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cumikering · 3 months

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Werewolf Keegan x reader 4

3.3k | fluff A cloud floated into your bedroom (part 1) (part 5)

Have you heard of the sweaty t-shirt experiment? That people can smell who they’re compatible with?

That explained how downright addicting you smelt - the lore couldn’t fool him. Humans and animals weren’t that different after all, despite him being able to smell better as a wolf.

You packed some lasagna for him to take home and put on an episode of your favourite show while spooning on the couch. However, with you pulled flush against him, his face buried in your neck, he didn’t show any sign of leaving.

Well, he didn’t want to. It was justified that he missed you this much, right? Sorry, you just had to kick him out of your apartment.

“Keegan?” You tapped his arm around your waist, causing him to groan in annoyance. You let out a small laugh. “Did you fall asleep?”

He lifted his head, eyes fluttering. Oh God, did he drool on you? He brought his hand to his mouth. Okay, he didn’t.

Halfway through the episode, he’d leaned in for a shameless little whiff but when you reached back and scratched the top of his head, he was a goner. The huge dinner probably played a part too.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to,” he rasped as he sat up.

You flipped onto your back, trailing your fingers down his inked forearm. “Well, you don’t have to go yet,” you mumbled.

“I’d love to stay if you let me.”

Your eyes flicked up to his as you smiled. “Okay.”

He leaned in, capturing your lips in a kiss.

While you got ready for bed, he grabbed his backpack from his car. After making sure his breath was as minty as it could be, he emerged out of the bathroom in a shirt and boxers. He was ready to take the couch, but when you led him to your bedroom, of course he wasn’t going to say no to finally climbing into bed with you.

You switched your bedside lamp off, the light outside spilt into the room through the sheer curtains. You lay on his chest, hand on his abdomen as it rose and fell at a steady rhythm. His eyes trailed down your body, pressed against his in an oversized band tee and cotton leggings.

“I’d love to stay up longer, but I’m falling asleep,” you said into his shirt, voice muffled.

“That’s okay. I’ll drive you to work tomorrow before I leave.”

“That’d be nice.”

He wiggled. “Do you mind if I take my shirt off? It’s a bit warm.”

“Go ahead.” You pulled away.

He took his shirt off, setting it on the nightstand before lying down again. You blinked. He forgot not everyone was a fan of hair, which he had plenty of.

“Or I can put it back on.” He quickly reached for his shirt, embarrassed that you might have found it appalling.

“You don’t have to,” you said, grabbing his arm. He could see the smile as you curled closer to him, pressing your face to his chest. “Good night, Keegan.”

“Good night,” he mumbled, looking up the ceiling with a small smile.

So this was the view when he called those nights he was away. He let out a soft laugh as he recalled the first conversation you had.

“What are you wearing?” you’d asked in a light voice.

He let out a hearty laugh.

“Oh, no! I meant- I didn’t mean it like that. I meant what do you wear to bed when you’re away?”

The heat crept up his neck as his smile lingered. He wouldn’t complain if you did mean it that way, but maybe under more convenient circumstances.

“It depends, but tonight I’m lucky enough to wear a shirt and sweats.”

“Same. I always cover my legs. I get cold easily in my sleep.”

He didn’t mind keeping you warm at all.

That night, being in bed with you felt far better than his imagination. He wrapped his arm around you as your breathing slowed. It was adorable how your cheek mushed against him. He wanted to kiss you again.

He lay there for what felt like half an hour, waiting for sleep to grace him, but instead he was filled with the overwhelming desire to… guard the bedroom? Was this a dog behaviour, like how Raider would sleep close to the door? His finger drummed on his thigh. It was worth a try if it meant he could get some sleep.

He could have shifted right there in bed and you’d be none the wiser, but stripping next to you in your sleep felt violating. Instead, he went to the bathroom, making sure to leave the door ajar (he still hadn’t figured out how to turn doorknobs with his paws), and no bathroom had ever smelt so good.

His tail trashed, smacking the cabinet with a thud. His eye twitched. As much as he wanted to, he wasn’t going to be a creep smelling your pile of laundry in the corner of the room. That, and he didn’t want to risk passing out from all the excitement.

He turned away, nudging the door open with his snout and padded right towards your sleeping figure, thoughts about guarding the room long forgotten. His tail fanned steadily as he stood by the bed, the sheets smelling so much like you.

Keegan needed to be closer. He got up on the bed with stealth, pausing when he couldn’t avoid the spring of the mattress when as his hind legs made contact. Okay, you didn’t move, good. He leaned in to smell you, as close as he could get without touching you. Would you mind if he licked your face?

Wait, no. No. Tingles ran down his spine. NO!!!

His face tilted to one side, and the other, then his shoulders and hips followed. The Big Shake™ took over at the most inopportune time, sending his black floof flying. Did not shifting for weeks matt his fur?

With the tremble, your bed squeaked. You stirred with a soft grunt, face scrunching. He froze, eyes wide like saucers (if he had brows they’d shoot through the ceiling), hoping you’d settle right away. Instead, your eyes opened for a split second. You smiled to yourself and mumbled a syllable before turning away from him.

What did you say? Jake? Drake? Blake? It didn’t matter because in seconds your breathing evened out.

This was a bad idea. He prayed hard you were too drowsy to register the sight, let alone remember it.

Back in his plaid boxers, he nestled against you, his arm pulling you to his chest as his eyes finally fluttered. He needed clean up his floof from your room before you woke.

It was easy to blame the mess on Raider if it was in the living room as the pooch visited almost every weekend, but never the bedroom. Surely he didn’t want you to think he, as a human, shed like a dog in his sleep. Fortunately, he kept a lint roller in his bag, but at this rate he should probably invest in an industrial sized one.

“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?” you said against Keegan’s lips, your arms around his neck.

He smiled, squeezing your waist. “I told you it’s a surprise.”

“Am I even dressed accordingly at least?”

He pulled away, taking in your flowy dress and knit cardigan. “Yes, you look lovely. Raider thinks the same. Can’t take his eyes off you.”

You chuckled at the German Shepherd who looked up at you as he scooted closer and closer, impatiently waiting for you to finish greeting (kissing) the sergeant at your door.

“Hey, buddy.” You scratched his muzzle. “It’s so good to finally see you again!”

His tail wagged at full speed as he leaned into your hand.

Keegan helped you lock up and took your hand as you walked to his SUV. He placed your hand on his thigh as he drove and before long, he pulled up at the pretty garden restaurant you’d casually mentioned weeks ago. He picked an outdoor table so Raider could roam around as you enjoyed your tasty brunch. Under the table, his foot leaned against yours.

After the meal, you took a walk at the park across the restaurant, arms linked.

“I think he missed you a lot.” He nodded at the K9 who kept brushing against your leg. “He was so happy when I told him we were meeting you.”

You cooed, rubbing his head. “I missed you too, Raider!”

“I got him a phone before we left for the last mission. Did he text you?”

You chuckled. “Really? He texts now?”

“I taught him to, so he can keep you company when I’m away.”

“Where is it? I’ll put my number in.”

“Check his pockets.” He stopped and turned to you.

You played along, stooping down to pat down his legs. “Nothing.”

“Check mine then.” With his hands in his jacket pockets, he moved the hem of his army green jacket out of the way.

It was a playful excuse to have your hands on him, and if your smirk was any indication, you knew it too. So he looked away, but the smile crept up anyway.

You traced over his front and, after checking if anyone was looking, the back pockets of his jeans. “Okay, that’s your phone… Keys… Wallet…”

“Maybe the jacket?” He removed his hands from his pockets.

You shook your head and pulled out a rectangular chew toy.

“It’s a phone!” You laughed, turning it over to find a dog bone logo behind it.

He crouched to let the K9 off his leash before taking the toy from you. “Fetch, boy.”

He threw the toy as far as he could and Raider, like the goodest boy he was, bolted after it. As fast as he went, Keegan pulled you by the waist for a kiss.

You giggled against him. “We need to watch him.”

“I can’t kiss you with him around. He’s too jealous, keeps staring at us.” He leaned in again.

As if on cue, the doggo barked at you, causing you to pull away. His toy lay next to your feet.

“See, I can’t even have 10 seconds.”

You picked the toy up and threw it, and it was embarrassing to admit that his initial reaction was to also dash after it, his leg already jerking. He hoped you didn’t notice.

Under a tree, Keegan laid his head on your lap as Raider roamed around the park, getting acquainted with the other dogs. Judging by the toy phone in his mouth, he was probably looking for a date so he didn’t have to be a third-wheel anymore. It was about time.

“His handler asked if I wanted to handle him.”

You looked down at him, running your fingers through his hair. It had grown longer than he liked (it was uncomfortable under the mask), but if it meant you were more likely to play with his hair, then he’d gladly keep the length. The least he could do was give you something to pull because he might have just short-circuited from the gentle tugging you gave.

His eyes fluttered, like he was seconds away from falling asleep. How could he tell you to stop but keep going too?

“Yeah?”

You were so pretty with that soft smile. “I don’t know if I can. I’ve never even had a pet.”

“I know handling a K9 isn’t the same as having a dog, but you’ve had him on weekends for a while now, and he looks very happy. You must be doing something right.”

“Gabe will give me training if I say yes, but I guess I’m kind of nervous. I don’t want to not do a good job.”

“Take your time to decide, but I think you’ll be a fantastic doggo dad.”

You’d been helping him with Raider. Did that mean you were the mum? He liked the sound of that very much.

He smiled. “You think so?”

“Mhm. But you’re okay if he stares at us all the time?”

“We’ll have to get him a blindfold.”

The day grew windier as the hours passed. When Keegan noticed your fingers were a little cold, he hastily draped his jacket over your shoulders and pulled you closer as you sat on the bench sipping on coffee. You thanked him with a chaste kiss and he licked his lip when you pulled away. It earned him a soft laugh from you. You looked good in his jacket, but tasted even better.

Your phone buzzed in your purse and you pulled it out to discover it was Lauren calling. You’d told him about her, your best friend from uni. He told you to take it.

“… That’s alright. I’ll meet you there… No, that sounds good. I think I’ll wear one too… Oh, don’t forget the gift- Lauren, shut up! He’s here right now!” You giggled, turning to him as you slapped your hand over your mouth.

Keegan didn’t mean to listen, but he was right there. He raised a brow, flattered that your friend knew about him.

“Yes, okay, fine.” You squeezed his hand. “Yes, I promise! Okay, bye now.”

“Sounds like an interesting conversation,” he teased when you put your phone away.

“Do you remember Nick, the spinach pie guy?”

“He’s my sprit animal.”

You chuckled. “It’s his birthday and he arranged a little uni reunion tonight.”

It was silly of him to expect you’d spend the entire day with him, but he was allowed to dream, right? Especially when the hours with you felt much shorter.

“I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t mind?”

Of course he didn’t. Anything for more time with you.

After you finished your drinks, you headed back to your place to get ready. He sat on the couch with Raider with the TV on, but he was far more interested in watching you move about.

You wore a fitted black dress that came down mid-thigh, but as you leaned over the sink to put your makeup on, it rode up and revealed a little more than he felt he was allowed to see. He forced himself to look away, but fuck, if he wasn’t lying about wanting to see more.

At the door, you gave him a little twirl, all pretty with your hair done, giving him a whiff of your gentle perfume. But that evening you lacked… something. You smelt too clean after your shower, and he wasn’t letting you out of his sight in that state.

He didn’t know where the thought came from. No one would be able to smell him on you, not even himself, but he wrapped his arms around you and nuzzled your neck anyway.

“So pretty,” he breathed against your skin and pressed a few kisses on your collarbones.

When he pulled up at the restaurant, he grabbed his jacket from the backseat and placed it on your lap.

“I think I’m good. We’ll be indoors.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

You smiled. “Okay.”

How convenient. Now that would be more like it, his subtle claim on you. At least it would soothe that little part of his brain.

“Let me know when you need to get picked up.”

“We'll probably be done late. Don’t want to be a bother.”

“You won't.”

“I can’t let you do that after driving me here.”

He paused. “Let me know when you get home at least?”

“Will do. Thanks for taking me out today. I had a very nice time.” You leaned over the console for a peck. “Oh, sorry! I forgot about the lipstick!”

He tilted the rear-view mirror towards him, chuckling at the smudge on his lips. When you reached out to wipe it off with a tissue, he grasped your chin and leaned in again.

When you approached the large table, you expected the lone figure sitting to be the birthday boy. But when the man looked up, your smile fell.

“Blake? What- what are you doing here?”

“Hey, uhh, Nick told me to come, said you’d be here tonight.“

“I didn’t know you’re in town. You… never said anything.”

“I moved here a few months ago.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t know how to tell you. We hadn’t spoken in years.”

“And that’s not the same case with Nick?”

“It’s different.” His eyes stayed on you. “You know that,” he said in a low voice.

Your brows furrowed. It was jarring to see him there, out of place and surreal.

“Hey, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I can-“

“Sorry.” You shook your head and offered a smile as you pulled out the chair across him. You didn’t have to make the evening weird. “I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all. How have you been?”

You continued to chat as people filled the table. Lauren was equally as surprised to see Blake, but you gave her a smile when she shot you a worried look.

“Our favourite Brit!” Nick announced, smacking Blake on the back. “Welcome back!”

You were over this - over him, if there was even anything to get over when nothing started. He was never yours, but the first to ever capture your heart. For years, you went through thick and thin with him, as friends even when it was far more than that for you.

You didn’t see a point of having anything escalate and have the ocean stand between you after graduation. So you tiptoed on the border of friends and more, trying to swallow the words despite the lingering gazes and longing sighs. When you couldn’t deny the budding feelings anymore, you knew you had to let whatever it was fade.

Over dinner, the ten of you got each other up to speed about how you were doing. When you went around the table pouring everyone their second glass of wine, Nick held his hand up.

“I’m a total lightweight now. I won’t recover from the hangover this time around,” he explained.

The table gasped. That was the most shocking discovery of the evening.

Pulled into different directions, graduation felt many more years behind seeing how some of your classmates led vastly different lives. A few took a leap of faith, ending up with unexpected careers far from their field of study, some have settled down, some with kids, their carefree personality mellowing as life settled on their shoulders. Some, you also learnt, remained solo, like Blake.

