Something else I'm very soft for:

As they're getting over their cold, feeling much better already and well enough to be out and about:

"hH... Hah! ... heEh'zshhAHHh! ... ...! Ugh! I'm so fed up with this! That better be the last one!"

dance with me

Small drabbles of you dancing with Aizawa, Toshinori, Fatgum, and Hound Dog.

I just felt like doing something short and sweet for today!

Aizawa Shouta

The next song pulled you from your work. Harps and peaceful flutes created a lulling melody. You couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It didn’t matter though. You closed the laptop, walked to Shouta on the couch, focusing on his little phone game, and smiled at his glare, “Dance with me.”

A low tune tolled from his phone. With a grumble, he tucked further into his scarf.

“Sho, come on.” You leaned forward, kissing his warm forehead. “Just humor me.” You could tell he suppressed another grunt, but he did humor you, tossing his phone to the side and standing. You sighed as you placed your forearms on his shoulders, “Thank you,”

Kissing your head was his answer.

Your skin warmed under his breath. It lured you closer, resting your forehead against his cheek, feeling his heartbeat and body heat swell, waning your eyes closed. His arm’s gentle cradle supported you while he stopped walking and started rocking.

It only lasted two minutes. The music drifted away, leading into a different soothing song. Shouta didn’t let go. Your eyes resisted you opening them when you groggily mumbled, “Song’s stopped. Should we?”

“No,” he yawned, expanding his chest, then deflating it in a lengthy exhale. “Let’s just stay here.”

Letting go of his shoulders, you trailed your hands down his arms to his waist, wrapping around him, taking shelter against his chest. The warmth increased when his embrace tightened. He kissed your head as you two swayed in the quiet, dim living room.

Yagi Toshinori

Music played from the neighboring apartment. It was softly cheerful, perfect for the snowy night and a cup of hot cocoa, which nearly burned your throat the first sip. You bundled the blanket tighter and focused back on your book in the new ambiance.

But it was gently lifted from your fingers. Toshinori set it aside. The outside lights caught his raying blush, accentuating his glowing cheeks and eyes. He offered his hand and hummed, “Will you dance with me?”

You accepted, feeling your smile mirror his. One hand grabbed your right, holding it out, stroking the back with his thumb, while the other glided around to your lower back, nestling you dearly. In mellow motions, he directed you about the room, past the Tv, stepping simply, safely amid the coffee table, couch, and chairs. You chuckled at his gallant lead. “I didn’t know you did this often.”

“Not as often as I’d like, sweetheart.” Toshi kissed you, playfully drawing your bottom lip between his.

“Maybe we should go dancing sometime then.”

“I’d love to.” He twirled you. Arms swathed your waist, holding your back to his chest. Out the window, fifteen shades of white, gray, and black enveloped everything. Lights twinkled off the snowflakes. Breath flushed along your neck before he kissed there, “And I love you.”

Long fingers netted your shirt, keeping you enclosed in his torso. Feather-light kisses scattered your shoulder. As they drifted up to your jaw, you cupped his cheek, leaned into his lips, and accepted them on yours. You sighed amidst delicate kisses and tender tongue, “I love you, too.”

Toyomitsu Taishiro

Colors fanned out from a nearby festival. While finishing your cake pops, you and Taishiro stopped at a bench to watch the red, orange, and yellow luminance shooting into the night sky. String instruments drowned out the chatter.

After swallowing his last dessert, he asked, “Wanna check it out?”

“Not really. I-” A big yawn cut you off. “I was kind of looking forward to going to bed, Tai.”

He hopped up. “How ’bout a quick dance?”

You sighed and stood in front of him. His shoulders were way too high for you to hold. His arms were too short for him to comfortably circle your waist. Your fingers drummed on his tummy as you wondered, “How’s this going to work?”

“Like this!” Tai scooped you up into a hug. He swayed back and forth, kissing your cheeks with his sugar-coated lips.

“This isn’t exactly dancing,” you laughed.

“It’s close enough, baby.” The music changed to a lower, tranquil tune. It sounded like a lullaby, perfect to fall asleep to while Tai rocked, crooning. His grip adjusted. One arm supported you, holding under your bottom to let you sit on his forearm.

You tried resisting the warm lethargy. He wanted to dance. But he whispered, “Go ahead and rest. I’ll carry you.”

After a lazy kiss, you laid your head on his shoulder. Your fingers weakened as he continued hushing into your ears. Your legs and back gave next, relaxing completely against him, allowing yourself to doze in his cozy cradle. The music slowly grew distant, yet his humming remained, the half-walk, half-dance home.

Hound Dog

A breeze caught your hood, whisking it off your head. You pulled it back up, mentally cursing the sudden wind and yourself for wanting to go for a walk in the park. You only wanted to relax with Ryo after your stress-filled day.

A squall hurtled through the trees, shaking branches and littering leaves. Sooner than you could verbally curse, a heavy jacket landed on your shoulders. “Ryo, you don’t need to-”

“You’ll catch a cold,” he huffed. With his flannel jacket on you, he was left in just a long-sleeve shirt. He stopped, corrected the big garment on you, then zipped it up. His tongue quickly licked your forehead. “I’m alright.”

“Thank you.” You kissed the side of his snout. You pushed your arms through the sleeves to hug him. Given the added layer, Ryo’s naturally high temperature, and how he shifted so his body blocked it, the next blast didn’t bother you.

His arms clutched you in a bear hug. You stepped onto his boots, holding his waist, listening to his strong heartbeat. You smiled and muttered under the wind, “Dance for me?”

“Hmm,” his chest vibrated as he began slowly loitering around the path. The uncharacteristic, idle pace allowed you to balance on his shoes. Your legs moved with and your body swayed against his.

Large palms slid up and down your spine. Your hands wandered to his neck, finding hand-and-finger warmers in his hair. You giggled at his little glower. “This is nice, isn’t it?”

He pushed his cold nose to your cheek, increasing your laughter. It nuzzled its way into your collar. Wetness spread over your neck. A chill ran down your spine, turning your joy into a gasp, “Ryo! Come on.”

“You started this.” You were lifted off your feet for his nose to continue pestering your sensitive skin.

Late for Halloween, but hey, it’s Inuvember. So here’s my annual contribution to my Witch AU, Now You’re Mine. Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 to understand (or you can just like the art?) This time we have exposition and angst. I appreciate any responses in the tags or comments.🥺Or any questions about this AU! Maybe I’ll even want to write more... 

Now You’re Mine Pt. 4  Words: 2208 Rating: T for violence mention and blood

It was a long, slow night for them. After Kikyou disappeared, Kagome barely uttered out his name and traced his cheekbone before falling unconscious once again. Though she stopped bleeding so profusely, he still thought it was best to get her away from the ritual sight. The full moon had his blood running hot in his veins, but the immediate danger was gone. He was on high alert that night, listening for her heartbeat and feeling her pulse to stay calm and keep his transformation at bay. It was a miracle he hadn’t turned with the events that happened, but he was on edge the whole time, red flickering in and out of his vision. His heightened senses also had him feeling extra paranoid.

By the time the sun rose and his mind felt clearer, he resolved to get them back to Kaede’s place. Inuyasha treated Kagome gingerly as they slowly made their way back. She was in and out of consciousness and her waking varied from groggy calls out to him and sudden gasps. He kept reassuring her that he was there, that she was okay now, and that he’d get them back safely.

It was annoying to walk, and that was exacerbated by the ball weight dragging his leg. He still didn’t get why it’d suddenly become so heavy overnight, but he figured it was because Kagome was in such a bad state. He doubted she would have had the strength to fly them back even if she had her broom.

When they finally walked through the entrance, it was already past nightfall. Kaede saw Kagome’s pale face and limp body and flew into action. She brewed up a strong potion to get her feeling better. It was a deep green color, full of dried ingredients to make it extra potent as they rehydrated. Normally the smell of it would send Inuyasha right out of there and far away, but he found himself uneasy being too distant. For a while he fidgeted and did his best to bear it, but eventually it proved too much for his still sensitive nose to handle. He stood outside where the scent wasn’t so concentrated, but paced under the starlight to keep guard. He doesn’t sleep. He can’t. His mind swirled along with the dried up leaves being swept up by wind.

In the early morning, Kaede joins him in the front.

“Kagome slept through the night and she’s still asleep. The medicinal potion causes drowsiness. The human body works best when it rests. She’ll probably be waking soon, but she’ll have to take it easy for some time. She was drained of a lot of blood.”

Inuyasha gives a shrug to acknowledge her. He’s not sure what to say, but he feels a little relieved. He didn’t get a wink of sleep the past few days and it was starting to take a toll on him.

“Dark witches are tricky and aren’t afraid to use any spell to serve their purposes, even if they defy the Laws. Kagome’s been through a serious blood ritual, that much was clear, but she hasn’t been able to recall a lot of what happened, so you’ll have to give me more details, Inuyasha.”

He’s quiet. What happened? A lot more than he was ready for. Between the capture, Kikyou’s resurrection, and Kagome’s near death, he’s having a hard time processing it all. Let alone how it’d been the night of the full moon, so he’d been in a near-transformation haze. Kikyou’s ghost haunted him, and Kaede had reacted so strongly when news of her came up before. Of course she had, they were of the same clan. He now knows for sure that Kikyou didn’t just disappear the night she sealed him. She died before she ever got a chance to kill him. Now she was out there somewhere.

Her words echo in his skull. “Inuyasha, I will be back for you. I refuse to die until I end you. Remember that your life is mine.”

Sensing his hesitation, Kaede adds, “The more I know about the events that transpired, the better I can treat Kagome.”

He shuffles and sighs. “Kagome was captured by some crazy old bat called Urasue. That’s the one who ambushed her at the well. When I found her she was already bleeding out on the ground. The blood ritual was… to bring back another witch.”

“A Soul Trade,” Kaede confirms. “It’s a particularly complex spell, and one that requires many key factors. A dark spell that’s difficult to control.”

“But why Kagome? The old witch was after her specifically! She went through the trouble of kidnapping her right when she came out of the well.”

Kaede lets out a steady breath and lets it mingle with the cold before answering, “For a seasoned witch, it’s easy for us to sense the power potential in others. If you’re saying this Urasue could be a century old, then she fine tuned that sense long ago. Kagome’s magic is especially strong. Haven’t you wondered why a retired teacher like me would take her in so easily? To help her control it. Kagome’s magical aura makes her stand out. You should know. Even barely trained, she's able to do things most can never hope to master.”

“Like make me into her familiar.”

Kaede gives a solemn nod.

“So she was captured because she’s powerful?”

“Partly. It makes her easy to find.”

“Then why else?”

“Who was she used to resurrect, Inuyasha? I can only believe that she’d be necessary to revive another witch. One who shares her immense magic, and one who shares her blood.”

Inuyasha looks away and clenches his fist in his sleeves. It’s like denial. “Her blood… so Kagome is Kikyou’s blood after all.”

“You’ve always known Inuyasha. You said she could be mistaken for her.”

He doesn’t like the thought. “That’s why she could free me then too, right? Kikyou put the spell on me, and Kagome could undo it because they share a bloodline.” His ears droop slightly, and his eyes seem to glaze over a little in thought.

Kaede studies him, her good eye fixes on the chain at his ankle. He’d been dragging it when he entered and exited earlier, the weight leaving heavier trails than before. “Perhaps, but ‘undo’ isn’t the right word. Replace.”

Inuyasha scoffs, but his demeanor turns serious. “When I dragged Kagome out of the spell circle it started to reverse the ritual. Kikyou started bleeding out instead, but then she escaped using Urasue’s broom. I don’t know where she went, but Kikyou’s out there somewhere. It’s why Kagome feels this bad still, I’m sure of it. ”

“So Kikyou is stuck in the middle now.”

“In the middle?”

“An undead. It’s a rare phenomenon, especially for a good witch. There are those who specialize in animating the dead—like puppeteers toying with creatures, but to resurrect life requires a much stronger power. Imagine the strength it takes for a witch to resist a ritual so insidious.” She pauses, “Or the strength it takes to survive it.”

“Is Kagome going to be alright?” His tail swishes anxiously behind him.

“I told you she’s stronger than most.”

“But… what about Kikyou? Does she need Kagome to live? Is she going to come after her to complete the ritual?”

“Kikyou is also stronger than most, maybe the strongest to have lived. She was The Keeper of the Grimoire for a long time. She must have absorbed some of its powers when she locked it away. It’s possible she will turn to it now. For better or worse, I believe she’ll find a way to survive like this.”

“That’s what the hag was after. The Grimoire, just like before.”

Kaede wonders to herself what he means by “before,” but chooses to hold her tongue about it. Whatever secrets Inuyasha has about his past are his own.

“It’s a legend to most witches. A beacon for those who seek power. It holds dark, ancient secrets. Powerful spells that bend Laws instead of breaking them. Kikyou was rumored as the last witch to know its location and be able to access it, so it makes sense that Urasue would attempt to use her to find it, but foolish to think she could control her.”

“Yeah,” he agrees with frustration, the image of Urasue’s head being sliced clean off flashes through his mind. He swallows. “She’s… definitely something.”

“I have a feeling Kagome has the same potential to reach similar heights.”

“But she wouldn’t hurt a fly!” His ears droop. “She’ll have to learn how to protect herself though…” They can’t afford for this to happen again.

It’s that kind of concern he takes for his witch that warms Kaede’s heart and makes her believe that their relationship is more than it seems. Much as Inuyasha complains, there’s a genuine softness with which he treats her. “If you stay by Kagome’s side I’m sure she’ll be well guarded as I continue on her training. You being near her will give her strength, you share it with one another. That’s part of the familiar bond.”

It’s a clear invitation for him to go inside and see her, but he doesn’t know what to do. Part of him wants to check in on her, but another part feels weird about it. He can’t shake the feeling that he has to stay alert. As if on cue, he hears a small muffle from inside the room and his ears stand on alert. He stands up immediately on instinct, his chain making a light noise at the movement.

Kaede looks up and motions to stop him before he can push aside the screen. “I should warn you about the repercussions of stopping the ritual, Inuyasha.” Her tone is hushed.

He raises his brow.

“A Soul Trade links the sacrifice and the resurrected for a short time. It’s like a transfer between the two. It’s possible that because of the ritual, Kagome and Kikyou shared certain things. Emotions. Knowledge.”

His eyes go wide for a second and he holds his breath.

“Memories.”

Inuyasha presses his lips together and stands there for a moment, mind suddenly filling with new thoughts. What had Kagome learned from Kikyou? Did she hate him now too? There was no way, but then again, she’d basically been passed out the whole time. What could she have seen? He suddenly feels like running away, but he’s frozen.

Then the muffled sound repeats, and he hears his name. Everything in his mind shouts at him, Go to her! The familiar bond is pulsing through his head. Ultimately it’s her though, fragile and searching that moves him into action.

He lets his lungs empty and sucks in another breath, the cold sting of it filling his chest and reminding him of the night she freed him. When he felt his heartbeat for the first time in decades. He pushes the door aside and enters quickly, careful not to let too much chill inside.

“Inuyasha?” Kagome calls as soon as he’s in the room.

The scent of her blood has faded, but it’s still there staining her clothes, and it bothers Inuyasha a lot. Still, he wants to know she’s okay.

“I’m here, Kagome,” he assures her as he did their walk home. “Are you alright?”

She smiles and weakly nods at him, and knots in his stomach unravel just a little. She had a way of untangling him from dark places. “Stay by me?” she requests, holding a shaky hand towards him. He flashbacks to her limp hand stuck in the pentagram, to her reaching out to protect him. Of course she didn’t hate him.

The relief swells in his chest, but he doesn’t want it to make a big deal out of nothing. Instead of saying anything, he huffs out a breath to sound bothered and sits by her, the ball annoyingly dragging against the ground on his way. Instead of taking her hand, he checks it for her pulse.

“You need something?”

Kagome blinks, her eyebrows knitting in what Inuyasha can assume is either dizziness or pain. She makes a move to study him, trying to focus on his face. She swore he looked different last night. Red eyes and jagged marks on his cheeks. She reaches out to touch him, but he pulls away and stands up.

He’s relieved she’s alright, but suddenly afraid of her questions. “You’ve been out all night since Kaede gave you that potion. I’ll get you water. You just rest up.” Kaede’s warning is stuck in his mind like tar. There are things Kagome could know now, and he doesn’t want to deal with it.  

