#it reminds me of frankenstein heavy sob | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

buckyownsmylife · 4 years

Text

There’s a Light Over at the Frankenstein place - Sebastian Stan fluff

The one where you’ve been set up on a blind date with Sebastian Stan, with whom you had briefly worked and considered to be a friend. The only problem is, does he feel the same way?

Warnings: light angst? I’m incapable of writing anything without a happy ending, so do not worry.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“Seb?” I asked, honestly surprised to find him walking in with who I assumed to be his mother, by the similarity of their constitutions. His eyes met mine and I could swear he blushed, before looking down to his shoes and averting his eyes to his godmother, who stood next to me.

“You two are witches, do you know that?” He provoked, to which the two women simply giggled. I looked from one woman to the other, not being able to contain the sheepish smile trying to fight its way into my expression.

“I can’t believe this,” I teased Anastasia, who simply rolled her eyes at me, before nudging me with her elbow.

“Well, you couldn’t stop talking about him since you two met, so we decided to help,” she explained and it was my turn to roll my eyes.

“So I say that I finally met your grandson and that he really is nice and you read that I’m in love with him? Remind me to never say something to you again, Lord knows how you’re going to interpret it,” she blushed at the comment, but it was obvious by my smile that I was only joking. “Listen, if I have to go out with anyone tonight, I’m glad it’s with you, Seb.” I winked in his direction and didn’t miss the fact that he, yet again, blushed under my gaze.

Georgeta, Sebastian’s mom, grinned at me like I had hung the moon in the sky. I remembered he had told me how big of a fan of my work she was and so I made sure to hug her and introduce myself since he didn’t seem to be too eager to do so at that moment. Soon enough, both she and Anastasia kissed us goodbyes and with their last reminders to behave, finally left us be.

I wasn’t lying about what I had said. I was so incredibly grateful that my blind date turned out to be Sebastian, not only because I thought he was actually cute, but because he was someone I was already comfortable with and I hated the idea of spending my Thursday night with a complete stranger who could bore me to death. There was absolutely no possibility that was going to happen, though, since he was my company.

Despite the fact that we hadn’t known each other for that long, the two weeks we had spent together on set was one of the best experiences of my life. He was simply so freaking funny and considerate and I couldn’t forget the feeling that filled my heart when we spent the whole night looking up at the stars and talking about our greatest fears. It was so nice to find someone who understood my problems with anxiety so well, but every time I thought about the suffering this incredible human being went through because of it, I wanted to wrap him in a blanket cocoon and never let him leave my arms again.

“So…” I started, seeing as we were both still one in front of the other and he hadn’t made any movement that indicated his decision to sit down at the table Anastasia and I had picked when we arrived. “Do you want to stay here or would you rather go somewhere else?” I asked, watching as he finally looked me in the eyes, scratching his nape.

“Whatever you wish, darling…” he stated, but I could still see the clear discomfort in his stance. I looked around me once, weighing the trendy restaurant his godmother had brought me to before voicing what I had already decided.

“Let’s get out of here,” I pulled him to me by the sleeve of his coat, locking our arms together before we let the cold air of Los Angeles’ evening hit us.

“Where are we going?” he questioned and I simply glanced at him, a smile on my lips.

“You’ll see.” Was my only answer as I quickly made my way towards the spot I had in mind. The walk was silent, despite the fact that I tried to come up with something to say a thousand times, but his disquiet threw me off completely. I knew blind dates were awkward, but seeing that we already knew each other, I was expecting at least some kind of conversation, since I considered us to be friends.

My feet took me to a well-known path and soon enough I found myself in front of my favorite bar in LA. I spent too much time during my visits here, but I had never brought any of my friends here before.

“What is this?” Sebastian asked, his bright blue eyes shining under the bar’s neon sign.

“The favorite place in this city,” I explained, pushing in the doors to let us in. Instantly, the familiar buzz of excited voices and the dim lights welcomed me to the environment I came to know so well.

“Hey, Peter!” I shouted over the other voices gathered around the bar, excitedly waving at the barman.

“Y/N! I wasn’t expecting you around here these days!” The muscular man behind the counter shouted back, his hands occupied with wiping down a few glasses. I simply shrugged, sticking my tongue out.

“You know I’m full of surprises.” I giggled.

“That I do. What can I get you today?” I glanced at Sebastian, but as he was too occupied staring at his feet, I decided to let it go.

“I’ll have a beer, please.”

“And your friend?” I remained quiet, not looking at Sebastian as I waited for him to say something. To be honest, I was getting pretty pissed now.

“Oh, nothing for me, thank you.” That was it. As I accepted the bottle Peter offered me, I walked around the bar and chose a seat right in front of the barman, just under the tv, so I could get a good view of the game that was playing.

“Do you want me to look if there’s a soccer game on?” The bartender knew me too well.

“Yes, please,” I smiled gratefully at him, taking a swig of my beer. From the corner of my eye, I could see Sebastian changing his weight from one foot to another. Oh, so he was getting uncomfortable. Good. Maybe now he’d understand how I felt.

“Do you want to stay by the bar?” His voice reached me and it sounded timid. I raised an eyebrow.

“Well, seeing as I wasn’t expecting you to stick around, I figured it’d be better for me to remain here than to be left alone at a table.” Sebastian frowned at my words as I cursed myself for being mesmerized by the blue in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” I took a deep breath when I realized he truly looked confused.

Turning in my chair, I abandoned the game I was only pretending to watch and fixed my attention on my date for the night. “Sebastian, it’s okay. You can go back to your place. I promise I won’t tell your godmother, we can just say it didn’t work out or whatever. I just can’t bear this vibe anymore, I hate to see how uncomfortable you seem to be by me even though I thought we were friends until tonight.” I scoffed, feeling incredibly silly under his piercing gaze. I had to look down at my shoes before continuing.

“It’s so stupid, I was expecting to have a terrible night. And then when I saw you getting into the restaurant with your mother, I was hopeful that at least I would have fun. After all, I love your company.” Huffing, I straightened up on the chair, still not looking him in the eyes. “I’m sorry if you felt embarrassed at the prospect of going on a date with me. This could have been simply a night out between friends.”

“I don’t want to be your friend.” The words froze me in my spot, making my insides feel like they would burst and kill me on the spot at any minute, now. The shock finally made me look up to meet his eyes, and the encounter made it seem like he was surprised by his own words as well. “Shit. That’s not what I meant.”

Trembling, I left my chair and reached for my purse blindly, already turning around in search of the bar’s exit. “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain,” I whispered, despite knowing he probably wouldn’t listen over the loud sounds surrounding us.

Quick steps took me outside of the building and the cold wind from the night sobered me up. What the fuck was that? My mind wasn’t working fast enough to catch up with what was going on, but my heart felt up to date, as I could feel it breaking into a thousand pieces.

It was stupid, but I knew I had a crush on Sebastian. And despite knowing he’d never feel attracted to me, I just never expected him to not even want to be my friend.

Sebastian’s P.O.V.

I was stuck on the same spot Y/N had left me, mulling over my own stupidity when at last something clicked and I found myself running out of the bar to look for her. Thankfully, she wasn’t very far so I managed to reach her just before she crossed the street.

“Wait, please,” I asked, grabbing her by the shoulder. I was expecting her to pull away or at least yell at me, but when she turned around with tears in her eyes, I knew I had screwed up. “Shit. Fuck. C’mon, doll, please don’t cry over me.” I pulled her for a hug, which she thankfully didn’t refuse, but she didn’t reciprocate either. Well, small steps. At least she was still here.

I let her cry against my sweater as I pondered over my own stupidity. Why was I like this? I hurt the only person in the world I didn’t want to hurt and now my own heart was heavy, not only with regret but also with fear. I was terrified of the prospect of losing Y/N.

Her cute little sobs started to soften and I felt it was safe to pull away from her just enough so that I could get a clear view of her face, which I quickly held between my hands. “Doll, I’m so sorry. God, I’m such an idiot, and I understand if you hate me and don’t want to see me ever again, but please just let me explain. When I said I didn’t want to be your friend… What I meant was… I would love nothing more than to be more than friends. I was actually the one who asked my mother and my godmother to set us up on a date.”

She blinked once and then twice, her lips stuck in a pout as the tears disappeared from her eyes. “I-I don’t understand…” She raised her coat’s sleeve to wipe her face as she stared up at me, her brows furrowed as she tried to make sense of what I had just shared.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“I’ve had the biggest crush on you since we met.” My eyebrows rose all the way to my hairline at those words. I even snorted, 100% not believing what he had just said.

“Well, you have a weird way of showing that, Sebastian.” He chuckled, looking down at his shoes before meeting my eyes again.

“You’re not wrong. I… I am so bad at dealing with what I feel about you, in fact, that I had to resort to my godmother’s matchmaking skills. And you saw how she gets… But I wanted to get through with it, because otherwise, I wouldn’t know how to ask you out.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I tilted my head as I crossed my arms, the picture of annoyance.

“Then why the hell did you treat me like a nuisance? I mean, you’ve barely said a word to me all night!” It was hard to ignore how cute he looked with his cheeks slightly tinted pink, but I tried to. I wanted to be angry, I had every right to be irritated!

“Yeah, well… Turns out my plan wasn’t as great as I thought. When I saw you in that restaurant…” His phrase was interrupted by a low whistle. “I could only think something along the lines of shitfuckshit she looks too great ohmygod I’m gonna ruin this fuckfuckfuck abort mission abort.” Now, I had to laugh. And just like that, I could feel that warm fuzzy feeling that took over me whenever I was near Sebastian, and he knew it. His small, shy smile was begging me to forgive him when I had already done it.

“You’re too cute for your own good, Stan.” Pulling him by the lapels of his coat, I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss on his lips, before separating our heads to gather his reaction. He was wide-eyed, but obviously not displeased, as his gaze kept traveling from my own eyes to my lips while he licked his.

“Well, so far I’d say it’s been highly advantageous to me.” Giggling, I allowed him to embrace me until our chests were pressed tightly together. “Think you can spare me another kiss?” I frowned in fake confusion at his question.

“Before you take me out on a proper date? You must be confusing me with another woman, good sir.” Now, it was his turn to laugh.

“That’s fair. Where to, milady?” I accepted the arm he was offering me while giving him a mischievous look.

“Anywhere, as long as you talk to me, silly.” The smile he gave me made me melt as I hugged his arm and allowed him to guide me through the night.

#sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan fluff #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan insert #sebastian stan insert fanfiction #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan writing #my fics #fluff #sebastian stan #sebastian stan angst #angst

128 notes · View notes

prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years

Text

A Deep and Rapid River, Ch. 9

<- Chapter 8 | Chapter 10 ->

@sexy-opium-ravioli asked me to write a comfort Frankenstein fic so instead I did this [stares at the camera]

cw: suicidal ideation

Heavy raindrops pound on the wood-shingle roof, each impact combining into a chorus that roars in your ears in the pitch-black darkness. It’s like you’re being swallowed by a great beast. The entire building creaks, straining against the wind, making your heart race with the fear that it might all come crashing down on top of you as you lay clutching the covers in bed.

A deafening crack and blinding surge of light is followed shortly by a second, earthier crack and a dull thud on grass. Lightning hit one of the trees in the pasture.

In the middle of this raging tempest through which no living being could survive, there comes a scratch at your shutter. The curtains flutter as wind suddenly swirls inside, and the roar of rain grows louder. Something is coming into your bedroom.

Another flash of lightning reveals the silhouette of a massive figure, drenched and dripping, standing in front of the window. The blast of thunder that shortly follows makes the enormous figure jump, and rush, trembling like a kitten, to your bedside.

You take his deformed and scarred hand in yours, and squeeze it.

“I do not like thunder,” his grave voice whispers through gasping, timid breaths. Your beautiful, sweet creature. You never want anything to hurt him. An aching sadness washes over you anew, quivering your lower lip.

He notices you are shaking, frantic, frazzled, and puffy-eyed. He doesn’t look much better.

“When you did not come, I feared for you.” He licks his lips nervously. “I ascertained that you were within the house, but were under guard, and I could not reach you. Please tell me you are unharmed—if anything has happened to you, I shall not forgive my cowardice.”

Without warning, a sob chokes you, and hot tears roll down your face. The monster, filling up half your small cottage bedroom, doffs his wet cloak and pulls your crying form against his warm, broad chest like an extension of the furniture and holds you, rubbing your back and cooing soft words of comfort. You hide your face against him, trying to disappear as muffled sobs wrack your shoulders.

“What is wrong?” he asks with a voice so fragile from your silence that the answer might break him.

“Just let me hold you for awhile. Please.”

You feel him shudder against you, and surround you in his warm arms like a cocoon. It’s a long time before you can collect yourself enough to tell him what happened.

*****

“Like hell we are!” you snapped impulsively as soon as Ferdinand announced your “engagement.” Your fists clenched into tight balls of righteous fury. He was delusional. You were leaving.

Then your father stared at you—that dark, severe stare that threatened violence if you did not behave. “Mind your tongue, child!” he snapped, and your tongue stopped moving, and all of the smart words that had been on the tip of it just disappeared. It was so strange. You had been frightened to run, terrified, but you were ready. Just like that, all the oxygen seemed to drain from the room as Ferdinand, your father, and your mother surrounded you, reminding you of your place in the world and how helpless you were in it.

Your fiery ember dropped into a bucket of water.

You sat in the living room, trapped like a rabbit in a snare, crawling inside your own skin as reality washed over you. They laid out the situation. There were rumors around town—serious ones—that you’ve been consorting with the devil. Half the village thought you were a witch. It wouldn’t be long before something terrible came of it, but Ferdinand had graciously offered to make you his wife, and in doing so, put the rumors to bed. So you would marry him. He was well-liked among the superstitious factions, and could get them to leave you alone if he made you an honest woman. (You growled at the implications of that particular phrase.)

Ferdinand sneered with self-satisfaction, his voice dripping with honey as he said how much he worried for you.

