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meterokinesis · 4 years

Text

No Grave Can Hold My Body Down

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 12,032

Fandom: Batfamily, DC Comics

Characters: Tim Drake, Ra’s al Ghul, Tam Fox, OFC, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Fasir Nasser

Pairings: Tim Drake & Ra’s al Ghul, Tim Drake & Tam Fox

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, Chose not to use archive warnings

Tags: Canon divergence, Lazarus Pit, Lazarus Pit Madness, Evil!Tim Drake, Blood and Gore, Psychological Trauma, Survivor’s guilt, Unreliable narrator, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Post-Battle of the Cowl, Bruce is dead, Tim is not having a good time right now

Summary: When Tim Drake leaves to find Bruce, he doesn’t expect to get stabbed. He doesn’t expect to die. And he certainly doesn’t expect to be resurrected. However, the Tim who goes into the Lazarus Pit is not the same Tim who comes out. This Tim is ruthless and unguarded in a way he never was before. And when Ra's starts to take him under his wing... well, what's a disgraced Robin to do?

Author’s Note: This work is part of the Batfam Big Bang! (@batfam-big-bang) I couldn't have done this without my lovely betas, @bisexualoftheblade, @crystalinastar, and @houser-of-stories. There's also some amazing art for this fic that I’ll be posting soon!

Read it on AO3

The desert night was cool, with a breeze that shifted the sand beneath Tim’s feet like waves. The stars gleamed overhead, and for a second he was caught up in how clear the sky was. It had been years since he’d seen stars without a haze of light pollution around them.

Owens and Z were in front of him, his babysitters for the night. Pru was off to his left, fiddling with the safety on her gun. The ride here had been as light-hearted as was possible, given the circumstances, but that jovial tone had ended quickly. Their off-roader had died on them maybe half an hour before, and the small group was still huddled around the machine, waiting as Z checked the engine. Every few seconds, Pru glared at Tim, as if blaming him for the hold up. Though the others had made it very clear that this was a fool’s errand, Tim knew that Bruce was here, somewhere. He had to be, or Tim had thrown everything away for nothing.

That was the issue, wasn’t it? Tim might be the world’s greatest detective, now that Bruce was… out of commission. But his hunches could still be wrong. What if- no. He couldn’t afford to think like that. He would bring Bruce back, he had to.

“Hey, Drake, are you done brooding yet?” Pru’s voice echoed over the empty land. Tim huffed noncommittally and looked up to see the bald assassin twirling her gun on her finger.

“I’m a Bat. We’re never done brooding,” he quipped, before fiddling with the little radio receiver he had brought along. It didn’t do more than give off static when it was on, but having something to do with his hands helped.

Rolling her eyes, Pru gestured over to a precariously balanced pile of rocks. “Wanna see if I can hit the top one off without knocking over the others?”

Tim sighed heavily and dragged himself over to her, Owens trailing behind. Out of the corner of his eye, he even saw Z peek out from behind the hood to watch.

Squaring off, Pru brought up her gun and fired off a shot. To no one’s surprise, the top rock went flying and the others remained still, albeit with a slight wobble.

“Fuck yeah! Z, did you see…” She trailed off, her face blanching. Tim followed suit, only to be greeted with Z on the ground, chest bleeding in a way his medical training told him was too much. His brown eyes were already glassy, and his chest wasn’t moving anymore. It was then that the rest of the image came into focus, and Tim’s eyes finally latched onto the cloaked man holding two bloody swords.

“I am the Widower,” the man said, his voice low and bone-chilling. “And here I was, thinking you’d put up a fight.”

Tim drew his bo staff, eyes tracking Pru and Owens as they rushed toward the Widower, guns at the ready. He had barely taken a step, but they were already on the ground, Pru bleeding from a large gash in her neck and Owens trying in vain to keep pressure on the wound in between his ribs.

Quick--what were his weaknesses? No visible limps or injuries, no issues handling the weapons. He moved like a snake through grass, smooth and precise. The Widower’s blades gleamed in the moonlight, and Pru’s blood dripped onto the sand. Tim lashed out with his staff, catching one of the swords right as it flew toward his throat.

“I guess dead birdies tell no tales,” Widower whispered as he drove the second sword, the one Tim had forgotten about, into Tim’s stomach.

The vigilante staggered back, and fell to his knees, clutching his abdomen. The blade slid out and even through the gloves of his suit, Tim could feel his blood, warm and sticky. Was this how he was going to die? Mission incomplete, estranged from his family, bleeding out into the desert sand? He had never assumed he would survive in this job, but he’d at least thought he’d die as Robin. Oh god, he was never going to be Robin again.

The ground rushed up to greet him, sand in his mouth and eyes and hair. He supposed that it didn’t matter--it’s not like corpses care anyway. With his last ounces of strength, he rolled onto his back. Somewhere, some last shred of knowledge told him that this would keep him from bleeding out, but deep down he knew it was too late. Tim just wanted the stars to be the last thing he saw.

As darkness encroached on the corners of his vision, his mind drifted back to Bruce. This was it. The only father figure he’d ever had, or at least the only one who liked him as he was, would be doomed to never return. And it was all Tim’s fault.

The afterlife was dark. And cold. Tim had never been religious, aside from that year of Hebrew school his parents insisted he take in middle school, but even he knew that this wasn’t right. It took a second, but the cold and dark sharpened into something Tim knew well, his kitchen at home. Well, at Drake Manor.

The marble countertops gleamed, as did the floors, and Tim recalled tiptoeing around in his early childhood, so not to dirty them. The kitchen--really, the whole house--had always felt like a mausoleum. Cold, impersonable. Lonely. In some ways, a lot like Tim.

He drifted through the house, looking pointedly away from the family portrait that hung above the fireplace. It had been painted a few months before his mom was killed, right after he became Robin. They all looked so stiff, like actors playing a family in a movie. Actually, actors would probably do a better job than they did. That portrait had been the first thing Tim had put in storage when his dad died.

The curtains were drawn, letting in the gray sunlight Gotham was so well-known for. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his lawn, except… not. Gravestones dotted the otherwise pristine lawn, some new and some old and worn. He hesitated at the door, fingertips just brushing the doorknob. He was dead, it wasn’t like he could get hurt. Maybe this was some kind of purgatory that he had to deal with before he could move on. He pushed against the door, anticipating the old hitch in the hinges that had been around for years.

The air held the same chill as the house, pulling at Tim’s breath. Front and center, practically in the doorway, was Bruce’s grave, the one they’d buried him in just over a month ago. But now the death date was scratched out, in its place a sticker like the ones Tim used to put on his skateboard. It read: Eternally Damned To Disappointment. It’d sound like the name of a band Tim might’ve listened to, if he didn’t know that the disappointment was in him.

The next grave was older, cracked and crumbly. The ground in front of it was disturbed, and dried blood streaks marked the bottom of the headstone. Here lies Jason Todd. Well, that didn’t last long. And unlike Jason, Tim knew he wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t that lucky.

Next was Steph, or at least the grave she pretended to fill. It was covered in flowers, some of them bouquets Tim had left himself. Tim had spent hours in front of it, telling her how much he missed her and loved her, praying for the first and last times. When she came back… well, they were more distant than he would’ve liked. That wasn’t Steph’s fault, at least not entirely, but it did make him wonder. What if he never took back the mantle? Would this have been easier? He could’ve been a semi-normal teenager, living with his dad and stepmom, mourning his girlfriend and being blissfully unaware of the shitshow that was heroism. But he wouldn’t have been happy.

And speak of the devil, there’s his parents’ graves, right next to each other. It was almost funny how they were closer in death than in life. A boomerang was lodged in his father’s gravestone, with an old flip phone opened at the base. It listed Tim’s number as the last call. His mother’s had a sticky substance that a voice deep inside Tim told him not to touch. He lingered at these graves for a moment, breath caught in his throat. It’s not that he didn’t miss his parents--he did. But he had only known a piece of them, only just deeper than surface level. They weren’t parents as much as guardians with high expectations. And for the most part, he had met or exceeded every goal they gave him. But it never was enough. There was always another class to ace or language to learn or party to schmooze at. Worst of all, they were cold. If Tim was the chill night air, his parents were Antarctica.

The next grave stopped him in his tracks. Bart. One of his best friends, his ally in all things. Gone, but not in the way Bruce or Steph were. Bart wasn’t coming back. There would be no more Hawaiian pizza and donuts shared over a comic book, or sleepovers on the floor of Mount Justice. No more Wendy the Werewolf Stalker Marathons. There was no more Bart, and it stung in a way that Tim didn’t have a name for.

He turned around, expecting that to be the end of it, but there it was. Conner. All at once, the weight of the world fell on Tim’s shoulders, like his own personal Kryptonite. His best friend, someone he had been more than a little in love with once upon a time. He knew Conner was safe now, alive and saving people once again. Without Tim. Conner’s death had been the one that broke him, more than any of the others. Because if Conner Kent, Superboy and heartbreaker extraordinaire, hadn’t made it, what chance did Tim have? Well, obviously not much. How was Conner going to take this? He wasn’t like Tim, this was the first time he’d be alone.

Aren’t you tired of losing the ones you love? Aren’t you tired of being the one left behind? A quiet voice murmured in the back of his skull.

Yes. No. Yes. A sob tore from Tim’s chest, and his hand flew to his mouth. This was so stupid. He had dealt with loss before. Hell, the past year had been one unending funeral. Of course he was tired, who wouldn’t be?

This had to be Hell, but that felt like even more of a betrayal. Even Jason had made it to Heaven. Was this his punishment for toeing the line? Had he not suffered enough? Biting back another sob, Tim ran blindly toward the door, slamming it shut behind him in a way that would’ve made his mother shriek. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t in his living room anymore, but the Batcave. Even with his eyes full of tears, he would know it anywhere. And there was Dick in the Batsuit. And the demon in his Robin gear. Tim opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Dick looked up, expression weary.

“Tim, I already told you. Bruce isn’t coming back. I’m Batman now, and that means I get to choose the Robin. It’s about time you accept that.” It sure sounded like Dick. “Besides, it’s not like you were doing a great job anyway. You let Batman be killed on the job.” Damian sneered, leaning against Dick’s chair like a bully in a high school rom com.

“That-That’s not my fault!” Tim cried, heart pounding in his ears.

“Look, there’s an heir and a spare. There’s a new Robin now, you can be whatever you’re calling yourself now. Go do whatever you have to on this suicide mission, but leave Gotham out of it.”

Damian smiled like a demonic cherub. “Yes, Drake. Not even Grayson wants you anymore, if he ever did.”

Tim stood in shocked silence, unable to find words. Sure, Dick was focused on Damian, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t care anymore. After all, they were brothers, right?

He’s taken the only thing you had left. Don’t you want revenge? He took your mantle, you should take it back. The voice sounded like Tim, but contorted--like it would on a recording.

Tim--no, not Tim, something else--reached back for the bo staff. As his hand gripped the metal, something flew toward him, hitting him directly in the stomach where he had been stabbed. It clattered to the floor, and through his pain, Tim realized it was a Batarang.

Don’t you want more, Timothy Drake-Wayne? It coaxed.

Yes.

The new Timothy Drake-Wayne took his first breaths in a cave deep in the Iraqi desert, hundreds of miles away from the house and the graves that had haunted his dream. It was cold here, nearly as cold as that dream had been. If he was in Hell, it would be hotter, wouldn’t it?

Tim swallowed hard and pushed himself up. His stomach, where he was pretty sure he had just been stabbed, was free of wounds or scarring. If anything, he felt stronger than he had before. As his feet touched the stone cold floor, he took note of the ninjas scattered around the room. Okay, so he was back at the League. They must have… The prior strength he had felt disappeared as his legs gave out. Normally he would have rolled or caught himself or something, but his gaze was fixed on the other side of the room, where a glowing green pit resided.

Oh, no.

No weapons, outnumbered, barely able to stand. The disadvantages stacked up before his eyes, screaming that there was no hope of him getting out of this one. Not to mention that he was probably already on his way to insanity. Fuck, the last time he’d seen Jason, the former Robin had almost killed him. Would Tim end up like that, homicidal and cruel?

He struggled to his feet, clutching the stone table for support. He could take out two, maybe three, if he just stopped thinking. He was trained for this, he could--

“Hello there, Detective,” a cold voice purred, quiet but deafening in the silent room. A chill hovered under Tim’s skin. It had been a long time since he’d last heard that voice. Detective? Isn’t that what he calls your mentor? There was the voice again, the only remaining fragment of the dream.

Ra’s al Ghul was one of those people who intimidated you just by existing in the same space. He reminded Tim of every strict teacher and cruel board member and snotty dinner party guest all rolled up into one. Oh, and he was the leader of the world’s largest assassin guild. That was important too.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Timothy?” Ra’s said in the same tone.

The teenager opened his mouth, then closed it again, searching for words. “No,” he managed to force out. “No, I didn’t.”

Are you sure?

Ra’s smiled, like a predator that had just gone for the killing blow. “Well, I suppose that you will have more than enough time to complete your quest during your stay with us.” And just like that, he turned, a group of ninjas peeling off to escort him back to whatever pit of Hell he’d crawled from. “If you need anything, ask for the White Ghost. Welcome to the Cradle, Detective.” And just like that, he was gone.

Tim was only alone with his thoughts for a minute before a tall man with alabaster skin and medieval-style chainmail entered the cavern.

Okay, so this was the White Ghost impersonator. The League wouldn’t kill someone they’d just resurrected, so maybe once he was alone he could escape? Go back to Gotham and see Dick and Sebastian and Zoanne one last time before he truly went insane, then start going to that therapist Dick recommended. He could make it through this, he wouldn’t end up like Jason--

And then in walked Tam Fox, looking terrified but for the most part unharmed. And all of Tim’s plans came crashing down.

Tam was a civilian, and a Wayne Enterprises employee to boot. Her life, and his identity, were in danger now. He was both her only savior and her greatest danger. New plan: listen to this knockoff White Ghost, do whatever it takes to gain their trust, then make it out with Tam at the first possible chance. And do it all without going off the deep end.

Easy. Not.

“I am the White Ghost,” the shitty cosplayer said, his chainmail clinking as he moved.

“Isn’t he dead?” Tim murmured under his breath. He’d definitely seen Dusan die. But if Tim was still alive, then maybe…

“There has always been a White Ghost,” the older man responded, as if that answered anything. “Now, it is time you and your guest retired to your quarters.”

Tam looked over at Tim, big brown eyes wide with fear. He nodded once, tried to conjure a press conference smile, and allowed them to be led to lavish bedchambers. They looked like beautiful, windowless prisons.

The next few weeks blended into their own lethal monotony. Tam stayed in her room all day and Tim went to meetings with various members of the League’s regime. It was a little like working at Drake Industries or Wayne Enterprises, just with more murder. A lot more murder. But the meetings were easy enough, and Tim soon found himself getting to know the people he once despised. He didn’t like them by any means, but he wasn’t terrified anymore.

He kept looking for Bruce. The desert gave no answers.

Tam didn’t ask questions. She didn’t push too hard. She had to know everyone’s identities by now, didn’t she? Tim was just one Robin-shaped piece of the puzzle. Here he was, in the desert, yet another failed Robin. His whole tenure, he’d been trying to live up to Jason Todd, and now in a sick way he had. Wearing Jason’s uniform, having been resurrected the same way, he now dreaded catching up to the boy who had once been his hero.

On nights when he cried silently into the silk sheets, trying to forget the way Jason had looked when he first came back to Gotham, the voice soothed: You can be greater than he ever was. You can outshine all of the others. You will be remembered when they are dust.

The desert was cold. There was no comfort here.

His bedchamber was nice enough. There was a large bed with silk sheets and gold accents and an ensuite bathroom. A large mirror took up the space where a window might have once been, like some sort of philosophical conundrum that Tim was too tired to try to unpack. There was a small passageway between his room and Tam’s, and if Tim was just a little more naive he would have believed that the League forgot about it when they placed him in this room. But he knew better. The League never forgot a thing.

Sometimes Tim caught himself in the mirror and for a second he swore his blue eyes looked green. Tam came in the next morning to glass littering the floor and cuts covering Tim’s hands. She said nothing while she helped him wrap up his knuckles.

Tim had always been adaptable. It’s easier than the constant push and shove of rebellion. When his parents told him to take those classes and join these clubs, he did. When he was instructed to give impromptu speeches at galas, he did. He put in the effort, he always had. He was never the best fighter and never would be, but he was smart and quick and brave. That had to mean something, right?

Maybe that’s why Ra’s al Ghul liked him so much.

The first time Ra’s al Ghul asked for a private meeting with Tim, the ground seemed to tilt under him. The well-trained vigilante tried not to show the fear in his eyes as his vision blurred and his heart thundered in his chest. But he went, because one did not say no to the Demon’s Head.

“Detective,” Ra’s began as he sat down at a large, stately desk that seemed out of place in the rest of the Cradle. The voices--he had taken to calling them whispers--that had been clogging Tim’s thoughts preened at the nickname, ignoring its former bearer.

“Tell me what you know about my grandson,” the assassin drawled, his fingers tapping on the desk rhythmically.

“Don’t you have spies for that?” Tim responded, not quite a retort but not an innocent question either. He’d seen enough of the League’s intel that it was clear how much they truly knew about the world outside the Cradle.

“Yes, but I’d prefer to hear it from someone… familiar with him. My eyes can only do so much from afar.”

Tim had no doubt that Ra’s knew everything about Damian: from the route he took to school to the cereal he ate for breakfast to how many times he pet Titus when he got home from school.

“He’s a brat.” Tim’s chagrin even took him by surprise, like it wasn’t really him talking. “He’s rude and inconsistent and incredibly immature. He’s aggressive and undisciplined. A sorry excuse for a Robin.”

And there it was, the green monster of jealousy rearing its head again. Yes, Damian had taken Robin from him unfairly, and yes, he was all of those things. But why did Ra’s care?

“I see. Would you describe him as a leader?”

“No. If anything, he’s a bully and a mama’s boy. Leaders need to be able to listen to others.” Where was he getting this? Damian was a kid, he could learn. He still had time.

“Interesting.” Ra’s rose from his chair and paced the edge of the room. Tim refused to look back and follow his movements. That would be a show of weakness, a drop of blood in a shark tank. “Detective, what do you have in Gotham? What do you have there that keeps you from dedicating yourself to your cause?”

Nothing.

Tim stifled a gasp as he thought of the instant response. Dick and Damian didn’t need him. Stephanie hadn’t called in months, even before Bruce died. Jason had tried to kill him, last they’d spoken. The Teen Titans were getting along just fine without him. Truthfully, the whispers were right. There was nothing left for him in Gotham. If there was, he would have stayed.

“Nothing.” The anymore went unsaid.

“Then I may have a proposal for you.” Ra’s eyes glowed a dangerous green. A pit formed in Tim’s stomach, as the last few vestiges of him that hadn’t sided with the voices screamed at him to just escape.

“Oh?” Tim responded, mouth bone-dry.

“Stay.”

And Tim’s world crumpled.

“Learn under my agents. Train to become better than you are. Continue your quest with my resources behind you. All you have to do is stay and work for me,” Ra’s smiled like a hunter who had just shot big game.

This was a terrible idea. Tim didn’t kill people, he refused. He was supposed to help people, not hurt them. But he couldn’t deny that feeling like he belonged again was incredibly enticing.

Tim opened his mouth, but Ra’s cut him off. “Your friend will not be harmed. I won’t even think about putting you on an assignment until you’re up to par with my best ninjas. I will not make this offer again.”

The voice that responded was not Tim’s own.

“Yes.”

Tim thought that six months of training with Bruce was brutal. Ha hadn’t known brutal until now.

His first day of training, he showed up in his Red Robin suit, now patched and reinforced where he had been stabbed.

The tall ninja that seemed to be in charge scoffed, then sent him away. Not fifteen minutes later, a tailor descended on Tim’s quarters with a tape measure and a face made of solid stone.

“Can’t have you looking like a target, all in red. What was Batman thinking?”

Maybe he wants them to be targets, Tim and the whispers thought in tandem. He balked at the thought, but the tailor’s firm hands kept him in place. What was he doing? Bruce had loved him, did love him. He had taken care of Tim when no one else would. Bile crawled through the back of Tim’s throat, but he swallowed it down.

The tailor finished her measurements and scanned Tim up and down.

“It will have to be black, of course. Reinforced joints, kevlar, the whole nine yards,” she stated in a lilting accent. “Maybe some green accents, dark ones. Classy. Half-mask, no more cowls or dominos.”

Red, yellow, and black were his colors and had been for years. A tribute to a boy he loved and lost then loved some more. But Conner was back now. And Tim was tired of mourning, especially when no one was dead. Well, except him.

“Green,” he agreed, swallowing thickly. He wasn’t Red Robin anymore, not really. And he could always wear the suit again. This wasn’t a finale, just a hiatus.

She nodded once and then swept away, leaving a teenager clutching the last thing he had of his old life. Tim folded the suit, the way Alfred had always chastised him for, and gingerly placed it in the bottom drawer of his wardrobe. He wouldn’t need it anytime soon.

The next day, a precisely wrapped package sat outside Tim’s door bearing no signature. He knew exactly what it was.

Upon peeling back the paper, he saw the full glory of the new suit. It was midnight black, with dark green stitches that were beautiful up close, but would be near-invisible from far away. It looked like a cross between the ninjas’ garb and body armor--sleek and sure of itself. A hood was attached to the back of the neck, with the green stitching spelling out something Tim couldn’t discern. A half-mask with built in air filters covered the rest of the face. As he patted the suit down, he felt where all the separate compartments were for weapons and utilities. It reminded him a little of the costumes from high-tech spy movies.

Sitting on the floor with his new suit in his lap, Tim added another item to the long lists of debts he owed Ra’s al Ghul.

His first real day of training, Tim was beaten so badly he could hardly drag himself to his room.

It wasn’t that they had intended to hurt him, but he had gone almost a month without training. Bruises laced up his cheekbone like their own little domino mask, a little memento of times gone by. His joints screamed out in pain as he collapsed onto his bed. At least he hadn’t broken any bones. Or been stabbed. Or died.

Tim only had a few minutes to contemplate the stuntman funniest fails video that was his life when a gentle knock came from the door.

“Come in,” he groaned, flopping over onto his side so he could see his company. His mother would have scolded him for not standing up to greet a guest, but she didn’t have much sway from six feet under.

A girl with olive-tan skin and a brunette bun stepped into the threshold, her smile the gentlest thing he’d seen in a long time.

“Hello, my name is Aminta. I figured you could use some help with your wounds.” Her voice was lower than he expected, but pretty nonetheless. A dark, untraceable accent threaded through her words.

He peered up at her, frowning.

“Is this a hazing thing? Am I being hazed?”

She chuckled, then sat on the ottoman at the edge of his bed.

“Not hazing. The new recruits tend to help each other through the first few months. Safety in numbers and all that. I thought you might want some assistance.”

“So, you’re all friends?” That didn’t sound right.

“No,” she hesitated for a moment, “not exactly. Friends is too... common. We are assassins, but we have honor. When we need to, we take care of our own.”

Ah, so he was one of them now. For some indescribable reason, that didn’t fill him with as much dread as he thought it would.

You have no friends. You never did. Just those who you will rule and those who you will crush, the whispers added.

Tim smiled, the shy grin he used when he wanted teachers and Wayne Enterprises board members to underestimate him.

“Thank you, Aminta. I’d appreciate that. My name is Tim.”

She winked at him, clearly a joke.

“Believe me, I know.”

The League had a mole.

Or at least, they were going to. Tim had known enough corrupt businessmen in his time in Gotham’s upper echelon that he was well versed in the signs of someone double-dipping. At first it was little things: missing pieces of inventory, strange new guard shifts, incorrect mission intel. By the time it escalated to money being skimmed off the top of jobs, Ra’s was furious.

When he called Tim in for a meeting, something that was becoming increasingly normal these days, Tim was expecting fiery rage. Instead, there was steel-sharp cunning. It was a little like looking in a funhouse mirror.

“Detective, it appears that we have a liability in our ranks,” Ra’s began, his fingertips caressing a blade. “I assume you’ve read the data I sent to your quarters, and I’d like your thoughts.”

Tim cleared his throat. He had spent the night before reading the reports, putting together the pieces. If this was a test, it was a wicked one.

“The incidents began shortly after the attacks by the Widower. It’s a piece of misdirection intended to frame either Pru or I as a mole. However, neither of us has any reason for betrayal. Pru is, and has always been, loyal to the League. And you are well aware that I have nothing left for me in Gotham, nor would I be stupid enough to allow myself to get caught.” His voice was smooth, the prince of Gotham giving yet another speech.

“There is someone who has means, motive, and opportunity. After reading your files, it is incredibly clear. He has a family of his own that he is loyal to, and during my resurrection, he was not in the Cradle. His computer prowess would allow him to mess with the system in a way few others could. It would have been a very clean job, if he had spread it out over months or years instead of a few weeks.”

Ra’s stroked his goatee.

“You mean the Expediter.”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” Ra’s rose from the desk and clasped his hands behind his back. “Now that we’ve established the perpetrator, it is time to establish the punishment.”

Ah, so here was the test. Ra’s wanted to see how ruthless Tim could be. It was a very good thing that Tim never failed an exam.

“Kill him. It will send a message to our other agents and whoever he worked for that we are not to be trifled with.” Tim’s hands shook, but his voice was full of conviction. He had always been a good actor, but it wasn’t clear how much was truth now.

“And his daughters?”

“Bring them to the Cradle. They’re young enough that they likely won’t remember him, and we’ll be able to shape their childhood. Perhaps one will become just as intelligent as her father, and wiser as well.” The whispers hissed wordlessly in disappointment, but it was worth it. Tim refused to order the execution of a child, no matter how loud the shrieking in his skull became.

There was a beat of dead silence, then Ra’s nodded sagely.

“Wise choice, Detective. I’ll put those orders into effect at once.” He smiled, his teeth gleaming as his dagger had. “I’m looking forward to the rest of our partnership.”

Oh, how the whispers laughed.

Life in the Cradle was, well, nice. Tim was training harder than he ever had, under much more strenuous conditions, yet he felt better than he ever had. He was stronger, for one thing, but for the first time since he’d discovered Batman and Robin’s identities, he was able to rest. He didn’t need to be up until dawn chasing people across rooftops or finishing reports or writing an essay for English class because he’d been too busy on patrol. Even in a den of killers, Tim felt almost safe.

That said, he refused to let his guard down. He’d sat in on meetings with the inner circle of the Cradle for months now, trying to use his famous brain for something important. Which for his purposes, meant destroying the League as best as possible.

That was the only reason he’d stayed, or at least that’s what he told himself during nights where he twisted and turned trying to justify his choices. He’d exploit the League’s generosity to train himself and find Bruce, then take it down. Bruce would have to be proud of him after that, they all would. Maybe he’d even be Robin again.

He’d already taken out the Expediter, Ra’s’ guy in the chair. The guy confessed to the mistake of having a family and trying to work for the League at the same time. Good thing Tim didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

This is good, but it is not enough. You crave more. Do not be a coward, take it.

Now Tim was the techie for an international assassin guild, which would look moderately impressive on a college resume. Maybe it could count as an internship. Ra’s seemed like the guy who would make a relatively okay reference when Harvard came calling.

It always felt strange when he had lunch with Ra’s. It was eerily similar to the fancy lunches his mom used to drag him to, or the etiquette classes he was forced to take where he learned how to properly use a melon baller. Of course, it wasn’t like he was going to be killed for using a melon baller wrong then. Now, he knew that any wrong move could result in death.

Not his own death, of course. There was no point in Ra’s bringing back Tim, just to kill him again. Tam, however, was expendable. And that made the marrow in Tim’s bones shiver.

This particular lunch was more focused on memory lane than shop talk.

“So, Detective, tell me: what did you want to be when you grew up?”

Tim swallowed hard around his tea sandwich, his throat suddenly painfully dry.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a clown. Not a great career path in Gotham,” he began, attempting to keep his voice light. Ra’s looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

“Then, I wanted to be a photographer. Then, my father said I would be a CEO or I’d be disowned, so I wanted to be a CEO. I could always do photography on the side, you know?

“And then I became Robin.” He let the weight of that sentence sink over the pair.

“So? What happened after that?”

Tim resisted the urge to stare at his sandwich, instead choosing to meet Ra’s’ bright green eyes.

“Then, I stopped thinking I would grow up.” There it was, the thing everyone had been trying to pry out of him for years.

“I mean, Dick barely made it out. Jason died, came back, went crazy, and now murders people for shits and giggles. Stephanie died, but only kinda. Damian’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide. In the wild, robins live for a year, maybe two if they’re lucky. I don’t think anyone realized how similar we all are to those stupid birds.” Tears pricked at the backs of his eyes, but he didn’t need to cry. All that pain was gone now, replaced by something else. He couldn’t name it, but it kept all the sadness away.

Tim had been sad for his whole life. It was a relief when the roiling ocean inside him froze over. Numbness was an improvement.

Ra’s leaned across the table, his face barely a foot from Tim’s.

“You know, Detective, you remind me of myself. Not when I was young, of course, but when I had just begun to build my empire. All your life you have been told to quiet down and listen instead of speaking. You’re a fine leader because of it. You adapt when others are stubborn. You make plans while they push through without a second thought. You are a snake lying in wait, anticipating the right time to strike. I admire that.”

The air hung in silence as Ra’s stared directly into Tim’s soul.

“You know,” Ra’s finally said, “I think you could be truly great one day.”

Tim barely breathed as he nodded his thanks. When Ra’s finally leaned away, his first breath felt like the first gasp of air from a drowning victim.

“Before our lunch concludes, and I do so enjoy our lunches, I have a query for you.” This wasn’t out of the ordinary, Ra’s liked to give him riddles to keep him on his toes. “Some of our ninjas, though I will not say who, have gone rogue. A year or so ago, they got themselves caught up in some nasty business. My current intel places them here, in this compound, where they’re using innocents as collateral, should they not get what they request.”

“What do they want?”

“My head on a platter.” Ra’s’ smile was bloodchilling. “Oh, Detective? I feel it’s important to note: international news stations are currently reporting you and Ms. Fox as having been kidnapped by these rogues. Any advice on how to fix that?”

So this was the second test. Another chance to prove his loyalty. Let Ra’s’ enemies go free, or kill them and forfeit his old life for good in return.

“I assume extraction is not possible?”

“I’m afraid that those deserters are incredibly well trained. The special units from any nation’s army wouldn’t even make it into the compound. My ninjas could make it in, but there’s no way they could take out the traitors and save the civilians.”

Tim nodded, pretending to contemplate. He already knew his answer.

