You mean to tell me that to have a genuinely good dream, I gotta be exhausted first? 🤨

At five you knew that you wanted a garden. A big garden that had all kinds of vegetables, fruit, and flowers. your grandfather would sit behind you as you plotted out your own garden, spinning tales of him and your grandmother planting their own. 

Your grandfather's garden was one of the most magical places in the world. You remember him leading you through the wall of berry bushes, eating the different types of berries as he dutifully explained the care he put onto each bush. 

Even as he got older he would still walk with you as you inspected the zucchini, tomatoes, grapes, and strawberries. Picking the rippest and bringing back your bounties to your mother and grandmother. 

You would sit with wide eyes trying to take in everything as the adults canned the berries, grapes, and fruits. Watching as they made jam with the leftovers. 

Your small little family could often be found behind a farmers market stall on Sundays. A small tired child leaning, with half lidded eyes, into their mothers side.

As your grandparents got older, the garden grew with them. With your grandfather sick, he was unable to take care of the garden. it grew over, it grew until the berry wall was reaching over into the grape trellises. The grape vines reach for safety on the garden wall, blocking the pathway from any wandering children. 

Your grandfather passed away when you were ten. The night you found out you ran sobbing into his study. You shoved yourself into the space between the wall and the desk, your spot. You shook with sobs. He left. Why would he leave you?  

Grandmother passed away soon after. She was inconsolable after her husband’s death, she was relieved when she fell ill. She was going to be happy with your grandfather. Just happy away from you. 

Your mother sold the house. When you were thirteen. She let you keep anything you took. You ended up taking all of his books and his desk. For years the books were in boxes shoved in your closet, holding too many painful memories to open. From your closest in your childhood home they went into a storage complex, as you moved to college. 

They only made a reappearance recently, when your fiancé when’s to grab some old paintings to decorate your new home. It was raining outside when you opened the box. 

You felt your fiancé behind you as you peeled back the tape.

 “Haji, I’m nervous. I haven’t looked at these books and papers since he died.”

“It's alright baby, I’ll be right behind you. You can take a break at any time, no one’s going to judge you” Iwaizumi reassured. 

You bit your lip, eyes already welling up with tears as you opened the first book. 

You and Iwaizumi had stayed up well into the morning going through every single book and paper in those boxes. The boxes were full of poem books, herbology books, and sketch books. But most sentimental to you were plans of a garden that you had made with your grandfather. 

His writing was delicate behind your bold toddler strokes, explaining which plants to plant. Perhaps even better than that were sketches of trellises, benches, flower beds, and landscaping, all meant to surround that initial garden. 

You fell asleep in Iwaizumi’s arms with tears staining your cheeks. 

You and Hajime got married the next week. As he pulled you away from the crowd he whispered plans into your ear. Plans for a garden to be made. Just the two of you, working together to make the garden of your dreams. 

**Time Skip**

Laughter filled your ears as you held a newborn in your arms. You look up to see Iwaizumi lifting your three year old high in the air, her face stained by raspberries, smiling big, and giggling. Her father looked at her like she was his world. 

Your toddlers giggling gets louder as he spins around, coming to rest next to you. He sits down next to you, letting your toddler go to waddle over to the flowers. He kisses your cheek, wrapping his arms around your waist. 

You love your garden built by hand over the course of three years. Hopefully one day your family will get bigger. But for now you're happy.

"Stede Bonnet! Come out and face me like a real pirate!"

After months of searching, Stede Bonnet and the remaining crew members of the Revenge have finally caught up to Blackbeard. For months, Stede Bonnet has rehearsed his apology both in his head and to any sorry member of his crew unlucky enough to be around when Stede was muttering apologies and explanations to his crew. 'Buttons! How does this sound: Edward, I am so, so...' At last, Stede Bonnet and his crew had reached Blackbeard's ship- with some secret help from Jim helping the crew board. But all efforts to take back the ship covertly were ruined once Izzy caught sight of Stede Bonnet's crew, and immediately called for their capture. Jim and Fang played along, but insisted that Stede be taken to see their captain. Izzy had responded with a snarl, 'Oh yes. I'm sure Blackbeard will be very happy to see Bonnet.'

Now, Stede had been expecting some anger from Edward, definitely some unkind words and threats of violence. But Stede's apology got stuck in his throat the second he lay eyes on the man that haunted both his dreams and nightmares the past few months.

All Stede Bonnet could mutter was a soft "Ed" before Edward Teach drew his sword and charged straight toward Stede.

Now, Stede could admit his swordsmanship had improved a lot since he first began his pirating career, but it would take a long time before his skills could match Edward's years of experience. Even so, Stede knew whatever Edward had planned for him he would accept. He would not fight back nor do anything that would hurt Edward more than Stede already had.

That's not to say he didn't run for his sorry life.

"Ed! Ed! If you would just-" Stede narrowly avoided what would have been a lethal swipe to his neck. "-if you would just let me explain!"

"You're a dead man, Bonnet!"

"Please! I'm-" another swipe. "I really am so-" a jab from Ed's sword that struck a beam. Stede let out a shriek and continued to evade Edward's deadly thrusts. Both crewmates watched with intrigue, eager to find out if Stede Bonnet would live long enough to confess his feelings.

The minutes turned to an hour of Edward chasing Stede on the deck of his stolen ship. Fortunately for Stede, he hadn't shown Edward all of his nifty hiding spots. Stede managed to get out of Edward's line of sight long enough to sneak into a nook behind the wheel of the ship, just below the mast.

A confused, exhausted, and most of all, frustrated Edward Teach stalked the deck, searching for where he could've missed Stede slip away.

""Stede Bonnet! Come out and face me like a real pirate!" Edward choked out. The kohl running down his face from sweat and what might have been tears if one got a close enough look at him. The specter that left a deep wound in his tattered heart has at last reappeared before him like a ghostly apparition. And this time, Edward would not let it, let him, let Stede get away.

"Except your not a real pirate are you? You're just a bored little rich boy. Playing pretend with all your fancy toys.

"Well, I threw away all your toys, Bonnet. Did to them the same thing I'm going to do to you. Now come out!"

There are pleas coming from both Stede's crew and Edward's. The crew of the Revenge is standing at the back of Blackbeard's ship, being "held-hostage" by the Kraken's crew (Fang and Jim are half-heartedly holding a rope around the Revenge crew members.) Oluwande yells, "Edward, you've got to hear him out!" "Give the guy a chance," exclaims Frenchie. "I mean, he did come all this way to find you," he adds.

"Edward is dead!" Blackbead snaps back. His voice like a vicious bite. "Stede Bonnet made sure of that."

BEE DYING OF AN LSD OVERDOSE.... incredible. All those comics are cool ty for the go-over! It's really cool how they had a fan creator join the official team :]] most of what I know about sonic is from this cartoon my family had on dvd as a kid called sonic uhhhhhh I don't remember but it had sonic like have two siblings and they were royalty but then got orphaned and became like a band. It sure was.

It's really cool to learn about the other aspects!! :D could you tell me about silver? His design is really cool

Sonic Underground! It was made by the same people as SatAM and AoStH but at a later time! It sure was something but I’m still kinda miffed it just got cancelled mid everything so there was never a conclusion to the story.

Silver!! My boi!!

Silver first originated in the game Sonic the Hedgehog, more commonly known as Sonic 06! This game was meant to be an epic 15th anniversary semi-reboot of the series, with updated designs, a new art direction and next gen graphics. The game was incredibly rushed though and ended up buggy dumpster fire that retconned itself in the end, but the one shining star it game us was Silver! (And a banging soundtrack! I attached the main character themes as examples)

In Sonic 06, Silver has Psychic powers that allow him to use psychokinesis to move objects and fly. He comes from the future, about 200 years from Sonic’s timeline and lives in an Apocalyptic world ravaged by a giant fire spirit known is Iblis, which can be knocked down temporarily but never truly defeated. Silver and his best friend Blaze the Cat roam the fiery skyscraper wastelands of the future to defeat Iblis each time he reappears. (I should note, Blaze did not first appear in this game. She had her own game she co-starred with Sonic in, Sonic Rush, in which she is a flame wielding princess from another world called the Sol Dimension where she guards her dimension’s version of the Chaos Emeralds. The only thing in common here is that 06 Blaze also has fire powers. Apparently 06 was supposed to tie into Rush but it got scrapped mid development)

Silver despairs about how they can never beat Iblis until an incredibly evil looking dude called Mephiles shows up, offering Silver a way to stop Iblis for good, by changing the past. He shows Silver an image of Sonic surrounded by fire, telling him that this blue hedgehog is the trigger for Iblis’ release. Silver and Blaze get sent into the past to go kill Sonic but get separated. Silver spots Sonic from a roof but gets blocked by number 1 Sonic fangirl Amy Rose, who really needs to get glasses because she keeps getting her hedgehogs mixed up. She glomps Silver, slaps him for not being Sonic, then drags him off to help her find Sonic after which she’ll help Silver find that guy he’s looking for. Silver and Amy eventually find Sonic, at which point Silver almost kills Sonic before Amy steps in and Silver ends up having a crisis about the morality of murdering someone to save the future. Blaze arrives and tells him they can’t just do nothing because that guarantees their future stays fucked so Silver goes to try to kill Sonic a second time except this time Shadow swoops in to stop him. I should note, Mephiles (evil dude from earlier) looks identical to Shadow because he ate Shadow’s… shadow. So he’s just a greyscale version with no mouth. Silver goes “What the fuck Mephiles” and Shadow kicks him in the head. Then they go to the past so Shadow can show Silver what Mephiles’ real deal is (surprise he’s evil and also one half of the god Solaris, the other being Iblis). Silver, having now seen the Original sealing of Iblis and how to time travel at will using Chaos Emeralds, goes back to the Future with Blaze and tries to seal Iblis inside of himself. This does not work because soul bonding with an ancient fire god has standards and not just anyone will do. Blaze reasons “I have fire powers, this is a fire spirit, let me try!” This works and Blaze asks Silver to seal her and Iblis in another Dimension but Silver can’t do it because he would be losing his only friend in the world, Blaze tells him he’ll be okay and fades out of existence. We do not have a canon explanation for what this means for her, but commonly accepted fanon is that she sealed herself away and when all of time and space reboots itself st the end of the game that somehow forms the Sol Dimension, leading into Sonic Rush.

The issue with all of what I just told you is the aforementioned end game reboot, where all the events of the game literally never happen. This meant that after this game we didn’t really know what was gonna happen with Silver. But never fear! Shitty PSP racing games are here! Sonic Rivals for the Playstation Portable was released not long after 06 and features a different version of Silver, who is trying to stop an evil descendant of Eggman, known as Eggman Nega feom fucking shit up. This Silver has not been to the past before and knows none of the other characters, so essentially we’re starting from 0 again! This game was followed by Sonic Rivals 2, an equally meh game but once again featuring Silver! During these games, Silver becomes friends with the rest of the cast, especially Espio the Chameleon (afaik they kinda bond at the end of the second game over letting Eggman Nega rot in what is effectively hell)

Silver then makes a few sparse appearances as an unlockable character in various games’ multiplayer modes, such as the Riders games and Sonic and the Black Knight. He also made a small appearance in Sonic Colours for the DS, specifically being paired up again with Blaze, who is once again the princess of the Sol Dimension. They do not know each other but feel a certain draw to each other, both being not from around here in a way. They would later be shown paired up frequently in various games, including the olympics spinoffs, Sonic Generations and Team Sonic Racing. Similarly, they’re depicted as decently close friends in the IDW comics, where they can frequently be seen together!

Silver is younger than Sonic, being about 14 and a bit more naive, though he’s a good kid. He is very serious at first, both in 06 and the Rivals games, because he isn’t friends with any of these people and also trying to prevent an apocalypse, but he’s lightened up quite a bit in more recent iterations! He can be a bit overzealous and loud but he also has lots of moments of just revelling in the nature and people of the past, having grown up in an apocalypse. He loves gardening because it feels like he’s helping bring more life into the world

His design is also just really cool, with the boots and the gorgeous colour scheme! His shoe soles are some of my favourites design-wise, they have little turquoise hexagons! (Yes, shoe soles can be a fairly intricate part of a character’s design, even if they’re rarely seen on most characters. Silver is an exception because he loves floating everywhere hshdhdhd)

Silver has a slightly different story in the Archie comics, still very in line with his 06 origins but tailored to the comics. He comes from a ravaged future with only 2 other people who mentor him. His self imposed mission in the past is to find the traitor that is supposedly behind the Freedom Fighters, Sonic’s friend group/allies, falling apart and leaving the world in ruin. He keeps coming back with kinda shoddy evidence, accusing one of Sonic’s friends of being the traitor and is continuously proven wrong, until he stakes his time travel ability on another wrong traitor. He accuses Sonic’s friend Antoine of being the traitor, to which Sonic drags him by the quills to show him Antoine, in a coma after being severely injured while fighting Eggman. At this point Silver is stuck in the past and becomes friends with a few other outliers, like a reformed version of Metal Sonic and Nicole, the city’s AI whom the populace is starting to mistrust due to her artificial nature being reminiscent of Eggman’s entire schtick. Later on time portals start popping up at random, and Silver tasks himself with finding and closing them, as leaving them open could have catastrophic consequences. From this point he pops in occasionally with a time portal to help out the current timeline, slowly creating a better and better future.

Mosaic Broken Hearts

Summary: More secrets spill out the more your relationship with Bucky grows

Word Count: 4.4k

And away, and away we go!

__

Bright flashes of light, explosions, blood spattered everywhere, pain, indescribable pain. You screamed for it to stop.

“Hey,” a voice was calling out, a hand nudging at you. “Hey! Y/N! C’mon!”

You screamed louder as your eyes snapped open, scrambling to get out of bed, and promptly face planting on the floor in the process. “You have exactly five seconds to explain who the hell you are, and what the fuck you’re doing in my room before I kill you. One!” You made your voice as threatening impossible, as you pushed yourself up into a sitting position. Where the fuck was a prosthetic when you needed it? Could you kill this guy from the floor? Well… It’d be messy, but you sure as hell would try.

With your mind racing, it took a minute to register that your intruder was laughing. Why the fuck were they laughing?

“Two!”

“It’s me! It’s Bucky. You had a nightmare.”

Different flashes went through your head. Screaming in the lab for a knife. Bucky offering to carry you to your room. You asking him to stay. “Oh…”

“C’mon,” he said softly as he appeared in front of you. One of his arms went around your back, the other hooking under your left knee as he picked you up and set you back in bed. “Do you wanna talk about it, or just leave it?”

“I- Gimme a minute,” you told him, taking a series of long, slow deep breaths as the adrenaline pounding through your veins slowed. “Fuck… You’re just seeing every ounce of vulnerability I have, aren’t you?”

“Could have just as easily been me having the nightmare.”

“Only you wouldn’t have face-planted out of bed in the process. Or at least you would have been able to get up by yourself if you had,” you replied bitterly.

“Can you not play that tough guy role who has it all together all the time?”

“I dunno, let’s ask my pride.”

“I’m not going to judge you, if that’s what you’re worried about. Or think less of you, or whatever else your head is telling you I’m gonna do. You can’t scare me off, Y/N. The only thing you’re fighting here is your own pride.”

“Yes, I’m well aw-” you started, then sighed. “Thank you. I’m, uh… not used to this. So I’m probably gonna be bad at it for a while. But thank you. For staying and stuff. Now… if you wanna go ahead and be the vulnerable one for a bit, that would be fantastic.”

Bucky chuckled, his arm snaking across your shoulders to hold you loosely at his side. “I’m sure it’ll happen eventually. I’m pretty broken myself. And rumor has it you have a soft spot for broken things.”

“Aw, he pays attention, how sweet,” you teased, squishing his cheeks in your hand.

He chuckled again, and you admired the throaty sound of it. “So, the nightmare?”

You let out a sigh. “It’s always the same one. Two car accidents. Two explosions. Lots of blood. Lots of screaming. Which is ridiculous to me because one of the car accidents I wasn’t even there for. It was my parents, and I was just told about it. But I still dream about it like I was there.”

Bucky stiffened, and you assumed it was in sympathy to having nightmares about memories that weren’t your own. “And then the other accident is yours and Tony’s?”

You nodded. “Yep. My family should just stay away from cars. We don’t exactly have the best track record with them.”

“How old were you when it happened?”

“When what happened? My parents, or my leg getting blown off?”

“Both? If you feel comfortable. It’s fine if you want me to shut up.”

“No, it’s fine. I was… Let’s see… I was 11 when my parents died. And I was 28 when I lost my leg.”

“You said after your parents died you went straight into the Army. How could you do that if you were 11?”

“Okay, so I left out some steps. My parents died. I finished school. Went to Westpoint, became an officer, then got shipped overseas. All the while Tony did whatever the hell it is Tony does.”

“And you were 28 when you had your accident, which means…”

“That I’m 36, yeah. Still younger than you, even though all that time spent frozen and whatever magic in that serum slows the aging process makes you look about 32.”

“I was going to say it means we were the same age when we had our incidents. But thanks for reminding me that I’m technically 99.”

You snorted. “God, my boyfriend’s old.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Shit… Jumped to conclusions… Fuck, sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I, uh, it’s fine. It’s more than fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I happen to like you quite a bit, Y/N. In case I haven’t made that obvious.”