They were pressing you into the marriage and would hear no arguments, no back-talk. They suspected you might run, and wouldn’t let you out of their sight—your mother, your father, and Ferdinand.

You were prey. There was nothing you could do to fight.

The sky grew ever darker and more ominous with each passing minute you spent ensnared, until you knew you had missed the rendezvous time. Your heart twisted—if your daemon were wise, he had left already without you. Thinking of the alternative—that he had stayed, and would be discovered—your chest twisted even tighter. Marrying Ferdinand was a get-out-of-jail-free card for you, but the creature’s life was in irrevocable mortal jeopardy.

“You can’t force me to marry him!” you whimpered to your mother, praying for a sympathetic ear when you were left alone with her for a moment. She was horrible, but she was a woman. She must understand, at least a little, what they were doing to you.

She patted you softly on the shoulder, but her eyes stayed hard. “Your grandmother remembered when they burned a witch right in the center of town. Believe me, this gossip is not something to take lightly. Making you a proper wife is the only way to make people see that you are a normal girl. If you do not, then you shall no longer be our daughter, and we cannot protect you from whatever shall happen next.”

You tried to speak, but your tongue was dry. You kept trying to swallow the dryness away, but it stuck in your throat. You wanted to rage, to scream against them, to be on fire, but your blood had all turned to ice.

This was happening, and there was nothing you could do but accept it.

*****

The creature strokes your cheek gently, his sympathetic and sorrowful yellow eyes glistening in the erratic flashes of light from the storm. “I am sorry I could not protect you. I am here now; let us depart under the cloak of night.”

Your head shakes in tense arcs before you decide to make them, your throat closing up. “You don’t understand—I can’t.”

The dark shadow shaped like his body becomes a tense, rigid statue. “What do you mean?” he says, cautiously.

“I can’t!” you repeat, as if he’s the one not making sense and your feelings should need no explanation, but you explain anyway, the words gushing out like a flooded river. “Maybe I wanted to, I thought I could, but it isn’t realistic. Look at the storm outside! I can’t run away in the middle of this—it frightens even you, doesn’t it? You couldn’t protect me should a thunderbolt strike me on the head! What will we do during weather such as this without any shelter? With my family monitoring me like a prisoner, I could not even finish packing—I haven’t the food and water to survive a week away from home! Where could we go, anyway? You cannot guarantee Victor Frankenstein will take us in! He may just as likely kill us! They think me a witch here, where everyone has known me since I was a baby. I will be a witch in the next town. We will be pariahs wherever we go.”

You wished he would yell, that he would argue, or be consumed in a fit of emotion—that would be better somehow—instead, he listens to your fearful list of excuses silently, with no reaction but his shoulders slowly falling and a soft, pained growl deep in his throat.

“D-don’t you see?” you explain frantically as if he had been arguing back. “We don’t need to run. They never spoke of you as more than rumor—those hunters, and Bess, they must not have been believed as any more than superstition. Every town has its ghost stories. There is no bloodthirsty mob, so long as I marry him. We can stay here and keep you hidden. We’ll be safe.”

“Safe?” he growls, but only softly and without malice. He can no longer bear to listen quietly. “You wish to marry him?” You hoped he would be angry, but his voice is a wavering medley of betrayal and confusion, and the pang it leaves in your heart is almost too much to bear.

“Of course not, but I have no choice.”

“Yes, you do. Run away with me tonight.” An angry bolt of lightning splintered another tree out in the pasture, making you both jump, and providing the counterpoint to his argument for you. “Tell me you want to marry him,” he reaches out with a large hand that could cover your entire head, and delicately strokes your cheek. His eyes glisten with longing. “Tell me you want this and I will go. I shall live the rest of my life a miserable wretch, but I shall bear it, knowing you are happy.”

“Y-you once told me you wouldn’t care if I was with other men, so long as I came back to you. Maybe we could…”

That finally gets a rise out of him. “We could what?” he snaps, cutting you off. “You desire to marry another, and keep me hidden away in a barn—a filthy secret for you to visit at your leisure—to make love to when you are not sharing a bed with your husband? Is that… what you want?” The energy and indignation he had begun with fades away to a lame sort of helplessness by the end.

You know how pathetic you sound. How weak. It was the last thing you expected of yourself, too. You had always walked to your own beat, never fit in, and never cared what anyone thought of you—at least not enough to change for their benefit. You always dreamed of running away one day.

But you hadn’t.

No matter how much you had dreamed it—and even one exhilarating day had packed a bag and chased an eight-foot monster into the forest, convinced that you might run away with him—you never actually did. So many years waiting in misery, and all of that time you could have run.

But you wouldn’t. The moment the fantasy began to crystallize into reality, you froze with terror. You never would.

You only wish you had realized this before hurting him. Your precious daemon stares back at you expectantly, fiercely blinking his watery yellow eyes to fight off tears he won’t let fall in front of you. He’s waiting for you to assure him that this is a mistake—that he’s more to you than a sexual pet—and your heart twists with shame.

“Here is bad, but here is safe. It’s that kind of bad that’s all I’ve ever known. That sharp, snow-covered peak you can see from the barn has stood there, unchanging since I was born. It was there watching over our valley before my parents were born. The alpine winds have shaped it for thousands of years, since before the great pyramids of Egypt. Maybe I am like that mountain. Maybe I can never change, no matter how much I want to.”

It’s not the answer he hoped for. His jaw clenches. He had come here thinking you were running away together at last, and finally, finally, the weight of what is happening sinks in. You watch as the hope goes out of his eyes. Lightning flashes behind him, a little more distantly now. His throat bobs as he swallows.

“Please don’t look away,” you sob, begging. Something inside you is breaking with him.

Footsteps creak on the stairs and the faint orange glow of a candle filters under the door. “Are you talking to someone in there?” demands your mother’s shrill voice just as the door to your bedroom swings open. Your mother gasps in horror.

“You’ve left the window open, you fool child!” She clucks disapprovingly and rushes to shut it, closing the drenched curtains over it once it is latched tight. The shadow of the creature is gone. “What were you thinking? Of running away?” she snaps.

Yes, you want to scream. You hate her. Pinpricks of tears sting your eyes, and you wish you had disappeared into the night, too, for a vengeful bolt of lightning to release you from your misery.

Then she does something that surprises you. She sighs, and sits at the edge of your bed, her weight making a sinkhole on the straw-filled mattress. “My baby girl, you’re crying. They say it isn’t right for a bride to cry on her wedding night, but we know better.” She smiles sadly and wipes a tear from your cheek. “I wanted to run away, too,” she says quietly. Her gaze drifts over the window thoughtfully, like she was imagining a different life. In the flickering candlelight, you wonder if she could almost see it, that other life. You wonder what it was. “But if I had, where would you be?!” Her voice is back to an accusing, judgment-laden shrill. “I’ve tried so hard with you, to get you to grow up. You finally came to your senses—you’re not a child anymore, you can’t just do whatever you want. Life isn't a fairy tale. Life isn’t about being happy… it’s about doing what you have to do. Don’t disappoint me.”

When she leaves and returns downstairs, you give a cursory but hopeful search under the bed and in the corners and shadows for the creature, but he is gone. You had seen him disappear into the loft at the slightest sound of footsteps dozens of times, and you know he had fled out the window and is miles away by now. You wonder if he had returned to the barn, but you know in your heart that he’s gone. It’s already too late. You saw the way he had looked at you before your mother interrupted. Betrayed. Wounded. Finished.

He must hate you.

You throw open the shutters again and look out on the dark, windswept landscape. Heavy, cold rain pummels your face, soaking your night dress instantly and making your squint and shiver against it. There is no sign of him, though above the howling of the wind, you imagine that you hear him howling, desperate and anguished. You could jump from here, you think. You could lash together your bed sheets and climb down undetected, and—

A bolt of lightning strikes a tree in front of the house and it explodes to splinters as a cataclysm of thunder bursts open your ears. The blinding-white flash fills your room and your senses, sets all your hairs standing on end, and for several moments after you can’t see or hear a thing. Am I alive? you wonder first. Is he scared? you worry a second later. When your eyes finally adjust to the dark again, you can see the smoldering embers of the destroyed trunk, its crown lying in pieces on the ground. One branch had scarcely missed the roof, and had you jumped from your window a moment before, you certainly would have been hit.

If only you had been, a part of you screams against your skull. It’s the only way out, now. Jump from the window! it insisted, its voice weaving harsh fingers of smoke through your mind. Run, slipping in the wet grass with your ankle broken into the night and find him, or be eaten by a bear. Let a branch fall and crush your pathetic body. Let the lightning take you to Hell.

You close the shutter, and latch it.

Shaking, you return to your bed and lay on top of the covers. The depression in the mattress from your mother is still flattening out. Wet spots on the blanket are the only memento of the creature’s visit. You remember what it felt like to be held, warm and safe in his arms just moments ago, and try to tuck the memory away somewhere it will never be lost. Somewhere you can look back at it in the years to come. You’ll never feel that way again.

It would be a mistake to run.

You're making the right choice.

You don’t want to die. Surviving means doing what you have to do.

You're making the right choice.

You repeat it to yourself over and over, shivering alone on top of your bed until the black sky turns to grey, and the birds start to sing a summer chorus—first one melodic song, then a jarring metallic buzz, a repetitive whistle, and more and more add their voices until it swells into a cacophony in the purple dawn. The storm must have passed some time in the night without your noticing. It doesn’t matter. You made your choice and broke your own wings.

You made the right choice.

#frankenstein #Frankenstein's Monster #monster x reader #the creature x reader #monster x human #my writing #lo siento por esto XD #I hope I don't make you wait another 4 months for an update >_>

72 notes · View notes

grumpyhedgehogs · 5 years

Text

Lay Me to Rest in a Bed of Wildflowers

Summary: Various citizens give The Judge flowers. Dep realizes a few things.

Part One: Here Part Two: Here

Notes: This one was a long time in coming. I started work on it a week or so after the first part, had to split it in two, lost the draft, started a new one, found the old draft, stitched them into some Frankenstein’s monster, and spent another three days finishing and editing. At this point, if there are any grammar mistakes they’re just gonna have to stay there. But I had a lot of fun finishing this trilogy and I hope you enjoy some angst/fluff/flowers! As always, spoilers for Far cry 5 and Far cry New Dawn, please do not read if you are not finished/mind being spoiled.

P.S.: The titles of the trilogy refer to a trial, execution and funeral.

”You remember the people here. They’re your friends, and you want to help them.”

Carmina

Carmina started with cherry blossoms. It was a cherry tree she so often found Dep leaning against- it was the farthest tree on the property, just on the edge between the ranch and the treeline. She knew it made her parents nervous whenever they saw Dep leaning against that old trunk, staring distractedly into the darkness of the forest. Hell, it scared Carmina plenty.

But Dep wouldn’t run now. Not after Carmina’s mother had asked them not to.

That didn’t mean they didn't think about it; Carmina could practically see it in the air around their head as they leaned against the trunk of the cherry tree, unheeding of the twigs and leaves getting caught in their hood. She could feel it, an aura around them when she got too close, needling at the skin.

When Dep got like this the whole house seemed to grind to a halt. She’d caught her father with his hand on the doorknob, frozen between rushing out and leaving them be. Her mother’s grip on the counter as she watched through the open window was white-knuckled and rigid. It was a storm brewing, demanding to be seen but too far away to be touched, too powerful to be warded off.

Carmina plucked a few blossoms from a low-hanging bough as she passed and held them to her nose, eyes never wavering from the dark figure. The tree rarely ever produced fruit these days; it was too old, too twisted, too broken by the bombs to do more than survive. Maybe that was why Dep liked it so much. They’d found a kindred spirit.

They were silent- so out of character!- as she stepped up beside them, but they accepted the flowers readily enough when she offered them.

“You should smell them,” she prompted but wasn’t too disappointed when they simply tilted their head at her. At least Dep wasn’t looking at the dark anymore. “They’re my favorite scent. Besides Mom’s cooking, I guess.”

Dep’s fingers played lightly over the petals for a moment, as if memorizing their texture. They held them back out doubtfully. Carmina smiled, fondness tugging at her chest, and folded the gloved fingers gently over the flowers. “Keep them. They’ll remind you of me.”

Cherry blossoms meant renewal. Carmina figured Dep already knew that.

She gave them lavender next.

Ever since her mother had pointed it out, Carmina couldn’t help but jerk awake every time she heard them creeping out at night. They never seemed to remember the floorboard to the right of the top stair creaked like something out of a haunted house.

She’d lay staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed yet unseeing, until the screen door’s hinges whined again in the early hours and cat-like footsteps crept back up the stairs. Only then did Carmina’s heart stop thumping so very hard against her ribs.

She dropped a sprig of lavender in their hands the next morning. “You’re keeping me up,” she told them, and refused to feel guilty about the slump of their shoulders. The bags under her eyes were heavy. “It helps sleep.” They also meant peace, but again, these were unneeded explanations.

The apple and orange blossoms she actually felt a little bad about, seeing as they could easily have turned to fruit. But- well. The Dep was a little more important.

“For peace,” she murmured when they looked up at her. The summery early evening was just beginning to chill, and Carmina could feel the tip of her nose numbing. The flowers in their yard were fragrant; Dep looked as at peace as she’d ever seen them. Not that that was saying much. “And family. Now come on, Mom’s let Dad break out the grill and I need you around to help put the fire out.”

Carmina didn’t have to look back to know they were just a step behind her the whole way.

Grace

Grace found them crouching in the dirt. They were not trying to be sneaky now- she could hear them crunching around in the drying, dead leaves of the late summer. The whole yard around what used to be John Seed’s ranch smelled of green and damp and growth; Grace suspected that just might be what Dep needed right about now.

(She had Nana help her with the flowers. The old woman was surprisingly patient, explaining every color, helping her with textures and structures and arrangement and Grace had never put this much thought into a bunch of dead plants in her entire life.)