Ever the soft-spoken one, a smile always on his face as Blake gave people his undivided attention. He still preferred his beer over wine. Still asked for no truffle on his pasta, nor balsamic vinegar on his salad. Still scraped the buttercream off cakes. Still, he felt like the one you knew the least at the table that evening.

The ache of it was long gone, but you hadn’t forgotten what it felt like to desperately wish for something yet being powerless over it. It was funny how the world worked, that things came your way when you least expected it, that he found his way back eventually.

Blake offered to drop you home. ‘Won’t be a long drive away,’ he reassured. Nothing was a long drive at that hour, and you appreciated the gesture. In front of you apartment, he turned to you.

“I’m glad I saw you tonight. Can we catch up some more, over coffee sometime?”

You smiled. It was nice seeing him again, nostalgic. You were friends for so long for a reason.

“Of course. You know how to find me.”

He let out a small sigh, his gaze roaming your face.

The clock on the display reminded you of how late it was. “Thanks for the ride, Blake. Get home safe, okay?”

On the way up, you pulled your phone out as you yawned.

I’m home. Thanks again for today <3

It buzzed when you unlocked your door.

Had fun?

Why are you still up?

Waiting for you

Keegan had no business making you smile this hard. Maybe you could stay up a little longer.

@sofasoap @tiredmetalenthusiast @shadofireshinobi @keegansshark @two-gh0sts @rowanyaboats @mangoguy @astraluminaaa @reelovesfictionalmen

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x-aefx · 1 year

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Back to you - Ellie Williams

Pairing: Ellie Williams x female reader

Modern au!

Summary: college!ellie au. Having once been close friends, Ellie and you begin to talk again while new feelings bloom and old ones return.

Part one

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Fuck!” You whisper yelled as you stared at your clock on your messy desk, internally wishing the hour would go back two hours so you wouldn’t be late for your first class since spring break.

Throwing an envious glance at your roommate, Lily, who didn’t have class until the afternoon, you climbed out of bed still half asleep. Walking to your dresser you pulled out the first thing your cold hands touched, your ‘Queen’ band t-shirt and black cuffed jeans. Brushing your hair quickly and spraying perfume you had no memory of buying, you awkwardly put on your shoes whilst trying to maintain balance in your standing position. Turning to your desk you grabbed the textbooks stacked on top of each other and your bag that was on the ground. You stole a quick glance in the mirror and said a mental ‘thank goodness’ for your somewhat decent appearance.

Grabbing the tin of mints on the edge of the desk you made your way out of the dorm and across the campus to your class.

Any other day and you would’ve taken your time seeing as you were already going to be late, but you wanted to get a good seat in class. Sure there was technically nothing stopping you from taking somebody else’s seat tomorrow when you would hopefully arrive on time, but you didn’t want to be that person.

Trying to hide your disappointment and annoyance as you walked into the class seeing you were probably the last to arrive, you looked to where your usual seat at the back beside the classroom wall was, now occupied by a girl who had the brightest blue eyes and straightest hair you had ever seen sat laughing loudly to her friend who looked nearly the same.

‘my fault for being late’ you thought bitterly to yourself.

Your eyes scanned the classroom for an empty seat. Finding one in the middle row you made your way towards it. Dropping your books on the desk and your bag on the floor you sat down. Not a moment later you felt someone kicking the back of your chair.

“what the fuc-“

“language’”

“seriously Dina?”

“someone's in a mood”

“Shut it Jesse”

“Hey!”

“You’re going to the party this Friday aren’t you? The one for Stacey’s birthday?” Dina asked smiling enthusiastically, seemingly not paying attention to Jesse’s angry mumbling about how rude people were.

“I can’t promise anything Dina” you sighed. “I could really use some time for myself”

“You had plenty time for yourself over spring break!” Dina pointed out.

“Yeah and I miss it already”

Jesse snorted at the comment earning a hit to the arm from Dina.

“Ow! Christ woman I’m fragile!”

“Oh I know” Dina rolled her dark eyes, “what about you Ellie? Your going right?”

You turned to the side slightly surprised having not noticed Ellie sat beside you. Hair tied in a half up- half down style, the sleeve of her blue flannel rolled up her forearms revealing her tattoo, legs stretched out to their full length under the table, Ellie Williams screamed confidence. Her attention focused entirely on what she was drawing in her sketchbook, Ellie didn’t notice her friend mention her name.

You doubted she even noticed you sat beside her if it weren’t for Jesse nudging her arm with his leg causing her pen to trail a messy line on the page

“hey what the fuck!”

“language! Honestly you two have the most foul mouths” Dina’s eyes glanced in your direction before looking back at Ellie. That’s when Ellie’s green eyes met yours. It was a quick glance but it was enough for you to look into those familiar green eyes.

“what’s up” Ellie ignored Dina’s comment. She placed her pencil on her desk and turned her body to face Dina and Jesse who sat behind her.

“will you be at the party on Friday?” Dina wasted no time in asking her friend.

“Eh-well, I was just planning on staying in.” Ellie looked at Dina with a guilty smile.

“Ellie!” Dina pleaded pouting her lips to really persuade the girl.

“Dina-“

“it will be so much fun I promise! And Y/N is going and everything!”

“wait no-Dina I never actually-!”

“please Ellie! You’ll have a good night, I swear!” Dina made her best puppy dog eyes. Ellie found herself accepting the invitation before she could really comprehend what she was doing. She never fell for Dina’s pleading looks yet she said yes.

Dina made a triumphant noise, her smile wide as she thought about the upcoming party she and her closest friends will be attending. Jesse smiled at his girlfriend, shaking his head with a chuckle at her antics.

Turning back around in your chair you opened your textbook to the page written on the whiteboard by your professor who was only now arriving. You never had a hard time concentrating in class, yet today you did. You couldn’t make your eyes move from word to word instead staring blankly at the white page.

“Ethan hasn’t quit staring at you since you walked in. It’s quite annoying.” A voice muttered.

Your head snapped to the side making eye contact with Ellie. Her brows furrowed as if in deep thought.

If you looked over to the other side of the classroom you would of noticed the captain of the basketball team, Ethan Gilbert, making heart eyes at you. But you didn’t break the eye contact between you and Ellie.

You didn’t think she had noticed you. Sure you and Ellie were close once, at the very start of college. You considered her your best friend but you two became distant with each other over time for reasons you were unsure of. Ever since then you presumed Ellie Williams had erased you from her life, that was how it felt for you anyway. To hear her say something to you at all was a change after all this time.

“What can I say Williams? I’m a total catch.” You shrugged your shoulders sending her a wink.

Ellie only scoffed before turning back to her drawing, a beautiful farmhouse you recognized as her home from the picture you had seen in her dorm. You noticed her smiling but said nothing.

#ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams x reader #ellie tlou #ellie williams #the last of us #ellie williams x y/n #the last of us ellie #tlou ellie #tlou2 #college!au #ellie williams x you #ellie williams fanfic #ellie williams imagine #the last of us 2 #ellie x reader

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romanestuffsposts · 1 year

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my friends have been kinda mean lately saying i need to grow up and i was just wondering if you could do something with daddy stuck where there little comes home upset cause of there friends saying mean things. i struggle a lot with the thought of everyone hating me and your work’s always comforting to read. 💕

Hi there love! 💜

I’m so sorry to hear that it happened to you babe ❤️ sometimes people you trust the most to protect your feelings are the one who destroy it first. I sadly know this feeling and I hope you're doing well after that sweetie. You’re strong and you only need yourself, other people are just something apart in your life, you’re the one who creat your life and you’re the one who decide what choices you do and how you want to be around others.

Fuck off people who judge

Fuck off people who leaves because of that

Fuck off everyone who look weirdly at you.

You’re yourself and that’s what matters. You have to love yourself not for others to love you, do things for yourself, not for others. Live for you because you will always be there for yourself ❤️

You are the main character of your life and the best one, don’t forget that ❤️

****

Warnings : upset little reader, cries, comfort, hurt feelings, cuddles, kisses, fluff, pet names, snuggles,

Pairings : Daddies!Stucky ; Daddy!Bucky x Papa!Steve x Little!Reader

Summary : ⤴️⤴️

****

You hold back a sniff as you're about to open the door. Why does it feels so unfair ? You're sure she didn't meant it but the affect of her words are as deep as if she did meant it, all it did is hurting you the same. She was suppose to never judge you, she was suppose to understand you or just be there for you without asking any questions or putting any judment toward you

That's what hurt the most, yes her words did hurt but it came from her own mouth in the first place. You throw your bag on the floor and rush to the kitchen, maybe a glass of water will help you calm down and feel better ? You go on your tippy toes to reach a glass and settle it down on the island counter beside the sink. You fill it with water and immediatly drink in it. Your tears mix with the water in the glass giving it a nasty salty taste, that's when you stop drinking.

You put the glass back down on the counter and run upstaires in your bedroom to lock yourself in. Your Daddies weren't supposed to be back home until a few hours so it give you plenty times to just cry it out and then put a charming smile on your face and spend the evening with your lovely Daddies.

You let yourself fall on your mountain of stuffie and start to cuddle your favorite one- Bucksie. At least you're sure he will never hurt you

Steve sighs when he closes the front door. He had a long day- just like Bucky, and he didn't wanted to come back home to a house in a mess. "Where is she ?" he sighs looking at the ground at your bag on the floor, your coat on the floor as well and your shoes who are everywhere but where they need to be. Bucky shrugs "Maybe she went to take a shower"

They walk further in the house and Bucky goes to change his clothes and takes a shower in his bathroom while Steve goes to start making dinner, it's already late and if you eat too close of your bedtime, you won't be able to fall asleep. He sighs one more time in annoyance when he sees your dirty cup of water on the counter beside the sink "can’t even clean after herself" he mumbles as he throws the cup in the sink to clean it later.

He starts by warming the oven first and getting out everything he needs to prepare a good and delicious healthy meal for his family. When Bucky comes back downstairs, Steve turns to him ‘’can you tell her to come down and clean the mess she made ?’’ He asks even though it didn’t sound like a question.

‘’Go easy on her. You may had a long day but maybe she had one to’’ he says side eyeing Steve before going upstairs. He hears Steve mumbling things he can’t hear making him rolling his eyes- he’s probably complaining about the fact that he isn’t hard on you or somethings like that. He gently knocks on your bedroom door once he reaches it and waits for you to tell him he can come in.

When he doesn’t hear you he knocks one more time ‘’babygirl ?" He waits a few more seconds before opening the door. He does not like to enter your private space but he forces himself to do so when it's really essential. He closes the door behind him and looks through the room. He frowns when he doesn't see you, it's weird, you're suppose to be home in an hour like this one. He walks to the bathroom and starts to panic when you're not in there.

He runs to the door to call Steve but sees something moving in the corner of his eyes making him stop his movement. He turns his head toward the movement and sighs in relief when he spots you in your mountain of stuffies. He walks toward you with a smile on his face, happy to see you after his long day "hi there, babydoll" he softly says, kneeling infront of you. He strokes your leg to make you turn around "why are you hiding in there ?" he asks tilting his head. He frowns when you don't answer "little one ?"

You sniff and snuggle further in your stuffies worrying your Daddy more "beautiful, what's wrong ?" he asks still stroking your leg "can you tell Daddy what's wrong ?" You sniff again and slowly turn your head who's still resting on one of you friends. Your Daddy's eyes soften when he notices your wet face and your trembling lip, his thumb gently caresses your cheek "what happened, babygirl?"

"meanie" you whine trying to hold back your sobs. You look down at Bucksie and watch your fingers playing with his ears "who is meanie, baby ?" he asks grabbing your chin so you'll look at him "betta" you mumble

‘’Becca was mean to you today ?’’ He tries to understand through your sobs and he tries to throw away the feelings he feels inside of him. He hates seeing you like this, it broke his heart and it enraged him to know that someone was mean to you and that he wasn’t there for you right after what happened.

You nod letting out a few more tears ‘’she-she-she said-d’’ you try to talk but it’s hard with your quick breath and your sobs so your Daddy stops you ‘’you don’t need to tell me now, baby. I’ll make sure to make you feel a whole lot better’’ he sighs and stands up ‘’it’s my job’’

‘’let’s go downstairs to have a good meal and then we’ll watch a movie before bedtime. How does that sound ?’’ He sweetly smiles when your head pops up from the stuffies, you nod and make grabby hands at your Daddy to carry you all the way downstairs. He chuckles and rests you on his hip, he wipes away the lasts tears on your cheeks and pokes your nose making you giggle. He smiles more at this sound "there's my beautiful little girl" he kisses your forehead before going downstairs. You rest your head on his shoulder and cuddle Bucksie all the way down.

When Steve hears Bucky in the stairs et patiently waits for him to show up and he hopes that you’ll be with him so you could clean your mess. He stirs the soup and looks at the stairs until he finally sees you both ‘’little lady, before eating you will pick up your coat and your bag and correctly put them in their place’’

‘’Steve’’ Bucky interrupts

‘’you’ll do the same for your shoes and you’ll clean the glass you used and put it back in the closet’’ he says with a stern voice

‘´Steve’’ Bucky groans, getting annoyed with Steve

‘’you will also set the table so that you understand that in this house, we don't mess things up’’

‘’Steve!’’ He snaps making you whimper quietly, he rubs your back to calm you down as he glared at Steve. Your Papa looks up sighing and he immediately understands that there’s something wrong. The way you’re curled up on your Daddy’s arms isn’t normal. You only do that when you’re upset or when you’re super tired ‘’what happened ?’’

Bucky shoots him a look that tells Steve he’ll explain later, when you’re out of ears. Your Papa makes his way toward you both and gently removes the hair you have on the side of your face who isn’t resting on your Daddy’s shoulder ‘’I’m sorry, princess. I didn’t know you weren’t feeling well’’ he drops a sweet kiss on your temple

You nod your head slowly, closing your eyes, enjoying the warm of your Daddy’s arms around you and the soft kiss who was drop on your skin ‘’let’s get comfy on the couch before eating’’ your Daddy whispers in your ear before walking toward the couch

While your Papa went back to preparing dinner with his eyes always on you, à worried and guilty look running across his features, your Daddy lies in the huge couch and gently rests you on top of him. His hands and fingers travel down your back and in your hair, play with your ear and you even feel him dropping kisses here and there

‘’You don’t have to worry about anything, baby’’ he whispers ‘’we’re here to protect you, to love you and to make sure you are safe. Nothing bad will happen to you. We'll be always here for you, always and forever’’

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lafrexniere · 10 months

Note

can you please write for easton cowan!!! it could be about like the draft/just fluff please!! really just do what you wanna do.

thank you!!!

