, what was there that he didn't already know? He had been by Arthur's side every step of the way, more or less. And if he was honest with himself, he could, in fact, live without hearing all his actions attributed to Geraint. He would no doubt hear enough about that once word got out to the rest of Camelot
As he dug into his dinner, he wondered if any of the food in Camelot was harvested from a Gedref-tended field. There must be, since the Lords paid most of their taxes in grain. So some of the bread would have magic. And then the chickens and other animals that ate the grain would have magic. It would be weak, because all the grain was mixed together in the silos, but it must be there. If Merlin had felt a vicious satisfaction about the First Code, he was almost gleeful at the thought of Uther Pendragon choking down his food in the knowledge that it had magic in it. For a man who insisted so much on having the best of everything, Merlin doubted he could resist Gedref grain.
How it must sting, for a man who so utterly devoted himself to the annihilation of magic to be forced to suffer it as a lesser evil. It was an act of breathless hypocrisy to burn a pregnant woman alive for daring to use a single protective enchantment to protect her husband's life, and then to turn around and allow the south of Camelot to be seeded with magic. But if what Arthur had told him was true, the alternatives were mass starvation or the exhaustion of Camelot's gold through the purchase of grain from its neighbors. And the latter would be such a sign of weakness that it would be the invitation of an invasion, especially from Cenred. Uther had choked down his pride along with his food.
Merlin supposed that in a way, it meant that Uther couldn't be as mindlessly against magic as he seemed to be. In the choice between the caretaking of his kingdom and his hatred, he had shown at least a reluctant wisdom. That did not mean, however, that if push came to shove, he would not go against that wisdom and set himself against Lord Wichard. No wonder Merek didn't want him to tell Arthur about it. It was a delicate balance between them, cloaked in careful deniability. To bring it into the light could result in mutual destruction.
"Thanks," he told Gwen, his cheeks full of food. "How's Morgana?"
Gwen looked down at the table between them, obviously worried. "The nightmares are back again. Everything was quiet for so long, I'd really hoped they'd stopped. But now every night seems worse than the last." She bit her lip, not wanting to speak the worst of her fears.
"What about the sleeping draughts?" Merlin asked, swallowing his mouthful.
"They help, but..." Gwen began, lowering her voice. She glanced across the room to where Gaius was busy changing the bandage on a man's arm. "Gaius is giving her something new. Something stronger. And he keeps giving her more of it, because she's still suffering. But it's taking so much from her. This morning, I worried she might not wake at all."
There were shadows under Gwen's eyes, and Merlin wondered if the cost of Morgana's sleep was the loss of Gwen's. Merlin could not imagine being forced to watch Arthur suffer and suffer and slowly slip away. It would be unbearable, unthinkable. He would do anything to stop it, but he also had the option of using his magic. Gwen had to rely on Gaius and Morgana, and both seemed set on their course.
"What if…" Merlin lowered his voice to a whisper. "What if she stops taking the draughts? Just… lets the nightmares happen?"
Gwen shook her head. "I can't imagine how ill she would be if not for Gaius. When her nightmares started, it was so awful for her. Gaius' draughts were the only thing that helped. At least with the draughts, she doesn't remember her dreams, even when she wakes up screaming." She grimaced. "Except the worst ones. And then she's so afraid..."
"Maybe I should go talk to her," Merlin said, torn between helping Morgana and telling Arthur. If he could convince her not to take another dose...
But Gwen shook her head again. "Maybe tomorrow?" she offered. "The nightmares will stop soon, I hope. They always have before."
Morgana was a seer. Her nightmares were frightening because they were premonitions, warnings about terrible things, and they only stopped once the danger was past. She had dreamed about Sophia and the Questing beast, and both times Arthur had come incredibly close to death. If she was having premonitions again, did that mean Arthur was in danger? If she was still having them, it couldn't be about Gedref. It had to be a threat that was still to come. Merlin needed to find out, and soon, so he could warn Arthur of the danger and protect him.
But once he told Morgana about her magic, there was every chance she might realize he had magic of his own. And then not only would yet another person know before Arthur did, but Morgana might just take matters into her own hands and try to tell him herself. No, Gwen was right. Tomorrow would be better. And it was one more reason to tell Arthur tonight, once he was done helping Gaius and Arthur was done speaking with Uther. Tonight, when they were alone in their chambers. It was only a matter of hours, now.
"Let me talk to Gaius," Merlin said, reaching out to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. "There was a physician in Gedref, and he helped me when I hurt my head. In fact, he probably saved my life. I'm certain he could find some way to help her."
Gwen's relief was immediate. She had been caring for Morgana on her own for so long, the first helping hand must feel like a lifeline. "You really think so?"
Merlin nodded, and knocked on his own head. "See? Mine's working just fine. And you would not believe how much it got banged around." He wondered now if the physician was also using magic. It certainly seemed likely. Merlin wondered if he would be able to learn healing magic from him, when they brought Morgana to Gedref.
Gwen's focus shifted from Morgana to Merlin. "Then Arthur let you fight? Come on, Merlin, you haven't told me anything about what happened!"
Merlin opened his mouth, mind racing as he tried to decide where to begin.
Gaius loudly cleared his throat. "You can eat or you can work. Gossiping is neither."
Merlin shut his mouth with a click, then rolled his eyes, much to Gwen's amusement. "It'll take hours anyway," he said, shovelling the last of his food into his mouth. "Tomorrow. I'll tell you and Morgana the whole story. I just have to pry myself away from Arthur first."
"It looked like he was having trouble prying himself away from you," Gwen said, with a blush. She had often told him that they were adorable together, what with the way they gazed into each other's eyes all the time. Gwen was just as incurable a romantic as he was himself. But she did tend to grow shy about the physical side of their relationship.
Gwen ate the last of her food and went to help Gaius, leaving Merlin to finish his.
Merlin wondered if she had ever been with anyone. There had been a bit of a flirtation between Gwen and Lancelot, and in hindsight Gwen had even flirted with him, though he had been too focused on Arthur even then to notice such things. Well, there had been that kiss, but he'd nearly died, and she had been hugging Gaius before that, so he didn't think it counted. But she hadn't so much as mentioned Lancelot since he left, and there had certainly been no one since then. Only Morgana. But he didn't know if he was simply projecting his own relationship with Arthur onto the two of them, or if there was truly something more. And it wasn't the sort of thing he could just ask about.
The love of women was hardly unheard of. But like the love of men, the acceptance of it varied greatly. Arthur was still expected to marry, after all, and Merlin would never be a princess. But as a king, it would not be considered unusual for him to take a consort. As a knight, he could lie with other knights without fear of censure, as long as it was not flaunted -- though Gedref had shown Merlin that Arthur was not above defying convention in that. There was a pair of old women in the lower town who the gossips said had left their husbands for each other decades ago, but all young girls were expected to find good husbands, and all young men good wives. Mostly it seemed to be about ensuring the birth of lots of children, because Camelot never had enough, what with all the wars.
Morgana was the King's ward. She would be expected to marry soon, just as Arthur was. And Gwen did not have prophecy or destiny to tie her to Morgana. He could understand if she was reluctant to give her heart openly, knowing that at best she would never be more than a consort. Without her family, she had to support herself, and a husband would make her life easier. Of course, now she had the chest of gold, so perhaps she did not have to worry about that so much. He wondered what her dreams were, beyond simply looking after Morgana. What she would choose, if given the choice. What he would have chosen for himself, if he had been like her and not born with magic, with a destiny. If he had never found Arthur.
He could not even imagine such a life. If there had been other paths open to him, and at some point there must have been, something in him had closed them. Even the story he had spun for Idriys, which had been viscerally real at the time, now felt dim and distant. He had been born, and he had found his King. Without Arthur, whatever life he lived would not be his life. It would be incomplete. He didn't have any way to explain the feeling, but there it was.
§
Gwen accepted a fresh dose of sleeping draught for Morgana and bid them goodnight. Merlin waved to her from his bench, then let his arm flop back down.
"What's this about your head, then?" Gaius asked. Merlin didn't know if he been told about it by someone, or if he had overheard Merlin's conversation with Gwen. For an old man, Gaius had ears like a bat. Merlin thought that unfair, since if anyone should have ears like a bat, it should be him.
"I used it to hit things," Merlin said, blithely. "Walls, the ground."
"Head injuries are a serious matter," Gaius said, giving him the eyebrow. "Come on, let me have a look at you."
Merlin rolled his eyes, but sat up so Gaius could peer into his eyes and prod at his skull for a bit. He was familiar with the ordeal from when he'd hit his head on the stairs, and of course from the many times that Arthur had limped back to Gaius after a bout with unconsciousness. He considered suggesting that Arthur wear his helmet more often. Arthur's head was rather important to him, and he didn't want it to end up all scrambled like an egg, either.
"Hm," Gaius said, which was the sound he made when he was annoyed that he hadn't found anything wrong, because it meant he wouldn't be able to deliver an appropriately grave lecture.
"See?" Merlin said. "I'm fine, Gaius. Really. If I hadn't been, Arthur would have left me in Gedref with the others."
"More likely, he would have sent the army on ahead, and waited to bring you back himself."
Merlin tried not to smile at the idea, and failed. "Maybe," he admitted.
"At least he took care of you. And I see that you took care of him, as well. Shall I take it that you were responsible for the unusually fast victory?"
Merlin's smile grew, despite his attempts to control it. "Maybe."
Gaius gave a despairing look. "Please tell me that you were careful. The fact that you still have a head on your shoulders at least tells me that Arthur hasn't found out."
"I was careful," Merlin said, though he stopped smiling. He had been eager to tell Gaius about Merek and the temple and even Idriys. He wanted to tell Gaius about being ready to tell Arthur. But he wanted Gaius to be happy for him, and it was already obvious that that was something he was not going to get.
Gaius wanted him to be the way he had been when he had left. But he wasn't. Gedref had changed him, and it had changed everything. He knew what it was to be seen, to be valued, to be known. In Gedref, he had stopped hiding, and the world hadn't ended. He had been accepted. He had been a knight, even though a servant could not be a knight. Arthur had been so proud of him, and told him that he loved him, and wanted him to be his grain of sand. How could he explain all of that, how could he explain the way he felt, the way his magic felt calm in a way it never had before?
And who was Gaius to judge him? What right did he have to decide what was best? He was fatherly, but he was not Merlin's father, if he even had a father at all. But if he was a wandering spirit, he was Arthur's wandering spirit. If he was a monster, he was Arthur's monster. Arthur loved him, and accepted him, and he would accept his magic, and Gaius had lied to both of them about so many things. Gaius had made Merlin lie to Arthur, had insisted on it again and again, no matter how much Merlin had wanted to tell him. Because of Gaius, Morgana couldn't even get out of bed, when all she needed was for someone to help her with her magic.
Merlin had had enough. He'd had enough of being cautious, enough of lies, enough of standing by and letting other people suffer because he was too afraid to trust them with the truth.
"If you want to worry about someone's head, it should be Morgana's," he said, not hiding his anger. "Drugging her like this, it's wrong, Gaius. She needs to know about her magic. That she's not alone. That's what will help her."
"Merlin," Gaius cautioned, frowning with disapproval.
"We can help her," Merlin continued, insistent. "And she can help us. What if Arthur's in danger again? What if her warning is what we need to save his life?"
"Whatever knowledge her premonitions provide, it is not worth the risk," Gaius said, sternly. "Uther cannot find out."
"But I don't want to tell Uther," Merlin said, annoyed. "I want to tell Morgana. I want her to know that she isn't alone. How can you want her to suffer this way?"
"If there was any other way," Gaius began, and then held up a hand when Merlin tried to interrupt. "A safe way, that would not endanger her life. Of course I would not let her suffer."
"How could the truth be a danger?" Merlin asked bewildered. He stood up so he could yell at Gaius properly. "What good does it serve to feed her nothing but-- but lies and potions? Why have you done this to us? To both of us?"
Gaius gave him a sharp look. "Merlin. What happened in Gedref?"
"Everything," Merlin said, swallowing. "I know, Gaius. I know you've been lying to me. Keeping things from me, things I need to know. Like you've lied to Morgana and Arthur and-- and everyone else. About magic and Camelot and why I'm here. About my destiny."
"What happened in Gedref?" Gaius asked, again.
"The time of fire is upon us," Merlin began, reciting the prophecy. "The time of retribution, brought about by our own pride. But when we are humble, the time of magic will return. The Emrys and the once and future king will rise. And all of Albion will bow to them."
Gaius paled, and sat heavily on the bench. "Who told this to you?"
"I read it, from a wall," Merlin said, defiant. "In a temple of the Old Religion that escaped the Purge. And that was not the only magic I found in Gedref. There are others, Gaius. There are others like me, like Morgana, who have magic. Who are using it to help the kingdom, just like I am. But you knew that, didn't you? Because Uther tells you everything."
Gaius stared at him, and his stunned silence was answer enough.
"I have a destiny," Merlin told him. "And it is more than hiding in the shadows and killing my own kind. I'm certain of that, as I'm certain that my future lies with Arthur, and I will not let anything stand in our way. I'm telling him the truth, and there is nothing you can say that will stop me."
Merlin stood there, chest heaving, and waited for Gaius to come up with yet another excuse, another reason for him to keep his silence.
"Tell him, if you must," Gaius said, with a coldness that was shocking. "But understand that if you do, it will destroy everything."
"If anything will destroy us, it will be the lies you've made me tell," Merlin said, furious. And he turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. He didn't stop, but headed directly for his second confrontation of the night, down below the dungeons. It was time to face the dragon.
§
The wavering light of his torch guided him past the piles of rubble and crumbled masonry that had blocked the way when he made that first visit. Curiosity about the voice in his head had compelled him to use his magic to clear a path, and it had been well-trodden ever since. Uther had chained the dragon up and sealed him away him to rot, and for once Merlin was in agreement with him. For all that the dragon had helped him, that help had been merely a means to an end, to persuade and then blackmail Merlin into freeing him. For the spell to stop Sigan, the dragon had secured that promise, and could not deny that it weighed on him. It was one that he would have to keep eventually, but at least he would not have to keep it alone.
Merlin stepped out onto the ledge and peered out into the vast, dark cavern. There was no sign of the dragon, but he was there, somewhere.
"Dragon!" he yelled, his voice resounding as it echoed off the jagged stone. "Dragon! Show yourself!"
There was the distant rattle of heavy chain, and the rush of air as the dragon swooped out from whatever shadow he had been lurking in. The earth shook as he crashed his weight against the mound of stone that he so often used as his perch, and his claws scraped as they curled, sending shales of rock skittering far below. Grip secured, he leaned his huge head forward. His great nostrils flared, and his golden eyes shimmered with magic.
"Merlin," he growled, and bared his teeth in a subtle threat. If anything a thirty-foot dragon did could be called subtle. "Have you come to fulfil your promise at last? I have been waiting." He held his wings aloft, as if eager to leap to his freedom.
Looking at the dragon now, with what he knew, it was obvious that he would do anything to gain his freedom. Of course he had lied to him, tricked him, manipulated him. The question was not why the dragon had done so. The question was, why had Merlin believed him? The dragon had called him kin, and Merlin had denied it in his anger. But even on their first meeting, Merlin had felt... something. A connection, a faint call of belonging, of protection. Having been away for so long, it seemed stronger now, as too much cold in the body made a lukewarm bath feel close to boiling. He looked at the dragon and saw a terrifying monster, a scheming liar. He looked at the dragon and felt an echo of the same harmony that he had felt in the temple, that he felt with Arthur. It didn't make sense.
The dragon tilted its head at him, and sniffed deeply. His eyes widened, then narrowed. "You have been to the south."
"I'm here for answers," Merlin said, not wanting to get sidetracked by whatever the dragon was up to.
"Free me, and I will tell you anything you wish," smiled the dragon. There was promise in such a smile, but it was not a friendly promise.
"When you first called me here, you told me I had a destiny," Merlin continued, ignoring the distraction. "That my magic was given to me to protect Arthur, so he could live to become king and unite Albion. That my destiny was to protect him."
"That is what I said," said the dragon, settling back on its haunches with a disinterested air.
"Why did you lie to me?"
"I did not lie."
"The half-truths you gave me were no better than lies," Merlin insisted. "You and Gaius, you both want me to protect Arthur. But you've done everything you could to keep me from telling him the truth."
The dragon riled, snorting out licks of fire. "Never compare me to that traitor," he snarled.
"Why do you call him that?" Merlin asked, confused.
"How many times have you saved Uther's life? Gaius has used you far worse than I. All I seek is my freedom. Through Gaius, Uther would crush his enemies, and turn the power of the Old Religion against itself. Gaius... and your mother."
Merlin stepped back, wary. "You have no right to speak of my mother."
"Did you never question why her life was made forfeit for Arthur's?" the dragon asked. "She and Gaius have always known of your path. That is why you are here. I admit that I have not always been entirely honest, but I am your kin, Merlin. I am your blood."
Was any of it true? Had his mother known the reason for his magic, and sent him to Gaius not to harness his magic for himself, but for Uther? What about Arthur? What about the the prophecy? Uther knew about Gedref's magic, and tolerated it. What else did he know? He searched his memory of every time Uther had stared at him, desperately trying to figure out if his eyes had not been filled with simple disdain, but knowledge and disgust.
"No," Merlin said, rubbing at his head. "No, you're lying to me again. If Uther knew, I would be dead."
The dragon gave an annoyed rumble. "Believe what you will. If you intend to break your promise, it will make little difference to me."
"I didn't say that," Merlin said, because a promise was a promise, even one made to a lying dragon. Camelot still stood, and Arthur was alive, and they would not be this way without the dragon's help.
He had to think. He had to think like Arthur, tactically. He had to put himself into the mind of his opponent. What would the dragon gain in planting so much doubt in him now? What good would such poison do? It would isolate him. If he could not even trust his mother, if he could not be certain which Pendragon he truly served, it would break his trust in Arthur. He would have no one else to turn to but the dragon. It might all be lies and it might be half-truths, but Merlin was done with both.
"Why am I so important?" he asked, playing along for now to see what it would gain him. "I'm not the only one in Camelot with magic. I'm not the only one who could be used for protection. If Uther is willing to harbor a sorcerer, then why me?"
The dragon's hesitation was all the confirmation Merlin needed. He would not have to hesitate if he was telling the truth. He could trust nothing that the dragon said.
"The time of fire is upon us," Merlin began, reciting the prophecy again. "The time of retribution, brought about by our own pride. But when we are humble, the time of magic will return. The Emrys and the once and future king will rise. And all of Albion will bow to them."
Like Gaius, the dragon stared in surprise. "Where did you learn of this? Was it in the south?" He leaned forward with interest.
Merlin couldn't help but laugh. They were both the same, no matter what their motivations, no matter if they hated each other. He had trusted both of them, and they had abused his trust. Well, he was done with them. There was only one person he could trust now, and it was Arthur.
"I'm not like you," Merlin said, taut with anger. "I gave my word, and I'll keep it. But I will only use my magic to free you if it is by Arthur's command. My magic is for him, not you."
"No!" the dragon snarled, and snorted bright flames. "I will not see the Old Religion bound to a Pendragon ever again. Never, to that butcher, that slaughterer!"
"Arthur is not his father!" Merlin shouted.
"All who bear a single drop of his blood deserve my wrath," hissed the dragon, eyes blazing with golden light. "A Pendragon slaughtered my kind, and he slaughtered yours. Tell Arthur of your magic, and you destroy the very future you wish to create. Free me, and we will restore the Old Religion together. You feel the bond between us. With time, it will become more than you can imagine."
"Magic is already returning to Camelot," Merlin said, and he was so glad that he knew that now, so glad that he had been to Gedref and seen it. "I won't suffer your lies anymore. Was there a single thing you told me that was true? What about Morgana, what about the Druid boy?"
The dragon glared at him, furious, silent. Caught in his own web, just like Gaius.
"Whatever is between us, it is nothing against what I have with Arthur. He is my King, he is everything to me, and I love him! He deserves the truth, he deserves my magic, and I will give him both!"
"No!" the dragon howled, and brought his head back to breathe out a pillar of flame.
Merlin ran.
He was still shaking as he stumbled out into the courtyard. His heart was pounding in his chest, in his ears, racing so fast that it hurt.
It was done. Everything that had ever stood in the way, everyone who had ever tried to stop him from telling Arthur the truth. It was all behind him now, and none of them could stop him. The way was clear. He looked up at the window of Arthur's chambers and saw the flicker of candlelight, and it was a beacon calling him home.
He was ready. It was time, and he was ready.
When his heart had calmed again, he made his way towards Arthur's chambers. He knew Arthur would be waiting for him. He walked up the stairs, the same stairs he had fallen on all those months ago, and went to meet his destiny.
§
"Why don't you go get cleaned up?" Arthur said, glancing up from his papers with a smirk.
Merlin looked down at himself, and realized that he was still filthy from the road and from treating patients, not to mention the slight smell of smoke that clung to him from the dragon's fire. "Good idea," he said, with a bashful smile. He wanted to do this right. He didn't want to be caught out as he had been when he'd brought Arthur his sword.
He took the pitcher and washbasin into his room and stripped down, and washed himself off as best he could. A proper soak would be ideal, but a good scrub could do the job almost as well. When he finished with his body, he washed the dust and smoke from his hair and face, and then went to his bags to pull out clean clothes. He found the outfit that he had worn at the feast, which Arthur must have had laundered and dried sometime in the early hours the morning after. There were certainly perks to being the Crown Prince.
He touched the favor Arthur had given him, brushing the fabric tied around his arm. He had not taken it off since they had left for Gedref, not even in his darkest moments. He decided that he would never take it off, that he would find a spell that would preserve the fabric and keep it from becoming dirty or unravelled. As Arthur's knight or his sorcerer, his fealty could not be taken back or given away. It was Arthur's forever, the way his magic would be.
He dressed himself in the fine trousers and shirt, leaving the jacket and his boots. If things really went well, he might be undressed again very soon, and there was no point in having too many things to remove. He rubbed his hair dry and brushed it neat, and angled his small mirror about until he judged himself presentable.
"Well, well," Arthur said, leaning in the doorway. "There's hope for you yet."
Merlin grinned. "I can't wear it all the time. It wouldn't do to get such fine clothes soiled, when I'm polishing your sword, or on my hands and knees on your floor." He walked over to Arthur and leaned his arm on the frame. "But if my King enjoys such things in private..."
"Your King very much does," Arthur murmured, and kissed him quite thoroughly.
Merlin's whole body went pliant as they tangled together, and he had to forcibly tear himself away. He took a step back, almost undone by the sheer want in Arthur's eyes.
"Where do you think you're going?" Arthur asked.
"I just... have to tell you something," Merlin said, pulling on his shirt to straighten it, after Arthur had pulled it all askew in seconds.
Arthur raked him with his eyes. "It can't wait?" he asked, with a hint of impatience.
"I think it's waited long enough," Merlin said, regret leaking into his voice. He shook it away. It was the future that was important, not the past. "When we talked, before the battle. I made a promise to you, to tell you everything."
"I was hoping you'd say that," Arthur said, looking very pleased indeed. And he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring.
Palaemon's ring.
Merlin felt himself go pale, and his chest snapped tight, shock like a band around his chest.
"Merlin, it's all right," Arthur said, guiding him to sit down on the bed and looking utterly calm. "I'm sorry, it was cruel of me to do that to you. I know you asked me to stop surprising you, but I couldn't resist." He held up the ring. "Especially after you took this from right under my nose. Very sneaky."
"You're not..." Merlin pressed a hand against his chest, trying to breathe properly again. "You're not upset?"
"Well, I wish you'd trusted me enough to tell me, but I do understand the importance of secrets. Especially something like this. I expect Gaius made you promise not to tell me."
"You know about Gaius?" Merlin gaped, not sure if he was going to faint or laugh or cry. Arthur knew? "How long?" he asked, his voice strained with shock.
"Since Terit," Arthur said, putting the ring on the side table.
Merlin was floored. Arthur had known for months?! "You never said anything," he croaked.
"I was hoping you would be honest with me," Arthur said. "I wasn't entirely sure of your motives, at first. For all I knew, you were working for my father. It wouldn't be the first time he's spied on me, and he and Gaius are always conspiring."
"Your father?!" Merlin squeaked, wide-eyed.
"Are you just going to repeat everything I say?" Arthur said, laughing. He sat down beside him on the bed. "Don't worry, I have no doubt where your loyalties lie. I've known that for months, too."
It was too much to take in. If finding out about Gedref's magic had turned his world upside-down, this had crumpled up all his maps and thrown them out the window.
"I don't know all the details, of course," Arthur continued. "Exactly how you helped Lancelot, or what you and Gaius did to cure me from the Questing Beast. And I've been absolutely dying to know what you did in Gedref. Merek was very tight-lipped, I was thinking he might make a good captain one day." He finally stopped, apparently because he'd noticed that Merlin was very close to passing out. "Are you all right? I thought you'd be relieved."
"I am," Merlin said, dragging in breaths to stop the grey from fizzing at the edges of his vision. "I am... incredibly relieved. Arthur..." He shook his head, barely believing what he was hearing. "I thought you'd hate me. I was so afraid..."
"Why should you be afraid?" Arthur asked, resting his hand in Merlin's hair and stroking it. "This is even better than you becoming my advisor. I don't know why my father feels the need to hide Gaius away the way he does, but once I'm king I'll want everyone to know what you can do. I'll need to come up with a title, though. Not Witchfinder, that's just awful, and Morgana would argue that it was unfair to women. First Knight Against Sorcerous Attacks? Court Advisor on the Location and Destruction of Magic?" He scrunched up his face. "Rather a mouthful either way. Don't worry, we have plenty of time to think of something snappy."
Merlin went cold all at once. "Arthur?"
"Hm?"
"Arthur," Merlin said, swallowing. 'What did you think my secret was?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Arthur said, giving his 'don't be an idiot, Merlin' face. "Gaius used to be a sorcerer. The only reason my father would keep him around was if it served a purpose. I don't know why they've been hiding it from me, because it seems perfectly sensible, but I expect they don't think I'm ready yet." He chuckled. "No wonder Gaius kept giving me those looks when I moved you in here. It was only a matter of time before I figured it out. The two of you have been fighting against sorcery in secret. You're Gaius' apprentice, so he's been teaching you. You certainly haven't been learning to be a physician. After you came back from the castle, I knew you'd learned enough to identify and destroy enchantments all on your own."
He took his hand from Merlin's hair and turned to face him directly. "That's why it's so perfect. Gaius is an old man, and I'm going to need someone who has that knowledge in order to protect the kingdom. And that's you. Together, we'll keep the whole kingdom safe from magic."
Merlin swallowed again, his mouth suddenly parched dry. "That wasn't my secret."
"What?" Arthur said, smiling and confused.
"What you said, it's... it's true, but it's..." Merlin gave a nervous laugh. His magic stirred in his chest, suddenly restless. "It's not the whole truth."
Arthur was trying to hold on to his smile, but it was wilting at the edges. "What's the rest of it?"
"Arthur... there's no way to defeat magic without magic."
"Of course there is. We killed Palaemon together, with sword and sinew alone."
"Not exactly," Merlin said. He had been so jolted from his expectations that he was having trouble working himself back up. Best to take things one step at a time. "Your sword... it isn't just a sword."
Arthur leaned back and stared at him. "Are you a complete idiot?" he said, bewildered. "You gave me an enchanted sword?! Are you trying to get yourself executed?"
"No," Merlin said, shaking his head. "It's safe. Your father used it, and he couldn't even tell."
"You gave an enchanted sword to my father?!" Arthur gaped.
"He just took it!" Merlin protested. "He wasn't supposed to use it. That's why I had to hide it in the lake."
"In the-- In the lake?!"
"Now you're the one repeating things," Merlin said, crossing his arms.
Arthur rubbed at his head. "All right, let's just... What about the griffin?"
"Enchanted lance," Merlin admitted.
"It was your enchanted sword that my father used to defeat the Black Knight," Arthur said, nodding towards the main room where it rested by his desk. "What about Cedric? There were no marks on his body."
The conversation was getting distinctly off course again. "Magic," he sighed. "I did all of it with magic."
"Like wearing enchanted mail, or using an enchanted sword," Arthur said, with a certain force behind his words, like he was trying to make that be the answer. "That is not using magic, Merlin, that is using things that happen to contain magic. That is not the same as spells. Tell me that you are not using spells."
Merlin bit his lip.
Arthur launched himself off the bed, and paced back and forth like a caged beast. "Gaius is responsible for this. He of all people should know how incredibly irresponsible, how dangerous--" He stopped and ran his hands through his hair, huffed out a breath. "He wouldn't have let you risk your soul that way unless he knew a way to reverse the corruption." He grabbed Merlin's arm and pulled him off the bed, hauling him out of the side room and towards the door. "We're going down there right now and he's going to fix you. I don't care what it takes, there has to be a way to get it out of you."
Merlin pulled against him, resisting. "Arthur, I'm not corrupted."
Arthur rounded on him and grabbed his arms painfully tight. "Merlin, you've been using spells. There's magic in you and we have to get it out before it's too late. Forget about everything I said before. After this, you are banned from ever seeing Gaius again, from even thinking about magic. I should never have let this go on so long, I can't believe I trusted him."
"No!" Merlin cried, wrenching himself free. He backed away from Arthur, rubbing at one arm and then the other. This was madness and it had to stop. "This has nothing to do with Gaius. This is about us. It's about our destiny."
"Destiny?" Arthur said, baffled. "Merlin, this is not the time for one of your bouts of nonsense."
Merlin had to fight not to flinch from that. It was almost a like a physical blow, like the slap Arthur gave him in the temple. His magic stirred again, as agitated as the rest of him.
"It is not nonsense!" Merlin said, angrily. "We were destined to be together. We were born for each other. Even if half the things the dragon said were lies, he was still right about that. It was in the temple, right on the wall! I'm the Emrys and you're the once and future king, and we're meant to unite Albion and bring back magic."
Arthur stared at him, and then sorrow crumpled his featured. "It's too late," he breathed, covering his mouth with a hand. "I waited too long. All this time..." He shook his head, on the verge of tears.
"No!" Merlin said, moving towards him, to comfort him. "I realize that sounded slightly insane, all at once like that, sorry. But I'm not corrupted, I swear, I'm fine. I'm me. I've always been me." He took a sharp breath in. "I've always been magic."
But when Merlin reached for him, Arthur flinched away, stepped back.
"Your father is wrong," Merlin said, realizing now that he'd gone about this whole thing entirely backwards. Arthur still believed all the things his father said about magic. Just because he wasn't afraid of some enchanted mail, that didn't mean anything. "Magic isn't evil. It's good. I was born with magic so I could protect you, so I could protect the kingdom. So we can fix Camelot together. Just like you dreamed. A fair and just kingdom, where magic is accepted, where I... where I don't have to be afraid." He was on the verge of tears himself, now, as Arthur continued to look at him as if he was a stranger, as if he didn't recognize him at all. Arthur knew him, Arthur loved him, how could he be afraid of him?
But Arthur had never seen magic help him. He had seen sorcerers and magical creatures attack him, but not the magic that defended him. He didn't see the magic that made the crops grow, that kept the people fed. He didn't see the magic that was in the earth and the water, in air and in fire. He couldn't feel how wonderful and safe the temple had been, with its old, worn magic, layers and layers of it pressed together until it was smooth as riverstone.
"Let me show you," Merlin asked, pleaded. "Please, Arthur, magic can be so beautiful. You just have to see it." He held his hand out at the nearest candles, and said, "Upastige draca!" Sparks flew from the flames, and a fiery image of the Pendragon crest shimmered in the air, blazing his fealty loud and clear. When he turned back, Arthur was still frozen, staring, so Merlin lifted his hand again, towards the candles behind him. "Upasti--"
Arthur slammed into him, knocking him to the floor and forcing all the air from his lungs. Merlin wheezed and gasped as Arthur pulled his arms painfully back and pinned him with his weight.
"Sorcerer," Arthur snarled, his face twisted with grief and terror.
"Let me go!" Merlin gasped, trying desperately to wriggle free. "Arthur, stop! Listen to me! Listen, I'm not--"
Arthur's hand pressed hard across his mouth, silencing him. The panic that had been rising inside him burst free, and he bucked and writhed with all his strength, terrified and horrified because Arthur was hurting him and his eyes had gone cold and Arthur was looking across the room at his sword, his dragon-forged sword, and Arthur had gone mad and if he got his hands on it there were awful, awful things he might do.
Merlin couldn't speak, but he didn't need words for this. His magic flared as he flung the sword into the side room and slammed the door. Arthur made a desperate sound, like some kind of wounded animal, and his arm was across Merlin's neck, strangling Merlin as his knee jammed into his back, pressing painfully into his spine.
Merlin's magic went wild. The papers flew off the desk and swirled around the room. Everything light enough was blown to the floor, and the candles blazed with tall flames that threatened to catch the curtains alight.
"Please," Merlin mouthed, a tight, airless rasp as he struggled desperately. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, and the harder he struggled, the harder Arthur's arm pulled against his throat. He couldn't let it end this way. His vision started to fade, and he felt his destiny rushing away from him. He knew he had only seconds left to stop this, to use his magic to make Arthur stop. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't hurt Arthur, couldn't use his magic against him. He loved him, all of him loved him, all the pieces and why couldn't Arthur see?
His magic flared with grief and retreated, and the candle flames lowered, the papers fluttered to the floor. The shimmering crest dissipated into smoke. Arthur's breath was hot against his temple, fast with panic, with fear. It had all gone wrong, just like at the siege gate, and if he closed his eyes, he might never wake up again. If he died, Arthur would never recover, and Merlin would never be able to fix what he had done.
His struggles grew weaker and weaker as his lungs burned, as blackness closed in and swallowed his sight. He went limp, imprisoned in Arthur's steel embrace as he clung to the last threads of his awareness.
He had fallen asleep in Arthur's arms so many times. Perhaps it would be all right, just once more. Maybe when he woke up again...
Maybe he would wake up...
Maybe...
He closed his eyes.
|
Lexa opened her eyes slowly; the bright morning sun coming from the lone window in the bedroom was almost blinding and she brought her hand up to rub her eyes. As her eyes acclimated to the intensity of the light, she happened to remember where she was. She turned to look beside her in the bed and there was no one there. A part of her was relieved that Clarke was gone. She knew that the blonde would more than likely regret asking Lexa to stay the previous night and she really didn’t want to have that awkward situation, but the other part of her was sad. She had loved the heat of Clarke’s body against her own last night. It was comforting and she can’t remember the last time that she slept so soundly.
As she lay there, wallowing in her own different emotions, the bedroom door burst open and Raven ran through and jumped on the bed, straddling Lexa in the process. “Wake up, sleepyhead!” Raven exclaimed.
“Raven, get the hell off of me.” Lexa said, getting up and tossing Raven to the side.
“Someone’s grumpy this morning.”
“I’m not grumpy. I just don’t like being jumped on right when I wake up.” Lexa said, rolling her eyes. She looked down at her body and realized that she was still in her clothes from the day before. She had forgotten about getting into bed with Clarke, still in her everyday clothes.
“You must have been tired last night… or drunk, if you slept in your clothes.” Raven grinned.
“I didn’t drink.” Lexa groaned and walked towards the bathroom. “Will you bring me my bag? I’m going to take a shower.”
“Sure thing.” Raven smiled before exiting the room. She had seen Clarke and Lexa together last night in the comforts of Clarke and Octavia’s bed, but she didn’t want to say anything. She figured that one of their friends would tell her if they wanted to. She wasn’t going to push.
Raven made her way downstairs to retrieve Lexa’s bag when she ran into Clarke in the living room. “Morning, Griffin.”
Clarke only sipped on her coffee and nodded a bit in Raven’s direction. Raven wondered if she was regretting staying in bed with Lexa the previous night. She has no clue as to what caused that and pondered if Clarke would fill her in. “Rough night?” Raven asked, and she meant it. She wanted to make sure that Clarke was okay.
“No. I’m fine. Just still trying to get woke up.” Clarke half smiles. She notices Raven grabbing Lexa’s bag. “Is she up?”
Raven nods. “Yeah. Just getting in the shower. I’m taking her her bag.”
“May I?” Clarke asked, surprising not only Raven, but also herself.
“She’s showering… You sure you want to go up there?”
“Oh… Umm… No. Go ahead.” Clarke said embarrassingly, clearing her throat.
Raven walked over to where Clarke stood and placed a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. “You should talk to her.” Raven said, trying to be a rock for her friend. “I know that she would want you to.”
“And I want to, but I don’t know what to say. I think that I kind of embarrassed myself last night.” Clarke commented and looks to meet Raven’s eyes. The blonde shakes her head and looks down to her feet. “I did something that I shouldn’t have. I crossed a line that didn’t need to be crossed.” Raven didn’t say anything. She wasn’t too sure as to what she would say. The brown-headed girl raised an eyebrow at her blue-eyed friend as to encourage her to go on. “I asked her to stay with me last night…” Clarke sighed, shaking her head again. “I had been drinking a lot and I was just really emotional and needed someone to just lie there with me. Lexa just happened to be there.”
Raven begins to nod her head, choosing her next words wisely. “Are you sure that it’s just because she was there? Do you regret it?”
“Okay, maybe drunk Clarke just wanted Lexa to be close to her for a while, but I do regret it. I crossed that line and now I’m not sure as to what Lexa will think. I don’t want her to think that I’m leading her on or something because I’m definitely not.”
“We both know that both drunk Clarke and sober Clarke wanted to be close to Lexa.” Raven said with a grin, but not wanting to really joke around about it. Clarke was serious about this and so was she.
“I can’t want that, Raven.”
“And why not?”
“I can’t let myself feel for her like that again. I won’t. It hurt too much. I want to be her friend, but I’m finding that easier said than done.” Clarke sighed.
Raven pulled Clarke into a tight hug and held her there. “Clarke, Lexa loves you, but she will not cross a line. She wants to earn your trust back. If friends is what you want from her, then friends is what she will strive for.” Raven feels Clarke nod against her shoulder. “Lexa was just a friend trying to comfort another friend last night. She messed up and was trying to make up for it.”
Clarke pulls back and gives a small smile to her friend. “Thanks for talking to me, Ray. I’m such a mess.”
“Hey. We’re all messes sometimes. That’s life. We just have to do our best to get through it and you will.” Raven takes Lexa’s bag back into her hands. “I better get this to her. We don’t need her fine ass walking around in the nude. Too much of a distraction.” Raven smiled and Clarke chuckles, but quickly shakes her head and tries to rid herself of thoughts of Lexa without clothes on.
//
Once Lexa was showered and dressed, she slowly made her way downstairs. She really dreaded the teasing that she was sure to get from Raven and Octavia for spending the night with Clarke. Surely they saw them when Octavia came upstairs last night to get in the bed.
Luckily, the only person that was downstairs when she got there was Raven. “Someone looks a little less grumpy after their shower.”
“Guilty.” Lexa said, walking towards the Keurig machine to make a cup of coffee. “Where is everyone?” ‘Where’s Clarke’ is what she wanted to say.
“They’re all outside. Getting a head start on the days activities.” Raven replied.
Lexa nods and grabs her mug when the machine is through dripping. “I think that I want to make dinner tonight.” She said quietly. She needed something that would keep her busy for a while and her mind off of a certain blonde that was sure to be awkward around her today.
“Yeah? Whatcha making?” Raven grins.
“I’m thinking steaks and potatoes. Maybe with a salad. What do you think?” Lexa asked before she takes a sip from her coffee.
“Sounds like you better be made of money if you want to make all of these guys steaks.” Raven grins.
“Money isn’t an issue, Raven.” Lexa says firmly.
“Are you sure you’re not making steaks just because your steaks happen to be a certain blonde’s favorite meal ever?”
“So, maybe Clarke likes my steaks. Sue me. I like them too and I would like to have one tonight.” Lexa glares at Raven and the other woman laughs at her.
“Whatever you say, Woods.” Raven gets up and grabs Lexa’s purse before tossing it to the taller woman. “We have to go to the store though.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
//
After a few hours, Lexa and Raven return from the store with all of the ingredients that Lexa would need for tonight’s meal. Plus plenty of alcohol to keep the other house guests happy. Lexa turns when she hears the cap pop off of a bottle of beer.
“Want one?” Raven asks and Lexa shakes her head before turning back to the refrigerator. “You can have a couple of beers, Woods. You won’t get crazy.”
“I don’t want one. If I want to talk to Clarke sometime tonight, then I need to be coherent.”
“Why do you want to talk to Clarke tonight?”
Lexa turns to look at her friend again. “I’m not stupid, Reyes. I know that you and Octavia know about the…. Sleeping arrangements last night.”
“So what? Friends cuddle.” Raven grins.
“I hate you.” Lexa said, glaring at her friend. “And we weren’t cuddling. I was just there comforting her because I made a complete ass of myself last night with Harper. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I just – I couldn’t leave her.”
“It’s okay, Lexa. Just talk to Clarke about it.”
“It’s not okay. She had been drinking and now it looks like I took advantage of the situation. I’m trying to earn her trust back and I keep screwing it up. God…. I’m such a mess.”
“You’re definitely a mess.” Raven smiles. “But you’re our friend and Clarke knows that. She’s just as big a mess as you are. We know that this whole situation is hard on you both, but look how far you’ve come. Things will be okay. You just have to communicate your thoughts to her and not just me or O.”
“You’re right.” Lexa says, shaking her head. “I can’t keep holding my comments inside. If I want Clarke to trust me again, then I’m going to have to start communicating with her…. No matter how awkward it may be.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Raven says spinning around in the bar stool that she’s sitting in before she notices someone coming through that back glass door. “Griffin! What’s up?” Lexa quickly turns around to see the blonde that Raven is talking to. God. She’s so gorgeous. Why did she have to be so beautiful?
“Raven.” Clarke grins and nods at her before looking to Lexa. “Lexa.”
“Hey.” Lexa smiles. ‘Hey. Really? You’re an idiot, Lexa.’ She thinks to herself.
There’s a bit of silence before Raven breaks it. “Wellllll…” She says, drawing the word out longer than needed. “I’ve got to run talk to Bellamy real quick. You kids have fun.” Before Lexa can protest, Raven is up and out the door. She’s really going to kill her for leaving her alone with Clarke.
The blonde slowly walks over to where Lexa is standing in the kitchen and startles Lexa when she pulls the brunette in for a hug. “Thank you. For last night.” Clarke says into the brunette’s hair. “Thanks for being there. You’re a good friend, Lex.” Lexa is fairly certain that her heart was going to beat out of her chest. The proximity to Clarke was suffocating, but in this moment she didn’t care. Clarke can always make her lose her breath. She doesn’t care. She could think of no better way to die. The ‘friend’ comment didn’t go unnoticed by her though, but she didn’t say anything. She was just glad that Clarke didn’t really make it awkward.
The blonde pulled away and smiled at Lexa, her hand still lingering on the brunette’s shoulder. “Whatcha making?” Clarke asks, breaking the silence that they found themselves in.
Lexa shook her head and tried to break herself out of the trance that Clarke Griffin had her in. She cleared her throat. “Umm… Steaks. I’m about to start on the marinade.”
Clarke grins and removes her hand from Lexa’s arm. “Need help?”
“Sure.” Lexa smiles back and they fall into place in the kitchen, preparing supper for their friends.
//
“Oh my gosh. This smells amazing!” Maya exclaimed, as she walked through the kitchen to make her plate, followed by the rest of the group.
“Everyone just grab a plate and we can all just go eat outside. It’s too pretty to stay inside.” Clarke said. After everyone made their plates, Clarke and Lexa made theirs and joined their friends outside. There was really no order of seating. There really wasn’t even a table. The friends just kind of scattered about and found somewhere comfortable to sit. Everyone else was already grouped up around the fire pit, so Lexa started to walk towards the water with her food.
“Where are you going?” Clarke asked the brunette.
“To the hammock. I’ll sit there to eat.” Lexa smiled and Clarke grinned back.
“Can I join you?”
“Of course.” The two settled into the hammock in the sitting position and put their plates in their laps. There was comfortable silence amongst them as they ate. Lexa tried to ignore the moans coming from the blonde as she ate the steak that Lexa had made. She turned her head to chance a look at Clarke and she saw the girl devouring the steak. She couldn’t help the chuckle that left her lips.
“What are you laughing at?” Clarke smirked.
“Nothing.” Lexa smiled, shaking her head. “I’m guessing that the food is satisfactory.”
“Hell yes it is.” Clarke said and then took another bite of steak. “I’ve missed this so much.” Clarke’s eyes grew wide. “The steak I mean…. It’s a really good steak. You make the best.”
“Ahh…” Lexa said, looking back down at the plate in her lap.
“I mean… I’ve missed this too.” Clarke says, gesturing between herself and Lexa. “It feels good to be able to hang out again.”
“It does.” Lexa half smiled before taking a bite of her salad.
After a few minutes, Clarke decides to try and talk about some of the things that they never talk about. She wants to be able to talk to Lexa like they used to and she wants Lexa to know that she can talk to her. “So, how’s Anya doing?” Clarke asks while eating a bite of salad.
Lexa turns to smile at the blonde. No one ever asks her about her sister. No one ever asks her anything personal in any way and she has to say that it’s a breath of fresh air. “She’s good. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her. She’s always incredibly busy.”
“She still with the Cowboys?”
“She is. She is head of the merchandising department now.”
“Ooohhh… She’s a big wig now. I’m happy for her.” Clarke smiles.
“Me too.” Lexa nods before looking back at her plate.
“So she’s still able to get you those Cowboys tickets then? Do you still go?” Clarke asks. Lexa used to always go to the Cowboys’ home games and she would always take Clarke with her. It got to be there Sunday night thing in the fall months.
“She does still get them. I’ve only been to like one game this year though. It’s not as fun going alone and you know Octavia and Raven don’t care much for it.” Lexa replies. “Which is fine. I can stay at the house in sweat pants and watch it just as easily from my couch.”
Clarke takes a swig of her beer and sets it back on the ground before she clears her throat. “Well, next time you need company… Just let me know.”
Lexa looks over to Clarke wondering if Clarke really means it. Is she saying that she wants to hang out? Just the two of them? Alone? ‘Don’t look too much into it Lexa. You’re friends.’ The brunette thinks. “I’d like that.” Lexa says with a grin.
“Me too.” Clarke smiles back. “So… Is Anya dating anyone these days?” This question makes Lexa laugh out loud.
“Hell no.” She is still laughing. “You know how Anya is. She’s too controlling. She would much rather be by herself and just have all of her random hook ups.”
Clarke laughs at this too. “You’re right. I can’t really see her with anyone.”
“She is in the middle of an adoption right now though.” Lexa says seriously and Clarke looks over to her with a raised brow. “He’s six. His name is Aden and he is the sweetest kid I’ve ever met.”
“You’ve met him?”
“I have. They will make each other very happy. That kid has been through a lot in a short amount of time.” Lexa says, shaking her head.
“Well, he’ll be lucky to have you as an aunt too.” The blonde smiles. “You’ve always been great with kids.”
Lexa’s smile widens. “It’s because I’m awesome. Kids love awesome.”
Clarke scoffs and pushes Lexa with her hand, knocking her back in the hammock. Luckily the brunette was finished with her food because the plate fell to the ground. They were both laughing. “You’re great with kids because you act just like one.”
“Whatever, Griffin. You’re just jealous.” Lexa say, sticking her tongue out in the process.
“And thank you for just proving my point.” Clarke grins and Lexa rolls her eyes. Clarke can’t get over how easy this conversation is going. It’s like their conversation last night changed things between them…. Made them more comfortable with each other or something. She’s missed this so much. This comfort that she’s always gotten from these kinds of moments around Lexa. Her heart warms at the thought.
The blonde gets up from her place on the hammock and it almost flips Lexa out. “Want anything else?” She asks Lexa.
The other girl shakes her head. “No. I’m good. Thank you. Get the others together and let’s do something.”
“Yes ma’am.” Clarke says walking back towards the rest of the group.
//
“This is not what I meant when I said get the gang together and let’s do something.” Lexa mumbles but Clarke hears her and laughs. The group has settled around the campfire in a circle per Raven’s request to play a game of pick up lines. They used to play it all of the time in college. It was always fun to get their friends riled up and competitive. It also caused lots of laughs.
“The rules are simple!” Raven exclaims even though most of them already know the rules. Probably the only ones that don’t are Monroe and Maya. They’re the newbies to the group. “We go around the circle. You have to use your best pick up line on the person next to you to try and make them laugh. If you laugh, you’re out. It doesn’t matter if you’re the one saying it or the one it’s being said to. There can be physical contact if need be. Flirt it up and make your opponent crack under pressure. We will start going counter-clock wise and eventually change direction, that way everyone gets a taste of the other’s lines.” Raven laughs and is joined by Octavia.
“I hate this game.” Lexa says crossing her arms across her chest.
“Whatever, Woods. You used to love this game and you always kicked our asses.” Bellamy said from his place beside her.
Lexa only just realized that she was sitting in between Bellamy and Clarke. Which means that she and Clarke will have to try and make each other laugh. Great. This won’t be awkward at all.
“What’s wrong, Lexa? You look a little pale.” Clarke grins. “You scared?”
Oh it’s so on now. “You wish.” Lexa grinned and there was the competitive spirit that Clarke was so attracted to.
The order of the circle going counter-clockwise was as followed: Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Monty, Jasper, Maya, Miller, Monroe, Harper, Clarke, and Lexa. This was going to be interesting.
“Okay.” Raven said, settling down in her seat between Octavia and Bellamy. “You get the privilege of going first big Blake.” She says looking at Bellamy. “Do your worst.”
Bellamy cleared his throat and turned his body towards Raven and they both tried to be a serious as possible. “Are you a beaver...Because dam.” Everyone other than Raven began laughing at how stupid he sounded.
“Is that the best you got, Blake? No wonder you never bring any girls home.” Raven said before turning towards the younger Blake sibling. “You can just call me Nemo, because I’m never afraid to touch the butt.” It takes everything within Octavia not to bust out laughing at that. Raven knew that Octavia had a thing for ‘Finding Nemo’. She has probably been waiting to use that line on her forever. Maya and Harper are practically in tears. It was going to be all too easy to knock them out of the game.
Octavia doesn’t break. She spins around to look at Monty. He was already trying not to laugh and she hadn’t even said anything yet. This was going to be easy. “”Is that a cellphone in your back pocket? Because that ass is calling me.” Yep. Too easy. Monty burst into laughter and Raven pats Octavia on the back.
“That’s my girl. I’m so proud.”
After the first entire round through the circle Monty, Maya, Monroe, Miller and Harper were all put out. None of them could hold back their laughter. This only left Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Jasper, Clarke, and Lexa. “Okay.” Raven said. “My turn and this time we are changing directions.”
“Shit. Bellamy said. He knew that Raven would knock him out of the game by saying something entirely too inappropriate.
Raven slowly leans up and practically straddles Bellamy. There are no rules against touching in anyway. She turns her head towards Octavia a little before saying, “You might want to close your ears baby Blake.” Octavia does as told because she really doesn’t want to think of Bellamy in any kind of weird way and she knew that Raven was about to make it weird. Raven leaned forward and whispered in Bellamy’s ear, but it was loud enough that the rest of the circle heard it. “Do you come here often or wait until you get home?” Bellamy couldn’t hold in his laughter, mainly because it was the only thing that he could do to not think about what Raven just said. She was practically his sister and it was just…. Weird. “Hell yeah!” Raven exclaimed, fist pumping in the air. “I think he might have gotten a little excited.”
“Whatever, Reyes.” Bellamy said before getting up and going to sit with the other eliminated players.
“Okay, Lexa. You got this.” Octavia said. “Knock Clarke’s ass out of this game.”
“Hey!” Clarke exclaimed, looking over Lexa’s shoulder at Octavia. “I will win this entire game thank you very much.”
“Wanna bet?” Lexa asked as she turned towards the blonde. Clarke could feel her heart beating out of her chest. She was nervous to see what kind of line Lexa would feed her. She really shouldn’t have gotten herself in this game, or at least not sitting beside Lexa. The brunette cleared her throat and if she was nervous too, then she wasn’t showing it. “Your eyes are blue like the ocean, and baby… I’m lost at sea.”
Okay. That was super corny, Clarke thought to herself, but also so hot. She shifted a little in her position, hoping that she wasn’t giving away how awkward this was with Lexa. There was no laughing from anyone, only a comment from Raven. “Are you kidding me, Woods? You’re not actually trying to get into her pants…. You’re trying to make her laugh.” Lexa spun around and glared a hole through Raven’s head before turning back around to Clarke, but the blonde had already turned towards Jasper. She easily knocked him out with some line about corn.
It was Octavia’s turn to try and get Raven and she thought that she had just the one to make Raven laugh. She mirrored Raven’s position that she was in earlier on Bellamy, straddling the other girl and bringing her lips to Raven’s ear. “Are you an elevator? Because I wanna go down on you.”
“Dammit, Octavia!” Raven laughed. “You had to go and get all dirty and seductive on me!”
“You taught me well.” Octavia said before slipping off of Raven’s lap. “And then there were three.” She commented, looking over at Clarke and Lexa. “I think that it’s about time to knock Woods off of her pedestal.”
“We’ll see about that, Blake. Let’s spin it back around.” Lexa says, and Octavia just nods. It’s not long before Lexa is right up in her face, only inches from Octavia’s lips. It is taking everything in Lexa not to bust out into a fit of laughter right now.
Clarke is sitting behind Lexa, and she definitely wasn’t going to admit how hot Lexa looked right now, looking into Octavia’s eyes.
Lexa reached up and grabbed Octavia’s boobs and the look on Octavia’s face almost makes Clarke lose it. It’s definitely hilarious. There’s a reason that Lexa has always won this game. She’s ruthless and hot as hell. “Your breasts remind me of Mount Rushmore. Can I put my face on them?” Lexa barely whispers but Clarke and Octavia both heard her loud and clear.
Octavia turns several shades of red before she finally laughs and Clarke joins in. “Jesus, Woods. I am so turned on right now.” Octavia says before joining the loser’s circle.
“”You’re welcome.” Lexa says, winking at the younger Blake before she spins around to face the blonde. Clarke tries her hardest to put on her best brave face, even though she is terrified of what is about to happen. It’s weird though…. she wants it to happen. “Are you sure you’re up for this, Griffin?”
“You’re going down, Woods.” The blonde smirks. Since it’s Clarke’s turn, she takes a deep breath and throws her arms around Lexa’s neck and the brunette’s breath hitches at the closeness of the situation. Shit. What had she gotten herself into? “Lex…is that a keg in your pants? Because I’d love to tap that ass.” Lexa’s eyes go wide and the whole loser’s circle burst into laughter. Clarke looks rather pleased with herself, even though Lexa doesn’t crack a smile.
The brunette shoots an eyebrow up and quickly places her hands on the blonde’s waist, pulling her into her lap and startling Clarke. Clarke’s arms are still around Lexa’s neck, but they both just stay that way because it may be a while before one of them is knocked out. If only they each knew how quickly the other’s heart was beating right now…. It was definitely intense right now and all eyes were on them.
