#blood is a story of grief and moving on (you also do that in mixed just differently) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

psychedelic-ink · 1 year

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𝑬𝑿𝑰𝑳𝑬 || 𝑭𝑼𝑳𝑳 𝑺𝑻𝑶𝑹𝒀

pairing: joel miller x ofc!june | written in reader format, no body descriptions but does have a personality

genre: dark cottagecore, horror, angst, explicit smut, hybrid au, minors dni

word count: 13.8k

summary: Runners. Stalkers. Clickers. Shamblers. Bloaters.

Domestics.

All infected. One unlike the other.

You expect the infection to eat you from the inside out, turning you into something horrid. But instead, you find yourself with leaf-shaped ears and antlers that belong to a deer. While you live out the rest of your days trying to adjust to your new features and survive, you meet Joel, a survivor just like you but with a more grim approach to life.

Both of you adopt the forest as your home. One wants the other gone, meanwhile the other will do anything to not be left alone.

warnings: canon typical violence, horror elements, horror imagery, a non-descripted attempt at suicide, blood, intense feelings of grief (joel), joel having anger issues, joel threatening to shoot you, intense feelings/descriptions of loneliness (reader), female masturbation, you get shot, mentions of reader having body hair, piv, oral (receiving and giving), emotional sex, possessive kink, praise kink, mild dirty talking, soft!joel, vaginal fingering, kitchen sex, mild choking, rough sex

a/n: Hello everyone! this is the whole story of Exile, if you want to read this chapter by chapter you can by clicking on the masterlist below. Enjoy!

I would like to thank @pedrorascal for reading this over and giving me insight about the story. And also thank you to @honestly-shite for answering my camera-related questions 💜💜💜

And lastly, once again thank you to @pedrito-friskito who listened to me bitch and moan about this fic for months and edited this entire thing. I love you so much brainwave twin ❤️

SERIES MLIST

PROLOGUE

(SEPTEMBER, 2013)

Runners. Stalkers. Clickers. Shamblers. Bloaters.

Domestics.

All infected. One unlike the other.

After getting infected, what happened to one’s body could be described as no less than horrid. The change could happen to anyone; your neighbors, your friends, your family. After the virus seeped into your skin and flooded your veins, your body morphed into something inhuman. The stench would be unbearable— Acidic and rotten. Regular faces now looked as if they’d been through a meat grinder, or exploded from the inside out.

And those were your exact thoughts as fear crept up your spine. Your breath came in short, ragged gasps as the feeling took hold of your spine, a cold hand clutched at your heart. The taste of bile was thick on your tongue, your nostrils filled with the cloying odor of decay. You could hear the clicking sound of the Infected drawing closer, a relentless, maddening sound that seemed to echo within your skull.

Click Click Click

The Clicker moved closer, its grotesque form illuminated by the flickering light of a nearby fire. Its eyes were blank, soulless orbs that seemed to stare into your very soul. Its twisted, mangled body was covered in pus and blood, the stench overpowering.

You managed to make your escape with an empty gun in your hand and your black boots caked with mud. The rain fell heavily from the sky, as if it were determined to wash away all traces of your existence. Despite the downpour, you had managed to evade the Infected and make it deep into the woods.

You collapsed under a tree with thick, leafy branches and you cried— Warm, salty tears mixed with cold, sweet rain. You felt your stomach, soft, warm, and incredibly wet.

Blood, you realized.

With shaky hands, you peeled the wet fabric off of your skin and mused to yourself that it actually did feel just like that—warm. Your tears dried out when you saw the violently red bite mark. It was deep. A chunk of your flesh gone.

You checked yourself for ammo, your hands trembling. You didn’t want to turn. You didn’t want to become a mindless creature hunting for untainted flesh.

You let your head slump against the trunk, the weight of your circumstances pressing down on you as you grasped the finality of your empty ammunition. Your body trembled. Blood continued to pour heavy and thick over your skin.

Life was so cruel that it didn’t even allow you to die. You would live the rest of your days as a mindless shell of what you once were—a disfigured monster— until someone shot you. And that was only if you were lucky.

The thought of living long enough to morph into a Bloater struck you to your core. You closed your eyes.

While raindrops slid down the leaves and dropped onto your shivering body, you were blessed with unplanned sleep. You hoped that you wouldn’t wake in the morning. If you were lucky, a hunter would come by and shoot you before you had the chance to turn, robbing you of all your belongings.

A new type of Infected was born that day— Domestics, they would be called. A type of infected that didn’t behave like the rest. Domestics could continue their lives as regular people (whatever regular meant in this bitter world) however, they still carried the signs of nature’s rebuttal across their bodies.

Some Domestics had claws, some had fur, some had eyes that could see through the pitch-black night.

Some could breathe underwater, some had scaly skin.

In your case, you had antlers and soft, leaf-shaped ears allowing you to detect even the faintest of sounds from miles away. But with these gifts also came the curse of being forever marked as one of the Infected, an outcast from an already broken society.

This infection was different. Some called it adaptation.

But to most, it was still the Infected, there was no difference.

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

(MAY, 2014)

The wet soil sinks as you bend on one knee. The squelch of earth prompts you to wrinkle your nose. Your ears fall flat over your head, and you point the lens of the polaroid camera to a fallen tree trunk. It’s covered in rich green moss, with a handful of small mushrooms grown within it. You press your eyes against the viewfinder. The rest of the forest is blurred, the mushroom being the focus of the shot. You click the shutter release, the sound of it louder than you expect. A picture soon follows.

You flinch at the sound of wings fluttering. You press your chin against your chest, only moving your eyes as you look up. Your ears are raised with alert, your muscles tense, and your body unbelievably still. You see a flock of white doves swarming in the air.

You slowly get up with an exhale of a breath. You feel more and more on edge every day. You know for a fact that the forest is empty except for the animals that already inhabited it and well…you.

After you were infected and before you decided to make the green your eternal home, you had scoured the area endlessly. There wasn’t much; a couple of abandoned cabins, and safehouses made from stone and metal. As far as you could tell, there weren’t many Infected living here. However, that didn’t mean there were none.

Getting used to your new body hadn’t been easy. At first glance, not much didn’t appear to be different. Your ears were now one of a deer, your antlers small and not really good for anything.

The latter surprised you because from what you’ve known, does did not have antlers.

Funnily enough, getting used to your new physical appearance had been easy. The hard part was the newly developed senses; you could hear better, see better, could pick up scents miles away from where you stood. The first day after being turned you were frozen with fear, hearing and smelling too much all at the same time. It paralyzed you, making you think that the threats loomed much closer than they actually were.

But days passed and the pack of wolves you heard days before never came. The hunters seeking out tourists never found you. Then you realized that no one had been after you this entire time. You got up, ready to find a home.

In one of the abandoned cabins, you found a dusty old polaroid camera. You fixed it, cleaned it, and now it was your only tool to remind yourself of what life used to be.

The camera loosely hangs from your neck, swaying from side to side as you walk back home. You tend to limit your time in the forest, not wanting to attract attention from anything—be it humans, infected or regular animals.

A gust of wind blows and you notice a tree stump. Without a second thought, you gather a couple of the rocks that lay idly nearby. Four, you count, and stack them on top of the stump. This had become a habit after the first week. You enjoy seeing them months later, still laying on top of one another, untouched. The ones that are knocked by the wind or something else, you don’t pick up again.

Joel doesn’t think much of the scenery. There’s no one to bother him, no one to look out for, and that’s enough for him. His rifle hangs warm on his back, a newly shot buck limp and thrown over his shoulder. A good hunt, is all he can think.

His pain is still fresh. The hole in his heart still pouring crimson blood— it causes his skin to itch constantly, and he does so hard enough to leave red marks dragged across his skin.

Joel doesn't think anymore, his mind consumed by the need to survive. It’s out of habit. He shoots first and never asks questions. But even as he fights for his own survival, it feels meaningless, a hollow victory in the face of the horror that surrounds him. He moves through the world like a ghost, haunted by the memories of those he has lost and the darkness that seems to follow him. The constant fear and desperation have turned him into a shell of his former self, a shadow of the man he once was.

The part of him that used to feel is long gone, the watch on his wrist telling him the exact time of death every single day.

His chest heaves and his knees buckle under the added weight of the animal. With a grunt, Joel catches himself before falling and looks ahead. He’s close, a break seemingly not needed.

Then he sees a soft shimmer of light, his eyes following it like a moth to a flame. Rocks, he sees, four of them stacked on top of a tree stump, shining under the afternoon sun. His mind draws blank as he thinks who might’ve stacked them. At first, he worries that it might be hunters, but then he realizes that nobody would come out this far without a good reason.

As the realization sinks in, his heart slows down, his breathing evening out. The tension eases out of his body.

Joel rolls his shoulders and pushes the dead animal further up.

He only stops when he sees another set of rocks stacked on another stump.

TWO MONTHS LATER

(JULY, 2014)

It happens when you’re trying to take a picture of dew on a big leaf.

You hear the click of a gun, silent steps, and an agitated grunt. A man, you guess, a man much stronger than you. The feeling of him lurking behind you makes a shudder trail up from your tailbone to your nape, a needle-like sensation that induces the need to run. He’s closer now, his breathing heavy. You know it’s too late to run when you hear the loud crunch of leaves.

“Hands in the air,” he says, voice gruff. “I swear, you make a sudden move and I’ll shoot.”

You tremble. Your hands slowly raise, the camera falls and the strap stings your neck when it does.

“Don’t shoot.”

You sound meek and afraid. A million thoughts swirl in your mind, the most prominent one being that you didn’t want to die. An irony considering how you felt when you first breached the border of the forest. When he speaks again he doesn’t address your plea for your life, which scares you more.

“Turn around then, let’s see what you are.”

You turn and his eyebrows rise with shock, mouth parting. His hands falter lightly, the barrel of the gun dropping to your neck. When he swallows, his tongue darts out to wet his lips.

“Well, I’ll be… a Domestic.”

His shock gives you a brief moment to observe him as well. His hair sticks out from all directions, messy and unkempt. His patchy beard is peppered with a healthy amount of grays; so is his hair, you realize. You’re impressed by the broad width of his shoulders and strong jaw. He’s wearing a tattered brown jacket and a gray button-up underneath. His finger still rests on the trigger, the crease between his brows deep.

The watch on his wrist reflects the light into your eyes.

“I didn’t think your kind actually existed. A fairy tale, I always thought.” he huffs. “An Infected that can speak, think, and eat like one of us,”

“I am one of you,” you answer defensively.

“You have antlers growing out of your head, girl.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m any less of a human,”

“Maybe, but it sure does mean you ain't all human now, does it?"

The drawl of his words strikes a nerve. Blood pools underneath your fingernails and you think about the many others that think like him.

Rarely do you leave the protective bubble of the forest, but those scarce moments when you do have shown you what the masses thought of this new type of “Infected”. Most treated Domestics the same: shooting on sight. Some believed they could be the source of a cure—Whichever one they believed, it always ended in violence.

You have no reason to believe this man is any different from the rest. Hell, you can’t even rule out the possibility that he might be a hunter.

He takes a step closer. You inhale sharply, lips only slightly parted. The man doesn’t stop until you’re staring directly into the barrel of the gun, he cocks the weapon, his eyes glued to your ears and antlers. Saliva gathers in your mouth and you swallow thickly.

“What makes you different from the rest of’em— The rest of the Infected,” his voice drops, his tone threatening. “Give me a good reason not to blow your brains out right this second,”

Your ears straighten when he pushes the cool metal against your forehead. It’s cold yet it also burns. You’re hesitant to say anything, let alone convince him to let you live. Your lips are numb like a corpse, your throat seizes, the air caught in your throat.

Your gaze falls to his throat, and with a subtle snarl, he notches the gun under your chin, lifting your gaze back up.

“Speak,” he commands.

“I—I don’t crave to attack the uninfected,” you blurt out. He raises one eyebrow and looks you over, clearly not convinced. “I’m also scared of them. They attack me like they would any other survivor,”

“Is that so? Maybe we should try that theory out.”

You must’ve given him a look of utter horror— or one of a kicked puppy— because his eyes soften, brows relaxing along with the rest of his muscles. He finally lowers the gun and shakes his head.

“I won’t, don’t worry,” he holds the rifle with one hand and reaches out to touch your ear. It flinches at his touch. You take a tentative step back.

“Don’t do that,” you say with a frown. You feel incredibly warm and your ear continues to twitch. A sense of both comfort and fear rolls in your stomach. “I’m not a dog you know,”

“I guess not.” he also takes a step back and waves his hand. “Go along then—Scram,”

You scoff at his words, half smiling half surprised. “Scram?”

“I don’t want any sort of infected around me,” he answers, you notice his fingers curling tighter around the handle of the rifle. “I don’t care whether you can talk or shit gold, I want none of it.”

“I live here too, you know. You don’t own the forest—”

Suddenly, you find yourself staring into the muzzle again, you jump and goosebumps trace your skin. His hardened expression is back, he looks angry—furious almost, which surprises you. You didn’t expect him to offer you tea but you surely didn’t expect him to threaten you once more.

“We managed not to come across each other this far. Which tells me you must’ve been snooping outside of your regular path, am I right? Don’t come near here again.”

You’re wrong, is what you want to say since this actually was your regular path but seeing that he has no intention of backing down you decide to keep your thoughts to yourself.

“If I do find you snooping around again, I won’t be as kind. Now, go.”

Joel watches as the Domestic runs away, jumping above the branches and fallen trees. She didn’t say a word. She merely stared at his rifle one last time before fleeing.

Rightfully so, he would’ve shot her if she hadn’t.

For the longest time, he thought of the Domestics to be nothing more than a lie. He assumed it to be a weak attempt to spark hope within the people. A new type of Infected that didn’t behave like infected regularly did.

He remembers Tommy speaking of them, once, before Joel shut him down.

Supposedly they came in different forms, all of them having animal-like features. Joel never thought this of being the next step of human evolution —or an adaptation as many had told him— there was no use in having tiny antlers or other minuscule differences. They still would die just as easily as regular folk, so what was the point?

He turns and leaves. Joel would’ve shot her— hell, he probably should have. He doesn’t know nothing about this new type of infected, who was to say that the next day she wouldn’t come crawling back as a damn Clicker?

But, he still had some fraction of a conscience, and when she looked up at him, so afraid—the mere thought of him offering her up to the Infected making her tremble— he just couldn’t.

Joel is positive that this decision of his will cause him trouble. Hopefully, she’ll actually listen and never come near him again. But in this day and age, people rarely heed the warnings.

A fly lands on his shoulder and he swats it away. The thing you were doing had piqued his curiosity; you were taking pictures. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d taken a picture—

No. That’s a lie. He does.

It was when Sarah had won an award for playing on her youth soccer team. He remembers the picture well; Sarah holding her trophy with one hand and making a peace sign with the other with his arm thrown over her shoulder.

Joel stops, looks at the ground, and lets out a shaky breath. His eyes are wet, and his throat is so tight that it hurts.

Back when it all happened, he couldn’t even manage to go back to their home and bring a single picture with him. All he remembers of Sarah is from his memory—Not that he could ever forget what she looked like.

His chest stutters, anger boiling in the pits of his stomach. It’s unfair that he is still breathing and walking, it should’ve been him— Or he should’ve at least died along with her.

“Fuck,” he hisses, his voice loud within the silence of nature.

His anger festers in him like a disease. It never leaves. Whenever he thinks about his last moments with Sarah, his arms coiling around her as she stopped breathing, her blood warm against his skin. He feels a sharp pain in his chest and collapses. Most days, he wished that the pain would stop his heart, clog his veins, and leave him dead under the trees.

He jolts at the familiar pain growing in his chest. The sounds he makes come from his throat, an unattractive gurgling sound that reminds him of Runners. Joel stumbles forward and trips. Looking down he sees thick roots making their way out of the soil, his gaze follows the rotting limb, he sees a tree stump.

Again, he sees rocks.

The tightening of his chest subsides for a brief moment, his shock numbing the rest of his nerves. Joel looks back to where he came from. He observes the path the Domestic had escaped to, then he turns back to the rocks.

Joel isn’t sure what prompts him to do it— He’s angry, bitter, and the peaceful image of the Domestic happily taking pictures doesn’t leave his mind. Raising his foot from the ground, he kicks the stack violently with the sole of his boot.

He doesn’t care to look in which direction the rocks flew to. He walks away.

ONE WEEK LATER

(JULY, 2014)

Summer rain isn’t common, but very much appreciated.

You hear the soft pitter-patters of rain first. The light that filters through the clouds casts the room in a hazy, dreamlike quality. You slowly open your eyes. There it is again, that feeling of restlessness, accompanied by an itch that you just can’t scratch. You stretch your arms first, then your legs and your back—twisting and turning until you hear a satisfying crack.

Staring at the ceiling, you think of what to do. You’re low on supplies. Especially food. You have a handful of dried berries in the cupboard and freshly gathered rosemary to make tea. Not the most nutritious breakfast. Soon you will either have to travel to the city (which is never fun) or you will need to scavenge the woods, in hopes that maybe there is an empty cabin you haven’t sacked yet.

Thunder bellows and you close your eyes, your ears flat. Your heart races not only at the sound, but the memory of a rifle being pointed at you and the man who held the trigger. You remember the smell of gunpowder and fear, the taste of terror and sorrow. You think back to the man and the moment when it all could have gone wrong. But the thunder falls silent, and you’re still here. You’re still alive.

You’ve seen him once more since that encounter. For obvious reasons, you hadn’t come out to say hi. He seemed to be wearing a perpetual scowl on his face, which makes you uneasy near him.

The rain speeds up, the cold crawling through the gaps. Yet, you feel incredibly warm.

Human contact is something hard to come by and for some reason, the man behind the trigger awakened something inside you. Despite the imminent threat of death at the time, you realized he had a handsome face, a strong body. He’s clearly competent if he managed to survive this long.

You remember his hands, how large they had looked holding the grip of the rifle.

With a stuttering exhale, your hands move across your body, squeezing and touching parts of yourself you found that still enjoyed being squeezed and touched. Your breasts feel heavy and warm beneath your palms. One hand slides up as the other slides underneath your loose shirt; slowly you curl your own fingers around your throat, with the other you draw slow circles around your nipple.

The sensations are enough to make your eyes flutter closed as your mind drifts back to the man who had held you at gunpoint. His strong frame, his deep voice, and his intense gaze. You let out a soft sigh as you imagine what it would be like to feel his hands on your body. To feel his breath on your neck, the warmth of his body pressed against yours. It's a wonderful fantasy, but one you know will remain just that.

But then again, there is no harm in fantasizing. Especially in a world so bleak.

You imagine that it’s him. His thick fingers roughly squeezing your tit as he chokes you. Your breathing hitches. You spread your legs at the ghost of his cock. You can almost feel his breath on your skin—his growl deep and low in your ear. You imagine the stranger fucking you out of spite, bending you over until your body gives in, he’ll make your muscles twitch and ache, your name falling from his lips again and again as he fucks you senseless.

Another gasp drops from your lips, your jaw slack and eyes half-lidded, the hand that plays with your tit cheats under your shorts. You’re so wet. You shudder when you touch yourself, slow and sensual. You imagine that it’s his tongue, you imagine him praising you on how wet you are for him, and you keen at the whisper of his words. Your back arches off the bed, two of your fingers moving in unison as you draw quick, short circles around your clit.

Your moans fall freely from your lips. His mouth presses against that tender spot right below your jawline that you tend to touch when you want to feel good—the spot tingles at the thought and you hum with delight, your pussy fluttering and dripping around your fingers.

He'll bring you to the brink of pleasure, but won’t let you reach it—not until you surrender to him. You imagine his voice commanding you, his hands punishing you.

You feel yourself grow wetter and wetter, desperate for his touch. You imagine yourself screaming his name as he finally pushes you over the edge, your orgasm crashing over you as he slams into you with one last thrust. You’re left trembling and exhausted, your body aching and your mind reeling from the intensity of you imagination.

You come violently, shaking and trembling. You breathe heavily through your nose and your chin drops forward, slack with the need to say his name. Deep down, you wish you had asked when you met. He would’ve probably shot you if you did. You want to cry when you push your fingers inside of you, the feeling is pleasant and warm but not at all fulfilling. You thrust them a couple of times, warmth blossoms within your stomach, tears flow and your second orgasm shatters through you

Still crying, you wipe your fingers and rub your eyes. You do it in a childish way, the back of your hands going up and down your eyes again and again. You think of how he would console you.

You’re doing so well for me.

So beautiful.

Just you and me, nothing else matters.

You’re not alone.

You hug yourself when the last phrase passes through your mind. Within yourself, you accuse him of lying, you say that he’s far away and doesn’t even know who you are. The ghost of him shushes you and strokes your hair. You cry harder then.

A man that threatened you with your life becomes a source of comfort. It makes you sick, deep down, but you carry on by imagining him whispering sweet sayings into your ear, his hands stroking your body, his cock deep inside. You shudder at the thought. You know that you’re lonely but you never had quite known how lonely you truly were.

The rain sounds louder now, the thunder more menacing.

Your room now seems darker.

The rain lasts all day. You pour some hot water into a cracked mug with a bundle of rosemary inside. Steam flows out of the mug like a waterfall. You take a small bite out of one of the berries you dried yourself and chew it slowly. Your movements feel mechanic. You swallow and raise the mug to your lips, it’s hot, and a bit of tea slips through the cracks and burns your knuckles. You only wince a little bit, not really taking any immediate action to subside the pain.

Drops slide down the window. The inside is warm thanks to the old wood-burning stove you managed to salvage, most of the parts not matching one another. Soft crackles of fire accompany the sound of rain.

You take another sip of your tea. You don’t dare to think about the man that is probably staring at the same rain as you. You feel close to him, yet miles and miles apart.

The salty and earthy taste of rosemary mixes with the warm and comforting smell of the fire, providing a bit of solace in the midst of the storm.

It’s probably better not to think at all.

THREE MONTHS LATER

(OCTOBER, 2014)

Joel makes his way through the abandoned cabin, his eyes scanning the cluttered room for any supplies that might still be of use. The air is heavy and still, the only sound being the soft dripping of water from the leaky roof. The shadows seem to dance and shift around him, and he can't shake the sensation of being observed.

He still has food, luckily, but there was no harm in searching for more. Once a week, he scanned the forest from dawn to dusk, looking over every inch of the crowded forest. Most often than not, he came back empty-handed.

Joel ventures further into the cabin, his heart racing as he searches through the abandoned rooms. In the bedroom, he finds a torn and moldy mattress that he can use as a makeshift bed. In the bathroom, he discovers a sink and bathtub that are caked with grime and rust, but still functional.

As he gathers the supplies he needs from the kitchen, Joel thinks about the Domestic he’d met months ago. He saw her once more after that, camera dangling from her neck, a gun strapped to her back. He has an inkling that maybe it was her clearing out the abandoned cabins before he could.

Just as he’s emptying the cupboards, his blood freezes. He hears the creaking of the old steps and the familiar sound of staccato clicks. Beads of sweat flare across his dusty forehead and his lips tighten into a grim line. He slowly unwraps his fingers from around the can, crouching down slowly. His hand moves to his gun, which he pulls up to his chest.

He takes a deep breath and edges backward. He tries to stay hidden as he figures out the exact location the noise is coming from. Joel watches as the twisted, fungal body stalks down the stairs; it trips but is unbothered by it.

It moves around with a silent, deadly grace.

Its face is completely engulfed in the thick, black fungus that covered its entire being, its eyes long since rotted away. Swallowing, Joel crawls forward, wanting to reach the door before the Clicker finds him lurking about in the kitchen. He breathes out from his nose, as silently as he can. The Clicker turns to the living room, leaving the exit wide open. Joel’s skin tingles when he moves, like little needles poking into his skin.

Joel’s eyes frantically dart around, taking in every tiny detail just in case something goes wrong. He spots the wide windows, the coat rack, the couch—

His body shuts down entirely when he sees it. He stops breathing, moving, even the twitching of his right eye subsides within the minute.

Joel sees her. Antlers and all, crouched behind the couch, teeth deep into her bottom lip while breathing heavily from her nose.

And in that brief moment, their gazes meet.

Joel’s mouth is dry as sandpaper. He holds his gaze, eyebrows raise with shock, her confusion is quickly replaced with hope— A look he despises, yet can’t help but be drawn to.

The Clicker moves around the sofa, its head tilting from side to side as the horrid clicking sounds spurt from its open mouth. Without even thinking Joel motions with his head for her to sprint forward. He sees the still in her steps, strained and fearful but despite it all, she manages to reach him.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her gaze glued to the floor.

“It’s too early to give me thanks. We’ll talk when we’re out.”

He feels the way she breathes, hears the way her heart hammers in her chest. It reminds him of a caged baby bird. She inches closer to him. A movement driven by pure instinct. Joel thinks she trusts too quickly.

The Clicker stands by the door, head turned in their direction, taunting them.

It must have heard the two of them whispering. Joel feels his entire body tensing, his breathing nonexistent—

Without thought, Joel senses her nearly jumping with fear and his hand reaches for her. His fingers curl tightly around her neck, pushing her head down without his eyes ever leaving the creatures’ gruesome silhouette. It doesn't have eyes, but it sure looks like it's staring them down, its head tilting to the side as it listens for any sign of movement.

The Clicker turns its head, cracking its neck before heading deeper into the house.

He grinds his molars together and feels the sting of it in his gums. She lets out a breath of relief, it feels loud— Too loud. He squeezes her nape once more before letting go, and without a word, he heads for the door, not bothering to close it as he finally leaves the cursed cabin.

Her footsteps follow.

FIVE MINUTES LATER

(OCTOBER, 2014)

You follow the man deeper in to the woods as the two of you rush to put a reasonable distance between you and the cabin. He keeps looking over his shoulder. Every time he does, he looks more and more rageful. You’re sure that he wants you to leave.

Honestly, that is probably the more sensible thing to do.

But the skin of the back of your neck still stings from his grip and you can’t bring yourself to leave without at least learning his name. This forest is your home, and it’s his home as well. In a twisted way, you two are neighbors.

You hadn’t expected to come across an Infected when you went inside. The heavy rain made you walk inside with little care. It was terrifying, waiting for the threat to pass by yourself. But then there he was, a rugged angel, offering a way to salvation, and bringing you to safety.

You’ve seen him around; you even took a picture of him. To you, he was a perfect specimen to document someone who was both free and trapped. It was also nice to actually photograph a living, moving thing.

“When are you gonna quit chasing me around?” he suddenly snarls, turning on his heel with force. “How many times do I have to tell you— Scram.”

“You’re really rude,” you answer, crossing your arms in defiance. “And you said we would talk after we got out. Well…we got out, now it’s time to talk,”

“Fine. Thank me and leave,”

The wind blows warm. The sound of leaves rustling scratches your ears. You try to make yourself seem bigger by straightening your back. It’s been so long since you wanted to talk to him—To get to know the other person who was in the same situation as you. Afraid, confused, hurt, lonely.

You just want to know his name. That’s all.

“My name is June,” you say with the exhale of your breath. “And thank you.”

He considers your not-so-subtle peace offering. His eyes are narrowed, lips tight. Briefly you fear he’s just going to turn and leave. But the fire crackling in his eyes dies down, his shoulders drop and the wind ruffles his hair.

“Joel.” he answers, “and you’re welcome.”

TWO WEEKS LATER

(OCTOBER,2014)

You never thought you would have another person in your house. Ever, really.

But here Joel is, walking up the steps of your humble cabin, taking in the details, assessing what he could take just in case. At the time, inviting him over seemed like a good idea. You wanted him to know where you lived, if something were to happen to where he lived, you wanted him to know where to come.

However, your good intentions were not reciprocated.

“I’m not telling an Infected where I live,” he had said. “Feel free to show me if you feel that’s the right thing to do, but don’t expect me to do the same. We are not the same.”

The words still echo in your head as you finally reach the top of the stairs. You don’t think it was wrong of him to think like that. Technically, you two aren’t the same, not even the same species. But it frustrates you a little bit to see that he’s still so reluctant about your intentions. All you want to do is make your life less miserable.

“This is the bathroom,” you point out. “However, there’s no real plumbing. I pull in water from the nearby river and wash directly there.”

He hums, eyes uncaringly looking inside. “What else?” he grunts, walking ahead.

You dart ahead, grinning as you make an effort of bowing and opening the door. It’s stupid maybe, being so excited about wanting to show him the photos you had taken—But you couldn’t help it. It feels like having a friend over after years, it’s…it’s nice.

“And here’s my bedroom slash office,”

“Office?” he scoffs. “What work are you doing?”

“I like taking pictures,”

You don’t miss the way his face falls, hands tightening into fists and loosening up again. Confusion crosses your face but you manage to erase it by shaking your head.

“Uh…anyway, do you want to see?”

“Do I have a choice?”

His voice is emotionless, so you have no way of telling if he’s annoyed or not. You only understand his intentions when you turn and see him smiling, the expression sprinkling relief over your heart. It’s a very small smile, something that wouldn’t be considered smiling before 2013, but now it’s the broadest smile in the world.

It’s odd, feeling this light when doing something. You feel your fingertips tingling as you pick up a medium sized box from your desk and place it on the bed. Before he moves closer, you snatch Joel’s picture from on top of the pile and place it facing down on the sheets.

“You really have been busy,” he remarks, picking up one of the photographs. It’s one of dandelions. “Not bad,”

“Thanks. It is hard to find polaroid films and the one’s I find are quite old, or expired, hence the reason why all the pictures look faint or discolored. But it’s better than doing nothing,”

Joel gives you a faint smile that makes your heart flutter, his eyes grow soft. “Guess so.”

You show him your favorite photographs, one by one, with insightful commentary on each. He nods, a man of few words, but you appreciate having someone to talk to, other than your own echoing voice.

As the sun begins to dip below the horizon, casting a golden light through the windows, warming your skin, you realize with a startle that hours have passed. You find yourself sitting on the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Joel, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. The light dances on your skin, and the colors come alive, and for a moment, all is right in the world. No virus, no loss, no grief. Just the two of you, smiling and talking.

It feels like a glimpse of another life, an alternate universe. The sudden urge to cry overwhelmes you. It’s so strong that you press your nails into your palm, the sting of pain forcing a hiss to stumble from your lips.

“You alright?”

The deep baritone of his voice makes you jump. Joel doesn't seem to notice, as he carefully places the photographs back into their box and slowly stands up. While you nod and open your mouth to say that you are, his eyes lingers on the backwards photograph sitting on the bed.

He reaches out before you can stop him, “It seems like we missed one,” he says, picking it up. Your fingertips touch the photograph as he pulls it away, slipping from your grasp before you can prevent what’s about to happen.

“Joel, wait—”

You watch him, transfixed as he studies the photograph, his eyes scanning every inch, his mind working furiously. First, his eyes go wide, then they narrow, brows scrunched angrily. His eyes snap up, his gaze hardened like the first time you met him.

“What the fuck is this?”

“I can explain.”

Joel doesn't pay attention to her explanations, his gaze glued on the photograph. It's like looking into one of those distorted mirrors at a theme park. In the picture, he's standing, gun strapped to his back, fingers curled around the straps of his backpack. He doesn't remember this moment, every day blending into one. It's hard to tell which day it is just from a single photograph.

He looks tired, cheeks hallowed and eyes sunken. His hair and beard has more grays than he remembers, and there's a scar above his right eyebrow that he hadn't noticed before. How could he? He doesn’t like to look at himself.

But what really sets him on edge is the sight of his own gaze. In retrospect, it's a beautiful picture, the setting sun casting a golden glow on his skin and eyes alight. But he knows what he used to look like, how he used to be tired but happy, content with the life he had built for Sarah and him. Now, he looks tortured, eyes lacking life and love.

This physical copy of his grief and pain is a stark reminder of all that he has lost. He turns the photograph over in his hands, tracing the edges with his fingers as the weight of his past presses down on him. He can't bring himself to look at it any longer and feels a heavy ache in his chest.

He rips the photograph into two pieces, then four—He tears it until the pieces slip from his fingers, fluttering to the wooden floors.

