#i fear he may feel the weight of alienation on his soul for the rest of his life. and he won't even try to alleviate it anymore. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

americancowgirl19 · 3 years

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Eyes of the Devil

Summary: Pietro finds someone faster than him and you find your missing piece.

Warnings: violence, curse words, angst?, fluff

Reader: I wrote this with the reader being a male but it could be read as gender neutral; Male Vampire Reader

Pairings: Pietro x Male Vampire Reader (Gender Neutral); Laura Barton x Male Vampire Reader (Platonic)

Word Count: 3,312

A/n: Reader speaks Slavic. According to Google Translate = Moja duša - My soul. Malá holubica - Little dove. Malý - Little one.... I plan on doing more one shots in relation to this one. I wouldn’t really call it a series just a collection of random one shots with Pietro and this type of reader. Let me know if you wanna be tagged in them or if you have a request for a specific one shot you wanna see. This one shot was really just a starter for those future one shots coming.

Masterlist

If you were being honest, you didn’t know how old you were. You knew you were at least a few millennia’s old but after the first thousand years, who cares to keep track?

You also knew that life could get very boring if you didn’t spice things up a little bit. Being a part time Avenger did just the thing for you. You didn’t care enough to help out full time but you were there if they were dealing with something extra tricky. Like an alien invasion or enhanced individuals.

It had been a hot minute since you had seen the rest of the team and was pleasantly surprised to get a call from them. Apparently Hydra had managed to pass abilities from Loki’s scepter onto humans giving them powers. One of them had an ability you shared thus pushing the Avenger’s to call you in.

Of course, you had a life of your own (surprisingly) and couldn’t just drop everything to help them. Although, once you managed to push your responsibilities to a loyal friend you left to track down the team.

This lead you to a seemingly abandoned factory. Shocker.

You stayed in the shadows, undetected by everyone on the lower levels. You listened to the exchange between your team and the large robot. Your eyes then fluttered to the two that stood on the robots side. You deducted that those were the special individuals the team had called you in for.

You took in a deep breath, separating their scent from the others. You could sense the power coursing through their veins. While they had both gotten their abilities from the same source, you knew that they were very different.

If you gambled you would bet that the man was the speedster that Clint had complained about. Apparently he was a cocky little bastard. You didn’t have to know the guy to know he was arrogant. He stood tall, his chest slightly puffed out and his chin high.

The talking didn’t last long before a brawl broke out. Your eyes followed the male as he zoomed around the room. While it would be impossible for the others to see him moving at such speeds, it was as if he were walking to you.

He started coming your way, oblivious to the fact that you were even in the building. When he got close enough you stepped out and slammed a punch in his jaw. The force knocked him out of motion and over the railing. You watched as he fell to the main floor.

He groans, rolling onto his side as you land silently in front of him. Your entire body is covered making it impossible for him to see what you look like. Even your face, head and eyes were covered by some form of cloth or glasses.

“What? You didn’t see that coming?” You ask, smirking behind the face covering.

You had to admit, with Clint’s description of him you were expecting him to look different. Instead he’s older and more attractive. The arrogance clung to the air around him and it only drew you in.

“Welcome to the party, Y/n,” Clint greets from somewhere in the building. You didn’t respond knowing he wouldn’t be able to hear you like you could hear him.

“Who are you?” The man asks, standing up on his feet. The Sokovian accent thick on his tongue.

“Someone you don’t want to piss off,” You warn fairly. He scoffs, causing your smirk to deepen. “Wood of advice, stay out of the way, Moja duša” You said, the name rolling off your tongue so casually you didn’t realize what you had said at first. When you do realize, the weight of the situation falls onto your shoulders.

You stare at the man in front of you, his eyebrows furrowed. You knew that he could translate the words but he did not know the true meaning of them. Before he could ask anything, you sped out of sight.

You help out the rest of the team whilst keeping an eye on the speedster. After a few minutes, you noticed the others slowly begin to drop. Natasha stopped responding, Thor was muttering to himself and Steve looked lost. You could hear Hulk going on a rampage with Tony trying to stop him.

You snap out of it when you sense a presence behind you. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was the witch that had single handedly taken down the team.

When she got close enough to you, you whipped around and wrapped your hand around her throat. Her eyes widened and she becomes panicked. Her hand claws at your wrist as you lift her a few inch off the ground to become eyelevel with you.

“There is no nightmare you can show me that I haven’t already lived,” You hiss, tightening your grip around her. “Be careful, little witch, or you’ll find a fight you can’t win,”

You see, out of the corner of your eye, her brother speeding to her rescue. You hold onto her for a moment longer before dropping her to the ground and wrapping that same hand around his throat. While your grip is firm, it doesn’t constrict his airway. You take a moment to admire how he looks with your hand around his throat. An unseeable grin comes to your lips.

“Are you mentally challenged or do you just not listen?” You ask, tilting your head. He glares and fights your grip but it’s iron tight. “Take your sister and run far away, Moja duša,” You tell him, the name slipping your tongue once again.

“Who are you?” He asks, once again.

“Someone who will get you killed,” You tell him. You hand slowly leaves his neck. He stands there, observing you pensively. When he blinks, you’re out of sight.

...

You stuck around with the team. You got caught up on what was going on and what had happened since you last saw them. They asked if you would stay for a bit longer and your agreed.

You spent the night at Clint's with the others. His children hanging off of you as if you were a jungle gym. You tossed them into the air as many times as they pleaded you too. You also sped them around and played games with them. Even if you didn’t want to admit it, the children had you wrapped around your finger. They have since they were born.

When you weren’t entertaining children, you’re mind lingering on the male enhanced. You had learned their names through Steve. Wanda and Pietro.

You found yourself whispering his name as the night rolled on. You would smile a bit but it never lasted. You knew what he was to you and you to him. You also knew nothing could come of it, no matter how much you desired.

“You’re up late,” Your head snaps to the side to see Laura waddling into the kitchen. You winced when she flicks the lights on. She mutters a small apology.

“I don’t sleep, remember?” You reminded her.

“Ah, right,” She whispers. “In my defense, I have pregnancy brain mixed with morning brain,” She admits. “I’m forgetful,”

“I’ve known you since you were a child, how could you forget me?” You question, smirking at her. “I feel as if I’m quite unforgettable,” You admit, watching as she reaches for a glass to fill with water.

"I can’t forget you because you continue to pop up in the most random moments demanding for attention,” Laura tells you, slowly lowering herself into a seat at the table.

“I may be an isolated creature but even I need some socializing,” You tell her. She motions for you to sit as she sips on her water. “You should go back to sleep, Clint will be leaving in the morning. You need your rest, malá holubica,” You whisper to her.

“You leave as well and who knows when the next time you’re going to pop in,” She says, patting the spot beside her. Her eyes pour into yours. Without the threat of the sun, you didn’t need so much covering. You stayed in your trousers and vest but your arms, neck and head were exposed. “Don’t make me beg for you to sit next to me,”

Sighing, you give into her wishes. You glide across the floor and sit beside her. She shifts so that the both of you are face to face. One of her hands rest on her stomach while the other falls onto your lap. You smile a bit, holding her hand within yours.

“Something’s on your mind,” She mutters.

“Something’s always on my mind,” You whisper back, keeping your gaze on her hand. It’s significantly smaller their yours. It reminds you how fragile she is compared to you. “Its nothing for you to worry about,” You assure her.

“Well, we can still talk about it and make conversation,” Laura smiles.

“There’s plenty of other things to talk about, it’s been a while since we've seen each other,” You said, finally meeting her gaze. She doesn’t say anything for a moment as she stares into your eyes. She’s always been fascinated with them. They’re so inhuman. It always amused you how she found something about you, that struck fear and panic into so many, so beautiful.

The color of your iris’s are different shades of red. The red around your narrow pupil is bright and rich before transitioning into a deeper, darker red. The dark red seemed the slowly blend into the blackness of your sclera. Although, at the moment your eyes are significantly darker than normal as your throat continues to ache with hunger.

“You need to feed,” She tells you. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Dinner was lovely,” You comment. Her eyes narrow. “I’m fine, malá holubica,”

“You need to take care of yourself,” She scolds.

“What will happen if I don’t? I’ll die?” You growl, your hand clutching her a smidge too tight. Your anger vanishes when you notice her subtle flinch. “I’m sorry,” You whisper, gentle massaging away the ache you had caused in her hand.

“What happened today?” She asks. “Did you get affected like the others?” You smile, laughing quietly.

“No amateur witch can sneak up on me, you should have more faith in me than that,” You tell her.

“Then what’s going on?” She asks you. “You’ve been distant, lost in your own world. You snapped at me, you never snap at me,” She playfully pouts.

“I apologized, malý,” You practically whined. She smiles giving your hand a squeeze.

“I know but it just shows that something is bothering you... I won’t be able to sleep unless we talk this out,” She threatens. You narrow your eyes at her. “Like you said, I’ve known you since I was a little girl. You can’t intimidate me,” Your glaring snarl turns into a pout. “Talk to me,” Sighing, you give in.

“Moja duša,” You whisper. Laura stares at you.

“My soul,” She mumbles under her breath. “Dimitri?” Your dead heart pangs at the sound of his name. Her face softens, her hand gripping yours in comfort.

“Pietro,” You correct her.

“Pietro?” She questions. “As in..?” You nod. “Maybe this is fates way of using you to get him and his sister on the right path,”

“Or it’s way of cursing me into another heartbreak,” You growl, withdrawing your hand from hers. You stand and return to your spot by the window. “The fates are cruel and hateful,” You snap.

“You don’t mean that,” She whispers. “She never meant to bring you more pain. She only wanted you to find unconditional love during a heartless time,”

“She should have kept to herself,” You growled. “Should have left me to my isolation. If she had she would still be alive and I would be-”

“Alone,” Laura cuts you off. “Your sister didn’t want you to live alone. She knew she couldn’t live as long as you. She knew you would outgrow everyone you knew,”

“Way to cheer me up,” You mumble. Laura sighs, pushing herself out of her chair. “Point is, this wasn’t supposed to be a curse... She had the right intentions,” She mutters, rubbing your back gently.

“I miss her,” You whisper, closing your eyes tightly.

“I know but you have me for the time being,” Laura whispers, hugging you tightly. You wrapped your arms around her, resting your chin on the crown of her head.

“Have I ever told you how similar your soul is to hers?” You whisper. “It’s what drew me to you... It’s like I have her back through you,”

“I just want you to be happy, she would too,”

“Can you women just let me find my own happiness on my own terms and stop meddling with things?” You grumble. She laughs quietly.

“We can’t help it,” She whispers. “I love you, Y/n,” She whispers.

“I love you too, malá holubica,” You whisper, kissing her head. “Now, you’re caught up on the drama’s of my life. Please, go get some rest,”

“Fine,” She sighs. “But do me a favor,” You sigh as she steps away from you. “Think about the good that will happen if you let Pietro in instead of pushing him away. Then remember all the times you tried to push them away but ended up holding them close,”

“Why am I so open with you about my past?” You sigh. “All you do is throw it in my face,” She laugh, gently tapping your face.

“Think about it,”

...

In the morning, you left with your team. You gave the kids extra long hugs before giving an equally tight hug to Laura. She scolds you for not visiting more and you promise to change that before climbing onto the jet.

When you find Ultron, you stick with Steve. The two of you fight the large robot to keep him occupied. While Steve managed to push the tin man around a bit, your punches managed to dent his plating.

Ultron began to put his focus towards you, which you found flattering. You took the brunt of the punches while Steve basically danced around him. The both of you were managing to fight off the robot when Ultron got a hand on your hood and ripped the jacket off of your body.

You screamed as your arms, neck and face began to burn under the sun’s rays. You barely register Steve tackling Ultron into a train. You fall to your knees feeling your skin begin to catch on fire.

Your mind pushes you through the pain. You look for shade but before you can run for cover your being grabbed and put onto the train. You lean against the wall, away from the sun.

You breathe heavily, your eyes opening a little to see Pietro kneeling in front of you. There’s concern in his eyes and despite the pain you’re in you smile.

“Perfect timing, Moja duša,” You pant.

“Y/n, you alright?” Steve asks, standing beside you. You just give him the thumbs up. “Lost sight of Ultron, there’s civilian’s in our path,” Steve say looking to Pietro knowing that your body is too focused on healing to help.

“Go,” You whisper, seeing his hesitance. Pietro nods and speeds off. You groan when the train goes off the rails.

“You sure you’re going to pull through?” Steve asks, once the train stops. While the burns on your skin were to a lesser degree they were still red and you were still sore.

“Just help me up,” You grumble, holding out a hand. Steve grips it and hauls you to your feel. “Fucking robots and trains... I miss the days when humanity didn’t have fucking technology,” You grumble, following Steve off the train.

“-need to take a minute,” Pietro pants.

“I’m very tempted not to give you one,” Steve snaps, marching up to him.

“The Cradle, did you get it?”

“Stark will take care of it,” Steve assures them as you speed past the sun and back into the shade. Pietro stares at you for a moment before disappearing only to reappear with a sweatshirt. He hands it to you.

“Thanks,” You mutter, pulling it on to shield you from the sun.

“Don’t mention it,” He smirks.

...

Vision’s introduction was dramatic, to say the least. You stayed out of the drama. The only reason you continued to stick around was for Pietro. Although, you weren’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Death follows you wherever you go, even more so than the Avengers.

You knew you needed to make a decision soon before the bond got to the point where you couldn��t leave. It didn’t help that Pietro didn’t respect the distance you were putting between the two of you. He followed you around like a damn puppy.

“What are you?” He asks.

“Take a wild guess,” You say, looking through the fridge for something to drink.

“I can only think of myths and legends... Stories to scare children,”

“You believe in talking robots but not me?” You ask, turning towards him with a blood bag in hand. He watches as your fangs extend and sink into the bag.

“So, you are real...” Pietro mutters.

“Unfortunately,” You mutter, tossing the empty bag to the side.

“What does Moja duša mean?”

“You know what it means,”

“I don’t think I do,” He says moving toward you. “I think it means something more to you,”

“Stop,” You tell him but he doesn’t until you’re toe to toe.

“My grandmother would tell my sister and I stories about you... or your kind,” He tells you. “Said that certain people were cursed to be stuck with your kind for eternity,”

“She’s right... it is a curse,” You tell him.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” He tells you.

“Candy, bread, beer, it all tastes good but they’re not necessarily good for you,” You tell him. “Think of this on a much bigger, much deadlier scale,”

“Sounds exciting,” He smirks. You sigh pressing your lips together. He raises his hand toward the glasses you had yet to take off. Your hands shoot up and wrap around his wrist.

“Turn around and go back to your sister,” You demand. “Forget you ever saw me,”

“You’re unforgettable,” Pietro whispers. The two of you stay still until Pietro begins to move his hands again. They slip from your wrist as you allow him to take the glasses off. “Oči diabla,” He recites the line that is in all the stories. “Eyes of the devil,” He translates. “Who would have thought the devil would be so attractive?”

...

“If I see another Goddamn robot after this, I’m going to blow a gasket,” You hiss towards the end of the battle against Ultron and his multiples. You run around the city killing robots and rescuing civilians.

Eventually, ships come to the edge of the city to evacuate everyone. You run through the city multiple times in order to make sure nobody is left behind. You return to the ships in time to see Pietro go to save Clint and the child he’s protecting.

Your instincts over take you. Your by his side faster than a heart beat. Your arms wrap around him. You speed out of harms way without missing a beat. When you’re out of the way, you rip a door off a car and launch it at the spaceship sending it to the ground before turning to Pietro.

“Are you alr-” Pietro cuts you off with a kiss. The simple kiss amplifies the already strong bond between the two of you. Your hand instinctively rest on his hips and pull him against you.

“Thank you,” He mutters against your lips. You smirk, returning your lips to his.

...

I plan on doing more one shots in relation to this one. I wouldn’t really call it a series just a collection of random one shots with Pietro and this type of reader.

Let me know if you wanna be tagged in them or if you have a request for a specific one shot you wanna see

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zet-sway · 3 years

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Spiritual Shrios Summer - EMBRACE

This is a prompt fill for @rosenkow’s Spiritual Shrios Summer!

PROMPT WORD: EMBRACE - | - WORDS: ~6100

Rated: “E” for “Awkward but Spicy” [NSFT] AO3 Link: "Too Much and Not Enough” Pairing: Thane / FemShep Summary: Maybe it's the traces of venom in her system or maybe it's just him, but this man beneath her - this assassin, feared and infamous for the lives he's taken - swells her heart with trust. It's a new and curious thing, so different from the trust shared between brothers in arms. It's simple intimacy, and maybe… just maybe… something more.

A/N: This fic is a god damn hot mess, and yet I have literally *never* revised anything so heavily in my entire life. Was supposed to be part of a slow burn but I'm impatient. I literally can't tell if this fic is worth reading. You decide lol

Thank you @quietonewisp for your feedback on my first draft! It's unbelievable to be in the same fandom with such talented writers after all these years. Thank you also to everyone who shared encouraging words while I was pulling my hair out over this fic :) this is my first attempt at writing Shepard as a thought out character of my own creation. As a result it's pretty awkward.

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"I don't know how you do this," Shepard grunts through clenched teeth.

Every third day is yoga. And today, she thought it would be a good idea to try a headstand.

Thane guides her feet into the air, resting her knees against her elbows. Her hands are planted on either side of her head, elbows bent at a right angle to form three points of support against the floor. Truthfully, he hadn't thought she would struggle so much with this pose, given her strength.

"Push with your hands. Distribute your weight."

Slowly, he releases her calves and repositions himself behind her as she pulls in a sharp inhale, holding her balance.

"You better not be staring at my ass, Krios."

He raises a brow ridge. It's hard not to stare at her ass, thrust in the air as it is.

"You forget that I have perfect recall," he says dismissively. "I can reflect on the image of your backside at any moment of my choosing."

"So you admit you've been looking?"

"Shepard," he admonishes, "Just because I've seen your ass does not mean I consciously seek to see it." It's a stone cold lie, but an easy one to sell, especially when she makes a point of training her glutes every day during their morning PT.

Slowly, she lifts her knees into the air, shaking with the effort to retain her balance. "I bet you're an ass man," she grits out, one leg finally pointed straight into the air.

Thane sets his hands on her calves to steady her as she wills through the pose.

"I'm unfamiliar with the term."

She huffs, swallowing down a breath before speaking. "A man who prefers ass over breasts."

Only humans would have a word for something like this, he thinks. "As you know, women of my species do not have breasts."

"Yup," she hisses, slowly and carefully straightening her other leg. "That's why you've gotta be-" another shaky breath, "-an ass man."

Well… she's not wrong.

In truth, he finds breasts no more desirable than any other mundane part of the human body. The appeal, he suspects, comes from actually touching them - something he hadn't considered at all until she'd launched herself at him in the airlock weeks ago. He's replayed the experience in his mind hundreds of times by now. The insistent press of her mouth on his, her smooth human hands clutching at his shoulders... and the soft crush of her body against him. He hadn't pulled away, but he hadn't kissed her back either. Right now, he wishes he had.

There's a curious connecting thread between his return to the Normandy and her sudden urgency to speak to him - frequently. Even more curious - neither one of them has broached the subject of her impulsive kiss before his procedure.

With a relieved sigh, Shepard finally manages to straighten both legs and complete the pose. Toes pointed toward the ceiling of the shuttle bay, she trembles. It's all he can do to not close his hands around her thighs to feel every rippling muscle under her skin.

"Excellent work," he says, voice perhaps lower than he intended.

"My head hurts."

Thane shakes his head. "You're not distributing your weight through your hands. Push down, and lower your knees slowly."

She makes a strained sound, tenses her legs, and the motion is just enough to pitch her center of gravity backwards.

He catches her, but not before the rounded curve of her ass is pressed with distracting persistence against his hips. If he could have blushed, he very well might have. Looking remarkably contorted beneath her splayed hands, she grins at him.

"How's your perfect recall going to handle this one?"

He should say something, but he doesn't. With steady arms, he lowers her to the mat and she flops against it, sighing heavily. There's a familiar quiet about her, something he's come to recognize as the silence before a storm.

"...can we talk about this?"

His deflection comes instinctively. "Your mastery of the headstand will take some practice, but-"

"No," she says firmly. "This." She waves a hand between both of them. "I kissed you goodbye and we're both acting like it never happened. It was inappropriate of me. Did I upset you?"

This time he needs a minute to think.

"Shepard, I… no, you did not upset me."

"But...?" She sits up, knees drawn in a loose spread against her chest, arms looped around them. The same focus he'd seen in her face on Tuchanka is there now. But this time her expression is uncharacteristically open, visibly hanging on his next words.

She's not even trying to hide that she wants him.

So why does he resist?

Ten years ago he swore he would never love another, and he meant it. The compulsion to remain ascetic is by now second nature in him. But although the years have not dulled the memory of his beloved Irikah, they have brought a new perspective: the fires of one love are not dulled simply because the fires of another are kindled.

"I've recalled that moment more times than I can count," he says, finally.

"So... does that mean you liked it?"

"I enjoyed your kiss enough to admit that should the opportunity arise... I may not let go."

She leans closer, fingers lacing together with visible anticipation. "And what if I didn't want you to let go?"

The look in her upturned face is what does him in. In a rare display of impulse, he drops to the mat and kisses her. And this time he intends to savor it.

Somehow, the same humility that drove him to his knees before Irikah now folds him again as he gazes into the unknown with Shepard. A purpose, a reason to fight. And now perhaps... a reason to love. He's not sure if he would call it love just yet, but kissing her awakens his body like hot tea on a bitter cold morning. She draws him between her knees, lips parting eagerly beneath his seeking tongue. She tastes like coffee with an undertone of alien unfamiliarity, and his pulse quickens. He's already eager for more.

Shepard mumbles something against his mouth and he pulls away.

"You taste tingly. That's normal right?"

He smiles gently back at her. "Normal for humans, as I understand."

They lean together for another kiss before she releases him. "We still haven't done cardio."

He slips his arms around her waist and tugs her tighter against him, using his strength to pull her up with him as he stands.

"A quick jog around the hold, then?"

"...or," she says coyly, all suggestive eyes with a cautious smirk blooming across her face. "A quick jog upstairs?"

He shouldn't. At least - old habits tell him he shouldn't. But his heart says it doesn't much matter.

"Promise me one thing," he says with caution, taking her hands in his. This is not how he’d imagined his morning. After all the time they’ve spent seeking each other’s company, he hadn’t dared to think...

Shepard tips her head, listening, fingertips idly exploring the subtle texture of his scales. His throat feels dry and the words are stampeding through his mind so fast he can barely catch them.

"Embrace her memory as I have. Smile upon her with favor." The memories mingle together, threatening to overwhelm him. Shepard has already given him so much, and he still asks more of her.

"Your wife?" She leans into his neck, kissing his shoulder softly.

"Yes." He squeezes his eyes shut. His breath threatens to choke him. "I cannot and will not stop loving her. She is with me always."

Shepard smiles at him, as though he's asked the easiest thing in the world. Her next words are an intimate whisper against his lips.

"What kind of Commander would I be if I told you to stop loving your wife?"

Her breath fills his chest with warmth and wanting. Cupping her face in his hands, he kisses her glistening lips as though they were crafted specifically for him. They inhale each other, her tongue sliding against his as he breathes in her kiss. The word murmurs through his mouth and mind as a soft wind sighing through trees and grasses. "Siha."

This could be his second chance. An opportunity to fight side by side with a warrior angel, as he should have done years ago. Irikah was not a trained soldier, but she damn well could have been. She would have given everything to defend the innocent, and by all accounts, she had. Their son, alive because of her and her alone. He can taste her in the kiss, a familiar and soothing encouragement that makes his heart soar. Perhaps if he survives the mission, he will have learned something of her bravery.

There's a gentle tug on his shirt. Shepard leads him toward the elevator.

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

When they stumble into her cabin, her eyes are already bleary with his venom. Thane presses her into the bed, one hand cradling her neck while the other winds into her hair. His lips are slow but strong, kissing her like he knows nothing else. She's never felt so wanted before.

"How far do you want to take this?" she gasps when he trails her mouth down her jaw.

"This was your idea," his mouth is scorching on the column of her neck. She leans back to give him better access. "How far do you want to take this?"

Her insides are on fire at the feel of his mouth alone, and logic says she's crazy to jump into bed with another fucking species so suddenly. But she doesn't care - she's spent enough sleepless nights imagining this very moment. She wants his hands on her bare skin, she wants the forbidden unknowns of his alien body. With every fiber of her being, she wants. But it's easier to think about it than to say it.

"More," she says finally - breathlessly. Words are fleeting. Her hands fist the edges of his shirt and he obliges, pulling away so she can lift it off before she begins pulling off her own.

And then he surprises her by playfully rolling her on to her belly, kissing the back of her neck, her spine, palms trailing an electric line down her sides.

"I confess," he murmurs between kisses, "You were right to accuse me of being, as you say, an 'ass man.'" She moans as those strong hands settle on her backside, fingers kneading her flesh with delicious strength. Good god.

Words are difficult, but she manages. "Don't get any ideas, I'm not letting you fuck my ass."

"It wasn't my intention. Is that something humans do?"

Shepard snorts. "Don't act like you didn't know that."

He laughs like she's never heard before, a rich and jubilant peal in that dark voice she's come to savor. She can nearly feel the soft vibrations of that laugh through his hands as he presses his fingertips between her legs. “I’d rather know where you burn hottest,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice as he strokes her just hard enough to make his intentions understood.

"Oh fuck yes."

His palms return to her backside, sliding up to hook his fingers into her waistband. "May I?"

She nods furiously, her own hands closing over his to push her clothes off.

When she's firmly on her back again he drags down the zipper on the front of her bra. It's flung on the floor with the rest of her things and then she's bare before him, biting her lip under the heat of his hungry gaze. She wonders if he can see her body vibrating in anticipation.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, settling his knees between her thighs. He crawls up to kiss her. "For weeks, I've thought about touching you."

She hums as he strokes the rounded edges of her breasts.

"Your body is so wonderfully soft, will you tell me if there's something you don't like?"

"Yeah," is all she can manage before his mouth returns to her neck, his hands wandering like a dying man searching for water. She's certain to have hickeys by the time they're done.

Curious, she brings a hand up to stroke the delicate flesh of his throat. His answering groan confirms her suspicions, and suddenly his questing hands are not so chaste, closing with suffocating warmth around her breasts.

Shepard bites her lip. "Please don't tell me you think breasts are gross."

He shakes his head. "I'll admit I find it strange that human breasts are erogenous, given their purpose. But they aren’t ‘gross,’ as you say. Just... new." She pushes her chest into his palms and that gets a rise out of him - a lovely trembling purr in his throat. "And so soft, Siha."

"Feels good," she murmurs. With parted lips, she breathes her pleasure as he kneads her breasts in slow, sensuous circles, dipping his head to kiss along her sternum and at the tender underside of her flesh.

"I think I might like them,” he says, lips twinged upwards.

Her need flares with that simple statement and she pulls in a breath, straining against him.

"I hadn't imagined how... tempting they could be. Soft curves... ripe like fruit at peak season." A strained moan falls from her mouth when he punctuates his statement with a more appreciative squeeze and draws a thumb over one sensitive peak, his mouth close enough to make her whimper in frustration.

“You’re teasing me.”

"I’m exploring you, Siha. There’s so much to learn." He circles his fingertips around her nipples and they tighten in response. The visual alone has her reeling, electric sparks of need slipping down her spine and straight into her core. "Your body shows me what it wants," he murmurs. "My mouth begs to taste you."

He flicks his tongue out, sampling her in light, infuriating strokes, teasing until she's keening beneath his hands, eyes shut tight and panting over clenched teeth. It's hard to think about anything at all except his hands and lips and that rumbling voice shimmering across her sensitized skin.

She strangles out a moan when his lips close around her nipple and he hollows his cheeks, drawing it into his mouth before releasing it with a soft, wet pop. Her arms clamp reflexively around his neck in an unspoken order to keep still.

"Do that again," she gasps.

He complies without question, textured fingers on one breast and wet tongue on the other, toying with her. Her back arches, hands holding herself like an offering to his mouth, every touch like a phantom crack of lust between her legs. There's a low rumble in his throat, he's practically purring into her skin and she can feel it, thighs clenching together in desperation.

She whines when he finally pulls away.

"I'll be back for those," he promises. "I hadn't expected such enthusiasm."

Fingertips brush her inner thigh and she leans into the touch, wanting more - for fuck's sakes - more - gasping out a shuddering breath she didn't even know she was holding when he flattens his fused fingers into her seam. Face buried in her neck doing god knows what with his lips and tongue, he's exploring her by touch alone. Each press of his hand is excruciatingly gentle, pushing slowly into her slick channel, gliding upwards to her clit. She's so sensitive that she flinches when he brushes over it, clutching at his shoulders.

"Too much?" He asks.

She hadn't even realized her eyes were closed. Her throat is dry, but she rasps, "Not enough."

His full lips curve into a smile before he strokes her again and this time she moans, pushing back on his hand as much as she can manage. Her mind is chanting "please, please," but she won't beg. Not yet, at least.

His voice rouses her from her desperate thoughts.

”Your species makes great effort to avoid using definitive terms for this part of your body."

"Do we?” She asks, willing her thoughts to clear enough for her to speak. “I mean, there's pussy, snatch... cunt, if you're feeling profane."

His voice drops a register lower, and he leans close enough for her to feel his hot breath when he speaks. "Shepard, I believe the technical term is vulva."

She groans. Loudly. "Fuck off."

He huffs out a stiff laugh. "Perhaps you'd prefer something new. Ara'te. Chalice of Arashu."

She tries - and fails - to hide her impatience. "Really?"

"Do you find it repulsive?"

"No, I just... mixing religion and sex is kind of..." She fumbles with her answer, not wanting to offend, but the words are gone from her when he leans in and draws the flat of his tongue in a wide sweep between her legs. "-Jesus, Thane."

His voice is thick with amusement. "How interesting that you invoke the name of a god you don't believe in, if I touch you just so."

Shepard's mouth snaps shut and she looks pointedly away from him with a huff.

"But I digress," he says, fingers rippling along her seam. Scaled hands smooth over her slickness, spreading her with gentle consideration. His mouth is dangerously close, gaze fixed on her with eyes like gleaming onyx. Something in the way his voice drops sets her heart racing.

“You feel like the softest silk,” he whispers, each word rolling off his tongue in a veil of hot breath that cools over the heat of her wet center. Her eyes flutter closed as he presses his exploration, teasing her entrance with his joined fingers.

"Your body is a wellspring," he murmurs, slowly penetrating her with his hand. "Drenched with arousal… begging me into your depths."

She gasps when he takes the opportunity to flick at her with his tongue. Hips grind against his hand, desperately seeking more.

"What the fuck," she moans. "Don't stop."

He withdraws only to enter her again, this time sheathing an extra finger in her heat. Those fingers crook inside her and she damn near twitches off the bed, drawing a sound from him somewhere between amusement and arousal.

"So sensitive, Siha."

It feels like she's melting under the intensity of his touch, a thumb moving in teasing circles around her clit. She hisses, thighs clenching.

"Holy shit just touch me."

"Like this?" he asks in a tone that's infuriatingly playful, barely skimming his tongue across her clit.

"God damn it, Thane, you know what I want-"

He interrupts her, his voice suddenly more serious.