Behind him the ball drags on the floor, catching Kagome’s attention again. Visions from the other night flicker in her mind, but they’re vague and fleeting. Some of them seem familiar, and other thoughts feel like she’s someone else. Her head aches to think about them, but her heart reacts with a different kind of pain. She frowns and watches him leave, tucking her hand back to her chest. She’s suddenly overwhelmed with longing, feeling small and pathetic as he walks away.

Why couldn’t he just stay by her side?

KINKTOBER DAY 6: Frotting

The Wraith x AMAB!Reader

Contains: slight teratophilia, frotting

You knew you were in deep shit. When that familiar heat sparked inside you, you knew you were completely and utterly fucked. A slight admiration turned into a full blown crush. You were useless in trials against him, too busy swooning to be of much help. You were absolutely enraptured by the tilt of his head, the way his lithe body moved, the regal aura he carried. Generators would often explode due to your straying eyes, usually leading to blades in the back of your head and a hook through the chest. Every trial had you on edge, hoping it would be him, and it was starting to affect your performance. Surviving a match was rare, and sacrifices were plentiful. There was no doubt in your mind that you. were. fucked.

When the familiar tug of the fog swallowed you up, you felt your interest spark dangerously. Your eyes fluttered open to the soft shadows of the Red Forest, raindrops hanging from your lashes. With a sigh, you stretched and made your way to the nearest gen. Meg was already working diligently on it, small hands reaching inside the machine with ease. You offer her a quick wave before settling down to adjust the knobs. As you make progress, you note how quiet it is. No footsteps, no heartbeat, no screams. Either it was a stealth killer, or the killer was taking it easy. The thought of it being a stealth killer makes your heart flutter, dangerous hopes rising in your chest. What if it’s him? You cast a quick glance around to check, but don’t see anything nearby that would give away who the killer was. With a shrug, you turned back to the gen, giving the knobs one last adjustment and shutting the panel as it blared to life. The world seemed to go in slow motion as a bell tolled close by, followed by a menacing hiss and the heavy sound of a weapon cutting through air. Your heart throbbed as you watched the Wraith appear, his weapon bashing into Meg’s head and sending her stumbling back. You stared, mouth gaping as you observed him for a second. He stood still, staring after Meg before turning his cold gaze to you. You snapped out of it, scrambling back just in time to avoid the blades of his weapon burying into your leg. With a yelp, you bolted in the opposite direction, chest heaving with fear and excitement. You could hear the light fall of his feet on the grass behind you, the only indication that he was following. You took a sharp turn behind a tree, wincing at the sound of his blades hitting where you had just been. Your eyes frantically looked about, landing on a nearby pallet. Immediately, you ran for it, managing to reach it in time to slam it down on him. You shivered, feeling your gut clench at the sound he released. You didn’t have long to revel in the feeling, as he broke down the pallet, raising his weapon over his head. He brought it down, slamming the blades into your shoulder, causing you to let out a grunt of pain before bolting on unsteady feet. He followed you around a couple more trees before the sound of his footsteps faded, allowing you to ease up a bit. You slunk back into a corner, opening up your medkit to patch some gauze over the wound. Another generator roared to life in the distance, allowing you to move on to a nearby generator. This one was untouched, and no one was nearby, so you set to work on it alone. You nearly missed a skill check when a scream sounded from far away. The red light of a fallen person became visible to you, telling you that the killer was on the other side of the map. You decided to stay at the gen, more useful in finishing it than in running across the map to save them. They went up on the hook, and someone managed to rescue them soon after. You had managed to coax the gen into half progress, breathing some life into the machine. As it got closer to completion, another person got downed. This time, you weren’t so lucky to hit the skill check. The gen popped sparks in your face, making you wince and pull back. You hesitantly hovered over it, eyeing the red aura about 20 meters away. They hadn’t been picked up yet, a sign that the killer was possibly headed your way. With an irritated sigh, you slid behind a rock along the wall, keeping an eye out for any disturbances nearby. The person has managed to crawl a bit closer, and you catch a glimpse of Meg determinedly dragging herself in the direction of your gen. The sound of the bell interrupted her, a vicious hand reaching out from the embers to wrap around her ankle and drag her back. You watched in confusion as the Wraith raised his weapon before slamming it down on her back. Over, and over again. You gasped, hand rising to cover your mouth as heat simmered deep in your gut. You’d never seen his mori before. The way his muscles clenched under his rough skin in a display of brutal strength had your breaths coming unevenly, raw arousal lighting up your nerves. You watched as he stood straight, nostrils flaring as he looked around. He paused for a second before recloaking and wandering off. You let out a shaky breath, hesitantly coming out of your hiding spot to finish your gen. As soon as it lit up, you ran to the corner of the map, slumping behind a rock and huffing. Your pants felt unbearably tight, even though you were only half hard. You heave an irritated sigh, dragging your hands over your face. It’s the middle of a trial, and you’re hiding in the corner with a hard on? Get your shit together y/n. You squeeze your thighs together, whimpering in discomfort as someone screams in the distance. Maybe you could take care of it real quick? No big deal, right? You trail a hand down to lightly squeeze your length, letting out a shaky moan as arousal pulses through your system. You can’t remember the last time you got yourself off, so the sudden touch is overwhelming in its power. Lazily, you stroke yourself through your pants, letting out the occasional grunt of pleasure. Nearby, someone shouts in frustration, their red aura falling to the ground. You gasp, removing your hand and backing up into the corner. This time, you can hear the Wraith audibly sniffing, a deep mechanical growl ripping from his throat as he shoves the person onto the hook, sniffing them over. Trembling, you peek out from behind the rock. His teeth are bared as he looks around, nose twitching with the effort to locate the scent. When he can’t find it, he hisses and turns away to find another survivor. Immediately, you bolt out, grabbing David by his sides and lifting him off. You don’t have time to run before the Wraith is back, slamming his weapon into David’s back and causing him to fall on you. You scream and scramble back, watching with dilated eyes as he pulls him off you by the leg and raises his weapon. David groggily looks up at you before wailing in pain and dropping his head as the Wraith brutally destroys his back. You can’t deny the way your cock twitches at the close up view of the Wraith mori-ing David. With the last slam of the weapon on his spine, he pulls back, letting out a groan as his nostrils twitch and his eyes glow menacingly. He leans over you, snarling as he grips you by the collar of your shirt and pulls you up to him. You shiver as he sniffs along your neck, only serving to make you more aroused. He purrs, dropping you to the ground as he cages you in with his lanky limbs. You’re almost dizzy with arousal at this point, mind scrambled by his close proximity. “Wraith, please…” You whine, not sure whether you’re begging for him to release you or keep going. His eyes flicker up to your face, and his plump lips move. “Philip.” A raspy voice, like a wind through the trees, comes from him. You stare at him with wide eyes, mouth agape in shock. You didn’t think he could actually talk. “Philip… That’s your name?” He nods, dipping back down to sniff along your jawline. His chest is pressed against you, and you can feel the way it vibrates with his rumbling purr. His blunt teeth suddenly nip at your skin, causing you to yelp in surprise. “Fuck! Philip, what are you doing?” He nibbles at the sensitive flesh, trailing one of his hands down to cup your hard length through your pants. “Can smell you.” He hisses, shuddering at the scent of your spiking arousal. You whimper, hips jolting into his touch. You can feel him pressed against your leg, unashamedly rutting against you. He pulls away from your neck, hands moving to unbutton your pants and tear them down your legs. You shout in surprise, squeezing your thighs together. Philip is staring at you hungrily, eyes watching your hard cock throb under his gaze. Your eyes trail down his sleek abdomen, going wide at the sight of the monster beneath his bandages. The bandages barely covered his long, slender cock. Eagerly, he pushes the bandages apart and pulls out his cock, making your eyes go even wider. The texture of it was similar to his skin, rough with ridges along it. A line of small bumps, similar to those on his head, ran along the underside. From the slit, an amber drop of precum rolled down, similar in a way to sap. You gulped, unconsciously spreading your legs at the sight. Philip settled himself on your thighs and pressed your cocks together, making you whimper and bite your lip. He dipped back into your neck, nose gently nuzzling into your pulse as he tightened his hand around your lengths. He began moving his hips, causing you to moan as the bumps along the underside slid over your sensitive skin. He was much longer than you, towering a couple inches over your cock. The visual had you drooling, thoughts of it in your mouth, in your ass, consuming your mind. You tilted your head back to give him easier access to your throat, moaning as you bucked against him. “Philip, you feel so good. It’s been so long, ah!” He bit the crook of your neck, sucking a bruise into the soft flesh. The purr in his chest spiked into an unsettling groan as he twitched against you. He was impatient in his thrusts, erratically rutting his cock against yours. You dug your nails into his back, letting out a keening whine as textures assaulted every side of your cock. You can already feel yourself getting close, balls tightening with your impending orgasm. “Philip, fuck, I’m gonna cum!” He lets out an animalistic growl and rocks harder against you, moving his hand up and down along your lengths. With a loud moan, your hips jolt up against him, cock jumping as you shoot ropes of cum along your stomach. Philip’s hips stutter as the smell of your climax washes over him, making him even more frantic in his search for his end. Your legs tighten from the overstimulation, eyes rolling back as you’re worked past your limit. Philip cums with a loud roar, similar to the sound he makes when stunned. His teeth bury into your neck as cool cum splatters along your chest, making you twitch at the sensation. With a last couple ruts, Philip pulls away from you with a satisfied purr. You lay there, trying to catch your breath as you watch him tuck his softening cock back beneath the bandages. “God, that was amazing.” Philip nods, offering a small smile as you lean up. Your combined cum drips down your shirt, making you cringe at the thought of having to explain to the other survivor what had happened. On cue, the last gen pops off on the other side of the map, startling Philip. He grabs his weapon off the ground, casting you one last glance. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around?” He nods before ringing his bell and disappearing. With a soft laugh, you get up and make your way to the closest exit. You were definitely fucked.

the best i can do is regret | ch 2: cin vhetin (fresh start, lit. white field)

Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Relationships: Hunter & Omega, Crosshair & Female OC, The Bad Batch, minor Hunter/Male OC

Summary: Where Omega wasn’t Hunter’s first daughter. He thinks he made the right choice with her; but he's not so sure about Omega.

Notes: This is the chapter that’s been fighting me. Hopefully it’s readable. CW: descriptions of blood, kinda gory descriptions about body parts, genocide, mentioned insomnia, and minor character death. And Hunter has a breakdown. 

Something is wrong.

It’s not the planet, although Concord Dawn is definitively the strangest planet Crosshair’s been on—and the Bad Batch have been to Wild Space. Glass that shouldn’t be there crunches beneath his boots as he pushes forward, rifle ready to fire. In the atmosphere, a behemoth rock wall looms, formed by one end of the asteroid-blasted hole in the planet. It casts a permanent shadow over the region, and still there’s light blinding Crosshair’s sensitive eyes from the war-blasted glass reflecting a distant fire. A planet of hypocrisies, things that shouldn’t be.

And yet, it’s not what’s wrong.

“Up ahead,” he calls. Squinting past the agonizing brightness, he points his rifle in the general direction of the fire and searches for the source. He hears the tinkling of the glass distantly behind him as the rest of the squadron rush to meet him. When he tilts the scope towards the brightest area, white assaults over his eyes, sending a burning current through the veins of his eyeballs.

“Osik.” Crosshair drops his rifle, trying to blink away the flash. There’s still a bright blue blob obscuring his vision. “Hunter, you up for this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be,” he snaps, and pushes Crosshair out of the way.

Hunter’s the one that’s wrong. Ever since they received the Concordian distress call on the Marauder, the sarge’s gotten snappier—to the point that Tech grumbled under his breath that he was worse than Crosshair. It wasn’t just his attitude; he was wrong down to the way he stood. Crosshair saw it all: his slumped shoulders, hands hanging aimlessly by his side, and a permanent crease between his eyebrows.

Most worryingly, he’d skipped one of his sleep cycles. Crosshair’s the oldest; he’s been with his squad throughout their entire lives. He saw how their “desirable” mutations took a toll on his squadmates—Wrecker’s ribs had to be rebuilt with durasteel fibres because they couldn’t support his mass, Tech came out of the tube with a faulty lung that had to be replaced, and Crosshair himself still used an inhaler. Hunter’s curse was insomnia, caused from nights interrupted by the sounds and sensations of everything, everywhere. Crosshair used to accompany him to the Kaminoan’s therapy wing once a week and he still reminds him to take his medication every day.

A relapse, however small, is very bad. But Hunter leaves the cockpit every time Crosshair brings it up.

All he can do is keep an eye on Hunter. Hunter falls to his knees, picking up shards of glass and letting them fall against the ground. Crosshair sticks close to Hunter as he follows the trail, his eyes still bleary from the blinding light. Tech follows, nervously gripping his datapad. He’s been quiet since Hunter decided on becoming Crosshair 2.0. He’d normally be talking their ears off about the properties of the glass. Instead, he’s flitting wide eyes from Hunter to the fire and back. Wrecker gently bumps his vambrace against Crosshair’s pauldron—his way of asking if Crosshair’s alright. He nods, warmed by Wrecker’s constant nature. At least Wrecker is his brash, kind self, no matter what.

When they’re a couple paces from the source, blaster fire shatters the glass before their feet. Wrecker throws the lot of them behind a jetty of rock, and Tech starts laying out some cover fire. Crosshair blinks out the last of the bleariness and raises his rifle to the source of the blaster bolts. Beskar flashing against light, red jai’galaar on black paint.

“Mandos,” he calls back. “Death Watch.”

Hunter swears. “Cross, Wrecker, you two handle them. Tech, you’re with me.”

Tech looks very much like he’d rather die by the hands of a Viszla. Crosshair decides to give him a break.

“Tech’s better with Mandos.” It’s true—Tech once engineered an altered deactivator that somehow targets beskar. “I’ll go in with you.”

Hunter stares at Crosshair. His eyes are cold behind the dark visor.

Crosshair sighs. He doesn’t want to fight right now.

For once, Hunter’s on the same page. “Fine. Stick close.”

Crosshair obeys, slinking away from the rock jetty with the sergeant as Wrecker distracts the Mandalorians. Once Crosshair checks that the skies are clear of further Death Watch, he turns his gaze to the source of the fire.

It’s a village. Ornate, dirt-baked houses burn in shambles. There isn’t a wall without a hole through it. The acrid scent of blaster fire fills the air, enough for Crosshair to want to reach for his inhaler. Fresh red fruits lay scattered across the road, bruised from the harsh treatment. Bodies, strewn across the village, lay limp, covered in ash. Some have died next to more, smaller bodies, and others grip blasters in their cold, swollen grips. Every one of the corpses have eye coverings, whether it be a colourful silk fabric or a sturdy metal band.

Crosshair’s only met one other Miraluka. A Mandalorian Protector who’d rescued the Batch from a Separatist planet when they’d crashed their old transport—the one with Senator Amidala painted on the nose. He remembers his long white hair, blinding grin, and the blue fabric tied over his eyes. He’d gotten along with Hunter; the Mando had made the stoic sergeant laugh as they worked on ship repairs. Crosshair imagines it would be nice if someone made him laugh.

Oh.

Crosshair lays a hand on Hunter’s pauldron. Even through the thick duraplast, he can feel Hunter shaking. “Where is he?”

Hunter lets out a trembling exhale. “I don’t know,” he whispers.

They perform a routine inspection, searching from left to right, then back to left. Hunter’s holding his blaster like a lifeline. Crosshair tries his best to ignore the itch in his throat from all the smoke he’s inhaling. He wonders what the Miraluka remnants had done to earn a wipeout by Death Watch, then decides he’s better off not knowing.

“Crosshair.��� The distortion of the comms highlight the tremble in Hunter’s voice. Crosshair turns to see Hunter standing in front of the ruins of a small hut. The building’s so thrashed by ammunition, it’s barely recognizable as one anymore. Death Watch clearly had a vendetta against the resident.

Crosshair surveys the hut from corner to corner. It’s difficult to find anything, since everything’s covered by a thick layer of ash. All that said, there’s no silhouette of a body, nor charred beskar.

But Hunter doesn’t move. “Can—can you hear it?”

Crosshair tightens his grip on his rifle. If Hunter hears something, it means they’re in trouble.

For a long minute, all Crosshair hears is the distant crackling of fire and wind whistling against glass. Then, Hunter makes a hurt noise. “Fuck, Cross, it’s—it’s a karking baby.”

