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ragingbookdragon · 3 years

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Even Though We May Be Hopeless Hearts Just Passing Through, I Was Made For Loving You PT. 1

Batsis x Kyle Rayner

Word Count: 2.1K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: I realize the other story didn't follow the whole, dating the brother's best friend trope, so I decided to remedy it. And what do you get when you cross a hopeless romantic with someone who's new to love? Perfection. That's what. Enjoy! -Thorne

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Saturday mornings, in Dick’s opinion, were meant for sleeping in and quite possibly going to IHOP when everyone finally crawled out of bed at ten. They were not meant for being shoved in the side by a little brother.

“Golden-boy,” a voice grouched from beneath the bedside. “Your phone’s been going off for an hour. Either put it on silent or answer the goddamn thing.”

Dick let out a tired ‘pfft’, rolling onto his stomach, face buried in the side of the bed as he looked down to the floor. “Annoyed much, Little-wing?”

“I am going to shove that phone so far up your—”

Reaching over, Dick put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

Where are you?

“Still in bed,” he responded, sentence ending in a groan as he stretched. “Why?”

You were supposed to be on the flight back to Gotham two hours ago.

Dick’s eyes went wide, and he sat up, gaping at the bedside clock. “It’s today.”

It is today. I can’t believe you forgot it was today.

“Oh my God, it’s today and we missed our flight.” He stumbled out of the bed, barely registering the shout from Jason as his foot landed in his brother’s stomach. “Jason, get up! It’s today!’

“What’s today?” his little brother griped, rubbing his abdomen.

“(Y/N)’s coming back!”

Jason’s eyes went wide, and he scrambled to his feet, hurriedly finding his bag to change out of his nightclothes. “Christ, I can’t believe we forgot that (Y/N) was coming home today!” he looked at Dick. “This is your fault.”

“My fault?” Dick yelped. “How is this my fault!”

He scowled. “Big brother wanted everyone to be with a sibling for the night, so they’d be together and be punctual but you and I both know neither of us have any concept of time.” His scowl grew. “I knew I should’ve bunked with Cass. She’s on time no matter what happens.”

Dick threw Jason’s sweatshirt at him. “Dress now, bitch later.” He put the phone back to his ear. “We missed our flight, but we can drive there.”

Your car’s in the shop.

“Shit,” he hissed, spinning in a circle to help his brain circuit enough to think of something new. “Uh-uh-uh—”

“Kyle!” Jason shouted, pointing at him. “Kyle’s like thirty minutes away from Manhattan! We’ll go to him for a ride!”

Dick grinned. “We’ll find Kyle.”

You sure Kyle’s at home?

“Pfft, Kyle’s always home on the weekends. He’s lazy.”

Just get here. (Y/N)’s plane is going to land in less than four hours.

“We’ll be there,” he said. “Is Diana coming too?”

Of course. She is (Y/N)’s mother.

“Nice. Alright, see you in Gotham, Bruce.”

Love you boys. And be careful. I’ve already heard that Cass, Tim, and Steph got into a fender-bender with Damian and Duke.

Dick blinked. “They’re…they’re legitimately driving separate cars? How’d they hit each other?”

Don’t ask.

The line went dead, and Dick looked at his brother. “Ready?”

Jason nodded. “Already got an Uber to Kyle’s place.”

“We could always just Uber to Gotham?” he offered, and Jason recoiled with a shocked look.

“And pay a ridiculous amount of money instead of just paying Kyle’s gas? Fuck no, big brother.” He shoved his wallet and keys into his pockets. “C’mon!” he chirped, rather excitedly. “Our baby sister’s coming home!”

***

When he swung the door open to yell at whoever was pounding on it, he wasn’t expecting to see two of his best friends grinning like idiots. “Wha—”

He’d barely gotten a word out when Jason shoved a bag of fast food in his hands. “Get dressed. You’ve gotta drive us to Gotham City.”

Kyle blinked, glancing down at the bag before looking at Dick. “Why?”

“Our sister’s coming home, and we overslept and missed out flight outta here.”

“And you came to me…why?” he asked.

“Because you have the functioning car.” Jason retorted, antsy on his feet. “C’mon Kyle. We have to hurry! (Y/N)’s coming home!”

Figuring it was better to agree than to argue, Kyle relented, handing back the bag of food before he disappeared into his apartment, reappearing moments later, dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans, a graphic tee, and his usual slim casual jacket. He took the bag back and started digging around in it.

“Who’s (Y/N)?” he inquired, biting into a breakfast burrito as he locked his front door behind him.

“Our baby sister.” Jason said.

“I thought Cass was your baby sister?”

Dick nodded, getting out his own breakfast from the bag. “She is. But (Y/N)’s like…the OG baby sister.”

Kyle blinked, glancing over at him as he pushed the elevator button. “That makes no sense.”

“He means that (Y/N) was around before Cass was.”

“And she isn’t with you guys why?”

“She’s been on Themyscira for the last few years training with her grandmother and the other Amazons.” Jason answered as if it was the most normal thing in the world, stepping onto the elevator.

Kyle merely stared at the two brothers who were looking back at him; he felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Wait, your sister’s an Amazon?”

“Yep.”

“Who’s her mom?” he asked, stepping between them.

“Wonder Woman.” Dick said.

Strike two. “Who’s her dad?”

“Batman.” Jason responded.

Believe it or not, Kyle went three for three punches to the gut. “Bruce and Diana had a kid together?”

“Yeah.” Dick murmured. “I think it’s also why B’s so insistent against inter-team-relations.” He nudged Jason behind Kyle. “First time he attempts dating a coworker he ends up with a baby.”

Jason snorted. “And all those lessons about, ‘Children, whatever you do, don’t date anyone on your team. It’ll only lead to babies and limited visitation’.” He laughed again, then he frowned. “I don’t think any of us have followed that lesson.”

Dick opened his mouth to make an excuse but all that came out was a pitiful, deflate of air followed by, “That’s actually a good point.”

The elevator dinged and they watched the doors open before walking out towards the parking garage. They climbed into Kyle’s car, Jason in the front because his legs were longer than Dick’s, and Dick was a contortionist anyways so if anyone deserved to have their knees in their chest, it was him.

Halfway through the drive Kyle asked, “You guys are paying for my gas, aren’t you?”

All he received was unsure responses and he merely sighed.

***

He figured he should’ve just dropped Jason and Dick off at the airport in Gotham and drove home, but he couldn’t help but want to see just what the daughter of Wonder Woman and Batman looked like. He imagined a little girl dressed in a Batman suit three sizes too big and wielding a sword and a lasso way too heavy for her. It made him smile, the way that the two brothers gushed about (Y/N). From their praise, she was their world. Kyle had to see her though, because nothing was going to satiate that curiosity of seeing the big Batman’s daughter.

He watched Dick and Jason crane their necks like birds as they looked around. And honestly, the family shouldn’t have been that hard to find considering that every time Kyle was around the entirety of the Batfamily, they were like psychos on steroids—he very much so understood why the entirety of Gotham’s villains became flighty when every member of the Batfamily was out patrolling.

Kyle wasn’t expecting a voice to crack over the airport, loud and bubbly. “Brothers!”

All three of them stopped, even him who wasn’t even a sibling, looking over towards the call and Kyle’s jaw dropped as a young woman sprinted over to Dick and Jason, slamming into them with the weight of a train. The three of them collapsed into a pile on the floor, but they were laughing so Kyle assumed the siblings were alright.

“Princess!”

“Baby girl!”

“Oh, I am so glad to see you both!” she exclaimed. “I have waited so long to come home!” she was on her feet in moments, pulling them to theirs as if they weighed nothing. And Kyle knew Jason weighed a lot—he’d been crushed under his best friend before in fights.

Suddenly, she stopped and looked over at Kyle who immediately felt his heart lurch under her sharp gaze. “Who is this you have brought?”

Jason gestured to him. “(Y/N) this is Kyle. He’s a friend of Dick and mine. Kyle, this is our little sister, (Y/N).”

She huffed laugh. “I am not little, Jason. I am twenty-one.” Reaching out, she immediately pulled Kyle in for a hug, squeezing him tightly. “It is good to meet you, Kyle.”

“You too,” he murmured, feeling his cheeks warm as she pulled away and placed her hands on his shoulders.

“Any friend of my brothers is a friend of mine.” (Y/N) smiled. “Are you a superhero as well?”

He couldn’t help but toss a quick glance towards Jason who nodded. “Uh, yeah. I’m a Green Lantern.”

(Y/N)’s eyes widened in wonder, and she let go of his shoulders in favor of grabbing at his hands until she found his ring. She stared at it, murmuring quiet, ‘ooo’s and ah’s’. “That is simply amazing!” she chirped, looking at him, and then she silently gasped, raising his hand near his eyes. “Oh…your eyes are almost the same color as your ring.”

Her smile made Kyle’s heart beat a little faster as she expressed, “They are beautiful.”

They gazed at each other, too captivated in the moment to understand that the family had gathered around them by then. Someone’s hand curled around (Y/N)’s wrist and she looked over seeing Dick tugging her hand away.

“C’mon Princess, let’s go get your things on the belt.”

She smiled and followed, giving a small wave to Kyle, who returned hers shakily whilst grinning like a dope.

Someone elbowed him in the ribs, and he gasped, holding his side as Jason muttered, “Don’t ever stare at my sister like that again.”

Kyle blinked, glancing at him. “What’re you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, you goddamn skirt-chaser.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Kyle spluttered.

“You’re thinking about it.” Jason warned, pointing a finger in his face. “Make a move on (Y/N) and I’ll kill you with your own ring.” Kyle recoiled just as she and Dick were coming back, both holding a suitcase.

“Father!” she called, glancing at Bruce. “Dick and I have retrieved my luggage.”

He smiled at her. “Let’s go put it in the SUV then.” He paused, looking over the large group. He and Diana had ridden together, and since his children had fender-benders, they’d picked up Cass, Tim, Stephanie, Duke, and Damian; there wasn’t room for (Y/N) too.

“Father? Is something the matter?” (Y/N) was staring at him with concern.

“There’s not enough room in the SUV for you too. Maybe we—”

“There’s room in my car for (Y/N)!” Kyle blurted out, smiling nervously at Bruce. “I can follow behind you.”

Before anyone could screech ‘NO!’, mainly Dick and Jason, (Y/N) lit up like the morning sun. “Oh, that is a wonderful idea!” she grabbed onto Diana’s arm. “We should all stop for ice-cream though! Mother, what do you say?”

She smiled at her and leaned over, kissing her head. “I say that sounds like a fantastic idea, daughter.”

Kyle grinned and held out his arm for (Y/N), her giggling as she took it. “You know, I don’t live in Gotham, (Y/N), but I do know a good gelato store around the area.”

“What is gelato?” she asked, and he groaned.

“Oh, I can’t believe you don’t know what that is.” He started off, pilling her along, leaving everyone behind. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you.”

Jason’s face pinched and he looked over at Bruce. “Can I break the no-kill rule just once?”

Bruce blinked, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched his daughter laughing along with Kyle, both looking like newlyweds already. “Believe it or not, I’m strongly considering it.”

“Bruce.” Diana admonished. “Let (Y/N) and Kyle become friends. You know she doesn’t have many outside this family here.”

Dick growled. “Except Kyle doesn’t want to be friends with (Y/N), Diana. He wants to be her boyfriend.”

“They just met though?”

“Yeah, and Kyle’s a propose on week two type of man,” Jason griped. “Jesus Christ, this is going to be a disaster.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but (Y/N) and Kyle said gelato and you guys are just standing here.” Tim said. “Can we go now?”

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dalekofchaos · 3 years

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It wasn’t all Micah’s fault, Dutch is as much to blame.

A lot of people seem to think that Micah being the rat is what led to the fall of the Van der Linde gang. While it’s true that Micah is partly to blame. But Micah would not have an opportunity if it were not for Dutch’s vanity and pride.

Dutch is the classic delusional leader seen in many stories, novels. His fantasies become more real with each day, battle and somehow they think fortune is right around the corner. Like a gambler chasing the eternal big pot. No amount of money would ever be enough. It wasn't about money. It's was about the chase, the illusion of victory that never comes.

In Chapter 6 is when this all becomes more apparent. A switch went off in Dutch's mind, in Ch6. This wasn't the way HIS story was supposed to happen. Not to HIM. He's freaking Don Quixote, madman fighting knights in his mind and being a hero. It's fucking beautiful character writing and story arc for him.

Dutch has a discarded speech draft in horseshoe overlook that shows he’s always been a self-obsessed politician in context of the gang. He crosses out every line of humility and replaces it with narcissistic martyrdom, and avoids ever giving his audience a moment to question him or the path they’re on. He wants control over people so he can use them to realize his ambitions, and every book he reads in camp has a similar motif that explains why he thinks that way.

There are conversations between Lenny and Dutch, too. Lenny is not a fan of Evelyn Miller and tells Dutch why. Dutch is blind to the criticism. This speaks volumes about the two characters. This conversation made me realize that Dutch is used to peddling his philosophy to people who are not as well read as him; the moment he has to defend his ideas to someone more intelligent he gets defensive and angry. Because he isn't searching for a debate; he's searching for affirmation.

Everyone loves to paint Dutch and Hosea as the perfect partners and even ship them in a gay way. But Dutch doesn’t respect Hosea? Also Hosea was a happily married man. They're supposed to be partners, but he certainly doesn't treat him like one. He doesn't listen to him, he yells at him when he's doubting, coughing or in pain, and he makes him sleep on the cold, hard, dirty ground. He even openly ignores him in Colter, in front of the other men, and rides off when he tries to stop him from robbing Cornwall's train. I'm not saying they don't have a rich history or good moments, but it's a toxic relationship at best. Not exactly something worth praising. If you don't believe me, you can find unique dialogues as the game progresses, verifying he’s lost all faith in Dutch. To the point that he even starts telling other members to leave. Abigail, John, Arthur, Lenny, Tilly, Sadie -- he tells all of them to leave. During a dominoes game we played together he even said, "Maybe it's just me, but Dutch seems to be getting more and more unhinged." And as early as chapter one he told Arthur, "Try to stop Dutch getting all of you killed, because I'm about beginning to think he's finally lost his mind." There are also other conversations where Hosea’s disappointment with Dutch is far more blatant. He basically tells Arthur he’s been disillusioned for a while and wishes the gang would change, but when Arthur asks what they’d do instead of thieving, Hosea says, “I don’t know. I never knew. Guess I could never figure that out, neither.” By this point he’s just so dejected and defeatist because he knows Dutch won’t listen to him. He also goes on a whole tirade about how they’ve become “nothing but a bunch of killers”, which breaks his heart, and during a random campfire encounter he bares his soul and flat out tells the gang he no longer believes in Dutch’s “we’re above the law” philosophy. I feel like Dutch is glad Hosea was killed because the biggest doubter and thorn in his side was taken care of.

I mean this is what Hosea feels about the majority of Dutch’s plans

The moment John put his family as a priority, Dutch saw this as a threat and has been paranoid about John ever since.

He tried to play the Grays, Braithewaites and Bronte the same way he’s used Arthur, Hosea, John, Bill, Javier, and even his women like Molly, Susan and Annabelle. To Dutch, people are just set pieces in his life. He cares for them and wants them to love him, but it’s only because he’s a narcissist that needs their support to make himself stronger.

He never snapped or went crazy or turned. The Dutch that drowned Bronte is the same Dutch that had always been there. He was frustrated that he did not have the upper hand on somebody, that someone had played him the same way he plays others, and it’s probably the same reason he shot a girl in cold blood on the ferry and the same reason he shot the girl in the bank in rdr1. In that scene in rdr1, he said something like “you’re the master now John” before Dutch did what he did.

When Dutch isn’t in control, he rages against the world around him. Because as far as he’s concerned, he’s the smartest and most virtuous man around and anyone who opposes him is wrong. And anytime he loses or isn’t completely in control, somebody’s out to get him and play him like a fool. That’s why he turns on Arthur and John, and why Micah manipulates him so easily

Blackwater, going up against Cornwall, playing the inbred families and Bronte is what sealed the gang's fate.

Blackwater. If Dutch had just ignored the ferry job and let Hosea and Arthur handle their Blackwater real estate/tax scam, then they would have made it big with no one dying

If Dutch had just ignored the O'Driscolls and their train heist plans, then Cornwall would have went after Colm O'Driscoll while Dutch and the gang could have either went to Horseshoe without incident or gotten lost out West. Don’t forget it was Hosea who was against robbing that train back in chapter 1 that belonged to Leviticus Cornwall. It was after that robbery when he started sponsoring Pinkertons to find Dutch. If they stayed away from that train, they could’ve shaken off the Pinkertons easily. Hosea was right from the very start. Even before that he was saying that Blackwater robbery was a bad idea.

If Dutch or Hosea put their foot down and requested Herr Straus to stop loansharking desperate people or risk being banished from the gang, then maybe Arthur would still be alive

If they requested the aid of Trelwany to see if the rumor of Confederate gold is legit or not, then they could've realized playing one or the other family was a complete waste of time and not worth the effort.

The moment they got Jack from Bronte, they should have just left Lemoyne and never looked back.

The moment Arthur began helping the Wapiti tribe, he should have never went back to Dutch. Arthur, Charles, Sadie and John should have helped them and never looked back. John would’ve gotten Abigail and Jack out alive, while from some convincing from Arthur, Uncle and Susan would have helped Mary-Beth, Tilly and Pearson leave the gang.

Even if everything turned out the way it did but Hosea, Lenny and Sean were alive, the gang would be split. Hosea, Susan, Lenny and Sean would have sided with Arthur. There would have been a chance that Hosea and Arthur could have talked sense into Dutch, but Dutch would not want to see that he fucked up royally and costed EVERYTHING, he would stand by the choices he made, even if it meant fighting his own brother and sons.

But no, Dutch needs to feel like this big and important leader. He needs one last take. It wasn't about money, it was wanting to prove that he won and just wanting to be the big man, like Evelyn Miller or all the outlaws that are romanticized. Micah saw him for what he was and was playing him like a fiddle and milking him for all he's worth. It was so easy for Micah to play Dutch and so easy for Arthur Hosea, Sean, Lenny, Susan, Davey, Mac and Jenny to die for the sake of Dutch proving that he is a winner and that he is right. It was never about getting lost out west or even the money or even Tahiti, it was about Dutch wanting to prove he is right and all the doubters are wrong.

Dutch Van der Linde’s pride and ego is what destroyed the gang. Even if Milton did not kill Hosea, there was no stopping Dutch’s path of self-destruction.

#Red Dead Redemption #Red Dead Redemption 2 #Arthur Morgan #Dutch Van Der Linde #Hosea Matthews #John Marston #Micah Bell #Sean MacGuire #Lenny Summers #Susan Grimshaw #Charles Smith #Sadie Adler

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kiki-shortsnout · 3 years

Note

For intimacy prompts: #17 laying your head on someone’s shoulder for Frostiron! 💚❤️ Thanks!

I'm back!!! Sorry it's taken so long, but I'm back to answer my prompts! Thank you so much for this one! I enjoyed writing this!

***

Loki stumbled as the Bifrost set them both down, too exhausted to shake off Thor’s steadying hand on his elbow, his brother’s own exhaustion evident in the slump of his shoulders. Loki had no strength left in him to make a jest about Thor’s overprotective tendencies, instead looking around the Midgardian cityscape he’d come to think of as a second home, his limbs limp.

Part of his atonement for his war crimes was to take a more active role in defense of the planet he sought to enslave. His mother and brother’s pleas not to imprison him swaying his father from a harsher sentence. He was a…tolerated member of the Avengers, a proverbial thorn in the side for most. He’d formed a tentative, begrudging respect towards the Black Widow, but he was a constant source of irritation for the rest of them.

Well, someone needed to keep the Avengers on their toes.

Loki was still called upon to keep Asgard and the realms it protected safe, and that was where he and Thor had been, subduing marauders on Vanaheim, listening to whispers of an event called a Convergence was impending, a cataclysmic occurrence that had them all on edge.

It felt as though his very bones rattled as he trudged across the roof of the Avengers Tower beside Thor, like his skin was stretched too taut over the excruciating ache of his muscles. As they came into the hanger, they both looked around, used to having at least one member of the Avengers greet them after their excursions off world.

Despite being used to being treated with distrust and trepidation, the bitter sting of their rebuke still penetrated the fatigued miasma clouding Loki’s brain.

He’d managed to convince one Midgardian that he was not the nemesis that all perceived him to be, that it was an illusion he portrayed to hide the crippling weakness he felt. This one Midgardian had seen through Thanos’s manipulations of his mind, had shattered the deception he shrouded himself in. It was Anthony he looked around for now, bewildered as he was met with nothing but silence, not even JARVIS speaking to them.

‘Is Earth under attack?’ Thor questioned, wiping the grime from his eyes as he frowned, moving towards one of the huge windows. Loki reformed his daggers as he took a step forward, ears straining to hear, his body sluggish and unwilling to cooperate.

The door at the far end of the room creaked open, and Loki teleported beside it in an instant, flinging it open and pointing his dagger at their enemy.

‘Pepper?’ Lowering his dagger, he immediately noticed she looked as tired, if not more so than the both of them. Her usually glossy hair was dull and frazzled, wisping around her face in auburn tufts, her eyes encircled with grey smudges.

‘What has happened?’ he asked, his words curt despite how he’d promised Anthony he would respect this mortal. It was an easy promise to keep, treating the two people Anthony treasured above all with care. Loki genuinely liked Pepper, her attitude, her bravery, her fiery temper. He and Rhodes tolerated each other, their mutual like for Anthony the only thing stopping them from attacking each other, settling instead for snide comments.

‘It’s Tony, he…he’s been really sick, Loki,’ Pepper gasped, her lower lip trembling as she swayed into him.

‘Where is he?’ Loki demanded, catching her by her shoulders. It was as though his body had been invigorated with lust for battle, any fatigue he’d felt moments ago burned away. Instead of the adrenaline he usually felt under such circumstances, his body felt cold, terror seeping down the back of his throat, stroking its clammy fingers across his skin.

Why wasn’t I here?

‘He’s in his room now-’

‘Where was he before?’ Thor asked before Loki could even put words to the thoughts scattering in his mind, the guilt webbing in his lungs, tugging at him with every breath.

‘The medical bay downstairs…JARVIS has the most extensive anatomy files because of the arc reactor and-’

‘Thor, look after her for me,’ Loki ordered, teleporting away despite them calling after him.

Anthony was huddled in his bed, the numerous blankets piled on him quivering as he trembled. The sickly scent spiraling in tendrils through the air made Loki recoil. This…was not something he was comfortable with. He’d never cared about another enough to warrant any actions of concern from him, had never been able to see past his own arrogance and selfishness to consider others.

‘An…Tony?’ he called, scared at what he was going to find, at how sick his mortal was. He’d seen Tony sick before, seen him with what they called a cold, all snuffy nosed and demanding and clingy. This silent, still, Anthony frightened him. What ailed him so? What illness had made Pepper look like a shadow of herself? Why had he needed to go down to the medical bay? Loki had seen Anthony after a battle, had seen him spit venom at any who dared suggest he seek medical help when he was injured, only allowing Loki to tend to his wounds hours later when the pain had grown too much to bear. Even then, he’d pretended it was for his own sake, that he was the one who couldn’t bear to see Anthony in pain.

He took a step backwards, wanting to flee, wanting to escape the fear plucking at him. He’d been in countless battles, fought with odds against him, had stood and waited for punishment by his father. This, seeing someone he had grown to care about like this…why was this affecting him so?

Anthony had reached out a hand in friendship despite all the atrocities he had committed in both Midgard and Jotunheim, the countless lives he had taken and lasting repercussions, Anthony Stark had given him a home, a means to make penance for those he had wronged. He hadn’t forgiven him, not straight away, that had taken time and trust to develop between them.

It was that belief in him, an emotion that so few beings were unwilling to extend to him which made Loki fall in love with the Midgardian, a feeling he had not given life with his words yet. It was this unnamed feeling which made him shove all his selfish fears aside.

Anthony needed him.

‘Anthony?’ he called again, peeling back the covers, his breath hitching at the sheer heat radiating from the man.

‘Hey,’ his voice cracked, his lungs rattling as he drew in a breath, hands tightening from where they were wrapped around himself in a pitiful hug.

‘What…what happened, should you even be here?’ Loki asked, dropping to his knees by the side of the bed, his hands hovering over Anthony’s body, uncertain, scared to touch this fragile creature.

Anthony rolled over in bed, and Loki was horrified at the sunken look to his skin, the waxy grey pallor, the red-rimmed eyes.

‘Oh, beloved,’ Loki breathed out, his hand stroking through clumped together hair.

‘Not a pretty sight,’ Anthony wheezed out. ‘You should’ve seen me a few weeks ago.’

Weeks? He’d left him behind in a worse condition than this for weeks?

‘How did your health deteriorate so fast? You weren’t in this condition when I…’ Loki’s eyes narrowed when Anthony’s gaze dropped, one of his tells when he wasn’t telling the entire truth. ‘You were ill when I left.’ Loki didn’t phrase it as a question.

‘Honestly, Lokes, don’t-’ Anthony’s protest was cut off with a wracking cough, the sheer force of it scaring Loki, sweeping aside whatever anger that had been beginning to build a few moments ago.

‘Why did you not tell me? If I had known-’

‘Thor needed you,’ Anthony said weakly, sagging back into his pillow. ‘Besides, this isn’t…this isn’t what we do.’ He closed his eyes as if the mere act of breathing pained him.

He was correct in his assumptions. They laughed, talked, had sex…keeping everything light and frothy and pleasurable, avoiding anything that encompassed feelings, vulnerabilities, neither wanting to be beholden to the other. It was a foolish act on Loki’s behalf, wanting to keep a distance from attachments, fearful of what Anthony could mean to him.

‘Move aside,’ Loki commanded, shrugging off his cape and unfastening his arm bracers.

‘Loki, what?’

‘Unless me joining you is going to impede your recovery in any way?’ Loki hesitated, suppressing his smirk at Anthony’s interested, fatigued gaze on his now naked torso. Lying beside his mortal, Loki gathered him in his arms, arranging them so he was on his back, Anthony half on top of him, his head on his shoulder.

‘Listen to me,’ Loki whispered, the words delicate, but infused with such meaning that it made them hang thickly between them. This was a precipice on which he stood, a moment he had read about in countless epic sagas. The hero baring the depths of their love after a heroic deed, or a noble act of self-sacrifice… not holding a sickly mortal. ‘I am not…not very good at this,’ Loki finished, his voice trailing off pathetically.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ Anthony said instead, wriggling his body closer, enjoying the cooler feel of Loki’s skin. ‘I’m a shitty patient, and I didn’t want you to see me like this.’

That Loki could understand. Only his mother dared to face his wrath when he had been sick, her gentle hands and calming voice the only things he would tolerate. But there was a deeper meaning behind Anthony’s reasoning too, the unwillingness to reveal a weakness, the fear of being abandoned.

‘I am not angry you did not tell me. I am infuriated with myself for not recognizing the signs of your ailment, of leaving you behind for such a long period of time when I know you do not like seeking help.’

‘Then what-’

Loki clutched his mortal closer, resting one hand on his brow to both to measure Anthony’s temperature and to cool him down.

‘I have never felt this way towards another being, mortal or not. I am sorry that you felt as though you could not tell me you were unwell, that I acted as though my intentions towards you were not serious. You plague my waking thoughts, my unconscious dreams, beloved, there is none I would rather be with.’

Rather than receiving a heartfelt confirmation of Anthony’s own feelings, the mortal stiffened in his grip, his rattling breathing halting. Fearful his illness had gotten worse, Loki rose a little from his waist so he could look down, confused at the angry frown Anthony was displaying.

‘Anthony-’

‘This is going to keep happening,’ he interrupted with a snap. ‘My insides are completely wrecked, my lungs, heart… Christ my liver…they’re all damaged and I’m not as young as I once was. I don’t know about you, but this is a wakeup call for why we shouldn’t be fooling around…let alone catching feelings for me.’

‘It is not for you to tell me my feelings are wrong,’ Loki admonished gently.

‘Loki, look at me. I’m a mess. I got a simple cold and it morphed into pneumonia. I might be out of the medical bay, but it’ll take weeks to-’

‘More of a mess than I am? Loki, the God of Mischief who manipulated my brother into going to war with my birth world, who allowed myself to be manipulated by Thanos-’

‘Loki you were tortured…’

‘And I threw you from a window, killed innocent people.’

Anthony didn’t answer that.