As you walked into the rink you could feel your nerves building up inside you. You carried in your skates wearing the apparel the staff gave you yesterday to wear. You landed an internship with the Toronto Maple Leafs before your freshman year of college. You walked to the bench and tied up your skates after reintroducing yourself to some of the staff. You were interning as a skating coach for the prospect development camp since that was the job you had always wanted since you started playing hockey. You transitioned from forward to defense to goalie, and had plenty of years of skating experience and you enjoyed it so much that you figured you’d pursue it.

“Go out there you can warm up if you need,” one of the coaches said to you. You hopped off the bench and began to skate laps going forwards, and backward, doing crossovers and mohawks around corners, working on tight turns, and doing it all in quick time. You noticed some of the players coming out and moving to center ice to stretch before the camp would start.

“Who is she?” you heard one of the boys at center ice say to another.

“I don’t know but she can skate,” another said.

“And looks good doing it,” the boy smiled at you. He looked about your age, but you knew you couldn’t do anything because you had to keep a professional relationship to maintain your internship for the week. You looked away to hide the blush you were trying to avoid. You continued your lap and stopped at center ice snowing some of the team. They groaned and complained in annoyance from getting showered.

“Oh sorry boys,” you laughed. The other coaches joined you at center ice. You stood there as they each introduced themselves. It was your turn and you didn’t know what to say, introductions seemed weird for a bunch of boys your age.

“Uh hi, I’m Y/N L/N, you can call me whatever Y/N, coach Y/N, or L/N whatever I don’t care, but I’m interning as a skating coach, so maybe you’ll see me in a few years or maybe just for this week, but looking forward to this time with you guys,” you smiled. The boys tapped their sticks on the ice as everyone stood up.

“Well this is perfect, our first day is normally reserved for skating, then end with a scrimmage so Y/N take it away,” the head coach said to you. You watched some of the boys nudge each other. You took a deep breath and pulled out your coaching voice from when you helped with your brother’s middle school hockey team.

“Coach, do you have cones?”

“Cones? Yeah sure they are on the bench.” You skated over and took four cones, putting two on each end towards the center of the goal line creating a little path. As you reached the end where all the players were you were ready to announce. You made eye contact with the boy before you started speaking, but quickly broke it.

“Okay everyone, this drill sucks, but it really helps with turns, I hated doing it, so you’re probably gonna hate me for having you do it, but it helps, and goalies don’t think you are getting out of it because I first did this drill as a goalie.” The players looked confused, and you felt nervous, it felt weird instructing people your age. You looked over at the other coaches who were nodding to keep going. You took another deep breath and began to talk again.

“Every line you are gonna change direction, this side is going to start forward,” you pointed, “and that side is starting backward, once you get to that goal line, you are going to sprint down the middle then hop in a line on the opposite side, understood?” Everyone nodded but you were feeling confident.

“Just to be clear, you have to turn once you reach the line, no starting to turn early or late, I’ll demonstrate.” You started on the forward side going from the goal line to the blue line, before quickly turning, reaching the center line turning once more, then reaching the other blue line changing direction once again, before making your way to the far goal line. You sprinted down the middle all the way back to the end you started on before moving to the other side and following the same procedures. Once you got back you felt out of breath, the boys tapped their sticks on the ice for you, you took a little joking bow.

“So everyone drop your sticks at this end, and I’ll send you off, three on each side.” They did as you said and lined up. You sent the first group off allowing you and the other coaches to watch, you skated over and talked to the goalies saying they only had to do each side once. You went back to where you were before as the other coaches skated around motivating the players. You were focused when you felt a tap on your shoulder, it was the boy.

“Skating coach huh?” he asked.

“Yup, for now” you smiled.

“You’re pretty good, some of the guys took notice,” he tried being subtle.

“Yeah I heard you guys earlier,” you said with a straight face, he looked embarrassed.

“What? You don’t like compliments?” he laughed. You shot him a sarcastic look, letting him skate away in perfect time because he was up next. You read the names going up next. You looked at the boy then looked at your list, Cowan, Easton Cowan the pick of this year’s draft. You kept that name in the back of your mind as you continued through drills. Every so often you would catch him looking as the practice continued. Once it ended you stopped him before you got off the ice.

“Cowan,” you pointed and signalled him over.

“Sup coach Y/N,”

“What’s your deal Cowan, making eyes at me during practice?” You asked.

“You said your an intern for the week, just the week,” he smirked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come on Y/N, one date, tonight?” You rolled your eyes at his question.

“Remember Cowan I’m still your coach for the week, now get outta here go change” you said as he skated away.

“Hard to get I see how it is, see you next week,” he said skating away, leaving you stunned.

_________________________

Funny funny Easton

#hockey boys #hockey fan fiction #nhl fan fiction #hockey fanfiction #hockey imagine #ice hockey #nhl draft 2023 #nhl x reader #hockey #easton cowan

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rescuehumans-runtotherescue · 5 months

Note

I don't know if you have received this ask or have a hc, but do you think the rest of the Burns family is allergic to something just like in the cases of Graham (cats) and Kade (bees)?

I guess that it would be weird if they all were allergic to something different...

Bees? It was wasps I’m pretty sure…

I’d like to think Cody probably has Kade’s wasp allergy as well, but not Dani since she was with Kade in that episode when he freaked out about them. (Graham might’ve also been in that scene? I don’t remember.)

I think Kade and Cody share it because I would think it’s rare of 4 biological kids to only have one of them have it.

Although it is canon Graham is the only of them with a cat allergy, but hey, genetics are weird sometimes.

Maybe Graham got his allergy from his mom, maybe he got it from her parents, his grandparents. That would make it make more sense that he only got it by chance. Charlie talks about his grandfather enough times, I think if the cat allergy came from his lineage, he would have mentioned it.

I think the wasp allergy also has to come from their mothers side. Charlie’s never bothered by wasps and Woodrow was in the scene where Kade freaked out about them, so he most likely doesn’t have that allergy either. Charlie also has never mentioned his grandfather having a wasp allergy.

So, like the cat allergy, maybe it came from Mama Burns, maybe it came from her parents, their grandparents.

I’d personally headcanon one of Mama Burns’ parents had a cat allergy, which skipped her and by happenstance got to Graham. And that Mama Burns had a wasp allergy, which was passed down to her oldest and youngest child.

As for any other allergy? I don’t know. Plenty of people have very mild allergies that they don’t talk about, or reduce to seasonal allergies, which are mostly just an annoyance. As a rescue team, I think if they had any deadly allergies, there would definitely be an episode about it.

Also with how much Woodrow has gone through and explored he might be invincible lmao -He certainly would build up the tolerance to many things, which would help his future lineage if he ever had kids (which I doubt he would).

#gelu the babosa multiversal #Cody burns #mama burns #Graham burns #allergy mention #Charlie burns #Woodrow burns #Kade burns #genetics

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saezurufeels · 11 months

Note

What do you think of Kage and Yashiro friendship? I think Kage is a very shitty friend.

So sorry for the late reply!! Thanks for being patient :)

Kageyama is one of those characters that I'm simultaneously frustrated with, and sympathize with. Kageyama told Doumeki once that he felt like an outcast in high school, which means he was probably struggling with his own self-concept— he was ashamed of his burn/scab fetish and very insecure about his sexuality, even into adulthood. On top of that he didn't know how to deal with Yashiro's tragic confession. I think it's normal for anyone to be taken aback by Yashiro's sudden childhood trauma confession, especially someone as young as K at the time. it's natural he was pity (he just didn't have to say it out loud). I think Kageyama does have a capacity for empathy, even though he is very self-centered and mainly focuses on his own problems and beliefs. Even when Kageyama met Kuga, he couldn’t hide his pity. He kept asking about how Kuga got his burn/scars and if it hurt, etc. Kuga got annoyed with the pity questions and wasn’t afraid to show it. Sadly, either Yashiro was too afraid to show his true feelings, or the more likely scenario, he didn’t understand his strange/unknown feelings and didn't know how to communicate his romantic emotions effectively. Because Kuga was very straightforward whenever he was mad or smitten by Kageyama, K understood the assignment, and eventually pursued Kuga romantically (with Yashiro’s push).

The major difference with Yashiro, and the reason Kageyama stayed oblivious to Yashiro’s feelings, was because Yashiro never showed him his annoyance, frustration, affection, etc. In high school Yashiro came off kind of unserious and unbothered at all times. I think Kageyama thought Yashiro was fucking with him most of the time. Y would randomly say things like, “I think about you crying at your father’s funeral when I jerk off,” with a grin on his face. I’m sure anyone would think it’s a stupid joke, not a love confession. Yashiro didn’t know how to be affectionate in a way that would be understood by most people. Once I talked about how Yashiro’s attitude and personality around Kageyama is basically the same as it was when they were teenagers, and I still stand by that. Kageyama told Doumeki that Yashiro is still a “high school brat” who hasn’t changed. “High school brat” gives off the image someone who is unserious and annoying. That’s what Yashiro is to Kageyama. But, can we blame Kageyama for thinking that? Yes, for sure. BUT, we can also kind of understand why he thinks that, based on what and how much Yashiro has chosen to show of himself to K.

Yashiro probably started off not knowing how to show affection for Kageyama, but slowly the rejection and hurt caused him to close off and build a personality that would keep him from feeling like he was rejected. Ofc Kageyama could have done more to understand Yashiro better, but again, he was too preoccupied with his own struggles to pay attention to Yashiro’s. There were plenty of opportunities to mature, and be an emotionally supportive friend, and Kageyama failed every time. But the more I read this story, the more I realize how many people actually fall for Yashiro’s persona. It’s not really easy to detect Yashiro’s true self, and only people who are very attuned to their environment, and emotionally intelligent can detect Yashiro’s true heart. Kageyama is not one of those attentive people, and I don’t think he did it maliciously, but I do think he could have tried harder. Even Kuga seems to understand Yashiro better. Yes, K is a shitty friend, but he’s also a very loyal and empathic friend. Thanks for the great question!

#yashiro #kageyama

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affront2god-affectionate · 9 months

Text

My dear Kit

A Bat Coven LLC production

Warnings: not really, there is swearing, discussions of mortality, mentions of people having sex. Otherwise it's quite gen.

My installment into the Paradiso-verse by @alwaysyourshenry and @the-bats-who-simp, it's my prequel fic for their "The Priest You Want" fic. (they're multiplying, oh no)

The whole text is just letters between David and Kit Marlowe in the spring of 1593.

****

"My dear Kit.

You’re being ridiculous. Can I be honest with you? I’d like to be very honest with you, since you were nothing but brutally honest with me in the past. You’re being Ridiculous, I emphasise.

First of all, let’s begin with the less recent one: I’ve seen, with mine own two eyes, you leaving IN THE MIDDLE OF A RITUAL in quite a rude manner, breaking the circle, just because the result was not to your immediate satisfaction. Dr. Dee was of a better opinion of you, I had to apologize on your behalf. My opinion about you as a person hasn’t changed, I’ve always thought of you as too dramatic for your own good, that doesn’t prevent me from being your friend. My opinion of you as a witch, however, has indeed suffered. Whilst I’m still holding you in high regard for your POTENTIAL, for your capabilities and insights, it seems to me you are a LAZY FUCK, my friend. Lazy, lazy, lazy. As a cat that ran into a fish shop and ate so much he can’t move.

Which brings me to the point that is causing this letter to appear on your doorstep later today. What are those sexcapades you’re conducting? Not your regular ones, mind you, I’m talking about Eleanor and James. You can distract yourself with anything you want for however long you need, I know your priorities are with your writing, and keeping your mind distracted helps you not getting stuck. I respect that. But you’re keeping them distracted too! Last full moon you had them for three nights in a row, probably for days too; I had to perform all three of our jobs myself, creating substitutions for them out of some rocks and twigs, like a peasant, (which I am). Why is this? Jamie’s energy is off the charts, kudos to you for that, but I’m not sure Nora can perform anything really, barely standing up straight, poor lass. I would’ve had envy, but I’m mostly concerned.

I’m happy for your happiness, all of you, but don’t impose your disorderly attitude onto others. Some of us has to work, you know.

And what is it that I’m hearing about you wanting to leave the workings entirely? With all my love and affection, sincerely, fuck you. You are very frustrating, my dear friend. Please explain yourself even if you’re not planning on improving the above situation.

Your very annoyed, David."

****

"My darling David!

Your annoyance is highly amusing for me, I don’t know what are you so excited about. Both Jamie and Nora are grown-ups and can make up their own mind. If you cannot understand someone being in love, don’t complain about sour grapes and let people be happy. That being said, I’m sorry I got you so riled up, and I am terribly sorry you cannot stop working even for a couple of days. A nice drinking binge would do you plenty of good, hear my advice, otherwise you’re starting to sound like a priest, and not a fun one like our dearest James. Sorry we missed your mass, padre. Full moon happens every month and is not going anywhere, and human bodies only live for for so long. Those are the priorities, not the words themselves or my whimsical muse.

You’re also always welcome to join our “sexcapades” any day you want. I promise you that you won’t be walking straight either. My door is always open, et cetera.

As for me leaving… Please understand that this is very difficult to me. I am calling and calling, again and again, and I don’t feel like I’m being heard even, let alone gratified with an answer. I am watching our good Doctor conducting his summonings while I myself am unable to see those who he’s talking to. I am making bloody sacrifices and hearing only silence. This is very easy for you, in your tower of privilege, to orate about The Work and commitment and allegiance, but you are so, so loved. You never knew the disapproval of the “other side”, you don’t know what it feels like to not be worthy of Devil’s attention. I was hoping that at least my play would speak of my worth, would be beneficial somehow in gaining an audience, but all I got was one dream and oh so short resolution on a piece of paper. It was approved. How nice. When I am gonna be approved? What do I have to do? Do you even know how utterly terrifying the silence is? Have you ever heard it?