Alarm flashes through Crosshair’s body. “Where? Here?”

Hunter doesn’t respond, but the way he falls to his knees and starts brushing off the ash on the floor is telling enough. Crosshair picks up a synthfiber broom that miraculously survived the firefight to help Hunter’s crusade. At first, it’s futile, just glass and threads of a carpet long gone. As Crosshair gets to the corner of the hut, he sees a tiny crack in the flooring—far too even to be a fault in the ground. He follows that line, sweeping out a rectangular panel.

“Here?” he asks Hunter. The sergeant places his hand on the panel, taking off his helmet to get a more direct feedback.

Hunter’s eyes fly open. “Yes—fuck, we gotta open this.” Pulling out his knife, he works on prying open the panel. Crosshair runs his fingers across the rim of the panel, searching for a grip, a handle, or—

A button. The panel springs up upon pressing it, not jumping fully out of the way but lifting enough for them to get a grip. Crosshair can hear the wailing now, faint under the thick glass but still ear-piercing. They work together to get the panel lifted, a slow process of one-two-three-pull interrupted by the gradually loud screams of the infant underneath. Crosshair wants to clap his hands over his ears. He imagines it will be worse for the sergeant.

With a final heave, they pull the panel up from its slot. They set it down to the side and hurry back to the pit they uncovered. Crosshair hopes Hunter will be ready for what he sees.

The Mandalorian lies at the bottom. White hair stained copper, head slumped over to the floor, helmet scattered to side. For a moment, Crosshair thinks he’s dead—then he sees the minute shifting of his shoulders, indicating breath.

Crosshair looks up to Hunter: eyes shaking, abnormal breath speed. So Crosshair does what he’s done for his brothers ever since they were children—he grips the sergeant’s arm tight and presses their foreheads together. “He’s alive, okay? He’s breathing.”

“He—the baby—” Throat constricting, legs twitching—

Crosshair tightens his grip, fingers certainly digging a bruise into Hunter’s arm now. Out of his own fear upon seeing his sergeant so unravelled, or for Hunter’s sake, he’s not sure. “Hunter. Help me pull him out of there.”

Hunter’s eyes flicker for a moment more. Then, his eyes harden. “Okay.”

They debate a bit on how to get down, ultimately deciding that the foundation can handle two grown men hanging off a grappling hook without shattering. Hunter lands at the bottom clumsily (legs toppling under him, hand shooting out to stabilize himself, eyes widening in panic) and scrambles his way to the Protector’s side. By the time Crosshair’s hit the ground, Hunter’s got the Miraluka’s head resting on his lap.

The Miraluka lifts his face. His eye covering is long gone, exposing the eerily empty heat pits that sit in place of his eyes. He draws a shuddering gasp.

“Shh, don’t push yourself,” Hunter whispers, carding his hand through the blood-caked hair. His eyes are glassy at the corners.

“Hunter,” the Mando breathes, Core accent highlighted in the rasp of his breath. He coughs, splattering blood on Hunter’s chestplate. “Ni…enteyo ven jorhaa’ir…”

I must speak with you. Crosshair drops to his knees, placing a hand on Hunter’s shivering back. He’s tempted to reach out and comfort the Miraluka as well, but he feels like he’ll burst their moment if he interferes.

“You can tell me when we get you out of here,” Hunter says, and it sounds like law out of his mouth. He looks at Crosshair, and it’s years of working together that lets Crosshair know what he wants. He reaches for the Miraluka, wrapping his arm around the Mandalorian’s torso. Hunter supports the Protector’s other side.

“No, no, nayc—” The Miraluka tries to struggle against their grip, but he’s so weak Crosshair can barely feel his squirming. He’s covered in wounds; Crosshair counts at least three capital injuries along what he can see of his torso. “Hunter, gedet’ye, ni kar’tayl—”

The sunlight decides to enter the pit then, shining a light onto the stained dirt under the Mandalorian’s body. Where a child wails.

Crosshair’s seen a lot of babies, but it’s the first he’s seen one that doesn’t share his face. He’s entranced by them—by the way the child’s nose sits wide on their chubby face, by the way white, fuzzy hair sticks haphazardly out from their round head, by the way the silk eye covering sits against soft skin.

For a moment, everything fades in the face of this child. Crosshair feels a smile tugging at the corner of his lips—almost.

Then he notices the way the child’s cheeks round, their familiar brown skin, their pouty lips. Crosshair’s seen the same in thousands, millions of babies. It’s…impossible. Clones are sterile. The Kaminoans never documented fertility as one of Clone Force 99’s mutations.

But when Crosshair turns to look at Hunter, his face is turgid with the same fear blinding Crosshair—the fire, once again.

The Miraluka suddenly groans, slipping out of Hunter and Crosshair’s grip and tumbling to the floor. Before Crosshair can reach for him again, the Mandalorian curls into himself, gasping and coughing. All the grace, ease, confidence of the man who saved their lives long ago is gone. The Protector’s arm stutters as he reaches for the sergeant.

Hunter takes it, clasps it with both hands. Presses a kiss against the bruised knuckles. “Onnik…”

“Ni kar’tayl, Hunter,” the Mandalorian says, so hoarse Crosshair can barely hear him, “gar kaysh buir.”

Buir. Crosshair feels dizzy.

Hunter shakes his head. Eyes wide. Hammering pulse. “I can’t—”

“Hunter.” All of a sudden, the power is back in the Mandalorian’s voice. “Swear it.”

This is crazy. Hunter is in no position to do what the Protector demands.Crosshair looks to Hunter. He looks as lost as Crosshair feels.

And yet, he says the words. “Haat, Ijaa, Haa’it.”

The Miraluka’s grip relaxes. A smile spreads across his face. “Vor entye, cyare.”

Crosshair sits back on his legs, tips his head to the sky and rubs his hands over his face. His heart’s hammering in his throat. He replays the words that have been spoken in front of him.

I know you as this child’s father.

I swear it, on truth, honour, and vision.

Thank you, beloved.

Fuck, he’s so dizzy he can barely think. He pushes through, though, despite the way his head throbs and his eyes burn, because he hates the haze, how the reflected glass blurs the truth.

He focuses on Clone Force 99, forces himself to breathe. Would they be on the run, from the Republic that was their home since their birth? Would it be worth it, however blindingly bright the small chubby-cheeked baby was?

Somehow, despite everything, Crosshair hopes it will.

self para: birds of a feather

It turned out that there was no easy way to do it. Nari could have rehearsed it all she wanted - she could have spent hours practicing in front of the mirror, imagining that the person in the reflection was not herself but the tall, strict figure of her father as he listened intently to what she had to say (as a matter of fact, she did try this at some point, but just picturing Minjoon in that mirror made her nervous), or she could have rolled over in her bed at night, going over all the appropriate and effective ways to speak with her dad, but none of it was going to prepare her for what she was supposed to tell him and what she wanted to ask him. Hi, pops, how are you doing, you see, recently I met this amazing man and he's a student, you know, and they're gonna be on a break soon so we wanted to make good of the holidays and I was thinking if we could borrow the keys to the mountain house, it's nice there and we could go ski? Make good - what was that supposed to mean? No, don't be a dumb ass, Kim Nari, that sounds...Well, it doesn't sound like something you want to say.

Hi, dad - I got some days off and I wanna take some friends up to the cabin...No. Minjoon would know she was lying, he read her like an open book. She had learned it from him, after all - the art of hoodwinking and how could a student ever fool their teacher? She needed to be honest and open about it - that was what she was supposed to do. That was what she always did with Minjoon, with Pride who loved her more than he would ever want to say out loud. And it wasn’t like she was running off to Las Vegas to elope with an angel or some other kind of nemesis of a demon. It wasn’t like she had got herself knocked up and was now seeking a blessing. It wasn’t like she was about to do something reckless, or ruin her life. She wanted to go away with a boy she loved and Nari couldn’t see why Minjoon would say no.

Hi dad. His name is Baylor Park. I know, I haven’t told you much about it yet, but honestly, I haven’t had the chance. I wanted to ask...you know that—

In the midst of her rushing thoughts, Minjoon opened the door of his condo and Nari found herself blurting out a “Hi, dad! I’m here,” before she could realize just how stupid that sounded. Of course she was there. She had called him that very morning and told him she was coming; and she had knocked the door at noon sharp, just when she said she would come; and she was standing right there in front of him, so of course she was “here”.

“I can see that,” Minjoon said with an amused tone of voice and let her in.

After taking a deep breath, Nari walked in and tried to act as normal as possible - she removed her shoes and hung her coat, she then proceeded right into the living room and, to her disappointment, found no sight of Taemin or Hoxmarch. If either of them had been there, she might have found some comfort, an anchor of a sort, or more courage to just get right the Hell to the point, but she was alone with Minjoon, and his oppressive presence had already started to take a toll on his fidgety younger daughter. Her dad was, she noticed, oddly quiet at first. He had disappeared off to the kitchen as soon as she made herself comfortable, and he came back several, abnormally long minutes later carrying two bottles of soju and some peanuts. He placed them on the table, pulled in his armchair and then sat right down, crossed his legs, and then popped the bottles open. “Well?” he asked while handing her one. “I didn’t expect to see you before the New Year.”

“Yeah, me either,” Nari said while taking the bottle. She had last seen her dad a day after her birthday - it had been three days ever since. The year was almost over, barely a couple of days separating the world from the next decade and while that seemed to fill everyone else with a healthy dose of anticipation and enthusiasm, Nari remained indifferent at the prospect of fireworks and sunrise-watching and welcoming the new rotation around the Sun. She looks at the soju bottle before taking a small sip, savoring the flavor. “I-uh guess I wanted to see how you’re doing? We didn’t catch up all that much the other day.”

Minjoon takes a slow sip from his own bottle, then lays it on the table and grabs some peanuts - about half a handful - and starts to clean them one by one. “I’m always doing the same, you know that. Questioning my damn existence with all the brothers - and sister - festering in my vicinity and seeking cheap, short thrills. Same old. same old.”

Nari snorted. “You haven’t come to the races lately, what’s up with that?” Already, she had started to relax. She could practically feel the knots in her muscles releasing, and her body becoming lighter as she grabbed for some peanuts as well.

“I’ll come when I come. They’re not going anywhere. You don’t have to work today?”

“No,” she shook her head and began to munch on the snack, avoiding eye contact still. “I took a few days off from the repair shop, but I may pick up some shifts at the bar, I’m kinda low there.”

“Kim Nari,” Minjoon suddenly says, shifting in his seat. As soon as he calls out to her, she looks up at him finally and when she does, he locked her in a stare-down, with no intentions of letting her gaze fall away from him. “You didn’t come here to shoot the breeze, so why not just get to it.”

“I.”

“Does it have anything to do with Whatshisname?”

Ever so slowly, Nari felt at least a part of her color fade from her face. She stopped chewing and swallowed thickly, watching Minjoon’s face intently. He was definitely talking about Baylor, though she had no idea how. Had Hoxmarch spilled the beans finally? No, probably not. Right? Was her dad upset, indifferent or pleased? She had no idea, could have been all, neither or any one of those. “Baylor. His name is Baylor. How did you...?”

“When I came to your place, I saw a lovely pair of a man’s gloves in the hallway and I’m sure you don’t own those. Plus, that whole place smelled like what might be a human, though I’m not willing to bet my life on it. It also smelled like cologne, slightly.”

“Kyungsoo was there on my birthday, you know, it could have easily been him.”

“Are you being a smart-ass right now?” Minjoon asked, his voice devoid of any tone or emotion, and frankly, this startled Nari more than it would ever scare her had he went off on a shouting rant. Minjoon rarely, if ever, shouted though - as a matter of fact, Nari had never once heard him raise his voice at her, yet there was always something eerie about how flat and icy his intonation could get, how bereft of any emotion or tangibility it could become that she would have preferred him getting aggressive or loud over that at any time.

“I’m...I’m not being a smart-ass.” She lets out a sigh and finally moves a bit on her seat. Before then, she was frozen, unsure what to do with her own body. She swallows the rest of the peanuts in her mouth, and washes them down with more of the alcohol, downing a handsome amount of it before she can bring herself to speak again. “I was going to tell you but calling you and saying Hi dad I have a boyfriend now sounds kind of weird, don’t you think?”

“You called me when you beat the crap out of that girl back in middle school, saying Hey, dad, uh, I broke someone’s nose. Do you really think news about someone you’re seeing is worse than that?”

“No, I,” touche. She really did do that. So, why had she hesitated to tell him about Baylor? She was confident that he would like Baylor - and possibly vice versa. Hell, even Changseon liked Baylor, which was, admittedly, a thought she needed to keep to herself. Minjoon couldn’t know, not yet, what actually happened three weeks ago. “Look. He’s a really great guy. His name is Baylor Park. He’s a med student. He’s American, actually, but he lives here right now. Long story. But, he’s really...great.” She was becoming nervous again, as evidenced by the way her hands began to slowly fidget. “You’ll really like him.”

“Maybe I will. I mean this is the first time you’re actually...dating, isn’t it? So, not like I have a banana for scale, anyone to compare him with,” Pride’s voice softened by now and he was back to shoving peanuts in his mouth and nibbling them.

“Now you’re being a smart-ass. Or just an ass.”

“I’m often told that.”

“Well, um...School holidays are coming soon and we wanted to do something with it, you know? Before he’s drowning in his studies and I have to continue working as hard as I usually do.”

“Is he human?”

“And- What? No, he’s not.”

“What is he?”

“He’s a...mutant.”

Minjoon raises an eyebrow. “So, he’s mortal?” A mutant? What was that supposed to mean? Was he born a human and then mutated into something else or was he born into it? Or was he...created...Minjoon felt like someone splashed him with a bucket of cold water when he thought of the word “created”. Could this boy have come from that strange and unknown mutation the immortals had caught wind off some decades ago? Could it be the same gene that Lust himself had hooked his claws in two decades ago? The mutation that had...No, impossible. It was a coincidence, it had to be. Where was that brat of Lust’s anyway? Whatever was born out of that union, whoever ran around the world with Lust’s gene in them, remained off radar God knew how and Lust was unwilling to tell a soul where the half-blood was.

“He is. I guess. That’s beside the point right now. What I’m trying to ask you is-”

“Does he know you’re not quite mortal yourself?” Minjoon’s questions came one after the other, without much break or predictability, and Nari was increasingly frustrated with it, her thoughts getting sent off the rails constantly.

“No. Yes, I don’t know!” she lets out an exasperated sigh. “Dad, will you listen to me for a moment?” It was a sensitive subject, one that Nari wasn’t ready to even think about more deeply. Her being...mortal or immortal, no one knew, and Baylor having a potentially normal lifespan was a topic, and issue, for a whole other chapter and she was far too scatter-minded and evasive of the topic to even approach it with Minjoon.

“I’m listening. He has holidays soon and you two want to make good of it.”

Make good of it. Nari gave Minjoon a deadpanned look. She really should have just used the word herself, clearly. “Yeah,” she hears herself say. “It’s holidays, so I was wondering...Do you have plans to go to the uh...mountain house?”

“No. Taemin and I are going to Oahu next week.”

“Lovely! Do you think you could, uh...borrow...me...the...keys?” There’s a timid, embarrassed even, smile on her lips as she asks him, and the moment the words leave her mouth her cheeks and ears start to become burning red.

There’s a heavy moment of silence between father and daughter. Nari thought that if she tried hard enough, she would be able to hear Minjoon’s heart beat, or the next-door neighbour breathing from how deafeningly quiet the condo had become, but the spell is broken quickly when Minjoon’s mouth curls into a mischievous smirk and he un-crosses his legs and lets out a little cackle. “Sure. Nari, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re an adult. You can do whatever you want, with whoever you want, but honestly, I’d much prefer if I know where you are while you’re doing it. At least in this case.” Baylor Park, American, mutant, the words are still going through his head. There were no such things as coincidences in this world, he thought, yet...he was willing to entertain this one if the universe would allow him. “You are planning to introduce us, aren’t you?”

Nari’s body becomes lighter than before as she heard his approval and she is able to laugh a little as she nods, in excitement. “Of course I am. As soon as....Well, I don’t know, how long you staying in Hawaii? Maybe after the winter break, I’ll bring him over to Lady Xian for a dinner, how does that sound?” And as long as Hoxy doesn’t tell him that he has already met Baylor, this should work real fucking swell.