"Show me."

There's silence, and then Shepard blinks at him. "What?"

"Show me how you like to be touched."

"You want to watch me?" her mouth goes dry and her answering tone is more accusatory than she intends. "Because you're a freak, or because you don't know how to touch a woman?"

"Yes." He says simply, dodging both of her questions with irritating smugness.

Her knees twitch inward, uncertain, and with a deep inhale, he withdraws.

"Siha," he murmurs apologetically, taking her hand. "You've left all your confidence on the battlefield.”

The words slip straight through the cracks in her armor. It's painful, but he's right. Cerberus didn't bring her back because they wanted her, they brought back Commander Shepard. The woman she used to be is an afterthought. There's only the mission. The Hero of the Citadel. The Commander.

But here they are, Thane's enormous black eyes boring holes into her defenses in a silent plea for… something. His hand finds hers and their fingers intertwine, resting together on her hip. His expression is more unguarded than she's ever seen, eyes asking a silent question: Do you trust me? Do you want me?

"All my victories have been on the battlefield," she says, looking away.

His thumb soothes back and forth over her hand.

"Intimacy is not a war. What do you hope to triumph over?"

Still unwilling to meet his eyes, her face twists with discomfort.

"I haven't had a lot of partners. I'm laying here naked and you're playing games. I can't tell if you're just teasing or looking for an excuse to drive me off."

His expression softens. "Our differences are not merely physical, then."

She isn’t certain what he means, but Thane shifts to lay next to her, kissing her temple. His fingers tighten around hers in a gentle grip that doesn't let up, finally summoning her eyes back to his.

"On my heart, Siha, there is no place I would rather be than right here with you." There's a genuine apology in his tone, prying her heart open one painstaking centimeter at a time. "Do you want this?"

Her voice is small, but she doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

"Show me what you like," Thane's lips brush against her ear. "Remember that I won't forget." The way his voice rumbles makes her shiver.

He takes her hand and presses a kiss into her palm before setting it atop her thigh. It’s a relaxing gesture, indirect enough that he's not backing down while also letting her choose the next move. His lips are unhurried, traveling up her neck, against her ear, along her hairline.

Years of lackluster partners have tempered her expectations - she’s never shared herself with anyone as intense as Thane; and although she'd never admit it, his sexual confidence is damn near intimidating. But his hot breath against her ear and his endless, patient kisses are an irresistible pull of wanting.

This man is far from bored, she realizes. He's only awaiting her permission to give her something she's never experienced.

Her chest rises and falls in deep, shaky breaths. "No games," she whispers.

"No games," he agrees.

Biting her lip, she guides his hand back to the apex of her thighs. He offers no resistance, humming his approval when she slicks his fingertips through her heat and sets them carefully against her clit.

They move together then, her hand on his, teasing herself while he kisses her neck and shoulder, slowly making his way across her chest. How long has it been since she found release beneath the hands of another? The quiet intimacy of their joined hands, the subtle texture of his scales leaves her breathless, delirious with pleasure, his fingertips sliding effortlessly against her slick center. His mouth wanders over her skin, her breasts, every touch so electric she’s almost not ready for how fast her release sneaks up on her.

"I'm close," she whimpers with eyes squeezed shut, "Oh fuck, Thane, I'm so close."

"Yes, Siha,” he whispers. “Come for me."

She breaks. Every cell in her body clenches in a singularity of pressure before she's launched out in a million pieces, shimmering in the dim light. For once, it doesn't feel cold in her cabin. Waves of heat ripple under her skin, pulsing with every second she spends teasing the tail end of her climax.

She doesn't realize she has a death grip on his hand until she's gone completely still. If it hurts him, he says nothing, only wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her close. When she looks back at him, he's watching her with a knowing, lustful smile. She reaches for him, stroking his delicate neck and earning an appreciative hum that makes her heart beat just a little faster.

"Not that I didn't like you before, but..." she brushes her fingertips along his jaw, tilting his head toward her, "God damn."

Maybe human biology actually is as interesting as he proclaims, if one good orgasm can flood her with this much oxytocin. Like crossing a proverbial threshold, she feels her confidence returning, if only just to tell him we are definitely doing this again. As soon as possible.

"The privilege is mine." His voice is flecked with desire, words she believes so wholeheartedly she can almost see them in the air.

"How are you still wearing pants?"

He growls approvingly as she climbs over him and her fingertips slip beneath his waistband.

"Let's see what I'm about to get myself into," she says with a sly upturn of her lips.

"Or, if you wish - what you're about to get into yourself, " he retorts with no small amount of innuendo.

Immediately she wishes they'd done this sooner. He's... gorgeous. It isn't so much that she thought he wouldn't be, but his anatomy is every bit as colorful as the rest of him and that is a surprise. His length blooms from its internal sheath, a strong and gently ridged gradient of red and purple, nearly glowing in contrast against his green scales.

"Nice," she breathes, reaching for him. "Sorry if I don't have any pretty words to explain how much I want to put this beautiful thing in my mouth." Then she has a thought. "Do you have any fancy words for 'dick?'"

He puffs out an amused laugh and cracks a smile. "I seem to recall you saying something about religion and sex..."

"Humor me," she says, leaning in close enough to make his breath catch from the proximity of her mouth alone.

"Amo'ti," he says. "In your language-"

"Spear of Amonkira?"

He raises a brow ridge at her. "I'm impressed."

She gives his length an appreciative squeeze, testing the give of his ridges, humming at the surprising velvet texture of his skin.

"Maybe," she says slowly, matching the intensity of his gaze, "You can tell me how impressed you are after this." And without any further pretense, she engulfs him with her mouth.

In an instant, his head tips back, and she feels a familiar confidence returning. Men, she thinks, are hopelessly predictable in their pursuit of a hot mouth to fuck. And exactly as expected, Thane's hips are rolling gently forward. She slips her tongue around his length, watching the dancing iridescent scales along the shifting planes of his thighs and stomach.

In the back of her mind, she wonders if drell even do this as much as humans do. But it doesn't seem to matter when he sets his jaw in rapt concentration, visibly struggling to keep his eyes open and fixed on her. She doubles down, flattening her tongue against the underside of his shaft and hollowing her cheeks on the upstroke. His hands thread into her hair, sweeping it from where it falls in front of her eyes and gathering it around his fingers.

Tempted to tease him, she pulls back until the very tip of his length rests against her lips and sweeps her tongue across the head with a seductive smile. Their eyes lock and the sound he makes causes her core to fucking throb with wanting. One hand working him with each teasing swipe of her tongue, she slips lower, plants her lips on the base of his shaft to kiss him with an open mouth. He's shaking now, he's got to be close-

With a strangled gasp, his hips twitch away from her and she stills herself.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," is his breathless response. "Quite the opposite. Come here."

She climbs astride him, pressing the length of their bodies together as his arms enfold her. "That good?"

"Join with me, Siha," he murmurs, his voice low and laced with need. "Find your release in mine."

An unexpected chill slips through her, tingling every nerve with an onset of understanding. She can hear it in the undertones of his voice: I want you. This was never a game. We will be whole, together.

He rocks against her just enough to grab her attention. The brush of his length between her legs is electrifying - his eyes searching, his body asking.

"I'm… uh…" Shepard bites her lip, processing the words slowly. "I haven't been with anyone since I... came back."

His fingers intertwine with hers for the umpteenth time that morning. It's a gesture she's rapidly coming to adore for all its patience and admiration. He kisses the back of her hand, voice low and steady. "You're in control, Commander."

There's something in his well-placed acknowledgement of her authority that placates her. Maybe it's the traces of venom in her system or maybe it's just him, but this man beneath her - this assassin, feared and infamous for the lives he's taken - swells her heart with trust. It's a new and curious thing, so different from the trust shared between brothers in arms. It's simple intimacy, and maybe… just maybe… something more.

Eyes never leaving his, she steadies herself and sinks down on him.

They join together with delicious slowness, his hips willfully unmoving beneath her as she takes him in. The pressure is exquisite, edging somewhere between too much and not enough, each ridge of his florid length finding its place within the scorching depths of her body. She's nearly sweating as their hips go flush, eyes tipping closed with the sweet pulse of their joining.

One painstaking second at a time, she adjusts. It doesn't hurt, but she's afraid it damn well might if she starts riding him like her lust-fueled mind is screaming to. She stifles her own desire, wills her body for control as she twists and flexes herself to banish the lingering anxiety about her reconstruction. It might even be embarrassing - wriggling against him like a damn virgin - but there's no judgement in his eyes. If anything, he's holding back his own pleasure, unmoving while he waits for her. Hands braced against his shoulders, she pushes up, finally bottoming out with a low, wanting moan. His length lodges against her deepest reaches. It feels fucking perfect.

"Fuck," she breathes with a cursory flick of her hips. "Holy shit, Thane."

Features painted with pleasured focus, he's stone still beneath her, hands patiently cradling her waist. Thane, her unlikely but disciplined lover, waiting for her next order.

Her voice is a whisper against his lips.

"Let's fucking do this."

And with that, he begins to move with her.

The groan in his throat vibrates through her entire body as she begins to ride him. Her fingers clasp around his shoulders, afraid to put too much pressure on his transplant scars. He grasps her hands in his own, holding her firm and letting her weight fall against him, hips rolling with her as she finds her rhythm.

His voice is a breathy sound somewhere beneath her. "Siha… don't hold back."

She gasps when the next thrust hits home.

"Shut up," she huffs, slanting her lips over his.

Despite their hours spent together on the battlefield, his strength is shocking. It's near impossible to tell who's riding who, his hands firmly on her hips, his body moving beneath her like the rolling ocean, all muscle and sinuous control. Either sex is way better than she remembers, or he's just that good. He ripples in and out of her depths, each of his gentle ridges strumming her like a harp, sweat rolling down the back of her neck.

His venom is already refreshing its hold on her mind when she breaks their kiss for breath. There's a kind of weightlessness to the high - she floats up, baring herself to his wandering hands. They slide against the plane of her stomach, cupping her breasts, plucking teasingly at her nipples. It's enough to make her cry out, heedless to the rest of the world, grinding on him for all she's worth. She feels the hot coil of release building within her, sensations concentrated in every point of contact. The texture of his scales against her inner thighs, his teasing fingertips on her breasts… his burning length buried within her, filling her to completion like no other.

In the throes of his venom, her cabin disintegrates, and there beneath an endless veil of stars, they are one - chasing release in the arms of the other. Words can't describe this perfect headspace. Later, all she'll be able to say is how he feels so good, wishing she could borrow his eidetic memory if only for these few perfect, fleeting moments, to revisit at her behest.

She slips one hand down to massage her clit and pitches her head back in a gasp, walls clenching involuntarily around his length, drawing a low rasp of pleasure from his beautiful, perfect mouth. Their voices are a litany of breathless sounds, a chorus of shared ecstasy - the desperate succession of skin meeting scales, the trilling of his ruby throat and the expletives that fall from her parted lips. She's close - unbelievably close - and damn near unwilling to finish if it means this moment will end, a rare second climax bearing down on her as she folds against him. Even with her hand trapped between their bodies, the sweet pebbled friction of his scales threatens to push her over the edge whether she's ready or not.

She releases with a scream, his name barely intelligible in a strangled half-sobbed cry of bliss that can't be silenced even as she buries her face in his shoulder. Thane's strong arms wind around her waist, holding her as he drives into the silken, pulsing clench of her heat with abandon. The sound of him illuminates the darkness behind her closed eyes as he spends himself within her and she can feel it - a glittering tingle of sensation radiating between her legs, up her spine and blooming into a full scale high.

And then she sags against his chest, heaving breaths in tandem with him, unable to give two tenths of a shit about her hand going numb between them.

"Thane..." She whispers. "Thane, holy shit."

"Are you hurt?"

"...No. I feel... tingly. It's good. It's so… just, good. Holy shit." Her head lolls against his shoulder. She won't open her eyes - not yet. Whatever's going on out there beyond his embrace - for once, it's not her problem. She feels over-relaxed, tinged with unreality. Like a dream. When had she gotten so damn high? If they'd barely -

...Oh, she realizes.

Drell toxin. Inside her.

Thane hums in contentment, his familiar alien hands soothing through her hair. She wonders if he feels just as sated as she does.

"Tell me it was good for you too," she whispers softly against his aural ridge.

"Siha," his voice is quiet, as if murmuring a secret, "It feels unfair to tell you how many times I will revisit this memory."

"I'll allow it, if you tell me we can do this again."

"As if you even need to ask," he chuckles breathlessly. "Yes, I’d like that."

"I don't think I've ever been fucked like that. I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk straight.”

“Not the word I would use, but I’m glad to hear I’ve pleased you.”

She feels his mouth move in a smile and takes a strong inward breath, raising her head to look at him. She can see her own silhouette in his fathomless dark eyes.

"Say it," she demands.

His brows - those gorgeous, expressive, glittering emerald brows - raise in curiosity. It must be the venom making him so vibrant.

"Pardon?"

Shepard extends one finger to gently prod his chest. "Say 'fuck.'"

He laughs beneath her and it feels like her whole body is bouncing, joining him in his mirth.

That laughter reaches his eyes and his expression softens. "I think perhaps we've overindulged. I didn't expect you'd be so heavily affected."

Her eyes widen in mock incredulity. "Overindulged? Don't you dare tell me that was too much for you."

A viridian palm settles against her cheek, his lips curled in a soft smile so rare it seems like a gift. "What I mean to say is it may have been too much for you, Siha."

She pauses, pushes herself up on shaky arms and sits back on his thighs. He's softening within her, and the retreat of him leaves a trail inside her that feels... not exactly, but... Sort of like someone stuck a breath mint where it doesn't belong. Shepard smiles inwardly. It feels kind of great.

"I'm Commander Shepard," she intones, setting her hands on her hips in a dramatic display of confidence. "I can handle getting dicked down by the most deadly lizard in the galaxy."

Thane is damn near grinning now. “My apologies, Commander. I will think twice before underestimating your abilities in the future.”

"I'm not moving until I hear you say 'fuck.'" She retorts, arms crossed.

"You're wrong, if you assume I want you anywhere but right here."

He reaches for her arms, trailing down her to her wrists to clasp her hands. Above him, she watches as though entranced, the dim light of her cabin blurring the edges of her vision and bringing the slow intertwining of their fingers into crisp focus. For all their differences, they fit together so beautifully. Her heart feels full.

"Thane..."

Their eyes meet as he kisses her fingertips.

"Fuck you, Siha."

#zet writes things #thane krios #shrios #spiritual shrios summer #fshrios #o boy please dont judge me too hard cause ive never worked on a fic so hard in my life and i have no idea what i'm doing

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qianinterprises · 3 years

Text

Hold Me Together, Break Me Apart

Pairing | Haechan x gn!Reader

Genre | fluff, angst, roommate au, college au

Warning(s) | bad language, cursing, slamming doors, broken door knobs, broken hearts, reader is mean to Jeno (for a kinda reason)

Synopsis | Your roommate is never far from your mind, especially when you need him to hold you together as you break from the stress of college life. But what happens when you break him by accident.

Author’s Notes | Thank you sweet anon for your request! I had so much fun writing this! I really hope you like it! I may also be posting a part 2, I haven't decided yet. What do you guys think?

Work Count | 2.9K

Tagging | @treasurehobi

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Exhaustion swept across your shoulders as you shoved your key in the tattered lock of your apartment door, wincing when the gears crunched as you turned the key. When the lock clicked, you moved the key back to its resting place before pulling back on it, attempting to free it from the snug hug of the gears. However, it seemed far too content buried deep in the edges of the lock.

With a groan, you turned the jiggly handle and pushed the door open, immediately being bombarded by the sounds of four yelling boys sitting on your couch with remote controls in hand. You had forgotten your roommate was inviting his friends over.

“Donghyuck,” you called, closing the door and walking deeper into the apartment.

You kicked your shoes off at the door and slung your bag into a chair.

Your roommate didn’t answer for a long moment, but when he did, he was distracted, not even sparing you a glance.

“Yeah?”

“My key got stuck again.”

Three times your key had managed to get stuck in the lock. All three times, Donghyuck had been the one to free it.

The male in question sighed as his fingers sped over the keys of the metallic control in his hand.

“I’ll get it out in a minute,” he said.

With a nod, you made your way to your room, seeking escape from the loud yelling of the boys in the next room.

As soon as the door was shut, you let yourself succumb to the emotions attempting to swallow you up. Your knees hit the floor, face buried in your hands as tears wet your fingers. Your shoulders shook slightly as silent sobs wracked through your body.

University was hard enough without the added stress of working, gnawing at your body and soul, pulling you apart piece by piece until your tender bits were exposed for the world to abuse.

College was meant to be fun. A time for parties and drinking. A time of self discovery while also learning more about whatever subject interested you the most. These days, your life was limited to taking four classes throughout the morning, taking an hour for lunch, before reporting to the restaurant across the street where you worked as a wait staff, taking orders and receiving too few tips to add onto your already poor paycheck.

The restaurant had been the only job hiring at the time, and you desperately needed the money. Your family had been supporting you, but when your younger brother dropped out of high school, they began spending too much money taking care of the son they’d ruined by spoiling. Your father could no longer afford paying your half of the apartment rent and, while Donghyuck hadn’t outright said anything of his displeasure, covering both halves of rent for two months, you knew the boy also didn’t make enough to pay the full cost and still be able to go out with his friends. You couldn’t do that to him. So you’d taken the first job that landed in your lap, and here you were, crying on your bedroom floor at 11pm, pondering the idea of dropping out of college all together and moving back home.

A knock on your door startled you out of your thoughts.

“(Y/N), can I come in?”

You quickly ran your fingers under your eyes, wiping away the dampness the tears had left, hoping your eyes were puffy enough to be noticeable. You pulled yourself up off the floor and grabbed your door handle, twisting it and opening the door.

“Yes?”

“I have your key- hey what’s wrong?”

He presented your key between his thumb and index finger, but as soon as his eyes caught sight of your face, he paused.

You felt tears prick to your eyes, but you fought to hold them back. You hated when people asked you questions like that when you were upset. It made holding back the dam of tears that much more difficult.

“Nothing.”

That should have been the end of it, but your voice cracked, and Donghyuck was stepping into your room, wrapping his arms around your middle, and pulling you against his chest. As your face connected with the soft material covering his shoulders, you felt the dam finally give way, a loud sob leaving your mouth as your own ars wound around him, nails digging into the fabric of his shirt as you bellowed against him.

His arms tightened around you, almost as though he were a bungee strap wrapped tightly around a crumbling box, there to hold it together.

“I’m so tired!” you sobbed, shoulders shaking hard. “I have three papers due by tomorrow night that I haven’t even started because I’ve had to work and when I get home I’m exhausted and I keep pushing it off and now I’m going to fail three classes and-”

You were cut off by his soothing voice, shushing you softly as his hand stroked your back the way he knew you liked.

“It’s going to be ok baby,” he whispered softly.

Your roommate somehow had a weird effect on you. Just by speaking in a certain tone, he could rile you up, make you sleepy, or completely put all your fears and nerves to rest. As you melted against him, allowing him to take the majority of your weight, you didn’t stop to ponder the nickname.

“What classes are your papers due in?” he asked.

His arms around your waist loosened, but neither of you let go.

“Literature with Dr. Wong, Grammar with Dr. Jeon, and History with Dr. Lee.”

“Come with me.”

With that, he pulled away from your hug, leaving you about to whine when he grabbed your hand and pulled you from the room.

“Does anyone have Dr. Lee, Dr. Jeon, or Dr. Wong?” he asked.

“I’ve got Wong,” the tallest of Donghyuck’s friends, you believed his name was Jeno, said.

“Have you finished your paper for his class?”

Jeno nodded.

“Will you come over tomorrow and help (Y/N) write hers?” Donghyuck asked.

“Sure!” Jeno said, giving you a reassuring smile.

“I have Dr. Jeon, but I’m not finished with my paper yet. I asked for an extension though and she gave me until Monday. Maybe ask for one too and then we can work on them together,” Donghyuck’s friend with dyed blue hair offered.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, nodding.

“Thank you Jaemin,” Donghyuck beamed.

“I have Dr. Lee, but you know he doesn’t read our papers right? As long as you have the buzz words he’s looking for, he’ll give you a good grade. I can email you my paper and you can just rewrite a few sentences so it isn’t total plagiarism,” the other, tiny friend answered.

Renjun actually happened to be in your class with Dr. Lee. You didn’t know why you hadn’t realized before.

“Now see! All you have to do is ask for help when you need it,” Donghyuck said, squeezing your hand softly before letting it go.

“Now, I have to get back to beating these losers’ asses, but there’s pizza in the fridge if you're hungry!”

Donghyuck leapt onto the couch, settling himself between Jeno and Renjun, retrieving his controller. Then they all were gone once again, back in their own world of screaming obscenities at one another as they fought whatever the zombie alien things on the screen were.

With a smile, you felt your body relaxed, muscles now not as tense as you as you made your way into the kitchen to retrieve the pizza he had mentioned.

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When the next morning rolled around, you were hauling yourself out of bed to attend your morning classes, but today, you didn’t feel horrible, like you wanted to crawl back under the blankets and sleep your life away. Perhaps it was the fact that you had the day off. Or maybe it was because your roommate had somehow taken all your worries and frustrations and made them easier to handle.

Like he always did.

Donghyuck was nothing if not reliable. He was always there when you needed him, whether it was getting your key out of an old lock or gluing you back together as you fell apart in his arms. He was always there to ground you. Maybe he could be annoying sometimes, especially when it was three in the morning and he was crawling in bed with you after having a nightmare, or when he’d beg you to make him hot chocolate every day in the winter because he always scorched the milk when he tried. Lee Donghyuck was the perfect person to share your home with. You just wished you could share the rest of your life with him too.

As your last class ended, you pulled your phone from your bookbag to find a notification to join a group chat from Donghyuck. Raising your eyebrow, you accepted, seconds later directed to a chatroom full of memes and video game references.

FullSun00: Finally she’s joined!

JenoJams: Cut her some slack, she’s been in class!

Jaemberry: She should just text in class like we do!

You: Texting in class prohibits learning!

ArtJun: I like this girl!

FullSun00: (Y/N)!! Meet us in the cafeteria!! We’re sitting in one of the back booths!!

You: Uh… Ok? I’ll be there in five.

Donghyuck was always adamant about keeping you away from his friends group chats despite the amount of times Jeno and Jaemin had tried to convince him to add you. Being invited now was a little odd, but odd didn’t fight the smile on your face as you shoved your notebooks into your bookbag and took off for the cafeteria.

When you got there, the cafeteria was full, as it usually was, but you managed to wind yourself around the heaps of students waiting in lines or moving toward their tables. You walked toward the back of the cafeteria where the most popular seats were, cushioned booths that were alway crowded.You scanned the area looking for Donghyuck, but in the end, it was Jaemin’s blueberry hair that led you to them.

“How did you guys manage to get a booth?” you asked, taking off your backpack.

The booths had long seats large enough to fit three or four people on either side, tables stretching long enough to encompass everyone's plates with plenty of room to spare. It’s part of what made them so popular.

Jeno took your backpack from you, passing it across the table to Jaemin who slid it under the booth where it joined the pile pressed against the wall.

“We got here an hour ago. We tend to spend a few hours here. Easier to eat our fill that way,” Jaemin said.

Renjun snorted.

“Jeno and Jaemin are like human vacuum cleaners. It takes many servings before they’re satisfied,” he laughed.

You shook your head, eyes scanning over the table before realizing that someone was missing.

“Where’s Donghyuck?”

“Miss me already?” your roommate's annoying voice spoke from behind you.

You whirled around to find the man in question standing there juggling two cups of soda and two plates filled with food from the pasta bar, which happened to be the most popular bar and incidentally, your favorite.

“I figured you’d be hungry and I know you love your pasta,” he said.

He moved around you, placing both plates and drinks on opposite sides of the tables before sliding in next to Jeno. It was only then that you realized the second plate was for you.

“Donghyuck… you didn’t have to-”

“Hush and sit,” the male said, looking down at his plate.

If you hadn’t known any better, you would have thought the man was blushing. But this was Donghyuck you were talking about, and Donghyuck didn’t get embarrassed or blush.

You sat yourself down by Renjun and lifted your soda to your lips. As soon as it hit your taste buds, you sighed happily. Donghyuck knew you so well. He knew exactly what you’d want to eat and drink. He was perfect. He’d make the perfect boyfriend…

“Hey (Y/N), after lunch, you want to head back to your place to work on that paper? I’m done for the day,” Jeno asked.

You swallowed the noodles you’d just shoveled into your mouth.

“Sure! I’m done too! And the apartment will be quiet because Hyuck has class!” you shot a teasing smirk in Donghyuck’s direction, earning yourself a glare.

°:. *₊ . ☆ ° . *₊ ☆ ✮ ° . ☆ *₊ ☆°:. *₊ ° . ☆ ✮　 °:. *₊ °:. *₊ . ☆ ° . *₊ ☆ ✮ ° . ☆ *₊ ☆°:. *₊ °

Lunch seemed to fly by and before you knew it, Jaemin was handing you your bookbag as you all grabbed up your plates, ready to relinquish your booth to someone else.

You bid goodbye to Jaemin, Renjun, and Donghyuck, all who were heading to various classes while you and Jeno made your way across the street to your apartment complex.

Stepping inside, your key thankfully didn’t get stuck this time. You tossed your bookbag onto the couch before flopping beside it. You grabbed your laptop off the side table. Jeno took a seat beside you, opening his own laptop.

As soon as the screen to your laptop turned on, you let out a loud yelp as one of your many images of you and Donghyuck together met your eyes, Donghyuck’s sun-kissed face grinning at you through the screen. You typed your password in hastily, but it was too late. Jeno’s face blossomed into a teasing, shit-eating grin that you wanted to slap away.

“So… Donghyuck huh?”

“I don’t know what you're talking about!”

Embarrassment made your stomach churn.

“How long?”

There was no hiding it. Jeno had seen your computer screen. While most university girls had images of baby animals or their favorite band as their lock screens, you had your favorite person to stare back at you.

“Since I moved in…” you mumbled.

His eyes widened.

“And you haven’t told him yet?!” he gaped.

“I haven’t told anyone.”

“You told me!!”

“No, you found out, there’s a big difference,” you corrected.

“Well are you going to tell him?” Jeno asked.

“Of course not! Why would I tell my roommate that I’ve got a big fat crush on him?!” you exclaimed.

“Maybe because he could like you too?”

“Psh, yeah right. Come on, let’s get to work.”

“(Y/N)-”

“No Jeno. I may practically be in love with the man, but why would he ever like me?! He is everything and I’m nothing. He’s the full package with so much to offer some lucky person who steals his heart. I have nothing to offer him but stress and insecurities. So can we please just get to work on this paper and forget about him?!”

You didn’t realize you had tears rolling down your cheeks until Jeno brought his hand up to cup your face, gently running his thumb under your eyes to wipe away the tears softly.

“You’re not nothing. You’re everything,” he whispered.

There was something in his voice. Something that had you drawing closer to him. His eyes flicked down to your lips and back up to your eyes. Your head buzzed with want, blissfully unaware to the emotions of your heart as Jeno’s lips met yours.

His lips were rough, chapped. They pricked yours almost uncomfortably, but they were warm and moist. It had been so long since you’d had such a moment with anyone. So long since you’d last been kissed that perhaps your judgment was impaired as your lips moved against his.

But all too soon, reality was coming to slap you in the ass. This time, in the form of the apartment door opening and Donghyuck stepping through, a gasp leaving his lips as he caught his best friend and the girl he’d fallen in love with locking lips on his couch.

Your lips quickly separated from Jeno’s at the sound of someone intruding. Your eyes became as wide as saucers when you noticed Donghyuck standing in the threshold of your home.

You shot up from the couch, nearly knocking your computer to the floor.

“Hyuck! I can explain! We-”

“Don’t bother.” His tone was so icy it tore right through your heart.

He slammed the door and stormed off to his room. You jumped as his bedroom door slammed shut with a hard wham that made the walls rattle.

“I-... I…”

More tears pooled in your eyes as your hands began to shake.

“No…” you whispered.

Jeno stood up from the couch and made a move to wrap his arms around you, to comfort you, but you lurched away from him.

“No!” you screamed! “Leave me the fuck alone!”

Your breathing was heavy. Anger ripped through your veins. You knew it wasn’t entirely Jeno’s fault, and it wasn’t fair of you to scream at him like it were, but you couldn’t help it. Standing in the wake of a big mistake, you had no other option but to be angry, because how would your roommate ever like you now if he thought you were dating his best friend.

“(Y/N) please-” Jeno began, but you cut him off.

“Was this your plan?! Get me to fall apart so you could put me back together when he walked in?! Do you realize how fucking messed up that is?! I confided in you! I told you how I felt! And you kiss me?! Then he walks in and you try to hug me?! I don’t like you Jeno! Not like I love him! You are not, nor will you ever be, Lee Donghyuck! So just get out!”

You weren’t typically a rude or mean person, but as Jeno looked down before packing up his laptop and scurrying from the room like a puppy with his tail between his legs, you couldn’t help feeling like you’d just lost two great friends.

Maybe today wasn’t a good day after all.

#nct one shot #haechan x reader #ficscafe #lsn.works #nct haechan #haechan x you #haechan x y/n #gender neutral reader #stress #roommate au #college au #broken hearts #nct dream #slight jeno x reader #swearing #hurtful words

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my-writings-and-musings · 3 years

Note

Hello! I absolutely loved the feelings for the young liaison team kids, may I request some more of those please? With Megs, Roddy and Drift? (Maybe Cyclonus, if you don't mind as well?) thank you very much!

I love how so many asks want the bots to more or less adopt children who adopt them in turn, because that kind of softness is what our bots DESERVE. Rodimus, Drift (and Rung!) have their post here, the original is here, and below I'll have dear Megs and Cyclonus getting their dad vibes.

Megatron

·When the liaison program was decided upon, his presence on the ship had required some... additional precautions be taken, in order to convince the humans that any visitors to the Lost Light would be safe. Said measures had consisted mostly of him being warned repeatedly, both in and out of official correspondence, that he was to never be alone with the humans. Doing so or taking any other actions that made the humans feel even moderately unsafe would result in swift punishment. He'd understood every bit of the security measures, annoying as they were repetitive, and endeavored to follow them. Seeing young members of a species he'd attempted to exterminate wasn't something he wanted to seek out anyway. Thus, he'd been quite purposefully unavailable when the group came onboard.

·Massive as the ship is, however, he'd been unable to elude the liaisons forever. On one fateful day he'd encountered all of them by chance, and thankfully there had been other bots around to ensure Ultra Magnus wouldn't throw him in the brig for breaking any promises. The humans had looked just as surprised as he had to see the former Decepticon leader staring down at them. To their credit though, and his shock, they hadn't fled screaming in an instant. Rather, they'd cautiously approached him as a unit. The boldness had been so unexpected he'd actually felt quite like fleeing himself once they'd started asking questions. With the other Autobots around he'd been forced to stand his ground, and thankfully the humans hadn't been nearly as aggressive as he'd been expecting, keeping most of their questions in the realm of polite but naive curiosity. Perhaps the Fools Energon was simply getting in his head, but he'd walked away from the encounter believing it to have been... pleasant.