“Bomb the compound, kill everyone inside. It’s better to cut off the rot now than give it the chance to spread.”

Ra’s did not smile, but his eyes glimmered with pride.

“My thoughts exactly, Detective.”

And just like that, the death warrant was signed.

Tam was waiting in his chambers when Tim got home from a long day of training, his body littered in bruises and cuts that would sting tomorrow. Her crossed arms functioned as a hug, like she was the only thing keeping herself together.

“Tim,” she whispered when he came into view, the word like a prayer.

He glided across the room wordlessly, and she wrapped him in a tight embrace.

“I managed to get someone to sneak me a newspaper. Th-They think we’re dead, Tim,” she said into his shoulder, words slightly muffled by the fabric.

His hand came up to stroke her hair, the way he used to comfort Cass after a particularly long day. Tim didn’t respond, and instead let her tears soak into his shirt.

Good. Now you have the element of surprise.

The Council of Spiders had a worthy namesake, as they were just as quick and deadly as any arachnid. Somehow they had crept past the League’s defenses, disabling the ninjas that got in their way. True to form, the assassins’ deaths were just as silent as they were--shadows fading out as dusk began to form.

Tim was preparing for another day of strategy and mind games when Aminta burst into the room.

“The Spiders are here. They managed to sneak in--no one knows how. You’re needed,” she gasped, as if she’d ran a marathon to deliver this message. Judging from her state of disarray, maybe she had.

“Tam?”

“I’ll protect her. Go!”

Tim didn’t have time to question these motives or worry about much more than tugging on his cowl and pulling out his bo staff. He sprinted out the door and into the madness, moving in a dangerous dance with the assassins he had trained alongside for the past few months. The League was good, great even. But with the element of surprise, the Spiders were better.

He couldn’t afford to think about what could happen if they lost. Failure was not an option, not anymore.

A shadow glided toward one of the empty hallways and away from the rest of the frenzy, a sword glinting in its hand. Something that had dug its claws deep in Tim’s bones pulled him toward the figure, urging him to follow. To finish the job.

If others saw red when enraged, Tim saw green.

The figure purposefully stalked toward the large office Tim had started to spend increasing amounts of time in. The footsteps were near-silent, but in his mind they echoed almost deafeningly loud.

The shadow had to know he was there. It had to. Tim was good, but a few months of training could never rival lifetimes.

The shadow glanced over its shoulder, a feline-esque smile on its face. It said something, probably a witty yet scathing remark, but it was drowned out by the cacophony of whispers in Tim’s mind.

Do it.

Finish the job.

Show them who you are, who you can be.

Prove yourself.

You are not a bird, you are not a bat.

You are a demon, and you do not know weakness.

Not a Robin, not Red.

You are Green, Green, Green.

Become who you were always destined to be, Detective.

Tim struck out with his bo staff, right into the shadow’s skull. It faltered, just for a millisecond, and that creature that was both Tim and not lashed out, quicker than it had any right to be. A dagger in his hand, sharpened to a razor-thin edge. He did not remember doing that. That same dagger, buried into deep tan flesh.

Then he was across the room, bones aching from being thrown into the stone wall. If he was still human, still able to rein in whatever was drowning out his senses, he would know to expect pain tomorrow. But he didn’t, and all he felt was the adrenaline rushing through his veins.

And he was up again, throwing himself at the shadow with the conviction of a greek hero who knew that this fight would be his last. A fist full of rings connected with his cheek, and he could feel the skin tear beneath the metal. Maybe it would even scar.

The shadow leaned heavily to one side, though whether it was from the stab placed between its ribs or a prior injury, Tim didn’t know. It lurched toward him, and he stabbed it again, this time twisting the dagger until he felt the give of a lung. The shadow was down now, and deep down Tim knew that he never should have beaten it, never should have landed a single blow. In a logical world, Tim would have lost ten times over. But in a logical world, Tim would have been dead for the past six months.

As if time was in slow motion but he was at normal speed, Tim glided through the seconds, pushing pressure points with the tip of his blade. The shadow’s sword lay across the hall, too far out of reach for retaliation. This wasn’t torture, but it was revenge--for pain and sacrifice and nights spent clawing at his own skin, wishing it still felt like his. Payback for months of sins he never would have committed, for the green that clouded his vision. But most of all, it was a promise.

After minutes that held years of heartwrenching pain, Tim delivered the killing blow, straight under the shadow’s chin and into its brain. He was covered in blood, tacky and rust-toned, but where a past Tim--a lesser Tim--would have balked or vomited at the sight, this Tim stood, cleaned off his blade, and hefted the cooling corpse onto his shoulder.

They can try to revive it with the Lazarus Pit. You cannot allow that to happen. You cannot fail, the whispers urged, but he no longer needed them. They were him and he was them. Green in every breath and thought.

Tim escaped into the desert and finished the job, just as he had always been taught to do. Ra’s would have been proud. Bruce would have been proud.

That night, after the Spiders had been exterminated and the mess cleaned up, Tim sat at the foot of his bed, staring at his hands. The ninjas had looked at him with what could be called pride when he staggered back into the fray, his face bruised and bloody and sporting a wound on his thigh. His silky clothes brushed past the injuries every few seconds, but he couldn’t muster the energy to wince, even though he knew he should.

Tam had managed to hide during the clash, and Aminta had kept her promise. Tim liked people who followed through.

After being given the all clear, he stumbled back to his room to wash out his wounds and scrub the smell of smoke off his skin.

He had only just changed into his silky clothes when a knock came at the door. Without waiting for a response, the White Ghost was in Tim’s room, staring down at the teenager with an unnameable expression on his face.

“Timothy Drake,” the man said by way of greeting.

Tim glanced at him and blinked owlishly, but did not respond.

“Ra’s al Ghul is dead.”

This gripped Tim’s attention, and he finally made eye contact with the assassin, his brow creasing in concern.

“You’re going to revive him, right? He told me that you have more Lazarus Pits near here, he can use one of those. How did he die?” A million scenarios raced through Tim’s head, films of the death of the Demon.

“They burned him on a pyre and left him in his study. No trace of cause of death, and we can’t revive him. Any DNA has been destroyed.”

Tim stared blankly, processing. The Demon’s Head, the invincible Ra’s al Ghul, was dead. Gone forever.

“Ra’s made plans, should he die,” the White Ghost continued. “Those plans include a new leader of the League of Shadows. And that leader is you.”

Tim sputtered, “What? You can’t be serious. I’m seventeen years old. Why not you? Or Talia or Nyssa? Or Damian?”

“I do not make light of these things. He said you, so it is you. I am the White ghost. He had not contacted his daughters in years, and his grandson is too unpredictable to be suited to the position. You are the Demon’s Head, Timothy Drake.”

Tim stared back numbly. He was the Demon’s Head. The Cradle was his, these assassins were his, the world was his. He wanted power, and now it had fallen into his lap. The White Ghost kneeled before him and bowed his head. “I will serve you, Timothy Drake, in whatever way you see fit. I will be your eyes and ears and hands. I will obey you and carry out your orders. I pledge my allegiance to you, and only to you.” Satisfied with his vow, he rose to his full height.

Tim swallowed hard, then looked back up. “I accept your vow and thank you for your loyalty.” Then, “When… When will the rest know?”

“Tomorrow, at noon. I thought it might be best for everyone to rest, and for you to know first. We can discuss further details tomorrow morning, but for now, know who you are.”

Tim nodded stiffly and pushed himself to his feet, straightening his spine the way his mother had taught him to. He had been raised to become a prince of Gotham, one of the pretty boys that graced magazine covers and made headlines at charity events. Now, he was a king of assassins, an emperor of the underworld. If only she could see him now. Maybe she’d even be proud of him, for once.

“Thank you, White Ghost. We will speak again tomorrow. Should there be any issues during the night, I would like for you to inform me immediately.” He may be clad in silk pyjamas, but there was leadership in every fiber of his being. The whispers hissed in agreement.

“Fadir Nasser. My name is Fadir Nasser. Long live the Demon’s Head,” the White Ghost--Fadir--said as he left the room, the last remark stinging with a hint of a joke.

The door locked shut behind him, and Tim flopped backward onto the bed, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. His gaze fell to the closet, where his suit was stuffed in the corner, smelling of smoke and burning flesh and the irony tang of blood. The whispers quickly supplied a description of the events, but Tim could picture them clear as day--carrying Ra’s to the desert, building and lighting a pyre, then bringing the body back and placing it in Ra’s’ study for someone to find. It was incredibly simple, almost too simple for no one to have done before. But Tim was Green, Greener than anyone had ever been before. And no one would ever know.

He’d need to invest in a new suit befitting his new role, maybe bring back some green accents. He no longer needed to mourn Conner. He no longer needed to mourn at all. He was the Demon’s Head, and he would never die.

The whispers laughed cruelly, like the audience of a poorly-written tragedy.

The transition of power wasn’t smooth, but it was quick. Assassins weren’t particularly known for their loyalty, and Fadir made it clear that any dissenters wouldn’t even make it to the door. They only had to clean blood off the stone floors once before that lesson sunk in.

As far as coups go, it was pretty successful. The whispers had quieted, just a little. Tim could sometimes make it hours without the hissing in the back of his mind, reminding him that he couldn’t rest. With power comes paranoia, and Tim was intimately familiar with both.

Now to rid himself of liabilities.

It had been a particularly lucid day, and Tim’s near-silent footsteps were the only hint of noise in the hallway. Tam had been given the option to move her room closer to his, but had refused. He didn’t blame her, it was hard being the civilian favorite of the assassin king. Tim knew this well.

Tim knocked on the wooden door, two quick raps. Somewhere deep in his memory, he wondered if this would have been his life, had everything been different; maybe he’d be knocking on Tam’s door before picking her up for a date. Instead, he straightened his shoulders, put on the shy smile Tam thought was his true one, and waited for her. Shuffling on the other side of the door, then a creak as it swung open. Tim glided in, and Tam looked at him with those big brown eyes, her expression tainted with a touch of fear. He didn’t remember her ever being afraid of him before.

“Do you want to go home?” Tim asked. No preamble, just his soft question in the quiet room.

Tam didn’t even think about it first.

“Yes.”

Tim nodded, then drew out a one-way ticket to Archie Goodwin International Airport, leaving tomorrow night. He held it out to her, that soft smile on his face and a promise in his eyes.

Tam tentatively took it, but kept looking at him. “Are you serious?”

“You’re not a prisoner. I’m sorry I couldn’t let you leave earlier, I just wanted to make sure the League was stable first. My intention was always to get you home.”

“Thank you, Tim.”

Tim slipped his hands in his pockets. “You’re my friend. I just want you to be happy.”

Tam pulled him into a hug, and for a second it felt so nice it almost hurt. Then it was over, and he could be comfortably numb again.

“Aminta will be coming with you, just to make sure you get home safe. Once you’re with your family, you won’t have to see any of my… agents ever again.”

Tam nodded, her face screwed up in an effort to keep from crying. He turned to leave and give her privacy, then paused.

“Tam? Thank you. For being my friend.”

Then the king of shadows disappeared into the night, yet again.

Tim frowned at the wall, a small comms unit tucked in his ear. He hadn’t moved from this room in a day, not since Tam and Aminta left.

“Okay, Aminta, I need you to keep close. You said that it’s just Batman and Robin? No Batgirl?”

“Just Batman and Robin. They haven’t spotted me yet. Robin’s really fallen behind since leaving us.”

Tim growled under his breath and carded a hand through his hair. It was getting long again. Who did Ra’s go to for haircuts? Did he just do it himself?

Focus.

The facts were these: Tam had been contacted by Batman and Robin immediately after Lucius Fox gave word that she was home safe. Tim had been expecting this, and Aminta was sent to follow Tam and ensure that the interaction went favorably. Which is to say that no one killed Tam because of what she knew. Aminta was currently hidden on the same rooftop as Gotham’s favorite heroes, listening in on their rendez-vous.

“What’s happening? Report.”

“She’s telling them--why don’t I just play their conversation? I have the capability.”

“Do it.”

A crackling came over Tim’s comm unit for a few brief seconds before it shifted to three familiar voices.

“It’s okay, Tam. Just tell us everything. From the beginning.” That was Dick. He sounded the exact same way he had when Tim left, tired and a little pained. Serves him right. “Yeah, okay,” there was Tam’s voice, slightly higher pitched than normal. “So my dad sent me to find out where Tim Drake was. And I managed to track him down to Iraq. So I’m in my hotel room one night, and I wake up to someone putting a cloth on my nose. Then everything went black, and the next thing I knew I was in this cold stone room. Then this albino guy tells me to stand up and we walk into this big hallway and there’s Tim. And he’s all sweaty and looks super freaked out. Then they brought us to these bedrooms and told us that we’d be staying a while.”

“Why would they take you?” A third voice asked, the snobby tone immediately registering as Damian. The brat.

“I’m not sure. Maybe my search for Tim sent up some flags? No one ever told me.” Her voice cracked a little, and maybe once upon a time, Tim would have felt sorry for her. Not anymore.

“It’s okay, Tam. After you moved into the Cradle, what happened?”

“Tim spent a lot of time training or with Ra’s. He couldn’t tell me much, but apparently Ra’s took a liking to him. One of the inner circle guys turned out to be a traitor, so Tim took his job. I didn’t see him a lot.”

“Who was the traitor?” Damian again, with a hint of anger in his voice. Or was that fear?

“Some computer guy. The Executioner or something.”

“The Expeditor?” It was definitely fear in Damian’s voice. He sounded like a child when he was scared.

“Yeah, him. I just hung around for the most part. They had books. They gave me makeup and nail polish when I asked for it. I was bored, but never threatened.” Tim snorted. Tam knew more than anyone that just because she didn’t have a knife to her neck didn’t mean she wasn’t in danger every moment of the day.

Dick cleared his throat, then spoke again, “Why did Ra’s let you leave?”

Tam went quiet, just for a second.

“Ra’s al Ghul is dead.”

A beat of silence. Tim would have paid millions to watch them right now.

“How?” Damian, his voice filled with fear, and maybe a little pain.

“I-I don’t know. There was an attack by the Council of Spiders. Tim had them lock me in my room with a guard. Some of the girls I talked to said that Ra’s was burned afterward so they couldn’t revive him. No one knew until the day after.” Tam’s voice was shaking now.

“Then where’s Tim?” Dick asked, finally caring about his younger brother after all this time. What a joke.

Tam stuttered a few times, but eventually got the words out. “Tim… Tim’s the new leader. Ra’s named him his heir before he died.”

A hiss sounded over the comms. That had to be Damian.

“Thank you, Tam. I appreciate you answering our questions. You know where to find us if you remember anything else.”

Some shuffling obscured any new words, then Aminta’s voice appeared. “They’re leaving, do you want me to follow them?”

“Yes,” Tim responded, massaging his temples. The whispers were getting louder now, to a point where it was impossible to understand any one message. It was hard when they got like this, harder than when they teamed up. At least then he didn’t feel like a helpless teacher in a rowdy classroom.

Maybe a minute ticked by before Aminta was back. “They just went a few rooftops away. Robin’s clutching Batman’s cape and crying, but it’s like angry crying. He’s mumbling something, but I can’t understand it. Batman’s rubbing his back, but he looks miserable too. Less angry, more sad.”

“That’ll be all, Aminta, thank you. You can return home tomorrow,” Tim sighed. “Our dear friend Tam has done us a favor, so we should be ready for the consequences.”

“What favor? Telling them everything?”

“Not everything. We still have an ace up our sleeve.”

“What advantage could we possibly have, other than knowing that they know?”

“Tam didn’t tell them about my little swim.”

Somewhere, there was a universe where Timothy Drake-Wayne woke up on the morning of his 18th birthday and put on a suit, ready for a day of meetings at whatever company he was interning for before he started college. Maybe he had a party with his family or a date that night. This is what Tim thought about as he busied himself getting ready. He had never been one for birthdays. Jack and Janet were rarely home, and even when they were in Gotham, they had better things to do than celebrate a child. He didn’t blame them. Before he came to the Cradle, he wasn’t worth celebrating.

The ornate mirror in his bathroom showcased his attire: a loose-fitting white shirt, tailored brown silk pants, and a dark green cape that almost resembled snakeskin. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, but he left them. They made the blue stand out. Here was the heir Ra’s had craved so badly. The old Tim would have made a joke about how he looked like a dark prince from a young adult novel, but not anymore. He was the Demon’s Head now. No, not just its head. He was its hands and heart as well. Tim Drake was a demon through and through.

His guests had landed in Iraq the day before, and he had it on good authority that he could expect them that evening.

Tim drifted around the room, preparing for the meeting as one would prepare for battle. His fingertips lingered on the rings he had inherited from his predecessor, and with a deliberate movement he chose the signet ring Ra’s used to wear. He slipped it on and smiled to himself, a snake poised to strike.

Carefully, he patted his wrists, hips, and ankles to ensure his knives were still there. He had always favored batarangs, but he was no longer a bat or a bird. He had left them behind, just as they had left him.

The White Ghost was waiting at his door, ready to escort him to his study. As they walked, Tim absentmindedly ran his thumb over his knuckles. The whispers hissed inaudibly in his ear, wailing for attention.

“Has the room been secured?” He asked, face neutral.

“Yes. I have placed ninjas along the walls and at every access point. Any familiar with the al Ghul child have been sent on missions abroad, though they remain loyal to you.”

“They leave here alive. If they attempt to attack, I want them subdued but not killed.”

“That’s not wise. It will be seen as a show of weakne-”

“Do you think I am weak?” Tim’s voice was as ice cold as he felt.

“No, of course not,” Fadir backpedaled. “But how can you justify it?”

“By the time I’m done, there will be no need to kill them. This is just a courtesy call, a reminder that my prior allegiances are no longer viable.”

Tim swept into the study, his back straight and his jaw square just the way he had always been taught. From birth, he had been raised to be a prince of Gotham, one of the many pretty boys in suits who graced Forbes covers before they could legally drink. He had been bred for greatness, and he achieved it in his own way. Here, no one would ever best him. He was finally free.

Soon you will have everything. All you have to do is make one order.

Tim’s hands shook slightly, but he tightened his grip on his fountain pen as he sat down. The day was full of reports, requests for missions, and invoices. He had been doing most of this paperwork anyway when he was just a lackey, so it wasn’t an inconvenience. It was methodical in its ruthlessness. $750k for a political assassination in France, 40% taken for the League, the rest wired to a private bank account in the Cayman Islands. $25k to kill a cheating spouse in South Africa, the same 40%, and this time headed for a Swiss bank account. A request for a league member to “take care of” an abuser, which Tim set aside. An invoice for new training blades, as the older ones had been dulled. A new Lazarus Pit that was discovered in Iceland.

The sun began to sink outside of his window, and Tim collected himself, drawing the last shards of who he used to be away from the surface. That Tim was dead and gone, and in his place was someone who was finally worthy. If the old Tim was a bleeding heart, this Tim was the knife that stabbed it.

Fadir knocked on the large oak door to signal that their guests had arrived. Tim pushed himself out from behind the desk, pulled back his shoulders, and stalked out of the room, refusing to look back. It wasn’t that he couldn’t show any weakness--it was that he wasn’t weak at all. Not anymore.

Tim walked down the now-familiar hallways, the whispers humming in happiness as others averted their eyes respectfully as he passed by. Aminta stood at the left hand of the large stone throne in the formal hall, and dipped her head in greeting when he approached. Tim took his place on the throne, relaxing into the smooth stone. Fadir took the right-hand side, his hand on his sword’s pommel at all times.

Ninjas lined the walls, all ready for battle at a moment’s notice. Most had been training for decades, long before Tim was even a thought. And now they served him. One lone ninja entered the room, first bowing to Tim and then scurrying up to the throne.

“They have arrived, sir.”

Tim grinned darkly.

“Bring them in.”

Dick looked older than he had eight months ago. His cowl was pulled up to hide his face, but Tim could see it in the set of his jaw. For a man in his late twenties, Dick looked positively weary.

Serves him right.

Damian was stiff, both an heir and a stranger in a child’s body. He glanced at the ninjas placed around the edge of the room, as if searching for a familiar face. He wouldn’t find one.

Tim did not smile when the man he had once considered his brother approached.

“Hello Dick. Damian.” His voice was colder than he ever thought it could be. “You can remove your masks, everyone here knows who you are.” Or they did now.

Dick hesitated for a fraction of a second, then pulled off the cowl. Damian followed suit with a grumble, peeling off his domino.

Satisfied, Tim smoothed a neutral expression onto his face.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” He asked, the words pleasant but the tone as sharp as a blade.

“Is this where you’ve been all this time?” Dick burst out without preamble. It was a shame that he couldn’t exchange pleasantries, even after all of Alfred’s lessons.

“Not exactly. I was in Paris for a bit, caught up with some old friends.” An old friend, one who probably hadn’t even noticed he was gone. None of them had.

You are powerful because you are alone. Others would betray you. You can trust no one. The whispers chimed in, though they were merely repeating what he already knew to be true.

Damian hissed his displeasure, which earned him an evil look from Dick. Look, he’d already been replaced.

“Tim,” Dick began in a gentle voice, the one he used for scared kids. “Come home. We can figure this out. We’ll get you help, maybe even try that therapist I told you about. Or we can shop around, it doesn’t matter. I miss you. I miss my little brother.”

How pathetic.

“Oh, I believe you misunderstood. This is a business meeting, not an intervention,” Tim hummed, examining his fingernails. The cold steel of the knives tucked in his sleeves was a delicious reminder of who he was, who he had always been destined to become.

“In that case, I believe some clarification is in order. Following the death of Ra’s al Ghul, I became the head of the League of Shadows, a position I am very proud of. I will not be returning to Gotham, unless it is for League business, and I will certainly never fight at your side again.

“In truth, Dick, I have not thought about you or your brat once since coming to stay at the League. I understand that our previous relationship may have led you to believe that I would be a naive fool forever, but that is not the case. I have found meaning now more than you could ever dream of achieving.

“Here is my proposition: I will cease training of any assassins younger than age sixteen immediately. I am also currently updating how the League accepts jobs to minimize the amount of innocent casualties. I will waive all rights to Wayne Enterprises, though anything Bruce willed to me will remain mine. In exchange, you leave me and my assassins alone. You will not contact me unless seeking my services. You can keep your Robin, but he lost his birthright a year ago. These are my conditions, and they are non-negotiable.”

The chatty Dick Grayson was speechless. Instead, it was Damian who spoke.

“You stole my birthright.” For a child, he sounded downright murderous.

Tim smiled. “And you stole mine. I believe that makes us even.”

The child nodded, then drew his sword. Along the walls, ninjas drew theirs as well.

“Damian, no!” Dick hissed, glaring at his brother-ward. “Tim, you can’t be serious. We’re family. This is insane!”

Tim’s expression did not display the glee that bubbled in his chest.

“We were family. But you know what they say, the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” He dismissed Dick’s other accusations with a wave of his hand. “I have given you my terms. You have forty-eight hours to make your decision. Until then, I believe you have overstayed your welcome. You should leave.”

Green pulled at the corners of his vision as the whispers shrieked, begging him to go ahead and kill them. He couldn’t, of course, that would just invite more prying eyes to the League. But he could think about it, and that was enough.

Dick and Damian were almost at the doors when Dick stopped and turned to face Tim, his posture teenagerishly defiant.

“I don’t know who you are anymore,” he spat, as if Dick Grayson had ever truly known Timothy Drake.

Instead, Tim smiled. “I’m the Demon. And you should leave before I make you see Hell.”

A second later, they were gone. Watching them go felt like getting an injection--the pinch lasted for a second, but afterward there was no pain at all.

Demon Demon Demon Demon Demon Demon Demon, the whispers howled as Tim’s blood sang, welcome to your kingdom come.

His hands had always been cold. Ariana used to comment on it all the time--how his touch was borderline freezing. At the time, it had been a running joke: Tim Drake, the boy made of snow, with eyes made of ice and snow-pale skin. It seemed now that even in the heat of the desert, his heart had frozen too.

Nighttime was comfortable in the desert, at least for someone accustomed to Gotham’s climate. Still, the breeze that danced across Tim’s skin left goosebumps in its wake. He couldn’t remember when he’d come out here, let alone what for. He barely even noticed how he gripped the banister of the balcony until his knuckles went stark white.

A little prickle of emotion prodded at his subconscious, but he couldn’t identify it even if he wanted to. There was no room for feelings anymore, if there had ever been. If anything, feelings had gotten him into more messes than out of them.

He had become a vigilante because he felt that Batman needed a Robin. He worshiped the ground Bruce walked on because he felt like Bruce saw him as a son. He broke the rules for Stephanie because he felt as if she could love him. He wanted to be with Conner because he felt that someone finally saw him for who he was. He rejected power time and time again because he felt that it was the right thing to do.

But feelings meant nothing. All that truly mattered was knowledge and wanting. And Tim knew more than ever. And he wanted it all.

Once, he had considered them his family. They had loved him, maybe, but they had never known him. He used to believe in a future spent fighting by their side, but he knew that was a child’s dream now--the same child who believed that he wouldn’t live to see twenty-one. Tim had no such concerns now.

He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that the League was his new family, nor did he need one. But they would not underestimate him or take him for granted. Here, he had respect and power, and that was enough.

The lights of the nearest city glimmered far on the horizon, promising happiness and gaiety somewhere in the night. He smiled, a secret only for him.

One day, you will rule it all, the whispers promised. One day, you will be king. And you will destroy any who stand in your way.

Long live the Demon.

#batfam #dc fanfic #batfam fanfic #batfam big bang 2020 #bbb 2020 #tim drake fanfic #tim drake #ra's al ghul #tam fox #no grave can hold my body down #ngchmbd #my writing #read the warnings

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mwolf0epsilon · 4 years

Note

Hello! Writing prompt for you! in your after studio au what about the point of view of the toons finally free inside an unknown world? Do this only if you want or if you haven't already done it. Thank you very much ^w^

Summary: After the studio, there's a lot of new development with the toons.

Another case of getting two birds with one stone. I had a request on AO3 for some Sammy X Norman goodness for Post-Studio AU and I also wanted to play around with the toons, so here you go!

[[MORE]]

One of the hardest challenges was without a doubt healing and rehabilitating the twisted and imperfect toons that had come out of Joey's revolting experimentation. Creatures that had once been broken, feral and horrifying to look upon if just from how wrong their forms had turned out. Pipers, Fishers and Strikers that hadn't been good enough to be Charleys, Barleys and Edgar's, among a few other creatures that had evaded Henry during his journey through the damned cartoon studio.

Toons that were slowly stabilizing and becoming less what he associated with danger and more similar to what they were truly meant to be, if not a little unique in their own way.

Well, not counting the ones that had been absorbed by those who had "donated" pieces into their creation that is… Some toons just weren't meant to be and others were just the missing piece that a Searcher needed to ascend into higher thought as a Lost One.

Still, even after a series of purges, there remained a few sets of Butcher Gang clones as well as one singular Chester creature.

There was also something else that had been a little alarming at first. What Henry could only describe as pulsating "embryos" (not really but he didn't know what else to equate them to) that had been formed from excess ink that had sloughed off from the more stable studio employees.

A process that didn't start immediately after leaving the studio, rather, a few months after everyone started to settle.

Henry still couldn't forget the vivid image of Sammy being sick for an entire week, spitting up ink every so often, and then throwing up a massive blob of congealed ink that had slowly shaped itself into a Bendy clone with the most unsettling pair of eyes he'd ever seen. He doubted Sammy himself could forget the disturbing experience, and was also pretty sure he was a little traumatized by it.

Even so he seemed to almost have taken to toon in as if he were his own child. Not as worrisome as veneering the little fella, but still quite hard to grasp considering his… unorthodox birth…

"Any more Searcher incidents since I've been gone to check on the girls?" Henry had asked as he was let inside by Allison, catching a whiff of breakfast being cooked. Pancakes and coffee from the smell of things. Like a quaint little cafe or the Stein household in his youth. Comforting.

"Not since two weeks ago. All Searchers have actually become Lost Ones since you've been gone." She'd responded as she led the old cartoonist into the spacious kitchen.

The table was quite long, and the seats provided were no longer mostly composed of pillows and stacks of books to boost certain inhabitants of the house. The Projectionist was still forced to kneel to eat thanks to the added weight of the machinery that was a part of his body, but he didn't complain from where he was leaning into Sammy and his height more than compensated for it anyway. Henry could just about see Susie carefully braiding the many tangled wires and thick cables connected to the Projectionist's head and back.

"Uh, really? How many toons left then?" Glancing around he noted that not everyone had come down to eat yet. Tom and Buddy likely both being in the bathroom washing up from running outdoors. A favourite activity of his.

"Three sets of Butcher Gang clones. Two are incomplete." Allison explained. "We think we know who was the originator of the complete set, but their Charley has stated that the trio is fairly happy to remain as they currently are. They are nearly perfect if you ignore the heavy scarring and prosthetics."

"I take it that's Mr. Allwine's set?" Henry guessed. Humming in understanding when she nodded rather than verbalizing her confirmation.

"I recall Mel now that things are coming back to me. He really enjoyed voicing those three, so I'm not surprised he'd rather remain as the Butcher Gang." Susie added as she finished the messy braid of wiring. "I'll miss his jokes though…"

"I certainly won't. He was a jackass at best…" Sammy huffed, eyeing the unblinking toon currently hiding under his chair. "Don't repeat that around the Edgars… Charley and the Barleys will wallop you into fine impish ink."

"M'not stupid." The little imp retorted in Sammy's own voice, although it sounded much younger. Less weighted down by a bitter and heavy conscience.

"I'm not implying that you are, just giving you a fair warning. Socialized or not, those crooks are always eager to pick a fight." Like a parent passing on sage advice, Sammy offered the little wandering menace a pat before pressing a kiss to the Projectionist's neck.

The larger ink man rumbled happily and seemed content between his two favourite people, and even passed a piece of toast to the little devil hidden under the chair. They made for an odd family unit, but Henry was very sure they were happier than they'd been for a long time.

"Sometimes I forget you had to raise a kid before all this…" Henry chuckled, amused by the domesticity of it all, before turning back to Allison. "The incomplete sets?"

"Not a clue. Well, there's one that's just an Edgar, but we know he was part of Grant… Although he reformed without needing to assimilate that piece." She shrugged "The little guy is more mature than the other two Edgars. I'd say he's more of a teenager even."

"And the remaining incomplete set?"

"An Edgar and a Barley. They lost their Charley a while back, but they haven't clung to any particular employee that we can tell… Grant's Edgar has been around them a lot though, so they seem content." Allison flipped the pancakes over as she spoke. "They also orbit around Mel's Butcher Gang. I think his Charley makes them feel safe."