“You got this, Griffin!” Bellamy yells. “Be strong!”
Lexa grabbed Clarke’s attention back by slightly squeezing her waist. “Clarke, you’re just like my little toe.” Clarke looks very confused and amused at this point. “Because I’m going to bang you on every piece of furniture in my home.” Clarke is sure that her face is beet red, but she refuses to let Lexa win. But…. oh. my. God. That was hot. Clarke tries to push the thoughts of her and Lexa on random pieces of furniture out of her mind.
She clears her throat and Lexa is already getting settled in, preparing herself for the worst. Clarke’s hands are in Lexa’s baby hairs at the back of her neck, and the act sends chills through Lexa’s entire body. “Lex,” The way the Clarke says her name alone, sends shivers down the brunette’s spine. “That outfit…” Clarke looks down at Lexa’s shirt and then back up to those gorgeous green eyes before leaning in next to Lexa’s ear. Clarke can feel Lexa’s grip on her waist tighten and the blonde almost wants to laugh then, but she doesn’t. “Would look great on my bedroom floor.” Lexa takes a big gulp of air and squeezes her eyes, hoping that Clarke couldn’t see how…. frustrated she was right now.
“Dammit.” Clarke says. “I thought that that would work.” She puts on her best pouty face.
“Not a chance.” Lexa manages to get out. Her heart is pounding. The laughter of the other’s behind them seems to drown it out and Lexa is starting to think that she likes this way too much. ‘Alright’…. Lexa thinks to herself, ‘it’s time to win this.’ Lexa brings one of her hands up to caress Clarke’s cheek.
“Oh shit…. this is it! Woods is about to win.” They hear Raven say.
“No way. Griffin’s got this.” Monty says.
Lexa slowly moves her thumb across Clarke’s cheek and those blue eyes are practically making Lexa melt, but she has to win… Her thumb grazes over Clarke’s bottom lip and the blonde’s lips part just slightly. The brunette can feel the hot breath coming from Clarke’s mouth, and she swears that she feels Clarke’s legs tighten around her waist. “I’ve got an oral exam later. Can I practice with you?”
“Shit.” Clarke basically whimpers and Lexa is the only one that hears. Both of their eyes are wide, but then Clarke narrows hers. “That was pretty good, Woods but there’s no way you’re beating me.” Clarke’s throat is dry but she can’t let Lexa know the affect that she’s having on her.
Lexa doesn’t know how long she’s going to last. She honestly just needs to get up and go take a very cold shower. Whatever Clarke says next…. Lexa plans on laughing. She can’t take much more of this and it’s really getting out of hand anyway. Pushing the ‘friends’ boundaries and everything.
To Lexa’s surprise, Clarke stands up and pulls Lexa up with her, but she’s quickly pushed up against the tree that was directly behind them.
“Holy shit.” Octavia says.
“Clarke…” Lexa says quietly as she closes her eyes. She’s finding it extremely difficult to look at Clarke right now. She feels like she’s about to explode. This was all too much for her to handle right now.
“What’s wrong, Lex?” Clarke says in her best sultry voice. “Afraid you might lose?” Clarke’s hands are on Lexa’s waist and squeezing ever so slightly.
“Oh my god.” Lexa whispers, her eyes still closed, and the statement comes out like a pant. This almost makes Clarke laugh right then and there, but she stands strong.
The blonde leans up next to Lexa’s ear grazing her lips past it and sending electricity through both of their bodies. “You’re such an amazing piece of art…. I just want to nail you up against every wall in my house.”
It’s all that Lexa can take and she bursts into laughter and this whole situation. It’s ridiculous. She wasn’t going to let Clarke affect her like that. The rest of the group is laughing too. “Did I just win?” Clarke grinned and removed herself from Lexa.
“Unfortunately.” Lexa smiled. “You put up a good fight, Griffin. I guess my seduction skills aren’t what they used to be.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.” Clarke says with a wink and turns towards the rest of the gang to do a victory dance. Lexa smiles and starts to walk back towards the cabin.
“Where you going, Woods?” Raven asks.
“To shower.”
//
It was late and everyone had sauntered off to their beds for the evening; everyone except for Lexa. There was no way that she was going to be able to sleep right now. Not after the ‘game’ that they played earlier. She’s been playing every second of it back in her memory and as much as she enjoyed it, she’s regretting it. She was supposed to be trying to earn Clarke’s trust back. She had gone too far. They both had gone too far and it was playing with Lexa’s emotions tremendously.
Lexa was lying out by the shoreline in the hammock, enjoying the cool breeze of the night. She had a light jacket on over her t-shirt with some sweat pants. Being in the cabin on a night like tonight, with everything that happened, would only feel more suffocating.
The only light source around was the brightness of the moon that reflected off of the lake. It was a gorgeous night and she was then thankful of her decision to stay outside tonight. The quietness that had surrounded her was broken when a voice behind her startled her and almost knocked her out of her hammock.
“Lexa?”
“Holy sh – “ Lexa turned her head and tried to balance herself in her makeshift bed. “Clarke…. You scared the shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry. When I saw that you weren’t in the living room with Raven, I figured that you’d be out here.” The blonde smiled.
Lexa returned the grin and sat up in the hammock, placing her feet on the ground. “You figured, huh?”
Clarke hummed and nodded her head before looking out over the water. They both sat there in silence for what felt like an eternity. Neither of them really knowing what to say…. As usual. This was starting to become their ‘thing’.
“I’m sorry.” Lexa said softly, shaking her head when Clarke looked over to her. “About tonight. I shouldn’t have played that game. I crossed the friend boundary. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re not the only one that got carried away, Lexa.” The blonde replied, moving to sit down beside Lexa on the hammock. “That was on me too.”
Lexa nodded her head ever so slightly. “I’m still sorry. I’ve been working on trying to earn your trust back and… then I do something stupid like that.”
“Lexa….” Clarke breathed out softly. “I do trust you.” She turned her head around to meet those gorgeous forest-green eyes. She can only look for a second though before it becomes too much. As hard as she’s been trying to ignore the feelings inside her, she now just has to accept that they’re not going to go away. Lexa was and always would be a big part of her life in some sort of fashion. It was time to accept the inevitable. That absolutely did not mean that she was ready for anything more than friends with Lexa, but in her mind now…. It wasn’t out of the question.
“How?” Lexa asks, bewildered. “How can you trust me so easily, Clarke?” The way Lexa says her name sends shivers down her spine. “I broke your heart.”
Clarke turned her head towards Lexa with a half-grin in place, and Lexa noticed the tears forming in those blue eyes that she loved so much. “You did break my heart…” Clarke started and then she shook her head. The words that came out of her mouth next baffled the both of them. “But you took the biggest piece with you. I don’t think that I could ever not trust you. Even after everything. You’ll always hold the biggest piece…. I guess its just time that I accept that.”
Lexa had to turn her head to try and keep her emotions in check. This girl…. This girl beside her was the only person that could ever make her feel this much. It was scary, but she would gladly be terrified for the rest of her life if she could spend it with Clarke.
“Please say something.” Clarke finally said, and Lexa hadn’t realized how long they had sat there in silence.
Clarke hears Lexa let out a small chuckle and she raises an eyebrow. “What?”
“Nothing.” Lexa replied. “It’s super corny.”
The blonde beside her shrugs and leans over to nudge Lexa with her shoulder. “I like corn.” They both laugh at how big of dorks they are before Lexa speaks again.
“It’s just… You’ve always had my heart too. My whole heart.” Lexa shakes her head, realizing how ridiculous she sounds. “The thing is… I never wanted it back. I realized that if I wasn’t with you, then I didn’t want to love again. Nothing ever came close to comparing to you.” Both girls now had tears in their eyes and neither one of them cared that they were starting to fall down their cheeks. Clarke looked down, and slowly took Lexa’s hand in her own, intertwining their fingers in the process. Lexa also looked down at their hands and rubbed a thumb over the top of Clarke’s palm before she hesitantly brought them up so that she could place the softest kiss to the blonde’s hand.
“Are you staying out here tonight?” Clarke asks softly and Lexa only nods, looking back out at the water. “Want some company?” Lexa looked to the blonde only to nod her head again. She slowly leaned back on the hammock and Clarke joined her. The blonde leaned her head over onto Lexa’s shoulder, their hands still tangled together, and they fell asleep under the moonlit night.
//
The gang had packed up and left the next day fairly early in the morning. Octavia had to be back in Dallas to show a house to a newly married couple. They had all gotten back to their separate apartments and it had been a couple of hours of unpacking and doing laundry, when Clarke heard her cell phone ding with a message notification. She dropped the laundry basket onto the couch and grabbed her phone from the coffee table.
LEXA: How about a Cowboys game next Sunday?
CLARKE: Your place or mine?
LEXA: Neither. Anya gave me some tickets. You in?
CLARKE: Umm… Hell yeah.
LEXA: That’s what I like to hear. It will be good to have a friend go with me that actually likes football.
CLARKE: It’s just for the football though. Not the company.
LEXA: Bullshit. You know just how charming I am.
CLARKE: Obviously not as charming as me. I am the one that won the game.
LEXA: Please don’t bring that up again. It wasn’t my finest moment.
CLARKE: I beg to differ.
Wait…. Was she flirting with Lexa? She honestly didn’t mean to, but it just kind of came out that way. She felt nervous at first, as if she really shouldn’t have done that, but then it hit her. She doesn’t want to flirt with anyone other than Lexa, and it’s been a while since she’s gotten to. She was going to relish this moment.
LEXA: I’m not quite sure what that means. Are you saying that I’m fine?
Dammit. Clarke can already see the shit-eating grin forming on Lexa’s face without actually seeing the woman at all.
CLARKE: That’s not what I said.
LEXA: You insinuated it.
CLARKE: Nope.
LEXA: Clarke, you’re blushing.
Even though Lexa was just messing with Clarke, the blonde had definitely been blushing. She’s missed this and she’s not really afraid to admit it anymore.
CLARKE: Goodbye, Lexa. I’ll see you Sunday.
LEXA: You better plan on seeing me before then.
CLARKE: If you’re lucky.
LEXA: I’m feeling lucky.
CLARKE: Goodbye, Lexa.
LEXA: Goodbye, Clarke.
|
In a small, black notebook.
Front page, scribbled in a corner: “It does look like the Death Note. Better laugh it off. It’s been a while since you spend a night writing names. L."
Page 12:
“I thought of a title for our autobiography. From Hell to Eden. I read Paradise Lost again. It got to me, you know? PS: it’s easier to communicate that way, have you noticed? You’re nicer. Light.”
”You told me about Paradise Lost. Not the autobiography. Who would read that? Unless you pull a Watson and write my stories. You did say I give off an air of Jeremy Brett’s refined gloominess. Whatever that means. L.”
“Maybe I should write after all. If you die, it’s a better occupation than killing myself right away. Light.”
“I know you. Sadly, and in spite of your best efforts, you wouldn’t do it justice. Now let’s get back to work. L.”
2020
ROME
Sayu Yagami’s mission
The narrator changed his voice for the last chapter, professional neutrality turning sour, sad, and rueful. It wasn’t only Mello’s doing.
In New York, Light Yagami’s priorities had shifted. The Mayor of Tokyo had been superficial in his fights for fear of being associated with the passionate, fiery, god Kira had been elevated to. And Kira was devoted to himself and the salvation of the perfect son Light had killed along with another man, that night of November.
They were cynics acting the part of the idealist.
The new Light Yagami cared for the environment, owned a white flat with bay windows and declined all interviews. He wore shirts of exquisite silk and his old familiar watch. The nights he couldn’t sleep, he threaded carefully across his balcony, unafraid to get lost in thoughts. After a few debates on the subject, he let his lover hold his hand at the restaurant for 5.7 minutes. His smiles were shy and his charm unaltered.
He was a cynic who mended his ways.
As for Lawrence Deneuve, he cultivated a new found love for wolfberries and yoga. He provided his fans with one smoothie recipe per month that he posted on his blog. “The Greatest Detective” (strawberry, honey, vanilla) was especially popular, although mainly discussed as a potential hint to Deneuve’s double-life.
“L is an entity that is always in motion, ever-changing. L is never quite the same. Perhaps I have been him. But I will remain silent. Telling you would be a betrayal of L,” he had confessed once, in a blog post that had been shared by millions. Since then, it was the opinion of the public that he had been the original L. Of course, it triggered a renewed interest in the legend of the first L. The Lind L. Tailor intervention ascended into a classic. It was easy to live in the nostalgia of the self-righteous, arrogant vigilante L had been.
Light and L crafted a different act for the play; a detective that never spoke, proficient and quiet in his fights. They repaired Watari’s invention, healed the flawed hero they both looked up to. They didn’t change the world, but they changed L for good.
By contrast, the humans they became were childish, eccentric, far, far ahead of the curve. Their strange companionship made them proud. They were fully, unapologetically human now, in their own way. Then again, there is no faulty way to be human.
For his 34th birthday, Light Yagami received a villa in Rome. It stood up above the city, on a hill of vivid greens and reds. The elegant scent of jasmine and bluebells filled the vast, bright rooms. The windows were high, the floors polished, and a magnificent garden grew on its roof. Its odour was so rich, it has such a beautiful presence, L would often persuade Light to make love up there because it felt like adoring him in the very lost garden of Eden.
Sayu Yagami didn’t know that the first time she set her eyes on the roses her brother grew.
“How can we ever thank you?” she told L, brushing careful fingertips over a petal.
L fell onto the couch. It was surrounded by high, reassuring plants. “I really don’t deserve it. Trust me.”
“Your misdeeds matter little to me,” Sayu responded firmly. She took a step towards the detective. “I might be a bad cop, but all that counts right now is that you saved my brother.”
“I am not a saviour I merely helped him find his way, Miss,” L countered, and he regarded her with the same respect he had once paid her father. “You’re certainly not a bad cop. I have the first hand opinion of your father on the subject. He is proud of you. I’m proud of you. I can only imagine how terribly difficult it must have been.”
She considered his words for moment, her expression rueful. “Isn’t my brother…doesn’t he resent me? I’m afraid he thinks I stole his place,” she said, her voice low like someone who is grieving.
“Sayu Yagami. Your brother is exactly where he was meant to be. It was always supposed to end like this.”
“We should have seen him stray away,” she argued, flopping down onto the couch beside L. “Prevented it, in some way. I thought that was what family is for. All we could do is trust him – and…I’ve forgiven him, don’t get me wrong. But I will never understand.”
“He has me to understand. Don’t underestimate your role. He needs to know I’m not the only one who can love him. Have you noticed how the Japanese newspapers barely acknowledge his existence now? Not a word on him in the past two years. Do you know why? He wanted this. He wanted to disappear.”
“Why?”
“He is reinventing himself. That’s what he always does. I follow him, I’m the constant. But you, your family, are the compass. He will always look in your direction, whether we’re investigating in New York or tracking criminals in Singapour. He sees you in the horizon,” he said fondly. Sayu Yagami smiled in gratitude.
“Thank you. I can see why he needed someone like you.”
Her eyes wandered toward Lawliet’s hand and her smile faded. He had slipped a black notebook out of his bag.
“I know your father told you about this,” he explained. “I need you to take it. Destroy it, bury it. The decision is yours. I promised your father. He knew you’d do the right thing.”
After hesitating, she gave a little nod. “Why not destroy it yourself?” she asked, eyes riveted on the unearthly weapon.
“I’m not suited for this mission,” L answered, his voice low and firm.
She flipped through the pages, recognized the elegant handwriting at once. Light’s hand seldom shivered and the names had been traced with impeccable care. She suppressed a shiver.
“Lind L Tailor,” she read, observing the unfamiliar capital letters. Light had been the first person to help her write, as a kid. He was adamant she respected the correct lines. Apparently, Lind L. Tailor had been worth breaking a rule. It was strange, to see that name, unfolded all over the page. She looked up to L, who gave a little smile.
“The name that changed everything. I haven’t looked at it in a while now. How different it could have all played out.”
“From that moment on, L was his enemy. A threat. Someone who knew too much about him,” Sayu blurted out. She considered her words and realised how true they sounded. “He would have worked with you otherwise, you know. It could have ended the same way,” she ventured, eyes dipping to the notebook again. She flipped another page.
“Would I have loved him then? I know I would, but is that simply wishful thinking? He doesn’t need Kira. He never did. But me…I am haunted by that doubt. That, maybe, I loved the monster he created more than I could ever love him.”
He slipped off the couch, threaded to the balustrade and stood there. “We were never equals in this respect. He admired L but he was always more fascinated by the man behind the mask.” L clasped his hands behind his back, swallowed.
“My voice, my impossibly long limbs, the cadence of my breath. He notices everything. He loves my temper, delights in my obsessions, and understands my weaknesses. L wasn’t a person to him.” It was true that Light Yagami’s first instinct had been to rip off L’s mask, to detect the tormented detective in Ryûzaki’s quirks. By contrast, L had wanted Light Yagami to act like Kira. To yield to this deformed part of him so L could win the game.
“He loves me, only me,” L recalled. His eyes flicked in memory to pieces of conversations, whispered words and confessions filled with tears. Only then did Sayu notice how exhausted he looked. “My trust was gained that way. And he’s, to this day, the only person alive to call me by my name.” Yagami has this way of saying his name, softly, carefully, as if it was the most dangerous thing in the world. Never would he say L that way. He harboured a form of resentment towards L – the former enemy and the persona that shielded Lawrence from him.
“I hate self-pity. So I thought of a way to prove my devotion to Light Yagami. Once and for all,” he said calmly, and finally looked at her. “Miss, if there’s something you need to keep in mind, it’s that actions speak louder than words…” He heaved a deep breath, waited for Sayu Yagami to turn the last page of the notebook.
What she saw was a name. The spidery handwriting reminded her of old-fashion letters; it was not meant to be deciphered by anyone else than the addressee.
“Whose name is that…?” she ventured, blinking at the page.
L hovered around the couch, placed himself behind her. “Someone who wanted to die and I indulged. It's possible all users are condemned to the same place, if there is such thing as an afterlife, that is. Don't believe it wasn't a dilemma, to use that terrible weapon. But I needed to.”
“You’re the same, you and him. Always resorting to such terrible means…” Sayu craned her head to look at L defiantly. “It doesn’t mean you’ll be with him. The notebook says there’s only nothingness.”
“Even so, I am not risking it,” L retorted. He padded to a chair by the roses and sat there, pale above his black collar. “I can’t lie. He weighed on me. And I know I won’t be able to stay beside him forever.”
“I will die, one day. I’m not afraid of death. Light is. I want to ease the pain, I want our parting to be bitter and sweet as a medicine. That gesture is supposed to give him hope. I will have to give him back to himself, carefully, the same way I would confide him a precious collection of china. I hope he doesn’t break it. Perhaps if he is assured we’ll meet again somewhere, he will not.”
Sayu never saw Lawliet alone after that, but their eyes would often lock in silent understanding.
Her brother was not for her to understand. He was hers to forgive. By the time Sayu Yagami was contacted by the anonymous authors of the Life and Time, she had made peace with that idea.
She let them unveil Kira. Light was dead, she could protect herself from the crowd. And she knew a least one part of her brother would agree. It was a suitable punishment for Kira, to be judged by those he frightened. Worse: to be presented as a human. A fragile, soft-skinned, fearful human.
2033
ROME
The sound of the bells
In the fairytales, the monsters never live happy ever after.
But we had freed ourselves from the monsters’ skins! We were humans, and we were getting good at it!
I never yearned for life to turn into a fairytale. ...Well, I did. But never as intensely, never as desperately as on that rooftop.
Light Yagami’s diary.
In April, L called for a pause in their investigation. He soothed Light’s objections with a romantic evening in a deserted museum. Castel Sant’Angelo, to indulge their megalomania. They played the kings in their castle for a moment, admiring the works of art and the paintings of angels hand in hand.
At some point, they parted ways; Light followed an invisible thread to the Hall of Justice. The disturbing aura of the room seeped into him, and a sigh escaped his lips. For a fleeting instant, he felt every suffering soul that had been condemned to death, imaginary sobs or screams echoed off the white marble. Yagami had a passion for self-inflicted suffering, as another man for praises and compliments. He was peculiar in that both men were him.
The illusion faded. His heart was pounding madly in his chest. He needed to find L. His walking, light as ever, took him to the rooftop.
“What are you doing here? I was looking for you –“ Light cut himself off, struck by the beautiful picture he faced then.
The most brilliant man in the world stood, slender and fragile, immobile above Rome. In spite of the late hour, the city was still whispering to itself. L’s eyes skimmed the sky with an unusual softness. They loved Rome – what’s not to love about a city that’s eternal? But L looked like he was saying goodbye already.
Light took a careful step his way. “Come inside,” he urged, feeling strangely anxious. “It will rain soon.”
“So be it,” L said sotto voce. He seemed to address the statue of the angel Michael perched above them.
“Don’t say that,” Light retorted feebly. He never knew how to sound comforting. Charm and manipulation had been easier to master. The irony of that fact soured his mood.
“This building was the tallest in Rome, once. It was surpassed. Does that make it any less of a masterpiece? I don’t think so.”
“What are you getting at?” Light managed, and he realised how sore his throat was.
“You can succeed me. I always thought so,” L said half to himself. Then he turned to Light at last. Observed him with as much intensity as he him. They both knew what kind of catastrophe edged closer to them, but they needed the words to give reality to the storm. “I’m sick, little prince. And it’s serious.”
A heavy cloud slid in the sky, allowing the moonlight to play with their shadows. Their silhouettes danced against the ancient stones. The view horrified Light. None of this was eternal, the music would fade away, and the dance would end. It was unfair. So unfair, he might cry.
He welcomed L’s embrace and wondered why he was the one in need of consolation. He wasn’t the one facing death, and yet it felt like he was getting his execution at long last.
“I hope there is nothing after death,” Light murmured, voice strangled. “It’s better to be forgotten than forced to live these dull, boring, separated existences again.”
“I will be there with you. I did what I had to do.” L said, sounding steadier than he was.
Light understood. “You used it.” In defiance of his morals, he let out a jagged sigh of relief. Silence set out again. This was one of these moments where words could only exist unspoken.
After a moment, Light’s muteness frayed into heartache, impossible sorrow. His hands creased the fabric of L’s shirt and he buried his head in his neck. Sensing Light’s warm tears on his skin, L responded by tracing slow patterns across his lover’s back. This time, it could never quiet him. L never knew, but all Light Yagami could focus on was the grim moan of distant bells.
We were scattered all over the world, but we regrouped as soon as we learnt our mentor was about to die. All our adult lives in a safe environment, we had never known true, heart-stopping fear until then.
Near, in the last chapter of the Life and Times
2035
FRANCE
His last bow
It opened with this image. A little crowd flocked at the doors of a French clinic. Its unity is an illusion. In truth, it was composed of human beings in multitude – journalists, curious strangers, bloggers still devoted to L or Kira’s cause. All these people carried their devastating curiosity with them, along with a camera.
On November 3rd at 4pm, three figures quietly pushed their way through the crowd. In spite of their efforts, that didn’t go unnoticed. Fingers were soon pointed at them. The crowd dissolved into frantic buzzing and chorused questions were thrown at the strangers. For too long, these people had awaited a scoop. They didn’t bother to ask the names of the newly arrived.
L’s successors had considerably changed, too. Matt had found it fit to cultivate his growing resemblance to Tyler Durden in Fight Club – faux-rebelliousness, a vague scent of cold coffee and a dubious habit of wearing mismatched suits. Kurt Cobain was reborn in Mello; sad blue eyes and a taste for poetry to match. He was rather handsome too, save for his doubtful beginnings of a beard. Near denied his hair loss by pushing it back. Stephen Gevanni was seen in high top secret NASA buildings pushing the detective turned scientist across the corridors. If gangs of angels existed and if they had a leader, he’d look like 40 year old Nate River.
Beneath the appearances, L’s successors remained the same.
“Put the cameras back, none of us is hiding Yagami under their cape,” growled Mello. He stared, eyes piercing through the crowd. Silence fell. He didn’t need to yell anymore.
Near craned his head and tugged at Gevanni’s sleeve. The ex-FBI agent understood. He halted his walking, and consequently Near’s wheelchair.
“Chances are high he will take the backdoor. There,” Near told the crowd, pointing with his sunshade.
He pushed his glasses back up his nose, the better to gloat, smiling like a victorious poker player at the end of the game.
Matt wished he could add something, so as to convey the feeling of a united trio but nothing sharp enough came to mind. Owning a couple of successful businesses didn’t make a leader out of him. He held the door for Near and Gevanni.
Excerpt of the Life and Times (manuscript)
You know how we cope with death? We rename it. Death is a journey or a beginning, a dull ache, an enemy. Something relatable.
Yagami never even alluded to L’s death. His funeral speech could have been his wedding vows. He addressed L the whole time, and promised to spend the rest of his days at his side.
He kept his promise.
I’d come to see him sometimes. He would tell me L was "absent" with a sweet smile. I stared the first time. After a while, I realised it was his way of coping.
Denial. We should have seen that coming.
“A few days, they gave me. I told them I wanted to go home,” their mentor said. He looked paler than his hospital gown, but Yagami surpassed them both. It is a frequent and tragic occurrence: the one at the bedsit seems more frightened, horrified and sick than the dying, loved one.
“You talked to the doctors? You should have told me. I can take care of everything,” Yagami said. The words fell heavily. He sat straight in his chair and he was perfectly well-dressed, but something in his eyes was dead already. Mello wished he hadn’t noticed it.
L extended his hand. “Light. My Light.”
They shared a silence filled with unsaid words. Then, L simply turned to his successors.
“Come closer. I need to talk while I still can.”
Yagami rolled his eyes at the remark and shifted nervously in his chair as Mello, Matt and Near joined him at L’s bedsit. He thought of them as thieves, stealing the little time he had left with L.
L let his eyes roam over them all, sighed, and with a sad little smile said: “L’s successors and L’s reflections. What a broken, mad family we form.”
Near maintained a deadpan expression, Matt and Mello exchanged a conniving glance. L was latching on to a comforting illusion; yet another sign death was closing in. His mind resisted death, and death poisoned his mind in retaliation.
“You will always have each other,” L went on. He sounded far younger than his age.
Yagami bristled. “All we have is ourselves, L.” It was clear he didn’t intend to pay L’s successors any attention. He was too distracted by L, pallid and so bizarrely resigned in his hospital bed. Yagami’s eyes never drifted away from him, lest he disappeared without his consent.
L squeezed Light’s hand, looking silently at him for a moment. His expression was indecipherable, even for Yagami.
Mello coughed, pointedly ignored Yagami’s cold glance. “Do you want us to come back later?” he asked softly.
L eyed him then, and the extreme sharpness of his cheekbones struck Mello. “No. Not before I told you this.”
He paused. “I’m proud of all of you. I’ve always been proud. I hope someday you three find it in your heart to believe me.”
“We believe you –“
“Mello, you always were too hasty to reassure me. Let me confess some of my mistakes. I haven’t been there for you. I was forced upon you as a guiding light, a model, a goal. It shouldn’t have played out like this. But you were brilliant. You never let me have the upper hand even when I made use of my power. I thank you for that.”
He paused, breathed, and gathered the effort it cost him to speak.
“For years I hid my humanity from myself. I was a genius and a force to be reckoned with. I was a monster. I tell you this, because I’m sure you don’t know this: it’s you three who gave me the courage to act, and live as a human being. I find you truly exceptional, special and not less human.” L allowed himself a pained sigh. “I ask your forgiveness for…everything I wasn’t and should have been to you.”
Mello said a few words he didn’t understand himself. Nate swallowed hard and stared at the window, cursing his sudden weakness. Matt felt terrible for all the times he thought L mistook his silences for passivity.
“Light. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep our promise,” L said fondly. “I can’t lie. It will be lonely. It already is, isn’t it? You know that I’ll be waiting, wherever I’m going, I’ll be waiting. If you don’t come to me, I’ll find you. Do you hear me, Light? Say something.” He motioned Matt to fetch him a piece of paper and a pen. “Write to me, if you don’t talk,” L offered, handing the pen before Light.
“I can’t do this,” Yagami finally managed. His voice was still cold, so cold it made it obvious he fought not to be taken by despair. L placed a hand upon his shoulder, and Yagami seemed to freeze under his touch. “Don’t do this!” he snapped, throwing the comforting hand away.
Mello edged closer to quiet him but renounced upon meeting his eyes.
“This is impossible,” Yagami said, shutting down his eyes, as he often did when reality proved itself to be unpleasant. “You should have…There should have been something you could do.”
“I should have stopped the disease, Light. Is that what you’re trying to say?” L snapped. “Is that what I’m supposed to read beneath your egoistical tears? That it’s my fault?”
Light stared intensely, like he was desperately trying to attach L to the living world. “I meant – You always find a way.”
“That’s not my fault I’m going to die soon! That’s life. If anything, you drained me out.”
Finally, a look of sorrow crossed Light Yagami’s face. Blinking back tears, he caught L’s hand and dropped his gaze to their intertwined fingers. L’s were ghastly, bony, feeble. Their skins had never been so different - Death was an impatient lover, and had claimed his hand already.
“I won’t be able to travel anywhere. Every place is ruined now,” Light said in a soft lilt of voice. “The restaurants in New York, the gardens in Berlin. Oh, and that terrible nightclub too. Even Paris, I can’t even look at a picture of Montmartre.”
Yagami hid behind half-truths. The travels were not a pressing concern. That’s not what he meant. He meant he would never be happy again. Now, ‘happy’ for them was a multi-layered word. Objectively, they had been terribly wrong together, at times. They had fought and cried and screamed everywhere. They had stained the whole word with bad memories. In the midst of chaos and nonconformity, the liar he had been found a certain happiness. It was clear that Yagami could never survive without it, mostly because he didn’t want to, not more than a child wants to leave the Neverland.
The comparison was extremely relevant, as one of the last books L quoted to Light was Peter Pan. That would come later.
“I’ll have a word with Mihael, Nate and Mail.” He brushed a strand of hair off Yagami’s face. “Then we can talk, alright?”
Yagami left the room without a sound. Nate suspected he was in agony, as it’s a fact that intense pain thrives within the silence of mind.
Another peculiar choice of the authors of the Life and Time had been to cut L’s last significant words to his successors. Light was, after all, the main character of the story. There was nothing L avowed them that the reader could not do from imagination.
What Light did in the corridor, according to S. Gevanni.
I will miss
The nights (all of them).
Your hands.
The texture of your hair.
The way you say “farewell” and “absurd”.
The games (all of them).
Reading a book beside you. Especially if you bother me.
Your weird obsessions. Even your cruelty.
Light folded the paper, considered throwing it away into the bin for a moment. He couldn’t. His fingers clasped the paper until they cramped. He buried it in his back pocket. Years later, the paper was scanned and displayed in the Life and Time’s appendix.
“As evidenced here, Yagami was something of a romantic. Someone who kept in mind romanticism is dark and quite tragic,” wrote Near.
The tragedy is never death – that is inevitable, a fatality. Tragedy lies in the unfinished, the could-have-been, the as ifs. In their case, the tragedy wasn’t that Yagami was broken, but that the cracks in his psyche could never be mended.
2035
FRANCE
What Mello heard
M: It was unfair, to die like this. Did he say goodbye?
N: No. He was incapable of uttering a single word.
M: Still. That doesn’t mean he didn’t say goodbye.
N: In his own way then. Goodbye, he thought, meant forgetting. The frightened child he had been surged back with all the bad habits. I saw that the night L died.
Even with L, at times, the world still was a bleak, terrible place to Yagami. A tempest – howling and threatening, people staring from beneath their umbrellas. But he had a shelter. Alongside L, he believed the world could be redressed. L successfully turned his fear into hope, copper into silver and gold. How would Light survive without his alchemist?
The question was first asked by Mello. He exorcised his own despair that way, comparing it to Yagami’s loss.
None of L’s successors had met his eyes since the doctors bowed their head, formed the words with their mouths, uttering them as they would any other words. It was just another life cut short. Nothing exceptional.
Their cold professionalism snapped a thread in Light Yagami’s mind. The image was traumatic. There was virtually no change in the lilt of his voice, his posture was perfect as a sonnet, and he faced the doctors with his chin up.
The doctors looked back reluctantly because tears were flowing down his cheeks.
To the living, death is the slowest acting disease. It can take years to register the death of someone you love. It might remain latent, seep into you and never truly show itself. L’s death infected Light Yagami – as evidenced by the tears.
But he wasn’t yet aware of that. He had discussed with the doctors in a silky rehearsed tone but did not wipe out the tears.
“I should check on him,” Mello said, sliding his body up against the wall.
Halfway through the corridor, he heard Light Yagami’s voice coming from a deserted room. Mello felt his stomach churn and halted his pacing at once. He was seized by a sort of overwhelming pain only experienced deep in water.
Yagami’s bare, hollowed voice felt horrifying. Mello felt his body stiffen as the words pierced their way to his bones. He wondered hazily if he was the only one hearing it, as everyone seemed to move too fast around him. How could they?
“I was scared of dying, you know. I still am. Even you can’t change that,” the voice confessed. Death was too heavy a memory. He had walked hand in hand with her. “The only comfort was that somehow, I convinced myself we’d die together. It wouldn’t have been death, then. Just another adventure.”
Everything was silent, everything sounded dead. Even Yagami.
“I owe you so much. And now I can never repay you.” Here laid the unfairness. It wasn’t about him anymore. Redemption wasn’t even part of the picture. He owed L his survival. He had made a person out of the vague concept Light Yagami had become. He was forever in his debt.
And then the voice changed itself. “I agree, you owe me. But the difference is that I will never reclaim my debt.”
A shiver passed over Mello’s body, shaking it violently. Yagami’s rendition of L wasn’t perfect – the cadence was slow, the rhythm threatening. It was the voice of someone you love, like you hear it in a dream.
“That’s what you said. I know,” he went on, in his own broken voice. “I just wanted us to live forever. If there isn’t anything – after…I see you, you know. You don’t even need to be alive. Now I can see you. You smile that fond…beautiful smile.” He cut himself with a strangled sob. “I will never see it again, won’t I?”
Yagami burst into feverish tears, and Mello took it as his cue to leave.
Epilogue
2038
FRANCE
L had been a greedy lover. Greedy and gluttonous. Death didn’t change his nature. He lingered within Light Yagami’s being, his long fingers brushing his stomach, dancing across the flesh, every minute of every day. Light felt L more intensely that he felt himself. A Light from another time would have been humiliated. But what was left of him, the person he had become at L’s side, that person was defeated and welcomed the intrusion, pleasant or not. His mind rarely ever took pity on his heart anyway.
Light escaped to the city L had been abandoned 50 years ago. He held onto his hollowed life for five years, two of which he spent tracking down every single newspaper, institution or civilian in possession of a photograph, handwriting sample or anything personal that belonged to L, Ryûzaki, Leigh or Lawrence.
Then, he devoted a measure of his time to the biography he felt obligated to write. There were still cracks in his mind, and within them, lived a narcissist.
The last time Mello visited him, Yagami had swapped his shirts of silk for a black turtleneck that belonged to L.
There was nothing to say about his apartment. Memories nobody could understand inhabited the rooms. Half-emptied candy bags caught Mello’s attention. He was willing to bet Light couldn’t bear the taste of anything else. Every item of furniture existed in double, in a flat for one person. Was there anything else to say? It was a place made for ghosts.
By the time Mello plucked up the courage to ask him how he held on, Light Yagami expressed his need for some fresh air and minced to the balcony.
“This is not the same mechanism as before. I lived proudly in the nasty little dreams I crafted. I was a God. I was a Saint,” he said softly, in a way that touched Mello to his core. His sincerity was so rare, it resonated intensely within those who witnessed it.
Perhaps thanks to the denial of L’s death, grief hadn’t added years onto his features. He didn’t look alive either. He looked like a statue that forcefully came to life – a travesty of an existence. The scarf winded around his neck reminded Mello of a hangsman’s noose.
“It’s different now. I have willingly, consciously… resigned to this illusion. Not for fear of reality, mind you,” he went on. His hands gripped the balustrade. “But because this illusion is more real to me than anything else in the world.”
He finally met Mello’s eyes, and what Mello read in them was the purest form of sorrow. All strong effects come from contrasts. Yagami’s hopeless eyes came with a smile.
“He is still alive. I feel everything he is within me. How can I believe he died, then? He’s always there. You know him. He never let go of me.”
Yagami fixed the horizon, eyes brushing the deep blue infinity of the sky. Longing for something that couldn’t be reached.
Instinctively, Mello moved his hand onto Yagami’s. It was cold. It had been cold for a long time.
In a sense, and although it broke his heart, Mello was glad he saw that side of him. Like the last shot of a film, the last picture of a loved one, that image would forever flicker in the back of his mind at the mention of Yagami.
By virtue of a healthy lifestyle and a bad karma, death refused to call Light Yagami’s name. Bizarre were the circumstances of his passing, only five years after his alleged lover and nemesis. Perhaps Light Yagami died of lassitude. For him, time froze in 2035, and forever is a long time to wait, right?
Light Yagami’s Biography. End pages.
There are people in this world who seem immortal. The protectors, the reliable ones, the defenders. These people, I learnt, exorcize the fear of death by meeting with it every so often. Think of a saviour, of the man who carried you through the flames.
But even those who know death, will have to bend in the end. It’s unnatural. It doesn’t make sense. So, we solve the paradox. We pretend they’re immortal, we call them heroes and messiahs. We mock death. It’s the coping mechanism of the weak.
You know how the story ends. The immortal die, of course, and we never question death again. We quietly learn our lesson. Their death is the cruelest of all and I can’t help but think there is a divine intend behind it.
Luckily, I had the power to fight back. I knew everything about L. I couldn’t make him live forever, but I offered him the death he deserved.
I know. Some think I died with him, that day. It’s an illusion.
He will die with me, only with me.
2035
WINCHESTER
“See you in the Neverland”
It had been Mello’s choice to elect Yagami’s speech at L’s funeral as the closing scene of the book. He argued it gave a sense of closure. Hope, of a certain disturbing fashion.
Against all logic, L’s funeral was not half as sordid as his existence. Mello and Matt found it in themselves to laugh at times; everything was so unlike their mentor. There were liars in suits at every corner. Suddenly Lawrence Deneuve had a lot of friends when he had always been collecting enemies all his life. Of course, he knew his funeral would play out that way. That’s the price of hiding yourself; everyone can pretend to know you.
“If ghosts exist, you can be sure he’s just observing the ballet by the buffet,” Near mumbled. He motioned Stephen to halt his walking.
“I think he’d rather stand by his coffin. That’s just his style,” Mello countered, placing himself beside his rival. He allowed his piercing eyes to wander towards the stage. He focused, summoned L’s spectre with something akin to despair. His gaze would always drop to the coffin. Sighing, he reckoned that ghosts are not obedient creatures. L’s ghost would be especially shifty, a poltergeist of sorts. The thought drew a sad, short-lived smile from Mello.
It melted when Yagami took three long-legged strides up to the stage. The image of him, pallid and trembling before an assembly of strangers, fumbling on the words…that image was a miracle in itself. It highlighted to Mello how deeply Yagami had been influenced by L. It was the work of twenty long years, standing humbled and frail before their eyes. Mello felt his stomach twist.
And everything changed when Yagami started to talk.
“You have more enemies than you can count – not that you’d bother to count. Only one enemy was worthy of you. None of them got you in the end, not even him... Then, what is gripping your throat? Something akin to lassitude. Weariness. Perhaps chasing, taming and loving the monster has a price. I accept that. I know you do too.”
Every verb in present tense. Now, that was sordid. But only if you knew Yagami’s tendency to retreat in his kingdom of lies. His grief was frozen in time, and he deliberately refused to move on. A logical choice when you have nowhere to go.
“You make me feel powerful, and not by giving yourself away. On that point, I’m grateful you reined yourself in. Masochism was always a great, endearing flaw of yours. There wasn’t any sacrifice on your part…No, I became powerful when I ceased to be afraid. All I needed was your guiding light.”
His hands gripped the speech podium. There were hints of power in that gesture. It was not a demonstration of fragility.
“You made a promise, a long time ago. It was on TV. You remember? You said we'd change the world. We changed ourselves. That's better."
From that moment on, Yagami’s eyes were riveted, not thousand miles away like it’s expected from someone who is addressing the dead…his eyes fixed a precise spot in the cold chapel. It blinds, to observe a ghost, and that explained why Yagami’s eyes kept on flickering. Perhaps.
“You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.“ Some recognised Barrie’s words, exchanged a glance. It was hard to believe these beautiful words could echo off the stone walls of a chapel in such a sinister manner. It seemed they were always meant to sound like this, haunting as the chant of bells.
Mello swallowed bile. His eyes followed Yagami as he climbed down the stage. The words that would later find shelter in the Life and Time were already formed in his mind.
“That day, he scared me, not in the way Kira did. He frightened me like L used to when he meant to carry me in some feverish dream of his. For the span of time this speech lasted, they were the same. And I knew, then. I knew they could defy death itself. ”
Coincidentally, Matt leaned to whisper something in Near's ear. "When you think of it, how successful would their love story be?" Near nodded pensively. It had everything. The complex protagonists, the bad break-up, the raw sensuality and even an ending so poetic it belonged in the realm of fiction.
A thought struck the three men then, in a final, perfect harmony. Yagami and Lawliet were neither heroes nor villains; not monsters, or vigilantes. Humans, but never suited to the part. They were the flawed, insufferable, magnificent characters of a book. Yes, that would do for them.
That was it then: the perfect ending.
The last pages.
So, here we are. We presented them to you, wicked as they were, soiled as they sometimes fancied themselves. Powerful and fragile. Details have been omitted, of course. These are the rules of storytelling. You were there at every turning point, I can assure you.
I think we fulfilled our mission.
Did Light and Lawrence grew on you? Have you cried? How different is your vision of L, have you forgiven Kira?
To me, only one question matters.
How do you feel about this world, a world in which Kira and L fell in love? Where the monsters were defeated by the humans who created them?
Feel free to question me but, personally…It makes me smile.
|
The store was mostly empty as Charlotte sat by the counter, tapping her nails on it. She glanced up at the clock on the wall and sighed with displeasure. It'd been two hours since she opened for business and not a single customer had come through the door. The only other person there was her only employee, Harold, who was in one of the aisles, stocking the shelves. Harold was in his late thirties but he looked like he was reaching his sixties, though Charlotte was forty five her appearance looked youthful compared to her employee; his balding hair was white-blonde, while hers was jet black. His eyes were brown, whereas hers were green. His face wrinkled and sunk, hers was spotless and graceful. Charlotte seemed to enjoy his company, although he was often quiet.
The bell above the door rang out as someone entered and Charlotte looked over to see a young and quite handsome eighteen year old boy with bright blue eyes and short black hair walking in. He was of Hispanic descent, with light caramel skin. He had a strong, broad and well defined body, his face was somewhat chiseled and attractive, and he walked with a confident swagger. He was wearing a blue tank top under a long, light green hoodie which were tucked into dark blue jeans.
"Can I help you?" Charlotte asked, looking him up in down.
He smiled and approached the counter, "Hi there. I was wondering if you guys were hiring? I'm looking for a job around here and I'm sure you could use a new employee right? My name's Armando."
Charlotte smiled. She liked the way his voice sounded when he spoke. It was warm and smooth and seemed to echo in her ears. She felt butterflies in her stomach and took a moment to compose herself, trying to act as normal as possible. "Yes, we are. I think you'd be perfect for the job. Why don't you come around back and we'll get straight to your interview."
Armando smiled went around to the back of the counter, he noticed Charlotte's large breasts which were straining against her t-shirt. They were very firm and round and he couldn't help but imagine how they must feel. Her waist was thin accompanied by wide hips. She turned around and led Armando behind the counter and into the small backroom. He looked down at her as she moved into the room, noticing that she had a good pair of legs that led up to her big round ass which jiggled as she walked.
They entered a mostly empty room with a few chairs and a table Charlotte sat down, gesturing Armando to sit next to her. They both sat down by the table, Charlotte faced Armando with her thick legs crossed. Charlotte smiled at him, feeling slightly nervous, but also excited at the same time. She cleared her throat and began her interview, "So tell me Armando, what kind of job are you looking for? We do a lot of different things here, from cleaning up, cashiering to stocking shelves."
Armando sat there, looking at her legs, and then back up to her face. "I can do anything, really. I've worked in fast food restaurants before, so I can work at a fast pace. I'm really good with my hands too, so I can do a lot of different jobs without much trouble."
She smiled, "So, you seem like you have a lot of energy."
"Oh yeah, I do. I just love being busy, always need to be doing something. I've always been like that."
She nodded, still looking at him with her big green eyes. She couldn't help but stare at him; he had a good build, an attractive face and a nice smile. His blue eyes seemed to have an intensity to them which caught her attention. Charolette regained her focus and continued "So, what would you say is your biggest strength?"
"My biggest strength?" Armando replied with a smile on his face, "I'm a fast learner and I'm really good with my hands. I can also handle a lot of stress and pressure."
Charlotte smiled, thinking how good he sounded, "What about weaknesses?"
He paused, considering what he could say that would not make him look bad, then finally he answered. "I think my biggest weakness is I'm kinda impatient sometimes, like I can get ahead of myself."
Charlotte took a moment to think about what he said. It sounded like he was smart with a lot of drive and motivation. He also seemed to be a hard worker who would fit in well. "That's not such a bad weakness to have. A little impatience can be a good thing, it keeps you moving forward."
Armando nodded, feeling pleased with himself. She didn't seem to dislike him at all, in fact he felt like he was winning her over. It was strange though; he thought that she'd be more critical of him, but instead she seemed to be more encouraging towards him.
Charlotte leaned closer to him and smiled, biting her lip, "Armando, you know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think you have what it takes to be an employee here at our store."
He looked up at her with his eyes wide, "You really think so?"
"I do. You'll make a good employee."
Armando let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much, I'll do anything you need."
Charlotte chuckled and sat back against her chair, "When can you start?"
"As soon as you want me to."
"How about tomorrow at 10:00?"
"Deal."
Charlotte grabbed a piece of paper from the table and handed it to Armando "Great, just take this home and fill it out, it's simple stuff like your number as well as your email in case I ever need to contact you."
Armando smiled and stood up from the table, as he took the paper. Charlotte rose as well, smiling as he came close to her. He extended his hand and shook hers firmly before saying goodbye and heading home.
***
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, a few customers came in here and there. Charlotte arrived at her house and walked inside, set her keys down and sat on the couch. As she waited for Harold to come in and turn off the lights, she laid on the couch trying not to fall asleep. Her body felt heavy as she relaxed. Her husband James walked into the living room. He had a kind face with hazel eyes and slicked back brown hair. "How was work today?"
"It was okay."
James chuckled, walking over and sitting next to her on the sofa. He took hold of one of her hands and gave it a kiss, feeling how warm it was. "Any customers today?"
"Yeah, a few. I also interviewed a nice young man today."
"How'd that go?"
"Fine. I think he'll be a good fit."
"That's nice, I'm happy that the store seems to be working out."
She smiled at him, her green eyes sparkling. "How about your day, honey?"
James sighed, shaking his head, "Well I got called into Clarence's office today."
"Oh no?"
"I got the promotion! Clarence got promoted to corporate and now I'll be taking his position starting next week."
"That's great honey!" Charlotte said with excitement in her voice. She felt relieved for her husband. After years of working for a company, it was finally time for him to move up.
Charlotte leaned up from the couch and hugged James tight around his chest, kissing him. Their lips pressed together passionately for a moment before pulling away from each other, focusing back on the TV.
***
The next morning Charlotte woke up early, her husband was already at work. She put on a pair of black jeans and a long-sleeved light blue button down shirt before getting ready to leave for work.
She arrived at the store a little after 8:30 AM, as she turned on the lights, she heard front door. Harold entered and came over to the counter. He had a tired look in his eyes and the little hair he had was messy. He always had bad luck with his hair; he tried using different products but nothing seemed to work. It was like his hair had a mind of its own. "Good morning."
"Good morning," Charlotte replied, "Did you sleep okay last night?"
Harold let out a deep sigh, "Yeah. I guess so."
"The new hire's coming in at 10:00, do you think you can train him, or would you prefer if I did?"
Harold shrugged his shoulders, "I'll be fine with it."
Charlotte smiled at him, "Thank you."
***
Armando pulled into the parking lot of the store at 9:45 AM, noticing how it was quite full even this early in the morning. He parked his car and got out, noticing how hot it was already. The sun was blazing bright above him as he made his way towards the front door of the store. He stepped inside and saw Charlotte who smiled and greeted him warmly. "Good morning Armando! I'm glad to see you again."
"Good morning." Armando said, giving a polite nod towards her as he walked up to her. Charlotte was wearing a blue button down shirt that revealed her ample cleavage. Her large breasts looked as if they were about to burst through the material of her shirt. He had to stop himself from staring at them as he talked to her. He had a strong desire to reach out and cup them in his hands, feel their softness against his skin. He knew that it would be wrong to touch her inappropriately but he couldn't help it. "What would you like me to do first?"
Charlotte smiled, and motioned him to join her behind the counter. "I need you to clock in first, silly."
Armando nodded, following Charlotte as she went behind the counter. He watched as she typed something into the register. His heart began to beat faster as he thought about how she looked with her big round ass sticking out in front of him as she typed on the keyboard. Her cheeks were round and plump and covered in a soft layer of fat that made him want to run his hand over them and feel them against his fingers. He had no idea why he was having these strange urges but they were very intense. When she finished typing she pressed enter on the keyboard, a pop up screen appeared. She grabbed a piece of paper and pen and began to write something down before turning around to him, handing him the paper and pen.
"This is your sign in information, keep this in your wallet or somewhere until you mesmerize it. Now to clock on you just have to press F4 then your info and then Enter. After that you're all set to work," Charlotte said as she gestured towards the computer on the counter. Armando took the paper from her, pressing F4 and then entered his personal information before hitting enter. It seemed to take a little bit of time for everything to upload onto the computer screen.
"Welcome to your first official day, Armando," Charlotte said with a smile on her face as she watched him type on the computer screen.
He smiled back at her "What do I do now?"
"Now, you're gonna follow me out back and meet Harold, he's gonna train you."
Armando follow Charlotte, his eyes glued to her massive bubble butt as it swayed from side to side with each step she took. She led him around the store and to a door that was labeled as being for employees only. She opened the door and they both walked inside. The room was full of boxes and several pallets full of merchandise that had yet to be moved into the store. Harold stood there on his phone talking into it when he noticed them approaching him.
"I have to go, boss. Family emergency," he told Charlotte as he hung up the phone.
"Alright. I hope everything's ok," Charlotte said, sincerely.
Harold then rushed past them but not before giving Armando a quick friendly handshake, "Nice to meet you kid."
"Nice to meet you too."
Harold nodded towards him before walking off down one of the aisles.
Charlotte looked at Armando as her green eyes shined brightly. "I guess I'll be training you," she said, as she placed her hands on her hips. She looked over to a bunch of boxes stacked on top of each other. "Grab a U-Boat and help me stack some boxes on it," she instructed.
Armando grabbed a U-Boat and pushed it over to her. They started stacking the boxes onto the U-Boat. Once they had enough, Armando followed Charlotte into the aisle that the products were supposed to go. He stared at her firm round ass as she walked ahead of him. He had never seen such an impressive rear end before and he wondered what it would be like to bury his face between those two round globes of flesh. He felt his cock begin to grow inside of his pants as he continued watching her walk. Her tight fitting jeans clung tightly against her thighs causing him to imagine running his hands over her legs, feeling the smooth texture of her skin under his fingertips.
Charlotte stopped walking once they reached the area where the product was supposed to be stocked. She turned to face Armando, smiling at him. "Okay," she said, placing her hands on her hips again, "Let's get started."
The two of them began grabbing boxes, opening them and stocking the shelves. It didn't take long for Armando to realize how much work it was going to be to stock the shelves by himself. There were so many things to remember, especially since he wasn't familiar with the items that he needed to place on the shelf. He felt his body tense and his palms sweaty as he worked. He was trying to concentrate and focus on his job, but he found that his mind kept wandering back to the fact that he had a beautiful woman with him. He was hoping that she wouldn't notice how distracted he was becoming. Armando grabbed another box and as he turned around he saw Charlotte bent over putting items on one of the lower shelves, her large ass was directly in front of him, almost grazing his crotch as he watched her. He couldn't stop his gaze from wandering downwards; he could feel his pants begin to tighten as his eyes fixated on her round cheeks, he could tell that it was toned and muscular. Her tight jeans were doing a great job of clinging against her thighs, making his cock begin to ache with desire.
"See something you like?" She asked him without turning around.
His eyes shot wide open in shock, scared he had been caught staring at her ass. "I uh.."
"If you wanna buy anything after your shift you're more than welcome to," Charlotte said as she finished putting items on the shelf before standing upright again.
He cleared his throat before replying, trying to act like he wasn't checking her out. "No, no, I was just looking." Armando let out a deep sigh, glad she didn't catch him. He knew that it was wrong but he couldn't help himself, especially with how hot she looked bent over with that huge round ass of hers sticking out in front of him.
A few hours had past and Charlotte figured Armando could handle stocking by himself. Armando was having some difficulty trying to figure what went where but overall he thought he was doing ok. He grabbed another box, opening it up to see what was inside. The box was full of toothpaste and toothbrushes. As he started putting them out he realized they didn't go in this aisle. He walked around the store, noticing there were no customers to be seen and found the Hygiene aisle. He made his way towards it, looking through the different products until he found what he was looking for: Toothbrushes and toothpaste. He began to stock the shelf once again, feeling proud of himself for getting the hang of things quickly.
He went back to his original aisle and grabbed another box, he heard footsteps coming towards him from behind him. It was Charlotte. "Could you help me in the back for a moment, please?"
Armando nodded his head and followed her to the storage room. "You see the box on top of that stack right there?" She asked, pointing at a tower of boxes. There was a small ladder placed against one of the walls that led up to the top of the stack.
He nodded as he stood there looking up at the box in question. "Yeah, I see it."
"It's a little too heavy for me, would you mind climbing up there and getting it? I can hold the ladder."
"Sure thing," Armando said, as he walked over to the ladder and began ascending it.
As Armando was climbing his crotch was at face level with Charlotte. She could see a very obvious and very large bulge in his shorts. It was enough to make her mouth water and her pussy moisten with juices as she continued staring at it. She wanted to reach out and run her fingers through that thick outline of his cock and feel its softness as it tickled against her fingers. But she knew that it was wrong and that she shouldn't do something like that, she's a married woman after all.
Armando finally reached the top box and he reached down to grab it and begin bringing it down to Charlotte. His muscles bulged as he tried to hold onto it as he descended down the ladder. Once he was at ground level Charlotte took the box from him "Thank you so much, you're such a big help," she said, smiling at him before taking the box over towards the shelf she needed it to go on.