Don’t give me your lectures and wise words when everything you do is made of gold and burning like a thousand suns. I don’t even want to be you, you may be surprised about it, but I’d rather be myself. I don’t want to be Jamie or Nora either. Can I just walk my own way, will you bestow that gift upon me? I’m sorry if I’m harsh, but you really are getting quite insufferable, darling. Go touch some grass maybe, hug a tree. For a witch in close connection to Mother Nature you seem so utterly disconnected. People have lives. Not everything is a ritual or serves a higher purpose. Do you know the joy of being purpose-less and care-free? You should try it.

The lack of response is what making me want to leave and live my silly human life to the best of my ability. Does that explanation satisfy your highest standards?

Your very disillusioned, Christopher."

****

"My dear Kit.

Your letter has annoyed me even more by breaking my heart, whatever has left of it, but it also helped me to gain some insight on the matters that were eluding my attention before. I thank you for that.

I still, however, think that you would gain a lot of favor just by simply working. That is all that ever counts, truly. I saddens me that you just seem to be not liking the process so much and only seeing it as the means to an end. Which is fair, not everyone is in love with the magick itself. I really thought you were, though. Well, that’s just unfortunate.

Have you tried to ask Jamie about it, though? You’ve barely mentioned him in your letter, but he is powerful beyond your wildest imagination, and very naturally so. While Dr. Dee takes a scientific approach, which I admire, he lacks the conductive properties our good pastor has. Jamie does have a direct line to the places you wish to reach. Have you tried asking him? Or could it be that your sensual obsession with him is in fact an attempt at communicating, which you’re avoiding to tell me?

I wish I could help, but the only advice I ever have for anyone is simply “work more”, and it’s not very helpful for you in this situation. I’m sorry. I wish I could.

Please join the circle this friday, if possible. You are missed.

With best regards, your friend David.

I hate you."

****

"David, I really wish you would open the door just once so I won’t have to spend precious paper and the time of my life writing to you all the things that could have been just simply said out loud. Your habit of never opening to anyone knocking is really getting at my nerves. I know you hate talking and you know I hate writing more than necessary, seems that this predicament is unsolvable between us. One day I’ll begin either breaking your windows or scream my messages to you from the outside, for the whole street to hear.

Nevertheless.

David, you inept fuck.

While I do love you and hold you dear to my heart, you are completely unable to see anything further than your own dick. Do you really think it never once occured to me to ask father James to connect me with his contacts? Do you really think I would complain so pathetically, squirming as worm, if my goals were within my reach? I will relay to you what had happened, even though I would wish for you to guess. And you shall be able to guess, rightfully so, in one take. “It is very dangerous,” – he said. “You do not know what you wish for,” - he said. “Don’t open the doors you don’t know how to close,” - he said. Do you seriously suggest I push the protector FROM demons to connect me WITH demons? Because I tried, Lord knows I tried, and despite all his power his alignment won’t let him help me. I don’t know how do you tolerate that man. He is worse than you when it comes to his work. Maybe that’s what you have in common, Lord help me.

I’m not joining your silly circle of pundits, I’m done. I wish you would join our circle, instead. You could at least provide us with some frankincense fumes while we’re doing the deed. You’re good at being a substitute priest while Jamie is busy otherwise. That is one thing I gotta hand to you. And I know for a fact that Jamie misses you, even though he is too proud to admit it. Your refusal to participate is ridiculous. Am I so repulsive to you? Ah, who cares really. I am almost done with this kind of magick too.

I am going away soon. One might even said I plan on dying within a month. I’m sorry if I’m not leaving you the forwarding address: I want this getaway to solve the problem of your immortality and me getting older. That is the thing I wanted to tell you in person earlier today, if only you’d opened your damned door. I am vain, and the though of getting older while my lovers are forever young pains me. And I won’t be joining your coven, for the reasons I hope you might understand, for I don’t wish to explain them to you. So there’s that.

Please give me a good funeral. The particular arrangements are left with you-know-who you-know-where.

Very tired of your bullshit, but still with affection, Christopher."

****

"Oh, Kit.

You are severely overreacting and I am very tired of dealing with your hysterics, so I feel like your departure will be for the best. Please know that I will miss you and will grieve you as if you were truly dead. You are one of the very best friends I’ve ever had yet, if only you were not so unbearable.

If you truly made up your mind about remaining mortal, I won’t stop you. I also won’t be stopping you from enjoying your love for as long as you’re planning. I don’t think you need me there, not really, but for the sake of parting on good terms I will hold a candle and burn some incense near your bed, I owe you at least that. You’re not repulsive, you’re just very tiresome and I see you more like a brother, and you know this perfectly well. I find it amusing how your self-deprecating humour rather shows how utterly in love with yourself you are, that even slightest disagreement puts you into the spiral, Void forbid someone don’t comply with your wishes. You are but a baby. I could not possibly handle an eternity by your side. I still wish you would join us. But the decision is made, so be it.

If there ever will be a day when you would wish me to bury you for real, I will do this. I will hold your hand and guide to the other side. If there ever will be a day you decide not to leave the mortal plain after all, I will provide you with a suitable stone to bind your spirit. That way we can keep getting tired of each other for centuries more until you decide to go finally. There are ways of dealing with mortality one way or another, find me if you ever decide on something.

I am not going to solve your problems any further, since it seems to me that you yourself have no intention of solving them. You love your problems. You love your drama. Have fun with it.

Cheers, mate.

With best regards, David."

****

"My darling David.

You hurt me with you words. I am offended and upset. If you saw my eyes behind your window yesterday, it was me standing in the rain to reproach you for being so harsh.

Jokes aside, I never actually asked you to solve any of my problems. That is your weakness, you always try to solve everyone around you, but ever once did I see you solving yourself, darling. Sincerely, shut the fuck up and please take a good care of yourself, and leave my bleeding to me. My troubles do not need solving, they are my bread and butter, they are what makes me great. I thrive on the heartbreak. My latest heartbreak is over the Devil himself, for I am indeed very ambitious. But at the end of the day it is just something to make my days more interesting.

If ever get bored of being mortal, I’ll find you. Don’t hold your breath though, because I find you just as insufferable as you find me; I hate you, you little righteous Hell-obsessed freak. Leave me be, Jamie and Nora need you much more than I do. Take a good care of them too, though; otherwise I will come to haunt you.

I’ve set the date for my departure, so if you still want to join us I suggest you hurry up, your time is running out. The moon is gonna be full again soon. Let our last dance to be a magnificent one.

Very benevolent today, your very mortal Christopher."

#bat coven llc

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xylaes · 8 months

Text

AUGUST DWC DAY 3 - POSSIBILITY

Xylaes wiggled the fingers of his left hand, staring down at his bare arm with a noticeable frown as the magical runes continued to refuse to show themselves. He had tried pinching it, slapping it, punching it, and even tried using it while sparring and training to no avail. The runes continued to remain dormant only until he was in imminent danger where he would have no alternate escape. The predictable unpredictability of it all was, at best, an annoyance.

After having spent the majority of his life skilled in the arcane, it was a massive loss to have his magic stripped from him as a part of his sentence decades ago. To this day it was still incredibly painful. ‘Even worse than losing an arm’ he silently mused to himself. And after the Shadowlands, he would know.

Now, he had the ability literally at his fingertips and he couldn’t figure out how to make it work properly. There was still plenty of lingering trauma from the limb replantation that happened in Maldraxxus, but as gruesome and horrible as that was, it had given him something back that he thought to be lost forever. If only he could make sense of this foreign arm and familiar magic. That was probably the most frustrating part of it all, he was already well-versed in arcane magic, why was this so difficult?

An intriguing thought had crossed his mind multiple times.There was always the possibility that this wasn’t actually arcane, even though it felt like it was. …Didn’t it? It had been about twenty years since he had truly known the touch of that magic, and a lot had happened in between, so he knew he could be very wrong about that feeling.

Catching sight of Garren approaching out of the corner of his eye, he pulled his sleeve back into place and returned his attention to the cigarette in hand. A brief smile was offered to his son as he sat down nearby. Their relationship had somewhat improved over the last few months during their time working together on the mercenary crew, but Xylaes was pretty sure that Garren still wouldn’t be calling him ‘dad’ anytime soon. So much had happened, and he was a grown man at this point who had his own separate set of worries and traumas to deal with; Xylaes wasn’t entirely sure how to relate to him at times.

Much to his inner dismay, he found himself extending his case of cigarettes in offering towards Garren. Immediate regret and awkwardness, why did he do that? Father of the year right here.

Garren simply gave an amused look before thankfully waving away the offer. Thank Elune he had inherited his mother’s smarts. “....I need you to help me with something, but you’re not going to like it. But this is something I need to be able to move forward.”

Xylaes sat up straighter, stubbing his cigarette out on the bottom of his boot. He was an intuitive man and had spent the better part of his life exploiting people for his work in the military. He could almost always tell when someone was lying to him, or when someone was trying to use him. Hard to manipulate the manipulative. “I’m listening.”

“I need to see mom.”

Xy knew this was going to happen one day, although he didn’t expect to be the one who was asked to help. But it made sense. He was familiar with Maldraxxus, and he had been branded with the House of the Chosen symbol to allow him safe passage around the land. It was just the matter of ‘how to get there’ that plagued him. The public portals to Oribos had been sealed years ago, which was honestly for the best. Being able to traverse between Azeroth and the afterlife was not a wise idea for anyone. Especially for those like him who had lost someone only to find them again within the Shadowlands. But maybe…

There was a small part of him that immediately disliked Garren for asking this of him, but he understood the need. “I don’t think that’s a wise idea.”

“I’m gonna try to do it with or without your help.”

Xylaes’s jaw clenched as he glanced away. Of course he would go that route, he was his son after all. Better for him to help than anyone else, right? “I can’t make you any promises, I don’t know if it can even be done anymore. But I can try to help.” But maybe…seeing Callia didn’t necessarily mean physically going into Maldraxxus, maybe that would be enough.

@daily-writing-challenge @garrennorassin

#story #garren #xylaes #augustdwc2023 #dwc2023

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storiesofsvu · 2 years

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New Year's Complications

“Rita what the fuck?” The words slipped out of your lips before you even had a chance to think. Your wife glanced up from her paperwork spread across the kitchen island, not surprised at way your arms crossed over your chest, your hip popping out in annoyance. “I said we needed to leave at seven.”

“I’ve got too much work, I can’t go.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” It was New Years Eve, the party hosted by a few friends from your hospital was set to have everyone not scheduled in attendance. It’d been on the calendar for over a month and the last you’d talked about it, it was a green light for everyone involved. Rita sighed, placing the pen down to at least give you her full attention,

“Sweetheart I need to have this done for Monday.”

“It’s Wednesday!” You huffed, “I’ll accept being late if you need time to get ready.”

“I can’t…”

“It’s one night Rita!”

“I said no.” She stated firmly before turning her attention back to her work.

“Jesus Christ…” you muttered, “you’ve had plenty of time the past couple of weeks to indulge in holiday shit. I very willingly got dragged to your firm’s Christmas party, the D.A Gala. We suffered through dinner and gifts with your family, but the one night it comes to the thing for me, you’re suddenly not available? Do you have any idea how much I would’ve made in double time if I hadn’t given up this shift?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll buy you something nice over the weekend.”

“You can’t just throw your money around and have it fix everything, and you know that!”

“Okay, well what do you want from me then?”

“I want you to stop working and come with me like you agreed to.”

“We both know that isn’t happening. You knew what you were getting into when we first got together and you said you didn’t have a problem with it. Besides, I’m not the one who nearly missed our rehearsal dinner.”

“I was in the O.R for over eighteen hours that day and you know it. But noted, next time we have an important date I’ll remember that you want me to show up in bloody scrubs. We’ve already got such busy schedules can you not just give it a rest for one lousy night out?”

“You just said it yourself, we’re both incredibly busy and work all the time. That’s part of why this works. Now go enjoy your night.” You couldn’t help the eye roll as you tugged on your coat,

“I can’t believe you. At least when I’m working I’m saving people, not keeping criminals out of jail. Have a great night.”

Rita could hear the ‘fuck you’ laced in your closing words, further enunciated by the slamming of the apartment door. Fighting with you was not how she’d intended the evening to go. She’d meant to tell you earlier that she realized she had an extra caseload of work to get through, but you’d worked an overnight shift, she was out running errands when you got home and when she returned you’d already passed out completely. By the time you were getting ready it had slipped her mind completely. She also didn’t realize that all the things the two of you had participated in over the last few weeks were her things. She debated going after you for a second, her eyes flicking to her coat, but knew that would probably only end up in a fighting match in the street, as much as she’d riled you up, she was fired up too, and making a public scene was not on either of your agendas.

Taking a heavy breath you used the ride down to the bar to try to calm yourself down, remind yourself that you weren’t being unreasonable over the situation, but to not let the entire thing drag down the night. You were ever thankful when the bartender slid you a glass of wine, feeling the residing anger melting away as you sipped at it.

You did a few rounds, catching up with a few coworkers who’d been on opposite schedules, exchanging pleasantries with management and the like. There were a few smaller speeches made, you picked over some appetizer platters and made sure to keep your wine refilled. You were up at the bar getting said refill when Sonny joined you, wishing you a happy holidays with a brief side hug. You weren’t surprised to see him, he’d been dating one of the E.R nurses since the summer and you’d heard nothing but good things.

“You okay?” He asked softly.

“Yeah…” your attention was drawn to swirling your wine, “these things are just more fun with a plus one.”

“Calhoun not here?”

“Nope.” Taking a sip of wine you glanced up at him, “it’s literally impossible to tear that woman away from work sometimes.”

“But you were with her at the D.A gala the other week, and those things are terrible.” You laughed at his response. It was true, those things were never very fun, Rita avoided them as much as she could and was always more than rewarding whenever you managed to accompany her.

“You’ve got that right.” You sighed, “you start pullin’ this kinda crap with Lisa and I am fully taking her side, I hope you’re aware of that.” He laughed lightly.

