#i think i said to my friend ‘its a thin line between scabbing and sending covert messages and i think theyre handling it well’ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

plumblossomkun · 4 years

Text

discard[ed]: the origin of MGH.

Word Count: 1.3k

setting: student!Mark & art commissioner!Female Reader

a/n: (inspired by the beautiful vulnerability of my darling friend @starxblossom with her Cherry Wine.) this is, almost word for word, one of the things that happened between me and the boy i thought i loved in my senior year of high school. the fic inspired by this relationship, Mugunghwa, is meant to be realistic, but it is still a romanticization. it’s a result of me seeing said boy after years of not speaking, and i thought to myself, what if? with that being said, please read the warnings. this is not a love story. this is the truth.

warning[s]: alludes to the act of self-harm. descriptions of anxiety and feelings of despair and unrequited love.

Skype Call Transcript, some time in December 2015

B: i was talking to Mark, and uh... he-- he said...

B: jeez, i don’t really wanna say it. *chair creaks in the background*

you: *huffs softly* just tell me. i can handle it.

B: ...fine. *clears throat*

B: he said he didn’t want to be with someone that was emotionally unstable.

you: *very, very softly* oh.

B: yeah....

you: i see. he really said that? *deep inhale*

B: yeah. uh-- are you... mad?

you: no... not mad. *slow exhale*... thanks for telling me.

When Mark walks into Room 13A that Thursday afternoon, you don’t look up from your phone. The hallways are still bustling with students, buzzed for the upcoming weekend, and Winter Ball is tomorrow, so the rest of the committees are trickling in and out, getting their assigned work completed.

You are busy telling your own committee to get their shit together, since none of them are in the room to help you finish making banners advertising the last minute ticket sales.

I should have never volunteered as captain.

For all of these perfectly logical reasons, when Mark leans down and knocks on your desk in greeting, you’re expecting someone else.

Anyone else.

You clear your throat, putting your phone face down on the desk. “Hi.”

He taps the toe of his shoe against the floor, eyes not quite meeting yours, gaze shooting to the desk behind you. You note that his backpack is cinched too tight, and his dark circles are more prominent, like he hasn’t slept well since the last time you’d talked to him-- what had it been, New Year’s Eve? “Hana said you needed help, the other day, doing work.”

“Yes,” you draw out the syllable, watching his fists clench and unclench at his side. Your heartbeat, already beginning to race against your intake of breath, drums a reminder into your chest, of the times his very presence had felt like summer come two seasons too early.

Now, his unsure smile sends ice splintering into your veins. He doesn’t seem to know what words to offer you, to try and mend the strange rift between the two of you, and neither do you.

You pretend the thought hasn’t left you hemorrhaging on the inside, dropping your eyes back to your phone. “You can help color the tearaway for tomorrow’s football game,” you manage to say, pointing him out to the hallway, which is now mostly clear. Your fellow art commissioners are already unfolding their works in progress, refilling the markers with ink, looking for the right music to play.

He nods, and starts to leave-- but pauses at the doorway, looking back at you as he fiddles with the thin silver chain around his neck, holding himself back-- from you.

When was the last time he’d held you?

He greets your fellow art commissioners outside with an enthusiasm he hadn’t reserved for you, and they respond in kind, welcoming him into their fold with laughter.

Sighing, you dig your fingernails into your palms, leaving crescent moon imprints so deep that they bruise. They are not enough for you to forget the breathlessness squeezing your lungs. You shake your head. No, don’t think about him.

Two of your commissioners come back in one last time to return the bottles of ink, waving at you on their way out, and for a long spell, there is silence in 13A, broken only by the mirth outside.

It is the last thing you need, when all you have is the too-loud hum of your heartbeat pulsing through your body, reminding you that it is still beating.

Still feeling.

The door to 13B swings shut behind you, letting in only a sliver of light from the other room. Seeking refuge amongst the mountains of paper and camera equipment in the storage room, you sink onto the ratty old mattress in the corner, and cling to yourself as the world grows small and tight and cold around you.

“I’m strong enough,” you exhale, shuddering, slowly collapsing into yourself until your knees are tucked beneath your chest, trying to fill your head with lies to drown out the siren songs filling your ears. “We can just be friends.”

This doesn’t hurt. This doesn’t hurt. This doesn’t hurt.

You take another breath. This one is a mistake.

Winter rips into you. It starts at your fingertips, then spreads to your hands, leaving you shaking, gasping for air. And though it is like ice has filled your body, stabbing, biting cold, it burns. It scalds your tongue and steals your voice, incinerating your last shred of resistance.

