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inevitably-johnlocked · 11 months

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Hello Steph! I was wondering if you have some Johnlock song fics? It doesn't matter what kind of song heheh

thanks and remember to take care of yourself, Hug! 💖

Hey Nonny!

Ahhh, I get asked this a few times! I never have anything really significant though, LOL, at least not in the "classic song fic" sense from MY early fandom days ("song fics" used to be fics written with the lyrics to the song inspiring each section of a fic, now I think it just means "fics inspired by whole songs"). Here are the ones I know of, from my knowledge and from the above linked tag :)

EDIT: I did a tag search on my offline lists, because I should stop being so lazy, so here you are, now I have a list! :D Thank you!!

As usual, feel free to add your own, friends!

And thank you for your kind words :)

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SONG FICS

See Also:

Moulin Rouge AU (Mine)

Song Fics (Alexx's List)

BOOKMARKS

Evermore by SosoHolmesWatson (G, 2,068 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4, 5-Year-Old Rosie, Love Confessions, Song Fic, Parentlock, Oblivious John, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Disney Songs, Beauty and the Beast) – For the past years, John and Sherlock have lived at Baker Street again, raising Rosie together--as friends and nothing more. Ever since the little girl has watched her first Disney movie, she is obsessed with princesses. When John comes home one day, he finds his friend and his daughter in the middle of a reenactment of her current favourite. Part 1 of Made of Music

Engaged by lifeonmars (NR, 3,146 w., 1 Ch. || Marriage Proposal, Fluff, Holmes Family, Song Fic) – Sherlock did not believe in marriage, but he wanted to be married. He found this something of a surprise. Part 2 of Damage

Living Musical by VeeTheRee (G, 4,149 w. 1 Ch. || Est. Rel., Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Hobbies, Summer, Song Fic, POV Sherlock, Painting, Play Fighting, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Love Declarations, Hair Petting, Promise of Forever) – A one-shot of John and Sherlock being domestic during summer. There is paint, fluff, and music from Imagine Dragons, namely from the album 'Speak To Me', specific song in this one-shot is 'Living Musical'. Part 1 of the Happy Fluffy Johnlock Time series

Sunday Evening 6 p.m. by Silvergirl (E, 30,712 w., 6 Ch. || Post-TRF / TEH Divergence, Grief / Mourning / Stages of Grief, Mutual Pining, Dreams, Reunion, Love Confessions, First Kiss / Time, Alternating First Person POV, Smart John, BAMF Boys, Emotional Love Making, Song Fic, Referenced Suicide, First Kiss / Time, Touching, Sleepy Sherlock, Blow Job, Villain Mary) – Six months after Sherlock jumped, he learns that John is dedicating songs to him on a requests-only radio programme. Is John just working through grief? Or is he—communicating? Fixes the hell out of S3 by pre-empting it altogether. Remember, as TAB told us, John is Pretty Damn Smart.

The Baker Street Nativity by SwissMiss (E, 99,662 w., 23 Ch. || Nativity! AU || Teacher Sherlock / TA John, Pining, Sherlock POV, UST, Angst, Christmas, Music/Song Fic, Anal / BJ’s, First Kiss / Time) –Fusion between Sherlock (BBC) and Nativity! (2009 movie starring Martin Freeman). Sherlock is a primary school teacher and John is assigned to be his classroom assistant. Together, they are charged with putting on the school's Nativity play. What could possibly go wrong? Part 1 of The Baker Street Nativity Verse

MARKED FOR LATER

To John - love SH , how me met by Tha_shipper_Burning_void (NR, 315 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Angst, Song Fic) – John nor Sherlock knew of each other – Sherlock rich and John poor – but John believe someone was out there for him.

Satisfied by VTsuion (G, 1,067 w., 1 Ch. || ACD Canon || Watson’s Wedding, Toasting, Song Fic, Past Relationship, POV Sherlock) – Watson is getting married, but he will never be satisfied. Holmes will never be satisfied.

All Along There Was Some Invisible String (Tying You To Me) by Biana_Amberly_Vacker (G, 1,145 w., 1 Ch.. || Fantasy AU || Bullying, Holmes Family, Autistic Mycroft, Family Dynamics, Angst, Song Fic) – Mycroft is alone. He decides to make himself a brother. Out of wood.

Clarity by tea_and_violins (M, 1,606 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF, Angst, Reunion, Song Fic, Slash) – A one shot/song fic inspired by Clarity by Zedd ft. Foxes. Have a listen before or during :)

(They Tell You) Wake Up, Go Put On Your Makeup, This Is Just A Phase You’re Gonna Outgrow by Biana_Amberly_Vacker (T, 1,738 w., 1 Ch. || Trans Sherlock, Song Fic, Transphobia, Self-Harm, Hurt No Comfort) – Sherlock was always a boy. Even in his traitorous body. This is a story, throughout a childhood, of a boy who everyone thought was a girl.

Take me to Baker Street by MorganeUK (G, 2,087 w., 1 Ch. || Adult Ballet AU || Ballet Dancer Sherlock, Doctor John, Song Fic, Pre-Slash) – I always loved Sergei Polunin interpretation of Take me to the church so I decided to write a version where Sherlock is a ballet dancer in serious need of a doctor…

The Very Thought of You by reveling_in_mayhem (T, 2,386 w., 1 Ch. || Canon Divergence, Song Fic, Kitchen Dancing, First Kiss, Fluff) – John and Sherlock have danced before. For a case and for a wedding. But they've never danced like this. So why is John reaching out his hand for Sherlock's now?

Body Language by CeruleanDarkangelis (T, 2,706 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Dancing, Song Fic, POV First Person John, Voyeurism, Dirty Dancing, Clubbing) – There is a language to dancing; a call-and-response from one body to another. Even with the poncy kind of dancing I knew he was versed in, the kind that requires classes and counting and rules, there is communication between bodies. Watching him now, I’m more than pleased to discover that he understands my dialect as well. Part 1 of the Without Words series

Jukebox by standbygo (T, 3,990 w., 1 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Music, Singing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Humour) – After the music halls of Sherlock's mind palace get damaged by accident, John learns that Sherlock never forgets a song. Even the ones he'd rather forget. But the random singalong brings some unexpected benefits.

Blame it on My Youth by standbygo (M, 4,151 w., 1 Ch. || Retirement, First Kiss, Declarations of Love, Song Fic) – “Courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. It’s knowing that you’re afraid, and doing what you need to do anyway.” Sherlock and John are retired, but receive an unexpected client. Part 10 of the November 2014 Song Challenge series

Lights On by SosoHolmesWatson (T, 4,396 w., 1 Ch || Post-S4, First Kiss, Pining Idiots, Angst with Happy Ending, Song Fic, Love Confessions, Dev. Rel., Emotional Repression, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock and John are living together again but things between them are far from okay. John is out of his depth until a song brings the needed epiphany. Part 2 of the Made of Music

Rumbos Secretos by Ceibos (T, 5,991 w., 1 Ch. || Unilock || Argentinian Spanish, First Kiss, POV John, Internalized Homophobia, Song Fic, Military, Autism Spectrum) – AU en el que Sherlock y John son dos jovenes alumnos de la UBA en los 90´s o Sherlock ayuda a John a estudiar para su parcial de anatomía y pasan cosas.

Dirty by standbygo (E, 5,093 w., 1 Ch. || Established Relationship, PWP, Dirty Dancing, Romance, Smut and Fluff) – “Yeah, I actually learned how to dance like that, like in the film. I was quite the hit at parties while the craze lasted. Some of Harry’s friends called me Johnny Castle, after the character. Or Swayze.” “Swayze? What kind of word is that?” John did not reply, but gazed at Sherlock, his lips pressed together but still smiling. After a moment, he stood and held out his hand to Sherlock. “Dance with me,” John said.

Take Me To Church by Daziechane (M, 6,370 w., 1 Ch. || Ballet, Song Fic, First Kiss / Time) – John’s days blurred. It didn’t even bother him anymore, that he wasn’t onstage. At least, that’s what he told himself every time he clocked in for another shift. Sherlock’s days blurred. It didn’t even bother him anymore, that he wasn’t onstage. At least, that’s what he told himself every time he stepped into 221B.

Burn by EmilyisSOgay (T, 7,481 w., 1 Ch. || Alternate Universe || Jazz Singer John, Alternate First Meeting, First Kiss, Everyone is Gay, Love at First Sight, Falling in Love, Flirty John, Song Fic, Romance, Sexual Tension, Sherlock POV, Sherlock in Love, Jealous Sherlock, Fluff) – John is a seductive jazz singer at small London club. And Sherlock gets a special birthday performance that sets his Mind Palace ablaze.

You Are The Reason by ICanDoThisAllDayy (G, 9,432 w. || Post-TSo3, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Letters, Bisexual John, Song Fic, Heavy Angst) – When Sherlock leaves the envelope for John and Mary at their wedding, he forgets to take out another piece of paper from it - the paper on which he poured his heart out while preparing the Best Man's Speech at 221B Baker Street. He intended to burn the piece right after he finished writing, but he was too exhausted from the emotions and accidentally slipped it amongst his composition for the Waltz. As things work out, somebody reads his letter. That somebody is John Watson. Part 2 of Songs-inspired fic(let)s

A Very Sherlock Musical by flawedamythyst (T, 11,980 w., 1 Ch. || Musical AU || No S3 Compliant {more tags to be added after reading}) – So, you know how musicals are set in a world where people just burst into song every five minutes, and everyone around them automatically knows to join in with the tune and choreography? This fic is set in that world. John finds it extremely frustrating that Sherlock won't sing their theme song with him.

This Is Your Song by agirlsname (E, 79,990 w., 19 Ch. || Moulin Rouge Fusion || Prostitute Sherlock, Poet John, Acting, Singing, Dancing, Writing, Poetry, Musical, Song Fic, Heavy Angst, Unreliable Narrator, Sherlock is French, Love at First Sight, UST, First Kiss/Time, Frottage, Coming in Pants, Anal Sex, Switchlock, Clothed Sex, Crossdressing, Secret Relationship, Forbidden Love, Jealousy, Terminal Illnesses, Grief/Mourning, Breakup/Makeup Sex, Past Drug Use, Attempted Rape, Canon-Typical Violence)– When John Watson is invalided home from the army in 1895, he moves to Paris to rediscover his writing and find a new meaning in life. His old friend Stamford invites him into a group of artist friends, and suddenly John finds himself auditioning to write a show for the famous brothel across the street. There, he meets the most beautiful man he’s ever seen - Sherlock, the star of the Moulin Rouge. But Sherlock is already promised to the investor of the show, the rich Duke Moriarty.

A Case of Identity – The Musical by shamelessmash (E, 83,147 w., 15 Ch. || 1950′s Hollywood AU || Musical, Case Fic, Undercover as an Actor, Dancing, Happy Ending, Kidnapping, Drugs, Fluff and Angst, Humour, Writer/Director John, Slow Burn / Romance) – A mysterious death on set causes chaos in Stamford productions latest movie. With the premiere date left unchanged, they must find a new lead actor and reshoot an entire movie in two months. Sherlock Holmes goes undercover as a lead actor in a Musical: a juggling act to solve a murder while singing, dancing and charming his way through 1950s Hollywood. The last thing he expected was to fall in love with the screenwriter along the way. Or as I like to call it: the case where Sherlock finally gets to dance. Based off this prompt.

To the Sticking Place by blueink3 (E, 121,973 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Musical Theatre AU || Showmance, Friends to Lovers, Bickering, UST / RST, Fluff, Virgin Sherlock, BAMF John, New York City / Broadway) – Renowned Shakespearean actor Sherlock Holmes has finally burned all of his bridges in the theatre industry save for his constant director, Greg Lestrade. John Watson has made a name for himself in the musical theatre circuit, but age and injury are working against him. Can they reinvent themselves for an all-male Macbeth without killing one another? Part 1 of the Screw Your Courage series

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #my fic recs #song fics #help steph find fics

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lunarsands · 1 year

Text

ALSMP Fanfic: Along The Roads To Sanctuary Ch 2

Bonus also Empires SMP S2 fanfic! I just didn’t want to make the title field too long ^_^;

Characters: PearlescentMoon, Scott Smajor, MythicalSausage, Eddie the Rabbit, Joel Smallishbeans, Bubbles the Dog, Empires Hermes, mentions of other Empires S2 characters, including a certain misplaced warlock… Sausage Supreme

Relationships: MythicalSausage/Scott Smajor

Tags: Canon Divergent, fictional religion, scosage, Afterlife SMP meets Empires SMP S2 but in an AU way

Warnings: violence, surrealism via magic auras, humorous misunderstandings about infidelity (tfw your husband cheats on you…with you), kidnapping (although we know how that went in canon)

(Sequel to Echoing Through To You, When The Skies Cry, Until The Blood Moon Descends, Then We’ll Rewrite The Stars, Wherever These Flowers May Grow)

Summary: A happily ever afterlife is interrupted by the distant past; Sausage receives another calling and is sent into a different mortal world from their old one, with Scott insisting on following so they won’t be separated. They both lead brand new lives but only Scott regains memories of the previous one on his own, and he isn’t allowed to remind Sausage about any of it without jeopardizing the mission the angel was sent to complete – a mission someone else was supposed to have dealt with.

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ]

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Chapter Two

Elsewhere in the world, Sausage was pushing his way through thick stands of bamboo, trying to keep sights on a small child that had pale yellow hair with a purple streak down the middle, giggling as they ran. Bubbles the interdimensional yorkie was also in pursuit, although maybe she was adding to the child’s mischievous running.

“Hermes! Slow down! I’m a bit bigger than you, you know! I can’t fit through here that easily!”

They were going a little too far outside of Sanctuary for his liking. Even though he had plenty more construction planned, a border would still remain after a certain distance. Natural camouflage was also a safety precaution. Dangers were still out there from his old home.

Just because he had formed an odd co-parent relationship out of the blue with the local god didn’t mean he himself was under divine protection.

Sausage stopped to catch his breath, muttering, “Joel, why did you make this kid the equivalent of a hyperactive toddler instead of an actual infant so there wouldn’t have to be so much running?!” He set off at a jog then realized he had actually lost sight of both Hermes and Bubbles. He sighed in exasperation. “Hey, Thunder Daddy! Answer my prayer and help me find our son!”

There was a boom of thunder. In a flash of light, the towering weather god appeared …in the middle of a cluster of bamboo. “Oh gosh – Sausage! I told you to be out in the open when you called me. How are you having this much trouble keeping up with one child?”

Sausage feigned leaning over from exhaustion, hands on his legs as if he was worn out and still out of breath. Then he lifted his head and grinned. “I’m not really having that much trouble, I just wanted to see if you would respond this time!”

“Right, right. Well, where is he, then?” Joel cast a doubtful glance at the bamboo and vine-covered trees.

“Around here somewhere. Can’t you sense their demigod energy?”

“That would be cheating.”

“Wasn’t this all your idea?”

“I thought it was yours. You were the one who said you missed having a family.”

“I said I was missing my family, as in, I didn’t know where they were!”

“Well, now our child seems to be missing, so, let’s go. Where did you last see them?”

“This way, I think.” Sausage looked around for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Bubbles! Where’d you go, girl?”

“Sausage, why didn’t you say the dog was with them? He’s perfectly safe with her around.”

A bark answered from the other side of a rock outcropping. Joel gave the human an annoyed look and put out an arm to stop him, taking the lead instead and heading past yet another stand of bamboo. Sausage shrugged then followed, running his hand over the surface of the rock on the way. He paused when he felt a series of bumps and grooves. Then he heard Joel chatting to Hermes from the other side of the bamboo and knew it was all right to let himself be distracted.

He took a step back and tilted his head, studying the rock face. “Hey, this is kind of cool! Looks like there’s an actual carving here! It’s really worn… Must be centuries old.” He reached up and ran his hand across the topmost part of it. There appeared to be two different figures, although they were standing close together. He touched the face of the one on the right, trying to make out more of the details.

“Could be,” Joel replied, not sounding very interested. He lifted Hermes and put them on his shoulders, then wandered over. “There are relics of the past all over the place. Who knows who actually made them.”

“Well, you’re a god. Weren’t you paying attention for the past, I don’t know, half millennium?”

“I told you already – big fight amongst the gods, chunks of time gone missing, new legends of ancient history springing up, me crawling out of the metaphorical wreckage not remembering most of it. Plus, I’m specifically a weather god. Someone else was, like, the patron of artists. They might know. If they were still around.”

Hermes began to lean forward over Joel’s head making grabby hands at something beyond the outcropping. Joel ducked around it and chuckled. “Like whoever planted these things. There’s even a little sign. Apparently, someone thought to repaint that but didn’t bother preserving the carving.”

The thing that had caught Hermes’ attention was a small patch of flowers surrounded by a border of round stones. One type of flower was white with silvery edges to the petals, of which there were six main ones with smaller, feathery ones in between. The others were dark blue with a dusting of gold along the petals. Hermes continued to reach toward them until Joel put him down and let the child inspect the blossoms.

Sausage gazed at the flowers in fascination as well. “Wow… I’ve never seen anything like these before! And I’ve got Sanctuary’s magic creating all sorts of things all the time!”

Joel attempted to hunch over enough to read the sign. Then he simply plucked it from the ground to hold it closer to his face. “Hmm, maybe the paint isn’t so well-maintained, after all. Something something ‘seen nowhere else in the world’ something ‘memorial to two lovers’ something something ‘a sign of your own eternal dedication’…” He stuck the sign back in the ground. Then he gave a start. “Hey, Hermes, don’t break any of—”

He was too late, as the child snapped one of the stems of a white flower. Hermes stared at it for a second, then smiled and held it out to Sausage, who smiled back and knelt to accept it, then tucked it into his hair above his right ear. “Thank you, Hermes. It’s very lovely.” Sausage then picked one of the blue flowers and helped the child affix it in their hair. “Which one do you want to give to Thunder Daddy?”

“Ah, no, I’ll… pass…” Joel trailed off as Sausage looked up at him; something about the sight of the white flower, in that particular spot in his hair, struck Joel as familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He had seen Sausage with a hibiscus blossom in his hair before, so it wasn’t the flower in general doing it.

Hermes tugged on Sausage’s hand, drawing his attention back down, and the odd feeling slipped away from Joel’s mind. “Oh, you’re right, Hermes! The gold! How silly of me to forget! I didn’t really need to ask, huh?”

With a promise to Hermes to tidy up the area and make a path out from Sanctuary to the patch of unique flowers, Sausage took his leave to get some lumber work done while Joel brought the child back to Stratos with him. First Sausage checked inventory at the warehouse, making a list of what was running low, then went over orders that had come in via messengers.

Not wanting to ruin the flower Hermes had gifted him, he took an empty potion bottle – perfect for holding a single blossom – and filled it with plain water then carefully set the flower into it. The stem had, admittedly, ended up a bit too short to be sustained for long, but Hermes meant well. Sausage would merely have to top off the water often. He placed it on the windowsill of the bakery so he could look at it whenever he had a break for a snack. Then he grabbed an ax and got to work.

Within a couple of days, he had refilled the lumber yard as well as gotten all of his orders completed. He prepared to head out with a set of neatly organized shulker boxes for a trip around the empires that was planned out so he would reach Stratos’ region last and pick up Hermes.

However, just as he was about to leave, he heard Bubbles barking and growling. He hastily followed the sound to the small dock where he had first arrived in what would become Sanctuary. “What is it, girl? What did you see, or scent – or whichever?”

The small yorkie was bristling and she barked a warning toward a patch of reeds near the water’s edge.

“You thought you saw someone suspicious over there? Someone who… looked like they were trying to scout out the place? Are you sure it wasn’t a friend from home just trying to find us?”

Bubbles barked then whined.

“You think it was someone trying to find us who wasn’t a friend. Got it…” Sausage frowned in worry. They had fled as far as possible, yet with the hopes of being reachable if their actual friends and family came looking for a safe haven. Of course, it would be inevitable that the king’s assassins might follow any scrap of a lead they caught wind of. His hope had been that by the time that happened, Sanctuary would be built up into not just a new home but a defensible land where the tyrant would find himself powerless and unable to steal any more magic.

Sausage and Bubbles made a circuit around the area to hunt for signs of intruders, but came up empty. He made one last check from the air as he took off to begin his deliveries. He didn’t see anything suspicious for the moment.

~*~

By the time Sausage reached the end of his route, the weather had turned, making for a rain-soaked landing in Chromia. He hurried along the paths, looking for a good place to take shelter while calling out to also try to locate the colorful ruler. “Scooottttt! Scott! Are you hooomme?? It’s a little wet out here! Sorry if I ruin anything, but I need to get inside somewhere!”

He finally figured that the tavern was his best option, since other travelers would be tracking in mud and dust from the road, anyway. Just as he pushed the door open – and got a side-eyed look from the llama stationed inside – he heard Scott’s voice behind him.

“Sausage! Sorry, I was in the middle of something when I heard you. Go on in, you can dry off in there.” Scott jogged through the door after him, considerably less soggy since he had recently been inside a different building. “Let me get you a towel. Owen, why isn’t the fireplace lit on a day like this?”

The llama snorted and turned its back on them.

Scott sighed in exasperation. “You’re rubbish at this. I’ll give the job to someone else at this rate.”

“I think I can manage to get a fire going on my own,” Sausage offered with a chuckle.

“Just don’t use any of that wood I ordered,” Scott joked. “That’s for building, not to be tossed away lightly.”

“Or be lit alight,” Sausage quipped.

Scott returned with a towel and bathrobe taken from one of the rooms just as Sausage, facing the now blazing fireplace, was pulling his drenched shirt up over his head. An unintentional noise left Scott’s throat as his left eye’s magic activated and revealed something he hadn’t seen up until that moment.

Sausage heard and turned, now holding his shirt out toward the fire to start it drying, a playful little smirk on his face. “Hm, you’re not used to seeing me from the back – the marks, right? Don’t worry. I know they look bad, but I’ve had them my whole life.”

Scott uttered another noise, having to stop himself from saying no, not those, although the implications from the first part of what he said nearly made him blush. The marks in question were six vertical blotches, the lowest pair mostly covered by his waistband. The sight honestly made Scott’s stomach queasy for a split second, making him think of scars from something removed; but what was actually before his eyes – the left eye, of course, giving feedback to his brain to see with both – were the glowing outlines of six feathered wings, each pair a different size. He blinked and they faded to a mere subtle aura.

“Ah – um,” Scott stammered. “Right. Just birthmarks. Sorry, I… Yeah, I hadn’t noticed them before. I was always too busy looking at your handsome face.”

Sausage leaned over to spread his shirt out on the hearth in front of the fireplace, then looked over his shoulder and winked. “Just my face, huh?”

Scott rustled up a flirtatious smile. “Well, it is easy to get caught up gazing into a pair of lovely blue eyes, you know…” He crossed the room and pushed the towel into Sausage’s hands. “Why don’t I get us something to drink while you dry off? The rain seems like it will keep up for a while, so we might as well relax for a bit and chat.”

“That sounds like a great idea! I have to pick up Hermes before I go back to Sanctuary, but I don’t think another hour or two will matter! And we can find something to do to wait out the weather if it lasts longer...”

Scott went off to the kitchen without adding any thoughts to Sausage’s hints, also avoiding any further glimpses of him as he changed out of the rest of his wet clothes into the robe.

The ruler of Chromia returned with a pitcher of pink lemonade and a plate of cookies, which he put on one of the tables next to the fireplace. He poured a glass for each of them, then sat for what turned into a gossip session, since the Protector of Sanctuary wasn’t much one for protecting other people’s secrets, it seemed. The irony was not lost on Scott, who smiled absently when he caught his own gaze drifting to the faint aura of Sausage’s top pair of wings.

After a while Sausage went quiet and munched on a cookie while apparently contemplating the far wall. He glanced toward the fireplace as if to check if his clothes were dry, then attempted to be casual about sipping his second glass of lemonade before asking, “Say, uh… Have you happened to have seen any suspicious strangers around? Not just, like, wandering travelers, but like… y’know, anyone acting a little weird and maybe… entrometido? Uhm, nosy?”

“Nosy as in looking for gossip?” Scott teased, but inside he felt wary.

“Not like that! Come on, now! I’m serious!”

“Sorry. There hasn’t been anyone that I’ve noticed. Why?”

“Well… you see… I, um…” Sausage then blurted out, “I might have assassins coming after me for something that happened in the kingdom where I used to live. I didn’t commit any actual crimes, I swear!” He hastily lowered his voice and hissed, “But the king wanted everyone who had any magical abilities to be hunted down! And Bubbles thought she saw someone earlier today, so I just want to make sure no one else has seen anyone snooping around!”

“That’s pretty serious.” Scott tried to keep his voice even, and took a sip of lemonade to give himself time to think. Why hadn’t Pearl mentioned that detail to him? Well, probably to keep him from rushing off to be even more protective over Sausage.

“Yeah, I, um. I was hoping I’d gone far enough that no one could track me down. But word is getting out that Sanctuary exists. I mean, I hoped it would, so that my surviving friends from back then could make their way to it and reunite somewhere safe, but without the magic part reaching the king’s ears.” Sausage pushed the glass back and forth between his hands, then pressed them against it and looked down at the table top. “Sorry. I suppose our relationship isn’t really the type for heavy stuff like that. F-Forget I mentioned it, we’ll go back to, uh, occasional visits for wood delivery. Thanks for the lemonade and warm fire this time around, though.”

He offered a smile then got up and gathered his mostly-dry clothes. He retreated to one of the rooms to change back into them, leaving Scott to wonder if he had been being too distant this entire time to avoid triggering Sausage’s memory. He slugged back the rest of his lemonade, then hastily cleaned up everything to bring it to the kitchen.

He was checking over his patchwork elytra when Sausage emerged. The Protector of Sanctuary raised an eyebrow. “Are you heading out, too? Was I keeping you from something?”

“No, I just thought I’d take a little flight over to Stratos with you and say hi to Hermes before you two go.” Scott smiled cheerfully. “Not a lot of children around here, you know, so I wouldn’t mind seeing how Hermes is doing. I’ve mostly just got llamas for company.”

“Oh… uh, if that’s what you want to do! I’m sure Joel won’t mind! He’s usually not around when I drop off or pick up Hermes. Must be doing important godly stuff somewhere, I guess!”

They headed out under still-overcast skies, but at least the rain had stopped. It was a very short flight to Stratos, and as Sausage had predicted, Joel was absent, and meanwhile Hermes was waiting just inside a doorway. They ran out when they saw Sausage, who scooped the little demigod up into his arms. “Hermes! Hi! Sorry if I kept you waiting! Thunder Daddy wasn’t paying attention to that storm, was he?”

Scott found himself staring yet again when he caught sight of a dark blue flower in the child’s pale hair. He shook his head, glad Sausage hadn’t witnessed his reaction. “Hello, Hermes. That’s a beautiful flower you have there. Is that something your… Daddy Joel came up with? I see that gold on there – that’s his kind of thing, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no, Joel didn’t know about them, either!” Sausage said blithely. “That’s one of the flowers we found outside Sanctuary, right, Hermes? You discovered them first! Maybe you could come up with names for them!”

“Huh,” Scott feigned nonchalance. “Well, bold of you to have a variety of flower that I don’t already have in Chromia. Do you mind showing me? Or is this a little secret between just you guys?” He leaned over to wink at Hermes.

Hermes didn’t offer an opinion, but waved a hand in front of Scott’s left eye.

