#it will also make the job search a bit less urgent and calm me down a bit if i have an income stream in the meantime. i think
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five -- kuroo tetsurou x reader
oral (f receiving), fingering, kuroo being a smug bastard 🥰
2300 words
“Most annoying unrealistic things in movies, go!”
“People sitting down to a full breakfast before work,” you said, grinning at Kuroo’s sudden change in topic.
“For real, I barely have time to brush my teeth in the morning.”
“You should probably make time to brush your hair, too.”
He threw one of the couch pillows at your face as you laughed at him. “Give me another one, sans sass, please.”
You tilted your head back, looking up at the ceiling as you thought. “When people find a parking spot right away in a city.”
“Very specific, but okay,” he grinned. “People taking all their clothes off in two seconds before they bang.”
“Oh, also after people bang and everyone’s hair and makeup still looks perfect.”
“Clearly, someone wasn’t doing a good job if that’s the case.”
“Ugh, but the worst is when a girl has an orgasm in under five minutes,” you said, rolling your eyes.
“Wait, why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Why is that unrealistic?” Kuroo was looking genuinely confused, the smile having fallen off his face.
“Uh, because no guy has ever made a woman cum that fast?” you told him, a slight crease forming between your brows. “Most guys can’t make me cum at all.”
“Really? I’ve made girls cum that fast before.”
You would have thought he was messing with you, but the earnest look on his face made you pause. There was a moment of silence as you stared at him. “They must have been faking, then.”
He bit his lip and gave you a mock-thoughtful look. “Mm, I’m pretty sure they weren’t.”
You snorted, feeling doubtful. “Yeah? You’re just that good?”
“Eating pussy is an artform and I’ve got it mastered.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m serious!” he laughed. “I’ll prove it to you.”
“What?”
“I bet I could make you cum in less than five minutes.”
You blinked at him, letting his words sink in. Kuroo had always been a little flirty with you, that was just his nature, but you found it hard to believe that he’d make an offer like that so easily.
“Scared I’ll prove you wrong?” he said in a teasing tone.
“No, because I know that you won’t.”
“Alright, fine. If I can’t make you cum in five minutes, then I’ll buy you dinner every Friday for a month.”
You raised an eyebrow at him, still skeptical. Past experience made it difficult for you to believe that he could actually do it, but his unwavering confidence in himself was beginning to rouse your curiosity. “And what’s in it for you if you win this little bet?”
“Hearing you say that I was right,” he said, smirking at you.
You hesitated, rolling your bottom lip between your teeth as you thought. It sounded like a risky idea, allowing your friend to do something so intimate to you; but another part of you really liked the idea of wiping that smirk off his face and getting him to admit that he wasn’t as skilled at everything as he seemed to think he was.
“You’re either gonna get four free meals or an orgasm out of this,” he continued, “so you really can’t lose here.”
You heaved a sigh, a little surprised at yourself for what you were about to say. “Okay, what the hell. I’ll let you try it.”
For a brief moment Kuroo looked just as surprised as you felt, his eyes widening a bit, but his expression quickly returned to his usual grin. “Seriously?”
“Well I know you’re not gonna shut up about it.”
He laughed loudly before inching closer to you. “So, how are we gonna do this?” he asked, throwing an arm over the back of the couch behind your head.
His sudden proximity to you made you feel slightly nervous. “Did you mean right now?”
“What, you’ve got something better to do?”
You rolled your eyes and shoved him on the shoulder. “No, that’s not what I meant. This is all just happening very fast.”
“Aww, are you shy? I never would have pinned you for that type of girl,” he teased, his annoying smirk only growing wider. You reached out to shove him again, but he caught your wrist in his hand. He looked at you for a moment, eyes searching your face, before abruptly standing and pulling you up beside him. “Come on,” he said, leading the way to his bedroom.
You both paused when you got there, neither one of you entirely sure about what to do next. Kuroo stared down at you, his hands coming to rest almost gingerly on your sides. “Is it okay if I kiss you?” he asked.
“It’d be kinda weird if you went down on me without kissing me first,” you said, trying to hold back a smile.
He grinned as he bent down to plant his lips on yours. It was soft at first, but after a moment one of his hands reached up to rest on the back of your head, holding you still as his body pressed into you. It felt strange to be kissing your friend, but you couldn’t ignore how his touch was making you feel. Each movement of his mouth against yours caused a familiar sensation to grow deep in your stomach, and you found yourself looping your arms around his neck, your fingers burying themselves in his hair.
His hands slid under the hem of your shirt, the pads of his fingers brushing lightly over your skin and making you shiver. He trailed over your stomach and around your back, pulling you even closer as his tongue slipped past your lips into your mouth. You allowed him to deepen the kiss, your body melting into his. He broke away just long enough to lift your shirt over your head, his mouth quickly finding yours again as he pushed you back onto his bed.
“Move up a little,” he said, and the sudden low tone of his voice surprised you. It was raspy and sensual in a way that you had never heard before. You scooted back on the bed, your heart starting to race as he slowly crawled on top of you. He kissed you again, more urgently than before; one of his thighs pressed in between your legs, and you couldn’t stop the moan that bubbled up from your chest. Kuroo broke the kiss, smirking at you. “That was a pretty sound.”
“Shut up,” you groaned. He couldn’t see the flush that was growing on your face as he leaned down to press hot kisses into your neck, one hand squeezing at your breast. His other drifted down your body to rub at your clit over your shorts, drawing another soft moan out of you.
“Does that feel good?” he whispered, and the shamelessness of it made you squirm in embarrassment. The smug grin was still on his face as he unbuttoned your shorts and tugged them off of you, his eyes roving over your half-naked body almost hungrily.
His fingers played with your clit through your panties as he resumed kissing you. The touch was light and slow, but it was already making your head swim. You clutched at his back, trying desperately to steady your uneven breathing.
“You’re already so wet,” he breathed against your lips, sounding equal parts smug and surprised.
“Kuroo,” you mumbled, holding back a gasp as his fingers pressed a little more firmly into you. “I feel kinda weird being the only one with my clothes off.”
“Yeah?” He sat up so that he could pull his shirt over his head. “If you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask.”
“That’s not what it’s about, idiot,” you huffed, rolling your eyes. Even still, you couldn’t stop yourself from staring at him; you had seen him shirtless several times, but the context had been radically different. Now, the sight of his muscular body was making you think of him in a way that you never had before. You could feel your arousal growing, and your thighs clenched unconsciously.
It didn’t go unnoticed by Kuroo; his hands glided along your legs, slowly parting them again as he smirked. “You’re falling apart a lot faster than I thought you would,” he teased.
“I am not.”
“You sure?” His fingers hooked under your panties and pulled them down your legs. “Because you’re dripping wet for me.”
“I swear to god, I’m going to smack you.”
He chuckled, his eyes trained on your face as he kissed along your inner thigh. “Scared I’m gonna prove you wrong?”
“It’s gonna be so embarrassing for you when you lose,” you said, but your words sounded unconvincing when your breath hitched in your throat as his mouth moved further up your thigh.
He sat up again and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Five minutes, right?”
“Are you seriously gonna time yourself?”
“We gotta be accurate,” he said, smiling as he set his phone to the side.
You were expecting him to move faster now that the timer had officially started, but he simply resumed his slow kisses down your leg. As he got closer to the end of your thigh, his tongue came out to lick along your skin, the warm touch of it making you heart pound wildly against your ribs. He licked up one side of your pussy and down the other, so teasingly that you were sure he was intentionally trying to rile you up. You resisted the urge to grab his head and press him into you, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing how desperately you wanted him.
He could see it written plainly on your face, though; his eyes never left yours, even as he finally pressed his tongue into your cunt, licking a slow stripe between your folds and circling around your clit.
“F-fuck,” you breathed out, annoyed with yourself for caving so quickly. You could see him smirking as he repeated the motion, the tips of his fingers digging into the sides of your hips.
His movements were slow, almost exploratory as his tongue passed over every inch of your cunt, paying special attention to all the places that made you moan out for him. He noticed every change in your breathing, every subtle flex of your muscles whenever he found a spot that made you see stars.
“Tetsurou,” you murmured, your voice coming out in a breathy sigh. Despite your earlier efforts to hide how turned on you were getting, you couldn’t be bothered to try and hold back now, not when the feeling of his mouth on your pussy was completely overwhelming all of your senses. You glanced down at him and saw that the smirk had finally left his face; he looked almost calm as he slowly ate you out, solely determined on making you feel good.
His fingers spread your pussy open as he pressed the flat of his tongue on your clit, sliding it over the sensitive bud slowly at first, speeding up with each soft moan that left your lips. You were still looking down at him when he glanced up, his hazel eyes locking with yours. The eye contact made everything he was doing feel like too much, and your head tilted back and eyes fluttered shut as a loud moan left your mouth.
You thought you heard him snicker, but it hardly mattered as you felt him press a finger into your cunt, the sudden stretch making you whimper. He pumped it slowly in and out of you as your breath started coming out harder, your chest heaving when he added a second and curled them up to press into your sweet spot.
“Oh my god, Tetsurou,” you whispered, your gaze falling back on him. You now found yourself unable to look away, enraptured by the intense way he was staring at your face. Your fingers gently brushed his hair back from his forehead to get a better look at him, and when your grip tightened on his head he moaned.
His fingers pressed more firmly into your cunt, gently sucking on your clit as his tongue continued to rub over it. The tension in your stomach was building, and you knew he was only seconds away from pushing you over the edge.
“Fuck, just like that, p-please don’t stop,” you gasped, but he could already tell from the way your pussy clenched around his fingers, your legs trembling where they rested on his shoulders. He moaned again when he felt you cumming, his fingers stilling but his tongue still slowly licking your clit.
Only when you whined at him did he finally stop. Kuroo crawled back up your body, placing kisses along your stomach and chest before joining his lips to yours, his tongue pressing deeply into your mouth. He left you panting when he broke away, his thumb brushing lightly along your cheekbone, a soft smile on his lips as he admired your dazed expression.
The sudden ringing from his phone’s timer startled both of you. The grin found its way back onto his face as he reached over to shut it off.
“So,” he started, turning back to face you, “is there anything you wanna say to me?”
You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt. “You were right,” you grumbled.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“I said, you were right!”
He was still smirking as he leaned in to kiss you again, more softly than before. Your hands slid up his back to rest on his shoulder blades, moaning into his mouth a little. When he pulled away, you had to bite back a whimper at the loss of his touch.
“Kuroo?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I try now?”
His eyes went wide at your question, and you had to struggle not to laugh at the excited expression on his face. “Yes,” he said, hurriedly shifting to lie down beside you. “Yes, absolutely you can.”
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Robber Claws
hi guys! i've read a bunch of your fics and got inspired so i wrote a thing! enjoy ;) also, it's pretty long so...buckle up! love yall <3
The criminals lurk in the mist, invisible, but Sofiya Pavlichenkov knows they’re there.
She’s perched in the Lookout’s nest of her Warship in Fourth Harbour, pretending to read the documents her first mate, Kastor, has just handed to her. But her blue coat is flapping in the wind and her papers keep jostling and she’s being watched, all of which is rather uncomfortable.
Idly, Sofiya wonders what the criminals might want. A smuggling, perhaps? Out and away from stinking, crawling, loathsome Ketterdam?
Sofiya hates this city. His city. She misses Ravka, her homeland- the Little Palace.
I miss my bloody Kefta, Sofiya thinks darkly as another bought of wind spirals harshly through the Harbour. The blue coat she wears is a subtle nod to her Tidemaker status, but it’s a sad, thin piece of cloth compared to the grandeur of the Fabrikator-made Keftas. But Sofiya can’t wear her Kefta, not if she wants to blend in in Kerch- a lesson she learned long ago…
Old enemies, Sofiya. Old enemies, but not withered grudges.
Huffing out a sigh that would make Zoya Nazyalensky proud, Sofiya rises gracefully to her feet.
They’re coming. She can feel it; they’re making their way towards the ship. They don’t have to be rowdy to intimidate, that’s for sure - or to make a crowd of Merchants and Thieves part like the sea almost immediately.
Sofiya reaches up behind her head and loops her hand around a piece of knotted rope; takes a deep, steadying breath.
And she steps off the platform into the open air.
For a moment, she catches on the air as if a Squaller has caught her on a buffering breeze, but sure enough, gravity kicks in.
Sofiya welcomes the feeling of her stomach in her throat as the fall takes hold, zipping her past the sails. It's good preparation, anyway, for the three dark figures moving up the docks towards her.
As they near and Sofiya lands lightly on the deck, she confirms what she already knew: these were criminals. Her criminals.
The trio stops in front of her. They're all wearing black and gold - not a uniform exactly, but it’s a solid way to show your allegiance. None of their hands were visible, but if they were, Sofiya would find the Robber Claws emblem branded cleanly onto the backs of their knuckles. Their hoods are drawn up over their faces, but Sofiya can tell from their posture who she’s dealing with.
"Ah, Iseut," Sofiya says serenely, "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
The girl in the middle pulls down her hood, revealing shining blond hair, dark eyes, full lips. She doesn’t smile.
"Where have you been, Sofiya?" Iseut asks coolly.
"The Wandering Isle," Sofiya answers immediately, "I stopped at Os Kervo on my return to pick up some supplies. I'm only three days late, Is. Cut me some slack."
Iseut sighs, and suddenly looks less the badass, fake-waitress man-killer, and more the tired mother of a delinquent child. Sofiya feels a flicker of guilt.
She had stopped at Os Kervo for more than one reason. The "supplies" were crates upon crates of commandeered Fjerdan weapons and traps, intercepted by the First Army on their way to the Front Line. Sofiya had paid nothing to take them off the hands of the Ravkan soldiers, who honestly had no clue where to send them. What good were jerky Fjerdan guns to a sophisticated, well-oiled Second Army legion?
Sofiya could picture Zoya's face at the sight of the sad little weapons. Disgust and disdain, unshakable beauty - and perhaps just a little bit of pride that her friend had been the one to collect the Fjerdan cargo. Sofiya would work on selling it all later. She'd dump the Grisha traps in the ocean, though. Drown them like they deserved to be drowned.
"I am sorry, Iseut," Sofiya says, and her words aren’t mistruths.
"Don't apologise to me," Iseut says dismissively, "It’s your friends that were barely able to sleep the past few nights. You should talk to -"
"Destry," Sofiya's words mist the air like a fine rain, "I know."
One of the tall figures stood behind Iseut lowers her own hood. Lyra. Ly.
It made sense that the Robber Claws would send their best Bruisers to Fourth Harbour. Sofiya knew by the other Robber's posture that beneath the hood, she would find the face of Winter. But Winter wouldn't lower her hood in front of so many people, so Sofiya was content with what she could get.
"You really had Destry worried, Sof," Ly says, chastising.
"Destry can handle me being gone for weeks on end," Sofiya crosses her arms. She will not be guilt-tripped, "This job was half a week, and I was only a few days off schedule. I did tell Cherry that I'd be late." The words come out as a question.
None of them say anything.
Another flash of worry courses through Sofiya. Cherry Vlasova is a Heartrender, and one of Sofiya's closest friends. The message that Sofiya had forwarded was simple and concise: I'll be a few days late. Stopping at Os Kervo. Don't worry, no Fjerdans. Tell Destry -S.P
Had something happened to Cherry? She was an avid gossiper; her post box was always full of tip-offs (a useful source of information for the Robber Claws) but Sofiya was reliably informed that her letters were always placed on the top of the pile. Marked "URGENT."
"What happened? Is Cherry alright?" Sofiya demands.
Iseut holds up her palms, and they are callused and grease-marked. Sometimes Iseut is so well put together that Sofiya forgets she's a barmaid.
"Cherry is fine. But all our Grisha are shaken. Whilst you were away, there was an attack on the East Stave."
Sofiya's heart stops and restarts and stops again.
An attack. On the Grisha. And she wasn’t there to - to help, to defend-
"Destry," Sofiya breathes, "And Cherry - and Adali, Roza, Linnea, Yan, Anya- oh, Saints, was it the Fjerdans?"
There are many Grisha members of the Robber Claws. It was one of the reasons that Sofiya wanted to join them in the first place. If the Fjerdans had attacked -
"Everybody is fine," Ly says lowly, "We had Freya and May fixing people up as soon as we heard- and Lita, of course, but behind the scenes."
Freya and May- and even Lita, whose powers most of the gang didn't even know of. Grisha Healers. So people had been hurt.
"What. Happened." Sofiya growls, and Ly glares at her challengingly, fists clenching. The water beneath the decking froths and bubbles as Sofiya brings her own fists together, power surging pleasantly up her arms. If Ly wants a fight, she can have one.
"Calm down, both of you," Winter's smooth voice projects from under her hood. Despite the heavy fabric, her voice is clear and commanding. Sofiya takes a breath to compose herself.
"To answer your previous question: no. It wasn't the Fjerdans." Iseut says, "We don’t know what they were."
Sofiya's brow creases at the chime of fear in Iseut's voice. She's never seen the golden-haired barmaid afraid before.
It begins to rain softly, the pattering of droplets quiet against the wooden decking of the docks.
"We should go back to the Queen’s Head, Iseut," Ly suggests, referencing Iseut’s place of work. Iseut nods once, swiftly, and glances over Sofiya's shoulder at her warship.
"Do you need to...?"
"Yes."
"Go on, then."
"KASTOR! IM GOING FOR A ROUND OF DAY-DRINKING!" Sofiya yells over the shoulder of her rain-splattered coat. She hears Ly chuckle as Kastor's scruffy head pokes out from a window.
He nods at Sofiya when he spots her, and she waves, assenting. Kastor would keep everything safe whilst she was gone. It was their unspoken agreement, unchanging and unwavering since the day they'd become crewmates.
Sofiya turns back to Iseut, Ly and Winter.
"Let's be on our way," she says, and lets her fellow criminals lead the way along the Harbour, her warship disappearing into the mist behind her.
~~~~
The mid-day slump of customers meant that the Robber Claws had the Queen’s Head pub all to themselves.
Iseut- who did not own the pub, but had put more work into it than the real owners ever did- had immediately trekked behind the bar and poured herself a whisky.
"Want anything?" She asks, directing the question directly at Sofiya despite the equal presence of Ly- and Winter (who had lowered her hood slightly now that she was back on familiar ground, with familiar faces.) Bruisers didn’t drink on the job. It slowed reflexes.
"The story," says Sofiya firmly, "It a joke about the day-drinking. What happened?"
Iseut pours herself another whiskey and the quartet take a seat at a shady little circular table in a quiet corner. The murmurs of other Robber Claws members is enough to shelter their conversation from the group- despite Sofiya being sure she was the only one unaware of what had transpired the days she’d been gone.
As Iseut begins her story, with Winter and Ly regularly interjecting with additions, Sofiya feels horror and fear clamp down on her heart like a Fjerdan Grisha trap.
Iseut’s alluring voice weaves a tale of Komedie Brute actors in bloody masks, rose-painted rubble from an impossible explosion, and worst of all: Grisha. Dead Grisha, killed by creatures with screeching metal wings.
“Only a few of our Grisha were hurt,” Iseut sips her drink solemnly, “We took your advice of keeping them anonymous and undercover. We have Erin and our other spies out searching for answers at the embassies. I’m sure you’re just as eager to find out about the winged creatures as we are.”
Sofiya nods, “I am. Thank you for filling me in, Is, really. And to you, Ly, Winter. I know you don’t like going to far from the West Stave.”
The last comment was directed purely at Winter. It’s not a lie. Winter runs a dojo for training Kerch’s women to protect themselves from Barrel bosses and scum alike; she didn’t want her clients finding out about her… Robber side. Being a criminal wasn’t the most unintimidating, friendly persona to have when speaking with vulnerable women.
Sofiya respected Winter and her clean profession. It was hard to be so kind in the Barrel. And men were rarely kind to women at all.
Sofiya knew that first hand.
Shoving away the memories- blue eyes, dark hair, gorgeous smile, charming words and sharper wounds- Sofiya stands in one fluid movement.
“I’m going to find Destry,” she says. Iseut stands, Ly and Winter falling back to flank her again, and smiles. She’s beautiful, that is undoubtful, but the attacks- the sleazy men at the Queen’s Head, the strain of the city- it’s all gotten to her. Sofiya can see it.
This city is poison, thinks Sofiya as Iseut takes her hand and shakes it. Poison and rot.
“Destry will be in her rooms,” Ly supplies, and Sofiya nods at her once.
Sofiya grins brightly, hoping it covers her own weariness, and recites, “Fair winds.”
“Bright stars,” chorus her friends. Sofiya waves over her shoulder as she slips out of the bar and down an alley. Above her, a storm brews in the clouds.
Perhaps the stars would be out that night. It didn’t matter. Nobody in Kerch saw the stars anymore.
~~~~
On her way to Destry’s apartments, Sofiya ran into more members of the Robber Claws.
Malcolm and Firefly, who lived together in shared housing in the Anvil, were shopping for new blacksmiths’ equipment. They each provided invaluable services to the Robber Claws, crafting flawless weapons second only to that of Fabrikators. They greeted her with a wink each. Sofiya moved on swiftly after trading them a Wandering Isle-crafted staff for twenty Kruge.
She picked up some baked goods on the way. She would need them. Destry- who had been her closest friend since she arrived in Kerch- was an Inferni. Fire-bringer; with an even fierier temperament. Rumour had it- and Sofiya knew the rumours were true- that Destry had been attending the University of Ketterdam when she’d heard a boy make a lude comment during an exam and lit the paper on fire with her mind. And that paper had been thrown. At the boy’s face. Ouch.
Sofiya had been nursing a whiskey in a tavern when she’d first heard the story recounted. She’d leapt up from her seat, slithered into an alley and held the recounter at knifepoint until he’d told her Destry’s name.
They’d become fast friends upon meeting. Sofiya had been in awe of someone so rebellious, so brave as to set fire to an exam paper, and Destry- well. Destry had laughed for hours when Sofiya had told her how she’d first come across her name.
But now, staring up at the ornate windows of Destry’s apartment, Sofiya feels unsure. She didn’t mean to worry her friend. Iseut had explained that her letter must have gotten lost during the riots. Sofiya cursed the post offices. So there was a deadly storm- your motto is still “We always deliver.”
Despite her trepidation, Sofiya’s feet were swift on the stairs. She had a key to the apartment, and didn’t hesitate to unlock the door and slip inside without a sound, content to watch Destry whilst she worked; even if only for a moment.
Leaning against the wall, Sofiya’s brow creases as she surveys her friend. Destry’s hair is plaited carefully into two loops at the nape of her neck, hazel strands freeing themselves gently against her light brown skin. She’s stood facing away from Sofiya, arms circled in rings of fire. The shirt she wears is Fabrikator-made; the flames don’t take to the papery material.
Sofiya takes a step forward, and pointedly drops her bag of confectionary on the floor. It lands with an audible thump.
Destry whirls, the fire at her wrists whirling into an inferno ready to strike- until Destry sees who is at her door.
“Shouldn’t have hesitated, Des,” Sofiya said weakly, “I could have put a knife in your back.”
The shock on Destry’s face dissolves. Her face splinters down the middle. Licks of fire at her fingertips wilt into ash in a pile at her boot-clad feet.
“You would have put out the flames with your water, I’m sure,” Destry says, and then flies across the room towards Sofiya, wrapping her in a tight, smoke-smelling embrace.
Sofiya would normally pull back. “Don’t be too open with your heart, Des,” she’d say, “People use your loves against you here.” But Sofiya couldn’t bring herself to say those things. The weight of the week comes crashing down on her head like a tsunami.
Fjerdan traps on my boat, attacks on my gang, tensions in Ravka boiling over… where’s safe anymore, except here?
Destry pulls back slightly to scan Sofiya’s face. She has a smear of oil on her cheek. Destry’s eyes are filled with fire, burning like an ember beneath onyx waters.
“Where. Have. You. Been.”
“Destry-”
“Don’t you make excuses with me, Pavlichenkov,” Destry snarls, “You didn’t warn us you were late! I couldn’t sleep- neither could Cherry!”
“I-”
“We thought you’d been caught, Sofi,” Destry cries, “We thought the Fjerdans had got you! I thought you died.”
The word is ugly and big in the room, choking Sofiya’s response. Death. Dying. Dead. And by Fjerdan hands. It wasn’t so rare for travelling Grisha to be caught and sent to the pyres.
“I’m sorry,” Sofiya says, because it’s the only thing there is, “I wrote- I really did, don’t look at me like that- according to Lyra, there was a storm in the True Sea. The letter sunk with the ship.”
“You’re a Tidemaker,” Destry huffs.
“Yes, which means I manipulate water,” Sofiya says, “Not stop it from overturning ships with important letters on them. Destry, I’m sorry. I brought waffles.” She offers the last sentence like a defendant on trial with the Stadwatch; one final piece of evidence to prove her innocence.
Destry brightens immediately, “Well, in that case.”
The pair of them set to work, shoulders just brushing in the cramped kitchenette. Sofiya’s array of pasties are laid out over two plates, which they lay on their laps. Destry’s job for the Robber Claws is, in few words, that of the logician. Papers are scattered all over her apartment, covered in detailed blueprints and scale drawings of buildings all over Ketterdam, Fjerda and even- rarely- Shu Han. There were no drawings of Ravka.
If Iseut had ever commissioned a robbery in Ravka, Sofiya didn’t know about it. It would be…unwise to hit out at the Ravkans, with so many Grisha in the gang.
But Destry’s job was essential, so Sofiya couldn’t complain about the lack of trays to put their plates on. Such things were useless for such an incredible mind as Destry’s.
“So,” says Destry conversationally as she lights the fireplace with a casual flick of her wrist, “How were the Wandering Isles?”
Sofiya says nothing, massaging her temples lightly. Destry manages a laugh.
“Your silence is telling, Sofi,” she warns.
Sighing quietly, suddenly feeling very tired, Sofiya says, “It was crawling with our Fjerdan friends from the North. ‘Peaceful’ Fjerdans.”
Destry spins, and she is outlined with the fire. We’re opposites, Sofiya thinks. Fire and Water.
“You didn’t-” Destry begins, horrified.
Silently, solemnly, Sofiya raised her palms to face the ceiling. Destry reaches out.
Her gentle fingers trace the scars there. Deep and painful and barely healed, the scars run red against Sofiya’s pale flesh.
“Sofiya…” Destry breathes.
“It was the only way to push my power down,” Sofiya whispers. She’s rarely so emotive, but Destry is someone she trusts with everything. It was a weakness, some would say, but they were each powerful Grisha. They were Gods in a world of men. And they would not kneel “If I hadn’t, I would’ve been caught. It was a price to pay.”
Grisha shone like lighthouses around people. In Kerch, in Ketterdam, it was safer for them- especially ones loyal to a gang, as Destry and Sofiya were. But in the Wandering Isles; where Fjerdans passed through on their way to Novyi Zem, where gang affiliations mattered less than the colour of your eyes… Sofiya tells herself she had no choice.
“Sofiya, you’ve opened up old wounds here,” Destry says, tracing the marred skin of her palms again, “You need a healer. Freya, Lita, May-”
“Wouldn’t understand,” Sofiya finished, pulling her hands out of Destry’s and placing them carefully in her lap, obscuring them with her coat, “They’re healers, Des, not warriors- they’d go to Iseut.”
Iseut. Their unofficial leader, the founder, the lighthouse in raging seas. All of the Robber Claws seemed to be caught in her gravity. She was their sun. And Sofiya… well, Sofiya was the moon. Iseut would send her to a healer, one who would stop her travels. One who would commandeer her Warship, and Kastor… health of the mind was important to Iseut.
But Sofiya was not damaged, as they would tell her. She was not broken. Her mind was sound.
I did what I had to do, to survive.
But Destry can see through it all. Through the mask, through her eyes, right to her bones. Through to her lying, treacherous heart. We’re all broken in the end.
But.
Oh, Destry, Destry, please…
“I won’t tell her,” Destry promises, “But I’d like you to know that I think you should. Tell her, that is- Iseut. She might help.”
“She might ship me back to Ravka,” Sofiya grumbles, biting into a toasty croissant.
“Oh, she wouldn’t.”
“You never know.”
“She’ll want you to heal, that’s all.”
“Yes,” Sofiya rolls her eyes, “But these wounds are of the flesh. The scars on my heart will never heal, not in this life Perhaps there will be mercy in the next, even for my rotten soul.”
“You sound like you’re auditioning for the Komedie Brute,” Destry laughs.
“Mother, Father, pay the rent!” Sofiya crows.
“I can’t my dear, the money’s spent,” Destry choruses instinctively.
Sofiya wipes away an invisible tear, “Gorgeous! We’ll make an actress out of you, yet, Destry Clements.”
“Oh, you most certainly will not,” Destry huffs.
Their laughter fills the air, and Sofiya thinks that maybe there is hope for her rotten soul, after all.
~~~~
The man returns late from the pub wearing only one shoe.
A bottle drained halfway of mauve liquid dangles limply from his pale fingers. The veins in his foot are blue in the half-moon’s light.
He slurs a broken melody. She catches a few words as he passes below her on the street.
“Hmm… perish… light… air… fire… hell… hmmm…”
The man’s name is Danyl Harrop. And he is going to die tonight.
“Hmm… shadow… devil… rot… earth… sun… burn… lose….”
Harrop continues down the road, heedless of the mud on his bare foot. He'd be blackout drunk in the morning if he survived.
He wouldn’t.
Silent as a breeze, steps as soft as downy feathers, she leaps from the streetlight where she was perched.
She strikes.
She is ash and shadow. She is a storm of fire. She is vengeance.
She is death.
Harrop yelps as she pins him against the tree. His face is as white as the moon, with eyes like black craters.
“What’re you doi-” he slurs dazedly, but she silences him with a wave of her hand. He blubbers like a fish on land as he tries to shout for help.
“For King and Country,” says the girl. Stepping away from Harrop, she lets her power hold him against the tree, keeping his muscles upright. She surveys him like an artist would their unfinished masterpiece.
The girl whispers, “Sleep tight, Danyl.”
Flicking her wrist, she snaps his neck. He’s still alive, barely, so she latches on to what little of his mind there is left and strips it like an onion. For a man who is out so late, so drunk, on what the girl remembers as a work-day, he knows too much.
Secrets. They feed this girl, nourish her. There is a skip in her step as she turns away from Harrop; without her supporting his muscles, he collapses against the tree. She leaves his mind just as it goes dark.
There is no need to hide in the treetops upon her return to the city. It gleams just half a mile away, most of which is roiling seawater. As the girl wanders along the road back to Ketterdam, she finds Danyl Harrop’s shoe in a puddle of mud. The girl laughs at the sky. She flips a coin into the shoe, whispers a heartless prayer to her Saints, and moves on.
Back to Ketterdam. Back home.
~~~~
Ok, so that's that! I left it on a bit of a cliffhanger... I may have created a whole plot... so there might be some more coming soon!
all these excellent characters (save Sofiya, Danyl, Kastor and the girl at the end who kills Danyl- who has no name... yet *wink*) belong to the following:
Iseut is @littlegirldorothea's
Destry is @finnick-annie's (I may have made them besties👀👀)
Cherry is @brekkercookie's (they are ALSO besties👀👀 we have a trio omg)
Winter is @cressjacquine's
Lyra is @no-mourners-at-my-funeral's
Malcom is @blackpheonix’s
Firefly is @ask-shadowbon’s
Erin is @lightningboytytonjesper’s
Adali is @apple-bottom-jeansx’s
Roza is @vampire-rights’s
Linnea is @alonlyfangirl's
Yan is @lucentcorrigan’s
Anya is @queenlilith43’s
Freya is @smol-evil-gremlin’s
Lita is @the-whispers-of-moonlight’s
May is @saltyfortunes
and the "Fair winds, bright stars" motto as created by @spicy-tomato-sauce's
oh and the whole Grishaverse is the wonderful @lbardugo's <3
if I missed anyone or you want to tag anyone go ahead!