‘I know my actions of New York were not wholly my own, that I agreed to invade under duress, that my thoughts were not my own. Anthony, those thoughts were not just placed there by Thanos. I had always regarded Midgard as a lesser race. Those emotions might have been warped and heightened, but they were my own. I tricked my brother into a war against Jotunheim because I was jealous of the attention my father bestowed on him. These are not trivial things to be forgiven. They are sins I will atone for the rest of my life, and still, you found a way to love me.’

Anthony’s breathing hitched, turning into a cough, and Loki ran a comforting hand over his back to calm him.

‘I care not if your body is injured, that you are more susceptible to illness. It does not make you weaker in my mind, it highlights the battles you have endured, the strength it takes for you to continue living,’ Loki told him, lifting a hand to place it over Anthony’s arc reactor, protecting it. Despite his earlier fears earlier, the words he spoke were the truth, and it pained him that he had waited so long to tell him.

Even as he held his sick mortal close, wishing he could create a spell to eradicate any vestiges of this illness, Loki was plotting. He wouldn’t let Anthony be snatched from him by something trivial like time or illness. Technically he needed his father’s permission for his plan, but he knew his mother would see his way of thinking, would be happy he had found another to share his life with.

‘Feels like you’ve been shortchanged here,’ Anthony grumbled, settling his head back down against his shoulder.

‘I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds like you are degrading yourself after I’ve confessed my feelings for you. This is meant to be a momentous occasion and-’

He laughed as Anthony silenced him with a hand over his mouth.

‘Alright, alright, you’re lucky, I’m a peach, I get it.’ Anthony burrowed closer, his sweat-slick hands wrapping around Loki’s middle.

‘Next time, promise me you will tell me if you are feeling unwell.’

‘You had to go- ‘

‘Nothing is more important to me than you. Father and Thor can protect Asgard. We have an army for that reason. I will always fight for Asgard, for its people, but not if you need me.’

Anthony squeezed him close, his legs twitching as he drew closer to sleep.

‘Thank you.’ Loki felt the words formed against his skin rather than hearing them, and he smiled, holding Anthony closer.

‘I love you too,’ he whispered when he was moments from sleep, and Loki didn’t respond, knowing his beloved needed rest, that he would be here to watch over him while he slept.

#writing prompt #fanfic prompt #thanks for the prompt!#thanks for the ask!#frostiron #tony x loki #tony stark #mcu loki #sick fic

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spockandawe · 3 years

Note

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

It’s absolutely no problem at all!! I don’t think I’ve been asked this before, but hey, I also have zero object permanence, so it keeps things fresh and new. And it’s interesting to see how my answers change over time! Lemme see, I think I’m going to go in reverse order, because I feel like then I’ll be doing the worst agonizing up front.

TGCF

Fifth favorite: YIN. YU. I know that he’s a minor character and him even making it onto the list is pretty solid performance, but I do feel guilty that he isn’t higher than this. He came out of nowhere in my first reading and punched me in the stomach with emotions. I find his sections so hard to read, and I was DEVASTATED when he died and BEYOND stoked to find out he was still alive in the extras. His story hurts so much! I am weak against characters who have relatively modest goals and still see them snatched away (see also: my next entry) and have to struggle on. I wish wish wish I had a way to see more of how he made his peace with things after being thrown out of heaven, and the nature of the (distant) relationship with Hua Cheng and what happens with Quan Yizhen now that he died in his arms, and still came back anyways, my god!

Fourth favorite: He Xuannnnnn. I have a hard time articulating particulars, but. I love him a lot. I love a character with a grudge, with a deep, painful grudge, where the grudge is hurting him almost as much as it’s hurting the people around him, and setting the grudge aside would also hurt, and then what has any of this been for-- I've used this metaphor for other characters, but I don’t care if I’m overusing it, because I love it. He feels like a character caught in a thorn bush, where simply being there... hurts, but trying to escape or move in any ways is going to hurt worse, and there’s no path forward that doesn’t involve pain. And like... I don’t love the way he hurt Shi Qingxuan (who didn’t quite make this list adfasgdafsd I’M SORRY) but I wouldn’t have liked to see him swallow back down all that pain and set aside everything that happened to his family and fiancee either! I’m always, always soft for characters who have no good path forward and who grit their teeth and set out anyways.

Third favorite: MU QING!!!!!!!!!! I have done... extensive screaming about him. And I love him veryvery much. I can already tell that this list is going to have a lot of mean boys on it, and like... no regrets. Especially since this is one of my FAVORITE flavors, an unapologetic mean boy who is rarely (but sometimes!) soft for the people around him, and who regularly tries to do decently by people, but who consistently gets shat upon and misunderstood and accused of acting in bad faith. I screamed when he and Xie Lian finally got to talk their friendship out in the book. I also screamed when I realized how immediately after Xie Lian’s return he started looking out for him again, and how sincerely, despite his horrible attitude about it. I still want to write more fic for him so badly. I love him so much.

Second favorite: Xie Lian! What a good boy! The best boy! He’s so sweet and gentle, but also the best fightboy this world has ever seen, and also so gently snarky with the people he loves! I just... really love me some traumatized characters who have trouble recognizing that they can be Loved, and I’m not going to write this whole essay right now, but I think in some ways, he’s the most... passive about his romance, out of all the leads? Shen Qingqiu is aggressively oblivious, but Xie Lian kind of gently shrugs off the idea that he might be Hua Cheng’s special someone, until he finally gets hit with the cluestick. I generally shy away from the idea of a character “earning” love, but he’s maybe the mxtx character who moves me most with ‘you deserve to be loved’

Most favorite: Hua Cheng. HUA CHENG. Oh my god, gotta love this boy. Gotta love this devotion. I love a mean boy who is soft for one person, and he EMBODIES it. I mean, I love Shen Jiu, but he barely manages to do the soft thing at all, while Hua Cheng is over here like ‘if I could only be the stone beneath your feet--’ It’s hard to talk about him separately from Xie Lian, because they’re a unit in my head more than just about any other characters on this list are. I don’t want to get this list to get out of control, so I’m not going to scream for too long, but... I could just watch him go forever. I want to write him forever, and that’s a huge aspect of what draws me to some characters.

MDZS

Oh god, I think I lied, I think this book is going to be hardest. Making these choices is AGONIZING.

Fifth favorite: .....Lan Wangji. Oh god, I feel bad about how low he is. But this story is just packed SO full of wonderful characters, and I’m already consumed with guilt over all the characters who aren’t going to make it. I don’t love them less! But my love for characters in this particular story is very evenly distributed. And I think that Wang Yibo’s acting is possibly scoring points with me that the book might not have earned all by itself. Microexpressions and subtle body language add SO MUCH to a character with such flat affect, and I would be drawn to such a closed-off character anyways, but it really helps. And I love, like... the combined subtlety and intensity of his relationships. It’s not that subtle once you know what to look for, and the brother/sworn brother network makes for varying degrees of how much other characters understand of the things he chooses not to explicitly express, and it gives a really interesting character to the way he interacts with the people around him. Also, love me a man with intense separation anxiety.

Fourth favorite: Jiang Yanli? I think it has to be Jiang Yanli, but these rankings are hard. So. I just talked about how much I enjoy the flat affect and closed off nature of Lan Wangji? Well, guess what, I also love it when m’girl is just very GENUINELY AND OPENLY an absolute sweetheart of a person, and I love the contrast between her genuinely kind nature and the uncomfortable pressure that her family’s dynamics put on her to start parenting at a very young age. It’s not necessarily a happy situation, but she adores her brothers so much and they adore her so much! And it’s... a very understated element of the story, but after her parents died, her baby brothers went off to war, and one wreaked havoc as a straightforward commander and one of them disappeared for months and returned as a creepy-ass zombie puppeteer. And she STILL dotes on them like before, despite knowing what they’re capable of. Like, yes, Wei Wuxian just raised an army of corpses and forced a man to eat himself, but I shall still boop him on the nose and feed him Soup. How can I not adore energy like that?

Third favorite: Wei Wuxian, I think. I do adore him a lot. He gives me some of the same vibes that make me ache most with Xie Lian, where he is trying his best, and is struggling to hold on in the face of lots of suffering, and I find it really interesting that when the suffering peaked, Xie Lian was forced go on because he couldn’t die, while Wei Wuxian... expired. That line about ‘he thought that no matter how large the world was, there was still no place for him’ always sticks with me, and hurts me deeply. Xie Lian had most of his personal attachments stripped away, and was left to wander on his own, while Wei Wuxian still had a number of strong connections left, but abruptly exited life. And that informs their respective trauma so interestingly! The way Wei Wuxian bounces between high energy chaos and drained exhaustion is really fascinating to me, and was the thread that held me attached to the book through a very confusing beginning. And I’m still very drawn to how intensely he loves, whether it’s Xiao Zhan’s fantastic acting, or it’s him busting out with how much he wants Lan Wangji in the middle of the Guanyin Temple scene. He’s a fantastic character, honestly, I don’t think such a convoluted book would have held together very well without a protagonist this strong.

Second favorite: Xue Yang :X Look, he’s a good boy and I love him. Who among us hasn’t done a few mass murders that we are completely unrepentant about, but that we would really like to keep hidden from our current boyfriend, actually? Anyways, as always, love me an angry boy who makes terrible decisions for understandable reasons. And I do love a character who is consumed by agonized ragrets (see my next entry), but I DO also love me a character who has no regrets at all and doesn’t even have much interest in trying to justify himself to anyone else around him. Just look at that confidence! Look at him go!!

Most favorite: Jiang... Cheng....... I knew he and Xue Yang were going to be at the top, but those were the only parts of this list that were easy. I mean. Love a self-sabotaging angryboy who is also super super sad and keeps hurting himself in his own confusion. And while I love the romantic thread in all of the mxtx books, the agonized family thread in mdzs is one of my favorite parts, and something that I don’t really see echoed in any of the other stories. I need ten million jc+wwx reconciliations, at LEAST. He’s so sad! And so angry! And I want to see him becoming less of that thing, and for Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian to demonstrate very firmly how much they love him, because they do. I am invested in his happiness in a way that goes far and beyond any of the other non-main characters, haha

SVSSS

Fifth favorite: Tianlang-jun. I think? Oh god, but moshang. THIS IS REALLY HARD, I HATE THIS ;-; But especially since writing my fic, Tianlang-jun has really won me over. And like, he already hurt me good in the novel, just thinking about how he was an innocent young guy, just! Trying to have a girlfriend! And instead got trapped in sensory deprivation, body-rotting-hell for twenty years, when he didn’t do anything wrong!!! He suffered, so much! And I live for his intensely strained relationship with Luo Binghe, because it’s! Perfectly understandable and painful, from both of their perspectives! And he wants to hate humans so badly, but in the end, when he’s told that Su Xiyan never betrayed him, he starts helplessly asking the people around him, ‘really? is it really true?’ and then in the end he loses the only family member he has left who cares about him, and it’s just! Everything is terrible! I have a su xiyan au brewing in my head because I can’t stand it! Someone just give this man a loving partner!!!

Fourth favorite: Shen Qingqiu. But... moshang??? Goddammit. Anyways, this dumbass. I find him so endearing, in his dumbassery. I sometimes get a bit frustrated with Wei Wuxian for being oblivious, and Shen Qingqiu is just asking for me to react the same way, but I... don’t, for the most part? Because he thinks he has good information, and he’s slow to react to a changing playing field, and I still haven’t read another transmigration novel that strikes the same balance of hypercompetence and intense incompetence :ppp It’s a funny book, and he’s a funny character! And I really vibe with him, in most parts of the story, which covers a pretty darn wide emotional spectrum. Plus, the running internal commentary is choice.

Third favorite: Liu Qingge. Look, I’m a woman of simple needs, and sometimes I just need a high-quality fightboy who clearly cares deeply and is absolute garbage at expressing his emotions. I can’t articulate it much better than that. I absolutely howl at the succubus extra, when Shen Qingqiu is talking to Madam Meiyin about his future partner, and Liu Qingge is like ‘oh my god, sHE IS CLEARLY DESCRIBING ME’ and Shen Qingqiu is like ‘haha, liu-shidi, i thought you thought this was stuupidddddddd’. They’re both so dumb. I love them so much. But stupidity plus war god fighting energy has a narrow lead over stupidity and internal commentary track.

Second favorite: SHEN JIU. GOD. I’m still arguing with myself over whether he should go first, but Luo Binghe hurts me consistently through the whole entire story, so I think he wins. Shen Jiu just stabs me in the heart at strategic moments. This is it. My ideal mean boy who is soft for one (1) person, and who BOTH does unconscionable things for terrible reasons (someone just. give him a pile of girls to teach, it will be much more pleasant for everyone involved), and who ALSO gets blamed for things he didn’t do even when he tries to act in good faith. It is the best of all painful worlds. And even at the end, when he has a powerful person who wants desperately to protect him, he still tries his hardest to shove that person away, to keep him safe. I’ve got like four aus where he gets to live. I’m so invested in this character, I love him so much.

Most favorite: Luo Binghe. He was.... made for me............ Like, the overwhelming amounts of childhood angst were baked in by Shang Qinghua, but the in-story pain and suffering is PRECISELY my jam. I love a character with separation anxiety! I love a character with massive anxieties over being unwanted! Over nobody ever, EVER just choosing him! I love a character struggling with the idea that the person he loves most in the world thinks that he’s intrinsically Disgusting! I love the kind of stubborn determination that leads him to preserve a corpse for five years, desperately hoping for a way to revive it, constantly cooking fresh food, in case, in case he someday wakes up. The way Hua Cheng loves is overpowering, but he’s had time to like... learn to be mellow when he needs to be. Luo Binghe doesn’t have a chill bone in his body, and if he’s acting chill, it’s probably because he’s done some mental math and decided that being more clingy right now will probably get him pushed away harder. I love the combination of manipulative tendencies and a very, very genuine fear of rejection and being unwanted. There is nothing I don’t love about Luo Binghe, including his worst decisions. I love him so so much.

#spock replies #long post/#svsss #mdzs #tgcf #thanad-zid

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popsunner · 4 years

Text

There was a moment. A moment when everything was still and silent. The dead speak no words and the survivors rarely speak twice that. There is blood on the ground and spilled wine, thrown from nobility's hands, unsure if it too was tainted. Red stains his hands and he can’t help but think he failed her, as he stares at her brother’s unseeing eyes. Ophelia was entrusted to his care and now she is drowned, and her brother follows. He opens his mouth as if to apologize but the words get stuck in his throat. Ophelia had pressed a pink rose into his hand as they parted, her eyes bright and her face streaked with tears.

“For gratitude,” she had said.

There was a moment of silence while the ghost of the pink roses thorns bit into his stained hands and then he saw Hamlet stumble, and the world was loud again.

He’s at his side in a moment, stepping over the queen with barely a glance as his hands find Hamlet’s shirt, gripping it to keep which of them upright, he doesn’t know. Hamlet looks at him, blinking like he can’t see clearly. He smiles as he settles his hands over Horatio’s, like this is ordinary, like nothing is the matter..

“Horatio,” he says, and then his smile falls. “I am dead.”

Panic sets into his chest and without thinking Horatio pulls his hands away, trailing down his side until they find the wound and then his hands are stained all over again-- or maybe it was only in his head before. He shakes his head, looking up to meet Hamlet’s eyes, to tell him no, he is not dying, he is far from dead. But Hamlet isn’t looking at him anymore.

His eyes are glazed over as he looks at the queen, his voice soft, breaking on the vowels, “Wretched queen, adieu. You that look pale and tremble at this chance, that are but mutes or audience to this act, had I but time--”

Hamlet meets Horatio’s gaze then, and his hand lifts shakily to tug at Horatio’s neckerchief. There is humor in his eyes, in the way they used to light when writing poetry, before his life was surrounded by death. He leans in, like he’s sharing a secret, “As this fell sergeant, Death,

Is strict in his arrest.”

Sticking to the script, Horatio chokes out a huffed laugh, and Hamlet’s grip on his neckerchief tightens. “Had I but time…”

“My lord--”

“Oh, I could tell you--” Hamlet starts in a voice that Horatio would have moved mountains to hear under different circumstances, he stops and shakes his head, “but let it be. Horatio, I am dead.”

“No--”

“Thou livest,” Hamlet tells him desperately, yanking him forward as if they are not already toe to toe. Hamlet swallows, “Report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied.”

It’s an order. The last order. Horatio’s already quivering hands shake from Hamlet’s clothes and he stumbles back, eyes widening as he stares at his friend, his best friend, his--

“Never believe it.” Horatio matches Hamlet’s smile from earlier, shrugging as he trips to Claudius’s still body. “I am a more antique Roman than a Dane.”

He can see it, the moment Hamlet realizes what he’s doing. He knows Hamlet’s face and expression better than he knows science and the inner workings of a mind. He sees Hamlet move forward just as he picks up the not yet emptied poison gauntlet. Just enough for one more death, only one left alive in the room.

“Here’s yet some liquor left,” He says, as he thinks that it’s fitting, and brings the cup to his lips.

He isn’t fast enough, Hamlet gets to him first, but trips over Claudius’s leg, grabbing at Horatio’s arm as he falls. “As thou'rt a man, give me the cup. Let go!”

They wrestle with it, over the king's dead body and for a moment Horatio almost laughs at the sight but then Hamlet is tackling him to the floor, pulling the cup from his grasp, throwing it across the room as he growls, “By heaven, I’ll have ’t.”

They sit on the floor, and Hamlet pulls them away from Claudius’s body before he collapses with gasping breaths against Horatio. He reaches up to hold his cheek, turmoil in his eyes.

“No,” Is all Horatio manages to grit out.

“O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,” Hamlet whispers, and he’s talking about both of them. Then he huffs in his stubborn and familiar way and the blood on Horatio’s hands burns. “Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!”

Horatio would usually roll his eyes. Instead he pulls Hamlet further against him, eyes frantically searching for the poisoned cup, searching for a chance, that just maybe--

“If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,” Hamlet tells him, and Horatio yanks his eyes away so fast it makes him dizzy. His jaw unhinged as he stares down at Hamlet, who only smiles as his lips quiver, “absent thee from felicity a while? And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.”

Reading in a field while the sun is high in the sky, scribbled poems on his science notations and sketched flowers in journals. Hamlet’s laugh that used to come so easily and his hand warm on Horatio’s shoulder. He’d told him once that in the end they are all stories, he’d told him once that theirs were intertwined. Horatio wants to say no. With every bit of his being he wants to scream to god that he cannot do this, but he recognizes the tremor in Hamlet’s tone.

He almost asks if the request is only a way to make him stay, to keep alive. He doesn’t, he knows the answer. Slowly, he nods. Hamlet shifts his hand to swipe a tear off his cheek before settling it back on his face.

“Oh, I die, Horatio,” He says like an apology. “The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit. I cannot live to hear the news from England. But I do prophesy the election lights on Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him, with th' occurrents, more and less, which have solicited.”

He waits until Horatio nods again, then his hand all but drops, his pointer finger brushes across Horatio’s lips as he says, “The rest is silence.”

Horatio feels the last breath leave the prince of Denmark, and with it, his love.

The walls around him shake or perhaps it’s only his body, wrapped around Hamlet like a shield come too late. He feels the prince’s curls against his nose as he presses his lips to his forehead.

There was a moment of quiet, but Hamlet took it with him with his last words.

The sound of marching soldiers drowns out Horatio’s wail, a scream to the heavens and that damned ghost and the inescapable fate that comes from revenge and the dare it had to take Ophelia and Rozencratz and Guildenstern and Laertes and Hamlet from him. His throat aches as waves of tears fall across his face and he wonders if he could drown in them, and how much of the water in lovely Ophelia’s lungs were the salt from her wide eyes. After what feels to be hours but can’t have been, his breath shudders to a quieter racket, and he sends a prayer to his friends who are, all of them, dead.

He’s left alone in an empty room with the man he loves in his arms and there are too many words for him to say, but Hamlet was always the writer.

“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,” Horatio says finally, and closes Hamlet’s eyes against the tragedy surrounding them as he says his final goodbye, “and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

#brain: you wanna make yourself cry #me: no???#brain: too bad #shakespeare #ace directs Shakespeare #hamlet #lmao suffer with me

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sassycassie-s-writing · 3 years

Text

A Court Rebuilt

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): A Court of Thorns and Roses Series/Tamlin, Rhysand, Feyre

Rating: PG/K+

Original Idea: I have no idea where this one came from. I just thought, “What if Rhys’ sister actually survived?” and made a few detail alterations and wrote this.

Notes: (Masterlist)(By Character)(About Me) Don’t really have anything else to say here besides: again, I have not read ACOSF and dunno if I’m going to, but there were loose ends I wanted to tie up. Enjoy!

^^^^^

I’d intended to winnow to the edge of the wards surrounding the manor and then walk to the front doors on foot.

I was quite surprised when I just landed on the front porch. There was no trace of the wards. No protections around the manor house. None that I could detect anyway. The front door was slightly open.

I dismissed my wings before I left home, but I felt the phantom feeling of them shuddering as I pushed the door open a little more.

Inside, the grand entrance was dusty. Dark.

Empty.

I reached out with my magic, searching for the presence of the High Lord of the manor. Please don’t be dead, I thought.

There he was. In the back. The kitchen, if I remembered correctly. It had been centuries since I’d been here, and even then I’d been very young, for a High Fae. His presence was powerful, incredible, but nowhere near the scale and scope of Rhysand’s.

I stayed on alert as I made my way through the manor, heading toward the kitchen. But there were no sounds. No servants bustling around. No sentries patrolling the garden or the halls. The manor was little more than an empty shell. An unkempt, hollow husk of its former glory and beauty.

I made it to the kitchen. The door was wide open.

Instead of going in, I leaned against the doorframe.

Tamlin’s back was to me. He looked… wan. The kitchen was barely in better shape than the rest of the house.

He stiffened as he realized he wasn’t alone, but didn’t whirl around, claws out, to defend himself. Didn’t even turn to see me. I wondered if he knew it was me without looking. He didn’t seem to indicate so.

“Good morning,” I said.

That was when he whirled. His eyes—once the vibrant green of budding trees, now dull—widened as he took me in. “You’re supposed to be dead. Centuries ago,” he said.

“Well, technically, I have you to thank for the fact that I’m not,” I replied. “Do you remember?”

“Get out,” Tamlin snarled. There was no beastly bite to the words. No fangs in his mouth. I didn’t move. Just folded my arms. “Does your perfect brother know you’re here?”

“No. I’d like to keep it that way. I didn’t come to fight, Tamlin. I came to thank you, actually. For delaying your father and brothers long enough that I managed to survive. Yes, my head was bleeding profusely as I drifted downstream. Yes, I nearly drowned and my wings were mostly torn off. Yes, I’m still gloriously furious about it. But when Rhys found me alive and got me home to heal, I was still thankful you stopped your father from finishing me off long enough for me to survive.”

“Are you done?”

“Not yet.” I held my hand out. A small sheaf of papers appeared on my palm. I set it on the kitchen table. “I’ve spent the last week brainstorming ways to rebuild your court. Feyre isn’t sorry for the devastation she left behind; and frankly I don’t think she should be. I certainly am not, given how you treated her after what happened Under the Mountain. But the fact remains that the Spring Court borders the mortal lands, and a strong border is necessary to keep any faeries with bad intentions out of there, and any mortals who have a death wish away from here. Tarquin is fine leaving some of his sentries on the border for as long as necessary, but eventually it would be most beneficial for the Spring Court to monitor its own lands.”

Tamlin growled. A deep, low, guttural sound that made braver faeries than me shudder. As it was, I grew up with Rhysand, Azriel, and Cassian. Tamlin didn’t scare me. “Get out,” he snapped again.

“Those papers have a few different detailed plans for building your court up again. You can use any one you like. Or you can use none of them. That’s your choice. This isn’t the Night Court sticking its nose in the affairs of your court. Like I said, my brother doesn’t even know I’m here. This is just one person who owes you their life trying to get yours back on track. I didn’t spend the past week drafting those plans out of the goodness of my heart. I did it to make us even. I’ve spent centuries being dead to the outside world. Everywhere except home. And, if anyone asks you who came up with this, they won’t believe you if you say I gave them to you. It would be in your best interest, anyway, to say you came up with it yourself. Show you’re still strong.

“But right now, someone needed to kick you in the pants in the right direction. And since I owed you and you didn’t even know it, I figured it could be me.” I shrugged.

Tamlin’s lip curled. “You sound like your self-righteous brother.”

Don’t pick a fight, don’t pick a fight, don’t pick a fight, I reminded myself. Rhys wasn’t self-righteous. He could be cold and calculating sometimes, but his instincts were usually right. I had to remind myself that Tamlin was bitter and broken after everything. He’d been kicked after he was already down, and lashing out.

I wanted to put on the cold, amused, wicked mask Rhys used to wear as the High Lord of the terrifying Night Court; but that mask had never belonged to me, and I would never find it comfortable. “After our parents died, he was the one who finished raising me, so I suppose that would make sense,” I said levelly instead. “I’m trying to help you, Tamlin. For your sake as well as well as the sake of Prythian as a whole. Use my ideas or don’t—I owe you nothing now.”

He snarled again. I summoned my wings and flared them.

“Get some rest, Tamlin. You look tired,” I said.

As he snapped his teeth, I winnowed out of the manor. Back home.

—

The antechamber of the townhouse between the front door and the frosted glass door greeted me. I stepped through the frosted glass door.

My brother was waiting for me in the sitting room, lounging on the sofa. “Where have you been?” His tone was casual, but I sensed there was some irritation behind it.

“Out,” I replied.

“I guessed as much,” he said.

“Didn’t realize I had to report all of my comings and goings to you.” My words held more bite than I intended, but I managed not to flinch at them.

Rhys picked up a crystal glass with a knuckle length of liquid in it from the side table and eyed me over the top of it as he took a sip. “You don’t,” he finally said. “But I would appreciate being told you’re going out and when you think you’ll be back so I don’t worry about you when I wake up and find you gone.”

“He turned the whole house upside down looking for you!” Feyre called from the kitchen.

I instantly felt guilty. “Did you not see my note?” I asked.

“What note?” Rhys demanded.

I felt where it was in the house and then summoned it to me. “I left this on my bed. I was gonna put it in your bedside but I figured you’d check my room first if you got worried.” I handed him the paper. He unfolded it. The note was short—all it said was: Running an errand. Be back in an hour, max. -Me—but it took him a long time to read it.

His eyes turned up to me. His pupils had narrowed to tiny points. “Why do you smell of the Spring Court?” The words were strained.

I heard something clank in the kitchen. Feyre dropped something at my brother’s words.

Rhys put my note on the side table beside his drink and stood up, wings extending just a bit. He towered over me—I was only an inch shorter than Feyre but Rhys had always been so big. His eyes bored into me. I felt his talons scratching at my mental shield. Not a request for entry. An order.

“You promised never to break into my head,” I said sharply.

“I will if it means keeping these people safe. Our people. What were you doing in the Spring Court? Going for a leisurely walk through the woods?”

I flared my wings out a little too. Both of us animals trying to appear bigger than we were to be more intimidating. “I’m allowed to have a private life, Rhysand. I didn’t jeopardize the Night Court at all.”

Feyre appeared in the sitting room. I wondered if she’d considered getting in between us. I wanted to warn her off. I could deal with Rhys myself. Had been doing so long before she was born. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her help—I just wanted to handle this conversation with my brother alone.

“You revealed to Tamlin you’re alive, didn’t you?” Rhys demanded. His talons scraped harder against my mental shield. I reinforced it.

“Yes,” I said.

My brother swore as his mate gasped quietly. “Why would you do that? Do you know how dangerous—”

“Of course I do. But the fact remains that if it weren’t for him, I’d be dead. The fact remains that I owed him my life. The fact also remains that the Spring Court borders the mortal lands and is absolutely barren of faeries. With good reason. Feyre did the right thing in revealing to the court what kind of male he is, but that border still needs to be monitored. I know Tarquin is fine stationing sentries on the border but those sentries will eventually get tired of it, even if he swaps them out. It would be best for the Spring Court to have, at most, the ability to protect its own borders.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I spent the past week brainstorming plans for rebuilding the Spring Court. I merely delivered them, told Tamlin my debt to him was paid, and left. My life, for getting his back on track. He deserves everything that happened to him, but we need the Spring Court’s borders to be secure. Are you going to keep berating me or can I go upstairs and wash off the smell of that place?”

Rhys looked like he wasn’t going to stop glaring at me for the next decade.

I summoned one of the copies I’d made of my plans from my pocket realm and shoved them into his chest. “Go ahead. Read them. Or don’t. I don’t care. I’m going to go take a bath.”

I stomped over to the stairs and stomped up them. From behind, I heard Feyre say softly, “You’re being a little hard on her.”