It was quiet out in the yard except for the ambient noise of the wilderness. Dep liked birdsong; they used to go out in the early morning and sit on the porch of the Rye’s home, just waiting to hear which bird would be the first to wake. Grace would come around with coffee sometimes.

“Do you remember the birds, Dep?”

They stilled and Grace could hear their labored breathing.

(Kim, when she led Grace outside, had quietly explained the Deputy was trying to build a garden. “It’s the only time they’ve been calm out here,” Kim had confided and Grace’s throat had tightened at the strained tone in her voice.)

They must have been tilling the earth for the new seeds; Grace could smell the fresh soil. It was nice.

Leaves crunched underfoot as the Deputy stood slowly. Grace could almost see their shoulders, thin under such a large jacket (“Like a goddamn bear hide or some shit,” Nick had told her over the radio once, months ago now), tensing up somewhere near their ears. They never liked to be snuck up on.

“Do you remember the bluejays?” She asked, loud in the uneasy quiet. Grace’s ears were straining harder than ever, unseeing eyes darting from side to side; she felt them moving, unbidden, in her skull. But she wasn’t scared of anything but the Dep running. They were so very good at running.

“They were your favorite, Dep,” Grace said, something desperate and hot rising to the base of her throat at their silence. She had never hated the quiet so much as now. “You would point them out every time we hunted together- you- you liked when they were the first ones to sing in the morning.”

A noncommittal grunt. A foot shifting in the dirt. The crunch of dry twigs. Birds singing, branches clattering in a slight breeze. A soft exhale.

“I brought coffee but you preferred tea because caffeine made your hands shake when you held a bow,” Grace tried.

Footsteps padded towards her but stopped a few yards- too far, too far- away. She heard their breath hitch violently in their chest.

She couldn’t cry. She never cried, not even at the end of the goddamn world. “You liked jasmine tea because the flowers were pretty. We shared it. You taught me about the birds every morning.”

Nothing. The birds wouldn’t stop singing. She didn’t know whether that was such a good thing anymore.

Finally, heart in her mouth, Grace stepped forward and thrust out her fist. The flowers would be crushed at the stems, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Nana said you’d probably know what they mean,” Grace’s voice was too fast, too high, God she felt like an idiot. “But I think you need to hear it. So- so, edelweiss for courage and devotion, wallflower for faithfulness in adversity, hyssop for sacrifice, lemon balm for sympathy. And- and magnolia, for- for love of nature.”

She came forward again and again and again and held up her hands when she heard them shift back. Fumbling, Grace caught one thickly gloved hand in hers and wished desperately that she could touch skin, just for a moment. The heat at the back of her throat was spreading, pushing at her mouth, the backs of her eyes, lighting her scalp ablaze. Her legs were gelatinous.

She curled her old friend’s hand gently around the flowers and held their loose fist in both of hers. Grace wished that she could see, that they could talk, that none of this had happened.

“Maybe next you could teach me about the flowers,” she whispered hoarsely, and ignored the lump in her throat at the soft sob coming from somewhere in front of her.

Kim

Kim gave them a flower for each day they stayed.

The first one she made a production out of, giving it in the exact same way they left hers for her all those months ago. Dep seemed surprised to come in from their early morning wanderings (it never failed to give Kim a heart attack, seeing their bed empty and made up, crisp cool air where her friend was supposed to be warm and safe- Goddamn Joseph Seed better be rotting in Hell) and find a small bunch of pink and purple petals at their honorary place at the family table.

“Statice,” Kim told them, carefully not looking up from the eggs she was scrambling, “there’s a lot around here. For sympathy. And success.”

The next day, it was peach roses. “Those were a little harder to find,” Kim admitted. She didn’t particularly want to remember that dirty, cramped trek through the woods, or the cursing, or the thorns. “You’re supposed to give them to someone you miss.”

Dep had trembled at that. They’d left the table and were gone for most of the day, the screen door banging shut behind them; for hours, Kim had thought that was it, she’d fucked it all up. But in the end, the sun’s rays were scarcely fading when the Dep had stepped quietly into the kitchen and pressed an apologetic lily-of-the-valley in her palm. Kim kept still as they bowed their head.

“Yes,” she said finally, having to violently tamp down on the overwhelming urge to reach out. “You’re forgiven.Tell us you’re leaving next time.”

Freesia was next. “Thoughtfulness- I thought it was a good fit for you.”

Yellow roses- “Oh, you know you’re supposed to give them to friends. That was a pretty easy one.”

White tulips, which she placed in a box on their windowsill. “For the worthiness part, not the seeking forgiveness part,” Kim had had to justify quickly when the Dep’s head swiveled around as if looking for an exit, “You know you've got nothing to apologize for.”

But they didn’t know, and Kim knew they didn’t. Back to the drawing board.

“Dahlias,” Kim told them later, “they’re for lasting bonds.”

Finally she settled, comfortably, on sunflowers. Hell knew there were tons of them around the house.

“You like yellow, huh?” Kim ventured one day, unsure if the question would cause Dep to flip out. Instead, she got a moment of consideration and then a slow nod. They were a child, unsure if they were going to be granted approval or disappointment. The acid in Kim’s stomach roiled and she hoped the fire burning Joseph Seed’s soul was blistering.

Kim grinned. “Good. They’re supposed to mean happiness.”

She kept a vase of sunflowers on the table after that, and put another one in their dreary bedroom- she’d have to get Carmina’s help redecorating.

And if she had to plant even more sunflowers to keep up a steady flow, well, it’d be worth it when Dep finally took off that damn mask.

Hurk

“I didn’t, uh- I mean, I just kinda thought this was better than trying to rip up some weird flowers and accidentally poisoning you or something.”

Dep tilted their head the same as they’d always done- it was reassuring, almost, that the little things hadn’t changed. It at least gave Hurk the strength to keep going.

He hefted the flower pot between his palms and wished the leaves were long enough to obscure his hot face. “Gina said this was fucking stupid, but then she said maybe it’d help you cause she was thinkin’ you got fucked up, like really life-changing fucked up, and I mean, with Seed and all, and you runnin’ around in that mask maybe she was right, right?”

Dep’s mask did not look impressed. They shuffled back a few steps and looked like they were considering shutting the door on him. Somewhere in that house Kim Rye was thinking about throttling him.

“I’m talking too much,” Hurk stated. Dep did not disagree. Their fists were clenching and unclenching slowly at their sides; they were fighting to keep still. “Um. Sorry. Here.”

He shoved the flower pot into their hands unceremoniously. They fumbled, stumbled under the sudden weight, and finally got it secured against their chest. They huffed angrily at him when dirt spilled into their collar and Hurk was suddenly rethinking the whole ‘let’s-give-our-old-friend-who-is-now-a-little-crazy-a-bunch-of-plants’ idea. Carmina had a good heart but Hurk wondered if she thought more with that than her head.

The Deputy shifted the pot in their hands, looking down at it before jerking their head questioningly at him.

“It’s a fern,” Hurk explained helpfully.

They blinked. It was weird to see the mask with only one eye lens in it, but the eyes weren’t as disconcerting as the dried dirt and who knows what else smudging the white painted surface.

“I, uh, didn’t know anything about flowers, so I got you a fern,” Hurk repeated. He desperately wanted to slap himself in the face. “Like I said I didn’t want to poison you or anything. Knowing me, I’d find the only Bliss left around and end up naked and hogtied alone on the bank of a river somewhere. Uh, not that I’m speaking from experience or anything. But yeah, I thought this fern looked nice. I mean, it is a nice fern. Do you like ferns? Am I saying the word ‘fern’ too much? I feel like I’m saying ‘fern’ too much.”

The Deputy set the plant heavily on the floor between their feet. They tilted their head for a moment and slowly reached out to pet one of the fronds lightly. Then Dep backed up and crossed their arms over their chest tightly, like they were hugging themself. Hurk felt as if iron bands were squeezing his ribs.

“It means humility and uh- shelter. I think.”

Dep paused and then nodded. They held themself tighter. Hurk wished fiercely for this all to be a nightmare- couldn’t he just wake up and realize that none of this had ever happened and he was on his mom’s couch waiting for the Dep to come by and take him to fuck up some Peggies just for kicks?

But what was done was done, and all that was left of his friend was going to shatter apart if he didn’t give them this fucking fern.

“And confidence too, apparently. And like, sincerity. That part is about me, too. Cause, like, I’m sincerely your friend and shit.”

Dep’s head hung low; he couldn't tell if they were looking at the fern or not.

“Hey, Dep?” They shuddered. His voice was strained on the next words. “I, uh- I’m really glad you’re back man. Wasn’t the same without you.”

Silence. He wasn't going to get anything else from them today. Heart like stone in his chest, Hurk turned and reached out to close the door behind him. At least he could tell Gina and Blade he’d tried.

A hand on the door stopped him from closing it. When Hurk turned around, Dep was standing only inches form him- it was always freaky how softly they could move.

Dep hesitated for a split second and then reached out to lay their hand lightly on his bicep. They patted a couple times and then stopped, seeming unsure of what to do next.

His vision blurry, Hurk reached up and closed his fingers around the other’s, movements slow and exaggerated. They blinked at him. He blinked back and ignored the wet warmth on his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he croaked, “I’m real glad you’re back.”

Jerome

“I once told you I didn’t know how to speak to you, old friend.”

Jerome came to a careful stop at the edge of the garden; he could sense a sacred space when he was near it, and this was the Deputy’s. The earth was freshly dug in furrows, and holes pockmarked the yard here and there, heralding in a season of new growth for next year.

He hadn’t known that Dep liked to plant vegetables as well, but Jerome could just spy a bag of what looked like pumpkin seeds sticking out of the basket Dep had by their side. A filthy trowel and a shucked pair of torn gloves lay beside them.

Dep looked up sharply at him before straightening (the lethality in that movement was all catlike grace and most likely completely unintentional) slowly. They dropped the last few seeds from their worn palm into the furrow and nudged a bit of dirt into place above them with a boot.

Jerome waited until he could see the glint of a single eye. “I told you our paths had diverged and that I could no longer think of what to say to you because of what you had done, what you had been through. And for that, Deputy, I can only sincerely apologize.”

Dep’s shoulders hitched upward by a fraction of an inch, but Jerome was watching too closely not to notice. They slid one foot back and ended up kicking their basket over. Jerome could see their hands starting to twist together, an old nervous tick he remembered stopping many a time with a calming palm on theirs.

His stomach flipped; it was almost a certainty that Dep would never let him do that now. Maybe never again.

Jerome sighed passed the tightness of his throat and raise a hand, palm out. “Please, let me finish. Please don’t let your past- what he made you think of yourself, perhaps what I helped reinforce through my thoughtlessness, get the best of you. Can I ask that of you, my friend?”

The Deputy visibly wavered for a moment; Jerome could feel his position here, fragile as the last fall leaves clinging to the branches, ready to be swept away at any second. His tongue felt as dry as the Sahara.

After quite possibly the longest pause of the pastor’s life, the person who had once turned out to be the most true friend he’d ever had nodded twice, quickly, as if they were pulling off a band-aid.

Jerome shifted on his feet. “May I-” He didn’t know quite how to finish, how to communicate the deep urge to reach out, the need to be close to someone he’d thought lost long ago, the wish to make sure this wasn’t some dream from which he would be ripped away at any second. The Deputy was sure to reject the confession, anyhow.

Instead, they beckoned with one hand, crossed their legs, and thumped down into the dirt unceremoniously.

Jerome suppressed the bizarre impulse to laugh. There was something softer about them now, surrounded as they were with flowers and gardening equipment. Their pale face- what passed for their face, anyway- tilted up at him expectantly; it reminded Jerome absurdly of a child waiting for storytime.

Cautiously, wholly frightened of appearing aggressive, he took a seat across from them Indian-style. He abruptly found it hard to meet their eyes over the row of leaves of the freshly grown carrots between them. Instead, he dropped his gaze to the flowers in his lap. They seemed a meager offering now, no matter how much time he’d spent finding them.

“I brought you these,” Jerome told them hoarsely, lifting the bunch halfheartedly. The Deputy was tracking his movements intently, and tipped their head to the side briefly, that single eye blinking slowly at him. It made Jerome’s chest squeeze tight at the sight. This was what Nick meant about the Dep’s old habits shining through at the strangest times.

He held the first one out over the carrots, watching the petals bob and sway in the breeze. It was a moment before ungloved fingers curled tentatively over the stem just above his own. “Gerbera, for loyal love, innocence, and purity.”

There was a quiet exhale from his companion, but still Jerome refused to lift his eyes. “I should have tried harder to communicate with you; I should have known it was you from the start, or figured it out like Nick Rye did. But I think maybe I did know, or I wouldn’t have pushed the notion away so vehemently. I didn’t want to see what Joseph Seed had done to you- what he molded you into. I didn’t think I could take knowing what had been done to so true a heart.”

He passed two more flowers over. He had to wait a few moments before they were accepted. “Sweet William and sweet woodruff mean gallantry and humility. You- you were a hero to us, I hope you know that. You were a hero to me. And I- I wish I’d not turned away from you when you came out of that bunker. You needed us, and none of us realized it until it was almost too late. We left you to fight your demons on your own because you weren’t fighting our battles for us anymore, and you cannot understand- I cannot express to you the shame that brings me.”

Jerome was having a hard time speaking by now, vision blurred into a swirl of watery colors. He persevered, but not for his own sake. “Pink stargazer lily. I know it looks ostentatious, but it- it means honor, prosperity. Deputy-”

He tried to lift his head this time, made a herculean effort to withstand the grief threatening to drown him, but the current pulled him under and he could not meet their eyes. “The sacrifices you made before the bombs dropped, the torment you must have gone through for the sake of us, all to be rewarded with the time you spent under the ground with him- and to come back and help us, and then, to find the strength to fight back against Seed- the story of Job does you justice.”