#shadow and bone#s&b#six of crows#kaz brekker#inej ghafa#nina zenik#matthias helvar#wylan van eck#the crows#pretty people#alina starkov#the darkling#malyen oretsev#mal oretsev#kanej#wesper#helnik#malina#darklina#milo the goat#sankta milo#sankta alina#general kirigan#soc#my writing#fanfic#soc fanfic
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Acceptable Risk
Art trade fic for the extremely patient @theheroofoakvale, exploring if Shepard’s recruiting Thane had gone a little.... differently.
-----
The door opened with a quiet hiss, and Shepard’s entry was greeted with the raised barrels of several assault rifles. The mercenaries, however, paused before opening fire, despite being confronted by three heavily armed individuals pointing guns back at them.
The asari in the middle of the cluster--clad for business rather than combat--spun to face them, her eyes widening. “Shepard?!”
Shepard smirked, centered his pistol on her. “Nassana.”
There was a muffled clatter in the ceiling that had the mercenaries’ attention swiveling upward. Her posture shifted defensive. “You’re dead.”
“I got better,” he retorted, and shot her in the throat.
Her bodyguards zeroed back in on him and his team, torn between them and the threat above, and that was their undoing. A dark figure dropped from one of the ceiling vents, and Shepard used that moment of distraction to take out two of them. When the remaining mercs focused in on him, the dark figure punched one in the throat and shot the other center mass. The few that were left went down quickly.
Massani and Vakarian kept their guns up, leveled at the late arrival, a drell, as he stood in the middle of the carnage, eyes fixed in an unblinking, regretful stare at Nassana Dantius’ body.
“Sorry if I stole your kill,” Shepard said after letting the silence go as long as he could tolerate. His pistol hung at his side in a loose grip, ready if he needed it. He didn’t think he would.
“I was not here for her, though the galaxy is no less for her removal,” the drell said softly, finally looking up from the dead woman and blinking just before he met Shepard’s gaze. “I am here for you.”
Behind him, Massani muttered a quiet curse and Vakarian tightened his grip on his gun, but Shepard didn’t even flinch. “I did wonder. Dantius hardly seems worth the time for someone of your... reputation.”
“And yet you still came,” the drell said, clasping his hands behind him and looking in no rush to kill anyone.
“She used me.” He let the barest edge of a snarl color the words. “I can go along with a likely trap if it gives me an excuse for payback. Also,” he took half a step forward, “seemed the best way to meet you, Krios. We need to talk.”
Thane Krios did not look at all perturbed that his target knew who he was. His expression remained impassive as he studied Shepard’s face. “Do we? What about?”
“I need your help on a mission. You can feel free to continue trying to kill me after we’re done.”
“Why?” Krios asked, still studying Shepard’s face.
“Why, what?”
“Why do you need me? Why should I help instead of killing you now?”
Shepard laughed darkly. “The fucking galaxy is at stake, I need the best of the best, even if they are out for my blood.” Another half step forward, Vakarian and Massani following this time until he waved them back. “As for the second question.... I know some things about you, Krios. I know you’re dying, and I know you have a son.” His pistol folded in on its clip as he crossed his arms and stared hard at the assassin. “And where he is. I imagine you’d hate for something to happen to him before you had a chance to mend fences.”
Three rapid blinks, a sharp breath, posture unchanged, but it was the most reaction Krios had shown in this conversation. “And would you make this... something happen if I say no, Shepard?”
His calm was impressive. Shepard wondered if it was an easier illusion to maintain with eyes that had neither pupils nor iris to betray strong emotion. “If I have to. I need the best, Krios, which is you. Don’t really care how I get your cooperation.”
Krios was silent for a long moment. “This threat must be grave indeed for you to employ such measures.”
He was nigh impossible to read, but the slight shift of his clasped hands was hint enough. “I’m hunting an enemy who’s abducting human colonies and has ties to the Reapers, I’d call that pretty damn grave. Like I said, you can resume trying to kill me if we survive. What’s it gonna be?”
Another heavy pause, though shorter. “You have left me only one viable option if I care about my son.”
Shepard arched a brow.
“I will assist. Consider this a pause in the contract on your life.”
“Good enough for me.” Shepard cast a smug glance at Dantius’ corpse, then turned to exit the room. “We’re done here, so you can either come with us or meet us at the ship.”
“I will meet you shortly. I have a few personal effects to gather,” Krios said.
“Alright. We’re on a clock, so don’t dilly dally,” Shepard replied, and motioned their departure to Vakarian and Massani.
“What’s to stop him from shooting you on our way down?” Vakarian muttered as they headed for the elevator. “He’s already planning to kill you and you threatened his kid.”
Massani beat Shepard to the answer. “Doesn’t know if there’s a dead man’s switch on that something happenin’ to his boy if Shepard bites it.” He chuckled darkly and smirked at Shepard. “What the hell’d you do to earn a death mark, anyway?”
Shepard shrugged, watching the blur of downward travel out the elevator’s glass-paned wall. “Hell if I know, Massani. Certainly pissed off enough people for there to be some options.”
The mercenary gave a rough laugh and slapped him on the shoulder. “Wear like a badge of fucking honor, kid. Means you got someone real riled up.”
---
Krios was, as promised, aboard the Normandy well within an hour. His personal effects he’d gone to collect were few enough to fit in a small shoulder satchel that he politely refused to let anyone inspect. (Lawson was not happy when Shepard told her to drop it, clearly suspicious of allowing an assassin on board without first vetting his gear.) He settled in life support at EDI’s suggestion, and ruffled no feathers with the rest of the crew, unless you counted Taylor’s mistrust of his career in general.
“What will be expected of me, Commander?” Krios asked, in that same modulated tone he’d used on Illium.
“No shipboard duties, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Shepard said. He leaned against the wall by the door and studied Krios. “You can do as you like here. When we have missions, I may want you to come watch my six, if your skillset seems a good fit.”
“I see.” He folded his hands, elbows braced against the small worktable at which he sat. There was a hesitation under the words that almost rang in the air.
“If there’s something else you wanna say, now’s the time,” Shepard prodded. He didn’t have time to be gentle prying out secrets or whatever.
“My son,” Krios said, words measured and careful. “You say you know where he is. Would you be willing to share that knowledge?”
Shepard mulled it over, weighing the value of his options. “In time,” he finally said. “We have a couple pressing assignments that are more important than family reunions. But if we hit a point with some free time I’ll let you know.”
Krios nodded, his expression unreadable as ever. “Very well, Shepard.”
“One thing I need to know from you,” Shepard began, pushing away from the wall, “is if whatever’s killing you will affect your abilities in a fight.”
“It shouldn’t, not yet.” He paused for the space of a few blinks. “I should have several months at least before the symptoms become noticeable even to myself. More than enough time to complete your mission, if it is as urgent as you make you sound.”
“Is that something you doubt, Krios?”
“Not at all.” Krios pushed to his feet and crossed the room to examine a rack of spare rifle parts. “Even someone of your reputation would have to be on a mission of urgency to blackmail an assassin sent to kill you into helping your cause. I simply mean this threat seems the type where a decisive outcome will be reached swiftly; whether in victory or destruction. Well within the time I have before functionality is... affected.”
“Good.” Shepard nodded. “Not sure when I’ll need you, but I want to be sure you’ll be worth it when the times comes.” He left the room, noting Krios’ undertone murmur as he did, and from the cadence wondered what the assassin was praying for.
---
Shepard first tested him on something that seemed of no consequence; a mercenary base on a backwater planet trafficking stolen eezo. Thane did his job, no more no less, all the while making note of how the man fought. The risks he thought worth taking, the sacrifices that were acceptable cost, the balance of recklessness and cunning. It was not a complete picture, not off one mission, and Thane wouldn’t act on what he’d gleaned even if it were.
Not with the blade the commander had hung over Kolyat. Not with the hope of learning where his son might be. Patience was the hallmark of an assassin, after all; knowing when to strike as well as how. And Thane had been an assassin a very long time. He could wait.
Especially as conversations with others aboard the ship painted a clearer and clearer picture of the mission’s scope. A trip through the Omega 4 relay was very likely to be suicidal just on its own. Destroying whatever these Collectors used as a base doubly so. When Shepard made ‘if we survive’ comments, he wasn’t joking. Thane could wait. He could help with the mission--it was a worthy goal after all, one he would have assisted in accomplishing without the threats--and then resume his contract.
After the mercenary base was eliminated, and easily, Shepard made use of Thane’s skills a few more times. Usually on missions with plentiful shadow coverage and good sight lines.
“How’re you holding up?” Garrus asked on one such mission, the two of them picking off targets from a bit of a distance while Shepard made viciously short work of the battlefield.
“I’ve had worse assignments.” Thane’s rifle kicked against his shoulder and the krogan he’d been targeting dropped. He fired another shot, just to be safe, and watched the body jerk then lay still, before searching out another target. “What of you?”
Garrus snorted, took down his own target. “I’m here because he’s my... friend” --there was a brief hesitation, as if the turian wasn’t completely sure that was the right word--”and I trust that whatever he’s doing is worth whatever it costs to accomplish.”
“You’ve fought alongside him before.”
“Against Sovereign, yeah.” Garrus’ mandible twitched as he focused on sighting in another shot. “This feels different.”
He didn’t elaborate, and it was only a few moments more for them the claim victory and press further on with their mission.
Thane watched Shepard, and wondered what had changed in the eyes of his friend.
---
It was after the derelict Reaper, after adding a geth to their mix, that Thane’s patience paid off. At least in part.
“Your kid’s on the Citadel,” Shepard informed him out of the blue. “Lucky for you, Vakarian has some unfinished business there as well, and the techs need some time to integrate the IFF to the Normandy’s systems. I can spare a side trip for personal issues while they get that squared away. Be ready to go in an hour.”
Thane didn’t protest. Didn’t question. He could ask for details on approach to the Citadel.
They set a cold knot in his gut when he learned them. “He’s here to kill someone,” Shepard said bluntly, and all Thane could think was Like father, like son. That was not a path he’d ever wanted for Kolyat. Shepard didn’t have a lot of details, just that Kolyat was there. Apparently even Cerberus’ resources had limits.
They spoke to a C-Sec officer, then to Mouse at his suggestion--Thane was surprised but pleased he was still alive--both conversations Shepard kept as short as possible. Clearly he was not in the mood to waste time. Thane wished that hadn’t involved the commander breaking Mouse’s nose, but couldn’t muster much sympathy when the same proved true of Kelham once they got his name and interrogated him.
“We have some time, not a lot of it,” Shepard growled. “And we still need to find Sidonis when we’re done with your shit, Krios.” He turned to Captain Bailey. “What can you tell me about this Talid Kelham wants dead?”
The picture Bailey painted--up and coming turian politician, vocally anti-human and gaining support--made it obvious why Kelham would want Talid gone. He had to be very bad for business. He was also in a very vulnerable position currently; pressing flesh on a walk through the Wards with only one or two bodyguards along for protection.
Thane had to admit surprise when Shepard was alright with them splitting up to track Talid and (hopefully) find Kolyat.
“You can’t find him alone any more than I can,” Shepard commented with a sharp smile s he and Garrus headed for the catwalks. “Stay sharp, Krios.”
As if he would do otherwise. Still, he bowed his head and asked Amonkira for strength and guidance before he vanished into the shadows, hoping they weren’t too late to save his son from a very familiar dark path.
Are you really surprised? a voice inside him mocked as Thane picked his route along catwalks and ducts, through shadows and crowds. Even if he hates you, that’s the example you left.
He shook it off. He didn’t have the luxury of internal debate right now. He had to pick out his route on the fly, keep in touch with Shepard and Garrus, plot out several ways to handle the situation that all depended on Kolyat’s behavior. And he didn’t know his own son well enough to predict that, so his solutions were all loosely structured ideas at best. Some plan was better than none.
It was a close thing, despite their best efforts. Kolyat spooked, shot the bodyguards and dragged Talid into his apartment with a gun to his head.
Shepard was only a step behind once Kolyat broke cover and very quickly had a gun pointed at him.
Thane went very still, watching this standoff. He didn’t know Shepard well enough to know what the man would do, but he knew what C-Sec protocols would be, and he could hear their approach. Shepard had been very clear about the limited time they had for this side trip, the fastest resolution--which would also fulfill C-Sec’s mandate to keep Talid alive--would end with his son dead, and Shepard was not a patient man.
Kolyat’s anger blazed, even from across the room, and he was far from willing to cooperate, his pistol pressed to the back of Talid’s head.
The loud crack of a pistol shot nearly made Thane flinch, his chest squeezing in protest at the thought of his failure. Just this one thing, I wanted to fix just this.
But Shepard’s shot snapped Talid’s head back, not Kolyat’s. The turian collapsed in a spray of dark blood and Kolyat recoiled. In that moment of distraction, Thane surged forward and twisted the pistol out of Kolyat’s hands, unsure if the tremor was adrenaline or rage.
Shepard was talking to an incensed Bailey; “No one will miss a racist asshole, I did you a favor”, but Thane’s focus was all on his son.
“This was not the best way,” he said softly.
“What do you know?” Kolyat hissed back, struggling against Thane’s unrelenting grip.
“More than you might think.”
Kolyat yanked away as if the contact had burned him. Fury simmered in his eyes, and resentment, but he was alive. C-Sec would still have to take him in for what he’d been ready to do(attempted murder? That would likely be the charge), there would be consequences for what he tried to do, and Thane didn’t know if they even could “mend fences” as Shepard had put it. But he was alive. And hopefully could be deterred from a path Thane wouldn’t wish anyone to tread.
“Krios,” Shepard barked and Thane pulled himself out of his reverie watching C-Sec lead Kolyat away. But rather than Time to go, the commander nodded after the arresting officers. “Massani can help with tracking down Fade. You have until we’re done. I wouldn’t count on more than an hour or two.”
Thane blinked, thrown off kilter by the gesture, but recovered quickly. “Understood.” He’d taken three steps after the C-Sec officers before he stopped and turned. “...Thank you, Shepard.”
The man waved him off, already walking away with Garrus in his wake.
---
An hour and a half didn’t go very far working through a decade of distance, but it was a start.
“Why do you stay with him?” Kolyat asked when Thane’s comms crackled with a heads-up Shepard and the others were on their way back and he stood. “If... this” --a quick gesture, more a flick of the wrist than anything, between the two of them-- “is so important?”
For you. In more ways than one. “Shepard’s mission is... critical. And there is, unfortunately, a time limit on saving the galaxy.”
Kolyat snorted at his father’s dry humor. “Right.”
“I will keep in touch,” Thane promised. “Perhaps we can meet again once this is finished. If you would like.” If I survive.
“...We’ll see.” Kolyat was staring at the table rather than him, but Thane would take it.
He nodded and headed for the door. “Very well.”
“Does he have something on you?” Kolyat asked abruptly. “With the reputation Shepard’s made, he doesn’t seem the type honorable people would be following.”
“I have made no claims of honor,” Thane said quietly, hand on the door frame. “And with the stakes of mission, some sacrifices may prove necessary.”
“Sounds familiar,” Kolyat muttered.
Thane made no reply, and didn’t look back as he left the room with a cold weight in his chest.
---
It ha been the right call letting Krios reconnect with his son. He seemed more centered, more focused, for having dealt with his baggage. Probably that whole ‘something to live for’ schtick. Shepard only cared that Krios did his job and the mending bond made the kid an even more effective pressure point.
Not that Krios had ever protested. Ever balked. But everyone had their limit, and if he happened to find the assassin’s, it never hurt to have a brute force solution in your arsenal. Especially as they were very close to actually pursuing the Collectors through the Omega 4 relay.
“Just a few more tests,” Lawson assured him. They wanted it to work right, after all. It’d be a real short trip otherwise.
“So,” he asked Krios, “out of morbid curiosity, who wants me dead?” There were plenty of options, he wanted to know who wanted it badly enough to hire an assassin. And it wasn’t like he currently had anything better to do with his time.
Krios cocked his head, a flicker of what might have been amusement crossing his face. “I cannot tell you, Shepard.”
Shepard snorted and arched a brow. “Client confidentiality?”
“Client anonymity,” the drell corrected.
“You let some faceless coward point you at a target with my body count?”
“As you know, I am dying,” Krios said in that implacable tone of his. “Odds of survival were... far from troubling, as a factor.”
“And odds of success?” Shepard retorted.
This time there was definitely a small smile before Krios schooled his expression neutral. Not mocking or cocky, just... amused. “There is a first time for everything.” The faint amusement was gone when he locked eyes with Shepard. “How will we handle this, commander? When we are finished our mission, assuming we both survive, and I resume my contract to kill you?”
“Feel like giving me a day’s lead?” Shepard grinned sardonically.
“I could be persuaded,” Krios said. He shifted in his chair. “Let us see how things progress, shall we?”
You’d never know to look at the man he’d been... convinced to help with this by threat of harm to his son. He seemed perfectly at home, posture easy. He didn’t talk to the crew much, Shepard knew from EDI, but it was hardly surprising an assassin was accustom to solitude.
As if summoned by his brief thought of her, a glowing sphere materialized on the AI kiosk. “Shepard, Miss Lawson wished you informed that the IFF installation is in its final stage. For the shakedown we will need complete access to the Normandy’s systems, so it is recommended you use the shuttle for whatever you plan to undertake next.”
“Got it,: Shepard tossed in vaguely the direction of the AI. “That’ll make things tight,” he muttered to himself. He had something in mind that would likely need the whole team. They’d fit in the shuttle, but it would be tight. Last thing he needed was Lawson and Jack killing each other before they even hit the Collector base.
Krios was eyeing him with curiosity. “Commander?”
“Gear up,” Shepard said, heading for the door. “Got a search and recover that might take all hands.”
The assassin nodded and pushed to his feet, heading for his locker. “Very well.”
---
Their mission went well. Things on the Normandy in their absence, not so much. Shepard left a fully-staffed state of the art warship an returned to a picked-clean husk manned only by his pilot and the now-unshackled AI.
The Collectors had bloodied his nose, cost him his crew. Again. He’d had it. “Ship’s not getting any more ready than it is. Joker, head for the Omega 4 relay.”
“Aye, aye,” came the determined, hungry reply.The pilot was probably even more eager than Shepard to punch back at the bug-eyed bastards.
Unlike Joker--and probably the others--Shepard viewed getting the crew back as a secondary objective to taking out the Collectors. The threat they posed to humanity ended now.
Get us there was his order, and that didn’t change when they came out of the relay having to dodge starship wreckage, or when they were harried by drones, or even when a fucking occulus busted into the hold.
“Krios, Massani, with me!” he barked, rifle in hand, listening to the scrape and thud of wreckage and lasers ricocheting off the upgraded hull on the way to the bowels of the ship. By the time they had trashed the occulus, Joker had them past the debris field and the drones, and a new problem had arisen.
New, but familiar--the same Collector vessel that he had encountered numerous times before. But this time, the Normandy had sharper teeth. “Let ‘em have it!” he ordered, a command Joker follow with alacrity Darting, looping, dodging, the pilot had them dancing around the larger ship, deftly avoiding the beam that had been their destruction before.
The surge of satisfaction at destroying the vessel was short lived, as it erupted in a fireball more than large enough to knock the Normandy into a crazy, barely controlled descent that could more bluntly be called a crash.
“Everyone alive?” Shepard checked over comms. When that was affirmative, he followed with, “Assemble in the CIC.”
This was it. A quick rundown of schematics pulled from the vessel and what he expected to find inside, a victory whatever it takes reminder, and it was time to go.
---
Than prayed silently to Amonkira as they disembarked from the Normandy. Let our hands strike true, and victory be worth the cost. There would be a cost, of this he was sure. He was familiar enough with Shepard’s methods by now there was little room for doubt. If I am among that cost, please guide my son, that his steps may trace a better path.
He wondered, if he should fall, whether his client would hire someone else to complete the task of killing Shepard or if they would let it go. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He wanted to survive, to speak more with Kolyat before the end, but it would be what it was.
They split into groups, Shepard leading Thane and Zaeed, Garrus the rest of them, to serve as distractions while Tali crawled through the vents to let them pass. It was a good call; the Collectors swarmed thick enough any other plan would likely have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. They were not given the luxury of time for sighting in targets, so Thane stuck with his pistol--and occasionally biotics--firing, reloading, firing, with the odd interruption to scrounge more thermal clips because he’d run out.
Shepard’s back and forth with Garrus and Tali was just background noise, like the beating wings of their foes, as Thane gave his focus to the task at hand.
Tali stumbled out of the vent just as they finally reached the heavy doors barring the end of the hall. She beelined for the access panel, teetered as a couple shots ricocheted off her shields.
“Get it open!” Shepard barked as the three of them wheeled to give her cover fire. “Vakarian, where the hell are you?!”
“Almost there, a group of the bastards ambushed us!”
A Collector dove toward Tali and Thane shot it--rushed, imperfect, but the grazing shot knocked it off course long enough for him to try again. This time, it fell and did not rise again.
---
The sense of urgency, pounding Hurry, hurry, hurry through Shepard’s veins thrummed louder as the door beeped and started to hiss open. A muffled burst of gunfire reached his ears a handful of seconds before Vakarian and the others came into view, hauling ass down the passageway toward them.
“Massani, Krios! Through the door!” He rattled off a stream of cover fire, driving the Collectors to hang back for a second. Just a second. But it was enough time for the second fire team to reach the end of the passage and dart through the door.
Krios and Massani maintained some cover fire from the far side of the door, buying breathing room for the others as one by one they darted through the door. Lawson brought up the rear, her barrier shimmering out as the doors groaned on closing.
“They’re stuck!” Tali bit out, shoving one door with scraping, grinding protest along its track. Shepard and Lawson ducked through the narrowing gap just as a final shot slammed into Lawson’s shoulder and sent her stumbling.
“I’m fine,” she ground out, slapping medigel on the injury as the group of them shook off the adrenaline to register what the room held.
The walls were lined with dozens, hundreds, thousands, of the Collectors’ pods. The dingy yellow glow throughout the room spoke to them all being occupied.
Movement caught Shepard’s eye and he swung his rifle toward the potential threat. it was just one of the nearby pods; the dark-skinned, dark-haired woman inside stirred, pounding against the transparent canopy in a futile attempt to escape. Even as Tali and Krios rushed forward to try and free her, the pod hummed and the woman only had time for a single terrified scream before she simply... liquefied into a sludgy brown paste which drained away almost before his crew had time to recoil in horror.
“Commander! Over here!” Taylor fumbled with a nearby pod until a very disoriented figure tumbled out. “It’s the crew!”
That broke the horror that had frozen them, and the group surged forward to free their comrades before the same fate could befall them.
Chambers. Daniels. Donnelly. Gardner. All of them were here, as Shepard ran a mental roster, but Chakwas was the one to explain. Near as she could tell, the humans in the pods were being reduced to genetic material and ...piped elsewhere in the base through tubes, though she wasn’t sure where or why. That sounded like where they needed to go.
“We need to get them out of here,” Taylor said, hovering near a few of the engineers as they stumbled to their feet.
We don’t have time for this. “You wanna take them back, be my guest,” Shepard returned brusquely. “We need to destroy this base, but we can mange without you if it’s that important to you.”
“It is.” Taylor’s voice was firm as he tugged Chambers’ arm around his shoulders and herded the crew back toward the Normandy. “See you on the other side, Commander.”
---
Thane almost offered to accompany them; it was a lot of people for one man to safeguard. But Shepard was already snapping orders for the next stage of their infiltration. He’d be taking Garrus and Zaeed, sheltered from the overabundance of Seeker swarms by Jack, down the shortest route that followed the tubes. “The rest of you follow Lawson on the other route EDI indicated, draw some of the flying bastards off.”
Forward, then. Thane checked his reserve of thermal clips, made sure his pistol was undamaged, and fell in with the others as the door hissed open and they pressed on.
They hadn’t advanced far when the first Collectors appeared, drones and a small number of husks that were easy enough tot pick off. Their numbers only increased as time wore on, but that was the point wasn’t it? Draw them here, so Shepard could get through. Thane stood shoulder to shoulder with Tali as their squad advanced, shared his thermal clips when hers ran out first, lent what strength he could to the biotic barrier Samara had summoned to protect their backs.
“There’s a lot of them, Shepard!” Miranda hollered into comms when they were forced to take cover from a particularly large group, dotted with abominations and led by a scion.
“Good!” his reply crackled back underscored by gunfire. “Keep them the hell off us! We’re almost there!”
She hissed a quiet curse, then, “Yes, Commander!” Her fist flared blue and a pair of husks flew off the edge of the path. “Samara, push them back on three!”
The justicar nodded and the rest of them by unspoken agreement turned their focus to give the women cover fire.
“One!”
Strafing fire raked Grunt’s armor and he bellowed a laugh as he shot back. Thane admired his defiance.
“Two!”
The barrier Samar had been maintaining shrank inward in preparation. Amonkira, guide their strength.
“Three!”
The combined power of two gifted biotics exploded outward in a wash over overwhelming ozone-scented blue. Just as it slammed into the descending Collector horde, a heavy, white hot pain tore into Thane’s arm and side.
He was dimly aware of Miranda yelling for them to move, of a hand closing around his bicep to drag him with them, of his legs moving to keep up until the gave out and he was hauled over someone’s shoulder instead. There was rushing sound in his ears and it wasn’t until it was it was punctuated by gunfire and Miranda hollering at Shepard they were under heavy attack Thane realized it was Collector wings and not the lure of unconsciousness.
“Give us a minute, Lawson!”
“We don’t have a minute!”
Shepard’s curse was broken by static. “Vakarian, get that door open! Now!”
Time was fuzzy with the pain that swirled fresh at each jolted step of whoever (probably Grunt) was carrying him, but it still seemed an eternity before, muffled, he could hear someone calling an encouragement.
He slammed against something and the pain flared so white, for a moment he saw Irikah’s face. There was a dull murmur of voices, then a spike of numb shot through the pain and spread, blanketing, pushing back until he was aware again.
Tali knelt beside him, her omnitool just closing down as he became conscious of her presence. “Good, you’re still with us.”
“Thanks to you,” Thane rasped. He passed one hand gingerly over his injured side. The healing wound was large, like from a plasma- or other energy-based weapon rather than bullets. He could cope much better with bullets.
“You are welcome,” Tali said, pushing to her feet and offering him a hand up.
Thane accepted, but leaned against a wall once he’d gained his feet. It would take a few minutes for the medigel to truly do its work. He cast a surveying glance about as he waited. Mordin was limping heavily, Grunt, Garrus, and Zaeed all had significant battle damage to their armor....
And Miranda lay still, half-slumped against a wall, pistol resting in her limp grasp. Shepard knelt next to her, blood streaked in his stark white hair, but stood even as Thane’s gaze landed on them. “She’s gone,” he confirmed, as if there was any doubt. He half-turned, hand rising to his ear, expression flint-hard. “Got it, Joker.”
Garrus’ mandibles clicked. “The crew?”
“They made it back.” Shepard shoved a new clip into his rifle. “Taylor died getting them there.”
Thane grimaced. He should have gone along.
“It happens,” Shepard said, as if he’d caught the self-reproof without even looking. “According to EDI, this next room’s the core. Vakarian, Massani, you stick with me, the rest of you cover our asses.”
He didn’t wait for agreement or confirmation, just strode to the console for the necessary door and and punched in the command to open it. Garrus and Zaeed followed silently, the former briefly locking eyes with Tali before the three of them disappeared down the hallway.
---
The rest of them hastily arranged themselves in a defensive perimeter, gazes and weapons trained on the two doors that separated them from the Collector forces.
Thane said a rushed but heartfelt prayer to Kalahira for their fallen, working the fingers of his injured arm to test the medigel’s progress. It would do.
The sheer number of Collectors made the task a difficult one--more than once Thane feared running out of clips for his pistol until a brief pause between waves allowed them to scavenge and share from the fallen. This sort of sustained firefight was far from his normal milieu, but this close to the end he was still determined to do his best.
They held as battle chatter from Shepard’s squad broke through the static. They held even though Mordin fell and Legion fell and Jack nearly followed, snarling and spitting curses as she struggled back to her feet. They held until Shepard’s order came over comms, “Move if you don’t want to go up with this place!”
Then they ran, Samara and Jack shielding them from as much as they could, the rest picking off the bolder Collectors even as they ran. They reached the Normandy, adrenaline surging as they gave Shepard’s squad cover fire until they were aboard as well. Joker had them rocketing toward the relay before the doors had fully closed, and the whole ship seemed to hold its breath until they were safely through.
---
As the adrenaline wore off, all Shepard wanted to do was sleep. But he couldn’t. Not yet. There were things that needed to be settled first.
Krios was in the medbay, sitting serenely still as Dr. Chakwas more thoroughly treated the nasty, half-healed burns on his side and forearm. (In sharp contrast to Jack, who was glowering and cursing about both having to sit still to let her injuries heal and being around so many people.)
“Looks like we both survived,” Shepard said without preamble. Chakwas took the unspoken cue and moved off to see to Jack.
“Indeed.” Krios didn’t move, hands folded in his lap as he sat on the edge of a bed.
“You make up your mind about that head start?”
Krios chuckled. “I believe my recuperation will be a bit more than a day, Shepard. A good time for me to visit my son, I think, and a good head start for you as the contract resumes.” His lips twitched to a small smile. “Perhaps my client will reconsider in light of your actions.”
“Doubt it,” Shepard snorted. “I get the sense their beef with me is personal. Doesn’t lend itself to rational decision making. We’ll see, I guess.” Stranger things had happened, but he wouldn’t be holding his breath.”I’m not going anywhere near the Citadel, in case the Council gets any bright ideas about me or my ship, but we can drop you on Omega before we head off.”
Krios nodded solemnly. “A fair arrangement.”
A less intelligent person might have wondered--hoped--leaving him on Omega injured was as good as a death warrant, but Shepard had seen him fight. It would take more than a set of already-healing electrical burns to put Krios at a disadvantage against the thugs on Omega. (And if they did happen to prove too much for him, one thing less for Shepard to worry about.)
“We can have you there in an hour or so,” he said. “once the doc’s done with you go get your things together.”
Krios inclined his head. “I shall.”
---
It had been a while since he was last on Omega and Thane hadn’t missed it in the slightest. Fortunately he wouldn’t be here long. Passage elsewhere was easy enough to procure, and from there he could work his way to the Citadel. He could take some time to mend more fences with Kolyat before he resumed his hunt.
That was one thing about Shepard; he was never a hard man to find.
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Happy Holidays everybody! Sorry this is a bit late! This is my Secret Santa gift as part of @secret-santa-klaus
My gift is for @skull-w-cigarette , I hope you like it!
Note: this takes places in some kind of alternate timeline where the Hargreeves meet up on a less of an urgent timeline in the 60s. Around the same time but maybe a few weeks later, closer to Christmas. I apologize for the plot not being better thought out, I just thought of the idea and ran with it. Hope you like it! (I also apologize for the lack of a cut, I’m on mobile, I will fix it as soon as I get to a computer)
Allison had almost forgotten her alibi. She grimaced as she looked down at the shopping bags on her arm, filled with hurriedly bought presents. Whatever size shoe that was, she did not think it was actually her husbands. She hadn’t actually went out to go shopping on a Saturday afternoon. She had been having lunch with her sister, which she knew she didn’t have to hide from her husband, but the truth was she wasn’t ready to explain it all. Yes, she had one sister but no her sister didn’t remember who she was and yes they were all adopted. Once she got to that point, she would have to explain who had adopted them, and it was going to keep getting more and more complicated after that. He had already been spooked by two of her brothers and she was going to get to explaining everything, she promised herself, but she just needed a little more time. She let out a deep breath before opening her front door. She smiled as soon as she did and noticed that Ray had decorated while she was gone. The Christmas tree was up and covered with tinsel and there were already presents wrapped under the tree. “Awww” she couldn’t help murmur audibly. He was so sweet. She felt a pang of guilt in her stomach when she thought of the poorly chosen shoes and the half-baked lie he would never suspect.
