#//Forever holding the guilt nestled deep in his heart until the day he dies | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sirthisisa-wendys · 3 years

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Wendy!! i was angst-inspired and wanted to share - Shinichiro finally having his feelings reciprocated by one of the people he confesses to, and the other Black Dragons are happy for him, until Akashi realizes he's also having feelings for this person. Of course he respects Shin enough to not get between them, but... it's fine if they get some time on the side, right...?? y/n's got two hands, what he don't know won't hurt him, etc etc. eventually it gets to the point where they feel like things can't continue the way that they have without someone feeling betrayed. so they're preparing to tell Shinichiro but they don't get to before uhhhhhh His Naptime💀 and they both have to live with that guilt and decide how they're gonna move forward, like do they get together?? do they back off of each other?? does it even feel the same if they're not sneaking around? does it make each of them think too much of Shin whenever they see each other??? it just hurts, it hurts my heart because emotions and hurts my brain because i could not write this if i tried lmao

I WAS ABOUT TO GO TO BED UNTIL I SAW THIS AND YOU GAVE ME

H E A R T B U R N

This prompt is ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

And I love it, I'm writing it. Y'all better strap the fuck in, BECAUSE MR. TAKEOMI IS MY ANGST KING. FREAKING GENIUS MASTERMIND, YOU ARE.

Rain Bringer: Shinichiro Sano & Takeomi Akashi x Fem!Reader

wc: 1.4k

tw: NSFW

masterlist

song recommendation (I have been saving this song for a good one. I think this is it):

"We should stop this..."

Takeomi's lips slide up the side of your neck and back down, ignoring your statement in the dim light of the room. The lamp in the corner is red, your signal to Takeomi that you're free for him to come over, which happened every so often after Shinichiro left your apartment for the evening.

"You don't mean that," he replies finally, and you huff, feeling his hands course up to your waist.

No, you don't mean it.

Yeah, you like Shinichiro, but Takeomi makes you feel things no man has ever made you feel. Ever.

It's as if Takeomi took your essence and wrapped it around his wrist, chaining him to you forever. Shinichiro was a safe bet. Takeomi was what your entire body lusted for and desired in the middle of the night when your bed wasn't warm.

"Kiss me," Takeomi whispers and you obey, leaning back to catch his mouth as he leans over your shoulder. "Everything's fine." You kiss each other until the result is the both of you laying in bed, bodies tangled around each other as he pumps into you with sinful and terrifying lust. "God, you're so damn perfect," he breathes, holding your wrists above your head and nudging your nipple with his tongue. "Wish I could have you like this every night."

And you do, too. Sort of.

Out of all of the Black Dragons, why did you have to fall for both Shinichiro and Takeomi? If it wasn't for that night when he walked into Shinichiro's shop and gave you that look... fuck, that heat-filled and desire bringing look!

You'd gone weak-kneed and landed right on them in front of Takeomi, taking him in the backroom like a devious and scheming whore. It wasn't okay. If Shinichiro found out... you'd both be dead. You'd gotten lucky multiple times with Takeomi's dalliances, from almost getting caught in the shop to the warehouse to the fucking bathroom at the club...

You liked Shinichiro. You did.

But Takeomi was just... something else.

After his single orgasm and your fifth one, your head rests against his chest and you hear his heart beating slowly beneath his rib cage.

"We need to tell Shinichiro," you exhale. Takeomi goes stiff, but the thought had crossed his mind before. He thought about pulling Shin aside and trying to tell him in the nicest way that he was fucking his girlfriend. But... to his shame, he never got the courage. But now that you're bringing it up, he feels some sense of 'morality' or whatever it was.

"We'll tell him tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah," you reply, falling asleep on the man's chest after a few moments of silence. Takeomi wished he had his cigarettes so he could smoke to ease his mind, but not wanting to wake you, and not wanting to move - he forgoes them, instead letting his mind roam while you rest.

_____________________________________________________________

The news comes that morning.

Both of you had multiple missed calls and a tear-filled Mikey and Emma trying to get a hold of you, get a hold of someone.

But you both had been deep in the throes of sleep, nestled in with each other as the sun rose on the bleak-ass day. You part without words, Takeomi pressing a kiss against your forehead as he leaves out the door, forgetting the breakfast you tried to make and the coffee that had gone cold in your silence of getting ready for the day. How could you face the younger Sano children like this?