·At the next chance meeting, made possible by everyone on the ship relaxing his restrictions, he's admittedly a little happy to see the liaisons. It happens in Swerve's bar, and they're actually able to converse with minimal oversight. The opportunity to get to know humans in depth is one he explores with caution though. Despite his current goal of righting past wrongs, he can't simply undo what he attempted to carry out on this species, as friendly as the young humans are to him. Knowing that fact is what makes him ache despite the pleasant conversation. They talk of their dreams, and ask him about innocent things in return, with particular fascination for his size and strength. Such bright and vivid souls, that he was once utterly indifferent to... How many brilliant lives like them did he snuff out without a care?

·Yet he keeps talking to the little ones whenever the opportunity presents itself. They might be some of the first beings to speak so casually to him in eons, and once they start asking about politics... Well, he can't resist sharing the beliefs he'd once thought too optimistic. As always, each liaison proves a spirited debate expert, despite being small enough to fit comfortably in his palm. Ignoring the rules, they often end up doing just that, though it's more for convenience as he doesn't want them to strain themselves shouting to be heard. Inevitably the restrictions on him loosen to the point he actually begins sitting with them gathered across his massive frame like birds on an oversized but comfortable tree, and through them he gets little samples of earth life in the form of stories and videos on their communication devices.

·It's the happiest he's ever been, and that's probably why he inevitably caves to his self loathing, the joy these little ones bring him forcing back memories of his many crimes against their kind. Even seeing them is a right he shouldn't feel so entitled to. For their sake, he decides to avoid them going forward, to protect them from himself and his legacy in addition to the weight of his conscience. Of course, the liaisons very quickly notice that they aren't seeing him around and one day decide to seek out answers. To his surprise, he fails to simply explain himself through a gentle lie when they eventually find him, as if their faces compel him to speak truthfully. He breaks and reminds them of what he is and what he's done, and that staying away is for their own good, especially considering he can hardly be trusted. As always, they surprise him.

·In total agreement, they all reassure him of a few things. First is that they're all well aware of who he is and what he's done. Second is that they knew that when they decided to approach him, and that his efforts to redeem himself have not gone unnoticed, which is why they've bonded with him as they have. They made the choice to get to know him, and while they can't speak for the many factors of the Cybertronian conflict beyond their understanding, they are allowed to decide they like who he is here and now. Had he a less hardened spark, their words would have made him weep. Instead, he quietly thanks them and promises to think on what they've said. In the end, he honors their decision by returning to the locations they expect him, and they continue as they did before. This time, however, he's more than just gentle while they clamber over him. He's protective as only a bot of his size can be to beings he truly appreciates as his found family.

Cyclonus

·The emotion he felt upon learning of the incoming liaisons was best summarized as "mild curiosity" at best. Not that he looked down upon the incoming crewmembers, but he just didn't think them worthy of much fuss, and only intended to learn enough to effectively avoid them going forward. A not so subtle warning not to intimidate them with his appearance cemented the emotion. On the day of their arrival, he met the whole group quite by chance during their introductory tour, and to his chagrin each one was fascinated by him in particular. Unable to even tell them apart at first, he'd been somewhat placated by their curiosity for things his own kind often overlooks. For the sake of cultural preservation, he decides that answering their questions won't be too much of a burden if done from time to time.

·Now reasonably well settled amongst the crew, he doesn't find it too hard to handle the socialization with multiple humans at once, though admittedly he's a little concerned when he learns of their age. Allowing what are essentially slow developing protoforms to explore on an alien vessel seems... irresponsible. Yet their youth does explain their energy, especially as they ask him many questions about topics he enjoys speaking of, starting with his accent leading to a grand recounting of Tetrahexian history. Unlike so many bots, they gladly listen to him go on about the glory days. Their little eyes go wide as he recounts technological wonders long gone. Had he less control it would have brought a smile to his face, especially when he lets slip his knowledge of the Old Cybertronian language and soon has a whole group begging to learn it.

·While he's hardly gone soft, he does allow the humans a touch more... freedom, in how they interact with him compared to others. They even enjoy the privilege of resting atop his shoulders or in his arms, though that's purely to save his back the strain of constantly bending down to their height. Any bot that says otherwise is swiftly reminded of his combat prowess. He begins to learn each human's unique personality and quirks in time, especially how some are better with history and others excelled at language. Learning bits about their own culture was surprisingly interesting as well, with pictures and videos of long gone human civilizations proving that some of Earth's occupants had decent aesthetic taste.

·Without knowing it, he more or less avoided discussing his own past with the little group, gently steering the conversation each time it ventured too close to the personal. The reason became blindly apparent when they learned of his former affiliation and the crimes he'd committed while sworn to it. Though not present for the revelation, he's certain of their reaction being one of fear and disgust, and immediately withdraws from the crew to hole himself up. Emotions too powerful to stifle force him to isolate for the sake of what remains of his pride. Not even knowing how exactly the humans found out, he's not particularly inclined to discover the manner, as the damage has been done. Admittedly, he was foolish to assume it wouldn't happen sooner.... Regardless, he knows he can never face them again.

·Unbeknownst to him, the revelation was a mistake, and one not met with any particular judgement. The liaisons were only concerned when he failed to appear at standard places of meeting, and as a unit agreed to check up on the bot they'd all come to admire. It had taken all of them knocking to get a coherent response through the door, and Cyclonus had cursed himself for being unable to simply tell them to leave, his spark indeed proving too soft at the sight of them all together. When he'd allowed the group inside, the last thing he'd been expecting was a coordinated embrace between the lot of them, but that had proven to be their tactic straight away. It had proven cunning and effective. A plurality of reasons for his shame had melted in the face of open hearted acceptance, with the entire group promising that who he had been mattered little compared to who he was now. To prevent a humiliating display of tears he'd accepted their assurance without fuss, but had indeed been convinced by the sheer strength of their conviction to continue meeting them for their little talks. Despite himself, he'd actually smiled the first time reuniting with them afterwards, his demeanor growing warmer in their presence from then on as he promised to himself no harm would ever befall them. They had accepted him, and he would do the same in return. Nothing in his past had ever compared to the treasure of simply knowing them.

#transformers #maccadam #mtmte #more than meets the eye #lostlight #lost light #ll #idw #tf #my writing #my asks #anon #requests #liaisons #human reader #self insert #megatron #cyclonus

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shut-up-and-touch-the-sky · 3 years

Text

Farewell, to the boy who was looking for freedom.

Today is a sad day for all of us who read and love Shingeki no Kyojin, because, apart from other beloved characters, Eren Jeager has finally died.

An Eren who, in his last years and moments of life, was already dead. There was no sparkle in their eyes and there was no glimmer of faith or hope in their soul for the humanity that so tormented, oppressed and murdered them, which is understandable. He could only have the faith that, by sacrificing himself, leaving aside his heart, humanity, family, friends and feelings, he could leave a world where his race and his people could live in freedom, without ties, oppression or fear of being eaten. constantly.

Faith that they could enjoy that freedom and that he knew he would never get, because he was a slave to his own desire and longing. He was a slave to his destiny and the life he had to live, for he was destined to die like cattle or die as a villain.

Despite his great and selfish desire, despite having murdered millions of people and comrades having died for his cause, his motive was noble, because he simply wanted his people to live free for many years, even if he had to take away the freedom of the whole world (genocide is not justifiable, it is only a description).

That Eren we met at the beginning, clumsy, quarrelsome, weak, innocent, dreamy and gentle, has disappeared to truly become a demon, forced by circumstances, and the vital and situational context where he was born.

A demon, who has suffered for years the weight of knowing what was going to happen in the future and knowing that he would not be able to change it, despite looking for signs where, perhaps and only perhaps, the future could have changed, such as words from Mikasa or Sasha's last word.

A demon who has alienated all the people he loved, in order to advance on a path of death, blood and terror, because he knew that his companions and friends had too many good hearts to be able to participate in it. A demon who knew that the only way to be stopped was precisely by those he loves, wants and needs to live every year being free. A demon that trusted and did not take the powers away from his friends, so that they could finally kill him, even if he had to fight with them and, perhaps, some of them will die. A demon who trusted in the goodness and kindness of his friends, he trusted in their values and principles, to the point of knowing that he was going to be killed by them sooner or later.

And I think that seeing Mikasa for the last time, and being the one to free him from such a cruel fate, was a relief, because he knows that she, despite not having stopped loving him, has finally accepted who is the person she loves and who he has become, knowing that his actions could not be allowed.

Finally, Mikasa has accepted who Eren Jeager is, has accepted her feelings and has accepted that she is the one who should kill him, even though she is thinking about him for the rest of her life, even if Eren tells her to forget about him, it would be a cowardly act where she would run away from reality. She wants to keep the scarf of the person who saved her and always keep remembering him, just as she remembers Sasha and the rest of the people that she appreciated and lost along the way.

Eren Jeager is and will be a benchmark of continuous struggle, determination, honor and freedom for many of us. As well as a reference of how ideals end up enslaving us and distancing us from those we love. We could say that Eren is the figure of the search for freedom, and maybe also of freedom itself, but only those of us who know him know that he has never been free as he wanted. Really, the only way that Eren could achieve freedom is by dying and living in the hearts of all those to whom he gave back that freedom that was taken from them since they were born.

Eren have died broken, shattered, desolate, dejected, afflicted, feeling guilty and surely, although it sounds contradictory, sorry for all those deaths that he has caused, which were necessary for him. Even though his friends have had to kill him, he has died being loved by them. I cannot imagine the psychological and emotional breakdown that he has had to go through to reach these extremes.

A great character has left us, has achieved his freedom, ceasing to be a slave to himself and, surely, he can rest in peace, together with his mother who will be waiting for him after so many years.

I hope that the time loop has been suppressed, and the image that Isayama showed us in an event about the vignette of the final chapter, on the way to the birth of the first child born being free thanks to the sacrifice of thousands of soldiers of the Survey Corps, sacrifice of millions of innocent people, sacrifice of the last Legion's soldiers and the great sacrifice of Eren Jeager. Here it gives way, or I hope, to the beginning of a new era based on the same freedom that so many people struggled to achieve and did not get to know.

You have already achieved your freedom, Eren. You can rest in peace. Just as Mikasa will never forget you, neither will we.

May the wings of freedom, that you longed for so much, take you far.

Sayonara, to the boy who was desperately seeking freedom.

#eren jeager #shingeki no kyojin #snk #snk spoilers #aot #.#mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #jean kirschein #connie springer #reiner braun #annie leonhardt #levi ackerman #gabi braun #falco grice #pieck finget

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werezmastarbucks · 3 years

Text

amalfi

honeymoon masterlist

word count: 1751

They were probably going out of their minds with worry out there. Even Damon must have already started feeling guilty. God knows what that monster Kai Parker could do with you in the prison world, where he had no other thing to play with, but you.

The sea air was sweet and salty, warm, and your lungs were breathing slowly for you, as you took deep pockets of it through your nose. You knew you couldn’t get healthier even if you spent the whole time at Mar Tirreno. It was rather frustrating that all the time you spent in the sun, warming up and bathing in the lovely May rays, you wouldn’t change a bit because your whole organism was on the loop, too.

You were going through the CDs again. There were very clear, understandable rules in this world: for instance, never run out of music. You couldn’t function without music. It soothed Kai well, and it made driving everywhere easier. He wasn’t joking when he said he wouldn’t get behind the wheel unless there was a dire need. For that, he cooked.

He cooked so well. All the dishes you didn’t know the names of, he was eager to show off his talent of many years of training. He made food so good you wondered how a heartless person is capable of putting so much soul into it. He even taught you how to cook something, which was a big achievement.

“Trash. Trash. Trash”, you chanted to yourself, throwing them out of the window. It was such a satisfying feeling to throw something out of the window of a car, even when you weren’t moving. You had to remind yourself though, that, once you get out, it would be littering. Here, nobody gave a shit. The planet didn’t give a shit. It did not acknowledge your presence, it wasn’t aware of you two quietly moving around its surface. It was hybernating.

Kai was pondering on something, standing on the edge of the cliff. The sights here were beyond words. All the way to the horizon line, the light turquoise sea was calm and looked like warm lemonade. The sky was matching color, and the bright green trees shuffled nonchalantly in the lightest breeze that filled your skin and lungs.

You’ve been arguing a little, about this and that, adjusting. The Florence fiasco left you feeling a little helpless (Kai raided the local antique library and found a spell that supposedly was used earlier for escaping from places such as this one; you’ve tried it; it didn’t work. Apparently, Bennett blood was still needed), and he wasn’t very supportive. Kai grew lazy and delighted with life like a fat cat; he didn’t even pretend anymore to be stressed out about being here. He was playing his own game of wearing you out into sleeping with him. Ever since you got here, you haven’t even kissed a single time, the shock of change, and the fact of being locked away and all. There was a certain moment when you realized you’re unable to think about romance, because you’re hybernating, too. You were searching for the way out, and pushing Kai to do the same. Although he slept with you every night, and you got quite used to him lying next to you, the unmistakable comforting heat of his body lulling you into sleep, you felt like you wanted to freeze in that moment. You felt like you were restricted by something.

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” you suddenly realized, and turned to him. Your mouth formed an O. “Oh my god, it’s your birthday every day”.

Kai looked at you with the same look he gave you every time he thought you were being slow. Given his hyperactivity, and his sharp psychopathic mind never resting a bitching second, anybody would seem a little slow to him.

“I’m an eternal birthday boy”, he confirmed, a little sleepily, “it’s high time you start treating me accordingly”.

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” you asked, starting the car.

“You know it’s only us here, right? There’s no one to see you, or stop you, to judge you”, he said, cryptic as hell. The road was smooth, the asphalt glistened with heat, gliding car feeling its wheels like they were blades on ice. You went bananas and carjacked a 911 Carrera S for this place. This whole Italian vibe made you feel like you were incredibly rich. Life was sweet like shave ice with strawberry syrop soaking it through. You still waited for the other shoe to drop... looking at Kai, sometimes you thought, what if it never does? He’s crazy. His world is crazy. What if it’s not supposed to be bad here with him?

“I’m aware of that”, you replied.

“You don’t have to pretend”, Kai concluded, “you can admit whatever you feel for me. Sooner or later you’ll end up on my dick anyway. We like each other, it’s a fact”.

Your hands squeezed the wheel as you stared in front of you. Kai had a point. There was mutual attraction.

There was mutual need, too.

“Maybe I do have to pretend”.

“What for?”

He tried to seem dispassionate, but you knew he was impatient. Kai Parker was a very impatient person. If he got to the car first, he’d always scream to make you move quicker. He knew there was no hurry whatsoever, but he hated to wait. He yelled at stoves. He cursed at traffic lights even though you obviously ignored them all. Just the sight of a red light pissed him off.

Now, he had to be patient to get to the third base. He was somewhat cunning about it; his night embrace was a little more than just a cuddle.

“We’re here less than a month. Who knows how long more it’s going to be? I mean, we can’t get bored at once, you know?”

Kaik blinked, processing.

“Right, princess. You want entertainment?”

You didn’t like the tone of that.

Perhaps the way he said it scared you enough to give you a nightmare.

You dreamt you walked down your street in Mystic Falls. It was so atypically dark your skin crawled. You didn’t hear them, but you could feel vampires were around you. They were not usual vampires, like Damon and Stefan - human, friendly, diverse and nice looking. They were monsters from 80s fantasy filled horrors, with long saliva dripping fangs, and, most importantly, demonic. An old feeling of supernatural presence, which startled you at night when Kai attempted to save you by killing you, once again made you freeze with horror.

You walked faster, trying to get away, and praying for light. Not a single street light was on, you couldn’t even see it. The blackness was thick and absolute, and you knew you’d be attacked any second. Fear was physical in this one, stinging you, making it hard to move your feet. You tried running and stumbled upon something, falling on hard ground. Before you managed to get up, you felt somebody leaning over you, breathing down the back of your head. You were trapped.

You woke up and stared into the darkness, expecting a painful bite. You’ve been bitten by vampires before. It was very painful, but you couldn’t imagine what it would feel like this time.

Trying to figure out where you are, just like always, you were afraid to move an inch not to produce a sound. Slowly, you moved your fingers, then your shoulders, and started feeling the weight of the blanket on you. You heard the sea. You exhaled through your nose and rolled on your back to see the empty bed.

“Kai?” you whispered. You sat up and grouped, holding onto your knees. It’s always like that with nightmares; they go, and you stay in them. Brain knows the room is empty, but the mind is still captivated. You still expect them to jump out of the closet. And of all people, Kai Parker must be the one to save you. Why?

“Kai!” you called, irritated. Why the fuck, of all nights he pushes you almost off the bed with his invasive hugs, he’s not there exactly tonight, when you need human warmth to get your head straight.

“KAI!”

The door opened slowly. He was standing in complete darkness, wide awake.

“What is it?”

You were silent for some time. Admitting your vulnerability to him would be about the last threshold. You’d have to completely love each other after this. You wouldn’t be able to let him go. It all now depended on how he’d react.

“I had a nightmare”.

He walked towards the bed slowly, sat down and offered his shoulder. He always hugged you in this wide gesture, which he probably saw in a movie. It was a commercial dad hug, wide swing of an arm which then rested around your shoulder. The only times he felt humanly close was when he was clinging on you at night.

He settled on the pillows, bringing you close, and you finally let the air out with relief.

“You still get spooked?” he asked with surprise.

“Yes”.

“What was it about?”

“Vampires”.

He hummed.

In this night calm, you were close enough to hear something beat in his chest. You asked yourself what curious chain of events made you end up together with this interesting individual. What comes out of it.

His hand rested on your bare shoulder, fingers drawing uneven circles absently. He seemed a bit distant but he liked touching you. You could still smell your own perfume on his shirt from the day. You got that fragile desire to kiss him, to rub your face on his neck, to be close to him.

“We’re really completely alone here”, you said.

“Yeah”.

“How did you know Bonnie and Damon came?”

“I felt it, I’m a witch after all”.

“How can you be sure there aren’t any beasts here? Something goes wrong, aliens slither into this dimension. Some chthonic monster. Some ancient spirits. Your own double, or demons. Or something”.

“It’s an empty place, Y/N, I just know it. I have been everywhere around, and I didn’t find anyone. I’d be happy to meet a chthonic monster even. But we are tremendously alone”.

At this moment the hug tightened because you brought him closer.

“But I like it here with you”, he added, “it’s not that bad. People are boring anyway”.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries #vampire diaries imagine #tvd imagine

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thecipherlegacy · 3 years

Text

Comfort and Confessions

A short fic of when Noiren finally confesses to Kenaas. I've been in the mood to write these two lately 💛

Enjoy!

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

Noiren clung to his glass as if it were a lifeline. His ruby fingers curled around it, shaking, which caused the amber liquid inside to ripple as if there was a ground quake.

Some thing odd was happening, leaving him confused and distraught. The Jedi he had taken in and began to teach the ways of the sith to, he had really gotten under his skin. Not in a way that made him angry, oh no. Quite the opposite, really. He adored him, trusted him with his life. He had never had a good track record with trusting others, which was why the only two in his ship before the small nautolan showed up was his brother and an HK unit. But he felt this connection, this bond in the force that grew stronger and stronger with this nautolan every passing day.

"Are you going to actually drink that? Or are you going to stare into it until you get a premonition?" The alien in question broke through the man's thoughts. Noiren jumped and made an unflattering sound. He thought he had been alone at the table. But he supposed in a small ship someone would find him eventually. The sith lord straightened back up and re-wrapped his left lekku over his shoulder comfortably to once again hide the scars around his neck.

"I thought you were asleep" he responded cooly. "It's late"

"Hm. Says the man sitting alone in the dark with whiskey" the other man's brow raised at him. His large dark eyes were shining with worry. "I woke because I could feel your discomfort. Your brother felt it as well, but I insisted he sleep."

The twi'lek huffed. "I'll be fine. I'm simply nervous about trying to track down this republic captain I've been ordered to look for." He lied. In response, the small nautolan looked unconvinced and unimpressed.

"You know that I know when you lie, right?" He asked flatly as his fingers drummed in the table, as he tended to do when he got frustrated or impatient. "You've been acting oddly toward me lately. Why? Have I done something wrong?"

Noiren shook his head "No. You're perfect" he sighed, then his cheeks deepened in colour and he tried to correct what he said. "I mean fine- well… not fine, but- ugh. You know what I mean."

The other male giggled wildly at his fumbling. "My goodness, how many drinks have you had?" He asked.

In an instant the glass was up to Noirens lips and he downed the liquor inside. "One, officially" he muttered. "So were you coming out here to actually help me or just make me wish I was drinking alone in the dark in my room?"

The laugher died down and Kenaas pat his arm. "Aw Noiren, I'm sorry. Your fumbling was just adorable." He admitted "talk to me, what's eating you?"

Why did he give him that option again? HE was eating him. Every thought of the small nautolan man was eating away at his body and mind. His heart skipped beats when he was around and his mind clouded. He felt a connection to him in the force as strong if not stronger than his familial bond with his brother. Those big black eyes, vast as the night sky, stared up at him as he awaited a response.

"I'm not sure" came the lie after a seemingly endless and tense silence.

A hand covered Noiren's to attempt some comfort. Such a small hand felt so heavy on his own, and he tore it away quickly as if he had been burned by it. His regret for the action was immediate when he saw those soulful eyes turn away in hurt.

"Ah- I see. I'll stop bothering you, my friend. When you're ready to talk you know where to find me."

Noiren screamed at himself internally to say something, anything, to stop Kenaas from leaving. But instead he sat quietly while the other man left the room with a dejected slump in his walk. He hurt him. "Coward…" noiren scolded himself and poured another glass of whiskey.

This glass went down as quickly as the first. Liquid courage, he thought. After his fourth time pouring a new glass a yellow colored hand gently slid over the rim of the cup to keep Noiren from drinking from it. "I can't sleep while my brother is so distressed." Aidesan's kind voice filled the room. "What happened?"

The sith lord sighed and looked up at his brother. His head was fogged, but he wouldn't say he was drunk. "I upset Kenaas. I don't know what's wrong with me." The older man groaned and hid his face in frustration. "I haven't been able to keep a clear head around him and I feel this weird connection with him, in the force" he sighed. His brother started to chuckle.

"You really don't know whats going on?... Noiren… you're in love with the little jedi" Aidesan stated matter of factly. "Your fumbling, your staring, your-"

"No. No no, that can't be true. I… I can't be in love." Noiren denied quickly. "I swore I wouldn't."

"Wouldn't love? Or Wouldn't love him?" His brother raised a brow at him "you love me don't you? You're kid brother?"

"Yes but that's different! You're family. Romantic love leads to pain. I would be putting down my shield and letting him see my weaknesses. Weaknesses he could easily exploit later." Noiren began to pace, albeit a little crooked and wobbly since the alcohol had made him less stable.

"Brother." Aidesan stopped him with a stern tone. "Do you really think that sweet nautolan would harm you? He apologizes for squashing bugs. Give him a chance. And more importantly, give yourself a chance."

A deep sigh escaped the older one's lips, then he slowly turned to face the other man. "He deserves better. He's pure and gentle. Passionate. He's a healer and a fixer. My soul purpose is to break things and kill people."

As he finished speaking, two gentle hands rested in his shoulders. "Noiren… you're so much more than that, and even if that is partially true, he's a fixer and you're a breaker. You complete each other, right?"

This earned a chuckle that came out as a scoff. "Maybe." He muttered softly as he crossed his arms as if they were a protective barrier.

"Noiren… Go talk to him. Don't let him go to sleep feeling this way."

The older twi'lek sighed dramatically and glanced into the dark hall. "Alright. You need to get some sleep, though." He frowned.

"I will, brother. Let me know how it goes" the younger gave him one more smile, then retreated back to his own quarters on the ship. Noiren sighed again and went to Kenass's quarters nervously. He stared at the closed door. It shouldn't have been that hard to just knock, but that durasteel sheet between himself and the other force user felt heavy and intimidating.

Suddenly the door slid open, startling the sith, and the younger male was looking up at him from the other side.

"Noiren. I can feel your presence you know, we share quite the profound bond" he said as he turned to go back to his bed. "Is there something I can help you with? You reek of whiskey."

"I want to talk to you" The other mumbled. He watched the nautolan sit upon the bed gracefully. Everything he did always looked so beautiful. How had he not realized that before?

"Then speak, my friend. You know I'm always here to help you. I was hoping you would come to chat. You need to get quite the weight off your chest."

Noiren nodded before sitting beside him. "Kenaas…" he sighed as he prepared himself to speak. "when I was a child, on Ryloth, I had two brothers and a twin sister-" he started from the beginning. The younger one's dark eyes widened as he listened. Noiren had never opened up before, at least not to this extent. He always refused to talk about his youth.

"You know my brother, Aidesan. I also have my youngest brother Orcra, who was put into Imperial intelligence, and my poor sister, Arianness… she was sold as a slave. We were taken by the imperials when we were just kids. I watched them execute my parents." As Noiren spoke he attempted to not show how hard it was to talk about his family, but he didn't have to. Kenaas could feel every emotion the other man was feeling. His emotions hit like a wave in the force to the jedi and his own eyes shimmered with tears from the intensity.

"What happened after you were separated?..." Kenaas worried and gently touched Noiren's hand. This time the other man didn't pull away. He knew he was vulnerable. He needed the contact. Noirens chest rose and fell with a sputter after their hands connected. It was as if a direct link was made between them and it hit him like a brick. All of the feelings he had been suppressing, all of the feelings in his companion, the power they both held in the force. It all melted together instantly and he had never felt anything like it.

Once the shock of the new feeling passed he finally answered. "I stopped trusting people." He said. He hadn't realized that he had gotten a little closer to his friend. "The only people that mattered were my siblings. I did as I was told just so I could stay alive and keep my brother alive. That is…. Until I ran into you on Tatooine."

A small smile played the nautolans lips "you imprisoned me on your ship" he reminded him.

"But even then I felt…. Something. Something new, something strange. Something I only share with my family. It was like I knew you. But I had never met you before. And it's gotten stronger and stronger. I can feel where you are in the ship. I can feel what you feel."

Kenaas squeezed his hand a little "I know." He mumbled, then placed his free hand on Noiren's cheek "Even when we first met I felt your sorrow. Your pain. We both needed someone that could understand our hardships. The moment we met a bond was struck in the force. I may not understand why, but I refuse to question it."

The sith leaned into the gentle touch, desperate for any sort of comfort or affection. "I'm sorry I shoved you off earlier… I was afraid" his words came out as nearly a whisper. Admitting to fear wasn't easy for him.

Their foreheads gently made contact. "Hush. It's alright, it stung but I knew you would come to me when you were ready."

There was a brief silence as Noiren took a deep breath, then released it. His nerves were calming under the feeling of his companions gentle and kind aura. For every tidal wave of broken emotions he would send out, the other man's healing soul would calm and help control it by blanketing his fears and doubts in reassurance and compassion. He was the calming moon to the sith's roaring ocean.

"I love you…" Noiren let it out, a broken whisper riding a shaken breath. He hadn't realized his eyes had been closed for so long until he opened them finally to see the beautiful nautolan looking back at him with a smile and blush dusting his freckled purple cheeks.

"I know" he replied gently and caressed Noirens cheek with his thumb. "I love you too."

They sat in a comfortable silence before finally meeting for a gentle kiss. It was inexperienced, but soft, and filled with every unsaid word and emotion Noiren wanted to give him. His whole heart overflowed with his feelings for the grey force user, who could sense every ounce of it. When they parted Kenaas had to wipe away tears that had finally spilled.

"My goodness- you're so emotional and-" he chuckled happily "I never thought anyone would feel so strongly for me" he continued to try and wipe away the waterworks "I'm a mess"

Noiren could feel himself calm down fully now. Everything was out in the open. He hugged Kenaas close and buried his face in his neck. "Most beautiful mess I've ever seen" he sighed. "Would it be appropriate for me to sleep here tonight?"

A hand gently stroked his lekku "please, make yourself comfortable" the other insisted. Once they fully parted, the pair got comfortable in Kenaas's bed. For the first time since his childhood Noiren felt at peace as he clung to Kenaas and drifted off into a blissful sleep.

#mox's ocs #my ocs #my art #mox's art #mox writes #oc: noiren #oc: kenaas #oc: aidesan #nautolan #twi'lek #sith warrior/jedi counselor #swtor ocs #alcohol tw #drinking tw #this one turned out cute im very excited to finally post it #that arts a little old but thats okay

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lux-i-fer · 3 years

Text

Believer of Faith and Mortality

Ao3 link

Synopsis: Lucifer and Chloe's victim shouldn't be alive, but the fact that he's currently alive and giving a statement says otherwise. When more and more miracle cases begin popping up, Lucifer believes that their lives aren't being spared out of the goodness of his Father's heart. The knock at the door only proves his theory.

Rating: M

Notes: HAHA HEYYYY! Guess who got the chapter out in under a year?? My most sincere apologies that this fic has been updating so slowly, I am just at that time in my life where everything requires my attention all at once and all the time. Never fear, I have not forgotten about this fic ;) This is unbetaed because in the year of our lord 2021, I have lost all hope in producing properly edited work.

Chapter Number: 6

For a few heavy seconds, the entire world shrank down to fit solely into Lucifer’s palm. The silence was almost suffocating as Amenadiel, Lucifer, and John stared at the silver phlegm dripping from Lucifer’s outstretched hand. Even outside of the harsh California sunlight, it still looked metallic and even glimmered like the chrome finishings on his Corvette. John found it almost blinding to look at directly, but there was a nagging feeling inside of him that demanded that he continue to look. The first time he’d seen it on Lucifer’s handkerchief, he’d only gotten a mere glance before Lucifer had hurriedly tucked it out of sight. Perhaps for him it was also supposed to be out of mind, but not for John. John was transfixed.

Looking at it now, he realized that it wasn’t really silver colored. Even though he never tore his eyes from it, it seemed to shift to a different color at the blink of an eye, changing so fast that it blurred together into one solid gray mass. And he found that it wasn't so much as metallic as it was almost lit by a soft inner light. John leaned forward, curious to see if there truly was something there or if he was imagining it.

A hand caught his shoulder and then the rest of the world seemed to snap back into focus. John blinked and when he opened his eyes, Amenadiel stood between him and Lucifer.

“Did you hear anything I just said to you?” he asked. There was a heavy set of wrinkles above his brow that hadn’t been there at the start of their visit.

John blinked again. He felt a little dazed, and found that he couldn’t quite focus in on the rest of Amenadiel’s face. “No?” His voice came out slow and slurred.

Amenadiel frowned. “Okay, why don’t you--” he walked the both of them backwards out of the kitchen until the backs of John’s legs knocked against the edge of a chair, “sit down.”

John did as he was told and then put his head in his hands. He had a roaring headache.

“So,” he heard Amenadiel say. “As I said before, will someone please tell me what is going on?”

“Apparently zombies,” John muttered, massaging the space between his eyes.

“Well, you’re not actual zombies,” Lucifer corrected. “You’re more...undead than anything. If I didn’t know better I’d say that you lot were resurrected, but our Father does not lower himself to dabble in those sorts of miracles anymore.” Even with his eyes closed, John could practically feel the eye roll in his voice.

“No, I meant how long has this been going on.” John looked up to find Amenadiel gesturing to the silver liquid that Lucifer was trying in vain to mop up with his handkerchief.

Lucifer shook his head. “Not long. Just today. Surely it’s nothing.”