Scott blinked and wondered if the silent demigod child could sense something that neither of his parents had picked up on. Of course, Scott’s eye wasn’t revealing anything about Hermes at the moment, despite how the aura around Sausage’s angelic wings was still present, if not dimmed by the sunlight as the clouds began to move off.

“Actually,” Sausage said thoughtfully, “Maybe since you’re so familiar with flowers, you could identify the other one. I mean, even if you don’t know what this one is.”

“I might have an idea, now that you mention it, but a closer look at the leaves could help,” Scott lied. He bit back an extra comment about seeing the flowers at nightfall. That might happen by coincidence.

“Okay then! Um, there’s only a small patch of them, so I might have to ask you to not try to uproot any to take back with you.”

“That’s fine. I could always come by for another visit to study them again later.”

“Huh… You haven’t been by very often, have you? But then again, you can always count on me to make deliveries.” Sausage smiled. “But you should still visit more often. We’re a colorful place, too!”

“Believe me, I’m definitely considering it.”

A small bit of travel later and Sausage had gotten Hermes settled in his room, then, after an offhand comment from Scott about the presence of a Warden when they passed by Dolores’ cave, he led the Chromian on a stroll out to where the flowers had been found.

Scott was coming to realize that he needed to be constantly aware of new revelations about this world that might shock him to silence. He pretended to be in awe of the beautiful flowers, but what had grabbed his attention first was the rock outcropping with its weathered relief of two figures. Two florans. Two faces and other features that he knew the details of even if they had been eroded by the elements. He was almost grateful it wasn’t closer to what might have been its original condition, because it might have risked triggering Sausage’s memory.

And meanwhile, he himself had realized the patch of flowers was a result of he and Sausage dying in that very spot however many hundreds of years ago in this world’s past. It was fascinating to think about how their missions could involve different points of time in the same world.

“I guess this was someone’s special spot, somewhere in the past,” Scott finally managed to comment, “If they went to all the trouble to include a rock carving.”

“Yeah, I asked Joel about that, since as a god you would think he had been around long enough to know about things like this, but he said he had lost a bunch of memories and figured some other god oversaw stuff like sculptures and random unique flower patches in the middle of a bamboo jungle!”

Ah, so that finally explained it, Scott thought to himself. He meandered over to the flowers. He smiled softly as he crouched down to pretend to inspect them. It was nice to have a little hint of home… Then his expression turned sad as he realized how much time had passed since they had last been home together. He tried to cover it up by smirking and proclaiming, “Maybe Joel just wanted to keep such gorgeous flowers a secret. I know I would hide these away if I had discovered them in Chromia – and then I would charge people their best trades to see them, and charge double for partners, if going by this sign is anything.”

Sausage laughed, amused by the idea of Scott trying to fleece two or more people over some flowers, but then he abruptly went still as he was gripped by a waking vision. He was looking at Scott similar to how he was now, but his eyes were red. Sausage blinked and then they were gold. Then they were ocean-blue. Then one was gold and the other blue, although not in the way they were right now. Then came another change, and another. His head began to feel like it was spinning, until the vision halted upon the sight of spring-green eyes and numerous flowers in Scott’s hair.

Not just as if they were woven into a flower crown. Sausage had a sense that the flowers were growing there. The appearance of nature magic, like Sanctuary’s…

Cyan hair and flowers.

Flowers… in cyan hair.

Sausage stared hard at Scott as the vision faded out, then grabbed a blue blossom and stuck it into the Chromian’s hair over his ear.

Scott attempted to laugh lightly. “And you said I shouldn’t take any of these. What was that for? …Sausage?”

But Sausage only stared at him again.

“What is it?” Scott laughed again, nervously this time.

“Why do I know you?”

“What do you mean? You do know me – ruler of Chromia, friend of llamas, greatest dye trades in the world—”

“No,” Sausage corrected quietly, “I know you. From… somewhere else. Some… other time.”

“Ummm, no? I had literally never seen you before the day we all met up at the trade summit,” Scott lied, his heart doing cartwheels in his chest. “Do you really think I’d forget if I had? You’re quite… memorable.” He forced a flirty look onto his face.

Sausage wasn’t in the mood to humor that game. “Stop playing around. I’m serious. Look, there’s something else I haven’t told anyone yet, even Bubbles. I’ve started having all sorts of weird memories popping up in my head at random, but none of them make sense – I don’t remember experiencing any of them! It’s like I lived a dozen other lifetimes somewhere else, because they’re not from around my old home or Sanctuary!”

Scott froze. He dearly hoped the ‘dozen’ was a generalization and not specific, since he could personally account for ten of those. Maybe eleven, if he counted the time they were florans together.

“Th-this is the first time it happened so strongly around someone else. It has mostly been quick glimpses or in a dream, but both always feel so real. I just saw—”

“You know what,” Scott cut him off, forcing his tone to sound brusque, “You were right about heavy topics kind of stuff. I think you just have an overactive imagination. All I really know about you is how you like to gossip, and if this is some ploy to get me to compare hidden mysteries about my memories and past, please stop.”

“But that’s not what I meant—”

“I have to go. Take care of your flowers, and don’t go handing them out so lightly.”

Scott dearly wanted to remove the starflower and drop it at Sausage’s feet to enforce the act he was putting on, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Instead, he stalked off through the bamboo to find a clear spot to take off from. He needed to talk to Pearl. He needed to know if Sausage was supposed to be remembering things, or if this was a bad sign and he would have to intervene somehow.

~*~

Sausage stared numbly at the patch of flowers. Why did they have to spark such a weird vision – was it actually a memory of something, or just his imagination, like Scott said? Maybe… Maybe there was someone else he had known in the past and had forgotten, and maybe they only had a passing resemblance to Scott, or something…

He felt like he was missing a piece of this puzzle. He wasn’t sure how to find it… unless it was something back in his old home. He wondered if he should ask Eddie, yet at the same time didn’t want to make him or Bubbles worry. Maybe he should wait, and just keep a record of what he was seeing to try to put it all together later.

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, he realized he should get back to Hermes. When he turned, however, he saw a flicker of golden light. Similar motes appeared as the sky continued to darken. They weren’t fireflies. Too small, and the wrong color. It was coming from… the dark blue flowers.

He gazed at them wistfully. “You sure are something special. I wonder who planted you? Funny how you were here the whole time, with Sanctuary and its magic so close by. Did you guide me here? Were the magics connecting to each other, saying this is would be a safe haven? ...It’s a cool idea, but it’s probably just coincidence.”

He chuckled quietly, then sighed and started on the walk back. The range of the golden motes was limited to that area, and soon he found himself among regular green fireflies as night settled over the land. Up ahead, over the treetops, he saw a shooting star. He gave thought to making a wish, but then only gave a rueful smile. Really, all he could hope for was that Sanctuary would remain protected and safe. Wishing for his own mental turmoil to be sorted out felt a little selfish.

The next morning, Sausage went back to Chromia, planning to try to smooth things over with Scott. He enjoyed their casual flings, and maybe that’s all their relationship needed to be, if it continued to work for both of them. If yesterday had been too much, then he would politely make deliveries and go on his way without flirting anymore.

Speaking of being polite, he landed at the outskirts instead of intrusively flying overhead to locate him. A few extra minutes to iron out his thoughts wouldn’t hurt, either. Chromia did have such nice flower fields to wander past, after all.

It was as he was coming up on a supply shed when he heard Scott’s voice coming from the other side. Sausage hesitated and stopped to wait since it sounded like he was talking to someone else.

“Can you give me any kind of time frame? Will it really be much longer? I miss our real home. I miss my angel… I miss my husband.”

Sausage grimaced, eyes going wide, and he barely contained an alarmed squeak before pressing his back against the wall of the shed. His… what? Had he unwittingly been part of another man’s affair? Scott didn’t wear a wedding ring – that Sausage had noticed, anyway – or ever said anything about a significant other. So how was he supposed to have known??

Although, from the sound of it, maybe Scott was hiding undercover from something, too. Maybe that was why he had gotten so defensive all of a sudden yesterday. It made some sense… A sympathetic smile crossed Sausage’s face. He wouldn’t pry or hint about it, but he would still like to get past yesterday’s incident.

He snuck away, deciding to wait for a different chance to sort things out, giving Scott and whoever he was talking to the privacy to finish their own rendezvous. Besides, if Scott was concerned about reuniting with his actual husband, seeing the person he was cheating on him with – even if it was only to keep up his cover story – probably wouldn’t be the best thing at that moment.

With a wry smile, Sausage accepted that keeping up that particular part of this assumed cover story could be his favor to Scott to make up for what had happened the day before.

[ Chapter Three ]

[Post A/N: A certain scene in this chapter was inspired by this artwork by Cynthrey! ]

#alsmp #alsmp fanfic #alsmpshipping #scosage #empires smp #empiressmpshipping #mythicalsausage #scott smajor #dangthatsalongname #joel smallishbeans #empires hermes #empires smp fanfic #soul liminality 2 #lunar yarns

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damienthepious · 2 years

Text

aw dunk here we go again!!!!

still need your teeth around my organs (chapter 7)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ch 3] [ch 4] [ch 5] [ch 6] [ao3] [ch 8] [ch 9] [ch 10] [ch 11] [epilogue?]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien, Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Enemies to Lovers, Rivals to Lovers, Dueling, Sexual Tension, (because they’re IDIOTS), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, mutual IDIOTS, canon typical Arum ignoring feelings, Polyamory, (eventually lmao), Polyamory Negotiations

Fic Summary: Damien won yesterday, Arum won today, and now all that’s left is to break the tie. The only issue, however, is that neither of them are willing to do so, not until they are both satisfied that they have fought fairly, and honorably, and one of them has truly won.

Chapter Summary: Lord Arum agonizes. This is not particularly surprising.

Chapter Notes: the more this fic continues, the more it crystalizes as a direct mirror of hb3. i'm so incredibly okay with that.

Amaryllis comes in to check on them after quite a long while, and Arum drops Damien's hand so quickly that he fears the knight will wake. He only shifts, though, murmuring something wordless through his slumber and tilting his face against the pillow.

Amaryllis does not mention the hand. She does not mention the length of time Arum spent at Damien's bedside. She does not mention anything at all until she and Arum stand safely in the front room again, and she stifles a yawn behind a hand before she asks-

"So, did you get anything out of him, or was he pretty much gone?"

Arum drops his eyes, frowning hard. "Both. He tried to tell me he would be ready in a week. To duel. Absurd little creature, as if I would let him-" he huffs. "Ridiculous."

"A week ," Amaryllis spits, entirely derisive. "He heals fast, but no one heals that fast."

"Precisely," Arum says, and- it is an odd sort of relief, knowing that someone with stubbornness enough to match Sir Damien is here, bending her efforts to his safety and health. "Precisely. I decided- I decided that you would be better equipped to say when he will truly be safe to..." he trails off, sighing.

"Hm," the doctor says, still frowning with her expression deep in thought. Her face clears after a moment, though, and she spares Arum another look. "Well, as far as dueling goes, I'm gonna argue that six weeks is the absolute minimum - Saints help me get him to cooperate with me on that - but I think, maybe..."

She pauses, watching Arum carefully, and he worries sharply that his stab of disappointment and resignation must show on his face.

"Maybe?" he echoes, wary and unwilling to indulge in any nebulous hope.

"I mean, just for visitors," she says with a shrug, "he'll be fine pretty much as soon as I switch him to a some different dosages tomorrow afternoon."

Arum pauses, tail flicking, and then he narrows his eyes at the doctor. "Visitors... it is not as if I- as if we are- are-"

"Rivals?" Amaryllis says, an eyebrow raising, and Arum sputters. "I mean, that's pretty normal, I think. His best rival Angelo already stopped by earlier today to check in. Damien wasn't conscious then, but that wasn't the point. That sapling in the corner of the exam room was his get-well gift."

Arum blinks, reeling from at least three different implications in that brief verbal jaunt.

"Best- his- what?"

Amaryllis pauses, then rolls her eyes, gesturing with a hand. "You're his dearest rival, Arum, don't worry. Angelo is his best friend and worst competitive influence."

Arum barely swallows a laugh, half-choking, and then he shakes his head. He does recognize that name, in fact. "And- sapling?"

"He thought, say, if a few flowers improve someone's health - already wrong - then a bigger plant must be even better! So, of course, he got the biggest damn plant he thought would fit inside my hut. He was almost right. It fits diagonally, at least."

The laugh escapes, then, a hopeless gasping behind his hand, and Amaryllis grins hard and runs a hand through her hair.

"Yeah, no, exactly. He's ridiculous. He and Damien are great together, when they aren't nearly getting each other killed."

Arum shakes his head as he controls the laughter, muttering wordlessly under his breath. "That- still. It is... obviously it is- different, between-"

"You can come after dark, just like this. No risk of other humans."

Arum clicks in the back of his throat, an uncertain rattle as he hovers between nerves and desires. "I don't... if we cannot duel, then it would only be... I don't-"

"If I say that it would be kind of a relief to have someone to keep an eye on him while I sleep, would that nudge you in any particular direction?" she says, her voice thinning with slightly exaggerated weariness. "I'm sure he'll be fine tonight, but- when he gets more lucid, he's going to try to push himself before he's ready, and, well, not that I'm trying to put you to work or anything, but- "

Arum sighs, heavy with his own exaggeration. "It would not do to have my dueling partner delay his recovery in stubbornness or guilt or whatever else," he mutters, glancing away, and he sees Amaryllis' frame sag slightly in his periphery. "I suppose. I make no... no promises, but of course I will need to return to speak with him about our- our standing duel. Of course."

"Of course," Amaryllis nods, visibly relieved, and then she glances towards the door to Damien's room again, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and furrowing her brow. "I hate needing to worry about him so much," she says, almost absently, and Arum goes very still at the strange vulnerability in her tone. "But- he makes it so easy, doesn't he?"

Her tone slips towards sardonic, then, and unutterably fond, and Arum-

It clicks.

Amaryllis- Rilla, that was the person Damien had called out for in their second duel, Rilla- of course, of course she is- foolish headstrong reckless knight and his beloved, his doctor-

Of course. It makes perfect sense. He doesn't know how he managed to miss the obvious until just this moment, but-

He has been rather distracted, he reasons.

"Uh... what."

Arum jolts, his tail flicking anxiously as he refocuses on the human. "What?" he parrots, teeth bared without intent, and the doctor raises an eyebrow.

"You were making a face," she says, tone flat. "Did I say something wrong?"

Arum shakes his head, still thrown. "Don't be foolish," he mutters. "I only- you and the knight are-"

Arum snaps his teeth shut, unwilling to give voice to what, exactly, they are. It isn't his business, anyway. Damien's personal life- that is not Arum's concern, any more than his own is Damien's. He flaps two hands in the air dismissively, grumbling a growl under his breath.

Amaryllis, unfortunately, is rather quick for a human. She blinks, her expression going a little blank. "Oh," she says, and then again, "oh. I- uh, I assumed you knew? Damien said he's mentioned me-"

"Rilla," Arum spits, more distressed to continue this conversation than he knows how to endure. "He has mentioned his flower, his Rilla, early on, but-"

"Right," she says. "Amaryllis. Right, sorry, I didn't think that would be-"

"Don't apologize, you absurd little creature. It isn't any of my concern one way or the other. It isn't as if our duels are such- it would not be playing fair, were I to- to try to-"

Amaryllis blinks again, and then she laughs, quick and sharp. "I really didn't- no, that wasn't what I meant. I just- prefer clarity! That's all. I like it when things are neat and clear. So. Yes, Damien and I. Yes, we're a- we're together."

Arum curls his tail around his own ankle for a long moment as he allows that idea to take root in his head.

"I am finding less and less sense in your allowing me here," he mutters, frowning hard. "It was madness enough when you were simply his doctor, but if your bond is stronger still than that- little doctor," he raises his eyes to hers, pretending that the steadiness that meets him does not unsettle. "Little doctor," he repeats, "I am going to kill your knight, someday. His life will be my prize, eventually."

She-

Amaryllis does not answer to that, for a long, long moment. She stares him down, her eyes narrowed and searching, her expression placid and unconcerned, and eventually, eventually, long after Arum's scales have begun to shiver with nerves and the compulsive growl in his throat has grown noticeable, she gives an insultingly lazy sort of shrug.

"Eventually," she says breezily. "Someday. If your life isn't his prize, right?"

Arum snorts, baring his teeth again. "Optimistic, are we?"

"He's a knight," she says, a flicker of grimness at the edge of her tone. "I'd almost have to be. Now. You're going to come back at some point?"

He should say no, outright, of course. This single evening has been purely self-destructive, utterly absurd, unforgivably reckless. Coming back again is asking to be slain.

(He can still scent the bare edge of Damien's bloodied armor by the doorway behind him, each time he flicks his tongue.)

He shrugs, a passably decent imitation of her own feckless motion.

"If, of course, I can find the time. Do not expect me to commit to a schedule. For all I know you could be ready to summon a squadron of-"

"I wouldn't dare deprive Damien of his duels," she drawls with a roll of the eyes. "I don't expect you to believe that, but still. It's worth saying. And that's fine, too, I won't hold you to anything. Just- if you do find the time, use the door I brought you through tonight. That's my personal door, not the one for patients. Only me, Damien, and my brothers ever use it, so I'll know that it's you if you knock."

Arum... decides not to think too deeply, on the implications of that invitation.

"Now. I don't know about you," she says, scrubbing a hand through her hair again and loosening her braid even further, "but I'm fucking exhausted, and I need to get some sleep while he's still down for the count. Do you mind?"

Arum pauses, uncertain for a moment before it clicks. "Ah- er, yes, of course, I should not have- lingered as long as I have," he mutters, awkwardly half-stepping towards the door.

Amaryllis presses her lips together in a smile, tired but honest, and then she moves to open the door for him. She waits until he skips past her, his movements embarrassingly twitchy and anxious, before she speaks again.

"Arum," she says, and he- pauses, despite himself, glancing back to where she stands in the doorway, silhouetted by the gentle lantern-light, nearly glowing. "Be safe, okay?"

Arum stills. His mind jolts, after a moment, racing to try to interpret the words, the look on her face, her tired stance, to try to find the secret insult, the lie in her concern, but-

There is nothing there to find. Only earnestness. Only kindness.

Arum swallows, and turns, and disappears back into the dark of the jungle without another word.

Arum dreams a victory.

He dreams the familiar dance of their combat, dreams disarming Sir Damien in a dramatic flourish, dreams the poet knocked to his knees before him.

Damien stares up, cut on his chin, bruise blooming on his cheek, mouth open in a gasp before he gathers himself, that gentle smile curling the corners of his lips. He leans closer, warm hands suddenly skating up the sides of Arum's thighs, too close-

"We fight for our lives, dear rival, in our deadlier duels," he murmurs, looking up and up into Arum's eyes, and then his smile blooms wider, hungrier. "For what do we fight now? What prize would you take from me, besides my life?"

Heat pools in the pit of Arum's stomach. He cannot speak. Damien's hands, hot like a sunning rock at midday, palms pressing to Arum's hips, sparks racing across his scales in response, his face upturned.

"What would you have me give?" Damien murmurs. "What would you take?"

Nothing. Everything. Claws in Damien's hair, claws tracing Damien's lips. Anything.

Persistent rhythm, Damien's heart in his ears, steady-sweet music. Damien parts his lips, a gasp like someone drowning, and he grips Arum's wrist in one of his furnace-hot hands.

"Take it, then. Take what you would take, my dear, my dearest-"

Arum wakes.

Arum wakes, uncomfortable in the extreme in multiple ways, curled over his workbench and snout buried in reams of blueprints, evidence of failure after failure after failure, his insides still burning with heat and his scales still racing with electricity, and he-

He squeezes his eyes shut again, hisses through his teeth, buries his face in all four hands, and he cannot-

This cannot endure. Arum cannot endure. Not this, not forever. The confusion, the conflict, the foolishness.

It must end.

As soon as Damien is well again, he decides. As soon as the knight is fully recovered, as soon as Arum is convinced that he will fight at his best again, he will end this. One last duel, one final turn, and then-

One of them will die.

And Arum knows, in his heart, which of them it will be.

There are a thousand reasons not to return to that little hut. There are a thousand reasons why to do so would be reckless foolishness at best, suicide at worst. Despite Amaryllis' open invitation, despite Damien's preposterous, muddled assertion that he would- would miss Arum during his recovery.

A thousand reasons to stay away, a thousand reasons to use this opportunity to clear his mind, to create some distance between himself and the knight before their final duel. To prepare.

Amaryllis said he would be welcome the following night, if he would like.

He manages to wait three days, before he finds himself skulking close beside the narrow path through the jungle, the dim glow of lamplight steadily flickering brighter through the trees as he weaves careful and silent between them.

If this is a trap, he will not be felled easily.

The jungle buzzes quiet with the natural sounds of night, bugsong and the quiet trills of amphibians creating a background tapestry of noise, uninterrupted by any ambush or trap. Arum approaches unmolested, and only after he carefully scouts around the hut, scenting for other knights (he only smells the one he sometimes does on Damien's armor, the one he must assume is that best rival Amaryllis mentioned), searching for traps, listening for chatter within the structure (the doctor sings, quietly, humming under her breath in what sounds like distraction when her words drift off), only after he is satisfied with his safety, he slips from the trees with his hood carefully pulled over his head, and he knocks.

Amaryllis smiles like blooming as she opens the door, though she looks, if anything, even more tired than during his last visit. She gestures him in, and Arum acquiesces, flicking his tail and pulling his hood back down as she closes the door behind him.

"He's sleeping right now, and I still have a bit of work to do before I go to bed. Want some tea?"

A thousand and one reasons, he thinks, as the curve of her smile makes the corner of his own mouth twitch up in response.

"Please," he says, and then he moves to sit.

[↣]

#elle's fanfic #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #lord arum #amaryllis of exile #sir damien #still need your teeth around my organs #ahem. Please for comments?

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avaritia-apotheosis · 3 years

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Phantom Children [DP x Batman Crossover] Ch. 1

Disclaimer: It's been a while since I watched DP and the only Batman/DC stuff I've interacted with are B:TAS, the JL cartoons, and what I got from fandom osmosis so don't expect any sort of canon compliance.

In Which: the author takes advantage of the passage of time in Nanda Parbat being wonky and Danny doesn't give up, per se, but is sort of resigned to being stuck with the League of Assassins until further notice.

AO3 | Prologue | [ 1 ] | 2 |

CW for descriptions of non-consensual drug use (if there's anything you guys would like me to tag, please tell me)

-----

WHEN SOMETHING WENT WRONG WITH DANNY’S LIFE, it was usually because of one or two things: Ghosts or Vlad. And considering their truce and how even Vlad wouldn’t go this far (at least, Danny hoped), Danny was kidnapped because of ghosts. Or his association with ghosts.

Though how an organization of ninja-assassins got wind of his ‘unique’ circumstance was beyond him. The shackles they slapped on his wrists were more a formality than anything after the second time he tried to escape them with intangibility. The only reason they managed to get him contained the entire trip from Amity Park to wherever the fuck Nanda Parbat lay was because of the cocktail of drugs they pumped into his system spiked with blood blossoms.

Danny had to give it to them. The League of Assassins might not have any anti-ecto weaponry, but they did their homework.

He barely remembered the trip. He catches flashes—blurry figures and words he couldn’t comprehend. A warm hand holding his, a thumb rubbing smooth circles on the back of his palm and calloused fingers running through his hair.

When he awoke, it was in a room bigger than his bedroom. His ankle was shackled to a bedpost, and the only door leading out was locked. There was a separate room for the bathroom off to the side and a shelf stacked with books decorating the otherwise bare walls, but other than that there wasn’t much else. Not even windows.

Intangibility, he learned, wasn’t an option. The blood blossoms in his bloodstream were still in circulation, rendering his transformation useless. If his nose was right, his captors were pumping blood blossoms from the vents. The sickly sweet of the flower was faint in the cool air, but the slight red haze that persisted in the room was unmistakable.

He tried, regardless. The rings barely made it half-way before his knees buckled and he started retching all over the floor. At least his stomach was empty.

-------

Danny doesn’t know how long he’s been in Nanda Parbat. Time moved differently here. Faster, he thought. He doesn’t really understand how or why, though sometimes he wondered what Clockwork thought of all of this.

(There are times, in the darkness and solitude of his cell, when Danny would call for Clockwork to rescue him. Quietly, so quietly, it was barely even a whisper. But Clockwork would hear it—Danny was sure he would. Clockwork helped him out before, so this time shouldn’t be all that different. But at the end of the night, nothingness would answer him. And Danny had to learn over and over again that even the Ghost of Time had his own rules to follow.)

It had taken a few days and Talia nearly biting the head off of the League’s physician for them to realize that blood blossoms would be an awful way to contain him. Effective at immobilizing him, yes, but the flowers left him about as helpless as Superman in a kryptonite cave.

“It all works out in the end,” Talia would say. “The blossoms were never going to become a long-term solution; you might end up developing an immunity to them given enough exposure.”

Though knowing now what Talia’s ‘long-term plan’ was for making sure Danny didn’t slip through the walls of the headquarters and fly across the ocean, Danny would rather take his chances with the blood blossoms.

Danny might not have been as smart as Vlad, but he was tricky and creative when he needed to be. He knows he’s powerful. And sure, he might forget some of his own abilities every now and then, but that doesn’t mean he can’t use them. In the time he’s been stuck in the Leage’s lair (and coherent), Danny had thought of a dozen escape plans, each one with a high chance of success. If he made an attempt, he could guarantee the League wouldn’t notice until he was a quarter-way across the globe.

Escaping wasn’t the problem. That would be the easy part.

His core burned at the thought of it. And it hurt—as if his entire being was dunked in a vat of dry ice and left to freeze. He hated how he was here and everything that he was protecting was far. Away.

Danny wanted to go home. Wanted to read comic books in his bed, play Doom with Tucker and Sam, sleep in class and make fun of the Box Ghost. He wants to eat his mom’s food, even if there’s a fifty-fifty chance that it would come alive and try to eat him instead. He wants to listen to Jazz try to psychoanalyze his problems. Wants to go fishing with his dad and eat his famous chocolate fudge. Wants to fly above the skies of Amity Park and touch what little he can of the universe before he’s called down again.

Amity Park is his haunt. His Home. The soft hum of the Ghost Portal in the basement a lullaby he’s listened to for so long that sleeping without it was next to impossible. Every fiber of his being craved to go back because how is he supposed to protect Amity if he isn’t there?

But to go back meant sacrificing everyone.

Danny doesn’t risk it.

(The—the last time was an accident. If Danny isn’t—if he isn’t careful, this time it may be an assassination. He refused to have his family’s death on his hands again.)

He has faith in Sam, Tucker, and Jazz to hold down the fort until he could find a way to escape. They’re smart. Smarter than him. They’ll work something out and—in a worst-case scenario, they’ll find a way to shut down the Ghost Portal to stop the ghosts from coming through.

Logic meant nothing to his ghost core, though. The next best thing to do was to drown out his worries with the League’s rigorous education.

Hand-to-hand and weapons combat. Geography. History. Dozens of foreign languages. Poisons and herbology and basic first-aid. His days are packed with new things to learn and to repeat until it’s drilled into his skull so deep he could recite the information in his sleep. (Hyosycamus niger, aka Henbane. Every part is highly toxic and can cause dizziness, stupor, insanity, and eventual death. It’s medicinal uses range from--)

The League demanded perfection. The Demon’s Head demanded even more than that.