“Good. Cuz I happen to like you quite a bit as well.”

~~~

Waking up in the morning with Bucky’s arm thrown around you was nice in a way you didn’t expect. While your friendship with him up until this point had already made you feel better than you had in longer than you could remember, the dating part was already adding to that feeling, even though it’d only been a handful of hours since you made the change from friends to boyfriends, most of which had been spent sleeping through the night. Bucky made you feel seen in a way you weren’t used to, and while it scared you, it also thrilled you. And it was more than just being able to see you. He understood you. He understood your pain. And it didn’t scare him. It was a relief to not feel so fucking alone, or have to put up a front.

Your problem now was not wanting to wake him up. He looked so peaceful, the long locks of brown hair acting as a curtain in front of his face. You knew if those fluttering eyelids flashed open, you’d find the most stunning pair of blue eyes, which was quite the statement considering you’ve known Steve for five years. Was it an unspoken requirement that you had to be god-level hot to be a super soldier? Or did the serum do that? Either way, it was grossly unfair.

You were awake, and your stomach was growling, and now you were in a predicament. One, despite your hunger, you didn’t want to leave your bed. There was a hot man in it with his arm flung around you. Two, getting out of bed when your prosthetic limb was still in the lab wasn’t going to be an easy task, unless you woke up said hot man sleeping in your bed. Which you didn’t want to do, because A.) he looked so peaceful and B.) you knew how hard peaceful sleep was to come by, so you didn’t want to be the one to ruin it for him. But god damn, you needed food. And to get to the lab to build a new leg.

It was fine. You could do this. You could get across the room to your closet where you had a pair of crutches without waking Bucky in the process. You were the king of stealth.

Through some small miracle, you managed to make it out of your room without waking Bucky, leaving behind a small note as to where he could find you.

As you made your way to the giant kitchen area, you remembered why you usually either hid in the lab until you made a new leg, or used an office chair to scoot about the place. These crutches were a pain in the ass, beads of sweat forming on your face by the time you got to the kitchen, where you came face to face with what could possibly be your worst fucking nightmare: the full team of half awake Avengers staring at you in shock.

“Morning,” you greeted, making it the rest of the way to a countertop, and leaning on it.

Mumbles of “hey”s and “morning”s chorused back at you, with the exception of Tony who went “Kid, get a chair. With wheels.”

Peter looked up from his bowl of cereal. “Got it, Mr. Stark,” he replied before dashing off.

“Tony, that’s not really necessary,” you started. “I’m just gonna grab something and head to the lab.”

“Don’t play the stubborn hero act. It’s annoying,” was all he replied with as Peter reappeared with an office chair. “Thanks, kid. Sit, Y/N. Toast?”

“Thanks, Peter,” you smiled gratefully, easing into the chair, leaving the crutches leaning against the counter. “And yeah, toast or whatever’s fine, Tony. Thank you.”

“So cordial, are you sure you’re a Stark?” Steve teased.

“Ha-ha,” you deadpanned, scooting your way over to the table.

“Your leg okay?” he followed up with genuine concern.

“Which one?” you asked sardonically.

“Yep, definitely a Stark.”

“So hanging around the Manchurian Candidate helping you embrace amputee life finally?” Tony asked, setting a plate of toast before you.

“Actually it was an explosion that made me embrace amputee life. You were there, remember?”

“My brother, the comedian,” he said with an eye roll. “You know what I meant.”

You shrugged your shoulders. “I mean I guess. It’s still not something I’m gonna go around mentioning for the hell of it. Kinda like how you don’t go around mentioning certain things.”

“Mentioning your business isn’t my business, Y/N, it’s yours.”

“I appreciate the discretion.”

“I’m sorry,” a man spoke up. “Is anyone else lost, or just me?”

“Scott, this is,” Tony started, but thought better of it. “Fuck it, it’s your business, you tell it.”

“Y/N Stark. Tony’s younger brother. Ex-military. Not an Avenger, I just live here,” you rattled off the basics. “Oh, and my right leg below the knee is fake thanks to yours truly,” you pointed at Tony. “Well, right now it’s non existent because I had to stab the prosthetic I did have. Different story, different time.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tony interjected as people stared at him with their mouths open in shock. “I did not blow off your leg. Stark weapons did.”

“Same difference. And it wasn’t meant maliciously. Just a fact. Anyway, I’m pretty easy to find if you need me because I’m usually in the lab. Speaking of, do you need me today, Tony?”

“No, we’re fine.”

“Cool. Cuz I gotta make a new leg.”

“Aw,” Bucky’s voice pouted from behind you, “and I was starting to like carrying you around.” He pressed a quick kiss to your cheek. “You could’ve woken me up,” he murmured.

“Um… what is this?” Tony asked, waving a finger between you and Bucky.

“None of your concern,” you replied bluntly.

“Bullshit it’s not. Hanging out with him is one thing, Y/N. But whatever that is, shut it down, and shut it down now.”

“I’m going to say this as respectfully as possible 1.) because we’re family and 2.) because I don’t want my morning to become more of a spectacle than it already has been. But you don’t get a say in how I live my life. You had your chance to be involved after Mom and Dad died, and you ran away from that chance. And I try really hard not to hold a grudge against you for that. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me since our accident. But I’m a grown ass man, Tony. Who I chose to involve myself with is none of your concern.”

“Oh, so you’re fine with your new boyfriend being a mass murderer?”

You laughed. You laughed so hard you doubled over in your chair, your sides aching and tears forming in your eyes. “That’s the best fuckin’ joke I’ve ever heard!” you kept howling with laughter. “Mass murderer boyfriend, do you hear this shit? Cuz the rest of us in this room are so innocent, right? Cuz our hands aren’t covered in the blood of someone else? Oh, God! Yeah, you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that, Tony.” You snorted. “Mass murderer. Yep. That’s a good one.”

Your brother’s eyes flashed darkly. “So, you’re aware that part of his mass murder history includes our parents? Or did Sergeant Barnes conveniently leave that out?”

You stopped laughing as you glanced upwards at Bucky. His hands were gripped tightly on the back of your chair, the knuckles on his right hand white from the force of the grip. His body was rigid, eyes screwed shut. “What?” you croaked out in a barely audible whisper.

“Yeah. The reason you got robbed of a childhood with Mom?” Tony clicked his tongue, pointing at Bucky. “Right there.”

You continued to look up at Bucky who stayed in his frozen state. “Tell me he’s lying,” you pleaded quietly. When Bucky still didn’t move, you shoved a hand into his chest. “Tell me he’s lying, Bucky!”

Slowly Bucky opened his eyes, his face, his gorgeous face, a painting of pain and sorrow. “I’m sorry…”

You hated this. You hated Tony for blowing up your life a second time. You hated Bucky for not telling you this himself. And you hated yourself for daring to believe that for once you could be happy. But you’d be damned if you’d let them see you break. You took a slow breath, sealing yourself off, the walls building around you. “I have work to do,” you said, starting to push away in your chair, but Bucky’s grip still held you in place.

“Y/N,” he said in a cracked voice. “Y/N, please.”

“You have exactly five seconds to let go of my chair, Sergeant Barnes, before I break your hands. One,”

“Y/N.”

“Two.”

“Please, let me explain.”

“Three. I swear I’ll break those hands. Metal or not.”

“Love, please don’t do this…”

“Four,” you continued to count, feeling your voice start to shake at the way he called you “love.”

He let go, and you pushed yourself quickly out of the room, not daring to look back.

~~~

In the lab, you tried to distract your brain, but it still raced. There were so many swirling parts, and you were so angry that you couldn’t pinpoint what was actually making you angry.

Footsteps and a throat clearing had you snapping up your head, body tense, not ready to face either Bucky or Tony. So when you saw it was Steve, your defenses fell. “Hey, Steve,” you greeted half-heartedly.

“Hey. How you feeling?” he asked, testing the waters as he slowly made his way to you.

“I’m not gonna bite your head off if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Don’t think I could blame you if you did. What happened back there was… intense. Tony was out of line.”

“When isn’t Tony out of line?”

“Fair point. But hey, I’m here if you want someone to scream at. Someone to help answer any of the thousand of questions running through your head.”

“I don’t want to scream at anyone. Kill Tony, maybe. But I’m kinda used to that feeling. I just… Fuck, I dunno, Steve. I don’t know what to be mad at, or about. I just know that I’m mad. Hurt. I’m hurt.”

“So start at the beginning. Work through it.”

“It’s true, right? What Tony said about Bucky?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“How long did everyone know?”

“It came out when we brought Bucky in. So a few months now. Obviously Bucky knew longer.”

“Obviously,” you snorted, then sighed. “Well, that explains Tony’s feelings towards Bucky.”

“But it’s still not an excuse for how it came out. There was a way to handle that situation and that wasn’t it. So if you want to be angry with Tony for that, you’re well within your right.”

“Oh, I’m livid. Like don’t trust myself alone in a room with him, livid. And I hate the position it puts me in. Being mad at him for telling me the truth. Sounding like an ungrateful, spoiled brat.”

“You can appreciate what Tony’s done for you while hating the circumstances that led to it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.”

“I deal in absolutes, Steve. It’s what makes the most sense to me. Facts. Fact: my parents died. Fact: Bucky caused their accident. Fact: their death shaped the way I lived my life, and the way Tony lived his. Fact: Tony’s actions ruined my life, not once, but twice now.”

“And where does that leave you with Bucky?”

You sighed. “That’s where things get convoluted. Fact: he was brainwashed as the Winter Soldier. So I can’t hold that against him. And I don’t. Me knowing Bucky caused their accident doesn’t make them less dead. So as stupid as it seems, I’m not mad about that. I’m mad he didn’t tell me himself. But even then? Part of me can still understand why he didn’t. I mean, there were things about my past I kept from him. And at what point do you drop a bomb like that?”

“So where does all of that leave you?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. Part of me wants to clock Tony for running his mouth. Part of me is screaming that this is exactly why I don’t let people in. And part of me is still stupidly head over heels in love with Bucky, even though I feel like my trust in him got betrayed.”

“In love with him? Does Bucky know?”

You shook your head. “We barely started dating. And I mean barely. Like it happened last night barely.”

“And now it’s already potentially over.”

“Yup…”

“Well. And you can do whatever you want with this advice. But, it sounds like the real issue is with Tony, not Bucky. So try not to confuse the two.”

“But how do I trust him, Steve? I laid everything out on the line, and he couldn’t do the same for me.”

“Sounds like you trust him just fine if you’re able to do all that. So is your real hurt, with Bucky at least, in the fact that you feel he doesn’t trust you back? I mean, and correct me if I’m wrong, but this is just my observations. You don’t let that vulnerable side of you show often, if ever. I mean, everyone back there expected you to rip Tony’s head from his shoulders and you barely raised your voice. You have a very tight control on your feelings. You have a very tight control on what you let others around you in on. So if you allowed yourself to be vulnerable to Bucky, I can understand how that powershift makes you feel out of control. I can see how any indication of him not trusting you back is a huge act of betrayal in your mind. It’s like you loaded the gun, and handed it to him yourself.”

“Have I ever told you how much you scare me with how observant you are?”

Steve chuckled. “I knew Bucky a long time before he was the Winter Soldier. He’s not gonna be the guy to let you down. But me telling you that, and you believing it are two totally different things.”

“So what do I do, Steve?”

“You gotta figure that out for yourself. But talking might be a good place to start.”

“Thanks. Seriously. This helped me a lot.”

“Anytime, Y/N.”

~~~

Your next visitor was Tony. “So…” he started, peering over your shoulder at the leg you were halfway finished with. “Break up with him yet?”

“So… find a new way to blow up my life yet?” you fired back.

His jaw clenched. “Blew up your life by telling you the truth?”

“Blew up my life by fucking ruining everything, actually. I was happy, Tony. Actually fucking happy. And you let me have that for all of what? 30 seconds?”

“So you’d rather your happiness be fake? Be a lie then?”

“It wasn’t fake, that’s the thing! Look, I get that you hate him. I get that you and Steve were at odds with each other because of Bucky. And I get that hearing the news that he’s the reason for our parents’ death doesn’t make you exactly keen on being his friend, or having him around here. But, God, Tony! There were a million different ways you, or Bucky could have clued me in on things. And of course, you went with the one that would hurt him the most, not even hesitating long enough to think about how it would hurt me in the process. I knew you were a spiteful bastard, but this is a new low, even for you. Whatever happened to ‘it’s not my business to tell’?”

“That’s why I’m here to apologize.”

“That was an apology?”

“It would be if you let me get there.”

“Well, go on then.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I let my issues with Dad get in the way of me being there for you after they died. Not that at the age I was in any way ready or capable of taking on the responsibility of looking after a kid. And I’m sorry that it led you down a path of eventually getting caught in the crossfire of my mistakes with the company. And I’m sorry for how I handled the news of you and Barnes and the subsequent fallout.”

“Wow,” was all you could come up with to say. Tony wasn’t exactly the apologetic or remorseful type. He was the “throw money at the situation in hopes it went away” type, a classic Howard Stark trait Tony had been unfortunate enough to inherit, alongside the arrogance. And yet, here he was, apologizing to you for everything. And all you could say was, “Wow.”

“Yeah, great talk. If you connect those two wires, you should be good,” he said, nodding his chin at your leg.

You looked at it, “Oh. Thanks.”

“Yep.”

“I mean it,” you said as he started to walk out. “The apology? Thanks.”

“Yeah, if we could not mention it, that’d be great.”

You let out a small laugh. “Works for me.”

~~~

Your final visitor was Bucky. “Been wondering when you’d show,” you said, as you walked around the lab, testing the newest prosthetic.

“Yeah, I, uh… would’ve been by sooner but I got caught up in a few things.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, I might have gone off on Tony after you left. And then Steve might have banned me from seeing you until I calmed down. And by the time I did that, he had already talked to you, and Tony was in here. So I talked to Steve. And… yeah.”

“You mean I missed out on another fight between you and Tony? Damn.”

“Heh, yeah… And look, I’m not here to act like an apology is going to magically make this all okay-”

“Good,” you cut him off. 

He sighed. “But I am sorry.”

“I don’t want your apology. I don’t need it.”

“Then… Could you yell at me, or something? This eerily calm thing is really freaking me out. Yell at me, Y/N. Tell me you hate me. Tell me I’m the reason you’re broken. Something. Anything.”

You paused in your small laps around the lab, looking at him in confusion. “Why would I do that? I’m not the starry-eyed prince who cries when his knight in shining armor isn’t real.”

“I- What?”

You winced at your words. “Bad analogy. I meant that I’m not the type who’s going to cry and scream every time my feelings get hurt. So if you’re waiting for that to happen, it’s not going to.”

“Y/N, please… I don’t know what to do here. I want to make this right. Tell me how.”

“There’s nothing to make right. I’m not mad at you, Bucky.”

“You’re not?”

“No! You were fucking mind-controlled for half of a god damn century. And Howard wasn’t exactly winning Dad of the Year Awards. Fuck, I can’t even find it in myself to be mad that you didn’t tell me. I’m hurt, Bucky, but I’m not mad.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you, that’s the thing. And I know. I know I had so many chances to tell you, and I didn’t. But how do you tell someone that without hurting them?”

“God damn it!” you snapped, your temper flashing before you could reel it back in. “That’s not why I’m hurt, Bucky. I’m hurt that I trust you, and you feel that you can’t trust me back. I’ve trusted you with parts of me I don't let anyone even get near. Hell, I’ve known the original crew of Avengers for five years, and today’s the first time they figured out I’m an amputee. That’s how hard it is for me to let my walls down. And I let you break them like they were nothing. And as great as it is to feel chosen for once, I cannot fuckin’ stand that it’s one-sided. Trust me back, Bucky. Let me choose you back!”

He took a step towards you. “Love, I-”

There it was again. “Love.” God, did he know what he was doing to you when he called you that? “Can’t do it? Think you’re too broken, and you’re gonna scare me off?” you asked.

“No, that’s not what I was going to say.”

“Then what were you going to say?”

“I...don’t know actually.” He took a few more steps until he was mere inches from you.

“Well, you know where to find me when you figure it out.”

You turned to leave, but his hand wrapped around your wrist, twisting you back around the strength and suddenness of the movement causing a splintering sound in your newest prosthetic while you collided into his chest, both of your eyes wide. “Shit!” Bucky swore. “Okay, that was not supposed to happen.”

“Bucky…” you growled, both in agitation that your new leg was already broken, and in slight desperation of if he didn’t hold you steady soon, you were going to face-plant into the floor.

Thankfully, he understood the hint, and more. His arms snaked around you, holding you upright while his head tilted down, his lips crushing into yours. “Please choose me back?” he whispered desperately against your mouth.

“Not choosing you back was never an option, Bucky,” you assured, your arms wrapping around his neck and deepening the kiss.

__

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tiny dancer ; chapter two

Pairing: bucky barnes x fem!reader

PROLOGUE | CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 3

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: torture, nightmares, angst, let me know if there's anything else :) 

Summary: After being drafted for the war in 1942, Bucky goes to the ballet a week before having to leave with his best friend Steve. There he becomes infatuated you with the prima ballerina of the show, and he just has to meet you before his last week in Brooklyn is up. He hopes one day you would meet again; little does it know it will be 72 years later.

A/N: honestly I have no clue where I’m going but I’m hoping you’re all still following. There’s still soooo much to go into readers past and yep, it’s gonna take a while but I hope you enjoy this. Please feel free to give feedback, like and repost it would mean a lot! :)

MY MASTERLIST

*gif not mine

1943

Your head felt groggy, as you woke up. Not enough energy from an ounce of your body to open your eyes for the time being. The more your body woke up from the darkness of slumber the more the pounding of aches and pains became less subtle and started to fill each and every muscle. You weren’t sure where you were or what had happened, but you suddenly became aware that your surroundings weren’t familiar. The air was too cool and there was an eeriness from lack of noise.

Finally, you were able to pry your eyes open. The colours swirled around you into one, until they became to create recognisable shapes. Although this wasn’t somewhere you recognised, just as your mind had thought even before getting to look around.

You were laid down on a metal ‘bed’ if you could even call it a bed. The coolness of the metal began to get to you a shiver running down your spine and you attempted to get up. Only to be restricted. It was now when you noticed you had straps holding your ankles, down, but not only this; there was a limpness to your form. In fact, you didn’t have any real connection to your muscles. As if a switch had been turned on in your head you realised, this wasn’t a bed. It was a table.

Suddenly your anxiety rose. In an ill attempt to do something you turned you head groggily to the left, only to be met with machines, and hospital devices. You took in a sharp breath. This definitely wasn’t a hospital so why the machines? Rolling your head to the right with just as much difficultly as last time you were met with darkness. The faint sound of feet shuffling in the distance, and the whirring of more machines.

Almost as if whoever it was had realised you were awake, a bright white light turned on above you causing you to groan from the sudden contrast to the previous darkness. The footsteps became louder, as whoever it was approached you from their hiding spot.

“Ah you’re awake,” the voice started, “you know you gave our men quite a difficult time back there. Are you going to behave this time?”

Your voice barely was able to respond, only a hushed whisper came out, “Who are you? Where am I?” This worked to rejog your memory as you saw flashes of men running after you, as you had leapt from this same table. You had gotten pretty far and fought back fairly well but this place… whatever it was; was a maze. Realising now that amongst being kidnapped and knocked unconscious. Your first attempt to escape was probably why you were in pain all over. A vision of a few men jumping on top of you and beating you unconscious. Again. That must have been why you were tied down this time.

“I think you know the answer to that.” the small man with glasses responded appearing finally out of the darkness. “…We’re HYDRA, and you y/n...” He spoke reaching under your chin in a condescending manner. “…Were firstly going to be a pawn against your stupid Captain America. But you’ve shown promise, something our other soldiers don’t have.  Neither your American ones. My guess is it comes from your ballet training.” He shrugged as he moved away from you, turning and looking for something. Suddenly his hand was on a switch and machines began to rumble.

“Please,” you responded choking on your own words, “please just kill me!” You knew something was coming, otherwise why would be so aloof.

He chuckled at your words as he stood behind you. “The red skull doesn’t want me to do that, he needs more soldiers, and that’s exactly what we’re going to make you.” And with that you saw a metal machine slowly being dropped down over your left eye, and below your right jaw, causing your panic to rise. As quick as the unbearable pain started, so did darkness.

Present day ; 2017

You woke up screaming as the pain of what had happened almost a century ago shot through your entire body. You fumbled out of bed in a sweat like you did most nights. Heading towards your small kitchen in your small apartment. It was filled with greys, no life within in, you felt there was no need, why celebrate a life with no life?

Your life had changed in so many ways after 1943. You were one of HYDRA’S many toys, the many men that surrounded you called you tiny dancer, but not in a kind way, in a misogynistic arrogant way. Most people at that time though saw you as a weapon, something to be feared of, and they should have.

After you had stumbled upon the Winter Soldier on a mission in 2014 working as a freelance agent having cut your ties with HYDRA mere months before hand, it was only a few months when so had Captain America. From what you had heard amongst assassins under the radar living in Madripoor like you, it hadn’t gone well for HYDRA and now the Winter Soldier was nowhere to be found, invoking fear within many who had made themselves enemies to him. But you were sure his best friend would be looking for him. Whilst you had decided to go against helping him, Steve was not that kind of person.

Time had not been kind to you, you were no longer the frail girl who could fall in love in a week. In fact, you weren’t sure if you actually could feel love anymore. HYDRA had to make sure there was no collateral. Still once you saw him that night you wondered how amongst your many years with HYDRA, how you had never run into Bucky: The Winter Soldier. You had heard of the winter soldier, but you never knew it was Bucky behind the ghost of a person. Probably on purpose, HYDRA had been in your mind. Tthere was no doubt they knew who he was to you back then.

Not only did it invoke these thoughts, but it had led to your retirement. Well not your retirement, you were still about 25 years old on the outside, and though nor Steve or Bucky knew you were alive you knew how it felt to be in their position.

Hiding out in your small apartment in Madripoor was where you had spent most of your life since 2014, staying on the down low in case HYDRA somehow re-emerged, looking for revenge on a project they had wasted so much time on. You.  

You weren’t sure why they were so surprised people like you hated them with so much anger. They had taken your life, Bucky’s life and made you weapons against your will. You didn’t hold their values, it was forced upon you.

You shook yourself from your thoughts again. You only got sentimental after nightmares, and the nightmares had been pretty continuous after seeing Bucky those few years ago, so really you were sentimental most mornings. You think it had something to do with seeing him and how it brought back memories you didn’t even know you had.