When he looks back at her, he feels anger. Nothing more nothing less. He never should have came here.

Her lips are pressed tight, eyes glimmering with unshed tears. She looks so small right now, ears pointed down, and her body curling in a way that makes him think she wants to disappear.

Maybe she should.

Or better yet, he should. Only if he wasn’t a damned coward.

“Why the fuck would you take my picture without asking?” he spits, venom behind ever word.

“We weren’t really on speaking terms at the time…”

He senses her need to lighten the mood, but it’s too late. The lid is popped wide open, and he’s not strong enough to close it back. The sickening part is that he doesn’t want to close it. Joel wants to lash out, he wants to scream and throw a glass at the wall, watch it shatter into a billion pieces. He wants it so bad in fact, it feels if he doesn’t his chest might explode, his breathing hitches, eyes darting around.

Joel spots the box of pictures, for a brief moment he imagines himself ripping it all to shreds. Pouring gasoline over them, watching it burn.

“You shouldn’t have taken it anyway,”

His gaze then falls upon the camera, sitting idly on the desk. She follows his gaze, noticing the way the air around him becomes tense when he picks it up. It’s hard to breathe. She starts begging him, her voice trembling, as his fingers tighten around the device.

"Look, calm down, please. I'm...I'm sorry, okay?" she says quickly adding. "I understand how you feel—"

"No, you don't," he snaps, the weight of his grief and pain pressing down on him. "You know nothing of my pain. You don't know what loss is."

With a snarl of anger and frustration, Joel throws the camera to the ground. It crashes with a loud sound of shattering glass and plastic. He watches as the pieces of the camera litter the floor, its once precious film now spilled out like entrails. His chest heaving with each breath, his anger slowly dissipating, leaving only the bitter aftertaste of regret. He stares at the broken camera, with a feeling of emptiness and a heavy weight on his chest, the feeling hadn’t gone away.

As a response, her anger starts to rise as well, competing with his own. Her gaze traces along the broken camera pieces, her hands balling into fists.

“You’re not the only one who lost people, Joel.” you say, eerily calm. He doesn’t like the way a chill has settled over the bottom of his spine. “I’ve lost people too. You don’t get to say who’s pain is bigger.”

Joel steps forward, then another, crowding her space. He expects her to cower in fear, but instead she glares at him, staring at him with an unwavering gaze he’s never seen before.

He’s so close that he can see the small flecks in her eyes.

“Yes, I do.” his voice drops. “You talk mighty big for someone who prances around and takes pictures all day. You can fool yourself and think that you’re in pain but you ain’t fooling me. You’re happy.”

She blinks away her tears quickly, her lips parting with shock. It’s too late for him to feel guilty now; he’s sure he’s run out of guilt.

Anger briefly flares in her eyes, and much to his surprise she attempts to push him away. Joel grabs her wrist, holding them tight as she thrashes around. She refuses to look at him, his words cutting too deep and into something that she fears might be true.

“That’s not fair,” she cries out managing to pull one hand away and slam the side of her fist into his chest. “Fuck you Joel. Fuck. You.”

“Good,” he replies cruelly. “That’s how you should be feeling.”

TWO MONTHS LATER

(DECEMBER, 2014)

Snow crunches under your boots and the wind chills your skin. Except for the pines, most trees are left bare, thick snow covering their branches. Ever since the infection you don’t feel that cold anymore. A simple jacket is all you need, unlike Joel, who seems as if he’s wearing a dozen sweaters underneath his coat.

He walks ahead, rifle hanging on his back.

After knowing one another, it was hard to truly part ways. The first week after he shattered the only joy you had left in your life, you two steered away from each other; both of you angry, both of you bitter.

But you two danced around each other like butterflies. One day, you met his gaze and he nodded. The next day you told him about the extra fish you managed to catch, and that you wouldn’t mind sharing. He seemed hesitant at first, but accepted your offer when his stomach ratted him out with a loud growl.

Neither of you talked about the incident. You swept the camera away, tucked the box of photographs under your bed. You didn’t enjoy looking at them anymore.

You watch his back, the way his coat seems tight around his shoulders, the dip from the rifle pronouncing his shoulder blades. He always walks in front. No matter what the situation might be, you find yourself staring at his broad back and beautiful neck. He doesn’t talk much anymore, and when he does, it’s in the form of short sentences.

You on the other hand, do whatever you can to fill the silence.

You don’t dive much into your past, but you tell him about your hobbies, what it’s been like being alone, and how you adapted to your new antlers and ears.

Then one day, as you were telling him the things you were afraid of most, he turned to you slowly, his one eyebrow raised and slack-jawed.

“Don’t you think you tell me too much about yourself?” he had asked and you were caught by surprise.

“Uh… no? Am I annoying you?”

“Not annoying—Well, maybe a bit, but I can live with that— you’re too… trusting. Aren’t you afraid?”

You shrugged, “I feel like if you wanted to kill me, I’d be dead already. No use in dwelling on something I can never be sure of.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Fine then, what do you mean? Do you want me to be afraid of you?”

He didn’t answer and you were grateful for it. The thought of reopening the wounds he caused you wasn’t something you particularly wanted to do.

You’re abruptly drawn away from the whispers of the past with a sting spreading from your nose to your forehead, you groan and stumble back, your hand immediately going up to touch your nose.

Your vision is blurry, but you see Joel standing as still as a tree in front of you. His one hand is raised to his side, fingers forming a fist. The command is silent but it reaches you loud and clear. You pull out your pistol, finger nestled against the trigger as your ears raise. You hear steps that you missed before, too entranced by your thoughts to hear them. A faint murmuring reaches your ears.

You take a slow breath to steady yourself and take a step closer to Joel.

“Three people,” you whisper. “They sound obnoxious and dangerous,”

He scoffs, “How can you tell they’re obnoxious all the way from here?”

“I just can. We should go,”

“No,” he says, fingers curling around your wrist just as you attempt to turn. “We should check who— or what— they are,”

“And after that?”

“We take care of it.”

There’s a stillness in the air and for the first time, you feel the sting of cold. You don’t share Joel’s coldness towards killing. Even killing the Infected is hard for you ever since you also became one by extension. You much rather let the threat simmer until it boiled and threatened to burn you.

Joel ignores your hesitation and releases his hold. “They’re close aren’t they? If I was able to hear them even a little they must be. Lead the way,”

“Joel…”

“Waiting around will get you killed,” he answers, his tone calm and collected. “You’re either with me or with them,”

“That’s cruel.”

“Is that your answer?”

Leaning slightly forward, he forcefully meets your gaze. He doesn’t blink and it feels as if he’s staring into your soul, which is ironic considering Joel probably doesn’t believe in such things. Closing your eyes you face the sky, the tips of your ears burn and your heart skips a beat. You already know what your answer is, and he knows it too.

“I’m with you.”

“Then lead the way, Bambi.”

It’s not a long walk. You’re surprised that they’re so close, so surprised in fact you shudder with each step. You’re not a fan of confrontation. Every nerve in your body screams at you to run. But you feel Joel’s presence near you, his ghost chokes out the screams, only litter whimpers left that are easier to ignore.

You and Joel take cover behind the thick trunk of a pine tree. Your guess is that the small group are hunters. They carry guns and they look the part. Your eyes move to Joel, his own gaze slowly turning to you. He pushes a finger to his lips, signaling you to be quiet. The three men talk about the tourists and the Domestics they managed to get a hold of, you bite back a whimper.

Joel leans in, the curve of his lips barely touching your ear. He doesn’t have to do that, you could’ve heard him just fine, but some habits are hard to break.

“I’ll take them out,” he whispers, the warmth of his breath prompting you to close your eyes. “You stay on lookout, shoot the ones that try to kill me.”

You nod. There isn’t much you can add to his plan anyway.

Joel moves out. As he slowly approaches the first one, you move, your steps feather-light. You find the best position to spot all three of them and crouch down, the snow melts under your knee and wets the fabric.

With one eye closed and finger on the trigger, you realize you’ve never actually seen Joel attacking another. You’ve seen him hunt, but that was as far as the violence went. Briefly, you admire his contrast to the white snow. His coat a dark green, stained, and his hair mussed.

His every move is calculated. He walks around the first target, wraps his arm around the man’s neck and pulls him away from the others until he faints. You expect him to fixate his gaze on the others, but instead, he raises his foot and slams it down with no shred of hesitation. Blood sprays against the snow, melting and hissing at the warmth of blood. A drop of red lands on Joel’s cuffs.

You let out a scream, clapping both hands over your mouth before you can stop yourself.

But it’s too late, the other two are already running toward Joel.

“Shit,” Joel hisses, eyes finding yours amidst the chaos. “Get out!”

You’re a deer in headlights, both literally and figuratively. The two men crowd Joel, one pressing a knife to the neck you admired many times while the other sets his gaze on you.

You hear the bullet first, and your body moves before you can process it. Joel manages to kick the man heading towards you in the back of the knee. He falls face first with a grunt. You hear the knife against Joel’s neck cutting skin.

You don’t blink when you raise the pistol and shoot your shot, the bullet sinks right between his eyebrows. He falls promptly. The other one still groans on top of the snow. Joel takes the knife that was still stained with his own blood and stabs the last of them in the heart. You collapse to the ground, pistol falling to the side as you cover your mouth.

Warm tears roll down your cheeks, eyes squeezing shut as your fingers tremble. You see black dots hovering across your vision. You feel incredibly sick. Your mind replays the scene over and over again until you feel his touch on your cheek.

You were aware of the violence growing in the world. Seen bits of it whenever you left the comfort of the forest. But you haven’t been aware of how bad it had gotten. How desperate everyone became to hurt others for the means of survival.

Bile rises up your throat and burns your tongue.

“Calm down— Calm down,” Joel cradles your face, thumbs moving over your cheekbones. “You’re good. We’re safe. You did it,”

“Did what exactly?” you snap, pushing him away and falling back. “Joel you—you kicked in his skull! You—You—” your voice breaks and you finally open your eyes accompanied by a deep breath. He looks broken and for the first time you truly understand what that means. “What the fuck, Joel?”

His eyes flit around your face. He slowly takes in every detail —the way you shudder, the way your ears are flat against your head, the way your breathing is uneven— but he doesn’t know what to make of it. Your words have underlined fear, uncertainty. You look at him as if it’s the first time you’re seeing him.

Joel’s gaze moves from your face to your shoulder, he reaches his hand out.

You jerk away without meaning to, his look softens, the tips of his fingers only an inch away from your shoulder.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he drawls, voice dropping, barely a whisper. “You’re bleeding.”

You look to the side, too tired to actually panic about it. Now that you were seeing the blood, you start to feel the sting of the bullet still being inside. You wince and Joel catches it.

“Your cabin is close by right? Let me patch you up.”

You’re strikingly aware that you won’t be saying no to him, not now and probably not ever, “Sure.”

Joel is surprisingly gentle.

He helps you out of your blood-soaked shirt, leaving you only in your bra. The chair creaks under your weight. You ignore the vulnerability of the situation. It’s been months since another person saw you bare, you didn’t have the means to groom yourself properly. The hairs on your arms and legs growing with time— Even though you’re blatantly aware of how stupid it is, you still wonder if he notices, or what he might think.

Joel returns with the first-aid kit and you refuse to look at him, turning your cheek when he kneels to your side. He dabs the cotton in alcohol, cleaning it first before taking the tweezers out of the box. You hear him sigh.

“I know you want nothin’ to do with me right now but you might want to bite down on something. It’s gonna hurt, Bambi.”

Hearing the nickname makes you feel lightheaded. Turning around, your gaze drops to Joel but he’s not looking up at you, instead, he’s staring at the wound caked with blood.

“Give me my shirt, I’ll bite into that.”

Joel nods and hands you your shirt. You take it begrudgingly, balling it up in your hands and biting down on the fabric. The pain is excruciating, sweat beads on your forehead. You close your eyes, trying to focus on anything but the searing agony in your shoulder.

Joel's gaze is fixed on you as he works, pulling out the bullet with steady hands. You try to focus on anything but the pain, your gaze drifting to the window. You see that it's started to snow, the flakes swirling in the air. You wince, the pain making it hard to think.

Joel's gentle touch brings you back to the present. His fingers are light and careful as he works, pulling out the bullet and cleaning the wound. You can hear the soft sound of his breathing, the occasional sigh or murmur as he focuses on the task at hand.

“You’re bleeding too,” you state, pointing to his neck. “We should get it cleaned,”

His fingers brush above the shallow wound, not even a small wince crossing his face.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.”

“I’m assuming you won’t tell me about those memories even if I asked,” you whisper, and his hands go still, fingertips feeling like hot iron against your skin. “I’m not even sure I want to know.”

“Believe me, you don’t.”

And that’s the most you get out of him. A tiny crumb of his past. His one hand slides down to your upper arm, fingers pressing into the muscle as if you’re a ghost that has just materialized in front of him. Briefly, you see scenes much more violent compared to the one you witnessed flashing before your eyes; a desperate Joel trying to survive, losing himself to the darkened world. His grief still consumes him, you can see it clearly now.

With a soft sigh, you cover his hand with your own. The moment is still, neither of you knowing what to say. He seems surprised by the fact you’re touching him, his eyes slowly lifting and meeting yours. You swallow, the sound of blood loud in your ears.

When you look into his eyes, his soft gaze is briefly replaced by the memory of rage-filled ones you saw outside. You don’t think you will ever be able to forget that look. You won’t be able to forget the way violence clutches at his heart. His need to protect himself and those around him clouds his better judgment— Or rather, he doesn’t care about what happens to others for the sake of his own people.

You know that this should most likely scare you, or that you should perceive him as something ugly and tainted.

But it doesn’t. In fact, you think it does the opposite. It’s like a moth to a flame. You’re drawn to him and his tainted light. You see him as nothing short of beautiful.

His breath hitches while yours stops completely. It warms the fresh wound, then you feel his lips, scarred yet soft, a soft kiss as an answer to your pain. The touch of his tongue forces a shiver up your spine, a soft sting blossoming across your shoulder.

Joel continues, mouth moving over the slope of your shoulder and to your neck. His patchy beard is a harsh contrast against your skin but you enjoy it all the same. He closes his mouth and presses his lips into the column of your neck. Your lips part with a soft moan. He kisses your neck again and again as if it’s a means to survive. With every press of his mouth, he becomes more sure of himself, the softness is accompanied with the sharpness of his teeth, goosebumps coat your skin.

Your hand hovers an inch away from his head, too afraid to dive your fingers in just in case he’ll turn into another ghost that your cruel imagination often creates.

Joel moves back, only an inch between your faces. There’s a new emotion you see that crosses his face but you can’t place what it is. He feels your hand at the back of his head, his eyes flutter closed and he lets out a deep, long breath. Joel’s fingers gingerly curl around your wrist, pushing your hand flush against his head.

“Touch me,” he says, his southern drawl deep. “I want to feel you.”

It’s like an experiment almost. Your fingers are touching new soil, getting used to the feeling of soft locks and the bumps of his scalp. You allow your fingers to explore, nails raking his skin. A soft hum rattles his throat and you look back down. You spot the vein meandering down his neck and with wide eyes your hand moves down his head, feels the warmth of his neck, and traces the thick vein. His jaw is locked tight, nostrils flaring with every touch.

“Joel, I—”

“Don’t.” his voice breaks, eyes falling away from your own. “Don’t. I don’t wanna hear anything of the sort, not now, not ever.”

“Tell me what you want to hear then,”

“The sound of your breathing is enough.”

Your body reacts before you do, forcing out the breath that was caught in your throat. An eternity later his lips move against yours. His tongue brushes the seam of your lips, your heart flares, your lips parting with the silent command.

How many times have you thought of Joel touching you like this? Kissing you like this?

He’ll never know what his mere presence means to you. How the sole image of him brought you back from the brink of not wanting to wake to such a daunting world again and again. Even before he knew what your name was, before you knew his, he was the only one keeping you company—Accompanying you during your every move. A phantom man, following you around and wrapping its arms around you whenever you needed.

Your body reawakens, his lips and tongue pulling you from somewhere dark. His large hands cup your cheeks, tilting your head as he slips his tongue into your mouth. You moan openly, your hands coming up to hold his wrists.

Words you want to whisper burn the tip of your tongue. His words echoing loud in your mind whenever they bubble to the surface.

The sound of your breathing is enough.

You have trouble swallowing them down, tears gathering in your lashlines, but Joel makes quick work of them, licking into your mouth forcefully as if he’s trying to erase the entire English vocabulary from your mind.

Your hands drop down from his wrist and awkwardly try to reach his belt. Joel smiles into your lips, calloused fingertips stilling your hands.

“Easy there, sweetheart. Show me to your bedroom,”

You give him a confused look, “You already know where my bedroom is,”

“I prefer this being the first time you lead me to your room.”

It’s been long since you moved the box of photographs and cleaned the broken pieces of your camera. The ache of your heart is hard to ignore but you do. You nod, also preferring for this to be the first time he’s seeing your room.

Neither of you touch the other until you’re confined into the smaller area. It’s much colder compared to the kitchen. Joel shivers, a puff of steam dancing from his lips.

Not wanting this moment to end, you close the distance. Your fingers find their way into his hair, tugging as his hands find your waist. He squeezes and pulls your hips close, forcing a grinding motion. The pleasure you feel is real. It’s overwhelming. Your whines are needy, made with short breaths and the sudden lack of air.

Joel swallows them all, he sucks your tongue, unbuttons your pants. Arousal pools between your legs, heat licks the bottom of your spine. Your entire world starts spinning when he gets on his knees, pulling down your pants along with him. Your eyes follow, another shudder overtaking you as his fingers move between your legs.

“J-Joel…”

“So wet already. Pretty thing,” your heart leaps at the way his eyes move up from your sex to your face. “I haven’t tasted a woman for so long.”

“Then go ahead,” you mutter, burying your anxiety deep into your heart.

Everything moves as if it’s in slow motion. The snow outside, the fading light, the way Joel tugs down your underwear. Pupils dilated, he licks his lips at the sight of your slick sticking to the net of your underwear. His thumb moves over your mound, nestling between the soft curls that reside. You suck in a sharp breath.

The sound is loud enough to prompt him to look up. “Most beautiful cunt I’ve ever seen.” Cupping himself over his dark jeans, a groan slips from his mouth.

Joel's tongue glides over your skin, you let out a soft moan. His lips velvet against your sensitive flesh. You grip his hair tighter as he expertly works his way over your aching clit. The fading light filters through the dusty window, casting a warm glow over your skin and creating shadows on Joel's face as he buries himself between your legs. His palms skim the back of your thighs, sending shivers up your spine. You let out a breathy moan as Joel's tongue delves deeper. He takes his time, the sharp edges of his face soften, the perpetual crease between his brows fading.

He must’ve looked beautiful before all was taken away from him. Joel never speaks about it, but you know. You have seen the same expression of grief in your eyes many times. You wonder if you two could’ve met if none of this had happened; the infection, the violence, the change. Another wave of pleasure washes over you with the swipe of Joel’s tongue. You moan and he mimics the sound, the reverberations making you curl over him, your arms wrapped around his head.

Every cloud has a silver lining, you don’t know who came up with the phrase but you find it cruel, haunting—yet also to be true.

Haunting is a perfect way to describe the moment. Hauntingly beautiful. A soft hue of light lingering in the darkness dances over your skin.

Any second can be your last, that’s what makes this moment truly memorable. It can be your last, and you choose to spend it together.

His gaze finds yours amidst the darkness, lips moving and tongue swirling around your clit. He sucks on it, watching you with a heavy gaze as your whine joins the sounds his tortuous tongue. Joel pulls away and your first instinct is to pull him back, chase the feeling of his skin against yours. His fingers squeezes the back of your thighs, soothing you like a scared animal. You feel his lips moving slowly over your mound, kissing the sensitive skin.

“I want you on the bed,” he says voice honeyed in a long drawl. “I’m gonna eat this pretty pussy out until you’re drunk on me. Then I’m going to feel the way you squeeze my cock—But I need you to get all nice and wet for me first,”

Your thighs clench together and he lays another kiss, hands roaming over your ass one more time before pulling you to the bed. He falls on top of you, his heavy presence proving not to be a figment of your imagination. Your entire body rings for him. You feel his breath fanning your face, he stares at you, you see the traces of regret and your stomach sinks.

“I’m sorry I frightened you,”

The apology takes you by surprise, you stare, unblinking, and swallow. His hand moves between your leg, two fingers slipping inside you with ease as his palm cups your sex.

“You still do,” you gasp before you can think. “But I would rather have you broken and bruised than be alone. Something inside me—A heart, a soul…it’s been seeking you out, Joel.” his fingers deftly move with a sharp thrust. Your back archs, body pressing into his touch. You close your eyes but you still feel his eyes boring into you. “You terrify me Joel. But not only because of the reasons you might be thinking.”

“What other reason is there?” he asks, curling his fingers and grinding the heel of his palm against your clit. You clench your teeth, swallowing down your moans.

You’re a whirlwind of emotions. His sadness, his grief…all of it resonates deep inside you, it joining the pleasure that builds up, your arousal thick around his fingers.

You feel the brush of his hand on your ear, your eyes open with surprise, remembering the first time he had attempted to touch you—The Infected part of you. He had ignored it ever since he learned your name.

Joel leans in and presses his lips, the fur soft against his mouth. Your heart leaps as you flinch, your ear twitching uncontrollably.

“Tell me,” he says as you moan. “Tell me the other ways I frighten you.”

“I fear the way you make me feel alive.”

He curls his fingers, a shout rips from your throat. “Go on,” he prompts you.

“I’m scared that you’ll leave. That you’ll leave, and that you’ll become a ghost again.”

“Again?”

“Forget I said that,”

He hums, “I can’t promise you that I won’t ever leave. But right now, I'm here. You feel me, don’t you? I ain’t no ghost,”

To emphasize what he said, he circles your clit with his wet fingers, tongue moving down your neck. He draws your stiff nipple into his mouth, teeth sharp and pleasurable. You feel the wet streaks across your skin when he slides his other hand up your waist, he pries your mouth open by pressing his fingers into the hallows of your cheeks. He sneaks in two fingers, forcing you to taste yourself.

“I think I need to fuck you now, think you can take me, my little doe?”

You’re highly aware that the words are spoken without much thought. However, the endearment crackles across your skin, lighting a fire in your stomach, your body jerks, slick wetting your thighs and sheets. He holds your tongue with his fingers, feeling the way it moves with the muffled sounds you make. His mouth moves up the swell of your breast.

“You like it when I call you mine?” he groans out, breath wet and warm.

Joel pulls out his fingers so you can speak, his cock lays heavy between your legs.

Your chest heaves, “Yes.” you gasp, the pressure building starting to become overwhelming. “Say it again, please,”

“You’re mine,” he replies, sounding as if he’s just stating a fact. “Nothing will hurt you. No one will touch you…” the words sink into your skin, your hips stutter forward, searching for the stretch of his cock. Your breathing becomes heavy, shallow. “And since you’re mine, you’ll take whatever I have to give…won’t you?”

You hear the uncertainty that follows his hardened tone. Nodding, you catch yourself murmuring back, "I'm yours, and only yours."

Joel doesn’t give you any indication that he hears you, he presses forward, notching the head of his cock against your entrance. Your cunt flutters around him, begging him to move. He’s nothing like your vivid dreams; he takes his time, making you feel every inch. Your breath is caught in your throat, your lungs convulsing. The sudden regret of not touching him beforehand resonates inside, you wanted to feel how heavy and warm he was under your palm, wanted to hear his whimpers—if he makes any, that is.

“So damn tight,” he grunts. “So wet—fuck,”

He moves his hips forward then back, thrusting against the dampness that coats your entrance. A moan escapes your lips as he moves faster, each thrust pushing deeper than the last. Your hands grip the sheets as your body trembles. You gasp and bite your lip, the heavy drag of his cock sending waves of pleasure through your body. You can feel him, hard and thick, and it feels incredible.

Tears gather in your eyes when his lips find yours in the fog of pleasure. Sweat and sex clings to your skin, body on fire, he shoves his tongue into your mouth. The muffled sounds you both make seeps into the other’s lips. You’re both hungry to devour one another, both touch-starved. He parts away with a string of saliva following, he kisses the tear streaks, kisses your eyes.

You're left chanting his name like a prayer, his hands slide down, cup your ass and lift you from the bed.

His thrusts quicken, pushing you closer and closer to the edge. You cling to him, your hands gripping his back, your nails digging into his skin. His warm breath tickles your neck, and your head spins. Every movement sounds wetter than the last, he splits you in half, cock moving all the way out before he slams into you again and again and again—

Your body shatters around him, pleasure bursting across your very being. The feeling pours into your veins, leaving a simmer and buzz in the pits of your stomach. Joel fucks himself deeper into you until you’re begging him to stop, your body overwhelmed both physically and emotionally.

“Where do you want me?” he asks, pulling out and fisting himself with little care.

The fog clouding your mind briefly lifts and you manage to push yourself up the bed. You push his hand away and wrap your numb fingers around his length. He’s so wet, glistening with your slick. Joel watches you as you lean down, wrapping your lips around his cock. His hand touches the back of your head, pushing you further.

Arousal pools between your legs once more, your tongue warm and wet as you eagerly lick down his shaft, feeling the soft curls tickling your nose, you swallow. Joel’s head falls back, exposing his tanned neck and small scars littered like a starry sky. A loud groan emits from the depths of his lungs, choked out and raspy. Your eyes roll back when he thrusts his hips, the head of his cock touching the back of your throat.

Your insides clench painfully, begging for more.

Your lips pop off, tender skin left wet and swollen. “Come down my throat,” you say, before swallowing him down again. Your tongue slides underneath his shaft, tracing the thick veins as you move up.

Joel’s nails bite into your skin, a string of curse words falling from his lips. Heat flares under your skin. He pushes and pulls, guiding you as you swallow around him again and again.

There’s something about the way his nails softly bite into your skin that makes your toes curl. It’s been a while since you sucked cock, and he’s showing you how to do it—

“Doing so good, little doe— Can you take me deeper?”

You moan your approval, your hand moving between your legs. Your fingers trace around your puffy clit, still sensitive, yet aching to be touched. He doesn’t seem to notice that you start to touch yourself, he holds your head between his palms, fucking your mouth until he feels his shaft begin to pulse before spilling into the warmth of your mouth.

You swallow every drop. He tastes bitter and you reel at the way the taste of him burns your throat. He keeps his cock buried in your throat as he rides out his orgasm. You run your fingers up the span of his stomach, feeling the dents and marks painted over his skin.

Joel is left breathless, his chest heaving and cock now soft. You tenderly pepper his skin with kisses, moving all the way up until you press one hurriedly onto his lips. Your fingers rub over the sweat-slick skin of his forehead. And as you move away he grips you by the shoulders and pulls you back, tasting himself on your tongue.

He licks the inside of your mouth and teases your bottom lip between his teeth.

“Why do you want me around?” he cups your jaw and rubs two thumbs down your cheeks. “I’m such a fucking mess. I’m not going to trick you into thinking that I’m something that I ain’t. I’m not a good man, June.”

“I said it earlier,” you say with a soft smile. “I would rather have you broken and bruised than be alone.”

NEXT MORNING

(DECEMBER, 2014)

The teapot whistles in the background, warm steam filling the kitchen. It’s still early, you’ve come downstairs to prepare a little breakfast where you would use your best supplies after a night spent in such delight. Joel was still there when you woke up, snoring with his arms wrapped around your waist. The warmth made you want to stay there forever.

Little did you know, Joel is a light sleeper.

Joel's hand covers your mouth and his weight presses you against the table. His hot breath fans over your skin, sending shivers down your spine. His hands grip your hips, pulling you closer to him with every deep thrust. Your body runs hot when you think of how needy you must look spread open for him, so willing to take and give.

“Best thing to wake up to,” he groans, his teeth clenched.

You hiss at the way the wooden surface of the table rakes your skin, he must’ve heard your discomfort because he pulls you up, fingers that were on your mouth drop to your neck, holding you, feeling your erratic pulse.

“Is this alright?” he grinds his hips against yours. You gasp, keening at how deep he can reach.

“Yes,” you breathe out. “More, Joel, please.”

Every time his hips slap against your ass, you choke out a sound, and your walls spasm around him. His hand on your throat keeps you from moving far. Joel’s forehead drops between your shoulder blades, he licks a thick stripe up the middle to your nape.

You shudder, clenching around him tighter. He looks down to witness how wet you are, a slick ring coating the base of his cock. A groan that can only be described as animalistic rattles his throat, he nuzzles the mustache above his lips into the crook of your neck his teeth nipping at your skin.

His other hand moves between your legs, fingers drawing fast circles around your aching clit. You cry out as you rock your hips to meet the roll of his hips. There’s a live wire runs right under your skin, electrifying you from the inside out. Your legs clench together, your body quivering, breathing uneven as he furiously swipes two fingers over your clit again and again. Your eyes roll back, hands moving up to grab his forearm.

“Harder.”

You feel the mood swiftly changing, his calculated pace faltering and shifting into something more wild. His fingers around your throat tighten, his teeth sink into your skin deeper, the pain makes you smile, the pain makes you feel good. His hand cups your breast, pinching a puckered nipple between his fingers.

You gasp, eyes falling shut as he repeats the sharp movement.

Before you come, much to your disappointment, Joel pulls out. His shaft pressed against the curve of your ass, his breathing heavy, you feel him spilling over your skin, nose buried in the back of your neck, inhaling your scent like a wolf.

“Sorry,” he grunts. “Thought I would last longer,”

“It’s okay,” you say, albeit still unsatisfied.

The promise of your orgasm tickles your skin, sweat chilling your skin. You’re about to straighten up and clean yourself but he stops you, hands kneading your ass.

“Get on the table,” he orders. “Let me taste you.”

Joel helps you flip over to your back and you find comfort in the way his hands tilt you up your hips. The table isn’t the most sturdy, but you trust him. He kisses a trail down your stomach, opening his mouth wide when he reaches your sex. Catching the backs of both knees, he pushes your legs apart and licks into you. Joel’s tongue swirls around the bundle of nerves, he closes his lips over your clit and sucks—hard.

Pulling away, he spits, your back arches when he does.

And he dives back in, tasting you over and over. Tongue twisting itself deep inside, moving up and down languidly, rolling around your clit as his fingers make dents in your skin.

It doesn’t take you long.

Your entire body convulses, both legs pressing down against the frame of his face. You’re scared the table isn’t going to hold but Joel keeps you still—for the most part. He drags his mouth slowly, tasting you, swallowing you. His movements soon grow slower, the heat of your orgasm subsiding.

When you let out a bubble of laughter, you think that this is going to last forever. You and him against the world, living your days drowning in pleasure and each other—lifting two middle fingers at the crumbling world around them.

The next day he’s gone. You don’t see him until three months later.

EPILOGUE

(MARCH, 2015)

It’s excruciatingly warm. Your tank top sticks to you like second skin, it’s uncomfortable and all you want to do is go home, grab a spare pair of clothes and take a dip in the river.

You haven’t seen Joel for a while. But to be fair, you’ve been avoiding him. You know well that if you truly wanted to see him you could, you just didn’t.

He abandoned you without a word. Your heart threatens to shatter again when you remember the thing you admitted to him; your fear of loneliness, your fear of him leaving you to rot in your self-pity once again.

And that’s exactly what he did.

It was painful, too painful. You returned to entertaining yourself with ghosts, despite your best efforts, all of them looked like him. Three months had passed but you still feel his lips burning your skin, his cock dragging orgasm out of orgasm out of you.

Joel said he wasn't a ghost at the time; he never promised you that he wouldn’t be one in the future.

Life is cruel. You know this better than most. It was stupid of you to think anything could change. But the thing you had forgotten was that life thoroughly enjoyed making a mockery of your life.

You nearly drop to your knees when you see the state of the cabin you once called home. Infected, a multitude of them, moving around your house, a couple of them inside, lurking about.

You almost break down. Almost.