“Ray?” She called, the smile could be heard in her voice “don’t worry about hanging the mistletoe. You don’t need the help.” She joked in a sing song voice, peaking around corners in search of her husband.“Honey!” Rays’ familiar voice exclaimed, coming out of the kitchen, his arms wide open ready for a hug which Allison immediately excepted. Hey!” She playfully smacked his hand when he tried to look in the bag. “No peaking!” She scolded. Ray chucked and backed away “sorry sweetheart, I just can’t help it!”Allison quickly stuffed the bags in the coat closet, promising herself she would buy better gifts later. Ray excitedly grabbed her hands and started gently pulling her to the kitchen. “Now follow me, I got something to show you!” “Did you decorate the kitchen too?” Allison asked excitedly.“Not quite” Ray winked as he slipped behind her and covered her eyes. “No peaking” he repeated, laughing. Allison smiles impatiently. She heard some kind of scraping sound? No, it was more like a slobbering and a scraping sound and then heavy breathing. “What on earth do you have in here, Ray?��� She asked, still amused but growing skeptical. “Surprise!” Ray exclaimed when lifted his hands over her eyes to reveal a small golden colored dog happily eating from a brand-new doggy dish in the kitchen floor. “A dog, Ray? It’s a bit early for Christmas...l” she began slowly, not wanting to hurt his feelings but I little surprised he had never asked her about pets before making this decision. She rationalized that perhaps pet buying wasn’t considered as series of a decision as it was in the future and resisted the urge to get upset. Ray put a calming hand on her shoulder, noticing the worry creases on his wife’s forehead. “Now don’t worry!” He calmed “He’s not for us, he’s for your brother!”
Allison’s eyes went wide. “My brother?! Ray, which brother of mine do you think would be capable of this kind of responsibility…Klaus can barely take care of himself, and I think Luther would like a dog, and could probably take care of one, but I don’t really know where he’s living right now, and his current job is kind of unpredictable…and a pet could be used as leverage…” Ray took Allison’s hands in his own and gently pulled her closer to him. “Baby, slow down. He’s for your little brother! How old is he 11? 13? Where have you been hiding him?” Allison took a deep breath as she realized which brother he must have met. “Five?” She asked. “Pardon?” Ray asked, obviously confused. “He’s…five…years…old?” He asked, slowly. “I mean I know he’s young, but he definitely seemed older than ten….is he a leap year baby or something?” Allison waved her hands in a criss-cross motion. Even though she had regained her voice, she still used motioned with her hands more than she used to. “No, sorry…that’s his…nick-name. Five…” She backed up to lean against the counter. “I’m sorry, when did you meet me ‘little’ brother?” “This morning actually. It was a little scary at first. I came down a little late for breakfast and he a was just sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. It was kind of cute though, after you know, the fear of an intruder wore off.”
Allison nodded. “Okay...what did she say?” “He just asked where you were and I said you were out but he could stay or I could drive him home but he said it was fine and he would stop by later, downed the coffee in the cup and left. I don’t think I’ve ever met a kid that...sophisticated before if that’s even the right word.” Allison laughed “theres a lot of word you could use to describe my brother.”
Alison felt hot breath on her ankles and looked down to see the puppy jumping on her legs, desperately trying to jump up closer to her face. She had almost forgotten about him. He had finished devouring his food and now wanted attention. She scooped him up in her arms and scratched his head.
“Aw, Ray you really shouldn’t have, but he is adorable...” she nuzzled the puppy’s head with her chin and pouted. “can we keep him?”Ray laughed “if your brother doesn’t want him then, sure.” He said warmly. “I guess we should ask his..your...parents?” He said slowly and unsure, hoping Allison would jump in with some more enlightening information. She didn’t. She took a few moments before putting down the wriggly puppy in her arms back on the floor. “Let’s go sit down and talk.”
Ray’s biggest take away from Allison’s limited explanation of her siblings seemed to be that Five was living somewhere alone. Or at least somewhere unknown. She had tried to explain that wasn’t really as alarming as it seemed, he could take care of himself. “He spent years alone” she explained. That only made Ray more concerned. “He’s staying with us.” He kept saying definitively. “At least for a little while.” Allison tried to explain that it was probably impossible to convince him of this and that he might be staying with her brother, but he was insistent. “Won’t people ask questions if we..?” “Have a little white boy living with us?” Ray finished “yes they will. But we’re going to figure it out. He is your brother and even the simplest of minds are going to have to accept that.”
When Five came back the next day, Ray found him in the kitchen again, sipping coffee out of the same mug. “Is she here?” He asked politely but matter of fact, looking up from his coffee to briefly flash a polite smile before looking a way again. There was something so unusual yet familiar about his demeanor that Ray found a bit unnerving but also kind of amusing.
“She is...but before she comes down, there’s something I want to show you.”
Five cocked an eyebrow. “Okay...” he looked at Ray for a a minute, sighed then got up.
“Wait one second!” Ray said excitedly, holding up a finger before dashing into the other rooms
Five sighed again and sat back down to finish his coffee. He thought he might just sneak upstairs to talk to his sister or better yet, leave through the kitchen window. He decided against it if not just for curiosity’s sake. Although he didn’t think that Allison would be able to stay with her husband since they had to go back home and fix the timeline, he did want to at least make sure he was as nice and as well meaning as he seemed.
“Okay you can come into the living room now!” Ray called. He was sitting on the floor, under the Christmas tree holding a box, that seemed be struggling out of his grasp. He had been gently holding down the lose fitting lid and let go as soon as he saw his brother-in-law. Out a sprang a little golden brown puppy right towards Five. Five took a step back and cocked his head at Ray in confusion. “A..dog?”
“Uhh yeah...he’s for you..” Ray was suddenly a bit flustered. This wasn’t the reaction he expected. Did he just buy this boy a dog because he had never got one as a boy, he briefly wondered. “Allison and I..well we were hoping..”. “We wanted to let you know you could stay here.” Allison’s voice cut in. Ray turned to see his wife smiling in the doorway.
“The lady of the house has spoken!” Ray said as he walked over the to her and kissed her forehead. “Good morning, dear.” He murmured.
Five looked at the couple incredulously.
“I won’t be doing that. I’m staying with our brothers and another guy. It’s all good.”
Ray started protesting, Allison just looked at her brother with a thin lipped smile, totally unsurprised. She touched Rays shoulder, to let him know it was okay.
Five got up and dusted himself off “Allison, let’s catch up some other time. This address.” He handed her a card with small neat handwriting. “I will be taking Mr. Pennycrumb though.” He said matter of factly, reaching to shake Ray’s hand. “Thank you, Raymond.” He said before scooping up the puppy and going out the front door.
Raymond looked dumbfounded at his wife who just shrugged. Ray laughed, leading Allison to laugh. “Let’s go get some breakfast, sweetie.”
He said taking her hand.
Allison’s eyes went wide. “My brother?! Ray, which brother of mine do you think would be capable of this kind of responsibility…Klaus can barely take care of himself, and I think Luther would like a dog, and could probably take care of one, but I don’t really know where he’s living right now, and his current job is kind of unpredictable…and a pet could be used as leverage…” Ray took Allison’s hands in his own and gently pulled her closer to him. “Baby, slow down. He’s for your little brother! How old is he 11? 13? Where have you been hiding him?” Allison took a deep breath as she realized which brother he must have met. “Five?” She asked. “Pardon?” Ray asked, obviously confused. “He’s…five…years…old?” He asked, slowly. “I mean I know he’s young, but he definitely seemed older than ten….is he a leap year baby or something?” Allison waved her hands in a criss-cross motion. Even though she had regained her voice, she still used motioned with her hands more than she used to. “No, sorry…that’s his…nick-name. Five…” She backed up to lean against the counter. “I’m sorry, when did you meet me ‘little’ brother?”
“This morning actually. It was a little scary at first. I came down a little late for breakfast and he a was just sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. It was kind of cute though, after you know, the fear of an intruder wore off.”
Allison nodded. “Okay...what did he say?” “He just asked where you were and I said you were out but he could stay or I could drive him home but he just said it was fine and he would stop by later, downed the coffee in the cup and left. I don’t think I’ve ever met a kid that...sophisticated before if that’s even the right word.” Allison laughed “theres a lot of word you could use to describe my brother.”
Alison felt hot breath on her ankles and looked down to see the puppy jumping on her legs, desperately trying to jump up closer to her face. She had almost forgotten about him. He had finished devouring his food and now wanted attention. She scooped him up in her arms and scratched his head.
“Aw, Ray you really shouldn’t have, but he is adorable...” she nuzzled the puppy’s head with her chin and pouted. “can we keep him?”
Ray laughed “if your brother doesn’t want him then, sure.” He said warmly. “I guess we should ask his..your...parents?” He said slowly and unsure, hoping Allison would jump in with some more enlightening information. She didn’t. She took a few moments before putting down the wriggly puppy in her arms back on the floor. “Let’s go sit down and talk.”
Ray’s biggest take away from Allison’s limited explanation of her siblings seemed to be that Five was living somewhere alone. Or at least somewhere unknown. She had tried to explain that wasn’t really as alarming as it seemed, he could take care of himself. “He spent years alone” she explained. That only made Ray more concerned. “He’s staying with us.” He kept saying definitively. “At least for a little while.” Allison tried to explain that it was probably impossible to convince him of this and that he might be staying with her brother, but he was insistent. “Won’t people ask questions if we..?” “Have a little white boy living with us?” Ray finished “yes they will. But we’re going to figure it out. He is your brother and even the simplest of minds are going to have to accept that.”
When Five came back the next day, Ray found him in the kitchen again, sipping coffee out of the same mug. “Is she here?” He asked politely but matter of fact, looking up from his coffee to briefly flash a polite smile before looking a way again.
There was something so unusual yet familiar about his demeanor that Ray found a bit unnerving but also kind of amusing.
“She is...but before she comes down, there’s something I want to show you.”
Five cocked an eyebrow. “Okay...” he looked at Ray for a a minute, sighed then got up.
“Wait one second!” Ray said excitedly, holding up a finger before dashing into the other rooms
Five sighed again and sat back down to finish his coffee. He thought he might just sneak upstairs to talk to his sister or better yet, leave through the kitchen window. He decided against it if not just for curiosity’s sake. Although he didn’t think that Allison would be able to stay with her husband since they had to go back home and fix the timeline, he did want to at least make sure he was as nice and as well meaning as he seemed.
“Okay you can come into the living room now!” Ray called.
He was sitting on the floor, under the Christmas tree holding a box, that seemed be struggling out of his grasp. He had been gently holding down the lose fitting lid and let go as soon as he saw his brother-in-law. Out a sprang a little golden brown puppy right towards Five. Five took a step back and cocked his head at Ray in confusion. “A..dog?”
“Uhh yeah...he’s for you..” Ray was suddenly a bit flustered. This wasn’t the reaction he expected. Did he just buy this boy a dog because he had never got one as a boy, he briefly wondered. “Allison and I..well we were hoping..”
“We wanted to let you know you could stay here.” Allison’s voice cut in. Ray turned to see his wife smiling in the doorway.
“The lady of the house has spoken!” Ray said as he walked over the to her and kissed her forehead. “Good morning, dear.” He murmured.
Five looked at the couple incredulously, absent minded petting the puppy that was climbing all over me.
“I won’t be doing that. I’m staying with our brothers and another guy. It’s all good.”
Ray started protesting, Allison just looked at her brother with a thin lipped smile, totally unsurprised. She touched Rays shoulder, to let him know it was okay.
Five got up and dusted himself off “Allison, let’s catch up some other time. This address.” He handed her a card with small neat handwriting. “I will be taking Mr. Pennycrumb though.” He said matter of factly, reaching to shake Ray’s hand. “Thank you, Raymond.” He said before scooping up the puppy and going out the front door.
Raymond looked dumbfounded at his wife who just shrugged. Ray laughed, leading Allison to laugh. “Let’s go get some breakfast, sweetie.”
He said taking her hand.
#tua secret santa#tua secret Santa 2020#tua fanfic#Allison Hargreeves#five hargreeves#raymond chestnut#allison chestnut#almond tua#long post#allison x ray#almond#mr. pennycrumb#tua#the umbrella academy s2#the umbrella academy
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Riverbound, Chapter 16
You are THE GUARDIAN and it is currently Sad Bitch Hours.
It’s not like you were expecting Zebruh to do a complete one-eighty, see the light, and join the rebellion, but you definitely weren’t counting on him trying to lock you in one of his rooms and almost give you a concussion in the process. Granted, you could have easily just zapped out, but still. Why wouldn’t he just listen?
Your arms hurt where his claws pierced your skin. With your luck they’d be infected by morning, if not sooner.
“You okay, robobuddy?”
Mallek’s striking blue eyes are soft and full of concern when you look up at him, and it fills you with guilt. This guy threw hands with an indigoblood for you and he’s asking if you’re okay?
“... Yeah. Just tired.” You lean against him, ignoring the drying salt on your face from your tears. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“Nah. Just a little scratched up.”
You nod.
“No concussion?”
“I don’t think so.”
A loud whoop pulls you from your pity party and back into the real world, and you look up to see Diemen Xicali waving at you from down the sidewalk. Leaning on him is the little kid, looking a bit shocked by everything that had just happened but thankfully much less injured than two nights ago. Zebruh must have let her use a medicalizer to heal her broken leg; her calf is still bruised up but she’s putting weight on it. By her side is some kind of oversized rodent lusus.
“Guys that was crazy!” he shouts joyfully, hauling the poor kid with him as he makes his way over to you and Mallek. You two meet him halfway with the rest of the group close behind.
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Mallek demands.
“Not really. He just… wouldn’t let us leave. Said that we owed him for letting us take shelter at his hive. Also, his lusus is frickin’ terrifying,” Diemen complains. He hisses under his breath, which surprises you because you’ve never, ever heard him make a noise like that before. “If I ever see him again it’ll be too soon.”
The girl is staring at you in the way little kids like to stare at things, so you smile and do your best to appear as non-threatening as possible. You’re a mess from getting roughed up by Zebruh, but Daraya is still holding her new black eye from getting kicked by a pissed-off horse lusus, so at least you’re not alone.
“And alien! I can’t believe you’re alive! I’d give you a hug, but…” Diemen pats the kid’s shoulder and shrugs.
“Don’t even worry about it. I missed you too, dude,” you tell him warmly. Man, the look on his face when you two saw each other in Zebruh’s living room was priceless. Luckily, Zebruh had been way too distracted by ranting about some new rustblood singer to notice you desperately signaling him to stay quiet, or else you would have totally blown your cover.
The rodent lusus squeaks, looking up to the girl, who startles and then nods. “T-Thanks for saving us.
“I was glad to. We all are,” you promise.
“As long as I never have to get kicked in the fucking face again,” Daraya mutters.
Lanque scoffs. “At least you didn’t get bucked off and thrown clear across the hive.”
“Oh, shut up--”
“Anyways,” you say loudly, “Good job tonight, everybody.”
“Would have been better if I got to rip Codakk’s bulge off and shove it down his THROAT,” Konyyl growls.
“Kinky,” Azdaja says. Tyzias snorts and Stelsa smacks her shoulder in disgust.
“Guys, there’s a kid present,” you remind them patiently before turning back to Diemen. “Let’s go get oblong meat products sometime, okay?”
“You bet!”
Mallek ends up going with him and the kid to make sure they get back to their neighborhood in one piece, and Konyyl and Azdaja split off after making you promise them you’ll be around for flavordisk dinner next wipe. Polypa does the same; apparently Tegiri texted her with an urgent request to come to his hive immediately. Knowing ‘Giri, the poor guy probably finished another sad-ass anime and needed somebody to help pick out a new series to watch.
The teals walk you and the jades as far as the city limits before turning back to go to class. Apparently, this was one lecture they all really wanted to attend because it has something to do with the history of several legislations passed concerning the limited income provided for lowbloods, specifically up to the olive caste.
“The more we know about systemic oppression, the more we can do to fight it,” Tyzias growls determinedly. “I’ll tell you later how many controversial questions I got to ask before I get kicked out of the class group chat.”
“That’s kind of badass,” Daraya says with a small smile.
“You’re risking your marks, babe,” Stelsa frets. “I mean, it’s admirable, I just worry.”
“My marks will survive. All that extra credit I did is gonna save my ass, don’t worry,” Tyzias assures her. Stelsa seems pacified for the time being, but as soon as her back is turned Tyzias winks at Daraya before strolling off with her matesprit and Tagora.
Daraya’s face flushes jade until her entire face is dark, much to your delight.
As soon as your other friends are out of earshot Lanque is on her like fleas on a stray dog. “My, my, Daraya, are you feeling well? Your face is so green!”
“I’ll teleport us back to the caverns so Lanque can take your temperature,” you jump in, smacking the backside of your hand to her forehead as if feeling for a fever. “You’re not nauseous or anything, right? No loss of appetite?”
Daraya smacks your hand away with a snarl and stomps off to the cavern trail, making Lanque laugh so loud it echoes off the mountainside.
You grin and chase after the younger jadeblood, coming up on her left side. “Come on, dude, tell me how it's going! Have you told her yet?”
“Shut up! No, not yet, I haven’t-- it’s gonna happen, Bombyx, don’t give me that look! We’re just… busy right now! I’m a leader!” Daraya hisses, trying and failing to squirm away from you and Lanque.
“Exactly why you should tell her as soon as possible! Imagine how much better you two might lead together if you were moirails,” Lanque argues.
“You two are perfect for each other,” you sing, grinning at her.
“And Stelsa likes you, which is a bonus.”
“Oh, yeah, I definitely wouldn’t wanna be on Stelsa’s bad side. Look, we just want you to know that we support you no matter what--”
“And that there’s no time like the present.”
You signal Lanque to hold off for a second and pat Daraya’s arm. “We just want you to be happy. You deserve it more than anybody.”
“Except for Wanshi,” Lanque interjects.
“I’d gladly kill somebody for Wanshi,” you agree wholeheartedly. “But are ya picking up what we’re laying down?”
Daraya looks unsure of herself, crossing her arms and hunching in on herself, just a bit. “Do you really think she likes me back?”
You look to Lanque for support, and he nods. “She most definitely does. You don’t see the way she looks at you when you have your back turned.”
Something like hope warms her dark eyes, and she walks with her head held a little higher all the way back to the caverns.
Sneaking back in is pretty easy-- you just zap yourself and the jades to Lanque’s room, the owner of which then kicking you and Daraya out so he can take a nap.
“Ugh. I was hoping I’d get some excuse to not come back here until tomorrow so I don’t have to I.D grubs. Shit takes forever,” she groans as you two walk along a stone path.
From what you remember, I.D-ing grubs involved giving them a sign, recording their weight and blood color, and setting them free in the main caverns to be chosen by a lusus. You’ve helped out a couple of times with Bronya in the past with I.D stuff. Of course she didn’t let you do any of the actual recording, because she’s a perfectionist like that and wanted to do everything herself, but she did have you hold fussy grubs to calm them down so she could work in peace.
“I’ve done that a few times with Bronya. I’ll help you,” you offer.
“Really?”
“Yeah, dude, let’s go.”
She seems a bit less grouchy after that, and even calls a particular plump indigoblood grub you come across a “mega-thick boy”.
Being in the main caverns has always been a game of Russian roulette for you, as drones came and went all the time and stayed on nearly constantly after a new brood hatches. For your own safety you usually just help out in Bronya’s secret nursery, but if you’re feeling extra brave like you are tonight then you take your chances. Besides, after what happened earlier you need to snuggle some babies to get that sweet, sweet serotonin.
You follow Daraya to a natural pocket in the cave wall, where a cluster of eggs was placed. To your delight, two are hatching and one little goldblood is already wiggling around on its back, squeaking irritably as it tries to roll over again and again, failing each time.
“Hang in there, buddy,” you say, reaching in and flipping them over to their stomach. They stop crying and blink up at you with giant yellow eyes. You chuckle and gently scratch under their chin, which makes them give a barely-audible rickety purr.
“Grab her for me,” Daraya says, searching through the nearby lockers before pulling out a scale, binder, and pen.
You scoop up the goldblood and hold her still as Daraya checks her over before scribbling something down in the binder. “So how do you tell which ones are male and which ones are female? They all look the same.”
Her thick brows furrow in confusion. “Uh, their scent? Boys smell a little like rainwater, girls are kind of smokey. Also, girls are bigger.”
You sniff the goldblood. “Smells like cave to me.”
Daraya rolls her eyes, but the corner of her lips are twitching up. “So if you can’t see in the dark, or hear that well, or smell, how are you even alive?”
“If I had a caegar for every time somebody asked me that I’d be able to buy a tank to shoot a big fat hole in Her Imperious Bitchface’s left asscheek.”
“A rebel can dream. Set her on the scale.”
You set the goldblood on the scale. Daraya records her weight and releases her into the wild, or at least into the main cavern.
“Good luck,” you call after her.
“If luck’s on her side, she might not need it when she grows up,” Daraya says, almost to herself.
You both fall into a routine with the next couple of grubs. There’s a rustblood, then a bronzeblood, and after a couple of minutes another egg hatches to reveal an olive. All three are recorded and set off into the unknown. Every time, you ask the universe to look favorably upon them, because there isn’t much else you can do at the moment.
If anything, let them be loved.
“You look like you need to fart,” Daraya tells you after she releases a particularly feisty cerulean girl. “Which means you’re thinking about something.”
You pout. “Yeah, well, your eyeliner is smudged.”
“I smudge it on purpose so everybody can really see the bags underneath my eyes and know that my last fuck has long since departed to the afterlife.”
“That’s valid. If you have to know, I’m trying to telepathically communicate to the grubs that I love them and that they’ll do amazing things when they get older,” you explain.
“... I was trying to be funny, but that’s actually really sweet.” She stares down at the squirming teal grub in her arms. “I wish I could do that.”
“Be telepathic?”
“No. Have enough love for everybody.”
You sigh, leaning back against the cold stone. Above you, bioluminescent fungi glows blue and white in the darkness. “Daraya, I think the fact that you’re leading a rebellion to make the world a better place shows that you’re more than capable of love.”
“But I’m doing it because I’m angry. I hate this place.”
“Why? Because it’s oppressive and unfair and traumatizing?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Exactly. When we’re strong enough to show Alternia who we are and what we stand for, don’t you think there’s gonna be millions of kids like you who realize that they deserve better? Or, if they already know, might finally have the courage to do something about it?”
Daraya sets the grub down and watches it scamper off. “You amaze me. Sometimes you do stupid shit like that one time you got really drunk with Lanque at a party and I had to stop you guys from jumping off the roof of somebody’s hive and into their pool. Sometimes you say stuff so incredibly deep and comforting it makes me think some great cosmic force sent you here to make everybody’s lives just a little bit better.”
You swallow back something hard in your throat. “To be fair, I can swim just fine.”
“Uh-huh. But Lanque can’t.”
Fuck’s sake, why can’t you just tell her? She should know what you are, what you’re capable of, the lengths you’re going, will go to save Alternia. They all should know.
Every single one of your friends so far have been completely overjoyed to have you back. The more time passes, however, the more you feel like you don’t deserve them anymore. You know that one day they’re going to find out. It’s only a matter of time before you accidentally let something slip or have to explain why you have so much power over the fabric of reality itself.
You open your mouth before you can wimp out, fully intent on telling Daraya everything, but when you turn to address her she’s staring down at the tiniest rustblood you’ve ever seen. The thing is no bigger than one of your feet. They’re on the scale, but Daraya isn’t writing anything down. She doesn’t even look like she’s breathing.
“Daraya? You okay?” you ask, concerned. Crap, did you give the poor kid an existential crisis?
“... He’s too small.”
You push off the wall and stride over to her. “Huh?”
She takes a short breath. “He’s too small. He doesn’t meet the weight requirement for male rustbloods. I… I’m supposed to…”
Realization hits you like a crowbar to the face. Your stomach rolls as you look down at this tiny baby, who’s chirping indignantly at being removed from his warm nest.
“He… but he looks completely healthy. He’s moving around and responding to stimuli and everything,” you get out.
“A grub can be healthy and still need to be culled. The Empire doesn’t want runts. Neither do lusii,” Daraya explains tonelessly. “The only reason Karako’s alive is because Bronya raised him herself. Even then, if he makes it to adulthood it’ll be a fucking miracle.”
The thought of Karako at the end of a culling fork makes you want to throw up. “Then I’ll take him to Bronya.”
“You do realize that he still might not make it?”
“Yeah. But that’s what we’re here for, right?”
Daraya nods and hands you the grub. “Don’t come here after you’re done. The drones will be coming back for the day soon.”
“Got it.”
You zap out of there and hope that teleportation won’t give the baby some form of developmental disability.
As you suspected, the lights are on underneath the door to Bronya’s nursery. Glancing up and down the corridor to make sure nobody’s around to see what you’re doing, you carefully tuck the grub into the pocket of your hoodie and knock.
Quiet footsteps approach the door from the other side. You wave at the peephole.
The lock clicks, and Bronya opens the door with a warm smile. Everything suddenly feels a little more manageable. “What a surprise! I’ve been hoping you’d stop by.”
“Hi, Bronya,” you say, stepping in and shutting the door behind you. “Sorry I haven’t been able to come by sooner. Geez, you vanish off the face of the planet for half a sweep and suddenly you’re everybody’s favorite alien.”
“Well, you can hardly blame them, can you?” Bronya tuts. At the table across from the slime pools, she types in something to her husktop before shutting it. “Wanshi cried for ages after you were gone. She was absolutely convinced you were dead in a ditch somewhere, the poor thing.”
“Aw, Bronya, don’t make me feel even more guilty.”
She grins at you. “Just teasing. I’m almost finished wrapping everything up for the day, but you’re more than welcome to hold the grubs if you want.”
“I think I’ll take you up on that. Unfortunately, I think I’m about to add even more to your workload.” With a sigh, you bring out the tiny rustblood and present him to her.
Bronya’s eyes widen, and in a flash she’s right in front of you, nearly making you crap your pants. You’d forgotten how fast trolls can move when they really want to. “He didn’t meet the weight requirement, I assume?”
“No. Other than that he seems perfectly healthy, he’s just…” You chuckle nervously. “He’s really frickin’ tiny.”
You hand him over to her before she can get too itchy about not holding him. She cuddles him to her chest with the softest expression you’ve ever seen. It makes you wonder about how some trolls thrive on nothing but violence but others live to take care of others. On Alternia, is it nature or nurture that makes a person?
“He’s beautiful.” She looks up at you with shining dark green eyes. “Thank you for saving him. I can’t name many others even in the caverns who would have done the same.”
“Daraya’s the one who found him, so… can’t take all of the credit.” Wow, is it hot in here or is it just you?
“Well, I’m glad she made a good choice, even if by our society’s standards it wasn’t the right one,” Bronya tells you as she sets the grub down in one of the slime pools. The other inhabitants, three other rusts, a goldblood, and two bronzes roll over and accept him into their cuddle pile without hesitation.
“Yeah. Sometimes the good choice and the right choice just aren’t the same thing,” you mumble, watching an indigoblood in the adjacent pool kick their little legs in their sleep.
Bronya nods. She looks tired as she sits down heavily at the table, and you want to tell her to go get some rest, but you can tell there’s something on her mind.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” you ask.
She hesitates, looking almost ashamed before drawing herself upright and exhaling quietly. “... Actually, yes. I’m afraid you’re the only person I can trust enough to do this.”
You sit down across from her, looking her in the eyes to make sure she knows you’re being serious for once. “You can talk to me, Bronya. And I promise I’m not making pale advances or anything, because I’m already one-hundred percent taken.”
That gets a smile out of her. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I missed having a listening ear like yours.”
“My hearing might be terrible by troll standards, but I’ll try my absolute best.”
“... It started not long after you… disappeared. Daraya began acting… strangely,” Bronya begins. “She’s always been a bit of a lone wolf, but this was something different. She’d vanish for half a night, and then eventually she wouldn’t be back until the sun was coming up. She fell behind in her duties. Of course I did my best to be understanding, she looked up to you more than anybody-- she still does, even if she’ll never say it. We all missed you terribly.”
You nod. You’ve got an awful suspicion as to where this is going, but you don’t want to entertain the thought that Bronya would ask you to do… what you think she’s going to ask you to do.
“She got a little better with time, but that didn’t change her little vanishing act. I tried to get her to talk to me, which went as well as one thought it would. Then I tried to stop her from leaving. That went even worse.”
“Daraya’s got a hell of a temper,” you say.
“That she does. Then, a couple of perigees in, Lanque started doing the same thing. Leaving at odd hours, coming back smelling of strange places. Thankfully they finally got their act together concerning their responsibilities around here, which I thought would be a turning point for them, but… they just wouldn’t stop!” Bronya hisses, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “Clouds are white, the grass is purple, and jadebloods aren’t allowed to leave the caverns. Three simple facts of life, and yet those two insist on ignoring the latter!”
“Were they happier?” you ask.
Bronya blinks, confused. “What?”
“I get that ignoring their responsibilities must have been a massive pain in the rear, but what about after they figured it out? Did their mental health benefit from going to the surface?”
She looks down at you like you just asked her why the Alternian sun is hot. “From an outsider’s perspective it must seem harsh, I know. But a jadeblood’s purpose isn’t to be happy. It’s to ensure the continuation of our species.”
“So… do you want me to try and get them to stop? Because I’m gonna tell you right now that’s not gonna work. Both Daraya and Lanque are very strong and I am very small,” you tell her.
“Of course not. The thing is, they both trust you very much, possibly more than their fellow jadebloods. Which is why I want you to keep going with them when they sneak out, and then I want you to tell me what they’ve been up to this whole time.”
For the second time tonight you’re struck speechless.
“I know it’s a terrible favor to have to request of you. But I’m afraid I have no other choice. Lanque and Daraya’s loyalty and priorities have become completely skewed over the perigees and as head jade, it’s my duty to steer them back on course,” Bronya declares.
“... Right.”
A nobler version of you would stand up and angrily, but politely tell Bronya that there was no way that you’d ever betray your friends’ privacy like that. You would tell her that you value her as a friend and thank her for letting you stay and work here whenever you felt like. Then, you would explain that as much as you’ve come to respect her, you simply cannot do this for her.
What you do instead is to swallow back your sadness and say, “I’ll see what I can do.”
Bronya looks so happy and relieved you nearly make a break for it in utter shame. “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I knew that you’d always be brave enough to do the right thing.”
But the right thing isn’t always a good thing! you want to cry.
She sees you out after that, a comforting hand on the small of your back. She tells you to rest well and that everything is going to be okay.
The second she closes her respiteblock door you start to cry as quietly as possible. You walk down the corridor, and when you’re sure she’s out of earshot you take off running. Everybody else is already back in their rooms, which you’re grateful for so nobody can see your pathetic ass having an anxiety attack while sprinting like fucking Usain Bolt.
You want to go curl up in Lynera’s study and cry yourself to sleep, but you’re already keeping one too many secrets from the people you care about so much. You’re not going to be a coward about this, even if it means starting the shitshow to end all shitshows, even if it means losing one of your oldest friends.
You take a moment to catch your breath in a supply closet, and then you go find Lanque.
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CONSUMED THE FIRE - Episode 001 of GKWC
GOAT KING WRITERS CLUB, The loosest storytelling Podcast in all the land, were we don’t let Grammar get in the way of a good yarn.
CONSUMED by Nathan Hull
I had been typing frantically for hours, maybe even days. The never ending task of reporting the news consumed me.
Word after word, it was nothing but a blur of letters on the screen. I don't think i glanced away for a second. I was deep into my work, hands trembling from near exhaustion. The second bottle of house brand scotch two thirds empty, seven packs of cigarettes down. Light trickled in through the slit in my curtains signaling the start of another day. It didn't matter to me time had lost all meaning.
I sent the article through to my editer and demanded another job, ignoring his pleas for me to slow down "Just send through the fucking assignment" I yelled down the phone, knocking the bottle of scotch from my desk. The frustration almost over flowing into frenzy I stormed out of my small home office into the filthy kitchen adjacent.
Upon entering a pain I'd never felt before shot through me, i ignored it and swung the fridge door open, grasping at the six pack of beer sitting alone on the shelf. I stumbled back dizzy before falling into oblivion. It felt like the floor had disappeared I heard the bottles smash but felt nothing at all, just a calming warm sensation pulling me gently into slumber, a peaceful darkness replaced the manic flashing of ideas that had been fueling me for far to long.