Before I heard my brother’s reply, I slammed the door shut to my room.

—

When I emerged, freshly cleansed of all the floral scents of the Spring Court clinging to my skin, my brother was in the hallway outside my room.

“I read your plans,” he said flatly, almost begrudgingly. “The one about turning the Spring Court into a haven for faeries displaced from their homes in other courts during this past war was particularly impressive.”

I made a mental note to thank Feyre later. I assumed she had convinced him to at least be civil, even though I could tell he was still furious with me for being reckless with the secret that I was still alive. No one outside of Velaris had known that I’d been rescued and recovered from my injuries. I’d spent centuries staying solely in the city, being safe. A foray into the Spring Court was a welcome change.

I finished tying off my braid. “And?” I prompted. I wanted to see what else was on his mind.

Rhys didn’t reply immediately. Just stared at me with a sharp hone to his gaze. “And,” he repeated, “I think you made a good decision. Even if I don’t particularly relish the thought of Tamlin knowing you’re alive.”

“Thanks.”

“Also, I find it hilarious that on every single plan, you’ve written multiple times to have him claim all the ideas as his own. Though you definitely deserve the credit for it.”

“Be that as it may, it’ll look stronger coming from him. What did Feyre think?”

“Feyre hasn’t read them yet. I don’t think she wants to.”

“That’s fine. I know she’s angry at him. She has every right to be. I’m angry at him too, actually, for how he treated her. He deserves the ruin she brought upon him. He deserved being outed as the beast that he is. But, unfortunately, we need his court strong enough to protect its borders.”

“I agree. Maybe next time, though, if you have incredibly savvy political plans for another court, let me deliver them?”

“Tamlin wouldn’t have listened to you. He didn’t even want to listen to me. Not even after I told him you had no idea I was there.” I shrugged. “Next time I have savvy political plans for another court, I’ll just winnow the pages to the High Lord’s assistant’s desk under the guise of a citizen submitting them. This one was just a delivery I needed to make in person—so that he’d know I owe him nothing anymore.”

Rhys gathered me into a hug. “You’re a really annoying little sister, you know that?”

I smiled. “That’s my job.”

#ACOTAR #ACOTAR Imagine #ACOTAR FanFiction #Rhysand #Rhysand Imagine #Rhysand FanFiction #featuring #Tamlin #hooray #A Court Rebuilt

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starlightsaeran · 3 years

Text

Wildflower

Author’s note: Hello hello! I’m even more exicted to post the second of two pieces created for the @mysme-rbb, alongside the wonderfully talented @pili-art !!! It has been beyond an honour to get to work on both of these pieces, and I’ve had more fun than I can even put into words <3

Summary: Saeran spends his sweet summer days in the only way he knows how; surrounded by all the things that love him as much as he loves them.

Read on AO3: here!

Make sure to check out the beautiful artwork this was inspired by: here! 🌸🌸🌸

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Seconds ago, Saeran had been running through his garden, with bubbles and butterflies and the feeling of bliss chasing after him as he chased down MC and Saeyoung. The bugs that landed on him left little kisses on his glowing skin, and the sun’s rays hugged him close in the warmth of their embrace. The day prior, MC had told him that freckles had begun dotting his skin, and he found it impossible not to continuously recall the ghost of her lips as they had traced the path across his nose and cheeks that the tiny sun stars had created. This was summer. This was what it was to not just exist, but to really live beneath the sun. It had been almost a year since his reunion with his brother, and yet he still found it hard to believe that he was living his own life. It was hard not to feel like an imposter. Yet there he had been moments ago, running around like a kid as he tried to tag his brother, both of their laughs twinkling in the balmy air.

Now, however, he lay on his back in the bright green grass. He blames the heat for his exhaustion, after all, it’s not like he hasn’t built up an above average level of stamina! He just isn’t quite used to being subjected to such high levels of vitamin D, that’s all. The sun relentlessly beats down on his face, as though it's playfully mocking him for giving up so easily. Saeran just smiles back. He knows it won’t be long until MC and Saeyoung realise he has admitted defeat, and he knows that instead of mocking him, they will forget the game altogether and join him in the bed of grass he is resting upon. He knows because they did the same yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that; most of their summer days play out the same way, and though to some it may seem repetitive, he wouldn’t want it any other way. The three of them would never grow tired of a life like this. After all, they had more than earned it.

For now, he admires this time alone, as brief as it will be. It’s not that he likes to be alone, he had spent far too much of his time that way, but he had to admit that this new life could be a little overwhelming at times. He knew without a doubt of course that if he mentioned this to his brother and MC, they would respect his every boundary with no questions asked and would allow him all the time he needed. They had done so the few times he had asked before, and they would always continue to do so. He just supposed he felt somewhat...silly, for asking. He’d spent so many years secretly wishing to be part of a family, and now that he was, he wanted time alone again? He couldn’t make sense of it.

There were a lot of things he couldn’t make sense of.

Like the fact he was living in the house he had always visited in his dreams, both during the day and on the nights he managed to sleep peacefully. Surely dreams as big as these were supposed to stay as dreams? And the fact he was reunited with his brother, whom he had spent so long hating under the influence of manipulation. He hated that he had ever felt like that, but those feelings had indeed once been a part of him, and he couldn’t just forget that. Now, together, they were living the life his brother had always promised him. He hated that he had doubted Saeyoung, but he had. But maybe that didn’t matter anymore...not now that this is reality.

And MC… He can hear her voice now, just a little way away, never too far from him. Her laugh is a song on the breeze as she giggles at whatever dumb thing his brother is no doubt doing. Saeran had been such a dark person, and now he was surrounded by a constant light that would never again allow him to forget who he really is.

A cloud floats over the sun at that exact moment, as though it knows what he’s thinking and is playing a game with him. He takes advantage of this sudden shade and a moment of respite from the relentless rays, and opens his eyes just in time to see a bumble bee buzz right past his face. He wonders where it’s headed; is it off to find the perfect flower to drink sweet nectar from? Or has it already succeeded in its task, and is now on its way home to its queen to whom it happily devotes its entire life to? Was it happy? Did it feel a sense of completion if it lived this way, never thinking for itself, only living to serve? Or was the bee like him? A traitor. Who spends its days longing to pick its own flower, to drink the nectar for himself, and to detach itself from the hive which was much too crowded.

He tries not to linger, and by using the method he had gratefully learned from his therapist, he lets the thoughts pass him by like the bee had done. He instead brings his attention to the way the grass tickles the bare expanse of his arms, and he lets his fingers run through the tall blades. The cloud that had been blocking the sun passes by too as it carries on its way, and forces Saeran to involuntarily bring one arm up to shield his eyes. He can’t see it through the rolled up sleeve of his shirt, but he knows his tattoo is there, like a raincloud against a clear sky. Perhaps the majority of people who would see it wouldn’t give it a second glance. Just another piece of swirling ink, that’s all it would be to them. They wouldn’t know what it stood for, or what it said he was. What it meant he had been. No, the majority of people wouldn’t know. But his family would. He can’t help but to wonder what they must think of it. He’d caught Saeyoung glancing at it a lot when he thought he wasn’t looking during those first few rocky weeks. Saeran knows deep down he was probably just bewildered by the concept of his brother with a tattoo at all, regardless of its origin. He knows Saeyoung would never link who Saeran is now to the place the tattoo symbolised...but the fear still lingered. He hated feeling like a monster.

MC made sure to kiss his tattoo whenever she saw it, and in the golden hours when all the world was silent as she laid in the same galaxy as he did, she would trace its curves and thorns with a tenderness he wasn’t sure he was worthy of. He knows she had never shied away from it, it didn’t scare her or torment her or serve as a constant reminder of the person he had once been to her, and the way he had treated her. As far away as that lifetime had been, it could never be forgotten. The tattoo made sure of that. But MC had once told him that although it was a reminder of his past, that wasn’t a bad thing. She had said that it was proof that he had grown, just like the flowers. To her, he was a flower.

To him, she was a field of them.

His thoughts wander to the flowers he loves so much now. He considers their roots, the way they battle and fight through the endless darkness and the dirt, the way they look so fragile, but to the flower, they are unbelievably strong. It must be so hard for them to grow, but eventually, all their hard work pays off. And that first glimmer of sunlight the sprout gets to see must feel incredible. That hope. That knowledge that they had done well. The roots remain below in the soil, but now they can breathe. Perhaps Saeran was like that. Perhaps his tattoo was similar to those flower roots. And perhaps roots could be pretty, too. The way they tangle and intertwine, that could be art too.

“There you are, buttercup.”

Just like that, MC is all he can see as she stands above him, leaning over slightly so her head lines up perfectly with his. He can't stop himself from giggling a little at the pet name she had called him, and that drop of laughter alone was enough to carry away all his previous thoughts. She shines as brightly as the sun, and he sees all the things he loves reflected within her tender eyes. All he knows is this; her, this garden in which he lays surrounded by all the things which he knows returns his love, and his brother, who has also made his way over and is now leaning over him alongside MC.

"Oh, so Saeran falls over and he gets called pretty names, but when I fall over, all you do is laugh?"

"Saeran's just taking a well deserved break, YOU tripped over the bubble machine I warned you at least 10 times about, you deserved it."

Saeran watches in adoration as Saeyoung dramatically throws his hand over his chest to clutch at his heart, and MC nonchalantly sticks out her tongue in return, and he finds himself making a promise. A promise to himself, to always remain grateful for those tangled roots that remain tucked away in the dark soil, for making him the beautiful wildflower he is today.

#mysmerbb #mystic messenger #saeran choi #saeyoung choi

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lilhawkeye3 · 4 years

Text

dead man walking

Character: Commander Fox.

Summary: Everything crumbles once Fives dies.

Trigger warnings: depression, suicide. It’s not happy.

A/N: please don’t read this if you’re having a bad day.

AO3 Link

~~~

His heart may keep beating the first time he pulls the trigger, but his life ends then.

~~~~~

He can only remember flashes of what happened that day, little snippets of the moment his world finally crumbled. The shout of his brothers, the shaky words of a dying vod, the recoil of his blaster.

He can’t remember, but no one lets him forget.

~~~~~

It starts out small, at first. Murmurs and whispers from visiting battalions and the shiniest clones in the Guard.

Murderer.

Brother-killer.

It’s followed by cold looks, by orders followed to the bare minimum, by shoves and tripped-up feet as he walks in the halls.

He manages to take it all without flinching, until the day one brother sneers back at him and calls him CC-1010.

“You’ve no right to a name, to call yourself a vod, 1010.”

The words fall from the lips of a drunk 501st trooper the Guard had picked up for disorderly conduct. Fox leaves his cell without a word to inform Rex that he has a wayward trooper.

~~~~~

Rex finds him in his office. He signs a form to collect his man, and leaves Fox with a brutal right hook and cracked jaw.

Stone finds Fox hours later sitting with his head in his hands and his back against his desk, mumbling about how he deserved every bit of it.

~~~~~

It’s no surprise the Chancellor finds out.

His words, while sympathetic on the surface, leave oily trails in Fox’s mind. They find his cracks and fill them with poison, saying how sorry he is to hear of Fox’s recent difficulties, but neither side can be blamed. The troopers, who are such basic, animalistic creatures that they would attack one of their own, or Fox, for completing his sworn duty to defend the Republic.

Fox can only stand there and listen to it all—

~~~~~

He leaves the office with a hazy mind, not truly recalling the events of the meeting, but feeling more beaten down than before.

~~~~~

She is the only good thing in his life.

Riyo holds him protectively in her arms as he shakes under the weight of it all, despite her being much smaller.

She accepts him despite not knowing what’s wrong. He can’t spill all his burdens onto her. They’re his to bear, to continue to roll up this incline even if they slip from his fingers before he reaches the top. This is his punishment, not hers.

He’s failed her, even if she refuses to hear him say such a thing.

He shouldn’t be near her. Shouldn’t let her touch him. She’s so pure, so precious— he can’t let his sins taint her light.

She says she loves him, but he knows that’s not true. A thing like him isn’t something anyone can love.

He allows himself to kiss her forehead one last time before he leaves while she sleeps.

~~~~~

There is a call to 79’s to break up a fight on his patrol. When he and his squad arrive, it is to find the matter at hand was him. One of his Corries stood up for him, and it was all downhill from there.

Fox remains outside while his squad handles it. If he goes in, he knows he’ll only make things worse.

All he ever does is make things worse.

He looks up as an armored figure approaches him. He doesn’t have time to register anything about them, other than it’s unmistakably a fellow clone trooper, when their blaster is drawn and a searing pain shoots through his shoulder. He falls to his knees as the shot is followed by two more: one to his right hand and one to his left thigh.

He’s left on the cold ground.

~~~~~

He comes to in the medbay. He wishes he hadn’t.

What a waste of resources. It could have been used on someone else.

“You’re awake.”

He turns his head to find Wolffe sitting beside him. His face is unreadable, but his brown eye burns with fury.

Fox doesn’t say anything. He simply returns to staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Vod—”

“Don’t call me that.” His voice is raspy, unused. When is the last time he spoke to anyone outside of his shifts? “I’m not a brother. Not anymore.”

Wolffe is silent. Maybe he’ll leave him alone now.

“Who did this to you, Fox?”

His smile is like broken glass. “Didn’t you hear? I did, of course.”

“We both know you didn’t shoot yourself.”

“Not yet.”

Wolffe’s growl draws Fox’s gaze again. “That’s not karking funny, Fox.”

“You know what is funny?” Fox laughs brokenly. “That you’re here. Rex broke my jaw. Bly blocked all transmissions from me. Cody was in a conference call and didn’t once acknowledge me. Just said, ‘Commander of the Guard.’” His eyes are tired as he meets Wolffe’s. “Bet you’re here so you can tell them they still have a disappointment in the batch.”

Wolffe sighs as he runs a hand down his face. “Fox... I lost a battalion of men. All of them, except for two. I heard them cry out to me as they were slaughtered one by one in what should have been their saviors. I listened to them scream as they were murdered, as they listened and watched their brothers die around them.” Here he leans forward, his hand reaching up to clench Fox’s uninjured shoulder firmly. “I can hear your screams too, Fox’ika. I will not sit and do nothing as I listen to a brother dying. Not again.”

Fox flinched and tore his eyes away from his batchmate, finding a fixed point over his shoulder to stare at instead. “You’re too late.”

~~~~~

The Chancellor calls for him once he’s released.

Fox idly wonders how broken he truly is when he finds himself back in his office, not able to coherently remember if he ever made it to the meeting.

~~~~~

Only his fellow commanders in the Guard interact with him now outside of what is required for duties.

A part of him wonders why Stone keeps asking when he last ate. It doesn’t matter anyways.

He’s not sure why Thire counts the hours he’s been awake. At least in the waking world, he can bury himself in work. When asleep, he’s left to the mercies of his ghosts, the ones that whisper that his time is far overdue, that he’s only causing more problems being alive.

He knows they’re right. It’s only a matter of time, he supposes.

~~~~~

So he writes.

He’s never been one for writing, thanks to all the reports he’s had to draft, edit, review and sign off on. But... he’s a clone. He’ll have nothing left to his name anyways besides these words. It’s selfish, yes, but it’s all he has left.

So he writes.

He writes to Rex about all the memories he has of them whispering quietly at night on Kamino, dreaming about their lives when they finally got to see the stars. He wonders where it all went wrong— probably somewhere at the start. He tells him that he’s one of the best commanders out there, even if he never formally received the rank yet.

He writes to Bly, saying that while he isn’t worthy of love... Bly is. He shouldn’t let it slip through his fingers.

He writes to Cody, outlining the lack of memories he has about the Chancellor. How he thinks he’s investigated something, but can never remember what. Files mysteriously erasing. Men sent on missions that didn’t exist. His blaster— it should’ve been set to stun. He gives him one last mystery to solve, knowing Cody won’t accept any weak, mundane attempt of an apology.

He writes to Ponds, even though he’s long gone. It’ll go to his general, because Fox knows his brother still lives on in him. He asks if he’ll be forgiven, if there’s an after where they’re all waiting for him. He asks if they’d welcome him, even if he’s broken and can’t remember what he’s done anymore. He says he’s glad Ponds had a General who cared, because he was glad that his brothers were taken care of even if the universe punished him with the Chancellor’s oily words in return.

He writes to Stone and Thorn and Thire, and says he’s sorry he couldn’t help them. He tried to keep the weight off their backs as long as he could... and he now had to pay the price. He tells them he’s proud of them.

...He writes to Riyo, his starlight, the one who taught him of a different type of love. He says he’s sorry. He hopes she keeps shining bright for everyone around her to see. He tells her how every smile, every laugh, every crinkle of her eyes in happiness gave him something to keep living for, if only for a while. She’s the most precious thing in the world, and he’s sorry to have ever burdened her with his inconsequential self.

He writes to Wolffe.

Well, he stares at the datapad for countless minutes, and then he writes to Wolffe.

He gives Wolffe every bit of spark left within him. He gives him every happy memory, every trying moment, ever second of calm he’s ever had. He tells Wolffe how everything went wrong, how his mind had betrayed him just as he’d betrayed his brothers, how he didn’t know who he was anymore. He tells Wolffe of the reason behind each scar and tattoo on his body, how his hair had become peppered with gray, how he’d done his best to live up to the name Wolffe had given him.

He thanks Wolffe for being his vod. He tells him he’s proud, and to keep fighting.

~~~~~

When he’s finished, he sends his words out across the galaxy. Maybe one of them will read his final thoughts, and keep him alive in theirs, even if he doesn’t deserve it.

He sets the datapad on his desk and reaches for his blaster.

The cold durasteel against his temple is fitting, he feels. It matches the emptiness within him.

~~~~~

after.

#commander fox #star wars the clone wars #drabble #foxiyo #commander wolffe #captain rex #commander cody #commander stone #commander thire #riyo chuchi #unhappy ending #angst and pain #no comfort #hawk's rambles #i’m tired #dead man walking

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lloydskywalkers · 4 years

Text

wishful thinking

good evening it’s missing garmadad hours again, that is all :’’) takes place somewhere after season 10, since we don’t...really know where Garmadon is at the moment.

It’s pure chance Garmadon’s at the compound in the first place.

He’s been trying to stay out of the affairs of humans, even since the girl who brought him back left him with the worst of headaches to deal with. Garmadon doesn’t understand them, humans and their petty drama, their odd phrases and the way they ask him to stay. So most of the time, he leaves them alone. It’s a generous gesture, on his part.

But every once in a while, there are humans who refuse to leave him alone, in which case he rescinds any generosity and makes an example of them. The humans in the compound he’s dealing with tonight are particularly persistent ones — they’ve been tracking him for weeks, trying to jump him when they think he’s not watching. It’s beyond irritating, and he doesn’t have much patience these days — if any at all. So tonight he’s tracked them, right back to their little hideout, and he’s been having a decently chaotic evening of carnage so far.

Garmadon’s only planned on that — walking in, leaving a message, then walking right back out. But halfway out the building he pauses, his eyes drawn toward one of the long hallways, the lights above flickering in and out as the power sputters.

He’s not sure what half-wakened sense in him pushes his feet further into the flickering hallway, but he goes. It’s mostly quiet at this point, the majority of the people having made the wise decision to flee, and apart from a few muffled shouts in the distance, the hallway appears to be empty.

Garmadon’s almost disappointed.

Shrugging the thought off, he’s about to take his leave — when a door slams open, voices echoing frantically as one of the white-coated men blabbers into his radio, followed by another man who drags a crumpled, limp figure.

Their eyes meet and both sides freeze, standing in place as the lights flash and flicker above them. The first man’s face goes white as his jacket. Garmadon’s eyes slide downward, and land on the familiar sleeve of a torn gi, bright blond hair stained red as a steady stream of blood drips down the boy’s forehead.

Garmadon’s eyes return to the first man. He looks rather green, now.

As he should be, considering it’s likely the last thing he’s going to see.

**********

In retrospect, Garmadon has no idea what he’s doing. It isn’t as if he’d planned on taking the boy with him, he’d just…ended up with the small ninja slung over his shoulder as he’d run, leaving the compound and its chaos behind. Now he’s a good several miles away from any form of civilization, in the middle of nowhere, with an unconscious Green Ninja bleeding all over his arm and no plan whatsoever for dealing with him.

At least the boy isn’t awake to start shouting at him again, he thinks. Garmadon barely knows how to deal with the boy now that he’s a silent dead weight — he’d rather not deal with him spouting self-righteous tirades at him every five minutes.

A part of him debates just leaving the boy in the woods for his team to find. His friends are probably out searching for him now, if he knows anything about them. It certainly didn’t seem like the boy was there on his own volition, so Wu’s little students are probably worried.

Garmadon’s lip curls at the reminder of his brother, and he quickly banishes the thought. No, he can’t leave the boy here. He’s wounded, blood still staining the edges of his forehead, and it’s not like he can defend himself when he’s out cold to the world. Garmadon will just have to take him along, for now.

Garmadon pauses, his steps faltering. It abruptly occurs to him that he doesn’t know why he cares what happens to the boy. All they’ve been to each other is a headache, so it doesn’t make sense that he’s suddenly concerned. And yet, there’s some dull part of his mind doesn’t question it at all.

He eventually decides he’s not going to think about it, and continues on his way.

The boy still hasn’t made so much as a sound by the time Garmadon finds them a cave, taking shelter from the misting evening rain. This is — troubling, he thinks. He can’t remember how sturdy humans are supposed to be, but the boy shares his blood. He should at least be stirring by now.

Garmadon sets him down gingerly on the ground, eyeing the gash on his forehead. It’s stopped bleeding at least, crusted over in dried blood. That’s one less thing for him to worry about.

Garmadon immediately grits his teeth, tugging at his hair in frustration. Worried. He shouldn’t be worried. He’s tried to kill this boy before, it doesn’t make any sense.

A rumble of thunder echoes in the distance, and Garmadon lets his arms hang limp, the burst of hot anger draining away. Nothing makes sense, these days. He looks back at the Green Ninja, who’s unconsciously curled in on himself against the chill. Staring at the boy’s ashen face, Garmadon realizes, once again, that he has no idea what he’s doing.

His gaze drifts downward, catching on the familiar green fabric. The boy’s gi is torn and tattered in places, and he can see the skin beneath is marred by ugly, bruising red circles. That would explain why he’s yet to wake up, Garmadon figures. If they’ve drugged him this heavily, he should be out for a while. Small mercies, he supposes. At least he’ll have quiet.

The boy shifts again, curling in on himself further as he shivers. Garmadon stares at him for a beat, before heaving a sigh. He tugs the traveling cloak he’s been using from his shoulders, and tosses it haphazardly over the boy.

There. He’s done his part.

Garmadon stares at the rain outside, fingers tapping restlessly. Maybe—

Quickly, he tugs the cloak higher, up over the boy’s shoulders. That’s all, though. Well— he could pull the edges around him tighter, too. That way the chill wouldn’t seep in as much, then maybe—

Garmadon forces himself to snatch his hands away, crossing all four of them haughtily in his lap. This is ridiculous. If the boy were awake, he’d probably be trying to lecture him about memories again, and whatever else Wu’s fed them all. He should let him freeze in his sleep, it’d be a kindness.

Instead, he pulls the edges of the cloak tighter around the boy, and immediately wants to drown himself.

Oh well. It’s quiet now. That’s enough for Garmadon.

As if the universe itself is conspiring against him, that’s exactly when the boy starts moving.

**********

At first, Garmadon thinks he’s woken up. He’s got ten different sarcastic greetings ready for him as well, since he can only imagine what the boy’s reaction will be to finding himself stranded with Garmadon. The acidic words die on his tongue as the boy whimpers, eyes still screwed shut as he curls up further into the cloak, trembling slightly.

So most likely not awake, Garmadon muses. He knows little about the Green Ninja, but he knows he’d probably rather die than show such weakness in front of him.

Then again, maybe not, Garmadon thinks. The boy does seem to like his pathetic displays of emotion, and the way his expression scrunches up in pain is a familiar one.

Curious — certainly not concerned — Garmadon places a hand over the boy’s forehead, only to jerk it back at the heat that blazes beneath his skin. He frowns, racking his memory as he tries to remember whether this kind of heat is normal for humans or not. Or human hybrids? Whatever the boy is.

Judging how th boy’s starting to shift restlessly, his breathing odd and hitching, Garmadon decides it’s probably not. That could…possibly mean trouble. In hindsight, he probably should’ve at least figured out what they drugged him with, Garmadon thinks, watching as the boy shudders in his sleep, racked by another bout of shivering.

Garmadon hesitates, caught by indecision. Really, he shouldn’t be worried. It’s not like this is his problem. It’s the boy’s fault, for getting caught in the first place. And if Wu and his friends wanted him safe, they shouldn’t have let him get caught. Complete irresponsibility all around. The Green Ninja is reaping what he sowed, and Garmadon, of all people, shouldn’t be worrying himself with it.

But as he watches the boy writhe in the grips of fever, his face flushed and his hair matted in sweat, something in Garmadon’s chest goes uncomfortably tight. He feels almost battle-ready, as if he’s caught in the middle of a dangerous fight — he feels like he needs to fight, to slash and tear at whatever’s come over him.

But there’s nothing to fight except the boy, tangled in his cloak and moaning in delirium, and Garmadon—

Garmadon doesn’t know what to do.

The boy’s breathing falters, stuttering oddly on a gasp. Garmadon’s heart stutters with it.

No, he scolds himself, furiously. He hurt the boy far worse than this himself — the muddled memories he has from when he was first awoken are clear enough for him to remember that. The ninja can take far worse, and Garmadon shouldn’t care in the first place.

And yet.

The pressure on his chest grows worse, and Garmadon recognizes the feeling as something akin to fear. It can’t possibly be fear, of course — that would be ridiculous. Again, he doesn’t fear for the boy. He hardly even knows who he is. He’s stubborn and likes to yell at Garmadon, and he likes to stare sadly at Garmadon even more then he likes to yell at him. He was an unbearable thorn in his side when Garmadon fought against him, and nearly as bad when Garmadon fought with him, and he wears green. That’s about it.

The boy gives a muffled whimper, his face contorting in pain as he curls up tighter. His chest rises and falls rapidly with how short his breathing is, and sweat beads up at the corner of his forehead. Garmadon takes a breath of his own, straining against the nameless emotion flooding through him.

Oh, yes. And he’s Garmadon’s son, as well.

Sharp teeth bite the inside of Garmadon’s cheek as he grinds them. He despises this world. He despises this boy.

He tells himself that, over and over again. He keeps repeating it like a mantra, even as he sits frozen by the boy’s side, unable to leave.

(Unwilling to leave?)

The rain outside grows worse as the night draws on, and so does the boy. His breathing grows labored, his skin still radiating an unnatural heat, and Garmadon swallows back nausea. A large part of him wants to flee. He could scout the area for an hour, perhaps, or walk aimlessly around in the storm, until the boy either gets better on his own or dies. He’s preparing to wage war against the instinct in him screaming to stay, when he catches the first slip of tears across the boy’s cheek.

Ah, Garmadon thinks. Now he’s crying in his sleep. Wonderful.

Instead of scoffing in derision at him, Garmadon hesitates. Carefully, he sets a hand on the boy’s forehead, before slowly tugging it through his hair. The boy’s breath hitches, before slowing into something easier, and he goes finally, mercifully quiet.

Garmadon raises an eyebrow. Hm. He repeats the motion, and the boy’s pained expression eases, tightly-strung limbs finally going limp. Garmadon runs his hand through the thick locks again, catching on a tangled blond curl, and the boy almost seems to lean into the touch, his breathing finally steady.

Garmadon pauses, curiously. Something flickers in the back of his mind, a dull memory in duller colors. A hand, weathered and human, gently ruffling the hair of the same boy. His hair’s cut in a different style, and he seems younger, but his laughter’s the same.

Garmadon blinks. He doesn’t recall ever having heard the boy laugh.

His hand stills. The nameless emotion is back, welling up in his chest and constricting his heart. It makes his eyes smart and burn, staring at the boy, so Garmadon tears his gaze away, shuddering as he exhales heavily.

His eyes close tightly for a beat, then open as he sighs. At least the boy’s not crying anymore.

Not that he cares.

**********

The boy’s fever breaks soon after that. He sleeps peacefully for the rest of the night, and Garmadon watches him, trying vainly to sort out the mess of tangled memories and emotions that whirl within him. He spends most of the time trying to root out the buried part of himself that’s drawn toward the boy, to track it to its source and destroy it.

He’s unsuccessful at either one.

The first pale rays of dawn are starting to reach the cave as Garmadon gives up, standing with an irritated huff. He drags a hand across his face, fighting back exhaustion, when a quiet rustling from behind snaps him around.