***
Charlotte decided to close early since there wasn't much business today. She sat on her couch scrolling through her phone, bored out of her mind as she waited for her husband to come home, but that was six hours away. Her mind kept going back to Armando's bulge, she knew she shouldn't be thinking about him like that. It wasn't right to think about another man when she was married, especially one so young. He looked so innocent and sweet as he helped stock shelves earlier today, but Charlotte knew better. She could tell that he was attracted to her and she wanted him even though she knew she shouldn't act on it. Even though he was only eighteen he's so mature and the way he carried himself, so confident. She felt like texting him, she had his number after all. Charlotte shook her head, trying to shake off the thoughts of Armando before they got out of hand. Could a simple text really hurt though?
***
Armando was drying himself off after his shower when he received a text from an unknown number:
'Hi Armando, it's Charlotte'
He was confused but decided that he would reply anyway: 'Hey, what's up?'
The response came back almost instantly: 'I was wondering if you were busy.'
'No, not really.'
There was a slight pause before he received another text from Charlotte: 'Would you like to grab something to eat?'
His heart skipped a beat as he read this message. It was like a dream come true for him. 'Sure, that would be great.'
'Great!' Charlotte replied with a smiley face icon at the end of the message.
***
Armando arrived at a small restaurant close by that was only about a fifteen minute walk from his apartment complex. He walked inside where he saw Charlotte, she was wearing a low cut black dress that hugged her tight body from top to bottom, exposing her midriff and revealing her large breasts. Her hair was styled in a very sophisticated way as well, it was long and wavy but parted in the middle, it fell perfectly around her shoulders as it cascaded down her back. She noticed him and her face broke out in a smile as she started to walk towards him. Armando could see her ass swaying from the front as she walked towards him. She gave him a hug, her breasts pressed against him "I'm so glad you decided to come out with me."
"Thanks for inviting me," he said, trying not to stare at her chest too much. She lead him her seat and as he followed her he could see that her tight dress fit perfectly against her large butt and made it look even more amazing than it already was. As they were sitting down across from each other Armando couldn't take his eyes away from Charlotte. She looked so gorgeous and sexy as she smiled at him, Armando found himself wanting to lean in and kiss those pouty red lips of hers.
The waiter came over to take their order soon after they sat down. Charlotte ordered a salad while Armando ordered a sandwich and some fries. Charlotte had a glass of wine while Armando stuck with water. They talked about their days and their families and Charlotte started asking Armando about himself.
"Do you have any plans for college?" Charlotte asked Armando as she took a sip from her glass of wine.
Armando looked down at his hands as he thought about what college meant for him. He had no idea what he wanted to do for college or how it would affect his life. All he knew was that he didn't want to work for anyone else for the rest of his life. "Not really," he replied after a few seconds.
She raised an eyebrow at him, surprised that he hadn't planned anything. She figured that most kids his age had at least some kind of plan. "Well, you're still young and have plenty of time before you start thinking about it."
He shrugged his shoulders, not sure what to say. He didn't know what he wanted to do for college. He didn't want to rush into anything or waste his youth on something he didn't care about.
"So tell me, what are your hobbies?" Charlotte asked, curious as to what he did for fun.
Armando thought for a moment before answering. "I like watching movies, playing video games, basketball, and I love working out."
Charlotte bit her lip as she looked at him. "I can certainly tell you love to workout, you have a very strong body for such a young man," she complimented him. She loved how muscular his arms were, especially his biceps and triceps which looked so hard and defined.
They continued talking until their food was brought out by the waiter. Charlotte was enjoying their conversation, it was easy and casual, but it felt like there were undertones between them that suggested more than just a normal conversation. Armando's eyes roamed up and down Charlotte's body as she spoke about herself. Her large breasts were barely contained in her tight dress as they bounced and jiggled with every movement she made, drawing Armando's eyes towards them. He could feel his cock start to harden as she spoke about her favorite books, her favorite movies, and other topics that were more personal. He knew that he shouldn't be thinking about her this way but he couldn't help himself; she was so hot and sexy as she talked to him about herself.
Charlotte stopped mid-sentence as she saw Armando staring at her breasts again, his eyes lingering on her chest. "Is something distracting you?" She asked with a hint of teasing in her voice.
He shook his head as he tried to keep his eyes from looking down at her tits again. " No, I'm just enjoying our conversation." He smiled as he lied through his teeth.
She chuckled at his answer and nodded her head, "Are you sure? I could've sworn you were looking at my chest," she said, poking fun at him.
"No, no I wasn't." He looked back up at her face and smiled again. "I'm not lying, I wasn't looking at them," he said, hoping that he convinced her.
Charlotte smiled at him before leaning forward, showing off her cleavage even more. "Do you like them?" She asked as she continued to stare into his eyes while leaning forward.
Armando looked down at her cleavage, he couldn't help but admire how big and juicy they were. They were so firm and soft and looked so inviting, "Yeah...I do like them."
Charlotte giggled and winked at him. "Good," she said, sitting back in her chair with a seductive grin on her face. She knew that she had him under her control now. It was time to push things forward with her plan for tonight.
They finished eating and Charlotte paid the bill as they left the restaurant together Charlotte offered to drive Armando home, to which he accepted. She held onto Armando's arm as he walked her back to her car. When they reached her car Armando opened the door for her and waited for her to get in before walking around to the passenger side. He climbed in and sat in the seat beside her as she started the car up and pulled out into the street, heading towards Armando's apartment complex. He could see her hands on the wheel, moving back and forth in a rhythmic fashion as she drove. His eyes wandered down her body, staring at her thick thighs. She had a perfect figure.
As Charlotte drove Armando watched her breasts bounce in time with the movement of the car. They were so large that they almost touched both sides of the steering wheel and seemed so full.
They finally arrived at Armando's apartment complex and Charlotte parked the car in one of the open parking spaces in front of his door.
"Thanks for such a nice meal," he said.
"Thank you for coming," Charlotte replied with a smile on her face. "It was nice getting to know you a little better." She then turned to Armando, who was sitting there looking like he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. "Do you mind if I use your bathroom," she asked him.
"Yeah, that's fine," he answered.
She climbed out of the car following Armando inside his apartment, closing the door behind her.
***
Armando walked into the living room of his apartment and sat on the couch while waiting for Charlotte to return from using the bathroom. He couldn't believe the day had gotten like this. He couldn't believe that Charlotte was in his apartment right now.
Charlotte came out of the bathroom and noticed Armando still sitting there on the couch. She walked towards him, closing the distance between them with each step that she took. As she got closer she sat down next to him and rest her hand on his thigh, rubbing it gently. Armando let out a relieved sigh, "What're you doing?"
"What do you mean?" Charlotte responded with a giggle as she moved her hand up his thigh, moving it towards his crotch. She could feel his cock twitch under her palm as she continued moving up his thigh until she felt it pressed against her hand.
Armando stared at Charlotte as she began massaging his hardening cock through his pants. Her hands felt so good on his dick that he didn't even try to resist them anymore. She moved one hand from his cock back down to his thigh and continued rubbing his leg. "Charlotte, what are you doing?" He asked again, almost in a whisper.
Charlotte looked up at Armando with a smirk on her face before looking back down at his cock through his pants. "I'm just making sure that you are relaxed, after being so helpful today." She then started unbuttoning his pants and began unzipping his fly as she continued to massage his leg with one hand while keeping the other hand on his cock. She slowly pulled his shorts down, exposing his boxers. She could see how big it was through his boxers, it was way bigger than James', even though it was still semi-flaccid.
Armando looked down at Charlotte's hand as it stroked his cock through his underwear, it was so hot how she was handling him like this, he wished that she would just take it out of his boxers already. She got on her knees in front of him, her cleavage still on display as she continued massaging his thighs. She then reached up and began pulling on the waistband of his boxers.
Charlotte watched with fascination as she slowly pulled down on Armando's boxers, revealing the thick shaft of his cock for the first. It sprung out from his boxers and landed on his stomach. The sight of his cock made her moan with anticipation, she couldn't believe how sexy it looked. "It's massive...I can't believe I'm doing this...I can't believe how big you are...I never expected something like this...I mean look at you...you're just...oh god...so...big...so...thick...so fucking...amazing." She reached for it and wrapped her fingers around his thick shaft as she stroked it up and down with her hand. She could feel how hard it was through her hand, she wanted nothing more than to feel it in her pussy so bad right now but she knew that she would have to wait for that moment later. She leaned her head forward and placed it onto her face. "Holy shit, It's bigger than my face. Look at that, look how big you are baby." Her tongue came out and licked along the underside of Armando's cock before running over its length all the way back to the tip of his cock. She plant soft kisses around the head and upper shaft before opening her mouth wide, stretching her lips to fit around his fat dick, sucking gently on his tip as she did. It was the hottest thing she had ever done, no one had a cock as big or as good looking as his.
Armando moaned softly as Charlotte stared at him with intensity. Her beautiful green eyes locked onto him as she started lowering her head down his shaft, not breaking eye contact. She barely got halfway down his shaft before she started gagging on it. "Oh... oh my god, Charlotte, it... feels so... good. I haven't felt anything like this before...it's incredible."
Armando watched on as Charlotte bobbed her head up and down his long shaft, as she hummed pleasured moans. Her moans sent vibrations through his cock making him groan with pleasure as well. He could see a thin stream of saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth while he continued staring into those deep green eyes of hers. She moved back until only the head of his dick remained in her mouth and then released her hold on his shaft allowing it to pop free of her mouth, dangling in front of her face. With a lustful expression on her face, Charlotte stuck out her tongue and flicked the head of Armando's thick penis across its tip sending a shiver down Armando's spine.
She smiled again, getting comfortable once more on her knees in front of Armando as she took his cock between both hands and began stroking it. "You're such a big boy, you know that?" She looked up at him seductively, "I love this big young cock of yours baby. I just can't wait to take you inside me." She then reached for the zipper on her dress and unzipped it. When she pulled the dress off, she revealed her massive breasts squeezed together by a lacy red bra. "Do you like my tits?" She asked him as she slightly shook them, teasing Armando.
She let go of his cock, letting it fall back onto his stomach. Then she stood up, grabbing Armando's hand and pulling him along with her towards the bedroom. They made their way into the bedroom, Charlotte lifted Armando's shirt over his head revealing his toned body underneath. His abs were also ripped and looked like they were made of stone rather than muscle, they were so hard and sculpted. Charlotte couldn't resist reaching forward and running her hands over his muscular chest and down to his abs. "Holy shit," she muttered under her breath, while continuing to caress his taut muscles. She then sat him down on the bed and began to undress herself.
Armando watched intently as he watched Charlotte turned around and slowly pushed her dress down, revealing her massive ass in all its glory. It was absolutely perfect; round and firm but still had a hint of plumpness about it that gave it an extra oomph. The lace panties that covered her cunt did nothing to hide her hot body from view. Her thick thighs continued from her hips until her feet met with the ground beneath her. Her skin was flawless. He stared at her creamy white skin as she bent over to remove her heels one at a time. Her ass was in full view as she wiggled out of her black high heel boots. Next she pulled off her panties before stepping out of them completely. As she straightened her back, she turned around and undid her bra strap, throwing it across the room with her other clothes. Armando took in a sharp intake of breath as she dropped her bra onto the floor beside the rest of her clothes. Her breasts were perky and stood straight up on their own without being held up by anything. They were beautiful, not too large or small, just perfectly shaped, they stood proud on her chest for all to see. They were almost perfect spheres. She lowered herself in front of Armando once again. "Do you want me to put this beautiful cock between my tits, big boy?" She asked seductively.
Armando nodded his head vigorously while staring into Charlotte's eyes, "Yes, please."
Charlotte giggled "Good boy."
Charlotte grabbed Armando's cock and guided it towards her breasts. His cock felt amazing pressed against her huge boobs. She began lifting her tits up and down his shaft. She looked up at him, giving him a seductive look as he slid his long cock in-between her massive mounds. Each time he would push inside her cleavage she would let out a moan of pleasure. "How does that feel baby?" Charlotte said through a sexy smile.
"It feels incredible," replied Armando. He then reached forward and wrapped both hands around her plump melons, feeling how soft they were underneath his fingers. He squeezed them together, moving his hands from one breast to the other causing them to jiggle softly beneath his palms. The sight made him even harder than he was already which caused Charlotte to giggle happily before turning her attention back to squeezing his cock in between her big tits. It felt so good. It felt like heaven on earth for Armando right now; the warmth of those big beautiful boobs surrounding his rock hard cock. It was so erotic seeing those big boobs bouncing up and down his cock like that, each bounce was accompanied by a soft moan from Charlotte. She began moving faster, causing her tits to shake violently around his cock. The sensation of her tits bouncing up and down his shaft at such a steady pace was intense.
Charlotte stood up and crawled onto the bed, past Armando. He watched as her plump ass wiggle its way up the bed until she reached the top where she stopped, facing away from him. She arched her back and spread her legs apart, giving Armando a good look at her juicy pussy. Come eat it you naughty boy."
Armando wasted no time and moved closer to Charlotte's wet pussy, his eyes fixated on her clit. He pushed his face in between the large mounds of her ass cheeks and licked along the length of her slit. He could taste her sweet nectar as he ran his tongue along the entire length of her labia. When he finally got to her clit, he stuck his tongue out and flicked it rapidly. Charlotte let out a loud groan as she started bucking her hips back and forth, trying to fuck his face with her pussy.
Charlotte couldn't help but laugh as Armando continued eating her out like that. "You like that pussy baby?" She asked him between pants of pleasure.
Armando responded by pushing his tongue deeper into her pussy, lapping up every drop of her juices he could find. Charlotte grabbed onto the sheets on either side of her head as she tried to control her moans of pleasure. She leaned forward and closed her eyes as she enjoyed the sensations running through her body from having Armando's mouth on her pussy. It felt like there was an electric current running through her body, making her whole body tingle with excitement. She couldn't believe someone so young could be doing so well at pleasuring her. "Mmmm," she purred, "you're really good at this."
Armando continued to lick and suck on Charlotte's pussy, enjoying the way she was squirming back and forth on the bed, feeling her soft ass against his face. Her moans of pleasure were getting louder and louder as she became more and more aroused, her body was starting to tremble with desire. Then suddenly, she exploded. A torrent of juice shot out from her pussy splashing across Armando's chin and mouth. He kept going though, not stopping or slowing down. In fact, he seemed to become even hungrier after tasting her delicious juices.
"Oh my fucking god...ohhhh yesssss! Ohhhhh myyyyy gawwwwwd!!!!! Fuckkkk yes, keep sucking on my pussy! Fuccckkkkk!!!!!" She screamed, as she felt her orgasm building up to a crescendo. She could feel her whole body tingling as the waves of pleasure rolled through her. Charlotte gripped onto the sheets tightly, holding herself down as she rode out the wave of ecstasy coursing through her veins. Her body continued shaking uncontrollably as she came down from her high. Eventually, she opened her eyes and looked back at Armando who was still devouring her pussy with his mouth. "Oh my...fuck baby...slow...down. You're hungry... aren't you...big boy? Mmmm, I can tell you are very hungry for my pussy. I can see how much you love my pussy. Yes, you do love my pussy don't you? Tell me you love my pussy."
"I love your pussy," Armando said as he flicked his tongue across her sensitive clit.
Charlotte giggled at Armando's response, then grabbed hold of his hair and pushed it forcefully towards her lips, forcing his face deeper inside her pussy. She shook her fat ass on his face while he continued flicking her clit. "Oh my God," she groaned loudly, "I'm gonna cum again!" She then began rocking her hips wildly on his face while letting out another loud scream. "Fuuuuckkkkk... Yesssss!!!!!!" She cried, her voice sounding like it was coming from far away, as she dug her face into the pillow.
Armando's hands were on her thighs as he buried his face deep inside her soaking wet pussy. She continued to ride out the wave of her second orgasm as she panted heavily, breathing hard. After what seemed like an eternity, she slowly calmed herself down from her high. When she was able to speak again, she jiggled her ass a little and looked at back at him, "I want- no, I need you to fuck me," she said in a husky tone.
Armando got up onto his knees and held onto the soft flesh of Charlottes asscheeks. They were like two full moons, round and firm. He rubbed her ass gently as he lined up his cock with her dripping wet pussy. He placed the tip of his dick at her opening and pushed forward.
Charlotte gasped as she felt the head of Armando's cock press at her entrance. She couldn't believe that she was about to take this young man's penis into her tight hole. She had never done anything sexual with anyone but her husband before and she was nervous and scared. But she was also extremely turned on by the idea of being fucked by a hot, young stud like Armando. "Ease- easy sweetheart, go easy...oh f-f-fuckkkkkk," she stuttered while letting out a long moan of pleasure as Armando slowly pushed himself inside her. His cock rubbed against the walls of her pussy causing them to squeeze around his shaft. She felt him pushing inside her more, slowly sliding his cock in and out of her. "God, it's so fucking big..." she muttered under her breath. "I feel so full," she added as she felt him pushing deeper.
Armando slowly thrusted inside Charlotte, her tightness gripping him as he slid in and out of her. He pushed himself deeper every few thrusts, letting her get used to his size. He squeezed her large ass cheeks and then began bouncing them off of his hips while they fucked. He started pounding harder into her now. She was starting to moan louder as she enjoyed the way Armando was filling her. He pushed harder and harder, making her squeal with delight as he reached deeper and deeper into her.
Charlotte's eyes rolled back as she felt Armando's cock stretching her pussy wide open. He was hitting spots that she didn't even know existed, causing her to feel pleasure in places that she had never experienced before. Her legs trembled as she felt her body starting to tingle once again. "Oh my god, oh my god! Fuck! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yessssss! This pussy belongs to yooouuuu!!!!! Fuck my married pussy you hung stud! Fucccckkkkkk!"
Armando began grunting as he continued to fuck her hard. His pace quickened as he banged Charlotte's pussy harder and harder. She was feeling so much pleasure that she couldn't even speak anymore. Her body was completely drenched in sweat as she writhed around on the bed, feeling his massive cock plowing into her over and over. She felt him grab a handful of her hair and pull her back towards him, slamming her face first into the pillow while he continued to pound her pussy from behind. He began grabbing at her breasts and playing with them, pinching and pulling her nipples. Charlotte could barely hear anything except for her own screams of pleasure. All she could think about was how good his big cock felt as it pounded her insides. It was almost as if she were floating away on a cloud of bliss, her entire world reduced to her being plowed by an eighteen year old's massive cock. She lost all track of time as she continued to feel the intense sensations of having Armando's enormous cock ravaging her. She could feel his balls slapping against her pussy as he slammed into her.
Armando watched in amazement as Charlotte's plump juicy round ass rippled with every thrust. Waves and waves of flesh crashed together, causing her entire ass to shake and jiggle. He couldn't believe how perfect her ass was, it was amazing. He pulled her back towards him roughly as he continued to fuck her. She moaned and whimpered in pleasure as he grabbed her ass and squeezed it hard. The sight of Charlotte's huge bubble butt cheeks being squeezed by his fingers as he slammed into her made him even harder than he already was.
Charlotte's mind had gone completely blank due to the overwhelming pleasures that she was feeling. She had never experienced anything like this before and it felt incredible. Her whole body was tingling and she could feel her pussy juices trickling down her legs.
SMACK
She squealed as she felt something hard smack against her ass. It was Armando slapping her ass. She had no idea what he was doing and why he would do such a thing, but it felt good. Her body began trembling again as he slapped her ass again. She loved the way his hand felt on her ass.
SMACK
She couldn't help but giggle when she felt his hand slap against her ass. Then she felt him reach around and grab her breast. He pinched and pulled on her nipple while he slapped her ass again.
SMACK
She let out another loud scream as he continued slapping her ass.
SMACK
SMACK
SMACK
SMACK
It was nonstop slaps against her ass. Each one made her body tremble and shiver. It felt like a hundred little electric shocks running up and down her body. She loved it! His firm palm hitting against her soft ass cheeks was making them jiggle and wobble as they rubbed together with every thrust of his cock inside of her. As each smack of his hand met her ass cheek, she could feel pleasure rushing through her entire body. Every time he smacked her ass, she wanted more of that intense pleasure. "That's it! Smack my big fat ass, baby!" She screamed to him between pants of pleasure.
Armando laughed at Charlotte's response to having his hand smacking away on her ass. The thought of being able to have control over someone so hot was driving him wild. He couldn't wait to see how much pain she can take before cumming from being slapped in the ass. After all, e looked forward to seeing how far he could push this slutty wife before she broke under the pressure.
Charlotte began to moan louder and louder as Armando continued slapping her ass harder and harder. Her eyes were rolled back into her head as she started breathing heavier than ever before. Her body began shaking uncontrollably as an orgasm approached. Her pussy tightened around Armando's throbbing member as wave after wave of ecstasy raced through her. A flood of juice squirted out from her soaked pussy spraying across her inner thighs. "Fuuuuckkkkkk... Oh yesssss...ohhhhhhh yes!!!!! Fuccckkkkk!! OOOOHHHH!! Fuck me fuck meeee!! YESSSSSSS!!!! Fuck my married pussyyyyyy!!"
Armando could feel himself getting worn out and needed a break from fucking her for a moment while he recovered. He stopped his thrusts for a second to allow himself time to recuperate.
"No! Don't stop! Don't you dare stop! Please don't stop! I need your big dick in me!" Charlotte protested, "Fine! I'll do it then." She started slamming her massive asscheeks against Armando's hips hard. She bucked up against him, taking all of him deep inside her over and over again, making it clear that she was ready to get fucked some more. His balls were starting to boil as he felt her tighten around him once more. It was almost too much pleasure. Her round bubble butt cheeks slammed together each time pushed back into him. The sight alone was almost too much for the young stud.
"Charlotte wait, I'm gonna cum soon...don't move like this, I'm going to cum," Armando warned, but the slutty wife didn't listen. She continued to slam against his cock until he couldn't hold on anymore.
"Cum baby, cum for me. Come on, let... it... out!" She begged, grunting and groaning with every powerful thrust.
"Ooohhhh fuck! I'm cumming!" Armando began pumping load after thick sticky load of sperm right into his bride's married pussy.
"It's so fucking much! Cum in my pussy! Yes! Yes! YESSSS!!! Fill my fucking married pussy full of your hot cum!!" Charlotte screamed as she continued to slam against his cock while letting loose another torrential squirt of her own cum onto the bed. Her body shivered violently as wave upon wave of orgasmic pleasure coursed through her veins causing her eyes roll back even further. As the last drop of cum drained from his swollen nuts.
Armando collapsed on top of Charlotte. He tried to catch his breath before slowly withdrawing himself from inside of her dripping wet pussy. He sat there breathing heavily on top of her as he admired the sexy woman beneath him. He loved how her skin felt under his hands. The softness of her tits and her big round ass cheeks pressing up against his chest. He watched as a little bit of his cum ran down her thigh. "Oh god...yessss...that was so good." She whispered dreamily to herself. It seemed like she was lost in some kind of haze that was filled with sexual pleasure.
The two lovers were cuddling together afterwards, kissing gently and touching each other everywhere they could reach. They both laid there in blissful silence, their bodies still slick with sweat, enjoying each others closeness and the feeling of having been pleasured by such an amazing partner. There was something special about being able to share such a tender moment with someone who knew what you needed.
|
*****Antebellum Romance Story*****
If historical romance is not your thing...skip this story. This is not a new story but an updated and cleaned up story I wrote almost a decade ago.
This is story is only one part of the Childs Family Saga Series.
*****
After a four hour bumpy carriage ride into Charleston, Seth waited in his room for his mother to greet him. He had not seen his mother in six months, and if he had it his way, it would be another six months added on to it. He did remember when he did see her it was only to see his father and make all their conversations quick and without merit.
Now he was now waiting for his mother to show him his new brother, but he figured it might be to settle the tension between them. Like normal, she did not want to spend time in the big city and figured she would leave quickly to head back to her family's plantation in Virginia, hundreds of miles from Charleston.
Seth liked the city, but also enjoyed the open space of his family's plantation that was close by. Having a house in the city and a large plantation meant he was forced to travel between the two at times. When he was younger it did not seem to matter as much going into the city as the plantation had so much more to do and he had almost total freedom to run around and play. Now that he was in college four hours away, it became a chore to travel to either the plantation or their house in the city.
He remembered as a child staying on a large plantation and its benefits. After his tutors left, Seth enjoyed outdoor activities such as horseback riding and fishing. Having a schoolhouse on the plantation also kept him isolated from other boys his age and race but it didn't matter. The friends he had though were property of the family and to him it didn't matter.
He did remember when his mother loved the plantation life when he was real young, but when his father got elected she chose to travel and be a part of society instead. He knew his father travelled a lot and spent almost all his time away from home only making the matter worse. He thought about how his mother refused to even stay at the plantation for more than two months out of the year, opting to spend time at her parent's estate in Virginia.
He woke up from his quick sleep when he heard his mother walk up the stairs. He stood up and then walked to the hall and saw his mother was followed by a new slave she must have bought. Seth knew his mother bought a new house slave from her letters, but she never described her in the letters that she did write.
Seth saw this new slave walk behind her mother with a baby in her arms. She looked young compared to the other house slaves his family owned, possibly in her young twenties. Her hair not visible under the white head wrap she wore. Her dress was a simple house dress although it looked clean as it was obvious that she didn't work anywhere near the fields. Her body and face seemed very slender, and was a stark contrast to Loni, the other house slave they owned. Even though her face was looking down at the baby in her arms, Seth could see that her face was flawless and full of life.
He let his eyes wander to her simple dress and saw that she had curves in her chest region and yet the rest of her seemed slender like she was sculpted by some artist. There wasn't a flaw in her complexion, and it was as if she was smiling even though she wasn't. He didn't understand why her face captivated him almost making him unable to look away.
Seth stood up to greet his mother. "Hello, mother." He knew that she did not like affection and was told he was too old to hug his mother like a child.
"Seth, meet your new brother Ethan." As she said this, the new house slave tilted her arms and body to show Seth his new brother. He was wrapped in a blanket and only his chubby face was visible to him, but it was the slave that he wanted to stare at more.
"Your Great Uncle passed, and I have been called away for a few days...no longer. I will be heading out tonight to settle his affairs. I need you to stay here in Charleston to await your father. He should be back shortly and is expecting you. When he arrives, you can return to your studies at college," his mother proclaimed, sounding more formal than she had to be as he knew she loved sounding important.
"Yes, mother. I understand," Seth answered, knowing he was stuck in the house and that he could be off at college with his friends having fun or even or at the plantation hunting. He knew his mother did not want to be in the city any longer than she had to and would leave now if she could.
Charleston was fun and he loved it, but he knew she always put limits on where he could go. He was thinking that he was in town where he could explore what was once forbidden to him. The stories he heard about the night life from others always piqued his interest but he also knew that his mother would kill him if he even tried to see any of it when he was younger.
"I am bringing Loni with me and am leaving Ethan with Miss Lucy. She belonged to a good friend of mine and am told is very capable caring for the household as well as taking care of Ethan. If there is a problem, Mr. Harrington is next door."
Affection was not his mother's strong suite by any means as she just turned from him not even making an attempt to embrace him or want to solve the problems they had from his last visit. Instead she walked out with Lucy the new house slave and his baby brother.
Keeping up appearances was the one thing she did love and having a baby to tote around would have stopped that so she knew that Ethan was going to see more of Miss Lucy than he would ever see of his mother. He felt like Loni was his mother most of the time growing up. He also knew that she would have catered to him as if he was a prince if she stayed behind. Although, he did recall Loni using a switch for punishment a few times when he was younger too.
Seth got changed and decided not to wait for Loni to call on him for dinner. He snuck into the kitchen and was greeted with a big hug and a kiss on his cheeks as if he returned home from some overseas voyage. Being around her now gave him the chance to get spoiled with compliments and with candy that she got from the market just for him.
As he raved about living away at college, she listened intently like his life was more important than anything else going on. He smiled knowing that of all people he missed while being away, it was her. She was their family house slave that was his nanny and acted more like a mother he thought as it was her he went to as a child when he needed comfort.
The conversation at dinner was bland and respectful as he didn't bring up their prior conflict nor did his mother. It was as if nothing happened although her coldness towards him was quite noticeable. He told his mother about his schooling and how the tutors were boring, but she quickly changed the topic to her life and what was going on in her social circle. When he tried to switch to the conversation towards courting a girl, she gave him a snarled look saying it was impolite to bring up girls at dinner.
After dinner Seth said his goodbyes to his mother and then retired to his room, and easily drifted off into sleep. After a long ride to Charleston, it only took a few moments to fall deep asleep. All he wanted to do was see his father when he got home and then head back to college or to the recruitment center for the army.
His sleep ended with the sound of a crying baby in the room next to him. The weather started to get a little cold in November but still hot enough sleeping nude was normal to him and putting on a night robe was needed before investigating. He did not know if his mother left already and decided to check in to see his brother.
Walking to the next room, Seth was greeted by the sight of the new house slave Lucy with her breasts exposed feeding his baby brother. He froze as his eyes could easily see with his lamp that she was bare breasted. Her lamp added even more light on her light brown nude flesh. The instant he saw her, his eyes zoomed right on her one breast that was not being used as her long dark nipple seemed to be a beacon for his attention.
Her upper body was without any body fat and yet her breasts were large and well rounded. They seemed large for her frame and yet hung so perfectly. He felt his legs freeze and his eyes stare at her as it was the only time he could remember in his life seeing the bare breasts of a woman of any color.
He saw her casually look at him not covering up either as if it was nothing to see her nude chest. "I am sorry to wake you Mista Seth."
Seth was instantly intrigued by his brother's feeding from a female breast. It wasn't just any women tending bare breasted either, but a house slave that he couldn't stop looking at.
He could not take his eyes off Lucy's chest as her face and now her chest was hypnotizing him. He wanted to say something, but the sight of her exposed breast made him hold his gaze. "Mista Seth, did you need something?"
His mind raced with thoughts and questions as he questioned himself to why this house slave was so attractive to him. "She is not covering up...her breasts are out. Why is she letting me see her breasts? They look so beautiful...why can't I look away?"
"Justt...wondering...ahh. Is there still food out?" he stuttered out, thinking of the first thing to say that did not include anything about her breasts in it. Nor did he want to admit that his member was growing under his light robe.
Lucy lifted her head up to look at him, giving him a soft reassuring smile. He could see her soft blue eyes, as he felt lost in them as her face gave him an indication that it was okay to look at her. Her smooth light brown skin was still highlighted by the lamp light as he once again looked at her chest.
Her answer sounded sweet and cheerful too. "I haves some porridge that's I can warm up I reckon if you wants it. When I finish up here, I could fix some eggs and grits too."
Her accent threw him off as it was not Gullah and sounded like no other slave he heard before. All the other slaves had almost a slurred speech that sounded almost like a different language to anybody not from the area. Hers sounded like a slaves' voice but from a different region of the South, probably Virginia he thought since his mother spent so much time there.
Seth gathered the last of his wits and stopped gazing at Lucy's one exposed tit. "It's nothing. I can wait. So sorry to intrude. I can find something that is left out."
As Seth made his way to his room to get dressed, he realized that that was the first time he ever apologized to a slave, other than Loni. Being ashamed of himself for staring, he just thought an apology might make up for it. Then it came to him that this was the first time he had seen a female breast before and the first time he got an erection to the sight of a slave. The small glimpse of a tit occupied his every thought as he made his way to the kitchen.
He saw some left out bread and decided that it was a perfect snack with some water from the indoor pump. He just sat at the table still reliving the moment in his head as her nude flesh seemed to stay in his memory without fading.
When Lucy came into the kitchen to see if Seth was done, he looked in her direction but not to her face. "I did not mean to intrude upon you during my brother's feeding."
Lucy smiled a little when she responded, "No needs to say yah sorry Mista Seth."
Seth did not know if he felt guilty about seeing her breasts or wanting to see them again. A strange urge and sensation came over him when he thought about Lucy's bare chest. Thinking it was just guilt, he got up from the table in a hurry. "I am going to turn in now."
The night was young, and he knew he was alone as his Mother left already as she loved to leave at night. It was something odd she liked to do, and it bothered him and his father when she forced it upon them. It was like she lived in the night and almost never slept for too long. Now he wondered how to talk to the new slave without sounding improper about seeing her feeding his infant brother.
Seth sat in his room for a few moments and opened a book to try and think of something different. The more he tried to read by the lamp, the more he knew it was futile. He just let his mind drift to how her bare chest looked as he felt his manhood stir from his thoughts.
Not giving into sin, he turned off the lamp and forced himself to sleep. He recited prayers in his head like he did countless times before when he felt the sinful urges. Over the years he became adept at his nightly prayers to ward away his sinful needs and tonight was going to be one of those nights.
The next morning, he awoke with his mind set that he needed to focus on his studies and not of what he saw last night. Having lived around slaves his whole life, he never once saw them as property to be used for sinful urges. He knew his mother forbade any hired white man to touch the negroes as it was against God she said. Although he did hear about some hired hands not listening to this when his mother left the plantation.
He dressed and washed himself with the wash basin in his room and headed downstairs. With only him being capable of certain tasks he set out to stock the wood for the house and to care for the chickens in the back.
When he walked in, he saw Lucy preparing a meal over the fire. She was cutting some vegetables and dumping them in a pot. Seth looked again at her seemingly flawless frame and how her dress seemed to hug certain spots of her body highlighting her feminine features just right.
"I gots some cornbread cooking and be making you eggs if you wants it," she said as he stopped himself again from staring too much.
"Okay...that sounds good," he replied, wondering if she knew he stared at her in a way that would be inappropriate for her.
She smiled as he stood up knowing he had to leave as his sinful urges were now becoming visible in his pants. "Need to attend to something quick."
As he walked away, he began reciting prays and thinking of something else other than Lucy wearing that dress and how her body seemed so attractive to him. As he got into his room, he grabbed a book and forced himself to read to lose himself to it and not the sinful nature of his body reacting to a slave.
Seth seemed to lose himself in thought and lost all track of time. The sound of Ethan crying in the other room snapped him out of the daze. After listening to him cry for a minute, the sound of footsteps could be heard. Lucy had come into his room to soothe him with singing. The sound of the crying seemed to fade away almost immediately after she started to sing. Curiosity got the better of him, and he put down his book to see her.
Trying to make himself known that he was not snooping, Seth called out, "Miss Lucy?"
"Is here Mista Seth."
Seth took this as an invitation to walk into the room. When he entered, she was casually rocking his baby brother in a rocking chair. "He a fussy one when he's needs feedin'."
Seth's eyes lit up with fear and excitement as she announced that she was about to reveal her breasts and feed his brother. He did not know if he should run from the situation or stay and get a forbidden glance of her brown chest again.
He felt he should leave and yet his feet felt like they were stones not wanting to be moved. "Do you require me to leave?"
Lucy looked up to Seth nonchalantly and smiled. "If you wants to watch you can. I don't minds at all."
Feeling his heart drop at what she said, he didn't know if he should leave and pray or give into the sight he longed to see. The anxious feeling began to overwhelm him as he wanted to see something he knew was wrong to see. He couldn't answer her and should leave as he knew that what he wanted to see and felt guilty about was now being offered freely.
He finally breathed and then answered knowing that he shouldn't give into his body's urges. "I really should give you privacy. I don't want to intrude if you are going to feed him."
She still had an unconcerned look on her face. "It's no bother to me. Be used to people around me when I be feeding babies. Nothin harmful bout you wantin to watch."
With the invitation, Seth sat down on the bed, but he could not help but feel his heart beating fast. It felt like he was out of breath too as his heart was racing like a horse galloping. All his thoughts were now on the anticipation of seeing her reveal her forbidden brown breasts to him.
As Lucy unbuttoned the top part of her dress, Seth could already feel his body reacting. His male member stirred, and she did not even get to revealing herself yet. As she pulled down the front of her dress, he knew it was no use hiding his excitement and if she looked at his pants it would be visible.
As she continued, he knew it was wrong but could not help but look away. She got to the last button that was stomach level as he saw the outline of the side of her breasts. He felt his heart about to burst with anticipation as he was right up close to her and not looking from a distance like before. Not making a scene out of it, she pulled open her dress revealing both breasts to him.
Since the bed was only a few feet from the chair, he could clearly see both of her engorged breasts. Her light brown skin still had highlights where the sunlight through the window hit her skin. He could not believe how large both of her globes were and how her long nipples were a darker color than the rest of the breast.
As she brought his brother to her left tit, he stared glaringly at the other one studying it as if his life depended on it. Not being bothered by his staring, she rocked back on the chair feeding his brother as if nothing was wrong about him watching it all. He knew his body was reacting to it as he felt the hardness of his member pushing against his pants.
The more he stared at her chest the more he found it hard to keep still and not touch his erection. The feeling in his groin was almost painful as it demanded attention he thought. Not one to give into the sinful nature of self-gratification, he stood up knowing he had to leave.
He quickly retreated speaking quickly as he left. "Excuse me."
The moment he was in his room he grabbed a book and began to speed read. Think of anything else he thought as the worst seemed to jumble in his mind. The more he read, the more he pushed the immoral thoughts out of his head. He knew he had to as he felt his male member wanting sinful attention. He breathed heavily and calmed himself as he continued reading until the desire faded away.
Twenty pages later, the shame was still there but his body's reaction returned to normal. He listened to footsteps and then she appeared at his open door. "Don't wants to be a bother, I got that cornbread in the kitchen for ya."
He answered calmly as he knew she didn't sound upset that he left abruptly, "Sure, I will be down in a moment."
Just as he put his book down, he heard her singing as she went down the stairs. He took a second to compose himself and then followed her down the stairs. He walked in the kitchen to see a plate of cornbread on the table.
Lucy calmly walked to the pot hanging over the kitchen fire and began stirring it. "I thoughts you might like some good stew tonight."
Seth sat at the table and took some cornbread off the plate. As he ate his cornbread, he watched Lucy's every move wondering how she captivated him like nothing else in his life before. She seemed to move through the house gracefully and with great energy. He even found himself looking at her body and yet her dress seemed to hide almost all her figure and her head was covered in a headwrap.
Not wanting to be a bother around her nor wanting to give into this body's demands, he knew he had to get out of the house. Knowing that he was allowed togo to certain areas of the city made it easy for him to find a place to hide away from Lucy.
Walking to the market he thought about why he wanted to see more of her again. He thought about how it was wrong and yet wondered why he still wanted to see it knowing it was wrong. It was like he wanted to do wrong because it was a sight he desperately wanted to see again.
At the market he picked up a newspaper to read later and then strolled to the docks to see the tall ships and the new steamers that came in. It was a good hardy stroll and seemed to take his mind away from what happened today and last night with the new house slave.
As the day seemed to go on, he walked to a bookstore to pick up a book to read too. The shopping seemed to keep his mind off his family's new slave and return to college and his readings. He also let his mind drift to how he would enlist in the army if his father refused to help him get an officer's commission too.
As the night came early, he headed back to the house before it got too late. While the walk away from the house made him think of other things, the walk back to the house brought back the memory of Lucy's bare chest. He wondered if it happened again would he give in. He felt it wasn't too bad a sin just looking and that if it didn't bother her then it couldn't be that bad.
When he got back to the house, the smell of her cooking hit his nose before he even stepped into the house. The smell of fresh home cooking was sorely missed while away and now the smell hit his memory of how great it was. He knew Loni was an amazing cook and now wondered just how good Lucy was.
He walked in expecting to see Lucy in there but only saw his warm dinner sitting on the table with a glass of water. Not eating since breakfast, he dug into the hot stew loving how good it tasted. Not use to eating along since he ate with a group at college, he ate quicker than normal. With his new book looking interesting, he went to his room to start reading it instead of waiting.
As Seth walked towards his brother's room, he could hear the sound of Lucy's soothing voice soothing him. Her soft tone sounded beautiful as she kept a nice tone to her singing. As he got closer, the sound stopped and then he heard her calling out to him, "Mista Seth, you wants to watch again?"
Seth stepped closer as he was now in his brother's room looking at her. She had yet to reveal her chest but her young face showed no issue with offering him a view of it. He thought about the walk home and how it wasn't bad if it was offered and that it was a sin worthy of being forgiven.
"If it's not a bother," he asked, wondering if she was only doing it because he was the only other person in the house.
"No bother at all. You just sits on the bed and stop worrying yourself."
She quickly began unbuttoning her dress again as he felt his heart beat faster again. She was not going slow either; her brown flesh was already visible. Before he realized it, her large milk glands were out as she moved his brother towards her darkened left nipple.
He was even closer than before as he sat on the edge of the bed only a couple of feet from her. The sky still had light in it and there was nothing obstructing his perfect view of the one breast that was exposed. He already could feel his male excitement kick in too as he wondered if she was going to see it.
Lucy continued feeding as she slowly began to rock in the chair. Seth could not take his eyes off the other nipple as he swore there was a hint of white liquid at the tip of it. He knew he was fixated on her exposed breasts and thought about how she was okay with it and yet didn't care as it was the most beautiful sight in the world to him.
Lucy looked over at him while she was still feeding Ethan. "Has you ever seen a baby feedin' before? Cause you be acting a bit strange."
Seth looked up at her face to see her gentle features of her face knowing he had to be honest. "I have heard some of the hands talk of it, but I've never see it done. Mother said she couldn't have more children and then she could. I know Loni had a lot of children, but they were all grown when I was young. Does it hurt?"
"Oh, no...not at all. Be hurtins if I don't do it though."
"I always thought you needed to have children to do it. Were you sold without your child?" he asked, knowing it might be a sore subject, but he was truly curious.
"Known some house hands that could but I had my baby the same time the misses had hers. When the pox got my baby, the misses be wanting me to feed hers."
Seth felt a bit relieved and yet sorry that she lost her child as he knew his mother wouldn't think twice about separating a slave from their family. His father hated it but when he was away, he knew a few slaves that got sold off and away from their family on his mother's orders.
With her smiling still he felt there was no tension about what she told him and that he could inquire more. "I guess he seems to like it. Do you have to do it often?"
She gave a look of dissatisfaction. "It's good for them, but he should be taken more. He gets fussy a bunch and won't do it. You can try it if you wants."
Taken back by her question, Seth did not know how to respond. She was offering him a taste and yet he wondered if that was crossing a line in the sand he made. Was it wrong and then how could it be wrong if she offered it? He looked at her not knowing if he should give in and say yes or if he should say no and deny his sinful urges.
As he hesitated more, she looked at him. "It be doing me a favor. He ain't taken enough to stop it from hurtin' me. Miss Sally had twins and they always finished me up."
Before he could say anything, Ethan began to cry, and Lucy rocked him more and made a soothing sound for him. It was enough time for him to think about what she offered too. Her voice asking for him was too compelling he thought. It was like it drew him in and that he would do anything if she asked. His heart pounded still like a war drum as he knew he was going to drink from her chest.
As she got up to put him in his crib, he got a good sniff of her and it all but confirmed that he was going down the sinful past with no stopping now. She had him in his crib and stopping him from crying as she walked towards the side of the bed and sat on the bed near him.
Seth could feel his erection painfully wanting freedom as she spoke. "Now you puts you head on my lap. It be easier this way."
He did as instructed and put his head on her lap seeing that her breasts were now inches from his face. The smell of musky milk now filled his nostrils as she brushed his hair out of the way. He just stared helpless at the darker nipple that looked so tempting to take in his mouth as if his body was hardwired to suck on.
She leaned her body slightly towards his face. "Go ahead...just suck."
He wasted no time as he drew her dark nipple into his mouth, sucking it softly for it fit perfectly in his lips. The taste of warm milk now came to him as he quickly sucked hard.
"Ohhh...nots so hard. Take the whole thing in your mouth."
Stopping his hard sucking, he moved her entire nipple in his mouth now and sucked again. The moment he started suckling he felt her entire nipple just conform to his mouth too. The warm taste of milk flowed easy too. With each suck he got more and more of her nursing milk spurted on his tongue. He managed to swallow quickly and continue without pausing.
"Mmmmm...be feeling good," she purred as he continued to suckle, feeling dirty and yet excited at the same time. He knew he was not going to stop no matter how excited his body got or if she saw it.
The milk seemed to flow into his mouth with very little effort. He was sucking with his mouth feeling her nipple just give him more and more of her mother's milk as he continued to swallow the warm nourishment. It was a little sweet as he felt almost guilty for liking it too. He didn't know why it seemed to taste so good, but he gave in and continued to suckle as if she was feeding him like he needed it and not the other way around.
The more he thought about how her nipple was in his mouth feeding him, the more he felt his body become excited by it. The squirming could not be helped either as he felt his erection pressing against his pants.
"It's no bother if you plays with your thing. It looks mighty painful," she said in a somewhat soothing tone
Not understanding what she said meant, he pulled away from her tit as he felt a few droplets on his lips from her leaking. "What do you mean play with it?"
Lucy looked down at him and sounded confused. "You do be playing with it? Be mighty painful to not be realizing yourself."
Seth wondered if it meant sex as he confessed what she probably already knew from listening to him at dinner last night when he brought up courting a girl. "I have never been with a girl before. Is that what you mean?"
She had looked down at him with a face of concern and pity. "Nobody be tellin' you about touching yourself? Maybe one of the hands on the plantation talk about what do when urges be comin' on strong?"
Seth quickly thought of sex as he knew that a few slaves did tell him about that, but he also remembered his mother preaching furiously that sex outside of marriage was a sin. "You mean you want me to put it in you?"
"No...no Mista Seth. Not putting it in me, but you touching it till it be feelin good."
With a look of disappointment and awkwardness he answered not knowing what she was talking about as he never let himself get overly excited without forcing himself to calm down until it went away. "Sorry, I have never done that before."
The sound of her voice still sounded compelling as she calmly stated, "Well I be thinkin' you needs to do it now. Get your breeches down so you can do it."
Not wanting to disappoint her and curious, he complied. He felt nervous about it and also felt his member lose strength because of it. He could not remember the last time he was naked in front of someone, but he felt she was going to help him and nothing else. He just gave in and pulled everything down to reveal his somewhat soft manhood to her.
He did not know if she was going to laugh or make fun of him for not knowing. Instead he felt her guide his hand to his member. "Grabs it here and just do what comes natural."
Awkwardly, Seth started stroking and quickly he felt her hand on his. "Slow like. Don't be going too fast."
As he slowed down his pace the sensation was overwhelming. It was like his body craved it and his member became fully aroused again. His mouth opened in a moan and quickly Lucy put her other tit right in his mouth. "Shhhhhhh now. Just keep doing what be feeling good."
After a few strokes she let go and he began suckling her fresh nipple, feeling her warm sweet milk flow fast once again. Savoring the taste with each swallow, he guided his hand the length of his erection feeling an uncanny sensation like he was doing something good for his body.
The more he moved his hand up and down his shaft, the better it got. It was like something was building inside of him. He in turn sucked her nipple faster and a tad bit harder allowing more of her milk to flow into him mouth.
"MMMMMMmmmmmm...that be feeling real good," she moaned, confirming he was okay to continue at that pace.
The sensation to his body was like nothing else he felt. The building up of pleasure was almost becoming too much. It felt strange and good at the same time. Not knowing what to do, he moved his hand away. Lucy then grabbed his hand putting it right back on his now throbbing member. "Keeps doing it. Don't stop till it comes out of you."
The pressure to go grew and before he knew it, he sucked hard and then felt his body contort. He pulled away as a sensation of pleasure ripped through his body. It was like his whole body was experiencing this amazing sensation too as he felt that it all came from his member too. He moved his head seeing his male member act like a fountain as his warm pearly cream flowed out of the tip.
He quickly got up wiping it as it seemed to flow out of him still. "Ohhh...ohhh it's still happening."
She moved his hand away and gave him a calming smile. "Be okay...I be cleaning up for you. Did it feel good...since it be your first time and all?"
"It did...I did not know I could do it by myself though. I thought I had...guess should be with a woman," he confessed feeling guilty and embarrassed that he did not know.
He watched as she made no effort to cover up but only reached for a hand towel that she had on the chair. With it in her hand she reached for his hands, cleaning them before bending over to clean up what came out of him and landed on the floor.
"I didn't think that was going to happen like that. I can clean up," he offered not wanting her to clean up his mess.
"No trouble. I gots it," she answered as she finished and stood up handing him the washcloth for him to wipe himself clean.
Seth stood up and wiped himself and then quickly pulled his pants back up. "Thank you. Can we please not tell anyone about this?"
Lucy was buttoning her dress when she looked up at Seth and gave a big smile. "I would never breathe a word Mista Seth. I should be thankin' you though, it was hurting till you helped out. Little one does not feed from me like I needs him to."
Before Seth could respond, the sound of crying from Ethan interrupted him. Lucy got up to tend to the child. As he watched her tend to him, he knew that she showed him something about himself and he didn't know if it was sinful or he had been denied it for years.
He left to his room to ponder if she opened the door to a sinful nature or that he was never shown or told about something that felt so wonderful. He knew she was a slave and yet he knew he never forced her to do anything.
The idea of bossing around a slave was nothing new, but he felt it was his parents that did it. The only person that he was around was Loni and the children of the hands. Loni acted like a mother and then other slave hands he played with acted like friends to him. The idea of bossing one around seemed like something he never needed to do.
About an hour into his book he went downstairs to drink something and saw Lucy sitting on a chair knitting. She looked up at him with a big smile. "Be needin' something?"
"Ohh no. Just some water."
"You know Loni spoke bout you all da time. Seemed like every time we talkin', she be talking bout you. Guess I can see why now," Lucy said as she went back to her knitting.
"Did my mother say anything?" he asked, wondering if she even acknowledged him since she did not like him going away to college nor the fact he wanted to seek a commission in the military in a year.
"Miss Abigail seemed softly busy with other things. I know she be talkin' good bout you if she had time. You know she be havin' to deal with a baby."
Seth decided to give into his bad feelings about his mother and how she was still angry at him for going away to college. He also knew his mother was furious with him when he mentioned the military too. He just wished his father was around to stop her resentment of him.
"Best turn in," Seth said not wanting to let the conversation go further as it would lead to an outburst he had been holding back against his mother.
***
When Seth awoke from his sleep the sun was shining in his face and a new day was before him. He thought about taking a horse out of the stable and heading towards the family plantation but knew that his father was coming into town soon. As much as wanted to be away, he also knew that his father was paying for his college and knew people that could help him get a commission in the military.
Dressed and deciding to visit the city again, he thought about what he had been missing out on and felt it was time for him to experience the city without limits of where to go. He walked downstairs full of energy to take on a glorious day when the smell of a cooked breakfast hit him.
He walked into the kitchen smelling bacon and cooked eggs. Lucy or his brother Ethan were nowhere to be found and he thought she was probably changing him. On the table was a plate of bacon, biscuits, a glass of milk and fried eggs.
Not wasting any time, he sat and ate, biting into the eggs and bacon savoring a great home cooked breakfast. When he took a nice sized gulp of the milk, he instantly recognized it as breast milk. It was still warm, and the sweet taste flashed the memory of him actually suckling it out of her breasts too. The taste was a bit strong as it was not taken in small doses like from her breasts, but he still drank it not flinching with the taste either.
Lucy walked in the room to see that her breakfast was finished, and her milk was drunk. "Sorry bout the milk Mista Seth. I had to do something with it."
Seth stood up from the table and smiled. "I don't mind at all. I am rather partial to it now."
She smiled back. "Need to head to the market. Can you write me a pass? I don't know anyone in the city to speak for me."
Seth knew that an unfamiliar slave walking through the streets might bring unwarranted problems. Seth retrieved some paper from his desk and scribbled a quick pass for her. He then watched her head off to the market with his brother in tow.
Not wanting to sit in the house and do his studies, he decided to chop some wood and do some of his chores before going to the heart of the city himself. Even though his parents were not around much on the plantation, the overseer would give him random chores to do. He said a boy needed to build strength and made him do certain physically demanding jobs to build his strength.
As Seth spent most of the afternoon getting wood chopped and doing some other random chores, he saw Lucy carrying some goods from the market. Ethan was on her back in a carrier and looked passed out. As she walked up onto the porch, she had a great big smile to her. He figured he was going to head into the city but since Lucy was home, he felt like the city could wait.
"Oh Mista Seth, you look beat like a horse. Best you come in and take a rest. Nobody be needin' that much wood. Miss Abigail would tear me up if she knew you looks dirty likes that. Come inside...I have a bath ready in just a bit."
Seth walked inside and sat at the kitchen table and waited for Lucy to come back from putting Ethan in his crib. When she walked in, she had a large bathing tub. She then drew some water and put it over the fire to get it hot for him. He didn't think he was that dirty but also didn't want to argue with her about anything.
She walked over to him once the tub was filled halfway and began removing his shirt. Once it was gone, she threw it to the side. "Be getting you some clean clothes too. Nobody be liking a dirty man. Get you right fixed up and clean as a baby once you in the bath. Water be nice and hot too."
As she reached for his pants, she undid the belt before he knew that she had no issue with seeing him nude. Not stopping her, she pulled his pants down as his member flopped out in front of her. Wanting to be modest he thought about covering up, but then quickly thought he should get in the tub first and then cover his privates.
Once in the tub, he did what he thought was proper and put his hands onto of his groin. He knew she saw it before, but he still felt like he should be modest. As he did that, he saw her put his clothes in a pile and then hand him a small bar of soap.
Just as he took the soap she bent down on her knees. "Be helping me again?"
"I guess," he uttered, not knowing if it was with her milk supply or with something around the house. He got his answer once she began unbuttoning her dress though.
Seth could feel his heart beat faster again as he also felt his member respond to the visual stimulation as well as the memory of what happened last time. Her large breasts dropped free again as she moved closer so her nipple could be taken in.
He could smell her breasts just before her dark nipple touched his lips too. It had a sweet milky scent to it, and it stirred his thoughts about how he was going to feed from her breasts. Not even hesitating, he opened his mouth and took in her entire nipple. Knowing how to suckle now made it easy for her milk to flow fast too as it hit his tongue fast.
"Mmmmmm...yess. You be knowing how to help me good now. Ohhhh...feeling better already," she moaned as he continued to suck feeling her supply of nourishing milk flow fast onto his tongue too.
With one hand covering his member and the other one out of the tub holding the soap, he felt her hand take the soap from him. She put her free hand to his head holding him to her tit. "Mmmm...let me wash you as you help me."
She then put her hand with the soap in the water before washing his back. He kept suckling from her tit feeling her milk flow fast like she needed it badly too. He didn't have to suck hard either to get enough milk to swallow easily; he kept a good pace of sucking for a few moments before swallowing.
Her hand washed his back and then chest before moving to his shoulders. The sensual feeling of her touch while in a tub was enough to make his excitement grow, but sucking milk out of her tit was making it throb with need. He pushed it against his stomach holding it and covering it the best he could too.
"Mmmmm that one feels better now. Best you do the other one so I can be getting some sleep tonight." As she said that she twisted her torso, so she was now facing him as he began sucking again and feeling the heavy flow once more.
Her hand finally dipped below the water and began washing his stomach inches away from his hand that was covering his fully grown excited member. Seth knew that he did what he needed to do to be modest as he kept his hand covering his manhood.
When her hand touched his it sent shock waves throughout his body. He almost pulled away to protest but she kept her other hand pressing him towards her pillowy breast. "Best you let me wash it."
Not fighting, he let her move his hand as he felt her hand caress the length of his member with the soap. Up and down her hand went as the sensation of it made him want to moan out. Still draining her milk supply, he felt her hand give a soft gliding stroke up and down and then around his member.