I awoke to silence and the bright florence lights of a hospital ward beaming obnoxiously into my eyes. I had snapped, trying to finish a never ending task is a sure fire short cut to madness and apparently I had reached that level. The Dr explained that I had collapsed due to sever exhaustion and that a dangerously large mixture of alcohol and prescription grade amphetamines had been reported in my system. He gave me a stern lecture and ordered I rest up for some time to come.
I begrudgingly took his advice and relaxed with the days News Paper skipping through the first few pages like a book I had read many times before. At page eleven however I stopped a small laugh burst through my lips, there it was the most ironic thing I had ever seen. A small article titled "Local journalists dangerous decent into chaos" a two hundred word piece about yours truly.i smiled, how beautiful it was, i had been so consumed by the news that eventually, i had become the news.
THE FIRE by Sean Conway
The fire is burning through the bush quicker than I was expecting, the heat is not the most fearful part but the thunderous noise of the wood burning, sounds like a thousand cat of nine tails cracking all around us.
“YOU FUCKING IDIOT, WHY DID YOU ASH ON THE GROUND” Devon, the lippy British back packer bellowed “it’s just a little bit of fire mate, relax” I replied reassuring him through my tears unconvincingly. “WE’RE GOING TO DIE, WE’RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE” Devon kept screaming in an urgent cry. Jesus Christ this back packer has not stopped complaining since I met him at the hostel, I wanted to tell him to fuck off but I had more important things to worry about, like getting out of this mess and suing the tobacco companies and the government’s cigarette pack warnings for not once making me aware of the potential for bush fires by their product. They literally have warnings for everything else except the one thing that can kill you immediately.
Ah man when I sue these political fat cats I’m totally going to buy a sweet double storey house with my winnings, I imagine suing for Bush fire warnings would be a landmark legal case, I’d probably make the front page of the Newspaper. I might even have enough money left over to buy a chrome Lamborghini, fuck yeah that would be sweet!
“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF HERE?” cried out Devon waking me from my daydream and bringing me back to this deadly reality.
This whole waiting around to die must be playing with my head because I have never thought this before and it seems weird thinking this now, but fire is hot, like ridiculously hot. I looked over to Devon as he continued frantically searching for a way out of the path of the fire “Hey Devon, how hots this fire ah” I said as it fell on Devon’s deaf ears, he blatantly ignored my observation. Sure these are dyer times but that doesn’t mean you have to be rude.
I guess Devon is done searching for a way out because he is collapsed into a ball on the ground “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die OH MY GOD I DON’T WANT TO DIE” Devon screamed over dramatically to the skies like a soap opera star, fuck his voice is annoying.
The situation is becoming increasingly stressful and the anxiety is starting to get to me, I really need a cigarette but knowing Devon he’s probably going to have a bitch and moan about it, but fuck him I paid $50 for these Winnie Reds and I’ve only smoked one. I am not going to die letting a perfectly good packet of cigarettes go to waste.
Reaching into my pocket trying to retrieve my lighter without Devon noticing, Jesus where the fuck is it? Are you serious? in all the commotion I must have lost it. It’s moments like this that make me appreciate how crazy and random the world is sometimes, we’re literally surrounded by fire and if we weren’t on the verge of being burnt alive in this hell hole I would consider myself lucky.
The first breath of that sweet sweet Winnie red is always my favourite, it’s almost magical how that first intoxicating breath can make even the most terrifying situation bearable “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS CUNT? YOU’RE SMOKING! YOU’RE SMOKING!” Devon screamed as he rose from the ground with murderous rage “Do you Poms do anything other than fucking complain” I belched back through a cloud of Winnie Red Smoke. I’m really sick of his whinging, I would have given him a piece of my mind but I was too busy trying to do the maths in my head on how long it would take for me to smoke all these cigarettes before the fire consumed us, but before I could figure out the answer Devon’s hands stained from fake tan are wrapped around my throat. “What are you doing?” I gargled, the heat of the fire made his hands super sweaty, It feels like an eel and smells like coco butter, two things I despise especially when they are crushing my wind pipe. “Get off me Devon, your hands are sweaty and gross” I said chokingly and wishing I said something tougher “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU” Devon spat in a salvia filled scream. Man I wished I had said something cool like that rather than your hands are sweaty and gross. I should really fight back but what’s the point, this will probably be a better way to go out, better than cooking alive in the middle of nowhere. I also think I should punch Devon in his Geordie Shore face because in these stressful times he has been a bit of a cunt, that’s how a hero would go out.
I mustered my remaining strength and clenched my fist as hard as I could and wham right in his kisser, to my surprise this worked because Devon jumped off me screaming in pain, he sounds like a dying lama “Ahahalaladahdahdal”. I must of really brought the pain for him to make such a cowardly cry.
The noise Devon is making sounds more and more pathetic, being the asshole that he is I thought he’d be use to people punching him in the head “YOU BURNT MY FACE YOU CUNT” his venomous mouth spit. I must have punched him with my cigarette still lit in my hand. Looking at the ground and seeing the remains of my crumbled cigarette infuriated me, it didn’t matter that I still have a full pack in my pocket, Fuck Devon! If I can’t beat him physically then I will have to beat him mentally, by saying the most badass line imaginable before we both disintegrate to dust “GET USED TO IT ASSHOLE! BECAUSE IN ABOUT 2 MINUTES YOU’RE GOING TO BE NOTHING BUT FUCKING ASH” I screamed aggressively but chuffed with myself for thinking of such a badass line so quickly “so will you, you fucking twat” Devon responded throwing me off my guard with his even quicker rebuttal “Yeah well, fuck you” I responded immediately knowing I had ruined the badass line prior and losing this battle of mental warfare.
Devon is celebrating his verbal stoush win by charging at me like an angry Bull in Pamplona. The thought of having Devon’s gross manky swamp hands wrapped around my throat again was what was helping me fight him off, but it was too late his uncooked sausage paws latched onto me sending shivers down my spine. The only thing going through my mind is how disgusting his sloppy hands are as I slowly fade in and out of consciousness.
The fire must be really close now because I can feel beads of sweat pour off his head from the heat, I felt Devon release his hands from my throat, I’m not sure if I’m dead but I’ll pretend I am so Devon doesn’t put his icky squid fingers around my throat to finish the job.
Playing possum was working until I was awaken by a liquid spraying on my face “AH WHAT THE FUCK DEVON ARE YOU PISSING ON ME?” how much more disgusting can this cunt get? “I’m not pissing on you look” Devon said pointing to the Heaven’s as the water started flowing down our faces like a baptism from God. “What’s happening?” I mumbled, this must be the DMT releasing into our brains because we’re dying, I listen to a lot of Joe Rogan so I’m familiar with this situation, “I don’t know I don’t know” Devon responded in his cunty British accent. The fire around us was being extinguished as the water continued raining down on us, I quickly got my Winnie reds and put them in the front of my pants so they wouldn’t get ruined by the water.
Out in the distance, through the Smokey haze I can see the flashing of blue and red lights, that could only be from fire trucks. “WE’RE SAVED, WE’RE FUCKING SAVED” Devon shouted with tears of joy and excitement. I was less excited because staring at the flashing lights of the fire trucks I came to the sudden realisation I probably didn’t have a case against the tobacco companies and the government fat cats and I was probably facing a lengthy jail sentence for negligence for starting a bush fire.
“OVER HERE OVER HERE” Devon began screaming to the fire fighters “over here over here” I screamed with a lot less enthusiasm. I’m not sure if it was the fire or the choking or the overwhelming confusion of being saved and facing a long prison sentence but something is making me woozy, like that fine line of feeling drunkenly happy to spewy drunk.
Waking up in an ambulance is not a new experience for me, but being surrounded by fire fighters and ambos looking at me like a freak show attraction is definitely an odd feeling. “So what happened, you guys have no idea how lucky you are to be alive” the Fire Department Chief said to us in a stern but congratulative voice. Lucky wouldn’t be the word I would use to describe the situation, I’m facing serious jail time, I haven’t been to prison before and wasn’t looking forward to finding out if all those prison rape stories are true. The idea of it made me more and more anxious.The only thing I could think to do was reach into the front of my undies and pull out my full pack Winnie Reds cigarettes, must look like a creep to the fire fighters and Ambos, but I’m too anxious to care “Do you have a light?” I said to the group surrounding me. The spark that was lit in front of my face didn’t do much for my anxiety but I thought it was fitting that what was potentially my last cigarette as a free man is being lit by The Fire Department Chief.
Breathing in that sweet sweet Winnie Red takes the sting out of any uncomfortable situation “So what happened out there?” The Fire Department Chief said with a controlled curiosity. I was sensing their excitement so I took a long deep breath of that Winnie Red for dramatic effect, blowing out the smoke I could feel I was giving off a real James Dean or John Wayne kind of vibe.
“Well fella’s, here’s the story”
The End
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TW Anon back again~ Saw you posted that drabble! I have a proposal for more flowing juices: hurt Stiles. Just hurt him. Make it Sterek for bonus points.
welcome back! ♡ sorry this took a second, anon. I started writing hurt!Stiles and then… well, got really carried away. needless to say, I’ll be making a much longer fic out of this one at some point. there’s none in this particular bit, but Sterek will be happening (eventually), don’t worry. also, since I like Allison and co., it’ll be an AU of sorts.
I’ll just drop this 6k starting point since it’s the only cohesive part so far (everything else is disjointed scenes, as usual).
sorry, Stiles!
[Scott]
Scott could hear Stiles from a mile away.
His voice is so distinct, echoing just the right amount of decibels above anything else Scott was familiar with in the relative area that even at the harsh mutter Stiles was projecting his frustration in, fed up with the venture they were currently on, Scott can easily pick out what he was saying.
“Find the selkie, he said.”
A too-quiet forest didn’t hurt (or help) anything, however, and Scott thinks this to himself as he slinks around a tree and hears the sound of Stiles’ sneakers from slightly southwest of the position he was actually supposed to be in. Stiles was breaking the uneasy silence without doing anything more than being, well, Stiles.
“It’ll be easy, he said.”
“Deaton just wants us to check the area and make sure she didn’t encroach on possible hiking trails where people could find her,” Scott explains quietly, not for the first time, as he emerges from the underbrush and startles Stiles enough that he clutches his chest for a moment, eyes wide with panic. “Sorry,” Scott tacks on sheepishly. Stiles glares, clearly bitter about more than just the sudden mission they had been sent on. Scott feels the inkling want to press it, but knows now is seriously not the time, so he doesn’t.
“Since when do we have to be the forefront of investigation when it comes to these things?” Stiles asks. “Why can’t Deaton go looking himself? Isn’t that his job, to protect the werebabies in the area?”
“Hey!” Scott protests, stopping in his tracks just to rebuke this particular insult, because he is an Alpha, for God’s sake, and not even remotely a “werebaby”, regardless of what age he might have been brought to power at. He had a pack. He had a good pack, even if it wasn’t necessarily made of up werewolves. He took pride in his banshee, ex-Hale-Beta, and sometimes-hunter mishmash of a pack. Even Stiles, their token Ordinary Human, pulled way more than his own weight when it came to things. Exhibit A being now, hunting down this creature on Deaton’s orders while everyone else was busy studying for finals and second-guessing their decisions to go to college across the country.
(Except Lydia, that is, but try dragging her through the woods on a possibly-fruitless search when there is prestige to be had in the research department instead. Yeah. Not going to happen.)
Point is, his pack was pretty fuckin’ spectacular considering what he had to work with. Stiles’ insult was totally uncalled for.
“I’m just saying!” Stiles retaliates, effectively punctuating his response with a particularly loud branch-snap. Scott cringes, but Stiles ignores it, too intent on riling himself up with the topic at hand. “I don’t recall this being our job. Yes, I know we’ve had to face a few freaky fucks over the past couple months when tensions got just a teeny bit too high and someone crushed that tender camel’s back,” Stiles says in a long, rushed breath when Scott opens his mouth to defend his boss and confidant in all things too supernatural for him, “but searching for something that might not be here? This isn’t our job, Scott! You should be home, studying for your finals! They still count!”
Scott has to admit Stiles has a point. He had been accepted into the nearby community college and hadn’t taken his chances elsewhere, deciding to further pursue his veterinary degree while he was getting everything settled in Beacon Hills and knock a few cheap credits out of the way in the same blow without losing Deaton, but it still wouldn’t look great if he showed up having bombed his finals.
He shrugs, unable to muster up a good argument to counter his friend. “Deaton’s busy right now, and it can’t wait.”
“I never thought I’d miss having Derek around so much,” Stiles mumbles, and then effectively ends the conversation by barreling on ahead through the brush, taking the lives of a few saplings with him. Scott follows behind after a beat, brow furrowed with worry, the niggling feeling that something was completely off and it had nothing to do with the sudden memory of a warning his advisor had given him about surprise evaluations based on his final grades.
Well … not totally.
-
They find the selkie.
She’s resting in a stream a few miles north of the high school; her pale, sleek lower body submerged in the flowing water and her topless upper-half resting on the grass and rocks, head already cocked to look at them once they managed to locate her by failing to notice her presence until basically walking right into her. Mostly because Stiles was too busy not giving the mission proper attention and Scott was too busy focusing on Stiles not focusing to remember to focus on what he was supposed to actually be focusing on.
Yeah, it wasn’t going the smoothest. Her giggle had been the thing to alert them both of her presence, her actual appearance not clicking until a beat later.
Upon laying eyes on her, Stiles looks as if he suddenly can’t remember his own name, his eyes zeroing in on the most improper body part they can find. Scott is only slightly more fortunate in both departments.
“Oh,” is all he says. Stiles echoes him with a choked-off “fuck”, mouth remaining open in a less-than-attractive gape. She flashes a smile at the two of them, and Stiles dissolves into a puddle of uselessness, nothing but a pale imitation of some reject Gumby, all jellied limbs and dopey smile. Something in the back of Scott’s mind tells him this is bad, very, very bad, but he can’t seem to focus in on it long enough to act. He grabs Stiles’ arm, but then forgets why he was so urgent a moment before. It takes him a long few seconds to gather his bearings, to force himself not to look at the beautiful creature too long once it clicks for longer than a partial second that she’s causing the fog in his mind. It takes a long time, honestly, but he manages to pull himself together, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she watches him.
She seems almost … docile, despite the sharp, dagger-like teeth that she keeps showing off every time Stiles sinks lower and lower into a pit of repulsive love-drunk reactions. Realizing now was probably the best time to knock some sense into his best friend before something they’d both regret manages to take place, Scott grabs Stiles’ collar and yanks, sending him into the dirt below.
“Ow!” Stiles yelps, pulling his face from the moist earth and leveling a glare at Scott.
“Did that snap you out of it? Jeez, Stiles. Your tongue was becoming one with the ground with how long you had it dragging out of your mouth there.”
Stiles frowns at Scott, then glances at the selkie, snapping his eyes back a second later. “Oh, god. Scott,” he chokes, strained. His eyes water slightly with how wide he has them pried open. “Scott, I want to look at her. Holy shit, I want to look, but my mind, it just … It …”
“Goes blank, I know.” Scott gives her a tiny side-glance. “I saw it. It was incredible. You had the motor skills of a sock puppet.”
“Ahem.” A tiny, clear voice interrupts them, sounding like the trickle of a stream with the omen of a hurricane all at once. Scott and Stiles both stare at each other, suddenly a few shades paler. “I can hear you just fine, you know. I am right here.”
“Oh,” Stiles whispers, blown pupils boring into Scott’s, “fuck us.”
“Fuck us,” Scott agrees weakly, his heart sinking.
“What are we supposed to do?” Stiles croaks, his voice rising in pitch. He’s losing calm rapidly, splintering Scott’s ability to keep his eyes from wandering back to the soothing sight of the selkie. Scott resists the urge to press a hand to Stiles’ mouth, knowing that would only make it worse.
“I don’t … know. Something. Just—just give me a minute, okay?” Scott drops his head into a palm, thinking. They could leave the selkie there, yeah. Sure. They could leave, not look back. Not come back. Just leave.
They could definitely just leave.
They could …
Leave?
Why?
Why would they leave?
“Dude.” Stiles’ voice breaks into Scott’s thoughts. Scott looks to him, and only just notices the grip Stiles has on his upper arm. It’s so tight, it almost hurts. “Scott. Did you tell anyone we were out here? Right now?”
Scott looks at Stiles blankly. “Uh—Allison. Allison knows.”
Stiles looks a bit more relieved at this, but it’s not by much at all. “Allison will save us if we can’t get away.”
“You feel it, too?”
“Scott,” Stiles starts, but is cut off once again by the laugh of the selkie. The realization of how screwed they are hits Scott all over again, and he struggles to think of why exactly they’re in so much danger from a creature so beautiful and soothing to be around. Why exactly his instincts are screaming so loudly in his head to get away get away grab Stiles and get away get the fuck away now now now.
Despite their sudden coherence at the severity of the situation, Scott would later recall that, no, neither Stiles nor Scott had been fully aware of their surroundings thanks to the hold the creature kept on them. If they had, they would have noticed something off about the ground, such as the way the color was slowly fading from it. Or how the torso of the selkie was lengthening, her hair growing into ropes and her teeth losing their shine. Or how the selkie wasn’t really a selkie at all.
It would be far too late by the time someone would notice, and later still when the creature would shoot from the stream, barreling directly into Scott and knocking him yards away into the solid trunk of a tree, leaving him to reach the floor of the woods by gravity’s will alone.
Wheezing, Scott tries to reach for his throat once he can grasp any oxygen at all, but can’t feel his arms. He tries to do something, anything at all, but the paralysis is too great. His whole body is numb, stunned, frozen. His mind is wavering, his conscious splintering
Scott is slowly slipping away, the blood leaking from the back of his head slicking the bark behind him in a metallic tang of scent that he only just barely manages to register at all.
The last thing Scott is aware of before blackness engulfs him is a shattering scream accompanied by the distinct cracking sound of snapping bone.
He only has a moment to register the horror of realization that his best friend is being killed before he slips uselessly away into unconsciousness.
This, Scott knows, is something he’ll blame himself for, for the rest of his life, no matter what anyone would tell him.
He would never forgive himself for any of it.
-
[Stiles]
When they took him from Scott, he’d been whole. Maybe not in the clearest sense of the word, but a few snapped bones hadn’t really been that bad. The whole “being dragged away by a swampy black horse” thing was way more traumatizing, but he’d been in one piece until he’d reached the intended destination.
When he left the clearing that day, he was whole, in as much of a way as he could have been given who he was.
He comes back broken.
Shattered, splintered, fractured. Cracked. Devastated.
Pick a synonym; they all fit.
The fun part was it was all literal. The brain game had taken a hiatus this time; laid its cards down and left the building for another monster to take its place. Stiles had been broken. His bones had separated in various places; his skin had torn and rolled and split, unable to accommodate what was happening to him.
Stiles was broken.
A body to match his mind? To fit what the demon had left behind?
Hah, no.
No, this was worse. He was pretty fucked up in the head after all that had happened to him, sure. The Nogitsune had left no prisoners. But this—this was more. His mind crawled in a way his skin now couldn’t with the knowledge of what had been done to him. His heart tried to stop dead in his chest when he thought too hard about it, the memory of the pain slamming into him only long enough to incite a reaction before fading away behind the wall his mind immediately built up to protect him.
“That bastard,” Scott had snarled once Stiles had been coherent enough to recount what had happened to him, wolfing out more than just a little, much to his mother’s frantic dismay. She had tried to shepherd out everyone who had rushed in the moment Stiles could form a proper sentence (it being a proud, if heavily slurred, “The fuck?”), all trying to get his attention first and hear all the details they were in the dark about—which, of course, ended up being almost everything.
Unfortunately for Stiles, only a handful were dismayed and rebutted from the scene; the rest stubbornly refused to budge. He loved Scott and Lydia more than he had words to express, but he wasn’t sure he could handle what telling them would do to their expressions, to their emotions. It hurt more than the wounds, their guilt, and he knew they still felt it, weeks later, even when he didn’t think they needed to anymore.
He gave the recount, skipping as many of the gory details as he could simply because these were the people he cared about, he didn’t need them worrying about things that had passed. He had survived and now had scars to tell his tale for him, he could spare his father and Scott and Lydia a few things here and there. He knew from the looks on Scott’s mother’s face that she knew he was holding back, but, bless her, she didn’t do more than frown deeply.
Stiles appreciated Mrs. McCall more than he could put into words in that moment. He made a mental note to pick her up some flowers and lunch once he was able to walk normally.
Or, you know. Move. At all.
… Whenever that’d be.
He’d been in a coma for nine days, he’d been told. When the information had first hit his ears, he’d done nothing but stare at Mrs. McCall, like he hadn’t quite heard her right.
Nine days. A week and two days. Two-hundred and sixteen hours.
Holy shit.
Scott had broken him out of his thoughts by calling Stiles’ name then, and he had given his head a little shake to further clear it and then tried his best to be blasé about it. It didn’t quite work, but Scott and Mrs. McCall—and Stiles’ father, who had been sitting quietly in the chair ever since he had been brought in, looking like he was watching a ghost and had already made his amends, and was now too scared to go back … which did things to Stiles’ heart that he refused to linger on too long, lest they consume him—politely ignored it and let Stiles have his charade. Mrs. McCall stuck him with something, then added something to his IV before grabbing Scott and making a quick abscond to leave Stiles with his dad and have that conversation that needed to be had.
Which … could have definitely gone better. Stiles’ dad had continued to stare at him, pale and clearly showing signs of sleeplessness, lost and broken in his own way. That was Stiles’ fault, he knew, and he felt the weight of it immediately.
Insert sharp knife straight to the heart. Ow.
Stiles had cleared his throat, opened his mouth to say something, anything, just something to clear the air and maybe make it all okay without having to go through the long process and the motions and all the things he didn’t want to amend for after getting himself fucked over and hurting his dad every damn step of the way—and instead let out a choking, wordless sob. It caught the both of them so off guard that neither of them had moved for a moment, Stiles trying desperately to blink away the tears that were now streaming down his face like they’d been there from the start and his dad watching with that blank, frightened look someone has when they’re not sure if they’re still asleep and dreaming. Then, something floods his dad’s gaze and he shoots from the chair, scraping his hand into Stile’s hair and curling into him in a way that kept them from really touching anything that could hurt while Stiles lets out noises he had thought for sure he’d be able to hold back until he got home and back in his room.
It wasn’t okay after that, but it was better. And better was good.
Not great, but they were getting there. They were getting there.
Slowly.
It had been a step in the process.
The next step was getting healed enough to take a real, physical step.
Flash forward to the current moment, the moment of self-assessment. Where Stiles has to realize yet again that those fuckers had given him so many different breaks in his body, most of them being ribs and arms and legs, with multiple lines in close proximity to one another, that there wasn’t a general consensus between the doctors who had cared for him to really go by. It was a miracle he hadn’t punctured a lung or had some form of internal bleeding, he had been told. Surgery, to stick a metal bar into his leg and realign his kneecap properly, had been the most he’d been put through, and he’d been unconscious for the beginning of it.
He’d been so lucky, they’d told him. And Stiles had listened at the time, but he doesn’t feel lucky right now, lungs intact and bleeding only coming from the outside.
He just feels guilty.
-
Stiles grimaces not for the first time that night, taking in the sight of himself yet again in the bathroom mirror of his hospital room. He might as well have been shut into a full-body cast with the amount of bandages and plaster that already adorned his person. Two leg braces, a metal rod shoved between the flesh within one and a recovering kneecap held in the other, one arm cast and one splint that went right up to his armpit—he was looking much worse for wear. Not to mention the layers and layers of gauze and medical tape that wound around almost every inch of exposed skin.
Stiles had, quite literally, been chewed up and spit out. Torn to shreds. Ripped up and thrown away.
But he was alive. Somehow, he was alive. He couldn’t have asked for more.
(Okay, not true. He could seriously go for a burger worthy of a heart attack right now. If only because he’s strictly not allowed to have one.)
He’s on so many medications he couldn’t name them all if he tried, and each one comes with its own restrictions and rules. Stiles hates it—suddenly, desperately misses his Adderall and the simplicity of its construct.
The thing he hates the most about the whole ordeal, though, is the fact everyone has suddenly turned into a reincarnation of his mother on some sort of maternal steroid. It’s like they were pumped with the shit and knew full well it would bother the absolute hell out of him at a time when he can’t run away from all the hugs and the hair combing and the attempts at feeding him his own damn dinner, complete with airplane noises on Allison’s end.
Hell, he can’t even move his fucking pinky toe, forget sudden ninja removal from his hospital bed, complete with a fairly decent smokescreen he had been concocting right before being put in this position.
It sucks. Stiles just wants to go home.
He’s forced to stay for as long as it takes for him to learn to walk again, and that’s a process he doesn’t even want to think about, let alone mention to anyone who questions him once he’s free from the restraints and palpable boredom the hospital had given him. It takes a long time, and, as if it’s not bad enough that he has to learn how to move his feet properly all over again despite having learned all this back when he was a toddler, the entire process hurts. Even while he’s pumped up on some of the finest painkillers the hospital has to offer, he can feel the way it aches.
Some of it are small aches and slightly numbing throbs that he feels resonating from within his recently-fractured bones, and other times it’s sharp and stifling and the only thing he can think of right in the moment it exists—but it’s never too much. He never lets it be too much, even when he almost starts to cry after biting his tongue in shock at the knife of pain in his knee the first time he tries to put weight on it. He can’t.
There was no room for pain, not in the world he’d made himself become a part of.
He pushes through it all, like he pushes through everything else; because, to him, there’s only forward. He learned that from the pack, and he’d be fucked sideways by a butt ugly Satan-spawn if he’d let them think he wasn’t strong enough for this.
He was one of them, and even after he’s out of the hospital and still using crutches to get around, he makes sure they never forget that.
-
Stiles can’t help the small groan escaping his lips as he pulls himself to his feet, breath huffing from his chest involuntarily at the sharp lick of pain that races along more than one limb. It was more shock than anything, in reaction to feeling something more than the dull ache he’d become accustomed to thanks to his beautiful cocktail of drugs. He’d been given enough to help him along the recovery route from the safety of his own bedroom, in the form of pills big enough to make him feel like a horse, but it wasn’t the same as the steady stream of the shit that had been plugged snugly into a vein at the crook of his arm. He’d have to get used to these breaks between doses.
If he’s being honest with himself, though, he has to admit it made him feel more alive than he’d felt since the moment before he’d been admitted to the hospital.
Stiles scrubs a hand over his head and clutches the side of his nightstand with the other as he waits for the worst of the jabs of pain to ease off, wishing he’d been allowed a haircut upon getting home as his fingers snag in tangles he didn’t have the equipment to eliminate. He didn’t like having long hair—it was just something else to get a grab on, something else to paralyze him at a moment when movement was crucial. Plus, it was more work than a buzzcut, and Stiles was all about efficiency. It’s why he never bothered to match his socks.
A soft knock at his door brings his attention to it before he’s ready to move, and Scott pokes his head in through the already-cracked entrance, wide-eyed and half-grimacing. Stiles holds up a finger the moment Scott opens his mouth to say something, cutting him off just as he’s pronouncing the first syllable of what could either be a greeting or an apology, and Stiles doesn’t dwell on which it might have been.
“Hey, man,” he greets Scott instead once he’s able to let go of the end table, the hand blindly searching for his other crutch while his eyes stay on the sad sight Scott is making in the doorway. The boy wilts instantly at the recognition, and Stiles readies himself for what he knows is going to come.
But Scott surprises him by keeping his mouth shut, instead moving forward to grab the crutch Stiles had been searching for and slipping it under Stiles’ armpit for him, gentle enough that Stiles barely feels the tic of pain that comes with the full-body bruise he’s become. “Hey,” Scott greets back softly once Stiles has his hand on the crutch and is standing on his own again. “Your dad let me in.”
Stiles frowns at him. “Did you lose your house key again?”
“Misplaced is a better word,” Scott says sheepishly. Stiles groans.
“I can’t believe you. At this rate, I might as well just make you use Derek’s emergency entrance and forget the whole key deal.” Stiles doesn’t care if Derek had only done that, like, twice—he was absolutely never letting that die, because it had scared the shit out of him both times it had happened, and Derek’s reputation was too much fun to poke at.
“No, that’s not fair. I know I left it somewhere. In my room, probably. Or maybe Mom’s car. It’s somewhere!” Scott protests in a whine when Stiles rolls his eyes.
“You’d better find it, or you’re condemned to the life of stalker-level creeper who doesn’t know how to knock.”
Scott mumbles something along the lines of “I know how to knock” in a sulky tone, but Stiles is already hobbling around him on his crutches, trying to keep his breathing under control to hide how much even moving is hurting him. It’s such bullshit.
He must not be very good at it, though, because a few moments after he’s passed Scott, the pain abruptly eases and then vanishes, and Stiles turns to give the sudden hand on his shoulder a sharp look.
“You don’t have to do that,” Stiles argues sourly, watching the black veins pulse and disappear under Scott’s sleeve. “I have drugs to take care of that for me.”
Scott, if possible, manages to look guiltier. He doesn’t remove his hand, though. “Yeah, but I can help until those kick in.”
Stiles wants to argue with him, but the sweet relief of Scott’s touch prevents him from opening his mouth and doing so. Instead, he sighs, and Scott perks up a little as he’s allowed to continue with what he’s doing. They stay like that for a minute or two, Stiles with his back to Scott and his eyes closed against the sweet relief of his weird pain-sucking power and Scott steadily inching his way closer and closer to Stiles, the tic to his eye the only indication that he feels any of what he’s taking from Stiles.
He feels when Scott stops taking his pain away—but not by the sharp bite that existing now brings him without his drugs. Instead, a dull ache blooms, and Scott’s palm slides down the center of Stiles’ back before removing itself completely.
“Thanks,” Stiles mumbles quietly, and Scott only returns it with a grin before reaching up and flicking a lock of hair that covers Stiles’ ear. He flinches away from the movement, but it’s not from fear (thankfully—he didn’t want to see Scott’s reaction to that), it’s just from plain annoyance.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with such long hair,” Scott tells him, his expression amused. “I don’t think you could even gel this into anything, it’s so long.”
Stiles huffs and swats at him with the nub of his cane end. Scott doesn’t even wince. “I’m not going to be doing anything to my hair while I’m like this. I have enough shit to do in the daytime without having to worry about making my hair socially acceptable. I’m so far behind on studying that it’ll be a miracle if I can pass any of my finals when they let me take them. Haircare can wait.”
Scott wrinkles his nose. “Are you going to stop showering?”
“What? No, ew. That applied to my hair only, I’m just not going to bother with styling. I’m not turning into a hobo.”
“You’ve got the look down already, I thought you might go all the way.”
“Gee,” Stiles quips sarcastically, starting up his hobbling again, “that sure makes a guy feel like he wants to go back out in the world. Thanks, Scott.”
“Anytime,” Scott replies cheerfully, following Stiles slowly out of the room. When they pass the bathroom, Scott stops at its entrance and peers inside, his face falling into his thinking expression. Stiles notices and waits, knowing that pushing Scott usually doesn’t lead anywhere fast.
“Hey,” he says after a moment, and Stiles looks up to find Scott smiling at him with his dopey, lopsided half-grin. “Let’s just cut it off.”
It takes Stiles a moment to process what Scott is getting at, what with his drugs kicking in and the previous conversation lost the moment they had crossed the threshold out of Stiles’ room. “Oh, my hair?”
“Yeah. I can buzz it off for you with the clippers, like you used to wear it.” Scott glances back at the bathroom, excitement building in his shoulders. Over cutting hair. Or maybe it was just because he thought he had a really good idea, Stiles couldn’t be sure. “You still have the clippers around, right? That’ll make it easier.”
Stiles has to admit Scott is right, and he had only just thought of it himself just before, when he had mentally been complaining about his hair. Actually buzzing it hadn’t crossed his mind, and he blamed that on fatigue and minute withdrawal he’d been experiencing since leaving the confines of his hospital bed.