Reaching for a bottle of water, you took a sip looking over at the clock that read 3am. You groaned, knowing that you’d probably never have a good night’s sleep again. Terrible payback for a terrible past. No sleep for the wicked.

You shuffled yourself back to your room getting into bed and turning on the tv as a way to mindlessly distract yourself until you actually had to do stuff.

A few hours past until it was 7am, and you decided you could at least go for a shower before your day at work. Working at a bar that opened at 9am wasn’t exactly high class living; especially when you had to deal with drunks so early in the day, so it definitely required more motivation than most jobs. You couldn’t do what you were originally good at, dance. And you’d decided you probably shouldn’t be doing what you were trained for. Killing people.

Turning on the shower to allow it to warm up, you rid yourself of your clothes, suddenly aware of how stiff your muscles were after another bad dream. Stepping in you let the water try and wash it away, and though it did help you knew it would only reappear tonight in another form of a nightmare. You closed your eyes sighing in content, and it did last for a brief moment until you heard banging on your front door.

At first you tried to ignore it, but it got louder and more aggravated and suddenly your heart had fell to your stomach, resorting to thinking of the worst that could be behind that door. Getting out you threw some clothes back on. You reached under your bed grabbing your shot gun, holding it close to yourself as you slowly walked towards the door that had started banging again. Times like this you wished you had a peep hole to look through.

You turned on your best poker face and opened the door abruptly to be more hostile. Only you were met with someone you didn’t know, though for some reason you felt you recognised. On the other side of the door stood a woman all in black, her hair was in a blonde bob and for a brief second you thought you saw a reaction flash across her face like she knew you too.

“Is this y/n?” she spoke firmly and with poise.

You raised an eyebrow, “Why?”

“Is it?” she returned her poker face staying on her face.

“Yes.” You huffed, the half-amused face falling from your face, returning back to the glare you constantly wore. “Who are you?”

She raised her hand for you to shake her face accompanying it with a small smile, which you hesitantly took.

“Nice to finally meet you y/n, I’ve been looking for you under Fury’s instruction for a while, my name’s Natasha.”

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Taglist: (let me know if you want to be tagged)

@maybe-a-marvel​ @thatredlipped-classic​ @flightsandfantasy​ @7minutes-tomidnight​ @rebelemilu​ 

A/N: Thank you to my good friend for sharing her dream journal entry and inspiring the feel for this one shot because every day InuYasha spent without Kagome must have been an unending dream.

Summary: There were others who loved and needed Kagome even though InuYasha was meant to be with her. He knew this, but gods, the cost of it. He thought he paid it in full by hardly fighting the Bone Eater’s Well, but now there were others who missed her too.

** Nominated for the 2021 2nd Quarterly Inuyasha Fandom Awards for Best One Shot 🥺💖

**Third Place Winner for the Best One Shot of the 2021 2nd Quarterly Inuyasha Fandom Awards. Thank you to everyone who voted for this story! I love you all ❤️ ~

II AO3 II FanFiction.Net II

Things to Keep

InuYasha lounged under the shade of one of many trees lining the river near Kaede’s village. Miroku washed his family’s night robes with Gyokuto strapped to his back while Sango burped Kin’u. It’d been over a year since the well sealed. InuYasha still thought about the surprised look on Kagome’s face when he was pulled back, but he prefered to remember her safe in her mother’s arms. It was difficult to do.

Kin’u burped and, within seconds, Sango had the newborn secured to her back again. When she kneeled by Miroku and told him she’d take over, InuYasha’s ear flicked. Despite catching their soft commentary more often, Sango’s tone was much gentler than the half-demon was used to hearing. Miroku made room for her effortlessly, choosing to help by trading clean pieces of laundry with dirty ones.

This was how they all lived now, resting by the greenery and exchanging cloth instead of sutras and oversized boomerangs. He wondered if Kagome’s days were boring like his; she always seemed frantic when he came to pick her up. Maybe she didn’t have time to think about them anymore. It would be easier for her that way.

Miroku shifted, putting InuYasha in Gyokuto’s line of vision. The newborn extended her arm out to him, and he was fascinated by the way her fingers flexed. There was more space between them now than there was last month. InuYasha had never really been around human babies before and it felt weird to compare the lethargic emptiness Kagome left in her wake to the enthusiastic growth of infants. InuYasha offered Kin’u a passing glance. He wasn’t going to tell her mother that an icicle of drool would fall onto her back soon.

The spring sun warmed people in its path and InuYasha’s legs didn’t understand the chill lingering on his torso because of it. Kin’u was gurgling now, gnawing on her fist. Miroku once told InuYasha how remarkable it was for him to tell the twins apart as quickly as he did, but the monk must’ve forgotten his nose. The girls looked the same, but their scents were unique. It was kind of like Kikyo and Kagome’s: similar but only on the first sniff.

The afternoons were getting longer again.

InuYasha opened one eye at the exact moment Sango began shaking out a small, fibrous white towel with blue polka dots. As if possessed by a demon, InuYasha was there. Standing by the river, standing before Sango. The towel never broke the water’s surface.

“What’s that?” InuYasha asked, arms folded over his chest. Sango quickly pulled the towel to her heart. The polka dots contorted in the slayer’s grasp, and her brown eyes widened with the tiniest hint of fear. It was as if she believed InuYasha’s claw tipped fingers would swipe it from her forever. As if. He wasn’t a jerk. Sango glowered at him anyway, firm. She knew what it meant for him to see this, and she wouldn’t let it go just to ease his heartache when it would worsen hers.

The two never spoke about Kagome and he didn’t want that to change. He should have wanted it to, but he didn’t. It hardly made sense, but he’d been struggling to make sense of a lot over the past year. His throat closed up when he tried talking about Kagome. The words refused to leave him.

InuYasha leaned forward, far from Sango but close enough to learn that this wasn’t the item’s first trip to the river. It still smelled like her. Bergamot and lilies and early summer mornings; half blue and half pink skies that fog never touched. “That’s Kagome’s.”

Without meaning to, he committed the thing to memory which explained why he placed it so easily. Kagome asked if he wanted to use it after him and Miroku’s run-in with the moth demon, Gatenmaru. The blood of that bastard’s human lackeys sank into InuYasha’s skin long before his humanity rose to the surface. The towel couldn’t have helped him any, and if he tried hard enough, InuYasha’d probably still catch scent of their blood like phantoms on the wind. The half-demon reached, finally accepting the school girl’s gesture, but Sango turned away. “Where’d you get that?” He asked.

“From Kagome’s bag; it wasn’t the only one in there,” Sango replied, submerging it into the river and forcing more distance between them. InuYasha’s brow twitched, but he doubted the demon slayer cared.

Brown eyes. Bergamot. Unwavering resilience. All of that flowed downstream now. He hated it.

“We–”

“Keh, it’s none of my business,” InuYasha spat, spinning on his heel. The towel was still his business. His arm felt like it was shaking even though InuYasha could clearly see it wasn’t. The plush towel sat behind his closed eyelids, opposite ends fluttering against the side of Sango’s hands as she held it in place. The polka dots grew and shrunk in a rhythm set by the rushing water. A budding mental itch grew to push Sango onto the grass so he could pluck Kagome’s towel out and run far, far away with it.

InuYasha swallowed hard, flicking an ear casually. Kin’u was there and he’d never shove Sango. If he grit his teeth, InuYasha could do it. He could continue letting the demon slayer turn what little he had left of Kagome into meaningless things to keep.

“With the birth of the twins, we felt it was necessary,” Miroku confessed as InuYasha continued walking away. If he stayed, he’d make an ass of himself.

There were others who loved and needed Kagome even though InuYasha was meant to be with her. He knew this, but gods, the cost of it. He thought he paid it in full by hardly fighting the Bone Eater’s Well, but now there were others who missed her too. Listening to Sango ring out the towel, InuYasha knew he was still paying his price. She wouldn’t miss Kagome’s scent like him, but knowing that another part of Kagome was leaving curdled his thoughts, ate at the same damn spot on his chest.

“Whatever.”

InuYasha heard Kagome calling out his name as he settled back against the trunk of a tree further from his initial spot. Like Miroku and Sango gave a shit. The sound of his name–the sound of her saying his name–lingered. Nostalgic.

The slayer handed her washed towel to Miroku, prompting an unwarranted pensive glance to be aimed in his direction. “Keh,” InuYasha huffed, turning his nose away from the monk. He turned it back in time to watch Miroku offer the towel a tender stare. Deep violet eyes looked as if stroking the fabric was a gesture that could be felt across time. If he hadn’t done the same sort of things, InuYasha would have scoffed.

Miroku placed the towel in the straw basket with everything else.

One leg breached past the leaves’ shade and a pair of amber eyes seemed to glow, overseeing a family that perpetuated the same cycle: Hand the husband something clean, one baby coos, put it in the basket, give the wife something dirty, the other baby coos, scrub.

InuYasha cupped his hands together before placing them behind his head. He closed his eyes once more, resting, picturing her running across the plush grass. Kagome waved to him and her hand practically skimmed the clouds. Her shoes never crunched down onto the ground like their friends’ straw sandals did. She was a familiar combination of green and white and black with a dash of red. She had a warmth that pierced through the arrow Kikyo used to seal him, every punch Sesshomaru landed, his own demonic blood, and now the loss of her.

An incessant jangling sprinkled like rain in his mind, wiping away at the sunlight and clouds that Kagome always reached. InuYasha blinked a few times, adjusting to this world with only Miroku, Sango, and the twins. “‘Bout time you finished,” he grumbled, standing fully in the shade.

“You know, an extra set of hands would be helpful next time,” Miroku suggested with a predictable waggle of his brows. InuYasha felt his own brows being dragged down; Kagome should’ve let the monk steal her iron cart and cycle away from them permanently back when they first met.

“No thanks.”

The days really were getting longer. The sun hadn’t budged, poised exactly where he last saw it. Sango snickered and InuYasha brushed past her, grabbing the basket of wet laundry and stomping from the grassy knoll to the main path. A stupid decision, really. The slayer’s eyes could have burnt holes through him if she’d been the right kind of demon. Even though she was a human, this type of stare would–

“Hey, InuYasha,” Sango began, and the half-demon let out an exasperated sigh. He fixed his focus to the huts ahead. Dark wood and reed mats and crackling fires.

“What?” Occasionally, a fractured piece of rock got stuck to the balls of his feet, and InuYasha was half tempted to kick one up to chuck at the trees.

“You can talk to us. You know that, right?”

“Keh.” And there it was, the block in his throat. How could he speak about Kagome like this? There wasn’t any room for the words.

“Is that all you have to say?” Sango snarled as the half-demon continued standing quietly, his expression unchanged. “Ever since the well reappeared, you’ve been acting like Kagome was never here! Don’t you miss her? Isn’t there any–”

“You don’t know a damn thing,” InuYasha ground out, closing the distance between them before the slayer could even finish. He stared down at her, but Sango met his glare relentlessly. She was the one who took Kagome’s towel without a second thought, Sango went through the bag Kagome packed right before their last battle together, and she was the person responsible for carelessly washing away the bergamot and lilies. “Kagome is safe and that’s it,” he finished and he meant it.

Sango grimaced, stomping her foot. InuYasha caught Kin’u watching them, thin brows scrunching just like her mother’s. “Oh, InuYasha, you’re absolutely insufferable!”

InuYasha placed a hand to his hip, yearning to step on a pebble. He scowled at Sango and gave the basket an extra sniff to remind himself how the scent of Kagome barely wrapped around Miroku and Sango’s. His body felt like a chattering leaf. “Did you expect me to cry or something?”

Sango sighed, walking past him and taking back her laundry. “No,” she mumbled, walking ahead of him.

Miroku stopped, clapping a hand to the half-demon’s shoulders. “Try not get too mad, she means well.”

“I know that,” InuYasha huffed, allowing the monk to step ahead. He watched the family, arms crossed over his chest, before picking up the rear. The five continued, a squeamish silence settling over them that left the twins lightly whimpering every now and again.

In a stroke of luck, InuYasha stepped on a rock. Kicking it up to his hands, he contemplated where to throw it. He tossed it in the air a few times. The silver ears atop his head swiveled, and a large grin spread across his features as he honed in on the unmistakable scent of a rabbit in the bushes. Wouldn’t hurt to spook the thing, InuYasha thought to himself, eyes on the forest. Just as he reeled his hand back, he lowered it, turning sharply to face Sango. She was pilfering through the laundry basket like a deranged woman. Ah, she finally snapped, InuYasha noted. “Isn’t there something of Kagome’s that you hold onto too!?” the slayer nearly screamed, thrusting that white and blue dotted piece of cloth like a trophy above her head.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” the half-demon retorted, tucking the rock in his robe. His hand glided past a smooth surface, something foreign to his clothes but close to him nonetheless. His fingers grasped at its binding. Miroku chuckled, much to InuYasha and Sango’s dismay. “What’s so funny, Bozo?”

“It’s just that there is a piece of Lady Kagome that you could never be rid of.” The half-demon squinted, his steeped ire pacified but not peacefully. Miroku inhaled theatrically, placing one hand on his hip and pointing his shakujo in an accusatory manner. InuYasha stepped back, eyes widening. Miroku leaned forward, revealing Gyokuto’s black hair from over his shoulder. “InuYasha, sit!”

“Ah!” InuYasha was instantly squashing his ears at the command, waiting to be slammed into the dirt. He never fell. A shiver sprinted up and down his spine all while Miroku laughed hysterically at his expense. The monk was doubled over, hands holding tightly to his dumb knees. “You bastard!” InuYasha roared, his fist already in the perfect position to whack some sense into that cheap excuse of a holy man. But then two big, brown eyes and cheeks that were way too round filled his vision and InuYasha stopped. Stupid monk with his stupid children and his stupid wife.

InuYasha was grumbling, sounds not forming words; thoughts running into dead ends. And then those thoughts were drowned out, consumed by the sound of his pulse, and InuYasha decided to share it. “I keep this!” He closed his eyes and held out a yellow book that read High School Mathematics: Quick Solutions to All Problems.

“Oh, so you did steal something of Lady Kagome’s,” Miroku responded, walking up to inspect the item.

“Uh, yeah. Wait, I didn’t steal it from her bag, I borrowed it from her house way before we met you lot.”

“Is that one of her school things?” Sango inquired, already mere centimeters from InuYasha. He didn’t remember her being that fast.

InuYasha shrugged. “Dunno, Myoga thought it had spells in it.”

“And you never gave it back?” Miroku asked, a whimsical smirk settling into place. InuYasha wanted to gag. “That would make it a stolen good.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s it to you?”

Miroku took the book from InuYasha, flipping through its pages. Some of them turned in chunks, demon guts and rainy weather having seeped through his robe at some point or another. “It’s weathered; surely Lady Kagome wouldn’t treat her belongings this way.”

“Hey, give that back!” InuYasha objected, attempting to swipe it. Miroku swerved, continuing to review the material like he knew exactly how it read. “I just forgot about it is all.” He was lying.

“I hope it wasn’t important. You know how upset Kagome gets about school,” Sango commented, her shoulders bouncing Kin’u lightly.

“She never said nothing to me about it,” InuYasha brushed off with a shrug, an odd pining for Kagome’s shrill nagging manifesting itself as plain as day. Miroku showed the book to Gyokuto, and she lifted a chubby arm out, her moist palm slamming onto one of the pages. “H-hey! Don’t let your kid touch that, it’s mine!”

Miroku ignored InuYasha completely, a warm expression gracing his features as he let his daughter continue her smacking. “Gyokuto, one day Papa will teach you how to read and maybe you’ll understand this.”

“Good luck, even I can’t make heads or tails of it,” InuYasha said, reaching out and successfully getting it back. The abrupt motion must have surprised Gyokuto because she began crying, and it didn’t take long for Kin’u to join in, and InuYasha let out another groan. This was all too much.

“Aw, I’m sorry, girls. Did the big dog startle you?”

“Whatever, let’s go,” InuYasha grunted, stomping ahead of the family once more.

The red of his robe leaked through to his vision and singed his cheeks. This conversation should never have happened; he shouldn’t have acknowledged that towel and he shouldn’t have gotten so worked up over the sit.

“InuYasha, slow down!” He ignored the request, feeling as if steam shot from his nostrils. He had half a mind to make a break for it, already far past his limit. “Come on,” Miroku all but pleaded.

“What!? What is it that you want now?” The half-demon barked, shoving Kagome’s book back into his robes.

InuYasha couldn’t explain why he’d waited for the two. Miroku’s expression was squared into a place that InuYasha wanted to keep his distance from. It looked like he was about to spout shit straight from the Buddha. “My friend, please understand.”

“Understand what, exactly?”

Piercing deep indigo clashed against flurrying amber.

“That we inhale and must consequently exhale, never experiencing the same breath twice. This is also true for those we meet on our path to enlightenment. They too must leave without returning, but the life they’ve given us can be appreciated long after we’ve breathed anew.” A single bushy brow rose at the analogy. Miroku cleared his throat, continuing, “Lady Kagome may be in her world, but she has managed to keep a part of herself here nonetheless. Through towels or books, my friend, she is with us and we should value that.” He patted InuYasha, right where Kagome’s book lay underneath layers of fire rat.

-X-

• “i know better, but I still feel you all around. i know better, but you’re still around.” -taylor swift, “marjorie” •

— beach confessions.

word count: 1.4k

warning(s): mentions of struggles with self-esteem

notes: words in [ ] represent the editors’ comments added in post-production; words in bold represent those spoken in english!!

summary: juliet opens up during the beach confession activity on ateez treasure film.

a/n: watching this episode made me super teary :’) i hope you like this one! thank you for reading and feel free to leave feedback and/or chat with me!! have a nice day!! 💕💕

you can watch the episode here!

On one of their last nights in Sydney, the production team takes ATEEZ to the beach for a team mission they titled “Be bold enough to be blamed”, where they are to be honest with each other and confess to their blunders.

“Let’s listen to what each other has to say, no holding grudges, though!” Wooyoung says to them.

“No holding grudges!” Hongjoong agrees passionately before saying, “Forgive whatever each other confesses!” with Wooyoung in unison.

Juliet laughs. “Life is all about forgiveness,” she jokes, to which the leader turns on her and nods approvingly. [The maknae’s wise words]

“That’s right.”

She ponders over what to confess as she gazes out to the shoreline. It’s truly a beautiful night, the beach isn’t too crowded due to the late hour and the moon illuminates the waves. From where she is currently standing on the platform leading to the beach, she can still see the glimmering lights of the Sydney skyline.

Off-camera, the staff asked her to go first seeing that she is the youngest, but she was so nervous that Jongho volunteered to go instead. Juliet gives him a grateful smile and a gentle squeeze of his hand before he walks down the stairs from the platform and down to the designated spot on the beach, where more staff members are waiting with their filming equipment.

Jongho starts his confession off by asking them to scream for five seconds. Surprisingly, most of the members oblige without giving it a second thought. To her right, Seonghwa looks on in bewilderment. “Why are we doing this?” he murmurs, causing Juliet to giggle and elbow him softly.

“As the youngest member!” Jongho starts, but Wooyoung chimes in before he can continue.

“Come again?”

The youngest member laughs, already able to picture Jongho’s frustrated face. [ㅋㅋㅋ Wooyoung is funny] She is not disappointed when he angrily yells back a “Listen carefully!” in response, and the members dissolve into a fit of laughter at his cute reaction.

Despite the hilarious beginning, the rest of the youngest male’s confession takes a serious turn as he admits to having trouble expressing his feelings, as well as thanking the group for embracing this trait of his regardless.

Without realising, tears start forming in Juliet’s eyes as she listens to his heartfelt words. As the maknaes, Jongho is her partner in crime and a silent support, always there to encourage her. Despite his confession, she thinks that his company and friendship mean more to her than he can ever imagine.

When Jongho finishes, she reaches up to dab at her eyes gingerly with the sleeve of her sweater while the others shout praises, also clearly touched from his words.