"Good to always have an emotional safety net I suppose…" Henry was at least glad that they hadn't reverted into feral creatures. Socializing them had been pretty difficult considering how messed up they'd been from their failed creation process. Like teaching feral cats to trust. "Anything else?"

"Norman's been leaking a little." Sammy offered. "Not enough to be alarming, but just about enough that we're sure we're uh… Well. Expecting extra company."

As if to prove Sammy's point, the Projectionist let out a choked wet cough, the tube connected to his esophagus uncoiling and shuddering before a blob splattered onto Sammy's lap.

Henry winced at the mess, and gave the curly haired musician a sympathetic look as his face went completely blank. Likely registering what had just happened.

"Ewwww…" the not quite perfect Bendy clone inched away from the drippy mess, while Susie shook her head and got up.

"I'll get the napkins…"

In the Projectionist's defense, he looked quite sheepish for a creature that couldn't properly emote. Hunched shoulders and claws tapping together as he looked down at his knees in shame.

"Lovely…" Sammy pinched the bridge of his nose and just let the blob fall to the ground. It twitched slightly but remained as it was. "You'd think the miracle of childbirth would be nicer to bare witness to..."

"Even if it were the more conventional and biologically sound method, I can assure you it's not as beautiful as most would have you believe." Henry offered with a tight smile as he tried not to think about the tiny inky organism that was slowly reshaping itself into the vague figure of a comic strip character. "And I was there to see it happen twice."

"I take it there was a lot of screaming involved?" Sammy smiled at Susie as she returned with the napkins. He started patting the stains carefully, letting the ink soak into the napkin.

"On my part? Plenty." Henry winced "No one ever told me there's more after the baby comes out… And it didn't get easier the second time around. Linda nearly crushed my hands…"

It didn't take long for breakfast to be done and every single household member to rush down to eat once called upon.

Only now the Projectionist was holding a toon of his own, while he vacuumed up cut up pieces of pancake and orange juice.

All things considered, having a new playmate for the other toons wasn't a bad thing.

If only the little blighter wasn't a troublemaking super villain… His first action was to shoot the pancake pieces out of Tom's fork and the large toon wolf was none too pleased when the little jerk started giggling about it.

Binky was surprisingly the easiest of the toons to get along with, right after Buddy. Outside of the studio, the Ink Demon was no longer a sinister figure that haunted the imagination of those who'd suffered in Joey Drew's nightmare.

Instead he was something closer to the cartoon character he was meant to be. Except he was much less troublesome than the mischievous and often misguided devil darling himself. In fact, the lanky imp was rather shy.

Sure he still looked far too human in proportions, and he was still learning how to speak, but honestly nothing about him was as off-putting as Henry initially thought. He felt bad judging him on appearances alone. Just like Joey had…

And, knowing what he did now, Henry didn't blame Binky for any of what he did in the studio.

The tiresome plotline, the living Ink's conflicting will, and the isolation had been the source of the Ink Demon's violent actions.

A scared and confused toddler following the bad examples of others.

But not anymore.

Not for as long as Henry was here to protect these people and help them grow.

Binky's less rumbustious disposition also meant he had a tendency to opt for calmer and more relaxing things to do. Like sleep under the shade of a tree when the weather was nice, watching the fish swim by in the stream, or pick flowers of all shapes, sizes and colors. Often doing so while watching the other toons run around and frolik like wild children.

Most often the poor guy was the unsuspecting victim of the Wanderer's shenanigans (despite Sammy's constant reminders to play nice).

With the addition of Cameraman, things were more hectic.

Others had lost their own excess ink in the span of the few days of Henry's visit, so the roster of toons consistently grew the better some people recuperated.

Jack had actually come down to visit as well, looking positively happy to find so many were experiencing something similar to himself.

In the first week of living with his husband and roommates, he'd apparently shed some more of his own ink and later found a small cartoon sheep staring up at him from under his bathroom sink. That had been an interesting night for the Fains.

Said sheep was eager to meet two others who'd been formed off of two other members of the Music Department. Johnny Brokeheart, the organist that had once been imprisoned inside his beloved instrument, and Julian Whitaker, the cellist that had sometimes visited the Prophet's domain for protection as a Lost One with a prominent limp.

The Woolly Triplets were happy to be together for a few hours before Jack returned home with his third of the trio. The little guy was reluctant to leave Jack's side, and both he and Theo had grown attached to him anyway.

It'd feel strange to part ways so suddenly.

Henry had marveled at the interesting cast of characters that were still coming together.

There were now three wolves, three angel, a demoness, a living camera, two imps, a leprechaun, two pirates, a living pirate chess, and three spiders.

He could only imagine what else might pop up the next time he came around to check on everyone.

It was truly a full house.

One full of silly shenanigans and exasperated parents that didn't want to admit their kids were adorable but little hellions. Such an odd thought, being a parent to a cartoon character that had at one point been their means to earn money… Odder still how easily they connected with them.

Perhaps because they'd come from them? Like an actual offspring?

That seemed to be the case with Sammy at least. If anyone had reasons to resent a certain grinning devil, it had to be the false prophet who'd grown disillusioned.

He loved the little Wanderer though.

Unsettling eyes and grin be damned, he was a proud da and did what he could to raise him.

Same with Norman who actually had proper experience as a father, and then even Susie who'd been a little miffed that she didn't have a little Alice to tend to, but still took on the responsibility of teaching Miss Twisted to not be too much of a nuisance (she loved her really, like mother like daughter they ended up becoming in less than an hour).

Even those who Henry hadn't pegged as the sort to want to be parents were doing grand with their own toons.

Grant was an exemplary father despite his neurotic personality, and even Bertrum and Lacie seemed fond of acting as an uncle and aunt to the toons. Teaching them things and letting them get away with things their parents wouldn't.

It was… honestly very nice.

Nothing the toons didn't deserve after such a rough start.

#eps writes:#bendy and the ink machine #batim #Post-Studio AU

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hydrangeasimagination · 5 years

Text

Love Like You

Pairing: Dabi X Gender Neutral! Reader

Summary: After a night with Dabi, the both of you wake up to bask in eachother's presence before he has to go. He allows himself to get into his thoughts a bit and figure out what exactly what he felt was missing. Why he felt as if you both were still incomplete.

A/N: I was in the song mood and I wanted to write something to do with Dabi. I wrote this quite a while ago and I just forgot to post it. IDK if it’s that good but here, it’s been sitting in my drafts for like a month -

Under the cut for space

"i always thought i might be bad

now i'm sure that it's true

'cause i think you're so good

and i'm nothing like you"

Love Like You by Rebecca Sugar

Dabi's never been the good guy, played the villain since he was young and worked as one the minute he left home. He was a wanted criminal, a ruthless killer...

A ruthless killer in the arms of an innocent civilian every night, settled against him like he wasn't a monster.

Like his hands weren't something meant to destroy all that he touches.

Like he was just a man.

Like he was just a person.

Pools of blue trained on your face as you slept beside him, head resting against his chest as your arms curled around his waist. The scent of your soap on your skin soothing the racing thoughts that plagued his mind.

He ran his fingers over your cheek, admiring how the light outside the window give your skin such a warm glow.

The reddish-plum marks decorating your neck barely quelling the possessiveness within him. Every time he saw you, he felt the need to make it clear that you were off the market.

That you were his.

Combing his fingers through his unruly hair he huffed slowly and his arms grew tighter around you, drawing you against his chest with a sigh.

"Mmm... Dabi?" You sleepily mumbled, eyes blearily blinking open after a moment or so.

He looked back at you, snorting quietly at your face. He reached and ran his the pads of his fingers gently over your jaw again, the heat of his hand seeping into the side of your neck as he pressed his lips to your's.

The chill of metal decorating his face made goosebumps break on your skin.

"Mornin' baby doll." He whispered, rubbing his palm over your hip.

Rubbing your eyes, you curled your arms tightly around him. Your lips pressing against his throat, enough to elicit a shiver from him.

"Good morning, honey."

He loved the sound of that nickname, it was all so domestic.

Preferably, he'd like to do this all day, resting with you and just being able to relax. Probably cover you an other marks, have your soft body pressed against his. So he could pretend that he was good enough for someone like you, so he could pretend that he was just a normal person.

But...

"I gotta get up in a bit, we got a mission in the works." Dabi mumbled, squeezing you against him.

Your fingers drew patterns on his chest, touch light as you whispered, "Okay."

His frostbitten heart squeezes gently at the warmth on your face, the sweet little smile on your angelic features. Gods, it should be illegal to look as cute as you do.

Fire blue eyes remained trained on your face, rubbing the back of your neck as he moved his left hand to gently grasp your's. Unable to stop smiling a bit as well when you squeezed in return. Thumb stroking over your knuckles, he admired how perfectly your hand fit in his.

Resting his cheek against your head, he watched your hands for a moment. He felt like you were missing something, especially as he looked at your almost delicate fingers.

The soft tune that suddenly fell from your lips was something he was vaguely familiar with, he's heard it somewhere before.

"Look at you go, I just adore you," You softly sang, fingers lacing through his, "I wish that i knew... What makes you think I'm so special..."

Chest aching, he only holds you closer, pressing his forehead against your's. It slowly came to him, became an almost all-encompassing thought. Peering at your hand in his, he said something, something so quiet you didn't think you heard right.

Lifting your head from his chest, your wide eyes searched his. Heart speeding against your ribs, you squeezed at his hand as you softly whispered, "W - what did you say?"

Licking his lips, he drifted his hand upwards and cupped your cheek again as he's done several times before.

He repeats himself, louder and clearer.

"Marry me?"

#bnha imagines #bnha #bnha x reader #boku no hero academia #mha #mha imagines #mha x reader #my hero academia #dabi x reader #dabi #league of villains #gender neutral reader #dari writes #the brothers three side stories

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iwriteunoriginalideas · 4 years

Text

Breakeven [Sero x Reader]

youtube

The long-awaited continuation of Hoodie is finally here!

Hoodie Part 1

AO3

Wattpad

Quotev

The moment Sero walked out the door of your apartment for what would be the last time he could barely breathe, for a guy that wasn’t particularly religious he prayed to whatever god was listening that he had done the right thing. He hated himself for what he did, but he couldn’t go on knowing that he literally couldn’t love you anymore, not when you deserved someone capable of it. It just wasn’t fair to you and he knew it, so the best thing he could do was end what was once a perfect life he didn’t deserve to be in anymore.

The villain from a few weeks ago had sentenced him to a lifetime of suffering when she had taken his ability to love anyone away with her quirk. Sero had tried to ignore the lack of love he had for you, but now it was too much to keep going through the motions when the feeling behind them were no longer there. So why did leaving hurt so fucking badly? Even with the inability to love, that didn’t mean Sero didn’t feel guilty for what he must have put you through by ending it the way that he did. A part of him hoped you’d move on quickly and find someone better than him. It couldn’t be hard to do, anyone, hell everyone was better than plain-as-could-be Sero after all.

He couldn’t blame Shinsou for wanting to beat the shit out of him when Sero had arrived at Kaminari’s in shambles right after leaving you, the two of you were close since high school and Sero almost wished Kaminari hadn’t stopped his boyfriend from hitting him. Nor could he blame the rest of the Bakusquad, excluding Kaminari, giving him the cold shoulder for the better part of a month after they had gone and brought him all his belongings from your place. Hell, he couldn’t even blame Kaminari for trying to be a good friend and get him to talk about why he did what he did, not believing that Sero could just stop loving you without a reason. What he could blame was himself for letting this go on for so long and not having told anyone when he realized what had happened and that crone who did this to him in the first place.

It was surprisingly hard to corner the villain that was terrorizing the public for weeks now. No one had any solid information on what their quirk was, only that whoever they touched was left feeling incomplete somehow and caused emotional distress in some way. It was part of the reason Cellophane was sent to help with the capture of the villain, with his quirk he wouldn’t need to get too close to restrain them. Or that’s what he thought.

Five hours of playing cat and mouse and the villain continued to evade capture and the entire time they hadn’t used their quirk once to reveal what they were capable of and Cellophane wasn’t having any of it. None of the other heroes were willing to risk getting close to them while they still had no idea what their quirk actually did, but Cellophane saw no other way. So as he swung down directly in front of the villain he finally saw that it was an elderly woman, surprising given that she moved and dodged like she was in her early 20s and not in her late 90s.

Just as Cellophane was about to use his tape to immobilize her she reached for his face with incredible speed and cupped his cheek gently. Reeling away and falling onto his back Cellophane looked up at the woman just as two other heroes came up from behind her and placed quirk canceling handcuffs on her before she could touch either of them. The Taping Hero watched in confusion as the woman was placed in a high-security vehicle. He didn’t feel any different. Did she not try using her mysterious quirk on him just now?

It wasn’t until he had returned home that Sero knew something was wrong with him. You had waited up for him like you always did whenever he was out late for work and he didn’t feel the warm and fuzzy feeling he usually did when he saw you snuggled up in a blanket on the couch. It would take him another three weeks before he finally knew what that woman had done to him and what he had to do to make things right.

It was on his worst days (which was almost every day it seemed) that he hoped you were having your best. Even as he lied awake on Kaminari’s couch at four in the fucking morning, he hoped you had no trouble sleeping, he didn’t deserve to have someone lose sleep over him, especially not you, not after what he had done. The phantom memory of sharing your bed had his heart break unevenly and only caused him to get pissed off. It wasn’t fair that he had no love left in him, but could remember in perfect clarity what love felt like before he lost the ability altogether.

He could remember your lips and how you tasted on your first date back in high school, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he felt so exhilarated when you drew him in for a second kiss, and another and another after that. Or the time you said those three words to him for the first time after you had your wisdom teeth removed, and a million and one times after that. The memories were there, the feeling behind each one was the only thing missing.

Sero had his love stolen while he was doing his job apprehending a villain with an emotion-based quirk, but the memories of what love felt like remained. That’s what pissed him off the most of all, it was why he couldn’t even be in the same room as you without being reminded of the life he had with you then lost and the worst part was he couldn’t even move on and find someone else. Sero had tried, but no one, not a single person could get his heart to beat like you once did. He had given you all the love he had to give and when that love was removed from him he had no love leftover for someone else. Not even for himself.

What was Sero supposed to do when the best part of him had always been you? He was never the confident type and he always believed he was too plain for anyone to find interesting, especially compared to the rest of the Bakusquad. You did however and you gave him a confidence in himself that he didn’t really have before and now that he left he lost not only his love but everything that came with it. No wonder why he felt like shit for the last eight months.

He was falling to pieces as the memories of when he did love you tormented him without warning whenever he was alone with his thoughts. If only Sero could go on without the shadow of what love felt like deep inside him, maybe he wouldn’t be so pissed off at everything and everyone around him. It just wasn’t fair that he could never forget what loving you was like and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t love you now.

Sero always believed that bad things happened for a reason, but that didn’t make everything hurt any less. He must have done something in a past life to deserve this kind of punishment. To have the greatest love of his life, then having the literal love he felt taken and forcing him to break the heart of that once love. That was just sick in his personal opinion, but who cared what he thought.

He only hoped you could move on while he grieved a love he couldn’t feel anymore. You didn’t see it, but Sero certainly saw how guys like Monoma looked at you after the breakup. You stole his heart just as easily as you did Sero’s, without even trying. Kaminari had once asked about the two of you when the Original Bakusquad was out drinking and according to Mina, you had begun spending time with Monoma whenever you weren’t hanging out with the Bakusquad, excluding himself. It didn’t hurt him hearing that like he knew it would like it should have if he still loved you.

Eight months since Sero ended things and nine since that woman ruined everything and he was finally going to be face to face with the one responsible for it all. Since he was one of the heroes that originally pursued the villain and aided in her capture, whos name Sero later learned was Rōka Raburesu, he was allowed to see her in prison. The reason he was only doing it now was that Rōka had requested him specifically as she sat in prison having refused to speak with anyone up until now.

Upon entering the interrogation room, a skeletal looking woman with thin white hair was seated in the room, quirk canceling handcuffs secured around her frail-looking wrists. This was the villain that had hit Sero with her quirk right before he lost his ability to love, she had to be the cause of it. She just had to be. With a smile that would have looked kind if not for the crazed gleam in her eyes, the woman greeted Sero upon his arrival, “Good evening Hero.” voice hoarse and raspy.

“What did you do to me that day?”

The woman scoffed and leaned back in her chair, “Heros can’t even do the bare minimum I see. Didn’t you look at my file before coming here to see me? My quirk is called Love Eater, I can take the ability to love from anyone I touch, though in my youth I preferred to kiss those I took from.”

That sounded familiar, a femme villain that didn’t kill her victims but left them loveless instead. It was true that the ones affected by her quirk continued to live relatively normal lives, if not for the lack of romantic relations after their encounter with the villain. She was active well before Sero was born though, so he never made the connection until now.

“Now Hero what’s got you so quiet? I thought you came here because you were willing to talk?”

“My name isn’t Hero, it’s Cellophane.”

“I prefer calling you Hero, that is what you are after all,” Rōka said, giving no room for argument.

And with that Sero lost whatever patience he was holding onto as he slammed his hands onto the table between them and growled.

“I don’t care what you call me! You left me with no love to my name regardless!”

The old woman didn’t even flinch, only looked up at him with disinterest, “And what if I did? Love is not a necessary emotion needed to live one’s life if anything you should be thanking me. Frivolous feelings like that can only get in the way of doing what matters.”

Frivolous? Loving you was the most important thing he had. Sero was about to ask why she did it when she spoke up again.

“My quirk, like all quirks, is not without limits though. I can only block one emotion in a person. It just so happens to be love, something I have never felt myself. Tell me, how much better is your life now that you no longer have such a distraction.”

“My life has been nothing but shit since that day! You may have taken my ability to love, but damn it you should have been able to take my memory of what love is with it! I can’t fucking live like this knowing that I had something once!” Rōka looked at Sero thoughtfully but said nothing. This only pissed him off more and he pushed off the table prepared to storm out of the room. He wasn’t getting anywhere with her and he wondered why he even thought coming was worth it.

“Oh Hero!” the old crone called just as Sero began to walk away.

Halting in the doorway, Sero cocked his head back to look at her scowling, “What?”

Reaching her frail hand out to him, that smile was back, but the crazed look in her eyes was lacking. Skeptical, Sero glanced at her hand and then at her.

“I would just like to shake the hand of the one who finally caught me after all these years is all. No harm in that is there?”

Weird.

“I guess not…” he hesitated.

What Sero failed to notice as he shook Rōka’s hand was the quirk canceling handcuffs were missing from her wrists. He wouldn’t realize what she had done until a few days later, however.

Around 11 o’clock Sero finally came back to the tiny ass apartment he moved into a month ago. He was exhausted after the interrogation with Rōka Raburesu and wanted nothing more than to sleep for the entire weekend. Navigating around the stacks of moving boxes he still hadn’t touched, he quickly collapsed on the couch and fell into a dreamless sleep.

The persistent vibrating of his cellphone woke Sero up in the middle of the night. Taking a glance at the digital clock on the microwave in the kitchen told him that it was 2:45 am.

“What the actual fuck guys?”

Unlocking his phone and nearly being blinded by the bright ass screen, Sero found that he had 29 new text messages and counting, almost all of them from different people in his contacts.

Explosion Boy💥💥💥

Sent at 2:25 am

SOY SAUCE FACE!!!

Sent at 2:30 am

GET YOUR ASS ON INSTAGRAM RIGHT NOW!

⚡️Ryan Reynolds⚡️

Sent at 2:31 am

SERO!

Sent at 2:32 am

Dude! WAKE UP!

Sent at 2:33 am

Buddy!

Pal!

Sent at 2:35 am

My brother from another mother!

Sent at 2:37 am

Have you SEEN (Y/N)’s instagram???

Bubblegum👽

Sent at 2:33 am

OMG! I can’t believe (Y/N) did that!

Sent at 2:35 am

Sero puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeease get back together!

You two were the best thing!

Curious of what the hell everyone was talking about, Sero opened the mentioned app and looking at your most recent post since you hadn’t blocked him after the breakup like he had expected you to. Sero may still have been alive, but at the sight of you in those pictures, he was barely breathing. He had been so caught up with his terrible luck for the last eight months that he hadn’t even noticed that he hadn’t seen his favorite hoodie in the time since he walked out of your apartment for the last time. You were obviously intoxicated and the sight of you sitting on that beat-up old couch that you refused to get rid of even after he offered to get you a new one the day he moved in, chewing on the strings of the too-big hoodie made his heartache in an almost unbearable way. The thing that nearly made his heart stop all together was the caption.

[I’m still rocking your hoodie]

Damn right you were and Sero’s heart was having a hard time with how fast it was beating. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time and he honestly thought he wouldn’t feel like this ever again. Without thinking at all he left a comment on your post.

spiderman2.0 commented: that’s mine

A part of him wasn’t even sure if he was referring to the hoodie or you.

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#Sero Hanta #Sero Hanta x Reader #mild-songfic #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha x reader #mha x reader #hoodie by hey violet #breakeven by the script

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doubledeaky · 5 years

Note

im back to sending you a million requests because those last two were SO FUCKING GOOD (from @deakyfordays) ok so can i get a gwil fic where hes like 'oh u can draw, let me see ur stuff' and basically u draw some like ~nude~ things that are classy but also gets him horny af and hes like oh shit let's fuck???

sorry this took me like a week, but ok I’m an artist and this made me super happy, thank you for supplying me with that good stuff @deakyfordays

okay so you and Gwil are supposed to be hanging out at your apartment, a Friday night tradition between you two, but Gwil knocked out half way through the movie you were both watching and instead of waking him up from a nap you knew he needed you decided to retire to the comfy chair by the window and work on a few of your incomplete sketches

Gwil was aware of your knack for art but wasn’t exactly informed to the extent at which you drew. Most of your pieces were anatomy studies and the occasional full blown piece, a nude model/figure at its center. The human body happened to be your muse and there was no shame in that. Gwil had never seen your art, and you had no intentions of showing him said art.

You were idly working on a self portrait, a very nude self portrait, when Gwil began to stir and grumble from your couch. You grinned, but continued to drag your red drafting pencil across the sketchbook in your hands. You were so entranced in the motion of your hand that you didn’t notice Gwil get up and settle himself behind you until he spoke.

“That’s really good.” He mumbled, his voice thick and raspy with sleep.

“Shit!” You squealed, your entire body jumping a few inches from the comfy day chair. You instinctively shut your sketchbook and tossed it to the side, your cheeks burning in embarrassment. Gwil raised a questioning brow and reached for your sketchbook.

“Can I see?” He said, reaching his long arm over you to grab at it but was stopped when you snatched it out of his grasp.

“Um, no.” You mumbled, his face fell and guilt wretched in your gut. “Sorry, I don’t really show people my stuff.” He seemed dumbfounded and his light laugh surprised you.

“C’mon, Y/N. I wanna see. I promise I’ll be nice.” He pleaded, widening his bright blue eyes to seal the deal. You playfully rolled your eyes, the grip on your sketchbook tightening before you relaxed your muscles.

“Fine, but I get to flip the pages.” You warned, pointing a stern finger in his direction. He held his hands up in defeat before joining you on the couch, planting himself just centimeters away from your side. Your breath hitched momentarily before you cleared your throat and hesitantly opened the leather-bound book.

“This is an anatomy study I did a few months ago.” You explained, tracing your finger over the sloped lines of the drawn figure. His eyes were concentrated, scanning precisely over each line and area of shading. They also held another emotion, seemingly one of admiration and it made your heart flutter.

You turned the page, the drawing a portrait of your good friend. His eyes widened, “Wow, this one is incredible.” He mumbled, thumbing the end of the page to draw it closer, careful not to bend or tear the image. Your grin widened and the pace of your already frantic heart quickened.

“Thank you.” You smiled, absentmindedly flipping the page to an image you weren’t intending to show him, the nude portrait of yourself that you had been working on just minutes before.

“Oh, shit.” You mumbled, flipping over a few pages and hoping he hadn’t noticed. But, he did.

“Woah, woah, wait. What was that one?” He asked, trying to flip back to the drawing. He looked at you with raised brows and your face somehow grew exponentially warmer.

“It was nothing. It was the one I was working on earlier. “ You explained, trying to keep your voice calm and level. He smirked, gripping the end of the sketchbook in his hand. Your throat grew dry and you struggled to swallow the growing lump there.

“Can I see?” He crooned, obnoxiously batting his long lashes as he did. You pursed your lips and considered the idea for a moment. The drawing was essentially one of your nudes and you’d be showing this nude to your best friend. You concluded there would be no harm in it, as long as you didn’t tell him who the figure was. You reluctantly flipped back to the designated page and held it out to him. He took the book in his hands and studied the figure with squinted eyes. Your stomach churned and the pressure in your chest tightened as he continued to scan the drawing.

“Who is this?” He suddenly said and you tensed, your heart stopping in your chest. The figure was unfinished and had no face yet, so only you truly knew who it was. You twiddled your thumbs and tried to not fumble over your next sentence.

“Um, no one in particular.” You mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

“Oh, please. The detail is incredible. You’re telling me this is all from memory?” He questioned, arching his brow and sending a sly smirk your way. You shifted uncomfortably, picking at the sleeves of your sweater and still not meeting his gaze.

“Um, yeah.”

“Y/N..”

“Fine, fine. If you must know. It’s a self portrait.”

“A…self portrait? This is you?” He seemed stunned, and his tone made it hard to determine if he surprised or disgusted.

“Yeah, it is. Is there a problem?” You asked, tone growing defensive and hands just seconds from snatching the sketchbook from his hands and vowing to never draw around the man again.

“No, no. There’s no problem. It’s just…”

“What?” You were growing impossibly nervous, your gut clenching uncomfortably.

“It’s really beautiful. I’m… almost speechless.” He laughed, his speech airy and hushed. Your eyes widened slightly and for a fleeting moment, you saw him shift slightly in his seat.

“R-really?” You mentally chastised yourself for making a complete fool of yourself if front of the man you had a huge crush on. The man who was essentially studying a nude photo of yourself in front of you.

“Yeah, I mean. Wow, it’s incredible. Beautiful and talented.” He mumbled, handing you the book and immediately placing a throw pillow in his lap when you grabbed it from him. You were stunned, did he just compliment you or the drawing?

“Well, thank you. It means a lot.” You stuttered, giving him an appreciative grin. He nodded, watching your form intently as you put away your sketchbook and rejoined him on the couch.

“Bet it’s even more beautiful in person.” He mumbled, probably intending for the words to go unheard but you caught them, every word. He noticed this, the way your body froze as you reached for the remote indicative of that. His heart dropped and he had to restrain himself from running through your window.

“Sorry, that was..”

“Do you mean that?”

His blue eyes widened, your reaction completely unexpected. You looked up at him expectantly and the way you eyed him sent he to his lower stomach. A sudden confidence bloomed in his chest and he shifted to face you fully.

“Every word.” He whispered, bringing a hand up to cup your heated face. Your breath hitched and despite yourself, you leaned into his touch.

“You are art.” He was so close, you felt the words fan over your lips and your eyes fluttered shut in anticipation. He softly pressed his lips to your and a relived sigh escaped your nostrils. You immediately melted into his touch, bringing your hands up to card through his soft brown hair. He whimpered against your lips, his own hands now gripping your hips tightly. He pulled away, his breaths coming out in heavy pants.

“I’ve wanted you for so long. I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long. Wanted to see that beautiful body.” He breathed, pulling your body closer, nearly into his open lap.

“Nothing’s stopping you.” You breathed out, taking it upon yourself to climb into his lap and lace your arms behind his head. He gives you a somewhat shy but appreciative grin, and reattaches his lips to yours. He tastes exactly how you’d imagined he would. Sweet, minty from that gum he always chews, and a flavor that’s unidentifiable but him nevertheless.

His hands are leaving a fire in their wake. Everywhere he touches set ablaze and you whimper into the heated kiss. His fingers dip below the hem of your sweater and you wordlessly pull it over your head. Gwil’s blue eyes darken and his hand immediately begin working the clasp of your bra, eyes never leaving yours.

You let him take it off, you’d let him do anything at this point. He eyes you hungrily, bringing his lips to mouth at your chest softly, the touch pulling soft whimpers and moans from your lips.

“Even better than the drawing.” He says, words muffled against your skin and you laugh lightly. His lips then surround your left nipple, nipping at it gently and you have to bite down on your lip to cage desperate moans. The pressure in your lower tummy is unbearable now and your body involuntarily brushes against his clothes lap. His actions falters and he lets out a heavy, pained sigh.

“Fuck, do that again.” He commands before continuing his assault on the delicate skin of your chest and breasts. You anchor your hands on his shoulders for leverage and begin to softly grind your hips against his lap, his cock hardening underneath you. Your head falls into his shoulder, the friction he’s providing satisfying the ache you’ve suffered with since the day you’d met him. He can hear your soft whimpers and moans right next to his ear and he shifts his hips uncomfortably with each sound, his jeans now unbearably tight. He sits back for a second and removes his shirt, and you gaze at him appreciatively for a moment before he brings his lips to yours.

“Can I take these off, love?” He breathes, his prying fingers referring to your shorts. You nod wordlessly, and lift your hips to make the job easier for him. He removes both your shorts and underwear in one motion and you nearly faint when your pussy makes direct contact with his Jean clad lap. His hand settles on your hips and he gestured for you to continue your motions, his grip guiding you against him. You breathing is heavy, coming out in pants, whimpers, and the occasional moan of his name. He’s loving every moment, watching your shaking form behind hooded eyes. The way you draw your lip between your teeth occasionally, how your eyes close every time he presses your body harder against him.

“Fuck, Gwil.” You whine, feeling the tightness in your belly grow. You stop suddenly and bring your hand to his zipper, desperately fumbling with it. He laughs and removes his jeans without issue, giving you a soft peck before drawing you closer, breasts flush against his strong chest.

“You look so pretty like this.” He whispers, brushing fallen hair from your face. You smile, bringing your lips to his in a searing kiss. You toy with the waistband of his boxers, silently begging him to remove them. He complies, sliding them off of his long lower half slowly. Now, nothing seperates you and him and it’s almost overwhelming.

“Do you have a condom?” You whimper, his lips working at the skin on your neck. He nods, leaning over to fish one out of his wallet and immediately returning to you. You grab it from him, quickly removing it and sliding it over his length.

“Eager, aren’t we?” He teases and you narrow your eyes, playfully sticking your tongue out as you settle above him. He grips the base of his cock and run the head through your folds, both of you breathing out heavy moans at the sensation. He catches your gaze and you smile lazily, pressing your lips to his as he slips in. You moan against his mouth as he buries himself to the hilt within you, groaning loudly as he bottoms out.