Finally, the last flowers seemed small, insignificant, a tiny drop of water in the ocean of things he need to spill out to the Deputy, the things they deserved to hear for which Jerome had no words.

“Bachelor buttons,” He said tightly, breathing harsh. They were not accepted for a long moment and Jerome realized they might not ever be. But if this was the last thing he could say to a hurt friend, then by the Lord Almighty Himself, Jerome had better make it count. “For single blessedness. Whatever has been done to you, whatever Seed or I or anyone else has made you believe about yourself, whatever you think about who you are, know this, my friend. You have fought righteously, and you have stood in the way of harm that would have befallen innocents. You’ve withstood hell. Know that you are free now; know that in the eyes of your family and of the Lord you are not damned. You never were.”

There was a moment where Jerome was alone, choking on the silence, drowning in shame and blame and self-flagellation. The garden was still and time could very well have stopped.

And then the flower was pulled from his grip and replace with a hand. Fingers laced with his, and their bare knuckles dropped to rest together on the sun-warmed earth.

Jerome sat with an old friend submerged in a place of growth and life, and let the wind lift the weight from his shoulders, let the sun dry the tears on his face, let the earth turn on and on, inexorably turning away from the past. He hoped the Deputy was doing the same.

They stayed with him (he stayed with them) until the light faded from a friendly sky.

Sharky

This was worse than that time when he was fourteen and bought his crush a bunch of flowers to ask her to the Spring Formal. Okay, so he’d swiped them from the neighbor’s yard. Whatever. Point was, he was less nervous back then, when he’d been holding out the stupid flowers and staring her football player boyfriend in the eye, than he was right now.

The Dep’s hood was up like always, but the height of their shoulders and the way they were leaning as far back in their chair as they could told him enough to guess at their expression. He was sweating.

Kim, sitting at the table in her kitchen across from Dep, looked ten seconds away from throttling him. Sharky recognized that vein beating a tempo in her cheek. “Chives, Sharky? Really?”

“The, uh, the book said they mean, like, usefulness and stuff.”

Kim wrinkled her nose. “You busted into my house to tell Dep they’re useful?” Her tone was deliberately calm. Sharky’s heart was beating so fast it might have simply stopped. He didn’t waver from the Dep, though. He wasn't gonna give up his shot now.

“Hey, I know my best friend, all right? They like to be all helpful and useful to people and shit.”

Their shoulders were lowering centimeters at a time. They’d begun breathing again, having stopped when the door slammed against the wall. Nothing like a dramatic Boshaw entrance to get the blood pumping. The hood moved in their classic head tilt. Their fingers twitched against the worn wood of the table.

“There- there’s dill too,” he piped up helpfully, ignoring the urge to scrub at the back of his neck. Drops of sweat rolled into his facial hair. “Just cause, that book- we’ve only got like one fuckin’ book on flowers and plants and shit in the entire county, how fucked is that, huh?- uh, the book said dill means ‘powerful against evil,’ and I mean, that’s you all the way man, so I thought, you’re all flower power these days, maybe you’d like ‘em! I dunno, I guess I should speak your language and shit.”

There was a second of the loudest silence he’d ever heard. That usually didn’t bode well for Sharky.

Kim let out a long breath. “Sharky, I think maybe you should-”

The Dep’s chair scraped back so fast it tipped backward and landed upside down with a clatter. Kim jumped in her seat. The birds outside the windowsill took flight. The Dep’s glass of water was upturned.

Dep took two large steps over to Sharky and threw their arms around his middle. They squeezed too hard and Sharky wheezed for a second, but when they started to withdraw in alarm he planted a firm hand on their back.

“Oh hell no man, you’re good, you’re good.” They smelled like firewood and rich, healthy soil. At first they held themselves away from his body by a few inches until Sharky gently pressed down between their shoulder blades.

His friend almost collapsed boneless against him; Dep was shaking in his arms and Sharky felt the vicious need to dig Joseph Seed’s body out of his grave and set it on fire. Instead, he held very still and let Dep tentatively rest their head on his shoulder. The skin of their forehead was warmer than any fire he’d lit in months; the warmth seeped through the mask and into the cloth of his shirt, burning pleasantly there.

Their shoulders were trembling, although Sharky was unsure if they were actually crying. He tried not to let the plants get crushed by leaning the fist with them in it gently against the back of Dep’s head.

“I, uh.” He croaked, cleared his throat. Kim was frozen on the edge of his vision, hand over her mouth. “I’ve got coriander too; it means ‘hidden worth.’ I thought it was funny, cause like, you hide your face all the time and you're super cool? But, I couldn't find any coriander flowers. So I put coriander powder on everything.”

The Dep huffed against his flannel. Kim snorted.

“Wait til I tell Nick you got the first hug,” she told him, shaking her head ruefully. “He’s gonna be so pissed.”

Sharky grinned wildly.

Nick

Nick barely had time to realize that he’d grabbed the wrong wrench and would subsequently have to haul himself out from under the truck to go get the right one when it appeared in his field of vision as if by magic. A gloved hand was wrapped around the handle.

“Oh,” He said, suddenly realizing he’d forgotten how words worked. “Uh. Thanks.”

In the three months they’d been staying with the Ryes, Dep had had trouble staying in the same room as Nick. They still couldn’t look him in the eye. It made something dark and cloying claw at the base of his stomach most days.

The hand retreated and there was a shifting of fabric near his feet. Working mostly on memory and instinct, Nick continued to fiddle with whatever was jamming up the undercarriage of the truck, keeping most of his attention on the dark, dirt-covered boots he could barely make out beside him.

After a relatively companionable five minutes, he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. Nick found himself wishing for the days when Dep knew just the moment to crack a joke to ease his tension. Maybe that was selfish. Yeah, it was probably selfish.

“Hey, uh.” He cleared a suddenly clogged throat gruffly. “I uh, jumped on the bandwagon and got you something. They’re over by the tools, you probably saw them. Go grab them for me, would ya?”

The feet shuffled a bit before their body dropped down with a thump that jarred him badly enough that his knees jerked into the truck’s underside. Nick hissed a little but shook off the concerned noise Dep made. “Nah, don’t worry ‘bout it- happens all the time. You got ‘em?”

Two taps on his shin, and the skin there prickled under his jeans; they hadn’t wanted to look at him, much less touch any of the Ryes in so long...

They were sitting quietly beside the truck now, leaning against the passenger-side door. He could just barely spy the bright splash of color he’d worked so hard on in his periphery.

It must have taken weeks to get the canterbury bells alone. Nick had been afraid he’d do something stupid- spill oil on them or drop ‘em in the mud or something. It was a relief just knowing they’d gotten safely into Dep’s hands.

“Listen,” Nick paused when the wrench clanged loudly against metal. He stilled until the silence rushed back in.

There was a single tap on his leg to signify they heard him. This was the most they’d touched him since he’d tried to tackle them out of some misguided attempt at a peace-offering all those months ago. “I know this is the part where I explain all the flowers to you, but I got something to say first, yeah?”

A moment of quiet. Nick tightened a lug nut and ignored how slippery the wrench had become in a matter of seconds. Two taps on his shin.

“Cool,” He replied, and had never felt this hot and agitated in his life. The car seemed to be bearing down on him, threatening to crush his lungs with its bulk. He focus instead on the hand tapping light patterns out on the concrete by his knees. “I ain’t gonna sugar coat this, buddy- Joseph Seed got you fucked up.”

A huffed breath and a light shove, barely enough to jostle him. In the old days, Nick might’ve grinned, wrapped an arm around their neck, ribbed them a little more. Now, his heart was beating too loud in his ears to even think straight. “I mean, there are probably better ways to say that, but it is what it is. And I just wanna say- I don’t care.”

Nick was struck with the acute desire to see what the Dep’s expression was at this moment, but it wasn’t like being out from under the car would help him much with that mask still in the way. He thought maybe the truck hiding his face was the reason Dep could even stand being so near him now- that night with the knife really messed them up. Seems like that blade did more harm to them than it ever did to Nick.

“Aw, I don’t mean it like- like that, you know I- I’m not any good at this, at talkin’. You knew that a long time ago, huh?” Nick was wheezing, just slightly. A hand squeezed lightly around his ankle, and he focused on centering his breathing for a moment.

“Thanks. But I mean it, I don’t care. I don’t care what he did to you, or who you think he made you be. I don’t care if you think you’re dangerous or evil, because you know what? You’re wrong. Seed was fucking wrong about you from the start, and he was wrong about you in the end, too. You didn’t start out evil and you’re not ending up evil either.”

The hand withdrew, and over the roaring in his head Nick could hear them stand. For a moment cold fear drenched him with the certainty that they would run; but all they did was begin pacing.

That was pretty much the best permission to continue he was gonna get. “I don’t care what happened because it doesn’t change who you are to me. It don’t change the fact I’m not gonna leave you alone in this- not ever again.”

He wasn’t seeing the undercarriage anymore, not really; in his mind’s eye, Nick could perfectly render the last time he’d seen their face, all sweaty and grave and ready to bring the fight to Seed if it was the last thing they did. In a way he guessed it was, at least for a while.

“You’re my family,” Nick told them simply. “Pretty much always have been. That ain’t ever gonna change, you hear me? Ever since you strolled in here with that stupid Deputy uniform and a smart-ass grin and told John Seed to go fuck himself, you’ve been one of mine. And I ain’t never gonna give up on one of mine.”

The pacing had stopped, and so had the wrench. It was time- he couldn’t put it off anymore. Feeling incredibly undignified and not really giving a shit, Nick rolled on his back to the edge of the truck and scuttled out from underneath it. It took him a bit of a struggle to get himself upright, back twinging in protest all the while. But he got it done.

The flowers lay carefully abandoned by the tools Nick had discarded earlier. Dep was a few feet away, wearing a furrow in his barn’s floor. When they heard him stand they stopped abruptly, back to him. Their shoulders were hunched inward, trembling. They usually cut a pretty imposing figure without even meaning to; now they just looked small, like a kid playing dress up with their parents’ clothes. They were swamped in the black of their jacket.

Nick hated something about that coat on them- all dark and furred and too heavy. It reeked of corruption, or dominance, and he could just fucking bet it was gifted to them by none other than Joseph fucking Seed. But mostly, Nick hated it because it kept him from seeing his friend in there.

Quietly, careful not to disturb the fragile peace, Nick scooped up the flowers. “Canterbury bells, ‘faith, gratitude.’” He spoke passed the fear clawing its way up his throat, threatening to spill out from his lips. He could just see it, an oil slick down his chin and front, congealing and growing and obscuring his friend from his very eyes. But for every flower Nick took a step forward, surging passed that fear and swallowing it back in defiance.

Dep hadn’t moved.

“Queen Anne’s lace, ‘sanctuary.’ Tiger lilies, ‘happiness, prosperity.’” The last stem Nick offer to them over their shoulder. It was a second before they accepted it. He let his hand fall tentatively- softly so softly, they were like a newborn fawn, ready to bolt at any second- on their shoulder. The coat wrinkled slightly under his fingertips and the fabric almost physically repulsed him.

Instead, Nick gripped just a little tighter, to remind them he wasn’t going anywhere. His palm tingled- this was the first contact with Dep he’d had in- he didn’t know. Hell, for all Nick knew, he could wake up tomorrow and find they’d actually done it, they’d actually run off in the night. Every day he realized it could be the last contact he had with them.

The thought ate away at Nick.

He squeezed lightly again, cleared his throat and in a gravelly voice explained, “Lilac. It’s for family, and innocence. ‘Cause that’s what you are Dep. You’re innocent. And you’re family.”

He couldn’t seem to let go now. Their shoulder moved beneath Nick’s grip, but not quickly, not violently. The muscles shifted, bone creaked. They put their hands to their face, still holding tightly to the bloom he’d given them.

With a larger effort that Sisyphus ever exerted on his stone, Nick dropped his hand; his fingers grazed their hood on the way down. His gaze fell, and he wiped a hand over his own face; he was so very tired.

“So, uh, I guess that’s what I want you to know.” Nick told them, as confidence fled. He kept his hand over his eyes. “I don’t care what happened to you, I’m still with ya to the end of the line. And it’s- it’s okay if it takes a long time. I get it, if you can’t- be around us yet. Be around me yet. I know it’s- it’s gotta be fucking tough as shit. But you’re not alone. You've got me, however long you need, buddy.”

When his hand finally fell from his eyes, Nick was almost too tired to register the eyes looking back at him.

The pair of eyes looking back.

All breath shot out of Nick’s lungs but his body must have realized the importance of the moment, because his muscles locked up before he could ruin it by flailing. He stood, frozen like a deer in the headlights, feeling as if he suddenly acquired lockjaw.

Slowly, deliberately slowly, the Deputy lowered their hood; their hair was rough, and long, and matted as a rat’s nest; it badly needed a cut and it so dirty it could have been any color. Their face was streaked with grime, and pale from lack of sunlight, creating a resemblance to a raccoon around their eyes.

They looked tired.

Dep took hold of the hand Nick had placed on their shoulder and gentle pushed the mask into his palm.

“Fuck that.” Nick sputtered, hurling the mask to the ground. He didn’t even look down to see it shatter to pieces before he’d swept Dep into his arms.

His hand were clutching too tightly to that damn coat, he was leaning too close, probably suffocating them engulfed as they were by his hug, but Nick wouldn’t- goddamn couldn’t- let go.

“You have no fucking clue how good it is to see you again,” Nick told them, and meant it with his whole heart.

They huffed into his neck, hands coming up to hold on just as tightly.

Then the Deputy who had been still stiff, still scared- would that Nick could see the day Dep wasn’t scared anymore- the Deputy who had fought and died and been reborn for them, the Deputy who had run and hid from them, the Deputy who had refused for so long to see the family waiting for them to come back, settled carefully into his arms.

And the Deputy came home.