“Note taken. Ya gotta stick together.” His grin fell slightly at the weak excuse of a smile you returned to him. “Hey…” he nudged at your arm with his elbow, “she’s not choosin’ work over you. She loves you, and if I’m privy to that knowledge, then she really fuckin’ loves ya.”

“I know. I just wish we hadn’t fought about it. Seems stupid now…” Just as Sonny was about to reply one of the other scrub nurses came bounding up, gleefully pulling you into a hug.

“I have been talking with Devon all night! You think if I hover around him at midnight he’ll kiss me?” She barely waited for a response, her voice quieter as she stared across the room at him, “he’s just so McDreamy…”

“Okay, I know you did not just quote Grey’s Anatomy to me!” You swatted at her arm. She didn’t even give you a second glance as she basically skipped off towards the man. The bartender refilled Sonny and Lisa’s drinks, you politely declined.

“I should get back.” Sonny gave you a soft smile, “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year.”

Sighing you checked your phone, part of you was hoping Rita would’ve at least sent a text but it appeared she really was sucked into the work. Noticing it was just past eleven thirty you made the call, it was time to head out. Getting a cab anytime past midnight was going to be damn impossible and there was somewhere more important you wanted to be right now.

Your cab dropped you off just around the corner from your apartment, you were always ever thankful for the hotel, there was almost always a cab or two waiting that was more than easy enough to snag when you needed it. You were glad you had the next day off, knowing that the fluffy snowflakes coming down would be hell to navigate through the next morning. It was just as you rounded the corner that you came to a pause, your head cocking at the sight of your wife making her way undoubtably to the taxi stand.

“You sneakin’ out on me?” You teased, causing her to glance up as she slowed to a stop in front of you.

“You’re home early….”

“Yeah well…parties are no fun without you.” You reached your hand out and she happily took it, turning back in the direction of the apartment. “And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been such a bitch earlier. I don’t wanna start the new year off in the middle of a fight.”

“I’m sorry too.” Rita’s hand softly stroked at your cheek, “I should’ve just come with you, work can wait, it’s the holidays.” Smiling, you leant into her, gently meeting her lips in a brief kiss before the two of you started to walk through the snow.

“You gonna tell me where you were running off to?”

“To you.”

“Miss me that much already?” You teased.

“Yes.” Rita laughed, “besides, how else am I supposed to get my New Years kiss?” You chuckled softly, pulling the back of her hand to your lips quickly, a smile on both of your faces.

Your attention was drawn to the loud counting down echoing from the bar across the street, the cheering erupting as the clock struck twelve. Rita’s hand pulled you to her, sliding around your waist while your lips met, your thumb stroking at her cheek. It was a brief kiss, but one long and loving enough to get the unspoken words said between you, clearing the air of any previous frustration with each other.

“Happy New Year my love.” Rita murmured against your lips.

“Happy New Year.” You pecked her again before snuggling against her shoulder while you walked back to your building, a brief nod to the doorman as you passed. “Do you have to get back to work?”

“You kidding me? Not with my beautiful wife curled up on the couch with me.” Her lips met the top of your hair, “besides, you’re going to complain about only having appi’s at the party and insist on ordering pizza.” You snorted,

“You know me too well baby.” You kissed her cheek, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

#rita calhoun #rita calhoun x reader #law and order svu #rita calhoun one shot

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heretic-altias · 8 months

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FFXIVWrite Day 2 - Bark

This poor man just wanted to be a botanist main but ended up as a traumatized WoL in the end.

Don't know my characters? Here's a basic breakdown to help you out!

Kito ran a hand over the trunk of the tree, admiring the texture. He had desperately needed a moment alone to think, and nothing was more relaxing to him than examining plants.

Though perhaps ‘relaxing’ wasn’t the right word right now. He had been dropped into an entirely new world, and foliage in this area was purple! He was surrounded by all different species that simply didn’t exist on his own world, and he was probably the only man alive who’d ever been able to study plants on an entirely different world. Still, that excitement was enough of a distraction from his real problems.

His real problems being both the whole ‘dragged to a new world’ thing and his brother. Who had apparently been snatched just like the Scions. His brother who had spent the years since the Bozja Incident studying black magic and being a literal murderer who stole aether from mages. His brother who had insisted all of that was for them and for their dead father who never ever would have wanted it. His brother who planned to use his stolen aether to destroy the Garlean capital just like their homeland. A city full of innocent people just like they’d been. Kito had done plenty of questionable things himself early on with the dark knight soul crystal, but his targets had always been Garlean soldiers. Never innocent people not even connected to Garlemald. He’d never considered for even a moment harming Eorzeans who had nothing to do with it. But his brother had killed enough for the entire Alliance to consider him an enemy.

The trees were a lot easier to think about. The trees didn’t cause any harm. The trees didn’t fight in wars, or destroy cities. The trees simply were part of this world, solid and sturdy. And they came in so many different varieties with so many interesting qualities all while being so simple. Kito loved them. He loved plants in general. If he could just be left alone for a bit to examine a whole new world’s worth of nature he’d be happy despite it all.

But as he debated if he could manage to take a sample with his greatsword or if he’d have to convince the Crystalline Mean to loan him some tools, his reverie was interrupted.

“You still look at plants when you’re upset I see” a familiar voice commented.

Kito pinned his ears back in annoyance and whirled around to face the source, his brother Kotah.

“And you should know better than to bother me when you’re the problem” he snapped.

“Hang on, I didn’t ask to be brought here with all of you” Kotah argued, holding up his hands.

“It’s not about that. It’s about what you’ve done. And you still haven’t even told the Scions. They trusted you because you dropped our relationship, and they shouldn’t have” Kito growled right back.

He turned back to the tree, hoping it would soothe his worries again, only to pin his ears and lash his tail as Kotah started to speak again.

“Look I know you don’t trust me. I know I’ve done a lot of wrong. You just got here, but it’s been years for me. Living here for all that time, I’m not the man I was. Without the Empire’s shadow haunting me I’ve had to do other things, things not focused on getting revenge. I… I’ve healed. I don’t think I’d go back to it even if I was dropped back on the Source right now”

Kito pressed his face against the tree, ignoring the way the bark scraped against his face. It sure felt better than this conversation. Kotah stepped forward and tried to place a hand on his shoulder. That was the breaking point. Kito shoved him away, whirled around and slapped him across the face.

“You can say that all you want. But you didn’t tell them! You know who the Scions are and what they stand for! But you never once thought to tell them what you’ve done! You’ve killed innocent people, the Alliance is after your head! And you thought that wasn’t important enough to mention? I’m not covering for you! I’m not going to pretend I don’t know it was you! If you’re so much better now, then you have to tell them! And if you don’t, I will! Then what will they think of you? I bet Urianger won’t want to be your new best friend anymore after that!” he shouted.

Kotah stumbled back, a hand on his cheek. His long Viera ears fell, and he suddenly looked much smaller.

“You’re… right. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll tell them. Once we’ve gathered all of them. At least give me that long”

“You’ve had years already. But I’ll give you that long. Not because I want to. Because I can’t tell them either until I’ve found them anyway. Now please just…. Just leave me alone with my trees” Kito agreed, adjusting his hat to hide the tears forming in his eyes.

“Alright. At least take this though” Kotah offered, pulling a small knife out of his pocket, “I’d imagine a knife is easier to take samples with than that giant sword”

He placed it on the ground next to the tree before turning and walking back to the Crystarium gates, leaving Kito alone with his pain at last.

Kito waited until he was long gone before picking up the knife and unsheathing it. The blade was clean and sharp, perfect for cutting samples. Still he was torn. Did he really want to accept a gift from Kotah right now? Unsure, he slid it back in and stuffed it in a pocket.

Yet after examining the trees a little longer, the thought of going back without anything was upsetting enough that he pulled it out again and started collecting samples.

But he’d ask Feo Ul about getting his own knife from back home next time.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxivwrite2023

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floxdeloscolores · 11 months

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Alice meeting Dorcas and Marlene for the first time in the Auror Office - 1976

It was a small office, Alice mused, for being the only one assigned to the Aurors in the whole of the Ministry. No more than ten desks and no more than five people occupied it presently, working through stacks of parchment furiously. It was quiet, too.

She supposed she had gotten too used to the rough and readiness of Auror training, and what waited for her after completion had been underwhelming to say the least. Her male counterparts did not seem to be having the same issue, she thought with annoyance, and she looked at the stars on the wall that told of the location of all the Aurors. Gideon was having his fair share of action in North Chippandsawn, it looked like. That lucky git.

Alice Forescue was only able to return to her work for a short moment before Alastor Moody burst through the door, sporting his newly acquired eye-patch and looking as irate as usual.

“Fortescue,” he barked, and Alice rose to her feet immediately. “New staff - get training.”

He left swiftly, revealing two young women that had been standing behind him the entire time. Alice eyed them with interest.

Witches, Alice mused. Finally.

“Dorcas Meadowes,” said the one in yellow robes, extending her hand to Alice. Her long hair was braided against her scalp, and she flashed Alice, the much shorter witch (for Dorcas was rather tall and lanky), a confident smile.

“Alice Fortescue. Welcome to the Auror Office.”

The other witch thanked her. She had glossy, dark hair and a short, curvy frame. Her eyes were adorned with spidery eyelashes. “Marlene McKinnon, nice to meet you.”

“This place is buzzing,” Dorcas said flatly, taking in the dead silence. A fly droned past.

“Yes, I wish for a moment’s peace everyday!” Alice replied.

Marlene laughed. “Always a good thing, right? Wouldn't wish for us to have more crimes to investigate.”

“Oh, but there are plenty,” Alice said, and getsured for them to take a seat by her desk, “however I’m afraid none of the missions have been deemed as quite right for, er, someone like me to take.”

Dorcas looked affronted. “Surely not because you’re a witch?”

Alice snorted into her cup of tea. “What else, if not?”

“Maybe you’re just an awful Auror!” Marlene said, making the joke clear by wiggling her eyebrows.

“That absolute dickhead,” Dorcas remarked, instead, although she laughed at Marlene’s jest. She looked at the door where Moody had left. “Should’ve known it was too quiet, everybody’s out having all the fun!”

“Quite right,” Alice noted, her eyes glistening. She liked these girls. “What year did you graduate? I don’t remember you two from Hogwarts.”

“Almost two years ago - we’ve been training for one, of course. We were in Hufflepuff, mind you, Miss Head Girl, so that’s probably why,” Marlene explained.

Alice smiled in earnest now. She was two years their senior, then.

“Ah yes, my golden years. You lucky ducks saw me in my prime.”

“Bloody good Head Girl, too - took no prisoners with the Slytherins, or anyone naughty for that matter,” Dorcas said.

“Well it’s all gone down hill, m’afraid - I’m no queen of the castle here.”

Dorcas whistled, saddened by the fact. She could remember being fifteen, observing the Gryffindor witch hotly lecture Ackley Nott in the corridors, a young but abysmal cretin, reducing him to embarrassed tears with her words alone. Alice had always seemed so respected and valued by the teachers at Hogwarts - it was a slap in the face to find her bored out of her mind in a barren room in the Ministry.

“They’re all sexist prigs, then,” Marlene said, “There was a time when witches ruled supreme! Now we’ve been reduced to - what’s this - sorting out paperwork?”

“That’s Disappearance files, so it’s not all totally useless,” Alice remarked.

“Blimey, are they really?”

Alice nodded at Dorcas. “Yes, I’m in charge of updating them. I’m not too shabby with a wand though, and I think I would be put to better use in a more practical sense. But alas, my behind is glued to this chair, apparently.”

“You must be an expert on these cases after all that reading,” Dorcas noted.

“Oh, no one knows more about them than I do, I can guarantee it,” Alice confirmed.

“And you’re not out on the field?” Marlene asked, looking hopeless.

The blonde witch sighed as a reply. “I reckon Moody is asking me to show you two the ropes so you’ll join my efforts. We’ll have a ball of a time,” she added, pointing at her stack of files with a sarcastic wink.

“There’s no way we are letting the men get away with this,” Dorcas exclaimed. “There’s a dark wizard on the horizon! Or is this place also burying its head in the sand?”

“You two have come hungry, I see!” Alice chuckled. She remembered the days of dewy eyes and big dreams so clearly. Fresh out of training and seeing the utter lack of work for her, she decided to enlist in further duel and wand training to buy herself time and experience. She was now quick, alert, responsive, fearless - the perfect young Auror the Wizarding World most definitely needed at its disposal. That phase had completely finished some months back, however, and she found herself in the same predicament as last time. Alice felt so disillusioned, she almost could not find it within herself to fight back this time round.

“I can’t sit here and watch this all happen!” Dorcas repeated, aghast.

“Dory,” Marlene said, “maybe we should wait until our second week until we start a revolt, yeah?”

Alice watched the two young women silently for a moment. Sod it.

“Tell you what,” Alice started, and her two new colleagues stared at her with curiosity, “why don’t I go through the cases with you, show you around the office, and then we can think of how to finally get our foot in the door? Well, out of the door,” she said, sitting down at her desk.

“How so?”

Dorcas looked excited, and Marlene leaned forward in her chair. This made Alice smile. There seemed to be hope after all.

“I think you’re quite right, Dorcas, we can’t let the men get away with this. I can wipe all their eyebrows with one flick of my wand, and they’ve been underestimating me for far too long. Let’s see what we can do for these disappearance cases, shall we?”

Dorcas and Marlene pushed their chairs forward eagerly, and nodded as they made a grab for some parchment and quills.

“Aye aye, Miss Head Girl,” Dorcas sang.

Ah yes, witches in the Auror Department had been long overdue indeed.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: excerpt from my story 'Wild Children'. This is the start of how Alice proves her value as an Auror, and becomes one of Moody's best (and most treasured, though he only admits it through growls).

Flox Polimon

#alice longbottom #dorcas meadowes #marlene mckinnon #first wizarding war #jily fic #frank longbottom #aurors #order of the phoenix #alastor moody #marauders #lily evans #alice fortescue #canon compliant

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x688plsloveme · 2 years

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Home

Alex answers the call to the Divide, meeting someone strangely familiar... Maybe she would finally get the answers she sought from this place. Or from the person who resides in it.