Joel never told you where he lived, but you know. And you have no choice. You need to go. You need a place to say. You need to survive despite the pain, the heartbreak, the loss.

The reasoning as to why still escapes you, maybe it’s just instinct.

You also need to warn him.

When you knock on the door you expect him not to open it. Much to your shock, he does at the first knock. Almost as he was waiting for you—You keep your gaze locked to his face, trying very hard to ignore the fact that he’s shirtless.

“June?”

“Joel,” you answer, your eyes fixated on his face. “I need a place to stay.”

#joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x ofc #joel miller #tlou fanfiction #tlou fanfic #tlou x reader #the last of us fanfiction #hbo the last of us #the last of us hbo #pedro pascal character #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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transboysokka · 2 months

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ok theres this tag game and i cannot for the LIFE of me find who tagged me im so sorry BUT

youre supposed to put the first sentence of your fics and see if there's some kind of pattern. sounds cool let's go!

“You’d probably be good at this, Sokka,” Zuko called from across the kitchen where he mixed together rice flour, sugar, and water. - Short and Sweet

“So… you’re really breaking up with me?” Zuko asked again. - Maiko Breaks Up. Zuko Has Realizations

Sokka was no stranger to grief. - do not stand at my grave and cry

Sokka narrowed his eyes at his boyfriend seated at the head of the council table. - Impact

Aang blinked at the face of the boy who had just emerged from the bushes in front of him. - Zuko Amongst the Dragons

Zuko peeled off his soiled tunic, trying desperately not to think about what had happened less than a day ago below Ba Sing Se. - If I fade away (The awful things we do to make the head go quiet)

Izumi opened the door to Zuko's office, entering with a sigh and throwing her schoolbag onto the sofa against one wall, flopping down onto it. - Mother

He doesn’t know where he is. - It was Cruel and it was Wrong

The first time it happened was only a few months after Sokka had moved out of the Fire Nation Palace to take up his new position in what was now being called Republic City. - bad idea right?

"Zu...?" - A Problem Halved is a Problem Shared

“I’m sorry, but no. The crisis that started the United Republic is still too fresh in our citizens’ minds for us to give away even more land!” Fire Lord Zuko’s voice echoed through the council chamber, louder now than the last several times he’d made a similar point. - Playing the Long Game

Zuko sat at the desk in the bedroom, looking out at the beach from the window of the vacation home on Ember Island he’d bought with Sokka. - The Last Five Years

Zuko did a lot to support Sokka in their relationship. - In Which Sokka is Supportive Ally Boyfriend Goals

Zuko couldn't stop thinking about it. - The End of All Things

Zuko spat blood, hoping Sokka wouldn't hear, and that he also hadn't heard the wet cough bubbling up in his throat since he'd been returned to their cell from his most recent interrogation. - One Last Time

“Search them!” - Zuko and Sokka Get Engaged in the Most Zukka Way Possible

"We're not good for each other." - Keeping it in the Family

"...Who did this to you?" - Scratchy

"Hey, why are you walking like that?" - Hidden Pain, Shared Love

"I promise I'm fine... I just need some rest, that's all." - Keeping Score

He never really thought he had a problem. - Nourishing the Flame Within

Sokka looked up into Zuko’s eyes, giving a small smile. - Scars of Trust

Conclusion: Uhhh I don't really notice any major patterns other than that I like to start a story in the middle of an action, which I already knew and that I DO like to start off with dialogue because I LOVE writing dialogue and I also think that's like my strongest point as a fic writer. So.

Tagging: ok no this is SO fun that literally anyone who sees this should do it and tag that I tagged you so I can see! I want EVERYONE to do this!

#text

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itsalwayswellattheworldsend · 3 months

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Book 2 Chapter 17 - Richard Bringeth Tidings of Departing

Text Audio

Synopsis:

Ralph and Richard have one last talk, discussing the Lady and what happened.

Summary:

“Doth it seem to thee as if the Lady of the Dry Tree had some inkling that thou shouldst happen upon this other woman: whereas she showed her of the road to the Well at the World's End, and gave her that pair of beads, and meant that thou also shouldest go thither?”

Three days passed, and on the morning of the fourth day, Richard came to Ralph and said: “Foster-son, I am sorry to say this, but Clement Chapman entered the city this morning, and the group he’s traveling with are ready for the road[1] and will depart by noon today, so we only have four hours together before you set out on your journey—and I may never see you again. Now I will say that most of all, I’d like to go with you, but I cannot, for I am bound to serve Blaise. Also, I think there may be troublesome times soon here at Whitwall. There is an Earl named Walter the Black—a handsome young man outwardly, but his heart is devious and tyrannical—who has some complaint against the town,[2] and it was expected that he would send his herald here to defy the administrators[3] more than half a month ago, but about that time he was hurt in a fight and cannot ride a horse into battle again yet. But he hasn’t given up,[4] and when he is well again we can expect him at our gates. Since Blaise knows I am a skilled fighter, it is unlikely that he would let me join you on this quest. No, it will also be expected of you to be here to help fight, as Blaise intends it. Therefore, I have lied to him on your behalf, and asked Clement to lie as well (which he can probably do better than I can), and I have said that you are only going with Clement to Cheaping Know[5], which is close on the other side of these mountains, and that you’ll be back again in a bit over half a month. I thought I should let you know.”

Ralph was touched by Richard’s kind words, and he said: “I am truly sorry to leave you, old friend, but now that I will soon be among strangers, I feel my sense of adventure rising again. So for that, at least, I am excited to get on the road. And as a sign of how much better I am feeling, I will now tell you the story of my grief, which the other day I could not do, if you’ll listen.”

“I will listen gladly,” said Richard.

They sat down at the window, as they were still at the inn, and Ralph told everything that had happened to him as plainly and as briefly as he could.

When he was done, Richard said: “You have had much adventure in such a short time, lord, and if you can move your sight from what was to what will come next, you may still grow to be a famous knight and a happy man.”

“Yes? Tell me your thoughts.”

“My thought is that this lady[6] who was killed was not entirely human, but that there was some mixing in her of the blood of the fairies. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Ralph said sadly. “To me, she seemed like a normal woman, though she was more beautiful and wiser than any other.”

“Well, if I heard you right, there is another woman in your story who is more beautiful and wise than others.”

“I wish she were my sister!” said Ralph.[7]

“Yes,” said RIchard, “and do you remember what she was like? I mean what she looked like.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Does it seem to you like the Lady of the Dry Tree might have suspected that you would come upon this other woman? Since she pointed her down the road to the Well at the World’s End and gave her those beads, and also intended for you to go that way. And you say that she praised her—her beauty and wisdom. How did she praise her? How did she speak? Was it sweetly?”

“As sweet as honey and roses,” said Ralph.

“Yes,” said Richard, “and she could have spoken with words like bitter vinegar. Now I will tell you what I think, since we are about to part, although you may not like it and might be angry at me. I think that you would have lost the love of this lady as time passed, even if she had not been killed. And she being (if not of the fairies) wiser than other women and seeing the future, knew that it would be so.”

Ralph broke in: “No, no, that’s not true!”

“Listen, youngling,” said Richard. “I think that is what happened. Her love for you was so kind that she wanted you to be happy even after your parting: therefore, she intended for you to find that maiden—who I also think loves you—and that you should love her truly.”[8]

“No, no!” said Ralph, “everything you’re saying is wrong, except that she was kind. She was kind like heaven is kind to martyrs, who enter into paradise after their many sorrows.”

And then he fell to crying at the thought of her great kindness: for to this young man, she had seemed great and exalted far above him.[9]

Richard watched him for a while, then said: “Now, I ask that you do not be angry with me for what I have said. But I do have another thing to say, which I think you will like better: when I came back from Swevenham on Wednesday, I thought that the Well at the World’s End was most likely just a legend, or that if it did exist, you would never find it. But now my mind has been changed by your story, and I think both that it exists and that you will find it, and that the wise Lady knew this. She saw your youth and kindness and wanted those to endure.[10] Now, I’ll say no more about this, but I think that the words I have said—which seem so wrong to you now—will come back to you sometime in the future and help you, and that is why I have said them. But here is something else I’ll say: I’ve got a good horse for you, and other gear that you will need on the road. Clement’s group will meet at the Petergate by the church, and I will be your squire until you go there and ride out through the gates. Now I suppose that you will want to wish Blaise farewell, but don’t expect much from him, since he’s rich now and also thinks you’ll be coming abc soon.”

“Nevertheless,” said Ralph, “I need to say goodbye to him before I leave. Let’s get ready then; all this talk has taken over an hour, and I don’t have many more of those.”

Notes:

[1] Starting this chapter off strong with a pretty wild note. The original line is “the company with which he is riding are alboun for the road” which is where the problem is. “Alboun” isn’t a word. And not like “speech-friend” isn’t a word, but like, I can’t find it in any dictionary and it doesn’t seem to be a loan-word. I checked my hard copy to see if it was there (so far I haven’t found any differences between Project Gutenberg’s version and my 1970s Ballantine edition, but I check when I find weird things), and it was. I ctrl+f’d “alboun” and it’s used a second time right at the end of the book, and in a similar context, though the second time seems like it’s a verb? Anyway, it seems to have something to do with getting ready to travel.

[2] Yes, this is that Walter the Black. Also it says “had some occasion against the good town” which I couldn’t really figure out how to say other than “He’s got beef with us.”

[3] “Port” again.

[4] He actually invokes another idiom that seems to be his own invention. “Fristed is not forgotten,” meaning that just because a problem is delayed does not mean it’s dealt with.

[5] “Cheaping Knowe” is a town we’ll see later. “Cheap” as a verb means buying and selling (merchantry, basically), and “knowe” means a small hill, so this is obviously a market town.

[6] Lowercase

[7] I speculate that the meaning here is that Ralph is still torn up and not ready to think about loving someone else, so his wish that Dorothea were his sister would remove that lingering complication from his life.

[8] Richard gives the Lady SO MUCH credit here. My assumption is that this idea came later in writing and then never got added to the earlier stuff (due to lack of editing). According to the Lady’s account of her meeting with Dorothea, they liked each other a lot, but she was afraid of Dorothea coming between her and Ralph. It’s possible for that to co-exist with Richard’s theory (it’s a matter of timing), but honestly I don’t think the Lady was a clairvoyant mastermind. I’ll post about her character later.

[9] It’s possible to read this as Morris/the narrative not putting stock in Richard’s theory. Ralph thinks of the Lady as a perfect angel (which we know she wasn’t). Richard thinks of the Lady as more-than-human and kind of flighty (which she was), though he also credits her with forethought and planning, that I think is a bit too generous. I read this line as saying “Ralph thought she was all that and a bag of chips, but he’s young and kind of stupid” (which he is).

[10] An uncertain translation of “[she] set the greater store by thy youth and goodliness, as a richer and more glorious gift than it had been, were it as fleeting as such things mostly be.”

[Map] Updated sleep numbers. I’ve run into an inconsistency with my calendar, which I’ll be looking into when I get the chance.

Map:

#william morris #the well at the world's end #the well - book 2 chapter 17

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independentzaun · 1 year

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[Trace] [Your choice]

(Feel free to disregard this, treat it as crack, or whatever else. I was thinking about the conversation we had once about Jhin saying Silco was alive, and Jinx’s reaction and the like however so…)

After offering some random comment about missing Him, and clarifying she meant Silco the young woman had been caught off guard by Jhin’s response that she should just go see Silco in that case. Frowning Jinx had stared at Jhin before flatly responding. “Silco is dead. Why would you say that?” Whatever Jhin offered in return didn’t mollify her at all, and only served to irritate her as she turned slowly moving towards him. “That’s not. Funny. Jhin. Why are you saying this? Stop it!” Running her hands over her head Jinx let out a growling noise as Jhin seemed determined to continue his lie story that Silco was somehow alive. Head tilting for a second she couldn't help, but remember being back in that place. The Table laid out, Pow-pow smoking, the smell of gunpowder and blood in the air. Silco had been everything to her and she Jinxed him yet he was gone now. It made no sense Jhin was mocking her and lying trying to convince her of something that wasn’t real. Did he think…

Eyes glowing with that gleam of shimmer her lips pulled back into an angry smile. “Even I’m not that crazy. Jhin. Stop LYING TO ME.” With no real way to calm her down it was inevitable that Jinx react...poorly, and when Jinx reacted poorly it turned to violence. With the shimmer practically boiling in her veins along with a life consisting of violence, and his magic and abilities neither was an easy target for the other. The fact that Jinx was just as confused as she was angry, and thus more lashing out rather than being her deliberately precise self when going out to purposely kill someone also helped. At the end however be it her holding him, or him holding her there was a knife in her hand tracing along Jhin’s body. Maybe his torso, or his neck or just a leg. At that point though enough of her energy had gotten burned away Jinx looked more confused than anything else, and there was actually a few tears trickling down her face as she looked into Jhin’s eyes as best she could.

“I thought we were friends, or...something. Why are you being mean, and lying and...I saw him die Jhin. Why are you doing this? What did I do? Is this cause of when I exploded paint on you? Are you still mad about that? I don’t understand.” Eyes going wide with a particular mix of grief, and regret Jinx shook her head as the tip of her blade traced it’s way along Jhin pushing gently against him somehow seeming more like a dog dragging nails along someones arm to get their attention than an actual threat.

“I miss him, but he’s dead.”

Jinx knew what happened when Pow-pow fired, and when she hit someone with the rounds coming out of it. She knew what it meant when someone had holes in them, and the light went out of their eyes. She knew what death was, and that she was a killer. She knew he was dead.

The idea that against all odds maybe Sevika had shown up, and Singed had worked his magic and Silco had survived never occurred to her.

#perfectfourth #jinxanswers

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banquetwriter · 2 years

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୨୧ Angel ୨୧

pairing: Hermione Granger ♡︎ GN!Reader

warnings: ୭̥⋆*｡, not a happy ending :(, mentions of blood, dead bodies, throwing up (but no one actually does, grief

summary: ʚ Hermione and y/n’s last moments during the war ɞ

words: 1662

AN: the fucking angst, so I will probs post a fluffy-er story soon bc this is really fucking sad :) I just watched ballet shoes so expect to see something like that heh. also this switched pov’s half way through just ignore that please <3

⤾·˚ ༘ ◡̈ ⤾·˚ ༘ ◡̈

I couldn't help but fall in love. You were perfect, I mean, in every way. The way the sun lit up your skin, your smile, your laugh, the way you listened to me, and my long rants. You listened no matter how much it killed you. You were perfect, nothing less and nothing more. The world never deserved you.

And of course you were taken much too soon...

The tears trailed down my face, my mouth hanging open slightly. The blood and sweat of my adventure clinging to my skin and clothes. I turned to see you running at me. I fell into your arms. I finally felt safe, for the first time in a very long time. You took your hands from around me, and moved them to the sides of my head, holding my face. "Hermione I love you, more than life itself I want to never leave you ok? Please, marry me?" With the clash and clatter of the war going on I almost didn't hear you.

"We're gonna grow old together... in a small little cottage, with about a half a dozen flowers and books." You let out a small laugh trying not to cry more, your eyes already flooding, threatening to spill on your perfect face, "T- tea every sunday. Cute picnics in the sun surrounded by flowers. The golden sun illuminates them all, just like you want! I promise when this is all over I will make that happen for you... I love you, Hermione granger." You spoke, crying more than I have ever seen. Your eyes searched for mine, smiling softly.

"Doesn't that sound nice?" Your voice snapping me out of my small day dream. For a moment, just a moment I pictured what you described. It sounded perfect, but I don’t care where I was as long as I was with you.

"Yes of course y/n please don't leave me... I couldn't handle it if you died." I spoke my voice whining, the tears starting to float again.

"I love you so much angel," you whisper to me. I can’t do anything except freeze in place as you place a kiss on my lips. I can’t feel you.

Looking back now I want nothing more than to kiss you back… but at the moment my limbs were too heavy. I couldn’t move, I couldn't think I just wanted to give up. I haven’t done that in my whole life. Giving up is not in my blood.

But my eyes felt so tired and I wanted to give in. I knew I couldn’t and I wouldn’t, but the desire to slip into sleep and never wake again was strong. “I love you too y/n.” I manage to whisper against your lips.

Those lips I have kissed countless times, angry kisses when all I wanted was to stop fighting, sad kisses that often mixed with tears, happy kisses when our mouths collided with such joy I could barely contain myself.

Your hands left my face, I couldn’t feel you anymore. Something bad was going to happen and I knew it. I start to cry again. This time which seems like for no reason but I know something is going to happen to you. I can’t lose you but I can’t move.

My fear has frozen me, I am at mercy with the war and it will tear me down into nothing. I would do it again and again if it meant they were safe.

But they aren't safe, and I need to save them. I have saved them many times before as they have done for me. I have helped them fight those demons that plague their mind. The demons that make sad tears fall from their eyes. I have saved them from the sea that is sorrow that begged to pull them under.

The time marks have been scratched into their skin from them or others. I have ripped the weapon away and kissed their scars until they feel better. And I would do it again and again over and over again until they were 100% happy and safe.

They are my entire world and I am sitting here letting them fight; letting the love of my life slip away from my fingers.

I need to save them.

I feel a rush of cold air lift through me. I don’t know what it was but I found myself walking in the direction I saw them go in. Amazingly, I went unharmed. However, I couldn’t find them.

I needed to. I felt air leave my lungs. Where were they? They couldn’t have gone that far? I only stood there for a second. I found Ron, he was staring off into space, much like me a few minutes ago.

“Ron! Have you seen y/n? I need to find them.” I say urgently, I was getting excited again, happy. I was going to find you and say yes, yes I wanted to marry you. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. In our little cottage.

“Ron!” I said again. He didn’t seem to have heard me the first time, he had tears in his eyes. I bet most do, so many souls lost and for what? for destruction? Chaos?

“Hermione…” he whispered, I was getting a tad impatient, I really needed to find them. “y/n… they’re-“ he cuts himself off. “They are what? Do you know where they are? I need to answer their question.” I say crossing my arms. This was starting to get on my nerves.

He sighs looking at me and he grabs my arm. “Ron what are you doing? I need to find y/n.” I say as he leads me to a hall of the castle.

“I know Hermione…” he says his head down. Maybe he was taking me to y/n. He was acting a bit funny, but everyone processes grief in different ways.

After a minute he led me to a broken down hallway. But I can see them! I see y/n! “Oh thank merlin love! I thought I had lost you!” I breathe out looking at them. And they were beautiful, they were laying down on the rubbish. Couldn’t have been comfortable but hey, this was war everyone needed to take a break every once and a while.

I hear Ron let out a deep sad sigh. I wonder what he was upset about? No time to bother with him right now I needed to be with my love. I walked over to them, brushing my hand against their cheek. “Oh you're a bit tattered up dear…” I mumble brushing the dirt off of their face. They seem to be a bit less dirty than last time… odd.

Maybe they finally took my advice and cleaned up their messes.

“Mione…” Ron whispers, his voice cracking. I needed to get them to a hospital… to help them. They were probably very tired and needed medical help. I had read loads of medical books written by wizards but my knowledge only went so far I couldn’t help them forever.

“Hermione please stop.” Ron begs behind me. I don't know what he means by stop? I was trying to care for my partner and he kept ruining it! I turned back to them. Their face sat still, probably too tired to talk. “Oh sweetheart let's get you somewhere more comfortable,” I mumble trying to lift them, gently grabbing their arm and shoulder to help them up.

Before they could start standing I heard Ron’s feet shuffle. “Hermione please stop it, they are gone.” he says firmly, a slightly disgusted face mixed with pain and tears streamed down his face.

“No they- no they aren’t.” Hermione whispered looking at Ron. They weren’t gone… maybe a tad broken but gone? That was taking it too far. I just needed to get them to hospital where their aches can be dealt with.

“Hermione, yes they are! I took you here to show you becuase I couldn’t say it out loud when I should have, Hermione they are fucking dead. You are touching a dead corpse like it’s alive and now you have their blood all over your hands.” he whispers.

I looked down at my hands, noticing them covered in red blood. “No-“ I whisper. I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t not if they were hurt worse than I thought.

“Yes Mione please-“ Ron starts approaching me again.

“You are lying! I just told you they aren’t gone! They are right here! We are going to get married and live together.” I whine, shaking my head.

“Hermione, I found them like this- they aren't here any more.” Ron says, sighing. “Mione, please look at them, their lips are cold. You said you talked to them?” Ron tried to keep going but his mouth was dry.

His friend was gone, forever. He couldn’t stomach it. It felt like he could throw up at any moment.

Hermione was in complete denial, you weren’t dead. She turned to look at you and that’s when she saw it. Your lips were cold, your eyes empty. Hermione let out a gasp as her eyes trailed down to the rest of you. Blood covered your figure.

“No.” she whispered. She looked at her hands, she instinctively brought her hands to her mouth. Only to feel something wet. She slowly brings her hands back knowing what she was going to see. Her hands were covered in blood.

She lets out a sob. A broken sob. She lets her body fall onto yours, her arms wrapped around your lifeless body. Her screams were drowned into the war, nothing but the sorrows of a freiburg child. Because that’s all she was. That all any of you were. Children brought up to fight a war, under the disguise of peace. You died protecting her. You died protecting everyone, and Hermione couldn’t be more proud of you.

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#hermione granger #hermione granger x draco malfoy #hermione granger x you #hermione granger x reader angst #hermione granger x reader

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applerubyy · 3 years

Text

Ciao Adios

Summary: When you find your boyfriend cheating on you yo decide to expose him in the pettiest way you can think of.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader (some Loki x Reader if you squint)

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Cheating and cursing (I think that’s it?)

A/N: Hi! So this is my first time writing and posting anything here so if its terrible please tell me nicely :). This is some AU where everyone lives and all is happy ok? Also english is not my first language so I apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling mistakes. Anyway, if it turns out that some of you like it I think I’d be willing to do a part 2 if you like. Hope you enjoy it! <3. Btw, the gif is not mine so credit to whoever made it.

Crack. That’s the sound of your heart breaking, ripped to pieces in just a few seconds. And no, you were not exaggerating. Seeing your boyfriend kissing someone else while taking off their clothes would do that to a person. And in his office of all places.

How did you not see that coming? They had a lot in common and they did spend a lot of time together but you were just so naïve thinking that he was the most trust-worthy person ever that you looked the other way and believed him when he told you she was “just a friend”.

Just a friend my ass you thought as you calmly walked to your room. No running, that would draw attention to you and you didn’t need that. No crying either, because once you started you wouldn’t be able to stop. Walking down the hallway and taking the elevator to your floor feels like it takes forever.

Time is funny that way. It has that annoying tendency to slow down or speed up at the worst times. Like when you were in college and the clock seemed to literally stop, you would look at the time and it was 10:20 am and check again after what felt like half an hour for it to be 10:25 am. Or like when you are having fun with your friends at a club and you see it’s 12:30 but when you look again a few minutes later it’s 2:40. Right now it feels like the former, time seems to have slowed down. Maybe Dr. Strange did something to it? No, that’s stupid, he wouldn’t play with time that way.

Finally the elevator pings open and you rush to your room. Well, it’s not only your room anymore. You share it with him and everything is a reminder of what you just saw. The art supplies on the desk by the window, the famous shield leaning against the wall near the door, the messy bed where you sleep together every night …

And every single thing brings tears to your eyes until finally, the dam breaks and you let the tears fall down. You bring your hand to your mouth to muffle a sob that brings you to your knees. Crying is the only thing you can do right now because your brain is stuck on a loop. All you can see is Steve kissing her, unbuttoning her shirt with one hand while the other grabbed her ass. And all you can hear are their moans, Sharon’s whimper when he touched her and his groan as he did so.

And now you are full on crying and choking on air because that scene keeps replaying itself over and over no matter how much you want it to stop. And you do, Gosh you do because there is so much your heart can take and this is too much. It shatters you in more ways than one. It makes you question everything you thought you knew about him, about her, about your relationship and about yourself.

You remember the first time you met him. You were already in college and looking for an internship. Luckily you happened to be the niece of the one and only Pepper Potts. And who wouldn’t want to work near Earth's mightiest heroes? You sure did. You were studying journalism and communications in New York and working with the Avengers was the ultimate dream, one that was about to come true.

Your first day was uneventful, it consisted mainly of coffee runs, delivering files and passing messages along. That was until your third coffee run where you ran straight into a wall, well actually it wasn’t a wall but it felt like it. The coffee spilled everywhere, on your clothes and his, and you were going to fall on your butt if it wasn’t for him grabbing your arms to steady you. Imagine your surprise when you looked up to see Captain America himself.

And that’s the moment your love story started. It seemed like something straight out of a romantic comedy and you loved it. It started with flirting, a date and then another, him asking you to be his girlfriend and finally asking you to move in once you graduated. It felt like a fairytale.

Tony wasn't very happy about you and the Capsicle but he saw how happy you were so he tried to be happy too. Tony was your uncle even if you didn’t share any blood. Growing up you would visit your aunty Pepper in New York and he was always around, you even stayed at his house when Pepper and him had to work. So, you two became really close even before he became Iron Man and started dating your aunt.

The same thing happened with Rhody. Your close relationship with Tony meant you were close to him too, seeing as he was one of the most important people in his life. Rhody treated you like his niece and was the only one he didn’t make fun of which you took as the ultimate compliment.

So those three you knew before you started working at the compound and before Steve. But once you started working there you met the rest of the Avengers. Being Pepper and Tony's niece and Steve's girlfriend meant they all wanted to get to know you.

You met Bruce Banner, the Hulk, and you became really close. But that was thanks to his close relation with Tony and all the time you spent with him working on his social media presence to make sure people saw him as more than just the green monster who smashes things. After a while of working there they promoted you and now you manage the Avengers social media.

Nat and Wanda became your best friends from the moment you met. You just clicked and hung out as much as possible, being the only girls on the team meant they were really happy to have another female added to the mix. As for Vision, he liked you because Wanda did, simple as that.

Bucky and Sam were the funniest people ever, their constant bickering always brought a smile to your face and they welcomed you with open arms. Happy that their friend had finally found someone to be with.

Thor and Clint were like the fun uncles you got to see every once in a while. The God of Thunder was like an excited puppy and would hug you till you couldn’t breath every time he came to Earth and Clint would joke around with you and FaceTime you when he was with his kids because they loved you (“best babysitter ever” that called you).

You met Peter when he started working for your uncle. He was a sweet kid and your love of memes, vines and pop culture made you instant friends. He would ask you for advice on girls and tell you science jokes.

But we all know not all fairytales have a happy ending and this one definitely didn’t. You’re feeling so many things at once. There’s anger, sadness, jealousy and something else you can’t put your finger on. You keep crying and are unable to move from your kneeling position on the floor. Checking the clock you realize you’ve been on the floor crying for an hour so you stand up.

Taking a shower seems like the best thing to do, your head is pounding and your face is all puffy. As you shower it hits you, that other feeling swirling around is inevitability. In a way you always thought he was too good for you, you always thought he would eventually get tired of you and trade you for someone else.

It just hurt too much that it was her, the woman he shared so much with. The niece of Peggy Carter, his first love. An agent of S. H. I. E. L. D. Someone who risked their life for the world like he did. Someone prettier. Someone better than you.

Yeah, you were definitely on a self-pity party. But you needed to be miserable for a while, to cry it all out, to hurt so that you could move on to the next stage of grief: anger. And when that came, there was no stopping you.

You weren’t a mean person, or a petty one. You gave everyone countless opportunities and forgave way too easily so you never really got angry. But when you did, when you said enough is enough, yeah, you better watch out. That could be the meanest bitch you ever met and she had no mercy.

So you got out of the shower, dried yourself and started getting ready. Tony was throwing yet another party about who knows what and you were not missing it. You liked parties, they were the perfect excuse for wearing pretty dresses and putting on make up. And tonight you were going all out.

Your inner bitch was concocting a plan and you were going with it.

You hear the door open and prepare yourself to put on the best acting of your life. You take a deep breath and in the sweetest voice you can muster say: “Steve is that you babe?”

“Yeah doll it’s me” you hear him say. A few second later he pops into the bedroom and gives you a peck on the lips as you continue with your makeup.

“How was your day?” Steve asks as he takes off his clothes, probably to take a shower. “I missed you today, i went by your office but you weren’t there” he says with a small frown between his eyes. You could stare at his blue eyes forever but snap out of it when you remember what he did.

“Oh not much, i left work earlier to get ready for tonight” you answer. Shit your work. You really did leave like that, but after tonight hopefully they’ll understand. “You should start getting ready, the party starts in thirty minutes”.

He smiles at you and tells you he’s going to take a quick shower before getting dressed. He goes to the bathroom and you feel like breaking the mirror but instead take a few deep breaths and remind yourself he’s getting what he deserves later on. With that in mind you finish applying you makeup and smile at yourself, you look good. Moving on to your hair you decide to do some loose waves and that’s it, you really don’t know how to make those complicated updos.

Steve gets out of the shower and starts putting on his suit. Men really do have it easier you think to yourself when you see all the work you had to do and he just showers and that’s it.

You take your dress out of the closet and admire it. It really is beautiful. It has a deep plunging neckline that shows a lot of cleavage and is skin tight with a slit on one side. The fact that it is silver with sequins makes it even better. Pepper helped you pick this dress.

You put on the dress and admire yourself in the mirror. You look good. Behind you, you hear a whistle and turn around to see Steve watching you lust in his eyes. He comes closer and grabs you by the waist, pulling you to him.

“You look stunning” he says as he wets his bottom lip. “I can’t wait to take it off of you when we get back”. Lying cheating bastard.

“Can't wait” you lie as you wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him. This is just a kiss goodbye you tell yourself. One last kiss before he’s out of your life and probably runs to her. Tears threaten to fill your eyes but you hold them down. Not now.

You break the kiss when the need to breathe is too strong. Grabbing his hand you start walking towards the door and say: “Come on, we’re already late”.

——————————————————————————

The party had already started once you walk in and in true Tony fashion it is elegant and extravagant. Everyone is there: S. H. I. E. L. D. agents, the Avengers themselves, politicians and a few famous people.

You and Steve walk to the bar and order drinks. A whiskey for him and a strawberry daiquiri for you, yes you are that basic but hey, it tastes awesome. He offers you his arm and with drinks in your hands you start looking for your friends. A lot of people stop you on the way, nobody wants to miss an opportunity to talk to Captain America.

One thing, or rather on person, catches your attention: Loki. He’s sitting on one of the cushions alone with a drink in his hand. It’s weird to see him there. Sure, he was redeeming himself for what he did in 2012 and Thor said he was doing better but he rarely left Asgard (he “hated mortals”) and when he did come to Earth it wasn’t for a party.

As if he could feel you staring he turns his head and locks his eyes with yours. You weren’t going to lie, he was gorgeous. He was incredibly tall, had those charming green eyes and was actually funny (but you’d never admit that to anyone). But you were in love with Steve and never saw him as anything more than Thor's hot brother. And everyone in the Avengers was hot so that’s not saying much.

You turn away from him and see Nat and Wanda on the dance floor and you tell Steve you’ll see him later and to go find his friends. He’ll need them after tonight you think to yourself. You greet the girls and start dancing with them, for a moment forgetting about what you saw today and putting Loki out of your mind.

The three of you decided to take a break and order some more drinks. Once at the bar Wanda orders for you and when your drinks arrive you go back to the dance floor. You spend the next few hours dancing, talking to your friends and pretending that nothing's wrong. Talking to Steve and pretending that nothing's wrong. Hugging Steve and pretending that nothing's wrong. Kissing Steve and pretending that nothing's wrong.

The fact that Sharon is at the party doesn’t help at all. When you see her talking or touching him you feel like you’re gonna lose it but you remain strong. You remind yourself of your plan and try to keep them out of your mind.

There’s a small stage at the far end of the room and you see your uncle Tony step on it and grab the microphone.

“Hello everyone and thank you for coming to another one of my amazing parties. I hope you are having a good time and taking advantage of the free bar over there” he points to the other side of the room and continues, “Now for what we have all been waiting for: karaoke! And yes, i want everyone to sing something because that’s the whole point of this. I'm looking at you Manchurian Candidate, you’re singing”.