93 notes · View notes

jflashandclash · 5 years

Text

Traitors of Olympus IV: Fall of the Sun

Forty-Eight: Calex

A Punch of Home

After Calex shot Python with a split arrow of desire and abhorrence, he figured he would die the most respectable way for a hero: falling flat on his face off a two story shield, screaming swears that would make his hooligan cousin blush.

All he could remember from the fall was thinking about how dumb it had been to stand on the edge without any sort of net or rope. Then the world had gone white.

When he first heard voices, especially considering what they were talking about, he thought he was dreaming.

“Wait, are you dating Anubis or Walt? Are you dating two guys?”

After months in the states, he had finally become accustomed to waking in an unfamiliar surrounding with foreign accents. That’s why he was so surprised when he heard a crisp British accent responding, “No. And yes? Anubis is inside Walt’s head.”

“And babe, I thought I had problems.”

Calex’s body felt heavy, like he’d run a marathon while giving Frank Zhang a piggyback ride. The room smelled sterile, like he was back in his mother’s clinic. Someone had a hand clutching his tightly.

That’s when it hit him: this was the first time in months he’d woken so calmly. No nightmares. No panic.

The British voice continued, “Oh, us special pharaoh children have all lost our minds, what with the voices of gods in our heads. Some people say it’s because of the incest in our lineage.”

Calex really wanted out of this chat. He tried to roll onto his back and only managed a grunt.

“I think the teddy bear is up,” someone hummed beside him. The grip on his hand loosened. He could hear water splashing into a container. The familiar scent of black tea gave him the strength to blurrily open his eyes.

Merry smiled down at him. When she leaned forward to inspect him, the scent of her shampoo mixed with the bitterness of the tea: something sweet and raspberry. The sunlight trickling through a window made the auburn in her hair more prominent and her honey skin glow. She wore a clean Camp Half-Blood T-shirt.

Her face had deep bruises. Two pieces of medical tape were stretched across her cheek.

She waved a cup of tea under his nose, like a wake-up elixir. Her smile was playful, but didn’t stretch as far as it normally did.

“Merry,” his words came out as a croak. He tried to smile back, and found half his face hurt to move. “How did I deserve to end up in Elysium?”

“Wow there, Teddy Bear. No Elysium for you yet.” She set the tea cup down to squeeze his hand again. His gut wretched to recognize the extent of her bruises. “Just setting a world record on making an anti-worrier worry. You’ve been asleep for roughly twenty hours.”

Twenty hours? Calex’s eyes widened. He glanced around the room. He was on the floor, in a sleeping bag. Merry knelt beside him. On Merry’s other side, someone else was tucked into a sleeping bag with strawberry blonde hair spilling across the pillow.

Calex breathed in relief to recognize Kally.

The IV stand beside her made his stomach twist further.

On Kally’s other side, someone was burrowed in a ball in their sleeping bag—presumably Pax. Last in the corner was a sickeningly pale figure with wires sticking out of its mouth, like a Frankenstein contraption. Another IV stand loomed there, making Calex think about Kakata.

There was a chair at the foot of that sleeping bag. A disgruntled middle-aged man sat in it, reading a book with a pistol in his lap. Dr. Howard Claymore didn’t look up once as he turned the page.

Before Calex could roll to look at the other side of the room, someone appeared beside Merry and smacked him across the face.

Calex made a muffled sound. Getting assaulted first thing when you wake up was unpleasant. Maybe worse, Calex felt the skin on his forehead crack. A scab he didn’t know he had busted.

“You, Calex Rupin McKenzie, are the thickest bloke I’ve EVER met!” a tiny blonde with pink streaks in her hair exploded at him.

Calex wanted to give her a proper greeting of, “How do you do? Please piss off,” but he was stumped with the strange sense that he knew this girl.

Merry wasn’t reacting like the girl was a threat. She looked more amused as she moved out of the girl’s way.

The name popped into his head. “Sadie,” Calex said, stunned, “Sadie Kane.”

She was obviously several kilometers ahead of him on the think train. “Yes! Sadie Kane. Do you have ANY idea how much you’ve freaked out Gretchen and your dad? They both think you’re dead! Since we were kids, I always assumed there wasn’t much a brain behind that stupidly handsome face, but, seriously! How could you be so thick? Not a word? Not one bloody phone call?!”

Calex’s mind was scrambling. Sadie Kane. He vaguely remembered it. Before they moved to St. Albans out of London, his little sister, Gretchen, was in the second stage of her primary education. She had three annoying little schoolmates, Sadie, Emma, and… Liz? Was Liz the one that almost fainted every time he walked in the room? Or was that Emma?

But that had been years ago. Gretchen only saw Sadie every few months, and that had become sparse to almost nonexistent since—

“Emma and Liz gave me a ring and told me to check on Gretchen. And here we have the Jerk of the Year all fine and well—”

“Uh, Lady Sadie, dude still looks like he was stampeded by a pack of Party Ponies,” someone said. A hand appeared on Sadie’s shoulder to pull her back a little.

Calex could see Leo’s crazy hair sticking out. He didn’t look amused when he made eye contact with Calex. The glance turned into a frown when his eyes trailed to where Calex assumed Pax was curled into a ball.

Calex’s wanted to vomit. Gretchen? His Dad?

Another sight made Calex’s stomach pitch even further down, potentially proving it had stayed with Kaos when the rest of him left.

There was another occupant in the room behind Sadie and Leo. The person sat in a chair by the door and a small table. Despite being chained to the chair and gagged, the sight still gave Calex shivers. The boy was probably 15 with a blue-tipped Mohawk. His burgundy dress shirt and leather vest were covered in dirt and dust. Blood soaked his right pant leg and one of his eyes was swollen shut.

Lapis Pax flicked Calex off in greeting as best he could with his restraints.

Before Calex could panic, Sadie huffed, “He’s about as dangerous as a piece of lint right now. I’m the one you need to worry about.”

That could only mean one thing: Sadie, Leo, and Jason must have successfully rescued Hemera from Lapis. Eris’ plans must have crumbled.

But, if they put Calex and his friends in the same room as Lapis, that also meant…

Calex glanced at the other side of the room. Axel was passed out in a sleeping bag beside Calex. On his other side, there appeared to be a mini garden lot. After a moment of scrutiny, he could discern Euna’s form, curled up on a mound of moss and flowers. Kronos’s scythe was tied tightly to her hand with vines.

In that far corner, there was a shuddering, towel-covered bird cage.

Other than Euna, everyone was unarmed.

Calex swallowed to finish the thought, If they put us in the same room as this crazed bloke, they still don’t know if we’re allies or enemies. Leo and Sadie are probably here to keep us in cue. They should have been over this ally vs. traitor thing, right? Though, Calex had just helped Euna steal a piece of Kaos, and, judging by his lack of nightmares, he guessed—and really hoped—she’d used it to fight Phobetor. Was God murder illegal?

“Gretchen and Mr. McKenzie had to move in with your granddad and nan since they couldn’t afford the flat in St. Albans. At least they had some closure with Mrs. McKenzie and Tom.” Tears rimmed Sadie’s eyes and Calex felt the emotions that he’d repressed for months threaten to crumble him. “But your body was never accounted for. All they heard was your other, daft granddad ranting that you’d be taken by an angel.”

Your body…

Calex could hardly breathe. With Tiwa and Tom slowly succumbing to death and the nonstop madness that ensued, Calex hadn’t though as much about what had happened to his living family. Just that he was ashamed of facing them after he abandoned—

Calex swallowed and corrected himself. Not after he abandoned his Mom and brother. After he tried to save his family from an inevitable fate. His biological father, Eros, and Axel had reminded him he wasn’t a coward for failing and running from something as unstoppable as Death.

Still, how could he forget what that would do to Gretchen and Winston? He really was that thick? Shame clogged his throat.

Calex focused on the one good thing in that rant. “Grandad’s alive?” his voice shook.

The idea of that crazy old man poking him out of bed with a walking cane and an anecdote about how laziness doesn’t bring prosper…

Tears streamed down Calex’s cheeks. He didn’t realize how bad they were until he felt Merry’s hand clasp back over his. He tried to keep them quiet, but a hiccup choked his throat.

“Maybe you’d know that if you’d have given them a call!” Sadie snapped, though, her anger seemed to break at his demeanor.

Calex wished her anger wouldn’t go away. He deserved her rage and so much worse. “Oh gods, I missed their funerals,” he choked. The hole in his stomach felt like it was expanding to encompass his whole body. If it kept going, there would be nothing left of him.

“Hey,” Merry said. She raised a hand towards Sadie that Calex knew to be threatening Shut up, or I’ll have you doing the hokey-pokey. Gently, she pulled Calex up and dragged him against her. Calex burrowed his face into her skin and let the sobs go. He’d been holding so many for so long, mad at himself and at Death itself. Now, he could just be sad Tom and Tiwa weren’t here and never would be here. With Sadie around, everything felt more real. Someone who knew his parents and siblings personally. Someone else cared—really cared—that two wonderful people had left this world to go to Elysium.

“Teddy Bear,” Merry hummed into his hair. “We had a lot going on here. Remember? Getting kidnapped by Santiago. All our quests. Being on the run. From what I heard Thalia say, you’ve even been busying yourself with two different Underworlds.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, thinking of Gretchen sobbing as she and Winston went through his, Tom’s, and Tiwa’s stuff as they left the flat Winston and Tiwa had been so proud to live in with their combined salaries. Their home. How Gretchen and Winston’s life would have been collapsing around them, losing their family, their home, probably Gretchen’s school.

“I know it doesn’t make it any easier,” Merry whispered, her own voice breaking. “But, we can’t change what we’ve done in the past. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. We should let ourselves cry. But, we can’t get consumed thinking about what we could have done differently. We need to focus on what we can do in the future. And, you, your sister, and your dad will still have a future together.” Her tone took on a distant quality and Calex could feel her shake.

Calex was horrified to realize he hadn’t asked about her quest to save Percy’s little sister from Hiro. Had he really been that dense all over again? He didn’t know if Merry succeeded in rescuing the baby or if Hiro had given her those bruises. He’d even forgotten, in all his stupidity, that Merry didn’t like to be touched by men.

Calex choked back some of his sobs and tried to withdraw.

“Uh-uh,” Merry said, clutching him tighter, “You’re staying right here. I need a Teddy Bear, too.”

Sadie cleared her throat. Her voice was quieter and gentler. “They had memorial services. Last I heard, your granddad was quarantined in Kakata, but, I’ll admit, that was a bit ago.”

Calex managed to twist away from Merry a little, to see Sadie’s expression. Her face had puffed up from tears. Leo turned away from them, awkwardly toying with some wires in his lap. Mr. Claymore hadn’t looked up from his book, but Calex also noted that he hadn’t turned a page during the whole conversation.

Calex had expected Lapis to be rolling his dark eyes. Instead, he saw Lapis’ eyes were also red rimmed. His hands had tightened into fists. If Lapis could have cast magic with his gaze, his glare would have melted Merry from existence.

“I need to head back to Brooklyn House, but you’re making me a promise before I leave. Once you get all this nonsense sorted, really, by the end of the day, you’re going to contact Gretchen and Mr. McKenzie,” Sadie informed him.

Calex tried to speak. At first, his throat felt too thick. After a few swallows, he managed, “I’ll do you one better. By the end of the week, I’ll also make sure I can see them in person.”

Merry flinched.

Calex pulled one hand out of his sleeping bag to squeeze her shoulder. “I’m not gone for good, but I need to do this.” What exactly, he wasn’t sure. There was no way to make up for disappearing without explanation. Despite Merry reminding him about all their trials, he could have called. Hell, he could have written them a bloody letter in that timeframe.

“Thank you,” was all he could find for Sadie.

His heart was still a torrent of emotions, but—if he was really leaving Camp Half-Blood soon—he needed to keep it together a little longer. Calex sat up, taking most of his weight off Merry. He hadn’t realized until then how much she’d been struggling to keep them both up. Any longer, and they likely would have collapsed back onto Kally’s sleeping bag and this wasn’t that kind of slumber party.

Sadie huffed, rubbing the back of her hand under her eyes. “Look at you, Mr. Calex McKenzie, thinking you’re so important. You’re not the only one in here that I need to chat with.”

What she did next made Calex blink, wondering if he was dreaming or if Sadie was a total lunatic.

Sadie stood up, withdrew a can of Fancy Feast from her pocket, cracked it open, and set it beside Axel’s sleeping bag. She took a step back, folded her arms, and tapped her foot impatiently.

Leo spun back around, grinning. He stood beside Sadie, and Calex couldn’t help but think there was a bit of malice in his grin.

Their leader was flopped on his face, sleeping much more peacefully then Calex had ever seen. Axel’s tufted ears were visible at the edge of his sleeping bag. They twitched.

Calex was about to say that the Fancy Feast can seemed a bit rude when Axel rose in a very feminine, un-Axel like stretch. He made a low purring noise that Calex had never heard him make.

“Mmm, Sadie, you do know how to provide a balanced breakfast,”[1] Axel said. When he sat up, Axel winced and touched his chest. When the sleeping bag slipped down, Calex could see bandages stretched across the skin and a blood-soaked blotch towards the center. Axel looked quite pleased. “That was quite a close call. I’ve never had someone literally rip my host out of me before.”

Axel reached out to pick up the can of Fancy Feast.

Sadie and Leo exchanged a glance.

Merry made a face.

“Mate,” Calex said, “No.”

Even Lapis coughed a laugh into his gag when Axel started chomping down. Giggles erupted from the balled form of a supposedly sleeping Pax.

“You two… know each other?” Calex asked, glancing to Sadie and the bizarrely acting Axel.

Sadie sighed. “I do tend to know everyone important. But no. I know the goddess that’s highjacked your mate’s body. One that was supposed to leave once we got the battle sorted.”

Axel licked his lips, then the back of his hand, using it to wipe off the rest of his face and behind his ears.

By now, the laughter from Pax’s balled form was unrelenting.