I am very proud of this one. Of course the longest fic I’ve ever written would be about Ulysses.

"There's your signal. Faint, but there."

Alex startled, whipping her head around to face ED-E who now had a strangely familiar voice coming through him. It piqued her interest a bit, but she had experienced strange deja vu so many times after losing her memory, that it was second nature to ignore it.

"You walked the Mojave without a flag on your back. That'll end soon, can't walk the Long 15 and not have a nation's shadow fall on you."

She frowned. She didn't even know this guy and he was already questioning her life decisions. It wasn't her fault every faction in the Mojave was a shitty option.

"Maybe you just need to be tested. Or you believe in nothing. We'll see."

Her pierced brow twitched in annoyance. She believed in plenty of things, thank you very much! Like how some people need a good, solid punch to the face. She asked a lot of questions, and he provided what were mostly cryptic answers, but answers nonetheless. He even gave her some useful information, whether he meant to or not.

"They camp near silos... warheads. No way to cleanse the radiation - makes them hard to kill there, have to draw them out." Those weird, flayed used-to-be soldiers needed to be drawn away from their camps to do any proper damage to them, got it.

She learned a lot through their conversation and was surprised about how willing he was to hand out so much information for someone who claimed they wanted her dead. He talked a lot about some sort of "shared history" they had but. Well. He wouldn't have been the first person to claim such a thing to get something from her.

She even asked just to be sure, "If we actually share history, then before risking my life, I want to know about my past."

"Who are you, who do not know your history?" A tinge of... something would have been detected by someone more perceptive than her.

As it was, she just sighed and said, "So you don't know anything after all." She was a bit sad, but it was a sort of disappointment she was used to.

A long pause. "If history matters to you, you'll need to earn it. Any logs of mine have been cast into the Divide. They're lost to you. For now - find the trigger to the warheads. Use them to keep moving... and keep alive."

"Fuck that! I'm not planning to go into the Divide after you!" At this point, Alex was tired. It had been months since she woke up in Goodsprings having forgotten everything about herself except her name. Doc Mitchel told her that she already had signs of amnesia even before the bullet as well, so that alone was a miracle. Then, she got dragged into the middle of a war she wanted no part in, and gaining even a single memory was like chewing through glass - damn near impossible.

All she wanted was to find herself, but she wasn't sure the inkling of recognition she found in this guy's voice was going to be enough to keep her there. Maybe. Probably.

Alex could've sworn she heard a sigh when he said, "You're curious." A statement, not a suggestion. Maybe he did know her like he seems to be alluding to? Nah, anyone could guess she was curious by nature just by her bothering to come all the way out here just because of some stupid, cryptic message. "You walk, leave ruin in your path... you can't leave alone. Still, the choice is yours... what I offer, it's the last I offer you."

She was silent for a few moments, foot tapping frantically and hand running through her short, dyed blonde hair as her mind ran a mile a minute trying to decide what to do.

He must've grown impatient - or desperate - because it didn't take long for him to continue. "As for you... you'll want to see your home one last time, see what happened."

She would admit that she was curious, but that still wouldn't be enough to risk her life over a maybe.

He must be able to read minds because he continued, "I said that I knew of your home, but if you want my currency - the history I keep - you'll have to come and find me, Alexandria." He said the last word like it tasted wrong coming out. Alex would've been offended if she wasn't so focused on what he had said.

She breathed in, sharp and fast, and stopped moving altogether, undivided attention on ED-E and what the man - Ulysses - had just said right before disconnecting.

He knew her - he had to. She had never told anyone her name, not even Doc Mitchel. She didn't even remember it immediately, after all, it took a few hours of being awake before that returned to her. She just went by "The Courier" based on her belongings and kept that up to thwart anybody attempting to scam her by claiming they were some long-lost lover or relative. The more she got involved in the Mojave and Hoover Dam, the more those kinds of people kept popping up.

So the only people that could know her name were herself, and anyone who was actually from her past. At the very least, he knew about her. He was right, their paths were tangled up, converging at places she didn't yet know. She decided that learning more about her past was more important than keeping herself away from the dangers the Divide posed. She had faced all sorts of things in the Mojave and beyond anyway, this would just be another adventure, right? ____________________________________________________ Wrong.

The Divide had enemies that put Deathclaws and Yao Guais to shame. Not even Dr. Mobius' giant robotic radscorpian was as tough as a pack of those damned humanoid monsters. There was no sneaking around them or scaring them off. She couldn't even outrun them. She probably had a dozen bites and scratches from the bastards by the time she got to the High Road.

Her exhaustion flared into anger when she heard the crackling static come from ED-E, a telltale sign that Ulysses was about to speak.

He barely got the first syllable out before she was cussing him out. Every single expletive she knew was woven into what was roughly "Why the hell didn't you warn me about those things!?"

She could've sworn she heard a faint chuckle come from him, but he spoke and the notion left her. "Those... tunnelers. They're in an entirely different league than the monsters of the Mojave. Able to take on deathclaws in sheer numbers alone. As for why I did not inform you before...I warned you the Divide liked to chew people up and spit them out. But as always, your curiosity got the better of you... and led you down an unlucky path."

He was right once again. A bastard through and through, but correct all the same.

They talked some more, something about listening to him go on and on should have bored her - would have, had it been anyone else, but his voice was strangely soothing. She calmed down way sooner than she normally would have and paid attention to his every word. She felt a sense of accomplishment when she found out more about him, more so when hearing it from him and not just from his recordings. Though even those mattered, to him most of all, even if he didn't want to admit it.

When asked, all he said was, "Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't." There was a short pause. "But you finding them...perhaps there was a purpose in that."

She noticed that his voice sounded a bit more pointed than usual. Like he wanted her to realize something that was forgotten.

She didn't pay any mind to it though - she had forgotten a lot of things., so she'd care more about it when he told her the full story.

"Want more than that, walk the Divide. Answers'll come, closer you get to home... you and that machine."

She was starting to get pissed off about how much he hated her sweet baby ED-E, but she was more interested in "home," so she kept her mouth shut. This time.

"I don't think I've been here before... At least, not from this road." That was true enough. Even if she didn't remember much, if she was in a place she was before, some sort of familiarity would tug at her. But Hopeville, and that tunnel... she didn't think she had ever been there.

"Many in the Mojave think that the Divide is just canyon and ruin." He sounded a bit angry. "Wasn't always that way." Maybe a bit sad too... "Used to be a town here. Not Old World like Hopeville... more recent. Something that you saw in your lifetime."

Guess she would find out a little quicker than she anticipated.

"It had the name "the Divide" too. But rather than this destruction and dust, it was a road from the West into the Mojave. It was a supply line."

Alex started to feel that pang of familiarity. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly. She honestly didn't even fully believe him when he claimed he knew her and her history. Seemed like it was more than a bluff to get her to come to him.

He continued, "Took a courier to make that road. You. Back then, you saw the road with eyes facing East. This time... the Divide's in the other direction. And if your eyes try to make sense of it when you reach it...home's not what it was." She still didn't have the full picture, but this information was more than enough of an incentive to convince her to keep going. She wondered if that was the reason he shared all of that, or if it was something else that compelled him...

He was saying all of that like he knew every single thing about her, so she wanted to test him. "You keep saying that, as if you know where I was born - you don't."

He was silent long enough that she thought he disconnected. "Home isn't where you are born into this world. You taught me that." Her breath hitched. "It was also part of your message, whether you meant it or not." Did that "also" mean he actually knew her before getting shot in the head? Or did it mean something else? She wished he would just speak plainly. Though now she was starting to get curious about this message he keeps talking about.

"Can be a place of mind, a moment where you know who you are, the history of it. And they can be the places you breathe life into. People you breathe life into. Never would have known the Divide had it not been for you." His voice was soft when he said that. It sounded more personal than anything else he had said thus far.

Was he someone she had breathed life into?

"The road you made with your tracks, again and again. You were the only one willing to make the journey to and from here... a hard road. Kept the land before the Divide alive through seasons, storms..." It definitely sounded like the Divide was a hellscape, even before it was like this. "...can't have been just a job. Was something more to you. Don't feel for a place - or a people - that hard unless it's home." There was a sense of desperation in his voice. Alex could only wonder if those "people" included him as well.

But she was too scared of his answer to ask that. "I've walked a lot of hard roads," she said. Even before the Mojave. She knew that in her bones even if she couldn't place names to them. "What makes the places I went to then any different from here? It doesn't mean anything."

"It means everything - even if you deny it, cast it aside, that speaks to what you are, proves what happened here." It sounded like he was pleading with her. Like he needed her to understand. She wished she could. "It was you walking that road that kept the Divide alive. It grew from what you did. Settlers... camps... filling that old world city. Chance for a new nation, new beginning, new way of thinking. I gained a new way of thinking." From the Divide as a concept, or her? She couldn't help but wonder... "Could've breathed new life into the Mojave, bridging East, West. Like Hoover Dam... but not Old World, something you made. Road was a supply line." He sounded almost proud to brag about her accomplishments.

She was getting so close, that she could taste it. "Maybe you should just tell me what happened."

"NCR saw the worth in that road you made." His tone shifted - any softness in his voice replaced by cold harshness. "Staked a claim, whether it was wanted or not. And where the Bear tries to cling to life, the Legion comes... bearing messages. Some brought by blade. Others... by couriers." She wondered if he was one of them. "You knew what was coming, as sure as I know what's coming for you." He spat the sentence out. "This time you carry the burden. Walk West into the sun, and keep walking until it dies. There - I'll be waiting."

Honestly, he was a little melodramatic. It should've pissed her off, but for some reason the things he spoke of just made her want to cry.

There had to be some reason he kept equating her to death. It probably had something to do with how the Divide ended up like this, but she still couldn't remember. And it didn't make sense. Why would she destroy something so dear to her?

To get the final answers she sought, she hoisted her anti-material rifle and kept trudging down the dangerous, lonesome road he wanted her to walk. Although... it was a little more bearable with ED-E at her side. ___________________ Alex stood, mouth agape, as the Ashton silo slowly opened up and revealed what ruined the old world.

As the warhead inched out of its centuries of slumber, Alex became angry. She became furious when she watched it soar through the sky and detonate not long after.

Not for the destruction - the only things left in the Divide would try and kill her anyway. No, she was fuming at the fact that Ulysses lead her to do this. For what? To teach her a lesson about something she could only just barely recall? To repeat history because she was unlucky enough to forget about it?

She's gonna slug him when they meet. __________________ "Fucking. Tunnelers!"

Needless to say, Alex was even more pent up after getting thrown around by those creatures whilst getting bombarded by shrapnel from the blasts.

Thankfully, there weren't nearly as many in the hotel and she and ED-E made short work of them. She also got some time to take a breather and heal, and she made sure to repair any cracks in her companion's casing while she was at it. She took that time to reflect on the things she had learned since coming to the Divide - about her coming here, and how she knew Ulysses. There was... something pulling at her mind, but it was all still too blurry and vague to properly grasp it. The harder she tried, the more of a headache it was, so she decided to stop for now. Ulysses would tell her more eventually anyway.

It was nice to see ED-E happily beeping as he floated around her, reminding her that even if she couldn't remember past friends, she had new ones now - friends that helped her navigate and survive in this unforgiving wasteland. Even if most of them were miles and miles away, they still gave her strength just from knowing they were there to return to.

She swore to herself that she would get back to them no matter what.

They left a little while later and exited to the rooftop of the building. there, Alex was met with a familiar static. ED-E being there with her had cheered her up enough that all she did was sigh when Ulysses' voice came through.

"Hopeville, High Road, Ashton... tiny cracks in the earth, nothing compared to the road carved ahead." She was taken aback. Usually, he never sounded this mad at the beginning of their conversations. "Before you... this is the edge of the Divide. Ahead lies your work, the history you burned into the earth. What you brought to the people here." He growled out every "you" like it was something disgusting to even mention. Like she was the boogeyman that kept him awake at night.

Hell, she might be.

Alex wanted to rip him a new one, yell at him until it got through his thick skull that she couldn't even remember, but as she surveyed the land - all its smoke and fire and ash... she felt strangely resigned. And sad.

"What... happened here?"

"You delivered a package." He sounded calmer now. "Had markings that matched those in the Divide. Not all... but enough. Military markings, from someplace the Bear savaged in the West. Maybe some of those markings reminded you of home... made you carry it."

Alex felt her head throb. She recalled something similar...

"I. I don't quite remember it."

"It was from West. From deep in NCR. Whether made by them or not... it came here. Through your hands. It was a device, a detonator. One I'd never seen before - or heard before." He sounded haunted. "You carried that thing into the Divide. I know because I followed as you walked the road, watched you do it."

An image flashed in her mind - a man walking side by side with her, talking about random nothings and everything all at once. A memory filled with flashes of smiles and sideways, longing glances. A glimpse of feelings long forgotten. No, not forgotten. Buried. Deep.

The pain remembering gave her didn't allow her a chance to even process that, let alone speak, before he continued, "You brought it here, to the community you built. And you are responsible for what happened after - when the device opened, started to speak. When it did, the Divide answered back."

Another flash. Her bragging about the last job she'd ever have to take with dozens of others. They all cheered and grinned up at her, reverence on their faces and pride in her heart for something she had built. In the center of the crowd, she honed in on one smile in particular, meeting his eyes and smiling back. It was like they were in their own world.

She held her head now. Not even her worse migraines felt like this. Doc Mitchell did say that forcibly trying to remember anything would be painful, but this...

And damn it all, her eyes welled up every time he said "you" with such venom, and she didn't even know why!

"Those missiles you've seen, buried in their silos. They exploded beneath the ground, cracked the landscape. Sand, ash... the dead... the Divide skies became a graveyard."

She remembered screaming, the crowd going from joyful to fearful all in a matter of seconds. The sting of betrayal as she realizes she had been set up.

As curious as she was to fully remember her past, her head was killing her so she asked something that pertained to him first.

She gritted her teeth to try and minimize the effect the pain had on her and said, "How did you even survive that?"