With that he gets off the stage and passes the mic to Sam who decided to sing a Marvin Gaye song. He’s pretty good actually but you can’t fully concentrate on him because your mind is going a thousand miles an hour for what it’s going to happen later.

More people go up and sing their songs and you applaud when they’re done. Nobody is talking much, they're all too busy either laughing at the others performance, drinking or actually listening to the songs. You’re sitting with Steve to your right, Bruce to your left and the rest of the Avengers nearby. You’re your own little group.

It’s finally your turn and as you walk to the stage you can hear your friends whistling and cheering you on. Once you’re up on the stage you choose the song and start singing.

Ask you once, ask you twice now

There's lipstick on your collar

You say she's just a friend now

Then why don't we call her?

So you wanna go home with someone

To do all the things you used to do to me

I swear, I know you do

Used to take me out in your fancy car

And make out in the rain

And when I ring you up

Don't know where you are

'Til I hear her say your name

Used to sing along when you played guitar

That's a distant memory

Hope she treats you better than you treated me, ha

As you continue singing you get more and more confident and take the mic. You walk off the little stage and over to your friends while dancing and you can see them smiling, clapping and having fun. They have no idea how much i mean all of this you think. You look at Steve and he’s completely oblivious. Good, you want to take him by surprise. You arrive at your little circle of friends and start singing the chorus.

I'm onto you, yeah you

I'm not your number one

I saw you with her

Kissing and having fun

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done

You keep dancing and go back to back with Wanda who’s also singing along. You then turn to Nat and she grabs your hand and makes you do a little spin.

After three, after four times

Why did I bother?

Tell me how many more times

Does it take to get smarter?

Don't need to deny the hurt and the lies

And all of the things you did to me

I swear, I know you did

And now you take her out in your fancy car

And make out in the rain

And when she rings you up

She know where you are

But I know differently

Now she sings along when you play guitar

Making brand new memories

Hope you treat her better than you treated me

You go up to Tony and he starts dancing around you busting out some dad moves. You laugh and keep on singing and dancing.

I'm onto you, yeah you

I'm not your number one

I saw you with her

Kissing and having fun

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done (I'm done)

Ciao adios, I'm done (no, no, no, no)

Ciao adios, I'm done

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done

And now you take her out in your fancy car

And make out in the rain

And when she rings you up

She know where you are

But I know differently

Now she sings along when you play guitar

Making brand new memories

Hope you treat her better than you treated me

You walk back to the stage as you sing and step up. You put the mic back into place and sing the last part of the song.

I'm onto you, yeah you

I'm not your number one

I saw you with her (with her)

Kissing and having fun (and fun)

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done (I'm done)

Ciao adios, I'm done (you get on with your life, I'll get on with my life)

Ciao adios, I'm done

If you're giving her all of your money and time

I'm not gonna sit here wasting mine on you, yeah, you

Ciao adios, I'm done

When you’re done people are clapping and cheering and you look to your friends to see them all smiling. You look at everyone and make a little mock bow and when you straighten you see Loki sitting on the same couch as before. But this time he’s looking at you and he’s laughing, not smiling and cheering but actually laughing.

You look back at your friends and say “Thank you, thank you” with a smile on your face. You continue , “I wanted to dedicate this song to my boyfriend Steve” you point at him.

“In case it wasn’t clear enough, i wanted to tell you that i saw you with Sharon”. You could hear a pin drop. No one was talking and all eyes were on you. This is what you wanted, to humiliate him as much as he did you. And what better way to do it than publicly? Oh but you weren’t done.

You could see Steve's face going pale and nobody knew where to look, if at you or at him. Tony look ready to murder him as did Rhody, Pepper, Peter and Bruce. Thor, Clint and Vision looked shocked. But Bucky, Sam, Nat and Wanda looked guilty.

Your heart breaks a little more when you realize they knew. You can’t really blame Bucky and Sam for not telling you, they were Steve's friends after all. But you thought the girls were your friends, that they would have told you. Apparently you overestimated that friendship.

You keep on smiling and continue “So… I’m breaking up with you. Hope she was a good fuck and wasn’t uncomfortable with the fact that you were once in love with her aunt”. You do a dramatic pause and make a little disgusted face. “Anyway, if I’m lucky i´ll never see you again. Have a great life!”

And with that, you walk off the stage and make your way to your friends. Steve is rooted to the spot and his face is red with embarrassment. You walk up to him, look him straight in the eye and give him an evil smile. He gulps and opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something and then closes it. He does is two more times and still nothing comes out.

You turn to your group and look at Wand and Nat, who can’t seem to be able to look you in the eye. You sigh and say: “Who want enemies when they can have you as their best friends right?”. They look up then and start talking. Telling you how sorry they are and to please forgive them. You raise your hand to silence them and they do.

You go to your aunt and uncle who look like there should be smoke coming out of their ears and say: “I’m gonna stay in a hotel for the night, can’t stand to be here anymore”. Tony scrunches his eyebrows and look at you like you’re crazy.

“Hell no. You’re staying here. We can find him another room to sleep in but you’re not leaving. If anyone’s leaving is Mr. Star-spangled over there” he practically screams the last part as he points at Steve.

You take a deep breath and hug him. It takes him by surprise but he puts his arms around you. “I appreciate it uncle Tony but i can’t stay at the compound, it just hurts too much” you say as you let go. Turning to your aunt you hug her as well and say: “Thank you for everything but I quit”.

The moment those words leave your mouth everyone starts talking at the same time telling you how crazy you are and to think about it. You just smile at them and tell them you already made up your mind. “I'm gonna go pack a bag and ask Happy to take me to a hotel nearby. Please make sure he doesn’t follow” you say as you point to a still red-faced Captain America.

With that you turn around and leave. The room is silent for a few seconds before you hear your friends all screaming at Steve. You look around for a second and notice that Loki is staring at you with a smirk on his face. When you look him in the eye he raises his glass at you ant takes a sip.

You give him a small smile and walk through the doors towards the elevator.

#steve rogers x reader #captain america x reader #steve rogers imagine #captain america imagine #avengers #avengers imagine #loki x reader #loki imagine #tony stark #steve rogers x y/n #captain america x y/n #steve rogers fanfiction

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blzzrdstryr · 3 years

Text

Moth into flame. Yandere!Kaeya x gn!reader

Wordcount: 4k

A.N: It’s very self-indulgent, but I had this idea for 2 weeks now and needed to get it out. I’ve never written fanfiction and I am not a native speaker, so bear with me.

CW: Violence, unhealthy relationship

For as long as you know Kaeya, he feels different from other people. Odd in the way that empty alleyways and dark rooms are odd, a sense of barely concealed danger lurking underneath the layers of charm and friendliness. You always felt his darker nature, but never questioned it before - you are an adventurer after all, the danger is your thrill.

He must have known that you aren’t particularly repulsed by this side of him, as his friendly facade morphed into something darker right in front of you for a couple of times. You doubt a liar and an actor as skilled as he is would make such amateurish mistakes.

No, he can’t be ignorant about how his more ominous part is what makes your veins sing from the strange mix of fascination and fear. That must be why he kept flashing his less amiable side, enticing you further in his grasp, and you gladly took step after step in the carefully crafted trap he prepared just for you.

How could you not? Kaeya is charming and dangerous, like wildfire and you are nothing but a moth, too blinded by his light to stop and just think.

And now, seeing an irrefutable, but faux proof of the crimes you didn’t commit in his hands, you feel it - how searing his casual coldness can be. Right now, Kaeya Alberich is no human in your heart, he is a small piece of abyss that made its way out of Khaenri’ahn ruins to drag you down the cosmic darkness, where you possibly truly belong.

***

Kaeya both loves and hates your first meeting and he avoids reminiscing about it. It sounds strange, right?

Back then he was still a part of Ragnvindr household and Diluc treated him like a brother, and maybe that is a small part of a reason why he feels such aversion to recalling it - those memories are tinted both by fond nostalgia and bitter loss, enough to make him itch for a bottle in his hand.

Both Kaeya and you were green rookies - a knight fresh from training and a beginner adventurer, accidentally teaming up against a gang of treasure hoarders. It all ended up with both of you victorious, but injured. Kaeya helped you to walk back to Monstadt as one of the criminal's bolts wounded your leg, enough to make you wince from pain at every step.

In the middle of the trail he suddenly grew bored from your barely suppressed pained expressions and soft pants, no matter how cute they were to him, and decided to carry you, just like the groom would carry his bride. He quipped and joked about it, as he made his way to the city's general direction, and you laughed and made some witty remarks in return.

At the moment he didn't think too much of it - you were another adventurer in his eyes back then, a cute, but insignificant passerby in his life and he was just playing a role of gallant knight in shiny armor. Give it a week or two and he would forget your face and your name.

But he didn't.

Just as you were approaching city gates, a miracle happened - red vision materialized right in your hands. You clutched it tightly to the chest, a bright smile appearing on your face. You turned your head to Kaeya, and he could have swore you were using your newly acquired Pyro on him.

How else could he feel so warm inside all of a sudden?

He couldn't help but recall your smile for weeks after that.

***

Your second meeting happened when you were returning to Mondstadt after your first long expedition. Shortly after the word of your Pyro vision reached Cyrus' ears, he was dead set on sending you to Dragonspine to help other adventurers. You were hesitant at first, but then your natural thirst for thrill combined with a hefty pay he promised won over you, and here you were - carrying several stacks of starsilver, absolutely exhausted and frozen to the very bones walking back to Mondstadt.

To say that you were unprepared would be an understatement of the year - even with pyro vision the cold seemed absolutely unbearable and to make matters worse you almost had a run in with a frostarm lawachurl. To avoid hopeless fight, you had to hide behind the tall snowdrift, almost submerging your body in it, as you both admired and dreaded the ice cladden giant.

Nonetheless, you acquired all of the starsilver the adventure guild needed, and now you trekked through the forest as the sun started to set.

Straining your eyes to see through the heavy rain and approaching darkness you saw it - a bright red smudge against the dark tree bark and unmistakable scent of blood. Such stark contrasts were enough to shake off the tiredness. You slowly made your way to the source of the stench, both fearing and anticipating what may reveal itself to your curious eyes.

There was a silhouette of an injured man that started to slowly morph into a vaguely familiar figure as you got closer. Seeing that there was no threat, you threw your ore to the ground and ran to the unconscious person. It was that knight who helped you to defeat treasure hoarders, Kaeya.

He looked horrible - his normally rich bronze skin now looked ashen and grey from the bloodloss, the face that radiated smugness seemed as if it already belonged on the corpse, the blue vest that he was wearing dyed almost completely in purple from the bloodloss, but the most horrible thing was a shallow but wide gash on his chest.

Not wasting any second, you pulled out your trusty dagger, and sliced the vest to inspect the wound. As you pulled obstructing cloth away you noticed another detail - small burns, surrounding the gash, as if someone slashed Kaeya with something hot enough to scorch, but not hot enough to close the wound and most unexpectedly, faintly glowing blue orb. A cryo vision.

You sat on your knees to put his vision in your pocket and clean his wounds. It still bled, as you frantically searched for a way to close it your eyes fell on the small burns around the wound and suddenly a crazy idea popped up in your head.

With shaking hands you used a piece of sliced vest to muffle him and prevent Kaeya from accidentally biting his tongue off, and then you took the dagger again heating it up. You heard about cauterization from older adventurers, but hoped that you wouldn’t resort to using it.

Kaeya’s pained groans were muffled by the makeshift gag, yet it wasn’t enough to wake him. After you made sure that his bleeding stopped, you removed your outerwear and wrapped Kaeya up. You cursed, as you hoisted a heavier body on your back, an exhaustion you have forgotten moments ago hitting you with a renewed strength.

The path to the Mondstadt with a new burden on your back now felt ten times longer. Even if you two were barely an acquaintance, a cold coil of fear for Kaeya's life still set in the pit of your stomach, and it seemed that no amount of fire would make you feel warm again.

***

Waking up in the infirmary was one of the biggest surprises in Kaeya’s life.

There were times when he was sure of his imminent death - an abandoned shivering child all alone in the forest, a stranger in the strange land, a prince of nothing with the weight of the whole dying kingdom left on his shoulders; a rainy night reeking of death and loss, grief and fury burning him just as much as incandescent claymore, rapidly growing pool of bright red blood, just as red as a…

Kaeya was okay with dying - it would be a nice ending to his story. The dead saviour of an already dead nation, an outlander casted out from the only semblance of home he had. He liked the irony.

He could have asked for help right after the duel, calling out that person’s name, he knew that that person wouldn’t leave him if he was dying, but the possibility of seeing hatred in those eyes was too much for him. The second a fiery blade cut through his flesh was when Kaeya decided to die.

And honestly, he couldn't continue to live once he confirmed what kind of a monster he is - the first thing he felt when he saw Crepus Rangvindr, a person who took him in, kept him fed, warm, safe and clothed all these years, a person who loved him more than his own father did, slowly disintegrating under the strain of delusion Kaeya felt no sadness. No, a relief, as if he was freed of a tiresome burden came instead.

Kaeya was disgusted and horrified for even experiencing such feelings in the first place, but he also couldn't do anything with it - for the last few years he was torn apart between Mondstadt and his homeland, and Crepus’ death should have solved his internal dilemma, driving the final nail in the coffin.

Sometimes he felt as if he was no person at all, just an abyssal creature that took on a human form and was allowed to live only to be unleashed on Teyvat. The time at Khaenri’ah was something that stuck with him for the rest of his life - the fear and resignation he experienced there heavily imprinted on his brain.

Every once in a while he had impulses to lie, to hurt and do as he pleases, for a long time he stopped these urges at the root, maintaining the illusion of normalcy he built for Ragnvindr household. He knew it was from Khaenri’ah, a cursed nation of sinners with all of its glorious legacy lost to the sands of time. Immoral impulses were something that would have helped him to survive among the endless darkness that surrounded god-forsaken place.

“Ugh”, he tried to get up, to shake intrusive and self-deprecating thoughts away, but failed. Pain, like melted iron, slowly spread from his chest to the points of his fingers in a second. Even breathing was hard - his entire body ached and burned, a shaking hand slowly touched bandaged torso. Alberich winced as he remembered why exactly it was aching.

“Sir Kaeya, you are already awake! Please, don’t move.”, pretty but forgettable nun fussed over him, rechecking his bandages and then taking out a foul smelling medicine. She made Kaeya drink it all. He still cringing from the bitter taste, half sat on the bed, leaning on the headrest, tried to flash her his most charming smile and asked:

“Do you know how I got there?”, it seemed his charms did work on the girl, as she started to describe the previous night in great detail: what she was doing prior to his arrival, how dark the sky was, how worried she was when she saw his battered body, how exhausted the adventurer and guards that delivered him looked.

“Do you happen to know the adventurer’s name? I would like to say my thanks once I get better”

“Oh, it was [First], I think, but I am not sure. I believe I saw a pyro vision” Kaeya slid in the lying position again, as he remembered you, his first and only crush. Half buried feelings ignited in his chest with a renewed vigor.

Seeing that Kaeya paid her no mind, the nun headed to the exit of the infirmary, but right before she left she turned to Kaeya again, saying that you will visit him tomorrow.

****

Just as you thought Kaeya was conscious today. After you managed to carry him back to Mondstadt, worried but distrustful guards at city gates took away your load and delivered him to the Church of Favonius. You insisted at coming with them, still anxious for Kaeya’s life. Nuns almost showed you out of the infirmary and you, defeated, had to go home.

The next day you spent looking for the abandoned starsilver, thoughts occupied both by Kaeya and the payment Cyrus promised. Fortunately, the stacks lied right where you discarded them and after a quick trip back to the adventurer's guild, you had nothing to do - weekly commissions done days prior, so you decided to spend some time inside the city for once.

As you navigated the city square you felt the tense mood that hung in the air, Mondstadt usually cheerful and carefree now seemed uncharacteristically gloomy. You later learned that the local wine tycoon, Crepus Ragnvindr, died in the accident and his son and young the youngest captain in history of Ordo Favonius, Diluc, left the city and abandoned the knights.

Despite spending almost all of your time outside the city gates, even you were aware of the city's happenings and certainly heard about two dashing young gentlemen. Kaeya was rumored to be a foreign orphan taken in by Crepus and Diluc as you remembered is a claymore swinging pyro user - a picture of Kaeya’s injuries came to mind. Scattered details started to slowly gather into a sound theory.

A fight after Crepus' death(was accident Kaeya’s fault?), that resulted in Diluc abandoning the knights(Are knights also at fault?).

You quickly brushed it off, as theorizing without the concrete evidence was one of the biggest mistakes one could make. So instead of building baseless speculations, you decided to visit one of the key people, Kaeya. Occupied by your thoughts and curiosity, the travel to the church seemed almost momentarily.

Stepping in the infirmary you were hit with a strong bitter scent of the medicine, but Kaeya sitting on the bed seemed fine, if not a bit tired. He was reading a book, but put it aside as he noticed you and gave you a warm smile.“I remember you, [First], you were the one who saved me I was told. Seems I should make it up to you”

“No need for it, you were dying”, you head to him, a hand searching for the vision in the travelling bag. His smile doesn’t drop, even when a somewhat awkward silence hangs around you. Finally, you exclaim: “I found a vision near you, and kept it so it doesn’t get lost or anything”.

“Oh, that’s a surprise, give it to me” the vision in his hands glows alive with a gentle blue light, a small ice shard forming between his fingers and you find yourself holding your breath. Kaeya looks less impressed than you, a strange emotion written on his face,as he looks from the blue orb, to the ice, to your amazed face.

“It may sound rude, but do you remember who injured you?” Kaeya doesn’t appear phased, slowly blinking, a confusion written on his face, as he looks up in contemplation. “Hm, no, can’t remember anything” You shift a little, disappointment not reaching your face. Was Kaeya lying or not?

“I hope I didn’t mess up your adventuring schedule” Kaeya murmured, leaning a little closer to you.

“No. I planned on spending a week inside the city. Why do you ask?”

“Well” he smirks, “maybe a brave and strong adventurer will lend a hand to poor injured me and”, you felt your face slowly heating up “escort me to Good Hunter, the food here is abysmal and maybe your company and decent meal will clear my head a little”

Only a day later you realized that it was your first date.

***

Kaeya likes challenges, and maybe that is a reason why he’s so drawn to you - you’re smart, just not people-smart, and you have enough intuition to guide you away from the schemes and plans he tries to pull off. Of course, he wouldn’t risk your life or general wellbeing - he likes your presence far too much to do that - but the possible less savory reactions he could gauge out of you were too alluring to miss out - frustration, fear, anger.

Alberich is frustrated - a hunger that was ignited by you grew greater and greater with each day - he wants to see so much of you, see you in pain, see you helpless, see you defeated. Would you cry, would you yell, would you curse at him?

He tried to resist it in the beginning - just as he did when he was still a part of Ragnvindr family - but he failed. Maybe, Diluc’s dismissal of him and abandonment was something that broke Kaeya in the way that Khaenri’ah couldn’t. That rainy day he learned one lesson - everyone leaves, and Kaeya didn’t doubt that you would too.

You are an adventurer after all, as free as a wind. It’s just pure luck that someone as curious and thrill-seeking as you hasn't moved to the other nations in search of excitement.

Kaeya feels threatened.

Over the years, you both fell in the comfortable, but vague place between friendship and something-more-than-friendship,a status quo of sorts. You were a loner at heart - fine with keeping almost everyone at arm’s length and Kaeya, to his disappointment, found that even his charms wouldn’t bend your will.

He could see how uncomfortable yet excited you got, when he showed his less considerate side - when he arrested and fought criminals, when he pulled off his complex plans, when he turned and twisted the words of others to make them scream and writhe and beg. Oh, of course you tried to hide it, your face becoming akin to a mask of stone, but there were other tells - the shine in your eyes, the body language and accelerated breath.

Kaeya also knew what an excitement glutton you are - there is a flame inside of you, needing to consume and devour new tastes, sights, adventures and mysteries. You are predictable in that way, he has a gut feeling that you are wary of him, but the promise of a new enigmatic crime that needs your assistance is almost always enough to lure you back into his arms.

And now he has a new problem at hands - his failed plan. Months of subtle work and manipulation led and were supposed to build up your feelings for this. A public love confession, both sudden and extravagant. Kaeya thought that someone as awkward as you, would cave in under the pressure he would put you through by making his love public.

However you didn’t, even if some, if not most of the onlookers gasped in the shocked disappointment - Kaeya was sure that you two looked like a would-be-couple to the observer’s eye. You stuttered some apologies, hid your face and almost ran away from him.

It grates on Kaeya’s nerves in a special way, annoyance slowly building up. Fortunately, he has a strategy to relieve it, by methodically destroying it’s source.

***

“Thank you, let’s do the next commissions together” you wave goodbye to the fellow adventurer, missing an indiscernible look cavalry captain gives both of you.

Only when the said adventurer leaves, does Kaeya step out of the shadow, his single eyes wholly focused on you. After the confession you started to purposefully avoid him - something that Kaeya thought was possible, but didn’t entertain it enough.

Seeing him is what almost sends you to retreat - relationships are messy, especially after failed public confessions, there’s too much burden now and you never felt the desire to work on any of them leaving everything to take its course. Instead, you stand there, enduring his cold gaze and warm smile, hit by a sudden realization of how childish your thoughts are.

Kaeya must have taken your passiveness as an invitation, as his hand snakes around your shoulder, throwing you off your internal monologue. “[First], I have an interesting case again” he leans in, his breath tickling your neck, “and I need an assistant again, the pay will be like last time”.

In spite of your current discomfort you almost space out, body habitually relaxing near him. “What the thing about?” the cases that Kaeya involves you in are always bizarre and something never seen before, a mystery awaiting to be solved.

He begins describing it to you - a strange string of deaths of young adventurers, all of whom were visionless and most curiously they all died off duty. Young men and women did their commissions, plunged in the domains and fought with monsters, but died inside the city walls, inside their houses and beds, surrounded by safety and comfort.

Kaeya shares that his informant found a hearsay that there were some interesting potions on the black market and he needs you to infiltrate as a visionless adventurer and buy potions, as much as possible.

This evening you leave the city, your heart full of trust for Kaeya, even if your relationship did take a colder turn.

***

You, as Kaeya predicted, still believed him. Alberich almost felt bad for exploiting and twisting your trust in him , but as he supposed there was nothing more he could do with himself. Your visage filled his head day and nights, sometimes he even daydreamed about the life he would have with you. It would be delightful - to have you underneath his thumb, ready for any whim and perversion he could come up with.

He came to the Angel’s share and ordered a glass of wine, ignoring judgemental stare Diluc pointed at him. He could almost hear Ragnvindr saying “already” and calling Knights inefficient and lazy drunkards. Kaeya happily took a sip of the liquid - all of his plans always carried an element of risk, so the cavalry captain felt a bit agitated. What if you don’t touch the potions? What if the gang will escape with them?

Nevertheless, if you did touch it or not wouldn’t really matter, as catching you red-handed was more important. He needed to make you look guilty - you worked with him unofficially, which meant that no one knew about it, not even Vile. Sure no one would take your word over his, even if you left significant evidence of your innocence, after all a lot of knights are weak to bribes.

He almost hummed, as he imagined things he would do to you once you were imprisoned and completely in his power. He, of course, would save you from the dank dark cell, finding an “overlooked” detail, but not before breaking and molding you a little.

Finishing his wine, he went to the knight’s headquarters, to request the assistance of other knights in the arrest of a dangerous criminal, a spring evident in his step.

***

It was treasure hoarders again, you silently cursed, while dodging one of the attacks. You weren’t the best actor and within the minutes they exposed you. Fighting among the fragile vials wasn’t the best idea, so you moved the fight to the outside. Once they all run after you, you jump over them, raining a constant stream of fire over them. Some of them started to scream, a pure agony written on their face.

Some of the hoarders used a hidden gas bomb, submerging the whole place in smoke and using it to run away. You didn’t run after them, and headed inside instead. There was a significant change: some of the vials that contained transparent liquid now were bright red. You took one of them in and gasped - it felt so warm in your hands - and then you recognized your own elemental energy.

Out of curiosity you reached for the “uncontaminated” one, the colorless liquid rapidly bloomed with scarlet red, as your vision came to life without your command. Was it that deadly potion that Kaeya talked about? You felt how it sucked some of the pyro energy from you, then it must transmit collected energy to its consumer. No wonder all of those adventurers died - without a vision their bodies weren’t used to receiving and processing such amounts of elemental energy.

You tried to take the vials with the “clear” potion, but no matter what you did all of them got dyed in red the second you stood a little closer. Sighing in defeat you collected ones contaminated with your energy and prepared to head back to Mondstadt. You needed to warn Kaeya to take some regular knights with him if Albedo needed samples for analysis.

Suddenly there was a sound of several people running up to you, a Favonius armor coming into the sight. You almost smiled as you saw Kaeya, happy that he decided to help you, until you heard it: “Arrest them!”

#yandere genshin impact #yandere kaeya #yandere genshin x reader #yandere kaeya x reader #Kaeya x reader #Yandere genshin impact x reader #Yandere genshin #Yandere #Kaeya #my writing

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tamakissimp · 3 years

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B.K/I.M- save the bunny

𝕤𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪: What are you supposed to do when you’re dead friend is suddenly standing before you? 𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: cursing, someone getting hit, mention of murder? 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥: 2008 𝕒/𝕟: not my best work but o well....yeah also there’ll probably be part 2 to this

This wasn't how Bakugou wanted his Friday night to turn out. He was supposed to come how to a quiet place. Silence and tranquillity enveloping him as he let himself fall onto the plush cushions of his couch. Maybe there would be a warm meal waiting for him if he was lucky. He could finally let his worn-out muscles take a break from the constant stress they're under.

Something must have gone wrong somewhere. Or else he wouldn't be here, standing before a mocking bunny mask. Floppy fabric ears and blood-stained cheeks staring back at him. The sewn-on grin seems to scream 'punch me'.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he snarls. He grits his teeth while trying to keep his explosions at bay.

The bunny simply tilts their head as they stay silent. Their long limbs seem to move spiderlike as their body turns. Bakugou's eyes following their movement.

No. Shit. Fuck. The bunny tilts his head towards the other side as they snag a photo frame from the coffee table. Pointy fingers glide over the glass, lingering on a specific person in the picture.

Bile starts to rise in Bakugou's throat. Its acidic bitterness only seems to light the fire to his aggression even more.

"Who the fuck are you?". It's useless, he knows. Like hell, a villain like 'The Bunny' will just give up their identity. The silence is killing Bakugou. His nerves on edge and his muscles rippling as he struggles to constrain himself.

He lifts his hands, an explosion already blooming out of his palm. He is ready to blast whoever this might be into bits.

"That's no way to treat your friends," a distorted voice says. Great, so this bastard can speak. Bakugou opens his mouth, about to yell their ears of but a simple word shuts him up.

"Kacchan.". His hand drops to his side his mouth hangs agape. He had dreamed of this moment. Fantasised about the moment he could apologize and hug his friend. He had planned out exactly what he would say. What he'd do, how he'd act. But this wasn't in the plan.

The bunny's pointy fingers come up to its face before ripping the mask off. A mop of green hair springs out from underneath. "Cat caught your tongue?" he asks mockingly before running those same fingers through his hair.

"How..". Bakugou's throat fails on him. His voice stops working. Is he crying? He wants to tell himself he's not but he's honestly not sure anymore. Knees buckling underneath him yet he still manages to keep himself standing up.

"How am I still alive?" Izuku finishes for him. He casts the mask aside, throwing it on the floor before letting his body fall onto the couch, the same couch Bakugou planned to rest on. He lazily drapes his arms over the top of it.

The casualness of his movements mocks Bakugou. As if he isn't Japan's most wanted criminal sitting on Japan's number one hero's couch.

"Everyone always asks that, you know?" he says he glances down at the picture frames he's still holding. "It's getting old.". He lazily runs his finger over the glass.

"You died. I buried you. Inko fucking mourned you, she still does," Bakugou says. His voice wavers and he hates himself for it. He's showing weakness.

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to fake a death," Izuku says.

Bakugou's red eyes bore into his green ones. A silence hangs between them. It feels almost surreal to Bakugou. His mind hasn't caught up to the fact that his friend, or rather ex-friend, is sitting before him and isn't six feet underground.

While Bakugou's movements are ragged and forced, Izuku almost seems comical. His body has seemed to adapt to his villainous life. A theatrical elegance laced into his movements.

"I don't see you as a friend anymore," he breaks out. Izuku's eyes grow for a second and so does his smile. He straightens his back as he silently urges Bakugou on to speak.

"I buried my friend," he says. "You're not him. You might think you're him but you're not. He isn't this pathetic." He grits his teeth before lifting his hands again, getting ready to swing at him. Izuku quickly jumps up from the couch.

His eyes glint in mischief as he takes in the sight before him. "Oh, looks like you still haven't dealt with your anger, Kacchan.".

The nickname sets him off. He storms towards the green-haired man, fists raised and palms crackling from explosions. That is until he hears a familiar sound.

Both of them look towards the front door. Bakugou's face slacks with shock while Izuku's lights up with excitement. This isn't supposed to happen. Why is this happening?

Izuku quickly moves the kick his mask underneath the couch before he places the picture frame back. Bakugou eyes linger on the picture for a second. It's one of the three of you. Bakugou squished in between you and Izuku, his fingers raised behind both of your head to give you bunny ears. Oh, if he could just turn back time.

"'Suki?" you call out. Bakugou fears for his life, or rather, yours. Who knows what the crazed psychopath standing before him will do. "I thought I'd swing by and-".

Your words stop as you walk into the living room. The bags in your hands drop. Soup spills out of the containers you so meticulous packed. Bright orange curry stains the spotless carpet beneath it. The hot liquid splashes up against your leg, most likely burning your skin though you don't care.

You try to speak, mouthing opening and closing like a fish. This must be a dream, one of those horrible nightmares Kirishima often gets. That is until a familiar wobbly voice reaches your ears.

"Hi, bunny," Izuku says. Within a second, he has closed the space between you. Your arms wrap around him instinctively. It's an awkward hold. You used to be able to rest your chin on his head. Now, his muscled body towers over yours.

"Y-You're...You're dead," you whisper against his chest while nuzzling your cheek into him. His body heat seems to bring you a type of peace you haven't known of in years.

"I know, I know," he says while running his hands over your back. Sobs break out of your chest as your emotions seem to flow over. Salty rivers running past your burning cheeks and dripping into Izuku's musky hoodie.

Your body shakes as you grab onto Izuku, painfully so. You're sure you're going to leave bruises on his sickly pale skin yet you can't bring yourself to care. The aching in your chest that you've suppressed for years finally seems to boil over.

Hot and heavy emotions spill into your mind. You aren't sure if the salty taste in your mouth is from biting your lip until blood gushes out of it or the tears streaming down uncontrollably. You're sure that you look like a mess. Tears and snot dripping down your chin.

Instead of trying to see through your tear-blurred vision, you burry your face further into your friend's chest.

He's dead or at least supposed to be. You buried him, cried at his funeral and went through grief for him.

Yet here he is, in the flesh. His voice still sounds the same. He still smells the same. But he is not the same boy you knew years ago. His smile isn't the same. And his scarred hands sure aren't the same. Everything about him is the same, yet slightly different, giving you a mental whiplash.

"You have some fucking explaining to do," Bakugou says. His voice breaks you out of your trance. You pull away from Izuku, your body immediately screaming in protest. You look up at him. It feels strange, you used to be at least a head taller than him

"How the fuck are you still alive?". Bakugou doesn't have time for nicknames or formality. Not when he knows that the man standing before him has the blood of at least a hundred on his hands.

Izuku steps away from you, unwinding his arms from your body. Bakugou quickly strides over and pulls you away from the offending man. He pushes you behind him while one hand still grips onto your arm. You want to ask him what the fuck he's doing but Izuku starts talking before you can.