“Frankly, I’m a bit offended Kyungsoo got to meet your beau before me but I guess I can let it slide this time,” Minjoon says leaning back against his seat. “I trust you know what you’re doing.”

The redness in her head increased, along with the heat, and Nari coughed a little. She reached for her drink and took a big sip before nodding. “I do, yeah.”

“I meant...what you’re doing, regarding him. And you.”

Oh. She looks up at Minjoon, her eyes filled with a kind of melancholy. “I think that I do. It’s too early to talk about some things. I’m just twenty-two, he’s just twenty. We’ve got a life ahead of us.”

“I suppose you do,” he shrugs. “Hey, I didn’t know you were into younger men.”

“Dad!” Nari reaches for a small, decorative pillow and throws it right at his face, though Minjoon catches it before it ruins his perfect hairstyle.

“What?” he asks through another chuckle. “My vessel is also...was also younger than your mom, so I see where that comes from.”

“You’re fucking gross.”

“Yeah...” He offers his daughter an adoring smile. “I’m told often.”

20:18

It’s coming up to half eight, when Penelope wanders downstairs. The house - quiet, a distant hum of the record she had left spinning upstairs, and a static of voices drifting from the lounge, Matty and the telly.

Kitchen - dimly lit, much like the rest of the rooms. Dark outside - although it was the beginning of March, spring - the weather told a different story. Weather warnings of snow storms, plummeting temperatures had littered the news. The snow was beginning to take its toll, weighting outside from what Penelope can figure, see - face pressed to glass, window. A shiver - instinct, turning back on the heating and switching on the kettle, picking at dried paint on her thigh.

Lounge - finding Matty sprawled on the couch, laptop balanced on his stomach, seemingly engrossed. Queer Eye. Setting his tea down on the coffee table.

Fingers - ruffling through bleach blonde as she passes, he glances up lazily - a muffled ‘thanks, love’ through a yawn, stretching but not making any attempt to reach for the tea, legs over her lap when she sits at the opposite end of the sofa. She eyes him - doubtfully, while he giggles at something that’s just been said. Earlier in the evening he had told her he was going to work on some stuff, album stuff - after spending the afternoon spread across the bed with Allen doing much of the same as he was now. She thinks now it was just a ploy, an excuse to be alone, an escape from her constant fidgeting.

Cabin fever was beginning to creep up on Penelope - earlier in the day, aimlessly wandering between her studio and art corner of the bedroom. Angsty and tiresome, restless. Mood - mirroring the weather.

Like Matty she had intended to get some work done - illustration, instead ending up on the bedroom floor, sketching and half finishing a canvas portrait of Allen, who spent most of the day curled up on the bed, an equally sulky state. It wasn’t the day for trying to work, built on procrastination and dense atmosphere, and Penelope was getting increasingly exasperated with how little attention Matty was giving her. Alone time was over - as far as she was concerned, but his gaze still didn’t shift from his laptop, no matter how long she stared.

Until finally - albeit there was a pause, the next episode loading, dark hazel meeting indigo; “What’re you looking at?”

Penelope - taking that as a cue, cold cups of tea, closing his Mac and shifting it off him, despite halfhearted protests of ‘oi’, and ‘’m watching sommat’.

“For someone who’s about to announce to the world how much they hate technology - you’ve been using it a fair deal to fucking ignore me all day.”

Vexatious complaints - maneuvering, thighs either side of his ribs, stomach.

“Sorry darling, what was that?” A lopsided smirk, glancing up at her while thumbs moved haphazardly over his phone screen. She didn’t need to ask - knowing it was George, stranded somewhere in Ireland with Kelsey. Snow.

Fingers - plucking the phone from him, tossing it across the room, the other couch. Matty raises brows in a silent questioning - before he can say anything, she collapses into him, face burrowing into his neck. A whine, scratchy sound resembling his name.

Something he chortles at, resounding her name, an amused tone, fingers - trailing down her spine. Comforting - content with his touch, smell, until he begins to speak again, after having time to mull over what she had said.

“And actually I don’t hate technology, you’re missing the point - it’s about how subversive-”

Penelope - a groan, shushing him, nipping at his neck. She had heard this speech, rant - over and over and over again, the past few months. She could recite it back to him, or some variation - his spiel on it was ever changing. Mumbling - key words, concepts from ‘Kanye’ to ‘Black Mirror’ to ‘Obsolescence’, between kisses, his neck.  

She continues until he interrupts, complaining about being too warm, asking if she had turned the heating back on, she meets his complaints with her own - cold. Something he scoffs at. 

“Because you have no fucking clothes on.”

Warm hands, bare skin - her thighs, highlighting his point. Only one of his Gucci tshirts, underwear. Comments that transpire into a minor argument over the heating, and heating bills, and overheating, and Allen’s dislike of the sounds the boiler and radiators made, and how it makes Matty’s nose all stuffy. Domestic. The kind of domestic that would make George utterly repulsed if he was present. 

Until it’s giggles, and kisses. Kisses that grow quite heated, quite fast, after she tries to sit back up, lips chasing. Hands wandering - her thighs, hips, under her tshirt. All hot breaths, soft sounds, and suppressed smirks - between mouths. A heavy scent of sandalwood, from earlier candles. Frost tinting window panes. 

Slow - but still with a hint of urgency. His jeans - pushed down just far enough, her, or his, tshirt ends up on the floor, following a bit of a struggle his jumper joins it. Swollen lips - pressing kisses, her lips, jaw. Fingers - pushing aside, underwear, rather than struggling to take them off, cramped space and bad coordination, something that would most likely end with him knocking her onto the floor, and killing the mood. 

Muted gasps - when fingertips brush against sensitive skin, echoing sounds from Matty - when her fingers wrap around him. Air thicker, heat rising - blood rushing, messy tongues and soft sounds. Penelope - hips gyrating, in search of more friction, a mewl resembling his name tumbling from her lips, fingers dipping into her. Thighs - trembling against him, nails grazing skin.

Impatience - rising after a few minutes, a lazy kind of rhythm between them both, his fingers, her hand. Slow and tormenting - setting off sparks, fueling the heat, radiating. Fingers - tugging at his wrist, hazel focusing on blown out pupils as she leans back down, lips hot against his, telling him that she wants to feel him, while nails graze across ink, tattoos.

Instead of attempting to change positions, cramped and partially because of his own impatience, heat spiraling through his veins - fingers grip her hips, guiding her on to him. Perfect angle - to watch her face, reaction as he fills her. How her lips part with scattered expletives, brow furrowing, fingers imprinting against his ribs. Naturally - taking a few minutes to gain some sort of rhythm, momentum. Not something he minded - relishing in the feeling of her, the soft sounds that surpassed her lips. A mutual desire, rippling through bodies. 

Later - much later, bedroom. Penelope finding Matty once again on his phone, giggling to himself, when she returns from the bathroom, pajamas and brushed teeth. The living room escapade had transpired, traveled to the bedroom - between cool sheets, when hands and mouths grew peripatetic once more.

Horizontal - head on Matty’s stomach, fingers playing with her hair, twirling curls. Announcing - out of seemingly nowhere that George and Kelsey are going to be the first to have a kid. Indigo - glancing up, an amused smirk, asking him what made him think that. 

He shrugs, tossing him phone down - “was reading some article, said there’s gonna be an influx in babies born in December ‘cause of the snow, people have nowt else to do but shag apparently. So what’s the bet that we’ll have a cute, but very odd new little drummer by next year?”

Penelope only scoffed at his logic, shaking her head. 

“Fine be like that, Ross will bet me.” - picking back up his phone, eyes lighting up with immature excitement. Penelope - burrowing her way under the duvet, “they’re staying with her parents, I doubt they’re spending their weekend trapped in the house shagging.” 

“Never stopped us did it, darlin’?” 

She didn’t have to look at him to know that that stupid sly grin was tilting his lips, turning off the light, but letting out a low chuckle all the same. 

“Oh my God, go to sleep - Matty.” 

It’s quiet for a while,once Matty had finished sending Ross his preposition for the bet, much like earlier in the night. Only sounds of wind outside, and the sparse creeks of the house. Penelope - drifting in and out of sleep, until Matty’s voice, a whisper - her ear, clearly in deep thought over the matter. 

“Babe, what colour do you think I should dye my hair next?”

Happy Birthday, @awesomegreentie. I hope you’ve had a wonderful birthday. You deserve it. Thanks for always being awesome!

-- --

“I thought I might find you out here.”

John turned at the sound of the sweet voice, heard over the blaring music which was loud once more now that the door had been creaked open. It was Anna, of course, who had tracked him down out here. She always seemed to have a sixth sense where he was concerned.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said, turning back so he could go back to contemplating the stars. The door shut with a slam as Anna stepped away from it, muffling the music once more. Now it was just the two of them alone with the distant bumps of the beats and the whisper of the wind through the trees and the rustling of night-time creatures somewhere out there in the dark.

“Mind if I join you?” Anna asked.

He shrugged, bringing his half-smoked cigarette up for a long drag. “Be my guest.”

Her heels crunched beneath the gravel as she crossed the short distance to his side, sweeping her skirts up daintily as she came to sit beside him on the old, majestic steps.

“Thought you’d given up?” she said, sounding part amused, part disapproving.

“It’s a work in progress,” he muttered, throwing the fag down the steps, where it kindled sadly a few feet away. He was almost there; it was down to her that he’d decided to try and quit in the first place, for he’d seen the way that she wrinkled her nose and stepped downwind of him whenever he lit up. He did not want to do anything that might repel her, but this was one habit that he was finding rather difficult to break.

“I take it you’re not enjoying it in there?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Whatever gave you that impression?” John deadpanned, returning to contemplating the night sky above his head.

“Well, the fact that you’re sitting alone on some uncomfortable stone steps rather gives the game away,” she said. “Is it really so bad in there?”

He shrugged. “It’s all right. Not really my cup of tea. I’m not really a fan of being penned in like a sardine in a room full of drunks.”

Anna tutted sympathetically. She knew of the struggles that he’d had with alcoholism in the past, but she made no mention of them now, which he was grateful for. He did not enjoy talking about that part of his life. It was one that he would erase if he could. One of many parts. “It was rather warm in there. It’s much nicer out here. All that dancing has taken its toll.”

That was another reason why he had been reluctant to remain in that room. Anna was always the life and soul of the party, laughing and joking with her friends, but although he told himself that he enjoyed seeing her so happy—that he wanted to see her happy—it did not quite extend to watching her in the arms of able-bodied men who could provide things for her that he could not. He had been good friends with her for more than two years now, and during that time he had found that his feelings for her had morphed into so much more than he could ever have imagined.

In some respects, there had been an air of inevitability about it. How could there not have been? Anna was so easy to love, be that as a friend or more. She had brought sunshine back to his life, sunshine that had been missing for so long; Vera had been the storm clouds that had scudded across his blue skies and choked all the light from the world. Right from the very first moment they had met, Anna had been determined to befriend him, and had not been put off by his attempts at a polite rebuffal. Bit by bit, he’d let his guard down around her until he could truly call her his friend, but he had not been expecting to find it slipping to the point where his heart was exposed once more.

And yet it had. And there was something so dangerously terrifying about it. He was powerless to stop. Unable to erect those barriers once more. She had wriggled through the cage around his heart like a soldier might wriggle through the mud to penetrate enemy lines and take prisoners.

Her smiles lit up his whole world and hearing her full-throated laughter gave him a reason to get through the day. He lived for the moments when they might get time alone, whether that was a snatched moment huddled together in the break room during lunch, else a day spent out together at the weekend, where they might do any number of things that under ordinary circumstances he would have avoided like the plague. In such a short space of time, she had become the most important person in his life, even more so than Robert, who had been a constant in his life despite the turbulence of recent years. She was one of those rare, special people that could turn someone’s whole life upside down with just a kind word.

Which was what made it so inexorable. Because he would not be the only person to notice all of her wonderful qualities. One day very soon, he was sure that she would capture the attention of some young man, perhaps even one she had danced with tonight, and he would set out to sweep her off her feet. She was not infallible, and though she had never said so to him, she surely had to be coming to the age now where she was thinking about what her future might hold. He’d never known her to have a boyfriend, and if she’d seen anyone even casually she had never said so, but he thought he knew her well enough to know that she was looking for a happy family life at some point. And she deserved that. She deserved happiness so much.

It just wouldn’t be easy to watch her, not when he’d fallen for her so helplessly. Kisses, cosying up at parties like this one, a wedding invitation handed to him with a beaming smile, asking him to be godfather…

“John?”

He came back to himself with a bump, to find Anna staring at him with a frown on her face.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He tried a chuckle. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? You don’t seem it.”

“No, it’s just what you were saying. I wasn’t really enjoying myself in there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the frivolities that were still coming loud and muffled from inside. “You know I’m a miserable arse.”

“You’re not,” she protested. “And I have to say, I rather agree with you. It was all getting a bit much, wasn’t it?”

John cocked his eyebrow at her. That was one thing he hadn’t been expecting her to say; indeed, she hadn’t looked at all like she was unhappy whenever he’d clapped eyes on her.

Evidently reading the expression on his face correctly, she grinned at him. “I’m a good actress when I have to be, Mr. Bates. I wouldn’t want Robert and Cora to think that I wasn’t enjoying myself. That would hurt their feelings. Besides, Mary is plain-speaking enough for the both of us.”

John snorted. That was true enough. Mary and Anna were like chalk and cheese, and it was surprising to many that they could be such good friends. Not only was Anna several years older, she also had a sensitivity that Mary was lacking. The eldest Crawley daughter enjoyed being in the spotlight, whilst Anna was happy to support from the side-lines, making everyone else the stars of their own shows. Indeed, Anna was the only person who loyally stood by Mary through everything; even Robert and Cora had had cross words to say about their eldest child before.

“Even so,” he said. “Being in there has got to be a better prospect than you being stuck out here with a grumpy arse like me. At least it’s warm in there.”

“I’d still rather be out here with you,” she said without missing a beat. “And if I get too cold, I can always steal your jacket. Grumpy or not, you’re always the perfect gentleman.”

His heart leapt at her words, at her assertion that she wanted to be here with him. Still, he could not get too carried away. It wasn’t fair to either of them if he did that, pining away like some foolish schoolboy getting his first rejection from the most popular girl in school. He was forty-three, for Christ’s sake.

But they were feelings that he had to examine when he was alone. It was too difficult to analyse them now, when she was sitting so close to him and overpowering his every sense.

“I suppose I could give you that,” he conceded. “But if I end up with a cold, I hope you’ll feel guilty in your conscience.”

“More like you’ll get Man Flu,” she teased, elbowing him lightly. “I know what blokes are like. Even ones who survived the military are prone to a bit of moping when they get ill.”

“Would now be a bad time to remind you who was laid up in bed the last time they were ill?” he shot back. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to bring up that particular reminder—not for her, but for himself. She’d appeared in the morning looking terrible, and when he’d looked for her at dinner he’d discovered that she’d been sent home by Elsie Hughes, her boss. The rest of the day had dragged in a bleak kind of haze without her sunny smiles to brighten the place up, and he’d resolved to drop by her flat to check on her on his way home, keen to dissolve the knot of worry in his stomach. He’d begged a hot flask of chicken soup and some crusty bread from Mrs. Patmore’s, the little bistro across the road that always did a roaring trade, and had proceeded to take the whole lot to her door. She’d looked terrible, red-nosed and puffy-eyed, hair tied in a messy braid and five times wider than she usually was because of the many thick blankets that she had wrapped around her shoulders, but sickly and snotty as she was, she’d still taken his breath away.

It was the moment that it had hit him like a lethal bolt of lightning, illuminating the way and leaving him frazzled: he loved her.

That had been a year ago, and he’d still not quite come to terms with the fact. Had hoped that it was just some silly notion that he would get over and perhaps even be able to laugh about with himself in years to come; did he remember that time when he’d actually thought he’d fallen for his best friend? Ah, yes, what a ridiculous time that had been…

Alas. It was far from a laughing matter.

“John?”

He snapped to attention again. “Sorry.”

Anna had resumed her frowning at him, her brow creased. “I wish you’d just come out with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever it is that’s playing on your mind. I can hear your brain whirring from here. It’s not pleasant. Is there something bothering you?”

Yes, he wanted to scream. “No,” he said instead.

“You would tell me if there was, wouldn’t you? Maybe there’s something I can do to help.”

“There’s nothing you could do even if there was something bothering me,” he said flatly.

“So you’re admitting that there is something.”

“Anna,” he warned with a sigh, “drop it, please.”