I can’t do this.

I can’t.

You slip a hand into your pocket, running your fingers over the waxen paper hiding there, lying in wait there since that morning, when you’d felt a whisper of frost run down your spine, and took it with you, instead of leaving it at home tucked away in a drawer.

Its paper thin, fragile body betrays the power it holds. And if you didn’t know better, you’d think it was a discarded receipt, a gum wrapper, a piece of scrap. Unfolding the paper, you stare down at the silver lying pristine and keen in the dim light. And when it kisses your skin, the world stills.

One.

Scarlet has never been your favorite color, but how jewel-like the liquid beads and pools.

Two.

The winter spreads from your hands down to your elbows, and you revel in how it finally mutes the ache, puts the pain aside, lifts the weight from your chest.

Three.

In this moment, you can finally breathe.

You go to the bathroom to clean up, so that the white long sleeve you’re wearing doesn’t get stained. On your way out, Mark’s eyes, previously focused on the poster he’d been coloring, close in defeat when he sees you press the paper towel to your wrist, telling him everything he needs to know, and your friends whisper to each other with furrowed brows, not understanding.

You don’t care.

In 13B, you sit back on the mattress and close your eyes.

The door opens with a creak, and shuts even more quietly.

You know exactly who’s come to see you, but you don’t open your eyes until he touches your cheek, his fingers lighter than a butterfly’s kiss.

“Why?” Mark whispers, sinking to his knees in front of you. He picks up your hands in his, and his voice cracks when he repeats the question.

You resent the way his fingers curl and tangle with yours. It makes your heart thrum again, just when you’d gotten it to be quiet and settle down. Why does he make you weak like this?

He places his hand over the already-scabbing lines, and his warmth seeps into them, melting the frost just beneath the skin. You recoil.

The line of his mouth hardens, and suddenly you are in his arms, surrounded by his sweet cologne, so that when he asks you again, “Why?”, and you feel him shaking against you, you can’t deny him.

“I’m fine,” you whisper, unable to stop yourself from clinging to him, despite knowing all too well that the feel of his heartbeat against yours is the curse you’ve been trying to break all this time. “…it’s just the usual problems, at home, you know.”

You hope he never knows he’s the one hurting you.

He pulls back and searches your expression. When you don’t look away fast enough, he sees that you aren’t telling him everything.

And yet he doesn’t press you. Instead, he crushes you to him, and his body shivers against yours. It takes you a moment to realize that he’s crying, warm tears dripping onto your collarbones.

“No, don’t cry--” you sigh, lifting your hands to cup his cheeks. When he leans into your touch, you think that your heart just might shatter into pieces.

I love you.

“Please, don’t do this again,” Mark whispers. To your ears, it sounds like an apology. An apology, for your unspoken confession. “Please.”

So you promise him. You promise him, and not yourself, because you can only spare his heart, not yours. “I won’t.”

He sinks into your embrace, silent tears wetting your shoulder. You close your eyes and swallow the words you can’t say aloud before they choke you.

“I won’t.”

I love you.

#tw: emotional distress #tw: anxiety #tw: mentions of self harm and alludes to self harm #and if you feel strongly about anything i wrote please pop into my inbox :) ♥#stay gold my darlings #i refuse to promote this in any of my regular tags lmao so if you read this thank you

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newkate · 6 years

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The Cure

For @teamblueandangry Kandersgiving event - Day 4: AU/Free

AU where the touch of Justice cures Karl permanently.

(I’m not saying that would have changed the whole plot of DA2 and DAI but yes it would have. I kind of want to write 40K of this but here are the bullet points.)

When they were free and safe, catching their breath on the narrow bed after a messy, shakily desperate reunion, Anders offered to remove the brand from his forehead.

Karl traced the raised ridges of the sunburst with his finger. He’d not seen it in the mirror yet, not since he’d been cured, but he’d already made up his mind.

“No, love, leave it,” he said. “It’s fine. It happened, no point pretending it didn’t. You have plenty of new scars too.”

He ran his hand over the recently healed sword wound over Anders’ heart and leaned in to kiss it.

“Love, my love,” Anders sighed, and then the spirit that had mended Karl’s sundered mind was looking at him from his lover’s eyes, its voice coming from the familiar lips. “They’ll never take another mage. We won’t let them.”

In those half-formed dreams he had, before his dreams were ripped from him altogether, Karl had imagined they’d run away together. They’d hide in some village, never again do magic to avoid any suspicion. They’d have a little farm, a cow and a goat, and they wouldn’t need anything else.