"It's a long story," he says. "Can't tell you everything but, long story short, I had to fake my death. Some guys were after me but it's all fixed now!". The vagueness mixed with his eerie smile only makes him look more like a psychopath.

"All fixed? All-fucking-fixed?". Boiling anger rising to Bakugou's head, clouding his thinking. He taking quick steps up to his ex-friend. Izuku doesn't even flinch when Bakugou grabs onto his neck tightly. "You left. Fucking made us think you're dead and you think you can just come in and say that everything is fixed?".

Spit flies out of his mouth and lands on Izuku's cheek, a shiver of disgust running over his spine at the feeling. Yet the green-haired man can't stop the excitement from bubbling up at seeing his friend so rilled up.

"Bakugou, Jesus fuck, calm down," you say. This situation should probably feel more serious than it is. Yet the shock still evident in your body and the adrenaline clouding your mind makes you unable to properly process it all.

"Like hell, I'll calm down!". Bakugou finally lets go of Izuku's throat. A set of cough falls out of the green-haired man's throat. He smirks as he glances down at the aggressive blond.

"Come on, Kacchan, we shouldn't do this in front of our little bunny," Izuku says with a smirk. The gears finally seem to click in his mind. Suddenly, the bunny mask, the name, the costume, it all makes sense.

"You sick fuck!" Bakugou yells before landing a hit square on Izuku's jaw. He stumbles back a bit, taken aback at Bakugou's sudden outburst. The blond takes the opportunity to land another punch right on his nose.

A wet crunch sounds through the room. You cringe as you feel bile rise in your throat from the sound. "Izuku!" you yell out as you try to get to your friend or ex-friend, you're not sure.

Bakugou stops you thought, his arms wrapping around your body and spinning you away from the green-haired freak. You pound your hand on his arms pleading with him to let you go but your ministrations do nothing to the number one hero.

Izuku laughs as he wipes away the blood dripping from his nose, tainting the grimy grey of his hoodie with it. "You're gonna regret that, Kacchan," he says. Bakugou doesn't even give him the light of day as he makes his way out of his apartment with light speed

Your throat grows dry and painful as you plead Bakugou to let you. To let you go to him. "It's okay, he's gone," Bakugou says.

You shake your head violently as you claw at his back, trying to get his arms to loosen their hold. "I need to see him. I gotta-I gotta see him. Suki, please!". The hoarseness of your voice shoots painful stabs into Bakugou's heart.

But he doesn't let his mind linger too long, running down the stairs two steps at a time. All he can focus on is getting you away from that creep before he can touch you again.

"Please, I can't leave him again," you sob out. Bakugou simply lays on hand on the back of your head, pulling you even closer to him. Thankfully he doesn't see Izuku following behind him.

"Please, not again," you say before your voice bursts out in sobs again. Fuck, how much Bakugou wants to blast that fuckers skull in. He's sure his friends at the police force wouldn't mind turning a blind eye for him. But that'll have to wait until later. Now he needs to focus on keeping you safe, safe from him.

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fanmoose12 · 3 years

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the devil you know

Сharacters: Hange Zoe, Levi, Moblit Berner, Zeke Yeagar, Armin Arlert

Genres: Action / Drama

Summary: Can you still miss a person, if everything you knew about them was a lie?

Сhapter 7/?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Сhapter 6

Life had never been particularly kind to Hange Zoe. Tragedies and heartbreaks followed her ever since the day she was born – kicking, screaming and nearly killing her own mother. Her mother never recovered from that blow, her health diminishing while vexation with her own child grew.

That day gave a start to Hange’s life – and to the endless stream of misfortunes she had to face.

Those misfortunes frequented, the amount of bad days increased as Hange was becoming older. But even as a child, driven solely by curiosity and fascination for the world, uncaring of the workings and the rules of the society around her, she had her fair share of frustrations. They usually appeared when her father was around – luckily, due to the nature of his work, he very rarely was. Hange didn’t know her father well, he was always absent, always somewhere else, doing something incredibly important, shaping the future of their country. He was many things - a leader, soldier, hero. But he was not a father. Hange had but a few memories of him, and after all these years she had forgotten the sound of his voice, couldn’t for the life of her remember if his hair was as brown as her own, or had she inherited that vivid color from her mother. But what Hange could never forget, what was etched into her memory for all eternity was the look in his eyes – full of incomprehension, bewilder, disappointment – that he always aimed at her. No matter what she did – excitedly gushed about her studies, showed him a shiny rock she found or urged to go and see the frog she caught, her father had the same reaction, always told her the same thing,

“I expected better from you, Hange.”

Those words were the first dagger that was buried in her chest. But it was far from being the only one.

Her father died before she reached her eleventh birthday. And despite the mourning clothes mother had forced her to wear, despite the endless eulogies she had to sit through, Hange didn’t feel the same sadness that everyone around her did, she didn’t – couldn’t – share their pain or understand their grief. Her father meant something for all those people, but to her he was just a stranger, an unpleasant one at that. When he died, a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Without him, it was so much easier to breathe.

But her sorrows, her frustrations— sadly, they didn’t end with her father’s death.

Once Hange finished her studies, completed her training, she was sent to the outside world, far away from Marley. And for a moment, for one fleeting moment, she was happy, excited to do what she always wanted – learn and explore. But she was not meant to busy herself with research, to familiarize herself with different cultures, she was sent to these distant lands as a soldier, a weapon of great Marleyan Empire. Instead of books and quills, she held a rifle and a knife. And the only thing she learnt was how much blood her motherland was spilling on the foreign soils.

Sleep was coming harder to her after that, her dreams were haunted by visions of red, by screams of pain and anguish. She had become a soldier, her hands made for creation were now covered in blood. Her brilliant mind was now broken by the horrors she had faced.

And so Hange decided to cover herself in thick armor, to hide behind a smile and false happiness. The bad days persisted, losses following after her like a shadow, chasing like an infatuated lover, but she didn’t let it break her, continued moving forward with her chin raised high and her lips curled up.

However, despite the positive attitude she had adopted, there were lots of days Hange considered bad, awful even – the day when she learned just how Titans were created, what price Eldians had to pay for that; the day when she realized that her teacher, brilliant Tom Ksaver was one of those so called shifters, that his days in this world would end abruptly; the day when she received her first wound and spent the night in infirmary, wallowing in pain; the day when she killed another human for the first time and saw the light fading from someone else’s eyes; the day when Wall Maria fell and she witnessed just how much destruction and devastation she helped to bring to this little island; the day when Mike and Nanaba died; the day when her squad perished; the day when she had to leave Paradis behind; the day when she was brought back.

There were lots of days Hange considered to be bad. But nothing – absolutely nothing – could compare to the fucking shit show that was waiting for her next.

___

This fateful day was off to a good, if only slightly weird, start. As always she was woken up by a knock on the door. However, this one was very different from Moblit’s – less rhythmic, and much louder. In fact, it didn’t sound like a knock at all, more like someone was kicking the door repeatedly.

Confused and still sleepy, Hange rolled from the bed and went to greet her guest, not bothering to put her glasses on. Behind the now opened door she found… a shape that could or could not belong to a human. She raised her hand, mumbled a quick ‘sorry’ and darted back inside the room, blindly searching for her glasses.

Once the specs took their rightful place on the bridge of her nose, Hange returned back to the shape that now took the form of a young, blonde man. She trailed her gaze down, to the tray he was holding. There were plates with pastries, omelet, sandwiches, sausages and a cup with brown liquid that had steam coming out of it.

“I’m sorry,” she spoke through her confusion, “But do I know you?”

“Not… yet?”

Hange couldn’t understand if his words were meant to be an affirmation or a question. Nevertheless, she took a step back, letting him in.

He went straight to setting up the table, humming under his breath as he did so. Hange watched him work, not knowing how to feel – puzzled or amused. She tried to catch the boy’s gaze and ask for his name, but, considering the amount of food he brought and how exquisitely delicious it looked, Hange already had a pretty solid guess about the persona of her visitor.

“Be my guest,” he gestured to the table after he finished setting it. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “My name is Niccolo.”

“I guessed it already,” Hange smiled, taking a seat. Her stomach growled, as the delicious smell of homemade food entered her nostrils, her mouth filling with saliva even before she took a fork in her hands. She forced herself to look away from the food, however, directing her eyes at the man who had prepared it all. “Thank you for the food, but may I ask what is the occasion?”

Niccolo didn’t answer right away. He took his time, dragging the chair to sit on the other side of the table, then absentmindedly fixing the napkin and pushing the plate closer to Hange.

She didn’t urge him, patiently waiting for him to start talking. She had a feeling that whatever he came here to tell her was going to be extremely interesting.

And Niccolo didn’t disappoint.

“I’ve spent most of my life hating Eldians. Like every good, conscious Marleyan, I believed them to be devils and abominations. When these people captured me I thought it’d be better to die than live among them. But then I’ve got to know them better, I cooked for them, I’ve talked with them, I… grew to like some of them.”

He took a pause, and Hange used this moment to push some food into her mouth. Just as she expected – it was finger-liking good. And it tasted even better, because she also had an intriguing story she could listen to while eating.

“And there is one person that I like most of all, more than anyone I had ever met. I’ve realized my feelings long ago - perhaps, they were born the moment that I set my eyes on her, perhaps, it was destiny that brought both of us together. And to think of it – a Marleyan and an Eldian. If someone had told me years ago that I’d fall for a devil from Paradis, I’d probably punch that person in the face, but look at me now…”

A Marleyan and an Eldian? Hange had heard that story before. Hopefully, Niccolo’s would have a happier ending.

“I wanted to confess to Sasha for a while now, but the time was never right, and I kept stalling… You know, I thought there was no reason to be hasty. but then Jean told me what happened during the attack on Liberio, how I almost lost Sasha and my chance to tell her how I truly feel, so…” Niccolo looked Hange in the eyes, his gaze shining with the love he had for Sasha. “I came to say thank you. For giving me another chance.”

Oh, what a sweetheart. Hange felt her chest warm at the sight of such devotion. She always was a sucker for a young, tender love.

“And?” she leaned over the table, eyes alight with curiosity. “What did Sasha say? She returned your feelings, right?”

“Um.” Niccolo brought a hand to his neck, rubbing the back of it. “I didn’t do it, didn’t, eh, confess. Yet.”

“And when—”

“Today,” he said, confidence returning to his voice. “I planned a dinner for Sasha, invited her family and friends. Actually… I wanted to invite you as well.”

Despite regret that spread through her, Hange curled her lips in a comforting, gentle smile. “Not the best idea, but I appreciate the thought. And,” she added, her smile turning into a cheeky grin. “I’ll be expecting another visit from you, where you’ll share all the details.”

Hange wished she could see it for herself – Niccolo standing before Sasha red in the face, stuttering his undoubtedly sweet confession, Sasha gasping, with her mouth opening in shock, their audience watching it all with a mix of mortification and amusement. Hange wished she could have the privilege of being the part of that audience, alongside a certain Captain, who would cringe horribly at the scene, unfolding before their eyes.

Hange wished— for many things. Alas…

“I’m sure your plan will work out perfectly, but just in case,” Hange winked, snickering, when she saw red spread through Niccolo’s cheeks. “Good luck.”

“Knowing Sasha’s friends… I’ll need all the luck I can get. But for now, I also need to get going, the dinner won’t prepare itself. So thank you once again.” Niccolo stood up, bowing his head. “For everything.”

“Make Sasha happy, that’s all the thanks I need.”

Niccolo nodded, showing her a smile. He headed to the door, and just before he left the room, Hange gave him thumbs up, wishing him luck once more.

As the door behind him closed, she slumped back in the chair and continued munching on her breakfast, a blissful expression appearing on her face.

So… not only a great cook, but also a romantic? Sasha was such a lucky girl.

___

Her next visitors were just as unexpected, and their conversation - a lot less pleasant. It was in that moment that Hange started to suspect that this day would take its rightful place in the collection of her awful ones. But she was far from knowing just how horrible it had the potential to become.

The moment that Armin tumbled inside the room without knocking, throwing the door open in his haste, and Mikasa trailed after him, her pace much slower but just as unsure, dread settled in Hange's stomach.

"Hange-san!" Armin was speaking in a quiet, but barely controlled voice. His chest moved rapidly, as he struggled to keep his breathing slow and even. Hange swallowed her worry, her thoughts running at a lighting speed. What could possibly have happened to make him so panicked? She chanced a look at Mikasa - the young girl wore the same guarded expression she always did, but her eyes kept shifting from side to side, hands clasped together tight enough to make her knuckles white. "We need to talk."

Hange gave them a cautious nod and stood up from the bed, the book she was reading moments ago all but forgotten now. Pieck's warning was loud in her mind, as her fear grew. Marley... they couldn't have attacked so swiftly, right?

Hange gestured for her guests to take their seats at the table that stood near the window. Absentmindedly, she wondered where Moblit was. He didn't show his face to her even once this day. What could he be so busy with?

"Your guard told us that you had a visitor today," Armin stiffly began. "Mind telling us who that was?"

Hange frowned, cocking her head to the side. If the guard told Armin about the visitor, didn't she also mention that it was Niccolo? The cooking boy had to be known around the barracks, if he was that close to Sasha.

"Niccolo came by, he wanted—"

"You mean, Marleyan came by." Armin corrected.

"Sasha's and your friend, if I understood properly," Hange protested.

"But he's Marleyan. Just like you."

So, Armin was accusing her. And not only her, but Niccolo too. Accusing them of conspiring, but for what purpose? By which means? Against who? Hange was so confused. Hange didn't understand. Armin was always so rational, so coolheaded. What could possibly make him so frantic? What drove him to such desperation, to such wild guesses?

"Armin..." any other time, with any other person who trusted her just a fraction more, Hange would have taken their hand in hers. She'd caress it gently, try to calm them down, but in Armin's state... Hange worried that it'd make matters even worse. "Armin," she repeated, lowering her voice ever so slightly, making it sound more trustworthy. "What happened?"

Armin didn't answer, lowering his eyes - in shame or indecisiveness, Hange couldn't guess. And so Mikasa took the word.

"Chief Zacklay is dead," she said. And if that wasn't mind-blowing enough, she added, "Eren escaped from the prison."

"Fuck."

What else was there to say? Everything was turned on its head - Paradis' biggest defender seemingly had gone completely off the rails. Hange wondered if the threat of Marley invasion was still the scariest crisis the island would have to face. The absence of the clear answer was… unnerving.

“We don’t know what to do, or where to look for Eren. That’s why… Armin hopes that you’ll shed some light on that.”

Armin hopes – an interesting choice of words. He didn’t think, didn’t speculate, didn’t hypothesize. He hoped – exhibited a desperate, illogical kind of feeling. So… it was that bad, huh?

“I know nothing about it.” Hange said truthfully. “As you’re aware I’m not even allowed to leave this room.”

“We know.” Mikasa agreed softly, pressing her hand to Armin’s. “But it’s hard to come to terms with it.”

“He is your friend.”

Hange didn’t understand what they were going through, she never had someone that close to her destroy the trust between them, but she knew it wasn’t easy. Eren had changed, Eren had already lied to them once, but he was their friend, they’ve spent years, believing him and in him. They couldn’t change their opinion of him in just one night, they couldn’t let a few mistakes kill what they had created over the course of their lives.

She couldn’t help but wonder if that’s how her friends felt. Was it just as hard to believe in her betrayal? Did Moblit and Levi feel just as lost and unsure? Were they just as desperate to come up with a reason for her behavior? Whatever they did, whatever they felt, Hange hoped she would never have to learn about it. She was miserable enough as it was.

But Eren knew what his friends were going through, had to be aware of the consequences of his actions, of what he was doing to his friends, how much he was hurting them. What drove him to his decision then? What happened to the boy with bright eyes and big heart?

“Do you have any idea what Eren is going to do?”

“I don’t think it’s Eren’s doing, Zeke is probably lying to him, but…” his eyes were still cast down, his finger weakly tracing some vague shapes, when Armin muttered, “Hange-san… do you by any chance know what rumbling is?”

Hange froze. Her throat constricted acutely, creating a quiet, choking sound. For one second, one terrifying second her heart stopped, ceasing its usual rhythm.

Rumbling? Did she hear correctly? Was Armin speaking the truth, did he mean what Hange was worried he meant?

Rumbling.

A short, but scary word. One that was mentioned in but a few frowned upon books. One that was only whispered amongst the members of Titan Society, too horrifying to speak it loud and clear. The word that meant death, the end of everything they knew about their world.

“We were meant to experiment with it,” Armin explained, wriggling his hands. “Nothing too serious, nothing too… devastating. Just a showcase of the power we yield, to keep the other nations on their toes. To keep them away from us. But ever since Zeke had appeared, Eren became so…”

Even since Zeke had appeared, Eren had decided to act on his own, distanced himself from his comrades and friends, joined forces with his brother. Hange would have believed, would have been convinced that the boy she once knew was incapable of such cruelty…

But Liberio, the heart of her homeland was standing in ruins. And it was Eren’s doing.

She narrowed her eyes, gave a scrutinizing look first to Armin, then to Mikasa. Hange really, really hoped that she was wrong. Against all sense, she hoped that they would drive away her doubts, that Eren’s closest friends knew him much more intimately than she ever could, that their opinion of him was right and just.

“Do you think he is capable of proceeding with it?”

“No,” Armin answered.

And the same time Mikasa said, “Yes.”

Yes, said the girl, who was in love with Eren, who was devoted to him above anything or anyone else. She said yes, spoke it quietly, in pained voice. But without a shadow of a doubt.

Hange shuddered.

She— they had to stop this. Somehow. Anyhow. Before it was too late.

"Eren can't activate the rumbling on his own," Hange mused out loud, biting at her thumb.

"Right," Armin confirmed. "He needs the bearer of the royal blood."

And that was good, that meant not all hope was lost. To go through with the rumbling, Eren had to find Zeke, and Zeke was out in the woods with Levi. He would never get away from Levi, and so the world was safe, but—

Zeke wasn't the only one with special blood. There was also—

Fuck.

"Historia, where is she?"

Armin's eyes widened, a gasp escaping him as he came to the same conclusion as Hange. "She arrived in the town... This morning."

And that was the morning Eren decided to make his escape. Hardly a coincidence.

"You don't think..." Armin began tentatively, his eyes pleading Hange to say that it was a joke, that she was wrong in her assumptions. She wished she could give him that reassurance.

"I don't know."

She didn't know what Eren's plan was, what was his goal, what was Zeke’s role in all of this. She didn't know what means Eren would use to ensure his success.

Would he go to his brother, would he trust him enough? Or would he go to Historia and risk hurting his friend?

And how Eren would get to them? Both Zeke and Historia were heavily guarded - Zeke as the hostage, Historia as a Queen and a future mother. But who was the easiest target?

With Levi being in charge of Zeke, Historia was an obvious choice, unless—

Hange swallowed heavily.

Unless Zeke was planning something too - some rouse, or a play, something that would fool Levi, make him lose his focus.

Make him lose Zeke.

And if that worked—

"Where is Historia?" Hange repeated that question. Hidden in the forest, theoretically, Levi was safe. He could hold his own in a fight against Zeke, Hange has seen him do just that in Liberio, even if some part of it was a spectacle. She also had seen Zeke after Shiganshina, personally tended to his wounds that refused to heal properly because of the amount of his injuries. Back then, every hiss of his was like a melody to Hange, a miniscule payback for the carnage he had born.

Zeke was far away from Eren, guarded by Levi. Hange had to trust him with that task. She had to hold onto hope that Levi would be safe. But Historia... Historia was another matter. She was here, close, and as good as her security was, they were not on par with humanity's strongest. They had to protect the Queen first.

"Historia chose this day to arrive because of Niccolo's invitation. She's probably in his restaurant, along with the others." Mikasa said.

So she wasn't alone, surrounded by soldiers and friends. Would that be enough to hold off Eren? Possibly, although, Hange wasn't sure.

But Eren was not alone, he had followers, the ones Moblit was so worried about. Would they be just as amicable? Would they not hurt the ones Eren cared so much about?

"Historia is our main priority. We have to go to the restaurant and make sure that—"

"We?" Armin interrupted.

Hange deflated. Of course, how could she forget? She wasn't their superior, their commander, their friend. There was no we. She was an outsider. She always were.

"I didn't mean to—"

"No." Mikasa curtly said. "We need you, Hange-san. We do," she repeated to Armin, who was already opening his mouth with a protest on his tongue. "We need all the help that we can get."

Armin studied Mikasa for a moment, then turned to face Hange, regarding her pensively. The intense look of his big blue eyes was unnerving, almost impossible to hold without flinching. There was a man Hange once knew with the same intent gaze. Oh, how she wished to see him again. He'd know what to do in a shitty ordeal they were facing right now.

"You're right," Armin sighed at last. "We might not have same goals or even enemies... but our concerns align. With you on our side, our chances are much higher. So, Hange Zoe," Armin offered his hand for a handshake. "Will you help us?"

An unlikely alliance then, huh? Hange could work with that.

She shook his hand with a smile.

___

Something was turning, twisting inside Hange on the way to the restaurant. Even the air seemed stiff, the landscape outside of the carriage bright, pretty but ominous all the same. Liberio - her city - looked just as lively before it got crushed.

And today, right now, she couldn't get that image out of her mind. The streets she walked through hundreds, thousands of times; bakeries she visited day after day; parks and playgrounds she admired from afar - everything was now gone, turned into debris, into nothing but broken stone and crushed glass.

And all of it - all the destruction, pain and blood and death - all of it was a courtesy of one Eren Yeager, the boy with bright eyes and passionate soul.

Would the same thing happen to another city? To all the cities in the world? To hundreds and millions of—

Hange took a deep breath, stopping herself before she screamed in fury, ripped something apart, overturned the carriage, or worse - started crying.

No. Nothing of the sort would happen to the other countries or their people. They would stop this— this catastrophe and Eren, and Zeke, and whoever else was involved. They would not allow another tragedy.

In the meanwhile, Hange did her damnest to focus on small, trivial things - the inside of the carriage, the bumps on the road, the subtle similarities between Mikasa and Levi, the sunbeam playing across Armin's face - anything to keep her mind from other, much scarier things. It didn’t really work.

"We are here," Armin announced, cutting through her morbid thoughts. He put a hand on her elbow - a tentative, but heartfelt gesture. Hange wondered just how disturbed she must have seemed to earn it.

"Let's go," she shook off all the worries, all of her fears. They weren't needed. They would slow her down, serve as a distraction, nuisance. And today, she had to be on her best. "We have no time to spare."

Mikasa and Armin seemed to be of the same opinion, and so the three of them left the carriage and started moving towards restaurant's entrance.

The place was much bigger than Hange had imagined it to be. She expected to see something small, but snug, something homely. But Niccolo's restaurant was grander than most buildings on Paradis. It didn't quite reach the luxurious and exquisite nature of restaurants in Marley, but— clearly, that was Niccolo's inspiration.

The restaurant - as big as it was - was packed, the merry sounds of laughter were heard even from the courtyard. People were celebrating, people came here to have some fun. Hange knew just how rare those instances were. And she hated being the one to put a stop to it. But she'd rather ruin someone's day and be wrong about her assumption or ruin someone's say and be right, than— Than not ruin someone's day, be right and waste precious time.

The three of them walked through the dark brown door, and instantly Niccolo stood in front of them, appearing seemingly out of thin air.

"Armin, Mikasa! I didn't think you'd make it! And you brought Hange with you!”

The happiness on his face was so endearing, so genuine. Hange was wrecked with sympathy for him. Niccolo was just a boy, who loved a girl, and decided that today of all days he'd make his feelings known. Unfortunately, the day he had picked turned out to be one of Hange's bad ones.

"Congratulations once again," Hange made sure to put on an extra gentle smile, in vain hope that it would soothe the effect of her next words. "But that's not why we are here."

"No?" the happiness was gone from Niccolo's face, suspicion overtaking it, but only for a second. Next came anger. "I thought we were over this," he leveled, glaring at Armin. "I thought we've already discussed everything you wanted. And I'm not going to deal with this bullshit again. Not today."

Niccolo whirled around, his leg raised to, no doubt, dramatically storm out. Mikasa's gravelly voice and a tight grip on his wrist stopped him. "If you don't want to ruin this day for Sasha, then take us to Queen Historia. Right now."

Oh. Even Hange felt shivers at that tone of voice, and the threat wasn't even directed at her. Was Levi teaching her his tricks? Or was every Ackerman just naturally good at being so scary?

Niccolo yanked his hand out of Mikasa's grasp, massaging it with a wounded expression. He didn't try to argue once again, though. And soon Hange, Armin and Mikasa were following after him to the banquet hall.

He took them through the lengthy hallway, past kitchen and washing room. At the edge of it, Hange could see two familiar figures - one tall, another short. They were standing next to a wooden cupboard, snickering quietly to each other. As they came closer, Hange realized that Jean and Connie were holding several bottles of wine, clearly having trouble choosing which one to open.

"Niccolo!" Connie yelled out, waving the bottles over his head. "Which one is better?"

"That's not for you, you idiots!" Niccolo snatched the bottles from their hands, his retort vicious— and more shaken than the situation truly called for. Any other day, Hange would have found it weird, would have paid more attention to it. Any day, but not during her bad day.

So she shrugged it off and after giving Jean and Connie a painfully awkward wave, continued following after Niccolo.

Once they were inside, Hange couldn't help but marvel at the amount of people gathered. There were lots of civilians, none of which Hange could recognize. And among them, there was a sea of green, representing the members of Survey Corps. Most of these faces were known to her. One of those faces in particular swiftly left the conversation he was having, gluing himself to her side.

"Hange-san? Armin? What is going on?"

Moblit had his mouth open, his eyes shifting between the three of them. Hange didn't know what he had seen there, what face she was making, but Moblit didn't ask another question, silently falling in step with them.

Sensing the change in the room, Jean and Connie hurried to do the same.

They all stopped in front of the table in the corner - one near the window and with a nice bouquet standing on it. The table was occupied by two - giggling Sasha, who was retelling some story in a rather animated fashion, and Historia, who listened to her friend with a joyful smile.

Looking at her, Hange couldn't help but be amazed. Last time she saw the girl, she had just become a Queen, still doubtful and unsure in her position. And, although, the woman before her eyes didn't look exactly royally – what, with her simple dress and long, loose hair - but Historia had certainly grown, become tougher, more confident in her abilities. However, she was still as pretty as a picture, and the motherhood had enhanced her beauty even further.

"Your Majesty," Hange was the first to take the word, but after that she faltered, not sure how to proceed further. Should she bow? Kneel before the Queen?

She was spared from making that decision. Because right in that moment, right when she was meaning to open her mouth and explain everything to Historia as curtly as was possible— her day turned from simply bad to straight up shitty.

"You!"

Familiar voice. The anger in it wasn't unusual too. Never before it was directed at her but—

Hange recognized the pride of Marley, the future Warrior right away. It was all she was allowed to do before getting promptly tackled to the ground.

"Traitor! Liar! How could you do that to us! How could you side with the devils?"

Gabi kicked and punched anything she could reach, accentuating her every word and accusation, but the blows were barely registered by Hange. She felt no pain, only huge amount of relief.

Gabi was furious, Gabi was loud. Gabi was alive and well.

A month, a whole month she spent worrying about these kids, only to have fate throw them back together in the most ludicrous way possible.

“Gabi,” despite her kicks, despite her loud shrieks, Hange smiled happily. She pulled the girl closer, wrapping one arm around her, while her other went to softly brush the girl’s hair. “Gabi, are you alright? You’re not hurt?”

“And why would you care?” Gabi suddenly sniffled, voice muffled by Hange’s shirt. “You never cared about us, did you? Only about those devils!”

“Gabi…” Hange sighed, finding herself at a loss of words. How could she explain something so complicated? Something she couldn’t understand herself?

Luckily, an unexpected help arrived.

"Don’t judge too harshly, child. You may not understand it yet, but humans' hearts are tricky things. No rules apply to them, they never listen to reason. They don't act like we want them to. They create emotions, make our lives brighter, and at the same time... So much more confusing. And accusing someone of caring for the wrong person… it’s just not right."

Hange looked up, surprised to see a middle-aged man standing before her. She was fairly sure that she had never met him before, but his eyes, his manner of speaking... Somehow, they were familiar.

Before she could connect the dots, however, her attention was ripped away once more, this time by Niccolo's deep voice.

"Eldians, Marleyans," he scoffed. "All of us are vile, devil is in each and every one of us. We're all imperfect, but all of us yearn to find the place where we belong, where we're loved. We don't choose who these people would be, we love others for what they are, not what they represent, or what side of the conflict they come from. And if loving my enemy is treason, I’ll gladly go down as a traitor."

Niccolo glanced back, meeting the eyes of the one he had dedicated this speech to. Hange caught Sasha’s bewildered, loving look and smiled, feeling her eyes go misty.

So, Marleyan and Eldian? Was a union like that even possible? Four years ago, on the dawn of the day when she left the one she loved the most behind, she'd say that it would never work out. But... times were changing, right? For the better, or so, at least, Hange hoped.

"Hange-san..." Moblit crouched beside her, painfully awkward. "Erm..."

Oh right. Only now, Hange realized that she was still lying on the floor. And that in on itself wasn't so unusual, but most of the times... she didn't have a ten or so pairs of eyes watching her.

Hange cleared her throat. Then, as absurdity of the situation caught up with her, snickered quietly.

"Hey, Gab," she stroked the girl's side. "Would you mind letting me get up?"

Gabi rose on her elbows, considering Hange. The frown on her face didn't vanish, but— her eyes weren't so full of rage anymore - clearly, the speeches had left an impression on her.

"I'm still mad at you," she said, lip stuck out petulantly. "But... I'm glad that you're here. Because it means they're coming for us, right? Commander Magath and Reiner— Reiner will save us, right? We just need to wait for a little longer, until they arrive."

They're already here, Hange wanted to say. If Pieck came, there was no way that Reiner would want to sit that one out— or be allowed to, anyway. Marley was coming, their guns blazing. But in the room full of members of the Survey Corps and Queen herself, Hange couldn’t say that, wasn’t yet ready to betray her country like that. She could only kiss Gabi's brow and promise, "You will be alright."

Reassured, Gabi nodded and let Hange get up. As soon as her feet had touched the ground, Hange found herself with someone once again wrapped around her. This time, however, the embrace was that much warmer and a lot less violent.

"Falco," she carded her fingers through his sandy blonde hair. "I take it you've missed me too?"

"You can't imagine," he spoke, his face pressed to her stomach. "Going on missions with Gabi is a torture! I could barely keep up with her!"

"You'll learn with time," Hange looked back, exchanging a look with Moblit. "It's not that hard to deal with annoying shits like us, right, Mob?"

He tugged at his collar, strategically evading her curious eyes. "Perhaps, after a very long while..." he reached out, patting Falco's shoulder. "And with the help of a good alcohol stash."

"Oi!" Hange slapped his arm. "He's only a kid!"

Moblit shrugged. "He has to know what is waiting for him."

"Don't listen to him," she gently consoled Falco. "He's joking."

Although... Hange had to agree with Moblit on that. If Falco continues running after Gabi like that, he'd have his first grey hair by the age of fifteen.

With the boy still clinging to her, Hange surveyed the room, swiping her gaze across Sasha and Niccolo, who stood side by side, wearing identical, enamored expressions, to Connie and Jean, who were whispering something to one another, and finally to Mikasa and Armin, who hid Historia behind their backs.

Right. She didn't come here for a cheerful reunion. The fate of the world was at stake. Hange pulled herself together and— pulled Falco away from her.

"Sorry, dear," she fondly ruffled his hair once again. "I need to go now, but I'll get back to you."

Could she do, though? Could she return to these kids, ask them to be placed under her care? Should she do it, considering that she didn't even know what was going to happen to her, where would she be one hour from now? Was it wise then to drag kids along with her? They were sharp and strong, more than capable, and they did survive on their own for so long— wait.

How did they manage to survive on a foreign soil, all by themselves? And why they were here today, in Niccolo's restaurant of all places?

"I guess these ducklings are yours?"