He meets the boy’s bleary, half-awake gaze with wide eyes. There’s a heavy moment of silence as they stare at each other, neither moving. Then the boy finally speaks up, his voice cracked and rasping.

“Dad?”

Garmadon goes still, his breath catching in his chest.

Then he latches onto the shadows, and leaves the cave before the boy can blink again. He gives a startled yelp, gasping out a “wait!” before he stumbles back to the floor, caught off-balance. Garmadon pauses just outside, gathering the shadows around him until he’s obscured from view, but still—

Still not leaving, he thinks angrily at himself, as his feet refuse to move.

The boy emerges shortly after him, immediately shutting his eyes against the brightening morning sun. He presses a hand to his temple as he shakes his head, as if clearing his ears from water. He’s blinking dizzily, and for a second Garmadon worries he’s still drugged, and he’s about to have to play babysitter even longer.

But the boy finally straightens, his head swiveling from side to side as his eyes search the forest. He’s quiet, but he doesn’t have the same fever-ridden look from earlier. He looks tired, if anything, though there’s an odd expression of tentative hope on his face.

It dies as quickly as it appears, and the boy scowls. His hands ball into fists, his jaw clenching. “Stupid,” he mutters, and for a second, Garmadon thinks he’s been found out — and called out, apparently. He continues bitterly, “Idiot, what’d you think it was, you’re so stupid—”

He kicks angrily at the ground. Garmadon realizes the boy is talking to himself, rather than having spotted him. He watches as he falls quiet again, his hand clenching and unclenching around the bruising marks on his arm with a pained expression. He doesn’t make any other move, though.

Garmadon frowns. He doesn’t understand why the boy hasn’t left yet. There’s nothing for him here, unless he’s holding onto some foolish belief that Garmadon’s coming back.

The Green Ninja finally slumps in defeat, sitting heavily on the ground and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes as he gives a quiet, shaky shudder. He stays like that for a bit, hands pressed tightly against his eyes, before stirring again, slipping a tiny radio from his sleeve and wiping his eyes on the edge of his gi.

The radio bursts into static as the boy turns it on, and he rattles it once before speaking. “Hey, Kai?”

There’s a beat of silence, then the radio explodes into sound, loud voices crackling over each other, frantic and concerned. The boy cringes, before speaking again. “I’m fine, I’m — yeah, I got out. I — I um…I’ll explain later. Can you come pick me up?”

Garmadon frowns, straining to hear the staticky response.

“—any idea where you are? We’ve been looking since yesterday, Nya’s losing her mind—”

“I don’t…know? Um,” the boy winces, rubbing his head. “Middle of nowhere, right now. It’s…I’ll explain later, I promise.”

There’s a smattering of responses before they fall quiet, likely moving to track the location. The boy blows his breath out, pulling his knees up to his chest and letting the radio hang limply from his hand.

“Lloyd?” the radio crackles again, the voice on the other side unsure. “You sure you’re okay?”

The boy is silent, his expression working as he swallows. He fumbles with the radio again, clicking it on. “Yeah,” he croaks. “I’m okay. Just tired. I’ll see you in a bit.”

He then switches the radio off, throws it several feet away from him, and buries his face in his arms, bracing them against his knees.

Garmadon takes it as his cue to leave. There’s not much left to do but watch the boy sniffle miserably to himself, and that’s not exactly appealing. He slips quietly from the clearing, clinging to the shadows as he moves further and further from the boy.

He almost hesitates. Something stings in his chest, with every footstep he takes further away. It’s an ache that almost feels familiar, if he thinks about it enough. As if there’s something in him desperately trying to tug him back.

Then Garmadon grits his teeth, shoves the feeling down, and presses onward.

He doesn’t want to be here when the rest of Wu’s students show up, anyways.

#lego ninjago #ninjago #garmadon #lloyd garmadon #guess who listened to too much bastille and ended up Sad again #anyways idk what this is but i miss garmadad #my fic

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onecanonlife · 3 years

Text

careful son (you got dreamer's plans)

Wilbur gasps back to life with mud between his fingers and rain in his eyes.

Wilbur was dead. Now, he is not. He can't say that he's particularly happy about it.

Unfortunately, the server is still as tumultuous as ever, even with Dream locked away, so it seems that his involvement in things isn't a matter of if, but when.

(Alternatively: the prodigal son returns, and a broken family finally begins to heal. If, that is, the egg doesn't get them all killed first.)

Chapter Word Count: 6,284

Chapter Warnings: swearing, panic attack, vomiting, past mind manipulation, discussion of s.uicidal thoughts/behaviors

Chapter Summary: Wilbur has a couple of tough conversations, and he and Schlatt discover something interesting.

(masterlist w/ ao3 links)

(first chapter) (previous chapter) (next chapter)

Chapter Eight: but it gets hard to stand (i)

He is floating at the bottom of the ocean. It is dim and peaceful, and there is dappled light all around, shifting with the waters. He breathes, and fluid fills his lungs, but it moves as easily as if he were inhaling air. His hair floats in front of his face, gleaming white in the glints of sunlight. That should be strange, perhaps, but he feels so very calm. Nothing can reach him here. No care, no hurts. The water is holding him, and he is at rest.

But he is drifting upward.

The surface is approaching. The dimness recedes. There is light overhead, bright and warm, and he is moving toward it swiftly. Still, there is no cause for concern. He watches languidly, content to let it happen.

Is there a reason to fight it?

Surely not.

The waves break around him. He breathes in air. The sun is on his face.

He wakes up.

He lays there, still and quiet for a few moments before he musters the will to move. His breathing seems loud to his own ears, the only sound that he can make out. The roof above him is not one that is familiar—so, not Tommy’s house, then, and he wonders why that is. His mind is blank, and he’s sure there’s something he’s forgetting.

He rolls over and props himself up on his elbow. The lighting is dim, the torches flickering, the bare minimum placed to avoid mobs spawning inside. He’s lying on a cot near the wall, and from his vantage, he can see an area with pews and a dull golden bell, and a towering pillar of water in the center of the space he’s in. Recognition sparks after a few seconds; he’s only been inside a few times, but he knows Church Prime when he sees it.

There is no one else here. He is alone. Is there a reason for that?

He stands on shaky legs and immediately regrets it as his head spins and pounds, like the worst hangover of his life. Drinking would explain the memory issue, but he’s staying with Tommy, so that doesn’t sound like something he would do. Even when he does indulge, he almost never drinks to the point of blacking out. So that doesn’t make sense, but he’s at a loss otherwise. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, and as soon as he thinks he can move without toppling over, he makes his way over to the center of the room, tottering unsteadily.

From here, he can see the front door. Outside, it is night, the Prime Path illuminated in the darkness. Something about that is off, he thinks—wasn’t it morning, the last thing he remembers?

The last thing he remembers—

He frowns, turning to the water, and absently, he runs his fingers through it. Cool and wet and gentle to the touch, and he remembers

(people around him people shouting and he can barely breathe and nausea rolls over him and his head is killing him and his mind is full of a red haze and he wants to go he wants to go but they’re not letting him and there’s water poured on him and forced down his throat and he nearly chokes but finally there is some kind of relief and it all falls away)

He freezes. Withdraws his hand from the water slowly, as if he’s stuck his hand into a mass of thorns and has to pull back out without being pricked.

The Egg. They went to see the Egg.

And the Egg

(oh Prime what did you do)

reached inside of him and picked through his mind and his memories, offering him what he thought he wanted most

(took you and hollowed you out and tried to take the parts that might be redeemable and replace them with itself and make you its creature completely and utterly)

and he let it, let it inside with barely a fight, and he almost hurt Tommy. He almost killed Tommy.

He almost killed Tommy.

A breathy whine escapes him, and he slaps his hand over his mouth as he doubles over, resisting the urge to dry heave. He almost hurt Tommy, almost killed Tommy, and all because he allowed a fucking Egg to whisper to him, because he allowed himself to be taken in and taken over, and he’s lucky, really, that he was able to snap out of it. It’s horrifying to think about, that he might have killed Tommy at the Egg’s direction, killed Tommy and felt triumph over it.

It was in his head.

He loses the battle against his nausea. His knees hit the floor, and he is wracked with dry heaving. There’s nothing in his stomach to come up. It just hurts. His breath hitches, air coming in fits and bursts, and whimpers and moans escape his throat at quick intervals, noises that are wounded and animalistic, but he doesn’t think he could hold them back if he tried. He’s crying, too, but that’s a given. There’s no one here to see, at least. No one here to see his shame, his weakness.

The Egg whispered to him of fire, and he wanted it. The Egg whispered to him of fire, and that’s all it needed to do before he embraced it with open arms.

The Egg whispered to him of rest, and he did it again. And Tommy was there. Tommy was there for all of it, and now Tommy knows that it’s all a front, a lie, a sham, and the miserable creature that got shoved back into this body is nothing like the older brother he wanted, nothing like the older brother he deserves. Scratch the paint off, and what is there but wreckage?

He hunches over, wraps his arms around himself. Tries to breathe. It’s difficult. He wonders if he should bother.

“God, there you are,” someone says, and—not someone. Schlatt. It’s impossible to mistake that voice for anyone else. Which is good, because Wilbur is not currently about to look up. He can’t even manage to get his lungs to cooperate, much less the rest of him. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I never took you for a pious man, Wilbur. Wilbur?” The voice changes, becoming more cautious, and then: “Shit, Wilbur.”

There is no noise to warn him of his approach. Schlatt moves soundlessly, now. But there is a blur of motion just in front of him, and blue enters his field of vision. A wave of calm washes over him at the sight of the color, but not enough. Not nearly enough. He can’t breathe, and he’s not certain that he wants to try.

“Alright, come on,” Schlatt says. “You know the drill, follow my breathing.” And he breathes in and out, very loudly, very purposefully. Out of habit, Wilbur attempts to follow, but he can’t manage it, his chest collapsing in on itself, his breath stuttering and gasping. “Okay, that’s okay, let’s do it again. You know how to do this, Wilbur, you’ve done it before. God, you shouldn’t have to rely on a fucking ghost to tell you how to breathe. That’s just pathetic. You can do it, come on.”

He almost laughs at that. Would, if he had the breath for it. He doesn’t think he’s ever found Schlatt’s vitriol more comforting. And all the while, Schlatt keeps up the pattern, his chest rising and falling with air that he doesn’t need to take in, and slowly, Wilbur manages to fall in time with him.

(they’ve done this before, once upon a time, back before everything, before this server, back when they were young and stupid and the best of friends, and Schlatt always relied on him to get him home after having a few too many and he always relied on Schlatt to calm the hornet’s nest that his mind became, sometimes, when all the world seemed to shrink around him, boxing him in and silencing his voice. they knew each other so well, then, trusted each other despite the warning signs)

“You good?” Schlatt asks. He’s so far from good that the question is ridiculous, but he nods. “Great. You look like shit.”

He does manage a laugh, then, short and bitter. “I feel a bit shit,” he concedes. “Is it that obvious?”

“I mean, I didn’t want to say anything,” Schlatt says. “But I feel like it’s my solemn duty to inform you that you look fucked up. I can’t leave you alone for two minutes, can I?”

“Been a bit longer than that, I think,” he says. “Where did you go, after the prison?”

“Well, you remember how Dream was being a fucking creepy asshole, right?” Schlatt says dryly. “Yeah, that had me freaked. It felt like—I don’t know, he was looking right at me, and it felt like I’d been dunked in a fucking, a fucking oil slick or something, like I could literally feel his eyes on me and his fucking—his murder vibes or some shit, I don’t know.” His form flickers around the edges, his face pulling into a grimace. “So yeah, I dipped. Went to go get something to drink, except I remembered that I can’t fucking do that, so I fucked around for a little while. Saw the crater, did all the tourist shit. Saw Quackity, actually, did you know he’s got, like, fiances now or something? No clue how he managed that. But then I decided to come bug you some more, except you weren’t at Tommy’s or literally anywhere else, and everyone I ran into looked grim as hell. I half-expected to find out that you’d managed to die again or something, or that you’d blown up someone else’s city. But here you are.”

He raises an expectant eyebrow at the end of that speech, not out of breath at all, the bastard.

(he always did like the sound of his own voice. it must be difficult for him to be silenced, for him to be able to stand in the middle of a crowd and have no one know that he’s there at all)

(at the heart of him, there is a part of Schlatt that just wants to be noticed, just wants to be paid attention to. Wilbur knows because they are the same)

Wilbur mulls that over in his mind, and gets stuck on the last part.

He bursts into laughter. He can’t help it. And it’s not very nice laughter, either, probably lands somewhere on the wrong side of deranged, but he can’t stop.

“What’s so funny?” Schlatt demands. “God, you’re such an asshole, I’m trying to have a conversation and you’re—you’re crying again, could you cut that out?”

Schlatt is beginning to sound genuinely alarmed, so Wilbur supposes he should make an effort. He gets a handle on the laughter and reaches up to touch his face, giggles still escaping him every few seconds. His cheeks are wet again, his vision blurring.

“Do you know about the Egg?” he asks.

“The—is that a code for something? What fucking Egg?”

“There’s an Egg underneath BadBoyHalo’s house,” he says. “It’s what’s spreading those red vines across the server. And if you go down there and see it, it talks to you and offers you things and gets in your head to try to override your free will.” He smiles. “I don’t recommend it.”

Schlatt is silent for a long moment, just staring, eyebrows so high that they look like they’re trying to escape his forehead.

“You’re not high, are you?” he eventually asks.

“It offered me destruction, Schlatt,” he says. “Fire and blood. And then it tried to get me to kill Tommy, and I almost did, but I didn’t, and then we tried to leave, and it offered me rest.” He smiles wider. “Rest, Schlatt. I wanted it so bad. I don’t remember how we got out of there. I didn’t want to leave.” He smiles wider still, and then something breaks, and he buries his face in his hands. “I wanted it so fucking bad, I wanted to rest, I still want it, but it was in my fucking head and fucking with my brain and I can’t—” He makes a low noise, pressing his hands harder against his skin, as if that will do anything at all.

“Jesus,” Schlatt mutters. “That’s—that’s fucked up. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“I don’t want you to say anything,” he mutters. “I don’t want me to say anything. I don’t want to be here. I fucking—I hurt Tommy, after I said that I wouldn’t. I hurt him. I hurt him.” He lowers his hands a bit, peering up at Schlatt, who looks very discomfited.

“Don’t start crying again,” Schlatt says, “please, I’m not equipped for that. This is—” He cuts off, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Jesus, Wilbur. The kid’s still alive, right?”

“Of course he is,” he snaps.

“Then talk it out or some shit, I don’t know. That kid thinks the world of you, man. No idea why, but there’s no accounting for taste. Just talk about it.” He shudders. “I don’t know why you’re asking me. You think I know shit about healthy relationships?”

“I woke up alone,” he says. “There was nobody here. I don’t know where anybody is, or if anyone’s hurt, or—I don’t remember how we got out, so what if something happened? What if it got me to do something and I don’t remember it?”

Schlatt is looking more and more out of his depth. Under any other circumstances, it would be funny to see him squirm, but there is no enjoyment in this. Wilbur wants

(Phil)

someone, anyone to tell him what to do here, to tell him how to make this right, but there’s no one but Schlatt, and it wouldn’t be fair to expect something like this of him, even if he thought he could.

“I’m sure they’re all fine,” Schlatt says. “Probably stepped out to take a piss somewhere.”

He draws in a shuddering breath. Maybe. Maybe. That doesn’t feel right, but maybe. He’s still shaking, and though he wills himself to stop, it makes no difference. He feels weak, feels pathetic, feels like the worst kind of traitor, to himself and to everyone around him, and the worst part of all of this is that he doesn’t know how much was the Egg and how much was him. Because to be sure, he could feel it influencing him. It’s easy to pick out in retrospect, the way it wormed its way through his thoughts, twisting him all around, and thinking about it now makes him nauseous again.

But in the end, it only brought out what was already lurking under the surface. What he’d been well and determined to push down, to ignore.

(and in some cases, not even that. a mask only goes so far, only serves so many people, and it takes a long time before the wearer can forget what lies beneath)

It is instinct, really, that has him reaching out, seeking physical contact. He’s always liked using touch to ground himself, to reassure himself

(Phil’s wings wrap around him and they feel warm feel like safety feel like home feel like he is protected and he is not alone if only for a moment if only for a moment he wishes that it could have been different could have been not like this but his course is set his ending penned and all that’s left to do is sign)

that he is real, that he is alive. His hand goes straight through, of course, and electric frisson runs up his arm. Schlatt makes an irritated sound, but puts up with the attempt, and Wilbur blindly tries again, even though he knows it will be futile. He wants something to hold, and in the absence of anyone else, Schlatt will do, but Schlatt will not actually do because he is dead and a ghost and Wilbur is alive and not a ghost, so he is left clutching at what might as well be empty air and wishing desperately for a connection.

He just wants—

(they are the same, they two, linked in life and linked in death and now in)

Something shifts. Undefinable, but undeniable. There is a sudden stinging in his chest.

His fingers curl around Schlatt’s arm.

They both freeze.

“What the fuck,” Schlatt whispers.

Experimentally, he tightens his grip. The fabric under his fingertips is solid, a bit scratchy. There is a strange lack of body heat, but Schlatt is as tangible as he is.

What.

Schlatt’s hand shoots out suddenly, landing on his shoulder. The weight is present and real, and he meets Schlatt’s eyes.

“What the fuck?” Schlatt repeats, louder this time. “What the—how are you doing that?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, except that his chest hurts, right where his scar is, and if he focuses, he can sense what almost feels like—a tether, perhaps, though he’s not sure that’s the right word. Some kind of connection, some kind of tie between them, and it’s as if energy is flowing down it, from him to Schlatt, and actually, wow his chest hurts.

It’s not as if energy is flowing down it. Energy is flowing down it. He’s getting tired. Too quickly for it to be natural.

(he didn’t think to check, didn’t think to wonder, but if Schlatt was brought back by the same power that ripped him back to life, why is Schlatt still dead, dead and a ghost, when he is alive and not?)

“I don’t know,” he stutters, “I don’t know how I—”

It’s new, and a bit frightening, and somehow, the fear gets in the way. The tether snaps, vanishing just as soon as it was formed. He lurches forward, surprised by the sudden loss of contact, and Schlatt’s hand swipes through his chest. Schlatt curses, eyes wide and wild and—not quite scared. Not quite scared, but perhaps something approaching it.

“Do that again,” he demands. “Fuck, do that again, you—”

“I don’t know how I did it in the first place,” he protests. “I can’t just—”

And then stops. Outside, there are voices. Distant, but getting closer.

Schlatt takes a long look at him, and he doesn’t know what kind of expression he’s making, but Schlatt spits out a string of curses and stands, stomping off further into the church. It would have more of an impact, he thinks, if his feet actually made a noise when they hit the ground. He thinks that perhaps they would have, half a minute ago, and he thinks Schlatt thinks so, too, judging by the glare he shoots back at him.

He stands, feeling far more exhausted than he did only moments ago. And that is saying something.

“—not a choice, you get that, right?” Tommy is saying. He and Tubbo enter the church side by side. They both look—terrible is a word for it, certainly. The bags under their eyes are dark and thick, their hair sticking out every which way.

(this is your fault definitely your fault you failed them and you know it)

“We can’t just—” Tommy continues, and stops abruptly as he sees Wilbur standing there.

For a long moment, there is silence. No one speaks. No one moves. Wilbur traces over Tommy’s face, and he can’t even begin to interpret the emotions there, and that hurts, hurts worse than the fading ache in his chest, because he should be able to read his brother. Should be able to know him. Right now, he feels a bit like he’s looking into the face of a stranger, a stranger of his own making, and he doesn’t know how to fix this, doesn’t know if he can.

(the words still ring out in his head: I lied I lied I lied)

“You’re up,” Tubbo says, his voice carefully regulated. Tommy says nothing.

“Yeah,” he says. “I—you two, I am so—”

“Don’t apologize,” Tommy snaps. “Don’t—I’ve told you, I have had it up to here with you and your shitty apologies. Don’t do that. I don’t want to hear it.”

Wilbur opens his mouth, and then closes it again.

Because that is the thing: he has nothing else to offer. Apologies are all he can give, because at least he means them. Promises, he can make, but he breaks them just as easily. If there is some action he can perform, he doesn’t know it. And it’s too little, too late, too late to mend the damage he has caused, and it weighs so little against the side of the scale that holds all of his sins, but it is all he has. All he has, and if Tommy won’t accept it, he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Okay,” he whispers, and silence falls again. The water gurgles softly at his back.

“Okay then,” Tubbo finally says, “okay,” and it’s in a tone of voice that is tired and exasperated and worried all at once, a tone of voice that implies fine, I’ll do it myself if you two are going to be stupid, and it’s a tone that Wilbur has heard before but never like this, to this degree, and it sounds a bit like Phil, really, when he thinks about it. “Okay, so are we going to talk about what that was, then? I feel like we should. But I guess we don’t have to if you’re not up to it, Wilbur.”

“Fuck that,” Tommy says. “No, fuck that, he’s talking. You’re talking, you shit.” He stabs a finger toward Wilbur.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, “yeah, I owe it to you. I’ll—” And then he has to stop talking, because he suddenly gets very dizzy, the room tilting on its axis. He blinks, and then he is sitting on the floor, Tommy on one side of him and Tubbo on the other, Tommy all but yelling in his ear.

“—the fuck are you standing up for, you shithead? Prime, you’re so stupid, do you know that? Do you know that you’re stupid?”

He keeps going, and Wilbur opens his mouth to apologize, only to shut it again, because Tommy doesn’t want apologies, does he? So he says nothing at all, and Tommy falls quiet, and the damn silence is overwhelming, overpowering, an unbridgeable gap between them.

And then—

“Wilbur,” Tommy says. Just that. Just Wilbur. Somehow, it manages to carry a wealth of connotations, manages to say why did you do that and why have you been lying to me and a dozen other things all at once.

And Wilbur doesn’t have a good answer.

“What happened in there, Wilbur?” Tubbo asks, and he supposes he should be glad that they’re willing to sit by him, that they’re not flinching away despite everything, that they’re sticking close. He wouldn’t blame them if they wanted to run and never look back. Some of that wariness has returned to Tubbo’s eyes, and he thinks he can see some of it reflected in Tommy’s, but they’re both still here, so perhaps that counts for something.

Little though he deserves it.

“Tommy, you didn’t hear it, right?” he checks, voice almost a whisper, and Tommy mutely shakes his head. “But you did, Tubbo. What did it say to you?” The words come out slow, reluctant, clumsy.

“A lot of things,” Tubbo says. “Some stuff about power. Mostly the power to protect myself. But I’ve got that already, so I didn’t feel too keen on listening to a breakfast food. And then it started insulting me. It was really mean, actually. Didn’t make me feel great. I could feel it, kind of, in my head. I think that’s how it hurt my feelings so much.”

He closes his eyes. Nods.

“It was in my head, too,” he says. “It—I’m not any better than I was, really. I’ve been lying to you. I want to be. Prime knows I want to be. I’ve—I’ve been trying.” Embarrassingly, his voice cracks. “I swear, I have. I don’t want to be the person I turned into. But that person’s still there, is the thing. I could be him so easily, if I let myself. And even maybe if I don’t. Once I start sliding, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop.” He passes one hand over his face, and then keeps it over his eyes, shielding himself from their judgment. He doesn’t want to see their reactions to this. “The Egg—it shoved its way in and brought all of that out. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to stop it.”

(he was a child born of music and summer breezes, once, laughter and quicksilver charm. that went into the fire, burnt to ash, and the thing that came out was a child of the flames, flickering, dancing, and a bloodsoaked smile, and he got so tired of being that so very quickly and the sword was a relief in every sense of the word because finally the fire was put out, doused by cold, gleaming diamond, gentle blue, and his father’s tears landed on his face and he could feel them, finally, after so long burning)

(but he is born again and the fire leaps high and he can only keep it banked for so long)

“You did stop it, though,” Tubbo says. “You snapped out of it. It wanted you to hurt Tommy and you didn’t.”

“Barely,” he murmurs. “I—I swore to myself that I wouldn’t hurt you again. I swore, but I failed, and I—” No apologies. Tommy doesn’t want apologies. “Fuck.”

He keeps his hand pressed over his eyes. The darkness is calming, just a bit.

(it’s a place to hide, the coward that he is, and he is the pied piper leading the children and running away before he can face consequences because that’s all he knows how to do)

And then, Tommy yanks his arm down. He flinches at the sharp motion, at the sudden pressure on his skin, even as he leans in to the contact.

“Wilbur,” Tommy says, low and serious and more than a little angry. It’s not his usual fury, not his loud explosiveness. This is a simmering, slow, pointed anger, almost frightening in its intensity. “You listen to me, and you listen to me right now. You didn’t—you need to stop going on about failing, alright? Because you didn’t. The Egg wanted you to hurt me, and yeah it was terrifying and definitely not okay, but you didn’t. You did stop yourself. You gave the Egg what for. And I—” He breaks off, scowling. “I’m not gonna be able to say this right. But I know, okay? I’ve always known. I know that that you is there, I’m not stupid. I saw it in the prison. And sure, it’s actively scary, but I can see it, yeah? The way you’ve been trying? I know that you don’t want—and I don’t want—it’s not even that you, not really, because that you didn’t care, okay? I saw it, I lived it, I know what you’re like, and the you back then got too tired to try, not like you’re trying now. Do you—do you understand what I’m saying, Wilbur?”

(the you back then was exhausted and sick and spiraling and broken from the stress of presidency and then exile and all you ever really wanted was to make something good and to have it ripped from you was more than you could bear and you were just so tired by the end and you are tired, so very tired now)

He stares. “I—think? But—”

“No, no, no buts, I’m not fucking done. So maybe the Egg got in your head and fucked you up a bit. It sucked and it was scary, but you stopped yourself, and if it happens again, you’ve got us, okay? It’ll be fine as long as you let us help you.” Tommy sucks in a deep breath. “That’s not what I’m upset about. I mean, I am fucking upset about it, but that’s not what I’m most upset about.”

“Then what are you most upset about?” he asks, thoroughly bewildered by now. He understands what Tommy is trying to say, but not his logic, not his apparent willingness to continue to trust him. He should know better than that,

(because how many times did he hurt him in that dark ravine, how many times did he manipulate him, how many times did he snap)

should know better than to place faith in him now that he knows him for what he is, what he continues to be. And he doesn’t understand why this is, apparently, not the thing that he’s most worked up over.

Tommy doesn’t answer right away.

“The fact that you have to ask,” he says, “the fact that you have to ask, now that is fucking terrible.”

Wilbur glances at Tubbo, hoping for clarification. But Tubbo just stares back, the corners of his eyes pinched. He wishes he had an excuse to turn around; he wants to see if Schlatt is still here.

“Wilbur,” Tommy says, and Wilbur looks back at him, because it is Tommy’s voice that cracks now and Wilbur feels a thread of alarm run through him, “you said—you said it would give you rest.”

The words hang in the air, unchallenged, unanswered.

“You kept fighting us,” Tubbo says quietly. “All the way until we got you up here to the holy water. We were lucky that Puffy got there to help. I’m not sure we would’ve been able to do it without her. And you were—you got really sick, but you were still fighting us, and then you went to sleep for a day and a half.”

He jerks at that, and glances outside. “A day and a half?” he repeats, somewhat numbly.

“The whole thing happened yesterday,” Tubbo says. “You slept all the rest of that day, and all of today, too. We were scared you weren’t going to wake up.”

“Speak for yourself,” Tommy mutters. “But you would’ve liked that, wouldn’t you? If you hadn’t woken up.”

He meets Tommy’s glare. It’s an accusation, nothing more and nothing less. Tommy is angry. He deserves to be.

There is a lie on his tongue. But it would be fruitless now.

“Maybe,” he says, and feels both their gazes on his face, and amends that to, “Yes.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. There should be no more lies. But he doesn’t know how to explain himself, doesn’t know how to explain the weariness that weighs down his bones and the way he struggles to function and the way he can’t stop remembering what it was like in those final days, what it was like to know that his story was coming to a close and he was the villain and he was fine with it, because even if the ending would not be a good one, at least it would be an ending. He doesn’t know how to explain that he never intended to survive the rebellion, that one way or another, he sought his own destruction, and that death was rest and peace but no true healing. He doesn’t know how to explain that he’s regained perspective and the capacity to regret and the desire to never, ever hurt them like he once did, but not any will to live for himself. Not any desire to stay in this world that has taken and taken and taken and put his pieces back together all wrong.