Seonghwa cranes his head to find the maknae already wiping away her tears. “Oh no, she’s already crying,” he coos, arm reaching around to pull Juliet into a half-hug and rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. [Jongho’s touching words makes Juliet cry] This attracts the attention of the other members and the staff, and Juliet waves a hand in front of her face to signal to the latter that she’s okay and that the filming can continue.

“Aigoo, don’t cry, Julie,” Yunho, who is standing to her left, says as he strokes her hair. “There’s still eight of us left, you’ll be sobbing mess by the end,” he teases lightly.

Yeosang goes next, followed by Wooyoung, who confesses to being the one who didn’t do the dishes after eating ramen, prompting shouts of protest from the members.

“This is not cool!”

“So it really was you!”

Yunho leans on the railings. “Hey! You were the first one who got mad!”

Juliet smiles fondly, remember the chaos that ensued that night as they all debated on the culprit as no one had stepped forward to confess. At the time, it did cause some slight tension because someone had to have done it, and everyone was frustrated that no one was admitting to it. But looking back years later, it was a memory that the nine of them alone shared, no matter how many times they recount the story over their lifetimes.

She watches in relative silence during Mingi, Yunho and San’s turns, only bursting into giggles when the tallest member divulges that he accidentally kicked Mingi’s laptop the day before, causing the rapper to roar with halfhearted outrage.

However, the tears make a reappearance when San talks about his low self-esteem and thanks the members for their constant encouragement and affirmation. It genuinely pains her to see San, or any of the others, for that matter, to think of themselves poorly, because she couldn’t imagine any other people to share this journey with.

“You’re the best!” she yells with all her might, hoping he feels her sincerity.

The staff decides that she will go after Seonghwa and before Hongjoong. When Seonghwa’s turn ends, she races down the beach to give him a hug after his sentimental sharing. The eldest hands her the white flag printed with ATEEZ’s logo that each member had been holding during their confessions before running back to the others.

“Members! Can you hear me?” she yells as she waves the flag enthusiastically upon realising that they are further away from her than she had thought.

“Juliet! Please don’t cry!” San call out to her.

“If you cry, we’ll cry too!” Mingi adds.

“No promises!” she responds, laughing nervously and taking a deep breath. “I know it can feel weird having only one girl as your member, so I’m really sorry if my addition to the group has made any of you feel uncomfortable. I don’t think I’ve ever told you guys this, but I always worry that I’m going to affect ATEEZ negatively and be a burden to you...” [The youngest opens up about her deepest feelings]

More tears spring to Juliet’s eyes once the words leave her lips, and she pauses to wipe away her tears. A staff member discreetly passes her a tissue off-camera. [Don’t cry, Juliet...ㅠㅠ] She’s kept such feelings buried for a long time, not knowing how to approach this topic with the boys and not wanting them to feel bad for her.

But she’s seen the comments—comments saying that her addition to ATEEZ will only drag the group down, like how they wouldn’t be able to be nominated for any boy group categories at award shows as ATEEZ isn’t a boy group for as long as she is in the group.

Reading those comments hurt. A lot. Juliet knows that the boys are aware of them, and she also knows that they do their best to shield her from seeing them. But if there’s one thing she’s learnt from being an idol, it’s that no matter how hard people—your company, your members, your family and friends—try to protect you from malicious remarks, they will find you regardless, plaguing your thoughts during the day and haunting your dreams when night falls. They make her question if she truly belongs, even if she knows deep down that the boys love her more than anything.

“Please don’t think like that!” Seonghwa yells, his voice cracking at the end. The maknae can’t see his face at the moment, but she will soon find out from watching the episode that his eyes were glossed over, overcome with emotion.

She hears Hongjoong’s voice next. “Yah! Who told you to think like that? I’ll beat them up!”

“That’s right!” Wooyoung agrees, “Jongho will come and beat them!”

“I will!”

Juliet laughs weakly at their half-serious threats before continuing with her confession. “The last thing I want to say is thank you! Thank you for being nothing but kind to me since the very beginning! I was really scared at first, but you guys quickly proved to me that I had nothing to worry about.”

She stops momentarily to sniff softly. “I hope you know that you all are very precious to me, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to be my second family. And I’m so thankful that you got to come to my hometown with me! Members, fighting! I hope ATEEZ can stay together for a long time! I love you!”

“I love you!”

With a bow towards the camera crew, Juliet runs clumsily back up the beach where she meets Hongjoong halfway as he heads to where she previously stood for his turn. The leader wraps his arms around her.

“Seonghwa’s right,” he says quietly so the microphones can’t catch his words, “don’t think like that. You are never a burden, Minyoung-ah, you are just as important to the group as any of us are.”

Juliet nods, raising her head from Hongjoong’s shoulder to see that the others have joined them on the beach, pulling the both of them into a group hug. [Nine makes one team ♡]

Juliet doesn’t know how she feels about destiny, but she thinks that it brought her to these eight boys who became her second family. For the first time in a while, she feels like she truly belongs.

Mr. Park (M)

A Chanyeol smut requested by anon.

This picture really fucks me up, here’s my chance to use it!

And Happy New Year!

Working as the secretary for Mr. Park was a challenge, to say the least. He is very demanding and needing everything done in a timely manner, if not he would surely threaten you with ridiculous busy work or even being fired.

However, there was definitely one big perk. His son. The other Mr. Park.

Mr. Park Chanyeol.

You didn't see him much he had an office below his father’s top floor office. But when you did, oh man you forgot how to speak or even act entirely. You made a fool out of yourself in front of him more times than you could count, you’re sure.

He’s recently gone blonde, according to his father it looks ridiculous, but you just know the blonde and his skin tone would pair so well together. You’d hope to get to see him before it began to fade.

“Here.”

A stack of papers is slammed onto your desk, snapping out of your daydream.

“Take these down to my son.” Mr. Park says in his loud, demanding voice.

“Yes, sir.” You say without even thinking.

“Oh, and make sure he knows that is to be read over and signed immediately.”

He turns and disappears into his office without another word.

Well. That was, oddly, perfectly timed. You grab your stack of papers and head towards the elevators.

---

As the elevator dings and the doors open to Mr. Park’s floor, you feel your whole body fill with nerves. You’ve never set foot into his office before, you normally see him on the elevator ride up or when he walks past you to his father’s office.

You take a deep breath, trying to calm your nerves before knocking on his door.

“Come in!”

Another deep breath before opening the door.

Oh my.

The white blazer and shirt the exposed so much of his chest took every thought out of head for a brief moment. And the hair. My God, the hair was absolutely stunning on him, just as you thought it would be. You’re standing in his doorway making a fool of yourself, once again.

You hear him clearing his throat. “Is there a reason my father sent you down here? Or did you sneak away from your desk to come gawk at me?”

Shit.

“I-i - Yes.” You respond. Still captivated by his unbelievable beauty.

You stare into his eyes for a second and watch his face change to a more irritated look.

“Well, what is it?”

You jump, physically snapping out the imaginary spell his handsome face seem to put you under.

“R-right!” You walk closer to his desk and hand over the stack of papers. 

“Your father said you need to look over and sign these as soon as you can.”

He takes the papers and leans back in his chair, skimming over the first page.

Again, you stand there and admire him. This is the longest you’ve been able to look a him up close.

“Was there anything else I could do for you?” He asks not looking up from the paper.

“Uh..No, Mr. Park, sir. I’ll be going now.”

You bow to him and he nods his head back, and you start towards the door, back to your desk.

---

You take a seat in your desk chair, preparing to complete whatever work Mr. Park has set on your desk while you were away. 

“And what took you so damn long? I thought I’d be leaving for the day before you got back!”

You mentally roll your eyes so hard you think if you did it in real life your eyes wouldn’t come back. You were gone for 10 minutes max. What a drama queen this man was.

“I sent you to deliver papers to my son, not everyone in the damn building! Since you think you can half ass your job while you’re working on my time, surely you won’t have a problem finishing some extra paperwork tonight on your time.”

And with that he’s gone down the hall to where you assume a meeting is about to take place. 

Great.

---

“Have a good night! Make sure all of this gets completed before you leave.” Mr. Park places another stack of papers on your desk, this time much more thick.

You take a quick glance and see a lot of blank spaces, meaning you’ll be doing a lot of writing. If it wasn't for the great pay and benefits and ridiculously hot son, you would've been applied to a new job.

About 4 pages in you hear the elevator ding and you look up and his blonde hair catches your attention. Your heart starts pounding in your chest. Did he come here to see you? No, of course. That’d be a dream though.

“What are you still doing up here?” He asks, with a lifted brow.

“Just s-some extra work. What brings you up here this time of night?” You muster up the courage to ask.

“Just came to drop off these papers that you brought down earlier.”

He disappears and reappears from his father’s office. 

He glances over your shoulder at the papers. “You know, if you want to bring those down to my office, I can help you finish them. After all it’s my fault you’re staying late.” He winks, then starts walking to the elevators.

You scramble to grab all of your papers and notebook and hurry behind him.

---

In his office he actually helps, you were honestly surprised.

You’re so immersed in the paper, you don’t even notice him look up from his paper. No longer writing, taking his time to look over your face while you’re distracted.

“Would you like to take a break?” He suddenly speaks.

You look over to the clock, it’s already midnight. You’d actually rather not. But then you look up at him and his handsome face and you don’t want to miss this opportunity to get to know him.

“Sure,” You say quietly. “What are we going to do, it’s already midnight?”

“We could just talk.”

“What about?”

“Why or even how you’ve managed to work for my dad for so long? I’m his son and I can barely do it.” You hear him laugh at the end of his sentence.

You hear yourself laugh as well.

“There it is. That beautiful smile. I never see you smile.”

You lean forward onto his desk where you’re sitting on the opposite of him. “What do you mean? You hardly see me at all.”

He leans back in his office chair and smirks while gliding his finger across his bottom lip.

“I watch you more than you think.” 

You stare at him for a moment. He looks like he’s thinking about something. His eyebrows are furrowed, but he’s still looking at you.

“Come here.” He says, making a come hither motion with his finger.

You hesitate for a just a moment, before finally standing and walking to the other side of his desk.  He turns his chair to the side, away from the desk. You stop, standing in front of him. He spreads his legs and pulls you closer by your waist.

“I see how you look at me. Can you tell me what it is you think about in that pretty little head of yours when you see my face?” He asks with such confidence. Like he already knows what it is you think about.

“M-mr. Park,” You breathe out. 

“Don’t be shy. I think about you, too.” He pulls you a little closer. “Do you want to know what I think about when I see you in that tight skirt?”

You nod your head and he grabs your hand and pulls your head to his.

“When I see you in that skirt, He whispers in your ear,  “I want to bend you over my desk, push your skirt to your waist, rip your panties off of you and taste you before pounding into you until I make you cum all. Over. My. Cock.”

He lets your hand go and you feel your knees buckle before you caught yourself and lean back up. Your breath is shaky, before you speak.

“Mr. Park, I would love for you to bend me over your desk and do whatever you want to me, sir.” You say in almost a whisper.

You watch his lips turn into a grin. He starts rubbing his hands up and down your inner thigh.

“Tell me exactly, beautiful.”

“I-i,” You let out a long sigh as his fingers graze across your clothed mound.

You lean your head back, “Mr. Park I want you to fuck me on your desk in every way you’ve imagined” You yell out.

Mr. Park lets out a breathy laugh before standing up, his chair sliding back as he does so, and bringing you to sit on his desk.

He kisses you, you kiss him back. In a clash of tongues, he manages to undo the buttons on your shirt and his, before stripping you both of them. He kisses your breast that are peaking out of the top of your bra. You wrap your legs around his waist and pull him closer to feel his hardening cock on you. 

He finally undoes your bra letting it fall to the ground and returns back to kiss and lick all over your breast. He pushes you to lay back on his desk and began kissing down your stomach and pushing your skirt up to your waist at the same time.

He looks down at your black lace panties and back up at you with a smirk. He bites the hem of them and pulls them down using only his mouth. Once he reaches your knees he lets them fall and lick his way back up to your heat and giving a long, flat lick from the opening of your vagina to the clit. Your whole body shudders at that.

“You taste even better than I thought,” he says before diving back in between your legs and continuing to give you the best head of your fucking life. His tongue hitting just the right spot over and over again. You get that warm feeling through out your body, you feel yourself getting closer and closer. Mr. Park notices and quickly pulls away.

You groan and lean up on your elbows to look at him. “Mr. Park, please,” you whimper.

“I told you I want to make you cum on my dick while you’re bent over my desk,” he growls then pulls you off the desk onto your feet and turns you, harshly bending your upper body onto his desk. You let out a yelp and that earns you a hard smack on your ass.

“Scream as loud as you want, we’re the only ones here. I can promise you that.”

You feel his fingers sliding up and down your wet heat, then you hear him spit into his hand. You look back and watch him jerk off for a second, moistening his cock for you. You look up to his face and you catch his eyes already looking at you. You see his eyes completely filled with lust and you’re so consumed by it you literally let your head fall back to onto the desk and patiently wait for him to slide in you.

Then you feel him rubbing the tip around the edges of your heat gathering even more wetness for you. 

He thrusts into you, one hand on the back of your neck and the other with a tight grip on your hip. He starts thrusting at a consistently fast pace. The sound of skin slapping against skin and the faint sound of the desk legs sliding against the floor is the only thing you can hear. 

“Touch yourself for me. I want to watch you to touch yourself while I fuck you on my desk.”

“Yes Mr. Park, anything, sir.” You say panting.

You slip your hand in between your body and the desk and find a way to massage your clit at a speed a little slower than Mr. Park’s thrusting.

You start moaning out, the mixture of him pounding into you and your fingers on your clit increasing your pleasure.

“Yes, baby, let me hear all those sounds come out of your pretty lips,” he’s almost yelling with how close he’s getting.

He’s moaning now too. The sound of his breathy moans make that warmth feeling come back, spreading all over your body until you come completely undone writhing on his cock just how he wanted.

“Uhh fuck, the way you’re clenching right n- ohhhh,” he lets out a long throaty moan as he quickly pulls out and spurts onto what you were hoping was your ass, but considering you didn’t feel it, you know it was your skirt.

He goes to find his office chair and plops down onto it, his pants still around his ankles and his panting making his bare chest move up and down.

You sit up and stare at him, sure you’re looking absolutely wrecked.

“Mr. Park, that was-”

He cuts you off, “Would you like to go dinner with me sometime, my treat of course.” He says with a smile

You’re looking for words to say, but with him in his current state looking at you like that, all you want to say is fuck me again and again and again

“Well?” He chuckles, “I thought after this fuck you’d be able to look at me without getting lost in your imagination...we have plenty of time to try everything you’ve yet to tell me about.”

“And you can call me Chanyeol, love.”

193 for... maybe nanahiko? Really just do whatever ship you feel like :D

193. "Are you crazy? The kid is upstairs!" | VestigesTorino [Yes. OT8. The orgies are fantastic, and Torino is Holder bait, 8th and 9th exempt.] | WC: 2,222 of an OFA!VampireCoven!AU except op has taken liberties with worldbuilding.

TW: Blood-drinking. Outrageous flirting. Mildly spicy!

//

“Vampires,” Sorahiko echoes blankly.

He looks from left to right, trying to spot the differences between himself and the six adult men and one adult woman sitting at this round table. Most atypical appearances can be attributed to the strange and wondrous natures of Quirks, so Sorahiko could excuse the fourteen red eyes (every iris the identical shade) as a matter of Quirk heritage. However, none of the Shigarakis resemble the other.

They still might be pulling his leg.

The leader of the household (presumably) leans his elbows on the table and steeples his fingers. “Torino-san,” he says in a gentle voice, “we greatly appreciate your timely rescue of our youngest. And believe me when I say I would have preferred you stay ignorant of my coven’s true nature.”

“But the boy wants to be a professional hero,” one of the men interrupts. His arms are crossed, and his hair sticks up in rakish angles. An X-shaped scar has been carved over the bridge of his nose, just missing the eyes.

He sounds dismissive of the kid’s dream.

Fair. When Sorahiko had stepped onto the moonlit scene, the kid was frantically scrabbling at a thick-skinned villain’s hand, trying to save his bag from being rummaged. The villain had planted a knee in the kid’s stomach in an attempt to menace him into silence.

Sorahiko pounced on the villain, called in the location to pick up the too-heavy bastard, and escorted the boy home. He fielded questions about heroics and U.A. High for half an hour before they finally reached the Shigaraki compound.

And now he is here, trapped in a gigantic dining room, being told about vampires.

“We agreed to let him try,” says the singular woman sharply.

“If you three hadn’t filled his head about saving the world,” a man with a spiky ponytail shoots back, “then we wouldn’t have this problem. And you too, Yoichi.”

“Nevertheless,” the leader says. His red eyes gleam in the low light, and Sorahiko feels his skin prickling at the attention.

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Ah, who hasn’t heard of the toughest teacher of U.A.?” another man asks, sly and teasing. His voice is soft like the leader’s, but perceptibly younger. His coloring is similar to the woman’s, but he’s lean where she’s muscular. “Yoichi believes we should give you a head’s up. Toshinori is a good child, but even he will slip from time to time, and that will draw undue attention to himself.”

Sorahiko considers these seven faces. Slowly, he says, “You think he’ll be accepted into U.A.”

“Three of us are active pro-heroes, and we’ve been training him when we can,” the woman informs him. “I’d say he’s got a headstart compared to all of your first years.”

“My students have always been terrible. That’s what schooling is for.”

She flashes a smile at him, toothy and amused; his throat works through a sudden dry spell. Belatedly, Sorahiko realizes that every adult in this kitchen is eyeing him with intense interest. Even the ones that haven’t spoken yet.

Yoichi speaks again. “He’s smart, and he’ll be strong. U.A. will accept him. I ask you for your discretion and help, Gran Torino.”

He could refuse, but Sorahiko assumes they’ll simply kill him. Being blackmailed is a low possibility; Sorahiko doesn’t have much to be blackmailed about. And pro-heroes disappear all the time. No one really knows why. Principal Shi might demand an investigation on Gran Torino’s behalf (and possibly at the behest of Recovery Girl, who grudgingly acknowledges Torino’s efforts to raise the survival rate of U.A.’s graduates), but otherwise…

Still. Vampires. Another subset of humanity, among the Quirked and Quirkless. It’s weird enough to be true.

“Is this a verbal agreement?” Sorahiko asks.

A bark of laughter from the square-jawed man in the leather jacket, who leans forward and grins like a shark at Sorahiko. The light glints off the yellow lenses of his goggles, and the play of light and shadow highlights the muscle definition of the man’s shirtless chest. In a rich, low voice, he says, “We’ve got something better. A contract.”

“Using what?” Sorahiko bites back. “Paper and ink?”

“Skin and teeth, teach’.”

“Daigoro’s correct,” says Yoichi mildly, snatching Sorahiko’s attention away. “Torino-san, allow me to introduce my coven. I am Shigaraki Yoichi, second of my line. In the order of which my coven grew: Kenzo, Sanjuro, Hikage, Daigoro, En, Nana, and you’ve met our Toshinori.” As he speaks, he points to each person in turn.

He wonders when the kid got folded into this group. The kid’s affection for his home had been sincere, and he greeted the adults (well, Hikage had only come out of the forested grounds at Daigoro’s call) with merry cheer.

Is Toshinori even a vampire? U.A. conducts its business in the daytime.

Sorahiko nods in acknowledgement and doesn’t offer his full name in return. Instead, he says, “If I accept this contract, will you tell me whatever I want to know? About anything I ask?”

“Even vampires aren’t omniscient,” Yoichi answers.

Rolling his eyes, Sorahiko clarifies, “If the kid’s going to develop vampirism over the course of high school, then I need to know things. Like whether or not he’ll go feral over spilled blood. Or if sunlight’s going to be an issue.”

Yoichi’s smile is kind, and surprisingly not patronizing. “What we can tell, we will. The contract will have a mutual hold on us all.”

“What could break it?”