Things were different now. Anders, for all that he still was every bit Karl’s Anders, had become something new: more than human now, indestructible, unstoppable, burning with one purpose: to make this world a just one, a safe one.

And Karl himself was changed, new, bare, tender, like a thin pink skin that’s revealed when a scab comes off.

“I’m just… emotional,” he told Anders’ friend Bethany the next day. She came to visit while Anders saw to his patients, likely because Karl seemed too unstable to leave unsupervised. Even just thinking about that brought him near tears, and he had to bite his lips to stop them from trembling.

Bethany, a sweet little hedge mage half his age, patted his shoulder comfortingly.

“Emotions are good,” she said. “Better than not having any. I was like this all through puberty, I remember. Even now if I hear ‘Andraste’s mabari’ at the wrong time of the month, I’ll bawl my eyes out. But you’ll get used to it. Just cry whenever you need, it really helps.”

He wasn’t going to, would hate for Anders to see him like that. But that same night as soon as they kissed again the tears spilt out, burning and abundant, and Anders held him tight while Karl wept on his shoulder.

“I’m not sad, I’m just - too happy,” he sobbed out, and Anders kissed his hair and said it was all right, and soon it really felt like that.

But, whether he was fine or not, they had work to do.

Samson’s name had been passed around Gallows in whispers, from one trusted friend to another. Before he was given the brand, while he’d still been planning to escape with Anders’ help, Karl had counted on Samson to get them out of Kirkwall, provided they could find the money.

“Apparently, if an escaped mage can’t come up with coin, Samson sends them to some unsavoury people,” he explained. “Some of them could be slavers. We need to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

Anders promised Samson any treatment that could ease the pains of Lyrium withdrawal, Karl promised not to burn him alive, and just like that, Samson was now working for them. Soon he brought them their first mage runaways, Feynriel and Olivia, and Karl had students again. Olivia’s father tipped them about the escaped Starkhaven mages, and with their friends’ help they brought them in, too. They all spent some weeks turning the sewers into a decent enough place to live, for themselves and other refugees. Between them they could provide clean water and safe fire, they could reshape stone and light darkness. They diverted the sewage away from the living spaces, widened the gaps in the rock to let in more light, and began trading their skills and knowledge for food and necessities.

The plan was coming together.

A few weeks later Karl felt strong enough to talk about what had happened to him, and asked Anders to take him back to the chantry. There he prayed before Andraste’s statue for courage and then approached the Grand Cleric and pushed his hood off to show her the brand.

“I am a Harrowed mage,” he said. “I was illegally made Tranquil, against my will, by Ser Alric. With, I suspect, Knight-Commander’s full knowledge and approval.”

“This seems highly unlikely,” she said calmly. “You don’t sound like a Tranquil. Are you sure your brand isn’t a fake, child?”

“I… got better,” he said, already trembling, overcome with anger and frustration. “Will you bring them to justice?”

“The misdeeds of the Templars are the Knight-Commander’s domain. You should speak to her.”

“As I said, I believe she had a hand in this.”

“You seem to be here without templar escort,” she said. “Am I to understand I’m speaking to an escaped apostate? If you wish me to start the investigation and have a chance to take this to trial, you must turn yourself in. That’s the proper way to see the justice done.”

“I’m not going back to the Circle. I’m not safe there. That’s where I was illegally made Tranquil.”

“There’s little I can do on a hearsay from an apostate, I’m afraid.”

He stumbled away from her, weeping in strange, inexplicable, helpless shame, and Anders put his arms around him and led him outside, into the light.

“I want to ask your spirit,” he said when he could speak again. “Can murder be justified? Am I consumed by my anger?”

Anders had killed many templars to save him, Karl knew. He’d killed before, too, in his time with the Wardens. Perhaps even earlier, if he was cornered during his many escapes. But for Karl that would be a new line to cross.

“Justice isn’t vengeance,” Anders said. “It’s not about an eye for an eye. It’s about creating a better world. I believe this particular murder would go a long way toward that goal.”

They ambushed Alric the very next day on his way from the brothel. Karl forced him to his knees and pressed his fingers to Alric’s forehead, and set his brain on fire.

He was ill for days afterwards, unable to keep anything down, his hand sore as if his own fire had harmed him. The catharsis had brought some measure of solace, he supposed.

Hawke was about to head out on his daredevil expedition, and Anders declined to go and leave Karl behind.