She scrunched her nose in defiance. “Why? I worry about you, you know. I just want to see you happy.”

If only she knew exactly what would make him happy. He scrubbed a hand down his face, using the time to take a deep breath. Christ, he could really use another cigarette. “You’ve no reason to worry about me. I’m fine.”

“But you’re not, are you?” There was a bite of impatience in Anna’s voice, something that he’d never heard before. “Something…something’s changed recently, John, I can feel it.” She paused a moment. He waited, his heart swooping in a sickening fashion, waited for her to continue and break down the barriers, unleash the unstoppable flood.

“I have no idea what you mean,” he said staunchly.

“Don’t give me that. Those are the lines you spin to the others to make them think that you’ve got your life in order. I hear Ethel say it a hundred times a day to disguise the fact that she’s barely getting by with little Charlie to protect.”

“I’m not a young single mother,” he pointed out.

“Don’t be pedantic. It’s just an example.”

“Well, I’ll save you the trouble of trying to draw parallels. What could I possibly be hiding?”

“I don’t know, do I? If I did, this whole conversation would be moot.”

If she did, he would likely never hear from her again. Women were subjected to that all the time, weren’t they? Idiot blokes who were mortally wounded because the object of their affection didn’t feel the same way about them. He hoped that he didn’t fall into the same category—he certainly didn’t think it was his God-given right to have her love, knew for a fact that she would be far better off with someone else—but there were too many horror stories out there. He forced the best smile he could. It did not feel natural on his face, but he had to convince her.

“Anna, really, I promise you, everything’s fine. You’d be the first to know if it wasn’t, all right?”

“Which I know is a lie,” she insisted. “I know you, John, better than you might think I do. You’re always so bloody noble, trying to shield us all from what you perceive to be a world of horrors. Even Robert has said that you don’t let him in to the worst of your suffering, and you went through so much together. But I can read you like a book, as well as you can read me, and I see the suffering in your eyes. All I want is the opportunity to help ease that.”

“Anna—”

“I know you don’t want to expose me to the worst of your demons, but I’m not a child, and I’m not weak. I can handle whatever it is. They always say that a problem shared is a problem halved.”

“No—”

“Because I do worry about you, you know, I’m not just saying it. You mean so much to me and the thought of you being in any kind of pain makes me feel sick to the stomach.”

“Anna, please—”

“So if there’s anything I can do, anything at all, all you need to do is say the word and I’ll do it.”

“There’s nothing you can do.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, harsh and angry. Since the moment she had appeared outside, his frustrations and feelings of inadequacy had been growing and growing, culminating in this moment. Right now, he was angry. Angry at her for being unable to let a subject drop when he’d made it quite clear that he did not want to discuss it. Angry at himself for wallowing like a complete prick when he needed to get his arse in gear and accept the ways of the world.

Anna blinked at him, shocked. “What do you mean?” There was a tinge of hurt in her tone, an accusatory bite that did nothing to improve his mood. He gnashed his teeth.

“You can’t just fix the world, Anna. I know that you like to think that you can, but it’s not that simple. Some things are beyond your control, and there’s nothing you can do to set them to rights.”

“But if I just knew—”

“Has it never once crossed your mind that you’re the problem?”

Anna pulled up short, fear evident in her tone now. “What? What are you talking about?”

He’d already said too much; he needed to bite his tongue and turn away, to somehow make this conversation a figment of a past that would never be remembered and would never be touched on again.

But it was too late. Never mind the fact that Anna would poke and pry and extract like a surgeon in the operating theatre; the tide was too far in, and he’d been swept out on an unforgiving sea of emotions, each one raging and threatening to drown him. The words continued to spill like a tsunami, and there was nothing he could do to stop the destruction.

“It’s always been you. You’re at the centre of everything, and it’s driving me mad. Don’t you see? I can’t go a damn day without thinking about you, about how much joy you bring to me, about how I’m so desperate to be a good man for you, and I’m in despair because I know that I can never be the person that you deserve. I torture myself with the thought of you meeting someone else and I know that it’s going to happen one day, and I will be happy for you when it does, but there’s still nothing that terrifies me more than the thought of you falling in love with someone else, and I hate myself for it because it makes me such a selfish bastard, but there’s nothing I can do to control it—”

“John—”

He ignored her, terrified of what would happen when he stopped talking. “So, fine, have it your way: there is something bothering me. You want me to say it? I’ll say it. I’ve fallen for you and I can’t get it out of my damned head even though I know it’s wrong. Forgive me that I don’t feel like the life and soul of the bloody party because I can’t get you out of my head!”

The silence in the aftermath of his outburst was ringing; even the wind stopped blowing, as if in distress at the situation. For one whole second, it felt as if the weight that had been dragging him down to his death had been lifted.

But then reality set back in. Set back in with a crash, with the sudden closing of his throat as he realised that the most closely-guarded secret he had ever kept had come spilling out of him, paving the way for a grand explosion which would surely cause casualties. Bile clawed at his throat. No. No, this should not have happened. He’d fucked everything up, like he had done with every good thing he’d ever had.

“John.”

Anna’s voice was soft and tender, filled with pity. That was one thing he could not stomach. Not pity. Not from her, the one person who had never shown him any when he had limped into Downton worse for wear. The anxiety rose and rose, threatening to overwhelm him as his throat closed further. Lurching to his feet, he stumbled down a couple of steps, almost losing his footing without his cane, scrabbling uselessly in his pocket for a cigarette, anything that might help to keep him calm as he sorted through the aftermath of the mess he had made.

“John,” Anna repeated, and he found that he could not bear to listen to her. He did not want to hear her bracing consolations, her futile attempts to cement over the cracks that had just fractured their relationship apart. Because that was painfully clear to him now: after this, there could be no relationship. He could not continue to be her friend, for the shame of what he had done would haunt him and make a mockery of the charade he had tried to live through; he could not bear to think that she would spend every moment with him wondering what his motivations were.

He located his lighter. It took him five attempts to light up, his hands were shaking so badly. He took a deep drag to give himself courage, turning his back on her to stare out into the endless darkness.

“Never mind, forget that I said anything,” he said, his voice wavering. It was the weakest and most pointless thing he could ever have said. As if this could be forgotten about now.

He heard her clambering to her feet behind him. “And how do I do that?” she demanded, echoing his thoughts. “You don’t have power over what I can and can’t remember, no matter how much you might want to.”

The words compelled him to spin around, injured indignation coursing through his veins, but all retorts died in his throat. In her heels, standing several steps above him, she towered above him for the first time in their friendship; the anger seemed to come off her in currents, giving her a crackling kinetic energy that he was keen to avoid. Her blue eyes flashed as she looked down on him, and her own voice shook as she spoke.

“Don’t you dare,” she said lowly. “Don’t you dare try to dictate how this goes. You can’t tell me that you have feelings for me and then demand that we forget about it as if none of it matters. This involves me too. You don’t get to decide.”

“I’m not saying it for that,” he muttered. “Look, this whole thing is just bloody stupid.” He wished that he could go back five minutes. Back to when he had been lovelorn and lonely but at least still in control of his feelings. Back to when at least Anna was oblivious.

She folded her arms across her chest and glowered at him with a fire in her eyes. He could barely keep holding her gaze, feeling strangely like a scolded schoolboy in her presence.

“You don’t get to decide,” she repeated. “You can’t say something as momentous as all that and expect it to be brushed under the carpet. God, John.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising.” It was a snap.

“Well, what else is there to say? I’ve fucked everything up.”

“Stop it,” she said fiercely. “That’s not true.”

He ran a hand through his hair and took another drag on his cigarette. “And what would you call it, then?”

“The catalyst,” she said simply. It gave him reason to pause.

“What?” he said.

Anna did not move from her station above him; she seemed to realise that in this position, she had all the power, literally as well as figuratively.

“You’re standing there doing what you always do, taking the blame for all the wrongs in the world,” she said. “And I bet it’s never even once crossed your mind that that there might be another outcome.”

“I’m not following,” he said stiffly, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible; the last thing he needed was to lose his Irish temper and make things even more irreparable.

“You’ve known me two years. And in both of those years, I’ve never once shown an interest in a man.”

The abrupt change in tact took him by surprise. “What?”

She huffed. “Think about it logically, John. There have been opportunities for me to date someone, you know that as well as I do.”

He flashed back to the way that men had clamoured around her only half an hour earlier, each one desperate to take her home. There had been a hundred nights like it in the past.

“So?” he said guardedly.

Anna almost growled. “Can you really not think why that might be?”

“Because you’ve not been interested in any of them,” he shot back; really, that did not take a genius to work out.

But she shook her head. “It’s more than that. It’s always been more than that.”

And then she confessed. Spoke the words that in a million years, a thousand lifetimes, he’d never, ever thought he would hear.

“The reason why should be obvious: it’s you. You’re it. You’re the one I want.”

The words seemed to take an age to process in his brain, and when they did he found that he couldn’t form a sentence. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and managed to croak, “What did you just say?”

Anna had not wavered. That was the story of their relationship. Whenever things got tough, he could rely on Anna always being there, steadfast and loyal and unmoving. He’d thought for sure that this would be the thing to change that but, miraculously, she was still there, unchanged. Beautiful.

“You heard me,” she said calmly. “I’m saying that I feel the same way about you.”

She reciprocated. She reciprocated. It couldn’t be real.

But it was.

“I’ve felt this way about you for almost two years,” she told him, unabashed. “It’s been as torturous for me as you say it has been for you. I was never sure whether you were flirting with me because you felt comfortable, or because you genuinely thought me attractive. I know what you went through with Vera, and so I had no idea if you would even contemplate the idea of having a relationship with someone again. You’ve never exactly made yourself emotionally easy to read, have you?”

Well, okay, he supposed that was a fair point. But still… “I didn’t think it was possible that you’d ever find me attractive.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s not that ridiculous,” he said defensively. “I’m fifteen years older than you. I’m hardly the kind of man someone would have as a pinup.”

“That’s a matter of perspective,” said Anna. He repressed the urge to shake his head, even as the warm glow touched his heart. Only Anna would be able to see past his old, tired features to something worthwhile inside, something that even he struggled to see most of the time. It was a testament to what a wonderful person she was, and any man would be lucky to have her.

And somehow she wanted him.

It was as if she could read his mind, for her lips quirked up in a smile. For the first time since his outburst, she looked happier.

“Anyway, I’ll admit that this has come as a relief,” she said. “We’re on the same page?”

If he was a better man, he’d let her loose to live her life. What could he really offer her, with the chequered past that he was forced to carry wherever he went?

But she’d just told him that she felt the same way about him. She’d made him the happiest man in the world. He’d be a fool to turn that away. He could not stop the smile that erupted across his face, so wide that it was almost painful. He threw his half-smoked cigarette aside.

“I’d say we are,” he said.

“Then come up here,” she said, crooking her finger at him. He was powerless to resist her, limping up the stairs until they were of the same height. Without preamble she draped her arms around his shoulders and leaned in towards him. He had a moment to register the alluring smell of her perfume and the scent of her hair before her mouth was on his, impossibly soft and sweet. She didn’t seem to mind that he’d just smoked, her fingers moving up to twine through he short hairs at the back of his head.

It was the best first kiss that he’d ever had. Pulling her closer, he slid his hands around her hips and thanked his lucky stars.

He wasn’t even sure how much time had passed; all he knew was her. Her mouth against his own, her soft sighs and murmurs as she pushed nearer. He kept his eyes closed, focusing on everything she was.

The door opened with a bang behind them.

“Anna, are you out here…? Oh!”

Mary’s loud voice was an unexpected—and unwelcome—interruption, and Anna pulled away. John’s heart lurched in his chest as he peered over Anna’s shoulder to find the eldest Crawley daughter standing there with her arms folded across her chest, looking for all the world like a mother catching her daughter in the act.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” she said disapprovingly.

“Oh, go away, Mary,” Anna grumbled, completely unperturbed by her friend’s arrival. “What do you want?”

“Clearly nothing that’s more important than this,” she smirked, recovering herself. “How exciting. I thought you’d never get on with it.”

Anna grinned, cheeky as ever. “Well, better late than never, as they say.”

“Indeed.” Mary wrinkled her nose. “Never mind. I’ll just tell the others that you’re walking her home, shall I, John?”

Anna giggled and answered for him. “Yes, please. Thank you, Mary. You’re the best.”

“Don’t I know it,” she muttered, and flounced away with the wounded air of someone who had witnessed the most unsavoury thing of all. Unaffected, Anna leaned against him, pressing her lips to his cheek.

“You heard her, Mr. Bates,” she whispered. “Walk me home.”

He was happy to oblige.

-- --

The prompts were:

I just told you I liked you but now I’m shy and say “never mind, forget it”

“It’s you. You’re it. You’re the one I want.”

Why I Went to the Woods

Written by: @javistg

Prompt:  Postwar: isolated Katniss did not sit frozen in that quiet tomb of a house, suffocating! She ran madly into the woods. It’s years before anyone sees her again. What’s become of 12, Gale, Haymitch, mom…of Peeta? [Submitted by @567inpanem]

Rating: T 

AN: This is for the lovely @567inpanem who submitted the prompt. I hope you like what I’ve done with it. I know I’ve only addressed half of the prompt here, but the story was getting too long, so I decided to break it into three different parts. Part 2 will be ready soon.

I want to thank the wonderful @xerxia31 for helping me with this one. Believe me, this story is a LOT better because of her. And finally, I want to thank the always incredible @akai-echo for making such a beautiful banner for me.

It’s night when Katniss and Haymitch land on the green of the Victors’ Village. Half of the houses have lights in the windows, including Haymitch’s and hers. Not Peeta’s.

Someone has built a fire in Katniss’s kitchen. She sits in the rocker before it, clutching her mother’s letter.

“Well, see you tomorrow,” says Haymitch.

As the clinking of his bag of liquor bottles fades away, Katniss whispers, “I doubt it.”

Katniss pulls an old shawl over her body and watches the flames. She sleeps.

She wakes with the sunrise the next morning. Shy winter sunlight floods the room making the walls glow.

Katniss gets up from the rocker and, with unsteady steps walks around the house. Nothing’s changed.

The formal sitting room, with its opulent armchairs, thick drapes, and marble tabletops is just as unwelcoming as it ever was.

She can’t believe she’s back. Back in this house she never even wanted. Surrounded by all these objects her mother bought with her blood-stained earnings.

Her chest tightens at the thought of her mother. Her old anger bubbling up as she remembers that Mrs. Everdeen is starting a new life in District 4.

‘She should be the one living here,’ Katniss thinks, ‘surrounded by fancy end tables and antique frames.’ And still, she isn’t. As far as Katniss knows, her mother has no intention of setting foot inside this house ever again.

A wave of sadness, cold and dark, grips her. She wraps her arms around her body and closes her eyes. It’s a weak attempt to keep the loneliness at bay, and it’s useless. All she feels is abandoned, bereft.

She takes a deep breath. The faint scent of a rose fills her lungs, its cloying perfume sticks to her throat, choking her.

Terrified, Katniss opens her eyes. Her whole body trembles as she looks around, trying to find the source of the smell. But the culprit is nowhere in sight.

She holds her breath, desperate to keep the evil from seeping into her. But it’s too late, the seed of fear has been planted in her mind, and her despair is quickly making it grow. Her chest begins to burn, and she crumbles to the ground, defeated, trapped under an avalanche of memories from a happier life.

The sound of her sister’s laughter. The warmth of her mother’s embrace. Buttercup’s indignant wails when he was locked outside the house during the night. The mouthwatering smell of freshly baked bread that seemed to fill every room whenever Peeta came by.

They all rush back, pressing in on her, suffocating her with the sorrow of knowing those precious moments are never coming back.

Katniss cries. Her gut-wrenching sobs bounce against the walls. She can feel them closing in on her, pressing their Capitol-made bricks against her frail body, magnifying the sound of her grief as they echo back her laments. 

Somewhere, deep in her gut, her instinct for survival kicks in. Blinded by the tears in her eyes, Katniss stands up and stumbles along the long corridor which leads to the back of the house.

Swinging the door open, she steps onto the back porch and the biting winter breeze. She takes a few ragged breaths. Cold, fresh air fills her lungs, waking up her senses and numbing her pain away.

Looking up, she takes in her surroundings. The unkempt yard, the light dusting of snow covering the dry grass, the trees with dark naked branches that look like skeletons coming out of the frozen ground.