Then he felt her hand with no soap in it. Her bare hand was grasping and holding his throbbing shaft. It was better than it felt with his hand and he felt helpless to stop her too. Her hand slowly stroked to the base and then upwards curling the tip of his member sending bolts of pleasure to his inner core.
"Mmmmm...thinkin' you likes me cleaning you," she said softly towards him as he moaned out his answer unable to do anything else other than drink from her chest.
She was going faster and faster now. The tips of her fingers pressing harder against his sensitive tip as he felt a building sensation in his body. Not stopping, she made her hand slide from the base of his shaft to the tip and then made she her thumb press down on it before repeating the same motion.
"MMMMMMMM," Seth moaned out unable to suck any more as he felt his body shaking. He still held her elongated nipple in his mouth but was unable to do anything other than moan while it was between his lips.
"Almost done...have you clean and feelin'right as rain," she purred out as her hand felt like a machine of pleasure as it was not changing speed or how she stroked his length.
Finally, there was no holding back. His body became like a stiff board as his stomach muscles tightened hard. His calf muscles did the same and yet he was shaking slightly too. His eyes closed as there was nothing to do but push from his manhood feeling the pressure expel in a giant push of complete ecstasy.
He wanted to moan out, but she kept her hand holding his head to stop him. Her nipple was still between his lips too as he felt a release of his soul come right out of his member like nothing else he ever experienced too. It was like all the stress and worries of his life were now drained from him as was all of his body's energy too.
Lucy pulled her hand away from his head and then moved her other hand from the water. "Thinkin' you be clean now."
She stood up from the tub buttoning her dress up. He looked up at her almost too exhausted to move. She looked down smiling at him. "Take a rest if you needs be. I be gettin'suppa ready for us. Just don't be makin' a racket when you do...Ethan be nappin' right now."
He nodded his head and then got up from the tub. Lucy then stepped a few feet and then turned to head back to him. "Dry off. I be bringing you a fresh set of clothes."
Still unable to form words, he began to dry off noticing her eyes looking him up and down almost grinning at him like she knew something. He felt all care and worry leave him as he just dried off and walked upstairs. He wanted to talk but felt like a zombie as all the energy was sapped from him and his bed called upon him.
The sound of Ethan laughing woke him up. He then heard Lucy talking to him and laughing back at him. He saw new clothes put out for him and got dressed listening to Lucy care for his brother as if she was his mother. He knew in the back of his mind that his brother would see her as more of a mother than his own too.
As he stepped out, she was in the hallway holding him. "Suppa ready for yah. Also be thinkin' you looks better from that nap."
He smiled knowing she was right, and his energy returned as did a sense of peace from what she did for him. "Thank you. I think you're right."
As he followed her downstairs, he instantly smelled cooked chicken and potatoes. It was a simple dish and yet it smelled wonderful to him. Not being formal, he just sat down at the plate set for him. He then motioned to Lucy to join him. "Please...seat...eat."
She smiled and bowed her head slightly. "If you wants...I can."
She still held Ethan in her arms but was able to make her plate and sit down with him. She then gave a slight grimace. "You be leaving to go back once your Pa gets here?"
"Yes. I am to head back as soon as I talk with him. He doesn't get a chance to come back to Charleston that often and mother asked me to come and see him too."
"Miss Loni said you wanting to be in the army. Be a fighting man," she said softly, bouncing Ethan a little to keep him smiling at her.
"Going to try. My father knows people that can help me get a commission. If he won't help me, then I will enlist without it," he replied, knowing that he was going to be in the army no matter what. That he needed to be away from the squabble of his mother's social politics.
"Be missing you. Miss Loni be all worried bout you. I swear she be crying bout it too. Says it's just something in her eye but when she be talking bout you in the army, she get something in her eye every time."
Seth leaned back and smiled knowing that Loni was very protective of him all his life. "She does worry a lot. But I will be fine."
"Also hearin' you read a lot. That you always got a nose in your books. Do you mind reading to me tonight?" she asked smiling as it dawned to him that it was a perfect opportunity to read and spend time with her.
"I can...we can do it right now," he said, getting up from the table and quickly heading upstairs to retrieve the new book he got.
When he got downstairs, she had Ethan on her lap in a chair rocking him. When he went to sit down across from her, she scooted over a bit and patted the chair for him to sit next to her. Not thinking about it, he accepted the offer and sat down next to her and opened the book.
He talked about buying the book the other day and then began to read it to her. She listened intently and even put her hand on his lap while he read. He thought the time was going slow and before he knew it over an hour had passed and she needed to put Ethan in his crib. When she returned, it was the same thing and he got lost in the book while sitting next to her as she listened intently with her hand on his lap.
As he began another chapter, she moved her hand up and down his leg stopping him. "Best I turn in for the night. If it's not a bother...you mind readin' to me again?
"Yes...of course. Anytime you want."
He was off to his bed and Lucy was in hers as he thought about the day and the events. All his mind focused on what happened and how the day seemed like a surreal set of events with each part having a glorious end.
Waking up, Seth felt alive like it was a new Spring day with an entire day filled with activities he loved to do. He knew he was stuck to the house for today with his father coming in tomorrow. The notion of caring about being in the house for the day seemed perfect as all he wanted to do was read with Lucy and talk with her.
As he dressed and walked downstairs, he never felt so connected on an equal level to a house slave before. Although he did feel Loni had and will probably have power over him until the end of his days though. Once downstairs he saw food already put out for him although it was water and not milk today. He did hear his brother crying too and assumed she was handling it too.
The crying died down just as he finished eating and it seemed the perfect time to see if she needed help. He walked into the study to see Ethan lying in a small crib as she was knitting again.
"You done eatin'?" she asked as she put down the sewing needles.
"Yeah. I was about ready to head out," he replied knowing that he wanted to explore the city for a bit before heading back and spending the rest of the day with her.
She looked over at Ethan as he was playing with a few wooden toys before walking towards him. "Come with me...you can help me right quick," she said just as she held his hand walking him into the kitchen.
As they took the few steps into the kitchen and the swinging door closed, she guided him to the chair. He sat as he watched her unbutton the front of her dress again, letting him know that she wanted to be drained and that he was going to see her taboo brown breasts again.
"He drained one but not the other. Just needs this one done is all," she said as she held her left breast up for him to latch onto.
Seth quickly took her entire nipple in his mouth and began suckling like before. No instructions were needed, and he felt like he knew exactly how to drain her properly now. The milk flowed fast, pooling on his tongue before swallowing her sweet milk down. His lips had a tight seal and he suckled instantly feeling his own needs growing in his pants.
The sensation of his member wanting out became stronger and stronger until it was obvious to anyone that saw that he was excited. He thought about touching it like before but sitting down the way he was made it awkward to do. Not wanting to ask or making a scene about it, he just dealt with the throbbing nature of his manhood while he drained her supply.
"Mmmmmmm...yes. Feels good now," she moaned as he felt her flow slowing down considerably. He still kept going though until there was just a little coming out.
"Feelin' better now. Thank you," she commented as she stepped back.
He stood up thinking he could go upstairs and deal with his problem and then head out. She looked down and then looked at him. "Ohhh...I see," she uttered, holding her hand to her mouth.
"It's nothing. I am just going to go upstairs right quick."
She removed her hand giving him a look of embarrassment. "If you wants...you can. Best be quick though...don't want to be wakin' up the baby."
"What do you mean? I will be upstairs," he questioned, wondering what she was thinking.
She answered with a soft tone as if she didn't want to be heard by anyone with a few feet. "You don't have to be going upstairs to handle your business. You can puts it in me. Gotta be quick though."
He stepped back realizing she was meaning intercourse with her. He knew that some owners did that, and he also knew his father expressly forbid it on the overseers that worked for him. He also knew that he wouldn't force himself on her as he felt connected to her on a different level other than for her to be used as a sex object.
"Ohh no. I won't do that to you. I would never defile you like that," he answered, hoping she would know that he and his family didn't do that with their slaves.
"You sure? I don't mind if you do. Looks like you be wantin to," she replied softly as he saw an innocent look on her face that seemed to melt him from telling her to do anything immoral.
"You don't mind?" he asked, thinking that she had to be wrong in saying it and then thinking of a reason why to say no.
As his mind tried to find a reason, he realized that he couldn't and the idea of not being a virgin now came to him. The final act of being a man was now presented to him. He only thought about not wanting this grand moment to be regretful later if it was taken and not given.
He saw her smile and step over to the wooden table used for food prep. She then leaned back opening her legs slightly. "Just be quick...but you can puts it in me...I know you be wantin' to and that you be shy bout askin' me."
He stepped towards her looking at her visible legs and then her breasts as her dress was still open in the front. Her brown skin was being highlighted by the sunlight coming in through the windows. All he could think about how gorgeous she was and how he never saw a slave as pretty as she was.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked not believing that a house slave would willingly offer herself like this and yet hoping that Lucy was offering herself as he felt like she had power over him and that just looking at her made him weak she was so pretty.
"Yes. Just go ahead and be putting it in me," she commented almost sounding impatient.
Not asking again, Seth pulled down his pants revealing his erect member and then approached her to begin. As he got closer, she grabbed a hold of his erection looking at him. "Right here," she said as he felt her aiming his love rod where it needed to be.
He pushed in and it felt like heaven had grasped a hold of his throbbing member. Both warmth and tightness encircled his manhood as he pushed further only stopping when his body was against her. All the talk he heard about sex from others now was understood as he was deep inside of her love tunnel.
She had her knees bent and her dressed pulled up, so it bunched at her waist covering the sight of her sex, but her breasts were still at eye level with him. He pulled out slightly and then pushed in before finding his rhythm.
"Mmmmm...best it be feeling good to be inside a woman," she said as he felt his member pulse as he pushed through her love flower.
He wanted to say something profound but the sensation that wrapped around his shaft was overwhelming him. It was like each subtle motion resulted in pleasure too. He felt like her love channel was a vice around his member as the more he moved it, the more it felt amazing. The only thing he knew he needed to do was keep moving it in and out of her.
"That's...it...be doing what's natural," she uttered as he felt the buildup of his climax approaching fast.
He thrusted again and again and was amazed at how good it felt even when he moved it fast too. Not stopping, he kept gliding his love rod in and out of her sex without any regard to anything else in the world. Nothing mattered there than his motions in and out of her love hole.
The building up in his core was getting bigger and bigger too. The urge of expelling his body's essence was gaining momentum too. He continued though knowing that the expulsion from his body was the ultimate pleasure. He was not stopping even though he felt he was a few thrusts away too.
"UGGGGGOHHHHH," he moaned as his body demanded he push deep and hard into her. The sensitivity of his tip was too much and all he could do was keep it deep in her sex and give into the pleasure of relaxing himself into her.
He felt like his member was pumping away too as he closed his eyes in pleasure wanting to look at her but not being able to overcome the intensity of sending his essence into her. He then finally pulled out, looking at her like she was the cure to every problem the world had. The feeling of euphoria was still inside of him as he stared at her.
He then looked down at his member while it dribbled out a few drops of his essence onto the wood floor. He then moved back not wanting to get it on her as he grabbed a washcloth to clean himself.
"Don't worry yourself. It be normal when it does that. Do hope you feel better now," she said with a nonchalant look like it was something people did without care or concern.
"I do...but I don't think that it's natural for us to do it though," he said, knowing that things were never going to be the same with her and his need for her had now morphed into something greater.
He quickly thought about slave relations with whites and how it was a serious taboo in his family. He did know it happened, but he felt he should honor his family by not abusing the slaves. He felt she gave him what he wanted because of his station and nothing else.
"Sorry Mista Seth. I just be thinking you wanted to. I didn't mean to upset you," she said softly as he saw the look of despair on her face.
Just as he was about to explain, she walked backwards away from him. "Best get to Mista Ethan now."
Seth knew that he came across as a superior and that his mentioning about morals of owners made it seem that they were doing something wrong. Not wanting to make matters worse, he cleaned up quickly and left out of the kitchen door. The city beckoned him as did the idea of being away from the house and the worry that he upset Lucy.
Strolling the downtown shops, he recalled Sammy. She was the same age as him and was quite attractive for a slave as her mother was quite pretty too. He also thought about growing up with her and about having relations with her too. He knew he could force himself upon her without consequence, but also knew it wouldn't be the same after that. She was like a friend to him and if he did that, it would end.
He knew his mother sold her away because she spent a lot of time with him too. He felt like she had a sixth sense to when a slave wanted something else or would cause problems. He also knew that his mother hated white owners who had relations with their slaves. That she blamed the slaves for forcing themselves on their masters. He knew that his mother talked about how slave women bewitched their men too. He knew she was wrong and that she truly didn't understand the slaves from this region.
As he walked around a few shops he thought about Lucy and if she would want something. The jewelry store had nice things, but he didn't bring all of his money with him either. He wondered if she would forgive him for pressuring her into their sexual relations and if she would like him again.
Deciding on a small gold locket he began his way back to the house. It was a good walk back, but the time helped him think. Did she want him? What did he find in her so irresistible? Why does a house slave look so attractive to him? Why can't he stop thinking about her?
As he pondered the questions he felt the autumn winds hit him and help him realize that he wanted her again. The feeling of needing her more than just as a friend was almost over-powering too. He also knew that the best relationship they could have now was to be friendly with each other. That maybe if he read to her, they could just enjoy the time they had left and leave the friendship as just that even though he wanted more.
He wanted to feel guilty for having relations with her but then felt it was the most wonderful thing he felt in his life. He felt like he should apologize for it too as she probably only did it because he was white. He also knew that his mother should never know about it nor should he listen to her about anything else either. He figured his father spending time away was not so much work as it was for his sanity.
The day was gone, and he could see the orange of the sun hitting the sky. He walked inside the house to see Lucy waiting for him by the door. It was proper for a house slave to greet the owner, but this formality was almost never done in their house.
"I got some supper for your Mista Seth. I can have it on the table for you all warmed up right quick too."
"Ohhh that would be great," he answered, knowing that Lucy was on her best manners as he felt she was thinking he was upset with her.
She walked away into the kitchen as he put his hat on the hook and before following her into the kitchen. Once inside, he saw a plate of food and a glass of water for him. His heart felt weak knowing that their relationship was off, and she was not offering her breasts to him anymore.
As he sat and ate, she quickly made herself scarce. It was like a chance at peace was gone and tomorrow he was probably leaving once he spoke with his father. The encounters he had would never be forgotten and the feeling he had for her not lost to time.
Once upstairs, he saw her in her small room folding baby clothes. He stepped inside wanting to make peace with what happened and set everything right again. "I am thinking we need to clear the air."
"I awful sorry bout what happened. I didn't mean to do what I did. I just be thinking you would want it," she spoke as he saw her eyes getting puffy and her voice cracking.
"To help me or cause you wanted to?" he asked, wondering if she was just doing it to relieve his male essence or that she wanted to out of something more.
The guilt of what happened faded quickly as he now wondered her motives. The thought of her crying was like killing a small helpless animal and was not something he wanted either. He felt he just needed to know if he was doing wrong for wanting it for other reasons other than releasing himself because he could.
"Be liking what we did. Knows some white folk like house niggers to keep their bed warm. Massa Williams like me when the misses is not home, thinkin' you would be likin' it too." Her eyes finally dropping a tear as he hit a nerve.
"I love what we did. I just never had relations with a slave before," he admitted as he wanted to stop her from crying as her face seemed too perfect for tears.
"Did you want to try another?" Her face still showing emotions of sadness as he saw her eyes ready to burst open like a rainstorm.
"No, it's not that. It's...it's that I have strong feelings for you and shouldn't cause you're a house negro," he confessed, knowing that being with her was a slippery slope. His still craved her but he knew it was wrong. All his thoughts he had walking back home seemed fruitless now as he caved in to telling her that he thought of her as something more than just a sex object house slave.
She looked up at him smiling and then reached for his hand. "You can't be having that. I don't mind you doing your business in me but a young mista like yourself can't be wanting me like that."
He quickly reached for his pocket and pulled out the locket. "I got this for you...I want you to know that I never felt this way about anyone before. I know it's wrong, but I can't help it."
She let go of his hand as she held her hand to her mouth in utter shock. "Ohhh my...you didn't. You can't be doing this."
He quickly turned her around and opened the small gold chain putting it on her neck. The sight of her small and yet long neck only confirmed in his mind that she was so breathtakingly beautiful. He knew it was so wrong in his mother's eyes, but he still could not help how his feelings should call to her like it did.
Once the locket chain was around her neck, he turned her around and leaned in for a kiss. She didn't move and he continued moving in slowly kissing her. Once his lips were against hers, it was like lightning bolts hitting him. It was not sexual release like before but an emotional one as she reciprocated his kiss too.
She broke free smiling at him. "I want to do it again with you."
"I want you so much," he replied as he reached to undo his pants.
She began unbuttoning her dress as he quickly began to finish undressing himself. As she got to the last button, he was fully nude in front of her. She smiled at him making his heart pound even faster now as all he could think about was wanting her as his. She then pulled the dress over her shoulders letting it fall to the floor.
Seth never admitted to any of his college friends that he never saw a nude woman before. He knew a few of them were in the same position he was too. But now everything was different. The lamp in the room clearly showed off her female features perfectly as he gazed upon the first fully nude woman of his life.
Her large breasts hung slightly as they were quite large for her slim frame, but her hips flared out just a tad showing off hips that were criminally hidden by the dress she wore. Her light brown skin seemed smooth as it went from her legs to her dark hair covered sex. He felt like he could lose himself looking at her too.
As she got on the bed he stepped over to the foot of the bed. She smiled at him just as she opened her legs showing off her sex to him like it was an invitation for him to have. "You don't have to hurry this time either."
Seth's heart felt weak, and yet pounding like a horse on a full gallop too. His eyes still fixated on her nude form and yet he wanted to express his emotions to her as well. He got on the bed as she reached out for him. Her hands were caressing his shoulders pulling him closer. As he positioned himself, she helped him and took hold of his manhood, guiding it.
"Be wantin' you to do this too," she whispered as he was just about to enter her.
He kissed her neck and grabbed her waist as he finally felt himself pierce her love flower and enter her honey hole. It had a wet snug sensation that seemed to caress every bit of his length too. He continued kissing her neck and then finally pushed in more, feeling his entire shaft claim her sex as his.
He stopped kissing her neck and looked at her. "You wanted this?"
She smiled as she caressed his chest with her hand. "Be liking you from the moment I laid eyes on you. Be giving you my body first night if you asked for it."
Still lodged deep in her feeling his member respond with mini pulses, he wanted to start and yet wanted to ask her more. He pulled out and then confirmed her tightness again pushing in once more. "I want you so bad."
She continued running her hands over his chest and his shoulders almost pulling him towards her. "I am yours...you can have me."
Not needing any more confirmation, he began a slow hard rhythm of pushing inside her, feeling her love flow bloom like spring showers each time her pushed too. There was no holding back he thought as he felt his member stiffen like it was iron as he slid it into her love tunnel. Not going slow but not ramming it, he found a steady pace of loving her peach. The was no going halfway as he felt his length slide deep into her sex each time too.
"Mmmmmmm," she moaned out and then smiled at him as he felt like he was giving her a gift of pleasure.
He leaned in kissing her neck and massaging it with his lips and tongue. He then quickly felt her fingers dig into his shoulders and her legs wrap around his torso. He kept his rhythm but felt her love tunnel collapsing hard around his manhood. He pushed through it and was treated to a even louder moan. "Ohhhhh...mmmmmmmmmm."
He kept going and pushing through her spasming sex feeling her love tunnel slicker from what was happening. Still not stopping, he kept on thrusting feeling his body bounce on hers now. The build up of release was mounting but he felt compelled by his body to keep going. It was like he was possessed to push in and out of her too.
Deeper and faster he went feeling like her sex was able to handle it too as it was now making a slight sloshing noise to it. It was like nothing he felt before and it still was not going to stop him. He continued to kiss her neck feeling her hands grasp his shoulders and then slide down holding him quite hard as he pushed through her vice like peach.
The ending was building faster than he thought and before he knew it, he felt his member become sensitive and ready to finish. He kept thrusting deep and finally stopping giving attention to her neck as he penetrated deep and held it, unable to move it too. There was nothing but a throbbing sensation of pleasure and then a big release of his inner essence as he kept his length deep in her. It was like everything his body had was now pumping away inside of her.
He was about to move off her as she stopped him and held onto his hips smiling at him like it was the happiest moment of her life. "Nots yet...keep it in me."
"Did it feel good? Did I go it right?" he asked, knowing it was a naive question, but he also knew that she was more knowledgeable about sex than him.
"Mmmm yes. I do think you be knowing what you doing now." She kept smiling and almost laughed slightly.
"Guess I had a good teacher," He replied, pulling her up and kissing her lips.
"Mmm...noo. Can't be doing that," she hissed moving her face from his.
He gave a confused look why she stopped him even though he was still stiff and inside of her too. She then put her hand on his chest like she was blocking him from doing it again. "God knows I want you like that...more than anything else I want you as mine. Be wanting you to lay with me since I saw you too. Give myself to you anytime too and be loving it too. You just can't be wanting me like that."
"Nobody has to know," he said as he moved her hand away and then moved closer to kiss her.
"God help me...you making me love you so hard," she softly uttered as he moved stopping her from saying anything else as he kissed her.
She opened her mouth and their tongue found each other quickly. It was something he never done as he knew it was considered taboo by some. All he thought about was to keep kissing her and putting his heart next to hers. All the wrong feelings about how he should feel towards her were now flipped and kissing her in such a way was needed to prove that he felt this way.
He moved his hips against hers and was greeted with her moving hers towards him. It was like a back and forth rocking as he felt his member still hard and now gliding in and out of her love nest.
She broke the kiss grinning at him like he was bad in a good way. "Be feelin' like you want more."
"I do."
"Guess you ain't so shy anymore," she cooed as she moved her hands to his face caressing it.
"No...not with you anymore."
With his hands on her hips, he took control and began pulling her body towards him. Her legs were wrapped around his waist as his were facing her as she was almost sitting on him now. He could feel his member going deep from this position even though he was going slower.
He looked down as he felt something wet on his chest and could see her dark nipples leaking on him. It was a slow drip of white milk and she gave him a shy look. "Be turned on...they do that when I get this way."
He then reached up pulling her head wrap off and looking at her short black hair and then her leaking breasts. "I like it...You are so beautiful."
"Well you be the handsomest man I know. Be loving you more than anything."
He pulled her close feeling her large breasts again against his chest as he ran his fingers through her coarse black hair kissing her. He knew she was his and had her guard down as his length was claiming her love as if they were some loving couple too. All he could do was push in her letting her feel his hard love while his lips and tongue confirmed his emotional love for her.
He felt her rocking against him even though he was controlling her body with a back and forth motion. This resulted in feeling her waist push harder against him and feeling his love rod push very deeply in her sex. Not breaking the kiss even though she was moaning in his mouth from this movement, he kept it up making sure his hard member pushed deep each time.
It was longer than last time, but he felt he had a strong rhythm of rocking her back and forth. Their kiss was never broken either as he felt the same vice like clamping sensation from her love canal. It was like every few minutes the warm wet snug sensation got extremely tight before relaxing again.
What seemed like forever, he finally felt the building up of his climax coming. He didn't want to stop kissing her or feeling her neck and back as she caressed his. Her body still pressed against his too as he rocked her back and forth making his length slide through her vaginal muscles.
The end was getting closer and closer as he felt the need for his glorious release. He finally broke the kiss and stared into her eyes. Her brown eyes opened wide as she smiled back at him like she was giving him permission to do anything he wanted to her body. He finally could not last a moment longer and pulled her towards him, impaling his love deep into her cave and releasing his torrent of seed into her.
"OHHHHHHH...Mmmmmmmm!!" he moaned loud as he felt his whole body giving up its energy and life force. His whole being was now being pumped into her and all he could do was keep himself deep in her unable to fight the blissful sensation of climaxing inside of her.
His member could not last any longer and quickly slipped out as he felt powerless to move his body, collapsing next to her. Lucy then threw her head on his chest as if she wanted to hear his heart beat.
"Be missing you already," she whispered as he held her to his chest.
"You know I will be back," he answered in his best comforting voice.
"I will be making sure I save myself for you too. Won't let another man have me either."
He wanted to say something to ease her worries, but he knew that it might be awhile for him to come back. He also knew that he was going to have to see his mother again and make peace with her. He figured he would act like he wasn't upset with her so he could see Lucy again. The only thing that made him fall asleep without worry was that his mother hated the overseers at the plantation and Lucy would probably never see the field too.
Feeling a shaking sensation, Seth opened his eyes to see Lucy standing near him with her dress and head wrap back on. "Wake up...wake up. Your Pa be here soon and you can't be caught in my bed."
With groggy eyes and a diminished morning look, he scrambled the best he could to get dressed and cleaned up before heading downstairs. He wanted to hold Lucy again and be with her more but knew at any moment his father was coming. He knew it could be at night or this afternoon but being prepared was something he thought best.
Just as he smelled breakfast cooking, he heard the sound of a carriage pulling up. He opened the front door stepping out and seeing Remo his father's driver open the carriage door. A sense of relief washed over him as he knew he was going to try and have Lucy once more and would have gotten caught.
His father stepped out of the carriage and he saw the old man that he rarely met while growing up. Even though his wealth was well established with owning multiple plantations and two separate houses in both Charleston and Washington D.C., his time was something he had little to spare. Giving responsibilities to managers and overseers his father almost never visited the plantations he owned.
Now he walked up to him to greet him and yet he felt like he was a stranger. Mr. Gregg's, the manager of the plantation nearby was more of a father to him growing up. He knew his mother loved him but not being around him, he thought tarnished the love she had in her heart. That and he was twenty years her senior as she was wed at a very early age.
With a big hug his father embraced him. His older age still did not diminish his strength that he once had. He also looked truly delighted to see him as he kept smiling as they walked inside the house. His constant questions about school and his life were still going on as he walked in the door.
Lucy bowed and held Ethan to him presenting his son to him. He grabbed the baby and cradled him as he beckoned Seth to the study. The moment Ethan began to cry he kissed him, and Lucy was there as if she knew it was going to happen.
His father poured himself a drink and then continued on with questions about what was going on. Seth relaxed feeling at ease as he went on and on about college and his friends. He also mentioned what was going on with the plantations as he knew he spent more time there than his father ever did.
When it came down to asking his father about the military, he looked over at Lucy. She was rocking his brother in her arms as he thought about how he was going to miss her. He also knew that he needed to be away from her as it could be dangerous getting caught by his mother.
Finally doing it, he asked his father for help getting a commission in the military. He knew he had the connections to do it and it was just a matter of him asking one of his colleagues to do it. He said what he wanted to do and then lied about life after the military. He lied and said that he wanted to run the Covington Hall which was close by and the one that he spent the most time at.
His father seemed elated and then with a dissatisfied look mentioned how his mother was going to be upset about it. Seth brushed it off and said he needed to do it and in a few years he would come back to run the planation.
He spent the morning with his father talking about politics of the day and what plans he had for a wife. He could see Lucy glaring at him when Seth brought it up, but then when he described the woman he wanted he made sure to include all the similarities that Lucy had.
Declining the invitation to head into Charleston was done with feigning busy work of writing letters to his friends and professors about him joining the military. His father also bought the lie that he needed to leave in the morning as well. Seth planned on leaving today but decided to stay late as to spend more time with his new love.
The moment his father left with Remo he walked into the kitchen to see Lucy. She was washing a pan in the water basin and looked over at him with a sarcastic grin. "So, you wantin' to marry a girl who is forward and with a big bosom. Girl who takes care of things and serves him milk? What your Pa going think that means? I can't believe you be saying that too."
He walked up right behind her wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her tight and putting his lips to her neck. "He knows I don't drink spirits."
"Ohhh you bad...you real bad for mentioning that I let you be having some of my milk?" she said jokingly.
He moved his hand down to her hips feeling her form and then moved upwards cupping her breasts, feeling how they overflowed from his hands. She turned to see him. "Mmmm you so bad...be quick. Don't know when your pa be gettin' back and I want to feel you in me."
She reached down pulling her dress up. "Hurry up and puts it in me...be wanting you all mornin'."
He undid his pants and then quickly aroused himself seeing her bare ass right before him. Her butt had a curve to it and some curves to it making his arousal very easy. He let go of her chest only to guide his length inside of her.
The feeling of parting her love flower was just like he remembered as he buried himself deep in her quickly too. Her snug sex hole was wet too as he pushed in so his body was against hers.
"Mmmmm...Good lord you be feeling so good in me." She moved, bowing her head the moment his full size entered her completely.
"Ohh God...I love you so much," he moaned in return feeling her love cave clamp on his shaft already.
She turned again to him. "I be yours too."
He grabbed a hold of her hips and then began a good steady pace of loving her body. Her backside absorbed his thrust as his love member slid through her love flower easily each time. She reached back holding his hips as his hands went to her breasts holding them and knowing that her bosom was full of milk and fed him not too long ago.
The sound of his body hitting hers as he pumped his body against hers was muffled by her dress that was bunched up at her waist. He wanted to rip her dress off and have her nude for him so she would know that there was nothing about her that he didn't love. His thoughts were that of loving her in every way possible.
His thrust got faster as he felt the build up of his release coming. She left go of his hips in return and put her hands on the table to support herself from the blows of his lovemaking. She leaned forward as he grabbed her hips harder and continued to plow into her sex each time. The familiar vice like sensation around his shaft followed too.
The harder he pushed and pulled her body into his, the more he felt a wet slippery sensation around his member too. As her sex walls got tighter he thrust through it, hearing a few soft moans from her. Still he continued his motions as her body seemed almost limp and yet willing for him to love the way he was.
As he was getting close to finishing, he grunted slightly feeling his sex becoming like an iron rod too. The sensation of needing to finish became greater and greater and before he knew it, he was feeling the need to let go. The sensitivity at the tip of his member was overwhelming and all he could do was push deep and hold it in her. His love rod felt bloated right before he climaxed too.
"Ohhhhhhh...good God..Ohhh," she moaned just as he released his loving climax in her.
Not being able to move out of her sex, he kept himself deep in her and just let his love flow into her. She looked at him now as her mouth was open and her face showing a pleasure to it. He returned the look as he gave into his climax, letting it pump out of him and into her love canal as if they were connected and she needed it to live.
She moved away and then let her dress drop to the floor. "You gettin too good at this."
Just as he began cleaning himself, she reached under her dress to do the same. "You do be knowin' that you could be puttin' a child in me."
He sat at the table catching his breath and energy. "That is a danger. Do you want to stop?"
She walked over to him putting her hands on his shoulders and then leaned down to kiss his cheek. "I don't minds. It be yours though. Won't be having freedom either. Mulatos be working in the fields like the rest of dem too. Misses be awful upset too. She gonna question who put a mixed baby in me."
"I can arrange something with my father. He only sees my mother so often and he has his own negroes," he said thinking that he could say something or that he could ask his father to take her and give his mother another slave.
She leaned down kissing him again. "I still wants you to do it with me. Baby come and I can handle it."
He looked to the side and up at her smiling face. "You do...not worried?"
"Best we do it when everyone is sleeping tonight. Not worried at all, just don't be getting all upset if you be seen me with a baby next time you see me."
"My mother finds out and you will be sold," he hissed, not wanting to lose her.
"I can handles the Misses. Besides, I be saying it was done before I become hers. She only be owning me for month now," she answered, walking away and cleaning up the prep table.
He stood up looking at her as she seemed not to be bothered at all. "You would say that."
She put her hand on her hip smiling at him like she knew something he didn't. "Not going to be sold off for something that I didn't do for all she thinks. Besides...I ain't having you leave without me having you one more time."
"Tonight?" His eyes opened.
She motioned with her hands for him to leave. "Gets off to your books or something else. I don't want to waste your energy and have nothin' for me tonight."
He smiled and left. All he could think of was that she was everything he wanted in a person to love. The idea that she was his was everything he felt and a warmth in his body came to him knowing that she wanted him just as bad.
With a few letters he needed to write done, he decided to get a few things for school in the city. It was close and he even chose taking a horse this time and not spending the time to walk. He figured his father would be back before the sun went down and that he would join him for dinner. With a lot of friends in the city, he knew his father could spend a week just visiting people, but he also knew that his mother was coming back in a day and he probably wanted to leave before she did.
The day passed quick and Seth got what he needed for school and a few other things for the trip done, so he headed back. He could see his father's carriage there and when he walked in, he saw his brother in his father's arms. He greeted him and then told him he would join him for dinner and would leave in the morning.
As he walked into the kitchen, he saw Lucy walking back and forth preparing the meal. As he walked past her, he couldn't help himself and grabbed a good part of her backside. She quickly turned to him giving him a scowl. "Don't be caught now. Best keep your thing tucked away."
"I can't help myself around you," he admitted smiling.
She put a pot down and then walked over to him pushing him forcefully down on the chair. She then looked towards the door before reaching for her buttons of her dress. "Hurry up."
As she quickly did a few buttons on her dress, she pulled out her right breast for him. He instantly latched on to suck. Although the flow of milk was there it was not overly strong. He thought more of being with her tonight than the fact her nipple was in his mouth.
She put her hand to his head as he sucked. "I want you real worked up for me tonight too."
All he could think about was being with her as he sucked. He was swallowing more and more of her warm milk as he sucked as he figured it was because of him. Just as he was settling into sucking, she pulled away and began to button up her dress.
"Be coming this way," she said as he heard his father's footsteps on the floor coming towards them.
He stood up and went to the door to see him and get some distance from her to not seem like something happened. As the steps got closer, he greeted his father who had a sleeping baby in his hands to give to Lucy. He figured she was going to attend to that as he went to his room to be out of the way.
While at dinner, his father brought up what the military was going to offer him and that his fellow representative would happily get him a commission. Seth did know it was not something high, but it didn't matter to him. He prepared for it in college and wanted to switch to a military school but was blocked by his mother.
After eating and the conversation after he noticed he did not see Lucy. He did hear his brother crying and knew she was handling him. His father did bring up the rift between him and his mother and Seth agreed to settle it. He settled into a conversation about politics and listened to his father's stance on the issues. He chose not to engage him on matters he disagreed with too as he figured keeping the peace was needed tonight.
After a few drinks of brandy with his father Seth retired to his bed hoping that his father had enough brandy in his body to make him sleep through the night. His lamp was out and his eyes close to his pocket watch waiting for at least a few hours to pass before visiting Lucy. All he could do was feel his heart pound with need for her as his body felt tense and loose about what was going to happen too.
It was going to be the last night for awhile before he would see her again, hoping that everything would stay as is with his mother's whims of getting new house negroes too. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility to buy and sell slaves that she deemed unworthy. He remembered his uncle telling him that as a child she would have some slave beat just so she knew they could feel pain like normal people.
With the night upon him and his courage mustered of getting caught, he turned on his lamp and ventured out to see her. Walking staggers as to not step on the loose boards he knew of, he made it to Lucy's small bedroom at the end of the hall. It was next to Ethan's room and also had a conjoining door so she could go into the room without even being seen in the hallway.
As he got to the door it opened for him as he knew she was holding the door open from behind it. He walked in to see she had her lamp dimly on as his now added to hers making the room brighter. Just as he walked in the door it closed and he turned to see her fully nude body.
The sight of her nude body in front of him almost made him step back as he spoke in surprise. "Ohhh my."
"Something wrong?" she responded, stepping back from him.
Not wasting a moment as time was too precious to him to waste with her, he closed the distance putting his hands on her hips holding her. "You are the too beautiful for me."
She looked like she was going to say something, but she moved in to kiss him. As he saw this, he did the same and then felt her lips against his. She opened her mouth and he took the initiative to find her tongue with his. Exploring her mouth and caressing her tongue with his, he let his hands explore her body.
As she did the same, he felt her begin to undo his pants and then ultimately finding his aroused manhood. She slid her hand along the shaft teasing it and working it up even more he felt. His hands then caressed her large brown globes, feeling the weight and softness to them as he then pulled every so slightly on her nipples before hearing her moan out from his touch.
Being pushed to the bed ended the kissing and groping as she now stood up over him as he was nude on the bed. She smiled at him with a look of pure loving lust. "I wants to be on top of you. Need you to know that I want it just as much as you."
Moving onto the center of the bed, he watched her get on the bed slowly. Her large breasts hanging down showed off their full size and roundness to him as she straddled his legs. She then moved up on his body before hovering over his length.
She smiled wide at him and then positioned his tip right at her flower and then she sunk down on it. As he felt his tip part her love flower, the snug warm wet sensation enveloped his member. Her sex tunnel was like nothing else to him as she then moved slowly back and forth on it.
Seth reached up caressing and cupping her breasts as she leaned down slightly letting him have better access to them as she continued to rotate and grind down against his body. He felt her tight love canal constrict against his member as she did it too. When she did open her eyes, it was followed with a big smile which he returned.
With her finding a rhythm of back and forth and rotating her hips, it was like he was feeling her entire love canal in a slow loving motion too. When he finally got to her nipples, he was rewarded with a thin stream of her breast milk.
"Mmmmmmm," she moaned as he kept pressure on her breasts and nipples, letting her warm milk cover him like it was a badge of love. He then finally moved his mouth over her nipple as he pulled her close.
Seth sucked her tit hard letting the milk flow fast in his mouth as she was not stopping her movements on his member. He switched breasts and did the same as he heard her holding in her moan, but feeling her love become tight like before.
Lucy finally pushed him down on the bed holding her hands on his milk covered chest. Her ass was bouncing on him hard like she was galloping on a horse now. He could feel his entire length go in and out of her love faster and faster now. She was not slowing down as he felt her sex gripping his manhood and the sliding action of going in and out of her building in his core of release.
The more she bounced on him, the more he felt his manhood being pleasured by her slick love. The sound of her body hitting his filled the room as if she didn't care about being caught. Her eyes fixated on his as he stared at her like she was the sun lighting up a dark day. His manhood throbbed for release as her sex enveloped it even though he felt it getting tighter.
The feeling of getting close came to him but it didn't matter. All the muscles in his body then got tighter as he was on the brink of exploding his soul into her. She smiled wide and then moved closer kissing him. Instantly he made sure his tongue met hers as he knew there was nothing holding him back from emptying his seed inside of her now.
She gripped him tight holding on as he moaned in her mouth as she moaned in return. He felt his pulsating member finally let go as the pressure was too much, feeling her sex hole constrict tightly as his climax now thundered throughout his body. The pleasure of emptying his love nectar inside of her was both satisfying and emotional as he knew that she was accepting his love seed in her.
He continued to kiss her as he felt his manhood draining into her as he felt her sex wanting it and massaging it for more. His tongue was still exploring her mouth as she held onto him as he wanted her to stay onto him for eternity. Time seemed like an enemy as he wanted more and hated that his member was losing strength too.
Lucy finally leaned back smiling at him as he saw her dark nipples dripping slightly. "You mine Seth Childs. Gonna love no man like I love you."
Just as he wanted to say the same back, she put her fingers on his lips stopping him. "Don't talk. Just know that no matter what be happening...I love you. Will always love you. God knows I want more, but I will take what is given to me."
She then got off of him and as he stood up to kiss her, she put her hand over his mouth. "Don't...just head back to your bed. Be loving me in your heart all I want. But you got to go now."
As he was pushed out of the room naked holding his clothes her door shut and he heard a few whispers from her. He stepped back hearing the floorboard creak loudly as he knew the sound could stir somebody awake. Retreating back to his room he wanted to comfort her, but another door opened as the quiet night was no longer.
****Dialog of slaves.****
The dialog of slaves is not perfect in this story and I know that. If I wanted to make it historically accurate is would be very difficult to read as an erotic love story. Not all slaves were treated the same and not all speech is the same either.
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Although he hadn’t spoken to her since they were eighteen, Klaus had always assumed that Vanya was okay. She had always been the most normal out of them⏤ literally. She had even gone to real school later in life and had never been tied down by the same type of expectations and manipulation that the others had. He knew Reginald hadn’t been kind to her, but that was par for the course in their house. At the very least, she hadn’t been subject to experimentation with questionable medications.
Even when the book came out, his reaction had been more internal, assuming that her complaints would be about exposing the truth of the Academy and any negativity would be focused on the mess that the others had made of their lives, Klaus chief among them. It would be Vanya’s triumph, succeeding as the most well-adjusted while the rest of them scrambled and fought to find their place in a world they were never prepared for.
But then again, Klaus had thought Daniel was okay too.
As he poured over the reviews of her book again, new images began to form in his mind. Some of the more negative articles called Vanya “bitter” and analyzed the book as a “desperate attempt to gain the love and reassurance that she lacked in childhood”.
The idea that he had missed another warning sign sent panic throughout his entire body. It had been months since the book came out. Who knew what kind of damage Vanya could have done to herself in that time while Klaus remained oblivious because he couldn’t take a little criticism?
Sitting in his apartment, not having even taken off his shoes after visiting the hospital, Klaus reached for the dusty book off his trunk. He had spent much of his life running from responsibility and consequences, which carried results ranging from bad to total shit. Since getting clean, he had been trying to make up for that, in a sense at least. But, he realized as he opened the book, the spine crackling, showing the cover had never been lifted before, he had been doing the same thing he'd always done by ignoring what must have been a cry for help. With trembling fingers, he turned the first page.
He read with fervor, turning the pages so fast they nearly tore, Ben hunched over his shoulder trying to follow along. The words blurred together, leaving only fragmented statements behind in his brain.
Luther, or Number One as the world knows him, was the leader… obsessed with pleasing our father… dedicated⏤ too dedicated, to the point he forgot he is also a brother…
Number Two, Diego, was headstrong and brash… never catch up to Luther… resented his status as Two… stutter…
Allison… used to always getting her way… need for attention… reckless with her use of her powers…
Ben, Six, who died too young… shy… never wanted to hurt…
Five, gone without a name… the protector...
When he reached the section about himself, Klaus slowed, each new phrase standing out with increasing horror.
Then there was Klaus, Number Four, who, for a time at least, was the most like me. Until we were twelve, he was nearly as ‘useless’ as I was. Only through copious amounts of morphine was he able to ‘harvest his full potential’ as our father called it… though we didn’t realize exactly what the magical enhancement was until later...
Klaus breathed shakily, gripping the pages tighter as he pressed on.
Addicted by age thirteen… always joking so that you couldn’t see the way he was cracking under the pressure…
Time began slipping away from Klaus and the words bled from one painful observation to the next.
But not totally with blame… chose to continue using... incapable of caring for himself, yet doesn’t wish to care for anyone else… shut everyone but his needle out… not sure if he was more addicted to the drugs or the power they gave him… homeless… arrested, I heard… most likely gone back to the oblivion that became his only way of coping…resigned myself to knowing that he will most likely be the next to die… just waiting for the news that he’s overdosed for the last time…
Each line hit Klaus harder than the last, clawing out his insides with jagged blades of self-loathing. He forced himself through each damning sentence until he reached the most crushing blow– the realization of just how much Vanya (and god, fucking everyone, everyone had read that damn book) knew about his life and what he’d done to survive.
But perhaps the worst part is that death may be the only place in which he can finally rest, at last away from his tormentors, both living and dead. For him, it may even be a twisted blessing. It is a thought I grapple with when I think that he could be back in the hands of those who thought they owned him and used⏤
He shut the book with a snap, his jaw open and his eyes wide.
“I can’t believe she wrote that,” Ben said in horror and vague shock.
“Well, fuck,” was all that Klaus could say.
***
He devoured the book in two days and spent the next week thinking about it. In all that time, Klaus barely got out of bed. He lay in his crumpled sheets, gazing with unseeing eyes at the ceiling and walls. Long stretches of the day passed without him noticing, fading into an endless gray desolation.
Even Ben, who was growing increasingly concerned by Klaus’s behavior, began to flicker in and out of reality as Klaus retreated into a part of his brain that was shut off to everything. Eventually, Klaus stopped seeing him altogether. The silence was oppressive without him. Like Klaus was in the Crypt, buried deep underground and left bitterly sober and alone.
His phone died and Klaus didn’t bother recharging it, the cord lying two feet away seeming impossibly far out of reach. Every once in a while he managed to get up to go to the bathroom or eat a few bites of whatever was simplest and at roughly eye-level in the cabinet, but it was barely enough to keep himself alive. Twice he got in the shower, but all he was able to do was stand under the water until it ran cold, staring blankly at the wall.
Every coherent thought he managed to have was about the book. How Klaus felt about it changed on a nearly by-minute basis. A part of him wanted to cheer for Vanya, tell her to ride-on and fuck Reginald.
He was also mortified by what she said about him, and more so by the fact that it was all true. And he couldn’t exactly fault her for that, telling the truth.
Yet, who was she to tell the whole world their secrets? To rip away whatever privacy and sense of normality that he had built?
But then again, Vanya had no way of knowing that. She, apparently, was aware that he’d been arrested and had an idea of what his life had been like beforehand. Klaus wasn’t sure why or how, though he supposed she could have looked up his arrest record before it had been sealed. Or heard about it from Diego. (He had to know, right?)
Beyond what she said about him, there was one line he returned to again and again.
And then there was me, Number Seven, who was not special, not powerful, and not wanted by anyone.
Klaus burned with how much he wanted her to be his sister again.
Excluding Vanya had never been intentional, or at least not maliciously so. Klaus was consumed with thoughts and rationalizations as he lay in bed, the book discarded next to him, unable to sleep but bone-crushingly tired.
Of course Vanya couldn’t go on missions and without powers, so there was no point in her training with them. It wasn’t his fault that she’d been left out of that. Besides which, training wasn’t fun. Klaus would have given anything to play violin with Vanya instead of breaking his fingers on a punching bag.
Sure, training took up most of their lives, but again, it wasn’t their fault that they were kept apart from her so often. Even their lessons were done separately from Vanya’s after a certain point, even before she left. He knew vaguely that her schooling was focused more on traditional subjects⏤ he heard her reports to Reginald on her progress with Emily Dickinson and algebra. Again, he resented that a little, remembering the difficulty of sorting through his twisted gaps in education while trying to earn his GED. She was lucky.
Klaus would admit that, when they did have free time, especially as children, their games were not meant for Vanya either. Hide and seek quickly got intense, and capture the flag more so. She didn’t have powers to give advantage to her team or protect herself. To let her play would have been dangerous. Were they supposed to have let her get hurt?
But it dawned on Klaus, making him feel rather dumb for never putting the pieces together before, that there was no reason that they had to play those games. Unconsciously or not, they had chosen activities that she could never play.
In his memory, the times actually spent with Vanya stuck out, creating the impression that she was more present than the reality was. Klaus realized that most of his most significant memories of actually spending time with Vanya were on their birthday, like including her was a special treat. The other most important memories he could think of were when she was leaving and the pitiful party they’d thrown for her, barely even attended.
Memories of countless hours passed with Allison, giggling over dress-up and stolen magazines smuggled into the Academy and hidden under the bed, rose to the forefront of his mind.
They were followed by the afternoons he spent following Diego around, amusing himself by being annoying or begging for help to master whatever combat skill Reginald found lacking that week.
There had been plenty of days that he lay on Ben’s bedroom floor, listening to his walkman while Ben read, neither of them talking.
Not to mention the nights that he sat with Five, trying to sort through whatever real schooling that Reginald had given them.
There were even a few rare occasions when Luther had let Klaus help with his model building, Klaus reading the instructions while Luther practiced controlling his strength by handling the tiny, delicate pieces with enormous care.
The past played out behind his eyes like a film, scored by violin music, always muffled by closed doors, yet drowning every peel of laughter in mournful sweeping notes. In well over half of his memories, Vanya was absent, locked away in her room. Klaus had never blamed Vanya for taking her ticket out, but for the first time, he realized that her reasons really were as good as any of the others'.
Klaus returned repeatedly to Vanya’s profile where she advertised her violin lessons and now, her book. He punched the number listed there into his phone only to hit cancel at least once a day. Her words echoed through him, incapable of caring for himself yet doesn’t wish to care for anyone else.
Klaus wanted to protest those words but found his imagined statement of love to Vanya dying in his head before he could ever press the call button. Even if he did wish to, his failure with Daniel only proved that he was unqualified to care for others.
He doubted that she would be interested in hearing from him.
He wondered if she really wanted him dead so that he wouldn’t suffer or so that she wouldn’t need to think about him anymore.
Was it supposed to be a blessing for him or for his family?
***
On the ninth day of his isolation, a pounding sounded on Klaus’s door. He barely registered it, blinking slowly as he hoped vaguely that whoever it was would go away.
“Klaus?” Lauren called. “Are you in there?”
He groaned under his breath and curled up tighter, burrowing deeper into his mattress.
“Klaus!” she shouted again. “Are you in there?” More pounding came and he moaned again, slightly louder. “Klaus?” Lauren asked more quietly, “Did I hear you?
He kept silent.
“KLAUS⏤ I, fuck, I don’t know your middle name. Do you even have one? ⏤HARGREEVES! If you don’t open this goddamn door, I will do it myself!”
Finally stirred at least a little by her instance, he raised an eyebrow, casting a dubious look at the door.
As if hearing him, Lauren continued, “You know I have a spare key, Klaus! I will not hesitate to use it!”
Oh. Right.
“I am coming in!” The doorknob rattled.
Klaus sighed, closing his eyes again. It wasn’t like he could stop her.
“Klaus?” Lauren called, stepping into the apartment. “Oh my god.” There was the sound of something hitting the floor and hurried footsteps before desperate hands clutched Klaus’s arms, turning him onto this back. “Klaus!” she cried. “Klaus, are you okay?”
His eyes fluttered open. “Fine,” he muttered.
Lauren grabbed his arm, turning it over. “Did you take anything?” she demanded, yanking the other limb over when she couldn’t find any track marks.
“No.” Klaus wasn’t quite with it enough to be insulted but he felt like he should be. He was just so fucking tired.
“What did you take?” Lauren asked again frantically, shaking his shoulders. “Wake up! Do I need to call 911?”
Klaus opened his eyes again.“I’m fine. I didn’t take anything.”
“You left the hospital without talking to anyone. You haven’t responded to our dozens of calls. No one has seen or heard from you in over a week. The only explanation is that you went on a bender or that you’re an asshole.”
“I’m an asshole. Surprised?”
Lauren smacked him on the back of his head.
“Ow!”
She was not impressed. “No! I am not fucking happy, Klaus! Tell me the truth! Did. You. Use.”
“No.”
Lauren stared into Klaus’s eyes, searching for the truth. “Your pupils look normal. That’s something.” She let go of his shoulders and turned sharply. Lauren stalked to the kitchen area, pulling open cabinets and drawers, rifling through them.
“What are you doing?
"Making sure there isn’t anything stupid here.” She went to the dresser and began going through the clothes.
“I’m clean!”
“Then what the fuck is going on?” Lauren demanded, turning around.
“I’m fucking sad, okay!”
“You were nearly unresponsive when I got here⏤"
"And you can tell that I’m not high⏤"
"And you’ve been MIA for days. That is not normal, Klaus.”
Without really knowing why Klaus felt his eyes begin to burn. “I didn’t use,” he pleaded, needing her to know that at the very least he wasn’t as rotted-out as she thought. “I didn’t.”
“Oh,” Lauren’s voice was small as she dropped the clothes and came to sit down on the bed. Gingerly, she covered Klaus’s hand with her own. “Okay.”
He was crying again. Funny, Klaus thought he couldn’t do that anymore. It had seemed like his tears dried up days ago. “Why don’t you believe me?”
“I believe you,” Lauren told him gently. “I’m sorry. I was just really worried about you, Klaus. After what happened to Daniel…”
He sniffed harshly, unable to look at her.
“Are you okay?” Lauren asked.
“I didn’t⏤"
"I know,” she assured, “I know you didn’t use, but you’ve still been out of contact for a week. I’m concerned.”
Klaus drew away from her, sitting against the headboard, wrapping his arms around his legs. “I’m fine.”
“Klaus.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Your friend was very sick, but Klaus,” Lauren took his hand tentatively. “He’s okay.”
“What?” his eyes snapped up to look at her.
“Daniel. He woke up. He’s okay.”
Klaus blinked. “He is?”
“Yeah.” Lauren smiled at him, slowly sitting on the edge of the bed. “He woke up yesterday. I tried to call you to let you know but you didn’t respond.”
Relief, bone-deep, washed over him, so overwhelming he couldn’t form words to express it. Instead, he responded to Lauren’s concern.“Sorry,” he rasped. “Phone died.”
Lauren hummed. “Well, when I didn’t hear anything from you about that I knew I had to come check on you.”
“Thank you,” Klaus said. “He’s really okay?”
“Yeah. Still aching a bit, that kind of thing is hard on a body, and he’s going to need to go to treatment again, but he’s okay.”
“Thank fuck, ” Klaus breathed.
“Everyone’s relieved,” Lauren agreed. “But we’re also worried about you. You gave us all a bit of a scare."
Klaus winced, guilty. “Has it really been a week?”
“Yeah. More than.”
“Oh. It felt… longer but also I don’t remember anything.”
“Have you been in bed this whole time?” Lauren asked, brushing Klaus’s hair out of his face.
“Pretty much.”
“I’m going to be honest, it kinda smells like it.”
Klaus blushed deeply. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’re going to get you cleaned up, okay?”
He sighed. “But the bathroom is so far, and I’m so tired .”
Lauren’s face darkened with concern. She pressed a hand to his forehead. “It doesn’t feel like you have a temperature. Have you felt sick?”
"No. Just tired.”
“I think you might feel a little better if you’re at least cleaned up a bit. If you can take a shower, I will change your sheets for you. Okay?"
"Okay,” he agreed.
“Good,” Lauren nodded officially. “Come on.” She stood and extended her hand to him.
Klaus let her help him up. As he stood, his vision turned spotty and he swayed dangerously.
"Woah,” she said, steadying him. “Are you alright?”
“Fine. Just got up too fast. Saw stars and all that.” He lightly shook off her hands.
"When was the last time you ate?” she asked.
Klaus couldn’t remember.
His pause must have indicated as much because Lauren frowned. “Actually, you’re going to eat something first. I don’t want you passing out in the shower.” She steered him into a kitchen chair. “What do you want?”
"I don’t even know what I have.”
Lauren went through the cabinets more slowly. “Not much,” she admitted. She glanced in the fridge and grimaced. “That’s going to need cleaning out too.” Finally, she located a somewhat squashed granola bar. “Here. Eat this and then shower. I’ll order some real food for when you get out.”
Klaus began mechanically chewing the bar and when Lauren set a glass of water down in front of him he drank the whole thing obediently.
“Okay,” she said, helping him up again. “Shower time.” She marched him to the bathroom. “Get started, I’ll bring you something clean while you’re in there.”
Klaus just nodded as the door closed softly behind him. He dropped his clothes in a heap on the floor and got under the spray, his tense muscles slowly unwinding as the warm water washed down his back. For several minutes, he just stood there, staring at the seam where the wall met the floor.
“Klaus?” Lauren called, tapping lightly on the door. “I’m coming in to put your clean clothes in here, okay?”