He doesn’t know how to explain any of it. And even if he did, he wouldn’t. They don’t deserve to have to deal with that.

(they are children, still, despite your best efforts, too old for their age, but they should not have to carry the burdens of their elders on their backs any longer)

“Oh,” Tubbo says, small and quiet.

“Why,” Tommy says.

He closes his eyes.

“Do I really have to explain it?” he asks.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Tommy says, “I want to know why you didn’t tell us.”

He opens his eyes. Tommy is glaring at him, but it’s not quite anger anymore; it’s desperation, and fear, and worst of all, a terrible, horrible understanding,

(there is a boy with blue eyes gone grey and the boy stares into lava and Ghostbur isn’t sure that any amount of blue will make this better but it’s all he has, is all he can offer, and he allows the worst implications to flutter out of his brain like butterflies in favor of good cheer because it’s the only thing he can do to help and no one wants him to be the way that he was, so this has to be better, better to be a fool than a monster so a fool is what he shall be)

and he wishes it weren’t there. Wishes he didn’t know exactly why it is.

(he should have killed the green bastard then and there and hang what Tommy wanted, they all would have slept the better for it)

“It’s not your cross to bear,” he says. “It’s mine. It’s my own fault, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it.”

“So you thought lying to our faces was better?” Tommy demands. “You thought you could slap a smile on and it’d all turn out okay? That’s not how it works, Wilbur. I know that.”

Tubbo makes a noise, wounded.

“But really, you didn’t think it was something we’d want to know? That you still have a fucking death wish? What were we supposed to do, play around at being a happy family until you just up and died again one day? Because the last time you didn’t tell us something like this went so very well?” There is a flush spreading across Tommy’s cheeks. “I’m sick of people lying to me, Wilbur. I’m sick of you lying to me. How the fuck are we supposed to help you if you don’t tell us that you need help?”

He finds himself at a loss for words.

(he hasn’t been thinking about it in those terms. hasn’t been thinking about himself as someone who needs help, someone who deserves help. he is fire and he is ash and he is a spectre given physical form and he still doesn’t know what his purpose is, doesn’t know who brought him here and for what, so he has set himself to righting the wrongs he committed against his brother, but he hardly needs to take care of himself to do that, does he?)

(does he need help?)

(you made an ending but the story went on and you are back in it now, and who is to say there is no different path, no good road to set your dust-weary foot upon, and the sun shines regardless of what you do and indeed who is to say there will not be such endings?)

“I don’t want you to die, Wilbur,” Tommy says. “I can’t fucking do that again. You can’t leave, alright?”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to be here right now,” Tubbo puts in, still subdued. “We can help you learn how again. You’ve just got to give us the chance.”

It’s that that does it. Said so innocently, so determinedly, as if it’s that simple, as if there isn’t a thing with teeth and claws lurking below his skin, ready to lash out at anyone and anything, himself included. And he doesn’t understand it, not really, doesn’t understand why these two are so willing to help him after everything he’s put them through, doesn’t understand how they could think him worthy of it.

“Oh,” he chokes out, and distantly thinks that he is really crying too much today.

“Aw, jeez,” Tommy says. “Oh no, don’t—don’t cry, big man, come on. We don’t need to do that.”

Maybe. But on the other hand, maybe he does, and Tommy is very close, he suddenly realizes, and Tubbo, too, both of them close enough to pull into a hug, as long as they don’t object, so that’s what he does.

And they don’t object.

He should not, perhaps, be clinging to them as hard as he is. But they don’t tell him to stop, so he doesn’t.

For a while, they sit there, and he hugs them and they bury themselves into his side, and it’s almost like being back at home again, like Techno will come marching out of the woods with his sword mounted over his shoulder and Phil will call them in for dinner any moment, and in a few minutes he’ll get a message from Schlatt on his comm inviting him in on his latest business venture that is actually a thin veneer for a scam, like always.

He glances up, and Schlatt is nearer, in his field of vision, considering them with a raised eyebrow but a thankful lack of mockery. He rolls his eyes when he sees him looking, but from Schlatt, that’s practically a ringing endorsement.

He should probably say something about Schlatt’s presence at some point. No more lies.

In a minute, perhaps. For now, he holds his brothers tight and tries to let himself believe that everything is going to be alright.

(easier said than done)

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #dsmp fic #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #tubbo #jschlatt #alivebur #glatt #/rp #cat writes fic #long post

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consumeconstantly · 4 years

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Luggage Tags

Summary: To love someone, to lie to someone, to leave someone. Marinette and Jason tell people they’re together, but things fall apart.

_____________________________________________________________

The room is dark when Jason enters. He flicks the light on to see Marinette, looking right at him.

“Pixie? What are you doing? Why were you sitting in the dark like that?”

Marinette just stares at him.

Jason shrugs and moves to the kitchen counter. The first year they were together, she woke up with nightmares. She still got nightmares sometimes, but for the past few months, she’s been prone to getting episodes like this, where she stares at the door in the dark and doesn’t talk to him for hours. He’s not really sure what’s changed, but it could be any number of things. Trauma affects everyone in different ways.

“Pasta tonight? Job’s been taking me to Japanese restaurants every day.”

Marinette faces him, but Jason doesn’t think she’s really looking at him. Her eyes track him around the room whenever she gets like this, but her face is always so devoid of emotion and so unresponsive that she’s only subconsciously recognizing his figure.

She starts sobbing. That’s new.

“Hey, hey,” Jason soothes, approaching her with one hand out and a rumbling baritone. It feels stupid to do this, but during one of her nightmares, she flipped him in her sleep and he cracked a rib. “You’re not in Paris anymore. We’re in Gotham. Hawkmoth can’t hurt you here.”

That just gets her to sob harder, shoulders shaking tears forming rivers down her face, settling in her laugh lines. Jason hasn’t seen Marinette laugh in a long time.

He goes to wrap her in a hug, but she bats his arms away, chest heaving. The time between each breath is so short, she’s just short of hyperventilating.

“C’mon, Mari, breathe with me. In for one, two, three, out for one, two three.” He feels so helpless, carefully maintaining a distance from his best friend and lover. At times like this, he can do nothing but watch as she suffers. It hurts, because even though Marinette doesn’t let him in her space even though he should be helping her, holding her, crying with her.

She does that for him, when his nightmares get bad. Marinette wraps him up in an ever gentle hug, not minding the scratches she gets or the threats he ends up giving her.

Her presence is an instant balm, the scent of butter, sugar, and clean.

Jason shrugs off his leather jacket and tries again. She’s been weird about his jacket and certain clothes as of late. He’s not sure why— she never explains, just purses her lips and looks stubbornly to the floor— but he tries to avoid the clothes she dislikes as much as possible. He supposes she gets annoyed at seeing tiny imperfections in her old designs sometimes, so Jason carefully packs those clothes away and out of sight. But he’s never been able to part with this leather jacket. It was her first gift to him, with her name embroidered on the inside of the jacket, right over his heart. He always makes sure that he treats this jacket very well, never wearing it to a fight, and cleaning and caring for it more often than he needs to. Marinette spent a long time on the jacket, and during the first year of their relationship, she liked tracing the smaller details with an index finger before pulling him into a kiss. When she was feeling down, she batted the zippers with a pout on her face. They had too many good memories on this jacket for Jason to put it away permanently.

Her tears start to subside, so Jason tries again. She hisses.

“Please, Jason. Just— just make dinner for yourself. I can’t be here right now.” With that, she stands, grabs an overcoat and a purse, casts a lingering glance at the jacket Jason left on the sofa and closes the door so quietly, he barely hears it.

They continue on like this for months.

“Do you need to start seeing your therapist again?” Jason asks one night.

Marinette laughs, and it sounds like a parody of the full-bellied sound that’s trademark of anything she really finds funny. “Jason, I’ve been seeing her for months now.”

His fork clicks against the ceramic. Marinette insisted on only buying things they would use, so the finest dishwater they had were the wine glasses gifted to Marinette by Kagami half a year ago. That had been a very odd encounter. The woman stormed into the apartment, with a curse at the edge of her tongue, four bottles of very expensive wine, and two more bottles of 70 proof liquor. She ushered Marinette into their bedroom and locked Jason out for the entire night.

“Oh,” Jason says, eloquence failing him.

“Have you— have you been feeling any better lately?”

She laughs again, and it makes him feel tiny. “Thanks to my therapist, I think I’m finally coming to terms with what Kagami told me.”

“I see.”

“Do you want to know what Kagami told me?”

He does, but Marinette is always good at talking about things when she’s ready to. If he pushes her now, she might end up in a bad place again. With his siblings, he has to push and push constantly to squeeze any information out of them. Marinette’s tendency to speak her mind is much more Jason’s speed. He’s the same kind of person. That’s a big part of the reason they get along so well.

Her hand drops to the stem of her wine glass. She swirls the white around and stares at the way the edges drip back down into the body of liquid.

“Then let’s talk about something else. How’s Tim doing? I haven’t talked to him in a while?”

“Really?” Jason raises an eyebrow. This morning, after he finished his week-long excursion to California, he dropped by Wayne Enterprises, and Tim gushed about a new coffee blend Marinette showed him.

“It’s been a few days,” Marinette clarifies.

“Probably just more of the same. Keeping Wayne Enterprises afloat and Gotham out of trouble.” A few days isn’t that long. Even the Replacement couldn’t stir up that much trouble.

“I’ve missed you,” Marinette says, looking down at the steak she prepared.

“Me too, Mare.”

“You’ll tell me when you leave, right?”

“I always do.”

The rest of their meal is eaten in silence.

“I love you.” She’s holding a freshly cut bouquet, standing at the door of his old bedroom in the manor.

Jason grabs the bouquet, grimaces, then kisses her on the cheek. “Mare, there’s thorns on these. You’re bleeding.”

“Am I?” Her voice is faint. She’s wearing a dress made out of some sort of airy fabric. It sort of makes her look like a spirit that’s ready to float away with the wind.

“Has the therapist been helping any?” His brow furrows. Marinette never hurts herself intentionally like this. She only gets hurt for others. No matter how much he tries to persuade her to stop sacrificing herself for others, Marinette just loves the world too much.

“Can I come in?”

His frown deepens. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll meet you in the dining room. We can go out on a date. It has been a month since we’ve last seen each other.”

“Right,” Marinette says with a voice so small, he has to strain to hear her. “A few minutes.”

He locks the door behind him, throws on the latest set of clothes Marinette dropped off at the manor, leaves his bed unmade, and a note on the table. When he gets down to the dining room, Alfred informs him that Marinette has been called away for an emergency meeting.

“An emergency meeting? But it’s the weekend!”

Alfred just looks at him and shakes his head.

One day, Jason comes back to find nobody in their apartment. That’s odd, because Marinette has some sort of super sense about when he’s coming back, even though he never tells anybody. Every time he comes back from being outside for longer than a few days, Marinette has always been at home, waiting for him with a smile and a hug. Well, lately, with a blank stare and tears, but she was always still there.

Maybe he should try going to therapy with her, see what’s been getting her so down. She never talks about herself anymore, just about her friends and what they do. He doesn’t know how her business is doing or even what she enjoys anymore. The game console that was used to play UMS every weekend gathers dust underneath their television.

He checks his phone. No text or missed calls from her either. Nothing since a few days ago, anyways.

“Hey,” Jason calls Tim. “Is Mare at the company?”

There’s static and the sound of breath from the other end of the line. Then it cuts out, and his phone makes the disconnected noise. Tim’s been pretty pissy, lately, and rarely takes his calls. Jason tosses his phone on the couch and runs a hand through his hair. He twirls the white tuft Marinette likes to play with. He should shower before she gets back.

He looks down at his phone.

“I’ll try one more time,” he says.

It goes straight to voicemail.

She doesn’t come home the next day, or the day after that.

Jason storms into the manor. “Where is she?”

“Where is who, Master Jason?”

“You know damn well who I’m talking about. There’s only one girl who’s location I’m ever interested in.”

Alfred in his butler suit is very good at looking condescending, even without changing his posture dramatically. “Is that so, Master Jason? You could have fooled me, then. Last time you were hunting for Talia. The time before that, Lady Cassandra.”

Jason snarls. “I don’t mean it like that. Just tell me where she is. I’m worried. She hasn’t been back in days.”

Damian comes down the steps, looking every inch the brat he was when they first met. “Don’t answer him, Pennyworth. He isn’t worth the air.”

Jason rounds on his little brother, reaching out to grab him by his shoulder. “What does that mean, huh, Demon Spawn?”

Damian doesn’t even bother breaking stride to look at him in the eyes. He barely moves enough to dodge Jason’s grasp, then continues on his way to the dining room like Jason’s not even there. Dread begins to pool in Jason’s stomach. He feels more Lazarus than he has in years, and there is no Marinette to cradle him while he breaks right now.

“Where is she?”

“You’re supposed to be her boyfriend,” Damian scoffs. “Then again, you’ve never been very good at playing your part.”

The perks of having a famous girlfriend: the internet knows exactly where she is.

The cons of having a famous girlfriend: the internet knows exactly where she is.

Jason feels terrible. It’s Fashion Week in Paris. Jason always makes the time to go to Fashion Week with Marinette. She reminds him months and months in advance the exact dates that Fashion Week is going to be that year, and he always, always blocks out at least two days to be with her.

He almost thinks about flying out, but Fashion Week is basically already over, and the day she presented her Spring/Summer line already passed.

“Marinette, I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

His message goes straight to voicemail.

He goes on another mission.

The next time Jason comes back home, Marinette is sitting in that same chair in the darkness again.

“I’m back,” he says, trying to gauge what mental state she’s in right now. “I missed you.”

She sits, primly, properly, and in silence. Jason flicks the light on.

“You love me,” Marinette states. How long has it been since he’s last heard her voice in person? Two months? Three?

“Yeah,” Jason agrees, crossing the room to give her a hug. “Of course I do.”

A sharp intake of breath. Marinette holds her arm out, eyes pinched close, lips devoid of color. “I love you, too, Jason.”

His heart softens. He needs to start spending more time at home.

She rises to her feet, placing a hand on her Ladybug-red luggage.

“Are you going on a business trip? I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your last line.”

There’s a careful blankness in her eyes that makes him uneasy. Something about the size of her luggage, and the fact that there are things missing from around the house. The gramophone that holds the Miraculous is missing from the side table. Pictures of Marinette, Kagami, Chloe, and Alya have disappeared. All of the plants that Marinette meticulously keeps alive are gone.

“No,” Marinette says. “I’m leaving for good.”

Sun streaks through the window blinds. The bags underneath her eyes are prominent, and her whole face looks swollen.

“Oh,” Jason says. “Did you find a better apartment? I can put off my next mission so we can move into it.”

Marinette blinks. She laughs, full belly, but Jason’s heart squeezes. Her voice sombers. “Jason, it’s better if we break up now. I’m-- I’m tired. I can’t do this anymore.”

He can see every fine line on Marinette’s face. When did she get them? He can’t recall. “What do you mean? Why?”

Slowly, Marinette drags her luggage forward and pops his collar, staring at it with sad, sad eyes. She runs a bitten-to-the-quick finger down the zipper of his leather jacket, holds the zipper in her hand and sets it back down with nary a jingle. Her smile forms with her lips, not her teeth, and the wrinkles at the sides of her eyes don’t gather up. It’s a soft, sad, small thing. Tip-toeing, Marinette presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “You’re a good man, Jason. But I can’t trust you with my heart.”

She leaves her key hanging at the peg and closes the door gently.

@jasonette-july-2k20

#angst #jasonette #miraculous ladybug #dcu #maribat #jasonette july #original content #marinette dupain cheng #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #breakup

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trillian-anders · 4 years

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the harlot - i

pairing: steve rogers x reader

warnings: descriptive violence, angst, fluff, smut, slow burn

word count: 4.2k

description: harlots inspired au;

one last run before shipping off steve rogers is brought to a brothel to love a woman in case of his untimely demise at war. he meets the reader, young and fresh, not yet tainted by the world they’d been born into. a torrid one night love affair that costs their mother greatly. a promise and years later they meet again, the reader resentful and distrustful. the charming, now captain rogers, seems as captivated in reader as ever. but it’s never meant to be. and you both know that.

The wiles of women. They were a trap for men, the bawdy, the harlots and succubi that taint husbands and sons with powdered skin and lips red as blood as if pricked on a rose’s thorns. The pink blush of their cheeks, draped fabric and perfectly coiffed white wigs. Their ribs crushed under the ties of a corset leaving bruises on their belly and hips. Small tight shoes that pinch their toes and a shiny penny shoved against the entrance of their womb to prevent pregnancy.

You could be one of those. You had potential. The kept woman of bureaucrats and bankers. In a home paid for them by the men who made the world turn.

“A beautiful girl you are.” Men would say. Their fingers tilting your chin up to gaze upon the craft of your Mother. They always called you beautiful. When you were a child and free, running through the streets in your patched skirt and ruddy knees. The grab of a man’s hand interrupted by your Pa.

A brawl or two for your protection, your Pa’s fists bloody and raw cracked on the jaw of a man trying to fondle his child in the street. Otherwise left alone. He wasn’t your birth father. The man who spewed you into your Ma’s belly you’d not a clue of. With this profession you can never be sure. Your Pa was a man who loves your Ma. They had a little boy together and they run the house that women sell their sex from.

The house you live in and have lived your entire life.

The only gain for hope in your Mother’s case, was to sell you to someone who would give you a good life. Better than a whore on the street, but not as good as a wife with a man to love and a man who loves you.

“You’ll never want for anything,” Your Mother would say, curling your hair around her fingers as she painted your lips, a soft pink. “You’ll be taken care of.” Pinching your cheeks for color. “And a man will not have control over what you own.”

You’d be kept on a salary. Like an employee in a home as part of the package. The goal of having a sweet little place in high society where you’d attend parties and drink and charm your way about in fine silks and a coy smile. One your Ma had you practice in the mirror. A gaze to bewitch me and have them chase your skirt all about town.

Your image was perfection. Hair in perfect curls and the flush of your skin against power pink fabric and a tightly bound corset, breasts pushed oh so innocently up. A tease for the body that they would have to pay to see.

Men love a blushing virgin.

A favorite you were. Taught piano, how to read and write. You learned card games and how to flirt with a glass of wine, your lips meeting the rim and peering up through your lashes at men who were drooling and waiting for their turn upstairs.

You played piano with a coy eye while the girls worked the room at parties. Watching a hand slip up a skirt, a drag into the dark hallway and the creaks of their beds through the floor.

And tonight was no different.

“Your bid is going soon.” Your Ma flit around the room, pulling a beautiful silk lavender gown and laying it before you, circling behind to tighten your corset. A free breath gone from your lungs, hands clutching the bed post as your breasts spilled upwards and your waist was synched tight. The wraps loosened on your curls, pinned in a bow away from your face. Innocent and sweet. A heavily jeweled necklace on your throat. A tight nude colored shoe and the dress was laid over your skin, soft and barely worn. “It’s a special occasion.” She reasoned.

You were to put on a face, shy and sweet, endearing. A group of men coming to the house for a party, special, and paid in advance. Men who would hold great standing off fighting in the King’s army. Men who would one day be those very men who make the world turn. Generals and servicemen alike. “A fine fit, I would say.” Bids for the sweet honey pot between your thighs.

You’d had offers when you were young as ten. But your Ma wouldn’t. “You’ll be better than I was.” Better than a young girl sold off and meant to please the perverts that prey on the young. “You’re worth more than that my sweet girl.” Her fingers would brush your cheek with affection. The love she felt for you palpable. The favoritism in her own blood opulent. How many pounds would be enough to sell your flesh for the very first time?

You were to be shy and sweet. Stick by her side as men approached and aimed to charm you upstairs. You watched as girls you knew and trusted, the ones you read the paper to and ones you’ve aided with pregnancy and illness, these girls nothing more than a hole to find solace in for the night. A night before leaving to risk their lives on some expedition for the King’s need for global power.

Some were handsome, charming, and one with a chipped tooth made you blush. But one by one they disappeared up the stairs and out of sight. Raucous moans and the slamming of headboards. You catch a thief in the kitchen.

“You’re not supposed to be in here.” A boy, or a man, his cap held in his hands as he worried the brim. He looks smart with his blonde hair back and tied neatly in a black bow at the nape of his neck. Not a mark on his uniform, the jacket open to his shirt underneath. He seems startled by you. His mouth parts, lips pink and a blush on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, I—” He stands, “I uhm…” His hand reveals a fuzzy peach, missing a bite. It was the shine on his lips. You were unsure of what to do. This was the first time in your life that you had been truly alone with a man.

“You haven’t found your way upstairs.” A soldier who hadn’t found his way into the cunny of a girl before leaving tomorrow. “Isn’t that the point of even being here?”

“It wasn’t my choice, I uh—” He was naïve, it was sweet. Nervous. “I don’t know what I’m doing here if I’m honest.” You worry your bottom lip. In the light of the fire you could see how flushed he was, his fingers digging into the peach enough for the juice to run over his fingertips.

“Most men come here for sex.” To put it bluntly, he looks down at his shoes, scuffs them on the floor, then back at you. Your head tilted to the side, “Are you a virgin?” The way his mouth parts, his eyes widening. The answer was yes. You smile, soft and sweet. “Me too.” Leaving the doorway, you settle yourself at the kitchen table. “I’m Y/N.” The scoot of the chair back across from you as he sinks into the seat.

“I’m Steve.”

…

The fake moans. It’s what really gets him. The back arching, toe curling, screams. The vice of your heat on his cock. A familiar and rough tug and pull of your skin. His hands finding your flesh, gripping at whatever hold he could get. “You’re a jewel, a proper pearl among the sea of shit that is in my life.”

Alexander Pierce was a King’s man. Older with a wife who couldn’t be bothered and children older than you. He paid a pretty penny for your maidenhood. Your coy smile the charm you’d give his guests. He paid you well. Just what your Ma wanted. The mistress of a man with more money than you could ever spend in this lifetime.

Your life had changed from where it had been by such leaps and bounds that you couldn’t help but be grateful. Where people could see anyway. You were brought fabrics from China, intricate designed cloth from Spain. A row of shoes in your closet in each color you could possibly imagine. Dresses lavishly adorned with jewels. Pearls and rubies. Ribbon and lace.

“Tonight.” His fingers gripping your hair as his hips viciously slap against yours, “You will be proper and charming.” A grunt, “And you will make my guests feel welcome, no matter what I ask you to do,” The harsh rip of your hair, “You will do as I say.” Your scalp would be sore, ache as you pin your hair back to fit under the powdered wig you’d be wearing for the night. Your eyes more vacant than ever. Watery and tired.

You needed a drink.

You hardly ever got to see your Ma anymore. On occasion she would be allowed to call on you. If your schedule coordinated, she would see you out on your daily stroll, but she’d been wrong. Your contract didn’t give you freedom. It didn’t give you power. It didn’t give you control. It kept you wedged under Pierce’s heel. A pretty little ornament he would fuck while you would prey for his seed not to take root.

You wondered if it would have been better to be back home. Where your Ma and Pa were with Peter, your brother who must almost be a man by now. Ten years is a long time.

You bring the façade of life back to your eyes as he meets you in the mirror. His face powdered, but breeches still open. A smirk of satisfaction on his lips as he comes to brush down your cheek. “The pink lipstick.” A demand. “And the blue dress.” His new favorite. He was getting reminiscent lately. Of the night he first had you. In a blue dress just like it.

It would be in the evening, buzzing with wine that you’d fall into old memories. As you watch the other girls bought for the evening flit about while you watched from afar like their own bawd. An artifact is what you became. A whore only touched by one.

…

“Did you always want to fight for your country?” You asked him. The blushing boy, who really was not yet a man. He was too kind for this place. In that instant in the kitchen of your Ma’s home you wondered what life would be like in that moment. If you’d met this son of a wealthy aristocrat as the daughter of one. How he would court you and beg for your hand.

Would he write you poetry? Recite it to you as you walked about in the garden with your chaperone? Would he be asking your father for your hand? And what of the wedding? Would it be like you read in your books on romance and love?

“It’s my obligation,” He shakes his head, picking at the peach pit laid between you. “My father says it will perhaps give me more courage and strength.” While tall, he was thin and gangly. Nervous and unsure. “And on my return I will take over for my family,” A shrug, “Start one of my own perhaps.” It’s to be expected.

“In the country?” You ask him. He sung you a melody of his family’s country estate. The lush foliage and homey cottage that he’d spent most of his youth in, only brought to the city for schooling and now, his stint in the military. “It sounds beautiful.” But not meant for you. Not as bad as you would want it.

“Have you ever been to the country?” You step away to pour more wine, for both you and him. A gentle buzz.

“No.” You laugh, “I’ve never been anywhere outside of London.” You sip from your cup.

“Would you like to?” He’s so naïve and as you look at him incredulously, he seems confused.

“That’s not exactly in the cards for me Steve.” The chair creaks beneath you as you sit back down. His fingers close to brushing yours on the table. You watch him think for a moment, unanswering.

“If you could do anything,” He starts, “If you could be anyone and live any life... what would you do? Who would you be?” His fingers brush yours, a heat on your cheeks.

“I—” You shake your head, “I don’t know.” You’d imagined things of course. As you just did in an alternative life where you would be the wife of a wealthy man in a house you’d get to make yours. But it was never really like that right? A woman couldn’t own property. Even the use of her body was sold in different ways. Sometimes for silks, sometimes for love. Or the imitation of it.

“You’d never thought of it?” The tip of his finger brushed against your skin. He seemed to remember himself and pulled his hands back. “You’d never thought about if you’d been dealt a better hand?” You make the move, capturing his hand in yours. His skin smooth and soft. The tale of a boy who’d never had to do hard work in his life.

“You’d never thought about if you’d been dealt a worse one?” Your thumb smoothed over the back of his hand. He gives you a sad smile.

“You deserve better than this.” A sad laugh,

“You don’t know anything about me.” He leans forward, a soft squeeze on your hand. He licks his lips before saying,

“But I want to.” His eyes searching yours, “I want to know everything about you.”

…

“Lay off the drink.” A harsh squeeze to your side. A tug on your skirt as Pierce’s hot breath reaches your ear. “I can’t have you embarrass me as a lush.” His hand meeting the back of your neck and gripping hard. “Go and socialize.” A harsh push on the back of your neck and forcing you from the corner where you’d buried yourself in your wine.

So you made your rounds. A smile on your face and a drink partially empty in your hand that you never replenished. Putting on a show for the man you knew staring you down from across the room while you charmed his guests.

Men he worked with whose hands wandered, but never strayed too far lest they’d face the wrath of your jealous master. A playful jibe and banter that was practiced and well meaning, never too much of an overstep. Always superficial and always on the surface. Waiting to be called on by your master to appease whomever he was trying to impress.

Working your rounds back to him, charming and entertaining he lay his hand out, two fingers crooking at you. You take his hand as he drags you from the sitting room and out back, girls milling about with men, walking around the gardens and a small group smoking a cigar in the courtyard. A group of men seemingly just arrived, Pierce needing a fashionable jewel on his arm to show a display of his status.

You could have died. Right then and there as you met the gaze you’d dreamt about for nearly a decade. He’d changed, but you assume, so did you. That tall and lanky boy, you could still taste the peach on his lips. Sweet and sticky fingers, unsure and shaking. His shoulders broad and chest muscled, his face full. Your breath caught as his tongue wet his lips, still pink and full. Just as it had been before when you had tugged it between your teeth.

“Captain Rogers,” Pierce’s hand out to shake, “Glad to see you healthy and back from the front.” A smile, the way he smiled. Side of his mouth endearing. It made your legs shake.

“Glad to be back.” The shake was firm, you could tell, “And who might this enchantress be?” Pierce’s feathers standing tall, a stiff peacock of pride. Steve. His hand grasps yours. Rough and weathered. A kiss to the back of your hand.

“Y/N Parker.” Pierce’s hand met the back of your neck, “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Parkers.”

…

He tasted of the peach he’d stolen. His lips soft and wet against yours. The sweet stickiness of it making you dizzy. It started soft. Ever so soft. Your elbows on the table as you leaned over towards him and met his lips once, twice, and then when his fingers cupped your cheek they melded together and took the breath from your lungs.

Your hand gripped his tightly, dragging him from the table and slipped to the room behind the stairs. Your room.

“Steve.” You sigh, his kiss making your brain swim in your thoughts, you shouldn’t be doing this. “She’s taking bids for me.” Your forehead against his as your back meets the door. “For my virginity.” His brow pulled in concern, his hands cup your jaw, thumbs brushing your cheeks. “But I want to choose.” You watch him swallow, his voice unsure and shaking,

“Are you sure about this?” You weren’t, you were sure your Ma would be furious, but maybe she wouldn’t need to know. Maybe she wouldn’t find out.