"Should've died there... but now that I know you live..." His voice held an amalgamation of emotions, she couldn't tell whether he was purely angry about that or not. "The machines here... saved me. I was the only survivor, or I thought I was. Your package woke up medical machines, close to the one that shadows you. They fixed me, then began to build more of themselves. They stay in the Divide, never roam beyond it. Never leave the silos without a human to shadow, like hounds." He really has no affection for eyebots. "Maybe they saw the flag on my jacket, thought I was America. If so, history saved me. A sign."

Alex wondered if their history together would be able to save them.

Well, she's been in a similar situation with Benny, so she could guess why he wanted her to go to such lengths to meet with him again. "So this is revenge for nearly killing you, then."

"Not the name I'd give it. Not the name the dead would give it. Soldiers of Bear died here... Legion died, too, my brothers." Ah. He used to be Legion. "They're still dying, both of them, all around us." The marked men were proof enough of that, but she didn't think that's what he meant. Must've been alluding to the Mojave. NCR was stretched too thin trying to copy a dead world, and the Legion would collapse as soon as Ceasar died, and if her latest visit indicated anything, that would happen sooner rather than later.

"None of the people that lived here survived... yet all of them West and East, they hold on as the Divide tears at them." She couldn't help but think that the same goes for the both of them as well.

"Revenge isn't the message I have for you." A pause. "More than that... Alexandria."

She couldn't help but wonder how much more. The ache in her heart and head might allude to a notion of it, but she always was fond of ignoring her important emotions.

The pain had subsided a bit though, so she felt all right enough to ask more about the package. "If I cared so much about the community here, the people here, why would I have brought that package here in the first place?"

"I've walked the East. You've walked the West, more than I have." He listed a handful of locations, each accompanied by a slight twinge of familiarity. "Whatever you saw out there, wasn't enough to make you stay. Maybe the markings on the package reminded you of the road home."

Seeing all those old-world markings left by Ulysses did give her a slight sense of nostalgia every time she came across them, but was that enough of a reason? To return to some arbitrary location just for the sake of it?

Then she recalled what she had remembered earlier - the blurry man that smiled so warmly at her and the crowd that looked upon her with adoration. Now that she thought about it, that man must've traveled with her to a lot of places... Why didn't she see him in any of the memories of the locations she went to out west?

Did she... did she come back because of that mystery man?

Now having confirmed that she really did care about this place, or at least, the people who inhabited it, she was hurt at his accusations.

"How could I have known!? I -!" She stopped short, not fond of absolutes. "If I loved this place and its people, then I would've never delivered something that could destroy it."

"If you remembered fully what happened, then you would know." Ouch. "You carry death wherever you go - if the Mojave doesn't know it yet, it will." Ouch. "What happened here, can happen again. You've already proved it, what you did in Ashton. The silo there."

She was a mix of hurt and anger. Leaning more toward anger. "I had no idea it was active until it was in the air!"

A short, bitter laugh. "Didn't stop you though. Like carrying a chip to Vegas, Old World death in your hand. Pieces of the Old World like that just need someone careless enough to take them where they need to go, to do their killing."

She's a courier. She carries packages where they're requested to go, it's what she does.

"I'm not to blame for Ashton, the Chip, or the Divide."

"All these roads, you walked. These packages you carried. Think it wasn't your choice?" He sounded incredulous. "Of course it was your choice. You could have stayed in the Mojave. But you chose to come, couldn't let be - not in you to let go."

"I -"

"You came for no other reason than you were curious, restless - always have been. Had to know the why of it - now I'll show you."

She was riled up again, pulling on her hair in an attempt to not lose her cool completely. "The why of it? You're the one who needs to answer that! Why the hell are you doing this?"

She honestly couldn't fathom why he's been so keen on dragging her through the mud every chance he gets. And now both her feelings and her head hurt, so she at least deserved to know that much.

"Want to hear the answer of it. Not just history's answer... your answer for what happened here."

She stopped, mouth agape. Was he serious? "I can barely remember the event itself and you want to know my reasoning? Sounds to me like you're just stuck in the past. You have no direction in life, so you decided to create a devil in your head to get mad at."

Ulysses hummed, neutral. Not betraying any sense of emotion. "If only you knew the half of it..."

She wanted to scream at all the walls he put up. It wasn't fair that he could know everything about her, but she hardly knew a single thing about him.

"Well, I don't! You barely tell me anything about yourself, so how could I? What I do know is that what happened here sounds like it was orchestrated by the NCR, not me. It was an accident on my part, you have got to let that anger go."

"Accident? Ignorance is a choice. The chip - a choice. As for anger... it is what I carry for the dead, and all that come here."

It seemed that anger was the only clear emotion he allowed himself to show. Alex couldn't help but wonder if he was still angry at her or for her when he presumed her dead. She was nothing more than a scapegoat for the feelings he couldn't share.

For some strange reason, she felt her heart ache.

Her big mouth could never shut up, so she impulsively asked, "What, did I kill your family? Your wife? Children?"

Another one of his favored, long pauses. "There were many things that died with the Divide... yet some survived. As for my family... my tribe lives... its history? Died long ago, fell under the shadow of the Bull... consumed by another symbol. No... this isn't about family shared by blood. Its blood shared by acts, not by chance."

"The NCR used me to shed that blood, but Ulysses..." She was glad he couldn't see her expression at that moment. "I was part of that community too... so what was I?"

"You-" His voice came out slightly strangled and he coughed to clear it up. "You Alexandria... were a Courier." The anger started to leak out of his voice, replaced with... something. "And a symbol. And a leader. You built the Divide, gave it life, only to tear it down." His voice was barely a whisper when he said, "You were loved Alexandria..." Her breath hitched. He sounded distraught, but only for a moment. He hardened his voice again and continued, "...and your actions, the death you wrought, was your answer to what the Divide felt for you."

She tried to keep her voice steady, her head was pounding. She took a deep breath before saying, "You blame me - clearly. But tell me Ulysses, why do you care so much?"

"...There are some things that I can't tell you. Some things get buried and need - deserve - to stay there. Hidden under the rubble like the Divide."

She was careful, keeping her voice even as she said, "But there are some things that can still be told. Give me something that isn't buried."

"That is... fine." He still didn't sound completely convinced, but that was alright as long as he gave her something. She chose to ignore why she wanted to know so desperately.

"The community that was once here... and the package you brought... both had markings of the Divide. Markings of America. You've seen the marks, the symbol. As early as the Hopeville silo, maybe." Earlier than that. She had seen them painted in Big Mountain and Zion, in locations she now knew were places he had stayed. "You carried it etched on your weapons. The Divide, its buildings, its people, were built around those same markings, surrounded them here..."

Another brief memory, buildings with the symbol painted on them, tattoos of it etched into people's skin. A way to differentiate and stand out. A symbol of pride... and of hope.

"...markings like the flag on my back. When I followed your road to the Divide those years ago, I saw the symbol I wore all around me."

And a memory of someone new who blended in from the moment he joined. "An old world symbol. Strong, to survive here - its people, strong. Outlast the Bear, outlast the Bull. Promise of something better." His voice grew cold. "Ceasar was right to want it dead. NCR was right to want to rake their claws in it. Seeing it... changed me, just as seeing Hoover Dam changed Ceasar and the NCR."

She could imagine. After mingling with both, their obsessions with the Dam were sometimes scary. If his obsession with the promise the Divide held and the people who made up that community was half as dangerous as theirs...

"Seeing it end changed me, too."

There it was.

"You believed in this place," she said. A statement, not a question. "What it was, anyhow."

"There was hope here, another chance. Not just for the Divide, but for me as well. A new nation, stirring to life. A place I could have set my flag. Not the America of old. But something larger than the tribes of the East, something larger than the houses of the West. Something better. The Divide... could have bridged both, like Hoover Dam. Now, like the Dam, it's too covered in blood to see what it could have been."

It sounded to her like he was desperate to find a home.

"You gave life to this place. I followed your road here, saw the Divide. You led me here so that I could see. Then, you became something more than just a beacon for wayward souls. " He sounded more broken than angry when he said, "Then, you brought it to an end."

With what she could remember through the ache of her head, all the lost emotions bubbling back up all at once, she sort of understood where he was coming from. No matter which memory flashed through her mind, all of them had one thing in common.

A feeling of "home."

"And that's why you want me dead. Revenge." It was hard to let that out, forced really. The memories of a place she loved mixed with confirming the fact that Ulysses of all people wanted her dead hurt more than the physical pain.

Wait. "Of all people..?"

"My history isn't revenge, or hate. The road that brought us both here - isn't about that. It's about the message you carried. The one in that package, whether you knew it or not. Whether you remember it or not. The message that one can kill a nation. Can kill a symbol. And all that gather beneath its flag. I don't blame you for the Divide. I blame you for what you made me see. Now you will see what you brought to the Mojave, and that will be my message to you."

As tumultuous as her emotions were at the moment, she still thought that was quite petty. Out of the nation she created and that he worshipped, there were only the two of them left. They should be celebrating with each other, not planning to kill one another. She couldn't even muster up her normal bloodlust for him, didn't even want to.

Honestly, more than anything, she just wanted some painkillers.

But some things still weren't very clear..."I don't understand. What message?"

"The nations of the Mojave. Cracked and broken as the Divide... its people, the same." That didn't sound very fun. "I have walked at Ceasar's command, across the East, into the West. Far enough to know that Ceasar's word did not drive me." The fact that he was here at all was a testament to that. "Far enough to see the end. You've seen it. No courier, whatever their flag, can ignore it. Why you didn't stay in the West. Why you wandered. There is no future in the Bear or Bull." She agreed with that, at least. "The Bear is diseased, barely clings to life." She's talked to countless people about the NCR and how they're stretched too thin. "And the Bull... when the Legion reaches the sea, it will turn on itself and die." On that end, the only thing holding the Legion together was Ceasar, and he didn't have long left anyway. "Killing one will end both. And you made me see how one could do it. Your ignorance, carelessness - can be used with a purpose."

She wanted him to see reason - "Then you learned the wrong message," - that her life was more than just a tale of how one person could ruin so much good.

"Really. Who's to say the truth of it. You? No. You walked from, turned your back on it. Now you and others will answer for it. I'll start with the West. Let that burn. Then... if the East falters after, I'll bring the Divide there as well. Burn away the flags. Begin again."

He... was beginning to sound like a maniac. He was so wrapped up in what could've been, that he refused to live with the second chance the Divide gave him. It was no accident that he didn't die in the initial blasts, that the medical bots found him when they did. Fate was finicky like that.

It was no accident for her to survive, either.

"You wanted me to come here - to the Divide... to my home. I'm here, now what?"

"Your road's not done. Haven't walked it full yet, not nearly enough. The way ahead and below - leads to the heart of the Divide. And there... you and I, we'll have an ending to things."

"One way or another." She was sure about that. "But I'm not done talking with you just yet, I had more questions."

"Curiosity drove you this far. Let's see what else it can do."

They talked for a while more and she learned about his promise not to kill her - an order from Ceasar to not kill any couriers - and more about the package. She also asked him about his recordings.

"Scour the Divide, claw at it for meaning - but my words will give you no answer." He was spiteful, that's for sure.

She needed him to understand. "When you lose everything that makes you, you - when you have no choice but to search for yourself in the sand that falls uncontrollably through your fingers... maybe then you'll understand why I cling to every piece of information I can. Even if those recordings involved things that I wasn't a part of, you were. And as someone who was a part of the Divide before it was destroyed, that means that anything involving you is important to me as well." That had to be the reason why she clung to his every word. It had to be.

"They won't help you understand what happened here. And they won't help you understand me. Keep them, listen, study them - they won't help you here in the Divide."

On the contrary, she thought she learned a lot from those tapes. Regardless, she still asked for clarification on the ones she had picked up so far - wanted to know as much as she could.

He told her some but, "Walk more, see me face to face - you might earn more." "One last thing before I go..." This is what she had been gearing up to this entire conversation. A chance to know not just about herself or him, but about them. "What is our history? How do you know me?"

"I said before that some things are best left buried." Defensive.

She replied, "Sure, but just think about my motivations for treading the Divide - my curiosity being sated." He had said that curiosity had driven her this far after all, and it was true.

He sighed and relented. "At first, I just knew of you. Your name. Your road to and from the Divide, what that meant for the Legion. Just another courier that I shouldn't kill. Until..."

She held on to foolish, foolish hope. She didn't even know what for. "Until?"

"Until I walked into the Divide and saw you, surrounded by the people that lived here - your smile as you talked to them like you were a part of them, not just their symbol of a future. You... drew me in. Like you did so many others." Her heart was beating, pounding really.

"I would have never discovered the Divide without you," he said, barely above a whisper.

It meant more to her now than when he said it in their first meeting outside the Hopeville silo. Back then, she didn't know the depths of this place - what it meant to her and to him. Now, she knew the weight that sentence carried - he never would have discovered his purpose without her. She grit her teeth when her head joined in on the pounding once more. More memories, accompanied by a deep voice from a companion, but he sounded happy, not angry and distraught like she's now used to.

If she was unsure of them having history before, she was now.

"Where can I find you?" She wanted to see him, that piece of her past that still exists. She couldn't help feeling that there was still something very important that she was overlooking though...

"At the end of the Divide, through the trenches and wreckage - that's where you'll find me. My new home, here, amongst dead men. You and that machine, keep your eyes on the tower that cuts the horizon... you'll find your way. Made it this far... not much farther to go." __________________________________________ The tiny iota of affection Alex had for Ulysses evaporated into seething, white-hot anger when he took control of ED-E.

She knew he didn't like him, or any eyebots for that matter, but that didn't give him the right to use him and take him apart until he was no longer useful. She knew the only reason he went into such detail was to make her angry - to give her another reason to come to him.

It pissed her off.

She was able to vent some of that anger on various things on her way to Ulysses' Temple - including an oversized deathclaw she affectionately named Rawr.

And now here she was, at the beginning of what could possibly be the end. She wasn't worried though, it wouldn't be the first time she looked death in the eye, and she doubted it would be the last.

Thankfully, it didn't take her long to find her companion.

"Oh my gosh ED-E!"

He rushed into her arms. <Grateful beeping>

While she looked him over for any damages, she asked, "Are you okay?"

"What happened?"

"So it was an override frequency... I don't understand... He said he was going to destroy you, scrap you for parts..." She felt a bit funny. She was furious at Ulysses for taking her friend and threatening him, but why would he bluff..?