“Fuck, you’re tight.” He groans, his head lolling back onto the arm of the couch. You're too overwhelmed to speak, only lucid enough to grip his strong shoulders and moan.

“Can I move, love?” He asks after a moment and you nod, eyes still shut tight.

He thrusts up into you and you fall limp into his chest as he settles on a steady pace, the head of his cock brushing against that certain spot and bringing you close to your edge faster than you had anticipated.

“Feels so good, Gwil.” You gasp, clinging onto him, his own hands gripping your hips and ass tightly.

“You feel so amazing, sweetheart. So tight for me.” He groans, his thrusts picking up speed. You cry out, burying your head into his neck, the stubble scratching your cheek.

“Im close, Gwil.” You whimper, walls clenching around him almost involuntarily. His grip on your hips tightens.

“Yeah, gonna cum? Cum for me, angel.” He growls, thrusting up into you with an almost brutal strength. Your orgasm suddenly rips through you, the sensation sending shockwaves throughout your entire body. Your walls clench around him violently and the way his thrusts falter indicate he’s right behind.

Fuck, sweetheart. Gonna make me cum.” He groans before stilling inside of your and releasing into the condom with a broken moan. Your mouth falls open but no sound escapes, and your body falls limply into his strong chest, the aftershocks of your orgasm still rocking you. Gwil holds you, his hands running softly up and down your back, his lips pressing soft kisses onto your temple.

“Did so well for me, sweetheart.” He praises, smoothing down your hair, pressing kisses to your sweaty forehead. Your eyes are hooded and lazy but you manage to give him a sweet smile.

“There’s my girl.” He coos, giving you a smilier smile. He then gingerly lifts your hips and pulls out, quickly tying off and discarding the condom after. He returns to you, pulling you against his chest, his hands resting comfortably against the small of your back.

“My girl.” He whispers into your hair. You hear him, but it's distant, sleep washing over you quickly. He watches as you drift off peacefully, smiling widely because he knows he’s got the most beautiful work of art in the known world.

this isn't great and it didn't really proofread it, but Im happy I finished it. now back to homework -macy:)

#gwilym lee #gwilym lee x reader #gwilym lee x you #gwilym x reader #bohemian rhapsody #bohemian rhapsody smut #borhap #borhap smut #queen #queen smut #gwilym lee smut #smut #request #blurb #doubledeakywrites

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chapitre7 · 4 years

Text

Alexandria Chapter IV

The Untamed [陈情令] | Mo Dao Zu Shi [魔道祖师] fanfiction

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Yīng | Wei Wuxian (Wangxian)

Time Travel/Sci-Fi AU

Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III

Read on AO3

Against the odds, Wei Ying is a better student than teacher. Or is Lan Zhan the biggest mystery, ever patient to repeat himself, the same words, same sounds, the same movements of mouth, of breathing, and yet can’t bring himself play a full song to save his life?

Over the course of several weeks, Wei Ying mentally compiles a picture book of Lan Zhan expressions. When he teaches, he’s solemn, slowly mouthing every word, as many times as it takes, until Wei Ying gets them right. Wei Ying vaguely wonders if Lan Zhan’s uncle, who taught him how to write and speak Wei Ying’s barely living language, was as detailed in his lessons, showing the position of the tongue and the origin of every sound until they break out of soft lips, or was it just Lan Zhan’s meticulousness? He teaches by example, leading him, never patronizing, hand firm in his writing, in the perfect form of an artist, making sure Wei Ying follows every turn of the written characters. Wei Ying is wrong so many times, but unlike the time when he wanted to defy his teachers, push the buttons of their so-called superior knowledge, he wants to make Lan Zhan proud. So he practices, even when he’s alone, so he can understand others and tell them all the things he has to say, ask all of his questions, and discover the secrets of the world, too.

A whole different story is Lan Zhan as Wei Ying’s student, and Wei Ying swears, he never means to make fun of him or embarrass him, but Lan Zhan should know that he’s most funny, most adorable when he frowns and looks at the dizi like it has personally chosen him to wrong. It’s really not the scholar’s fault; although Wei Ying can read the music sheets he brings from dustiest shelves of the library and can teach Lan Zhan how to read them perfectly fine, he plays like a criminal, rushing over the tempo, skipping over entire passages, repeating the choruses like a spell to raise a fallen lover. Lan Zhan is ever confused, unable to bring to life the same vivid color of Wei Ying’s playing, and Wei Ying can’t help but smile behind his hand at the concentrated purse of his lips and the pleased light in his eyes when he manages to play the entire beginning section of a song, the moment broken when Wei Ying lets his laugh burst out of him when Lan Zhan is wrong, again, looking positively offended at the sheet music then at Wei Ying, proceeding to stand up and storm out of the room.

Wei Ying is all, “I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, I was only playing around, you’re my best student, brilliant!”, until Lan Zhan shoves what must be one of the oldest relics of the Gusu Lan sect under his nose, saying nothing, offering a simple raised eyebrow. Knowing a challenge when it’s thrown at him, Wei Ying takes the sheet music from Lan Zhan’s hand, back straight, demeanor composed, and proceeds to widen his eyes at the inane amount of notes hand drawn on the paper. He hears a noise and looks up at Lan Zhan, who’s very much looking away and pressing his lips together in a fine line. They spend the following hours fighting the composition, “Wei Ying skipped a passage again”, “I know! Because it’s the fifth time he’s replaying it! He can get to the point already!”, “Wei Ying should follow the sheet”, until Lan Zhan’s brother interrupts them to announce it’s time to retire for the day.

Wei Ying learns that yes, the smiling man he first met is Lan Zhan’s brother, one Lan Xichen, and that he really is just as nice as he looks. He never makes Wei Ying feel like he’s in the wrong place, doing the wrong things, as the other scientists do. As Wei Ying takes over every second of Lan Zhan’s day, Lan Xichen assumes the tasks of bringing them food or tea with the same kind diligence Wei Ying had witnessed when he was sore and scared and a bit wild. Watching the brothers from afar, speaking words he has not yet learned, serious things, possibly even about him, Wei Ying is both broken and saved. He’s incomplete with the absence of his own brother, so unlike Xichen, so cranky and desperate for approval, and he’s rebound with the sentiment that this still exists, this kind of effortless, unconditional bond.

He’s glad he got to know Lan Zhan. He’s his teacher, his companion, his friend, a sum of his experiences and more, because he... stays. Whether out of obligation or something else that Wei Ying dares not question, dares not disturb, he stays. Over days and weeks and months, he stays.

“I volunteered.”

A year after his rebirth, Wei Ying moves out of the laboratories and into the personal quarters with the blue walls. He too has a door with cloud patterns, just by Lan Zhan’s corner, close enough that he can hear Lan Zhan practice the dizi on the days he’s feeling particularly stubborn, but not too close that Wei Ying can’t make a run for his door to call him on certain mornings when he’s up early, invoking the wrath of the elders and what he has learned is a reprimand that means running inside the facility is forbidden.

***

“Is your real name Lan Wangji?”

Lan Zhan stops typing away on his paper-thin device, just the tiniest hints of surprise in his blinks. Wei Ying feels vaguely offended. Surely Lan Zhan didn’t think he was that oblivious?

“I thought it was just a word I hadn’t learned yet but brother Xichen uses it whenever he’s talking to you.”

Lan Zhan licks his lips, staring down at the device on the table as if, with a will of his mind, it’ll start projecting answers. Wei Ying knows it can’t do that, as much as he’s certain that it’s not really such a difficult question. They had been strangers when they met, a researcher and his subject, it couldn’t even be considered a lie, just a way to set the line behind which they should stand. But Wei Ying had crossed that line a long time ago, with every memory of his old travels, pranks and meetings that were born anew as Lan Zhan guided him through the wonders the facility studied every day; with every new text they read together, and the sketches he drew of Lan Zhan when the other was too busy to notice.

He’s not even mad, but the way Lan Zhan fidgets in his own self-contained way, staring down at his own flexing fingers, makes Wei Ying nervous too. In his original time, one’s name carried the significance of their place in the world, Wei Ying knew it well. But these new Cloud Recesses that he’s still discovering carries so much objective logic and wonder with the distinct lack of politics that he’s suddenly afraid he had missed something crucial. The thought of Lan Zhan keeping secrets from him leaves him cold, brings forth a bigger, more devastating feeling of loss; if Lan Zhan was taken away from him, if he somehow couldn’t be with Wei Ying any longer, if he was kicked out of the facility, lost his home (the thought that he felt at home with Lan Zhan, a thought that startles him just as much) a second time, what would be left?

(The rest of the world?)

“Lan Zhan?” He tries, voice low, as it almost never is. It makes Lan Zhan look up at him, and even though there’s no sharpness in his eyes, Wei Ying doesn’t allow the acid at the back of his throat to settle until he starts talking.

“Wangji is the name chosen for me when I enrolled in the academy here, and the one I use as a researcher.”

“So it’s like a courtesy name?”

Lan Zhan nods and Wei Ying exhales noisily, letting the tension out of him in an embarrassed laugh. Why did it seem like such a hard truth to tell?

“So Lan Zhan is your birth name?”

When he nods again, Wei Ying easily falls back into his trusted habits, chin coming to rest on his palm, eyes narrowing like a cat’s.

“Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji,” he teases, tasting every syllable, and Lan Zhan’s eyes change immediately, bracing for impact. “Do you often tell your birth name to strangers on a first meeting?”

“So did you,” he shoots back, always the perfect sparring partner, picking his device back up, pretending the conversation is over.

“But I’m a shameless old man,” Wei Ying says in mock defense, a hand poised on his chest. Lan Zhan looks at him like a stern, tired teacher, over a non-existent brim of glasses.

“We’re the same age.”

Wei Ying is proud that he can decipher that the tone is only mock exasperation, and that there’s a slight tilt to the side of his lips.

“Only in estimate.”

Lan Zhan lets out the tiniest of huffs and stands up, ignoring Wei Ying’s laughter and how he falls over to the floor, apparently looking to occupy his hands and attention with making tea.

“We’re out of tea,” he announces. Wei Ying regards him coolly from his spot on the floor, hair sprawled out messily, smile still mischievous.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying calls.

“I’ll be right back,” he continues, pointedly not looking at Wei Ying, who’s now gleefully giggling, repeating his name with no real purpose other than riling him up. Wei Ying keeps looking at the door even after he’s left, giggling dying out into a comfortable buzz on his chest.

Lan Zhan, who could speak for a long time about all the changes in the world that Wei Ying missed, making the complicated sound easy, rarely speaks about himself. When Wei Ying asks, he doesn’t lie or ignore him, but his answers are short, objective, and he soon diverts the topic, demanding Wei Ying to pay attention to something here or there and not to him. But he had said his name was Lan Zhan; exposing himself from the beginning.

“I volunteered.”

Was Lan Zhan a wall to be climbed or a book wanting to be read?

Wei Ying sits up, crawling over to Lan Zhan’s cushion. His device is still lying on the table, and Wei Ying has already seen it being used enough times that he’s positive he can handle it a bit. He doesn’t think Lan Zhan will be angry at him, unless he messes something up, which he has no plans to do. He just wants a peek at more of Lan Zhan and his views. Maybe not a secret Lan Zhan, but details he’s too shy to tell, whatever little piece of him he can get. Was there anything he wouldn’t tell his friend?

His hand hesitates in the air. Then, like a leap of faith, he touches the pad.

The device flares into life without a sound. Wei Ying brings it to his eye level, noticing it contains only words; Lan Zhan seemed to be writing a report. Even though Wei Ying had interrupted his thinking, Lan Zhan didn’t leave his last sentence open, dutifully finishing whatever he starts. Wei Ying can’t put a lot of meaning to the text at a glance, so he’s about to slide the document away when a word catches his eye.

Yunmeng.

Wei Ying halts, Lan Zhan’s report calling to him. He holds the pad with both of his hands, frantic eyes catching only bits and pieces of meaning in intelligible disconnection. He’s a shame to both his master and Lan Zhan, his teacher, too curious or anxious or excited to focus, so he closes his eyes. Inhales. Don’t rush, he can hear Lan Zhan’s voice, already a part of him. Take your time, Wei Ying.

So he starts from the beginning, finger gently scrolling the text to the top. Whatever he had been expecting, had been anxious to know, was not that. He can feel surprise unraveling him, his face warm and fingers cold.

He considers himself great at many things, but sketching is not one those, despite a few art classes he took at the Cloud Recesses. They called it part of refining one’s senses, but Wei Ying’s sharp edges and heavy shadows on the paper always displeased his teachers and disgusted his Gusu Lan classmates, so he didn’t bother with it for long. He did, however, pick up some technique, and combined with his predisposition to doodle, he would often distract himself with sketching, and it was no different when he told his stories to Lan Zhan. The bare trees of Yiling, the opulence of Lanling’s towers, the halls of the Cloud Recesses, filled with disciples holding books and scrolls. He drew it so he could preserve what he knew he would forget, time an unforgiving lord. He thought it silly, self-indulgent. He assumed Lan Zhan had thrown the pieces away, or kept them in a drawer somewhere in his room so they could be forgotten, or maybe had even given them to the other researchers so they could catalog them with everything else that Wei Ying owned.

But there it is, at the top of Lan Zhan’s writing, perfectly blending in like an illustration in one of his books. A lone pavilion standing in the middle of a lotus pond, flowers flourishing elegantly and widely, leaves spreading beyond the eye of the beholder, the whole of Lotus Pier nothing but distant lines in the background. It was always summer whenever Wei Ying thought of Yunmeng, and so it would forever be summer in the Yunmeng others saw through him.

He wants to touch the digital copy of his drawing but doesn’t, afraid of doing something to it that couldn’t be undone with his inexperience. So he scrolls down to Lan Zhan’s text, focusing so hard to decipher the code that he doesn’t hear Lan Zhan return or acknowledge him at all until he sits down where Wei Ying was teasing him just a few moments ago.

Home of Jiang sect, Lotus Pier, he can make out. Warriors of untamed spirit [...] could withstand extreme temperatures, ranging from suffocating humid heat to piercing cold, at times in the span of twelve hours. [...] prime physical condition was the pride of the sect and its people, as well as their outstanding swimming abilities and endurance, making them a strong ally and protector, and a dangerous rival to cross [...]

Lan Zhan doesn’t make any movements to stop Wei Ying from what he’s doing nor does he make any sound to draw his attention. He just settles, drinking his tea, observing the other’s furrowed brow.

[...] When the wind is still, the water is a mirror of the sky, and the pink lotus flowers seem to grow out of a pale blue pond, among the clouds.

Wei Ying had told him that. Maybe not in those words, he’s not entirely sure, but it is his image, his vision. It’s him speaking, not a scholar, not a historian. It’s him, through Lan Zhan’s eyes.

He looks up from the pad, the motion drawing Lan Zhan’s attention from his teacup to him.

“You wrote all this... based on our conversations?”

Lan Zhan nods, breaking eye contact, appearing too silent and small in the way he keeps looking down at his empty cup.

“How many have you written?”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan starts but loses his voice when he makes eye contact again. Wei Ying just raises his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. Lan Zhan exhales, and it’s strange to hear him make any kind of noise. “They’re in chronological order.”

Wei Ying’s eyes lose focus as he tries to recall the last time he talked about anything from his past. Yunmeng had been... Just a few days ago, and the last time he had remembered something.

So all of them, he meant.

From the moment he left Yunmeng, everything and everyone he knew becoming just a blur in the distance, gossip followed him everywhere. Ungrateful, they called him. Ambitious, up to no good. What could an orphan who abandoned his foster family achieve? Meddlesome. The more places he visited, the more things he learned, the more experience he gathered, and the more the sects asked about him, the more they would whisper about Wei Wuxian. When he disappeared, what did they talk about? And for how long did they remember him by, before they found someone else to slander?

And there in his hands is his life, as told by someone else. An assignment is another thing he’s become.

“I...”

Lan Zhan looks crestfallen. Wei Ying wishes the emotions weren’t so clear, that he could have hidden them just like seemed to do with all of the others, so he could begin to think clearly again, without being pulled back and forth between who he had been and who he’s become.

“I didn’t turn them in.”

Lan Zhan’s hands, by then clasped together, clench. Hands that showed Wei Ying the constellations in the endless sky, projected on walls that seemed to go on forever. Hands that clumsily played the dizi, that underlined poems, that touched without hurting.

“I wanted to show you first. I wouldn’t take credit alone. I just...”

Just what? He couldn’t fill in Lan Zhan’s ellipses, not in the way he apparently could fill Wei Ying’s. He looks down at the pad and there’s only one thing he wants. He moves from his spot, scooting closer to a Lan Zhan who’s frozen, not even perceptibly breathing, and hands him the object of conflict.

“Read for me.”

It’s less a request, more a demand, without bite, without resentment. Pressing against Lan Zhan’s side, eyes expectant on the screen, he feels Lan Zhan’s shoulders stand firmer from their slouch, before the warmth of his voice falls comfortably on his ears.

He reads slowly, carefully translating what Wei Ying couldn’t understand on his own. The descriptions of the sects are straightforward but every destination has a color, just like Yunmeng’s, in the stone walls of Qinghe, the harsh, reddened soil of Yiling, even the snow of Gusu. He completes the gaps of Wei Ying’s retellings like he had actually been there, eating loquats in Caiyi Town, sharing the burden of Wei Ying’s freedom. There’s no malice in his words, no rumors, just a naive, hopeful heart that saw the beauty in people and life despite man’s warped motivations and fears and greed.

What would he have been like, in that life? At one point, Wei Ying had placed his head on Lan Zhan’s shoulders, a hand touching his elbow but not quite circling it. He only has to tilt his head slightly to see his profile, long lashes, long nose, unmarred skin, mouth still moving to tell a story. If Lan Zhan had met him when he was Wei Wuxian, would he have befriended him, spent time with him, traveled with him? And if Lan Zhan had been there, if he were by his side and only by his side, so they could rise above all of the rumors, would he have... Would Wei Ying have ended up...

“Lan Zhan.”

Lan Zhan’s voice trails off in his reading; always pleasant, never noisy. Wei Ying touches his cheek to his shoulder.

“The fire in the Cloud Recesses... Was it during your time?”

A pause, then an affirmative hum. Wei Ying’s breath hitches before he exhales.

“What did you lose?”

He expects him to say something like immeasurable knowledge or a lifetime of progress that held the world back. Instead, he says,

“Mother. Father.”

Pain runs through him as if pumped by his bloodstream. All the knowledge in the world to make up from that kind of hurt. And Wei Ying had traveled and traveled and learned and conversed and he had ended up North, out of places to go, out of things to hear. He raises his head again, tracing that profile with his eyes again.

“And still you’re so...”

Wei Ying raises his hand and tucks the loose strands of Lan Zhan’s bangs behind his ear. Lan Zhan turns his head slowly, almost reluctantly, to face him, and the words linger in the air between them, the ends of his thoughts touching Lan Zhan by his fingertips, comforting, but which one of them, Wei Ying wouldn’t be able to tell. He pats his head, traces his eyebrow, brushes his knuckles against his cheek before letting his hand fall. With a sigh, he pulls himself away, brings himself to his feet, and walks to the door, not looking behind to see the expression on Lan Zhan’s face, not stopping until he’s in his own room, sliding down against his door, all the way to the floor, nursing both the hurt and the affection that try to suffocate him.

#The Untamed #Mo Dao Zu Shi #fanfiction #Wangxian #Lan Wangji #Wei Wuxian #Alternate Universe: Science-fiction #Alternate Universe: Time Travel

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lordofassgard · 5 years

Text

Efflorescence

Requested: | yes | no |

queenofmahishmati asked: Request 2 (reader x jimin) - A soulmate!AU of your choice. But the reader already has a fiance by the time she meets Jimin, someone she really loves. How will it all come to an end?

Pairing: Park Jimin x f!Reader

Summary: you preferred pain because you never knew warmth

Genre: non idol!au, soulmate!au, angst, fluff

Word Count: 8k

Warnings: cursing, Taehyung is a dick

A/N: thank you @queenofmahishmati for the request it was so fun to write and i’m sorry it took me a while but it’s finally here. also a big thank you to my girl @jimmy-malfoy for helping me with the endings and for being my #1 hypewoman while i wrote this. anyways, hope you enjoy :)

masterlist in bio

gif credits to nj

Note: This soulmate!au is where flowers bloom on one’s skin when their soulmate touches them. If someone else does, bruises show up instead. I saw this a looong time ago but I couldn’t find a source for it, so if you know who started this let me know so that I can credit them!

efflorescence

ef·flo·res·cence | \ ˌe-flə-ˈre-sᵊn(t)s

noun

the state or a period of flowering

In a world where everyone had a soulmate, it was against the norm falling in love with someone who was not your soulmate. But you didn't care. The idea of having someone out there that was made just for you seemed unrealistic. Why couldn't you choose who you fell in love with? It seemed unfair that you were destined to one person and one person only when there were billions of people in the world.

Everywhere Taehyung’s hands touched you there were bruises instead of flowers. His caramel skin was also heavily decorated, the shapes of your fingertips bruised across his chest and your lips across his jaw and neck. You learned to love the black and blue on your skin that eventually faded into yellow. You preferred it over the pink, blue or purple flowers that would coat your skin once your soulmate touched you.

To you, a soulmate was much more than someone that fate would place in your life for you to fall in love and grow old with. To you, a soulmate was someone who understood you, someone whose soul was intertwined with yours, someone you’d follow to Hell and back without thinking twice. And despite the bruises, many called ugly and the pain they brought to your skin, to you Taehyung was your soulmate. Whoever the Universe had created just for you, you hoped they’d understand.

At one point during your relationship with Taehyung, you agreed that you’d let the other know if one of you met your soulmate. That didn't exactly mean that things would change between the two of you, but there was no need to keep secrets. You never actually thought you'd end up meeting your soulmate, you thought that at some point the Universe would get the memo that you didn't want a soulmate, that you were happy with Taehyung. But, it didn't.

You shouldn't be distracted while crossing the street, but you couldn't help it. Not when you knew Taehyung was coming back home after a long time. He was away often because of work and during those times, your bruises would fade and you’d feel incomplete. You couldn't wait to get home and hold Taehyung again. The path home was engraved in your muscle memory, so you knew your legs would eventually get you there but crossing the street without paying attention was a careless thing to do.

“Watch out!” Someone yelled from behind you and you felt someone grab your arm, pulling you back.

Your back collided with someone’s chest and a tingling sensation spread through your arm. Realizing that you almost got run over, you turned around to thank the stranger.

“T-Thank you.” You bowed.

“Are you okay?” The man asked, concern written across his handsome features.

“Yeah.” You took a deep breath, running your hand through your hair.

With your arm near your face, you noticed something different. Instead of the black and blue that usually painted your skin, there was a yellow flower. Your eyes instinctively focused on the stranger’s hands, finding a flower just like yours in his right hand. You froze, unable to tear your eyes from his hand as he brought it up to his face, inspecting it closer.

“It’s you!” He smiled “You’re my soulmate!” His voice rose in excitement “I-I’m Jimin, I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

You couldn't react, eyes wide and mouth open as you tried to wrap your mind around what was happening. The words I’ve been waiting for you my whole life still ringing in your ears.

“I…” You opened your mouth but you couldn’t say anything.

Jimin took your lack of words for surprise, a hand quickly resting on your shoulder hoping to provide some comfort. The warmth spread through the place he touched and a flower bloomed in his skin, baby blue this time, making you flinch.

“I have a boyfriend.” You blurted out.

“What?” Hurt flashed across his eyes as he took in your words. “But…”

“I don't believe in soulmates.” You explained “I don't believe in the idea that there’s someone out there just for me.”

Jimin lowered his head, shoulders slumped down as his hope shattered.

“I’m sorry.” The words left your lips before you could think twice.

You felt bad for him, you really did. He had been waiting for years to feel the warmth on his skin at your touch, waiting to fall in love and grow old with you. But you, you weren't what he expected. At all.

You parted ways, another apology leaving your lips. The excitement you had minutes prior seemed to have vanished. Taehyung was already home, arms open, ready to welcome you. His hands on your waist felt like needles piercing through your skin when compared to the fuzzy feeling where Jimin’s hands had touched you. But you endured it and didn't pull away until Taehyung did so first.

“I missed you.” He mumbled, lips pressed against your temple.

“I missed you too.”

Guilt weighted in your chest. You knew about your soulmate but you were scared of telling Taehyung. What if he decided to leave you so that you could go after Jimin? You knew you should tell him, you promised you would but when confronted with the possibility of losing Taehyung, you couldn't bring yourself to do it. You also felt bad for Jimin, you were far from what he wanted and probably deserved and yet the Universe decided to curse him by making you his soulmate. Luckily the flowers had faded but you could still feel Jimin’s fingertips ghosting over where he had touched you.

You loved Taehyung, too much to let him go so you kept quiet. The warmth was stuck with you for days, long enough for you to hate the feeling. You distanced yourself from Taehyung and he noticed and kept trying to know what was going on. But you couldn't tell him, so you lied, you told him you were just tired.

But the Universe seemed to mock you. Because when it thinks two people belong together, it’ll put them in each other’s way until they finally realize it. And that's exactly what fate did to you. You started seeing Jimin everywhere: at the grocery store, at the park, at your favorite restaurant. All of this in a span of two weeks. You drew the line when you saw him behind the counter at your favorite coffee shop, with a smile on his face.

“What are you doing here?” You hissed when it was your turn.

“I work here.”

“No, you’re always there wherever I go. Are you following me around?”

“No.” Jimin frowned “I’m not doing anything, it’s fate.” He explained.

You opened your mouth to complain that you made your own fate but an angry customer complaining about the line taking too long to move forward made you change your mind. You told him your order and your name for him to write on the cup. He repeated it while writing it down as if he was testing how it sounded rolling off his tongue. And that was when it hit you: it was the first time he had heard your name.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・

It took you three weeks to finally sit down with Taehyung and tell him the truth. One of your hands was sandwiched in between both of his large ones, all of them placed in his lap. The pain from his touch was barely noticeable since your brain had numbed your entire body as if preparing you for a heartbreak. Taehyung waited patiently for you to say, whatever it was that you wanted to say but you couldn't do it. The words got caught up in your throat and God knows how much you wanted them to stay there. If you never said anything, you’d never suffer the consequences of it. You found your soulmate but you kept it from Taehyung for too long and the more time went on, the worst things seemed to be. You were guilty, sure, but you did it out of love. That had to be enough, right?

“Three weeks ago…” You started as you tried to push out the words you didn't want to say “I met my soulmate.”

Taehyung was quiet for a bit, it was only for a few seconds but it felt like hours. The unbearable silence was killing you, you needed a reaction anything. So you dared to look up at him but his face was blank.

“I’ve met mine too.” He confessed.

Your stomach dropped at his words. What did that mean? You didn't notice, but you took your hand away from his and shifted away from him as you prayed that everything was just one big misunderstanding.

“What?” You asked “When?”

Taehyung pursed his lips and looked down at his lap while fumbling with his fingers, clearly uncomfortable. You repeated the question a bit louder when he was taking too long to answer as if he was trying to come up with an excuse.

“Eight months.” He mumbled.

Eight months? You met yours three weeks prior and the guilt was eating you alive, how did he manage to hide it for eight months? So many questions ran through your head: who is she? When did they meet? Did she even know about you?

“(Y/N)...” Taehyung called out softly when you had been quiet for too long “Say something.”

“You lied to me.” You paused “You broke our promise.”

“You didn't tell me right away either.” He argued.

“Don’t…�� You raised your voice “Don't blame this one on me Taehyung. The guilt has been eating me alive. I didn't know how to tell you but I fucking sat down and did it anyway.”

Taehyung remained quiet, his head down like a child being scolded. What hurt you the most was the fact that there was no reassurance. Taehyung wasn't telling you that it didn't matter that he had met the one that the Universe created just for him, he wasn't telling you that he loved you despite the fact that his soulmate was out there, he wasn't telling you that nothing was going to change. So you dared to ask the question that you were scared of the answer to.

“Do you love her?”

Taehyung shifted in his seat but didn't say a word, his silence was enough of an answer. But you had to know more.

“Have you been with her?” You gulped, praying that he’d speak up.

But he didn't and you were met with silence once again. You nodded even though he wasn't looking at you, mouth dry and chest heavy.

“You don't have any flowers.” You pointed out.

“I cover them.” Taehyung cleared his throat hoping it’d make his voice sound firmer “I cover them with makeup.”

Your breath hitched in your throat and your eyes filled with tears. You wanted to be angry, you wanted to scream at him, call him every insult you knew but you couldn't. The sad truth was that you loved him despite everything, despite all the messed up things you were finding out and the ones you didn't know about (and maybe it was for the best). The sad truth was that you loved him too much for your own good. The more time passed with the two of you sitting in agonizing silence, the more you wished you had kept your mouth shut. What you didn't know couldn't hurt you and you would’ve never found out about Taehyung’s soulmate if you hadn't said anything. Facing the ugly truth was something you weren't prepared to do. Being cheated on in a world where you knew that the person next to you was your other half wasn’t normal. There was no way that you could have been prepared for something like that.

Suddenly, you remembered that Taehyung was out of town a lot due to work trips and another question popped up in your mind. You debated on whether to ask it or not, fully aware that things could get even worse than they already were. But you had come this far, you needed to know.

“So all those times you were out of town because of work…” You trailed off, the simple thought of saying those words out loud, being too painful for you.

“Yes.” Taehyung admitted “I was with her.”

You stood up, putting more distance between the two of you. For the first time ever, the black and blue that covered your skin disgusted you. You wanted nothing but to rub it off of you but it was impossible. They'd stay there for a while as a reminder of what Taehyung had meant to you at some point.

“Get out.”

He finally looked up, eyes wide in surprise but he didn't protest. Instead, he stood up, walked towards you and grabbed one of your hands. Pain spread through your arm like never before and you pulled away from his touch as if you had been burnt while you watched new bruises form on your skin.

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

You wanted to cry, you wanted to curl up in your bed and never get up again. You wanted your skin to return to its original shade, without bruises or pain. But you didn't want Taehyung to see you like that. It was about your pride, the only thing you had left in that moment because he was walking out with everything else. Only when the door closed, after Taehyung apologized one last time, you allowed yourself to break down. Your hand covered your mouth to muffle your sobs as your legs slowly gave out. It was supposed to be the two of you against the world but now you were alone. So how were you supposed to live when your other half had just walked out on you?