Talia oversaw his education. Sometimes, there would be another, older, man by her side, observing his regimen with cold calculation. Whenever that man arrived, Danny’s instructors were always stricter.

His teachers made little effort to interact with him outside of their set schedule, and during his lessons they only ever answer pertinent questions. He supposed there would be other students of the League in Nanda Parbat, but he’s seen neither hide nor hair of them. His rooms (a bedroom + bathroom combo that led out into a large indoor space for training) are separate from everything else.

Danny slept alone, ate alone, and trained alone. And for a boy who has had his two best friends stuck to his side like glue for as long as he could remember, it’s a terribly lonely experience.

His shadow guards don’t count. They might as well be another piece of furniture. Another stone in the wall.

-------

Talia was the only one that broke his new mundane routine, as much as she was the cause of it. She was his only source of companionship in this hell hole; the only one who would really speak to him. And yeah, he knew why that was. Jazz had rambled on enough about Stockholm syndrome to know that this ‘arrangement’ was Talia’s attempts at forging a bond between them. But godit’s just so hard to be stuck inside your own mind all day when. It made him think too much. Worry. (Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif).

And then—

And then.

Danny had asked Talia a multitude of questions, but only two did she ever answer. Both asked when he was still trying to flush the drug cocktail and the blood blossoms from his system.

The first was when he asked, “Why am I here?” She answered that it was because Ra’s al Ghul, her father, wanted him. He had knowledge the Demon’s Head wanted; powers that Ra’s could only ever dream of. The man was curious—though Talia assured him over and over again that Danny wouldn’t be vivisected and studied for science.

The second answer came right after when Danny asked her “How could you be so sure?”

Talia smiled. Lacquered fingers coming up to brush away the dark strands that fell over his face. Her hands traced the curve of his jaw, cupping his cheeks to raise his eyes to hers. “Because you are my son,” she said, voice honey sweet.

He jerked from her hold.

Burned by it.

“You’re lying,” he spat. “I’m already someone else’s son. Try again.”

Talia let her hands drop to her sides. “You are my son.” She took a step closer towards him. Steady. Firm. “That is why you are here.”

“I don’t believe you.”

A pitying smile. “Be that as it may, you cannot change the truth.” She approached him, slowly backing him against the wall before she reached out to tilt his chin upwards. Some traitorous part of Danny’s mind catalogued her features. Made connections that shouldn’t exist. “I have carried you in my womb, Daniel. You were a part of me for so very long and I loved you more with each passing day. You are of my body and of my blood—not matter how much you may deny it.”

“No.” He pushed her hands away and raked his hands over his hair. “You’re lying.” She must be. They don’t look alike. Not at all. Everyone always said he was his dad’s—Jack Fenton’s—exact copy. Black haired and blue eyed and sharp-jawed. Awkward but well-meaning and with a heart of gold, his mother said. It was once of the facts of life; Danny took after his dad, and Jazz took after their mom. Simple as that.

(There is a memory resurfacing from his early childhood that Danny is desperately trying to repress again. Memories of kids teasing him on the playground, innocently cruel in the way only children can be as they tried to convince him he was adopted. That his skin looked nothing like his parents’. Dusky where his parents and sister were fair. He went home crying to his parents that same day, and they soothed away his worries with hushed words and a well-timed distraction.)

He asked no more questions after that. Talia was lying to him for some reason, and no answer she could give would be trustworthy anyways. What little of him he could see in her was only a figment of his own imagination. His mind playing cruel tricks.

Then his hopes were dashed aside when Talia showed him a picture of his father a day later.

The man in the photo looked like him. Black haired and eyes the same shade of too-bright blue. There were differences, of course. The man in the photograph was fairer, unlike Danny. He was taller and broader where Danny was lean and lanky. But despite this and all the other minute differences, this man who was supposed to be Danny’s biological father looked like him.

The same slant of the brow. The same shape of the eyes. The way the man held himself with this sense of gravitas and power that Danny couldn’t yet do in his awkward teenage years but had seen before. In a monster another man.

Danny’s future self was terrifying in its inhumanity, but it didn’t take that much of an imagination to know that he looked almost exactly like the man in the picture.

#danny phantom #batman #danny phantom x batman crossover #cw; drug use #phantom children.txt

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lesetoilesfous · 3 years

Note

For DWC: "These chains never leave me, I keep dragging them around" from the Florence prompt list for Anders/Fenris?

Ah I had so much fun with this, thank you! I hope I did it justice!!

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Fenders

Characters: Fenris, Anders

Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, canon-typical graphic depictions of violence, Anders was right, anti-chantry, graphic reference to infanticide, Tevinter is awful, graphic reference to abortion, oblique reference to sexual assault, self-hatred, mention of self-harm, suicidal ideation. Basically post-Danarius, and all that entails. Characters dealing with trauma, PTSD and survivor’s guilt.

Rating: Mature

It’s been one week, two days and three hours since Fenris killed Danarius. He is sitting with Hawke and her friends in her mansion, because he had not been able to conceal his discomfort when they’d visited The Hanged Man, unable to remove from his recent memory the stain of blood on the floorboards and the sting of his sister’s betrayal. Corff had, at least, worked a miracle with the former. As far as the latter was concerned - Fenris did not think that Isabela was the only one who’d noticed him startling in the Lowtown crowd at the sight of every redheaded elf. The trait was, blessedly, a rare one. There was that, at least.

In the beautiful marble fireplace, Hawke’s fire roars loud and red, crackling with heat that licks gold light over the sandy, muscular back of her mabari, half asleep on the wine purple rug laid over the stone. Sandal is humming somewhere in one of the rooms nearby, and occasionally, under the loud sound of Hawke’s voice and her companions’ laughter, Fenris can make out the soft sound of Bodahn talking to his son. Orana, of course, is inaudible. She knows better.

Fenris bites the inside of his cheek, hard, and drinks deeply from his cup. The wine in it is thick and rich and velvet. Fenris can feel Marian’s eyes on him, but he can also see, from the corner of his eye, the way that her muscular arm is looped casually around Isabela’s shoulders. As he lowers his cup, he catches the way that Isabela tilts her head back, thick black hair falling over Marian’s tunic as she brushes her lips against her ear. He can see the way Marian flushes.

Fenris gets to his feet, and by the fireplace Dog raises her great sandy head. He gives her a small, calming gesture, and next to the low table onto which they’ve scattered their cards, Marian frowns at him. “Fenris?”

Fenris motions vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. “I need some water.” He tries to ignore the eyes of his companions on him as he goes. Instead, he leaves the warm, firelit parlour and walks into the cold, empty rooms not baked gold by fireplaces. Fenris feels his shoulders lower as soon as he gets to the second room, standing in the grey and black dusty shadow of an utterly deserted music room. Through the narrow stone windows of the Amell Estate, he can see the deep black sky of Kirkwall, scattered with stars. Houses fall like broken marble down towards the sea, which crashes with a distant roar against the cliffs. At the edge of the horizon, moonlight races silver across the waves. Fenris stares at it, and thinks about being a younger man, on an island, thinking that it would be the last thing he ever saw.

“Nice view, isn’t it?”

Fenris whirls on instinct, limbs moving with muscle memory as the lyrium sewn into his skin sets his nerve endings on fire and he plunges his hand into the intruder’s chest. In the dark, Anders’ blonde hair is grey and silver. If he’s bothered by the pain about which Fenris’ victims had so often complained to him before their grisly demise, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he raises his eyebrows at Fenris over the wrist plunged into his chest. Fenris squeezes his fingers, and feels the frantic, shuddering jerk of Anders’ heart in his palm, the warm, wet sensation of it dulled by the distance of the Fade.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

Anders breathes out, a long, shuddering breath that belies his calm demeanour. Fenris had not previously thought him capable of such a poker face. His heart beats in Fenris’ hand like a bird, struggling. “I don’t know.” Anders meets his eyes, and in the dark his are almost black, but his blonde eyelashes are gilded silver by the moon. “I guess I trust you.”

Fenris’ fingers uncurl around Anders’ heart, and the mage’s shoulders lower from where they’d been scraping his ears. Fenris’ gaze falls to his long, crooked fingers, but there’s no telltale spark of magic there. Slowly, Fenris withdraws his hand, watching it fade through the frayed fabric of Anders’ coat as he tries to ignore the burn of a hot, embarrassed flush pushing up into his cheeks.

Outside the mansion, on the streets of Kirkwall, a pair of mabari start barking, great bellowing things that echo against the stone buildings. A cat yowls, and far off there’s the sound of people shouting. Fenris stares at his bare feet on the stone floor of Hawke’s mansion and hates the fact that his eyes are burning as he tries to untangle his tongue, and dispel the impression that Anders will do something awful to him for his trespass. (Hadriana’s smile flickers behind his eyelids every time he blinks. Her fingers curl, wreathed in green light. His own screams echo in his ears long before the pain hits.)

“Are you alright?”

Anders’ voice is rough and soft, and Fenris jerks his head up, falling back on the easy confidence of anger and letting it buoy him up out of his despair.

“What do you care, mage?”

As Fenris speaks he surges forward, feeling his lips curl back from his teeth in a sneer. Anders doesn’t back away, and it leaves their faces mere inches apart. Anders is looking at him oddly, and abruptly Fenris wishes for more light: knowing the man well enough by now after almost a decade to be able to read the spiderweb cracks of wrinkles in his face as the giveaway they tended to be.

“You haven’t been yourself since -” Anders hesitates, and Fenris hates him for it, and abruptly cannot look at him. So instead he turns away, throwing his hands into the empty air as if that will satisfy his urge to hit something.

“Since what? Since I killed him. Tell me, mage, what is my ‘self’? What am I?” Fenris means it as a challenge, but his voice cracks, and when he turns back to Anders, chest heaving, he’s horrified to realise that tears are running down his cheeks. He glances at the open door, leading into the dark and deeper into the mansion. He takes a step in the direction of the doorframe.

“Brave.” Anders says the word quickly, and Fenris stops, unable to force himself to turn around but unable to leave either as some stupid, childish part of him that he had long since thought irreparably ruined rises in delight. “Funny. And you know it, though you pretend you don’t.” It’s getting hard to breathe. Fenris stares into the thick shadows of the next room, where Orana’s drawn the curtains across the window. Elsewhere in the mansion, there’s a cheer and a crow of triumph from Isabela as the rest of their friends laugh.

“Smartest man I’ve ever met, probably.” Anders goes on, but doesn’t move. “Fucking stubborn. Annoying. Terrifying, with a greatsword. And without one.” Anders hesitates, and Fenris hears the catch of his breath as clear as a bell struck at daybreak. “My friend.”

Fenris clenches his jaw so tightly his teeth hurt, and shuts his eyes. More tears fall down his cheeks, tickling his chin as they go.

“A good man. That’s what you are, Fenris.” Anders delivers the proclamation with the same certainty with which he insists on his desperate, hopeless, flawed revolution.

Fenris whirls on him. “And what do you know of good men?” Fenris means it cruelly, and he tries to take satisfaction in the way that Anders flinches. But then the stupid, stubborn, ridiculous man lifts his chin.

“Enough to know one when I see one. And know when he’s being an ass.”

“You know nothing of me!” Fenris almost bellows, and cowers when the words echo. For a moment, both he and Anders hold their breath as they wait for one of Hawke’s servants - or worse - their friends, to come and investigate. But a minute passes, tense as a knife edge, and no one does. Fenris goes on, and tries to ignore the prickling in his sweating hands. “You don’t know what I am. You don’t know what I’ve done.”

Dust motes dance silver in the starlight as they fall onto the piano. Anders purses his lips. “Alright, I don’t. But I know that you dress up as Fen’harel for the kids in the alienage every Wintersend. I know you win more often at cards than you say you do, and that you let Merrill win. I know you’re a little bit in love with Isabela, and a little bit in love with Hawke, and it kills you that they chose each other because it kills me too. I know that you have more reason than any bastard I’ve ever met to hurt me until I forget how to breathe and you’re one of very few people who never has. I know that I’ve known you for a decade and you haven’t killed me yet.”

“I might.” It’s not a threat. Fenris doesn’t look at Anders when he says it, staring dully instead at the painting on the wall: some rainy Fereldan landscape, the details of which he can’t make out in the dark.

“But you haven’t.” Anders steps forward, and Fenris steps back, and feels dizzily as if they’re dancing. The moonlight catches on Anders’ chin, and Fenris can make out the faint tooth of a scar just below his bottom lip, hair thin in his stubble. Anders swallows, and breaks Fenris’ gaze, eyes tracing over a lute hanging on the wall. “You know mages don’t get to keep their kids.”

The subject change is so abrupt that Fenris feels as if he’s been physically thrown off kilter. “What?” He’s been standing here long enough to feel the cold, now, and taste the wood polish in the air. Anders goes on, still not looking at him, massaging one hand with the other as his fingers flex.

“They take them away. Can’t abort them, not under Chantry law. I’m a Spirit Healer.”

Fenris’ frown deepens, the back of his head already aching with the dull constant stress of the last fortnight and the sleeplessness that came with it. “I know.” He tries not to make his frustration obvious. Judging by the small grin Anders gives him, he doesn’t succeed.

“I started working with the Circle Healer when I was 17. Day after I was Harrowed. First day wasn’t so bad. A couple lashings. Attempted suicide. Self-harmer. Some kid who said he walked into a wall.” Anders rolls his eyes, huffing a laugh as his hands move to massage his wrists. Fenris watches him carefully. “Second day. There was this girl. Fifteen, Templar father, obviously. I helped deliver that baby.” Anders’ expression shutters. “She wasn’t allowed to see it. I did. I got to hold it, give it to some lieutenant who held it like it was contagious. I don’t even know if it made out of Kinloch. But she begged me to let her hold it and all I could say was that it was already gone.”

“That -” Fenris picks his words as carefully as he would navigate a floor covered in broken glass. “I do not think that you were the one at fault, there.”

“I know.” Anders says the words simply, and reaches up into his hair to pull the tie loose, scratching the tangled waves that fall around his head as he does so. “My point is, when you’re a prisoner, most of the time, the burden is on your gaolor. And you aren’t Danarius’ crimes.”

“It is not the same.” Fenris grinds the words between his teeth as his fingers tighten into fists hard enough to hurt. “I was - the things I did - I did not take babies. I killed them. I broke their skulls on his altars. I aborted them from their mothers before I killed them, too. I cannot - there are not words for the marks that what I have done, what I did, has left on my soul, and I do not know if I will do them again, and I fear them and I fear him, and I fear myself, and I hate them and I hate him and I hate myself, and every hour of every day I live with these cursed chains on my body that I cannot shake no matter how far I run and I do not know how to make it stop.” Once Fenris starts speaking, he can’t slow down, the words falling from his tongue with the tears that run thick and fast down his cheeks as he tears at his arms hard enough to make them bleed. Anders startles forward, and Fenris jerks backward, thrusting his burning hands into the air between them. “I would tear it from my skin. I would rip myself apart piece by piece if I did not know that killing myself would only be a mercy that I have never deserved.” Fenris breathes, and it splinters in his chest. He finishes in a hoarse whisper. “You know nothing of what I am, or what I have been, or what I have suffered, or what I have done. You never have.”

Behind Fenris, through the window, the sound of the ocean beats incessantly against the land. Elsewhere in the mansion, their companions are quiet, and the sound of Sandal’s singing has ceased. Fenris can feel his blood roaring in his ears, and doesn’t bother to brush the tears from his cheeks. Standing in the middle of the room, Anders stares at him, his tall thin figure swaying like a sapling in a breeze.

Then he says, “You’re right. There’s a lot about you that I don’t know or understand and, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m kind of an asshole sometimes. But, Fenris? I need you to know this.” Anders steps forward and gets, stiffly, to his knees, one leg bending more slowly than the other. Fenris stares at him, bewildered, and steps backward until his head bumps softly against the wall. “Forgive the melodrama but uh, I don’t get on my knees for just anyone.” Fenris doesn’t think he has ever seen Anders on his knees, and he realises abruptly that he had never wanted to. Anders gives him a small, nervous smile, and takes a deep breath, swallowing before he speaks. “Fenris. From a mage, on his knees, asking you to listen to him. You deserve to live.”

The sob that works its way out of Fenris’ chest is a living thing, and Fenris chokes on it, sliding down the wall as he begins to cry in earnest. Anders, mercifully, doesn’t move. Fenris doesn’t know how long he cries, only that at the end of it his throat aches and his eyes burn and his head is pounding. But when he opens his eyes, Anders is still there, silver in the dark on his knees next to the piano. Fenris stares at him, and tries to clear his throat.

“You’re a very strange man.”

Anders shrugs, and moves with a visible wince to take the weight off his left knee, leaning against the piano stool as he gingerly unfolds his leg. “I’ve been called worse.”

Slowly, he reaches out into the space between them, scarred, crooked, calloused hand palm upwards, fingers outstretched. Anders looks at him, and his brown eyes are almost black in the dark. Slowly, fighting the sensation that this must be some kind of trap, Fenris reaches out and takes it. Anders’ fingers are cool against his, and his knuckles are bumpy and uneven. But he squeezes Fenris’ hand so hard it’s almost painful, and Fenris feels more tears stinging at the back of his eyes.

For a moment, they sit like that, peaceful in the quiet. Then there’s a soft knock on the doorframe, and Bodahn ducks his head in, face lit by a candle in a brass dish. “Sorry to interrupt messeres, but Mistress Hawke wanted to know if you’d like some libation to keep you company?”

Fenris glances at Anders, half moving to pull his hand back. But Anders’ hand tightens on his, and instead, feeling strangely childish, he nods at Bodahn. “Yes, please. That would be appreciated.”

Bodahn gives him a small, kind smile and ducks his head. “Very good, messere.” He turns, and leaves, and Fenris watches Anders as he shuts his eyes and leans his head back against the barstool, hair fanning out around him like some Orlesian princess.

“I thought you didn’t drink.” It’s not an accusation, motivated more by curiosity than anything.

Anders’ lips curl, and he opens one eye to look at Fenris, fingers tightening in his. “For you? I’ll make an exception. It’s been a long week.”

#dadwc #my fic #fenders #da2 #fenris #anders #tsuraiwrites

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scullydubois · 3 years

Text

Only the Light Ch. 20

I now present to you a chapter that is filled with more angst than Chris Carter could ever dream of, and for that, I am truly sorry.

Scully and Mulder's foray into domesticity with Emily is interrupted by the past catching up to them. Faced with despair, they cling even tighter to each other.

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

Scully is granted maternity leave, though it’s only for two weeks, which Missy let her know is “a piss-poor bargain.” And she knows this is true, but she also has more incentive to stay at her job than ever, so she’d like not to lose it. The fact that advocating for herself and her child would mean risking her job is a mess in itself, but one lone woman can’t be expected to take down the patriarchy, and besides, she’s already tried and failed.

As for she and Mulder, they hide their flirtation in plain sight. Mulder’s perpetually present in body or spirit, but his behavior never reveals anything more than it did before. Every morning he swings by to say hi, brings Scully coffee and a bagel with full-fat cream cheese, and checks if Emily’s picked up any new words. Personally, he’s working on “alien” and if you ask him, she’ll get it soon. She knows that it refers to her UFO stuffie, so sounding out the letters can’t be far behind, much to her mother’s dismay.

On Wednesday of the first week, he shows up at 6pm with takeout carbonara from a local Italian joint. His presence makes every Scully girl happy, but it makes one in particular the happiest, and Melissa realizes that there are definitely things her sister has failed to mention. She doesn’t question it, but watches with glee as the situation unfolds.

After that first night, Mulder keeps coming back with dinner and refuses to let either sister shoulder the cost. On Friday, he stays for a movie too and gets to participate in Emily’s nightly tucking-in ritual (a tickle on the left foot, a tickle on the right foot, and a big smooch on the forehead).

Saturday afternoon, he joins them for a stroller push through the park, earning some serious side-eye from Scully when he suggests that they stop at the playground because, according to the mama bear, “Em can only take six steps at a time, Mulder.” So instead they buy hotdogs from a vendor and eat them on a bench, Emily sandwiched between her mother, her aunt, and her...Mulder. They couldn’t ask for more.

That night, Mulder hangs around after dinner because what else is he gonna do? Go home and watch old baseball games until he falls asleep? A new leaf has been offered to him, and he’s gotta turn it.

He’s baffled when, upon announcing that it’s Emily’s bathtime, Scully goes to the kitchen and switches on the sink.

Scully raises an eyebrow at him. “What, your mother never washed you in the sink when you were a baby?”

“Not that I know of...I have a hard time envisioning myself ever fitting in a sink.”

Scully scoffs. “I forget. You were a Vineyard boy.”

Before he can come up with a smart response to that (as if there actually is one), Missy pipes up. “Oh, I bet you were the kid that took baths with your mother,” she teases. “Care to confirm or deny?”

“If I did I blocked it out of memory, thank god,” he testifies.

Having spread a towel on the counter, Scully strips Emily down and perches the girl on her hip. She sticks her hand under the faucet.

“That’s not too hot, do you think?” she asks Missy, who tests it as well.

“That should be fine.”

Mulder joins in too, and immediately regrets it. He shrinks away from the water, shaking droplets all over the room. “Jesus, Scully! Are you trying to boil her?”

“Babies lose heat quickly because of their body surface to weight ratio,” she says matter-of-factly. “They’re more susceptible to the cold.”

“I think the cold will be the least of her worries,” Mulder quips.

“If you really think it’s too hot, I’ll turn it down…” There’s a concerned crease beneath her eyes, and it makes Mulder feel bad about his joking.

“No, no, you know what you’re doing,” he assures her. “You’re her mother.”

As she lowers Em into the sink, Scully’s heart twinges. Her. A mother. How many times will she have to hear this before it stops feeling like news to her?

One week and bathtime has already become routine. Missy fills a plastic cup and pours it gently over her niece, the water cascading down Em like she is nature’s own. Scully soaps her palms, then glides over her daughter’s skin with such care that its memory may blight any future affection Em is graced with. And then another waterfall, and the gentle brush of a wash cloth against eyes and nose.

Scully squeezes a penny’s worth of baby shampoo into her hand, looks to Mulder. “Come on, get in here. You’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, are you?” she says with a smirk.

He smirks back and shakes his head as she lifts his open palm and shrinks her accumulation to a dime. “Although, technically I am getting my hands cleaner…”

She boops him right on the nose with a shampooed finger. He laughs.

Missy smiles. Oh, to see destiny play out right in front of you. “Someone’s cracking dad jokes,” she points out, unable to resist. This observation is much too on-the-nose for the pair (quite literally for Mulder), who simultaneously blush but say nothing.

Mulder wipes the shampoo from his nose and plants it on Emily’s head, joining his partner in making soapy circles over the girl’s tuft of strawberry hair. Scully’s full attention is directed toward her daughter. As soon as the lather is sufficient, she dons the lifted lilt of motherhood. “Okay, time to rinse! Missy, will you do the honors?”

Missy turns the faucet, fills the cup, and lets it flow over Emily. Mulder and Scully wash their hands off in the stream.

And as Scully leans for the towel, a splash of red dirties its fresh white surface. Mulder notices it first. He points at his partner’s porcelain face. “Scully, you’re bleeding.”

Her hand shoots to her nose. Sure enough, it stains her fingers. “Shit.” She turns away, goes for a tissue. “I haven’t had nosebleeds since I was fourteen,” she tells them, as if that invalidates this one. She wipes away a glob of blood, her stomach turning. “Missy--” her voice shakes involuntarily, “--will you dry Em off?”

“Uh-huh.” She nudges Mulder. “Will you grab a new towel from the linen closet?” she whispers, not wanting to further upset her sister.

Mulder goes off without a word, and Missy squeezes out Em’s hair as best she can. “What a pretty girl!” she gushes. “All clean!”

“Yee!” Emily throws her little fists in the air, injecting joy back into the room.

“Time to put your PJs on, and get a tickle, tickle, smooch.”

Mulder scrambles back in with a new towel, skirting around Scully, who remains occupied with her own situation. He slides the soiled towel away and helps Missy swaddle Em. Mulder ruffles the little girl’s hair, and she laughs like a music box.

“Mol-dy.” She spits it out in halves, as if she’s been rehearsing.

Mulder’s eyes water with recognition. “Mulder? Mul-der? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Moldy,” the girl declares again, certain of herself.

Missy adjusts Em on her hip, smiles at Mulder. “Looks like you’re Moldy now.”

Mulder bites his lip to hide his overwhelming delight. “Yeah, I...I never thought I'd be so happy to be called moldy.”

Next thing he knows, Scully is at his shoulder with a tissue stuffed up her nostrils. “Wait, what’s going on?”

“Em called me Moldy,” he tells her, full of satisfaction.

“Oh.” It comes out relatively unimpressed, but really, she’s just distracted. “Missy, will you get a diaper on her before there’s an accident? I would but I’m still--” She gestures to her nose.

“Yeah, yeah.” Missy smiles at the baby in her arms. “PJ time, Em!” They go off toward the bedroom, a happy pair.

As soon as Em is out of sight, Mulder spirals toward his partner, panic-stricken. The glee of moments ago has evaporated.

“Are you okay?” He touches her hair, shoulders, and the familiar small of her back, unsure of where he should land.

“I’m fine, it’s fine.” Her grip on his elbows--keeping his hands firmly placed on her waistline--suggests otherwise.

“You’ve got to see a doctor,” he pleads. “This could be...”

“This could be what, Mulder?” The steel in her blue eyes is a death grip. She’s never liked being told the obvious.

“Scully…” He sighs, rubs his neck, wills her to say what they both know. When she doesn’t, he takes his hands off her and wrings them together. “The Mufon women...they said it would happen to all of them eventually.” He’s careful not to lump Scully in with their group.

“And what do they know?” she retorts. “One of them was sick. One.”

“Okay, well, don’t you think it’s better to be safe than sorry?” he reasons. “You have Emily to look out for now.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “Don’t guilt trip me. It’s a nosebleed. Those happen all the time for completely benign reasons.”

“Yeah, but they don’t happen to you. You just said--you haven’t had one since you were fourteen.”

She clenches her jaw. He’s right, and she’s playing the fool. His position is the one she would take if this were anyone other than herself. She’s gonna have to lose this fight with as much grace as possible.

“Fine. I’ll get it checked out, but they’re gonna think I’m insane for coming in because of one nosebleed.”

“That’s a nice change of pace--you being the insane one for once.”

“Well, you’re the one who wants me to go, so you’re not out of the woods.”

“Good, I’ve finally got some company!”

Scully smiles in spite of herself. “Yes, yes you do.”

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

It happens very quickly, as most calamities of life can be said to. This gives it the unreal quality of a nightmare that might soon be woken up from, if there is any justice in the world.

Scully snags a doctor’s appointment for three days after the initial nosebleed. By the time she walks into the waiting room, one nosebleed has quadrupled into four, and her minor concern has snowballed into abject terror.

Margaret Scully drove into the city to watch Emily so Missy could join her sister. Scully insisted that she would go alone, but Missy wouldn’t accept this. She threatened to tell Mulder the details of the appointment if Dana didn’t let her go, and that was enough to earn her a spot in the passenger seat. Scully can’t take the thought of Mulder witnessing the worst--let alone her reaction to the worst.