“Are you?” His lips meet yours again, gentle, slow and when you part, you turn, the buttons on your back nervously plucked from their holes. The heavy fabric shifted off your body to fall down off your hips. His hands rest on the stiff corset around your waist as you turn back to face him, shifting his jacket off and tossing it to the floor. Fingers plucking at his breeches as his fingers find the ribbon holding your corset together and slipping it loose.

You’re finally able to really breathe as your hands work on the laces, the bones of the corset peeling from your skin as you’re left in your shift.

Steve’s hands shake as his breeches fall to the floor. His boots tossed off and he’s left in his drawers standing across from you in the lamp light. You could see the hard length of him pressing against the fabric and it makes you shiver. A step towards the bed, his hands found your hips again, capturing your lips as his hands massaged the tender skin, your slip falling from your body to pool on the floor.

He fell to his knees before you, and you’d never felt so powerful. His lips pressing to the red markings on your belly. A soothe for the dig and restriction of your breath for the sake of beauty. A silent worship. His eyes on yours as his lips make their way to your sternum pressing between your breasts. A gentle lead to the bed. His drawers gone and a heat growing between your thighs at the sight of his firm pink cock pointed up at his belly button against a dark blond patch of hair.

“Are you sure about this?” He asks again, finding his place between your thighs. The length of him pressed against your wet cunt. You part your thighs wider, knees cradling his sides as you pressed your lips to his in assurance. Your hand dipping between your bodies to grab him, hot in your hand, and press the tip of him to your entrance.

“I’m sure.” A slow thrust of his hips. It was a strange sensation, different from the curious exploration of your fingers. A mutual gasp as he seats himself fully, a burning stretch. Your hands gripping his shoulders. He dips his mouth down to yours, a soft comforting kiss. A gasp as his hips move back to thrust again.

“Are you okay?” It wasn’t what you expected. Not in the least. He came quickly, as virgins do and he brought his lips to yours before cleaning the cum from your thighs. It wasn’t some big miraculous moment. And you didn’t feel horribly changed by it, “I’m sorry,” He whispers next to you. You lay facing him in the sheets. “I know sex isn’t terribly wonderful for women… at least not the first time. My friend… James, he says… that it takes time and practice to have sex be enjoyable for a woman.”

“Is that why you came here?” His lips pressed to the inside of your wrist.

“I didn’t want to come here at all, honestly.” His fingers were sticky as one traced your bottom lip, “But I’m happy I did.” He sighs, pulling you closer to him, the heat of his body warming you from the chill of the room. “I wish I could take you away from here.” He whispers against your lips, “I wish I could be yours, and you mine.”

…

Steve lets out a laugh, nervous, “I may have heard word of them.” Peirce’s hand tightened on your neck, a silent order to not speak unless spoken to.

“This is Mary Parker’s only daughter, a rare jem and the crown jewel to be held above all.” His other hand tilting your chin towards him. Steve’s face betrays no emotion, shifting into a smile as Peirce meets his eyes again.

“Simply stunning.” Steve agrees, making your heart race.

It’d been so long you didn’t know what to do or say. So you did nothing. And stupid with drink you distanced yourself from him almost immediately. But his eyes you could still feel on you as you walked with Pierce so he could introduce you to a General, and a man named Quill who just came into property in the states.

More wine. And maybe he won’t be able to perform later. The kitchen familiar and dark, a bottle plucked from the counter to refill his glass. The hulking figure in the doorway giving you pause. Your breath catches in your throat. Wine bottle grasped in both hands. He looks as though he’s searching for the words to say, his mouth parted and eyes looking upon you with the boyish innocence they had before.

It bubbled from your throat first, “You never came back for me.” An accusation that comes out more aggressive than you meant it to be. He steps into the light and you take him in tip to toe.

Maybe his father was right to send him off to war. The thin lanky boy that left you came back a broad shouldered and well-shaped man. But it was still him in the way he looked down at his shoes and then back at you. Like he had ten years prior. Bashful. Ashamed.

“I hadn’t been able to come back for anything until now.” You shake your head, sighing and go to move around him,

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come back at all.” His hand shoots out to grab your arm as you pass and you flinch from the action. A stunned reflex he lets go, immediately.

“Y/N—” The anger was bubbling up. Maybe from the wine, maybe from where you’d buried it long ago, but you couldn’t help it.

“My Master needs me.” Leaving him in the doorway and walking back to Pierce whose relaxed posture made you aware that he was almost there. Drunk enough to stumble into his own bed whereas you could sleep alone in yours. A rare blessing in this life.

…

“When I get back from war,” A whisper between your thighs, “I’ll come back for you.” The flat of his tongue in your cunt. A soft whimpered moan of sensation not before felt by you. Those measured means towards ecstasy. His fingers laced in yours as he worked to please you. The boy who’d just became a man, who’d just made you a woman.

As you meet your end he presses those sweet pink lips up your body, to meet your mouth, “Do you promise you’ll come back for me?” His fingers tracing your cheeks, eyes betraying love.

“I promise.” You’d been naïve. Of course, you’d been naïve. When your Ma had come to wake you the next morning and found you with that boy in bed, you’d been flogged for it. A weeping,

“How could you do this?” Her fingers hard on your chin. A curse at Steve, “You will tell no one of this.” And the blushing bumbling boy said,

“I would never.” He hadn’t even been gone a week when Pierce put his bid in for you. Nothing to turn your nose up at. A startling 400 pounds a year salary. One hundred up front. And a pension of such should he tire of you. If he ever tired of you. That first night as you lay under him you thought of your soldier boy, off to war with the promise of a return.

It was in your dreams and hopes, your prayers at night. But as each year passed it grew more and more distant in your mind. Your soldier boy wasn’t returning for you.

And you’d felt a fool.

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #chris evans #captain america #bucky barnes #sam wilson #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #steve rogers x you

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magpiemorality · 4 years

Note

Oh! It’s Saturday! I can send in a prompt! So way back when Altruistic Skittles did the first of the nightmare series, with Remus, you reblogged and said you might want to write something based on the picture. Last I knew, she said that people can write fanfictions from the pictures, as long as they’re properly credited. If that’s still something you’d be interested in, I’d love to see it!

This is very big, somewhat in honour of Remus’ birthday today, a very long and dramatic origin for him.

Check out the amazing art that prompted this fic here :) and thanks to @altruistic-skittles for making it and allowing works based off it!!

Also thanks to @omgsomeonesomewhereonearth for giving this a glance over for me on very short notice :)

Warnings: unreliable narrator, Anxiety is viewed as a bad guy, Remus isn’t particularly friendly, long post.

AO3

***

Roman had been feeling off for a while. He was far from the only one; puberty was tough on every aspect of Thomas, including Logan who had been stretched to his limits trying to keep up with all the demands of an average American high school life. But with Anxiety suddenly in the picture things were even more complicated. Who was he? Where had he come from? And why wouldn’t he leave?

In all honesty Roman hadn’t actually known there were other sides. He’d sort of, maybe naively, assumed that the three of them were the sum of Thomas’ parts, and that they covered everything Thomas would ever need. Sort of like Inside Out, which had in no way at all influenced their existence; they were the pilots who tended to the world inside Thomas’ busy head, just… minus the less good parts. Maybe Thomas didn’t need avatars for those things; maybe he didn’t value them that way, or maybe he just didn’t view them as part of himself?

It was an unfinished theory, but Roman mostly left those sorts of things to Logan, and Logan was too busy for much introspection these days. Which was why Anxiety had gone unchecked for so long.

Sometimes it felt like only Roman was the target of his attacks. Logan faltered, sure, but he was stubborn as all hell when it came to his routines and priorities and Anxiety hadn’t managed to shake them too much just yet. Logan was too established in Thomas’ head to allow wiggle room for anxious thoughts to disrupt his work. Patton also seemed to get away with coexisting with the guy; they fed off each other, or perhaps Anxiety had seen Patton’s power and figured it was easier to work with him than against him, turning good feelings to worry and guilt.

Okay so maybe Patton wasn’t unaffected, but he was so good at putting on a brave face that Anxiety had evidently seen fit to back off out of pure pity, and that left Roman.

Roman, Roman, Roman, trying his best to stay afloat on the sea of schoolwork and stress, to throw creativity into Thomas’ days so his smile wouldn’t fade. Until stupid, miserable, Despicable He, came along and took it upon himself to thwart Roman’s noble goal.

Their fights were spectacular, unfortunately often feeding into the influence Anxiety had clawed for himself over Thomas and leaving him feeling worse than before Roman had begun the battle. Not that Roman ever started things! He just kept trying to do his work, to do his best, and then Anxiety would show up and bam! Thomas’ hand would falter when writing his cathartic fanfiction, or his mind would blank as he searched for the lines to his latest monologue, or his voice would wobble and break on the notes of a song.

So things were weird, and that wasn’t all.

All it took in the end were a few cutting remarks from Anxiety that didn’t make any sense, and Roman was lost to that edge of paranoia, forever wondering what he meant. A jibe about Thomas not being a perfect person; a sneer laughing at how none of them had even known Anxiety existed before he’d appeared; a scoff that came with the bold assertion that just pretending you weren’t like that didn’t mean you actually weren’t. He seemed to reference someone else sometimes, with a vicious sort of victory that was at least in part tainted with misery, someone who- if Roman was interpreting the clues right- Thomas didn’t even know worked for him, who Anxiety had escaped from.

And then there was the matter of the tower.

Roman stared out of the bedroom window. It was his bedroom, his own copy of Thomas’, and if he focused hard enough he could see the shimmering after-images of the original, with Thomas’ homework on the desk, his clothes on the floor, his posters not quite matching up to Roman’s. He wasn’t in his room like Roman was, downstairs at dinner with the family, and not thinking too hard with his creativity. It left Roman free to do what he so often did these days; stare out of the window.

Spread out below him was the familiar, comforting sight of the backyard, with its play area and the patio and the grass, the treehouse in the far right corner looking shabbier than ever from its lack of use. Thomas’ dad had been talking of taking it down soon now the kids were too old to use it, but both Patton and Roman- and in fact Anxiety in a rare display of unity- had dug their heels in as Thomas instinctively balked at the prospect of losing just another tie to his childhood. Patton had discovered nostalgia recently and Anxiety had discovered how much Roman feared the term ‘growing up’ and the treehouse was just a big old symbol for all of them to cling to. A beacon of bad things; a final point of no return.

Roman hadn’t been inside in years, in all honesty, but curiously Thomas had, and more than once. Whatever occurred in there Roman wasn’t sure, but he felt a sense of… something faintly off whenever he looked at the treehouse, that hadn’t entirely started after he’d stopped going inside. This time was no different, and he wondered what the slight churn in Thomas’ gut meant, now that Roman had inadvertently bent his thoughts in the direction of the bottom right corner of the garden. Why picking at the faint memories of the interior of that shadowy wooden structure made their creator push his food around the plate and focus extra hard on talking about his classes, shutting Roman out soundly.

The treehouse was still there, still dark and foreboding and strange. Roman’s eyes started to water slightly, warping the image, until it flickered ever so quickly.

He gasped, shoving his whole body forwards, pressing his nose to the glass as it fogged around him with his quick breaths, trying to see it again.

It remained stubbornly as it always had been, leaving Roman to wonder if he’d imagined the flash of dark, crumbling tower that had blinked into and out of existence.

But he hadn’t, because as he lay in bed that night, doodling ideas into his notebook while Thomas tried to fall asleep, the shadows outside his window lengthened and the light that should have fallen on his curtains was slowly, steadily blocked out. The darkness felt cool, and thrilling in the way watching a horror movie when you weren’t supposed to felt thrilling, with that edge of risk to it that got your heartbeat going and made your palms clammy. Roman could feel the moment Anxiety noticed it as well, because Thomas’ brain whirred back awake in an instant, the tossing and turning that disrupted him more and more often these teenage nights starting up yet again. Logan began gamely battling to get Thomas to continue on to sleep, Logic coming up against Anxiety for once, but Roman…

Roman got out of bed, creeping out of his room and down the hall, sneaking carefully down the stairs one by one so Logan wouldn’t notice and stop fighting with Anxiety. The tiled floor was cool under his bare feet as he crossed it to the back door, sliding it open with a soft whoosh of the well-used mechanism.

The tower awaited him, taller than the treehouse had ever been and far more foreboding. It was made of dark, black brick, slimy and badly worn, surrounded by thorns and with no discernible entrance. A real Rapunzel tower, straight from the Grimm brothers themselves.

A fairy-tale come to life. And Thomas hadn’t imagined Roman in the image of a dashing Disney prince for nothing; so he started forwards, heedless of his lack of shoes or weapons or anything. He had his curiosity and that was a thousand times more powerful in that moment than anything else. He wanted to know, and whatever thing (maybe a monster? Roman had only vague theories but he was leaning towards trapped monster) was imprisoned within; it felt close to escape.

Were he Logan in that moment, Roman would theorise that the tower held some kind of dark aspect of Thomas that he’d hidden from himself, and that in the darkness before sleep it was hardest to maintain the lie, confronted with the harsh truth of oneself. But Roman wasn’t Logan, and he didn’t think too deeply beyond thing bad- must know more.

He got through the thorns with relative ease, considering how large and deadly they looked from across the garden. All it took was a stick from the pile they kept for a bug hotel, a brief flash of inspiration turning it to a shining sharp sword that sliced neatly through each thick tendril until they started to wither away from him as he approached and revealed a door with no lock nor handle, carved into the base of the tower.

Curiosity won again as Roman kicked it in, crumbling the ancient wood. He gasped, coughing as a thick gust of stale air wheezed out. It left Roman’s stomach twisting with nausea, but the need to be the prince and climb the tower was too strong to be deterred. Inside the house Anxiety upped the ante and Logan turned too late towards his own window, missing seeing Creativity take a step forwards and disappear into the treehouse.

It was dark inside, that was the first thing Roman noticed. It was obviously going to be dark, a tower with no windows, but the darkness felt more than that. It felt like it hid an endless number of bad things waiting to come forwards, to pounce at any moment. The walls were horribly slimy when Roman used them to find the winding staircase, and the smell… Better not to mention it at all.

Suddenly, the sound of whispered movement from above.

“Hello?” Roman called softly, hoping he’d imagined it. Nothing replied, but the darkness felt closer, and he hurried upwards with the sword ready. “Anyone there?”

A pair of yellow eyes watched, waiting, from below, but Roman never looked down, intent on reaching his goal. He didn’t see the way the door was repairing itself, or how the thorns had regrown. His only thoughts were for the top of the tower and what lay in wait.

There was the tiniest crack of light when he got up at long last, feet sore and eyes dry from straining to see something. It was a sliver from under a door, faint silver light, the only hint there was a door there at all until he felt it under his fingertips.

It didn’t budge when he touched it, and once again there was no sign of a handle. Roman kicked it with a frustrated sigh, only to freeze totally still when the whisper of movement came again, -only this time, closer and clearer- it sounded a little like rusted metal, sliding against itself.

The eyes down below, having followed the prince’s progress, narrowed in thought, but before they could make a decision Logic gained the upper hand over Anxiety back in the house and for a brief, shining moment, the tower was lit up bright and the door clicked open.

Roman threw himself in before it could close again, and just in time too, because the light faded not a moment later, the door sealing itself up again. How he was going to get out, he wasn’t sure. But that was a problem for later- the fairy-tale dictated he had reached his goal. This was the end of the story.

So what was his prize?

There was a shape, in the room. A figure, about his own size, sat facing the window. Roman blinked hard to clear the spots that danced over his vision in the wake of the sudden flash of light, and the figure came slowly into view in the murk. A boy, with poufy sleeves and an outfit to match the setting, staring out of the window back towards the house. Back towards Thomas, back towards where Roman had been staring out from. The boy yawned, stretching his arms up and it was then that Roman noticed the chains.

He was chained to the floor. Was this the monster at the top of the tower? Or the… dude in distress?!

This wasn't actually a fairy-tale, so the former seemed exponentially more likely, and Roman gulped as fear took root.

“I know, I know, come to shut me up again. I just wanted a bit of fun, D-“

The boy stopped, frozen as still as Roman’s heart as it skipped a beat. Two identical faces, two sets of identical eyes, stared in horror and dawning, dim comprehension at each other.

“You’re Roman!” The other boy shrieked, loud enough to make Roman flinch back. It stopped the grin on the chained boy’s face in its tracks, and he tilted his head, eyes turning cold and calculating in a heartbeat.

“Who are you?” Roman squeaked, barely able to get his voice to work. “Why are you locked up? Are you evil? Does Thomas have…” his voice fell to a whisper. “A Dark side?”

The boy cackled, a joyful sound that shouldn’t have been as unsettling as it was. The clanking of the chains as he doubled over only heightened the feeling that something was wrong, and Roman screamed when the boy darted forwards suddenly.

He was yanked back by the chains, snapping his jaw in Roman’s face with a wild snarl and snorting with amusement when Roman’s back hit the far wall, sword out and shaking in his unsteady grip. “A dark side? Everyone’s got a dark side, Prince Perfect. If you think you don’t, you’re just not looking hard enough."

"Thomas is good!"

"Thomas is real,” the boy purred, moving back to sit at the window again, gazing back towards the house. The distant sensation of Logic and Anxiety fighting for the upper hand grew when Patton joined, his constant underlying guilt swelling support for their anxious antagonist. The chained boy laughed, fingers tapping against his face too quick for Roman to even see, lips moving soundlessly on words Roman definitely didn’t want to hear. “Have you come to defeat me, Roman? No, you didn’t even know I was here, did you. Locked in my tower, kept from my one true calling. It’s for my own good, you know? D- the dragon that guards me says so. It’s for everyone’s good that I don’t get out, most of all Thomas’.” The name felt reverent the way the boy said it, softly and sweetly, like calling the name of a deity. It made Roman wince. “It’s only right that a villain should be kept away.”

“Who are you?"

"I’m you, but stronger,” the boy retorted, breaking into cackles. “I’m you but scarier. That’s what they thought, anyway. I think I’m just something else. I think I’m bad news. I think Thomas is bad news…"

Roman wouldn’t stand for that. He held his sword out more confidently, raising his chin. "Thomas is a great guy! He’s the best! He’s full of good things and light and-”

“And darkness and wondering, wandering thoughts and impulses, just like anyone. Even you. You would kill me if you thought you should, if you thought it was your Disney story, wouldn’t you. Without hesitation, but Roman! Killing is wrong!”

“Not in Disney!"

”Even in Disney!“

A howl of rage echoed around the tower, along with the sound of metal on stone as Roman brought the sword down on the window ledge beside the boy’s hands. The chained boy didn’t flinch, just beaming victoriously at Roman, cackling his disquieting cackle.

"Who are you really?! Tell me!"

The boy opened his mouth to speak, a hunger in his eyes that Roman didn’t understand, but the tower shuddered. His eyes darted to the door and Roman’s couldn’t help but follow. "Oh dear, Roman. You shouldn’t have come here. Curiosity killed the cat, you know, and the witch is on his way to toss you out of the tower…”

“I thought you said it was a dragon?”

“Dragon, witch, there was a time when there wasn’t any difference to you. Maybe you’re learning some nuance now though. That’s gotta be rough, buddy, you’re practically made from simplicity.”

Roman narrowed his eyes at the insult, and the tower shuddered again. The boy picked up his cackling again, louder and louder as the shuddering turned to heavy footsteps approaching up the stairs. And Roman wondered, if this was the monster that guarded this boy, what did that make the boy?

“He’s here.”

The door burst open, a hazy shape flying in and grabbing Roman, what felt like giant claws snatching him up and carrying him out of the tower, dropping him hard onto the lawn before it whirled back around and vanished back into the… treehouse?

The tower was gone. The treehouse looked like it always had, dark and grim, but it was definitely just the same treehouse as ever.

He fell back, sprawling on the grass as his limbs turned to jelly from the residual adrenaline, while inside Anxiety let up at last and Logan won the battle for the night. Thomas slipped uneasily into dreams.

The tug of unconsciousness grew heavy, dragging on Roman’s very being now his creator had finally fallen asleep. He just about managed to drag himself inside to bed before succumbing at last, glad to leave the whole strange night behind him.

Masterlist | Buymeacoffee

#writepie #ts roman #ts remus #ts sanders sides #ts sanders sides fic #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides fic #fucking READ MORES #FIX THEM

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lo-55 · 3 years

Text

Tilt The Hourglass Ch. 2

First Contact

“There’s a message coming in.”

Jango looked over at Myles, who held a holo projector in hand. The ship floated through space near Concord Dawn. He had been meaning to go back and visit his home world, but he’d also been looking at new clients. They weren’t hard pressed for money just yet, but they’d had to do major ship repairs after the last job had gone south, and he needed to pay for that amongst all the other supplies.

He’d been inspecting a few different offers, weighing risk and cost and reward together.

“Who is it?” he asked, tilting his helmet towards his companion. Myles was his second in command, Jango could tell he was acting strangely.

“I have no idea,” Myles said frankly. “The message was sent in Mando’a, and it’s on one of the Cabur channels.”

Jango sat up straight.

The cabur channels were only used by mandalorians, and only ones with the most dire of warnings. They had been used during the great wars in history, but slowly fell out of practice as tech advanced. At this point most mandalorians didn’t even know that they existed, nevermind the rest of the galaxy.

Jango set aside his datapads and made room for the projector in Myles’ hand.

Myles set it on the table and started to play the message.

No face popped up. Instead there was a stylized pattern of jagged lines, and a crown of thorns that circled them. The pattern wasn’t familiar to Jango, nor were the thorns, but he made a mental note to double check that there were no clans with the sygnette.

A warbled voice came through in harsh mando’a.

“Aran gar adate teh Galidraan. Val haaranovor aruetiise. Te Kyr'tsad. Ori’haat, Mand’alor.*”

Jango’s sucked in sharply.

Myles watched him while Jango quickly grabbed one of the datapads that he’d been looking at earlier. This one wasn’t a request, but a report for another one. Galidraan was in the opening stages of a potential civil war. Thus far no one had come to him for assistance on either side.

He made a note to find everything he could on the Governor.

“What do you think, Mand’alor?” Myles asked, coming up to his shoulder. Jango shook his head.

“I’m not sure yet. I don’t know a lot about Galidraan. And I don’t recognize the sigil. Do you?”

“No,” Myles frowned. “But I can make inquiries.”

“Did they give a name?” Jango circled the holo. The message started to play again. Whoever had sent it had used a voice modifier, and the mando’a was accented like the mouth speaking it wasn’t used to shaping the words. Yet the structure was right. The channel was private.

Jango wished, not for the first time, that his buir was still here. Jaster would have known all the signettes and all the clans that had ever been. He would be able to place the accent. Perhaps they were a foundling, and that was where it came from.

“Not a real one.”

Jango looked to him in inquiry.

“They called themselves ‘Bridger Tano’.”

Jango looked back at the holo. It was conceivable a name. Just a very odd one. “Isn’t ‘Tano’ a togruta name?”

Myles just shrugged.

The holo started repeating itself again, until Jango finally turned it off. He was going to have to look into this, all of it. Who had sent the message? Was it accurate?

Was Vizla on Galidraan?

Jango turned back to his work. He needed to get organized. Before he could sink too much into the new mystery they still needed credits.

He made a list in his head.

Find a new job.

Feed and clothe his people.

Look into Galidraan and see about hunting Vizla down like a dog and taking his head.

Perfect plan.

He picked up a holo for a commission from Savareen.

~ ~ ~

“So who’s Bridger Tano?” Kilindi asked from where she was sat beside Maul. Their table was small, and cramped into a storage room. Wires poured from a hole in the wall like entrails that hooked into the fist sized comm unit that Daleen had found somewhere. It was her idea to replace the initially recorded ‘Hood Maul’ as Kilindi called it with a stylized rendition of his face tattoos and horns. It was a little too distinct for his taste, but even his master might not recognize it. It had the same jagged lines that marked his face, but simplified, and circled with his short horns.

“There is not Bridger Tano,” he said, rolling his yellow eyes at her.

“I know that,” Kilindi insisted, “But you came up with the name pretty fast. Have you used it before?”

Maul considered her. Once, she had taken him swimming with her in the sea near the academy. The day was one of his few pleasant memories, even though it was also haunted by his master’s attempt to ‘train him’ on Mygeeto. Maul had never liked the water after, but the sea of Orsis was tolerable with Kilindi. She was kind to him, and respectful as well. She understood there was more darkness inside him than even his outer appearance could betray.

"So now you know about me. What about you? Where are you from?"

Maul looked down and watched the water ripple at his fingertips. From this angle the marks on his chest almost looked heart shaped. "I can't say."

Kilindi tilted her head curiously. Water dripped down her cheeks. "Because you can't say, or because you won't?"

"Both," Maul said, then shook his head. "We can't talk about... me." It was against the rules and if he broke the rules the punishment would be severe. Kilindi couldn’t know about him or his master. Just who he was supposed to be. A normal zabrak who was going to guard a blind business man. Not a sith-in-training. Not a force sensitive assassin. Not Maul.

Kilindi shrugged, the movement making her head tresses jiggle. "Nevermind. I won't ever ask personal questions again.”

She hadn’t, either. She asked his opinion. She asked his thoughts and preferences and interests. She never asked about his past. She was good like that. Maul thought she might have passed word of his secrecy to Daleen, for she didn’t ask either.

“No,” he said finally. “But ‘Bridger’ was my… not my brother. But I wanted him to be.” He had offered his apprentice a brotherhood, and forced his brother into apprenticeship. Maul had made so many mistakes with people he wanted close to him, so many times. He had only known apprentices and masters, he didn’t know how to be anything else. Hindsight was twenty twenty, and Maul’s mind felt clearer here. Even though the Force was loud with the voices of jedi not yet dead and force sensitive children who hadn’t been hunted down, even though it was disgustingly bright with the light side, he felt like he was lighter. And it wasn’t because his legs were no longer powerful metal, or that he was two feet shorter.

He would have to work on how he interacted with people.

“And Tano?” Daleen asked, looking somewhere between curious and worried for him.

“A powerful fighter I used to know. She was clever, and relentless.” Maul had respected the Lady Tano, for all he had loathed her lineage. She should have listened to him on Mandalore, and perhaps she would not have perished on Malachor.

She wouldn’t even be born yet, he realized with a start. She was barely grown when they first clashed, and he was well into his thirties.

“...You don’t talk a lot about your life outside Orsis,” Kilindi pressed gently. Maul could feel her worry. Did she think it was his concussion talking?

“I’m not allowed to,” he confessed, “My Master would be furious if he knew.”

The words felt like acid on his tongue. ‘My Master’. Something he had once taken such pride in. He was the apprentice to the most powerful creature in the galaxy. He had given him everything, and he had been discarded like garbage.

“Then why are you?”

Maul didn’t know how to answer that. “Isn’t that- isn’t that what friends are supposed to do?”

Kilindi had once broken Trezza’s rules to help Maul with a task. Daleen was breaking several rules to help him now, with no real questions asked.

Both girls stared at him, before a grin bloomed across Kilindi’s face. Daleen covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were dancing even if he couldn't see her mouth.

Maul, his skin feeling warmer, looked towards the door. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You don’t need to. Your eyebrows say everything.”

“I don’t even have those!”

Daleen struggled not to laugh at them. Finally, she gave up and started giggling helplessly. Maul shoved her, and she kicked his knee in return.

It felt good. Sitting in the dark with his friends, laughing and breaking rules. Most of the rest of the academy was sleeping. There were few who would catch them, and Kilindi knew Trezza’s habits enough they didn’t worry about him.

His friends.

Maul looked at the two girls.

He would not allow Sidious to take them from him again. He refused.

Maul looked back at the holo projector. There was another message he was very tempted to send, but he didn’t know how well it would be received. And, also, he hated the potential recipients.

The hatred he harbored for his master overshadowed every other grudge he had ever had.

Yet, now it warred with new feelings that Maul was struggling to process.

“I have one more to send,” he said at last, and gave Daleen the code for the next message.

If she recognized the numbers she didn’t show any sign. It wasn’t as secret as the one he used for the mandalorians, but it was still more than a little outdated. Another relic he’d discovered on Malachor, on the body of one of the dead. It was probably about two thousand years old, but it should still work.

Daleen set up the holo and looked to him for confirmation.

Maul cleared his throat and nodded to her. She hit the button and he spoke briefly.

“You have surrounded yourself in darkness, and now the noose begins to tighten. Shadows encroach. Search underneath the underneath.”

Kilindi waited until Daleen checked the transmission and sent it out before she looked at Maul.