“A different coven, not that you should seek one out,” says Nana. “Trust us, we’re as nice as you get in the supernatural world.”

Sorahiko does not have many options. He hates the idea of agreeing to this without a safety net or a contingency plan. How can this woman ask him to trust them immediately? He’d have to be a gullible idiot, or a fool in lust, or...

He exhales. Sighing in resignation, Sorahiko tips his head to Yoichi and says, wry, “I accept the contract. Don’t kill me if your kid comes crying home about how mean I am.”

Yoichi shrugs, casual as anything. “Toshinori’s quite brave for his age, and stubborn, too. You’ll have your hands full training him.” He then stands from his chair; in measured, unhesitating steps, Yoichi approaches where Sorahiko sits at the opposite side of the round table. What he orders, Sorahiko complies with. “Take your cape off, Torino-san. Your gloves as well.”

“You may have to unzip the top half of your suit,” advises Hikage. “You won’t want the signatures to overlap.”

“Signatures,” Sorahiko repeats, pausing.

One glove’s already off. The flight suit’s sleeves extend up to his wrists, and they don’t have a lot of give. Similarly, the collar is skin-tight and provides ample coverage.

Daigoro playfully snaps his teeth at Sorahiko, once, twice. He says, “Paper and ink, skin and teeth. You forget already?”

The man barely flinches at the snarl directed his way. Seven pairs of eyes are honing in on the exposed flesh; Sorahiko shoves his self-conscious thoughts away. He focuses on the sheer outrage of being asked to strip by strangers, hissing, “Are you crazy? The kid is upstairs!”

“I’ll make sure he stays in his room,” Nana volunteers. She winks at Sorahiko. “We’ll be quick, Torino-san. You just have to keep quiet.”

“You—!”

She slips from her chair and darts off, exiting the dining room and ascending the stairs, floating off the floor. Sorahiko glares after her but snaps to attention as Yoichi stops by his chair, hip resting against the table, red eyes expectant.

Grudgingly, Sorahiko works off the second glove. As he does, Yoichi continues to lecture.

“The signatures can be made in two ways. A lighter bite will result in less pain, but will fade sooner. And I’d like for this arrangement to stand for several years, Torino-san. A lighter bite necessitates more renewals. Possibly, seven bites every two weeks.”

“And a stronger bite?”

“Seven every month.”

He scowls at the thought. The only silver lining he can see is that his suit will cover the marks, which will save him from his colleagues’ gossiping tongues. “Monthly, then. Are you drinking my blood? I don’t think I’ve got enough to cover seven appetites.”

Yoichi offers him a gentle smile. “A mouthful will suffice.”

Sorahiko works his jaw, and then he reaches backwards for the hidden zipper. It’s incongruously loud in the dining room; Sorahiko feels his face burning as he hurriedly rips his arms free of the sausage casing sleeves, letting the slackening front of the suit crumple to his lap. He hears an appreciative whistle.

“Daigoro, he can give you a run for your money,” Sanjuro jokes.

“He’s softer,” Daigoro deems, and Sorahiko bristles. “Must be the suit, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he snaps. “And proper hydration, asshole.”

“I’m not complaining!”

“At ease,” says Yoichi, calm, and that’s when Nana makes her reappearance. She swings back into the dining room, expression confident and content, until she spies Sorahiko’s half-naked appearance.

“Are we going in order?” she questions Yoichi, even as her eyes are trained on Sorahiko’s.

“That’s how it works, Nana,” Kenzo answers for their leader. “How’s Toshinori?”

“Watching his martial arts dramas. We’re good for like, fifty minutes.”

“You said you’ll be quick,” Sorahiko rasps, and his hands are clenching into fists, anticipatory and anxious. This is all so incredibly weird. “You all need more than five minutes to bite me?”

Yoichi laughs. It’s a bright sound, attractive and human and not at all like something that should be coming out of a self-proclaimed bloodsucker. When Yoichi moves, pushing off the table, Sorahiko nervelessly allows himself to be pinned to the back of his chair. One hand cards through his hair and lightly tugs; the other hand settles at his shoulder and presses it down.

His throat is exposed. Though Yoichi bends close, Sorahiko knows it isn’t the jugular he’s aiming for.

“Torino-san will need a moment to recuperate,” Yoichi whispers, and Sorahiko shivers, swallows past the apprehension, and spends half a second regretting his decision to let this happen. Yoichi adds, “We will not harm you, and you will not harm us. Your help, in exchange for ours. Let it be so.”

Teeth sink into the join of Sorahiko’s neck and shoulder, sharp and surprisingly hot. Sorahiko chokes out a garbled sound and jerks in his seat, until Yoichi’s bite goes deeper, deeper, and then Sorahiko gasps. Adrenaline bursts to life in his system; his Quirk sputters a reflexive Jet through his boots, but Yoichi’s slender frame hides an unseen strength.

He holds Sorahiko down.

He draws blood from the wound. Sorahiko barely feels the drain, fixated he is on the pressure exerted against him. Every single one of them is going to have the capacity to do this. If Yoichi, whose frame is most similar to En’s, can keep Sorahiko from bolting—Sorahiko arches his back, an involuntary moan escaping him.

It feels good. It feels really, really good.

Yoichi hums against his skin, pleased as punch, and his teeth retract. Sorahiko feels the tongue lap over the mark, heavy with spit. As Yoichi rears back, Yoichi rolls his neck lazily, licking his lips like a cat full from its meal.

“The saliva is a coagulant,” he explains idly, watching Sorahiko slump back against the chair, lungs still stuttering. A faint sweat has broken across his forehead, and Sorahiko distantly suspects that he’s going to need all the time he can get before the kid grows bored of his dramas.

“Oh, he already looks wrecked,” En observes. His awed tone elicits a laugh and encouraging clap to his shoulder from Daigoro, the latter of which requires En to brace against.

“You think he’ll last seven bites?”

“To be fair,” Hikage says, “that is a common erogenous zone. We’ll focus on less stimulating areas.”

Sorahiko, somewhat nettled at the implication that he won’t last (and what the hell does that mean? That he’ll back out? Start begging for mercy?) all seven signatures, musters his strength and shoves himself upright. He scoffs exaggeratedly, masking a shaky exhale with it. He challenges the coven, “Do your fucking worst.”

Yoichi blinks. Behind him, Kenzo is leaving his seat and stalking towards Sorahiko’s, red eyes gleaming. Before Kenzo can dive at Sorahiko and probably tear an artery out, Yoichi holds him back with one placating hand.

“Do not,” Yoichi warns. “We’re not trying to induce a thrall, do you all hear me?”

“Yoichi,” says Sanjuro, “if the man gets off, he gets off.”

A sigh leaves Yoichi. “Be that as it may. Please try not to leave him resentful for the months ahead.” He pats Kenzo’s collarbone; Kenzo catches the thin-boned hand and raises it to his lips.

“Understood, Yoichi,” Kenzo murmurs into the knuckles. He lets go, and Yoichi moves aside, now more fond than exasperated. A safety net, maybe.

In any case, Sorahiko gazes up at number two, who studies him back.

“The shoulder?” suggests Sorahiko, half-heartedly offering the right one up to sacrifice.

Kenzo inclines his head. “Just above the bicep will work,” and he goes on to prove his point, keeping Sorahiko locked in position, unable to do anything but wriggle and fail to contain strangled moans.

This is going to be a long hour.

Do you think the demon brothers would take advantage of the MC sleeping? Like, if they saw the MC having a "really good dream" they would go and made their experience much better 👀

WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT! 18+ ONLY!

I don’t think the brothers would do too much without getting MCs consent. Butt..... here’s what they would do:

Lucifer

The sun was already dawning outside but you were still sleeping, as usual. Lucifer decided to stay in bed for a little longer, going through a report, when he suddenly heard you moan his name. “Already needy this early in the morning?” he said, looking over at you. You didn’t reply. That’s when he realized you’re still sleeping. A movement under the blanket made him curious tho. Moving the blanket away, he saw your hand clearly on your sex. “Tsk tsk, that’s not how a good pet behaves.” he said, while moving your fingers towards his mouth. He kissed them, savouring the taste of your excitement on them. You shifted, missing the friction down at your need. With one hand still holding yours, he moved his other down to replace what he took away from you. With that you woke up, a smirking Lucifer hovering over you. “Good morning. Ready to continue?” Confused you opened your mouth to answer, but could only press out a moan when you suddenly felt his touch down below.

Mammon

Mammon got pulled out of his sleep by a rather... peculiar feeling in his lower region. Confused and still half asleep he looked next to him, only to find out that you weren’t lying there at all. That’s when the feeling down below reappeared. He left out a moan and looked down to see a quite big buldge under the blanket together with the feeling of something wet on his dick. He removed the blanket to make sure this wasn’t his imagination. It wasn’t. You were there, curled together between his legs, with your mouth on his... his... He felt the bit of blood that wasn’t used by his penis rushing to his head, his cheeks growing way too red. “W-W-What are you doing there?” he asked. You only answered with another lick on his manhood. “Hhhh~” he let out a hiss, his hand instinctively moving to your head. He couldn’t believe it, this was your tongue, YOUR tongue around his shaft. Around him. Giving him the pleasure he so desperately wanted. “Hmm... so... tasty...” you mumbled. It would have been obvious that you were asleep, but Mammon was already too focused on his lust to notice. Without warning, he came onto your lips. “Ahh, that felt-” he was interrupted by your snore. “Shit, are you sleeping?!” he looked at you, the realization slowly coming to him. “Fuck.” He wiped away the proof of what you did from your mouth and put the blanket back over you, as if it never happened.

Levi

“Mhh... so soft... so squishy...” Levi mumbled, his hands completely acting on their own. It wasn’t until a loud moan woke him up. He looked at you in concern, only to see that you’re still deep in your slumber. But why was your face blushed? As his sleepy mind cleared, he realized why. He couldn’t remember what he dreamed of, only that it gave him a nice feeling. But it wasn’t that lingering feeling of his dream, that he felt now. it was your breast.... under his hand. He freaked, pulling away his hand as quickly as possible but you protested with a grumble. “No...” He stared at you, his cheeks red as a tomato. “Please...” He took a deep breath. Do you want this? Do you want him to do this? “But-” “Levi...” The way you moaned his name was enough to convince him. He put his hands back onto your chest, slowly caressing the soft skin. You moaned again and he grew more confident, his fingers playing with your nip. “This is just like in ‘I worked at McDonalds but suddenly got reincarnated into a cute squid and now all these elf ladies want me to touch them’. Ahh, I’m so lucky, I always wished to be like the protagonist in that Anime.” He cuddled towards you, letting his head rest on your torso, his hand still on your chest as he fell asleep again.

Satan

You fell asleep pretty early that night. Satan was lying next to you, still reading by the dim candle light. Suddenly he heard you mumble something. “Satan... -ck ...e...” He looked over to you, seeing your eyes still closed. “What did you say?” he whispered, looking at you quizzically. You moaned, your breath suddenly going a bit faster. “Satan...” This time it sounded like a moan. “Fuck... me...” He felt his length growing. What should he do? You were clearly sleeping, but... should he wake you? “Mhhh... Yes... like that.” Almost jealous of Dream-Satan, he couldn’t help himself. His hand found his errection and he started to pump. Trying his best to hold back his moans, he kept watching you dreaming, wishing he could join you. It didn’t take him long before he came, quickly grabbing a tissue to unload himself on it. With a last moan from you in his ear, he fell asleep as well.

Asmo

It wasn’t unusual for someone to moan his name. But tonight, it was you. And you were asleep. He admired your face, deep inside a dream world. What was happening in there? Well, he was definitely part of it. Not that he was surprised, he was way too charming and good looking, of course you would dream about him. But now he’s lying beside you, your moans in his ear and his lust awoken. He couldn’t hold himself back, he had to have you. It’s only fair, right? You had him as well right now after all. His lips connected to your sweet spot, while his hands travelled down your body, caressing every bit of skin he could reach until he stopped between your legs. Your pants were already covered with your excitement which only stirred him on more. His mouth followed the trail his hands created while he pulled down your underwear. The smell of your sex was the sweetest parfume to him. He started to nibble and lick on it, tasting as much of you as possible. Thousand of years of experience met your body, your moans growing louder while you came on his tounge. He giggled, as he licked you clean of your own fluids. Nothing better than a delicious “midnight snack”.

Beel

He heard you say his name. Well, less saying and more... moaning. He looked at you and called out your name, but you didn’t answer. That’s when he realized you must be still asleep. “Mhh~ Beel~ Please” you begged him for whatever you saw in your dream. What should he do? Wake you up? His hand moved under the blanket, looking for yours. When he realized where your hand was postioned, he blushed. It was between your legs, cleasly giving yourself pleasure. Moving his hand away immediately, he kept watching you. Whenever his name left your lips, the blush on his cheeks grew. 

Belphie

He slowly opened his eyes to the sound of his name. He felt your soft lap under his head and slowly blinked up at you. Did you call for him? You didn’t look awake tho. Suddenly you shifted a little, your legs wiggling under him. That’s when he noticed the clear excitement between your legs. He was unsure of what to do. Can he just... no. You were asleep and that would be wrong. But... you kept moving, clearly looking for some friction. He couldn’t resist anymore, pressing his head against your sex, giving you the contact you were longing for - even as you were sleeping. You let out another moan, followed by his name and the appearance of a wet spot on your pants. With your body relaxing, Belphie closed his eyes again, slowly falling asleep as well, but knowing that this will be continued once you both are awake again.

IT’S @mattieswheelers BIRTHDAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVELY WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH

beCAUSE of this, myself and @notsomightymightytiger decided to steal tea leaf’s time travelling mattie au and create a whole entire fic with their ideas and also a design that @ari-is-anxious did a while back!! hope you enjoy aaaaaaa <3333 aLSO stabbies try and spot as many starboard references as you can heheheh 

this can be read on ao3 here if you prefer the format :)

tw: swearing, murder (it’s minor and resolved tho jsgh), religion (nicco my love read with care), blood, i really hope i haven’t missed anything please do let me know if i missed anything

-

Mattie had always been able to time travel. For as long as she could remember, her walk-in wardrobe had been lined with silver metal and held no clothes at all. As a child, this made it all the more exciting, though as she grew older and actually started to want to own clothes, it became a little inconvenient. She supposed all great inventions came with some kind of sacrifice.

Her uncle had made the time machine as a gift when Mattie was born. Her parents, like any basic adults, assumed the wardrobe-sized box was simply a toy and had taken no interest in it. Mattie, from the age of about three when her curiosity had really set in, was the one who discovered that the machine was in fact a working portal and not just a children’s toy. Since then, she had been happily travelling time and space during the darkest hours of night.

(You may have entirely valid concerns about a three year old having full access to time travel - luckily, not just for Mattie’s safety but also that of the entire human race, her uncle had set what were effectively child locks on a lot of the controls. These were diminished the day that Mattie turned thirteen. Uncle Calvin had always been a little weird, but he certainly wasn’t heartless.)

-

Usually, Mattie’s time travel didn’t affect her life. Sure, it made for some pretty awkward conversations as Mattie spurted some knowledge which could never have been explained through a textbook, but those could often be blamed on watching too much Horrible Histories as a child (“Mattie, I swear to God, you’re so bageling British, and yet you’ve never been there, I don’t understand.” “Horrible Histories is a masterpiece! You’re just jealous that you’re too American to have seen it.” “Actual asshole of a child.” “Farrah-!”).

It was going well until Mattie’s freshman year at Giles Corey. And then three of her fellow highschoolers were murdered. And suddenly Mattie had a way to prevent that from happening.

In some stroke of luck, she passed out at the sleepover and didn’t find out about the murders until she was sitting in the back of a cop car, driving to her house to pick up her things. She remembered thinking how weird it was that she wasn’t being taken straight to the station, but brushed that away in favour of ‘going into her wardrobe to change out of her bloody clothes’.

The time machine was cold like it always was and that forced her out of her muddled state quickly enough. She thought back to the victims. Chess. Farrah. Clark. Snapping on her goggles, she pressed a button, whirled backwards through time and space, and appeared at the gate to Riley’s neighbour’s house.

She really wished that she had actually changed her outfit - the damp blood turned cold with the breeze and sent shivers up her spine. The smell perhaps or just her sudden appearance startled the neighbour’s dogs into a frenzy. A figure, Chess, unharmed and merely confused instead of terrified, stood up from Riley’s bench, calling into the darkness. Mattie’s breath caught in her throat. The second figure, knife glinting in the dim streetlight, slipped out of the back door. Their red hair shone in the reflection of the knife with a sick kind of beauty.

Mattie could have stopped them there, taken the knife from the assailant’s grasp, prevented the tragedy of the evening. But she didn’t. She just watched.

Three minutes later, after arriving back in her present time and pressing yet another button on the wall of her closet, she watched the same scene unfold in the bathroom with a much younger victim. Twenty minutes after that, the third attack. This one was different though, an accident.

Still a little desperate and overly conscious of the police officer standing guard outside of her bedroom, she reappeared in her wardrobe, putting on a jumper before turning back time a little further. She appeared in a gymnastics centre as a girl around Mattie’s age did wolf turns on a beam. A coach entered the scene from the sidelines as the girl stopped spinning, her distinctive plait falling still against her back. Something in Mattie ached at the sight of Chess so lively and innocent, willing to give up her life for her dream of succeeding in her sport. As the two wandered into a side room, picking up water with a smile, Mattie edged forwards, collecting soft gym mats as she went. Within minutes, the area surrounding the beam had been double layered with cushioning, and Mattie could only pray that her plan would work. She’d seen enough YouTube videos to know what happened next.

Chess emerged again with her coach, hopping back up onto the beam with practiced ease. Again, Mattie was forced to just watch as she went down into her wolf turn, then rose up, did a split leap across at least half of the beam, and jumped into a twist to land on the floor. It was a messy landing, the gymnast’s ankle caving in on itself, knee twisting unnaturally in the air, before coming down hard onto her side. But, unlike in the previous videos, there wasn’t a resounding crack, only a weak cry of pain as Chess stumbled back to her feet.

Mattie grinned despite herself as snippets of conversation drifted her way.

“-not broken, don’t worry-”

“The Olympics seem out of the picture…”

“Get her a drink to numb the pain! Yes, limeade’s perfect-!”

Mattie arrived in her room again with a whole plethora of new information just inserted into her mind like it had been there all along. There was no longer and never had been a police officer outside her door. Her shirt was clean, her head undamaged. Chess didn’t go to the Olympics, but still did gymnastics in her spare time as her knee made a full and quick recovery. Farrah wasn’t dropped. Riley, in some weird twist of fate, went to the same therapist as Mattie. Life was… good for the Giles Corey Tigers.

Across town, the sleepover was still going ahead as normal. From what weird memories she just gained, Mattie knew that the team was at a rocky patch, their personalities still clashing in any iteration of the evening. But, with some relief, she knew that it would never in this timeline be bad enough for murder to even be considered as an answer. Her phone buzzed. The lies came easily as she covered up her mysterious disappearance from the sleepover she should currently be at.

Reese (school): Where are you???

Mattieeeee: I went home :( not feeling good

Reese (school): :((( that sucks

Mattieeeee: Ikr. I think it was the ice cream.

Reese (school): I told the others

Reese (school): They all say get well soon apart from Kate and Cairo who actually agreed on something for once haha

Mattieeeee: What did they say skjghdjh

Reese (school): “Tolerate the lactose, Wheeler.”

-

In her short-but-actually-quite-long-given-all-the-time-travel life, Mattie had witnessed a number of key historic events (and had caused about 85% by some small accident, but that’s a story for another time). The one which ended up unveiling her secret to someone in her actual life occurred overnight one February. Or maybe July. Depends. Time is weird.

She stepped into a small room, luckily through the doorway and not awkwardly through the window, as done many times before. A man sat hunched over a desk by the window, dressed in brown and using a pen-but-not-really-a-pen to craft a page of writing. From Mattie’s extensive historical knowledge, it could have been anywhere from 1000 BC to the 16th century.