“Dude, this is great!” Leo cheered. “We should have brought a camera. You think the Romans will be scared of the Leonis Caput if they see this?”

“You should know, napping and hygiene are sacred for cats,” Axel said, “It’s not a joking matter.”

“Bast, drop him,” Sadie chided like Axel was a mouse the goddess had proudly kidnapped. “He doesn’t belong to you. He’s not even Egyptian.”

“I’ve told you before. I’m a cat; everything belongs to me,” Axel said with a coy grin.

Some of Calex’s anguish cracked. He couldn’t help but choke back a laugh. This was the weirdest thing he’d ever seen, and he was a demigod. That was definitely not his mate and he could only image how Axel would feel when he found out what was said or that he’d demolished a can of cat food.

“Besides,” Axel—Bast continued, “He is still a cat, at least in some manner, so he does belong to me, as he is part of my domain. And…” Axel raised one hand to stroke his goatee, then rolled his fingers across the part of his chest that wasn’t covered in bandages. “I’m very fond of this host body.”

Axel held out his hands and admired his missing claws with the same fondness a Jersey shore girl might admire her nails.

Someone cleared their throat from the doorway.

Calex felt his jaw drop. Even Merry jumped.

Will Solace stood there in a long doctor’s lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. He looked exhausted. Dark circles encased his eyes and he was pale. In a towel bundle in his arms, mewing kittens squirmed.

“Hi,” he said with a tired smile.

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed! Stay tuned next week for another Calex chapter, Not Enough Lollipops.

[1] Yes, it’s cute that Riordan has Bast eat Fancy Feast. But this is not a balanced diet for your kitty.

#Traitors of Olympus #Heroes of Olympus #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Calex #Sadie #Leo #Will #Merry #ALL the unconscious people #Not really--they wouldn't fit in one room #unless you stacked them like a clown car.....#hrmmmmmm

13 notes · View notes

monmuses · 5 years

Text

The Aftermath

A few days had passed and Harriet had said nothing of the most recent events that occurred on campus in the cafeteria. Loretta was worried. Very worried. Why wasn’t she saying anything? She was there! She was there in the kitchen! Why wasn’t she saying anything?

Standing in the hallway, she rubbed her arm. The young Frankenstein had to do something. She needed to know what happened. Hesitantly, she walked down the hallway to Harriet’s dorm room, giving it three knocks.

“Who’s there?” A voice chirped out, stricken with anxiety.

“Harriet... it’s Loretta,” she responded softly. “Can you open the door?”

“...do I have to?”

“Please. I need to talk to you. What happened in the cafeteria that night? You haven’t said anything.”

Silence. The door handle began to jiggle, along with the sounds of heavy breathing. “I... I can’t say anything.”

“You were there, Harriet! If you don’t say anything, they will find out!”

The young Jekyll began to sob behind the door, realizing how that fate would turn out if they did investigate her. She leaned her head against the door, dropping to her knees with her hands covering her face. Hearing her cries made her chest feel heavy.

Loretta jiggled the door handle. It was locked. “Harriet... please open the door. You can trust me, alright? We have been there for each other for many years. I can do the same for you, can I not?”

Harriet lifted her head off the door, slowly standing up with quivering knees. Her hands wiped under her eyes and nose, cheeks stained with tears. She couldn’t lie to one of her closest friends. Someone who she’s known all her life. She had to open the door.

One hand slowly began to unlock the handle. Something was reminding her of this that was very, very familiar. As if someone before her had experienced this same thing.

Click. The door was unlocked. Loretta slowly opened the door, walking inside the dorm and shutting the door behind her.

Harriet’s dorm was a complete mess. Her living room had scraps of notebook paper, broken vials, and snapped pencils. Only her kitchen light was on. Though, compared to the state of her dorm, Harriet’s physical appearance was horribly disheveled. Her bun was messy, having strands of hair stick out. Her eyes were red and puffy, cheeks stained with tears. She didn’t even have her glasses on. She was biting her nails and cowering in fear on the couch, whimpering to herself.

“Let’s talk, Harriet,” spoke Loretta, approaching Harriet and patting her shoulder. “Please. I’ll understand.”

Jekyll nodded. “...alright,” she replied softly, lifting her head up from her arms.

The two talked for over two hours. Harriet, over time, slowly became more and more comfortable about sharing her side of the story... Where she was and what happened. That also included talking about Elizabeth Hyde.

“Harriet, I... If you don’t mind me asking, how did Elizabeth come to be?” Loretta asked hesitantly. “I did some research on your family line... and ‘Hyde’ seems to be a running inherited gene. But if it was dormant, how did you revive them? I... am just curious. You don’t have to answer.”

Her brows furrowed, looking at the ground while pressing her hands together in her lap. She shook her head, tucking some hair back behind her ears. “...I can answer,” she said. She cleared her throat and prepared to speak.

“I... did an experiment a few weeks ago,” she explained. “After I learned about my lineage and Henry Jekyll, I decided to... create the same experiment that he did with his notes.”

Loretta looked ready to burst with anger. Harriet became afraid. “Please don’t be upset with me!” She yelled, standing up from the couch. “It-- It was my fault! I didn’t know any better than I did! My curiosity got the best of me, I--”

“Then what made you kill him?” Loretta asked sharply. “Did you do it out of jealousy? Anger? What made you kill the man who enjoyed your company?!”

Her brows furrowed. “He didn’t enjoy my company, Loretta!” She barked. “He was stalking me! He demanded for my company, and he was no gentleman!”

“Then why did you kill him?!”

“BECAUSE HE WANTED TO KILL ME!”

Harriet’s eyes radiated with ice blue, gritting her teeth. A few inhuman growls escaped her throat, black veins beginning to spread up her neck and face. Loretta backed away, surprised. Though, the poor future doctor stumbled down, as if she was suffering from a terrible headache.

“...it was her, wasn’t it?” Frankenstein asked.

Jekyll nodded, covering her eyes. “...I apologize for my-- my monstrous behavior. My stress has been... affecting her more and more, forcing her to come out more often than she should. Please... don’t scare us like that again.”

Us? Did... Did she refer to her and Hyde? She sighed, shaking her head. “No, don’t apologize. That was my fault. I didn’t mean to treat you that way. This... This whole situation brings back some bad memories of mine. Don’t... take the blame. I didn’t intend to upset you.”

Harriet slowly nodded. Those veins that went up her neck and face pulled away, fading away. “Can... you stay with me for a while? Please?” She asked her. “It... is very lonely here. I don’t think I can last another hour without... dealing with her.”

Loretta smiled. “I’ll stay with you all day. Every day, if you want me to.” One hand rested on Harriet’s shoulder, rubbing it with ease as she took a seat next to her. She rested her head against her’s, and the two sat there for the next hour or two. Suddenly, Harriet piped up once more.

“Loretta... do you think I will be like Henry?” She asked. “Or... maybe like my mother?”

“Why ask me that?”

“Well, I... have been feeling heavily discouraged. My father hasn’t been much help with it, either. He says I am acting like my old teenage myself, which I say is ridiculous.”

“I don’t think you act that way. You act much like a lady, and I applaud you for that, Harriet! Besides, you are the judge of yourself. You are Harriet Jekyll. You aren’t your mother or your great great grandfather.”

Harriet closed her eyes for a moment. Loretta sighed. “I can’t do much for you, Harriet, but I can be here for you.”

“...that is fine by me,” she answered, slowly dozing off into slumber. Her friend sighed once more, doing the same and hugging her close.

#✨{gentle scientist; (harriet)#harriet jekyll #loretta frankenstein #dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #long post #✨{𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱; (𝔦𝔫-𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯)#✨{𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔴𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯; (𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔟𝔟𝔩𝔢)#✨{𝔣𝔢𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔰𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔶; (𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔰𝔱)

2 notes · View notes

shy-violet-soul · 6 years

Text

The Edge of Okay

Characters: reader, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Rating: Teens+ Summary: A weary warrior fights an unseen battle, trying to hold herself together and hide her pain from the brothers.

***TRIGGER WARNINGS***: anxiety/panic attack, self-harm, graphic descriptions of injuries

A/N: For all of us who struggle with an invisible mental illness. For all of us who don’t want to hurt ourselves, but just want it to stop. For all of us who have trouble seeing our own amazing courage. For all of us who claw our way back from the scary edge. This one is for us.

If you need help, please reach out! You are precious. Here’s a link of contacts.

A very big thank you to @thesassywallflower for being my beta once again. I so admire your writing talent, my friend, so your feedback, suggestions, and praise always mean so much to me. THANK YOU!

(image credit: Olga Zavgorodnya via www.fineartamerica.com)

“I’m okay.”

Of all the lies I’ve ever told, that one is the biggest.

My body is a relief map. Rough and raised on the space where my left thumb meets my hand - machete callous. Painted blue on my right rib cage - bruise from an upright player piano a vengeful spirit slammed into me. Thready and crooked - new part in my hair beside my ear from a too-close-call with a wraith. A fretwork of pink raised ridges, whitish blobs, and silvered indents - an atlas to past mileage.

You’re okay, I tell myself, not even feeling the frenetic bounce of my knee anymore. Fingers cold, I trace the newest mark on my skin, up and down, up and down. Sam’s gotten pretty good at stitches - they don’t look as much like Frankenstein work anymore. The still-tight scars lay pink and healing where they webbed up from the inner knob of my right collarbone to my ear. My fingertips can still feel the tiny spots where the stitches laced me back together. Stupid, lucky lacerations. They’re easy. I mean, getting filleted like a mackerel by a demon was a bitch. But hey - stitches work. Fluids and food restore. A whiskey or three cures a lot.

Up and down, up and down, I trace the lines that tell me I’m okay. That my skin is knitting back together, and my blood is staying inside where it belongs. Physically, I’m well on the mend. It’s just my brain that’s a mess.

It started when I was in high school. I thought everyone got chest pains studying for calculus exams, or nausea over a required oral presentation on European folklore. Eventually, after being found wedged between two sections of lockers hyperventilating about an essay I’d forgotten, my parents insisted on getting me help. Enter Dr. Bass and an answer: General Anxiety Disorder. I’d hated the idea of medication, but I’d hated the constant panic attacks more. It took a while. A long while. But I finally figured out how to co-exist with the anxiety. It took even longer to stop feeling ashamed of my invisible illness. I succeeded, mostly. The rest of the time, I trained my face to lie. The official I’m okay robot, complete with appropriate facial expressions.

Then, you know - parents dying and monsters and real angels and crap. Dean and Sam patched me up, showed me the ropes, and I never looked back. Who has time for panic attacks when you’re busy torching wendigos?

You’re okay, as fatigue burns the back of my eyes, puffed and scratchy. I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time in days. Sam remarked on the beautiful bags under my eyes the other morning.

“Sleep is for the weak,” I’d winked at Dean, slapping a smile on. I can’t let them know.

You’re okay, the refrain as I count the skipped heart beats and feel the chest pain tighten. Black eyes and a cackling smile flash in my mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shake the image away. I can beat this.

You’re okay, while I swallow sticky around the need to hyperventilate at the memory of my blood running warm down my neck, then cold and clammy. I can’t do this.

Up and down, up and down, my fingers rub the crooked lines a little too hard. A raw pinch, a reminder from the tender skin that it’s still healing. The sensation washes up into my head, and for a moment, I don’t feel the awful suck. For a moment, my knee stills and the fatigue ebbs. For a moment, I get a breather from the silent suffocation. Temptation brings a tremble to my hands, wet to my eyes, and I yank my hand away, tucking both fists under my legs. Exhaustion sags my edges hard, and I can’t hold up my head anymore. My kneecaps dig into my cheekbones, my lungs shudder as I remind myself that’s not the answer. You’re okay. Frantically, I try to grasp at past coping techniques, and flail away the lies.

I’m not weak. I’m not a failure. I’m not broken.

But the ‘nots’ feel heavy in my head, and everything’s too hot and too cold. I want to run five miles and lay down and never move again. My clothes are too loose and too tight. I want pizza but I feel like throwing up. It’s all too loud in here, and too quiet, and I would give a lot - almost anything - to make it all stop.

A sob croaks its way past the dryness, wheezing around a weak gag into the blaring silence of the library. My fingers reach up, up to the table’s edge and press forward till I feel them. The feel of the plastic containers both relieves and terrifies me. I’m clinging to a new and scary edge I’ve never seen.

“Hey.” The deep rasp squeezes my throat shut as I sense Dean’s warmth beside me. I can sense him crouch down, one hand resting on my arm. “Hey, are you okay?”

The weight within me presses, hard, and I feel something crack. Oxygen is hard, all of a sudden, and the panic spikes, black dots in my vision. One hand fumbles towards him, skittering one of the plastics a bit. But I’m too tired to hold him, and oh, God, I need to hold on to someone. As if from under deep water, I drag my head up to look at him, but my face is too tired to lie. I’m too tired to lie.

“No.” I try to swallow, cotton all the way down till my stomach hurts. “No, I’m not okay.”

***************************************************************************************

She thinks she’s hiding it well. Maybe from someone else, but not me. You don’t have to be a Sherlock to see she’s not sleeping. Her face is washed out, and we could go shopping with those bags under her eyes. Always alert, she’s gone from awake and aware to outright jumpy. I’ve teased her for her diet in the past, which she affectionately dubbed ‘the Winchester hybrid’ - a steady mix of my junk and Sam’s rabbit food. You couldn’t keep a mouse alive on what she’s tried to fool us with.

I get it. She damn near died. I took a great deal of pleasure in ganking that demon. Blood was freakin’ everywhere. Thanked whatever deity for Sammy’s dinner plate hands holding her neck together till we could get her sewn up. Damn. I’ve seen blood before. I’ve seen my little brother slashed to shreds, held his broken bones in my hands. You never get over that. Doesn’t matter how many times. It keeps me up at night sometimes. That cold, quivery awfulness that hits your gut and won’t let go. Makes you feel like you’re licking a battery or some shit. Sam thinks I got my awesome headphones to drown him out. Sometimes, but mostly I just need to get out of my head. Try to block out that crap with some classic electric guitar. And beer. You just...figure out how to live around it.