Warm tears sting her eyes. She feels small and lonely, as hollow as the empty walnut husks littering the ground.

The sound of a twig snapping catches her attention, and she turns to find a small mockingjay perched on top of a tree.

The bird looks at her, its black beady eyes holding onto hers for just an instant before turning away. A moment later, it spreads its wings and takes flight.

Katniss keeps her eyes on the small black bird as it circles the yard a couple of times before heading out to the woods and the line of green pine trees beyond the fence.

Her breath hitches when she notices the golden sunbeams that paint the sky sending sparks of color over the treetops and wrapping the world in a warm glow.

Tall firs sway under a gentle breeze, releasing the scent of fresh pine needles into the wind.

Closing her eyes, Katniss greedily breathes it all in. The familiar scent of damp wood and fresh moss wraps around her, blanketing her in the comfort only her woods can bring.

Suddenly, the longing in her heart turns into a plan. ‘I could do it,’ she thinks. ‘Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. There’s no one to stop me now.’

It takes a moment for the idea to sink in. But once it does, a sense of clarity and relief envelops her. After weeks of sorrow and uncertainty, she needs something to hang onto. And, for the first time in ages, this is a plan that feels right. Like something the old Katniss would do. Something she’d be good at.

She doesn’t give herself the chance to second guess her plan, immediately turning on her heels and going back into the house. Her feet rush through the empty rooms while she busies her mind with the list of things she needs to take with her.

By the time she reaches her bedroom, she’s winded and covered in sweat. The months of inactivity have clearly taken their toll on her body, but she refuses to give up.

She’s barely crossed the doorway when the sickly-sweet scent of a dying rose tickles her nose once more. Alarmed, she turns to find a vase on top of her dresser.

One single rose, shriveled and fragile, but still holding on to the unnatural perfection cultivated in President Snow’s greenhouse, stands among the dried flowers which fill the vase.

With newfound determination, Katniss grabs the vase and rushes back to the kitchen where she throws the flowers into the embers. They flare up. A burst of blue flame envelops the rose and devours it.

Katniss’s heart swells, expanding in her chest as she relishes the sense of satisfaction and freedom which floods her as she witnesses President Snow’s last threat going up in flames.

With the flowers gone, she goes back upstairs and straight into her bathroom.

Trembling fingers fight with the buttons and fastenings of the clothes she wears. She keeps going, leaving her crumpled garments in a pile on the floor and her fire-ravaged body bare to the world.

Her sensitive skin pebbles from the cold, and she goes in search of a new outfit.

Cotton underwear, worn trousers, and a soft flannel shirt caress her skin, bringing memories of long lost afternoons spent exploring the woods with Gale by her side.

Her throat constricts at the thought of Gale. Her partner. Her friend. The boy who always had her back. The soldier who ignored her pleas and arguments, and brought District 2 to its knees. The man who can’t look her in the eye because he knows that, even if he didn’t send the bombs himself, he’s still responsible for her sister’s death.

‘Gale’s gone,’ she reminds herself with a sigh, ‘I need to keep on moving.’

Silent feet carry her through the house as she inspects every room, opening drawers and doors as she looks for things she might need.

With shaky fingers, she opens the door to Prim’s room.

Flowered wallpaper and pale blue curtains stare back at her, reminding her of the happy girl who decorated the space. Overwhelmed, Katniss freezes on the threshold, trying to fight back the waterfall of tears which threatens to swallow her in its depths.

From the bedside table, a small watercolor of Prim holding Buttercup catches her eye. She doesn’t remember ever seeing it before but, even from a distance, she recognizes Peeta’s hand behind each graceful brushstroke.

Silently, she crosses the room and grabs the simple wooden frame. Loving fingers trace the outline of Prim’s features over the glass while her eyes absorb every line and swirl. He’s captured Prim just as Katniss remembers her, happy and radiant, full of life, of possibility.

Fresh tears run down Katniss’s cheeks as she thinks of Peeta finding the time to paint Prim’s portrait before the Quarter Quell. He had been so focused on their training, so determined to save her life, that she had almost forgotten how much he liked to paint. How much he cared about the beauty of the world around him.

Suddenly, her pain and sorrow turn to a blinding rage that warms her veins and reminds her of everything she’s lost. Her father, her sister, her childhood home, all the friends she’s ever known…

Her fingers tighten their grip on the thin frame, turning her knuckles white as she wonders if it was worth it to fight against the odds, to survive starvation, two arenas, and a war when every single thing she’s ever cared about has been tainted or destroyed.

“Why did I even bother?” she yells into the empty room.

The portrait she holds in her hands is all the answer she needs. For Prim. Because her sister filled everything she touched with light and joy and she deserved a chance to live in a better world. For Peeta. Who, for all she knows, is still trying to claw his way out of a dark pit of confusion by holding on to the few precious memories he’s salvaged from the wreckage of his fractured mind.

A stab of longing pierces her heart. And, as the last traces of her anger seep out of her leaving her drained, she thinks that, just like her, Peeta’s lost everything he once held dear. His entire family erased from the face of the earth just a few minutes after her rebellious arrow pierced the sky.

Against her better judgment, she looks at the painting in her hands and asks, “Where are you, Peeta?”

She doesn’t want to care, she can’t afford to worry about him when she’s barely surviving herself. But the same stubborn determination which guided his hand and stopped her from killing herself tugs at her; pulling at her heart through some invisible string she can’t seem to break. Because, even though she remembers calling him an ally, she knows he’s much more than that.

Peeta is her friend, her light in the dark. The one person who’s risked everything he is to keep her alive.

But he’s also the man who holds the key to the most vulnerable part of her soul. In his arms, she’s found comfort, tenderness, and an overwhelming need that thrills and terrifies her like nothing else ever has.

He’s her saddest memory and her brightest moment under the sun.

He’s loyalty, passion, and hope all rolled into one. And now that he’s gone, she feels as lost as a ship stranded under a black starless sky.

In her dark exile, she tries to keep him close to her heart, to find his voice in her thoughts, to remember the way he inspired her, guided her, kept her safe before the hijacking took him away.

But she’s weary and tired, and she doesn’t have the energy to pretend anymore. So, it’s there, standing in her sister’s empty room, that Katniss accepts the fact that no part of the life she once knew will ever come back.

The Seam is gone. Her family is either dead or absent. And Peeta… Well, wherever Peeta is, she doesn’t expect he’ll ever want to come back to this place. Not after everything he’s been through.

A part of her thinks that, maybe, if she hadn’t allowed her stubbornness and fear to blind her, Peeta would still be by her side. But she can’t change the past, and she can’t erase the pain she’s caused him.

‘It’s probably best for everyone to simply move on,’ she decides.

The sound of the front door startles her. Clutching Prim’s portrait tightly against her chest, she leaves the room and rushes to the landing to see who her visitor is.

Her eyes widen as Greasy Sae comes into view. “Sae? What are you doing here?”

Sae’s gray eyes light up at the sight of Katniss perched on top of the stairs. A kind smile paints her lips. “I’ve come to make you breakfast,” she states like it’s the most logical thing in the world.

Katniss scowls. “Breakfast?” Noticing Sae’s empty hands, she adds, “But, there’s no food in the house.”

Greasy Sae nods and begins walking to the kitchen. “I came by yesterday to restock your pantry. You have lots of canned goods now. I also left a few things in your icebox.”

Intrigued, Katniss follows.

She reaches the kitchen and finds Sae pulling ingredients and cooking utensils from the fully stocked cupboards and placing them on the counter and the stove in front of her.

“We could have some bacon and eggs,” Sae offers.

Katniss shrugs. She’s not particularly hungry, but she knows she needs to put on some weight and recover her strength if she wants her plan to work. Without another word, she pulls out a chair and sits at the kitchen table while Greasy Sae works.

Breakfast is a quiet affair.

Leaving Prim’s portrait on her lap, Katniss forces herself to eat the food in front of her. Each bite bringing her one step closer to the woods’ sweet embrace.

After the food’s gone and the dishes have been cleared away, Sae says, “I’ll come back later to make you dinner.“

Katniss stands up, clutching the frame in her hand. “Don’t. I won’t be here.”

Sae’s eyes narrow as she studies the slight girl in front of her and tries to make sense of her words. After a moment, she nods. “Don’t forget to take your bow, child. It wouldn’t do to be unprotected out there.”

“I don’t have a bow,” Katniss grumbles.

Sae chuckles and turns to leave. She’s almost out the door when she calls back, “Check down the hall!”

Intrigued by Greasy Sae’s words, Katniss heads for the study. There’s a box on the desk, her father’s bows and a quiver of arrows lie next to it.

Cautiously, she walks into the room. The memory of President Snow drinking tea and talking about death haunts her, but she grits her teeth and pushes forward.

The contents of the box bring fresh tears to her eyes. Each item is a memory of the different bits and pieces that make her life. The hunting jacket her father wore with pride. The wedding picture of a young couple who loved each other without reservations. The plant book that helped her survive.

Two shiny objects, nestled in the bottom of the box, catch her eye; Peeta’s locket and Haymitch’s spile.

She has no love for either object, but she doesn’t want to waste a perfectly good spile, and she can’t bring herself to throw away Peeta’s present, so she pockets them and carries everything else out of the room.

A couple of hours later, she’s packed everything she can think of into a folding cart. She has canned food, some cooking utensils, clothes, a few tools, a comforter and some blankets, a waterproof tablecloth, a first aid kit, and an air mattress with a pump.

Her family’s plant book and the frames with Prim’s portrait and her parent’s wedding photo are the last items to go into the cart.

It’s too cold outside for her father’s hunting jacket, so she stuffs it into her hunting bag.

Lastly, she slips into the protective gear Cinna designed for her. She’s almost finished lacing up the water-resistant boots when one last thought pops into her mind. ‘The money.’

Without undressing, she walks up the stairs and goes back into her mother’s room. There, inside the closet, behind her mother’s hanging clothes, she finds a small safe set into the wall. Her fingers dance over the keypad, punching the digits for her birth date.

There’s a short beep, followed by the sound of moving cogs and the door pops open, revealing a large envelope stuffed full of banknotes. She reaches for it, clutching it in a tight fist. These are all her savings, all the money she accumulated in her year as a victor.

With Effie’s help, she had emptied her bank account before the Quarter Quell and had given the money to her mother. She still remembers her sad blue eyes as she took the envelope from her, nodding while Katniss gave her instructions. “This is for you and Prim,” she’d said, “keep it in the safe. If anything happens, take it with you. It won’t last forever, but it’ll help.”

In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Mrs. Everdeen and Prim had left the house in a hurry leaving the money behind. Worried about other things, Katniss had forgotten all about the fat envelope that was hidden behind the thick metal door. Until now.

She reaches the front door once more and shoves the money into the cart’s side pocket. Next, she uses a length of rope to bind the bows and quiver to the cart and places her hunting bag on top of it.

She takes one last look around. There’s nothing left for her there; nothing but dust, and ghosts, and pain. She needs to get going.

Katniss Everdeen stands tall as she opens the door and steps out into the cold March air with the shopping cart trailing behind. She’s lost everything she ever cared about. She has nothing left. Maybe now, she’ll finally be free.

Katniss reaches the line of trees that surround Victors’ Village and keeps walking in a straight line, following the edge of the woods. It’s slow going. She’s weak and the shopping cart is heavy, but she’s in no hurry. So, she pushes the cart ahead of her, leaning her weight on it and using it for support as she makes her escape.

She’s almost reached the place where the tear in the fence used to be when she sees him.

Thom Whitaker is sitting on a tree stump. He holds a small carving knife on one hand and a small piece of wood in the other. He’s looking at her, eyes wide and bright. It’s like he’s seen a ghost, an apparition, maybe.

Katniss stands still. She doesn’t know Thom that well, he was in Gale’s crew and she remembers seeing him in District 13, but she’s never really talked to him. She wonders what he’s doing here, back in the barren wasteland they used to call home.

Thom’s eyes land on her shopping cart. Suddenly, he breaks the silence. “Headed for the lake?”

Katniss narrows her eyes. She’s about to ask him how he knows about the lake when she remembers Gale took the refugees there during the bombing. Her chest tightens as she thinks that her haven may not be as safe and private anymore. Every single survivor in District 12 knows about it now.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she thinks, ‘it’s not like I have any other options anyway.’

Thom is still waiting for an answer, so she nods.

He smiles. It’s friendly and kind, and it puts her at ease. A moment later, Thom stands up. Carefully, he folds the knife and puts it in his pocket. His hand wraps around the piece of wood he was working on.

“I come by here every day,” he explains, “I like the way the trees smell, and it’s quieter than the Village.” Turning to the woods, he adds, “There’s a hollow log behind that tree line. You can leave a note there for me if you ever need me to get you anything.”

Katniss’s eyes widen at Thom’s unexpected offer. She hasn’t really planned that far ahead, and she doesn’t want to rely on others. But he looks like he genuinely wants to help her so, she nods. Her voice comes out ragged and rough. “Thanks.” 

Thom nods back, the warm smile still perched on his lips.

Katniss begins moving again. She turns the cart towards a narrow path that’s partially hidden by the trees and resumes her pushing.

“Katniss,” Thom says as she passes him by.

“Thom,” she answers as she leaves.

The rest of her trip is slow and uneventful. Her weakened state forces her to take frequent breaks, but she doesn’t mind. Every step she takes further into the forest makes her feel better. So, she stops, takes sips of tea from her thermos, and munches on the granola bars she’s packed into her hunting bag.

It’s almost dusk when she reaches her father’s lake. The sight of the small cement building, outlined by a pale blue sky streaked with vibrant purples and bright pinks, brings tears to her eyes.

She’s said goodbye to this place so many times, and yet, here she is once more. Bruised and battered, broken and burned, but alive, and desperately in need of a home.

She spends her first night sleeping on the floor with Cinna’s clothes as her only cushion and protection from the cold. When she wakes, her whole body hurts. But, just like the day before, she ignores the pain and gets to work.

Using the pile of firewood and the poker Gale left behind, she builds a fire. Then, she uses her stick broom to clean around a little and covers the windows with the waterproof tablecloth. She sets up the inflatable mattress, covers it with the thick comforter she brought along, and fashions a pillow by bundling some sheets and stuffing them into a pillowcase.

When she’s done, she slumps on the mattress and watches the fire dancing in the hearth.

Not much happens on her first few days in the cabin. Katniss is exhausted. The world around her is covered in snow.

She sleeps. She keeps the fire going. She eats the canned food she’s brought along.

Bundled in Cinna’s clothes, she leaves the cabin a few times each day. She uses a small pail to carry drinking water from the pump and visits the communal outhouse which stands a few yards away from the building where she sleeps.

The pain in her muscles recedes. Her strength gradually comes back.

One morning, Katniss decides to start exploring the woods once more. She carries a bow everywhere she goes, but she doesn’t use it just yet. Instead, she sets up snares and traps for the game she knows will eventually come back.

In time, she notices the first signs of spring. Like the dark slush turning into soft grass, or the flap of new wings up in the sky.

She’s been living in the cabin for a couple of weeks when her food supplies begin to run low. Spring is definitely in the air, but it’s still too early to hunt or gather much.

After spending a couple of days berating herself for playing fast and loose with her supplies on those first days when she didn’t ration what she ate, Katniss comes to terms with the fact that she’s going to have to make some adjustments to her plan.

She’s reluctant to involve Thom. Even if his offer was sincere, he’s practically a stranger, and she doesn’t know if he can be trusted to keep the world away. But she doesn’t have any other options. And the fact that no one has come around looking for her tells her that he’s kept her secret so far. So, she decides to reach out to him.

Katniss writes a note and a list of things she needs and stuffs it inside a clean empty can. After adding some money to the can, she walks back to the edge of town and drops her message on the spot Thom indicated.

She waits a couple of days before going back to the hollow log. She doesn’t really know what to expect, but she drags her empty shopping cart along with her in the hope that Thom’s kept to his word.

As soon as she reaches the line of trees, she knows that he has. The package he’s left for her is too big to fit into the tree’s cavity. Even from a distance, she can see it peeking out from under the branches he’s used to camouflage it.

Relieved, Katniss smiles. Maybe she’ll be able to do this after all.

With the parcel safely stored inside her cart, Katniss goes back to the lake.

That night, she unpacks the bundle, carefully smoothing out the kraft paper Thom used to wrap it in.

As she spreads out the contents of her parcel, she’s surprised to discover Thom’s given her everything she asked for and a few things more. He’s also included a small note.