“Hello, excuse me,” she began, “But I’m a little lost.”

The man startled, his not-really-pen skidding across the page and leaving a trail of thick ink in its wake as he blinked at her in the doorway. “Who are you?” He seemed perplexed as to how a young girl was standing there, in the opening to his room, in clothing not of any time now or before.

Something that Mattie had realised after travelling not only to different times, but also to a vast number of different settings around the world, was that somehow, she was never stumped by a language barrier. Instead she was always able to fluently converse with those she met in what appeared to her as American English. It was really weird; she tried not to think about it too much or it made her head hurt. She’d also learnt that it was best not to explain her full situation to her companions, becoming accustomed to pulling the classic ‘I’m not here, you’re just dreaming’ excuse. So that was exactly the tactic she applied here. “A dream figure. You don’t need to be afraid.”

The man narrowed his eyes, glancing down at the paper and then back up to Mattie’s face. “That’s a good line.” He scribbled her words down onto a scrap piece of papyrus. “Maybe I can use that later.”

Mattie grinned, sensing her chance to fuck up history just a little bit. “What are you writing?”

“How the world came to be,” the man explained. “God.”

“Ah, of course. The Bible, huh?”

“Pardon?” The scribe locked eyes with Mattie for the first time, confusion etched clearly on his face. She shook her head in response, having learnt that it was hopeless trying to explain events of the future to people who could never even begin to imagine the future that she came from. Seemingly satisfied, the man continued. “As the vision you are, I wonder if you’ve been sent to answer my queries.”

“Of course. Go ahead.”

“I’m struggling for a name. Not for the book itself, but just for this chapter.”

Mattie smiled as wisely as she could. “What do you have so far?”

“‘Generational Crisis’. The chapter describes how our world came to be - the creation of natural elements, the first humans, the beginnings of emotion. ‘Generational’ as it shall be carried on for generations, and ‘crisis’ as it’s a huge event, a crisis for the higher powers.”

Mattie choked. Her mind imagined a world where the entry chapter to the Bible was named as so, and it was a world of chaos and highly differing language choices. “That is very wise, sir. I have one suggestion: how about shortening it? Make it snappier, more catchy. I’m thinking…” She paused, feigning deep thought, “‘Genesis.’”

The man gasped, scrawling her word down at the top of the papyrus. “Genius! Thank you, child. I should write your name in my finished book, to show my gratitude for your kindness.”

“Mattie, sir, Mattie Wheeler. It’s been lovely to meet you and see your studies.” Over the centuries, Mattie had learnt to leave those she met with some kind of reassurance as the humane aspect of her hobby. “Before I go, I may be a dream spirit, but I can assure you that the work you have done right now shall be greatly appreciated for thousands of years to come.”

“You really are a wonder, perhaps a child sent from the power above.”

Unthinking, she snorted, replying, “Oh, boy, you are not ready to hear about Jesus.”

“Jesus? You mean my sister’s husband? I do hear some curious rumours about the man…”

Mattie hid her laugh behind a hand. Of course, this was hundreds of years before Jesus Christ came to be thought of. “I know, right? Jesus? More like JeSUS.” The scribe didn’t reply, mind clearly tired of its confusion and instead turning back to something it knew well. He picked up his writing patterns again. Mattie turned away, back to the doorway. “I will leave you to your writing again. Sleep well.” Leaving a small vial of dissolved sleeping pills on the desk, she stepped out of the door.

-

The only class that Mattie knew she would see Eva in was Religion. They didn’t actually share the class, but Mattie’s Religion teacher was Eva’s form tutor and the older girl often used the classroom as a quieter study area for her free period. Not that Mattie would call a class of thirty sophomores particularly peaceful, but apparently she hadn’t heard the noise of the senior study area, you genuinely don’t understand, last week Jacob Thomas tried to make toast using the sun on a desk and then, bam, the entire of senior year are creating chants about sun bread, it was so weird, Mattie, I transferred to a school of crackheads.

After her travel to the 7th century AD, Mattie sparked a sudden interest in her Religion classes. Eva, being the older sister that she was, watched closely as the sophomore stayed behind after class to search the Bible for something in particular.

“What’re you looking for?”

“Nothing!” Mattie didn’t look up from fervently turning the pages.

“Well, that’s a fucking lie.” Eva perched on the side of a desk, sliding across to snatch the book out of the younger girl’s hands. “Why the hell are you looking at what is essentially the movie credits for the Bible???”

Eva watched as Mattie bit her lip, eyes darting around the empty classroom. She thought for a long moment, visibly debating points in her head, before leaning over the top of the book to run her finger down a list of names. About a third of the way down the page, she stopped. Eva’s eyes followed her finger as it drew a circle around a certain name. Matte Wheyler  

“See. I was looking for that.”

Eva didn’t say anything for a while. Mattie waited with baited breath as Eva’s brain tried to make sense of what they saw. “Mattie Wheeler, what the bagel.” It didn’t bother to even be a question.

“It’s a really long story.” Mattie slumped onto the desk as well. “Hey, did you know that ‘Genesis’ would have originally been called ‘Generational Crisis’ if it wasn’t for me?”

After a glance at both of their timetables, they decided that their next lessons (biology and latin respectively) were worth missing. Instead, they stayed seated on a desk in the Religion classroom, as Mattie explained in detail how her name came to be in the Bible. It was refreshing to finally spill her secret after fifteen years of complete silence, and Mattie wondered vaguely in the back of her mind if one day Eva might be able to share in her time travelling adventures. That might take a little more explaining though, because Eva sure did have a lot of questions.

“So, you don’t change anything?”

“Not anything major. Like, I can’t stop Hitler or anything, that would change too big an event. Little things, however, like names and stuff, it’s fun to mess around with. Ever wondered why the Italian city, Pisa, has its name? I delivered pizza to the guys who were kind of like the government at the time of its naming. Hence, the Leaning Tower of Pizza.”

Eva cackled. “Wait, what?! God, dude, that’s nuts. What the fuck.”

“What can I say, all I really want in life is a little bit of chaos and also mozzarella sticks.”

-

Mattieeeee sent a photo.

evanescence: is that??? abraham lincoln????

Mattieeeee: Abraham Lincoln was an otter.

evanescence: how so?

Mattieeeee: Point one: look at him.

Mattieeeee: Point two: no seriously. Look at him.

evanescence: oh my god

evanescence: i cannot believe you have a literal selfie with abraham lincoln that’s fucking wild

Mattieeeee: Perks of the job :D

evanescence: literally hire me i want a selfie with cleopatra

-

farrah o’satanic ritual: yall i got out of the shower like an hour ago and i still haven’t changed

Imposter: What can I say, bath robes are in fashion rn

farrah o’satanic ritual: ive told you before clark stop pretending you know how to dress

Mattieeeee: Farrah did you not die in the shower?

katherine: ????mattie???????

farrah o’satanic ritual: no?? i didn’t

SmileyRiley: dang it

katherine: riLEY-

caicrow: riley i thought we’d moved on from murder

Imposter: Plot twist: Mattie was the murderer all along

katherine: CLARK-

Mattieeeee: oops-

-

It wasn't meant to happen, she swore up and down it was a mistake. A true and honest accident. And it kinda was? I mean Mattie hadn’t intended for the scaffolding on the new tower being constructed in Pisa to wobble, she’d already fucked up Pisa once in her career, but… Well, that's what she got for letting loose Giles and Corey (her occasional time travelling companions, who also happened to be cats) in the middle of a Italian city in 1252. She could have sworn the catnip was safely concealed in one of the pockets inside her jacket (which was filled with all sorts of trinkets from her travels in the space-time continuum), yet somehow the two had still gotten into it. She guessed that's what she got for not hydrating-feel-greating and eating-to-defeating.

An old citizen eyed her suspiciously, taking in her struggle with the two cats. Or maybe she was just more focused on Mattie’s goggles - she doubted anyone in 13th century Pisa had seen such a bold fashion statement before. The tower continued to lean in the background.

Finally, Giles and Corey settled down, each in a pocket of her trench coat. Mattie breathed a sigh of relief, which only got halfway out of her before she was sucking it back in as the old lady from across the street began to approach her.

“Young lady.”

Mattie smiled sheepishly. “Hello, ma’am. Is everything alright?”

The lady looked mildly amused. “I couldn’t help but notice your two cats going mysteriously close to the tower before it started collapsing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. My cats are very well behaved.” Giles gave a resounding yelp at exactly the wrong time. A hiss from Corey echoed from the opposite pocket.

“Well,” the lady grinned, “If that’s the case, why don’t you leave the animals with me? You seem fairly preoccupied with the tower - perhaps you can try and assist its reconstruction?” She held out a hand.

Mattie thought for a moment and then handed across the two cats. “Thank you ever so much, ma’am. I’ll try and be quick.” The woman nodded and Mattie sped across the square to the drastically swaying tower.

When she arrived back at the woman’s table, there was a second lady in animated conversation with her. As Mattie approached, she stood up to take her leave, pressing a kiss to the first lady’s hair as she left. Something was definitely fruity there.

“All fixed!”

“I’m glad.” The woman nudged the cats back to their owner, looking intensely over Mattie’s shoulder to the stabilised tower. “It certainly looks sturdier.”

“I should hope so.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “Sometimes,” she said, staring pointedly at an area on the structure, “I think about crabs.”

“Oh?” Mattie tilted her head. “Do you?”

“Yes. And often when I think about crabs, I think that they shouldn’t be in Pisa, and they most definitely should not be crawling over the tower.”

Mattie gasped and followed her gaze, muttering curses under her breath. “I didn’t realise I’d brought a whole crab with me! I thought I’d taken the sea life off the rocks!”

The woman chuckled. “You seem to be a strange character. Child, where on Earth did you find not only rocks large enough to support a tower, but also a live crab in Pisa?”

Accepting her fate, Mattie decided to tell the truth. “They’re from Egypt.” At the woman’s questioning look, she expanded, “I’m a traveller of sorts.”

“Oh. Well, child, you’re a gift of a traveller. Brightened my day. Italy these days is far too serious. Maybe we should put more crabs on the leaning tower, huh?”

Tucking her cats back into their respective pockets, Mattie allowed herself to laugh. “Maybe we should.” With a nod and a smile, she wandered off, eagerly awaiting her portal.

-

“Why were you in Egypt anyway?” Eva asked as Mattie recounted yet another of her time-travel-gone-wrong experiences.

“Library of Alexandria.”

“Oh, yeah, because that explains so much.”

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes. “It was 48 BC, Caesar was burning shit, this random Roman dude set fire to the library.” She pulled a book out of her backpack. “I saved this and stashed away a few of the slabs of rock. And apparently a crab.”

Eva took the book in awe. “Jesus Christ… This thing is, like, thousands of years old…”

“I know, right? Weird.” She watched as Eva flicked through the pages, tracing her finger over certain words or illustrations. “But it was such a beautiful library, I couldn’t let it just burn. So, I retaliated. Burnt the house of the soldier who set the original flame.”

“Mattie!”

She shrugged. “Setting someone’s house on fire is a survival skill.”

“Oh my God.”

“I would have done something more dramatic, but I had to get home. I had a cake which would need to come out of the oven.”

Eva laughed, the sound echoing around the empty classroom. They were skiving class again, this time PE, the one class they had which coincidentally fell at the same time for both year groups. “How are you so normal in school, but so badass when you time travel?”

“I dunno. All I can say is that cake and spite are my only motivators.”

“You’re like a superhero. ‘Time Travelling Mattie: The Only One Who Can Lead A Dual Life Successfully’!!!”

Mattie blushed, shrugging. She definitely needed to take Eva with her one day. A superhero duo. “Okay, that name needs some work. How about: ‘Sanchez And Wheeler, The Ultimate Time Travelling Duo’?”

“I think I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah?”

Eva nodded, shaking her hand like they were signing a business contract. “Yeah.”

CLOSE AS STRANGERS

(don malarkey X reader)

angst, potential fluff

wc: 4430+

you were very in love. in fact, you had been for quite a while. since your seventh birthday actually. it was a blur of memories now and you could just barely recognize it. thirteen years passed quickly. soon things began to change and the future you were seeing . . . it wasn’t very bright and happy.

donald malarkey (your best friend, soulmate, the person you were in love with) had always been very perfect in your eyes. there wasn’t much to despise about him. so you simply couldn’t. you couldn’t hate him. of course there were a few things that set you off. these were only little things though. for instance, when the two of you would share a milkshake or something of the sort and he’d accidentally drop it (he was fairly clumsy), or how he’d jokingly trip you (that ticked you off to no end), or when he’d notice everyone else but you . . .

despite these minuscule flaws you loved him. from his toes to the stunning freckles and ginger hair. he was as pretty as a picture. he truly was. you didn’t believe you were as pleasing to be around, but it was always a confidence boost when don politely asked your mother if you come outside for a while. you felt as though he cared when he did little things like that.

today was like any other. you sat on the front porch of the little house you had grown up in, reading a book.

you thought maybe that was why you weren’t as desirable as the other women in town. they all seemed so daft and boring. apparently these “men” didn’t appreciate someone who could use their brain. it frustrated you to no end.

your like any other day was actually very tedious. it was one warm day in june. your mother wouldn’t allow you to work because she encouraged you to attend college first, which you did, but it was summertime. there was not one thing for you to do. so half of your day was spent sitting on the porch, flipping through books you had appeared to have read hundreds of times.

the excitement bubbled throughout your chest when you saw a mess of red hair running your way. it was about time he had shown up. don ran through your front yard and up the steps. he stopped short of you, trying to catch his breath.

“good afternoon, ma’am.” the ginger managed to cough out with a very bad british accent. he never failed to try and turn anything into a joke.

you looked up from your book with a soft smile. you responded in the same accent. “good afternoon, my good sir.”

“the weathers quite alright today, isn’t it?” he questioned, sitting beside you on the swing.

“i guess it is looking rather nice.” you gazed towards the sky. immediately regretting your decision to be blinded by the sun, you blinked at him, seeing colors.

“nice enough for a walk?” don asked, dropping the accent.

you grinned, gently shutting the book before standing to enter the house. “let me ask my mother.”

“you’re twenty years old!” he called after you as the screen door slammed shut. your laugh could be faintly heard.

don gave a soft little chuckle at the sound of your own laughter. he thought it was quite musical. everything about you screamed peace. it was like tiny birds helped you get dressed in the morning, or mice aided you whilst cleaning the house. you were some sort of sweet dream. something that he didn’t even know he wanted, someone he didn’t know he needed.

he may have been smart at times, but he was completely oblivious to your feelings and his own. you hadn’t made it extremely obvious that you were infatuated with your best friend. however, you dropped a subtle hint every now and then. don would just seemingly dance around it, but after some time you realized he didn’t even know how love-struck you were. in fact, you didn’t think he shared that very same feeling. you didn’t think he even had a minuscule bit of that feeling.

don sure felt something, but he thought it was just nerves. his chest felt loose and fuzzy, his stomach seemed to have joined gymnastics, and he just couldn’t seem to stop wringing his hands when you were near. he didn’t hate the way it felt, then again he certainly didn’t appreciate it either.

seconds later you reappeared, slamming the screen door shut behind you. there was a distant yell within the house. don looked up at you with innocent eyes.

“she said yes, of course.”

he stood up with a grin plastered over his freckled face. you bounded down the steps with your dear friend in tow. as the two of you stepped onto the sidewalk, he looped his arm through your own. you appreciated this dearly. it was as close to holding hands that you were gonna get, but it was casual enough where people didn’t ask you too many questions. this action had also made you feel safe. like the two of you were just out of arms reach.

of course you never felt unsafe in don’s presence. you weren’t incapable of protecting yourself, he was just your knight in shining armor. don was there and you would never force him to leave.

“what book were you reading?” don asked, gazing over at you, taking you in as if there was no more time left in the world.

“the wonderful wizard of oz. i cannot tell you how many times i’ve read that book.”

don thought for a moment before replying excitedly. “do you remember when we saw the movie and you dumped that bucket of popcorn on that poor guy? his face is fried into my brain. that was truly one of your best moments.”

“i live to please.” you sighed, throwing up your free arm. “you know what i still can’t get over? how amazing judy garland is. like truly, she is perfect i think.”

“she may be judy garland, but she doesn’t have a thing on you.”

you ducked your head away as your cheeks began to grow warm. a little voice in the back of your brain was screaming at you to just tell him before it was too late. you didn’t know how much time you had left or what girl was going to come and steal him away before you got the chance.

the rest of your walk continued it silence. the empty moments were filled with tranquility. don felt as though he wouldn’t be able to experience times like this for a very long while. all he wanted was to be around his best friend. all he wanted was for you to understand. for you to hug him and tell him that everything would be alright in the end.

approaching “your spot” on this day was unlike any other. it was a beautiful maple tree in the middle of a field with one ancient looking tire swing. not a lot of people knew about this place so it was perfect to get away. to just be the both of you. this was your safe place. you loved it here. you practically grew up here.

you could faintly remember the moment everything changed for the two of you as best friends. the moment you fell in love. you wondered if don remembered it better than you did. you wondered if he even thought about it at all. because to you, it meant the world.

“hey don, can you promise me something?” you asked, hanging upside down from the tire swing. you struggled for a moment before jumping down.

“i’d promise you anything.” he smiled at you as you sat down beside him. the two of you leaned up against the tree, looking out over the field.

“promise we won’t ever be like my parents. that we’ll always be best friends. cause, my parents have no friends and i always want you around.” you wrung your hands together nervously.

“of course we’ll always be best friends. i promise.” he stuck out his pinky to you and you accepted graciously. “oh! i have something for you.”

don pulled his hand away to grab something in his front shirt pocket. the look he had on his face said everything. the excitement had built up at this point. in his hand was held a small chain with a locket hung securely on it. he handed it to you and watched as you inspected it. engraved onto the silver was “forever in my heart” with two tiny roses.

“wow, don!” you gave him a huge grin as he secured the necklace. you threw your arms around him, hugging him tightly. you spoke into his shoulder. “i love it. thank you!”

“happy birthday.” he said fondly as he pulled away. he stared at you for a moment before he made an impulsive decision.

it was quick and it surely caught you off guard, but don pressed his lips to yours in a fleeting motion. you stood their wide eyed as you blinked at your friend with burning cheeks. don’s face was almost as red as his hair. and you were sure you had never felt this way before.

even at seven years old, you fell in love.

you plopped down beneath the tree without a care in the world. dust flew up as you disturbed the spot with your presence. don stood hesitantly beside the tire swing. his hand reached out to hang onto the rope.

looking out over the empty field sent a warm sensation from the tips of your toes to the top of your head. the sky seemed to stretch for years and the grass was as yellow as ever but that never stopped you from adoring it. the soft chirp of birds was music to your ears. how could you ever learn to loathe a place like this?

“i need to tell you something.”

you looked towards don. he fiddled with the rope for a moment before looking up at you. he didn’t expect you to already be gazing at him with puppy dog eyes. the sight of you almost made his eyes well up with tears.

“i’ll always listen. you know that.”

“i know. that’s why this is going to be so hard.”

as he sat down beside you, you began to think. with the war going on you weren’t very confident in what he was meant to tell you. half the men you had gone to school with had already enlisted or been drafted. it was only a matter of time before don would be leaving too.

there was a moment of silence where the both of you gazed out into the open field. you had to remind yourself that this was the place you loved and that don was your best friend. he wouldn’t ever intentionally do anything to hurt you.

“y/n,” don turned to you, placing a hand on your knee. “i’m being drafted.”

you blinked at him once, twice, then a third time. he stared back at you with sincere, innocent eyes. he prayed that you would understand. that this would all be okay and your friendship wouldn’t suffer.

whatever preparation your mind had done was no use. not a single person on earth was ever ready to face war. it didn’t matter how old you were or how many horrors you had seen. don would come out of the other side of the war as someone else. you knew he would. he would barely make it out alive. you didn’t want to know that person.