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・

Taehyung went back to your apartment a few days later to get his things, no words exchanged between the two of you as he packed up his things and walked out of your life. You did nothing but cry for the first two weeks and when you finally pulled yourself together, you tried to go back to your normal routine. The nights were the worst. The bed felt too big, the sheets were too cold and still smelled like Taehyung. He left the blanket that you two used to cuddle under on the couch and the damn thing seemed to mock you. It was abnormally large just for you and you hated it, you hated everything about the whole situation.

But as time went by, the anger and hatred were replaced by sadness. Everything reminded you of Taehyung, the lack of pictures displayed in the house still brought tears to your eyes. At one point, you started hoping that the bruises on your skin wouldn’t fade so that you’d have another piece of Taehyung with you. And you wished, you prayed that Taehyung was your soulmate and that there was some sort of cosmic mistake. That somehow, the bruises on your skin would turn into flowers and things would go back to the way they were before. But the Universe didn't make any mistakes, Taehyung didn’t belong to you, he never did. Things were meant to end before they even started.

You didn't have the guts to face Jimin either. Not after what you did and said to him. Poor boy waited all his life for you and you turned your back on him as soon as you found out who he was. You couldn't run back to him.

It took you four months to get back to normal, whatever that meant at that point. Your family and your friends had stopped asking for Taehyung. You never told them why you broke up, it was too hard for you to say it out loud. So you told them that you broke things off, hoping to find your soulmates, it had been a mutual decision. But there was always someone that mentioned him during your family gatherings, usually your younger cousins, too young to understand what was going on. And you’d tell them with a smile on your face that Taehyung was living his life, looking for his soulmate, that he hadn’t forgotten about them and that he’d visit them as soon as he could. Then you’d slip away when you thought no one was watching, to get yourself together in the bathroom at least until you were home. There you could cry all you wanted.

You weren't the same person you were before he left and you were sure you’d never be the same but life kept moving and you couldn't stay behind. Taehyung would always be an open wound and you were still learning to live with that.

You thought you were doing better than you actually were or maybe you just built yourself back up as if you’d never see Taehyung again. And what a stupid idea that was. At first, you thought your eyes were playing tricks on you, but there he was, across the street. His skin was decorated with pretty flowers, their color contrasting against his caramel skin. Next to him was his soulmate, you assumed since her skin had the same flowers and they looked happy. He looked happy. Taehyung didn't see you and you were glad that he didn't, because he’d have to see you fighting back tears, bottom lip quivering as your stomach dropped and your heart broke again.

You were convinced that the Universe was punishing you for what you did to Jimin. Hurting your soulmate was probably the worst thing you could and you had to pay for it. It was the only explanation you had because Taehyung wasn’t punished for what he did to you. And there he was as if you were never part of his life. You kept walking, realizing that you had spent too much time in the middle of the sidewalk. Something wet fell on your cheek and you looked up as it started to rain. It was almost as if the sky was crying with you, covered in dark clouds just like your soul. It took you a while to snap out of it and find shelter, a coffee shop that was warm and smelled like fresh pastries. You sat at one of the empty booths, your eyes boring into the seat across from yours almost as if you were seeing through it. But you weren't, you weren't seeing anything. The only thing that kept replaying in your mind were those seconds where you had seen the one, that at one point you thought was the love of your life, happy with somebody else.

“Miss?” A voice brought you back to reality “Miss are you okay?” You looked up, your eyes widening as they landed on Jimin.

He seemed just as surprised as you, his plump lips parted in shock. It seemed like he wanted to say something but he refrained from doing so.

“Are you okay?” He asked instead.

“No.” You answered honestly.

“I-I have a hoodie in the back…” He hesitated “If you want. I-It’s just...you’re going to get sick.”

You looked down at your clothes, they were soaked and water dripped from your hair. Jimin was right, you were going to get sick. So you nodded, much to his relief and he went to get it. After coming back from the bathroom, with Jimin’s hoodie on, you sat on the same booth. Jimin came back from behind the counter and handed you a mug, steam coming out of it. You thanked him quietly and only as the warmth from the mug transferred into your skin you realized how cold you were.

“I’d hug you but...I don't think your boyfriend would like to see flowers on your skin.” Jimin quietly explained as he took a seat across from you.

The image of Taehyung came back into your mind and you looked down, trying your best to keep it together.

“I-I don't have a boyfriend anymore. He found his soulmate.”

“I’m sorry.”

The warmth from Jimin’s hoodie and the coziness of the empty coffee shop eased the sadness in your chest. Instead, you felt a numbness take over as you tried to process what had happened.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jimin asked softly, taking in your body language as if to see if he was going too far.

You gulped, teeth still chattering from the cold as you considered if you should say it. You had kept quiet for so long, hoping you’d eventually convince yourself that the lie you had told everyone was the truth. But you were tired of keeping it to yourself and maybe, your soulmate was the best person you could tell all these things. Right?

“Taehyung found his soulmate…” You stopped talking, feeling you’d start crying at any moment “And he was seeing her behind my back.” All things considered, you were the one he was seeing behind his soulmate’s back. Yet, that thought did nothing to relieve the pain in your chest.

Jimin gasped, it was barely audible but you noticed it. His eyebrows were raised and his mouth was slightly open in shock. His eyes held sympathy, maybe even pity and you couldn't hold his gaze for too long. The guilt of what you had said to him months prior was still there and yet, he didn't seem to blame you or hold any grudges. For some reason, that made you feel worse.

“I-I don't know what to say.” Jimin confessed, stumbling over his words.

You understood. It wasn't normal to be cheated on in a society where you spend most of your life looking for one person only. Why cheat when you have everything you’ve ever wanted? People didn't know how to deal with something like that, just like they didn't know why certain people chose to date someone other than their soulmate.

“It’s okay.” You reassured, still not looking him in the eye “People aren't used to this kind of things.” You explained.

“Is there anything I can do?” Jimin asked after a few seconds of silence.

You bit the inside of your cheek as you thought about it. Looking to the side while rubbing your arm, the soft material of the hoodie bringing you some comfort, you finally spoke.

“A hug.”

Your answer surprised him. You could clearly see that he was hesitating due to your first reaction to his touch. The look on your face, a look of almost disgust, would forever be engraved in the back of his eyelids no matter how hard he tried to forget it. But you looked like you could really use a hug so Jimin decided to push everything to the back of his mind for a bit. He was willing to do it for you. And he did. Jimin stood up at the same time as you and slowly opened his arms as an invitation. You hesitated for a bit, aware of the flowers that would show up and he noticed it. It wasn’t that you didn't want to, you did, but after spending years opposing to the idea that flowers would one day bloom on your skin, you were still reluctant.

Putting all those thoughts aside, you went for it. And you felt it, the warmth spreading through everywhere you and Jimin touched. It felt like a weight had been lifted off your chest, it felt right. Jimin felt that too, squeezing you a little tighter against him aware that could be the first and last time he hugged you, his soulmate.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled while the two of you were still trapped in each other’s embrace so that you didn't have to look him in the eye “For leaving.”

“It’s okay.” Jimin replied in the same tone as he rubbed his hand up and down your back, hoping to provide you more comfort.

The little bell above the door rang and a voice startled you, making you pull away from each other.

“Jimin, I don't pay you to hug our clients.” A handsome man a couple of years older than you complained, yet there was a playful smile on his face.

Jimin laughed, his eyes disappearing until they were nothing but two little half moons on his handsome face, which put you at ease.

“There’s no one else here, hyung.”

The man, Jimin’s boss, examined your skin noticing all the pretty flowers on the both of you. He raised his eyebrows and his eyes lingered on you for a bit longer and that was when it hit you that he probably knew about the entire situation. You took a step back and buried your hands in the pockets of Jimin’s hoodie, hoping you’d just disappear into thin air.

“I should get going.” You turned to Jimin, finally looking him in the eye “Thanks for everything.”

“Don't worry about it.” He dismissed with a smile “I hope things get better.”

You parted ways with another hug, aware of his boss’ eyes on you. There was no promise of a return, nor a promise of a second encounter. You noticed that the rain was gone, and the sun was peeking from behind the not so dark clouds. Yet, it still felt like something was missing. You felt like you should go back and maybe ask for Jimin’s number. Your footsteps halted as you debated if you should go back or not. Without thinking twice, you started running back to the coffee shop hoping that it didn't look too weird or straightforward. Halfway down the street, you saw Jimin running towards you, his black apron still tied around his waist. You met in the middle, both out of breath and giggling.

“I…” You started while trying to catch your breath “I need to return the hoodie.”

Pulling your phone out of your pocket, you handed it to him. Both of you knew that giving back the hoodie was just an excuse but no one mentioned it. Jimin saved his number on your phone with a smile on his face the entire time. When he gave it back, your hands brushed and the tingling sensation returned making the two of you look down in embarrassment.

“I should go back before Jin kills me.” The two of you laughed at this, still slightly out of breath.

“It was nice seeing you Jimin.” You smiled and waved.

He waved back and you parted ways once again. That night, you sat in your bed looking at your arms decorated with pretty flowers. Some pink, others yellow, or white or purple. It was still weird since you weren’t used to seeing them on you, but it was a good kind of weird. Something you could get used to, you thought with a smile.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・

Two days later you plopped yourself down on your couch with your phone in your hand as you tried to text Jimin. Every time you typed something you’d always end up deleting it, nothing seemed good enough.

[You]: Hi, it’s (Y/N) :)

[Jimin]: Hi, how are you? :)

[You]: I’m good wbu? I was wondering when I could return your hoodie

[Jimin]: I’m a bit tired but good. Are you free tomorrow?

[You]: After work, I am

[Jimin]: My shift ends at 6:30, is that okay with you?

[You]: Yeah, it is

[Jimin]: Great, stop by the coffee shop then :)

[You]: Okay, I’ll see you then. Goodnight :)

[Jimin]: Goodnight :)

The next day went by faster than you wanted it to, yet not fast enough. You got off work and went straight to the coffee shop and got there with a few minutes to spare. You lingered by the door for a bit, in a place where you were sure no one inside could see you so that you could gain the courage to get in. You were nervous for some reason and you didn't anyone else to notice it. Why were you nervous? There was nothing to be nervous about. Then why couldn't you just go inside? After taking a few deep breaths, you finally pushed the door open and the little bell above it rang signaling your presence. There were a few people scattered through the tables, unlike the day you were there. Voices filled the air, indistinguishable conversations that you could only catch random words, making the atmosphere a bit more relaxing.

The man from the other day, Jin, was behind the counter and he smiled when he saw you. Something flashed in his eyes at the same time the playful smile spread through his features which led you to believe that he knew you were coming. Jimin was also behind the counter, his back turned to the door as he prepared a drink. He hadn't noticed your presence yet and you didn't want to disturb him so you took a seat and waited. The hoodie, now washed and smelling like your fabric softener, was neatly placed in your lap and you played with its strings to pass the time. The more you waited, the more nervous you grew. You wondered if you were nervous because Jimin was your soulmate or because he wasn’t Taehyung. You decided to choose the first, pushing Taehyung to the back of your mind.

You shook your head, trying to get rid of these thoughts and focused on Jimin. You noticed the way he’d furrow his eyebrows when he was focused on a task and his tongue would peek out from between his teeth. In between tasks he kept glancing at the clock on the wall and at the door. He was waiting for you. What was that flip your stomach did? No, it was nothing. You barely knew him.

Jimin’s shift ended and Jin told him to go home. After Jimin left to change into his normal clothes in the back room, Jin gave you another playful smile as another boy filled in Jimin’s place. His skin was decorated with bruises instead of flowers and you gave him a sympathetic smile even though he wasn't looking at you. You knew the feeling, you knew all too well.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” Jimin’s voice startled you.

You tore your eyes from the boy with the bruises and smiled at Jimin.

“No, it’s okay. I got here earlier.”

The two of you left the coffee shop, aware of Jin’s eyes on you until you were out of his line of sight.

“How was your day?” Jimin asked after a few minutes of silence.

“I was busy the entire day, my boss just kept giving me more and more work.” You sighed “How was yours?”

“I was busy too. A lot of people came in today.” Jimin replied with a smile.

He looked tired, there were bags under his eyes and his back probably hurt from being on his feet all day but he still presented himself as if it was nothing. Suddenly remembering why you were there, you spoke.

“Oh uh, here’s your hoodie.” You stopped walking and handed it to him “I washed it. Thank you for letting me borrow it.” You smiled.

“No, it’s okay.” Jimin grabbed the hoodie from you and the two of you started walking again “Are you feeling better?”

The question caught you off guard. To be honest, you didn't know how you were feeling either. The numbness in your chest seemed to be the only thing you felt nowadays, was it worse than it usually was? No, but it wasn't better either. How were you supposed to explain that?

“Yeah, I am.” You opted to reply, hoping he wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t exactly the truth. If he did, he didn't say anything.

The sun was setting, turning the sky into a mix of orange, red and pink tones that would eventually be replaced by the darkness of the night. People walked by, most of them probably heading home. Most of them were covered in flowers, which made you look down at your hands instinctively. The flowers in your skin were fading due to the fact that you and Jimin hadn't seen each other in days. This time Jimin noticed you looking down at your hands but he didn't say anything. Maybe because he was still a bit apprehensive due to your reaction the first time and frankly you couldn't blame him.

“There’s a place a couple of streets down from here.” Jimin started and you turned to him, giving him your undivided attention “It has the best hot dogs I’ve eaten. Do you...wanna try them?” His voice lowered in the last part and a blush covered his cheeks.

It was obvious that he was trying to ask you out and you were flattered. Your stomach flipped again but you blamed it on the idea of getting hot dogs.

“Yeah, I’d love to.” You smiled.

Jimin’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning and he grabbed your hand, swiftly pulling you through the crowd so that you two could get there faster. You laughed at his excitement as you let him guide you to wherever the place he was telling you about was. You couldn't help but look down at your intertwined hands, blue flowers now on both of your hands and warmth that was spreading through your arm. It felt like holding a hot mug when your hands are cold, it felt comforting, it felt foreign. It felt nothing like the coldness of Taehyung’s hands and the sting that they’d be followed by. It took you about twenty minutes to get the place Jimin told you about and in the meantime it had gotten dark, the city lights coming to life contrasting with the sky.

It was a street stand, with a couple of tables around it for people to sit while they ate. You looked around as you waited in line trying to figure out in what part of town you were. There were stands like the one you were in, everywhere. Some of them sold food, others sold clothing and accessories and all of them had people looking around. The place was crowded and the lights coming from the stands were enough to lighten up the entire venue. You noticed as you moved forward in line that your hands were still intertwined and no one had done an effort to change it. Jimin noticed you looking at your hands and tried to pull away, but you squeezed his hand.

“It’s okay.” You mumbled.

When it was finally your turn, Jimin ordered for you and insisted to pay for both of your meals, which you were grateful for. You took a seat at one of the empty tables and started eating while chatting happily. The lights were mostly neon, some pink, others purple and others blue and they looked even prettier when reflected on Jimin’s face. During the meal, you noticed how he threw his head back every time he laughed and you found it endearing. After dinner and after chatting for a bit more, Jimin insisted on walking you to the bus stop and wait there with you. You parted ways with a wave and a kiss on the cheek and you only realized how long you were with Jimin when you got home. It was late and you were tired. But that night, for the first time in months, you slept well without dreaming about Taehyung.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・

That date turned into many more. And along the way, you picked up on a lot of things about Jimin. Like how he scrunched up his nose when his coffee was too hot, how he ran his hand through his hair a lot, how he smiled and blushed whenever he was complimented. You learned a lot about him too. He told you that he was born in Busan and decided to move to Seoul hoping to find his soulmate and establish a life here. His job as a barista was only temporary, his true passion was dancing. He was waiting for a reply from a famous dance school downtown and as he spoke about it, eyes shining and smile wide, you hoped from the bottom of your heart that he’d get in.

You couldn't say that Jimin was just like any other person you met, there was something there. Something that you never felt around anyone else, not even Taehyung. Jimin brought you a sense of peace. It was different from anything you had felt before. Maybe the soulmate connection you had heard all your life was actually a thing.

☆.。.:*・°if you want the alternative ending stop here and scroll down°・*:.。.☆

And although it was different from Taehyung, it wasn’t necessarily better. The butterflies were there and so was the warmth on your skin but that was it. There weren't any feelings, no matter how hard you tried to make yourself fall in love with Jimin. But you still enjoyed his company, Jimin was a good friend and you were happy to be around him.

You were over at his apartment one night, watching a movie. It was a romantic movie and the main character oddly reminded you of Taehyung. And maybe that was why you were so focused on the movie. Yet, at the same time, you weren't as memories of your old life with Taehyung went through your head. Once the movie ended, Jimin turned the lights back on and you turned to him. He was nervous, fidgeting and it worried you. Something was bothering him, Jimin, who never let anything get to him so you spoke up.

“Are you okay?”

“I have to tell you something.” Jimin said without looking you in the eye.

You nodded and he took a seat on the couch, with some distance between the two of you.

“I...I like you.” He confesses “I like you a lot.”

Your breath hitched in your throat at his words. You knew you didn't love him, not in the way he wanted you, that he needed you to. You still loved Taehyung, so much more than you should. You still loved Taehyung, too much for your own good. It had been so long and although you knew he was never coming back into your life, you still loved him as if he had never left. No matter how much you denied it, how much you tried to convince yourself otherwise, you couldn't let go. Taehyung wasn't your soulmate but it seemed like he had taken your soul with him. You still walked in the street, hoping to God you’d see his face. Everything still reminded you of him. Your heart raced in your chest and butterflies still fluttered in your stomach when you spotted someone remotely close to him.

And as you sat across from Jimin, who waited for an answer, anthing at this point, you felt like disappearing. You didn't love him and you wished you did, things would be so much easier then. But when Jimin saw your eyes filled with tears, his stomach dropped. He knew. He knew before you could even come up with a way to tell him.

“I…” You started, but you didn't know what to say.

How do you tell your soulmate that you don't love him? Soulmates were supposed to be two halves put together to form one beautiful thing. But to you, you and Jimin felt like two puzzle pieces who didn't fit in together. How unfair was that?

“I...I still love him.” You sobbed.

Jimin wanted to understand, but he couldn't. He didn't know what it was like to love someone who wasn't his soulmate. All he knew is that it was painful for everyone. He did everything for you and it still wasn't enough. It wasn't your fault, maybe Taehyung’s, but definitely fate’s.

“I’m sorry.” You mumbled when you noticed he hadn't uttered a word.

You couldn't bear the silence and you dared to look up at him through your lashes, hoping that his expression would tell you what he was thinking. He was crying too, tears streaming down his face, eyes empty of any emotions yet so full.

“I’m so sorry.”

Jimin parted his lips. It’s okay, he wanted to say but no words came out. Maybe because it wasn't okay. It never was and he thought that somehow he should’ve predicted this. But he thought, he hoped you'd love him too. You sat there crying in silence for a while, no words exchanged, no reassurance. Yet, the fact that the other felt just as bad seemed to be a comforting thought. After a while you stood up, hands shaking and chest heavy. You needed to leave, to get away, to disappear and forget about everything. About Taehyung, about Jimin, about everyone.

“I’m sorry.” It seemed like those were the only words you knew since you repeated them like a mantra.

You walked past him, towards the door but he grabbed your wrist. Jimin opened his mouth, for what it seemed like a silent plea. But what was he pleading for? For you to stay? Both of you knew that you couldn't. For you to love him? That was what got you in that situation in the first place. There was nothing else to say, nothing but apologies and goodbyes. So he said nothing, opting for letting go of your wrist and stare down at his hand where a pretty flower had just bloomed. Because he knew it’d be the last one. Forever.

Alternative ending

You looked forward to your dates with Jimin, it felt good to be around him no matter what the two of you did. They were always different and whatever it was that you did, you always had the time of your life. Whether it was staying home and watching a movie, going out to eat, going to a carnival or simply walking around town just enjoying each other’s company, Jimin always made sure you were happy. Flowers not only bloomed on your skin but they bloomed in your chest as well. The warmth that spread through you even when he wasn’t touching you and the butterflies in your stomach made you feel alive. You’re not sure what to call it but there was one word in the back of your head, love, but you don't want to admit it to yourself, scared of getting hurt again.

Jimin brought you to the pier this time and despite him trying to look happy and unbothered, you could tell something was up.

“Is everything okay?” You asked, but Jimin shrugged it off with a smile.

You let him be, knowing that if he wanted to talk about it he’d do it when he was ready.

The place was crowded so Jimin grabbed your hand so you don’t get lost, or so he said. You knew he wasn’t afraid of getting lost, but you let him do it while pretending not to notice the blush on his cheeks. And he pretended not to notice the little smile you smoothly tried to hide while looking down at your intertwined hands. You were used to the flowers painting your skin at that point, it felt nice but now they were making your heart race in your chest. Maybe it wasn’t the flowers, maybe it was Jimin, but part of you was still scared to admit it.

Jimin tugged on your hand, making you stop walking to give him your undivided attention. You turned to him, slightly taken aback by how good he looked under the bright lights. It always mesmerized you how good he looked anywhere in anything. He was nervous, hands sweaty and trembling and you ran your thumb over the back of his hand hoping it’d soothe him.

“I-I know you probably don’t feel the same but...I like you...a lot.” He started “And it’s not only because you’re my soulmate, I genuinely like you. I like to be with you and I like when you tell me about your day and that cute thing you do with your nose when you’re focused on something.” He pauses “And...I’m sorry that out of all the people, the Universe paired me up with you, I…”

You cut him off with a kiss. He was surprised at first but quickly kissed back. It was far from perfect, it was messy in the middle of a crowd that didn't bother to spare you a second glance. But for you, it was perfect. It was only the first kiss, the first of many, and those were always special. You pulled away after a while, slightly out of breath with a smile.

“I should be the one apologizing.” You shook your head “After all, you got paired up with me.” Jimin laughed, running his thumb over your cheek “But I like you too, a lot. And I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it and...for everything.”

He pulled you in for another kiss, but couldn't help but smile into it. Jimin was so happy that he didn't know what to do with himself. You pulled away when you heard fireworks go off. Jimin had almost forgotten why he brought you there in the first place. He remembered when you told him once that you loved fireworks, you always thought they looked so pretty against the dark sky. You looked up with a smile and the bright flashes were reflected in your eyes much like stars. Jimin never wanted to look away.

One of the most important things that Jimin taught you is that everything falls into place. What is meant to be, it’ll eventually happen. He waited all his life for you, his other half and there you were. The fireworks didn't matter, but the look on your face as you looked up at the sky was probably the best thing he had ever seen. Jimin wanted to remember everything, every detail. He’d tell your kids about this day and later your grandkids. He’d grow old and thank every star in the sky that you were the one for him. And you’d be there next to him as he told the story, insisting that it didn't happen exactly like that but the smile on your face saying otherwise. You'd grow old next to him, the only regret being that you didn't realize sooner how Jimin was actually made for you, how you were made for each other. Jimin had waited for you all his life, and deep down you had waited for him too. That day was just the first one of the rest of your lives and you couldn't wait to spend it with each other.

feedback is appreciated :)

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missweber · 5 years

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For Day 4 of @lardo-week - “Memories”

(Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3)

Chapter 4 - preserves

Her senior thesis and senior project were both done and submitted, and all Lardo had left to do was help prepare for the year-end banquet and suffer through finals.

No, that wasn't entirely true, she thought. There were a lot of other things to do, but she was choosing to ignore them.

And speaking of choosing to ignore things...

Lardo switched out her graphite pencil for a handful of pastel pencils in a limited palette of warm jewel tones (plus a pop of almost-white blue) and begin laying down swaths of color.

She had already decided to title this particular piece Still Life With a Fuckton of Jam. The way the light gleamed off Bitty's stacks of mason jars and made the deep reds-purples-oranges glow like a sunset was just too damned good an opportunity to pass up.

It was gorgeous, but it was also so very Bitty. She hoped that one day, maybe years and years from now, she would look at this and remember what it was like to sit in this kitchen, what it was like to hear Bitty's voice and the creak of the decrepit old Haus.

Or, would she wonder why she had thought it was a good idea to do a study of an overabundance of preserves?

No, she decided. She would not only remember this moment, she would show the damned drawing to Bitty and ask him if he remembered this moment. Even if she had to hunt him down in the middle of Siberia or something.

Would she still be doing her art then? A year ago, the thought would have seemed heretical. Now, though, with no job on the horizon and no money left in her education fund if she did decide to go for her MFA, she couldn't help but wonder about the grim—though faint—possibility.

She was fairly sure she wouldn't let it go completely. White space and margins weren't safe around her when she had a pen or pencil—and she always had a pen or pencil.

The margins of her job-hunting notebook were filled with little dinosaurs. Why dinosaurs, she couldn't say, but there was an array of the little guys marching around the edges of the page. Some were stylized, others realistic, and others in a cartoony style she sometimes like to play with.

God, she hoped she figured out the job thing soon.

And the housing thing.

And the life-after-school thing.

Bitty made hundreds of jars of jam to avoid the inevitable. Lardo drew them.

Like peas in a pod, they were.

She got so lost in the drawing that she almost forgot that she had to meet with Coach Hall about the year-end banquet.

The meeting wouldn't go long. The logistics of the banquet were a nothing, really. It was the sort of thing she could do in her sleep (or while working on an art project), but everyone always acted like she had pulled a miracle out of her ass.

She just hoped that Hall didn't mind the flustered duckling she had sketched in the bottom corner of the sample menu.

He didn't, if the flicker of a smile was anything to go by.

"That reminds me—there's something I've been meaning to show you."

He got up and walked over to the bookshelf that was on the wall behind her. "I hope you don't mind that I, um, appropriated this. I finally got around to getting it framed a month or so ago."

He handed her the frame. It wasn't a photo. It was the roster from last year's trip to the Frozen Four.

She remembered, now, how he had asked for it before she had a chance to pitch it. She figured he had wanted it as a memento of getting as far as they had, but now that she saw it, she understood why he wanted to keep it.

Like nearly every other piece of paper that had ever crossed her path, the margins were crammed with doodles and sketches.

There was Bitty, or rather, a quick motion study that she recognized as Bitty even without facial features. She recognized it the way she could recognize him on the dance floor even in dim light and when she was thoroughly baked.

Jack was more obvious, even though it was all shading with little detail, calling out his features in the line of his jaw, the shadows around his eyes and under his cheekbones.

Ransom and Holster and Ollie and Wicky were a little cartoon procession along the bottom of the page. Lardo couldn't read her own handwriting in the captions, but she remembered the fart jokes. Oh, how she remembered the fart jokes...

Nursey and Dex were an incomplete study she had started of them standing next to each other. Only a few details were called out here and there, with no particular logic other than what had caught her eye at the moment. Looking at it now, she remembered how she had liked the feel of the pencil on paper as shaded in a bit of Nursey's hairline.

And then there was Shitty. It was a quick, lively sketch, with a few sure lines capturing the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and the way one corner of his mouth lifted a little more than the other, and...

She remembered looking at Jack's senior photography project after she had learned about him and Bitty being together, and wondering how the hell she could have missed it.

Looking at this picture, she wondered how the hell she could have missed what was going on with her and Shitty. Looking at the sketch now, she remembered the fondness and frustration and sheer pig-headed denial she felt at the time.

She remembered a time much earlier than that, when he announced he got into Harvard and she had to leave the room in tears. She remembered him coming up with a 'proper hockey nickname' for her, a name that she slipped into as if it had been sitting there waiting for her since the day she was born.

"It's cool. I don't mind." She handed the picture back to Hall. If she had minded, she knew he would have been decent about it. But why should she mind? "It's flattering, y'know?"

"And one day, I'll be able to say that I have an original Duan in my office," he said lightly. She got what he meant by it, but the comment sat just a little off-kilter. "Not that I'd ever sell it, even for a million dollars."

That helped. In the end, the compliment settled well enough.

They got through the last of the banquet details quickly enough, and Lardo headed back to the Haus, the framed picture still on her mind.

In a way, it should have bothered her, that he would keep a stupid bunch of doodles on a team roster. And some of the doodles were, well, not great. Dex's head was too narrow, Jack had a coffee stain, and Bitty's legs were different lengths. There was even a phone number scrawled in the top corner that she thought might have been for a pizza place.

But she remembered.

She remembered a drawing she did when she was... five? Six? It was a childish drawing, but she remembered being so proud of it at the time. She also remembered how when she was in her early teens (and wow, there wasn't enough money in the world to convince her to re-live those years) she had been mortified that her bà ngoại had not only framed it but still had it hanging in her living room.

Bà ngoại probably didn't even know the difference between a triceratops and an ankylosaurus, but she loved her granddaughter, and she loved how much her granddaughter loved dinosaurs.

So, yeah. Hall keeping those stupid doodles was pretty damned 'swawesome, actually.

When she got back to the Haus, she checked the angle of the light against the kitchen window and nodded in satisfaction. Even if Bitty had rearranged things, she could still get a good enough read on the colors to finish up Still Life With a Fuckton of Jam.

Maybe, she thought, she should give the drawing to Bitty when she was done.

She had a feeling he would appreciate it.

#omgcp #omgcheckplease #lardo duan #my fic

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the-uptake · 5 years

Text

Only the Vital Ones

The Uptake, With Symbiotic Self-Indulgence. Book III, Chapter 3. Second chapter currently MIA: Go to first. Go to next. (Heavily revised 2019.10.28: Decided the arts and crafts time belonged in Ch3 instead of Ch10, and also consolidated all the chapter parts into one post rather than two.) TW: Body horror, substance use, alcohol, dysphoria, gore, societal cruelty mention. While ‘Choly tries to make peace with everything he’s done, Augen tries to make peace with his humanity.

____________________________________

“In those days, desires weren’t allowed to become reality. So, fantasy was substituted for them–films, books, pictures. They called it ‘art.’ But, when your desires become reality, you don’t need fantasy any longer, or art.”

–Amyl Nitrate, “Jubilee”

____________________________________

Well, shit. There it went again. Or, didn't.

Wearing jaded fatigue, a dark tank, and orange leggings, 'Choly inspected his physiognomy in the bathroom mirror, and determined nothing freshly indicative of his character. He tugged a bit at the fold of cheek skin sagging loose from his chin by several inches, drew it this way and that, and resigned to the recourse of excision. Two years ago, the spirit of verbot chasing would have precipitated this metric of flesh, distortions of anatomy from disguises tacked in place with piercing and stitches, and contortions to slip undetected where he did not belong. His distracted fingertips tracted the series of scars in turn as though lines on a written page. He knew their stories, and compared to them, these recent additions felt more like phrases and incomplete thoughts at best.