And so it goes something like this: they are taken to an exam room, at which point Scully explains her situation to a nurse, including that she has recently learned she is at high risk for cancer. The nurse assures her that such a diagnosis is highly unlikely, but makes a note for the doctor. The doctor comes in with knitted eyebrows and listens to Scully describe the aftermath of her abduction experience with a heavy emphasis on the convoluted but substantial claims of the Mufon women. She asks if Scully has had any other symptoms, to which Scully replies that it’s hard to tell because she has an infant in the house and thus, a marked lack of sleep.

The doctor laughs, but it’s not a haha laugh, more of an I feel your pain. She agrees that the women’s claims are concerning, but tells her patient not to fret. They’ll take all the precautions, run any test that might assuage her worries. There’s a quip about how it’ll be on the government’s dime since it covers Scully’s insurance, and then the doctor leaves to order an MRI.

A full body MRI, which Scully has never had, and which she hoped she would never require. There’s no deeper sickness than one that cannot be pinpointed, and no greater fear than of the unknown turning into the worst case scenario.

The MRI is completed that same day. As she slides into the machine, Scully thinks of Betsy Hagopian and wonders how she’s doing. It has been many months since she stood outside an exam room and watched Betsy enter one of these. Has fate been kind to her?

For a few minutes, her world is limited to the mere inches between her face and this life-saving yet life-ruining contraption. It is noisy and sometimes bright and altogether disorientating. She is glad when it’s over.

The images return almost immediately, and maybe it would all have been okay if Scully weren’t trained in radiology herself, if she wasn’t able to recognize the glaring speck of light in her nasal cavity for what it is. But that one glance is all she needs to know that waiting by the phone isn’t an option.

“It’s a tumor, isn’t it?” she blurts as the radiologist tries to escort her and Melissa from the room. “In the nasal cavity. I have a M.D. I saw.”

“Your doctor will call with the results,” the radiologist insists, standing by the open doorway.

“No, no, you can’t do this to me,” Scully sputters. “I know what I saw, and I don’t have any time to waste.” Her eye twitches in a combination of stress and anger. “I have an infant daughter.”

The radiologist sighs, pity on top of pity. “Perhaps your doctor will talk it through with you now.”

“Yes. Please.”

And it is talked through, though there’s no need to make it complicated: nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Inoperable, and just barely in the realm of treatable. That’s the kicker, the coyote in the pasture, the cloud covering the sun. In the words of Scully’s doctor, it is auspiciously rare. And in Scully’s brain, it is the bottom she’s been expecting to drop out from under since she held her daughter in her arms.

Melissa drives home. The sisters cannot fathom how they will tell their mother. Cannot fathom ruining her blissful time with the granddaughter she’s just met. When they turn onto their street, Scully swallows hard and coughs on her own spit. “Will you do something for me?”

Missy looks over, eager to do anything she can, yet terrified by the possibility of the request.

“Will you take me to Mulder’s?” Scully mumbles. “I would just take the car but...I can’t face mom right now. I don’t want to risk it.”

Missy bites her lip. “And what am I supposed to tell mom when she asks where you are?”

“The truth,” Scully says curtly. “She doesn’t need the backstory.”

Missy drives past their building, though she’s not completely sold on her sister’s reasoning. “Don’t you think she might wonder why you aren’t coming home to your daughter?”

“I know she’ll wonder, Melissa, I know all of this,” Scully snaps because she needs to. “I don’t care.”

“Okay.” Missy’s voice is barely perceptible. I don’t care; she knows how low her sister has to be to say those words.

They complete the drive in silence, Scully biting her nails--a habit which she has never possessed, and perhaps just acquired. The car idles as Missy pulls up to the curb of Mulder’s building.

“I can pick you up when you need it,” she tells her sister as she pulls herself out of the car. “I’ll bring Em.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Scully says, closing the passenger door and edging toward the building. Missy hears a thanks float toward the car, then her sister is gone like a teenage girl embarrassed by her mother.

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

They sit on Mulder’s couch, muted. Words cannot fathom the injustice of this situation, nor can they suffice as empathy. Their hands are clasped together, a throughline of strength between them. This is what they need now; the most primitive language of all.

Scully’s watery eyes brush Mulder’s face. His own eyes, more pained than usual, look into hers. Without a word, she drapes an arm around her partner’s shoulders and scoots into his lap. He is surprised but not distressed. What else is left for them, now?

She is tiny, so tiny. And she is his.

Their eyes meet once again, speaking in tongues. Scully nods, and then Mulder does too. This is it. This is it.

Permission granted at last, Scully’s lips travel to her partner’s jawline. The first time her lips have touched his body, and this is where they go. She is a constant box of wonders, a fortune he can never predict. Her lips are much like he has fantasized they would be: wondrously soft and silky, stroking him like they have always meant to be there. Yet he couldn’t have imagined the urgency with which they burrow into his skin. As if she’s making a mental map of his bone structure. He never expected that she would want him this much.

His hands find her hips and grip the cotton of her shirt between his fingers. It is enough to tear her away from his flesh. Mission accomplished. His breath travels past her ear, hitting her neck. It is shallow and warm as he breathes her name. Her real name, the one her family calls her. She breathes his own back to him, like a bird responding to a mating call.

She feels his lips on her neck, wet and aching. It feels like God. This is the most blasphemous thought she has ever had. She throws her head back, exposing the whole of her skin to him. What is holiness, if not this moment?

He showers her in tattoo kisses, and she lets him, she lets him, she lets him. This is not just what she wants, but what she needs. No one will save her now, she knows this. So she has decided not to be saved.

Her shirt ripples as he clutches it. “May I?” He is breathy, awe-struck.

“Only if I can do the same.” Always about equality, his Scully is. He lifts his arms, lets her strip him first. He is fraught with the temptation to feel insecure, inadequate, but this is not about him--this is all for her. There is no time to dwell on this anyway. Scully takes in the sight, then puts her own arms up with a hint of impatience. He pulls her shirt over her head, and goosebumps adorn her as the air hits her bare stomach.

It is unimaginable, the significance of this moment. All Mulder can do is keep going, lest the emotion hit him and he find himself blubbering all over her. His hands travel her body...it is slender and white, but so solid, so strong. Cartilage forming ligaments forming joints connecting bones. And her skin, stretching over her hips and framing it all. The masterpiece that is Dana Katherine Scully.

He fears for the day she will cave in on herself. Already, one of his hands covers her whole rib cage. Right now he can cradle her body comfortably against his own, but the day will come when a single cautious touch will crush her, and his heart along with it. He wants her as she is now forever.

Seeing that he wants to pamper her, Scully lets herself be pampered. He showers the taut length of her collar bone in kisses. The vibration resonates throughout her bone structure, and already she can feel him in places she’s only fantasized about having him. He is going to heal me, she thinks. If anyone could heal her in any way, it would be him doing this.

She shows her gratitude by kneading circles into his soft tissues, so tense from all their days chasing ghosts. The sinew relaxes beneath the pads of her fingers, and she feels like she has solved the most important X-File of all.

Mulder traces his way along her spine. He has never touched her here, nor ever even fantasized about it, and there is an erotic tension--like a needle about to drop on a record--that neither one of them could have seen coming. Inevitably, his hands converge at the hooks of her bra. She arches her back in approval. He slides the hooks away from each other, and both of them feel the release. She shimmies off the garment before he can pull it out of the way. No secrets, not anymore.

Mulder didn’t expect to cry and is aware that most women wouldn’t take that as a positive sign, but seeing her, like this, knowing what they both know, tears feel like the least he could offer up. She is...beautiful is too weak a word to describe it. He needs to invent a new word to capture the essence of his emotions, the reverence with which he views her. He is not a religious man, but he will worship her until the end of time.

He has known this, intuitively, for a while, and now he’s putting it into practice. He wants to do everything he can for her, give her everything she wants. Yet he doesn’t know how to, and this scares him. She has always slipped through his fingers, always turned on a dime just when he thought he figured her out. Tonight is no exception. How was he to know that he’d be on his couch with a half-naked Scully in his lap?

He fears the tears will offend her, so he nuzzles into her heartspace, his nose pressed against the heart that is--by the grace of that God she worships--still beating. His lips meet the plush of her left breast.

Where does he go from here? The dusty routine he’s used with other women--the few who have given themselves to him or let him hand himself over--is not worthy enough for Scully. He could never touch Scully in the ways he’s touched the women before because she is not like the women before. There is no mere giving or taking here, no detached exchange of commodities or pleasure for the sake of pleasure. This is survival. They are symbiotically keeping each other alive.

A drop of water hits Scully’s skin, slides down the curvature of her breast. She shudders. A tear. That’s what it is, she realizes. Mulder is crying. It’s a baptism of unfortunate proportions.

She cups her hand against his chin, tilts it up so his bleary eyes meet hers. She rests her forehead against his. “Shh, shh, it’s okay.” She kisses each eye closed, his lids fluttering beneath her lips. “It’s okay.”

His breathing steadies. He is quite certain that it is not okay, that it never will be, but he listens to her, lets himself pretend.

Hands still on his chin, she careens their lips together. His mouth on hers; a godsend. They caress each other for a moment, then Scully opens wide, and Mulder does too. They are reflecting.

If Scully could compress herself, pushing every particle of air out of her lungs and into his, she would. As a sort of thank you, for everything. For what he has done, what is doing, what he will do...She will never have to live without him. She knows this now, and it makes this easier. But he will have to live without her, and so she must make sure he gets the memories he needs to carry on. This is how grief works, she’s acquainted with it. These moments, these feelings, these bated breaths and tender touches, will be his survival mechanism for awhile. Until the day when he can throw them off and go on without her ghost. It will happen one day, and she will be glad that he made it.

She feels him pressing against her stomach, which is certainly not where she wants him. “Fox…” Her hands hover above his belt. She unzips his fly first, her hand warm against him. He is dizzy with want as her fingers curl against his belt buckle, loosening it with confidence. In a sweeping gesture, she pushes his jeans off his hips, exposing him. The thrill she feels, seeing him big and bare in front of her, is a new kind of livelihood. She’s overcome with the desire to take him in her mouth--and that has never, never been her first instinct. She ducks down, but he stops her.

“Dana, no. You.”

She doesn’t need to hear it twice. She sucks in a breath, arches her back, and slides onto him. Slowly, gasping as they go.

“Am I hurting you?”

Scully shakes her head, lips parted. It has been nothing like this before...nothing so fulfilling. She crosses her ankles, binding them completely together at last.

Unity triumphs against the self, their union abolishing the world’s insistence on the solitude of the individual. This is what it’s about, isn’t it? Being joined, not only in spirit, but in body? Knowing that whatever horrors are to come, he will feel them as she does. Her dwindling will be his too, her losses an equally empty space within him.

She is teetering on the edge of something she can never come back from. She is not afraid.

She careens her fingernails into his back as the pressure builds. If it doesn’t come to a head, she’ll die right here, she thinks.

She barely registers the cathartic noises coming out of her, though they give Mulder great delight. He thought she would be quiet, and the fact that she’s not trying to hold anything in--after holding everything in for so goddamn long--is the most moving part of the experience.

And they want this to go on forever, but they want the release. Mulder swivels his hips into her, bringing them both closer to climax. Scully curls against him.

“I’m sorry,” she cries into his ear.

“What?” He nearly pulls out of her, fearing that she’s hurt.

“No, no--” She scrambles to stay with him. “This--” she pants “--is so good.” She lowers her lips onto his as confirmation, then speaks into his open mouth. “I’m just sorry to be the one to go.”

He frames her ribcage, thumbs arching toward her belly button. “Fuck, honey...don’t say that, don’t even think that…”

They won’t linger on the choice of pet name, the tenderness with which it settles over her, nor the absolute devastation of her words. There is simply no time.

Scully hides her face in his neck as the wave breaks over both of them. There is no world anymore, only the two of them on this couch. They have forsaken the physical realm, ascending to heaven in time with their heartbeats.

Mulder understands then what his reciprocal means when she says she needs proof to believe. Now that he’s been there and felt it, he knows that heaven exists, and holy shit, what does that mean for the life he has lived and the time he has left? What did it mean for Samantha?...What will it mean for Scully?

They collapse into each other, a melted mass of skin and bone. Two becoming one, becoming two again. Mulder strokes the back of his partner’s head, presses his lips to her temple. Her chest rises against him in jagged breaths.

“You are the only proof I’ll ever need that this life is worth it,” he murmurs. “Just you.”

Scully looks up at him, tears running down her cheeks. He kisses them away and wraps his arms around her. “I don’t know if you got the memo, but I love you, Dana Scully.”

She rests her cheek against his. “I love you too, F--Mulder.”

Mulder chuckles, his amusement shaking both of them. Scully closes her eyes and snuggles into him. He puts his hand over her heart, feels it beating steadily into his palm, and longs for it to stay like that forever.

#i have been working on that last scene since uhhh...october #i apologize for any emotional distress this and the following chapters will cause lmao #probably only two or three chapters left!!!#thank you for reading <3 #only the light fic #missy and scully fic #txf #txf fic #the x-files #fox mulder #dana scully #melissa scully #mine

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jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets · 3 years

Text

Of Gods and Men - Ch 3

Title: Of Gods and Men

Fandom: Supernatural / Vikings

Pairing: Destiel and Sabriel

Rating: Lemon

Tags: canon typical violence and gore, smut, angst, still some fluff

Summary: A Vikings inspired Destiel fic.

Dean, Barbarian King of the lands, must make a crucial decision in the survival of his people. Leave the one and only land and life they have ever known, leave their home, or make the possibly dangerous journey across the seas to a potentially better life. Who knows what will await him across the waters, hope, future, maybe even destiny.

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*** My works are not to be posted on any sites without my permission! But comments and reblogs are love! <3 Please and thanks!!

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

Chapter Three

The hall erupted into cheers and toasts of great journeys to come as Dean and Sam left to speak more privately in his chambers. Once inside, Dean crossed the room, tossing his cloak to the side, and pouring two hefty goblets of mead. He handed one to Sam and joined him where he sat at the small table to the side of the room.

“Are you excited, little brother?” Dean asked with a smirk over his goblet, “Your wish comes true. We travel across the seas to new lands, just as you wanted.”

“I am! I know this will bode well for us and our people, I have seen it in my dreams and I can feel it in my bones.”

Dean chuckled at his excitement as he took a long drink. He had to admit, he was excited himself for their adventure and what awaits them across the seas.

“Brother, might I ask you something?” Dean hummed as he took another drink. “You spoke of a destiny, your destiny, that it waited for you in the new lands. What did the Gods show you?”

Dean placed his goblet on the table at his side and leaned over, elbows on his knees as he spoke to his brother. “A life of peace and happiness,” he smiled, thinking back, “and as you saw in your dreams, me with children, so many beautiful children!”

“I told you it was wonderful, brother!” Sam reached over and smacked a hand down on Dean's knee, “All I want for you is that happiness and love I saw in my dreams, that the Gods have shown you in this vision.”

“And there is one more thing the Gods have graced me with.”

“What is it?!”

Dean sat back up and pulled down the shoulder of his shirt, and turned to show Sam the handprint scar that had appeared there. His eyes went wide and his mouth fell agape, hands reaching out but not touching. “Brother, you were touched by the Gods! This is a great honour!”

Dean smiled and shook his head, “No, Sammy, I do not think this handprint belongs to any of the Gods.”

“Then who?”

“I believe I was touched by my destiny.” Dean watched as Sam finally reached out and laid his hand over the handprint. His hand was too big, it didn't fit.

Sam pulled his hand back but his eyes still remained fixed on the scar. “What do you mean, touched by your destiny?”

“In the vision,” he began, placing his own hand over the scar, “there was a man, he told me to come to him. And when I saw him, when I looked into his eyes and heard his voice call to me, I have never felt such warmth in my chest. I believe that this handprint belongs to him, that he is the destiny that awaits me across the sea.”

“You must find him then!” Sam nearly jumped up from his seat, “We must hurry and ride the seas to find this man!”

“Easy, brother, easy,” Dean laughed, raising a hand to his brother, “give the men their two days' time, and then we will leave. There are preparations that must be made first before we make this venture. Have patience, Sam, the time will come.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Brother, I need to speak with you for a moment.”

Sam followed Dean through the busy docks, trying desperately to hold his attention.

“Sam, there are many things left to prepare before we depart today, make it quick.”

“Gabriel.” As soon as the name was out of his mouth, Dean stopped walking and turned to Sam, giving him a knowing look. “I don't think he should come with us.”

“Why not?”

Sam sighed, “He is so small, too weak, I fear he will not make the journey to the new lands. We know not how long it will take to cross the seas, I wish not for the Gods to take him so soon.”

Dean laughed, then turned to continue walking down the docks, “Be careful, brother, it sounds like you might be starting to care for the man.”

He rolled his eyes at Dean as he followed after him once again, even though he knew Dean could not see it. “Brother, I beg of you, speak with Gabriel, convince him to stay behind and wait until we return to gather the rest of the people in the warmer seasons.”

“I do not think I can.”

“Why not? You are the king, he will listen to you.”

“Oh, dear brother, this has nothing to do with me or my position,” Dean tossed a smirk over his shoulder, “as long as you are on that boat, Gabriel will be too. I do not think he wants to let you out of his sight, let alone see you off on a journey that could last a very long time. I do not think the Gods themselves could convince him to let you go without him.”

“Dean, please I…” The two stopped again as Dean inspected some ropes being brought to the boats, and Sam shifted from foot to foot. “I do not think he would fare well if we should get caught up in a fight.”

“Ah,” Dean turned to him, crossing his arms, “so you worry for him.”

“Yes! I do not wish him hurt if battle should occur.”

“Because you could not bear to see so.”

“Yes!” He nearly shouted, not even noticing the mischievous smirk on Dean's face.

“Because you feel for him.”

“Ye-” He stopped short, realizing what Dean had said and what he had done, almost getting caught in the trap. “I…”

Dean softened his devilish smirk into a genuine smile, and placed both his hands on Sam's shoulders, “When will you admit it, brother? Just love the boy already. It's obvious you feel for him, and he for you. The Gods will smile upon your union.”

Sam opened his mouth to either dispute it or agree, though Dean didn't get the chance to find out which before they were interrupted by just the man they were talking about.

“Sam! Sam!” He came running up and stood between them, though Dean noticed much closer to Sam than he. “I have more supplies for our trip to the new lands! Food, furs, and more weapons. Which boat should I put our furs in, Sam?”

Sam looked down at him wide eyed and took a slight step to the side, “Our furs?!”

Dean chuckled lightly to himself, then spoke in barely a whisper, “And my point is proven yet again.” Sam looked up to him and blushed, but Dean just continued to smile and slapped a hand on his shoulder as he spoke to Gabriel, “You and Sam will be travelling in the first longboat along with myself. You may load yours and Sam's furs at the front of it.”

Gabriel nodded with a huge smile on his face, looked up to Sam once more, before running off to the boat Dean had told him he would be travelling on.

Sam turned a deep frown on his brother who was still smirking, “Brother, this is not wise, what if he gets hurt?”

“He may be small, Sam, but he is as fierce a warrior as any other viking I know,” he slapped his hand down on Sam's shoulder again, stepping closer and staring intently in his eyes, “worry not about Gabriel’s safety and more so about getting him into your bed.”

Sam scoffed and smacked his brother's hand away from him with a shake of his head. Dean laughed, hearty and full for the first time in a long time. “Do not try to deny it, Sam, and perhaps a little love will loosen you up. The man is already all over you, just let him do it with a little less clothes on.”