The sound of her voice brought him back to the real world. “Okay.” Klaus listened to her move in and out of the bathroom. As the door closed again, he began washing, moving in small increments until he was fully clean. By the time he stepped out, the mirror was fogged up and his body had turned light pink.
The clean clothes were folded neatly, waiting for him. Klaus dressed in sweatpants and a soft shirt. He took a moment to brush his teeth, his movements still feeling stilted and separated from reality. Being clean didn’t make his chest feel any less empty, but it made his body feel slightly less horrendously filthy.
⏤ the hands of those who thought they owned him ⏤
Vanya’s words hissed in his mind and Klaus pushed down the nausea as he told himself that the hands he felt around his hips were just memories.
He didn't feel so clean anymore.
Not wanting to scare Lauren again, he forced himself out of the bathroom before he spiraled, pushing those thoughts back in the little box he kept in the back of his mind marked do not open.
Lauren looked up from the brown paper bag she was unpacking at the table. “Good. The food just got here. Sit down.”
Klaus complied.
She put a bowl of ramen down in front of him. “Eat.”
He wasn’t hungry, but Klaus had noticed as he dressed that his hands were a little shaky so he silently agreed that he probably needed food. He began picking at the soup, taking small bites to settle his turning stomach.
Lauren kept on with her task of cleaning his apartment up. She had already remade the bed and its soft crisp sheets called to Klaus. Lauren had opened the window to let fresh air and was tending to his neglected plants. Klaus felt a little pang of guilt seeing them wilted, but thankfully it didn’t look like any had died. His powers didn’t actually work on plants. Klaus’s lips quirked at his own internal joke.
When she finished wiping down the counters, Lauren sat opposite Klaus. “Are you eating?” she prodded.
“Trying to.” Klaus took another small bite.
"Is there something wrong with it?”
“I don’t feel hungry.”
“You need to eat⏤"
“I know!” Klaus interrupted harshly. Immediately, he winced. “Sorry. I know,” he repeated more gently.
“It’s okay.”
He took another bite.
“Klaus, I’m⏤”
“Worried?” he snapped.
She frowned reproachfully. “Yes.”
Klaus deflated. “I just… needed a break. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not angry at you, Klaus. Well, I am, a little bit. But mostly I’m just concerned about you. You’re obviously severely depressed.”
He shrugged. “I’m fine.”
"Klaus, this isn’t normal."
"I’ve never been normal.”
“This isn’t normal for you.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
“It’s okay if you’re upset about Daniel, Klaus.”
“It’s not about me. I don’t have a right to⏤ ” Klaus cut himself off.
"He is your friend,” Lauren said gently.
"He’s yours too, and you’re not falling apart.”
“I think,” Lauren started cautiously, “that you’ve had a lot of things to deal with in your life, Klaus. Sometimes things can have a pile-on effect.”
“That’s the thing. I shouldn’t be bothered by this kind of thing anymore. I’m Klaus! I don’t give a fuck! I just let things bounce right off of me! I’ve seen death and gore and pain like you couldn’t fucking imagine! One more tragedy⏤ not even tragedy, one more near tragedy , shouldn’t matter to me! I’ve lost Five and seen what happened to Ben⏤ why should this hurt ?” As he spoke, his voice went from sarcastic bitter laughter to broken shouting. He realized his face was wet and he grit his teeth in frustration. “He’s not even dead. He’s fine and I can’t fucking calm down. And why do I keep fucking crying?” He wiped at his face angrily. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to care for anyone else ?” he bit out Vanya’s words harshly, his mocking tone making the reference clear.
"Fuck,” Lauren muttered. “You read the book?”
“Yeah I read the book. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We were hoping you would read it with someone… or call someone after you did see. Maybe we should have prepared you more but you seemed like you weren’t ready for it and I’m really sorry, Klaus⏤”
“It’s fine,” he told her, the fight leaving his body in an exhausted rush.
“Are you⏤?”
“Yeah. It’s fine. It’s fine, Lauren. I just… I’m a mess and I don’t know why because it’s not like it’s new for people to think that and Daniel is fine and I have nothing to fucking cry about.”
"Klaus,” Lauren spoke sadly and very carefully, “I think this might just be one thing too many. Even just coming close to losing someone can be traumatic. And having every one of your past traumas dragged up again and aired out for the world to see is… I can’t imagine. Besides, it is not a sign of weakness to love or have emotions.”
“Tell that to Daddy-dearest.”
"Your father was an asshole.”
Klaus laughed in surprise. “Fair.”
“Don’t let him tell you what the right way to deal with things is. You’ve spent your whole life in a series of traumas, unable to take a break to just breathe and deal with things. I think that now that you’re finally in a safe enough place to do so, you’re resting for all of the terrible things that have happened to you.”
Klaus pondered that. “Did you go to psychologist school while I was out of it?"
Lauren smiled reluctantly. “No. But I have gone to a lot of therapy.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I’m always right,” Lauren bragged lightly. “Now finish your soup. I’m here to take care of you.”
Klaus managed a tiny smile. “Okay.”
After putting Klaus back to bed and waiting for him to fall asleep, (he was still somehow exhausted after a week of rest) Lauren took a quick trip back to her apartment to pack a bag and moved in, taking up residence on the couch. She declared her intention to stay for as long as necessary, no arguments.
For the next few days, she made sure the apartment was clean and that he ate and showered while Klaus battled his way out of the fog he’d been lost in since the news came. If she wasn’t actively keeping him alive, Lauren just kept Klaus company while he watched tv or even just slept, allowing him space to breathe.
When Klaus finally thought to ask her about why she wasn’t at work, she waved off his concerns with the explanation she'd cashed in some vacation time.
He was too tired to think about how out of character that was for her.
***
“Hey, Klaus?” Lauren said, four days into her stay.
“Yeah?” He had managed to move from his bed to the couch, a minor improvement and a positive sign.
“I was thinking, it might be good for you to call Daniel.”
He startled, looking at her. “Why?”
Lauren blinked. “Uh. He’s your friend? And I know you’ve been really worried about him? And,” she hesitated. “He’s been asking about you.”
"He has?” Klaus asked, his surprise evident.
“Yeah,” Lauren told him. “Of course he has. He really looks up to you, Klaus.”
He stared at her. “Why?”
Lauren’s expression was sad as she considered Klaus. “You’re a kind, interesting person and a queer mentor to him,” she said as if it should be obvious.
“A what ?”
"A mentor,” Lauren repeated. “He thinks of you as a big brother, Klaus.”
Klaus thought of Diego and Five and even Luther. Despite them being the same age as him, he’d always thought of them as his big brothers. They were protectors. They saved him and helped him a hundred times over. They, and especially Diego, had done their best for him.
Klaus had failed them.
Just as Klaus had failed Daniel.
"I’m not someone anyone should look up to,” Klaus whispered.
Lauren’s face crumpled. “But Daniel does.”
“He shouldn’t. He can’t. Even if he did before, there is no way he does now. Not when I⏤” he cut himself off. Not when it’s my fault , he thought.
“Klaus,” Lauren tried to say.
“I can’t,” he said harshly. “I can’t talk to him, I⏤” his breathing was speeding up, growing ragged and uneven as he fought to keep from panicking. He knew that he deserved the anger and blame that Daniel no doubt had for him, but he was too much of a coward to face it. “I just can’t.”
"Okay,” Lauren said soothingly, clearly seeing how close he was to panic. “Okay, Klaus. You don’t have to.”
She sat with him for a long time while he struggled to calm down again, not saying another word about contacting Daniel.
***
Noah showed up unprompted (by Klaus at least) at his door the day after Klaus refused to call Daniel. He let Klaus sit in bed while they talked, which Klaus took as a sign that he must have looked as terrible as he felt. His opinion on why everything had hit Klaus so hard was similar to what Lauren’s had been, though he let Klaus do most of the talking. At first it was about Daniel, but more began to bleed out the longer he went.
Klaus spoke until his voice was raw, half-buried memories rising from the depths of his mind; the deaths of those he loved and those of people he never knew until their mutilated bodies came to him begging for help, his own overdoses, the nights when he wedged himself into the corner of a dumpster and a building, hoping he wouldn’t freeze to death. Or, on the bad nights, almost hoping he would.
Noah didn’t offer any way to fix it, because there was nothing that could change the past. But he listened and with every word spoken, the story held less weight across Klaus’s shoulders.
Klaus began to open up about parts of his childhood he’d never mentioned before. What they did to Vanya, how he felt like none of his siblings would care to hear from him, how much he loathed himself.
“I don’t think that as much of it was intentional as Vanya maybe thought,” he said, his voice cracking from overuse. “Or maybe I just don’t want to admit what an asshole I am. I don’t know.”
“Maybe,” Noah offered carefully. “Your father modeled how to treat Vanya, and you followed that, perhaps somewhat unknowingly?”
He blinked. “Oh.”
“Does that sound right?”
“He really fucked us over,” Klaus muttered in response, running a hand through his hair. It snagged on his tangled curls. He was not looking forward to having to take care of those when he finally managed to do more than shower the grime off.
“Have you thought about reaching out to her?”
“Of course.”
"Will you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
"You read what she said about me. About us.”
"Are you angry with her?”
“No. Yes. But mostly no. I don’t think so. I don’t know. I mean, it was a pretty baller move. Like, I wish I had told Daddy to go to hell that directly. Icon behavior, really.”
“Klaus,” Noah redirected him.
He sighed. “Point is. I thought about calling her. I was actually planning on trying to see her before the book was released. But then I started doubting if she’d want to see me. Now I know she doesn’t”
I’m not fully sure she wants me alive, he added silently.
“It seems to me that all she wanted was to be accepted by you and your siblings.”
“And I didn’t give her that when she needed it. Now I’m just a junkie who can’t care for himself and doesn’t wish to care for anyone else . Or whatever the line was.”
“Now, Klaus, that is not true⏤”
“That’s what she thinks.”
“You could show her⏤”
“No,” he interrupted sadly. “No. I can’t.”
“And why not?”
“Because she’s right. Even Lauren thought I’d used. That I fell back into doing what I know best. Not that I blame her.”
“For starters, I am sure that Lauren’s fear had more to do with what just happened to Daniel than any negative thoughts about you. And as for Vanya’s opinion, she has not seen you in something like seven years, correct?”
He nodded.
“Have you not changed in that time? Klaus, you’ve been clean for over a year and half⏤ not counting your time in jail as you insist on doing. You’re working two jobs paying for your own apartment and haven’t been in trouble since you got out. Whatever you thought you were before, you’re not anymore. I don’t think you ever were.”
“I thought about using,” he admitted, staring down. When Noah did not speak, he continued, “I think the only reason that I didn’t was because I was too tired to get up.”
“Why did you want to use, Klaus?”
“I don’t know, I figured, if everyone thinks that I’m trash⏤ why not be?”
“I don’t think you’re trash, Klaus.”
He laughed harshly. “I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re supposed to say things like that to me, you’re my therapist.”
“Technically, I’m here off the clock. So that doesn’t count.”
Klaus managed to give him a brief, shallow smile. “Thanks.”
“I am concerned about you though, Klaus. I think you are in a vulnerable position at the moment and more turmoil could push you over the edge. I want you to reach out to people when you’re feeling this way. You need a support system.”
“Okay,” Klaus agreed, though quietly doubting if that was as good an idea as Noah thought. He wasn’t so much a part of a system as he was a parasite leeching off of people much better than him.
“Do you still feel like using right now?”
“No. I don’t know. No?”
“Can you verbalize how you’re feeling at all?”
"I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
“Good, but?”
“But I don’t think I can be more than that.”
“You’re wrong,” Noah told him firmly.
There was a long pause while a range of emotions ran through Klaus.
Finally, he admitted in a small voice that Noah struggled to hear, “I wish I could believe you.”
Noah made a pained expression, assuring him gently, “We’re going to get you there.”
Klaus gave him a weak smile that clearly conveyed how little faith he had in that statement. After all, if Daniel (smart, kind, incredible Daniel) couldn’t stay clean, how was trash like Klaus supposed to?
***
Klaus was all but mute for a full day after Noah left. He knew it was worrying Lauren, he saw the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn't paying attention, but he couldn't help it. He was too lost in his own thoughts and jumbled emotions to speak.
Finally, late in the second morning after Noah came, five days into her stay, Lauren asked him, "Klaus?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you okay?"
He shrugged, picking at his nails. He was sitting on the bed, his knees against his chest. Lauren had been concerned when he’d retreated there after breakfast, but he’d insisted that it counted as not being in bed because the covers were made. She’d let the argument go on the technicality but it appeared that she wasn’t assured of his mental state as Lauren watched him from the kitchen.
"Did I mess up, asking Noah to come?" she asked nervously.
Klaus glanced at her. She was wringing her hands, examining him with clear worry. His stomach twinged guiltily. "No."
"Are you sure? I'm sorry if I did. You can say so. I was just worried and–"
"I'm not mad, Lauren."
"Oh. Okay. If you’re sure."
"I'm sure."
"Then, can I ask what is bothering you?"
Klaus studied her, the genuine concern and care in her eyes making him uncomfortable. "You should go home," he said.
"What?" Hurt flashed across her face. "Did I do something else that–?"
"No. Lauren, I'm not angry at you," Klaus repeated, the frustration in his voice undermining his point a bit. Why didn’t she understand that he was the one who always messes things up?
"Then what?" Lauren asked. "Why?"
"I don't deserve this. You being here. All this worry."
Lauren's voice cracked as she said, "Klaus–"
"There is something I haven't told you," Klaus whispered, wrapping his arms tightly around his legs.
Lauren paused in confusion.
"You think I'm something that I'm not," Klaus continued. "You think I'm… better than I am."
"Whatever this is about, Klaus, I'm sure–"
"I used to deal coke," Klaus interrupted.
Lauren blinked. "What?"
"That's what I got arrested for. I sold cocaine to young, impressionable college students. I targeted them specifically. I made users and addicts out of kids with futures, just so I could have some free smack and a shitty basement to live in."
"Klaus, what–"
"I sold to kids like Daniel."
Lauren's breath caught as her eyes widened to saucers.
"That’s what could have killed him. Nearly did kill him. Coke. Who the fuck knows how many kids I killed like that? Or just lives I fucking ruined?"
Lauren didn't say anything and the self-loathing in Klaus only built.
"I'm a selfish fucking asshole who gets to run around living free while I've sentenced a bunch of fucking kids to live in the hell hole of addiction for the rest of their fucking lives just because I was too selfish and scared to–" his voice broke. "To get clean or fuck , just continue with what I was doing before. At least when I was a whore I didn't hurt anyone but myself. But I was selfish and I wanted–" Klaus dimly realized how loud his voice was getting and the shame of his failures rose up to cut him off with a choked gasp.
He explained weakly, "I wanted⏤” Even with everything in Vanya’s book that Lauren undoubtedly knew already, he couldn’t bring himself to give voice to what had happened. How desperate he was to not be hurt again. He let the words die in his throat and admitted quietly, “So I threw someone else under the bus."
"Klaus," Lauren said and it sounded like a plea. She carefully approached, as if Klaus were a wild animal she might frighten away, and sat on the bed next to him. With a ginger hesitancy, she reached out to him.
Klaus flinched back and she froze.
There was a long pause before Lauren asked, "Look at me?"
With a turning stomach, Klaus obeyed.
Lauren looked devastated.
"I'm sorry I lied," he whispered.
"How did you lie?" she asked just as softly.
"I let you believe I was good."
"Klaus,” Lauren said, her voice aching. “You are good."
"But–"
"No buts. I know you. What you did out of fear and desperation… that isn't you. You are the person who adopts dying plants because you feel bad for them and remembers everyone's birthday even when you were only told once and can get birds to land in your palm and helped me say goodbye to my grandmother."
"I've killed people."
"You don't know that for sure. And even if someone you sold to–"
"Yes, I do. I've killed people. Directly. Knowingly. Even if I didn't cause an overdose."
Lauren stared at him.
"Umbrella Academy, remember?”
Her lips parted in a silent oh of understanding.
The words tumbled from Klaus’s tips, tearing their way out of him against his will. “You know what I did? When I was sixteen, I stabbed a man in the eye. Left eye. Blue eyes. Were actually kinda pretty before I wrecked them. I see them sometimes at night, staring at me. Anyway, when I pulled the knife out, his eye came with it. It was still attached by veins and tendons, like a bloody rope coming out of his head. He screamed. It was so loud. I didn’t stop. I pulled at the knife, at the eye, until it came unattached. There was blood everywhere. I left him writhing on the ground for thirty minutes while I helped to kill his accomplices. When I came back, he was still alive. He was trying to crawl away. I slit his throat.
"When I was seventeen, I broke someone's neck with my hands. I felt it snap, the bones separating from tendons. I saw the way his eyes went glassy and dull as his life drained out of him. He went limp under me. I let his head go and it cracked open against the floor. He was still fresh enough that the blood pooling under my knees was warm.
"Once, I beat a man's head in with a brick. He'd tried to hurt me. He’d wrapped his hands around my throat and the brick was the first thing my hand fell on. I forgot all of my other training. I was scared and I didn't know when to stop. I only needed to hit him once probably. He let go of me and I got out from under him. But I hit him again. I just kept going until his face was pulverized. He didn't look human anymore. I was covered in his blood. I could taste it and I just kept going. Diego pulled me off of him. I was thirteen."
Klaus looked back at Lauren to see she'd gone deathly pale. She looked like she was going to be sick.
"I'm a murderer."
"You were a living weapon," she said, her voice strained. "And a child ."
He shrugged. "I still did it. They're still dead. I killed dozens of people. In brutal, painful ways. I’ve heard them tell me how much it hurt. Sure, some of them were murderers themselves. And some of them were just fucking robbers. I killed them all the same. I am a bad person, Lauren."
"You're not."
He looked at her incredulously.
"You've done,” she hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Bad things for difficult and complex reasons. But you are not bad."
"If you wait long enough, you will see the truth," he warned.
"What?” Lauren asked dismissively. “Are you planning on hurting me?"
"No! Of course not. I'm– I mean I’m bad but I'm not trying to be. I wouldn't do it on purpose. But I always hurt everyone. Eventually."
"Klaus. That’s what being a human is. We all hurt each other. But then we apologize and do better and move on."
"Most humans don't murder people."
"Most humans aren't experimented on and turned into child soldiers by the man who is supposed to be their father."
Klaus huffed a bitter laugh at that.
"I'm so sorry," Lauren said gently.
"For what?" Klaus asked, resigned to the fact that she was about to tell him she couldn't speak to him again.
"That you've been so hurt, and that you've spent so long thinking you deserve it. You didn't. You never have. And you never will."
Klaus couldn’t say anything more. He finally broke, hot tears running down his face as Lauren pulled him into a hug he knew he didn't deserve but wasn’t strong enough to turn down.
***
Two days later, after a great deal of insistence, Klaus finally got Lauren to go back home and take a rest for a few hours. Although the most recent break down had startled her, seeing Klaus willingly get out of bed and stay out of bed for a full day gave Lauren some assurance that he could be trusted to keep himself alive for twenty-four hours, though she made him promise to call if he needed help.
The following morning, safe in the emptiness of his apartment, Klaus was finally able to summon Ben again. He appeared in the early light that streamed in through the window, familiar and comforting just in his presence alone.
“Hey,” Ben greeted in obvious relief.
“Hey.”
“I was worried about you.”
“Sorry. I keep doing that.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Oh. Good.”
“But if you ever give up like that again, I will end you.”
“Haha.”
“I’m not joking.” The look Ben gave him was serious but not unkind.
Klaus smiled reluctantly. “Thanks, Benny.”
Ben’s stern expression cracked and he returned the grin. “Move over.” He came to sit next to Klaus in bed and they spent the morning talking in muted tones while Klaus dipped in and out of drowsiness.
In a phase of vague awareness, Klaus heard him mutter, “Vanya was wrong.”
He fell asleep again, some tiny part of him relaxing into the assurance that there was one person in his family who wasn’t disgusted by him.
***
Over the next week, Lauren came by every day to ensure that Klaus got up. She made him help her clean the dishes or do laundry and went through a flow with him even though she hated yoga.
With her prompting, he made short phone calls to everyone who had been worrying about him. The relief in their voices sent shame burning in his gut, but they all insisted that it was okay and they understood. Susan even sent him a package of candy and chocolate in the mail.
He was particularly embarrassed when Lillian assured him she wasn’t angry at him for missing work and she’d cleared him with Darryl as well. Klaus honestly hadn’t even thought about work in all the time he’d been falling apart. Lillian wouldn’t accept his apologies either, insisting that he take as much time as he needed to heal. He’s finally caved, just managing to take her and hang up before yet another bout of tears took over, something that happened with, what was to Klaus, alarming frequency of late. (Noah insisted it was normal.)
To his embarrassment, talking to people actually did make Klaus feel better. The days staggered onward with a little more ease than they had before and at the end of the week Klaus looked up to realize it had somehow been nearly a month since Daniel’s overdose.
In light of the success with their other friends, Lauren tried to breach the subject of him talking to Daniel again, but Klaus stiffened so quickly that she immediately backtracked and let the subject drop.
As much as the support had helped, he just wasn’t ready to face that yet. Klaus had only just begun fixing tears in friendships, he wasn’t prepared to lose one.
***
On the Saturday of that third week, Lauren took Klaus for a short walk around the block. It was the longest period of time he’d been out of the apartment since coming home from the hospital and the response in his body was almost unnatural. The change in his mood was dramatic, the learned reflex he’d developed over many years spent associating outside with good feelings working its magic. He honestly should have thought of it himself.
“How are you feeling?” Lauren asked a good twenty minutes into the walk.
Klaus breathed the fresh air and sunlight in deeply. “Less bad.”
“That’s a start. If there is anything else I can do…”
“You’ve done more than⏤”
She didn’t let him finish. “I helped my friend. There is no ‘more’.”
Against his will, Klaus smiled. “You’re really fucking stubborn, you know that?”
She laughed and the sun lit her with a glow of life and vibrancy that, just for a moment, chased the darkness from the world.
|
Shoto was slow to wake the following morning. It took him a minute to realize he wasn't home. The sweet scent of omega sewn into the sheets, a bed was far more comfortable than his own: eyes still closed, the feel of his surroundings gently reminded him of what had transpired the night before.
Finally, after weeks of playing hard to get, Katsuki had opened up to him. Or had he? In retrospect it was difficult to believe Katsuki let him fuck. Perhaps it had all been a dream. Shoto didn’t remember drinking much. Even so, it wouldn’t have been the first time he had gotten too drunk to remember shit.
Then again, what other reason was there to wake up in Katsuki’s bed? And where was his shirt? No. What happened between them was definitely real.
To his disappointment, when he finally opened his eyes, Katsuki was nowhere to be found. However, sounds from the kitchen and the scent of bacon wafting through the house soon accounted for the omega’s absence.
As his senses slowly came back to him, a smile found its way onto Shoto's face. He wasn’t quite sure how he had gotten into Katsuki’s good graces, but the alpha wasn’t about to question it. He just had to keep from fucking it up.
While Shoto collected the motivation to pull himself up out of bed, he scanned over Katsuki's bedroom decor. Much like the rest of his Katsuki’s place, the omega's bedroom was tidy and cute.
Typical of a college student, there was a desk in the corner right next to a bookcase packed with textbooks. There were a few personal touches: a poster here and there and a potted plant next to a window.
Soon the alpha sat upright and began to stretch out his arms. In search of a clock, he looked to the nightstand, only to find a framed graduation picture.
What a difference a few years could make. The Katsuki in the picture looked like he was being swallowed up by his cap and gown. While he still had baby fat in his cheeks, the omega’s face had matured since high school.
Nestled in between people Shoto could only presume were his parents, Katsuki was clearly irritated in the photo. Completely ignoring Katsuki’s surly disposition, his parents were beaming with pride, smiling big for the camera.
Shoto couldn’t imagine keeping a photo of his parents so close to where he fucked, but then again, he wasn’t an omega. Plus, he didn’t exactly have the best relationship with his parents.
It was weird to him, but at the same time Shoto found the sentimental touch endearing. Try as he might, Katsuki was incapable of concealing his softer side. To keep their photo so close, the omega must have missed his parents quite a bit.
As he studied the picture, Shoto thought to himself. How the hell had he bagged such a wholesome omega? On all counts, Katsuki was too good for him.
The alpha was well aware of how his lifestyle was perceived by others. Hell, in the past he had revelled in it. To bring shame to his father was one of his greatest guilty pleasures. On many occasions, the older alpha had warned him that his behavior would eventually catch up to him. Had that day finally come?
For a short amount of time Shoto was confident that he could play the straight laced suitor. However, if Katsuki’s parents were anything like the omega, it wouldn’t take long for them to see right through his bullshit. Without a doubt, earning their trust and respect would not be easy.
As Shoto stood upright, he rolled his eyes irritated by his train of thought. Was that what he was aiming for now? The approval of Katsuki’s parents? Good god, he was getting ahead of himself.
Yeah sure, if he wanted to date Katsuki in earnest, meeting his family came with the territory. Even so, any sort of development was miles away. In addition, if Katsuki and Shoto were truly meant to be together, the omega would have to lower his standards.
Shoto couldn't see himself as anything but the embarrassing, borderline alcoholic boyfriend. At age twenty-one the alpha wasn't about to make any serious change to his lifestyle for anyone but himself.
On his way to the kitchen, Shoto swiped his shirt off the living room floor. He didn’t miss a step as he pulled it over his head. When Shoto first entered the kitchen, Katsuki looked up from the stove. However, oddly, the instant their eyes met, the omega was quick to look away.
The omega didn’t say a word as he busied himself. He appeared flustered under Shoto’s watch. Cheeks burning red, the clank of pots of pans became more frequent as the omega moved about in the kitchen.
While Shoto waited at the table for breakfast, he mirrored Katsuki’s quiet mood. Though he knew watching would only embarrass the omega further, acknowledging his state had far worse consequences.
Soon Katsuki placed a plate in front of Shoto and took the seat opposite of him at the table.
For the first time since they met, the silence between them was uncomfortable. Still refusing to look Shoto in the eyes, Katsuki nervously pulled up on his sweater as if to be sure his hickeys were concealed.
Katsuki’s unease was disappointing, but all the same Shoto couldn’t take it personally. He already knew the omega had hang ups about sex. In all likelihood, Katsuki was embarrassed about what had happened between them. It would likely take some time for him to process their encounter. So in the meantime, Shoto’s best bet was to not push it.
Plus, if the alpha read between the lines, there was plenty to reassure him of Katsuki’s interest. Although the omega had changed into new clothes for the day, he was still coated in Shoto's scent. That alone told him everything he needed to know about Katsuki’s feelings for him.
After breakfast, Katsuki walked the alpha to the door. While Shoto tied up his shoes, the omega fiddled with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
Sensing Katsuki’s need to communicate, Shoto stood upright, facing the omega. Patiently, the alpha waited for Katsuki to overcome his hesitance.
In so many ways the omega was larger than life. He had a big personality and an attitude to match. And yet, squirming under Shoto’s gaze, vulnerable and shy, in that moment Shoto thought Katsuki looked so small.
The omega kept his gaze low as he spoke up. “I'm going to be out of class next week. Could I borrow your notes when I get back?”
“Of course.” Shoto replied.
“Don't you dare give me that chicken scratch bullshit.” Katsuki grumbled.
With a smile, Shoto gave a nod. “I’ll do my best.”
As if he were offended by Shoto's words, in response Katsuki scoffed. “Don’t say shit you don’t mean."
Folding his arms over his chest, Katsuki shuffled from heel to heel. “Just don’t screw this up for me, okay?”
Without so much as a goodbye, Katsuki closed the door right after Shoto stepped through the threshold.
Shoto tried his best not to be bogged down by the awkward exchange. And yet, his intentions failed to make their way to his heart. His weekend was spent in a fog wondering if there was anything he could have done differently.
With a point to prove, on Monday Shoto came to class prepared.
He wasn't particularly bothered by Katsuki's comments about his note taking. Admittedly, his handwriting could have been better. Rather, it was the principle of it all. In Katsuki's eye's Shoto was a lazy piece of shit. Although that assessment was mostly true, Shoto liked to think he had put some effort into his interactions with the omega.
Katsuki's request was an opportunity to show the omega different side to himself. When the occasion arose, he could fire on all cylinders.
And so, for the duration of the week, Shoto went all out. For Katsuki’s sake, no stone was left unturned. The alpha had handouts printed out ahead of time, took pictures of the board, and even went to office hours to ask for clarification.
If there was one thing Shoto took away from the experience, it was that being engaged in class made the time go by quicker. As it turned out, dicking around and watching the clock made the minutes stretch. Who would have thought? Shoto ended up applying the same practice to his other classes to help pass the time.
The following Saturday Shoto got a late night text from Katsuki asking him to bring the notes over. Without hesitation, the alpha slipped on some shoes and took off.
Most likely Katsuki would nitpick his work, but the alpha hoped it would be enough to show that he was serious. After a brisk walk over to Katsuki’s building, Shoto took the stairs up to the omega’s apartment two at a time.
When Shoto first rang the doorbell, there was no response. After a moment had passed, he shot Katsuki a text and rang it again. From inside the apartment he heard Katsuki scream, “Hold your fucking horses, god damnit!”
There was a sequence of heavy footsteps, then the door was unlocked and opened.
At first glance, Shoto’s jaw dropped. What the hell was Katsuki doing answering the door without any pants on? Yeah, the hem of his oversized sleeping shirt hit mid thigh, but still. What the fuck? Shoto made a quick scan of his surroundings to ensure no one was around. He then positioned himself in front of Katsuki so that no one on the street could get a low vantage point peak.
Clearly Katsuki was still under the influence of his cycle. The scent radiating off of the omega was overwhelming. It had the hairs on the back of Shoto’s neck standing on end and his dick standing at attention. The longer Shoto stood in Katsuki’s presence, the more tense he became. It was as if something inside him was coiling back, preparing to spring into action.
“Hey.” Shoto awkwardly greeted the omega.
As if to torture him further, Katsuki tilted his head to the side. There was a droplet of sweat on his brow barely holding on. God damn, what Shoto wouldn’t have done to lick it right off.
“Notes?”
Shoto held the papers out at an arm's distance for the omega to retrieve.
Katsuki leaned against the doorway as he thumbed through the pages. A hint of a smile graced his lips. “Not bad. I'll get them back to you soon.”
“Don't bother.” Shoto held up a hand and shook his head. “I already made a photocopy. See you around.”
Katsuki frowned. "What's the rush?"
While it was gratifying to finally have Katsuki’s approval, the moment was dampened by the omega’s state. Under the influence of the omega’s thick, delicious scent, Shoto couldn’t trust his resolve or sense of decency. His best option was to leave before he ended up messing up a good thing.
On some counts, Shoto was a scumbag, but not that kind of scumbag. The alpha took a step back and doubled down. “Sorry Katsuki, but I really should be on my way.”
The instant he turned away, there was a tug on his sleeve. Face scrunched up, Katsuki looked like he was about to burst into tears.
"No.” Sweet and low in tone, the omega uttered, “Stay with me alpha.”
Shoto's mind went blank.
“Uh…” The alpha had no fucking clue how to act. God damn it, Katsuki was making it so difficult for him to do the right thing.
Fortunately, before Shoto was tempted further, the omega managed to snap out of it.
“Son of a bitch!” Jumping backwards, Katsuki’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “God damn fucking hormones!”
In a quick explosion of movement, Shoto's notes were flung into the air and Katsuki had disappeared behind a slammed door.
For a moment, Shoto remained stationary. His brain was slow to process Katsuki’s abrupt change in disposition. Once he came to, the alpha adjusted his pants and then proceeded to collect the scattered papers. Setting them beside the door, Shoto set off towards home.
No longer brimming with excitement, the walk back home was tedious and drab. Shoto didn't know what to make of their exchange. It could have meant Katsuki felt the instinctual pull of their bond or the very opposite.
Perhaps Shoto had gotten ahead of himself. While Katsuki wasn't the sort of person to fuck without feelings, under the influence of his cycle such actions were more likely. The possibility pained him, but there was a chance Katsuki thought of him as just another alpha.
With a heavy heart, the alpha let out a deep sigh. The only thing Shoto knew for sure was that all of the push and pull was messing with his head. For the duration of his walk Shoto was bogged down by his thoughts. So much so that he didn't give much attention to the ghost in pursuit.
During the weekend Shoto’s texts went unanswered. His next interaction with Katsuki was the following Monday during lecture.
From the beginning of class, Shoto could tell Katsuki’s energy was off. When he sat in the adjacent desk, the omega didn’t so much as look in his direction. Shoulders up to his ears, Katsuki’s scent was packed full of hostility.
Whenever there was a break in instruction, Shoto would attempt to speak to Katsuki. However, to his dismay, Katsuki was ice cold. Any comment made to the omega was brushed off.
Not one to be dissuaded by Katsuki’s moods, the alpha continued to pester him. Although Shoto came to class prepared, he still asked Katsuki for a pencil. Instead of asking the teacher to clarify parts of the lecture, he turned to the omega for input. The alpha truly believed that if he behaved normally, Katsuki’s funk would sort itself out.
Eventually the omega hit his limit. Katsuki sunk into his seat and folded his arms over his chest. Cursing loudly his breath, the omega’s face was sour like a lemon. Although by Katsuki standards, the reaction was muted, the expletives caught the attention of everyone, even the instructor. Shoto took the hint and backed off.
At the end of the section Shoto made one final effort to speak with him; however, the instant their class was excused, Katsuki darted for the door.
Katsuki’s icy treatment went on for a few days until the alpha eventually gave up. While his texts were left on read, the message was loud and clear: Shoto’s attention was a nuisance.
The ordeal left the alpha distraught and confused. Where it stood, he was at a loss for how to appropriately respond. If the alpha was made aware of his wrongdoings, he would have made an effort to rectify his mistake. Hell, at that point, Shoto was prepared to apologize for just about anything.
Regardless, no matter the reason, Katsuki was entitled to Shoto’s respect. If the omega wasn't feeling him, that was it. Rejection was a hard pill to swallow, but all the same, Katsuki didn't owe him anything.
When the time came for the pair to give their presentation, although awkward, each person came prepared. While it could be said that their delivery lacked the finesse a final run through would have provided, in the end their teacher was impressed. With a near perfect score, the two produced the best work of their class.
In an effort to respect Katsuki's boundaries, Shoto began to sit towards the back of class. It wasn't easy losing what little contact he had with the omega, but it had to be done. Anything that could be considered overbearing had to be cut out from his conduct.
Shoto tried to stop himself from needlessly staring at the back of Katsuki's head, but in the end it was futile. He played the part of the lovesick puppy oh so well.
Even at a distance, Shoto could still pick out the omega’s scent. It was like a carrot dangling in front of his face: tantalizing and unavoidable, but ultimately out of his reach.
In his spare time the alpha often found himself daydreaming, reliving the handful of instances in which Katsuki had opened up to him. Shoto still believed in their bond. What existed between them had been so natural and perfect. Without Katsuki, Shoto wasn’t sure if he would ever feel right again.
Although Shoto did what he could to minimize his presence in Katsuki’s life, the omega was still visibly bothered by his proximity.
Clearly Katsuki struggled in his own way. Whenever Shoto would participate in class discussion, he would catch Katsuki discretely peeking backwards. Inevitably there was a hint of sadness to the omega’s expression. Shoto understood Katsuki’s longing, perhaps because he too felt it. Even so, whenever the two made eye contact, Katsuki was quick to turn away.
Knowing Katsuki possesed lingering attachment towards hurt Shoto like a knife twisting in his gut. But what could he do? Unless Katsuki made the first move, he was downstream without a paddle.
Although painful, their time apart did afford Shoto some clarity.
In so many ways the alpha had been an idiot. All of the facts had been neatly laid out for ease of consumption. Hell, at one point Katsuki had even spelled it out for him. And yet, time and time again Shoto had failed to see the obvious.
It was no surprise the omega was skeptical of Shoto’s intentions. Katsuki's past was an open wound that never managed to heal. From what the omega had insinuated, his ex boyfriend was a piece of work. After enduring such horrid treatment anyone would have been jaded.
While he could not know for sure the extent of Katsuki’s pain, Shoto knew a thing or two about baggage. At a low point in his own life, the alpha had allowed hurt and resentment to consume him. Trauma had warped his reality and sucked all the joy from his existence. If Katsuki's experience mirrored his own in the slightest, it would take a lot of time and conscious effort to process the damage. The alpha’s presence was likely a distraction.
Shoto often speculated: if he had been more cognizant of Katsuki’s struggle would it have changed the outcome? It may have been the case that separation was inevitable. However, if Shoto had approached the situation with eyes wide open, perhaps he could have spared them both some heartache.
After weeks of longing stares and crushing melancholy, the term came to its eventual end.
Once his final was submitted, Shoto expelled a sigh of relief. It seemed appropriate that their shared course had been his last exam. The moment marked a significant transition in his life. Moving forward, there would be no reason to see Katsuki. Given the differences in their lifestyles, run ins on campus would be rare at best.
It was about time he turned his attention inwards. Whether he liked it or not, life without Katsuki was an inevitability. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life fixated on what could have been. It wouldn’t be easy, he had no choice but to move on.
However, before he put the effort forth to change his life, Shoto had it in mind to cut loose one final time before the semester’s end.
That night his fraternity had planned a graduation party. For the seniors, the event stood as the last hurrah: a bittersweet celebration commemorating their college years. Soon they would submit to the obligations of adulthood, but not before one final night of drinking and mischief.
Although Shoto was not graduating, the attitude resonated with him. Change was on the horizon. As much as he enjoyed his carefree lifestyle, deep down the alpha knew it could not last. In order to move forward it was necessary to cast aside his childish behavior and assume the responsibilities befitting of a man.
As he exited the classroom Shoto’s mind was on the party. Specifically, he was contemplating on whether or not to blow the rest of his allowance on a keg. Although everyone had chipped in to give the seniors an appropriate send off, their alcohol fund was seriously lacking.
While they had some cheap vodka for juice, what little beer they had wouldn’t last long. If someone didn’t step up and foot the bill, the party would be dead before midnight.
It should be said that Shoto couldn’t afford a keg. At any given time, the alpha only had enough money for basic essentials. It wasn’t always that way, however, after abusing his father’s credit card in his freshman year, Shoto was effectively cut off. Even so, if it meant everyone had a good time, Shoto was willing to scrounge around for food for the rest of the week.
On his way out Shoto was surprised to find Katsuki waiting in the hall. Leaning against the wall with his bag barely hanging off one shoulder, the omega appeared worn out and despondent.
At once, the sight gave him pause. It was unusual to see Katsuki by himself outside of class. While Shoto did not feel compelled to intervene, he couldn't help but feel concerned. He could have sworn the omega had finished his test thirty minutes prior.
The moment their eyes were locked, Katsuki pushed himself off the wall and walked towards the alpha. With every approaching step Shoto’s pulse quickened. It had been far too long since he had made direct contact with the omega. He didn’t know what to say or how to act.
Once near, Katsuki spoke out. “Hey. Can we talk?”
Still gobsmacked by Katsuki’s proximity, Shoto gave a nod and followed him to the end of the hall.
When they were out of hearing range from the other students Katsuki slowed to a stop. Turning towards Shoto, in a familiar show of nerves, the omega avoided eye contact as he quietly collected his thoughts.
Once his surprise had dissipated, Shoto took note of Katsuki’s physical state. The omega was by no means a mess, rather it was the slight wear and tear that gave away his fatigue. With a dulled complexion and prevalent bags under his eyes, it was clear life had not treated Katsuki well.
In Katsuki’s hesitation, the alpha attempted to decipher his intentions. Was the omega looking for closure? Reconciliation? Given Katsuki’s condition, it was possible he was in need of help.
“About that night...” Katsuki’s cheeks pinkened as he spoke out. “You know, when you brought the notes…”
"I slammed the door in your face. And afterwards… " Folding his arms over his chest, the omega seemed to squirm in his discomfort. “It wasn't right for me to ignore you."
“Don't worry about it.” Shoto replied. “I'm sorry for my part. I should have known better than to come over like that.”
“Still.” Katsuki frowned. "I've been an asshole."
In response, Shoto gave an impassive shrug. Sure, it was nice for Katsuki to acknowledge his extreme behavior. In addition, Shoto was glad to know for certain that he had not inadvertently wronged the omega. However, holding Katsuki accountable wasn’t high on his priority list.
With each passing moment the vibe between them grew more awkward. Although it would have been easy for Shoto to cut the tension by speaking out, he held off. The alpha could see the gears turning in Katsuki’s head. Whatever the omega had to say was important.
Eventually the omega made eye contact. There were a few false starts. Katsuki would open his mouth to speak, only for the words would die at the tip of his tongue. It was only after a moment or two did Katsuki find the confidence to voice his thoughts.
“Do you still like me like that?”
There was no hesitation in Shoto's response. “Yeah, of course.”
Immediately the sour scent of distress surrounded them. Katsuki bit his lip as he quickly looked away. So overwhelmed by emotion, the omega's eyes glossed over with unshed tears.
In that sad moment, Shoto yearned to close the distance between them and hold the omega close. He couldn’t bear to see Katsuki so torn up. The alpha was desperate to sooth, to take away Katsuki’s pain.
As if the wind had been taken out of his sails, Katsuki sunk into himself. “Even if I liked you back, it probably wouldn’t work out.”
“I'm dealing with some serious shit right now.” Katsuki continued solemnly, “I don’t know when I’ll be ready for anything new in my life.”
In an effort to provide some reassurance to the omega, Shoto replied, “You and me, if it is what I'm thinking it is, then we've got the rest of our lives to figure it out.”
“You're ridiculous.” Katsuki rolled his eyes and shook his head.
The alpha cocked his head to the side. “Can you give a better reason why I would be drawn to you?”
“Gee, I don't know.” Katsuki replied sarcastically, “Maybe it's because I have my shit together and you like staring at my ass?”
While the two stared at one another, the mood was lifted ever so slightly. Katsuki’s lip curled into a smirk as he stood a little straighter.
In response Shoto smiled back. “You have a good point there.”
Looking over to the door, Shoto asked. “Can I walk you home?”
Wordlessly Katsuki led the way.
As the two exited the building, Shoto didn’t miss the foul stench in the air. Apparently Katsuki’s little problem had not improved much in his absence.
Shoto was not surprised when the odor built in intensity as they walked off campus. The twisted thing was obviously jealous. Still, Shoto refused to let it taint the moment. For all he knew it could have been the last time he ever saw Katsuki. He wasn’t about to let some rotten entity ruin it.
While he had more or less accepted that things with Katsuki would not work out, Shoto couldn’t help but feel disheartened. Spending time with Katsuki was an all or nothing deal. They would never be friends. Even if Shoto was respectful of Katsuki’s decision, his presence alone would put unnecessary pressure on the omega.
When the pair reached Katsuki’s apartment, the omega was slow to fish out the keys from his bag. As if he too wanted more from the exchange, even after he unlocked the door, Katsuki continued to linger.
This time around it was Shoto’s turn to be vulnerable. And like Katsuki, the alpha was also hesitant to speak his truth.
To relinquish what little control he had over the situation was unsettling. Still, it had to be done. That day Katsuki had been brave. In spite of his reservations, the omega had put his heart on the line. Shoto had to honor Katsuki’s sincerity by bringing his best to the table.
“Tell you what, I'm going to fall back.” Shoto spoke out, “If at any point you want to pursue something, you know how to reach me.”
Once again the omega was upset. Wrapping his arms around himself, Katsuki bit out, “What if I never get around to it?”
While on the surface Shoto remained calm, inside his mind was going a mile a minute. He really didn’t want to lose Katsuki, but what else could he do?
No one else could fill the omega’s shoes. Katsuki was his one and only true mate. Even so, Shoto didn’t want to be a part of the problem. What the omega needed most in that at that point in his life was room to breath. Katsuki had decided he was better off without him and Shoto was in no position to tell him anything different.
And so Shoto offered Katsuki a smile and made a conscious decision to put the omega’s needs before his own. “It's your call.”
Katsuki only provided a nod in response. Sullen, the omega stepped through the threshold and closed the door behind him.
The moment he was alone Shoto’s shoulders sunk. He was dejected to say the least. With a dampened spirit, the alpha slunk down the stairs and made his way to the street.
A block away from Katsuki's apartment, Shoto stopped by the convenience store and picked up a couple tallboys. There was one last thing he had to do before bowing out of Katsuki’s life altogether.
The alpha knew he was overstepping. It went without saying that Shoto trusted Katsuki to handle his business on his own terms. All the same, he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
For too long the omega had battled the darkness on his own. Although Katsuki was well equipped to handle adversity, over time the war of attrition had taken its toll. In desperate need of reinforcements, months of conflict had left him depleted and worn.
And what role had Shoto taken knowing Katsuki had undergone such hardship? The alpha had stood on the sidelines, ignorant and unhelpful.
Fortunately, the opportunity had presented itself for Shoto to atone for his mistake. Scent thick with contempt, the entity was still on his heels. The alpha had it in mind to face the sinister being head on.
Shoto had the perfect spot in mind to confront the entity. Several blocks past campus there was a park. As it was geared towards kids, the area was often vacant in the evenings.
Upon reaching his destination, Shoto set his backpack down on the park bench and pulled out his brown bag from the convenience store. He then turned towards the darkness and spoke out.
“Come out, man. Let's talk.”
No activity gave away the evil lurking behind the bushes. Still, Shoto continued to stare out into the shadows. He trusted his gut. It was only a matter of time before the entity revealed itself.
Eventually Shoto’s patience was rewarded as the foliage began to rustle. Just as Shoto had anticipated, out from the shadows stepped out a man.
Disheveled and indignant, the alpha stood rigid, baring his teeth like a feral animal. And really, as far as Shoto was concerned he was a beast. If the alpha were frothing at the mouth, there wouldn’t be much difference between him and a rabid dog. Hands tightly balled into fists, the man appeared ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
Shoto recognized the alpha right away. While it had been a long while since the two had squared up, his messy green hair was difficult to forget. The man standing before him was the source of Katsuki's troubles, his ex-boyfriend.
|
----Adora
The five-hundred-year-old girl sits on the porch, in a pool of her own blood and alone.
The lights inside Shadow Weaver’s house have turned off. There are no streetlights.
Adora is alone, sitting in pure darkness, the only light coming from the moons shining dimly above.
As Adora sits, staring at the sword she’s placed in her lap, she reminisces about everyone she’s lost in her life.
Her parents, Marlena and Randor Grayskull.
Adam Grayskull, her twin brother.
Her childhood best friends; Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio.
Her old mentor, Mara Hope.
… and the list goes on and on.
All of them either died before Adora could, or left her behind. It’s not like Adora deserved their company, though, she’s a monster. It’s only a matter of time before Adora hurts them; hurting people is all she does.
It’s not just people she’s lost, either. Adora used to have so much hope and so many dreams for her future. Even after Shadow Weaver killed her, Adora still held onto her hope, praying to whatever deity was out there that she’d be free again one day.
Months turned into years, then years into centuries; Adora’s hope faded until it was nonexistent as the years went by. She’d given up on the idea that she could ever be free from Shadow Weaver’s grasp until she’d met the princesses.
What a fool she’d been to have hoped again. She should have learned her lesson the first time. Hope only leads to disappointment and pain, and Adora knows that better than anyone on Etheria.
The pain in her abdomen spikes as Adora twitches from the aftereffects of the hours of being tortured with electricity. Hesitantly, Adora lifts the hem of her shirt to reveal the stab wound. Her blood is drying, but there are still black tendrils covering her exposed skin. Adora recognizes the marks as the first sign of the sword’s old magic taking effect.
If dark magic hadn’t corrupted the sword, Adora would’ve died in an instant, the black tendrils spreading rapidly to cover her entire body until she was an unrecognizable husk. It was a gruesome death, but Adora’s fate is worse. She gets to watch the effects of her sword in slow-motion, despite her wishes to die as quickly as possible.
As the pain spreads, Adora thinks of everyone she’ll miss when she’s gone.
The Best Friend Squad: Bow, Glimmer, and Catra
Her best friend, Hordak.
The princesses.
Catra.
She closes her eyes, not wanting to think of Catra’s reaction to her death. Catra might mourn her for a while, but she’d move on. Catra will be happier without Adora there. The vampire would only cause pain for the Magicat, it’s better if Adora leaves now and saves her the suffering. Besides, Catra already has all the princesses as her friends, she won’t miss Adora much.
Adora’s about to accept her death when she remembers why she got herself into this mess. She’s trying to be a good person, to be a kind person where Shadow Weaver is a cruel monster.
She and Hordak had a plan to succeed, and Adora ruined everything. Will Hordak even be able to defeat Horde Prime and Shadow Weaver by himself, then lead the Horde? Adora feels guilty for placing all the pressure on him, but he’ll probably be happier without having to deal with Adora. The only thing she’s done for Hordak is annoy him and get him into trouble, Adora doubts he’ll miss her very much.
Despite that, Adora still worries about the blue-haired man. What if Shadow Weaver goes after him, now that she knows Adora wants to be a good person? What if Horde Prime executes him, or sends him to Beast Island?
The blonde remembers the last thing she said to Hordak. Adora had visited Horde Prime’s manor to look at her other weapons, the ones she keeps in Hordak’s sanctum for safekeeping. She was playing with Imp when Hordak told her to leave, since Horde Prime would get suspicious soon. Adora snuck out through the basement window, making some stupid joke about how Hordak should leave his lab sometimes. Hordak just chuckled and rolled his eyes as he walked away.
That’s not what she wants her last words to her long-time friend to be. She wants to apologize to him for ruining the entire plan and possibly his life. It’s the least he deserves, for all the trouble Adora’s given him.
With that, Adora shifts to grab the small tablet she always keeps with her. Adora silently thanks Entrapta for making her a mini tablet that is discreet enough for the dark sorceress to not notice it.
The bright screen of the tablet stings in her eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness of the night. She taps the small screen until she finds Hordak’s contact. With a shaky hand, she clicks on his contact, blood smearing onto the glowing screen. Adora’s thankful that Shadow Weaver’s asleep right now, even though it would be impossible for her to see the glow of the screen.
Adora notices her reflection in the shiny screen. Her hair is a mess, mixed with tinges of blood. There’s blood all over her face, obvious tear tracks lining her cheeks, and her eyes are puffy and red.
After a few seconds of Hordak not reaching, tears blur Adora’s vision again. Why did she expect Hordak to care about her? It’s not like she’s ever helped him or been anything but a nuisance to him. The blonde is about to close the call and resign herself to her fate when Hordak picks up.
“Adora? What is it?”
At the sound of his voice, Adora bursts into tears. Hordak actually answered. Adora can say goodbye to him one last time. Through her blurred vision, Adora can see Hordak’s face wash over with concern as he takes notice of the state of Adora, definitely noticing the blood and tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. Adora’s never heard his voice sound so gentle before. It’s a pleasant change from the loud yelling of Shadow Weaver’s voice from earlier.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, I ruined everything. Goodbye, Hordak,” Adora says through sobs.
Before an extremely concerned Hordak can respond, Adora ends the call and slumps against the floor. She tries to convince herself that everyone is better off this way, that Hordak will be better off without his useless friend to bother him anymore.
Another surge of pain courses through Adora, and she groans as she curls into herself. She doesn’t need to pull up her shirt to know that the black tendrils are spreading quicker, engulfing her body in pain.
She curls into a ball, grateful that she got to say goodbye to the one person who stuck by her through everything.
----Hordak
“Goodbye, Hordak.”
With that, the screen goes blank as Adora’s tearful and bloody face vanishes.
For a moment, Hordak stares at his reflection through the black screen in shock. Did Adora just… say goodbye to him? No, this has to be some kind of sick joke. It has to be.
As soon as the shock passes, panic sets in. Why was Adora covered in blood? Why was she crying so much? What happened?
He opens up the tracker on his tablet and tracks Adora’s mini tablet. The map shows Adora is still at Shadow Weaver’s house.
Hordak slowly connects the dots in his head. If Adora’s with Shadow Weaver right now, and she’s crying and covered in blood, that could only mean that…
The vampire runs upstairs and, after grabbing some cow blood bags on the way, throws the front door open, running to his skiff.
Thankfully, Horde Prime is busy at his factory, where he manufactures his clones. There was a problem with the inventory, so he went to deal with it himself, telling Hordak that it’d take a while to fix. Horde Prime doesn’t leave his home without Hordak often, but when he does, it’s a rare treat for Hordak.
The skiff roars to life and Hordak sets course for Shadow Weaver’s house. The ride isn’t long, since the two homes aren’t far from one another, but the journey feels like an eternity for Hordak as he worries for Adora.
He knows of the abuse Adora receives with Shadow Weaver, but there’s nothing he could do without getting caught, himself. If that were to happen, Horde Prime would likely take all his memories, like he does with the other clones when they make mistakes. Then he wouldn’t be able to help Adora or himself.
Hordak has seen glimpses of the bruises, the cuts, the scars, and the black veins that mar Adora’s body. He sees how little Adora cares for herself, and how much she hates herself, in the way she acts. He hears all the ways Adora’s degrading thoughts of herself mimic what Shadow Weaver tells her. The cries for help were there, bright and obvious for Hordak to hear. Despite knowing all that, Hordak did nothing to stop the masked woman.
He’s done everything he could to show Adora that she’s not what Shadow Weaver tells her she is, that she’s an amazing and strong person, but Shadow Weaver’s manipulated Adora enough for the blonde to not even consider herself worthy of love or kindness.
Adora’s always struggled with asking for help and Hordak knows that, even if she didn’t say it, that goodbye was Adora’s cry for help. It was her way of saying she needs someone to help her, even if she didn’t explicitly say that. Well, Hordak heard this cry for help, and he’ll finally listen.
Even if Hordak couldn’t help Adora then, he can help her now. He can make sure Adora knows just how much Hordak, and all of Adora’s friends, cares for her. Adora’s the closest thing Hordak has to a family, and he’ll do anything to ensure Adora’s happy and healthy because he’s certain she’d do the same for him.
Finally, the skiff reaches the outskirts of the large, dark house on the edge of the woods. He knows to not park close enough to the house that Shadow Weaver won’t see him, but that means he has to walk all the way over there.
He parks the skiff, grabs the blood bags, and begins the short walk to the dark house.
As he approaches the house, he sees a shaking figure sitting on the porch alone. Upon closer inspection, Hordak recognizes the figure as Adora curled up into a ball, surrounded by her own blood.
The vampire’s heart breaks for his friend, as he slowly makes his way up the few steps of the porch.
----
She’s not sure when she closed her eyes in the first place, but Adora’s awoken to the sound of someone walking up onto the porch slowly.
Afraid of the person being Shadow Weaver, Adora instinctually cowers away from the person. She doesn’t get far because of her wound, but her feet try to push her away. Adora shuts her eyes tightly, not wanting to see the face of the woman who’s only hurt her. Tears well in her eyes as she realizes just how far the pain in her abdomen has progressed.
“Adora, relax. It’s me, Hordak.”
What? Adora said goodbye to Hordak, though. Why would he come back for her? It must be a hallucination, one caused by blood loss or maybe insanity.