Amenadiel looked to John for confirmation.

John shrugged. “I’ve only been here a day, but I guess it lines up? He coughed some of it up on our way here.”

Amenadiel nodded solemnly, while Lucifer shot him a dirty look, the unspoken accusation of traitor hanging in the air. “It’s not that big a deal,” he sniffed. “Whatever it is, surely it’ll sort itself out. There’s no need to coddle me, Amenadiel, my mortality stint ended ages ago.”

John stilled. “Your what?”

Lucifer waved him off, flicking a few silver droplets in his direction. One managed to hit Amenadiel in the chest and his face crumpled up in disgust. “Luci, do everyone else a favor and wash your hands. For all we know this could be contagious.”

John silently agreed. As if the headache wasn’t already making him nauseous, now he was picturing Lucifer as some sort of supernatural Typhoid Mary. Even though he’d seen some pretty nasty stuff during his time as a beat cop, John had always been a bit of a hypochondriac. Not in any serious sense, but realizing that Lucifer could potentially be hacking up the divine equivalent of a ball of mucus and phlegm definitely made his stomach twist.

Lucifer scoffed, but surprisingly listened to his brother. John sent a silent thanks to God, but stopped halfway through his prayer when he realized that he just may be better off directing it at Amenadiel instead. If Lucifer was to be believed, which John still had a healthy amount of skepticism for, Nietzsche had been right. In all the ways that mattered, God was as good as dead. Between the headache and the whole coming back to life thing, John really didn’t want to unpack that existential crisis right now.

“Is that a thing?” he asked instead. “Can you guys get the celestial flu or something?”

Lucifer sighed. “Don’t be silly, Jonathan. Angels can’t get sick.”

“Well clearly you are, so that can’t be entirely true.”

“John has a point, Luci. Whatever this is, it shouldn’t be happening.” Amenadiel turned to John. “And whatever is going on with souls crossing back over the threshold shouldn’t be happening either. It would be foolish to assume that these two events coinciding is a mere coincidence. I’d like to hear more about how you got back to Earth, John. I have a feeling that Luci has omitted some key details.”

At that, Lucifer tightened his hand around his glass of whiskey. At some point he’d poured himself glass number four, making John certain that he would be DD’ing the Devil himself back to Chloe’s apartment later.

“I don’t think I’m the best one to ask about details.” The image of Lucifer’s wrist covered in “souvenirs” flashed through John’s mind. “If anything, we were coming to you for some answers. All I know is that one second I’m in Limbo with this jackass,” he jerked a thumb in Lucifer’s direction, “and the next my daughter is telling me that I’ve been dead for nearly twenty years.”

“Limbo?” Amenadiel asked incredulously. “What ever were you doing there? Human souls are not supposed to go there.”

“Well I did. Lucifer told me that others go there too.”

Amenadiel looked at Lucifer.

“Times have changed, brother. Humans have more fight in them now, and Azrael has a shorter temper than she used to. Humans still condemn themselves to their respective eternities, but if they are particularly wily and combative when Azrael sees them off, sometimes she doesn’t see the job through. Usually they make it where they need to go without her guidance, but occasionally they do not. Those who don’t end up in Limbo.” Lucifer inclined his head in John’s direction, as if to give an example.

Amenadiel didn’t look convinced. “How could John have been in Limbo if he recalls seeing you? How are you certain that it wasn’t Hell?”

“It wasn’t Hell,” Lucifer said sharply, catching both Amenadiel and John off guard. John wasn’t sure what had just happened, but whatever Amenadiel had implied was obviously a touchy subject.

Lucifer stared at them for a moment, dark eyes unblinking and tracking their reactions like a predator. Then he sighed, and his shoulders relaxed, as if a great weight had dragged them down. His fingers worried his cufflinks again.

“Hell isn’t my only domain. Technically Dad also cursed me with that Dad-forsaken wasteland, but I hardly visited. It was a nice getaway when Hell became too much to bear, but it was just as undesirable in different ways.” Lucifer paused then. His eyes had grown distant, and his jaw was set. His hands flitted back to his glass.

“Do you remember our fallen brethren?” he said, his voice small.

Amenadiel’s brow furrowed at the subject change. “Of course, Luci.”

Lucifer continued to stare into his glass. “I wasn’t the only one who changed after I Fell. Our siblings, the ones that eventually fell too, they burned just as I did. After I had managed to pull myself out of the Lake of Fire, I gave the ones whose minds hadn’t completely shattered during the process positions within my court. They were, after all, family.” He chuckled humorlessly.

“In light of my recent sins, nepotism seemed like the least of my concerns at that point. I was correct, to some degree. Over time, most of the fallen grew twisted and corrupted by sin and they became a new breed of demon--an archduke-- but there were others who never recovered from the Fall. Something within them had broken. They weren’t quite demons and they certainly were not angels, either. They were, for lack of better description, mutilated. Inside and out. Their minds were fractured and their bodies, well--”

Lucifer’s form contorted like a tv glitch. Where his face should have been was replaced with something scarred and horrifying. It vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, but it didn’t matter because John had seen. Lucifer’s regular face was back, but John saw it with new clarity. Even before, he would freely admit that Lucifer was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, but it was a different beauty now. Now the sculpted angles of his face looked cruel and alien.

He didn’t think there were words to describe the primal sense of fear he had felt upon seeing it. It was like an echo of the morning’s conversation, when he’d discovered the name of the angel that had guided him through Limbo. He wanted to bolt like a spooked horse and run and run until he was certain that Lucifer would never find him. John’s heart raced, but his fear kept him rooted in his chair. He knew he should calm down. He had to calm down. His head felt like it was going to explode. John groaned and put his head back in his hands.

“Jonathan.”

John’s head snapped back up, bringing a wave of dizziness along with it. His heart seized when he realized that Lucifer was staring straight at him. The afterimage of his burned face lingered in John’s mind’s eye, and it was almost impossible for him to look at Lucifer at all.

“Do not go breaking on me now. The Detective will be very upset with me if you do.” His tone was blasé, but John saw a glint of uncertainty in his eye. Was Lucifer upset by his reaction? Why would the Devil even feel that way? John searched his shark-eyes for an answer.

Shockingly, Lucifer was the one to look away first. He returned his attention to his glass for a second time before continuing his explanation.

“The other fallen--the ones driven mad by the Fall-- were little more than rabid dogs, and they had developed an insatiable hunger for divine flesh. I suppose in human terms you would say they became cannibals, but such a human concept does not do their transformation justice. They were truly beastly, mere husks of angels and mutated beyond any demon.” John shuddered as he remembered the feeling of claws tracing along his cheek. Beastly indeed.

“So I locked them up,” Lucifer proclaimed. “I had the archdukes assist me in rounding them up and throwing them into Limbo. There they could live freely, on a separate plane away from Heaven and Hell, and out of my hair. I would only visit occasionally, like I said, for peace and quiet and to make sure that they were behaving.”

The room dissolved into silence once again. Amenadiel seemed to still be processing the information, and John was trying his best not to pass out from pain or fear. He still wasn’t sure which would eventually win out. He supposed by the way his skull felt like it was getting a forced lobotomy he would have to say it was going to be the pain.

Amenadiel finally cleared his throat. “So if I understand you correctly, you have been completely aware that these...creatures have been running amuck in Limbo, and yet you continue to let them roam, even though they're torturing innocent souls?”

In an instant, Lucifer slammed his hands onto the counter. John flinched as the sound ricocheted through his head like a massive bell. Amenadiel stood, unflinching, his face contorted into a stony mask. Lucifer’s eyes blazed and his lips curled back into a snarl. In that moment he looked every bit of the razor-sharp angel that had plucked John from the clutches of his cannibalistic siblings.

“Do not twist my words, Amenadiel, and do not criticize that which you do not know. I made the best of a bad hand. I dredged the land for lost souls as often as I could, but there was only so much I could do. And make no mistake, not all of the souls I found were innocent. I spared rapists and murderers from the clutches of our deranged siblings just as often as I pulled out martyred cops and saints. They all got the justice they deserved, and I carried it out like a good little son.”

At that, Lucifer turned on his heel and busied himself with something on the other side of the kitchen. Amenadiel simply watched his brother sulk and sighed heavily. “Luci,” he said to the Devil sulking in the kitchen. “I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to pin the blame on you. I jumped to conclusions.”

Lucifer turned back to face them, face drained of any prior anger. “Damn right you did.”

“But,” Amenadiel continued, pointing a finger at Lucifer. “My initial point still stands. It’s obvious that these creatures are dangerous, and yet they roam freely in Limbo. The last interaction you had with John was in the presence of these creatures. Isn’t there a possibility that your illness and John’s return to Earth are linked? They feed on the divine, and you said it yourself that none of the other resurrections occurred more than a day following their initial death.”

“That’s just it,” John chimed in. “Technically, it’s been twenty-or-so years since I saw Lucifer in Limbo. It may have only felt like a couple hours for me, but I imagine for him…” He waved his hand in lieu of finishing his thought.

“Yes, Jonathan is correct. In fact, I forgot about your existence entirely until you started threatening me over breakfast this morning.” Lucifer clapped his hands together. “At any rate, I think we can surmise that whatever this silver nonsense is, it is most certainly a fluke. If these events were truly connected then I would have gotten ill two decades ago. Nothing to do with Johnathan. Nothing to worry about. The resurrections on the other hand...” he shrugged.

“I don’t think we should discount the idea,” John cut in again. “Amenadiel’s right, it’s stupid to overlook the possibility. For now, I suppose we can put a pin in it, but it shouldn’t be off the table completely.”

Lucifer shot him an annoyed look. “Fine, whatever. Gang up on me, then.”

“Luci, we’re trying to help,” Amenadiel chided. Lucifer just rolled his eyes.

“The other bodies reeked of Heaven,” he started again, changing the subject. “I don’t know why or how, but they do, and it’s positively unbearable.”

John didn’t know Heaven even had a smell, but Amenadiel nodded like he understood. “I don’t have an answer or even an idea of how to explain that facet of this mystery. I would have to go to the Silver City to find out any more information.”

Lucifer considered Amenadiel’s proposition for a moment. He finished off the rest of his drink and glanced around the room. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked. “We’re in a time crunch, the sooner the better!” Dropping his empty glass into the sink, Lucifer swept out of the kitchen and towards the door. He turned back to face John and Amenadiel, a hand poised on the door handle. “Brother, I’ll be expecting your answer shortly.” Then he gestured to John. “Are you coming?”

John just sighed and hauled himself out of the chair. It took some effort to get his bearings, and when he finally did he stuck out his hand for Amenadiel to shake once more. Amenadiel inclined his head towards John and offered him a genuine smile.

“It was very nice to meet you, John Decker. Chloe speaks very highly of you. I can see now that her stories ring truthfully. You're a good man.”

John returned the smile, wincing as the pain in his head worsened with the movement. “Well I don’t know about that, but thank you. It was nice to meet you too.”

Before John could say anything else, Amenadiel dropped his hand and simply disappeared into thin air. John stared stupidly at the spot the angel had been occupying just a few moments before. He wasn’t sure what just happened, but at this point, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to find out.

Lucifer made an impatient sound from his place at the door. “Jonathan, you’re dallying. Are you going to stare off into space for the entire day?”

John shook himself and started towards the door. “Yeah, yeah, calm down I’m coming.”

When they reached the parking lot, John ignored the pain in his head and made a b-line for the driver’s side door, just barely sliding his body between it and Lucifer’s hand reaching for the handle.

“Give me your keys,” he said, making sure to use his no-bullshit cop voice.

“No.” Lucifer tried to wiggle his way around John, but John stood firm.

“You just drank four glasses of hard alcohol, I’m not letting you drive drunk through downtown LA.” Lucifer only continued to wiggle and try to squirm his way around John. Fuck, did he ever stop moving? John caught Lucifer’s arm as he tried to reach for something in the car. “Seriously, Lucifer, stop. I don’t care that you’re the Devil, you’re not driving.”

As weird as it felt to say that, there was truth in John’s words. His fear over seeing Lucifer’s other face had almost entirely dissipated.

“I’m not intoxicated, I have a supernatural metabolism!” He wiggled his arm out of John’s grasp and leaned around him to grab whatever it was that he had been trying to get from the car. When he found it, Lucifer handed the mystery item to John. It was a breathalyzer. Police issued. Most likely Chloe’s, John thought. When John did nothing with it, Lucifer pushed it and the hand holding it to John’s chest.

“Test me,” he said. “If I blow under the legal limit, I drive. If I blow over, which I won’t, you can drive. Deal?”

John sighed. He knew Lucifer was trying to compromise, but it didn’t change the fact that John’s patience had been steadily declining since Lucifer had decided to drag him all over the city. “Fine,” he said, exasperated and desperately wishing for somewhere to lie down.

He quickly set up the breathalyzer, his muscle memory taking over for him. Through some small miracle, Lucifer took the test without complaint. John had expected the meter to read at least an .09, but he was dumbfounded when he saw the 0.00 staring back at him.

“Holy shit,” he mumbled. He gave the breathalyzer a little shake just to make sure it had gotten the right reading. The numbers remained unchanged.

Lucifer smirked. “Can we get on with things, then?”

On a day when John’s head wasn’t killing him, he would have asked for a retest, just to ensure that Lucifer hadn’t somehow rigged it in his favor. But John was exhausted and it was almost impossible to fake something like a breathalyzer, especially one that he himself had administered, so he decided to just let it slide. After all, it wasn’t like he was in any better condition to drive.

Wordlessly, John stepped out of the way and climbed into the passenger seat. Lucifer gave a victorious whoop and threw himself into the car. Another twinge of pain drilled through John’s skull and he winced away from his companion.

Now that he could take a moment to just breathe, John could finally acknowledge that he didn’t feel like himself. He felt feverish. Or high. He’d never been high to know what that felt like though. His forehead felt like it was about to split open like an egg, and he brought a hand up to touch it, just to make sure that no cracks had started to form. When he felt nothing, he squeezed his eyes shut and flopped back against the seat, wondering why Lucifer hadn’t driven off yet.

“Lucifer, why aren’t we moving?” he muttered, politeness thrown by the wayside.

“Because you’re doing a rather dramatic imitation of a dying raccoon. I don’t know much about humans, but I know enough to recognize that this isn’t normal behavior.” John must be hallucinating because Lucifer’s voice almost sounded caring. He told him as such.

Lucifer scoffed and finally shifted the car into gear. They drove in silence for about ten minutes before he spoke again. “It is possible that your body isn’t as stable as we initially thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s either that or your soul is unstable. Either way, something, besides the obvious, is not right. I have a feeling this headache of yours has been triggered by some imbalance. Whether that imbalance is in your mind, body, soul, or if my Father has decided to restitch the fabric of the universe, I cannot say for certain. The easiest way to solve it would be to return you back to your prior state.”

“My prior state, as in dead, right?”

Lucifer hummed, a nonanswer. That was all John needed to know that he’d been correct.

“Hey, please tell me we’re going back to Chloe’s?” he said, changing the subject. “It would really make her upset if we’re not there when she gets off work.”

“Ah, actually we won’t beat the Detective home.”

John sat straight up, whipping his head towards Lucifer. “What do you mean we’re not making it home before Chloe?”

Lucifer waved his hand absently. “Well you’ve lived in LA, you know how the traffic can be. Plus, we wasted more time than I had anticipated at Amenadiel’s.”

John sputtered and checked his watch. “But it’s like four in the afternoon. Even with traffic it won’t take us that long to get to her apartment, and the LAPD doesn’t usually let cops off until five at the earliest.”

“And you’d be correct; however, we’re not going to the Detective’s apartment straight away.”

“Where could we possibly be going?” John threw his hands up in the air because the alternative was to wrap them around Lucifer’s throat to choke some sense into him.

“I planned on stopping to grab something to eat, since I’m famished and surely you are too, considering we skipped lunch and barely had breakfast. I figured if we aren’t going to beat the Detective home we might as well show up with something to soften the blow. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission, you know.”

Lucifer shrugged. “Besides, it’s likely that she won’t be in a good mood anyways. I missed a call from her around noon, and about an hour ago she texted me saying that she wasn’t feeling well and was thinking about taking off of work early.”

“Did you call her back?” John asked.

“Call who back?”

John stared at him, bewildered. “Chloe. You said she tried to call you. Is she okay?” John’s outrage had been building slowly over the course of the day, but it had skyrocketed more in the last ten minutes than it had in the past few hours. He’d kept himself in check so far, but he wasn’t sure if he could hold it back if Lucifer insisted on being this much of an idiot.

“Oh. No, I didn’t return her call. I’m sure she’s fine, though.”

Something in John’s chest shifted. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he exploded. “First, she tells you not to leave the house, and the first thing you do is immediately go against her wishes. Then, you don’t even have the audacity to return her phone call? You’re acting like such an asshole. I love Chloe and I respect her, but I don’t know what she sees in you. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t deserve her.”

Lucifer stilled. His fingers stopped on the steering wheel mid-drum, and if not for the wind whipping at his clothes, John would have thought that he was made of stone. A drop of fear slid down John’s spine as the weight of his actions settled into his bones. He may have gotten over the initial shock of seeing Lucifer’s true face, but that still didn’t change the fact that he’d just screamed at the Devil. No, not even that, he’d just screamed at Chloe’s boyfriend. Partner. Whatever he was. Someone important to her.

But just because Chloe cares for him didn’t mean that he didn’t deserve it , a voice whispered in the back of his head.

For a moment, John thought Lucifer wasn’t going to respond, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a poisonous smirk.

“You know, the Detective always told me that you were a soft spoken man,” Lucifer said.

John clenched his jaw at the perceived taunt. He turned to fully face Lucifer to give him another piece of his mind, but stopped mid-breath when he saw his face. Lucifer was purposely not looking John’s way, gaze fixed on the road ahead of them. He wasn’t really looking at the road, though, John thought. Even with half of his face obscured, John could tell that he was looking past it and into some distant memory instead, the same soft smile he’d given Chloe the night before playing across his lips. It was an abrupt change from how he’d been just a minute before: flippant, callous, ancient.

John deflated instantly. “I’m under a lot of stress right now,” he replied dumbly. It was all he could think to say.

Lucifer drove on silently. He still did not look John’s way.

“I know being stressed is no excuse for how short I’ve been with you today, but this is a lot for me to take in. I was never the atheist that Chloe turned out to be, but I was never truly a believer either. God, Heaven, you, it’s overwhelming. Not only that but Chloe--” John’s voice broke when he pictured his little girl as the twenty-something he left behind. He cleared his throat, trying to beat down the rising wave of emotion. “I didn’t get to help her move into her first apartment, I didn’t get to give her away at her wedding, I’ve never even gotten to hold my granddaughter,” he said quietly. “She grew up without me and I’m angry with myself for letting it happen. Seeing you with her, you being there for her when I couldn’t, it’s hard.”

That was the ugly feeling that had been sitting in John’s chest all day. That was the thing that couldn’t be packed away into a neat, little mental box to be dealt with at a later date. No matter how many times he’d tried to compartmentalize it, it always came back with full force. He knew it was the reason he was acting so caustically towards Lucifer, but it was as if his time in Limbo had tainted him in some way. It was almost as if simply brushing against those sinful beasts had made him into one too, teeming with new and nasty habits. The very thought left an equally nasty taste in his mouth.

He was used to dealing with jealousy. Penny had groupies and superfans just like any other actress of her day, and it had never bothered him before. He’d always trusted her. Now he found himself unable to bury the jealousy like he had before his death. It was embarrassing to admit. John had never wanted to be one of those overbearing and overprotective fathers.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, Lucifer navigating them through the maze of LA highways, and John lost in thought. The car coasted along an exit ramp, and as they entered back into the city, Lucifer broke the silence.

“My Father was not the kind of father that you were--that you are,” he amended. “He wasn’t kind or nurturing or any of those things. In fact, He was quite harsh with my siblings and me at times. The last conversation we had was the shouting match that eventually got me condemned to Hell.”

John wasn’t sure where Lucifer was going with his anecdote, but he remained silent, just as the other man had when he’d vented out his own feelings.

“Even in the midst of my anger, even when I would scream my throat raw yelling obscenities at Him from down below, some part of me still loved Him and wanted Him to love me in return. I hated that part of myself for centuries. He was my punisher and my jailer, and yet, I still couldn’t rid myself of the longing to be recognized as His son.

“You and the Detective don’t have that kind of relationship, obviously, but I say all of this so that you’ll understand and believe me when I say that the Detective loves you very much. There are very few things that you could do as a parent to make her stop caring for you. Not even death could sever her heart from yours. She has made her peace with your passing, and for both her sake and yours, Jonathan, you should too. If you don’t, your guilt will condemn you to Hell. That’s how the system works; humans choose their own fate, no Devilish temptation required.”

Lucifer grimaced at his poor attempt at a joke. Then, he glanced over at John, as if to gauge his reaction to something. “Amenadiel was correct; you’re a good man and a good father,” he said, eyes drifting back to the road. “You don’t deserve the torment that awaits you there.”

His words echoed in John’s mind. You don’t deserve the torment that awaits you there.

“I’m sorry that I said you don’t deserve Chloe. That was wrong of me,” John said. “It’s not up for me to decide.”

Lucifer made some noncommittal noise.

“We got off on the wrong foot, and I genuinely want to try and get to know you properly.” John hesitated. “If you’ll let me,” he added almost too quietly to be heard over the wind.

Lucifer sighed his back-breaking sigh. “I suppose we can start over.”

At his affirmation, the ugly feeling in his chest subsided. “Good,” he nodded. “I’m glad.”

“But,” Lucifer stuck a finger up in the air, as if preparing to give another monologue. “Just because we’re “starting over” doesn’t mean that I’ll completely stop tormenting you, Jonathan. You’re far too entertaining when your brain is on the verge of melting.”

Lucifer’s tone was light and any malice it may have contained before had been replaced by a vibrant playfulness. John couldn’t fight back the smile on his face.

“Well as Chloe’s father, it is my job to give you a hard time, so I’ve got some tormenting of my own to do too.”

Lucifer chuckled. “I’m the Devil, darling. I’d love to see you try to get under my skin.”

“I’ve got a few cards up my sleeve,” John said. “You never know what might happen.”

Lucifer didn’t respond to that, but a sly smile had plastered itself to his face.

He guided the Corvette down a maze of one-ways, and five minutes later, they slowed to a stop and parked on a quiet street. As John took in the sun-bleached storefronts and crumbling fire escapes, he thought nothing of their location. It was only when he caught sight of a beat up dirt green sign boasting Marisol’s Flower Arrangements that John realized where they were.

“I died at a corner store about a block from here,” he said numbly, all traces of playful teasing draining away. They’d parked too far down the block for John to properly see the store, but he didn’t need a visual, the image of it was burned in his memory.

Lucifer got out of the car. “I know. I parked a block away for a reason. The Detective always says that you shouldn’t let victims see their crime scenes unless they specifically ask to. Something to do with shock or trauma.”

“So why bring us here at all?” John asked, though he already knew the answer. He was just surprised that Chloe still came here after everything that had happened with the shooting.

“Like I said, the Detective doesn’t hate you,” Lucifer replied with a knowing look. He tossed John the car keys. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Lucifer was true to his word, returning only ten minutes later with a takeout bag. When he got back in the car, he traded it for his keys. As they drove back through the city, John tried his best to ignore the bag on his lap. The heat from the food radiated through the cheap paper and into his skin like a persistent house cat kneading at his lap. He hated to think what would happen when he opened the bag. These sandwiches hadn’t just been Chloe’s favorite, once they were his favorite too. He feared that when he would eventually unwrap the foil, he wouldn’t be able to stomach them.

Secretly, John was glad that Lucifer hadn’t expected him to walk into that corner store. He was almost certain if he had, he would have ended up on the tile floor retching at the smell of grease and sweat. He’d choked on that scent as he laid with a bullet in his chest. He could only hope that he wouldn’t choke on the food when it came time to eat it.

John thought back to a time when he had gagged on black tar and maggots instead of grease and blood. He swallowed hard; an echo of oil slid down the back of his throat. Or maybe it was crawling back up. Maybe John would wake the next morning and find that whatever horrors he’d tasted in Limbo were festering inside of him like he was John Hurt in Alien . He supposed if that were true, then it was only a matter of time before it tore through his chest. John shuddered. He absentmindedly touched the space over his heart, as if it too was going to burst out of his chest.

The rest of the drive back to Chloe’s apartment was silent, and neither he nor Lucifer seemed to mind. For John, it was even a welcome reprieve from the madness that was his resurrection and a quiet moment before the inevitable emotional explosion waiting for them at the apartment.

His suspicions were only confirmed when the Corvette pulled into the parking lot. Chloe already had the door open and was standing in the doorframe with her arms crossed. He couldn’t completely make out her features from where they were parked, but John was sure when they got close enough her brows would be scrunched up in an exact replica of Penny’s when she was upset.

Lucifer killed the engine and jumped out of the car. His hands immediately flitted to his cufflinks and then on to smoothing invisible lines in his jacket. At least he was smart enough to be a little nervous, John thought.

“Detective!” Lucifer said when they got to the door. “We bought dinner!”

Chloe’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “What happened to not leaving the apartment?” she demanded.

Lucifer snatched the takeout bag from John’s grasp and held it up as if it explained everything. By the way her eye twitched, Chloe was not impressed.

“Is that the only place you went?” she demanded again.

Lucifer thrust the takeout bag back into John’s hands and flashed her a nervous smile.

“No,” John said flatly.

“Lucifer!”

Lucifer only flapped his hands and slipped past Chloe into the apartment. “It was just to see Linda and Amenadiel!” he called over his shoulder.

Chloe took a deep breath. She sagged against the doorframe, her shoulders tight with tension. “Dad, wherever he dragged you to, I’m sorry. It’s my fault for thinking that Lucifer could stay still and listen for more than a half hour.” She said the last bit a little louder, casting her gaze over her shoulder and making sure the man in question had heard them.

“It’s fine, monkey,” John said, drawing her attention back. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to keep us here. I shouldn’t have gone along with it.”

Finally, Chloe pushed herself off of the doorframe and allowed him to pass. “You shouldn’t have even had to argue to stay here,” she said as he walked past her. Even with his back to her, John could tell she was staring daggers at Lucifer while he busied himself with setting the table.

Just like he had that morning before Chloe had gone to work, John felt out of his element. It was easier for him to interact with Lucifer and Chloe separately. They represented vastly different periods of his life, or death, in Lucifer’s case. With them separated from each other, John could almost pretend that he was still living a normal life. When he was with Chloe, he could ignore his death. When he was with Lucifer, John could accept it head-on. But when they were together, it was difficult. He felt every inch the man lost in time when he saw them together.

All of these thoughts ran through John’s head in under a few seconds, but the existential discomfort of it all made it feel like an eternity.

“Here, I’ll take that from you, Dad,” Chloe said, appearing at his shoulder.

Mechanically, he handed the takeout bag to her, and then went to hang his borrowed jacket back on the hook. Task complete, John turned back to the table, still unsure what he should be doing. He watched Chloe open the bag, as if ready to divvy up their early dinner, and then stop. Her head snapped up to look across the table where Lucifer was pouring their drinks.

“It’s been a stressful two days, I knew you would like to have them,” he said, not looking up.

Lucifer finished filling the third glass in silence. When Chloe still hadn’t responded, he finally met her gaze. John didn’t know what he found there, her back was still to him, but Lucifer’s shoulders hunched.

“Did I get it wrong?” he asked, seemingly folding in on himself in a way that John didn’t know was possible.

“No. You didn’t. Thank you,” she replied softly. “But did you--?”

“No!” Lucifer waved his hand vehemently. “He stayed in the Corvette.”

Chloe nodded, and it was as if that motion cued all the others back to normal. She began setting their food onto plates, and Lucifer fluttered back into the kitchen as if nothing had happened. Slowly, John walked up to the table.

“Can I help with anything?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chloe said, balling up the empty takeout bag, “everything’s already done. Just take a seat.”

He reluctantly did as he was told. He stared at his foil-wrapped sandwich until Lucifer and Chloe sat across from him a moment later. The placement reminded him a bit like an interrogation. In some sense, John thought, perhaps it was. He could tell that Chloe had bitten her tongue about them disobeying her orders today. Surely, it wouldn’t be long before she started fishing for details.

“So,” Chloe began, unwrapping her sandwich. “You went to see Linda and Amenadiel.”

Lucifer took a long sip of wine. “Yes, not that they were any help.”

“Lucifer wanted to look for answers,” John put in, trying to be helpful.

Chloe glanced between the two of them. “What kind of answers?”

“Answers that would help us figure out what in Dad’s name is going on, of course,” Lucifer said.

She raised an eyebrow. “And? What did you find out?”

John was thankful when Lucifer launched into a recount of the day's activities. He loved Chloe, but he simply hadn’t been in the mood to talk since they’d picked up dinner. Speaking of dinner, he glanced down at his untouched sandwich. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to eat, it was just that he was afraid of what would happen when he did. He knew he was going to have to eat it eventually, or else Chloe would start to get suspicious. The last thing John wanted to do was cause her any more stress.

He forced himself to unwrap his sandwich. Chloe was busy listening to Lucifer, but her eyes were fixed on John the moment he’d begun to remove the foil. With her watching, there was little he could do besides take a bite. Much to his relief, he did not taste tar or ash. It tasted the same as he remembered--rich, greasy, fattening. Even still, it turned his stomach, John realized with dismay.

Under Chloe’s watchful eye, he fought through the nausea and forced down another bite. The ends of her mouth quirked up in the ghost of a smile. Seemingly satisfied with what she saw, Chloe turned back to Lucifer.

It hit him that for her, this was the first time in roughly two decades that they were sharing these sandwiches. In that moment, it was as if their lives had simply picked up from where they’d left off. Had John never been shot, this was what he would have done that night. Instead of choking on his own blood, he would have been up late at the kitchen table, eating these exact sandwiches with Chloe, and then sending her quietly off to bed afterwards.

John finished his sandwich. His stomach twisted itself into new shapes each time he swallowed, but he refused to ruin this for his daughter. She needed this as much as he’d needed to tell her that bedtime story the previous night.

To fend off the overwhelming nausea, he found himself laser-focused on Lucifer’s tale. That was when he noticed the omissions. Before, he hadn’t paid Lucifer’s storytelling any mind. He had been dealing with his own inner turmoil about Chloe and his untimely demise. Now that he had nothing else to do but pay attention, John began to notice the discrepancies.

Lucifer told Chloe most of what they’d experienced that day, with a few key cut corners. He neglected to tell her about Limbo and his mysterious cough. At first, John thought he was avoiding those topics because Chloe didn’t know the truth about who Lucifer really was, but that theory was quickly derailed when she didn’t blink an eye at Amenadiel searching Heaven for clues about their “resurrection problem.”

John didn’t know why he didn’t correct Lucifer. It would have been so easy to mention a detail he’d left out and watch the fallout unfold. Yet, he sat in silence, only adding in an affirmative sounding hum when Lucifer’s tale required it.

He just wanted to see where Lucifer went with it, he told himself. Lucifer had to have a reason he was leaving out key details, but then again, did he? If John was being entirely honest, even though they were on better terms now, he didn’t really know who Lucifer was at all. There was no telling whether or not he would be completely transparent with Chloe. In fact, if their detour around LA was anything to go by, Lucifer seemed to skirt around the truth and bend the rules quite often.