Oh. The familiar man that Hange had never seen was back, now standing in front of Hange, showing her a kind smile.

"We haven't been introduced, but it's hard to mistake you for someone else. Hange Zoe, right?"

"Right," Hange shook his warm, calloused hand. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Braus."

"The accent was a dead giveaway, huh?" he laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He had a nice laugh, Hange decided, deep, heartfelt and genuine. She liked Mr. Braus, just as much as she liked his daughter.

"I understand that you're the one who had taken care of my ducklings," Hange giggled, catching Gabi's very much unamused look. "Thank you for that."

"And thank you for saving my daughter's life. For that deed I could never repay you."

"That was... that was nothing. I did nothing, just happened to be in the right place, in the right time."

"It's only because of you that we're here, celebrating, instead of mourning. So," he gripped her shoulder tightly, his brown eyes staring into hers intently. "Let me express my gratitude, for that is the smallest thing that I can do."

"I think," Connie inserted himself between them, his mischievous smile lighting up the room. "This calls for a toast!"

No more than a second later, Jean had produced a bottle of wine, opening it swiftly and skillfully. Once the bottle was dealt with, he filled a glass with wine, thrusting it to the person standing closest to him. Which— happened to be Gabi.

She took all but a tentative sniff from the glass, before it was roughly yanked out of her hands. The drink splashed everywhere as Falco hurried to finish it, before Gabi caught up and took it away from him.

There was just as a couple of droplets left, everyone watched the scene in amusement, until—

Until Niccolo screamed.

He pounced from his place, wrestling the bottle out of Jean’s hands. “It’s not for you, morons! I told you not to touch it!”

Ice spread through Hange’s veins, as she heard the desperation in his voice. If her first thought was the right one… she had to make sure of it immediately.

“Who that wine was meant for?” she seethed, grabbing Niccolo by lapels of his shirt, suffocating him in her white-knuckled grip and currently not caring about it. Everyone in the room tensed, Sasha jumping closer to them, but Hange didn’t care, ignored all of them completely. “Who that wine was meant for?” she shouted, shaking the boy like a ragdoll.

“F-for the military officials! It’s the good stuff, expensive, it was meant only for them!”

The good stuff, the best one they got, Hange reasoned. The next question was pointless, she knew the answer already, was the one who came up with this idea in the first place, but— Niccolo was a good guy, a sweet boy in love with a kind girl. Hange wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“What’s wrong with the wine?”

And that was it. That’s all she had to do to get to the bottom of it. One short, simple question, and Niccolo crumbled. He didn’t try to fight her, made no attempts to protect himself. He hanged his head in shame, avoiding the dozen pairs of eyes that now were boring into him.

“They made me do it,” he whispered, his hands, his lips— his whole body shaking. “I had no choice, you wouldn’t understand—”

Oh, but Hange did understand. Better than Niccolo knew. She knew how it felt to be forced to follow the current, accept every cruel tide. She knew just how frustrating, how painful it was to lose control.

So yeah, Hange understood. But she could not excuse.

However, she had no place to judge as well, she herself was a reason for so many tragedies and disasters. She couldn’t judge, and she didn’t have the time for it. The deed was already done, now they had to try and undo it.

“Who gave you the orders?”

The spine fluid, injected into wine, came from Zeke, that Hange had no doubt about, but Zeke was far away, deep in the forest, under Levi’s watchful eyes. So who had redistributed the wine? Who was the betrayer, the real culprit?

“It’s—”

He didn’t get to finish. For only now Hange had realized what had happened moments prior. Falco drank the wine. Falco. Drank. The. Wine.

Her heart thumping, Hange pushed Niccolo away, grabbing Falco’s hand instead. Armin, Mikasa, the Queen, let someone else deal with that shit, for now she had to try and delay the inevitable. She looked around, her eyes wild, mind racing. “Where— where is the bathroom or— or a—”

“I’ll show you.”

It was Moblit’s quiet, reassuring voice. He gripped her elbow gently, taking her away. Hange let herself be led, rubbing soothing circles into Falco’s palm all the while. She didn’t know what do, wasn’t even sure that spinal fluid can be taken out of someone’s system, but she’d be damned if she wouldn’t at least try. Falco, sweet, smart Falco, he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to be turned into a Titan, a mindless creature with no loyalties and feelings. Hange wouldn’t allow it, she was ready to do the impossible and then more to save the little boy.

Once they reached the bathroom, Hange set out to work - took off her coat, rolled the sleeves of her shirt, sat Falco down on a stool, pushed his head under the faucet, instructed him to try and rinse all the wine out.

It was possibly entirely pointless, Hange was pretty sure of it— but. What else could she do? Sit tightly and wait for the young life to vanish?

"That thing in the wine..." Moblit spoke up - calmly, but defeated, as though he had already surrendered to whatever tragedy that would befall him. "It's bad, isn't it?"

Hange tensed. Hange jumped to her feet, fisting her hand into Moblit's shirt so desperately, the fabric creaked in protest.

"Moblit," she croaked, her voice shaking, broken, eyes begging him to say that he was joking, that his inquiry was simple curiosity. "Moblit, did you drink that wine?"

"It was served at every government meeting. I couldn't refuse."

No. No. Hange couldn't believe, didn't want to believe it, Moblit— not Moblit, she didn't want him to fall victim to this, become another casualty in her long, extremely bloody career. Anyone else, but not— not him.

"It's the same tactic we used in Ragako village," she explained numbly. "Back then it was gas, this time the fluid that turns people into Titans was added into wine. It activates after Zeke screams."

"Ah," Moblit shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. "If - when - I turn, you could experiment on me. Just— don't give me a stupid name like Sawney or Bean, I'd like, I think, I'd like to be called Moblit. If I'd still have some semblance of consciousness by that time, if not - you can call me whatever you—"

"Shut up." Hange choked, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She ignored them, glaring fiercely at him. "Shut the fuck up, Moblit, you will not turn into a Titan, I will not allow it, I'll do whatever I can—"

"Hange-san," he smiled, and it broke her heart. "It will be okay."

It won't. Because it was her damn creation, made to defeat faceless, unknown enemies. And now it was used against people she cared about.

She had to do something about it. With a start Hange realized that the solution was... fairly easy.

"Avoid Zeke at all costs." She told Moblit, urgency turning her speech more frantic. "Don't go near him, try— try to get away if he gets into city—"

But Zeke couldn't get into the city. Zeke couldn't get out of the forest at all, couldn't make a single move without Levi knowing it.

Levi was the solution. He would keep Zeke under his guard, he would keep Moblit, and the rest of them, safe. Hange finally could take a breath.

But the calm didn't last for long.

As soon as she returned to Falco's side to check on the boy's condition, a loud crash came from somewhere deep within the restaurant. Hange heard the sound of hurried footsteps, then a concerning scream.

She exchanged a look with Moblit. Both of them started running at the same moment.

When they tumbled inside the main room, they froze in shock.

Sasha's family, members of Survey Corps and among them— soldiers with rifles. Hange scanned the room once more, her eyes travelling further, to the table by the window. She breathed out in relief - Historia was guarded by Connie and Jean. At least, the Queen was safe.

But not the rest of them.

"Squad Leader Moblit," the ginger head took a step towards them, a too wide smile plastered on his face. Hange didn't like that man and his smile. And the gun in his hands. The gun that was now aimed at the ceiling but could be very well aimed at Moblit, or anyone else in that room. “You’re the one I need.”

Moblit inched closer too, his chin held high and eyes defiant. Hange didn’t miss the fact that his movement hid her behind his broad shoulders. Oh, loyal, caring Moblit. How could she leave him to his fate?

“I’m here,” he leveled to the redhead. “What do you need me for, Floch?”

If it wasn’t for the gun in his hands, or the smile on his face, the way Moblit spelled his name – the obvious aversion, unhidden contempt was enough for Hange to understand that this Floch guy wasn’t very nice. And, despite the Wings of Freedom on his back, he certainly wasn’t Moblit’s friend.

So. That was one of the famed Yeagerists? And the rest of them, the ones that held civilians on gunpoint were the part of the same group? Hange was so not impressed.

“You’re buddies with Captain Levi,” Floch continued. “That means you know exactly where he is hiding.”

“Perhaps.” Moblit nodded. “But what makes you think that I will tell you?”

Floch’s smile grew, and the gun that was held lazily in his hand, pointing at the empty air, moved. It was lowered down, its barrel now staring right at Moblit. But the gun didn’t stop there, it moved again, shifting just a little to the side. To where Hange was standing.

“Hange Zoe, right?” Floch tilted his head, so he could look straight at her. “I didn’t have the pleasure to make your acquaintance before, but I’m glad that life threw us all together. Especially now, for you see…” he lifted a hand, and a soldier took his place, his rifle raised, while Floch paced from side to side. “I’m not allowed to hurt them,” first he pointed at Jean and Connie. “Or her,” now at Historia. “I’m, however, allowed to do with the others whatever I want. And since hurting our dear Squad Leader Moblit wouldn’t bear the needed results…” he spread his arms, shrugging helplessly. “No one would miss a traitor, right?”

“Don’t you dare!” Moblit surged forward, shoulders shaking from the unbridled fury. But he made no more than a few steps, before he was immobilized, two soldiers coming from behind to grab his arms and twist them painfully. Moblit didn’t back up even then, continuing his fierce resistance. “Leave her out of this!”

“Ah, yes,” Floch chuckled to himself, observing Moblit’s struggling with morbid fascination. “The luck is surely on our side today. You will be useful after all, Hange Zoe. We will take you with us.”

No sooner than these words left his mouth, Hange felt a pair of hands around her, subduing and enabling to make a single move. She thrashed, she kicked, but to no avail.

“Floch—” Moblit grounded, pulling on his restraints.

“Don’t you worry,” Floch squeezed Moblit’s shoulder, showing him a look of feigned affection. “No one is going to get hurt, if you cooperate.”

No. They couldn’t cooperate. Cooperating meant leading Floch and his bunch to Zeke, and that meant leading them to Levi.

“Mob! Don’t listen to him! We can’t–” instinctively, momentarily forgetting about the arms that held her down, Hange reached out to him, trying to catch his eyes.

But Moblit turned his face to the other side, avoiding her gaze. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I can’t let you get hurt.”

Ah. Hange’s heart sunk, while Floch clasped his hands in delight.

“I’m glad you’ve made the right choice! And now,” he raised a finger, and Hange with Moblit were forced to move forward. “Let’s get going!”

___

Outside, the weather changed. The sun hid behind the heavy, grey clouds, the rain was now steadily falling down, creating puddles under their feet.

The gloomy weather further enhanced the trepidation inside Hange. The feeling, the certainty that something was going to get very wrong and very fast persisted, forcing her to grab the reins of the horse tighter, in vain hope of providing some miniscule outlet to her ever growing anxiety.

Despite the fear, Hange spurred her horse forward, doing her best to ignore the rifles pointed at her back. It was proving to be quite a vexing task, when the said rifles kept pushing her to move even faster but— it wasn’t the worst situation Hange had found herself in. That time when she and Zeke were captured by the enemy forces and put inside a fortified prison was so much worse. The prison had anti-Titan artillery surround the perimeter, they were alone and cut off from their allies. And still they managed to escape. Compared to that, a few Yeagerists were nothing.

Although, Hange had to admit – the stories did them no justice. In reality they were a lot more vile and disgusting.

But, apparently, Levi still trained some of them. And, boy, did he teach them well. One soldier behind Hange kept huffing, cursing the weather under his breath. Hange waited, and when he once again got distracted by the mud that splashed on his boot, she thanked Levi for his absurd obsession with cleanliness and acted, stealing that little moment for herself.

“Hey,” she leaned closer to Moblit who was riding right beside her, and whispered to him in a voice just slightly louder than the sound of the rain. “Remember that thing we did during Erwin’s coup-d'etat?”

Moblit winced, anxiety reflecting in his eyes. “When we punched people that were armed with rifles?”

Hange grinned. Atta boy, of course, he remembered. “I’ll give you a signal,” she nodded discreetly and returned to her previous position, now directing all of her attention on their fearless, redheaded leader.

“So Zeke is your main goal, right? You don’t actually need Historia?”

Floch scoffed, rising his nose up in distain. “The Queen is a back-up plan.” Wow, getting information out of them was that easy? Some devoted followers they were. Hange continued listening, eager to know what else Floch would reveal. “We’re not sure what exactly is going to happen, and Eren… doesn’t like hurting his friends.”

They weren’t sure what was going to happen. Only for these words Hange was ready to throttle each and one of them. What was going to happen? Mass destruction and death, a lot of unnecessary deaths.

But did these children care? Of course, they didn’t.

And would Zeke care about it? Hange wasn’t sure. Zeke was many things – cruel, violent, heartless, he never cared that much about other people. However, he was his father’s son, and, as much as he had loathed Grisha Yeager, Zeke still carried around the hero complex that his father fought so hard to plant inside him. Was it possible then that Zeke would be against the rumbling? Was it possible that he didn’t know of Eren’s true intention, that he blindly trusted his little brother?

Was it possible that their goals didn’t align? If so… then Zeke was a key player in this game of chess. He was a powerful figure they had to get on their side. If Hange could talk to him—

A loud sound, a crashing bang interrupted the flow of her thoughts, making her jump in the saddle.

That noise, it was similar to a thunder, but not quite. Hange knew that sound all too well, was the one who created the devise that was activated with the very same sound.

It couldn’t be— that noise couldn’t come from a thunder spear explosion. But… what other explanation was there?

“Let’s head there!” Floch commanded. “Something must have happened.”

Hange’s heart raced as they inched closer and closer to the place where the sound had come from. It wasn’t hard to find, the gory sight of the poor, wounded horse and the blasted cart was easy to spot.

They approached it slowly, and suddenly Hange froze, her eyes landing on something near the riverbank. Something that looked a lot like a body – a short one with strong stature and black hair—

“Moblit,” she whispered, begging him to clear her suspicions, to reassure her that she was mistaken.

But Moblit pursed his lips, and shook his head – brief, but resolute.

For a second, Hange froze, overcome with desperation and fear. Her heart stopped too, if just for a moment.

Levi, he couldn’t— but what if he did?

Ignoring the insistent shouts and strict orders to come back, Hange jumped off the horse, scrambling to get closer to the riverbank and to him.

She fell into the mud, uncaring of her clothes, of the mud she was splashing around. She felt nothing, the rain, the river, her captors, it all faded into background. She cared for nothing else, except the limp body in her hands.

Oh, please, please, please.

Her hands trembled as she turned the body to face her, careful as she could be. A bloody mess, her personal nightmare stared right back to her.

And in that moment— Hange felt her heart break, ripping, shuttering into thousands pieces. She thought she knew loss before, she thought she knew what pain was.

She was so wrong.

#i think it's the longest chapter of this fic for now?#so ummmmm enjoy!#levihan

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the-dimitrescu-seamstress · 3 years

Text

I Won’t Be Long - A rather long one shot

(I have been working on this, what I call “Magda’s Worst Day”, for a while, and I only recently was inspired to finish it. Hence why I’ve been rather quiet in terms of posts. I can only torture my muse so much.

Basically, this story came about because of the “What have you done to my daughter?!” line. Alcina was in her chambers while saying that, therefore unable to see or know that Ethan was outside. So how did she know what happened to Bela, and who told her?

My answer? Magda.

I did my best to follow the game’s timeline, but there might have been some condensing or stretching in order to make things fit. I’ve also included some brief cameos from other OCs Magda has interacted with.

Please note, this is not an “Ethan Hate” story. Magda is simply reacting as one would in their given situation. Is this a sad story? Yes, in parts. Will you hate me for writing this? Maybe. Will you still enjoy reading it? I hope so.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You must hide. The man is a danger, and I wish for you to be safe. Do your best to keep out of all this. If he approaches you, play the helpless victim. Do not help him, but please do not hinder him either.”

“But I want you to stay safe.”

“You know that I always do, dearest. He is nothing but a man.”

“You literally just said he was a danger.” The press of Bela’s lips against Magda’s was enough the hush the smaller woman and soften her demeanor. “Kissing me in order to maintain the last word is technically cheating, you know.”

“True, but I did learn it from you,” the witch smiled. “I won’t be long.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That conversation happened a little over an hour ago. Since then, Magda had quietly paced the floor of her workroom, occasionally stopping to listen for any sound outside her door. She prayed she’d hear the familiar drone of flies, but nothing came. Everything was unnervingly quiet. Magda did her best to reassure herself. She kept telling herself that the man was outnumbered three to one, that the girls would work together and remove him as a threat, that they couldn’t be killed.

The sudden barrage of nearby gunfire and shattering glass ripped away any comfort she had tried to retain. It wasn’t terribly close, but then again it wasn’t terribly far either. Worse yet, there was no celebratory laughter that accompanied the silence that soon followed. Worry gnawed at Magda’s insides, and she did the one thing that Bela had asked her not to do. She unlocked the door to her workshop, and left her hiding place.

Magda went through the halls in sock feet, wanting to make as little sound as possible. The last thing she needed was to run into the man by accident. Thankfully, the courtyard was deserted. Freezing, especially without shoes or a coat, but it was empty. Even better, the door leading to the dining room was still locked. That meant the intruder had not found a key or harassed one of the few servants who had a skeleton key to the various entryways. Magda was one of those servants. Being a seamstress, and a trusted one at that, gave her a few perks.

As much as she wanted to rush in, Magda knew better. She turned the key slowly, as the locks were heavy and made a distinct and rather loud click when undone. The door she also took time opening, just in case there was an armed madman standing on the other side. Finding none, she closed and relocked the door behind her. Best to keep him confined.

Cassandra’s laughter coming from the Main Hall signaled that she was keeping the intruder well occupied and, rather than risk an interruption, Magda turned to the much plainer door which lead to the kitchen.

Normally the kitchen was a warm place, full of the sounds and smells of cooking food for the human staff, but the rush of cold air that blew in as she entered confirmed a fear she had. Hurrying past the preparation table and ducking under the cuts of drying meat, Magda stopped short in the doorway to the connected storage room. What she saw squeezed her heart like a vice, making it difficult to breath.

Shattered glass and the remains of broken boards framed a large, collapsed pile of frozen flies. The room wavered and suddenly felt hot, despite the open windows. Maybe… maybe this wasn’t Bela, she tried to reason. It wasn’t Cassandra, as she had heard her laughter not moments ago. A small, hateful voice in her head whispered that this was Daniela, that Bela was still alive inside the castle, perhaps happily carving up the man with her sister, and what laid before her was Daniela. Magda hated to even think that, but right now she was mental begging the powers that be for that to be the truth.

Step by hesitant step, she approached the pile, acting as a windbreak when she knelt between it and the broken window. Tears began to cloud her vision as she saw pale yellow flies mixed in amongst the brown and black insects. Again, her heart wrenched inside her chest. Her skin burned and the walls of the room closed in as her anger grew and burst forth in a ragged scream of rage, sorrow, and anguish.

Why?! Why did he do this?! How did he even know?! Did he just get lucky with a stray bullet breaking a pane of glass? Why did he kill her? Why did he go after her? The cold would have been enough to stop her! She would have stopped the chase, and he could have gotten away, but he still decided to kill her! He killed her while she was hurting! He killed her while she was cold, alone, and separated from everyone. He killed Magda’s stea mică… her little star…

He didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone.

Magda’s guttural scream was echoed by a rasping, undead one crawling up from the once boarded up passageway that led to the dungeon. In her emotional state, she hadn’t put two and two together. The boards were smashed going into the storage room rather than out into the passageway. The man had come up from below, meaning he had created a potential access point for the thralls to get upstairs.

“Căcat!” she cursed, scrambling as quickly and as quietly for a container in the other room. It would take the thralls a bit of time to coordinate and stumble their way up the stairs, but they would eventually make it and Magda was not about to let those disgusting things trample all over what was left of Bela.

She would also need to tell the Countess.

Grabbing one of the large basins used to hold drained blood, as well as any discarded towels or cloth she could find, Magda carefully moved every single fly she found into the container, scouring the floor for any the wind may have blown about, but always keeping a careful eye on the dungeon passage. The last thing she needed was to be attacked by those damn thralls as she finished.

The basin was… not as heavy as she thought it would be. That knowledge made her stomach sink and made her feel that much worse. She was carrying her love’s body, and it wasn’t heavy. It needed to be. The woman was seven feet tall! It should have been heavier! These stupid, unimportant thoughts made her tears start to once again fall as she returned to the dining room. “Dammit. I’m sorry, Bela,” she mumbled as a few hot tears fell on the flies.

One twitched in response.

Magda stopped at that. She was seeing things. In her grief, her mind was clearly playing tricks on her. Bela was dead. The cold killed flies. She was dead and the tear hitting the fly only made it look like it moved.

That was when the worst feeling in all of creation latched itself onto her.

Hope.

Leaning in close, she breathed a few times on a small clump of flies, letting her warm breath roll over them. And then she waited… Her heart pounding in her chest as she watched for something. Anything.

…A leg spasmed.

It was small, almost imperceptible, but Magda took it as a sign. A possibility. A tiny one at that, but she grabbed onto it and refused to let it go. Hope was evil like that.

Covering the basin to shield the flies from the cold, she ventured back across the courtyard and towards Alcina’s chambers, locking any and all doors behind her because fuck this man and his doings. Make his shit life harder.

The Countess’ chambers were empty, which sent a chill of dread and terror down Magda’s spine. Had she fallen to the man as well or was she simply hunting him along with her daughters? Should she wait for her to appear? Right now, searching the castle was not the ideal thing to do, as she was unarmed, human, and she had no idea if the intruder would have mercy on her if she encountered him. Thankfully, her questions were answered as familiar heavy footfalls were heard coming up the stairs. Now all she had to do was explain to Alcina what she thought was possible. And hopefully not die in the the telling.

“If I can’t, I’ll do my best to bleed on you as I die, sweetness,” she told the basin of flies, trying to make a joke and do her best to smile. The latter crumbled as soon as the chamber door opened.

“Countess?” Magda’s voice was weak and shaky, full of fear, and she immediately regretted opening her mouth due to the look on Alcina’s face. It was one of surprise mixed with displeasure, which made sense as Magda should still be locked in her sewing room, not running around as she was currently doing.

“Are you not aware of our current situation, Magdalena?” Her tone was cool and reserved, as if she were waiting on Magda’s answer in order to decide the best manner of action to take.

“I am very much aware of the situation, Countess. Which was why I came here as quickly as I could.” she replied, uncovering Bela’s remains. The candelabra the taller woman had been holding streaked towards Magda’s head and the seamstress barely had time to duck.

“What have you done to my daughter?!” she roared, lunging forward and grabbing Magda by her neck. For a moment, fear and terror filled the seamstress’ mind, but she somehow managed to find her voice despite the vice-like grip upon her throat.

“It wasn’t me… the man… did this… the flies… not… not dead…” Darkness had started to creep around the edges of her vision before Alcina finally released her. Landing on the ground hurt, but the deep breath of fresh air she took afterwards was incredibly sweet.

“Explain yourself,” Alcina growled, stretching out those two words in a low and menacing fashion, one not at all suitable for a woman of her standing, but perfect for a mother seeking justice for her child.

“I heard the fight,” Magda rasped, throat still sore. “It was in… the kitchen. I found… Bela. I thought she was dead… but some flies reacted to my tears…. and warm breath. There’s a chance. That cold state they go into. She told me about it. Bela might not be dead. Only hibernating. If she can be warmed, maybe she can be saved.” Magda watched Alcina, eyes never turning away or blinking too rapidly. She didn’t want to give the woman any excuse or reason not to believe her.

The quiet between them lasted for what seemed an eternity, only to be interrupted by a low rumbling and draining of liquid coming from the next room over. They both heard it, though Alcina only gave the most subtle of glances in its direction. The pool in the Hall of Ablution had been emptied. The Countess’ iron grip was suddenly around Magda’s arm, pulling her back to her feet.

“You will take my daughter back to your workshop and you will keep her warm,” she hissed. “You will not leave her side, not even for a moment. Should I find you disobeying my instructions and wandering these halls while that impudent wretch is still in my castle, your life is forfeit. Is that understood?” Magda nodded, fear in her eyes. She picked up the basin, replacing the cover before being roughly escorted out of the chamber.

Once safely back in her workshop, Magda set about gathering her thickest fabrics; the wools, flannels, gabardines, and anything else heavy she had. She removed the blankets and comforter from her bed and did what she could to form a nest or bed for the flies. For a moment, she even considered cutting her forearm and dribbling some blood onto them, but if they weren’t moving then they weren’t feeding, and the last thing she wanted to risk was them somehow drowning in her own blood.

Magda did her best to obey the Countess’ instructions, as she was not about to risk Alcina’s wrath, not with her life on the line. However, if she did end up being wrong about Bela, maybe it would be better to join her in death. What was she thinking? Magda likely would die anyways. But, in terms of when, it would just depend on Alcina’s mood. So, the seamstress sat in silence, waiting and praying to hear the soft buzzing of fly wings as they slowly warmed up.

Instead, she heard someone faintly plinking the keys of the piano in the Opera Hall. Rather badly at that. Naturally, the all too familiar footfalls of an enraged Alcina soon followed. He must not have realized she was hunting him, Magda thought. Because what idiot would actually take the time to play the piano if they were actively trying to stay hidden? The brief retort of gunfire seemed to prove her point. Although she could only hear what was going on, Magda still had a brief chuckle as she imagined the man scrambling for his life away from Alcina.

Not that he had many places to run to. It was either to Magda’s workshop or the library, and as the noise of confrontation began to distance itself from her hiding place, she breathed a sigh of relief. The library it was then.

“How has this man managed to survive this long?” she softly asked Bela’s remains. As if in answer, gunshots rang out once more and the seamstress stood, wondering who he was fighting now. The previously reassuring knowledge that bullets couldn’t harm anyone in this house re-entered Magda’s head… but it was quickly dashed to pieces as she glanced back at Bela. Who had he gone after now? She needed to know.

For five long minutes, Magda stood at her sewing room door, with it cracked open enough to listen. But she heard nothing. No footsteps, no gunfire, no sounds of anyone.

If Alcina caught her, it would be death, a voice in her head reasoned.

So she simply would avoiding getting caught, another replied.

The distance to the library wasn’t far, and she could easily hear the Countess’ footsteps well in advance, allowing her to hide as she approached.

“I’ll be back soon, stea mică. I won’t be long,” she softly told the flies. A few seemed to twitch in response. God, she hoped that she was right in the foolish ‘not dead, only hibernating’ theory. Basin and flannel cloth in hand, Magda made her way to the library, hoping she wouldn’t need what she carried.

Her heart sank upon feeling the chilly air inside. Papers were scattered, vases lay shattered, and, near enough to be in the light cast from the glass skylight which acted as a central decorative point for the room, was another large pile of immobile flies. Magda actually needed a moment to sit and collect herself with this discovery. Little flies, whose bodies glittered in the light, matched Daniela’s hair color.

Alcina will weep, Magda thought as she did her best to keep her own tears from falling once more. Gathering up these remains took longer than Bela’s, but not because they were scattered about. No. For as messy and wild as Daniela was in life, she had collapsed in a neat little pile. It was the weight and knowledge that this was the baby of the family which made this such a long and arduous task.

“You’re not alone, Dani. I’m not letting you be alone. I’m taking you to your sister. You’ll be safe in my sewing room,” She told the flies. Could this have been the first sign of madness? After all, Magda was talking to a container full of potentially dead insects. She recalled the character of Renfield from Dracula. The man went mad in an effort to serve and worship his vampire lord. Perhaps she was becoming something along the same lines. Perhaps she was already dead; killed by the intruder, and this was her own personal hell of gathering up mounds of flies throughout the castle for the rest of eternity, all the while avoiding Alcina. If Bela’s nest was not in the workshop when she returned to it, Magda figured this terrible thought would be reality.

Thankfully, upon opening the door to her workshop, the comforter and blanket that Bela was nestled in was still where the seamstress had left it. So maybe she was not dead and this was not hell. Little miracles were all she could hope for right now.

Magda took her time making Daniela’s nest, listening for anything that would signal they were victorious and this man-thing was dead and gone. She shook her head a little as she used that term. Normally, Magda did not join in on calling men that, but this was a special case. This individual didn’t seem human. The fact that he could best two of the daughters worried her, and a dread feeling that, unless mother and daughter combined forces, Cassandra could fall as well filled Magda’s stomach like a lead weight.

The daughters were monsters, yes. By the classic definition, that’s what they were, and Magda did not deny any of it. Blood stained dresses, screams and laughter coming from the dungeon, or even the rare times when Bela’s kisses had a slight hint of copper or something raw tasting to them. They weren’t normal. Alcina was also a monster; perhaps even more of one. The height, the claws, the gray skin that she hid beneath layers of foundation. All four of them shared that same inhuman appetite for blood and flesh. But, they also had human tendencies. They laughed, they cried, they screamed in fright the odd times they were scared or taken by surprise.

Then again, humans could be monsters as well. History showed how terrible they could be. Magda was certainly no angel, and she had the odd feeling that this man wasn’t entirely a good person either. Maybe she was wrong. Magda didn’t know. All she knew was that she was trying to save the small group of friends and family she had left in this world.

Minutes ticked by and still her wing of the castle remained quiet. The longer it stayed quiet, the more she worried. If the man was dead, Alcina would have come to her workshop to see to her daughter. But if the quiet persisted? Magda didn’t want to think on that.

“Should I go out and search?” she asked her charges. Of course, no reply came. Magda thought she saw more movement from Bela’s flies, but she had no idea if they all needed to be restored to a proper temperature, like a hive mind, before they could respond. With the way Magda had layered everything, they would warm up slowly and naturally. No artificial heaters or fires were being used, as she didn’t want to risk damaging them. After watching both mounds for a few minutes, the seamstress nodded, knowing once more what she had to do.

The castle had an unusual quietness, a stillness she had never felt before. There was always at least some sort of background noise; the shuffling of servants, the daughters’ laughter, the general noise of a home being lived in. Where was everyone? Had the man killed them all? Or were Sylvia, Andre, Samuel, Bianca, and the rest hiding in the servant’s quarters, having barricaded themselves in? Vulga likely would have escaped into the walls upon hearing the first gunshot, so she was probably safe.

At least there would be some survivors of Castle Dimitrescu.

Finding Cassandra took a long time. Besides hiding from both the constantly patrolling Alcina and the seemingly trigger happy mad man, Magda had to think like the middle child, who had the tendency to spend time in the oddest of places. While Bela and Daniela could be found in seemingly normal locations in the castle, Cassandra explored. She found hidden areas that were unknown to most of the inhabitants, hard to get to, or simply dilapidated enough and impossible to access unless you could fly. Magda assumed she enjoyed being hard to find.

The seamstress had searched damn near every room, after having briefly hidden for a few heart-pounding minutes in one of the dressing room wardrobes upon hearing Alcina’s approach. Currently, she was sitting in the back hallway, taking a moment to try and mentally collect herself. Magda hated failing, and right now she was absolutely in sync with the idea that she was a failure. Cassandra, as far as she knew, had simply disappeared. Had the man shattered a window and thrown her outside? If that was the case, then the chance of finding the young woman dropped to impossible odds. The castle was surrounded by woods and cliffs with sheer drops. Maybe… if the snow and cold somehow preserved her through the winter, Cassandra would show up in the spring, like crocuses.

At that thought, Magda let slip a sharp little laugh while, at the same time, her eyes began to water. Cassandra would hate being compared to a flower. She would absolutely have hated it. And for as much as Magda wanted to continue to both laugh and cry right now, it would certainly draw unwanted attention from one of two parties currently in the castle. Possibly both.

Wiping her face with her sleeve, she allowed herself a few calming breaths before pushing herself back to her feet and continuing this fruitless search.

The slight draft blowing on Magda’s hand from beneath the door stopped her. Yes, castles were drafty, but not this one. Alcina made certain to insulate everything as best she could so her daughters could survive the winter in relative comfort. But, there was a definite bit of air movement coming from under this door.