You were sure that Takeomi's cum was still nestled between your thighs like the stain of your sin, visible for every single person to see as you walked down the street to the Sano home. You're shaking as you walk through the door, shivering even though it's not cold and your body curling in on itself, even though you haven't been hurt.

Takeomi is sitting at the table, facing away from you, but you can't find the strength to call out to him. Instead, you feel like a fraud as you cry in Keizo's arms, trying to find something that feels authentic to you deep in your heart. You had feelings for Shinichiro. But you cry more out of guilt than your pain, trying to make sense of your own actions.

At the funeral, you wonder if you had just asked Shinichiro to stay the night - instead of being so eager to push him out - if he would have survived. And again, Takeomi doesn't speak to you, and you don't try to speak to him.

Neither of you can face what you've done.

Especially not with each other.

_____________________________________________________________

A week passes.

Two.

Three.

And you find yourself in your apartment, staring at the things he left you with a sense of dread. The chain, the shirts, the bracelet he stowed away for your birthday...

You swipe the things off the dresser top, enraged at yourself for being such a horrible person. You can't face yourself - all of the mirrors have been turned around. All of his clothes were still in your closet because you knew if you touched them, you'd be forced to face what you've done.

But anger drives you forward, pulling at the items and yanking them off their hangers, each shirt, each pair of pants, each hat falling to the ground in a heap of laundry that you can't find the heart to dispose of.

You could find the heart to fuck his best friend, though.

The swarm of accusatory thoughts begins to plague your mind, and you sit on the floor, tears falling from your eyes as you try to knock them loose or free them so they can't hurt you anymore.

Your thoughts are so loud that you almost don't hear the sound of someone knocking on your door.

You swallow your tears, wipe your face, and trudge to the fixture before opening it without checking to see who it is.

Your mouth dries up when you see Takeomi, his eyes full of sorrow.

"Takeomi," you breathe, but he pushes past you, ignoring the sound you make when he grips your wrist and drags you to your room. when he sees all of the clothing scattered across the floor, something in him recognizes your dilemma, but he doesn't say a word. Instead, he turns around and kisses you roughly, pushing you against the door and swiping his tongue across your bottom lip.

It's not wrong if Shinichiro's dead, you chant to yourself, trying to make sense of the feeling in your body as Takeomi takes you and claims you as his over and over again in the bed you once shared with a dead man. And you can't help it, you rationalize.

Takeomi's the only one who understands your pain, your suffering. It's unique to both of you and drives you back together, even though his death drove you two apart.

"I don't regret what we did," Takeomi pants, moving you up and down in his lap while you face him. "I don't regret a single moment of it."

And deep down, you don't either.

_____________________________________________________________

But sadly, those feelings of lust and desire peter out with time.

You realize that the relationship between you and Takeomi was built solely on the fact that you were sneaking around, that you were being little shitty kids and playing a game that didn't make sense anymore. It's like playing hide-and-seek with a ghost, but that ghost is how you felt about Takeomi before, and how you feel about him now is staring you right in the face.

The face before you is Shinichiro's, and you stare into his dark eyes and see the betrayal lurking there in your dreams, in your nightmares, in your thoughts when you pass by the former S.S. Motors.

"We should stop this."

This time, Takeomi looks up at you and into your reflection in the mirror. His eyes seem to betray how he truly feels, which is nothing short of empty.

"Yeah."

You get dressed in silence again, just like the time when you found out Shinichiro died, and he leaves without saying and word and without a kiss. You watch him walk away into the rainy night, hands in his pockets, and wonder if Shinichiro hadn't died... would you two still be doing what you did before? Would you sneak around with him and play the gamble of getting caught? Or would you settle for a man who made you feel safe?

Maybe you'd dump him for Takeomi.

You don't know.

But all you know is that every single time you remembered Takeomi Akashi, you'd have the painful memory of betraying someone you cared about... twice.