If Lucifer still refused to tell Chloe about Limbo and the cough by the time the night ended, John resolved that he would tell her himself. Chloe was his top priority, she deserved to know the truth, he finally decided. Plus, was it not John’s story to tell anyways? After all, he’d been the one who died and ended up there in the first place.

As Lucifer’s story drew to a close, John grew more and more convinced that he would have to be the one to tell Chloe about Limbo. But then, Lucifer’s story stopped abruptly. He cleared his throat once. Twice. Then he coughed. It sounded wet and thick like it had at Amenadiel’s, except this time it sounded deeper. It was as if Lucifer was a normal human smoker, and there was tar stuck to the bottom of his lungs.

Lucifer quickly pressed a napkin to his lips, but the coughs continued until he was almost gagging.

Chloe worriedly patted his back. “Are you okay?”

John opened his mouth to confess to Chloe that, no, her partner was not, and that he’d been like this all day, but Lucifer beat him to the punch.

“Fine,” Lucifer muttered between coughs. He coughed a few more times before it finally petered out, leaving Lucifer weepy-eyed and with an undoubtedly sore throat. He strategically wiped his mouth with a clean corner of the napkin before folding it up and out of Chloe’s sight. There wasn’t a speck of silver to be seen.

“What was that all about?” she asked, handing Lucifer his wine to wash down the remaining cough.

He shook his head, taking down the rest of the wine like a shot. “Not a clue.”

John shot a glare in his direction, and Lucifer tactfully ignored it.

Chloe stared at Lucifer for a few more seconds. When she found what she had been searching for, she stood and gathered up her dishes. “Maybe those cigarettes are finally catching up to you,” she chuckled over her shoulder as she headed to the sink.

“Darling, we both know my mortality stint ended ages ago,” Lucifer replied, voice scratchy. It was a pathetic recreation of the exact phrase he’d said to Amenadiel just hours before.

Chloe snorted. “Sure.”

John waited until she turned on the tap before he leaned across the table.

“You have to tell Chloe about everything that’s going on, not just the parts that you like or understand,” he whispered fiercely.

“That will only cause unnecessary worry for the Detective,” Lucifer whispered back. He unfolded the napkin and tilted it enough for the silver liquid inside to catch the light. “This is not something that she needs to worry about right now.”

“Lucifer, come on!” He gestured to the napkin. “You’re literally coughing up some unidentified substance. You said it yourself, you’re immortal. So why is this happening now?”

Lucifer’s jaw clenched. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t care what you think you are, Chloe deserves to know.”

The tap shut off.

John glanced over to make sure that Chloe was still busy at the sink. When she was, he turned back to Lucifer.

“Tell Chloe, or I will, Lucifer.”

Lucifer just stared at the silver splatter on the napkin and said nothing.

#deckerstar #my fic #fanfic #john decker #lucifer morningstar #lucifer on netflix

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dindooku · 3 years

Text

Now you’d had your fair share of tense meetings and interrogations before, but this one definitely takes the cake.

rating: E (swearing)

word count: 5,236

You stood in the middle of a large, circular room, surrounded by beings of similar attire to Kenobi. Some looked to be human, whilst some most definitely did not. Kenobi had given you a brief rundown of some of the council members on your way over, but the only two names you could remember were Windu and Yoda. He’d also advised you to address all as master, and that Yoda was referred to as the grandmaster, although he wasn’t too strict on formalities — which relieved you…a bit.

Before you had the chance to say anything, Obi-Wan introduced you.

“Council Members, this is Amy. She is a Commanding Officer for the 118th SAS forces from a planet named Earth. Unfortunately, we have never heard of the planet Earth, and Amy has found herself in an unfortunate circumstance. Amy, please can you explain to the Council Members how you arrived at Coruscant?”

Kenobi was being incredibly punctual towards the council members, and you got the hint. So, you tried your best to return the formalities in your response, using your Officer tone should do the trick.

“Council Members. Unfortunately, I would not call my presence to Coruscant expected, as to which you are most probably aware. On my planet, Earth, I am a commanding officer in our Special Services, who operates specialist operations and undertakes highly strenuous, dangerous, and tensile missions, including counter-terrorism, sieges, reconnaissance, and more. My most recent mission, however, is the cause for my attendance on Coruscant today.”

“My mission was to lead a command group of 6 into a classified area of uncharted forestry within the Amazon Rainforest. Upon entering the target co-ordinates close proximity, we happened upon an ancient temple, of sorts — which was decorated in the same symbols which line the pillars of this temple. Upon breaching the ancient temple, it became apparent that it was abandoned, or had not been interfered with for centuries. Upon reaching the center of the temple, I made my way through and into the middle of the room, in which I found myself blocked by an invisible force…a wall of sorts — it was nothing I had ever encountered before. I made the fatal mistake of touching this…wall, and if I remember correctly, it… it electrocuted me. It was odd… the whole room was static beforehand, and there was a significant shift in the temperature too — but what was even more abnormal was the fact that I was the only one that felt it. Anyway, after touching the…wall, I found myself waking up on the floor of one of the streets here, on Coruscant, and the rest is history.”

After finishing your little speech you took a deep breath in, and out. You needed to relax, your nerves were getting the best of you. You chanced a look over to Obi-Wan, who gave you a comforting look and a small, friendly smile.

“Unusual, this is. Heard of, it is not…” the little green frog thing spoke, and you quickly recognized this to be Grand Master Yoda.

“Yes, I agree. Say, you said you’re from a planet called, Earth?” Another Master asked.

“Ugh, yes, Master…” you stutter, realizing you didn’t know his name.

“Master Windu, but you can call me Mace,” Windu replied. He was just as stoic as Obi-Wan, however, his presence seemed to be darker, more stern, less patient — not necessarily a bad thing, but you knew you couldn’t give this guy shit, you had to be straight with him.

“Mace, um, yes, my planet is called Earth, from the Milky Way Galaxy,” you re-iterate.

“And you say you…you touched this invisible wall? And it electrocuted you?” He asked, leaning forward slightly on his chair, now resting his chin on his hand which was situated on one of the armrests.

“Yes, Sir, it… I could see my reflection, even though there was no mirror or ‘wall’, I can’t really describe it, it’s nothing I have ever experienced,” you mutter the last part of the sentence, you’re still just as puzzled by the strange events as you were as they happened.

“Interesting, this is,” Yoda chimes in again, his big ears drooping slightly as he rubbed his chin in thought. You glance back to Obi-Wan, who again meets your gaze with his, this time however he seems more concerned, his face wasn’t graced with his smile, and instead, it spoke of uncertainty. This certainly didn’t make you feel any better.

“And, you say that you felt a change in the feeling of the place?” Mace pressed.

“Yes, Mace, it…when we first entered the temple. The first thing I noticed was the temperature change, it felt hot, stifling even. But the biggest shift was odd, there was electromagnetic interference, my intercom stopped working, making a static sound from my mic piece. It also seemed to have an effect on my thought processes…everything became clouded almost like I was in a haze. Then, once I entered the central room, the temperature shifted to ice-cold, and the static grew even louder, to the point that when I was close to touching the wall, I couldn’t hear my men shouting at me. They…they were…” you couldn’t finish your sentence, the look of pure fear in their eyes had ripped you open. Now that you look back at the memory, you can feel the brutality of what has transpired in the last 24 hours. Their screams were hoarse, terrified. You’d never heard them like that, and the pure horror on their face, as if you’d just disappeared, it terrified you. Sensing your distress, Obi-Wan interjects.

“I think it’s wise we come up with a contingency plan, Masters,” he suggests. You hear his words but you’re still in a haze, the gravity of the situation was pressing down on you with an unbelievable weight.

“Hmm, stay with you, she must. Protect her, you will. Trained, are you, in combat?” Yoda asks.

“Uh, yes, Master Yoda. I have over 10 years of SAS operations experience. I’m specially trained in hand-to-hand combat and tactical assault.” You confirm. You were proud of your experience within the Army, but not necessarily proud of all the things you’d done…some haunted you, and those were secrets, admissions you were not yet ready to face.

“Great, this is. Accompany Master Kenobi on missions, you will help each other, you must.”

A wave of comfort and relief rolled over you. You’re glad that you know that you won’t be separated from the one person you trust on this god forsaken planet. If it means being escorted everywhere, you’d rather that than be left on the street, trying to find your way back across the Galaxy, home… if that was even an option anymore. You turned to Kenobi, who once again greeted you with a smile, this one wider than the others. It was infectious, and before you could control yourself, you were smiling giddily back at him. Jesus, what was this guy doing to you?!

“Master Yoda, may I ask where Amy will be staying? Surely there is a spare block or room she can—,”

“Padawan room, do you not have, Kenobi?” Yoda asked, interrupting Obi-Wan.

“Y-yes, Master Yoda?”

“Then stay there, she will. A close eye must be kept on young Amy, dangerous times this is, odd circumstances we find ourselves in. Time for doubt, there is not.” Yoda sternly replies. He really is one grumpy frog.

“Yes, Master,” Kenobi replies, keeping himself civilized despite his clear questioning of the living arrangement.

And with that, the council meeting was adjourned. Masters instantly began to filter out, obviously having places to be. You waited to be dismissed, as was habit, and after waiting you found yourself drifting into a distant trance of concentration — reliving the haunted events of your last mission.

Again, cutting you from your thoughts, Obi-Wan places a hand on your shoulder. His touch makes you jump, and you instantly crane your neck up to his, your eyes searching his for a hint of emotion other than pain and fear. And with a little quirk of his lips, he brings you out of your stupor, returning the feeling of giddy happiness you had felt only minutes ago. You relished in his ability to read you like a book and pull you out of your own mind, bringing you to the present moment, layering positive, good emotions over your soul. He was helping you in more ways than you could imagine, and you were helping him in more ways than he could, too.

“Come, let’s go get some food. I know a place,” he smirked, and you couldn’t resist the giggle which tickled your throat, so you caved, relishing in the moment. You followed him out towards the exit of the temple.

_____

Words simply could not describe what you were feeling right now. Maybe going to Dex’s on your first day was a step too far.

The complete multitude of emotions you were feeling was unfathomable. You’d compiled a mental list of things you’d never thought you would ever see in your lifetime:

* Flying cars: check

* Aliens: check

* Floating buildings: check

* Actual motherfucking wizards: check

These were just a few, and unsurprisingly it was the last one that caught you off guard.

“So I'm going to start calling you Gandalf now… or Potter…actually, space Jesus suits you better,” you chuckle from the diner seat of Dex’s restaurant. Obi-Wan had insisted that this was the best diner in town, and it was odd really, giving off a homely vibe - American diner aesthetic. This, you could get behind.

“Gandalf, Potter, Spa—Space Jesus? Who in Maker's name is Jesus?” Obi-Wan laughs heartily, these names really were something — he was truly awestruck in your imagination, the depths of your mind, and its ability to pull off wild stunts and stories like this.

“Well, Jesus is some guy from Earth, he’s from a Religion called Christianity. He’s the son of God, who some believe created all things. Kinda crazy if you ask me but each to their own, I don’t blame them. Potter is a wizard, he’s a kid’s book character who is basically going through what I am right now. Gets sucked into a world of magic and has to find his way through it, learning along the way. But Gandalf, he’s the real legend—,”

“Legend? Now, tell me about this Gandalf guy,” Kenobi chimes, leaning forwards in his seat, placing his head further over the table. He was completely and utterly enthralled by your descriptions.

“Well, see, Gandalf is known as Gandalf the Grey. He was a fine man, who was quick to anger, but just as quick to laugh. He had incredible wisdom, something he earned over his time in middle earth along Valinor. He was a mighty warrior, but also a gentle creature, who cared for all creatures of good-will and took pity upon those who were weak,” you scrambled. Finally being able to express your inner nerdy bookworm was therapeutic, especially when the one listening was as invested as dear Obi-Wan.

“Go on, don’t stop!” He nearly shouts, leaning closer in, his smile pulling an infectious grin from ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat.

“Well, Gandalf had immense power, but he would only use it to protect the innocent and good-willed. He fought for himself and himself alone, he was a server of Justice and Morality, no matter the consequences. Gandalf was a wise, wise man — funnily similar to Dumbledore, in fact,—”

“Who is the God’s name is Dumbledore?!” Obi-Wan laughed, completely dumbfounded that there was, even more, to go by. He loved his life on Coruscant and wouldn’t change it for anything, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t envy your experiences or knowledge of said wisdom-full wizards.

“Don’t even get me started on Dumbledore!” You laughed, leaning even further into the table. Never in your life had you gotten along with someone so well. It was weird, it almost felt like you’d known each other forever, and where just catching up after a long vacation. You were instantly best friends, and you certainly wouldn’t complain about being best friends with a man like Obi-Wan. The higher powers were certainly shining down on this boy when he was brought into the Galaxy. Something just clicked between you both, and you couldn’t feel more alive if you tried.

But, before you could give your hour-long prepped speech on why Dumbledore was the best wizard of them all, a robot had rolled over to arrive with your meal.

“Here’ya’are Darlin, ya new around here, aren’t ya?” The machine asked.

“Ugh, yeah, yeah I am, how could you tell?” You asked, slightly uneasy by the clear Artificial Intelligence of the robot.

“Honey, I would have remembered that pretty face of yours if I’d seen it before, sweetheart. Ya stunnin”,” she exclaimed. You instantly blush at the compliment. Even though she was just a machine, you felt like you were talking to a living being, and you didn’t mind that if all droids were this nice. You chance a look at Obi-Wan, only to see him nervously tugging with a loose chord at the end of his sleeve, although he couldn’t hide the smug blush that was plaguing his cheeks, bless.

“Thank you for your compliments... and the food looks delicious, thank you!” You chime back, eyes now glued to the incredibly crunchy-looking fries in front of you.

“Corellian taters’ are the best darlin’, enjoy!” She jingles before scooting off to serve the next customer.

You both quickly delve into your meals. You hadn’t realized just how hungry you were, and you couldn’t remember the last time you had any food of some sort of sustenance. You lived of ration packs in the Army, and a specially cooked hot meal was like Christmas for you. But, curiosity still has you in a bitter grip, so you pause for a moment and peer up to Obi-Wan.

“What is a Jedi?” You ask, now completely and utterly interested in understanding who exactly he is.

Obi-Wan stops mid-mouthful, slowly putting the fry he was about to devour back into the basket. He clears his throat and straightens up a little as if he’s about to give some sort of memorized speech.

“Well, my dear, Jedi are warriors of the Light, we are a force of good upon the land we live in. We are protectors who are united in our ability to utilize the Force, and maintain inner tranquility through seeking balance, avoiding emotions of anger and hatred, as those emotions lead to the Dark Side—,”

Whoa, whoa, hold your horses, Hercules. The Force? Light side, Dark side… elaborate,” you interject. This was all a bit crazy.

“Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi their power. It’s an energy field created by all living things, it surrounds us and penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.” He exclaims. The worlds roll like honey off of his tongue, and you can tell you’re already addicted to his voice.

“…continue”

“Well, the Light Side of the force is the path that Jedi choose to walk, making ourselves vessels to the Force. The Dark Side is quite the opposite. Those that choose the path of the Dark side are considered Sith, and their intentions are solely individual, profitable.” He finishes. You can feel his emotion rolling off him in swathes. As soon as he mentioned Sith, his emotions dropped, the smile that once graced his handsome face is all but banished, instead, a hurt frown cripples his emotions. Trying to pull him out of his stupor, you blurt out the first question that comes to mind.

“So what powers do you have?” You ask, blunt as a knife.

“Well, for starters, I can do this,” he chuckles, and without moving a muscle a single fry starts to hover in the air right in front of your face.

“Shut the fuck up,” you whisper in astonishment. The fry drops immediately, and you bore a daring stare in Obi-Wan.

“How many times have I got to reprimand you on your language?” He chides, placing a hand out to quickly pick up and munch on the chip that had just been ceremoniously dangled by some invisible strings in front of your face.

“Do it again,” you demand, you have to see this again, just to make sure you’re truly not seeing things.

“If you insist,” he chuckles and points to a speeder parked just outside the window. And without even a hint of strain, the speeder lifts precariously in the air and swivels slowly around on an axis. You glance back at Obi-Wan, who is intently staring at the speeder. You look back, only to watch him gently place the speeder back down, now facing the opposite way from before.

“This is some Matilda bullshit right here,” you mutter, eyes plastered open in awe. You couldn’t imagine this man to be any better. He was incredibly handsome, so kind to an extent it hurts your heart, and now he’s just revealed he’s some sort of telekinetic space God. But your thoughts are cut short but the firm grip on your chin. Your eyes dart back to Obi-Wan, who is now glaring daggers your way.

His grip is firm on your chin, and he brings his head in closer to yours, maintaining strict eye contact.

“Stop. Swearing. Or I will have to make you.” This wasn’t an aggressive threat, not one that is meant to scare you or frighten you — no…this was something else. Obi-Wan Kenobi was flirting, and God’s… did he know how to press your buttons; all the right ones at least. And he seemed to have done the trick because now you’re completely and utterly breathless. All you can do is stare intently at the man you are now absolutely, one hundred percent reeling for right now. Fuck, you love space wizards, especially ones named fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“I can read minds too, darling,” he mutters, slowly removing his grip on your chin, satisfied that he’s made his point…obviously pleased with the results.

“Hold up, you can read minds!? So you know what I’m thinking all the time?”

“Not all the time, only if I pry, but you are incredibly loud sometimes, dear,” he counters, getting back to eating his fries before they turn cold.

“…loud?” Okay, now you’re genuinely confused.

“Your thoughts are loud, but only sometimes. Yours is an odd case, sometimes I can hear what you’re saying, and sometimes I can't. Your energy in the force is…unstable. See, everyone has a Force signature, and when you have a large affinity of Midichlorians, you’re able to harbor the Force in greater ways, however, with you, it seems…the opposite, like you...repel the force, sometimes -- when your emotions are getting the better of you. This is something I haven’t seen before, and I think that is why Master Yoda wanted us to stay together, to make sure that we keep this under control,” He confesses, he begins slowly rubbing his chin in thought, clearly perplexed by whatever theory that was running around in that incredible head of his.

“Well, okay, Midichlorians? Force signature… I, I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean…and, maybe…could you maybe teach me to not be so…loud?” You ask, trying not to show your hesitation. Force signature? Did he say I repel the Force? As exciting as being next to Obi-Wan, it was also quite terrifying to know that, or to feel like there was something wrong with you, and that they had no idea how or what to do…and that for the meantime you’re just going to have to sit around and make yourself useful. But, thinking about the incredible telekinesis you’d just witnessed, excitement at the possibility of living out an actual dream gripped you again. Maybe he could teach you a few tricks, in return for you teaching him?

“I don’t see why not?” He replies, that beautiful smile of his returning to his lips. It truly was marvelous, and you knew you’d never be able to get enough of it. “Come, finish up your food and we’ll head back, you need sleep, you’ve had a busy day.”

______

For the second time today, you found yourself stood outside of Obi-Wan’s flat…apartment…condo…whatever it was. Pressing a button like before, the door whooshes open and you both walk in, with it closing with another electronic hum behind you.

Obi-Wan instantly heads into the kitchen to switch on what you assumed was the kettle. Not knowing what to do with yourself you stood like a lost child in the middle of the living room, rolling on your feet a little and swinging your arms. This whole day was incredibly overwhelming, and you couldn’t, even in your wildest dreams, even begin to imagine what you’d experienced…and even though your circumstances could be seen as quite horrific and terrifying, you couldn’t help but feel happy to be here, happy to be in the presence of Obi-Wan and other incredibly magnificent beings, in this huge temple, on a grand planet, in the middle of another motherfucking Galaxy. The pure scale of your circumstances isn’t comprehendible, and you don’t think it ever will be.

“Tea, darling?” You hear faintly, like a whisper from deep within your mind. Odd, you don’t remember thinking about Tea…Tea isn’t really a deciding factor in your circumstances right now, why are you thinking of —

“Hello? Amy, my dear, where have you gone?…she was here just a second ago…” you hear, turning around you see Obi-Wan, walking from the kitchen and walking around his apartment. He was…he was looking for you? But you’re right here, can’t he see you?

“Obi-Wan, stop playing I’m right here,” you say, but no sound leaves your lips. Huh, that's weird. You go to take a step towards him to pat him on the shoulder but as you go to touch him, your hand falls through his shoulder as if…as if you don’t exist. Okay, this was starting to freak you out, this was like back when you were on Earth when the Boys couldn’t see you. You quickly glance around the apartment, remembering that you left your backpack in the bedroom. You rush into the bedroom and try to dig through it but like before, your hands just slip through the objects in front of you. You need to concentrate, center yourself. So, you close your eyes, control your breathing and reach out, again, trying to touch the bag. As soon as you make contact, something shoots through you like ice, and before you know it, you’re touching your backpack in the bedroom, for real.

“Oh! There you are, I didn’t hear you creep off, would you like some tea, my Dear?” Obi-Wan asks, leaning on the doorframe casually. You don’t have the mental capacity to admire it right now, you’re still trying to process what exactly just happened. “Are you…are you okay?” He asks, now slipping off the doorframe and heading towards you, clearly concerned over your sudden change in demeanor.

“Yes, yeah, I’m fine, thanks, just…I think the events of the last day or so are starting to catch up on me..aha,” you say, laughing awkwardly towards the end in a sorry effort to convince him that you’re just tired and not absolutely shitting it at the fact that you just disappeared for a minute or so.

“If you’re sure…Tea will help, come,” He says, holding out his hand to you. You go to take it but hesitate slightly, and he notices but doesn’t let on. You take his hand, and you make your way into the kitchen.

_____

“So what Tea would you like?” He asks as he sets two cups out on the counter.

“Um, well, just regular…Tea?” You reply, completely unsure if Tea here is the same as Tea at home.

“Well, I’ve got Corellian, Naboo special, Coruscant special blend…” he says, but before he can finish his sentence you remember something.

“Wait, gimme a sec!” And before he can process what you've said, you’re bounding into the bedroom once again to grab your food pack. Once back in the kitchen, you open the tin and pull out a Teabag. “Tetley's will do—” you say, grabbing one of the cups and placing the teabag inside. Then, you grab a sachet of sugar from the tin and pour it in.

“…Tetley’s, I can’t say I’ve heard of that kind of Tea before?” Obi-Wan mumbles.

“Well, it’s alright, not the best and not the worst, but still good ol’ British tea!” You laugh. Tea was your savior during excursions, it was one of the only homely comforts you could bring with you, having possessions and trinkets just wasn’t an option, but Tea? Everyone has time for a cuppa. Just as you finish the kettle goes off and you make a move to grab it, pouring the hot water into the cup. Next, you take one of the spoons Obi-Wan layed out and twirl the teabag in the cup, making sure to get the most out of it. “Do you, um, have any Milk?” You ask.

“Milk, I mean, I have blue milk in—,” he says as he fills his cup of tea up too.

“Wait…Blue. Milk?” You chuckle, dumbfounded by what you’re hearing.

“Yes…Blue milk,” Obi-Wan reiterates, almost in a way as if to say are you crazy? What, you don’t know what blue milk is?

“I—I think I'll pass on the Blue Milk—,” you chuckle, today couldn’t get any weirder. Instead, you fish out the teabag from the cup and place it on the small plate before you, and then you grab the small sachet of condensed milk from your rations tin and pour it in, swirling the mixture with the teaspoon from before.

“Wait, you put milk in your tea?” He asks, again absolutely dumbfounded by what’s going on in front of him. Milk…in tea? That's criminal!

“Ugh…yeah? Here, try this,” you say, fishing once again through the ration tin to grab a small bag of malted milk biscuits. You dunk one into your tea and quickly fish it out again, then hand it over to Obi-Wan. He looks at you hesitantly before slowly taking the biscuit, giving it a small sniff before taking a small bite. You watch him patiently with eager eyes, hoping that hell enjoy it.

“Oh…My God’s,” He mutters, his eyes blown wide at the new experience. “This…what is this?” He asks again, before sticking the whole biscuit into his mouth, practically hoovering it up.

“It's a malted milk biscuit, and this is British tea…on Earth, were pretty much the Godfather's of Tea” you laugh, enjoying the show of emotional turmoil playing out on Obi-Wan’s face.

“Malted Milk, British—Godfather?” He asks, completely and utterly lost to his own train of thought.

“You wouldn’t get it…” you say, taking a sip of your tea, but still maintaining eye contact with him as he revels in this new experience. And with that, the two of you sit and chatter on until both your pots of tea have gone cold, but neither of you cares, you’re both too enthralled in the conversation you’re both having to even realize a whole hour has yet again passed.

You chance a look at your watch only to see it's sitting comfortably at 11:48 PM. “Christ it’s late…” you mutter, blinking your eyes again to make sure you’re seeing it right.

“What is that?” Obi-Wan cuts your gaze, leaning over slightly and taking your wrist. He examines your watch intently, watching as the second-hand jumps around the watch face.

“It’s a watch,” you say, a little confused as to why it’s such a question. Surely they have clocks here?

“I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it, um, what are the three little spikey things? And what do the symbols mean?” He asks, genuinely curious.

“Well—,” you say, leaning further in so your heads are only centimeters away as you both peer down at the watch on your wrist, “The spikes things are called hands, and they sit upon the watch face. The one that is jerking now is called the second's hand, as it counts each second. This hand,” you point to the biggest hand, “is called the minute hand, and this one, the smallest one, is called the hour's hand,” you finish, but Obi-Wan stays silent, like he’s in a trance of sorts, so you continue, “And, and these symbols, they’re called Roman Numerals, they’re an ancient form of literate numeracy used by the Roman’s, who were fierce warriors who existed thousands of years ago on my planet. They were incredibly intelligent for their time, I mean, all things considered. They invented many things, but they destroyed many, too.” You finish. And you just sit there, intently watching the metaphysical cogs turn in that astronomical mind of his. Normally manners would dictate it is rude to stare, but you can’t help yourself. Something about him is just so…right, so pure and genuine, innocent yet, violent, powerful, wise. People say that God’s and beings of mystical nature never existed, that it's just a hypothetical way of education and hindsight that humanity uses Legend and Fairytales to demonstrate the lessons of life; but at this moment you know that you’re in the presence of a truly, incredible being and that isn’t a fairytale, this isn’t legend, this is real, and you’re sat right next to him.

He slowly peers up from where he’s leaning over your wrist, and you lock eyes, once again, but now closer than you’ve ever been. You can feel the warmth of his breath on your skin as it twists and curls around your lips, kindly caressing and making your breath hitch uncomfortably in your throat. But you welcome this discomfort, for you cannot believe you have lived life, thinking yourself happy, only to not have known Obi-Wan; and now you question few moments of your experiences on Earth, knowing that you would trade anything just to spend another second under his spell.

“We should, you…you should get some sleep. We have training tomorrow.” He quickly snaps, shaking his head slightly as he stands from his seat and grabs both cups, leaving them in the sink. He…did he not feel the same?

You cringe at yourself a little, silently kicking yourself for being so foolish and letting someone get under your skin like this. You’re better than this, for Christ’s sake! No, if he doesn’t feel the same, then you won’t force it. You’ll keep to yourself, and you’ll be respectful, no matter how much you want to be closer. And just like your previous thoughts, the tales of Legends burn a painful pinch of hindsight into your conscience — like Icarus, you flew too close to the sun.

“…You need your sleep if you’re to have any chance against me…” Obi-Wan mutters from the sink. And with that you instantly laugh, the titanic of emotions finally capsizing as you break your self-deprecative destruction.

“I could say the same for you, Master Kenobi,” you giggle, and before he has time to counter you’re skipping off to the Padawan bedroom which you’re now to call home…for the foreseeable future.

#obi wan fic #obi wan needs a hug #obiwan kenobi #obiwan fanfic #obi wan x oc #obiwan #star wars fanfiction #ewanfuckinmcgregor #ewanmcgregor #ewan mcgregor

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partnersatfazbear · 3 years

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I’m... salty? Fazbear Frights: The Cliffs anaylsis

My initial thoughts about The Cliffs under the cut (contains spoilers):

The Cliffs - My favorite story of the bunch, but mostly because I really liked the main character. Not TOO much to write home about, but I will pick apart a few lines from this one. In my first set of similarities, the wife dies in childbirth. Not only is this a huge fear of mine (for my wife, in the future), but I wrote this happening in William’s backstory in RS. I generally loved the protagonist here, except when he didn’t realize the obvious: the Freddy was telling him not to kill himself, but where is son was. That doll got burned (yes, burned!), run over, and tossed off a cliff for nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if that thing came back to kill them :V

Only thing that annoyed me was a few paragraphs wasted on a female co worker, because for some reason that was relevant. (No really, it wasn’t.) Why does this series insist on writing PAGES about useless love interests that do nothing for the plot, nothing for the MC, AGH. I know it’s a kids book series but Christ it’s annoying and I’ve been skipping this sort of stuff and the long action sequences.

The Breaking Wheel - This was the story I liked the least, but honestly, the one I’ll be writing the most about. I think it parallels William and Henry a little and I was a little irked how similar a specific part was to my Springtrap-springlock chapter in Resurrection Seeker.

So first, the story focuses mostly around two kids and they are rivals in a robotics class. One kid a huge douche (Julius) but competent and the other is struggling to put his ideas on paper (Reed). Then there’s Reed’s friend, Pickle, who is a genius.

I’m just gonna bullet point stuff I thought was relevant:

- Reed describes his relationship towards Pickle as: “He was so used to Pickle out performing everyone around him that praising him for doing something well was like praising him for breathing.” (This really reminded me of William’s admiration for Henry, although there isn’t any jealousy here.)

- Reed is described as having a “monkey face”. This reminded me of William, mostly because of the criticism from the fandom towards The Silver Eyes GN’s design. It could be a jab or coincidence.

- Julius’ robot is an exoskeleton (like the power loader from Aliens). When showing off, he becomes trapped in it:

- Reed leaves Julius to be trapped in the exo all night, including locking him in place so he can’t move. This is initially to get back at Julius for being a dick, but then the guilt starts eating away at Reed. Also, Julius getting locked in: “Julius jerked his arms, yanking to free them from the restrains of his skeletal suit....” Julius says: “Unlock me!” and “Do what I tell you! Unlock me!”

Reed tells him, “I’m going to leave you here in your suit overnight... so you can get an idea of what it feels like to... [be treated the way you treat others]. Maybe your robot can teach you a thing or two.”

Julius says, “Get back here you stupid ape! Do you know what you’ve done? I’m going to kill you! ... I’m going to tear you apart, limb from limb. Get back in here and unlock this! ... You can’t leave me in here like this!”

So, yeah. It reminds me a lot of Springtrap. As for the actual story... I was disappointed. The story starts off good (albiet with that poor kid trope this series LOVES) and reminded me early on of The Tell-Tale Heart. Then it defies stated logic to make a real, edgy ending that I didn’t care for. If the entire thing had been in Reed’s head it would’ve been better (more akin to Blackbird, which did the “in your head” trope poorly. If these stories were switched around, I think they’d work better.) So this story was meh. Such a promising start.

Another thing that annoyed me was a few paragraphs wasted describing Orey (fml I don’t care if I spell it wrong. Who the hell comes up with these names). He barely shows up in the story and is just a background character... story could’ve worked without him.