Seeing her blood all over - I don’t know why, but it was so much worse. Felt like I swallowed the damn battery, I was so juiced up. My gut felt cold for days. But she got better. Stitches work. Fluids and food restore. And a whiskey or six helped me catch a little shut eye without the memory of holding her neck together while Sammy sewed.

Cuts? Those are easy, though. Gimme a dislocated shoulder or a gash, I can fix that five ways from Sunday. It’s the dying I see happening in her eyes that kills me. I can’t fix it. Not with dental floss and boosted painkillers or ice packs. What the hell can a chewed up hunter do to help her? I just wish she’d quit tryin’ to hide it. Jody throws around the word ‘PTSD’ like it’s something new, but it’s not. This fear? The panic? All hunters live with it. If they don’t, they’re either liars or sadists. She’s gotta know she’s not alone. Time for me to sack up and tell her.

She looks so damn small. Pajama pants with Bambi and Thumper printed all over and a Captain America hoodie are swallowing her. The blanket from her bed is flopped around her, and she’s stuffed herself so small into one of the leather chairs, it makes my back hurt to look at her. Hair’s a mess, lips all chapped, and salt stains on her face. But her eyes...goddamn, my chest hurts just looking at her pain.

“No. No, I’m not okay,” she croaks, her fingers knocking against something on the table before they’re shaking on my arm. Everything in me wants to hold her tight, but I don’t. Not yet. I ease down on my knees beside her. Squeeze her arm a bit while I prop my other hand on the chair beside her shoulder. Close so she knows I’m here but not caging her in. Hoping she’ll come to me when she’s ready.

It works. She breathes like she’s been underwater, then her hands are tight fists in my sleeves. My throat squeezes shut when she looks up at me, like she’s begging me to understand. Oh, honey...I raise my hand and brush some hair from her eyes. Keep my movements slow and light, my gaze soft and open on hers.

“I’m here,” I whisper, watching her eyes fall shut and tears dribble from the corners. She leans toward me, resting her forehead against mine. One hand on her head, the other still on her arm, I hold her. We just breathe like that for a minute. When she leans back and slides her eyes towards the table, I follow her gaze and my heart stops.

A line of prescription bottles are rowed up near the edge of the table, one tipped over where she must have hit earlier. A couple with one of her aliases on them. The other a high-powered painkiller that I know she stopped taking a week ago. I have to swallow twice as I rub my thumb against her arm. Do not sound judging. Keep your cool.

Fresh tears are rolling down her face when I look back at her face. I reach to hold her hands, a little shocked at how cold she is.

“What did you want those to do for you?” Kept my voice soft, so afraid I’d spook her.

“I - I -” A sob cuts her off and she reaches for me. My whole body loosens with relief as I pull her down on my lap, into my arms, and away from this edge it feels like she’s dangling from. Her face dives for my shoulder and she just cries.

****************************************************************************************

“I don’t want to die, I don’t!” My tongue feels stuck and heavy as I try to rush the words out. My nerves feel like they’re on fire. I can feel each heart beat in my temples as my blood pounds panic through my veins like a firehose. I’m so terrified of seeing disgust in Dean’s face, but I’m more terrified of this edge I’ve ended up at. I can’t stop the words from pouring out. The nightmares of black eyes and horrid breath in my face. Blunt nails scratching my skin when he squeezed my throat. The scathing, sliding bite of his knife down my neck, and the certainty I was going to die. It all comes gushing free like something cut loose inside of me.

As the black spots swirl around me sickeningly - comfort. Slow, like a signal light from way off, I feel it first - hard arms holding me. Big shoulders shielding me. Warmth bleeding into me. Soothing whispers start to piece-meal into my ears.

“It’s alright. I’m here. I’ve got you, don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

The words, the truth there actually hurts me for a second, and I squeeze his shirt tighter in my hands below his collarbones. I scrunch myself smaller under his chin, and my lungs stutter as they try to suck in more air.

Minutes pass. Maybe days, I don’t know. Panic attacks will do that to you. The lies are quiet for a moment, letting that bubble of truth float its way to my brain.

“I don’t want to hurt myself.” He needs to know that. I need Dean to know that.

“What do you want?” His words rumble, soft but soothing, against my cheek. I couldn’t stop the dribble of tears that leaked fresh from my eyes, and the weight of that water felt too heavy, so I closed my lids beneath it.

“I...I just...I’m tired, Dean. I just want to sleep.”

“Do you want to go to my room and lay down?”

The thought of being in a small room makes my skin crawl. “No,” the whisper forces its way out of my throat. “I like it here.”

Dean didn’t say anything. With the storm of panic passed, I feel wrung out, cold, and weak. I barely track Dean moving an arm for a reach or two. Then, he’s easing me back onto my butt. It steadies me to focus on his face as he’s grabbing around me. His eyelashes, the freckles on his cheekbones pull me in until I feel my blanket against my shoulders. Numbly, I watch Dean’s hands as he cocoons the blanket around me. His fingers feel warm and rough on my face as he cups my cheeks. The sensations ground me, and I’m able to breathe a little deeper for a second. When I open my eyes, Dean’s looking down at me. He offers me a smile that’s crinkled eyes and soft reassurance.

“There. Now you’re a burrito of tired.”

************************************************************************************

The chuckle she gives is sorry and sad, but I’ll take it. My hands look too big and rough against her face, but her eyes close and her shoulders try to let go when I stroke one cheekbone with my thumb. Screw it. I ease her against my chest and stand up, holding her tight. The main lights of the library click off - Sam got my text. I clock him hovering in the kitchen doorway, giving me a ‘two minutes’ sign. His puppy dog eyes look worried as I plop us down in one of the leather armchairs. It takes me a second to get her situated where we’re both comfortable. As soon as I stop moving, I notice how she’s shaking. But her skin isn’t as cold as it was, and I feel her ribs expand with the first deep breath since I found her. Feels like I can breathe a little deeper now, too.

Pretty sure Sam conjured up a kitchen spell or something, because there’s no way it’s been two minutes when he comes trotting back in. I roll my eyes when I see that instead of the one piece of toast I asked for, he’s got a pile as deep as his stupid hair. But, I smell her private stash of cinnamon-sugar in with the toasted goodness - good job, little brother. The plate slides onto the table next to us, and a bottle of water plops down with it. I feel her eyelashes tickle against my neck when she opens her eyes.

“Hi, Sam.” God, she sounds tired.

“Hey.” Sam squats down on his heels, reaching to tug the blanket up a little higher around her shoulders, then strokes her head carefully.

You good? he asks with a lift of his eyebrows. Yeah, I tell him with a bob of my chin. The breath she pulls in is slow, now, and it’s got more O2 behind it when it sighs out warm against me. I rub my right hand against her back, up and down, up and down. My left hand slides up into her hair and I start to drag my fingertips against her scalp. Her shaking slows down to almost nothing as she sags against me. Her fatigue is contagious, and I feel my eyes growing heavy as I let my gaze drift. Those damn pill bottles are ready to remind me, though. That edge that almost pulled her under.

This battle may be on hold, but the war ain’t over.

*****************************************************************************************

For the first time in days, I feel warm. My elbows and knees still feel trembly, but I feel loose instead of wound tighter than a spring. Dean’s slow breathing moves underneath me, letting me rest against the swell and fall of his chest. Leather and laundry soap reach me, a comforting cloud above the tickle of cinnamon-sugar. The chair beside us creaks, and I hear Sam’s boots against the floor as he gets comfortable. Dean’s hand rubbing my back, up and down, up and down. My stress-singed senses settle amid all this, grounded and grateful.

The memory of that scary edge, though…

“I didn’t want to hurt myself.” I wanted them to know.

“What did you want?” the calm question.

“Sleep. I just...I’ve been fighting and fighting and I’m so tired. I just didn’t feel like I could fight anymore.” I’d be ashamed if I wasn’t so exhausted. These two warriors had literally been to hell and back, and I was whining about being tired. Dean’s arms tighten around me, and the sandpaper-y rub of his chin feels good.

“But you are fighting. Look at you. You didn’t do anything. That’s fighting.”

I want to believe him. But my gut is too quivery for hope yet.

“It doesn’t feel like fighting. Feels like failure.” Bone-deep tired pulls heavy on every muscle, and I close my eyes as I snuggle in closer to the anchor Dean offers.

“Sure as hell ain’t failure, sweetheart. Looks a lot like a tough as nails hunter kickin’ it in the ass and swingin’ for all she’s worth.” The words sigh a deep breath from me. I don’t know what to say anymore. “I know you’re tired. But you just gotta keep fighting.”

That same stupid flicker of anxiety that’s my own evil pilot light wavers in my gut, and I swallow around the desire to cry all over again.

“And what if I can’t? Keep fighting?” Dean sits quiet for a minute. I knew it. I am hopeless…

Then, he presses a kiss to my forehead, stirring warm against my hairline. “Then, you come get us. We’ll fight for you. We’ll make sure you’re okay.”

My mind lies still - no nightmares to tear through me at the moment. The arms around me like a buoy, letting me catch my breath as I back away. I know that scary edge is still there. But now...I feel like I see it from a different view, one where I can see the corners. The other edge where I can learn how to coexist with this invisible monster again without my face telling lies.

It feels like the edge of okay.

#supernatural #spn #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester fic #sam winchester fic #dean winchester #sam winchester #reader #spnfanficpond

155 notes · View notes

incorrectmurdochmystery · 6 years

Text

We Wait (Pt 2)

Hey there, guys! This gets pretty graphic because there are some serious injuries obtained in this part. And in every part in the future. You have been warned. Happy reading!

George raked his fingers through his hair, as if to massage the roots and soothe his current (and currently getting stronger) headache. He leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

“George!”

The constable must have jumped at least four feet straight out of his chair, because his papers flew everywhere, scattering on his desk and the floor. “Henry!” He sighed, moving to pick up his work. The former smiled apologetically, rocking on his feet.

“I just wanted to talk to Detective Murdoch. Do you have any idea where he is?”

“Why the dickens would I know, Henry?” George regrouped his paper, thumbing over the corners to straighten them out. “He left last night to investigate the dock murders, and he hasn’t returned.” George turned down to his files, licking his lips to wet them. They became dry when he was anxious. The detective was always punctual with coming in at precisely whatever o’clock he came in. The latest he had ever been was ten minutes, for crying out loud. Here it was, half-past eleven, and there was no sign of Detective Murdoch.

Come to think of it, there was no sign of Detective Watts either.

Murdoch had drifted in and out of sleep, seeing the same dream every time. The dream floated in his mind as consciousness floated to and from him, like the water that filled this dream. In the water, the detective could see a body... Whose? The person that put them in their current prison? The victims? Watts?

He swam up to the corpse, feeling his dream-lungs fill with dream-air. He didn’t have to breathe in dreams, did he?

He halted, blinking once. Twice. It was gone.

He turned and, suddenly, found himself face-to-face with a very familiar face. A similar nose was within five inches of his, and two dark eyes were staring blankly ahead. Murdoch felt his eyes widen, as did that of the corpse floating in front of him. He shook his head, and the carcass mirrored it.

It’s me.

Murdoch was the one, floating in this deep grave like some type of macabre buoy. He moved his arms back, letting out a silent scream as the body- his body- copied. No! You are not me! I am at home, with Julia! I am safe in my office, and this is all a nightmare! He tried to yell this, but water rushed into his mouth, his trachea, and he could feel it running in every vein and nerve in his body. He, as if weighed down, sunk into the depths, his own body reacting the exact same way he did.

The only thing that didn’t change was that glazed, dead haze in its eyes-

“Detective Murdoch! Detective Murdoch!”

Murdoch, the real Murdoch, woke up.

He was not, unfortunately, safe at home. He was laying here on this stone cold floor, with Watts shaking him, eyes wide with very un-Watts-ish childlike fear. “Detective Murdoch! You were crying.”

Murdoch managed to sit up, feeling a trickle of sweat run fron the back of his neck to under the collar of his shirt. “No, I... I wasn’t.”

“But you were.” When Murdoch glared at this response, Watts said, “If you’re glaring, I can’t see it.”

The older detective let out a breath, brushing off the leftover of his sleeping sobs in a clouded cough. “I wasn’t crying.” He winced as he pulled himself back to the wall, legs stiff. Maybe he could move them-

The door opened. This place had a door? Why could they not have just gotten out through there-

Two very large, human-like shapes emerged from the door and entered. The door slammed shut, and the men walked, gait heavy and stern and looking for a fight.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The footfall stopped a little ways before the two detectives.

Silence.

Silence...

Silence-

“So, you two are the Franken-men George was telling me about. Seems, about right, you two seem big enough and stupid enough-” Watts began to chat.

Watts, no.

Murdoch heard something slide across the floor, and a loud thunk and a crack and a cry of pain.

“Smell about right to be Frankenstein’s-”

There was another noise, one that reminded Murdoch of his own broken nose, and heard a gag of pain from his younger companion. Watts tried to say something else, but it fcame out muffled in pain.

“Watts!” Murdoch hissed. Watts, you idiot! You dolt! He felt a white-hot pain and his nose go through all phases of emotion- a satisfying numbness and a burning, harsh, static throbbing clashed uncomfortably as one man’s knee met his nose. He collapsed back on the wall, hands rising to his injured face, groaning in agony as the two men stalked out, still quiet.

After what seemed like a decade of pain, Murdoch spoke again, though blood draining from his nose made it sound like a clogged bathtub drain. “W-Watts?”It came out sounding more like Guh-wads, and “Detective” hurt to even think about trying to say it.

Watts wheezed, body almost audibly seeping the pain that racked his body with every movement and breath he made. “Suh-” He managed, arms giving in and sliding him down to the ground. He was too weak to hold himself up, arms shaking at every attempt to do so. He made a noise, a statement of bedlam, and spat up blood, along with words.