#takeomi akashi smut #takeomi akashi x reader #shinichiro sano x reader #shinichiro sano #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers smut #tokyorev smut

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vesperlionheart · 6 years

Text

Scarecrow Dragon II

[Part 1 posted here]

Shisui thought himself a more upstanding Uchiha than most, but maybe that was wrong too. Sure, he wasn’t quite the saint Itachi was, but the rest of the family was a horde of terror so if he was just a little bit of a brat, it wasn’t too terrible. At least he wasn’t Sasuke. At least he still knew how to feel remorse for the terrible things he did.

“What is it this time?” Itachi sighed, straightening his robes. They were neatly pressed and straightened just like his long ebony hair. In contrast Shisui’s hair was short and wild while his the high-waisted breeches and loosely-tucked white shirt showed off their own wrinkles.

“Why would you think something is wrong again?” Shisui grumbled, biting his thumb absently and looking away.

Itachi’s dark eyes rolled skyward and he sighed. “Because you’re gnawing again and it’s you, Shisui. You’re a terrible liar.”

“I might have cursed someone.”

“With what?”

“A dragon’s vengeance.”

There was the silence before a storm while Itachi processed his words, and Shisui braced for what would come next.

“You did what?!” Itachi rarely roared but when he did it made even his older cousin shrink.

“It was in the heat of the moment, I was upset, I wasn’t thinking!” Shisui wailed, holding up both palms. “I didn’t consider the consequences.”

“You never do.”

“I feel bad about it, okay? I’m not-I’m trying to do better. I’m regretting it, okay?”

Itachi deflated from his angrier stance and shook his head. “Why would you do such a thing? What could have possessed you to pull up such deep magics?” He sounded more tired than worried.

“I’m not sure what the exact details of it are, but I saw it in a vision,” Shisui murmured as his eyes bled red and started to spin. “I saw in my vision of the future, the agony I’m destined to suffer at the hands of this man and I-I was scared!” Shisui’s eyes snapped back to black and he turned off the wall’s ledge overlooking the property below. “I’ve never had such an upsetting vision about myself before. I didn’t even know I could get that upset!”

The younger cousin approached Shisui and leaned his elbows on the ledge, looking out at the misty valley. “Did you not stop to consider that maybe the path you took to avoid fate is the one fate took to find you?”

Shisui’s blank look had Itachi exasperated once more.

“I don’t understand you riddles, cousin,” Shisui admitted.

“And yet you claim to be an Uchiha. Maybe cursing this poor soul is the thing that leads to your unfortunate fate. Go and undo your wrong.”

“But what if that’s what causes me the agony?”

“It may very well, but the guilt eats at you even now, and you know what you did was wrong. You may not be able to undo your mistake so easily, but you should still try.” Itachi pushed up off the wall and swept the long trail of his cloak around him as he turned away. “I’ll inform them of your absence at the council.”

Shisui sighed, nodding and tipping backwards. He saw the world turn upside down as his ankles came next. The ground was far below him, edged in mist that broke apart when his wings snapped open. The rest of his winding body followed as he took off for the far lands.

He traveled by night, risking less as he flew far. By day he meandered into taverns in towns and soaked up the stories and possible sightings of a cursed man who had been touched by Uchiha magic. Itachi always said he had a way with people.

Eventually he found a lead that took him too the ragged cliffs that made up the outskirts of a cultivated land. It would have been so easy to fly in, but night was hours off still, and he didn’t mind a little hiking.

At least that’s what he thought before a stray foothold fell away and his ankle followed it down. He fell with a short cry and landed on his ribs, bruising them. It would heal in an hour or so, but it was still painful as long as he held onto his human form. He was ready to just screw it all and fly out when he heard footsteps. The crook of a shepherd’s cane came into view, and then her face.

“You took like you’re in trouble there, mister,” she called down, swinging her staff around so the curved end was in reach. “You need a hand?”

He felt like he couldn’t breath and knew that didn’t have anything to do with the bruises. He swallowed and then felt like laughing. “I’m Shisui!” he called up, smiling bright.

She couldn’t help but look perplexed down at his giddy expression as she shook her cane again. “That’s neat, mister, but my arm is going to get tired soon so you want to come up now rather than later?”

Shisui reached for the crook of her staff, bracing against the ledge to help him up again. “What’s your name, miss?”

She heaved and then pulled him up, over the edge and out of the crack he had fallen into.After he had stumbled onto his own feet she stood up straighter and rested her staff against her side. “You can call me Sakura. Folks around her know me by that name at least. You lost or something, mister?”