He Told Me Everything - If you love Goosebumps style stories, this ones for you. I really enjoyed it, but it had almost nothing to do with FNAF. The Chris name is obviously a giant troll (and to make matters worse his father’s name is Dave). The sister and wife don’t have any name parallels, although the wife reminded me a lot of my design for Mrs. Afton. The backstory of Chris’ family reminds me a lot of Afton’s backstory for Resurrection Seeker. Like. A lot. It’s spooky how close it is.

“The houses were small, identical little boxes, which had originally been built for workers at the steel mill...” “His dad... ...had gone on to vocational school to learn how to work on cars.”

Another thing to note about the Dad is his weight is specifically touched on several times. Seemed like a callback to the novels’ mention of an earlier version of William.

All in all, a solid entry into the books and some weird coincidences I can’t overlook.

The story did drag a little, but honestly, not nearly as bad as the others. It was good.

Now, for the epilogue.

I don’t know if I wanna fume or not. I’m DISAPPOINTED. Afton essentially dies in the end of it, only to have a piece of his soul in a female endoskeleton escape into the factory. Also, the fucking... the fucking PUPPET shows up (and is actually why Afton dies). [Note: I didn’t realize that Left-E isn’t shown burning in the FNAF 6 ending, which many people are using to justify this. Read below for how I feel about that.] I just. I don’t know. I mean, William always comes back, but... I don’t know how I feel about this. I have a HUGE suspicion that the female endoskeleton is what becomes Vanny. I definetly still see this sort of leading into Security Breach EXCEPT for the fact: The Puppet is still alive.

Okay, so those were my initial thoughts. Upon looking around / rereading people say the female endo is Eleanor (Baby). My wife pointed out I missed the long necked detail. Woops. I wonder if Eleanor/Baby MIGHT be our Vanny stand in in this universe, though. And yeah, still not happy.

Afton is pretty much dead outside of a small part of his soul existing in the endo that escaped (this is an assumption on my part, I don’t think it’s stated, so essentially he’s dead, dead). There are parts of this I liked (and William only had ONE line: “I am Agony.”) Like, no shit? I couldn’t tell! SMH

However, despite some of the parts I thought were interesting (we get a thorough description of AlmagAfton and when he dies its pretty pathetic and I had all the FEELS), I think overall I’m disappointed because we may be at the end of Afton’s story. I have a suspicion that Vanny will be replacing him and possibly even betraying him in Security Breach, if this is anything to go by. Another odd duck is that Jake, in the remnants of the Stichwraith (that everyone insists is the GF parallel) is still wandering around too. I’m assuming Puppet went down with the ship, quite literally, since he [William] falls apart into a lake. Thanks, Charlie. You continue to ruin my day.

My wife pointed out the lake reminded her of OMC’s lake and I’m like... Why are we backpeddling?! This entire epilogue is a fucking mess. Another thing that irritates me (and apparently quite a few people) is if this IS the way the story is heading, then it makes FFPS pretty much USELESS to the story, nullifies Henry’s sacrifice / wishes... and that sucks! ESPECIALLY the fact that the Puppet SURVIVED the FNAF 6 fire! I get she just wants William to pay for what he’s done to her and her father, but... Henry wanted her to rest. To move on. She didn’t do that. That’s shitty to me.

Also, apparently souls have a smell. So that’s canon now.

#the cliffs #fazbear frights #spoilers #security breach theory #william afton #almagafton #the puppet #vanny #stichwraith #henry emily #ffps #fnaf 6

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sylaesschasewind · 3 years

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Heartbreak/Headache

The firelight glinted wetly off the edge of her saber.

Her eyes darted up the length of it, back up at Mattanis. The prick. She couldn’t swallow. Her chest was heaving, but nothing came of it but sharp bursts of pain. He’d missed her spine but got her right beneath the jaw. Blood drooled down her chest.

It wasn’t something she’d walk away from. The knowledge was firm and clear.

“I give you to him. A worthy sacrifice. May he see your treachery!”

His voice bawled in perfectly clear common.

A very large part of her wanted to spout something witty and cutting off, but again. That damn blade rendered that idea null.

She was dying.

The hot wetness sludged its way down her neck. Now why did you turn your back on him? You knew. This wasn’t a surprise. Do you want to die? A taste of rest...?

He chanted on, trying to invoke the master. Something she’d learned. You didn’t just invoke him; he knew what was going on and deigned to visit as he wished. Chanting became incoherent. It was hazy at best. Hard to focus her eyes, let alone unravel the blurry words of fervor falling over her. Sight faded to shadows. Shadows to shapes, shapes faded to...

Shit, this was really happening. A cold sweat clutched her.

---

She rolled over and--thump--vomited heavily. There wasn’t anything to bring up but acrid bile. A hand on her shoulder. A bin shoved roughly into her hands.

It took her a good while to recover enough to blink back tears from her stinging eyes.

Confusion made her head swim.

Destarion gave her a thin smile, settling above her on the bed. She was on the floor.

“So, you died.”

“Is this real?” Her voice was hoarse. Like she’d been screaming for hours. Gravel sounded better. And boy, it hurt. Everything lit up at once.

“Unfortunately for you, I think.”

Sylaess let her head back down to the floorboards. It cost too much to look around, so she screwed her eyes shut. She smelled blood. Gore. Sea water.

“You were brought back by an Anchorite, no less. Fascinating.” The insulting drawl. Soft over hard, ignorant tone. Not intentionally mean, just bored. Like this had happened several times. His deep purple skin was coarse and scaled, those fel-flame eyes burning behind the simple linen wrap he used. Dark violet-black hair rested atop his head in a messy bun framed by those long demonic horns. Destarion was no picture of comfort, surely, but he was better than anything she’d seen in... how long had it been? It didn’t matter, really.

Her stomach churned again, and she heaved weakly into the bucket he’d thrust into her hands. Let her forehead rest on the edge of it. Every single nerve was misfiring it seemed. It felt like withdrawal, and a serious case of whooped-ass.

“--Where’s.. Hnn.” Oh, gods. Why couldn’t she just stay dead? What a horrifying journey. Disjointed memories. “Sword.”

Their relationship wasn’t really one of caring. It was built on a temporary mutual interest, and in so, she was honestly shocked that he was here at all.

“I’m not really in the know of how to help you, for clarity’s sake.”

Hands hauled her up by the shoulders. Nothing particularly gentle. Enough that she was sitting upright against the bed, head lolling bonelessly. The worn leather scabbards were pressed into her hands. She clutched them like a lifeline. Heard the demon hunter give a small sigh. “There’s no way I made it through.” Again, the thin gravel-voice.

“Is that more of a wish you hadn’t? I’m more inclined to believe it, if so.” She heard him shift on the bed. Felt him watching her like a strange insect on the floor. Alien. It was a long moment of silence before he spoke again. She could hear the faint sounds of the city outside the walls. “You need to get help. Acherian help. I doubt there’s anything that can be done for you here.”

“...Gods no.”

The flinch was reflexive and it sent her swords sliding down her lap to thump dully onto the floor. The room spun violently. She hissed a breath between her teeth, hating how even without tone in her voice, her words were almost a whine. Get your shit together, Syl. You’re back, but you’re losing what was done. You’re dying. More like returning to undeath. Between the hunger and the soul deep pain, she wasn’t sure what was real. But she was going to cling to this reality while she could.

“Another, here.” the voice seemed to come from somewhere over head. “Hmph. The Light will shine in any shadow.”

She didn’t recognize the language. Not at first. Another puzzle? N’zoth picked the best tormentors, after all. But it wasn’t demon-speech. No. It reminded her of...

Argonas? No. Avehi? Yes? No! Draenic!

The thought bubbled along haphazardly. Sudden Light burned echoes into her eyes. She’d resigned herself to this fate. Being here in Ny'alotha. She wondered if this was another painful game that they were going to play.

Right until the floor came up to cuff her across the nose. Felt it shatter under her weight. A groan escaped as she pushed herself up onto her forearms. She’d been devout once, and the phrases came to mind, but it felt so wrong. So, so wrong.

“Hey, elf.” The common was thickly accented. “Time to get moving. You’re one of those undead, right?” Male. Not the first speaker.

“Just get her on her feet.” Impatient. “No one has time to wait in this foul place. It begins to collapse. We can offer a cleanse as we exit.”

Collapse? Sylaess blinked stupidly. Collapse? She stared straight into the pristine white face with golden eyes. The mane of white hair floating about her horns made her think of some strange halo, but the expression was cold and unforgiving. Syl didn’t blame her.

There was intense pressure on her jaw. She tossed her head but couldn’t get rid of it.

“There you are. Welcome back.”

Destarion’s faux nobility drawl. She blinked a few times, trying to make heads or tails of it. Reality wasn’t what it should be anymore. It was terrifying. He had her by the jaw, holding her head still. Firm, but not cruel.

“You keep seizing. You. Need. To. Go. Back.”

He let her go, standing up from his crouch. Her chest was tight with fear at the thought of Acherus, but she couldn’t recall why. She watched him pour a short glass of... liquor. Collected herself enough to roll and press off of the floor. Rising with care. Everything was wavering like a candle flame. Found herself gripping her scabbards like they were a safety blanket.

The demon hunter simply frowned at her from across the room. He was here, but she didn’t know why. There was no love between them, and she certainly had lost her usefulness. It wasn’t caring, which was fine. That would have made it awkward. More awkward.

Damn it all, he was right.

Cold sweat slicked her forehead again. Oh no.

Caught sight of his eye-roll behind his blindfold. Fucking spare me! Drummed up the power to call it. To rip open a death gate. The pressure felt like her veins were going to explode with the force of dragging up enough magic.

It sputtered before her and went out like a limp dick. Frustration reared up in her in a strangled, close-mouthed noise. Her legs jellied and she sat on the bed hard.

“Shit.” She breathed the word out and let herself fall back on the mattress, swords clattering on her chest. No armor. Huh. Somehow that felt more naked than being without clothes. “I don’t have a plan for this.”

“Evidently.”

“I need... “ Say it. Say it you fucking tool. You could’ve let Argonas give you your stupid absolution, but no. “I need another Knight. To get to Acherus.” Or to finish the fucking slow ass process of undeath.

Not far away from where she was, leaning against the railing as he looked out onto the ocean was Nedemus. Inner conflict wore on him as he watched, one of his long nails grinding gently against the wood as he sighed.

It honestly took more effort than she was willing to account for to get herself out onto the boardwalk. One step at a time. She stumbled unsteadily out of the rented room and onto the boardwalk. The sea breeze smacked into her face wetly, less of a smell, more of an assault.

What a fucking mess.

Eyes blurry, she made it to the railing. Hooray. Holding herself upright and looking better than she felt at least. Destarion sighed and watched for a minute before slipping away in the crowd. Shook his head.

The nearness of other people was abrasive. She gripped the railing like the world had turned upside down.

“--Ned?” It startled her that she knew his name.

He blinked upon hearing his name, the worgen turning his head towards the source. Before him stood… “... Sylaess? It’s been…” He blinked once more, giving her another lookover. She looked… alive? At least as alive as they were in their states. “Are you alright?”

Thoughts tumbled over each other in a fight for freedom from her mouth. She ended up saying nothing for a long moment, trying to compute what weird luck this was. Shook her head a bit.

“No.”

A breath in slowly. Held gently. “Are you?”

He narrowed his eyes a bit in worry, pushing himself off the railing as he stepped towards her. “I’m fine, don’t worry about that… What’s wrong?” He asked her, slow in his approach.

“I...” How to explain? Made the worst decision in her miserable unlife, twice? Good try. “Need to get to a rune forge. Acherus.” Or somewhere. She steadied herself, holding her ground. It was hard enough to have her gaze hold his what with the world twisting, but it was getting easier. Small battles.

He watched her for a moment, before nodding softly, turning his head away and holding up his hand to the open area beside them, the dark energy forming a gate before him. His hand lowered, gaze turning once more towards her as he offered a hand. “What happened to you?”

“...I’m a magnificent idiot.” She smiled bleakly. With her gravelly, ruined voice it didn’t really stick. Shook her head and nearly tumbled for it. Oh dear. “Need to fix my blades.” She stared at his hand a moment before gripping it. Couldn’t help but feel the dread of returning to Acherus after all this bloody time, but it had to be something. Anything to anchor herself from this freefall.

“Thank you.” Softly spoken.

He moved in close, helping to catch her as he noticed her struggling, keeping an arm around her as he escorted her to the gate, moving slow and careful. “Aren’t we all.” He said softly, with a chuckle, before shaking his head. “It’s… No problem. I’ll help you get to the forges… Soon as I Remember where they are.”

He stepped through the gate, traveling the pair through and into the dark halls of Acherus. He glanced around, his ear flicking a bit as he tried to remember...

It didn’t go well. One minute she was grateful for his support, the next, she was a boneless sack of skin being held up through a portal. Good times, good times.

Wading back into consciousness was very much like being a tiny little rowboat out on the great ocean. Half full of water. She flinched hard, stumbling and throwing an arm up over her face, but her leg went sliding out from under her. What a mess.

It didn’t take long for Ned to grunt a bit, scooping his arms underneath her legs and hoisting her in his arms, bridal style. He walked through the halls, ignoring the glances from the other death knights as he made his way towards the forges. “You still have your blades?”

“Yeah.” She spoke mutedly, trying to figure herself out again. Sure enough, they were in their scabbards, strapped to her back. There wasn’t room for dignity anymore. Not in her condition. Ny’alotha still clung to her mind like an infestation of worms.

Blades. Right. One was salvageable. Enough to get her by. So she hoped. It had cracked at some point, near the hilt but not all the way through. Trusting the master rune forger could be of use. She shuddered, remembering the second one.

He gave a soft nod as they arrived to the forge, Ned bringing her in close as he helped her to stand - keeping his arm around her for support.

Okay, stand. Honestly. Stand. Drag up what’s left of yourself and get this done. Sylaess ended up leaning on him a fair bit. As if she hadn’t just been carried in like some waif. Ignoring that fact, she gripped his arm a moment. Took a small breath and steadied up. “I can’t thank you for this.”

#Nedemus #sylaess #sylaess chasewind #acherus #boralus #SO MANY BAD DECISIONS SYL #WOW #new record!#play stupid games win dumber prizes #messin with the wrong powers my dude

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rueitae · 5 years

Text

“Don’t Move”