Adora peeks an eye open to look at the person incredulously, only to see Hordak crouching down beside her. She unfolds herself from the curled-up position she was in.
“Wh-What are you doing here?” she asks.
Hordak smiles sadly. “I’m here to help you.”
She uncurls further, opening both her eyes in genuine confusion as she asks, “Why? I-I don’t deserve it.”
A pained expression falls on Hordak’s face as his eyes gloss over. “You do, Adora. You deserve so much better than this.” Hordak clasps Adora’s bloodied hand in his own as the blonde looks down at their joined hands.
The tears previously welling up in Adora’s eyes slide out as a sob rips through her. She’s become so accustomed to hearing Shadow Weaver tell her she deserves nothing good because of how useless she is. Adora never realized how much she’d missed positive affirmations.
Adora told herself she’d never ask for help. It’s a sign of weakness, and Adora doesn’t want anyone to know how weak she truly is. But it’s been so long, and she’s so tired…
The blonde uses her last shred of strength to push herself forward and wrap her arms tightly around Hordak’s neck as she sobs more. Hordak reciprocates the hug as he rubs his hands up and down her back to ground her to the present. Adora leans her head on Hordak’s shoulder, a much needed support right now.
Adora’s cries and sobs echo out into the vast darkness of the night. All the emotions she was hiding in front of Shadow Weaver spill out of her as she tightens her grip on Hordak. Blood and tears soak into the front of Hordak’s black shirt as Adora shakes with emotion in his arms.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says repeatedly in hushed whispers through her sobs, like a broken record. Hordak hugs her tighter, the only comfort he can offer right now. “You did nothing wrong, Adora. You did nothing to deserve this.”
“Let me help you,” Hordak says once Adora’s loud sobs have died down to silent crying, a single tear rolling down his pale face and onto the top of Adora’s head. It truly breaks his heart to see Adora in this state. He’s seen many low points in Adora’s life before, but nothing compares to this.
One painstakingly long moment later, Adora nods. “Okay.”
With that, Hordak moves to lift Adora up onto her feet. As soon as he moves her, Adora groans in pain and shuts her eyes tightly. Hordak’s eyes drop to the large bloodstain on Adora’s shirt. He then glances at Adora’s sword covered in dried blood resting on the floor beside them and connects the dots.
“Adora, did Shadow Weaver stab you with your sword?” Hordak asks.
The vampire nods, humiliated. Hordak’s heart drops; he knows the capabilities of the ancient Eternian sword. Adora doesn’t look Hordak in the eyes as she says, “The magic is spreading, I don’t have much longer.”
Slowly, Hordak lifts Adora’s shirt just enough to see the huge black tendrils pouring out of the stab wound on her abdomen and gasps. Hordak was planning on taking Adora back to Horde Prime’s manor and letting her heal in his sanctum. But that isn’t an option anymore. Adora won’t get better, not without help. Not without magic.
Hordak instead opts to carry Adora back to the skiff parked outside the house’s property. Adora taps his shoulder to get his attention as she says, “Just leave me behind, Hordak. It’s not worth it.”
“I’m not leaving you behind, Adora! It- You’re worth it, alright?”
“Etheria will be better off without me. You’ll be better off without me.”
At that, Hordak grows enraged. Not at Adora, but at the woman who made Adora believe that she’s worthless. “Nobody will be better off without you! Please, don’t give up, Adora.” His voice drops to a whisper at the end.
“It’s better this way.” Her voice cracks at the end of her sentence.
“You can’t give up that easily. I won’t let you.”
Adora sighs and doesn’t respond, dropping her tired head backwards. This time, though, she doesn’t accept her death. Maybe she’ll keep going, just a little longer, to see what happens.
The two friends eventually reach the skiff, and Hordak gently places Adora down onto the metal before moving to the controls. He sets the skiff to auto-pilot, a feature Entrapta only recently installed into the machine, and moves to sit beside Adora. The skiff leads them to Brightmoon.
He grabs one of the blood bags and pops open the spout, handing it to Adora. The blonde immediately begins gulping down the deep red liquid quickly in the hopes it will heal her other injuries. It doesn’t work, and it usually does.
Once Adora has finished the entire bag, she places it down in her lap. She turns to weakly smile at Hordak sheepishly. “Thank you.”
Hordak smiles, but there’s still a sad glint in it. “Of course, Adora. Now, would you mind telling me what happened?” he asks.
Just like that, any semblance of a smile disappears from Adora’s features as she looks down at her lap again. Despite being the last thing she wants to do right now, Adora explains what happened.
“Uh, I got back from the welcoming celebration for King Micah and Shadow Weaver was there waiting for me. The whole ‘getting ingredients’ thing was a trick, so she could see if I left when she told me not to. She said I could make it up to her by killing a human she had kidnapped in the basement.”
Hordak notices her pale face and passes her another bag of blood wordlessly, which Adora opens and sips while continuing to retell the story.
“Did you do it?” he asks. His tone doesn’t sound accusatory, just calm as he sits patiently and listens.
Adora shakes her head slowly. “No, I couldn’t. Shadow Weaver killed the woman in front of me. There wa-was blood e-everywhere.” Adora’s shoulders shake as she remembers the woman’s face of horror as she drained the blood out of her.
Adora finds it hard to believe that, just a few months ago, she used to do the same thing; kill senselessly, without a care in the world. Now, all she can think of is who is going to miss that woman now that she’s dead, or who that woman left behind with her death. Every lost life, every funeral planned because of her, every mourning family, every single one all caused by Adora. It makes her sick to think about.
Hordak wraps an arm around her shoulders to still the shaking and calm the blonde. Adora takes a couple shaky sips of the cow’s blood before continuing the retelling. She feels so weak, but she can’t find the strength to do anything but keep talking.
“Shadow Weaver kept talking about how weak I was, and she was laughing at me, so I told her to leave me alone. She got angry and threw me into her spell room. Then, she tried using dark magic on me, but it didn’t work. She cuffed me onto this metal machine I’d never seen before.”
Hordak’s arm tightens around the blonde. Adora quickly glances over at him to see a mortified, but knowing look on his face. He doesn’t speak, though, so Adora continues.
“She, um, she electrocuted me for hours, only stopping to yell at me to tell her who’s been influencing me, then turning the machine on again. It was- It was so awful, Hordak.” Her voice shakes as she finishes speaking, remembering the seemingly endless pain of the electricity. Shadow Weaver had never used electricity on her before, in the decades that Adora’s known her.
Hordak nods. “I know,” he says, with no further explanation.
Adora doesn’t turn to him this time as Hordak says, “Horde Prime used to use that machine on me, when I used to show emotions in front of him.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry, Hordak.” She leans her head on his shoulder in an act of support, the only thing she can do given her circumstances. Hordak rubs her shoulder for a second, before going back to being perfectly still.
Hordak sighs. “It’s alright, it’s in the past. Go on with your story, if you’re able to.”
“Okay. After she got bored with that, she took me off and kicked me on the floor until there were blood and bruises everywhere,” she says. With that, Hordak’s hand on Adora’s shoulder loosens. Adora smiles, appreciating the slight gesture.
To finish her story, Adora says, “That’s when she stabbed me with the sword and threw me outside with it.” She glances at the sword they brought with them onto the skiff. Adora’s not exactly sure why Hordak brought it, but she won’t question it right now.
“Thank you for telling me. You’re safe now, I promise.”
The two ancient friends fall into a calm silence, the only sound being the consistent hum of the skiff engine. They stay like that, leaning on each other for support and listening to the rustling of leaves around them, until Hordak’s voice breaks the silence.
“When we arrive at Brightmoon, promise me you’ll fight. Promise me you won’t give up.”
Adora sighs, tired, “What’s the point?”
“The point is that you can’t give up this easily. I’ve known you for over five centuries, and I’ve never seen you give up. Don’t start now, okay? Please, Adora.”
The words remind Adora of what Shadow Weaver said about Marlena being disappointed in what Adora’s become. Deep down, Adora knows Shadow Weaver is right. Her mother would hate her for the monster she let herself turn into. If Adora’s own mother would’ve hated her, then the princesses definitely do, too. Catra probably just pities Adora, and that’s why she’s been so kind to the vampire. There’s no other explanation for her kindness towards Adora.
Unless… Does she feel the same way?
No. No.
Adora shuts that thought out as quickly as it came. She learned a long time ago to not hold on to hope, anymore. Hope just leads to disappointment, and Adora knows better. Hope makes Adora believe that there’s a possibility of a peaceful future for her somewhere, when she knows that that could never be true.
The blonde shakes her head, “Nobody would miss me, Hordak. They’d move on, and so would you.” In the distance, the tips of Brightmoon Palace come into view. Dread fills Adora’s body, along with pain radiating from her wound.
Hordak moves to sit in front of Adora, gripping her shoulders. His grip is the only thing keeping Adora upright; she can almost feel the black tendrils covering more and more of her body, swallowing her body in pain.
The blue-haired vampire looks at Adora with such a determined and heartbroken look in his eyes that Adora can’t help but listen.
“That’s not true, Adora. The Princesses would miss you. Etheria would miss you. I would miss you. I-I can't do this without you.”
Adora shuts her eyes, not wanting to think about them, or Hordak, dealing with her death. It’ll only make this so much harder.
“And what about Catra? You don’t think she would miss you if you died?” Hordak asks.
With that, Adora peeks her eyes open again. It’s getting more and more difficult to keep them open, but she does at the mention of the Magicat.
“She would move on. She has other friends, ones that are better for her.”
Hordak scoffs, “You haven’t realized yet? Adora, Catra loves you.”
Adora’s eyes widened. “W-What? How do you know?”
His eyes soften when he says, “Whenever she looks at you, she gets this certain look on her face that makes it clear she’s in love with you.”
“How would you know what that look looks like?”
“Because I see it on your face when you look at her. I know you, Adora, and I've never seen you look at anyone the way you look at Catra.”
Adora looks down, not wanting to feel the hope brewing in her chest, as a pale blush coats her cheeks. She picks at her nails as she tries to shove down the feeling deep down, somewhere she can’t find it.
Hordak grabs both her hands to stop the fidgeting. Adora looks up at him when he says, “You’d be breaking Catra’s heart by leaving. Please, stay and fight.”
Just then, another wave of pain hits Adora and her eyes droop closed. She sees Brightmoon Castle behind her as the skiff stops in its tracks. Hordak moves to pick Adora up again as he leads them off the skiff and down the narrow bridge leading to the palace.
Adora can only see small glimpses of her surroundings as she’s carried, her eyes barely holding on to their strength. In those tiny moments of light, Adora sees many things.
Hordak yelling for help with a scared look on his face, more scared than Adora’s ever seen him.
Terrified guards moving to let them in. Hordak walking down the halls, looking for anyone who can help them.
Angella and Micah’s worried glances as they look down at Adora’s bloody and bruised form. Distantly, Adora thinks of how much Micah’s grown since she met him in Mystacor.
Glimmer’s face crumpling in sadness and worry over the blonde’s weak state as she places a hand on Adora’s shoulder to rouse her. Adora not moving, too weak to do anything but teeter on the edge of consciousness and unconsciousness.
Hordak practically running into the infirmary, followed closely by Angella, Micah, and Glimmer. Being led into one of the hospital rooms.
Being placed gently down onto the soft hospital bed as nurses and doctors filter into the room. Hordak, Glimmer, Micah, and Angella discussing what to do beside her. Adora doesn’t filter into the conversation, not caring to know what they’ll do to her. She trusts them.
Eventually, the initial panic of the room dies down as Adora rests. She doesn’t know how long she sleeps for, just that it wasn’t very long.
When she awakens, Adora doesn’t hear anyone’s voices. They probably left to go deal with more important matters. Although, Adora can feel a hand holding her own.
Curious, Adora peeks her eyes open to see who’s sitting by her side. Bow’s worried, but relieved expression appears in front of her. “Hi, Adora. How do you feel?”
Adora smiles, but it’s shaky. “Hey, Bow Not too good, actually.” Bow smiles at the sarcasm, glad Adora’s still well enough to use any.
“Hordak went to get an update on how we’re going to heal you, since normal medicine doesn’t work on you.” Ah, the curses of being from a dead kingdom and being an ancient vampire.
The blonde practically ignores everything Bow just said. She doesn’t want them to waste any more time on her. The pain in her abdomen is even worse now, some even spreading to her chest. She wants to say goodbye, though.
“Bow, have I ever told you I love you?” She tightens her grip on his hand.
He smiles, surprised by the subject change, and shakes his head.
Adora smiles warmly at him, “Well, I do. You were the first human to be kind to me since I was human, too, and that was a very long time ago. I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t talked to me that day when I first visited Brightmoon. Thank you, Bow.”
Bow’s smile fades as Adora keeps talking, realizing what Adora’s trying to tell him.
“Wha- Is this you saying goodbye?” He asks, tears welling in his dark brown eyes, and Adora’s as she nods.
He shakes his head, “No. No, we’ll fix this, Adora. You’ll survive this, okay? You will.” The tears slide down his face, fear clear on his face.
Adora’s heart breaks at his terror. “It’s okay, Bow,” she says to comfort him. It has the opposite effect.
“Stop saying goodbye, Adora! Please, don’t lose hope, yet,” He says, his voice dropping to a whisper. As he looks up at Adora’s face, he knows that it’s already too late for that. Shadow Weaver destroyed any hope left in Adora a long, long time ago.
Adora’s about to continue her goodbye when the door to the hospital room slams open to reveal Glimmer, Micah, Angella, Hordak, and…
… Castaspella?
The black-haired sorceress rushes to Adora’s side. She wipes the tears on Adora’s bloodied cheeks away with her hands. Her hands are so gentle on the bruises painted on the blonde’s face. Nothing like Shadow Weaver’s touch.
Adora leans into the touch on instinct as she looks up at the sorceress to ask, “Casta? What are you doing here?”
Castaspella smiles at the nickname Adora gave her as a kid, though there’s a gleam of sadness in her eyes. “Hello, Adora. You helped me, so I’m here to help you.”
Adora glances over from her now seated position on the bed to Glimmer, who asks, “Wait, you two know each other?!”
Castaspella gives Adora one more comforting smile, which Adora tries to reciprocate, before standing up to face her niece. Adora immediately misses the comfort of the hand on her cheek. Instead, Micah comes over to stand beside Adora as he reads something out of a spell book, holding a bottle of something undeniably magical in his other hand.
“Adora saved my life not too long ago, and I want to repay her for her kindness. I used to know her when I was a kid, too, when Adora lived in Mystacor.”
Angella grins at Adora, but the blonde can see the underlying worry underneath it. Instead of discussing the fear everyone is feeling, Angella asks, “Does Adora know every sorcerer in Etheria?” Her tone is meant to be light, but everyone is still worried as they look between Adora and Micah as he works with the book.
Adora laughs—it sounds more like a hoarse wheeze—as she says, “When you get to be as old as me, you meet a lot of different people in every kingdom.” Hordak, who’s standing by her side, smiles down at her with understanding in his eyes. They've met a lot of people along the way, and Adora's glad she got to have so many life experiences in her time, even if most of them were quite violent.
Hordak, as if sensing her thoughts, grabs her hand and clutches it tightly in his as he changes the subject with a stern voice. “Your life isn’t over yet, Adora. You can’t give up now, okay? You still have so many more people to meet.”
It’s then that Adora finally feels the fatigue and pain that’s been weighing her down for so long. It would be so easy to give in, to allow herself to stop after living for so long. Has she really been living all this time, though? Adora didn’t live the past five hundred years, she survived.
“I’m so tired, though,” Adora says. Her voice cracks, no matter how much she forces it not to. Tears fall from her eyes at a slow pace.
Tears well up in Hordak’s eyes and slide down his face, too, but he still smiles shakily at her. Adora rarely sees Hordak cry, especially not directly in front of her like this. Maybe there was some truth in what he was saying about him caring…
“I know, Adora, I know you are. But, please, just keep going for a little longer. I can’t rule the Horde without you by my side,” he says in a hushed tone.
Finally, the fatigue and pain reach a point that even Adora can’t handle. Her eyes flutter shut as her grip on Hordak’s hand loosens. The last thing Adora hears is the sound of Hordak crying as he grips her lifeless hand in his own. The last thing Adora sees is all of her closest friends either watching teary-eyed as she falls unconscious or frantically trying to find a solution before it’s too late.
If Adora had stayed awake for just a moment longer, she would’ve seen Catra frantically run into the room, looking for Adora.
If Adora had stayed awake for just a moment longer, she would’ve heard Catra cry along with everyone else above Adora’s body.
If Adora had stayed awake for just a moment longer, she would’ve felt Catra hold her hand and gently place her own forehead on Adora’s.
But she didn’t stay awake.
|
Aro had been sitting, thinking for a long time, the silence in the room complete. His mind wandered the same streets as before, not finding any new avenues of solutions. They were trapped. He glanced at Bella. Her bleeding had either stopped or slowed down. He could smell the blood as it slowly began to dry. Her breathing wasn't so shallow that he thought she might die in this instance, but she was in serious risk of going into shock, which might very well kill her if her injuries did not.
A deep groan sounded through the space. A ruffled head appeared behind the bars beside Bella's cage. Charlie had awoken. He grabbed his brow, wincing softly.
"Wha-" he halted, his eyes fixing on his daughter. "Bells! Oh god! Bella!" He grabbed the bars of his prison desperately.
"She is alive, Charlie," Aro said in a voice that was hollow. "But she is mortally injured."
Charlie barely seemed to listen. He was trying to reach her, much like Aro had done, but it was hopeless. In the end he seemed to give in, reluctantly coming to realise his surroundings.
"What happened? Where are we?"
Aro glanced around the dark room. "Somewhere beneath the National Park. We were ambushed."
Charlie scowled. "Let me guess. More of your delightful friends?"
"They are hardly my friends," Aro said in a low voice.
"Well, they are after you, aren't they?"
"Yes."
"So this is your fault, vampire!"
Aro frowned. For someone who had only recently found out that the world contained more monsters than his nightmares could dream up, he had certainly been easily convinced.
Aro sighed deeply. "You are right, of course. I tried to warn Isabella of the dangers of being with me. She was not dissuaded."
"You should have kept away from her." The man was trembling visibly. Whether from anger or coldness, Aro couldn't say.
"Again, you are correct. Though, I fear the solution would not have been that simple. Our connection reaches far beyond any physical distance we could have kept between us. Had I not searched her out, she would have found a way to come to me."
Charlie huffed, clearly not convinced. He looked more thoroughly at their surroundings, assessing their predicament, much like Aro had done. "Can't you get us out of here?"
Aro shook his head slowly. "Believe me, I have tried. There seems to be no way out of this, unless they open the cell doors." They fell silent again.
"You would think, given your… condition, you would know a few tricks."
Aro almost chuckled. "My condition?"
Charlie made a frustrated gesture. "Vampire."
"Vampires may be superior in many facets of this world, but not in all. These bars were made for someone like me. They will not break even if I spend a thousand years trying to get out. I will not waste energy on the useless."
Charlie regarded him pensively. "How old are you, exactly?"
Aro gave a wry smile. "I was turned more than three thousand years ago."
The human's eyes widened. "Three thousand?!"
Aro knew his age was nearly incomprehensible for most humans. If it wasn't for the dire situation, he would have chuckled.
"Does Bella know of your age?"
"She does."
"I would have thought she had more sense than that." Charlie covered his face with both hands.
"Charlie, you need to understand, neither of us had little choice in this. You should feel relieved that at least we feel a deep and burning love for each other."
"It just feels so… arranged."
"So does the movement of the earth around the sun, yet here we are, not questioning it."
Charlie opened his mouth to reply, but then, seemingly not knowing what to say, he closed it again, thinking. After a while the man shook his head defeatedly. "Saga…" he said sadly.
Aro felt for him, sensing his bewildered sorrow. "I know."
"Oh, you do, do you?"
Aro understood that Charlie's anger was only the result of the now almost painful yearning he must be feeling. Combined with their hopeless situation of course. But the pull of a new potential mate was a feeling Aro understood all too well, having endured it for an entire year, and he could not resent Charlie for his hostility.
"I do understand, Charlie. Marcus showed me your potential. She is most likely your mate."
"That doesn't mean anything," the man said, scowling.
Aro shook his head a little. "No, it means everything." He sighed, glancing at his own dying mate.
The man was still scowling, a suspicious look on his face. "What do you mean 'showed you?' Showed you how?"
"Whenever I touch the skin of other people, I can read every single thought they have had."
That shocked the human. "Excuse me?"
"I can read other people's minds-"
"Yes I heard you the first time!"
"Right. It's a gift I possess."
"So that's how you trapped Bella?"
"I did not trap her."
"It must have been easy for you to control her, if you knew her every damn thought."
"I cannot read her, Charlie."
"You can't…? Why the hell not?"
Aro shrugged. "I do not know. She alone is immune to my gift. It has been quite a challenge for me."
"How do you mean?"
Aro sighed wearily again. "Before I met Isabella, I was very different. I was… Darker. Guarded. Selfish. Ruthless. Used to having my way all the time. She managed to penetrate my armoured heart, cutting straight through my facade and in no uncertain terms showed me how normal people act when faced with reality. She loves me, despite my flaws, and I have to trust her, despite not knowing her as fully as I would like. As you can imagine, that is not easy for someone like me. But she is my mate, so I had to make it work. She is my everything now. When you get that feeling in your heart… you cannot let it go. It will gnaw at you until you give in... Or die. That is why I changed." He fell silent again, his gaze on nothing in particular.
Charlie gave a noisy swallow. "You must really love her."
Finally, he understands.
Focusing on the man, Aro nodded. "I do."
"Then
save
her."
Their eyes locked, and Aro gave a guarded nod. "I will." His voice held a conviction that he wasn't sure was warranted.
Sensing his apprehension, Charlie said; "You saved her before."
"That was different."
"How?"
Aro released a deep sigh. "She was stabbed by Victoria. The blade had been poisoned, and I was able to extract the venom in time. Had I not, she would have been turned."
"And you weren't ready for that…" Charlie said, frowning. "I would have thought you were more than eager for that to happen."
Aro shrugged. "I felt it was too soon, yes."
"Or you wanted to be the one to do it?"
The man's insight impressed Aro. Nodding wearily, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I was very selfish at the time. As I explained, Isabella changed me." It felt like it had been years, when in fact it had been mere days. And he realised quite suddenly how swiftly his own change had taken place.
Charlie was silent for a long time, looking at his daughter. "Then you need to change her as well."
Aro knew Charlie was right. The time had come. He needed to save his mate. He had hoped that this would occur under much different circumstances, but he couldn't let her die. The problem was that the change would take days, and he could not see how it could take place without alerting their captors. The pain she would endure would make her scream and writhe for days. He sighed. But he had no choice. She would die if he didn't do it, and that was a loss he could not face.
Not too long after their serious conversation, a soft whimper escaped the young woman between them. She stirred somewhat, before a pained groan floated from her. Both men instantly focused on her with avid expressions on their faces.
"Isabella? Can you hear me, love?" Aro said at the same time as Charlie spoke.
"Bells! Thank god! Can you move!?"
Her eyes fluttered, and she blinked dazedly up at the ceiling. A single tear ran from her eyes into her matted hair.
"Darling. Please look at me," Aro coaxed, reaching out to her again despite still not being able to touch her.
She rolled her head towards him, releasing another groan. Blinking blearily, she squinted at him. "Aro?"
He almost gave a dry sob. "Yes, love. I am here."
"What happened?" Her voice grew weaker by the second.
"You were ambushed and kidnapped. I am so sorry, my love. This is all my fault."
She said nothing, but merely closed her eyes. "I feel so cold. And tired." Her words were already slurring slightly.
Her father recognised the danger in her words. "Bells! Fight it! You can't pass out! Please! It will kill you!"
She gave a tired sigh. Death seemed to be an alluring solution to her predicament just now.
"Darling, look at me, please!" Aro urged. "Can you reach my hand?"
Her eyes rolled around to look at him. She appeared almost drunk, sedated. "Come, love. Take my hand."
He feared she couldn't comprehend what he wanted from her, but then her arm began to move in a slow arc towards his outstretched fingers. Once her arm was completely outstretched, reaching somewhat through the bars of her prison, their fingers were only an inch apart. Still she was out of his reach. "Please, Isabella. You have to move. Come closer. I can help you once you have moved. Just for the love of our bond, move a little closer to me."
Charlie kept silent, apparently realising too many instructions would only confuse her further.
The young woman's lower lip trembled. "I can't, Aro. It hurts too much."
"I know. I will make it better. Just a little bit towards me and I will save you. Please." His pleading seemed to penetrate her mind more effectively, the love in his voice feeding her the strength she needed to do as he said.
She began to cry silently as she seemingly gathered her muscles, trying to make them obey. She shuffled awkwardly towards him, moving like a boneless heap. Finally, their fingertips were able to touch. "A little more, come my love. Not far to go. I can help you, but you have to move!"
She did as he asked, finally his fingers could close around her index, then he was able to grasp her hand. It wasn't too long before he could grab her wrist and pull her carefully the rest of the way. He dragged her slowly towards himself, her limbs moving awkwardly, limply, as if she was nothing but a ragdoll.
He only needed to reach her wrist with his mouth. Then he could save her. Finally her hand came through the metal bars of his cage.
"You are so cold," he stated urgently, feeling her icy digits even with his own coldness.
She didn't respond, the recent struggle of moving apparently having left her with no energy.
"Isabella, I can save you."
She heaved a deep breath and nodded. "Do it."
His eyes met Charlie's for only a split second, before he lifted her hand to his lips. Time was of the essence, and he had to act fast. He tenderly kissed her in the palm of her hand, then her wrist, easily locating the dull beat of her pulse. She was very weak. Aro felt torn. He had imagined her change under quite different conditions, but his enemies had forced his hand. He had no choice but to do it. His gaze locked on target, and he slowly lowered his lips to her skin, his mouth pooling with venom, ready to bite.
|
He couldn't believe it. Tommy couldn't fucking believe it. He felt deja vu like whiplash when he stormed out of the house. His stupid fucking parents-
He'd gotten into a fight at school. Again. Like it was anything out of the ordinary. His knuckles were bruised and his ears were ringing. When he bit on his lip to keep from screaming in frustration, his eyes stung from the burst of pain. His dumbass braces had left a nasty cut after he got punched just the right way. Luckily for him, he'd bit it hard enough during the fight with his parents that he'd tasted blood in his mouth.
His parents hadn't been very forgiving. They were tired of getting calls and being forced out of work early. They were tired of having a child who screamed all day and night and couldn't control his temper and was barely passing his classes. They were tired of having a problem child.
Tommy shook his head fiercely, stopping on the sidewalk briefly when it made him see white. He wouldn't cry. He wasn't a baby. He could take punches and insults from people who didn't know shit about him. He could handle being kicked out of his house by his parents.
For a second time, at that.
He'd packed another bag and left, just like they wanted. He nearly didn't bring it. Nearly. He wanted his parents to worry and feel bad like they had last time. On the other hand, he didn't want Wilbur to murder him. He'd given him a key for a reason.
Tommy squeezed the small piece of metal tightly in his hand. He felt the house key digging marks into his skin. Tommy could've been squeezing it hard enough to draw blood and not realize. His anger was seething, but the more he dwelled on it, the more pointless it started to seem. His parents didn't care. They just wanted him to stop acting up. He bet they were wondering why they couldn't have been given a good child instead. One who was quiet and obedient and did what adults told him.
That wasn't going to change a thing. They were stuck with Tommy. They were legally responsible for him and his actions. Tommy eased his grip on Wilbur's key. They'd never get the kid they wanted.
Tommy noticed something then. He was freezing. He'd been so angry and hyped on adrenaline that he'd forgotten to bring a coat. It was the end of October and he'd forgotten to bring a fucking coat.
Stupid.
He'd be at Wilbur's soon enough.
The streets were empty. The night sky was starless. His only company was the streetlights, and only some of them weren't flickering or already dead. He felt lonely. The thought made tears prick at the back of his eyes.
It made sense. His own parents didn't want him. Why would anyone else bother to keep him around?
He stomped up Wilbur's steps, sniffling from what he insisted was the cold. He didn't knock, even though he saw lights on. He hadn't even given Wilbur a notice. It was too late now, anyways. He opened the door and stepped inside.
It was warm. Warmer than Tommy ever felt in his own house. It smelled like garlic bread, and the soft hum of music came from somewhere in the house. Tommy quietly shut the door behind him. It felt too peaceful to disturb. The lights in the hallway were a dim, welcoming orange. Tommy felt the last bit of fight drain out of him.
He dropped his bag to the floor and slid to the ground, back against the door. He pulled his knees to his chest and hid his face in his arms, inhaling sharply. Why was he so... fucked up?
He dug his nails into his arms and bit his lip again without thinking. He let out an involuntary whimper and tried to curl deeper into himself. He was such an embarrassment. His own parents didn't love him, so he had to come crawling to Wilbur whenever his pathetic ass needed babysat. He blinked rapidly, feeling tears escape down his cheeks. He wasn't sure he wanted to stay here anymore, if anyone saw him like this-
The stairs creaked, and Tommy heard a familiar humming. The soft mumble of lyrics was something he'd heard in VC too many times before. He recognized the tune, a new song Wilbur was working on. Well, it looked like it was too late now. He didn't look up when socked feet stopped on the landing.
Wilbur's voice was quiet, concern straining his whisper, "Tommy?"
He lifted his head. He gave Wilbur a weak smile and a shaky, "Hey, Wil."
"What-What the hell happened?" Wilbur asked, quickly crossing the gap between them and kneeling beside him.
"I, uh- I got kicked out again, big man," Tommy told him, chuckling sadly. "So... here I am."
"Christ, Tommy, did you-did you walk here? It's freezing outside!" Wilbur questioned. He grabbed one of Tommy's hands and, feeling the chill, immediately bundled the boy in his arms. "You should've called me, I would've come gotten you!"
"Yeah, sorry, I just-" Tommy inhaled quickly. His exhale was replaced by a gasping sob. He choked out, "I couldn't think-"
He felt Wil's arms squeeze him a little tighter. Tommy brought his hands up to grasp onto Wilbur's sweater. He tucked his head in the man's shoulder and tried to suppress his tears. Trying to stop hurt, it was like he was cutting off his own airways. He felt an arm slide beneath his knees and he was being picked up off the floor. Wilbur was carrying him, to where he didn't care. His chest hurt and lights felt too bright and sounds felt too loud. He just wanted out. He clamped his eyes shut and relished the darkness behind his eyelids. When he heard a door shut and he was sat back down, Wilbur vanished from his side.
"Wil-" he hiccuped, hands grabbing the comforter beneath him just to have something to hold on to. A warm and heavy blanket was quickly tossed over his shoulders.
"Yeah, Toms, I'm right here," Wilbur told him gently, and he felt his body sink into the space next to his. "Tell me what's wrong."
Tommy slowly tilted to the side, stopping only when his shoulder bumped against Wilbur's. He felt like the room was slipping away from him, like he'd slide off the bed if he let go of the comforter.
He mumbled, "I think I have a concussion."
"Christ," he heard Wilbur say in a breath. He felt a hand on his shoulder as Wil said, "I'm just gonna go into my bathroom, alright? I'm gonna get some painkillers and something for your lip. You can open your eyes, if you want, I'll turn the lights down a bit."
Tommy nodded and shivered as Wilbur's warmth left his side. He heard a door open and cabinets being searched. He tentatively opened his eyes, sighing when the light level didn't make his head feel like it was gonna explode. He watched Wilbur's back as he crouched in front of a cupboard, digging around for something. He'd stopped crying, finally. It let him notice a trail of something warm running down his chin. Wiping at it, a concerning amount of blood appeared on his hand. An amount that nearly made him nauseous.
Wilbur sat in front of him again, a small first aid kit and a washrag in hand. He took Tommy's face in his hand and said, "This'll sting, but just hold still, okay?"
Tommy hummed, non-committal, and let Wilbur do as he pleased. He let Wil clean his face with the rag and flinched as the antiseptic touched his lip. He put one of those weird white bandaids that closed things on his lip and was done. When he was offered some Advil, he took it gratefully and slumped back, choosing to lay on Wil's bed.
"Now," Wil started quietly, staring at Tommy's bruised knuckles and obviously knowing what happened, "can you tell me what happened?"
Tommy swallowed. He decided he couldn't look at Wilbur without feeling guilty, so he stared at the ceiling instead.
"I, uh," Tommy raised a hand, showing the purple and blue coloration, "I got in another fight."
"Tommy, we've talked about this-"
"I know, I know, I should get an adult or some shit," he sighed. He threw an arm over his eyes and gestured wildly with the other. "Except, y'know, when I get cornered in the bathroom and they start shit-talking, I got a little fired up-"
"Wait wait wait-hold on, they cornered you in the bathroom?" Wilbur asked incredulously.
Oh, Tommy thought, wincing. Maybe I should've left that bit out.
"Yeah," Tommy answered slowly, feeling his throat starting to close. "By the time it even mattered, someone'd already said I started shit."
"Did you defend yourself? Tell them otherwise?"
"Of course I did! They didn't believe me, I'm always the one starting problems!" Tommy shouted, sitting up quickly. That turned out to be an awful idea, because he instantly became so dizzy he had to grab Wilbur's arm until his vision cleared. He slid his hands off Wilbur once it did, gripping the blanket around him instead. He mumbled, "Three regular kids against one problem child, who would you believe?"
Wilbur's face dropped. He shuffled back so he was pressed against Tommy's side and asked gently, "Is that what you think? That you're a problem child? Because that's not true at all."
Tommy scoffed, "Of course it is. Do you know any other kid that's been kicked out of their house twice by their parents? They're so sick of me and my shit they don't even want me anymore."
His voice was breaking. He always got mushy around Wilbur. It was a pain in the ass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wilbur open his arms. He sighed and leaned into him, ignoring the pressure behind his eyes. Wilbur wrapped his arms around him and rested his chin on Tommy's hair.
"That's not true, you know that," Wilbur told him.
Tommy chuckled sadly, "I really don't."
He heard Wilbur exhale through his nose. "Then talk to them about it. If it's bothering you this much, you need to. And believe me, I will talk to them for you if you don't."
"God, that'd be embarrassing," Tommy grumbled, sniffling.
He felt Wilbur's laugh in his chest and smiled weakly. Wilbur started to card his fingers through Tommy's hair.
"But seriously, I will talk to them if you don't want to," Wilbur repeated sincerely.
"Nah, I-I'll do it," Tommy insisted, shaking his head. "I've bothered you enough."
"Nope, wrong again," Wilbur stated. He squeezed him slightly and continued, "We have our bits, but you will never actually bother me, Tommy. You can come to me for literally anything and I will help you."
"Are you sure?" Tommy asked tentatively.
"Yes, I am sure," Wilbur assured him. "I care about your wellbeing, Tommy. You will always be a little brother to me. God, if we'd lost you on the streets again, I don't know if I'd recover. Just-Just call me if you need anything, alright?"
Tommy nodded and mumbled, "Yeah, I will."
"Good," Wilbur smiled.
Wilbur waited, rhythmically running his fingers through Tommy's hair, until he fell asleep. Wil carefully lifted him and settled him under the covers. It was the easiest thing to do... and he didn't have the heart to leave Tommy on the couch. He grabbed his phone, turned off the lights, and let Tommy sleep.
If when he called Tommy's mother to tell her what happened he had something a little bit more heated to say, Tommy wouldn't know.
|
Wei Wuxian clung to Lan Zhan’s hand as they made their way steadily up the path to the Cloud Recesses. They’d been married in the smallest temple they could find, in the smallest town that had one, somewhere between Lanling and Gusu. They had stopped at every inn along the way, meandering through a honeymoon in little villages and larger towns alike. Lan Zhan had paid extra for discretion each time he was recognized, and the two had spent the time in blissful seclusion from the problems of the cultivation world. But they couldn’t stay away forever. Lan Zhan was needed, and eventually someone would come looking for him.
So there they were, making their way back to the Cloud Recesses, hand in hand.
“How are the rabbits?” Wei Wuxian asked, smiling dreamily at his husband.
“Good,” Lan Zhan replied, his voice warm. “They will be pleased to see you.”
“Good to know I’ll have friends there,” he joked back. Lan Zhan’s mouth twisted just a little, but Wei Wuxian didn’t care if all of the Lan sect was against him. He had a small pack of trinkets and souvenirs from the trip slung over his shoulder, the pleasant, full-body soreness of overworked muscles, a ring of marks around his neck, and a large, warm hand encasing his. He was happy.
They passed the tree his family had once rested under and Wei Wuxian nudged Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “Hey, Lan Zhan, remember when you made me walk all the way back to town to get the invitation?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan acknowledged.
“And then I came back and found out you let them all in anyway? Why did you do that?”
“Wei Ying was… mouthy,” Lan Zhan said, ears going a little red. “Distracting.”
Wei Wuxian grinned. “I love you,” he said. The hand around his squeezed briefly. They reached the top of the path and he stopped, pulling Lan Zhan around to face him. He threw his arms around Lan Zhan’s shoulders and drew him down into a kiss. Lan Zhan went willingly, wrapping his arms around Wei Wuxian’s middle.
A delicate cough made Wei Wuxian jump, and they broke apart, turning to see Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren standing there, waiting for them. Wei Wuxian felt himself going red and he straightened, releasing Lan Zhan and taking a side-step away from him. Lan Zhan reached out and caught Wei Wuxian’s hand, drawing him back in.
Lan Xichen looked pleased and patient, watching them both with warm eyes and a small smile. Lan Qiren looked… Wei Wuxian’s stomach curdled a little at the absolute disgust on his face. He could feel himself wanting to curl in, regressing to 15 again and being sent home for being disruptive.
“Welcome home,” Lan Xichen said. “How was your trip?”
“Good,” Lan Zhan said, pulling Wei Wuxian even closer. “Did you get the-?”
“I got your note,” Lan Xichen confirmed. “Congratulations.”
Wei Wuxian smiled at him and Lan Qiren made a scoffing noise. The smile dropped and he looked away. Lan Xichen glanced at his uncle, then back to Lan Zhan. “I’m sure you’re tired from your journey,” he said. “I’ll have food sent to the jingshi.”
Lan Zhan nodded. He looked over at his uncle. “Uncle,” he said. “You didn’t need to greet us directly.”
Lan Qiren scoffed again. “I wanted to see for myself if what I’d been hearing was true.”
Lan Zhan’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “And?”
Wei Wuxian tugged on Lan Zhan’s hand. “Lan Zhan,” he said softly. “Let’s just – let’s just get inside. Okay?” The last thing he wanted was for them to get into a fight right there where anyone could see.
“Indeed,” Lan Xichen said. “We can all catch up tomorrow. Uncle?” He turned and held out a hand, inviting his uncle to walk away with him. Lan Qiren gave a final look to the couple, then allowed himself to be led away.
Wei Wuxian let out a slow breath. “Come,” Lan Zhan said, and pulled Wei Wuxian in the opposite direction.
When Lan Zhan opened the door to the jingshi, Wei Wuxian stayed in the doorway for a moment, drinking it in. This was his home now. He would live here with Lan Zhan as his husband. A slow grin spread across his face until his cheeks dimpled. He dropped his bag on the floor, kicked off his shoes, and flopped onto his back on the bed. He sighed happily.
Lan Zhan followed a bit more slowly. He stood at the gap between the privacy screen and the wall, watching him. “Comfortable?” he asked.
“I could be more comfortable,” Wei Wuxian said with a filthy smile. Lan Zhan returned it with a small smirk of his own and began to untie his over-robe as he moved towards the bed.
They missed the food delivery, and later found a tray of rice and soup and vegetables on the porch, with a talisman to keep it warm. Wei Wuxian took great delight in sitting in Lan Zhan’s lap, shamelessly nude, the two feeding each other bits of stir-fry. He took even greater delight in Lan Zhan getting tired of his husband’s squirming and turning, tumbling him face-first onto the floor and pressing him down, fucking him so hard the soup bowl spilled across the floorboards. Knowing this was his forever was almost too much for his heart to handle. Afterwards, he buried his face in Lan Zhan’s shoulder as he carried Wei Wuxian to bed, hiding his red eyes and sappy smile.
All awkwardness from the meeting at the gates was forgotten as Wei Wuxian fell asleep wrapped in his husband’s long limbs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wei Wuxian awoke to the sound of quiet voices. He was alone in bed but one of Lan Zhan’s robes was wrapped around his shoulders, as if Lan Zhan had wanted him to wake up to it. He sat up and wrapped it around his otherwise nude self, then padded out from behind the privacy screen to see Lan Zhan standing at the door, himself only in under-robes, speaking quietly to Lan Sizhui.
“A-Yuan!” Wei Wuxian said, and Lan Zhan turned. Lan Sizhui’s face lit up and he waved, smiling brightly.
“Senior Wei!” the boy said. “Did you have fun on your trip?”
“We did,” he said, coming to take Lan Zhan’s arm. “Glad to see you made it home safe. Where is Wen Ning?”
“He’s nearby,” Sizhui said. “There were a couple of requests for help in a nearby village. Not night-hunting but an old woman needed some help repairing her house after a recent storm, that kind of thing.”
“We’re needed for a meeting,” Lan Zhan said softly.
“…we are?” Wei Wuxian’s stomach turned over. “What for? Why? Who?”
“All you need is where and when,” Sizhui said cheekily, and Wei Wuxian gave him a mock glare.
“Thank you, Sizhui,” Lan Zhan said, and Sizhui bowed.
“I’ll see you later!” He headed off, turning to give a cheerful wave before he was out of sight.
Lan Zhan shut the door and Wei Wuxian released him, stepping back a bit. “Lan Zhan,” he said, hands twisting the sleeves of his robe. “What…?”
“It’s my brother and uncle,” Lan Zhan said. “Likely about the impact of our elopement.”
Wei Wuxian nodded, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. Lan Zhan’s hands settled over his, stilling their anxious movements. He looked up and saw Lan Zhan watching him with warm eyes. “Wei Ying,” he said, in that voice that Wei Wuxian loved more than any other sound.
Wei Wuxian smiled crookedly at him. “I know, I know,” he said. “it’s fine. We’re fine.” He pressed a brief kiss to Lan Zhan’s mouth, then another because he really couldn’t resist, then forced himself to turn away to get dressed.
Eventually, they made it out of the jingshi and headed towards the main hall. Wei Wuxian felt like he stood out in his borrowed Gugu Lan robes, just a little too big for him around the shoulders. It didn’t help that passing students gave them wide, curious eyes, and he could hear whispers following them.
Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren were waiting for them, a table set with tea, and Wei Wuxian bowed to both before they settled down. Wei Wuxian took the opportunity to pour everyone tea, hoping to seem polite and well-mannered. He poured tea for Lan Qiren and looked up at him, only to find the man glaring daggers at Wei Wuxian’s hands. He looked back down and realized that in holding his sleeve out of the way, he’d raised it far enough that a distinctly hand-shaped bruise was visible around his wrist. He hurriedly set down the teapot and shook his sleeves out so they covered his hands, which he placed in his own lap. His cheeks turned a bit pink and he shifted uncomfortably. He’d always considered himself shameless but feeling the after-effects of Lan Zhan’s hands, mouth, and cock on his body, while being glared at by his husband’s uncle, was enough to make him want to hide under a bed until it all went away.
The Twin Jades had either not noticed this exchange or, more likely, were ignoring it, the traitors. Lan Xichen sipped his tea and said, “As happy as I am for the both of you, your marriage has caused a few ripples in the cultivation world that we will need to deal with sooner rather than later.”
Wei Wuxian sat up a bit straighter. Lan Zhan was, of course, already sitting straight as a tree. “We understand,” Wei Wuxian said.
“I doubt that,” Lan Qiren interjected gruffly.
Lan Xichen glanced at him, then seemed to decide that ignoring was the best way to handle this. “I’ve been speaking with the other sect leaders, and they’re prepared to accept this as an alternative to Wei Wuxian’s previous arrangement with Nie Huaisang. However, they are requiring a public wedding ceremony.”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan sipped his tea. “Will marry Wei Ying as many times as is necessary.”
Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop the goofy smile that spread across his face, or the sappy look he directed at his husband.
“That’s good to hear,” Lan Xichen said, and he meant it. “I’ve been speaking with Sect Leader Jiang about it.”
“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian said, surprised. “Why? About what?”
Lan Xichen cocked an eyebrow. “The question of where to hold the ceremony.”
Wei Wuxian considered that. “Does that mean… Lotus Pier is an option?” he asked, his voice quiet.
“It is indeed.” Lan Xichen watched him for a moment, then continued, “I don’t expect you to decide this right now. You and Wangji can discuss it and provide an answer tomorrow.”
Wei Wuxian gave a grateful little smile and hid his face in his tea.
“Was there any dissent?” Lan Zhan asked. “Regarding Wei Ying?”
Lan Xichen’s lips pursed. He opened his mouth but before he could speak, Lan Qiren spoke up. “Of course there was,” he said harshly. “The sect leaders had been looking for a neutral party to rein him in.” He didn’t look at Wei Wuxian as he spoke about him. “You are not neutral. They do not have any faith that you will control him-”
“Good,” Lan Zhan said. “I will not control Wei Ying.”
Lan Qiren’s eyes flashed. “The whole reason for this marriage is to keep him in line-”
“The reason for this marriage is because I love Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, his eyes hard and glittering. He stared down his uncle with his most haughty expression, the one usually reserved for Jiang Cheng or Su She.
Wei Wuxian took hold of Lan Zhan’s hand. “Lan Zhan, it’s alright,” he said softly. Lan Zhan visible forced himself to relax, then turned and lifted Wei Wuxian’s hand in his, kissing the back of it. Wei Wuxian gave a small smile. They both turned back to the table to see Lan Xichen looking concerned and Lan Qiren looking angry.
After a moment of silence, Lan Xichen continued, “To your question, there was dissent. However, Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling, and I spoke with them and assured them that regardless of the location of the wedding, Wei Wuxian would reside at Cloud Recesses and that as Sect Leader, I would take responsibility for both of you.”
Lan Zhan inclined his head. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
Lan Xichen nodded. “In truth, the events of the past couple of months have vastly improved our relations with both the Jin and Jiang sects. The Jiang sect has issued a formal invitation to Lan Jingyi for a year of study in the Yunmeng cultivation styles.”
Wei Wuxian laughed a little. “Jiang Cheng is going to regret that,” he said.
Lan Xichen smiled. “I’m sure it will be edifying for them both,” he said diplomatically. Wei Wuxian laughed harder, and he felt Lan Zhan press a kiss to his shoulder. It was almost enough to make him forget their uncle’s disgust.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After the meeting, Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian went their separate ways. “Need to attend to some matters,” Lan Zhan said.
“What matters?” Wei Wuxian asked.
“Surprise,” Lan Zhan said.
Wei Wuxian grinned. “I love surprises! What kind of surprise?”
Lan Zhan gave him a look of consternation. “Does Wei Ying know what ‘surprise’ means?”
“Aha! See? I’m not the bad influence here. A-Yuan gets his cheek from you!”
Lan Zhan just kissed him in response, for maybe a little longer than was proper, and Wei Wuxian walked off with a spring in his step. He planned to head out to visit the rabbits, figuring that staying out of everyone’s way was the best course of action. He got distracted, however, at the sight of three little ones, somewhere between seven and ten years old, arguing quietly over a scrap of paper.
“Anything interesting?” Wei Wuxian called, and the kids as one straightened and hid the paper behind their backs. Wei Wuxian held a hand out. “Let me see,” he said.
“You’re not a teacher, we don’t have to,” said the oldest, a girl with bright eyes. Oh, he liked that; maybe there was hope for the little Lans yet.
The older of the two boys elbowed her. “That’s Hanguang-Jun’s husband,” he hissed.
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Huh. I thought he’d be scarier.” She reluctantly held out the paper as Wei Wuxian tried to decide if he was sad about not being scary anymore. He took it and recognized it at once as a talisman.
“And what were you trying to do with this?” he asked, waving it a bit.
“It’s Lan Mingmei’s birthday tomorrow,” the boy said. “We wanted to surprise her.”
Wei Wuxian studied the talisman again. It seemed like they were trying to create a shower of sparks that would dance around for a few minutes, creating flowers in the air, before disappearing. He crouched down in front of them. “You’re close,” he said. “Give me the brush.” He snapped his fingers at the girl. She gave him a slightly distrustful look then passed it over. “Here, this line here?” All three children leaned over and watched as Wei Wuxian corrected the talisman.
“Oh…” the youngest boy breathed, speaking for the first time. “I see.”
Wei Wuxian grinned and handed the paper and brush back to them. He stood, brushing off his knees. “Tell your friend to have a lovely birthday,” he said.
“Thank you, Senior Wei,” the kids chorused, and bowed to him.
“What is the meaning of this?” Wei Wuxian’s spine snapped straight as he heard Lan Qiren’s voice behind him. The children all scrambled to stand up straight as well. Lan Qiren came to stand beside the group, looking stormy. “What are you doing?”
“Master,” the girl said, “we were making a present for Lan Mingmei’s birthday, and Senior Wei-”
“Enough,” Lan Qiren interrupted. “Go about your duties.” The children bowed again and scurried away, walking as quickly as the rules would allow. Then he turned his glare on Wei Wuxian, who braced himself.
“Master,” Wei Wuxian began, but Lan Qiren cut him off with a sharp swipe of his hand.
“It is not enough that you have upheaved my nephew’s life,” the man said, and it sounded like this was coming from a deep well of rage. Wei Wuxian shrunk in on himself a bit. “It is not enough that you have thrown the sects into chaos with your engagement to two different men in as many months. But now, you are spreading your deviant tricks to our students.”
“I-I wasn’t!” Wei Wuxian tried. “Really, I was just helping them with-”
“Enough,” Lan Qiren snapped, and Wei Wuxian fell silent. “I may have to tolerate your presence here, but I will not tolerate your influence on these young minds. You are not to speak to another disciple, is that clear?”
He could argue. He wanted to argue. He wanted to scream in this man’s face that all he wanted to do, all he ever wanted to do, was help people. But he hadn’t been lying when he’d told Lan Zhan he was tired of fighting this battle. And worse still, he knew Lan Zhan would absolutely fight this specific battle for him, and he wasn’t willing to be the reason for any more of a rift between actual family members. He nodded, lowering his eyes. “Yes, Master Lan,” he said quietly.
Lan Qiren glared at him for another moment before turning and walking away. Wei Wuxian stood there for a moment, fighting back a lump in his throat, before continuing on his way. He ignored every stare and whisper and spent the rest of the day with the rabbits, away from the rest of the residents of the Cloud Recesses.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lan Zhan returned that night with news of an appointment with the Gusu Lan tailor to build a wardrobe for Wei Wuxian, and a gift of Emperor’s Smile. They sat together as Wei Wuxian drank wine and Lan Zhan stroked his hair. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said. “Have you thought about where to have the wedding?”
Wei Wuxian sighed. He hadn’t, really. The encounter with Lan Qiren had driven that from his mind. “I don’t know,” he said. He thought of getting married in the place he grew up, purple everywhere, lotus flowers in his hair. He ached for his home sometimes, even though it wasn’t his home anymore.
“We will marry in Lotus Pier,” Lan Zhan said decisively.
Wei Wuxian turned to him, eyes wide. “We will?”
Lan Zhan gave a nod. “We will.”
“But… you hate Jiang Cheng!”
“Yes,” Lan Zhan agreed, surprising him further. “But you do not.”
Wei Wuxian took a deep breath. “Are you sure?”
Lan Zhan took his hand. “Will marry Wei Ying anywhere, anytime,” he said. “Will say wedding vows every morning. It doesn’t matter.”
Wei Wuxian grinned, bright and happy. “I think you’d better take me to bed then, husband of mine,” he said. “If every day is a wedding, then every night is a wedding night.”
Lan Zhan, as he always did, gave his Wei Ying exactly what he wanted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A week passed in relative quiet. Lan Zhan was busy most days, helping his brother with arranging the wedding, along with other sect business. Wei Wuxian kept his word and avoided everyone but Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi. He attended a couple of appointments with the tailor, getting measurements and discussing preferences and styles. It was nice, even if he felt bad for giving a wide berth to little ones who looked like they might approach him.
One morning, he walked Lan Zhan outside, just far enough that the other buildings were in sight. “I hope the wedding planning isn’t too difficult, or boring,” Wei Wuxian said, swinging their clasped hands between them as they walked.
“The details are boring,” Lan Zhan admitted. “The important part will happen regardless of the color of flowers or the food served.”
Wei Wuxian grinned and they stopped at a fork in the path, turning to face each other. “If you ever need me to take over, I will,” he said. “Lan Xichen will get so tired of me he’ll leave all the planning to my brother, which would serve him right for letting us have the wedding in Yunmeng.”
Lan Zhan smiled a little. “Wei Ying would not survive half an hour of planning.”
He gasped, pressing a hand to his chest. “Lan Zhan!” he said, in mock offense. “How cruel you are to your poor husband!”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan’s voice was warm and low. “Let me be kind, then.” He leaned in and kissed Wei Wuxian. Not a quick, happy, have-a-nice-day kiss. This was the sort of kiss that led to sheets twisted in fingers, sweat dripping on skin, whole body shudders that shook bed frames. When the kiss broke, Wei Wuxian was bent back nearly in half, held up only by Lan Zhan’s arms around him.
Lan Zhan slowly straightened up, bringing Wei Wuxian with him. He gave a breathless laugh. “That was not kind, my dear husband,” he said. “That was cruel.”
“Why cruel?” Lan Zhan’s voice was amused now, still low and syrupy.
“Because a kiss like that should mean you’re about to pick me up, take me to bed, and ravish me,” he said. “But instead you’re going to leave me like this, alone all day.” He gave a cheeky smirk. “I’ll have to take care of the ravishing all by myself.”
Lan Zhan’s eyes darkened. “Don’t,” he said.
Wei Wuxian cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
He shook his head. “Not allowed,” Lan Zhan said, and it was that commanding tone that made Wei Wuxian weak in the knees. “Wei Ying is mine.”
He nodded quickly. “Yes, yeah, Lan Zhan. I won’t. I promise.”
Lan Zhan kissed him once more, hard and possessive, before releasing him. Wei Wuxian watched him go before giving a dreamy sigh and turning to head to the rabbits. He was stopped a few feet down the path by an angry looking Lan Qiren.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes went wide, and he stuttered out, “Master… I haven’t forgotten what you said. I haven’t been-”
“Have you no shame?” Lan Qiren demanded.
Wei Wuxian frowned. “I… I don’t understand?”
“That display you just performed.” Lan Qiren waved in the direction he had come, and Wei Wuxian’s cheeks turned pink as he realized the man had seen him and Lan Zhan kissing.
“Oh,” he breathed. “I – I’m sorry, Master, we didn’t-”
“Do you think of no one outside yourself?” Lan Qiren demanded. “Is it truly too much to ask that you comport yourself with respect and decorum?”
“Sir,” Wei Wuxian began, but again he was cut off.
“The disciples of this sect will be virtuous and above reproach,” he said. “They do not need to see your licentious behavior. Look at you! Not even a proper wedding yet and you’re flaunting your deviance for anyone to see.”