All Sam could do was sputter out nonsense, eyes wide as he stared at Dean who only continued to laugh at his brother's obvious level of discomfort. After having his fun and a good laugh at Sam's expense, he turned and shouted towards the docks, “Ready the boats to sail, men! It is time to depart for the new lands!”

~~~~~~~~~~~

The docks were crowded now with not only the vikings taking part in the adventure to the new lands, but with loved ones as well. Wives, husbands, and children all gathered to say one last goodbye before watching the boats disappear on the sea's horizon. One could never be certain of two things when going on such a journey. The first being how long they could be gone from their home every time they left, and the second was one Dean had still not yet come to terms with accepting. Everytime they left their familiar shores it was a danger, and no matter how hard he tried, Dean could not save everyone. Not always would every viking make it home to hug and kiss their loved ones again. So he always told those travelling with him on such journeys to make every last second count, for one never knows.

Dean didn't have anyone to say goodbye to, no one waiting on him to return safe, with the hope of the Gods in their hands. And after seeing many a time the despair as their ships left the shores, and the devastation when they returned with less than they departed with, he sometimes thought he should count himself lucky that he did not have that weight on his shoulders. He had Sam, of course, but Sam was always at his side, through every journey and every battle. They never had to worry for the other and were always there to protect each other. But… despite all that, sometimes he did find that deep down, he did wish he had someone. But if what he was shown in his vision from the Gods was true, he would be finding happiness just over the horizon, or so he hoped.

“Dean!”

He turned to the familiar voice with a smile, shaking off his thoughts, and walking to meet her. “Ellen, are you ready to take my place while I'm gone?”

“Hardly,” she scoffed, “no one’s as fit to lead us as you. The people will be awaiting your return eagerly, as will I.”

“Nonsense, you will be fine, Ellen. The people will follow your lead, I have great faith in your guidance.”

“I appreciate your optimism, Dean,” she crossed her arms, suddenly surrounded by an air of importance as she continued, “now, any last words of wisdom before you depart?”

Dean shifted and matched her stance, both exuding the same level of strength and power. He smiled slightly to himself, he knew she was the right person to replace him in his absence. “Just one thing. You have enough food to last you all through the winter, and once the winter has passed, if the new lands prove to be bountiful, we will return and bring you all to our new home. But, if we do not return come the end of spring, you must lead the people and move on, leave Nazareth. If you stay it will be your death’s. Promise me you will do this if we do not return.”

She knows what he means. That danger, that risk that comes with every journey away from home. If they do not return, what he really means is if they all die. But she nods, not saying much more on the matter, not really wanting to think of that outcome. “You just take care of that old goat for me, will ya?”

They both looked over to a gruff, brooding man helping to load the boats. More like ordering other people to do it while he watched from the docks. He looked back to Ellen who was watching the man with a fond smile. “I promise I will take very good care of him, and bring him back safely.” She turned to him to barely smile back, give his arm a pat, then leave. He then turned back to the man and shouted, “Bobby! Are we ready to set out?”

He turned to Dean, giving him a thumbs up, then hopped into the boat. Dean shouted once more for the men to say their last goodbyes and board the longboats. He joined Sam and Gabriel in the lead boat, and just as the edge of the sun breached the horizon and was fully in the sky before them, they all set sail, heading off to a hopefully better future and a very bright destiny.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Dean was sitting at the front of the boat, legs hanging over the edge. This day brought with it the fourth sunset since they had departed Nazareth, and still he was too excited to sleep. The rest of his men were huddled all around the boats, sleeping peacefully as they rocked gently on the sea.

As they slowly drifted through the night he let his thoughts wander back to his vision, to the mark on his arm, to the man the handprint belongs to, the man with the piercing blue eyes. His hand slowly wandered to rest over the mark, he could not wait to find this man, to see what splendors the Gods had in store for him not too much farther away.

Shifting below him had him turning to look down at his men, finding Gabriel right below him, huddled under as many furs as he could find, but his small body was still feeling the chill of the airy sea night. He shifted again, tossing and shivering, teeth chattering in an attempt to find warmth. Watching him, Dean started to think maybe Sam was right, maybe this trip would prove to be too much for Gabriel, maybe he should have convinced him to stay in Nazareth.

Another body shifted off to the side and Dean's eyes drifted to the noise. Sam, who had been sleeping closer to the edge of the boat, had now shifted closer to Gabriel. Dean could see that his eyes were wide open, more likely having been laying awake listening to Gabriel shiver and not getting much sleep for his worrying. A small smile crept across Dean's face at the thought of his brother caring this much for another.

After a while, it seemed as though Gabriel’s shivering was getting worse, and just as Dean was about to jump down to do anything to warm the smaller man, Sam's hands reached out from under his furs and across to Gabriel. He grabbed him and pulled him towards his chest, settling him as close as he could against him. Gabriel opened his eyes with a squeak of shock, but upon realizing that he was being pressed into Sam's chest, he immediately settled and wrapped his arms around Sam, burying his face into Sam’s heat.

Sam let go a fond smile as he too wrapped his arms around Gabriel and pulled him impossibly closer, resting his nose in the smaller man's hair, rubbing his hands up and down his back. Slowly he stopped shivering and his light snoring, though slightly muffled by Sam’s chest, was a relief to Dean’s and Sam's ears.

Dean settled back into his place on the edge of the boat, thankful that Gabriel was finally warm and comfortable, then looked down once more at his brother and the huge smile still plastered on his face, cuddling with Gabriel. Dean huffed out a light chuckle, “No feelings for him, my ass.”

And Dean found himself laughing even harder when Sam, not moving an inch or even opening his eyes, whispered back so as not to wake Gabriel, “This may be your boat, but do not think I won't throw you overboard.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: More to come soon! If anyone wants to be tagged let me know, and if you know anyone who might like this fic please share it with them XD Love you all <3

Tags: @thebridgekid

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takerfoxx · 3 years

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Now I'm wondering how the Walpurgis Nights girls would react to watching the Rebellion Story. ESPECIALLY Charlotte.

You...really need to stop putting ideas in my head that I can’t stop thinking about.

Fine. Okay. Here’s a rough draft of that very scenario, but mostly unedited and only up through the opening. I’ll hit up the rest when I have the time.

Note that this takes place some time after the story’s wrapped up, so the Hitomi arc is canon.

G=Gretchen

H=Homulilly

Op=Ophelia

Ok=Oktavia

Ca=Candeloro/Mami

Ch=Charlotte

...

Ch: Okay, this is basically us if we didn’t turn into witches and die, am I getting that right?

Ca: That does seem to be the case.

Op: So worst possible scenario.

G: Oh, I think it’ll be okay. I’m actually really excited about this!

Ok: I hope we get to see our outfits. I’ve always wondered about those.

…

Ok: Who’s narrating?

Ch: Sounds like a really grumpy Homulilly.

H: I don’t sound like that. Do I sound like that?

Ch: A little…

Op: Oooh, ominous!

Ok: “Disappear…” Do they mean turn into witches?

Ca, reading the description: No, apparently this take place in an alternate world where magical girls just…disappear instead of turning into witches.

Everyone: What?

Op: Who let that happen?

Ca: Um, Gretchen, apparently.

G: I did what? How?

Ch: I’m sure it’ll explain things. Eventually.

…

Ok: That sure is a lot of bubbles.

Op: Sounding a little cynical there, Lilly-Billy. Something you want to tell the rest of the class?

H: It’s not me!

Ok: Familiar smile…Oh, I know who she’s talking about!

Op: No matter the world, Homulilly stays loyal!

G: Why can’t she see me though? Am I dead?

H: Seriously, we don’t know if that’s even me.

…

Ch: Nice city.

Ok: I feel like I’m watching a tourism ad.

G: Is that where we lived?

…

Op: Uh, okay. This is new.

Ch: As far as we know.

G: I thought there weren’t any witches in this version.

…

Ch: City’s leaking.

Ok: That’s what happens if you don’t housetrain your skyscrapers.

Op: Looks like cum.

=Homulilly has to cover her mouth and turn away to keep from laughing=

Ca: Ophelia!

Op: Well, it does.

Ok: And now it turned into a ballerina. Okay.

Op: Cumberlina.

Ca: Stop saying cum!

…

Ch: These animators were on drugs.

Ok: Music’s nice, though.

H: “Welcome to cinema”?

…

Ok: Okay, what the hell is this fever dream? What’s with the demon teddy bear?

H: Maybe it’s a witch?

G: There aren’t supposed to be witches though!

Ch: What are we supposed to fight then?

Op: Maybe each other?

G: Oh, I really hope not.

Op: Gang war! Gang war!

Ok: Who is this thing even performing for?

…

Ca: Are those…teddy bear bombs?

Ok: Looks like.

Ca: And are those…are those marshmallows or pillows?

Op: Okay, following a clumsy dance recital with indiscriminate acts of terrorism. You know what? I get it. I’ve been there.

…

Ok: Holy crap, that’s Gretchen!

H: What? Where?

Ok: There! To the left with the cumberlinas!

Ca: Stop! Saying! Cumberlina!

H: Pause it! Pause it!

G: Is that what I looked like? I’m so…

Op: Pink!

Ch: Honestly, it’s kind of adorable.

G: Why am I with the cumberlinas though?

Ca: =indistinct noises of irritation and defeat=

…

Ch: What, is it judging them now?

Op, to the TV: Oh, like you could do better! Asshole…

Ch: You okay?

Op: I’m fine. It just reminded me of someone I know.

Ca: Oh, that’s Gretchen all right!

Ok: So many frills!

H: You’re so cute!

G: It’s not that…WHOA!

Op: Holy shit, Gretch is packing!

Ok: Death from above!

Ch: Maybe you should have cleared out first.

G: Whoops.

…

Ok: Oh my God, it’s me!

Op: Hell yeah!

Ca: Holy shit, it is you!

G: Look at that outfit! It’s so cool!

Ca: There’s even a cape!

Ok: Forget the cape, I’ve got legs!

G: “Madoka.” Still sounds weird to me.

Op: Heh. “Bingo.”

…

Op: AAAAHHHH! THAT’S ME!

Ok: Okay, I was sort of worried, but c’mon. Our outfits look totally badass.

H: Look at that hair.

Op: I know, right?!

Ok: And we’re working together!

Op: Damn right! Tag team that musty bitch!

=high five=

Ca: Where are we, though? We’re in this, right?

Ch: Movie’s just started. I guess we show up later.

…

Ch: Uh…okay.

G: That was a lot of windows.

H: Was this sort of thing…normal?

Ok: Did anyone else see the bleeding goat?

…

=stunned silence=

Ch: Well, this is happening now.

Op: What the hell is going on?

G: Well, we obviously invited the monster teddy bear over for dinner!

Ok: As one does.

H: Is this a musical?

Ok: Oh, that would be so awesome.

…

Op: See? There you are, Candy!

Ca: Wow.

Ok: Oh, my God. That outfit is so hot.

Ch: Where am I, though? Am I even…What hell is that thing?

G: Um, Charlotte? I think that’s you.

Ch: What?!

Op: And the obligatory tit shot…

Ca: Yeah, they really did zoom right in on them, didn’t they?

H: Dead center.

Ch: I’m not really that creepy doll thing, am I?

H: Maybe you’re the teddy bear.

…

Ok: Building’s on fire.

Op: Not my fault.

Ok: It’s at least one-fourth your fault.

G: Is no one going to bring up the skyscrapers that the teddy bear blew up?

Ok: Guess not.

G: But what if there were people in there?

Ok: Yeah, we’re kind of lousy at the whole “save the city” thing, aren’t we?

H: Why haven’t I shown up yet?

Ok: Maybe you’re the teddy bear!

…

Ok: And she’s awake!

G: Oh, we’re following me! Am I the main character?

Ca: It did kind of lead with you.

Ok: Homulilly was narrating, though.

Op: Maybe she’s the wise old mentor that gets killed off in a flashback.

H: =belabored sigh=

Ch: WHY AM I A CREEPY DOLL THING?!

…

Op: Wait, is that a fucking Incubator?

Ok: Well, this just got dark.

G: Why am I petting…Oh! Is that my mom?

Ok: Close!

G: It’s my dad! That’s my dad!

Ok: Oh, wow.

Op: Gretch, you gonna be okay?

G: Tatsuya…

=Homulilly hugs her=

Ok: That is a lot of chairs.

…

Ch: Looks like it runs in the family.

G: What does.

Ch: Being a sweetheart.

G, blushing: Oh, uh, thank you.

Ok: Hey, Candy. Did you ever meet Gretch’s family?

Ca: No, I didn’t. Actually, the only parents I was introduced to were Ophelia’s, and, well…

Op: Say no more.

Ca: Thank you.

…

Ch: And the classic schoolgirl, off to class with toast in her mouth and an alien abomination on her shoulder.

Ok: As one does.

Op: Why is it always toast? They’re not hard to eat. Just eat it with the rest of breakfast!

H: Does anyone else feel a strange, almost irresistible desire to strangle that little white rodent every time it shows up on screen?

Everyone: Yup!

Op: If someone doesn’t shoot that thing at least once before the end of the film, then I’m going to be very disappointed.

…

Ch: I guess this is the opening.

G: I thought the song where we were all feeding the creepy teddy bear until it blew up was the opening.

Ch: I don’t think that was an anything. That was just…there.

Ca: I really like the animation though.

Ok: Song’s pretty.

G: Oh, look! I am the main character!

Op: Oh, look! Look! There we are!

Ok: Yes! Spin that teacup!

H: Oh!

Ok: Hey, there you are!

Op: Looking all depressed and dramatic in that spotlight, but there you are.

H: Am I like…the rival or something?

Ch: Honestly, the rival is always the best character.

…

Ca: I like this part.

Op: Look at us all go! This is pretty adorable.

Ok: Candy, was it actually like that when we were, well, alive?

Ca: Actually, it’s not too far off.

Op: Neat.

H: Oh, that stupid clock. I’m always stuck in a clock!

…

Ok: Heh. Hip bump.

Op: See? Even Gretchen wants the old you to cheer up.

=Gretchen playfully bumps Homulilly with her hip, who smiles=

Ok: I don’t think you’re the rival. More of Gretchen’s mopey girlfriend. You know, to balance out her ray of sunshine vibes!

Ch: So…basically like it is now.

H: I’m not that mopey.

Ok: Well, this is teenage you.

H: True...

…

H: Again with the clocks, and-WHOA!

Ok: What’s up with the wings?

H: Could I fly? Was that something I could do?

Ca: No, the wings are new.

…

Op: Okay, this part rules.

Ok: Dance break! Come on, Homulilly! Join in!

G: What’s with all the close-ups of our hips?

Op: Well, they’re cute!

Ok: Hey, did we really break out into dance whenever Homulilly needed cheering up?

Ca: No, the dancing is new too. And I wouldn’t say that she was really all that mopey, just very…serious-minded and focused. Very mysterious too.

H: I wonder why.

G: Because it’s sexy.

Op: Can’t really argue with that.

…

Ch: Well, there’s some foreshadowing if I’ve ever seen it.

G: Why did I turn into sand?

Ok: It’s probably symbolic for something.

H: And why was it focusing so much on me? Am I the main character? I haven’t even shown up yet!

Ch: At least you got to be in the opening and mostly looked like yourself. Me? I get to be a creepy doll thing!

Op: At least you’re merchandisable.

Ch: Oh, like a bunch of cute girls in showy outfits can’t be merchandised. There’s probably like hundreds of little figurines and…uh…

G: What are you…oh.

Ch: Probably best not to think about it.

Op: Speak for yourself. I find a swimsuit version of us, I’m getting the whole set.

Ch: I will literally break your arms.

Ok: What if they have one of you? But, the doll version?

Ch: Oh, God! I just pictured it, and oh God! No!

Ok: Personally I’m hoping for body pillows.

Op: Oh, those they definitely have. You have to go to some shady places to get the nudy kind though.

Ok: Charlotte’s are probably sold official.

Ch: Stop! I am begging you to stop!

#WN Rebellion MST

14 notes · View notes

lunarsands · 2 years

Text

ALSMP Fanfic: Until The Blood Moon Descends Ch 2

Characters: merling!Scott, gravital!Sausage, goolien!Sausage, giant!Sausage, thornling!Scott, and a few more iterations…

Relationships: MythicalSausage/Scott Smajor

Tags: Canon Divergent, scosage

Warnings: Injury, Illness, Body Horror, Character Death (by fourfold), Angst

(Sequel to Echoing Through To You and When The Skies Cry)

Summary: Sausage and Scott start to find balance again as gravital and merling, and life falls into a relaxing routine. Then one night a Blood Moon rises and their bond is tested like never before. Destiny, it seems, continues to hound their every step…

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ]

Chapter Two

It might have been the sound of his own labored breathing that disturbed Sausage during the night, but after a few moments he also noticed that there seemed to be something scrabbling around in his room. He could swear he heard a faint beeping noise but then it stopped. “S-Scott? Is – Is that you?” he called blearily. He couldn’t see much in the dark but didn’t have the energy to turn on the light.

Someone who definitely wasn’t Scott muttered, “Signal is weak but this is the source. Bad and good timing it seems.”

They sounded like they were almost right next to his pillows. Sausage turned and attempted to push himself up, black mist curling around his hand. “W-Who’s there? H-How did you get in here?”

“Oh, you really are in rough shape. That will make this easier. Hey, over here.” A dull greenish light lit up beside the crate of health potions. Sausage was very confused by what he was seeing. There seemed to be a very small, semi-transparent bipedal creature dressed in some type of red bodysuit with a closed helmet standing on the wooden chest, holding a tiny silver box which was the source of the light.

“Who – and what – are you?”

“That’s going to take some explaining. Let me start with this: I’m from somewhere far away, and I arrived here on the night of crimson, and you caused me to crash land because of some gravity malfunction. It has taken me far too much time to track you down because everything on this planet is absurdly large, and as I now see you don’t even have that much gravity power left. Since you obviously won’t be able to help with that part of the matter, you can help me in another way – because right now, as I see it, you owe me one.”

Sausage gave a quiet little laugh then coughed. “What? I was – I was fighting monsters half the night. What do you mean ‘this planet’? …I must be delirious or something.” He eyed the tiny creature then reached over it to try to pick up one of the potions. His fingertips caught at the top of a bottle but he only managed to knock it over in the attempt.

The creature watched and shook its head judgingly. “You really don’t have a lot of time. Listen: I can give you more time, but we need to make a deal. I have a mission to carry out and I need a host to get me across this stupidly big landmass. You’re about to die, and you’re responsible for my delay. Work with me and we both benefit.”

“A mission? A host? What does that even mean?” Sausage huffed in frustration and tried again, although his hand was shaking, and he was unable to grip the neck of the next nearest bottle. He was beginning to fear what this creature meant when saying he was about to die.

“The princess of my people came to this world and was murdered. I’m here to find her killer and enact justice. But not being of royal blood, I can’t fully function in this atmosphere and have to conserve my body’s energy. If I have a host – that is, if I possess a body like yours – I’ll be able to do what I need to and then be on my way. You can have an extra day here, then let me take over and complete my mission, and afterward I leave and you can do whatever it is your species does when it expires.”

“How do you even know how much time I have left?”

“If I can possess a body, don’t you think I would know what condition it’s in?”

Sausage couldn’t believe he was still entertaining this delusion, but had to ask, “So how much time, exactly?” He remembered that at the end the mist had overwhelmed Scott without much warning.

“About four and a half hours.”

“Uh… So that’s… What time is it now..?”

“You’re not making it to sunrise, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Sausage tried to think if he could successfully manage to find Scott, get through another possible argument with him, and still say what he needed to in order to make peace with him within that time frame. As he grabbed the side of the blanket to pull it back so he could get up, he saw the mist surrounding his hand. He realized he had two options: he could try to yell for Scott so he would come to him, but he didn’t feel like he had the lung strength for that right now; or he could agree to this alien creature’s proposal and buy the time to talk to Scott in the morning. He wasn’t sure how he would explain the latter, but maybe Scott would be more reasonable by then.

“If I agree to this, promise me you’ll leave Scott out of it. Actually, no, I want you to help him. All he can think about is blaming himself, and I don’t want him to keep on like that. There has to be a way to get past all this.”

“I’ll see what I can do, after I get back.”

“Fine. So…what happens now?”

“Lay down for one thing. You’re going to fall off of this rest platform if you don’t, anyway. Then just close your eyes. I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

~*~

It was more than four hours later when Sausage opened his eyes to see daylight streaming through the curtains. He held a hand up, staring as he tried to determine if there was mist around it or if he just wasn’t fully awake yet. He felt… nominally better. Breathing seemed a little easier and his arm wasn’t as weak when he reached over to pick up one of the potions. He took a cautious sip. Much like the last time it didn’t seem to do anything to help, but he drank the whole bottle just so Scott would see that he had listened.

If only the former merling would listen to him. However, he didn’t know what else to say to ease the guilt. He could go over each incident that had led to his deaths and try to rationalize them, but he knew Scott had never gotten over the first one. When he had tried to remove that specific guilt Scott had stopped him, not wanting to be forgiven. The guilt was a part of him, integral, important to him, to always have inside. Maybe it was due to not having much of a conscience as a vampire then gaining one as an angel, particularly in regard toward Sausage as he fell in love with him.

It hurt Sausage to think about it, but maybe he himself needed to accept that Scott would continue carrying those feelings through all of his future lives. He would prefer still trying to help him heal, but this life, right now, wasn’t the one to do it. Maybe he could try again in whatever followed when the alien was done with him.

A knock on the door made his thoughts scatter. “C-Come in— Oh.”

Scott walked through the door without opening it, seeming to make a point to face away into the room as he spoke in a clipped tone, “Good morning. I’d ask how you were feeling but I know the answer won’t be ‘better’.”

“N-No, actually, I do—” Sausage stopped himself. Should he tell him about the alien? Would it make much difference? It was only an extra day – well, less than that by this point – and he would still die with no way of knowing what would happen next. “—because… I slept all right,” he continued. He felt he should say something else, but no words were coming to him.

Scott tilted his head, ear turned toward the bed. “No cough right now?”

“No, it – it cleared up a little. Maybe the potions are working better this time?”

“They’re not a long-term solution. You know that.”

“Scott, can we please just talk without all the impending doom hanging over our heads?”

The former merling didn’t reply so much as exhale loudly through his nose.

“Fine,” Sausage said sadly, “Be that way.” He fidgeted with the edge of the blanket then sighed, unable to commit to the silent treatment. “But, just— Remember, no matter what I come back as, I love you.”

“I – I know.” Scott struggled with the traditional response. He uttered a sigh of his own and finally moved, sitting at the very end of the bed out of reach but feeling like he owed it to Sausage to sit with him for at least a little while. “I still hate every second of this. I can’t think of any way it could have gone worse.”

Sausage had a few ideas but kept them to himself. He racked his brain for something funny to say instead, something to try to lighten the mood, but then Scott said, “I… won’t see when you go, or when you come back because then I might curse you all over again. I won’t know what you are. I hope it isn’t also bad, because… well, remember what I said when angel-me died? I can’t be much of a conscience for you if I’m like this.”

Sausage was about to ask him to stay beside him until that moment, but realized the situation could change very fast when the alien took over. “Hey, um, how about this for an idea: if you get some paper and a quill, I can write a note for myself, to remind me to keep that promise, too! And I’ll—” He stopped himself again. “…I’ll, um, I’ll let you know what I am when I can.”

He had to include that last part in case he wasn’t near home when the alien left, although he would hope it would have the courtesy to not abandon him thousands of blocks away. Maybe he should add a reminder in the note to keep obsidian plus a flint and steel on him so he could take a shortcut home if that did happen.

“I’m not sure that would work,” Scott replied, although he stood up. “But I’ll do it if you really want. Let me go look.” He walked directly through the door again.

Sausage let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He really should have asked the alien creature more questions about what would happen when it took over, and when it left.

If he hadn’t simply dreamt the whole thing.

But then, he was better right now, and it was true the potions didn’t ultimately work. His thoughts then doubled back on themselves. Scott didn’t seem any more agreeable this morning, and the rest of the day would likely go the same.

“You don’t have to give me a whole day anymore,” Sausage whispered out loud. “It doesn’t matter.” He got out of bed and picked up one of the empty potion bottles, clutching it tightly as he went over to the open window beside the desk. It would be a simple matter to climb out. “Let’s go now, before he comes back. It won’t be fair, but none of this is.” He placed the bottle so it sat precariously close to the edge of the desk. “Don’t let him catch us leaving.”

“If that’s what you want,” said the creature’s voice inside his head. “Hold on to your bronchial tubes.”

Sausage then began to cough violently. His legs started to give out, causing him to stumble until he caught himself on the wall, where he saw the mist surrounding his hand once more. Scott would undoubtably hear. He shakily reached out for the windowsill.

He blacked out before he even hit the floor.

The sound of glass shattering caught Scott’s attention more than the coughing. The latter he couldn’t do anything about, but if Sausage got hurt by any broken pieces that would just be literal insult to injury. He left the book and quill in favor of a dustpan to clean up the glass with. This time he opened the bedroom door instead of walking through it. “Sausage, are you all…”

The room was now utterly silent. He could see some of the broken potion bottle from under the edge of his blindfold. It was across the room, not near the bed. He set down the dustpan and felt around along the blanket to be sure. No body was there. He carefully searched around to make sure Sausage wasn’t just slumped somewhere out of view, but there was also no other sounds besides his own breathing. For a second he entertained the thought that Sausage was now also something that could walk through walls, but the more acceptable thought – and what he preferred to be true – was he had come to his senses and left altogether to avoid being cursed again.

Allowing listlessness to take hold, Scott lifted his blindfold just enough to be able to more safely clean up the glass, then pulled it back into place once it was taken care of. He put away the remaining potions then returned to the bedroom, curling up on the bed and imagining that it still felt warm, that Sausage had not been gone for long.

He should have told him that he loved him one more time, or had the guts to say goodbye when he knew this was what could happen.

~*~

The next few days blended one into the other for Scott. He tried to do some upkeep around the villa, tried to make sure all the flowers in the garden patches were watered, tried to tend the animals. It was just things that had to be done. He considered letting the animals free to return to the fields, considered letting the gardens grow wild.

But what if Sausage returned and decided he wanted his home back?

Scott thought about returning to his vampire mansion, long since left to the elements after Sausage basically took him in while he regained his strength when he became an angel, and then it just seemed right to stay in Heaven’s Reach after that. As a compromise to himself, he went down to Wither’s Grasp and made the manor a little more livable since it had also been left to gather cobwebs. Boarded up windows were certainly suitable for whatever his new life alone was going to turn out to be.

He didn’t know yet what else he was going to do. Just wait, perhaps, and let nature take its course. One thought at the very back of his mind – something he didn’t dare call hope – was that Sausage, reborn hale and hearty, had left to find a better answer to the problem.

It occurred to Scott that he should write down everything he knew so far, since he had left that one book back at the stronghold, just in case Sausage did return, and there was the chance that one of them might become an Enigma again in the future. The project took up part of an afternoon, and he was leaving the manor to bring the book up to the villa when he heard footsteps crunching on the rocky dirt of the path. He quickly tugged at his blindfold to make sure he didn’t accidentally catch sight of them.

“Hello?” he called out, keeping his voice steady to avoid giving away his weakness. “Who’s there?”

“An old friend,” came a semblance of Sausage’s voice; something seemed off about it, not to mention that was a strange way to refer to himself. “Ssscott,” he then sounded out the other’s name as if it was an unfamiliar word. “Come with me. We have business to tend to.”

Before Scott could react, a hand closed on his arm and he was practically dragged across Wither’s Grasp, over the bridge, and partway up the stone staircase. “Saus—where are we going?”

“Back to the scene of the crime.”

That phrasing didn’t sit well with him, but he didn’t protest as he was encouraged to climb up into the cave that sat inside the wall, left just as it was on the night of the Blood Moon. Still holding onto the book, Scott was about to ask why they were there now, but hands turned him to make sure he was facing toward Sausage and then the blindfold was yanked off his head. “No-!” He started to cover his face with his arms but the glimpse he caught of who he thought was Sausage made him stop and stare in shock.

Green, translucent skin and pink hair greeted him, strange clear eyes staring back from what was definitely Sausage’s face. He was wearing the same clothes as the last time Scott had seen him, although they hung oddly on his frame and there was residue from gunpowder dirtying his shirt. Scott recovered from his shock and tried to block his line of sight again, but the alien version of Sausage stopped him. “No, don’t look away. This is important. Now, listen to me: Do you want to forget this ever happened? I can make him forget, and I can make you forget.”

“Make… him? So you’re… not Sausage? What are you?”

“Very long story. If you forget it won’t matter anyway. Let’s just say I needed to borrow him. No, keep looking at me. I still need you to end this.”

“Then…make sure we get this book. In case one of us comes back like me again.” Scott pointed with the book’s spine toward the bit of cobblestone wall where the black cloth was still laid out. Pseudo-Sausage nodded, and Scott backed up to place the book on it, glancing away only long enough to make sure it was properly on the wall and wouldn’t fall off. Then he said, “Forgetting won’t take away the guilt, you know.”

“That’s a matter for you. My business is vengeance. You can think of this situation as that. You’re knocking me loose, but I’ll avenge this mate of yours before I go.”

Understanding dawned on Scott. He suppressed a grateful smile and continued to hold his stare. The black mist appeared around pseudo-Sausage’s hands and feet, progressing even faster than before.

The alien looked down at his hands, holding one up to study the effect. “Hm, that will do. Next we just…” He took a small silver box from his pocket and fiddled with it. “Wait, that’s not… Right, got it.”

Scott watched curiously and leaned forward a little. A beam of bright red energy shot out of the front of the box, striking him in the chest. He dropped to the floor without a sound. The alien then sighed and placed the box on the ground by the cave’s entrance, then sat down next to Scott and waited.

~*~

When Sausage woke he first registered the sunlight streaming in from the front of the cave, and that was a relief. At least the night full of hordes of monsters was over. Next, however, came the feeling of the cave wall pressing in on him. His body felt oddly spread out, like his shoulders were too wide and his arms farther apart. He tried to move a little and nearly hit his head on close-hanging rock. Had there been some creeper around that collapsed a wall on him?

His gaze fell on a book sitting upon the black cloth where arrows and a potion had been, seeming far below his line of sight. That hadn’t been there before. He reached for it and—