“What in the galaxy was that? Don’t tell me that Maul is dramatic!”

Daleen shot Kilindi a look. “His first day here he picked a fight with the biggest person and almost bit his nose off. Of course he’s dramatic.”

“I am not!” Maul argued.

“You are so! You’re so dramatic your eyes glow in the dark.”

Maul huffed at Kilindi and helped Daleen pack all the wires back into their proper place. Orsis was equipped with encrypted lines already, and it hadn’t taken Daleen much work to monkey off of them and hide the origin of their messages. It was best Maul could do without giving himself away, but still possibly getting what he wanted.

Namely, irritating his master.

He had no doubt that Sidious would take his anger out on Maul when he saw him next, but he had endured pain beyond measure. He had died. He would survive Sidious as well.

The trio peered out into the dark hallway before they scampered out of the room and raced for the barracks. Kilindi left them at the door to go to her own room, her eyes sparkling.

“See you tomorrow,” she whispered, patting each of them on the shoulder before she ran off.

Daleen bunked across the hall from Maul, and she too left him a moment later.

Maul slipped silently into his own room. He was steadily getting used to his new, smaller body. It was easier to go unnoticed when he was this small, even if he wasn’t as strong as he would one day become.

In the next few days he would start training again, even harder than before. He had to get as strong as he could as fast as he could. He was no longer training to impress his master. He was training to kill him. To destroy his life’s work and rip him from his pedestal. He would throw him into the dirt and grind him under his heel. He would take everything his once-master had ever had and burn it to the ground.

And then he would get up, climb out of the dust, and join Kilindi and Daleen. And perhaps Eldra Kaith. For a jedi, she had been a good sort.

She had fought with honor. She was cunning, fast, and strong. She was worthy of their battle. Her death left him feeling empty and hollow.

It was not the grief that came with Kilindi and Daleen, but a different sort of sorrow.

Maul climbed up onto his bunk. He took the top, so he could always have the high ground, and so he never had to worry about anyone or anything falling down on him from above. He didn’t trust his classmates. With good reason. They were future bounty hunters and assassins, the dregs of the underworld that Maul had spent most of his life surrounded by. He trusted few. In the future he would trust their interests. Money, power, and bits of shine and spice. Now they were teenagers and none of them were above trying to discreetly take his mattress out to the sea and set him to float.

Maul was typically above the childish pranks, since his little ‘test’ when he’d begun training here and nearly killed the massive being he’d taken on, but there was a pair of Rodian’s who liked to cause him trouble.

Trezza liked them to handle things themselves, and as long as they were sneaky enough he would let them get away with it.

Maul had once shattered a boys hand for calling Kilindi his slave, and Trezza had never brought the incident up again.

The mattress was firm underneath him when he rolled on his side to face the door. If he stretched out his senses he could feel Daleen across the hall. She was an easy person to be around. She felt like summer wind against his skin, warm and light but capable of becoming something so much more. There was storm buried deep in her heart that he had been too young and too focused on himself to notice last time.

Further, near the corridor that would lead to the building where the teachers slept, Kilindi was still settling. If Daleen was a summer wind Kilindi was a summer sea. She was warm, powerful and strong, capable of anything. She could be great. She would be great if Maul had anything to say about it.

He did.

This time he did.

Maul closed his yellow eyes and pulled his blanket up over his shoulders. Tomorrow he could finally start training again. Tomorrow he would begin his long mission to protect what was his.

~ ~ ~ ~

If he was being perfectly honest Maul didn’t particularly like the beach.

The water would always remind him of Mygeeto, no matter how many years had passed (or that he hadn’t even completed that training yet here.) and the sand clung to his skin and managed to get everywhere that he never wanted it. He may not have been prone to burning in the sunlight but it still felt sweltering on his bare chest. He was a creature made for darkness, not sunlight.

Kilindi wanted to come, though, and Daleen agreed with her.

Maul had never skipped class before. Not one single lesson, not in either life.

When Kilindi suggested it, Maul followed her without argument.

Dallen stretched out on a towel a few metes away from him. She’d pinned her dark hair high on her head and seemed to be intent on baking herself. She was frighteningly exposed, but the knife next to her right hand was a small comfort for him.

Kilindi was already in the water, her body cutting through the waved with the utmost ease. She was made for the ocean. He was made for the shadows. Daleen was made for talking the skin off a tooka.

She was so persuasive sometimes Maul would have thought she was using the Force if he didn’t know better.

That somehow seemed even more dangerous.

There were some beings that the Force didn’t work on. Toydarians and Hutts being prime among them. Daleen would be good for times when force, either kind, was ill advised. There were times when a person needed to be more subtle than Maul really was.

Oh he could sneak around. He could make himself into a shadow. He could infiltrate any prison he wanted, and frighten whatever underworld scum he wanted to. But those tactics got people talking.

Last time he’d learned the hard way that he was going to have to be more careful. In luring out Kenobi he’d also lured in his master.

Kenobi.

Maul looked away from the girls towards the sky, as blue as his rivals eyes. He still couldn’t understand why he had looked so sad when he’d held his dying body.

If Maul remembered right, Kenobi was a few years older than him. Had he even gotten that silly little braid of his yet? Or was still sheltered and safe inside the jedi temple? Qui Gon Jinn would be younger now too. Younger and stronger.

Maul itched to fight him again.

When he was stronger, when he wasn’t as slow with age and battleworn as he had been when they’d dueled on Naboo. After decades Maul himself understood what age did to a person, although he’d never had bad knees or hips. He’d just replaced them whenever they wore down. His shoulder and wrists were another matter.

If there was one thing he enjoyed about this entire endeavor it was that this young body lacked a few decades worth of residual pain. He’d always drawn energy from the Force and from his own feelings, but there was something different about having a body that wasn’t constantly on the edge of exhaustion, tormented after years of malnutrition, torture, battle, and so many near death expiriences he had long ago lost track. His tattoos had hid it, but he was more scar tissue than skin by the end of his life.

Maul kicked at the sand under his feet. He’d never known he would miss the feeling of it squishing between his toes.

He felt Daleen come closer to him, so he wasn’t surprised when her head popped into view. She was at least getting quieter on her feet.

“Whatcha thinkin of?” she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Maul kept his face perfectly smooth. “Nunya.”

“Nunya?” Daleen repeated, her brows furrowed.

“Nunya business.”

She stared at him. He stared back.

“I… hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” he said with certainty.

She pouted. “I wish I did.”

Kilindi finally climbed out of the water and shook her head tresses out. The stripes glittered with water droplets.

“What are you guys doing?” she asked, swinging an arm around Daleen’s shoulders.

Daleen shot Maul a look before she said, “Nunya.”

Kilindi punched her in the side. “Shut it.”

Daleen shoved her harmlessly and stuck out her tongue.

“You’re both such children.”

“...I think you’re younger than the both of us.”

Maul narrowed his eyes at Kilindi. “You can’t prove that.”

Her grin turned mischievous and Maul nearly took a wary step back. He knew from experience that nothing good came from Kilindi looking like that.

He kept his ground.

“What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking we should have a contest,” she said innocently.

“What kind?” Daleen pulled out from under her arm so the three of them formed a triangle.

“Well. Next weekend Trezza is having the mid-term examinations, right?”

Maul had completely forgotten about those. Most students in Orsis would be cramming in the week to come, staying up late training or studying or both. The tests were grueling, and taken individually and in private. Each test was different, and pushed students to their limits. How well they did determined how high they scored, with a system that Maul had never totally understood. However, he and Kilindi had always placed at the top in each field. Survival, combat, espionage, and, for older students, there was the optional seduction.

Maul had skipped out on that one.

“Yeah,” Daleen finally said, frowning.

“Well, we should have a contest. Whoever does the best overall wins.”

“That’s so not fair!” Daleen argued. “You two will beat me.”

“Not if you do better,” Maul said dryly. Daleen scowled at him. “Besides, she said overall. What does the winner get?”

Kilindi considered that, tilting her head. “Mmmm. Bragging rights?”

Good enough for him. Reluctantly, Daleen agreed as well.

Together, the three of them made their way back to the academy, where Trezza was waiting with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Run,” he ordered, pointing to the track that wound its way around the facilities.

They took their punishment without complaint, a new tradition started.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* Guard your people from Galidraan. They hide traitors. The Death Watch. I swear, Mand’alor.

A/N : I made up the Cabur channels for convinience. I’m not an expert I’m just having fun here, so uh. Yeah.

#Darth Maul #Daleen (Star Wars)#Kilindi Matako #Star Wars #star wars the prequel trilogy #Maul #Time Travel

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notapaladin · 3 years

Text

and this faith is gettin' heavy (but you know it carries me) redux

This is literally and unironically the SECOND TIME i have added another thousand words to this fic but now it is finally done. Behold, over 10k words of food as metaphor for love/angst-with-a-happy-ending! In which Teomitl goes missing on a foreign battlefield, and Acatl mourns...but events in his dreams suggest Teomitl maybe isn’t gone for good.

Also on AO3

Acatl grimaced as he stepped from the coolness of his home into the day’s bright, punishing sunlight. Today was the day the army was due to return from their campaign in Mixtec lands, and so he was forced to don his skull mask and owl-trimmed cloak on a day that was far too hot for it. Not for the first time, he was thankful that priests of Lord Death weren’t required to paint their faces and bodies for special occasions; the thought of anything else touching his skin made him shudder.

He’d barely made it out of his courtyard when Acamapichtli strode up to him, face grave underneath his blue and black paint. “Ah, Acatl. I’m glad I could catch you.”

“Come to tell me that the army is at our gates again?” They would never be friends, he and Acamapichtli, but they had achieved something like a truce in the year since the plague. Still, Acatl couldn’t help but be on his guard. There was something...off about the expression on the other man’s face, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. He’d borne the same look when delivering the news of a death to a grieving family. Ah. A loss, then.

He’d expected Acamapichtli to spread his hands, a wordless statement of there having been nothing he could have done. He didn’t expect him to take a deep breath and slide his sightless eyes away. “I have. The runners all say it is a great victory; Tizoc-tzin has brought back several hundred prisoners.”

It should have pleased him. Instead, a cold chill slid down his spine. “What are you not telling me? I’ve no time for games.”

Acamapichtli let out a long sigh. “There were losses. A flood swept across the plain, carrying away several of our best warriors. Among them...the Master of the House of Darts. They looked—I’m assured that they looked!—but his body was not found.”

No. No. No. A yawning chasm cracked open beneath his ribs. He knew he was still breathing, but he couldn’t feel the air in his lungs. Even as he wanted, desperately, to grab Acamapichtli by the shoulders and shake him, to scream at him for being a liar, he knew the man was telling the truth. That his face and mannerisms, the careful movements of a man who knew he brought horrible news, showed his words to be honest. That Teomitl—who had left four months before with a kiss for Mihmatini and an affectionate clasp for Acatl’s arm—would not return.

It took real effort to focus on Acamapichtli’s next words. The man’s eyes were full of a horrible sympathy, and he wanted to scream. “I thought you should know in advance. Before—before they arrived.”

“Thank you,” he forced out through numb lips.

Acamapichtli turned away. “...I’m sorry, Acatl.”

After a long, long moment, he made himself start walking again. There was the rest of the army to greet, after all. Even if Teomitl wouldn’t be among them.

Even if he’d never return from war again.

Greeting the army was a ceremony, one he usually took some joy in—it had meant that Teomitl would be home, would be safe, and his sister would be happy. Now it passed in a blue, and he registered absolutely none of it. Someone must have already given the news to Mihmatini when he arrived; she was an utterly silent presence at his side, face pale and lips thin. She wouldn’t cry in public, but he saw the way her eyes glimmered when she blinked. He couldn’t bring himself to so much as lay a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. If he touched her, if he felt the fabric of her cloak beneath his hand, that meant it was real.

It couldn’t be real. Jade Skirt was Teomitl’s patron goddess, She wouldn’t let him simply drown. But there was an empty space to Tizoc’s left where Teomitl should have been, and no sign of his white-and-red regalia. Acatl’s eyes burned as he blinked away the sun.

Tizoc was still speaking, but Acatl heard none of his words. It was all too still, too quiet; everything was muffled, as though he was hearing it through water. If there was justice, came the first spinning thought, every wall would be crumbling. No...if there was justice, Teomitl would be...

He drew in a long breath, feeling chilled to the bone even as he sweated under his cloak. Now that his mind had chosen to rouse itself, its eye was relentless. He barely saw the plaza around him, packed with proud warriors and colorful nobles; it was too easy to imagine a far-flung province to the south, a jungle thick with trees and blood. A river bursting its banks, carrying Teomitl straight into his enemies’ arms. They would capture him, of course; he was a valiant fighter and he’d taken very well to the magic of living blood, but even he couldn’t hold off an army alone.

And once they had him, they would sacrifice him.

Somewhere behind the army, Acatl knew, were lines of captured warriors whose hearts would be removed to feed the Sun, whose bodies would be flung down the Temple steps to feed the beasts in the House of Animals, whose heads would hang on the skull-rack. It was necessary, and their deaths would serve a greater purpose. He’d seen it thousands of times. There was no use mourning them. It was simply the way nearly all captured warriors went.

It was what Teomitl would want. An honorable death on the sacrifice stone. It was better to die than to be a slave all your life. But at least he would have a life—all unbidden, the alternative rose clear in Acatl’s mind. Teomitl, face whitened with chalk. Teomitl, laying down on the stone. Teomitl, teeth clenched, meeting his death with open eyes. Teomitl’s blood on the priests’ hands.

Nausea rose hot and bitter in his throat, and he shut his eyes and focused on his breathing. In for a count of three, out for a count of five. Repeat. It didn’t hurt to breathe, but he felt as if it should. He felt as if everything should hurt. He felt a sudden, vicious urge to draw thorns through his earlobes until the pain erased all thoughts, but he made his hands still. If he started, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to stop.

Still, it seemed to take an eternity for the speeches and the dances to be over and done with. By the time they finished, he was light-headed with the strain of remaining upright, and Mihmatini had slipped a hand into his elbow. Even that single point of contact burned through his veins. They still hadn’t spoken. He wondered if she, too, couldn’t quite find her own voice under the screaming chasm of grief.

And then, after all that, when all he yearned for was to go home and lay down until the world felt right again—maybe until the Sixth Sun rose, that would probably be enough time—there was a banquet, and he was forced to attend.

Of course there’s a banquet, he thought dully. This is a victory, after all. Tizoc had wasted no time in promoting a new Master of the House of Darts to replace his fallen brother, with many empty platitudes about how Teomitl would surely be missed and how he’d not want them to linger in their grief, but to move on and keep earning glory for the Mexica. Moctezuma, his replacement, was seventeen and haughty; where Teomitl’s arrogance had begun to settle into firm, well-considered authority and the flames of his impatience had burnt down to embers, Moctezuma’s gaze swept the room and visibly dismissed everyone in it as not worth his concern. It reminded Acatl horribly of Quenami.

Mihmatini sat on the same mat she always did, but now there was a space beside her like a missing tooth. She still wore her hair in the twisted horn-braids of married women, and against all rules of mourning she had painted her face with the blue of the Duality. Underneath it, her face was set in an emotionless mask. She did not eat.

Neither did Acatl. He wasn’t sure he could stomach food. So instead his gaze flickered around the room, unable to settle, and he gradually realized that he and Mihmatini weren’t alone in the crowd. The assembled lords and warriors should have been celebrating, but there was a subdued air that hung over every stilted laugh and negligent bite of fine food. Neighbors avoided each other’s eyes; Neutemoc, sitting with his fellow Jaguar Warriors, was staring at his empty plate as though it held the secrets of the heavens. He looked well, until Acatl saw the expression on his face. It was a mirror of his own.

At least his fellow High Priests didn’t try to engage him in conversation, for which he was grateful. Acamapichtli kept glancing at him almost warily, but he hadn’t voiced any more empty platitudes—and when Quenami had opened his mouth to say something, he’d taken the unprecedented step of leaning around Acatl and glaring him into silence.

If they’d been friends, Acatl would have been touched; as it was, it made a burning ember of rage lodge itself in his throat. Don’t you pity me. Don’t you dare pity me. He ground his teeth until his jaw hurt, clenched his fists until his nails cut into his palms, and didn’t speak. If he spoke, he would scream.

Even the plates in front of him weren’t enough of a distraction. Roasted meats glistened in their vibrant red or green or orange sauces. Each breath brought the deliciously warm fragrance of chilies and pumpkin seeds and vanilla to his nose. The fish and lake shrimp, grilled in their own juices and arrayed on beds of corn husks, would at any other time have tempted him to take a bite. Soups and stews were carried from table to table by serving women in gleaming white cotton; he breathed in as one woman passed and nearly choked on the rich peppery scent. He didn’t need to look to know it was his usual favorite, chunks of firm white fish and bitter greens in what was sure to be a fiery broth. Teomitl had always teased him for that, saying it was a miracle he could even taste the greens with so much chili in the way.

Don’t look. Don’t think about it. The ember in his throat was slowly scorching a path through his gut. He couldn’t eat. Didn’t even try.

There were more courses, obviously. More fish, more vegetables, more haunches of venison or rabbits bathed in spicy-sweet sauce. More doves and quail, and even a spoonbill put back in its own pink feathers for a centerpiece. When the final course was triumphantly set in front of him—wedges and cubes of fruit, with a little cup of spiced honey—he was nearly sick over the sweet crimson pitaya split open on his plate. It had been Teomitl’s favorite.

Somehow, he held it together until after the dessert had been cleared away. He rose jerkily to his feet, legs trembling, and fixed his mind firmly on getting home in one piece. No one hailed him on his way out of the room, and for a hopeful moment he thought he was safe.

Quenami’s voice stopped him in the next hallway. “Ah, Acatl. A lovely banquet, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t turn around. “Mn.” Go away.

Quenami didn’t. In fact he took a step closer, as though they were friends, as though he’d never tried to have Acatl killed. His voice was like a mosquito in his ear. “You must not be feeling well; you hardly touched your food. Some might see that as an insult. I’m sure Tizoc-tzin would.”

“Mm.”

“Or is it worry over Teomitl that’s affecting you? You shouldn’t fret so, Acatl. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not dead after all; there are plenty of cenotes in the southlands, and a determined man could easily hide out there for the rest of his life. He probably just took the coward’s way out, sick of his responsibilities—“

He whirled around, sucking in a breath that scorched his lungs. It was the last thing he felt before he let Mictlan’s chill spill through his veins and overflow. His suddenly-numb skin loosened on his neck; his fingers burned with the cold that came only from the underworld. He knew that his skin was black glass, his muscles smoke, his bones moonlight on ice, his eyes burning voids. All around him was the howling lament of the dead, the stench of decay and the dry, acrid scent of dust and dry bones. When he spoke, his voice echoed like a bell rung in a tomb.

“Silence.”

You do not call him a coward. You do not even speak his name. I could have your tongue for that. He stepped forward, gaze locked with Quenami’s. It would be easy, too. He could do it without even blinking—could take his tongue for slander, his eyes for that sneering gaze, could reach inside his skin and debone him like a turkey—all it would take would be a single wrong word—

Quenami recoiled, jaw going slack in terror. Silently—blessedly, mercifully, infuriatingly silently—he turned on his heel and left.

Acatl took one breath, two, and let the magic drain out of his shaking limbs. He hadn’t meant to do that. It should probably have sickened him that he’d nearly misused Lord Death’s power like that, especially on a man who ought to have been his superior and ally, but instead all he felt was a vicious sort of stymied rage—a jaguar missing a leap and coming up with nothing but air between his claws. He wanted to scream. He wanted blood under his nails, the shifting crack of breaking bones under his knuckles. He wanted to hurt something.

He made it to the next courtyard, blessedly empty of party guests, and collapsed on the nearest bench like a dead man. His stomach ached. I could have killed him. Gods, I wanted to kill him. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life. All because...all because he said his name...

“...Acatl?”

Mihmatini’s voice, admirably controlled. He made himself lift his head and answer. “In here.”

She padded into the courtyard and took a seat on the opposite end of the bench, skirt swishing around her feet as she walked. Gold ornaments had been sewn into its hem, and he wondered if they’d been gifts from Teomitl. “I saw Quenami running like all the beasts of the underworld were on his tail. What did you do?”

Nothing. But that would have been a lie, and he refused to do that to his own flesh and blood. “...He said…” He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “He said that Teomitl might have deserted. He dared to say that—” The idea choked him, and he couldn’t finish the words. That Teomitl was a coward. That he would run from his responsibilities, from his destiny, at the first opportunity…

She tensed immediately, eyes going cold in a way that suggested Quenami had better be a very fast runner indeed. “He would never. You know that.”

Air seemed to be coming a bit easier now. “I do. But…”

Of course, she pounced on his hesitation. “But?”

I want him so badly to not be dead. “Nothing.”

Mihmatini was silent for a while, wringing her hands together. Finally, she spoke. “He would never have deserted. But...Acatl…”

“What?”

“I don’t know if he’s dead.” She set a hand on her chest. “The magic that connects us—I can still feel it in here. It’s faint, really faint, but it’s there. He might…” She took a breath, and tears welled up in her eyes. “He might still be alive.”

Alive. The word was a conch shell in his head, sounding to wake the dawn. For an instant, he let himself imagine it. Teomitl alive, maybe in hiding, maybe trying to find his way home to them.

Maybe held captive by the Mixteca, until such time as they can tear out his heart. He closed his eyes, shutting out everything but the sound of his own breathing. It didn’t help. He hated how pathetic his own voice sounded as he asked, “You think so?”

“It’s—” She scrubbed ineffectually at her eyes with the back of a hand. “It’s possible. Isn’t it?”

“...I suppose.” He took a breath. “I think it’s time for me to get some sleep. I’ll...see you tomorrow.”

He knew he wouldn’t sleep—knew, in fact, that he’d be lucky if he even managed to close his eyes—but he needed to get home. He refused to disgrace himself by weeping in public.

The first dream came a week later.

He’d managed to avoid them until then; he’d thrown himself headlong into his work, not stopping until he was so tired that his “sleep” was really more like “passing out.” But it seemed his body could adapt to the conditions he subjected it to much easier than he’d thought, because he woke with tears on his face and the scraps of a nightmare scattering in the dawn light. There had been blood and screaming and a ravaged and horrible face staring into his that somehow he’d known. He did his best to put it from his mind, and for a day he thought he’d succeeded. He shed blood for the gods, stood vigil for the dead, tallied up the ledgers for the living. Remembered, occasionally, to put food into his mouth, but he couldn’t have said what he was eating. Collapsed onto his mat and prayed that he wouldn’t have a dream like that again.

It wasn’t like that. It was worse.

He was walking through a jungle made of shadows, trees shedding gray dust from their leaves as he passed under them. There was no birdsong, no rippling of distant waters or crunching of underbrush, and he knew deep in his soul that nothing was alive here anymore. Not even himself. Though his legs ached and his lungs burned, it was pain that felt like it was happening to someone else. His gut held, not the stretched desiccation of Mictlan, but a nasty twisting feeling of wrongness; part of him wanted to be sick, but he couldn’t stop. Ahead of him, someone was making their way through the undergrowth, and it was a stride he’d know anywhere.

Teomitl. He thought he called out to him, but no sound escaped his mouth even though his throat hurt as though he’d been screaming. He tried again. Teomitl! This time, he managed a tiny squeak, something even an owl wouldn’t have heard.

Teomitl didn’t slow down, but somehow the distance between them shortened. Now Acatl could make out the tattered remains of his feather suit, singed and bloodstained until it was more red than white, and the way his bare feet had been cut to ribbons. He still wasn’t looking behind him. It was like Acatl wasn’t there at all. Ahead of them, the trees were thinning out.

And then they were on a flat plain strewn with corpses, bright crimson blood the only color Acatl could see. Teomitl was standing still in front of him as water slowly seeped out of the ground, covering his feet and lapping gently at his ankles. There were thin threads of red in it.

“Teomitl,” he said, and this time his voice obeyed him.

Teomitl turned to him, smiling as though he’d just noticed he was there. His chest was a red ruin, the bones of his ribcage snapped wide open to pull out his beating heart. A tiny ahuizotl curled in the space where it had been.

He took one step back. Another.

Teomitl’s smile grew sad, and he reached for him with a bloody hand. “Acatl, I’m sorry.”

He awoke suddenly and all at once, curling in on himself with a ragged sob. It was still dark out; the sun hadn’t made its appearance yet. There was no one to see when he shook himself to pieces around the space in his heart. It was a dream, he told himself sternly. Just a dream. My soul is only wandering through my own grief. It doesn’t mean anything.

But then it returned the next night, and the next. While the details differed—sometimes Teomitl was swimming a river that suddenly turned to blood and dissolved his flesh, sometimes one of his own ahuizotls turned into a jaguar and sprang for his face—the end was always the same. Teomitl dead and still walking, reaching for him with an apology on his lips. Sometimes it even lingered after he woke. Once he jolted awake utterly convinced that he wasn’t alone—that Teomitl was in the room, a sad smile on his lips and an outstretched hand hovering in the air. Only when he looked around, searching for that other presence, did reality reassert itself and he remembered with gutwrenching pain that it had only been a nightmare. That Teomitl was dead somewhere on a Mixtec altar, his heart an offering to the Sun.

He started timing his treks across the Sacred Precinct to avoid the Great Temple’s sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli. Sleep grew more and more difficult to achieve, and even when he caught a few hours’ rest it never seemed to help. He even thought, fleetingly, of asking the priests of Patecatl if anything they had would be useful, only to dismiss it the next day. He would survive this. It wasn’t worth baring his soul to anyone else’s prying eyes or clumsy but well-meaning words. He would work and pray, and that would keep him occupied. There was a haunting case that needed his attention; while he was tracking down the cause he had an excuse not to focus on anything else. He forgot to eat, no matter how much Ichtaca scolded him. The food tasted like ashes in his mouth, anyway.

Still, when one of Neutemoc’s slaves came to his door asking whether he would come to dinner at his house that night, he didn’t waste time in accepting. Dinner with Neutemoc’s family had become...normal. He needed normal, even if it still felt like walking on broken glass.

Up until the first course was served, he even thought he’d get it. Neutemoc had been nearly silent when he’d arrived, but he’d unbent enough to start a conversation about his daughters’ studies. Necalli and Mazatl were more subdued than they normally were, but they’d heard what happened to their newest uncle-by-marriage and were no doubt mourning in their own ways. Mihmatini’s face was as pale and set as white jade, but as the conversation wore on he thought he saw her smile.

He didn’t much feel like smiling himself. The smells of the meal were turning his stomach. It was simple enough fare—fish with peppers, lightly boiled vegetables in a salty, spicy sauce, plenty of soft flatbread to mop it up—but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. The last time he’d eaten a meal like this had been with Teomitl at his side, hugging Mazatl and fondly ruffling up Necalli’s hair and barely paying any attention to his own plate until Mazatl had swiped something off it and he’d tickled her as revenge, the both of them laughing. Acatl would never forget the look on his face the first time she’d called him uncle.

He was vaguely aware Neutemoc was frowning at him. “Eat. Before it gets cold.”

He put some fish onto his plate. He ate it. He couldn’t say what it tasted like. Peppers, mostly. It sat in his stomach like a lead weight, and he swallowed so roughly that for a moment he was afraid he’d choke. I can’t do this. But they would notice if he didn’t eat, and then they’d worry about him. He forced himself to take a few more bites, filling the yawning void within.

A second course arrived eventually. Roasted agave worms and greens, which he usually liked. He took a small portion, nibbled on it, and set his plate down.

“More greens?”

Neutemoc’s voice was too careful for his liking, but he nodded. Another portion of greens was duly set onto his plate, and he ate without really tasting it. He only managed a few bites before he had to give up, his gorge rising.

Mihmatini picked at her own dish, and Neutemoc frowned at her. “You’re not hungry?”

She shook her head.

Silence descended again, but It didn’t reign for long before Neutemoc said, “Acatl. Any interesting cases lately?” With a quick glance at his children, he added, “That we can talk about in front of the kids?”

“Aww, Dad...”

Neutemoc gave his eldest the same look his father had once given him. “When you go off to war, Necalli, I will let you listen to all the awful details.”

It wasn’t enough to make Acatl smile, but nevertheless the tension in his throat eased. “Well,” he began, “we’ve been trying to figure out what’s been strangling merchants in the featherworkers’ district…”

Laying out the facts of a suspicious death or two was always calming. He could forget the ache in his heart, even if only briefly. But even when he was done and had just started to relax, Neutemoc was still talking to him as though he expected to see his younger brother shatter any minute. The slaves, too, were unusually solicitous of him—rushing to fill up his cup, to heap delicacies on his plate. At any other time he might have suspected the whole thing to be a bribe or an awkward apology for some unremembered slight; now, he just felt uneasy.