“Sorry.” He managed. “Sorry that- that didn’t- wo-work-”

“Why in God’s name did you do that!” Murdoch growled through his hands. “That was the- the stupidest possible thing you could have done.”

There was quiet, and then a hiccup. A small sob escaped Watts, who was spralwed on the floor, in pain. This pain led to tears, which led to sobs, which led to pain... the cycle was vicious and, as long as Watts could cry, endless. “We have to... solve... the mur... ders...” Ha. Even as he was so in pain, so crushed, he could crack a joke.

Murdoch slumped back on the wall, legs screaming out as he made to straighten them even the slightest. His heart went out to Watts, it really did. Whatever that plan was did not seem to work, and... well, would anything work? “No, no, we just have to get out of here.”

“How?” Watts seethed through his teeth, words gurgling with saliva and bile. “There’s no way out.”

We’re both dead men. We aren’t getting away, we’ll be here forever. These words laced Watt’s tone.

For now, neither one of them were getting out of here alive, and they were as good as dead as the corpse Murdoch had met in his dream. He tilted his head back, agony ringing large bells in his brain, the claning coating Watts’ cries of pain and, most likely, fear.

My corpse.

It was my corpse, it will be my corpse.

#haha #i have mood music #murdoch mysteries #i dont know what im doing???#send help #this one isnt very good tho #:(#sorry #watts #Llewellyn Watts #murdoch #william murdoch #yeah warining: there be ouchies in here

10 notes · View notes

thebigdeepcheatsy · 4 years

Text

Here’s an ancient fanfic I’ve been saving on my iPhone for years!

Flick's Revenge

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

I Guess Even Love Has it's Problems

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

The sun slowly crawled up the pale blue sky. The last star vanished with no trace. Flowers took their time opening, sending spurts of bright colour scattered across Hyrule Field. It was ten years after Link's adventure in Termina. A sharp whinny filled the air. Link gently kicked Epona in the sides, holding loosely on to the reins. "Thats great, Epona! 'K, how 'bout a trot?" Tightenig his grip and shortening the reins, Link grabbed the neck-band and kicked Epona sharply.

They raced through the trees, branches and leaves smacking Link's face. It made it difficult but Link somehow managed to rise up and down with Epona. As he sped across a wooden bridge, sharp hooves clacking, Link vaguely saw a figure with a shock of green hair as they sped into a canter. Link stopped at the end, and tied up Epona. Then he reached his destination: Kokiri Village.

Saria ran straight for him. Laughing, Link swung her high into the air, whirling her around. Then he tickled her in all her ticklish spots. Saria flicked a green strand into Link's eye.

"Take that!"

"Oooh come here!!" They spent all morning playing, and at 5 to 12 the Kokiri gathered around him, begging him to stay. Link laughed, patting a girl on the head. "Nah sorry, kids. I'm having lunch with someone." They were immensely disappointed, but Link faithfully promised to visit soon, and they cheered up. Link pulled out the Ocarina of Time, and played the Requiem of Spirit.

"Link! Hi! You arrived by ocarina, I see!"

"Hey Nabooru!" Link smiled as he drew nearer her.

"Hey--I got a table set up in that room there. I'll just be a mo putting starters on, 'K." As she left, Link thought once more about how beautiful she was. So fiery. So independent. Link loved her sooo much. As she returned, Link desperately tried to NOT cry out: "I love you!!" but he failed. The Spirit Temple was silent. The usual soft music hummed quietly in the background, and Nabooru just stood, and stared. Then Link dumbly held out his arms. Nabooru giggled uneasily, like laughing at a joke made up by someone with a poor sense of humour. She walked towards him slowly, arms out. She looked a lot like Frankenstein and that kind of worried Link but his love for her was too great, to be afraid.

They dumbly hugged each other. Then Link gazed into her yellow eyes, and touched her lips softy with his own. They finished all three courses in silence, but when Link arrived at Lon Lon Ranch to get some eggs, he leapt up with joy as he told Malon. "...It was just sooo wonderful! She's like...like...heck, she's as pretty as Zelda!"

"Despite her nose." spat Malon acidly, who loved Link more than anything else.

"Ah her nose! The centre of ALL her beauty!"

'YUCK!' thought Malon. But to Link she said: "Really? You have an ODD way of looking at things, Link..." Malon fluttered her eyelashes at him, hoping to catch his attention of HER beauty, but he was babbling on SO much about his dear, sweet, GORGEOUS Nabooru, that she decided to ruin their relationship, but how?

~5 Months Later~

Nabooru squeezed Rauru's hand. Rauru patted her gently on the shoulder, as he led her up the aisle. The Requiem of Spirit was being sung by the monks, who usually sang the Song of Time. Link stared at Nabooru. She was wearing a pure white veil over her mouth, and her long, red hair hung loose. She was wearing a skanty white top with a triforce embroidered on the top. Her trousers were slightly different, they were a little slimmer, with a triforce sewn onto the seat of them. She wore golden shoes instead, and her belt was a PURE huge rupee. She was wearing her usual white gloves and heavy jewellery.

Link's mouth hung open. She looked AMAZING!! Link looked pretty good, too. White tunic and cap. With gold silk hose and shirt. His belt was highly polished brown leather with a gold triforce buckle. And, lastly, his boots were bright red (again with gold triforce buckles) and his gauntlets were the Golden Gauntlets.

Nabooru smiled shyly. The wedding was wonderful. But Malon sat, in her black mourning clothes, glaring all the way through. After the wedding, Nabooru took Link to Gerudo Fortress, his new home. They entered Room 500, Nabooru's 'flat'. It had a bedroom, a kitchen/Dining room, and a bathroom. Link nodded at all Nabooru's stolen riches, though most of it was passed down through her family lines, and she had promised not to steal anymore. "Breakfast is served at 8:00--9:00. If you miss it, theres a perfectly good kitchen here." Link nodded and grinned, and they got into bed...

"Link, I keep getting sick in the morning!". Link looked up from cooking lunch.

"What should we do, Nab?"

"Call the docter! Quick, for godesses sake!!" Link nodded and sped out the door, down the stairs, and rushed into the docter's room. Rita--the docter--looked up and smiled. "Yes, sir?"

"Rita! *splutter* Oh Rita--Come QUICK! *Gasp* It..it's *Pant* Nabby!" Rita grinned from ear to ear.

"Uh-huh? 'K, let's see our leader. hmm...I wonder...?"

Link had to wait outside while Rita inspected Nabooru. It was AGONY. The waiting was, anyway. Rita's grin was even WIDER when she came out. "Link--your wife wants to give you the good news, I think." Link entered, sweating slightly, heart pounding. He smiled shakily. "Y...yes, love?"

"Link, how would you like to be a father?"

"A...a father? Uh, yeah! I'd love to! Those sweet li'l Kokiri--they're sooo brill!"

"Well, congrats, Link--'cause I'm pregnant!"

"Really? Wow. That's great, Nab!"

~9 Months Later~

"Rita! Rita, Nabooru's water broke!!"

"Really? Let's go!!"

Nabooru went into labour about half past four, and the baby came out quarter past nine AM. When it was finally over, Link gazed at his baby. She was just like a gerudo--except for three things. 1. Pointed ears. 2. Blue eyes. And 3. Link's nose.

"What'll we call her?"

"Saloolu."

Malon now knew that she could NEVER have Link, and Talon was bugging her to marry.

"C'mon Mal, I wan' ya t'be safe, hon."

"So?"

"So ah'm yer father an' ya gotta obey me."

"Tough."

But eventually she married a young man named Tirong. And soon they had a son named Mirong. In time Saloolu and Mirong grew up. Saloolu was 21, and Mirong was a year younger. One sunny day Saloolu was walking with her parents (who, like Malon, were in their early forties, and were still quite active. They met Mirong, and immediately the two young adults fell in love. Nabooru winked at Link and they left Saloolu with Mirong. "See ya, Salli!" they called. "He'll be a nice friend for you!"

"Hi..." Blushed Saloolu. She wasn't that used to men outside her family, being a gerudo.

"Hey..." said Mirong.

"So..."

"Princess of the gerudos, eh?"

"Kinda."

"I'm Mirong."

"I..."

"Saloolu?"

"Ummm...yeah."

"MIRONG!!" called a new, sharp female voice. They turned around. There was Malon, hands on hips.

"Hi, mum! Hey--this girl is--"

"A no good gerudo!!"

"Hey, she's p...part Hylian...too.."

"Get to the ranch--NOW! And you." Malon turned to the startled Saloolu. "Shoo! And if I see you NEAR Mirong..." She left the rest unsaid.

Mirong stared sadly at the night sky. Grounded. The moon and stars seemed to smile at him. EVERYTHING reminded him of Saloolu. Especially Saloolu, standing below his window...SALOOLU????!!!!???? He looked down. There she was, beckoning him with a long, painted nail. He nodded, and climbed down. When he reached her, they hugged. "S...sorry about my...mum."

"It's OK."

"Still...I'm sorry."

"Y...y'know...I've been kissed by mum on the forehead by mum, and on the cheek by dad...but..."

"S...same with my parents..."

"I...I've never..."

"Not my first...my first...

"PROPER kiss..."

"We could..." Mirong looked at her...They pursed their lips...Slowly they pressed them together...They stood there together for a minute or two, before breaking away...

"Thanks, Mirong..." They joined hands and walked down to lake Hylia. The night sky was reflected in the clear, glassy lake. Special night flowers--Feldas--started to open. The flowers were pink, purple or blue. Princess Zelda's favourite colours. Mirong picked a blue one, and gave it to Saloolu. Saloolu smiled at him, staring at the starry night. Suddenly a hand fell on her shoulder. Startled, Saloolu looked up. There was Malon, glowering at her. She shoved poor Saloolu into the lake, snatching her Felda. She then grabbed Mirong, and gave him a sound beating. Both verbally and physically. Saloolu thrashed wildly in the water. She was about to give up when a strong man in a Zora tunic lifted her into his arms.

"Dad..." Nabooru worriedly wrapped a red blanket around her. Rita came running forward, saying something. Everything was so hazy...

"...she's...she's DEAD!"

"Link, don't worry. I'm a PROFFESONAL docter! See, listen to her breathing."

"Rita...she's r...right Link..."

"Hey, you're worried too!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"D...da...dad...m...mum..."

"Saloolu!"

"She's safe! Oh Link she's SAFE!!"

"See, fine. Goodbye."

"P...please don't argue..." Saloolu was close to tears.

"Hey, shush, darling. You're OK."

"What happened?"

"W...well..." Link frowned as he listened.

"I knew it..."

"Knew what, Link?"

"Nabooru--she hates us and our daughter. She's JEALOUS of you!"

"Oh my..." Suddenly a fire arrow flew into the room. Saloolu stared. The place was alight!

"Nabooru--get Salli outta here! The chamber of Sages! I'll get the gerudo kids out. The nursery maids'll help me. And the gerudo's will stop the fire. GO!" crying, Nabooru took Saloolu to the chamber of sages.

All the sages were there--Zelda on the triforce symbol. "Nabooru--Malon's gone mad!" Zelda said. "Her love has become hatred and she'll do ANYTHING to kill everyone who likes you and your family!!"

"She's already killed Link--my son" sobbed Darunia.

"And my dad!" cried Ruto. "Along with half the Zoras. Me and some others only just escaped!"

"She set Kokiri village alight." whimpered Saria.

"And gerudo fortress." said Saloolu.

"And part of Hyrule castle market town." sighed Impa.

"And..." began Zelda gravely "she opened the evil realm." The chamber was silent. Saria whimpered.

"Daddy'll have t'kill Ganondorf again."

"That won't be easy..."

"Then I'LL do it!" Everyone stared, astonished. Zelda smiled.

"In a dream I saw you and Mirong sealing Malon and Ganondorf in the evil realm. I'll get Mirong and Link." When they appeared, Zelda explained.

"Are...are you sure?"

"Yes Mirong."

"Then I'll do it."

Malon and Ganondorf were cackling, sending Lighting bolts hurtling towards Lake Hylia.

"Hold it, mum!!"

"Mirong!"

"We're here to stop you!" said Saloolu coldly.

"AHAHAHAHAHAAA! Hey Malon, let's teach 'em a lesson, yeah?"

"'K. SUMMON KOUME AND KOTAKE!!"

The witches appeared, circling around Saloolu and Mirong's heads. The two gripped thier swords, thrashing the women and deflecting their attacks. They combined, 'excellent' thought Saloolu 'easier to pick off!!' That was certainly true! Then Ganondorf created a giant Red Chu-chu! They'd never seen one before, and they hacked helplessly at the pink goo. Then Mirong had an idea. He hacked through the disgusting gunge, and reached the heart. He equipped the Biggoron's sword, and slashed away at it. The chu-chu exploded. Disgusting! Then Ganondorf became Ganon and morphed with Malon!!

"What on Hyrule!!" It sent radioactive Lon Lon milk at them! The battle was awful! Their weapons did NOTHING!! Then Saloolu realized what she had to do. She had taken the Golden Gauntlets. So she put them on, grabbed a chunk of the ranch wall, said a prayer to bless it and...WHAM!

"NOW!!" boomed Mirong, and the sages sealed the two in the evil realm with a big explosion. It was beautiful. Saloolu smiled weakly. The people who died couldn't be raised, but all the damage was repaired. The sages and Lonk matierialized. Mirong was bent over Saloolu's body. She wasn't breathing. Slowly, with tears in his eyes, he bent down and kissed her lips. A great hole in the sky appeared and sent down a red light, a blue one and a green one. It filled Mirong, who passed some on to Saloolu, raising her!! They hugged, and a fortnight later, they married! And had twins. Sirong and Taloolu.

One night Mirong was gazing at the stars, and he sighed. "I guess even love has it's problems..."

~The End~

#The Legend of Zelda #Fanfic #So Bad It’s Good #Long Post

0 notes