He sniveled at the impotence of having had to make such a superficial adjustment for sake of his own clumsiness, rather than in the aftermath of risky enterprises. He'd tried several times to contact the Tellurides after the riots and subsequent quarantine, and he knew in his gut that all three of them had gotten walled up with the rest of the Quarter. And the Geek, and Chalcedony, too, for all he knew. His only solace came in knowing that at least his parents had moved back in together downstate before things had gotten especially hairy.

The dialogue of his connective tissues wove a potent metaphor of collapse. The ragged scoring along his right temporal line. The suture at his right jawline. The bright constellation of pockmarks starboard of his face. The long crease along the left cheek from the lacrimal fossa terminating vaguely somewhere along his trachea. And these comprised just the current superficial evidence of his series of necessary facial abjurations, a road map of scansion and diagrammed sentences etching every inch of him. Though his face served as the cover to his metahuman narrative, in this sense his armpits, sides, and thighs had the most to tell of any part of him. His skin functioned more as a roll than as sheets. Though within limitation, he would simply continue pulling to produce more once time obsoleted the current space. But, therein lay the problem: There was just... so much of it... Still, graceless and imprecise, he managed by hand with the most rudimentary of tools and technique. Nearly apologetic of its entropy, apologetic tissue permitted the adjustments of his detached whimsy. For as much as he could fault himself, he just as much blamed the state of his skin. He was little more than the decrepit auteur of a decrepit opus. He'd lost the sense of his audience, but still he persisted.

So, he pulled the craft knife and needle and thread from the medicine cabinet, and his reflection smiled in intent apathy. Isopropyl alcohol sterilized the lingering must of dust and waxed mint. He pinched the sagging tissues taut with index and middle fingers, and steadied his grip with his thumb against his jaw. Then with a single stuttered breath he drew the blade over each side of the fold of skin, several times, with the finesse of a butcher. Experience had trained his heavy-handedness not to dip deeper than subcutaneous layers: a deeply scarred platysma still skewed his expression of melancholy. Only occasionally bothering to blot away excess blood with a black hand towel, he worked boredly at the newly forming ligature becoming adjunct to the much deeper scar, drawing the cheap cotton thread through the pinched raw edges of tissue with not so much as a wince. Once finished, he nipped the thread with the craft knife. Inspecting his craftsmanship, he drew a lone fingertip along the puckering edges now drawn taut, and licked the blood off in satisfaction. A short ache-twinge tugged his lip into a sneer as he rinsed the towel and implements. With an unceremonious wipe, he cleaned the blood off the counter where the fold of skin had patiently lain.

The ex-stalker Wolframite took the piece with him out of the bathroom on a fresh towel. He fished out the aluminum box from the very back of one of his nightstand drawers, and with it and the flesh he rounded the full-height open-frame modular shelving unit that divided the hall track from the kitchen to sit at the brushed steel table. Beside the box lay his coffee mug, a quaint butcher paper and twine parcel, a paring knife, and his reader on a kickstand. With the apartment to himself for the day, he'd been surveying some of the writing pieces in his drafts, only to absently tug at his face yet lacking the lucidity imparted by caffeine. He rubbed again at his marred face in a dull restlessness, his hands dipping beneath his horn-rimmed glasses. He flinched when he grazed his cheek suture and stood, to pace an uneven gait in the narrow track the length of the apartment which functioned not unlike a hallway.

He appreciated that Cecil remained oblivious to a majority of his habituations. Or at least, he appreciated the impression of Cecil's obliviousness to them.

He returned to the kitchen and pour himself a fresh cup of black coffee from the carafe Cecil had brewed before leaving for work, and he sat again. Then, he snipped the string on the box and unfurled its wrappings. His glasses came off and lay across the table from him as he continued massaging at his cheeks and chin and neck marbled with errant scars and bad grammar. He flicked up the messaging app frame and tapped Augen's active username with a sigh.

Rather than initiate conversation, he took a sip from his mug, then produced from the small wax-coated cardstock box a decently-sized chalky pastel ball. He then smoothed out the parchment with a detached free hand, swallowed the mouthful of coffee, and set down the Confec bonbon atop it with the other. The ball bore a mealy consistency somewhere between soap and fudge. A quarter-inch butt fell to the paper, and he stuck it in his mouth to let the hyssop-like bouquet melt on his tongue while he sank into his chair and hesitated on the various sampling of tasks on the table before him.

He only ever noticed the smell upon first opening the metal box, somewhere between wet and musty, but not quite rotten. He took out the jar. Several pale, murky, greyish things floated near the bottom in the turbid liquid. With a long breath through his nostrils, he took it to the sink to drain, collecting the material in his fingers and rinsing them under running water. Tossing pieces that met his satisfaction onto a fresh black towel on the table, he returned the other pieces to the bottom of the jar, adding the newest piece of flesh. The box fashioned a kit of sorts, and from it he used a set of measuring spoons to add two different white powders to the jar. After filling it up with fresh water and tightening the lid, he shook it vigorously, then set it in front of him on the table to sit and dully watch the alum and ammonia salts dissolve around the hunks like a revolting snowglobe.

As the gloss washed over him, the Wolframite pulled the folded up towel from the top of the stack in the box and set it beside the still wet pieces he'd separated from the jar. He unfolded the older towel and detachedly patted at the material that it had contained. The scrap of fresh leather, roughly now a four inch square, was sufficiently dry, so he produced the patchwork from the very bottom of the box, and unfolded three and a half years' work in his lap. Saliva stuck in his throat as his hands ran over it. Each patch bore its own unique scars from all previous excisions, a continuum of every time before it since October 2052. There were enough pieces sewn together that he couldn't recall everything they had to say anymore. He used the thin cord and upholstery needle from the box to tie the patch onto the edge he thought its shape fit best against.

Why do I do this with the pieces? After a pause trying to form an answer, 'Choly's shoulders rolled in a noncommittal shrug. "Well what else am I supposed to do with them?"

It had always felt so uniquely deranged and grotesque to simply throw human flesh in the trash.

He stood and laid the full thing out in the floor in front of the daybed. He hadn't unfurled it in entirety in months, and the visual of the sheer amount of skin which comprised it overwhelmed him. He estimated nearly two square meters lay before him where he knelt, though his estimations were exactly just that, never having worked in any deliberate proportion, just adding on wherever he grabbed the stuff each time. The tapestry was so disfigured, so monstrous, so revolting. Throttled in the dialectic of Caliban, he recoiled at his inability to do anything but approximate himself to this thing he'd fabricated. And just as abruptly, his only recourse was to get rid of it.

A cold chill cut through the veneer of his slice of Confec. He couldn't bring himself to dismantle the thing. Instead, he quickly folded it back up and returned it to the box beside the haphazard tanning kit, then returned the box to its hiding place in his nightstand.

He'd figure out what to do with it later.

Knowing he was too far gone to write, he woke up his reader screen hoping Augen was still around to distract him from himself.

ketherphorbia: you’re up early 9augen: funny, i was just about to message you. not at the library today? ketherphorbia: no, and i’m not getting anywhere with what i was trying to do so you have my full attention 9augen: how does meeting up for lunch sound? ketherphorbia: i ketherphorbia: i just started in on a fresh confec bonbon, but yeah 9augen: the finnegans across the street from your old place? its on me ketherphorbia: something tells me you’re just looking for an excuse to milk their one-cred goldfinch lunch special 9augen: if you want a few, just say so. can you be there in... what. an hour? ketherphorbia: it honestly sounds fantastic. we can both talk. if you want

Still rattled from the abrupt invitation, ‘Choly put the knife in the sink and rounded the modular divider to rummage in the other nightstand drawers for something to throw on. First came his back brace, splints, and wrist braces, and he yanked together his salmon button-up, black sweater with the elbows cut out, and slashed jeans over the orange leggings. Taking his jewelry box into the bathroom, he then brushed his bangtails and tucked the right side back with his ABC-gum barrette. He hooked his new black acrylic skull-cutout gauge hangers into his ears, and plucked his balloon animal and saturn-symbol pendants to string around his neck. The spoon pin went in his left collar-point, and he sat on the daybed for his socks. On the way out the door, he tucked the wax paper wrapped Confec into his diamond-shaped cross-body bag and nabbed his cane, retrieved his glasses, and slipped into his mint creepers.

Along the short trip down to Level 5, he shot Cecil a short message:

|| Might not be home when you get off work. Augen invited me to lunch. He hasn’t said hardly a word since it happened, and I get the feeling he needs a friend right now. ||

Cecil replied to him as ‘Choly waved his pass and boarded the toll lift:

|| I can only imagine how hard it’s been for him. Hope he’s doing ok. You two have a good time. Expect me late. Love you. Give him a kiss for me ||

With a chuckle and a fish emoticon, ‘Choly exited the lift and hobbled down the street. He texted Augen that he'd arrived, asking where to meet him, because at first he didn't see him outside. Leaning on the front façade of the Finnegan’s, a tall gothic figure smoked religiously. The younger man with dark hair pulled into a low messy bun wore a black button-down and drop-crotch pants, a dark grey knee-length gauzy vest, a large black shawl-scarf wrapped around his shoulders and neck, and mesh boots. Upon closer inspection, the combination of facial body mods--spider bites, gauged one-inch ears and 2ga medusa each with glass plugs, symmetrical double brow piercings, and batwing clicker--confirmed for ‘Choly that this was his friend. Somehow, even with his suspicion as to why Augen had initiated the meeting, he’d still expected to find him his old self, and not this anxious chain-smoking human mess. It stuck in his throat, to know his friend had silently suffered in his humanity for the past six weeks. Augen rolled his eyes at him, having just checked his messages.

“Word of warning, I’m a bit thrushed right now,” 'Choly blurted out. Rather than respond, Augen leaned down and steadied ‘Choly’s chin to give him a kiss. ‘Choly smiled strangely and reciprocated with a second peck, then navigated the awkward posture into a hug as he tucked his head against Augen’s chest. It unnerved 'Choly that his friend was no longer cold-blooded, no longer clammy and tepid, but he kept it to himself. “...Hello to you, too.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” Augen rubbed at ‘Choly’s scruff and held the door for him. He eyed ‘Choly’s sweater dully in passing. “Don’t Quit Your Daydream, huh?”

‘Choly looked down at the saying printed on his front once they’d cleared the atrium, and his brows upturned.

“Hah, maladaptive daydreaming. Had it for years. I just kinda threw something on so I wouldn’t run late.”

“Daydream... into a living nightmare...”

With the detached comment, Augen picked a seat for them right in the middle of the bustling lunchtime venue. Marinating in his dissociative veneer, ‘Choly swallowed hard at the prospect of purposefully navigating his mental filter. With a series of finger gestures along the tabletop which doubled as a touchscreen menu, both ordered pinzones dorados and got to glancing over their options in silence. The server, a young brunet named Bert, promptly came and left with their drinks, as well as a basket of multicolored meal-rinds and two dishes of salsa. 'Choly sipped at his golden glowing pinzón, a smooth over-ice mix of tonic, hydroponic mezcal, triple sec, and lime liqueur, and mentally praised the facility with which one could get drunk at any hour in this city.

“So... this is a thing now.” ‘Choly got a rind real heavy with salsa and shoved it in his mouth.

Augen knocked back half his liquor in one motion, and slouched over it.

“I’d lived myself so fully, that I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be human. I’ve missed smoking, if we’re looking for an upside to all this.”

“There’s gotta be a way t’get back what you had. At least some of it?”

“That’s... just about the last thing I want to talk about right now. Past tense doesn’t feel so great.”

They used their mouths to crunch rinds and nothing else. Augen took a hit off the cig around his neck, and with a deep exhale he shut his sunken eyes, the vapors entangling with the odd abstract light fixture over the table. Once they'd placed their orders, 'Choly did his best to people watch behind a zoned out Augen, mostly observing the rotation of three servers popping in and out of the kitchen door with dishes. When a couple that sat on the same side of their far-corner booth thought 'Choly gawked at their unapologetic PDAs and gave him a stink-eye, he coughed, and started trying to read the pattern of scrapbooked web articles which plastered every wall and the ceiling of the restaurant. The theme of all the articles painted up Tri-City's sheer melting pot culture as a fusion city, boasting a collage of articles about people from just about every level in the hyper-metroplex.

Bert interrupted their silence with their meals, and 'Choly squirmed back to give the server the space to lay it out on the table. The teen couldn't hide a sigh of relief as he picked up one plate, and glanced between the both of them.

"Who ordered the wraps?"

Augen gave him a lazy hand gesture, and the plate slid over to him. On Augen’s plate of spring wraps lay six large seared shrimp. Sliced in half both for presentation and facility, the three girthy wraps were stuffed with a combination of mushroom slices, seaweed, and fried mealworms.

"And then, the benedict's yours. Extra sauce?"

"Yes, thank you," 'Choly lauded with a heavily modulated affect, as the other mess of a plate came his way. A viscous pale yellow-green mess blanketed two nondescript mounds of protein and bread, and along its side the cook had scattered soft, colorful citrus gummies. "So glad I can still get breakfast here this late."

"Is there anyth--" Bert broke off, unable not to stare at Augen, as he fished out a pair of napkin-rolled utensils to give them. Augen returned the stare, deadpan. "...Spring wraps, and a side order of shrimp. It is you."

‘Choly gave the poor boy a glossy smile, about to praise how good it all looked, but he quickly drooped in recognition of the tension.

“So I took a bath today,” Augen dismissed, total fatigue in his voice. “Big deal.”

‘Choly coughed, cataract-bloom eyes wide as he took a stiff sip. Setting the pinzón back down, he tried to smile up at the waiter again, his voice cracking. "Could we get more rinds?"

The waiter shook his head and shut his eyes, then nodded.

“--Sure thing.”

“And we already need another round of birds.” Augen traced the edge of the faded glass with one black-polished finger and a heavy-lidded, eyelined smirk.

The server flashed him a fake grin, poorly hiding his revelry that the city had defanged the loathsome goth.

“I’ll be right back.”

‘Choly fought with the self-conscious selfishness of directing the conversation to himself, but still he persisted, hoping to distract his friend from getting recognized by his typical order. ‘Choly unrolled his flatware to tuck the napkin beside his plate, and took up the table knife and fork with zeal. He didn’t want to admit it, but as had become typical in the past few weeks, the only thing he’d put in his stomach so far by that time of day was a slice of wax and a cup of coffee. Augen took precise bites, holding his food gingerly with thoroughly ring-encrusted hands. His face stitched with a faint sweat which could have been from stress, the heat of the food, or even mounting enebriation. 'Choly observed in distant and fascinated contemplation, unsure whether his friend derived his mannerisms from humanity or the vestiges of having so recently once been a hybrid. Augen shot him a vague glance, and he cringed from getting caught watching. ‘Choly pushed the sauce-drenched larva-hash back up on the one round bready thing he’d been cutting bites from, sheepish.

“If you don’t wanna talk about it, there’s gotta be something you can do to take your mind off it instead? Have you tried... writing, since...?”

Augen finished off the first drink right when Bert swung by two replacements and more rinds and salsa. ‘Choly hadn’t even drunk half of his first pinzón yet, and he nudged his new one his friend’s way, knowing the rate this meal was going.

“Most of the time,” the goth mumbled, welcoming the offer, “my writing takes a particular head space. And I sure as fuck haven’t been in it.”

“I mean, like. Not in a carnal sense. Sort of in a carnal sense. An emotional sense? A purgative sense?��

Augen kept his eyes on his food, but his ears patently on his friend. ‘Choly’s hallmark withdrawn posture and tone signaled vague, incumbent rambling. With welcome resignation the goth listened, as he’d aspired from the start. After all, ‘Choly always had been the long-winded one of them.

“You... You remember how I was writing stories about me gettin’ with the Geek, but then I stopped abruptly? The last wip I posted before I stopped was right after I found out that the Geek and the Larva were the same person. Early on, the reasons I couldn’t reconcile with finishing the piece were ‘cause of how badly my first encounter with him went, but then fantasy turned into reality and he... caught me stalkin’ him and. You remember that right?” ‘Choly fished his reader from his bag, and tried to locate a picture in his camera roll. “I know I sent you a selfie of the black eye he gave me...”

“...You couldn’t shut up about it for a month. Heh.”

‘Choly looked up from his reader with a dull gloss to his features, and sniffed.

“He even tracked me down, what, five weeks later? An’ things got super weird--" He chewed at his labret. "...I’m still trying to process everything that happened two years ago.”

“This is about the walls, isn’t it.”

“Not quite. And yet. Exactly. I just. I owe it to him to get the details right, don’t I? It feels real lousy to even consider writing a nonfictional account of him, and yet.” He popped an orange gummy in his mouth, and licked the thick, tangy sauce off his swan-splinted fingertip. “I feel like I need to get the very concept of him in print, to get it out from inside of me. I know it’s already been two years since the walls went up, but I don’t think it’s possible for me to forget all that... death, even for a day.” A grapefruit one, this time. “How do you stay motivated to write something that hurts and arouses you, both in ways nothing else has ever really managed to?”

Augen dipped a spring roll in his salsa, and started working on the third drink. Not glancing up from his food, his brows piqued with heavy lids.

“A difficult question. Perhaps a better reply would be another question: Who’re you writing this for?”

‘Choly set down his utensils and stared down his food.

“I’d say it was for me, but I feel like I need to put his ghost to rest. I’d say it was for him, but it’s also in hopes of jamming my brain because something more accurate could exist of him than anything I’ve written of him prior. And I’d... say it was for you, or any of my followers, but I... don’t even know if I can bring myself to post the results.” The dreg sneaked the Confec from his bag and set it beside his plate. “I... I gotta have another slice.”

That got Augen’s attention.

“Mmh. Mind sharing?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

‘Choly sliced through the partial ball a few times with his thumbs against the spine of the knife, and Augen reached over to help himself to one. Wincing at the bitterness, he chewed it up and washed it down with more liquor. 'Choly simply slouched back and let the stringent melt go for a few minutes, thinking it nearly paired with the citrus cubes.

“Cecil knows about us,” Augen began, eyes stitched shut, “but you never did tell Cecil about the Geek, did you? Have you ever wanted to?”

“I told him about Chalcedony. And he may not have said anything, but I know he knows about me an’ the Geek. Can’t not. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how open he is to it all. It’s like he believes leaving me untethered keeps me more faithful. He’s... not wrong, I guess.” ‘Choly looked up when he heard Augen stifle a choke, and suddenly he regretted sharing. His friend’s face was glistening, grey eyes wide. “Are you-- all right?”

Bert paused in passing, noticing Augen's demeanor.

“How’s everything tasting so far?” the waiter interjected.

“Don't mind him." 'Choly quickly stashed the Confec back in his bag, unsure whether having it would cause them trouble. "--I think something just went down the wrong way.”

The boy frowned at the Augen, who blanched and rubbed at his Adam’s apple a bit. On cue, Augen forced a cough.

“I... It's nothing," the goth uttered.

Augen tapped a finger on his glass, not looking to Bert, and the waiter plucked up their empty glasses with a nod and excused himself, shaking his head in delirious incredulity at what had become of their once most troublesome patron.

“Seriously... Are you okay? You know you’re supposed to let that stuff dissolve in your mouth.”

Rather than reply, the goth snatched one of ‘Choly’s wristbraced hands in both of his own, and guided it to hold his strained throat. He sustained breathless, tormented eye contact.

“It's wearing off faster than I was planning. Thought, for sure I'd at least get to slagging finish eating. I'll... I'll take it.”

“Wh--” ‘Choly tried to pull his hand back when Augen tipped his head back and lolled his eyes ever so slightly, but Augen held fast. The musculature writhed. “The f--”

“Here you go,” Bert tried, nudging the fresh drinks onto the table to interrupt purposefully. Augen glanced up at him in a pained sweat, and the boy squirmed. “I--”

“Thank... you,” the goth rasped. He finally let go of ‘Choly and inhaled the fresh drink in a single motion, and when he slammed down the glass a little too hard, Bert jumped and left. ‘Choly rubbed his hand at his pants to dry the clamminess, and fretted.

“Did you... Are you...” ‘Choly glared at his friend who increasingly failed at holding it together. “The fuck is in your cig cartridge?”

At a whisper, Augen leaned in close with a shrimp in hand, still struggling to eat despite everything.

“Gather your things where you can just... grab them easy... and play along.”

“Fuck, Augen. Did you really have to get this high while we were eating?” While he complied, ‘Choly’s face slacked loose about his face. “You’re tryin’ to pile it on with somethin’ to take the place of the vampire grafting. That’s what this is. What did you--”

Augen put a trembling finger to his own mouth and hushed him in exasperation, then slyly removed most of his rings to pocket them in the sash of his drop-crotch pants.

“Tch, wait for it...”

Hands clenching his temples, the goth stared a hole in the food between them. With an abrupt stifled seizing up, his head jerked back, and his neck musculature split at the seams to burst with intricate, familiar structures. He groan-choked as his ears pointed and flared out. He hunched over to clutch his stomach, and with a clatter of dishes, he spilled forward like a canned worm as his spine cracked and doubled in length. Despite that increasingly recognizable, panting face now inches from ‘Choly’s, the dreg could only stare in a dull slack gloss, transfixed on every high-definition hyper-detail of the rapid mutations which transpired before him.

The rest of Augen’s grafted features caught up rapidly. His webbed, clawed fingers wrapped around the far edges of the table as he craned across it, and he raked off half the dishes which shattered in the floor as he continued to writhe in asphyxiating agony. He gnashed his jaw as the bone wasted into cartilage, and his lips pursed tight before snapping wide into a prominence of concentric thorns. His disgustingly vascular skin exuded a gelatinous mucus and fell semi-translucent as it shifted to bear respiratory function. His throat punctured in two rows to either side of his trachea, aligning the second set of gills. He flared his flourished nostrils and panted and heaved, clouding scleric eyes escaping into his lids in tortured bliss.

As if the clatter hadn’t gotten all the patrons’ and staff’s attention, Augen let out a gurgled shriek. ‘Choly finally remembered to flinch and tried to shove him away, but Augen grabbed him by the wrist with a glare and demonstrated his now exaggerated neck by cracking it. The fish jerked and he looked behind him to see a patron still aimed their pneumatic gun at him. He brushed a tranq dart from his lower back and slowly closed his mouth into a broad, dopey smile. Before ‘Choly knew it, the vampire had snatched him up and rushed for the front door. On the way out, he flung ‘Choly, belongings and all, into the lender’s wheelchair, and scrambled away as fast as he could.

"APRIL FOOL'S, BUGDICK!" Augen cackled hoarsely.

A coiled wobbly noodle speeding heartily down the street, he jerked left and right as he wound his way down ramps, a calculated and familiar escape route. The speed they’d achieved rattled the chair’s caster wheels, and ‘Choly clenched his teeth, the Confec robbing him of rightful sobbing when the fish tilted the chair back to compensate.

“We’re coming up on wheelchair-inaccessible territory soon. I'll admit I didn't think things through this far. I’m gonna need you to... do the skin thing. Totally slack. And... hold onto me for dear life.”

They rounded to the dismount, and ‘Choly’s head pounded as Augen plucked him up and the chair went flying off the edge of the street to eventually land in the bay. Reminiscent of a dance-dip, he flung ‘Choly around him like a sloppy backpack and kept running, ‘Choly’s cane in one hand and both ‘Choly’s forearms in the other. With a sharp duck into a side alley, they lost the three treadless-motorbike police who’d trailed them. Catching his breath slowly, Augen hugged the wall and walked backwards for a ways before he turned forward and descended a series of poorly neon-lit stairs. ‘Choly groaned. His head swam like he'd gone over with the wheelchair.

“Was that... entirely... necessary...”

After passing through a pair of wired-windowed doors, Augen set ‘Choly down against the wall of the alley-hall, and gave him back his cane once he’d reset his joints. Then, the vampire produced a canteen and drenched his face, neck, and shoulders.

“Explicitly.” Augen let out a slow, hearty chuckle. "Slag it all, that was fantastic."

“Where are we even going...? Level Four starts soon. We go deep enough into this alley, we’re gonna hit the quarantine.” No response followed. “I’m not getting an explanation until we get there, am I.”

Augen put up the portable water he’d had ready from the start, and tucked his gills into the now damp scarf-shawl. He held out his webbed hand in offer to piggyback ‘Choly again.

"Mmh, it's a few flights until there's an access elevator that still runs lower than Level 5. I'll continue carrying you, if it's too much for you. And you want me to."

"I feel like I'm going to regret turning down an offer like that."

Augen hoisted him back up across his shoulders. Nothing but fluorescent red lighting illuminated the next access tunnel, the hollow echo of the abandoned mid-level alleyway deeply claustrophobic. 'Choly sank his face into the vampire’s shoulder, and over time the biodrug harmonized with the rhythmic descent down next case of stairs, and soothed him into a total detachment from reality.

"Look to your right."

Augen tapped at the forearms he held around his neck. 'Choly picked his head up and did as directed, finding he'd passed out long enough that they now traversed a different corridor entirely. Bright yellow graffiti dripped along the long corridor.

WE'RE STILL DOWN HERE AND THE AIR'S JUST FINE

The more 'Choly took in of the wall, the more he realized similar graffiti had accumulated all throughout this passage, a technicolor synecdoche of the ghosts which resided a hundred yards beneath their feet.

"It wasn't my primary intention to show you this, by bringing you down here, but on the way down the stairs, after all you said at lunch, I figured bringing your attention to it might do your sensibilities some good. The access doors up at Level 5? I didn't unbolt them. They did."

"But how--"

"They're finding all the cracks the city didn't seal. They've been trickling out to the city limits' commercial district for some time now, but they only just recently got this far. The city pretty literally burned all the bridges they knew of between Levels 3 and 5. ...I've seen them in passing a few times. It's a shame we just missed them, going by the fresh paint. Nothing keeps 'em down. It's beautiful, really."

'Choly sank back into Augen's shoulder, staring at the defaced wall as Augen walked.

"They've been able to escape..."

"Long enough to grab food and water, and get back inside." The vampire opened the next access door and finally exited the alley. "It's just a short way to my place now. You should get some rest."

'Choly yawned and nodded, in shock and awe as he looked around the once familiar neighborhood, now a crumbling urban ghost town. Before he really noticed, they had already entered a building.

"You... this is that place you mentioned before, isn't it. We're on Level 4, aren't we."

"Home sweet home," Augen soothed, laying him back on a palette of bedding. He removed 'Choly's glasses and bag, and petted his forehead before leaving him to pass out.

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#biopunk #cyberpunk #dystopia #entomophagy #april fools #body horror #the uptake #with symbiotic self indulgence #wssi #melanochro kara #august ritter #only the vital ones #central day

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redfoxwritesstuff · 5 years

Text

Silent Song, Chapter 20

Hello, Loves. Ready for more? I sure am. I’m so excited about where we are right now, what I’m doing with this and proud of the ride this has become. We are looking at a total of 25 chapters but that all depends on how things flow. I do hope you like this one. <3

Masterlist

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

“Why isn’t it working?” Tony complained as he sat in the overstuffed office chair at the head of the table in the boardroom turned command center, watching as sparks flew through the air, controlled and conjured by the hands of the sorcerer supreme himself.

“It could be any number of magics they are using to try and counter this spell.” The sorcerer finally let his trembling hands fall to his sides, the light and sparks dying out as he gave up working the magic.

“What that means is: He doesn’t know.” Loki offered from his seat. They’d been trying to trace her with various magics for the last few hours and nothing had even shown the slightest hint at working.

“What could they want with her?” Tony’s fingers pounded the table as he thought.

His back was stiff and his joints ached. It was one of the few times he truly felt his age. The way his body complained, creaked and popped with every shift of position, one could easily think he hadn’t left the chair in hours. They would be correct in that assessment. Around him sat those members of the team that were currently not actively hunting for traces of the cult. Thor was seated next to Tony, separating him from the man that he had all but tried to kill numerous times in the last few days alone.

Loki was until recently kept in chains purely for Tony’s peace of mind. Now he simply sat looking almost physically deflated himself. It had been a week of endless, pointless searching and the team as a whole had gotten antsy. Tempers ran hot and quick.

On paper, it could be argued that they had made progress. They had raided more Zealot camps and Hydra bases during the week than they had managed to locate and raid in the past month alone. Each and every member of the team was tired and working themselves into the ground. Not a single one so much as complained about the never ending raids. Each had a driving need to find her, to redeem themselves though they couldn’t say to who.

“They’ve been trying to summon a beast-like god.” Dr. Strange started from his place next to Tony, leaning back in his chair.

“A God cannot simply be ‘summoned’.” Loki snapped.

“Gods like the two of you, no. But perhaps the Zealot’s understanding of what a God is and what you are in reality are not perfectly aligned. What they call a God doesn’t have to be correct by your standards. It only matters that they are trying to summon something powerful.”

“Why do they need to torture people for the summoning?” Tony asked even as his stomach rolled and he tried to put aside the horrors of the bodies he had seen over and over during the week. The Zealots made a policy to kill their captives at the slightest sign of trouble and as of yet, only a small handful had been able to be recovered alive over the course of the week.

Tony wanted nothing so much as to down his drink and pour another. Rather than do so however, he sipped at the amber liquid as the ice clinked in the glass. He was tired and angry. It felt as if he had lost everything again. It was something he didn’t dare say, but he found himself wondering at night if it would have hurt less if Pepper had been taken in Hotaru’s place. Tony wasn’t sure he could believe in a God like so many on earth still clung to but should one exist, Tony surely was damned for having thought such a thing.

On the table in front of them, folders were open and papers spread out. Each folder was found in one of the countless Hydra bases they had raided. It didn’t provide any information as to where she could possibly be but the worn and yellow pages did contain some portions of the magic the Zealots had been trying to work.

Now it was a question if either of the sorcerers could use the information provided to track and locate the cult’s sorcerers. Ideally they would need to locate them when they were not working the magic as the spells called for lives to end during their casting.

They had to find her. They had to save her. They couldn’t be too late.

“These spells all look largely incomplete.” Strange pushed the papers across to Loki.

“Indeed. They keep trying different configurations of the magic trying to prefect the weaving of the spells.” Loki commented, tossing one paper aside.

“You two don’t have to torture someone every time you’re too lazy to walk to the next room.” Tony snapped, “Why do they keep the slaves?”

“I could only begin to guess.” Strange leaned back while speaking as Loki flipped through the papers.

“I believe they are not actually trying to sacrifice anything.” Loki mused.

“Well, in that case they are very bad at ‘not sacrificing’” Tony couldn’t help but try to snark, even now.

“Indeed. I believe I have seen some of this magic before.”

“Where?” Strange asked, always intrigued by the vast amount of magic around him that he had yet to even begin to understand.

“I need to visit the vaults on Asgard.”

“Need I remind you that you are on house arrest.”