“i have to go.” you muttered, shoving his hand away from your knee.

immediately you stood with don following suit. he looked so incredibly hurt by your sudden movements. this was not the reaction he had expected.

a part of you was telling you to turn around and hug him one last time as you stalked off. you knew he was following close behind you but you were hard to keep up with. it was like a giant black hole had materialized in your chest and was beginning to consume all of your organs.

a hand grabbed your shoulder and you whipped around at an ungodly speed. the tears in your eyes were visible. you weren’t angry. don took a step back from you. he frowned at your reaction but still managed to choke out a sentence.

“this isn’t my fault, y’know. i wish i didn’t have to go.” he tried to reach for your hand but decided against it at the last moment.

“i just hope you make it home some day. you stay safe wherever you go, kid. good luck.” you gave a small smile before turning once again.

don was quite taken aback. you hadn’t called him kid in years. it was a joke that had died away after being used one too many times. then it became something you only called him when you were hurting deep down. he couldn’t fathom that this was one of those times.

as you quickly walked through the field you saw flashes of your childhood before you. the good, the bad, all of it. you love it here. actually, loved it.

over the next few days, you and don had absolutely no interactions. you strayed away from him and he felt hopeless. any time you saw him approaching you, you ran in the other direction. however, he never seemed to chase after you. neither of you knew what hurt more.

all don wanted to do was say one last goodbye. he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to see you again. there was some part of him that needed to see you but he couldn’t understand why. so, he left.

the day after don left you had begun to regret not going to see him. that black hole in your chest never subsided and you were afraid it was permanent. you had never gone so long without talking to him. the two of you had always been attached at the hip. if he never made it home . . . this silence would become your biggest regret.

your family looked at you with annoyance as you shoved the food around on your plate. you felt selfish to not want to eat but you truly weren’t hungry. you weren’t tired. you weren’t interested in anything. you had no motivation. it was obvious.

“what is the matter, dear?” your mother asked.

“nothing, mother.” you set down your fork, resting your chin in your hand.

“elbows off the table.” your mother instructed. you did as told. “it isn’t nothing, y/n. you haven’t spoke a full sentence in over a week. you haven’t left your bedroom. i haven’t even seen donald around here. are you ill? have the two of you gotten into an quarrel?” your mother questioned you with clear worry on her face. the rest of your family was silent. they looked at you curiously.

“i ain’t ill and there’s nothing wrong with don. he’s gone off to fight in the war. we won’t be seeing him for quite a while. we’ll be lucky to even see him again.” you huffed, studying the table cloth.

your siblings exchanged a glance. they didn’t understand the war. their naive innocent brains couldn’t comprehend why the war was being fought or why some people might not ever come home. you wished you could be as angelic as them.

“are you infatuated with that boy?” your father asked. mother elbowed him sharply in the side as your head shot up.

“infatuated?” you scoffed.

“let me tell you, y/n, military men are no good to marry. i like donald, but he’ll be completely gone after this war. they never come back home with a sane mind.” your father pointed his fork at you with a raised brow. “thought it will be such a same. he had a great future.”

“yes, because you’re such a great judge of character.” your mother dismissed her husbands opinion with a wave of her freshly manicured hand. “when he returns home you will dote on that boy. i’ve seen firsthand how much warfare can change a man, he’ll need all the help you can give him.”

you looked back down at your plate before looking up once more and scanning every face at the table. they stared at you expectantly.

“may i be excused?”

dear y/n,

i know we haven’t been on speaking terms and i’m sorry for that. i miss you so much. you are my best friend. your opinion means everything to me, but i hope you have tried to come to terms with my absence. it’s been over a year and neither of us have reached out to one another. that truly breaks my heart.

i’ve finished my training as a paratrooper. i’m sure you’ve never heard of that before. to put it simply, alongside the men i have trained with, i will be jumping out of airplanes with a parachute. it sounds terrifying, i know it does. however, i have trained with the best. you don’t need to worry.

i have met some amazing people during my training. it’s safe to say i’ve also met some insufferable individuals. there’s this guy named skip. he really became my best friend over the past year (of course no one could take your place). you would love him. he’s a great guy. super funny too.

my company consists of mostly good men. i don’t think i would ever say otherwise. they have to be extremely brave to want to jump out of an airplane. i have really gotten to know these men and i’m sure i’ve made bonds that will never break.

the beginning of my training took place in georgia. we ran up this mountain more times than i could even imagine. it was so painfully hot everyday. i don’t think i’d ever want to live there.

today i’m in a camp in new york. we leave in a couple days. we’re getting on a boat that’s heading over the atlantic ocean. i don’t know where we’re going or how long i’ll be gone. i’ve always wanted to visit europe, but not like this.

i hope you’re doing well. maybe you’ve graduated from school. maybe you have a great job. maybe you’re dating the best man you could find. maybe you have a kid. maybe you don’t have any of that. what a shame that’d be. you’re a real catch. you deserve anything and everything.

even if i don’t ever come home, i want you to live the kind of life that was always meant for you. find a new best friend. move on with your life. show everyone that you can’t be walked all over. don’t think that it’s all over because you won’t be seeing me again. in fifty years you could have everything you’ve ever worked for.

i miss you. i always will.

-don malarkey

dear y/n,

in about two days we will officially be entering the war. i’m terrified and i know i should be. i’m just trying to push through everything so that one day i will be able to come home.

there’s not much i’ll be able to say. i actually don’t know what to say. training has always been rough. they claim they want us to be the best. i secretly think they just want to see us struggle.

there has been a lot of difficulty over the past couple of months. despite all of this, there’s been the usual shenanigan. skip and our other friend alex, have dragged into some odd situations. i’m glad they do though. these are some memories i’ll hold close to my heart forever.

i still miss you. you never responded to my last letter. unless you did . . . perhaps i never got your response. i hope you’re doing great.

is there anything knew happening in your life? did you graduate? have you met any peculiar people? have you met anyone who’s completely changed your life? do you still go to that diner? i know you loved it there. i miss the milkshakes so much. are you working at all? do you miss me?

i pray that you will be able to respond to me. i’ll never know what my last letter will be. this could be it.

i miss you. i always will.

-don malarkey

dear y/n,

i still haven’t gotten a response. i hope you’re okay. i don’t know if you’re even alive. how horrible would it be if i was the one fighting in the war and you’re the one who’s passed?

this war is brutal. it’s horrible actually. i cant even explain how bad it is because those words aren’t even in my vocabulary. i’ve seen some really horrifying things. things that would make your hair curl.

we’ve lost people. good people. men with lives and families back home. people just like me. it just makes me realize that my days are potentially numbered.

i ended up getting into some trouble actually. a friend of mine and i had stolen a motorcycle. we went through the country in england and honestly i haven’t had that much fun in a long time. it was nice to let go and appreciate everything that was happening at the time.

if you are reading this, please respond. i need to know that you don’t hate me. or if you do hate me, i still want to know. i haven’t gotten many letters but every single one i get, i hope it’s you.

how are you? i really want to know. it’s been so long. are you okay? i miss you. i haven’t spoke to you in over two years. i’m sure something has happened in your life. something that has changed you completely. please respond, y/n.

i miss you. i always will.

-don malarkey

“hey mal!” skip called over to his friend who sat beside george luz.

don looked up curiously. skip, alex, john julian, and babe heffron stared back. they all shook furiously from the harsh weather of bastogne. taking the piss of conversations during their sad mealtimes were the only way to get by.

“who’s that girl back home that you’re constantly chattering on about?” skip asked.

“girl back home?” george echoed skip with raised eyebrows. “why have i never heard about this?”

don rolled his eyes as everyone looked at him with curious eyes. he had only ever spoke about you to skip. he hadn’t even told alex about you. i mean, what was there to say? you were only friends.

“i gotta hear this.” joe toye leaned forward to listen in.

“there’s this girl back home and she’s . . . she’s everything. you know, we were best friends. we grew up together. she hasn’t spoken to me since i told her i was leaving though. and – and i used to think i wouldn’t need her to just exist, but now without her . . . i feel like there’s a part of me missing. it’s horrible. she’s my best friend, y’know.” don explained. beside him george burst into uncontrollable laughter. skip and alex shared a look before cracking up as well. julian looked at babe with a confused expression. “why are you laughing at me?”

“sounds like you are in love with her, my friend.” joe nodded. george took a moment to try and regain himself but he burst back into laughter a second later.

“there’s no way. i’ve known her my whole life. i just - i just miss her, that’s all.” don pushed george away. the man was all but laughing in his face.

don felt like he was folding back into himself and pulling away from his friends. he didn’t want to bring you up and then get laughed at for your friendship. you hadn’t even spoken in years.

“you said you haven’t spoken in years?” julian piped up. don nodded. “well, why not?”

“i don’t think she wanted to face the idea that i wouldn’t be around for a while. she was pretty hurt. called me a name i hadn’t heard in years. i don’t blame her.”

“oh, so she’s in love with you too?” joe suggested and don gave him an incredulous look.

“i strongly doubt that.”

“you never know until you tell her that you love her too.” julian said.

“what the hell do you know about love?” babe snorted at the replacement next to him.

“i just think it seems kind of obvious.” julian shrugged. “he can’t realize that he’s in love with her and she could be in love with him and doesn’t realize it either. if the both of them can’t come to terms with it then the other would never know. so, they’ll both be suffering while they watch the other move on with their lives. might as well tell her now.”

everyone blinked at julian. for being so young and virginal, he spoke very wisely about love. he had more of a mind than don did. perhaps he would confess to you . . .

y/n,

i’ve never felt more alone. skip & alex got hit. they’re my best friends. i don’t know what to do. please tell me you’ll still be there when i get home.

-don malarkey

don,

i’m sorry about your friends. i’ll be here.

-y/n

dear y/n,

the past couple of months and years even have been extremely difficult. the war has changed my life drastically. it’s put me through the ringer. i pray it hasn’t done the same for you.

everyday i anxiously await the announcement of the japanese surrender. i cannot tell you how exciting that news was. the war is finally over. after years of all the pain and suffering for millions of people. of course, there’s still tons of rebuilding that will need to be done and there’s still so much that needs to be change. all i want to do is come home.

i hope you’re waiting for me. if you haven’t already met someone and started growing a life for yourself, i’d love to go out with you. you’re always the only thing i can think about. which is not good in a war.

i love you. i have always loved you. you mean everything to me and it’s hurt the both of us knowing that neither of us had said it sooner.

i’m coming home soon. i promise. i’ll be home before you know it. please don’t forget about me.

i miss you. i always have.

-don malarkey

Ohhhh thanks for the Toga and Izayoi as it is so cute!!, maybe you can do Moroha being awesome and tag team fight with mum or dad?

Ok so this one... well, it got way out of hand. This isn’t quite a tag team fic like you asked -- I’m learning I go pretty off course with prompts, guys, I’m sorry -- but it is an InuYasha-and-friends-reappear-in-the-midst-of-battle-fic. None of this really lines up with what’s currently happening in Yashahime, but whatever. Nothing in Yashahime makes sense anyway!

Tag List:  @liz8080 @superpixie42 @dangerouspompadour @thebishopkate @lavendertwilight89 @sistasecbhere @thornedraven @ladycelestite @clementinesgulag @keichanz @zelink-inukag @heathersmusings @horriblehowl @animeandfilmotaku @bulba-baby @heavenin--hell @captainyukicho @rightoveryonder @hopidoodle @itsyogirlcaitlin @digital-art-monster @all-my-cuffs-have-buttons @cammysansstuff @glow–bunny @cyncyn981 @nellyvampdragon @sticky-llama-perfection @karina-inuphantom @neutronstarchild​

Prompt me!

Riku had them cornered.

Of all the bastards Moroha had ever faced, he was perhaps the biggest bastard of them all, with his smug little smirk and his pompous way of speaking, acting every inch of a lord's son that he said he was. And Moroha had met a lot of that sort, too; stupid, scrawny little lordlings who pretended they were better than her because they had money and "better blood," whatever that meant, even when they were asking for her help against the demons that scared them half to death.

The only thing that made Riku any different from them was the fact that when he picked a fight, he at least had the balls to see it through to the end. Sure, the fight he’d picked this time was against them, and if they weren’t careful he was probably going to kill one of them before sunrise, but hey-- he wasn’t relying on anyone else to do his dirty work, and Moroha could respect that.

Jumping up and back to dodge a spearing attack of rock that he'd summoned from the ground, Moroha landed in the relative safety of the of the Tree of Ages, hidden amongst its branches. He controlled the elements, so far as they could tell: he could move the ground, shape water, spark fire, and guide the wind-- though the last of those abilities didn't seem to work well when he was around Setsuna. Towa had noticed that the last time they'd fought; he’d flung a cutting gale of wind at her when Setsuna, quiet as she was, had grit her teeth and swung her naginata so high and hard that she'd blown Riku straight off the edge of a mountain, redirecting his attack back onto him with twice the efficiency.

Setsuna had always been able to shape the air for her Cyclone Burst, but that? That she’d never done before.

But now they weren't on a mountain, Setsuna was injured, and Towa was trying to protect her sister from all the attacks Riku was launching at them. They’d both been robbed of their pearls not so long ago and without them, their strength was fading fast. 

"Dammit, dammit, dammit—"

Moroha scrambled inside her pockets, withdrawing the little clamshell that held her pearl and her grandmother's lipstick. On her shoulder, Myoga jumped up and down, protesting— but she already knew everything he was saying. Yes, she wouldn't last long in a full demon state, but maybe it could give Towa the opening she needed to cut the pretty bastard down. All she had to do was distract him.

While droplets of blood dripped from her wrist and onto the tree, Moroha swiped her pinky across the red rouge. Readying herself, she took a deep breath, concentrating all her energy and—

Riku spun the wind and Setsuna spun it back, distracting her. Where one gale met the other, a glowing scar struck through the open air, and the tree beneath her feet gasped.

A tree couldn't gasp, of course, but it was trying very hard to, rocked with an energy that demanded everyone's attention. Energy pulsed beneath the pads of her bare feet and Moroha startled, clicking the clamshell shut as the Tree of Ages trembled. Myoga held on tight to her ear as she tried to steady herself, claws digging into the bark; and once she did that, the voice of the tree screamed in her ears.

"You won't be free!"

It was the Tree— that priestess, Kikyo, who apparently her mother was, or had been, or something; no one really seemed to agree on the difference and Moroha thought it was all stupid, anyway. How could someone be someone else? But Kikyo (who was not really Kikyo, and also not her mother) screamed and raged and tried with all her might to keep a seal from breaking. Someone was screaming back at her.

"You're not her, you wrinkled old bitch!"

The clamshell in her hand trembled and the well in the middle of the clearing pulsed with yoki once, then twice, reminding her of long summer days and thunderstorms. Red robes and white hair. 

"LET ME GO!"

Moroha had never noticed the seal before, but she noticed it now: pink and black and sickly purple, like a bruise, pulsing from an old fletching notch in the tree. Towa screamed for her, but it was too late; the notch cracked, the seal broke, and a pulse of reiki shot through her so hard it made her teeth rattle and purified the rouge right off her pinky. Riku jumped back and his and Setsuna’s winds spun out, and Towa lurched aside, trying to avoid the pink-white light that was now spilling out of the mouth of the dusty old well in the middle of the clearing.

The hate that had been embedded in the Tree of Ages - the onyrō, if the echo of a dying priestess could be called that, left there in the power of her arrow - died an abrupt, sudden death, and all the sudden everything that ghost had been trying to hold in and destroy began to break free.

"What's happening?!"

It was a scream to no one as leaves began to rain down from the branches, even though Autumn was months away. There was a sudden burst of wind then, swirling of its own accord, unguided, and new scents came in an onslaught: reiki, yōki, and something in between; pain, anguish, hate, and unbridled sorrow; storms, iron, metal, tears, and flower blossoms. All of them were mixed and strange and rainbow-colored, until the first body came soaring out of the well.

A yōkai with brown furs, jet black hair, and piercing blue eyes shot straight out of the lancing light and into the night sky, seeming to hover in the air above them before he plummeted back towards the earth. Somewhere on Kirara's back, Kohaku called out a name:

"Koga!"

Once, there had been a battle in this clearing. Kohaku had told them as much. After all three of them had been spirited away to safety as infants, their parents and their friends had fought a strange enemy here. The only one to walk away unscathed from it had been that enemy— and Sesshomaru, whom no one had seen since. 

Everyone else had disappeared from this very spot, leaving behind only a stunned monk and his family of demon slayers.

Koga - whoever he was - cracked the ground as he landed, and Riku cursed and cursed, flinging expletives in languages she didn't even know. He held up his hands and Moroha's stomach bottomed out, feeling that strange pull that only the rainbow portal had, but a gale of wind knocked him off his feet; again, sourceless, but it dispersed his strange powers.

"What the fuck happened?!"

Then there was another voice, another scent— and it nearly sent Moroha falling out of the tree.

"I saved your life, you mangy wolf!"

A man dressed in red climbed out of the well, shining silver against the moonlight. There was a woman unconscious on his back, chin pillowed against his shoulder; another girl lay sleeping in his arms. 

Behind him, the Butterfly of Dreams fluttered up into the sky and all the light in the well faded to nothing.

"You sealed me in a tree, you flea-infested— shit!"

Koga bailed to the left to avoid a trail of fire that shot across the field and Towa slammed her sword in the ground to protect herself, letting it buffet against that wall of yoki until it extinguished itself. Setsuna's naginata fell to the ground beside her as her strength failed her, though she was far off from dying. There was something else on her face— exhaustion, maybe.

Hisui and Kohaku's voices were a mangled mess of names as Kirara brought them to the ground. Kohaku went first to the sleeping girl, taking her in his arms; Hisui went to the hanyō and the miko, wide-eyed and incredulous.

Moroha knew who they were. She couldn’t not know who they were.

“Shit,” InuYasha cursed, adjusting the unconscious Kagome on his back and drawing a sword that sang like a storm, streaking through the night like lightning. “How long has it been, Hisui?”

“InuYasha?”

Moroha was frozen, gone completely silent, watching the young demon slayer speak to her Father. Myoga was gone. Kohaku tried to shake the girl in his arms awake, softly calling her name.

“Rin?”

InuYasha waited impatiently for an answer. Eventually, Hisui found it.

“Fourteen years.”

“...fuck.”

And then there was no more time for talking as Riku attacked again, suddenly incensed, aiming the brunt of his attacks straight at Kohaku and Rin, flinging fire aside at the twins as he did. Moroha lurched when she saw Towa wasn’t going to be able to withstand the attack this time, but then the winds kicked up again, blowing the fire aside, and a scar blazed in its gale once again.

InuYasha swung Tessaiga and Riku disappeared in a burst of white light.

Island Dreams - Chapter 8

Hello people :)

here's chapter 8 for you. This chapter is a turning point in Aelin and Rowan's relationship. Nothing major... but definitely a major development for them.

I hope you love it.

Gaelic: "Thig a-steach. - come in

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

The next morning the weather was giving its worst. A terrible storm had abated on the town. According to the news from Aelin’s phone the wind had reached peak speeds over 120kph during the night. And she had heard that. Her windows had rattled all night long. She has spent the night hidden under the duvet trying to ignore the storm outside. She had been scared. Heavy rain had fallen non stop. On top of that the town had suffered a major power cut and they had been without power since the middle of the night. When morning finally came she opened the curtains and noted the sky laden with dark clouds. The rain was still heavy and the sea was angry. The pier was empty and she assumed the ferry did not manage to travel that morning. It would have been one heck of a hellish crossing. In the distance she heard sirens from the emergency services and guessed that the damage was quite bad. Very quickly she got dressed and then tried to phone Rowan and suddenly realised that, apart from the number of the shop, she had no other way of contact him. An error that had to be rectified immediately. She wore a few layers of clothing and a waterproof jacket and then left the house. Once out of the house she discovered that the wind still had not abated and it was howling.