“Well, without the Warden and the healer this enterprise just became a lot more dangerous,” Hawke said. “I understand, it’s just that I wanted to take Bethany with me, to make sure the templars don’t snatch her while I’m away. Now I’m not so sure.”

“She can stay with us,” Karl offered, and she did.

While they waited they took her, Merrill, a few Strakhaven mages and Fenris all around Kirkwall, trying to dig deeper into the grizzly matter that was brought to Hawke by Ser Emeric.

“If we are to live free among other free people, we have to do our part in fighting those who use magic for evil,” Karl said. He knew Fenris still had reservations about their little commune, and it seemed important to show him their dedication. Karl’s right palm still itched a little, but he mostly ignored it. Solving this crime would be the comfort he needed. “We know a mage is involved. We will find and stop them.”

They kept digging, and eventually came to the end of their search. The dead murderer’s secret room held some remnants of his horrific experiments, and a shrine to a woman who looked disconcertingly like Bethany’s mother.

“Imagine if this creep met her and became obsessed with her,” Bethany said and turned the portrait to face the wall. “Well, she’s safe now.”

Orsino stared at Karl, fascinated. They’d arranged the meeting in the Darktown, and the old man’s huge eyes were watering, perhaps from the stench, perhaps from the same emotion that had Karl on edge of tears too.

“Unbelievable,” he said again. “Karl, I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you. But this, this is a miracle.”

“It’s a simple enough cure,” Anders said. “I can do it with a single touch, but summoning a spirit isn’t difficult. Anyone can do it. We can cure everyone, and we don’t have to be afraid any longer. The templars have lost their best weapon.”

“This changes everything,” Orsino agreed. “I will make sure the other Circles know. This can not be silenced.”

“I’ll cure everyone I can get my hands on,” Anders said. “Anyone you can send my way. Afterwards we’ll take care of them right here, in this sanctum we’ve built, among our people. We’ll nurture them through their recovery, help them face the horrors they might have been put through. Make sure they heal, the way they’d never be able to if we send them back to Circles. This is what we’ve been working toward.”

“That’s very good,” said Orsino. “A good start. Let me talk to other First Enchanters. I understand you’re overjoyed to be free and together, and you might not be seeing the bigger picture yet.”

Later that year the conclave had voted for separation of the Circles from the Chantry, and the uprisings were on the way. Grand Cleric Elthina left Kirkwall, fearing for her safety. The Nevarran accord was broken, but the Templars and the Seekers both were in disarray, a lot of them opposing the order once the truth of the Rite of Tranquility was known.

The Gallows stood empty, following a swift uprising of mages fully supported by the new Viscount. Dumar had retired to rebuild his relationship with his son, and named Hawke his successor. Hawke, friend of the mages, darling of the nobility after all the favours he’d done for them, a close friend of the new Starkhaven king and even a trusted ally of the Arishok, ruled well and fair, even though there were rumours that his friend Varric did most of the work. Once the Kirkwall mages rebelled, Hawke sent in the city guard to fight on their side. After a short siege, with the mages who’d not escaped by then holding the Gallows and keeping the templars trapped in the courtyard, the templars ran out of lyrium and surrendered.

For a few happy years Karl and Anders lived and worked side by side, teaching the children, curing the Tranquil, building a community that accepted mages as their own. They penned a few papers together arguing for the rights of mages, outlining their ideas for peaceful coexistence.

“What would I do without you,” Anders kept saying. “I swear, without you, without your love, I’d given up a long time ago.”

“I know you too well,” Karl said. “You’d never give up.”

Still, it was good to know he was helping. It was good to be alive, to be able to love, to be loved. His unruly emotions had mostly settled down, except for one: he was still as overcome by tenderness and desire whenever Anders touched him, looked at him, smiled at him. But that they could certainly live with.

There was a call for help from a rebelling Circle, and they gathered a fighting force of battle mages and set off. Halfway into their march the forward scouts brought back an elf in tattered clothing. He seemed weak and confused, he refused to talk, and he was clutching a strange dark orb to his chest.

“Friend,” called Justice to him as soon as he came near. “I know, this is strange. Like you, I didn’t want a body, but you will see, you will understand the beauty of this world. You will love it. I will help you.”

“What?” Karl asked, but Justice only kept beaming at the man, and didn’t explain. Karl could sense the man’s power, though. Definitely a mage, in need of shelter, food, probably healing. “Well, he’s right, anyway. You’re among friends now. You’ll see, we’re good people.”

#kandersgiving 2017 #dragon age #anders #karl thekla saves the world #my fic #i really wanted to do all four prompts okay

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