“You can call me Shisui,” he said around another bright smile.

Sakura wrinkled her nose at being asked to address someone so familiar. “You lost, mister Shisui?”

“A little, but I’m finding my way around. Where’s the nearest homestead. They said a shepherdess might be able to help me with my problem. Were they referring to you?”

“Depends,” she drawled, looking him over in a way that made Shisui shiver and tremble.

All his animal instincts were telling her to wrap his wings around her and carry her off to den with before another dragon suitor could take interest. She sparked with rare magic and was too precious to behold now that he was able to see her as clearly as she saw him. She was utterly perfect in a way few things in the world ever are. Clearly mate material if ever there was a thing.

“I’m looking for a-to break a curse.”

“And you think I’m a magic woman?” she laughed. “Honey, I can treat warts and rashes with remedies men might not understand, but I’m not a common witch.”

“Nothing so simple,” he teased, feeling brave in spite of the way his heart hammered. “But yes, you are a gift from the stars, are you not? A sorceress perhaps?”

Sakura’s laughter went still in her throat and her eyes flashed with green magic. Her hand grabbed the staff a bit more firmly and the runes hides in the wood all flashed with the same green light.

“What do you want?” she asked again. “No one knows that much ever comes to me without finding trouble.”

“No trouble, just…wanted to maybe talk about some theories.” Shisui scrambled trying to remember why he wanted to find her in the first place. All of that was secondary to wooing her away. “I’m also…I also have the magic-am magic!”

“Oh?” She didn’t look convinced.

His heart hammered. “Ye-yeah, wait, watch this.”

He turned facing away from her in the direction of the cliff. He inhaled and held the breath until it caught fire in his lungs, then roared a fireball into the sky. With nothing to burn it blazed and died like a supersede sunrise.

Shisui turned to watch her and the last flicking red light from his fireball played across her face, making the flecks of gold in her eyes flare. His heart felt pinned in a trap that squeezed when he saw that look on her face. She looked impressed.

“Wow.” She nodded, seemingly impressed. “I haven’t seen one of those in forever. A fire mage?”

“Of a sort, yeah,” Shisui chuckled. “But I’d appreciate if the others weren’t privy to my abilities here. Some people can still be…traditional.”

“I understand,” Sakura answered with a knowing look. “Trust me, I know the feeling. Come on, I’ll show you back to my place. You can discuss in detail what it is you think you might need my help with.”

“You don’t need to tend to the herd?”

“No, that’s what sheepdogs are for.”

Sakura put two fingers between her lips and whistled high and then low. A pair of dark dog shaped figures bounded over the hills and barked at the ankles of the toddling sheep scattered across the hills.

Shisui squinted and saw the reason for the shadows so thick over the dogs wasn’t anything to do with the overcast sky. Both dogs were made of soil and stone and bones left discarded in the earth. Some of the bones looked like the blonde to larger creatures than dogs, but somehow they all fit. One of the runes on her staff glowed white and then green, flickering like a lantern lit by flames.

“You seem well loved enough in this valley,” Shisui began, feeling desperate to keep her talking, to hear her voice, to maintain her attentions.

“It came after a good long while of trail and effort, and I’m hoping I can keep it that way. It’s nice here.”

“Ah, you think so? It’s a little dreary and foggy I think.”

Sakura chuckled, glancing back over her shoulder. “I like it like that.”

Shisui’s heart pinched again.

“What else you like about it here?” he asked, and listened as she told him.

He was ready to forget about his search for the cursed cast off Obito had taken in years ago and try to make a real effort to court the sorceress for himself. He had been alive for decades upon decades and then decades more and while the world around him changed, he didn’t. He was ready to change though. He just needed the right motivation. Maybe they could start a family. Their kids would be little magical wonders.

“It sounds like you’ve traveled,” he guessed.

Sakura shrugged. “Here and there, until they don’t want you anymore. That’s how it is.”

She stopped on a hill and he stood next to her, looking down to a small little house nestled in the low point between two hills, at the end of a trail leading down to the main road. Coming up from the valley below, heading towards her quaint little cottage a figure walked.

“It looks like you have another visitor.”

Shisui sighed, hoping she would send him away and instead invite only him into her home to talk of magic and curses and what her life might look like with him in it.