Wei Wuxian tilted his head. “Is this because your nephew chose me specifically, or because your nephew chose a man in general? Do you dislike cut-sleeves?”
“I dislike whores,” Lan Qiren shot back, voice filled with venom.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes went wide, his mouth slack. For all his shamelessness, all his flirting, no one had ever called him that before. “I…” his voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “I am a married man,” he insisted, voice weak.
“You are a mistake, one that Lan Wangji has made over and over again,” Lan Qiren said. “I do not anticipate him coming to his senses; you have obviously offered plenty of motivation for him to remain at your side. But I will not allow his mistakes to impact this sect.”
Wei Wuxian’s eyes stared into the middle distance. It was like Lan Qiren had dug into his skull, clawed into his guts, ripped out every single worry he’d ever had about this relationship, and presented them to him on a plate, bloody and raw. “Lan Zhan loves me,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m sure he thinks so,” Lan Qiren said. And his rant apparently delivered in full, he turned and walked away without another word.
Wei Wuxian stood there for a long time, trying not to vomit. When he felt he could move without crying or being sick, he made his way slowly to visit the rabbits, letting their warm, furry bodies calm his racing pulse and settle his nerves. He skipped lunch and went back to the jingshi that evening, taking a roundabout route to avoid meeting anyone.
Lan Zhan came home with dinner and took one look at him and said, “Wei Ying? What’s wrong?”
Wei Wuxian stood up from his place on the floor and did his best to smile at his husband. “Nothing! I’m fine. What’s for dinner? It smells great!”
Lan Zhan gave him a look. He set down the tray then took Wei Wuxian into his arms. “What happened?” he asked.
Wei Wuxian heaved a sigh. “I saw Lan Qiren today,” he mumbled into Lan Zhan’s chest.
Lan Zhan pulled back, looking furious. “What did he do?”
Shit - he looked ready to murder someone. “No, Lan Zhan – it’s nothing, really. He just doesn’t like me, he didn’t – he didn’t say anything specific. Come on, let’s just have dinner, alright?” He smiled, and it was a little less fake this time. “Nothing matters except this, here. You.”
Lan Zhan stroked a hand over Wei Wuxian’s hair, down his cheek. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I brought chili oil,” he murmured.
Wei Wuxian wanted to cry. He laughed instead. “My hero.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wei Wuxian avoided walking Lan Zhan out of the house by the easy pretext of pretending to sleep in every morning. It gave him less time with his husband, but he couldn’t afford to be caught being… intimate… with Lan Zhan again. He also knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid it without telling Lan Zhan unless he simply didn’t walk with him.
Lan Zhan didn’t seem to mind much, but Wei Wuxian did. All he wanted was a simple married life with Lan Zhan. He ached for it. He wanted to feel like a husband, and right now, he felt like a kept man. Under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed that idea. The problem was that other people clearly saw him this way as well, and he was determined that his marriage to Lan Zhan be viewed as legitimate by the wider world. He didn’t care what people thought of him, but he deeply cared what people thought of Lan Zhan. He would not stand for people thinking Lan Zhan was just some horny moron, led around by the cock by the devious Yiling Patriarch.
Luckily, Lan Qiren couldn’t stop Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi from visiting him. The three of them spent a couple of days out in the woods with the rabbits, practicing the sort of talismans that weren’t strictly allowed in Gusu. Lan Zhan had taught them a surprising amount of Wei Wuxian’s own work, but there were plenty he’d created while he was in the Burial Mounds, things no one knew except him. He was glad to pass them along to the two boys.
“So, I hear you’re going to Yunmeng soon,” Wei Wuxian said casually to Lan Jingyi, while they watched Sizhui practice.
“Yeah… weird, right?” Jingyi asked, arms crossed. “I thought Sect Leader Jiang hated me.”
Wei Wuxian snorted. “He’s like that with everyone. He likes it when people talk back to him. If you cower when he yells, he thinks you’re weak. He likes people who stand up for themselves.”
Jingyi scoffed. “I don’t know, I’ve been pretty rude.”
“Trust me, if he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t have invited you.”
Jingyi was quiet for a moment. Then, “What if I disappoint him?”
Wei Wuxian smiled a little. “You won’t. You’re talented. And besides, you’re there to learn. Don’t tell him I said this, but he knows what he’s doing. You’ll learn a lot from him.”
Jingyi nodded, absorbing this. Then his expression turned mischievous. “So… Sizhui tells me you’re basically his father.”
Wei Wuxian coughed, cheeks going a little pink. “More Lan Zhan than me,” he said. “But I took care of him when he was little.”
“Uh-huh. Does that mean he and the Young Mistress are cousins?”
“Uh… what?” Wei Wuxian laughed incredulously. “I uh… I don’t think that’s how it works,” he said. “I was adopted by the Jiang sect, and Sizhui was adopted by Lan Zhan and myself. He and Jin Ling don’t share any ties outside of formalities.” His eyes narrowed a little. “Why?”
“No reason,” Jingyi said primly. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.” Before he could be asked further questions, he called, “Sizhui! It’s time for lunch!” and hurried to join the other boy on their walk back to Cloud Recesses.
Wei Wuxian watched them go and decided that whatever was happening with Jin Ling and A-Yuan was a problem for future Wei Wuxian, and it wasn’t important right then.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wei Wuxian met with the tailor a few days after that, finally receiving his Gusu Lan robes. He tried on one set at the behest of the tailor, who wanted to triple check the fit. Staring in the mirror in the man’s workshop, he could hardly recognize himself. The red ribbon in his hair remained, and the man had kindly provided more, but everything else was white and blue. The robes were cut similar to Lan Zhan’s, though he did have a few sets with the sleeves fitted for archery.
“Perfect,” the man said, clearly pleased with his work. “What does the young master think?”
“I love them,” Wei Wuxian said honestly. The man smiled.
“One last piece,” he said, and handed him a thin wooden box, about a foot long and polished to a lovely shine.
Wei Wuxian opened the box to find a Gusu Lan forehead ribbon, identical to Lan Zhan’s, resting on a bed of white silk. He drew in a sharp breath, fingers reaching out to touch it. “Normally this would be provided at your wedding,” the tailor said. “But you and Hanguang-Jun are already married, so there didn’t seem any reason to delay it.”
He was still staring at it when someone knocked on the door. The tailor went to answer it, and a moment later, he heard Lan Zhan’s voice. “Wei Ying?”
Wei Wuxian turned and wordlessly held out the box. Lan Zhan moved towards him, eyes going a little wide when he saw what was in it. He met Wei Wuxian’s gaze. “Put it on for me?” he asked quietly.
Lan Zhan held his sword out and Wei Wuxian took it. Lan Zhan’s long fingers traced over the fabric, over the filigree, and then lifted it from the box. “Turn around,” he said. Wei Wuxian did, and found himself facing the mirror. Lan Zhan very carefully lowered the ribbon to his forehead, making absolutely sure it was straight before tying it under this hair ribbon.
“How is it?” Wei Wuxian asked, touching the metal piece with trembling fingers.
“Perfect,” Lan Zhan said. Then, “Come. Have lunch with me.”
Wei Wuxian grinned and handed him his sword back. “How can I say no to that?” They linked arms and walked out of the tailor’s workshop.
Lan Zhan stopped after only a few feet. “Mn,” he said, frowning a little. He glanced in the direction of the kitchens. “Forgot something. Wait here?”
Wei Wuxian nodded, still floating on the happiness of the forehead ribbon to wonder what Lan Zhan had forgotten or worry about being seen with him. Lan Zhan pressed a kiss to his forehead, right on the ribbon, then headed off. Wei Wuxian smiled to himself, pleased, and pressed his fingers to the ribbon, exploring it. The weight on his forehead was new and would take some getting used to, but he knew how important it was. This meant something.
“What. Is. That,” came a venomous voice. Ice shot through Wei Wuxian’s veins as he turned and saw Lan Qiren, looking like he might start bleeding from the eyes and qi deviating any second.
“Wh-what?” Wei Wuxian asked nervously.
“Who gave you that?” Lan Qiren demanded, pointing at his head.
Oh. He cleared his throat. “Well, the tailor-”
“You were expelled from Gusu,” Lan Qiren hissed. “You have done nothing but flout our laws, disrespect our clan and its history, and insert yourself where you don’t belong. How dare you wear that? You haven’t the right. That mark is earned through discipline and virtue, not on your back or by spreading your legs.”
Wei Wuxian was shaking, eyes burning. He stared down at his hands, ears filled with his own heartbeat. So, when the sword appeared between them, he jumped out of his skin.
Lan Zhan stood beside them, his eyes blazing. He held his sheathed sword between Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren, staring at his uncle. “Lan Wangji,” the man began, but Lan Zhan cut him off.
“You will not speak another word to Wei Ying,” he said. He didn’t raise his voice, but Wei Wuxian felt it down to his toes. “You will walk away. You will never speak to Wei Ying again.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian tried, putting a hand on his arm.
“You cannot expect me to remain silent while this… this deviant traipses around the Cloud Recesses, flaunting-”
“Yes,” Lan Zhan hissed. “I expect you to remain silent.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian urged, shaking his arm. He was ignored.
Lan Qiren drew himself up to his full height. “I will not stand for this!”
Lan Zhan’s eyes flashed. “Then leave.”
Wei Wuxian gasped and moved, putting himself between them. “Lan Zhan, don’t,” he pleaded. “Please don’t do this, we can – let’s just calm down and talk about this, alright?”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said, finally meeting his eyes. “You are my husband. They will respect that. Or I will make them.”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth trembled, and he fought the urge to cry because yes, it was wonderful hearing those words but also no, he couldn’t let this happen. “I won’t – I can’t be the reason for this, I can’t be why another family falls apart.”
Lan Zhan’s face softened a bit. “You wouldn’t be.” He took hold of Wei Wuxian and drew him in close, turning him so they were side by side, his arm around Wei Wuxian. Lan Zhan turned his eyes back to Qiren, who looked stunned and wrong-footed. “He is the reason,” he continued, voice hardening again.
Lan Qiren swallowed, looking unsure for the first time. “Nephew,” he began, but Lan Zhan cut him off.
“Wei Ying and I leave for Yunmeng tomorrow,” he said. “We accompany Lan Jingyi; we will remain for a month. In that time, I will speak to Wei Ying about what else you have said to him when I was not there. You have that time to learn to accept and respect Wei Ying as my husband and cultivation partner; this is not a negotiation. You will do it, or you will leave.” He leaned in. “But understand that this conversation is not over. Regardless of your choice, we will discuss your treatment of my husband when he and I return here for good.”
Wei Wuxian was frozen, unable to look at anyone. This was his fault, all his fault, why was this happening again…
“Wei Ying?”
He blinked and looked up at Lan Zhan. “Lan Zhan?”
Lan Zhan looked so worried. “Wei Ying,” he said, more softly. “I am going to speak with my brother for a moment. Please go home. I will be there shortly.” And then, in full view of Lan Qiren who still stood there watching, he leaned down and kissed Wei Wuxian deeply.
Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop the small noise he made at the kiss, and when it broke, he turned his head away, not wanting to see Lan Qiren’s reaction. Lan Zhan released him, and Wei Wuxian turned and walked unsteadily away, making for the jingshi.
Wei Wuxian managed to get inside and shut the door behind him before his legs decided to stop working. He sat down hard on the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees, needing to feel small and unseen. He wasn’t sure how much time passed but he smelled spice and heard footsteps while the sun was still high. Lan Zhan came in carrying a tray of food, which he sat on the table. He took off his shoes, set his sword down, then sat down on the floor and pulled Wei Wuxian into his lap.
“Why did you do that?” Wei Wuxian whispered as Lan Zhan held him close. “You can’t tear your family apart for me.”
“Wei Ying is my family,” Lan Zhan said.
“He’s your uncle,” Wei Wuxian argued. “Your uncle by blood. We don’t all get that luxury, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan pulled back, holding Wei Wuxian at arm’s length to meet his eyes. “You have seen blood turn sour,” he said. “You have seen what blood family can do to each other. I will not allow anyone to hurt you, Wei Ying.”
Wei Wuxian’s face crumpled. “This is all my fault,” he whispered.
Lan Zhan shook his gently. “Wei Ying. Wei Ying, look at me.” He waited until Wei Wuxian obeyed. “Wei Ying, when someone hurts you, it is not your fault.”
The tears filling Wei Wuxian’s eyes spilled over and Lan Zhan tugged him in close again, arms wrapped tight around him. “What did your brother say?” he asked in a whisper, sniffling against Lan Zhan’s chest.
“Brother will speak with our uncle,” Lan Zhan said. “He will back my words.”
They sat in silence, and Lan Zhan let Wei Wuxian cry, waited until he was breathing steadily and settled against him. Finally, he said, “Wei Ying should eat.”
Wei Wuxian sat back, scrubbing a hand over his face. He felt Lan Zhan’s eyes on him. “What?” he asked.
Lan Zhan was frowning a little. Wei Wuxian knew that look. It was the ‘Lan Zhan wants to say something but Words Are Hard’ look. “Lan Zhan?”
Lan Zhan took a deep breath and breathed out slowly. “Wei Ying,” he said, stroking a hand down his cheek. “Do you remember in Yunmeng when Jiang Cheng was angry about your family’s shrine?”
Wei Wuxian winced. “Hard to forget,” he murmured.
Lan Zhan nodded. “He is your brother. You love him, despite everything that has happened. You gave up your golden core for him. But when he insulted me, you demanded he apologize. You were ready to fight him for it.”
Wei Wuxian blushed a little. “So?”
“So,” Lan Zhan said patiently, “stop expecting me to do any less.”
Wei Wuxian stared at him for a moment, before giving a huff of a laugh. “Fine,” he said. “Fine, Lan Zhan. I should never have taught you how to use your words; it’s completely unfair how persuasive you’ve become.” He smiled at him, and it was only a little sad. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you,” Lan Zhan agreed.
“And I’m going to marry you again,” Wei Wuxian said, smile becoming brighter. “In Lotus Pier.”
“Anywhere, anytime, every day,” Lan Zhan agreed. “Even better when it annoys your brother.”
Wei Wuxian grinned finally, bright and happy. “Mark your words, Lan Zhan.”
“I’ll mark Wei Ying instead.”
They tumbled to the floor, food forgotten, and Lan Zhan spent the rest of the evening making sure his Wei Ying believed every word he said.
|
Lan Zhan quietly sat next to Wei Wuxian as he thoroughly embarrassed himself by sobbing all over his sheets. He turned the lights on and closed the door to give Wei Wuxian some privacy but otherwise remained motionless.
Wei Wuxian wiped his eyes, sniffling slightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘You should be piloting. You said we’re arriving at Gusu soon?’
‘No need,’ Lan Zhan said serenely – and dare Wei Wuxian guess, fondly? - before taking a breath. ‘Wei Ying, we are not going to Gusu.’ He paused a little, carefully choosing his words. ‘I left the Cloud Recesses due to their complicity in Yiling’s destruction.’
The words were like an ice bath on Wei Wuxian’s brain, shocking his thoughts to a halt. His eyes widened. ‘What?’ He said, breathless. ‘Lan Zhan, what?’
‘The destruction of Yiling was unacceptable.’ Lan Zhan said with a solemn certainty, relentlessly shattering Wei Wuxian’s world view. ‘The Cloud Recesses’ acceptance of it, unforgivable.’ He looked at Wei Wuxian steadily, giving no space for doubt. ‘My own complacency is one of my greatest regrets. Staying would have been another.’
Wei Wuxian could not answer, still attempting to disentangle the ideas of Lan Zhan and the Cloud Recesses within his mind.
Lan Zhan rose from the bed, as elegant as always and held his hand out, the smallest of smiles dancing on his lips. ‘Wei Ying, will you come to my new home with me?’
Wei Wuxian choked on a laugh. ‘A bit late to ask me isn’t it? Aren’t we already there, Lan Zhan?’ He took the hand, marvelling at how Lan Zhan was accepting this touch. ‘Of course, Lan Zhan.’
Lan Zhan pulled him to his feet and, never dropping his hand, led him through the corridors of Bichen, to the cockpit. Through the visor, a small green circle was growing but Wei Wuxian’s attention was immediately captured by the two children curled up together watching a holo play.
Now that he knew Sizhui was A’Yuan, it seemed to obvious. The smile, the eyes, the nose, even the gentle kindness that he had demonstrated, they were all so familiar. Wei Wuxian was captivated.
Upon seeing him, A’Yuan gave a shy smile and stood up. ‘Mister Wei,’ he said, eyes shining. ‘Thank you for saving my family and me.’ He gave a perfect, polite little Jedi bow.
Wei Wuxian leapt forwards to raise him from it, ruffling A’Yuan’s hair carefully, like he used to years ago, amazed at how much taller he was. ‘A’Yuan, A’Yuan, don’t thank me for that.’
A’Yuan scrunched his nose up, brushing a hand over his hair as if to chase the feeling. He gave Wei Wuxian a bashful look. ‘I think I remember you a little, brother Xian.’
And that was all it took for Wei Wuxian’s eyes to fill with tears once more. ‘Oh?’
‘Did you… Did you sing to me sometimes?’ A’Yuan asked carefully. ‘I remember someone did, when I was little.’ He frowned slightly, digging further into his memories. ‘Did you… put me in dirt?’ He sounded bewildered.
Wei Wuxian made a sound that was caught between a laugh and a sob. He pulled A’Yuan up to him in a hug. ‘What did I do to deserve this judgement? You were a little radish, I was just helping you get bigger.’
He realised that A’Yuan may not welcome the physical contact from a near-stranger and let him go. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m just so glad you’re alive, A’Yuan.’
A’Yuan grinned up at him exactly as he had when he was four. He pulled Wei Wuxian back into a hug. ‘I’m so glad you are alive as well, brother Xian.’
Wei Wuxian would never have let A’Yuan go, if not for Lan Zhan’s voice dragging him back to reality. ‘Wei Ying, Sizhui. We are landing.’
‘Yes, Master,’ Sizhui said easily, extracting himself from Wei Wuxian’s hold and going to buckle himself in to one of the seats at the back of the cockpit. His friend Jingyi was already settled, watching Wei Wuxian with wide eyes.
Wei Wuxian wondered how he compared to the terrifying Yiling Sith of legend. He couldn’t imagine he measured up, fainting and sobbing all over the place as he was. He sent the boy a quick grin and went to sit in the co-pilot’s seat.
Lan Zhan looked at him softly, making blood rush to his cheeks. Before Wei Wuxian could open his mouth to ask, Lan Zhan said, ‘Your friends will be staying in the infirmary during the landing, to steady Xiao Xingchen if need be.’
Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure how they would feel about being called his friends but he nodded in thanks all the same.
‘Is that it, then?’ He asked, jerking his chin towards the planet below. ‘Home?’
‘Yes,’ Lan Zhan answered, and his smile was the most beautiful thing Wei Wuxian had ever seen.
Lan Zhan landed with practised ease, so perfectly smoothly that Wei Wuxian could have easily been standing throughout without even stumbling.
He turned to congratulate Lan Zhan on his flying when A’Qing’s voice rang out.
‘Have we landed? We need to move Xingchen to the stretcher.’
She popped her head into the cockpit curiously.
‘We’ve arrived,’ A’Yuan said helpfully as he unbuckled himself. ‘Master, should I go get Aunty Qing?’
Lan Zhan nodded with a hum and A’Yuan was off.
‘Wait for me, Sizhui,’ Jingyi called, struggling briefly with his own seatbelt before rushing after his friend.
‘Excellent,’ A’Qing declared.
She caught Wei Wuxian’s eye. She must have seen something in his expression because her own gained a tinge of exasperation. ‘Just because we’re busy with Xingchen at the moment doesn’t mean we’re forgetting you, Hey-you!’ And she left with what Wei Wuxian could have sworn was a roll of her eyes.
He let out a long breath; confrontation delayed then, he could work with that.
Lan Zhan had risen from his seat and was giving Wei Wuxian a look which clearly recommended he do much the same.
‘I know, I know, Lan Zhan. No need to rush me.’ He said, lifting himself up.
Together, they approached the cargo bay, already open from when A’Yuan had rushed through. A’Qing and Song Zichen arrived just behind them, Xiao Xingchen on a stretcher between them.
Wei Wuxian fought the impulse to shrink into Lan Zhan’s shadow but Song Zichen simply nodded at him.
He didn’t have time to examine that reaction because, an oh-so-familiar voice floated in from outside. ‘I’m sorry, who is on that ship?’
Well, nerves notwithstanding, Wei Wuxian could not ignore such a perfect cue. He took a step outside.
|
Joshua wakes up to a crash coming from the living room. Seungcheol shoots up in bed, arm leaving Joshua’s waist as a low, growling noise starts to radiate from his chest. Joshua sits up in a much slower fashion, resting a hand on Seungcheol’s shoulder and telling him to go back to bed. He climbs over Jeonghan and grabs his phone.
“Joshua, I’m coming with you.” Seungcheol says. Jeonghan whimpers in his sleep, fingers clutching the pillow where Joshua had just been resting his head.
“Stay with Jeonghan.” Joshua opens the door, cursing the protesting creak that the hinges make. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he’s entered into the hallway, he can hear sobbing.
“Get out!” He hears Soonyoung shout. Joshua’s blood goes cold and races out into the living room.
Soonyoung is standing in front of the couch, his face red and tears streaming down his cheeks. Joshua runs to him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. He pets Soonyoung’s hair with shushing noises falling from his lips.
“Tell him to get out.” Soonyoung mutters weakly into Joshua’s chest.
Joshua turns his head to the door, following the trail of broken candles and torn magazines, to see Mingyu standing in the front entryway. Joshua can feel tears welling in his eyes; Mingyu was just as much a best friend to Joshua as he was a boyfriend to Soonyoung.
“Soonyoung, go back to bed.” Joshua says. Soonyoung shakes his head. “Go, Soonyoung. It’s late. You have work tomorrow.”
He listens this time, sneaks one last glance in Mingyu’s direction before he’s running down the hallway, the sound of sobbing echoing after him.
Joshua stands there for a while, staring at Mingyu while he stares back. Memories of Soonyoung crying for days on end flash through his mind, and he’s left with so many unanswered questions that he wants so badly to ask.
“What are you doing here?” Is the first.
“I just wanted to see him. I told him I’d come back, didn’t I?” Mingyu says. Joshua had almost forgotten how his voice sounded.
“You didn’t tell him anything. You left a note on the counter. Why did you come back?” Joshua says. It’s low and deep in the back of his throat, like how Seungcheol growls when he’s angry.
“The pack’s not with me, if that’s what you’re wondering. I came on my own. I wanted to see him; to know that he was doing okay.” He says.
Joshua wants to yell. He wants to scream and kick and physically throw Mingyu out of his house.
“It’s been two years, Mingyu. You don’t just leave for two years and then come back without a warning. He was finally getting back on his feet.” Joshua says.
Mingyu scowls. “By doing what? Bringing other hybrids home to replace me? I can smell them, Josh.” He says.
“Oh, fuck off. You don’t get to be possessive and territorial. You don’t even get the excuse of it being a wolf thing, because you left.”
Mingyu’s resolve crumbles. “Please. Joshua, please. I just want to talk to him. I want to explain.” He sighs.
His clothes aren’t tattered, his hair isn’t messy like Joshua expects it to be. He’s standing in the entryway of Joshua and Soonyoung’s apartment looking perfectly put together, and Joshua hates it. He wants to tear Mingyu’s clothes up himself, wants to dig his nails into Mingyu’s skin until he feels as hurt as Soonyoung did.
“It’s the middle of the night. Come back tomorrow after Soonyoung is home from work and we’ll see. I can’t guarantee anything, though.” Joshua says.
Mingyu nods.
“And they’re my hybrids, by the way.”
-----
“Don’t go.” Jeonghan pouts.
“I have to, baby. I can’t make money if I don’t go to work.” Joshua says.
Seungcheol is still sleeping, miraculously. Jeonghan is usually the heavier sleeper.
“Don’t make money.” Jeonghan says. He cuddles into Joshua’s side, rubbing his face against Joshua’s shirt.
Joshua laughs. “You’re being silly. If I don’t make money I can’t buy things for you and Seungcheol.”
“Don’t. We only need you.” Jeonghan moves his face up, ghosting his lips over Joshua’s bare collarbone.
Joshua’s skin heats up and his face turns red.
“Okay, I need to get ready for work.” He says, pushing Jeonghan away from him and attempting to sit up.
Jeonghan whines. He grabs Joshua by the arm and he whines. It’s different than Joshua is used to. It’s needier and more desperate.
“But I’m still sleepy.” Jeonghan says.
“Then go back to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep without you.”
Joshua scoffs. “Lies. You nap just fine without me all the time.” He says. He crawls out of bed and walks over to his closet.
It’s Jeonghan’s turn to blush.
“You’re just mean. I’m replacing you with Cheol.” He says, scooting over and pulling Seungcheol into his arms. Seungcheol digs his face into Jeonghan’s shoulder.
Joshua pulls a patterned dress shirt out by the hanger, holding it up and inspecting it for wrinkles. “That’s nice, Jeonghan.”
“Joshua,” Jeonghan whines. “You’re supposed to say ‘No, Jeonghan, you can’t do that.’”
“Does this tie go with this shirt?” Joshua asks, ignoring Jeonghan’s complaining.
“No, get the navy one that I made you buy. Pay attention to me!” Jeonghan says.
Joshua smiles as he starts to unbutton his sleep shirt. Jeonghan’s brain almost melts at the display of muscle and tanned skin in front of him, far too much for how early it is. Joshua’s shoulders are so broad, and Jeonghan spends the entire time that it takes for Joshua to pull his dress shirt on admiring the way that his muscles pull under his skin as he fiddles with his clothing.
“Can you pay attention to me now?” Jeonghan asks once Joshua is fully dressed, suit and tie perfectly fit to his toned physique.
Joshua smiles again and makes his way to the side of the bed. He drops down to press a kiss to Jeonghan’s forehead. “Be good while I’m gone.” He says.
Jeonghan pouts, realizing that all efforts to keep Joshua at home have been in vain.
“Should I bring you some coffee?” Joshua asks.
Jeonghan shakes his head, lower lip still jutted out in an over exaggerated pout. Joshua has to bite his tongue to stop himself from thinking about what it would be like to kiss the pout from his face.
“See you later, baby. Oh, and someone is coming by later to talk to Soonyoung, so don’t freak out if you smell another hybrid in the house.” He adds as he leaves the room.
All he hears as he walks towards the front door is the sound of Jeonghan groaning and the bed creaking as he falls back onto it.
-----
When Joshua gets back from work, Soonyoung is sitting on the couch looking shellshocked. Seungcheol is placing a mug full of tea on the coffee table in front of him, and he shoots Joshua a worried look when he hears the door open.
“How did it go?” Joshua asks as Seungcheol approaches him.
“It was a lot of yelling and I think Mingyu is coming back again later.” Seungcheol says, voice low and barely audible. Joshua peaks around him to look at Soonyoung, who hasn’t even touched his tea.
Joshua nods. “Okay. I’ll take it from here. Thank you.” He says. Seungcheol smiles at him, fond and caring, and caresses his cheek. Joshua’s breath catches in his throat.
“Soonyoungie?” He says, stepping around Seungcheol and rushing over to Soonyoung’s side. He plops himself down on the couch. “What happened?”
Soonyoung’s mouth opens and closes a few times, struggling to find words. “He’s- He’s staying.” He says, his brows furrowing together as he himself processes the information.
“Staying?” Joshua prompts.
“He said that his pack came into town for a little bit, but he’s staying here after they leave. He wants to be with me again. H- He wants to be able to care for me again.” Soonyoung says.
“And? What do you want?” Joshua asks. He’s worried about Soonyoung. Soonyoung deserves the best of the best.
“I don’t know.” He says. “I don’t know. He’s picking me up at seven, and he’s taking me to that restaurant that we used to love, but I just don’t know.”
He curls over and throws his face into his hands. Joshua runs a hand through his hair, hoping that it’s actually as comforting as it seems to be.
“I love him, Josh, I never stopped. But it hurts to look at him. I don’t want him to leave again.”
-----
Jeonghan and Seungcheol. There are so many details of their lives that Joshua still doesn’t know about. He doesn’t know how such domestic hybrids lived for so long on the streets, he doesn’t know how they managed to stay as healthy as they did. And he definitely didn’t know that they were together.
He expects that Jeonghan and Seungcheol will be sitting on their bed, because at this point it’s just as much theirs as it is his, when he comes home from work. This is a habit of theirs. Joshua comes home from work and they’re sitting on his bed, waiting for him to trade his work clothes for sweats and a t-shirt and join them in bed for cuddles and a nap. What he doesn’t expect is to come home, exhausted and overworked, to Seungcheol pinning Jeonghan’s arms above his head and nibbling at his neck.
He clears his throat, heat rising to his cheeks. Seungcheol scrambles to the other side of the bed, hanging his head in embarrassment. Jeonghan is shameless in the way that he is completely unfazed, purring at Joshua standing in the doorway as if it were just any other day.
“This is new.” Joshua says, laying his laptop down on his desk and undoing the fastenings on his jacket. It’s meant to be teasing, but to his own ears he sounds a little bit envious.
“Um, not new, just well hidden.” Seungcheol says. He scratches at the back of his neck.
“Oh.” Is all Joshua can say. His fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt as a voice in the back of his head reminds him that they don’t need his as much as he thinks they do.
It takes a few minutes for Seungcheol to come back to his senses, and by then Joshua is already in his sweatpants and scrambling to leave the room.
“You okay?” Seungcheol asks.
Joshua hums in reply, nodding his head slightly.
“Come cuddle.” Jeonghan demands, reaching in Joshua’s direction.
Joshua hums again. “Okay.” He agrees.
It feels wrong to be wrapping his arms around someone who was just under someone else, but Joshua pushes that thought to back of his mind and lets himself relish in the feeling of Seungcheol’s body pressed to his side and Jeonghan’s head resting on his chest.
|
Packing was always something Peggy found cathartic, while most hated it, she was a pro. Having done it on and off for years with boarding school, she loved it, as it symbolised a trip of some kind, a new place and new people.
Had it been a year? She thought, as she packed her bag for Washington, folding her freshly pressed blouses into her small case. Of course it had been a year, she had counted and been aware of every single slowly passing day between where she stood and then. But, she had a personal mission of sorts now, an action many might see as a waste of her time, or pointless, considering. But they were actions she needed to take. The fact that there was a grave at all was important, even if they never did recover his body, the grave was a symbol of his sacrifice. And as a mark of what he meant to her, she would vow to visit when she could but at the least once a year on the day he saved the world.
The summer of 1945 was one of celebration for the world, the war was won and a hero saved them all from utter destruction. He was hailed a saviour and there were posters and stories, interviews and countless questions. But as things go, time passed and people, as they do, moved on. The kids still played with toy shields in games of heroic fiction, it made her smile to see when she would pass one or two on the street still. He would have liked that, she thought. He would have blushed, but he would have liked that. While the world celebrated, she and those who knew and loved him mourned. Their jobs were done now; they could go home, start a life. But what life did she have when it was meant to be with him? What life now that every option, every suitor was unsuitable simply because they just weren’t him?
The first year had been the worst, the mostly lonely she could remember, as she packed up her life in London for a permanent move to the States, to Brooklyn. A small gesture, but one that made her feel as close to him as she could get, such as things were.
She liked the community there, and their warm welcome to her once they found out she had worked with one of their own, one that they now claimed as a gone-too-soon son of Brooklyn. Like most things when it came to Steve’s legacy now, it was meant well but did very little to ease her aching heart.
She took a four day leave from her work, the absence of the job not something she welcomed, but the absence of the men she was forced to work with, a blessing. Making the drive to Washington allowed her time to simply decompress her worries and stresses. Of course, as always time alone allowed her too much time to think.
As was all too often lately.
It had been raining on and off all morning, but she was determined to do what she came to the city to do. So, finding a store and choosing some modest but appropriate red roses, she drove herself off to Arlington. Dozens of people were scattered at various graves, all in a state of mourning or remembrance. It gave her tiny warmth to know at least, she wasn’t alone in her emotions, as it so often seemed in the dark cold of the night.
She wasn’t alone in the graveyard, and as soon as she came up to where the memorial stood, she realised she wasn’t alone there either.
James Barnes sat just to the side, on the grass, and truth be told she almost didn’t recognise him.
When he heard the footsteps approach, he stood and it was then she noticed the half empty bottle of whiskey in hand. He was a mess; physically his hair had grown longer – longer than regulation allowed, as was his week old beard. His clothes, once as shiny and straight as a new pin – even at the worst of times, she recalled he held himself to the same standard as Steve, uniform was always regulation perfection. Now, he looked tired and older than his years, his eyes rimmed red with tears or the alcohol, she wasn’t sure which. Both, she assumed. He looked as lonely as she felt.
“Agent Carter, this is a surprise.” He said in way of greeting, noting the flowers in her hands, and giving her the once over that reminded her of the way he had done so in that bar in London what felt like a lifetime ago.
“Sergeant Barnes, it’s nice to see you again.”
He cocked a brow at her then, a smirk dying on his face.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones coming to see him lately,” He commented and it was then she noticed, the memorial was covered in flowers, letters and ribbons, notes of thanks, and yet more flowers.
“Oh my…” she gasped, overwhelmed.
“I’ve been here a while, haven’t read half of what’s here. I guess people be a lot more appreciative than I give ‘em credit for.” He was damp, his hair slicked back, his clothes showing signs that he had been there more than the time he suggested. The image of him standing in the rain alone was one that chilled her heart.
“I suppose so. They have a lot to be thankful to him for, we all do.”
He was silent and she looked at him then, he took a small swig of his bottle, clearly not caring about decorum.
“If you say so.” He added bitterly.
She sighed, ignoring him while placing her flowers in a sign of respect.
“You know he was allergic to pollen?” Barnes commented with a small cold laugh, “Hell, that kid was allergic to just about every damn thing. It’s a miracle he made it as long as he did.”
She knew he didn’t mean to be rude, or, hell, maybe he did, but she hadn’t missed his utterly dismissive attitude toward her. When it came down to it, she knew James Barnes didn’t like her much, if at all, never had done. For a long time she couldn’t quite figure out why that was. Until the day Steve died. Barnes had been forced on medical leave, the incident with the train hadn’t just broken his arm in five places, and almost leaving it mangled, but had done a number on him psychologically. Not that he ever would have admitted it to anyone. On the Captain’s orders, and reorders, and a shouting match heard half way across the base, he was encouraged to stay behind as the rest of the unit took on the Red Skull. Much to his bitter disappointment and during the time of their absence, constant ranting at how it was ‘stupid as shit’ that he was left behind because of a few broken bones. He was healing faster than normal, she had noticed, but it was just one more thing he wasn’t willing to talk about, at least not with her. But he was in the control room with her when Steve made the heart-breaking announcement that he was trapped with no way out and no other way to stop the world from ending other than to put the plane in the ground. Distraught she tried to convince him with gentle suggestion and encouragement, whereas Barnes just flat out lost his mind. All colour drained from his face as she sobbed, as he yelled at Steve to stop being a ‘goddamn martyr’ to ‘let someone else be the hero and come home you idiot’, the spoken and unspoken bond and love between them both.In those last moments was obvious to her, as it was that it went far beyond any brotherhood love.
“Drink?” he offered her after several long minutes of silent reflection, the bottle he was nursing didn’t look so appealing.
“No thank you.” She replied, maybe a little too sharply for his tastes.
He frowned before taking a swig.
“You just looked like you could use something to warm your bones. And I was brought up a gentleman, no matter what you may think of me, I was taught to share.”
She wondered if things had ended differently that day, just how willing he would have been to share. She pushed that thought aside with a sigh.
“You look dreadful by the way.”
“Thanks. You Brits are real charmers anyone ever tell you that?”
“I prefer bluntly honest, but that in itself has its own charm.” She smiled then, before it quickly died on her lips, it felt false, it was false. “Is that all you’ve been living on lately?” She nodded to the bottle as he took another healthy gulp with a shrug.
“It works.”
“When was the last time you ate something proper?” She wasn’t worried about him, she wasn’t. She had no right to be.
“I’ve survived longer than this on a helluva lot less, don’t worry about me darlin’.”
“I don’t. I just know that he would have.”
That earned her a glare then, a hard one before he seemed to remember those hard learned manners and shook his head, blinking hard.
“Don’t. Just don’t.”
She broke contact with his bloodshot blue eyes then, focusing on the memorial text, which hailed Captain America a hero to the world. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“Well.” She said to no one or maybe to herself before she took a step back. “I must be getting back,” she didn’t need to. She was just going back to her hotel room to be alone, as usual, but standing there with him wasn’t doing either of them much good either. “It’ll rain again soon I imagine,” she looked skyward and then to Barnes, who was lost in thoughts staring at the same memorial text. She held out her umbrella.
“Here, you’ll need it more than I will.”
His face softened then before he shook his head.
“No ma’am that’s not necessary.”
She left it by his feet, taking another step back, and then another.
“I was taught to share too, use it, to stop you getting ill at the very least.”
With a few more steps backward she turned away from the sad figure by the pseudo-grave.
“Thank you.” He called after her and she just turned quickly, this time wearing a more genuine smile before nodding.
“Goodbye Sergeant.”
He scratched the back of his neck then.
“Yeah, be seein’ you, Agent Carter.”
And she would, though it would be later rather than sooner as it turned out, a year to the day to be exact.
|
The police station was bustling with activity. The phones rang off the hook, and officers came and went in a blur. One man the cops brought in started yelling and shoving at people despite being handcuffed. When he wouldn't calm down, the officer closest to him pulled out a taser. The unruly criminal spasmed like a Mexican jumping bean before dropping to the ground mere feet from Felicity.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. It wasn't a surprise that she was being brought in for questioning. This was a possibility Felicity had planned for, but planning and executing were two very different things. It was intimidating to be escorted through the precinct. People stared, no doubt trying to figure out what she was in for. It was the first time in her life-and that included when she was hacking into various companies' systems-that she actually felt like a legitimate criminal. Maybe she did deserve to be there after everything she'd done.
"Inside here, Ms. Smoak," Detective Lance directed.
Felicity's heart was pounding as she entered the "interview room." In her opinion, it was just a sugar-coated way of saying interrogation. There was a table and set of chairs. Immediately, Felicity's eyes went to the glass wall. The thought of someone watching them but remaining unseen seriously creeped her out.
"Please, take a seat."
"You know, I think I'd rather stand," Felicity replied, feeling her nerves getting the best of her.
In response, Detective Lance slammed the door. She sat down without protest.
"Not exactly a hardened criminal, are you?" he said while observing her.
Felicity placed her hands on the table and interlaced her fingers. It would keep them from tapping anxiously. "No, I'm not any kind of criminal."
"What do you call computer hacking?"
"A hobby?" she innocently answered before realizing it was probably the worst thing to say. "That I do not engage in." She winced at her own lameness. Real smooth.
"I got a whole mess of computer gobbly gook that I don't understand, but your companions say otherwise."
"I don't have any companions. I'm companion-less. I swear."
"My guys brought in three men last night. They're believed to be part of a cyber-terrorist group called Brother Eye. Sound familiar?"
"I might have heard of it on the news."
Detective Lance spread their mugshots out for her to look at, and Felicity did her best to keep her expression vague. "They've done quite a bit of damage over the last few years. Now they're facing a slew of civil and cyber felony charges. They didn't say much, but you want to know the one thing they all agreed on?" He didn't give her a chance to respond before continuing, "That it was you we should be looking into, Ms. Smoak."
"They're wrong."
"Are they? I've got to say that your record is clean. Then again, if you truly have the ability to hack into any database, unleash a destructive virus and pocket a truckload of cash without anyone the wiser, this paper-thin file I'm holding really doesn't mean much. You could make this say anything you want." He slammed it on the table, making her jump. "But there are other factors to consider. I find it interesting that you and the three suspects all graduated from MIT at the same time."
Felicity shrugged. "Lots of smart people have gone there."
"You were in the same classes."
"Lecture halls are pretty big."
"You were involved with one of the guy's roommates."
"That's ancient history."
"You just happen to be in Starling at the exact same time and staying in the exact same hotel. That can't be a coincidence. So, tell me, Ms. Smoak. What am I thinking?"
She bit her lip. Felicity had been hoping that her clean record would give her an advantage. Unfortunately, Detective Lance was a good investigator and wasn't letting any detail slide. She moved her hands under the table to hide the shaking. "I really don't know," she answered, stalling for time. Felicity wasn't sure if it was nerves or leftover exhaustion, but she was having a hard time remembering the story she'd conjured up. "I'm not an oracle, though that would be a pretty cool super power when you think about it."
"You're hiding something. If you're innocent, there's no reason not to tell me what you know. If you're lying, well, this can turn out very badly. But if you tell me the truth and cooperate, I might be able to get you a lighter sentence."
Before Felicity could reply, there was a knock on the door. Detective Lance huffed in annoyance and told whoever it was to come in.
"I'm sorry, Detective," the officer said, "but Oliver Queen is here. He said he knows the suspect and wants to have a word with you."
Detective Lance didn't look any happier about this turn of events. "Fine," he grumbled. "Let him in."
As soon as Oliver walked through the door, Felicity breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't know how he was going to get her out of this, but she trusted him.
"Detective Lance," Oliver greeted. "Thank you for meeting with me. I don't know what you and Felicity were just discussing, but I hope I can clear a few things up."
He gestured to the empty chair by Felicity. "By all means, take a seat, Oliver. We'll make a party out of it."
"You okay?" Oliver murmured under his breath as he sat. The moment he walked in he could tell that she was nervous.
"I am now," Felicity whispered back.
"I must say this is a surprise. It's not every day the CEO of the company that was targeted comes in to defend the suspect."
"It would only be odd if Felicity was guilty, which she isn't," Oliver confidently declared. In the rush over to the precinct, he'd managed to come up with a cover story. Now it was a matter of selling it. Oliver hoped that Felicity would be able to play along and not give in to one of her nervous babbles.
"She has a personal connection to the perps and just happens to be present in Starling at the same time your company was hacked. How do you explain that?"
"Felicity and I are old friends."
"Really? I didn't realize you had women who were just friends," Detective Lance quipped. "How did you two meet?"
Felicity watched Oliver, just as curious to find out what he was going to say.
"We met in Las Vegas years ago. My dad let me accompany him on a business trip. Felicity's mom is a cocktail waitress, and she ended up being our server every night at the hotel bar. One night Felicity was there helping her out."
"So you became friends. Just like that?"
"My dad was laying into me about failing one of my math courses. Felicity's mom mentioned that she was a genius and could probably help me. It took a bit of convincing, but Felicity graciously agreed to tutor me."
"And you passed?"
"Actually, I still failed." He made a point to add, "But not as spectacularly as I would have if she hadn't helped me." Felicity made sure to smile and nod eagerly in agreement.
"What's her reason for being in Starling now?"
Oliver turned to Felicity. "You didn't tell him?" he asked, like it was so simple.
The blonde sent him a measured look. "I was just going to, but then you interrupted. Now that you're here, though, it would probably be better coming from you." Felicity had no idea where Oliver was going with all of this, but he'd done a pretty good job so far. If she attempted to say something now, she'd probably screw it all up.
Oliver took the lead once more. "I asked Felicity if she could carve some time out of her busy schedule in Boston and come evaluate QC's security system. We were experiencing some problems before the cyber attack even occurred."
"So it's a coincidence that her old acquaintances showed up simultaneously."
"No. There's definitely a reason." His voice took on a softer, more somber tone. As an added effect, he placed his hand atop Felicity's to portray some intimacy. Detective Lance zeroed in on the gesture, like Oliver had hoped. "Felicity really doesn't like talking about it, but in the interest of full disclosure I have to bring it up. I don't know if one of the suspects told you that Felicity used to date a friend of his in college."
"Might've mentioned it."
"Well, that boyfriend-"
"Cooper Seldon," Felicity interjected, trying very hard not to be distracted by the fact that Oliver was touching her. She was getting that tingling feeling like at the club all over again.
"He wasn't exactly happy with the way things ended between them," Oliver pressed on. "Just recently he reached out to her again."
"But I wanted nothing to do with him," she added. Cooper being an ass was the one part of the story she could describe perfectly. Felicity hadn't expected to have Oliver Queen vouching for her, but it was better than the original explanation she'd concocted. It gave Felicity much more to work with, and a new backstory was already unraveling in her head. "Cooper was being aggressive, and I needed some time away. So when Oliver asked me to come to Starling, I accepted his offer. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of mentioning my trip to Cooper. He's got sort of a grudge against Corporate America and guys like Oliver, so that's probably why QC was targeted. As a way to get back at me."
"So you're implying that your ex-boyfriend is really the person behind Brother Eye."
"I don't know for sure, but it's a strong possibility. It would also explain the whole hotel thing. He could've easily found out where I was staying." She'd taken precautions with that, as well. Felicity purposefully checked in at a different time than the guys and made sure to steer clear of any cameras that could record her with them.
Detective Lance silently scrutinized them. He was probably searching for more ways to poke holes in their story. It felt like forever before he finally said, "All right. That's it for now. Just don't go skipping town just yet. This investigation isn't finished."
"Okay." They all stood.
Detective Lance's expression softened for a moment. "If you think your ex-boyfriend is a threat, I can assign a couple of my officers to keep an eye on you."
"Thank you, Detective, but that won't be necessary. Felicity will be staying with me from now on. My own personal security will take care of her."
"It's nice to see that you've taken a real interest in her safety." Detective Lance turned to Felicity. "Trust me, when it comes to Oliver, that's not always the case." With that parting shot, he let the door slam behind him.
Oliver's expression remained blank as his body tensed. Felicity could tell that the detective's words had hurt him. She knew all about Oliver's involvement with his daughters Laurel and Sara. Many of the articles she'd found about Oliver's disappearance on the Queen's Gambit relayed the scandal of his involvement with the younger Lance daughter despite his relationship with the older one.
"Hey," Felicity said quietly. When he finally turned to face her, Felicity impulsively threw her arms around him.
The hug completely took Oliver by surprise. It wasn't very often that anyone dared invade his personal space. It took a few seconds for him to respond. Tentatively, he placed a hand on her back. "What's this for?"
"A thank you for saving me. Again," she murmured. "I really didn't see myself fitting in at Guantanamo Bay."
"Don't worry, Felicity, they don't send blondes there."
"I dye it, actually." She pulled away and pointed a stern finger at him. "I keep your secret."
Oliver shook his head, grinning. "Come on, let's get out of here."
It was a relief to be back at the loft. Felicity sat curled up on the couch with a hot mug of tea in her hands. The huge fireplace was on in the living room, which added to the calming effect. It was the first time Felicity got to truly take it all in. There was a modern feel to the decor with its neutral coloring and wide open space. The only furniture present was the long kitchen table in the dining area next to the kitchen and the couches in the living room. Regardless of the lack of color and decoration, it was still better than any of the bachelor pads Brother Eye had occupied. The view also couldn't be beat.
"Are you okay?" Diggle inquired, sitting on the couch across from her.
"I think so. There's been a lot to take in, you know."
"I get it. But Oliver said you held your own today."
Felicity snorted. "He's giving me too much credit. I probably would be in a cell right now if it wasn't for him. Thanks for calling him."
"It's what we do. We look out for each other."
"I'm beginning to see that."
Oliver's heavy footsteps could be heard on the stairs. He'd changed out of his work suit into a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt. It was the most at ease she'd seen him, and yet he still managed to look ruggedly handsome. The shirt clung to his defined muscles in all of the right places, leaving little to the imagination. Felicity forced herself to look away before she started drooling like some swooning adolescent.
"Did you guys eat?"
"We were waiting for you," Diggle replied. He'd gone to Big Belly Burger to get dinner, which was now spread out across the coffee table.
Oliver gestured for them to dig in while he went to the kitchen to grab a water. Afterward, he sat down next to Diggle. He was glad to see that Felicity's appetite remained intact. She bit into her hamburger and let out a small groan.
"I have to say that it's kind of comforting to know that whatever city you go to, Big Belly Burger is always going to taste like Big Belly Burger."
Diggle chuckled at that. "You mean full of grease and salt."
She placed a hand to her mouth. "I thought those were the secret ingredients."
Oliver listened as Felicity and Dig made small talk. He was trying to figure out the best way to broach the subject of her working with them. Felicity was much more at ease now than earlier, and he hated to put her on the spot again. Unfortunately, both their problems remained at large. It wouldn't be long before they were forced to face them once more.
There was no right way to do this. Oliver would have to bite the bullet. "Felicity," Oliver said, "what did you think of what I said earlier about you visiting QC?"
"I think it was a smart cover story. Why?"
"QC's IT team is having trouble fully restoring our system. They'd like to have it restored by Monday, and I was hoping that you might consider coming in for real tomorrow to help them out."
"Of course. I'd be happy to." It was the least Felicity could do to repay him for his kindness. The computer nerd in her also wouldn't mind getting a chance to play with Oliver's equipment. Felicity nearly choked on her burger as the naughty thought popped into her head. She didn't want to get her hands on Oliver's equipment. Well, she did but it wasn't like that.
Shut up, brain, Felicity commanded to herself. Oliver and Diggle were already studying her, and the last thing she needed was for them to question why she'd turned as red as a cherry in the middle of their serious conversation. She was going to see QC's advanced technology. That was it.
Oliver exchanged a look with Diggle. "There's something else. We've been impressed with everything you've done and told us so far. As you know, we have our own network at Verdant that we use to aid us in our investigations. Diggle and I do what we can to protect Starling, but the truth is our skills in that area are limited."
"You want me to help you," Felicity interpreted.
"Yes, but it's more than just catching common criminals." Oliver had discussed this with Diggle, and his partner was adamant that Oliver tell Felicity exactly what she would be getting into. Oliver didn't disagree. "We're trying to take down Malcolm Merlyn."
"The man who destroyed The Glades."
"It's a little more personal than that." It took Oliver a second to rein in his anger. Felicity was strong but had a gentler nature. He didn't want to intimidate her. "Merlyn killed my mother."
"I read that she'd passed in the earthquake. I'm so sorry."
"No," Oliver said, shaking his head. "It wasn't the quake. That's just what I told everyone. The truth is both my parents knew about the earthquake. Merlyn called it the 'Undertaking.' I believe my father was looking for a way to stop it, which is why the Queen's Gambit was sabotaged. Merlyn then threatened my mother for years, so she'd go along with his plan.
"After I uncovered the plot, I questioned her as The Arrow. She told me everything she knew. I was going to try to stop it, but I think the guilt was too much for her. She anonymously tipped off the police, which resulted in Merlyn figuring it out and moving up the timetable of his plan. Destroying The Glades wasn't enough, though. He wanted to get back at my mother for her betrayal, so he killed her."
"Does Merlyn know you're The Arrow?"
"No. We've been trying for months to track him down with no success. It's like he's gone completely off the grid," Oliver explained. "Felicity, you know what it takes to make things disappear. If anyone can cut through the noise and track him down, it'd be you."
Felicity was silent for a moment, taking it all in. "What if I say no?"
"I'm not Cooper, Felicity." He wanted to make that clear and assuage her fears. "You have a choice. What we do and how we live...it's dangerous. I won't force you into anything. But you should also know that I will protect you from Cooper, Merlyn and anyone else. You have my word."
Felicity looked between Oliver and Diggle before staring at her half-eaten hamburger. She wasn't that hungry anymore. "I...I need some time to think about it." For five years she'd been dragged around by Cooper, jumping from one horrible situation to the next. Felicity appreciated that Oliver was offering her a choice. She just wasn't sure it was the right one.
"Okay." Admittedly, Oliver was disappointed that she wasn't jumping at the chance to work with them. He understood her trepidation, however. What he was asking of her was no small thing.
"And I would be staying here, with you?"
"Yes. It's the best way I can protect you until Cooper is found. It'll also throw suspicion off of you with Detective Lance." Oliver sensed that Felicity was uncomfortable depending on him for so much and he added, "I'll pay you for your work at QC." At least she could be earning something of her own.
"I have money. Not stolen," the blonde quickly clarified. "I always donated my share to charity." Felicity figured if she couldn't give the money back to the companies without creating suspicion, then giving it to a good cause was the next best option.
"I'm paying you for your expertise, Felicity. It has to be an equal partnership. That part's nonnegotiable."
"What about rent?"
Oliver shook his head. "Don't worry about it."
"I can't just live here for free, Oliver. It doesn't feel right."
"Felicity, we already told Detective Lance that you're staying with me as a friend. Friends don't pay rent when they're a guest, especially since I own this loft outright." She looked like she was about to protest again so Oliver proposed, "If you do decide to become part of our team, consider your help in our mission as payment. Sound fair?"
"Okay," Felicity finally agreed. She could live with that. "If you don't mind, I'm going to turn in early." Felicity had some big decisions to make. She wondered if this was how Oliver felt all of the time as The Arrow. Like one single choice, good or bad, could cause a ripple effect in everyone around him. It felt like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She'd been strong enough to bear the burden of taking down Brother Eye thus far. Now that that part of her life was nearly over, what Felicity really had to decide was if she had anything left to offer.
The next morning, Felicity got up early to accompany Oliver to Queen Consolidated. She chose to wear one of her nicer work dresses. It was a rich blue with long sleeves and a peplum cut at the waist. After pulling up in front of the building, Diggle got out to open Oliver's door. Felicity slid across the backseat and followed him out.
Looking up, Felicity was in awe. "Whoa." She'd only ever seen the building from afar. Up close, it towered over the neighboring structures with its long frame and sleek paneling. "It must take forever to wash all of those windows." She nervously readjusted her glasses. None of the companies she'd consulted for even came close to the size and scale of QC. Felicity knew it was a ridiculous thought, considering how many major corporations she'd been able to breach with her super virus.
Oliver led her inside and to the front desk, where she was given a guest pass. "You've got full access, so you shouldn't have a problem getting around," he informed her.
"Where exactly will we be going?"
"There's a conference room next to my office. We'll be meeting with the IT team there in ten minutes."
"Great," Felicity muttered as they waited for the elevator.
"Don't be nervous," Oliver said knowingly. She shook her head like she wasn't, but the biting of the lip gave her away.
Finally, the elevator doors opened. Oliver pressed the button for the top floor and tried to get the doors closed when another man rushed on.
"Man, that was close." He pushed the button for the fourteenth floor. The second he noticed Felicity his grin of relief formed into a cocky leer. "Where you headed, sweetie?"
Irked, Oliver answered for her, "The executive floor." The guy's expression immediately dropped, which gave Oliver a thrill of satisfaction.
"Oh, Mr. Queen, I didn't see you there."
Oliver remained silent, enjoying watching him squirm.
"Great weather we're having this week, right?"
"I don't know," he curtly replied. "I heard it might rain later today."
"Oh. Yeah. Bummer," he stuttered. When they reached his floor, the guy practically ran off of the elevator.
"You do realize you almost gave that poor guy a heart attack," Felicity told him. "You can be kind of scary when you want."
"Maybe next time he'll treat my female employees with a little more respect."