“Is maintaining the illusion that you have ever had me under confinement worth risking that the Little Light is in their hands for even a moment longer than necessary?” Loki regarded Tony with a cold stare, they’d been back and forth on the topic all week and he had grown tired of the whole charade. His game was no longer fun. “I will do whatever I must to right this regardless of what you may have to say of it.”

“What did you mean by them not intending to sacrifice?” Dr. Strange drew the conversation back to the more important topic of the Zealots. Loki’s status as ‘prisoner’ had stopped being of interest to him a long ago.

“Perhaps they are using the bodies as a vessel?” Loki offered. “I’d have to research more to be certain.”

“Like those stories Mother used to tell?” Thor was surprised, he’d not thought of such stories in what felt like a lifetime.

“I’d have to look to be sure but perhaps while they think they are trying to create a summoning of an already existing deity from another dimension… I believe this spell is actually trying to accomplish the artificial creation of a God.”

“That’s why they are torturing them...” Strange ran his hand through his hair, pushing back portions that had fallen across his forehead as he had sat bent over the table reading.

“Care to share with the class?”

“Think back to when we found her, Stark.” Strange started, “Did you see the state any of the captives were in before they were killed?”

“I was a tad too busy to bother with sightseeing.”

“They seemed vacant.” Strange corrected, not commenting on the snark as if he hadn’t heard it. They didn’t have time for such things. “It was as if their mind was already dead, leaving behind what was nothing more than a living shell of a person. The few captives we’ve been able to save so far are much the same with perhaps one or two exceptions.”

“A vacant vessel that could in theory be filled with the spirit of a newly created being.” Loki concluded. “Assuming my theory is correct. I’ll be going to Asgard to verify it but they are missing key portions of the spells needed to stabilize the transition.”

“And that means what?”

“That the beasts are created, exist for a short destroying things before burning themselves out.” Strange added.

“Without a physical form to tether themselves to, they can’t maintain a physical connection with this world and implode on themselves. If I am correct, they are trying to tether the beasts to a vacant body in order to create something similar in power to the likes of Asgardian gods yet dependent on the magic to retain form and thus able to be controlled. As of yet, they’ve not been able to do so hence the bodies being left on the alters rather than being used.”

“That leaves the question, why they keep killing the captives?” Strange pulled a new paper in front of him, splitting his attention between it and the Gods.

“I’d assume they are trying to take advantage of the moment right at death where the body still lives but the soul has left. This is all speculation until I can look into matters further however I’d wager to bet that they are converting the very soul into the final power source to draw the beasts into existence and complete the tie.”

“So magical body snatching.” Tony leaned back as Strange nodded in confirmation.

“In the simplest sense, yes.” Loki closed his eyes and leaned back.

If it wasn’t for the rolling wave of power that emanated from him, one would think the action peaceful. The magic hung thick in the air as once again he reached out with his most keen of senses and tried to find the one that had become most important to him. Her life was already so fleeting, the very thought that these half baked sorcerers could steal what little time he had with her filled him with a dread that reached to the very depths of his soul.

“I’ll research this further, see what I can find. You do the same in Asgard and between the two of us, hopefully we can find a way to trace her as well. These sorcerers have access to magics they don’t fully understand and I need to reclaim it before more damage is done. Assuming, you find that agreeable, Stark?”

The bite in the Doctor turned sorcerer’s voice was clear. He had grown fond over the little mouse, just as quickly as the others had. Strange saw in her the same light the others had seen. She was something to be protected. She was something pure. Yet, she was out of the care of the men he had entrusted her to just the same. He could only hope that she would be found alive.

“Yeah. Whatever we have to do. I just- I want her back.” Tony’s voice was soft as he closed his eyes, momentarily the fire was gone.

“We will return her to you.” Thor promised solemnly, seemingly speaking to Tony yet looking to his brother, double meaning clear.

It felt good to walk to halls of Asgard again. The people whispered, he was a prince returned without so much as a notice to court. Thor didn’t announce any pardoning of his crimes, his mind was occupied with the weight of the missing Light and trying to fulfill his court duties as King as quickly as he could. He wasn’t forgiven in the eyes of the laws of Asgard and so people whispered.

Loki found it hard to care about such things. The click of his boot heels against the solid marble floor gave little doubt to those down the hall that he walked with every ounce of purpose and belonging that he had centuries before. Each turn of the hall, each corridor he knew as well as he knew the back of his hand or the feel of his power resting deep within him. Each stairway was just as he remembered.

It allowed his mind to wonder as he walked. Each click of his heels echoed right along with his thoughts. The whole situation was his fault. He knew that. It pained him but it was the simple truth. If he had just done things the proper way this wouldn't have happened. Yet he didn’t mean to find himself caring for the Little Firefly at all, let alone as much as he did.

It was a waste of time, he knew. He’d even gone so far as to advise Thor against giving his heart to a mortal with such short lifespans before and yet that is the very situation he had found himself in. Without so much as a doubt in his mind, he knew he cared for her. It was far too easy to care for her, to trust her and to let her in.

It wasn’t as if he could court her, as tempting as such an idea was. She would never, could never meet the standards of court. It would be a waste of her short life to train her in the ways of propriety and court manners. Before she could ever hope to have command of the formalities she would have to abide by as a lady of the court and his mate, she would have grown old and her time of passing would be near.

He couldn’t court her. He couldn’t wed her. The most he could ever hope to have her as would have been a momentary reprieve, a short time where he could have a glimpse of what his life could be like if he was anyone else. He could never hope to have a life where he could wed a mate whom he cared for.

No, his life and status meant such was a pleasure he would never have. Forever he would be the second son, not even a son by blood. He had no rights, no claim to lands or title beyond what his king brother would bestow. Until he wed, his status was at his brother’s mercy.

While he had no reason to even think that the power and status he held would be revoked, he was well aware of the constant state of flux that was court affairs. Unless he wished to leave his social and political standing in such an insecure state, he was well aware that he had to pick a mate for her status.

A queen or crown princess with a country he could wed would be ideal. It would grant him status in his own right and solidify relations between the country in question and Asgard. It could bring a rebelling nation into the fold. Who he would take as wife and mate would not be a simple matter of heart. In all reality his heart probably wouldn’t even factor into such a decision.

That was something his King Brother couldn’t fathom to begin to understand. He was a king in his own right and this his status was secured regardless of who he were to wed. With the exception of an uprising or should he willingly abdicate the throne he would always be king until his dying day. It was one of the many ways that the two brothers were so fundamentally different. Thor could afford to wed a woman he loved, regardless of who or what she was and Loki couldn't be sure if doing the same was a risk he could take.

Yet he found himself in a situation where that was something he had no choice but to contemplate. Before he even had a chance to begin thinking about what he wanted, what risks he could afford to take and in what capacity he could have His Light by his side, she was taken from him.

The pain that ripped through his mind as he had tried fruitlessly to budge the hammer, to remove it from him was a vivid memory. If only he could get up, if only he could go and help search for her. If he could leave the tower, if he could just get outside he would have been able to find her. If only he could have gotten outside, he could cover great distance and he would have found her quickly. He could have saved her. It all could have been prevented if he wasn’t trapped. Stuck in place by a cursed hammer that insisted he was unworthy.

All he could do was cast an illusion to save his dignity from the eyes of the tower while he ripped at his hair and yelled at his frustrations. If only he had been more, he could move the damned hammer. He cursed his existence, he cursed his nature. No matter what, he was always less than what he needed to be. If he had been worthy, if he had just be good enough he could have moved the cursed hammer. It wasn’t even a weapon he cared to wield any longer, he simply needed it off his lap.

But he wasn’t good enough. He knew that already, yet he tired and tired. His hands were bloody, nails cracked and chipped from clawing at the hammer. Shifting himself down, trying to move out from under it hadn’t worked. Every time the couch gave a little, the hammer pressed down harder on him as if aware of Thor’s will.

By the time the others returned, he was ready to claw his own body apart. Yet, they didn’t even so much as notice. To them, he looked right as rain. They didn’t even see a hair shifted on his head. With a flick of his power he banished the smears of his blood off the couch and hammer, leaving the only evidence of his activities hidden behind the illusion that covered his body. With measured control, he kept his voice even as they had spoke about their failed search.

Yes, it was his fault but they needn’t know how badly he was already blaming himself. That was something he couldn’t even begin to argue. Statements of his blame were simply brushed aside as if they didn’t matter even as they cut into him more and more each time they were spoken.

He shouldn’t have allowed a kiss to happen when he hadn’t had a chance to formulate a plan. She could never be his mate and wife but he could still find a place for her by his side. He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t truly going to ask to court her before things went out of his control. To do so would be stupid, would put to risk all that he was.

To court her would be to put trust into Thor. He wasn’t going to formally court her, he kept insisting to himself. Tony wouldn’t know the technicalities of court life anyway. Such things wouldn’t need to be spoken of. He could have kept things just how he needed to.

It wasn’t unheard of for men such as he to keep a concubine or a pet as a companion, both while unwed and after having taken a wife. Women hardly ever were permitted the same luxury. He couldn’t imagine casting her aside for another while she still lived and so the distinction wouldn’t have mattered, would it? With a lifespan as fleeting as hers, the least he could do was give her all he could for the short time she would accept him. It would be but a blink of an eye to him and her time would be passed leaving nothing but the memory of her soft acceptance to carry him through the rest of his long life.

So many mistakes had been made during the many long centuries he had already lived but none had he ever regretted more than the words she had heard coming from his own mouth. When he found her, he would tell her the things he should have said. He would say the things he wanted to yell in his panic as he watched tears fell.

He would tell them all what she had come to mean to him. Not a thing would be held back. While he couldn’t promise her anything more than his companionship, his time and affection, he would offer it all to her for so long as she would have it. The only question was, would she still accept him? Or would she finally she the monster he truly was?

It didn’t matter. What mattered most was that she was taken and it was his fault. What mattered most was that he had to find her. What mattered most was that he would find her and return her voice just as he promised.

If so much as a hair was harmed on her head, if so much as a bruise marred her skin he would bring down the true might of his power. No man would be left standing but he would see to it that they had begged him for the release of death before he was through with them. Yes, he knew torture well. Having spent time on the receiving end had taught him more than a few lessons in the art that he would giddily employ.

Large doors were pulled open by guards as he drew near. They didn’t even so much as spare him a look as his long strides took him through the doorway and into the vaults. He walked passed treasures and powerful items without so much as a second thought as he made his way to his mother’s archives.

While much of what was in the vaults could be used by anyone, making the items both valuable and dangerous the most powerful items were the books on magic his mother had collected over her lifetime. While the magical instruction contained within most of them required great power, skill and training to wield, a powerful sorcerer with ill intentions could bring reality itself to an end.

It was within her archives that he hoped to find answers. If his memory served him right, he could find books on the very creation of the gods. It hadn’t always been that Asgardian men and women of great power were elevated to such status. It wasn’t always that they were occasionally born with such innate abilities that made them foundations for the reality of their people.

The first gods were not born but made and Loki found himself needing to know how. Such magic had not been attempted in many lifetimes. To think that human sorcerers were trying to do what could very well be the same magic that gave rise to Asgard’s power was terrifying and intriguing both. Under different circumstances he would even be tempted to allow them to continue just to observe their results over time. However he would not allow His Light to be sacrificed for his curiosity.

Servants brought food and mead when he failed to appear in the dining hall. There was a great celebration being held in another part of the palace, welcoming his King Brother to his home and palace. Nobles would be vying for his favor and the unwed women of the court would be prancing around him in hopes of catching the King’s eye for a spell.

To warm the bed of a king would earn her a notoriety and status in court for now. Yet it was a silly game, all knew when the he took a Queen she would likely send away his past lovers rather than have to look upon their faces. It was a risk the women would take however for hopes that the King would grow fond of them and keep them around or even make her his Queen. At the very least, should he wed and still hold a fondness for her she could hope to be made his mistress and be granted protection from the new Queen.

Loki didn’t care for such trappings and festivities. Though he knew he should be in attendance. Regardless of where his mind and heart was, he should be tending to the duties of court. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more than hunt for the answers he needed and pray to the norns that he wouldn’t find them too late.

Hotaru was aware that she hurt. The cold seeped into her from the hard ground and it should have felt the same. How dearly she wished she could feel numb. She tried as hard as she could to forget the warmth of her bed. No, it wasn’t hers anymore and it wouldn’t be again. Maybe it never was, if she believed what she was told. It was better if she forgot what it was like to sleep on a soft mattress and wrapped in the warmth of blankets.

It was better if she forgot the way it relaxed her to feel the warmth of the blankets contrasting with the chill that seemed to always be around Loki. It was better if she forgot what it felt like to think she was safe. If she could forget the way Tony smiled at her full of pride when she progressed in her lessons.

If she could just forget the way Loki’s lips felt against hers, maybe her heart would stop hurting so. If she could just forget what it was like to think he wanted her.

They told her that her freedom was just part of their game. That they wanted to see how it would hurt her if she thought she could have a normal life. It was just another game they played with their pets. Just a game, no different than seeing how many times they could slap a spot before the skin split and blood flowed.

Loki had called it a game as well.

Had she ever been free? Were the things Tony had told her truth? Were her memories of the time before real or simply wishful thinking?

God, how she wanted to forget. If they had just killed her that day, if the dagger never pierced the skull of the man maybe that would have been better. If they had never come, she’d never have gotten a taste of what her life could have been like, maybe it would have been better.

It would have been better if she had never seen Tony again. It would have been better to have never left her cage.

If only she could forget. If only the memories would evaporate. If only the heartache would stop. If only.

Tears fell from her eyes, dripping onto the hard ground. How she had any more left to cry, she couldn’t even begin to say. Yet, somehow even now they wouldn’t stop. Maybe, if she cried long enough the memories would seep from her eyes.

Every time she closed her eyes she saw Loki’s face. In the silence she heard his voice. Even as she drew shuttering breaths she could feel the press of his lips against hers and the weight of his hands. The cold steel around her neck left her wishing for the soft cloth of the necklaces Loki had graced her with.

It was better to just forget. Why couldn’t she forget?

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#loki x original female character #loki x oc #loki x ofc #loki (marvel)#loki fanfic #loki

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teaandcrowns · 5 years

Text

chapter one | chapter two

chapter three

Setting up a camp in the middle of nowhere was almost like it used to be, Katara, Aang, Sokka, and Toph all fell into old rhythms, practiced as ever.

For a few stretches of time Katara could forget that they’d had to leave without her father again, that they’d had to run from attacks from Fire Nation airships—from Azula—again. She could forget, briefly, that now Zuko was part of their group, who was once in the place his sister now occupied: hunting them down across the entire world.

Except once she had that thought, she couldn’t ignore it. He was just so undeniably Fire Nation it got her angry just to think of him. The bright of his golden eyes, the deeper, true black of his hair compared to that of other nations—even the cool, tawny paleness of his skin reminded her of new morning sunlight. Frustrated at her own distraction and a minor distaste still lingering from the dream, she took out her irritation on the blanket in her hands, snapping it in the air with a sharp flick of her wrists and gaining a small sense of satisfaction from the audible noise it made.

“You okay?”

Suki’s voice came from over her shoulder and startled her, and Katara gathered the blanket against her chest, feeling a faint heat in her cheeks.

She’d forgotten, too, that Suki was now with them—something that was a little embarrassing, considering that she genuinely really liked the Kyoshi warrior.

The smile that Katara gave her wasn’t entirely put on. “I’m fine, thanks. Just… getting all the dust out of our blankets.”

The look Suki gave her had her wondering if all denizens of the Earth Kingdom could sense lies regardless of bending abilities, but to her relief the other girl smiled back. “Can I help with anything? You guys are all in sync with one another and I feel a bit useless.”

Katara’s mouth curved into a sincere smile. Exasperation at feeling useless was something she could certainly relate to. “Sure. Why don’t you unpack some bowls for dinner while I finish up with the blankets? And after that we can make a fire.”

It felt good to share some of her old chores with another girl, and soon Katara was joking and laughing more easily than she felt she had in a while. They didn’t take long with either of their tasks, but when Katara turned to start a fire pit, she saw Zuko crouched near it, setting up an armful of sticks into a teepee formation. He was engrossed with the simple task, it seemed, and didn’t notice her staring down at him, at the way his hands moved while he worked.

A desperate, shouted warning echoes from somewhere to her left as she stares up at the crumbling ceiling—but then an arm wraps tightly around her waist and drags her along with its owner. A second arm is also suddenly around her, grasping onto the first and holding her firmly against a solid, impossibly warm torso. She doesn’t have time enough to think as she is snatched, tumbling, out of the way, cushioned by this mass from hitting the floor. It is only when they roll to a stop several feet away that her mind registers that it is Zuko who saved her, that his chest is still pressed against her back, his arms still framing her against the stone floor. Her heart pounds in her chest and the proximity of his heat and the rush of his heartbeat in her ears nearly drowns out her own.

“What are you doing?”

The quiet snap in her voice made him look up, startled. “Uh—” he began, then tried again. “I’m a firebender?”

When he stopped there, Katara tilted her head at him. “Yes,” she said, as if to a child, “you are a firebender. I’m glad you finally figured that out for sure.”

His mouth turned down beneath the red rising against his cheekbones. Suki covered a laugh beside her. “I mean it makes sense that I’d set up the fire, is all. Since I can make it whenever.”

Katara’s smile turned sharper and she folded her arms across her front. “So if we run out of firewood does that mean I can just make you hold the cooking pot for meals?”

The flush of heat faded from his face. “If you want help, you could also just ask me—”

Her sharpness diminished into something sour. “Don’t worry,” she interrupted. “I won’t.”

Turning back to Suki, she continued. “Looks like Zuko has this managed,” she said not bothering to keep the venom from her tone, though it lessened as she went on. “I’ll go wash up. Thanks for your help earlier.”

Not waiting for any kind of reply or reaction from either of them, Katara left them behind to seek out the quiet rush of a creek not too far away. Being around Zuko made her blood boil, made her lungs feel tight, and she wanted to be by water to ease calm back into herself.

The creek ran cool around her calves as she stood in it. She hadn’t intended to get into the water before she arrived, but upon seeing the steady flow, she knew that she needed to be in her element. Perhaps if she were a different person, she could sit and meditate by it, but that wasn’t her—she needed to do something.

She opened her senses up to feel the course of the water flow through her and began to move through katas, without bending. Katara let out a breath and tried to push all thought from her mind. She just needed to focus on the current, on the push and pull. Katara closed her eyes and breathed with intention along with each one of her movements.

She’d come so far since the beginning of the year, barely knowing how to bend. All Katara had known then was the feel of the tides beneath her skin, and the notion that she needed to know how to do—be—more one day. That had been with her for years, since she was very small. Her mother had always tried to help her in whatever way she could, but without a proper waterbender left to teach her, there wasn’t much she could do.

Katara’s hands fell for a moment as she sifted through memories of her mother, stirred and agitated from the morning’s dream she’d had, of the events she never got to have with her mother as she passed from child to woman. Her mother had been the leader of what was left of their village, and while she couldn’t teach Katara waterbending, Kya had taught her so much.

Here, in the middle of the war, just come from an almost extinct culture’s temple, in the heat of the nation that was doing their damnedest to bring the entire world to heel, that had nearly eradicated and subjugated her entire people, Katara was suddenly drowning in the rush of her mother’s teachings. The ritual to wrap knives in sealskin after one of the elusive and massive arvik was killed by a group of hunters and towed back to the village, how to play the morin khuur, and the first techniques for proper khoomei singing, which mimics the way water swirls around the ice flow. How to gut and skin and carve; how to sew and mend and weave.

Still as stone in the middle of the creek, Katara’s throat tightened. Waterbending was an integral part of who she was, but so unending was her quest to learn that part of her heritage that she’d diminished the rest somewhere along the way. So much had been lost, beyond just waterbending, and Kya had passed on everything she could to her young, eager daughter. After her mother died, her grandmother could only add onto her Southern heritage so much, having been born and raised in the North—though Katara had never known that until recently. And the other women in the village always seemed to be in a strange sort of state of both sympathy and deference; she was the daughter of the village’s chief, after all, and so most felt uncomfortable placing themselves as her teacher.

But Katara had watched and listened and learned. Her fingers lifted to touch the necklace around her throat. She’d felt so naked all those months ago, so incomplete, when it’d been missing.

When Zuko had it.

Heat prickled at the corners of her eyes and she swallowed the sadness down into her chest again where it settled, familiar and cold. It brought her back to the present and she scowled in the direction of the group camp. The Fire Nation had taken everything from her, from her people—carving away at them as if they were broken shards of polar bear bone—and their crown prince was no different, whether exiled or defected or not.

No matter how warm the cadence of his pulse in her thumb.

Katara did not return to the camp until the sun drew the evening’s shadows out long and dark. It was much later than she thought it had been, and even while part of her was glad the others had let her have her time alone without searching for her—Like Aang, her mind immediately supplied before she could push the thought away—Katara could not stop the pang of guilt she felt, even so.

Zuko’s fire was bright against the growing darkness of the evening, standing out like a small beacon to guide her back to the rest of the group. As she neared, she heard the chatter of conversation and smelled food cooking. Guilt bubbled within her again—she hadn’t been there to start dinner, even though now the sun was below the horizon and she normally would be serving it out by this time.

The sight that greeted her was surprising. She’d expected Suki or even Sokka to be keeping watch over the little clay cooking pot and serving out food, but it was Zuko who was portioning out bowls when she stepped into the camp proper.

He looked up at her and his mouth opened as if to speak, but Aang beat him to any words he might have said.

“You’re back!” the airbender exclaimed. “I was starting to get worried; you were gone for so long, and especially with Azula chasing after us again.” The grey of his eyes dimmed as he glanced away from her. “I wanted to go looking for you, but Suki said you were fine.”

Katara looked over at the older girl, and felt her face soften. A brief exchange passed between them: silent understanding from Suki and wordless thanks from Katara. She joined the circle around the fire, across from Suki and between her brother and Toph.

“I was fine,” she confirmed, and Aang let out an audible breath. A twinge of anger tugged at her mouth, at the space between her eyebrows. Sokka nudged her with his elbow, gaining her attention and she accepted a bowl of rice and vegetables from him, as well as a cup of tea. Part of her wanted to explain herself, but she bit down on the words. Katara knew she should be glad that Aang was so concerned for her, but all she felt was irritated. She was a master waterbender—the one who taught him, taught the Avatar! Surely he didn’t think she’d be in any danger by herself for a single afternoon.

But she also knew that she couldn’t say any of that to him, and so swallowed the forming words down with a mouthful of food. Her eyebrows went up for a moment, startled to discover it was rather good, despite the plainness of the fare itself.

Raising her gaze to Zuko, who’d settled between Toph and Aang, she said, with no little amount of disbelief, “You cooked this?”

For an instant, his reaction mirrored hers, his remaining dark eyebrow lifting, then furrowing back down again as he watched her. “I did,” he replied, guarded and unsure how to take what she said. “I know it’s not fancy, but the supplies are limited.”

“I think it’s actually pretty tasty,” Sokka interjected, gesticulating with his chopsticks before taking another bite to emphasize his point.

“I guess that means you don’t have to do all the cooking anymore, Katara,” Aang supplied, brightly. Zuko’s face softened.

She knew he was being helpful, being a peacemaker, being a mediator, but it just stoked the anger in her brighter, and her hands tightened around the bowl she was holding. She wasn’t a child any longer that needed protection or coddling—hadn’t been one for years, before she even met the Avatar—but all at once his concern pressed down on her like exactly those things. “I guess I’m just glad to see that Zuko is finally contributing something to the group.” Her words tasted acerbic on her tongue, felt like they should have cut parchment-thin lesions at the corners of her mouth; they sounded nothing at all like a compliment.

In an instant, any softening in his face hardened, and Zuko leveled his gaze at hers, the firelight between them reflecting like a living thing in the gold of his eyes. She felt his heart rate quicken, felt the rest of the small group’s echoing responses in their chests. She knew she should stop, that there was no real reason for her to keep needling, but there was hurt and anger boiling over in her between the dream and reminiscing and missing her mother and the sting that Aang felt like he couldn’t trust her, that she had to be protected.

And so she continued, against her better judgement. “I’m honestly surprised it’s edible at all. Who would have thought that a pampered prince could cook.”

The scowl that she had always seen on his face half a year ago returned in full force against the caltrops she intentionally threw his way. “Tea shop assistants can cook,” he said, firm and scraping and irritated as sand against her skin. “And if refugees don’t learn to cook, they die from hunger.” The hurt in his voice did not go beyond her notice, either, though he tried to cover it up all the same.

He’d been all those things after being a prince, this she knew empirically. Personally. She’d seen the way his long green changshan had hung off shoulders not quite as full as they’d once been when he’d been in armor; she’d noticed the way his cheekbones had been more prominent in the soft light of the catacomb crystals than she remembered before, remembered how defined his face had felt beneath her fingertips. Even now, even after feeling the way his muscles moved against her back when he’d rolled them away from the crumbling ceiling of the Western Air Temple that morning, she knew that he still wouldn’t fill out his old armor they way he used to.

Katara was the first to break eye contact with him, in the end, a cord of shame twisting deep in her stomach. She bit her lip, but didn’t say anything. Heartbeats echoed tensely around her, but then the silence was shattered by four simultaneous pairs of chopsticks clattering against clay bowls. She stared down at her own, sitting on the ground before her.

After several more long moments, Aang broke the silence again. “Wow… camping. It really seems like old times again, doesn’t it?” There was actual levity in his voice, and to his credit it did lighten the mood of the circle.

Zuko picked up a several days’ old mantou bun and broke it in half. “If you really want it to feel like old times, I could—ah—chase you around awhile and try to capture you.” His tone indicated he’d latched onto Aang’s levity and ran with it—and also succeeded in doing so; his smile was sly and looked practically comfortable on his face.

The laughter of the rest of the group flickered around Katara like the flames of the fire, something she saw and heard but couldn’t quite feel either really touch her. She heard a quiet, sarcastic ha, ha leave her mouth, but it sounded distant to her own ears. Zuko’s words were louder in her head—they die from hunger—and she kept remembering the hollows on his face and the darkness beneath his eyes when his uncle had been hurt in the abandoned town of Tu Zin. It was in such sharp contrast to the arrogant, armored Fire Nation Prince that hunted them down for so many months on end, who’d stolen her mother’s necklace and used her for bait, who’d attacked Suki’s home without thought, and it wrenched something within her chest.

On her right, Sokka made a toast to Zuko that was drowned out by a rushing sound in her ears. How dare Zuko make her feel ashamed in her own thoughts when he’d done so many horrible things to them. A scowl threatened to drag the line of her mouth downward. Being a refugee and a lowly teashop assistant served him right after all he’d done in his pursuit of Aang—and it hadn’t even humbled him; after all, he’d turned on them again in the catacombs, and while she spent exhausting days bringing Aang back from the edge of death, he went home as a celebrated hero. All Katara seemed to do was lose and lose—her mother, her people, her heritage, her father, nearly the Avatar himself—and all Zuko seemed to do was win and win, despite it all. All the Fire Nation did was win and win and take and destroy. Her jaw started to hurt, and Katara realized she was clenching her teeth together tight as a vice.

His voice cut through the rush in her ears like a blade. “I’m touched. I don’t deserve this.” She could almost hear his face fall, that self-deprecation she’d seen in him bubbling up again.

Something in her snapped. “Yeah,” Katara said, gaze shifting sharp from her bowl to him. “No kidding.”

She couldn’t stand to be here anymore, her heart thudding painfully in her chest, the light from the fire he’d made casting shadows about her, his golden gaze wondering at her and searching her face, his pulse insistent in the pad of her thumb. Like she had walked away from him teaching bending to Aang back at the temple, now too she rose in fluid anger and stalked off into the night.

The camp was a decent ways behind her when she heard the roll of waves with her own ears. She’d felt it pulling her, especially with the moon so close to full, and followed it until she reached the edge of a grassy cliff and perched on a rock there. It calmed her a little, the salt and the sea and the moon, allowed her space to breathe away from the smoke and heat and steady pulse that was Zuko.

He was infuriating.

It wasn’t that she even thought he was still trying to capture the Avatar; at this point, Katara was more than willing to concede she’d been wrong about that, after the way he’d fought against his sister earlier. He’d helped Sokka find and bring back their father with nothing to gain and virtually everything to lose if they’d been successfully stopped in doing so. And he’d stepped in, in her absence, and tended to dinner and made sure everyone had something to eat.

Despite chasing them relentlessly for so long, despite stealing her mother’s necklace and trying to use her as bait, despite hiring a bounty hunter to find them, despite playing his part in Aang’s near-death, despite setting a mercenary who could shoot fire from his mind after them, despite burning Toph, now he was with them. Now he was helping train Aang to face his own father, fighting his own sister to protect them, reuniting her family—now he was cooking for them, and unknowingly helping with her usual camp duties, and joking with them, and smiling so disarmingly—

Heat rose unbidden in Katara’s cheeks and she glared out across the ocean. She was furious with him, and it made her even angrier that she wasn’t quite sure why. She told herself over and over it was because she didn’t want to get to know him better, she didn’t want to let him get closer—not again—but still she found herself drawn to him, to watching him, to wanting to submerge herself in the cadence of his pulse and feel just how warm it could be.

The desire to do that was even stronger with the waxing of the moon, only a few nights away from being at its fullest, and Katara worried her lip in thought over it.

So lost was she in thought, so strong and close the push and pull of the moon and the ocean tides, she didn’t sense Zuko approaching her until he was nearly upon her. His presence stoked the directionless, confused anger in her and she scowled, rising from her rock and stalking further out along the cliff’s edge.

“This isn’t fair.” His voice rang out, rough against the salt air. “Everyone else seems to trust me now—what is it with you?”

The sincerity of his words slithered into the cracks she thought she’d sealed up, and the hurt in them shook something that was pulled taut in her stomach.

It made her even angrier.

Furious, she turned to face him. “Oh—everyone trusts you now?” A hand came up and pressed hard into her chest, over her hammering heart. “I was the first person to trust you, remember? Back in Ba Sing Se?” Katara jabbed a finger out across the endless ocean. “And you turned around and betrayed me. Betrayed all of us!”

Her anger felt good, felt strong. It felt like a layer of ice she was constructing around her, between them, that not even his impossible heat could breach. A desperate part of her hoped the words she flung at him stung and opened up fractures inside him. Zuko closed his eyes against her onslaught, mouth twisting in a grimace.

To her surprise, though, he lifted his eyes to meet hers again, his gaze determined and focused.