He turned to face her and his easy smile fell away. The gold in her eyes was dazzling as a smile stretched her lips. Something like dread began to form in his heart. She looked too lovely at that stranger.

“No, that’s my husband.”

And then he recognized the figure.

Shisui felt his heart fall apart inside his chest as she ran down the hill. Kakashi saw her and jogged up, laughing at the way she jumped off and landed in his arms. He spun her once and then let her feet touch the ground so he might lean in and kiss her.

It was sweet, so sweet it made Shisui want to die. It was the most human he felt in his life and he hated it, because there was nothing he could do as all the mysteries fit together into one truth.

Kakashi, the man he cursed years ago, was wed to Sakura, and Shisui was never more upset to be right in his life.

#part 2 #just an idea #Shisui #Itachi #Sakura #Kakashi #dragons imprint like birds and it's bad when they miss out #but that's not excuse #Shisui is a brat #and I made him suffer again #sorry

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whereisvanderwood · 6 years

Text

Saeran x MC - “Panacea”

*:･ﾟ✧

‘Vice’

noun.

“A metal tool with movable jaws, which are used to hold an object firmly in place while work is done on it.”

Her heart was trapped in one, and boy did she believe she needed to be changed. She would accept anything that would transform her into a completely different being; anything else would be better compared to the monster she had been for seventy-seven days.

MC: I’m so grateful that I got to meet you.

Saeran: Me too… From now on, I’ll be with you until the end of the world.

Saeran: ...I should go on standby.

Saeran: Come back into the living room. I miss you.

Saeran has left the chatroom.

That was it-- the final chatroom of the eleven days. Probably the last route she’ll ever get to walk. All that was left was the scheduled twelve o’clock story mode that would solidify the end of her finite love, as well as all of the torturous bad endings she would have to put herself through. Needless to say, she hated the eleventh day no matter whom she spent it with. Her brow creased at the onset, repulsive feeling of guilt.

MC checked the time on her phone, reading twenty-past eight; Three hours and forty minutes left. Hurriedly making Saeran’s meal, she set her mind on something else.

“The RFA are on their way to the studio now,” Saeran reported when she re-entered the room. “We should meet them soon.”

“Sure…”

When the light in her eyes was void of any glimmer of happiness, he noticed instantly. “MC, is something wrong?” His hand flew from his laptop’s keyboard to her dangling fingers by her side before she could walk away again.

As familiar as his warmth was, it took her by surprise. “Oh, nothing! I’m perfectly fine, Saeran,” MC forcibly beamed, plastering on her trademark smile. “Why do you ask?”

“You look sad… Like something bad is going to happen.”

“I’m okay, really. I’m just nervous… about the recording, that is.”

“Me too.” He ushered her to his side on the couch with a gentle tug of her hand. His thumb rubbed back and forth along her knuckles as she intertwined her fingers with his. “But something tells me that we might be able to make this work. So, please, don’t be sad.” He planted a soft kiss on her forehead as she nestled into the nook of his neck.

His touch brought about such tranquillity in her unsettled spirit that, only for one moment, her growing heartache drifted away with the dust of the cottage.

“Don’t think about it too much,” he cooed as he stroked her hair. “Now that we’re out of that place, thanks to you, we can do anything.”

“I didn’t do much… it was all you.”

“No. You have no idea how much you’ve done for me.”

She huffed out her bated breath as her chest tightened with self-condemnation.

“I love you,” he breathed into her ear.

“…I think I’ll go for a quick walk.” She gave herself an out, pecking his cheek before heading straight to the front door. Those three words were all it took to force her to put some distance between them.

Her mind was racing faster than she could cope. She had to stop that damned hourglass somehow. This isn’t fair, her mind echoed over and over like a trance. I won’t let the hourglass have its way.

Saeyoung appeared in her thoughts unexpectedly. He had to be alive, surely. He was the one who made this app in the first place, she recalled. If he died, wouldn’t this alternate reality immediately cease to exist? But then, she began to think...

“…It’s his fault,” she told herself, “that I have to do this over and over.” Suddenly her inner-self felt more at ease now that she had a name for her pain; a torture that no-one else in a lifetime would have gone through before, or will ever go through.

“It’s his fault I’m stuck.”