"How very chivalrous of you," the blonde teased.
"Oh yeah, I'm a real white knight." Oliver let her get off the elevator first and then took the lead through the double doors to his assistant's area.
Carrie was already standing to greet him. Since it was a Saturday, Oliver hadn't expected her to be in. He'd told her as much, but Carrie was dedicated to her job. If Oliver was working this weekend, she would be, too. "Good morning, Oliver. Would you like some coffee?"
"Yes. One black for me and the other with cream and three sugars for Miss Smoak."
"Excuse me?"
He stepped aside to reveal Felicity, who'd been too busy staring at the giant office to pay attention. At the sound of her name, Felicity looked over at them. She nearly took a step back at the redhead's intense glare. It was obvious that she'd been annoyed with Felicity at the club because of the stain debacle, but Felicity hadn't expected her to hold a grudge. It only took seconds for Felicity to figure out the problem, since Carrie was suspiciously all smiles again when she had Oliver's full attention.
"Carrie, you remember Felicity Smoak. Felicity, this is my executive assistant Carrie Cutter."
"It's nice to formally meet you," Felicity responded, offering her hand like an olive branch.
Carrie barely shook it as she gave Felicity the once-over before declaring in an overly-bright voice that she'd get their coffee.
"Well, she's delightful."
Oliver shrugged and directed her into his office. The conference room, as he said, was next to it. There were already four men sitting down, talking.
"Is that the entire team?"
"It's the CTO and his top technicians."
"Oh, frack," she whispered to herself. When Oliver had mentioned her meeting with his IT team, she didn't think he'd meant the guys at the very top. Almost instantly she'd recognized Ray Palmer. The SmartWatches he'd developed were practically legendary.
"Here you are." Carrie's high-pitched voice jolted Felicity out of her internal meltdown. She added much more quietly, "Try not to spill it this time."
Felicity stared at the coffee and contemplated taking a sip. With her luck, Oliver's assistant probably poisoned it. It seemed like everyone was out to get her.
"You ready?" Oliver inquired.
Taking a deep breath, Felicity centered herself. She could totally do this. It was her creation that had them stumped, after all. There was no reason she should feel lesser than them. If Felicity could digitally erase her criminal involvement with a high-profile cyber-terrorist group run by her ass of an ex-boyfriend who she effectively set up, then she could surely handle one measly meeting. "Let's do this."
In between reading proposals and returning emails, Oliver checked his watch. It had been about five hours since Felicity had gone off with Ray and the IT team to work on the system. They must've done something right, because their internal network was running smoothly once again. Oliver had stayed in the initial meeting for only ten minutes before he realized that Felicity no longer needed him. The more intense the tech talk, the more confident she became. Oliver had to bite back a grin at the way the guys had been staring at her, dumbfounded, as she told them exactly what they needed to do to reboot the system. All of it sounded like gibberish to his own ears. He learned to understand Chinese in less time.
Carrie buzzed in, "Oliver, would you like me to order you lunch?"
"Get enough for two," he replied when he saw Diggle come through the door and close it behind him.
"How's your day going?"
"Busy but boring. You?"
"I spoke to my contact at Glades Memorial. He said that the trucks being targeted were carrying medical-grade opiates. There's talk of the Chinese Triad being involved in the hijackings. No concrete evidence, but it's a lead."
"Good. We'll do some reconnaissance tonight and see if we can narrow it down further."
"Speaking of, has Felicity given you an answer yet?"
Sighing, Oliver rubbed his hands over his eyes. "No, not yet." It had been in the back of his mind all day.
"Clock's ticking, Oliver."
"I know, Diggle," Oliver bit out. He'd expected Felicity to say something this morning during breakfast. Instead, nothing. Not even an acknowledgement of his offer. Patience was not one of Oliver's virtues.
"Oliver," came Carrie's voice once more. "Miss Smoak is back. Want me to tell her to wait?"
"No, send her in." Felicity was grinning from ear to ear when she entered. Oliver took that as a good sign. "How'd it go?"
"Oh my God, it was so awesome!" Felicity gushed. "Ray let me hook into the mainframe. I swear I've only dreamed of touching his equipment." Realizing the wrongness of what she said-she really needed to rethink using that phrase-Felicity hastily clarified, "I mean, not his equipment equipment. What I meant was QC's equipment that Ray just happens to be in charge of. Anyway, your system is back and better than ever."
"I've noticed. Have you eaten lunch? I can have Carrie add to my order."
"Actually, I just came from the cafeteria. Have you ever eaten in there? It's pretty great. There's this huge latte machine and if you push a button, it makes this pattern on your foam-"
"Yes, I know about the cafeteria."
She smiled sheepishly. "Oh, sure. Of course you would, since you run the company and all."
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, Felicity."
"Your assistant hates me, but other than that it's been great. I have to say, I could get used to Corporate America. If only Cooper could hear me now. He'd totally freak," she gleefully declared.
It was the perfect segue for Oliver. "Now that you mention Cooper, have you thought about what we discussed? Not to pressure you, Felicity, but time is of the essence."
Felicity took the seat in front of his desk. "Yes, I have. I'll help you find Merlyn while taking down Cooper, but that's it. Then I want to finally have the life of a normal IT girl. That's my offer. Take it or leave it."
"Okay," Oliver agreed. Her offer was fair enough. He stood and held his hand out to her, which she tentatively took. "Welcome to the team. If everything is all set here, we can head out."
"Where are we going?"
"It's time you saw the other part of my world."
They were back at Verdant. It was odd to see it so empty during the day. Felicity had become accustomed to the loud music and packed crowds. They crossed the dance floor and went down another hallway that led to a secured door. Oliver punched in a code on the keypad, and it popped open a second later.
Felicity stared at the long staircase that led into the darkness. "This isn't the part where you say you'll kill me if I ever reveal your secret identity, is it?"
"That goes without saying."
She eyed him skeptically. It seemed like Oliver was joking, but it was hard to tell with him. He flipped a switch near the railing and motioned for her to go ahead. It's now or never. Felicity took the lead and descended the stairs. When she got to the bottom, her mouth dropped open in awe. It was dark and dank despite the florescent lights and filled with equipment. Some of it for sparring while displays held arrows and other weapons.
"So this is The Arrow Cave."
"We don't call it that," Oliver said from behind her.
"Was that van your designated Arrow Mobile?" she teased.
"Stop."
Grinning, she walked over to the glass case that held The Arrow suit and bow. Felicity ran her fingers along the limbs and bow string. "Cool." Glancing to the right, she noticed a table set up with a few computer monitors. "Do you mind?"
"Go ahead." Oliver watched as she took a seat and started typing away. Felicity must've been in her element, because she didn't speak for a few minutes. Oliver looked to Diggle, who shrugged back as if to say "let her do her thing."
Finally she declared, "No wonder you need my help. This setup...it literally hurts me in my soul."
"That bad?" Diggle questioned.
"This system looks like it's from the eighties." Felicity spun in her chair to face them. "And not the good part of the eighties, like Madonna and, well, leg warmers."
"How long would it take you to fix it?"
"A few hours to make some upgrades, but a serious overhaul will take me a few days. I might even need something with more processing power."
"Let Diggle know, and he'll get it for you. Until then, we've got a bit of a situation. The FEMA trucks with emergency medical supplies for Glades Memorial are being hijacked. We need to figure out when the next delivery is going to be made and make sure it gets there safely."
"I'll see what I can do." She was just about to whip back around in her chair when something caught her eye. It looked like a tall pull-up bar but with odd rungs. "What is that?"
"A salmon ladder. It's for working out," Diggle explained. "You do pull-ups and then hook the bar up into the next level."
Felicity's eyes widened. "Yeah, pull-ups were never my thing. Pretty sure I would crack my skull on that, too."
"It's not for you. Don't worry," Diggle reassured her. "But now that you'll be working with us, it wouldn't hurt for you to learn some self-defense. Starling City is a lot rougher than what you're used to. I'd sleep better knowing you can handle yourself-at least a little bit."
"Thanks, Diggle, but I probably couldn't even take down one of your arms." When he chuckled, she added, "Just saying."
"We'll teach you a few basics as a precaution," Oliver agreed. "You won't be in the field, so I doubt you'll ever have to use them."
"Yay," Felicity muttered with as much enthusiasm as a kid at the doctor's office. She swiveled in her chair, eager to return to a world she fully understood. Stretching her fingers, Felicity dove into the network. Once she was finished with these upgrades, the bad guys wouldn't stand a chance.
|
“Louis.”
…
“Louis.”
“Mm?”
“Hey,” Zayn crouches down beside Louis’ bed, pulling the covers from his face. “You okay?”
“Mm.” Louis groans again and attempts to readjust his duvet back over his eyes. Zayn doesn’t let him, just settles his gaze on Louis’ face, his dark eyes riddled with concern.
“No you’re not. You’re upset, and you won’t tell me why.” Zayn frowns, a sad undertone to his voice. Louis stares at his piercing gaze, his lips slightly arched downwards. He worries too much sometimes, it isn’t a bad trait, but it does cause Louis to make another disgruntled noise and press his face into his pillow.
Zayn flattens a hand on Louis’ back. “I’ll buy you breakfast, yeah? We’ll go for a walk.”
Louis sniffs and returns his gaze to Zayn. “Yeah, whatever. No cheap shit though, if you’re buying, we’re going all out.”
Zayn snorts. “You’re a pain when you’re moody. But fine, c’mon then.”
Louis gets out of bed and checks the time. It’s only eight in the morning. Even without the party last night, Louis would still be surprised to see Zayn up this early. He wonders if he slept at all.
They walk down to a café through the park behind their house, the breeze picks up as they walk and Louis tugs his sweater sleeves over his hands until they’re inside. Zayn gets them a stack of pancakes and Louis’ favourite tea. He then proceeds to stir his coffee idly while peering not-so-subtly over at Louis across the table.
“Jay’s getting married,” Louis finally says.
Zayn lets out a sigh. “Thought it was something like that.”
Louis nods, feeling his chest tighten. “I just can’t handle it sometimes, I mean, she could barely commit to looking after us when dad left, how will this guy be any different to the ones she dated back then? Or to dad? I don’t want the girls to get attached to someone new just for him to leave again.”
Zayn nods slowly, letting him continue.
Louis sighs, long suffering, and rubs his hands over his face. “She just… she makes me crazy and she said all of these things and I just–“
“What did she say?”
Louis looks away.
“Louis…”
“She just knows what gets to me. I’m so fucking tired of it.” He sighs. The knot grows tighter in his chest.
Zayn draws a deep breath. “I know she does,” he pauses. Louis can feel the air change, he knows what he’s going to say. “If you maybe just went and had a proper conversation with her–“
“I can’t do that, Zayn. It wouldn’t be a good idea for either of us, I’m not ready.” He can feel the works sink way, way down to the craters forming in the pit of his stomach. “It won’t be better. I’m not any better.”
“You are though, we have better friends now and you’re doing really well at Uni.” There’s an odd soft tone to Zayn’s voice. He doesn’t hear it often. He doesn’t think he wants to hear it now.
“Yeah. Well, I’m not sure if it’s worth the risk.”
His chest is aching, and he looks out the window towards the park, pink trees shifting in the wind, swirls of colour, kids going to school. So much life. It's all so fucking weird.
He chuckles softly, it isn’t real though, it’s jagged and strange and Zayn’s expression stays the same. “I really loved it, y’know? Football, living close to family, everything. I thought that was going to be it. I mean, I could picture her at my games.”
“Louis, don’t–“
“I was so ready for it. And it gave dad a reason to stay in my life. He took me to the pitch on weekends and… and when I hurt myself, and he stopped showing, I was just… I was so sad. Sometimes I wonder if I did it on purpose. Just to see if he would still stick around.”
Zayn shakes his head. “You didn’t. Lou, you were miserable when that happened.”
“He didn’t even show. He sent a Get Well Soon card to the hospital. It was our thing, and… he didn’t even care.”
“I know… I know, babe. I was there, I know.”
Louis lets out a heavy sigh. It’s been so long since they’ve talked about this. “I’m just tired of,” this, him, everything, “failing.”
Zayn squeezes onto his hand across the table. “You never failed. Fuck, Lou, no way.” He drags his thumb across Louis’ hand, Louis keeps his eyes on his barely touched plate of pancakes, he refuses to cry over this again. “You deserved better, I’m so sorry, babe.”
Louis grips on tighter, he wants to tell Zayn, but he doesn’t. A fractured second lets in some light.
. . .
Louis ends up sleeping most of the day. He doesn’t really mean to, but they get back and his bed is still how he left it (which is reassuring) and it just looks so welcoming that a nap is the only thing that really makes sense. But of course a nap turns into a deep sleep that lasts the entire day. He vaguely recalls waking up to see Zayn poking his head in to check on him, but other than that he has succumbed to being entirely unresponsive.
It was needed though, because he wakes feeling well rested and a lot, a lot better. Still vaguely on edge, a slight discomfort digging into his bones, but better, all things considered.
He pushes himself out of bed, noting the setting sun out his window and pads through the hall to Zayn’s room, poking his head in the door, the dim light and paint fumes greeting him.
“You slept the whole day,” Zayn says, smiling gently at his painting. “Feel better?”
Louis nods. “Think so,”
“Talk to me, yeah? When you’re sad, s’ what I’m here for,” Zayn says, sounding both heartfelt and joking. Louis can’t tell from the deadpanned voice he masters so perfectly.
Louis nudges their shoulders together. “So you’re not just a pretty face?”
Zayn grins as he wipes his hands on his paint rag, and then plants a kiss on Louis’ cheek. “Pretty face and your entire emotional support group, it’s a full time job.” He steps past him to change into a cleaner shirt, chucking the band shirt into his wash basket.
“Going somewhere?” Louis asks.
Zayn looks at him oddly. “Next door, Niall's making pasta or something. Figured you were coming.”
That immediately sends Louis’ thoughts into a whirlwind of HarryHarryHarry, and how he left last night on the verge of tears. Harry isn’t stupid (despite some of the names Louis may have called him in the past), and he knows he could tell. He thinks it would be rational to let that box stay closed for the night.
“I might just stay here,” Louis says, and no further explanation is really needed because Zayn just nods, like he gets it, and he always does. He’s sort of wonderful like that.
“I’ll bring you some food,” Zayn says, pulling on his boots. “Niall’s the kind of twenty one year old that owns proper full sets of Tupperware, did you know that?” he snickers, shaking his head.
Louis smiles. “That so?”
“Yeah. He, um, he brought over some baking when I was painting the other day.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. So… I’ll see you when I get back?” Zayn’s usual composure returns and he puts on his leather jacket. “No parties, no boys, don’t set the house on fire.”
“No parties, no fires, got it.”
Zayn arches his eyebrows, almost as if he’s going to reinforce that third rule but instead he just chuckles and heads out.
Louis showers for too long, wraps himself up in comfy, warm clothes, digs out a pint of ice cream and sits on the couch, letting his mind wander through different crime shows. It’s only then that he checks his phone.
Harry: if you went to the moon w/o me I must say, I’m deeply offended :(
There are a series of moon emoji’s attached at the end. All of it is so stupid and Louis must be really stupid for smiling like an idiot while he reads it.
Louis: I would never.
He focuses his eyes back on the TV screen, it takes the sound of the door closing to know he had drifted off. He blinks away the sleep in his eyes to focus on Zayn wandering into the house.
“Honey, I’m home,” Zayn says as he kicks off his boots.
Louis pushes himself up and swings his legs over the side of the couch. “Hey, you’re awfully cheery.”
Zayn shrugs half-heartedly and shakes off his coat, wet from the rain. “It was fun, we looked at some of the photos from Niall and Harrys trips, they did keep wanting to come over and see you, they were worried.”
“They were?” Louis asks casually, flicking through the channels.
“Yes. All of them, Harry included.”
Louis refuses to show how that spikes his interest, and just hums noncommittally. “Was he?”
Zayn nods, looking down at his phone, Louis swears if that’s Niall checking he got home okay, he’s going to scream. “Asked if you were okay, I said you were just tired. Figured you wouldn’t want them bombarding you,”
Louis smiles, not that Zayn is looking. “Thank you for that.”
Zayn’s looks up, and he grins, holding a container in his hand. “I’ll put your food in the fridge.”
Zayn comes back a few minutes later, giggling quietly about something on his phone. Louis doesn’t pry. He sits down next to him, shifting under Louis’ blanket and cradling a bowl of crisps, they’re watching Mulan when Louis’ phone vibrates.
Harry: Study session at yours tomorrow? I’m not insinuating that we have to do anything, just in case you’re not up for leaving the house. I’ll bring my books, be on my best behaviour, promise.
Louis doesn’t know why he has to assume that they can’t study at home without something happening. He can, in fact, control himself around Harry, and besides, Zayn will probably be home anyway. Not that he needs him there. He is in complete control.
Louis: sounds like a plan.
. . .
“Ah––! Fuck, Lou–“ Harry winces, his mouth hanging open against the pillow as Louis eases into him.
(Okay, maybe he doesn’t have as much control as he thought. But Liam, Zayn and Niall decided to spend the day at a farmers market, and in his defence, Harry showed up in a shirt that was mostly unbuttoned and tight jeans with more rips in them than really necessary, which, on Harry, it was a very good look. The clothes are on the floor now, but that’s beside the point.)
Pleasure shoots up Louis’ spine in blazing sparks, and he smooth’s his hands over Harrys hips. “Alright?”
Harry nods, clenching onto his sheets. “Yes. God, yes. I’m so good.”
His voice comes out in a rough moan that goes straight down to Louis’ cock, and he continues to thrust into him, still pushing in slowly to ease him into it, but everything is hot and wet and the sight of Harry in front of him is almost too much, his legs are already trembling as he presses against Harry, building in a rhythm that makes him feel dizzy.
A few long moments are spent fucking him slowly, wonderfully. Then Harry lets out a choked groan, his hands fisting the sheets. “Faster, Lou.”
And yeah, okay.
Harry pushes backwards into Louis before he’s even had a chance to pick up the pace, he can hear his ragged breathing, similar to his own, and his thrusts quicken, moving faster and faster while holding Harry in place, Harry begging him to keep going, encouraging him. Fuck. It’s overwhelming.
Harry reaches down underneath him and tugs at his cock, whimpering as Louis continues to pound into him, his pace unrelenting. Louis’ legs are shaking from the intensity building up in a pool of heat about to burst, but he keeps Harry in place, his hands firm on his body, clutching him. Fuck fuck fuck.
With a long sigh, Harry comes first, dropping his hand from his wet cock and panting heavily. There’s something about the broken groan the boy makes that drives Louis past insanity, it’s fascinating, and borderline exhilarating.
When Louis comes, his entire body is shaking, feeling like he's on fire, and he pulls out, finding it impossible to keep himself upright. He throws the condom in the bin, and he outright collapses next to Harry who is splayed out on his back, forehead sweaty and lips wet and red, Louis finds it infuriating when he looks like that.
“Well,” Harry says, in between heavy breaths. “We sure are getting a lot of work done.”
Louis snorts and sits up, he grabs a towel off the floor and throws it at Harry and then heads to the bathroom to wash himself off quickly and pull on some clean clothes. When he gets back into his room, Harry is dressed again, the bed is made and he’s lying on his stomach with his legs crossed behind him, flipping through a textbook.
They spend the next hour jotting down notes, the odd bicker here and there, and that’s good, it makes sense. Louis refuses to acknowledge the things that don’t, like the way his heart races whenever Harry stretches his muscles or when Harry laughs, like really laughs at some stupid joke Louis makes. It doesn’t make sense. It feels odd. It feels nostalgic. And not the good kind.
They’ve gotten a good amount of work done by the time Louis starts to notice his empty stomach, he’s sitting up against the headboard, (he’s sure there are dents in the wall behind him now) and Harry is lying on his side next to him, head propped up on his elbow and chewing on the end of his pencil idly.
Louis nudges him with his ankle. “Snack break?”
Harry nods eagerly. “Please.
They head down to the kitchen, Louis pulls out some baking that Niall must have brought over and a bag of crisps, pouring them into a bowl while Harry makes them each a cup of tea. They end up just sitting at the breakfast bar in a comfortable silence, that is, until Harry’s phone starts to ring. His ringtone is a Destiny’s Child song. Louis wouldn’t have expected anything less, if he’s honest.
It’s not even that that makes Louis jump, it’s the sheer speed in which Harry pulls his phone out of his pocket to answer it, not even looking at Louis as he slides out of his chair and heads towards the back patio. “Gem? Hi, um. How is everything…” he loses the rest of the conversation pretty quickly.
So… that was odd.
Louis is honestly filled with a strange mixture of frustration, curiosity and concern the entire time Harry stands outside talking, pacing over the porch, tucking a fidgety hand into the pocket of his jeans, and a weird, contorted look on his face. Louis’ eyes follow him the entire time, little to his own control it would seem.
When Harry finally ends the call, Louis exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding and leans back in his chair only just realising how tense he had become. Harry saunters back into the room, an unreadable look on his face. He looks ill almost.
He sits back down and continues to pick at his muffin, and Louis feels the spark of something shoot up his spine, everything is so quiet he can hear himself breathing. It’s a still, oddly frozen moment before Harry speaks again.
“So how come Niall brings all of his baking over here for you guys? I don’t recall having any at home.” There’s a strange hint of forced amusement in his tone, it sort of stings.
Louis chuckles anyway, because Harry is obviously trying to change the topic. “I don’t think it's because of me.”
Harry grins when Louis looks at him again. And he’s sure there’s something else lingering there. Maybe. “They do spend an awful lot of time together.”
“Should we give them the talk?” Louis asks, smirking.
Harry laughs earnestly this time. “We’ll let Liam handle that.”
Louis looks away to hide his smile. It’s nice, in spite of everything. It’s nice to be friends with Harry, it always has been, and he misses it a lot. He misses him and when things were like this. He’d like it to be like that again, but there’s still too much left unsaid, jumbled remains of what used to exist between them anyway.
He chews on the inside of his cheek, psyching himself up to say the words. He’s never been good at this.
“Harry, I–“
Of course that’s when his phone decides to vibrate violently. Of course.
Harry just looks at him oddly, and okay, Louis might be slightly grateful for the interruption. He’s really not ready, and Harry can always see right through him.
Greg: Are you free today?
His stomach sinks. It’s not Greg’s fault, really, it’s not. But like, it doesn’t settle well with him to go out today, and it wouldn’t be fair to Greg, especially considering all of the unresolved feelings that are slowly but surely eating away at his brain.
Louis: sorry, can’t make it. Another time???
He sets his phone down again, hoping Harry doesn’t see how utterly tense he’s feeling.
Greg: yeah, totally, that’s fine. Txt when ur free x
That one flashes across Louis’ screen, and Harry sees it.
“Ouch. Shooting him down again,” Harry says after a glance.
Louis shrugs half-heartedly. “He’ll be fine. I mean, I will eventually… I’m just not feeling up for it at the moment.”
“You really don’t like dating do you?” Harry asks, and his tone isn’t harsh or anything. It’s empathetic. Strange.
Louis shrugs again, tugging on a bit of loose string hanging off of his sweater sleeve; he’s not really sure what to do with his hands. “It just isn’t that appealing to me. Greg’s nice, yeah, but… not sure if he’s worth all of the mess that comes with it.”
“That’s sort of a sad way to think.”
Louis stares.
“Now you’re sounding like Liam,” he says, sort of jokingly, sort of not. He doesn’t know. Doesn’t know what his head is doing right now.
Harry is quiet after that, thank God. Louis doesn’t need another one of these lectures, and especially not from him. Those words are still ringing at the back of his head, they used to devour his every thought, but he’s learnt how to coexist with them there. He knows how to be prepared to hear it from Zayn, and he knows very well how to take it from his mum, or, better yet, he knows how to hide from her words.
Which. It’s a bit pathetic. But Louis has grown not to mind so much.
And it’s Harry. There should be a mutual understanding that those kinds of conversations can stay locked away where they should be.
Slowly, very slowly, Louis continues to eat his barely touched muffin. Working the air back to comfortable.
“Did you love him?” Harry asks unexpectedly, slicing into the silence.
This is the opposite of comfortable.
Louis’ entire body tenses and he looks at Harry, brows furrowing. “What?”
His whole body feels frozen in anticipation of what Harry is going to say.
“Aiden,” Harry says, his voice is soft, but also sort of jagged, his gaze heavy and watchful. Louis averts his eyes immediately. He doesn’t want to talk about this. “Is that why you’re so bitter about… all of this?”
Louis feels his body clench again, he wonders when the room got so cold. “I don’t– I don’t know. I was seventeen. I was young.” And stupid. So, so stupid.
“So was I,” Harry says immediately, his voice is gentle, but filled with certainty and his face is… calm, almost, but it’s tilted forward, completely focused on Louis. Like he has to say these things, like they have to talk about this.
And yeah, maybe they do. Maybe they really should. Still, it doesn’t help the ache in Louis’ chest, it comes in a wave whenever he looks at Harry, a sort of powerful surge he's struggling to identify. It’s heavy, weighing down on him, crushing him.
He could really use a cigarette.
But then Harry’s hand is on his, flattening over it softly on the bench. It’s warm. Louis struggles to breathe as he looks at Harry, his face is earnest and determined.
Louis feels the weight of this moment, and it’s frightening.
Harry inhales deeply. “Louis, I didn’t even know–“
The door bursts open in that exact moment, it jolts Louis out of whatever that was, but it takes a good few seconds before he can rip his eyes away from Harry and pull his hand back. And yeah, maybe the talking can wait anyway. These interruptions are definitely some kind of sign.
Niall is strolling in with bags of groceries, the others following behind, and Louis gets up quickly to help them with the bags. Because yeah, distractions are good. Zayn shows him a bracelet he got at the market from some eclectic little boutique, said he got everyone a matching one (which is strangely affectionate for Zayn, but Louis doesn’t mention it.)
Louis spends longer than necessary fussing with his, adjusting the strap on his wrist until it’s tight enough, and then when everyone is sitting on the couch, Liam heads over next door to shower.
“Okay,” Niall says, switching off the TV and he and Zayn turn to face them. “We have a thing to discuss with you two.”
Louis arches as eyebrow and glances at Harry who looks just as confused, so he lets his eyes drift between Niall and Zayn innocently. “You’re getting a divorce?”
Harry snorts, causing his shoulders to shudder and he covers his mouth.
Zayn, on the other hand, looks unimpressed. “Dude.”
Louis sucks on his bottom lip to stop his smirk. “Sorry. Bad joke. I think I’m allowed to use it though, all things considered.”
Niall waves his hand. “Anyway,”
“Right, your thing. Sorry, please continue.”
“It’s Liam’s birthday tomorrow and he doesn’t want a big party or anything, so we thought we could throw him a surprise party? Just us lads, we’ve told him you and Zayn are going away to visit Zayn’s parents, and Harry you’re volunteering at that beach clean up thing over on the coast, staying there overnight.” Niall explains.
Harry’s attention spikes and he leans forward a little. “There’s a beach clean up?”
“You’re not going.”
Harry slouches back down, pouting.
“I’ve told Liam I’ll take him out for the day and do some fun things with him, meanwhile, Zayn’ll make one of those ironically shitty happy birthday banners while he’s in class, Harry, you’re on shopping duty, and Louis, you’re setting up at the house.” Niall states, with Zayn nods over a list they must have written on the back of a receipt.
“Jesus. Efficient.”
“Liam deserves it,” Niall says simply. “And we’ll get a bunch of old board games and shit. Have a proper birthday party, it’ll be fun yeah?”
“Yeah, it’ll be great,” Harry says.
“When did you guys think of this?” Louis asks, looking at Zayn.
Zayn snickers, eyes fluttering over to Niall once. “Liam got distracted by a supplements store while we were out, the poor soul.”
They explain the rest of the plan, and then Liam comes back causing Niall to abruptly change the discussion to a completely different topic, somehow the only other thing Niall's mind are facts on the mating processes of seahorses. Louis doesn’t even want to know.
. . .
Niall is in full prepping mode the next morning, he’s already text both Louis and Zayn several times to make sure they stay out of sight until he’s left with Liam, they even parked the car in the garage for the first time since they moved here. It feels odd for Louis to be following Niall's every word, but he kind of likes the structure, he won’t lie.
Louis had just finished crouching down to make a stealthy cup of tea in the kitchen when Niall texts him.
Niall: ok Li’s with me. Going to see a movie. Got his fav in the crockpot, can u turn it on at 10ish? H will be out by then.
He breathes a sigh of relief, it’s not like he intends to fully avoid Harry like his many previous plans, but he would like to wait out that specific conversation until a little while longer at least. Until he’s ready.
Louis: yea no prob.
Niall: thank u. decorations are in my room x
Zayn leaves for class not long after to get started on Liam’s “ironically shitty banner” and Louis heads over next door to get started on his assigned jobs. He also does the extra list of kitchen jobs that Niall left on a notepad by the front door, and then he heads upstairs to Niall's room.
When he opens the door, he’s greeted with so much fucking colour he doesn’t know what to do with himself. It reminds him of his sixth birthday when the wind knocked over a table holding everything. Balloons, streamers and cake everywhere. It was disgusting.
He gets to work, carrying it all downstairs, he hangs bunting from the ceiling, lays out a rainbow polka dot table cloth, and sets down colourful plates suited more for a kids party. But it’s fun, sort of suits this weird, dysfunctional family dynamic they have going on.
He’s only managed to blow up one packet of balloons by the time Harry walks through the door, carrying a few bags of groceries, stopping when he see’s him.
He actually laughs at the sight of Louis shamelessly lying on his back on the carpet, a half blown balloon in his hands and his chest heaving a little excessively.
“I’ve seen that look before, haven’t I?” Harry says once he’s finished laughing.
Louis rolls his eyes and props himself up on his elbows, watching as Harry puts the groceries on the bench and then sits down next to him, picking up a pink balloon.
“There’s an art to blowing up this many balloons without passing out, Lou,” Harry says, stretching the balloon out a little.
“Show me then, if you’re such an expert.”
Harry quirks an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twisting into a smirk. He bites onto the end of the balloon, holding it in his mouth while he takes the hair tie off of his wrist and ties his hair up into a bun.
Louis snorts. “Getting ready?”
Harry wiggles his eyebrows, taking the balloon out of his mouth again. “This is very serious business.”
Louis rolls his eyes dramatically, a grin easily fitting onto his face as he watches Harry suck in a deep breath, looking like a toddler about to dive deep underwater. He then brings the balloon to his lips and in one easy breath, he blows it up almost all the way.
“Jesus.” Louis mutters, watching with dazed eyes. It’s weirdly hypnotising.
Harry winks and finishes blowing it up, his cheeks flushed and hollowing. Louis is definitely unaffected by all of it.
He ties it up easily and then–
He throws it straight at Louis’ face.
There’s a flash of pink and then it’s gone. It doesn’t hurt, obviously, but Louis still sports a very unimpressed expression. “Really?” he deadpans.
A smirk is tugging at the corner of Harry’s mouth, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Louis’ annoyance just seems to satisfy him further because a ridiculous, childish giggle rips through him. And no, Louis won’t have that.
He grabs a previously blown up balloon hovering next to him and throws it at Harry, it bounces off of his head with less impact than Louis had intended and then proceeds to float into the next room.
He can’t help but snigger at how Harry somehow didn’t expect that to happen. There’s a glint in his eyes though, challenging.
“Brave,” Harry says, reaching for the bag of balloons.
The next hour is spent creating balloon ammo and chasing each other around the house, he’s feeling fucking ridiculous and blissfully happy. Like they’re friends almost. Louis’ chest hurts when he’s hiding backed against the wall next to the door to Liam’s room, a sort of forlorn weight settling there.
He can just– he can feel everything right now, heightened in the lump in the back of his throat, the odd flush of warmth that settles there is nice almost, if not just vaguely unsettling. It’s just easy with Harry. They fit together so easily, that’s why Louis was drawn to him in the first place. Ironically enough, that just made it hurt worse.
God, he’s a mess.
He’s too lost in his thoughts he doesn’t even notice Harry entering, and he’s not really sure what happens after that, but there are balloons everywhere and clumsy Harry is tripping on Liam’s Gryffindor hoodie on the ground and Louis is falling backwards onto his bed while Harry topples on top of him.
“Oh,” he lets out, sort of dazed, trying to come to terms with how he ended up on his back with Harry’s body pressed against his, his elbows on the sides of his shoulders and his face mere millimetres away. Louis wonders for a moment if there was a point where he got drunk without realising it, he feel’s intoxicated beyond belief right now but he’s certain he hasn’t had a single drop of alcohol.
And, whoa Harry is close.
He can feel every inch of him, is the thing. All of his body heat, the curve of his muscles through his tight jeans and thin shirt. He’s looking right into Harry’s eyes and the air feels too thick, like there isn’t enough in the room for both of them. He could really kiss him right now, if he wanted to… but that would be incredibly stupid, and Louis prides himself in being quite the opposite.
Harry’s brows furrow in that instant and he clears his throat, pushing himself up, a loose curl that had fallen out of his bun caresses Louis’ jawline, and that alone is enough to send an odd tingling sensation up his spine. It’s not the same sort of urgency that causes Louis to want to rip Harry’s clothes off, it’s something else entirely, and it’s making his head spin.
When Harry’s back on his feet, brushing his shirt down awkwardly, Louis sits up on the end of the bed. And he watches him.
It’s only expected that Harry would pull a balloon out of nowhere and throw it at him. And it’s definitely expected that all of Louis’ strange feelings would dissolve into thin air, and he’d shoot him a blank stare instead.
Harry just grins.
“Got you.”
. . .
A very serious game of ‘The Floor Is Lava’ is happening when Zayn gets home, ironic shitty banner in hand, and a very unimpressed look on his face.
Louis pauses where he’s climbing onto the back of the couch, balloon in hand, ready to throw Harry’s way. And Harry, who is using dining chairs to get from one side of the room to the other, also stops what he’s doing. Yes, Louis is aware of how ridiculous this looks.
Zayn arches an eyebrow, pausing for a prolonged moment before sighing heavily. “I need a drink,” He says, and saunters off towards the kitchen.
Louis snorts, hitting Harry with a green balloon when he’s distracted. “Game point. I win.” He gets down off of the couch.
“I didn’t know we were keeping score,” Harry says amusedly, following him into the kitchen.
Louis shrugs. “I’m terribly competitive, which I’m sure you’ll find out about tonight.”
It’s true, Niall had found a bunch of party games on the Internet, and Louis is on a fucking mission to win all of them, and okay, maybe he’ll go easy on Liam, but the others don’t stand a chance.
. . .
The house is well on its way to being Niall approved, and Harry is helping Louis untangle some fairy lights in the lounge. Zayn had just finished hanging his banner, it’s as tacky as it is wonderful, covered in vibrant paint and glitter. Louis could even wipe away a fake tear while he stares at it. He definitely doesn’t do that just to annoy Zayn. Definitely not.
Louis’ been sort of helping with the food, but his idea of helping tends to involve more eating than anything, and that resulted in Harry banning him from the kitchen. It’s not as though he’s ever cooked anything without burning it anyway, but being stuck with the fairy lights is shaping up to be a real pain. He’s secretly grateful that Harry is helping him. But he doesn't need to know that.
“I don’t even think they’re necessary,” Louis says, lifting up a clump of tangled wire and lights. “Like, really.”
Harry hums, looking down at the jumbled lights intently as he tries to rid them of a knot. “No, they are. They’ll look wicked.”
He’s got a smudge of red icing from Liam’s cake on his collarbone, Louis wonders how it got there. It’s just beneath the curve of his neck, high enough that the neckline of his low-cut shirt isn’t covering it.
Harry suits baking, doesn’t he? He had a small job in a bakery back in Doncaster, he’d bring Louis some of the day old muffins when he got to school, and he always smelt nice, like freshly baked bread and sweet dough. Sometimes there would be flour in his hair that Louis would kindly point out to him before they got to class. Ah, memories. Being hit by a truck would surely be less painful.
“Louis,” Zayn tilts his head at him and Louis jerks back. Subtle as fuck.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
Zayn looks at him strangely. “Just saying, Niall text, they just left the movies, twenty minutes away. So… time is of the essence.” He waves his hand at the mess of fairy lights that Harry is diligently working on.
Oh, right. Decorating.
. . .
“Guys, they’re almost home,” Zayn says, looking down at his phone.
They make their way into the closet that Niall had assigned for them to hide in, stifling silly laughter as they let the darkness envelop them in. Louis tries to make space for Zayn, bumping into another body instead.
“Yeah, hi.” Harry whispers, chuckling. Louis is happy he isn’t able to see his cheeks burning.
It’s easily one of the most uncomfortable situations of his life. He’s fine being close to Zayn, and even Harry, but together it’s… it’s interesting. He hadn’t exactly accounted for this. Harry and Zayn get on well, but shoved into a small closet with his best friend and the boy he’s secretly fucking does raise some odd feelings.
He takes a tiny step backwards as Zayn shifts, and, oh– okay. That’s Harry against him. He has entirely backed into Harry. Has it always been so hot in here?
Oh boy.
He steps to the side as much as he can without hitting the wall, and then there’s a big hand on his hip, and he can feel Harry trembling with hushed laughter as he shifts away. Maybe to make Louis more comfortable, or maybe just to mess with him, because his hand lingers for a few extra seconds before falling, the heat of his touch burning into him. It isn’t an appealing sensation at all and Louis refuses to get hard when his best friend is only centimetres away.
Zayn doesn’t seem to notice though, he’s listening intently for the other boys’ entrances and Harry is still trembling with laughter at Louis’ discomfort. Motherfucker.
It barely takes a second before Louis bravely slides a hand onto Harrys arse over his jeans, wholly grateful for the fact that it’s pitch black. Harry jumps at the touch, a squeak escaping his lips as he attempts to hit Louis away.
“Shh! They could walk in any second.” Zayn waves his hand vaguely at both of them, not exactly certain on the source of the sound.
Louis snickers, ah, sweet revenge. Harry, however, elbows him in the side, and Louis doesn’t move his hand away, because Harry squirming in his touch is just making him laugh more, covering his mouth with his other hand to keep quiet. It doesn’t help when Harry starts to giggle, he can feel him shaking, and Louis tries to dig his teeth into his bottom lip to stop himself. It doesn’t work.
“Guys, what the hell?” Zayn half-whispers.
Louis sucks in a deep breath. “Sorry–“ he chokes out just as Harry pinches his hip, the word breaking off into another burst of laughter that neither of them can seem to stop. He tries to bury his face into whatever is closest, and that just happens to be Harry’s shirt. He feels Harry stiffen momentarily, but continue to shudder with choked laughter while Louis presses his forehead into his shoulder.
They hear the front door close, Zayn hits both of them again and Louis tries his best to calm down. Harry gives his thigh a quick pat and the laughter about nothing tones down enough for them to hear Niall shout:
“Home sweet home!” (and he swears the boy has never said that in his life) but that’s their queue and they all pop out of the cupboard shouting “surprise!” as Niall switches the lights on.
Liam’s face is as wonderful as it is fucking heartbreaking because the boy is almost in tears (happy tears, he assures them), and he makes sure to say that the thought of just spending his birthday with only Niall wasn’t terrible but that he’s absolutely thrilled that they’re all there too. He also asks why Harry and Louis look like they’re crying. Louis doesn’t really have an answer for that and he pinches Harrys bum when the others walk past them.
Harry just giggles again, and Louis laughs properly this time.
. . .
Liam is thrilled with the concept Niall and Zayn had come up with for his party, outright demanding they play the Newlyweds game first. Louis thinks he just wants to do this because he gets to be in charge, and maybe because it’s a drinking game. That is, if they get any of them wrong, and Louis fully intends on winning.
“How well do you know your lover?” Liam reads aloud, glancing down at a list of questions on his phone.
“Why is this on the games list, Niall?” Zayn asks, sounding vaguely annoyed. “None of us are couples.”
Niall cackles. “I thought it would be funny.”
Louis keeps his eyes on the swirling liquid in his cup, and thankfully Zayn is already hovering close to Louis’ side.
Liam looks at them as if they’re playing pieces and just shakes his head. “No, we can’t do best friends together, that won’t be fair. Zayn, you’re with Niall.”
Oh joy.
Louis glances Harrys way, he’s playing with a deflated balloon and not really paying much attention, so he returns his gaze to Liam, who is smirking happily, the sneaky little shit.
They all seat themselves down on the ground, each holding a sketchbook and pen while Liam leans against his beanbag in front of them all, an adorable paper crown on his head, fit for a king. King Liam, sounds about right.
“Alright,” Liam says, “are the couples ready? This one is for Harry and Niall to answer.”
Louis clutches his pen.
He is so fucking ready.
He knows Harry. They’ve got this in the bag.
“What was the first movie you watched together?” Liam reads, looking excited as he waits for the answers.
Zayn writes his answer quickly.
“Deadpool!” Niall cheers.
Louis snaps his head up from his writing. “When did you guys see Deadpool?”
“Louis, write your answer,” Liam says.
“Sorry.”
“Harry?”
Harry’s brows are furrowing as he tries to think. “Um… shit, it wasn’t at the cinema.” He looks at Louis. “We went to a drive in, right?”
“Louis isn’t allowed to answer,”
“You went to a drive in together?” Zayn asks curiously.
Harry taps his pen against his lips, ignoring that question. “Right, um. I’m just not sure if it was the first one we saw together…”
“Just answer, Haz.”
“Okay, we went to a drive in movie and we watched Grease.” Harry says.
“Alright, let’s see what you put boys,”
Zayn turns his sketchbook to show an elaborate drawing of Deadpool, shading and everything, to which Niall awards him with a high five.
They then look at Louis.
Grease, drive in movie.
“Louis, Zayn, this ones for you guys.” Liam nods towards them, reading his question like a game show host. “What is their favourite ice cream flavour?”
“Oh shit, um.” Zayn taps his finger to his closed lips. “It had a long title, something like chocolate cookies and fudge with caramel swirl?”
Niall beams, his sketchbook showing the exact same answer.
“Louis?”
“Uh…” Louis sighs, thinking. “Coconut and cacao fake vegan ice cream thing?”
Harry grins.
Coconut vegan ice cream with cacao nibs. Made with love.
Seriously, Harry. Eye roll.
“What is their biggest fear?”
Niall points at Zayn as he thinks. “I do recall you saying you’re not a fan of the water. Any water, pools, the beach, so yeah, that’s my answer.”
And as expected, Zayn’s drawn some waves.
They look at Harry, and he’s looking at Louis, cautiously, like he’s asking permission. Louis just nods once.
“Louis is afraid of being close to someone,” Harry says tentatively.
A pause.
Louis just shrugs casually and turns his sketchbook to reveal a drawing of a heart.
“What would be their idea of a perfect weekend?”
Zayn starts to list on his fingers. “A morning run, followed by a road trip to the coast, and then lots of surfing and sunbathing.”
Louis quirks an eyebrow at Zayn before turning to Liam. “Okay, Harry would love to spend a weekend doing something hipster-y like taking photos in a botanical gardens.”
Road trips, exercise and surfing!
I would take a wander through pretty gardens with my camera.
“Which Friends character are they?”
Louis and Zayn have barely finished writing when the boys are blurting out their answers.
“Chandler.”
“Rachel.”
And Liam doesn’t even need to check their answers.
“You're all too good at this," Liam says, finding the next question. “Aha! This might be a tough one. What would be their dream proposal?”
Zayn purses his lips contemplatively. “Um, okay, I think Niall would want to find out through a bit of an adventure with clues and shit?”
“What the fuck?” Niall exclaims excitedly, flipping over his sketchbook to show the words, ‘elaborate treasure hunt!’
Liam puts a hand to his heart. “You guys.”
Louis levels his gaze when Liam’s attention is on him. He’s got this.
“Well, Harry isn’t very conventional, so a big romantic gesture is kind of out of the cards. He would want something that shows that you’ve put a lot of thought into it. Like, if it were me for example, I’d make a fort out of sheets and fairy lights in the living room, like we used to back in high school and um. I’d get a projector and play some of his favourite films. We’d be watching one of them and then I’d just… ask. I don’t think he’d want a big spectacle made out of it.”
He lets out a steady breath, his heart about to leap out of his chest. God knows why.
He looks around, finding all eyes on him, a sort of fondness coming from each of them.
And Harry.
Harry is looking… stunned almost.
He flips over his sketchbook.
Nothing too extravagant. Just something cozy, during a movie perhaps.
“What is their favourite TV show?”
Harry clears his throat, still seems to be recovering from Louis’ last answer. “From what I know, Louis is a big fan of crime shows, I don’t remember which one is your favourite though so I’m going to say… Criminal Minds?”
Louis winks and as expected: Criminal Minds.
Niall looks frustrated, biting down on his bottom lip as he thinks.
Louis is thrilled. They are so going to win.
“Well this isn’t fair because Zayn doesn’t really watch a lot of TV shows, just that Bob guy.” Niall mumbles.
Zayn bursts out with laughter, it’s unexpected, and brilliant.
Nothin’ really, Bob Ross I guess?
“So, you all know each other far too well which honestly makes me tear up a little,” Liam says, genuinely seeming emotional. “However, this means we have to have a tie breaker, which is exciting and I enjoy having all of this power.” He tilts the crown on his head to better sit on his immaculately styled hair.
While Liam is trying to find a tiebreaker question, and Zayn and Niall have fallen into a conversation, Louis picks at some of the birthday cake on his plate next to him.
“Where did that proposal come from?” Harry asks out of nowhere.
Louis’ cheeks flush. “I just… I know you like it when people remember little things that you enjoy. I was simply playing with that concept. Don’t worry, I’ll tell your future lover that it’s the perfect idea.”
A stifled laugh escapes Harrys throat. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Okay, I have my question!” Liam says.
They all turn their attention back to him.
Liam clears his throat. “This is a bit of an easy one for those of you who knew each other in high school–“
“Boo!” Niall yells.
“–but I could be wrong.” Liam smirks. Louis is awfully suspicious. “Okay, here it is.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Who was their first kiss?”
Louis’ insides freeze at once.
Shit.
He looks at Harry, the smile has been wiped completely from his face as well and he look at Louis with the same kind of discomfort.
He knows who Harrys first kiss was, and Harry knows that he knows and that he can’t very well say who it is, not in front of the others. Not when he hasn’t even talked to Harry about it since everything happened.
“It was you, wasn’t it Liam.” Zayn is suddenly saying, and okay, that does momentarily distract Louis.
“What?” he asks incredulously, and from Liam’s laughter, it isn’t hard to guess.
“We were both a little curious, I guess,” Niall says, chuckling, flipping over his sketchbook to show Liam Payne.
“You two kissed?” Harry gestures between the two of them. “And you never told me?”
“We were like fourteen, and Liam’s straight, it was just some… experimenting between friends.” Niall explains. “Thankfully, I told Zayn about it the other night.”
“So what about you then?” Zayn says, looking at them now.
Louis’ chest tightens again, he doesn’t let his gaze settle on Harry. He knows what they’re both thinking. “Looks like you win, I don’t know this one.”
Niall cheers and pulls Zayn in for a sideways hug.
Liam glances pointedly at him and Harry before pouring them both a drink, and Louis can feel Harry’s eyes on him too, like fire.
. . .
The next couple of hours pass with more overly competitive party games.
Monopoly was going to happen but then Niall informed them of The Games Night Incident which involved a playing piece smashing through a window and fake money hitting the ceiling fan. Pictionary ended up taking longer than expected, though Louis thinks it was an unfair advantage for Liam to request to be on a team with Zayn who just so happens to be an amazing artist. He thinks his team did well enough, though they wouldn’t have gotten any points without Harry’s graphic illustration of a male stripper.
All in all, it’s been a successful night. Louis doesn’t think he’s ever laughed so much in his life, it’s completely ridiculous and probably the most fun any of them have had in a long time. (Though, playing beer pong before charades was probably not the smartest idea.)
The night is at that point where everyone’s drunk their weight in alcohol, but honestly, Louis feels fine.
They’re in the middle of a round of Truth or Dare Spin The Bottle (a stupid combination of games in Zayn’s opinion). It’s been fairly easy so far, just questions like which player would you want to be stuck on a desert island with? (The obvious answer is Liam) and a seven minutes in heaven style dare which involved Louis taking Liam into a closet, disheveling the boys hair and making hilariously exaggerated sex noises for seven minutes. The horrorstruck faces when they exited were truly golden and worth possibly scarring Liam for life.
Liam sits back down and spins the bottle, landing on Niall.
“Truth or dare?”
Niall scoffs. “Dare, c’mon.”
Liam picks out one of the dares, arching his eyebrows. “Kiss the person to your left.” He reads, amused.
It takes Louis far too long to realise that that person is him.
“Oh my god, my whole life has been leading up to this moment,” Louis says dramatically, turning completely on his side to face Niall, mustering up all of the fake eagerness he can manage. “C’mon, give us a kiss.”
Niall laughs. “You’re doing a great job at making this less awkward.”
Louis smirks, he is actually very glad this is happening with Niall. Very, very glad it’s not someone else.
“Alright, c’mere beautiful,” Niall says and leans forward, placing a soft kiss to Louis’ lips.
It barely lasts five seconds before there are wolf whistles coming from Liam and Harry and they’re both pulling back from the kiss, laughing hysterically.
Niall plants another kiss on his cheek once the laughter has subsided, and Louis can’t help but notice Zayn next to him, his shoulders stiff and mouth drawn in a hard line. He gives him a reassuring smile, and Zayn weakly smiles back. Louis feels his chest sink, unsure of what he can do without bothering Zayn further.
He drops his gaze as Niall spins the bottle, and it lands on Harry. Louis is sort of holding out for something hilarious so that Zayn will laugh. Does that make him a bad person? No, surely not.
“Dare,” Harry says straight away.
Niall reads the dare, smirking wickedly. “Do press ups until it’s your turn again.”
Hah.
“Alright, I can do that,” Harry says snootily and turns onto his knees, stretching his legs out and easily dropping down, muscles pulsing as he presses against the ground and lifts himself back up. Louis doesn’t stare. He doesn’t.
“Can we please take the rest of the game really slowly,” Louis says, smirking, definitely because he knows it’ll start to hurt soon, there isn't any other reason.
“You’re an–“ Harry pants as he drops down. “–arsehole,”
“I’ll spin for you, Harry,” Liam says.
“So kind,” Harry manages, his hair hanging over his face as he concentrates.
Liam spins the bottle again, and it points towards Zayn who is only looking slightly more amused than earlier. Louis watches him carefully.
“Truth or dare, Zayn?” Liam asks. So far Zayn has only had to confess a dark secret, to which he admitted he’s never watched Titanic and has no intention to. That seemed to be good enough for the other boys who honestly looked appalled.
“Truth,” Zayn says, unbothered.
Liam reads the question, quirking an eyebrow and grinning strangely. “Uh.” He clears his throat, a hint of pink spreading across his cheeks. “Top or bottom?”
“Bottom.” Zayn answers immediately, a serious undertone to his voice, strange for the game he was calling stupid less than an hour ago.
Louis raises his eyebrows and can’t help but turn to Niall next to him who is simply staring, wide eyed and wait… is he blushing?
Louis smirks and looks back at Zayn who is grinning now, the life flowing back into his perfect features. Yes, Louis is acutely aware that his best friend should be a Vogue model, he doesn’t blame Niall for staring, it is not the same as how he happens to keep glancing at Harry who is still struggling with his press ups. It isn’t.
“Ooh get it, Zayn,” Harry says approvingly through heavy breaths.
Zayn just chuckles softly, smoothly shifting his eyes away from their (possibly) sexually frustrated Irish friend, leaning forward and spinning the bottle.
It lands on Harry.
Harry collapses in a heap with a heavy sigh. “Thank fuck,” he mumbles as he sits up again, rubbing his biceps. “Lay it on me.”
“Why did you break up with your last boyfriend?” Zayn reads.
Louis feels the enthusiasm leave his face. Why.
Harry grins softly. “Because I was only in Spain for two more days.”
“Ah,” Niall points. “Dante, I remember him. He was fun.”
Dante?
“Who’s Dante?” Liam asks. Thank you, Liam.
“Harry’s Spanish boyfriend. They really only knew each other for, like, two weeks but yeah. He was cool.” Niall answers.
Louis doesn’t know how he can feel Harrys eyes on him, burning into him, but he pointedly looks away when Louis looks up. He isn’t sure why. It’s not like any of this bothers him.
The bottle points to Louis next.
“Describe your worst date ever.” Harry reads. The words roll off of his tongue slowly, breaking at the end.
Louis knows why.
He lets his eyes fall to the carpet. “Well, I’m not sure if this counts, but it was kind of bad for two reasons. One, he forgot about the date completely, and two… I caught him cheating on me with one of my closest friends. So.”
Okay.
Okay so it’s really quiet.
He risks a glance up at the eyes gazing at him, all but Harrys. He’s staring at the wall, his eyes glazed over, steely, and expressionless. Louis feels his gut sink profoundly.
“Well, shit,” Niall finally says into the silence. “Sorry, mate.”
“Yeah.”
“Shitty friend.”
“… Yeah.”
And then Harry is getting to his feet. “I, um. I’m just getting some fresh air,” he says and walks out of the room.
Louis sighs, long suffering. No one else seems to notice. They’re all clearly trying to lift the mood from where Louis left it on the floor.
“Might go have a smoke,” Louis mumbles under his breath and leaves in the direction Harry went.
He finds him outside.
He’s sitting on an old swing set next to the house, legs hanging idly, suede boots dragging along the wood chips, eyes up at the stars. Louis lets out a steady breath as he walks over and sits on the swing next to him, finding it a little more difficult to reach the ground with his shorter legs.
He holds onto the chains that hold up the swing, tilting his head towards the sky as well, wondering if he could wish hard enough and disappear up there. Be with the stars. It seems like a nice alternative at the moment.
The nighttime breeze is cold against his skin, but it’s not too much. He sways on the swing, his head is just starting to settle down from too much drinking and secrets and Harry. He somehow feels more levelheaded being outside, the stars help, even if the world is too massive and not there purely to cater towards Louis’ every need, it helps to clear through the fog in his head.
So, okay. Here goes.
“Harry, I–“
“Louis–“
Harry stops when he does.
Louis smiles wearily. “You go.”
Harry nods, looking at him. “I don’t think either of us are in the right head-space to talk how we should right now but… about that. I really– I didn’t–“
“I know, Harry,” Louis says before Harry gives himself a headache. “Oh, man. This is fucked up. You know that, right?”
Harry chuckles weakly. “I don’t think words can truly cover it.”
Louis smiles down at the ground. “No, I don’t think they can.”
They’re quiet for a few moments, just the swings creaky slightly, leaves whipping and rustling. Louis thinks, if he’s really quiet, he could hear Harry’s heart beat.
It’s probably all in his head.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says quietly.
Louis presses his eyes closed for a moment, before opening them and adjusting to Harry’s face. Soft, sincere, real. His brain has gone fuzzy, he can’t even hear his own thoughts. It’s all him, it’s always him.
Louis sighs. Looks at the stars.
“Yeah,” He says, lips cold against the wind. “Me too.”
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