Well, if he had been able to pick it up he probably wouldn’t have been able to turn the pages. His hand was gigantic in comparison. It wasn’t the cave that had changed. He had gotten bigger. But where was… “Ohgod. Scott? Scott??” The only thing stopping him from looking around in a panic was the threat of hitting his head again. “Please don’t tell me I crushed you…”

“Over here.” The voice had a strange quality to it, reminding him of endermen speech.

It took a moment because he was looking for a regular-sized person, but what he finally did see was a small (was it extra small because he was so big?) creature with purple crystalline horns coming out of its forehead, strangely shaped motes floating around pale yellow hair, and violet eyes that stared up at him. “Or down here, I guess I should say.”

“Oh, you’re tiny. That’s kind of cute.” Sausage giggled.

“And you’re stuck. I don’t know if you’ll fit through the way out even if you can crawl over there. Of all the places to turn into a giant,” Scott mused. “I’ll go get a pickaxe and try to get you out.”

“Wait, there’s a book here, it wasn’t in that bundle. I can’t, uh, pick it up.”

“All right, let me see.” The wall was just low enough for Scott to reach it. He started to flip through the book, wondering what relevance it had in the wake of them being shot by the terrifying skeletal archer. “This is…my handwriting. I don’t remember doing this.”

“What does it say?”

“Something about a creature called an Enigma. Huh… Oh! I put a little note at the end. …Oh.”

“That didn’t sound good.”

“That’s the thing that killed me when I was an angel.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know why this was here, but I guess I found information or something? But I still don’t remember writing this.”

“Maybe… it’s the cave. Like you found the crossbow and stuff, and the first time I came in here I found stuff I could use as a wither. I didn’t question it before.”

“The cave has prescient abilities?”

“I don’t know. Weirder things have happened.”

Scott batted at one of the motes floating around his head, not that it really did anything to affect it. “Obviously. Well, give me a few minutes.” He scurried out of the cave and Sausage couldn’t contain another giggle while watching him. He then worked on maneuvering around to do the aforementioned crawling toward the cave’s entrance, earning a few scrapes in the process when trying to figure out where his limbs could fit. This was going to take some getting used to.

Scott returned and started work on expanding the sides of the entrance. Sausage noticed the extra pickaxe strapped to his back. “Why did you bring a gold one?”

“I don’t know. I just kind of wanted it.”

“Huh, so… where am I going to sleep now? I’m not going to fit in the house…”

~*~

As time went on the cycle just kept continuing for the two of them. An excessively packed TNT trap took out Sausage despite his extra resilience as a giant, although it was that resilience that shielded Scott from the blast. Yet before long, in a similar fashion, Scott was caught unaware by a creeper, which dealt immediate death due to his smaller, less hardy state.

They soon found themselves in a new unusual situation when Sausage became an owl and Scott a red panda. They made a nest inside a small forest cave as they adjusted to animalistic senses, although it didn’t last long anyway when a dire wolf found them.

Throughout it all they stayed together as best they could, while Sausage soon outpaced Scott in the count as he continued to be driven to protect him. A lengthy amount of peace came again when Scott found himself settling in as a floran, content to just tend gardens again while the very plants themselves grew upon him, giving him his own personal flower crown at all times. Meanwhile, the various pools and house pond came in handy again when Sausage had a turn at being a merling. Scott took out his old trident to give him tips on using it, and showed him the best spots for fishing in the river. There weren’t as many adventures anymore, and as Scott put it one time, “Now I don’t have to go far to get the flowers I want.”

Reminded of a particular flower-gathering disaster, Sausage was glad to agree.

~*~

Scott idly kicked his bare feet in the water of the deeper of the western ponds, smiling at a late afternoon butterfly that was investigating the flowers growing in his hair. Sausage had been napping at the bottom of the pond and was on his way up while Scott simply waited for him, a picnic dinner set out nearby and plans to watch the sunset ahead of them.

Surfacing near the middle, Sausage swam over and rested his webbed hands on the tops of Scott’s feet, which the floran lightly alternated again to create small ripples between them. Sausage smiled up at him then patted one of his knees before going to the side and hauling himself out. With water running down his face from his hair, he gave Scott a little kiss, then they moved to the picnic blanket to eat.

It was a perfect evening… up until the red of the sunset failed to fade from the sky. Sausage peered at the horizon, doublechecking the sun’s position. “Um… Not liking that. We should maybe get inside…”

“Too late.” Scott was already looking toward the villa. Creepers and spiders had begun to appear en masse, and a group of zombies was starting to head their way. Scott put his hands to the ground and after a scowl of concentration, twisting vines emerged from the grass in front of the undead, tangling around them as they shambled forward. He caught up a few creepers as well.

Sausage reached back into the pond where he had left the trusty trident leaning on the wall, having a habit of keeping it nearby at all times. “We’re getting to the river this time,” he insisted. Scott nodded and left the sentient vines to do their work without him, and together they ran for the waterfall. Unimpeded this time, they reached the fountain and slid down into the river below. After the brief plunge they both surfaced and assessed the threat collecting on the banks to either side. They began to swim underwater with the current, hoping it would speed them along a little faster, with Scott leaving a trail of petals as the flowers were pulled from his hair by each dive.

Sausage dealt with any Drowned they encountered, which for the moment were thankfully few. But skeletal archers on the banks were becoming wise to their presence, and the two had to start diving deeper to avoid the arrows, with the merling providing breaths of air when it became too dangerous to surface. They found respite when the river opened up toward the ocean, but colder depths weren’t very agreeable to a floran so they started to head back up and hoped to find a spot of land with the least number of mobs possible.

As much as Scott didn’t mind Sausage kissing him to give him air, he was glad for the next breath he took on his own as he reached the surface first, and one of the green tendrils in his hair poked at his ear as if to tell him they didn’t appreciate being submerged for that long. Scott brushed at it and looked around for a safe place to get out, starting to feel a little uneasy without soil beneath his feet. The nearby beach, however, was already crawling with zombies, and they were now beginning to funnel toward him, sinking as they hit the water only to start being converted into Drowned.

Sausage had been scouting from below and grimaced at the sight as he swam back upward, but he had located what he had been looking for. He surfaced and reached for Scott with his free hand. “I know you would really rather get back on land right about now, but there’s no safety at all there. I found a spot we can hide out in until daybreak, it’s just another little swim down. Come on, I’ve got you.” He offered a reassuring smile.

Scott brushed at the tendril by his ear again, then smiled back, trusting the merling. Together they dived back under and Sausage guided the way. A trench lined with exposed magma provided a natural barrier but crossing it was risky for the floran. Sausage wrapped his arms around him and used the trident to propel through the water across it as fast as he could, then continued swimming for a little ways through a crevice before letting him go and pointing upward.

Above was a small pocket of humid air within a section of the tiniest lush cave either of them had ever seen. The glowberry vines barely had any fruit but it was enough light to see by. Scott gratefully climbed up from the deepslate to sink his feet into the clay. It wasn’t dirt, but it was enough to sustain the dripleaf, the nearest of which he petted as it leaned toward him on its stalk. New flower buds began to form in his hair. Sausage watched with a smile. It was always fascinating to see that happen.

Something gurgled behind him. The smile fell from his face, stomach turning with dread. So much for being safe. He only had time to notice that the Drowned that had found them had a head like a wither skeleton before a smoky black trident was thrust into his chest, and then he was the one gurgling as he was pushed backward against the clay wall, his own trident falling from his hand.

“SAUSAGE!” Scott yelled. Acting fast, he caused scores of dripleaf to erupt from the ground and shoot up to the ceiling, cutting off the wither-Drowned. As he rushed over, glowberry vines descended upon Sausage, wrapping around his chest to stem the flow of blood from his wounds, although Scott worried how effective it would be if the accursed trident had pierced too deep. “Hold on, hold on, Sausage, I’ll – I’ll think of something, okay?” He clasped the merling’s face between his hands, hoping to get him to focus on him. Sausage smiled weakly but there was already blood seeping out between the vines.

And then the withering took effect. With nothing to counteract it, at that point Scott could do little more than hold Sausage’s hand until the merling’s grip grew slack. As unfortunate as it seemed, it was now something they had grown accustomed to. Scott cradled him in his arms, leaving the vines in place to keep the wounds covered until Sausage regenerated with the change to a new form.

With no other indication of the hour, he relied on the progression of the original meager vines on the cave ceiling to mark time. Slowly but steadily they grew downward, and occasionally a new cluster of berries blinked into existence, adding a little more light. But after a while Scott decided it was a terrible way to keep track of time, because it seemed to be taking too long.

“Sausage, come back to me, please. Y-You can’t just leave me in here, okay?” He tried to laugh. “This was your idea. You know, it’s kind of silly, putting ourselves in a dead end like this with no plan for a way back if you can’t swim us out.” He leaned his head over his face, teardrops falling onto Sausage’s cheeks. “I’m sorry I said that. It wasn’t silly. It was a good idea. I should have blocked the way behind us sooner, just as a precaution. I’m sorry I keep relying on you to protect us. Y-You’re going to come back, right? You have to. …Sausage?”

He stroked his hair then slipped a hand under the vines to check for a heartbeat. “L-Listen, Sausage, I can get us out, don’t worry about that part. I can get roots to dig through even the stone and we won’t have to worry about the swimming part no matter what you are. But you’ve got to come back first. Okay?”

Scott gently laid him against the clay wall so he could climb a little higher and touch the ceiling to start summoning the roots as promised. If the unthinkable happened, he still needed a way out… He then sank to his knees and looked at his hands, feeling helpless. “W-What am I supposed to do if you don’t come back? Sausage…tell me?”

New light suddenly blazed into view, but it wasn’t the soft orange of a glowberry. It was silvery and bright, and it came from between the vines around Sausage’s chest. Scott uttered a gasp of relief and hurried back down toward where he lay. The light spread, engulfing Sausage’s body as he was finally revived. The vines fell away, and before the glow even faded his silhouette alone stopped Scott in his tracks. The former merling didn’t move right away and so he couldn’t help crying out, “Sausage! Sausage! Please, wake up!”

On Sausage’s part, he was a little disoriented by the light but as it dimmed he could see the new, full blooms in Scott’s hair and thought to himself that this was good, because it meant the floran was unharmed. But he himself felt like he was on fire. “Urg…my head…is buzzing. Am I a thunderborn again?”

Scott answered with a voice full of awe, “No…No, you absolutely are not.”

Sausage shifted to sit up and felt a weight on his back. A familiar one, and… in three different places. The fire actually seemed to be focused behind his head. He stood up and like he had as a giant felt like he was towering over Scott, but it was only an illusion because of the power thrumming through his body.

“A-Angel,” Scott stammered. “…My…angel.”

Holy power was what he felt, stronger than ever before. Sausage looked around at himself, folding one set of wings forward so he could look at them. This time his feathers were white with silver edges, a barely perceptible pattern along the tips. There were three pairs of wings altogether; he wasn’t just any old angel this time. The memory of hierarchies and titles came to his mind. The fire at the back of his head was his halo, and its light was shining on Scott’s face like the sun. When he held out a hand toward the floran, Scott reached for him in turn and a vine coiled out along his arm, splitting into multiple leaves and a small sunflower that all turned upward toward the seraph’s face.

Sausage offered a quiet laugh and made an effort to consciously dim his aura. The vine withdrew and the sunflower popped up in Scott’s hair amongst the others. “Well, I think I can safely say that with this much power, nothing is going to hurt you ever again.”

Scott gave a laugh of his own. “So, you’re now the guardian angel you’ve always wanted to be. I would say you’ve earned it, and… everything might have been worth it.”

Sausage grinned at that, and pulled him closer to wrap him in his larger pair of wings for a hug. “We’ll wait here a little longer. I’m not that eager to test out my smiting abilities yet.”

As he leaned in for a kiss, the other flowers in Scott’s hair fell off and were replaced by a new crown made up of more small sunflowers.

~To be continued in Then We’ll Rewrite the Stars~

[Post A/N: This fic was planned out before I saw Scott’s Empires S2 skin so the two different color eyes is still a reference to his Angel and Merling skins, and borrowing the idea from Lizzie that an Enigma can be a mix of someone’s previous origins. Also borrowed Jimmy’s Thornling design because there wasn’t much I could do with a potted cactus, lbr.]

#alsmp #alsmp fanfic #alsmpshipping #scosage #scott smajor #mythicalsausage #dangthatsalongname #merling!scott #gravital!sausage #goolien!sausage #admittedly brief appearances by #giant!sausage #thornling!scott #and introducing...#floran!scott #and #merling!sausage #soul liminality 2 #lunar yarns

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

Note

Hi Steph! What are your and you readers' favorite Johnlock visiting the Holmes parents fics? I'm talking about canon Holmeses - the ones we see in the show :)

Hi Nonny!!

Ah, I’ve only got a few, but I’m sure everyone would love to add their own!

VISITING THE HOLMESES

Engaged by lifeonmars (NR, 3,146 w. || Marriage Proposal, Fluff, Holmes Family, Song Fic) – Sherlock did not believe in marriage, but he wanted to be married. He found this something of a surprise. Part 2 of Damage

Christmas at Holmes Cottage by johnlockedstarkid (G, 4,295 w., 7 Ch. || Christmas, Fake Relationship, Love Confessions, Holmes Family, Pining, Kisses, Fluff, Allusions to Mystrade) – Sherlock doesn’t want to have to deal with his mother’s wishes for him to find a partner when he goes to visit them for Christmas, so asks John to pose as his boyfriend. Little does he know he’s not the only one who wishes that the relationship could be real.

The Only Available Transportation by blueink3 (T, 5,379 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Fluff and Angst, Insecure Sherlock, Caring John, Parentlock, Sherlock’s Birthday, Family, Misunderstandings) – It’s possibly the desperation that’s seeped into his voice despite his best intentions, or perhaps it’s just a mother’s intuition, but she knows that whatever he’s calling about is Serious, hangover be damned. “What’s happened?” she asks, tone soft and as comforting as a hot cup of tea on a cold winter’s night. “Mummy,” he begins, voice catching. “I think John may be moving out.”

Maybe This Christmas by feverishsea (T, 6,021 w., 1 Ch. || Matchmaker Anthea, Anthea POV, Slight Mystrade, Holmes Family) – Anthea has given up her life, her own desires, even her name in service of something greater than herself. But that doesn’t mean she can’t see when someone else wants something – even if she doesn’t happen to care overmuch for that person. And it doesn’t mean she isn’t willing to help.

that thing you like by misspamela (E, 7,165 w., 1 Ch. || Holmes Family, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers) – “Happy Christmas, etc. etc.” Sherlock and John go to the Holmes’ for Christmas, and everyone thinks they’re together.

Merlot by Itsallfine (E, 14,844 w., 17 Ch. || Christmas, Pining Sherlock, Wine, Slow Burn, First Kiss / Time, Love Confessions, Wine, Holmes Family) – Sherlock and John work toward becoming something more as they prepare to host the Holmes parents at 221B for the holidays. Part of 25 Days of Fic-Mas 2015.

Never-Ending Cycle by orphan_account (T, 17,211 w., 1 Ch. || Christmas, Est. Rel., Proposal, Fluff) – Or, four times Sherlock Holmes attempted to propose to John Watson, and the Christmas Party at which he finally did. Sherlock thinks he’s a miserable failure, John is confused, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade provide some unsatisfactory advice, and Mummy is, as always, the solution. All in a lovely, fluffy holiday theme.

Winter’s Delights by Kate_Lear (E, 21,173 w., 1 Ch. || Holmes Family, Christmas, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Bed Sharing, Domestics) – Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family. Part 1 of Winter’s Delights

echoes through time by chellefic (E, 21,619 w. || First Time, Romance, ACD & BBC, Epistolary) – Mummy sends a trunk from the Holmes cottage in Sussex to 221B. Its contents alter the way John and Sherlock see themselves and one another.

Ghost Stories by SwissMiss (M, 22,256 w., 1 Ch. || Pining, Holmes Family, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, First Time) – Sherlock’s parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something.

Hitting the Water at Sixty Miles an Hour by what_alchemy (E, 30,568 w., 5 Ch. || Fake Rel., Roadtrips, Slow Burn, Mummy Holmes) – “You love your mother, Sherlock?” John watched the muscles in Sherlock’s jaw jump. He nodded in one sharp jerk. “Then we’re going to her party and making her happy.” John let out a resigned sigh. “As a ruddy couple, you bastard.”

An Acquired Taste by kinklock (E, 31,059 w., 4 Ch. || Vampires AU || Vampire Sherlock, Misunderstandings, Bat!Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Humour, Magical Realism, Fluff and Angst, Blood Drinking, Holmes Family, Slow Burn) – At Montague Street when Sherlock was forced to sate his body’s needs, he was at least able to wander about the flat as much as he pleased. At Baker Street, it was mini-bags in a mini-fridge and bedroom confinement.

Spare Change by Ermerness (E, 51,966 w., 14 Ch. || Rich Holmeses AU || First Kiss / Time, Holmes Family, Virgin Sherlock, Anal, First Meetings, Bossy Bottomlock) – The Holmes family is one of the richest and most powerful in England. Sherlock spends his time flying around the world on the family’s private jet drinking a lot and shopping at expensive boutiques as a way of trying to alleviate his endless boredom. His mother decides it’s time he settles down with someone powerful, wealthy and well connected. John Watson happens to be none of those things.

John Watson’s Twelve Days of Christmas by earlgreytea68 (M, 53,464 w., 14 Ch. || Christmas, Holmes Family, Fake Relationship, Alternate First Meeting, Falling in Love, Fluff and Angst, Hardcore Pining) – It’s the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.

The Wedding Garments by cwb (E, 105,390 w., 36 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Alternate Future AU || Alternate First Meeting, Dating / Arranged Marriages, Romance, First Kiss/Time, Heavy Petting, Cuddles, POV Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn / Falling in Love / Dev. Rel., Nervous/Anxious Sherlock, Jealous/Cranky, Hiking, Vacation Homes / Honeymoon, Sherlock’s Family, Horny John/Sherlock, Patient John, Massages, Hand Jobs, Assassination Plots, Hand Jobs / Oral Sex, Case Fic, Emotional Love Making, Bath Time Fun) – This is the story of a young consulting detective who wants nothing to do with marriage and an army doctor who wants to find true love. It’s 2020 post-Brexit England and the British government is encouraging arranged marriages. Candidates meet through state-run agencies and date in hopes of finding love (and tax benefits). Sherlock doesn’t need or want a spouse, at least not until John Watson shows up. Hesitant to give in to his more carnal urges because of the way they derail his mind, how will Sherlock progress toward the more intimate aspects of a relationship? The answer lies in a very special wedding gift.

MARKED FOR LATER

(I haven’t read any of these, but I’ve tagged them as “Holmes Family” so I presume that they play a part in their lives)

Pillow Replacement by Atisenia (T, 4,754 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Humour, Domestic Fluff, Misunderstandings, Visiting the Holmeses) – They're visiting Sherlock's parents and Sherlock is acting very domestic. Is he only pretending for his parents' sake?

All I Want For Christmas by Mssmithlove (E, 19,508 w., 1 Ch. || Unilock, Mystrade, Christmas, Holmes Family, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Pining) – Taking Sherlock’s platonic university flatmate home with him for Christmas can be a tricky business. Especially when he wishes their relationship wasn’t platonic at all. Part 18 of Happiness Awaits

Sherlock Holmes & The Mysterious Ex by Gatergirl79 (M, 27,942 w. || Family, Romance, Holmes Family) – Sherlock and John are forced to spend Christmas with Sherlock’s family. An unsettling idea especially when John will have to play ‘Boyfriend’ thanks to Mycroft. But why exactly does Sherlock want to avoid a family party?

Sacré Coeur by Mamaorion (M, 95,235 w., 27 Ch. || S4 Fix It Rewrite, First Kiss, UST / RST, Eventual Happy Ending, Coming Out, Holmes Family, Marriage Proposal, Husbands, Healing, Evil Mary, Beekeeping, Caretaker Sherlock, Mind Palace, Alzheimer’s Disease, Protective / Big Brother Mycroft, TD-12) – In this s4 fixit, John must piece together the gaps in his altered memory if he and Sherlock are to face the terror that has plagued Sherlock since childhood. As they untangle the web, seven years of hidden love ignite.

October to Hogmanay by snorklepie (E, 127,318 w., 25 Ch. || Post HLV Fix-It, Awkward First Times, Hurt/Comfort, Sherlock is a Mess, Shameless Smut, Sherlock’s Past, Scotland, Poison, Holmes Family, Kilts, Dancing, Angst) – John stared at Sherlock’s profile against the cab window and exhaled slowly. After a long moment, he reached out and touched Sherlock’s long fingers where they were fiddling with the button on his coat. The tall man didn’t look around again, but his fingers slowly unfurled before curling deliberately around John’s hand. Part 2 of Scotland

The Lost Special: Family Matters (As Do Relationships) by ShirleyCarlton (M, 144,688 w., 40 Ch. || S4 Fix It Fic, Unreliable Narrator, John’s Mind Bungalow, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending) – Sherrinford is not really the name of some high security prison. That was just a figment of John’s frantic coma dream. And Eurus is not actually Sherlock’s sister. That’s just something random she said to John before shooting him. Sherlock and John were never actually estranged. That was just their act to cover up what really happened to Mary – or Rosamund Moran, as her real name has turned out to be. Sherlock does have a secret sibling, though, and his name is Sherrinford. After finally eliminating Moran – though in a rather dramatically different way than they had envisioned – and exposing the truth about Eurus, John encourages Sherlock to delve into his past and to find out whether the reasons to keep Sherrinford away from Sherlock were the right ones, and to discover what really happened in 1981. Along the way, Sherlock and John gradually, finally, stop keeping each other at a distance, and eventually become a proper family of their own.

The Edinburgh Problem by snorklepie(E, 152,095 w., 39 Ch. || Post-HLV/S3 Fix It, Pre-Slash/Bromance to Romance, Travelling, Humour, First Kiss/Time, Holmes Family, Sherlock’s Big Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Family Secrets, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Flashbacks, Attempted Sexual Assault, Jealousy, Implied Rape/Non-Con) – After he separates from Mary, John returns to Baker Street. Following a request for help from Sherlock’s cousin Violet, the detective and his blogger take a trip to Edinburgh. John discovers more about the Holmes family and Sherlock than he bargained for, but tries not to run screaming. Part 1 of the Scotland series

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #my fic recs #holmes family #Anonymous #family #fic rec sunday

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damienthepious · 3 years

Text

it’s too goddamn cold&snowy here right now so i dove back into my summer-y-est fic <3

Made A Garden (chapter 4)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ch 3] [ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Rilla’s Parents, The Keep

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, (categorized as ‘other’ bc arum is nonbinary when i write him bye), Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, POV Alternating, canon typical Arum ignoring feelings, edited to feature my Rilla’s Two Dads theory

Fic Summary: Rilla’s parents take her out when they do field work. She’s a smart kid, and she knows how not to get in trouble when they’re caught up with their experiments and research. This time, they’ve taken her to an enormous, beautiful swamp, and their theory is that the monstrous presence in this place should be entirely dormant- which is why Rilla is so surprised, when she meets a monster for herself.

Chapter Summary: A conversation, an argument, and an interruption.

Notes: Please appreciate these children. Please. I care them................ also idk if this needs warning for, really, but i guess chapter warning for an adult Being An Asshole to a child? yeah.

"Why did you decide to start actually talking to me?" Rilla asks, laying lazily back on the thick trunk of a fallen tree, her hand draped to trail fingers in the slow-moving water beneath it.

Arum looks away from her, sinking his face further into the water for a long moment before he rises enough to answer.

"Well..." he says slowly, "when I determined that you and your... kin posed nothing of a threat-"

"Which I told you the first time we met," she interrupts in a chirp, and Arum scowls up at her until she laughs. His snout twitches then, a tell she's beginning to suspect means that he's burying a laugh of his own, and then the monster sighs.

"Which I needed to have proven, for the safety of my lands and my own self," he amends, hissing. "I decided that you should have an eye kept on you."

"And..." Rilla tilts her head back, her long braid rolling off the log enough that the end dips into the water beneath her. "You decided to do that yourself?"

Arum raises an eyebrow. "Who else would?"

She shrugs, her shoulder pressing against the bark beneath her. "Mm, I dunno? I just figured- you're the Lord of this place, right?"

"I am," he says, stiff and proud.

"So, I figured you'd, like, have someone else you could send, if you wanted to keep an eye on us?"

Arum growls, though he looks more sullen than angry at the assumption. "Perhaps I simply didn't want to risk any of my subjects in the effort, just in case I was wrong about you."

"In case..." she trails off, and then she blinks. "So, what, you'd risk yourself, first?"

"I can take care of myself," he snaps, his frill flaring quick enough to splash a little halo of water around his face for a moment, rippling across the surface of the pond. "And- and a good ruler is concerned for his subjects before himself, anyway. That is my entire purpose."

Rilla tilts her head a bit more, trying to get a better look at the vague purple blush coloring the webbing of his frill. "Huh," she says, and then his words sink in a bit more. "But- if you got yourself hurt-"

"I can take care of myself," he spits again, and she frowns.

"But if," she insists, "if something bad happened, who would take care of the swamp, then?"

Arum scowls up at her, and then he ducks his head beneath the water entirely. For a second she thinks that he's just going to disappear again, and she sits up, the wet tip of her braid flicking water along her arm, but then Arum reemerges a few feet down the log. He flings himself out of the water like a salmon, then pulls himself onto the log ahead in front of her, easy and oddly elegant.

"You," he growls, glaring at her with his claws digging into the bark, "ask altogether too many questions."

"Is... is that an observation?" she asks slowly, "or do you- do you want me to-"

He exhales an exaggerated huff, then sits back on the log and lets his tail drape over the side. "You may do whatever you want," he says, not for the first time, "so long as you understand that I may do the same. Meaning that I will not answer, if I don't feel like doing so."

Rilla pulls one of her legs up, hugging her knee against her chest and letting her other leg dangle. "Yeah," she says, and then she grins. "Yeah, you've kinda made that pretty obvious by now."

"Good," he mutters, and then he flicks his tail in the water, splashing her leg.

She laughs again, surprised, and Arum's snout twitches.

"Okay," she says. "Okay, mister secrets, I'm totally and completely informed that you're not gonna answer anything you don't want to, but you have to know that I'm still not gonna stop asking." She grins, and the monster frowns at her, and then sighs in an exaggerated way and looks off towards the edge of the pond instead. "So unless you're gonna tell me to stop-"

"I rule my swamp, Amaryllis. Obviously I do not rule you. As I said, you may-"

"Do whatever I want," she parrots, bouncing her head back and forth. "You don't ask questions basically at all, do you?"

"If you wished to tell me about yourself, you would," Arum answers with a shrug, and then- he smirks. Rilla doesn't think she's seen that particular look on his face before, actually. "In fact," he continues, "you have. I don't need to ask, Amaryllis. You are perfectly content to share the bland details of humanity without any prodding whatsoever."

"Humans aren't bland," Rilla says. "Just because you're bored all the time doesn't make everything else boring, it just means you aren't looking hard enough."

"Tell me something interesting, then," he says, leaning his head back and draping himself dramatically across the log, and for half a second he almost reminds her of Marc. She buries a laugh at the idea of the two of them meeting - Tal would get along with Arum better, she thinks - and thoughtfully drums her fingers off her chin.

"What sorts of things do you actually like?" she asks. "I'll be less likely to bore you if I know that much, at least."

The monster rumbles in his chest without opening his eyes, then makes a humming noise. "Blade combat," he says simply. "Music. Pollinators. Translations and ciphers. Questions within questions."

Rilla purses her lips for a moment. "Questions?"

"Indeed."

"So- wait. No, no- we just talked about this. You don't like questions."

Arum glances up at her, then, his mouth curling into a frown. "I think I know better than you do, what I like."

"If you liked questions, you wouldn't get so annoyed at me when I asked them."

"I don't dislike your questions," he says, sitting up again. "I dislike that you assume that all of them will be answered. A decent question will only lead to further questions, and trying to neatly tie anything to a single, simple solution will only reduce a thing from its true nature to a caricature of itself."

"If you can never find the answers, then how are any of the questions useful?"

"It's not about usefulness," he says. "It's about understanding, both the nature of inquiry itself and your own small place in the infinite."

Rilla frowns hard. "Those were a bunch of big words that mostly seemed to mean basically nothing."

Arum blinks, then gives a shocked, incredulous laugh. "How- how dare-"

"Even if a question leads to a bigger question, a bigger question is still an answer, Arum. Knowing that you don't know enough is still an answer. That's just- that's all just dumb semantics."

Arum sputters for a moment, then narrows his eyes. "I would say, I think, that the argument that a question is an answer is far more a matter of dumb semantics than the assertion that not all questions have answers, Amaryllis. You simply do not know what you're talking about."

"If you're not even trying to get to the bottom of the questions you ask, then maybe you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about," Rilla says, and Arum scowls again, more viciously this time. "I think it's better to actually know things, instead of just- making everything even more confusing. Isn't the world already confusing enough?"

"Maybe for creatures as petty and small-minded as humans," Arum growls low, but as he opens his mouth to continue-

There's a noise. Unexpected, and out of place enough that it takes Rilla a moment to recognize it.

A small whinny, not all that far off.

When Rilla meets Arum's eyes again she knows he heard it too. He looks exactly as scared as she feels.

"Hide," she hisses, and Arum's wide eyes go wider.

"You hide," he snarls, slipping off the log and back into the water. "It could be anyone, you don't know-"

"Horse could mean knight," Rilla snaps, and Arum's frill flattens against his neck. "Just hide and-"

The brush at the edge of the pond rustles, and Rilla hears Arum gasp before he slips beneath the surface entirely, and Rilla holds her breath as she turns to see whatever pushes through the foliage at the edge of the pond.

Rilla doesn't think she's ever been less happy to be correct, before. The knight frowns down at her from beneath his helmet and atop his sandy-brown horse, and Rilla tries to lean into her surprise so the guilt hopefully won't show.