Opening it, Magda found the Statue of Pleasure…. with an animal skull in place of the sacrifice’s head. Not even Cassandra or Daniela would be foolish enough to ruin one of their mother’s statues. So, on top of being a murderer, this man enjoyed defacing both art and private property. What the fuck was wrong with him?

The indignity aside, the windows in this room were intact, so where was the draft coming from? The only other option was the fireplace, but if the chimney was that badly cracked, why wasn’t it sealed? Crouching in front of it, the reason quickly became apparent as the entire back of the fireplace has been removed, and the hole led to a set of stairs.

“Cassandra, you little shit.”

Crawling through the passageway, Magda entered what looked to be the remains of a hidden armory, or at least a place to stash and work on things a certain daughter didn’t want her mother to learn about or her sisters to interfere with. It would have been a lovely little room had it not been for the gaping hole in the wall, letting in all the cold air. And there, near enough to the stairway, laid what was left of Alcina’s middle child.

“At least you were smart enough to fight him in a room without windows,” Magda commented as she gathered her up. Cassandra was vicious and violent when she wan’t to be, but she was also calculative and observant. Perhaps that’s why she lasted as long as she did. Had she sacrificed her sisters in order to study this man? If Magda were the girl’s mother, they would definitely be having a talk about that later.

With the last of the Dimitrescu daughters safely bundled up, Magda began to make her way back to the workshop. As it was nearly on the other side of the castle with no direct route, she took great care to move as quietly as possible. She paused repeatedly, and scanned the Main Hall, looking for signs of the the woman in white. For as large as she was, Alcina was a stalking beast. She could be incredibly quiet if she wished to be.

As she crouched in one the small balconies, Magda heard movement coming from below her on the floor of the main hall. However, it didn’t sound… right. It couldn’t have been the intruder, unless he was gravely injured. But If that were the case, Alcina wouldn’t have been far behind, and Magda didn’t hear her at all. Speaking of the Countess, it certainly wasn’t her, as the noise was far too small to be anyone remotely her size.

Chancing a look, Magda peeked over the edge, and a soft gasp of surprise, sounding so devastatingly loud in this silence, escaped her lips as she saw what was beneath her. Luana, the castle’s head servant, the personal watchdog for the Countess, laid collapsed on the marble floor, clothes stained red with blood. Where had they been all this time?! Magda had scoured entire castle… Had they been outside and only just now managed to get in? This just made her life ten times harder. Not only did she have Cassandra to carry back, but now there was the issue of Luana as well.

She could have left them where they were. She could have. After all, Magda was currently disobeying orders and Alcina was already displeased by her previous actions. She should have taken Cassandra back to her workshop and then returned. By then, perhaps Alcina would have discovered Luana herself and… done what? She was hellbent on hunting down the intruder. Would she even have stopped and tended to her servant? Magda couldn’t say. She also had no idea what would have happened if the man found them first. Would he finish the job he clearly started? In all likelihood? Yes.

Tucking Cassandra safely in an out of the way corner by the top of the stairs, Magda made her way down to her fellow servant, glancing into the Hall of the Four as she went.

The doors leading to the Temple of Worship were open.

In all her years there, Magda had rarely seen those exterior doors stand open as they were now. The Countess was strict in her orders about that portion of the castle being forbidden to everyone save herself, and now the seamstress was watching her tall figure ascend the temple stairs. An unknown fear filled Magda with dread at that sight, and she hurried towards Luana.

Rolling the head servant over onto their back, Magda gave them a quick look over. Buckshot, and a few normal bullet holes, peppered Luana’s blood soaked torso. A normal human would have been dead from such injuries and blood loss, but Luana was thankfully not fully human, rather a Lycan-cross. They usually preferred not to speak of their heritage, but Magda hoped they would be happy to have it just this once.

“Luana? Luana, dear, can you hear me?” she asked, opening their eyes to check for any sign of life. She was met with slurred, half-conscious Portuguese. “You know damn well I don’t speak that, but right now any response is a good one, so I’ll take it.” The bleeding had stopped and their breathing seemed normal from what she could tell; no gurgles, bloody froth in the mouth, or sounds of difficulty.

“…Apologies…” they said in Romanian, doing their best to sit up.

“You’re fine. I’m just happy to see someone else, aside from the Countess, alive,” she replied. Their uniform already ruined, Magda removed Luana’s jacket and began tearing off bandage strips. Or at least she started to, as a distant crash and a devastating roar from outside quickly stopped her efforts. Whatever injuries seemed to be afflicting Luana were momentarily forgotten as they did their best to stand, only to collapse almost immediately. As they attempted it a second time, Magda moved to support them. She didn’t even say a word or caution them to take it slow as the two of them made it to the open doorway.

And what they saw? There were no words.

It was huge. A great beast, vast and terrible, with an immense wingspan, lashing tail, and a toothy, gaping maw circled the top of the temple tower; sometimes flying, sometimes crawling along the stonework. It was pale white with streaks of pink flesh, slick and glossy looking as the sun hit it. Muscles bulged as if barely contained by the skin, as tendrils curled and whipped about in an independent fury. It looked both cancerous and incomplete while at the same time horrifically beautiful and awe-inspiring in some inexplicable way. And to top it off, as if in an absurd gilding of the lily, Alcina’s upper torso, looking flayed and monstrous, erupted from between the beast’s shoulder blades. Her voice was distorted, both by rage, vengeance, and sorrow, but also by this transformation. She was lost in this madness, fully given in to it.

Magda’s knees gave way, and she fell to the floor, unintentionally bring Luana down with her. The seamstress was lost. How was this even possible? How had Alcina become this gargantuan beast? Could she change back? A sudden sick feeling rolled over her as all these questions and more filled her head. She was sure Luana was thinking similar things.

All they could do was watch this battle as it unfurled. Stonework and roofing tiles fell freely as the dragon creature did its best to pursue its quarry. Gunfire was heard regularly as Alcina taunted, threatened, and cackled in her torment. The fight moved steadily upwards, with more and more of the building being destroyed until a bloodcurdling shriek was heard and something structural gave way.

Multiple somethings.

Large plumes of dust, broken window, and cracks forming in the side of the building were the indication that the dragon had fallen through all of the interior floors of the temple, landing with a massive crash.

Magda and Luana looked at each other and then back towards the temple. “How about we wait and listen for movement?” the seamstress started to offer, but the head servant was already stumbling towards the building, trying desperately not to once more fall onto their face. They didn’t get very far before collapsing, but Magda was there to lift them back up. “How about a compromise? We get to the temple door and listen before barging in?” At that, Luana nodded a little sheepishly.

If Magda had thought the castle had been quiet, the inside of the temple was a veritable tomb. She just hoped it wasn’t a literal one. At least not for Alcina. Let the man be buried under all that rubble. Unfortunately, her wish was not yet granted, as she saw the limping figure of a man leaving through the lower level door. All she needed was a gun. Why didn’t she or Luana have a pistol? One bullet through the back of his damned head, that’s all that was needed and all this terribleness would be over with.

But instead, Magda just stood there, watching him leave before her gaze turned to Alcina’s body. It was still that dragon creature, but she had just come to accept that this was the Countess. Luana was already making their way down to her, carefully using the broken rubble as a stairway. Magda reluctantly followed suit.

The beast may have remained, but the human torso that was Alcina? That was gone, crumbled to ashes. The body was also still. Seeing that, Magda sat down hard, shocked by it all. Luana at least made it to the corpse, but they soon collapsed as tears began to fall.

Theirs was an ugly crying, one that Magda had never heard from them before. It was a full body shaking, heaving from the gut sort of crying. Luana had been serving House Dimitrescu since they were a teenager, and they saw Alcina as a mother figure, so Magda could only imagine what they were going through.

Letting them grieve for a few minutes, Magda eventually stood and walked over to Luana, placing a hand on their shoulder.

It was then that the beast took a great, shuddering breath.

Instincts quickly took hold and Magda scrambled backwards, not wanting to risk being eaten, while Luana did the opposite and moved closer, overjoyed to see some sign of life coming from the creature. She expected to hear a scream or cry of pain from Luana, imagining the creature lunging forward and devouring the head servant in one or two gulps. But instead, when the seamstress looked back, she saw Luana petting its head, saying soft things to it in Portuguese as it just laid there, barely making any noise.

“You are either very brave, very trusting, or very stupid to be petting that thing,” Magda hissed, keeping her voice down low, as if raising it would trigger the beast to attack them both.

“It knows me… us. It won’t hurt us,” Luana replied calmly.

“How do you know that? How is it even still alive?! Alcina’s torso is gone! The thing should be dead!” In response to Magda’s outburst, the thing growled, slightly turning its head in her direction. “… All right, I’m clearly wrong in my assessment of life and death. But that still doesn’t explain why or how.”

“Separate functioning systems? Maybe it all… pinched shut when the torso disintegrated? Like a limb or a tree branch that’s dying? Save the main body?” Luana offered.

“I would have thought Alcina would have been the main body. Can she regenerate from this?” Magda asked. Luana simply shrugged.

“We take her back to the castle and see what happens over the next few hours or days.”

“Easier said than done,” Magda replied, gesturing to the rock they scaled down and the all too small door was the only other exit.

“If it is a simple creature, then it will respond to simple things like food. She will need to eat anyways. We lure it back with food,” Luana reasoned.

The kitchen was thusly raided and a good bit of the meat that was there removed; both cured and what was still fresh. Amazingly, despite having heard the shrieks of the thralls earlier, the kitchen was now devoid of them. Had they wandered back down into the dungeon after finding no prey? Or were they all dead? Magda could only wonder as she glanced towards that corridor, her eyes wanting to linger on the spot where she found Bela. No, she thought. No, Bela was safe in the sewing room with her sisters. Magda had made a brief detour to deposit Cassandra there, as well as retrieve a pair of shoes for herself, before joining back up with Luana in the kitchen.

Along with the meat, they also brought along two barrels from the tasting room, placed at strategic points along the route back to the castle, in case extra bribery was needed for the beast. By the time they had finished setting everything up, the Alcinadragon… for what else would you call it?… was on its feet, clumsily walking around its temporary enclosure. Naturally, after throwing down the first piece of meat, with it being consumed in a single bite, the beast’s attention snapped to the two of them as it began the effort of climbing its way up towards freedom.

Magda knew better than to run. After all, doing so would likely trigger hunting and chasing instincts. But still, once the massive forelimbs appeared and the beast pulled itself up and over the lip of the hole, she made sure to be a good distance away, keeping Luana between it and her.

While this was something she normally would never state, on pain of death, it was rather easy to lead this version of Alcina around by her stomach. So long as they had a trail of food, she was easy to please and keep relatively docile. In the end, they only needed one barrel as a treat, though it wasn’t quite that. As they passed it on the bridge, the creature must have smelled the contents, or perhaps recognized the shape…. but how that was possible, Magda had no idea, as it had no discernible eyes right now. Either way, the tooth lined maw easily engulfed the barrel and bit down, splintering the wood and draining the contents quickly. Afterwards, the creature seemed more agreeable.

Maybe it had just needed a drink.

By the time they had entered the Hall of The Four, the remaining castle staff had emerged from their hiding places. There were no reprimands or excuses given, only looks and sighs of relief. Bianca, Sylvia, and Mihaela quickly flocked to the form of the Countess who was currently gorging on wine and meat. Samuel latched themself onto Magda with a tight hug; one that she was not exactly ready to receive, but she was also not about to deny them this comfort. Vulga also soon joined in, likely in an effort to make Magda feel even more uncomfortable.

“If you two insist on being this close to me, I will be putting you to work,” Magda told them both before taking them to her workshop and retrieving the three sisters. Sam took Daniela, Vulga carried Cassandra, and Magda held Bela close. The urge to place the daughters next to their mother was great, but caution won out instead. Who knew if or how the Alcinadragon would react to seeing her children as nothing more than collections of flies? Yes, they were becoming more active, but there was no indication they were on their way to reforming back into their human shapes. They just need time, Magda thought. That’s all. They’ve been through trauma, and they just need time to recover.

Even though it was not yet midday, It was decided that everyone would spend the night in the Main Hall. It was the inner most room, central to most of the castle, and it was big enough to house all of them comfortably, even a dragon with a massive wingspan. There would be safety in numbers.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Magda asked Luana quietly.

“No. As far as he is concerned, everyone here is dead. Whether that is true or not…” They paused, not wanting to say the unthinkable. Understanding, Magda nodded and finished their sentence.

“…It’s best to keep up that appearance.”

“Precisely. We keep everyone centralized for the time being. Close off and safeguard the exit points, stay quiet, and wait. With any luck, things will be different twenty-four from now. Or at least there will be an indication of a difference.” The look the two of them shared was one of tiredness and threadbare hope. There wasn’t much left to run on, but so long as the lady of the house still drew breath, no matter what form she took, they still had their duties to attend to.

“Even if the man isn’t coming back, no one is going down to the outer gatehouse and drawbridge by themselves. One of the lords is currently weakened, you are still recovering from being shot multiple times, and while my mind may be playing into the medieval hierarchy of things, I wouldn’t put it past other things going wrong and our current situation being taken advantage of. We’ll go together. It’ll be faster that way.”

Despite initial outward appearances, the castle was rather impenetrable once locked down. A drawbridge, three heavy doors of varying designs dividing the exterior gatehouse, a massive portcullis at the Carriage Gate, and a smaller, but just as fortified, portcullis on the interior of the entrance hall that kept the front doors closed from the outside. For all intents and purposes, they would be safe and secure.

More of the staff wanted to assist in the closing of the gatehouse, but they were dissuaded by a few other duties; securing the door leading to the temple, keeping an eye on Alcina, and gathering up any supplies they would need for the night. They were also greeted by another unexpected task upon opening the castle doors.

In the middle of the Carriage Gate rested four crates; three of a similar size and one that was noticeably larger. Nothing had been ordered, and the Duke had packed up his caravan, vacating his usual spot some time during the battle with Alcina. Yet the note tacked onto the larger crate was in his elaborate, flowing script:

I’d wager these treasures are of more use to you than I. Think of this as a thank you for your years of patronage, as well as a farewell gift for the time being. Keep them safe.

Bonne chance,

The Duke

The lids came off easily, and inside, nestled amongst packing material were… statues? Odd ones at that. Beautiful, crystalline, and perhaps a bit macabre, they were three busts and one massive torso with what seemed to be very familiar proportions. Either the Duke had a sick sense of humor or this was something else.

“Take these inside,” Magda instructed, still a bit confused as to what they were. “Be careful with them. Don’t damage them.” She then hurried to catch up with Luana who had decidedly not stopped to investigate the crates.

While neither of them ventured out into the village, the lack of the noisy day to day life that would normally filter up from it was obvious and more than a bit unnerving. Yes, there were the occasional barks and growls from whatever lycans were still prowling around the buildings, but there were no sounds of people. That lack of background noise twisted Magda’s stomach and made her raise the drawbridge that much faster.

“Tomorrow… Tomorrow, we will search the village. Look for survivors,” Luana reassured her.

“I don’t think there are any other survivors,” she replied morosely, as her thoughts immediately went to the one person outside the castle that Magda actually cared about. Stay safe, Donna. Please God, keep her safe.

With each barricade put into place, Magda felt both safer and more alone… cut off from everything. But this was what needed to be done. As the final portcullis fell into place in the entrance hall, a burden lifted from her shoulders. There was still that sick feeling in her stomach, but her back felt lighter.

Why? She didn’t know. She didn’t deserve to feel better.

Everything was starting to blur together, and she didn’t care anymore. Magda remembered entering the Main Hall and seeing the Alcinadragon curled protectively around the crystalline torso that shared the measurements of the Countess, growling at anyone who came near it. She didn’t care or wonder why. Someone called out her name as she climbed the stairs, but she ignored it, legs carrying her faster and faster as she went. She didn’t want to talk. Her head, neck, and chest felt hot. She felt smothered and unable to breathe. She needed to get away.

By the time she was in the Hall of Joy, Magda was running. The library was a blur, as was the opera hall. Her eyes were open, but they saw nothing, as if her brain was on automatic. All she cared about was getting away.

She slammed the door to her workroom shut, turning the lock as well in order to keep herself physically, mentally, and emotionally away from everyone. She managed to go a few steps into the room before her knees gave way and she collapsed into a heap. That’s when the floodgates of emotion just opened up. She screamed and wailed, tears falling uncontrollably. All the pain and the burdens accumulated from this day, from these past few hours, came roaring out.

She had no idea how long she cried, nor how many in the castle heard her. She didn’t know if anyone knocked on the door to check on her, nor did she care. She would have ignored it anyway. At one point early on in her anguish, her stomach heaved. Only bile came out, as she had eaten nothing this entire day, but the wretching continued until even that was entirely discarded from her system. She cried until her tears ran dry; until only hiccuping breathes and weary, burning eyes remained.

Throughout all of this, there was one constant in Magda’s mind. She knew that if anyone, and she did mean anyone, interrupted her in this moment, there would be hell to pay. The staff had seen her mad and frustrated before, but they had never seen her rage. If anyone tried to comfort or hold her right now, they would be met with punches, thrown objects, and a slew of filthy, hate-filled words that she would likely regret at a later date. Perhaps even shears to the intruder’s throat, if she could reach them in time.

She didn’t want comfort. She wanted this pain. She wanted to hurt.

But most of all, she wanted her Bela.

Eventually though, the pain did subside. It slowly dulled and dissipated. To say it was completely gone would have been a lie, but it had settled for the time being. Magda’s body ached, as did her head. The floor beside her was a mess, but she made an effort and took the time to clean up the bile. She couldn’t stand having such a thing lingering in her workshop, no matter her mood or the circumstances. The process also helped the seamstress return to a semblance of herself.

After a change of clothes, a quick washing of her face and brushing of her teeth, Magda made her way back to the main hall. Samuel was lingering in the hallway, shuffling around a bit in an effort to entertain themself while probably waiting for Magda to re-emerge.

“Hey, Magda? Are… are you okay? Do you need anything? A hug maybe?” they asked, holding their arms open. Magda just shook her head and continued on. “Ice cream, maybe? We could sit and watch a movie together Not a scary movie or anythin’, but I’ll sit and watch something you’d like if it makes you feel better.” At that, Magda just sighed.

“Sam? Right now, what I want? I can’t have. So, please? Just let me go sit in peace next to what is left of the woman I love. All right?”

“Yeah, um…. about that? Okay, so we brought the statue things in like you said, but as soon as we did, the dragon thing that Lady D turned into? Yeah, she got real defensive and grabbed the big statue and isn’t giving it up. So, we then took the smaller ones and the fly piles got really active. Like super, super active. I mean, they’re not buzzin’ around like normal or human, but-“ Magda didn’t even wait for Sam to finish. Once more, she was off and running.

The daughters were on the opposite side of the fireplace from the Alcinadragon, though pretty much everyone was on the opposite side from her, as she took up an entire length of the hall. Samuel had actually been right, as the flies were more active since the last time she saw them. While not swarming, they were crawling over the statues, or rather, individual statues. Now that she was able to look at them properly, Magda could discern the shapes of the daughters in the torsos. Bela’s she knew well enough, and Daniela was a bit slighter than Cassandra… and all the while the appropriate flies were crawling over the appropriate statues. She still had no idea what they were for, but clearly they held some importance.

Whether it had been intentional or not, someone had set Bela in the alcove under the stairs, allowing a bit of privacy and seclusion if it was needed. Obviously, Samuel or someone else had taken Magda’s breakdown into consideration. Normally, the seamstress did not enjoy having special things done for her, but at the moment, she was not about complain.

Sitting on a blanket with her back against the wall, Magda actually managed to take a breath and relax for the first time that day.

They were alive.

Whether due to the added heat, time to recover, or whatever these odd statues were, the daughters were alive and moving around. They would be all right. The Alcinadragon had a forelimb curled around her own statue, surrounded by her favorite maidens, and was practically asleep, if her breathing was any indication. She would be all right. None of the servants had been gravely injured in the long term. The current state of the castle was an odd miracle, but it was a miracle nonetheless.

Looking at the crystalline statue beside her, Magda gently placed her fingertips upon it, in hopes that it would pulse or feel abnormally warm. That wasn’t the case, but one of the pale yellow flies that had been idly traversing the torso’s clavicle almost immediately changed direction and climbed onto her hand. Smiling, either from happiness or exhaustion, she brought the insect closer as it proceeded to march into the palm of her cupped hand. It happily buzzed and bumped its head against her skin, settling down in the warmth as Magda gently stroked it.

As if energized by her touch, the fly took to the air and landed in the hollow of the seamstress’ neck, where it buzzed and bounced around more; its little wings tickling her just enough to elicit a soft laugh from Magda.

“Hi, stea mică…” she said softly, body instinctively relaxing to that sensation. Magda wasn’t sure if it was her exhaustion or something else, but as her eyes closed and sleep began to take her, she could have sworn she heard Bela’s voice in the drone of the fly.

I won’t be long.

EPILOGUE:

“Magda? Magda, wake up. Somethin’s happening,” Sam’s voice cut through the blackness of sleep. The seamstress groggily rubbed her eyes and looked around, remembering where she was. Instinctively, she looked over at the Bela statue, worried for a moment at that she would find. The concern was unfounded as it was mostly covered by a swarm of flies, more than what she had seen prior to falling asleep.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, standing up. The Alcinadragon was still asleep, her harem of maidens still tending to her. If it was possible, she too looked healthier.

“There’s something goin’ on in the village. Luana told me to get you. They’re in Lady D’s bedroom.” That made sense. The Countess’ chambers had a view that overlooked the village. It was a smart place to scout from.

Making her way there, Magda discovered that night had fallen, meaning she had slept most of the day away. Why hadn’t they woken her up sooner? She didn’t need to have her sleep schedule even more messed up. However, the not so far off explosions made her decide otherwise, as she quickened her steps up the stairs.

Luana was out on the balcony of Alcina’s chambers, watching a veritable firefight going on in the village. Massive waving tendrils were erupting from the ground, knocking what looked like military helicopters out of the sky as explosions and gunfire rocked what was left of the buildings.

“Have they come towards the castle?” Magda asked after taking it all in.

“No,” Luana replied.

“Then unless they come towards the castle, it’s not our fight. I’m not about to start something with a group that has guns, explosions, and…” An airstrike briefly interrupted the seamstress as she talked. “Whatever the hell that is!”

“I simply thought you would like to be made aware of this. It was wise that we closed up everything when we did.” Magda didn’t know why Luana was making her seem more important than she actually was. They were the head servant. She was just the seamstress.

“…… You’re going to sit out here until it’s over, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” At that, Magda sighed.

“I’m not staying out here all night. It’s too cold. I’d suggest that you come in from the cold as well, but you’re just as stubborn as I am. I’ll be inside on the chaise lounge if you need me. Please don’t freeze out here, Luana. I’m not about to lose you after keeping you alive.” With that said, Magda went back inside and made herself comfortable on the Countess’ furniture, something she’d never do normally, but this wasn’t exactly normal circumstances. Come to think of it, the large hole in the floor was also out of the ordinary. That hadn’t been there earlier today… What had happened here after she left with Bela?

She must have fallen asleep, since the next thing she knew, Magda was woken up by the sudden slamming of a door, followed almost immediately by being rocked off the chaise lounge by an earth shattering explosion. Broken glass rained down on her as the shockwave smashed the windows. For a brief moment, she thought a nuclear device had gone off and she waited for the incineration wave to burn her to a crisp. When none of that happened, and the castle remained standing, she looked around.

Luana was crouched against the door leading to the balcony, covering their head out of instinct. Brushing the glass from her hair, Magda cautiously stood up and looked out the window. Smoke filled the air, but as the wind carried it away, she could see a decently sized crater in what had been the ceremony site. There was nothing left of the tendrils from last night, just like there wasn’t much left of the village.

“What in the hell happened?” she mumbled. “Do you even now think there are survivors?” she asked Luana. In response, they simply pointed to the distant shape of a quickly retreating helicopter. For a moment, anger blossomed in Magda’s chest. If that man was on that thing? How dare he be able to escape so easily after causing all this destruction. But the feeling and hatred vanished along with the helicopter. If he was gone, then so much the better. Better for him to be gone and forgotten than to remain a problem for them all.

“Goodbye and good riddance, stupid man-thing,” Magda said, before turning her back on the sunrise and returning, with Luana, to her family.

#drabble #one-shot #LONG oneshot #bela dimitrescu #Ethan Winters #alcina dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu

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hotchley · 3 years

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sadness

Right, my laptop is at 12% and I need to cross-post to ao3 and go to sleep because I have one more mock tomorrow, so I’ll try and keep this one short.

My post earlier sparked this. I am now writing a series called “he blinks” which explores how Hotch feels each of the eight core emotions (and probably love, because I am nothing if not a sucker for Hotch and Haley.) Anyways... sadness is first. But it’s more like grief? So... it’s set after 100, and yeah :) There’s no dialogue, and I think this counts as introspection, but I don’t know...

I had more to say, but I can’t remember so... onwards! It’s relatively short, 1272 words, so I hope it’s okay. I’ve not touched most of my WIPs since whenever I last uploaded a fic, and it’s more just me rambling so yeah.. go with it

Trigger Warnings: death, grief, the slightest implication of child abuse (please let me know if I’ve missed anything, but I think this is it)

read on ao3!

Aaron Hotchner’s sadness is quiet.

That’s what Haley’s death teaches the BAU.

Penelope’s sadness is happiness that seems too loud, too much, too forced and perfect to be anything but a terrible attempt at masking something negative.

JJ’s sadness is socially acceptable: she cries, she accepts the comfort, and then she stitches herself back together before anyone can wonder why one sentence wasn’t able to fix her.

Derek’s sadness is a fierce protectiveness over the people he loves most, because they are the thing that keeps him going and remind him of all the reasons to try his best to cope and move on and deal.

Spencer’s is an unusual thing, that is somehow vulnerable and closed-off in the same moment. He will shed his tears openly, sometimes not even realising that is what he is doing, but he recoils at the slightest glimmer of support.

Emily’s is hidden behind stupid jokes that can’t even raise the corners of her mouth and stories from a childhood that she still can’t quite wrap her head around serve as a coping mechanism, because if she cannot go back to that blissful ignorance then she will remind herself it exists.

Dave’s is an explosive thing that showcases itself as anger and a closed office door. The team always knows when he’s sad. He won’t accept comfort from anyone in the moment, but an unspoken apology is given to everyone in the form of a meal when he’s thinking rationally.

But Aaron’s sadness is quiet and unsuspecting.

The team had never realised that. They’d never been allowed to.

When Dave recruited him to the team, he was too busy keeping him alive to realise how quiet Aaron could be.

When Derek joined, Aaron was too busy with keeping him in check and making sure he was safe.

And when Reid, Garcia and JJ joined, only a few months between each of them, Hotch had been forced to take the reins from Gideon and would not let anyone see him break.

Emily accused him of not being human enough, despite remembering the boy that had worked for her mother and hadn’t quite learnt how to hide the flinch that was reflexive with every slam of a door, and who wore his heart on his sleeve without even realising, so she never saw him break. Until Foyet.

His sadness crept up on them.

They would go hours, sometimes even days, convinced that he was fine. That he was coping, and moving forward, and okay. It was stupid and wishful thinking, they knew that, but they also believed that Hotch was perfect and invincible.

Reid thought he never blinked. JJ still remembers how he never seemed to lose it.

They would assume he was fine.

And then he wouldn’t smile at something. Or he would, but it would be a shadow of his usual joy and childish excitement. Or it wouldn’t quite reach his eyes, which would remain just as hollow and unfocused and dull as the day of the funeral. Or it would seem to cause him pain to even try.

He would suddenly shove his hands in his pockets. As though he could still feel the blood of Foyet, mixed with his own because Foyet was not and never had been weak, tainting it, despite all the care Derek applied when he wiped them clean. As though he was still in that house, terrified his son would hate him for taking his mother away. As though he couldn’t look at them without seeing the monster he had always known he would eventually become.

Or his voice would soften, just a little too much. His tone would change completely, and the person he was talking to would feel like a child going to the one person that always made them feel safe and seeing someone that could only try to be that good instead. His words would become quieter. Less concise. More calculated. Like he was walking the line between control and destruction.

There would be hesitation. Hotch’s confidence was often a facade, but it was a facade so strong that it even convinced profilers. Morgan had hated it when he first joined, scared his new boss was going to be someone that would stand up and play devil's advocate, but then he had realised the truth: he was just scared of being undermined. Reid had admired it then, and he admired it now.

He would hesitate, and it would remind them of everything he had lost. He would hesitate with his gun, and Morgan would panic because they had lost Gideon to the job, they couldn’t lose him too. He would hesitate with his pen, and Reid would frown, because Hotch’s reports were used for the trainees as perfect examples, and every word that he wrote himself was modelled after the reports from Hotch he had read after starting.

He would hesitate to touch his son and JJ would weep inside because she knew what it was like to be a child and to have a parent that wasn’t quite whole, knowing that there was nothing you could do to fix the situation because you weren’t the person they wanted.

There would be a slight clearing of his throat before he addressed the team about a case involving mothers, women, children, blondes. He would turn away, and one hand would quickly and furiously wipe at his eyes, before he turned back and acted like he was made of steel.

They would all see him reach for his phone on the harder cases, then freeze and place his hand elsewhere like his pocket was burning him. Dave, Derek, and even JJ would try and mention it, but Aaron always acted like he had no idea what they were talking about. Spencer and Penelope can’t even try and ask how he is before he starts distracting them with some random knowledge about their interests.

Neither genius is oblivious to what he was trying to do. They pretend to be for his sake.

Aaron’s sadness is not the explosion of grief the shows and movies had taught them to prepare for. It is not the beautiful road to healing the poems had caused them to hope for. It is not the simple and painless, cured by a single sleep event the books always make it out to be.

Aaron’s sadness is tired eyes, dark circles, shaking hands. It is sobs stifled at the most random and unplanned time. It is blank stares during conversations and it is slight smiles that expose his brain as being a million miles away. It is the sight of his left hand with a tan line where the ring had been removed two years ago.

It is the team, the family that wants nothing more to fix everything and make him better, having no idea what they are meant to do to help the man that has always held them and cradled them and protected them. It is them feeling like they have made a mistake with every unanswered text. It is the bitter acceptance that all they can do is hold him together until he is ready to take the first step.

It is Aaron Hotchner, not even knowing what he needs anymore and being too afraid to ask for words of assurance and love. It is Aaron Hotchner wearing his wedding ring to feel like a piece of Haley is still real and alive. It is Aaron Hotchner feeling lost and angry and numb and bitter and relieved all at once.

It is all of this. And yet somehow, it is still quiet.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fic #aaron hotchner #sad aaron hotchner #hurt aaron hotchner #hotch angst #hotch whump #tw grief #tw death #how the fuck do you tag things #sumayyah writes cm

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i-cant-believe-i-wrote-this · 3 years

Text

What Makes A Memorable Scene: Joy of Life Edition - Chen Ping Ping

Hi! So I'm a giant fan of the Joy of Life (《慶餘年》) webnovel and TV series, and while I was compiling memorable/emotional scenes to talk about on this book I just realised how very skilled the author (Mao Ni) was in crafting this sort of thing. Therefore I decided to write some posts about memorable and emotional scenes in Joy of Life exclusively!

One of my favourite characters was ✨Chen Ping Ping✨, the badass Head of the Overwatch Department! He had this mix of savageness, calmness, kindness and wisdom in him that just made him an extremely intriguing person. Since I read Joy of Life over a year ago, the scenes about him that I remember most was his downfall. And I've got two scenes I'd like to share with you, even though all parts of the novel about him were gold.

Like my last post, I've translated some excerpts because 1) it's so fun and 2) so I can share them with you!

AS USUAL, SPOILERS AHEAD!

1. The Capture of Chen Ping Ping

Volume 7, Chapter 97: 一根手指與監察院的臣服

Chen Ping Ping is arrested for treason and attempted assassination of the Emperor.

But at this time, He Zong Wei who was standing beside him suddenly said softly, “Best to kill them now, so as to shake their resolve.”

“When did it become your turn to speak about what I do?” Yan Bing Yun tossed out a sentence coldly.