Katniss,

From what I remember, the cabin was bare. I took the liberty of adding a few extra items to your package, I hope you don’t mind.

I figured the outdoor lifestyle catalogs could give you some ideas for furnishings. If you find something you like, just let me know, and I’ll get it for you.

The radio is for you to stay on top of weather alerts and any other news. It’s powered by a solar battery, and you only need to charge it about once a month. It also works as a two-way radio. If you press the message button and dial 236 you can leave a message for me. That way you won’t need to make the trek back here every time you need something.

You don’t need to pay me for my services. But, I‘ll be glad to accept your offer of fresh game when you have some to spare.

Please, don’t hesitate to call whenever you need anything. I’ll always be happy to help.

Sincerely,

Thom.

Katniss reaches for the radio. It isn’t big, but it feels heavy in her hand; like an anchor that keeps her from floating away and straying too far from the civilized world.

She considers leaving it inside its box and ignoring it. But a small voice in the back of her mind tells her that’s not a good idea. Thom’s right, weather forecasts are useful, and having easy access to him will also simplify their arrangement. Carefully, she unpacks the small device and leaves it by the window where she knows the battery will start charging as soon as the sun comes up.

Next, Katniss flips through the pages of the catalogs Thom’s sent her. A small smile curves her lips at the sight of all the different types of camping gear contained in their glossy pages.

‘Maybe contacting Thom wasn’t such a bad idea after all,’ she thinks.

Almost overnight, the world comes back to life. Katniss watches in wonder as the woods turn green.

Dandelion sprigs sprout everywhere she looks. The sight of their sturdy green stems pierces her heart.

Their message of resilience and hope bring Peeta to her mind, reminding her that she managed to survive loss once before. But she can’t think about that for long. Her pain is too fresh. She’s not ready to face the thought of life and rebirth in a world without Prim. Sometimes she wonders if she’ll ever be.

She tries not to think about the world on the other side of the old fence too much. And her mind usually flits back to Peeta when she does. She wonders where he is, what he’s doing… Does he hate her still?

She considers reaching out to him sometimes. Leaving a letter in the empty tree trunk and asking Thom to give it to Haymitch. She’s sure her old mentor knows where Peeta is. But the memory of all the pain they endured together stops her, keeping her rooted to the one place where she feels safe.

‘I’m doing fine on my own,’ she reasons. Deep inside, she hopes that, wherever Peeta is, he can say the same.

Chapter 10

She dreamed that the sun was coming up in the middle of the night, rising from the horizon and consuming the stars with its light, smothering them one by one. Its rays fell across her and she could feel its glow burning her from the inside. Hot. It was too hot. She thrashed slightly, trying to kick away the top of her sleeping bag, pushing at the heavy fabric, but found that she was quite unable to move. She felt pinned, like a vice had been fastened around her middle, and the more she moved the tighter it became. Snapping from her slumber with a little squeak of alarm, she blinked rapidly and tried to focus…finding both the source of the uncomfortable pressure and the heat that plagued her.

Junkrat was nestled against her side, curled almost in a fetal position with one arm locked around her sleeping bag and his head bowed, breath a muffled high-pitched little wheeze of a snore as he snuggled deeper into the fabric. She groaned, finally managing to slither one arm out of his grip, finding her glasses and shoving them on. Irritation turned to concern when she saw that he had apparently abandoned his bedroll completely and was sleeping on bare, cold sand. He was shivering, and without his maniac grin and twisted expressions…he looked almost pitiable, just a dirty and malnourished young man seeking any source of warmth and comfort he could find, even while dreaming.

He probably would have taken offense to her pity if he’d been awake, she knew. The junkers were not the type who liked to show weakness.

But he wasn’t awake.

She tried not to disturb him, and shifted slightly under his arm, still pinned in the wad of fabric as she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Roadhog was apparently up and about already, and Mei cleared her throat a little, lifting her voice to a loud whisper. “Roadhog! Mr. Hog! Uh…help?”

There was a rumbling breath, something she could have sworn was an exasperated sigh as the giant man trundled over. He was a bit more brusque about the matter than she, one gloved hand gripping his smaller partner’s arm, the other closing around Mei’s shoulder before he simply pulled the two apart. Junkrat’s arm was shoved downward and Mei was pulled up out of her sleeping bag like a spring daisy, popping free as he hauled her upright and set her down lightly. Jamison’s expression tightened and he made a strange little noise she couldn’t quite put her finger on, an almost angry whimper, before Roadhog simply wedged one foot under his middle and unceremoniously rolled him off the sand and on top of Mei’s bag. She watched this happen with wide eyes, completely expecting him to wake up and start swinging or swearing at them both, but he remained soundly asleep, curling back up with his face tucked into his arms. She took her coat and tried to drape it over his bare chest, but could only watch as his seeking fingers curled into the fabric and promptly pulled it right back off him, hugging the bundled fabric like a stuffed bear and burying his face into it once more.

She gave Roadhog a helpless look and gestured to the still-sleeping Junkrat with a baffled air, but the larger man simply shrugged his broad shoulders and turned away. She abandoned her coat in Junkrat’s death grip, moving over to his original bedroll and pulling off his patched and ragged blanket, wrinkling her nose at its state before turning and covering his skinny form. He muttered something obscene under his breath before stilling once more, and Mei left him to meander after his bodyguard.

She fell into step beside the much larger man. “Is that normal?”

“He does that.”

“To you too? Does he try to…what is the word…cuddle, you?”

“Mm. Nearly put his lights out the first time he did it. You get used to it. Not his fault how he is.” He leaned down to pick up the massive metal hook by his bike, attaching it to the length of chain and testing its heft before turning and abruptly starting to wander away from their campsite.

Mei glanced back at Jamison. “Where are you going? Shouldn’t we stay and watch him?”

“Breakfast. Proper breakfast. He’ll be fine. Come on.”

That gave her pause. Roadhog was inviting her somewhere? He had paid her little attention so far and she had not pressed the matter. But the elder junker was already turning the bend into the next gulch, and she finished pulling her boots on before hurrying after him. “Oh! Okay, wait for me!”

He still wasn’t the chatty type, and the two walked along in relative silence save for his labored breathing. There wasn’t much to see in the canyons, little but rocky red walls towering on both sides of them against the yellow-pink of the morning sky, the occasional trash or graffiti from campers before them, and the little scrubby shrubs growing in the relative comfort of the canyon’s provided shade. She kept hoping he might strike up some sort of conversation, but after nearly a half-hour of silence, she decided it was time she took the initiative.

“What did you mean earlier?”

“Hm?”

“You said it wasn’t his fault how he is. Was he not always like…how he is?”

Hog shrugged a massive shoulder. “I’ve only known him a few years, when he approached with his ‘business deal’. Outback had taken a toll on him by then. He might have been different before. It’s not his fault.” He leaned down, throwing down one knee as his dirty fingertips inspected the ground, snorting before changing direction and heading further into a nearby gully.

She dutifully followed after him, arms folded behind her as she trailed him. “The radiation?”

“The omnium blew when he was just a child. It got into his head when he was still young. Still not sure how he survived, his stories always change. I don’t think he remembers.”

“I remember seeing the news about it when I was younger. They said terrorists had blown the reactor core. It was so terrible, I still remember feeling so helpless when they were showing all those awful pictures. Wo de tian na, all those poor people…”

Roadhog was quiet for a very long time, still trudging steadily ahead before answering, “Yeah…”

He turned and approached a divot in the sandy gulch bottom, gesturing her forward as he knelt down. Mei watched as he examined the greenish-yellow shrub before lifting its branches up to reveal the small magenta berries beneath. “Ruby saltbush… looks ripe enough. Take these.”

“Oh…We’re foraging! That’s what we’re doing!” Mei snapped her fingers before kneeling down next to him, starting to pluck the berries from their stems.

“What did you think we were doing?”

“I thought…I don’t know, maybe you wanted to talk to me?” She trailed off lamely, pretending to be suddenly very interested in the saltbush. “But, that’s okay. It might not be weather-related, but it’s interesting to see how people survive in the outback.”

“Your MREs taste like shit. And I’ve eaten a lot of bad things in my time.”

“Well..I.. I didn’t choose them! Jamison and I even asked for the better quality stuff, but this was considered a non-essential mission so they gave us the cheap ones. But I ordered extra just in case so we wouldn’t go hungry, plus we don’t- Where are you going now?”

“Rock fig, pick that one next.” He grunted in reply, pointing to another nearby plant as he strode forward once more. “And I did want to talk to you.”

“Oh?” She paused to examine the plant, what he had called a rock fig, a hardy-looking scrub growing straight out of the rockface, dotted with tiny orange and brown fruits. Waiting for his reply, she got to picking, tucking them into the makeshift basket in the fabric of her shirt.

“Are you flirting with Fawkes just so he’ll help with your mission. Or just because he's around.”

Mei froze, one hand halfway out to pick another berry. A very pregnant silence hung in the air before finally her head swiveled to look his way. Her jaw tightened, lips moving as she tried to find words, her voice finally cracking through with uncharacteristic hostility. “H-how! How could you say that!”

Roadhog seemed unphased as ever, the white lenses of his mask unflinching. “Doing my job.”

She sputtered with righteous indignation, counting to ten before she even attempted an answer. “I’m t-trying to understand your…concern. B-but I would never do something like that and I don’t appreciate the insinuation. This operation is important to me, but I would never do that to any of my teammates. Especially him!” She was on the verge of tears despite doing her best to be calm. Confrontation was not one of her strong suits, especially when she couldn’t ice-block her way out of it. “I know he’s not…He’s not like most people. But he’s himself, and he can be really nice, and he’s smart! And also strangely more sensitive than I had thought! And I would never, ever-”

He held up one gigantic hand. “Just checking.”

She gestured a palm to him in disbelief. “Just checking? I do not appreciate being accused of something like that.”

“Don’t want to deal with the fallout once we go back to base if you start pretending not to know him again. I think we’ve both been exposed to enough fallout. And I don’t like complications.”

She started to answer when he paused and grasped his hook, stomping one huge metal-spiked boot into the ground and he grunted and heaved, the heavy metal weapon spinning through the air. There was a screeching noise from further up the rocky valley, which turned into a wet gurgle. A moment later he began pulling on the chain, winding it back as he reeled in a large black and gray lizard, smearing blood on the sand where the hook had pierced its sternum.

She stared at the still-twitching body, argument caught in her throat before she swallowed it down and whispered, “W-was that just a threat?”

He looked down at her, calmly going to pry the carcass off his hook before wiping it on the ground. “No. This is a meal. It has nothing to do with my question. I don’t bother with threats.”

She tried to calm herself, placing a hand to her chest. She had to give him that one. The old junker was normally the silent type, and while Junkrat was the sort to spit extremely creative threats and descriptions of bodily harm at his foes, she’d never heard the bodyguard do the same. True, he would bellow and laugh after a particularly gruesome kill, but he was always very…straight-forward, as far as his rampages went.

“Well I…I also wouldn’t do something like that either. That would just be cruel. But we’re not…you know, I mean, we haven’t…Er…” She stared down blankly at the assortment of berries in her shirt. “I don’t know what it is. But I’m not some…liáng xīn bèi gŏu chī le. I am not going to hurt him. And I hope he won’t do the same.”

“All right.”

“…All right? That’s it?”

“Mm.” He finished tying the dead goanna to the side of his belt before trundling off again. “Just wanted an answer. Come up here, there’s another saltbush. I’ll show you how to prepare them so you won’t get the runs.”

She gave him a look that was half reproach and half confusion. “Er…okay. Thanks? And I hope we’re both on the same page now? Everything is good, right?”

“Mm. For now.”

They returned to their campsite later on in the morning, after the sky had long since turned from the yellow of morning to the brilliant blue of day. Junkrat had already awakened and was sitting on his blanket tinkering with his grenade launcher, Mei’s coat tied loosely around his shoulders. He had just finished applying a new coat of yellow paint and several new smiley-faces to the gun when he spotted his teammates arriving. “Oi! Where’d you two get off to!”

She held up one of the berries from her collection. “We decided to let you sleep in. Mr. Roadhog was teaching me about outback foraging. There should still be time for a late breakfast if you’re interested…”

“Foraging? Didja get anything good? Heh, that Roadie can be a fuckin’ chatterbox if you let ‘im, eh? What’d you talk about, Roadie?”

Roadhog grunted.

Jamison swung upright, loping over in his uneven gait to greet Mei instead, slithering behind her and wrapping his lanky arms around her neck as he inspected the mess of fruits in her shirt. “Bush tucker berries? Lemme tell ya, those things make for some shitty smoothies. I’ve tried. Er…Also, think I might’ve stolen your bag at some point, woke up in there. And then I think I stole your coat. I mighta stolen some other things too, I forget.”

“Oh. It’s fine. I was a little cold this morning is all, so I asked if you’d move nearby. You were so sleepy you probably don’t remember.” She offered him a half-smile, hoping her little white lie would spare an awkward conversation about his sleep-cuddling. They could deal with that later. “How are you feeling?”

“Better after a good night’s rest! And would feel real good if, ya know, maybe a lil’…” He pursed his lips and made a few exaggerated kissing sounds as he started to lean down towards her face.

“Nice try,” she smirked, reaching up with her free hand to take his chin and guide his lips to land on her cheek instead.

“Aw, Mei! Shoot a bloke right through the heart, why don’t ya.”

“I have a feeling you’ll live. Besides, Mr. Roadhog has something for you to do.”

Roadhog rumbled from behind them. “Cook this.”

“Huh?” He barely had time to turn about before the dead goanna was hurtling through the air, smacking him in the face as he fell backwards. “AUGH!”

He landed in a tangle of gangly limbs, peeling the lizard off him as his usual grin spread across his face. Holding it up by the tail, he dangled it in front of Mei. “See! Roadie’s got the idea of it! This here’s a proper breakfast! You sure you don’t want? I’ll save you the best paaaarts.” He jiggled the dead animal back and forth temptingly.

She gave him an unimpressed look. “Vegetarian. Wǒ bu chī ròu. No thank you.”

He had already found a knife and before she could even protest, he proceeded to lean down and slit the slain goanna straight up the middle, digging a hand inside the red wet pulp inside and holding up a palm full of small white eggs in his stained palm, thrusting them under her nose. “You sure? Look, it was a lady sort, comes with some prime outback caviar!”

Mei turned a shade greener than usual, shaking her head quickly and clapping a hand over her mouth. “Would you mind doing that behind the van?”

He looked at her blankly for a moment before her reaction seemed to hit home, nodding furiously. “Oh! Oh, roight, the veggie thing! Suppose I shouldn’t be smearing this dead animal all upside your face and whatnot!”

“Thank you.”

Junkrat was practically doing a jig as he went to finish his butchery. She sat down with Roadhog instead, who had approached her with a bowl of water. He lowered his immense weight to thud down next to her, and helped her along as they sorted the assortments of berries. He spoke little, occasionally muttering a correction or a new instruction as he showed her how to tell the ripe apart from the unripe, throw away the ones with the black spots, and how to carefully peel the bitter outer layers from the tiny desert fig berries. It was almost a pleasant task, mindlessly peeling and washing the stacks of forage fruit.

She couldn’t help but fret slightly, remembering his words from earlier. They still burned. She hadn’t really thought ahead to any repurcussions from her and Jamison’s little kisses. Had Roadhog genuinely been concerned that she would ‘dump him’ as soon as the operation was over? Could you even dump someone if you weren’t together? Were they together? She couldn’t at all be sure that she and Jamison were working on the same terms of what kisses could mean or what a relationship was. Did she intend to continue things after they had returned to Gibraltar? She would have to explain to everyone what she was doing with a known agent of destruction and chaos. She’d have to deal with his strange mannerisms out in the real world. She’d have to be involved…Oh no, had Roadhog’s concerns been completely warranted?

The giant junker took notice as she stopped peeling. He tilted his masked head down at her slightly, noticing her stricken expression before simply grunting and lifting himself off the ground with some trouble. “Finish these. I’ll get the rest started.”

He took the camp stove with him, leaving Mei there on the blanket with nothing but the bowl, the berries, and her thoughts.