Stiles mimes a shrug in response, then nods his head in a way that shows he’s proud of Scott’s line of thinking. Scott’s grin widens at the reaction, and he hops into the bathroom excitedly. Stiles can hear him rummaging around while he makes his slow way back, and finds Scott shoulders-deep in the cabinet beside the sink when he makes it there.
He whacks Scott gently with one of his crutches when he passes him to sit on the toilet, but, aside from a muffled yelp of “Hey!”, Scott doesn’t slow in his search.
Five minutes later, and Stiles is sitting sideways on the toilet; his back is against Scott’s torso while he leans to keep from getting too tired trying to stay upright, and Scott holds him in place with a hand at his shoulder, the other hand slowly stripping lengths of hair from Stiles’ scalp as the clippers buzz their path of destruction.
It’s a quiet process. Soothing, really. The warmth of Scott’s werewolf-heated hand firmly curled over Stiles’ shoulder and the smooth stroke of the clippers as they sheared off god knows how many week’s worth of hair growth.
(Stiles had stopped counting—he’d lost all the time he’d had when the Kelpie had taken him, and no one would be up front with him when he tried to pry the details out, so he decided, at least for now, that it didn’t matter. Someone would slip up eventually. They always did.)
The rhythmic buzz fills the bathroom, and it’s the only noise up until Scott’s phone dings not once, but twice, in quick succession, and immediately everything about Scott tenses up. Stiles feels the way his fingers are suddenly, but still gently, digging into the sinew of his shoulder, and he takes that immediately to know something is up, and it has nothing to do with his hair.
“You gonna answer that, big boy?” Stiles taunts once the clippers don’t start up their path of destruction again. Scott starts slightly, like he’d somehow forgotten what it was he was doing in, uh, Stiles’ bathroom. Stiles knows Scott well enough to understand that’s how Scott handled secrets, and then, from there, realize that Scott was hiding something from Stiles, and those texts had something to do with it. Whatever it was Scott was doing at Stiles’ house (because Stiles has a feeling it has nothing to do with just checking up—and he should have known better, since Scott had fallen back to mostly texting the moment Stiles had been discharged, and showing up unannounced was strange, even for Scott), it was something Stiles wasn’t going to like.
God dammit, Scott.
“All right,” Stiles starts with a sigh, reaching up and smacking Scott’s hand with his opposite one. Scott’s fingers relax. “Just spit it out. Tell me while I’m nice and blissed out from drugs, don’t make me suffer more.”
It’s a slightly low blow. Stiles understands this. He also doesn’t really give a shit.
He can feel the way Scott wilts, and then the subsequent cool scrape of the clippers again as Scott starts back up.
Scott doesn’t say anything right away—biding his time and mulling over his word choice, Stiles thinks, taking long enough that Stiles starts to feel the exhaustion of simply being alive while healing to the extent he was—but eventually he heaves a surprisingly sad sigh and speaks.
“You’ve gotta leave,” Scott finally says quietly as he cuts another stripe of hair away. He’s so quiet that Stiles barely hears him over the sound of the clippers, and immediately thinks he’s heard Scott wrong. It’s his saving grace from losing an ear, because he would have certainly jerked his head away had he heard Scott correctly.
“Say what?” he asks instead, half-mumbled, the back of his head inches away from pressing into Scott’s chest where his neck was giving out from the exhaustion.
“You’re going away from Beacon Hills.” Scott doesn’t raise his voice, but Stiles can understand him easily now that he’s listening. He severely wishes he couldn’t.
He reaches up slowly and grasps Scott’s wrist, easing the buzzing clippers, which had already been pulled away from his scalp the minute Stiles started moving, further away. Stiles turns and looks up at Scott, and is startled to realize Scott’s eyes were tearing up.
“It could come back, Stiles. Kelpie track their prey, and we don’t—” Scott chokes, nearly drops the clippers. It’s only when Stiles’ grip tightens around his wrist that Scott even bothers to turn them off. Scott takes a deep breath, a bright flush blooming across the high points of his cheeks as a tear threatens to spill, and Stiles nearly loses it right then and there. “We don’t know why it gave you back.” Scott’s free hand reaches up and scrapes the trail of wetness away. Stiles still can’t move. “What if I lose you again?”
Not we, Stiles realizes with a jolt. I.
What if I lose you again, Scott had just said, and immediately Stiles understands so much more than he wishes he did.
“Dad—” he chokes in a whisper and then stops, the shock that he was being sent away burning a path back and forth across the forefront of his mind. “Dad would never agree to that.”
Scott doesn’t answer immediately. He’s set the clippers down on the edge of the sink at some point, though Stiles had apparently blacked out at some point, because he hadn’t seen him do it.
“It was your dad’s idea,” Scott mutters, like a scolded child.
Another blow. If Stiles weren’t already sitting, he’d be on the floor. As it is, he sways on the toilet seat, and Scott’s hands fly out and steady him.
Stiles realizes with some sort of numb realization that he can’t seem to breathe. After a few moments of hesitation, Scott surprises Stiles out of some of his shock by cradling Stiles’ head against his chest in a move Stiles would expect more of a competent parent and not an eighteen-year-old who sometimes forgets how to cook pasta correctly.
“Where?” Stiles finally chokes. He can’t look at Scott right then, fearful he’ll either scream or break down crying if he does. “Where am I going?”
“Alaska,” Scott whispers, and Stiles does look at him then, too startled by the information to stop himself. “Derek has connections up there.”
Stiles’ mouth works, but all he can manage to say, in a tone far too high for someone who had already gone through puberty, is, “Derek?”
“He’s renting a house. It’s isolated up there enough that any disturbances should be picked up faster than somewhere like here. Derek would be able to notice.”
“Derek?!” Stiles parrots again, sounding manic, his voice somehow managing to crack over the short name. Scott looks at him, looking every bit the forlorn puppy Stiles always refrained from calling him for the sake of cringe after the whole “sourwolf” fiasco, but Stiles can’t find a single fuck for that expression right now.
“It’s only for a little while,” Scott tries, but Stiles is too far lost to care what Scott’s trying to do.
He was being shipped to Alaska, for fuck actually knows how long, with Derek Hale.
Derek Hale.
And his dad had approved of this?
Stiles thinks he’s officially lost his goddamn mind.
#Teen Wolf#Sterek#there's a lot of platonic Sciles too because BROTP#stiles stilinski#Scott McCall#drabble#prompts#asks
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Operation Get the Girl Chapter 11
Oh my goodness, I haven’t posted a chapter to OGTG in so long, I’m pretty sure y’all have forgotten about it already lol. Here it is, hope you enjoy!
About three weeks passed. The change in Natsu's life was phenomenal. Gray was more hostile towards him, unlike ever before. Yes, they would always get into fights and bicker, but never with serious intent. As they've gotten older, the motive had gotten less petty and more hateful. Natsu, being competitive in nature, fought back with all his might. Everyone in the guild noticed how intense their sporadic brawls have gotten, but no one said a word, blaming it on hormones and teenage masculinity. Master Makarov decided to cancel the S Class Tournament for reasons unknown. Erza seemed to never be at the guild anymore.
His relationship with Leela deepened. He got to know her better, and his whole view on her completely changed. Denying that he had feelings for her would be pointless. But were those feelings love? Questionable. He only felt like he liked her when he was with her. Nothing was set in stone. Everything confused Natsu, which pissed him off. He just wanted to know what was going on for a minute. Instead, he was always the dull idiot. So there he was in the same spot at the bar, drinking with Cana.
“I like this Natsu. The one that can stomach alcohol. You’re a good boy,” Cana hooted while pinching his cheeks. Natsu chose to down his drink instead of acknowledging her comment. He motioned for Mira to get another.
“What’s troubling you?” Mira asked before pouring his drink.
“Just thinking.”
“It’s hard to think when you’re inebriated,” Mira teased. “Besides, you never actually answered my question.”
Natsu sighed before beginning his rant. He cracked his knuckles, which was becoming a nervous habit. “So I love Lucy and Leela likes me and I like Leela too and Lucy wants to strengthen our friendship and I claimed that I didn’t love Lucy anymore and Gray is being a pissy little bi-”
“Slow down,” Mira interrupted. “All your words are slurring together. So you’re caught in a love triangle, and one side of it is unrequited. Lucy wants to be friends again. Gray not liking you is no news to me, or anyone for that matter.”
“Everything shifts so fast and I can’t keep up. I’m not smart like all of them, I need things to be black and white. This whole gray area pisses me off,” Natsu droned between swigs. “Mira, I think someone’s poisoned my drink. My head is spinning and my stomach is screaming. Do you wanna hear it?” Natsu hurdled over the bar effortlessly, but failed the landing. He stumbled until he eventually fell. Mirajane’s sniggers were overpowered by Cana’s guffaws.
“That’s enough alcohol for you, kid,” Mirajane spoke, grabbing Natsu’s hand to help him up. He didn’t budge, so she gave up.
“Don’t talk to me like that, Mira,” Natsu whined. “I’m a big boy.”
Cana drank the rest of Natsu’s alcohol. “You see why I like alcohol, Mira? It’s a miracle worker. One second Natsu is an angsty teen, the other he’s a childish clown. Get me another shot, on him.”
“On it,” Mira affirmed. Just when she thought it was all over, she saw a certain someone walk through the guild doors. “Uh oh. Look who just walked in,” she said with a sing-song tone. Cana spun around to find Leela, searching for her darling, heavily intoxicated boyfriend.
“Oh this just keeps getting better and better,” Cana reveled. “I’ll celebrate with two more shots, both on Natsu.”
“We both know he’s broke, Cana.”
“Exactly, a little bit more debt wouldn’t even be noticeable.” Like always, Cana shrugged it off. Sometimes it annoyed Mira, but at other times it was nice to have someone who took things lightly.
Leela’s heels thumped against the floor. She walked with purpose straight to the bar. “Hey, have you seen Natsu? It’s urgent.”
“Afraid I haven’t, sorry dear. Good luck on finding him,” Mira replied.
“What do mean, Lisanna? I’m right here,” Natsu countered. He managed to pull himself up on his own, greeting Leela with a smile reeking of alcohol.
“That’s Mirajane, you’ve known her for forever. What were you doing on the floor? And why do you smell like alcohol?” Her tone got more and more aggressive by the second. With her hands on her hips and brows furrowed, she was an intimidating figure, for a non-mage.
“It’s a really funny story actually,” Natsu began, “I got drunk.” He smiled, thinking that everything was fine and resolved.
“You told me you didn’t drink!” She shrieked, regardless of all the people surrounding them. But it was Fairy Tail, where everyone was too busy getting drunk or in fights themselves.
“You were never specific about what. I drink alcohol on the occasion. I don’t drink pomegranate-craisin juice, that stuff’s nasty. Who had the idea of putting it together like honestly? Not a fan.”
Leela threw her hands in the air and scoffed, eyes wide in disbelief. “Wow, not only am I dating a deceitful liar, he’s also a pitiful alcoholic.” She cried out. “You know, I promised myself I would never date an alcoholic or a druggie. You freaking tricked me into it. Our relationship was going well,” she admitted through tears, “and it’s such a shame, because I really liked you.”
“It’s over!” She bellowed on her way out. Everyone watched her storm away, then quickly returned to their own business.
Natsu sobered up a little. “Well, that makes it easier,” he said nonchalantly while pouring himself a drink.
“That’s it?” Mira queried.
“Yep,” he responded, popping the p.
“But she just broke up with you, and you said you liked her.” Mirajane was incredulous. Was Natsu just too drunk to care or was he legitimately not phased by being dumped by Leela.
“Yeah I liked her but she never had my heart, so how could she break it? Lucy does a better job at making me cry. Pass the salt.” She did as he asked, and watched in horror as he poured it into his drink.
“I should be a barista.”
“No, you really shouldn’t,” Cana and Mira replied in sync. Mira continued to laugh at Natsu’s silly drunken antics, but her heart wasn’t in it.
For the rest of the day, Natsu’s words stuck with her. “…she never had my heart, so how could she break it? Lucy does a better job at making me cry.” They rung in her head, really making her think. Was it her fault that Natsu has dealt with and gotten used to heartbreak?
If I didn’t encourage him all those years ago to chase after Lucy, then he would’ve been way over her by now. Maybe if I just gave him some helpful words of moving on, he wouldn’t have a drinking problem. Though stupid, he’s sensitive when it comes to romance. Scratch that, when it comes to romance with Lucy. It’s all my fault.
I have to fix this.
****************
Two days later, Natsu was greeted at his front door by Gray with an extremely friendly punch to the face, note the sarcasm. "You broke Leela's heart!" Gray roared, face red with anger. Ice assembled on his fist, and he came at Natsu again. This time, the fire mage was able to dodge.
"Dude, what the heck? And not on purpose!"
"That makes it sooo much better. You're digging your own grave, Dragneel," Gray sneered, conjuring more ice. Natsu reciprocated the love by setting his fists and arms ablaze. Before either could move, they were stopped by Lucy.
"This is why I came along, to prevent any situations like this. Stop acting like children." She rolled her eyes, making herself at home in Natsu's cozy house. She spent many hours there in the past, and the place used to be her second home. Now she felt like a stranger. The thought saddened her.
"Sit down, and don't make a mess or start a fight. I already don't clean this place, I don't need it getting worse." His guests obeyed, one rather reluctantly.
"You lied to Leela. You broke her heart! She loves you, Natsu. She was willing to put up with all of your stupid problems, and you threw that all away."
Natsu shifted. “I’m sorry, okay? The entire relationship was a mistake, it’s over now. If I can get over it, you can too.”
“Get it through your thick skull!” Gray exploded. He stood up and pointed at Natsu, restraining himself from attacking him. “She loves you!”
“And whose fault is that?” Natsu stood up barked with equal anger. “I’m not the one who used her for my own schemes!”
“Watch your mouth,” Gray threatened. Panic surged through him; Lucy couldn’t know of his past plans.
“What’s he talking about, Gray?” She asked with an hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
“Oh, that’s right, you were keeping it a secret from her,” Natsu smirked. “Well I think it’s time Lucy learned the truth, don’t you agree?”
#nalu angst week#nalu#naluweek#nalu day#ft nalu#nalu fanfiction#fairy tail nalu#naluzine#natsu x lucy#natsu dragneel#lucy heartphilia#gray x lucy#lucy#lucy heartfilia#oc#alcohol#fairy tail mirajane#fairy tail#anime#manga#romance#angst#love#break up#fanfic#alternate universe#fight#drama
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13/100 - The day after
After a very good day like yesterday was, I’m often blessed with some wonderful momentum to keep making the following days better. Sometimes though, most often when my mood is already low (like it has been recently), instead of that glow, I wake up a bit sad, nostalgic. This morning was a little gloomy that way.
Thankfully, I didn’t overdo it. You know what I mean, right? Those days (or any periods of time) that we stuff with lovely things, but way too many of it, in some frantic urgent way.
Those days feel to me like a race to pleasure and comfort, filled with moments I won’t remember well, and followed by some self-indulgence hangover : that state of panic, sadness and discouragement weighing on the nostalgia the day after.
Rather than this, a very good day to me now is more like a calm walk in a park, punctuated by little heavenly moments that I savour and will be able to cherish later.
I feel thankful and proud that I managed to take it slow, to make some great “walk in a park” material.
I deeply believe (and so are the experts teaching me how to human) that my sadness today is very normal, given my recent subdepressive state, but most importantly, that it is a very important message. If my inner child is sad, she needs me to take care of her. So I went even slower today. I made sure to listen to her all day long.
“Will there be more good days?” Little L shyly asked. Of course there will I gently answered. I can’t tell when, because my control over this is very limited, but as surely as the good parts come and go, the bad parts do too.
It can be very hard, but oh so helpful to repeat ourselves over and over that life is full of good and bad stuff. That feeling good is therefore a blessing, not an achievement. There’s also consequently nothing shameful at all in not being ok. Something tells me I don’t have to tell you how the latter is important and helpful.
“I don’t want to be brave today. Or strong. I’m tired and know already it won’t be the same.” She whispered, the voice broken. It’s ok my Love. We don’t have to be brave or strong today. We just have to keep showing up and be present. That’s our only job, ever. For the rest, we can take it slowly and softly.
So we did. We did very little besides our self care routine, going out for a while and spend some time in the ocean, and working, since Wednesdays are a consultations day.
I love my job so much, and it’s a huge source of meaning to me. A few years back, when I was going through a tough depressive episode and was less well equipped than I am now, working, being with my clients, trying to understand and support them to the best of my abilities was the only time I felt normal, myself.
I feel so honoured to accompany those wonderful people in their hardship and their recovery and transformation, that it grounds me.
It also carries extra perks, like feeling helpful, connected with people in a deep way, having the chance to work in something I deeply believe in and feel utterly passionate about, being reminded of what matters all the time through other people’s stories...
I wouldn’t know what job to do besides being a psychologist. And as usual, I felt better after my consults. The only real down-side for me is the energy it is demanding from me, especially on such days.
I am also having a big week consultations-wise. So I knew Little L needed extra care, bad day aside. You can’t help people reconnect with their healing and/or best selves without caring for yours. So I added extra sparkles of self love today. Like...
I took a sniff of Green mint and Sweet orange essential oils. I’m not sure if they have an effect when inhaled, but I love their invigorating smell, it helps me feel somewhat energised. I do that as often as I please.
I made sure to look at my surroundings, as Nature is the best artist and will always offer little gems for those curious enough to search for them. I even photographed the stunning dusking sky. Any form of art always helps (even when it doesn’t feel like it).
And now that I have taken the time to write to you (which also always appeases me), I am going to go play with some watercolours, since genuine hands-on play will always please the soul too.
I hope you too, fellow tender hearts, will choose loving softness. You need and deserve it, we all do, living in that brutiful* world of ours.
See you tomorrow,
Love,
L.
* (as in “brutal and beautiful”, curtesy of Glennon Doyle)
#self love#self care#healing#slow living#recovery#depression#therapist diary#therapist#the happy mess project#emotional badassery#meaningful living#writer#writers
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Lawlight (duh) for the ship thing Also, if you're into any of these - Drarry, Malec, Ichiruki, Sakunaru
uhhhh i only know drarry tbh but not well enough for a ship meme dlfajsda sorry. anyway here’s lawlight.
who is more likely to hurt the other?
they both hurt each other on some level just bc they hv v combative personalities and also they r WATER SIGNS which means they r constantly in a fight over who is more valid. jokes on them tho: they r both unvalid as hell. light will center an entire week around getting back at L for something he did bc he’s basically amy dunne playing the long con all the time. L will hurt light in ways that last. he’ll just come out of nowhere with something like, “maybe it would be better if we hadn’t met” and light will just go quiet. that’s like, a sore spot L will push on if they argue bc he knows light is incredibly insecure abt his standing in L’s life. idk man. they love each other but there’s a lot of stuff they’re working thru and they’re leaving some scars along the way.
who is emotionally stronger?
hm. i think L is. he’s toughened up from all his experiences as the world’s greatest detective and had to deal w a lot more emotional crises than light. when it comes to big setbacks, he’s more likely to take them in stride whereas light is like that post that’s like “i’ll deal with it but you gotta let me be dramatic first.” before anything, he’s gotta scream in his scream jar then he can put those anxieties into the fridge and go back to figuring out his life.
who is physically stronger?
they hv abt the same physical strength. that’s less of a contest between them, altho light does sort of like it when L can lift him up. he’s done the same for L a couple times but its more fun to b carried than to b the carrier. anyway. if ur asking who wins more fights? then i would say that light wins a lot of their brawls bc he’s not afraid to play dirty. he has a sibling, he’s fought these battles many times before. its no rules just right in this house.
who is more likely to break a bone?
light has a lot of sports related injuries but not a lot of broken bones. meanwhile, mr. stays inside all day on my laptop has had three broken bones all from falling down the stairs or slipping on shit. just, like, hold on bc i’m picturing light and L sitting in the urgent care waiting room, both with broken arms bc of a roller skating accident. i don’t know how ppl break bones.
who knows best what to say to upset the other?
see this question and the first question r so close and so the answer is like both of them know each other well enough to hv their fingers poised over a particular emotionally destructive button at all times. i only say L is better at upsetting light bc he’s more willing to go the extra inch of underhandedness. of course, light nvr shows that he’s upset on the outside. no, he remains cool and calm, laughs it off probably, and then goes into the bathroom to hv a full scale meltdown in the dry bathtub. to b fair, that doesn’t happen often. its only during big, BIG arguments.
who is most likely to apologize first after an argument?
oh i don’t think either of them hv apologized once in their whole lives so it was a big step for them to apologize to each other. light caves first, trudging into L’s office with the most pathetic look on his face and being like “i’m sorry i called you a trash bag with arms.” and then L sort of sits there and has an inner conflict for a second before saying, “i’m sorry i told you looked like a kohl’s mannequin but not hot.”
who treats who’s wounds more often?
if their fights ever get too intense and someone gets hurt, its usually L knocking his head against something sharp and light has to like sit him on the toliet so he can fix him up. when he’s administering first aid, light starts to fuss over L and makes a lot of concerned noises.
“that hurts.” L squirms as light gives him stitches. “don’t pull too hard.”
“relax.” light says. “i’m actually quite good at this.”
(will i ever stop quoting that one line? no, i won’t.)
who is in constant need of comfort?
i don’t know abt comfort but light needs a lot of reassurance, both verbal and physical, that L does care abt him. he needs to b assured of his place in the world and in their relationship which L isn’t super great abt doing. but light is usually vocal abt when he needs comfort around L, whomst he rarely hides much of himself from, so its nvr a problem of L just not knowing. he just has no clue how to react.
there’s been a scarce few times when L has needed comfort after a taxing case but light is right there to just sort of, uhhh, hold him. let him make some horrible noises and talk. they try to b there for each other. its something they’re working on.
who gets more jealous?
oh for sure light. he gets flushed w jealousy anytime L shows a little more attention to someone else who could possibly usurp light’s romantic position in L’s life. its not fair. those ppl nvr worked as hard as he did to get L’s attention, to get his love. L thinks its kind of funny and will do shit to make light go green eyed. but that shit stops after they work with a french officer who gets a little too flirty w light and L just like, shuts that down. not so fun to b on the receiving end of that kind of jealousy.
who’s most likely to walk out on the other?
light. he’ll fucking do it at the drop of a hat too, just fucking walk out and not come back for three days. of course, they both think they can handle being separated so neither of them calls the other. but on the third day light’s trying to eat mcdonalds in his car and put a sausage mcmuffin in the hole L’s absence made so he goes to call him but his phone rings and it’s L on the other line like “please come back i forgot how quiet things r when ur not around also if ur at mcdonalds can u get me an apple pie okay thanks i love you.”
who will propose?
dklfsadlsfkj neither of them. they don’t want to get married tbh. i just literally can’t see them ever wanting to get married. if ur gonna put a gun to my head abt it tho, i would probably say light does but its only bc his mom started a campaign to get him to make an honest man out of L.
who has the most difficult parents?
um. i mean i guess light’s parents r more difficult. its not that they’re difficult tbh its more like they’re still adjusting to the life their son decided to lead bc its waaayyy different than what they thought was gonna happen. like first he’s gay (which isn’t a huge surprise to them like they’ve seen queer eye for the straight guy. they know things.) and then he’s dating some 24 yr old reclusive detective that happens to hv been soichiro’s boss for like a couple months and now light just sort of solves crimes w his boyfriend. so they’re being supportive but they’re also a little bit confused so sometimes it ends up in awkward situations where everyone’s at the dinner table and sachiko is like “so. what do your parents do, L?” and L is like “i don’t know who my parents were. i think they’re dead.” and she’s like, “oh. hm. well. that must b rlly rough for you.” meanwhile light is p much eating his napkin so he doesn’t start screaming at how little control he has over this shitty conversation.
who initiates hand-holding when they’re out in public?
they r rarely in public but uh. light does. he’s getting used to being out and part of him just rlly enjoys the physical evidence of their relationship that hand holding provides. that closet was so suffocating. it’s time to let those hands breath a little.
who comes up for the other all the time?
i still don’t entirely understand what this means entirely but i’ll take my best stab at it. i think L comes up for light a lot, esp if he’s talking to like the wammies or literally anyone who isn’t light himself or his family. like, p much everyone is like “but.....he’s kira???” and L is like “look. listen. i don’t know why but he’s. he’s rlly important to me. so its maybe better if we don’t shit talk the guy who sucks my dick? at least not rn.” he doesn’t do it v often bc usually the insults thrown toward light r well deserved but sometimes he does. light doesn’t come up for L like ever. he nvr talks to anyone abt L. whomst would he tell? yamamoto? secretly he goes on a couple message boards tho and send mean anon messages to ppl talking shit abt L but that’s as close as he gets.
who hogs the blankets?
L will b wrapped in a big old blanket bundle like that picture of homer simpson where he’s like “ah. i’m just a big cozy cinnamon bun.” light’s like curled up on his side of the bed w just the sheet but then L reaches over and drags him into the blanket bundle so they r both toasty cinnamon buns together.
who gets more sad?
L is more prone to bouts of depression and can get lethargic if something hits him the wrong way. the first few times it happened, light tried to shake it out of him but he’s learned since then that he’s just gotta ride this shit out. so for a few days or weeks, he’s just got a sad boyfriend so they watch a lot of netflix and don’t get a ton of work done.
light v rarely gets sad. he’s got a v positive outlook on life and doesn’t let a lot of stuff ruin his mood. but when he is sad, its like a big event and he’s crying in the dry tub in just his briefs and a sweatshirt while listening to sufjan on repeat. look. he’s just gotta get it out of his system and then he’ll b fine!
who is better at cheering the other up?
light is better at finding stuff to cheer L up. if L is in a funk, he’ll go search for a good case or an interesting lead so he can present it to him like a cat dropping a mouse in front of him. L is.....not so good at cheering light up. all he knows is how to piss him off. but after a while he starts to puzzle out that light flourishes under praise so he’ll try to keep telling him what a good job he’s doing.
who’s the one that playfully slaps the other all the time after they make silly jokes?
i said this in my mikami/light post but uh, light laughing is so uproarious that he just. whacks the person making him laugh on the back super hard. L doesn’t do anything the first time but the second time he grabs light by the wrist and is like “don’t. control ur self, u loud scream laughing monster.” light keeps his hands to himself when he laughs after that. he’s actually quite embarrassed of his natural laugh bc it is so obnoxious so he often tones it down but sometimes!!! shit’s just too funny!!!
who is more streetwise?
neither of these two know a god damn thing abt the streets. ok, L knows a little bit but he forgot it after building a giant fucking building for one investigation team of like six ppl.
who is more wise?
L knows more abt the world and has more experience than light does. he’s not quite wise?? but he’s definitely more knowledgeable and it smacks him in the face a lot how super young light is. how much he just doesn’t know. but L’s only in his mid twenties. what the fuck does he rlly know?
who’s the shyest?
mmm. they aren’t shy ppl by nature so i’d say neither of them. esp when they’re together. combining their levels of pure confidence is like putting a fire in a room with more fire; it just increases the amount of fire. as their relationship progresses, they get more assertive w each other and idk man. they just don’t do that shy shit.
who boasts about the other more?
mmmm. i don’t think they brag abt each other a lot but i think light kind of wants to brag abt being w L. i mean, he didn’t think it would happen but then L did come and want to start something with him and its like?? wrow. but he doesn’t rlly hv anyone to brag to so he just sort of lets it sit like a smoldering piece of coal in his stomach, keeping him warm. L exculsively brags abt light during video conferences w the wammies like “MY PARTNER, WHO IS A GENIUS AND V ATTRACTIVE, AND I, WHO IS DATING THIS ATTRACTIVE GENIUS, HV FOUND A CLUE” and like everyone rolls their eyes like “dude u told us the same shit last week like please please please stop telling us abt ur hot boyfriend.”
who sits on who’s lap?
light!!! sits!!! on L’s lap!!!! all the time!!! he curls up in there like a cat and plays w L’s hair.
“am i making it hard to do ur work?” he asks, fingers scratching on L’s scalp.
“yes. but that’s okay. light shouldn’t move.”
so he doesn’t and just falls asleep there, hand on the back of L’s neck and drooling on his shoulder. its cute in like an ugly way.
#death note#dslafjskdjfhaskjfh this is so LONG#why do i take so much time w these like c'mon dude#u got other shit to do#:/#devilcornflakes
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FemaleInTrouble.
Marissa: I needed to go to the shop to get a few things, I had to get out and have some time to myself, it’s been so busy lately I wanted a few minutes to myself. I left the office and headed towards the clinic, saying to Ehlena I was just popping out for a bit and i’ll be back soon.
I headed out the door and walked slowly down the street, going towards the supermarket. I picked up a few things, some sweets for the little kids. I picked up a bottle of wine. I paid for my things and headed back to Safe Place, but something was wrong I could feel it. Then I thought I heard was a baby crying I couldn’t see where to look, hoping the baby was not in pain. So I looked around couldn’t see anything, so I kept on looking, it got louder and louder. I stood still, laying on the ground was a female with a baby in her arms, she was covered in blood. I reached down to see if the female needed help.
Gen: She couldn't remember where she was much less how she got there. Everything seemed to be a bit of a blur for her. One minute she had been putting Sebhastian down for his nap when the doors of the Daea estate were kicked open, the appropriate house doggen fleeing for safety, the males try to take up arms to protect the mistress. Lessers raided the house, ripping the upholstery, the furniture tossed on its back. They had come so fast, she froze. It wasn't until Stefan, her beloved Stefan, who also happened to be the family cook, and father to her young. He was handsome and brave. Especially in those last few brief moments they had together. It was he who had ushered her out the back doors, Bhastian in her arms. But it wasn't good enough. They weren't soldiers. They had no training. Her and her family were born in poverty, it was why they took the job as a “fill-in doggen”. Not doggen. They couldn't go out in day, but they needed the money and it was the best they could do.
She'd ran as hard as her legs would carry her, Bhastian fussing in her arms from the bouncing around. The lessers had noticed her right then. Chasing their prey, their bodies faster, catching up to her with no qualms, they scratched and clawed their way to get to her and still she refused to give up, no matter how much her sides cramped and her legs burning. And still she refused. They wouldn't get her. No. Not when she had someone to live for, who needed her. Bhastian needed her. Even as they lunged and grabbed her foot, forcing her body to twist so she didn't land on her young, the wind getting knocked out. It seemed hopeless. And still she held onto him, his cries ringing her ears. She kicked herself free, but not without sustaining some cuts. In fact she could feel most of her flesh cut from their excessive need to catch their prey. But Scribe help her, somehow even now she was alive, she could tell, just lying on the ground, her arms refusing to loosen around her young, she was alive. By some miracle. Slowly lifting her head, her face wet with sweat and blood beginning to dry across her cheeks. It took the last but bit of strength she had to call for help, her voice hoarse from her previous screaming.
“H-help! S-someone help!” Losing the power in her voice, her one last final plea a more softer subtle touch. “please.” And out like a light. It was the last thing she could do and pray. Pray someone would find her before the sun did.
Marissa: I was trying my hardest to wake the female, the baby was still screaming loud not even the baby could wake her up, I leaned down I checked to make sure the baby was fine. But I could see the baby was so stressed I tried to grab him, pulled him towards me and wrapped my coat around him, I got my cellphone and dialed Ehlena and hoped she picked up fast, this female and her child needed medical treatment fast.
Listening for my phone, it finally started to chime oh good, I am glad, I answered Ehlena It’s me, I have a female that needs medical attention now! Grab Rhym, bring some blanklet’s and come quickly I can’t wake the female, her son needs help to. I am trying to keep him warm, hurry as fast as you both can. I don’t think I can wake her. I’ve been trying even the baby crying is not helping. Hurry, don’t wait I need you both now. I will keep trying to wake her.
Ehlena: *I started talking on the phone to Marissa trying to calm her down, “Marissa I will be right there in a couple of seconds and I will bring the stuff that I am needing to help the female just make her comfortable as best as you can until I get there and help you” I hung up the phone when I got the details where Marissa was shouting to the supervisor to grab some blankets and a flask of some water, I pointed to the sink, “Rhym in the storage cupboard it is still open there is some things that you would need including things for the baby, We need to be quick female is in trouble and she has a baby I need you there with me” Grabbing the medical bag that was under my table with everything in it for an emergency, soon as I saw Rhym with the things that I had requested I made my way to where Marissa was with Ryhm walking beside me.