Yet his words could silence He Zong Wei but not the officials of the Overwatch Department, they stood up slowly, watching Yan Bing Yun with an indifferent gaze, as if at a corpse; perhaps the next moment they would collectively move, and charge at the stretcher.

The situation was already at an extremely critical state; Yan Bing Yun squinted at his surroundings, knowing clearly that on his own, he still couldn't suppress the officials' love for Chen Ping Ping.

……

An aged finger was suddenly extended.

Everyone was silent, every Overwatch official cast their gaze at that aged finger, the finger that extended from beside the stretcher. The finger shifted slightly, motioning a gesture that every Overwatch official had memorised in their heart.

"Hold!" A Second Bureau official’s heart suddenly overflowed with sorrow, wetness lining the eyes; roared with grief and indignation, and knelt down heavily on both knees.

“Hold!”

That aged finger seemed to have a certain magical power; it only extended and wagged lightly, subsequently, the courtyard sounded with countless voices saying the word hold; hold means silence, hold means waiting, hold means forbearance, hold means to give up against the will.

Hold means stay where you are.

All the Overwatch Department officials stayed where they were, the word hold from their mouths, two streams of tears flowing downwards, no weight of gold on their knees but with the heaviness of a mountain, striking the floor, watching the stretcher slowly pass them.

Before I say anything else can I say...OUCHH

Two main things here: helplessness and love. These two things feed onto each other, making this scene extremely emotional. This excerpt clearly shows the unbreakable bond between Chen Ping Ping and his officials, and their unbeatable loyalty and love for him. And due to that, Chen Ping Ping's order for them to stand down makes it so heartbreaking due to the dilemma in their minds: save him and break his order as a result, or obey him and watch him get captured? They choose to obey, but this makes them helpless and it becomes unbearable for them to watch him suffer. That emotion is shared by the reader due to their liking for Chen Ping Ping and after witnessing the unwavering loyalty of his officials.

Furthermore, the fact that Chen Ping Ping is thinking for his officials - telling them to stand down, so they aren't punished for treason- moves the reader as well, as this shows his care for them. This reciprocated loyalty is simply super emotional because Chen Ping Ping's goodness is revealed.

2. The Death of Chen Ping Ping

Volume 7, Chapter 102: 雨中送陳萍萍

Chen Ping Ping is executed by the brutal method of "death by a thousand cuts".

The old man in his arms was so light, holding him was like holding a cloud of wind, a cloud of wind that could dissipate anytime. Below the slightly disheveled hair, Fan Xian’s pale face twitched slightly, instinctively reaching out to hold Chen Ping Ping’s old and icy hand, holding it tightly and never letting go.

The old man had suffered unspeakable amounts of pain in this life, and was disabled for half of it, so his qi and blood had exhausted long ago; today during the death by a thousand cuts, not a lot of blood other from the pain had burst out as every slice was made, but the torture of so many cuts still caused blood water to accumulate at a location, wetting the black uniform of the Overwatch Department, making it a little sticky, a little hot, a little scalding.

In the autumn rain, Fan Xian held his frail body lightly, afraid to pain him even more; grasped his icy hand tightly, afraid he would leave just like this.

“Who could make you come back if you refused to? Why did you keep me in Dong Yi City?” Fan Xian spoke lowly and hoarsely, parched lips soaked pale by the rain, peeling slightly, pitiful to the eyes. “Who was I toiling and labouring for all these years, wasn’t it all for you elders to leave the Capital City, to enjoy the days, I was always trying hard...”

“You know I know everything.” Fan Xian lowered his head a bit more, resting it against the old man’s wrinkled face, and in the rain his body swayed, as if coaxing the old man in his arms to sleep.

The hand suddenly tightened for a moment; the old man gripped Fan Xian’s hand firmly with his, but all the energy remaining in his life couldn’t even hold a hand firmly now; it was as if he was unwilling to let something go, or fearing something, so he had to hold on to something below this sky of gale and rain, on this ground of blood and water.

🥲🥲 So 🥲🥲

To be honest, I think sorrow and loss are one of the most impactful emotions to ever write about, especially the death of a loved one. Chen Ping Ping was both loved by Fan Xian and the reader, and he was simply a wonderful father figure that everyone is sorry to see him go, especially in a way as torturous and humiliating as "death by a thousand cuts" (literally, usually more than a thousand tbh). This brings us to two more chilling (and by that I mean extremely impactful) emotions - humiliation and powerlessness. Since the reader is literally helpless against the events within the story, they can definitely empathise with the powerlessness of the characters. And humiliation - yeah you get it. It stings.

Mao Ni's (the author) language was also honed very well to portray this scene as emotive as possible. Let me list out what I found:

Its chapter title! In Chinese it's 雨中送陳萍萍, meaning something like "seeing Chen Ping Ping go in the rain" and he doesn't just go, he dies; that's just so sad dude

The emphasis of Chen Ping Ping's physical weakness especially when he's been described as being powerful and badass the entire novel, which creates a giant contrast

"Holding it tightly and never letting go" - the bond between Fan Xian and Chen Ping Ping is so touching, and that's also a main factor of the emotions in the scene

"It was as if he was unwilling to let something go, or fearing something" - even though Chen Ping Ping never defied his arrest, this shows how he actually doesn't want to die at all, making it even more agonising

AND that's all I have for now! I'll be doing a few (?) more posts on Joy of Life because I absolutely adore it, but for now, see you soon!

Bye bye!

#joy of life #cdrama #chinese drama #blog #me #translation #romance #novel #book #webnovel #bookworm #fantasy novel #bookblr #bookaholic #book review

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jaskiersvalley · 3 years

Text

Shards of Ice

There was a lot of yelling in tags, reblogs and comments about Lambert needing to be loved following this post. You should have been more careful with what you wished for, because before things can get better, they need to get worse. But he gets his happy ending, don't worry.

CW: Suicidal thoughts

The room was cold and dusty but Lambert no longer had the energy to care. It was a room, his room, as barren as it was. He had survived trekking up to Kaer Morhen, at least he wouldn't be exposed to the elements so it was a bit better, even if there was no roaring fire. There wasn't even any wood in his room to start one. It would have to wait. Much like food could wait too, Lambert still had a few rations and some water in his pack, that would see him through the next couple of days while his leg finished healing. He so desperately wished he had something to take for it, even just a root to chew on for the pain but he'd run out of potions a while back and had been too caught in grief to even think about making more. At least he had a bed to lie on, that was better than the cold, hard forest floor. Lambert would take any small fortune as a blessing at that point.

Sleep claimed him and didn't release him until the sun was high the next day. Groggy, stiff from sleeping in his armour, and ravenous, Lambert pushed himself up. In the light of day his room looked no better, still just as empty and stale as when he'd walked in. If he could, he would have gone for a wash, anything to freshen up but his leg protested too much. In the end, he sat on the floor next to his bed, munching on a ration of cured meat, willing himself not to feel.

The others had to know he was back. He'd made enough noise, they probably even saw him approaching. But obviously he had no place in their lives. A dogsbody who was good for making their lives easier but didn't warrant anything in return. Not that Lambert did it to get something. But he'd always thought family looked after each other, took turns picking up the slack when one of them stumbled. As the day wore on and Lambert pulled his bedroll onto his bed for a bit of extra warmth, there was only one conclusion he could draw. While he had counted Geralt, Eskel and Vesemir as his family, they didn't think of him in a similar fashion.

On his own with his thoughts, Lambert had the chance to mull it all over. He had been a fool to think his fellow Witchers would consider him part of their family unit. Not even Lambert's own flesh and blood had done that. Just because Destiny threw them in the same cooking pot didn't mean were all part of the same cake. Though Aiden had been different. He had seen Lambert, all of him and decided that he was worth something. Desperate fury at the unfairness of it all had Lambert's lips wobbling even if tears were beyond him. He raged against his lot in life and the fact that the one possible good thing had been ripped from him. Nobody wanted Lambert and, when he found someone who did, they were violently snatched from his grasp.

With nothing do do but sleep and heal, Lambert didn't bother keeping track of the days. While his food and water lasted he would be okay. And when it ran out, he'd decide what he wanted then. Time stopped existing for Lambert, he was either asleep or wallowing in misery. It wasn't like anyone actually cared that his behaviour was very unbecoming of a Witcher, let alone a fully grown man. Lambert figured that if nobody wanted him at his best, it didn't matter what he was like at his worst.

A soft knock woke him from his slumber. It was better to sleep than get lost in his head. Why someone would try to take his only solace from him was beyond Lambert and he woke with a snarl. His leg still pulsed with pain, his room was still cold though he had managed to somewhat air it while the sun was high so it was maybe a little less chilly.

"Lambert?" Eskel's voice called as the door opened. "You missed breakfast again."

All Lambert heard was that he hadn't provided breakfast once again. He'd been back for probably a few days but soft foods and warm honey hadn't magically appeared on the breakfast table for the others. Well, it served them right.

"Go away!" He growled low in his throat.

"I just wanted-"

"Fuck off!" Lambert didn't let Eskel finish. Whatever Eskel wanted, he could get for himself. "I don't want you! I don't need you! Just leave me the fuck alone!" He threw his gloves at the door, followed by his bracers which clanked loudly against the wood, barely missing Eskel's face.

For the first time in his life, Lambert got what he asked for. The door closed again and he was alone. A strangled scream mixed with a sob in his throat and he curled up on the bed, heart and chest aching worse than his leg.

Time had no meaning, Lambert stayed curled up under his blanket, eyes open but not seeing. He'd had enough. Enough pain, enough rejection, enough loneliness. His rations were dwindling but he couldn't even find it in himself to finish them off. There was no point, it would only prolong his suffering.

Another soft knock on his door but he didn't even bother acknowledging it. He was done, the others could get on with their happy little family, they didn't need Lambert in any capacity, that had become obvious in the last few days.

The door opened and Eskel stepped in, an armful of logs and a bag of kindling in hand. He didn't say anything but got a fire going and left. The warmth of the room didn't reach Lambert's heart. He stayed where he was, even when Vesemir stepped in, a bucket of steaming water and a couple of wash cloths. Lambert didn't even have it in him to growl when hands methodically stripped him and wiped the worst of the Path's grime from his body. Fingers deftly worked the bandage on his leg open and, like when Lambert was a kid who'd scraped his knee, the injury got tutted over. Vesemir left and Lambert wondered whether he was such a disappointment that the fact he couldn't even heal from a simple bite had sent the man he'd once considered his father figure turning away in disgust.

For some reason Vesemir was back with a tray. It smelled like medical supplies but Lambert couldn't understand why. Firm hands worked over his leg, cleaning out the wounds, wrapping them. Finally, a vial was tipped against Lambert's lips and he swallowed, hoping it was poison to put him out of his misery. He fell asleep with the sweet bitterness of the potion still on his tongue and decided that maybe this wasn't such a bad way to go.

Unfortunately he woke up again. This time Geralt was in his room, a bowl of broth warming by the hearth. Lambert finally found his words.

"What the fuck do you want?"

He pretended not to see the way Geralt flinched and looked away. It filled him with a sense of perverse satisfaction, knowing that he repulsed his, well, Geralt wasn't his brother, not anymore. Not that he ever was actually.

"Eat," Geralt said, grabbing the warm bowl and holding it up. When Lambert made no move to take it, he fiddled with the spoon. "I can help feed you if you need."

Growling, Lambert snatched the bowl, ignoring the way it was so hot his fingers almost burned. The broth was good, seasoned with his favourites, not that the others would know, they never bothered to ask him. Still, it slid down his throat and warmed his belly, so close to his still stone cold heart.

Anger bubbled in Lambert's chest. The others couldn't even leave him be to make a dignified exit from this world. For some cursed reason now was the time they decided to bring Lambert back, even as he fought tooth and nail to be left. From then on, Lambert never woke alone. There was always someone in his room, never once commenting on his nightmares. Maybe they didn't notice, or thought it was just Lambert's regular dreams.

"Who is Aiden?" Eskel asked one night when Lambert woke, heart in his throat. "You call out for him a lot."

It wasn't something Lambert wanted to answer. He didn't want to trust Eskel with Aiden's memory. It wasn't something he had earned. However, each time Eskel was there and Lambert awoke from a fresh nightmare, he was asked the same question. There was only so many times that Lambert could hear those words before he snapped. At first it was just a gruff "nobody" then a "none of your business" to "a friend". It went on and on like that until Eskel had the full story, with Lambert held close to his chest and shaking like a new born foal.

When Lambert finally left his room, it was with Geralt hot on his heels. Something told Lambert that he knew about Aiden too. Those suspicions were only confirmed when, in the kitchen, Geralt casually said, "I'll come with you in the spring. We'll avenge him."

By the time spring came round, Lambert didn't feel quite so hollow. His heart had started to thaw out but the clump of ice that sat heavy in his chest could barely be called a heart anymore. Over the winter he'd been shown what it could have been like to be part of a family, to be wanted but he couldn't quite connect with the others anymore. The trust he'd offered had been twisted and warped until it was nothing more than a burnt silhouette of what it had once been.

Lambert was no fool. He knew Geralt travelled with him not just for revenge but also for Lambert's safety. It wasn't like Lambert was going to throw himself at the first chort he found. That was not how he wanted to go. But the others didn't care to listen to him in that respect. In a way, nothing had changed in that regard. Lambert's voice was still one to be ignored.

Winter came round quicker than expected. Lambert and Geralt turned north to Kaer Morhen and trekked up the mountain. There was smoke meandering through the air from the fires that had already been lit. It wasn't the Lambert had wanted to come back but he had nowhere else to go either. At least in the old keep he could actually survive winter in relative safety.

"Welcome home boys," Vesemir said as he stepped out the greet them, hugging Lambert first, then Geralt. "Eskel is already home and he's brought a guest with him."

Distantly, Lambert wondered how Geralt would react to Eskel having a guest. And maybe he was a little jealous that Eskel, despite his scars and menacing build, could find someone to winter with so easily. There was only one person Lambert had ever considered inviting home but that had only been a fleeting hope of the past, Destiny had made sure to quash it without hesitation.

"Lamb?" A familiar voice called and Lambert's whole chest hurt. His mind was cruel to play such games, taunting him with the one thing he couldn't have. "Lambert!"

A body barrelled into Lambert, arms wrapping around him tightly. Lips pressed against Lambert's and he tried to see who was stupid enough to mess around with him like that. It wasn't Eskel, his arms felt heavier around him. Eyes open for the kiss, Lambert saw an eyepatch and, as his assailant pulled away, a familiar green eye.

"Aiden." The word was a broken whisper of hope and disbelief. Lambert's hands cupped Aiden's cheeks, held him in place to be inspected, admired and committed to memory. "I thought you'd died. I'd avenged you."

"You're a real darling, thank you for that." Aiden smiled and placed his hands over Lambert's, warm palms holding glove covered ones in place. "But, by some twist of fate, I survived, more or less intact. Took a while to recover, Eskel found me in some remote temple, being healed by some monks. Dragged me back here as soon as I was able to make the journey."

Hands slipping from Aiden's face, Lambert pulled him in for a tight hug, eyes squeezed shut tight. He let Aiden go but only as far as keeping an arm wrapped around his waist. From where he stood, he looked over to the other three Wolves, standing together and watching them. Maybe, just maybe, they were more of a family than Lambert had dared hope. He wasn't certain yet, needed more time to accept that. But, for the first time in a long time, he had he spark of hope flickering in his heart.

#lambden #minor geralt/eskel #lambert #eskel #geralt of rivia #vesemir #aiden #cw: suicidal thoughts #tldr: lambert loses all hope before it comes back

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pomegranates-and-blood · 3 years

Text

Κόρη (νοσταλγία deleted chapter)

νοσταλγία Masterlist

Κόρη (kórē): young woman, maiden. Also means young bride, or wife. It is also Persephone’s name before her abduction. (Ancient Greek)

Pairing: Ivar/Reader

Summary: This takes place between Chapter 43 and right before Chapter 44, at the beginning of the spring. Centers mainly around the life left behind, the road not taken so to speak.

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: The usual, mentions of sacrifices (human and animal)

A/N: I really like this chapter, and I wasn’t sure if it I should leave it as a main chapter of the story or not, but decided against it since it doesn’t really move the plot forward much. But yeah, also a lil announcement/thingy at the end notes of this chapter. Hope you enjoy!

I took one of Ivar’s lines from the show for his dialogue in this chapter. It’s from 5x19, and it was so unbearably ominous that I had to include it 😉

Also, Maqluba is a middle eastern dish. I haven’t tried it myself, but it looks so good. I wanted it to be Quzi, an Iranian dish, which I have had and it’s so fucking good, but the word for Quzi is from Ottoman Turkish, where Maqluba is Arabic and the dish is even recorded in early medieval books.

Before you know it, before you are ready if you are honest, winter passes you by, retreats at the unescapable return of spring.

You won’t pretend you will miss the unbearably cold mornings and nights, the biting winds, or the unrelenting advance of Demeter’s grief that makes most of your plants -even the ones you’ve kept indoors- wither and die.

But there is a part of you, a part of you that will never truly go away, that is Greek before anything else; and the very blood running through your veins reminds you that with spring comes change.

This morning, you sit by one of the windows as the sun starts to rise, focused on the gentle work of your hands on the small sapling that stubbornly starts to revive and persist past the passing winter frost. You find yourself torn between hoping all the change spring will bring is the life it will return to the plants you keep around you, is the lessened pain for the man you love now that the cold isn’t so biting; and craving more, craving the change you know spring is capable of while knowing you have something -someone- to hold on to, craving to be a witness to the extent of Kore’s influence on a land as cold as this.

Then again, much has changed already and it didn’t need spring to do so.

At the sound of rattling chains your attention drifts away from the small plant in your hands, and you turn to watch your husband as he gets out of bed, eyes lazily following the by-now familiar movements.

Tonight a feast to honor the return of spring is to be held, which means the day will be thankfully more calmer as the celebrations are readied, and few people dare bother either of you.

With a familiar kind of hunger pooling low in your belly as you watch the traces of ink on his chest and shoulders move with the movement of his body, you consider luring Ivar into staying here with you a while longer to make the most of out of a slow morning; but you know he intends to go overlook the strengthening of the walls surrounding the town, and is too stubborn to let you convince him not to.

A part of you lingers more than usual on his insistence to make Kattegat safer as the army readies to follow him once again into England to continue their wars and battles; but you have a feeling you know the reason why, and you won’t fight him on this.

You will have to meet with the merchants from Kufa later today, since they are to depart back to their homeland soon and Qasim, the leader of the group, promised you -much to Ivar’s irrational anger- a gift to show his gratitude for welcoming him and his associates into your kingdom and allowing them to trade here for the winter.

Hvitserk has tried to make you promise that if it is maqluba like they offered you near the Yule celebrations you will share it with him, but you have agreed to no such thing so you will try your best to hide it from him; which means you have to get there early.

Slowly, you mournfully let go of the idea of a slow day.

“If I asked a favor from you…” You start slowly, making Ivar turn around to look at you with a small furrow between his brows.

“I would ask for something in return.” He retorts anyways, not a moment of hesitation. He lifts himself onto the small seat by the foot of your bed, attention on putting on the braces of his legs.

“Of course you would. Could you make sure Hvitserk doesn’t know I’m meeting with the merchants from Kufa today?”

His eyes narrow as he recalls, “Ah. Your gift.”

“Our gift, my love.” You try with a smile, but Ivar doesn’t buy it.

Granted, the man pointedly claimed the gift was meant for the Greek queen, and that didn’t sit right with your husband. None of what the Abbasid man does sits well with Ivar nowadays, hasn’t since he gifted you inscribed silk a couple of months into winter, but even before that most likely, and it just became apparent once Qasim made such a gesture.

“You have people to talk to today, don’t you?” Ivar asks, and when you turn to look at him, he is petulantly avoiding your gaze, pretending to be focused on adjusting the braces of his legs as you shrug on the warm dress.

“I do,” You reply slowly, because you know where this is going. Still, you continue, “We ought to secure a deal with Qasim so he and the others return before next wint-…”

Ivar lifts a finger to you, “Ah, but you have to be the one to strike the deal, do you not?”

“He will ask less from me, you know that.”

“Yes, I know that,” He bites out, looking away with gritted teeth. An angry breath through his nose, and he offers, “I don’t like him.”

“That is incredibly unexpected,” You deadpan, offering a wide smile when he glares at you. Walking closer, you explain, “I speak their tongue, and I am familiar, so he has a soft spot for me and he has coin to spare. That is all there is.”

“Hm,” Is all the response he offers, more of a grunt than an answer really. With a small sound of exertion Ivar stands up, motioning you closer and expertly tightening the laces of your dress. Because he lingers with his hands on you after, you linger as well, your back to his chest and your head seamlessly lolling to the side when Ivar leans to trail kisses up the side of your neck. When he reaches your ear, he promises, quietly even if fiercely, “I am not jealous of that man.”

A foolish smile curves at your lips, and your hand settles over his on your stomach, intertwining your fingers with his.

“Of course you are not,” You sentence, the taunt clear in your voice, “It would be foolish, irrational even, for you to thi-…ah!”

Ivar’s teeth closing down on your earlobe stop your words with a gasp and a laugh.

“Don’t mock me.” He warns, but you hear the smile on his voice.

“I am not,” You promise, turning around in his arms and meeting his disbelieving glare. Your hand settling on his chest, you concede, “Perhaps a little bit, but it is foolish to think any man compares to you in my eyes. You know this, yes?”

The quirk of his lips is a little arrogant, a little proud, and you are filled with warmth at the sight.

Still, Ivar accepts your request with a gesture of his hand, and walks closer, leaning down to kiss you goodbye. Brow against yours he lingers in the same moment you do, in the shared breath, in the quiet and the warmth of that short instant.

Moving to press another kiss to the crown of your head, Ivar whispers against your skin, “Make sure he returns with a wife next winter, so he leaves mine alone, hm?”

____

“My people,” Ivar starts, drawing attention to himself and, indirectly, to you. You have gotten used to it, though, and with your eyes only for him where he sits on the throne by your side, you can ignore all the other eyes on you. “Spring is coming. The earth renews itself, that which was dead becomes alive again. Everything changes.”

Spring in Kattegat. It still feels like such a surreal thing, to be allowed to spend the rest of your days here.

Ivar speaks to them of the battles to come, of their imminent return to England where they will face against the Saxon that tried taking Dublin from them, of Stithulf’s inevitable defeat.

There’s a strange shine in his eyes, a mix of pride and joy that carries an undercurrent of uncertainty that you know the reason for by now, when the people cheer at his words, raising horns of mead and toasting in his name.

These people have known me since my birth, he told you once, decades-old resentment making his voice grave, even if I’m king now, they all see less than a man in me.

You were never one to keep quiet, but the words you might be able to offer when it’s just the two of you are not the ones you can offer here and now.

You remember the night before Ivar was to leave Kattegat for the first time, in what feels like another lifetime, when you confessed with bitter words how the Greeks loved you but rarely respected you, and spoke of hidden resentment you held towards your own people by admitting you had to fight twice as hard than Narses to achieve recognition for the same deed.

You stop yourself, stealing a glance at the Viking that still keeps unwavering interest in the words that leave your lips. You shake your head, and reach for the cup the thrall refilled a few moments ago.

“It does not matter. Most of the free Attics are dead somewhere near Aneridge, the rest will perish when winter comes. It doesn’t matter.”

The King touches his own cup with yours, and you eye him carefully, wary of what the outburst might mean for you, but Ivar only smirks.

“If you say so.”

And so now you do the same, your cup touching his lightly, and when Ivar turns his eyes to you, you offer a quiet murmur of their word for a toast, a word that so rarely leaves your lips.

The night progresses and you find yourself, even after all this time, endlessly fascinated by the customs of these people, and their approach to the change of seasons. To us spring means war, Freydis told you once, and as Ivar and his brothers boast and rejoice at the prospect of tasting battle and warfare again, you find her words to be truer than you ever thought they truly were.

____

You quietly slip away from the still ongoing feast, and wandering steps take you outside, through a pathway outside of what used to be your rooms when you were first brought to Kattegat.

The steps you take are familiar ones, and you come to a stand by the small platform on the back of the longhouse, leaning your weight against the railing and taking a deep breath of the chilled air of the night.

The Hiereia motions for you to kneel, and you do so with your hands folded over your lap, but you refuse to bow your head. She notices, of course she does, but says nothing. You could swear she smiles.

They drag the man forward, and dazed and compliant he moves until his body stands above you. You look into his eyes as they draw the blade, and you don’t look away as his throat is slit, only closing your eyes when the blood falls over you.

It is warm as it pours erratically over you, coating your hair and face, and a lot of the white dress they made you wear, with the mark of death.

Your own blood rushes in your ears, and you finally open your eyes when the pour of the sacrifice’s blood slows and stops. The weight of the wreath of pomegranate branches and wildflowers on your head feels like a crown made of iron for a fleeting moment.

Another girl approaches, lowering to the ground on her knees just as you, and opens her palm to offer seven seeds of a pomegranate. You take them between shaking fingers, but don’t hesitate to bring them to your lips.

The sacrifice’s blood still stains your lips, and as you taste the fruit so many said is a symbol of temptation, you cannot help but think maybe they tasted it wrong when they forgot the coppery taste of blood to accompany it.

“Rise, Hiereia.”

You do, suddenly feeling like you stand much taller than you did before. Suddenly feeling stronger, suddenly feeling safer. Powerful.

The elder meets your eyes and smiles, smiles wide enough the corner of her eyes crinkle, and breathes a laugh, walking forward to embrace you.

She makes no note of the blood that stains your body and your face, but you do. You lick your lips, finding yourself almost resenting the lingering sweetness of the pomegranate.

You don’t realize your eyes have fallen closed until the familiar sound of Ivar’s crutch and his uneven steps reach your ears, making you blink past the memories, and look back up at the stars.

It is almost instinctual, the way you move your hand to seek the inevitable touch of his when he too leans on the railing before you, shoulder to shoulder.

His fingers are warm, and rough to the touch, and exquisitely familiar.

“The stars are familiar,” You tell him, without taking your eyes from the dark skies above. “When the stars are like this, when the world is like this…it is time of the Thesmophoria, back in Greece.”

“You told me about it,” He recalls, thumb absently running back and forth over your cold fingers, trying to bring warmth back to you. You don’t fail to notice he hasn’t asked you to return inside. Perhaps he knows you as well as you know him. “Mostly you told me about how you couldn’t tell me about it.”

“Men aren’t allowed to know of the Mysteries,” You explain, and your smile only grows at the indignant huff he lets out. “Besides, Viking, you do not follow my Gods.”

“Hm, but I should know about them, since I married a Greek witch.” He teases back, smiling at the indignant roll of your eyes.

By all the Gods, how you wish you could tell him. How you wish you could somehow make real, if only by voice alone, what those festivals were like, what the procession through the Sacred Way felt like and what each stop entailed, what bittersweet kind of joy sparked in the hearts of all those who participated when the procession celebrated Iambe, or what the bread made from the first fruits tasted like after the fast.

You wish you could at least tell him of the night of the Pannychis, and how it was one of the only times in Greece when you truly felt unburdened, when you truly felt at home, surrounded by music and joy and allowed to forget the repression and violence of the Empire that ruled over you all.

To Ivar you have told things you have never dared tell a soul, to Ivar you have admitted things that fill you with shame and regret; and it was one of the truer things you have said when you promised you were yourself with him more so than you could ever be with any other. And that is why at the tip of a stubborn and wine-loosened tongue there’s the whisper of what the epopteia showed you, there’s the retelling of that vision that was not the first nor the last but that will forever be the most important one.

But you know you can’t. You made your vows that night, and the aporrheta will remain unsaid, unrepeated. You will keep them guarded, sacred, as you swore to do.

You were one of the last Hiereiai initiated before Eleusis went up in flames taking you and many others with it, and now that many of the elders perished in England and the rest most likely followed in these past months; as you stand here and now in colder, harsher lands, so far from what in another life would have been your home, you cannot help but feel a grief, a loss, that you hadn’t expected. Because with her back turned to Greece may stand the last Hiereia of the Dread Gods.

“I fear…I fear I might be the last,” You admit quietly, barely heard above the biting wind. “I fear the secrets, the…everything that once made my home, my Gods, will be lost when I am gone.”

You know, realistically, that you aren’t the last Hiereia in all of Greece. There will be Hiereiai until the last of Greece, even if circumstances make it so that they never celebrate not one more festival.

But what you linger on, what you cannot ignore, is the part of you that tells you that you should have been Hiereia until the last of you.

Then again, you were. You were their Hiereia until the flames consumed you like they did your mother, you were their Hiereia until they made an Anassa out of you, you were their Hiereia until your death. And it isn’t cruel to demand to be yourself in the life after, is it?

“Then tell me about them,” Ivar replies, as if it is that simple. “You won’t be the last one to remember then, hm?”

“You are Viking, Ivar.” You repeat, a tad livelier, and a smile once again curving at foolish lips as you turn to look at him.

“Our children will be Viking,” He argues without missing a beat, but making your heart skip one. You feel your expression tremble, even though it isn’t by any means the first time Ivar and you have spoken of the future and what that means now that you have chosen to stay. In these passing months you have caught yourself imagining what a family of your own would be like as often as you find Ivar’s thoughts lingering on the same thing, thoughts that you hear about in the quiet of night with his voice rumbling on his chest where you lay, thoughts that are shared with you in the tentative approaches to happiness of a man that for too long believed it impossible. But it feels different now, it feels…more real. Ivar continues, but you don’t miss the way his pale eyes search yours a tad more intently now, as if he too is threading on unknown ground, betting on unmentioned hopes. “But you will tell them of your ways, will you not?”

There is not a breath of hesitation within you, and with too many familiar voices promising if we name things, we make them real, with the cadence of all your ghosts, you find certainty, you find hope.

“I will,” You tell him, but the emotion is embarrassingly clear in the break of your voice. After a breath, you lick your lips and try pretending you aren’t made anew by a conversation so simple as this one. Tone lighter, you quip, “But I will not tell you. You cannot hear about the aporrheta.”

Ivar’s shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath, as if he were holding it, and he asks, “What can I hear about then, hm?”

You search his eyes, get lost in them, are found in them maybe; and…you know him well enough by now to know what he means when he asks such things.

A sigh, and pressing a little closer to his warmth, you look back at the familiar stars.

You talk of home, you talk of the way the temple looked when your mother was alive to keep it safe and cared for, you talk of the bustling markets on the days before the festivals, you talk of the first rites you participated in after your initiation.

You talk until your voice starts to falter, until you lick dry lips and realize you taste nothing but the rose wine you’ve been sipping the whole night, the taste of nostalgia long gone, gone while you tried holding onto it, a last remnant of a world that never existed in the first place.

____ ____ ____

Look at Ivar being a mature partner and all at the end, encouraging her to talk about the place/people she misses. Growth lol

Thank you for reading, hope you liked it!

One last thing:

As you could see, this chapter skipped over a bunch of time, most of winter really, and of course, Chapter 44 starts with the spring. I have an Ivar’s PoV planned (hopefully it will be out this time next week) that goes over a little bit of the winter, mainly the Yule celebrations. But here’s the thing: if there’s anything (and I mean anything) you wanna ask or see about these months that went by, come to my askbox and request! I would love to just get my Nostalgia writing motor going with something like that! They may end up as little snippets, as chapter-length stuff, or as straight up answers, or smth. But yeah, whatever you wanna see/ask, come talk to me!

Taglist: @youbloodymadgenius @heavenly1927 @toe-vind-ek-jou @xbellaxcarolinax @angelofthorr @samsationalwilson @peachyboneless @1950schick @punkrocknpearls @ietss @itsmysticalmystery @revolution-starter @the-a-word-2214 @fae-sedai @crazybunnyladysworld @funmadnessandbadassvikings @stupiddarkkside @aprilivar @msrawog

#ivar the boneless x reader #ivar x reader #ivar the boneless imagine #ivar the boneless #ivar #νοσταλγία masterlist

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