What would happen if Saeyoung were to disappear completely? Would the world of Mystic Messenger really end, or would it accept her as his replacement? Would this mean she could not only be with Saeran, but all of the RFA? Could she carve her own paths of love for her to follow on her own accord?

“I could do so much…” Her heart fluttered as it basked in the thought of her ideal. Maybe this was the true answer the whole time—a panacea for her loveless reality.

She checked her phone again—nearly nine o’clock. MC mentally cursed herself for wasting such precious time she had left with Saeran. She navigated her way out of the trees as she was back on the path to the hideout where her love was residing in.

Time trickled away with the falling grains of the hourglass. Her heartbeat became progressively violent with trepidation as the day ticked by. Twelve o’clock, the dreaded hour, was nearing.

I won’t go through with it. I won’t do it to Saeran, too.

Nine-thirty.

Ten o’clock.

Ten-thirty.

Eleven o’clock.

Eleven-thirty.

She eyed the video camera as an IT man of Jumin’s staff prepared it for Zen’s big moment. The good ending was soon to happen—her days were all at one hundred per cent and more than enough guests were confirmed to be coming to the fundraiser, even though it had been cancelled. MC was more than aware that she had gotten a good ending, meaning the likelihood of this plan working to find Saeyoung was high.

As long as he’s around, this’ll never end for me.

She separated from the crowd of her friends as she slipped her phone out of her pocket. Her home screen lit up with a blaring light as she eyed the tiny square with the red-haired hacker’s face on it. She felt herself frowning.

11:57.

She stood there, still, with her finger hovering above the app.

“MC? We’re about to start,” Saeran trotted over to his beloved looking oh-so isolated.

“Saeran…” she mumbled.

“Yes?”

11:58.

“You… love me, don’t you?”

“Y-Yes! With all my heart!”

MC’s body shifted, her eyes keeping fixated on her phone. “Remember when you said this morning you’d be with me until the end of the world?”

“…Yes, that’s right.”

“You meant that, right?”

“Of course! I can’t imagine my life without you! You saved me from that dark place I was in, and I want to be by your side forever!”

11:59.

“…I don’t want to hurt you, Saeran.”

“Wait… You’re not going to leave me, are you?” his tone was desperate.

With a deep breath, she held her finger down on the Mystic Messenger app, the square beginning to tremble with a small ‘X’ in the top corner after a few seconds.

“No.”

Her finger tapped on the ‘X’, and the effects were instant. The world was wrapped in a blanket of complete darkness, with the exception of green codes and the uninstall confirmation on her phone emanating a small glow on the faces of MC and her past loves.

“I never want to reset. Never again.”

At last, her finger clicked ‘confirm,’ and everything around her began to dissolve into drifting grains of colourless sand. Saeran stood before her, his expression unreadable as it was a mix of too many emotions.

“What… what are you… what—“ The boy’s eyes widened when he saw the members of the RFA literally fall apart over MC’s shoulder, whom hadn’t even bothered to turn her head. Her eyes were fixated on only him.

“It doesn’t matter,” she spoke with brittle as she watched their hands disappear before them. “If I can’t be with you forever, after this reset or the next, then I’ll have to be with you in the next world.”

“MC, what’s happening!?”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to be scared anymore, Saeran.” With the remaining arm she had left, she wrapped it around his waist and held him as close as she was able. After some passing seconds, he did the same.

“No… I didn’t want this!”

“But it’s what I want.”

With a final breath of wind the world had left, the millions of grains of sand dissipated into the nothingness of the world of codes and lost love.

*:･ﾟ✧

#mm #mystic messenger #saeran #saeran choi #saeran x mc #mm fanfic #mystic messenger x reader

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undefinable-like-fire-archive · 7 years

Text

Life Goes On But I’m Gone Without You

[Just a short fic about... well, you’ll see. I am not sorry for any of this. At all. Nor am I sorry for the modified RENT lyrics as the title.]

“Mr. Rory? Where are you going?”

Mick shifted the bag he held to the other arm, jaw setting as he turned to face the Waverider’s captain. “Somewhere. Just tell me where your next stop is and I’ll fly the jumpship there when I’m done. Stop worryin’. I’m not going anywhere forever.”