Rhym: As we head towards Marissa. I get a update on what as happened from Ehlena. How bad is her injuries? is the young hurt? Opening the doors we exit. The smell of the female’s blood was strong in the air.
Ehlena: *Walking out the doors then walking towards Marissa was when I say walking it was more of a jog I knew that a female was needing help and Marissa was needing my assistance with the female that was in trouble. I could not answer Rhym correctly “sorry I don’t know all of the information at the moment” Walking fast and spotting Marissa doing everything that she could for the female in trouble, I could see that she was doing a grand job without me being there. Finally I had answered Rhym with what I knew. “Don’t think the young is harmed in any way, Not sure how bad her injuries are at the moment I know that she is bleeding” I ran over to Marissa who had the female in her arms noticing that the female and her young were in trouble. This female needed my help and fast.
Marissa: So glad you got here, we need to get them inside it’s too cold out here, this female needs help now, let’s move her. I looked over to Rhym, can you take the baby? I will make sure that we help this female, the wounds are so bad she might need surgery depends on how bad the injuries are. Looks bad to me looking at the blood on my hands, starting to shake it’s getting colder let’s move now!
Rhym: Taking the baby from Marissa I place him near my chest for warmth. Don't worry I have this little warrior. *Cooing as I look down, your mayhem is in the best hands, quickly looking over the young. You I've good lungs. Walking back into safe Place keeping the doors open for Marissa and Ehlena.* Once they enter, I tell them I will inform the Brotherhood in case a missing person is reported. I head towards the kitchen to get a bottle for the young.
Ehlena: *Taking one look at the female in trouble who Marissa was with and noticing that she needed urgent medical assistance she needed to be at the medical wing getting the help that she needed, I had got the blankets from Rhym and I placed another gauze bandage over one of her wounds. “Try to keep the pressure on this or she will bleed out just until we get her to the wing there are lots more to help her there, We need to cover her with the blankets to keep her warm, I took my radio to ask for a trolley to the clinic where I would work on her there. The trolley came so quickly to the entrance Marissa and I got the female up onto her feet and we both walked to the entrance where the trolley was waiting for us.
Gen: Her eyes dancing behind her lids, a slight crease along her brow. She needed to wake up. She needed to keep going, keep fighting, away to safety, away from the lessers. Her consciousness had faded long before, dreaming of a time before all of this, all of the chaos. She had been dreaming when she and Stefan were in the kitchen one evening, showing her how to slice onions. She cried like a babe. Stefan had asked her what was wrong, his grey eyes looking into hers for a search for answers, concerned it was his teachings. Which, to be fair, was an adventure all in itself. His instructions were always a little hard to follow, that maybe he was being too harsh with her in his lessons. She'd confessed it was the onion that was making her cry and Stefan laughed. Embarrassed, she'd playfully swatted at his arm, begging him not to laugh, even though she herself was starting her little fits of giggles, the mood swaying to a lighter setting between them. He was fun and exciting. He was patient in her lessons even though it was more like rocket science to her. Never did he hit her or was he harsh. A bit facetious, but she liked him that way. He didn't pretend. And now he was gone.
She couldn't remember much as her mind slowly drifted back into reality, yelling at herself to go back, to keep on dreaming. The air felt different. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, something was pressed against her back. She was lying on something. Her brows furrow with concentration. Where was she? What happened? Was she dead? Was this the Fade? ‘Does this mean I can be with Stefan?’ Her thoughts beginning to race, throwing all kinds of what-ifs. But if she were dead, why couldn’t she open her eyes? They still felt heavy, like a force forbidding her to wake just yet. Her mind beginning to make sense of the world around her, voices could be heard above her. Her baby. Where was her baby? She needed to get to Sebhastian. She needed to get him to safety. If not for herself, Scribe help her she would give at least one last ounce of strength, something, anything, long enough to get him somewhere safe. By sheer luck, her lids opened to the world around her. A brief second of confusion, lost to the events of the world around her. Where was she? How long had she been asleep? Was she still alive or was this her Heaven? Made up to fit whatever, continuing on as if she were living only living in the realm of the dead. Then it all came back to her. Looking frantically around in search of her young. “Bhastian? Bhastian where are you? Baby?”
Marissa: [Looking over at Ehlena, as we pushed the trolley down the hall towards the Clinic and fast, I could see the female finally waking up. All I could hear was her talking about her baby, she was worried. Learning down to her ear, whispering in her ear to tell her, the baby was safe we was making sure he was okay, also if he was hungry we was going to feed him. You are okay now, no one will hurt you here. “My name is Marissa, I run safeplace it is to help females like you it’s to protect you from a loved one, or if a female needs help.” We make it right. Me and my family will take care of you, you’re injuries look bad, I found you and brought you here.]
Please don’t worry, Ehlena is a nurse she is going to look over you and see what the damage is, If we need a doctor. I can call Doc Jane if it is that bad. She lives with the brotherhood.
Once we find out how bad you are we can help you to get better, I can go and find Rhym and bring the baby to you. But please try and relax, you are safe here need a drink just ask. Looking over at Ehlena, how bad do you think she is?
Ehlena: *Helping to push the trolley down through the corridors to the clinic I heard everything that Marissa was saying to her trying to keep her calm. “Marissa is correct we will look after your baby no harm will come to him and she is correct you are safe you will get the treatment that your needing here” We finally got to the clinic at safeplace. I knew that Jane could be on hand to help out if I was needing it but surely although it won’t come to that I could try to do my best for the female. First of all I had to clean a few wounds, pointing out to Marissa that we needed a bottle of cleaning fluid and some gloves, some sort of dry cloth from the cupboard would be good to clean up the females wounds I had to check to see if she is going to need some surgery anywhere, checking all over the female’s body paying attention to the bones that could break easy, A injury has came up on her ribs it looks as if some of the bones are broken and with her breathing in a funny manner. More than likely it is a few of her ribs she will need to have plenty of rest. A bandage needs to be on the ribs for a little bit we need a big bandage Marissa from the bandage cupboard.
She will need round the clock care just in case she happens to get a fever. And her temperature goes above 104.F then she will need Jane, Need to keep an eye out for her breathing and any other signs that she may have an infection. I would have liked to put her under some sort of sedation a drug called ketamine will be used if possible just so that she gets the rest that she needs. This bleeding will also have to be addressed, I took the bandage and wrapped what I could around the female but not too tightly enough so that she could breathe, Whilst Marissa passed me the cleaning fluid I got to work cleaning her wounds putting some gauze on them and plasters. I got out the needle with the ketamine taking the correct dose that I was needing and maintaining her blood pressure at the same time I placed the needle inside the bottle taking some of the liquid to give the injection to her. looking down at the female “This will help you and give you the rest you need so that your wounds can heal correctly, This female will need round the clock care while she is staying here at Safeplace. I will be here to help out when I am needed and will be spending lots of time here checking as well, We will have to get her to another bed where there are some monitors to check for everything” I checked the female’s blood pressure since I had gave the dosage of the that drug “Everything seems fine for transportation to another bed.
Gen: There was very little that transpired between them. She couldn't keep track of what was happening around her except several beautiful looking young women around her, one above her who seemed to be speaking to her. ‘Ehlena? That's a pretty name.’ She thought. Oh Scribe! Her body hurt! It felt almost impossible to speak. Badly she wanted to let the kind female know she acknowledged her. And what put her More at ease was the mention of her young with another female. Good goddess. He was alive. Thank goodness. She wasn't quite sure what she would do without her baby. Aside from some broken ribs, she'd managed to strain enough to listen to the voices around her. Broken ribs. Probably some bruising. No internal bleeding as far as she could tell. Definitely scrapes. It hurt to breathe but at least she would live and yet, the weight of events came crashing against her in a wave. Her family. Gone. Her Stefan. Gone. Never will Bhastian ever grown to know of his father. He’ll never hug him, or kiss him, or do what any other father and son do by bonding. Bhastian had no warrior blood in him, so it wasn't as if he could train to be a Brother.
Suddenly she could feel something break into her skin and something easy over her, her limbs turning jell-o, automatically relaxing her body. Her lids having grow heavy, she managed a weak smile. “please. Help my baby. He's...the only family I have left in this world. I can't lose him. Please. Do everything you can..for him.” She refused to cry. Later. Later she would cry, and mourn. But not now. Now she needed to stay strong for Bhastian.
Marissa: Listening to the women, please try not to panic I will go and find Rhym to see how the little warrior is doing, he didn’t look to bad just needed feeding and into the warm. You need to rest you are in a lot of pain. You need to get better for the both of you. We will keep you safe and make sure you have the best care. “My name is Marissa, this Ehlena” She will keep looking and make sure that the pain doesn’t get worse, then we will have to call doc Jane if it does. I am happy that everything looks good.
Please don’t worry, I am going to leave you in the hands of Ehlena. I am going to find your baby, bring him to you. I think he is getting fed and maybe sleeping, but I will speak to Rhym see if he is okay then bring him to you. I will be back soon. I exit the clinic and walk towards the baby clinic to check on the baby and Rhym.
Rhym: *looking up as Marissa enters, while gently rocking the young as he was tired.* how is She? This little one a fine, no marks or bruising or redness. She did a fantastic job keeping him safe. *looking down at the young I smile, he is asleep I whisper. Shall I take him to her. I will stay with them in case he needs anything.
Marissa: We can go together I said that I would bring him down, I don’t want to disturb him if he is sleeping, did you feed him? I know but she is not good she is in loads of pain. I think she has a few broken ribs and other injuries, I am sure Ehlena will look after her. They both can stay here until she is 100%. Let’s go and take this little warrior to his mother, “Smiles at Rhym as we head towards the clinic” I am glad I found them Rhym, or we could have lost both.
Ehlena: *When Marissa left and all of the wounds were clean, After she was given the correct dosage of Ketamine I was convinced that the female laying on this table was going to get past this she will live with a lot of care and looking after she will do well. She had to, she had a baby there a fine young little warrior who was going to survive through this as well to get revenge after what this female his mother has went through.
I looked down at the female and pulled up a chair that was in the corner of the room. I checked the female’s breathing and she was doing well so far I checked the wounds made sure that the bandage was secure that was on her body. I kept on checking her vitals until Marissa had came back with her son. Then maybe she would be ok enough and she can see her son. The female was a little sleepy with the drug that I gave her but she was awake talking now I could not give her too much of the drug since she wanted to see her son.
It would be a good idea after she saw her son to give her some more Ketamine so that she is comfortable and that she could get a good night’s sleep where her body can recover the trauma that she has just been through. waiting the arrival of Marissa and Rhym with the little baby when I heard some footsteps at the Safeplace clinic door.
Marissa: Walking towards the clinic with Rhym and the baby, knowing that the female would be happy, knowing her little warrior was safe and not harmed in anyway. He had been fed and was asleep in Rhym’s arms, you could hear his breathing as he was away with the world. Such a special little warrior, made me think of all those other females and their young. How many we have helped and it was only going to get busier.
“I looked over to Rhym, I am sure we can give the baby to his mother now.” I smiled at the female as Rhym passed the baby other, placed down next to his mother. I have never seen a mother and a son bond like that, something must of happened to this poor female. “I smiled as the baby laid closed to his mother chest” They were both home, together.
#FemaleInTrouble #SaintsNSinners #BDB #SASBDB
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[Fanfic] The Sailor and the Mermaid ch3
Summary: Mermaids were nothing more than fairytales, they weren’t real. Yet You finds herself questioning that thinking when she meets an actual mermaid, one that saved her life no less. ChikaYou Mermaid AU
Rating: T (Due to a minor instance of an almost swear in the 1st chapter, though I don’t know if things will escalate in later ones)
Word count: 2,729 words
Characters: Watanabe You (sailor), Matsuura Kanan, Captain Watanabe, Takami Chika (mermaid; non-speaking cameo)
Pairings: ChikaYou
Notes: Took a lil bit longer to get chapter 3 out than I’d hoped, but that was mostly due to real life, and then partly down to me wanting to make this chapter longer than the previous two. Introduced Kanan into the story, as well as finally giving You her reunion with her father, yay! Minimal Chika tho, tho she does appear at the end. thank you for reading, apologies to anyone using mobile since the read more won’t work then. :‘D Concrit is welcome!
External Links: FFNet, Ao3
It was just after noon when You had made her way through the forest and to the outer edge of the village, and after a confusing trek through a residential area she wasn’t familiar with, she found herself at the central square. The location itself was mostly quiet, with the few people present either shopping at the stalls outside larger stores or sitting on the stone benches surrounding a well in the centre most part of the square. The small number of children in the area seemed content to stay near their mothers rather than run and play in the square.
You almost wanted to sit and rest for a bit; she could feel her headache coming on again, and her feet ached as well, a mix of all the walking she’d been doing as well as the fact that she was walking on rough ground with barefeet. She ultimately decided against it, justifying that it was more important to find her father first, and that she could rest after that. It wasn’t that far anyway, and You knew the area closer to the docks a lot better. It would be fine…
Yet as she took a step to continue on, she found herself growing woozy. A jolt of pain shot through her head, causing her to wince and her vision turned white, and for the first time all day, You was suddenly aware of how she hadn’t eaten or drank anything since before the boat had left for its halted voyage. The stress of the long day was finally catching up to her.
Taking another step, this time toward one of the benches as she revised her decision of not stopping to rest, she began to waver, feeling as though she were about the collapse. The world around her began to blur in both sight and sound, her head filling with white noise. You thought she heard her name being called, but it was lost in the haze. She took another step.
Again, she thought she heard her name, though a lot more urgent sounding, however she couldn’t be sure as her legs finally gave out beneath her, and her world turned black.
~*~*~
When You regained consciousness, the first thing she noticed was that she was inside a building, resting on a bed, as opposed to outside lying on the ground. There was also the smell of fish in the air, though having lived by the sea for as long as she had, You could ignore that. She could feel something cool resting on her head, and when she reached up to touch it, it felt damp. She concluded easily enough that it was a wet cloth, but decided to leave it in place. She noted that her headache had faded considerably, most likely due to her finally getting some decent rest.
She lay there, internally debating getting some more sleep - whoever had brought her there probably wouldn’t mind, and more rest could only do her good - or getting up and continuing to find her father. The longer she took to get back, the closer he’d get to just declaring her dead and moving on without her. You winced at the rather harsh thought; obviously he’d be torn up at the idea of his daughter being dead, but grief wouldn’t keep him on the island. He’d still be a professional and get his job done, and probably as quick as he could so he could go home and tell her mother...
Her thought process was broken by the creaking of stairs, and when she turned her head, You found herself looking at a familiar face, a rarity in her line of work.
“Ah, you’re up,” the young woman said, putting down the tub of water she’d been carrying next to the bed, “And you’re looking better now. At least you’ve got some colour back in your face.” The newcomer took the damp cloth off of You’s forehead and began soaking it.
“Kanan,” You croaked, her voice hoarse from lack of water. Kanan Matsuura was the daughter of one of the fishing families in the village, one that specialised in diving for fish deeper in the sea that fishermen couldn’t catch with their nets otherwise. Being one of the few girls in the village around You’s age, she’d spent a fair amount of time with Kanan during the week the crew had been staying in Uchiura.
The young woman looked up at the sound of her name, giving You a small sympathetic smile. As she placed the cloth back on You’s head, she said, “Hold on a sec, I’ll get you some water. Then we’ll talk.” You could only nod in response, though Kanan was already leaving the room. While You tried to return to her thoughts in the meantime, she couldn’t quite focus on them, finding them a confusing mess. She focused instead on the sounds of Kanan moving around downstairs.
She could hear thuds and clinks - cupboards and glass, most likely - and footsteps, which then transitioned into the creaking stairs again as Kanan reappeared in the room, holding a glass of water. When You moved to try and sit up, Kanan put her hand gently on the girl’s chest to stop her, saying, “Nuh uh, you’re still resting. Here.” She moved the pillows You was lying on, propping them up so You could sit up without actually doing so.
You pouted, feeling frustrated at her position and beginning to feel almost babied. “But, my father, I need-” Kanan held up her hand, preventing You again. She handed her the water and said, “Don’t worry about that. I already sent one of the shop assistants to go tell him you’re okay when I found you. He’ll be here soon.”
For the first time that day, You found herself feeling pure relief. She let out a deep sigh and shifted, burying deeper into the pillows. As she began drinking from her water, Kanan said, “We were all worried about you, y’know. When the ship came back and your father said you’d fallen off when it got caught in that storm. He was pretty frantic, kept begging every fisherman with a decent boat to send out search parties to look for you, even though everyone else kept telling him to wait till after the storm had passed.”
You winced; she already knew he’d be worried about her disappearing, but to actually hear it from somebody else still made the news sting. “I tried to get back as quickly as I could,” she mumbled into the glass.
“And clearly, pushing yourself is what led to you passing out in the middle of the square,” Kanan scolded, cuffing You over the head, though the playful smile on her face indicated she wasn’t entirely serious.
“Hey! You can’t assault your patient!” You complained, laughing as she buried deeper into the pillow while dodging another swipe from her friend. An evil smirk spread on Kanan’s face as she held her hands up, poised in claw shapes as she said, “Nobody would ever know.”
Despite You’s attempts to play along and bear a horrified expression, the over exaggerated act simply made her snort and break out in laughter again, and Kanan quickly found herself doubled over and laughing as well, though she tried to muffle her giggles in the sheets of the bed. Their gleeful cries went on for a couple minutes, till You felt her sides begin to ache and her throat grew parched again.
“Well,” Kanan sighed once she’d finally calmed herself down, “at least you’re safe now. And clearly you’re feeling a lot better.” You could only nod in response as she proceeded to chug down the remains of her water, leaving a brief silence to settle while she did so.
“Hey, I was wondering,” her friend started, taking the glass off of You once she was finished and putting it on the floor next to the tub of water, “where did you actually end up after the storm? You didn’t wash up on the shore by the docks, but you clearly managed to make it back here on your own from wherever you were.”
“I just washed up on the beach,” You answered, deciding to leave out the bit about being saved by a fairy tale creature that logically shouldn’t exist. However she then realised that her answer left much to be desired when Kanan’s eyes widened in surprise and she said, “Wha- but the beach is on the other side of the island. How did you wash up there when the ship left from this side and didn’t go anywhere near there?”
“Uh...currents?” You tried, only for Kanan to then frown, suspicion in her eyes. Fortunately for You, before she could begin stammering out other excuses and before Kanan could begin the interrogation You knew was coming, they both heard the door downstairs slam open, making them jump. In an instant, the new arrival was shouting loud for the girls to hear, “You! Are you here?!”
“Father!” You shouted back, and they’d barely heard the groaning of the stairs before he burst into the room. His tired looking face broke into a huge grin and relief shone in his eyes as he saw his daughter, alive and well, before him. You’s own expression was identical to her father’s, as she burst from the bed into his arms.
“Oh sweetheart, you’re okay,” he mumbled, repeating it even, while You seemed to be mumbling something of her own that was lost in the man’s heavy clothes, yet the tears falling from her eyes spoke clear enough for her.
Kanan smiled at the scene before her, her suspicions put aside for now. Gathering up the tub of water and You’s empty glass, she left the newly reunited father and daughter alone; her exit went unnoticed.
~*~*~
After determining that You was fit to move, the duo left for the inn by the docks where the crew had been staying while stationed in the village. It was during the walk that You’s father explained that he wished to stay in Uchiura for a few days longer, partly to ensure You was well and truly back up to full health - which she insisted that she was, though he then insisted that she take it easy for a day or two more just to be certain - and then partly to restock some of their supplies, both for the crew and for their delivery. The storm had apparently swept away much of their cargo, and with the captain’s first priority being to find You, he hadn’t gotten around to arranging more supplies. An arrangement that You definitely didn’t approve of.
“Wai- you didn’t even split the crew to deal with that? Like, some of them could focus on restocking and some of them could help you with the search party?” You scolded, putting her hands on her hips while her father scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
“I know, it was stupid-”
“Of course it was, you’re still running a business, you have to be professional.” She pouted as she came to a stop, switching her stance and folding her arms instead while also drawing herself up to her full height, trying to make herself seem taller in the midst of the semi-argument that’d broken out.
“I know, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I just- I panicked,” her father sighed, looking downcast, “I thought I’d lost you.” She softened at that, her expression shifting to a concerned frown as she said, “I know. Sorry.”
“Hell, it's not like the crew helped either; they were just as freaked as I was about you fallin’ overboard. Nobody was thinkin’ about the delivery, just about gettin’ you back safe and sound.” You rolled her eyes, mumbling, “You’re all hopeless.” Though she wore a soft smile as she said it.
The old man chuckled, “Yeah we are. But hey, that’s all done now, you’re safe now; let’s go meet the boys, show them all you’re okay, yeah? We’ll celebrate for tonight! But you’re not drinking.”
“You never let me drink anyway,” You laughed, to which he laughed in response, and they both broke out in a run, racing each other the rest of the way to the inn.
~*~*~
The party held at the inn was a boisterous one, filled with cheering and singing and much drinking - though true to her father’s word, he made sure You didn’t get a drop. Before that was the crazy reunion she had had with the crew, with each individual either sweeping her up into hugs or simply crying that they were glad she was safe.
All in all, the entire day had left You feeling exhausted, even with the extended rest she’d had at Kanan’s house, so before the moon was even high in the sky, she left the party and headed to her room. Yet when she got there, aside from getting changed into a fresh pair of sleeping slacks - she’d been wearing her old, now worn and finished ones the entire day now - she chose to look out the window at the sea rather than immediately going to bed.
The ocean outside was black due to the darkness, aside from the bright white streaks of the moon’s glowing reflection. Contrary to that morning’s storm, the waves were calm, lapping gently against the island’s edge. It was almost as if the storm had never happened. While the idea of something so powerful and vast suddenly deciding to kick up a frenzy and destroy whatever it could was terrifying, You still loved the sea.
She loved how peaceful it could be, like how it was right then, late at night. And she loved how it was still so mysterious. It still held so many secrets that people didn’t know about, and for some people, that could be terrifying, but for You, it just meant more adventure. Being able to explore and discover the unknown…
It was as she let out a relaxed sigh, relishing the quiet and the rhythmic sound of the waves against the island, that she heard a splash, separate from that of the waves. After an initial cursory glance over the waters didn’t reveal anything, she almost put it down to stray wave hitting a rock. Then she heard it again, and then a third time, and then she was practically hanging out the window, searching for the source of the noise.
She almost felt stupid doing it, and part of her kept trying to insist that it was just the waves, maybe even a fish skimming the surface of the water. But then the other part of her wanted to believe…
A shape- a person emerged from the water, nothing more than a silhouette in the darkness. As they moved through the water however, the light from the moon caught them, and You found herself grinning. At the same time, the figure seemed to notice You, and then Chika was waving, both hands in the air and her excited laughter almost being carried by the waves or the wind to You’s ears.
“It was real. This morning was real...right?” Even as You waved back, she was hesitant; on the one hand, she was nervous, uncertain. Still ready to brush everything about that morning off as a hallucination caused by a head injury or a dream while she was unconscious. She was certainly feeling tired enough that she could probably convince herself she was still dreaming.
Yet the other part of her was still so curious about Chika, and perhaps their bonding moment on the beach had warmed her to the mermaid, after her initial panic. Maybe she wanted to see her again, whether to reaffirm that she was real and finally silence that hesitant side of herself, and maybe…
Maybe You wanted to see Chika again because she genuinely enjoyed her company, because she wanted to spend more time with her. Dare she say it, but despite being from two completely different worlds, maybe You believed that they could possibly be...friends?
As her waving grew more firm, a determined smile grew on her face. As Chika disappeared below the water again, You made her decision.
“I will see you again, Chika. I promise,” she whispered, hoping that the wind would carry her words to her new companion beneath the waves.
#fufu's fanfic#writing#love live#love live sunshine#chikayou#youchika#watanabe you#takami chika#mermaid au#long post
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Reverse Heroine | II
parts: ➳ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 / ?
a supposedly only 2 part fic ft. fuckboy!jungkook x
reader
summary: because platonic love is underrated
genre: college au, fluff/angst idk?
word count: 5.1k
a/n: I probably fluctuated too much with the comedy and angst on this but because i wrote on different days it just really goes by my mood. i also probably should stop thinking that I’m being really funny because i’m laughing at my own jokes like its so sad somebody halp me.
shoutout to the cutest baby that i need to protect from Jungkook the rude hip thrusting brat: @mintmintyoongi you’re so cute and sweet omg my grandma heart is alive and well when i think of you
let me know what you guys think of the new chapter!
After the interruption from the well-loved couple, the party resumed to its previous state. Smashed students downing on drinks and- wait, is that Kim Taehyung doing a keg stand right now? You shake your head in amusement; that boy never fails to go all out during parties. You’ve already walked around the frat house twice in search for Jungkook, seeing way too much going on for your liking, but the boy was still nowhere to be found. Popping a couple of beers yourself, your bladder was now urgently sending a signal – yep, it was definitely an emergency. You run to the closest bathroom, hand on the knob to find girl on the counter and your favourite fratboy standing between her legs, lips locked like they were about to devour each other.
The caramel locks are recognizable at first sight, which are currently entangled in Jungkook’s hand like a wild animal. The sophomore has taken it too far this time, messing around with someone like her. With anger bubbling in your stomach, you pull on Jungkook’s t-shirt, separating the bodies apart. With some space between the two, you realize that the girl was indeed Park Sora – daughter of President Park of the director’s board. She looks embarrassed and flustered in being caught in action, immediately closing her legs together in hopes of saving her prim and proper image.
“You’re coming with me, Jeon.” A hiss comes out of your mouth and Jungkook makes no attempt to resist, he was smart enough to know not to mess with you when you were fuming.
Dragging the drunken body outside, you muster all your strength and throw Jungkook onto the ground. He groans in pain at the contact and your heartstrings tug for a second before returning to your iron expression once again.
“It’s only grass, Jeon. You’ve been slammed countless of times like this in football, stop pretending like it actually hurts.” You roll your eyes as you wait for the boy to get up on his feet. The fresh and brisk air outside seems to have Jungkook sobered up a bit, who tries to push through you to get into the house again.
“Leave me alone, loser.” He mutters, alcohol stenching his breath. “I have to get back to Sora.”
You pull him back to stand in front of you, hands tugging on the collar of his shirt. “I’m saving your ass, you idiot! If President Park finds out about you messing with his precious little daughter, you can kiss your sports scholarship goodbye!”
Your hands release Jungkook when he seems to finally realize the situation that he got himself in, no longer demanding to get back inside. He sucks in a breath of cold air as he kicks the grass on the lawn, obviously aware of the consequences of his actions but still pissed off that you called him out like that.
“Kook, I thought you were better than this.” You groan, pulling your messy locks back from falling forwards. “You-you know that you shouldn’t mess with girls like that. She’s going to take everything for serious! And I can’t let you hurt her like that”
Everything falls silent. Too tired to keep yelling at your friend, you watch as Jungkook stands before you – head looking down with his bangs covering his eyes. The climax of the party continues in the back of the house, muffled music filling up the dead space between you and Jungkook. The unsettling tension is making you crazy until he finally decides to speak again.
“What if the one that’s hurt is me?” Jungkook looks at you for the first time since the two of you have been outside. His eyes are bloodshot and watery, and his pained expression makes your heart clench in sympathy.
“What?” A soft sound escapes your lips, confused to what Jungkook was saying. “What are you even sayi-”
“I lied. I lied to you, Y/N.” Jungkook whispers. “That night, when you asked me if I ever loved someone before and I told you that I didn’t.” He continues when you pull his hand into yours as support, feeling relieved at the contact. “I was wrong.” Jungkook looks up into the night sky, in attempt to keep his gleaming tears from falling. But it was no use, it was just too easy to be himself – not the infamous bad boy that the campus knew him as – whenever you’re around.
“That feeling you mentioned, I didn’t- I just didn’t know what you were talking about. Until today, when I saw Jimin’s hands around her.”
Jungkook takes a deep breath and shudder, needing a moment to get over his rush of emotions that was overwhelming him. You take this time to bring him to the sidewalk curb, sitting down with him beside you.
“I’m in love, Y/N. With my own fucking best friend.” A series of soft cries escape from Jungkook’s lips, leaning onto your shoulder as support. You didn’t realize that he was crying until you felt his tears staining your skin underneath the t-shirt. You should’ve noticed the signs. It was bound to happen – the way he looks at her, the way he smiles when she does, and the way he suffers when he saw Jimin with his beloved. You should have realized that Jeon Jungkook was in love with Lee Daeun.
Wrapping your arm around the boy, you slowly smooth down his back, trying to give the best form of comfort as you can. It hurts you as well, seeing your friend breakdown in front of you like that. You understood that at times like these, all you really needed was a shoulder to cry on and a person to listen to you.
“I know it’s hard, Kook. Just let it all out.” You whisper, feeling him tighten his embrace around you. Jungkook was drunk for sure, but it was the fact that he was drunk which made him able to express the feelings that he would have never done when sober. A regular bystander would have been confused at the scene of a tall and built boy hunched over a small girl like you for support. But that was the friendship you had with Jungkook, and you wouldn’t settle for anything less.
After a few minutes of silence, Jungkook was finally able to stop his sobbing and waterworks. He finally calms down and looks up at you in a pout.
“You lied too, Y/N.” He frowns like an upset puppy. “You told me that it would be the best feeling ever but I just feel like shit right now.”
Oh, he was definitely drunk. You never thought you would be alive to see the day where Jeon Jungkook is acting cute in front of you but boy, are you impressed at how good of a job he was doing. Letting out a small chuckle, you pinch his little scrunched up nose.
“Come on, you big baby. Let’s get you some rest.”
You swore to yourself that dragging up a drunk Kim Taehyung would be the last of your encounters with drunk frat boys. You were wrong. Dealing with a drunk Jeon Jungkook was a whole new experience. The boy acted like he was 7 again, curious at everything he saw - including that very interesting Alpha Sig flag hung against the wall - as if he hasn’t been seeing it everyday since he entered college.
After a tedious journey up the stairs, you turn right to bring Jungkook into his room. He falls onto his bed like a bowl of cooked spaghetti, making you laugh at the scene before you. It was not the first time you’ve been in his room, Jungkook always invited you over to chill whenever another girl wasn’t keeping him occupied or when Daeun wasn’t spending time with him. You still remember the first time when you met his roommate – “A GIRL ON JUNGKOOK’S BED THAT HE’S NOT FUCKING? Unbelievable.” – Yep, Jung Hoseok was definitely a memorable character. Without Jungkook constantly bothering you to show you his collection of funny memes and dog videos – which you swear, is like a bottomless pit – you could finally settle down to observe the artwork plastered on his walls.
It is easy to forget sometimes that Jeon Jungkook is an Art Major. But honestly, who doesn’t, when all he does is fuck girls in his spare time. Taking in a moment to admire his pieces, you realize that Jungkook doesn’t really like drawing people – most of his canvas illustrate breath-taking sceneries and complex building artwork. You were about to reach for his personal sketchbook – laid on top of his drawer – when a sound interrupts you.
A person behind you clears his throat to capture your attention. It was probably Hoseok though, curious to why Jungkook was in his bed when a party was going on downstairs. You realized that you probably had to make up a story to why Alpha Sig’s favourite sophomore was now partially passed out and hopefully, get some help with the very handful baby ‘Kookie’ – yes, Jungkook’s currently referring to himself in third person. Don’t ask why.
“Hey, Hobi. Jungkook and I were jus-”
The air in your throat gets stuck when you meet eyes with him, the one that you’d been low-key avoiding since you’ve befriended Jungkook. And it wasn’t Jung Hoseok standing at the doorway.
“So, you and Jeon, huh?” A familiar low voice speaks in the dark, as President of Alpha Sig – Kim Namjoon – walks into the room. “I never would’ve guessed.”