"Oh!" she says, pressing a hand to her chest as she scrambles to stand on the log. "Oh, I- you scared me! I didn't hear you, and-"

The knight narrows his eyes, and Rilla realizes that his hand is resting on the pommel of his sword as his gaze sweeps suspiciously across the shore.

"What is a little girl like you doing out in the wilds all by yourself?" the knight says slowly, and Rilla-

Rilla isn't the best at reading people, but something about the way his mouth curls, the way his eyes stay suspiciously narrowed, something tells her that his tone is less concerned for her, and more concerned by her.

"Oh," she says, and she tries to smile. "Well, I'm not by myself," she says. "My parents are- they're not far."

"Hm," the knight says, and then he swings himself down out of the saddle.

Rilla takes the moment to glance down, and- and she has to hold herself very very still to keep from flinching when she realizes that Arum is still in the water beneath her. She was certain that he'd be- completely gone by now, safe and away and- and she widens her eyes at him quickly while the knight is still busy with the horse, and she jerks her head to the side, trying to tell him- get out of here, obviously, get away-

But Arum glares up at her, his violet eyes furious, and then he jerks his own snout towards the knight.

"Who were you talking to?"

Rilla jolts, wobbling on the log before she regains her footing.

"Wh-what? I- I don't know what you're-"

"I heard voices. Who were you talking to?" the knight repeats, his hand still on his pommel even after dismounting.

His eyes are icy and sharp and unsettling, and Rilla decides that she's really, really glad that she's out in the middle of the pond, instead of on the shore with him.

"I-" Rilla pauses, then lowers her eyes, shuffling her feet as if embarrassed. "I was talking to myself," she says quietly. "I know I shouldn't-"

"You were shouting at yourself?" the knight drawls, dubious, and Rilla tries to smile. If it comes out awkward- well, that'll work too, right?

"Y-yeah. I was- I was making up an argument? I- I'm not good at- at arguing for real, so I like to- to practice? Sometimes? When I'm on my own?"

"Well," the knight mutters, looking away, "I believe you're not good at talking, at least."

Rilla swallows, ducking her head, and-

And in the water beneath her, Arum rolls his eyes hard enough to make a little ripple on the surface above him, and then he makes a face as if he's gagging on a piece of rotten fruit. Rilla presses her lips together tight, choking down an almost overpowering urge to laugh.

"Your parents," the knight says, and Rilla's eyes flick back up from the water to his sullen, stubborn face instead. "They let you wander around in monster-infested wilderness all by yourself, then?"

"They- um. I mean- this place is pretty safe, and- and they aren't far."

"That's what you said before,"

"Do-" Rilla swallows. "Do you want me to- to call them? I can- I have a whistle, I can-"

The knight seems to consider this, looking her up and down as if checking for weapons and then scanning his eyes around the shore again quickly, and then he adjusts his stance, his frame tensing before he nods. "I think you had better, little girl. Go on, whistle for them."

Does he think that I'm a monster? Rilla thinks, feeling maybe just the littlest bit panicked, and then she raises her hand to her neck to lift the whistle.

They have a whole system, Rilla and her parents, for the emergency whistle. There's a call for monster, there's a call for injured, a call for someone else injured, a call for not-an-emergency-but-you'll-really-wanna-see-this-right-now-it's-cool, a call for I'm lost, among others. Rilla doesn't use any of those right now, though, because her parents don't think about magic and medicine exactly the same way that the King does, so-

Rilla lifts the whistle to her lips, and she gives the call that means that she's spotted a knight nearby.

The knight tenses further, as if he's fully expecting to be swarmed or something, and when nothing immediately jumps to attack him he glares at Rilla again. She- barely manages to fake a smile, certain that she must just look like she's showing teeth at this point, but it takes less than a minute for her dad to come bolting out of the underbrush on the far side of the pond.

"Rilla- Rilla what's wrong?" he says in a rush, and he's always been a better actor than Rilla or her papa. When he swings his eyes across the pond and 'notices' the knight, the flash of surprise on his face looks entirely genuine. "Oh- oh, I'm so sorry, Sir-"

"Sir Caradoc," he says, his expression bemused (surprised, Rilla thinks, that she was telling the truth) despite his flat, toneless voice. "The Dauntless."

"An honor," her dad says, smiling sharply, "and what a surprise to meet a knight this far from the Citadel! What- Rilla, why did you..."

He trails off, his sharp on her own, and Rilla manages a weak smile of her own. "He- he was- worried? That I was out here all on my own, so- so I wanted- I wanted to show him that I was- that you were here, if I was got in trouble."

Her dad exhales, something like a sigh, and then he nods and turns his attention back to Sir Caradoc. "Well, I'm glad nothing's wrong, at the least. Thank you so much for looking out for my daughter out here, Sir Caradoc. Please- would you come back to camp with us? I'm sure you're out here on important business, but the least we could do is get a hot meal in you before you've gotta be on your way, right?"

Caradoc raises an eyebrow, but after a moment his lip turns up into a very slight smile, and he nods.

"It'd be a pleasant change of pace," he says. "Been weeks since I've had a meal I didn't cook myself, and I'll admit I'm not as good with a ladle as I am with my sword."

Her dad's smile goes wider and more forced at the reminder of the weapon, but he laughs lightly anyway. "Great! Rilla, c'mon back to shore, now. We might not be home, but we've got company to look out for, yeah?"

Rilla nods, plastering on a smile that she hopes looks as honest as her dad's, and then she- she aims herself so she won't land right on top of Arum, and she hops into the water.

When she's under the surface she cracks her eyes open, and Arum is- closer than she expects. His eyes are narrowed and bright, even through the murk of the water, and when she makes a vague get out of here motion with her hands, he scowls even harder, and then he reaches out and grips one of her wrists. He flicks his eyes towards the surface, then back towards Rilla, and he squeezes lightly before he lets her go again, retreating further down into the muddy detritus at the bottom of the pond.

Rilla gives him one more glance (she can barely see him, obviously he knows exactly how to blend in), and then she kicks her way back to the surface, and then over to the edge of the water where her dad can reach down and lift her back out.

Her dad keeps hold of her hand when she's back on shore, and he squeezes soothingly as Sir Caradoc leads his horse around the pond to join them, trampling through the brush with authoritative carelessness.

"We'll be fine," her dad says under his breath, before the knight will be able to hear them again, and Rilla nods.

She already knew that, actually. She knows they'll be fine, because her papa is clever and her dad is confident and charismatic. She knows they'll be fine because her dad is holding her hand.

As Sir Caradoc comes closer, batting aside a hanging branch and wearing his bland, professional smile, Rilla thinks about Arum's hand, too. She thinks about the odd texture of his scales against her skin, the way he frowned when he squeezed her wrist, the intensity of his eyes under the water.

Rilla is pretty sure - pretty sure - that what he actually meant to say with that little squeeze was be careful.

Pretty good advice, Rilla thinks, if the coldness in Sir Caradoc's eyes above that smile is anything to go by.

#elle's fanfic #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #lord arum #amaryllis of exile #made a garden #🥺🥺🥺 they are BABIE.

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scullydubois · 4 years

Text

Only the Light ch. 6

read on Ao3 here. read earlier parts here.

This was getting quite long, so I decided to cut what I planned to be chapter 6 in half. I’ll try to keep the chapters a bit shorter than they have been cause I know lots of people prefer that. Anyway, that means I’m now almost done with chapter 7 so that’ll be posted in a couple days too.

Please let me know what you think in the tags or message me! I’d love to know if you think something like this should have been canon or even if you think it was canon, just not shown to the audience (is that possible? haha).

Description: As Mulder and Scully begin their investigation in Aubrey, Scully finds herself sympathizing with the detective who found the bones more than she would prefer to.

*includes a few lines of dialogue from season 2, ep 12 “Aubrey.” Credit to Sara B. Charno, writer of that episode!*

WC: 2595 words

tagging @today-in-fic. Thanks for all you do!

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

Scully stares at the bones on the autopsy table in front of her. She has always been capable of separating her feelings from her work. Too good at it, even. But right now, looking at these bones that have been in the ground since before she was even born, all she can think about is how they once were a living, breathing person’s. A partner. A son. An FBI agent just like her. She had narrowly escaped a similar fate. How? What made her survive while this man became a bundle of bones to be poked and prodded? She knows she shouldn’t dwell on it, but sometimes she wonders if her luck would stop if her overthinking did.

Mulder mentions the killer the detective was investigating. Three victims, all young women between twenty-five and thirty. Scully’s current demographic. He doesn’t say that part, of course, but Scully’s thinking it, and perhaps he is too. The word ‘sister’ was carved onto their chests, then painted on the wall with their blood. That could have been her.

Nevermind that she wasn’t alive in 1942, let alone living in Missouri. Horrific, misogynistic crimes had been happening well before she was born, and they would happen well after. Scully had no doubt something like this could happen to her at any time. A petite, female FBI agent? She would be the perfect victim.

She had been the perfect victim. And she survived! But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t victimized by all of it. Surviving doesn’t mean living. She is coming to terms with this. It is like going through it all over again.

She lifts one of the rib bones, runs her fingers over it. The rubber gloves catch on a series of tiny cuts down the length of it. Were these a result of decades underground, or had these been inflicted before the detective bled to death? She shivers at the thought.

“Scully?” Mulder’s voice anchors her back in reality.

She turns around. “Yes?”

“Are you cold?”

He had seen. He grips the edges of his jacket, prepared to place it on her shoulders at a moment’s notice.

She shakes her head. “No. I was just imagining being cut like this.” She points to the razor marks, each one a separate wound.

Mulder winces. “Do you think that’s what killed him?”

Scully turns the bone over in her hands. It has known pain, and she can almost feel the ghost of it in the marrow.

“I don’t know,” she says, meaning it. “That would be a horrific way to die.”

“Most ways are,” Mulder replies, not missing a beat. They stand there, this dead body adjacent to them, thinking about death, and life, and what it means to be a person. What a situation they have gotten themselves into.

A few minutes later, they are looking at computerized scans of the bones when BJ, the detective who dug them up, enters. She asks Mulder a question about the case, but doesn’t seem to listen to his answer. It’s like she’s in a trance.

Just as quickly as she arrived, she goes, excusing herself and staggering out of the room. Mulder and Scully exchange a glance like two gossiping high schoolers. Wordlessly, Scully follows after BJ. She finds her in the women's restroom rinsing her mouth. A pang of guilt circulates through Scully’s insides. She and Mulder have involved themselves in something that is, frankly, none of their business, but it’s too late to back out now.

“Feeling better?” she asks, holding a clean paper towel out for BJ, who ignores it and pulls one from the dispenser herself.

“I’m fine now.” This is all she offers.

Scully has given this answer enough times to know that BJ is most definitely not fine. She considers her options: she could respect BJ’s hostility toward her, pretend she saw nothing, & return to Mulder, or she could probe further into the situation and try to comfort BJ. She knows the terror that BJ must be feeling.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” The words leave Scully’s mouth before she registers deciding to say them.

The terror surfaces on BJ’s face. “Does it show?”

“No, not yet,” Scully reassures, patting the detective on the shoulder. She will try to be the comfort she wishes she had at the moment. The comfort she knows she could have, but...

BJ interrupts her train of thought--”Now I know why my mother only had one child. She told me about the nausea, but not about the nightmares.”

Scully blinks. There’s that pang of guilt again. “Nightmares?”

BJ nods. “It's always the same. I'm in a house, it feels familiar. There's a woman that's been hurt. There's a mirror... I see a man's reflection. I recognize his face, but I don't know it. What I remember most is the blood.” She looks up at Scully with desperate eyes. “There's a lot of blood.”

Scully swallows. Hard. She can feel acid in her throat, the contents of her stomach threatening to follow BJ’s lead. She’s glad to be in the bathroom. Nightmares are not a particular indication of pregnancy, she knows this. But she also knows that changing hormone levels can trigger vivid, sometimes upsetting dreams--she had not connected those dots until just now.

“Have you talked to anyone about these nightmares?” Scully asks.

BJ shakes her head. “I'm sure it's something about the pregnancy. If anyone else knew I was pregnant…” She trails off in a way that makes Scully ache for all the women that have ever feared their own body, herself included. There could be no worse betrayal than one’s own body.

“Brian would kill me if I told anyone,” BJ finishes. Her fear is evident in her voice. Scully packs as much sympathy as she can into her glance at BJ.

“Thank you for opening up,” she says. “I’m sorry about your situation. Let me know if I can help.”

BJ nods in acknowledgement, but doesn’t say anything. She lingers near the sink, as if waiting for the bell to dismiss her.

Scully can feel her uncertainty. “I won’t tell anyone,” she reassures.

BJ releases a breath. “Thank you. I need to...sort things out.”

“I understand.” Scully offers her a soft smile. BJ reciprocates, then quietly exits the bathroom.

Scully stands there a moment, hands in her pockets, heart in her throat. Then the queasy feeling passes, and she moves on.

She returns to the office and takes a seat next to Mulder. He’s gobbling some cookies while the computer analyzes the cut patterns on the bones. It is interesting what their line of work does to them; how it desensitizes them to the most gruesome of wounds, the most horrific of situations. She sometimes forgets that ordinary people don’t play doctor on dead bodies for a living, or chase phantoms, or get abducted by--well, plenty of people claim that’s happened to them. And she doesn’t see why, considering how unpleasant it all was. Is. Maybe that’s why people talk about it, because they just want someone to believe them, someone to know, but Scully’s mind has never worked that way. It’s exactly the kind of thing she’d like to forget forever and never share with anyone else. How shameful to get caught up in myths like that.

Mulder lifts an eyebrow, expecting a report on BJ.

Scully shrugs. “Food poisoning.”

“Yuck. Remind me not to have what she’s having,” he wisecracks.

Scully’s teeth clamp down on her tongue. “I don’t think you need to worry about that, Mulder,” she says, a knowing edge to her voice. She wishes she could say the same about herself.

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

They return to their motel after sunset. Mulder walks Scully to her door- number 13, to the right of his--and parts ways with her chastely, telling her he’s planning to set his alarm for 7am and saying goodnight.

“Night, Mulder,” she says, twisting her key in the lock and pushing hard against the door stuck from humidity. She casts one final smile his way before entering her room, shutting and locking the door behind her.

Mulder turns his key in his room’s lock, but waits for Scully to disappear into the safety of her room before opening his own door. He is not going to lose her again.

Relieved to be in a space of her own after a long day of traveling and consorting, Scully switches on the bedside lamp, illuminating the room. One queen-sized bed with a plaid comforter, a boxy TV with an antenna, a flimsy wooden desk, and a bathroom about three Scully steps deep. It is not much, these lodgings never are, but at least it’s not coming out of her paycheck. She pulls her badge from her jacket pocket and throws it on the bed. It does a backflip against the mattress. She shimmies off the jacket then, folding it up and setting it in the side of her suitcase reserved for the dirty laundry. One time Mulder saw the way she organized her suitcase and laughed. He’s more accustomed to throwing his worn clothes in a garbage bag...or just wearing them over again.

The shoes come off next, lined up neatly by the door. She craves a shower. After spending the day with decades old bones, she is in need of a baptism.

She flicks the bathroom light on, and the fluorescent bulb buzzes in protest. There’s no telling when this motel was built; the wall is supposed to be light blue, but entire sections of paint have chipped away into an aged white exterior. Fissures snake through nearly every square of the floor’s tile like they’re there for decoration. Scully looks for her reflection in the mirror and gets the blurry outline of a woman instead. The mirror is somehow permanently fogged.

She ponders the science of that while she pulls back the shower curtain and turns the knob for hot water. It spurts noisily out of the faucet, interrupting her peace. Speaking of interrupting her peace...she remembers that she forgot to leave Missy the number for the motel. She is not used to someone keeping such close tabs on her. She switches off the water and heads for the phone.

She dials the number, her own number--now her sister’s too--and waits. One ring, then another, then Missy’s steady voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Missy. It’s me. I forgot to leave the number, I’m sorry.”

“So I take it you’re not coming home tonight?” She knew her sister never was, but she’ll milk it anyway.

“No, we got a motel.”

“You already had the reservations, didn’t you?” Melissa inquires. “Or else how would you leave the number?”

Scully rolls her eyes, though she knows her sister can’t see it. Missy can probably sense it anyway.

“We did, but we would have cancelled them if we didn’t need to stay. It looks like we’re taking the case.”

“Is it an interesting one, or can you not say cause it’s vital to the security of the nation or something,” Melissa teases.

“It’s pretty freaky, but nothing really supernatural. Just your run of the mill humans hurting other humans.”

“Hmm...I thought the suspect had to be like, a werewolf, to qualify as an X-file.”

Scully smiles. “Well, it’s like Scooby-Doo. You always think the culprit is some crazy creature, but then you unmask them and it’s just a cranky old man.”

“Even worse!” Missy quips.

Scully laughs. Her sister’s right. At this point, she’d be relieved to find out that the worst atrocities of humanity were not committed by humans after all, but by some beast with no morals, just instinct. Maybe she’d feel less guilty if she didn’t have to atone for all the sins she’s seen. If they weren’t the sins of humanity.

“Anyway, you’ve got this number now, so just ask for room 13 if you need me. Or room 14 if you want to prank call Mulder, I don’t care. I’m about to hop in the shower, but did you have a good day?”

“Uh yeah, work was busy and I just got home a little bit ago. I’m waiting on some pad thai from that restaurant you suggested. Probably gonna veg out, watch some Golden GIrls, maybe do a face mask.”

“You’re living a life of luxury,” Scully murmurs.

“Very much so. How was your day?”

“It was...good.” Her voice rises unevenly between the words.

“That’s a ringing endorsement.”

Scully can hear the hollow noise of Missy twirling the phone cord around her finger.

“The first day on a case is always a bit overwhelming,” she assures. “We’ll get through it.”

“I’m sure you will,” Missy replies with a flat voice, not at all impressed by her sister’s answer.

“We always do.” There’s a note of optimism in her voice. The statement is more of a prayer than a reassurance.

“Well, come home safely, okay? I’m not used to sleeping in a big city by myself.”

“I’ll be home as soon as possible,” Scully says, not holding herself to any safe returns.

“You’d better.” The cheekiness in Missy’s voice takes Scully back to the conversations they had when Scully had just moved to college and would recount the titillating tales of living in a co-ed dorm. Having never had such an experience, Melissa would live vicariously through her stories, and Scully would realize that her sister would make much better use of the situation than she ever did. “Love you. Bye.”

“Bye, Missy,” she says with some weariness. She puts the phone in the receiver, closes her eyes, and wonders how many times she’s uttered that exact phrase. Twenty-nine years worth, so the number’s got to be high.

She returns to the bathroom, feeling significantly grungier than just a few minutes ago. She repeats the routine with the water, slipping off her pants and blouse as the room steams up. By the time her bare skin hits the water, sweat is sliding down the ugly walls.

Usually the motels they stay in don’t have very warm water, so this is a treat. She doesn’t usually take hot showers, seeing them as wasteful somehow. Maybe she subconsciously doesn’t want to increase her water bill. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t apply right now, and every muscle in Scully’s body softens as the water runs down it. Touch. How many times had she been touched today? Surely this is one of the only instances featuring a force with any life in it. It's the most intimate too. She ravishes in it.

There’s a noise, or rather, a sudden absence of noise, and Scully realizes that Mulder’s shower is on the other side of the wall and he has just turned off the water. She pictures him on the other side of the tile, naked and dripping wet. Slick all over. If only she had x-ray eyes... This is what partners do, isn’t it? She has goosebumps despite the temperature of the water.

She blinks her eyes closed, holds her breath, and tilts her face toward the showerhead. Baptism. Rebirth. New beginnings. The chance to make up for missed opportunities.

She carries this energy with her through the rest of the night. Through buttoning her silk pajamas from hips to collarbone, through towel-drying her hair because she left her blow dryer for Melissa, through flipping the channels and finding nothing but reruns she never cared to watch in the first place, and through dozing off with her hair cascading off the pillow. Not all nights are as delightfully simple as this.

---thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!!

#the x files #x files #txf fanfic #fanfic #fan fiction #txf #missy & scully fic #only the light fic #msr #fox mulder #dana scully #mine

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boogiewrites · 3 years

Text

No. 9 The Body Ch. 8

Characters: Diego Hargreeves & OFC Eve Corpuz

Summary: Eve learns more about her powers while on a real date with Diego.

Warnings/Tags: Flirting. Sexism. Threats of violence. Canon Typical. Date. Diego Protecc.

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT! If you’d like added to the tags, just let me know. This is a multi-chapter fic.

The day had started strong for Eve. She was being interviewed by a local women’s club for her transformation from using their services to becoming a respected doctor with a winning reputation. It’d been flattering and put a little perk in Eve’s step admittedly.

She was headed from a conference room, a much easier place to get to for a non-employee than her small office. But the ease for the interviewer was something she quickly wished she’d not cared so much about as she felt eyes on her, walking alone back towards her wing. She didn’t typically have to be around the board member hallways, it was a place most women avoided.

“Evie?” A familiar voice that immediately made her nose wrinkle came from behind her. “Long time no see.” Bryon Gray, a son of a bitch who happened to be a son of a chief of staff. They’d gone through residency together and every woman that had ever met him had quickly learned to avoid him. “What brings you over to this side of the hospital.” He gives her arm a faux friendly smack of greeting and she grimaces.

“I had an interview.” She answers flatly, his cross-fitted, legacy-name body blocked her path as he manspread across the hall and put his hands on his hips as if everything he said were to be stopped and observed most intently.

“Now I know everything going on around here.” He winks and taps his temple. “And I haven’t heard about you interviewing for anything.”

This may come as a shock to you Bryon but you don’t know everything, which is what she preferred to say. But instead, “It wasn’t for a job. I was interviewed for a magazine.” She says with a low brow.

“Oh! Which one? I mean, which ones are even in print anymore?” He laughs. “We talking the big NEJM?” He laughs. ”Oh wait, that was me.” He brags.

“No. It’s called Ms.” she begins to lean to initiate an exit.

“Mrs.? It like a wedding thing?” He asks with narrowed eyes. “I thought you were single.”

“It’s M. S. A feminist magazine started by Gloria Steinman in the 70s.” She wanted to slap herself for trying to defend it. He wasn’t worth it.

“Yeah that’s hot right now, isn’t it? What was it for?”

She sniffs and twitches her nose trying to not have such a knee-jerk reaction to this... jerk. "My work.”

“You are all work aren’t you Evie? Always have been.”

“Well, you know me.”

“I know Dads noticed the numbers you've been managing. Makes sense word would be getting around about an ex-stripper turned doctor who has the least amount of deaths of patients by a landslide would be a feel-good piece.”

She wanted to defend herself. To slap him and tell him to kiss her ass but she knew it would be fruitless. “Next thing you know they’ll be making a Barbie of me for all the things I’m great at.” She decides to retort with praise instead of defense. ”Stripper heels and a stethoscope would be a hell of a combination for accessories, huh?”

He gives her a look up and down. “You sure you aren’t dancing anymore? You’re looking... great by the way. Very… tight.” He motions a squeeze with his hands. More like how old male plastic surgeons do when they explain implants to young girls.

“I’ve been working out.” Another flat response as she clears her throat and begins to move far past him to continue back on her path. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Keep up the good work there Evie. Both professionally and personally.” She didn’t need to turn to look at him to know what look he had on his face. It was one every woman had had to suffer at some point in her life.

——————-

Eve was determined not to let some silver-spooned dumbass ruin her day. She had much more important things to put her energy on. Like going out with Diego that night. Oh, and saving people. Can’t forget that.

For early spring the air felt heavy and it didn’t help the sour mood that had followed her that day. She had stood too long in the shower, getting pruney, debating on whether to shave above the knee or not. She wasn’t gonna fuck him on the first date. No, she didn’t do that stuff anymore. But was it a first date? She’d known him for months now. Maybe best to not shave to deter her from making any rash decisions.

She’d been particularly mean to herself while trying to find an outfit to wear. She didn’t think she should be so easily frustrated with something like this but she realizes it’s been a long time since she cared about her outfit. Much less fussing over what to wear for a date. As always she played it cool, even when she wasn’t. She was relieved by the few pairs of stretchy denim she had still fit. She wrapped herself up in a black jacket and made her way to the gym in shoes that were nowhere near as comfortable as her usual sneakers. She figured boots with a heel were more low key than pumps. She rolls her eyes and swings her head to shake out the non-productive stream of thought.

“Hey Eve.” Diego’s voice breaks her out of the intrusive thoughts and she gives a smile that doesn’t give away that she’s been in a mood all day.

“Hey, Diego.” She answers in a relieved exhale.

They exchange pleasantries before heading off on foot in the direction of the bar. Her hands kept to the strap of her purse that was across her body. She hadn’t hugged him when she’d greeted him, but should she have? Should she… try to hold his hand? Was that too much? How do you date again? She chews the inside of her cheek.

“You worked today right?” He asked partly to kill the dead air but mostly because he was curious.

“You know I did.” She rolls her eyes and smiles.

“Overnight shift, huh? Have to pull anything out of anybody’s butt?”

He gives a wide boyish smile and she laughs in response. “Not tonight no.” she shakes her head. “What about you?”

“I luckily have not had to pull anything out of anyone’s butt.”

She laughs and gives him and below that knocks him slightly and as he returns to her side he stands closer than before. “Smartass.”

He smiles closed-lipped but proudly.

“Everyone’s always asking me about gross stuff. There are other things to ask a doctor…to ask ME about.”

“Like what?”

“Anything besides butt stuff.” She chuckles at her answer.

“Oh I didn’t think that was where we were going with this so soon BUTT-“

She scoffs and laughs and shoves him again before he comes back at her and smoothly, she must admit put his arm around her shoulders as they walked. “If it’s not then where IS is going?” She gives a playful pause. “Why’d you decide to ask me out?”

“Why’d you say yes?”

“I asked you first.”

“I respect you playing by grade school rules.” He teases before answering.

“What took this from two super freaks helping each other out to Diego asking Eve out on a date?”

��We’re still super freaks.” He corrects. “What do you wanna hear huh?” He gives a cocky nod. “That you’re… pretty? Smart? Funny?”

“I mean it’s a good start so go on…” she smiles.

“I...y’know. You don’t annoy me... all the time.” He shrugs slightly to play it cool. “It’s… easy with you. You aren’t a dick. Well I mean, a real dick. You’re a DICK don’t get wrong-“

“A dick but not a DICK-dick.” She clarifies.

“See! You get it.” He nods his head her way and she feels the sincerity he’s trying to give her in his way. They walk for a moment, the location in sight now. “You not gonna tell me I’m pretty now?” He jokes and hip knicks her before separating for the door.

“You’re very pretty Diego.” She coos as he holds open the door for her.

“That's better.” He bats his lashes and she walks in first, him close and protective behind her.

———————

Diego looks down at his phone with a sigh. “It’s my brother. I have to call him.”

“The serious little one from the gym?”

“ that’s the one.”

“ he doesn’t seem like a patient kind of guy.” She gives a soft laugh to show no hard feelings. “Go on, it’s fine. I understand.” She gives a nonchalant shrug. “If you have to leave just tell me first. Don’t disappear like you’re so good at.”

He gives a quiet, almost apologetic chuckle in response. “I won’t. I’ll be right back.”

Eve takes out her phone to keep to herself and pass the time. Five seemed like a very intense guy. Especially if he was someone that could get Diego to do something he didn’t want to.

“Hey.” She’d heard it already but kept her expression unmoving. “Hey, Girl.”

After the 4th time, it’s clear the guy sat between two friends who looked like they all fell out of the same legacy fraternities, and was not going to stop trying to get her Attention. she turns to meet his eyes with the most indifferent face she could manage.

“There she is. That guy leaves a hot thing like you alone?”

“No.” She answers flatly.

“He...uh, ya brother or somethin’?”

“No.” Another monotone answer

“Ah so is that lucky bastard ya mans then?”

She slowly blinks and takes her time to answer. “Why do you care?”

“I wouldn’t be letting you be nowhere alone if I was your man sweetheart.”

“Duly noted.” She turns back away.

“Oh, a smart one, fellas. You know I like it when they get feisty. What you do baby? You lookin' good as hell. You one of them dancers? Those freaky European girls over at the school?” He laughs and elbows his cohort. “Those broads talk all kinds of smart.”

“I’m a Doctor.” She continues to look at her phone and not engage. Diego would be back soon. And this guy was an idiot.

“Oh! a fuckin DOCTOR bros!” He mocks. “I might’ve listened to my doc if he had an ass like that.”

She sighs and feels her jaw tighten.

“Hey! I got something I need ya to look at sexy doctor. I bet you’ve never seen one like this before.”

“I’ve diagnosed the clap before so I have seen it.”

The guys with him laugh but he doesn’t.

“Why the ones with the smart mouths always such bitches?” He complains with a childish retort. “I was being nice and you gotta go act like that. You’re lucky your so hot sweetheart. Most men wouldn’t put up that shit.”

“Would you put up with it?”

“Fuck no, I keep my woman in line.” He says proudly

“Ah, good. So you can quit talking to me then. Because I’m just going to use words that further confuse you if you keep it up.” She rolls her eyes and keeps on her phone as Diego walks back to the table. For the moment the guy was silent.

—-

Eve excused herself to go to the bathroom, perhaps the beers had gotten to her. Or all the water she was forcing down her pie hole constantly it seemed. Trying to be properly hydrated was hard.