Read this and the rest of the collection on Ao3

~~~~~

Pidge’s heart races, the beat drumming in her ear. Whatever Allura was telling her is lost to the static, there is no reception down here in the belly of the Castle.

She takes a deep breath, ignoring the engines powering up and focusing on the Altean script before her. How was she supposed to figure out the right sequence now without so much as an educated guess?

An exhale. “Whatever!” She brings her bayard back, ready to destroy the whole thing.

“Don’t move.”

Pidge freezes before she can swing the green bayard forward, eyes wide in disbelief. In her peripheral vision, a grey blade presses against her throat, making her terrified swallow uncomfortable.

Her breath hitches when he wraps his lanky fingers around her arm, his voice dripping with smugness close enough to her ear she can almost feel his fanged teeth.

“Drop the weapon, child, and stand,” he orders.

The engine continues to rumble and reaches 100% as Pidge does as asked. Her stomach churns with guilt as she feels the Castle move.

Lift off.

“Move,” the Galra orders.

With each step forward the anxiety and guilt grows. She’s failed, unable to save her team, because she wasn’t decisive enough.

Now she’s a captive like Lance and Shiro, in the hands of the aliens who kidnapped and tortured him along with her father and brother.

Some teammate she was. Now she may never get another chance to be there for them.

The door to the bridge opens.

The scene tears her heart apart.

Shiro is the picture of defeat, bruises as exhaustion visible even from across the room. Not at all the confident pilot she saw off with Dad and Matt. When he looks up and sees her, it’s as if a bit of his soul leaves his body. He’s already seen two Holts taken by the Galra, Pidge is about to make it three.

Lance’s shallow breaths and unconsciousness unnerve her. He looks even worse than when she last saw him.

“I found the rat,” her captor announces.

He pushes her towards the boys. While Pidge usually boasted pretty good balance, she stumbles and crashes to her knees into Shiro, who in typical Shiro fashion, moved to break her fall.

“Well done, Haxus,” Sendak commends. “Emperor Zarkon is informed of our plans. Set a course for Central Command.”

Haxus salutes, a fiat over his chest. “Vrepit Sa.”

There are many questions Pidge wants to ask. Some of them are about the journey, some about what will become of them now.

“How is Lance?” she asks quietly.

Shiro is startled, as if awoken from a world of his own. Flashbacks of his time with the Galra no doubt. His eyes flicker to Lance, true fear in them.

“Not good,” he tells her. “He’s only been getting worse.”

The weight of the situation crashes down on her. “I’m so sorry,” she says, sniffling back tears.

“It’s not your fault, Pidge,” Shiro says gently. His tone serves to upset her even more. He knows exactly what awaits them and yet he spends his energy comforting her.

She can’t help the louder than she’d like hitch in her breath before sobbing into Shiro’s arm. Lance is going to die if they don’t do something.

“Your species is tenacious and mourns well,” Sendak crows. Armored boots stomp closer. “Perhaps it would be worth a visit to your planet to see if you are all like this.”

“Stay away from her,” Shiro growls.

It doesn’t stop Sendak from engulfing her body with his metal claw and lifting her off the ground.

Pidge hasn’t known Sendak long, but she’s familiar with the awful, predatory look on his face, satisfaction in his eyes.

“The first female of your species. Well then, this opens many more possibilities to make you useful.”

A sudden blast. Pidge falls to the ground hard, recovering just in time to see Lance awake, smirking, and holding a smoking bayard… before he falls back to the ground unconscious.

“Lance!” Pidge isn’t sure entirely why she calls his name, let alone runs to him - it’s not like she can do anything about it.

But it feels like the right thing to do for a teammate. Her first teammate, the one who first included her.

Tried to include her, anyway.

“Don’t you dare die, Lance,” she huffs through tears, clutching his arm. “I ha - I have to still prove to you I’m a good teammate. I’m sorry for every time I ever blew you and Hunk off. I’ll do better, just please don’t die. We have a universe to save and I still need to find my family and I need your help.”

“Pidge!” Shiro’s command voice interrupts. “Run! Get the engine!”

Shiro is blocking Sendak’s route to her and Haxus is closing in fast.

Pidge bolts, out of the room before Lance or Shiro can be used to bargain against her.

She has a second chance.

This time she won’t fail.

#plance #whumptober2019 #no.12 #Don't Move #voltron legendary defender #vld pidge #canon divergent au #rueitae

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theaetherhealerffxiv · 4 years

Text

Redemption p4

Chapters Master Post

Ao3 link

—-

Rating: PG17 for safety

Parings: Wol x Emet-Selch

Summary:

Its over, the winner gets to write the next chapter of the story. So why, pray tell, wont the Warrior of Light let him die?

Chapter Summary:

Awaking back in the Crystarium Hades finds himself bed ridden and at the mercy of the Warrior of Light.

Word count: 5918

The air around him was scorching, the blistering heat upon his skin caused a flush to gently spread across his cheeks, which remained hidden under his mask. His mask was red like the scene before him; falling stars came at high speeds from the sky and pelted the ground with such force that it destroyed whole buildings. In the place of stone, flames licked the very ground melting the various architecture around it; the vegetation so lovingly planted went up like a parched valley of grass during a lightning storm. Then there was the monsters, born from the fear of the people roamed the streets as well, preying on the fallen members of society that could not outrun their fears. On top of the destruction the screams of terror and the littering of his fellows bodies accented the piece like a grim painting. Yet, Hades stood above it all in an ivory tower relatively unscaithed by the termination. He was displaced from the chaos that he desperately wished to quench. At the moment he could turn upon his heel and gather with his fellows, to begin the summoning and attempt to rewrite the laws of their precious star.

Yet he at the same time did not want to be apart of it. Instead Hades wanted to be down among the dead and dying to search for his beloved and his most trusted friend. To wrap her up in his arms and protect her from the beasts and destruction. Clenching his fist he took in a shaking breath, what was the nature of a plan that consisted of giving the planet a will? It was abstract at best - of course he believed it was their best attempt at saving their home, but gazing upon the destruction he could not help but feel that it futile. Hades would rather throw it all away to hold her again; what if she died? What if their magicks succeeded but she died? Could he live with himself if he lost the one that was most precious to him? As he pondered his greatest fears a meteor fell dangerously close to his perch, throwing dirt and scorch marks upon his mask and black robe.

He could leave - he could leave right at that moment. He could forsake the convocation and go to her side. Surely they could summon this will without him; each where powerful in their own right. Hades lifted his head, deciding he would not participate, he would sneak out while they conversed in the room beyond the one he hid away in.

“Ah, this was where you were hiding Emet-selch.” Hades felt shock course through his body like a sickness as he heard his title come from behind him, the voice which spoke it was rough and irritated. He had been spotted, he could no longer flee. Quickly masking as much anger as he could Hades turned to gaze at Lahabrea, whose exposed mouth was turned downward into a harsh grimace that bore wrinkles into the sides of his lips. “Pray tell, why are you out here? We need you for the summoning.”

Feeling his brows bunch together in a deep frown Hades returned to look out at the carnage. He could push past Lahabrea, run outside, look for her. Hades reached into the pocket of his robe, in it a small pouch with a wristband made of his aether. He had been fully prepared to propose to her tomorrow. He did not care enough currently to summon this great being. Hades understood that it was the best bet for the survival of their people, but he just did not care. He could not muster enough emotion to care about it. Instead his entire being was focused on the bloody painting before him. His lips parting as he breathed out her name, a prayer to the Underworld to not call her soul to rest. Clutching the band his gaze was captured by the destruction. A hand suddenly was slapped against his shoulder with such force Hades turned his head to glare with as much venom as he could muster to the person he knew was behind him.

“Emet-Selch,” Now Lahabrea’s voice was low and deadly. Hades leered at him as he continued, his hand digging further into the golden eyed man’s robes. “There is little time for you to be staring at the destruction before you, I care not of your reasons to be doing such an act but we need you to hurry and come so that we can - “

Hades's eyes narrowed, a smirk of pure rage twitching at the sides of his lips. He did not care, he wanted to be with his precious people. “Save the star, write the laws anew.” Hades recited the lines without passion. How many times had he heard them? He had believed in them up until this very moment when faced with the destruction that the termination had wrought upon their home. Shrugging off Lahabrea’s hand he bowed his head, knowing he was caught between a rock and wall. He was a trapped animal; if he forsook his comrades and they succeeded, they would do everything in their power to alienate him. Hades knew if this was the case he would not be able to propose to her, or even show his face in the streets of Amaurot. Shutting his eyes he took a step forward, away from his peer. If they did not succeed, he would have abandoned his love in her time of need. Which was the better punishment? Saving the world and possibly sacrificing the only thing he truly lived for, or forsaking his future if the convocation was successful? Biting the inside of his cheek he struggled with his thoughts; he believed in the plan, even with the dread growing in the pit of his belly. It was illogical, but possible. In his mind, he could see her smiling and telling him to go, succeed, save their home.

To come back home to her arms.

His hand was still in his pocket and he clutched the bag one last time before walking forward with purpose to the room in which the convocation stood whispering to one another. Hades knew Lahabrea was behind him and he chose to ignore it as he took his place in the circle. Once settled into his place Hades took stock of the atmosphere and surroundings. It was the same as always - a tall dark room with chairs that had been pushed back against the wall. The table had been moved as well and in its place a crystal had been placed. Frowning at it Hades turned to look at Elidibus, who smiled at him. It was not a warm smile, or one that created an illusion of understanding and sympathy. It was cold and judging, Elidibus knew Hades was struggling and was judging his actions. Glaring at the white robed man Hades turned away, he would not be judged by the likes of that man.

Reaching up Hades adjusted his mask absentmindedly. Realizing he still felt the heat from the window - in fact he was burning up, sweat dripping from the corners of his hairline. Taking a steadying breath Hades attempted to quell the heat, knowing it was likely futile.

“As our final two members grace our presence, we can now properly begin the incantation.” Elidibus’ voice caused Hades to look back up, the man had his arms outstretched that same smile spread across his face. “I pray that you, my peers, will focus your various magicks upon me. I shall become the conduit for those who have chosen to give their lives for this as well. I shall set the spell in motion so that we may create a being that embodies our planets will.” Leaning his head back Elidibus took in a deep breath, and if it was possible to spread his arms out further. The various souls that had been floating around the room spilled into the man. Hades grimace; the creation power that those souls held was emmese. Could Elidibus truly contain such a power? “Come! We shall write this terrible wrong and save our people!” The white robed man tilted his head back down and smiled, indicating that the rest of those present copied his movements.

Hades lifted his hands to mimic Elidibus’, but as he did so he felt a sting, as if something was sinking its claws deep into his flesh. It was not in one place of his body either, it happened several times over his entire form. He frowned, this was unusual for creation magic - it could drain you but it rarely caused such physical sensations. Regardless, Hades closed his eyes to briefly think of his loved ones, of Hythlodaeus who surely would ask how this went on the morrow, and of her. Of how he would propose to her, place the band upon her wrist and kiss her. Then, Hades released the thoughts before they were pulled into the spell causing it to be altered. Opening his eyes he allowed himself to be swept up with thoughts of creating a will for the planet. He focused all of these thoughts upon Elidibus, along with his magics, channeling all that he had to the white robed man to use freely.

Everything happened quickly, there was a great overflow of magic that came from Elidibus and spread warping the very room itself and obscuring Hades vision as it encased him in a cocoon of darkness. It confused and drew Hades’ curiosity as it spiraled around his arms like vines drawing taunt enough to shape out various body parts from his cloak. Then, the vines changed they grew heavy and became chain-like. Hades jerked back in shock, trying to pull away from the magics but finding himself rooted firmly to his spot. The darkness began to recede and the golden eyed man noticed that the other members of the convocation had similar chains around them. Throwing his gaze towards Elidibus, who had the most chains out of all of them, smiling wickedly in a triumphant fashion. Shaking his head Hades followed the other man's gaze towards the middle of their circle, to where the crystal had been. There, purple crystals had grown out and around a figure that had not been standing there before. Relaxing his hands to his sides because of the weight of the aetheric chains Hades felt his stomach drop.

They had succeeded, but something was off. The creation was dark, a shadow robed in aether, it had the aura of peace and purpose but something felt twisted. Within its hands it held the other end of the chains that had captured the convocation members. It lifted its head and carefully looked around the room, before straightening its back. Hades felt its voice before he heard it, like something deep in his chest moving and worming its way into the core of his being, changing him. Lifting a hand to his chest he frowned, a thought of doubt drifting across his mind before suddenly it was gone. All doubt about the being before him was gone.

Then, it spoke physically. Its voice booming around the room.

“I am Zodiark.” It said. “I shall save those who live upon me.”

----

Hades awoke with a start, his eyes flying open and with a gasp he clutched at the blankets that covered him as a hot pain laced through his chest, as if it were attempting chasing away something. His face scrunched into a tight grimace as he attempted to catch his breath. Only for a coughing seizure to tear through his chest as the pain subsided, raising a hand he grasped at his breast. Hades eyes darting around the darkened room, where was he? After his coughing subsided the man cast his mind back to the last thing he remembered - that he had been holding onto Swath as they flew towards the Crystarium. Once they had reached a cruising altitude his memory abruptly failed him and faded to an unfamiliar darkness. As realization of what had happened dawned upon him, he cursed low under his breath. Of course his foul luck would lead him to passing out against the hero. Struggling with an unfamiliar and weak body, Hades managed to prop himself up on his elbows. In the dim light see that his chest had been expertly bandaged, while clearly already blooming with his bodily fluids. He could see that it was done by the hands of an expert. Had his hero been the one to do such? Was she capable of such ministrations? Taking a deep breath he decided to ask her when she came into the room, then moved his attention away from his thoughts to the room around him.

Turning his head he saw a basin resting on the side table, with a dirty cloth stained with blue aether and blood similar to the colors that stained his chest, but duller. Curious now, Hades shifted to lean on one arm as he lifted his other to find it too had various small bandages covering the cuts that had dotted his skin. Raising his eyebrows and taking a second to marvel at the craftsmanship he exhaled sharply, leaning to lay upon his back once more. Then, with his raised hand he reached up to press the palm to his forehead. Feeling a lump begin to grow within the pit of his stomach, Hades was frustrated, mostly at himself. He had passed out while they had flown to their next destination. He could only imagine the trouble he had caused Swath; he was clearly in her room. While he had not watched her as she had rested, but he had allowed himself time to become familiar with the various objects that decorated her abode. As he gazed at the room another frown graced his features. Why was he so concerned with causing trouble to her? She wanted to use him to live, was this not what she wanted? His hand tightened his fingers gripping his disheveled hair pulling it taunt. Using each other, that was the deal right? Then why did it make his heart heavy when he thought of her face, strained and exhausted?

An unbidden frustrated moan slipped from his lips.

Hades was a fool, he realized this with sudden clarity. His heart was heavy because he cared, he cared about her emotions, cared about her. He had hours ago felt his heart begin to fall for the Viera, why was he denying it now? Why was he trying to cling to his nonchalant temperament that he had while he was tempered?

No, his personality had not even been that, it had been disconnected from the world around him. He had been but a ghostly participant. Now he had been thrust back into the realm of the living and he was feeling things he no longer understood. Letting out a groan he tore his hand away from him and let it drop to his side. Realizing this made him think about the emotions he had felt looking at Eulmore, was it regret? Had he felt regret because his actions? And what about when he was trying to be useful to Swath by opening that portal? Had it been determination?

Shutting his eyes for a moment he attempted to sort through the various emotions that swirled in his breast. It was overwhelming, and while he should sort through them and rediscover himself it was not the appropriate time to be dealing with his new found freedom. Shifting he opened his eyes and sighed. It was useless to try to conjure these feelings in a futile attempt to understand. His mind was still a swirling mess but, as usual he had to attempt to set aside these thoughts and focus on other more pressing matters. Swath could still come back at any moment and she did not need to deal with a bed ridden Ascian that was attempting to recall exactly what certain emotions felt like. That was not a disaster that she needed to help him sort through, and the Ascian had a feeling that if he allowed himself to wallow in these thoughts she would.

Instead he gazed around the room with a frustrated and strained smile on his lips. As he released those twisting thoughts and allowed his mind to drift back to the dream he had right before waking up. In an attempt of a distraction for his wandering mind.

As Hades recalled the various parts of the dream he realized that, no, it had not been a dream. He now frowned, his brow furrowing deeply; it had been a memory of the destruction of Amaurot and the creation of Zodiark. Hades had not been plagued by that dream since Elidibus had awoken him. The memory had once been fuel that had stoked the fire within his chest, but now it only caused a knot of indescribable emotion to form in the pit of his belly. It twisted violently and uncomfortably as he thought about the chains of the primal, chains he had honestly forgotten about initially. Until Swath had destroyed them. Had it been because Zodiark was truly a primal? With the ability to alter one's will? Sighing Hades pushed the unpleasant thoughts away to the best of his ability, he knew once again it was not the best time to be wallowing in the various tragedies and mistakes of his past, nor the possibilities of what Zodiark was. Those thoughts were for another time. Laying back upon the pillow he groaned as pain shot through his breast, taking in a breath he shut his eyes only for a moment before he heard the door at the foot of the bed open.

“Thank yah, I’m fine though, please continue the celebration without me!” Swaths voice was strained with false excitement, clearly intent on getting whomever was bothering her to leave her alone. Hades shifted as she spoke, leaning on his elbows again as he caught a glimpse of her white hair and ears through the divider. The rest of her was obscured by the wood design and the darkness of the room. He frowned, as her ears folded back, clearly the individual was trying to coerce her to return to the festivities. “Nay,” She said again her voice now low. “I’h must check on mah guest, did yeh forget that he is unwell?” There was a low apology and then a sigh from the Viera. “Aye, I’h know, thank yah again. Please go enjoy tha party.” With that she closed the door and let go of a breath that Hades had not realized she had been holding in.

From his place on the bed he watched as she pressed her forehead against the door, her shoulders drooping. Raising his eyebrows he tilted his head a little, his hair falling in the way of his view. After a moment of watching her Hades cleared his throat. “Attempting to escape the festivities held in your honor hero?” He watched with a twang of joy as he saw her ears straighten and a smile spread across her weary face as she turned to gaze at him through the divider.

“Yah are awake,” She moved with surprising swiftness as she hurried to his side. Hades’ golden eyes followed her as the feeling of joy spreading from his belly to the rest of his body warming him. His brows turned down into a gentle expression as she reached the side of the bed and collapsed to her knees. “How are yah feelin?” Swaths hand reached out and pressed against his forehead, and momentarily he shut his eyes reveling in the feeling of her touch. He was growing accustomed to it, and honestly beginning to crave it. She rested her hand there for only a moment before shifting and gently thumbing over his third eye, another more familiar sensation jolted through Hades as he struggled to stay on one arm as he lifted his right hand to seize her hand in an attempt to make her stop her movements.

As he gently moved her hand away from his third eye he smiled his signature lopsided smile at her. “I am doing much better thanks to the many ministrations you performed upon me.” He nodded towards the soiled bowl. Moving her hand away from his grasp she gingerly pressed down on various parts of his chest.

“Aye, was nothin really,” There was a blush on her cheeks which once again caused that sensation to run through him like lightning. It was also accompanied by several familiar emotions, but he was truly only able to partially understand them. He felt joy, he felt his heart leap towards her; falling for her , although the sensation was different than what he remembered. Hades moved his arm back in position so that both supported him, as he continued to watch her frown down at the blooming blue that appeared after her hand left a certain area of his chest. It did not hurt him beyond a small sting, but as she lifted her hand away she reached behind her and grabbed the rag. “Yah are still leakin aether.” She sighed and shifted so that she was looking at him. The rag poised in her hands expectantly, her hands hovering over his chest waiting.

Hades sighed, and laid back on the back letting his arms stretch out in mock defeat. “Yes, go ahead Swath, do what you need to do.” With that she quickly set about unwrapping his chest, it was a little awkward at the angle he was at but every time he attempted to move and help her a firm hand pressed him back into the bed. He was growing increasingly amused by her actions, as he watched her he could feel the stinging with each strip of bandage removed. So in an attempt to distract himself from the incoming pain Hades focused on the face of the Warrior of Light; her brow furrowed in concentration she seemed oblivious to the world around her. He knew that was a farce though. Any slight movement done by his form would immediately be silenced by a firm hand. Swaths hair was tied back at the moment as she worked over him, it had been so when she came into the room as well. Her one golden eye darted around as she finished unwrapping the bandages.

Hades shifted a little and Swath allowed him to do so, before placing a hand on his shoulder once more looking at him seriously. “This is gunna hurt.”

He opened his mouth to protest but she did not wait, grabbing the damp cloth she opened it and laid it down over the faintly glowing wound on his chest. Hades frowned, she lied, it had not hurt. It stung a little that was for sure - his thoughts were cut short as he watched her hand, seemingly mimic the soft aura of his chest, press down on the towel.

Then pain burned through him like a wildfire. It started from her hand which splayed stiffly against his stomach and then simultaneously went to his toes and his head. Everything hurt, it reminded him of her trying to pull his soul back from the afterlife. Hades felt his hands tense up in the sheets and through the pain realized that Swath was holding onto one of his hands - the one closest to her. As quickly as the fire started it was staunched as her hand was lifted away from his body. Gasping Hades fell limp upon the bed, gulping the cool air like a lifeline.

“Pray tell hero, was that necessary?” He leered at her his voice exceptionally weak, but her response to him was just a shrug. Which caused him to continue glaring at her weary eye.

“Aye, twas. I’h need tah infuse yah with aether till yah stabilize.” Her face told him she wished to say more, to say that if she did not he would die. Rolling his eyes he looked toward the ceiling and heaved a long sigh which caused his body to radiate dull pain. A murmur then came from her lips. “Though yah seem pretty stable right now.”

“Do as you wish Swath,” Hades murmured. The pit in his stomach was back and he knew he could no longer fight her, nor did he wish too. His life was hers, only hers. “I do believe at this moment in time you know more about the situation than I, as much as I loathe to admit.” Letting his body relax he closed his eyes, sleep would not come easy. The pain was still present, a soft throbbing in the core of his stomach. There was also the fact that she was in the room with him, and while her presence did relax him it also cause that storm of emotions to stir in his breast. Opening his eyes he shifted his head to look at her, Swath had moved to sit by his head on the floor. She had covered her blind eye once again with an eye-patch, but what truly made Hades wish to recoil was the fact she was so close to him. Though his body refused to move, and instead he just blinked a few times in her direction. She smiled and reached up brushing away his dark brown hair that slipped to obscure his face.

“I’h do, sadly. I’h wish I didn't. Awfully similar tah some wounds I’ve had in the past.” Swath shrugged and Hades opened his mouth to protest and respond with a question, but instead found her continuing. “But yah are a captive audience. I’h figure since yah are up we should have that talk.”

Hades snapped his jaw shut, ah yes the talk about his past and the future. The future he hoped to have by her side. “Yes, I consented to being interrogated about this,” Hades murmured, Swath turning to gaze at him again her face solemn. Raising a weary hand he waved it briefly before letting it fall limply back at his side. “Ask away hero, I will answer truthfully, as I always have.”

She beamed, it was a melancholy filled smile. “I know,” Swath turned to gaze at the other side of the room chewing on her lip briefly. “Hades, yah where Solus correct?”

He frowned, what sort of question was this? He plainly said when they first met that he had been Solus zos Galvus and countless others, but sighing he humored her. “Yes, I was Solus.”

“Do yah remember a small village in the Garlean mountains?” As the words slipped from her mouth he felt his heart clench as she tilted her head away from him. “Small village that worshiped a Primal like entity. Quiet, peaceful, only did trade with otha towns once ah blue moon.” Hades watched as her body became rigid and her ears flattened. Her hand, which had been resting on the bed side fell away and fell limply in her lap. “Tha town was mah home. I’h was raised there. It was destroyed, by Emporer Solus’ word.”

Hades turned away, “By Zodiark,” He murmured shifting lifting his heavy hand to his face. This was regret, this was sorrow, this was fear; these emotions in his breast that threatened to suffocate him. He remembered that order, he remembered hearing about that small village of possible primal worshipers in his lands. Hades remembered being something similar to gleeful, he would sow more destruction, he had thought, and hasten the rejoining. He had sent some of his best men to that village to destroy it. Hades had not known that inadvertently he would created the Warrior of Light, that he had created the woman that sat next to him. Part of him was happy he did such, because he had been saved by her hand, but it was easily eclipsed by the regret. He had taken everything from her.

“I’h was also nearly killed by those men yah sent.” Hades flinched as she spoke up again. “I’h, I’h dont ask for an apology Hades. I’h just wanted tah know if yah did send them.” Her voice was soft, broken. It was not all she wanted to talk about, this much was clear, but it was the most prominent thing on her mind.

He took in a deep breath. “Yes, I did send those men. I intended to wipe out the entire village, for the local villages to begin to think I was losing my mind and hasten the fear in those lands.” Hades laughed bitterly. “The quicker the rejoining the better after all.”

“I’h see,” Swaths voice petered out to nothing and silence fell over the two of them. It persisted for a long time, until Hades lifted his hand from his face and saw a blur of white and grayish blue suddenly eclipse what little light was in the room. “Hades,” Swath was over him her hands on either side of his face, hers awfully close to his. “Yah life is mine,” Her one uncovered eye staring with heat into his own pools of gold. “I’h choose yah, the one who took my family from me, to be mine.”

Once again silence fell over the room, Hades lifted his heavy hand to wrap around her arm. He did not do so in such a way that he threatened to throw her off of him, no, he did not have the strength for that. What he did have the strength for was to hold her there. To hold her above him and not let go.

“I will not die unless you say, I will not leave the Crystarium without your word, I am yours to command Swath,” Hades said evenly, watching as her eye widened clearly not expecting his proclamation. To him, it made sense, they were using each other, at least up to this point that had been the deal. The deal was different now. “My life, Swath, is yours. I will ask for nothing in return.” After all he had no right to ask such things, she was a hero and he washed up villain. Hades did not know if he would ever have the power he once did because of Swath acting like a cap upon him, but in truth he did not care. His life was hers, it had been the moment he opened his eyes returning from death by her hands. Swath had given him a second chance at life, a second chance to live. He had to live with everything wrong he had done yes, and he had done terrible wrongs to the one person he was coming to care deeply for. He could not atone for that. Hades squeezed her arm with what power he had in his muscles and willed his message to get across. He was a Ascian, but from this point on he was her Ascian. Not Zodiarks, not Elidibus’, hers.

“Give me, give me some of yah aether to seal the deal.” Swaths voice shook as she asked this, the command caused him to raise his eyebrows.

“Excuse me hero, you wish for what?” Hades shifted as she got off of him sitting at the side of the bed, hanging only one leg off of it still crowding him as he struggled to sit up. His body was heavy and did not obey his commands properly, but after he got halfway up and was about to slip backwards her hands where there holding him up. Again, she was close to close. They had been this close only hours before, but her request was something increasingly intimate.

“Aether, mine is already in yah,” She lifted a hand away and gently jabbed his chest, a section that was not wounded. “Its only fair yah know.”

“I do not think you understand what you ask.” Hades muttered leaning his head away from her, while trying to keep his thundering heart in check. This was panic right? This feeling that caused him to wish for the energy to flee from the room. Of course he had no such energy and was sufficiently trapped by Swaths form. She let her hand graze his chest back to his shoulder.

“I’h do, yeah it could hurt meh but I’h need tah know yah are serious. Its like ah bindin spell.” Swath frowned at him, her expression still intense. Hades took in in a steadying breath, she wanted this.

It was different from using her as a conduit for his magics; his aether just passed through her harmlessly, but to mix them. He frowned, looking inward, feeling his own aether. Hades earlier had recognized that his soul was fundamentally the same yet something was different, was it his aether? After a moment he saw it, around his darkly colored soul was surrounded by a slight golden glow. Her aether, a bit of her soul. Hades swallowed, looking at her - she had mixed their aether. Against his wishes a blush traveled from his neck to his cheeks. Causing the Viera to lean back surprised. Hades could tell she was about to ask but he shook his head, if this is what she wanted he would do it. “Yes, yes alright hero if this is the assurance you wish for I will give you some of my aether.” He watched as she relaxed, although her expression was still one of confusion. “Do not regret this.” Hades muttered, advice for the both of them as he shifted to press his hand against her chest. Then with a slight frown took in a deep breath and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers.

His third eye pressed uncomfortably against her skin but he ignored it, he focused on her form her hands that held him and his hand on her chest. Releasing his deep breath he reached for the familiar route he took when he used her as a conduit, but instead of allowing his aether to pass by her he pushed it outward around her, into her. She gasped and he ignored it, pushing further, feeling no resistance. Then there was a snap and he pulled his head back, taking in a steadying breath.

By Zodiark he was now painfully aware of her, moving his body away to the best of his ability he felt her hands release him. Hades did not look at her face as he pressed his back against the headboard of the bed, but once he was settled he looked back up and saw that she was crying. He recoiled looking at her with disgusted shock, why was she crying? Why would she cry after asking something so intimate of him? He was about to open his mouth to rebuke her, and remind her that he had said that she should not regret asking such a thing. Instead his words died on his lips as she raised her hand to her cheek, seemingly equally surprised as he.

“Was tha their wish too?”

“Whose wish hero?” Hades asked as he leaned forward, the panic returning. “Whose wish?” The Ascians mind raced, he had not shown her anything through that bond had he? Then it dawned on him, the dreaded ‘Crystal mothers’ blessing, the echo. “What did you see Swath,” He reached out to her, her wide eyes causing his breaths to come quick. “Swath who did you see.”

#i cant come up with good chapter names #ffxiv fanfiction #ffxiv fanfic #Remember Me [emetxwol]#emet selch #emet-selch #emetxwol #emet selch x wol #emet selch/wol #solus zos galvus #solus zos glavus x wol #wol x emet-selch #wol x solus zos galvus #im warning everyone now this is a intense slow burn

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icosmohunters · 4 years

Text

chapter eleven : easter sunday

chapter eleven of cosmo hunters!

word count : 8.3k words

synopsis : easter is perhaps the best holiday to go back home to. after having come back to new orleans, hope has begun to familiarize herself with the town she neglected returning to for so long. a breakaway from exploration, and a time for bonding.

for a while, she was accustomed to waking up to a low hum of her ship. at times she would hear the miniature drips from the tap in the bathroom, or the radiators turning on upon sensing her stir or awake in the middle of the night. artificial sounds for a person who lived on a spaceship.

in the time where she had been far from home, she had lost her connection from the ambient sounds that was ensued from a fresh morning. the birds singing, the rattling of pans in the kitchen, the chatter from the road outside her window, the faint jazz that could be heard from next door.

hope left new orleans nearly a year ago and hasn’t come back, so it was strange to awake to something that wasn’t her alarm clock. it was more like a weight pressing against her sides, not one to bother but one to be aware of. this bit of weight also had some soft hair brushing against the side of her face.

it took her some blinks to adjust. being bathed in sunlight at the sight of your old bedroom growing up was a sensation that not many can describe. not a thing had been touched, relics of a young hope who had unfortunately grown up from her band phases and her obsession with plushies, and who had now developed into a particularly cold woman.

this cold woman, though, was able to stir on her side and bring her brother’s sleeping figure closer, seeing that some of the bedsheets had slipped from his body. upon adjusting it over him, she saw his sleeping face soften and his breathing deepen, he was fast asleep.

from what she had heard, he had the same problem with sleeping that she did. the inability to relax and let go of the events you went through that day, the fight to let the night became your ally and something to rely on when your body needed the rest it craved. instead, the night became more of a sour friend, one which you would greet through your waking moments and continue to bathe in until the sun entered.

it was surprising, to say the least. she never thought insomnia could affect people on such a large scale, especially for a kid his age. but the absence of fun and lively activities that tired him supposedly made him more active and it was harder to put him to bed. he was going to turn eleven in may and yet he had a sleep disorder that should’ve affected him in the later years of his teenagehood.

he’s been through a lot, she thought to herself, brushing her fingers against every delicate detail on his face. connor had been robbed of his childhood because of this sudden illness that took hold of him, and there wasn’t a fiber in his sister’s body that didn’t want to get rid of it. but it required time and a lot of money. money might not be an issue, it was just time. time which hope may not have. because time was the catalyst for the paralyzation.

fighting through an early frown, hope allowed this embrace to linger for just a little longer, to provide the kid the warmth she had failed to give him during the time he needed her the most. hope felt awful for having left him, and she wanted to do anything to make up for it.

but to think that she’s going to be gone even after all of this is over . . . again.

sighing, hope looked down to her bed and saw something soft peeking through the sheets. she knew it was soft the moment she saw the dent and felt her feet brush against something composed of fluff. reaching from within the bedsheets, she grasped and fished out something that had her smiling from ear to ear.

it was harold, the duckie. he had been quite a big part of hope’s childhood. after winning him at a funfair, he was the equivalent of a best friend when the girl found herself unpopular in the early stages of elementary school. when people wouldn’t be her friend, harold was there to give her a cuddle when she felt loneliest.

he had quite a big head and two pink spots on his cheeks, suggesting a timid and embarrassing set of blushes. the outfit hope had picked for him was a t-shirt housing the name of her favorite football team, the new orleans saints. very patriotic but she loved being from this tropical town in the south.

aside from the aging smell of fabric, nothing on this yellow friend had changed. he remained still as adorably angry and fluffy as usual, and she knew mostly it was because of connor’s soft touch when it came to toys, he treated them with care. especially harold.

the young woman could almost imagine how he ended up here when he was supposed to be on the shelves with all the other plushies. connor had most likely reached to them and brought it with him when he determined to tuck in beside his sister.

setting her yellow friend to the side, hope turned back to connor whose lashes were batting and eyes flickered between the border of being awake and remaining in his blissful dreams. but as heartbreaking as it was to wake him up when he needed sleep the most, she found that she had to.

“ wake up, tyke. ”

he stirred slightly, and then the stygian pair of eyes soon looked back towards her, eyes which resembled hers in almost every way. they housed a brightness that can only be seen in that of children. the innocence remained in his soul, perhaps justifying his purity and goodness and inability to do bad things even though he might be tempted.

there was a cluster of stars in the eyes of this child and hope never wished them to burn out, as all stars do. she knew this constellation would be eternal.

connor soon smiled and rubbed his pure eyes with his hands that had balled into fists and then loosened to pat around in search of something. she then placed harold back into his grasp and offered the boy a meek smile. “ i wanted to make sure he wasn’t lonely ”, he uttered in perhaps the softest voice she had heard yet.

hope rose on her elbow and allowed her cheek to lean against the open palm of her hand. “ does he get lonely when i’m not around? ”, she asked delicately and connor nodded. “ i can’t blame him, we were really good friends growing up. ”

suddenly, the mellowness in connor’s face was contorted with an expression hope never wanted to see again, and it was that of some sort of puzzlement intertwined with deep sadness, something a kid should never feel at this early stage. sadness was a universal feeling, and no one deserved it no matter how natural it was.

“ i think he’s going to be my only friend ”, connor croaked and then held harold to his chest, squeezing him so tightly it felt like he was throwing all of his strength onto a plushie, the type of embrace you’d see a kid giving a reliable adult. yet he remained so innocent. “ s-some kids at school don’t like to sit with me. they don’t play with me because my wheelchair gets in the way. ”

hope had to lower her head for a while. this was exactly what she feared. the prejudice that people show can easily be mistaken by something else in the naive mind of a child, they’re too young to learn about the problems of the world, they shouldn’t have to be exposed to any sort of maltreatment at this age.

especially if it was a personal experience. she couldn’t even begin to imagine the face of her younger brother drop as he watches the kids outside being able to swing from monkey bars and squeal down a slide or dance through hopscotch. he was different. and he was labeled as different because no one was willing to make him feel like he could be like everyone else.

and that’s what she hated, what made her blood boil, what made her want to grab a fucker by the throat and slam them against the wall before asking, ‘he’s a kid, why do you make him feel as if he deserves this?!’. because he didn’t. he didn’t deserve any of it. he didn’t ask for the illness and he most certainly didn’t ask to be treated like an alien when the sickness already took half of his childhood away.

instead of making him feel like he’s worthy of some sort of happiness, regardless of what it takes the form of, they choose to humiliate him and make him feel separate from everyone else. a kid should never feel like they have to separate themselves from people, that people don’t want to be near them. kids like connor had to feel like they were capable of imprinting the world with color instead of staining it with hatred.

hope might have not been there for him during these times, she knew of her absence and how it might have hurt her darling brother. it was why she pulled him into her arms and allowed his body to relax once more against hers. it was why she tried to give time for him now, to utter some words that might hopefully stick with him.

“ ever heard of universal kindness? ”, she inquired and felt the gentle head shake against her neck. “ it’s being able to be good and kind to everyone no matter what they say or do. some people aren’t universally kind, connor. but you are. you’re the kindest kid i’ve ever met and i’m so . . .”. she had to pause as to avoid getting emotional.

“ i-i’m beyond proud, i’m more than proud of you for that. so even when people aren’t kind to you, never let it be a reason for you to give up on people. always try to be people’s friends because one day, there is going to be that one person who will play with you and like you even if you’re in a wheelchair. ”

her fingers now brushed through his jet black locks and tickled behind his ear, he seemed to have relaxed once more. and upon taking a glance down, she noticed that beam return to his face and that’s what gave her the strength to return it, giving him a light squeeze in her arms.

i may be the most flawed individual in this world but there is nothing i wouldn’t do for my baby brother or my family, she thought.

it was difficult to get out of bed, especially with the cuddle he was giving her but the moment she heard the rattling of pans grow louder and the smell of pancakes with apples and cinnamon, her stomach roared and she was soon making her bed and getting ready for the day.

connor had managed to get back on his wheelchair and went to immediately see his mother whilst hope chose her outfit for the day and then opted to shower first before anything else. except, of course, someone was already in the shower and she had to wait.

once the door opened, she leaned off from the wall and spotted dom. his hair seemed to have been washed as it appeared wet and he looked refreshed, some tinted pinkness in his cheeks from the shower but it wasn’t natural enough to disguise the bruise.

she glanced at him for a moment when he took notice of her and gave out a grumbled good morning. her lips quivered but she chose to speak, “ what are you using to make it heal quicker? ”.

he stopped slightly and turned to look at her, fixing a cold gaze onto her figure. she gulped and continued. “ the bruise. it might heal quicker if you use something on it rather than covering it up with make-up. i-i can ask my mom to make somet— ”.

“ —is the guilt starting to settle in, captain? ”.

her cheeks now burned.

perhaps she did feel a slap of guilt across the face every time she saw it, it wasn’t a nice sight and it wasn’t nice at all to know that she was behind it. having received a similar injury before, she could tell it hurt. but what angered her the most was why she had done it in the first place.

thinking back on it now, it was rather childish. but then again, he had struck a nerve he shouldn’t have. it was difficult to tell exactly who was at fault, but hope knew she had done it regardless and she didn’t want to be reminded of it every time she saw the purple mark just below his eye.

“ y-yes, it is ”, she managed to say. but then didn’t linger long enough to see his reaction. she found that she was growing vulnerable around these people, allowing her weaknesses to be seen. she’s never been bashful near anyone, yet here she was.

hope entered the bathroom and closed the door firmly behind her, before letting out a sigh of relief.

it was a good ten minutes inside that bathroom, taking care of herself and allowing just a few moments to relax, she can’t easily lay back and enjoy a tender moment with her family like some people. hence why when she came home, it was always counted as a special occasion.

rarely getting in touch with her feminine side, hope decided that a summer dress would do underneath a denim jacket. this was mostly how she dressed at home, her mother would often wear clothes that made her look ten years younger. it was a trend in the everhart house to never get old.

“ there she is! ”.

hope smiled sweetly at her mother upon entering the kitchen. the pancakes she made every easter had remained a tradition since before hope was even born, so it was no wonder her dad was up early and so was connor, eating and chatting away at the table.