Her thoughts were interrupted by ED-E flying around her head and beeping worriedly.

"Oh! Don't worry ED-E, I understand it wasn't your fault. I'm just glad you're alright."

"But why did he call you in the first place? He had to have known I was coming anyway..."

"Hmm... Well, whatever he's planning, Ulysses wants us both there. Come on, I'd hate to disappoint him."

Together, they ascended the elevator and she was finally in the room with him. He stood on the other side of the silo, in front of a missile that was illuminated by the sun's light, with an Old World flag right above him. The light cast a shadow across his form, so she couldn't see him very well from her position near the entrance, just his silhouette. She approached him carefully, not sure if he was going to turn around and attack. She doubted it, but better safe than sorry.

As Alex got closer, she noticed the same symbol that she had seen all over the Divide on the back of his coat, confirming her suspicions that he was the newcomer she had remembered.

A few more steps, and she could make out his locs. She hadn't seen that hairstyle on anyone before.

A sharp pain, a flash of a face. No one except-

He turned around. "So you came, Alexandria."

She clutched her head and fell down with a muted scream. It was on fire. She could remember, oh god, she could remember everything. All the time they spent together, all the secret glances and longing touches. How they worked, together, to make the Divide into a thriving community that could rival the likes of the NCR or the Legion.

"Do you understand now?" She looked up at him from her position on the ground, but there were too many emotions swirling in his eyes and it hurt to try and decipher them, so she let her head drop back to her hands. "Do you now know why I am filled with such rage?" He yanked on her arm, forcing her to her feet. "Look at me Alexandria."

Her head felt like it was being filled with cement and baked in the sun, but she complied. It was the least she could do now that she knew, even if she was still trying to make sense of it all. She still had enough strength to shove him though, so she did. ED-E beeped worriedly behind her, but they both paid him no mind.

"Now that you have your memories again, what will you do? Watch your homeland burn again one last time. Kill me, perhaps. Maybe all you want is your machine. Doesn't matter now, the Divide giants are awakening. The missiles here, on their way home. There is no way to stop them."

"Ulysses I..." Maybe there was an apology there. Maybe not. "I still don't completely understand - why are you doing this?"

"You gave me new life Alexandria." He glared at her. "I loved you." She flinched. She knew that to be true at least. Only a fool would interpret how they interacted in the past any other way. "In the nation you built, I saw hope. I found people worth fighting for. You made me realize that I didn't need to be under Ceasar for the rest of my life, that even without my tribe, I could still have a new family that would care." She could tell that he was fighting the urge to scream.

So was she. It was all so unfair.

"When you destroyed the Divide, you crushed that hope... that chance for me to have a new beginning. I mourned you, even after all you'd done. Do you know how it felt for you to just reappear in the Mojave - staying in one place longer than a courier had any right to, dealing with a war that might have never happened were it not for your destruction?"

"I loved you too Ulysses!" She still did. She thought so anyway. "And I loved the Divide. I know that now..."

He went still - for a moment. "You don't see, listen," he growled, "Even when it's all around you, no matter if I nailed it into your head like a gift from Ceasar. You destroyed it all. Nearly killed me, flesh and spirit. You destroyed something larger than the Bear, greater than the Bull. And even when you could have turned away, you brought it again, in that machine. You destroyed a nation taking its first breath. A place that could've been my home. Now, I'll destroy yours."

It hurt to ask but... "If you meant to kill me, you should have done it a long time ago, when you first saw my name in that ledger at Primm."

"I didn't believe it at first, was going to find you in Vegas once you had finished your job. Except... you never arrived, not until I was long gone. Thought the Mojave would sort you out, but you kept growing and growing, giving the people of the Mojave hope, a chance to be free from the factions fighting around them. I couldn't stay silent after that, couldn't stand watching you thrive not knowing what you'd done. So I called you here."

"What happened at the Divide, what I did, was an accident. What you're doing - it's insane." She firmly believed that no matter how foolish her actions in the past were, this was the NCR's fault, not hers.

"No, now there is purpose. I believe you when you say you were... careless. The Divide... the chip... the machine you brought here... Many messages can be taken from that, intended or not. What I do now is an act of conviction."

Damn it all, she still cared enough for him that she didn't want him to do something he would regret. Making the same mistake she did, but on purpose this time... he would hate himself for it.

"If you blame me, then let me answer for it, not others." Push comes to shove, she could knock him out and drag him away if need be. She hoped she was still stronger than him...

"Blame you? No, learned from you. Both the weapon to kill a nation, and the strength to do it." That is not what he should have gained from that. "You showed me a road, a way to carry my message. You've already answered for what you've done. Now the nation you're trying to build will answer for it."

"So what - you're gonna bomb the Mojave?"

"No, not the Mojave. The West, all that's been built since America died. Same symbols as before the war, now the flag carried by a tribe of children. You were born in the West, walked it frequently, but didn't stay. You know the reason... the Bear grows without structure, follows a symbol without knowing its history. After this, only one flag will remain over the Mojave. Let that one fly and destroy itself."

She didn't care about the NCR, had left it for a reason - as he said - but she couldn't let him do this to himself.

Maybe logic would get through to him? "You can't destroy the West, even with all the missiles here."

"Hmph. No need to destroy the Bear, just cut its throat. You taught me that at the Divide - only need to cut off the supply line, the road, to watch something greater die. I'll turn the Long 15 into miles of fire, cut off the Mojave. NCR will fall back, lose Hoover Dam... and leave their throat exposed to the Legion."

Damn. He planned this through more than she thought he would. "You might not believe in the new nation I'm trying to build, but I do."

He glared at her. "Vegas has had no real chance, you've made no real impact since you've arrived. All you've delivered are empty promises. You've walked the Mojave, let the shadow of flags fall upon you, yet walk carelessly, no real allegiance. Your words - empty as your actions."

"Ulysses. You still haven't told it to me straight - I need to know why you're doing this. If not for me, then for history's sake."

"The why of it... you taught me the why of it. If you believe in something enough, you must be willing to let it burn, lest it claim you."

"Are you afraid that I'll finally be the death of you? If you let me live?" She took a step closer. "Are you really willing to watch me burn all over again?"

He hesitated for a moment before continuing. "....There is more. These governments of the two-headed bear... the Legion... they carry Old World ideas into an age that no longer needs them, where they cannot live."

Another step. She could touch him if she wanted to. "I'm not talking about the NCR or the Legion, I'm talking about our history."

He inched closer himself, drawn to her like he always was. "Our history... the Divide. That history has been written, its lessons learned. There is nothing more to be dug from these cracks in the earth, no more fury to be torn from its sky." He sounded unsure.

The pounding in her skull started to subside now that everything was fitting into place once more. She was able to stand straight, looked him in the eye as she said, ""You can go home again, Courier." Not a message for me - but for you." He looked away. "My home in the East, Dry Wells, is no more. It is part of the Legion. The only other home... the chance of a home... was what you built at the Divide." Back at her. "Then you destroyed it."

She smiled, sadly. "You said a home is a place you breathe life into, a moment where you know who you are."

"...There is truth in that." He was growing more and more unsure. "History has proven it. But the Mojave's proof that no homeland is sacred... until the larger symbols are destroyed. Whatever is built, the Bear, Bull... even Vegas... will tear it apart, convert it, either with purpose, or by accident. "

"Our history is stronger than that Ulysses. The Divide survived in us. It's something that is still worth fighting for - we can rebuild it."

He stepped back and looked away, breaking the tension that had started to form between them. "Nothing can prevent what comes. The missiles will launch. These questions - your words, or mine - what do they matter to you." A statement, not a question. He truly believed that he didn't matter to her anymore - that what he said and did was worthless.

It broke her heart.

She followed him. She couldn't let him believe that she would ever not care about him. "Even... even if the missiles launch, and I die here - if I can convince you, that's enough for me."

He whipped his head around, meeting her eyes once more. Whatever he saw in her expression... "It is... enough. It may be... that as much destruction has been written in the earth here... you can build something else, as you built the Divide. You have spoken truly. There is a shadow of a nation behind you, the hope of a people..."

He grimaced. "Yet it may not matter. The Divide still stands against us."

Us. Hearing that alone was enough to make her want to cry.

But he sounded resigned, not joyful. "The Divide? What do you mean?" She said.

"Our enemies gather outside... shadows of the Bear and Bull... they will have found their way in, just as you did. It was always my intention - in case I could not kill you, the marked men would flood this place, cut off your escape. If we cannot prevent what comes, then let us make our stand here. Two Couriers, together, at the Divide."

She smiled brightly now, heart filling with emotions she had forgotten she had. "Just like old times."

He hummed, amused. "Indeed."

Finally together again, they fought the marked men. Ulysses charged straight at them, swinging his staff with abandon while his medical bots floated around him to heal him. Alex immediately turned on a stealth boy and started picking off the ones who got behind him or had snipers themselves.

There were just too many though, and eventually, they started to catch on to her whereabouts. A cluster of them rushed toward her, thinking she was easy prey with only one eyebot accompanying her. She switched to her pistol and wove in between cover while she picked them off.

Just when she was about to be skewered by the last marked man who held a thermic lance, she heard a yell and his head split open. He dropped to the ground with a thump, and she was left standing mere feet from Ulysses. They both heaved with exertion when the adrenaline started to fade away. They were covered in blood, Ulysses more so than Alex.

Even in their grisly state, they couldn't take their eyes off one another. They took a step towards each other, one after another, until they were face to face once more.

Ulysses took off his mask, and Alex's breath hitched at finally seeing his face after so long. He threw it along with his staff to the ground in favor of cupping her face, more gentle than he's ever been in his life.

She leaned into his touch almost subconsciously. It felt so good to be near him again - she didn't know how she had gone so long without him by her side. "Alexandria..." A whispered plea, inches from her face.

She smiled at him, following suit in throwing her weapon on the ground, so she could grab the front of his coat and drag him the rest of the distance to kiss her. She mumbled against his lips, "Ulysses." Sweet. So, so sweet.

Their kiss was rough, messy, and tasted a bit like copper, but it was perfect all the same. They were desperate for each other, not complete without the other by their side, and they had been separated for far too long.

It took a few minutes for them to break away, breathing heavily for entirely different reasons than before.

It took ED-E nudging her for them to remember the missiles. They gathered their weapons and raced towards the console that controlled the launch.

When Alex got to it and saw just how much it would take to stop the launch, her heart sank.

ED-E could understand what needed to be done and floated over.

Alex hugged him. "Listen, buddy. If we leave this alone, something very bad will happen to a lot of people."

ED-E replied with, <Sad beeping>

She was on the verge of tears when she said, "You don't even need to do this if you really don't want to."

She was trying so hard not to cry. She honestly didn't give a rat's ass about the NCR or the Legion, but if she let this happen, Ulysses wouldn't be able to move on from his hatred.

She may not care about the factions, but she cared about him.

She also cared about ED-E, which is what made letting him do this so hard. She gave him a weak smile. "I know, I know. I don't want to witness that destruction either. Listen ED-E... All of your memory here will be stored back in your other body in the Mojave, right?"

ED-E replied, <Confirmatory beeping>

"Then when I get back and settle things in the Mojave, I promise I'll help you fly far, and fly fast straight to Navarro."

ED-E perked right back up and started flying around her head, playing his favorite song.

She laughed. "And together I'll help you complete your journey."

ED-E floated towards the console, he was always ready to help - even strangers - and didn't think twice about leaving his mission alone for a while to help her in the Mojave or the Divide.

As he started shutting it all down, he started breaking apart piece by piece. Alex was clenching her hands to keep from crying hard enough that blood started dripping from them.

Right before he was destroyed, Alex said one last thing, "I'm so proud of you ED-E!"

Even through all the sparks and shocks, he replied with one last, <Happy beeping>

Moments later, he was finished. And broken. She knew she would see him again when she got back, but that didn't make it any easier to watch him suffer.

As she calmed herself down, Ulysses took her hands and started applying stimpacks. "I still don't understand why you care for that machine."

She glared at him. "He's more than that." She gave him a pointed look and said, "Plus, I tend to care too much about the people I love." She shoved him as she started walking away.

He was wise enough to not respond to that - but smiled all the same. _____________________________ Back at the Canyon Wreckage, they had a lengthy conversation about all sorts of things. Now that she had her memory back, she knew just how compatible they are even with something as simple as talking. It put her in a better mood to see just how well they fit together even after all this time.

He also quietly thanked her for stopping the launch.

She stayed a few more days at his makeshift camp while they were both recovering, but really it was just an excuse to be with him longer.

When the time came that they were both fully healed from their wounds, Alex decided to swallow her pride and ask, "Will you come back with me to the Mojave?"

He smiled at her, just a slight upturn of his mouth, soft enough to make her want to cry. He ruffled her hair in the way he knew she didn't like and replied, "For the time being, I will stay here - keep the Divide out while you finish your work there. After all... we wouldn't want the battle for Hoover Dam interrupted by tunnelers, now would we?"

She swatted his hand away absentmindedly and shuddered. "Ugh, don't remind me of those things. I would die happy if I never had to see another one ever again." She waited a moment. "I'll miss you, you know."

"I know all too well. It pains me to let you go so soon, but this is a chapter of your history you will need to wrap up with those in the Mojave. I shall stay here, but when you're done..." He placed his hand on her cheek. "I'll be waiting."

He leaned down and kissed her, slow and sweet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he pulled her closer in return. They stayed like that for awhile until they were both out of breath. Even then, they still stayed in each other's embrace.

It was another minute before they fully pulled away, hands lingering as they didn't wish to let go.

Alex was sad to leave him behind, but she needed to return to the Mojave. "I'll be back with good news soon, okay?"

He leaned down and kissed her cheek. "Of course."

She hugged him one last time before heading back into the Mojave, intent on changing history once again, but for the better this time. She would properly shoulder the weight of her sins, and while she couldn't make up for it, she could still do good for the people that rely on her now.

#ulyssesweek2022 #ulysses fallout #my ocs #alex #fallout new vegas #canon compliant violence just a warning #amnesia #this is really long so ill post the ao3 link in a bit #i shouldve done that with the other two as well but i forgot lol

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