It had been a spur of the moment thing. They had been getting along better than usual, had become closer through strife and then physically closer when they had kissed. And she had been sincere when she spoke of his better qualities. He could be kind, he could be generous, and he was exceedingly smart. Smarter than she had first suspected when meeting him. But for all their little tête–à–tête around the campfire, things would change once they left Australia…once they returned to the real world and real society and real people. For all his good traits, he had more than his share of bad ones. He had a temper that could change on a dime, a forgetfulness that bordered on amnesia at times, an undeniable love of pyrotechnics and destruction, and a disregard for human life that she simply could not share. She would have to be involved every time he got himself into trouble, and she had neither the physical prowess nor the silent patience of Roadhog.

She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it as she blankly resumed peeling and washing their morning’s forage.

She knew the way he looked at her, but what if that was merely infatuation? Another one of his phases? For all she knew, he had fixated on and treated numerous other crushes the same way. Maybe he bothered them the way he bothered her. Like that time he had been worried about her and took half a kitchen’s worth of food with him to make sure she was eating all right? All those goofy little jokes he always threw at her in an attempt to get her to smile for him? Or making her her favorite flavor teas on the offchance she’d want to drink with him, or comforting her after her mistakes with the dog back in the valley breeze, or his promises that no matter what happened or what troubles they would face, he would be there with her no matter what?…

She glanced up as she heard his high-pitched giggles from behind the van, followed by Roadhog’s booming chuckle. They sounded happy.

She had told Roadhog that she was not a cruel person and had become more than a little indignant at the very thought of it, but he had been completely right to worry. She shouldn’t make promises she wasn’t sure she could keep. It was easy to forget that they were on official business for Overwatch, that once they left this sun-blasted desert, they would have to return to reality. Reality was where Junkrat performed poorly. Doubt was a reasonable thing to have. She was talking about a man whose idea of a good time was replacing Lucio’s birthday candles with little sticks of dynamite. Which had, in all honesty, been very amusing up until she had had to help clean it all up.

She would have to sit down with Jamison and talk to him. Really, really talk to him, about what had happened. Maybe about what shouldn’t have happened at all…

“Oi, Mei! You got any of that sanitizey stuff? That goanna was a real sticky one!” He rounded the corner, holding up his bloody hands, but paused when he saw the distressed posture and expression of the woman sitting with the berry bowl. “Mei…Hey, you okay? You’re looking right stonkered.”

She turned to him with her brows furrowed. “Jamison…I think we might need to talk.”

Literally anybody else would have had the social accumen to realize the heavy weight those words always carried. Junkrat was not anybody else. He blinked owlishly at her, then his grin returned as he turned and started wiping his red-soaked hands off on a nearby rag. “Oh, sure! Ya wanna talk, we can do it after brekkie.”

“Jamie…”

“Come on come on, Roadie’s waitin’ on ya. Best get on it and eat because trust me, he will go ahead and eat it without ya and you’ll have to eat them diarrhea-bag meals all by your lonesome.” He jabbed a stained thumb back behind him.

At a loss, Mei picked up her bowl full of figs and berries and followed him to their makeshift cooking area. She knew by now that the more observant Roadhog had probably guessed at her agitation, but he said nothing as he took the bowl from her, scattering the figs into a dented porridge pot he had set up over the little stove and nearly emptying an entire honeybear into it after.

Junkrat snorted. “Yeah, that’s nice and all, but you will also notice that I split that goanna from skull to clacker and we are finally having a proper barbecue!” He gestured grandly to the campfire, where the butchered lizard was roasting on a makeshift metal spit. “Now that’s brekkie! You two can have your figgy sludge.”

“I caught it, I get half the lizard too,” Roadhog answered flatly. “That’s brekkie.”

“Oi, rack off!”

Mei smiled despite herself as she watched the pair dissolve into another argument, calmly ladling the porridge meal into her bowl and taking a bite. The fresh figs were slightly gritty in texture, but their natural sweetness was a godsend after the cloying preservative tastes of their other options. She went back for seconds, and even a portion of thirds, whilst listening to the two junkers fight over the lizard. Roadhog eventually settled for the rest of the fig oatmeal and a smaller chunk of the lizard meat. Mei noticed that this time he didn’t turn away from them as he ate, simply lifting up his pig mask to reveal a wide rounded chin, peppered with white-gray beard hairs and severely burnt on one side, his chapped and scarred lips blindly reaching out for the spoonfuls of food he couldn’t really see. It was a little strange to see even that sliver of his real face, surprisingly so, as she had become so used to the expressionless pig mask that she sometimes forgot he was a real person underneath it.

Junkrat hunched over his own meal like a covetous vulture, tearing off steaming bits of flesh with his hands and shoving them into his jaws. It was all a bit primal for Mei’s liking, but at least he had stopped offering the slaughtered animal to her. She was more content with her fig and honey meal, followed by the salty-sweet ruby berries they had gathered earlier. She would have to write about their foraging adventure later, and take notes about this Australian method of survival.

In fact, she had almost forgotten about her notes altogether.

She set her bowl aside, moving to the back of the van and digging around. “Have either of you seen my phone?”

Junkrat looked up, his mouth full of lizard. “Hh?”

“My phone, where is it?”

“Oh, yeah! I forgot to tell ya! Your little robot thing and your phone started beepin’ a lot, and it got real annoying and I yelled at it to shut up, but it wouldn’t, but I knew you’d be pissed if I shut it up all the way, so I just threw them in that box there and put stuff on top so they’d be quiet!”

Mei paused, then resumed her search in earnest, literally throwing things out of the back of the van. “What!? When!”

“Oh, I dunno. Hours back. Woke me up, so I just put ‘em-”

“Oh no. Oh no no no no…” She could hear the beeping now, pulling off mounds of blankets, tarps, and other supplies from one of the larger boxes as the sound got louder and louder. A moment later as she tossed another blanket aside, Snowball immediately hovered out and circled around her, still shrilling an alert call. She grabbed onto it with one arm, as if trying to comfort the little bot as she flicked on her phone. The screen was flashing red and still beeping with the mandarin signals for WARNING scrolling past. She immediately opened it up and began reading through the backlogged messages. “Jamie! You should have told me earlier!”

“What, that your robot was being an annoying cunt and wakin’ people up?”

“Snowball was trying to warn us! Look, it’s more than just my assistant drone, Snowball has short range weather-reading capabilities too…it’s picked something up.” She adjusted her glasses, still scrolling through the messages.

Junkrat rocked back and forth uneasily as he watched Mei’s expression turn more and more alarmed. “Uh…I didn’t…I didn’t know.”

She threw her phone aside and hurried back towards the camp, waving her arms. “Roadhog! Get up, get up, get up, pack everything you can! We have to go NOW.”

Tunnel Rats: Part 2 of ?

Word Count: 1448 Pairing: Holtzbert Rating: M (overall rating) A/N:  Oh look, two chapters in a relatively short amount of time. Well damn. I still don't know how long this is going to wind up being. I've decided that this will be a side fic I work on while writing Ecto-high, so forgive me if updates are sporadic.

The gate made little noise when she squeezed past it—rusted hinges complaining in the cold. Holtzmann winced at the squealing sound. No one would be guarding this section of the Underground. Well, no one should be. At least, that’s what she hoped, but the sound was still unwanted and sharp in her ears.

Finding no centuries afoot and hearing no alarmed tapping on pipes—her people’s preferred form of communication—Holtz grins mischievously and ducked into the darkness of Central Park, hood pulled over her head. She struck out at a quick pace, checking the watch at her wrist just to be sure she still had time to meet her liaison. No doubt Mother would be cross when her absence was discovered. Hell, she’d be rightly pissed off if Holtz knew the woman well enough—which she did—but sometimes the rules had to be broken.

Undergrounders didn’t go Topside. That’s what Mother repeatedly insisted to Holtzmann and the rest of the colony thriving under the streets of New York on an almost daily basis. It wasn’t their world. You don’t go Topside. There was no reason to go Topside. They had Helpers Topside who would get the Undergrounders whatever they needed. You don’t go Topside.

For thirty-two years Holtzmann heard that, and for thirteen of those thirty-two years, she’d listened. But curiosity was as much in her nature as creating and building. And when the precocious teen finally worked up the courage to finally see for herself why going Topside wasn’t necessary she quickly discovered a new world of wonder, mystery, and technology. Oh, so much technology!

A grin crinkled the woman’s face. Oh, the things she could create with mere scrap from Topside. Half the reason the Undergrounders had what they had now was because of Holtzmann. Electric lights. Heating. Radio communication. Lifts and pullies. Elevators. She was working towards building what she hoped would be a continuous power source—nuclear if she was being honest—for her people so they could fully detach from New York’s electrical grid and become completely self-sustaining. It was her ultimate dream as a builder and the reason for her trek Topside. Well, almost the main reason.  

There was something about the air and the feeling of a breeze rustling her hair. Something wild and thrilling and natural. Especially in winter. Winter was a magical time. Fall was a close second—what with its colors and earthy smells—but winter was full of frost and ice, foggy breaths and snow. In the Underground, there were no seasons. Nothing to break up the days save for repetition, chores, and the tolling of the clocks—yet another addition created by the Underground’s resident engineer. No sun. No moon. No stars.

Gods did Holtzmann love the stars. As a child, she’d read and memorized every book imaginable. Anything she could get her hands on. She’d even built her own star-gazer, a round little ball with carefully mapped constellations set overtop a candle she’d proudly shown to Mother. The two sat for hours looking up at the synthetic night sky, but nothing could compare to the real thing.

It was towards that same star-dusted sky Holtz turned her head, letting the chilled breeze play with the ends of her shaggy blonde hair carefully pinned in an elaborate up-do and tug at her threadbare coat. Squatting, she gathered a handful of snow into her fingerless gloved hands and held it up to her nose. Cold fractals tickle her skin, making her laugh. Grinning manically after filling her lungs with biting air, Holtz takes off at a run, the need to feel speed driving her.    

Sticking to the tree line just to be safe—disobedient she might be but Holtz wasn’t stupid—she loses herself in the thud of her booted feet against the snowy ground. In no time, she’s in the denser areas of the park where the trees and bushes grow in snarls. The isolation ensured she could remove her hood and not be noticed, which she gladly does.

Stopping next to a gnarly tree to pant plumes of white fog into the wintry night, Holtz readies herself to make a mad dash across a clearing and subsequent stretch of road when her ears pick up the distinct whir of a car engine. Ducking down, she watches a dark colored van rocket past at an unreasonable speed without its headlights on.

Okay. Not sketchy at all, she thinks, watching the receding taillights. It takes a sharp turn and disappears, the smell of its exhaust lingering faintly.

Holtz doesn’t immediately follow. She had a meetup not far from here with a Helper who was supposed to drop off a fresh box of scrap metal, circuits, wires, electronics, and other salvaged items at one of the park’s lesser traveled entrances. Holtz needed to meet him before someone grew suspicious of dark figures making trades in the dead of night, but something about the van niggled at her.

Backtracking a bit, Holtz shoves her hands into her pocket and pretends to know what she’s looking for or even doing. She just had a weird feeling, that’s the only rational conclusion her mind cobbles together. A strange feeling and general suspicion, but sometimes those were powerful senses one shouldn’t ignore, so she saunters a short ways until deeming her venture fruitless.

Blowing out a long breath, she waffles for a second or two at the tree line, looking off in the direction the van had taken before giving a helpless shrug and heading back to her appointment.    

Probably just a bunch of drunk idiots. Not any of my business.

The scent catches her attention and stills her retreating strides, there one minute and gone the next. Turning into the wind, Holtz sniffs and frowns, then sniffs again. She knew that smell. It couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than iron. A lot of iron. The hairs along the nape of her neck prickle. There was something ominous in the atmosphere now, something bad. It draws her brow into a wrinkled frown.

Follows her nose—which thanks to living in the Underground made her quite sensitive to Topside scents—Holtz picked her way along the road before stopping at a sharp bend where the trees dropped down into a gully. Again the wind buffers her. Again she smells iron and stiffens. Climbing down into a steep ditch, Holtz almost doesn’t see the motionless form at the bottom. The shadows hid it well, but her eyes were sharper than most humans. Cautious, the young woman edges closer before freezing altogether when those same sharp eyes of hers catch sight of the delicate hand half buried in snow.

Oh, gods. Oh, gods…no.

Body dump. It wasn’t uncommon, but this was her first time running into something like this. Fear twists in her guts, but it doesn’t stop her from sliding the rest of the way down and skittering around until she’s facing the body. Digging into her coat pocket, she withdraws a flashlight and clicks it on.

There wasn’t much of a face to look at. Not one that didn’t resemble raw meat, but there was a strong feminine quality to it, even under the blood. Holtz’s hands are gentle as she rolls the woman onto her back, moving wet strands of dark hair away from her face and letting the beam of her flashlight track over her. A sick feeling builds in Holtz’s chest which amplifies the more of the brutalized woman she takes in. Body in ruin. Blood everywhere, the largest amount coming from a wound in her side. Leaning down, Holtz puts her ear close to woman’s mouth and waits, breath held. After a moment she exhales gustily and rocks back onto her heels.

Still alive. Barely, but alive.

It wasn’t hard piecing things together. The van. The woman. The intent behind dumping her in such a secluded area of the park. She was marked to die—left like discarded trash, like a worthless broken toy. Holtzmann felt something hot flood her veins. A growl rumbles in the back of her throat. Was human life Topside so cheap? She tried to understand how something like this could happen and what came next, but a decision had already been reached almost without her realizing. In a smooth motion, Holtz scoops the woman up, bearing her slight weight with manageable ease.

The trek back to the Underground was a difficult one, but Holtz made good time, appointment forgotten. Once safely past the circular iron gate, she fights to grab the hanging wrench next to a fat pipe and taps out a frantic message.

Holtz returning. Medical assistance required. Get Mother.

Good for You, Good for the Planet

"...it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature."  -- Poison Ivy

 We have all heard the saying, “Don’t mess with Mother Nature”, but as human beings, we seem to be intent on doing exactly that. Polluted air, water, over-farmed soils, use of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, anycides, and plastic pollution of our earth and oceans just to name a few. These all take a toll on not only the health of our planet but also the health of its people.

What if there was a company that had the health of our planet in mind but also, it’s constituents? There is, Nikken. The name Nikken is an anagram for Nihon Kenko Zoushin Kenyukai, which translates as Japan Health Enhancement Research Institute.

For over 45 years, Nikken has provided common-sense solutions for improved health and well-being, using science and technology to provide our bodies with what nature intended for us all to Be Healthy by Choice. Healthy air, healthy water, whole food nutrition, and the energies of the earth, wind, and sun.

This is the concept of the Nikken Wellness Home. 

Most of us consider our homes to be a safe, healthy environment, but in reality, our homes are often very toxic places. We need to ask, is our home helping us be healthy? Or, is our home making us sick?

This is often referred to as Sick House Syndrome (SHS) and has also been referenced in literature as Sick Building Syndrome. The symptoms associated with SHS include many chronic issues such as headache, dizziness, nausea, eye, nose or throat irritation, dry cough, dry or itching skin, difficulty in concentration, fatigue, sensitivity to odors, hoarseness of voice, allergies, colds, flu-like symptoms, increased incidence of asthma attacks and personality changes.

A Nikken Wellness Home is designed to address many health concerns, including environmental toxins, contagions, dehydration, poor sleep quality, weight matters, and nutrition. In a practical sense, the Wellness Home creates an environment that enables us to make healthier choices every day.

These are the same topics that we discuss in the Selfcare Awakening as to why so many of us are not as healthy as we can be. Nikken Wellness Home products are categorized into three specific areas:

Improved rest and relaxation through our patented natural energy products and Kenko sleep products

A healthier environment with clean air the way nature intended it to be. Filtered, structured alkaline water for pennies a gallon.

Complete organic nutrition and weight-management products.

Skincare support and haircare product lines based on natural ingredients and organic principles.

These areas create your Wellness Home, by making improvements in each of them, you can make your home the healthiest and safest place for you and your family to live and thrive.

The awesome thing about a Wellness Home is that any home can be a Wellness Home, by utilizing Nikken products and technologies to make your home the healthiest environment possible for you and your family. Our motto is “Every home a Wellness Home”.

With the current practice of self-isolation and the majority of our time spent at home, we all want to be in a healthy, immune-supportive environment. We can with the Nikken Wellness Home.

Please join us for our next Healthy by Choice Master Class on Tuesday, June 16th, 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern and learn how you can be Healthy by Choice with a Nikken Wellness Home. We will host a live Q&A after the class. To join us click on the following link, www.theroyalalliace.com/live.

Be Healthy by Choice