When the meal was done, he declined Neutemoc’s offer of a pipe and got to his feet. “I think I’ll get some air.”

The courtyard outside was empty. He lifted his eyes to the heavens, charting the path of the four hundred stars above. Ceyaxochitl’s death hadn’t hit him anywhere near as hard as this, but gods, he thought he could recover in time if only the people around him stopped coddling him. Everywhere he went there were sympathetic glances and soft words, and even the priests of his own temple were stepping gingerly around him. As though he needed to be treated like...like...

Like a new widow. Like Mihmatini. He sat down hard, feeling like his legs had been cut out from under him. Air seemed to be in short supply, and the gulf in his chest yawned wide.

But I’m not. I care for Teomitl, of course, but it’s not like that. It’s not—

He thought about Teomitl sacrificed as a war captive or drowned in a river far from home, and nearly choked at the fist of grief that tightened around his heart. No. He shook his head as though that would clear it. He wouldn’t want me to grieve over him. He wouldn’t want me to think of him dead, drowned, sacrificed—he’d want me to remember him happy. I can do that much for him, at least.

He could. It was easy. He closed his eyes and remembered.

Remembered the smile that lit up rooms and outshone the Sun, the one that could pull an answering burst of happiness out of the depths of his soul. Remembered the way Teomitl had laughed and rolled around the floor with Mazatl, the way he’d helped Ollin to walk holding onto his hands, the way he sparred with Necalli and asked about Ohtli’s lessons in the calmecac, and how all of those moment strung together like pearls on a string into something that made Acatl’s heart warm as well. Remembered impatient haggling in the marketplace, haphazard rowing on the lake, strong arms flexing such that he couldn’t look away, the touch of a warm hand lingering even after Teomitl had withdrawn—

He remembered how it had felt, in that space between dreams and waking, where he’d thought Teomitl was by his side even in Mictlan. Where, for the span of a heartbeat, he’d been happy.

There was a sound—a soft, miserable whine. It took him a moment to realize it was coming from his own throat, that he’d drawn his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them. That he was shaking again, and had been for some time. As nausea oozed up in his throat, he regretted having eaten.

It was like that, after all.

And he’d realized too late. Even if he’d ever been able to do anything about it—which he never would anyway, the man was married to his sister—there was no chance of it now, because Teomitl was gone.

He forced his burning eyes to stay open. If he blinked, if he let his eyes close even for an instant, the tears would fall.

Approaching footsteps made him raise his head. Mihmatini was walking quietly and carefully towards him, as though she didn’t want to disturb him. As though I’m fragile. You too, Mihmatini?

“Ah. There you are.” Even her voice was soft.

He uncurled himself and arranged his limbs into a more dignified position, keeping his fists clenched to stop his hands from trembling. At least when he finally blinked, his eyes were dry. “Hm.”

She sat next to him, not touching. There was something calming about her company, but gods, he prayed she couldn’t see the thoughts written on his face. She stretched out a hand and he thought she’d lay it soothingly on his shoulder, but instead she traced a meaningless pattern in the dirt. “...It’s hard, isn’t it?”

His dry throat made a clicking noise when he swallowed. “It is.”

“At least we’re both in the same boat,” she murmured.

The words refused to make sense in his head at first—but then they did, and he reared back and stared at her. No. I’ve only just realized it myself, she can’t have...she can’t be thinking that I—! “I beg your pardon?”

Her voice lowered even further, so that he had to strain to hear her. There was a faint, sad smile on her face. “You love him just the same as I do, don’t you?”

He drew a long breath. He knew what he should say, what the right and proper words would be. No, like a son. Or like my brother. But he couldn’t lie to her, not even to spare what was left of her broken heart, and so what came out instead was, “Yes. Gods, yes.” Hate me for it. Tell me I have no right to love him, that you’re the one who has his heart. Tell me I’m a fool.

She lifted her head, and her faint smile grew to something bright and brittle. “Good.”

Good?! He blinked uselessly at her, gaping like a fish before he could find his voice again. “You—you approve?”

“You’re my favorite brother,” she said simply. “And...well.”

She fell silent, her smile fading until it vanished entirely. He waited. Finally, in a much softer voice, she continued, “If you love him, there’s no harm in telling you what he swore me to secrecy over.”

Dread gripped him. Of course Teomitl was entitled to his secrets, but he couldn’t imagine what would be so horrible that Mihmatini wouldn’t tell him. At least, not while he lived. He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “...What?”

She blinked rapidly, fingers going still. She’d traced something that looked, from a certain angle, like a flower glyph. “...He...he loved you, too.”

No.

But Mihmatini was still talking. “He didn’t want me to tell you; he was sure you’d scorn him. But he loved you the same way he loved me...gods, probably more than he loved me.”

It was the last straw. His nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood, and he barely recognized his own voice as rage filled it. “Why are you telling me this?!”

Mihmatini took a shuddering breath; he realized she was fighting tears, and had been since she’d spilled Teomitl’s heart to the night air. “In case he comes back. If he does...no, when he does...you should tell him how you feel.”

He rose on shaking legs. “I think I need to be alone.”

Without really seeing his surroundings, he walked until he came to the canal outside the house. The family’s boats were tied up outside, bobbing gently on the water. When he sat down, the stone under him was cold; the water he dipped his fingers in was colder still. Neither revived him. Neither was as cold as the pit cracking open in his gut. Mictlan was worse, true, but all the inexorable pains of Mictlan were dull aches compared to this.

In case he comes back. In case he comes back. I love him—I am in love, that’s what this pain is—and I will never see him again in this world. Mihmatini says he loves me too, and it doesn’t matter, because his bones lie somewhere in the jungle and his flesh feeds the crows and I will never get to tell him.

Between one breath and another, the tears came. They spilled hot and salty down his face; he let them, shoulders shaking, because he no longer had the strength to stop them. And nobody would come to offer unwanted sympathy, anyway. Mihmatini had her own grief, and the hurrying footsteps he’d grown so used to hearing would never run after him again.

Eventually, when he was spent, he wiped his face and left. It was time to go home.

The rest of the month ground on slowly, and his dreams began to change.

At first they were minor changes—the blood was less vibrant, the forests and plains brighter. Teomitl bled less. Acatl woke without feeling as though the inside of his chest had been hollowed out and replaced with ash. His appetite started to return; he still never felt properly hungry, and his meals didn’t exactly fill him with joy, but he could eat without feeling sick. The bones in his wrists were not quite so prominent as they’d been. And if that was all, he might have simply thought he was beginning to deal with his sorrow. Such things happened, after all. Eventually the knives scraping away at his chest would lose their edges, and he would face a life without Teomitl’s sunny smile.

But there was more than just a lessening of pain. He dreamed of a sunsoaked forest in the south, and woke feeling like a lizard basking on a rock, warm in a way he couldn’t blame on the heat of the rainy season. He dreamed that Teomitl was fording a fast-flowing river—one that did not turn to blood this time—and when dawn broke his legs were soaked up to the shins. That got him to visit a healing priest; he knew when he was out of his depth, and if his soul was wandering too far in his nightmares then he wanted to be sure it would come back to him by dawn. But the priest was as befuddled as he was, and only told him to call again if he woke in pain or with unexplained wounds.

Unexplained wounds? he thought bitterly. You mean, like the one where half my heart’s been torn from my chest? But he knew better than to say that out loud; his feelings for Teomitl were none of this man’s business. So he thanked him and left, paying a fistful of cacao beans for the consultation, and tried not to think about it until the next time he slept and the dreams returned.

And they were dreams now, and not nightmares. While he slept his soul seemed content to follow Teomitl’s solitary travels through the very outskirts of the Empire, and he no longer had to see him torn apart by monsters or smiling ruinously with bloody teeth. Teomitl barely bled at all now, and his wounds were only the normal ones a man might get from traversing hostile terrain alone—a scraped knee here, a bound-up cut there. He sang to himself as he walked, though the words slipped through Acatl’s mind like water. Once Acatl stood just over his shoulder at a smoky campfire while he roasted fish in the ashes, and his heart ached as he watched him cry.

“Acatl-tzin,” he whispered into his folded knees. “Acatl, I should have told you.”

“Should have told me what?” he tried to ask, but before he could form the words he woke up. There were tears in his own eyes.

It’s only because I miss him, he told himself. This is grief, that’s all. But there was the smell of smoke and the sweet fresh scent of cooked fish clinging to his skin, and a single damp leaf was stuck to the bottom of his bare foot. It hadn’t rained in Tenochtitlan last night. He stared at it for a long time.

Each night went on in the same vein. He would clean his teeth, lay down on his mat, and drift off to sleep—and in his dreams, there would be Teomitl, hale and whole and walking onwards. Despite himself, Acatl started to wake with a faint stirring of hope. Maybe Teomitl really had only been separated from the army. Maybe he truly was on his way home. And maybe I’m delusional, came the inevitable bitter thought when he’d finished his morning rituals. It had become much harder to listen to.

It was almost a surprise when he dreamed about a city he knew. It was a small but bustling place about half a day’s walk from Tenochtitlan, and as he walked through the streets he realized that the torches had been lit for a funeral. He could hear the chants ahead of him. There was a darker shape in the shadows which spilled down the dusty road, and he knew the man’s stride like he knew his own.

“Teomitl!” He hadn’t been mute in his dreams for a while now.

Teomitl didn’t turn. He never turned. But he stopped, and by the way his head tilted Acatl just knew he was smiling. Wordlessly, he pointed at the courtyard ahead.

A funeral pyre had been lit, and it was so like the rituals he presided over that he felt a distinct sense of deja vu. There was the priest singing a hymn to Lord Death; there were the weeping family members of the deceased. There were the marigolds and the other offerings, brilliant in the gloom.

“That could have been me,” Teomitl said, and Acatl heard his voice as though he was standing next to him in the waking world instead of only in a dream. “But it’s not yet, and it won’t be for a good long while. So you don’t need to fear for me. I keep my promises.”

They’d never touched before. But this time Teomitl turned to face him, and the hand he held out was free of blood entirely. Slowly, giving him time to pull away, Teomitl pressed his palm to his. Their fingers laced together, warm and strong and almost real.

“Teomitl,” he said helplessly.

“Acatl.” Teomitl’s smile was like the sun. “I’m sorry I made you worry, but I’ll be home soon.”

And then he woke up, the dream shredded apart by the blasts of the conch-shell horns that heralded the dawn. For a long moment, he stared blankly up at the ceiling. He could still feel Teomitl’s hand in his; each little scar and callus felt etched on his skin. He lives. The slow certainty of it welled up in him like blood. He lives, and he is coming back.

He rose and made his devotions before dressing, but now his hands shook with something that was no longer grief. As soon as he left for his temple, he could feel the change In the air. Scraps of excited conversation whirled past him, but he couldn’t focus long enough to pick any out. He concentrated on breathing steadily and walking with the dignity befitting a High Priest. He would not sprint for the temple, would not grab the nearest housewife or warrior or priest and demand answers. They would come soon enough.

They came in the form of Ezamahual, rushing out of the temple complex to meet him. “Acatl-tzin! Acatl-tzin, there is wonderful news!”

Briefly, he thought he should have worn the hated regalia. “What news?”

Ezamahual’s words tumbled out in a headlong rush, almost too fast to follow. “The Master of the House of Darts—Teomitl-tzin—he’s returned! Our warriors met him at the city gates!”

Even though he’d half expected it—even though the recurring dreams, his soul journeying through the night at Teomitl’s side, had kept alive the flickering flame of hope that now burned within him—he still briefly felt like fainting. He clenched his fists, the pain of his nails in his palms keeping him upright. “You’re sure?”

Ezamahual nodded enthusiastically. “The Revered Speaker has reinstated him to his old position, and there’s talk of a banquet at the palace to celebrate his safe return. I think he’s at the Duality House now, though—they’re like an anthill over there.”

Right. He exhaled slowly, forcing down joy and disappointment alike. Of course Teomitl would want to see his wife first above all, to reassure her that he was well, and of course he had no right to intrude. Nor would he even if he did—Mihmatini deserved her husband back in her life, deserved all the joy she would wring from it. The things she’d told him didn’t—couldn’t—matter in the face of their union. “I see. I suppose we’ll learn more later. Come—tell me if there’s been any new developments in those strangling cases.”

Ezamahual looked briefly baffled, but then he nodded. “Of course, Acatl-tzin. It’s like this…”

The latest crop of mysterious deaths turned out to be quite straightforward in the end, once they tracked down their newest lead and had him sing like a bird. He nodded at the appropriate times, sent out a double team of priests after the perpetrators, and had it very nearly wrapped up by lunch—a meal that, for once, he was almost looking forward to. He was settling down with the account ledgers to mark payment of two gold-filled quills to the priests of Mixcoatl for their aid when he heard footsteps outside.

Familiar footsteps.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the tightness in his chest eased. But he didn’t have a chance to revel in it, because he knew the voice calling his name.

“Acatl? Acatl!”

He dropped the ledgers and his pen, getting ink all over his fingers. As the entrance curtain was flung aside in a cacophony of copper bells, he scrambled to his feet. Had he been tired and listless before? That must have been a thousand years ago. He thought he might weep for the sheer relief of hearing that beloved voice again. “Gods—Teomitl—”

He had a confused impression of gold jewelry and feather ornaments, but then Teomitl was flinging himself into his arms and the only thing that sunk into his mind was warmth. There were strong arms wrapped around him and a head pressed against his temple, and Teomitl’s voice shook as he breathed, “Duality, I missed you so much.”

Slowly, he raised his shaking hands and set them at Teomitl’s shoulderblades. He could feel his racing heart, feel the way he sucked in each breath as though trying not to sob. It was overwhelming; his eyes burned as he fought to blink back his own tears. He couldn’t speak. If he opened his mouth, he knew he’d lose the battle—and there were no words for this, anyway.

Teomitl abruptly released him, turning his face away. His voice was a soft, ragged thing, and his expression was a careful blank. “Forgive me. I was...Mihmatini said you’d be glad to see me. I wanted to look less like I’d been dragged over the mountains backwards, first.”

He swallowed several times until he thought he could risk a response, even as his eyes drank in the sight of Teomitl in front of him. He looks the same, he thought. His skin had been further darkened by the sun, there were new scars looping across his arms and legs, and someone had talked him into a fortune in gold and jade with quetzal feathers tied into his hair, but he had the same face and body and sweet, sweet voice. “It’s—there’s nothing to forgive. I’m glad you’ve returned.”

“They told me everyone thought I was dead.” Teomitl bit his lip. “Except for Mihmatini. And you.”

He steered his mind firmly away from the shoals of crushing grief that still lurked under the joy of seeing Teomitl before him. He is here, and hale, and whole, just as I dreamed. I have nothing to weep over. “I knew you weren’t. You wouldn’t let something like a flood stop you.”

There was the first glimmer of a smile tugging at Teomitl’s lips. “You have such faith in me, Acatl.”

“You’re well deserving of it,” he replied. And I love you, and even in dreams I could not think of any other path than your survival. That, he refused to say.

Especially because Teomitl still wasn’t looking at him.

They stood in agonizing silence, and he couldn’t bring himself to break it. Teomitl was so close, still within arms’ range; if he was brave enough, he could reach out and pull him back into his arms. Could bury his face in his hair and crush the fabric of his cloak in his hands and tell him...what? It didn’t matter what Mihmatini had said to him. There was simply no space for him in the life Teomitl deserved, nothing beyond that Acatl already occupied. He wouldn’t burden him with useless feelings.

But then Teomitl shook himself like an ahuitzotl and turned back to him, holding his gaze. “Do you want to know what got me home, Acatl? What sustained me?”

Mutely, he nodded. He still didn’t trust his voice.

“You.”

He felt like he’d been gutted. “I...Teomitl…”

Whatever Teomitl saw in his face made his eyes soften. He took a step forward, hands coming up to rest like butterfly wings on Acatl’s waist, and Acatl let him. “I thought about you. I...Southern Hummingbird blind me, I dreamed about you. Every night! I made myself a promise while I was out there, in the event I ever saw you again. Scorn me for it all you’d like, but I’m going to keep it now.”

Oh, Teomitl. I could never scorn you. They were very, very close now, and Teomitl’s gaze had fallen to his parted lips. His mouth went dry.

And then Teomitl kissed him.

It started out soft and gentle, lips barely tracing Acatl’s own. Asking permission, he thought with an absurd spike of giddiness—and so, leaning in a little shyly, he gave it.

Teomitl wasted no time. The kiss grew harder, fingers digging into Acatl’s skin as he hauled their bodies together. They were pressed together from chest to hip but it still wasn’t enough, they weren’t close enough; blood roaring in his ears, he wrapped his arms around Teomitl’s back and clung tightly. His mouth opened with a breathy little whine stolen immediately by Teomitl’s invading tongue, and when he dared to do the same, Teomitl made a noise like a jaguar and let go of his waist in favor of clawing at the back of his cloak, grabbing fistfuls of fabric along with strands of his hair. It pulled too hard, but he didn’t care. The pain meant it was real, that this was really happening. That for once it wasn’t a dream.

Teomitl only drew away to breathe, “Gods—I love you—” before claiming his mouth again, as though he couldn’t bear to be apart.

Acatl twisted in his arms, knowing he was making a probably incoherent and definitely embarrassing noise, but shame wasn’t an emotion he was capable of at the moment. He loves me. By the Duality, he loves me. “I didn’t think—Mihmatini told me, but I didn’t think...”

Teomitl jerked back, brow furrowed. “Wait. Mihmatini told you?!”

His grip on the back of Teomitl’s cloak tightened at the memory. “She was trying to reassure me, I think. I’d just told her...well.” He couldn’t say it, even with Teomitl in his arms, and settled for uncurling one fist and running his hand up the back of Teomitl’s neck in lieu of words.

He was rewarded with a shiver, and the near-panic in Teomitl’s eyes ebbed into something soft. “What did you tell her, Acatl?”

He’d asked. He’d asked, and Acatl had always been honest with him. He’d be honest now, even if it made his heart race and his hands tremble. “That I love you.”

Teomitl made a desperate noise and kissed him again. There was no gentleness now; he kissed like a man possessed, hungry as a jaguar, and Acatl buried a hand in his hair to make sure he didn’t stop. Teeth caught at his lower lip, and he moaned out loud. This seemed to spur Teomitl on, because his mouth left Acatl’s to nip at his throat instead; the first sting of teeth sent a wave of arousal through him so strong it nearly swamped him. “Ah—!”

Teomitl soothed the skin with a delicate kiss that didn’t help at all, and then he returned his focus to Acath’s mouth. This time he was gentle, a careful little caress that gave Acatl just enough brainpower back to realize that he’d probably been a bit loud. Which is Teomitl’s fault, anyway, so he can’t complain. “Mmm...”

Even when they eventually pulled apart, they clung to each other for a long while. Acatl stroked up and down Teomitl’s spine, tracing each bump of vertebrae and the trembling muscles of his back. Teomitl dropped his head onto Acatl’s shoulder, breathing slow and deep. He’d twined locks of long hair through his fingers, gently running his fingers through the strands. Acatl had to close his eyes, overwhelmed. The stone beneath my feet is real. Teomitl’s skin under my hands is real. This—this is real. He is in my arms, and he loves me.

“I don’t want to let you go,” Teomitl whispered. “I never want to let you out of my sight again.”

Neither do I. He tilted his head, nosing at Teomitl’s hair. Gods, even cut to a proper length again it was so adorably fluffy. He sighed into it. “You’ll have to eventually.” Even though he hated the thought, he couldn’t help but smile. “You’re the Master of the House of Darts, aren’t you? You have an army to help lead. Wars to wage. Glory to bring to the Empire.”

“Hrmph.” The arms around him tightened in wordless refusal.

Joy bubbled up within him, and he chuckled quietly. Still such a stubborn young man. But now he was Acatl’s young man, and there was something wonderful about that. He felt loose as unspun cotton, ready to sink into the floor with the release of all the tension he’d been carrying, but it had left a void behind. A void that rumbled—loudly—to be filled. His face burned with embarrassment at the noise. “...Ah. Why don’t we see about lunch?”

Teomitl snorted. “I have been gone a long time. You’re remembering to eat for once.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually had an appetite for food, but he decided not to mention that. Teomitl would worry too much. But eating lunch meant that they had to be seen in public, which meant they both had to actually let go of each other. Reluctantly, he lifted his head and lowered his arms, finding himself stymied halfway through by Teomitl’s serpentlike hold on his ribs. “Teomitl.”

At least now he wasn’t the only one blushing. “Right. You’re right. We should eat.” Teomitl stepped back, clearing his throat, but the look in his eyes was more awestruck than awkward. He was staring at Acatl as though he couldn’t get enough of the sight.

And since Acatl found himself doing the same thing, he couldn’t blame him. Had his eyes always been that dark? Was that scar slicing a pale line across his skin new, or had he just never noticed it before? I might have gone my whole life without this. What an idiot I was.

It took longer than Acatl liked for he and Teomitl to be properly alone again, this time with a plate of food between them. Lunch was simple fare: a plate of grilled newts and amaranth dough with a vibrant red sauce so spicy it made his nose prickle. The serving priests had taken one look at Teomitl and thoughtfully put it on the side instead of directly on their meal, which he’d had to thank them for. As he sat down, inhaling the scent, he felt as though his body was waking up after a long slumber. It filled his lungs and swirled through his veins, and his mouth watered.

He dug in greedily. Gods, it had been so long since he’d properly tasted the food he put into his mouth. The juicy grilled meat was the most savory thing he’d had in ages, and he couldn’t blame his suddenly blurry vision on the sauce he dunked his next bite in. It was perfect. He had one of the amaranth dough sticks to smother the burn, finding it crunchy and slightly sweet with its dusting of seeds on top. “Mmm.”

A hand landed on his thigh. “Enjoying yourself?”

He lifted his head, face hot. “I was hungrier than I thought.”

“That’s good. You need to eat more, anyway.” Teomitl smiled, and he couldn’t help smiling in return. “Pass me some sauce?”

He passed the sauce. Teomitl tore at his own grilled newt with more manners but just as much enthusiasm. The long trek through the wilderness must have hardened him, because he didn’t wince at the heat of the accompanying sauce. Then again, he also didn’t use quite so much. “Mm. This is good.”

There was a fleck of bright red chili paste by the corner of Teomitl’s mouth. He wanted to kiss it away. A heartbeat later, he realized that he could. They were alone. Nothing was stopping him now.

So he did, and Teomitl went crimson. “Acatl!” he yelped delightedly, grinning even as he turned his head and kissed him back.

Chaste as it was, it lingered long enough that Acatl was flushed when he pulled away. His pulse thrummed under his skin; he felt like he’d drunk a cup of pulque, dizzy at his own daring as it sunk in. They were alone. Good food was in his belly for once, giving him the energy he hadn’t realized he’d been missing. They could do a lot more than kiss, if they wanted.

Teomitl’s grin turned teasing. “I missed doing that.”

“It hasn’t even been half an hour,” he muttered. “You’re insatiable.” But there was no heat to it, and he found his hand resting at Teomitl’s waist. The skin under his palm was just so warm. He’d felt cold bones and grave dust for too long.

An eyebrow went up in stunning imitation of Mihmatini. “And I’ve waited years for even one kiss, Acatl. There’s a backlog to get through, you know.”

The blush had just started to fade, but now it returned with a vengeance. “Years?”

“Mm-hmm.” Teomitl’s eyes gleamed. “I’d like to make up for lost time, if you wouldn’t mind.”

He swallowed hard. Now that he could think again he wanted to know how Teomitl had survived, how he’d managed to make it all the way back home—the unreal fragments he’d witnessed each night had not been informative—but his questions suddenly didn’t seem that important anymore. Not when there were other, more immediate desires to be sated. “...I would not.”

And so their mouths met. Teomitl’s idea of making up for lost time was long and hungry and tingled with the spice of their meal; Acatl’s lips parted for his tongue almost before he knew what he was doing, and that was still a little strange but far from unwelcome. Especially when Teomitl drew back, mouth wet and red, to catch his lower lip between his teeth in another one of those stinging little nips that made his blood sing. A breathy noise escaped him, but this time Teomitl didn’t soothe it.

No, this time he lowered his mouth to Acatl’s neck and did it again. It was light and delicate, unlikely to leave marks, but Teomitl’s teeth were sharp enough that he felt each one in a burst of light behind his closed eyelids. He had to bury one hand in Teomitl’s hair and wrap the other around his waist just to keep himself upright; he couldn’t entirely muffle his own gasps. “Ahh...gods...”

Teomitl hummed, low and wordless, and slid a hand down his stomach. Acatl’s fevered blood roared in his ears, and all of a sudden it was almost too much. “Teomitl.”

Teomitl lifted his head, eyes bright. “Mm?”

“You.” He sucked in a breath, willing his heartrate to slow down. There had to be some limits. Too much had already happened much too quickly. “You can’t keep doing that here.”

“You don’t like it?” Teomitl grinned at him. “Or do you like it too much, Acatl?”

If by some miracle all the rest of it hadn’t already made him blush, hearing Teomitl purr his name like that would definitely have done the trick. He had to turn his face away. “You know damned well it’s the latter. We both have our duties; we can’t very well take the rest of the day off to…” Flustered, he gestured between them.

“Hrmph,” Teomitl said, and kissed him again. This time it was slow and sweet and came with warm arms sliding around him, and he lingered in it for long, long minutes.

By the time they finally remembered the rest of their food, it was stone cold. They ate anyway; cold food was still good, especially with the chili sauce. Acatl was privately of the opinion that it even made the sauce taste better, but he’d learned that people tended to look at him strangely when he voiced it. Besides, Teomitl was leaning against him with one arm slung loosely around his waist, a reassuring weight against his side anchoring him to the earth. There wasn’t a need for speech in moments like this.

Not to mention that, strangely enough, he was still hungry. The joy he’d first felt at knowing Teomitl was safe and alive had opened the floodgates, but it felt as though his body was determined to make up for lost sustenance. Even after their plates were both thoroughly clean, he was still rather looking forward to dinner.

The afternoon light was turning the air gold when Teomitl reluctantly got to his feet. Acatl followed; they stood without touching for a moment that was just long enough to be awkward, and then Teomitl pulled him into a fierce hug. Acatl knew it was coming this time; he marveled at how they just seemed to fit together, with one hand buried in Teomitl’s hair and the other pressed flat between his shoulderblades to feel the steady beat of his heart.

Teomitl took a long, slow breath. “Lunch wasn’t long enough.”

“It wasn’t,” he agreed softly. “But there will be others. Many others.” With Teomitl by his side, he didn’t think he’d ever skip a meal again.

Despite the hint of dismissal—yes, he loved the man with all his heart, but they did both have other things to do—Teomitl made no move to let go of him. In fact, he squeezed a little tighter, turning to bury his face in Acatl’s hair. “Mrghh...”

He had to bite the inside of his cheek to quell the urge to laugh. As fond as he was, he knew it probably wouldn’t go over well. He made do with stroking Teomitl’s hair—gods, it was so soft—and taking a deliberate step back so that Teomitl had to release him or be pulled off-balance. Now Teomitl was glaring at him, but nothing would stop the slow upwell of joy in his veins. “Go on. I’ll see you at the banquet tonight.” He knew he’d enjoy this one.

Teomitl’s eyes were fierce as an eagle’s. “And afterwards? Will I see you afterwards, Acatl?”

He had a pretty good feeling he knew what Teomitl had in mind for a private celebration. Nerves twisted his gut, but only for a moment. He’d come this far, hadn’t he? “Yes,” he said simply.

The way Teomitl’s lips parted in wonder let him know he’d made the right choice. For the rest of my life. Whenever you want, for the rest of my life, I’ll be there.

Teomitl didn’t reach for him—he seemed to be deliberately holding himself still, tension ringing through his body like a drawn bowstring—but he looked like he wanted to. He looked like he wanted to yank Acatl back into his arms and finish what they’d started earlier, and the thought was exhilarating. “My chambers in the palace? They’re closest.”

Acatl flushed, shaking his head. That was a risk he refused to take. The palace had too many people, too many ears and eyes. Far too many chances to be interrupted. If he was going to do this, it would be somewhere safe. “My house. I’ll...I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” There was a wild, radiant smile.

He smiled back. Though he’d miss Teomitl while he worked—Duality, they’d been apart for so long—it would be fine. He was already looking forward to the banquet and what would come after, when nothing would part them again save the dawn.

Teomitl had promised, after all.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #mihmatini #quenami #acamapichtli #paladin writes stuff

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