peering into the living room, she spotted vivienne braiding dawn’s hair for the day, though she didn’t see enzo nor quinn. it was weird, enzo had completely disappeared last night and supposedly he came back when most were still asleep.

vivienne, looking up, saw the puzzled expression on the captain’s face. “ he’s still in bed, i suppose he got some severe jet-lag and crashed after a trip to the bar last night ”, she voiced.

“ he went to the bar? ”, hope repeated.

“ yes, with dominic. ”

sighing, hope wandered to where he was staying. he had crashed in connor’s room, and she could tell this because she saw his bag as soon as she pushed the door open. and there enzo was, still tucked away in bed, bare arms exposed to the fresh exhales of the wind entering through the open windows.

so he had gone out for a drink. she didn’t know much about the guy’s background nor if he was accustomed to earth, but most people tended to go to bars for a breakaway from the hectic lives they lead. a pirate must lead a hectic lifestyle, even if it consists mainly of stealing and running from authorities.

just how exhausted was he? hope walked over and let a passing gaze over his sleeping face before leaning down slightly and shaking him by the arm, he grunted and soon his eyes flew open. “ morning, cap. breakfast is served ”, she mumbled and allowed him to slowly sit up.

“ uh . . . w-what time is it? ”, enzo asked through a yawn.

“ nine o’clock. we mostly sleep in during easter but mom has some nice things planned for all of us ”, she replied. his eyes lingered around the simple bedroom belonging to her brother before resting on her. “ you should really get ready and dressed, it’ll be fun. and i’ll ask dad to whip you up a shake for the hangover. ”

“ what will it consist of? ”.

“ well, bananas, blueberries, watermelon . . . maybe some eggs if you decide you’re going to take an eternity— ”.

“ —i’m up. ”

back in the kitchen, hope was able to sit down with a plate of those magical pancakes along with a glass of apple juice. and for the first time in a while, she took her tea having her meal rather than rushing it and not savoring the flavor, a flavor she’s missed for so long.

whilst eating, she listened in on the plans for the day. there was an easter egg hunting competition a couple of roads down and connor was looking forward to going. after that, it was a lovely evening at a jazz restaurant and when the sun had set, a boat ride in the bayou at night. three things that were going to occupy her day and she was looking forward to it.

every time she went home, it was like a moment of healing. being among her family members and catching up with the things she missed and providing the affection she kept to herself, it was all a healing experience. it was like being among nature, being where you feel safe.

before they could leave, though, hope decided she needed to do something to thank her mother for the day she had planned ahead for everyone. she was always a woman who gave to others and then never took anything back, never asked for anything back. truly humbled, truly kind. it was no wonder connor was the kind boy he was.

so in order to recompensate for the things had been given to her, provided to her by the mother she had, she decided that some flowers would suffice as a semblance of gratitude. she took her purse and was out the door in a few minutes, her converse tapping against the sidewalk.

immediately, she was greeted by the sun beaming down on her, and it was refreshing, to say the least, after having not felt it properly in a while. it was like a welcoming but ghostly embrace from an old friend.

there was a flower shop stationed not too far from where they had eaten yesterday, a five-minute walk from her house if she hurried. and she did, she didn’t want to miss the easter egg hunt.

soon, she saw it, the flower shop named honeycomb. it was a family business that has been in the town for nearly fifty years, it was there even before her parents were born. and within, she saw a figure walking among the flowers. hope entered through the veranda and past the first few gardenias and poppies and towards this figure.

it was rare to see her in these instances, she would often be away at university and hardly came back to celebrate holidays that weren’t christmas or thanksgiving. but it was good to see her, regardless.

many people thought hope and this girl were perhaps siblings as they shared similar appearances, but their personalities were almost total opposites. hope was cold, and she was warm. hope was sour, and she was sweet. it was in her name.

honey lee.

the girl was hope’s age, if not a year younger. and she could easily be classified as a girl anyone dreams of having at your side, whether it be as a friend or as a lover. not only did she harness that docile aura that you can get lost in, but she also held the personality that made her remarkable. a personality hope sometimes envied, but honey was an advocate for self-love so that doesn’t last very long.

hair curled and rich in brown, honey turned upon sensing the presence beside her and widened her bright, green eyes. “ hope!”, she gasped and welcomed her into a tender hug, hope smiled and squeezed the girl gently in her arms. “ oh my god, it’s so good to see you! i didn’t know you were coming back. ”

“ yeah, well neither did i ”, hope mumbled and pulled back for a moment but didn’t part from the hug, it was too much of a good hug to part from. “ you got a perm, i’m loving the hair. are you working today? ”.

honey nodded softly, “ but only for the morning. dad’s hoping to have a barbeque after the sunday service but we might not go. it all depends on how he’s feeling. god, you look so pretty. ” hope grinned. “ so, what are you looking for? ”.

keeping an arm around the girl’s waist, hope hummed. “ mom’s been doing quite a lot for me lately. she’s got the entire day planned and i wanted to get her some flowers as a form of gratitude ”, she explained. “ care to lend me some flower power? ”.

“ flower power? i’ll give you some. ”

honey was a magician when it came to flowers, knowledgable in almost every sense of the word and she knew how to bring a bouquet together to summon a message, whatever the message was, whether it was of gratitude or a love confession or an apology.

what she had wrapped for hope was a mixture of pink roses with sweat peas and the fragrance that erupted from it caused her nose to tickle slightly and her eyes to water but it was a beautiful mixture of colors nonetheless. it was hard to convince honey to be paid for the service, she often led the assumption that she had to do things for the sake of charity on special days.

but just today, hope wanted to be a normal customer. and one that pays. so whilst leaving the shop and saying goodbye to the girl, she shifted to shove the money into her pockets and bolted when she yelled and asked her to come back.

“ hope! ”.

“ happy easter, honey! ”.

the venue for the egg hunting game was not too far from her, though she had to hurry as to avoid being late, passing by hortense’s house and grinning from ear to ear whilst racing through the market. it was held at an open field nearby the playground by connor’s school, he hadn’t stopped talking about it the night before.

by the time she got there, some families were already present and hope struggled to spot her or any of the pirates until she saw dawn hopping on her feet eagerly, she seemed quite lively today like she had cracked out of her shell. and new orleans does that to a person, it served as a catalyst for breaking out of any bounds holding you back from having a good time.

“ there she is ”, she heard her mother’s gentle voice calling and then heard it gasp when the flowers came into view. “ oh my god, who are you proposing to? ”.

hope laughed and pretended to offer it to vivienne, who caught onto the act and put on an exaggerated gasp whilst preparing to accept it before hope swiveled towards her mother and placed the bouquet into her arms. “ it’s for you. you helped plan this entire day out, it’s only nice that i offer something in return ”, the girl exclaimed.

“ oh, honey! ”.

“ she helped me pick it, actually. ”

it was difficult to be complemented with the tender pet name when you knew someone who’s legal name was just that. but she accepted the pleasant hug her mother gave her and looked about to see connor who was already taking part in the hunt. it was obvious he was being a little slow, and hope decided she could help him to pick up the pace.

there was an area for the parents with some beverages and snacks, but hope neglected it and chose to help her brother out. she picked her own basket and smiled fondly when connor spotted her, “ i only managed to pick three. ”

“ three? well, i’ll help you find some more. we can work as a team ”, she proposed. and it was indeed enjoyable. it wasn’t like hunting for convicted criminals who were wanted for bloody massacres and stealing millions but it was most definitely pleasant, distracting her from any thoughts that may have previously dared to bother her.

it was time to swift her mind into something domestic, she realized. it was good to focus on your work but it was even better to focus on the things that might matter slightly more, like your family.

there were eggs scattered all around and hope was able to search through bushes and look behind tables and under chairs and between tree branches in search of some, and gradually her basket began to grow heavier. she would put some eggs into connor’s basket so he wasn’t completely hopeless but he was managing it quite well himself.

she recalled climbing up a tree trunk and latching her fingers onto a branch to get the small nest of colored eggs and then hearing giggles from below, only to realize that some cheeky little children had tried to run off with her basket but thank goodness, her dad came to the rescue, tempting them with a little game of tag that easily distracted them, and hope then recovered her basket.

it was a ten-minute hunt for chocolate eggs but it felt like something more special, something that would be imprinted in the back of her mind as a pleasant memory that isn’t to be forgotten. especially after seeing connor’s face when she dumped the eggs into his basket, he gasped and just threw his arms around her waist.

his happiness was all that mattered to hope.

after ten minutes, a whistle was blown and the kids were told to stop chasing and to come to take a break. the eggs they got would be taken home and eaten, but many of the adults told them to share rather than hog all the chocolates for themselves.

connor hovered over with his basket on his lap, hope accompanied him not too far behind. “ i don’t think i’m going to be able to eat this all myself so you guys can have it as well! ”, he said and held the basket over to his parents and then to the pirates.

enzo cooed, “ this kid’s got some manners. i never shared when i was younger. ”

“ it explains a lot of things now ”, dom uttered, chuckling at the small rude he heard in response.

but even if they huddled around and tried to open their chocolate eggs, hope’s mother swept in quickly and told them to save it for later. because now it was time for lunch, and their table had already been reserved at another restaurant that was just as good as the one from yesterday.

of course, knowing her father’s tastes, it was a jazz bar. there wasn’t anything like in the places she’s visited outside of her hometown, not even some places in the colonies that basically carried entire chunks of culture to outer space. but perhaps that was the charm of it. sometimes things were just better off where they originated from.

on the walk there, hope had opened up some chocolate eggs, and offered it to the person walking not too far away from her, dom. he glanced at it and then took the piece, snapping it in half and savoring it. “ how are you finding it here? ”, she asked. having never had a proper conversation with dom, this was like a breath of fresh air. perhaps a fresh start. unless if he wasn’t willing to let what happened to go.

“ good. artistic and colorful, not what i’m used to but it’s better than the same old bottom end of the top bunk and enzo snoring the night away ”, he replied, a hand tucked into his pocket. hope chuckled and shook her head gently. “ you look happier, though. smiling more, talking more. i suppose being at home restores your energy. ”

for a moment, it felt like he understood her. she paid him a small, meek smile and then nodded. “ it gets lonely on the ship. having no one to talk to, no one to drink with or have dinner with. it’s quiet, sometimes too quiet. and i only realize that after i leave new orleans. it’s a hub of sound and people, i miss it a lot when i leave ”, she said. “ plus, my family is like . . . my safe haven. ”

“ i see ”, dom uttered and grew quiet for a moment, but it wasn’t awkward. often it feels better to talk to someone rather than allowing the same tense air to drift between you that just damages the chance of getting along. “ hope, t-that guy from the restaurant yesterda— ”.

“ —malakai. ”

“ is that his name? ”.

“ want to introduce yourself now? ”.

it seemed to take dom a moment to realize that the said male was just across the street the moment they arrived at the restaurant. there was a small queue to be seated and hope realized she would be in plain view of the tan and gorgeous male. and for some reason, she didn’t want to be.

because it took her a while yesterday to figure it out, that being with malakai whilst the pirates were around was exceptionally dangerous. he had a keen eye, he was one to question and expect answers, he wasn’t passive like hiro who just let things be. he challenged and became suspicious, it was why he was in the communications branch.

and exposing the pirates to his dangerous pair of eyes could be . . . damaging. for hope and for the pirates, especially when he figures out that they most certainly didn’t work for voyage.

he met eyes with the bounty hunter and beamed from across the street before taking off to meet her. her gaze went to dom who turned slightly to face the male, whilst also taking a small step to stand just barely in front of hope. she blinked and then saw malakai approach. “ happy easter, hope! ”, he cheered and looked towards dom. “ and who’s this? ”.

“ t-this is, uh— ”.

“ a friend. nice to meet you. ”

dom even went in for the assertive handshake, but hope never saw malakai’s smile falter, he grinned and accepted it. “ hi, friend. i suppose you’re both out to enjoy the celebration ”, he said and hope nodded softly. “ well, that’s great, so am i. uh, hope, do you want to meet up later? ”.

“ w-well— ”.

dom stepped in, “ she’s kinda busy the whole day, can’t you drop in a text message or an email, to be more professional? ”. she really felt like her jaw was on the floor, he was so cold! “ i mean, you’re workmates, aren’t you? you’d think that if it’s business talk, it should be classified and formal. ”

malakai’s expression froze slightly. but hope could almost see the gears in his mind struggling, grinding against each other. he wasn’t accustomed to people like dom who so easily assert, well, dominance. this was the first time hope has witnessed it herself, and she was rather impressed.

perhaps he understood the danger as well, dom never missed a single detail. he seemed like the type to always be careful, always take precautions. that’s why maybe he’s hesitant in diving into things head first like the mission with the puppeteer. hope looked over at quinn slightly and frowned.

“ i suppose you’ve made yourself some pretty formal friends, hope ”, malakai uttered and the girl, once again, replied with a very meek smile. it’s what she often turns to when finding herself speechless in front of this particular boy. “ but you’re right. i will send you an email instead. or, perhaps see you later tonight? ”.

she saw dom was going to butt in almost immediately through the way his lips opened but she quickly pressed a hand to his arm and leaned towards malakai, “ we can talk tomorrow. i’ll still be here before we leave. we have an important task to complete. ”

“ oh. ”

malakai, with his hands tucked behind his back, then took a step behind him. “ well, i suppose i should get going, i don’t want to get in the way of your evening. so . . . hope, friend . . . ”. dom nodded coldly. “ i’ll see you soon. ”

it was weird, seeing him walking away with an expression that wasn’t a smile. she always saw him as an easy-going person, someone you could easily talk to but aspects of his persona often disturbed hope in ways that can’t simply be explained. there was something that kept him from being totally trustworthy, and perhaps it was the fact that he was a colleague, someone who shouldn’t know of her interactions with people she’s supposed to be putting in jail.

looking at dom, his gaze never wavered from malakai until he was completely out of sight, she even shook him gently. “ you can look away now ”, she uttered.

“ hope ”, he started. “ i know we got off on the wrong foot and that you may want to hear this from anyone else but me. but if this guy tries anything, tries to say or do something, don’t be surprised. because something’s wrong with him. ” he looked down at her. “ keep your eye on him. ”

“ i-i will! ”.

it was tense but the moment was gone just as quickly as it had started, and soon they were within the walls of the restaurant. safe, hope thought. at least there was a sense of privacy and safety now that she had sat into a large group.

now, the lunch lasted way longer than a normal meal. and it was mostly because of the dozen conversations going on around the table, with her dad striking a debate with vivienne on the morals that had been established on venus and hope’s mother asking dawn what she likes to cook. on the side, quinn and dom seemed to be discussing the food and enzo and connor spoke about comic books.

they had all ordered butternut squash soup with some fresh bread and all shared some wine with connor having the occasional sips of apple juice. it took a while for hope to be involved in a conversation, she often listened in but never spoke to anyone until her dad started asking her about work.

“ they sent you to get him alone?! ”.

needless to say, he was on the verge of being furious when he found out about what happened with the puppeteer. he already knew the injury quinn had was caused by a mission but his face contorted with rage upon knowing it was caused because of the master of puppets.

hope smiled bitterly, swirling the white wine in her glass. “ i transferred the mission to someone else, asking voyage to recommend going in large teams to avoid any accidents ”, she uttered and her dad grunted, rolling his eyes. “ but we’re okay, dad. quinn’s healing better after mom’s food. ”

“ yeah, well, that’s bianca’s magic. she heals with food. as her mother did and her mother’s mother. it’s tradition, it’s a magical tradition but it’s just foods cooked with a lot of love ”, he exclaimed and smiled softly. “ when i, uh, lost my arm . . . your mother never stopped a single day when it came to making meals. she thought that the reason i wasn’t healing was because i wasn’t letting my mind to be healed. ”

hope pursed her lips, “ is that true? ”.

he seemed to struggle to find the right words for a moment, but his attempts weren’t clouded behind the smooth keys of the piano from the stage. “ i-i think i became convinced that my life wasn’t going to be the same. but i forgot that people were going to be there for me regardless, to help me settle with a new rhythm ”, her dad spoke and nodded. “ but i’m better now, much better. better than before. ”

hope smiled. he had the same problem as her. when he was working, he hardly ever came into contact and hardly visited his family and you could almost tell he was a different person when he returned during the holidays. but upon spending an evening with his family, he would mellow out.

the sourness turned to sweetness the moment he stepped him, and that was what hope experienced every single time she came home, it was what she was experiencing now. would she go back to the grump she was before after leaving? she didn’t want to, she really didn’t want to.

because looking at it now, she liked this version of herself a lot more. especially whilst looking at the pirates and seeing that they were happy, or at least in a better place where perhaps they were free to be themselves. a break from reality, from running away.

looking at them, hope found herself smiling. they were good people, she realized, people who made her life a little bit more bearable when she was on the ship. she knew how complicated she could be, but she found that she wanted to better herself for them. because even if she would be taking them home soon, she didn’t want to be remembered as someone who could be easily forgotten due to the bad memories she brought them.

she just needed to let her mind heal, and maybe then she could improve on herself, and never have to worry about the pain of saying goodbye to them. but would it be hard? perhaps. yet it was only a matter of doing the right thing and hoping they would accept her.

they were their own little family and that feeling of familiarity and warmth was always among them and she wanted to be a part of it, but then . . . would she be intruding? this was their family, not hers. even if they made her happy and earned a spot in her life, would it ever be vice-versa? was hope everhart just a symbol of hatred and sourness in the lives of these people?

hope held her breath at the thought and immediately forced her gaze down. even if she did try to change herself now, it wouldn’t change the things she said and did in the past and no apology would be able to suffice for the damage it did. so, perhaps this feeling she felt was only . . . one-sided.

an unrequited feeling of fondness towards a group of people who made her feel worthy of some sort of happiness. only to then realize they most likely didn’t feel the same way towards her.

after lunch, it was quiet, mostly because the people were starting to withdraw at sunset, to watch the news or prepare for afternoon tea, or maybe even a soccer game that was on. but this group was walking towards the bayou.

hope found that she was quieter this time around, not particularly reaching out to anyone. she walked alongside connor who was happily eating away at the easter eggs, occasionally asking him questions about school and whether he was reading the books she’d lent him.

the boat at the bayou had been rented just for them. it was a nice tour, and they made it just in time as the little critters of light came out from behind the trees, peeking shyly before commencing their flights.

“ what are they? ”.

“ fireflies. ”

upon climbing onto the boat, hope immediately sat down on the seat by the edge, wrapping her damp fingers against the cold railings and peeking over the edge. it was lovely, seeing some of the stars in the sky meeting their reflections on the water, and the fireflies dancing on the surface, illuminating all the lily pads and the lotus flowers in their path.

the engine of the boat roared to life and soon it was moving at a steady speed, not enough to be racing but not slow enough to be tedious. she took note of the radio playing some lighthearted nat king cole and immediately saw her mother and father meet halfway for a slow dance.

it was impossible not to watch. ever since she can remember, her parents have been passionately in love with one another and the flame has never once tempted to be burnt out. it burned and burned and only one glance at them could give away the years of mutual love and affection that they gave one another, from the way they held each other to the way they looked at each other.

hope smiled softly, tilting her head at the adoring scene and then looking out into the bayou, at the long hanging branches she could easily reach up to touch, at the bugs that circled around the fairy lights and the lamps scattered around the moving vehicle.

at moments like these, it seems like nature joins together in a state of harmony. one quick look at her parents and she saw they had finished dancing, and even received a little round of applause from the pirates, and from their two children.

hope felt a presence shift beside her and noticed it was enzo, who offered her a smile but didn’t say much whilst looking out into the illuminated bayou. it was quiet for a tender moment until his voice rose, not loud enough to cut through the silence but audible enough for her to hear.

“ you looked slightly sad at the end of the dinner ”, he noted and she rolled her eyes before shaking her head. “ and don’t dismiss people when they think something is wrong, hope. i’m not saying this because i’m trying to be annoying. i’m doing it because i care. ”

was he really scolding her? she couldn’t help but chuckle and hold her hand to her forehead, before letting her gaze fall to her lap.

she didn’t know where to start, “ when . . . i was a kid, i didn’t have many friends. people just didn’t like me for who i was, and i was the exact same person i am now, my personality was intact by the age of nine or so. ” she gestured slowly, not knowing where to continue. “ a-and that left an imprint in my life that just told me i was unwanted. that i was better off alone and away from people, because even if i tried to show my real person, they wouldn’t accept it. ”

enzo didn’t interrupt her once. “ a-and i think part of the reason why i didn’t allow myself to open up to you guys so easily was that i assumed you were going to be like every other person who entered my life that wasn’t my family. that you were going to dislike me immediately and not get to know me . . . ”, she hoped she wouldn’t start crying.

“ but now you guys are giving me a moment to show the real me, the real hope everhart who doesn’t hate people as much as she makes herself to hate. and in the midst of this vulnerability, i realize where i went wrong and how i want to make it up to you and be a better person, even if we’re not friends and . . . i don’t want to be remembered as the one who was angry and bitter all the time, the one who punched dominic and the one who exploded with rage at almost anything, i want to be remembered as who helped. or tried to help. ”

“ b-because, i don’t care if you’re pirates. it stopped being a concern a long time ago after i realize that you were good people. good people i would never think of comparing myself to and the reason why you’re so good is that you bring out the best in each other. a-and you ended up bringing the best in me. ”

hope felt her bottom lip quivering but she inhaled deeply and fought through it, “ and yet i feel like a total outsider, maybe because i haven’t known you for long but even though you treat me so well, i feel like i’m better off the person i was before because i can’t join the family. i-i can’t . . . quit voyage to become a pirate, i can’t do that. s-so even if i’m taking you guys home, everything is telling to keep you around for a little longer. because even if it’s artificial, i can feel like i changed because i was a part of something. even if i wasn’t. ”

sniffling, she blinked and looked at enzo before smiling, once again, meekly. “ so, to make a long story short, i suppose the reason i’m upset is that i know i’ll never be a part of what you have. b-but i guess the lessons i learned from being around all of you might be what i belong to instead ”, she explained briefly. “ s-so, uh . . . t-thank you, for listening. i’m sorry. ” she shook her head. “ j-just in general, i’m sorry. ”

everyone has a fear, and it ends up being spoken at some point. and the fear hope held to this day was the fear of being insignificant, being forgotten. she was used to being the one who left a bad imprint on people or leaving no semblance or memory at all, a ghostly figure passing through people’s lives who is easily over-looked.

and there hasn’t been a moment in her life where she felt like she has been special to people outside of her family at all. it was like she didn’t exist for other people, and perhaps it was because she was just a bad person in general. hope had convinced herself she was meaningless, and maybe it justified the creature of hatred and bitterness that she had become.

they had left a huge imprint on her life. but what did she leave? some insults and a smack on dom’s face.

the boat ride was quiet, and when they returned to the docks, hope was the first to hop off. often when discounting her feelings, she feels like isolating herself for just a while to gather her thoughts. she played with her bracelet and once again, walked alongside connor’s wheelchair.

he wasn’t talking, he seemed far too tired to do any of that. but he looked over and gave her a sugar-sweet smile, one which made her lean over and caress his hair gently.

when they got home, she entered her room and immediately changed after a quick shower. she didn’t really want dinner, even though it was her father’s special barbeque. tonight might be the last night she’s in new orleans for a while, but she wanted to isolate herself for just a moment. her mother came in briefly and left her a plate of hamburgers and a can of diet coke on her desk, but didn’t call out for hope. she knew her daughter was upset, but she gave her space.

hope laid in that bed, her door wide open and windows were drawn up to hear the laughter and the shrieks of happiness from the roof, the story-telling from her father and the poetic singing of louis armstrong.

she looked to the side and spotted her fluffy friend looking back at her, harold the duckie. she reached out and grasped him into her bare arms and clung to him, similar to how connor did earlier that morning. “ today was a busy day ”, she told him. “ we went easter egg hunting and had lunch and mama louisiana’s and then went on a boat ride . . . but i always felt like i was the sheep following blindly behind them. an outsider, y’know? yeah, you know. you’ve heard this all too many times. ”

she paused and then turned to lay on her back, her gaze going towards the ceiling. and it was littered with glow in the dark star stickers, something she had put up many years ago and they remained there. “ remember when i came crying to you one day after school? when it was my birthday and no one knew? when i told my teacher and she promised to sing happy birthday but she never did? and when she told everyone, they all just stared at me, asking why i didn’t bring cupcakes? a-and there was another girl in there who had the same birthday as me and she got everything? ”, she questioned, only gaining silence as a response.

“ i felt like i was invisible back then, harold. a-and i still feel like that sometimes. ”

silence.

“ i-is this friendship thing just . . . n-not meant for me? ”.

more silence.

“ d-do i not deserve just a slight bit of it? a tiny bit of it? a-am i that much of a bad person? ”.

silence.

hope chuckled bitterly, squeezing her eyes shut.

“ you know, if i asked anyone else the same thing, they would be as quiet as you are . . . k-kind of just makes me want to . . . g-give up. ”

#chapter 11 #space adventure #space pirates au #original writing #writing

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dearlazerbunny · 5 years

Text

Jane Eyre AU (untitled, Ch 1 of ?)

Pairings: Kylo x Reader

Genre/Ratings: Jayne Eyre AU

Words: 4000

Summary: someone requested a Jane Eyre AU and for some reason my brain refused to keep it a ficlet. I have very little written for it so far, but many ideas. Currently also untitled, but if I don’t post it to give me motivation I’m afraid I will never finish it.

I have always thought that carriage rides were much conducive to thinking. The pit-pat of the horses’ hooves, the gentle crunch of wooden wheels on dirt and cobblestone, an occasional punctuating crack of the riding crop. Such intricate monotony lends itself to the mind wandering where it pleases. I have never been apt at daydreaming in times of stress, so my thoughts as of now tend to list towards the more practical- taking stock of my situation and surroundings, and putting my thinking into orderly, manageable rows.

I come to the conclusion that my current surroundings have never been so nice as this. The carriage is functional, but with plush detailing that whispers of wealth and elegance the likes of which I have never seen before. My seat is cushioned and covered in a soft fabric; the curtains drawn to the sides of the windows are velvet, if my limited knowledge of the finer things in life rings true. The scenery passing outside may as well be a painting on some artist’s easel: green grass dotted with the most delicate flowers wave in the light breeze, topped by a sky bluer than a newborn’s eye. Clouds float by lackadaisically, as though they have all the time in the world to get wherever they might be going to, and one would think you could lie back and wish the world away curled amongst their feathery fingers.

I take a breath and marvel at how easy and light the air is this far from the city. It tastes of honeysuckle and a babbling brook; cotton warmed by sunshine on a summer’s day, sensations I have only read about in books or dreamt of in the dead of night. The hour’s journey has already purged the ash and soot of home from my lungs. Indeed, I find it hard to recall what it was like to not breathe so easily, so intrinsically. The matched pair of horses drawing my coach whinny with pleasure, in time to my admiration of the surrounding lands.

My fingers find the worn handle of my suitcase to clutch. I would be lying if I said I did not feel out of place in such an idyllic countryside. I was born to an industrious cityscape, surrounded by brick and stone, coal and human filth. A place where it is nigh impossible to wash all of the grit out of your hair, or avoid the noise of the bustling crowds. My ears ring with the absence of market chatter and factories clanging in the distance- that harsh dissonance is now replaced with birdsong and the rustling of foliage. I shake my head. How abruptly my life has changed in just a few days.

The notice, written on paper much too fine to be tacked onto the warped message board as it was, called for a governess- full time and live-in- for the child of a master I had never heard of. But as I passed, the address caught my eye. So remote, so far from the city and its struggles, and further still from the war and its efforts that continuously cripple the entirety of the country along with its people. I have no formal training, really, and no specific qualifications that would give me the authority to nurture a child. But I read and write as well as anyone, perhaps better, since the time most women my age spend working in the war factories I in turn spend in libraries and my cozy attic, consuming stories and penning whatever thoughts come to mind. I could teach sufficiently, I think, if the pupil would be willing to listen, and given adequate books on various subjects. So I went home and wrote a response, offering my services, posted it to the address stated with a few coins dug from the bottom of my bag, and prepared myself to wait in cautious optimism.

Imagine my surprise when not even the day after next a letter arrived for me, in the same hand as that illustrious address that first drew my attention. My application- could you even call it that, bare bones and plain as it was?- had been accepted. A coach would arrive for me the next morning.

I suppose in that moment it was a strange sort of blessing that I had little to pack. A few sets of clothes and an extra pair of boots; what little writing materials I had managed to scrounge up the past few years. They all fit easily into my little suitcase, with room to spare. My satchel, in contrast, was heavy and filled to the brim with every book I had ever acquired. I refused to leave any behind- they were hard won and much loved, despite most of them having cracked spines and wrinkled pages. Besides, I supposed any sort of teacher worth their salt would most likely arrive with some sort of collection of novels.

And so here I sit, in a carriage I fear I am contaminating with the dust permanently ground into my clothes from the city’s smog, my meager life packed into only two bags, with no idea what lies ahead other than an address and what I could glean from the handwriting of my new employer- which was not much. I never claimed to be a detective, after all. But the view is more exquisite than I had even hoped for; my worries bleed out of my person and mix into the fragrant air. I think I could survive any assignment set in such a place. Should I, god forbid, find myself beaten and bloodied by a madman, at least my soul will rest in a place with lasting happiness.

I scold myself for being so morbid. How bad could this possibly be?

At this very thought, the carriage creaks to a halt. I risk a look outside the window. The manse before me is stately, with rich brickwork contrasting the pastels of the grounds on which it sits. Vines climb their way up to the second story windows, worming their way into the nooks and crannies that have been weathered away as the years have passed. The lawn and its walkways are generally neat, with only a hint of overgrowth beginning to creep through the cobblestone. Balconies dot the upper-story.

In short, it looks like a fairy-tale; the home of a shut away princess condemned to roam the hills barefoot for the rest of her days, or a faerie house magicked to grow ten sizes, large enough for humans to live in. I am sure the house is far from the most impressive in this countryside- I have seen renderings in the papers of castles that could house all of London within its walls- but this estate holds much more character than those extravagant flauntings of wealth. I can practically hear each brick singing with its own stories to weave and whisper into my ear. My fingers are already itching for my pen.

The coachman opens my door, seeing as I have not emerged myself; too charmed by the villa to move. I shoulder my satchel, ignoring the muscles that strain under the weight of my books, and take my suitcase by the handle. Stepping into the fresh air feels as though I’ve dived into a clear river for the first time. My skin prickles as the breeze winds its way around me and lifts the corners of my skirts; a child wishing to play.

“The Master is expecting you, ma’am,” says the driver, and I nod at him in thanks. Rather than lead me up to the door, he simply sits back on his perch and turns the horses away, trotting back down the path we just traversed. All right then, I suppose introductions are up to me. Shouldn’t I feel anxious, as my boots click along the stone path, carrying me towards this unknown new life? That would probably be the rational response to the complete upheaval of one’s life in less than a week. Despite all that, my heart feels at ease and indeed almost at peace- far more than it ever was in my old home. Perhaps some sort of guardian star has led me to this place, knowing that my destiny, whatever it might be, awaits here.

The door is twice my height, with a carved brass knocker the size of my head hanging in the center. I go to let it fall against the wood, but think better of it. If I am going to live here, I will not put up any ideas of pretentiousness or good breeding, as I have none of that and furthermore no use for it. I shall come just as I am, and they will have to decide if that is sufficient enough for them. I ignore the wrought brass and instead rap my knuckles against the door succinctly, eager to see who or what will greet me first on this new adventure I have stumbled into.

As it turns out, it is a boy. He looks to be around ten to my unfamiliar eye, with untamed hair and sharp green eyes that look at me with cautious curiousness. It is a gaze of intelligence, and he holds himself well amongst the soaring architecture. Despite his size, he isn’t swallowed up by the surrounding space. “Who are you?”

Straight to the point, then. I believe I like him already. “Well, my name Jayne Ruth Linton, though you can call me Jayne if you like. Who are you?”

“Ben.” He doesn’t seem to want to offer any further information as he studies me closely, from my scuffed boots to the bag slung over my shoulder and in my hand. His shoulders sag. “He went and hired another one, then.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You don’t really look like a proper governess though. I guess he’s getting desperate.” Loud footsteps approach from further inside the house, and the boy- Ben- turns to address I would assume the person responsible for them. “I’ve told you, I don’t need a bloody nanny! Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Benjamin, language,” a tired voice scolds, as though he has done it ten times today already, and then the door opens wider to reveal a tall man with worry lines furrowed between his brow. “You must be Miss Linton.”

“I prefer Jayne, please.” I shift my luggage to the opposite hand and hold out my right to him. “Mr. Ren, I presume?”

For a moment he looks at my outstretched hand as though it is an alien thing come to life. I am about to apologize for overstepping some invisible boundary when he stands aside from blocking the entrance. “Please, come in.”

The second I do, Ben is off, running to who knows where. I suppose I shall find out soon enough. I study his retreating form. He is by all accounts a handsome boy, and though I’m not sure where serpentine green eyes were inherited from in the family genealogy- possibly his mother?- it is clear that his dark curls, his sharp features, and cool gaze come from the man now leading me further into the house. They must be father and son, or otherwise the younger is some outrageous science fiction clone of the elder. I have to keep myself from giggling at the thought.

We emerge into, by all accounts, a well-loved sitting room. Books and papers are strewn about, along with oddities that might attract a child’s attention and just as quickly lose it. To my relief, the furniture is not gilded and upholstered in finery- the sofas are meant to be sat upon; the coffee table has scratches at the corners. It is far more utilitarian than one might expect from the exterior of the house, but I find that to be a comfort. At least I have most probably not walked into a place where manners the likes of which the Queen uses are mandatory.

“Please, sit.” Mr. Ren gestures to a seat and after relieving myself of my baggage, I do so. He remains standing, pacing the room slowly but efficiently a few practiced times before he speaks. His spine is ramrod straight, his shoulders back, his footfalls heavy and sure. Military, a voice in the back of my mind says, but the assessment doesn’t make much sense- why would a military man of some obvious rank be so sequestered in the countryside?

“I trust your journey was comfortable?” His tone of voice indicates he most likely does not care, but I answer nonetheless.

“Extremely. The coach was very fine, and the weather is excellent today.” He nods, but does not respond, his mind seemingly elsewhere. After a minute of glancing around the room, noting this and that, I clear my throat. “Well, Mr. Ren, I see you are not a man to mince words. Perhaps we should start with your intention on hiring a governess?”

He sighs heavily, and for an instant, despite his posture, I can almost envision the heavy load that weighs upon his shoulders. “Ben,” he says simply, as though that answers every question a philosopher might ever pose. “He is an extraordinary child, and he needs more than just I in the house. I have my strengths, but giving a child a proper education is not one of them.”

“I see. And I take it you have hired help before?”

Mr. Ren nods. “Several. Benjamin can be… contradictory, at times.” He eyes me wearily, as though these few words will already send me running for the hills. “And he doesn’t take to new people well.”

“Indeed, I don’t believe I should be entirely thrilled for a strange woman to be moving into my house.” I rise and straighten my skirt. “Well, then, if you will point me in his direction, I shall make proper introductions, yes?”

Brown eyes take in my face, as though searching for some unseen agenda. But I am apparently deemed satisfactory, because he simply nods and holds a hand out for my case. “I will take your things to your room. It is down the hall from Ben’s- up the stairs and to the left.”

And so while my new employer turns into the depths of another hallway with my things, I part from him in search of my ward. It isn’t hard to find him- scuff marks and crumbles of dirt lead to a well-worn door that has clearly been slammed one too many times for its hinges. I knock lightly on the wood. “Benjamin? It’s me, Jayne. May I speak with you a moment?”

There is a long pause, then some shuffling, and finally the boy cracks his door just a hair, so that I might not see what lies within. His glare is stony. “What.”

“Well, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I did not mean to upset you.”

Benjamin opens his mouth in order to what looks like give a fiery retort, but the words never pass his lips. “A- apologize?”

“Indeed. Might I come in? Only for a moment, then I shall leave you be.”

Many gears appears to be turning in his head- the gleam in his eyes gives it away- but finally he stands back a little, allowing me entrance.

His room is what I might imagine a wizard’s lair should look like. Books strewn across every surface, shoved onto shelves and teetering in giant stacks in the corners of the room. Lamps are strewn haphazardly in seemingly no order. Tinkering projects- gears and oil smudges on the desk, bits and bobs set about like they have been forgotten- dot the room. The small wizard must dance and turn in order to avoid knocking over this or that covering the floor to get to his bed, which mimics the rest of the room in its untidiness. Still, it has a sort of charm about it, or a coziness- a little hideaway from the rest of the world, full of oddities the owner sees loveliness in. It quite reminds me of my little attic, in fact.

Benjamin sits on his bed, cross legged, and shifts a few times to make himself comfortable. It occurs to me that he most likely does not let just anyone into his sanctum. “I’m quite fond of your room, I must say.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Really? You’re just saying that. Everyone else just nags at me to keep it clean or to shelve my books correctly.”

“Often I find rooms like these are indeed organized, but rather than by normal methods, by the owner’s specific and unique standards.” I tilt my head, taking in an oddly shaped pile of tomes under the nightstand. “For example… do you know what books lie in this stack? Without looking,”

“Mostly ecology books. Geology and the like. I was studying the rocks I found by the pond.”

I give him a small smile. “See? So long as you know where things are located, I see no reason to upend your personal space.”

“Hm.” He looks down at his hands, clasped in front of him, and I get a look at his features illuminated in the lamplight. I would guess he is eleven or twelve, certainly no more than thirteen. “Maybe you are different.”

“I can assure you I am, even without knowing what I am being compared to,” I tease, and I am pleased when I am rewarded with a small grin. “Different than…?”

“The others father has hired.” He glances at me, and I can see the worry in his eyes. “They were all horribly overbearing. Never leaving me alone, telling me to do this and that and always exactly their way. And most of them were stupid as well. They never listened,” he mumbles, and his fingers twist.

“Well that sounds perfectly horrible. I can see why you were upset.” Holding up my skirts so I don’t trip, I lithely jump from empty space to empty space on his floor until I can reach the bed. He watches me with razor precision. I have a feeling if I were to misstep, some delicate trust that has been forged would all be lost. And so, I do not fall. Instead, I land next to him and pat my skirt, as though the effort was nothing. “Now then, Benjamin- or do you prefer Ben? I would like to make a deal with you, if you will hear my terms. I think you will find them quite agreeable, but I am always open to negotiation.”

“Ben.” He vaguely gestures with his hand. “Go on.”

“Well, Ben. I have been hired to give you an education. Education is important, even when we must study the things we do not like. However,” I say, glancing around the room, “I can see you have already found more than enough interests that please you, and I am happy to explore them with you as our time allows.”

“Really?”

I nod. “In addition, I promise to always recognize that you are your own person with your own boundaries. If we are going to work together, we both need our space from time to time. I will not encroach on yours if you do not encroach on mine. Does that seem reasonable?”

For an instant, I am afraid I have overstepped, because his face is blank and unreadable. But then, in a moment of sunshine, a smile splits his face, and he holds out his hand as though we have signed and sealed an official document. “I think that sounds perfect.”

The handshake is firm. “Excellent. I believe we will get along famously, don’t you?”

To my delight, he giggles, a happy sound that contrasts with his serious face. “Won’t father be surprised.”

“Hm. Indeed he might be.” I give him a conspiratorial wink. “Let’s see if we can make that a habit, yes? He looks as though he could use a good shock every once in a while.”

Ben dissolves into muffled laughter and steals my heart right in the very same moment.

A/N: I’ve imagined the story in sort of a steampunk era. Their technology and society is more advanced then ours of the eighteenth/early nineteenth century, but they still use petticoats and carriages.

Jayne is named for Jane Eyre and Catherine Linton in Wuthering Heights

#star wars #Star Wars fanfic #kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x you #reader insert #jane eyre au

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