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

“You really want to know?” A thousand things ran through her mind in an instant, and she spat out the first ones that formed as she neared him again. “Hmm, maybe you could reconquer Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth King.” No, that wasn’t enough, a vicious voice whispered in her mind. Her heart thudded against her ribcage like a trapped beast and she was close enough now to felt the heat emanating off of him. Her thumbs throbbed and ached, but she ignored them, her face mere inches away from his.

“Or, I know! You could bring my mother back!” She barely even noticed the slightly feverish tone upon which her voice hitched.

Katara didn’t know why she said it—of course no one could bring her mother back; but it seemed so fitting, to thrust such an impossible task upon Zuko. In the sparse seconds after her demand, she felt giddy and lightheaded, the ocean pulling at her bones at her back, the boy before her pulling at her blood. Caught between the two of them, Zuko’s eyes searched hers, fleetingly, their normally vibrant gold leeched pale as platinum in the moonlight.

Not giving him any kind of chance to respond to her, Katara shouldered past him, the echoes of her heartbeat filling up her entire chest and throat until there was no space left at all, and left him alone on the cliffside.

She blatantly ignored the others when she got back to the camp, not even bothering to say goodnight to any of them before vanishing inside her tent. Everything was seething inside her—the memories of her mother, dredged up and raw still after so much time; fury toward the Nation that had torn her life to shreds, that had torn so many lives to shreds; frustration and confusion and she wasn’t sure what all else at Zuko; the pounding of her blood in her ears, in time with the pounding of the waves upon the rocky surf.

The ground was hard beneath her thin bedroll, and she lay awake for some time, staring up into the loosely woven darkness of her tent, feeling the pull of the moon and the ocean and willing the rhythm of them to lull her to sleep.

She was starting to descend into the waiting fog of dreams, finally, when she felt a warmth spread through her hands, and distantly heard a quiet sigh outside her tent. Zuko, she thought, dimly, the recognition lazily adrift as flotsam floating away from the shores of waking. His name seemed to summon forth to her senses the cadence of his heartbeat just beyond the cloth boundary of the tent walls, and it was that steadiness that finally soothed her to sleep.

#zutara #Avatar The Last Airbender #atla #katara #zuko #bloodbending #my fic #and here's ch 3 #tbd bloodbending fic

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 6 years

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Life Story 113

Following that strange night with Josh was a series of other strange nights, where we would talk quietly to one another and stare down each other's eyes until the room became dim and strange. It didn't feel like there was anything else that existed besides us in that room on those dark lonely nights. I would spend long hours washing dishes in the dish pit at Zany's with the backdrop of a busy restaurant and then the eventual dying down which lead to men talking about their sex lives and their favorite video games (generally a sad set of affairs). I felt like I was living two lives a lot of times, one life was kind of simple and individualistic and lonely. I was friendly with everyone but had no real friends. I would joke around with the kitchen men, sometimes have moments of sadness and longing that I no longer felt connected with my sister, brother or Sarah – but then there was always Josh who was my second life, who would generally pick me up after work – and he was always there for me and open with me – even when he wasn't all that good about letting me be open. He didn't seem capable of resenting me the way the others had – there was this sense that if I did something terrible Josh would understand me and know why. He might even have predicted my doing it. There was a strange and unique comfort in that.

Of course I knew he would destroy me. I had started to realize this as the weeks drew on into months. I would look myself in the mirror and I could see it even if nobody else could. I could feel something in me being destabilized by him, but it was a price I thought was worth paying for this new life. I had come so far in life to get to be the person I was standing in front of my mirror. I was too invested to back out now. If I tried to draw away from Josh now, I would only be more mangled than I was now, and quite likely I wouldn't be able to escape anyway. It was better for me that I just let go. The relationship I had felt real. It felt realer than anything else I had ever done or felt up to that point.

On the outset to most people, I probably didn't seem like I had a big life – and indeed I did not. Nobody knew how deprived I had been as a teenager, or how my father had prevented me from having a life till I was twenty-two, or how hard I had to work to stay remotely thin, or to just be able to talk to people. It was a hard balance for me. My equilibrium was always in jeopardy. But to most people I was just a simple small town girl, a little strange. I was just a dishwasher and after work I smelled like greasy kitchen water, I didn't own a vehicle – I walked everywhere. There might have been a small bit of mystery to me that would wash over people every here and again, but I gave very little away, I had no idea what people would want from me.

I had no prospects for the future – I made only as much as I could manage to live on, buying apples and eggs and the occasional discount dress I managed to find. My artwork was so-so – I was not very prolific anymore and it wasn't professional or marketable exactly – and it seemed the older I got my aesthetic became more and more discomforting and niche. I didn't even seem to have friends or family – and we all know the story there. Nobody wanted to know me, even while I often was complimented by people in stores about how beautiful I was, sometimes multiple times a day in both respectful and not so respectful manners. At times I suspected there was something wrong with me socially or physically that pushed people away. I was coming to realize fully how hard it was to really connect to people out in the world. It didn't just seem to be happening to me. How do you go about making real friends? I had always imagined that I would find 'my people' so to speak when I got out in the world and started working, that they would find me like a magnet. But it didn't seem to be happening, and it could very well have been because Lewiston was/is such a small place – but there had to be people sort of worth knowing who weren't Josh surely. So where were they?

. Despite these things though that might have made me seem dull, nothing could be further from the truth. It was the first time in my life where my life seemed more my own. My existence had taken on this vibrancy and color and depth that might not be explainable in words, but in feelings and vibrations that are hard to place. I was finally living within this beautiful cloak of love that I had always longed for since I was young enough to contemplate that sense of longing and emptiness people have and had up till then, had always been denied. I felt some kind of wild little flicker of something in my thoughts, something that felt familiar from times when I was too young to know anything else. I was beginning to actually feel this sense of calm joy and happiness. It wasn't that I hadn't been happy ever throughout my early years, adolescence and young adult life. I had to some degree. But I never felt like I could let go, or let myself transform and if I did so it felt both too profound and like I had to do it with some level of secrecy. So much of who I was built around my social structure. Josh to some degree replaced everyone else, but he took a convenient little amount of interest in how I lived my life day to day and for this reason I was able to live two lives that played off one another and complimented one another quite well.

And love I guess, it was and is very important to me. I can and definitely have lived a life without it, but I prefer not to – it comes out in other forms if I cannot place it on a person. Perhaps at a very early age, perhaps in retrospect, the love I had once had for Zack all those years ago, it burned a hole through me that forever needs to be filled – long after he came and went there would always have to be something seemingly as grand as he had once seemed to me when I was young and naive. I will always have a private duty to elevate my existence to compensate for that gaping hole in my heart. I will never be complete. I have learned to accept my incompleteness as completeness and I experience most days with this in mind. Once you have been filled with that beautiful and pure light as a feather love and connection with someone, it takes a lot to fill that space – it changes your DNA. It's possible to fill that emptiness with passions or good habits, I am not saying it's not – I have done it for years. The world is a big place, there are a lot of ways to fill the void, with good films, books and conversations with people. The world of people is one meant to be connected with, and if you look for outstretched ideas and emotions, you will surely find them. You can learn to become someone who wants to make a difference in the world, you can make art, music, or you can write – there is so much out there to fill that void that love burns out of you. Some of it isn't even positive. You can be destructive, manipulative. You can become addicted to drugs or whathaveyou. But even with all that awaits us out in the world, we can rarely find the real thing. We all want that indescribably beautiful and perfect place, it is what we are all looking for, in one another and in ourselves. And most everywhere you go, you see the residual trail of love – like it is there, or will be, the hints that it was here, but you have just missed it or came too soon. You have to keep looking – and days become dull and life becomes pointless. You find ways to validate yourself just waiting for that perfect something. I suppose a great deal of people never find it. They never fill that void. Maybe due to fear and or misfortune. You just get used to reminding yourself that love is just around the corner, regardless if it is or isn't. It's a crazy thought, but it keeps you going.

But wherever I went now. I didn't need to worry about that anymore. I had Josh now. He filled that void within me.

About four days after Josh asked me to sleep with him and I wisely refused, I came home after working my night shift as the dishwasher, showered and dressed, and then joined Josh upstairs for another session of intimate conversation and eye contact and whatever else we did together those strange nights in 2012. He was sitting and watching the television that night. He didn't seem to be taking in much of what he was seeing. When I came upstairs and sat down, he didn't look at me, but he paused the television and then he looked at me lovingly. It was disarming. He got up to do something in the kitchen, and as he did so he passed me. When he walked back into the living room, he looked down caringly at me as I looked up at him standing above me. My hair was drying from the shower, and I have naturally curly hair. He had a softness in his eyes as he looked down at me with my bangs drying in my eyes. I felt loved. He reached down and tucked one of my bangs behind me ear. It might have been the most intimate thing anyone ever did to me. I almost choked. I could barely believe that just happened. I sat there shocked.

Josh walked back over to the couch. He looked at me in the eyes, and he began to essentially tell me that he was a dangerous person for people to be around. That he would destroy me. Not a single girl had ever come and went through his life that he had not psychologically wrecked in some fashion. He explained to me in full that he ruins people. It was what he does. He could not help it. He looked me in the eyes, as to relay a clear message. 'Renee, I would be a bad boyfriend. I would hurt you. I will ruin you. People like you should be with nicer people who won't drag you into something dark and empty'. There was more than one emotion running through him at that moment, and more than one running through me. On one hand, he seemed sad, but he also seemed amused. I was disappointed and intrigued. It was very sudden, and it took me off guard. I didn't like hearing it, but at the same time he had such a soft expression of love for me in his eyes. Did that look not say more than his words? Was this what I wanted? I had never asked him to be my boyfriend. But then again, it was what I wanted wasn't it?

I didn't say a word. I just listened to him talk about how he was a broken person, how he was comfortable with the way he was, that nobody could fix him, that he didn't want to get better. He was telling me he would be a bad boyfriend to save me the grief I imagine. But he also didn't intend on changing the dynamic that was imerging between us either. So what was with all this talk if he was going to keep the dynamic the same? If we kept crawling together at this rate, sooner or later we would be a couple. It was his most earnest and honest attempt to let me know what I kind of grave I was digging for myself by being in love with him, and that I needed to somehow find a way to get away from him for my own sake – was what he told me with his words, but with his eyes he was fond of me and never wanted me to leave him, and maybe this warning was as close as it got to a selfless act of loving me – which didn't that in and of itself only represent the kind of love that would endear me to stay?

He was trying to tell me the truth. A part of him wished he could be my boyfriend, he said. Had Josh not been so complicated I am sure he would have dated me. I could see it in his eyes. I realized that him tucking my hair behind my ear was him saying goodbye to a strange small story that was never to be between him and I – or maybe it was meant to give me hope? It didn't make a lot of sense. It made me sad. It didn't seem very fucking natural either. If he loved me, and I loved him, then why not give it a try? Life was inevitably going to be filled with pain anyway. It seems a well established truth that at times there could be no right decisions. Why ruin something special simply because it may ruin itself later on? It was the price of living a life of meaning. Surely Josh understood that I wasn't interested in anyone else but him too, I mean? I couldn't imagine another person taking his place. Josh was forever to me. I suppose I knew on some intellectual and base way that life could proceed without him – there seemed to be a very vacant voice in the back of my mind that new that there would be a before and after to this whole thing, but it would be meaningless and passionless to give up on what I loved. I wasn't just going to go about the business of 'finding someone else'. I had found that someone. I knew it. I had never been so certain in my entire life. And he knew it – he was in denial but he felt connected to me as well – I was making Whitney obsolete, someone he had wanted to die on behalf of that he had spent the last seven years with. I hadn't known Josh that long and already I was more important than she ever was. We both felt it. So why was I being rejected? Why reject what could be such a wonderful thing?

I just listened though. I nodded, but my eyes intently disagreed. I wasn't going to give up at this point. I could see that he loved me. Why couldn't that be enough for him? What else did he want? I felt somewhat rejected. I wondered that maybe I wasn't pretty enough or awesome or strong or surprising enough. Perhaps there was something fundamental in the way I walked or talked that was causing him to have misgivings. Him just telling me these things was justification enough for me to know he loved me enough to where he would warn me about the realities of who he was and, if he could let himself be vulnerable and let himself open up to me, we could be a couple – and it didn't matter what he was trying to say now. He was just trying to feel like he was in control. If he meant not to be a couple with me, he wouldn't spend nights like this with me. He was just afraid. I realized that he probably felt more comfortable with the idea of dating someone he either couldn't have, or someone he knew was diminished in such a way he never would have to feel bad about being the heel in the relationship, like Whitney had been. What we potentially had together might have been too good for him – likely too he may have felt a little frustrated with my inexperience, with me jumping in with my heart in my sleeve, and very naive about the consequences. Josh was older than me, and if you thought about it, at twenty-two I was as naive as a teenager in areas of love and romance. What prior real life experience did I have to go by? But that didn't seem fair that I couldn't be lead by my heart – why should I have to feel jaded and bitter and uncertain of myself simply to fit his whims? It was how I lived. How could he simply expect me to give up? Why should my inexperience make me less worthy of being loved?

Josh then started speaking on behalf of me personally. He told me that he could see me in a way that nobody else could. He didn't see the one dimensional character that most people knew me as – I was in fact underestimated and overlooked and quite a bit more special than most people realized. I was a challenge. In many respects, I was a different person to everyone I knew, he had watched me transform accordingly to whomever I was around, so he knew I was to some degree, and by second nature, acting. But Josh knew who I was behind the vale. I had been overlooked my entire life, and he knew things about me that other people had never bothered to see. In his eyes, I had always been ahead of everyone else, just a little bit. I was born just a tad bit smarter than the rest of my family and friends. It was second nature for me, he assumed. I was born into a world that didn't admire my character or my intelligence or my output. He actually saw it, even if nobody else did, or ever would. He could relate to me in a lot of ways, he told me. It was a lonely existence, and it's hard to explain just how, being the types of people we were. But we had each other didn't we?

I went down to my basement room once again, once again not knowing how to feel about what we had talked about that night. It was beginning to be a bit of a routine, feeling wounded and perplexed and enchanted all at once as I went to bed alone on my mattress laid out in the corner on the floor. I tried to sum it up the best I could, and I did this by writing letters to Sarah, more in my head than in reality any more. Though I occasionally sent emails to Sarah here and again more often then not she wouldn't answer them, and it made me upset. But I wasn't allowed to be upset with her anymore. Sarah in real life had failed me in so many regards, but the version of her in my mind was still very much alive and well – clear minded, ready to listen. Sarah would have been there for me if she could have. I tried to remind myself whenever I felt betrayed or neglected. As shitty as she had been, I knew that she had dug herself in so deep that she couldn't simply go back on it now. And if she had been thinking clearly she would still be there. I still tried to explain things to Sarah to myself. Explaining the connection I felt with Josh was simply something she could not understand. It was confusing for her for one. Sarah's relationships didn't revolve around psychoanalyzing someone to the wee hours of the morn. It was hard to know if it was very healthy or not. Was her way of connecting with men the healthy way? Or was mine? What had I gotten myself into?

I chose not to accept Josh telling me he would make a bad boyfriend in the end. Labels were relative I figured. I was completely invested and there was no turning back, even against better judgment, and even against whimsy at this point I could find nothing better in my life to be whimsical about. At that point, had I wanted to leave the situation I knew I couldn't – this was apparently where the universe had placed me, for whatever reason or lackthereof. If I had money or a new city maybe I could get away, but it wasn't in the cards at that moment. And if I woke up the next morning completely out of love with Josh for some inexplicable reason, I knew for a fact he would fight to keep me anyway. He wouldn't want me running away. He would be mad if I found someone else. He didn't want to date me, but he still wanted me there for him just the same. I figured this meant that on some level he did want to be my boyfriend. I just had to wait around till he figured it out. He still looked forward to seeing me everyday after work. He still loved me. Wasn't that enough? I knew where I belonged.

If I left out into the cold indifferent world outside of the madhouse, I would fail. I had no real family, friends or resources to turn to. I wasn't pretty enough to get by on looks alone, I was not demanding enough or certain enough to get my way in life. There were so many obstacles and personal flaws on my own behalf that made the out-outside world a fearsome place. If I marched out of that house and decided to make a new life for myself elsewhere, I knew I would only get myself broken – I wouldn't be able to pay my rent or get a job in a new city. I wouldn't have much success impressing people. I had to face the facts that I was not a strong person in some ways – at least when it came to common sense and survival. And then if I fell to pieces, who would come to my rescue? Josh would of course be there to pick up the pieces. I needed him as much as I wanted him with me. There was, granted, a side to me that resented that fact. I felt weak and pathetic. I didn't know what else to do. Josh often times told me that I was weak too. He was very much on board with me being highly aware of my inadequacies with the outside world. The whole Zack fiasco had really broken me up. What would have become of me had Josh not stepped into my life? I might have been dead.

And as for Josh's resolve. He hadn't said he wouldn't be my boyfriend. He essentially said it was a bad idea and that in some way he couldn't. Wouldn't and couldn't are very different. They imply different things. Wouldn't implies that he would cross the street on his own accord. Couldn't implies that crossing that street is impossible even if he wished to cross it. Should the intent not be taken into account here? What if the obstacle was removed? I knew better than anyone too, that we don't always know ourselves well enough to know what we truly want. Josh was probably afraid, and after everything in his own life, who could blame him. I really loved him. Josh had once told me that we accept the love we think we deserve. He probably got that from a Tony Robbins video on youtube, but it was nonetheless true. Josh's low self worth might have clashed with my adoration of him. Perhaps we just needed more time together. It had taken a very long time to get to this point with Josh. Six months ago he was behaving as though he didn't even like me as a person, and look where we were now. If momentum continued, all would be well. When I felt weakened and sad by the things that prevented us from being together, I reminded myself of this. It would be well regardless if I fretted about it, or I let it go. There wasn't a step we could take or not take that wouldn't strengthen the chains between us that held us together, resistance would be pointless, as would be forcing a feast. It wasn't decided by us, I reasoned. I figured that fate had brought us together. Because it was so obvious to me how well we fit. I couldn't see it any other way. Best react to the whole thing with elegance.

Sarah came up to me about a week later while we were both at work. Her belly was beginning to look quite round. We were passing one another in the bathroom hallway. I had just left the bathrooms, she was just walking in. She smiled at me in this peculiar knowing Sarah way, and asked me out of the blue, no hellos or anything, 'Did you and Josh have sex?'

I was taken aback, and I jumped a little bit and denied it. I wanted to know why she had asked. Because it felt connected to the vibes and tension in the room when I was around Josh, and how things had changed between us over the course of those weeks. It felt like we had, even though we hadn't. But Sarah hadn't been around Josh or me for some time. So how could she know??? Sarah's dreams always seemed to mean something. I had told her next to nothing after all. She wasn't around him and I at all, outside of seeing me washing dishes in the dish pit. She probably hadn't seen him and I together in the same room for several months.

I asked her to explain her dream. I was very curious. She proceeded to explain the dream. She had walked into the madhouse, and Josh was there, as well as me. She somehow knew that we had been sleeping together. It was just the feeling in the room I guess, the walls seemed to give it away. The essence of every shared space in the house. I guess the details of the dream and the meaning was intrinsic with Sarah's personal psyche and her interpretation of emotional symbolism in her personal dream land so explaining how she knew is somewhat pointless because it was of course, her dream. I guess she just knew. In her dream though, she explained that we had had sex – she saw it both in Josh's eyes and in my own, but then in her dream I eventually left Josh. I don't know how that came to pass. She must have just switched in her dreams to a new individualized conversation with me in Sarah-dream-world. In the dream, I explained to her that I left him because he was unnatural and was separating me from nature. So I left Josh to go live and be close to trees. I don't remember all the details concerning that. I stood there in the hallway and listened to her explain this. It felt very viscerally real to me, and hearing it from my fallen but still smiling with fully dimpled knowingness that could only be Sarah and very much pregnant former best friend was pretty weird.

I guess what got me was this feeling she explained about wanting to go to something natural and pure. I felt that pull towards nature. At this point I could ignore it. I would not let it come out and destroy what my life was, but would it someday raise it's head in my life and cause me to walk away from all this? A part of what drew me to Josh was the very things I often found unpleasant about him, and explaining that is difficult. There was something that undeniably upset me about Josh. I felt at times like by nature he was very far removed from something natural about being a human being. In so many ways, he seemed honest but everything he did also seemed very shame based. It was hard to say if it was a push towards personal growth on my own behalf or no, but since I had moved in with him, I felt this sense that I couldn't simply be myself. I had to play a game. I was at once more myself then I ever had been, true, and I had been playing a game or course my whole life. But Josh made me feel unnatural when I got to close to him. The connection I had with my own spirit seemed tampered with.

It made him beautiful I guess. It made him horrible. I saw it in certain respects as a rebellion against tribal small mindedness. I saw Josh as innovative and his perspective as very postmodern and fresh if not a little eccentric. Maybe I was just more of a hippie than he was. Josh resented hippies, partly because he was jealous of them, partly because he found them illogical. But even as well as he seemed to know me, sometimes I knew that he didn't know me. He had no appreciation for so much of what I was about. I could tell myself these things didn't matter, but someday, maybe they would. For one, it was and had always been very important to me to be alone around nature and to take walks – it was important for me to have dreams and to decipher their meaning. I liked to sometimes look at big spaces, miles of open land and just drop all thought and stare at the desolate aspects of everything, seeing that same desolation within myself. It was very much integrated with my imagination and my ability to be an artist. I let my mind go and I just let myself feel the world around me without thought – and things came from that. It was in that place that the seeds of who I would become and what I would do next would occur so in many respects my whole life was based on being 'one' with the world so to speak. This meant very little to Josh. Josh only cared about me in terms of my relationship to him. He saw these elements of my personality to be fraudulent and in some small way, an assault to him.

He didn't really care that I had lost weight either. I guess I couldn't imagine being around someone and knowing they had lost seventy pounds on their own accord, their personal drive, and not felt impressed. Josh simply didn't care – he had no motive to do that himself and since he naturally didn't put on weight like my body did he really wasn't interested in what I did. Josh spent his spare time sitting in front of his television. He would judge me if he didn't think I looked good of course, but the amount of work I put into looking trim didn't affect him at all. There was something kind of dehumanizing about it. I wasn't looking for a pat on the back, but the indifference he could sometimes show towards someone's hard work, well, it came off as piggish. He didn't see it as an accomplishment of mine – and the few times he did talk to me about it he tried to tell me that I didn't know anything about losing weight and he did, even though I had lost seventy pounds, much of that before having known him. He just didn't respect it. If he could have taken credit for my weight loss he would have. But since it was my accomplishment and not his, he was insulted by it.

There was something so fundamentally dishonest about him too when it came to his assumptions about women. He came by it 'honestly' and I don't mean to imply that Josh was not so removed from nature as to be some kind of cyborg or something alien to how he saw people. It's just that Josh seemed very disconnected from something primal and honest. At the time it seemed like an asset. He wasn't as doggish as I knew men could be, particularly after having closed a kitchen with a group of them for most nights at the restaurant as I overheard them talk. He was curious about things other men were not and this often times drew women to him. They felt recognized in some way their oafish cap wearing boyfriends had not. He couldn't seem to let go of his ego at any moment though. It seemed edgy at times, and entertaining. He seemed highly aware of himself and it gave him this very witty perceptive sense of humor sometimes, but the notion of letting go of his ego held no interest for him either. In fact, the more and more I was around him, the more I realized that, while he knew me well, I was an extension of his ego – and he could only know me through his own ego. He didn't want me to have a mind of my own. At first that seemed flattering. I was still flattered to some degree. And every blue moon he would take in what I had said or suggested. It livened up our friendship, and it might have been what I saw as most challenging between us. But could I live with that forever?

He couldn't appreciate me outside of the framework of himself. When I went out for a walk, to him I might as well not exist for those hours away – he didn't want to know what I had seen on my walk, he didn't want to know what my favorite music was, or who I talked to at work. He had no curiosity about how my day went when I wasn't around him. It was very bizarre. And he would I am sure argue that it was my ego at work for being bothered by this. How egotistical of me was it to secretly wish someone wanted to know these minuscule and egotistical trinket facts about me that were more or less of no consequence. Josh would argue that he saw me as a piece of art in the making in some deeper way, and these little fragments and ideas I had about myself and my aesthetic were mindless and indulgences of my own ego that bore little resemblance to who I actually was underneath it all. And maybe he was right. But he almost seemed annoyed when he was at times reminded that I liked things he didn't – like The Smiths, Neil Young, or American Psycho or that I loved Smoked Oysters. He was amused that I had these differences in theory, but he seemed to actively never want to be reminded that I had passions or interests that went outside of his box he had made for me. He didn't care if I liked them so long as it was out of his sight. He wasn't interested in controlling me. But by default I couldn't really express my love for other things around him, so in that way, it did become somewhat controlling.

It made me feel funny at times about having a life outside of the madhouse. I didn't feel shamed or anything about taking walks. I didn't let Josh stop me from connecting to the outside world in that way, but it did make a big difference in my ability to make friends. And I felt like that same indifference about me was connected to the indifference he felt about connecting to the world around him. So in order to connect with Josh, I had to disconnect from other people. Josh only cared about himself and his own domain. I happened to adore Josh for who he was and didn't mind his domain so much, but suppose he was someone else that I was not in love with? It was not a positive personality trait to have.

Also, while Josh wanted me in his life, very closely, he also would always resent or push away some other part of me. Did he fully accept me for what I was? If I truly felt that way, then why did I spend hours on my make up everyday? Sure I loved looking good, but I was driven also by this frantic insecurity and fear that Josh would notice me and realize I was flawed. It was creating this strange self hatred within me that was beginning to spiral out of control. I tried to remember myself from two years ago. I had been broken and unhappy. I never wore make up. I was pretty heavy. I was very flawed, and nobody looked at me with the exception of maybe Sarah, and saw a beautiful person. But that girl that I was – the one that never got the love she needed but had to pull herself up from her bootstraps was probably the coolest version of me. Her resolve and clarity of thought were the reason I had lost the weight to begin with, she was the one that made art, the one that decided to escape her father's house. And who was I but some broken sad girl hiding behind a man who most likely wouldn't even save her in the end? Compared to my old self, I was a joke. I probably needed to look back and love that girl more – find her again. She was the one that had fought for a better life, the one with the vision and clarity. But that girl was incompatible with Josh, and the big world. I was the result of making compromises with reality, and in the complexity of life's downfalls I had become quite lost. I was in love with a hiding spot. The version of me that I was becoming was intriguing and exciting. But did she actually have a basis for existing?

Sarah's dream had it right. It could be summed up with my love of being balanced with nature. Deep down, was my relationship with Josh balanced? For the moment it seemed to be balancing fine and I found a great thrill with the imbalance – and maybe there was a sense of balance in that there was chaos in me that needed feeding and Josh could provide a certain level of stable chaos that wouldn't result in yelling that I could live with. But would I always feel this way? And would Josh like me so much if I did something willful for myself without expressing apology to him for having done so? For instance, he didn't seem to like it when other people chose music to listen to. He especially would get mad if I chose to listen to music It went unsaid, but he would get angry and passive aggressive if I took any kind initiative. Sometimes he would get mad if I put my food in a certain place in the fridge. He never yelled, but he would toss things around and you could practically see the steam coming off his head. I tried to console myself with the fact that this was just how people learn about one another. I blamed myself. I promised to myself to take up less space in his life, or in anyone's life. I would become lighter, more compact, more self sufficient. I didn't want to make Josh upset. If Josh came downstairs to do his laundry and he overheard me listening to music in my own room, I quickly shut it off. Things like that would even annoy him. For some reason, I didn't think this was weird and instead I just adapted myself to please him.

When he got this way, I would immediately feel insecure about myself. I would take the smaller piece of the pie, or flat out let him have the whole pie when something upset him. I already felt embarrassed and half ashamed when I expressed myself fully sometimes – which would be impulsive and would happen by accident. But Josh made it really easy for this insecurity of mine to fully develop into full neurosis. I hid how it made me feel, so he never knew he was inconveniencing my self worth – that would by extension inconvenience him of course which I was unable to do. Sometimes I would be walking down the sidewalk even alone and guilt would wash over me, that I didn't even deserve to be there taking up space in the world at all. It didn't matter where I went or what I did, how much weight I lost. I was a piece of meat that had no rhyme or reason to be there. I felt like I was too much when I tried to express myself. So it was a full time job holding it in. I felt strange moments of disconnectedness at times, like I was going to have a nervous breakdown. And everything that Sarah and Allison and David had rejected me for, it all made sense. I was bad. Josh was merely nice enough to point out what they hadn't been able to do. And I was lucky to have him there. Because if he didn't accept me for how awful I was, then I wasn't going to get it anywhere else.

This of course created a deep seated insecurity in me. What if I lost Josh somehow? What if he got bored of me, or decided to focus on some other girl? Allison, Whitney and Sarah had gotten out of the way – but suppose one or all three came back. Josh might toss my aside. He would and could do it, and it would make me look crazy. Because he could easily say I was just his obsessive roommate. That he had no hand in being close to me, and I had wanted a relationship and he had let me know there wouldn't be one, even though he was also stringing me along – nobody saw that or really got what that was about. And without Josh I was nothing. It would be like someone tore my skin off. I would be absolutely vulnerable to any and everything. I felt this scary insecure sense that if I didn't have Josh, I would lose all sense of myself and I would go into something dark that would take me years to come out of. It fed into some deep dark fear that was hard to articulate. Like willingly letting myself fall off a high rise. By instinct, my life's objective was to not let that happen.

The next day after Josh had talked to me about not being my boyfriend and whathaveyou, he came in on his break. He was feeling chipper, his eyes dilated and blue behind his spectacles, he had a glow to him. He danced about the room a bit, as he often did odd and sometimes funny things when he got off work for a time. He went into this abstract thing where he said that even though he wasn't going to let himself get into any relationships – a hint towards our previous conversation the night before, he was going to accept all the love that was given to him. Essentially, he wanted me to continue loving him. He wanted me to throw myself into this thing with my heart on my sleeve like we were making wedding vows. He didn't think he had to reciprocate of course – at least not in the sense that he wanted to commit to anything per say, but he would gladly accept all love that was given to him. He made it sound so healthy – Buddhist even. He made statements implying that he had such a great well of love within him for me, that it transcended anything that a relationship could ever do for me, that some meaningless label could ever do. And we could be close, and intimate but as long as we never touched he was committed to nothing with me. And he was gleeful about this. I tried to be gleeful with him. Maybe I was. It's hard to say. I was crazy back then.

PART 112 - https://tinyurl.com/ycwx7be7

PART 111 - https://tinyurl.com/yc2sc37j

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-110 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-110

#text #life story #long text #writing

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