Great, it was your turn to be all emotional and overwhelmed. But you really shouldn’t. It’s already been like – what, three years? – since your last encounter with him. You were going to approach Namjoon with confidence, you’ve decided, you were no longer the shy teenage girl that asked him for help in Mathematics.
“Hey Joon, it’s been a long time.” You break into a smile, hoping that he wouldn’t see past your mask. “Great party, I must say.”
If you had only one word to describe Namjoon right now, it would be that he actually looks displeased at your lack of hostility towards him. It made sense though. Girls were either screaming at him in anger, sobbing uncontrollably over their heartbreak, or smiling like a vixen trying to get his attention. After all, it just wasn’t easy being the President of the biggest fraternity at school.
Namjoon takes a step closer to you, his lips between his fingers and looking a bit nervous. “I didn’t know that you came to our parties, Peanut.” You can’t help but quiver at the nickname that he had given you back in high school, it had been so long since you’ve heard that word again.
“Peanut, for your short size.” The dimples on Namjoon’s cheeks deepen as he grins, obviously very proud of the nickname he had come up with.
“I’m not short, Joon. You’re just a giant.” You mutter as you feign irritation, eyes not leaving the page in the textbook. But who were you kidding, how could you be focused when Kim Namjoon – the senior that you had been crushing on for 4 years – is now sitting in front of you, teaching you calculus.
“Fine by me.” He laughs. “That makes me even better at protecting my little peanut then.” Namjoon’s deep voice echoed in the library, earning an angry ‘shh’ from the librarian, and making you giggle.
Hiding the smile that was tugging at your lips, you raise your head to return the older boy’s gaze. “Perhaps you should protect yourself from Mrs. Oh’s flaming fury first.” Your eyes twinkle with playfulness, and the both of you burst into a small fit of laughter.
In your eyes, nobody shined brighter than Kim Namjoon. You had invested all your feelings and time towards the older boy, and although neither of you openly expressed your affection towards each other, you just knew that Namjoon felt the same way you did. And when he announced that he was heading to Seoul for university, it broke your heart and you went home crying for 5 hours – straight.
“You’ll come join me, right?” Everyone had already gone home after school, with only several student council members left to complete some unfinished work. You and Namjoon stood outside the school building, on a break before joining the rest of the members. “It would be really nice if we went to the same university, you know.” The tender smile on his lips make you blush, although your heart still clenched at the fact that he was leaving you.
“Yeah.” You mumble, looking away as you lean against the metal rail in attempt to hide your sadness. And in a split second, Namjoon closes the distance between the two of you until you could feel his body up against your own. It was the closest that you had ever been with the boy.
“Say it like you mean it.” A low whisper erupts from Namjoon’s throat. “I won’t take no for an answer.” His fingers wrap around your face to bring you closer, and his grip loosens when you finally meet his gaze.
“I’ll be there. So please wait for me, Joon.” You breathe and smile, faces still close to each other as you take a moment to appreciate the warmth that was being emitted from him.
In your final year of high school, you studied harder than you ever had in your life, with dreams of joining Namjoon at one of the top universities in Korea. There was no time to play and spend time with your friends, dedicating all your efforts to make it to your dream school. All your classmates and friends were surprised at how determined you were, unknown to the implicit vow between you and Kim Namjoon. It was difficult to understand how you had the faith to keep going, despite the fact that you had stopped contacting Namjoon after his graduation. And even when you received your much anticipated acceptance letter, you kept it as a secret, hoping to surprise him when September comes.
But perhaps he couldn’t wait long enough.
“You should’ve told me, I would’ve kept you company.” Namjoon smiles, acting as if there wasn’t any awkwardness sitting in the background. “What kind of a host would I be if I didn-” You raise your hand to stop him, not interested in continuing this small talk.
“Look Joon, I don’t know what you’re trying to do here and I’m not interested in playing your little games. Honestly, what do you even want fro-”
“I missed hearing that.”
“What.”
“I missed being called Joon.”
You can’t help but scoff. “Well,” The music from below suddenly dulls down, as if your ears automatically block the sound out. “you’ve lost your chance already.” There was not a hint of wavering in your words, it was full of confidence and determination – and Namjoon didn’t like that one bit.
The rooms still into an awkward silence, until Namjoon’s voice erupts in sudden anger. “Why-“ His voice cracks, his tone higher than usual. “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT EVEN MAD AT ME?” He shouts as the surge of frustration pent throughout the years rise in his veins. “Can’t you just do something- something. Yell at me, scream at me! Fucking hit me for goodness sake- because I’m sure as hell know I deserve it!”
You respond to Namjoon’s emotional outburst with a poker face, waiting for him to calm down before replying. “I can’t hold you against on some unspoken promise that we made as kids, Joon. It was child’s play for good-“
“So that’s all it was to you? A little joke that we made as teenagers? God Y/N- did you even care about me before?” His body was now so threateningly close to you, and if you just lifted your arm to reach for him, you would be able to touch that face that you had missed so dearly, but you can’t – you were no longer the naïve high school girl that believed in the lies that he fed you with. “Your passive attitude really pisses the fuck out of me sometimes, you know.”
And then it hits you, all the heartbreak and sadness from 3 years ago comes running back like a truck slamming against your side. You were just so sick of being misunderstood, pretending like you didn’t give a shit just to mask the constant ache that you were suffering from. “I’d been in love with you for 3 years before you even knew that I’d existed! And now you’re accusing me of never loving you back? God, Kim Namjoon, you’re just- you’re so dense sometimes, you know?” You pause to catch your breath before angrily running your fingers through your hair.
“Well, you obviously don’t show it enou-”
“Do you honestly not know why?” A cold laugh escapes your lips. “How could I? How am I supposed to forget the fact that you left me alone at my first party in college, only to find another girl’s mouth wrapped around your dick?”
“Peanut, I-”
“And you know what’s the most pathetic part? It must be the goddamn muscle memory because my heart still clenches in pain whenever I see you!” You explode, screaming as your tears stream uncontrollably down your cheeks. “It’s like a fucking constant reminder of how much I loved you before. And it hurts – a lot.”
Namjoon looks stunned at your outburst, hands reaching to wipe your tears away, but you slap it away from you – not wanting him to touch you at all. “You said you would protect me, but the only thing that I needed protecting from is you.” Your voice was as quiet as a whisper now, suddenly feeling drained from releasing your emotions.
Seeing you like this, all he wanted to do was to pull you into an embrace and hug you really, really tightly, as if he could squeeze out all the tears so that you wouldn’t be sad anymore. But like you said, he knew he had already lost his chance – so he maintains his distance before speaking again. “I was young, reckless, and really fucking stupid, okay? I know I messed up, and I wish that words could express how sorry I am but-” Namjoon croaks, unable to finish his sentence. “God, you’re making a mistake with Jeon here.”
“We’re just friends.” You murmur. “Just leave us alone, Joon. I’m too tired to talk anymore.”
The Alpha Sig President gives you one more look in the eye, knowing that it was useless to try to convince you right now – not when you were unwilling to talk to him.
“I’ll go, Peanut.” He mumbles, “But don’t think that I’m going to give up on you like that. I messed up once, I’m not going to do it twice.” Namjoon smiles softly with determination, then turns around and exits the room.
God, you were such a mess right now. You swore that you would never let Kim Namjoon emotionally wreck you like that – but here you are again. You could feel your makeup running down your face and body sticky with all that spilled vodka and perspiration, needing a shower. Grabbing a clean towel from Jungkook’s drawer, you enter his shared bathroom with Hoseok, ready to clean yourself up. As the bedroom dims when you shut the bathroom door behind you, Jungkook lies on his bed – eyes opening and facing the ceiling.
Showers are magical, and you thank the Ancient Greeks for this wonderful invention. Feeling refreshed and clean, you walk out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around your wet hair. However, it still slightly bothered you that you were wearing your dirty and alcohol stenched clothes, but there wasn’t much you could do about it though.
“Mmmpfh…” Jungkook groans, face rubbing against his pillow when the light from the bathroom stirs him in his sleep. You walk over to sit on the edge of the bed, smoothing out his bed head through your fingers.
“Hey Kook, you feeling better now?” You chuckle at his squished cheek, making his lips perch like a rubber duck. “I used your shower by the way, I hope that’s okay with you.” Jungkook lets out a muffled ‘Mmmm’ as a response, probably still semi-conscious for trying to rupture his kidney.
“I’m going to head home now, the party’s probably ending soon. I’ll go let Hoseok know and-”
“No. Stay.” Jungkook’s arm suddenly wraps around your waist, whining like a baby.
Yeah. He’s definitely still drunk.
“I can’t. You know I can’t fall asleep in dirty clothes.” You laugh, trying to untangle his tight hold around you. But you underestimated him, a drunk Jeon was still a strong Jeon.
“Just take something from my closet, or something…” Jungkook’s voice ends up being a mumble and you were sure that he wasn’t going to let go unless you were here to stay.
“Fine, fine. I’ll stay.” You reassure him, which oddly reminds you of how a mother talks to her child. “Just let me go get changed first.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Jungkook cautiously releases his arm, eyes following your figure as he watches you walk to the closet – feeling relieved that it wasn’t the door instead. The boy looks away to give you some privacy when you start removing your jacket, before grabbing something from his wardrobe.
After changing, you slip into the covers beside Jungkook, feeling warm at the body heat that he was emitting. With the comforter softly wrapping around your body, you were surrounded by Jungkook’s smell. Honestly, you had expected it to be a combination of wet dog and freshly mowed grass – not that you had imagined what his sheets would smell like before – but instead, it was a mixture of washed cotton sheets with a hint of sea breeze. And you definitely didn’t hate it. It wasn’t in your nature to just sleep with a boy like this, making you wonder if you were stepping outside the boundaries with Jungkook. But then again, you trusted him. Jungkook would do nothing to hurt you, just like how you would make sure that nothing could harm him.
Your worrying thoughts eventually carry you past the stage of consciousness, falling into deep slumber and mind wandering to dreamland.
You would imagine waking up to a boy to be something like – opening your eyes to find his chest right in front you, arms wrapped tightly around your waist, and his gentle, even breaths on the top of your head. You also guessed that if Jeon Jungkook had the experience of sleeping with so many girls, he would have at least decent sleeping etiquette. But boy, were you wrong.
Instead, you find yourself on the carpet floor, shivering cold without a single blanket around. Jungkook’s head slowly appears in your vision, peering at you from above with eyes still half closed.
“Why the fuck are you down there, loser?” He mumbles incoherently, obviously still dazed from his sleep.
You take a deep breath. “Don’t get angry…don’t get angry.” Shutting your eyes, you talk to yourself to calm this raging fireball that was threatening to explode. “He’s going through a bad heartbreak right, be nice…be kind…be considera-”
“Stop talking to yourself like that, you’re being weird – why am I even friends with you?”
That’s it.
Grabbing the pillow on the bed, you quickly raise to your feet and slam it against his face. Jungkook’s face falls flat onto his mattress like a ragdoll, before a loud groan escapes from his throat. The boy would never lose any opportunity to be dramatic – you’ve realized. Finally, after a long moment of ‘recovery’ – even though it’s a pillow for goodness’ sake – Jungkook turns his head to glare at you in a very threatening way – he thinks.
“What was that for!” He whines, hands still clutching his cheek where you had hit him.
“Punishment for kicking me off the bed, you brat.” You mutter angrily. “And being an asshole this early in the morning – I didn’t get my coffee to deal with you yet.”
Jungkook frowns at your rough attitude, obviously missing the gentleness you had talked to him with last night. “I don’t care, it still hurts.”
“Dude, it’s practically feathers and-“
“I don’t care. Make me breakfast as compensation.” He grumpily crosses his arms – but quickly stands up when he sees you walking away from him. “Wait– where are you going?”
Turning your head, you peek to smile devilishy at Jungkook.
“Kookie, you should’ve just told me that you wanted to try my cooking.”
And Jungkook’s cheeks redden furiously.
When Jungkook requested that you make breakfast for him, you didn’t know that he was going to be following you wherever you went. He was constantly asking whether you needed help doing this, doing that – desperate to take part in this ‘fun activity’, he quotes. But honestly, getting Jungkook to stay away from the scorching stove and sharp knives would be the biggest help he can bring. So instead, you handed him small tasks to keep him occupied, like washing the rice and potatoes for the stew.
“Why do we need this many potatoes for 2 people anyways? I’m a big eater but I can’t eat that much.” He groans, but still diligently scrubbing the root vegetables with a brush.
“Jungkook, I’m not going to breakfast for only two people when there’s a whole pack of hungry wolves- I mean boys in this house.” You chuckle lightly at your own joke – god, you crack yourself up sometimes.
“Uh – yes, you can.” He states matter of a factly. “We can just let them starve!” You feel his grin at the back of your head, amused at the idea of making his brothers suffer in hunger.
“That would be mean, you little shit.” The kitchen starts to fill with the smell of pork bone, simmering in low boiling heat. “And you know, I’m just too nice of a person to do that.” Jungkook groans and mutters something unintelligible, the running water blocking out his sounds. “Why are you so grumpy anyway? Last time I checked, you’re too old to get cranky after waking up.”
The sound of the water running stops behind you, feeling Jungkook’s presence right beside. He seems unwilling to move away unless you give him your full, undivided attention. You mouth ‘what’ at the boy and he is still carrying that frown on his face.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” He squints his eyes narrowly at you. “You had only one job, Y/N.” Jungkook’s hand is now holding yours, stopping you from stirring the stew. He was really keen on making you stop multi-tasking, huh? “And you decided to mess that up by wearing Hobi hyung’s clothes instead of mine!”
You let out a loud and very unattractive snort, amused to what was keeping the boy so bothered all morning. “You guys share the same closet, how am I supposed to know?” You shrug apathetically, stifling the smirk on your lips from upsetting Jungkook even more.
“Mine is obviously the side with the better clothes, duh.” Jungkook replies. “And what kind of girl wears this when she’s stealing from a guy’s wardrobe.” He points to your fuzzy green sweater and loose sweatpants that was mopping dust everywhere you went.
You slap his hand away, before resuming on stirring your stew. “Hey! Don’t make fun of Hobi’s sense of style like that. It just so happens to be that I love this look, okay?”
Jungkook groans, leaving you alone to go back to his dirty and neglected potatoes. “God, do you know how many girls nag me to wear my t-shirts? That’s what normal girls do, okay? They steal a loose tee that shows off their legs, with goals of igniting a man’s protectiveness ov-”
“AGHHHHHH!” A loud, animal-like screech come out from the sofa in the living room. You and Jungkook turn heads to the source of the sound, finding Hoseok running over to you like a wild horse. He puts his hands on your shoulders, leaning in a bit too close for your liking.
“Y/N!” He gasps, still catching his breath for waking up too abruptly. “Did – did something…happen between us last night?” Hoseok’s eyes are widened to an abnormal size, strangely reminding you of an owl.
“Hobi, you slept on the sofa whole night.” You snort again, but still trying to sound convincing that nothing weird happened between the two of you. And Hoseok’s panicked expression finally dissipate at your words.
“Oh...Oh right.” He slows down, finally giving you a space to breathe. “But why are you wearing my clothes?” He asks, confused to how his favorite green sweater was on you. Your index finger immediately points to the boy beside you without a moment of hesitation.
“Jungkook told me that his clothes were too precious and told me to wear yours because they were ugly.” You innocently blinked at Hoseok, feeling Jungkook’s widen eyes evolve into a glare burning a hole at the side of your face.
There was a brief pause before Jung Hoseok let out his most ear-destroying cry yet.
As expected, food was the true love of all living males. The aroma of your freshly made breakfast attracted the whole house to the kitchen, wanting to get a taste of food that made their mouths salivate. It was rare that homemade food existed in the house, let alone a piping hot breakfast that was perfect for post-party hangover. Even Min Yoongi, a non-believer of mornings, decided to join the rest of the boys for the meal.
Jungkook was cautiously sitting away from Hoseok, who you’ve always thought to possess a deadly uppercut– and proved your point today. The younger boy chewed his rice angrily beside you, still unpleased with your little joke from before. You cheerfully pick a huge piece of meat from the table, putting into Jungkook’s bowl as a peace offering.
“Don’t think that I’ve forgiven you yet.” He mumbles, but takes a bite of the meat without hesitation.
Breakfast had successfully brought all of Alpha Sig – Kim Namjoon included – together for a nice bonding time with overlapping conversation so loud that nobody had even noticed the sound of the front door opening. Kim Taehyung was just grabbing the last piece of rolled omelette when a female voice catches the attention of the whole table.
“Wow, it really smells amazing in here! Is there some left for me?” Lee Daeun walks into the dining room – her long, straight hair swaying behind her as she makes way to sit with Jimin.
You don’t fail to notice how Jungkook freezes at the sight of his best friend – the one that he’s so deeply in love with.
#r.heroine#just some happy parts#before the angst comes#wowowow#get ready for part 3 kiddos#i love ruining myself like this#i need to study#fml#jungkook scenarios#jungkook angst#bts college au#jungkook scenario#btswriters#jungkook#bts#bangtan#fanfic#bts fanfic#bangtan scenarios#bts scenarios#bts angst
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Choosing a baby swing
You would really like to hold your baby every moment of the day, however, that isn't practical.
You need to put them down sometimes for many reasons -- work sleep when you're able to and to catch a quick shower.
However, for some infants, the crying begins the second you put them down. The infant swings may make that crying a thing of the past.
You'll be able to get a few things done while your baby is content hanging out in his swing.
Is a Baby Swing a Necessity?
You don't need to have a baby swing. It's not a necessity like a crib, car seat and accessories are.
However, while a swing isn't a baby requirement, in case your baby does like the movement of it, it sure does make parenting both emotionally and physically.
My first baby hated unless she had been in my arms sleeping. If I put her down in her 30, it didn't matter whether it was night time or throughout the day when she had been napping, she was not content. A couple of minutes after I tiptoe from this space and would put down her, I'd hear her mad or fussy cries.
I could not get anything. The kitchen sink would be overflowing, vacuuming would be urgently needed by the floors, and I would be tired, all I wanted to do was nap.
I purchased a baby swing. I desired a recumbent one she'd be able to nap in. My theory was that she liked when I held her, the movements she'd feel. A swing give my arms a break that is much-needed and could do that.
When the swing arrived, the day was similar to my emancipation day. My infant settled into the swing for a nap, and I managed to fold some laundry. It felt as though I'd recovered enough of my liberty that I could have a sliver of my life back. I managed to get some sleep and get some simple housecleaning done.
Many specialists advocate removing your baby and placing them .
I admit that I didn't always do so. You'll do anything to allow them to get some sleep, when you have a infant.
So while the baby swing was not a essential purchase, it had been one of the best buys I have ever made.
When Should I Start Using a Baby Swing?
Some swings will change, but a number of them can be used. The swing was utilized by me later we returned home.
Evidently, you aren't going to utilize a swing that requires a movement for a newborn. They won't have the strength for that. But in case you've got a swing which reclines back, as I did, it's fine for teenagers.
You also need to note that baby swings are different than jumpers or baby bouncers. Swings supply the movement for your infant, but the other two use your infant's moves.
What Should I Search for in a Position?
These are
That helps your baby stay protected and safe in their seat. You always need to use it, even at a reclining swing.
How tall you are interested in getting the swing to be: Swings come in varying levels of height. I felt more comfortable. I wished to minimize any risk of falling.
How many swinging rates you want: Some swings will have more rates than other ones will. Start looking if the speed options matter for you.
How mobile you need it to be: If you would like a swing for if you're traveling or to bring to a grandmother's home, you'll want to find one that is not much trouble to take with you. Some will fold nicely, while others will be a nightmare as soon as they are placed to try to get out the door.
The way you need it powered: Swings can operate on battery power or by using an AC adapter, even while some swings have both choices. If you are in your home, that's fine and you don't wish to run down the battery. But if you don't have an outlet near where you would like the swing, then battery power comes in handy.
How well it cleans up: Whether your baby has a spit up incident or an explosive poopy diaper, then they'll find that swing dirty at some point. Babies are messy -- they can't help it. You'll find a swing that has a cover that you toss in the washing machine and can take off.
Comfort: Because your baby may be sitting in this swing a few times per day, you want it to feel comfortable. You will want the material they sit to be thick enough that they won't thing each time you put them.
The job of the seat: While my children and I loved the reclining swing we had for them to the first several months of their lives they didn't love it as much when they got a bit old. The chair wasn't adjustable on that swing -- it was recumbent. That swing has been granted to another household as soon as they got big enough to sit on their own.
If you want a timer: Many swings include a timer. The device stops swinging when outs runs.
Precisely what the framework is made out of: It is possible to get metal or plastic frames, but you should always remember that metal is much sturdier. You should make certain to feel comfortable that the swing will maintain the weight, if you go for a frame. You should start looking therefore it does not tip.
The extras: Swings do more than simply provide motion -- a few have vibrating seats, toys attached and perform songs.
Should I Get a Full-Size Swing or a Portable One?
This is among the biggest decisions you need to make. Let's look at each type of swing.
You also don't have any plans to move it and if you've got a room , you might wish to consider buying a swing. But you must be certain you have the room. They do require a reasonable amount of space, and they will not be simple to move.
Typically, full-size swings possess the swinging movement since the motors are placed on peak of the swing, and the swings are somewhat taller. They are inclined to be durable and difficult to tip over.
But you should be ready to pay more for these swings than you will with swings.
Portable Swings
You'll want to consider a swing if you do not have much space in your home or your finances. They cost less, and they don't take up as much space. Since you are going to be paying for battery replacements but since many portable swings offer battery power, they could cost more in the future. With full-size swings, you'll have the option of using the power cable.
You will be able to bring these kinds of swings if you plan to be on the street a lot.
Since I had a full-size swing for my infants, we never brought it with us. When we were away, I truly missed the swing. My kids both found it calming.
Using a baby swing isn't difficult in any way, but there are some things you want to understand.
The first thing to know if you aren't a kind of person is that as soon as your baby swing arrives you'll need to do some assembly.
I asked my husband to get it done since my baby was a newborn when we got ours. By placing things together, on a normal day, I get frustrated. The thought of doing this was overwhelming at the point because pregnancy hormones and I was exhausted and were battling. Anything could have sent me.
The meeting had my husband stating a few choice words, but it wasn't as awful as some baby equipment assemblies that he has completed.
If you love to travel, it is best to get a swing you may pack up and take with you so that your infant will feel the comforts of home when they're in a hotel room. Look for a swing that folds up easily and compactly. You'll want to avoid swings that are full-size.
This swing includes a enjoyable rainforest animal design that children will love to look at. This swing is mobile -- it folds well and has a handle you can utilize to consume it around.
It has six distinct speeds. It may also convert into a stationary seat that gives vibrations rather than swinging.
Of the extras that this swing provides should enthrall your infant. It's two attached creature toys that will hang down in the line of sight of your baby. Plus, in addition, it includes two nature sounds and 10 tunes to help keep your baby amused. You'll be thankful that there are so many tunes so you don't lose your head after hearing the same one.
So your baby will feel comfortable, the seat is padded and it has shoulder harnesses to keep your baby safe.
The swing is in a reclining position, so your baby won't need to be able to hold up his head to use it.
The padded seat may go in the washing machine and dryer.
Some mothers have had issues with the swinging movement stopping while the music still works.
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Hi Emma ^^ How has work been and do you have any plans for Seollal? ^^There’s this thought I have that I kinda wanted your take on if it’s alright? Have you ever been in phases where you are having good weeks and suddenly you feel like you’re in a slump? How did you get out if it? I have a few things bothering me. I finished a huge piece of work this week and suddenly feel a complete lack of motivation to continue with my other big project. Interestingly, I’ve sort of also lost the momentum(1/5)
in terms of my personal “projects”– journaling,studying for driving theory, searching for jobs and trying up to take up manycourses quickly so I don’t feel like a “fraud” when I apply for data analystjobs. I’ve also looked at last year’s finances and realised that I don’t saveas much (ard 36% of my pay) as I want to though I earn quite abit. I don’t evenspend much but a lot of money goes back to my parents (monthly allowance) andinsurance in particular =/ (2/5)
I feel depressed just thinking about it all.Yesterday I just signed up for a private life coaching thing for 6 sessionsthat adds up to about 750 bucks and I’m like…I do know I need some guidance toshift my negative thinking and lots of other issues I have, but 750 feels likea lot. Esp after looking at how little I save. And I still have to budget forvacations =/ (3/5)
To add to all that, I used to have “something”going on with this guy at work but it has completely just fallen off. Just likethat. I don’t see him around often anymore, not sure if he’s busy and all but.A part of me feels “rejected” in a sense. Like I wasn’t interesting enough forhim to pursue things further/I wasn’t good enough for him to behave moreconsistently and clearly with me. Doesn’t help that I get anxious whenever Iwalk around office for fear of (4/5)
bumping into him or his colleagues – who don’tspeak to me but just stare at me. Topping it all off, I just received newsyesterday that my grandma has malignant cancer and it’s kinda made the entirefamily really downcast. Sorry to unload so much on you but I just feel veryoverwhelmed and demotivated and I guess I’ve been bottling this up for sometime. Have you been through something like that before? I’m gonna go listen toa nice podcast right now to calm myself down (5/5)
Hey! First of all, don’t even apologize. It’stotally fine and I often find that one of the best ways for me to deal withthings is to just talk about them and get them out of my head. So definitelynot a problem and I don’t mind trying to help if I can. ^_^ I don’t haveeverything figured out and all, but if my experiences or opinions can help,then I don’t mind sharing.
I definitely have my fair share of slumps,sometimes right after I finish a big project and sometimes right in the middleof one. Usually because I get so overwhelmed by things (whether it’s theproject or whatever is going on in life at the time) that my brain just shutsdown and it’s hard to get back on track. It’s something that I’m sure a lot ofpeople go through, and it can be especially frustrating when you know you havestuff you need to get done but your brain is just like, “Nope. Uh-uh. Nothappening today.”
For me, honestly, I just have to give myself abit of time to not do anything. It’s hard, because I’m definitely someone whoinstantly starts feeling like a failure if I’m not working on something all thetime. But, I just have to remind myself that sometimes it’s okay to check-outfor a bit. You can’t always force yourself out of a slump or to feel happier or less depressed. Sometimes you have to ride it out. So, maybe instead of going home and working on an article, I just have anight where I veg out on the couch and watch whatever TV show I’m into at thetime or a movie. Or instead of working on stuff in between editing at work, I open up arandom story I’m writing or have written and read through it or add or edit. (Confession Time - My secret, go-to happy place is old fanfiction that I’ve written that will never see the light of day... I’ll go write a few paragraphs or rewrite something or just read it whenever I’m overwhelmed or feeling down and it actually kind of helps cheer me up.) Orbrowse through articles or Tumblr. Obviously, if there is something urgent, I’llforce myself to power through and get it done. But sometimes it’s good to just take a break.And usually after a bit the motivation will come back. Maybe I get inspired byan article or book I read, or a random YouTube documentary that I watch. Or Iget an interview that I had been trying for. That’s typically what works forme, though. I’m not sure how it is with others.
Money stuff, oh yes, have I been there. Upuntil recently I have been absolutely horrible with saving (as in, I basically hadno savings until last year). I was always good about making sure I saved up tobuy plane tickets to go home and such, but everything else. Just horrible. Iwould get so caught up in going out and enjoying time with my friends or takingcabs to work that I’d pretty much spend most or all of my paycheck every month.(Don’t even get me started on credit cards… >.
Ultimately, I think that if it’s something thatwill help you out in the long run, then it’s a good investment. With my Koreanclasses, I’ve had friends tell me that I pay too much and they could find me anothertutor for cheaper, but I tell them no thanks. Maybe it would cut my fees inhalf, but I’ve been using my tutor for three years now. She’s good, she knowsthe best ways to work with me and I am progressing. It’s worth paying a little bit more. (Though honestly, I think 50,000 won/hr - 270,000 won/mth is a fair price.)
With the guy, I hate feeling like that. Like Idid something or wasn’t good enough. But I think a good way to try and thinkabout it – at least for me - is that for whatever reason, it didn’t work outbecause it’s just wasn’t right for you or him. It’s not so much anyone didanything right or wrong or that either wasn’t good enough, it just wasn’t theright person or the right time. Or both. It wasn’t a good match. I’ve been trying tolook at my last few “almost relationships” over the past couple of years withthat kind of mind frame and it’s helped. Sometimes it’s a matter of just notbeing the right thing for you or him. And sometimes it’s because he’s asshole. It’skind of hard to really comment on since I don’t know the full story, but Isuppose in my experiences, I’ve been talking to guys and things were neverquite serious enough that they needed a “talk” to end them – they just kind ofended. Either he or I or both of us were just too busy to make anything of it.And ultimately, we weren’t really interested in each other enough to makesomething of it. So we moved on. Other times, we were far enough into thingsthat a sort of talk ending things was needed, but instead they just faded out.So definitely an asshole move in that situation.
And what the hell is with the co-workersstaring? Bleh, every office I’ve ever worked in has been so gossipy and I’vehated it. I’d probably end up glaring back or something, haha! Just ignorethem, if you can.
I’m so, so sorry to hear about yourgrandmother. Cancer is super scary and it sucks. I went through it with Mom andGrams and it is… yea. I can’t even fully articulate how much I hate cancer. Andeven though I’ve been through it in my family, I still never really know whatto say when a friend or someone I know tells me that their mom or dad orgrandparent was just diagnosed. Hang it there. It’ll be rough for you and yourfamily. But, I guess just let your grandmother know that you’re there for her. She’llneed the whole family to support her through this fight. ^_^
I hope that helps. I totally understand how you’refeeling right now, but just hang in there. It does eventually get better. Andfor the holiday I will be resting. I only get Friday and Saturday off, but I’mworking late shift on Sunday and Monday, so in a way it still kind of feelslike getting a break since I get to sleep in. Tomorrow I’m filming twointerviews for my YouTube project and then going home and doing nothing but layon the couch and watching “Outlander” (just started season 2 last night). I’vebeen going non-stop the last two weeks and really just want a nice relaxingweekend at home, haha! This week has been especially hard since I’ve been upuntil 1 or 2 a.m. almost every night for one reason or another and I just wantto sleep. We’re hoping that we’ll get to leave at 4 p.m. today, so I’m happy toget out, go home and take a nap before I have to go to another magazine hoesikat 7 p.m. Or, I don’t know, I might just back out since I have to get up earlytomorrow to get ready for the shoot.
Hope you have a happy new year!!
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You Sultry Land Pirates Ruined My Dig! Chapter 4
Fandom: The Librarians
Rating: General Audiences/sfw
Ships: a little bit Jazekiel, little bit Jassandra, and some Cassekiel in a bit
In a world where Cassandra and Ezekiel are top tier land pirates, and Stone is an expert in archeology and history but new to being out in the field, there is a weird, impenetrable tomb in some Sumerian ruins, with things that don’t quite make sense.
Inspired by the lovely story line (and outfits) in episode 3x09 “And the Fatal Separation” where Cassandra and Ezekiel smuggle Stone, Baird, and Flynn in while they pose as land pirates.
Posted on my Ao3 here.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
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Eventually Cassandra fell asleep, or dozed, but someone shook her awake. She blinked several times, clearing her vision, revealing Dr. Stone standing above her. He didn’t look all that rested.
“Get up. You’ve got a job to do,” he growled, angry and menacing again. “Tend to your friend or colleague or whatever he is, tell him what’s goin’ on and all that so we can get to work.”
“Can I have something to eat? Drink?” she asked, testing just how fired up Dr. Stone was.
He huffed, frustrated, but rummaged around in a duffle bag next to the bed and pulled out protein bars, tossing two on her lap. “Your friend should have one, something in his stomach will keep him clear headed. Water’s in the thermos next to you, don’t drink it all otherwise your friend won’t have any,” he said, pointing to the metal container sitting on the table behind her. She could reach it, though it took effort to get her bound wrists to reach the thermos. Thankfully it was full, so she drank around a third, leaving the rest for Ezekiel.
Dr. Stone shifted on his feet, not sure what he should be doing. “I’ll be outside. No funny business, ‘cuz I’ll know,” he stated, leaving the tent.