She was still distracted in thought, wondering how much she’d drank in water tonight to know how much she could pour out when she got home. She’d bought a jug with hourly markers because targeted ads worked and it was black matte and had-

Her train of thought is sharply interrupted by a forearm jutting out in front of her path. She looks to the perpetrator and there stands Chad. She assumed his name was Chad. He looked like one, acted like one. And if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...well you know how that goes.

“I saw you walkin' back here in those tight fuckin jeans and was compelled to continue our conversation from earlier.”

“No thanks, dude. I’d like to get back to my date now.” She answers flatly.

“Ya little man’s left sweetheart.” His other arm comes up and her now to the wall back was tense and defensive. Their bodies blocked the small back hallway and she hoped someone would interrupt them soon.

“Then he’ll be right back.”

“He answered his phone and jetted babe.” He tsks. “Yahate to see it. “ a predatory pout comes across his face as he reaches to caress her forearm. “And to a dime like you.” She tenses and noisily exhales. “His loss my gain yeah?” He laughs and she smells a nauseatingly familiar combination of nacho cheese and cheap beer.

“Excuse me...Chad? Is it Chad? I’d like to get back to my seat if you-“

“I’m right here baby.” He smirks and wiggles his jaw. “Face or my cock girl, I ain’t picky.” His hands move to her waist and pull her against him. She didn’t want to make a scene. To let this asshole ruin her date.

“I’m giving you one chance to get your fucking hands off me bro.” She bucks back, deeper voice and glaring into his eyes.

“Mmm, what are you? Where ya mama from eh? You must be a little Latin mami lookityou.” The slurring was beginning to stand out more. He did loosen his grip and she put as much space as she could between them. Progress.

“It’s none of your business and you’re being rude and you’re drunk. You should go home.”

“Only if I’m taking this back with me mami,” he reaches his hand to her ass and before he’s fully grasped she’s shoved him hard against the wall. “Oh fuck yeah hard to get. I’m gonna hold you down and beat that pussy UP.”

“You couldn’t even get hard you needle dicked dumbass.” She straightens her jacket. “Let me say this so you understand. Leave me alone. I am not going to fuck you, you fuckin rapist. You should be ashamed of yourself. I hope your mother's dead so she doesn’t have to see what a piece of shit she raised.” She moves to walk away.

His glassy eyes look a strange mixture of hurt to mad to confused.

“Everything okay here?” A tone she hadn’t heard from Diego before as he stood with a wide stance in front of Eve but eyes on the walking cliche. “You okay?” He asks softer as he flicks his eyes to hers, a hand lightly on her arm.

“I’m fine. This guy is garbage. Don’t bother he’s not worth it. Just another moron who never got to the cognitive thought stage.” She sighs and pats his hand, heading back to the table.

After doing a poor job of acting interested in Diego explaining something about knives, she kept seeing Chad eye fuck her from across the bar. She could feel his eyes boring into her. He kept looking and acting casual otherwise, eating and running and talking with his beef necked buddies. Eve was no stranger to harassment. She was a woman and a woman who worked in the medical field. She’d been accosted more times than she could count. From old men winking and having their dicks out to young men locking her inside of an exam room and not letting her leave until he got what he thought he was owed.

She wasn’t even mad about him anymore, her rage was fueled by every man that ever made her feel uncomfortable. Every creep ass ex, every older man trying to take advantage of her. She felt like her face should be hot and Diego’s words become background noise.

Diego didn’t notice for a while, too excited to talk about a new knife rig he was working on. He looks behind him at the sound of choking and sees the guy that was bothering Eve earlier trying to clear his throat. He notices Eve isn’t responding even when he stands and tries to gasp. He moves to see her still and focused with flickering eyes. Like electricity was behind them. He watched her curiously, eyes set like a lion in the tall grass. He looks back to Chad, now red and holding his throat.

“Eve…” he reaches out to touch her arm and he’s met with a crack of static electricity. She doesn’t even acknowledge him and the guys turning a weird shade of purple. “EVE.” He says harsher and grasps her forearm, feeling the tingle of hair rise on the back of His neck. “EVE! HEY!” he reaches and as Chad's eyes bloodshot he turns her face to him and breaks her focus.

The desperate gasp of air from Chad was immediate.

“Eve… what the hell was that?”

“What?” She blinks rapidly as if she’d just come to.

“He was choking and you were…” he lowers his voice and moves closer to her. Everyone was now preoccupied with Chad. “...using your powers weren’t you?”

Her mouth holds open as her eyes now normal flit back and forth. “I…” she feels it. Something she could identify. A cooling rush in her veins. “I hurt him.” She whispers in shock.

“Yeah, you almost choked him to death. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m… I did that.”

“I didn’t know you could do that?”

“Neither did I.”

———-

Diego and Eve sit back in her apartment after a fast exit. She seemed worried, so he tried to hide his concern. He kept having to reach for her wrist to keep her on track and eventually settled on holding her hand. They hadn’t said much on the walk back. She was coming to terms with a lot and once again they’d fallen back into the roles of helping each other through these secret things only they understood and out of the dating pool they’d tiptoed in successfully tonight.

“Look you can control them, alright? You can control healing and you can control hurting. They’re the same thing. You got carried away. And that guy was an asshole and he deserved a scare honestly.”

He rubs her upper arms and she wipes at her face with a tissue. “I’m sorry for...ruining tonight.” She sighs out with eyes now makeup-free.

“You didn’t ruin it.” He grimaces. “We’ve just… got sidetracked. It happens.” He shrugs and tries to be supportive.

“I’ve had such a bad day, Diego.” She laughs to not cry and meets his eyes. “I didn’t want to cancel because of it and let it win. But I’ve been so sensitive today. I don’t know.”

“What happened?.” He moves to pull her to the edge of her bed.

“There’s just this guy, Brian at work and he was shitty to me today-“

“Brian who?” Diego quickly interjects in such a dramatic way it makes her crack a smile while he remained serious.

“You don’t have to beat him up.” She gives a thankful smile and pats the back of his hands. He takes her hands into his and lays them in her lap.

“If someone's makin' you so upset you lose control I'm pretty sure I DO have to kick their ass.”

“Thanks. Your heart is in the right place. I appreciate it. Seriously.” She frees one hand as he holds tight to her others. “I don’t want to be known as the woman who you can’t talk to because her b- her friend might beat them up.”

“Your what might beat them up?” He teases with a smile.

“Friend. My friend. That’s what I said.” She whines playfully and he smirks. “He’s one of the director's sons.” She shrugs.

She’d just given him enough information to easily find the guy. Not like he wouldn’t have gone through every Brian in that hospital. “Why would he be a dick to you?” He takes her hand back into his and it makes her smile as she looks down at them. He held her hands in a clear expression of his want to protect her. She thought it was very sweet of him. But she didn’t know he had full intentions of beating the white off Brian.

“Sexism mostly?” She offers and Diego gives her a look of impatience.

“I ran into him and he said some things about my past in a tone that wasn’t nice and he’s in general very… sleazy and gives uncomfortable compliments. No one says anything because he’s Knox’s son so...he’s a privileged white dude. That should tell you enough.”

“It does.” He accepts her elaboration. She was quickly learning he was stubborn as a mule when it came to wanting something, particularly information.

“Then the guy at the bar.” She rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, that asshole.” He sighs. “I would’ve decked him but you seemed like you didn’t want me to.”

“I could r done it myself if I wanted. But I didn’t want to ruin the evening.” She emotes dramatically, saying it didn’t matter in the long run. “He was talking to me while you were gone the first time too.”

“Seriously? Eve. Why didn’t you let me knock his punk ass out?”

“Because Diego I wanted to have a nice date with you. Without involving fighting. We can work it out at training later. I didn’t want to…” she groans.

“Okay, okay. I...get what you’re saying. And I think you’re wrong. But I understand.”

“Thanks. Maybe we’ll get it right next time.” She offers with a tired smile.

“Next time?” His smile gives away his glad reaction to the insinuation.

“Yeah. I figured we could go out on another date. Unless you don’t want to?” He feels her hands begin to pull away and he keeps them close.

“No! I do! I do Uh “ clearing his throat, “I mean I’d like that. It’d be..chill”

She snorts a laugh at his recovery. “I’m excited to go out with you again too. Don’t try to play it cool I already know you. I know you aren’t” she teases.

“That’s cold man.” He deflects and they share a nice pause between them. “We’ll go somewhere where no one can upset you.”

“If you’re with me you could.”

“Normally I’d agree. But I don’t plan on upsetting you... You know. I mean it might happen but like...I don’t wanna hurt you. For real.”

“I think I knew that Diego.” She gives him a warm smile and squeezes his hands. “I don’t wanna hurt you either. I’ve gotten pretty fond of you. As much as I hate to admit.”

“I don’t hate to admit it.” He gives a dopey smile and she pays his cheek.

“Thank you for… everything tonight.”

“Was nothin,” he answers cockily.

“You can be really sweet when you aren’t trying too hard.” She says as they feel their heartbeat flip for a moment as they look into each other’s eyes a bit too long for it to go unnoticed.

“I don’t have to try hard with you.” He answers back softly and he sees his moment. She sees the tell of his eyes moving to her lips, that tilt of his head that made him look like a sweet little pitbull puppy.

She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to thank him for everything he’d done for her. Properly. They could both feel the tension between them now. “Diego… I do-“

“Uh yeah, you’re right. It’s not- yeah-..” he stutters in reaction to what he thought could be rejection.

She smiles and rises to go after him as he puts space between them. “I WANT to, Diego I just don’t think right now is the right moment.” She explains gently with her hands to his chest and she yawns. “I’m exhausted from using my powers tonight. I don’t want to be… not giving you 110% if you get what I’m saying.” She wiggles her eyebrows and it knocks his defenses down as intended.

“Oh. Good. You...you’re right.” He chuckles shyly. “I can go now and I’ll see you at training then?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” She offers a hug instead of a kiss and he happily takes it. His temple to her temple for a moment and feeling her let out a content sigh in his arms. “Be careful headed home.” She offers as they part. “Despite everything I still had a good time tonight. For the record.”

“I did too.” He offers before ducking out the door with a “Goodnight. Sleep tight.”

She knew she would thanks to him.

@jaegeeeeer @diegos-butt @anglovesthis @likedovesinthewnd

#diego hargreeves #The Umbrella Academy #diego hargreeves fic #diego hargreeves fanfic #diego hargreeves fan fic

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bexterbex · 4 years

Text

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 50

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. Tag lists are closed

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother, but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 50: Demanding Answers

The Big Chapter 50 is here.

You were ready to walk out into the living area to wait for him. While you waited, you went behind the bar to see if there was anything to drink. You waved goodbye to the ladies and found a nice wine to drink while you waited. You poured yourself a glass and walked over to the couch to lounge, rather suggestively.

You heard the door open and you watched him walk in, he took off his helmet and set it on the buffet in the front entrance area. All while not taking his eyes off of you. He sauntered over to you while his eyes roamed over your body, “Do you want to play Kitten and skip dinner?” As he reached you he bent down for a kiss.

You turned away and moved to get up, setting your finished wine glass down on the coffee table. “No, I would like dinner, and for you to explain some things to me. And if I get my answers then we can play.” You made your way down the hall to the dining room before receiving an answer.

He did follow you. You made your way to your seat and pulled up the menu. He followed and made his way to kiss your cheek which you also avoided, with the back of your hand meeting his lips. “Dinner and questions first, play later,” you commanded.

He let out a frustrated huff but sat down. He made his order and you two sat staring at each other waiting for the food to arrive. You could tell he was getting more annoyed by the minute. You were keeping your face neutral, waiting for him to crack first.

Which he did, “So are you going to ask these questions of yours? Or am I supposed to pry them from your mind.” His fingers thrummed on the table. He hadn’t taken his gloves off yet, something that was starting to annoy you. You prepared yourself for dinner like a lady, but he failed to simply take off his gloves.

“I don’t know, would you rather have some food before you get angry and storm off or would you like to possibly ruin dinner now, before we have even eaten?” Your question was based on history. The last few times you had tried to get him to answer things he had blown up and walked out or made you do a 180 and forget about it until days later.

He was annoyed by this question you could tell. His jaw clenched and the hand that was drumming on the table turned to a fist for a moment before laying its palm flat. “I wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner,” he said through gritted teeth.

Your dinner came in, along with another glass of wine. You were going to need a bit of liquid courage to be able to keep your backbone. As you both ate the tension in the room was high. You could tell by his rough eating of his dinner that he was just getting angrier and angrier. When you were finished you slowly finished off your glass of wine before standing and leaving the room.

You heard a crash, but it did not stop you from your mission. You walked up the stairs to the lounge space and sat down in front of the fireplace causing it to turn on. Before he descended the stairs after you, you ordered a stronger drink from your phone. You could hear him stomp after you, like a child being told what to do. You smirked at that thought. Oh yes, like a child.

He did not sit next to you, but he stood off to the side of the fireplace, glaring at you. With clenched fists and a clenched jaw he asked, “Your questions?”

You raised a finger at him, signaling for him to wait. At that moment the door to your chambers opened and a droid flew up the steps and delivered you your drink. You took the drink from its tray and held up the glass to inspect it before taking a drink. You then hold it in your hand, “Why did you not tell me about the formal dinner? You, not Hux, not Phasma, not your knights, not my ladies-in-waiting, but you.” Your head was level but you glared at him through your lashes, your lips slightly pursed.

You watched him clench and unclench his fists for several moments. His clenched jaw allowed you to see him grind his teeth. If he could harm you with just the look of his dark eyes, you would have been painted across the walls by now, but you were serving him a look back. “It was not a matter of importance,” he sneered finally. His eyes were twitching and seething with anger and frustration.

“Really, because it doesn’t appear that way. Is this not a formal dinner with high ranking planetary officials of the First Order? Is this not the first official event where I will be presented as Lady Ren? Your match. Or is that not something that is important to you anymore, me being your match?” You leaned forward, testing him. Daring him to do something. You took a sip from your drink and swirled it around in your glass waiting for his answer.

You heard a crash come from somewhere downstairs, but you held your ground not moving, not being phased. “Yes, they are important to the First Order and the final agenda, but they are not important to me. You will be presented as Lady Ren because you are Lady Ren. You are my match, the other half to my soul. You are important to me.”

You scoffed at this, something that earned another crash only this time it was a chair that flew off the lounge space balcony and down to the floor below. You flinched for a second before regaining your composure. “If I was important to you then you would tell me such things, or at least you would have the decency to send me a message yourself. Or did you forget that I still have my phone?”

He tore his gaze away from you, his hands clenched tightly into fists, his arms tense and shaking with anger. “Is that what you want?” You were pretty sure his anger was burning a hole in the wall behind you.

“Yes, that is what I want. For you to message me at the very least. I don’t think that is a lot to ask for, or you could tell me before you leave in the morning. Is that such a hard request?” You tilted your head towards him. Your eyes analyze his reaction.

His fist clenched and unclenched several times before he answered, “No,” through gritted teeth once more.

“Good.” You leaned back in your seat and took another sip of your drink. “Now, I would like you to tell me who you have been speaking to when you think I am asleep.”

This set something off, “I told you never to speak of her again,” he roared. You could see his chest vibrating with anger. Seeming to struggle to keep his emotions locked inside his chest, like a cage.

You racked your brain to think of who he was talking about, but then something clicked and your body felt like ice had been poured through your veins. You stood and turned to walk to the edge of the balcony, “So the scavenger is a she.” Your back was to him.

“She is nothing, she means nothing.” You could hear his anger, but could no longer see it.

Something inside you broke, “If she means nothing then why won’t you tell me about her? Or are you lying to me and yourself.” The ending came as more of a whisper.

You could hear him step forward, “She is no one, she means nothing.” His voice was flat. You turned to look at him, but the look on his face told you everything you needed to know. His eyes were windows that betrayed the privacy of his mind, and heart.

Your drink fell to the floor, your legs moving on their own. You ran down the steps, tears falling down your face. He was frozen in his spot. Your brain and heart were moving at two different paces, without thinking you went into your dressing room and locked the door. You fell to the ground, your heart shattered with the drink you left upstairs. You were alone, but without thinking you hit a button on a remote, to call for them. You did not want to be alone.

There was pounding outside the door. Kylo, he was yelling too, but your brain didn’t process what was being said. You felt numb.

After a few minutes, you heard another voice behind the door and the pounding and yelling ceased. You heard a simple knock and Adlez’s voice, “M’lady it is us, please let us in.”

You hit a button on the remote and the door opened revealing Adlez and Olivia-Rose, Kylo was looming behind them. Adlez’s face upon seeing you was a look of horror and sympathy. She and Olivia-Rose entered and Kylo tried to follow, but Adlez swiftly turned and pointed a finger into his chest. “This is no place for a man. And that very much includes you. Especially when you caused the problem now out.”

Kylo was a bit in shock at what Adlez said, he stumbled back out of the doorway. His face turned to anger and you could see his chest puff up before Adlez hit a button on the panel and shut the door in his face. And she hit another one, presumably locking it. You heard yelling and banging once more.

She quickly rushed to your side, “Now now m’lady, you are safe. Olivia-Rose and I will fix everything just you see.” They both hauled you up, helping you to the vanity.

You glanced at your reflection, your face was a mess, your eyeliner and mascara leaving streaks down your face with puffy red eyes. Your lipstick was smeared and mostly gone from your lips. Your hair was a mess, but you don’t remember ever touching it in the first place. You looked like a girl who was dumped on her prom night.

Both of them moved quickly around you. Taking down your hair, removing your makeup, putting on some weird face mask. You were hauled up once more and changed into a nightgown, one that was similar to last night. Your voice was hoarse, “But I don’t want to wear this.” More tears streamed down your face, making the face mask start to run.

“I said we would fix this, and we will. First, you must wear that and you must stop crying. Now tell us everything,” said Adlez sternly, both of them walked you to the chaise lounge.

You recalled all of the details from dinner and your questions. When you got to the part about the scavenger you could hear Adlez scoff.

“A scavenger for a lady, I think not. Especially when that lady is his match. Why are men, such idiots?” She was angry, you don’t know if it was for you or her own anger, but it made you feel minutely better. Adlez then got up and walked over to the vanity picking up a washcloth and bringing it over to you, she started to remove the face mask.

“Now m’lady if he is still out there, which I have a feeling he is, you will stand your ground. You will demand to know who this scavenger is. If he does not answer, then I want you to come back in here and call on us. We will stay with you all night. If he does not answer you will not sleep next to him. In fact, you will not sleep in his bed until he does.” She walked back over to the vanity to grab various creams and oils.

She applied them to your face and something cool to your eyes. “Remember what I said, men like pretty things in their bed, but they must know to take care of them if they want them to stay pretty. Now I have a correction to that. They must take care of them if they want pretty things to stay. I am more than prepared to spend many nights and days with you in here until he answers you.” A part of you wished you had an ounce of her conviction and confidence. He was a fool for assigning her to you. She finished applying whatever it was to your face and pulled you to stand.

She told Olivia-Rose to grab the perfume from last night, which she then sprayed you with. On either side, they joined you in front of the full-length mirror. Somehow they managed to put you back together again. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” you mused quietly.

“Yes, but they were the king’s men, you are an empress,” said Adlez confidently. This caused a spark within you. “Now, you will go out there and show him exactly that. You are an empress and she is some dirty scavenger. You will not ask to be told what she is, you will demand it. You are an empress, now act like it.” This caused the spark to be a fire, a roaring fire.

“Head up, shoulders back,” said Adlez as she followed you to the door. You were an empress. Not a queen. Not a princess. Not just a woman. Not just a girl. And most certainly not a scavenger. You were an empress, and now you were going to claim your empire.

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo x reader #kylo x you #star wars #first order #star wars imagine #Star wars soulmate au #sw first order imagine #star wars first order #a soul to mend his own

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mattmurdocksscars · 4 years

Text

Miscommunication Ch. 5

It’s Star Wars dayyyyy! Reader and Poe are headed to the gala! Find out how it goes for them!

Pairings: First Order! Poe x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Language, Canon typical violence, Implied torture

Word Count: 1828

Tag List (Open, strikethrough means it wouldn’t let me tag you): @himbopoes, @writefightandflightclub, @mellow-f1, @imaginecrushes, @ladyflyer20, @kiaralein, @oakleyves, @nacida-en-la-luna, @morgannope @criminal-cookies @thegirlwiththebook @writingforhoursonend

As luck would have it, the two of you spent the days before the gala busy beyond belief. From getting ready to leave to spending every bit of time you could learning the layout of the building and city the gala was in, Poe and you never had time to talk about what occurred in the office. You’d had a bad feeling since landing in the city and over the years you’d grown to trust your gut feelings. By the day of the gala, you knew every entrance and exit of the building and had poured over the information on the guests. You honestly weren’t sure what Poe got up to but were grateful he didn’t interrupt your work. He seemed to sense that there was something off and spent his time either going over the information with you or out of the room.

When the day of the gala arrived, you kicked the man out of the room to get ready. He laughed at your threats of bodily harm if he stepped one foot back into the room before you were ready, but left you be. You spent the entire day preparing yourself. Fixing your hair, doing your make up, and finally putting on your dress. When Poe knocked on the door that evening, you tried to quiet your nerves. Smoothing your hands over the front of your dress and taking a calming breath, you walked over and opened the door for him. Then promptly stopped breathing.

He was gorgeous. Dressed to the nines in a black suit with his dark curls slicked back, he was devastatingly handsome. You weren’t sure how exactly you were supposed to focus on your actual job with him in the same room as you. Finally taking a breath, you let your gaze settle on his only to find his dark eyes roaming your figure, hunger evident. He said nothing as he took you in. You were dressed in a floor length dress with a slit that ran to your upper right thigh. The dress was black at the top but faded to a deep red at the bottom. Tied behind your neck and backless, it left very little to the imagination. Your heart began to pound in your chest the longer he went without saying anything. You shifted on your heels and that seemed to be enough to force his gaze back to your eyes. He stepped up to you, leaving barely any space between your bodies.

“Exactly how important is it that we make it to this event?” He growled, his dark eyes fixed on you and burning. With him this close, your senses were flooded with him. The heat from both his body and gaze, the scent of his cologne, the way his pupils ate away his irises. He was as dangerously addicting as any drug, but as much as you wanted to partake, your job came first. Putting a hand to his chest, you stepped back to give yourself some space.

“Dameron, if you ruin my mission, I will be very angry with you.” Raking your eyes over his form, you licked your lips. “Besides, I will likely be beating the women off of you tonight. How am I supposed to focus with you looking the way you do; on top of the way you’re looking at me? Relax with the fuck me eyes, Dameron. We have a job to do.”

“You will be the death of me, sweetness, but as you wish.” He schooled his face to be more relaxed though his eyes still smoldered with intent. “However, when this is over, we will be revisiting the conversation we had in your office.”

“I look forward to it.” He offered you his arm and you took it, the two of you heading down to the ballroom that the gala would be taking place in. As you approached the usher at the door, you watched as the man looked at Poe, to his holopad, then snapped back to look at Poe. You smirked at the brief look of panic that crossed the usher’s face as the two of you reached him.

“C-Captain Dameron! I didn’t realize you would be here tonight!” It was almost adorable, the way the usher tripped over his words. Poe just regarded him with a bored look.

“General Hux and Commander Ren decided my presence would be beneficial. May we go in?” Poe’s tone was bored but brokered no arguments. The usher immediately nodded, opening the door quickly.

“Have a good evening, sir.” As soon as the two of you entered the room, heads began to turn, and whispers started.

“Is that Captain Dameron?”

“He never comes to these events!”

“What’s he doing here?”

“Who’s she?”

“Lucky man/woman.”

“Am I to assume that I cannot murder anyone who looks at you for too long?” Poe whispered in your ear. You forced yourself to keep a straight face but turned slightly to whisper back to him.

“I believe there are many more eyes on you than there are on me.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

“You are insufferable.”

“Mm, and handsome too.”

“So modest.” You tried, and failed, to keep the smirk from your face and Poe huffed a laugh besides you. Eyes scanning the room, you took in that your contact wasn’t here yet and sighed. “Contact isn’t here yet, so I suppose we’ll have to mingle. How fun.”

To keep up appearances, you allowed Dameron to do all the talking as the two of you flowed through the crowds. You only spoke when spoken to and offered the occasional laugh when necessary. It was over an hour before your contact showed up and when he did, the unease you’d been feeling returned. His eyes were shifty, and he fidgeted frequently, as if nervous. You turned your glass in your hand as you watched the man, mulling the situation over. Finally, you turned to Dameron.

“Dameron, honey, I’ll return shortly.” You forced a sickly-sweet smile to your face and leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek. The ladies around the two of you tittered as you seemed to linger for a moment. “Client is here, I’m making contact.”

Poe pressed his own kiss to your cheek in response and nodded as you stepped away.

“See you soon, sweetness.” He murmured, watching as you approached the client and subsequently left with him.

-----

You followed your client, Raena Binette, out of the ballroom and to a secluded office. Alarm bells were still going off in your head, so you kept your distance from him, never letting him at your back. When he insisted you close the office door behind you, you did as he asked but not without checking the hall to make sure you weren’t followed. Facing him fully, you watched as he walked to the desk and picked up the decanter on it and poured himself and you a drink.

“Mr. Binette, I was told you had some information for the First Order.” He held up the glass to you and you took it but didn’t drink from it.

“Straight to the point just like your Commander would be.” Binette leaned against the desk and drank slowly from his glass. His eyes roved your form and you forced yourself not to grimace when he lingered over your chest and legs. “Much more beautiful though.”

“Mr. Binette, I am not here for flattery. I am here because you informed Commander Ren that you had information that would be beneficial for the First Order. If that is not the case, I will be on my way and will inform Commander Ren that you were simply wasting our time.” Raena raised his hands in surrender, reaching behind him and holding up a datacard. You approached him and reached for it, only for him to pull it away and hold it out of your reach. His free hand shot to your waist and dragged you against him. Your eyes narrowed dangerously on him, but he only seemed to smirk.

“You know, you First Order lot can be so predictable. It’s almost pathetic.” You opened your mouth to ask just what the hell that was supposed to mean, but he tossed the card away and clamped his hand down over your mouth. “You see, bitch, right about now my men will have removed Captain Dameron from the premises to await a Resistance transport. They wanted him and in return, I get you. A very nice exchange in my opinion.”

Rage coursed through you at his words. You were not an object, and no one laid their hands on you in such a way unless you wanted them too. You bit down harshly on his hand causing him to rip it away from you with a yelp. You grabbed his hand that rested on your waist and twisted it, forcing the man to turn and fall to his knees. You kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling. Reaching into the slit on your dress, you pulled one of the knives you had stashed in a bandeau and approached him with a wicked smile. Flipping him onto his back, you sat on his chest and placed your knife to his collarbone as you choked him with your other hand. His hands flew to your wrist, but he couldn’t displace you.

“I’m going to give you one chance to tell me where Captain Dameron is.”

“Don’t-don’t kill me and I’ll tell you.”

“Oh, you’ll be dying no matter what. How painfully you do so, depends on how quickly you tell me Where. He. Is.” You dug your knife into the skin below his collarbone causing him to cry out.

“Fuck you.” Your smile turned sadistic.

“So be it.”

------

It took far longer than you expected to get the information from Binette. Yet, once he started talking, it all began to fall together. The Resistance had set up this fake information exchange in hopes of learning who you were. Upon discovering that Poe would be attending the gala, however, they requested his capture instead. Binette asked for you to still be brought in so that he could capture you for himself in exchange for taking the risk of capturing Poe. The Resistance agreed, unable to give up the chance of getting their hands on Poe. You were livid.

Stepping out of the office, you straightened your dress back out. You would need to cut through the gala, wanting to double check that Poe was actually gone before you went off. It wouldn’t do to terrify the masses by being covered in blood. Stepping back into the ballroom, your eyes roamed the room before deducing that Poe was indeed gone. Walking swiftly through the crowd and out the exit, you let your anger consume you. These fools had messed with the wrong person.

It was time to get your pilot back and Maker have mercy on whoever took him.

You wouldn’t.

#poe dameron x reader #first order poe #first order poe dameron #first order reader #first order poe x reader #poe x reader #poe dameron x female reader #miscommunication

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