A massive wave crashed against the pier and the spray reached all the way to her “Bloody hell.” She braced herself and ran. Ran all the way to Rowan’s and by the she time arrived she was soaked through and freezing. She reached the shop and of course it was closed. So next stop was Maeve’s. Once there she found Rowan helping Maeve cleaning up the coffee shop which looked like it had suffered some flooding “Morning.” She said sleepily. Maeve noticed her “Aelin darling, come in please it’s horrible outside.” Looking around she noticed that most of the water had been cleared and she and Rowan had created a safe corner with two camping gas stoves. It looked like Maeve had coffee on the go and some sort of warm breakfast. In that moment she was greater for the woman’s resourcefulness. “How are you?” Asked Rowan moving closer to her. When he noticed she was shivering her pulled her to him “You are cold.” He brushed his hands on her back to try and heat her up a bit “Take off the jacket, it’s wet and cold. Not good.” He left for a moment and came back with a hoodie in his hands “Put this on. Maeve has gas heating in here which is still working and it was on the radiator.” Aelin grabbed the hoodie and wore it and it was warm and soft on her skin. She snuggled in it and breathed in the scent. Pine and snow. That was Rowan’s scent. “Can I help with anything?” She offered. “My aunt is trying to prepare breakfast enough to offer it to first responders and people who need it as well. Some of the houses closer to the waterfront have suffered heavy flooding.” Then he stopped and realised he had no idea where she lived and if her house was safe. “Is your house okay?” Aelin nodded, “I live towards the end of Newton st. and I am further away from the pier. But the road was flooded and my garden was swimming as well. But the house is fine a part from not having power.” “The whole town is down.” “I kinda guessed.” Maeve reappeared at the front “Rowan darling, go and tell the first responders that I have food, coffee and tea ready. Food is very basic given the situation but at least I have something. Aelin and I will hand out provisions.” Inside Maeve’s shop it was quite nice and cozy and slowly people started to flock in, in search of some relief, warmth and a dry place. "Thig a-steach.” She said to the people and Aelin helped handing out the food. Some people stopped to talk to her, fascinated by the Londoner who had moved to Stornoway and was learning Gaelic. A few grandmas had even played matchmaking with their handsome and single grandsons. Rowan came back half an hour later with a couple of firemen. She hoped Maeve’s place was okay. She really loved it there. Aelin walked up to Rowan and the firemen “Hi,” she said interrupting them “My name is Aelin. I am doctor. Is there anything I can do to help?” One of the firemen looked at her “We have set up a temporary tent operating as triage. A couple of paramedics are looking after the minor cases. The ones that do not have to go to the hospital. We are trying not to overwhelm the A&E.” Aelin had done enough shifts in overwhelmed A&E especially on a Saturday night and knew how bad it was. “Take me there, please. I can help. I want to help.” One of the firemen nodded. Aelin noticed that he looked familiar and wondered if that was Elias’ brother. Rowan looked at Aelin and gave her a smile. Then she removed the hoodie “Keep it warm and dry for me for when I come back.” He nodded and took the hoodie back. “Oh, and by the way… you know that that hoodie is now mine, don’t you?” “I’ll make sure it smells a lot like me when you come back.” And gave her a huge grin in response. “You better.” She added with a smile and followed the fireman out of the shop. Once arrived at the tent the fireman explained the situation to the two paramedic women and they were very grateful for the extra help. Aelin got all geared up and began working through the queue. Their patients were mostly minor injuries but still, it gave her back the vibes and the adrenaline of an A&E. By the time lunch and afternoon came, Aelin was exhausted and famished. But it was a good exhausted. She had helped. Made a difference and it helped her renew the love for the job she had chosen. Not long after she finished, Rowan showed up at the tent. “Hey,” he said staying on the threshold. Aelin removed her gloves and went to him. “How’s aunt Maeve’s shop doing?” “Fine. The fire dept gave us more camping gas stoves. She called a couple of the other staff members and now they have a full kitchen up for the people and everyone working.” Then he lifted a bag “And I am bringing lunch. Aunt’s orders.” “Thank you. I am starving.” He smiled, deposited the bag on the floor and zipped up her paramedic jacket “It’s cold outside.” He picked up the bag of food again and took her hand in his “Come.” “Uh?” “We are going to have lunch in a quiet and dry place.” “Okay.” He put an arm around her shoulder and tucked her close to him while they were walking along the road. She loved the feeling of being so close to him. His scent relaxed her. “Where are we going?” “My place.” Aelin turned to him in disbelief. When they finally arrived at his place she noticed he stayed in a small semi-detached house and he had a well tended garden. The house seemed very cozy. She followed him inside removed her jacket and her shoes and stood there. “Go to the living room.” And he passed her the bag full of food. “I’ll go and get some stuff.” Tentatively she took a few steps inside the room. The curtains were still drawn so the place was bathed in darkness. She took her phone from he jeans and switched on the torch. Once having reached the windows safely, she opened the curtain to let the light in. She then turned and noticed the incredible amount of books. That room was paradise. He had books everywhere, in all the possible nooks and crannies. “I run out of space a long time ago. I have my least favourite in the attic. I just love books.” And he shrugged. “This living room is just wonderful. I am so jealous right now.” “I have some candles. The light coming from the outside is not much and this should help.” He placed a few candles around the house and she laughed when she noticed they were battery powered. “Really? You just killed the mood.” He looked up at her grinning “There is no way I light up real fire near so many books. Such a massive hazard.” Aelin laughed and started unpacking the food containers and placing the stuff on the plates he had brought through. “I put the heating on as well, so it should get cozy soon.” “Come sit down and eat. You must be hungry too.” And she patted the spot beside her. He nodded and sat beside her. They ate quietly. Aelin a few times did try to start a conversation but always stopped not sure if he wanted to talk or not. “Did you go to uni?” She asked. That was a safe question, hopefully. “I did. I studied business management in Glasgow. It came quite useful once I opened my bookshop.” “How the idea came about? To open the shop?” She noticed Rowan stiffen. Shit. Wrong question already. Rowan breathed deeply and decided it was time to listen to his aunt. It was time to open up. He placed his plate on the coffee table “There was this girl, Lyria.” He started, and the usual tug of pain was still there. “We met at uni down in Glasgow. She was from the islands as well. We started dating after we both came back here after graduating.” He closed his eyes and leaned a bit deeper on the back couch “I always loved books. But I hated the idea of using my degree for a boring corporate job. It was not for me. So I started working on an idea: open a bookshop.” He breathed deeply again, trying to chase away the pain “My parents had passed in an accident when I was little but they left me a fund. It allowed me to buy this house and also have enough money left to start my shop. So I used every penny to buy an empty shop in town, I did it up and a year later I had my shop.” Aelin stretched a hand and placed on his, now in a fist on his knee. “I knew Lyria was looking for a job so I offered her one and we started working together. We picked the name of the shop and began thinking about what books to have. She was not a proper bookworm like me, but she liked books enough.” Aelin looked at him and noticed the pain in his eyes. What had this woman done to him to cause him such anguish? “We started dating. Quite seriously. She moved in with me after a while. We started talking about the future, dreams and whatnot. I was never one for flings. I was committed to her to the fullest. I wanted a family, a nice house and kids. The whole package. At the time she told me she wanted it too. And I believed her.” He stood irritated and walked to the window “Just over a year ago I proposed to her. I was ready and she gave me the impression that she was ready too.” “Shit.” “About nine months ago she started getting weird with me. Some nights she would not come home and I later found out she was staying at a friend’s house. She barely talked to me anymore and we stopped…being intimate. She started making up excuses why she was not in the mood. Then all of a sudden she stopped coming to the bookstore and she never bothered to tell me why.” Hi voice now a mere whisper. “Finally I decided to confront her and find out what was happening. She told she was getting cold feet, that she didn’t want to get married anymore, that she made a mistake and she thought she loved me but it was more an infatuation. She told me that my obsession with having a family was freaking her out. But I never pushed the whole kids issue. I was happy to wait for her to be ready. She told me we wanted different things and that I had to go and find myself a woman who wanted all that because she was not the one. The next day she came to the bookshop and gave me back the ring.” Aelin reached him at the window and put a hand on his shoulder “I am sorry, but what a bitch.” She heard a very soft chuckle “I called her worse. Apparently my aunt spotted her a few times with a guy while we were still engaged. I never knew if she was fully cheating on me as well. Anyway, she got a job at An Lanntair.” Aelin face lit up in surprise “Is she a brunette? Brownish eyes?” Rowan nodded “Shit. The first day I was here I went inside and then asked for a bookshop and she told me to look for Rowan’s. Not the name of the shop but yours.” “I can’t go in there anymore, And I love that place but the idea of seeing her…” She took his hands and squeezed it. Then she leaned against his back and hugged him from behind. He did not shy away from the contact. On the contrary he grabbed her hands on his stomach and squeezed them tightly. “Sounds we both have horrible exes.” Aelin knew that was the time. She had to open up to him. She did it with Elias but it had not felt satisfying. She had a feeling that opening up to Rowan was her chance to finally move on and begin to heal. “What do you mean?” He asked not moving from the position they were in and Aelin thanked him for that. It felt perfect. “I was married, Rowan. Until a year ago I was married.” She felt him stiffen “What did he do?” His tone was cold. “He was a police office. We met at the hospital after his partner got injured badly. We had coffee… we hit it off, the usual thing. We started dating and I was happy.” She felt his hands squeezing hard “We were together for four year before he proposed to me. We were married for five.” It actually felt good to talk to him. Just as good as it always felt with Lysandra “But toward the end he became weird too. Life of a police officer is quite hectic too, and we could go on for a whole week without seeing each other, that had happened. But all of a sudden I noticed his shift pattern had started to change to a point that he was never home when I was.” She inhaled Rowan’s scent to try and calm down “One day I was on my break after surgery and I decided to go and see him at his work. Once I got there he was outside Police HQ, with another woman. And they were making out. I walked to him and punched him hard in the face and told the bitch to keep her tongue out of my husband’s mouth.” “Remind me not to piss you off again. Ever.” Aelin chuckled “Three days later I went to his job. Reached his office area and dumped divorce paper on his desk and told him Try and solve this case, officer Westfall. That night he came back home from work and we had a brutal fight. During the afternoon I had asked my friends Lysandra and Aedion to help me move out the following day. Lysandra had a spare room and she took me in. The divorce was brutal.” She hold him as tight as she could “He kept blaming me. According to him it was my fault. I was the one who was too obsessed with her work to care about her husband. He had the guts to tell the lawyers that I induce him to cheating because I was not committed anymore to the marriage. He brought up that I had told him I did not want a family. Which was a lie by the way.” Rowan finally turned around and pulled Aelin to his chest “I did want kids. But we were not thirty yet at the time of this conversation and I told him I wanted to wait a bit. He agreed. But during the divorce he lied.” Aelin pulled away from Rowan and went back to the sofa and sat down, her head in her hands “And I am so damn glad we did not have kids. Imagine the mess.” He heard her sob “He made me pass for a monster. For the one that had given up on our marriage. He was the one fucking another woman for months. And when I told the lawyers that he was never at home and probably sleeping with another woman, he told them that he had been moved to the night shift.” She brushed away the tears with the back of her hand “I checked with is CO. Chaol was not on the night shift.” Rowan kneeled in front of her, with a finger lifted her face staring at her in her eyes, now puffy “I am glad you punched him. I hope you broke something.” Aelin chuckled “It has been almost a year, but I still have so much rage.” “That I can relate to. A least you could punch him. I could never do that to Lyria.” “I can do that for you.” Aelin offered with a grin. Rowan sat beside her and they stayed in silence for a moment. “I am so tired…” she leaned on the side and ended up against him. Rowan got up and came back after a few minutes with a blanket and a fluffy pillow. He got the sofa ready for her “Lie down and rest. The sofa is very comfortable.” She followed his suggestion and lay down. “I am going back to my aunt and see if she need more help.” “I should come to.” She sat back up but Rowan was on his knees near where her head was, he removed hair from her face “No. Stay here and sleep, please.” “Leave me you mobile number.” Rowan looked at her “I… I actually don’t have a mobile phone.” Aelin sat up abruptly “No way.” “I just don’t need it.” “How can I call you?” “Just phone my aunt, if you need me.” He kissed her head and stood “Come on. Stop being a spoiled brat and sleep.” Aelin plunged back on the sofa and buried herself under the cozy blanket transforming herself in a human burrito. “Be careful out there.” Rowan smiled at her tenderly and left.

A Return to Darkness Ch. 2

(Chapter 2 of the fan-fic idea I’m playing with. Zelda awakens underground and attempts to find a way out, and Link has a bad day. Chapter 1 here.)

The smell was the first thing to break through Zelda’s unconsciousness. Judging from the acidic yet musty reek and the burning sensation all over her body, she had a bed of malice to thank for cushioning her fall. The darkness was so complete that she had to blink furiously to even be sure that her eyes were open.

She took stock, fumbling at her hip until she found the Sheikah Slate. It lit a soft circle of light at her touch, but the screen fizzed and crackled, displaying only glitched swirls of color. Broken ribs, concussion, sprained knee, she estimated as she maneuvered dizzily to her feet and retrieved her sword from where it lay nearly engulfed in malice some feet away.

“Link?” She whispered, acutely aware of the monsters they had encountered in the past months and unwilling to alert them to her present vulnerability. She swung the slate’s light across the rubble-filled ground, but her companion was nowhere to be seen. Ganon’s corpse was also absent, presumably still lying in the cavern above her.

Recalling her last sight of Link sent a stab of pain through her chest to join the throb of her ribs. The image of his anguished eyes and furrowed brow as he put aside everything to lunge towards her was imprinted indelibly in her mind. Was he still up above? Had the malice— she forced her mind away before she could complete the fatalistic thought. She had watched Link die once already, and the idea of losing him again was enough to make her breath shorten into panicked gasps. Come on Zelda, you held your own against Ganon for one hundred years. You can crawl out of a damn cave. She retrieved and lit her torch, then limped around the perimeter of the hole, leaning heavily on her sword.

It didn’t take long before she was certain that the floor above had collapsed into a nearly exact copy of the one holding Ganon’s body. The geometric carvings on the walls were the same as what she had seen in the moments before everything went wrong, and a single exit led to a path descending away and down. With no clear way up into the abyssal darkness, and no ability to teleport thanks to the malfunctioning slate, she had no choice but to venture into the tunnel, unaware of the eyes observing her retreating form from the darkness beyond her torch’s light.

It was impossible to know exactly how long she spent wandering, but Zelda came to time her rests with the regular shaking of the earth around her. Despite her newfound mistrust of the tunnels’ structural integrity, the walls and ceiling held strong around her. She fell asleep each rumbling with the spirals of the wall etchings spinning behind her eyelids.

After one such rest, she awoke with a sudden revelation dredged from the free association of her dreams. It was a memory, something Impa’s grandmother had told them when they were children. She had spoken of an ancient civilization, the Zonai, that had disappeared mysteriously long ago, leaving only ruins and secrets. Link had already mentioned that the carvings appeared Zonai in origin, resembling places he had seen in his travels, but now Zelda remembered Gran’s words. “The Zonai were not simply to be feared for their fierce prowess in arms. They were also brilliant magicians with technical advances rivaling even our best Sheikah technology. Had they not disappeared, our world would be much changed from how it appears today.” Then Gran had pulled a carved stone out of her sleeve and shown it to the children. She ran her finger along its swirls in a series of swoops, and when she finished, the entire thing began to glow an eye-searing turquoise. The young and bright-eyed Zelda had oohed and aahed, but the rather more battered young woman in the present bared her teeth in a wolfish grin and heaved herself stiffly to her feet, sweeping the light from the sad remains of her torch across the patterns that had haunted her for months.

There! she spotted a central swirl, one that all the others in the area seemed to radiate from. It took a few tries to emulate the pattern she had seen over a century ago, and she began to question herself, her mind inevitably returning to familiar paths of self-doubt. When she was almost ready to give up, the spiral lit. With a flash and a smell of ozone, radiance spread outwards, spilling into every line of the carvings until Zelda was blinded.

The earth began to shake more strongly than ever, knocking her to the ground. She curled into a protective ball as chunks of wall and ceiling crumbled around her, her stomach lurching in equal parts fear and motion sickness. After what felt like an eternity, the world calmed. The bedraggled princess pushed herself to a seated position with a groan, blinking purple afterimages from her sight. The lit carvings had settled into a calmer glow, and because of this it took her a moment to realize that a pinprick of natural light now shone at the far end of the tunnel.

Heart leaping, paying no mind to her shrieking knee, Zelda set off at a run towards freedom, her excited thoughts jumbling with ideas of newly collapsed walls forming impromptu exits. She was so quick that only reflexive bracing of her feet and scraping of her hands on the tunnel walls were able to bring her to a gut-wrenching stop as dislodged stones ricocheted over the edge of an impossible precipice.

Wind whipped her hair as she stared in utter disbelief down, down to the familiar landscape of Hyrule far below. She was in the sky.

***

Link had eaten some pretty terrible food in the past year, but after a week of clumsily cleaned mushrooms boiled with rice, he almost preferred his more dubious gastronomical experiments. At least those had some zest to them.

Although his arm was slowly regaining strength, his dexterity was lagging far behind. Stringing a bow was still out of the question, and the one time he encountered a boar in the woods, he had been mown down in humiliating fashion before he could even swing his blade. The mushrooms and occasional carrot were a far less likely source of embarrassment.

The entire loss of his right arm would almost have been easier to cope with than his present state; the energy pouring into the ancient tech and the rot constantly trying to push onwards through his body made even the shortest climb, swim, or even run into an exhausting task. Swinging a blade with his left hand was one thing: getting knocked out after falling out of a tree was another.

Besides the draining tech and the gnawing corruption, there was a third issue with his arm that Link couldn’t quite piece together yet. He had absolute faith in Purah—despite her eccentricities—and when she told him that she had added the Stasis Rune to his arm, he had no reason to doubt her. However, when he activated the rune to halt the fleeing boar in a last-ditch attempt at meat for dinner, it failed to stop it at all. In fact, the animal actually began running backwards, nearly pummeling a dumbfounded Link a second time.

He wasn’t sure how Purah could have made such a glaring mistake, and he honestly couldn’t picture a time when making his opponent move backwards would help him do more than get a second to breathe. Once he had found Zelda, he would have to go back and ask the scientist about it. Full but not happy about it, Link rolled up in a horse blanket and fell into a fitful sleep.

He was awoken by an agonizing buzzing sensation in his right arm, as though it was being continuously electrocuted. The entire limb, from fingertip to shoulder, was shining turquoise like his own personal monster beacon. His horse whinnied and pranced in distress as Link shook his arm like a man possessed. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied, he would have noticed the ground vibrating beneath him, but by the time the glowing light and electric tingling subsided, everything was calm again.

Now thoroughly awake, the perplexed hero broke camp and led his mount back to the trail in the false dawn. It wasn’t much further to the edge of the Great Plateau, the only thing keeping Link from reaching it the night before being his newly abysmal stamina. But as he trudged up the last rise, he was sure he had gotten turned around in the half-light. Nothing looked right. The ground was churned up and littered with boulders the size of houses, and whole landmarks had shifted and changed.

The sun broke over the horizon as Link crested the hill. He was overlooking the very same vista he had first seen without comprehension or recognition after the healing sleep, yet the view could not have been more different. The plains and forests in front of Hyrule Castle were simply...gone. The ground was carved out as though miners had been hollowing the earth for centuries. After taking in this sight, ice water freezing his heart, Link’s eyes followed the progression of destruction to the foot of the castle itself. At first, the reappearance of malice clouds encircling the base obscured the truly bizarre unreality of the situation.

The entire castle was floating several hundred feet above the ground.

Slowly, unbelievingly, almost unwillingly as though fearing what he would see, Link lifted his gaze to the sky. Far above, higher even than Vah Medoh had flown, floated hulking islands of earth.

He sat down hard, gulping back the frustration that closed his throat. His princess was further out of reach than she had ever been.