With him gone, Cassandra scarfed down one of the protein bars before getting up to wake Ezekiel. Upon standing, she found her legs wanted to protest sleeping in the chair while tied up, but she forced them to move the few feet to the cot. She kneeled down, jostling him softly. “Ezekiel...Ezekiel...wake up,” she whispered, not wanting to startle him awake. He made a noise, a mix between a moan and a whimper, but didn’t open his eyes. “Ezekiel,” she called with more volume this time. “Come on, wake up. Please.” On the “please” his eyes fluttered, unfocused for a few moments before looking at her.
“What’s wrong,” he mumbled, trying to stretch but finding himself bound. “What the-” suddenly more awake, he strained against the rope before his face contorted in pain. “Agh! W...what happened?”
“He knocked you out...and took your rope. Here,” she said, standing up to get the thermos from the makeshift desk, “drink, you need it. And you should eat too, he gave us protein bars.”
“Why did he do that?” Ezekiel asked, voice weaker than it was before. Even in pain, Ezekiel had already halfway worked his way out of his binds.
“Because we’re gonna help him find whatever it is in that thing,” she responded. Before he could react and cause himself more pain, she leaned closed to him to whisper. “Of course we won’t be when it’s all over, I intend to get paid.” He laughed at that. “You even protested unconsciously to letting anything we find go into a museum.”
“And I was right to,” he chuckled, a bit stronger now that he had drank some water.
Cassandra glanced to the entrance to the tent when she heard voices, not sure who was talking. “Here, eat this,” she said, handing him the protein bar, “he’ll probably be back soon.”
He looked at the label, face scrunching at the flavor. “Just peanut butter? No chocolate chips? How could someone eat that?” he scoffed, opening the package anyway. “You didn’t bring any snacks this time?”
“I didn’t plan on spending the whole night in that tomb, or getting captured,” she retorted. “And it’s been months since I actually needed to bring food with me on jobs.” Thankfully he didn’t respond with a mouth full, just shrugging in agreement. With Ezekiel taken care of, Cassandra set about undoing her binds like he taught her.
The tent flap suddenly opened, letting bright sunlight pour in around the shadow of Dr. Stone. He blinked his eyes several times to adjust to the darker tent. “Alright, I’m gonna untie you so no one gets suspicious-” he noticed Ezekiel was sitting up on the cot, rope in a pile on the ground, and Cassandra mostly out of hers. “Ok, yeah, probably should’ve guessed you could get out of rope. Never mind.”
“Never tie up a thief, it’s useless,” Ezekiel teased. Dr. Stone looked like he was about to strangle him, so Ezekiel looked anywhere but at him and shrunk back a bit, attempting to be passive.
“Ok,” Dr. Stone breathed, trying to calm himself. “Let’s go.”
The site hummed with activity just as it had the day before, the excavation proceeding as planned, like nothing happened six hours ago. No one seemed to pay any mind to the trio as the walked to the still opened door.
He stayed behind them like a bodyguard, keeping himself between the two and the exit. It was quiet; no one spoke. Only the pats of their boots against the dust and sand echoed down the sloping floor. The gap in the second door was still there too, still the same width he had pushed it open to fit himself and Ezekiel through.
Barely any light from the surface reached down into the tile room; everyone had their flashlights out, flicking over the sixty or so puzzle pieces on the floor.
“I remember where I got so far, it was left and left,” Ezekiel stated, standing on each tile with a foot, back against the wall. “Where were you thinking next?”
“I wasn't sure, because I was trying to figure out what the hieroglyph meant, then you showed up,” Cassandra started, looking behind her to see what Dr. Stone thought.
He aimed his flashlight at the tile, studying it. “Hmmm, I’ve seen something similar in Sumerian pictographs. It’s a little different, but the other symbol meant a canal had overflowed. It’d be found with reports of damage or losses.”
“I got it!” Cassandra exclaimed. “Try the right one, and then the middle. It spells out YHWH.”
Ezekiel did as instructed, remaining thankfully not filled with spears.
“It’s something about the Flood, ya know, from the Bible. The symbol isn’t the same as a standard clogged canal, it’s more...urgent,” Stone added, piecing it together. “Do the right one, the one with that pictograph,” he called to Ezekiel. The rock about bounced onto the next tile, but the sinking of the pictograph tile kept it still. “Ok, you know the order, start following him, and I’ll follow you,” he told Cassandra. She nodded, catching up to a tile behind Ezekiel.
“Ok, I think I know the statement. I’m gonna list them off to you Ezekiel,” Cassandra said, swiping at the air again. “Ok, next should be the middle, then the middle again, and then left-”
“One at a time please, I don’t have as photographic a memory as you,” Ezekiel called behind him, tossing the rock into the next middle tile. It sunk, and triggered nothing again.
“Sorry. Ok middle again….now left...then middle…” Cassandra rattled off the directions.
They were all jumpy on adrenaline by the time they got to the other side. And they also found what smelled so bad. There was a body, well bones and decayed matter anyway. It looked human, with some fractured bones and a spear wedged in between the rib cage and collar bone. “Guess they thought they could outrun it,” Ezekiel commented, kicking at a leg bone with his boot.
“What’s up with this theme? First they don’t want God in here, now they say ‘God causes the flood as requested’?” Stone said, confused. The long dead body on the ground didn’t intrigue him.
“Who knows what these people mean. I’m just concerned with what’s at the end of all of this,” Ezekiel responded, already checking the next door for traps.
“But what could they be hiding? And why are they obsessed with a god that didn’t exist for several thousand years?” Cassandra asked, sort of aimed at the walking history book behind her.
“There’s always a chance whatever inspired this didn’t make it in the Bible or Torah. Things get lost...or purposely left out,” he answered. “Maybe that’s what they’re hidin’, a controversial manuscript.” By now Ezekiel had shoved the stone slab out of the way enough to let them all slip through, and went in himself. Dr. Stone still made it a point to be the last one into the room, motioning for Cassandra to go next.
The next room had yet another puzzle, it's solution less obvious. There was a fifteen foot wide pit that stretched from wall to wall. At the bottom, some fifty feet down, jagged rocks littered the floor. Ezekiel and Cassandra stood at the edge, his arm outstretched to keep her from tumbling down.
“They're really goin’ for theatrics on this,” Dr. Stone mused when he looked over the edge. “How are we supposed to get across?” He flicked his flashlight over the walls and ceiling. “No ledges, and the ceiling is smooth. Did they expect us to carry a plank down here?”
“No,” Cassandra responded, concentration on her face. “Each of the puzzles so far required knowing the language to beat them. This one must as well.”
“How? It can't be voice-activated, and I don't see any symbols,” Ezekiel said, his flashlight dancing around the room for some clue.
“It has to...look for something on a brick, maybe there's a secret button somewhere,” Cassandra suggested. Dr. Stone looked skeptical, but turned around to scour the walls around the door. Ezekiel searched the left wall, and Cassandra searched the right.
Ten minutes later Ezekiel found something. “Cass, over here! I think I found something,” he called. Both she and Dr. Stone came over to investigate. “I thought it may have just been a nick in the stone, but I didn't see it anywhere else.”
“That's ‘cuz it's the Sumerian pictograph for power...sort of. None of the hieroglyphs actually match, but it probably means somethin’ similar,” Dr. Stone explained. He then looked to Cassandra, confused. “Cass? I thought your name was Amy.”
She looked at him like he was extra slow. “You of all people would understand why we'd use stage names in place of our real ones.”
Dr. Stone opened his mouth, about to say something, then closed it. “Ok, so you're Cass-”
“Cassandra,” she corrected.
“Cassandra, alright, then what's your real name?” he asked Ezekiel.
Ezekiel looked to Cassandra, who shrugged at him. He then looked back to Dr. Stone. “Ezekiel.”
“Look at that, we're actually being truthful for once,” Dr. Stone sneered.
“What's your problem? We're helping you!” Ezekiel exclaimed, lightly shoving him in the chest.
Dr. Stone didn't stagger. “What's my problem? You two! Attempting to steal on my excavation! Why shouldn't I be pissed off?”
“Um, guys,” Cassandra tried to butt in, but neither one would listen.
“You could've just turned us in if that's how you felt about it!” Ezekiel retorted. Jake grabbed him by the shirt collar and shoved him against the wall.
“Guys!” Cassandra snapped. They both turned to look at her, but Dr. Stone didn't release him. “There's no point in arguing. The quicker we get through this the quicker we can go our separate ways and never see each other again. Just cooperate for now.”
Dr. Stone growled at him, but released his grip. Ezekiel opened his mouth, about to make a quip, but Cassandra death glared.
Focusing back to the task ahead, Ezekiel looked at the brick for a few moments, felt the surface, then pushed it several inches into the wall. Somewhere behind the wall, stone scraped against stone, and a small platform extended from the left wall. It wasn't very wide, not even a foot, but enough they could use it to cross. “Cool,” Ezekiel said, turning towards the platform.
“We should probably go one at a time, just to be safe,” Dr. Stone cautioned, looking at the slab warily. They both nodded in agreement. He let them go first, pulling up the rear again. “I hope there's no more traps after this,” he huffed as soon as he made it to the other side.
“Why, aren't you having fun?” Ezekiel mocked, going back to door-checking duty.
“Unlike you two crazy people, I don't want to spend all day doing 5,000 year old traps under the ruins I'm supposed to be topside studying,” Dr. Stone snapped.
“Boys!” Cassandra commanded, getting their attention. She had her flashlight aimed through the gap Ezekiel was in the process of making. “There's not a room there.”
Once he finished pushing the stone slab aside, he stuck his head and flashlight through, looking left then right before leaning back into the pit room. “That's ‘cos it's a hallway. It goes right, to another door,” Ezekiel responded before going through.
“More doors, great,” Dr. Stone sighed, already pushing Cassandra forward by the small of her back. It made her jump rather than slide through the gap.
The hallway wasn’t very long. It extended about twenty feet from the door they just came through to the next. Ezekiel went first, checking for any trigger mechanisms on all surfaces, but thankfully there weren't any. He did, however, look at the stone slab covering the door with despair. “Can someone else open it this time?”
“Gettin’ tired, Ezekiel?” Dr. Stone toyed. Cassandra sighed extra heavily, letting them know how much their petty arguing was disappointing her. Even with the jab, he still opened the door, with rather less effort than Ezekiel had put into it.
This room had only three large levers mounted in the sandstone brick floor. The yard long rods of the levers were made of wood but looked like it had been dipped in a resin, creating a dust-covered sheen. Yet another door was on the far wall, but unlike the others which sat on tracks against the wall, this door was set into the stone; there was no way to push this door to the side.
“Ominous,” Ezekiel commented as he surveyed the room. There wasn’t much to see, besides the three levers. “No traps, no secrets, just the levers, that I can tell.” He walked up to the levers, looking over each one for anything he could find. “The levers have symbols on them, not like any of the ones we’ve seen so far.”
“Three levers...it couldn’t be a reference to the holy trinity since this is waaay before that. Are there any other significant things about three?” she asked Dr. Stone.
“Three in biblical literature could mean anything, even from the old testament. There’s Noah’s sons, contents of the Ark of the Covenant, the three main feasts, and there’s loads of time segments and measurements too,” Dr. Stone said, frustrated. “If it wasn’t seven somethin’ in the Bible, then it was three.”
“Ok but what about other things? This whole tomb thing has been a mix of Hebrew and Sumerian,” Ezekiel asked.
“Um, well there were three underworld deities, but Sumerian religion didn’t really come about until 2500 B.C. which is 700 years ahead of this,” Stone replied. “I think we can reach forward in time for possible solutions based on the phrases we already had.”
Cassandra ran all Dr. Stone had said through her head, catching him saying something about Noah’s three sons. “Wait, what do you know about Noah? The last room talked about the flood, it’s gotta be related.”
“Hold on,” Stone started, something else clicking for him. “The code on the door, it said “do not let God enter?” right? Well these symbols don’t quite match up to ancient Sumerian, little discrepancies. But this whole thing could be a narrative.” He looked to both of the land pirates, neither of whom got where he was going with this. “What if the phrases were past tense? And the first one, not a command, but a statement.”
Cassandra got where he was going now. “You didn’t let God enter, and God caused the flood as requested...ok, makes sense, but what does it mean?”
“Do the levers represent the sons?” Ezekiel offered, not really sure where this train of thought was going that would make the levers make sense. “There are symbols on them, do you recognize them?”
Remembering the symbols on the levers, Stone strode over to them, staring intently. “Yeah, these are ancient Hebrew, a little newer than the symbols before....and unless I’ve gotten rusty on my Hebrew, they correspond to the first letters of the names of Noah’s three sons.” He pointed to each lever as he said the names. “Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
“That’s something. So we know they’re names, but what about his sons would make sense for a choice?” Cassandra thought out loud.
“The only thing I can think of is Ham’s sin against Noah. Basically, he caught his father passed out drunk off wine and joked about it. Back then that was some serious insulting, and Noah said that Ham’s descendents would be slave to his older brother’s, Shem.” Dr. Stone looked to the levers again before shaking his head. “That still doesn’t give us anythin’ to make a choice off of.”
“Ok, to me the phrases sound almost self-righteous, like they knew what was coming. Who of the sons was the favorite?” Ezekiel said. He was pacing a bit in front of the levers.
“That would’ve been Shem, the one the whole Hebrew lineage, including Jesus, came from,” Dr. Stone said. “Part of his descendants also settled here too,” he added as an afterthought.
“Well I don’t know about you two, but I think this Shem bloke is our answer,” Ezekiel decided, walking over to the left lever. Dr. Stone looked to Cassandra in mild panic.
“Ezekiel, maybe we should keep thinking,” Cassandra suggested.
“If we keep thinking, we’ll be here all day. I think it’s worth a shot. Plus, it’s a thirty percent chance,” Ezekiel countered.
Dr. Stone still wanted to reason out a good choice. “It’s possible some followers of Shem could’ve made this, in some weird obsession. Then the weird mix of letters and pictographs would make sense, and the timeline,” he concluded. “Ya know what, why not. I don’t really know what else would help make a case for the other two sons anyway.”
At Dr. Stone’s approval, Ezekiel pulled the lever. It didn’t budge at first, but once Ezekiel threw his weight into it, the lever slipped back towards him, making him stumble back. Rock rumbled ominously, vibrating the ground. For a moment it seemed like they pulled the wrong one, but the rumbling shifted from under the floor to the far wall. The door slowly sunk into the floor.
Something in the dark room beyond shimmered. The trio entered, finding a circular room with a sole pedestal in the center. A large leather bound book lay on top of the pedestal; it was the source of the shimmering.
“Shiny book, that’s a new one,” Cassandra said as she stepped closer to the book.
“No wonder they offered so much for it,” Ezekiel added, in awe of the artifact in front of him.
Dr. Stone roughly pushed through the two land pirates to get his own glimpse, and keep them from the book. “I’m not sure what language this book is in, I’ve never seen anythin’ like it.” He reached forward, gingerly touching the cover before opening it. The same script on the cover filled the pages, along with some drawings every so often as he turned the pages cautiously. Some words shimmered like the outside did, like they had glitter infused into the ink except it emitted light, not reflected it.
While the archaeologist poured over the foreign script, Cassandra and Ezekiel had an eye conversation behind him. Cassandra looked pointedly at Dr. Stone, before winking extra obviously. Then she glanced at the book, mouthed “me,” and then nodded back to the door. He nodded to her, indicating he understood. It was a crude plan, but it could work if Cassandra could get out quick enough. Ezekiel waited until Dr. Stone closed the book before he attacked.
“This needs to be analyzed in a museu-” Dr. Stone started.
Ezekiel cut him off. “We did it! We found it!” He exclaimed, a little overacting, then gave Dr. Stone a thorough kiss. The suddenness of it all was enough to stun him for a few seconds, giving Cassandra enough time to slip past them, grab the book, and make a break for the entrance.
And it would’ve worked, if there wasn’t someone standing in the doorway.
“I don’t think you wanna run off with that,” the mystery man said. His voice startled the boys out of their fun, and Dr. Stone realized what just about happened.
“You TRAITOR!” he bellowed at her, and shoved Ezekiel away with enough force to send him down to the floor. “Who are you?!” he demanded to the stranger.
The man, who had been standing in the shadows, stepped into the room. Cassandra thought he looked like someone who belonged at Dr. Stone’s dig; an academic with an interesting sense of dress. “Me? Oh, I’m the Librarian, and well, I’m here for the book,” he said, cool as a cucumber. “The question is, what are you all doing here?”
“It’s my dig!” Dr. Stone exclaimed, getting really worked up.
“Oh, you’re Dr. Jacob Stone. Love your work, I’ve read it all,” the Librarian responded, not at all phased by his anger. “And I think you of all people would want that book in a museum...or a library.” The Librarian made a step towards Cassandra, who backed up into Dr. Stone. He grabbed her by the arms, restraining her. “Strong words and arms, nice,” the Librarian commented, taking the book from Cassandra. She would’ve held onto it harder, but the age of the book made her let it go, as she’d rather not be the one to rip it.
“No! That’s ours, we need it!” Ezekiel suddenly shouted, running towards the Librarian.
“Oh, you don’t want to do that now,” the Librarian said. Something about his voice sounded different, Cassandra couldn’t put her finger on it, but Ezekiel stopped in his tracks. “I have to applaud your skills,” he addressed the three staring at him, “this safe wasn’t easily cracked, and for good reason. Now, if you don’t mind, I should be on my way. Don’t want the lost book of Serhem in the wrong hands.”
“What library are you with? I definitely wanna follow up on this book,” Dr. Stone asked.
“I’m, uh, with the Metropolitan Public Library,” the Librarian answered, backing up towards the door. “Great place, you should visit some time. Loads of books and things.” When he got to the door, he turned slightly, addressing the group again. “Seeing as you were in the middle of something when I arrived, I should get going, back to the library.” With that, the Librarian sprinted into the shadows.
Ezekiel tumbled forward a moment later, like the halted momentum got released. “How did he do that? He stopped me in my tracks, I couldn't move!”
“I don't know, but I think we shouldn't let him get away,” she responded, looking from Ezekiel to Dr. Jones. The archaeologist had moved to the door, but turned around to them.
“Come on! He can't be too far,” Dr. Stone said, beckoning them to follow as he leaped into the darkness. That was all the duo needed to run after him.
However, the mysterious man was not in the pit room, nor in the tile puzzle room. “There's no way he could've done this faster than us,” Ezekiel huffed, following Cassandra's footsteps as she led them backwards through the phrase.
The trio burst through the door into the excavation, squinting at the drastic increase in light. “There's too many footprints here,” Dr. Stone said, taking advantage of looking away from the sun. “He's gone up the ramp!” He sprinted up to the main level, but the fresh footsteps ended at a smear. Looking to his right, Dr. Stone saw the source of the smear; some workers were dragging their shovels through the loose sand.
Ezekiel and Cassandra caught up to Dr. Stone as he stomped his foot in the dirt in frustration. “Where'd he go?” Ezekiel asked, looking around the ruins.
“He's gone,” Dr. Stone huffed. “All thanks to you two.”
“Us? Mate, he was gonna come today anyway whether we were here or not,” Ezekiel snapped.
“I...ugh, just go. Get out, and don't come back,” Dr. Stone rumbled.
When Ezekiel didn't move, Cassandra grabbed him by the arm and tugged him away. “Let's go, before we make any other mess,” she said under her breath to him. A part of her felt sad for Dr. Stone, the small part that sympathized with those they used to get what they needed. There wasn't anything she could do, so it was best to leave.
And they did, all the way back to their apartment in Paris. The buyer was none too happy with their report of what happened, but he knew of this Librarian. Cassandra and Ezekiel didn't want to disappoint this buyer; he had offered them more than their last three jobs combined.
“Yes, I know of this Flynn Carsen. He's a menace I've had problems with before,” the older gentleman sighed, taking a sip of his coffee. He wore a well-fitted suit, making him look made of money. His white hair had mostly faded, leaving the top of his head somewhat bald, but his sharp eyebrow ridges and nose, and the fire in his eyes made him an intimidating man. “I would be wary of him in the future. There's a good chance you may cross paths again.”
“Again?” Ezekiel asked.
“Well there's plenty more I'm looking for, and despite losing this, I think you have a good chance of acquiring some other items for me. Mr. Carson can't be two places at once,” the man replied coolly. “If I am satisfied with your performance, there may be some extra...reward, you could say.”
“Uh, yeah, we'll try some more!” Ezekiel said, grin on his face.
Cassandra didn't normally describe people's smiles as “evil,” but this man definitely had one at Ezekiel’s response. “Good,” the man responded, before giving them their next objective.
“Do you think it's a good idea to keep working for him?” Cassandra asked as they walked back to their apartment that evening. “That guy gives me the creeps.”
“You've said that about half the people we've dealt with,” Ezekiel said.
“I know...it's just that he felt extra creepy,” she added. “I'm probably just tired.”
“Probably,” Ezekiel replied, opening the door. “Hey,” he started, bending down to get two envelopes that laid on the floor just inside the door, “we don't get mail, what's this?”
“What does it say on it?” Cassandra asked, looking over his shoulder.
“They're addressed to us...from the Metropolitan Public Library. Hey, that's where that Librarian bloke said he was from,” Ezekiel said, giving Cassandra the letter with her name on it. He opened his, pulling out a high quality, but blank, invitation with red looping borders. One he fully freed it from the envelope, calligraphy-style writing appeared like it was being burned onto the paper. “Woah, ‘you have been selected to interview for a prestigious position with the Metropolitan Public Library.’ What a flashy way of saying it.”
“Did your letter, um, appear on your paper?” Cassandra asked, stunned by the magical lettering.
“What would a library want with us? I don't wanna be stuck inside shelving books all day,” Ezekiel said. Realizing they were both still standing in the doorway, he pulled her gently by the arm and shut their door.
“I don't know, but that librarian we met certainly wasn't a normal librarian,” Cassandra added, walking further into the apartment. They didn't have a whole lot, as they weren't home much, but Cassandra made sure to make it feel homey and comfortable when they were here. As such, she sat down on their super fluffy couch, studying her letter.
“Do you really wanna tie yourself down with a job?” he asked from the kitchen where he was currently rifling through the fridge for who knows what.
“If we're doing what the Librarian was doing, it wouldn't be much different than our current...occupation,” Cassandra answered.
Ezekiel peaked around the refrigerator door, in the process of pulling something out. “I guess, but I still don't know if we should trust that guy, I mean he literally stopped me, with words. That's not normal.”
“But we've already seen ‘not normal’ things before this,” Cassandra countered.
“And Dulaque doesn't like him either,” Ezekiel continued, freeing the leftover pizza he wanted.
“You really trust Dulaque’s opinion on this? He literally just sent us to get a magical missing book of the Bible, and he wants us to get more things like this. He's not normal,” Cassandra said, looking at Ezekiel with a mixture of concern and confusion.
“I don't know. I don't really trust him, but I'm not all buddy buddy with this idea of dropping everything and going to New York for some mystery job either,” he relented, sticking some pizza in the little red toaster oven on the counter.
“I don't see what we have to lose taking this. Worst case, we come back here and keep doing our thing. Best case, we end up, oh, I don't know, saving the world or something,” Cassandra stated.
“You're always wanting to do good, even in a career where stealing is the main job. Sometimes I don't get you, Cass,” he admitted, intently watching his warming pizza.
“Because this job was all I had,” Cassandra quipped, “and I didn't let it change me.”
“So are you saying I'm bad?” He looked at her not with anger but with curiosity. It wasn't the first time they talked about this, but it had been years since she had brought up this moral dilemma.
“No...well...sort of. I mean you just think about yourself,” she saw him about to say something, so she corrected herself, “about us, I know. But that's it. You just stop there. I don't want to stop here.”
The toaster oven dinged, but he didn't immediately pull out his food. Instead he looked at her with endearment and affection. “You're right. I do just think about us. But if this would make you happy, then I think I can survive.” He then took his food out and sat it on a plate; Cassandra saw him try to sneakily hide the piece he had reheated for her. He liked to do that, do extra for her, sometimes without wanting her to see, but she appreciated it nonetheless.
“I don't want you to feel dragged along, or confined, just for me,” she said, smiling at him when he handed her the second plate. He then plopped down on the couch next to her, sitting his food on the coffee table in front of them.
His expression had shifted to amusement now, with a hint of something else; not sadness per se, but something along those lines. “You know that's how love works, right? It doesn't mean you're 100% happy and comfortable. No one has that. And you've braved years of me and my world, so why couldn't I do something you want?”
It wasn't often Cassandra got him confessing his feelings, talking about love and care, and she'd just done it within a few days of each other. As such, she felt the appropriate response to Ezekiel was to kiss him. That also didn't happen often, which let Ezekiel know she really meant it.
Ezekiel kept his word, and two days later they found themselves standing in front of the Metropolitan Public Library. It was busy, even at four in the afternoon, people bustling bustling in and out. The lady at the front desk directed them to a specific room where they should ask for a “Charlene” when she saw their letters.
They found the lady fussing over some papers and receipts. “Hello, we're looking for Charlene,” Cassandra said to the older (but still strong looking) woman.
“Yes?” the lady asked somewhat impatiently, like they just interrupted a very important task.
“We got these a couple days ago,” Ezekiel said, showing his letter. Cassandra held hers out as well.
At the sight of the letters, Charlene’s eyes went wide. “Oh, that's not normal,” she said, standing up from her desk and motioning for them to follow her. “Something must be going on for the Library to send these. Four in one day, and one to a Guardian, the world may be ending at this rate.” Cassandra and Ezekiel looked at each other with concern at that last part. She walked up to a wall of bookcases, with two what looked like security guards standing in front of them. They didn't even acknowledge her presence as she reached for a specific book, pulling it towards her till it clicked. The wall popped forward an inch, which the security guard on the left the left pushed open for them.
Behind the secret bookcase was an elevator. It seemed normal at first, but the buttons had no labels. It started descending, lights in the side panels going up as the passed each floor, picking up speed after the fourth floor, a lot of speed. “Um how far down are we going?” Cassandra asked, not even keeping up with the speed at which they descended based on the lights.
“To the basement,” Charlene simply said, like it was a normal thing.
“But we already passed the-” Cassandra started, but Charlene cut her off.
“To the real basement,” she clarified. As soon as she said that, the elevator stopped.
At the speed they were going, Cassandra figured they should’ve been goop smushed against the ceiling, but she didn’t even feel so much as a little bump when the lights stopped moving and the doors opened. What they saw shouldn’t be possible, couldn’t be. A huge archive, wide as a commercial jet hanger and as deep as, well, Cassandra couldn’t see the back wall. There had to be thousands of bookshelves, and each one looked full too, along with numerous display cases with things she didn’t think existed until now. “Is that the Ark of the Covenant?”
“Welcome to the Library,” Charlene said, stepping out and starting down the marble steps. “And Yes, it is, so don’t open it. The Library keeps and protects items of magical interest from getting into the wrong hands, and has been for over a millennium.” She led them through a maze-like path around bookcases and displays, eventually down a grey stone corridor for a few moments to a set of windowed double doors.
This room looked much smaller than the part they had just been in; a stair case went up the back of the room with loads of drawers lining the back wall that looked like an old card catalog system. There was a large table with various maps and books and a couple lamps on it as well. Cassandra saw people inside, one of which she recognized because he was facing them. It was the Librarian. Charlene opened the doors, making their entrance seem grander than it should’ve been. A man turned around at the sound, and both Cassandra and Ezekiel froze.
“I should’ve known it’d ask you two,” Dr. Stone mumbled, eyes narrowed at both of them. The Librarian didn’t seem to notice their tension, immediately talking to Charlene.
“More Librarians? What’s going on, Charlene?” he asked, clearly confused as much as all the others were.
“Do I look like I know, Flynn? The Library doesn’t send these out willy nilly, and since you’re still alive it must want to have more than one Librarian,” she responded.
The lady that Flynn had been talking to before they entered spoke. “If they’re anything like you two,” she pointed to Flynn and Dr. Jones, “then I don’t see why more brain power is a bad thing. Makes asset management a bit more complicated, though.” Cassandra didn’t recognize the lady; she looked military, or at least carried herself that way.
“Well he’s not like me,” Dr. Stone sneered at Ezekiel, clearly still pissed at the two.
“Hey, I may not care about your ruins but I know how to crack any security system in the world. I’d like to see you try that one, mate,” Ezekiel quipped.
“A soldier, a historian, a thief...what can you do?” Flynn asked Cassandra.
“I...well, I can do physics in my head, complicated patterns, math, stuff like that,” she answered.
“And a genius,” Flynn added to his list. “Something’s up for the Library to pool these resources together.” Then Flynn looked confused at Cassandra. “Wait, if you can do all of that, why were you going to steal that artifact back in Iraq?”
“Ezekiel and I work together…” she started, not really wanting to admit to their thievery. He processed for a moment, before realizing the duo’s skills did compliment each other, and apparently worked for artifact hunting as he had seen.
“I can’t work with them,” Dr. Stone blurted out, still seething at their arrival.
The military lady, sensing his anger, clapped him on the shoulder, making him jump. “No one’s making you stay, you can walk right out those doors and never come back.”
“Colonel Baird is right, just because you were chosen doesn’t mean you have to accept the job,” Charlene added. “However, the Library must think you three are going to be very important for something soon, regardless your differences.” Dr. Stone pondered her statement, regulating his breathing as he did so.
“It’s not like we didn’t work well together, before we, well, tried to nick the book,” Ezekiel said, trying to be nice to Dr. Stone.
It took a few moments for Dr. Stone to respond. “Just ‘cuz I’m working with you, doesn’t mean I trust either of you,” he said at last.
“Great! Alright team, I think it’s time to assess what the Library wants all of you to do,” Colonel Baird said, getting all their attention. Flynn moved to the cluttered table behind him to start sifting materials. Dr. Stone narrowed his eyes at them for a moment, before turning to Flynn.
“Before I leave, I want you all to know that you need to keep your receipts if you want to be reimbursed, and no extraneous spending,” Charlene said to the group. “Good luck with whatever's coming.” With that, she faced the double doors and left.
After giving the two newcomers a brief rundown on the history of magic and things they needed to know, a book on a stand at the end of the table literally fluttered to life.
“Speaking of magic, the clippings book has got something for us,” Flynn said, walking towards it. They all followed him out of curiosity. “Seven people have gone missing within two months, and freak thunderstorms keep hitting just this town. Sounds like magic to me.” He looked up at everyone, watching their expressions. Colonel Baird looked like she was already planning, Cassandra looked excited, Ezekiel looked curious, and Dr. Stone looked confused. “Who's ready to go to Nebraska?”
---
Ch 4 notes
What a wild end, eh? I had to throw Flynn in as I wanted to do something that would make them all be like “you know what, magic is real, so why not” and them join up as Librarians. Plus if there was something like that, the Library would for sure send Flynn to go get that. I feel like this universe Flynn would use the whole “say the words with magic and it does things” like he revealed in “and the Curse of Cindy” a lot more, idk why though.
I'm not sure why I decided Cassandra and Ezekiel were working for Dulaque, but my brain set this kind of pre-season one so it works.
I know i said earlier I wouldn't have anymore Cassekiel in this, but guess what my brain decided to do at 11:30 at night? That being said, I honestly love writing it. I love their dynamic, or at least the one I've written them in (I'd like to hope I did the characters justice). I decided that I wanted them to be romantically involved, or as much as Cassandra allows as her tumor would probably keep her from investing in long term things like relationships.
So, this story is complete, however I definitely wanna explore both pre-Librarian and post-Librarian dynamics. Most likely that means some Cassandra and Ezekiel adventures, cuz I wanna explore more of their relationship off of what I showed in this. And when I feel confident enough to write post-op Cassandra, I’d like to explore it in this universe too.
#Cassandra and Ezekiel are mercenaries/land pirates#You Sultry Land Pirates Ruined My Dig!#cassandra cillian#ezekiel jones#flynn carson#jacob stone#jake stone#land pirate au#stone's an archaeologist#the librarians fic#flynn writes#casekiel
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