Rip looked at him quietly for a long moment, seeming about to argue. But then he nodded once. “I know enough about you, Mr. Rory, to know that I won’t be getting an explanation from you. Go on then. We’ll be in New Mexico, 1947. Just use the tracker on the jumpship after that, she’ll get you back.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Mick made an affirmative sound in the back of his throat before turning and continuing on his way.

He was familiar now with the workings of the jumpship - one of the few good things about his stint as Chronos - and found it all too easy to chart a course for a remote, off-the-maps countryside location of the Central City area, 2017.

It was cold. But everywhere seemed to be, these days. In more ways than one.

Mick dropped his bag down beside a tree, pulling his coat tighter around his shivering frame. For a long moment, he simply stood there, staring at the white blanket of snow upon the ground and listening to the rattling of skeletal branches far above.

Death hung heavy in the air all around, a dark cloud over him.

He left the bag where it was, pacing around, the snow crunching softly underfoot. He wandered to a copse of trees further ahead, staring into them. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought he saw shadows flitting from tree to tree, hidden behind the pale trunks.

The wind picked up, tugging at the hem of his coat with cold fingers, whispering in his ear. He turned away from the trees, continuing his walk in a wide circle around the area he had chosen. In the end, he returned to where he had left the bag, hoisting it over his shoulder and moving a few feet to the west of the oak beside him.

The bag was dropped to the ground again, nestled between the snow-covered roots of the oak tree. Mick sank to his knees beside it, ignoring the frigid sensation soaking through his trousers. He opened the bag and withdrew a shovel, setting it down and rising to his feet yet again.

His hand slid to the familiar comfort of the heat gun at his hip, and he took it into hand. Straightening to his full height, he aimed it at the ground in front of him and pulled the trigger.

The blessed heat burned away the chill on his skin, the roar of the flames and their glorious glow an old, comforting friend as it melted away snow and ice, charring the dead grass and hidden earth beneath.

His finger let up on the trigger, and once again the cold drifted back to settle over him, drawing him from the thrall of the fire, a stark reminder of why he was here.

The gun was returned to its holster, and Mick turned back, taking the shovel into hand. He moved to the now-thawed area of ground, driving the shovel into the earth. Minute after solitary minute passed as he tossed shovelfuls of dirt away from him.

He only stopped when the hole was about four feet deep and two feet wide, his hands feeling numb and his fingers feeling frozen closed around the handle of the shovel. He managed to uncurl his fists and carelessly tossed the shovel in a random direction, unconcerned with where it landed.

Back to the bag he went. He reached in, withdrawing two small planks of wood, only a bit longer than his forearm and half as wide. He sat there on the ground for a moment, trembling and sniffing - because of the cold air, of course - before taking a hammer and nails out as well.

The rap of hammer against nail split the lonely air like gunshots. A few birds took flight from the stand of trees, chirping angrily. They went ignored.

Mick continued his slow work, leaving the tools and planks - now nailed together - on the ground. He reached into the bag, taking the last item out; a worn, black sweater, the collar just slightly threadbare.

He went to the hole he had dug, staring into its dark depths. His fingers closed more tightly around the sweater, holding it just a bit closer toward his chest, jaw working.

The wind briefly picked up, buffeting him and starting him out of his daze. Mick shook his head, slowly loosening his fingers and watching the sweater fall into the hole, the sleeves landing in such a way that they seemed wrapped around the front, almost like a hug.

Mick retrieved the shovel, swallowing hard against the dryness in his throat and started pushing earth into the hole, gradually covering the sweater up and filling the hollow in the ground until nothing remained but a mound of dirt to show there had been a hole at all.

The shovel was left discarded as Mick picked up the planks of wood from earlier, nailed into a roughly cross-like shape. He moved with unsteady steps - the cold, it was because of the cold, that was all - to the far end of the slope of earth.

He stared at it for a long moment, chest tightening as a sudden wave of nausea overtook him. He shut his eyes tight, the wind whistling through the air and the biting chill settling around his bones.

Drawing in a deep breath, Mick opened his eyes and thrust the cross into the ground. The sharpened end drove through the charred earth with ease. Mick leaned into it, arms shaking, until he was certain it wouldn’t fall over.

He let go as soon as he could, almost as though burned. His gaze remained on the cross and the earth for a long moment. Then he moved back around to the other end, sitting down there and wrapping his arms around himself.

“Um. You, uh… there wasn’t anything to bring back, far as I know. Haircut said there was an explosion after… y’know.” He stared at the mound of earth, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. “So I took one a’ your old sweaters. Figured you wouldn’t mind. It was fallin’ apart anyway.”

The wind had died down a little, though still strong enough to send small flurries of snow whirling about now and then. Mick continued.

“They had a funeral or whatever for Hall. I dunno why we didn’t have one for you. Maybe ‘cause there wasn’t any… a body. Maybe ‘cause they didn’t care. I dunno. Don’t care. Wanted to have one myself though. Sort of. Th-this isn’t much of a funeral.”

A bitter laugh, hardly anything more than an exhalation escaped his lips. “You would a’ hated a funeral anyway, I know that. Never were one for… for pointless events like birthdays and the like.”

He fell silent. He couldn’t feel his body anymore, so long had he spent in the cold with just his usual coat for warmth. He didn’t speak for several minutes, and when he did, his voice had fallen several levels quieter.

“I wish ya hadn’t, Leonard. I just… I dunno what I’m gonna… gonna do. It’s been what… thirty years or somethin’. At least if it’d been me, you’d have Lis’. I don’t… you were the only person I let close. Y’know that. ‘M used to being alone but that doesn’t mean I like it. Not as much anymore.”

A bird came to alight on the ground a few yards away, hopping about in the snow. Mick tore his gaze from the grave to look at it, and then slowly let his eyes slide back to the haphazardly-made cross ahead of him.

“I went back to 2013 to see you. Y’know that though, probably. You must’ve thought I’d gone completely crazy, sayin’ all that stuff about you being a hero. But I meant it.”

A shuddering breath escaped Mick, and he shut his eyes tight, trying desperately to stop the stinging.

“I… god, Len, I meant it. I hope you know I meant it, and wasn’t just losing my damn mind. I wanted ya to know it. I’ve been s-seeing you around, y’know, and… and I’ve been tryin a’ tell you. You never listen but, I-I know it’s not you, it’s just… I don’t know, maybe I’m goin’ crazy and the guilt is coming through seeing you but not you. I don’t know. You never listen. I just… I wanted ya to know. I hope you… I hope you…”

Mick drew his knees to his chest, lowering his head and hiding his face against his arms, struggling to gain control of his breathing.

“I just hope you knew it.”

Another long stretch of silence. Mick knew he was shaking, but he didn’t feel the cold anymore. Just blissful numbness that spread through his blood and his bones and his mind. All but his chest, where it felt like someone had torn him open and taken hold of his heart.

His words came out unsteadier, fainter, from between teeth that clicked together when they weren’t clenched against the ache in his chest.

“I-I… I dunno. Y-you were… most important per-person in m’ life… gonna miss ya… ‘m hopin’ it’s… it’s nice wherever y’are… n-not pretendin’ to like what ya did, an-and I’m pissed. But… nothin’ to do now… just hope I’ll s-see you… again… maybe sooner ‘stead of later… ‘m tryin’, b-but…”

His eyelids fluttered. His eyes slowly drifted shut as his words trailed off. Darkness settled over him, wrapping him in an oblivious embrace.

Some time later - minutes? Heartbeats? He didn’t know - the wind picked up, striking him with enough force to knock him forward onto the ground, startling him awake. He rolled over onto his back, whole body shivering, and he could have sworn he saw the flash of a familiar face in the corner of his vision.

“Get the hell in the jumpship before you f r e e z e to death, Mick.”

Mick stumbled to his feet, unable to feel his limbs. He searched for the person he so desperately wanted to see - properly, face to face - but was met with only the frozen landscape.

His gaze fell upon the slope of earth - already dusted with faint white - and the slightly crooked cross.

Then he swallowed back the knot in his throat, against the dull ache in his chest, and shakily made his way back to the jumpship, staggering inside.

He set a course for New Mexico, 1947.

He left a bag, a shovel, and his entire life behind him in a snow-covered field beneath an oak tree.

#my writing #okay to reblog #mick rory #fanfiction #leonard snart #legends of tomorrow #lot #the flash #DC #rip hunter #(briefly)#heat wave #captain cold #fanfic #what have i done

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